7 Creeks Vineyard (Hill Country)

[00:00:06] Howdy Vine Trippers! I wanted to take just a moment to talk to you about the Texas wine lover website and their phone app for both iPhones as well as Google devices. You can

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[00:01:14] well. Enjoy your trips among the vines and use that app. I'm the Texas Undervine, an exploratory podcast to scout out the best Texas Wine Country has to offer. I'm your wine guide Scott and I'm here to lead

[00:01:50] you on an auditory expedition to the vineyards and wineries across the Great Lone Star State. Each episode will cover a different vineyard, winery or wine-related business operating in Texas. You'll hear interviews, descriptions and details about each location that will excite you to visit and experience them

[00:02:08] for yourself. Ready to plan a wine tour? Use these episodes to choose the most interesting spots for you and your friends to check out. Most of all, enjoy hearing about the rapidly growing wine industry in the state and what makes our wines and wineries the best.

[00:02:24] Howdy fellow Vine Tripper. So welcome to episode 44 of Texas Undervine. For this particular episode, I find myself wandering a little northwest of the Austin area up near Burnett, Texas and I was there to visit Seven Creek Vineyard.

[00:02:51] It's a family owned and operated vineyard and winery started by Briggs and Carroll Horn in 2017 along with Briggs' parents, Jerry and Janice Horn. After several years successful careers in the IT industry, Briggs and Carroll

[00:03:09] wanted to do something a little new, a little different and so they decided to partner with Briggs' parents to start a family oriented business, something that they could do together as well as leave even a family lineage. Now, after starting by initially producing some wine and getting their

[00:03:28] vineyard planted, they actually opened the doors to their tasting room in 2019. As you may recall, that was a very turbulent time to start a new business with the pandemic right on the doorstep. But they weathered on through the storm and have made it through successfully

[00:03:46] and they actually got their name from a nearby development called Seven Creek's. It's a ranch development nearby and they settled on that for their name of the winery itself. Again, it's just kind of northeast of Burnett, really almost halfway between Burnett and Bertram, Texas.

[00:04:05] Now, for the vineyard itself on site, they have about 15 acres. They currently planted around eight to 10 acres of that with plans to plant even more this year. And some of the varietals that they actually have planted on site are Tanat, Muved, Alacante Boucher, Suzau and Vermantino.

[00:04:25] Now, when they went to build the tasting room, one of the things they loved about the property when they purchased it was this beautiful grove of live oak trees. So they purposely built the tasting room to be next to this live oak grove there.

[00:04:41] They'll decorate it with lights and things like that when they do events and so forth. They also purposely planted the vineyard so that as you come into the location, you actually have to drive not only through the vineyard, but you kind of curve

[00:04:54] around through the vineyard to get back to where the tasting room is. So you're getting this exciting little pathway as you pull up through all of the vines and the grapes to get up to where the tasting room is by that beautiful oak grove.

[00:05:06] And as far as wines go, they do offer a mixed variety. They have reds, they have whites, they have a rosé. They even have sparkling. So they should be able to find something to hit most everybody's palette when you go to visit.

[00:05:19] And one other fun little unique thing that they do at the winery is they regularly do what they call junk food pairings, where they'll pick a different type of what's considered junk food and do different pairings with different wines of that particular item.

[00:05:33] You'll hear more about that in the interview, but I tell you what, my little sweet tooth has got me wanting to come back and experience one of these fun junk food pairings myself. I'm always wondering when I'm having my own little junk food cravings.

[00:05:45] What wine should I drink with this? I usually skip the wine because I'm never sure what to pair with junk food, but they've got the answer for you. Now, while I did spend some time walking around the vines, the tasting room,

[00:05:58] kind of getting familiar with everything, the highlight of my trip was a chance to sit down in the barrel room with Briggs and Carol Horne for the interview. Now, not only during the interview, did I get to hear some of their background story

[00:06:11] but unique from any other of my podcasts I've done so far. They actually poured some wines throughout the interview. So it's kind of a combination of a tasting and an interview at once. So without further ado, let's go find out about those great wines

[00:06:25] and their incredible story there at Seven Creek's. All right, we're here with Briggs and Carol Horne of Seven Creek's Vineyard. So Briggs is the owner of Wine Maker and Carol, his wife is another one of the owners that she used to taste your manager as well.

[00:06:46] So they're going to tell us a little bit about this great place. So first off, I'll let either of you go or both of you want to bill whichever order you want to do it. But how did you get into the wine industry?

[00:06:55] Yeah, so it actually started with my parents or my dad must have been with her, Jerry Janus. And we've all we've all loved the wine and been pretty passionate about it. But in actual, was it 2014? Something like that. In 2013, 2014. Like most people will go off the Napa

[00:07:13] California had an amazing time and but my parents are very entrepreneurial. So they over many times in their in their career have they changed that career? Whether it was being a CPA, working in marketing, then shifting over to be a general contractor, building homes for 20, 30 years.

[00:07:33] Like nothing has ever phased them from switching careers. Whereas both Carol and I have been kind of in the IT sales industry for a very long time and I wouldn't say it's the safest industry in the world, but it definitely has a lot of comfort. It's steady. Yeah.

[00:07:47] So we got to think we got really a kneeward with the whole experience and just kind of that's where the seas kind of fell in. And obviously we'd been going to a number of different Texas wineries at the time

[00:07:59] and and had kindled some relationships with a couple of the owners at some of those places and my dad and stepmother were just jazzy. We're just like a sponge. And so they're like, we want to get into this.

[00:08:11] Would you guys in a team like their retirement plan was to have a vineyard like in their backyard, they're tasting or and sort of be their living room and just a welcoming environment. So that's what they had. That's what they envisioned.

[00:08:25] You know, they're just like retired a plan being so. So they and my dad has always been really into wanting to have a family business and years ago, like I went to Baylor University for my undergraduate degree and at the time I was doing the accounting

[00:08:42] because my dad was a CPA. I had no idea what I wanted to do. And that was swollen. But yeah, he always wanted me to come work for him after. So this was kind of a good

[00:08:53] path to have our careers kind of converge in, have a family business, something you could pass on or that they could pass on to us. And did it understand at the time how hard it was going to be getting into it? How much money it takes.

[00:09:06] A lot of money and a lot of time. We kind of knew that coming in, but certainly we're surprised. But yeah, that's that's essentially how it started. And from there started already as much as possible.

[00:09:18] I did Texas Tech as a good wine making certificate program out in both. They do it in their campus, but then also in Fredericksburg, they have a campus out there and so I studied under Marine Pala there and had a great time.

[00:09:32] And then of course, got into it and put our video in first in 20s. We bought the land 2017 and then planted our first 35 of their vines in 2018. Was probably a little bit too much to do. There's a big warning curve when it comes to growing grapes.

[00:09:50] And we'd also had a lot of conversations with some people in California, people that we met when we were there. And, you know, a lot of things you learn, we were worried things of how people did things in California.

[00:10:01] Well, this isn't California and things that work there don't necessarily work here. By Zversa. And so there was definitely some learning curves, but it's been amazing. And the fact that we have this family business to do as a family grow closer together has been there's been amazing.

[00:10:16] Yeah, no, we've learned a lot. I mean, going into it, not in this name, anything about farming. Not really. I do nothing about running a small business or managing employees or I mean, just every, you know, like you said earlier, we wear many hats and

[00:10:31] all moles of a tasting room manager. But I also coordinate all of our events and whether that's off site, you know, events that we work or on site, you know, private events, you know, parties that we work. And so it was all very brand in territory to us.

[00:10:45] And started out, we just literally didn't know what we were doing. We had a good idea because we did, you know, we did have a good business plan in place, but, you know, thank goodness. I mean, everything has exceeded our expectations year over year.

[00:11:00] It's like if you, we learned that if you just put your heart and soul into it, which we have, people will come to you. You know, if you're putting out a, you know, an exceptional product that you

[00:11:13] put a lot of love and passion into, people will appreciate that and they do. So it just, it's, it's been a very rewarding experience for me. I think we've been pretty fortunate to you because the area we're in is really starting to become a burgeoning winery.

[00:11:32] And yeah, it's not for a disper. I always like to tell people where the, you know, the Sonoma to they're an apple. Yeah, I mean, way, but it's been in a lot of ways there's a parallel. Obviously, they're much larger wine regime or

[00:11:45] but on the flip side of it, it's a little more casual here. There's more distance between the wineries. So hopefully get to drive a little bit with Buzz off. But in the distance of that, you know, the places tend to be a little bit smaller.

[00:11:57] You get to be, you see a little more failure amateurs around here, you get to have a little more casual. I said casual. Yeah, I say casual kind of conversational experience when you're at places out here versus kind of being herded through, like telling some of the

[00:12:11] bigger ones that are out there. And so that's something we've always tried to have as a family atmosphere wherever everyone feels comfortable while they're enjoying the wine. Yeah. And what thing that I do love about the Texas wine industry, but back to what Bricks was saying is that

[00:12:24] everyone's see for support in love each other. You know, we've forged some really great partnerships with, you know, other, other, you know, winery odors and winemakers just just bouncing ideas off of each other or what works best for you? What would you do in this situation?

[00:12:41] So, you know, we've definitely found a very welcoming environment, you know, in this industry and that's helped us a lot. And in turn, now that we're sort of like we're not necessarily the new kids on the block anymore, you know, we are still young Bricks has, you know,

[00:13:00] taken the opportunity to mentor some newer winemakers or wineries and are kind of coming up in our area. So it's just a very rewarding experience overall. I'm sure. That's a bit is a very formal first kind of friendly environment, both on the great growing side

[00:13:16] and on the winemaking side and the tasting room side too. And so every one year wants to help each other out. It's a very warm industry, totally different than what we've even used to be. We all let us succeed, right?

[00:13:30] And we all want to see each other succeed and continue growing the industry. You know, it's been saying right now, you know, for what it is. But I think you can only get better. Yeah, the Texas Wine Industry has exploded.

[00:13:42] I mean, it's I mean, unfortunately I see this might be getting to another conversation or discussion, but the things that I see a lot. We used to live in Austin. Big strudies always have been loved the whole farm table movement that Austin embraced years ago of supporting locality.

[00:13:59] But unfortunately, you open a wide list and there's like all California, French, Italian, whatever. And you know, it's like in there's some places that have stepped out that mold and and and and changed that just like they did with food years ago.

[00:14:13] And so, yeah, it's been it's it's it's it's exploded short. So you know, slowly but surely you're you're getting people that coming out. But I think I was telling you there is a stat in terms of the source of it.

[00:14:25] They were saying like something like Texas is I think the third largest estate in terms of wineries in half of those have been since 2019, which is you know, summer 20 as when we opened our doors, which was six months after the damage shut down and before COVID.

[00:14:40] COVID was an amazing time. And I would know if I could make a nod to like the specific restaurant in Austin that sort of introduced us to just like Texas Wines on the box on a restaurant menu and that was Died Away.

[00:14:54] They're on the east side in Austin, incredible restaurant farm to table. They do a lot of game. We opened the menu and notice the door. Nothing but Texas Wines on there. And one of the first Texas wines that we tasted in a restaurant was Lewis Wines.

[00:15:10] And that was back with Doug Lewis. Didn't even have a tasting or like he literally had to call and see if he was around like I don't even know he was doing tastings out of his barn or what? His house or what?

[00:15:20] But still itching to get more of a borscht. Yeah, like you couldn't it was like he never knew, you know, if he was available or you know, but everybody was like playing right and to taste so wines.

[00:15:30] And anyway, so that was an amazing experience and it's just a lot. I would love to be we would love to be part of that someday. But we're enjoying the will boutique for now. And you know, just like having people come to us and, you know,

[00:15:44] experience our wines because we like to tell the story behind our wines. And he loves to talk about the other winemaking and yeah. So you do want to try some one? Sure. And then I was like, yeah, they did weird.

[00:15:58] We'll do a little bit of a tasting your mother or yeah. So some of that slow, steady growth is much better though and easier to work with in that explosive growth that can really be very difficult as a business. Yeah, I got it.

[00:16:11] So and some people this is a Treviano. OK, so I'm the high playing. Yeah, nice Italian like rival. And this is this is definitely a little bit lighter. I'll be a little positive. That happened. Cheers. Yes, cheers. Yeah. So.

[00:16:25] But oh, as far as growing and so are that. Yeah, that's something that there's there's like two factors to it. And part is money and how much money you have actually grow because it costs a

[00:16:35] lot of money in this industry, both from a great growing and a winemaking perspective. And so part of it is growing based on what that is. But I've seen in core stories talking to other wineries where they expanded too quickly and either outbrew what they could do

[00:16:52] or either from a cost perspective and from a demand perspective. But even in some cases, at the expense of making good wine, you know, it's a it's very labor intensive on both fronts. And I think sometimes if you get to ahead of yourself and you're not staffed

[00:17:08] properly or you don't have with labor that you can trust to make wine like you can, we haven't had that luxury yet. And yeah, but so we can kind of control everything do. But as you grow, at some point,

[00:17:19] you got to let loose a little bit of control and it's important to have people that you trust to carry on the wine or the grapes that you're growing in the way that you would normally do it.

[00:17:29] And so I've seen some people that have grown a little bit too fast at the expense of the wine. All right, you mentioned 2017-2018 is kind of when you first kind of got started up in your doors here 2019. So tell me a little bit about this location's history.

[00:17:41] So how did it get started? How did you find this place? What was your thought path to all that? I mean, we kind of looked and we had a real estate agent that we were working with at the time that he drove us.

[00:17:52] You know, we kind of wanted something off the beaten path. You know, we we considered very, very briefly maybe looking around for Dritzberg, but a super expensive. And this is 2017. Yeah. And also, we just kind of felt like, no, no, maybe maybe it's a little

[00:18:11] it's becoming a little too oversaturated. Maybe we just want to do something off the beaten. And our feeling being the way we are, we always do things against the green and just like, we don't do the norm. You know, we don't go with the norm.

[00:18:23] And especially his dad, his dad is he wants to do the exact opposite of what everybody else always wants to do. And that's just that's just kind of how it rolls. But so we just happened to the guy was like, okay, now we were driving

[00:18:36] around and he goes, just, just he were me. I found this land, this piece of land, it's 10 acres. It's beautiful. I think you'll just you'll really like it. And so we drive up and you saw the big oak grove, right? Dry hand, gorgeous.

[00:18:49] Nine trees, beautiful, beautiful cluster of, of sister oaks. But driving in that oak grove was just so overgrown. Like you couldn't see through the tree. You couldn't see the road through the tree when you were standing on this side of it.

[00:19:03] But we were standing there and you're like, you know what? If we clean that tree up and like, can't you just envision like the vines behind the tree, you know, facing a road and watching people

[00:19:14] drive through the vines and, you know, how mad external ants who are driving at someone tasting or airmen. And that just kind of sold us. I think that was the selling point was that tree. And it's funny because, you know, when we fucked down this land, the guy,

[00:19:29] the guy that owned the ranch development up here called Seven Creeks. We actually own some land and we're about to start building a house up the road here in Seven Creeks. But, you know, we came up with all of these cool names who were coming

[00:19:41] up with all of these cool names for our winery and everything was trademarked or taken or whatever. So he was like, why don't you just call it Seven Creeks? You know, because he really wanted to tie us into the community because

[00:19:53] we all felt like it would be a really good selling point. You know, hey, who doesn't want us in your winery in their backyard? You know. And so we just, the tree, first of all, is what we fell in love with.

[00:20:04] And just it was so peaceful out here. It's obviously grown a lot. Lots of homes have been built up here. Lots of, you know, meat developments are going in. But we still love it. We still love, we still love this piece of property. We love the land.

[00:20:16] It's treated us very well. It's made to use some beautiful fruit for us, you know, our last pew harvest and we recently just purchased this additional five acres next to us that we're planting more mines on.

[00:20:29] So this breaks talks about over, yeah, just over a dozen, you know, like we're planting more mines this year. So, and I think we're done for a while. I don't like that if you planted more mines wrong, I quit. Yeah, it's a lot.

[00:20:41] There's always so much you can mechanize and especially as a smaller operation. And then like I said, there's that point of like, I don't want to trust people. So I'm like, you're fighting two different things.

[00:20:51] I want to grow or I don't want to hire people to do it because I want it done my way or my dad's way. But yeah, so at some point you're like, I'm done. But to kind of piggyback on what she was saying, I mean, the

[00:21:02] Semicreeks name was very aptly done because especially opening up during COVID, you know, we had a lot of family and friends that helped out. Like I said, it's a burgeoning wide area, but a lot of customers that were already

[00:21:13] familiar with other places that are more well established in the Burnett area, Northern Hill Country area. But the community here as it has been filling out, like especially during COVID when times were tough, like they supported us immensely.

[00:21:27] So it was a great thing for us to have that community. So I'm glad we took the name. We actually, ironically, our last name is born as a family. We were going to call ourselves, I think, born a family winery was one

[00:21:38] days, but then they just all the time, maybe a little before. Born winery, we're on two ninety a credit for it. Get out of California, open up and I was like, are you getting the one name that wasn't trademarked as now? And they spell it differently.

[00:21:51] But it's a, yeah, nevertheless, but yeah, it's been a great area. Like I said, the soil, everything is so far has drawn exceptionally well. We first played in 2018 and nothing had been done this land.

[00:22:04] And that we, you know, at least not any past generation or 10 since you do it since we've all been in this part of the world. So the first planting, everything just took off and went nuts. And it was very wet year in 2018. So everything is exploded.

[00:22:21] And of course we were sitting here thinking like, oh, it's an oasis. Is that amazing place? And we had a learning curve there because if you start wanting to grow any grape growing, the first thing you'll learn is you grow in stages.

[00:22:34] You can't just, you know, no matter how vigorous a cider plant is, you can't over stem the growing capacity of that plant. There's no shortcuts in this business. You know, or there is the goal, you'll pay for it. And so yeah, it's been a great place.

[00:22:49] Like some people are awesome. The land's been awesome and looking forward to growing. Yeah. Seven creeks. I presume there's some creeks around here that that's named after. Is that a pose? They have dry creeks probably. Yeah, yeah. I just not like.

[00:23:03] Yeah, I'm definitely like we have a friend who she works for Dell. She's kind of a friend and friend, but she owns 50 acres off the road at Summit Creeks and she definitely has some creeks running through her property. But who knows if that's part of the seven.

[00:23:16] Yeah, I don't know. So it's kind of a net maybe or who knows. And then you there are so many creeks we just don't know where they are. Yeah, we wanted, we wanted to name it.

[00:23:24] At least I'm me personally wanted to name it something with oaks because we know you have so many. And yeah, they're just majestic and it's like 10,000 square foot of coverage. It's big to big oak robe.

[00:23:34] And but there's so many wineries that have the name Oak and it was just like they were like, oh, we'll call it something Spanish. Like it is also rose robles rose was that on that's like a way out because I think

[00:23:46] and so but it's like, I'm not going to go there because we'll butcher a butcher in Spain. I said everyone knows Spanish is going to odd. If you say also, we just so speaking of all the kind of friends and people

[00:23:58] that we know in the community, Ron Yates, that was spice wood. They had just had to rebrand because they got a cease and desist letter from on based on their name Yates family winery from some why are you a little tiny winery out of California?

[00:24:14] We did in business for 20 plus years on how they got wind of it. So he was like, D and I've got to reprint all these glasses and as it was out, I just kept thinking. I was like, we just have to come up with something simplified and

[00:24:25] something that no one else has that there's absolutely no way that anybody would ever, you know, come after us for the night. So they just sent all the ups I mean, it's from here. Tell me a little bit about you said at 2019, it's when you open the

[00:24:39] tastier here. Covent hits, you've opened this brand new wire. You want people to come out? Oh, oh, now what? How did you survive or whether it was interesting? So the first thing, the first challenge we had was there was a government shutdown for COVID, that big government shutdown

[00:24:56] that happened and we were in the process of waiting for our permit through and it had gone, you know, we had submitted it and so we couldn't pour and so it was just kind of a hot mess. So finally, you can get labels. Yeah, cool. We get label.

[00:25:10] That requires. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was like we were scrambling and we had an opening date to like a soft opening date that we had blasted out and publicized and were like, what do we do? And so that finally kind of got cleared up.

[00:25:25] But then of course COVID happened. So that was interesting to navigate. And that's where the community kind of came into play and everybody was sort of like until we had direction from, you know, the government like, what do we do? How do we deal with this?

[00:25:40] And so, you know, we were coming up with creative ways to continue to stay open and not, you know, just have to close our doors two months after opening or, you know, whatever. And we found that even in 100 degree weather, people will come out

[00:25:55] and sit outside and socially distance injury, red wine. And so, you know, we just, you know, kind of navigating all of the direction that we were getting from the government, like closing our tasting, we're not doing face-to-face tastings, wearing the, you know, the face mask.

[00:26:10] We did all that. We followed the rules. We did all that. But we had, we turned our back, you know, our outdoor area into a socially distance gathering place for people to come out and drink wine and endure the heat and they did it.

[00:26:25] And it was, it was brutal. I'll be honest. It was very scary opening of business, not knowing what to expect and then, you know, being hit with that and not knowing from day to day, like if you were just going to have to shut your doors indefinitely

[00:26:40] or in, see your business tank before you even got started. Like it was, it was pretty scary. You know, it was dote and I'm really proud of how we sort of trust me. There were lots of fights and like, but he heads over people. Yeah.

[00:26:56] Some of us wanted to do things this way. Some of us wanted to do things this way. But, you know, we, we got through it as a family as we always do. And, and came up that our only other side. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:08] It was, I mean, you'd be surprised like me. It was very tough early on, but then like, so we were living an offside of the time and it was so shut down. And so yeah, I think just you got a lot of people there.

[00:27:20] It's like, I got to get out of town. I got to go out and be in the country and breathe fresh air, get out of my, my living room or my office. So that's in my home and do it miss sake matter.

[00:27:29] And yeah, we had it the first two months were rough. And like I said, this community around us, you know, help keep us afloat. Yeah. All your life savings are going into this business. It's a very expensive business and like, especially for us, because it

[00:27:43] wasn't just starting wiring, a taster and it was, it was starting a vineyard. And you know, you have the cost of land. It's about 20, 30 grand an acre to put in a vineyard. And that's not an inflating way for her.

[00:27:55] Uh, and that's that, including the time it takes for the vines to mature, to produce fruit, to then produce wine. Um, so there's just a lot into it. And so when you first start up and that's your welcome, uh, it's, it's

[00:28:08] daunting, but yeah, no, it, it, it turned out well. Two months after, I think there was a lot of COVID fatigue, not to put light on the situation in force, but there was definitely a lot of fatigue

[00:28:17] of people saying, I have to, I need some normalcy in my life. And so us having the venue to do it in a safe manner, you know, worked out really well for us. And you have a beautiful oak grove surrounded by, or we have a

[00:28:28] massive oak grove that's surrounded by a vineyard. And so it's just a very warm, friendly place and beautiful place to enjoy some wine. You didn't just weather a storm when you started, you weathered a hurricane when you first started through what?

[00:28:39] If you could make it through that, then you could make it. Yeah. Right now. Well, you've got, um, some, some bites here. One of the things I loved when I was first pulling up and I don't know if this is intentional or a reason why maybe the

[00:28:51] oak grove there or whatever, but I love that when you first come up and you're coming through the vines, it's not just a straight drive right up to the tastier. You actually turn and you kind of maneuver and you're kind

[00:28:59] of driving throughout the vine until you come up onto the tastier. It was kind of a cool thing. So with all of these vineyards you have planted here, what, what sort of varieties are you growing here on site? Yeah. So we have five different varieties.

[00:29:10] Um, unfortunately for us, four reds, which as a young vineyard, it takes a few years to, for the vine to establish to be fruit water, they grow. And then of course most of the reds we have are bolder reds.

[00:29:21] So now you're going in a couple years in a barrel. Um, but outside of that, now if we wanted to, we wanted to grow vines that we knew or at least had an inkling that we're going to grow well in our, our, obviously our planet and our soil.

[00:29:36] But we also wanted to grow stuff that wasn't super popular at least the time when we planted it. Right. So, and this isn't throwing shade in anybody, but like we didn't want to grow a timpaniot. One of the people in the industry in temporary has an

[00:29:48] amazing grape does great in our, in our state. Um, so we actually have a red blend that's very timpaniot based and it's called pride in being the pride part is temporary. Right. So, um, but from a grower's perspective, we learned

[00:30:02] early on they were like, Hey, don't, uh, Kimmerich told us if it was one or not, there was, there was saying, don't probably wasn't wrong, but it was don't plant something that you can easily source for and timpaniot just tends to, you know, outside

[00:30:16] of cab, last at check outside of Cabra, you saw them going, you know, typhorneos is the second highest grade, uh, red grape that's harvested here in Texas. And it's like, not that I'm not proud of what a Texas Hill country, you typhorneo can

[00:30:28] be, but it's just, there's so much of it. Let's focus. Yeah. And it's not just a 30 20 to 30 grand per acre to put a vineyard in that place going to be in the ground when we die. You know, it's 30 40 years investment of time.

[00:30:41] And it's not something that just easily, I don't like this anymore, which is going to rip it out. So we wanted to focus on things that were a little bit different though, help with our name, um, and that people could really enjoy.

[00:30:53] And so, uh, we grow a grape called sous chow or sous out. I, I'm not working. So very when it's, I'm going to textify some of these great, but we grow a sous chow, which is something that we've really become synonymous with here.

[00:31:07] Um, it's a lovely porches variety grows and from a wine matrix perspective, it grows small berries with small clusters. So it's not ideal in terms of like volume. Uh, but those small berries produce just a mayhem bird. Yeah. It's a really good skin to juice ratio.

[00:31:22] And so that skates while the flavor and the color comes from. And so you just get a really deep complex wine. And it's so different than a lot of wines that are out there. So that's wine. Uh, we grow all the compuchet, um, and, uh, which

[00:31:35] is a French hybrid, but it also grows very well in a lot in Portugal. Um, and it's one of the few red grapes that is actually read throughout. So not just the skin, but the flesh, the juice, everything is just deep, deep.

[00:31:48] In fact, first time we were working on it, my dad came walking on our row and he had squeezed one. He had read all down his hand. I might cut him salt. Um, but it's a lovely wine. Um, got impacted some by the February freeze at 21.

[00:32:01] So, uh, we replanted a good amount of that. All the vines in the back of the property when you're leaving is going to be all compuchet to the west part. Very delicate. Fine. It's pretty hard. It's, it's, it's, so it hits you a bit.

[00:32:13] Uh, so we go with those two. Uh, we grow more bed. Uh, more bed is my favorite grape in the vineyard to grow. Um, just because it, it, to me, it's the least amount of effort. It wants to grow a straight bed down.

[00:32:24] And we see, if you see a beard that usually you're, you're out of vertical shoot position system where you have a trunk and cordons and, um, shoots growing up in a, in a net. Um, that plant just walks to grow that way. It doesn't want to push out.

[00:32:39] But so it's a dream. Um, it's the lightest of all our reds. We grow a tenot, which is a little bit more percentage wise, it's the most of what we grow by a little bit, uh, but we grow that and then as long white wine we do

[00:32:51] is verbatim. Okay. Which has been really fun. Any planning on with your new five acres you're going to grow, are we going to add new things there or create stand what you currently got? Right now. So we get out a little more verbatim.

[00:33:02] I'm just, it is to have a little more white wines, um, because the, we had a decent like acre and a half block of verbatim currently, but we just wanted a little more and we wanted to go a little deeper into that volume

[00:33:14] versus going wider into white wines. The pool. Um, so, um, if we got it, I would say do it over, but if we ever expand more on that property, I'd love to do people block. I think it was great. One of the challenges we have here in

[00:33:26] Texas is the city or the drop of acidity and people tends to know pull this acidity, uh, stronger than most. Um, but we are going to do a more seashell. Okay. Um, that's what we're planting, uh, probably in about three weeks. Uh, we're going to plant more out

[00:33:41] that way. And then there's a few acres of growth. So I think, I think while termed once we have at least a couple years of a whole bit of exhaling and not having to plant wines, um, we'll end up probably doing hopefully out of the white.

[00:33:54] But if it is, I'd love to do people more. Robert Matia has been delicious. So I think everything that we've grown, that we've aged or bottled so far has been really delicious. We've been very happy with our fruit, very crowd. It's a test and a two just all

[00:34:12] the plus what tears that go into, you know, a vineyard from grape to bottle, you know, and just it's so I think we have a lot to look forward to. Yeah, we have a new white wine or about the opening series soon. So that's Trebbiano little bit.

[00:34:27] This one's going to be two thirds Trebbiano, um, about 30, I think 35% Moscato Jolli. Okay. So it's a muscat variety. Um, and then I think like 14% BNA. So we haven't at least it yet. We're gonna lease it in mid May. Uh, it's a 23.

[00:34:41] Um, and so you'll get kind of the citrusy notes of the Trebbiano with the classic Hallmark like honey suckle look a muscat. Okay. On some good. Nice. When Briggs talks about or anybody, you know, talks about just how cash intensive this business is like you've got to

[00:34:57] have that money up front. If you're wanting to put out a product to put, you know, their label on or your name on wins about how money and you know, you're not bringing that. I got the boss, I knew that, you know, like you, you've

[00:35:11] got to have actual tangible product. And so, um, yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, and shout out to Duke man. I mean, their warranty on to me is the best in Texas. Like even better than my dad says that our Burmantino that

[00:35:24] we did, um, was the best he never had. But with all due respect, there is some amazing. You want to tell us about the wine that we have here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's your new one. Yes. This is brand new. We just, uh, we're

[00:35:34] lease it in mid May. Uh, so it's going to be 64% Trebbiano 22% muscatto jaloe. And uh, see, I'm on talent. So for you in the pronunciation and then 14% V&A. Uh, yeah. Sometimes, you know, for when he comes in, I'm not going to come in, but sometimes when

[00:35:49] for it comes, well, sometimes when you're making wine out of out of any obviously great, the conditions those great grew in are going to have a vast, uh, and impermanent flavor into that wine. Um, and so what I think what a lot of people don't

[00:36:05] understand is, you know, we could talk about soil and all this kind of stuff. But to me, been your best practices to me makes the biggest impact in the wine. And that's taking away what a winemaker does for living, taking it from scraps to

[00:36:18] into a finished product is the, the, the light journey of that piece of fruit or that fruit that was on that vine and how that canopy was maintained makes a dramatic impact. And all that can be is filled with Korean tissue. It's greenlings. Jujul, anything else out there

[00:36:35] eating its green has a flavor and it's usually a very herbaceous. You know, think of them about pepper, you know, those kind of things and grass. Yeah, absolutely. And so, yeah, sometimes if you're not, you know, as a vineyard worker, this is a challenge you have when you

[00:36:47] source fruit and you don't have any control of it. Is how was that plant maintained during its that year of it growing or less say or big growing? And if it, if that canopy wasn't meant to be well maintained, I think you're going to taste that in the

[00:37:01] old field line could. And so sometimes you might get a little herbaceous. And honestly, sometimes that's actually really good. Yeah. Well, we talked a little bit about your estate vines here. Do you source fruit from other locations as well? Obviously, and especially around because we our first

[00:37:15] word is here was in 22. The white wine, the vermin Tina, we released sold out really quickly. Of course, it was the oneness part. And then since then we released a more bed, which also sold out. And then we have a sous chalpe behind me that with

[00:37:30] a small amount that hopefully will release. But yeah, I know everything meat source, you generally speaking is going to be the high planes and then a little bit of California too. When we first got started, like so we made some really good contacts.

[00:37:43] My dad fell in love with low night California. Good. That could see that area. Yeah, and that in Zen is is his specialty. And so we have an old wine Zen. Sorry, I always go up a weezy, but we have an old wine Zen that's up that we

[00:37:56] have every year from really to grow out that way. And yeah, I mean, there's certain grapes out there that we make connections with out of California because like said, we have a couple of varieties that aren't massively popular and not as easy to source.

[00:38:10] And so we just made a really good contact out there. A Portuguese boat, well, not a Portuguese vignette, but their vineyard specializes a lot of Portuguese grape and they have a neighboring place that does a lot of Italian stuff. And so that's kind of where

[00:38:20] the Zen we have. We've had their Sushau actually some of these barrels have their Sushau from 22. And then the Tinti Amaral was a good one. So I'll give you a taste of it here in a little bit tastes very much like Sushau. So yeah, you build these connections.

[00:38:37] And so we've got we've sourced from low night California. We've sourced from obviously a lot from the high plains as we build this vineyard to sustain sustain this at least to about like 60, 65 percent of what we're sure. OK. And then here we are in the

[00:38:52] barrel room and is this do you do all your processing here outside? Not all of it. Most of it we do. And then a bit a lot of it just depends on the size and the space and what we need. So like with white

[00:39:04] wine, a lot of the white wine will do offsite. Some foreshadow now due to due to space. I don't have any mine gold chilling. I don't know if we're in for the amount of tanks that I like to have. And so kind of going back to

[00:39:15] yeah, it's coming. The plan is a year from now we're going to build a building this size. So like well, hopefully it'll be a six, seven thousand square foot building. But we'll see what's cost coming. But it will be in the back property. We'll do everything near. OK.

[00:39:28] But that lack of space, especially for like white wine production where temperature control is very important from fermentation onwards, just don't have the space for it. So to her point earlier, like this community is so incredibly supportive and helpful. Now, see they'll do it free.

[00:39:44] But but they've been very helpful in helping us get started and and not only give us the space meat to produce the wine that will finish off here. So any blending and that kind of stuff filtering I'll do here. But the knowledge has been amazing and picking

[00:40:01] their brain on various different topics and things that we work through. But yeah, most of the reds that we'll do here, the California stuff I'll do in California doesn't make sense to to bring fruit in from California for so far away. Once you pick fruit is kind of

[00:40:14] a ticking kind of but when you need to use our for any right away that I'll put it three four or more now. I mean, I'm very sure all these old Texas stuff to be out in taste here and finally server things very heavily

[00:40:26] swing to doing an all onsite year from from start to finish. And in the next year, it will hopefully be at least like 95 this. So as a wine maker, what are some of your favorite wines to make? My favorite is probably Sushow and that's only because

[00:40:42] the funnest time to make wine is the as the beginning of the fermentation process, right? It's like it's like making bread. And Sushow to me, like I said, because those berries are so small, the frustrating part is you're not getting as much juice out of

[00:40:57] it. But the flavor are just intense. The aromatic shirt tends to you get like the last couple times you've done it. It's been just blackberry cobbler just wapping up the hitting here. It was dark fruit. Yeah, it gets a really nice like just darn cherry and

[00:41:13] it's just so complex and it's so hard to really nail down the flavor part. So for me, I know that's been my favorite to do. Maybe on the flip side of that would also be morbid, mainly because at the end of the day, I mean, we're

[00:41:27] winery and it's nice to it's nice and romantic to say you make wine all this, but you got to make a living. And you know, the problem with those big complex red wines like seashell and to not take a lot of age.

[00:41:38] And so the thing I love the more bed, we will pour one we have in the state more bed that I did. I took out a library that we sold out of it had 10 months of aging and oak and it was really rocked the bullet.

[00:41:48] We were like, OK, when should we release this? I was like, it tastes amazing. If you ask, yeah, if you ask all the time like, hey, so how how long should we age this morning? And I was like, well, I mean, I think of aging wine like in

[00:41:59] bottle, right? Like I did it like my age one in a bottle. It's the same concept to me anyways. Is why you've aged in a cellar, which is I'm trying to clear help with clarifying or stabilize in the wine, which is

[00:42:15] not going to be a problem in the bottle anymore. But then two is I'm trying to sleeve that wine up, right? It might be very dry. There might be a lot of tannins at and slowly over time, both in barrel and in a bottle

[00:42:25] because a ball has a cork. Even if it doesn't have a cork, you're still going to have some oxygen getting in a bottle. And over time, that oxygen is going to solidate it into the wine and help smooth it out. So, you know, it's like

[00:42:37] the winch that you buy, but which you drink a lot. And I'm like, when you're happy with it, I'm not going to make a guess and say five or seven years or whatever. But I love more of that to kind of continue on that

[00:42:48] because it doesn't take a lot of aging and enjoy it really quickly. Did you have any thoughts on that from? No, I just love watching him make wine. I love tasting it. Obviously, that's why I feel like part is when he gets to

[00:43:00] when we get to do barrel tasting and what he's doing, his his chemistry, all the science stuff and during all the pH levels and whatever else he does. That's the best part. Like I, you know, I spend so much time just so busy in the

[00:43:13] tasting room and stuff that I don't get to really get out into the vines and do farming. Well, I kind of choose not to, you know, as well. But it's a lot more. So you didn't work on your tan in the same way? Yeah. But yeah, I just

[00:43:27] my favorite part is just seeing the outcome and seeing how, you know, our, their hard work in the vineyard. It is hard work like, you know, aging it and, you know, just tasting it and it tastes amazing. And obviously getting feedback from customers

[00:43:43] like, you made this, this is incredible. You know, like this is so good. That means I mean, that's like that hits you at the top of the world, you know, when someone just gives you appellates for something you actually cultivated from the ground up, you know,

[00:43:58] that's such a cool experience, it's a good feeling. Yeah. And especially because you think of like how much time yes, I always, I always like in making wine and growing grapefruit or really making wine is I kind of liken it to cooking, you know, and so people

[00:44:13] like when's it ready? When's it going to come out? And like it'll be ready when it's ready. And so yeah, but like when is it ready? And so how do you make that determination? And so, you know, we'll sit down. So Carol and my dad and Janice

[00:44:27] will sit down and taste through them. And, you know, I like very dry wine. So like, I had to kind of check my ego at the door because you do have to, you know, is that to not ready to release after two years of girl or should

[00:44:39] you do it in three? Do you have the flexibility to do it in three? I mean, you got to make money. So that's the other challenge traditionally has been balancing the business aspect with the art of when something's ready. And yeah, takes a lot of patience to

[00:44:54] wait. It's a lot of patience. It's really intense. And no, just because we have people who come in and you're like, I want I want your chenille and what you're trying to say. And then people are like, well, can we taste the beer? Oh, yeah.

[00:45:05] Yeah, I'm not open that barrel every day. It's a it's a trend. Yeah, she offered it. But in terms of like, so that's ours. Like, yeah, what was what's your favorite on that we've made? Of ours that we've been doing. I mean, I've always like

[00:45:23] you I've always been partial to the heavier body and like the Tamat and the seashells. But I am very, very, very fond of our first estate war bed, which you will taste today. It's our 2022. He did an incredible job. The fruit was really good.

[00:45:37] I mean, I think it speaks for itself, but it just gets. That means you have to remind when we pour it out the other night because there's a it was it was our first harvest year is very challenging. You want to do the blondies? Mm hmm.

[00:45:49] We have a good story with this next one. Yeah. While she's doing that, I'd say from a customer perspective, though most customers and you very can be very similar like they like bigger, bolder reds. Those Timberley sell more obviously in the summertime, it

[00:46:03] gets to be a few of obviously love white wides or as a true. I would say our sous chow is and then that teen to Amarillo that we have because they're so similar have been people's favorite ours. And I think mainly because it's not just that big bowl

[00:46:20] red wine, but it's also it's not like it's not like Tamalot. It's not a McTanon lawn. It doesn't just suck all the moisture out of your mouth as soon as you take a sip. It's very smooth for big, bold red. And so that one and only that

[00:46:33] but it's a different name and a lot of people hadn't heard of it. This one, by the way, does one use QB and now I believe on camera can see it, but this is our dog blondie. Oh, sweet. And so a little story about blondie. Well, first of

[00:46:47] all, this is going to be 50 percent Marson and 50 percent re-salt. OK. And so it was OK just really, really much. Yeah. His own age, 16 months, a neutral, unusual oak and obviously pretty typical common Blaine partners. Yeah. And that part of the world. But we love it because

[00:47:02] obviously the color you can obviously as a nice golden color to it. And our dog is named blondie, who's about a he is a great Pyrenees Anatolian shipper blend. And so blends. I'm sorry. He's a great guy. Yeah. But he's obviously golden

[00:47:21] color, so it was kind of aptly named. He showed up here almost three years ago. By the way, and I wanted to highlight him because he's become as synonymous with our place. Yeah. As many of us said he's a rock star. Yeah. He's a bigger dog.

[00:47:36] He's a bigger dog than he's turned into a ordinary dog in a taste of him guy. He doesn't like the type of animal. Very, very important. He's very important. But he set up here three years ago and he had a collar, no tag. But he wasn't like malnourced

[00:47:49] and unfortunately sometimes in the country people dump dogs, sad as it is. And so we didn't know what the situation was. He hung out for a couple of days and my dad was actually looking for a vineyard dog. Put it up. It was our county.

[00:48:03] He was coming into our first wall. We had a little bit of fruit on the vine. So it was going to be maybe our first year of actually harvesting fruit. And he ended up staying for a couple of days. His owners came by. They actually picked him up.

[00:48:15] So it turned out he actually had others. The next day he ran away and came right back. And so this happened. Ritz and her pee every day for two weeks. And we'd call the owner. They'd come pick him up and in the next day he'd come right

[00:48:27] back. And so finally my dad was like, hey, we really want a vineyard dog. We were actually looking for a great Pyrenees because they're pretty calm over vineyards. And would you guys entertain the thought of us adopting him? He obviously loves a year. They weren't really happy with

[00:48:42] the idea. They only had it for three months, by the way. So it wasn't like that ever like three years. And he was like two and a half years old and they get the time. And so they were like, you know, look, he obviously loves a year.

[00:48:52] They live like maybe a mile from us. And so they they're like, you know what? Let's leave him here for a week if he doesn't come back. You guys want to adopt him. And he did not leave. Didn't leave. He stayed. He stayed in the broker. He came.

[00:49:07] He stayed and he conquered now. We were going to change his name to something like Vineyard or Winery related. But he knew his name already. They live so close. Then as a matter of fact, actually behind our property, there's a private road that's their property.

[00:49:18] So every time they come and go, they drive down that private road and they see him and he runs out to them and it's nice and tight as a low. I love that. But it's definitely a more full bodied white wine. Love the new Lugos.

[00:49:32] Yeah. Yeah. The Russo. I'm kind of big. I'm not really a massive Russo guy. I do like it a lot more when it's made with more son. I like more son a little more than Russo personally. But that's where you also going to have to check

[00:49:43] your ego at the door. I think it's important to make wine and rope grapes that you do enjoy because you need to be passionate about talking about it. But we've kind of in our short year, if we've also kind of struggled with like, you know,

[00:49:56] do you make different kind of wines for different customers? Whether it be sweet wines, all the line we do is going to be on the dry side. Do we make sweet wine? Do you make something that's going to be, you know, oak age like this, which

[00:50:07] I don't know. I think just some people might be off putting because they just think of oak age, shard and a big butter bombs, which this is not. But it's really good. I just we had to go all to come to the realization like it

[00:50:21] needs to be served at the right temperature. Yeah, I like my wine. My white wines really gold. And then I don't really apologize for it. I know you're supposed to get a little bit more because that way you get more of the aromatics of laborers and that

[00:50:32] stuff. I just like really crisp, you know, dry white wines. And this is 100 percent dependent on temperature. We first released, we actually had a re-sond before this one and we were released it just you know, the that that framework of always having

[00:50:48] a cold was like we just did it and we just did not like the wine. And you're like, I got to sell this. And so we got to the point where we're about like, do you want to send me? Actually, it was closer a year in there.

[00:51:00] We were like, matter of fact, actually we were making this this blonde skew of anything. I was like, and it was tasting good. That's like, I just think this needs to be warmer. And I love to say that we know it's already but we're still here.

[00:51:11] We still learn as we go and it was like, I think you need to make that re-sond a little warmer. We started doing it. I was like, you know, it actually tastes good. So it's those kind of learning for us. But I love it.

[00:51:22] It's definitely a fall wine or spring wine based on temperature. But of all the white wines we do, this is like the most food friendly one it just loves all types of food. I like to call those copy accidents where all of a sudden you did something

[00:51:36] you didn't mean to but also you go, wow, there's something that's impressive about this. And we actually have another. So the last thing we'll do is actually another happy accident. It's called the red tyrant. It was a little lens. Not I wouldn't say typical

[00:51:47] blends because it's cab, morbid sonot that I had some it was 22 years our first harvest and we had had a little bit at the morbid lab. I have some excess of that. And then we had a little bit of to not to not get hit

[00:52:02] really bad by that February stomach getting 21 freeze. And to the point where I think you lost maybe 15% of our wines. The other there's another 15% or so that shut down will be a yeah, we had to come cut back and regrow this you know the truck

[00:52:19] and any cordons up there died off and then we had to do a lot of replanting. So in 22 they're just even though we have more plants to not planted. We barely had it either I didn't have enough to even put in a barrel but

[00:52:32] I didn't want to just make a topping wine out of it. I wanted to I wanted to showcase it in some way. And so we had some excess cab and it's like screw it me. Let's just do it. Let's just do it. It's not a

[00:52:42] traditional like hardest blend or fielders field of blend that you have to get together the same year it's a non vintage. It's like screw it me. Let's just put this together and see how it turns out. It was a total gamble and there was only

[00:52:53] one barrel so if it didn't work out it wasn't in Jalas but I was like let's screw it. Let's see it. And it turned out really good. I'm really happy with it. We're done. Yeah. As a wine maker, are there any particular varietals that you've not

[00:53:04] had a chance to work with what you would love? You kind of secretly craved out would really love to work with this particular bridal. I just haven't had a chance off the top of my head and probably there's a party that wants to do something with more native

[00:53:20] US type varieties. Okay. So like an Norton or something like that. And I don't still know us out there near soft west of awesome. They grow norm out there and I think it's a good Norton that I've happened them but I've never made it. Everything I've done is

[00:53:35] all vitus vernifera like yeah, you know, typical European Titan varieties. So I've never done that. I would love to never personally make a red Zimpendell from Texas. That would probably be my number two just because like I said, we have a Zimpendell that's out of California and

[00:53:52] that's where we've all sourced it just because it's so so unique. I don't know. I'd probably say I probably say those two. Yeah. I also have never and I'm a my wife's a very big sparkling fan. I'm also I like sparkling not to I've never touched

[00:54:10] Pinot Mignier and I doubt it would obviously I don't know all of it to in Texas. But just because I know like a lot of those other varieties from from burgundy tend to struggle when I'm burning in champagne, yeah, and tend to struggle. I would reply.

[00:54:26] Yeah. So Chargnais, Pinot Noir, I've had some height planes, Pinot Noir that's OK. But it's just the problem with those and least from my perspective and the problem like Capsaw, you know, I think we have a really good cab that we was out of is that

[00:54:40] you're always every time you taste it, you're always thinking of Napa. I always think the word out or burgundy or you have a Russian River Valley or whatever. And so it's like it's kind of the thing that I've always said that like the Texas wine

[00:54:52] industry for me is always like the wall west. Like I don't think people appreciate that enough. I think, you know, California you have more wine industry than I do. But like, you know, they had they had a wall. I talked to a clothe of all in Napa

[00:55:05] one time, we did a really cool tour and they were in the tasting of Paris like back in the 70s and all that. Look at it. And so we were we were I did a tour with them and they were showing us one block there. Like, yeah,

[00:55:14] we ripped up all this I can't know what it was. They ripped up more low, even though they obviously grow more low, but they obviously wanted more cab and but this is like back in the fifties or whatever. They had a lot more more low planted and

[00:55:25] they're like, well, obviously, like over time cabs are becoming more popular and they had to kind of reshape their vision and what they were doing and but even them at that point, they said, hey, back in that day that we were in the wall was, you know,

[00:55:38] Napa wasn't a synonymous with the certain varieties that they've become certain not synonymous with. And yeah, if you would get, you know, France, like, you know, the old world in general, like every region is synonymous with a particular Brab or Brape's and like Texas hasn't had that.

[00:55:55] Yeah. So we see what goes well and he does and we we have a good idea now, but I mean, what I was going to say, that's why like I'm happy that we planted to not unhappy we planted to show happy bed all a company shake.

[00:56:08] I'm like, I'm so pretty young into this game, but the one thing I've have kind of figured out at least when growing in the whole country has been one thing we struggle with here is color. Yeah. And you know, the growing season for us is so hot, right?

[00:56:21] We, you know, yeah, everywhere else you can say is 100 degrees or 90 degrees and during the daytime in the peak growing season. But what's the nighttime swing? Yeah. In the diaries shift there. Yeah, like we I did so when chat G.P.T. came out, I played around.

[00:56:36] I was like, tell me about the text line industry and they gave me this whole dissertation and it was very accurate. I was like, OK, but it did it said one thing you said that was hilarious knows the free chat G.P.T. Who's there?

[00:56:47] There was a little older, but it was basically saying like, oh, well, you know, Texas's bit of culture is a great area for growing grapes because of its warm days and cool nights here all where it's at says and I was like, that's my yeah, we're like 80

[00:57:00] degrees in the whole country maybe maybe mid 70s if you're lucky. And it's like so thanks here right man very fast. And so like 2022, which was our first vintage, the sushows a little bit lighter. That's not was a little bit lighter. And so that's why

[00:57:15] like getting it quick to market wasn't it's in a blend mind you. But but I mean, it didn't really hurt me as much because it wasn't that super bomb like the 23s are very insane. Yeah. 23 everything will go burly longer growing season. The color is just is amazing.

[00:57:32] The the the textures is night and day from 2022 for at least something here in the Elk and Triggy. But yeah, so like we struggle with color. And so the thing I like about what we planted is to not has a very thick skin. So naturally you're going to

[00:57:47] get really good extraction out of it. You're getting some tannins out of it, but you're going to get really in color. All the copy shades all rent. So you're going to get really clear of that. And then see how which is I've heard some people say

[00:57:59] it's also one of those Tenturi a grapes. Sorry, I mispronounce it. Is that I guess something like that like that. It's like the full rate rate when I all I put your fling of French words off. Oh, it's so like so shall I've heard people

[00:58:11] say it is to I don't know. I mean, I worked with the fruits on like, yeah, I see it. I can see a little bit in there, but it's not like all the copy shade all the copy shade is like all right. So but that we get really

[00:58:22] good color from those fruits. So to your point, like Texas is a big state. What grows here? And I was like, I think of like, how do we as a winemaker? How do we make up for some of these shortcomings to pick the right fruit to plant and

[00:58:36] to make wine out of it? And for us, if I can if I can get more out of the skin, this possible as a winemaker, I think I'm doing my job. And and those grapes make it easier than if I was doing tempernio. Not again, I've had good

[00:58:49] country temper. But or cab, I saw you're getting if I make it in the whole country, not to say it's bad, but it's like it's never going to be a habit camp. We've heard a little bit about your location, some of the wines and things that you're

[00:59:01] doing. Let's talk about now. So listeners are getting excited. They was out, we're going to go check out seven creeks. So something about when they come here, what does a tasting look like? So when someone comes in and they want to do a tasting,

[00:59:12] do you have like a set flight of wines? Does the customer pick their own wine? So this is a cost or they need reservations or to put up the details around it? Yeah, so I can talk. I could speak about that as a tasting here manager.

[00:59:22] This is my wheelhouse. But so we offer multiple tasting flight options. We do all white, a mix or an all red option. I tell customers if you're feeling ambitious, you can do full board. You know, and sometimes people do that. Yeah, sometimes people will just taste everything pretty

[00:59:38] nice, you know, that we have in our catalog. We are lucky enough that we do have an extensive list of wines that we are able to offer multiple options. We also offer two sparkling wines. That was a big caveat for me opening a tasting

[00:59:52] room was like, I don't care where the sparkling comes from. People love their bubbles. They love their sparkling wine. But, you know, when when customers come in, we want them to feel like they're just kind of hanging out at a friend's house, you know, or, you know,

[01:00:05] just we wanted to be a very welcoming, relaxed environment, no pressure, no talking about our wine club, five minutes in, you know, just we like that to kind of come up organically and but, you know, we try to know what's going on.

[01:00:20] And so we have a lot of people who are interested in the wine. We have a lot of people who you know, we try to make it just very approachable. I try to feel people out like how much do you know about why?

[01:00:31] I don't ask them that, but I try to engage like, do you know a lot about why are you nervous or you just like, you know, then of course you've got the the curve of the ball throwing at you, L.I.L. and drink sweet wines.

[01:00:41] You know, we don't have anything, but I'm always able to find something that they like. We have many things in our library that definitely do appeal to a sweet wine drinkers palette. And I rarely ever missed a mark on that, you know, sparkling rosé is definitely

[01:00:56] the way to go. But so yeah, we just try to make it just a very relaxed, welcoming environment, you know, if they want to hang out under the tree provided where there's all like one of us working in the tasting room, you know, we'll do your tasting under

[01:01:09] the tree. Well, you know, come in and, you know, if we want to sit under the tree, come in with each, you know, every time you're ready for a new poem, we'll, you know, put people are super cool. You know, they're very cool

[01:01:19] when they come out. But we just try to, you know, we want it. I want it to be what I experience, what I want to experience as a consumer. He and I go, you know, not as much as we used to on for it, but, you know, he

[01:01:31] and I go and, you know, we try to, when we had to go out to Fredericksburg, Johnson City for something business related, we would try to work in a couple of little, you know, visits to some of our favorites out there or whatever, or new places, you

[01:01:43] know, especially in new places we never mentioned that we're industry or anything. We just go in as customers just to see what the experience is like and what kind of, you know, experience we're going to have. And, you know, so just as a person who loves wine

[01:01:59] tasting, who loves, you know, being able to do something like that, I want people to have that same type of, you know, environment around them. So, so that was a, and that was something that when we started, like some of my dad and Jerry and Janice, that

[01:02:15] was their, they still live here, like when first open and say lives in the back and they were very like they wanted us to be like we even had an out send everything in the taste room. And then Mary with stay God is gone.

[01:02:28] But to see, yeah, they were like, hey, they wanted this place to be like welcome to all of them. And then you know what I mean? It'll wait like not like yeah, it's just eat some potato chips. Yeah, it's a ball that like they wanted

[01:02:39] to be a very welcoming, warm atmosphere and they set it up perfectly for that. And that's one thing that I've always had really good feedback on from customers is like you guys are so approachable. It's such a warm friendly environment. I feel like I'm

[01:02:51] part of the family while I'm here. Yeah. And one thing I really love to do, I'm constantly baking and doing stuff in the kitchen like that's just kind of you know what I love to do. And so I'm always bringing out brownies or different little pairing

[01:03:03] themes like when I'm doing a wine tasting and people love that they love just that they just love getting that little treat, you know, because it's unexpected. You just think you're going to go in there, going to do a tasting and then you're just

[01:03:15] going to leave or you're going to buy bottles or you know, whatever. But I just I love and that's a big thing that we're huge into is pairing through with wine. So we all kinds of different pairings throughout the year. But I'm I probably have not

[01:03:27] even answered your question with all of the rambling. But yeah, that our tasting start at the 20 20 for five horse 35 for you know, you know, the full board of filling ambitious and so people like the marathon. You know, and God designated driver. Right. Exactly. And reservations we typically

[01:03:46] do not require reservations unless it's a big party over like eight six or eight people, you know, and people are very they're very aware that, you know, they'll call and say I had a good party to either reservation. I'll say yeah, it just so we

[01:03:58] can reserve make sure we have a table reserve game, you know, whatever. But we are very accommodating and we just, you know, one thing I love seeing especially in the spring and summer months is people start getting into like vacation and you know, time

[01:04:10] off for all the people that come in from all over the country when they're next week, we're lucky that we live in an area where there's lots of outdoor activities, you know, we're close to like Buchanan, we're close to spider mountain and ebulsness and you know, all that.

[01:04:23] So all these people that come in a duties week at things so we get that weekend traffic and like the Monday overflow of, you know, people leaving town and they just want to hit up a winery or two on their way out. And so meeting people for all

[01:04:35] over the country and the world is is one of my favorite parts of doing tastings for sure. We'll do the morbid. Sure. What's up? I'm so 2022. Okay, this one this was drawn that was our first vintage. You probably when you came in

[01:04:50] you saw the nets up there and then yeah, so everyone always up I ask us I'm sure you're already aware of this but a lot of people ask about what is that song already for? And I mean, obviously they're for birds and and raccoons as

[01:05:02] you know, as the year progresses and everything starts ripening. But it's also there right now more specifically for hail. Yeah. And so yeah, you're right. There was a big hell storm a sister YA of ours. It's about 20 30 minutes to east of us got those nets

[01:05:18] because of our experience about talking about and they got hit with like golf ball to baseball is all over the gulf. And so yeah, this year in so 2022 was gonna be our first vintage. You can see it's pretty lighter. But I mean, it's more bed.

[01:05:33] So it's gonna be a little bit lighter and you hear like everything look up. It was a very cool spring or late winter and a very dry late winter. So everything woke up like in April like early year which for us is rare.

[01:05:49] We have a lot of late budding varieties, but in general kind of on that purpose. But yeah, so it was a little bit slower every season or shortened over the season. So yeah, that was one struggle. Maybe not so much for me where that in general.

[01:06:03] And then to we got potted with hail. We didn't have those nets yet. And I'm gonna have like the more traditional nets that you see that you put on right when ripening starts you take it off in the harvest and we just got

[01:06:13] hit with and it wasn't even big. It was it was a little bit bigger than pee. Like we eat a marble but it came down with such ferocity that everything's got a haircut and you know the vines didn't suffer but a lot of the fruit

[01:06:28] or not fruit at the time it was flower. But yeah, that would have been fruit was above the cut line of the shoot. And so we lost probably six, six, 70% maybe know what would have been our prop and and enough poses its own challenges because you'll start

[01:06:42] getting re-bought again. It'll continue to shoot but then it might start throwing new clusters out which you don't want to harvest. Yeah, I mean you could if you had the time to be and but yeah, so that was the challenge we had. So we should have had

[01:06:54] probably two or three times this amount of fruit. OK. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I thought it turned out really well. What are your operating hours when when do people come out? Yeah, we're open seven days a week, 12 to six. Yeah, we did the whole

[01:07:07] you know when we first opened or not flush it but I feel like first year or so we're like, you know what, let's be closed. But if you're one sand just do the whole like they're seeing sending thing. But we sound it, you know, to our advantage

[01:07:18] to be open seven days a week because again, we can that weekend traffic, you know, vacationers just you know, we have got big community out here who just likes to come and have a glass of wine after work or you know, whatever and yeah, and we're lucky

[01:07:33] we're fortunate enough that we live we all have close enough that we can just kind of you know, we're 10 minutes away, you know, from here and we can close up and kind of whatever. But yeah, so we just and we take advantage of that too

[01:07:46] because lots of our competitors and places around here are open seven days a week. So we get that we get that traffic, you know, people who are on a random Tuesday looking for a winery to go hang out on a nice beautiful afternoon,

[01:07:59] you know, they have the day out for, you know, we get lots of teachers out here and days off and everybody else and stuff like that. So teachers love their work. They do. They do. What about things like kids or somebody that's come out that got kids?

[01:08:15] They've got pets. We are incredibly kid-friendly or incredibly dog-friendly on any given busy Saturday. You will see kids running all over the place dons and respectful inospectfully. Yeah. And then, you know, keep your kids on the leash or actually if the fact yeah, but no, we are very

[01:08:34] kid-friendly, very pet-friendly. Just it works out for us. You know, we had had any any weird situations or incidences that would make us, you know, want to change the policies or anything. But Blondie is super chill with other dogs, you know, he's just super sweet

[01:08:54] and nice and laid back and he has his favorite city plays with, you know, the regulars that come up. But but now we're we're we're welcome to King of the Wolf. We just had an I mean yesterday was go yoga. That's OK. You know, for about a

[01:09:09] year, but they bring little goats out and they they'll put them on your back and all that kind of stuff. And so Blondie handled them really well. So we used to have our mean kind of dog, but he's or protect your dog. But yeah, he does

[01:09:20] he did really well with them. He does really good with other dogs. Nice. He's super friendly and he's a hard and he's you talked about earlier that you like to be in the kitchen and you never taste food option is so you provide food off to us.

[01:09:37] We're never for our charcuterie. I I I hit the creed in a really great and the charcuterie. We offer different options of small and a large there 30 or 50 bucks just depending on how low you are and how many people you have in your party.

[01:09:50] And I try to keep things very local and seasonal. I love to support local business. So for our jellies and jams, we use Rob Rock Jelly Company. She's been great to work with. I've worked here for several years now. You work with Miller's Meat Market

[01:10:04] and Lano for their summer sausage, which is super delicious. Yeah, so we try to just support local and be as seasonal as possible on any given weekend. You will find this during some sort of food option where all foodies we love to cook.

[01:10:19] His dad loves to be out on the grill, loves to cook. Yesterday we did Cardi just tacos and chimps in a salsa bar. And you know, that's always makes amazing. Can you know, Benini? You have a I'll do pininis probably once a month. I'll I'll do girl pininis

[01:10:35] and I try to keep them seasonal. Those are always super popular. We're always in the summertime. You know, we'll do burgers and hot dogs often, you know, street tacos like shrimp boil throughout the year. We do a pig roast once a year. Usually that's around one

[01:10:51] of our wine club pickups. But definitely super popular. So yeah, we'll always do something with food. And back to our pairings. We love to do. We love to do food. One and two parents, you know, we're all big into that. One thing we're really done for

[01:11:06] is our wine and she's carrying. We do two a year, a spring one in it and a fall one. Unfortunately, we missed our screen one this year because you were so consumed with prepping and getting ready for our big eclipse in the. That's a big big happy.

[01:11:20] That's got all of our time. So we just didn't have time to do all of our research and research and development and planning with our our spring she's carry. So that didn't happen. But one popular thing we do is a jump to pairing. That is super popular.

[01:11:36] We sell so many. We sell so many of those every every year that we do it. And last year, we got an idea keeping it all local. So we now do all just load the things like we did a round rock donuts with our sparkling rosé.

[01:11:51] We I made a Nalphos copycat of torches queso. I don't know if you ever. Oh, yeah. Are they as solution? We did that with a trick. I agree. Sure. Like taste up. So good. We did that. We did the with the Ziminal. We did tips, treats, snickering. Yeah.

[01:12:06] For me, those are my favorites. Yeah. So so again, we just we love just supporting local and and you know, and people love that they're like, oh my god, I could just go. I can go buy this like I'm you know, and it and it introduces people to

[01:12:22] a lot of product that they may not have known as out there, you know, like or that they never thought about and we've actually had customers and you're like, like, they will take my like our like our whatever menu that we put together and say,

[01:12:36] I'm going to go I'm going to go do this for my all front. And so I'm going to go have my end of jet three pairing. And so they kind of they kind of emulate it. So that's going to be cool. We do a micro my favorite

[01:12:46] was the Susan Mishing alt is a heavier head boomerang pies before. No. So we have our pride in envy. So as a temponio cat, we do that. So boomerang pies almost were not getting kicked kicked. That's what I thought. But boomerang pies are Australian meat pies that you

[01:13:01] can buy in the frozen section of like HEP central. But they were developed by our friend of ours who lived in Australia when he moved back. He was like, I want to start my own company and it's going to be these Australian pies. So it's really good.

[01:13:14] And so, yes, it is. Yeah. So it would excellent. We do is like it was like a my favorites of their steak and potato like in a spun. But there was another me on that we did with this one superior. I think that it's off pan.

[01:13:23] He'd be, oh, yeah, sure. He says your favorite pun. Yeah. So we're I'm just always in the kitchen doing something and coming up with ideas. And it's just something I love to do. Yeah. Sorry. What about group sizes? We talked a little bit about

[01:13:37] reservations about what do you have any maximum for sizes or, you know, big bus pulls up into your place or would you handle? Yeah. I mean, we've had tour buses show up with like 10 people and meet that frownage pack tasting room and we're so busy

[01:13:52] at we just accommodate them the best, you know, the best we can without morning or reservation that has happened occasionally and and, you know, we certainly don't train them away, you know, but. Obviously, if I tasted them, you can hold about 50 people. But I mean, our eclipse event

[01:14:08] had 250 and they were virtually all outside. So there's plenty of room. We got about like 300 to 400 spots depending on the outside area. Yeah. But we absolutely accept tour buses. They, you know, they prefer all the time. We have big groups, small groups, you know,

[01:14:25] we do private events, you know, I we host many showers or personal dinners, birthday parties. We've got a fact, we've got a couple of fundraiser coming up. We've got a we've got a rival shower coming. No, sorry, our personal dinner coming up, a private birthday party.

[01:14:44] So we do all kinds of, you know, different events and we handle all the food and then we can do do all the food and everything people want for that. So in cleaning the wine out with this is that when given the what takes your year, what is

[01:14:59] your you would say your busier, your slow season? What's the best time for somebody to come visit? Right now is when it's starting to really pick up springtime, summertime, fall winter. Winter tends to be slow. I mean, you really never know. I just I always tell people

[01:15:13] there's no rhyme or reason to whatever option of traffic you're going to see out any given day in this industry. And I think anybody in the line of the street can tell you that like you could have just like a weirdly slow Saturday and just a crazy

[01:15:28] busy Thursday out of nowhere. You know, it just it's there's no rhyme or reason. But yes, spring and summertime is definitely the busiest time of the year for us for sure. Blue Coons Saturday is normally the busy Saturday. Yeah. Sunday's are good.

[01:15:41] I think it a lot of things if we haven't been going on a lot of times all you know, if you want to have, you know, especially with food like music and stuff. If that's a thing come out at that point, keep everything up

[01:15:50] to date our website and social media. If you want to more relaxed, like casual sit down talk kind of thing, Sundays are usually a little bit better just because obviously it's a little bit slower. But especially like around noon just because you have people

[01:16:03] go to church to their own thing and then you get a gap of like two or three hours until it starts getting busier. But yeah, I mean, that's the whole thing here is like it's it's even in our busy stays. It's it's very welcoming. We're generally always here.

[01:16:19] So usually it's my dad and myself, Carol. There's generally going to be someone here. So there's always representation right for our family. Right. I think people appreciate that. But yeah, that was I would say Saturday for the busy days Sundays or worse during the week.

[01:16:33] We're open 70s a week. Like you said, we that's changed during covid just because we have so many people in this amazing area that it's like also open 70s of people walking by wine. And so yeah, so we're we get a lot of really good

[01:16:49] experiences with people come out here during the week. Just gets a lot lower. They can have a more intimate experience. And then we talked a little bit about already your eclipse event and you talked about the most in bridal shower is in different types of things like that.

[01:17:01] Do you all host different types of events regularly here at the Wiley for people to come to? Yeah, yeah. And I think that a sun razor coming up in May for forgive me. I don't know. I'm like you've made some of the details.

[01:17:14] It's for Liberty, the city of Liberty Hills. So if they are working on a in conjunction with Cedar Park, they're working on developing an in park for specific to in disabled and heavy cat children and people. And they wanted to mean more of a just bridging the communities

[01:17:33] together like a safe place for people to go. And so they're working on a fundraiser for that park and they want to hold it here. Oh, so, you know, that's that's going to be something that's happening in May. So yeah, so we didn't

[01:17:45] we do events like that all the time just and people just have calls out the blue, you know, just it's word of mouth. It's many there. They have a friend who's a wine club member who recommends us or, you know, as as a nice space

[01:17:58] and, you know, good wines, you know, nice people, hopefully several. So yeah, we're always we're always doing something in summertime. Our calendar is jam clock. Like we we're like have a weekend open and we also love to participate in offsite stuff like for instance, Bertram and Burnett, they

[01:18:16] have their market festivals. They do the Oakville Festival this coming weekend. They've got our is it next weekend they've got their wine festival, which is always really big. So we always get a booth and participate in that. And that's kind of get starting out there a little

[01:18:30] more and, you know, you know, just exposes our line to people who may not even know we're out here and they're there a lot and we don't know we're out here just because we're in the country. So we have the junk preparing. Yeah.

[01:18:42] I think in July it's like national ice cream wine. So we have a lot of national ice cream or something like that. So we have a neighbor who lives just down the road and that seven-crease community that has her own frozen yogurt shop in your outlet in Ramlach.

[01:18:57] And so last year we did a fro-yoke hearing. It actually was phenomenal. So I think that cold like fro-yoke like frozen yogurt would not do all it actually because we also will dress up a topping. Yeah, we came up with different toppings for we did

[01:19:10] four and four different yogurts and four lines and we came up with different toppings for everything. And it was so ingenious. I thought and just it was very, very popular. People loved it. We have a 15th anniversary in early August. I think we'll do that roasted pigs.

[01:19:24] We like a keep install roast thing. That's phenomenal. We have a strip wall that we were going to do in April and then it was like a week before the Eclipse, but as of I have not easy ball we feel. Yeah. It's too much work with

[01:19:35] everything else we'd have plans. We'll have our wine and cheese curry. We're actually teeing around playing around with like a pizza oven to see if we can master making pizza. So we'll see. We'll see how that. Yeah, pizza and wine. Pizza at wineries is obviously very popular.

[01:19:50] So we're kind of like looking to getting into that. It's convenient. You're very time consuming and keeps me in the kitchen all day long. So you mentioned a moment ago your wine club. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say now that needs to be open up. So yeah.

[01:20:03] Yeah. So we tell me about your wine club. What are the details? Yeah. So we have three different tiers. We've got three bottles, six bottle or case based on the tier you select that sort of is dictates like what your discount will be on any

[01:20:19] merchandise or when you come in and order charcuterie or wine balls or whatever you get your applicable discount on that based on the level that we join. We're very relaxed on for what you get your wine club. For instance, we'll email you and say, hey, Mr. Customer,

[01:20:37] you know, you're here in the three bottle club. Here's what you have coming up in your next allotment, which is going to be due on this date, you know, whatever. But if you want to change anything else, swap anything out at stuff, we're a little bit with that.

[01:20:50] We don't we're not just like this is what you get in that show is there are some wineries that are like then. And yeah, when you come in, you get free tasting for for a couple of guests and we do Bitwurst Blast is for why club the first.

[01:21:03] So if you let you know if you stop in and we change them out based on, you know, the seasonality and availability and all that stuff that will typically have a little white or a red as an option for a complimentary pour. And some people really like

[01:21:19] that car key now just getting their free blacks of one. And when for for wine club pick up parties, we do complimentary food. So we typically do something super delicious like our next one coming out May 17th will be our first or our summer

[01:21:34] pink at by Ness and we're going to do Gordon MacKinney burgers, which are always very popular people of those and they love that it's free. It's just a little perk we like to give our, you know, white club members, you know, just to fake them for their support

[01:21:47] and bringing in nothing thrills me more than when we have wine club members who bring in friends who then join our wine club or just enjoy our wine and buy some wine, some of our wine to take home. So, you know, we really appreciate that

[01:22:00] aspect of it. But it's a very simple, simple wine club, not a lie for us to it. You know, you do get some really good perks and lots of free food out of it and yeah, it's painless. Yeah, as I say, we we personally are members of

[01:22:14] lots of like yeah, and so I've seen kind of good, better best and one happens and I do like the flexibility choosing what you want to do. There's something under me thing for the represent. I'm like, so we've always we kind of jumped around and stuck with

[01:22:27] the cost of doing business here. It's like people people support us routinely and in return, we'll treat you will give you that we have been treating the way here, right? So complimentary glass, complimentary tasting. You need to help you guys out. They keep people signed up for

[01:22:44] that online? Absolutely. They can sign up for it online or in person we have the pamphlets and in house that they can fill out. But yeah, we have people sign up online online for my club. Yeah, a lot of times we used to tell people like again,

[01:22:58] kind of talking about that no pressure kind of situation. My dad's favorite saying is like, look, just fair on the vents, just go on come back twice. The second time you come back if it's if you still like the wine binge or you have just give us

[01:23:12] some time that will earn that trust or in that that will take for me. Yeah, no, but if you never fills. Yeah. So that's the one thing we never as wine consumers because we always like to base decisions on how we act and I don't want to be

[01:23:25] pressured into something five minutes and I've just had one of your wines. I don't know. And I don't need your story. I know where you're going and so I most of the wine clubs that were personally members of or you have smaller outfits that

[01:23:37] just, you know, they treat you like your family. You can see the hard work, the dedication, the quality of their wine. And I love some of the places like that, but it's very rare to go to the I wouldn't say rare, but there's not a lot

[01:23:50] of selection, unfortunately, of Texas wines in your grocery store and unless you're lucky to live in a certain area. But so what are we going to do to support the community? I'm always been a big proponent. Yeah, insane. Saying so. Tell me about what we're drinking here.

[01:24:02] Yeah. So this is going to be this is this is that we talked about the happy accident earlier. Yeah. So this is that happy accident. So this is called the red tyrant. And so we need this it's another blend. It's 60% high planes cab and then 20% our estate more

[01:24:16] than OK and 3% our estate to not win. So this is both for 22. Galaxy to not you'll get the to not in there. Not only we get the kind of flood notes from the flavor, but you also get you're going to be intense, right?

[01:24:29] But it was a lighter year. It's a lower percentage, only 20% to not. So it's not too trippy, but we named it after the red tyrants. Worldwide is came after we have this. So we had that big over. Yeah, right? Around the blinds and every March until August,

[01:24:46] we have this beautiful red bird and it's called a vermalium flycatcher. It's the size of the sparrow and it's so small, but it's bright bright red has black wings and has this like robbers mass like banded man's around its eyes that are also this also black and it's

[01:25:03] come here literally every year since we own the property and it just dominates that drawing. Dominates the tree has a little harem that's why the blinds and call is it a right like four or five ladies that fall out. Yeah, we couldn't. I mean, we knew that

[01:25:16] was we released a red blend. You know, we wanted to tie it into that bird somehow, how like we did with our blondies and our brogotton. And it's a fun story to tell and it's funny when like just last week and I had I had poured for this

[01:25:31] wine for some customers and he's like, oh, no, not to see the book. I said they were so they were like the video. Yeah, it was really cute because they're like, ah, they could be making out this story. And you know, I just know a story to tell.

[01:25:44] But it's funny when they actually see the bird and you're like, God, that book is really red and beautiful. So it's a plus for us too because he eats insects. He's called like a fruit. Yeah. So he's not trying to eat her grapes. So right.

[01:25:54] I have the first time we were we're harvesting the nets over the blinds and obviously birds love fruit and so you'd see a bird like cotton in that. And the first reaction was I go save this bird and after like three or four days, I hate these birds.

[01:26:11] And but that he's great because he doesn't him and his hair and they don't they don't they don't want fruit. They're they're protected tree and they'll they'll hang out on the bottom branches. We have some Edison bulbs that kind of surround the tree. So for like nighttime events

[01:26:23] why the little tree lit up? But yeah, each sits there and you'll pop down and snag flies and moths and that kind of stuff. So very beneficial. Yeah, so no. I mean, well, let's say that right now out of people getting excited, this is really cool.

[01:26:39] We've already talked about the difficulty in finding Texas wines. Unfortunately, so many wineries in Texas are boutique style why are you so it's very difficult to get into the distribution scheme and all that kind of stuff. But let's say somebody wants to taste your your worrying

[01:26:54] but they can't get here for whatever reason. Do you sell them online? Do you do any cutaways Yeah, we have an online story to go to our website and buy our wine. We currently are featured at a wine little wine bar in Flignville called the Three Likid Goats.

[01:27:11] So actually you had a customer come out last week because he had gone to that wine bar and tasted our wine and he wanted more. So he came out with some friends and had a great experience. And so they are currently featuring three of our wines

[01:27:23] are blondies are pregnant and the at our GPS and which is a grandage petite surat more bed blend. And it's going really well. So that was my first kind of foray into, you know, getting our wine out there and in like a little, you know,

[01:27:38] restaurant or tasting room and wine bar. And so far it's it's worked very well. Their marketing's worked well. They've obviously they're driving the traffic and hopefully, you know, we're kind of doing that for them as well. So yeah, we hope to do more of that. Right.

[01:27:54] You know, we've enjoying keeping everything sort of boutique and local just to the tasting we want people to come out here and have the experience and, you know, whatever. But sometimes we'll kill is me out here. So we're definitely I'm definitely going to be looking

[01:28:08] more into getting some of our wine out into the, you know, the community just to expose people to our wine and they have to be able to make it out here. But yeah, for now, we definitely have a one story that they can purchase off those. Yeah.

[01:28:24] That's pretty much everything. I'm Yeah, that's because of you also even they started to try to when we first started, we didn't have the need because we were so small the actual was so light that you know, you could, you know, they needed to go sell it

[01:28:37] as we grow kind of going back to like a only like an every plane way. Now we're at the point where like, OK, let's let's get our name out a little more and that which is exciting. But yeah, so, you know, the three-lay goat

[01:28:49] we're starting to work out and making some connections with certain restaurants trying to get like out towards the Austin Way to get the especially places that definitely cater to, you know, locality. We definitely do various events. So she was talking about the Bertram Argon wine fair

[01:29:05] is coming happening. Hope the actor this is aired but it'll be in slight April and then we just did something at Fort Chubay and so trying to do more of an it's like that eventually probably in the next year, especially with some of the wine

[01:29:18] we're releasing the next year will have the inventory to actually dabble a little bit like so big like total wine or something like that. So like some select stores were I know customers are going to appreciate it and it's not going to be

[01:29:30] something that's just like lost on a on a counter space. So it's getting there. It's baby steps. Yeah, but that's I'd rather be baby steps than yeah. Yeah, you make all this wine and then you know, you do the amount of selling something.

[01:29:43] Well, I just as a further word to the listeners, you know, Texas wine, we want to make sure we get more Texas wine in Texas wherever you're at the shopping center at the grocery store and restaurant and things like that. So make sure you ask for Texas wine

[01:29:58] when you go to a restaurant, you go to a store, you open up and you don't see a lot of Texas or any Texas ask, you know, the best we can do is consumers is to ask for more Texas wine. So be be sure to ask that

[01:30:09] ask for your favorite in partnership with the Texas Wine Lumber app and website. They even have a place you can go download a little card but you can fill out and then write your favorite venue or why we all did and hand that to the manager.

[01:30:20] So just make sure let's get more Texas wine out there into customers here at Texas, especially. I would like to personally echo and this isn't anything that has been brought up and you brought it up perfectly well, which is demand Texas wine. Yeah.

[01:30:35] Like if you're at the store, a restaurant, go out there and demand it, help me help drive that behavior. That's something that, you know, we're before such a large producer in the state and the demand is there. There's no reason why we can't demand it

[01:30:48] and we try to demand people. The stores aren't doing it because they're trying to push behavior out to you. They're catering to the demand of what they see and at the end of the day, we go out there, shape the demands,

[01:31:00] you know, be a part of this revolution. Yeah. Just as an example, there's a restaurant in Bertram that just celebrated being open for a year and they continually get questions about why don't you have Texas wines on your you're in this area

[01:31:13] or you've got all those amazing wineries in your backyard. Why don't you have Texas wine on your menu? It's all California and you can't tell me they're saving money by getting wines in California that they could get from, you know, Texas winery. So, and this sorry,

[01:31:26] it is the sun in showcase at the after year, but it's just like, yeah, you just you have to cut the pressure on people, you know, and the demand has to be there for them yet to consider it. So, yep, that's what we always do.

[01:31:39] Every business is about taking care of your customers. And so if your customers are constantly saying, this is what we want and you say, well, this is what we're going to provide you. I know this may be what you want,

[01:31:47] but this is what we're going to give you. That doesn't work out for business. So those with the squeaky wheel with the grease kind of thing, you know, I mean, the more people that can say we want Texas, well, they're going to start to listen. They hop to.

[01:32:00] I love that you brought up Texas wine lover or they do great. And no, we're members of theirs. It's a great place to. It's great. Abbot, not just to find wineries but then mine vineyards as well. Yeah. So as a winery, we were looking for to source fruit.

[01:32:13] It's great that they created this like can collaborate resources that you can go because there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot of different wineries in Texas and everyone is doing their own thing. To your point, like what grows best here

[01:32:24] that might be tip or the up in the high plains for us. Like I'm very big, I said, I'm very partial to see Shalabier more bed does really well here. We go down to Southeast. You might see, you know, some block to block

[01:32:35] and go up to north and like they can grow some stuff that we don't grow. Like maybe they grow shard and they have there that we struggle with here in our heat. I says a big stay, have an open mind and I go out there and what? Yep.

[01:32:46] And support them. They're really good. So do you have any players for future growth? I know you've talked about the expanding of the vineyard and possibly the production facility, things like that. Was the future look like for several creeks? So the first foremost thing, it is definitely

[01:32:58] the production facility in the larger direction, so it because I told my dad, I'd stop. I would get him quit. Keep doing the video base. It's so much work. And it's gotten to the point where we're soon within the next year or two

[01:33:14] going to start producing so much wine from our vineyard that we're stressing the capabilities of our facility to produce it, let alone all the other wines that we obviously got to market with from other, you know, that are the fruit source from other vineyards.

[01:33:29] And so that's like far anyway, like the massive priority that we're all in agreement with. So I said, hopefully, hopefully doing like a six or seven thousand square foot production building. And we'll see what when money all shings down because the building is just one aspect of that

[01:33:43] the production requirements are exorbitant too. But that's the goal is to operate that way first. And then, you know, from there as time goes on, maybe in like church or years, obviously, as everything scales, we're selling our wine in different avenues.

[01:34:01] The revenue within dictate, hey, you know, let's staff up. Let's get more people help out in the vineyard, more permanent employees that could help maintain a vineyard, especially as we grow. It's nice to have a Saturday offer right now.

[01:34:12] And so now, so that's that would be the goal is to do the production facility first. And then within two or three, four years after that, based on how things going, kind of fully expand that vineyard. So right now we have 15 acres of property, about 10 or so acres

[01:34:27] of that is a vines currently and would probably have room for maybe two, two more, maybe two to three more acres of vines. So I think not to get that would be good. We'd love to be like a seven at the most. And this would be years out.

[01:34:42] It would be about a seven thousand case a year production. Look at right now, we're probably around 1800 to 2000. So going back to that growth phase, we certainly wouldn't grow to be a seven thousand case of your production. Sure. You know, the next year, once that production,

[01:34:57] larger production buildings built, but baby step it and grow from there. So that I think that's to me where it is. Well, what in your opinion would you say if the number one thing that really sets seven creeks

[01:35:11] vineyard apart from many of the places of people go visit that my listeners would have to say, man, I really need to go see it because of that. Well, one thing first report must be one thing I hear over and over again from customers.

[01:35:21] And I think this goes back to something I said earlier is when they come here, they literally they always tell us I literally just feel like I'm hanging out in my friend's house or like my mom's house. Like you just got you guys may get such a welcoming

[01:35:34] just fun laid back chill environment. I just kind of want to bring everybody here and just hang out all day. And people do people will literally bring their families and hang out all day long here and play cornhole

[01:35:44] and drink wine and eat food and you have some grand old time. And that was like the funnest thing ever. So, you know, and that's definitely an experience we've we want every customer just walk away feeling one day hat.

[01:35:59] I would say it is sounds cliche is because you're all that family kind of everyone says that. But I like we love wine. Like I always look at us like the perfect like wine cuss word because we drink a lot of wine. But I thought we love wine.

[01:36:13] We support a lot of Texas wineries. And so it's true. Like I had gone to a milling like almost every Texas wine that's out there and you know, it's it's a great community. I don't know, like, you know, you know, throw shade or anything, but it's true.

[01:36:26] Like it's a very family oriented atmosphere. Lying for us has always been something that shared amongst family was food and good times and and you know, leave the pretentiousness at the door. Not that there's not a place for it, obviously. Right.

[01:36:41] But yeah, it's about having a good time like all like if you come here. When the nine times out of 100, you're you're going to talk to her or me or my dad or Janice. And that's actually kind of rare.

[01:36:55] And I think, you know, yeah, usually you just have your staff work, which we do have staff, but, you know, it's yeah, when they come there, when people come through the doors, they're easily talking and getting an experience from one of the others or the wine maker himself.

[01:37:10] You know, sometimes they don't even know that unless he introduces himself as the wine maker. They're just like, oh, this guy is a lot about she. And I mean, yeah, outside of that, I would say, you know, we're also, I think, producing, I think some wine

[01:37:22] and some growing some fruit that some people haven't heard of before. And that's one thing that I hear a lot whether it's our free or not is I've never heard of that variety before. Now, obviously if you get someone that's like really to line

[01:37:34] someone's in Dummy Set 2, 3, whatever, I mean, that's not as the same conversation, but for the average consumer, like they never heard of Sigshall. They never heard of Tina Amarillo. They never heard of Alacopoche. What the heck is this? And then they taste it in their life.

[01:37:50] This is awesome. It's like, yes, that's exactly like if you think about like why. So CAB is still the number one for these, you know, red, grape and Texas. And it's like, but it's also been in the ground longer than almost every other,

[01:38:01] you know, type of variety that we have here. And but that a lot of times I think came from, you know, when when vineyards were decided what to plant, like 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago, whatever it was, you know, they were like,

[01:38:13] you grow what people are going to make wine of and that they're going to sell in a store and without any sort of like, you know, thought of like what grows well here. And again, CAB, you grow, be a bird,

[01:38:25] one Texas, I don't want to make a caveat, but at the end of the day, that's what they were growing. And so and they're so afraid of people going, this is true. We taught distribution. People go into a store, they're going to buy what they know.

[01:38:36] They come to a taste your own. Like I had never ever tasted a sushi out before. I might have walked right past it, then we got out of the store, that I'll try it or you'll try it. And then they try it and they're blown away.

[01:38:47] And that to me is, you know, a siphon family aspect is introducing customers to varieties that are now their favorites. And you better believe it will be a memorable experience when you go to visit Seven Creek's and you've got to make sure

[01:39:11] and try some of those interesting, different varietals. If you haven't tasted some of those before, it's a perfect opportunity to try some new things. And if you have tried them before, this is your chance to see what Seven Creek's can do with those with a different

[01:39:24] terroir and mind making style and so forth. So again, a great place to go visit for a fun experience with great wines. Now, as always before you go, make sure you check out their website. It's www.SevenCreeksVineard.com. Now be sure you use the number seven.

[01:39:42] OK, so www.TheNumberSevenCreeksVineard.com. And there you'll find great information about all of the different wines that they're producing. You can find it about their wine club. If you're interested in that, they post information about the events. Don't forget those cool junk food tastings.

[01:39:59] And they also have information about some of their background and story that you heard some of that in the interview itself. And don't forget when you go to see them, make sure you tell them you heard about them on this podcast, Texas Under Vine.

[01:40:12] Now, as usual, after we finish the interview, Briggs and Carol showed me around a little bit more of that beautiful tasting room, the live out grove, the vineyard. I was able to get a lot of pictures and even a video walkthrough for my Patreon subscribers.

[01:40:26] After that, though, the time came for me to pick the one bottle that I wanted to buy for my wine library for this particular episode. Now, if you've watched many of these episodes before, you may realize from some of my selections, I'm pretty much a big red drinker.

[01:40:41] I will drink some rosé's and some whites here and there. I've picked a few of those along this journey. But typically my tastes lean more towards picking a red and that's exactly what I thought I would do in this episode.

[01:40:54] However, to my surprise, when all was said and done, you know what I picked that twenty twenty one blondies cuvet that we talked about and tasted in the interview itself. You look, it's even got their dog, blondies picture right there on the label. Really cool.

[01:41:09] But this is such a great wine. It is a Marson and Ruson blend. It's a very rich, full mouthfeel of the wine itself. It's got a lot of citrus and honey on the nose when you're starting to smell it a little bit.

[01:41:22] But on the palate, you're getting things like peach and even maybe some pear in it. It was really delightful and such a fun wine to drink. And I didn't even mention the acidity. It was so clean and crisp and refreshing.

[01:41:35] I may be turning into a white wine drinker with all these amazing Texas wines have been privileged to drink throughout the course of this podcast. And blondies cuvet definitely highly recommended. So I bought one of those as my library bottle for this episode.

[01:41:50] You got to try it when you go to visit them. Now, after I spent a little time relaxing in that Oak Grove and checking out the vineyard sipping on some great wine, I found unfortunately I have to move along.

[01:42:02] So I have other great wine destinations to bring to you. So that's going to bring us towards the end of this particular episode. But before I go, I would like to request a favor from you.

[01:42:12] I would love to get this show out in front of even more great people who want to know about Texas wines, who want to visit some of these great Texas wine destinations we have, but may feel a little overwhelmed or don't really even know that they exist.

[01:42:26] And so would you do me a favor if you're enjoying the show? Share this with your friends. Tell them about the podcast. Let them know about some of these fun, great places. Even better, grab those friends and bring them with you

[01:42:37] when you go to Seven Creek or when you go to some of the places that we have in the episodes on this podcast. But even more so, another thing you can do if you would leave me a rating and a review wherever you get the podcast.

[01:42:48] It really does help change the algorithm and get it a little higher in the listings for other people to discover and find. And then we can spread even more great word about the awesome wines and wine destinations that we have here in Texas.

[01:43:01] And for about the last 10 episodes or so now, I've been really focused on the video side of things. So really my main focus is the video part of the episode. Hopefully you're watching me right now on YouTube.

[01:43:13] If you're not in your listing, make sure you go check it out on YouTube. You can go to my channel at Texas Undervine on YouTube to find the episodes there and see the video of all of the interview and everything that we do in the episode.

[01:43:25] And if you're checking out on YouTube, always like, subscribe and follow so you get all the information there as new episodes come out and leave a comment there on YouTube. So you could tell me what's your favorite thing that you like about

[01:43:41] Seven Creek Vineyard, if you've been there before. And if you haven't been yet, then tell me what's that thing you're most looking forward to when you do go visit them. Just leave that in the comments below there on YouTube. And with that, my time is up.

[01:43:53] So don't forget, subscribe to the podcast and follow my socials to be notified anytime a brand new episode is released. And until then, happy trails and bottoms up, y'all. Thanks for listening to Texas Undervine. We strive to provide you with the best information

[01:44:14] about wine businesses all over Texas. Be sure to check out our website at TexasUndervine.com and follow us on our socials at Texas Undervine to stay up on all the upcoming episodes. Please email us with any suggestions or feedback. Also, contact us if you're interested in donating,

[01:44:31] sponsoring or advertising on the podcast just to help us cover our expenses and bring even more great info to you in future episodes. Above all, travel safely and most especially drink responsibly. Howdy, Vine Trippers. Did you know that I now have a merchandise store for Texas Undervine?

[01:44:57] I only have a handful of limited items, but you can go check those out and wear your Texas Undervine swag if you'd like to tell all your friends about the great wine locations we have here in Texas and maybe get them interested in the podcast as well.

[01:45:09] So there are things like t-shirts. There are there's a hoodie. There's a beady, a ball cap, things like that. But one of the most exciting things I have right now is my limited time offer t-shirt. That's my season one t-shirt. So this is your tasting through Texas,

[01:45:23] Texas Undervine season one t-shirt. It's only going to be available for a little short amount of time. On the back, it has all the different locations like a band tour t-shirt. So this is a limited time item and you can go out and get it now.

[01:45:36] And one of the great things about that t-shirt is a portion of every sale goes to support the Texas Hill Country Winery Scholarship Fund. So you know that by buying that t-shirt, you're also investing in the growing and flourishing of an amazing wine industry here in Texas

[01:45:51] and all of those people that are going to come and make it even better. Check out that merchandise store it's on my website at TexasUndervine.com. Just go up to the top. You'll see the link for the merchandise store.