Evolving Wine Identities: From Tradition to Innovation

My guest for this episode is Daniel Callan, the cellar man behind Slamdance Koöperatieve. Daniel pointed out to me recently that I've been too focused on winegrowing. I had to agree, and Daniel’s suggestion was that we talk about how the past of winemaking may actually be its future. Because, essentially, all wines made throughout history until sometime around the start of the 20th century, were natural wines, and were made without additives nor fossil fuel powered, high-tech wineries and wine factories. Daniel is a student of the history of winemaking in general, but in California specifically. He believes everything we’re trying now has already been tried and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We can learn from those who came before… we just have to read some books that we can find at the library. He even looks to the old vines as a kind of genetic library for what does well in his region, and makes wine from varieties that mostly don’t exist elsewhere in any scalable quantity. This is a refreshingly technical winemaking episode that follows Daniel’s process for making his wine in detail from harvest to bottling, as well as a look at how we can find answers to the challenges of climate change and a post-industrial world by looking to the past.

@slamdancekooperatievewines

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