Hillcrest Vineyard - Dyson Demara

Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with which producers narrate their winery and their world, and thirty answers discover their stories, personalities, and

passions. Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is also Levine, and today I am in the Unquah Valley in Oregon, and I'm sitting with Dyson Deamara of Hillcrest Vineyard. Dyson, welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us where we are right Well, you're in the beautiful Unqua Valley, which is in the southern third of the state of Oregon, a little bit below

Eugene. For those of you familiar with the geography of Oregon, we're about maybe an hour and a half two hours drive north of the California Oregon border, so north of Medford and that and just a little bit south of Eugene. So easy to get here from Eugene, yep, for sure. Actually, one of the nice things about our area is that we have literally millions of people drive by every year on Highway five. Highway five bisects our appellation,

the Ample Valley appalation. So tell me a little bit about Hillcrest Vineyard. So Hillcrest vineyard is actually I think it's the greatest wine story no one's ever heard of in the New World. Well they will now, they will

now thanks to soundtrack. No. It's Hillcrest is the oldest wine grape winery in the state of Oregon, started by the real father of the Oregon wine industry, which was a gentleman by the name of Richard Summers who graduated Davis in the fifties and was told that he needed to go into the coastal valleys of California to cool things down to make wines of elegance and fine wine, as it was known, and he decided he was going to come north here

to Oregon, and the professors at that point, many of the famous Amerine Winkler in this were of the mind that Oregon was really too cold and too wet, and it was somewhat unexplored. There was some venifera planet here by Germans, of course, west of Portland in the eighteen hundreds, as well as in the southern part of the state. And then here in the eighteen eighties we had two German families that came out of an apple valley that had

worked for Barren. They came up here and planted Vanifita, but Oregon pre

prohibition made mostly fruit wines, some Vnifita wine. And then Richard Summers came up here in fifty nine and brought cuttings from old man Louis Martini at Stanley Ranch down in Napa, thirty five varieties, including the first pin and Wan and reasoning ever planted in Oregon. He rooted those out in fifty nine, and then the Hillcrest estate where we are today was planted in nineteen sixty one, and from there he did many first the first nanal steel tanks in Oregon

and some of the first nanles steel tanks in the world. We know that the first documented use was sixty three for Stainless Steel and Oregon Wine Growers' Association. He was a co founder of that first pin and Wi. Do you give you any example of how far out he was He was actually producing commercially

molbeck here in the Umpqua Valley in nineteen sixty four. Wow, So I mean you think of the Lammett when you think Oregon, and here Unqua Valley is the home of the first wines exactly, the pioneers, and they're all very important, but the pioneers of of the Willammette Valley both tasted pin and Wa here at Hillcrest prior to moving to Oregon, while they were still students at you see Davis, So that would be David Letting Charles Curry and so

there are many different ways of measuring it. But Richard I mentioned he brought the cuttings and then fifty nine of pen and Wan, and he came here primarily to do pin and one reasoning because those were two of course, very famous variety. Especially Reasling in its day was the most expensive wine in the world at that point. Great Mosel and Raengo, the good old early days when reasling was planted everywhere, Yes, exactly, and it'll come back.

The great great ones are classics because they stood the test at the time. Well tell me, so we're here in this historical property. How many acres of land do you have? What's planted here? And where are your wines available? Yeah, so I'll start with the last question. We only sell out of the winery. Mind us a couple of friends that have restaurants here in town. So everything is sold on premise here cellar door, Yeah exactly,

and that's very intentional. We're veterans, my wife and I the business. I've been in it almost forty years, starting mostly in California, but other places in the world as well. We have many different varieties. We have kind of almost two wineries under one roof. We only do about twenty five hundred cases that we bottle. I qrushed about five thousand cases and I use the human element as selection to kind of whittle down to that twenty five

hundred cases. We do classics that were done here by Richard pinanoa Chardonay, Cabernet, franc Molbeck, which are truly spectacular here in the Emqua Valley. But we also one of the things that brought us into this area was doing research climate research on Noah, looking at Piamonte in what areas of the world came closest to it. In Emquia Valley was one of those. So we have a project called Pasokalina, which is a play on hillcrest, which means

crazy hill. We have Sangavesi Barbera which has been grown here also since sixty one. We Toroldego, we have We've just planted ski at Patina. We've got Frasier in that and so there's it's really yeah, yeah exactly. I mean the grape well known, but the grape that really built the reputation of Piamonte. I mean the great burrows were initially Frasia and you begin to see great producers. My daughter worked for a producer in Bussia, Finocchio, and

they've gone back to producing very high quality of Frasier. And you see some of the other traditional Borgonio and that they're beginning to produce like very very high in Frasier, that it's not just a simple kind of sparkling red wine. Right. And how many acres do you have planted? Yeah? We have. We farm about forty acres on three different properties. This is the coolest

site that we have. It's a higher elevation site, which at this latitude we are at about eight hundred and fifty feet and the thousand foot would be the cutoff where you can grow grapes from a frost standpoint. We have pin

Andoa. This estate's mostly pin Andoi. I've got Cabernet, franc Mulbeck, a little bit of Sarah and then I've got on all three properties that we have, I have a library of unusual varieties of anything from n I should say unusual, but I've got things like from Malvazia to the ski a Patina we got we grew out that that plant material for own crafting and that, so we have a lot of other things. The other properties tend to have they're a little bit warmer, so we tend to have more kind of big

bodied reds in that. But this is an area really of exploration. So the beautiful thing is this area. It's all seventy five percent hillside. It's got a wide range of climate, very moderate rainfall, similar to the north coast of California, and there's much like the Russian River. There's many different

pockets. You can do everything from very cool varieties. You know, we look at the west side of the Russian River versus you know, you get into areas where the old vine zen is in Dry Creek Valley and that this area is like that. The challenge is nobody's really planted many of these places. You've got to go explore for yourself. And just really quickly you had told me there are how many different soil types here? Yeah, So to put it in and or to frame it, NAPA has thirty two, which

is very unusually. When I worked from Adabi, we went around the world and talked about that there's over one hundred and fifty different soil types in the Umpqua Valley and so it's as far as we know, it's more soil types than any wine region of the world. But playing alongside that is the topography. So it's known as the Indians called it, the hundred Valleys. And so the thing is you have these rules hills, there's almost nothing flat,

so much like Piamonte. So that gives you this almost like facets on a diamond. The different exposures, your different lenses of soils mixed different ways, and so that's part of the complexity and it's part of the beauty. But it's also one of the reasons we're probably not as well known because you don't have a lot of the larger wine reason that are good at marketing and building brand coming here because it is very fragmented. Yeah, so tell me something.

What is one of your first memories relevant to wine. I mean, oh, I understand you you were raised as a Mormon, so I'm sure wine was not introduced too early. Yeah, you don't want to really know. The first one that was in high school with two Portuguese brothers. Yeah, my first memory of wine really, So it would be so I'm a great lover of Mozle reasoning as I think a lot of people that are familiar with fine wine around the world in that, and it's one of my go

to wines. But when I was eighteen years old, I came back from I think it was one or two months being in college in southern californi Ornia, and went up to Lake Tahoe and went to a friend's house and his parents had this beautiful reasling and I began drinking beer in that in high school in that, but it really wasn't exposed to wine, especially fine wine. And I remember sitting out in it was a north shore, sitting out on

their deck overlooking Lake Tahoe and tasting that wine. And I wasn't sure if it was the view of everything else was so perfect, or was that wine. Now I look back and I realized it was the whole picture. It was so beautiful. And to this day I make can almost smell like the greatest wine experiences I've had in my life. And I've got, you know, several, but the benchmarks I can tell you who was sitting there.

What we ate? You know what you're wearing kind of thing, and I mean I have there's one, the one that made me want to grow peanut and win. And that's how we ended up eventually here at Namco Valley's We had a small vineyard winery at the end of Soda Canyon Road in Napa Valley. And I was a great collector of Bordeaux and had a lot of eighty two s eighty five to eighty six is and that, and a good friend of mine that I worked with at Madavi came up and helped us. I

picked a little bit of wine on the side. I sold most of my fruit at that point. And one day it was we came in from harvest and it was another cool harvest day, nap about it was like one hundred and twelve degrees and my wife we made a wild mushroom risotto and I had a bunch of old Bordeaux and that we were drinking, and my friend bought the seventy nine fevallet Mazie Chambertin and you know a big house slash negosha on firm wines that are are are very beautiful but not known as top and in

their class, i'd say sometimes. But anyway, I had the seventy nine and I tasted that wine. That wine changed my life, and I knew at that point was the aha moment. That was the aha, that was the aha. I've got to do pen and Wall And so we spent four years looking around the world. We entered into a contract to cellar property in Napa Valley, looked at Annapolis over by sea ranch on the coast, and that we're an escrown a piece of property, and that fell apart. And

from there we went to you know, Mendoza, Argentina. We were in the our valley of Germany. Came very close to kind of settling in there. We went up down the west coast looking for places. I never stopped here. I drove through the Umquia Valley, but I never stopped here until the very end of that trek. And we were in Lemieux, France, and all kinds of places and that, and I stopped in here and literally the first day, you know, the old saying is when you see it,

you know it. It's hard to define. The first day was here. I looked at the topography of where we were and it was being like once again, west side Russian River. I looked at the soils. I'm very much a dirt person, and so that gold Bridge sandy loam, and the soils like you get on the west side of Napa Valley where it can rain for three weeks straight and it's dry for an afternoon and there's dust, and you know, those are really deep, warm, very dry soils the

drive wine quality and finesse. And so I saw that up on this bench here at Hillcrest, and three years later that happened. Wow. So you've traveled the world, and I know you do. And on top of that, you don't just travel around the world and drink great wine. You make wine in other places. Just really briefly, where else are you making wine? Yeah, So I'm a dirt guy, said, So that's a perfect segue into that. Now we're gonna go from dirt a big dirt, which

is rocks. So I'm a slate guy. I love slate. That blove affair began with the Mosel Valley again, the great you know, blue gray red slate of the Mosel Valley, and that we do wines in Russion, both in France, in the Saint Paul defen Away we do a carryon based wine, and then in the little village of Polboleda in pray or Walk, we do two different wines. The primary wine is carrying one hundred year old carrying on fine with a little bit of garnacha splashing, and then I do

a garnacha kind of reverse with a little bit of carryon. We also do some wine occasionally on and off in Italy out of Acte, down in Victoria, down in Sicily, we do a little bit of one on and off. In Austria. That's the one area that we're kind of in and out of, and that's the one area that actually it's it's stone, but it's not slate. We do Blo Francish and spy guilt on and off with a

friend a lot of these people. For example, in Polo Leeda, it's a friend of mine that I met like thirty five years ago in Napa Valley and there are people that we were both young people working. They'd come over to work. Same thing. In Austria, it's that same connection. My connection in Brucion is a guy that I met in Zurich. There's an import of very famous import in Zurich had a bunch of night clubs, and he

and I kind of hit it off. I was much younger, and so we went out one night for dinner before we went out to the clubs. Then he brought some of his friends and there was this little kind of shy Swiss guy and kid, and so we talked and kind of hit it off. And ten years later I walk into a cellar in this little village of Saint Paul de fen Away and here he is a Swiss kid. I mean, there's nobody at that point. Now there's some Americans in that area,

Mari. But I walk in and it's it's Maurice, and I, oh my god, what are you doing here? And he just dropped everything in life and kind of the same thing that you know. I always say that sometimes you don't choose it, It chooses you, and it manifests itself through you. And I feel so blessed. Especially being raised Mormon, I was never exposed to this, and it just happened to be the first couple of times that you know, wine crossed my path. I kind of looked at

it and followed it down the street. And it's been such a beautiful thing, because the legacy of one. I've got young kids that are involved in the wine business in that and that's you know, we work for the Frescobaldi's for a while on the Luce Lucente projects in that and when in the family's private dining room there were frescoes of family members that were popes, and you know, you have family that's been in the business thirty generations. You start

thinking of the legacy of your family being part of that. That's a very magical thing that in the New World we just begin to taste that a little bit with a few few wineries that are like third generation. But you know, that's one of the exciting things about Hillcrest is that, you know, I believe this will be here in four hundred years and maybe my family's involved for two generations or five, or hopefully more than that, but still the

legacy of being part of something like that is such an incredible thing. Yeah, well, you know you'll be two generations because the second generation is already involved in amen. So you're mentioning that you have you make wine around the world, and you have all these friends around the world. So if we were to come into your home or we're here in your office where you got a lot of bottles. What kind of wines do would we find in your

cellar? What do you collect? What do you drink on a regular basis? I do collect a little bit. I don't collect. When I think I moved here, I had probably one hundred and fifty cases, a lot of you know, Burgundy, Bordeaux, aroone, that kind of thing. Today I drink a lot of wines that are high acid, very delicate. I drink kind of non classic varieties from a New world standpoint, they're not

the varieties, you know. I mean, I enjoy Burgundy, Bordeaux, this kind of thing, but you know, pieti rosso is something we've been drinking a lot of lately. So it's kind of new flavors. Kind of like with food that when you're young, you have your favorite dish and if I could, I'd always eat that, And by the time most people are fifty years old, it's like, oh, yesterday we had sushi, and today I want barbecue. And so it's the beauty of exploring different places of

the world. And there's so many, you know, they say there's between four thousand and eight thousand great varieties in the world, and Italy has twenty eight hundred. Italy is a place just to go in and mine and just see. There's so many beautiful, distinctive, unique things. And so we drink a lot of Italian and this is also heavily once is what we produce. You know, I always say you are what you drink. And it's important to taste the great stuff because you have to know what's possible and what

is held on a pedestal. But once you've done enough of that, you can see there's so many beautiful, beautiful wines in the world that really get no traction in the marketplace. And so first requirement of great wines it tastes good. And so there's there. There are many things to be learned in different places and meeting people, and I think you know, it's the human aspect of that that's the most important to us. Is there anything you opened

up recently last night for dinner or this week that stood out? Oh? Boy? Yeah, So I drink a lot of game. I've got this theory that winemakers, you know, you see this in Piamonte, you see it in Burgundy where they drink their daily wines tend to be variety, these red wines that are real high and malic acid, you know, Barbara Gammey this kind of thing. And so we had a beautiful twenty twenty Gammet we

had this. I bought a case or two of it and drank most of it and had, you know, with that one bottle kind of in the back of a crewe Boujelai. That from Griffi and that's in Estates, a family that was in the southern part of Boujelai and their son who's a little bit older and is unmarried. They settled him to the north and they bought a great estate from a small, small, old producer that was the end

of the line. And they produce some really stunning, stunning wines. And we had a flury from them that it's not the it's not the village. They do more gold flury in the and mulvall and the whole package. But that wine was so delicate and transparent, and the way people go from drinking white to red and sweet to dry, I think people go from power to elegance and to taste those wines, and I think sometimes they're so elegant they're

kind of over they're missed and their overlooked. But those are the wines that you know, you think about when you bring this up in that and so we drink a lot of very very unusual wines. We also import some of the wines. We bring in our own wines through own import company. But I also import friends like mosles. By import more mosle than anything else.

And I've got all kinds of beautiful, beautiful flavors from Moses. Yes, I'm drinking a lovely mocle reasoning right now that you make right y, yeah, yeah, this this is food. Or you know, we're very traditional. You've seen in the cellar. We use body. You know, several years ago you couldn't buy body here, and so I imported my own body. I put together a couple of containers of uh what are we were uh in leaders and I'll give you gallons like four hundred and forty gallons and thirteen

hundred and twenty gallon five thousand liter cask in that. And so the same thing we do in Europe, and that is like looking making krinon. That's kind of the old variety as it was known of like prayer rot. And so you know, grenache was the hot thing. The Parker hundred point wines are all grenache based. Now you see those top consultants in that area. Everybody's doing carnon and most that unfortunately has been pulled out. Same thing with

the reasoning we have as fooder and a fooder. The Romans shipped wine. It traded wine the way we trade oil today. So like the Mayflower was a wine trading vessel, even modified for human passage to the New World. So that was something that you know around the world. Wine was traded when you weren't the English and the French navies those ships were all built to handle wine as well. Well. The Romans transferred wine in one thousand liter barrels.

What they call the ton to know is the French version of it. If you look at the Germans, German call it a food. And so we make every year at a Trittenheim Apoteca in the Middle Mosle with blue slate. This beautiful, beautiful wine gets fermented in two foods, thousand liter barrels built in nineteen thirty three and nineteen forty five. Well, as I said this, I'm going to ask you a question. Do you think there's a

such thing as a perfect variety. Uh no, thank god. Yeah, I say the greatest wines in the world are perfectly flawed, and it's the flaws that make them interesting. So it's much like diamonds. You know, a perfect diamond is cubic zirconia. It's something that's nearly perfect, is so expensive and beautiful and distinctive and unique. And I think you know what separates you know, Lake Combe, Pollii Montchet from Le Montchet. That's beautiful and

those things. It's a fingerprint and it's that finger and I think that's that's part of our you know. Rigai, the great Burgundian wine maker said, the trick is there no tricks? And so this concept of finding if you make wines that are driven by sight, of really kind of standing back and not using technique, which could be so beautiful and build such consistency into wine, but it can also take away those flaws that make something very interesting.

Well, So if you appreciate the flaws, and you've worked for a large company, work from Mundabi for years, you're here making wine that you sell out of your cellar door, so people have to seek you out a little more. So I'm curious with all that experience. What's your opinion on wine critics and scores. I think it's a gateway. I think it's it's important

people enter wine from all different especially in a culture like ours. It's not really a wine culture historically, But I think that it's also important to empower people to drink what they like. You know, I can think back to reading the old old Wine Spectator when it was like a newspaper form, and there was a wine that I came across that my tasteed not really liked.

It was a winery out of Alexander Valley, their eighty two Cabernet sauvignon, and that wine was seller selection, and this is the one I think about like ninety six points, and this wine's supposed to age incredibly well in that so I took my little meager college, you know, pocketbook, and I bought six bottles that I never liked that wine, and and I'm I'm very lucky for this. But at that point it hit me as is kind of

you know, what I like is not necessarily what somebody else likes. There's Matt Kramer says that the definition of a connoisseur or somebody knows the difference between what they like and what's good. And I think that's so so important, and I think a lot of us as wine producers suffer from the wine expert that what I like is what's good instead of being a critic, you know.

I think about the old like Clive Coats in England, where I'd go to a state for three days and spend one day with the viticulturalists, one day with the analogist, one day with the owner, and you'd write a little article saying this is where the property is, these are their vineyards, this is where what they've done, they want to evolved, this direction, they're looking at these techniques. To me, that was so beautiful. And I understand, you know, a culture that you know, wants to know

the ten best ten best in that. But I think the beauty is and this is where you know, Europe comes a little bit our direction. But this whole concept of eat and drink what you like, you don't have to know that much about it. I was always amazed at how little most European wine connoisseurs knew about wine and America. We're so technically, we know, okay, in this part of the room they do this is the base. And these three varieties are typically the ones that are blended in and going to

people sellers that they have incredible sellers. What would you like to taste? So let's try this, do you know the blend? And they look at you looking from another planet. It's like they get their dad bought wine from that winery. They love that wine and they buy it. And so I think it's something we'll move towards that. And it's not a right or wrong, but I think that you know, always most important is the place and

the producer and the intigenal that falls behind. Well, you said that the difference is knowing what a great wine is and knowing what a good wine is what you like. So I'm curious. This is a simple one word answer. As a consumer. Redwetter rose, white white for sure. Yeah, yeah, I drink a lot more. I mean i'd probably drink seventy percent wife white. My wife is about ninety nine percent red. I used to drink a lot more red, and I've found that is I have gotten older

in that just white wine. I love to drink wine, and so the thing is to drink it and not feel it the next day, you know, to have two three glasses or whatever, and even within white like certain varieties that I you know, I love acid. I think most of us, the more we drink wine, the more we love acidity. And so you know, those those real high acid crisp whites from cooler areas are so spectacular that still are sparkling still yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm

married to one of the sparklers, though. I mean, like I remember being at Melissa me Bio and we've been like one week tasting at wineries on the front end of this big wine show in Montpellier, and I think there were five hundred vendors there and we spent three days walking table to table and everybody's porn. You say, can I taste maybe two or three year wines? And the boy You're like, they're twelve. And so we did that,

did that. At the very end, my palate actually hurt from all the acid, Like my palate was like it hurt to put a little taste to one in your mouth. I'm sure a lot of us have experienced that, Like you go to Tuscany for long enough and you see that kind of thing. Yeah, And and so my wife continues, like we've had somebody who walked by a table with sparkling wader champagne producer. I think it was, and they would you taste them? Like, I can't do it?

And that My wife's oh yeah, yeah, it tastes simil, and I'm just like, wow, it should taste sparkling. It doesn't matter what the challenge is, you know. Yeah, so you you you were talking about, you know, going into a cellar in Europe where people just open up lines. They don't think about the grapes. They're not thinking about all the things that we tend to think about as a consumer here. So I'm wondering how you look at pairing wine and food. Do you look for rules?

Are you a come what may are there rules to follow or their guidance you can share? What do you do when you're cooking? Yeah, yeah, I've like all of this. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. I think there are many theories and most of them are great ninety percent of the time, and then they suck ten percent. You know, when you get this is a great theory, you know, the amami thing, but you know, wine doesn't go with cheese kind of thing. Okay,

that's a problem. But I think that you know, once you've eaten and drank enough and paid attention to it, it's it's it's literally you don't think about it. It's a reflective action. It's much like on a warm day, maybe you say, oh, I have a cobb salad and a nice tea. You don't think about, oh, this as both white delicate, or you're having Maybe somebody says, so I just made some fresh chocolate chip cookies. You don't think, oh, I want creamy milk to kind of

balance it out kind of those textures and that. So, but I think if I was to come up with the rule, it would be a first rule for to drink, which you like. When I used to travel a lot, i'd go out with the dinner with people, and that the people that I always kind of came closest to are related to the most. Where the people that picked up the wineless, they ordered the wine and then they

looked at the venue. That's my kind of priority right there. Yeah, so you pick your wine and then you pick your food that's gonna fit with the wine. Yeah yeah, yeah, And I don't even think about it because once again, it's it's reflective. It's like and so if I was going to create use a rule though, I would use texture that I think that the safest thing is that if you have, you know, like a piece of chicken and you had it with like a lemon sauce or something something

light, you know, Sovino blanc could be so beautiful. Or if you had that same piece of chicken grilled with like a little bit of a cream sauce, like a nice Chardina shabilee, that kind of thing could be nice. But I think that we get to the point that that's reflexive that I like, I really don't think about that at all. Like we'll know what we're cooking the first. The first conversation we have every day my wife and I is what's for dinner? And then it's Levia, what are you doing

today? Kind of thing, and so we'll know that all day. And so at that point I just kind of open up, you know. We have a little enotech that's kind of chilled in that, and then we have some boxes in a room and stuff, and I go through and kind of like, oh, that sounds good, that sounds good. I don't think about, oh, we're having that for dinner. I just think like, oh, that sounds really good to drink. Yeah, it must be fun

to be in your house. So for somebody who hasn't had the pleasure to try Hillcrest Vineyard wines yet, what do you think they're missing out on? I think you're missing out on. What we do is what most people tried to do for fine wine on the West Coast, like in the fifties and sixties. I don't use any adjuncts wasn't used one hundred years ago. I don't use it. So I don't use enzymes, tannins. I don't use oak powder at the you know, crusher kind of thing. And so I

try to make wines. I say, good wines taste like a grape, and great wines taste like a place, and so I want my wines to all taste nice. But the primary driver is I want to wine to smell and taste like a place. Maybe with the like I was the framer, I look at the painting and then I stuck the frame on it a little bit, But I want that to be where you look at that picture for you know, an hour, turn your head, you don't remember what the

frame looked like. I wanted to add something without really being able to separate it, and that's a very hard thing to do. We do one hundred percent dry farm to one hundred percent hillside. So I think it's it's I think in the modern world of you know, the frenchly good wine has made, great wine is born, and I very much believe in that wines that are very very low yielding drive farm. Like I said, hillside vineyards. I bring that in. I ferment in concrete tanks. That gives me very

mental powerful extraction. If you look at shadow Patruz has always been fermented in concrete. Shovel Blanc used concrete and then in February of eighty six poled all that out put stainless in, and ten years later all the stainless went back to concrete. And it's much like it gives you a very gentle, but very rich, intense masduration period. So we'll do like thirty to sixty days on skins kind of thing, and then aging of like two, three,

four or five years. So I make something I think that that would have been typical of what you'd see in old the real old world of Europe, you know Europe. Right now there's this great battle between of course the tradition was the modernists. In some areas that's kind of resolved and settled. In other areas that's just kind of kicking up. And the question is how how

important should wine making be in fine wine? And I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, but I think that there's a There are very different pathways in terms of how you grow grapes, how you make wine to end up at that point. And that's something with the next generation with my children. Have got two kids that have joined us that I'm trying to show them that because that's very unique in the world. When I got in the business

in the early eighties, I got to see both sides of it. And today, like the schools that I know of and what you know is taught, it's a lot of manufacturing of wine, and that's fine and that's great, But the concept of those old world rules and that wisdom you just don't see that you don't read it in books, you don't hear it from professors and that and that whole thing of being able to read a plant and like what direction of the leaves like in a warm spell at harvest, and that

of the leaves facing away from the sun or towards the sun, and these little things that I've been so blessed. It's when I travel it recharges my batteries. But to meet people that have magic not even know they have magic, that's just the way they've done it. And maybe they haven't looked over the fence enough to go, oh, that's very unique. Well, for if space aliens were to land it on your property right now, which of your wines would you want to say, Welcome to Hillcrest Vinyard? Yeah,

which candis that you like best? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, none of them, No, that's the truth. I love them all. But I would say probably, I would say Malbeck and so Richard Summers, So he planted these thirty five varieties. He was very successful with pin and Onan and Reasling, but he never made a lot of Malbeck. And I asked him when we took over, so he'd had decades of experience with those varieties,

And I said, Richard, and I asked this a few times. Besides Reasling and pin and Wan, which we know is successful, if those other thirty three varieties you were to plant them again, what would you plant? Which three? And I asked him this multiple times every time he said Maulbeck, Malbeck and Malbeck, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that we're beginning to see that. We've seen a lot of press in Malbeck out

of this area, and it's something that it's very distinctive. It's very different from Cohor, it's very different from Argentina, but it's super classic, age worthy, and I think that there's a long road to run with Maulbeck. So you've been here a long time, You've worked in the wine industry for a very long time. We know that every vintage tells a story. You make wines very pure that will express place and time. How much variation do you see from year to year. Is this a region that gives you a

pretty steady or is the variation pretty extreme? I think it's all relative where you stand. Like if you came from Europe, i'd say we're not extreme, we're kind of moderate. If you're at you know, as you move closer to the equator, and we'll say this case California, it's much more consistent in that. But I think that and I've talked to many other wine producers about this. They say the greatest fruit of its type comes from the

coolest environment in which a small crop will ripen. And so people talk about the greatest apples in the world coming from England, Southern England are coming from Normandy and that and the same thing is true of wine grapes. The challenges as you march away from the area that it's very comfortable ripening a nice crop in a healthy, healthy way. You have the potential of making higher quality wines, but not as consistent. And so if you look at like,

it's really interesting. I think in the modern wine business to look at like, the big wine companies have moved, especially into areas closer and closer to the equator, and that gives you much more consistent sun. And you know, if you look at the areas of the Northwest and that the big big wine companies are in areas where land as plentiful, sun as plentiful, water

is plentiful, and that gives you you know, it's good business. You know, I always joke that you I use my hand and I put my hand at a forty five degree angled say you want to drink that on a vineyard, You want to drink that steep hillside, you know, co rot Mosle valley kind of thing. But you want to own from a business standpoint, that flat land and my hand is horizontal now and the same thing is

true. And so the question is what are you after? And it's I mean, there's great wines made in flats, but I mean, I know whe those flats are those flats where the old river beds were. It's not usually next to the river, and it's up against the hillside roll that rocks come off the hill and that then, But there's always that balance of the

economics, you know, also the style you want to make. I mean, if you want to make a very pleasing, luscious style of wine, I mean a lot of that is wine making that maybe it's not so important in higher yield is good business and it doesn't show so much. If you're making wines that are very hands off, you've got to do that. I use the analogy like sashimi. If you're putting sashimi on the plate, you don't get to fix it, you don't get to put heat and sauce to

it. Versus you can take like fish, it's not very interesting, and you can make something so beautiful, but it doesn't taste like the fish. I'm in the business of trying to make wines. It tastes like the fish. So I'm curious because you are such a good communicator and you're you're very good at verbally expressing everything you've been sharing with us. So when you're walking through your vineyards, I'm curious, do you talk to your vines or do

they talk to yah? Yeah? Yeah, is that what that voice is? I'm not sure. Yeah. No, Actually that's a beautiful thing to say. But thank you. Richard Summers. When we took over, you know, he was in his late seventies, he was never married, never had any kids, and he knew that we were going to put our own kind of a fingerprint on this place. And he talked about his children, the vines and the wine. So that's kind of like the advanced advanced stage. I'm not quite at yet, but I look at you know, I

do look at things in a very different way. Part of that is just age and life and experience and that. But you know, it's I was thinking about this the other day that you know, I used to know that like the age of every vineyard, like ooh, that vineyard that's six years ago we planted that, and that's thirteen And now I don't even really care, you know, I just know that that's not ready to go, and

that is ready to go. Are there any like kind of science or predictors that you look like look for at any vintage that's gonna say it's ready to

go? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and and once again, that's that's that's that's kind of and that's the wisdom of time in the business if you've paid attention, and in our case, we've been lucky enough to go and leverage that with other people's wisdom and that and so yeah, there are things and you know, and some of those are things that you you have the theories you know on what creates what and what's related to what, and sometimes that theory is good for three four years and then all of a sudden

it's not. But that's that's that is that's part of the magic. You

know. It's so interesting in the modern white business. We see so many people that have like you know, they work in technology or the science is and that, and then they're mesmerized by wine the way are four Fathers were like a Jefferson in that And it's because it's not an equation, it's it's something that you know, there's there's right and wrong within the big, big, larger context, but it's it's really an individual thing and the beauty of

and I think that's where you know, for like wine writers and people that evaluate wines, it's it's it's such a different thing interacting with that plant and having a relationship with that plant and having a relationship with that wine that if you only critique wines, it's hard to see, you know, and and that that that that passion and that interaction, and you know, it's it's kind of like having, you know, your kids, like they might have

quirks and unusual things, and sometimes you come to think those are beautiful, beautiful things. The same thing with vineyards. You know, it's it's what is perfect? Don't I don't want perfect? You know, perfect is like a German engineered factory. Imperfect is like a Ferrari, you know, and Ferrari is exciting. But the thing is, you know, every five hundred

miles you're given it a tune up kind of thing. And so so it's it's it's it's it's that that you know, they say, the journey and evolution and so the ability to be able to do that and that's one of the reasons we came north out of Napa Valleys. I wanted my kids to experience that, amongst other things, to be able to kind of to do it hands on our kids. You know, we dug every hole that we

planted the vines ourselves. Our kids were involved in that, all the bottling, labeling, harvest in that after school, and so that's part of that. That's the beauty to me. And I know wine is different things to different people, but that interaction and especially the magic of nature and a place that the nature is so powerful. I really feel like I'm in a wool class area that's totally unexplored and undeveloped. And so to be able to be

a pioneer here is an amazing thing. And follow in the footsteps of the Dorner family from the eighteen hundreds and Richard Sommers. And do you and your family have any good luck rituals that you do at the start of harvest? You got any suggestions? Actually, we don't. So we break bread, you know, virtually every day together and so that's kind of that, that's our ritual. It's more of a family daily. But yeah, so this some of this probably goes back to being Mormon, and I mean the family

side of things is such a powerful thing. And to have your children, you know, we made them work for other people for a number of years before they could come back, so they knew what like a real boss was.

But to have them come here and see that that magic that find wine and having a product that is such a beautiful positive that people travel from different parts of the country maybe the world to come experience and to kind of share and to be able to touch people in that way of like, you know, I came in here with my father ten years ago and now I'm here as an adult able to taste and stuff. That's that's a beautiful, beautiful

thing about wine. And until you've done other things, you don't realize most of the world's not like that. No, yeah, well when you were when you were I mean, you obviously were introduced to wine at a younger age, you know, and turned onto it. And you've worked in the wine industry for a long time, But did you ever have aspirations to do something else, like when you were a little boy or once you knew about

wine. This was kind of the focus. This was, you know, it's so interesting because a lot of things, you know, like sports. I do it for two years intensively. My wife and I we honeymoon, We went and played tent We went to a tennis intensive course at a club med and I remember, like third day you could even pick up the water picture. Your hand was so sore from like six hours of tennis every day. But most of those things kind of faded when I said, I think

this certain things choose people. I think this chose me. And after two or three years, I remember it became a little bit bored, and then I kind of sat down and I was kind of reflecting, thinking like this is everything in the world. This is this is agriculture, it's production, it's marketing, it's incredible history. And that if this I find, if I find this boring, it's because of me. And so ever since then, I mean I engage. I read my wife many many years ago,

decades ago. Actually, I remember her walking out and we lived in Napo. One morning she goes and I'm not a big I like to go to sporting events, but I don't fall sports and that, and I remember her coming out and saying, I think it's so great. You don't like watch football a Sunday night. But she goes, would you read something besides a wine book? You know, like, wow, that's a problem. Yeah.

And so every morning I get up, I usually read for like two or three hours every morning, and not only wine, but for many years it was only wine, and today it's a lot of wine and so other things. And so I'm just I'm fascinated by life, and so I feel very blessed to have that kind of tickled and have that awakened within me that I can kind of you know a lot of the things I'm talking about, and we all think about the same things, but so much should the time.

We'll think about it and then let it pass. And I've tried to train myself that when I think about it, I look it up. So like at our table, there's no cell phones unless we have a question you can't answer, and then you can google it and we google it and bring it up to the whole table. I like that. I like that. So if you're planning a romantic evening for you and your wife, what sort

of wines get open to set the mood? Obviously you're opening wine every night, you talk about your dinner at breakfast, but is there are there particular wines that make make an evening a little different than the average evening? Yeah, for sure, for sure. Actually I have like several cases of wine, and it's not always famous wine, but oftentimes it's bottles that like maybe

what's the last one? The last one. I have a good friend I've known for about thirty years in the molesl and we went over as a winey, probably eight or ten years ago, and they'd done a big tasting the day before. We walked in like one hundred and fifty different wines that they'd made over decades and super beautiful wines, and our favorite wine. He gave us a bottle of that, and it was off of a vineyard called Clusiroth or Brudershot in the lay and so you have the great lines of log of

ground crew vineyards. Sometimes there's a rock out cropping that you might find like four or five six hundred vines in that's considered delay. That's the best of the tenderloin kind of thing. And so there was a bottle of that that we had in ourselves that he gave us and signed or whatever, and so

that was like a special bottle. Recently we've been drinking. So we traveled two to three times a year into Europe and our kids we alwa was tipped one at a time, and finally in twenty twenty, we took the whole family and we introduced all of our kids to all the people that we have relationships, business and friendships with that. And so we bought a lot of wine back that were wines that our kids liked and that, and so when

the kids come back for Christmas or whatever, we opened those up. My wife and I there was one great beautiful grower champagne that we drink on special occasions and I've got a couple bottles of that left. But you showed there are wines that are connected to people that we know in love and experiences we know in love. I love it so Dyson. You are a wealth of

knowledge. And I'm curious if there's a piece of advice that somebody else gave you at some point, whether it's life, work, career, that you carry with you, that's something that you try to work by or live by. You've shared a few of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I would say I truly believe the trick is there are no tricks.

We spend most of our life. And I saw this at the you know wineries I worked at, were you know, one winery really world class, beautiful Cabernarty Sauvignon off of old vines that were you know, eight foot between vines, twelve foot rows and that, and you know, that was replanted and the concept was we want that same quality. And the brightest guy I've ever met in my life and bit a culture guy named Andy blood Soe,

Hello, Andy, if you're out there. I've not seen him for a while, but you know, remember him saying, you know, well, I would go back to that kind of style, maybe tighten the rose up a little bit. And that was not the answer they wanted to hear. You know at that point that operations going towards high density, and that high density with something people like it was very different and you could like it or not like it. But I really think that that it's really not that hard

to make fine wine. You have to give yourself experience. It takes time. I think that's one of the things. We always want to get from here to there as quickly as possible, to take the shortcuts. But if you look at it as this is kind of a lifetime venture if you spend I always tell my kids, you want to find, like, if you think you're in just in something, you want to find somebody doesn't better than anybody else. Work for them, even if it's for free kind of thing.

And then when you're working for them, think about how you would change things if you were to be in the same position. And so that ability to kind of take and read and the wine business were so gracious around the world to share ideas and concepts. And there's many areas that can make fine wine, and there are things like dry farming. I mean, I realized

very early on that that was one of my truths. And I saw that difference between the old world in the new world and the best of the new world versus the you know, the newer way for me, and so it's it's witnessed that stuff and just take your time to do it. Don't ever do a whole bunch at once, because that's how you make fatal mistakes. You know. I've learned that from like the old world, is that you when you know you don't plant a brand new vineyard and build a brand new

winery the same day. You know, you plant blocks of vineyards. So that maybe over five years you plant a piece of property. I give this advice to people who the time that come in here. It's just like, if you have twenty five acres, don't plant it all at once in that plant because the first year different Between the first year and the second years, you'll go, oh, that was a mistake. The first year, I'm going to modify this, and that's the third year you're like, yeah,

I would change the road direction here and do that and that way. You always kind of are evolving and working down the path, and then once you have your fruit and you figure out how to grow it, then you begin producing wine. George Hendry, somebody that taught me this in Napa Valley was the first place I saw this. Somebody that took like a really incredible property

in a brilliant, brilliant man. But instead of him starting day one and trying to figure everything out, he took top wineries and nap and let them develop portions property for their own, and then he had them teach him what they're after, what they're doing in that, and then out of that, so he went from zero to one hundred, like in thirty years. You know, most people in one hundreds of years. Don't go to zero to

one hundred, right, but super super bright man that could listen. So I'd say, follow your passion, listen to everybody, do what's most important to you, and just dedicate yourself because the most successful people in the world are the people that don't keep changing direction every five years into the newest, latest, greatest, and that the classics are classics because they've stood the test

of time. And we talked about reasoning. To start with reasoning. Historically the most expensive one in the world over the last two hundred years to this day, still the most expensive wine it was sold in a barrel was nineteen twenty nine for a food or twenty thousand gold pieces. And yeah, especially today's world today, I had the goals at all time high. Again.

Yeah, but basically, dedicate yourself to something and if you stick to it, chances are you'll be much more successful, and if you love it, you will be successful. When you look back at your career, what would you say is one of your proudest achievements to date? Huh, Yeah, I'd say having my family part of the business. So I think the magic.

You know, oftentimes we used to joke intelligence skips a generation. And I'm not sure which generation I've been, but no, but having two of my three children see the magic and wine that I see and from slightly different angles, but to see how special it is and to haven't really registered in their hearts and not just do it because it's easy. Well, so you drink a lot of wine. You have wine on your table all the time. So I want you to complete this sentence for me, A table without

wine is like not eating starvation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a reverse too, you know, but yeah, food with no wine. Yeah, these are the fun questions now because it's been so much information, We're almost to the end and I want to get a few fun, little silly things out. So we're sitting at a big table. We've got your wines on the table. There's an empty seat next to you. Who from any walk of life would you want to be sharing a glass of your wine with?

Oh my god, belaving or diseased? Yeah? Famous? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Jefferson Thomas Jefferson. So I'm I'm I think we live in a you know, a beautiful country and so and the people that laid the plan out for us of initially the Constitution. It's amazing thing. Somebody that loved wine, saw the magic of wine, traveled the world, you know, did so many great things. Have pasta He's a big pasta pusher into the United States. So that you

know that story, I'm sure. Yeah, so you are. You know, you're dry farming, You're very conscientious of climate. We know climate is changing. You think people will be making wine in five hundred years, oh guaranteed? Yeah, yeah, I think. You know, there's a billion places to it. With the variations that you see, vintage to vintage is a lot greater even than what they call for that as a climate change over

one hundred years. And then I mean, if you look at our warmest vintages twenty years ago versus the warmest vintage let's say, over the last twenty years, the coolest and the warmest, I mean, we're not going to even approach anything near that warmest at this point, so on average, we're getting there. You know, I don't know. I do what I do.

One of the reasons I drive farm is plants self regulate when you start doing things like irrigating and putting things up in vertical shoot positioning versus letting the shoots fall down. In that you change the physics of the plant. You

change the phonology of a plant. So for example, like in California, I was used to like pulling leaves when you water, the vine never drops that basil leave typically, and so the idea of dry farming vines it automatically defiliate their fruit owned fruit zwneders you get later in the season, and it takes that old leaf at the base of the shoot that's the least efficient and scavenges the moisture nutrients, and it drops it and opens the thing up.

So it's I've studied finance quite a bit, and in finance they say you're either all cash or you're all leverage. To be in the middle is inefficient, and I agree with it. You either farm hard and you farm grapes and you get as much as you can at the right sugar or pH whatever you're after, or it's you know, foot off the accelerator and let nature do this and nature, you know, one of the magic things we talk

about old lines, old mines are magic. Why are they magic? Well, one of the reasons they're magic is that old vines typically have these trunks and massive root systems are like battery packs. So you take a young plant, it's like having you know, two triple A batteries. If something happens, let's see, at a frost, that vine would drop its vegetation, a young line basically fruit would collapse. I've had Burgundian producers and people in

Piamonte telling me, oh, like the really really old vines. Sometimes you get something that something happens to the canopy, maybe a frost or whatever. But you'll still see the sugar continue to accumulate because that vine takes that battery pack as that energy that was storing for next spring, and it liquefies some of that and it plugs that fruit with another brick or two bricks to kind of get you over the line. And so you know, once again,

I mean nature has a way of taking care. And there's all different styles of wine, and so the environment is one of these things. You know, like in the last several years here, we've not had a warm vintage. We've had cool vantages. We've had vintages that we kind of prayed for a little warm. Yeah. I made money for that, yeah, And so I think it is what it is, and I'll leave it at that.

Well, if if, if, if less than five hundred years, the world were to end, not to end, but you were said to a deserted eyeland, what three wines would you want to take with you? Mos reasoning? I don't know where you got that. Balls like Basil Raisling. Yeah no, yeah, I'm a missionary, I'd say Moses Reasling. So are we talking like particular wines or like vrietals from certain up to you? I mean, okay, so Moses Reasling, great red Burgundy and I'm

all back from here? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, how about that? I like that. I like that. Well, we're just about done. I warned you about one thing in advance, that we play a little game with music. So I want you to, in a in a quick way of describing your wines, pair them with a genre, a song, a musician. I'm gonna start with the Mosle Reasling that we started with sipping today, Okay, Mosling, Okay, let's go strong, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something shy yeah No, I just love

it. Those wines speak to me in the nerve and the brightness and the focus. They have a kind of sense of shiver up my spine. I love it. Your Peino no Ar, your fiftieth anniversary Peano no arm. Hmm, yeah, what am I thinking? What am I thinking of? That? I have to say, and I can't. I can't name a the performer, but I'd say some form of opera, Italian opera, something kind of deep and rich that demands you listen to it. Okay, you're

mal Beck. Mall Beck. So I love country music. Jamie Johnson who's a legendary songwriter but also as a performer an artist, and he has a song plays out on the Ocean and he talks about it's such a beautiful song. Talks about living a good life, which I think a lot of us do in the wine business. And mall Beeck can be nice and generous inness, but he talks about he keeps thinking about his significant other. That's all I thinks about, even though he's got all these grand things in life and

he's enjoying life. That's what he thinks of. And I think that the mall Beck is like that. It's kind of like it's so pleasing and easy, but if you look at it you can see something very serious. I love it. You're better at this than you thought you would be. Well, I mean we've been talking a long time, so I won't keep going. But we are sipping right now. Your tiniolo sangiovese. So what would you pair with that? This is obviously from Italy? Yeah, well actually

this is so, this is something we produce here. I've got to tell sorry, it was a problem from Oregon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it looks like it's from it. Actually I put Western organ on it, so which is a new that's a new thing for us. But anywayol Y synonym for an old synonym for Sangovesi and Tuscany tinolo is it's it's meant to be very kind of easy approachable. It's Chianti clones, so it's kind of the softer, easier versus. There's a lot of Brunello clones here. I

would say something like this with Carbonara, classic Carbonar I made. I've been making carbonar for years. The other day I made my best version, so it's kind of yeah. With you know, ducades, that's food. But what about music? Oh yeah, music, music is easy. That's probably like Fleetwood mac. Oh, now I'm hungry, let's go have some carbon Yeah yeah, yeah, exactly, Okay, last question. It's a two part and the first part is you've traveled all over the world. You go

to Europe a couple times of year. Is there anywhere in the world that's on the top of your bucket list that you want to explore that you have yet to Oh, for sure, I've had I've been tasting wines out of Georgia and Armenia for a number of years and they were always semi interesting in that I've had a couple in the last two years that were really very super beautiful. Actually, one of the wines that decannor London Wine Fair scored very highly and I had that one. It was like, what is that wine?

And I started doing research on It's like, oh, that's known. I didn't know that, but that as well as another area, South Africa is something I want to say. I've been to South Africa, but not wine tasting. And many of my friends that I worked with in Germany they

go there on a regular basis. And these are people that I work with also a nap and they tell me, like the Stellembosch Parl that they say that that is like Napa Valley nineteen eighty in terms of the landscape, how wine is approached and the food in that, and they say, oh my god, it's like stepping back in time, and you know, part of it's being older once again. But the other side of it is is I really believe that I've been able to experience wine in a golden age, in

a really beautiful time. And you know when when and I say this very kind of generically, but when a winemaker was the important person at the winery instead of you know, finance, sales, marketing and that, and then winemaker's part of that team or whatnot. And so that beauty of being able to know the owner winemaker up and down silver on a trail in the eighties, that was a beautiful thing. And that's a time that's passed and now it's a nice form of something very different, and so I want to go

there before that changes. I've been able to go to the old world quite a bit into like I've been into Hungry, I've been into Bulgaria and that and see that like really old old ways, but to see an area that's very polished, the way South African wines have had Vergo Legg and some super beautiful wines, and that to go see that and witness what they're doing there. Well, the other part of that question is how people can visit you? And if you come to Qua Valley, what is special is it is

still what you were saying. It is still walking in and you will meet the owner of the winemaker behind the bar. And if you want to come here to Unqua Valley, you will meet Dice and most likely or one of his children behind the bar who will engage you with lots of stories and information. But can you tell people what they would experience here and how they can find you? Yeah, So we're Highway five once again, the main artery on the west coast. Here, we're about fifteen minutes off of that.

So you get off with the main Roseberg exit one twenty five and you just you head west in the informational signs that will say Hillcrest and that when you walk into the tasting room, we're very humble winery. The winery that were used was built in nineteen seventy five by Richard Summers, and the tasting room is very warm. It's kind of a nineteen seventy nineteen eighty small Napa Valley boutique winery that we have one part time employee that helps us out a little

bit the taste room. Other than that, it is family. All of our kids have worked in the business here as well as other places overseas. But we specialize in a world of tasting rooms that have a lot of cheese plates, platters and charcuterie plates, and that we don't do that. We do wine. So we don't sell t shirts. I don't sell cutting boards, candles, no candles, yeah yeah, cabernets, any candles, yeah

yeah, make your own at home. But we basically sell fine wine, and we specialize in an educational guided tasting to really talk about not only what we produce, but what I'm special about. Unqua Valley and the context are the great wines of the world. So we'd like to give people perspective of what's special about this place, and you know, in terms that they understand and can relate to. And people can also taste your German and Spanish and

other wines. Yes, usually we have one or two of those open. We have an international wine club that most of that goes to, but we do always have one of those available. Right now, I think we're boring a grenache, if I'm not wrong, granacha that we do once again out of Spain, and then I've got a Moses reasoning and dry reasoning. Well, so it would be pretty special to come here because it's the unexpected and

it's special. So I encourage everyone to head up to the Umqua Valley and stop by Hillcreso and you're and you will probably meet Dyson and get to engage with him for even lugger. But Dyson, thank you for joining us. It's been really fun. And uh, let's go have some carbonara to the genie in the bottle. And thank you Alison, thank you Jersey. Thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA. For details and updates, visit our website windsoundtrack dot com.