The Wine Saves Lives! Pod

This is the view from our porch in the AirBnB we rented in a little town called Leynes outside of Macon, France. Make sure to turn up the volume to hear the evening song of birds and insects. Both Beth and I love wines from the Gamay grape and thought a couple of days living in and exploring Beaujolais in advance of our club member river cruise would set us mentally straight. This night-time magic...

Steven and Beth talk about the craziness of putting together large (relatively) blends of Cab Franc. Sara Mirassou adds her own twist on things. Great night! Wine Saves Lives! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus...

A soliloquy about the turning of a tide, a vision of the future; making great wine and championing Cab Franc. Wine Saves Lives! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit winesaveslives.substack.com/subs...

Give a listen to me and Beth talking about the past week’s craziness, Livermore Valley’s celebration of TASTE! and how Cab Franc is the future. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit winesaveslives.substack.com/subscribe

It has been a crazy week! We thought we had all of our fruit in on one day, but then added 20% more of the total harvest with 10 tons of Cabernet Franc from a new vineyard in the Valley a day later. As the video above notes, we are close to being dry on our newest Cabernet Franc Blanc just as we are presenting the few cases we squirreled away from last year for a series of TASTE! events that we st...

*The headline above was written to test various hypotheses about how to garner attention from the substack world. While this video does not explicitly address the headline, it does describe our focused commitment to a single grape and reaffirm our desire - as a 7th generation family wine brand - to be circumscribed by the magnificence of Cabernet Franc and to move forward in the wine world with on...

If there is a lifecycle to wine (and there is!), today was that most auspicious of meetings. Sperm meet Egg. Yeast meet Must. An early morning stroll through fog-shrouded vineyards grabbing a sample of grapes to set a baseline for maturation, led to a later-morning moment of creation. I take you through the process of preparing a specific yeast strain and the pitching of that yeast into a fermente...

In which a crushing fuck-up gets un-fucked, and we walk through one of our favorite vineyards to begin an apotheosis of Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Oh, and we talk about selling wine too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit winesaveslives.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit winesaveslives.substack.com/subscribe

Beth and I shared a glass of Champagne at the top of Sachau Vineyard (one of our favorite places) overlooking the Livermore Valley, celebrating crystal-clear skies and the wonderfully inevitable advent of another harvest. It was a great morning. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit winesaveslives.substack.com/subscrib...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit winesaveslives.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit winesaveslives.substack.com/subscribe

Sean Boyd had the fortunate experience, as a young man, to be able to make wine in both hemispheres for some of the finest wineries in the world — in Australia and Miguel Torres in Spain — before founding his own brand, Sightglass Cellars in the Columbia Valley of Washington. While he makes most of the Bordeaux varieties and a number of Rhônes, in his words, Cabernet Franc has become the most impo...

Lori Budd, along with her husband, Mike, is the founder of Draecena Wines in Paso Robles. From winemaking classes and hobbyist winemaking in New Jersey more than 20 years ago to making some of the finest Cab Francs in California and founding #cabfrancday, Lori is one of the most passionate advocates for Cab Franc that I know. Wine Saves Lives! had the pleasure of talking with Lori about the birth...

Leah Jørgensen, owner of the eponymous Cabernet Franc brand in Oregon, is the leading producer of the greatest grape in the state. Leah and I first met when I worked with her more than 20 years ago in Washington, DC calling on accounts. I’ve followed her rise with great interest. She is one of the most thoughtful winemakers I know, and her brand is a testament to perseverance and vision. Leah spen...

Kristy Wenz, a wine educator, marketer, and Cabernet Franc fiend based in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, got her start in cellars serendipitously on a family vacation in Michigan wine country. She ran her own PR firm, principally covering the construction industry, for 20 years before she moved into wine full-time. Wine Saves Lives! had the opportunity to sit down with Kristy to talk about our s...

Wes Hagen is a wine educator, a wine historian, a vineyard manager, a writer of AVA proposals, and a damn good winemaker. He is a Renaissance man in the world of wine, connected inextricably to Santa Barbara County, where his family brand Clos Pepe made some of the finest Pinot Noirs of the 1990s and 2000s. He is also a fan of Cabernet Franc. Below, he gives Wine Saves Lives! he answers the questi...

Kristy Wenz , a wine educator and marketer hailing from the fighting city of Chicago — now ensconced in the beautiful Willamette Valley with her husband and children — spent some time with Wine Saves Lives! to answer the question: “What Does Cabernet Franc Mean? What does Cabernet Franc mean? To me, happiness. I mean, it is, the grape that got me into wine. It is, I shouldn't say it is, Spanish wi...

My friend, Allison Slute of Cab Franc Chronicles , recently joined Wine Saves Lives! to talk about how she became the go-to authority on Cab Franc, especially from the Loire Valley, how she uses social media to communicate her love for the “greatest grape,” and to answer the question What Does Cabernet Franc Mean? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or ge...

David Stannard , a British engineer living in Melbourne, Australia, bought a vacation home in a little French village called Cardan in Bordeaux. The small house had a small vineyard attached to it. What David was told was a hectare of Merlot actually ended up being Cabernet Franc. Over the intervening 10 years, Paradise Rescued became not only a small wine brand making delicious Cabernet Franc, it...

Kirk Wiles, the founder of Paradise Springs Winery in Virginia, left a future in finance to lead his family’s effort to navigate arcane and fusty state rules to create a winery on land that had been in family hands since the 1700s. Cabernet Franc is the the most widely planted grape in Virginia, and the grape plays an important role in Paradise Springs’ portfolio. In the midst of our conversation...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit winesaveslives.substack.com Earlier today, in a cold and silent cellar (except for the clattering of ladders as the rest of our team was topping barrels stacked four high), I went about adding various components to our Rosé of Cabernet Franc to make a wine pleasing to eye, nose, and mouth. Typically, the idea of the color of a wine does...

As harvest approaches, time changes. All the things that we put on our calendars starting in September and extending through November serve only as placeholders. Hosts, Steven and Beth Mirassou, talk about prepping for the upcoming harvest in the midst of bottling 11 different wines that will be released next year. As harvest approaches, time changes. All the things that we put on our calendars st...

Steven & Beth Mirassou talk about the First Annual CabFranc-A-Palooza, the importance of the grape to the future of their brand -- The Steven Kent Winery -- and to the Livermore Valley growing area. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit winesaveslives.substack.com/subscribe

Steven & Beth Mirassou, days before their wedding at the top of Bates Ranch, talking about a site and a lifetime together (Part 1 of 2). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit winesaveslives.substack.com/subscribe