00:00 Davidʼs Wine Journey You're listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Back in your feed with something wine. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. In the room. I am Gabriel, I am your Lincoln Wood wine manager. John, I am the wine specialist out of Oakbrook. And I'm David Rosenthal, new director of wine making at L'Ecole No. 41 in Walla Walla, Washington. Walla Walla. David, thank you for joining us today. That's a funny word. Cucamonga, Walla Walla, Seattle. When I was studying with the Cordo Masters, one of the MS's who passed the big exam in, I think it was the 80s or early 90s, he's like, I'll never forget the question I got wrong. It was, where is the wine region, Walla Walla? And the options were California, gotta be Australia, Washington, Hawaii, and New York. And he's like, I put Hawaii. Because I mean, like, it sounds like it could be, right? It does kind of have a Hawaiian vibe. Well, thank you for joining us to talk about your time in Hawaii. You're welcome, yes. The two things I remember about Walla Walla, I believe Bugs Bunny took a wrong turn at Walla Walla at some point. And then growing up, I grew up in Denver, Colorado. We didn't have a major league baseball team growing up. So I was a big St. Louis Cardinals fan. My favorite player was Ozzie Smith. And Ozzie Smith spent some time on the Walla Walla Triple A team when they still had a Triple A team. And those were my two reference points for Walla Walla before I moved to Washington in the mid-90s. You must be very happy there. Yeah, it's good. Okay. You've made a lot of wine in other places. Where? So I grew up in Denver, Colorado. I decided that I wanted to study marine biology because of all the oceans in Colorado. And so I went out to a small liberal arts school in Tacoma, Washington called the University of Puget Sound, studied marine biology, and knew that I was never going to do it professionally. It was not my intention, but it was what I wanted to study. And luckily, a friend of mine ended up getting a tasting room job in Napa Valley. And I was waiting tables that summer after college. And she said, well, you should come down to work to harvest. Like everybody's hiring out here. I had a biology and chemistry background. You could, you know, she said, you could work in a lab at a winery. And I said, wine's made from grapes, right? Just just double checking that I knew nothing about wine. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why a winery would need a chemist or have a wine lab on site. But, you know, a little little Google search in the early days of Google and Robert Mondavi had hired their team for the season, but somebody quit after like two weeks. And so I landed a harvest position with Robert Mondavi. I had an unbelievable experience. Got to have a few glasses of wine with with Robert in his living room, which is a longer story for another time, but just had a phenomenal experience and ended up going back to Washington State and landed a lab job with Chateau Saint-Michel, which was the only winery I had ever heard of in Washington State. And the only reason I even knew about Chateau Saint-Michel is because at Mondavi, every Wednesday they did a brown bag wine in the employee lunchroom. And you got to do sort of wine options, right? What regions it's from, whatever. And whoever got the closest got to take a bottle of wine home. And one of the wines that they showed was the Chateau Saint-Michel Columbia Valley Chardonnay. And that was the only reason I had ever heard of it. So, you know, did wine lab stuff for about five years, and then really decided to sort of take a deep dive into the wine making side of it. And, you know, it was it was a nice journey after that. Going to school adjacent to all of this viticulture, was there conversation or do you think there's still this conversation on that side of Washington about wine? Like, did you go through all school and like unaware that there's, you know, wine right there? Yeah, wine. I did, yes, I did. What are the college kids drinking? Yeah, what are the college kids drinking? I was drinking a lot of Coors Light and a lot of hard liquors. Being from Colorado is sort of, you know, more obligated to stick with the Rocky Mountain tap water. But we drank wine in college, the same friend that sort of suggested even moving out to Napa, you know, we drank a lot of wine, but I never really like put the puzzle pieces together. And I think we were drinking mostly California, you know, so yeah, I was oblivious to it. In his defense, I went to Iowa State, I couldn't tell you about corn, but I do enjoy the occasional bowl of corn flakes. There you go. Now, I realized a stupid question like, you know what, I don't work in soy, but here I am proud of the Midwestern. I was dissecting mollusks and looking at invertebrates and, you know, being in your little college bubble as we do. So, yeah. So when you were at Chateau Saint-Michel, you had the white wine program. Is that because you were dissecting mollusks thinking semi-on? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You know what would really crush right now? I worked in the lab in my early 20s, again, sort of just blissfully having a job and not really thinking about my career. And then a couple people that worked at Saint-Michel had done this program in Australia where you could go down and basically like you pay one fee, they set you up with a job, they set you up with housing, and you work the harvest down there. Okay. And being a marine biologist, I always wanted to go visit the Great Barrier Reef. Australia was very high on my list. So I looked at my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife of 17 years, I was a Saturday. Congratulations. And I said, I came home one day, I said, would you be interested in going to Australia? And she didn't even hesitate. She goes, yeah, let's go. And I was like, oh, I thought that was gonna be- You marry that right there. Yeah, I thought this was gonna be a longer conversation. She's like, no, no, no, let's do it. And so we picked up, we moved to Australia. I worked the harvest down there and we traveled for a couple of months, which was incredible. Came back, ended up doing a harvest for Domain Serene in Oregon. So the winery I worked at in Australia was just, I mean, massive. I mean, it makes St. Michelle look like- Can you name them? It was a winery called Zilzi Wines. And so they were, they have their own brands. They are available in the US., but mostly what they were doing was bulk production and sort of custom crushed for like Lindemans. So, I mean, I tasted hundreds of truckloads of Bin 65 Chardonnay during my internship. I always wanted to know where the great Australian Chardonnay lake is. Yes, it is in Mildura, Australia, triangulated between Adelaide and Melbourne. So you went from the like million-gallon tanks of the, you know, whatever is adjacent to Lindemans to Domain Serene, which... At the time was 20-ish thousand cases of ultra, ultra-premium, highest end of all time Pinot Noir. I mean, it was a fantastic experience. It held that ground for a long time. I don't think it was really until recently that you started seeing ultra-premium, Oregon kind of, you know, break through. They were out in front. And I mean, they've built quite the empire down there. So that was all in 2006, Australia and Oregon. And then I ended up going back to St. Michelle at the end of 2006 and joining the wine making team, slowly working my way up over a few years and then taking over the program in 2014 and running it until about 2022. So, you know, at its peak, we were making about three million cases of white wine spread across the entire state, but we were kicking ass. I mean, we were making great wines and, you know, we were all really proud of the diversity. We got to work with Ernie Lawson. We got to work with the Antonori family, all of these international partners that we were working with. I got to do a harvest at Villa Maria in New Zealand, sort of in the middle there. And it was really fun. Outstanding. Amazing. 7:34 LʼEcole Semillon So, that brings us to today. Are you gonna school us on these wines? I am gonna school you on the school No. 41 wines. I thought it was clever. I get, yeah. Oh, I get it now. Well, you get it. You get it? Greg, you speak a little French? Nope. All right, well, you read that label good. I have been selling wine a while, too. I'm going to let you talk about this wine and the winery, but I'm also resisting the urge to ask you questions about what Washington wine looked like, right, then versus now. There seems to be almost as unapologetic rebirth of Washington viticulture, with the exception of a few steadfast producers like yours truly here that are classic. They're down this steady line of making really traditional wines, whereas I think the industry in Washington has changed from really unctuous big wines to now getting a little crunchy and probably a couple of other things in between. So I will be bugging you about that throughout the next hour or so. No, I think it's a good point. I mean, so after St. Michelle, I consulted for a few years, and then about three months ago, I was asked to join the L'Ecole team, and it's an extremely exciting opportunity. But yeah, I've been making wine in Washington for roughly 25 years, and there's been a lot of changes, right? When I first started in the industry, there was about 120 wineries in Washington, and at our peak, we were a little over 1,100. So a lot of changes. And other than, like, Ceramorlo Cabernet being this steadfast grape, what else do you think has stayed the same over the course of the 20-some odd years? It's a great question. Weather patterns. Weather patterns. Washington has been on this really consistent trajectory over that 20-year period of finding itself, but with an eye towards quality, right? And so finding truly... It took a little bit of time, okay, can Washington even produce ultra-premium grapes, right? Can we be up there with the best of the best? Okay, we've proven that to ourselves. Now, where can we grow the best Cabernet? Where can we grow the best Merlot? Where can we grow the best Riesling and Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc, right? Washington has this amazing ability to be probably the most diverse single growing region in the world, and all of the different wines that we can produce and all the different styles of wine that we can produce, and that has been something that has been very consistent in sort of the mentality that we have in Washington. It's great from a marketing perspective to have that singular variety to sort of plant that flagpole, the Napa Cab, the Oregon Pinot Noir, but that's never been what Washington is about. I don't think it ever will be. I think we have varieties that are unique in their characteristics, but from a winemaking perspective, it is a winemaker's paradise. We get to play with so many different things and have so much fun. We were talking earlier today with another group that when winemakers come to Washington, they tend not to leave because it's such a great place to make wine. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Can I do this? Picking grapes off vines, living in winemaker's paradise. That's all I only did one line in my head. I like it. We'll flush it out a little bit. Sorry. Well, that derailed things. We're smelling your Semillon. Yeah. Is that what that is? L'Ecole has sort of built its name early on with Merlot and Semillon. So just a little bit of background on the winery. Winery was started in 1983 by Gene and Baker Ferguson. And their family history goes back 160 years in the Walla Walla Valley. So they're deeply tied to Walla Walla. And they were a banking family. And sort of as a retirement project, they decided they want to start a winery. And there was this old school house just outside of town that had been originally built by the French-Canadian fur traders. And it was in a little area called French Town, which was the original settlement. And the school house had been abandoned in about 1974. And they bought it in the late 70s, early 80s, refurbished it, turned the basement into the wine cellar where they were making the wines. The main floor was kind of the tasting room. And then they built an apartment on top of the original school house. And they lived there. In 1986, they asked their daughter and son-in-law to join the operation. And their son-in-law, Marty Club, has been running it basically for the last 40 plus years. And so, you know, it's one of the earliest wineries in Washington. It was the third winery in the Walla Walla Valley. It actually helped to get the Walla Walla Valley AVA designated. Pivotal with that, right? You and three other wineries, was it? It was L'Ecole, it was Leonetti and Pepper Bridge were the three. And so, you know, one of the most historic wineries in Washington, and just consistently really high producer. Not necessarily expensive wines. Very, you know, from a price point, some of the more approachable wines. I mean, our Chenin Blanc sells for 18 bucks. Around the country, Semian's, you know, 20-ish. So the wines are outstanding, but they're also, you know, at price points, they're very accessible. With this Semian, it's uncomplicated. I mean, we're sourcing these grapes from vineyards that have moderately warm temperatures, but nice cool nights so that we retain good acidity. It's all handpicked for the most part so that we're being very delicate with the fruit. The wines aged predominantly in neutral oak barrels so that we get some of the texture and the viscosity that we want out of Semian, but we're not really looking for those sort of new oak aromas to sort of cover up the fruit. Is there a little bit of lees or is that kind of that broader palate just coming from the weight of Semian? Yeah, there is. It is lees aged for about six months to develop some of that creamy texture and some of those sort of more complex nuances. And to me, there are not a lot of people that bottle Semian by itself, right? Typically, it's blended with Sauvignon Blanc. There is a touch of Sauvignon Blanc in here just to goose up the aromatics, but we want it to be a Semian dominant wine. To goose berry up the aromatics? To goose berry up the aromatics. That was good. That was good. This is flinty. There is a little flinty to this, I agree. And I think that's a fermentation characteristic. Interesting. This makes me want tinned fish. It also makes me want mollusks. This makes me want to go into marine biology. Right? I'm sorry. It's never too late. It's never too late. Now, this is lovely. I love showing people this wine because, you know, we're seeing more interest in white Bordeaux. And as people start to see what goes into a white Bordeaux, they come back and they say, how do I, I want to understand this blend better. What do you guys have that's going to help me how each of these grapes acts individually and L'Ecole Semillon is always my first grab. Yeah. No, I think, I think Semillon is gaining a little bit of traction in the market, which is really great to see. We do, this is our Columbia Valley Semillon. We also do a single vineyard Semillon from Stillwater Vineyard, which is a little bit further north. It's a little bit cooler, so it's even a little bit more elegant. But to me, I always sort of point to people that say, you know, that want Chardonnay, maybe a little higher acid, a little less oak style Chardonnay. But they're also looking for maybe something that's a little different. And to me, Semillon really fits that bill. The Sauvignon Blanc fan without being so basic. Yeah. As people are coming in saying that about Chardonnay, they still want textured wines. Yeah. This is exactly it, because sometimes you can go Viognier, but they're like, it's too flowery. And this is just it just wins on so many levels. It balances the fruit with like you're saying, a weighty palate, but then also screaming acidity. So like citrus fruit and then screaming acidity and then a broad weight, too. It creates a pretty balanced big guy of a white wine. And yeah, with cheese, with your oily tinned fish. Yeah, I mean, with pasta dishes, with seafood. I mean, this is a pretty, you know, got a broad food target on its back. So we're doing this before lunch again, and now I'm getting hungry. You were dead on at that price point of $18.99, and this is a core Washington wine. It's got to be in all of our stores. This is, yeah, this is always a like textbook, like all of our stores will have a miscellaneous white, domestic white wine section. This is always right in there. Yeah, that's right. It goes in, et cetera. Thanks. You got to lump California, Albarino and like, you know, Paso Robles, Silvan or somewhere. I think we have a Santa Inez Colombard right now. Darn tootin. And those will come and go, but L'Ecole's Simeon lives there. Always lives there. Hey, I'm just happy to be in the consideration set. So, yeah. David did mention earlier that they do make a Shannon as well. Absolutely marvellous. We're not tasting it today, but definitely we're seeking out at a small Shannon addiction to that wine right around the year 2010, maybe 2011. We burned like three cases at my house that summer. Could not get enough of it. Still have not found one that bangs better for the price. Thank you. I'm a huge Shannon fan as well. I mean, you know, having having made the whites at St. Michel for a number of years, I mean, I love high acid, sort of aromatic white wines, and Shannon definitely falls into that category. And I think it's another, you know, it's another distinctive difference for L'Ecole, right? Semi-On, Merlot, Shannon Blanc, like these are wines that not every winery produces. And so it's something we can talk about that's a little bit different and sort of helps our brand stand out a little bit more. That's the perfect transition to the next wine, which is? Dun-dun-dun. The next wine is the French Town Red Wine. French Town Red Wine? What do we got here? Like a Bordeaux blend? What do we got? It's a, well, between the five of us, it's a Kitchen Sink blend. But no, it's kind of, I call it Washington in a Bottle. Are there Fuji apples in there? Hops? A little bit of hops, a little bit of blueberries, a little bit of... Rainier cherries. There it is. It's a guy with a handlebar mustache. Or is that Oregon? That's Oregon. The French Town Red for L'Ecole, I mean, to be honest, I kind of call it our Tuesday night pizza cheeseburger wine. I really do think it represents Washington in a bottle. It's a Merlot-based wine, but it's got Cabernet, Cab Franc, Petite Verdot, Syrah, Malbec, Grenache, Moved. It really is everything that we do well on the red wine side. And it's designed to be a very approachable, easy-going, easy-drinking wine that you don't necessarily have to have the longest conversation about, right? Sometimes we want to have long conversations about wine, and sometimes we just want a glass of wine. And we don't want to have to think about it, but we don't want to talk about it. That's enough about that wine. Exactly. So French Town Red, thank you guys very much. I say there's an interesting identity to it where I absolutely agree, there's these kitchen sink type of wines where it doesn't have to be the most pretentious wine. You don't have to think too much about it, but there is an unmistakable character to this wine. Smelling this, the aromatics are very right bank. That balance of Merlot, Cabernet, and those other varietals really leans itself into a Merlot-dominated Bordeaux style. What do you mean by that? Like fruit, herbal, the herbal quality? Yeah, yeah, all that above. A little bit of that oak presence in there as well. I get that a lot on the nose, but when we tasted this wine earlier, the finish really spoke to the Rhone varieties. I love, one thing I had mentioned in our last podcast when we did Bordeaux is, the wines I like best are the ones that make me feel like I'm drinking three, two or three, four, five wines at once. Here, this is scratching my Bordeaux and my Rhone itch. You're right. It's like loamy and spicy on the finish. But like plush and like. But plush fruit too. And yeah. Two wines in one. Raspberry and blackberry on the nose and then it gets more like easy going and fun on the finish. But if you turn your brain off, it's still generous and just easy to consume and like, yeah, again, generous. I don't think I've ever had this before. It was pretty good. Welcome. How much? This is Greg Wine for sure. Greg Wine. French Town could be found at our stores for $22.99. That's great. That is great. That's a really, you were talking about this briefly about the wines being in that premium state, but not necessarily ultra-premium. Is that by design or is there, there is some of these like really like ultra-premium unicorn Washington producers. How does somebody, how does a Washington producer get to that level? How do they craft that wine, especially in this market? Well, I think with the coal, the quality of the wine certainly could be at a higher price point. I think Marty has made a very and L'Ecole team has made a very conscientious decision about wanting the wine to be accessible and keeping the prices of the wine where they are accessible. And so, you know, our highest end red wine from our Ferguson Estate vineyard is only about 85 bucks, even though it competes and arguably is better, having been rated the best Porto blend in the world twice could probably be sold at $250 a bottle. Yeah, no kidding. But that hasn't been the ethos, that hasn't been the approach to the market and to building relationship with the consumer. And so I think it's one of the things that has allowed L'Ecole to really be successful over time is that, yeah, we like to take price where we can and we have to certainly be cognizant of how much it costs to make the wine. But the goal is not to bleed the consumer. The goal is to engage the consumer and have a conversation about the wines. And you've clearly gotten a world of success and acclaim while maintaining in that world. Absolutely. And I think wine should be, in my opinion, something that people have the option of drinking whenever they want to, right? Not just a special occasion beverage. And in order to do that, they have to be priced accordingly, right? I know none of us in this room can afford to drink a $100 bottle of wine three nights a week, right? So we want wines that can be complex. My brother-in-law is a big music guy. The bands that he really likes the most are the ones when he listens to a song, he hears one thing the first time. But then when he listens to it the second time, he hears other notes. He hears other parts of the song, right? And the third time, and the fourth time, and the fifth time. And I think that's what we want, especially in a wine like French Town. We want you to taste it and go, oh, I get some characteristics of Bordeaux, but it's sort of more like Rhone wines on the finish. And it's got a little bit of spice notes in the back, like all of these things that sort of marry really well together at a price point that we can all afford. Like that's the Holy Trinity right there for me. So that's a good metaphor. There we go. This is the Neutral Milk Hotel wine. Yeah. You know, I wanted to ask, when you were moving from St. Michelle to L'Ecole, that's a pretty big transition when you consider that your focus at St. Michelle was the white wine program, and L'Ecole is predominantly red. I left out a little three-year period in there. So after I left St. Michelle, I started my own consulting company. And so I've been consulting for Washington wineries of large size, small size for the last three years until I joined L'Ecole. And so those clients were predominantly focused on red wine and ultra premium and things like that. So I did get more of that experience under my belt prior to coming to L'Ecole. So that was very valuable. Sure. And going to L'Ecole, which wine were you like most excited to be like, oh, I want to make that probably something out of the Ferguson Vineyard or? Combination of the two. So the Chenin Blanc, again, being a sort of high acid, an acid head as we say, the Chenin has always been a wine I've loved. But Ferguson Vineyard is what sort of sold me on coming to L'Ecole, to be perfectly honest. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. So for the listeners, we have two estate vineyards, one at Seven Hills, which is just southwest of Walla Walla, sits at about 700 feet, and then just higher up on the hillside is Ferguson Vineyard. It sits at about 1,300 to 1,450 feet of elevation. It's this amazing vineyard that sits on the top of the hill. It's super windy. It's up on this big basalt knob where there's no topsoil, and the vines really have to struggle and get their roots into the volcanic rock. And the wines are big and untamed and tannic, and you sort of have to wrangle them like a wild horse or something. And it's just one of those vineyards that you walk into, and the second you step foot into it, you just realize like you're in a different place. And there's an aura up there, and there's something very special going on up there. And so yeah, that was it for me. That kind of sealed the deal. Very cool. We don't always see the Ferguson Vineyard making it to retail for one reason or another, but there is some fruit from the Ferguson Vineyard that makes it way into other bottlings that are not the actual Ferguson. Which one would those be? Probably the best example, and we can taste it right now if we want to, is our Walla Walla Cabernet. So the Walla Walla Cabernet is predominantly a blend of our Seven Hills Vineyard and our Ferguson Vineyard, and then a smattering of smaller vineyards just right around the base of that hillside in the Walla Walla Valley. And again, I think what Walla Walla Cabernet tends to bring is this beautiful opulence and richness. But Marty and the team have always approached the style of L'Ecole to be a little bit more old world as well. I think the Walla Walla Cab strikes this really nice balance of new world sort of opulent fruit with this old world tannin texture and sort of complexity. And even get even a little hint of that sort of green pepper capsicum character in the Cabernet as well. I'm glad you touched on that like that new world and old world. That's another one of those examples why I drink so much Washington wine is I'm getting the new world fruit, the old world structure, a balance of terroir feels from both senses. I'm getting it in the same glass at lower price points and always, always impressed. Also on the Ferguson vineyard and I guess Washington in general, you know, we should probably talk a bit about the basalt there. And if it's all right, I'm going to use the F word, floods. Let's talk. I was wondering if we could get through this without saying Missoula floods. I mean, it's you got to talk about the floods. We got to F around with the floods. If you could just kind of in a nutshell for people that maybe haven't opened a book about Washington or been out there, the floods in the basalt, the lava, all the goods. Absolutely. Washington state and the west coast of the United States sits on the Pacific Rim. But there's also, you know, Yellowstone is basically a giant volcano, right? And so over millions of years, there was tons of volcanic activity in the western US., particularly in the northwest. And there's really thick layers of lava flow that have turned into basalt rock. And about 20,000 ish years ago, there was also a series of floods that came from northern Idaho. There was a big ice dam up there. And behind that ice dam, water started accumulating into what they called the Lake Missoula. And this lake contained more water than all of the rivers and lakes currently on Earth today. And every couple thousand years, that ice dam would break and those waters would come pouring through eastern Washington. The glaciers and the water carved out the Columbia Valley gorge, went down through the Willamette Valley and then out to the ocean. And this series of floods happened over and over and over again. And there's certain places where you can go in eastern Washington, where you can see these layers of mud and dirt, that every one of them is a flood event. And in essence, what all this water did in glaciers and the rocks, it carved away all of the topsoil and left these basically riverbed soils, right? Sand, gravel, big boulders, like in the middle of a field, you have no idea where it came from because the granite is 500 miles away in Montana. And so we have this amazing geological history in Washington, this combination of fire and ice, right? This volcanic activity and then these glacial floods that came through. And so what you're left with is very nutrient deficient soils, which is exactly what we want for grapes, right? When grapes are grown in places where there's lots of nutrients, they grow big lush canopies. Well, you can't make wine out of big lush canopies, right? We want them to focus their energy on the fruit. And so we want to plant grapes in places where they have to struggle just a little bit, because when they do that, they pour more energy into the fruit. Tons of sunlight, which is obviously we need for growing grapes. And then, you know, Eastern Washington is a very arid region, unlike Western Washington, which is very wet. But Eastern Washington sits in the rain shadow. And so we only get about six to eight inches of rain annually in Eastern Washington. Luckily, the Missoula floods also carved out some land for the Columbia River to flow through. So we have this massive water source and we irrigate all of our vineyards using water from the Columbia Valley. So we have this intense level of control over the vines, right? We can dictate how much water they get when they get it. That helps us control canopy size, cluster size, berry size, fruit concentration. And because the vines are in these nutrient deficient soils, they have to struggle and grow really deep roots to find water and to find nutrients, which helps the cold hardiness during the winter. And so really this combination of natural characteristics combined with the level of control we have with the water and the irrigation is like this perfect combination, right? It's the perfect place to grow grapes and we have absolute control of how we do it. Throwing a nice diurnal shift there and you got everything. We got that diurnal shift. It's no diurnal shifts like it does in Washington. Diurns all day. Yes, our diurnal shift is we have very warm days, we have very cool nights. And so that is one of actually the most critical sort of pieces of the puzzle because it helps us, the grapes retain a little bit more natural acidity. And that allows the Washington wines to have a little bit more freshness, a little bit more brightness. Agability is obviously positively impacted during that as well. So it's a great asset. It was a great correlation you were talking about earlier about kind of lending into that diurnal shift. You have all of these hours, what is it something about give or take 16 hours of daylight? It's got to be at least that long. Yeah, it might be a little bit longer. Yeah, roughly 16 hours of daylight. It could be two or three hours more than, say, the other parts of the West Coast. And that helps with this long concentration on the vine. But then also, you were talking about how you have these peaks in heat, especially in the summertime, when it hits about 95 degrees, that's when you're saying the grapes kind of stop and they chill out. So you have all of this great time for these sugars to concentrate, and then this natural point where it stops, and then it gets cool, and it chills out, and you're retaining acid. And again, that just lends itself to this being, this mecca of being able to really get the most out of your grape. Yeah, absolutely. I think because we are further north, we have a slightly shorter growing season, right? It gets warmer a little bit later, it gets cooler a little bit earlier. But because we get more sunlight with our northern latitude, we were able to maximize that ripening period, and the vines have longer during the day to go through photosynthesis and go through their process. As we're getting into harvest and we're trying to hold on to that acidity and we don't want the sugars to get too high, the temperatures fall really quickly in September and especially October. So we are allowed to have longer hang time, develop more flavor, more sort of resolves, tannins and things like that, that I think benefit, you know, the average consumer. And without getting overly technical, it was kind of stated that because of all these factors, vintage variation is very minimal. So consistency is wildly large. But have you noticed harvest times change over the last few years or is it that also maintained fairly consistent? I would say they're creeping forward a little bit. Not drastically, you know, typically you sort of, we all said like, well, we always start harvests like the Tuesday after Labor Day. That was kind of the mantra, right? Which, you know, when compared to California, I mean, they can be starting sparkling production first week of August in some years, right? So there's a difference there. I would say we've sort of sneaked into that Thursday, Friday before Labor Day weekend. And as winemakers, we're all like trying to get that one last weekend off before harvest starts. So we're always like, well, should we pick the Sauvignon Blanc or should we not pick the Sauvignon Blanc? We're like, well, I really don't want to work this weekend. Oh God, the grapes are ready. Like, I guess we gotta do it. It's inching forward. But I also think, you know, Washington, we have 11 million acres in the Columbia Valley and we only have about 45,000 of those acres planted. So we have the ability to adapt as things change. We have cooler places where we haven't even started planting grapes yet, but that will be an asset moving forward. Very cool. 32:17 Washington Cabernet Merlot I think I got a little look from Greg that, hey, we poured this cab, like at least one or two tangents ago. So let's take a look at this. So the Walla Walla Cab is sort of our middle tier of Cabernet. It's 100% cab, again, all from the Walla Walla Valley. And we get this great combination of our two estate vineyards. At Seven Hills, which is a little bit lower on the hill at our Savin project, about 750 feet of elevation tends to give us these ripe, red, opulent, sort of easy-going style wines. And we marry that with wines from Ferguson, which again are big and structured. And they pair very well together. They sort of offset and balance each other out. So what you're left with, I think, is a wine that is easily identifiable as Cabernet. Like I think there is just a little bit of that green herbal characteristic in the wine. But you get this balance of richness and texture and opulence with the good structure and sort of complexity and a little bit of that graphite pencil stuff that we like out of Cabernet as well. It has some wildness. It has this, yeah, like pyrazine, the green pepper and readiness balanced with really, really big fruit and tannins. This is the whole package. We want to produce a wine that you need to take several sips of to sort of fully identify what's going on. Something that almost makes you kind of crinkle your brow, like what is that? I know that flavor. What is that? Oh yeah, that's a little green pepper in there. Oh, that's raspberry. That's chocolate. That's a little bit of pencil shavings for people that smell pencil shavings, right? As we all do in our current modern lives. It seems also like you kept your barrel usage tasteful. For sure. No, I mean- Judicious. Judicious, yeah. I often talk about wines having different tailoring. I sort of think about them in that regard, almost like producing clothes for some reason. I've probably watched too much Project Runway in my life with my wife, but Marty's approach to wine making has always been, you know, pick a little bit earlier than a lot of other people to keep some freshness, to keep some tannin and structure, not just going after super ripe fruit. And then also on the barrel side, just very judicious use of barrel, right? We want to add structure. We want to add a tiny bit of aromatics. But, you know, producing a wine that is oak dominant, it's kind of lazy winemaking, to be honest. I mean, that's just the truth. Barrel-wise, almost all French if not neutral, right? You're not really diving into American oak or anything? We use a tiny bit of American oak in our French town wine, in our Columbia Valley Cabin Merlot. It adds just a little bit of mid-pallet body. I'm talking like of the new oak, which, you know, most of those wines are about 15 to 20% new oak. And of that, about 10 to 15% is American oak. So, I mean, it's a very small amount, but it does add a nice little mid-pallet, you know, body to the wine. Yeah. This is at $42.99 on our shelves. No. This is some heavy-duty juice for $40. Yeah, I agree. All of us winemakers up in Washington, we've gotten a little tired of saying how great of a value we are, because there's a little bit of, I don't know, I don't want to say negative connotation, but the quality of the wine for the price, as compared to a lot of other places, is above and beyond in Washington, where it is most other places. And we feel like we're sort of banging our head against that wall, but it's true. It's just simply true. We feel like we can make some of the best wines in the world at a more affordable price. And theoretically, that should be what every consumer is looking for. Totally. A few years back, and Jim, you may want to bleep out this producer's name, I might use. We had a lunch. Actually, you were there too when we were opening the Oakbrook store. We had lunch with the red wine lead from Prominent Napa Valley Winery. As they were debuting the Prominent Napa Valley Winery program. And the reason why they went into it was they were regularly tasting their Cabernet wines. And the guy actually said, we were consistently getting our ass kicked by Washington State Cabernet at lower price points. And so that's why they went up and went in. Makes sense to... We'll put in Prominent Napa Valley Winery. Oh, yeah. If we can make it very automated and robotic, that'd be great. I guess you don't hear about as much of that as you do. I mean, you hear a lot of foreign investment, a lot of French wineries that are kind of dipping their toes into the Oregon Pool. You know, Italy and France going into California is nothing new. I don't feel like I hear a lot of that happening in Washington. It happens. It happens quietly. Quietly. You know, I mean, Kendall Jackson with their Jet Wine program that's going on in Washington. You know, Ernie Lawson from Germany has come to Washington to make wine. The Antonori family has come from Italy, 27 generations of winemaking to make wine in Washington. You look at the Long Shadows Project, working with John Duvall from Grange and Philippe Melka and some of the most prominent winemakers throughout the world. People come to Washington because, as I said, it's kind of a winemakers' candy land. We can do everything and we can do it extremely well and with really great precision. And that's not the case in a lot of places. And there's room for everybody to kind of, you know, hang out there. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. We've been very fortunate, I think, as a younger wine growing region that we've had all of this international influence and impact come to our doorstep to help us become better at what we do. It's been a huge boom for us. Are we going to drink the Merlot? Should we? Taste the Merlot? We should drink the Merlot. I guess we should. We absolutely have to. That cabernet was really rocking. I think the Merlot is going to rock you equally. Really? I'm glad that we're finishing with the Merlot on the flight. I thought we might do that in the class earlier, because Merlot is such a polarizing- I want to say force to be reckoned with, but it's not a force. There's something so attractive about the Merlot, there's something so different about the Merlot in Washington, that I feel like finishing a flight of Washington wines, you almost get such a big impact on the end when it's now it's time for Merlot. Isn't the label supposed to be blue? No? Right. Blue? Yeah. Rye bottles have green labels and Merlot has blue labels, and that's the rules. I didn't make them up. I think it's a whiskey joke. No, I don't know. It's just, especially with your Washington state mass producers. The Merlot is blue, right? What color is the Merlot? This is red Merlot. The label. Who has a blue label on the Merlot? I don't know. We'll walk out to the Merlot. We don't sell it anymore. Maybe H3. Maybe that's a call back to your Lindemans reference. Greg spent a hard two holiday seasons working the wine floor, so we appreciate that, but they've changed the label since. Okay, that's true. And I worked at a grocery store before that selling wine. It's getting dark in here. There's a lot of shade being thrown. A lot of blue shade. I'd like to say that in Merlot across the world, Bordeaux, it has to be there. Chile feels like it just plays around with it. Washington champions Merlot. There was, like, you guys are on the forefront of it. You know what? A majority of producers have dabbled with it. And many have found great success. I think almost every Washington winery that I can sort of quickly think of makes Merlot. And I think we all as winemakers in Washington understand the value of Merlot and how it's different and what it brings. I think, going back to your previous point, there are a lot of tastings where I will pour Merlot after Cabernet because our Merlot is bigger, bolder and sort of a little bit more intense. And Cabernet can feel a little wimpy sometimes after we taste through the Merlot. You know, Merlot is one of the varieties that L'Ecole has has championed since the very beginning. And I truly believe that as Merlot comes back into fashion, which I am just going to keep saying and forcing to happen, Merlot is hot. It is the new hotness. It is the greatest wine that everyone is drinking. If you are not drinking Merlot, you are not paying attention to what is going on. What are you doing with your life? Yeah, what are you even doing? Why? Why are you even drinking wine? Why get out of bed? Merlot is the new hotness. But Washington Merlot, because of our northern latitude and because of our sort of condensed growing season, we get a little bit more freshness in the wine. We get a little more structure, concentration. We don't make wimpy, red-fruited, flabby Merlot like from some other places that will not be mentioned. And so I think Washington Merlot is truly unique. I believe it will be our flagpole variety at some point along with everything else. The approach has been, again, just balancing that New World fruit with that old world structure and complexity. You guys trying this Merlot? It's like tart cherry candy hits you in the salivary glands. And it's another four. It's so robust and fleshy fruit, but then on the finish, there's this baking spice and vanilla thing, and you made a freaking cherry tart in the Merlot. That's the goal. That's the goal. Four minutes ago, is that what you thought you were pouring in your glass? No. This is great. That's really good. There's a lot of people that come through the aisles and they're just... When I'm working with a guest about their wines, I try to avoid specific questions and I try to draw out from them what they want. And I'll ask them, what do you want to experience in a wine tonight? And they'll throw out textural and flavor descriptors, and I'll take them over and be like, oh, you need Merlot. And no, no, no, no, no, no, I like cab. Like, have you had a Merlot from Washington? Yes. And they- I can't tell you how many people have come into Tasting Room that I've been in, or I know every winemaker in Washington has a story that, Zach, same question. And just, I know you're a cab drinker, please let me pour you Washington Merlot. Close your eyes, pretend like it's not, and then tell me what you think after the end. And then 99% of the time they go, oh my God, this is fantastic. So we also have to talk about the tannic structure of this wine, which is like, it's playful and big, but it's like graceful too. I have a question that kind of parallels on that, and maybe might play in. We talked about the salt in the soil structure, that's the big, and then we've also got some loche as well. When people think about Merlot, you know, it's, there's like a knee-jerk reaction to talk about clay and the necessity and the benefit of clay. And this is where I think it maybe pulls in with what Greg's saying. What are you guys doing with the absence of a clay-dominated soil? What does L'Ecole and maybe the region broader do to get those textures and to keep those beautiful Merlot flavors and aromas? Yeah, so I mean, with the tannin question, we have a lot of tannin and a lot of structure in our Washington wines, but it's not that astringent tannin. It's a very delicate sort of, we call them dusty tannins, right? This fine-grained tannin. And I think of, when I'm tasting a lot of times, I think of tannin as different types of gravel or sand, right? So sometimes you get those really astringent ones. It feels like you've got a mouthful of pebbles, right? But I think of Washington tannins more as that Hawaiian beach sand, right? That really dusty, powdery, sort of fine-grain style of tannin. The fox tail, you know what that is? You know, the grass with the fluffy thing on the top? That's what this tannin is like. It's like crushing that open and it comes floating across. Because it's like this fuzzy coating around something very firm. It's cool. That was beautiful. I don't think anyone has ever used fox tail. It's a good close of loop for me, though, because we ate at Fox Tail on the Lake. Oh, yeah, great. Freaking amazing. Go there again before you go home. Okay, that was good. So, no, I think you've done a very good job of describing the tannins. And then, back to the clay question, as we were discussing earlier, and Eileen Savier, who's our soon-to-be master of wine, put it very distinctly, but, you know, the clay soils in Bordeaux work well with Merlot because Merlot is a larger berry, and it needs the water retention, and clay is very good at water retention. And so, the Merlot and the clay go very well together. In Washington, we don't have that clay, but we have irrigated vineyards. And so, we have access to the water that we need to keep the Merlot berries healthy, keep them from dehydrating. And because we have a nice short growing season, similar to Bordeaux, our Merlot tends to do very well. So, that's how we sort of get around that problem. Beautiful. Something that Eileen mentioned earlier that just keeps bouncing around my head is that Washington Merlot is made for Napa cab lovers. I can't get over that. I think this wine is a great testament to that. With brighter, fresher fruit, but all the same structure. Yeah, without over extraction, without, yeah. And a lightness. I think our natural acidity in the wines keep them fresher and lighter. Not that they don't have the body and the structure and the weight and the texture, but they don't sit heavy, right? And I think that's really important when you're sitting down and you're trying to pair with food or you just want a glass of wine. Sometimes the heaviness of wine can wear people out. And I don't think Washington wines tend to be that way. Gabe, how much is the Merlot? The Merlot was $27.99. No, s***. Yeah, man. Not even a little. Yeah. Steel of the century. Wow. Seriously. Okay. And if you go out there right now, I mean, I have in around 50 domestic Merlots on the shelf, Washington is about 60% of that easily. And they all came to party. There's not a bad Washington Merlot on the shelf right now. Do you guys have an upper tier in the Merlot program? We have an estate Merlot program that comes from our Seven Hills and Ferguson Vineyard. And then we do from time to time, we'll do like a right bank blend for our wine club members. So it's Merlot, Cab Franc, and Merlot makes a few other guest appearances here and there for within our DTC program. So it's a dynamic variety. The analogy that I used earlier today is we all talk about Cabernet being king, and Merlot ends up sort of automatically being the queen. But I think of it more like chess pieces, right? Where yes, Cab is king and the king is very important in chess. But Merlot being the queen, and you think about on a chessboard, the queen is the most dynamic piece. It's the most versatile, it's the most important, it's the most powerful piece on a chessboard. And that's how I think of Washington Merlot. Also, Seurat is the horse. Seurat kind of is the horse, yeah, it is, yeah. Making these odd lefts, yeah. Yeah. I can be down with that. That's a good metaphor, too. I think that was truer than you intended it to be, right? Oh, there's layers happening in there. It was either really profound and well thought, or just like the most perfect random. I mean, sometimes with the rock saraz and things like that, that have this real sort of barnyardy, horsey smell, like it fits right in there. All right. Are you guys playing in that rocks district area at all? We do. We get a little bit of fruit from Yellow Jacket Vineyard, which is in the saraz. We haven't bottled a rocks specific saraz. However, I've actually been spending the last month or so tooling around rocks vineyards and talking to people. And we're going to produce one in 2026 for the first time. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Greg, go find you one of those. Go find a rocks district saraz. You know, just, they're so good. Chase me down the next time I'm on the floor. I try not to. You artfully dodge me out there. Since we're talking stupid metaphors, you brought up music and you brought up tannin texture. I think about, like, guitar distortion, tannins feel the same way. I had this northern Italian red this one time, and it had this absolutely, like, fuzz pedal distortion. And this is, your tannin in the Merlot is like Trey Anastasio, the well-rounded jazzy, yeah. No, it's like... I like that. This is certainly fuzz compared to the Cabernet, where you're getting a little more of this, like, crunchy overdrive type thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tube screamer on the full spectrum here. You can go left and right on that for sure. When people are bashing Merlot, I'll often use some more fun wine analogies. I'll ask them like, just because you don't like pineapple on pizza, does that mean you never eat pizza? Wait, no, it means you never eat pineapple. Just don't... Well, that too. No, that's a very good point. So the other thing is like, okay, well, you turn on the radio and the song sucks, do you just give up on music? No, you try something else, change the station. Merlot is like that. Merlot is like that. Just because there are some crap Merlot is out there, doesn't mean you should give up on the variety. There's also crap Cabernet is out there. There's crap everything out there. It's a lot of crap. Don't give up on stuff just because you don't like crap. Nobody likes crap. That's a good point. I think there's a lot... Wine is such a complicated topic, even for people that are in the industry, right? It's something that I think we're always constantly learning, but for the average consumer, it's a very complicated topic. I think inevitably they bring misconceptions and biases to the conversation. Getting people, as we know, to change their opinions and consider other opinions in our current times is very difficult, and it's an uphill battle, but I think it is worth fighting for sure. Well, it's all based on experience, isn't it? Everything we're talking about is informed by our own experiences, and keeping an open mind and getting out there and tasting are the most important things. For sure. The blends you guys make, Apogee and Paragee, I believe, and I have the quote here. This is going to be a really embarrassing deep cut. Phylogy, Paragee, Apogee, Pedigree, 1971, Bedknobs and Broomsticks. That was one of the spells that Angela Lansbury cast. Oh, you did tell me about this. Yes, yes, yes. No, we don't need to use that at all. I like that though. At least you're bringing some ridiculous stuff. You're leaving him with a question to take back to the winery. Can you ask Marty how much he loves Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and how much Angela Lansbury has influenced his winemaking decisions? Yeah. Gabe, I think you said that you wanted to... 50:37 Travel Wine Philosophy I had one experience going to Washington, and I so fell in love with this idea of flying into Seattle, enjoying that for like five minutes, and then this trek that you make eastward. And I like to plug the idea of travel to wine, because at least domestically, a lot of us think to go to California. Some of us think Oregon. I think people forget about how wonderful Washington is, how beautiful this landscape is. I mean, these rolling hills that are truly endless, and these small town pockets that have turned into wine hubs, and how easy it is to get there. Again, within a half hour of landing and leaving Seattle, you are in Woodinville, and that's where L'Ecole has set up a shop, right? We have a tasting room in Woodinville, as do a lot of wineries. I think Chateau Saint-Michel started in 1972 in Woodinville, and around that, a lot of wineries and tasting rooms have developed. I think there's over a hundred in Woodinville. That's roughly 30 minutes outside Seattle. And then there's another great big pocket of wineries, and wine producers, and vineyards out in Walla Walla. And that's a little bit further. It's about a four and a half hour drive, but you can fly from Seattle in about 35 minutes. To what was it? To Prosser, right? Like a little puddle jumper, and then what's another what? 45 minute drive or something? Yeah, you can fly to Tri-Cities, which is kind of one of them, or you can fly directly to Walla Walla. And Walla Walla to me, it's like the perfect weekend, or sort of long weekend wine destination. I mean, we've got unbelievable dining, this great historic, very cute bucolic downtown. There's about a hundred wineries within the Walla Walla Valley, roughly 20 minute radius. On the Washington side, or sharing that border with Oregon? Both. Yeah, some in Washington, some in Oregon. You're right in the middle of the vineyards, just like you would be in Napa Sonoma for a fraction of the cost of going to those places. Right by the Columbia River, too. Right by the river. A lot of times, the winemakers are still the ones in the tasting rooms in Walla Walla, right? I mean, you get to really have the full experience of what it's like being in wine country for the weekend. And it's not pretentious, it's not showy, it's not flashy, and it's very inviting. I really like that about visiting Washington wineries. Yeah. I mean, one of the things about Walla Walla, because it is so far removed from any other metropolitan area, it's really a tight-knit community. And I think the second you drive into town, you start to feel that, you feel the hospitality, you feel the relationships in the community that everyone in the wine industry has. And it's just a really magical place to come visit. We live in a flat swamp, no doubt. I'm gonna take it in a completely different direction. I think it's what's so interesting about wine. I was watching Ted Lasso episodes on the plane ride from Seattle to Chicago. You know, they have this character, football is life, right? He's plays in Chicago now. Does he? Yeah, the Chicago Fire Second Team, he's on it. Really? Yeah. That's awesome. But it sort of made me think about like how wine is life in a certain regard because A, you can draw all these analogies to it and sort of point to it, wine is like this or it's like that. But I also think that wine encompasses everything that we are as a society and a culture, right? If you think it goes all the way back to the very beginning, it has this great historical context. Wine is living in the bottle. We open it now, it tastes one way. We sit and read an hour from now, two hours from now, five years from now, it's going to be different just like we are. Everything from agriculture and geology and weather patterns that go into these wines all the way through marketing and what the consumer is. Everything that we have as a society and everything that's going on in the world, ends up in that bottle and it's a time capsule in that way. Wine to me, it brings everything together. I think it's one of the few things that still can do that in our modern age. It's just very fascinating to me. Dang. All right. That's some deep stuff right there. That explodes. I'm just going to wipe a single tear. That was beautiful, man. You got me right in the fields. That was great. John liked your metaphor there. He liked your little speech. If you like this podcast as much as John likes that, leave us a review where you get your podcast, Barrel to Bottle The Binny's Podcast. Excellent episode. Thank you for sharing all of this. Thank you guys for having me. This was fantastic. It was beautiful. Back in your feed real soon with something equally as great, I'm sure. I'm going to go contemplate existence now for a while. Until then, I'm Greg. I'm Gabe. I'm John. I'm David. Sometimes the Minor League Baseball team of the Tri-City Dust Devils will be in the Vinieros. That's awesome. The big Minor League Baseball team. Yeah, in Walla Walla, we have a high A team called the Walla Walla Sweets. Oh yeah, the onions. The onions, yeah. Yes, I believe I have that hat. Yes. It's an anthropomorphic onion. He's not into AAA baseball so much as he is into AAA baseball hats. They have the best mascots. Paraphernalia apparel. When I was visiting family in Huntsville, the Rockets. The Rockets and the Trash Pandas. The Trash Pandas. Yeah. The whole family's got trash panda shirts. That's awesome. I was just in Savannah a couple of weeks ago, and obviously they have the Bananas, which is absolutely blown up. But yeah, Minor League Baseball is great. Yeah. Very cool. Maybe that's a bonus episode. Minor League Baseball. The baseball? Minor League Baseball. The baseball team is Jason Widers. And what wines they would be if they were wines. Oh, yeah.