Page Mill Winery - Dane Stark

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Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alson Levine and today I am in the Livermore Valley with Dane Stark, the owner and ymaker at Page Mill Winery. Dane, welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us about Livermore Valley.

Thanks so much for coming to visit. So, Livermore Valley is a transverse valley, meaning it runs east to west. It's just on the east side of the Bay Area San Francisco Bay Area, and it's home to fifty to sixty small wineries and a couple big ones.

And we found our way here twenty years ago and have absolutely loved being here. Wow.

So you are one of the smaller wineries. And tell us a little bit about Page Mill Winery, the history of it, and where we are exactly today because today we're surrounded by vines. So clearly you own some vineyards.

Yeah, we sure do so. Pagemat Winery started in nineteen seventy six. At the time my father was selling lasers around the world, and he saw these little family run wineries that were in the rhine Gow in Germany. On his day off, he would walk down through the rhine Gow and visit these small wineries that had ten or twelve barrels underneath that family house, right, and he thought, you know, he was kind of missing his kids growing

He put barrels below the house.

That's exactly right.

Yeah, he started making wine and in nineteen seventy five he made fifteen gallons of Shennon blanc that was completely undrinkable. My uncle called it urina blanca. And with that experience under his belt, he.

Just wanted to pursue it.

Yeah, And I asked him. I was like, were you crazy? What were you thinking?

You know, you made one terrible batch and then you just completely change And he was like, you know, it was it was so early in the wine industry that commercial back malalactic bacteria weren't available. Everyone would get gather together at Davis after the harvest and they would talk about how they got the wine to finish mL, you know, the secondary fermentation, and so later on you could then

They're under your house.

Right.

Well, So the winery operated there on Pagemo Road for twenty eight years.

So what brought you to the Livermore Valley of I mean based on where you were located, because you said you were in the south, just like Stamford. I mean you had no more known areas of nap and Sonoma right near you, I mean Santa Cruz Mountains. What brought you to the Livermore Valley?

Great question.

So so we operated there for twenty eight years, and my parents retired in ninety six. My wife and I were living at the winery at the family home and running the winery until two thousand and four, at which point we realized, I mean we were so full that the barrels were stacked pyramid stacked, which if you've seen it, you know, barrel on barrel right, and and and we

The floor dice.

So so we were really full right to the to the gills. And and so we said, okay, we need to expand, we need to find a new place. And we also it was underneath family home in a residential area. We couldn't have a dedicated tasting room. So in order to take it to the next step, we need to look for a new place.

Now.

The unique aspect to page Mill was early on, my dad planted a couple of acres of grapes and immediately lost them to the deer and the birds and the gophers. And he said, Okay, that's really hard. I'm gonna buy my grapes. So so in two thousand and four, I was buying Santa Cruz Mountain wines. I was buying grapes from Healsburg. I was buying grapes from Napa, from the Chiles Valley in Napa, from Santa Barbara, Santa Maria Valley. I was buying passer Robles fruit.

You're driving all over the state, that's right.

Yeah.

In harvest, I was really more of a trucker than anything else. And so I was going to those those places and bringing the fruit back to the winery. In that regard, it was a totally mobile business, right it was. It was that business model was I could move it anywhere. And so when I moved to Livermore Valley, in many ways it was closer to my to my vineyards because I could hop right on the five and go down to Passer Roboles, right.

But what was the draw to this valley to Livermore.

So what happened was we spent about a year trying to figure out if I could I could own that place. Well, I have three sibling so I couldn't afford to inherit it, right, So we said, okay, we need to move, and we looked in Healdsburg, we looked in Santa Cruz mountin all of the Santa Cruze Mountains, and then up in the Sierra Foothills and Livermore. What drew me to Livermore was the affordability. It was kind of an unknown hidden gem, if you will, and the ability for us to stay

Right.

So today, clearly we're in a tasting room. You make your wine here as well, but we're surrounded by vineyards. So how many acres of vineyards do you own today?

I wish that was mine.

That's a fence. That fence is where my property stops. You park next to the petitserraw vineyard. That's our estate vineyard and it's two acres. I also farm a half acre a sera next door, as well as four and a half acres of white varietals in the southwest corner.

Those are sort of.

In French they call it fermage, where you where you're sort of leasing the property and then and then doing the farming and then taking the fruits of your labor. So I have seven and a half acres that I manage and operate on and the rest I still purchase. That's about seventy five percent.

And what is your total case production today? And of that what is it made up of? Obviously you said petit serra and what else.

So we make a wide range of wines. We make whites, reds, rosees, sparkling port a white dessert, sort of saw turn style everything. Yeah, so I got my hands in a lot of pies and it really keeps it interesting. It's fun, it's it's really a way to express myself in so many different ways.

And yeah, so we make a.

Ton of different wines and total case production six thousand.

And are your wines available just here at the winery direct consumer? Are you across the market in some states.

Or out of the country, So you can buy our pagement wine in South Carolina and the Bay area, San Francisco Bay Area, and.

Then right here in the winery and.

Here at the tacon here in the winery. Yeah, I've still got a distributor who sells the wine around the around the bay and so you can find it in San Francis, going up and down the peninsula.

And I'm curious. You said your dad started making wine in your home. Was that your first memory relevant to wine or is there another memory? What's when your very first memories of wine?

So let's see, So my dad when he started to dig that hole, I was eight years old, okay, right, and so that really is my first you know, is what's going on here?

Right?

And actually they dug they added onto the house and in a direction that went towards the pool. And I came back from camp and they were digging this hole and I was like, man, we're spanning the pool. But which would have been super cool, was it went under the house. That's not what was happening. And so then they then they built a room over that and so they had the seller and so it was really cool

Literally. So that's that was my first yet.

And since then, you've been drinking wine. You make a lot of different wines. I'm curious if there's a particular wine along the course. It's been one of those aha moment wines for you.

Well, when I lived in I spent my junior year in college in Bordeaux, France, and that's what really turned me onto wine. That's what opened my eyes to sort of the lifestyle and the way that the Europeans look at wine as part of the table and part of the meal really sort of opened my eyes and made

But was there a particular wine that went a haf for you?

Yeah?

Sorry, So the wines in Bordeaux were the ones that really expanded my understanding the way that the French approach a dry rose was something that was completely different at the time. In eighty nine, you could get sweet you know rosees, white zin's here, but there wasn't that all that much dry rose and it was completely different.

So not a specific wine, but a specific but it was more of a category that kind of was ah to you.

That's exactly right. Yeah.

And so now if we were to come to your home and in your cellar refrigerator under your house, what would we find? What do you d what do you and your wife drink? Do you drink a lot of local wines, a lot of Bordeaux wines? Is there a mix and match? What would we find.

In my cellar?

You'll find a bunch of page Moll wines, lots of vintages. I love to go back vintages and you know, revisit what has been made. The Angelo's Qva is my dry rose. That's that's the one it's the only wine you have to like because it's named after my wife, Angela, which is a whole other story. But that's what you'll find mostly on our table. But then I also really enjoy the local wines, and I've got a couple of favorite wineries that are out of state and we and we

So is there a wine you opened up recently on your dinner table that tasted really great or maybe picked up at a restaurant.

So I like to, like I said, revisit older vintages and wines can really evolve over time and reach this state that you didn't think they were going to get to. And my twenty one San Francisco Bay Chardonnay reached a state in the last six months that is just exquisite. And so I've gone through my last case of that just in the last couple of months because because that.

One, oh my god, it's off the charts great.

I love that. So you work with a lot of different great varieties. You've been making wine for a couple of decades, and I'm curious do you think there's a such thing as a perfect variety.

No.

I think that each variety has their own attributes, the things that they bring to the wine. I love to do blends, and when you're blending, you know, you can really sort of dial in things by, you know, pulling out the great things in each varietl So I don't.

Think there's a perfect one. I think they're all perfect.

They're all perfect. Well, speaking of perfection, I mean oviously, there are people who like to put scores to wines, and I'm curious how what the role of wine critics and scores play in your mind to the wine industry or to a brand like yours.

I detest them sincerely. I you see metals on the wall and scores and all that stuff, But I send that out because the public. It gives the public sort of some buying information and and and they and they like that. Every time I ship it off, I hate it because we won best mer Low in the Valley maybe four five years ago or something like that, and we were at the at the banquet and they said, okay, Dane,

You know, it's subjective and it's personal, and so on a personal level, red white or rose.

Rose for sure, still or sparkling still.

Very quick. That was easy. So I'm curious. You just mentioned like your Merleau with duck Alrange and another wine on its own and something like that. So how do you approach food and wine pairing? Obviously, you know, if that merleau goes so great with a dish, why is it that it goes so great with that dish? And maybe wouldn't work with something else. And when you're at home or going out to eat, how do you approach it? Do you do you pick the wine first, pick the food?

So I've done a lot of food and wine pairings over the decades, and the best ones are ones where we spend a lot of time and go back to each pairing, we come up with sort of the menu right and decide, Okay, this is what we're pouring, this is what we're gonna try and pair with it, and then we go We create the food, create the wine, you know, bring the wine in, taste them together. Because what's going on in your mind may not necessarily go on in your palette.

You know, But what are you looking for? Are you looking to match acids? Are you looking to contrast? Do you think there are rules of white wine and fish, red wine and meat? I mean, do you follow those basic rules or is it really just what your imagination takes you to?

Absolutely, no rules, No, throw all the rules out the window. For me, a great pairing is one where the bite of food cleanses the palette for the wine and the wine cleanses the palate for the food. And so there's this interplay and going back and forth where they perfectly marry with each other so that someone doesn't, you know, outweigh the other.

So for somebody who hasn't had the pleasure of tasting page Mill wines, yet, what do you think they're missing out on?

Let's see if I can be accused of having a style, I suppose it would be old World.

And what I mean by that is.

These wines are a little bit more restrained than your typical California wines, which I love, you know, the over the top jammy fruit bombs. But coming from France and learning about wine in France, I like a more restrained wine. As a good example, we do a saft turn style late harvest soovinium blanc that is about half the sugar of a regular saw turn and it's also lower in alcohol. And that's because I don't want it to be dessert in a glass.

I want it to go with dessert.

And so I find that if it's you know, a full saw turn, it really is dessert in a glass, whereas you know, if it's a little more restrained, then it goes with the fruit and cheese, and that pairing is it.

Can be beautiful.

So you have how many different wines do you make? I know all the categories you mentioned, but are we talking you know about twelve different skews? Twenty different skews.

It's twenty, it's twenty plus.

Okay. So if all those wines, if space aliens were to land on your property right now, knock on the door and say, you know, give me one of your wines. Which of your wines would you want to welcome them with?

Well, it would have to be the GPS because they were lost, right, So I make a Roane style blend. When I landed in Livermore, I said, you know, it's a great location for the rhone vrve Sarrah grenache, and I want to do a GSM style wine. But I wanted to say page my winer. I wanted to say Livermore Valley. I wanted to be my location wine, and so I took out the m the Morvedra in a GSM, and I put in Petit serra because that's what I grow, and so then it really should be called GSPS.

But I was going to say, is it.

Or Grenachetitasra it's grenash Petit.

But I took liberty with the letters, and I put my marketing hat on and I said, well, if this is my location wine, it should be called GPS.

That's perfect. Perfect for the lost aliens, although they may have intentionally come come here, I don't know. So you know, you've been making wine now for how many years, like thirty years.

Thirty five? This would be my thirty fifth ventures.

And you used to drive all over the state picking up grapes, so you've seen a lot of different vintages. And then now, of course you've been here in the Livermore Valley for what twenty years? Twenty years? So you know between the two, we know every vintage tells a different story in your experience, what have you seen both? You know, when you were visiting all these vineyards across California,

Let's see.

I answer that the I think having the perspective of seeing all those vineyards in those appellations has has made me the wine maker I am today, and uh and given me appreciation for you know, for the growing aspect. It's when I left Santa Cruz Mountains, I was farming ten small vineyards and now I have a lot more acreage. But in you know, three vineyards and seasonal variations. The

But each vintage can be so unique and.

So interesting that it's almost like no two are the same.

So are there any sort of signs or predictors that you look for that are going to tell you what a vintage is going to give you?

Well, yeah, I mean I pay attention to a lot of stuff, the butt break and when it happens and how fast it happens, the heat during the spring, things like that. And I farm completely organically, and so I think that means I spend a little bit more time in the vineyard, maybe a little bit closer to the vines. You really have to get the leaf pulling correct in order for the stuff that we're using against mildy to work, because it's organic, and so you've got to be pretty careful.

But I forget you as well.

No, just about any signs or predictors that you have. But so you're you said that you're affirming organically, you're spending time in the vines, getting very close to them. Do you talk to your vines?

Absolutely? No, no, there, yeah, yeah you have to and saying do.

You have a conversation with them or are you more like encouraging them, reprimanding them or is it just you know, sharing your life story.

It is, it's talking to them. If they talk back, then and then I worry about myself. But yeah, so yeah, no, no, I find myself talking to the vineyard when i'm you know, because they're a part of your life. I mean, you know every vine, right, I mean when when you're doing organically, you don't just drive the tractor through and spray for weeds. You're actually manually pulling weeds.

And stuff like that.

So so you really get to know the vineyard a.

Very intimate relationship. Do you talk to your wines when they're in barreled? Does it continue or really it's the vines?

No, it does. Yeah, absolutely, you gotta talk to the one.

I mean, Sauvinil Mack is just so strong you can ignore it. You can, you know, kind of kick it around, leave it in the corner, forgot about it. And it's just so resilient that it can come out just beautiful even even with negative energy if you're in a bad mood or whatever, when you're making it now.

Pina, no water.

On the other hand, I mean you walk past it and you look at it, askance, and it could go into a funk for three months.

You know, you have to really watch your attitude and your tone. So have you established any sort of good luck rituals that you do at the start of harvest for yourself personally or for your team?

No, I don't have any. No, I probably should, but I don't.

None of those lucky socks, or I don't shave or the same shirt, or.

I will often be pretty scruffy during harvest.

But that I don't think that has to do with luck, just fatigue.

You don't feel like you jinx yourself if you shave. No about So, you said that your dad put in the cellar when you were eight years old, and I mean you were a young child when you saw this happening. Did you know at that point that wine was something to interest you, or what did you want to be when you grew up, when you were a little boy, what did you think you wanted to be.

So I wanted to be a potter and I wanted to be a masseuse. I'm a licensed massage therapist, which my wife gets the benefit of. And I've never I didn't continue on with pottery, but I wanted to do pottery and massage. And so when I went away to college, it'll surprise you to know I much preferred beer to wine. But then when I spent that year in Bordeaux my junior year, I absolutely fell in love with wine. And then I came home to the winery to join.

Wow, and do your siblings work in wine as well?

No, I have.

Let's see, a sister who's a professor, a brother who's a retired doctor, and another brother who's an electrician. And so I give the best Christmas presents.

Are you the baby of the family or in the middle.

I'm the baby.

So when you're not managing and talking to your vines, and you're not here in the winery, what do you like to do in your free time?

So I've got a beautiful family, three daughters, that take up a bunch of time. We've got my youngest daughters playing competitive soccer, so we travel around for that, which takes up a.

Lot of time.

And when I can find a day or two to myself, I fly sail planes.

Planes.

Yeah, I've been into free flight, which is no motor right for thirty years. I've flown paragliders for a long time, since ninety two. My dad and I did that together and it was still my favorite picture of my dad and I to this day is on my wall at home, and it is after we both had gone up for

So no sound, it's silence up there.

It's fairly quiet. You're flying along at fifty to sixty miles an hour, so there's wind, but that's it.

Wow. And then when you land, you land on land, land in an airport.

Yeah.

So the one thing people don't understand about sailplanes is they get my ship gets a forty eight to one ratio, which means if I'm a thousand feet in the air, I can go a mile, you know, because.

You have to land in an airport, so you have to find an airstrip somewhere.

Yeah, yeah, right, sorry, not a mile.

If I'm a thousand feet in the air, I can go forty eight thousand feet, which is almost eight.

Miles US, so you can find an airstrip.

So one thousand so I think about that eight miles. So I've got a lot of stuff within reach. Wow, and so and so we fly kind of from airport to airport where you say, okay, I can reach that one. And if you get high enough and go far enough, then you can reach that one.

Wow. Yeah, wow, Wow. That's a hobby. I've never heard anyone that's amazing. Well, when you're down here on ground and you're planning a romantic evening for you and your wife, the girls are out, you know, you just have a night for the two of you. What sort of wines do you open to set a romantic mood versus a Tuesday night? Yeah, it's not that romantic can't happen on Tuesday Night's.

Gonna say every night can be romantic, let's see. So we love to start with my sparkling. I make a completely hand done sparkling wine that spends you know, four or five years. Sir Laughton on the East les and the bottle, and that's got to start. You know, my wife and I love sparkling wine, and then we often go to a shard ennay. I make a really delicious San Francisco based chardonnay.

So romantic evening is drinking all your own wines. Absolutely total house palate.

Yeah.

And when we go out to dinner and and you you asked about pairing wine, pairing wine and food, we love to do.

We don't.

We don't get the same glass of wine. We always get different glasses of wine and share them. You know, when people say, you know, I want to you know, learn how to taste wine or I want to get better at tasting wine, I say, okay, rather than open a bottle tonight, open two bottles tonight and you can taste some side by side. And so that side by side comparison is what really gives you the most information.

So when you look back at your career or your life, is there a piece of advice that someone gave you along the way that is something you try to live by, or you know your your work.

Ethic, Bye, let's see, I don't know.

I mean, my dad's philosophy was was very enjoy every day and get the most out of every day.

You went hiking every.

Day and paraglided, and we paraglided together, and we really worked to live. And I think that kind of goes through how we run the winery and how I operated today.

And so when you look back at your career, what would you say is one of your proudest achievements to date?

Oh, my goodness, proud is the achievement. Wow, that's a tough one. I don't know.

I'm so proud of like all four of these wines and kind of this. I couldn't really pick one.

It doesn't have to be a specific wine.

But these are my achievements.

I mean, okay, I moved the winery and we we tripled in size, and you know, we've got a tasting them down.

But really my achievements are my wines. That's how I see it.

Like that.

I like that.

So I want you to complete a sentence from me. We'll have a little more fun now, I won't make it as hard. A table without wine is like a desert, simply put. And if you were being sent off to a desert or deserted island, what three wines would you take with you, and they don't have to be your own, but they could be your own. But any three wines that you could take with you, what would it be?

Oh goodness, I would take a mcgrail cab, a Wood Family Sarah and my Angelo's qubat dry Rose.

Three Livermore wines.

Oh for sure.

Yeah, you're Livermore thrown through.

Absolutely absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Like I said, I came for the tasting room and I'm staying for the grapes. The first three years opened my eyes to what this valley can produce, and quality and value.

I think it's unsurpassed.

So we're sitting at a table. We've got your wines on the table, there's an empty seat next to you. Curious who from any walk of life, living or deceased do you wish you could open up a bottle of page Mill Winery with and share?

My dad?

Did he not get he's had your wine? Yes?

Yeah, yes, my dad. My dad passed a couple of years ago. He's who I'd like to have a glass of wine with.

No, I know, I know, I know. It's my Oprah moment. We'll go, we'll jump ahead. Well, we'll talk about music. Now back Now we're gonna finish. We have a couple of your wine sitting in front of us. We have a Savignon Blanc, we have the Angelus Couve named after your wife. We have the GPS which you spoke about, and we have a Cabernet savignon. And you know it's wine soundtracks. We've gotta We've gotta kind of end this with a little tie in with music. Music conjures up

So the Soavignon blanc really wants something flamenco, something light and airy and nylon strings, Yeah, definitely, And it calls for for not strumming, but hand you know picking. Yeah, it's it's bright, it's it's lively, it's it's a cid and you know it's got a little bit of a spice to it.

I can hear the nylon, I can hear it. I can almost taste the line by the music. Now, what about Angela's couve? What is it? It's a rose of.

It's a rose grenache six hours on the skin. So it's got that kind of light salmon color which is which is really my bull's eye.

And I would say acoustic.

Fingerpick maybe blackbird uh yeah, okay.

And then the GPS that you know, it's helping find your way and not a g G s M. I can't even remember the way the letters go now, but no a GPS your directional wine.

Yeah, the my location wine.

So the GPS calls for major chords. It's a happy song, something that is maybe offbeat, like something like.

Uh something on the back beat. Uh.

And it's and uh fairly complicated.

You know, a lot of chords.

So a genre or a song or a.

Musician, let's see rock, Uh major chords, yeah.

Rock, rock and roll and the Cabernet Savignon.

Cabinet son own needs chamber music needs something you know with a cello in it, and something mallow maybe maybe some minor chords.

Wow.

I have real, some real visuals of these wines based on the style of music that you have chosen. So, Dane, that was really good.

Thank you well.

I have one more question for you, two parter, what what wine region in the world is At the top of your bucket list to explore Chile.

Chile.

I really want to go to Chile. I've never been my wife's spin and I'm really jealous about that. And my Spanish is terrible, but i love to butcher Spanish and I've heard a lot about it.

I really want to go to Chili.

Well, while you make those plans for somebody who would want to come here to Livermore Valley, how can they get here? Where can they find you? How can they find you? What can they experience?

First, they should order a bottle of the GPS that'll take them right here, because because it's got the coord and it's right on the label perfect thirty seven degrees north and one hundred and twenty one degrees west. So Livermore Valley is really just a stone's throw from the San Francisco Bay Area. For much of the Bay, we're the closest wine region and there's, you know, so much to explore and visit in Livermore Valley. When I arrived here in O four, i was winery number twenty four.

And so if they come here, they come to page Mill Winery and you have a tasting room any particular experiences.

So I love to do flights.

On the other hand, we've got a guided tasting for which our brand ambassador will tell you about each wine and guide you through as you go from lighter to heavier. And that's kind of the experience that you got to do. And you've got to taste the Angelus kVA and the gpsal much to your wife.

Yeah right, yeah, Well there's an indoor area, small tasting room inside and a lovely outdoor area looking out at your neighbors vines but still vines. Beautiful Dane. Thank you for joining us on Wine Soundtrack. I hope you had a good time, and let's go taste some wine.

It sounds great. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you for visiting liver More on pagemail.

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