Martín Reyes, MW
You know why cows have hooves instead of feet?
Katherine Cole
I have no idea. Why?
Martín Reyes, MW
Because they lack-toes. You know, I’ve got some friends who are farmers every time I tell any jokes to them, they laugh but they’re their sheep dogs never laugh. And I was trying to figure out why until a farmer friends like us because the sheepdogs have heard them all.
Katherine Cole
Hello, and welcome to The Four Top. It’s a roundtable discussion of today’s hot button topics in the wine world. I am your host, Katherine Cole.
Martín Reyes, MW
And I’m your host Martin Reyes, Master of Wine. And I’m excited to talk about biodiversity today, as we continue our sustainability season here at The Four Top.
Katherine Cole
Yeah, you knew a lot about biodiversity Martin, I think you can maybe introduce us to all the different styles that our listeners are probably somewhat familiar with.
Martín Reyes, MW
I should be clear, I’m not a farmer. But I play one on TV…. No, no, I’m not a farmer. I don’t have any practical knowledge. But obviously I speak to the sommelier community to the wine directors and to our staff, and of course, to the consumer. That’s my lens. For the purposes of this episode. I want to tell you the basics of course, right? So when people say organic viticulture, all that means is the farming practice that prohibits the use of synthetic inputs, so fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, when you see that on the name of the bottle, made with organically grown grapes, that usually is referencing that form of organic viticulture, I know it’s very simplistic, but for today, that’s kind of what that means. And when somebody says biodynamic farming, it builds on top of the organic and delivers a prescriptive farming practice. It’s a series of compost preparations, ethical animal treatment, astrological cycle influences, and a holistic way of viewing the farm as an ecosystem and part of the broader Earth and so forth in universe. And then you’ll hear terms like regenerative agriculture, regenerative farming, there’s some shared elements of organic and biodynamic. Those, of course, are certifications that have these specific practices. The focus there is been a solution in the climate action fight. So increasing the resilience of the vineyard against drought and heat spikes, while also storing more carbon in soil through things like focusing on soil health, organic matter, increased water and nutrient retention, and of course, biodiversity. So there’s all kinds of practices, reduced tillage, compost, cover crops, it’s a long definition, but that one’s worth remembering, because that really is where we’re moving towards in sustainability fight.
Katherine Cole
Yeah, and then of course, there’s sustainability certifications, which kind of vary from region to region, and conventional farming, which is kind of a free for all right. Yeah, I think today we are going to take this biodiversity and agriculture conversation in a really interesting direction with our guests, and on that note, I would like to start introducing them with former master sommelier, Nate Ready, who made his name in the restaurant world at the French Laundry in Napa and Frasca in Boulder before moving to the winery side and I will say most notably because I’m here in Oregon, at the legendary Antica Terra in the Willamette Valley. Nate is now the winemaker, cider maker, and co-owner at Hiyu Wine Farm in Oregon’s beautiful Columbia River Gorge. And I’m so excited about this episode because I wrote an article a few years ago about Nate’s really unique approach to viticulture. And actually toward the end of the article I said the only other grower in the United States who’s doing something similar to Hiyu is our next guest.
Martín Reyes, MW
California iconoclast and icon Randall Grahm. As I’m sure our guets know, Randall founded Bonny Doon Vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains, as well as the popular Big House Wine brand. He’s a celebrated author and recipient of multiple honors, including two James Beard Awards, and induction into the Culinary Institute of America’s Vintners Hall of Fame. He’s currently focused on two projects, which will be fun to talk about today: a wine label called the Language of Yes, and a vineyard in San Juan Bautista California called Popelouchum. I’m hoping I’m pronouncing that right.
Randall Grahm
Mas o menos.
Martín Reyes, MW
Mas o menos. I guess I said San Juan Bautista okay, that that part was okay. Welcome, Randall.
Randall Grahm
Thank you so much.
Katherine Cole
We’ll work on our pronunciation as we get through this episode. Randall. I wanted to start with you. Martin defined some of the best known forms of viticulture and I have a feeling you’ve probably tried them all during your career. But both you and Nate are delving into some other farming methods that our listeners may have never heard of. And it would be fun to just give them a little more agricultural vocab and and tell us about some of the kind of more interesting and maybe peripheral forms of farming that we should all know about.
Randall Grahm
But I don’t actually have a name for the kind of farming I do. I mean, aspirational farming, I think is probably the best. I’m trying to achieve something on the order of robustness and resilience. Is there any strategy that enhances the resilience of the plants to stresses, challenges is all to the good. I’m also interested in extreme diversity, as is Nate, taking a slightly different course mostly through genetic variability. So I’m trying to introduce plantings that have extremely large, genetically diverse makeup in the in the idea that this could create possibilities for variation, favorable agronomic outcomes, and just enhanced complexity. So as we often say, in my adventures, what could possibly go wrong?
Katherine Cole
I’ve heard you say that before. Well, okay, so as a base definition, would you say you’re practicing permaculture?
Randall Grahm
The best solution to permaculture is planting your vineyard in the right location. So in other words, planting…finding a location that naturally provides sustenance to the vines in other words, the right amount of sunshine, the right amount of rainfall, more or less most of the time. This is achievable in one’s mind, but not always in reality. So the solutions are never perfect. In our case, in San Juan Bautista, we don’t get quite enough rain to dry farm in a perfect world, we would dry farm without supplemental irrigation. We don’t unfortunately live in a perfect world. So therefore, if you have to do inputs, the question is what are the most thoughtful inputs you can do? So let me give you an example, if I may, irrigation. Typically, plants are irrigated in California with drip irrigation. The problem with drip irrigation is you’re essentially creating a flower pot effect, you irrigate all the time in the same place in a very localized area. The plant isn’t stupid, the plant grows roots where the water is deposited. And so therefore, it has a very limited root system and a limited root system does not enhance the resilience and the robustness of the vine. A robust root system, ubiquitous root system is really what you want. So you’re going to irrigate, you want to create the opportunity for the planet to roam far and wide looking looking for water.
Katherine Cole
And just to back up permaculture, the definition is that it’s a self sustaining form of agriculture where you really don’t have to do much in terms of inputs to keep it running. Well, Nate, I want to quickly turn to you. I know what you’re doing is also incredibly complex. But I think I remember you saying that you’re a fan of the author Masunobu Fukuoka. I know, it’s impossible to sum it up in just a few words, but could you tell us the style of farming you’re practicing?
Nate Ready
Yeah, I mean, we had so many points, inspiration, you know, all these different things are in play, like biodynamics and permaculture. Fukuoka is particularly interesting, I think he was…people described his way of farming as sort of natural farming, but I think he described it himself as do-nothing farming, or kind of aspiring to do-nothing farming, and it is sort of, like pre permaculture, like, sort of predates like that idea. And I think, and I think for him, you know, the idea is to put a system in place, so that life flows from it, you know, in as fluid and kind of natural, like a way like as possible, you know, when he was he was trying to grow rice, you know, without the patties without tilling. That system of farming involved people ducks, buckwheat and rice, so that you could have sort of a self perpetuating rice paddy where you didn’t have to till but also you really didn’t have to reseed and you didn’t have to bring it any other fertility kind of from outside that system. And he would do similar things like you know, he was also a citrus grower, you know, so he kind of had these commercial systems like rice, citrus, but they rather than sort of having this monoculture those two things, you try to layer inside those systems. So that there is these other cultural yields yields in terms like beauty silicon. The citrus orchard, they would grow vegetables to, like eat beneath it, you know, so you’d have the things that would normally be in the garden will be growing wild, underneath this commercial citrus orchard. And so that citrus orchard itself can be like the financial basis for the farm, but then all the people that come to work there can collect their food from beneath the trees. And that was like beautiful in and of itself but also kind of created, like health for the humans living there, but also for the trees itself. So for us that was like this, this huge, like inspiration just like looking for all these opportunities, where you could kind of layer different kinds of lives, and then have all these yields. And this is the big permaculture thing is that you don’t conceive of yield as being a single thing in a space and kind of just one moment, but you can kind of conceive of spaces as being more dimensional, both in terms of time, genetics, life forms, beauty, like kind of etcetera, and that you don’t see it as just a crop at a tonnage. But in all these different levels, so even like intensity of a crop, right would be a potential part of yield, which is something that we don’t see, like, you know, like, say, in the Hood River Valley, here where I am, there’s a lot of commercial pear growers, like quality is not something that they’re looking at, they’re not looking at intensity of flavor as being part of the year yield. They’re also not looking at, like what the experiences of like living and walking and existing in that orchard as being part of the yield. Or, or what that kind of orchard could do for like people that work there, or plants or insects are bacteria that inhabit the space. So I think this is the sort of key to like all this on like the natural farming permaculture side is just kind of seeing these more complex, complex relationships, and taking all that into account as we’re acting in these kind of physical spaces, which really are these kind of matrixes of life on like so many different levels.
Katherine Cole
I think you just answered a question I was about to ask you, which is what is a food forest, but I just pictured it, it just sounds so beautiful and amazing.
Nate Ready
Yeah, totally. And the big thing for like food for us, right is the, it’s like so many different things like living together. And it’s this sort of the 3d growing, right, where you again, if you think of like the vines, right, you know, in a typical vineyard, or like in an orchard, there’s all the space kind of up in the air. And underneath the plants that like isn’t being used. It’s this whole thing about competition that we’re so…that we’ve gotten so wrong. And so, so much of like how we farm is based on the idea that plants are antagonistic with each other. So that when we have a vineyard, or we have an orchard, or we have a garden, we till and we mow, to remove all the competition from the plant that is supposed to be the main. But this is not something…this is not a scientifically proven thing that plants act that way. And mostly, like what we see is that like plants are symbiotic. And so that they grow together. And if you watch any kind of natural or wild kind of situation, you’ll see plants entangle. And for…and for each other’s benefit, and also for the benefit of like…kind of all these other living creatures. So this is also like a huge part of it.
Martín Reyes, MW
I read recently about the promises of seeds in the sense that basically the intention of plants intention of nature is to is to have a symbiotic balance, right. And what we’ve done is what you can call antagonistic or there’s sort of a one directional purpose, right where things like the seed of a of any fruit, in this case, grapes, we’ve treated them as byproducts, and then therefore just sort of waste afterward. And they’re done. And yet, the intention of the plant as a seed is, is they’re little babies, right? The plant wants to to procreate. And eating an apple and throwing the seeds away really is breaking that cycle. So Randall, I’d love for you to tell us about your intention about growing from seed with with that in mind.
Randall Grahm
Well, what’s interesting about seed is that it’s a chance to kind of reshuffle the genetic code and kind of all the all the memories of the of the organism that have been repressed or suppressed or occluded, kind of reemerge. So it’s like getting another another chance, if you will. We’re basically taking two strategies with our breeding program. One is to do self crossing, which is…was generally thought of by everyone I spoke to initially as an extremely bad idea, because you have the occurrence of recessive genes or the expression of recessive genes, in other words, genetic flaws. However, there’s some really interesting things that happened on the recessive genes. What we’re finding is incredible variability, lot of funny looking plants but a lot of really interesting looking plants that would never see the light of day otherwise. And then the other thing we’re doing is sort of more classical crosses, we’re, we’re taking disparate lineages and crossing them, and you’re getting obviously much healthier, more viable plants, strange and new ones and the thought, it’s kind of, for me, it’s a bit of a gestalt issue with with the use of genetic diversity. And it’s maybe a leap of logic or faith or leap of something, which is to say, by essentially facing varietal characteristics by in other words of obscuring the varietal characteristics, it’s a strategy for allowing other qualities of the site to emerge. In other words, soil characteristics. My feeling is if you produce a wine that expresses not just varietal characteristics, but has qualities of the imprint of the place from which it’s grown, you’re going to produce a much more complex wine. So this is the strategy to pursue that that end, if you will.
Martín Reyes, MW
Alright, thank you, Nate. I also think I also heard you use hand scythes. is how you pronounce it scythe, right?
Nate Ready
Yes, that’s correct.
Katherine Cole
Yeah, how much? How much of your farming is just completely, like, seriously hands on? And why do you do that?
Nate Ready
So most of like our control of vegetation is with animals primarily. So with pigs and cows, and ducks and geese and chickens. And for us pigs are actually like…we work with a breed of heritage pig, American Guinea hogs crossed Kunekunes, that predominantly graze and they root in a very gentle way, we use the scythes, in places where, where maybe the animals aren’t being quite as efficient as they need to be, to help us out a little bit with the farming. And so we do, we typically do a single pass with a scythe, beneath the vines, you know, in the sort of like the middle, middle of the spring, kind of when the growth beneath the canopy is like its strongest. And I think a lot of it for us is just trying to be like, not too dogmatic about things, and then like…and open to stuff and like, so like people like they talk about, like kind of like, like no mow, no till. And it’s funny for us, it’s like, we do do both those things, like we do till, but we till with animals, and we do mow, but we use like an Austrian, like sort of scythe.
Martín Reyes, MW
That’s fascinating.
Nate Ready
And a lot of it for us is like the ways that we’re kind of connect to more primal, like historical ways of like living or kind of interacting with plants, not for like a dream or a wit not for an anachronistic reasons not because you want to kind of completely go back to that time, but just because by sort of imagining sort of what vine growing might have been, like, you know, in the Middle Ages, or what making wine would have been like in that period, I think it opens up kind of creative possibilities that we don’t see when we’re just stuck in our current way of sort of viewing things. And so for instance, like the, you know, the few blends, like for us, like really emerge, you know, from, you know, from that, you know, but a lot of our other sort of practices as well as like trying to like, understand, like, what does it mean to take the tractor, you know, away from the vinyard? Like, what are the ramifications when we kind of do that? And what kind of creative possibilities and flavor possibilities kind of open up?
Randall Grahm
How do you make sense of it? And how do you create order? Or do you create order? Or do you throw the I Ching? And basically, use the universe as a guide to what your blends might be? Or how do you begin to even think about rationalizing your blends or, or do you?
Nate Ready
I mean, it’s to me, it’s an amazing question. It’s something we think about, like all the time, and then I think as humans there is like, I feel, I think an irrational need to be rational, there’s no sort of need to be rational like with this, this is what we’ve discovered. I think in the beginning, I just needed some sort of tether, and I think this is kind of like, human weakness or like whatnot. And I used kind of historical genetic sets as like the basis for assembling them. But then I would always intentionally throw things in, then at the end, that didn’t make sense, just because I also felt like there was a need for the irrational to be there kind of with the rational. And that’s been like our sort of protocol. And, and what’s interesting is like, at the end of the day, like what emerges, is not taught like, it’s nothing you can predict. Like the flavors are completely different than if you’d sort of assembled individual wines from those varietals, like sort of later, you know, something, some sort of alchemy is happening both in the field and also in the fermenter, you know when those things are coming together, and so the winds are never…nothing, they have nothing to do with like kind of what we imagined. And I think that we could almost have anything sort of in there, and it would be interesting. And so I definitely, at this point feel like less of a need to be structured than I was in the beginning. But I still feel I need something to catalyze my imagination. So like one of the things we’re really excited about now is like, kind of some of these like historic wines, we actually don’t know what they were like somebody like, like Malvasia, you know, which we, you know, used as a name for many, many, many different varieties. But at some point in time was actually all historical wine, kind of with a name. But we don’t know what that name really corresponded to. And for whatever reason, I just get really excited about just trying to like, let my imagination like sort of be in that moment, and then use that as a catalyst that some hopefully something happens, where we plant a parcel that is really beautiful to walk in and tastes fruit from and experience in terms of like, the color and flavor of the berries, what the leaves look like. But then also that a wine emerges from that, that is sort of unexpectedly, like, kind of wonderful. Yeah, that’s my best answer.
Martín Reyes, MW
I gotta jump in here for a second ask you, both of you this because you mentioned irrationality, you mentioned creative obsession. And I mean, the, the businessman in me is like, okay, how…the financial implications here. You know, this, these styles…We have this paradigm in the wine world, of course of dependability. And of course, even if not that, the stylistic variations between saying calling something, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, right. You’re breaking down that conversation. So I think when you’re making these creative decisions, investigations, okay, where’s where is that commercial relevancy in your mind?
Randall Grahm
Well, there is certainly a tension between one’s artistic aspirations and one’s in the business reality. I mean, at a certain point, you’ve got to sell your product, right? If you’re growing grapes at one ton per acre, you need to get a pretty good bottle price for it. So minimally, your channel of distribution has to be a high yield channel. So which means the direct to consumer. I mean, at the end of the day, you need to produce a product that people like drinking. I mean, if I do…this can be a wonderful imagination…product of your imagination, and that’s great. But if the wine is not drinkable or not, doesn’t give people pleasure, it’s sort of beside the point. So I guess the question is, how do you optimize the likelihood of producing pleasurable wine, without making the wine formulaic, or trite or following a well trodden path? You know, how do you create something that’s both new and unique and distinctive, but it’s also fucking fantastic.
Martín Reyes, MW
There is that tension there, exactly. The push and pull the the poetic, the creative, and then the pragmatic.
Randall Grahm
I mean, in my case, I, the thing that I count on is if I can produce a wine that expresses soil characteristics, I know I can produce a complex wine at Popelouchum. The only thing that I really cling to, or the thing that I cling to the most is the…my belief in the uniqueness and distinctiveness and specialness of a place. I know and I’ve observed, that Popelouchum is a very special place to grow grapes. I mean, maybe not every square inch of it, but many square inches of it are. And so therefore, I mean, I feel like I could grow Thompson seedless there and produce a respectable wine.
Katherine Cole
Well, I’d like to continue this conversation. But take a quick break, and we will be right back.
I think both of you have referenced what you’re doing in terms of growing grapes in a really different way. You’ve talked about the genetic diversity that you’re aiming for. And Randall, you’re growing from seed and Nate, I wanted to get into…a little deeper into what you’re doing in your vineyard because it’s very interesting. It’s going beyond field blends. I can’t remember, last time I spoke with you I think you had 12 different field blends going. But you also had more than 100 grape varieties and kind of tell us about how you’re interplanting at your vineyard, at Hiyu.
Nate Ready
So Hiyu is…it’s 30 acres, 14 acres in vine. It’s 18 different field blends and about 112 different varieties. So we basically just took half acre to one acre parcels, and planted them to these field blends, you know, roughly based creatively at different moments in genetic history, the grapevine, and then we bottle all those separately as separate wines. And then we also have, we farm five other properties, where we’ve been doing similar things, in different locations in the gorge. So We farm about, like 38 acres in total field, but it is like that part of it is really interesting, but it’s, it’s part of this, like, bigger sort of vision or like, sort of like farming system, and sort of imagining, like, the vineyard, as this culture, of microbe, animal and plant. And then, you know, imagining that like, sort of like building the soil coming up through the tissue into the leaves into the clusters, and then bringing that like, sort of into the winery. And then ultimately, like serving that, you know, to people and like trying to come up with a system that connects that whole thing, you know, through this kind of like sensual experience, like through this like sort of experience like a beauty. And that’s kind of like, you know, what we’re up to. And the field blends are so important because it’s like, and Randall has spoken to this, is because the the genetics that are like embedded in those vines and that are learning, kind of on the basis of all the things they’re exposed to in terms of climate and the change of the seasons, and sort of our actions as humans kind of amongst them, that genetics is then kind of relating to all the other genetic material that’s in that space, like, you know, in particularly microbial and fungal. And so for us, like the, to do all the other things, in terms of, you know, how we’re working with the soil, how we’re working with spray programs and teas to kind of promote that activity, how we’re working with the fermentation in the cellar, without kind of introducing the same diversity in the vineyard, we would have been missing, you know, missing a link.
Katherine Cole
But we’re not just talking vineyard, right? I mean, last time I spoke with you, you were grafting multiple varieties onto the same vine. Are you still doing that? Or was it…was it multiple clones?
Nate Ready
Multiple varietals, I mean, we tried to use as many clones as possible, and as many varietals in whatever like sort of situation, but because we’re working, I mean, it’s kind of like a, sort of a bad news bears situation. I mean, we’re not, you know, everything is like quite rustic, which is like sort of part of it, but it’s also like, opportunistic, and so, you know, we’re working with existing vineyards in sort of a form of recycling. Like, in a sense, and you have this rootstock that is already kind of producing all this life. And so we top work, we graft on top of these existing vines, that in a lot of cases, you know, are 15, 20, 25 years old. We try not to graft on the really old stuff. And then…and when we do that, there’s always an opportunity for two two-bud sticks on either side of the plant, with the kind of grafting technique that we’re using. And so, so we just mix everything up together in a bag and what the result is, sometimes one side of the plant is one grape, and sometimes it’s another with the potential for like taking that even further. I mean, like, with fruit trees, it’s like quite common, you know, to, and especially the way fruit tree architecture works to have, you can have trees with, you know, 20 different kinds of apples on them. And that’s not something that we’re far enough along the line in terms of our sort of approach to like creative grape pruning and stuff to pursue, but it’s something that like is certainly aspirational. Just because all that stuff impacts flavor, every single thing you do, you can feel on the other side of the wine. And so again, like another big thing for us is just never to take anything for granted. You know, and like leave no stone unturned in that sense.
Martín Reyes, MW
You know, Nate,you mentioned the word aspirational. And it’s that’s the first word that Randall used when he talked about his farming practice. This has been covered over the past few years about your the ultimate goal of Introducing 10,000 new grape varieties. But if you haven’t really addressed that the way you wanted to yet here, can you tell us about that goal?
Randall Grahm
Right. I mean, the the thought is, it’s a strategy for expressing the terroir of the site, the unique characteristics of the site. The thought is by suppressing varietal characteristics, and I’d be suppressing varietal characteristics in virtue of being diversity. And the fact that each one is going to be very different from one another. This is…it sort of allows for the greater, more articulate expression of soil characteristics. So it’s really just a means to an end to more articulately express soil qualities in wine. And the thought there is that any wine that has strong soil characteristics, in my experiences, produces an interesting wine. The varietal…the grape itself was really a carrier for for the expression of the sort of more transcendental element that pervades, tha pervades the wine. In other words, I’m not I’m not gonna, I’m never going to get the varietals…exact, perfect varietal mix. So why even try to take a different tack and basically decide that the varietal mix itself is less important, but what is more important is the expression of soil. I mean, I think there’s always going to be interest in efficiency and polyculture is a wonderful way to grow things, but it’s not necessarily the most efficient way of growing things. It’s idiosyncratic. It’s doesn’t…it’s non standardized. I mean, that’s the whole point of it. But as a result, it makes it…you have a limited audience for this kind of project.
Katherine Cole
Wait a minute, Randall, I think you’re selling yourself short. You’re saying it’s not efficient. But I mean, imagine a future, not that we want to, where a lot more land is covered by ocean and land is hard to come by. I almost think what you both are describing is very efficient. The idea of, you know, growing more than one crop in the same spot.
Randall Grahm
Yes and no. I mean, you can’t get high production in my experiences. Maybe I’m just not a very good farmer. But the idea of producing a lot of a lot of crop is not…does not work. I mean, if you’re trying to do something really, really special by definition, it’s a limited production. I mean, there’s a reason why conventional agriculture has dominated because it on the face of it, on many levels, it is, quote, more efficient. Everything ripens at the same time, you don’t have to go back 10 times to pick your your product. Don’t have to backtrack so many times you you’re you’re in you’re one and done, if you will. You’re producing a ton of fruit, or many tons of fruit. Not necessarily the most flavorful fruit, but lots of it. The market seems to find that very congenial. Standardization on some level works with the moment for a lot of a lot ofpeople.
Martín Reyes, MW
Okay, I think the tension here than Randall in case the tension here, then becomes one of brutal efficiency on the one side, and the tension of a long term resilience. Right. On the other. With that, is that how you…
Randall Grahm
Yeah I think that’s fair to characterize it that way. Yep.
Nate Ready
What happens, like when we don’t take into account the needs of sort of every, like life form or being in the system, right, and this is the problem with brutal efficiency, is that because the viewpoint is so narrow, it’s not seeing any of the other things that are kind of existing, you know, sort of, like in, you know, in a particular place. Like we’re talking about wines, we’re talking about terroir, we’re talking about sense of place. And so at any particular like sort of spot on the Earth, that efficiency is, is predominantly blind. And the effect of that blindness, right is all the problems are experiencing in the world in terms of, you know, all the health crisis, and, you know, global warming, and a million thing things right? Like, I mean, I think we all feel the crushing weight of, of just things spinning out of control in kind of the wrong direction. And so, I think Randall is right to be pessimistic, and we feel like it doesn’t, you know, it certainly feels less than certain that, that we will go in this direction that sort of provides the solution. But the only way to, like move forward in a way that that will prevent this sort of escalated escalation of crises that we’re experiencing, is to be with the Earth and view the land in a way that, that pays attention. Everything that sort of like to all beings that can pose, you know, every place and to kind of, to learn to interact with that with like, care and empathy, and to learn, like just ways of listening to like, all those different things in the environment, right. And that is plants and animals and trees and microbes, but it’s also bigger things, you know, like, like the ocean or the atmosphere, and, and so, yeah, takes like, all of this, you know, is going to require this massive change in terms of how we orient ourselves to reality. Is that gonna be easy? No, it’s gonna be incredibly hard! And I just, I guess the one thing I would say, is that is that science is like an incredible tool, obviously, and understanding what’s going on and like articulating solutions, but we have other tools that are available to us to kind of address this. And, and some of those tools may be more intuitive, and more efficient, and more compelling than just science alone. And so for me, one of the big things, is talking about art, and beauty, and aesthetic, and how our sense of those things can help guide us like on this path to kind of changing, you know, the Earth and kind of like our relationship with it, and not to ignore, like that side of ourselves. And, you know, and this is a big thing, like in the food and wine industry, like, like how we eat, it’s this huge part of like, you know, how we exist on the planet, and how we relate to these resources. And, and it’s a huge part to how we express ourselves culturally. And so we need to, like really pay attention, you know, to that kind of cultural aspect of it, if we want to do these things in a way that is better for all of us. Anyway, that was super long.
Katherine Cole
I love what you’re saying, Nate. And I feel like this is a common thread, even though Randall and Nate, you’re kind of doing different things. The common thread I’m hearing from both of you are words like beauty. And I think Randall said transcendental at one point. Both of you are looking to achieve something transcendent. And that’s not often something that we hear when we’re talking about the wine business, people talk about making wine. And you know, there is some discussion of craftsmanship and a bit of artistry, but you’re looking for something a little bit higher, and almost more spiritual. And I just I love that sentiment, because it is a way to kind of pull people along on this, admittedly, in a way, irrational adventure, you’re both on. You know, both of you, I know have really strong followings. And I think it’s because you’re both so passionately tied up in this in this pursuit of beauty and a transcendent experience. So it’s been really fun to hear you both talk about this.
Martín Reyes, MW
It has been and my goodness, I hate to wrap this up. But it’s time for us to transition to our last little bit and our figurative dessert course, in which each of us shares a little something sweet that we’ve been…or enjoyable, that we’ve we’ve been having a good time with this week doesn’t have to be wine, it could be an idea, or it could be something food related. Nate, your first for our figurative dessert course.
Nate Ready
So for me, I’d like to recommend this book by a photographer based out of Buffalo. His name’s Gregory Halpern. And the book is called ZZYZX.
Martín Reyes, MW
How do you spell that.
Nate Ready
It’s like ZZ, ZZ y x, or like, something like that. It’s, it’s hard to…
Martín Reyes, MW
ZZYZX?
Nate Ready
Yeah. And it seems like a strange thing in the context of like agriculture, like our conversation to talk about in terms of like, farming and biodiversity, and like, all those things, but what the book is sort of, it’s, it’s a story told through…through images, where it’s about Los Angeles. And he uses these images of, of people and buildings and plants and animals to tell this extraordinary story about place, you know. About what it’s like to sort of experience LA, you know, in this really, like, beautiful way and, and he does it in such a way in which you can really feel for me what I call like, So, what I call like, vibrant matter, or like, like vital materialism or these sort of like words from philosophy. But they also describe the way in which, for us to like, to solve the problems that we’re having kind of with the natural world, we need to start to see things kind of beyond humans as being like alive, right? Like so there’s a sense in which we’re, like, we’re rocks that are living, right? We’re all like the this conglomeration of like of minerals and microbes and fungi, even in our bodies, right. So these things that we think of as being…as not having life, right, we’ve like the traditional view of like, like wines being about just soil, right? This book, kind of like, like, really, just, it makes it vivid and real for us this way that we can see these other parts of the world as being as alive as we are. And so that’s why I wanted to recommend it, because it just, yeah, it for me, makes it makes this concept that just seems so out there and philosophical, like really practical, and graspable. And it also just shows the way that kind of just that beauty can like lead us in ways of understanding.
Katherine Cole
That sounds amazing. I’m going to check that out. Thank you. And Randall, did you have a dessert course for us?
Randall Grahm
Well, first off to say that I’m so honored and pleased to be sharing conversation with an inveterate animist such as Nate.
Katherine Cole
It’s kind of a dream team you two.
Martín Reyes, MW
You both are.
Randall Grahm
It’s really inspirational, I have to say…I mean that’s our that’s sort of our job, is to inspire our clientele, our customers and inspire ourselves most importantly. In so doing, perhaps inspire others and produce products that have life that have lifeforce. I mean, I think the whole idea is when you when you drink a bottle of wine, it should nourish you on every level, not just nutritional level on a grossly physical level but on a spiritual and emotional. And when you drink a great wine it does nourish you, it enlivens you, it really does something special. And that’s what we should aim for. Anything less is not acceptable.
Martín Reyes, MW
That’s that’s a good quote. Thank you.
Randall Grahm
So my my response to the desert courses is far more literal and not not particularly figurative. And that is I keep returning to the classic chartreuse, in this case…Tarragona. Which, I don’t know how much lifeforce it has, but I feel healed when I when I drink a great chartreuse. There’s something magical…I mean, I think elixirs are magical or can be magical, and we should aim to drink magical elixirs whenever we possibly can and, for me, great chartreuse in very discreet quantity is exceptionally special. It never fails to inspire me.
Katherine Cole
And one of those historic curatives that every time I have a sip, I think I’m curing myself somehow I’m not really sure how.
Randall Grahm
I’m not sure what the problem is either, but…
Martín Reyes, MW
Yeah, we’ll still take the medicine.
Martin, how about you? Do you have a dessert for us?
Yeah, you know, I keep going back to my day to day life as a parent of two. And I stumbled upon something recently and if you are somebody that is short on time as a parent, and/or you have a child that’s a picky eater, this new thing I discovered is healthy heights. Grow daily. It’s designed for children, you know, three and up with you know, good protein, good vitamins. My kids enjoyed them. They’re not going to be something I give them every day. No, it’s just when I’m short on time, when we all can stand to have a little bit of sanity in our lives.
Katherine Cole
And if you don’t have a food forest in your backyard, because that sounds amazing. I wish I had one of those for my kids. Well, so for my dessert I wanted to honor Randall and his love of Rossese di Dolceacqua, Randall I don’t know if you remember introducing me to Rossese, which I know is your favorite variety. And so one of my all time favorite wines for many years, and of course everyone knows I’m a big Rosé freak, Clos Cibonne Tibouren, the cuvée tradition bottling and has a wonderful old label. And for those of you who don’t know the story, after for Luxor, and most of the Provencala states replanted with grapes that were easier to farm. Even though the really traditional indigenous grape of Provence was Tibouren. And it was only saved from extinction by the Roux family at their beautiful Clos Cibonne, their Cru Classé vineyard, walled vineyard during the beginning of the 20th century. And so Clos Cibonne is one of the very few French wineries that’s allowed to name its cuvée after the grape it’s made from because they basically saved the grape, at least in Provence. And those of you who know this wine, I’m sure everyone on this episode does, it does well with moderate oxidation. And so it’s really fun to visit Clos Cibonne. And it’s a rosé, but it rests in foeders, those giant, giant oak casks and they never filled them quite up. So there’s there’s oxygen and then you can see this beautiful white yeast, they call it florette, floating on top. So it’s a really special wine. And I thought of it when I knew you were coming on The Four Top, Randall. So I just wanted to talk about Tibouren, and I know you’re making Tibouren in the United States now.
Randall Grahm
I’ve got actually about 2000 Tibouren self crossed variants, and I’m going to see a little fruit this year. And I’m just I’m going…it’ll give some insight as to maybe even the parentage of Tibouren, which is still unknown. Maybe I’ll find some Tibouren blanc. Or who knows. I don’t know if there’s time I have to real quickly tell you I visited Clos Cibonne and I said to them, “so what’s the deal with the floor?” They said, “yeah, we got this darn floor. We don’t, we didn’t really know what to do with it. So we just…” This was not a master stroke of etiological genius, they just happen to have this stuff growing on their, on their tanks. So they’ve made an accommodation.
Katherine Cole
I had heard that as well. And this is one of the many stories I can tell you, or we can all tell each other about an American importer walking into a winery and saying, “don’t change a thing, because what you think of as just sort of ‘what’s randomly happening in my winery,’ is so cool and interesting to especially New World wine enthusiasts, because we don’t have those beautiful old sellers with all that wonderful yeast floating around.” So…
Martín Reyes, MW
Yeah, I’m not gonna make the obvious Shark Tank joke because, you know, Tibouren, nevermind, I’m not even going to I’m not even going to address it.
Katherine Cole
I think it was De Maison, Andre at De Maison, who found the florette and said, “don’t change anything at Clos Cibonne.” Anyway. Excellent. Well, on that note, thank you to our wonderful guests. And if you want to check out Randall Grahm’s Tiburon project it’s called Language of Yes. You can find it at languageofyeswine.com. If you want to read about Randall’s vineyard, I am going to try to spell Popelouchum: P O P E L O U CHUM, so check it out.
Martín Reyes, MW
Excellent. And you can check out Hiyu Wine Farms to learn about Nate Ready’s winemaking and farming at hiyu, and that’s spelled H I Y U winefarm.com Excellent. You can check out the new website for Napa RISE and that’s risegreen.org. You can also find me there, at reyeswine group.com, and at, as Randall would know it, winewise.biz.
Katherine Cole
That’s right. And you can find me at katherinecole.com. But don’t go there, go to The Four Top where you can also find our social media handles. Let us know what you thought of this episode. And of course, please support The Four Top by leaving us a rating on your favorite podcast app, especially Apple podcasts or Spotify.
Martín Reyes, MW
Signing out today from the high fiber protein packed city of Berkeley. That’s a new one. Thanks so much for listening everybody.
Katherine Cole
And signing out from the Willamette Valley. Thanks for listening and buh-bye.
Kielen King
This has been The Four Top podcast. Katherine Cole is our executive producer, Nick Toole is our producer, and I’m Kielen King, sound supervisor. We are also assisted by audio editor Michelle Richards, Media and Design Manager Ruby Welkovich and Sales Director Kristin Castagna. Please visit our website thefourtop.org, to learn more about us, listen to back episodes, and purchase books written by our amazing panelists. If you have not already subscribed to The Four Top on iTunes or Spotify, please do so and please leave us a rating. Every rating feeds the algorithm and helps new listeners find The Four Top. Stay safe out there,and thanks for listening.
