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Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alison Levine and today I am in the Livermore Valley with Steve Zaganti of Three Steves Winery. Steve of three Steves Winery. Welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us about three Steve's Winery.
Hi, Alison, thanks for coming. So Three Steve's Winery kind of got started over a bottle of wine shocking with two friends named Steve. One of them suggested we get into this business, and the other two of us looked at them and center you out of your mind. And as the evening progressed, somewhere between bottle three and four, we came up with a bottle with the name three Steves Winery and started this little project. Wow.
And I was going to say, like three Steves, is that like your three personalities? But there's just one Steve here today.
Well, and that's a good point because one of the Steves, his wife, wanted to be close to family.
And moved to Delaware, not close to wine.
Nope, sold his shares to me. The other Steve's wife wanted to be close to family, moved to Texas. He still has a small percentage, but as a silent partner. And my wife, who's an East Coaster, I said, honey, have you ever thought about living out there your family? She says no, I love it here. So I love you so much, thank you. So three Steves is really now me, myself and I so this three personalities.
Yeah, there you go, Me myself and I. So tell me a little bit about the principles of three Steves. Like, you're here in the Livermore Valley? How did you end up here in the Livermore Valley?
So as I was about to retire from a paying job my wife and I used to travel a lot. My wife looked at me and says, twice as much husband, half as much money. This is just not going to end. Well, you better go start that winery you've always talked about, because I've been a home winemaker off and on since the mid seventies. So we decided to start a winery.
We were going to do it out in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where we had a home that during Prohibition was a winery, and I came into Livermore and met a bunch of the wine makers in Livermore and saw such a collaborative environment and such a great environment to make wine. I said, honey, what do you think about Livermore. So we started making wine here, commuting back and forth about an hour and a half each way.
And you were living in the Santa Cruz Mountains all the time.
Yep, I was living in the Santa Cruz mountains. Wasn't crazy about the commute, but it wasn't babs. It didn't have to be during commute hours. But it started looking for a place to live and found this property which had a small winery on it, a house, and it was for sale, and decided, yeah, Livermore is where we're going to do it. And then we wound up moving here and setting up shop here.
Well, and you moved here and started here when.
So I was in the house in twenty twelve. If you remember what it was like to get a mortgage, then it was pretty ridiculous. So it took me until April May fifteenth, twenty thirteen to close escrow on it. But I was actually living on property for the four or five months.
Before that, and that was the start of Three Steves Winery Or was that? Did Three Steves the brand start earlier?
The brand started earlier. We got our license to sell wine in twenty ten. I had retired in two thousand and eight. We're still kind of home wine makers, ramping up at a bonded winery renting space and then opened our doors downtown Livermore in a little taste room in twenty ten. And it was doing that and again I was doing that commute. Then we found this place and opened here July twenty six, twenty thirteen.
Wow, so here you are just over a decade. And do you you've got vineyards around We've got vineyards around us where we're we position. Now do you how many acres do you own? And are you purchasing fruit? And how much of your production is purchased?
So I own Sometimes I exaggerate and say twenty four acres. It's twenty three point eighty six.
You can round it up, okay, So I have twenty.
Four acres on that property as the home I live in. There's two wineries, one that's leased out to jmc sellers as well as mine, and we have planted about six and the quarter acres of.
Grapes, and what grapes do you have planted here?
I was hoping you'd ask that.
There you go, you read my mind.
So when I bought the property it was all Cabernet Sevignon. About a year and a half ago I grafted one acre over to Cabernet franc another acre over to Cabernet Feffer. Again. This year I did that same exercise again. The reason I didn't do both at once was one I wanted to see other grafts took number two. Cabernet Feffer is extremely rare, and I could only get enough cuttings to do one acre. So this year, when I grafted again, I used the cutting from my new grafts to start those other two acres.
So now you have three acres of Cabfef.
I have two acres of cab Peffer, two acres of cab.
Wow, two more acres into the world of cab Feth. I think there's fifteen acres in the Sianaga Valley and not much else in the world.
That's about all there is, really, I do know of one. Then you're down in the Siannaga valley that just grafted a couple of acres a few years ago, and they got their first production last year, So maybe that numbers up to like seventeen or eighteen now plus my two.
Wow, growing that little cap Cuffer's footprint on the world. Now, I'm curious. We're sitting in your tasting room and there's a map behind you that says are growing regions? Are these the places you're sourcing fruit from?
Or what?
Are you getting fruit from? Chili?
So we're not getting fruit from Chile. We're making wine and Chile. Wow. So we make wine down there with This all started in twenty fifteen for us. We were buying some fruit from Sianaga Valley that you mentioned that so apparently that beautiful region we're buying fruit down there. And one of the places we bought fruit from we were buying a wonderful ancient vinees Infandel fruit planted nineteen
oh six dry farm. We entered that wine that year in the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, which you probably know is the largest in the world for American wines. The judges, in their infinite wisdom, out of sixty five hundred plus wines, held our bottle up and said best red wine a show. So when that happened, we started running out of wine, which is an interesting problem to have.
Our friend Aldrose, who runs the vineyard down in Santaga Valley, was hitting us up every time we saw him about coming to chili and making wine with him. Said, al, you're single. We're married men. We have kids. We can't take off and go to chili and play. So he heard we were running out of wine after that award, and college says, hey, what's your excuse now, and started going down there and making wine with him. Wow.
Okay, So you make wine from chili under the three stat label, and then you have your state fruit. And then are you buying fruit? Where else are you buying fruit for? Is it Livermore Valley or other places?
So we buy as much as we can, or as much as we're comfortable with as winemakers from Livermore Valley. We do buy some Zenfandel from Dry Creek Valley. It's one of the wines I want to talk a little bit about today. From good friends of mine. The sayany family that have been farming there for four generations, And we buy down from Siamaca Valley we buy the we used to buy cab Feffory. We still will until our buys take off good. We buy the ancient vine Zenfandel and one other oh Sanjavesi.
Okay, so a good little smattering of things. And what's your total case production?
It's about four thousand cases a year. Ferries a little year on year, depending on demand and what we have going on. And frankly, sometimes they get a little weak and somebody says, hey, I've got this. Would you like to try and make that. Of course the answer is yes, but your business brain says, no, that's a dumb idea. You don't need to add another skew.
But then you have to sell it, and then we have to sell it.
That's the hardest part.
And in terms of selling, are you one hundred percent direct to consumer or are you in markets nationally or handpicked?
So we're about ninety five percent right across the taste room in bar in here. We do a little bit locally with some of the big names, but very very local like Total Wine, VEVMO, Safeways, things like that. We're in some restaurants, but it's not our main focus. We really like to sell here. We like to meet the people coming in the door, tell them our story, tell them about our wines. You know, share the passion.
So we were a home wine maker before you became a professional line maker. But I'm curious, what is your first memory relevant to wine?
So my first memory relevant? Oh, as a child, So my father made wine with a friend of his, a guy named Mario de Fava. They both worked at the same place that did kind of a lumberyard type business. But Mario had this beautiful spot out on Limerick Lane in Hillsburg, and my dad and he made a little bit of homemade wine together. My first memory was sitting down at dinner and my dad pouring a little bit of wine in the glass as a kid and watering it down. Typical Italian.
Typical Italian. And you grew up in Hildsburg.
I did, Yeah, I was there until Uncle Sam came knocking on my door in nineteen seventy two and set me off to places I didn't want to go.
And so being up in Hilsburg, obviously you were surrounded by vines, not as many as there are today, but you were raised in an area that had vines. As you have traveled the world and drank lots of great wines, and obviously something triggered you to become a home wine maker. But I'm wondering if there is a particular wine that stands out it was one of those aha moments for you.
Well, it's absolutely zinfandel. Yeah, And you know, so I said I was a home winemaker. I started when I got out of the service in nineteen seventy six, and my first wine I made was a zinfandel from the very vineyard that I'm still now using the Sayani farms.
Wow.
Wow, So I'd love Zenfandel's. You know, it's the original grape on the planet. Is I'm sure? You know. I tell people if my doctor ever told me I could only have one more glass of wine in my life, I'd have a big glass of Zenfindel and immediately go find another doctor.
So you love zinfandel, And I'm curious, do you think there's a such thing as a perfect variety?
Perfect? Well, in my mind is Zifidel. Most people wouldn't agree with me, I probably, but I just absolutely love it. Second would probably be the you know cap Beefer was just talking about, it's so unique and so different from everything else I've ever had, and we get a lot of that customers coming to the table too. It's like, I've never had anything like this. I said, well, it's really hard to find. You do not many place that. Yeah,
all take something and that makes perfection. Huh. Well yeah, I mean it also depends on what you're eating it with, right, I mean, you know wine makes food better. Food makes wine better.
So I'm going to come to that in a second, but I do want to ask you first, like with zifidel being your love and obviously other grapes that you make, if we come to your home, what would we find in there? Is it a lot of zimfandel's from different producers? Is a lot of your own wines? Is it wines from around the world?
What?
What do you like to collect and having your house ready to drink?
Well, I don't know. I don't know about collects. I drink it pretty fast to collect from me as oh, I forgot that was in there. A fair amount of zins. I don't make a up until this year, didn't make a Pean and No war. So I have a few more than a few Pean and No wars.
In there, mostly domestic or French.
Also, almost everything I have is domestic visits. What I know most of what I have is California besuits. What I know I mean, I've been to Europe on wine river cruises that we host and take our club members on. But I'm not well versed like my co wine maker alex Is on Wines of the World.
Is there a wine that you have at home in your wine fridge ready to drink since your wines are ready to drink that you opened recently that drank really well? You know?
One that shocked the heck out of me is I was cleaning out my wine fridge because the compressor died. Fortunately, I have a three thousand square foot building at fifty eight degrees that I gave barrels and so I could move it quickly. And as I was putting it back together with a new compressor, I found a lot of things that surprised me. Like I said, I don't have a spreadsheet showing what I have. I'm not that organized.
And I pulled out a It was a twenty eleven rose from Onguard Winery on Guard Is in Sonoma, Chapa. The owner is an old friend. We used to make wine together here in Livermore when we were renting space at another winery, and I brought it to a friend's house. It was wife's birthday and we went to her house. I brought a back up bottom, so I knew it couldn't be good. And it was amazing at twenty eleven Rose and it was from I called him and it was cab cap Front mar Low. There was one other
varietal in there, but he said, what that's good? It can't be. It shocked me. I mean, it just blew me away.
Wow, it just proves to you that rose has aging potential.
I guess it does.
Yeh, that's amazing. So I'm curious going back to the perfect variety you Zifidel cab Feffer. We have a few great varieties out there. And you said that you enter your wines that you've won awards at the San francisc Chronicle. So obviously competitions play a role in how you market your wines and how you sell your wines. But overall, what is your opinion online critics and scores. Do you
find them to be a great use? Do you find them to be how do they benefit or hurt a small brand like yourselves?
I mean, the benefit is when you get a good score, a good award, people hear about it. You have some plaques on the wall, you know, so it helps sell the wine. If you're on a grocery store shelf or liquor store shelf, and you have a you know, ninety five point rating, of course that's going to help sell it. But that's not really our business model. We're more in front of people here wine critics. I think you almost have to know the critics and know what to send them.
Competitions the same thing. You know, there's a certain style that the judges like in different competitions. I haven't figured it out, by the way, but for example, the Cabernet feffer that we have prior to twenty twenty two, we called it three caps. You kind of like that number three? I see that, yeah, because it has a little bit of Cabernet savin, a little bit of Cabernet fronc in it,
mostly Cabernet cuffer. Though. We set that off to critics, or to not critics, but like a wine enthusiasts, and didn't get a great rating. I mean it was high eighties, but not what we're used to. When the twenty twenty two came out, with the label Cabernet Feffer. Maybe they even had to look it up. I'm not sure, but we got a much better rating. Pretty much the same wine, a different year apart, but you could taste the two side by side and they're really close.
Very interesting. It says a lot about what perspective there might be or you know, it's palet a subjective but also perspective. So I'm curious your perspective Redwire Rose as a drinker, it depends.
On the weather.
Still are sparkling.
Mostly still?
But kind of an equal opportunist.
I do like sparkling. We do with sparkling, we do a regular brute and a rose broot. They're great sellers from what grapes from chardonay, pina no ter pino, mignet. Very traditional, yeah, very traditional? Yeah wow, made them out the champ and wine. Wow.
So going back to what I kind of cut you off before food pairing, because this is where I ask you, since you're an equal opportunist and all that you drink and like, and that you're making sparkling wine and you're making unique grapes like keb pepper and then also traditional grapes, how do you approach food and wine pairing. Are there rules that you follow? Is it really about what you're in the mood for and what determines how you're going to choose the wine you're going to open.
So there's no rules in my book anyway, Others may differ with that. What I'm going to choose, It depends on my mood, depends on the weather, depends on what I've done that day. It's you know, you say with fish, it has to be a white wine. It doesn't you know. It can be a rose, it could be a light red, it could be a capfeffer. It could be a cap effort, although that's a steak on the barbecue.
Ah well, I'll have to try your capfeffer to know.
Absolutely. We will do that once you put this microphone down.
But are there any guidelines that you recommend or suggest? Like if a customer comes in here and they're tasting your wines and they're saying, well, you know, how do I how do I pair this pino blanc, or how do I pair this cab feffer? What what do you tell them to sort of look for or to do well?
I mean, and it's really up to them. That's like sometimes I'll get people in there trying wines and they say, well, which is your favorite or which one should I buy? Well, you should buy the one you like the most. And the same thing with the food pairing. It's what works for your palette. You know, the pino blanc. You know people have come in so, well, what should I pair this with? I said, my ideal pairing for this, or are pino Grazio for that matter, give me a big
shrimp cocktail with lots of horse radish in it. I want something that'll, you know, kind of bring the brightness and clean it up. If I'm going to have always, always, always spaghetti with a heavy red sauce, I make a really good deep red sauce. It's got to be z infandel. I mean, could I drink something else with it? Sure, but I have my standard go tos. But the rest of it's just kind of wide open and see what works.
I love it. So for somebody who hasn't had the pleasure to taste Three Steves wines yet yet, what do you think they're missing out on?
Well, Well that's a tough one. Do I float my ego? Go for it? Are you what they're missing out on? And whether it's Three Steves or another small kind of family run winery, you're missing out on very unique wines that are truly handcrafted. That phrase is overused a lot, but they really are handcrafted. You go to some of the big, huge wineries, it's all equipment, it's formulas, it's computer controlled chilling. I mean, it's it would be nice to have some of that stuff, sure, but you really
it's all handcrafted. We try different yeasts all the time, we try different barrels all the time. We do these small runs and taste things. One of the ones we did last year that we're going to release at our wine club release on August third is a ramato. A ramato is a pinot grisio that's fermented on the skins
for a little bit. We have the ability to experiment all that on that kind of stuff, whereas someone like a Gallo, for example, nothing against Gallo, but they have their formula and they stick with it because whenever you open that bottle you want to taste exactly the same, or a cores light, you know it's going to taste the same every single time you open one. You know, we can mix it up, experiment, have fun, well, I'm going.
To come back to that in one second. Just what you said about, you know, consistency versus uniqueness. But I do have a question of the wines that you have, knowing what you love, but also you mentioned you know you have pin oblanc you have Pino grigio, You're going to make a romato, you have kep Feffer, on and on and them. If space aliens were to land at your property right now and knock on the door saying, you know, we want one of your wines, which wine
would you give to them? To say welcome to three steves.
Dry Creeks in my favorite every year. I try not to keep the bias in every s's where I started making wine. But for the zen, the ancient vine and the dry creek, you're splitting hairs which is the better wine? Both different in their own way, and it really again goes back to taste, and for me, it's taste based on what I've done that day, what the weather's like, a lot of different factors, what I have for breakfast, you know, all of that influences.
So they're going to get that Dry Creeks in I love it. Okay, So going back to what you were talking about, you know, being a small winery and handcraft wines compared to you know, maybe having more of a recipe for wine to make the same standard wine so that every time you open up a bottle, you know what you're going to get. So I'm curious about that. A lot of what will differentiate your wine from one
year to the next is vintage, vintage variation. And you've been here for you know, a few years, a good over a decade you've been you know, living here with your property, and I'm curious how much similarity and how much variation or versus how much variation you see from year to year.
So mother nature is always the wild card, right And in some years, like on the dry Creek there's two years we didn't get any fruit last year because that section of the vineyard and the weird weather patterns we had just didn't ripen right. And when I said, guys, I'll still take some besees are old family friends that have this vineyard, they said, no, no, no, the big guys will blend it in. Don't worry about it. We're not going to lose money on this, but we're not
going to sell to you. Is it's not right for your program. So there's always that variation by vintage, some of which you have to say no, I got to walk from it. Others you can do little things like if it's, for example, if you're making a Cabernet, we've never no, never made one hundred percent Cabernet seven on some away's got a splash, or to a petitefer dough. It might have a little cab fronc or marilew in it for you know, mid palate or nose petieper dough
for the back of the palette. You can always do a little bit of blending there and get to where you want it to be. But as far as are they all exactly the same. We had an employee party the other night and I opened up at twenty twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen cab and they were all kind of the same, but very different in their little nuances. And part of that was with the blending, and part of that was with the vintage. Part of it was also you know twelve was age long. Yeah.
Absolutely, So are there any sort of signs or predictors that you look for that's going to help you determine what kind of vintage you're going to get.
Just walking out in the vendyard and looking at the vendor and seeing how it's looking, and trying to protect what the weather's going to do. I mean, we had a great year going in oh I don't remember now, thirteen, maybe twelve or thirteen, and fruit was ripening really nicely up in dry Creek. They had a heap blast that hit them really hard, and of course all the crews now were busy picking and our zinfandel came in so high. We had to water the heck out of it to
water it back. I kitted around with a priest that I knew now I know how Jesus made water into wine, and he gave me a stern look and it says, that's not how it works. But that's the only time we've had to do anything with that dry Creek fruit. But we had to water it back because it would have been not only sixteen or seventeen maybe higher percentage, but it would have been sweet. Because the yeast can only live up to a certain.
Point when they die, and so in some ways there aren't real predictors because you just don't know what Mother Nature's going to throw you but you said you walk in the vines, and you spend time in the vineyards. So I'm curious when you walk through the vines, do you talk to your vines? What kind of communication do you have with them?
I just talked to myself.
No talking to the vines. What about when it comes into the winery in there in barrel? Do you then talk to it?
Good times when we're going through the vineyard, there's typically some music playing, but it's just you know, I'm a rock and roll guy, but we're just looking at how they're progressing, whether or not they need to be thinned a little bit. You know, we could grow easily six six and a half tons an acre here, we thin it back to about four. Make sure they're being thinned properly. I don't do that myself. We have a crew that
comes in and does it. But you just go through and kind of look and see how things are going and then say a little prayer and come on, mother nature be my buddy.
So you talk to mother nature, but you just don't talk to the vines.
You have to, you have to. I mean, you know, last week it was well over one hundred degrees here and the vines kind of go dormant over one hundred. So I'm thrilled this week we're back in the eighties nineties. It's perfect growing season. It was also foggy this morning. I don't know if you got it where you were this morning, but that's also perfect for this valley where you get the fog coming in at night in early morning and then it gets nice and hot during the day.
I never thought I'd live in Livermore, but I absolutely love it. And the reason I say that is when I was in the service in the early seventies, I was stationed in Sacramento, not far from here, and I came into Livermore to see an old girlfriend and there was nothing here. It was cows and nukes.
And it's crazy because it's got a charming town and it's quite developed, you know in terms of you know, homes and restaurants and things, and it's very vibrant.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a great, great town. And like I said before, great community want winemakers that everybody works together. If something breaks during harvest, before you know it's broken, hardly, someone's here often you're their spare. You know.
It's very collaborative in the time that you've been making wine, have you set up any you know, good luck rituals that you do at the start of harvest.
Yeah, So we always start harvest off with a shot of whiskey, and it's like, here's the start of harvest, and we finish it up that way. Same thing. When the bottling truck comes, we all do what we call a safety meeting. Everybody gets a shot, not a lot, just a shot, and we do a toast to being safe and having a good bottling day or harvest. Do that shot and off we go.
So whiskey is the common denominator across that.
I like that.
Now. I know you said you had a hard weekend. So wine wasn't your first career, and I'm curious when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? And is that what you ended up doing in.
Your first career. No, So when I was little, I wanted to be a pharmacist. I don't know why, but I was enthralled with being a pharmacist. In my career was starting off in engineering that uncle Sam came, got into communications, satellite communications, high end stuff, and then wound up in a medical device field and I spent almost thirty years at a company with medical instrumentation and loved
what I did. Started off on the engineering side, worked my way up to I was in charge of North American sales service, customer education, scientific support and had a great time doing that and retired when I could in two thousand and eight because I was traveling probably three quarters of the time and just getting burned out on the travel. Now, ironically, in eighteen had a customer, old
friend of mine up here trying the wines. He's a Harvard professor on the East Coast, and he talked me into going back to a little startup for about a year year and a half where I hired an assistant winemaker to cover for me and went to this little startup where I was out of the country every other week. And I did that for a little over a year, and I said, okay, guys, I'm done where you need to be.
You kind of remembered how hard it is to be traveling that much.
Travel is not what people think it is. People that don't travel think it's very romantic. Oh, you get to go to all these great places. No, it's a miserable flight. It's a hotel room that all look the same. It's a meal by yourself most of the time in a restaurant instead of your home cooked food.
You just haven't figured out how to travel like I do. For wine, that is very different.
I wish I would have figured out this podcast thing.
So when you're not working, how do you like to spend your free time?
Grandkids, just time with my wife and my family. We have a little place north of here. It's a place famous for auto parts, place called Napa on a lake, and we go up there and have a nice little ski boat, don't ski anymore of it, go out in the middle of the lake, shut the engine off and being the good winemaker that I am, open a beer and just relax. Because we live fifty yards from the tasting room and we're open seven days a week, it's kind of hard to kind of shut down when we're here.
So this is only an hour and forty five minute drive, and we go up there. We take the dog and just relax, go out in the leg, take a swim, do nothing. It's yeah, I love it.
So when you, as you just said, you're open seven days a week and you live right here on the property, when you want to kind of turn it off and create a romantic evening for you and your wife. What kind of wines get open for a romantic evening to set the mood?
Well, not Zefindel, because she's not a Zepindel man.
After all these years, you never converted her.
No. I mean she'll do reds, but she's she's more into like Chardonnay's maybe a piano grazio. It's not a real soft blank fan. I think we've got a great saft block, but probably a chardonnay, and cook a light meal light for her. She's you know, big into salads and fish and things like that. So and just maybe you watch a movie on the TV. It's typically lately we've been gotten into these old like fifties westerns just to see the acting and you know, very different era.
I like how you earlier said, like you make this great pasta, you make spaghetti and then you'll make it as infidel and clak. Clearly that is not for a romantic evening. That's for a guy's night.
That's a guy's night. Penny pasta with my red sauce and a bottle is in that that's that's that's me.
She puts up with it, though, Well, I'm curious when you look back at, you know, your life, is there a piece of advice that someone gave you along the way that you try to live or work by you something that you've applied. It could have been a parent, a teach, or a mentor along the way, previous careers or in wine.
Treat people like you want to be treated, you know, treat that I don't care, you know, like at this company where I worked, I was a senior vice president. I walk in and greet the security guards and the janitor is by name. It's that's, I think, the best a vice I've ever gotten. And it's what we do
here as well. I tell our staff treat everybody like family, make sure that their their biggest take home from Three Steve's Winery is while we feel like we belong here and make it real, you know, don't just try and put something on, but reach out to people, get to know them, let them get to know you and us. I get lots of compliments on the wine, I get more about our staff, So I'm really proud of that.
Well, I was going to ask you, then, when you look back at your career, what is one of your prodestants achievements to date.
Oh, you might have to pause the tape on that one. I got to think about that. My proudest achievement to date is when our first child was born.
I said, in your career, okay, in my career, you know, I mean my whole career, because the field that I chose, or I guess they chose me.
For a while, I was working on point of sale systems. I helped co develop the first laser based scanner on the grocery store market. Wow. I got out of that because I thought, at the end of the day, Okay, because of me and my efforts and lots of others efforts, I'm not taking full credit. People can get through the grocery storeline faster. Okay, that's kind of cute. And then I got with this company that was helping cure cancer.
The guy who just got a Nobel Prize three years ago for car T cell therapy, the huge breakthrough for for cancer survivors, was a friend and a customer of mine. I'm very proud of what I used to do for a living because it makes a difference in humans lives. Now I make them happy. They said, wow, this is nice. Wine. I'm getting a buzz.
That's an achievement. And like you said a second ago, that people compliment you on your staff and how friendly they are, those are achievements.
Agreed, agreed, And this is a feel good job too. But I still dabble and consult a little bit in that field that I was in, but most of it's here. I mean, I met the winery a lot.
And going back to the advice thing, is there any advice that you would want to give our listeners something about wine or life?
Yeah, don't start a winery. There's an over you saying, but it really rings true. To make a small fortune in a winery, you start with a large fortune.
You know.
Going from homebrew to commercial is a big step. You make, you know, a five gallon carboy of wine and it might turn out really good. Rampinging that up to you know, fifty barrels of wine and then watching those barrels age and carefully topping and checking so two levels and making sure nothing's going wrong with that wine. It's a lot
of work and it takes a substantial investment. Not so much the way we did it, because I bought the property my business partners and I kind of funded as we went along and started small and kind of slowly grew it through having space at another winery and having a very low cost space downtown for a tasting room. But it's not for the lightheart hit. You really have to think hard about do I want to do this,
and about really not just winery but anything. Really, if you're going to turn a hobby into a business, you might just destroy that hobby for yourself. Yeah.
Yeah, I kept leave this sentence for me. A table without wine is.
Like a day without sunshine. I mean it's an incomplete meal. You know, not having a glass of wine with a great dinner is a mistake. Yeah. I started something back in my career because I was traveling all the time, when I was entertaining customers all the time, I thought, man, I'm eating too much and drinking too much. So I started doing the dry January thing, which I wouldn't admit here at the winery. But food is horrible that month.
I mean it's just not the same. It's like you're going to make a dish and not put any seasoning at all on it. Yeah, you know, it just there's an incomplete piece there.
So it's moderation, So maybe in January you just have one glass or half a glass as opposed to two glasses or a bottle.
Yeah, kind of. I started this about thirty years ago, so I kind of still stick with it. But yes, that's what I would tell your listeners.
Don't heed your actions, follow your words. So we're sitting at a table and your wines are on the table, and there's an empty seat next to you, who, from any walk of life, living or deceased, do you wish you could open up a bottle of three Steves wine with and have a chat.
My mom and dad to have them back here and see this, as they never saw the winery and it would have been that that would be amazing.
Were they wine drinkers in moderation?
Very much? So, very much in moderation though, but yeah they don't. They didn't drink as much as I. Maybe that's why I'm still here.
Well, but I mean living in Hilsburg, I mean they may not have worked in wine, but they were around it, so not an unfamiliar category, not at all.
Although when I grew up Hilsburg was a lot of prunes and there was a dehydrator in down Sun sweet and as kids in the summer pick prines to make extra money. There was grapes planet, of course, but most of those were, you know, small wineries or Italian families that had their grapes out there so they could make their homemade wine.
Steve, I'm curious with the wines you like to drink, and I'm going to guess one of them I already know. But if you were being sent off to a deserted island, what three wines would you want to take with you?
I guess three Zen's is not the right answer.
If that's your answer, that's your answer.
No, I would probably take I'd definitely take.
A Zivindel dry creek, Simfidel.
Dry creek or ancient vine, either one. But yeah, probably a dry creek because you're on an island. It could get kind of warm, so I'd probably take a bottle of our Pinogresio or the Pino Bloc. But the Pinogresio is crisper and lighter and all stain of steel, so probably that.
And I like your loyalty that you do two of your own brands. Curious if the third one going to be one of yours or some thing else?
Well, like if I'm going to this deserted I own chances are I already have mine with me? And I said, you're right, I did. I said a z Infantel And you asked which one? And then you have to take a cabernet because.
From any particular area or producer, I don't know.
Uh, it wouldn't matter if it was mine or if it were a Napple wine, it'd be a smaller producer. Probably my friend Chap I was telling you about his his rose of cab I'd love to take a bottle of his Cabernet.
And what's the label on that one? Is it chabba?
It's on guard? Yeah, like a like a sword fight. Yeah.
Well, we'll get back to your wines. Okay, we're gonna play. You've been waiting for this. The one thing that you're warned about this whole conversation is about pairing wine and music, because it's called wine soundtrack after all. And and you know, wine hundures up emotions in us as we've talked about some of these wines, and how you know you light up when you talk about zim Fidel, and that you know the wines that your wife likes and what people
like and music. Also, we have emotions to music, and there's a time and place that we listen to something as well as drink wine. So combining those two together, let's start with your pino blanc. What kind of music genre, artists, song would you say exemplifies the pino blanc.
So this is the one I struggled the most with, actually, but pino blanc being light and citrusy, and I think of a hot day or a warm day, so I immediately thought of the beach boys, you know, beach music with this wine on the beach, probably pretty perfect.
Then let's go with your rose. Now, this is a rose of.
Cabernet Sauvignon prime, a little bit of Zenfandela in there, a little bit of Sanjavesi, but primarily Cabernet sevignon. And the story I tell our customers is they say, well, why caberne sevignon to make a rose, because that's an expensive grape and you get more money for it. I said, well, the best way to make a big bold. One of the best ways big bold Cabernet sevignon is you want maximum skin contact with the juice. So what we do is we de stem. We don't crush, We destem our grapes.
They're gently going into a big tank, getting ready for fermentation in a day or two, after a little soaking, and after about three hours they're starting to juice out, and we pull some of that juice out to make our rose with. Now I've got the same amount of skins, less juice, more skin contact with the juice, better cabernet, And then I have this lovely rose of cap So is.
That runoff or is that first press?
No, it's runoff? Run off or sange? Is the front? Say?
Yeah, yeah, because it's got some nice color to it. So getting back to it, what does it conjure?
Music? One? So, I'm a long time Jimmy Buffett fan, and I discovered today that he has a song that's said that's called turn up the Heat and chill the rose perfect, And I said, I'm going to pipe this into the building. And I never heard it. He's done a lot of music, of course, so it's hard to catch it all.
But yeah, wow, Well see that's what you got to play when you're you know, making your roseying it. Yeah, I'm just doing it, Okay. The Illustrious cab Feffer, the group that nobody knows, and it is not related to Cabernet Savignon. It is not related to Trousseau and I can have the color of dressa We used to think that. And it is a group originally from the southwest of France. Morot.
I thought it was Morteau, Morteau. You're probably right tonight. Okay, oh good good, I got one right. So so are you a Beatles fan? I am Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band.
Does the wine have peppers in it?
It doesn't have peppers in it, but you're gonna taste pepper. So the name, excuse me, the name Cabernet Feffer. We thought was this guy immigrant by the name of Feffer in Los Alters or Los Catos. I always mix the two up. Named it after himself because that is peppery finish, while it was really more to He didn't cross Trousseau and Cabernet suffered On as we thought. But what it was about two years ago, you see, Davis discovered it was Morteu.
Yeah.
It's always fascinating as they discover more origins of grapes, and one more because you're really on this. But the Dry Creek Zinfidel Eric.
Clapton Tears in Heaven because it'll bring a tear to your eye when you try it.
Oh oh boy wow. Okay, four definitive styles of music for four wines. That was wonderful. Stee, this has been really fun chatting with you. You've had fun. But I have one more question two parts, and that is I know you're making wine in Chile, so you go down there, but I'm wondering what other wine region in the world is at the top of your bucket list to explore that you have yet to go to, to.
Explore, to go make wine, explore, explore. Oh I've been to I reconally did Porto. That was wonderful. I've done the Danube through Austria, and I've been to Bordeaux. I've been through Italy, but not enough of Italy. I'd like to do more in Italy. Okay. I'd also love to go into Argentina just to try some mollbacks, you know, just to go to Mendoza where we get our mall back in Chile is right across the Alps from Mendoza. But to get there it's about a six hour drive
and we're always so busy. I'd never made it.
Well, you'll have to get to Argentina. What wine region in the world do you want to make wine from?
I think that'd be fun to try it there. Yeah, but I'm having a lot of fun in Chili. Al de Rose is a great partner down there. If you haven't met al you should look them up to Rose Winery. That's a lot of fun. And when we first started down there, we had no equipment whatsoever. So we would pick have the grapes picked in the field in a little boxes, load them in the pickup truck, bring them to the winery, dump them want a stainless steel table, and ladies from the village hand pick the berries off
the stems. We had a really bad weather event one year just before harvest, and here we would have lost all the grapes. They were able to pick out the good grapes out. We'd tossed about two thirds of them, but we still had a harvest. Wow.
Wow. Well now last part, second part of that question. Last question is for people who want to come here and visit you when they want to explore Livermore Valley, just hops given to jump over from San Francisco. How can they find you? Where can they find you? And what can they experience here beyond the super friendly staff.
So I think what you can experience here is we have some gorgeous views outside of the winery. We have a big patio area with huge umbrellas, industrial umbrellas. We have food trucks every weekend. You're going to meet that friendly staff. I'm still going to stay it as you should.
And I think you have some fantastic wines. And typically I'm around my son Jason's around, or my co winemaker Alex is here, or our tas room Stacey tasroom manager, Stacey's here, and we'll all welcome you with open arms.
Great and you're open seven days a week, so that makes it super easy.
Seven days a week, eleven thirty to four thirty. Www dot three Steveswinery dot com. That's the numeral three not spelled out.
Wonderful well, Steve. Thank you for joining us on Wine Soundtrack and let's go to some cabfeffer.
Yes, ma'am, thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA. For details and updates, visit our website winesoundtrack dot com.