Indie Wine podcast

IWP Ep119 Unfiltered Festival 2026 Panel - “An Essential and Elusive Grail: Imagining the Future of California Table Wine. It’s our 3rd Panel from the Unfiltered wine Festival organized by Andrew Sullivan.  Todays panel features Stephanie Bolton PHD from Lodi Wine, John Locke of Birchino, Shaunt Ongoulian from Les Lunes and Populis wines and Ana Carolina Quintela - Sonoma Correspondant for Decante...

IWP Ep118 Brent Harrison - From Brent Wine Co. I sat down with Brent Harrison during a quite morning in Saratoga during the middle of harvest to talk about From Brent wines.  He’s mostly working with fruit from the eastern side of the Santa Cruz mountains, some that he farms himself and some that he sources from top growers of the area.  His project is based on spending time and effort in the vine...

IWP Ep117 Unfiltered Festival 2026 Panel - What makes a great wine: Restraint vs Risk. We have another of the great panels from the Unfiltered festival.  What makes a great wine: Restraint vs Risk.  It's a great and varied panel. Randall Graham from Popelouchum, Angela Osborne from A Tribute to Grace, Brent Mayeaux from Stagiaire, Kimberly Charles from Charles Communication Associates and mode...

IWP Ep116 Unfiltered Festival 2026 Panel - Breaking the Champagne Spell: California's Great Sparkling Wine Experiment. With Jared Brandt - Donkey and Goat, Chris Cottrell - Under The Wire Wines, Michael Cruse - Ultramarine, Cruse Wine Co., Brad Kurtz - Gloria Ferrer. Harvest is extra early this year for many in California due to the unseasonably warm temperatures in January, February and March...

IWP Ep115 Pete Bloomberg - Llewelyn Wine. Last month I sat down with Pete Bloomberg of Llewelyn Wine.  Pete has been making natural wines since 2021 after transitioning from a career in the Beer Industry.  His wines are super interesting and unlike most, he tends to concentrate on white wines and lighter styles of red wine.  Most grapes are sourced from Sonoma or Mendocino county and he’s now farm...

If I Could Talk To My Younger Self - An Unfiltered Conversation with Megan Bell - Margins Wine, Casey Barton - Helia Wine Co. and Alli Badar - Intertidal Wine Co. This is a really special episode today, a recording of an amazing discussion held at Donkey and Goat in July, filled with optimism and camaraderie. Many of you are familiar with Megan Bell and Margins Wine.  Megan started Margins in 2016...

IWP Ep113 Aaron Brown - Arable. I recently sat down for a great conversation with Aaron Brown of Arable.  You might know Aaron from Dos’ Bar or Bardos.  Arable is the great new project he’s been working on with the Future Collective of Sonoma.  You probably heard the trailer on the podcast for the first panel discussions that were released earlier this year.  There are new discussion episodes comi...

Today we have the recording of a panel  on Regenerative Agriculture from the recent WINeFare SF festival run by the Vinguard. Since 2018, The Vinguard has been organizing WINe Fare, a wine tasting focussed on women who make and import natural wine. Before the tasting begins, they have forums on social and environmental issues concerning the wine industry. This year, board member Tiffani Patton of...

IWP Ep111 Jake Des Voignes - Heleje Wine Co. w/ Andrew Sullivan. Andrew Sullivan and I recently traveled to Lodi to meet up with Jake Devoiges of Heleje wine company.  Jake runs Heleje with his wife Shauna where together they make some great low intervention wines. They moved here after succeeding as Chefs in San Francisco at the highest levels. Jake also farms the 2 family vineyards, The Fernow R...

IWP Ep110 Carlos Caruncho - Arquiles Wines. I recently sat down with Carlos Caruncho of Arquiles wines outside his home in Nevada City.  As some of you may know Carlos is closing Arquiles down to move to England as a consultant and potentially make some wine.  He’s lived there before, as well as Cuba where he grew up and the Soviet Union.  Carlos along with a group of like minded producers have be...

I recently connected with Chris McGilvray director of the Documentary “Eden”. Eden follows Mt Eden Winemaker Jeffrey Patterson and his family for over a period of 7 years.   We dive into how Chris found himself shooting a film a couple thousand feet above Silicon Valley, growing up in the heart of the valley, his production and post production process and we fall into a discussion about creativity...

IWP Ep108 Gideon Beinstock - Clos Saron An Unfiltered Wine Festival Conversation with Gideon, Chris Renfro and Matt Wood at Friend of a Friend.   A few weeks ago Chris Renfro of the 280 project and I sat down and talked with Gideon Beinstock of Clos Saron as part of an Unfiltered Wine Festival talk.  Andrew Sullivan from Unfiltered coordinated everything and organized a great evening of allowing G...

IWP Ep107 Noel Diaz - Purity Wine - Catching up Before By The Way  Noel Diaz of Purity wine and I grabbed a little time before the recent By The Way Festival to get some of his thoughts about the current natural wine industry, selling wine, the bright spots and the challenges.  Some of the themes discussed are similar to what we talked about in the recent Andrew Sullivan episode, but from a small...

IWP Ep106 Book Report: Idwal Jones - "Vines in the Sun" and "The Vineyard". And Still The Vine, Her Ancient Ruby Yields. Today we’re discussing the author Idwal Jones, one of my favorite wine writers and one of the more unique ones that California has produced. But, he isn’t really a wine writer, his only wine related books are 1 non fiction-ish book and 1 novel on wine but the...

I recently sat down with Andrew Sullivan of the Unfiltered Wine Festival. We originally connected over the planning of the first Unfiltered Festival last year that he organized.  What really brought us together is the love of California and California wine.  Rooting for the home team, basically.  Today we talk about his history of cooking and wine and food culture appreciation, trying to work with...

IWP Ep104 Bart Hansen - Dane Cellars and The Winemakers Podcast. I recently sat down with Bart Hansen of Dane Cellars and the winemakers podcast.  He gave me a great tour of some of the historical winemaking artifacts near his tasting room in Glen Ellen.  And we had a great conversation in the tank.  Bart has always been so nice and interested in the podcast and The Winemakers Podcast is one of my...

IWP103 - Woodside Special - Today we're discussing Woodside and the Portola Valley of the Santa Cruz Mountains.  I’m joined Nathan Kandler of Thomas Fogarty Winery, Bud and Anne Marie Hoffacker of Portola Hills Vineyard and Redmond Winery and Kat Dykeman and Ron Karpovich of Dome Vineyards both of those vineyards sit just below the Fogarty Winery.  Both projects work closely with Nathan to pro...

IWP Ep102 Amanda McKenna - Yarrow Wine Co and Matt Crutchfield - Matt Crutchfield Wines. I recently sat down with Amanda McKenna of Yarrow Wine Co and Matt Crutchfield of Matt Crutchfield wines.  They are both making incredibly well regarded wines for newer projects.   We discuss a lot of the nuances and challenges faced by self funded winemakers who are starting their own projects.  Like many of...

IWP Ep101 Jack Sporer - Fres.co Wine and Magnolia Wine Services. I recently sat down at Dos Bar in Sonoma to talk with Jack Sporer of Fresh Wine Company aka Fresco and Magnolia Wine Services.  Jack grew up in San Francisco but has longtime family ties to some of the most well known vineyards and farms of the Sonoma Valley.  With Magnolia he’s at the center of the valley's small production wine...

IWP Ep100 A Hidden History of the Chinese in Sonoma Valley Wine - Coral Wang of Maison des Plaisances and Emma Lipp - Valley Bar and Bottle. Coral of Maison De Plaisances and I have been hard at work on this special episode about the Chinese in early California viticulture.  We’re going to be focussed in the Sonoma Valley and focussed around Viniculture but Napa, Fresno, LA and orchard and row cro...

IWP Ep99 Ben Diaz - Volta Wines.  I sat down with Ben Diaz from Volta wines the other day.  We had a great casual conversation about making wines from Spanish varieties in Sonoma Valley.  We talk about how he got started, making lots of Pinot, hunting down the varieties he’s looking for like Palomino and Godello and making 3 year barrel aged Rose. Volta is an exciting new project from Ben, the win...

IWP Ep98 Kevin Ferguson and Mark Golodetz - Gemello Winery and the Judgement of Paris Anniversaries. My guests today are Kevin Ferguson, a writer who grew up in the hills of Mountain View, near where his grandfather Mario ran the Gemello Winery for nearly 50 years.  Today we’re discussing the Judgement of Paris and especially the 25th and the 50th anniversary tastings.  A 1970 Gemello nearly swept...

 IWP Ep97 Tony Coturri - Coturri Winery. I recently sat down and talked with Tony Coturri of Coturri winery.  Tony of course has been making natural wines, and by that he means wines with nothing added, longer than anyone else.  Since 1979 professionally and for 15 years prior on a large scale home level.  We had a wide ranging discussion, about the changes he’s seen in natural wine and the larger...

IWP Ep96 Darek Trowbridge - Old World Winery. I sat down with Darek Trowbridge of Old World Winery recently for a great discussion around family, farming and caring for the soil, making natural wine before the term existed, Physical and mental health and much more.  We sat down at his kitchen table in Fulton and talked for a couple hours with persimmons being turned into Hoshigaki hanging near the...

 IWP Ep95 The Viticultural Pavilion at the 1894 Midwinter Fair. Historical Episode Today we’re going to talk about the Viticultural Palace at the 1894 Midwinter Fair held in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.   Last year I did a series of episodes on the California Wine Association, and this episode could be the prequel to that series. My thesis here is that the fair was the last time in Pre Prohib...