Life on the Land with Allegra Barnes: Learning from the Vine at Rocklands Farm Winery

Class transcript:

Life on the Land with Allegra Barnes: Learning from the Vine at Rocklands Farm Winery.m4a

Welcome, welcome, one and all. Happy Memorial Day weekend. Happy rainy Memorial Day weekend. You know, I hope this convinced some folks to spend their Sunday afternoon inside as opposed to outside on this gray day. I'm irrationally excited. This is a bit of a reunion for us, and I am hugely proud and honestly somewhat professionally jealous that we have a former colleague joining us, one Allegra Barnes. So Allegra was a server at Revelers Hour. Revelers Hour opened very briefly prior to the pandemic shutdown, but Allegra was with us and did her job, you know, amazingly well. And, you know, sadly, we had to let her go just because the restaurant shut down for the better part of two months.

And Allegra pivoted in fine style. She had a background in organic agriculture and Allegra went back to the land and she traced a meaty auric rise from cellar rat to assistant winemaker at Rockland's Farm Winery. Holler at everybody, Allegra. All right. Hey, nice to see you all. Zoe with us as well, as always. Zoe, equally loyal throughout pandemic and, you know, tracing her own meaty auric rise to restaurant. What are we calling restaurants? I would qualify you as what, Zoe? Oh, I don't know. What do you think? You're more clever than I am. Well, I don't know. Aspiring designer. Aspiring designer, yeah. Restaurant. Yeah, no. Hospitality design, indeed. Yeah, well, we're equally proud of you, Zoe. At any rate, so we are going to kind of trace the life of the vine through Allegra's pandemic year at Rockland's Farm Winery in Montgomery County, Maryland.

And we're going to taste through three of her favorite 20-20s, you know, talk about an unlikely event. It's 2020. But as the rest of us were, you know, enduring, you know, this dumpster fire of a year, life on the land continued apace, as it always does. You know, buds broke, you know, flowers pollinated, grapes swelled, wine was made, and three fabulous wines were made for the sake of the offerings that we're tasting today. We equally have three old world archetypes to weigh. These Rockland's Farm wineries, wines against essentially French equivalents of the wines that we're tasting today. So, you know, getting a sense of these grapes, such as they exist in Maryland, at Rockland's, and, you know, such as they exist in their original context in Europe, on the continent.

We're going to start with the two Petit Mansengues. So those are the two wines that I have here. That is the Sun Gold. Both of them are from the same year. They're comparatively named. We've got Sun Gold and the Babylon Gardens. I mean, it's a strong one-two punch there. And then moving into the Chamberson versus Gamay, the Brewery. And then thereafter, closing things out with Merlot Cab Franc blend from Rockland's, dialing that up against Chinon, which is about as classic as Cab Franc gets. Without further ado, we're going to kick things off with a bit of verse. I'm going to share the poem briefly. And then while I read, I'm going to share an image. This is Allegra's selection from Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney. And it was written in 1979, the tail end of Ireland's Troubles.

It is called Harvest Bow. I wasn't familiar with this poem, so I'm not ashamed to say as much, but, you know, normally I share the text. I thought, you know, it would be more compelling for the sake of this exercise to share the image. As you plaited the harvest bow, you implicated the mellowed silence in you in wheat that does not rust, but brightens as it tightens twist by twist into a noble corona, a throwaway love knot of straw. Hands that age round ash plants and cane sticks and lap the spurs of a lifetime of game cocks. Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent until your fingers moved, syn-ambulant. I tell and finger it like braille. Gleaming the unsaid off the palpable.

And if I spy into its golden loops, I see us walk between the railway slopes into an evening of long grass and midges, blue smoke straight up old beds and plows and hedges, an auction notice on an outhouse wall, you with the harvest bow in your lapel, me with a fishing rod already homesick for the big lift of these evenings, as your stick whacking the tips off weeds and bushes beats out thyme and beets. But flushes nothing. That original townland still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand. The end of art is peace could be the motto of the frail device that I had pinned up on our deal dresser, like a drawn snare slipped politely by the spirit of the corn yet furnished by its passage and still warm.

It doesn't get much better than that for a bit of harvest verse from Mr. Seamus. He needs it. He's the great and me. And the harvest bow itself. You see there totem of, autumn and kind of a signpost of gifts of the season. For our sake rendered into wine durable wine. We're gonna kick back very quickly. I always promised that when we have special guests, and then I go through my own 10 to 15 minutes of mansplaining, but I'm gonna try to keep the mansplaining to five to 10 minutes. Speaker 2: This lesson. We're considering grapes. We're considering viticulture. And I didn't realize this, but it is worth noting that grapes are the world's largest crop, largest fruit crop in the form of wine, raisins, and table grapes.

We're talking over 70 million tons annually. The vast majority of those go into over 7 trillion gallons of wine. We've covered this ground many times before, but evidence of winemaking, you know, dates back to 6,500 BC. It should be said, though, that not all grapes belong to the same species. We've spoken often of Vitis vinifera, which is the wine grape, which originated, thought to have originated, in Transylvania. It was Caucasian, but could be native to, you know, kind of Eastern Europe at large. It comes from the larger family. So, the genus Vitis, is one of 11 belonging to a larger family of climbing vines called Vitaceae. That larger family encompasses 600 species, Vitis being the only food-bearing genus thereof. And there are 60 species of Vitis vines.

Many of which proliferated on this side of the Atlantic throughout the New World. The Vikings called North America Vineland because these vines proliferated so widely. And many species here, Ostevelus riparia, Berlandaria, and famously Labrusca, which gives us a lot of the native grape wines that we know and love today. Manischewitz being first and foremost among them. The Europeans, who settled here and made wine from these native grapes quickly realized this wine was not as good as the wine that came from the noble Vitis vinifera grape that they were familiar with. They called it foxy, having an animal den-like aroma. And they were actually redeemed by modern science because there is a chemical constituent in wines from Labrusca in particular, that matches a chemical constituent in the musk glands of various animals, including dogs.

So, you know, the colonists were onto something when they were calling their wines, gamey and foxy. There are thousands of cultivars of Vinifera, the noble wine grape species that we know and love, between 5,000 and 10,000. And then there are French-American hybrids developed post-phylloxera. We talked about phylloxera, that yellow aphid that spread from originally the southern Mississippi Valley region through the ages of English gardeners. They f**k up everything for everybody, the English gardeners. Devastated the vineyards of Europe at the tail end of the 19th century. But many aspiring French viticulturalists developed hybrids between French and American species that then constituted the rootstock that vinifera was grafted onto. And many of those hybrids are cultivated to this day. And we're going to be discussing one of them a little later.

And then lastly, we never really talked muscadine before. Muscadine is another genus of grape. Vitis rotundifolia muscadine. Muscadine, if you're a southerner, the oldest grape vine in America is in Mattau, over 400 years old. Mattau is in the outer banks of North Carolina, it is muscadine. You know, let's pour one out for muscadine. Grapes, the one that we know of as the noble varietal vinifera. This is from the text 'Biology of the Grapevine'. It's a required reading for all of you at home, naturally. They are highly, uh, heterozygous, uh, outcrossers, uh, which is to say hugely genetically, um, mutable, um, from one generation to the next. And the characteristic that make a good cultivar are polygenic in their inheritance. That's to say they're regulated by a bunch of different features.

Um, and, uh, the, uh, kind of, uh, traits that we like in Cabernet Sauvignon, in Riesling, in Chardonnay, in Petit Manseng, in Cap Franc, you name it, um, are controlled by a large number of genes of minor effects. Um, everyone is, uh, you know, gazing over at home. Where the hell is he going with this? Well, I'll give you a quote. In viticulture, um, this is from the very same Biology of the Grapevine, uh, we have superimposed 20th century technology, uh, onto the technology of Rome, a striking illustration of which is the site of a mechanical harvester straddling rows of some ancient cultivar. All of which is to say that the grapes themselves haven't changed all that much in thousands of years. Our work on the land has.

And the work that people like Allegra do on the land to produce better wines, uh, working with these ancient, um, uh, grape cultivars is, uh, what at the end of the day, uh, determines the quality of what goes into our glass. Now, Maryland has been producing wine, fine wine since the 17th century. Thanks a lot, Governor Charles Calvert. He planted 200 acres of vinifera circa 1662. The first bonded winery in Maryland was 1945. Uh, it was only in 2000 that the state legislature, um, made it, um, easier for wineries to sell, um, wine at, uh, their production facility itself, which is something that Rocklands does to this day. The bulk of Rocklands sales are through, um, uh, their, uh, beautiful, uh, winery.

Um, and then talking MoCo, Montgomery County, I grew up there, um, go Barron's, uh, Bethesda Chevy Chase High School, um, Allegra Barnes, equally, uh, Bethesda Chevy Chase High School graduate. Um, in 1980, Montgomery County created an agricultural reserve, uh, preserving 93,000 acres. A third of the county's arable land for agricultural purposes, which I think is, is pretty, uh, remarkable, uh, and worth celebrating. Uh, I'm going to share, uh, one final map here, um, uh, if I can pull it up, uh, just to give you a sense of, um, you know, uh, living in an urban area, uh, nonetheless, how much agriculture there is in and amongst us. So I can see Montgomery County there, um, uh, just kind of, uh, uh, north and west of Washington, D.C.

Uh, all that red, that's where most of us, um, you know, who, uh, occupy space here live, but Allegra is in that light green, um, uh, lower population density, strikingly low, um, by comparison, um, uh, for, uh, the sake of our exercise today. Uh, all of which brings us back to Allegra Barnes. Um, I'm done Allegra, apologies. Um, Allegra, how the hell, um, did you go from our dining room, uh, to assistant winemaker at one, uh, Rockland? Um, well, uh, the story, I guess, starts before Ruggler's Hour, I would say. Um, my first job out of college was, uh, with D.C. government, and that was short-lived, because I did not care for it. And I was like, you said that very politely. Yeah, I didn't care for it. Yep.

Uh, wasn't for me. Um, and I just was looking to do something totally different. So, I moved to Montana to go work on a vegetable farm, uh, which is about as opposite as you can get. Uh, so, I did that for a couple of years. Uh, I did a brief stint in grad school, which also didn't stick. Uh, and, uh, another year of farming at, um, a farm called Moon Valley Farm, which is previously in Baltimore, but now kind of in the Frederick area, um, which, uh, also sells, uh, vegetables to tail up goat and Ruggler's Hour. Um, yeah. Uh, so, in between those seasons of farming, I was doing some, you know, service industry stuff, bartending, waitressing. Uh, I was a barista for a while.

Uh, kind of, like, mixing those two worlds into a career. Um, and, yeah, and I ended up at Ruggler's Hour after Moon Valley, and I was really, like, planning to stick it out in the service industry. I was looking for a job, like a professional service job where I could learn and, like, you know, really do this for real. Uh, and it was short-lived because of COVID. So, you know, uh, it did end, I don't know, May-ish. And then, uh, and then I was really just looking for a job at, like, you know, any winery. Um, but I had, like, a lease, so I couldn't really go that far, and I was, like, you know, I was like, you know, so I ended up responding to Rockland's, um, you know, post, and it seemed great.

Uh, it, I talked to the winemaker there. His name's Michael. Uh, he might be on the call also. Uh, and really, he was, like, look, it's pretty small. It's gonna be me and you for a lot of the time. You basically have to, you know, my job also. Uh, so, you know, you'll learn, you'll learn a lot, but you gotta, you know, do the work. So, so, yeah, I was, like, that sounds, like, exactly what I want. So, I ended up there. I did a harvest season with them, and, um, I don't know, it worked out so well, they asked me to stay. So, here I am. Uh, that doesn't surprise me, Allegra, and I think it's kind of cool.

I feel like, you know, the true arc for you was, um, you know, the agricultural piece, and, you know, you did assorted stints, you know, with local government and in the service industry, but I think you were always called back to the land to some extent. Yeah. Yeah, and called, even in the service industry, called to people who are, like, also called to the land, you know. Um, so, I just want to share, so I shared an image of the farm itself, which is idyllic. I want to give you all a sense of where it is, because, you know, it is this hidden gem. Um, uh, it is along this, you know, little tributary of the Potomac River, um, out by Seneca Rocks, um, uh, which is, um, you know, I, I grew up, you know, walking the canal there, um, and, you know, never thought that anyone would make, you know, wine in the environments, but, you know, this notion of making wine in a relatively urban setting is not novel at all.

Um, you know, Hobrion, um, is, is, you know, one of the most famous, uh, wineries in Bordeaux. If you look at an image of it, it looks like an island of green in a sea of suburban sprawl. Um, you know, Vienna, Austria makes, you know, some amazing, um, you know, wines. So, you know, there's nothing, people love to fetishize, you know, this idyllic, uh, environment, um, you know, undisturbed by, you know, um, kind of, uh, modern, uh, development, but, um, you can make good wine in a lot of different, uh, areas. And, um, you know, there's a lot of great suburban wine, uh, as it, as it were. And I think, you know, Rockland definitely kind of fits that mold. Um, now I want to give so we're going to start with your life on the land, Allegra.

When did you start at Rockland's? Where, where did you pick up the life cycle, uh, of the year? Yeah, I picked up in July. So, um, you know, before Barasian, um, so, you know, a lot of like leaf pulling and trying to, you know, hedge the vines, they were getting out of control. Um, yeah, so. So you, you picked up kind of, you picked up in media ray. So like, uh, you know, this would be like the it'd be like the Pulp Fiction, you know, starting in the middle, uh, kind of narrative structure. Um, uh, we're going to impose a little more than that, but, uh, before we taste our first wine, uh, Allegra, can you kind of give us a sense of, uh, you know, the, the look of the plant itself?

I'm going to share a diagram and then Allegra has all sorts of fabulous, uh, pictures for us, uh, from the winery itself. So, uh, this is, uh, Vitis vinifera. Uh, can you walk us through, you know, you mentioned, uh, you know, canopy management and leaf pulling, um, you know, walk us through, um, you know, the, the biology of the plant itself. Sure. Yeah. So, um, when you get a plant, a grapevine to plant, it looks like a little stick, uh, with the graft union. So they pointed out the graft union in this, uh, image, and it's basically where the rootstock meets the grapevine that you want grapes from. Um, then over the life of the vine, usually like about the third year, it grows, uh, tall enough for you to lay it down on its side, uh, like you see there.

Um, and you either, uh, There's some babies Allegra that, Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah. You can't see the babies cause they're covered, but they are little babies. Um, and they were, that's mostly for, for growing them upright, but also for a frost, uh, frost, excuse me. Um, yeah. So they live like kind of like that for a couple of years. Um, and we do cut them back so that the roots grow, um, also, um, yeah. So that, so that, uh, diagram you had of the vine, it's interesting because that's actually like not really how we prune our vines. So this is, um, you know, two, two arms and you can either basically leave the arms, uh, you know, in perpetuity, you see like old gnarled grapevines that have been there forever.

Um, and they look great, but we have so much disease pressure. We can't do it. So, uh, we have little new canes every year. Um, we lay down, uh, and then the shoots grow off the canes, um, every year. Yeah. And then you can, you might even be able to see a couple little, little grape, grape bunches in there. If you, if you really, uh, try, but they're there really early on. Extreme, extreme closeup. Um, uh, and I think it's, it's kind of fascinating working with, um, you know, this particular species because in the wild, you know, grapevines, they live, they exist. Their evolutionary mechanism is to grow up trees, is to outpace the growth of, you know, their host as it were, and poke their own leaves above that other canopy.

Um, and so they kind of rely on us to impose order, um, uh, in the vineyard, and, you know, Allegra spoke to, um, you know, for the sake of, you know, the image that I posted, um, this being, uh, you know, a different, um, uh, so everything that you do is, uh, you know, uh, uh, trellised, um, uh, with the canes. Um, this is, uh, this is an example of, of, of spur, um, uh, or cordon, uh, trellising, uh, which is, is slightly different. And, you know, there are, you know, hundreds of different ways, uh, to impose order in the vineyard, uh, for the sake of, you know, your, your vines. Um, and, uh, Allegra spoke to, you know, disease pressure being one factor, um, you know, that they consider, uh, when they're working with their vines, uh, that informs, you know, ultimately, um, you know, the, the vineyards.

How they decide to, you know, cut back the growth and work with the canines year after year. We're going to start with the Petit Mansengh. Allegra, what do you like about working with this particular grape? I love working with this particular grape. I mean, if you look at a cluster of it, it doesn't look like very exciting, to be honest, because it's pretty small berries. They're very loose. They're just kind of like flopping around on the, you know, the little grape, you know, stems. But it's perfect for this area because it's so humid. Yeah, it really looks like that when it's like fully ripe. They're like very loose. And it's, it lets air flow between the grapes. The skins are pretty thick, so they don't tend to break if they get like, you know, minor insect damage or like too much rain or something.

So it's perfect for this area. They, they're great. I mean, the drawback is like, you think they're tiny berries with thick skins. They don't really produce that much juice. So you do need a lot to kind of make like volume. So there is that. But I think like in this area, it's totally worth it if you can manage something a little easier. And, you know, if it comes in to the winery in a, in a better state, you know, some things it's hard, but if, if it rains, like the day before you harvest, it's going to be pretty like iffy when you get it into the, to winery. And what are the challenges that, you know, you face, you know, in your corner of Maryland for the sake of, you know, bringing in the kind of fruit that you want to for, you know, amazing wine?

I mean, let me count the ways. Well, there's humidity, so there's all kinds of fungal, fungal issues that can, you know, plague the vine. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah. So it's like that's a simple airport style, right? I mean, you can choose to, you know, collect the plant. But it's like, okay, let me think about, all I have to do is wait for a little bit. Yeah, we know that when, like, we're working with said vine growers and your capacity, е Потом виðні energïzðnyt It's like, they need to be good. Yeah. Yeah. I always assumed I'm like the growing season, it's so hot; like we must use hot weather varieties. But really, the biggest issue around here is the winter cold, so we actually need varieties that will stand up to our like harsh winter in addition to the harsh summer.

Yeah, it is; it is counterintuitive and I think people underestimate the extent to which grapes need a long ripening window, so like spikes in temperature are kind of less helpful for you know forwarding ripening than a longer period of you know consistent warm weather would be. So, you brought this petite mans thing in and where did you source the fruit and why did you decide to make orange wine out of it? Yeah, so the fruit is kind of an interesting story; it's from a vineyard in Virginia. We do have our own vineyard, obviously I've got a vineyard in Virginia and I've got a vineyard in Virginia. I did do vineyard work but um we we got a frost last year May 9th so we lost almost all of our fruit um and we end up buying fruit a lot of the time anyway but we Ended up buying like all the fruit last year, basically.

Um, so anyway, so this fruit is from another vineyard, uh, so it's a vineyard in Virginia, um, run by uh, oh my gosh, I'm forgetting his name, oh you wrote it down in Hillsborough, Virginia, yep, um, and he uh, he has a vineyard there, and he has a neighbor who has a B&B, who wanted a scenic vineyard, and she was like, 'Can you just plant me a vineyard and manage it? And I'll, you know, pay you for that?' And he's like, 'Sure, I don't care.' But he didn't need the fruit, um, and would you believe he planted Petit Mansang because it's easy to manage, uh, so he uh, was trying to find someone to kind of buy this Petit Mansang.

Off of him, um, and we were like, yeah, we totally will, um, and it's kind of a long-term, you know, no one is gonna want the fruit ever, so we kind of have it until someone sells, so um, yeah, so we we bought it and we decided we usually make it like one orange wine, and last year we used Viognier, um, and I think it was good, I wasn't there for it, um, but I think we with Petit Mansang, and I think we're gonna stick with it because it holds acids so well, uh, in this climate that's kind of a struggle sometimes, um, and the thing about orange wine is when it wine sits on its skins, the potassium in the skins binds the acid and the juice and it falls out of solution So, it's like just you can see the acid going down and down and down and down when you're testing it, yeah, which is a really good thing with Petit Manseng because overly acidic um and so you know um it can be kind of austere if if it doesn't have that skin contact. So tasting at home uh what do you think about this one I love this wine I was floored by it um I really like how there's an unripe pineapple but it also goes into like that yellow apple sort of place and there's like a lemon verbena lavender aromatic to it which I really enjoy the acidity is beautiful I love that grip and I love the weight of the wine I really enjoy. How like, just crisp and clean it is, it's just gorgeous, yeah. It's really successful, like I think it's, you know, a wine that you know, I am excited to serve here.

Um, I think it's just a great use of this varietal in this place, um, and you know, it has, you know, some you know tannic grip, um, but it retains some of that freshness of that, you know, a little bit of tropical fruit that you always get at Petit Mansang, and the balance is lovely, you know. It's kind of, you know, solidly medium-bodied, it's not weighed down, um, which can be the case with some, some orange wine, so, um, yeah, it's really exciting to me, um, especially given That first time you made it, and we're tasting it against a really unlikely wine, not unlikely just kind of like, uh, bougie um alternative so um we're tasting against Petit Manseng from um Didier Dagueneau so Dagueneau is from uh Puy-Fumé so he's from the Loire Valley he's from the upper reaches of the just uh upstream from Orleans um uh just across the river from Sancerre and then uh he wanted to make dessert wine uh and uh this corner of France uh close to um the Pyrenees which is uh down in the southwest uh happens to work with Petit Manseng it's where the grape comes from and uh those qualities that Allegra identified that ability. To retain acidity as it ripens makes Um, uh Petit Mansang a really great fit for orange wine. Daganel is this hugely lauded um figure, um you know the wine world, um you know both for natural wine nerds and people that just you know love um, you know more conventionally delicious wines, uh this is his dry Petit Mansang, uh from uh 2015 I tried this for the first time in New York, um Didier.

This is this is Didier, he started his career uh racing motorcycles, um he looks like he started his career racing motorcycles or maybe like maybe he looks like he started his career like you know selling soap at a farmer's market, um in a helicopter accident. He flew helicopters and loved to do that in the Southwest, um, in 2008. But his son Louis, uh, Benjamin continues to make this wine. This is a hugely lauded, hugely expensive wine. I don't dislike it, um, but, you know, it's kind of like saline in a way that I didn't appreciate and, you know, decidedly oxidized. Allegra, what do you think of the, uh, gardens called the Gardens of Babylon? Because the vineyard evoked the hanging gardens of Babylon to Didier, um, and So, Allegra, for you, can you see a through line for the sake of your wine and the Dagenau?

I think so, yeah. I mean, I think actually I don't know what it's due to in this wine, but I think there's like a slight bitterness in both of them that I do kind of appreciate. I know you said Dagenau is like sold on it, but I think it would be good with food especially, better with food. I don't mind this, to be honest. Yeah, but you say you don't mind it, and it should be said that, you know, even wholesale, this is like this $80 bar. Yeah, I don't know that I would pay that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, I don't want to get trolled by Dagenau heads, but, you know, I have to say, even prima facie, like at $20 each, I enjoy the hot take.

I enjoy the Rockland's take on Petit Man Saint-Germain, because it doesn't, you know, encapsulate what I love about this grape. Petit Man Saint. Petit Man Saint is this, you know, kind of flowery, you know, tropical, fun, sprightly little animal. And, you know, I think Dagenau is taking it to this, like, you know, more serious place. And it's a food wine, and it's cerebral wine, and I think that's great, but it's not what I want out of Petit Man Saint. Zoe, how do you feel about that hot take? I'm going to get even hotter with it. I mean, it's like very, very, very well documented that Louis Benjamin and his father Didier did not get along after. D.A. Passed, he took over the state as head winemaker, and, like, has just been getting a lot of flack ever since.

I will say that this wine, like, sings, and I enjoy it much more than any of the pure songs that I've had since that 2007 vintage. But I will say that it, like, feels austere, and it feels loud. And, like, maybe it's, like, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but, like, just like father and son, they want to be 11 out of 10. And he, like, took Petit Man Saint to, like, a place that I wouldn't have guessed for it to go. But it is delightful with, like, that acidity. I do think that Allegra is right, that it needs to be with food. It does have that, like, quince and, like, ginger snap to it and bitterness and spice, which I like.

But that weight of Petit Manseng isn't there, and neither is, like, any of that Tropicalia. Yeah, it feels a little joyless to me. You know, and Petit Manseng, you know, is a joyful grape, you know. And, you know, I feel like. You know, Allegrè, you guys have, you know, leaned into that in a really, you know, effective way. Which brings us to another joyful wine, Chamberton. But before, this is coming to traction, before we hit on that. So do people have questions for one Allegrä Barnes? Absolutely. How long has the Petit Manseng held on the skins? I know it was in barrels for eight months. But was it on the skins for that entire time? No. So it was probably on skins. Let me look. Let me look at my notes here.

Three weeks, I think. So we, you know, basically made it pretty similar to how we make a red wine. You know, we de-stemmed it, put it in a fermenter, and then waited for it to ferment dry. And then pressed it. And then it basically just went to barrel to, like, hang out for the winter. I will say that, like, kind of a behind-the-scenes pro tip for everyone is that if you think about it. So, like, we print the wine. We have to send the information about the labels to the label printer, you know, way earlier than, like, when we're bottling the wine. So I would say this wine actually got probably six months, maybe, in oak. Allegra, the bottle says eight months. I was just saying eight months in oak.

I know. I hope my boss is not on this call and is like, 'ah, stop.' But it's like, you think about it, it's like, I can't print the label while we're bottling. You know what I mean? So it's like, we couldn't get the bottle truck at the right time. And, like, it's just like, you're kind of trying to predict what it's about. And, like, same with the alcohol content. I mean, you obviously have to get within, I think, what, five? And so it's based on, you know, what the, like, the alcohol, potential alcohol was. Because we need to say ahead of time how much alcohol is. And, you know, so it did get about six months, I would say, probably, you know.

And then another month before bottling where it was blended in a tank, you know, just kind of melding. Wait, what was the original question? I think you answered it. How long on the skin was the original question. Oh, how long on the skin. Yeah, you lost your train of thought to the answer. That happens to me all the time, Allegra. Zoe, what else do you have? Have cicadas been an issue right now in the vineyard? I'll tell you. So a few weeks ago, I started giving the Saturday tours at the winery. And I have yet to have a tour not ask me about the cicadas. Oh, wow. Yeah, everyone wants to know. We haven't seen any real damage yet. We aren't really doing anything about it because it's just so expensive to do anything about it.

You either have to, like, buy really expensive netting to put up for, like, three weeks. Or you have to, like, spray something really heavy that neither me nor my boss wants to spray. So we're just kind of letting it ride. We didn't have any new babies this year. So we're hoping that they don't care as much for the older, you know, established vines. But, you know, it is what it is. Well, that's like a perfect segue or an amazing segue, one might say, if they're playing Mingo. So just to ask: How are you not using so much sulfur in Virginia and to use zero in some of your bottlings is just incredible. Could you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, sure.

I mean, I think, you know, it's just a stylistic choice and, like, a risk management choice. Like, you know, sulfur is a preservative. And the less you put in, the less, you know, control you have over, you know, what the wine does. I think. Like, we have my boss and, you know, the ownership of the winery is, like, really trusting and, you know, very much like, well, we'll see how it goes. You know, and we can always, like, try one one year and then try more in the next year if it works. We sell all the wine, almost all the wine, through the tasting room, like, within the next year. So it's not like it's going to sit in bottle going bad for years and years and years. And, you know.

We basically just don't want to add that much sulfur, so we don't; is the moral of the story. You add some. You're not operating sans sulfure. Yeah, I mean, a couple of them are. The farmhouse is no sulfur. Yeah, it has nothing in it besides Chambour. That's gangster. That's a great segue. So Chamberson is a hybrid. So it is non-Binifera grape. Recently developed. So it's 1963. French viticulturist, Ioannis Sabe, working with a bunch of what are called Sable hybrids, which are hybrids developed in the wake of the Phloxera blight. Allegra, what is advantageous about working with American hybrids as opposed to Binifera grapes? So much. We love them. Chamberson is an interesting one because people don't really, know what the exact parentage is, but basically the deal with a hybrid is it just means two species crossed.

So like Vitis vinifera is a genus in species. So you get like a Vitis vinifera and a Vitis riparia, and you cross. Costabellus, insert. Yeah, yeah. Something, anything. It also doesn't have to be crossed with a Vitis vinifera. Plenty of hybrids are crossed without one or crossed with a hybrid. But yeah. Chamberson is taking. Taking off in the area, especially like Pennsylvania does really well too. Because the real, the real advantage to hybrids is they have a lot of disease resistance built in. So you basically have to manage them less than the vineyard and manage is like vineyard speak for spraying mostly. You basically have to use less chemicals on them. They're actually intolerant to some chemicals. So, so yeah, I mean, it's really.

It's just like, we don't want to spray as much in the vineyard and it's, you know, I think hybrids get a bad rap because plenty they're, they're new and plenty of people are still figuring out how to make good wine out of them. You're definitely, you can find bad hybrid wine for sure. A hundred percent. But I think if you don't make the effort to try and make this work, you're not serious about like the future of like, like the, like environment. The. The environment going forward. It's really what's happening next. Yeah, because, you know, it's, it's important to think about, you know, this Vinifera is an alien. It doesn't belong here. It didn't evolve here. And as such, you know, it didn't evolve resistance to all the blights that, you know, grapes are prone to in this corner of the world.

Whereas all the other parents or a lot of the other parents of French American hybrids did evolve here. And as such, you know, downy mildew, powdery mildew, phylloxera - they are natural. Naturally resistant to now. This is a wine made through the use of a carbonic maceration. And of the pictures you sent me Allegra, this is my favorite. Tell me what's happening here. Oh, that's a, I, I, that's a press. That's a dog operating the press or is he operating a CO2 canister? The dog is mostly interested in playing fetch. Okay. There is like plenty of hard work, but also a little bit of standing around involved in winemaking. And so you do have some opportunity to play fetch and he knows. But anyway, so yeah, that's the press and a CO2 tank.

That's just kind of pumping CO2 over the press pan. Just so the wine isn't like, as it goes to the air, you know, perfect, but it really cuts down on the oxygen exposure of the juice. And carbonic maceration. So carbonic maceration refers to a process of working with whole bunches and it is intra grape fermentation. So it essentially refers to an enzymatic process whereby actually acid is converted. A portion of acid in the grape is converted into a small amount of alcohol up to one to 2%. And then after that, the skins burst and normal fermentation resumes. So carbonic maceration requires an anaerobic environment. 86% alcohol. So, you know, carbon dioxide, the tank very often introduced in a tank for a better, more efficient carbonic maceration.

And then whole intact berries necessary as well. Now, this is what a grape looks like after it goes through that process. And you can notice, you know, the pigmentation on the grape is lighter. And something else that happens is the tannins are softer. So you get, you know, a juicier, fresher, fresher kind of wine out of the grape. So I think it's really important to keep that in mind when you're making a carbonic maceration. So a carbonic maceration for a Beaujolais. We have a brewery for the sake of our comparative tasting here from Nicholas Chamourin, is kind of the classic representation of a carbonic ferment in the Old World. So we have Rocklands' French-American hybrid Chamerson carbonic ferment against a brewery, a Gamay hybrid from one of the most fashionable natural wine makers in the world.

And, you know, tell me what you think of them one next to the other. Allegra, why did you opt for carbonic vermin for the sake of this particular offering? It's really fun to do. So we like doing it. I think that's step one. I think it's great for Chamberson because it's not an overly tannic grape to begin with. And, like, it has so many, it's so versatile in what it can do. And the berries are like, if you're like, see a bunch of Chamberson, the berries are huge and they're very like sturdy. It's crazy if you put, so like what happens is we basically just like dunk the berries into a tank, hoping few of them break and just cover it, pump it with CO2 and let it sit there for two weeks.

And if you come back, it's crazy. You can take a grape out of the tank and eat it. And it does like a pop rocks in your mouth. It's wild. It's like done a little fermentation. It's probably like less than a percent of alcohol or something in there, but it's like you can definitely taste something happened. So yeah, it's super fun. And I think carbonic maceration itself, especially if, you know, you're dealing with a ferment that, you know, is made entirely with whole clusters has kind of a signature for the sake of its taste. So I think it's fun to try these two wines against each other because, you know, you talked about. You talked about that like vibrant pop rock, like, you know, electricity verb that these ones have.

And these, these both, these both have it. So how would you compare these two? Chambourcin versus Gamay from Nicolas Chameron and Brewery. Brewery should be said is one of 10 Beaujolais crews. And it's really the classic Parisian bistro wine at the end of the day. And I like to think that, you know, we'll, you know, start a Chambourcin, you know, trend. So, you know, carbonic trends around Chamberson will become the classic. You know, Washington, D.C. Bistro, Bistro wine. I love it. I think that this tastes like Maryland Nouveau, if you will. It's if I were to blind taste it again, some like Beaujolais Nouveau, I'd really want to be able to do so to be able to, like, really categorize exactly how it's different from Gamay in the same process. I think that that like bright, juicy cherry Bing plus like the cinnamon bubble gum and like that soft, plummy characteristic. Is paired against that, like fluffy granite minerality that I just absolutely adore. It's gorgeous. On point is always with the tasty notes. Allegra, what do you think of The Brewery? I like it a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I like this a lot. I think it has like a little bit more.

I don't know a little bit more about the plum in you're talking about than the farmhouse that we have. Um, I think ours leans a little more cherry and definitely like I think you know, say what you want about it, but I think you definitely taste the bubble gummy in ours that you, yeah, not not you know, sometimes you know, wines go to that bubble gummy place and they go to this like compromised like banana runt place, and yeah, we're not going there; this is more of like uh, like a fun Hawaiian punch place that I want to go to right, right, yeah. I mean, I like them both a lot. I think like this farmhouse I really wanted to include in this tasting because um, honestly it's a hard sell at the winery, really, yeah, because uh, people just don't drink a lot of light reds and it has all that dissolved co2 um, that people think it's gone bad or something because it's like a little spritzy  and you know they just they don't know what they're expecting; they don't have like an expectation, they are usually like thinking, 'this is like that's not what I think of with a red wine'; um, so yeah, I mean I think it's like definitely a love it or hate it type of thing and I figure wine school. audience would be down for either of those really yeah I think it's one of those wines that you just kind of have to pour to people and you know just try this drink this you know especially if we're dealing if we're dealing with like a 90 degree day like who wants to drink this who wants to 

drink California cat you know I give me carbonic chamber sun all day more more more hot takes um and I I love the I love the brewery um you know and and it is I think it's a more serious wine for better or worse you know um uh you know it has this like you know bloody you know fruits of the forest you know herbaceousness you know that hybrids just don't Do but there's just something like really joyful about the Chamber Sun to me, and it doesn't feel compromised, you know. It doesn't, it doesn't feel dumbed down; it still tastes like wine, um, and very often, you know, wine from hybrid grapes it tastes like something else, you know. Sometimes it can be fun, but it's successful, and this is like really, you know, slamable, you know, very drinkable.

Yeah, yeah, it's just it's just yeah, it does what wine should; it brings joy, um, and yeah, I think it's I think it's super successful, um. Have you have you made this wine in previous vintages, um? They I mean, I haven't because I was just you know, but they make it every year yeah and it's it's actually interesting because they just changed the bottle um so the bottle you can see there is clear um it was previously in like a um you know a green red wine bottle and people I think were not expecting it to be as light when it was poured out you're which is a bottle to make it more of the vibe of you know it's fruity it's fun it's early drinking you know yeah it felt like false exactly yeah yeah so they have made it every year and made different um adjustments to it um I will say they make my boss made it the previous year and this year um and we did kind of adjust how we were making it the carbonic stayed the same the two weeks you know in tank um but it with the whole clusters but he ended up doing some pump overs after that the previous year and it was a little darker than I that he wanted so this year we didn't do it the same way we did it the same way we didn't do any and we ended up we dug it out of the tank we pressed a bunch of it and he was like oh no it's too light now so we actually ended up uh macerating the rest of it for like a week or two more and then and then I I'm the the rare consumer that never gets worked up about color on wine you know if it tastes good tastes good I agree yeah let's ask what it looks like um uh but people Get worked up about it, but for me, this I it would be a shame to pump this over you know that's just kind of like that you know that feels like you know it's it's kind of like the you know the diagonal petite man saying it deprives you know it's like let olive be olive you know this this wants to be you know this jubilant joyful thing, carbonic I don't think we'll do it again.

Yeah, uh so do you have any questions uh from the commentary about uh the second batch of wines um not necessarily about the second batch of wines but more in general so maybe let's go to the third and then circle that sounds delightful though so a third third set. of wines here and uh uh is um you know a little more um you know conventional for the sake of uh production method um and we have Cabernet Franc um Cabernet Franc is one of my favorite grapes locally um because uh it's a it's an early ripener uh compared to the other Bordeaux varietals um uh particularly Cabernet Sauvignon um it is uh cold hardy which as Allegra said is very important um not quite as cold hardy as Riesling but nothing is cold hardy like Riesling but much more cold hardy than something like you know Chardonnay or uh and um uh it's pretty disease resistant in its own way um uh uh and you know it makes these wines Have this like, uh, seductive herbaceousness that I I really enjoy. I'll be paired with Chinon, which is like, uh, Loire Valley's classic um one of I think the classic um single varietal uh representations of uh Cabernet Franc um for your wine, which uh is actually 52 Merlot and 48 uh Cab Franc but uh Cab Franc is the driver here, the Merlot is you know it's not empty space but it's it's kind of like the blank canvas upon which uh Cab Franc paints.

But um this is not made with carbonic uh fermentation. Allegra I'm gonna embarrass you and show the action shot uh what are you doing uh here uh yeah so that is what happens when you run out of red fermenters during harvest season and you end up we we didn't intend to do this in a tank but uh we you know ran out of plastic containers so uh we are just like kind of shoveling it into the tank um those are de-stemmed Cab Franc berries um they're you know they're just gonna sit there and macerate until they uh turn into wine and then we'll put them in the press yeah yeah and it should be said for the sake of the wine that we just drank um you would not be stemmed so uh you know you need those intact bunches uh to kick off that intra berry ferment uh whereas you know if you're de-stemming you get a wine that you know has a more conventional Non-carbonic fermentation and flavor profile, and these are both wines that were totally de-stemmed, uh, how did you end up with this particular blend? 52 Merlot and 48 um, uh, Cab Franc, and, you know what do you like, uh, about that marriage? Allegra, yeah, well, um, when we go to make a Cab Franc, we have been working with, um, this Vineyard that this Cab Franc came from for years, and, um, we just like love the Cab Franc that they grow, um, I don't really know if we've totally matched the terroir of you know Maryland and all its you know individual parcels yet, but, like something about this Cab Franc, um, we just have really grown to love uh, so we Kind of, you know, became very popular on social media, um, and you know we wanted to make a little more, so we got another lot of Cab Franc as well to blend, um, with it, and we pressed them, they're in barrel, and we were just putting them together and it was not working something about it was like overpowering the Cab Franc that we liked really loved, um, and you know it just it wasn't going to work. It's Allègra, take people through that process so you know I think there was a bunch of BA stock, most people have this, you know, kind of, you know, somewhat, I don't know, I don't. I kind of call it naive, but, you know, this romantic notion that, you know, you know, in Burgundy, you know, you have a vineyard, you harvest everything, you throw it in a vat, voila, wine is born.

But, you know, the real art of making wine, particularly in a place like Maryland, that is discovering it's terroir, is in blending. It is in, you know, purchasing multiple lots of fruit, it is vinifying them separately, and blending trials. So you are at the end of this fermentation process, you know, constantly tasting wine and trying wine in various, you know, kind of marriages together. Yeah, I mean, we're just kind of like, you know, imagining like a little plastic beaker, and you know, we're putting like a percentage of this and a percentage of that. And, you know, it's just me and my boss. Room going, I don't know, do you like it? I don't know, you know, um, so it's really just we're, you know, making it up as we go.

I mean, there's originally a spreadsheet at the beginning of harvest that says where everything is probably going, but it didn't all go there, um, and this is an example of when that happens, you know? We're tasting, and it's not working, and it's, you know, the goal is to make good wine; it's not to make a spreadsheet work, so you know, we, we move some things around, tried a couple of other options, and we had this lot of Merlot that was kind of like... you know, it was fine, it was pretty, like basic; it was milk toast, it was like it was... it was kind of like red wine; it was just like the margarine of the cellar work.

Yeah, so six of them together and it didn't overpower Cab Franc that we, you know, had grown a lot of, like I said, and it kind of just like mellowed it maybe a little, kind of... it did actually tone down a little bit of the like jalapeno flavor um, that you know can be, kind of, iffy with some people. And I think it turned out really well; I think the wine was better for It and um and the it the actually the other Cab Franc went into a red blend that I think ended up also better with that Cab Franc than with the Merlot, so yeah it worked out, yeah I think too you know not unlike you know I think all of us musically wish we were soloists but most most most of us you know would probably function better in a choir um and wines wines aren't all that different you know um it is rare to find you know someone that can sing by themselves acapella but you know you're you know very often going to find people that you know are useful in context you know so you know your baritone whatever you know bring something. to the party you know bring something to the party you know bring something to the party that works well when we couple it with you know a treble and or you know a a soprano and a tenor um but you know on its own you know it it just you know is a little imbalanced and and most wines are made that way uh it is the soloists are the exception to the rule uh as as opposed to the rule and um you know i i what i really love about this is uh it feels thoughtful and it feels elegant and and purposeful um and you know it doesn't feel um you know uh you know like uh a forced uh blend and and it tastes very much like cat prompt like i would never guess there Was Merlot in this, uh, which which is kind of cool to me, and then you know tasting it against, um, you know this archetype of archetypes, um, uh, you know for the sake of Charles to go, is, is, is, you know this, uh, Kermit Lynch represented a historic state, um, uh, a hugely uh beloved winemaker, a budding artist and winemaker in the 50s.

This is a Château, uh, a kind of classic estate to, um, a protégé at this point. But what I like about this wine as a Chinon is that it kind of encapsulates the whole um appellation so, um, it is Chinon, divided between more alluvial soil, so heavier soils, deeper soils, and more, you know, kind of thinner bands of soil on calcareous you know limestone and um uh you know occasionally you know like marl see like that kind of thing um so you know more structured wines like uh linear wines um this is a chinon that you know has a little bigger and uhеф one little bit of the level of fat um uh but wears it uh really well um it's also um a blend of uh purposefully um uh you know kind of uh harvested and and ferment fruit and then press wine so press wine tends to be a little more coarsely tannic um and not quite as vibrant um as uh the free run uh juice um but uh it's it's just uh it's it's entirely stainless so that is a bit of a disjuncture for the sake of these two offerings because allegra you guys are working in in neutral oak for the sake of um uh the sandstone are you not yes exactly yeah well i think you know they're both wines that are like classic you know cab fronky bistro wines um and uh they both taste very cab bronc to me uh so yeah uh zo what's your what's your hot take on the uh maryland uh lower valley cab bronco um i love it i love how um tight these tannins are and then they like just quickly dissipate i love how like ripe the fruit is and it just like feels like in all three of these wines that like you get to the edge to jump off that cliff to be like a stereotype virginia wine and then it goes into this like beautiful part of restraint and i love the herbaceousness in this and it's like very nice and fresh and like those garage herbs um but i still get not as much of a vegetalness but i still have those like classic pencil shavings which i really enjoy yeah and i kind of i want to bring it back to the screenshot so you know we have a whole section of our list at tail of goat devoted to rivers and streams and rivers and streams historically you know they were the highways of the ancient world and um you know they have this hugely important uh role to play for the sake of viticulture because It, you know, commercially it made sense a sense to you know, make wine along the highway, but um, viticulturally, um, you know, the rivers had this moderating influence on local extremes of temperature and it happened to be a great place to make wine and you know, I feel like the Loire, you know, it's a person that would widely be made for the sake of you know Loire Valley wine and Potomac uh river wine, but I think there's something poetic about it and I think equally stylistically um uh allegro what I love about you know what you guys are doing is that you know, you're not trying to make you know California wine in a place that doesn't.

lend itself to that you know you're making elegant you know lovably you know drinkable french bistro wines or you know we're you know mid-atlantic mediterranean bistro wines or you know we're you know we're you know we're you know this is not something that you know nobody's gonna open a bottle of brocklin's farm you know an expense account you know uh visitors from out of town you know drink this with your steak you know but um you know there is something you know more intimate and familiar and poetic uh about about these offerings it's a wine that you can drink with food um you know it's a wine that you can celebrate you know with you, I know family and you know won't you know throw me to the edge for the sake of something that's you know got all sorts of shit added to it and gives me a headache the next day or you know is so uh incredibly alcoholic that you can only have a couple glasses so um you know I, I adore that about it and and equally you know it is um an outgrowth of um you know agricultural processes and it is very much um an agricultural product in an honest and natural way and you know you're not shouting that you know something like the um you know farm is sans soup but it works and you know you're making you know almost like that's pretty. Um, to make sans soup wine in the Mid-Atlantic that's pretty hardcore dude, um, uh, and, and, it, and and it and it it's not mousy, it's, it's a really great wine, um, so, um, you know I am hugely proud of you; I think you should be hugely proud of yourself.

Um, i know that your parents are on, yeah, i mean, and it's nice because i'm also not the winemaker, so i feel like i can be a little less humble about it too, and i really like the wines, too, i'm really proud of them; um, you know i, i think it we did a pretty good job, but then you know it's, it is that that one is sans soup, the ovens only have sulfur, and bottling it's nothing else, um, and also i mean, we did all of our, um, fermentations. This year, native, so we didn't add any yeast. Um, I guess last year, um, my boss did about 50/50, um, you know, added yeast and native, and it worked, and he was like, 'Hey, can I just like do all of them like this?' And we're like, 'Yeah, I guess so.' So we didn't end up adding any yeast this year.

I think that really helps with like understanding the terroir too, because you're not like adding something else that's like adjusting you know how the fermentation goes. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think both of us like to work in like a naturalistic way, but aren't like so dogmatic about like natural wine. I mean, we'll add things that they needed, um, you know? We did end. up utilizing one wine this year a couple wines maybe this year so we initiated uh so uh we're dealing with a former french uh scientist chapdell uh who popularized adding sugar uh to wine which sounds preposterous until you wander the cellars of burgundy and barolo and realize that you know everyone is doing it but uh sugar just creates uh potential alcohol it doesn't uh create you know a sweeter wine it just creates a one more body yeah and like we just got this crooner in that was going to make a seven and a half percent alcohol wine that sounds kind of awesome though but it like wouldn't taste like much i know you're Making yours making virtue though, yeah it's hard to you know, so so you know we'll add it after we're not like dogmatic but I think both of us are basically allergic to like so neither of us are trying to make the California Cab, I think that's why Allegra I think you should put that on the label like the new the news like Rockland's Farm Winery allergic to like that's uh you know I don't know it's above my big you know I don't think you're trying to you know like I said make something that is not what it already is, yeah you know no no it's it's yeah it's great and it and it totally shows dude um just a second um I think that it's awesome. That we've paired these wines against some like masters in the old world and they have been like just such rock stars and it's yeah they think let's see you're proud it's making revelers yeah totally I think I think too like um uh you know Allegra, you know, you said not to you know put in a spot that you know you were a little worried about trying these against you know these old world benchmarks and you know I don't like this is this is like the the three wines that we're uh showing off from France are you know, a murderer's row of, you know, really highly regarded, hugely celebrated winemakers.

And each wine in its own way, you know, is equally delicious. And, you know, for the sake of Petit Mansing, you know, is, you know, just, I don't know, like, like secretariat level outrunning a much, you know, more lauded, hugely expensive thing. And it's the mere fact of Maryland that scares people off and, you know, for totally unfair reasons. So, yeah, I think it's instructive. I hope for those of you at home that, you know, it's opened some eyes about, you know, the potential that we have here and equally, you know, just like, more broadly, you know, where, you know, the unlikely corners of the world that, you know, greatness can emerge in. What else you got to say? Well, that being said, are there and what are they, the similarities?

There are similarities between your vineyard sites and the Loire Valley, because I feel like there could be so many due to how these are tasting and the minerality and such. Maybe that's more of a question for, like, Bill to chime in on as well, but, like, picking the Gironson as the Petit Mansing to pair with this little Mansing. Yeah, I mean, I feel like a little silly as the, you know, in-school guest, not being, like, an expert, really. So, I, you know, I don't know the exact parallels, but I will say, like, just the grapes that will survive are kind of paralleled. I mean, Cab Franc, it just lives better in the vineyard than some other stuff.

Even some Bordeaux varieties we can do, but they're not quite hardy and cold hardy enough and, you know, they won't tolerate as much rain as, like, just Cab Franc, you know? Yeah, Cab Franc is awesome. It's a survivor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um you know it's kind of like reasoning that way it's a donkey um uh and it's really terroir expressive in an awesome way um you know i think you know people have this fanciful notion of the wine that they want to make and sometimes they try to impose that on a place i think you know cab franc is not a glamorous grape i don't think that people like you know i don't think that like dot-com millionaires are getting into wine saying i want to make the greatest cab franc in the world but you know i think in a lot of places they'd be better served planning cab franc than they're planning like cabernet sauvignon cabernet sauvignon makes no fucking sense on this coast it it you know it needs really dry feet um you know it needs a longer reckoning window it needs not to have a tropical storm every you know decade uh just doesn't it doesn't work it doesn't make any fucking sense um you know but people try to impose it and pinot pinot equally it's just like way too fickle um uh you know but you know i i do i adore it when people you know leaning leaning or leaning into things at work i think you know that in terms of parallels though i think it's less geology than it is um climate uh so you know the loire is famous for these like gorgeous like limestone touffre chateaus like we have marble monuments but it's not our marble um you know i don't know where the marble is from but it's probably definitely not from here you know geologically there's a lot of like old um like Really old metamorphic rock in the Appalachian, but you know, um, uh, where Allegheny is, it's a floodplain, um, you know, it's the Potomac floodplain, um, and you know, um, you know, sandstone is like, you know, sedimentary rock that's, you know, loose and brittle, and I imagine like there are soils are pretty water retentive, and you know, I bet, I'm guessing that your best sites are the ones where you know shed water through the slope of inclination as opposed to inherent properties of you know kind of looser, um, looser soil types, um, but you make it work, and I think, you know, people underestimate the extent to which there are a lot of really Marginal climates in the old world that make it work and make amazing wine, the Loire being one of them. You know it has the limestone thing going for it, but it's wet, you know, um, it's cold, um, you know... The best winemakers, um, and and we have a little bit of that here too, um, and so uh, you know again you just need you need generations upon generations that we haven't had to suss all this stuff out, um, uh, and you know that's the secret sauce.

I don't think the secret sauce is you know the Loire as such, yes it's beautiful, yes you know they have you know centuries worth of history on us, but I think like in terms of you know the base ingredients I think the secret sauce is you know, time and human ingenuity. It's like generations worth of Lycra... uh, what Zoya? What else do you have? Oh um, is the vineyard affected by city pollution being so close to the DMV? Um, you know I don't know, to be honest. Um, not any way that affects like how we work. You know, we do all the um regular stuff. You know, we don't have any like immediate nearby pollution because, like Bill said, we're on the agricultural reserve so...

um, but yeah, I mean I haven't noticed anything um and we don't do anything differently. So, well honestly, like you guys had the advantage of being you know this massive property. um you know dozens of acres um and in a lot of corners of the old world where you know people own a few rows at a time you have no control over what your neighbor does um they could be using you know um anything you know they could be using the harshest of fungicides and herbicides and you know that's going to bleed on your land whereas you guys have the advantage of you know having total control over you know your you know spraying program and you know um you know whatever you whatever you want to do um you know for the sake of you know more aggressive interventions you can we talk about the use of yeast and if it's all natural or If you're using store-bought, I mean, we like I said this year, we ended up doing 100% native.

So, think about it as like the difference between using a packet of yeast to bake bread and like using making sourdough. It's a little bit more of a gamble, uh, it takes a little longer, it's a little more finicky, uh, you need a little bit more of a gamble and then you can use a little bit more of a little bit of luck. But um, but you know, it ends up tasting different. I mean, we went to visit a winery where we were buying some great and uh the winemaker had done a half-and-half, um, lot of like native and uh inoculated yeast, and like it tastes like Different wine, I mean, they both tasted good, honestly you know, but they're they're dramatically different.

Um so Allegra actually just felt this question from one of our employees uh the other day she's like um because I, I tend to I'm not a sulfur freak when it comes to wine, like you know additions of sulfur I think you know can be purposeful and make for a more durable wine but I am kind of a native yeast freak and I, I use that very same uh analogy Allegra for the sake of you know uh wonder bread and sourdough um you know what was the difference between the two wines uh in tasting them um well it was in Virginia's and they were Both Sau Blanc and the one that was inoculated tasted like it was from New Zealand, you know. It was very grapefruity; it was delicious, uh, but with much less character.

I would say um, and I mean, like, I said I both of them were good, but I prefer, especially if I'm making the wine, it's like way more fun to make something that's different, that's what it or what it is. You know, I'm trying to figure out how to make wine and I'm like, 'I don't know, I don't know how to make wine in this area.' It's kind of counterintuitive to add something that dramatically makes it taste different; like, how am I supposed to know how to work with this if I'm not, you know? Using the yeast that's there, yeah yeah, and you're dealing with like a you know a kind of uh ingredient of the whole terroir equation that is the microbiota of the of the place um, and you know uh I equally find that you know you can make a good inoculated wine um, you know again it's just like it's like poetry it's like writing there's no one road to rome um, and it reflects you know a particular personality but um native yeast fermentations are way more inefficient um they tend to invite way more microbiological actors to the party especially for producing the first three four or five percent of alcohol after that the fermentation. Tends to be dominated by Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is the the beer yeast, the bread yeast, because it's the only organism that can survive the fermentation of the yeast and so it's the only organism that can survive at higher alcohol levels. But that initial kickstart, um, that adds these layers to the wine, um, is much more dynamic, and then the ferment itself tends to be in um a uh a natural uh ferment uh slower um you know which which sounds like a less desirable thing and can give winemakers fits because they worry, 'Will this wine ferment dry?

You know what's going to happen if my bread doesn't rise?' Um, but um, if you say that you're going to be able to see it out um is much like uh making a very low simmered stew as opposed to you know shocking something and you know throwing it over the highest flame you know you just get this much more um you know kind of complex um you know set of flavors uh out of the end result um than you would uh if you if you force something and you know there again there are a lot of different you know takes on this but uh i tend to land in the place that allegra does um for the sake of it and i'll just add to what you're talking about about the first few percentages of alcohol um like what i said about the petite man saying when the fruit comes in it's in a good state it's like there aren't a lot of broken berries that are getting rot like they're going rotten and stuff like that like that's a lot easier to justify letting it go on its own versus like if you get a batch of fruit that's like a lot of broken berries a lot of things rotting it smells a little weird maybe and you're like do i really want to let this just like ride as it is you know yeah um i was legally obligated to ask about climate change i know we'll get there i want to i want to uh i want to first i want to first so we're almost uh um we're we're at an hour 15 we'll answer the climate change question um and uh we've yet to the life cycle of the vineyard but um allegra it's been such an honor to have you uh here and i just want to say like uh throughout this pandemic journey it has been um you know for me um really valuable um and um you know kind of uh has lifted my spirits to engage with friends that are in the business of growing grapes and making wine because they're participating in these cycles of regeneration um and uh creating new life um that are worth uh remembering in our darkest hours and um you know i applaud you for pivoting um as elegantly as you did and rising as quickly uh as you have and um you know thrilled to re-engage with you know, just think the world of what you guys are doing, and are so, uh, grateful um that you spent a small, uh, window of time with us, and so excited for what's yet to come for you.

So, cheers to you like your cheers you all in together, so allegra! Climate change, uh, you have one data point, you have one harvest, uh, so that's not that's not much of a climate change data point, uh, but uh, I'm going to, uh, bring up a map here, so I don't know maybe we can speak to when these things happen, so uh, you can take me, take me through this, you know, tell me where we are and how these things... Currently, uh, I'm going to, uh, talk a little bit. About what's going on in the vineyard, uh where are we? We are in April, May, so um uh flowering has already happened on the vineyard, hasn't it? Uh it's happening now. Oh very exciting! So uh that's very nerdy.

So why, why is uh flowering such an anxious time on the vineyard? Um flowering is when the grapes are made, uh the you know that's when they're um you know the pollinated and you you know hope nothing goes wrong, hope you don't get a lot of rain. Uh hope you don't it the berry, they like flower and then the berry forms and they basically trap everything that they like accumulated in the time they were a flower so like you can trap all Kinds of diseases and stuff, so it's it is nerve-wracking, but it's also obviously really exciting. They're all you know everything that's that we're nervous about is also really fun, uh, and then fast forward, so you get these embryonic grape clusters that emerge out of flowers.

And should be said, like fruit evolutionarily is just kind of processed flowers um, you know the flowers themselves evolve into uh the fruit, and then the fruit becomes you know a bit of enticement for pollinators um, and predators to uh gobble up seeds and disperse them, but um, uh, you came uh, into the vineyard uh in the canopy management phase uh. last year and uh what were you doing at that point yeah i mean basically what happens is like if you look at a grapevine like basically the leaves are going out of control the vines the grits are staying where they are they stay at the bottom you know where the fruiting wire is but the the shoots are just like going crazy um why not let them go crazy why not let them go all third grader you know on high c at a sleepover what's bad about that yeah i mean the thing about in farming is it's always a trade-off is like you're surprising at all levels and it's i still for me mostly i'm not sure how much but i really i think it's mostly a set Of incivilippi locations where once you get two full growth plants when you're trying to support yourself with fruit, you want to play off a project I don't think it reduces the fruit or if one's fruit development again you don't know what type of fruit you're trying to work with in the year.

I think if you're preparing a plant and if it's not accurately that it's not crowded, it can get some sunshine, dry out in the morning, and then, you know, we leave leaves on the other side so that it takes some shade at the highest sun part of the day because they don't need like direct sun for hours and hours. They'll get blistered. Grapes love dappled sunlight. Dappled sunlight is like the hottest if you're fruit ripening. Do you guys do any like green harvest or do you drop fruit at all or you try to manage the number of, you know, embryonic clusters that you have per, you know, cane to regular yields? We do most of it ahead of time. So, we'll do it, kind of, right before now.

So, we just finished thinning out those shoots. We're on that, you know, the cordon that you mentioned. So, there's like shoots coming off of it and basically vê, more than 10 or 15 inches. And, you just round it out a little so lightly basically, there's just too many 'uh's to let go immediately, so we drop some of it really early. Um, we don't end up really dropping that much fruit, I don't think we didn't have that much fruit last year, anyway um, but I don't think that we're so obsessed with like 'vineyard yields' that we end up dropping that much fruit um, because like I said, we just do so much of it. I feel like people, people oversell the green harvesting thing, I think most of the most of the winemakers, I i love you know they you know they do more crop thinning on the front end as opposed to um, you know kind of shedding um, you know fruit uh after it's kind of started to mature more and you know equally there's Not always is there a direct relationship between yield and quality of wine. You can have pretty high-yielding amazing vintages, um, you know, and vice versa, you can have low-yielding, shitty vintages, um, you know, there's just like so many other variables uh in the mix, um, what the hell is veraison? Uh, veraison, that's a great picture because that's basically what it looks like, it's like some of the grapes start ripening, um, and it's amazing that they all kind of catch up to each other.

It's not that by the end, that dark purple grape is like super ripe when the green grapes have ripened, they all kind of even themselves out, it's crazy. um and then uh harvest is like the super bowl of the uh winter calendar and i'd say for uh any of you uh listening that are still listening you know after an hour and change uh that um you know uh love uh wine um working harvest is just an amazing uh way to engage um you know the thing that you love in a different way uh it is you know a lot of work um you know and and you know it is like 16 18 hour days um but uh it's it's like you know lovably menial um and i find strangely uh meditated uh you know whether you're in the field uh plucking fruit or at a sorting table um uh but to taste uh wine coming off press and you know to try to track uh its evolution forward um is is really special and it's a special skill too like uh you know i've tasted some press wine uh and i feel like i'm able to track it forward and i've tasted some press wine and felt like i had no idea what this is gonna become you know um uh and for me that's that's the mark of like the greatest wines is ones that you know you taste off the press and you're like wow this is this is already you know finished wine it just needs to ferment whereas you know i think the bulk of juice you taste it's just like you know oh here we go yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um yeah i mean i think that's the the most fun um i mean i definitely recommend anyone who's interested you know you always need a hand at harvest you can always just email your local winery and be like hey can i come help out for a day like they probably stand and do and they'll definitely let you taste things um it's it's like i'm i'm a wine nerd and that i'm not obsessed with knowing every particular you know location in france to make wine but it's just like i like the process i like to taste bad wine as much as good really good wine because it's interesting to me to taste wine that's not done that's something weird is going on you know it's i think i think if you truly love like the sensory experience Of it, you know, you become addicted to smell as a sense and like sometimes the the bad smells are strangely you know it's that like durian experience where you know you like the the stuff that goes like off ripe or rotten is as compelling intellectually as the stuff that you know. I think it's important to color outside the lines to get a sense of where the lines are, um totally yeah, and that is kind of why I picked I picked that poem out of the book because I think it's really important to because I think it really likes speaks to like you said the meditative elements of harvest but also like the line that says like, um, cleaning the Unsaid off the palpable, like you really do have to stick your finger in that wound, you have to taste it every time you to know what you're working with, you know, yeah, yeah, no, no, absolutely, um, and I find that, you know, for the sake of, uh, natural leaning non-interventionist wines, you know, sometimes you get something that's something that tastes more like vinegar than it does wine, but you're defining the limits of your own taste, and I find that equally rewarding is that as equally rewarding on a Friday night when you want something you know um just matter-of-factly delicious, not always, uh, and not everyone.

Wants to engage wine, that way and it's important to understand that, but, nonetheless, um, uh, I don't think, uh, uh, so, uh, this was your first winter pruning, um, uh, I don't think people understand, so a lot of the stuff that happens, um, in, um, in the, uh, in the, uh, you know the course of the growth cycle of the vines has been predetermined by the work that you do in the winter, uh, uh, will you kind of walk us through that a bit? Oliver, yeah, I would say, like I said during harvest, feel free to come help out, you can always lend a hand, but pruning is like easily the most skilled job that you do in a winery, um, you're making like a lot of decisions.

About how the next year is going to go, and even the year after that, you're planning new shoots for the next cane. You're going to have to make a lot of decisions about how the next year is going to go. Um, so it's definitely like a skill that you learn over time, and kind of an art. And honestly, can do it differently. Like my boss will come behind me when I'm pruning, and he's like, 'Oh, interesting choice.' You know, there's not one way to do it, but there's some, you know, guiding principles obviously. Um, I think that that is where like having a little bit of a farming background really did help at this job, like. Before um, and you. Know you never, it's never perfect, you're never like you made every correct decision.

You know you're just kind of trying to push the needle for the next year and the year after that, of like where you want the vine to go. A lot of what we're doing when we're pruning, like I said, we have so much disease pressure that we're really trying to like mitigate that, renew all the canes, and make sure you know we're cutting out things that are not going well. We're like honestly renewing those trunks regularly too because they get infected and we're like, 'Oh my god, I'm going to have to get infected.' Um, so you know that's a lot of planning, yeah. And it's just like, a series of you know very kind of immediate um small decisions that adds up over the life of a vineyard and the life of a wine in a really like demonstrable uh way yeah every cut you make you're like well that'll never be that again you know it'll never be another cane there again yeah yeah i mean so yeah and it reflects the fact that you know wine always exists at this intersection of nature and nurture you know there which always bothers me about this notion of quote-unquote natural wine like you know there is always a series of choices that you're making you know even if you're choosing not to add sulfur. You know, uh, wine always reflects our imprint, um, and you can't, uh, pretend otherwise, so, uh, we stole a lot of time for the sake of a global warming question that we didn't answer. It's getting hotter, it's getting hotter, it's getting wetter in Maryland, uh, and I think Allegro would say that Chamberson is part of the way forward, um, what else do you have for us? 

Several very important questions there was a Floof we understand that he likes to play or she likes to play fetch however, is that an Aussie and what's the Floof's name? He was helping the site oh um well I am uh so sad to report that that Floof. Has actually died, she died. Oh, I'm so sorry, I should have lied lived the longest and happiest farm dog life. Let me assure you this dog is like that; that dog lived a better life than I will ever live. Um, so was very happy roaming freely. They actually have a new farm puppy though, so I will say if you do end up coming, you may see a different but you know both are very sweet farm dogs. Oh all right, all right.

Puh, what else you guys have? Oh, I think that's all I got actually for today. Oh um, we do have a few questions about what lesson is going to be next week uh fine question so uh two weeks from now uh we're we're um you know skipping weekends. but uh uh we are come doubling down on the next week and we're going to be doing a lot of work on the next week and we're going to be doing a lot of work on the next week right now so uh you're going to do he's got a shot almost twenty years from now yeah that's right below us that's people floor uh-huh um what's i had a fun conversation with uh my friend Bob yeah i enjoyed speaking to you earlier on and i think it's a really great talk yeah thank you for the unboxing yeah yeah imported being Zeb Robine, Frank Cornelison out of Mount Etna being one of his most famous properties.

But Zeb's coming on and we are wanting to know, you know, how he thinks about natural wine and what that means for the rest of us. So really excited to have him in the mix. So coming attractions there. And then in June, we're going to be unveiling another round of in-person blind tasting. We're also going to be unveiling a first iteration of Reveler's Hour Wine Bar Quiz Night. I may or may not break out my denim three-piece suit for the occasion. And then lastly, I should mention that we're changing platforms for our website. So RIP Spotify, or not Spotify, Shopify. But switching gears, moving on to Toast in June. So don't freak out if, you know, those stands that are in the mix see a different interface for buying the wine.

So purchase the wine. You just have to do it a little differently. And it will, you know, serve our businesses better, even if it's not quite as fun on the graphic design side of the ledger. But I just want to offer up one more toast. Allegra has been absolutely lovely. You rock. You should be so proud of what you're doing. Zoe, you seem equally smitten with the wines. Talk about it. I love it. RDV needs to move the fuck over and decrease the prices by two-thirds. Hot take. Hot take. And Rockland's in the house. I love it. Hot take. Hot take. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, I do, I will say, Allegra, I love that you guys are just, you know, leaning into, you know, joyous, food-friendly, elegant wines and not trying to, you know, turn the tables. You know, trying to turn out something that, you know, our region doesn't necessarily lend itself to. And I think, you know, the market will catch up with you. And, yeah, just we're, I am irrationally proud, you know, to call you former colleagues. So cheers to you. Salud. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Cheers, guys.