Fulldraw Vineyard - Connor McMahon

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 Passo Roubles with owner winemaker a Full Draw Vineyard, Connor McMahon. Connor, Welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us a little bit about Full Draw. Hey, thank you for having me on. I really

appreciate the time. So we at Full Draw Vineyard. My wife and I started this in twenty twelve. I purchased the property. During that time, I was actually the assistant wine maker and vineyard manager for a winery called Booker Vineyard, which happens to be immediately adjacent to us. Right now. That's convenient, very very convenient. But we strive to farm organically and produce great fruit in the vineyard because what that translates to is great wine in the winery.

It makes our of the jobs and lives a lot easier when you've got great fruit coming in absolutely so. So speaking of that, you said you have your own vineyard, are you exclusively estate fruit and how many acres do we have here with planet here? Yeah, so we are actually completely a state. Everything that you taste in bottle is grown and produced by us. So we have one hundred acres total, and we've got forty five of those

acres planted under vine. We are predominantly planted under Sarah and granache, but we also have more Vedra, Claret Blanche, Grenosh, Blanc, Graciano, Cabernet seven young, and we will have petite Bredoux next year. Wow. Okay, and your total case production, we are only about eighteen hundred cases, so we want to keep a small grow organically. We really like to

focus on people coming into the winery and learning about us that way. And so does that mean you're all direct consumer or do you have any are you in any markets? We do a little bit of distribution, very little. Actually, we are probably let's call it eighty five percent direct consumer. Okay, okay, So now we got the basics out of the way. So Connor, I know you grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the South. So I'm wondering, what is your first memory relevant to wine?

Oh my goodness, if we're talking relevant to wine, I moved out of North Carolina when I was five, so my first memory really would be in Iowa. So I grew up in a small town in southeast Iowa called Fairfield and went from basically being five through high school there. And my dad and uncle's knew that if you wanted to eat good food, you had to be able to cook. In Fairfield, Iowa, we're going to the local restaurant to get good food. So we're blessed to have a large family. We're

Irish Catholics, so we drink and reproduce, usually in that order. So I've got lots of cousins. It's been a lot of fun. But I just remember gatherings after either church or Sunday dinner with our family and friends, and there was always wine bottles on the table, and as a kid you didn't really recognize that. But once I was in my late teenage years, my dad would say, hey, come try this, and normally I would say, yeah, that's fine, whatever, And finally a bottle came across

the table. I go, what is that. I understand now you're drinking it for the taste, and he was why else would we be drinking it? He goes, We're not nineteen drinks to get drunk and reproduced exactly, We're not nineteen drinking Jack Daniels and bush Light, And I said, no, that's true, and that really just fuel to fire that I couldn't put out and just started reading voraciously about wine and it's a long story, but

really fell in love with it. Wow. So I'm curious, you know, once you sort of recognized that wine was wine, was there one wine and maybe it was that wine that was one of those aha moments? Is there a wine that sticks out to you, whether it was the place, the time, or maybe that specific one that set you on a path or

mentality. Absolutely so it was. It was very blest, but I had actually dropped a steel pipe on my head while I was working, and fortunately for me, even though it was a Sunday, our general practitioner was also my dad's closest friend at the time, and I called him saying, I'll do yard work, I'll do whatever you need, but I'm guessing I need staples or stitches in my head and you said meet me at your parents' house.

So I got ten staples on the top of my head, and I said, well, what can I do to repay you, and he said, Oh, I'm gonna go down and your dad's wine cellar and we're gonna pick out something fun. And my dad started laughing and they poured me a glass. It was nineteen eighty nine Chateau to Book, a steal out of shots and if du Pop, And that was for sure my aha wine where I go. I love Granosh. Everything about Granash I to have to see more. So that was definitely the wine. A head injury ye leads to

a Granosh love. And you know, some people say, were you actually coherent enough and awake enough to know the wine? But I absolutely was, and it was fantastic, and you remember nothing else except Granash was good, exactly exactly. So no, it was definitely the first wine that blew my mind to the point where I couldn't put down a book. I couldn't put down I couldn't get off the internet reading about it. So that's really the wine that got me into it. So so wine was a path that you

started to follow as at a young age. So obviously you said, you've been studying a lot, and I'm curious. You have your own property here you and your wife make wine. If we come into your home and went into your wine cellar or your under will. You probably have a proper wine seller. What would we find in there? Is it a lot of domestic wines, Is it from particular regions of the world, certain grapes, or is it a big smattering of cool stuff. It's I would love to say

it's a smattering of cool stuff. Everybody here that works for beck At and I at the winery say I'm stuck in a rut, but I go, it's a pretty nice rut that you'd like to be in a lot of gas. Yeah, well, there's a lot of granagh, but we make such I don't want to say the big wines. We do make textually rich wines, and I'm around those red wines all day every day. So when I get home, my wife and I really like high acid, which you'll even

see in our reds because of our limestone soils. So I like things with a lot of acidity. We drink a lot of white Burgundy, so Charnaetta, France Champagne. But when we're talking reds, we're pretty much cut fifty fifty between domestic and French wines. I have some Italian wines, some Spanish wines, but really outside of California and France, it's it's hard for me to get out of that. So, like my employees Gary and Sarah and Madison say, I am stuck in a rut, but I enjoy my rut

and I enjoy hanging out there, no complaints. So is there anything you opened up recently that tasted really good? Oh? Man, a lot. So for Grenosh, we had a two thousand and one Clode Caio Quartz, which is out of shats enough, predominantly grenache. We've also had a two thousand and seven Domain Marcou, which is vile Vin. They're they're high end wine, which is one of my favorite wines because even though it is grenash

and it's made in a region that can we create massive wines. They did a nice job of kind of harnessing that tension and bringing in some lighter characteristics which made the wine beautiful but structured enough to be able to last a long time. Two grenashes, I get you now, So okay, you love grenache, you obviously work with other grapes. Do you think there's a such thing as a perfect variety? Oh? Absolutely not. I mean the great

thing about wine is really there's something for everyone. Everything is so diverse, and even when you want to take it step back from the world and focus on passos specifically. I think that's one of the cool things about pastor Robles. And I think there's something like sixty varieties planted here in the region, and so you can go to multiple different wineries and never feel like you're stepping on each other. Even my neighbors and myself we don't make the same wines.

We may use the same varieties, but we do different blends, different percentages of profile, and so it's a great region to travel too, especially when you like differing things. Instead of just getting nine percent of one variety, you can go to different wineries and get something different everywhere. It's a lot of fun. So no perfect variety, but people are always kind of looking for guidance in that way. So when it comes to wine critics and

scores, what's your opinion on that? Oh, I don't know if I have an opinion. I think that those that are looking for some guidance on what they might like. Really what I've view a good relationship in that sense with a consumer and with a critic, is it brings a little bit more solidification on what you enjoy. So you may see a score taste the wine to go. I don't understand that, and I don't agree, or you

say, holy cowt that is that's my style. I love that. So you're able to follow that critic and kind of get a little bit of guidance because wines you may not have the ability to go visit the winery or visit wine country for that matter. I mean, our country's big, the world's big. So I think that it is a good way to have a starting point on guidance. Right, So you've talked that, you said you like high acid wines. When you're at home. You make bigger style, a

little bit bigger style wines here. And I'm curious if you had to red white or rose drink or drink drink, Oh my goodness, it's probably fifty fifty red and white. I don't drink much rose. My wife actually makes our rose, which I think is fantastic, but it's never something that I'll say, you know what, I want rose, I'm gonna go to the wine fridge and pull that out. We do have some, and there's a lot of wineries here in Passo making great rose and I think we Becca has

made an outstanding one. It's just not something that I'm focused on. So you're a red and white, won't pick one? Okay, still are sparkling if you had to pick? Oh? Still, I mean I love champagne, don't get me wrong. But and again probably split fifty fifty. So you're making like a bigger style wine. You're focusing on a lot of Rowan varieties, which you know, we know grenache or all these beautiful wines. And then it comes down to food pairing. We talked a little bit about

when you were at home. You said, growing up you had to know how to cook. How when you're cooking or going out to eat, how do you how do you approach food and wine pairing? Do you follow rules or do you have guidelines that you suggest or do you not care? I mean, and I know a lot of people you're kind of shaking your head. I know a lot of people say they don't have guidelines. But clearly, if you're making a stake, you're probably not picking a reasoning. So

I'm just curious how you approach it. I probably do it backwards from most people. I say, what do I want to drink? Tonight and then I'll create the dish around that, and very similar to going to a restaurant, I'll say I'm just craving a reasoning or champagne or something like that, and so we'll bring a bottle by I always bring a bottle, buy a

bottle, but it's always based around what I want to drink. And my wife and I don't drink Monday through Thursday, but the weekends of when we're cooking and hanging out at the house and have the kids and other people over, and we just discuss what we want to have that night, and then we build the menu around that and other things you're looking for, Like let's say you're going to have you know you said you do white burgundy. Is

you're gonna have a chardonnay. If you're gonna have acidity and texture, how do you then translate that into what you're going to make. That's a great question. And it can be that we know we want something bigger food wise, but we want the white first. So maybe you open it at three thirty or four and have that bottle first and then move to red with the food. But I don't really view there as as there being anything any written

rules. I mean, if you're really craving a cabernet and you're having sushi, you're gonna figure out a way to make it work, and vice versa. On the flip side, I mean, you compare lighter wines with heavier foods, but make sure to have that acid that can cut through the fat and the savoriness. And so I don't think there's any rules. So for somebody who hasn't had the pleasure or privilege to taste full draw wines, yet, what do you think they're missing out on? Oh? Man, I

think you're missing out on everything. Really, what we love to show is what we can make big wines. We like to show a little bit of restraint on what we're doing. Is so we would like to focus on the finesse. You've got the acid backbone from our limestone soils. You've got the color and the density from the way that we're farming the fruit and then bringing it into the wine or any making. And you even have wines that are a bit bigger and structured with a little more New French oak, And we'd

really like to focus on the texture in the mouth feeld. And so when you taste the wines, especially the suras, it's going to almost be like you have velvet on your tongue and it just glides through your mouth. But then you've got this beautiful acid finish that helps carry out the flavor structure. And I don't know, I love our wines, but obviously I'm biased. I hope you love your wines. Absolutely So, if space aliens were to land in your property and knock on your door, which of your wines?

So you make nine different wines, which of your wines would you want to welcome them with and say this is full draw? While I would love to say Grenosh, we do make only one wine that's one vital specific bets Grenash. It's called hard Point. I think our most user friendly, widely appreciated wine is called Chopping Block, and it's usually a blend of Sara more Vedra

and Grenosh. And so you've got great fruit profile in there still because you've got the more vet in the grenache, but then you've got the beautiful structure and the texture in the mouth feel with a sarad and so it's it's very widely accepted wine. And so hopefully I'd like to do that. But if you're if you're really saying you get to choose one wine, it's hard point and that would be our gnash. Well I'm going to get to try both

of them. So ha. So you've had your property for ten years now, ten eleven years, and was it planted already or did you plant it? There were thirty acres planted when I purchased the property, let it go through one harvest, and immediately ripped out fifteen acres after. When we ripped out those fifteen acres, it was predominantly cabernet. Wrong road direction, wrong spacing, you type. There is a number of issues also not what I

was looking to focus on. I wanted to focus on road varieties. So when we ripped that portion of the vineyard out, we've replanted in organic cover crop. Let it lay follow for three years before replanting, because I wanted to get the soil back to semi organic state before putting vines in the ground. So we really focused on that first. But during that time, we planted fifteen acres in twenty thirteen and then again in twenty fifteen, so we're

up to forty five acres now. Okay, So you live, you own the vineyard you spend time. I mean, that's your baby because you replanted and everything. So I'm curious in the time you've been here and even going back to prior to having this. We know every vintage tells a different story, but do you find more commonality year to year or do you see big

variation? We don't see big variation. It was actually fun. So every year, if you're a wine club member, which we call automatic Allocation, we throw a party in the spring and it's a member appreciation party and it's something that we get to have fun with. We bring in bands and do amazing food. But what we did last year was we opened up a vertical

of every vintage of our Sara based wine called Honey Bunny. Here I said, I didn't think that there was a big variation, but each vintage I could tell based on my memory of the growing season that there was differences. Now what we do is we try to farm the same every year. The

vintage is definitely going to tell the story. Sir A. We farm down to two to two and a half tons an acre granash we take down to three tons an acre, so we're very involved with the cropload that we're carrying because we know that that's going to translate into what we want in the cellar and make it easier on ourselves. So while I want to say that the vintage of vintage doesn't play a big impact, there are definitely nuances and different

differences in each vintage and you're adapting to that. So are there any signs or predictors that you look for that are going to tell you what a vintage is going to be? Well, I can definitely tell you right now that has been June gloom for six weeks and I'm ready to see the sun. I like how June gloom for six weeks in June isn't six weeks long. Yeah, I know it's crazy, and I understand that people in southern California

actually see this weather every year in Passo. It's not that it's normally bright sunshine at this time. We should be seeing eighty eighty five degrees, just beautiful weather, and it's it was missing and raining this morning, in which I don't know if I've seen I'm sure I haven't June, but not off memory. But it's going to be an interesting year to see when the sun

comes out and how the growing season develops. My first vintage in Passo was twenty eleven, and it is definitely reminding me there are different There are differences but similarities in these two vintages, at least in the growing season up until this point. Now, only time will tell. Once the clouds clear and see what sunshine we have, and we pray for sunshine, but not too much like last year it was one hundred and fifteen for ten straight days,

so we can take a pause on that. So there are no sort of predictors, but there are things that you see that you're like, oh, too much heat or need more heat? Yeah, I mean the only predictor really that we have is forty inches of rain versus no rain. So that has only been a complete blessing for us, and not only us, the entire state of California. See the reservoirs build. And I finally looked at my wife the last storm we had and I go uncle done. I'm over

it. We've got all the raid we need. But I know that it's only a positive thing for everyone. Now, some people did see issues with their properties, and that's clean up work and we'll all get back to a normal growing season. But we needed that water bad, And in a way, this gloom is good because it's letting the water really settle into the land. If it was if it jumped to one hundred and fifteen degrees, you'd be burning it all out right exactly. So I mean getting into the growing

season and a little bit cooler temperatures is not worry for us. It's actually helped our vines really grow and developed nicely this spring versus just coming out of the gate hot, which I don't know anything different because I've only been here for twelve years, and that's what all twelve years have been so well. So in those twelve years, I mean, you obviously spend time in your vineyards, and you were just talking about how your vines look now. But

when you're walking through the vineyards, do you talk to your vines? What kind of communication do you have with them? More of a spiritual connection than

a verbal connection. That's actually not true. I curse it some vines, I hug some vines each each We're blessed to have almost every exposure so north southeast west, we have six different soil types on the vineyard, so really we had to dig a lot of soil pits and really get an understanding of how each rootstock was going to pair with the soil, what varieties to plant. I got great guidance from mentors at the time, also some soil scientists,

because we really wanted to know. We knew what we had, but we wanted to make sure that we were making the correct connection with the varieties in the rootstock, because we do view our vineyard as a life source, not only for us, but for the next person to take over. We're only we're renting the land. Yeah, while we may be the owner, we're just the steward of the land for our time, and we want to make sure that we're setting up our vineyard to really be able to blossom for

a long time. We're very We think about that consciously a lot and talk about it openly. And sometimes you have to reprimand your vines. Yes, we definitely do. Sometimes they don't act the way I want, and that might be the time I curse them, but it is what it is. And we've now come to an understanding with each other. And then I know you're really into music. You were what top five percent of Spotify? Yeah,

I have music on all the time. So do you play music to the line or is the music for you depends on the time of the year. It's mostly for me, but in the fall, and I used to catch a little flak for this. Not really. During harvest, you have what we call night shift, and so we do punchdowns later in the evening, so night between nine and ten o'clock, if you walk in on me unannounced, you might hear Glenn Miller band radio. I mean, you'll hear a big orchestra. I just I dig that. I love it during the

daytime if it's harvest, lots of rock and roll. But outside of that, we are all over the map, e edm country, and I enjoy everything. I think. I think each genre has a place. And do

you think the grapes enjoy the genres? Oh? Absolutely absolutely. I think that's why we find during harvest the first couple of weeks is Saraw based and we're really trying to get in a good mood because you've got picking, processing, pressing, you have a lot of things happening, so there's a lot of rock and roll, so you get that that feeling in Honey Bunny, which is our Saraw based wine, because it's bigger, it's richer, it's

got some muscle behind it. And then towards the end of the year, everybody's little burned out and we play a lot of country and so it's a little more than mellow. And you've seen that with the grenache based wines. I love that. Well, we're gonna we're gonna talk about wine and music in a little bit. But before then, I'm curious, have you and your team established any sort of good luck rituals at the start of harvest to

kind of mark the time. Now, by that time of the year, I'm so fully invested in being in the vineyard and being meticulous on the days that we're picking, the times that we're picking, we also have clients. So I'm out in the vineyard with the clients talking about their fruits. We sell fruit to I think six other wineries, and then it's a twenty four hour notice. It's a let's go. You guys better be ready because now for the next six weeks it's a lot of work. But we also know

that all of us have done a number of harvests. We view it as a fun time. We don't look at it, Oh God, we're gonna work one hundred hours this week you high five and say let's do this together exactly. And so it's one of those things that it's a short time period and that sets you up for the entire year. So, no, we don't have any pre I guess the only pre harvest from ritual that we have

is we probably do it too close to harvest. But we have a little bit of a party that goes a little too late at night and we're drink too many ball but that we don't view it as a ritual. It's me getting everybody pumped up and say all right, this is my my saying thank you preemptively for what I'm gonna do. Kind of a ritual. Yeah, yeah, it is kind of a ritual. It's meant to be a good ritual. But some people go, oh, it's happening. So you fell

in love with wine and started studying wine when you were younger. Was that always what you wanted to do or when you were a little boy, did you have other dreams of what you wanted to be when you grew up. Definitely an athlete when I was when I was younger, so I started swimming competitively. I think at the age of six. I really love soccer, golf, swam competitively up until I was fourteen, and that's really when I started to fall in love with football, and football consume my life for the

next six years. So that's that's what I focused on. And I'd love to say that I was also a good student, but I was a student so I could play football, and then wine was something that you pursued immediately. I was still thinking about wine even while I was played football at Iowa State, and my last two summers off of school, was blessed enough to

have a job at a small retail store out in Colorado. I have cousins that own skiing somewhere bruntal shops out in Colorado, so I was able to spend time with them, And originally it was so I could go fly fishing before and after work. But then Ronda Black, my boss at the time, she owns up shop called the Catherine Store. She knew that I liked shot enough Dupap and loved the wines coming out of that region. So one

day she said, have you had roans from California? And I said, why would I have roans from California when I could have them from Rome? And she told me to quit being a francophile on a snob and come taste some wines. So she opened up a handful of wines from the Passa region. I was just floored with the density, the texture, the aromatics, just everything about each of those wines, and I said, I have to see how it's made, which led me into the internship at Booker Vineyard in

twenty eleven. Wow. Wow, see how it all goes from there, from football to wine. Yeah, do you have a favorite football team? Well, if we're talking college, Iowa State because I played there. But really it's hard for me to watch football anymore because of the time of the

year. It's it's harvest. And if I do have a Saturday or Sunday off, I'm definitely spending that time with my family and my kids and doing something fun because they don't know that I'm getting my ass kicked at the winery, so I still have to put on that chip or face and play friend and Dad and all that fun stuff. That's how you spend your free time is with the kids. Yes, almost exclusively. Yeah, if Iowa State were to win a championship, which of your wines would you want to have

them celebrate? With Oh, they're definitely celebrating with Honey Bunny, the Big Bad Wine. So that's the wine they're going to do. And if they get to a championship, you can guarantee it that I'll be there. So you don't have a lot of free time because obviously running a winery is a big bus and having two small children is very time consuming, and you and your wife work together. But when you're trying to create a romantic evening for

just the two of you, not an average evening. What sort of wines set a romantic evening for you guys or you're just going to tell me every time you open wine, it's just that's what it is. That's what it is. Now, we're definitely opening up one of our favorite Champagne's, one of our favorite burgundies, and if it's that kind of romantic evening, probably

two or three more bottles after that. But it'll go all over the spectrum, depending upon the time of the year, the location of the food as we're discussing earlier, but it will always start with a great bottle of champagne. Always, absolutely. Now, you mentioned having some mentors, and you know we all have teachers and mentors and parents who give us advice along the way. Is there a piece of advice someone gave you at some point that you try to live or work by. Oh, man, I'm gonna have

to think about that one. For me, there's a lot of good and bad advice, not bad, good advice for the time, and then it translates into something different that that was a wrong choice of words. I apologize. I think Eric Jensen at one point just said, keep your head down, work your ass off, and if you know you're doing the right things, whether they're your as long as you're making your decision, you're following your heart, the wines are going to come out great. And he also said,

never choose to make a wine based on money. Make the wine that you want to make, because that's going to translate in the model. And so I think that now thinking about it, that was one of the best pieces of advice I got what kind of goes back to the critics and scores in a way, like, you've got to make wine for yourself, not for so I mean it is for someone else, but it's for the people

coming. We make wine for the people that are coming to our winery to taste and the great thing that my wife and I have done, I believe,

is given every wine it's own personality. So there's so many different flavor profiles of what people enjoy out there that we really wanted to say, Okay, here, we're giving you a handful of red wines that you never really feel like you're going to cross over into one another, because if you join our membership, you're getting two six bottle shipments a year, and so we

don't want to have anything overlap. We want you to enjoy each of the wines as their own, versus saying, Okay, well I've got five suras and here you go. So I think that really coming here to the winery to experience that is the best way. And you differentiate these wines, each with their own unique labels. Yes, the labels are definitely a fun way to do that. My wife and I started thinking about what we were doing

for labels. Our first vintage, which was twenty sixteen, so we knew we had about two years of time in that window, and so for the first twelve months we were saying, oh, well, we could do this, this, this, And we were in a small town of Colorado walking through and there was an art gallery that had a painting of an airplane, which is now Honey Bunny. We went into the gallery and I just said, this is going to be one of our labels. This is amazing.

And the owner of the gallery and I start talking, and I finally said, Okay, if I owned the rights and I own the piece because it's an original, I get put it on a label. He said yeah, that's fine. I said, all right, well how much he was thirty five? I said thirty five on bad and he goes thousand, and I felt my heart draw to the floor. I go, We're at a different galaxy. I'm out of here. So I actually tracked down the artist who's

from Huntington Beach. So if you have ever been in In and Out Burger, you see all the retrocar on the walls. Michael Brian was the original artist for In and Out and he was actually the artist for the airplane. So I tracked him down. We had bunch together and he said he needed to taste the wine before he would let me put any of his artwork on the bottle. And I said, why, because I'm gonna let you put one of my beautiful pieces of art on a piece of show wine. I

said, we're gonna get along great, You're going to enjoy it. So he actually commissioned that piece for us, which is hung in the winery, so anybody that comes to the facility gets to see that. It's a longer story, but basically, my grandfather on my mom's side of the family was in the Pacific Theater and I started reading a lot about World War Two in my early teen years, just because I was interested in that era at that

time. So I started asking my grandfather questions, not necessarily about his time because I know he wasn't going to talk about that, but what the general feeling was in the country on the West coast where he was stationed in the world, and we just got into some good conversations, and one of those stories happened to include the Flying Tigers, which is the airplane that is on

the bottle. Because when I saw that painting, it brought back all of those memories and emotions came flooding back, and I wanted to keep something personal to us. And each label that we have has some sort of a story like that behind it. It's beautiful. So you got to come here to learn all the stories. So when you look back at your career so far, what would you say is one of your proudest achievements to date? Oh, my goodness, building a beautiful family. That's first and foremost for me.

I start in your career because it's because I know it is a career, right, I mean, you choose, I know, but it's always fair. Children are always like you prays acomplishment. Well usually it should be. But that's why I sit in your career. No, I know, man, greatest accomplishment in my career that you feel so far, it could be a big thing, it could be a very small thing. I mean just being able to step away. Both my wife and I in twenty sixteen

had full time positions and just to start full draw. We knew it was going to take both of us, so taking that leap of faith and jumping off a cliff head first and going all in both leaving our full time positions to start full draw. I think that was the biggest moment in our career, is just having the faith in ourselves to be able to started making wine at six hundred cases and just praying that there was water off after you jumped

off that cliff. So well, I think it's quite an achievement because you have a beautiful facility here, You're you've tripled your production and it's been sixteen to twenty three. You know, you've got a good nine years on you

so far and going or seven years. Yeah, five vintages and bottles, so yeah, yeah, and yeah, So we're things started to snowball quickly after we really started wine, which we've been blessed and fortunate enough to be able to recognize and see that, and people have really liked the wine. So building the facility, having our own home and taking another leap of faith in a short amount of time was something that we were excited to do.

I love it. So we're sitting at a big table here, your bottles of wine are on the table, and there's an empty seat next to you. Who, from any walk of life, living or deceased, would you wish you could share a bottle of full draw wines. That's a good question. Wow, that's not hard. Winston Churchill, Oh yeah, definitely. I mean he has one of the greatest quotes. He has a ton of

great quotes. Well, one of my favorite quotes of Winston Churchill is magnum of wine is the perfect size for two people having lunch, especially if one is not drinking. That's a great quote. But again, going back to me being a historian and buff and World War two, it's just hard for me to think of anybody else that I would want to share a bottle with. Good answer, so complete the sentence for me, A table without wine is like Friday night by yourself. I don't know, man, that's another

good one for a table without wine. Like a glass without water, they go, they go hand and there you go, there you go. So, you know, we were talking a little bit about all the rain we had in this last year, being in a drought for a number of years. You think we'll be making wine and drinking wine and three hundred years time, Oh absolutely yeah. I mean who would have thought that some of the greatest wines in the world would come out of California. I mean it was

less than one hundred years ago that that came to be. For a long time people were wondering if wine could be made out inside of France or Spain or that area. Is So I think that we will for sure be seeing wine in three hundred years and as long as we cannot have a short term memory loss of the drought and everybody using more water than they need than we'll be all right. Well, if we weren't and you were being sent to a deserted island, you know, I had to lead up to that one.

What three wines would you want to take with you? I'd take hard Point, which is our hundred Pconnash. I would take Oh, man, you don't have to be here wines. I know that that's what it would be. Uh, she's probably a coach jury Marceau, the perriers from from Burgundy. And then we're Champagne. Man, so many good I guess I just have to be Salon. Just go straight, go straight at the top.

It'd be Salon. Any vintage, I'd be good. I do love how of all the wines you've talked about that you said you love Burgundy, which you picked white Burgundy, said you love Champagne, you picked one, and instead of picking a shot enough to pop, you picked your own. I love that. Yeah. No, I mean I think that our Grenasha

is great. I really do, not comparing it to anybody else's, but that wine is one of the harder ones to really nail, not because it's hard to make in the winery, but in the vineyard you want to see, like I want to see three to three point two five tons an acre, and we get very meticulous about how to get there. Grenache bines want to give you eight tons an acre. So what we have to do is immediately green harvest fifty percent of the fruit. Then we wait for the barrios

a swell up and start to go through creation. And then I work meticulously with our crew on going through, looking at each individual cluster with your hand and seeing if it's the crack size. If it's not, you're taking off the tip, you're taking off the shoulders, something to help reduce the size,

because we're looking at color concentration, flavor concentration, acid concentration. And so when we taste the wine in bottle three years later, if it puts a smile on my face, it's because I remember all the hard work and all the meticulous attention to detail it took in the meneward to get there.

I love it. Well. Speaking of that, why don't you pair that wine with a song or a genre or musing the grenache the hard point nineteen hard point, I'm gonna have to pull up Spotify from the name of the song, but it's definitely going to be Well hard Point. That's going to be by the Turnpike Troubadours. It's called bird Hunters and or the bird Hunter and partially because of the label having a German short hair pointer on it.

But that song always remembers me of my childhood. Reminds me of my childhood and that takes me back to grenosh and bird hunting with dogs and family and friends, and so it's a very happy memory for me. So definitely that song. Okay, let's jump over to your grenashe Blanc. Well, actually your Drift, which is a blend of Claret Blanche with twenty percent Grenash Blanc. That is going to be paired with oh man, sorry, bear with me. I gotta have a little cheat sheet there. Yes, that's going

to be Moonlight Serenade by Clon Miller. Yeah, because that was also the first song at my wife's on my wedding, so also another my memory there. What about your Sunshower your grenash moved Sarabland. You're definitely wanting that buy a pool, so you might need an e DM song, So Sweep a Psycho the remix by Morgan Page. And what about your chopping block, which is also a GSM but a reverse of Sara moved Grenosh, Yeah, that's gonna be paired with a Greta Van Fleet song. Let's just call it Highway

tune. Okay. And last, but not least, the one you would give to your team if they won, the Honey Bunny, which is Sarab with movet that's gonna need to be Burden in my hand by Stone Temple Pilots. Very good. Wow, I wonder your rank so high. Yeah, I do enjoy music. Well, Connor, I have one more question for you, and we're almost finished. This is it. You've been so much fun to talk with. What wine region in the world is at the top

of your bucket list to explore? Oh, that's a great question. Northern Roan. I've done shots enough, I've done Champagne, I've done Burgundy, but I have not done Corot San Joseph. So the Northern Ran region also because I want to go to Leone and eat at the amazing restaurants there. But definitely Northern Rone is the next next one. My wife and I have been blessed to see a majority of the wine regions in the United States on the West coast, and then like I said, majority of the regions in

France, so yeah, northern rons next. And for our listeners coming up to pass A Robelists, how can they find you and explore Full Draw wines? Where can they find you? What can they find when they find you? Yes, so on all of our labels we do have. I believe our website, I shouldn't say that no knowing, but reach out to us directly at info at full Draw Vineyard dot com. Our phone numbers eight O five seven one two four four one two. We would love to host you

for a tasting. You can find our wines in some restaurants in Paso Roblais, which would be Lapati can I in Bloom and bl Brasserie. Outside of that, the best way to find us is coming here to the winery. And when you come here in the winery you have these little lounges set up

where people get tastings with like a dedicated server. Yes, so we like to set up our tastings flight style, so you'll have all the wines poured out for you beforehand, so when you sit down someone we'll be able to sit down with you, explain the stories behind the labels, talk about the wines, but also be there to have fun, maybe give me recommendations on winers ye've been to, restaurants you haven't been to, and just generally have

a lot of fun. And it's great. It's a modern, very cool, sustainable winery set surrounded by the vineyards, so you can't really beat the view, or the scene or the wine. So Connor, thank you for joining us on Wine Soundtrack and I think it's time to go drink some wine. Absolutely, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me here. Thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA. For details and updates, visit our website wind soundtracks dot com.