204: Chris Morisoli - Morisoli Vineyard

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Inside Winemaking. And for those of you that are new, welcome. This is the podcast where I seek to learn more and more every day about growing grapes. and winemaking. I do that mostly by talking to other experts and this is my long term, long life career journey. to be the best winemaker I can be. And so I'm happy to share that with everyone else through these interviews.

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Okay, I'm going to move quickly through some of these business items before we get into this episode with Chris Morsoli from Morrisoli Vineyard. First, Tuscany, June, twenty twenty six. The tentative dates are the seventeenth through the twenty-fourth of that month. This is where I'm going to take a group of up to seven podcast listeners. Through Tuscany for a week, we're gonna do six days of tours.

Where we're gonna taste a lot of San Juese, maybe some other wines, but that's what I'm really excited about. I have never been to Tuscany, so I'm so excited to build this trip. I don't have further details at this point in time, but if you are interested in this trip and want to stay abreast of all those, please sign up for the the mailing list on the website or you can contact me through the tab at insidewinemaking.com and I will put you on the shortlist for info of that when it comes out.

It's gonna be a ton of fun. We're gonna learn a lot about San Juvese. We're gonna taste some great wines and we're gonna be in a beautiful place. We're gonna do a cooking class. We're gonna taste a lot of olive oil. All of these trips that I do, and I do intend to do trips every six months. in June in the northern hemisphere, probably in Europe

And in January, February, either point South or South America. Got the trip to Argentina all sold out for January twenty twenty six. And so now I'm thinking about twenty twenty seven and I'm not quite sure if it's gonna be South Africa Or if we're just gonna go down to Baja in Mexico. Anyway, more on that as it comes. I'm struggling to put together the trip in Tuscany because I need to find a guide, an in-country guide. And um that's work. Still working on that. Okay, more soon.

Harvest is coming up, so please check out the video winemaking class. This is the one put together by Clark Smith titled Fundamentals of Winemaking Made Easy. This is 18 different modules, on demand, video courses. So you can go back and watch them as you need.

This I think is the best winemaking resources out there for people that want to learn winemaking quickly. You can have a problem that you're dealing with in this situation, you can go find that class or that topic and learn about it then. You don't have to watch the whole thing at once. It's awesome.

There's a discount code that you can find. I have a tab on the website, again at insidewinemaking.com. Save yourself some money. Check out that class. It's awesome. Next, I have two spots left for potential clients. to work with. So a couple of years ago I started Pro Bono working with clients. These are people outside of the area, outside of my area in Napa. So I am consulting over the phone. helping people with all sorts of winery design and technical issues day to day. I get

calls every single day during harvest from some of my clients. These are quick two minute phone conversations where I help people calculate how much acid to add or to not add, what to do in different situations. I am kind of your on the on demand

Winemaker, that's what I offer. My rates are very reasonable. And like I said, I have two spots available, so if you're interested, please let me know. Okay, I think that's it. We can move on to talk about Chris Morosoli, who is a fifth generation farmer. at Morrisoli Vineyard in Rutherford, in Napa Valley. Chris is who I want to be when I grow up

Helicopter pilot, volunteer fireman, grape grower, tractor driver. Chris is awesome. We talked a lot about his family's history on this very specific piece of land in Rutherford. Chris and Morrisoli Vineyard have historically been grape growers. There are a ton of great brands in in Napa that have made Morrisoli Vineyard designated wines. Chris talks a lot about many of those during our our conversation.

But Chris has started his own brand, Morosoli Moresoli Vineyard branded wines, which are awesome. He's making Carenne and Sinfandel. Chris lives in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in. As we were recording this conversation, I was looking out the window.

at the spot where my family had gone A few years ago, to take family photos This is where the photographer in Napa recommended that we go for Golden Hour because it was such a gorgeous spot with light in grapevines and olive trees and big oak trees. I was literally looking at this while I was talking to Chris. This is the same spot where part of the parent trap, the movie was filmed. Um all this to say, Morrisoli Vineyard is a an incredibly beautiful, spectacular place. Also happens to grow

the grapes in Nava Valley, if you ever have a chance to visit, I just I mean, it's a special place. Here we go with Chris Morso. All set. Chris, thank you for doing this. Can you please put us in place? Let everyone know where we are today recording. Well, thanks, Jim. First things first, longtime listener. Mostly listen to you on the uh tractor out there in the vineyard when I'm working. So you can actually hear while you're driving. A hundred percent. Really? Yeah.

Little communication earplug thing that goes in and put my earplugs around that. Yeah, I listen to you uh a ton and I always appreciate it. And it's it's gets me in the vibe for Morgan Vineyards. Well thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Setting. Okay, we're here in uh Nibom Lane, the old family house. Uh this was built in the eighteen nineties. My great great Grandpa Rocco and Lodovina moved in here in nineteen oh two and they started farming just to our south in the old vineyard. And it's uh yeah, it's been in the family ever since. So fifth generation still doing the same thing. Okay, what year was the the first Got married in eighteen ninety three in Napa. Had a couple moves around uh

Great great grandpa Rocco was a uh dairyman, so he was in involved in dairy. Moved to Solano, a little bit of lawn power. And then moved here to this place in nineteen oh two. So that's what we consider the first year of Morris Hulley Vineyard. And they they come here to work? It's a little unclear if they were sharecropping at first.

But the first census shows them here in nineteen ten, and having owned the property. So, you know, somewhere in there. But they moved into this house in nineteen oh two because my great grandpa Plinia was born here in in that year. So Okay. Now fill us in with your backstory because you're farming here now, but you haven't always been. Absolutely. So

Let's see. Well, I feel like I gotta catch you up on like a hundred years between Rocco and and I. So let's see. So uh Rocco and Lodovina had had Plinio, uh he was one of four kids. And then he was really the one that stuck around in Rutherford. He actually owned the general store where the Rutherford Grill is, and he bought that in nineteen twenty six.

and just continued the family farming here. Uh and that was always a secondary job. Like the primary job was something else, right? You just didn't make any money farming back in the tens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, maybe up until the seventies or eighties.

And I'm assuming farming and selling grapes, not not making one. Yep. He made his own. Uh a little stuff in the basement where we're uh above right now, you know, two hundred gallons, whatever was illegal or legal during uh prohibition.

But yeah, I own the general store and and you know, if I could go back to one time in history, like that would be it. Like go back to twenties in Rutherford, like Prohibition era would be really cool. That'd be real Rutherford dusty. Yeah, yeah, very dusty. Everything was was dirt roads. And then he married Clementina in or Clementine in uh nineteen twenty six, big year for him.

And then they had Phil, uh only child. And then Phil uh also worked the ranch and had a construction kind of land moving business. And then Phil uh and Joanne had my dad Gary, also only child. And then my dad married Melody, and then also Chris only child. So, you know, the names went from cool Italian Rocco Plinio to Felgarian Chris. Pretty pretty Americanized, pretty quick. Well I guess that may

inheritance a lot easier if you just have one child, right? No, my dad could give it all to the we care or something. So far so good. Oh man. But Did you grow up on the ranch or in Saint Helena or No, right here. So yeah, just right next door in that house in the middle. Great uh free range childhood, always running around on four wheelers or helping pops with tractors or hiking, getting into some sort of mischief. But yeah, it was all here. Okay. Yeah.

Did you want to come back and and farm here? Yep. Ever a lot of people asked that and definitely like I was always planning on returning to to home and and Rutherford to do this and do the family stuff. But you know, everyone's gotta get away and do something different. So the the army the army was my getaway. So I don't know if that's a good getaway or not. But I loved it. I wouldn't change anything about it and joined the army in two thousand six.

And went from Sacramento State, which is where I went to school, did ROTC there, joined the army and went from there to Alabama. And then from Alabama to Alaska, a couple trips to Iraq, Afghanistan, and then Honduras. And then finished out in Hawaii as a Medevac company commander and in charge of fifteen helicopters and about 120 people in about five different countries. So coming back home was a a big change.

You know, went from that to Pops telling me, you know, hey, you gotta you gotta do it this way. You gotta turn the tractor like that. I was like, oh man. But it's been great. It's been a lot of fun. That had to be a ridiculous adjustment. It was a big it was a big change. But it was nice because I was still was in the in the National Guard, so I could still do this part time. And but you know, I went man, I was like starting again, like all right, you gotta learn something completely new.

And yeah, I'd always done vineyard stuff when I was a kid, but you know, it was it's a lot different learning how like Pops does stuff and like understanding it's like delayed gratification a lot more. In the army, I I I say this a lot, but you have a few months

You can fix most any problems you have. Like you can figure a solution out and you can come up with a plan, fix it, right? But like farming is completely different. It just takes the long outlook, you know, five, ten, twenty years. I mean, even longer.

to make sure that you're getting getting it right. And for me, that was like my big learning point. It was like, oh, okay, I can't like just you can't snap your fingers and and fix it or change it. And I think that's what I had learned. Like it's the the long look. And you gotta do these little things that you don't think have any effect in the near term, but they have a big effect in the long term.

But also it's kinda scary, right? Because you're making these decisions with imperfect information. Right. you're obviously always working towards what you think is gonna be best in the long term, generational future. But Exactly. And then like a replant. Like you get a chance to replant it and you're

twice in your lifetime. So y you gotta make smart decisions and look at all the info you have available to you. I mean virus pressure, you know, the right clones, what's gonna be popular? That's another huge Right. You don't know. Yeah. So it's like I make the best best call you can and and hope that hope you get it right. So what are the dimensions of the ranch? Sure. So we've got about fifty seven total acres.

Fifty three of that is planted and uh it's in three main blocks. So this this block that we're on right now is about twenty acres. That's the original block, which we call PM Plenio Mario, and that was again nineteen oh two and then in the fifties.

My grandpa bought the South Block, which we call Phil, uh, and he bought that in the fifties. My dad bought that back from him in the eighties and then my dad bought the next door piece, which is what we call Zieger from the Zieger family in Okay, so you guys have had m almost four years with this.

These pieces put together. Yep. Right. Exactly. Okay. And your Napa, your Rutherford, obviously you got some Cabernet. Mm-hmm. How much of the ranch is Cabernet? What else is Yeah, great question. So about forty five acres is Cabernet? And there's about eight acres of Sinfadel. So and it hadn't always been that way. It it had been, I mean, gosh, if you go back to the tens, twenties, thirties.

It was all field blend, mostly Rhone varietals. And then a lot of that in the fifties, sixties, seventies was then planted to Shannon Blanc, Petite Surat, and then actually Ray Corson from Elise Winery in the eighties told my dad, Hey, this new Cabernet thing is getting kind of popular. You should plant more Cabernet Sauvignon. Or plant it, period, because we didn't have it.

And my dad planted that in yeah, like late eighties, early nineties is when we kinda went all cab and then kept some of the originals in or field blend, if you will. Is that Plinyo's block, the Zimadel? Yep, that's it. So that's the last remaining acre and a half of field blend 1910 plantings that we have. And that to me is like the most special block.

And if you look backwards into the history of how that block came to be, you know, this whole twenty acre block used to be that. And then over the course of, you know, a hundred years kind of whittled down to the best. section of the vineyard that the family wanted to keep. And if you find one of these pre-prohibition vineyards, it was someone's favorite because it didn't make sense to keep farming it when you could make a lot more money with

cab or even some of the older varietals. So yeah, it was it was left left in the ground and it's down to an acre and a half right now, but we're hanging on to it and it's a really special block. And even just for research or history, uh UC Davis came out in 2001 and did a big study on it, cataloged it, repropagated, cleaned up any virus that was in it, and determined that it came from Ingle Nook.

And with some of the original Roan varietals that were brought over by Gustav Niebaum in the eighteen eighties. Um so they cleaned it up, gave the original clones back to Englenook, um so we were a little placeholder kind of in that in that instance. It was so much fun to be here in February when the mustard was blooming.

that that block had yet well, none of the vines had butted out yet. We all took cool selfies. That was fun. But like that was spectacular to see all those old head train vines. I mean can't be higher than what, three feet? Yeah. Before you put them uh you know, head train, goblet train.

And what's what's really cool about that block is you can look through a vine and it's like a bonsai tree and you can see through history where these pruning decisions were made, like all the way back to that's when it was planted. Which I think is really neat. And if you also think about it, how that vineyard was

Farmed is the same way it's farmed today, down to the same tractor in the the nineteen thirties. We have the same tractor that farmed it. It's still doing the same stuff, the same implement. It's all cross-cultivated, dry farmed, hand sulfured. It's like nothing has changed.

So from a historical perspective, like that is as real as it gets in that old block. So anyway, for me to bring people out there and show them like, hey, check out, this is the old way. And then right across from it, here's the new way. And this is the change when when You know, people in the 70s went to irrigation, they were able to draw these cordons out and get a lot more a lot more yield, just made more sense. So everyone ripped out these old vineyards. And this one luckily made it.

It's Infindel, but you said it's a filled blend. Do you have an idea of like what portion of the vineyard is actually Zenvidel versus other varieties? A little bit. Uh it's hard to say. Davis probably has the exact notes and I should probably get that from them. But Yeah, it's it's probably half Zimfandel. Uh so it's a little bit of a misnomer. But uh hopefully the T T V is not listening and they won't they won't come arrest me for my uh labeling. But there's Alicante Boucher.

There's Carignan, there's Black Muscat, Muscat and Hamburg. And there's Valdi, Petite Syrah or Dariff, and I think I got all of them there. Uh Syrah Negret also. And so there's about nine different varieties. And yeah, those are all the original, you know, old school stuff. Super cool. My favorite thing to do.

When I bring people out and you guys miss this, but it's to bring a glass of the wine from Plinyo's and then go through and taste all of these different varietals and kind of try to pick it out in the in the wine. Because You know, it's a complex wine. There's all these different things going on. And you can pick out these these little

varietals in the wine. For example, the the black muscat or the muscat hamburg, it's got this really beautiful nose to it. And you taste one of those grapes and then you smell the wine and you're like, oh, okay. This is where some of that is coming from. And I don't know how much of this is lore or not, but you know, back in the old days when they were deciding what they wanted to plant in an in an area, they would determine the site.

And Zinfidel was always like the core blend, right? Because that's where you get your fruit from. But if they needed more tannin or more strength bones to it, they'd do petite serrah. If they wanted more color, you've got a lacante boucher as a tenchurier grape. Uh you've also got

What else the black muscat for that nose? So I think they would, you know, and again, how much how scientific they were getting on this, probably up for debate. But all of these different varietals made the wine from that site and that was co-fermented and and that's what you got. So is it planted on rootstocks? Yes, it is on St. George.

Okay. So previously, eighteen eighties, it had been planted, decimated from phylloxra number one, uh, and then replanted to St. George in nineteen tens. Very cool. All right. So anyway, that's my nerding out on the old block. Oh that's awesome. It's pretty cool.

So yeah. So okay, I guess the then we've we've nailed it down the two times to come visit here, uh February when it's in the mustard, the mustard's blooming. And then gotta be what, August, uh late August so you can taste the fruit. Post viration and taste the taste the fruit. All right. Super cool. Yeah. Tractors. Oh yeah. I don't understand this. We'll go get my dad.

This is a cool story. Yeah. And it's uh you're one of the most fun accounts on Instagram to follow because it's you and all your your cool old tractors. Yep. But as a farmer, I don't get it. You gotta explain this to me. Like why are you guys suffering? Okay. Don't fix it, right? Okay. Let's have this conversation because I'm I'm up for it, man. My dad gets nervous watching you drive between the vines with four and a half centimeters of clearance on I You're nervous. How do you think I feel?

It's terrifying. I I mean, I will feel bad for a week when I hit one of those vines. And I do. I probably kill one or two a year and I f I literally feel bad for a week and it really upset. Upsets me. Because they yeah, they're not making any more of'em.

Take a long time to grow. You gotta be thinking about that as you're pruning, right? Make sure arms don't come far out into the the row. So we go through every few years with a chainsaw, which also hurts me, and we just look at the distance and try to cut off arms. and make sure that, you know, we're not uh we're not gonna hit it with a tractor, but

It's not perfect and yeah, th the the tolerances are so close on either side. Yeah, it just it happens. I always think when I'm like kill one that I don't know, those old vine guys, Tegan Pasalacwa and Bob Biale and Mike Officer like Trying to figure out what we're doing. Okay. So the you guys having all these old tractors, is that uh your father thing? Or is this the two of you? Yeah, I mean he's always just kept

really good took really good care of these old tractors and they run great. They take a little bit more care and feeding to keep them going. But when they use are going, they're great. Are you guys your own mechanics? Everything, yeah. Yeah. All the all the mechanical work. If a refrigerator breaks, my dad's fixing that. He's like very detailed and very smart at figuring out problems.

And the same extends to the tractors. So and I think there are some real benefits to the the old tractors because like those track layers are super low impact on the ground. So you don't get a lot of compaction in the soil. And then the implements we use are all just old school implements that still work really well. We farming wise are a big fan of tilling, getting rid of all of the competition. Uh we obviously do a cover crop. We uh go through and chop that.

and then go right back through with a hoe plow and remove all of the grass from inside the vines. That way we're not using any type of herbicides or anything like that. It's all mechanical. And then go through until four times or so. And then we'll go through the final cultivation path.

Yeah, and what that does, and again everywhere's different, right? But specifically on the bench here, it keeps that competition down and allows the grapes to, you know, get more more water. So we almost dry farming. Like this year we've watered once.

Whereas if you're closer to the river, you might want to leave some of that cover crop in so they have more competition. But here works best to keep that fine layer of dirt on top, which maintains the soil moisture beneath. When you say till and cultivation. Separately. What's the difference? So when we till or disc, that's reason as disc blades that kind of f foil fold the soil in and out.

And then the cultivation is actually an old cultivator with like tines that just goes down. And that just breaks up some of the loose clods and then kind of is a final final pass to keep that nice dusty layer on top. So that's where Yeah, we talked about it for dust, there's a lot of it. It's ubiquitous and it's everywhere. That's your dust mulch. Ever yes, exactly. Gotcha. Okay. So

So obviously you got plenty on this block and old head train vines and the rest of the the vineyard, more modern trellising systems. Yep, norm just standard trellis you'll see. double or uh bilateral cordon and yeah everything is generally pretty well balanced. I mean we go through we do about three suckering passes and then a fruit drop or two.

Uh depending on what the client wants and then kinda off the races. So Okay. We should talk about clients. Just do it. Because we're gonna talk about more Sully, the branded wines. For the most of the uh history of the vineyard, you've been selling fruit. Exactly. Right? Yep. That's always been the business plan and that's continuing to be the plan.

Uh, we make three to four percent of our grapes with our own brand, but the rest of it is, you know, based on our clients. And those are all really long-term relationships. uh that we've had and most of them are like 30 to 40 year relationships. So if we can go through some of the older ones, I mean the Tude back to the nineties, B V in the nineties, Elise, V Satui, Sequoia Grove, all early nineties. And then as we kind of continued on, we've we've brought in

A few newer folks, so Nickel O'Neill, Schrader, Constellation, Russell Bevan, Kirk Venge, trying to think if I'm forgetting anybody. Oren Swift has always been a big one. They've been around since, you know, Dave started that and the ninety eight, two thousand. And yeah, actually Dave started the prisoner with Zimpadel from these grapes and uh Tofinelli Ranch. And that was the basis of the z the prisoner blend.

Obviously not anymore, but yeah. So we've we've had some really great winemakers in and out of here and it's always fascinating for me to go through and do like a horizontal tasting and see the lens on the vineyard, same blocks, same year, different winemaker. Apples to apples comparing their impact on on the fruit and just see what their lens is on the vineyard. As you said the names, I'm trying to think of a A to is. Oh is John Priest. A toude is is first to go.

And man, I love those wines. They're just really beautiful. And it's there's two different sides of the vineyard. One side is an older rootstock, 1103P or 1103. A P and 110R and those wines typically go to folks like you know Atude, it's Mike Trujillo, Sequegro, folks that want a little more of the like sight to show through and a little more of fruit.

And then we've got the O3916 side, the West side, which is a little more tannic and has the bones to stand up to a little more like extraction. So people that want the bigger ones, BV, Amici, Orange Swift. those guys go with that side and they're able to put a heavier dose of oak on there and they stand up really well. So it just depends what that winemaker is looking for. It was kinda where we like where they self select into the vineyard.

So a lot of Rutherford is planted to oh thirty nine sixteen because of the family. pressure. Exactly. How do your vines that are not on that rootstock

fair with that virus pressure. Surprisingly well. And there was a few years where they struggled a lot more and recently have actually come out of it. They're doing really well. Struggled with family? Uh just with fine health. We we have those some hard years of drought and those were harder on the older section, uh where the O thirty nine sixteen is just way more vigorous.

So it was able to get through that better. And since we haven't had droughts, that older section of the vineyard's doing really well. Which is funny because then you look at the oldest section, like Plinio's block, does really well even during the heat. It's been doing it for 115 years. Sometimes it does better than the irrigated section because it's just

Yeah to do it. So it's established. Yeah. Yeah. It's got these twenty, thirty foot tapers, yeah. What is your team look like? You and your father, obviously. Pops and me and then mom. And well, Melody, she does a lot of the insurance and the back back end stuff. And then we've got three full-time guys, uh Jose Rudolfo and Osbaldo uh Garcia. And they have been around for well, Jose and Rudolfo have been here for 35 plus years.

They actually start they came from Mexico and they started with us. And I've so I've known them like my whole life. And then recently their brother Osvaldo came up and he's he's working with us now as well. So yeah, they are probably the secret sauce of everything. They know all the vines and have that consistency in pruning and suckering and, you know, running the team. Obviously it's we've got to hire more people.

seasonally. So suckering, you know, shoot thinning season, we bring probably about six folks in and then harvest probably twelve people. And even the harvest folks are all the same same family, the Sanchez family from kinda modesto series area and they come up uh every year for about three weeks and just to work yeah just more solely just here. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. They're rock stars and they're really good.

And they're fast and they're and it's like a violence of action in there in the mornings, man. They're just going for it. It's like don't don't don't get in the way'cause you'll get a a lug of crepe grapes thrown at your head if you're in the wrong spot. So but yeah, they're really good. They are mostly construction folks down in in uh Central Valley and then they leave the construction work, do this and uh'cause I think they enjoy it. They actually make more money doing this.

for a few a few weeks and then we go back home. I mean that's the cool part about harvest, right? Is it it's intense and you can make some money, but like you wouldn't want to do it for too long. No. I mean these guys work their butts off. They work really hard. Yeah, and and they have fun doing it, but man, at the end of the day they'll they'll smoke. So it's a it's a lot of work. This is one of the things that I don't understand about old world

And European farming is they they talk about, you know, the joy of harvest and like a few people going out and picking. You see photos of people picking during the middle of the day. Yeah. And then I work in this region of idealistic. Yeah. Oh, this is wonderful. And and I'm looking at these people that are like students and grandmothers and all these things. And like,

They're not picking enough fruit. Like this this is I mean I guess if we just had like the old lock you could pick that right. Uh very laissez fairy, you know, but just kinda hanging out. But my God, yeah, it is getting that Vineyard in the morning, you start at two or three in the in the morning and they're just going and they're not stopping for anybody. I mean, it is I like how you said violent. Like it violent is of action. It's loud, it's violent. Like

Heavily caffeinated. Yep, exactly. But it's something to see, you know. I mean at the end of three weeks you're kinda like ready for it to be over. But it's my favorite time of year to be done, right? Yeah, okay, so let's talk about this because You're obviously communicating with a number of different client wineries that are buying fruit.

Uh, you're watching the weather. I'm sure there comes a point when lots of people all wanna pick at the same time. Right. And you're probably and then you gotta manage your your crew and and what they can do. What is this?

system of logistics look like. So the system of logistics is a note on my phone and I plug in people's dates that they want to pick and then we, you know, go from there really. So So if they can contact you early, that's their uh just start putting dates on the calendar and then we, you know, tell the guys what the plan is, we share the shared note and everyone knows

what we're doing the next morning. So but we're lucky because the clients we have really span a pretty wide stylistic, you know, bell curve. Well that's good. So it's not everyone at the same time. Yeah, we couldn't handle everyone at the same time. So, you know, we always know we start with a two usually. And uh well the Zen even before that. So Zen goes to Bialy, Hourglass.

Uh Orin Swift, also Elise. So those generally go in first and then we'll roll in a cab with the two and then everyone kind of falls in behind behind them and then we'll finish out with Orin Swift. 'Cause they're usually last and then they'll roll, do some second crop and uh and then we're done. So works great to have that different uh you know different styles in there. So which also again makes it fascinating to go through and do that horizontal.

So where do you fit in with more solely in terms of picking trees? Pretty much in the middle, maybe even a little earlier of middle, because our goal is like three things. I want to be true to the site, true to the grape, and true to the vintage.

And I think to do that, you've got to get in there before you start getting those, you know, overripe flavors, obviously. If you're gonna not use a lot of new oak. So we're we're doing two thirds new oak generally. And I think that's kind of the sweet spot where I can see the oak integration, but not perceive oak. And that's like my I think my sweet spot. And also Joel.

Aiken, who who is our winemaker, has been making wine from this vineyard for 40 years, was at BV as the winemaker for 27, uh, and he is an expert on Rutherford. And that's always been his kind of sweet spot making a like a classic wine that's built to last. And that's the uh kind of the goal the goal here.'Cause you know, going back and tasting some of those old B Vs and old Rutherford, like that's the wine that I want to make for the future. And that's not to say like

stylistically there's are different that's just that's a style I like and I think bests. But Man, some of the stuff like the Oran Swift stuff that Dave Finney used to make, still makes. I mean, those are beautiful. Like that all it all goes into uh Mercury Head. And man, that is like a powerful, beautiful wine. And then like I said, the attude is also just like super ethereal and and really nice. So all the styles are high quality. It's just whatever you like.

Do you have to uh take bribes and things like that for people to get uh their place in the schedule when it when it gets tough? Like everybody kinda like figures it out. Every once in a while you'll you'll get a little double booked and you'll just have to Move someone a day or two. How many tons can you pick in a night? We usually do about twenty tons would be about max. Okay, that's real. If you think about it, that's each guy picking, you know, ton, you know, a little over a ton each.

Which is which is quite a bit. Yeah, generally it's about twenty tons. So the whole ranch is gonna take, you know, about two twenty to to you know, two hundred twenty tons or so. So, you know, it's about three weeks. But every day we're not picking twenty tons. Some days are right. Seven, eight, nine, ten tons.

How's the crop and everything looking this year? This year looks great. Um it's really similar to twenty three and twenty four. Twenty five has fallen right in line. It's a little bit less than last year. And last year was a little bit less than the year before, which is good. Um and yeah.

Excited about it. But my dad always says he'll tell you in November how harvest is is looking. So uh let you know. One of my least favorite questions to get is when when's harvest gonna be? I know, right? It's awful. Yeah. So In the fall.

Yep. I I promise it will happen. And the grapes are ripe. Okay, tell me about the the first conversation with your parents about creating more soy as a brand. Got it. Yeah. So we were in Idaho, we're on a fishing trip. At the Pioneer Saloon, which is one of my like favorite spots to eat. Ketchamido, solid place. So we were sitting there and

Talking about wine and like future and all that stuff. And my dad surprised me and he said, Hey, well, give it a shot if you want. Like pick someone who knows the vineyard. And give it a shot. I don't want to have a I don't want to mess with it. It's you, you it's your problem. But but but go for it.

So we we thought about it and Joel kind of was the natural uh Joel Aiken was the natural guy because again of his experience and and his just general like demeanor is kind of right on board with us. He's just quiet professional, is an expert at what he does. But he's not he's not loud, it just kind of fits with like our vibe, right? And so we asked Joel and he was really excited about doing it. He'd been doing a little consulting here and there. So he he signed on and

Yeah, it's been great. So that was 2018. So really that was that discussion was July of eighteen and then October of eighteen. We picked the first year, two point four tons.

and did, you know, couple hundred barely a couple hundred faces. You make both Zinfidel and Cab? No, that was just cab. So it just started with cab. I I couldn't get into the Zinfidel'cause it had was contracted. So we were finally Able to to get the old block back, which w had been going to my friend Jake Corson, who'd been doing a great job with it, but he decided to kind of focus more on some

outside of Napa wines and we were able to get back into it. And to me that's like the that's the heart and soul of the vineyard, uh right in the middle. And so that started in twenty three. Okay. So z Zimbabwe, first year twenty three. Yep. But cab every year since eighteen. Exactly. Okay. Obviously you're not making a lot of wine. What is your uh thinking of wh why did you want it?

make these wines. Um I you know, I think it's'cause you're not naive. You're not some rich guy coming in from yeah, whatever, successful from some other business or you you and I know this story over and over and over again. A hundred percent. Yeah. Uh yeah. You know what you're getting at.

Yeah, it's not it's not a vanning project so much. So I think why I wanna do it two reasons. A, I wanted to see the whole way through and understand like what happens after the fruit gets loaded onto the truck.'Cause that's all I knew. It's like, okay, fruit, load on truck, see ya. So me having to getting to learn like everything from the wine making aspect, the compliance, the packaging, the shipping, the marketing, the sales, like all that stuff, uh has been a big education.

And I think it's made me a little bit more empathetic on the winemaking side because it's a it's a challenge, you know, like you there's a lot more to it than I thought about when I was just a kid here, right? So A that And then B is it's a really good way to bring people out, show them the vineyard and like prop up the other brands and other people who buy grapes from here. So it's when when we have a critic out.

we'll do a horizontal again, we'll we'll go through a year and everyone gets a little bump from that. We get to see different different people's uh take on the vineyard and it just increases the awareness. So I think that's been helpful as well and and fun to do. At your scale is a i could you be profitable? Uh I mean, f five hundred cases of anything is is hard to really make it work.

And it's it's slowly getting there and I've I've been happy with with where we're at. But yeah, I mean if you know, gosh, you either Stay small or you gotta go big. And the plan is just maintain where at. It's perfect. We've got the the best section of the vineyard, I feel, is where we get our cab from. Obviously the the feel blend of the old Plinio's block is is the only spot we get from for that that bottling.

But everything's kind of locked up into contracts. So even if I wanted to expand a lot, I wouldn't really be able to move too much further because, you know, as I said, we've got people who've been there for thirty or forty years. And my dad's theory is as long as they keep paying the bills and

making good wine, then we're not gonna push anybody out. So, you know, but e even recently, I mean, there's gonna be some shuffling with the wine market the way it is, but we've been pretty lucky. We're stolen out this year. Next year we might have a little bit for sale. But we've been really lucky and and people are still lining up to to get fruit.

You'd hate to be the winemaker that dropped the more solely fruit one year'cause you were an oversupply and then couldn't ever get back. Totally. All right. Exactly. Break a legacy. Can't do that. Hopefully I know a guy. Hopefully Pops will let me stay in the vineyard, so

Once they don't mess up too bad. No one's excited about compliance and shipping. And all these sort of I'm calling the tedious aspects of of running a wine business. Why did no one warn me about that? Did they or did they not or did I in fact I asked Dave sorry to off the off ramp your question here, but while while we were making the decision, I went and talked to Dave. Dave Finney. Dave Finney and I said, Hey, like give me some advice.

I I'm thinking of doing this. Should I? And he said, Absolutely not. Don't don't do it. And I absolutely disobey, you know, uh went the other way with it and uh and then dropped some wine off the other day and he was like, All right, this this is pretty good. So anyway, but some sage advice from a guy who's been there and done that. Uh brilliant brilliant winemaker and marketer. So my question then is what what are the things you do like? What are the surprise fun things?

I know it's not compliance or shipping. Definitely not. I like you know, I really get a kick out of meeting with good people and seeing, you know, getting to hang out and drink wine with with cool folks from different different walks of life. Uh I've had a lot of really cool and it's only referral usually based. But really cool people have come out here. I mean your group was like number one. God's the inside winemaking crew. Like

Top notch. We had a great time. Super great questions and just people that are really passionate and into wine. And, you know, w when we have folks out here, it's much more of an educational base. It's not like, you know, we get we get really nerdy about all of the aspects of viticulture and winemaking and you know it's not just like coming to drink.

And usually it's you know, we do something in the morning, so it's kinda like we're getting in first thing and we're learning about about the grapes and and the wine. And that's where I get a kick out of people that are also into that. So So this is not a question. Okay. You're good at marketing. My question is Where did you learn to connect with people in the ways that you do? And your packaging is great.

On the wine, but also the challenge coins, pretty cool. I'd I'd like you to tell that story if you're willing. Cool. Yeah, absolutely. I think the one common thread there is And everything I've done is relationship based, right? Uh the army, huge on relationships.

The wine industry, huge on relations, the firefighting aspect of what I do also. Everything is relationship based. And if you have good relationships with folks, that will carry you through the challenging times and and just make things better. So

To me that uh and and there's a limit to that, like you can only do so much, right? You're one person, but doing the best you can with like giving people something awesome to take home or like a little token, like I always write a note and people get a challenge coin with that's numbered. based on the number in line they were as a customer. And I don't know what that means yet. Maybe in the future if you're I don't know, number one through five hundred, you know, get something special.

But that is just one little thing you can do for people to say, Hey, we appreciate you like taking the time to come out and learn about the wine or and learn about the vineyard. And that's a military tradition. So the challenge coin is something that we do in the army or military as a whole. And anytime someone does something special for you or it's, you know, something that uh r requires recognition, then you you hand him a challenge coin.

And just say thanks. And then people collect them and and you know, you'll see them on people's desks. And uh to me it was like, all right, well, we need a challenge coin. So I made that and then from day one, released in the 2018, number one coin went to my buddy Jeff Alexander, uh, who was like Super charged up about the project. He was one of my flight docs in in Honduras and he got number one. And it's just been really cool to see that kind of roll out. So I think people like it.

Yeah, when uh my different friends got their packages in the mail, everyone was sending around photos of the challenge coin. That was uh unique and pretty cool. Awesome. Right on. Well thanks.

I like your answer though about relationships'cause I think it's right. Especially now, especially when times are a little challenging and wine isn't as popular as it as it used to be. I think you getting out there, you've got to work kinda work hard to be in front of people and you know, not just from the wine aspect, but from the vineyard aspect that you gotta get out there and tell the story because if you're not telling it, no one else is.

You're pretty good at your elevator pitch. Not that you always pretty bad. I I ramble so much, man. That's just awful. I mean, to be fair though, most people give you a couple of minutes. It's true. Yeah. Hopefully. So are you selling wine? Uh we are. We do mostly it's all direct to consumer. Kimberly Jones is our broker in California, so she does all of California.

Which has been really helpful to have, you know, just getting around to I don't have time to get to the shops and the restaurants and all that. And her team does that really, really well. So in fact Brett and Mimi

just up the road with Scarecrow linked me up with with Kimberly and said, The top five wine brokers, Kimberly Jones, Kimberly Jones, Kimberly Jones. Uh they said, She's great. So you gotta meet her. So we met we met Kimberly and went through, you know, went through the wine. She loved him. And it's been a really good good relationship. So'cause again, I don't get that. I don't I don't know marketing. I'm not a marketer.

I mean, thanks for saying I'm a good good at marketing, but that's the limit of that is my like black and white Instagram feed. And that's it. And some tractors. Sorry, sorry folks. Well I mean it really comes through that you're a farm. Well it's authentic. It's here. I mean I'm I'm taking the video when I knock down the you know the hundred and ten year old vine and and you get to see it in real life, unfortunately.

Yeah. So what are you looking forward to now? What are next steps or next projects for not just the the the wine brand but the the whole family project of of farming and and selling grapes? Yeah yeah. I would like to say there's a big goal ahead, but honestly it's just sustainment. It's just continuing along. We've been kind of

here in Rutherford for a hundred plus years, just keeping on, keeping on, and we're gonna keep doing that. So how do you guys decide when it's time to pull out a block and and redevelop? Good good question. Uh you know when the Red blotch virus pressure uh is quite a bit lately. So if we start seeing a lot of encroachment of red blotch, obviously we go in and we rogue.

And we get rid of anything that has a symptom. But if that starts to be too much, then we we would rip out. And we did that recently with a block uh in the south section. So that was replanted in 2017 and the spot next to it. Potentially will be the next to go, or maybe the some of the Zieger. But right now ever I mean we're we're selling it all, it's still making really good quality wine. There's no red blotch in in at least the north section.

So we're we're keeping it on the ground. But you know, if it gets more challenging as far as finding clients, then that's a different story. But uh really when your production just starts to drop or the quality gr drops, then it comes out. Are you diagnosing red blots just by looking at the the leaves and the veins? Yep. Exactly. So post harvest we go through anything that's red comes out. We take about five to six hundred vines out a year.

uh, which is like half acre of vines, maybe more, maybe uh three quarters of an acre. And, you know, we've got some hot spots, you know, a around the neighborhood, uh, which don't help. So I think that is a bit of a challenge. That's just farming. So Can they gotta deal with it? And it's a it's a much wider problem than than just just us. Obviously, Rutherford and Napa Valley as a whole has this red blotch problem. Uh and there's just no solution yet to it. So I don't know if that'll be a

UC Davis solution or Rootstock or clonal change, but it's going to take a while before we get it figured out. Yeah. Well, I mean, being viral, there's not a lot you can do. Yeah. Yeah. You just gotta you know The spread is easy to see. It goes with the prevailing winds. It goes south to north. Uh, so you do the best you can to remove when you see it, and that's all you can do. But red blush.

grapes to me are are much more flat. The acidity's lousy. They just don't get to sugar like you want them to. And they made it's harder for you to make really nice wines. What are the other big challenges these days? Red blood. Currently we don't seem to be in a huge pest infestation. I'm sure you guys are always watching out for mealybugs.

Yeah, so just keeping an eye on any any pressures. This year was a h heavy mildew year pressure. It sure was. We made it okay, but you know, we had a couple of bunches we found, like two or three in the vineyard. We got rid of those.

But a lot of folks have had a challenging time with that. So just nature of the nature of the beast. But yeah, I mean virus pressure is the number one thing. Between the virus and and the market, uh, I think those are the two two challenges that we have. But so far, done a good job mitigating kind of both. Fingers crossed.

So is there a conversation with you and your parents now of like how much longer they're gonna be involved and I don't know how old they are. Maybe they're they're young enough they can do this for decades, but Is there a point in time when it's uh Chris has to fully take over? No, Pops is rocking and rollin' man. He's okay. Ex exhausts me daily. He's out with all these projects and I'm like trying to keep up so Yeah, no he's and I mean he's just been doing it.

Fifty, sixty years, he just knows exactly what to do and when to do it. I mean, he tells like a cool story about when he was like a kid, like ten or twelve, he was out in that old block. And they used to have the old plow and they would tow that old plow, which was ha a hand plow that you'd use with a horse, and you would like move it in and out of those old vines. So it literally has been doing this for like sixty years.

So yeah, you can't can't buy that experience. And it's been really fun working with him and and my mom too and seeing him like give advice to other people, other growers and like all of these old school techniques and old school farming. kind of comes back around. And there had been a s a time where there was a lot of new techniques tried and new plantings and new

row spacing or I mean you name it, right? And he's always stayed tr pretty true on that like eight by or six by eight planting. So eight foot rows, six feet between the vines.

the style of farming we do and always been like, No, this is like this works here. And we've been doing it for a long time. And a lot of folks have come around to that and been like, Yeah, that that really works. So I found that kind of fun to like see other people come around it,'cause he still consults a lot with people here on the Rutherford bench and

Just kind of explains He used to have a larger farming company, right? Yeah, yeah. So my dad used to farm from the north to south, Hewitt, uh Boche, uh Inglenook. JJ Cohen for a few years, obviously our own stuff, and then further south down into like Sycamore Avenale.

uh vineyard and even down in de a little bit of yauntville with Gurgich. But if it if he had to travel too far with the tractor, he wouldn't manage it. So it's like if I can get there with the tractor, okay, but we're not crossing any roads and it's gotta be like a a short commute. Okay, and then at some point decided just to focus on the home ranch. Exactly. So you had about two thousand twenty, I think, twenty or twenty one. We gave up the last ranch that we managed, which was Godward.

Uh a really nice spot. But yep, moved on and just did our own stuff. You know, I mean everything, farm labor contracting, all the rules. It's just a lot to keep up on. So doing your own stuff. So which is interesting because every generation prior to this point right now, this was like a secondary thing, right? Like my great grandpa had the store, my grandpa had the construction business, uh, my dad managed a bunch of vineyards. Like everybody did something else to make to pay for life, right?

Like finally the vineyard is like, Yeah, y you can make a living on it, right? But before that, I mean It was not uh not like that. So maybe we're going back the other way. Maybe we'll have to get a another job. Yeah, how does that work with you being on the uh

Is it Rutherford volunteer fire fire team? Or V F D, yeah, or Rutherford Fire Department. Which is fun. I mean, it's a community thing. So yeah, anytime the fire starting goes off, if I if it's something I can help with, I'll run down and and hop in the fire truck and go do something.

Uh I mean a lot of a lot of false alarms and that kind of thing. But but every once in a while we're able to make a good difference. Like twenty twenty, obviously it was a big year for fires and uh we were able to get out there and save some houses and save some wineries. I remember being out there like right when the fire started with the glass fire and feeling the like hot wind and seeing the the glow and being like, ooh, this is this is bad. So but it's good to have local folks involved.

That's a whole other conversation about how the county works with fire departments, but you know, have the local folks. Who know the water and the resources and the the access points, the people. It's important. Well you were on the fire a couple of weeks ago, right? Uh I was, yeah, up by Brand, uh on Pritchard Hill. Pritchard Hill, yeah. I saw some

Yeah on on Instagram you had the uh what was that the back patio that it had all the retardant belt. They painted that pool pink. Oh my god, that was gonna be some clean up. But hey, better pink than uh Yeah. Than ashes, right? So but yeah, that was it. That was a good stop. So we had a lot of again, w when the season's not busy and there's not fires, you get a lot of help quick.

Yeah. And then how often are you out flying with the reserve? Uh I probably do Is it reserved? It's the National Guard, which it's part time. I do that about Uh on average a third of my year, so about a hundred days a year. Well, that's serious. Which is pretty that's a busy part-time job. So uh once a week I'm over flying.

Once or twice sometimes. And yeah, it's out of Sacramento and that's great. I love it. It's uh get to stay involved, uh, any, you know, disaster, whatever the disaster of the day is in California, fires, floods. Killer bees, whatever it may be. We're mountain rescues. So yeah, occasionally a good r rescue here and there. Uh which which is always always fun. But yeah, and just the folks you meet are are really good quality people who, you know, we're out trying to

Do the right thing, help folks out and I like it. And it's a free way to fly. Pay ya. Yeah. If you go down and, you know, rent a Cessna at a Napa, you're gonna pay two hundred and fifty dollars an hour to do it. So I just get to use your tax dollars to do it for free. So thank you. You had the coolest line I've ever heard my entire life. Whoa, that's big. And it was two words. I would like in my li I will never be able to say something this cool in such simple terms.

But you were having a conversation with someone and I was kind of like listening on the side and they were asking about flying helicopters and they said, Oh, do you fly Apaches? And you just go, No, Blackhawk Black Ock. It's like oh two words. It's just fair enough. Just mic drop, walk away. It's a pickup truck, man. Uh and it just it is a tough

tough flying machine and is I mean you gotta be you gotta have good quality airplane for the for army guys to go fly and not bang up, right? So yeah, it is uh it's it's sturdy. I've seen that thing come back with Crashed with bullet holes in it with all kinds of stuff and that thing just keeps trucking. It is impressive. It's a great, great airframe. So props to old Igor Sikorsky for doing a great job uh with design on that thing. Yeah.

It's great. Is there anything else you think we need to uh talk about before we wrap up? I I Jim, just thanks for coming out, man. This is uh Again, I'm a a big, big fan of you and the podcast and everything you're doing at C V and yeah, it's just nice to be included in your orbit. So thank you. Okay. Well let's wrap it up. Yeah. Tell me what your childhood smelled like. We knew where you grew up. This was coming. Yeah. Don't say dust.

I it's not good enough. Well it depends on the season. Okay. Give me a season. Spring. Spring. Mustard. Does it actually smell like mustard? Yeah. Really? Like we used to crawl around in the old block and make little forts in the mustard. It's like green. STEM y mustardy, like just yeah, just gra I mean mud, lots of mud. So if I can't say dust, I'll say Rutherford mud. But that was it, you know, like

running through the mustard with the four wheeler and the way the the basket hits it, you just get assaulted with this like wave of mustard leaves. Okay. And mustard flowers. It's just a little bit of a big thing. I do know the smell though, yes. And it's just like floral, mustardy.

That's one and the other one is bloom. Grape smell of grape bloom. Yeah. I can't smell that. Oh my so I couldn't either until my dad was like, Can you smell that? And I'm like, what? He's like Go put your face in that vine. And I was like, Oh, that's bloom. It's just like s really light, floral, fragrant, kinda perfumey. But it's light. If you don't if you've never done it. So I I was there's a lot of things. My dad's like, go look at that. Like look at it again. Come on, man.

I just learned recently that sycamore trees have a smell. Oh, that's cool. I'd always smelled it and I just assumed it was like something else of the place I was at. It's kind of like it's not a lovely smell. And then finally my wife was like, Slow down. Like, no, this this is the tree. And I was like It really is a tree. I'm s I never knew that.

Dude, that's so cool. But yeah, that th those would be my things uh to learn. My dad was always like, You should bot if you could find a way to bottle that, it'd be so cool. Okay, I'm gonna ask you two more seasons, but I'm assuming fall. Yep. Because I drive through Brotherford the way to work, I know it smells like. Yeah. Perfect, Jason. Pumice. Uh Why Rutherford, nowhere else.

Pistoni. Oh okay. Because of Upper Valley. Okay. Yeah. That's where they dump all the pumice. Okay. Boom, you hit that like really deep, like ripe, super ripe pumice. Sometimes it's too much. I'm in the car with the windows rolled up. Wow. Yeah. Definitely that. And what else do I like? Uh oh, that's where this Pliny's block. Man, when I open one of those,

Harvest. Smell harvest in the old block. Boom. It's it's cool. Uh and then winter, I'll give you one better. Winter, uh, petrichore. Okay. Petricore, rain on rain on dust. Awesome. Yep. All right. Kind of round us out with summer then. Oh, summer. Peach tree peaches and plums. Go crazy because this whole vineyard, not this part we're at, but the south block used to be plums, plums and prunes.

So we have a couple of trees still left of plums and prunes. And that's it. And that's what I noticed about good people who are good tasters and they're smelling everything. They're like farmers markets, like around the vineyard, whatever. They're like going and smelling things. So So it's one of the greatest pleasures of in life, I think, that a lot of people overlook because it's it's very easy to take for granted. Sure. Yeah. And tr it triggers so much. It's like very primal. Okay.

Let people know where they can find the wine, website, anything like that, and can they come visit you? What is that? Yeah. It's limited. It's depending on, you know, what I'm doing that week. So, you know, only whales or what? I'm the only guy doing it. So yeah, I've yet to get pops in a suit to host tastings. So

It's not gonna happen. But I will gladly if I can, we'll figure something out. Uh invite invite only out to the vineyard. But yeah, I mean the website more solivineyard.com and definitely get you an allocation. Twenty ones are going pretty going to go pretty quick. They're released in September. They they did really well out there with uh with the with the masses.

And yeah, I'm just excited about it. Excited to share some old school farming and some kind of classic viticulture and winemaking with uh with people out there. And that's it. And then Instagram, if you want to see black and white tractors.

Actually Sepia is the is the vibe m at Morrisley Vineyard. Check it out. If people wanted to to contact you, can they do that through the website? Yeah. There's a website. Uh contact form. Email on there. So check it out. Awesome. Thank you, Chris. Awesome. Jim, thanks, my friend. Alright, everyone, thank you for listening. Please check out the show notes for this episode and all previous at insidewinemaking.com.

There you can also find information on the classes and travel that I have coming up. There are no current classes scheduled. I finished all those for 2025. But I do have the trip to Tuscany in June of 2026 that I'm putting together. Please let me know if you were interested in that and check out the fundamentals of winemaking made easy video course. Link to that, tab for that also on the website.

I have space for a couple more consulting clients. If you're interested, I'm happy to have a longer conversation. And with that, I'm gonna leave you with a final message from this episode's sponsor, which is Harvest Pillar. Have you heard of the last trellis post you'll ever need? European winemakers have trusted concrete trellis posts for decades because, simply put, they stand the test of time.

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