Inside Winemaking - the art and science of growing grapes and crafting wine

This episode is a sponsored podcast from Airocide, which is an air purification system that has uses in production, administration, storage, and tasting room areas within a winery. Paul Frommelt, who has a long history working with wineries representing oak barrels, glass, and even cave construction, is my guest as he is now the supplier for Airocide systems for wine environments. We discuss the t...

This episode features Nicole Hitchcock the winemaker for J Vineyards and Winery in Sonoma's Russian River Valley. Our conversation was an opportunity to pull all the stops on my technical questions about sparkling wine and Nicole was delightfully up to the task. "Bubble velocity" is my new favorite term to casually drop into conversations. Nicole also led me through her Chardonnay and Pinot noir w...

This episode features the features Garrett Buckland in a conversation about strategies to adjust farming winegrapes during a changing climate. Garrett, who has been on the podcast before, is a consulting viticulturist based in Napa, and one of the first people I call with difficult vineyard questions. This podcast was recorded in July, 2020, a month before California suffered catastrophic fires ac...

This episode features a guru of American Pinot Noir. Founding winemaker at Kosta Browne, and now proprietor and winemaker at Cirq and CHEV, Michael Browne is continuing his craft of building hand-made Pinot Noir, and has written a newly published book documenting his life and wines. We sat down in the middle of a cold and windy vineyard to record our conversation the day before the book released....

This episode features the Steven Mirassou, who continues his family's long legacy of making wine in California's Livermore Valley. Our conversation traverses back and forth between Steven's winemaking experience and an exploration of viticulture and wines from Livermore Valley. Livermore is part of California's Central Coast, but at only 2K acres under vine it is a unique AVA nestled in the San Fr...

This episode of the Podcast is a Zoom recording with Quinn Roberts who is the Master Cooper at Tonnellerie O in Benicia, California. The Zoom platform allowed for sharing of photos to support the discussion of oak forests and coopering oak barrels for winemaking so we made the podcast into a Youtube video as well . The conversation traverses from the management of oak trees and forests, the differ...

This episode features the father and son team crafting Cabernet franc and Chenin blanc wines led by long-time Napa Valley baller, John Skupny, who first crushed grapes for their brand, Lang and Reed, in 1993. Reed Skupny joined his father after working for several wineries in France and Napa Valley, and was the driving force to bring Chenin blanc into their small portfolio. I used to work with Ree...

This episode features Ron Alvarado, who is one of the founders of Ficks Hard Seltzer. Our conversation covers Fick's start up based in San Francisco, the early days of low-sugar mixers, the path to learning fermentation with orange juice, flavor stability in cans, the warfare of store shelf placements, and the quest to find and produce real fruit flavors in their seltzers. LINKS AND RESOURCES MENT...

This episode's guest is Dusty Nabor, who is based out of Ventura County in Southern California. Using fruit from Paso Robles, Santa Ynez, and the Santa Rita Hills Dusty has built a set of brands and is often a resource I call when I have questions about making Grenache. In our conversation we cover Dusty's efforts to learn winemaking, how he has used both grapes and bulk wines to build his brands,...

This episode features Dr. Anita Oberholster, Associate Specialist Cooperative Extension in Enology from UCDavis. Anita did her PhD at the Australian Wine Research Institute and earned her degree from Adelaide University. As extension enologist at UCDavis, Anita brings research and developments from the Dept. of Viticulture and Enology to the wine industry and continually interacts with its stakeho...

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what are the most essential operations in a winery during this COVID19 pandemic, which has limited all of our ability to staff the cellar. Given that I work alone in the cellar at Seavey, I asked Tyler Thomas, from Dierberg and Star Lane Vineyards, to synthesize his thinking on this topic from the viewpoint of a medium-sized winemaking operation.  In the end...

This episode is my opportunity to answer questions that have been submitted by listeners. As is my style the answers are a practical approach addressing how I would think about these situations in my own cellar. Thank you to all the people who have emailed their questions and also sent them in from my Instagram page. LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Winemakers that have quarantine win...

This episode features Julien Fayard, who is a consulting winemaker based in Napa. Julien was raised in Provence, trained in Bordeaux, and since moving to California in 2003 has built his own brand, Azur Wines, and is now consulting for an impressive list of clients. We recorded this podcast at Covert Estate, a beautiful winery built under a hillside that Julien constructed with his business partne...

This episode features Patrick Rue, founder of Erosion Wine Co, who I first met when he was part of the Deep Winemaking course in August, 2019. Prior to Patrick's winemaking venture he was the founder and brewer at The Bruery in Orange County. Our conversation covers Patrick's founding and growth of The Bruery, their numerous products, blurring the lines between beer and wine, flavor additive manag...

This episode features Jasper Riddle, proprietor and winemaker for Noisy Water Winery in Ruidoso, New Mexico. I was able to meet Jasper when he was in town for the Unified Symposium trade show in February 2020. After being founded in 2009 Noisy Water is a winery that Jasper took from his parents' early venture and built into a medium-sized winery that now has five tasting rooms in New Mexico. Durin...

This episode features Tim Colla, Winemaker for Saintsbury, in Carneros, Napa. Tim and I had the chance to talk about Chardonnay and Pinot Noir production as told through the history of Saintsbury's presence and experimentation in the Carneros in south Napa Valley. LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Saintsbury , Napa Valley Chappellet , Napa Valley Seavey Vineyard , Napa Valley This podc...

This episode's guest is Adam Casto from Gandona Winery in Napa. We had a great conversation ranging on topics from winemaking philosophy, the Antipodes (I had to google it too), and the new ways Adam would like to gather and organize both vineyard and winemaking observational data with analytical tracking. LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Gandona Winery , Napa Valley Dana Estates , Na...

This episode features Frederick Ammons, Winegrower for Rudd Estate in the Napa Valley. Our conversation covers Frederick's education in Bordeaux, his early jobs in California, his stint at Seavey Vineyard, the building of The Napa Valley Reserve where he made wine for nine years, and his current position at Rudd Wines. We spend the majority of our time discussing philosophical and practical viticu...

This episode features Chris Tynan, who is the winemaker at Cliff Lede Vineyards in Napa. Chris also has his own small brand, Christopher Tynan Wines. Our conversation covers Chris' background, high-end Cabernet production, and a couple of varietals that haven't had much attention to date on the podcast, Sauvignon vert, and Semillon LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Cliff Lede Vineyards...

This episode's guest is Chris Carpenter, who is making wines in Napa for Jackson Family Wines and is overseeing Cabernet and Bordelais varietals grown on several of Napa's mountain AVA's such that he has become known as a mountain winemaker. Our conversation covers the mountain wines being produced from Mount Veeder, Spring Mountain, Howell Mountain, and Diamond Mountain AVA's, but also Cardinale,...

If it were possible to have a riveting conversation about filtering wine, there are very few people I'd consider. Scott labs has such an enigmatic guru. Maria Peterson is a filtration specialist, one who has the uncommon ability to translate technical expertise into practical winery practice. This is a sponsored episode—something I arranged with Scott Labs in order to support the podcast and exten...

Straying from the usual focus on grapes, this episode dips into cider and the opportunities to be explored from fermenting apples. Andrew Byers is the Head Cidermaker at Finnriver Farm in Chimacum, Washington (on the Olympic Penninsula, west of Seattle). I met Andrew while moderating the Creativity in Fermentation panel during the Scott Lab's Ferment event. Even for those who might not have a spec...

This episode features the first Oregon winemaker on the podcast. Anthony King is currently making wine for a number of small brands under as part of King Wine Consulting, he is the general manager at Carlton Winemakers Studio in Carlton, Oregon where he also produces his own brand, Ratio Wines. Anthony and I spent most of our time talking about Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, as he has spent his winema...

This episode features Amanda McCrossin who is a sommelier, wine director, and the creator of @sommvivant. As the Wine Director for Press Restaurant in St Helena, Amanda oversees a tremendous list of Napa Valley wines and serves as an ambassador for the wines on offer and the stories of their producers. On top of Amanda's work at Press she has leveraged her access to the valley's wineries in order...

This episode features Leigh Meyering the proprietor of MyEnologist, a small commercial enological laboratory that she runs as a family business in Napa. Our conversation covers Leigh's winemaking background, the harvest experience in France that seeded the idea for a small, independent enology lab, and the development of the business, which also provides consulting services and a winery supply sho...