Ep. 3: Popcorn And Cabernet

A staff movie night with Fast Times at Ridgemont High turns into the kind of wide-ranging wine talk we love, where the laughs are real, and the details still matter. We start with popcorn, pizza, and “girl dinner” versus “boy dinner,” then use those everyday moments to ask a bigger question: How do you build a better taste palate?

From there, we get practical about wine labels and sourcing, including why a bottle that says “United States Cabernet” can spark skepticism. We talk Napa Valley economics, how grape prices can skyrocket, and why some producers look to Washington State or Oregon fruit even when California has plenty of supply. If you care about transparency, value, and what you’re actually paying for, this part hits home.

Then we go deep in the glass: Red Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon, tannins, acidity, wind-driven thick skins, and why balance is the real marker of quality. We break down why Cabernet and steak is such a classic food pairing, how aging softens tannins and widens pairing options, and where Brettanomyces fits on the spectrum from “complex” to “band-aid.” We also share a cautionary tale on wine storage and what “cooked” wine tastes like when bottles sit warm for too long.

We wrap with a dessert sprint: Port versus Madeira, favorite sweet wines like Sauternes and Vin Santo, and a clear explanation of Tavel rosé, saignée, and direct-to-press. If this sparked a new pairing idea or changed how you read a label, subscribe, share the show with a wine-curious friend, and leave a review so more people can find us.

Transcript

Morning Welcome And Movie Night

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Alright, we are alive. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome back to Wine Stories presented by From the Sky Down. Welcome back, everyone. Uh this is a fun time, man. We are both a little tired this morning. Yes. Um we had a wonderful evening last night with our with the whole staff. Everyone that works at From the Sky Down. I'm in the tasting room. And behind the scenes, we had a movie night. We screened a movie as like a little test run for the summer outdoor movies that we'll be doing and making sure our equipment's good and our setup is good. So we did a little staff screening. We watched an old school classic movie, Fast Times at Ridgemount High. That was a lot of fun. It's definitely more, I guess, adult rated than the movies we'll be playing this summer for everyone.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

Yeah, definitely not family friendly. A lot of funny scenes, though. Definitely see kind of what created a lot of cultural phenomena around that movie and was the start of a lot of actors' careers for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah. Sean Penn, Judge Reinald, uh, Forrest Whitaker.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Yeah, that was a shock. I didn't even know Forrest was in that movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

That was a big surprise for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Nicholas Cage.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Yeah, little cameo.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah, it's back when he he didn't really have a any lines, I don't think, in the movie, but he was like one of Spagoli's stoned friends, I believe. And uh, Spicoli.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

I love Spagoli.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

One of my favorite characters.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

He's amazing. All I need is some tasty waves and a cool buzz, and I'm five.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Dude. But yeah, back then Nicolas Cage went by Nicholas Coppola. I guess he's like a nephew of Francis Coppola or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

Yeah, I didn't know that Nick Cage was like a Nepo baby.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Is that natural baby? Industry baby, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 2:15

Oh, is that not what a Nepo baby is?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Nepotism?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

I mean, yeah, it's like when you create a lane for your family to you know, have a successful career in an given industry, but who knows if it was nepotism or if it was just you know coincidence, family passion.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Sure. You know, who knows? I wonder why he changed his name.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe he just didn't want to be in the shadow of Francis Coppola.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

It's kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

The big FFC.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah. It's funny, I Francis Coppola, amazing director. So, oh looks like he is. So Nick Cage is the nephew of legendary director Francis Ford Coppola. So there you go. That's very true. He's a nephew. Kind of throwing it out there, but I guess I was right. He definitely makes Francis Coppola definitely makes better movies than wine. For sure.

SPEAKER_04 3:19

I would have to agree, unfortunately. I think someone was telling us that they feature Coppola at Olive Garden.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Ah, very nice.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

So good old Olive Garden. Studio Italian cuisine.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

Local Italian cuisine.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Local Italian authentic.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

It says it doesn't say it in the name.

SPEAKER_04 3:40

Doesn't it? Does it?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Doesn't it say like Olive Garden, authentic

Olive Garden Expectations And Canada Wines

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Italian?

SPEAKER_04 3:44

You know, I have a bit of a confession. Yeah. I've never been to an Olive Garden. What? Never.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

You've never been to Olive Garden? No. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

No, I've never been to Olive Garden.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Olive Garden is the best if you have the right expectations.

SPEAKER_04 4:00

That's fair. You know, I did set my expectations when I went to Old Spaghetti Factory, and I have to say they were surpassed.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:07

I had a great time.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Spaghetti Factory is pretty fire, not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

They did like $10 corkage and the pasta was cheap and good. And hey, they had gluten-free.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

Yeah, I they there's not the old spaghetti factory here in Washington, used to be in Seattle. I think that closed down.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

So the one I was at was up in in Canada.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_04 4:29

But yeah. So everything was in Canadian dollars too. So it was basically monopoly money.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, yeah. For sure. It wasn't real.

SPEAKER_04 4:36

Yeah, I mean, they call their some of their coins like loonies and tunies, you know. Like how how less real could you get?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

That's the most fake name for drinks. Yeah, exactly. I've ever heard in my life.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

Oh, hey, I'm sorry, eh? Well, you always head.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Boot na boot and a boot, eh? Um take off. Take off, eh? Actually, my fiance just came back from Canada and she brought back some really fun sparkling red wines.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

Whoa. Were they from like the Okanagan or?

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah. They're Okanagan Valley.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

Very nice.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

I haven't I haven't tried them yet. Not sure what they are. They don't say the name of the grapes on the on the labels.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

Odd. I mean, Okanagan does grow a lot of traditional Euro grapes.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Yeah. It's pretty light red looking.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:27

You know, it's a bit of a red flag to me when a wine doesn't tell you what's in it.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Need to.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

Yeah. I stumbled across, I was going through my drink now collection.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

Because I'm going to a barbecue tonight and needed to bring some bottles for my friends. And, you know, I'm pulling from my drink now, not necessarily from the deep cellar.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 5:48

Ended up going with a nice Royal Slope Clarette. But what I did see was there was a wine bottled in California that said United States Cabernet.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Ah, yeah, classic.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Not even California Cabernet. So who knows what's going on with that wine.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Cab they source across state lines, apparently.

SPEAKER_04 6:09

Yeah, but who's American. There's so much cab in California. Why would you need to source anywhere else?

SPEAKER_01 6:15

I don't know. It's kind of weird. Anyway. Although there are a lot of wineries in California, like in Napa, that are sourcing from Washington State.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

Interesting. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

So and there's actually a lot that source from Oregon for Pinot Noir.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

So I would think Central Valley would be their biggest like sourced grapes.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Yeah, I mean the only thing I can think of, like the Central Valley California wines are really just for grocery store or super bulk wines. Right.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

This wine I was talking about is one of those wines.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Yeah, it's not growing for quality. But I can see how some wineries in Napa would want to source from Washington State because Napa cab is extremely expensive per ton. And Washington State, it's like you know, it's like buying gas in Texas versus buying gas in California.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

Yeah, it's more extreme than that. I know I heard some people talking about a couple thousand a ton in Washington for some grapes. And then when I was in Napa last summer, one of the wineries talked about one of their single vineyard expressions they sourced for $50,000 a ton.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

That's so that is bonkers. Yeah. $50,000 a ton.

SPEAKER_04 7:34

Yeah, I can I can shout out the winery Alpha and Omega. You charge $300 a bottle for your cab because you source $50,000 ton grapes.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

That's just not sustainable.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

No. Yeah, it was from like a really sought-after vineyard, but then we we went on to these other places, and there were other vineyards that vineyards, other wineries that had single vineyard cab from that vineyard that were not nearly as expensive.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_04 8:00

So it was it was still up there. It was I I'm just forgetting the name now. I think was it Stagecoach? No. It could have been somebody else. Bottle Rock?

unknown 8:08

No.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

Are you talking about a winery brand or another? The vineyard that that they were sourcing from. Hyde? Is that Heights?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

It was Heights seller.

SPEAKER_04 8:15

No, no, no. The vineyard's name was Hyde, I think. Oh. H-Y-D-E. And then there was another one that I don't think was expensive as expensive, but it was pretty common at a lot of different wineries that were sourcing from this vineyard called Stagecoach Vineyard.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:28

I don't know enough about Napa to know like the lore behind those vineyards and which ones are sought after for what reasons, but definitely something I need to explore in the future.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, me either. I need to work on that a little bit.

Why Some Bottles Hide Grapes

SPEAKER_01 8:40

I know which AVAs are a little bit more sought after than others, but I mean Napa definitely, like in terms of U.S.

SPEAKER_04 8:47

wine production, I think it's one of the more traditionally formatted wine regions. I mean, Oregon's well, uh the Laminate Valley is kind of like this too, because it's one distinct kind of region with it's a defined climate and very kind of impactful geography where you have like mountains on either side, you're on the right side or the left side, the mount east to the west side of the mountains. Um and I think it's with the Mayacamas and the what's the other side?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Mayacamas Mountains and the Sierra Madres.

SPEAKER_04 9:19

Yeah. So you have wineries or vineyards that are planted on either side, and as you go north and south up the up the valley, you get very distinct differences in the kind of the the microclimate that's growing those grapes and the soil types, and it definitely has a pretty significant impact on those wines. And being so focused in on that one area, I feel like it's it allows one to really compare for the region, and it reminds me kind of of some French regions where you have like you have like Groves, you have uh what is it, hot Hot Madoc. Is that another Bordeaux region, or is that a producer?

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hotmadoc, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:59

Yeah, so you have these like different little areas of like Bordeaux, for example, and then in Napa, you'd have like what yawnville, you'd have Oakville. Yeah, a lot of vills there.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yeah, a lot of vills. Looks like so the Maya Commas Mountains are the western, so that's what most people know Maya Commas Mountains that separates Sonoma and Napa, and then it's the Vaca range, is the other ones. Yeah, so I was saying I mean it's part of the Sierra Madres, but doesn't vodka be cow in Spanish or something like that? Vaca, I am not sure. Let's look that up. Vaca? B-A-C-A.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

A Siri. Translate Vaca in Spanish.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

It is cow.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

It's cow. All right. Oh, oh, ignore. Ignore.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

It is it is cow. Yeah. I mean Spanish can say vaquero.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Yeah. Cowboy. There are some wines there that have bulls on the label, but I've never seen a cow. I think that'd be kind of funny to see just a little Jersey cow on a label for some Napa cab grown on the in the Baca range.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

That would be funny. Well, I've seen over in the San Inez Valley, there's tons of cattle ranches next to vineyards and stuff. I saw some like some Longhorns. There's a Longhorn ranch. It's not what it's called, but they they just farm Longhorn cattle. And then it's a really interesting area over there, just north of Santa Barbara. And you have like cattle. You're driving down the highway on the coast on the 101. On your left, you see the ocean, and on the right hand side, you see cows. And you see sometimes llamas, different things. Oh, yeah. I think people are farming.

SPEAKER_04 11:40

Quite a few alpaca farms. Alpacas. Alpaca wool's been getting more popular. Yeah. Really, really nice. Love, love that.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:47

I think what people forget about California is that it was the end of the western frontier. And there's still like a lot of ranches. Cowboys made their way into California, still exist in California. Yeah. On these ranches. And a lot of people just think of Hollywood and you know, LA, San Fran, San Diego. Don't really think of the heartland of California. A lot of agriculture.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, oh yeah, tons of agriculture. And you have these vagabond cowboys in California.

SPEAKER_04 12:16

Vagabond cowboys.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah, they're really interesting. They're basically homeless, but they have they're they basically trust travel up and down California on horseback. And they sleep outside, you know, in the desert. And they just, you know, keep a camp on their pack, and then they go from like ranch to ranch, like being a hand and helping and traveling and stuff. It's definitely a certain lifestyle, a very specific lifestyle that you would have to adhere to. But it's really interesting because I've met a few of them when I was down in uh St. Naz Valley. They would travel through there all the time.

SPEAKER_04 12:55

What were they like? Were they were they nice? Were they just very go with the flow, down-to-earth people or pretty gritty. Gritty.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Gritty folks.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Absolutely in love with nature. I mean, you have to when you're traveling that much, like on horseback. Amazing love for animals. And yeah, very, very gritty people. Very down-to-earth. And you know, they just don't there's no BS with those with those things.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

I think I'd be interested to see kind of like a like a documentary where a camera crew follows around a group of or a couple of those cowboys and documents like a year in their life or something like that. Yeah. And you have a couple camera crews, different cowboys, and you kind of cut between the storylines.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

That'd be a cool thing.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

I'd watch that movie. Yeah, heck yeah. That'd be a cool movie. I think they've done it with like biker gangs, like like documentaries like that.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:44

Kind of exploring kind of subcultures and people who are not like outside the mainstream and yeah, I think they've done that with the the Hells Angels.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Yeah. You know, I think I've seen that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

Cool. Yeah, I think that that'd be that'd be a good topic. If anybody's listening who's a producer, you know, call me.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

There you go. We got some ideas for you, man. We got some ideas.

Audio Chaos And Popcorn Pairings

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah, but I mean, going back a little bit to that the movie night that we had last night. Yeah. We tried out a few different things, like the audio setup and the visual setup and whatnot. The visual ended up being pretty good. Audio gave me tons of trouble. I almost I almost quit. Actually, I think I did. And then Connor took up the mantle and he figured out in two seconds, and I just felt like an idiot. I was like, oh my god. Shout out Connor. You're the man. Connor is the man for sure. And then he was he was on popcorn. So we were doing some popcorn and some wine. Some people call that a girl dinner. But uh popcorn and wine. Popcorn and wine.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

You know, I'm surprised we didn't do any like shard pairings with our with our popcorn last night.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Yeah, I mean, we I think we were just we started so late.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

It was late. We started the movie night. It was a very late night. Well, you had a later one. Yeah, fast times and good wine.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, fast times, good wine, man. And some popcorn, some pizza. That was fun.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

Fast times, good wine, and some tasty corn.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah. Heck yeah. It's funny the the amount of people I run into that love a good uh wine and popcorn girl dinner.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

Really?

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Yeah. Like one of once someone that used to work here with us, uh, she was a server, that's like that was her go-to dinner most of the time. Like she would eat pretty big lunches and then go home and just like like if she's like in a mood where she like is a little bit lazy, just wants to watch a movie, just do some popcorn, open a bottle of red wine, and just sit on the couch.

SPEAKER_04 15:48

Uh hey, you know, if you're gonna go and just kick back when you get home anyway, might as well. I mean, I've I've definitely done it. I've done that before. I've done that. I have done that, and like it's tasty. It's a good snack, but like at what point, how do you differentiate from a snack and when does that become girl dinner? What's where's the line? I think just quantity. Quantity. So a large amount of snack foods is girl dinner.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

We would have to get a girl on the pot. I think we need we need an opinion. We need a female's perspective on this. I know what a boy dinner is. How do you what what is your boy dinner? Usually a course banquet.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

Liquid diet.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

That's boy dinner, course banquet.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Boy dinner. Sometimes throw in some chicken nuggets in there. Chicken nuggets. Chicken nuggets and course banquet.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

Dude. Now that sounds like like a grad student dinner, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

I'm 36, still doing it, dude. Still going to struggle.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

Hey, hey, comfort food, struggle meals, you know, they they are universal.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:56

I think for me. What would I do that that's really I've done a lot of like in college, I guess this is a more of a real meal. I would do a lot of fried rice, so that doesn't really count. If there's a leftover rotisserie chicken in the fridge, I will just go ham on that thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:12

And sometimes I'll get I'll get fancy with it, like if we're talking about boy dinner, you know? And I'll I'll just like throw some tortillas on the on the bare stove, eat them up, throw the chicken in there, shredded cheese, don't let, don't bother melting it, and some hot sauce. Yeah. And it's just like super, super basic taco situation. There you go. That's and I'll I'll eat it over the stove too. I'm not like there's no plate.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Yeah. It's kind of kind of reminds me a little bit of the uh the movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. You know, I I I should I should have seen that.

SPEAKER_04 17:46

I have not seen that.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Oh, the Tarantino movie? Oh, it's so amazing. Oh, I need to see it. It's based on the if y'all haven't seen it, it's based on the Sharon Tate murder. I have seen it. The Manson Family.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

Sorry, I was thinking of La La Land. Oh yeah. I haven't seen La La Land. No. I have seen Once Upon a Time.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, so it's starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Brad Pitt in the movie is a stunt man. He's Leo's stunt like career stunt man for Leo and or Leo's character. Yeah, Leo's character. And it shows his boy dinner. So he has he goes to his trailer in Van Nuys, and he has a pit bull dog, and so he throws him some food and then he heats up some mac and cheese in a pot and grabs a shinerbach beer, sits on the couch, and just doesn't even have a plate, just brings the whole pot off the stove and just grabs a fork, sits down, watches TV, cracks a beer, and starts eating the mac and cheese. Yeah. That's a boy dinner. That's a that's a man dinner.

SPEAKER_04 18:52

That's a man dinner. I think there's another point in the in the movie where he's just straight up eating beans out of a can.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

Yeah. And not to spoil anything, but he does he does some work with that can of beans. He does for sure. He does some great work.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah. And he heats it up by opening the can of beans, keeping it in the aluminum can, and putting it on the stove. Right. With the aluminum can. Right. And then just eating the beans like that. Yeah, that's that's a boy dinner. That's a boy dinner for sure. It's a redneck boy dinner.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

I feel like the only beans I could eat just straight up with no extra seasoning have to be like baked beans. Like refried? Or barbecue baked beans? Yeah, yeah. Those are bomb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, refried beans I could eat alone too, but like usually need a little salt. The canned ones don't usually have like seasoning in them. But like a can of just black beans or pinto beans or kidney beans, like, dude, I don't think I could eat a can of those beans with no, like, I need at least some salt and pepper. Yeah. Minimum.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Sorry. What's up? Go ahead. Boy dinner inspiration. Yeah. I had I've done this multiple times in college as well. One of my favorite kind of, and this is involves more cooking than I think your average boy dinner, but like it would be basically a can of beans dinner.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

And I would take a can of black beans, I'd open it up, I would drain about half the liquid out, keep a little bit, dump that into a pot, and then I'd take one of those little cans of green chilies, and I'd dump that in. And some smoked paprika. Oh wow. Salt and pepper. And I'd take some cheese and throw that in there too. And I'd just, I would just let that thing simmer. I'd mash it with the fork. So I'd kind of do like a little refried bean situation. Yeah. And I'd throw that in a tortilla with some abanera. And that was my that was one of my like boy dinners. Yeah. And it it became like a real dinner if I happened to have like some leftover meat and there was meat, beans, tortilla. I mean, at that point it's a real dinner. Yeah. But if it's just beans, I think that's boy dinner.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'll do like a man dinner sometimes if I'm feeling lazy. I'll just like throw a steak on the grill and just eat the steak.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

Just the steak. Nothing else. No sides. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Nice. Carnivore diet.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah. I've done that a lot in the past.

SPEAKER_04 21:06

How do you like your steak? Medium rare, rare?

SPEAKER_01 21:09

I like it on the rarer side. Okay. But medium rare is what I usually ask for in a restaurant.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

Okay. I think I'm starting to be convinced I need to be ordering my steak rare. Because a lot of restaurants I've been going to, I've ordered at medium rare and it's a little past medium rare. A little bit more towards the medium rare.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah, I like it more towards the rare side on the medium.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

Yeah. If it's if you're aiming for medium rare, just slightly on the rarer side of medium rare, that's my that's my sweet spot right there. If you're in the if you're in if it's like pale pink through, that's medium. That's not medium rare. It needs to be like reddish in the center for me.

Steak Night With Red Mountain Cab

SPEAKER_04 21:48

That's yeah. Medium rare needs to be some, there needs to be some red in there.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah, and I mean, I've had the type of seasoning I throw on it, like the cowboy butter seasoning is really. Really good on a steak, and I have that with the Heart of the Hill from the Sky Down, Cabernet Sauvignon.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

Good steak wine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

It's amazing steak wine, especially for a ribeye. Because uh, you know, if you have that sort of fat in the ribeye that it just like melts like butter in your mouth, and that cuts through the tannin, because heart of the hill vineyard is in Red Mountain, yeah. And it's a Kyona vineyard, and Kayona does an amazing job with viticulture, and they were I believe the very first plant in Red Mountain. So, I mean, they they really know what they're doing over in Kayona. And that Heart of the Hill Vineyard just hits every time. Like tannins are so like so dusty, sort of like reminiscent of like a Rutherford sort of cab.

SPEAKER_04 22:47

Sure, sure. I'd say that in Washington State, if you're a fan of those kind of Napa style cabs, the closest you're gonna get is probably Red Mountain. Although it is very much its own identity, it's it's its own thing. There's so much intense fruit coming from Red Mountain. It's hotter than Napa. It it more heat units in the year, riper grapes. But I mean, we are preserving acidity still with the just the way Washington is with the dineral shift.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

But yeah, it's more of the soils of Red Mountain that help with the pH, because those soils have such a low pH that they're very acidic.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

So it still allows the grapes to have an acidic profile given the high, high temp of the region.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah, I mean the limestone and gravel help with that. The one thing I noticed when I moved up to Washington State from California, when I was making wine in Washington, they would really focus on the sugar levels of the grapes and when to pick. And because they really wanted to control the alcohol. And they didn't really they looked at acidity a little bit, but it wasn't something that would make or break their picking decision usually. But in Washington State, most winemakers are looking more at the acid levels, like pH and the TA, the tartratable acidity, and they're making their picking decisions based off of that versus versus the alcohol or the sugar content in the in the grapes. So it's like it's a little different. Washington state soils tend to be more acidic in in nature. And so I think that actually kind of really helps with with Red Mountain because the tannins and Red Mountain can be pretty intense, but if you have the acidity that's pretty high, that can balance that out.

SPEAKER_04 24:35

Balance is really important in wine. And I mean the tannins also really high in Red Mountain, additionally, due to the winds. Uh that mount that mountain kind of acts as a wind break, and so the slope takes the brunt of that. I mean, I know that the very top is really where you get the highest winds, that's where weather eye is. Yeah. Really thick skins. I don't know if you guys know, but when grapes encounter a lot of wind, it actually will thicken the skins of those grapes over time, increasing their tannin content. But sorry, on a tangent here, speaking of tannins and acidity, yeah. Both of those things really help with the wine's ageability.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

So ageability and also pairability, I would say. Okay. I mean, acid is a friend of food pairings. Tannin is not a friend of food pairings. Wouldn't necessarily say it's an enemy, but it's harder to pair wines that have higher tannins with food. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

You'd have to go higher fat, and when fat coats your palate, it tends to dull your kind of taste as well. You're not getting quite as much flavor from the wine because of that fat layer coating, coating your palate. However, it is protecting your palate from those tannins, which may allow you to more fully experience the wine, but it's still not perfect. It's it's dulling some of those flavors as well as it is helping with the tannins. So that's why you have steak with cab. It really helps with the cab feel more round, smooth, the fruits express themselves a little bit better, refreshes the palate, the acid really helps wash away the fatty steak. So it's really an excellent, excellent pairing with that regard. What would you say? I'm curious about this. We we kind of talked about aging a little bit and tannin pairing. Is that why you think maybe some aged wines are more sought after because of their silkier tannins, soft longer tannin chains, softer expression? Would you say that makes them easier to pair with food or makes them more challenging to pair with food?

SPEAKER_01 26:39

I think it makes it way easier to pair with food. Anything that softens the tannins, it's easier to pair with food at the end of the day, you know. Um you have a wider range of foods that you can kind of play with and sauces as well when the tannins are pretty soft. You know, the less existent the tannins are, the easier it is to pair with food for the most part. Yeah. Even like depending on depending on the wine and how old it is. But if you have a really soft tannin that's like a red, like from Bordeaux, let's say like a right bank, Saint Million and it's old, that would actually pair really well with like salmon, you know, like fish. Even though in his youth it wouldn't, but with age it would.

SPEAKER_04 27:27

I could see that the profile of the wine, the flavor. Although a lot of those Bordeaux, especially old ones, you tend to get a little bit more of that brett coming through. Not all producers have a ton of Brett in their wines and Bordeaux, but definitely is very prevalent.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

And as you're losing those primary flavors and aromas, you're gonna get those secondaries and tertiaries coming through, and that's kind of where Brett lives.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:53

Brett, Brett, he's he's got that house locked down. He's he's living in there, and you know, the rest of the neighborhood may have been demolished, but Brett's still there. He's hanging around.

Brettanomyces Funk Explained

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Brett, for uh those that are unaware, Brett is short for Britannomyces. It is a wild yeast strain that grows naturally throughout the world. When it comes into contact with wine, if it is the main, if it's the main yeast with the fermentation for wine, then it can easily take over and become sometimes expresses in a freshly opened band-aid situation. Other times it's more kind of horse stable, saddle leather sort of thing. Yeah, wet hay. Not very tasty, sometimes like manure y, depending on which that can be really gross. But in small amounts and trace amounts, it adds a lot of complexity and depth to the wine. So some people actually really enjoy that in small amounts, but it's not really something you can really control that way. It's not something that you can add in. I mean, you could, I guess, add it in to the wine, but it's not something that you can control the amounts because it can just take over.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

Uh, Brett, Britannomyce is also really difficult to get rid of in the winery. So introducing it intentionally to a sterile winery would be uh bad idea. Because it'd be in the air.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yeah. Chateau Beaucastel had a huge issue with Brett taking over their facility in southern Rhone. I think at one point they had to just burn it down.

unknown 29:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Burn down the facility and just build a new one.

SPEAKER_04 29:41

Yeah, especially if you're constructing out of porous materials or you have those really old wooden fermenters around. They try to sanitize the inside, but the outside will still be a place for that bacteria to find little crevices and hide in. And it's really easily spreads. So it unfortunately, or uh it or fortunately, you you when you get wines with the right amount of brett, it's special because it's hard to achieve.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:08

But again, one of the risks of aging, you might get some negative aromas and flavors coming through, especially if you're not aging it in the right way. We just had some wine recently, didn't we? That was aged poorly. Was it 2011 cab? Yeah. Fairly high quality, supposedly. Yeah. And this wine had been acquired by someone who didn't know very much about wine, it was gifted to them. And they had been storing it vertically for several years in a non-temperature controlled apartment. And in the in the in the summers here where we're at in the Seattle area, if you don't have AC, your apartments are going to get into the 80s, maybe the 90s, even some summers, and your wine is going to cook.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

And I mean that somewhat literally, uh it if your wine gets too hot, it tastes like it's been boiled. Uh the fruits completely dissolved, they turn into this really limp and overripe expression, and it loses all character, and your acid breaks down.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Yeah. Yeah. And it can seem oxidized as well, where the rim of the if you have some wine in your glass and like the rim variation that you look at can be really browned or tawny kind of color. And the wine can turn kind of almost black, too. Super not tasty.

SPEAKER_04 31:32

Yeah, I mean, there was some interesting character to this wine. It had lost its its structure, and I was really missing that because it did have a richness to it that I liked, but there was no nothing to contrast the richness. It was just heavy. Yeah. And it kind of tasted to me a little bit like cheap hot budge. You know, gross that you'd get at like a drive-in on a Sunday. It has a gritty texture to it. Yeah. There was some powdery tannins in there still, but they weren't very grippy. They were just there.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:59

Floating around.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

And it was had a lot of like hoysin', soy sauce. Sure. Yeah. Kind of flavors, which I did not like. I would use that wine as a marinade.

SPEAKER_04 32:10

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I'd make I was I was talking to one of our colleagues about it. Like, I think you could cook with it. Maybe you could make like a reduction and put it in a chocolate truffle. But outside of that, I saw no use for that wine.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Yeah. Because at that point, you're kind of treating it like you would when cooking with port. Yeah. Good point.

SPEAKER_04 32:30

So yeah. Good. Intentionally oxidated.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah. Which port is that's different. It has people cook with port also because of the sugar content that's in port as well.

SPEAKER_04 32:43

I want to correct

When Wine Gets Cooked At Home

SPEAKER_04 32:44

it for myself. I don't believe port is actually intentionally oxidized. That's sherry I'm thinking of.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Sherry is. It depends on the type of sherry. But I mean port is oxidized as well. It's an oxidative ferment. So it's the like the traditional way to make it are these really shallow and long cement fermenters called lagueres. And traditionally the Portuguese would there would be like probably like six six human body lengths, basically, of what the fermenter is. And it's basically like knee deep, maybe less just less than knee deep. And they would traditionally, shoulder to shoulder, grab each other's shoulders and start walking and trudging in the fermenter. Wow. And that's how they would do their cap management and everything. And there's no protection. And it's a very shallow fermenter.

SPEAKER_04 33:45

So extremely high surface area, high oxygen contact. Yeah. Is that does that result in a really fast fermentation?

SPEAKER_01 33:52

It's pretty hot. I mean, it's hot and fast. Yeah. I mean, the the shallowness doesn't, I would assume, would actually drop the temp a little bit because it's more exposed surface area to oxygen.

SPEAKER_04 34:06

Well, I'd I'd think increased oxygen into the wine would increase the yeast's kind of speed with the ferment.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Yeah. But it's mo mostly the temperature of the ferment. When when making port, do you know if they chapitalize? I do not know.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

I mean, I know they increase their alcohol because it correct me if I'm wrong, please. The process in the process of making port, you don't finish fermentation. You arrest fermentation by adding in neutral grape spirit, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Yeah, brandy, usually.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

And that arrests the fermentation by bringing the alcohol over a point where the yeast can continue to survive. Yeah. Therefore leaving you with residual sugar. That's left in the in the product. Yeah. So I I I'm I'm kind of familiar with chapitalization, not super familiar with its accepted use cases and why you would do it. But given it's a wine that tends to be higher in sugar and higher in alcohol, seems like chitalization might be a method that would be advantageous to a port producer.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

It could be, yeah. I know most of the time chapitalization is illegal in most European countries, like Italy and France, I know for sure. Regulation is, yeah, you can't it's illegal to do it. I mean, people still do it, but it's illegal. You can't do it.

SPEAKER_04 35:28

Um considering that you can do dosage, you know, in champagne. As long as you're tr transparent about your practice, yeah. I don't see it as super different from from that.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Yeah. I would say one thing with port, it's not intentionally oxidized, but it is intentionally cooked. It's called Madeira.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

Madeira is a specific specific variety.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yeah, it's in Madeira in Portugal. Okay. So is it it is sort of like a type of port, but basically how Madeira started is that it would they would ship these Madeira barrels to the UK and to the United States back in the day, like 1800s, 1700s. And it was they're in these barrels on the ship going across the Atlantic, and they would naturally the wine would cook in those barrels because it was so hot in the open ocean. Madeira was the wine of choice of most of our forefathers in the United States of America, the founding fathers. So Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, they loved Madeira. That was like their main thing that they loved to drink. And now it is intentionally intentionally made where they store the barrels, you know, sometimes in a barn in the attic, so you have a lot more heat units up there. So you get really hot, and so the wine would cook to intentionally cook the wine to get that Madeira sort of you know vibe. So but it's it's similar to port.

SPEAKER_04 37:13

Yes, but it is distinct. It's its own, it's its own thing from the islands of Madeira. They're Portuguese islands. Yeah. Port, also Portuguese, yeah. Hence port. Hence port. Yes. That's from the Duro Valley, up north, north near uh Porto. Yeah. So I don't know if Porto's named after Port. I mean, a port port named after Porto or port named after Portuguese or Portuguese.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

I would say it's named after Porto.

SPEAKER_04 37:39

Yeah, because Porto's the closest big city to the the Duro Valley.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah, and most of the time when you see a port out in the wild on a wine shelf, it'll say Porto.

SPEAKER_04 37:50

Oh. Instead of you know, you're you're right. I should have remembered that. Regardless, yeah. So the the fortified wine is a whole rabbit hole, and a lot of people don't really fully dig into it as it's not really in our drinking culture these days. But while our founding fathers might have consumed a lot of fortified wine, yeah, it's really fallen out of vogue, especially here in the U.S. People just don't drink a lot of it.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Yeah.

Port Madeira And Fortified Wine Myths

SPEAKER_04 38:15

Do you have a do you happen to have favorite dessert wine or sweet wine that you you enjoy?

SPEAKER_01 38:20

I do. It's sauteern is probably my favorite just because I've had sauteran paired with blue cheese before, and it was amazing with blue cheese with the creme brulee, that was amazing. Even like vanilla ice cream, and you just put saute on it as a syrup, you know, it's really good. Wow. I've had it with foie gras, and that's it's really amazing with foie gras as well, or a sort of pate. Yeah, sauterin is by far, I think, my favorite. It's mostly made up of semillon, but semillon savon blanc, late harvest. It's not fortified. It is extremely sweet though. Comes in split bottles, so I can't have more than like a half glass. I feel like otherwise I'll get a sugar rush. But I'm not usually a sweet wine drinker necessarily, so it always has to have something paired with it in order for me to drink it, I feel like.

SPEAKER_04 39:19

But that's fair. I mean, dessert wines are for dessert pairings. As you when you're pairing, you always want your wine to be sweeter than what you're eating. Yeah. And that seems crazy if you're eating ice cream, but yeah, dessert wine is sweeter than ice cream. Yeah. It can be super syrupy. I had to look up the what what what this wine was called that I was I was remembering is one of my favorite dessert wines. I love an Italian dessert wine.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:46

There's two kinds. Well, one of them is is not necessarily super well known. One of them is a little bit more, but it's actually more popular in Greece. But I like the Italian expression. It's Vinsanto del Chianti Classico.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:59

Love Vinsanto. That's awesome. Very traditional way to consume this is actually dipping your biscotti in the Vinsanto. Really? Yeah. That sounds amazing. I have yet to have that true experience, but I love a Vinsanto. It's one of my favorite paired with crme brulee. Nice. Yeah, I like that. As a dessert wine pairing. Uh, this other one is a production from the Antonori family called Mufato. And I am sure I need to look up exactly what is comprised, what this wine's comprised of, but it actually has a little bit of a spicy note to it. It's very interesting. Or actually, maybe I'm thinking of Insanto. The Mufato is interesting. It's kind of like a sautern. It's very golden, very honeyed. I definitely think there's some botrytis influence in this wine. Let's see here. It's not. You know, I'll have to do some more research. I'll get back to you guys in the next episode with uh some more info on this wine. But it's very special. Uh they only make it in certain years. And it that that probably has to do with botrytis, and the botrytis being of a certain quality in certain years and being able to make this wine the right way.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

That makes sense. I mean, Italians really like to age their wines in boates, like really old boaties, especially in Tuscany. They're these like Slovenian oak casks that they just reuse over and over and over again. And they're all just made of wood. They have little metal taps usually on them towards the bottom of the tank, but it's very easy to get brett inside boates like that when you reuse them. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 41:36

So okay, I I was able to find information on these wines. Nice. First off, the Vinsanto that I love is actually the method of making Vinsanto, their sweet wine. It's a it's a matte dried wine, kind of similar to Amarone.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Yeah, like a passamento.

SPEAKER_04 41:53

They well, they dry the grapes out on a mat to reduce the water content, increase sugar concentration.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

And so that's how they're making that production. The this other bottle, which is Mufato de la S de la de la sala. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

Mufasa? Mufato.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

Mufasa. Who was Mufasa?

SPEAKER_01 42:13

No, no, no, no. Was Mufasa the dad? Yeah. Oh, okay. Mufasa was the king.

SPEAKER_04 42:19

Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Scar's brother.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

That'd be a cool bottle of wine. I'd do I'd get a bottle of wine with it with a lion on the front. That'd be cool.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

Yeah. That'd be epic. So Mufato, it's it's from Umbria. Oh, fun. Yeah. So it's it's a bit of a more a different style. It is, I was correct. It is it's Italy's kind of noble rot wine. Yeah. And it's a blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Gracchetto, Traminer. I don't know how to pronounce it, Tramignier, Semillon, and Riesling. So it is actually kind of more similar to Saw Turn in that it's it's potratus Sauvignon Blanc primarily.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 42:59

But there's no Tribbiano in there.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

I don't know. Sometimes it will make Vinsanto.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

Oh, this one's not Vinsanto. This is a different one.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Yeah, I know. I was just because it got Griccetto in there. It's like why not?

SPEAKER_04 43:13

Oh, good point.

unknown 43:13

Good point.

SPEAKER_04 43:14

Yeah. I bet it varies producer to producer. Oh. As with most of these wines that you know, it's like you'll have your core grape and then they'll blend in whatever their field blend is for their what what they like to their signature flavor.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Yeah. That's lovely, man. I I've never had that sort of wine before.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

Definitely would love to bring in a bottle if I can get my hands on another one. I had Coravind my bottle and I didn't do it right and it went bad on me. So yeah, I think I got some additional fermentation going on in the bottle. I took a taste and it was sour. Oh wow. And it had lost its body a little bit. So I'm like, oh, those sugars were fermenting in there. It it was not

Dessert Wines Worth The Sugar Rush

SPEAKER_04 43:54

not pretty.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

So what kind of seasonal pattern Do you think I'm gonna so the reason why I'm asking this question is because I am a seasonal drinker, like I don't drink the same thing, you know, every day. It's based on the weather, uh, it was happening, you know, seasonality, changing of weather and climates. I will gravitate towards a different wine depending on my environment. So people ask me, like, oh, what do you usually drink? It's like, well, I usually drink whatever I feel like drinking in the moment, depending on the weather and the season. So, given that kind of context, what sort of atmosphere, environment, weather patterns do you think you'll be enjoying that wine?

SPEAKER_04 44:41

Oh, it has to be cold, it has to be dark, gloomy. Yeah. So I want to drink that wine in a like in a study, in a, in a, in a nice lounge. Like uh leather chairs. Yes, I want to be in a very warm, rich environment when I'm drinking this wine, but I want it to be cold outside. Yeah. You know, I want to feel like I'm secluded. Open fire. You got a fireplace? Yeah, I would I I would drink this near a fire.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

Yeah. And like surrounded by leather-bound books and rich mahogany.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

I was actually thinking more candlelit table or sitting by candlelight, not necessarily the fire because this wine is very delicate.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Would you be writing a journal entry with a quill?

SPEAKER_04 45:25

So while that sounds very romantic, it does. Uh to me, it's a little too pretentious. By candlelight? I think these wines are best shared. Yeah. And in addition to weather and seasonality with drinking these wines, I think that there is also the right company to share these wines with. And sweet wine, dessert wine is one of those I think is very celebratory.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:50

And it's a great way to, I think, thank people for joining you for a meal. Yeah. You pull out a bottle of really nice dessert wine. And it is, I feel like I would not do that for most of my guests. Yeah. So the if I do that for some guests, it's because I'm very appreciative and we're having a really wonderful night. And I want to continue the enjoyment of wine, of good wine, into the night. And that means we're having a wonderful time. So it's probably winter. I have people over. It's the the house is very cozy, and I'm sharing that with someone. Nice. And that that would be my ideal for enjoying these, the Vinsanto or the Muffato. I will say with the Vinsanto, I haven't had access to enough of it to enjoy it how the Italians typically do. It's actually, yeah, they're I don't they don't export a lot of the Vinsanto that they drink uh most often there because it's actually fairly inexpensive. And they literally do dip their their biscotti and they'll do it as a morning ritual.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

A morning ritual? I I don't know. I researched this once, it's been a while, but I was thinking as like the end of the dinner, it's the end of the evening. You're having a little nightcap, dipping your bisco.

SPEAKER_04 47:03

It was like a tea time thing. I remember it being weird. Or they they would they would just have the Vinsanto and Biscotti, and it was at a weird time of day. I remember that being odd. Yeah I'll I you can fact check me later.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

That would be really weird to have to do like a Vinsanto in the morning. I mean, the first thing you do, you know, you wake up in the morning. I mean, some people wake up and have a dozen donuts, so I guess that's true.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

Yeah. So I I I don't see a huge problem. People have sweet breakfasts all over the world. Well, not all over. Some people love them. Some kinds of culture is like a savory breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

With alcohol in the morning. Well, if I have alcohol, I'm I'm getting old. So like I mean, there's an Irish coffee. I guess, yeah, there is an Irish coffee. There's mimosas, people drink. But I'm getting old where I if I start the day with alcohol, my whole day is ruined. I don't have a day after that.

SPEAKER_04 47:55

Counterpoint dessert wines are very low alcohol. It's true. And you're probably not having very much. You might just be using it to dip your biscotti in, is what kind of I was looking at. So biscuti. Yeah. Biscotti. You can work on that accent.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

I love doing fake Italian accents because they sound so fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:16

Yeah. So that that's the context for me. I mean, there are there's weather for wine, and right now it's getting warmer.

Summer Solstice Sippers And Tavel Rosé

SPEAKER_04 48:23

We just passed the summer solstice here in Washington.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Summer solstice, my birthday.

SPEAKER_04 48:29

Yeah. Is it following your birthday every year?

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Most years, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

Most years. Wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah. So what wine are you drinking on the summer solstice?

SPEAKER_01 48:39

Summer solstice. What wine am I drinking? I didn't drink any wine on my birthday this year. I was I had old fashions. So I old fashions. Yeah, I had old fashions. But we did do a staff psalm class recently. And I brought in a really fun example of a rose around the world called Tavel in the southern Rhone area. It's a Sonia bleed out method, so a little bit deeper. I love those styles of roses lately. They're a little more savory than fruity most of the time. I really I've been really enjoying those just because they're so complex. They have a lot of depth of character, but they're still very refreshing at the same time. You know, chill it down and it's tasty.

SPEAKER_04 49:26

I think what I would picture as an ideal pairing with that rose would be like, I'm so I am a foodie, but I'm not a super gourmet cook. So I don't always fully understand exactly what's being put in front of me at some of these really nice restaurants, but yeah, I do appreciate them. Yeah. So and there's this one dish that I really love, and I've had it a couple places, but I I keep forgetting to ask exactly what they do. This they do like a puree, and they'll put these beautiful roasted, almost caramelized carrots on top of this puree. I think it's a parsnip puree, but I I'm not 100% sure. It's not super sharp. Is it like a granita? What's a granita? Can you use it?

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Granita is sort of like I've had a persimmon granita before where it's almost like I don't even know how to really explain it. The restaurant I worked at where I was a psalm do granitas all the time.

SPEAKER_04 50:15

Extremely soft mashed potatoes is the texture.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Okay, this is a little bit different. This is like sort of like ice chips, a little bit. Oh, oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_04 50:23

Yeah, that's not at all what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

It's more of like like a fruit paste with like an ice chip situation.

SPEAKER_04 50:30

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

And what did you say you had that made from?

SPEAKER_01 50:34

That was a persimmon granita.

SPEAKER_04 50:36

Persimmon. Yeah. That actually sounds very refreshing.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Yeah, it was actually very tasty. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:44

But yeah, speaking of the the is it tavel or tavel? I say tavel. Tavel. Tavel? Tavel. Tavel, okay. The savory notes really nice with uh like a roasted veggie, I think. Go quite well.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Go really well with a nice summer salad.

SPEAKER_04 51:01

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

As well.

SPEAKER_04 51:03

With maybe some asparagus in there.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Yeah, some asparagus. Yeah. It's one of the few wines that can really pair with like very awkward vegetables that can be austere.

SPEAKER_04 51:11

Cruciferous vegetables.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Cruciferous, indeed.

SPEAKER_04 51:14

Yeah. Yes. Asparagus, Brussels sprouts, things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tavel is very interesting. I it was actually the second time ever I'd had Tavel at that at that tasting. And it definitely is a bit austere for a rose, a bit different. A lot of people really love that provincial style from the Provence style of rose.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:32

Have we talked about the difference yet? I don't think we've got a lot of. Of the two roses.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

No, we haven't.

Saignée Versus Direct Press Rosé

SPEAKER_01 51:37

So this particular one I brought was from Chateau de Tranquividel, which is basically it's like the staple example for a this method. And it's called the Sonier method. And it's also called the bleed out method. This happens when you harvest the grapes and you act like you're making red wine. And partway through the red wine fermentation, you take some of the juice out and you put that into barrel or a different tank. And then you bottle it, you know, shortly after. And it creates this strawberry color, coloring, a lot of depth of flavor. And then the Bourvant style, which is also called the uh known as the direct to press, which it is exactly what it sounds like. You harvest the grapes, and directly after you harvest it, you put them in the press, press off the juice like you're making a white wine, and some of that color from the skins bleeds out into liquid, and you're left with a blush pink sort of color.

unknown 52:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

Yeah. And typically with the direct press, you're harvesting a little bit earlier, higher acids, because that that those grapes were picked for the pure reason of being made into rose.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:54

Sagnee is kind of a dual purpose, right? You're you're making a red wine to increase the concentration of those red wine flavors by changing the ratio of juice to skins. Yeah. You pull off some of that juice. So you have a higher skin to juice ratio. And then that juice that's been already sitting on the skins for some time, perhaps fermentation's already started, maybe it hasn't. Regardless, you pull that off and that becomes your rose. But that was picked at the ideal time for producing red wine for those grapes. So sometimes you have a lower acid profile in those roses that are done with the Sonier method.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Yeah, absolutely. And then it's kind of nice for the producer, the winery that makes the Sonier, because then you have two completely different wines from the same grape that you can sell. So you have two different skews, essentially.

SPEAKER_04 53:41

Bang for your buck. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, for another reason also that's a bit more romantic, it's like using every part of the animal. Yeah. You want to produce really high-end red, and but you you don't want the other juice to go to waste. Doing that process with care and intention, even though let's say the grapes weren't picked for rose, yeah, there's still a way to make a really good wine.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:03

And I I know there's been some happy accidents at some production that we've both kind of witnessed and observed in that malolactic fermentation happening with the Soniered Rose. Yeah. And to be honest, it's one some of the best Soniered rose I've had when there's a little bit of malolactic going on. Yeah. Because it's already lower acid, already leaning towards that softer style. So increasing the viscosity texture of that wine with a little bit of malolactic really makes that wine have even more character for me. Yeah. So definitely appreciate

Final Thoughts And Goodbye

SPEAKER_04 54:36

that.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Yeah. I love it, man. Wine is amazing, confusing, and really fun to talk about. Um we should let our staff uh open the tasting room because monopolizing the tasting room. Yeah, we've been definitely taking over their territory at the moment. So we'll let them get after it. Thank you guys for tuning in to this episode of Wine Stories presented by From the Sky Down.

SPEAKER_04 55:02

Presented by From the Sky Down. Yeah. Thank you for listening. We'll see you in the next one. Cheers.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Cheers.