Welcome to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. My name is Alisha Barrett. I do wine for this fabulous retailer. In the room with me. For the first time ever. Yay! I'm Chris. I do wine and communications and whatnot. I'm Jenna. I do communications. Jim, also communications. Pat, not usually here. So, Pat and I were in our very cluttered office over the last few weeks, trying to come up with a new podcast idea for you. And every day, our inboxes are flooded with news stories from various outlets of what's going on in the industry. Industry rags, yeah. Usually, it's a bunch of CEOs patting themselves on the back over some quarterly results. But every once in a while, there's some truly interesting news articles involving beverage alcohol. Yeah. So, we're not going to talk about how many billions of dollars Diageo made, but- 13. But we thought it would be cool to bring to your attention a few news stories, and I chose some wine-related ones obviously, that have been going on in the last couple of months. So, we can talk about them, give some opinions, taste some relevant wines, and so you continue to stay in the know. This week on Booze in the News. The first one I want to get out of the way is the topic of the American Viticultural Areas. So, I know before your eyes roll back, these are AVA's. These are pretty important in the United States. This is kind of our response to the Appalachian system in France. This is our system of geographical indications and they're going to be found on every single wine label. So, when the TTB takes years and years to finally approve new ones, it's worth talking about because these are going to be wines you'll eventually see on our shelves. And we want to make sure you know where they're from and why they are significant because these are supposed to not just be political boundaries. They are supposed to have a unique kind of climatic reasoning or it could be soil type, geographical feature of some type to set themselves apart. And they do that because they think that plays itself out in the wine. And that's pretty stringent for applying for a new AVA, right? Is there a certain amount of wineries that have to band together and lobby for this? Or can one guy say, you know what? I have a unique microclimate on my 300 acres here on somewhere on the California coast. I'm now going to call it, you know, Pat's Acres AVA. Well, I think that numbers definitely serve you well. I mean, the more you have. But usually it's one person, like you say, spearheading the project, really fighting for it. So there's no requirement to have a lot of wineries or a lot of vineyards, but it helps. The burden of proof is on the winery to prove that they have a distinctly different style. Yeah. Whoever is filling out the petition has to argue, you know, soil type. Sometimes we'll see even elevation comes into practice. Could be anything from being in a wind gap to having volcanic soils, et cetera, et cetera. So it all adds up. We are unique for this reason, and our vines express differently because we are here. It is important to note in opposition to say, France's broader laws, AOC or AOP laws, there are no strings attached to these other than geography really. So there's no production standards they would have to follow just because they are part of an AVA. And no required grape varieties or disallowed grape varieties, et cetera, et cetera. You can make completely wrongheaded choices if you choose to. Yeah. So the only requirement here is just the federal law that exists that 85 percent of the grapes in a wine labeled with a particular AVA must come from that AVA. So as long as you are abiding by that and any varietal labeling requirements, which is a minimum of 75 percent federally, you're kind of good to go. And to that question about how many wineries, this first one we're going to talk about, there are actually only three wineries in the entire AVA. So you don't need a packed house. Again, it's a distinguishing feature. And in fact, I think one of the coolest ones was a few years ago when the Petaluma Gap was approved. This is in Sonoma County and it was the first AVA actually defined by wind speed. And I think they averaged it out at the minimum wind speed. I don't recall. But yeah, I mean, this is a feature that is dominated by air flowing in from the Pacific Ocean and through this wind gap. And it keeps it really, really cool. And wind is always a good thing for pest control and things like that too, because they have a harder time. And like mold control too, right? Dry winds help. Although the Petaluma gap is drying in fog and moist air. But nevertheless. So the newest AVA to be approved in America for your next trivia night at your dinner table is Mount Pisgah AVA. And this is in Oregon. It sits within the Willamette Valley. So up until now, the wineries within this AVA were claiming Willamette Valley. That's about 15 miles west of Salem. Their kind of characteristics that they put forth to the TTB, they're right near the Willamette River. So they have a great degree of warmth radiating off of that river. They have the influence of the Van Duzer winds. So they're claiming some wind influence. Rain shadow of the Laurel Mountains to their west. And then lastly, underpinning all these kind of marine sedimentary soil, which does pop up in other nested AVA's within the Willamette. And we so happened to carry a wine, the Illihi Pinot Noir. And it was actually Brad Ford of Illihi vineyards and winery that began this petition more than five years ago. And honestly, the fact that the TTP moved on this within six years is pretty remarkable because normally it's at least 10. So we're going to taste this wine. We're going to talk about kind of what separates this from maybe other Willamette Pinot Noirs that we have. How many AVA's are there now? Do we have that number? I did look this up. Per usual, the federal government's website is like outdated by two months, but as of June 3rd, so it actually would not even include this one, it was 266 nationally. So I think it's probably 267 now. And 146 of those sit within California, just to give you some perspective here. Yeah, and only in the teens in Oregon. So what are some other AVA's nearby that are the differences in their kind of the factors that they're identifying with that people might know that are people more familiar with in Oregon? Yeah. So good question. A couple that our listeners are probably most familiar with within the Willamette Valley, up into the northern part, you get to Dundee Hills, probably the most frequented on our shelves, I think. And that's largely defined by a volcanic soil base. And you get, I think, brighter fruit, more aromatic intensity in those wines, a little bit more acid as well. With this Marine Sedimentary, which is also found in Yamhill Carlton, another nested AVA within the Willamette, listeners will be familiar with. That is, again, same soil type as here. And so we should find a little bit of a wadier wine, some deeper fruit qualities, a little more broad shoulder than some other expressions. I would say, interestingly, that Mount Pisgah was formed from a volcanic rising under water, though, so the topsoil is sedimentary, but it was pushed up by volcanic activity. Interesting. And I would say that the rain shadow here is really important. Oregon gets more than its fair share of rain. And as people may know, if they're familiar with, say, Alsace and the Vosges Mountains or almost the entire eastern part of Washington State. All of Washington. Yeah. Rain shadow has a huge effect on the amount of precipitation you get, and then the results lead to whether you have to irrigate or not. I mean, really, I don't know who's irrigating in Oregon, but in Washington, all the time, it's drip irrigation and gives you the ability to micromanage exactly how much water your vine is getting. But natural rain shadows are pretty important in the wine world. And I think you see that play itself out in the wine. If you guys have a taste, you'll notice our acid isn't super high. It's still very refreshing, but it's not a kind of really high acid Pinot Noir that you find in other places. And again, deeper red fruits, slightly into some purple, slightly into some blueberry as well, and a solid kind of at least medium bodied wine here. For sure. It's ripe. It's silky. But on the finish, you get that little zing of acidity for sure. It keeps it fresh and nice. Yeah, it's a really nice Pinot. This is really good. Yeah. It's enough to create that water, that mouth watering effect. So you want to go back for more, but it's not overwhelming. Yeah. You almost don't notice it up front because the fruit is so plush. And then on the finish, it just comes in and clean things up. It's pretty well made. It's like tart cherry. So again, this is Mount Pisgah. Of course, the wine is not labeled that yet, but Ilihi Vineyards and Winery, check them out on the shelf for $27.99. They also have a Viognier, and yeah, the latest AVA to be added. I want to talk about one more before we move on to our next news story. And that's the creation of the West Sonoma Coast AVA. This was a couple of months ago. This is a big one. This is down in Sonoma County. And as you may know, there was the Sonoma Coast AVA. So you're probably like, what is the difference, right? Well, that actually stretched a fair number of miles east to west. And the argument here, and I'll let Chris speak to it a little bit because he's been there, anyone else as well, but it's a rugged, rugged coastline. It's cold, huge maritime influence, very different there than 10 miles inland off the coast. And the West Sonoma Coast AVA, the newly approved, only stretches about five to six miles inland from the Pacific, runs north up to Mendocino and then down to the Petaluma Gap. So it's a rugged, cool, maritime climate, lots of fog, lots of wind, resulting in some fresher, high acid expressions. We're looking at Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Syrah most commonly in this Appalachian. So we're going to, while we pour, we'll talk about it a little more, but we're going to taste two Chardonnays, one mostly from this new kind of West Sonoma Coast AVA with some other kind of Sonoma Coast fruit in there, and then one that goes inland into the Russian River Valley. Again, still within the Sonoma County, but we're going to show you what that kind of mileage, why that matters and how climate plays out in these styles and why it's important that West Sonoma Coast distinguish itself. Yeah, I totally agree. I think this is an important AVA. The Sonoma Coast AVA was so large as to be almost irrelevant as far as style goes, because in the Western part or what you might think of as the Northern part, it's just because California kind of juts out to the West there that they call it this. You have this rugged coastline and most of the vineyards are planted on high ridges, ridge tops that overlook the Pacific Ocean. I mean, they can be as close as a mile or less from the ocean and you can... I've been up to the Flowers Estate and you literally can just look down on the fog below and that's one of the things like... Before this was established, the Fort Ross Seaview Appalachian was, or ABA, was established quite a while ago and that's really distinguished by these very high ridge tops. West Sonoma Coast allows you to go down as low as I think like 400 feet. Some wineries and some vineyard sites will be above the fog line and some will be below, but in Fort Ross, what is now a nested ABA of West Sonoma Coast, everything is pretty much above the ridge line. And if you went down, the Sonoma Coast ABA extended, totally different terrain. You get down into kind of just gentle rolling hills, dairy land, I mean, you have Point Reyes making great cheese down there. But the conditions are vastly different. So, you know, you have to have big Appalachians, Sonoma County, of course, you know, but Sonoma Coast didn't tell you as much as it might. So that's my take on that. Chris mentioned flowers and that's the winery that we have poured. So flowers, Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, again, just labeled Sonoma Coast right now. And they are located up in Fort Rossi View. So we're going to taste this and, you know, really looking for that element of freshness for that acidity I mentioned. The West Sonoma Coast can be about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of Sonoma Coast. So we should see that kind of play itself out in the wine in terms of the level of ripeness. One interesting thing that I would point out about AVA too is in direct opposition to what we are constantly harping on about diurnal shifts, because this area is so close to the coast, the ocean not only cools the area during the day, so you have much lower high temperatures, but at night you don't get the huge diurnal drops because it keeps it warm. And nevertheless, it's that even temperature that allows you to retain all that fresh acidity. And if you're in a hot area like Napa, you are begging for that diurnal shift, so you can cling to whatever acid you can get. Right here, this is not a problem at all without any significant diurnal shift. And these wines rarely, especially up in like Fort Ross Seaview, get very high in alcohol. They are always crisp, elegant, red or white, very focused wines, very pure fruit. And I think this Chardonnay shows that. Yeah, very much so. You guys like it? I mean, it's elegant, it's fresh, it's a ton of stone fruit, ton of ripe citrus. There's orchard as well. There's a lot of kind of gritty apple and pear. This is really good. I'm not, you guys know I'm not normally a Chardonnay person. I mean, did this see any oak at all? It's seen a little. A little bit. You get a little bit in the finish, I think. Yeah, but they're not shooting for a oaky, mallow style here. They want it's crisp, fresh fruit. Crisp and fresh. And I really do appreciate that about it. A little bit of spiciness. Like when you first drink it, like right on the front of my tongue. Yeah, it was aged 11 months in French oak, but only 18% of those were first felt. Oh yeah, exactly. So it really restrained use of oak on the wine. And you get that textual influence, the ability for the wine to take on some oxygen without having heavy oak flavors intrude onto the wine. Oh, it's much better than the second one you gave us. What is this? You can immediately smell the oak on this one. Flour Chardonnay, widely available at $40.99. All right. Out of touch. Inflation. Yeah. I'm not going to spend that money, but it's really good. It's really good. It is. And they have single vineyard offerings that we occasionally get that are from Fort Ross Seaview, which is right dead center in this West Sonoma Coast area, that really, really shine a fine light on what this new Appalachian is going to give you. Are the Appalachians getting not bigger, but more wineries are in there? You said it's not very distinctive because it's so big. Is that size or number of wineries? It's size, but the AVA's being put forth now are just getting smaller. Sure. But are those nested AVA's mostly that are being put forward, or some of them are just brand new chunks of land that are not part of any AVA? Yeah, good question. I would say the majority are nested. I would agree. And maybe 25% are new. I mean, that's a total guess, but majority nested. This all started, I don't know if I said this, but it all started in the 80s. And originally, even though the TTP said it's not supposed to be political boundaries, that's where they started, right? Augusta, Missouri, A number one. Oh, really? Yeah. All right. And also just with more money, more knowledge, more research, we're able to identify these climatic and geographic influences in the wine. Because those things aren't changing over the course of two decades, two or three decades. As climate change continues, too, it's opening up new areas. Yeah, very much so. We're going to see cabernet from Norway soon. We're getting armadillos in Illinois. We have armadillos in Illinois now? They have been on a long trek north for quite a while. They carry leprosy, you know? Yes. Yes. You can eat them, but you don't want to cuddle. All right. That's another Booze in the News edition. I'm moving to Molokai. I'll permit your armadillo. Coming back just to wrap this one up, I just want to show the difference here. I tried to go distance on Google as the crow flies, but that's not an option. I tried the airplane, didn't work. Anyway, maybe, I don't know, 20 miles in? Yeah, I mean, just so you're aware, a map has a scale available to you, even Google Maps, and you could have easily... The main point here is though, you're going up the Russian River Valley, and Chalk Hill is one of, if not the warmest appalachians in Sonoma County. So this sits within Russian River Valley. We're still within Sonoma County. So the purpose here is to show two vastly different expressions of chardonnay within the same county, and to show why these AVA's need to exist. So yes, this is Chalk Hill Estate Bottle Chardonnay from the Chalk Hill Appalachian. The soil type is actually volcanic, not chalk, but that's just kind of the name here. So hopefully what you see, a very riper expression of chardonnay. We've lost the freshness, we've lost the acidity, and we're well into kind of stone and tropical fruit. They've obviously taken a different oak approach as well, but much riper here within Chalk Hill and the Russian River Valley. And I think a different malolactic approach as well. It's very oaky. Right on the nose, it's noticeable, but it also has a much bigger body than the flowers. Yep. Absolutely. Okay, so those are your two new AVA's, folks, to share with your friends, to make note of. You'll see them on our shelves coming your way. Mount Pisgah in Oregon and the West Sonoma Coast. Cool. New AVA's just dropped. It's Booze in the News. We're talking wine from all over the world. See? All right. The next news story I want to bring up, are really just a collection of stories. Esther Mobley, she is the Senior Wine Critic at the San Francisco Chronicle, so very in touch with what's going on in Napa Valley, and she's done a series of stories on the changing landscape of Napa Valley. So I think this is really interesting for anyone who follows wine or drinks wine. Especially those that do gravitate towards Napa Valley and especially the Napa Valley cabernets. I want to touch on in this, I'm going to share a little bit about her story. But the elements here are that land is obviously more expensive in Napa Valley than it ever has been. We see a number of corporate, I don't want to say corporate takeovers here, but a lot of family estates that have sold two corporations and some notable ones this year that we're going to cover, so that's all relevant and in the news. What does this mean? When you have to spend for some of the best sites in Napa Valley, going up to a million dollars an acre. A million bucks an acre. Keep in mind that to establish a new winery in Napa, you must have a minimum of 10 acres. When you start to deal with those numbers and you want to return on this investment, well, your price of wine is going to skyrocket. How do you make sure that sells? Well, her view and her stories are about how you need to now hire some of these famous wine consultants. When you have only a select few people making wine in a particular region, does it all start to taste the same? What is next for Napa Valley cabernet? What's going on there? We're going to now dive into that and taste from Joseph Phelps, their insignia. Real quick, this was tracked by the USDA, the Napa Cab average price these days. Anyone want to guess? For a bottle. $33. 75? I was going to say like 70, $80. Yeah. It's $80. $80. I was way off. Brutal. Yeah. Man, I should put money on that. Now, ready? Next one. Of the 46 Napa Valley cabernets that have been rated 96 points or higher by Wine Spectator within the last year, what is the average price? Oh, 500. 250 to 300. 300. Like 150. $345. Oh, baby. Only seven of those 46 cost under $200, by the way. So all of this is just data backing up the point of what we know is that Napa Valley cabernet is getting super expensive. And some of the big sales, I just want to point out again, so you're up to date, Joseph Phelps Vineyard, which we're pouring his insignia right now, LVMH just bought them. And obviously, the price is never disclosed, but rumored between $300 and $500 million. He's walking around money. Schaeffer, Doug Schaeffer, a very good friend of Binny's, we love his wines. Schaeffer Vineyards sold to a big South Korean retailer earlier this year at $250 million. It was the estimated value there. And then again, earlier this year, Frank Family Vineyards sold to Treasury Wine Estates, that's the Penfolds, Matua, Sauvignon Blanc of New Zealand, so forth. So, we see these kind of generational wineries that are selling off, and if the next generation isn't interested in wine making, I get it, but what does that do? How does that change what's coming out of Napa Valley? How does that change the community and so forth? So, let's taste this wine, and we'll get into kind of the role of consultants in Napa. Busting out the Insignia, this is always a treat. We are tasting 2018 Joseph Phelps Insignia in your local Binny's wine cellar for a whopping $285. Yeah, I want to say this cost like 100 less when I first started working here. Oh, easily, and this is a pretty legendary Napa wine. Joseph Phelps founded in the early 70s, maybe 73, and released Insignia as the first proprietary-ly labeled Bordeaux style blend with the name Insignia, and built a huge reputation. And I think what's happening is obviously we're moving from wineries owned by families that have a vision to major luxury good outfits with multi-billion dollar portfolios, soulless corporations coming in. And there's none of that vision of what I want my winery to be. It's a luxury good. It's a Louis Vuitton purse. The winery just becomes a line on a spreadsheet. Yeah. And of course, they want to make great wine because they want to sell it for outrageous prices. And they do. But the problem is, is the style converging? Are there too few people with their own vision making wine anymore? I think that's boils down the whole idea here. Yeah. And so one of the most reputable wine consultants in Napa Valley is Thomas Rivers Brown. And he is reported to have now about 45 clients. So he and his team, obviously he can't do it just himself. He's making wine for all of these people. He has a style, he has a vision, he has an approach that he's learned and has developed over the years. So we're losing the personal touch and we're losing kind of the different expressions that each individual winemaker, if we had them, would bring to the table. And consultants can play different roles, right? They can show up once a year and create a blend, right? With all the wine that you have in Barrel, or they can come every day and they can check the vineyard and so forth. So it just kind of depends how busy they are. But I think the other element to just throw in there is when you spend so much money, it is about the bottom line at the end of the day for anyone, family or corporation. But when the numbers really do matter and you have to guarantee that that wine is out the door, how do you do it? You hire a famous consultant because people will blindly buy that wine just because the name is on there. It will get a higher rating because of that. Yeah. I mean, a lot of these companies have shareholders to answer to and we know how that goes. You have to please the shareholder. You have a legal obligation to maximize value in the shareholder. It's interesting because some of the great Napa producers and some of these consultants that started out, I mean, Michelle Roulon started back with Harlan and Dariush and Maryvale. These guys' stories are kind of no longer possible, right? I think Thomas Rivers-Brown moved, where did he move from? Gosh, back East somewhere or- Yeah, and he just made his bones. He just jumped in. Exactly. Some big guys hired him early on, believed in him, but you could never do that now. What I want to show today, we're going to comment on the wine here quickly, but also for those that feel that Napa is creeping out of your price range- And who doesn't? Which is certainly how we all feel. Not me, of course. I wanted to just show another wine from still a family-owned winery up in Washington State from Bob Betts, a master of wine and we have his 2017 cab. But again, before I do that, I just want some general thoughts on the Insignia. To be honest with you, I generally think it is a good wine. I will happily enjoy the wine. It is very well-made and yet I would never spend $285 on it. Absolutely not. Right. I mean, this is the thing is- This is an excellent wine. It is great, but it's become almost formulaic. Imagine if you had 45 favorite restaurants and the chef was the same at all of them. One was Chinese, one was Italian. But this guy- It's like a cruise. Yeah. Exactly. It's a buffet, but it's all from a singular point of view. Full or beyond full physiological ripeness, such and such oak treatment. I mean, surely they make adjustments. These people are smart enough to know if a wine can take 18 months in 100 percent new French oak or 22 months. It's not like everything's precisely the same, but you're getting a very narrow view of what the valley can do, and wiping away even AVA distinctions since we were talking about AVA's. Can you pick out a Rutherford bench cab anymore or an Oakville cab? It's harder than it used to be by a long shot. It's the Andy Warhol tomato soup can. Everything is, grab it off the shelf, and there's another one right behind it. It's all the same now. What are some of the criticisms that people have about this distinction? Like in beer, Roger always complains about the hazy IPAs. There's just so many of them, and they're not getting there the same way. A lot of them taste very similar. So what are some of the characteristics of these wines that are starting to spread and be emerged together? Sure. So first, I just want to preface it with Napa Valley is only so big, and so to an extent, all Napa Valley cabernets are going to have some similarities, right? But the distinguishing features, I think, are a very, very kind of silky, smooth texture, a degree of, I don't want to say overripeness, but a degree of extraction and ripeness in the fruit that I would argue is not, you couldn't describe as kind of fresh. It is just slightly on the overripe side. Yeah, I think in the worst examples of this style, they definitely veer into overripe and everything gets pruney and jammy and just not pleasant, in my opinion, and you still get to pay $300 a bottle for it. You get that kind of dusty, like cocoa powder, kind of chocolatey element, there's a pruney element, and they have no money to spare, so there's plenty of new oak going into these wines. The tannins are pretty homogenous though defining the wine. It's all very well-packaged, and it's kind of a nicely wrapped present, if you will. It's the ripe fruit, it's this kind of really silky texture, it's high alcohol, are probably the three defining features in my mind. And for old school folks like myself, the ripening out of really any varietal character, anytime grapes get overripe, almost regardless of varietal, or variety, they start to just become red wine and harder to distinguish what makes this cabernet, what makes this Pinot. And a major component historically of cabernet Sauvignon is Pyrusine and giving you kind of an herbaceous, sometimes minty, sometimes bay leaf kind of streak running through it. And a real signature of the style from years past always ripened out now, unless you've got somebody with a real point of view. Yeah. And the other thing that's going on as well is that because of the price points that cabernet can demand, these guys are just ripping out any other grape variety. So we're losing the varietal expression of diversity as well. So all right, in your glass is the Bobbats Pair de Famille. And this is on the shelf for $79.99. So we just want to show you very esteemed producer, we've carried his wines for a while, up in the Columbia Valley in Washington State, Pat Holdenland. The Columbia Valley. Do you know that Ohio State trademarked that? Isn't that nice? Yeah, that's not Booze News. Keep it, save it. He doesn't care. They're the amadillo or whatever you're talking about. They're Buckeye Blacords. Okay. I hate Ohio. So this still should be a pretty ripe full-bodied expression of cabernet, but we'd love to hear your thoughts. This seems plusher and fruitier than Insignia to this noob. Same as a noob. But I think it shares some of those same characteristics, really fine integrated tannins. Yeah. Ripe fruit. Especially on the finish, fine tannin, fine oak on the finish. I actually think the tannins are finer on this one. So still ripe fruit, we're in these purple black camp, fine tannin. I think the tannins a little bit dusty, full-bodied wine, fresh acidity. I really like the wine and I would gladly take this price point over the previous. Relative price points. What are we selling this for? $79.99. Not bad. So, this is an average Napa Valley wine. It's a really heavy bottle price-wise. I mean, it felt expensive. To me, as also a noob, the wines seem very similar. Spending less on the other one would be. I mean, you're saving $200. Yeah. I prefer the Betts, actually, personally. I think it has a brighter feel and structure to it than the Insignia. The Insignia, especially at that price point, dear God, falls very flat after the finish. It doesn't linger. You're just left with nearly nothing. And at that price point, I don't want nearly nothing left in my mouth. Daggers, daggers. Just food for thought here. Is Napa Valley, cabernet, are we reaching a point where we're seeing kind of a homogenous expression because the economics demand it? I don't know. I think a definitive answer is warranted through a more comprehensive tasting. If we hit that seller. In the future, we ought to just take a few of these and blind them and see how similar they taste. Yeah. Unfortunately, though, the wines that we're dealing with here, when we're talking about the wines that these consultants are making, are several, several hundred dollars a bottle. Yeah, that's fine. You have to remember. Yeah, that's totally true. Do you think there's a psychological aspect to, I know in beer, when the breweries get purchased by a big conglomerate, there's a, you know, people start to feel like it's, it's not the same anymore. You sold out to the man. Right, you sold out to the man. Do you think there's any kind of psychological aspect? I know obviously the prices are, you know, there's a big price difference. From whose perspective? From the consumer? From the consumer, like, they prefer to give their money to a small family operation as opposed to a large company. Yeah, really good question. So on the whole, looking at the wine industry in general, I would say yes. Yeah. I would say consumers more often than not, want to support the family operation. You know, kind of in your blood, you want to do that and support them. However, when you get to Napa and some of these higher end ones, it's such a status symbol that, well, I think that might enter into some people's mind. The people that are following these wine consultants and chasing these hard-to-get wines. They're looking for trophies. Yeah. Exactly. They're the same guys looking for the allocated bourbons, not realizing that it's the same juice as the one that's a third of the price. Napa, these regions are communities, whereas with breweries, they're just literally everywhere in the country. Same with distilleries now, they're literally all over. You can have one anywhere basically. There's not as much of a community if a bunch of Napa wineries get bought up. There's more of a community loss because it's more centralized. Right. A lot of this big money is vastly changing. Yeah. The community feel of Napa, the town and the tourism industry and so forth. There's a lot of money being put into some different things. We'll leave that. I don't want to be too mean or whatever, but there are deals made where the long-standing winemaker or not technologists are kept on for a number of years to smooth that transition. So it's not like just because there's a sale, it always means everything changes immediately. There can be a fair amount of continuity even when a luxury goods brand buys a winery. I would say under normal circumstances that this would be just another phase in Napa's evolution. I know there will be people bucking against this trend, making decisions to pick earlier and things like that. But with the price of land and the cost that everybody is incurring who is involved in this business, you have to head your bet and this is the difference between the breweries and the wineries. You don't have some guy flying around to all these breweries and brewing everything or telling you how to do it. You must add the hops here or whatever. Everybody is making their own interpretation of a style. Here you've got very focused number of people, 10 people who are making a huge, huge number of wines in the valley. I don't want to be too down on the corporate influence here because let's just play this out. You're Doug Schaeffer's daughter and you don't have an interest in owning the winery, right? Just as many of us don't have an interest in the same industry that our parents worked in. What are you as an owner going to do? You have an opportunity to create generational wealth like no one has had. There's $300 million on the table and you don't have an heir. I don't want to look at these guys like they're making poor decisions, they're making smart decisions. It's just the nature of where we're at and to Chris's point, the cycle of Napa Valley right now. Booze in the News, we're talking vino. Now, we're going to move to something light. Completely different. And fun. And something that we found on Tik-Tok. Where all the best things in the world are found. That's my primary news source. So I actually don't remember when this was posted a couple of months ago, I think. But there's this gal on Tik-Tok that posted a video. Is she making pink sauce? Is she the pink sauce lady? No, different lady? Okay. I actually don't have a Tik-Tok account, but anyway. Oh, RIP Tik-Tok. So it's this girl wearing clothes that are too tight and... Well, now I'm interested. Entirely a matter of opinion. I mean, how do you get so many views? I don't know. Anyway, so she... It's all content driven. So she's pouring some rosé and the thermos and she's adding... Rosé and the thermos. That's what she did. Well, what do you put in your lunchbox every day? She was at a golf course. Yeah, yeah. She was at a golf course. Clearly not golfing. And put this rosé and the thermos with some freshly cut jalapeno. So everyone is now doing this because that's what Gen Z does. And so we're going to try some rosé infused with jalapeno. Do I have to? Yes. And the best part of this are that the pepper is being used. First of all, let Jim introduce them because they are from Jim Raffato of Barrel to Bottle's very own garden. I'm not going to take any credit. It's my wife. She did all the planting. She's the green thumb. She planted all these. I just like, I'm just like, yeah, give me some jalapenos and some serranos and habaneros. Biodynamically grown. I hope you picked on a fruit day. I did. And I got the horn and I filled it with... He self fertilizes his garden every morning. Fill the horn yourself. So we're going to tell you, the honest Barrel to Bottle view of whether this is good. So we're starting with the Le Provençal Cote de Provence Rosé. And we have taken that light Provençal style with the jalapeno. Full disclosure, we've been letting this kind of sit for about an hour. And then we're going to have Elk Cove Vineyards, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, so kind of a fruitier, more textured, more full bodied expression with our... A Pinot Noir Rosé. With our serrano peppers. Ooh, a little spicier. Yeah, spicy. Here we go. Serrano's what I use in my homemade jardinaire. Ah. Nice. How come we haven't had that? Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up, considering none of us have had the opportunity to taste your homemade jardinaire. I'm not really afraid to give anyone something that I've canned, you know? I don't want to give anyone botulism. We're all immune to botulinum toxin, don't worry. I got a big old chunk of jalapeno in mine. Oh my gosh. Too much. Yeah, I mean, it's vegetable. It's jalapeno-y. We should measure these on the Scoville scale. So mine has seeds in it, Jim. Are the seeds hot? They are hot. I don't know if you know this or not, but they are hot as are the other parts. I really enjoy this. Because of course I do. The more I thought about it, the more it kind of seemed like a decent pairing. I don't like the smell at all. The smell is off-putting. The taste is great though. Yeah, I think it tastes nice. But as a rosé skeptic, as you all know I am, I mean, how bad can it... It can only go up from its original state. It smells like pepper. Yeah, it smells like the worst kind of like... Ballpark nachos is what it smells like. It does. It's dead on... Well, it's got the gooey... The ballpark nachos always have those vinegary... Yeah, it's a little bit of a can. And jalapenos. So, they're calling this Spicy Rosé equals Summer 22. Spicy, that's what they came up with, Spicy Rosé. You added jalapenos to rosé, and you're like, the most clever name is Spicy Rosé. Yep. I hate you. That is... Has an impact. I mean, I like it. You think they could just call it Jose? How did they not come up with that? It's a combination of two words. J and Rosé. I'm quite enjoying this Jose. One of the best portmanteaus of 2022. All right. Next up, we're going to try the Elk Cove Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Rosé. Sosé because it's got serrano peppers. I really don't hate it. I really like it. Sammy Sosé, yes. Kaiser Sosé. Kaiser Sosé. The usual suspects went into this one. Do you think this would work in a white wine of any kind, like a fun summery white wine? A Viennese maybe? Oh, got some big ones. I think you put a couple of Pakistani mangoes in a Viennese. You're already got the aroma in there usually. I would say this would be a really interesting addition to a standard sangria recipe. You add a bunch of fruit, maybe a little booze, and in addition to your citrus and your apples or whatever you're putting in, throw a little pepper in. I'm glad we did not remove the seeds. This is much more subdued. Yes. Maybe the wine was a little fuller and burlier to start with, so it's fighting back. Did you not listen to me earlier? Yeah, I know. You said it was Pinot Noir based, but I didn't listen beyond that. Well, the other thing too is I think maybe we're a little off on relative volume of pepper in these two. Way to go, Jim. Okay. Well, you know. You had one job. We could put more in there. I got more chunks. There's a lot of jalapeno in that one. You'll blow some more chunks into that carafe there, Jim. Well, he has two in here. Okay, so there were a total of five quarter-inch chunks of serrano. Anyway, all right, so basically, if you don't want as intense of a pepper flavor, get a fruitier expression of rosé like we did with the Pinot Noir, and it won't be as in your face. Well, even though serrano is a spicier pepper, too, this is just overall more subdued. Yeah, for sure. I actually, I don't know that the- And it still smells like wine. I don't know that you're picking up too much of like this, like there is a slight spice, right, that's added, but the level of spiciness in the pepper, I don't think is as important as the rosé you select. Yeah. I would agree. I approve. I like these. I would definitely down some of these on the porch. Who wants to do a habanero now? I'll do a habanero one. There we go. I hate these. You have green habaneros? That's all I had. I've never seen it. I thought habaneros were like only orange or whatever. They're not ripe yet. They're under ripe. They're just not ripe. They'll turn color. I mean, I hate to admit it, but I do not hate this concept. I mean, I definitely smell the habanero even though I just put two pieces in it just like a minute ago. Oh, it got up the spice big time. Holy cow. Where is this? So Le Provençal Rosé on the Shelf for $13.99, the Elk Cove Pinot Noir Rosé for $14.99. Both awesome, honestly. With the peppers, just depends how much pepperiness you want going on. Good job, Tik-Tok. Keep wearing those leggings. Or nothing. So there you go. The inaugural edition of Booze in the News. I hope you learned something and had some fun while you tasted jalapenos and rosé because that's where we've come to. Until next time, I'm Alicia. I'm Chris. I'm Jonah. I'm Jim. And I'm Pat. Keep tasting. Booze in the News!