The Wine Makers on Radio Misfits

The guys sit down with Ruben Morancy, Wine Director at Two Star Michelin restaurant Coi, pronounced “kwa”, in San Francisco. Ruben is also a renowned artist with a passion for selling domestic and international wines. He started Les-sommeliers to start promoting unique fine wine events to an “under-served” community in the Bay Area and beyond. Ruben’s next event is on February 15th at the Alice Collective in Oakland, featuring food by Chef Keith Corbin of Alta W. Adams in LA and jazz musician Marcus Shelby. This event will celebrate Valentines Day and Black History Month with a perfect pairing of fried chicken and tiny bubbles. Great history and stories here to share. [EP131] Coirestaurant.com Les-sommeliers.com Ruben@les-sommeliers.com 415-425-8466

This week the guys, and Jasmine, sit down and talk about French wine tariffs, travel, North Carolina, taking the sommelier exam and the state of the wine business for 2020. We cover a lot of topics and get into almost ten wines in this episode, enjoy…  [EP130]

This week on the podcast we sit down with Donald Patz, known for making “world-class” Pinot and Chardonnay at Patz & Hall Winery in Sonoma. He left this iconic winery when it was purchased in 2016 and has since started 3 small projects, Maritana, Terminim and Secret Door. He sparked our interest when he joined forces with Francois Villard, a master in Northern Rhone, to make some top notch Syrah and white blends from Mendocino. Lots of history here, great show. [EP129] donaldpatzwinegroup.com   Donald Patz Owner/Winemaker 707-337-2310 donald@donaldpatzwinegroup.com @drpinot   Jung Min Lee Owner/Muse/LKG lkg@donaldpatzwinegroup.com   Jennifer Kelly Vice President of Sales 707-478-5152 jb@donaldpatzwinegroup.com   François Villard Domaine François Villard – Northern Rhône Valley, France Partner – Terminim villardfrancois@aol.com   DONALD PATZ WINE GROUP P.O. Box 2096 Yountville, CA 94599 USA

This week on the Wine Makers we sit down with Brenae Royal, vineyard manager at the historic Monte Rosso Vineyards. Brenae grew up in the Central Valley of California and was originally interested in animals, in part due to her exposure to F.F.A., future farmers of America. Weeks into college she decided to pivot, focusing on vines and taking a job with Gallo right out of school. [EP128] She now runs one of the most historic vineyards in California, growing Cabernet, Zinfandel and Semillon since 1886. She lives on the property with her dog and some pretty scary wildlife, it’s not unusual to see mountain lions and bobcats roaming the 250 acre property. We get into it all, style, techniques and relationships, Brenae is an African-American woman under 30 working for a large corporation in a primarily white, older, male world. The landscape is changing, and she is a part of that movement, inclusion is key to the wine industries success and it’s important to see yourself represented. Sam had some great wines open from a party the night before so we taste a little bit of everything. Great show….

In our continuing effort to de-mystify wine, we introduce you to Leo McCloskey and Douglas  McKesson from Enologix, they can predict some things about wine that you may not have thought possible. What if someone told you to forget everything you know about wine in Northern California, like we need to rip out all of the Cabernet Sauvignon. We are going down the “rabbit hole”… From Wikipedia… Enologix is a privately held California corporation that designs predictive analytics for luxury winegrowing. The company sells grape and wine quality indices, models, software and consulting products. Enologix created the first algorithms that predict grape harvest dates, grading new wines, digital blends, and future market price, volume and taste scores. The most important metric among winemakers are digital blends and a taste index which predicts 100-point scores of consumer critics such as Robert Parker. It claims that the quality of wine can be measured chemically, and a score assessed, much like a wine critic.Clients include Beaulieu, Cakebread Cellars, Diamond Creek, Ridge Vineyards. Enologix’s metrics have been correlated with market performance metrics, including 100-points critics’ scores. doug@enologix.com 707-938-9463

Paul Mabray has been a powerful change agent in the wine industry for over twenty years. He began his career working in traditional three-tier sales and marketing with Napa Ale Works and later innovating direct-to-consumer sales and marketing models with Niebaum Coppola. Since then, he has been at the forefront of all major digital trends for the wine industry, working with WineShopper.com and Wine.com when they entered the wine-digital space. He founded two companies that have significantly changed the US wine landscape for digital. First by introducing winery e-commerce with Inertia Beverage Group that transformed into WineDirect.com pioneering winery e-commerce and then again introducing social media and social customer relationship management with VinTank.com. He is considered the wine industry’s foremost futurist and thought leader, harnessing the power and potential of digital tools and methodologies to move the industry into the future. A four-time American Wine Blog Awards finalist, he has been a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, UC Davis, Sonoma State as well as keynoting conferences, symposiums, and seminars. He maintains a blog and frequently contributes articles to business periodicals for his leadership in the wine industry. Paul formerly sat on the Board of Directors for the wine business social network Openwineconsortium.org which was sold to FOHBOH, and the Board of Advisors for Snooth.com, Taste.com, and Cruvee.com (which was purchased by VinTank). He currently sits on the Board of Directors for the theappreciationengine.com and emetry.io and on the Board of Advisors for Proof Analytics.

This week the guys get together and talk tariffs, bottle size, boxed wine, sourcing barrels, Marin natural wine and a whole lot more. Check it out! [EP125]

What’s it like to have one of your wines selected by Wine Spectator as the “#2 wine in the world ?”… We ask Braiden Albrecht that question on this weeks podcast. Braiden is a childhood friend of Sams and former employee of Enterprise Vineyard who is now the wine maker at Mayacamas and works closely with Andy Erickson to craft some of the most sought after Cab and Chard in California. We talk about the long, rich history of the winery and how they are moving into the next phase of development. This is a good one, Enjoy…

This week we are taking the show on the road to a “hidden gem” in the Dry Creek Valley. Nalle Winery has been making beautiful, low-alcohol Zinfandels that have been compared to some great wines from Burgundy. Doug and Lee have passed the torch to Andrew and April, it is truly a “family affair”. We sat outside on the back deck, apologies for the windy background. Enjoy… [EP123] nallewinery.com andrew@nallewinery.com 707-433-1040

Kieran Robinson joins the pod this week to announce the “almost” opening of his new tasting room in Philly. He has been doing the bi-coastal thing trying to make wine in Cali and complete construction in Pennsylvania. The mystery of those strange tags in the Rossi vineyard is solved, Kieran is doing some consulting. Aron Rosenthal, podcast listener, joins the show and talks food and wine in South Carolina. It’s Sunny in Sonoma! Enjoy