Dusty Nabor - Dusty Nabor

Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with which producers narrate their winery and their worlds. In thirty answers discover their stories, personalities, and passions. Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alison Levine and today I am in Camerio, California with Dusty Neighbor of the eponymous Dusty Nabor Wines or Nabor Wines. Dusty, Welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us a little bit about your winery. So, yeah, Camerio, California the

center of wine making. So not quite yeah, not quite, but you know, I'm trying to change things. So Nabor Wines was started in twenty fifteen, and like you said, it's my eponymous name. It's Dusty Nabor Wines. I actually have a couple of different labels that we'll get into after that. But yeah, I come from the consumer side, and I used to collect wines. I had a friend who lived up in San Francisco who

introduced me to wines in the early two thousands, I would say. And it wasn't until much later that I discovered what wine could be and decided to look into possibly making my own wine. Found out that there was a local custom crush that was right by me where you could make wine on the side, And like all things I do, it just absolutely snowballed over the last eight years. And now you know it's the three labels, three thousand cases

from two barrels eight years ago, two barrels to three thousand cases. Pretty impressive. So tell me what kind of wines do you make? What grapes do you work with? Sure? I pretty much I worked throughout the San

Yonez Valley, so Santa Barbara County. We do do one wine out of Passo, but that wine is actually made in Passa, But the vast majority of what we do is Santa Barbara County, San Yanez Valley, so spanning all the way in the west of the Santuary to hills, all the way to the west end of the Santuary to hills, all the way out to Happy Canyon in the east, and we do primarily Pano, Chardonnay, and

grenoche out of the Santa Maria Hills. Moving west or east, we get into Ballard Canyon where we do Vienna and Sara, and then out to Los Leibo's District and Happy Canyon where we do Kaverny, frank Kaevny, Sauvignon, die Berdo, and Malbeck. Wow. A nice range of wines. And we should say that Camario is in Ventura County, just outside of Santa Barbara County. So good. You know, you got about an hour drive up into Hawainan country, but not too far into wine country here, so you're

making you know, a lot more wine. Now, where are your wines, Availaba? Are they in different markets? Are the percent direct to consumer? So the markets are very eclectic because I don't I never solicit my wines. I never go out and try and sell them. So the people that have acquired them have done so by contacting meat so that there's no rhyme or reason to the marketing. So a lot of the Nso and Dusty Neighbor wines are available in Texas at specs, some are available in Alberta, Canada through

an importer up there. Some are available in Costa Rica from an importer there. But the vast majority of the wines that we sell are direct consumer through our mailing list. Wow wow. So tell me what is your first memory relevant to wine? WHOA going back? So I had a long period where I was just like everybody else and knew nothing about wine. I would say my first memory going back would be buying Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio in Alpha Beta.

You know, most people probably don't even remember that supermarket, but that was my first memory of wine, of going and like being hey, I think I maybe should try this or something. And I do remember maybe twenty twenty five years ago, when the Internet was like just starting out, like trying to figure out what the different grapes were so that I wasn't a complete fool if I took someone on a date, I could kind of work a

wine list. And then, like I mentioned, my friend who lived in San Francisco who I was doing business with in a different industry, introduced me to real wine and what wine could be, the potential of wine, and then that's when I started collecting a little bit. I was really into like NAPA cabs and things like that. Typically yeah, typical typical wine bro like scores and all that stuff. And then it matured from there to the point

where I started making it. And now my tastes have completely changed in the last few years. Well, so now that you you know have well, okay, I was gonna say, what, what do you have in your cellar? Like, what would you say, is one of the most valuable wines you get some of those napical cabs still hidden in there? I do. I have a lot of hundred Acre. Uh. Yeah, I have a lot of hundred Acre from like two thousand and nine to twenty thirteen.

I have a couple bottles of Screaming Eagle in there that are kind of fun to look at. I don't think I'd ever opened them, though. And then some other you know, like Strader and the people like that. Okay, So moving aside from those you know, kind of brow wines, which I'm sure drink really well, what was one of the most you know, memorable wines he drink? So, yeah, it has to be a row wine. I did think about this question. It is a two thousand and

seven hundred acre Kailey Morgan And that was It's very specific. It was very specific event. It was a not event, but moment. Uh it was. I believe it was either my birthday or my girlfriend Karen's birthday, and

we had that wine. And that was the first time I ever got emotional about a wine where it really like the all the setting, the food, the event, the moment all came together to where it was a truly transcendent moment and where I truly felt like, oh man, I don't get what's going on, but now I fully understand why wine has its own category, why it's not just a beverage, why it can be so much more. That was the moment, the A fifty moment where I'm like, yeah,

this is really cool. Yeah. I mean, context does play a huge part in that. So is there something that you opened recently that drank really well? Yeah? Last night I opened a Hanada twenty fifteen Decaphio that's their Kabanet Sauvignon Dominant Valler Canyon Blend. And I opened Raimi Sellars Riccioli Chardonnay twenty eighteen. They're both beautiful wines you drink really well at home. It wasn't at home, oh, I was. I was out for a get together

of friends from another life, endurance sports, doing a sports Oh. We'll have to talk about that in a second. I'm curious if we come to your home now, aside from those sort of big NAPA wines that you have in there, what else would we find? What regions. What grapes, Yeah, you'd find a lot of Santa Barbara County, you find. I love to support my friends, and I feel I know not everybody feels this, but the best way to support is just buy the wine. Just give

them your money. That is the best way to support a winery. And I don't ever ask most of the time, I buy him incognito and don't ever ask for industry discounts or anything like that. But in my in my cello, you would find a lot of sand Red Hill Shard nampino. I love those, a lot of Sarah from Baller Canyon, I mean, yeah, But then I also have you know, I really like being a member of like Vitical Wine Club. He has a lot of eclectic you know,

like and Venati from the Canary Islands and things. Yeah, things like that that just really again start to reshape how you think about wine and what wine can be. I really like, you know, things that come out of like Debrio Haa and things like that that just challenge your perception of wine. Right, So, do you think there's a such thing as a perfect variety? Uh? No, I don't. I think that there's no such thing is perfection but I think that the ideal of perfection drives a journey to be

perfect. So uh, in wine, you know, whether it be starting at the very beginning and planting the perfect variety for a perfect for a site, or trying to make a variety in a certain way or the perfect way creates in and of itself a journey, a journey to be able to do that, and you'll never navigate to the end. So that to me is kind of the way I approach life in general and wine making, where I'm in it for the day to day. I'm not in it for the end

result. So that the the desire to become better and to make wines that reflect me and the people that grow them more, it is what pushes me every day and makes it worthwhile. You know, yeah, the finished product is okay. Here's It's almost like we were going to talk about endurance sports. It's very much like endurance sports. Endurance sports, like triathlon or swimming

or running or cycling, isn't necessarily super fun while you do it. It can be very monotonous, it can be very hard, but you know, we'll all good things come from a little bit of struggle and the end finish or the wine product is almost like the race. Like you you spend months and months and years and years building up to a race, and then you do it and accomplish it. It's not over. The journey goes on. And it's the same thing when the winery, like the journey goes on.

And even if I make a wine where I'm like, that's it, I did it. I did exactly what I wanted to do, It's like, okay, well exactly, you got a new vintage, you got different arrieties, you got different vineyards, and you just move on and do something else. And that's and that's what keeps me day to day motivated to continually get better at what I do well, So as a small producer and someone who is you know, constantly moving forward with that kind of mentality, but knowing

where you started where scores played a part. What's your opinion today on wine critics and scores? It kind of depends on the context. I think that they are super valuable in a couple of areas. So you know, the vast majority of people that drink wine don't give a shit about wine, you know, they it's a fruity alcohol delivery system. And that's why if you look at numbers, the largest case productions and supermarkets are under ten dollars.

They're massively, massively produced. And that's fine because if you look at us, I don't care about some consumer products as well. Like when I go buy a toaster, I just want someone to tell me who the best toaster is. I don't care about toasters, but there's some dude that makes toaster magazine that it's all his life, is right, and wine is the same thing. So with scores, it allows It gives you a terminology, a barometer, and a way to quickly communicate to the consumer a score of quality.

And I think that's what a lot of people misunderstand about scores is that a score doesn't tell you anything about how a wine tastes. It tells you the quality of the wine. And it also doesn't have anything to do with wine preference. Those are two completely different things. That's why you hear people say, oh, drink what you want. Yeah, you can prefer a low quality wine that's one hundred percent valid, but that doesn't automatically make it

a high quality wine. It just makes it a wine you prefer. So scores give us a way to talk about wine quality in a quick fashion, like, so, how was that wine? I don't know, Jeff done it, gave it a ninety five. Immediately we are both on the same page that this is a high quality wine. It's a very good wine. You know, they are, I think in my opinion, I know this

is a very unpopular opinion, that critics are very consistent. If you look at the breadth of the amount of wines that they taste and you look at the scores that they give, they're incredibly consistent with what they do, and I think that they're a good representation, especially to people that are new to wine don't really understand the nuances of wine. But on the you know, opposite side of the same coin there there, they can be problematic when you

start to learn a lot more about wine. So when you when you get a really intelligent consumer, scores just kind of become it is what it is. It's what that critic thought on that day, and it has less of an impact on somebody that's actually educated right well, loses the context of also understanding your own palette and the environment, the food, the atmosphere, all the reasons why that wine might sing to someone today is not necessarily about a

score exactly. Yeah, it doesn't convey any of that. And I think that people put a lot of emphasis on the score as if it did convey all of the attributes of that wine, which it absolutely does not. I mean, it's it's just, you know, it's just one moment in time where they look at the wine and they build their score through whatever parameters they have devised as being the benchmarks for that variety in region, and it gets built up, and I mean that's fine. Like I said, it's great.

So for you as a wine drinker or a consumer, red white or rose most of the time, white still are sparkling. Still, my stomach doesn't really agree with bubbles all that much, like champagne, Like, I love the taste of it, but I'd rather spit it out. Yeah, that's the one thing I don't like spitting as well. For me, it's just, yeah, it makes my stomach unsettle. So we talked a little bit about context and obviously when we drink wines in that moment you had that

one hundred acre wine and how it was just everything about it. So you were at dinner last night, you had two great wines. Tell me how do you approach food and wine pairing? Are you looking for the wines you want to drink and you know it is what it is? Or are you pairing with food? And if you're pairing with food, do you follow rules or what are you doing? No? I don't really follow rules. I will say that most of the time, I'll just use it. Yesterday is

a great example. I walk into my cellar and I look around what I want to drink. I'm not even thinking about the dinner because I know that. I mean, it'll work, It'll work with what we're doing. Having said that, I will say that when a wine pairing hits, it can be unbelievable. Yes, absolutely unbelievable. I think that there is a lot of science and intuition behind food and wine pairings. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. It's one of those things, you know, it is subjective

in the end. In the end, it's subjective whether or not it has worked. You could have all the science you want and pairing flavors with different types of wines and different types of structures in wine. But when it does work, it can be very magical. But I don't I don't personally, I don't really think about it. I more think about what I want to drink that night. But then when like for dinner last night, obviously you

had a white and red, so you had some selection. But then do you look at the menu and think what's going to work with the wines I have? Sometimes? Yeah, I mean it just kind of works out that way. Like the lighter fair usually comes at the beginning, so we do a white. I will say that though when I do my tastings, I do put the whites at the end, So I'm a little bit backwards in

that from an American standpoint. From a French standpoint, it's fairly normal to do that, But I do like to put whites at the end when we're just tasting wine. But for a dinner, I'm usually pretty pretty standard white piano maybe a saw or cab at the end. Yeah, that's it. That's as much thought as I put into it. A very nice progression example. Yeah, just a progression of the weight of the wine really is all

I'm doing. Well, So for somebody who hasn't had the pleasure to taste dusty nabor war wines yet, what do you think they're missing out on? Uh, they're missing out on me. That's that if you haven't heard, this is what you would get exactly. Uh that there I For me, wine is a reflection of the people, place in time that it was made. It's one of those beverages that can it can be transcendent, it can be ethereal, and if you don't have context, I don't think that wine

is it creates that magic. So realistically, I make fair to good wines. I don't think I've made anything great to this point. So when someone comes and taste my wines, they're they're really making the connection, the human connection between me and what I have created. So they're missing out on that

reflection that they may want to see. They may be interested in how we do things here, how the farmers that we work with grow their grapes, that kind of stuff, and then I'm handing them a representation of that that they can actually consume, and then it gives you this kind of transcendent touch into my life and the way that we do things here. And I think

that's the same with any winery. Like you want to go and figure out what they're doing and then try this product that is the culmination of their efforts and so yeah, so when when its specifically, I wouldn't say like, oh, they're missing out on the greatest piano in the world. I wouldn't. I just wouldn't say that. I'd just be like, yeah, you're missing out on what I'm trying to do here and the reflection I'm trying to give you. So, if space aliens were to knock on your door here,

we're in an industrial park here where you have your windery. But if they were to show up at your door right now, which of your wines would you want to welcome them with to say welcome to Napor Wines. Oh, that's a tough one. It would have to be probably our Kimsey Sara. I think of all of the wines that I've made, the Kimsey Sara has has developed the way I envisioned it. So it really is a reflection of what I wanted to do. Because you know, we don't really make

wine. The microes make the wine. We just give it an environment and they kind of do their thing. And I'm really a hands off wine maker and really lazy, so I don't do anything. And so when a wine turns out the way I envisioned it from the beginning. It's it's really satisfying. So I think that that would have to be the wine I would give them. But I may enquire what kind of wine they have on their home

planet and just get yeah, I just kind of get a contact. I wouldn't want to give them a really weird Sara when they all they drink is like supermarket cab, so I would tailor it to them. So you said you're kind of a lazy wine maker, or maybe more of a minimal interventionist, we could say. But I'm curious if you have established any sort of good luck rituals that you do at the start of harvest. I am the most unreal ritualistic person ever. I do not do anything out of superstition.

I'm very habitual, but I don't I don't do anything weird. No, I don't, nope, not even not weird. Just like you stop shaving? Are you open that champagne on the first day? Or I don't know, no traditions at all, Yeah, no traditions at all. I don't know. I don't ever think. Yeah, I don't ever think about it. It's just when it happens, it happens, and off we go and I may be a little bit different because I am the sole employee, Like

I don't have anybody out there. So like at the beginning of harvest, when I pull up with my grapes, there's nobody to share the moment with. I just I get out of my truck and I understrapped the grapes. So I guess I could stand in the parking lot by myself and like spray a bottle of chepagne, but it would be a little weird, a little pan on the back. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you don't own any vineyards, and you're purchasing fruit from a number of different vineyards. But

in the years that you've been working and you're specific in an area. We know that every vintage tells a story. But have you found in your experience that you see more commonality vintage to vintage or do you see greater variation. I see a lot more commonality. I think if you're not seeing commonality, then you kind of lose tterwar. You know, in wine we talk about like the nuance, it's the last one or two percent that is all we

talk about in wine. Wine is eighty five percent water and fifteen percent alcohol. And it's the last little tiny bit that we all talk about. It makes the big difference. And I think that, like, yeah, I love vintage variation, but the wines need to have a core of commonality coming from the same place, same variety, where we're talking about the same block, all that stuff. They it needs to be more common than different.

And then in the nuance lies the vintage differences. And that's the you know, that's why I don't change a lot with what I do in the winery because I liked that those through lines that say this wine comes from this place, and the majority of what you're getting is that. And then the vintage. The difference in the vintage, whether it be weather or whatever, is the nuance is the tiny bit. Okay. And so do you find that there are any sort of signs or predictors that you look for that are going

to tell you what the vintage is going to give you? No, because I don't look for them. I don't care. I don't honestly, they don't care because I again, my idea with this is to reflect what happens, and whatever happens is going to happen, whether is it's we can't control it. Obviously, I'm not saying we don't care and that we just walk away from the vineyard. We're obviously making moves and doing what it requires.

We're reactive than yeah, we're reactive too well. Yeah, depending on whether it's forecasted or something that happens that we don't haven't anticipated, will react. If it's forecasted, we'll be proactive and do things maybe a little bit differently based on the weather. But I don't look like it doesn't matter to me. Whatever happens happens, and I hope it's good and I hope the consumers like it, and but I will never hide it like I want to show

it. I want to show what happened that year in the lines. So you know, we sometimes hear about producers that walk in the vineyards and talk to their vines, and sometimes they do. Here you're all alone, here have you in if you know? They say, if a tree falls in a forest, who knows what happened? Exactly what happens. But do you

ever talk to your barrels in your wine? Yeah? I have. So the worst thing that I ever did is put in security cameras, and it is it has been a constant source of humiliation when Carn gets on and watches security cameras, because I do. I do verbalize a lot. Now I'm not I'm not like trying to coax the wines to do whatever I want or to change them or whatever. I don't try to do that. Or you know, some people play music and say that the resonance of the music goes

through the wine. I think they do that in Argentina or whatever. But I don't do that. But I do, like when something pisses me off, I'll yell at at like a little kid and think things like that, like what the hell walking through vineyards? I because it's mostly just me. Carn goes with me sometimes, but yeah, I will walk through vineyards and it'll be more like conversational like oh what's this? What are you doing?

And expecting a reaction from the buying like but yeah, So the rhetorical question rhetorical questions exactly exactly, So when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? I mean, obviously you were talking about doing in dirt sports. Wine was not your first career, but you know, what did you want to be when you were a kid? Oh gosh, when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a fireman.

But then I figured out that I just like starting fires as a little kid, not I didn't really want to be a fireman, and now like and then you learn what being a fireman actually is and I could never ever do that. But uh yeah, I've My life has gone through so many phases because I get we alluded to this earlier about how things in my life just

snowball, and they do. I mean, I just take things really seriously, and I've done that all my life, so you know, at the at the you know, in high school, it was all about like extreme sports like skateboard, surfing, snowboarding, things like that, and took surfing to a quite a high level, and then got into motocross and took off road racing and motocross to a very high level, and then got sick of getting hurt on a motocross bike because I realized I had to go to work.

So then I got into auto racing for a while and did that and took that to a pretty high level, and golf for a long time, and then about fifteen years ago I got into triathlon and endurance sports and that's been my life. That's actually how carn and I met. We were on a national amateur team and so we were social media buddies for a while. And then I had to travel through the Midwest, and she's a Chicago native, so we hooked up there. She came out here, realized that the

weather is much better out here. It doesn't take long, and moved out here. So I, yeah, I've done I've done a lot of things in my life so far. And why this is I may have hid a few of those hobbies under the guise of a business, but this is actually a business. This actually works. You know, when you put car racing under a business and all it is eveling money into a fireplace, it doesn't work. You know, after a while you're like, what am I doing?

But this actually has done quite well from a business standpoint, So well, it's a business. And also to what you were saying about how it's always changing and every vintage is different. It seems that, you know, because you're constantly moving forward and not you know, making wine one year is not the pinnacle, because as you were saying, you may never tire of doing this. Yeah, that is true. Maybe if I get some help too. I probably would probably add some longevity to it as well. So

when you're not working, how do you spend your free time? Or you just training for triathlons all the time. So no, we have semi retired from triathlon. So the cool thing about triathlon is when you get sick of doing triathlons because they're logistically very difficult, you can kind of splinter off and

do the three sports individually. So right now we're mostly run training. Car and just ran Boston Marathon and I did all the training with her, but I'm not I have no plan to do a marathon, and so I'll just roll this run fitness into something. But yeah, it's mostly like fitness oriented or you know, I have a day job, so to speak. I basically have two full time jobs, but so I spend a lot of my time running and cycling and swimming. What industry is your day job in?

Steel? Steel pipe family, steel business? Wow? Yeah, wow, I've been doing that for thirty years. You are just more fascinating, more fascinating as we talk. So when you're planning a romantic evening for you and Karn, what sort of wines get open to set the mood karn is along for the ride, so she as far as as far as wine is concerned, she really lets me do what I want, and I don't. I

kind of do it the same way I did it last night. I just go into my cellar and I look at what's interesting and what's maybe rolling around to a window where it might be even more interesting. I'm not a huge purple hone in of like drink windows or weight. You know, we're we're not getting any younger, We're not gonna be around. And there's a lot of bottles in that cellar. So I look at stuff and be like, yeah, it's got a little bit age on it should be showing well.

And I try to get through wines because I don't actually drink a lot, like for I spit on a ton, yeah, but I don't actually consume a lot of wine. So when I get into my celler, I'm like, kind of gotta get through this. I kind of start, I kind of gotta get going here. So yeah, I mean, I know the feeling exactly. I think a lot of people do, I think, but they don't like they don't. It's never identified as a problem like you have a big seller. I yeah, I got a big seller. It's great.

I can do what I want. But at a certain point, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna get through this. I need to start. I need to start hustling here in a little bit. And the problem is when you have other friends that also have that same problem. Every time you go to dinner, it's a fight of who's gonna bring wine exactly, And I'm always like itching for more people to come because then I can bring more wine. So in durance sports, are you also into team sports of any

kind? Uh? No? I think the last team sport I did was football. In high school, I played Pop Warner football, and then in high school I played football. Are you a supporter of any team sports? Not really. I'm a I'm like a Fairweather fan because I like domination. I love it when. I love it when a team dominates to the point where there's no question that they're the best, and sure anybody can lose on any given day, but when they lose, you're like, yeah, that

was a flute, they're the best. So I was like a real so when I was really in the golf, I really love Tiger Woods, like I love that he was far and away clearly the best golfer on the planet, and everybody knew it, and that was that, And I'm a super fan of that. I love it when and I love it when they proved the point to everybody that they're the best. So, if Tiger Woods were to win another championship, which of your wines would you want to congratulate him

with? Oh, I don't know. He's kind of a wine grow I think I'd have to open up like a cabernet. I'd have to. I'd have to give him a twenty. I'd give him a twenty twenty los Olivo's district cabinet. So obviously, you have worked in a number of industries and had a number of activities and jobs and everything. Is there a piece of advice that someone gave you at some point, family, a teacher, a mentor, that is something you try to apply to everything you do or maybe

more specific No, not a single piece of advice. I just think that whatever you do, tenacity is a good trait to have. But I also I also am pretty easy going on myself, and I have a good perspective on things. I'm only I'm only going to use wine making because there's a lot of different things that this could apply to, But why making is kind of a roller coaster. It's like an emotional roller coaster, and you always think that you messed up because wine's always evolving, and every time you go

tasted, you're either related or you're totally depressed. And I think that having perspective on why you do things. And endurance sports is another good analogy because endurance sports can be very hard and if you think of it as like motivation, motivation like doesn't get you through endurance sports training, Like you can't have this like goal of this single singular motivation like watch a Rocky movie and get all amped up, like an hour into a bike ride, that Rocky movie

is gonna fade and you're gonna be done. And I think it's better to have a perspective on why you're doing it and the long goal of the journey, Like I enjoy doing this day in and day out, and you get so much benefit from doing something day in and day out with enjoyment, like and it's same thing in the wy like coming here and constantly thinking about what you could do, what you could do better, and honestly, that may be nothing and a lot of times in wine making, it's nothing. Stop

stop doing stuff, stop opening barrels, stop trying to change things. Be confident in the decisions that you've made before. So I mean, yeah, I just I've never really gotten a piece of advice that I would go back to. But I do have, you know, mentors that have shaped the way that I look at things, and I think that that's more powerful because it lasts longer. Absolutely So, when you look back at your career and it's a it's a varied and storied career, what would you say is one

of your proudest achievements to date? Because I know you're not finished and you're still moving forward. But what would you look back on it and say with regards to wine, No, maybe it's something else. I would say just being here and having this winery is one of my greatest accomplishments. It's probably the biggest, you know, business that I've I've started by myself. It's

completely by myself, and and it's seems to be working. And I think that's the best you can hope, you know, for a young winery to be able to function and continue on is is a gift and I think it's a it's a decent accomplishment. I think it's a very valid accomplishment, so complete this sentence. For me, A table without wine is like a table without wine is like, Man, that's a tough one. I don't know, it's I don't know. It's kind of sterile, you know, it's

just it's kind of boring. A table with wine without wine is just boring. Yeah. So now we're at a table, your wine's on the table, and there's an empty seat next to you. Who, from any walk of life, living or deceased, would you want to share a bottle of your wine with Abraham Lincoln. I know what I thought my head that he

is. I mean, I know it's cliche. It's like Abraham Lincoln, it's if you if you really look at it, he is such an amazing human being, order and writer, and I mean just absolutely fascinating human being that I would love to, you know, actually hear him talk, actually sit down with him and share a glass of wine with I think he would be amazing. Ammy. I was over in Scotland, and in Scotland in a cemetery there's a statue of Abraham Lincoln. So you talked to him?

Yeah, I just I just think it would be it would be so cool to be able to actually talk to Abraham Lincoln. So we're getting towards the end of our talk, which has been really fun. I could keep going forever. But just a couple of other questions. Another another thought provoking one. You know, we know that climate change is something we talk about. It is affecting me everything. And in the wine industry, you think we're going to be drinking wine and three hundred years, five hundred years, I

believe so. I think vines our survivors and they really know what to do when the weather gets weird, and that's why they're around for a hundred years, I mean, and longer, yeah, exactly, yeah, longer than that, you know. And you know, I always it's kind of funny, like anytime you see like a house and it's run down and nobody's lived there for one hundred years, there's vines all over it, like they're just such so great at surviving. That will adjust and we'll figure out what we

need to do. I don't think it's gonna change as much of what we do. I think the human impact will be worse than the wine impact. Well, and if it were all to end today and you had to, you were sent off to a deserted island, what three wines would you want to take with you? Any three wine? It'd have to be shop saw that's going why, I don't know, DRC mantre Chet. Yeah, because

why not? Why not? I'm totally And then I'd have to do probably like a west end uh Peanot no wir west end of the Santa Maria Hills, like towards the ocean, out by the ocean. Maybe maybe a hilt peanut a ar or something like that, a radiant peanut. Let's do that radiant and you sourced from there too, I do. Yeah. Well, now we're gonna have a little fun, you know, end of the game.

I warned you about this. It's called Wine soundtrack. So just to finish it off, we're gonna talk about a few of your wines and I want you to pair them with music. So let's start with your radiant Peanot noir. Oh god, that's a brooding peanot noir. It all. Everyone always accuses me of mixing it with saraw just because just because that's like the the cliche thing to do, like MEO, whatever, uh no, you know, but it's it's a pure Pinot noir, pure of pan noar,

but wind swept and super inhospitable environment. I mean it's racial sauce pudes, which I'm told, because I don't speak Spanish, means get out if you can, or something to that effect. But it's a very inhospitable vineard. You gotta have four wheel drive to get up there. So I'm going up. It looks like Mars. Yeah, exactly, call it the Pinot Bowl. Let's pure that with something hardcore, like like Metallica. We'll do Metallica. I really like Sanitarium. Okay, let's do that. I like that.

Oh I just threw you right out there. Then you said you're also doing Chardonnay from Santory to Hills. Yeah, Chardonay Hilliard, Bruce Vineyard. That is what we get out of the Santa Rita Hills, which is briny, salty, acidic shard. Uh. I don't know. Let's do something yacht rocky, let's do maybe let's do sail away. Sail away. Yeah, let's do that. And what about your San Rada Hills Grenache a cool climate Grenache, Well we do we do the grenash. One hundred percent Whole

Cluster. It's very herbaceous. Uh. It is an ethereal expression of grenache. So if you're used to say passo or shouting at the pop or something like that, it's much more. I don't I'm not comparing the two, but it's much more on the pino side of things, a little transparent through the glass. Pairing that with music, uh, would have to be I kind of always I kind of always walk the line with that wine. It's because grenosh can be finicky and it can be a tough wine to actually make.

It's really prone to oxidation. So let's do Johnny Cash, I walk the line the light. Yeah, because you walk the line with it. Love it? Howp out? Because this is kind of fun because I'm getting descriptors. You rewinds with it. You're Kimsey Straw, Kimsey Sara. Oh God, that one's gotta be a weird song. It's gotta be because Kimsey Sara. That was the one that turned out like magical again. One hundred percent Haul Cluster. It smells like the aromas are like walking into a flower

shop, like like a florist is just cutting up stems. And you have that beautiful. Like some people when they talk about green notes, they talk about belt pepper and purisines. This is not that. This is more like fresh green and flowers, very earthy, but but it it pisss off about twenty percent of people that try it so and I love that. I love that about it, that about twenty percent of people just don't get it. And that's so I call it a behind the table wine. Like all the

wine makers are like, oh my god, this is so awesome. But on the other side, people are like, oh, this is really weird, and I love that. So I don't know, maybe like some daft punk song or something like that, good job, I'm licking my lips. I want to try that. Why so I'd probably want to be behind the table. Well, Dusty, you have been fantastic. It's been really fun

chatting with you. I have a two part ender question for you. The first is what wine region in the world is the top of your bucket list to explore? To explore I would say my top Yeah, my top wine region by far is the Hill at Armatage, Like standing on that hill is to me and the pinnacle of wine. And I have stood in front of like DRC and that, and that's pretty cool too, don't get me wrong. But like the hill at Hermitage is and the little town of tom Rmttage

is just so perfect, Like I love it. It's just with the river going through it, it's just so Is there somewhere you haven't been that you want to go? Yeah? I would really love This came up a little bit earlier, but I would really love to go to the Ay Islands and see the volcanic vineyards that they out there. That would be very cool. Cool. Now for someone who wants to come and taste your wines, you are not open to the public. This is just an industrial wine making facility.

How can people find Dusty Neighbor Wines? Like? Can they? Did? They just go online? Where do they find you? Yeah? Sure? So? The website is Dusty Neighborwines dot com. We release our wines three to four times a year through our mailing list, and our mailing list operates in that there's no weight list or anything like that. But the wines mostly sell out on release, not all of them, but most of them

sell out within the two week release period. The mailing list is free to join and Basically, it's like your ticket to be able to buy the wine before they sell out. You decide how much you want to buy. There's no allocations, there's no it's just me letting you know, hey, these wines are available. They're only available to people that log into the mailing list, so you can purchase the wines at that time if you want to try the wines. We do do some events. We're at the Garageese Festival pretty

regularly. I do some local events. That's kind of the best way to try the wines because, like you say, we aren't open to the public, but you can always hit me up. I'm very accessible, you know, through the website or whatnot. And then we also have another brand called NSO Wines that stands for No Special Occasion and those are more value driven wines. And I'm very sorry to say that right now there's nothing available, but I'm working on getting more wines under that label up and on the website.

Those come out just they don't go to the mailing list. Is when they're ready, they go up on the website and they're available to purchase on the website. Well, you just have to stay, you know, up on your game. And well, Dusty, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you've had a little fun and thanks for coming by. Appreciate it absolutely. We'll have to go get some wine to cheers. Awesome, sounds good. Thanks for listening to a new episode of Wind Soundtrack USA.

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