Carson Leno, Fallon. Now it's wine talks with Paul K. Hey, welcome to wine talks with Paul Kay. And we are at an away game way up in the Bel Air Mountains, about to have a conversation with Paul Warston of Moraga vineyards. Introductions to just a moment. Wine talks, of course, available on I heart radio, Pandora, Spotify, wherever you hang out for podcasting. Hey, have a listen to George Walker III. He is with Wade Sellers, the brainchild of Dwayne Wade, the famed
basketball player. And they are making wines for the community around pricing and quality, trying to get a wine out there at the 15 to dollar 20 range that you're going to appreciate. This is Wade Sellers. It's a crazy good conversation. I was up in Napa at the association of African American Vendors Tasting. Had a chance to catch up with these wines. Very good. Have a listen to that. And Eve de Launay, he is a luxury good specialist all his career, from Louis XIII Cognac to Sotheby's
to Cartier watches. Have a great conversation with him or listen to him. He is now with Chateau Cheval Blanc. So I think you'll find that very fascinating. But not while we're here today. Here we have a conversation with Paul at Morag Avenue. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Glad you could be here today. This is the kind of thing that makes this industry fun. And I do this. Yesterday I was playing golf. My buddy said, what are you
doing now? You're retired? I go, yeah, but really I'm having more fun and learning more than I've ever learned. And it's because of shows like this one that we're going to have. Being up in Bel Air and having. Tasting, you would never know that we're here. Somebody said, and I didn't catch this, but you cannot see the vineyards from the 405 freeway. You can if you know when to look and where to look, you can just see them if you're heading north. Okay, so we
are in at Moraga venues. It's in Bel Air. It's in the famed part of Los Angeles, known for its hillsides and mansions and proximity to Beverly Hills. But we're at a winery. How many acres do we have under vine here? Well, under vine, seven and a quarter. The entire property is roughly 16 and a half acres. Wow. You know what's kind of interesting? I saw this, we're just going to jump in is you've got various. And I
try to stay away from wine geeky stuff, but I have to. Here you have various direction facing slopes. Here we do we have a variety? And to good and sometimes ill effect. We can take some photos of this later, but we do have one hillside that that is relatively close proximity to the floor of this canyon, and one side faces north and one side faces south. And it was a singular block of merlot. And the prior winemaker recognized 1518 years ago that the north side of the block ripened about three
weeks after the south side. Oh, interesting. The sun. So, you know, being a small winery like we are, small winery and vineyard, they ripped out. Or actually, they didn't rip out. They just lopped off the tops of the vines that had merlot, and they grafted Sauvignon blanc
onto it. And so because it wasn't worth their effort to try and keep it unified in one block, I mean, by the time they would pick the one side that ripened earlier, the fermentation would near be over for that wine when they then got around to picking. Yeah, right. And I want to say when they got around, when the other side of the block was ready to be picked. So they just said effort, and grafted it over to Sauvignon
blanc, and now it ripens. Actually, ironically enough, it ripens about a week before the merlot was ready. So, yeah, that's crazy. So, just for the lay of the land, for the listeners, we're driving down the 405 freeway, driving north, you make a hard right turn with your head, and you might catch a glimpse of these vineyards, which are beautiful. But when I drove up and I walked in the gate, I realized, and I felt like I was in the middle of what would have been traditional wine
country. And that's not what we're here. People have heard this idea that this vineyard exists, but this isn't a toy here. This is some serious winemaking. And the reason I showed up is because when we tasted together at the four seasons, I mean, I was blown away by the quality of the wine. Is that indicative of the terroirs? I know it's indicative of your skill sets. Of course. It's indicative of the age of the vines. Where are we drawing this character from? You know,
first of all, the soil. Well, actually, let's go a little bit further back. You know, Los Angeles County, Orange county, southern California as a whole has a long, rich, and storied history in agriculture. It does. The San Fernando Valley used to be small gardens. Well, not small, but one to five acre farms and lots of orange groves. Everything east of the Los Angeles river for, uh, many decades was grapevines. That's where they grew up, and it extended up into, into south Pasadena. Um,
you know, I can still remember, I'm from Los Angeles. I can still remember driving down to San Diego to see my grandmother and about whatever it was, 510 miles outside of Anaheim or Disneyland. It was just orange groves from there all the way down to Mission Viejo, where the hillsides became too steep. And then there was lion country safari. And I would often just nap because it was just orange groves. It was more boring than
driving up the fire. Yeah. Lying country safari. Yeah. And so the original owner, Tom Jones, he was president and CEO of Baxter Northrop, a big aerospace firm. Yeah, a big aerospace firm. And he wanted to live in a vineyard in his retirement. And he looked at properties up north in Nap and Sonoma, and this is in the mid seventies. And then he looked at Santa Barbara county, and he felt that was all still too far away
from where he considered home. This property here in Bel Air and the Baxter northrop offices in Pasadena, which he did still stay heavily involved in after his retirement. You know, you said a lot that I'm gonna back up just a little bit. You're talking about going to Anaheim. And for the listeners, I think it's really important to know that the wine trade in California really started here in Rancho Cucamonga and moved
north into Los Angeles, where Los Angeles was a hotbed of wine making. I mean, there was a ton of vineyards here and in Anaheim, where I think Pierce's disease got a hold of it and killed basically the whole industry. But it was thriving at that point. But LA. And you said South Pasadena. Yeah. I mean, many of the streets in Los Angeles are named after the prominent vintners of the time. And then it moved to Napa. Yeah. Or even Venus street. Yeah. Right. That's right. Wine,
it means wine. So I think it's important to know that this actually on the east coast at that time, the request for California wine was rather voluminous, and we would ship from here, from Los Angeles. And I think the consumers should understand that because the terroir here is suited for that. Yeah. There were nearly 200,000 acres of vines planted, uh, in La county, uh, in, in 1893. Yeah. Wow, that's a lot fascinating. That's fascinating. And, and, I mean, southern California
was the breadbasket to the country. It was farms out here. Yeah. Uh, the whole west side prior to World War Two was small family farms, uh, a lot of row crops, but. So back to what makes us. Yeah, so here we are. So, you know, it, it. Winemaking, isn't that big of a departure. Oh, and actually, I would like to add that the city seal has. Still
has a grapevine on it. Oh, I didn't know that. That's great. Back when it was incorporated as a city, Los Angeles, that was one of the largest commodities that we produced in county or in the city. And so we're on hillsides. We do have a small valley floor, so to speak. And we plant our white frietal Sauvignon blanc there on the flats. And everything else is on hillsides. The cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit Verdot and
Cabernet franc. We have mostly south facing slopes, except for that little saddle that the left side is north facing. And so it doesn't get as much sun and. Yeah, and actually south and west facing slopes, we have a wonderful maritime influence. We're 4 miles from the ocean, from Santa Monica Bay. Pulpit of pass, so to speak. Yeah. And you know, with this fallen past Santa Monica mountains, when you.
So let's see, today we're probably 75 degrees. I know Thursday we're supposed to be at 90, where I live in the valley, in San Fernando Valley. We'll probably hit 7880 here. You know, right now you can see the breezes and the trees, the ocean. The bay provides a cooling effect, not as dramatic as, say, San Francisco Bay provides to the Los Carneros region. Right. But it's there nonetheless. And we also have, you know, the gate
is about 30ft above sea level. If you look behind you up the hill, we peak out at about 850ft. Wow, it's quite a change. Yeah, yeah. So we've got very. A variety of elevations, a variety of exposures. And from its inception, Tom Jones wanted Moraga to be modeled after a french house making one white wine, one red wine. And that's been kind of our marching. Orders, so to speak. The part that is dynamic about this is that it's not
this hobby idea. Clearly, when you drive up the drive and you see you're driving around the jeep and you feel like you've immersed yourself in what would typically be a large part of the California wine country, but you're just in a very isolated area, but you've got all the facilities, all the. You got. We're in a tasting room right now. You've got the trucks driving around the vineyards.
You're looking at. We're looking at beautiful vines out the tasting room window here. This is a functional, fully operational, serious attempt and success at making quality wines. And when I met you, I was at, I think one of the preeminent Cabernet Sauvignon tastings in the state, put on by one of the great guys, Ian Blackburn, who does this. And every year, I won't miss it. And I got to your table, and I'm like, wow, this is really good. And then all of a sudden, it was produced
that the idea came out that it was from Bel Air. And so how do you, how does people find out about this place? I mean, what are they? I didn't know. I mean, I knew the rumor that it existed. Yeah. And that's. That's. Well, and that. And that's why you're here today, right? Because, you know, I, as the winemaker, maker, and general manager and the, and the now owner, don't want this to be a secret. It was kind of a, an intimate club and was a hobby for a very long
time. But all businesses need to make money, and some businesses are more difficult to make money at than others. But there is now a big push for us to make sales, for us to make people aware that we're here and that they, we can make wines just as good as they can in habit, if not better. So, again, I don't feel I ever finished your original question of what makes
us us and able to make what we make. So, from the beginning, in the late seventies, there were soil samples taken, and they were shipped up to Cal State Fresno, and a couple of. Tony Soder was the first consulting winemaker, and he with a company called Crop Care and Associates out of Napa. Tom Prentiss is the president and primary partner. There's a couple other people. Bob Gallagher is one of them. Tom used to come down here. It's often been said that if. Oh, great. Now I'm going to
forget what the guy's name is. Welcome to the club. Yeah, I know. Yeah, it. Oh, God. Dave Abreu. It's been said that if Dave Abreu isn't your vineyard consultant or vineyard manager, Tom Prentices, those are the two really heavy hitters in viticulture and viticulture consultancy up there. And actually, Tom consults up and down the state in Hawaii. I know he's gone to India and China as well, so. So, no, they know their stuff. And, you know, there are very few secrets in
winemaking, and. But you pay for the experts opinions. And so Bob Gallagher, he's been coming down here for nearly 40 years, and it's consistency in the people and the style and the types of barrels we purchased. So when they took the samples for the listeners, they had, it's an interesting part of our industry. Right. You can go to Europe or go to the Caucasus, grab some grape vines and bring them to America, plant them and hope they work and see what you get. Or you can
hire a vineyardist. There's another term for those good culturalists. Yeah. Okay. So. And they will come and they'll examine the soil and they'll say, well, based on the acid and the different organisms that are in the soil, we can, you might do better with sod and cabernet, et cetera, et cetera. And so there's a, you know, there's two choices. So here you've decided we're going to test the soil, figure out what we can grow. It turned out to be Bordeaux varietals for the most
part. Yeah. You know, they planted everything. They planted some sangiovese, they planted some train, and they planted some pinot. And actually, Pinot does very well here in LA, especially on. Oh, I'd love Pinot noir. There are a few out there. Yeah. Yeah. But so, you know, through, through those consultants, winemaking and viticulture, you know, everything that they do at. Screaming at screaming eagle in the vineyard, we do here. Same consultant, you know, and it's not
just that. It's what they do, it's their style. It's, it's. No, that's the right thing to do. And any, all viticultural. Viticultural consultants will agree. And winemakers. Yeah, that's what you should do. The only thing that we don't do is pull as many leaves. We get our weather a little differently. Than they do up north. June is notoriously a foggy month here in LA. We've got, and all of southern California, we've got the June gloom. Napa and
Sonoma. June is a much sunnier and hotter month up there. And so they're relying upon the heat to give, for the heat to allow the grapevine to grow a thick cuticle, a wax layer around the berry. Because we have so much fog in June, we're not able to develop that cuticle to be. So we give a little bit more canopy that way. A little bit more
canopy, not a lot. There's still plenty of dappled sunlight that gets through the canopy, but we need to be a little bit more cautious and a little less aggressive than they are up north. It's kind of interesting. This is not the first story that I've heard, and I'm very close to one of the other stories about the aerospace executives deciding once in particular in the seventies, because El Segundo and all that still is actually a hotbed of aerospace. But the Wetzel family was executives with,
I can't remember the name of the company. See, I'm doing, I got your disease. And they end up in Alexander Valley vineyards in Sonoma. And so there was something in the seventies that's kind of interesting besides the wealth built in the aerospace, but this dream of winery, this romantic lifestyle of being in the wine business. But then you said earlier you
kind of wanted to make some money at some point. Well, yeah, you know, I was reading something not too long ago that was talking about the boom of industry that happened in the fifties and sixties and then in the seventies with movies like a Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner and Star wars, you know, that our utopia world that we all hoped we would end up in wasn't that at all. And in fact, the future
was dirty. And in Blade Runner, Rainey, and in Star wars, technology wasn't reliable, like R green and the white and red Tek droid that blew up and caused Luke Skywalker to end up with R. You know, I can't help but wonder if those executives in technology and in defense as well, weren't maybe a little disenchanted with the future that they helped bring. That's interesting. That they helped bring forth unto the world, and maybe they wanted to live a more pastoral
existence. Yeah, that's a pretty interesting thought. You never know. Well, it is. I mean, it is pastoral, and it is. I wrote this article the other day, and I won't get into the whole thing, but the end of it is basically wine is what it was 10,000 years ago. Effectively, we have more technologies to refine it, but effectively, nature has done the work for us. It's fermenting grapes and using it as a beverage that does something to us. It
connects us to the soil or where it's from. I think that's a very important part of what we do, but having to make a buck at it to keep it going and make the lifestyle seem fruitful, you know, just pouring money down the drain, which is very common in our industry. And so now we arrive at this point where I meet you at a tasting, and you're, you're exposing the brand to the consumers. Can the consumer come and taste wine here? They can. They can. Everything is
by appointment only. Uh, and, uh, you know, some, some days we might have two or three tastings lined up. Some days we don't have any. Um, and then some days, you know, things might be going on on the property that don't allow us to have a tasting. Um, but. So. But, yeah, we can accommodate anywhere from twelve to. Sorry, four to twelve people. The table that we're at seats twelve. And we do. We also do corporate events anywhere from,
whatever. 1015 people to 75, 150. It was a general reaction, I would suspect, even today, even though you've started some efforts to publicize what you do here. But what is the general reaction? Like, I never knew this existed. Like, what? I'm like, what? Mostly that I never knew you existed. Or, you know, we've had people who've gone to the Getty. Excuse me, that's across the highway from us. And in fact, my dad, in his
retirement, he was a docent at the Getty. And so we went a couple of times, and on the tram ride up, and this is in the early two thousands. On the tram ride up, I looked and said to my wife, oh, I wonder if that's Moraga. I mean, I've known. I'm in the wine industry. Honestly, I've known about it. I knew that it existed. And actually, I almost convinced myself that it wasn't. And it must have been someone else's property, because I thought Moraga was further up Benedict Canyon. Right.
Which we aren't. And so, yeah, you know, it's funny. We're. You know. What is it? The Huntington, you know, that is a travel destination here in Los Angeles. It's been featured in numerous tv shows and movies. You know, and it's iconic. You know, I would like for us to sometime, at some point in time, hold a position like that. Yeah, sure. Here in Los Angeles. I think you could. There is. The site's been used in a few television shows, and most recently,
Modern Family. There was an episode where they went to Napa, and since they. I was gonna say they really didn't have it in their budget to go to Napa. But we're right here. Yeah. So much like it. Yeah. And. Yeah. And we are we again, you know, for all the vineyards that are doing the right thing up there, we're doing it here as well. For their 100, 400, $1600 bottles of wine, we're doing it.
We're doing the same things. It seems when you said that people don't know you're here and you're not a. It's not a huge facility. As far as winemaking production, you said seven to 800 cases on a good year, and last year was not such a good year. Are
you. Are you still are you hampered by the same types of conditions that would restrict not only the quantity of a wine from Napa or Lodi or wherever else, as well as the quantity as well as the quality, meaning weather, when the buds break, when they are ready to pick, all those things are the same influences that control that in general?
In general, yes. But I would argue, and I don't think anyone would disagree with me once they heard my argument, that the pressures are even more extreme here. And there are probably a few other vineyards outside of La county or Orange county that have the same difficulties. And really, that is
mildew pressure. So mildew pressure is modeled under the, not the assumption, but the guidelines are that the mildew pressure, if you have 8 hours of weather between 68 degrees and 90, your mildew pressure will increase by 20%. Where we are now at 75 degrees today, overnight, going into tomorrow, when it's supposed to be 80 degrees or 78 degrees, we're going to have three eight hour periods where the weather, the temperature does not drop below
68 degrees. So if yesterday we had zero pressure, by the time we reach this time tomorrow, we will be at 60% mildew pressure. Yeah. Wow. And then two thirds into tomorrow, we will be at 100% mildew pressure. Wow. And if it doesn't get over 90, we're going to be at 100% for the next three weeks. So typically a graph for mildew pressure. And this simply is when and how powdery mildew will sporulate and then cause more powdery mildew to grow
in Santa Barbara county. In Napa and Sonoma, you'll see this time of year you will have a lot of overnight lows that drop into the fifties. If you climb up to 20 or 40 after two days, and then you have whatever, three nights below 68 degrees very easily in the fifties you'll drop to 10%. And then if you have a couple of days where they're at whatever 68 degrees is the high, you won't accumulate any mildew pressure and you'll drop down to zero again
when that happens. You know, we, so, so to prevent powdery mildew, we spray fungicides. At this point in time and this point of the year, we're spraying, we're spraying with stylid oil, which is mineral oil, and we're playing spraying with elemental sulfur, two organic products. And, and there's usually a window of seven to ten days after you spray that you then need to return and spray again with some commercial milticides or fungicides.
You can have a 14 to 17 day window and also a 2017 to 21 day window. When you get to the end of your spray window, if you're at zero pressure, you can let that ride a few days and not have to go out and spray. And then as soon as the temperature rises again, then you spray. And that's responsible farming. But when after two days, you have 100% mildew pressure and you've just sprayed. We just started our spray cycle again yesterday, Monday, and we'll finish tomorrow. And, you know, because of the
weather we're gonna have, because it's so wonderful. Here, I think it's an important feature. Not to interrupt you, but because I think I want the listeners to understand you're spraying because you're protecting the crop. And I think this world of organic and biodynamic and all the things that are going on in the marketplace today claiming health value, et cetera, et cetera, need to understand that you're spraying organic products. They're there to save you, make sure
the crop propagates, and you don't just spoil a thing. And that goes back to the business of wine. You're here to make a bottle of wine, change somebody's lifestyle by having that bottle of wine around at the same time. Or to get that done, you need to do the things that need to get done. Yeah, we do. But also, I don't want to spray every seven. If I. If I can it. I mean, it costs me more. I've. I've got people that can be other things that have other things to do. And, and so.
But also, we're in the middle of a neighborhood. If I. Not that this is. These are noxious materials. Again, we're spraying with mineral oil and elemental sulfur. You know, probably breathe in more sulfur off freeway, sitting in traffic. Yeah. Then, then you. Than you would in the vineyard. But no, trying to be a responsible farmer. I don't want to have to just do it because I can do it. I'll do it when I need to do it. That's an important feature. So when you're done with this,
you're pushing all the buttons on the envelope of making wine. You're in a different neighborhood than most winemakers. There's not read, I would suspect, that there's not readily available all the things that you would be able to go down the street and napa to get. What's the end game? What are we trying to do here? We're trying to produce the best wine we can in the bottle so that the consumer says, oh,
this is Moraga, and I'm gonna go back to that tasting again. That was sort of a semi trade tasting in the morning, and then the consumers came at night. You are obviously, you said earlier you're 100% direct to consumer. Everything you sell here goes through. From your hand to the consumer. Yeah, yeah. Entirely through a club. We have a wine club. We have our mailing list. We have local wine shops and restaurants that carry our wine, but we sell directly to them.
We don't have a distributor. We don't have a broker. We have a woman who's in. She's our sales manager and her director of sales. But I'm not a big person on titles. I remember her. She was at the tasting, I think. Yeah, yeah. Suzette. And then we have a. Actually, it was just in here quietly, Philip. And he's in charge of our wine club and events. And so in events would be tastings for the consumer when they call us up or email us saying, hey, I would
love to come to Moraga and taste your wine. Are we selling everything we make right now? No, we are not. And so, I mean, I'm going to go to the marketing side of things now. This is what I did most of my life. Come to the tasting. You have twelve people one day for a tasting, and they go, wow, this is amazing. I didn't know you existed. And is there a club? And then you solicit club memberships at these points. Yeah. And see, and then the club is quarterly. Well, no, no. With the club, you
get. And I'm not going to say you have to buy one to join the club. If you want to just email, say, I would like to be on your mailing list and join your club. You join the club that way. But it gets you access to the property and our release events. And so we are now having. We had been doing before COVID Pre COVID, we had one release a year, and it was always in May. And then post COVID,
we had our. We turned it into a harvest party. The property owners, they weren't comfortable with, well, certainly in 2020, having a release and then working into 2021, you know, things weren't all that open. Spring of 21. And so we ended up not doing anything in 2021. And then in 2022, we had a harvest release party. And so it was in mid, late September, and we had our release party in October or September. October. And so now we're going to be having a spring summer
release. That's going to be. We will release our white wine at that time, and then in the fall, we will continue to have a harvest party. And we will release our red at that time. And again, the pre COVID release had both the red and the white. One thing that people continually ask for is access, and that's Hoinklip. It's a beautiful property here. Yeah, no, that's really. It's gorgeous. I mean, you could. On a slightly breezy day like today, you can't even hear the 405 freeway. Most days
you can't. If it's not breezy even. And, you know, it's. Hopefully you can have some, well, I don't know, website, whatever, have some pictures of what you, what you saw here today. But this is just a hidden gem. It is. It's a gorgeous place. And Rupert Murdoch owns Moraga vineyards. He is committed to preserving it, keeping this land as agriculture, and continuing the tradition that we've long since established in California. Winemaking, you know, it seems like.
And I was wearing lodi. I mean, I'm sorry, we were in Temecula last week. I did a very similar conversation like this with a young family who's trying to make a go of wine in Temecula. And there was a stark difference between what I tasted at the tasting with you and what I taste down in Temecula. And this is not a distant Temecula. The point about it is that that technology or that area has been around for a long time in the wine
world. I featured a 1988 wine from Temecula, but they've never gotten the traction that not only in technology, but the winemaking talent to come to make wines of interest. And I thought the wines were solid that I tasted the other day, but they weren't refined like the ones that we tasted from here. And I've always wondered why that happens. And white Temecula
has never really gotten that traction. Callaway was down there for a long time, very well known, and that was maybe because of the investment by Eli Calloway that they got that working. But there seems to be something here. And I think you saw my expression when I tasted the wines at the tasting, that was an eyebrow raising quality. And that must be from not only the terroir, but your experience getting here. Yeah, you know it.
You know, Scott Rich, who was the former winemaker, and he learned under Tony Soder. And I think so he and I, he graduated from UC Davis a couple years before I did. He graduated with a master's. I graduated with a bachelor's. He was a. Actually, he was an engineer with the department of transportations. And if I remember, oh, the regular path he designed freeway on ramps and off, and helped develop that whole corridor off the five in southern Orange county and Marguerite
Parkway, stuff like that, that old stuff. And so that's what he was. So it took him a while to learn what it was he really wanted to do in life. And I figured it out when I was in college. Lucky me. Believe me, I'm not disparaging him in any way of the utmost respect for Scott. He's a terrific winemaker. He's a good person, and. But with COVID you know, he could. Getting down here as
often as he liked was very difficult. And, you know, yeah, I think COVID was very bleak for a lot of people, myself included. But. But he and I cut our teeth about the same time. You know, Tony Soter was doing a whole bunch of research in ripening and seed hardening, and. And I was able to talk to him about that because when I was at Trefethan, he was making wine on. On Big Ranch Road at what's now the Lewis Sellers facility.
And so, you know, everything that we learned differently, but at the same time, we were learning from similar people and all the advances that were happening, we were all part of that. And going through his records and his notes, you know, we have very similar winemaking styles. Let's go back to that, where that came from. I mean, you left UC Davis and your path, and that's what I'm trying to get to. Your path to here
wasn't. It was serendipitous. You went to a lot of places and you had a lot of experience, and I think that comes out in what you taste. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. No, I. Graduating from. Well, while I was still in school, I did an internship at Gloria Ferrer there in Shelton sparkling wine house, sparkling wine in carnaos. And then after I graduated from UC Davis, they asked me to return, which was great. And then from there, because that was sparkling. I finished off that harvest in 95
at Maryvale working for Bob Levy. And then from there, I spent a year at Newton Vineyards working for John Kongsguard. And then John left to start up Luna Vineyards, which now isn't there anymore. A lot of that going around. And Bob Swain took over, and he's now retired, but he. He was making wine up in Mendocino. Great. I can't remember that winery now either. But then from Newton Vineyards, I called in a few favors, and I worked for Philip Schott, Rosemount Estates in New South Wales.
And I want to stop you right there for two things. For two reasons. One is, I just had a thought when you said you would Gloria Ferrer Ferrers. Is that like being, if you're a french baker and you come out of pastry school, you sort of have to declare whether you're going to be a boulanger or a bread baker or pasteurger. Do you kind of decide, like, I'm in the sparkling wine world, but I'm going to go into the still side, or is that you? Well, actually,
they were making some still wine. They were developing their still Chardonnay and Pinot program, and I helped. I worked with them on that. And that was my. Actually, despite their size, that was my introduction to small scale winemaking, you know. But then you go to Rosemont, which is huge. Well, in a sense, just for the things. New Zealand, for the. I mean, for Australia. For the. Yeah, well, you know,
I'll back up just a second. You know, so it was small scale winemaking there and then at Newton Vineyard. John was. Is an amazing winemaker. And, you know, it's. I think I was incredibly fortunate in working for the people that I did because they looked at wine a little differently than a lot of other winemakers. Now, I'm not going to say that some of them weren't jerks and that. They like to yell at, personality notwithstanding. But, but you know what they. But you know, he. Bob Levy.
Philip Shaw. You know, Philip Shaw. Because of just the. When I got there, my first day, I flown into Sydney, had to take a three and a half hour train ride to Musselbrook. And they were in a little town called Denman, about 20 km outside that town. And it was like ten or 1500 people, something like that. And I asked Philip Shaw how much wine they were making. And can I swear. Yeah. He said, fuck if I know. This was
the middle of February. And he said, I was supposed to be making 700,000 cases of wine this year at the beginning of February. That's what they forecasted. I've now bottled 1.3. Wow. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. And this was when. So this was 1997, and all of the australian animal and animal labels were coming out. You had the big eye and the kangaroo. It was when one australian ones were pretty popular. Yeah, yeah. And, and so. But no, you know, he. But in addition
to the. Whatever, the $8 bottle of Rosemount Shiraz. Well, Shiraz, or, I mean, the 90,000 cases of Shiraz and Chardonnay that they're making, that was selling for whatever, less than $10 a bottle. They were also making tremendous amounts of small scale wines that were 400, 1605 thousand cases for their release for the year. You know, they had a wine that was called the giant steps Chardonnay and that was whatever, 800 cases or something
like that. And then they had the Balmoral syrah that they were, that was a very rhone inspired wine as opposed to a shiraz. And, and they made whatever, 1400 cases of that. That's interesting. And, and so, but he, so while they were making all these, some of these wines had recipe books. There were other wines that it was, no, this, we're going to be, this is the style. This is what we're going to make and this is what the consumer wants. But we've also developed the consumer for this product.
And so while it was a huge facility, there was lots of cool stuff going on as well. That's the first time in 350 episodes that I've heard a winery, maybe it's happened. This just wasn't discussed producing what we call formula wines for the supermarket. And like I said, I can't remember the 97, 98, 99 if that was part of the boon for australian wines. Australian wines have ebbed and flow in America now. You don't see much of them. You used to see all of them all the
time. Rosemont Penfolds, they're all here. But it's the first time I've heard somebody talk about a winery that does both. That's creating that mass brand which we need, the mass brands. We need those brands for people to remember what they tasted and go back and buy it again because they become wine drinkers and then they learn and experience and maybe Rosemont's, maybe that's their marketing strategy.
You know, it happens. You know, some wineries, I mean, some wineries are a lot larger than the consumer perceives them to be. I think you point to a champagne house like, you know, Veuve Clicquot and you find out that it's not so unique. Well, even, even here in California, you know, it's, I
don't want to name names. Well, so you've got, but there's a. Well known producer, of course, in Napa and everyone thinks they make 20,000 cases of Sauvignon blanc, but they really, I mean, when I left Napa, it was in 2009, they were making 100, 2140 thousand cases of it. And they. Yeah, I mean, what's funny, interesting from a number standpoint, it went from a winery and maybe didn't come directly here after Rosemont, but 700,000 cases, quote unquote, map
a million. But down to 700 cases, which is a considerably different. Yeah. So after Rosemount, I went to work at Chateau Patel. I worked for Jean Noel and Martino. I'd love to go see him again. And he's a good guy. He's a great guy. He's a good guy. And Marqueta is wonderful, too. Sean Wells, the marketer. Marqueta was a lot. Highway 29, right? Well, they. No, they used to be up on Mount Vitor, so they are now on highway
29, just south of St. Helena. Jean Noel kept the winery and the brand and Marquetta, sort of handmade by Marquetta, but no, Marchetta was a terrific winemaker. And I learned she was trained in. In France and, uh, in her winemaking. And. And from her, you know, she strove to make even. Even Zinfandel, which they were really known for, in a more classic old world style. And that's true. And that's. I'm not going to say that's a trick, but, you know,
that's. That's a skill and. And it. And it's highly developed. Did you work for her then, when she was developing. Yeah, I worked for two. Yeah, I worked for her for two and a half years. And. And, you know, everything there. So, I mean, their mass produced wines, their central Coast Chardonnay, their Amador County Zinn, they did about 3000 cases of.
But what they were known for was their VGS Chardonnay, which they made 600 cases of, and their vgs cabinet, which they made whatever, 400 cases of, and their vgs infanta, which they made 1200. Cases of. Those wines. I mean, at the time, in 97, the Chardonnay was $45 a bottle. The cab was 75 or so, and the xin was somewhere in between. Excuse me. I remember the wine well. You're right. You're absolutely right. I think I bought the. Can't remember.
But. But it was that sort of non Lodi, non opulent, non, you know, overdone Xin. Much more structured than what California usually offers in the world of Zinfandel, which would be more old world in character. So that was your last stint in Napa? No, no. From there, I went to Trefethen family vineyards, and I was there for nine years. Another well known, established brand. Yeah. Yeah. And started as a system winemaker. After a few years, promoted to
associate winemaker. And when I left, I was. I had been winemaker for two years. Wow. And then at that time. So I'm originally from LA. I live in LA currently. And I was approached by Bill Foley, who had an opportunity in the central coast. The famed Bill Foley, who owns. Who knows how much he owns. He owns Foley family wines. I think now he's at 26 vineyards or properties, mostly, predominantly in California. He
still has Walla Walla. He has a couple of brands in Oregon, and then he has the wineries in New Zealand and a couple of strategic alliances with Italy and, I think, Chile. But with him, I was hired to start a high end red Bordeaux program. There was about 400 cases, and he liked what I was doing, and so he asked me to take over for Firestone, which is the facility I was working out of. And then, you know, I slowly became the fix it guy. You know, I was able to turn
Firestone around in less than two years. And then when I say turn around, it's, you know, they weren't known for getting good scores. He bought Firestone. He bought Firestone in August of 2007 from Brooks Firestone from the family. Yeah. And I didn't know it was struggling. Was it struggling? It. I'm not going to say it was struggling, but, you know, the. The children and the grandchildren, they didn't want any part of
it. See? No more. Say no more. And, you know, his, you know, his father started Firestone, rubber and tire. Yeah. He knew that tires wasn't where his future, where he was destined to go. And so he started the winery. And again, maybe that's, as I was talking, the future that they brought upon all of us. But, yeah, there was no family planned, and no one in the family wanted to lead it.
Adam Firestone. He had already started up Firestone Walker with his brother in law, David Walker, and they had already purchased the brewery in Paso Robles and moved it up there. And they were being contract brewed across the country. Firestone being one of the first sort of notable central coast wineries, particularly. Certainly the name didn't hurt. Those are the days where you could go to a tasting like I visited you on, and he'd be
pouring. Dickey Smothers would be pouring. Pat Paulson would be pouring, Dick Sanford be pouring. All those guys, because it was the love of what they were doing. It wasn't the celebrity status of who they were. It was more
of the love of making one. Yeah, yeah. No, I totally agree. And, you know, and that's, you know, having come from Napa, where it was the celebrity rock star winemaker, and coming to Santa Barbara, where, you know, I met some amazing winemakers who I had held in the highest esteem, just like, oh, my God, this is great. And. And it's and you can have it for such a reasonable price. And when I met these people, they were like, hey, how's it going? And here
I am, like, you had. This whole different vision of what might be. Yeah, well. And, you know, and I'm pleased that it ended up being the way it was because, you know, they were slightly more down to earth people like myself. I mean, I'm trying to. I mean, I'm not sounding very humble. Saying that, but I don't think that's arrogant at all. But, yeah, it was entirely different community,
and it was great. I love making wine there. And then, actually, in the summer of 17, I moved the family back to LA to care for my dad, who had Alzheimer's. And so. So I started up a small consultancy, managing some vineyards in the Malibu coast and doing some winemaking here in LA, in Malibu, and also a client in Temecula. And that's actually what brought me here. I got a call out of the blue one day from Rupert Murdoch's executive assistant saying, we need a winemaker.
Can you help us out? I said, okay, what do you want me to do? I can help you hire somebody. I can hire somebody for you and mentor them, or I can do it myself. And it took him a few days, but they talked it over and they said, you know, I think we'd like to talk to you, and I think we'd like you to take this on yourself. Okay, great. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And so a week later, I was having lunch with Rupert and his then wife,
Jerry hall. And we had a terrific lunch and got to know each other fairly well and went through some of the wines, went through the barrel room, walked around the vineyard, talked to the guys, and then I left that day with a job offer. That's great. And so that was. Yeah, roughly three years ago. Congratulations. That's a great story, and it's a great history. We're out of time, if you can believe. It's been almost an hour. And so
I love the fact that we arrived at how you arrived here. The end of the show is when you started. And so we have so much more to talk about because your knowledge of the history of wine and your experience that we must do this again. And, in fact, I think what I'm going to do is schedule a tasting with a group, my friends, who have no idea you're here, and we'll make an evening out of it, end up in Beverly Hills for dinner or something, and enjoy this view
here. But such a pleasure to meet you. And I'm so happy I stopped by the booth and had a chance to taste the wines and just hear the story. Yeah. No, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. No, we have. We're doing a lot of things that we haven't done historically. You know, talking to press. It was every five years or so, we'd send some wines out for reviews. We'd have some of the doing air quotes, heavy hitters in wine, in wine media,
and. But, no, we want people to know about us and know that we are accessible and, well, we're gonna. We're here and then we like to share our wines. So, Moraga. Is there a website? It's moragabellaire.com. M o r h e a front of this. Moragabellaire.com. And really, I think we're going to have a lot of fun working with this here because I think people will freak when they see this because it's like I said, you don't. It doesn't feel like it is not a hobby.
This is legit winemaking at a legit level, that. That your wines were rivaling the wines of the stars of Cabernet tasting, which came from all over the state. So congratulations on that. Thank you very much. But thanks again for the time. And cheers. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for listening to wine talks with Paul Callum Carrion. Don't forget to subscribe because there's more great interviews on their way. Folks, have a great time out there in the wine world. Cheers.