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Ologies with Alie Ward
Enology Part 2 (HOW TO MAKE WINE) with Tara Gomez & Mireia Taribó
01:13:24
Wineries vs. vineyards. Metal vs. oak. DIY wine. Carbonic fermentation situations? Enologists Tara Gomez and Mireia Taribó – co-owners of the boutique California winery Camins2Dreams – join us to chat about how grapes are harvested, why some are juiced with the stems, Indigenous perspectives on wine making, weird balloon chambers, wooden teabags, labcoat envy, tips for making your own wines, how they met and the surprising story of how they became a married duo in life and work. This couple needs a rom-com made in their honor. Raise a glass.
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- [00:00]
A
Oh hey, it's the lady who never unpacks her toiletry kit because you never know when you got a jam. And welcome back. You're here for Wine Part two. Last week we chatted with the very charismatic encyclopediacally informed Andre Houston Mack who gave you an in depth and a very spirited discussion of all the different wines how to drink them, so called Old World versus New world wines, what gives a wine its taste, label drama, the rise of the sometimes hit or miss funky culture, Kombucha tasting organic or biodynamic wines, how to order in a restaurant, what to look for.
- [00:36]
B
That was great start there this week
- [00:38]
A
we're so lucky to talk to a pair of indie winemakers and enologists from a family owned winery in California and one was born and raised in Spain. The other is a member of the Santa Ynez band of Chumash Indians and was the first Native American to own and operate a winery in the United States. And together their winery it's called Camin's Two Dreams, meaning the path to our Dreams. They make wines with this low intervention, natural yeast, low sulfites. We'll talk about what those mean later as well as what got these two into winemaking, how grapes are harvested, why some are juiced with the stems, some weird balloon coffin chambers, wooden tea bags, lab work, tips for making your own wines, how they met, and the surprising story time on how they became a married duo in life and in work. But first, thank you so much to patrons@patreon.com Ologies for supporting the show for the last nine years and submitting questions that are smarter than mine. Thank you to everyone out there marching around in ologies merch@ologiesmerch.com and for folks who need G rated kid friendly episodes, we have a spinoff show called Smallogies and you can find that just by searching smologies S M O L O G I E S in your favorite podcast app. Subscribe tell friends. Also, thank you to everyone who leaves reviews for the show, which helps so much. I do uncork. I enjoy them all, I promise. And thank you for this unaged fresh one from science adjacent who wrote Dang it Ali. Not 10 minutes after listening to your recent Secrets episode, I'm sitting in my car enjoying an iced beverage and sploosh right down the front of my shirt. Sure wish I had a dish towel right now. And Ologies is the lingering ember in their campfire pit that warms the their morning coffee. Science adjacent. Thank you. Grab a car towel everyone. No wine in the car, but I pray to all that is holy and unholy that you know that. Also, thank you to sponsors of the show who make it possible for us to donate every week to a different cause that is related to the ologists.
- [02:50]
C
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- [02:59]
A
Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
- [03:03]
C
Oh no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [03:09]
D
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
- [03:11]
C
Anyways, get a quote@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
- [03:14]
A
Liberty Liberty. Liberty Liberty.
- [03:18]
E
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- [03:44]
A
directed One thing I love about my long term friends is I'm still learning things about them, especially if we travel together. But maybe you have a buddy that you brought on a weekend trip who you didn't know has to do scream yoga at dawn Surprise. But Verbo Verbo does not surprise you when you book a VRBO vacation rental, VRBO care and 247 live support from Real humans are included. If something is not as described or isn't working, VRBO can step in to help make it right. I don't know what to tell you about the screen yoga though. Book today on the VRBO app. If you know your VRBOve terms apply. See vrbo.com trust for details. Okay, analogy. It comes from the Greek for wine as we mentioned last week. If you are spelling like the Brits, it's with an o in front. It looks like oenology. Unfortunately I am American so that's just no o in front. So let's dive into a barrel of facts about wineries versus vineyards. What a winemaker does all day and year, what wines have skin in the game, metal versus oak, carbonic fermentation situations, DIY in wine vinegar cap versus Cork for winemakers, indigenous perspectives on winemaking, why this couple needs a rom com deal and how Every year is a surprise with winemakers, wives, and analogists Tara Gomez and Mirea Terrabo.
- [05:34]
D
Do you hear right now the cat or no?
- [05:36]
A
Mm.
- [05:37]
D
Mm. Okay, good. Because she's wanting to get out, so she's crying at the door. So that's why I was asking.
- [05:42]
F
Oh, my gosh.
- [05:44]
B
Luckily, I don't hear it.
- [05:45]
D
Okay. Okay, good.
- [05:46]
B
But the first thing I'll have you guys do is if you could say your first and last names. And do you both use she? Her pronouns.
- [05:54]
D
Cool. Tara Gomez and Mireia, Tarivo and Tara.
- [05:59]
B
I was wondering Tara or Tara. But to be in the wine business with Tara in the name.
- [06:05]
F
Yeah, it is. I know. Has so much meaning now.
- [06:11]
B
Y' all have been enologists for a while too, and you seem like you came about it from slightly different paths. And, Maria, you were born in Spain, and you have kind of a. An influence of wine from. Was that from an early age? Was wine just so part of every meal and culture?
- [06:28]
D
Yeah, basically growing up in Espania and also from a small village. Everybody has a little vineyard there and a cellar and. Yeah, wine for. I always say breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
- [06:40]
B
Everyone has a vineyard and a cellar. I mean, not everyone, but, like, what happens if you have a small vineyard out there?
- [06:46]
A
Do you just pick the grapes?
- [06:47]
D
It's just to make wine at home. Since I was a kid, there was a vineyard at home that my great grandparents had planted, but it's just, like, small amount. Like, just to make a barrel or two a year, just to drink at home with family and friends and, yeah, all the neighbors there. In the village where my dad is from, which is in the bottom of the Pyrenees, back in the time, everybody had, like, you know, olive trees, animals, and vineyards, because that's what they would eat. Everybody. So. So, yeah, when I was a kid, I totally remember going to the vineyard and picking the grapes and food stomping. And it was nothing technical at that moment because it was just, like, made at home. But after a month or so, you had wine to drink, and that's basically what you do there. But I never thought about becoming an enologist or winemaker or, like, to me, wine was just, you know, drink at home and made at home and didn't need to do anything else for that.
- [07:43]
B
Sounds like a movie that you're just like, oh, yeah, we just pick our grapes. We stomp on it.
- [07:48]
A
Okay. Side note, if you're, like, stomping grapes in a bucket, sounds like an absolutely impeccable way to craft fungus wine. I got good news. I got bad News. So the yeast that ferments your favorite glass of pinot, it's a fungus, all right. But that's the bad news, I guess. But the good news is that if you foot stomp grapes, you're going gently enough to express the juice, but not hard enough to crunch the grape seeds and give the wine a bitter flavor. Also, the tannins, the alcohol in it that ferments, it's gonna kill the foot stuff. And if that is disappointing, you should listen to our fermology episode about cheese to learn about what's growing in your cheese. That's delicious. Another point of good news. No one uses feet anymore for this unless it's a very niche label of wine or maybe it's a kink drink. No shame, but we're gonna talk about how these two make grape juice in
- [08:44]
D
just a little bit.
- [08:45]
B
And, Tara, can you tell me a little bit about what got you interested in wine? Was that a big surprise for you to wind up and go, oh, this is where I'm supposed to be?
- [08:55]
F
No, actually, it was pretty easy. I mean, I got my first Fisher Price microscope set, like, at the age of four, and I just love looking at nature through a microscope. And then from there, it just kind of grew in the chemistry set. So I was kind of a little bit of an odd child of really just, like, wanting to play with my microscope and chemistry sets. But, yeah, I just love looking at nature through the microscope. So I knew by, like, elementary school that, yeah, this is what I wanted to do. And none of my family ever, you know, were in the wine industry. They just like to drink wine. And so when we were young, like, I remember my parents always, you know, on the weekends going wine tasting up and down here, the central co. And I just remember going on one of the tours. And I mean, back then, it was more acceptable for the kids to go along with the parents and go on these wine tours and everything. And so for me, stepping into the cellar and seeing these huge stainless steel vats and bumping into the lab and seeing them actually doing titrations in their white lab coats, I mean, I remember going home and telling my mom, like, I want a lab co. And so my high school, I started researching it, and there was at that time only two schools that offered it. It was either UC Davis or Fresno State. And so I chose Fresno State because I wanted the hands on experience. There was already a winery on campus. Oh, my gosh, I could hear her now.
- [10:41]
D
I can kick her out again.
- [10:42]
B
And she's a mischief maker.
- [10:44]
F
She's very mischievous. Yes. So whatever. She's fine.
- [10:50]
A
Their cat did have a lot to contribute, but unfortunately we lacked a interpreter. Onward.
- [10:55]
B
Terry. You're saying that Fresno and Davis both had programs. Was that tough to choose between them?
- [11:01]
F
It wasn't because Fresno State had already the winery on campus. And for me, like, I tend to learn better hands on. So, yeah, it was a pretty easy decision for me.
- [11:13]
B
And you're from California?
- [11:15]
F
Yes, I am from California.
- [11:17]
B
Can you tell me a little bit about your history with the Central Coast? What is it about California and the Central coast and Napa that is so good for wine as well?
- [11:29]
F
Yeah. So I'm from Santa Barbara county, and what I really love about Santa Barbara county in general is just like all the different microclimates that we have within our county. I mean, we have over 70 different varieties within a 35 mile radius. We could be enjoying like Bordeaux varieties, Burgundy varieties, Italian varieties, all the varieties. And so I think that's what draws a lot of the winemakers to our area, especially the women winemakers. I think the women winemakers represent a larger percentage that is based here in Santa Barbara county itself.
- [12:06]
A
So when Tara was at Fresno State studying enology, she was one of only two women in her whole program. And according to this, 2020, out of Santa Clara University, only 14% of California wineries are women owned. But in Santa Barbara county, some figures estimate that's 20 to 30%.
- [12:25]
B
That's amazing. I never realized how much microclimates must influence it as well. And not to mention, as a microscope person, I've got a microscope when I was 8 and it changed my whole life. It's like there is so much going on between this soil and, and the yeast, and also the culture and the history of what you're making. And I'm wondering in an analogy program, you know, you both went through separate ones. Maria, I know you were in Spain when you did yours, you were in Fresno Terra. What do those programs look like? How much of it is culture, history, types of wine? How much of it is agriculture, pest control, harvesting? Like what happens in an entomology program?
- [13:08]
D
Yeah.
- [13:08]
F
So enology is kind of divided into two separate areas. You have enology, where you're specifically learning the winemaking process. And then you have the viticulture aspect of it, which is you're learning more about the vineyard and the soil and. And all of that. So combining the two together, you learn the best of both worlds. And that's very important for a winemaker too, to, to learn the viticulture side of it, because, like, for us, for example, like, we're outside a lot. We're out there in the vineyards, really, just, like, trying to find that connection to the land, to the vineyard, learning about the soil. So all of those aspects are important and play a big part in winemaking.
- [13:50]
D
Yeah. I would say when you go to school and study enology, you really kind of like, study a little bit of everything, as Tera said. But, like, there's a lot of chemistry involved and, yeah, you have some engineering. You have, you know, a lot of physics in terms of, like, conversion of heat to cold. And because we use all that for the tanks and sensory analysis. So it's not just like, oh, I put grapes in a tank and I ferment them. There's, like, a lot more involved to it. So.
- [14:19]
B
Yeah.
- [14:20]
D
Yeah.
- [14:21]
A
And if you're an aspiring enologist, you can focus on an agricultural school and you can find just a dazzling course catalog. Like Fresno State, for example, offers programs in viticulture, which is the study of the grapevines themselves. Enology, the study of winemaking with those grapes. There's the business of marketing and selling wine. The distribution in the US Is a particular headache. We'll talk about that later. There are also courses in advanced sensory evaluation of wines, wine microbiology. There's one on regulations, introduction to vine, grape and yeast biochemistry. As you can imagine, there's enough to where this aside would be very lengthy. But in the US alone, winemaking industry generates nearly $400 billion annually. So grape juice plus science times, some patience. That's your bottom line. But some things, if I may pair this wine with a little cheese are worth more than money.
- [15:21]
B
Like, did you guys know you're in love the whole time?
- [15:24]
D
No.
- [15:25]
F
No, really? No. It was a little. It was the opposite, actually. I don't have time for that. But, yeah, I wasn't a fan of her.
- [15:37]
D
I wasn't a fan of her. It's fine.
- [15:41]
B
You guys were like a rom com where in the first act, you were like, rivals or something.
- [15:46]
D
Not rivals, but not 100 friends either. Nah, it wasn't. It wasn't like that.
- [15:52]
F
Yeah. So we both worked at the same company.
- [15:55]
D
Yeah.
- [15:55]
F
In Pastor Robles. And she would always come into the lab and I wasn't. And disrupt the lab. And, like, you get everybody, like, oh, you know, stop doing their work and everything. And I always used to be like, what the heck? Like, get out of here. You're off of work. Go home.
- [16:17]
B
Oh, my God.
- [16:18]
D
And, you know, there's two Sides of each story, but I'm not gonna explain.
- [16:23]
B
Were you in there flirting or.
- [16:24]
D
No, not at all. I, I, I was an intern. I. When we met, Tara was working at jlore and I came to do a harvest. It was my first time in California doing a harvest here, and I was living with two other interns, and there are or three other interns, but the other ones were working with Tara in the lab, and I was working in the cellar. And the seller would start earlier, but also finish earlier. And we only had, as the intern, we only had one car, and we all had to wait for each other and things like this. So I would go to the lab because there was the only place where there was computers. And we're talking about 20 years ago. So there was no social media, no cell phones. So the only way to communicate with my friends at home and everything was like. I don't know what it even was in that time. Some messenger, I guess.
- [17:11]
F
Yeah, she would check her emails, turn up the volume, and when she opened up her email, it would just, like, disrupt the whole lab because everything just all this music start playing and everything go off.
- [17:22]
D
And so one day Tara takes me, and I am in the lab checking my emails and trying to send emails to my friends and family. And Terry's like, you come with me. And I'm just like, oh, God, like, now I'm really in trouble. Like, is she sending me back to Spain? What's going on? And she just walks me to her
- [17:40]
F
car and you're out of here.
- [17:42]
D
She takes me for a ride, and I'm just like, where are we going? Like, I was, like, all scared. And I mean, it was also like, I didn't speak English as good as now, so communication was a barrier, too. And anyway, she takes me, like, she was at that moment making wine. Basically the, I don't know, like a mile down the street from where her friend had a winery, and she was making her own label there. So I remember her taking me there, and she's like, hey, this is where I make my own wine. And. And she takes me into this kind of like, garage winery and opens a fridge, and she's like, you like beer? I was like, yeah. So she gives me a beer, and she's like, all right, start making punch downs.
- [18:22]
F
Yeah, I had, like, 20 punch downs to do.
- [18:25]
D
I was like, all right, well, if you give me beer, I'll make punch downs.
- [18:28]
A
That's fine.
- [18:30]
D
And then after that, every day, she
- [18:32]
F
would come, put her ass to work.
- [18:33]
D
Yeah, she would come and pick me up at 4am at home and help her making pine zones in the morning. And then when I was done with my work at the winery, she would take me back there and that's how we got to meet each other and became friends.
- [18:52]
B
That's so sweet. It's so sweet. You guys need your own wine making rom com. You need to somehow sell the rights to this. The cutest. I'm so glad that you guys got together.
- [19:06]
A
And I know you're wondering, so was I. So doing punch downs in winemaking is when you push the floating grape skins back into the juice to extract more flavor and more color. So picture like a giant potato masher squishing around a cranberry bog, but it's grapes and it's baby wine in a huge trough. And this surprised me. But the average winery only has four or five employees. I pictured dozens of like factory setting. Most of them know. So with teams being just about the size of a family, how are the chores divided?
- [19:41]
B
Well, I'm not sure like who does what roles when it comes to wine, but you guys are winemakers. But then there's winery owners. So those are people who grow the grapes. There's the people who get the grapes and make the wine. Are they the same people, like who does what when it comes to making wine?
- [19:58]
D
I mean, it depends on the winery. I would say it depends on the size of the winery. We are a really small winery, so basically we wear all the hats. Tara and I, we do have a little bit of different roles just because we have our strengths in like different areas and what we like to are different things. But yeah, depending on the winery, I mean, bigger wineries, normally you have, yeah, you have the owner, which is actually a. The end. The one that makes money and pays money. But, but you have a winemaker or you have like a general manager, you have a marketing person, you have a lot of different people that's involved. But for us, it's just Tara and I that we do everything together. So.
- [20:40]
F
And as Mare said, like, we all know our strengths and weaknesses within our own winery. And so Mirea, for example, she's more in the cellar. She's the one that does a lot of the tank movements, barrel movements. And I'm the one hauling the. Because we work out of a few different buildings. So I'm the one that goes and picks up the barrels or picks up whatever she needs to get the work done. And I'm always like in the truck, like hauling things from one building to another or, or I'm doing The analysis. So we know within ourselves what our strengths and weaknesses are, and so it makes it easy to kind of fulfill
- [21:19]
B
those roles when it comes to, let's say, a winery. I think what I was confused with is I thought a winery was only a place and not a business. And so I always thought that whatever wine you made only came from the grapes that you were growing outside. I, like, didn't know that that's something that winemakers did because I haven't been on enough wine tours. But as a winemaker, sourcing the grapes is, I imagine, a huge part of it. Can you walk me through it a little bit?
- [21:49]
D
I mean, there's a state wineries that they have their own grapes, and sometimes there source also grapes from outside, but sometimes not. I would say, like, in Europe, there's a lot more state wineries than here. You know, we don't have vineyard ourselves. I wish we could, but we purchase grapes, and that's. It has good things and bad things. I mean, you have less control, obviously, over your grapes, and it takes a lot of, like, research, but in other way also, it has a lot of, like, advantages, and it's a lot more flexible, and you can play every year with a different variety if you want, or you can just try some something, and if it doesn't work, you change the vineyard, and you don't have as much pressure in terms of, like, you know, always having to work with the same variety. And in Santa Barbara county, we always say that we're like kids in a candy store because we have all these varieties. So it's really nice when you are able to purchase grapes from different vineyards and different areas every year. So that's cool.
- [22:43]
B
I always thought a winery and a vineyard were synonymous. Didn't realize that those are very different words and really different rules.
- [22:50]
D
I'm sure you're not the only one. Yeah.
- [22:53]
B
Like, it didn't occur to me that those were two different nouns. I thought, which is so interesting that so many of us experience wine from a bottle to a glass to our mouth, and that there's so much and so many people and knowledge and history and science and art that go into it. Can you give me some, like, basic process steps? You mentioned tanks.
- [23:13]
A
I thought they were in barrels.
- [23:15]
B
What's the deal with that? Do they age and think, like, how does the magic happen?
- [23:20]
F
So we'll start from the very beginning of it. I mentioned we're out in the vineyard a lot throughout the growing season. And so, you know, with the two winemakers, I actually go out to the vineyard. On the nights of the pick, we're bringing our bins that they pick into out to the vineyard. We're out there doing quality control on the back of the tractors as the pickers are picking into our bins. And then we haul the fruit out back to the winery. So when the fruit arrives to the winery, depending on what time of the night it is, it could be. I mean, like, we get scheduled to picks anywhere between, like, 7:00pm all the way to 5:00am they'll tell us what time to kind of go in there and when we'll begin. And so it makes it a little bit easier for us, though, because, like, we have our own bins, we have our own equipment to be able to pick into, and we haul in and haul out, but the fruit comes in, we pick, the fruit comes into the winery. Sometimes it just goes directly into the cold room. And then we'll go to sleep that night and then wake up in the morning and then begin processing. We have a sorting table. We have a de stemmer. We have an elevator to get it to the de stemmer, onto the sorting table, and then into the final vessel. And so once we process the fruit, depending on if it's red or white, white goes direct into the press, whereas red goes through the de stemmer to the sorting table, to the final vat that we're using to ferment in. And then the fermentation begins. We do everything, all native yeast fermentation, so we're not using commercial yeast. And everything that we make is no additives, so unfined and unfiltered as well, which is a little bit of SO two added right at bottle, but that's pretty much about it. So it's like just grape juice going through fermentation and then goes into barrel for aging. And. And then depending on however many months here you're aging the wine for, and then it goes into bottle.
- [25:27]
B
And why at night? Is it just cooler weather?
- [25:31]
F
Yeah, so nighttime allows us to bring the fruit in already cold and kind of, you know, frees you from any sort of, like, bees coming into play, coming to kind of like, make their marks. Grapes or any sort of microbial bacteria that could happen. When you're picking during the daytime, it prevents all of that from happening, and you. You already have the leg up with it being cold. So. Yeah, that's why we pick at night. Either at night or early morning, basically. Yeah.
- [26:02]
D
I would say it's also a little better for the pickers, for the workers itself, because picking during the day Here, like in Santa Barbara county in September and beginning of October, it's still pretty warm. So it's not the same. Peaking at 50 degrees. You know, you're all night picking, you're tired because it's night, but during the day, you would be picking at 80 degrees. So it's definitely a lot better on them to pick at night. Yeah.
- [26:28]
B
And why does the white wine go one way with stems and all getting crushed, but the red wine grapes get de stemmed?
- [26:38]
D
So white grapes can also go both ways. But traditionally, let's say white grapes go directly to the press because you want your white wine to be clear color. What gives color to the wine is the skins. If you open a grape that it's red or white, the pulpit's always clear, basically. So if you direct press, you're gonna have a juice that it's really clear. So for white wine, you want that. For red wine, you wanna have a lot of color dark. So you're gonna ferment it with the skins. Cause if you would go directly to press, you would have, like a really light rose, basically. White wine now or not now, it's since the beginning of history of wine, but you can also ferment it with the skins. And that's when you get a wine that has a lot more tannin, a lot more color. And it's where nowadays a lot of people know as orange wine or skin contact wine, which is a white wine fermented the way that we make reds.
- [27:34]
A
Okay, so just imagine eating just the skin of a Concord grape, Right? You can taste the acid, you can feel the dryness. And we talk a lot about tannins, compounds that plants make to say, like, hey, don't eat me in part one with entree. Also, is there more than one way to skin a grape? For a moment, I was like, I feel like surgeons practice on grapes to test their dexterity and learn precision by peeling the skin and then suturing it back up. And I was like, am I hallucinating this? But a cursory Google not only confirmed that they do, but it sent me to a whole Wikipedia page titled simply grape surgery, which told me, who's now telling you that grapes serve as a cheaper and more readily available alternative to animal eyes, artificial model eyes, or human eyes sourced from eye banks or donated cadavers. If you listen to our ophthalmology episode with eye doctor friend and surgeon Dr. Reid Wainess, you can hear about the time that he mentioned a ruptured globe as part of his work day, which almost made me like, block his number. How about in this context?
- [28:47]
B
And so how are they getting the skin off of the white wine grape? I always wonder, because it's so hard to skin a grape. I'm like, how do they do this?
- [28:55]
D
No, we don't skin them by hand. Believe me, that would take forever. We put the grapes in a press. There's different kinds of presses, and I'm not gonna get technical on that, but basically, our press is a pneumatic press, and it's like a tube with a hole on top. You put the grapes inside, fill it all, and then there's, like, a balloon that inflates and deflates and it presses, and then it has some drains where the juice comes out, and the skins stay inside the press.
- [29:21]
F
So, yeah, the skins and seeds stay inside, and just the juice comes out.
- [29:25]
D
Comes out, yeah, through some drains and stuff.
- [29:28]
B
So, yeah, what happens to all that stuff? Are there, like, hogs sitting by being like, if it's me.
- [29:33]
D
I mean, if you have your own vineyard, you can take it back into the vineyard and use it as a compost there. Or, like, you ferment it first and compost it for us. We put it in a big container that we have outside the winery during harvest, and then it gets picked up by a recycling company, and then they use it for compost recycling taken somewhere else, and that's it.
- [29:54]
A
Okay. So I was curious about these balloon machines, and I looked up a video taken with some sort of GoPro in a tank of grapes being mushed. Wow. Imagine, like, a giant water heater cylinder on its side, or better yet, like a small submarine. It's filled with grapes, all right? Bunches of grapes are tossed in from a hole at the top, like a submarine hatch. And then it's sealed shut, and the thing spins this way, it spins that way, it tosses them all around, and then suddenly, half of the tank starts to inflate like a big clogged artery. And it smushes the grapes against each other and the side of the tank. Then it gets spun. More of the juice is drained off, and then the big balloon inflates again, and then spinning, smushing, draining, spinning, ballooning. I was mesmerized. I was just watching this thing like
- [30:47]
B
a toddler with an iPad. It's.
- [30:48]
A
It's like seeing thousands of bubble wraps popping all at once, or like, sugar cysts bursting. It's so gratifying. It's a little gross. It's beautiful. But once they've squeezed all the juice out, what happens to the leftover Stuff like the pulp and the seed and the stems. Okay. That stuff is called pomace. And yes, it can be used for fertilizer, for animal feed, biomedical treatments they're looking at, or increasingly in the making of food, from chicken meatballs, I read, to pasta and cereal. And According to the 2024 paper, the high Value and Sustainable Utilization of Grape Promise, a review in the journal Food Chemistry, it's like grape pulp. It's what's for dinner after making the thing that you drink with dinner.
- [31:36]
F
Very clever.
- [31:37]
B
And so the difference between the big vats, the big stainless steel vats, and the barrels to age, how long does wine stay in one of those big metal silos versus off to barrels?
- [31:52]
D
I mean, it depends a lot of the winery. But in our case, we ferment in tanks in stainless steel for the wines and actually in beans, or sometimes in a stainless steel for rats. And that may last like a month at the most, or a month and a half if it's a longer fermentation. And then after that, the white wine, it's racked, so it's transferred to the barrels, either a stainless steel barrel or oak barrel. And then the reds, you press them because you still have the skins. And then the same they use, you transfer it to barrels. We use for our wines, all neutral French oak, meaning the barrels are used for another winery before we use them. So they've been used several times or one time, or we use them for a few years and then we resell them too. So it's barrels. They're barrels that they don't have that much oak influence. We want the barrel to give us more like, stability and give us some texture and help us with that. But we don't want to have oaky wine. We want to showcase really what it comes from the vineyard and the fruit and everything. So. And then we have it in barrel for the whites, around six months, and for the red, depending on which one of our rats, but between 10 and 18 months. But there's also other vats or other materials that you can ferment like you can ferment in concrete. This year we've been experimenting with a concrete egg as a tank for one of our varieties. You can ferment in clay, so each material is going to give you different aromatics and different texture to your final product.
- [33:25]
A
I would also like to direct you to our mycology episode on fungi and our zymology episode of episodes Beer brewing. And if you just cannot get enough of yeast, and you'd like to break bread with Your Cabernet. You can enjoy the gastro Egyptology episode all about making sourdough with ancient Egyptian yeasts sourced from several thousand year old pots. That's a real thing.
- [33:48]
B
And the yeasts are in there. These are natural yeasts that are just environmental, right. And then they're just doing their thing, gobbling up the sugars. And do you know kind of what it's going to be like until you taste it? Or is it like this is a pretty dependable yeast that likes this grape and it likes this area. So we're pretty sure what it's. How do winemakers know what's going to happen?
- [34:12]
F
So typically the way we do it, it's called P De Cove. So when we go out there and sample, for each vineyard site, we sample each variety, we pull whole clusters of them, we bring it to the winery, re crush it, rerun the analysis on it. But that juice that we've collected, we save and that's how we multiply and build up our yeast culture. And so by the time that the fruit is ready to come in to harvest, then that's what we use to pitch to the tanks. So it eliminates the lag time of going through the cold room, trying to warm the fruit back up and then waiting for a fermentation to kick off. Like we've already got the fermentation already active and ready to go and kind of like migrate and have fun. And so, and so that helps a great deal with just eliminating, you know, just that lag phase point.
- [35:07]
B
Oh, that's so cool.
- [35:08]
D
The interesting thing to me of working with natural yeast with wild yeast is that each vineyard is different and each fruit and each year it's a little bit different. While with commercial yeast, basically it's more knowing what you're going to have. So say you want a wine that it's going to have a lot of like fruity characteristics. There's allergies that are created to give you more mouthful allergies that it's created so you can go to all these companies that sell yeast and say I want to ferment Pinot Noir and I want it to be more earthy or more fruity. And they will sell you a different kind of yeast. Right. But that to me makes also wines more similar in between different wineries. So it's less interesting in some way. It's safer though, because you know you're not gonna have issues with your yeast. But I think it's less interesting and we wanna be sure that it's a little bit different every year.
- [36:04]
F
So that just adds to a little bit of the mystery of it, I guess. But yet it's fun for us.
- [36:10]
A
And remember from part one with Andre last week that in general, Old World wines, mostly European, are named after the region of origin because the climate and geography and soil contribute to the character and also what kinds of yeasts would be present. Now, New World wines, like from the Americas and Australia, tend to be named for the type of grape. New World wines also tend to grow in warmer climates, so they yield more sugar, which makes a higher alcohol content, while Old World wines tend to be less sweet, more dry, and less fruity in taste. Now, natural wines are sometimes called biodynamic or organic, depending on the farming of the grapes and the level of intervention after the harvest. Those tend to or can have a funkier flavor, sometimes a cloudier appearance, and they can vary greatly from harvest to harvest. Some wine drinkers have staunch preferences, and I suppose that's why there are wine menus instead of everyone in the world having the same favorite bottle, which would be boring.
- [37:16]
B
And can you tell me a little bit about your personal preferences? Because y' all knew each other for years before you went straight into business with each other, before you got married, too, did you have really different tastes in terms of where you wanted to go visit and travel and try things, or when it comes to y' all are gonna go to a winery and check something out, or when you were first getting to know each other, what were your different tastes that you guys had?
- [37:43]
F
Well, yeah, I mean, Medea, of course, has more of a European, you know, attribute flavor profile to it, whereas I have more of, like, a California flavor profile to it. So, yeah, it was. It was a little bit of variance in the beginning, but for me going to visit, I started developing and learning more about wine in general and, you know, the history of it all. And I feel like I'm the one that started changing my palate up, and we started drinking more European wines, and so my palate kind of adjusted more than, I would say, Mide his palette. But, yeah, luckily, I mean, we love the same wines, and we love to make, you know, the same wines, and we don't just focus on mainstream varieties. We focus on the more of, like, the underrepresented varieties, so with, like, Gruner Veltliner and Cool Climate Syrahs Binar flagship wines. But, yeah, we make, like, a wide variety, maybe too much than we should, because, as Mire said, we're like little kids in a candy store that can't Decide on what variety. Oh, I want to play with this variety or I want to play with that variety.
- [38:56]
A
And if you would like to see this variety with your own eyes or grapes, you can head to their website, CamineStodreams c a m I n s to Dreams.com, which has more info about their Gruner Veldtleiner, which is a light, lower alcohol white wine with a little fizz. They have a Grenache Rose, a Cabernet Pfeffer made from this obscure grape, which has kind of a cherry spicy and peppery taste. They offer a medium bodied Carignane, which is a grape used mainly in Spain and France, but theirs is from Santa Barbara and it's made via carbonic maceration, which we'll talk about in a minute. They also offer a red blend wine that's pride themed, which warms my heart well over cellar temperature. And all their bottles are in the 30 to $50 range and they have an order page on their site in case you want to take a gander. Many of the wines I had never heard of, and it's clear that they do enjoy doing something a little different.
- [39:55]
F
But we just love, you know, trying to teach the consumer that there are other varieties other than your mainstream varieties that they're so used to tasting.
- [40:05]
B
You guys, I'm sure have seen sideways 5,000 times, right?
- [40:09]
D
I actually haven't.
- [40:10]
B
You haven't.
- [40:11]
D
I have to say that every time I try to watch it, I fall asleep.
- [40:13]
B
So you're like, been there, done that.
- [40:17]
D
Now I want to watch it again because it's been filmed here in Santa Barbara County. So since I moved here, I want. I've been wanting to watch it again, but I haven't yet.
- [40:24]
B
So it was. It's one of my mom's favorite movies. And I just remember, like, the Merlot versus Pinot Noir debate.
- [40:33]
G
If they want to drink Merlot, we're drinking Merlot.
- [40:35]
A
Oh, no. If anybody orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am not drinking any fucking Merlot.
- [40:39]
B
Okay, okay, relax, Miles.
- [40:41]
A
If you have seen this 2004 movie, this scene, and Paul Giamatti's very sentimental rambling monologue, which was an ode to Pinot Noir, is permanently stained in your memory. And you're not alone. Decades after its release, people are still pondering on it. And a 2021 study titled Sideways Supply Response in California Wine Grapes, which was out of Cambridge University, found that the positive supply response for Pinot Noir is stronger than the negative response for Merlot after this movie. So, yeah, it did have an effect, but it really just bumped up Pinot Noir. It didn't mess up Merlot's reputation too badly. But, yeah, if you're ever just sitting around wondering about stuff like this, you can go gather data, crunch the numbers, and answer it for other people, including myself. So thank you.
- [41:39]
B
I feel like it really did a number on Merlot, but it really oversaturated Pinot Noir. And it's so interesting how much these pop cultural things can have influence.
- [41:48]
D
But I think it's more important to see if you like it or not. At the end, it's just like it doesn't matter which wine it is. It's if you like it, you like it. And then once you find a wine that you like it, try to remember it. And when you go to a store, say, hey, I like this wine, or it was just, you know, you have something similar or you have. And from there start trying different things.
- [42:06]
B
And when it comes to mouthfeel, some of them feel drier. The tannins in red wine are higher than in white wine. But what are these properties chemically that give a different kind of mouth feel?
- [42:21]
D
Yeah, I mean, tannins come mostly from the skins and the seeds, but also from the oak. So either barrels or you can add artificial powder oak or chips or whatever it's allowed in this country to add to. So basically from oak. So in general, yes, red wine has more tannin, which is gives you this dryness on the palate. So that's just basically a sensation of like, I don't know, like the proteins basically in the wine precipitate with your saliva. So that's what you feel like that precipitation, it just puts like a cover in your tongue.
- [42:55]
A
So, yeah, as we touched on with Andre last week, some wineries use oak chips or even sawdust teabags. They've been doing it since the 1800s. And according to the history and the science behind it, which was discussed in the paper Review of quality factors on Wine aging in oak barrels, the oak chips can create greater intensity of wood aromas, which are like coconut and vanillin, and a greater taste impact of bitterness and astringency than oak barrels. So those. Those chips can create more of it. And individual winemakers can evaluate what their flavor and texture goals are when choosing to between barrels and chips and dust and such. But how does Bradley Cooper feel about all this? I know we're wondering. My guess is resentful, because a barrel maker is called a Cooper and people bearing that surname, Cooper probably descended from people who craft barrels and would say that oak chips are cheating and that you should buy more barrels. Don't worry. I won't tell anybody.
- [43:58]
F
And if you decided to do just something totally different, which is like carbonic maceration, that's putting the whole cluster intact into the tank and closing it off. So in an anaerobic environment, for however long it takes for the fermentation to take place, generally speaking, it's between like, 20 to 30 days that we leave it on, you know, in the tank without opening it up. We just taste it from the tasting valve and see, like, how it's progressing and checking the sugar level in it. And that gives you a little bit more fruit forward, a little bit of spiciness. It because it has stems intact there as well, it gives you a little bit of that spiciness, but also just that lighter sensation. So those are considered chillable reds as well.
- [44:48]
A
Carbonic maceration. Who? I don't know her. But this is when I looked it up. A bunch of grapes, usually red, are put in a big tank uncrushed. Okay. So they're a hole. They're put in a tank, and then carbon dioxide is pumped into fill all the airspace. So what happens is the grapes start to ferment on an intracellular level, and when they have about 2% alcohol, they're just ballooning. Ballooning. They burst. They release all that juice on their own, which develops into a lower acidity. Wine that's drinkable when it's really young, like a Bourgeolet Nouveau, just exploding berries popping away, making dinner juice. Just a side note, too, sulfites in wine are naturally occurring as part of the fermentation process. But most winem also add, like, a little more sulfur dioxide as a preservative, unless it's a wine labeled organic, which is not allowed to add sulfites in the bottling process. So organic wines, they have so many rules. I mean, naturally.
- [45:50]
F
And we do add so2 just to help. Cause this is the first time it sees SO2, and that's just such a minimal amount that I'm sure it just dissipates out by the time it gets over there. So we just do it as, you know, preservative to help get it to bottle safely. And for Mede and I, our style, like, stick preferences to make more kind of going in the traditional way, but yet still natural with native yeast, so more on the cleaner side. But that's just the style that we like. Everybody else is different, and everybody likes different styles, but this is just in particular, the Style that we like to make.
- [46:27]
B
When it comes to wine trends, does it ever exhaust you to see like, oh, this is the summer of. And then next summer it's gonna be kava, and this time it's funky. And then it's gonna be, you know, like, does it. I imagine when you get together with other winemakers too, you guys must talk such great petty shit. The. The tea that you guys spill. Oh my God, is it. I bet it's the best.
- [46:55]
D
I mean, it's interesting to see the trends in the market sometimes. Luckily, they don't change from one summer to another one because like, wine takes time to be made and to be released. So if not, we would be like totally screwed here.
- [47:09]
F
And a lot of them are really just like head scratchers that you just can't figure out because it's like nowadays people just don't go by, you know, the quality of the wine. They go by how cool the labels look. And if it's clear glass or if it's dark glass. And everybody, everybody loves clear glass, but clear glass is obviously not as good for the wine. And so it's just like the trends that people go through. It's just, it. It's mind boggling for me. I don't get it.
- [47:41]
B
I imagine too, because I know that so many people pick based on labels and are there certain graphic designers that just specialize in wine labels? And God, I bet there's going to be so many AI wine labels. It's going to be.
- [47:56]
D
There's a lot of designers that specialize in wine labels. There was a wine in Spain back in the time that actually a distributor, a really famous distributor in Spain released. It was their own label and they call it Perro Verde. So like the green dog and it has a green dog on the label. That wine was all over Spain and in all the restaurants by the glass and by the stores. In like, I know in like six months, like it took over Spain. And to me it was like the beginning of these labels. Like this, like, Spain is more traditional, the same that France and we had like this really all traditional chateau winery labels. And then this label came to the market and everybody was buying that wine. And it was for me, the first time that I remember seeing like something happening like that it didn't matter what was inside the bottle, people would just buy it because, yeah, there was a green dog on the label and the wine was called Green Dog. Like, like, how is Martha? I don't know what the heck that has to do with the wine, but.
- [48:51]
A
And if you're Spanish and you're screaming conosco esse, which apparently I just looked it up, means I know that one, you would easily recognize this green silhouette of a little leaping dog on the bottle. It's very cute. Anyone else? Just think back to the wine aisle. All right, you're going to a dinner party, you don't know what to bring. Oh, that one has a horse on it.
- [49:14]
F
Cool.
- [49:14]
A
Done. Is this a thing? Very much so. Enough so that scientists are like, let's fire up the spreadsheets. So one study titled Wine and Wildlife, an exploratory study of the depiction of animals on wine labels available in the United States found that, quote, animals were depicted on 16.7% of wine labels overall, with birds and mammals being the most commonly depicted animals. A, I can't imagine like a wine with a like slug on it. It's probably not going to happen. But they say, as predicted, the depiction of animals was less common on wine labels from Europe than other regions, they say, likely because a lot of European wines use traditional imagery, they say, like chateaus and heraldic images and fonts, and that attracts consumers that value the wine's heritage. So, in a word, stuffier. Fewer goats and dogs and cats and stuff. Now, do the animals actually sell wine though, or are they just cute? Let's ask the 2026 paper Influence of Wine Label Eye Tracking Evidence and Regulatory Implications in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review. And it explains that 20 years ago, wine labels mostly featured typefaces and fonts, but they conducted an experiment with the use of eye tracking. They write, we demonstrated that wine labels featuring images of animals draw attention more rapidly and sustain attention for longer than labels with inanimate objects. And it all started, a lot of these papers say, with the explosion of the Australian wine Yellowtail, which features this little hopping wallaby. Honestly, I never even considered that yellowtail was about a wallaby with that tail. I always just thought it was named after the tuna. Never even thought about it. And that's my bad for not turning on even one of my brain cells to consider it. But yeah, the so called critter wine sells more and faster than old style labels. Up to twice as many bottles, some sources say. So next time you're at the store, even if you don't drink wine, just cruise the aisle and report back on what critters you spot. I searched wine in my photos on my phone and I found so many pictures that I had just taken of bottles I didn't even buy that.
- [51:23]
B
I was like, oh, look at that bat.
- [51:25]
A
Oh, that one's got a rhino on it. Just that I thought were cute. We post a discussion thread on Patreon where we can all chat and I want to hear what you see. Oh, speaking of y', all, so much
- [51:36]
B
of it is perception and expectation and I did get some great questions from listeners. Can I ask you a few?
- [51:43]
F
Yeah, sure.
- [51:44]
D
Yeah.
- [51:44]
B
Oh my gosh. Okay, okay.
- [51:46]
A
But before we open those up, let's donate to a related charity for Tara and Mirea. And it's going to House of Pride and Equality in Santa Maria, California, which works to create visibility and awareness for LGBTQIA people and provide safe environments of inclusion and educate through advocacy efforts and community outreach events. And they say due to the lack of Latinx focused queer spaces, they've been working toward that and a more equitable Central coast for all since 2016. So you can find out more about them in the show notes or you can head to houseofprideinquality.org so thanks to sponsors of the show for making that donation possible. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. If you haven't heard me gushing about Squarespace for years, it's an all in one website platform. Whether you're trying to grow a business you have or if you're just a baby business getting started, it has everything you need. That's where I secured my domain name. It helped me build a professional site. I can update it so easily. I've been using Squarespace since before Ologies existed. After procrastinating for years, I literally built my website in one evening. They have templates, they have flexible editing tools. Squarespace I also makes it easy to share your work. You can book clients, you can get paid. They have built in tools for scheduling and invoicing an email all in one place. Whenever someone I know needs a website, whether they're a scientist that needs to put their work up or someone who's just starting a business, I'm like, dude, Squarespace. So head to squarespace.com ologies for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code ologies to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain brain. You can do it. Listen, sometimes you get out of your routine. That happened to me recently when I went out of town and I realized I forgot my ritual. Essential for women 18 plus. It's a multi that I've been taking for years. And guess who landed in another country without them? Me didn't feel right. They contain nine key nutrients, two Delayed release capsules designed for optimal absorption. But ritual. Why do I love them so much? They have a team of scientists. They poured over thousands of studies to figure out what are common gaps that people need in their diet but they don't actually consume. It's also designed to be gentle on the stomach. You can take it with or without food, which I love. Plus, I like that it looks like a tiny lava lamp. I tell you that every time. But it has these beads and oil and it tastes like mint. Easy. Down the hatch. I usually take them in the morning. And the reason why I've stuck with Ritual for so many years is because my schedule is all about over the place. Sometimes I'm eating breakfast, sometimes I'm running through an airport with one shoe. So instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. Save 25% on your first month at ritual.com ologies that's ritual.com ologies for 25% off your first month.
- [54:33]
C
And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Me. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [54:43]
F
Hey, everyone.
- [54:43]
A
Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
- [54:46]
C
Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Together we're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [54:53]
D
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
- [54:54]
C
Anyways, get a'@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
- [54:58]
A
Liberty Liberty. Liberty Liberty.
- [55:01]
E
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- [55:28]
G
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- [56:16]
A
Okay, you had wonderful, full bodied questions. So let's start with one from Anthony Cherubino, Anna Dillon, Jennifer R. Aliya Myers, Josh Waldman, Hester Dingle, Carrie Overall, Mark McPhillips and Sonoma County. Raised Carlene, D.H. and Agnes live in
- [56:31]
E
the U.S. hi, Ali, my name is Agnes. I live in the US and within
- [56:38]
F
the past year I've visited some vineyards
- [56:40]
E
in Dahlonega, Georgia and I was wondering what qualifications does land or an area
- [56:48]
F
have to have to make high quality wine?
- [56:51]
D
Is it the soil? What about the weather?
- [56:55]
F
What kind of grapes?
- [56:56]
B
What makes an area like there's going to be a lot of vineyards.
- [57:01]
D
Yeah, I mean there's definitely, it's a combination that we're talking earlier about terroirs. There's areas that, yeah. Because of the orientation that it's. I know towards the ocean sometimes or like because the microclimates that it has or because the. Yeah. The soil characteristic, the climate, like all that interferes. And there's sometimes an area that has all the best of the best. So it's going to make great wine.
- [57:26]
F
And it's also the variety, it's the soil, it's the climate.
- [57:31]
D
I think finding the variety. When you go to plant a vineyard, normally you don't plant. It's really rare to see Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon planted in the same vineyard, for example. So you need to find the right variety for the right place too. And that's important.
- [57:45]
B
So that makes sense.
- [57:47]
D
Yeah. Napa is known for caps because. Because cap thrives there.
- [57:51]
F
It's warmer climate.
- [57:52]
D
Yeah. If they would have planted Sangiovese, maybe it wouldn't thrive that much there. It would have like some good sangioves, but not all of them. Napa caps are good because the weather, the soil, it's just perfect for it.
- [58:04]
B
So, you know, especially with so many
- [58:06]
A
fires in California, do they have to
- [58:07]
B
keep testing the soil to make sure that the soil is kind of like the same quality, same components as so much? I'm thinking, you know, as a Californian mostly too.
- [58:17]
D
Yeah. I mean, we do test if you have sandy soil or clay soil or it's been here for years and years. So it's not going to change that much. So we do sample and do analysis of the soil normally yearly in all the vineyards to be sure that you're not missing the micronutrients, basically. And then you, depending on the way you farm, you can add compost of different kinds.
- [58:40]
A
So in 2017, the Atlas and the Tubbs wildfires killed dozens of people. They raged near Napa and Sonoma county, which, pardon the pun, is a global hotspot for winemaking. And I always wondered how the local agriculture and the viticulture was affected. And According to the 2021 paper Science and Culture, wildfires pose a burning problem for wines and winemakers. Wildfire smoke can contaminate entire crops and it's called smoke taint. And the resulting wines have an ashtray flavor, it says. And There was a 2017 Wired article titled after the Napa A Disaster in Toxic as. And it explains that wildfires of organic matter like grass and trees have very different implications from house fires. And as we saw in the 2025 LA fires, thousands of houses burned and heavy metals and other toxins can leach into the soil and the waterways. Hey, what if you want to make wine from a doomsday bunker? A few people. Annie G. First time question asker, Josh
- [59:44]
B
Waldman and Carlos Denoy Whitehead wanted to know.
- [59:49]
D
Hello Ali, it is Danoa from Florida. And my question for the assumingly lovely couple is I have been making wine for quite some years and I was curious if you'll have any tips or
- [60:03]
F
tricks to make not just wine, but good wine.
- [60:07]
B
Correct.
- [60:08]
A
You are lovely.
- [60:09]
B
So if you are messing around trying to make some wine at home, how do you make it so that it's not bad?
- [60:17]
F
Well, I think chemistry plays a big part in it. And so as Medehead mentioned earlier, like having a, a lower pH, a higher acidity, and also too like keeping whatever you're fermenting in, whether it's a barrel or a tank, free of headspace because the headspace could impart, you know, microbial growth. And so you want to keep everything topped off.
- [60:40]
D
Oh yeah. I was gonna say there was like, if you're making wine at home and you are not able to really run analysis because you don't want to or you don't know how to. Yeah, the two tips to me would be like sanitation, just be sure that everything is super sanitized and clean. And second, no oxygen anywhere. You don't want oxygen. So if there's a space Astera state headspace that's gonna to grow bacteria there. So have all your Vessels always super, super full, except when it's the middle of fermentation, when you need some space because of the CO2. But after that everything's super full.
- [61:19]
F
And temperature plays a big part as well, especially if you're doing it in the garage. Just make sure you know it doesn't get too hot in there because that's how you tend to evaporate more of the wine. And so you're having a tough top more often to keep, you know, that headspace kind of like topped off.
- [61:37]
B
And a few people, Eric Bloomer, Heather Crane, Laura Atkins and Katie Biardi, on that note, wanted to ask, Heather Crane asked which came first, wine or vinegar? Katie wanted to know what is the difference between wine and vinegar. I know wine turns to vinegar when it goes bad, but is vinegar just bad wine? Yeah.
- [61:58]
D
So basically I don't know if it's first wine or vinegar. You can go straight to vinegar already actually before having wine. But what happened is that there's oxygen in contact with your wine or with your fruit. It could be with your juice directly. It doesn't need to be already like that. You have alcohol and to make wine you don't want oxygen and yeast is able to ferment with no oxygen. And that's the great thing about making wine. You don't need or you don't want oxygen and you don't need it it to transform the sugar into alcohol. With vinegar, what happened is that you have bacterias, they're not yeast. So we're talking about totally different species there. And bacteria creates vinegar or acetaldehyde and volatile acidity. And that's what smells. We call it volatile acidity because it's really volatile and it smells a lot. Vinegar. Right. It releases to smell it from far and that's what bacteria produces. So we're talking about different species, like in contact with the wine. And bacteria only grows if there's oxygen, but if there's no oxygen, bacteria cannot grow.
- [63:06]
F
Ah.
- [63:07]
D
So yeah, I think I made a
- [63:10]
F
little bit of balsamic vinegar once.
- [63:14]
B
It's all part of the learning process.
- [63:17]
D
It happens sometimes.
- [63:18]
F
Yeah, it does happen.
- [63:20]
B
Well, in preventing that Floatron, Jeffrey Bradshaw, Chloe Famme, Elizabeth Becker, Lindsay Bartholomew and Chrissy, first time question asker, wanted to know, is there a difference in how long different wines can last after opening? How good is wine really? And if you wanted it not to spoil, what's the best way to sort of preserve your wine?
- [63:41]
D
Drink it.
- [63:42]
B
Drink it.
- [63:43]
F
Vacuum.
- [63:45]
D
No, I mean, obviously if you drink it, it's not gonna spoil. So that's the important part. How long can a open if that's the question? It really depends on the wine. But if you want to try to preserve it the most, again the same, no oxygen. So what Serra said, vacuum. So there's these like little vacuum things that you can put on top of your bottle and vacuum off the oxygen or most of the oxygen. You can try to add nitrogen to the bottle too. And if you put it in the fridge, it's always going to preserve it more because everything goes slower in cold temperature. So any problem with yeast, bacteria, oxidation, it's gonna go a little slower.
- [64:24]
A
Another thing that is slower is figuring out a corkscrew. So Dave Miller, PhD, Travis Zenmaster OM, Allison Gusek, Tom Brody and first time question asker Chrissy asked, screw it.
- [64:35]
B
Well, you mentioned corks and corks drying
- [64:38]
A
out and so many people wanted to know.
- [64:40]
B
Alain Lamorande, Alia Meyers, Camellia B. Caro Young, Joy Kotheimer Lane says corks versus screw caps, which is better for the wine, which is better for the environment. Everyone wants to know twist tops, corks, what's going on there?
- [64:54]
D
I guess it depends what you want for your wine. So yeah, I like to have cork because our wine is going to change a little bit through the years and I think that's kind of like a romantic part of winemaking too. And every bottle is going to be a little bit different and, and once we bottle it, it's young and it has a lot of fruit, but the wine is alive still and it's gonna change. And the oxygen that goes through the cork helps with these changes of aromatics. So to me, that's the beauty of the cork screw cap. It's perfect for a wine that's normally gonna be drinking faster, younger. That doesn't mean that you cannot age it. You can age it, it's just not gonna change the same way that that change with cork. You have to be maybe a little bit less careful with screw cap in terms of like storing your bottles because that's not that exchange of oxygen and the obviously the screw cap doesn't get dry or nothing. So you can have your bottle, for example, standing while with a cork you need to have them laying down because you want the wine always touching the cork for, you know, like, so it stays in contact with the wine and it gets wet. So yeah, I don't know, it's just the preference of the winemaker, I guess, and what they are looking for in their wines.
- [66:08]
A
What about thinking outside the box, wondered Felipe Jimenez And Mark Rubin, what about boxed wine?
- [66:14]
B
What are your thoughts?
- [66:15]
A
Are they eco friendly?
- [66:16]
B
Is it even boxed? If it's really in a bag, yeah. How do we feel about it?
- [66:21]
D
I mean, it is eco friendly because you use less material. So the boxed wines normally could be like, I don't know, like five liters or, or so a gallon or a gallon and a half. And you're using just carton and like
- [66:33]
F
a bag inside an eco friendly bag.
- [66:36]
D
Yeah, it's like less weight. So if you have to ship, it's less co, it's less footprint. So that's important. I mean, if you put good wine inside a bag, the wine is going to be good. Is it going to change? Are you going to put a wine to last 30 years there? No. Why? Why would you do that? Like, it's not gonna happen anything. It's gonna be the same today, then tomorrow, except like you're gonna lose like precipitation of compounds and things. Right. But if it's for a wine that's to be meant to drink sooner the same that they screw up, it's just great. And it's definitely eco friendly.
- [67:10]
A
Okay, so it's not gonna age. So just live in the moment. All right. I don't even know how things age in a bottle. And neither does Camille Gamino, Storm, Heather Crane, Liana Schuster, Kayla Meyer, Brooklyn Barron, Dave Brewer, Neen and Lisa Gorman.
- [67:23]
B
Well, several people wanted to know how does aging play into it when it
- [67:28]
A
comes to being stored?
- [67:29]
B
Because you know how there's always that trope of like, someone's like, I've got a 55 year old bottle of Cab and I've been saving it for this. And is that necessarily going to be better than if you would have had that 35 years ago when it was at its peak? Or where is the trope of like, I have an exceptionally old bottle of wine and I'm going to seduce you with it, or I'm going to impress you, or I've waited a really long time to open it. What happens in the bottle?
- [67:54]
D
Well, I mean, it's really difficult to say. Again, I think like a lot of it, it's like through the years we learn which wines and which varieties can last longer. But also like how the wine, the chemistry part of the wine interferes with it. If you have a wine that's a lot more protected, it's being filtered and stuff, you know that it's not gonna have problems of precipitation. That doesn't mean that it's not gonna, you know, change aromatically. But, but there's different things that take part on the aging, but it just depends on the wine. You can never say, oh, I have this wine bottle that I had it 30 years and it's gonna be better. Most of the times it's not gonna be better unless you have an exceptional wine vintage and it's been stored really, really good. So my recommendation normally is drink the bottle of wine and if you like it, buy another one. And then if you wanna save it a few years, save it a few years. But at least you already know how it was. I mean, there are wines that are meant to age for some years, but there's a point that wines stabilizes and wine starts going down, and the general consumer that doesn't have a way to age and store the wine properly, it's just better to drink it when you buy it.
- [69:07]
F
Enjoy it.
- [69:08]
D
Enjoy it. Yeah.
- [69:10]
B
And also a lot of connections to the indigenous winemaking space too. I'm wondering, Tara, if there's anything you want to tell us kind of about that in terms of like, connection to the land that you're where the grapes are grown or how that culture plays into how you make wine.
- [69:26]
F
Yeah. So balance. I always talk a lot about balance, and it was something that I learned at such an early age. So balance within myself, in my surroundings and living in harmony and just really like every vineyard that we go on and seek out, just really trying to find that connection to the land and to the vines and. Yeah, just all about connections and balance. And as we do everything naturally, you know, without using commercial yeast or commercial additives, feel that that's really important as well.
- [70:02]
B
And yeah, you're both so hands on in terms of what you're doing. And I think that that definitely shows in. In all of the laurels you've gotten. And the enthusiasm about your wine too, is you're both so passionate and so hands on.
- [70:18]
F
Yeah, I feel like you have to be for all the blood, sweat and tears that we go through yearly. I mean, I mean, we've been in this industry for well over 20 years, and so we've experienced a lot of it. And there's so much more than romance that goes into winemaking. There's so much chemistry, so much labor. And we say it's a labor of love and passion, being passionate about it, because that's what gets you through the 20 hour day shifts and stuff like that, of lack of sleep. And for me, it's just like a natural adrenaline rush. Like, I. I've been off of coffee for. It's like Been like five years now. And it's funny that I just barely started drinking coffee again after harvest, after five years. But it's just that natural adrenaline rush that you just keeps me going. And you know, I always say that, that once you stop, you know, learning about wine, maybe it's just, maybe it's time to get out of the industry. And I feel like I'm still learning, learning, learning, and I enjoy it and I still get those butterflies in my stomach for every pick that we go out for. It's just, it's so fun and just being out in nature and being able to see the sunrises and sunsets and connecting with all of that. It's just so beautiful. There's so much beauty there.
- [71:48]
D
And every year it's different. So that makes it also really interesting because you are always thinking like, oh, this harvest is going to be like this or like that. So I think it's what keeps it like, also really interesting. And you never know.
- [72:01]
F
And that's the beauty of each vintage, is that every vintage is different and it just keeps you thinking and it keeps you on your toes. Yeah.
- [72:11]
B
So hardest things would you say were the, the long days or if is there something that is just all winemakers know, like, this is the hardest, is it?
- [72:19]
D
To me, the hardest is to sell the wine.
- [72:22]
F
Yeah, I think every winemaker agrees that.
- [72:26]
D
I mean, we can talk about like, yeah, long days or hours because you're doing punch downs and you're tired. I'll take that.
- [72:32]
F
But we get over that thousand times over.
- [72:35]
D
Having to sell the wine, that's the hard part.
- [72:40]
B
Where, where can listeners buy your wines? Where can people find them? What's the best way to get them?
- [72:46]
D
I mean, the easiest way. Say it like, this is obviously online in our website, caminstadreams.com you can buy directly through us or coming to Lompoc, coming to visit us to our tasting room. Then you can also taste the wine and then purchase some after. But we do have distribution throughout California, so you may find it like, especially in LA and San Francisco and San Diego, I guess, like the bigger metropolis. Also in New York, Minnesota, North Carolina, uk. Uk A little bit in uk. Yeah, that's true. And I was gonna say that's it for now until like Canada opens its doors again. Because we have distribution in Canada, but we're out for a few more years, I think.
- [73:26]
F
Thank you, Mr. President.
- [73:27]
A
And if you're staring into the distance and you're wondering, does the distribution system suck? The short answer is, yeah, they told me there's a three tier system where winemakers have to sell to a distributor who then sells to retail shops, at least in the US but you can request that retail shops sell a certain label of wine or you can get in touch with the winemakers and see where it's available. In Europe, they tell me it's way easier to just ship around, even across borders to other countries. Who knew? Obviously not me. But if you're in the neighborhood in Lompoc, California, you can visit their tasting room and you can get a case there if you like, which is exciting.
- [74:05]
B
I know you've said that. You know, you're always learning and you're, you're always getting to be excited and get butterflies about. You do. Is there anything that you both love the most or that you're really looking forward to coming up? Anything you're, you're really stoked about.
- [74:17]
D
I mean, every year we're stalked about the wines of the vintage. So I think we had like some interesting things and new varieties that we're working with this year. So I'm like really excited to see how they're gonna develop. Barrel or in tank, as we don't know. I mean, it's the first time that we make, for example, a ligote. So really excited to see how that's going to come because we've never worked with this variety, so that's exciting. But I think to me, like after harvest, we have this period of letting the wine rest. And then in February, March, we really sit down and taste every single barrel and start putting in our head how the blends are going to be and like making a puzzle in our head with all the pieces that we have in the cellar. And that's like a really fun time of the year or two.
- [74:58]
F
Sure.
- [74:58]
B
I hope you guys are getting a little bit of rest now that our in between. Okay. I hope, because I know you both work so, so hard. And thank you so much for letting me ask so many of incredibly uninformed questions. I love wine and I enjoy wine and I'm not as schooled in wine as my friends who are very into it. So thank you for letting me be like the listener and ask you the stupidest questions possible.
- [75:28]
F
Of course.
- [75:29]
D
No question is stupid.
- [75:31]
F
Of course. And thank you for having us.
- [75:33]
D
Yeah. Thank you for letting us explain our story and talk about our wines.
- [75:37]
B
I love it. And two lovebirds. How cute is that? Come on.
- [75:41]
D
I mean,
- [75:44]
A
so ask kind people curious questions, don't bottle them up. Thank you again. Tara and Mirea from Cummings. Two dreams winery for taking the time to talk and answer so many basics on winemaking. And if you're ever in the Santa Barbara Santa Ynez area, their tasting room again in Lompack, California, you can tell them Ologies says hi. We'll also link their winery right in the show notes and you can ask your local restaurants or wine stores carry their bottles. Their Instagram also is camines2dreams. That's C A M I N S number 2dreams and you can follow them there. You can ask questions on their posts. Say hi, we are at Ologies on Instagram and bluesky and you can please tag us in your artwork with the hashtag ologiesart if you have pics of your merch yourself in it, whatever, you can tag Ologies Merch and we'll repost you make some new pals that way. We also have shorter kid friendly episodes of Ologies where we get podcasts. Those are called Smologies S M O L O G I E S and they're linked in the show notes as well. Merch is@ologiesmerch.com you can join our Patreon and support the show for little as a dollar a month and we chat on discussion threads about each episode and that's@patreon.com Ologies Erin Talbert admins the Ologies podcast Facebook group. Avileen Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly A.R. dwyer does the website. Monitoring our episode aging is scheduling producer Noelle Dilworth. Overseeing the planting of ideas to the distribution into your ears is managing director Susan Hale, and at the editing bays are Jake Chaffee and lead editor Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio, who work so hard they never whine. Nick Thorburn pored over the theme music and if you stick around till the very end, you know I tell you a secret. This week. I never want to make jewelry. I never want to do it. I never want to Metalsmith. I get videos like in my feed of people doing metal work and working on these tiny, tiny jewelries and filing things and sawing things. And I'm just like, that looks, looks awful. I know people love it and they do it, but I'm like, I just know for me that looks so hard, but I so appreciate that other people can do it and I appreciate their efforts. I'm like, I could not. That's something I couldn't do. I don't know, my hands would shake. I would be like, this is too small. This is too tiny. Also, I had a dream the other night that My mom invited all of my exes into a surprise party for me, and as I was shocked and addressing the room, I, like, ripped the biggest fart ever. And absolutely everyone heard it. And I just didn't know how to recover from that. And I'm really hoping that dreams aren't like other dimensions that exist. But luckily, I'm in this one. So, hey, get some sleep. Love you. Bye.
- [78:33]
B
Bye.
- [78:34]
A
Homeology, Cryptozoology, Litology. Nanotechnology. Meteorology. Old factology. Nephology.
- [78:44]
B
Serology.
- [78:52]
A
My wine tastes like grapes.
- [78:56]
C
And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [79:06]
F
Hey, everyone.
- [79:06]
A
Check out this guy and his bird. What is this your first?
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C
Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
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D
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
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C
Anyways, get a quote@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
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A
Liberty, Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.
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E
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