Shut Up and Drink the Wine | Barbara Gross | Barrels & Roots

In this episode of Barrels & Roots, I sit down with Barbara Gross, co-owner of Cooper Mountain Vineyards in Oregon's Willamette Valley. 

Barbara breaks down what biodynamic farming actually means, why the Willamette Valley became one of the world's most respected wine regions almost by accident, and how the wine industry lost the plot by making people feel like they need a PhD just to enjoy a glass. Barbara's perspective on long-term thinking as a second-generation winemaker, her commitment to purity in winemaking, and her passion for stripping away the pretension are exactly what this industry needs right now.

When was the last time you just poured a glass and let yourself enjoy it without overthinking it, and what made that moment special?

Transcript

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Like wine is not an elitist entity. You know, there are a few, there's probably 25 wineries in the world that are truly fit for kings and made for, you know, the elitist society. And then you generally have what 35,000 other wineries that think they should be, but really it just pains me to hear young people and even people my age, like I'm the oldest of the millennials, who are like, I love wine, but I don't understand any of the jargon and the lingo, and I don't want to deal with that. And so I don't. I mean, like, how is that sentence alone not had us understand that there needs to be a just a communication? The way that we approach this, the way we go to market, the way that we position ourselves needs to be the Italian who's making wine in his basement who wants to bring joy to the world. Welcome everybody back to the Growing Money with Sean Trace podcast. I'm your host, Sean, and I've got an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do? Sure. Um, Sean, first of all, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. And um, my name's Barbara Gross. I am the co-co-owner of Cooper Mountain Vineyards up here in the Willammouth Valley of Oregon. Um, and what do I do? I would say that my role in the world is, I mean, I'm I'm heavily involved in operating and running my winery um and growing grapes and trying to make wine and having some fun along the way. Um, and that's really it in a nutshell. I love that. I love it. And every time someone says that's in a nutshell, I think about that Austin Powers like this is me in a nutshell. I'm dating myself with that reference now, but it's a great movie. Um, I it's interesting too, because what when I think about wine, um I think I I try to like connect this podcast to people who've never really been in around it. You know, and it for a person who's never been to a vineyard before, what actually happens from growing the grapes to making the wine? It's a really good question because I do think that the number one misconception of wine is that it's not an agricultural product. And somehow it mysteriously ends up in your glass. Um, but essentially, um, you know, like all things, we don't necessarily think about how the clothes get made or where they come from, and et cetera, et cetera. There's just a major disconnect these days as we are consumers. And so I think that's an incredible question. And um, but essentially what it boils down to is we are harnessing the power of the sun, and we are taking the energy from the sun, and we are connecting that through the vines, and then through a growing season, the vines take carbohydrates and essentially carbon dioxide and water and sunshine, and they create sugars. And as the ripening season progresses, those sugars go into the grapes, and then the grapes go into the cellar and we make wine, and it's really that simple. It's the wonderful thing that we learn in third grade science called photosynthesis. Um, and it's it's a beautiful, beautiful cycle, but much like most of us, after that third grade science class, we really haven't thought much about it since then. And that's totally natural and okay. And but essentially that's what happens in a vineyard in a very condensed way. Um, that I've devoted my entire life to that. So it's not as simple as that, of course, but that's that's it in a nutshell. Nice. Uh one of the things too that I think that the I love how you're talking about the disconnect people have of um just from agriculture in general. Like we forget that I remember one day, and I'm gonna throw myself under the bus here. I was like, I want to see what it's like. So we went out and did some some some field work in the valley, got hired for the day just to see what it was like. My friends and I were in college, like, let's see if we can make some money. I was not prepared for that. I was not prepared for the amount of work to to to go in and really work with the with the vines, and it was just insane like amount of work. And like, I was sitting there and I was like, wow, you think about the people that like what is required to grow any of our food to you know, like all of the different farming, and it's wild. And I love that we can get in a very instant society, you know. You think about like, let me tap this into my phone, and food is delivered to your house, you know, everything's instant, everything's fast. I um I live in Southeast Asia part of the year, and you know, we get fresh, great, fresh fruit. One of the wild things is it's like everything everywhere else in the world, it's seasonal, you know, like pomegranates, they come in in the season, and it's pomegranate season, and then the rest of the year, you don't get pomegranates. Like you just don't see them until that season comes back around, you know. And I think that people used to understand those cycles and that seasons. I mean, that's the whole seasonal thing that we talk about. Christmas, spring, you know, Easter was this this fertility festival. Thanksgiving was a harvest festival. But I I I love that you talk about that because I think that as we can get people back in touch with that a little bit more, it's really a good thing. 100%. I was living in the city, I was living in Portland for I grew up on a vineyard and I was living in Portland for about 22, 23 years. And in the last two years, I moved back into on a vineyard, and it really is incredible the state of mind and the emotional connection you have, where you just don't realize it, right? When you're in an urban setting and really the cycles of nature and becoming a part of the cycle of nature as opposed to inherently, our bodies don't want to necessarily be in an urban setting, and it just becomes a piece of who you are. Like naturally, I know that this is coming from a crazy biodynamic winemaker, but um you you really start to feel the roots in sort of the dormancy season. You start to feel the weather a little bit more. You just you feel a part of the cycle as opposed to watching the cycle happen and understanding the cycle from reading it in a book as opposed to being actually in a character in the play, is sort of the best analogy that I can give you. And I think that it's like this for everything that we consume. Um, I recently learned about in Japan, they observe like 120 different seasons. There's a theory, which I think is so beautiful, that like, you know, in between, like on a certain day and or certain time period in I don't know, March and April, late March, early April. I'm I totally got this completely wrong, but I'm just giving you an example. Um, you know, the snow melt is melting, and then so the fish come out, and it's sort of the start of a certain season, and it only happens for like five days. Um, but again, you're feeling that and you're living that and you're contextually understanding sort of humanity at its basics, which then connects us through and makes us look at things much, much differently. Yeah. So I nailed it. I I think that we like to think we're so separate from the world, you know. We like to think I'm sitting up here and I'm above all that, but really we're just we're the ape that likes to tell stories and has some wonderful food, you know? And I think that like remembering that we're how connected a part of this world we are is so beautiful, you know. But I want to ask you too, because this is something that I I've been fascinated by organ wine and how it's doing things differently. What makes organ wine different from wine in other places? Climate. I it's it's that magic formula of I mean, it's just simply as boring as climate and place and time and et cetera, et cetera. So when my folks and when sort of the pioneers came from California, Northern California, um, my folks not specifically, but the real early pioneers, they were indoctrinated into what was happening in Napa and Sonoma in the late 50s and the 60s as the industry was recovering from prohibition. And at that time, you know, Napa was defining itself. And the thing about Northern California is from a grape growing perspective, you it has the climate and the ability to grow everything, right? Maybe it shouldn't be growing everything, but it has the ability to ripen all the fruit. Um, and however, it was struggling with pinot noir, or there were a group of people who thought it was struggling, well, it was ripening pinot noir, but it was arguably ripening it too quickly, and the wines were not as nuanced and sort of as fresh as the Burgundian counterparts. So, you know, the entire notion of a group of people were all right, outside of Burgundy, where is there a climatic condition where we can grow Pinot Noir and Sheronnay in a cool climate? And Pinot Manoir and Sharonnay, again, white burgundy, red burgundy, chardonnay's grown everywhere in the world these days. Um you know, it was just the ripening cycle, the last three to four weeks, were just happening too quickly in California. You know, since then, of course, people have found places that are cooler, they've raised the elevation, they found the maritime climate, et cetera, et cetera. This is this is way back when. I I think half of success is educated guesses that gets really, really lucky. You know, I think everyone would like to say that we're always planning this stuff, but like from talking to so many business leaders and thought leaders, a lot of them be like, well, I had this plan, but you know, then this happened. And I that's kind of the beauty of it all, too, is how things fall into place, you know. But like I didn't realize that. But I think that people don't realize, again, getting back to this story about connecting to nature and the land and the earth and all of that. I um I've lived around the world, and recently I went to um a holiday. It was interesting because you know, I live in Vietnam and everyone's like, you're so big and tall. I'm like, I'm short, like and and and like lanky where I come from. I'm not a tall guy. I'm six foot, but like here I'm a giant, you know. But then we went to a recent trip to uh Fu Wok Island, which has a lot of Central European tourists. There's a lot of people from Mongolia, there's a lot of like people in all of Central Asia, or not Central European, Central Asian tourists. They come down, it was the winter time, so everyone's like, it's warm in Vietnam. And these people were big, like just really strong. And then, you know, you think about it, like people growing up in different places, you have different environmental factors, you know. For humans, you see it like Central Europe, it is cold. And you know, you have to be strong and hardy, you know, and like then, you know, some other place you don't have that factor. And we see it with people, but like plants, it's so powerful as well. Like, I remember when I was in high school, um, we had the most I went to high school in San Diego, but the San Pasqual Valley, it was a um agricultural region in the San Diego County area. And yet my high school had been there before this was made an agricultural preserve. Um, and so the high school was right smack in the middle of all of this amazing agricultural area, and it was all orange trees and avocados. And there was like one orange tree in my high school in the back area of the high school. The naval oranges were the size of grapefruits, and it was the most delicious, juicy, wonderful oranges I've ever had in my life. They were phenomenal. And I tried to always figure out what it was. Why did they grow so big there? This tree was barely maintained. Someone trimmed it back every year, just the groundskeeper, but it wasn't like professionally farmed. There was nothing going on to it, but it was that that soil, it was that place, it was that region, it was all of this stuff and a great. I'm sure it must have been a great, um, I don't know, you know, yeah, like whatever the this the genus or species of that tree was was amazing, but like it was really good. And the oranges were amazing. And I I always would wonder about that, like, because I left my high school and I was like, I want to take some of these. I would love to take a cutting and grow this somewhere else. And I was talking to one of my my biology teachers about that who taught botany, who was a genius with he was such a cool um botanist. He owned the house that my family did before us. And one day he told me, he's like, Hey, hey, uh, you're gonna be really excited this season. Make sure that those trees in the backyard stay pruned, get them pruned, and then see what comes in. I was like, What? They're apple trees, right? Just it's just gonna be some apples. He's like, just wait. He had like clo he had like um put about 20 different types of varietals onto one tree. And so it was just like this tree came into bloom and all of these different apples, like, and he's like, it was just amazing. But then when he I was talking to him about the oranges, he's like, You you bring that orange to some other place, it's not gonna taste the same. It might be delicious, it might be wonderful, but it's gonna taste different according to that region. And that was one of the most interesting ways that I have under understood location for wine, because every different place has a different thing, you know? And that to me is just so fascinating. And I'm still learning about it, but yeah, it's just interesting to me. Well, I mean, Sean, like you've mentioned this a few times. Like, what's different about your perception of the world, which is incredible, is that you've lived places and you've traveled places, and you don't see it, your mindset is full of a whole lot of perspectives that unfortunately when we are so dialed into our day-to-day lives, we we don't get that perspective, right? We just do not see that global perspective or have that experience. And so again, we just assume, right, like I just keep bringing up clothes, right? Like that clothes are not made from cotton or they're not made from a synthetic material or whatever that looks like, that there is no agricultural piece of the puzzle, that we've just been so disconnected from place and agriculture. I can't grow an orange, I can't grow an avocado, I can't grow Cabernet. It will just simply never ripen. So that is also the thing about the Willamette Valley, is we didn't really have any choice. When you have a million choices in front of you at your disposal, you know, then you can bring an orange in from Southern California, but it's not going to be the same. You're not going to experience it the same. There's going to be logistics to make sure that that orange stays fresh and you know, there's economics behind it, and there's varietals that have been developed that can travel. We have this, we we do berries really well, right? So strawberries, etc. etc. But we only have like a month period where we can actually get good strawberries, and there's a specific varietal called this the hood strawberry that doesn't travel. It doesn't even travel like two hours. So you basically have like a week and a half, but it's the best strawberry in the like to me, and everybody sort of insider knows this. It's an incredible strawberry, but you'll never be able to experience that in Vietnam because it's just never gonna travel. And that is you know, that's the basis of agriculture. So we've shifted the world and we've shifted agriculture against sort of these natural cycles. What I try to tell people is you've you haven't had a great mango until you have it, where it's grown. I we go back to the USA all the time and we'll buy mangoes. And my wife is like, what in the hell is this? Because it's just bitter and sour. And like the mangoes that we get here are uh so juicy and succulent and sweet. And I think it's so interesting that we we've created the system like it is nice to be able to get a mango anywhere in the world, but you don't know that you're missing out on some of the real flavors when you you know you get it and it it's ripening on the tree and then it's picked right when it's at its peak, you know? A hundred percent. The thing that drives me bonkers as well, which I I mean, there's no right or wrong answer here, right? Like we grow what we grow because of climate and place, but what drives me bonkers is like we get we grow the worst tomatoes. We just don't have the sunshine to really grow tomatoes. I spent about a month down in Davis one summer, and I I didn't know that tomatoes could be the tomatoes that they are after being in Northern California at the height of the season. Um and unfortunately, I have to go to California to experience that. Nothing I can recreate in growing my own tomatoes up here is ever going to be able to recreate that tomato. And I love tomatoes. Um, and it's the same thing for my And you know, I mean, California Napa, because of all the sunshine, is able to grow a lot of fruits and vegetables, right? It is a dominant area of the country. There's a reason that all of these things are growing there. There's a reason that tropical fruits are grown where you're from. And there's a reason that Pin Mir is not. Right. Yeah, it's not, you know, it's just not grown here. And that's so true. I want to ask you this too, because you talk about biodynamic farming. What does that even mean? And how would you explain that to someone who's like a pure beginner in some of these things? Uh, I would start with organic farming, that there I believe is a conception or a common knowledge about. So organic farming being no synthetics and et cetera, et cetera. And then for us, biodynamics is creating a self-sustaining ecosystem on our vineyards through homeopathy. And it's basically homeopathy for the grapes. Um, and again, homeopathy is taking natural substances and it is treating unbalanced systems within your ecosystem or your body. And essentially, that is what we're doing for wine grape growing. Um, and I'll I'll tell you a story to follow this up. I love it. Uh in 2000, 2005, 2006, there was a group of us when biodynamics was starting to really emerge in its first sort of rendition in the United States of America. Again, it's been around for about a hundred years. And so I went down to the Presidio in San Francisco, and there was a group of the early adopters. So the Ben Zinker family, the Frey family, Randall Graham, uh Doug Tunnell up here in Oregon, et cetera, et cetera. And we all sat around and said, okay, you know, at this point, industry secrets were being destroyed because it's different. Everybody is thinking it's woo-hoo, that there's no validity even to organic farming. It goes against convention, it goes against everything that we've learned. So we decide that we need a 25-word definition for biodynamic agriculture and winemaking. 20 years later, I'm still waiting for that definition. Um, like a lot of things, but it's it's uber organics is three words that I can give you. Um trying to create a self-sustaining ecosystem. Um and you know, I I think it needs to be said these days that that also then translates into the wine cellar. That you know, no additives, no synthetics, not a lot of sulfites, minimal amount of sulfites, that it is really purity in its most holistic form of an end product. Um which I'm not gonna I'm I I'm not a fan of the word natural wine because I they're still looking for their own definition. So I'm just gonna use uh pure wine. It's the best way that I can tell somebody, you know, I mean, this is a national dialogue that we're all just starting to have, not in terms of wine, but you know, you've said you've had these incredible experiences with fruits and vegetables that um let's hope that they're all organic, right? I'm assuming that they're organic. Yep. Um that there are additives being added to so much of our food in the United States these days, and processed food and et cetera, et cetera, that we're not getting any of the true nutrition just from the way that our food systems and conventional food systems are really set up. Um, and you know, part of that is also in winemaking, um that uh eventually we will have that conversation in a real major way. But you know, the biodynamic and organic wine world and the products are they're they're pure from the additives and the chemicals and the synthetics. So um that's a whole different conversation. I would prefer to start the national dialogue just about our food, and then we can ultimately chat about wine. But um, you know, the experiencing that you're having with all of your foods and vegetables in Vietnam is just not the experience that most United States customers have access to because of, you know, the economics and right, yeah. We're feeding a whole lot of people cheaply, but it comes at a price. It does come at a price. It comes at a price of the quality of the food that we're taking in, you know. And one of the things I wanted to ask you too, because as it applies to wine, um, you know, why do some people say certain wines are better than others? Does this come into play? Is there better farming techniques? Is it or is it flavor? What is it? You know, is it really that different? I mean, I I definitely think that there is a difference in quality. Don't get me wrong, between I mean, I see it. I own seven vineyards, about 220 acres total planted, 500 total acres. So we really like to reserve, you know, at least half of the vineyards towards natural, untouched um land. And even within my vineyards, there are places that produce really good wine, and then there are places that produce great wine. And that can be just a difference of a row, right? It's all about place with Pinot Noir. It's a magical thing. Don't get me wrong. Is that all bullshit? Sure, because at the end of the day, who defines quality? Right. Who should really define quality is you. What is your perception? What is your understanding? Do you like this wine? You might like something, so you should like something much different than I do. And I think that that's where the industry has just gone so wrong, is that we've told people what quality looks like, as opposed to letting the consumer define for themselves what quality is. And if quality looks like ice cubes in your wine on a porch, and that brings you joy with a $2 bottle of wine, then that's quality. And that's ultimately what really matters. I'm gonna get beaten right now by people that are listening. Rocks will be thrown at televisions or computers. You know what I did last weekend? I had some wine that wasn't a great one, and my family was downstairs, and I was like, well, it was just it was okay. But then we were eating sushi, and I was just like, it was not a good pairing. But I was like, all right, I'm gonna do something silly. And I poured some, I got some ice, it was a red, it was a red blend. I got ice, I poured in some sparkling water and not like some soda water. And I was making this like a little homemade sangria type thing, and it was lovely, it was wonderful in the heat of Southeast Asia with the food we had, and it took a wine that was okay. And when I did that, man, it paired well with the sushi. It just went down well, and we had fun together. My family was having fun, we were having a blast, and everyone liked it, you know. And it brought you joy, right? So our role, wine is supposed to bring you joy, it's supposed to bring you happiness. It is not supposed to require an academic PhD to understand what it is. And, you know, we've really moved away from culturally where wine should be, which is bringing you joy and happiness and enhancing a meal and creating memories into it being a test and an academic journey. I get bored. I I mean, I get bored, and I'm not trying to downplay any of this, like it's wine. You know, my sister is my dad was in medicine, my sister's in medicine, and it's just very grounding for me at least, to understand that wine's function for 99.9% of people and wonderful people around the world is to is to alleviate, you know, and to connect people and create community. It it is not an academic journey associated with it. Right. And the minute that we make it so intimidating and that there's a right or wrong answer, and no, you failed, is the minute that we've we've really failed as an industry and we failed our consumers. Um there's there's a lot of really hard things in this world. And wine is wine. Right. Wine, what wine's function is to help people make it through that journey. It is not to intimidate them and to make it a class. And I love that. I'm gonna do some sushi and some sparkling sangria. Um, and you just created memories. My friend's grandpa used to make wine, he's an old Italian guy, and he would be he would make his own wine at home. And when anyone like, and he was like, it was like just this grumpy old dude, but he made the best homemade wine. And I don't know what it was, it was all these blends, and you'd go in and you'd like give you some. It was delicious, it was very jammy, uh, it was very fruity, and it was just like it was stuff that he enjoyed and he made it the way he liked it. And if you'd you sit there and you tell him, like, you know what, I have these sense, he'd be like, shut the hell up and drink the wine, you know? And it's like, oh, but it I'm getting he's like, What are you doing with your mouth, man? Like, just drink the damn wine, you know? And it's like he would just give everyone a hard time. And he's like, Do you like it? I was like, Well, yes, but I thought that I was don't think, just do you like the wine? Yeah, it's great, good. Shut up and watch the movie, you know. And he was just giving everyone a hard time. But like, because the culture, right? Like, that's when like wine is a part of your that's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. It was so awesome, it was so awesome. Like, there was no pretense to it. He just was like, just shooting straight. You're like, Do you like the wine? Well, yeah, I love the wine. Okay, have another glass, you know. Oh, okay, great. This is a fun party. He's like, I got more, I got more. And you're like, All right, all right, I can I can handle that. But then, you know, when I, you know, when I when I when I was living in the Napa Valley, like every time I'd go in and they're like, Do you smell the hints of the blueberry sprouts on the sunner's day? And I'm like, the fuck are you talking about? Like, I don't understand this, man. You're using references that I don't get. And I was just like, one of the things is, and I didn't judge that too. It was just like, I sat there and said, I don't know, something tastes like root beer. And I had one guy that was like, well, then that's what you taste. That's your reference. Do you know there's a fruit here in Vietnam that's called sabote? And it's called like the Western name is sapadilla. Now, sabote, I'm gonna challenge you. You gotta try a sabote someday, but you gotta try it where it's right and where it's grown. Sabote tastes like a mix between applesauce, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and some type of cinnamon in this fresh, very soft fruit with a little bit of root beer in there. Like, I know that's a lot, but that's what it tastes like. It is this wildly delicious fruit. And I forget how wonderful it is until I have it every time. And I'm just like, wow, that's a lot. And that's a that those are the flavors that it reminds me of, you know. But I'm sure someone else is gonna taste it and it's gonna remind them of something else, you know. And I think that that's to me like make wine personal for you. Enjoy it, you know. 100%. I'm guessing that not everybody in the world has ever had root beer. I hope so. You know, like, you know, I mean, everybody's context of what flavor profiles look like and what they were, which is I mean, it's personally what I love is that I am in an area that has a lot of diversification in regards to food profiles and flavor profiles. Um, and you know, we're really privileged because we get to one day have incredible Korean food. The next day incredible, you know, there's a great California cuisine restaurant with fresh vegetables, and then we have a lot of Pacific Northwest fish and oysters, and um I mean that is that is the economy, right? That is the privilege that we have, but not everybody has that, right? And so your interpretation alone of flavor profiles are gonna be based on all of these very specific systems that you live in, yeah, and areas of the world that you live in, and what you have access to, that if you're eliminating that concept and saying, well, no, this is what it's supposed to taste like, then you've eliminated that experience for a lot of people, which is not the point of wine. Right? Like wine is not an elitist entity. Um, you know, there are a few, there's probably 25 wineries in the world that are truly fit for kings and made for, you know, the elitist society. And then you generally have what 35,000 other wineries that think they should be, but really right, you know, I mean it just it just pains me to hear young people and even people my age, like I'm the oldest of the millennials, who are like, I love wine, but I don't understand any of the jargon and the lingo, and I don't want to deal with that, and so I don't. I mean, like, how is that sentence alone not had us understand that there needs to be a just a communication? The way that we approach this, the way we go to market, the way that we position ourselves needs to be the Italian who's making wine in his basement who wants to bring joy to the world. Right? That grandpa man, he did it right. I wanted to ask you this too, because like um, you know, when when people are looking at like, you know, that that that that tradition, you know, you're part of a second generation winery. What's something that you learned from your family that you still use today? I think that that's a really good question. And the older I get, the more I understand this is that you don't think short term. For better or for worse, I think 50, every decision I make is 50 years down the road. And every decision is well, at this point, it's surviving to get to the 50 years down the road. And it's sort of less about ego and really more about, you know, I have employees who got people who've been in vineyards and employees who have been there for 35, 40 years, and now their kids are coming on board, and it's creating our own system as a business to make sure that if they want it, it's gonna be around and these vineyards are gonna be around, and the winery will be around, but it's not about making the best wine in the world anymore. You know, if your mission, at least for me, so much of this is about long-term longevity and what that business will look like in 50 years to make sure that it is still highly functional and it's there for the people that need it to be there, and that you know it's bringing joy to consumers as opposed to the best quality wines in the world and the hundred-point scores and et cetera, et cetera. And I think that comes with second generation. Um, I really do. I don't think I see that for I love my father, but he looks at things much differently. I mean, he and again, I'm very actively involved in the day-to-day of everything at my winery, from the vineyards to the cellar to the hospitality to, you know, the business, to the marketing, et cetera, et cetera. Um I never sort of hyper-functioned on one piece of the puzzle, which I think happens with founders, like winemakers or financials or whatever sort of that looks like. Um and every day's humbling. I mean, agriculture is just humbling. So the thing that kills me about the industry, you meet the coolest people in the world. I would never meet you had I not been in the wine industry. And I can already tell you, you've got a million stories that are all incredible, and you get it, and you think larger than just sort of this very narrow-minded piece of the puzzle, and wine expands that and is a conduit to all of this. Um, and it's humbling, right? Like we're just two humans sitting around talking about mangoes grown in Vietnam and grapes grown in the wallamphthalate. Like there's something really truly connecting us about that. That, you know, if there's ego in the room, and I'm trying to convince you that my wine is better than somebody else's wine, and there's nuances and et cetera, et cetera, that you see sort of with first generation, um this is not gonna happen. Like there's just been an evolution. It's like all plants and vegetables in human species, businesses evolve and they grow as well, and wineries evolve and they grow as well. And I I know that's a very long, complicated answer, but um I it's my job to make sure that my founder, my mom and my dad story continues to their grandchildren's story. And while making incredible wine is an important piece of that puzzle, um really being here in 50 years, because you know, even our palates are gonna evolve and change, and humanity is gonna evolve and change in 50 years, and you have to be open minded and leave. Your ego at the door to be able to see the world of wine through that lens for sure. I mean, look at climate change alone. 100%. It's so interesting, too, to that this, you know, I love the wine industry because I find that it brings people together. And I think that it is a great way to connect people, you know, and you find two people from two. I've met people that are on complete opposite sides of all types of political spectrums, and we can sit down and have a glass of wine together. And if we might finish up that and call each other a-holes, but you know, during that, that that sit down, you know, we can do it with a little bit of like a little bit less uh a less less uh aggressiveness, you know. And one of the things that I find is that normally though, the people that I sit down and have a glass of wine with, I don't care, you know, what we thought before, but normally we leave with a better view of each other, you know, if that makes any any sense. One of the things that I perfect sense. Yeah, right? I want to ask you like if you were to have someone sit down in front of you that doesn't know much about wine right now, what three glasses would you pour them? Um, you know what I think is I would pour them pinot noir, because I think pinot noir exhibits this, not because they're gonna like the pinot noir. I would pour them three different pinot noir from a vineyard that I owned that was a small vineyard that had new, like same winemaking, same vintage, same barrel, same elevage, like everything the same, but they taste drastically different. And I would say there's no right or wrong answer. This is not a quiz. You can hate all of them, but do you taste there is a difference? And they more often than not can taste a difference, and then you say that's the beautiful thing about wine, is the only difference is place. That that's literally, and you get to now go find what you like by yourself. It's probably not gonna be Pinot Noir at first, right? Like we get that. You can dump anything you want in that, you know, with ice cubes or you know, sparkling water, whatever that looks like, and go find joy because that that's what we do with what we do. And there is no right or wrong answer. The answer is what do you like? And that's it. That's uh that's it. What do you like? That's it. And I think it's I did what I did want to I I did want to circle back because I think this is really, really important. I know we're running out of time. No, Sean, you like you you drilled in on something that I think is so critical at this moment, at least in the United States of America. So there's obviously a lot of conversation about health and wine and alcohol in general. And again, my father and my sister are in the mental health field, and they're psychiatrists. And um one of the things that my dad is really, he thinks that we're missing from this conversation about wine and health, in addition to a lot of things we're missing, is the fact that there are some severe issues that'll happen mentally, they happen physically, and we saw this during the pandemic when you're isolated and you're not connecting with humanity. And wine is a conduit, it's always been a conduit to get people to the table or a bar or whatever that looks like and create, get you out of your isolationist stage and create community. And it is quite frankly, more powerful and from a health perspective, more important to make sure that people are connecting and not feeling so isolated and not feeling so alone than it is to ultimately die at a hundred years old after drinking, you know, two glasses of wine a night. Um it's just something that really is getting missed from all of this, is how important that conduit and everything that you just said, which makes it so incredible. Um you know, and it's not just to make you feel good, but you know, your body responds to that. You're healthier because you are sitting down, eating good food, having good wine, and you're you're creating joy and you're connecting with humanity and with people. I love that. I think that's the mic drop moment, honestly. Where can people go to learn more about you and what you do? Um, you can go to www.coopermountainwine.com and or you can come visit us. We're very lonely in Oregon these days. Um the weather is actually quite nice, and you know, we'd really love after you've had the California adventure, to come up to us in the Willamette Valley. And, you know, we've got great teams. I'm around. I have two tasting room locations. My dad lives on one, I live on one. Um, and Sean, it listen, this is a pleasure. Like, please don't stop these. You're asking all the right questions. Your perspective of the world is just incredible, and um, you know, the world needs more people like you, and we are just so thankful you're here.