Adega Vinho (Hill Country)

[00:00:00] Howdy Vine Trippers. I wanted to take just a moment to talk to you about the Texas Wine

[00:00:10] Lever website and their phone app for both iPhone's as well as Google devices. You can

[00:00:17] actually download this app, put it on your phone or just go to the website if you're

[00:00:21] not an app person. And if you ever want to go visit some of these great locations that

[00:00:25] we've been talking about in the podcast, this will give you a great information about the

[00:00:29] place before you go. And you'll be able to find other wineries in the area, so if you want

[00:00:34] to make a day of it, go see several other places as well. You can search by region, you can

[00:00:39] sort the listings, find ones that are kid friendly, family friendly, even ones that host our

[00:00:43] v's, all kinds of different sortable listings you can find there in that app and on the website.

[00:00:49] You can find other things as well in the area like restaurants, accommodations, maybe events

[00:00:54] that are going on at the different wineries. So it's your one stop resource that goes hand

[00:00:59] in hand with this podcast to be able to find those great places to go visit. So check out

[00:01:05] the Texas Wine Lever website, it's txwinelever.com or go to their app. You can find it on the

[00:01:12] Google Play Store or the Apple Store as well. Enjoy your trips among the vines and use

[00:01:17] that app.

[00:01:41] Welcome to Texas Underviolet, an exploratory podcast to scout out the best Texas Wine

[00:01:46] Country has to offer. I'm your Wine Guide Scott and I'm here to lead you on an auditory

[00:01:51] expedition to the vineyards and wineries across the great Loan Star State. Each episode

[00:01:57] will cover a different vineyard, winery or winery related business operating in Texas. You'll

[00:02:01] hear interviews, descriptions and details about each location that will excite you to visit

[00:02:07] and experience them for yourself. Ready to plan a wine tour? Use these episodes to choose

[00:02:12] the most interesting spots for you and your friends to check out. Most of all, enjoy

[00:02:17] hearing about the rapidly growing wine industry in the state and what makes our wines and

[00:02:21] wineries the best.

[00:02:36] Howdy Vine Tripper! Welcome to episode 35 of Texas Undervine. Today my travels lead me

[00:02:42] deeper down the wine road to 90 in the middle of the hill country of Texas and I'm headed

[00:02:47] to Stonewall today to visit a little winery called a DeGa Vien Ho. For the interview

[00:02:52] today, I actually got to sit down with one of the owners and wine maker Michael Bilger

[00:02:57] and we got to talk a lot about some of the prestigious awards that they've been garnering

[00:03:01] recently and these wines that are just delighting the taste buds of everyone who comes to taste

[00:03:06] them there at a DeGa Vien Ho. Now at a DeGa up they have an estate vineyard and they do

[00:03:11] pride themselves on working with a lot of Portuguese style varieties, the name of the

[00:03:17] winery sprouts from that and they do though have other varietals available as well as

[00:03:22] things from the Rhone Valley and Spain and other places but I don't want to spoil all

[00:03:27] that right now. Michael is going to tell you a lot about that during the interview so

[00:03:31] a little bit of history of the winery. It actually was started by Michael and his brother

[00:03:36] Andy in 2016 when they purchased the land where the vineyard is right now, they originally

[00:03:42] planted about four acres of grape vines with the intention of just planting grapes at the

[00:03:47] start to sell and provide to other wineries but as a lot of these stories go, they decided

[00:03:54] they wanted to make wine themselves sooner rather than later so they established the tasting

[00:03:59] room to make wines so now they have over 14 acres of different varietals on their property

[00:04:07] with eyes to expansion and adding even more as they go which again Michael will talk about

[00:04:12] in the interview. The name of the location a DeGa Vien Ho is actually inspired from Portuguese

[00:04:19] and Portuguese wine travels that Michael's brother Andy really enjoyed and they decided

[00:04:24] today met a DeGa Vien Ho which is Portuguese for wine seller so as I said they begin growing

[00:04:30] these grapes on the property and as time went on after year two they decided to go ahead

[00:04:35] and start making some wine. So they've actually begun with a 2017 and 2018 vintage for their

[00:04:42] wines and although they do source some grapes from places like the Texas High Plains, they

[00:04:48] do pride themselves on getting about 70 to 80% of their fruit from the Texas Hill Country

[00:04:54] including their estate where they have a lot of these grapes being grown directly. Now Michael

[00:05:00] really believes strongly it's a stainability concepts when it comes to farming and with the vineyard.

[00:05:06] So they are planting things like cover crops to help with the soil, they are trying to be herbicide

[00:05:12] free, they are going into the now their fourth year of no herbicides there on the vineyard itself

[00:05:19] and another thing that he likes to do is release beneficial insects into the vineyard to help control

[00:05:26] some of the population of things that might be harmful to the vineyard itself. So he really likes

[00:05:31] the sustainability features that they do in the vineyard there at a DeGa Vien Ho. Along with the

[00:05:37] sustainability practices, Michael really believes in what he calls low and slow wine making just like a

[00:05:43] good Texas brisket but he feels like there should be low intervention on the wine making process to

[00:05:50] really allow the grape and the wine to speak for itself. And it must be doing right because they

[00:05:56] actually just celebrated a huge win in 2023. Their Viennier won the Grand Champion Award at the San Antonio

[00:06:07] Lifestuck Show in rodeo wine competition and that was the top wine of the whole event. And it

[00:06:14] was a white wine, it's the first Texas wine to ever win a Grand Champion Award at that. And so

[00:06:20] huge honor they won these really gorgeous silver spurs as the award of courses is Texas.

[00:06:28] And I got to see those when I was there a really amazing award and a really great accomplishment for

[00:06:34] this winery and this vineyard that has only been producing wine since again 2017 and 2018.

[00:06:40] Now, this last summer you may have seen if you follow much of the Texas wine industry but they

[00:06:45] suffered a huge blow to their vineyard literally a blow when huge straight line wins came blowing

[00:06:53] through their property knocking down some of their vines flat onto the ground. And it's

[00:06:59] an amazing story. The pictures will blow your mind when you see them and I'll include them here

[00:07:04] in the video part of this podcast. But Michael tells the story of many of his wine neighbors and

[00:07:10] friends coming out to help lend a hand to restoring those vines and they didn't really lose a whole

[00:07:15] lot from it. So even though it looked really scary up front, they were able to survive that damage

[00:07:20] with only minimal problems and great cooperation from other vineyards and other people in the area

[00:07:26] coming to their help. Now without giving away too much of the story and my preamble here, why don't

[00:07:32] I go ahead and go to the interview with Michael so he can share with you a little bit about the

[00:07:37] wines, the winery and the vineyard itself. So let's hear from Michael.

[00:07:50] So here with Michael Bilger at a Deja Vino and we're going to talk just a little bit about his

[00:07:56] history and what we got going on at this great tastier room. We're here in the tastier room

[00:07:59] itself. This is our first time on video so let's see how that goes. But first off, Michael, tell

[00:08:05] me a little bit about yourself. What got you into the wine industry? Well, my brother is the source of

[00:08:10] my passion for wine and that's sort of coupled with a few, you know, your standard aha moments.

[00:08:20] So I went to school at Texas State and we drank a lot of becker wine, becker tempernia.

[00:08:26] Yeah. And this is kind of where I'll start that whole process because at that time,

[00:08:31] I think you could get a bottle of becker tempernia for eight to ten dollars. We were just sitting

[00:08:36] around the campfire one evening and a buddy just looked at the back of the label and said, hey,

[00:08:42] this is made over there in Stonewall and there was a girl who were hanging out with

[00:08:47] there in college who grew up in the Fredericksburg area. She had a bunch of stories about becker vineyards

[00:08:53] and that's sort of just sparked my intrigue. Fast forward a few years later, I started working for

[00:09:01] Jack Doherty at Belvista Ranch in Wembrilly building his trellis system on two acres of

[00:09:06] San Giovanni and Capfranque. Right now West Cave sellers makes that wine for him. So it's nice to

[00:09:18] see a vineyard that we planted in 2008 still still around in the Wembrilly area still producing a

[00:09:23] really high quality fruit. And so that's sort of got my technical side and my sparked my intrigue

[00:09:28] there once my brother sort of he was curious what we were doing over there at Belvista Ranch and

[00:09:34] the more we talked about wine, I realized man my brother is just he loves Texas wine. He loves wine

[00:09:39] from all over the world but he was drinking Spanish tempernia's. Yeah, real high to me,

[00:09:45] we were just buying cheap wine at the grocery store and you know kind of being semi-romantic there

[00:09:50] in college, sitting around campfires and whatnot. I danced around the dance halls a little bit

[00:09:57] and tipped out in the blue grass scene a little bit there and you know bringing a bottle of wine

[00:10:02] on a Saturday night, drinking bottle of wine after a bunch of beers is a fun cool thing to do right?

[00:10:07] So my intrigue was kind of sparked there and then talking to my brother he's like you know dude

[00:10:13] you have a green thumb I've been in and out of agriculture and I have a degree in environmental

[00:10:21] studies, a focus on geography, river systems, rain land management and things like that and have

[00:10:27] a lot of working experience in soybean and little cotton here and there. You know it was just a

[00:10:36] natural progression of thought to think well we should try to grow some grapes. When are we going

[00:10:42] to do that at the time you know we didn't really know exactly when but my brother has always had a

[00:10:46] dream of growing grapes and making wine. You know true sense not a romantic thing like I'm going

[00:10:53] to retire and make wines some day but hey man we have a little bit of property that you know

[00:10:58] we grow grapes on so. Howdy Vintrippers did you know that I now have a merchandise store for

[00:11:11] Texas Undervine? I only have a handful of limited items but you can go check those out and where

[00:11:15] your Texas Undervine swag if you'd like to tell all your friends about the great wine locations we

[00:11:20] have here in Texas and maybe get them interested in the podcast as well. So there are things like T-shirts

[00:11:25] there, there's a hoodie, there's a beanie, a ball cap things like that but one of the most exciting

[00:11:31] things I have right now is my limited time off or T-shirt that's my season one T-shirt so this is

[00:11:36] you're tasting through Texas Texas Undervine season one T-shirt it's only going to be available for

[00:11:41] a little short amount of time on the back it has all the different locations like a band tour T-shirt

[00:11:47] so this is a limited time item and you could go out and get it now and one of the great things about

[00:11:51] that T-shirt is a portion of every sale goes to support the Texas Hill Country Winery scholarship fund

[00:11:58] so you know that by buying that T-shirt you are also investing in the growing flourishing

[00:12:03] of an amazing wine industry here in Texas and all those people that are going to come and make

[00:12:08] it even better. Check out that merchandise store it's on my website at texasundervine.com just go

[00:12:13] up to the top you'll see the link for the merchandise store.

[00:12:20] That was like early 2007 2008 when I was over there working with Belavista Ranch.

[00:12:26] Okay then it just started growing, started coming out tasting the wines in the Hill Country and

[00:12:32] you know you taste a few wines here and there and they'd be all right then you'd taste a few that

[00:12:36] were pretty stellar and started looking at the labels and seeing Texas Hill Country and being like

[00:12:41] all right you know this isn't just a pipe dream it's actually it's a true vocation for people who

[00:12:47] yeah it's not just a retirement or part-time job there's people actually every day growing grapes

[00:12:53] and making wine and I really love that aspect of it. So you fast forward a few years and I was part

[00:13:01] of the 2016 viticulture enclave at Texas Tech or a professional degree in viticulture took some

[00:13:09] analogy classes started doing part-time helping out whether it was planning or harvesting or anything

[00:13:15] I could get my fingers into and made that full dive in 2016 to we all back it up a minute.

[00:13:25] We had fuller out the idea of planting grapes in the Blanco area at my old house and

[00:13:32] that soil was just like anaerobic clay well you know so it was collegi dirt that not much grew in it

[00:13:40] yeah partly any grass sticky and wet and just you know it's beautiful you think and look

[00:13:47] at the hillside and think man that's a perfect place to grow grapes but a reality there was no soil

[00:13:52] underground and there's no drainage so the water just kind of stuck into that collegi

[00:13:58] so Andy and I started looking for a property to grow some grapes and the original idea was

[00:14:04] out of property where the soil is good and we're in a grape growing region

[00:14:09] and so those are two two things that steered us down the road a little bit from the Wimbledon

[00:14:13] Blanco area over here to Stonewall okay and in 216 I think June or July 2016 Andy and Alana found

[00:14:20] this old shafecator property and closed on that and by September my dad and I were

[00:14:26] tear-and-out old fences and tear-and-out all the old barns and the lay in the land and redded a

[00:14:32] bulldozer and started trephing and you know that already established a few vineyards and had some time

[00:14:40] and helping out and had a really good kind of educational background on building vineyards and

[00:14:45] grape growing but had never truly done it for ourselves there's a few test vines and the vines that

[00:14:52] we originally planted and I planted in Blanco just did not grow very well because of that soil yeah

[00:14:57] yeah and probably not fencing it also thinking oh dear we'll never find yeah a few vines they grew

[00:15:04] but not in the sense of commercial production of wine okay so my dad and my brother and I and a few

[00:15:12] other friends and until we realized we need to start you know actually hiring a few people by the

[00:15:18] hour to help us out we took on a pretty what we thought would be easy would plan into the first four

[00:15:25] acres we have out here now we have 14 acres of a state vines planted we'll be planning up three

[00:15:30] or four more acres in 2025 but the very first four acres are these vines EC here from K-Sphere

[00:15:37] which are which are a window sort of picture frames the sange of AC those were all planted in the

[00:15:42] spring of 2017 okay and my dad and I and my brother and my nephews we built the entire trellis system

[00:15:50] we did all of the work ourselves other than putting up the high fence we hired that one out

[00:15:56] and we took a lot of pride in that yeah there's a lot of curves learning curves that we could have

[00:16:01] done some stuff different we're changing some of that stuff up now as far as the

[00:16:07] everything's vertical shoot position here at the vineyard but we're modifying some of that and

[00:16:12] leaning into some cane perinine and leaning in some head train stuff we'll get to you know

[00:16:18] technically but you know growing grapes and making wine yes there's some textbook things you need

[00:16:26] to follow but there's also some working philosophies you need to be able to foresee where your work

[00:16:31] is going because nothing happens fast and you know that bird out button is really close when

[00:16:37] you're growing grapes so you just want to reach out and push that bird out button and yeah

[00:16:40] wrap it up right now they'll say but um you can't you got to keep on going moving forward

[00:16:47] and having an idea of where you want to see those grapes how it'll where you want to end up

[00:16:52] you know what we first originally uh played in the vines mmm I wasn't married I didn't have any kids

[00:16:59] so I just had all the free time in the world when I wasn't working my brother had three boys

[00:17:04] one was in college and two were in high school and so he was a hardcore weekend warrior he and his

[00:17:10] wife Elena who's our general manager at Tessina Rim and she does you know we all wear different hats

[00:17:16] so um the workload is equal throughout the year but sometimes it's a little bit more

[00:17:21] demanding like Daryl Harvest and whatnot um which we learn those very slowly and in some instances

[00:17:27] very quickly too uh so the original idea is for the vineyard was to uh grow four acres of grapes

[00:17:36] and you know sell them or uh make wine another winery and try to bring on some

[00:17:46] restaurants some wine bars sell our wine and then slowly creep up into where we'd be producing

[00:17:53] slowly creep up into the Tessina Rim situation um we didn't want to be the first we didn't want

[00:18:00] to be the best we didn't want our last name attached to the to the wider name even though our state

[00:18:06] vineyard is the builder family vineyard but that's because it's a family vineyard right but uh

[00:18:12] then you know our name is a degaveena which is porches for wine cellar when we can get

[00:18:17] that here in a little bit but uh the idea was to slowly incrementally grow these grapes and uh

[00:18:23] you know our business plan was wide open uh a lot of it the way that my brother uh thinks

[00:18:29] and it's tough to meet a think the way same way he does about business i'm more of a let's

[00:18:34] figure out a plan or protocol and stick to that a brother likes to leave the uh loose ends right so

[00:18:40] leave leave options open and that's an incredible way to think and it takes a lot of discipline to

[00:18:45] think that way but uh he's taught me a lot of that in that business sense that if you believe in

[00:18:51] your you know your outcome you know the old saying the journey there is where it was the most fun

[00:18:56] part right and so we're always uh we're always having fun trying to get to the uh to the end right

[00:19:01] and balance each other really well so yeah yeah it's a good balance and so um you know here we are

[00:19:08] three or four months after planning and the spring and at the time I was hanging out pernall cellars

[00:19:14] our neighbors um and Dave Culkin has he doesn't realize it but has taught me a lot about

[00:19:21] yeah the outside of the winery and the business just talking to him you know uh they go pick grapes

[00:19:28] out in the high plans and I'd sort of tackle on a little bit for a trip or two and I mean that's

[00:19:32] incredible knowledge that you can pick up just yeah some things are just done a little differently

[00:19:37] than you imagine right you never know until you get your feet wet and get in the situation so

[00:19:42] sort of saw some some uh internal uh writings of an industry and thought you know what let's

[00:19:49] speed this up a little bit when I was talking my brother he said the same thing is we're not going

[00:19:53] to sell our grapes let's get let's get this four acres producing let's learn our uh basic

[00:19:59] vineyard management and let's not focus on the original thought of it I just parsley out some

[00:20:06] line here or there let's make this a full-time gig and so uh you fast forward a little bit 2018

[00:20:13] I got the viticulture degree and so I had the education part and had some past experience but

[00:20:21] all 2017 and 2018 vintage worked at Raniates and he was an incredible sort of mentor he and Todd

[00:20:28] Kral who I definitely would say Todd Kral has pointed me in the right direction why I'm making and

[00:20:37] taught me a lot of basics so I think would be harder to learn in a large scale winery so he taught

[00:20:43] me a lot of artists in boutique ways or sorry artists in ways how to make wine yeah they're based on

[00:20:50] science but really heavily based in the philosophy of you know wine being an art so the craft of

[00:20:59] wine is really what Todd Kral's about and so I give a lot of you know kudos to Todd for

[00:21:06] teaching me that stuff and oh now a lot of that stuff wasn't taught like hey here's how you do this

[00:21:11] he's busy making wine for Raniates spicewood and uh so those two harvests were

[00:21:19] pretty incredible in my learning ability to learn craft wine making techniques but on a larger scale

[00:21:28] and you know Reagan cares a lot of that stuff out now ties out with them anymore

[00:21:32] but he's a good mentor of mine uh Todd is on the phone if I need to talk to him and

[00:21:39] all forever be grateful of that relationship um has pointed me in the right direction just because

[00:21:45] he likes certain wine makers in the world and you know you can't help us or learn from the dude who

[00:21:50] you're learning from right say then you start venturing out and reading about why these people make wine

[00:21:56] these other people how they do it and get a lot of experience kind of try to figure out how

[00:22:03] certain people make wine and uh you know that may not be learned experience firsthand but

[00:22:09] for many wine is uh for fermenting grapes is is uh it's a science but there's a huge artistic part

[00:22:20] without trying to sound too you know um just all technical it's not all technical and uh regions

[00:22:30] whether those all reflect on the technical side um and you know if you read an Australian wine

[00:22:38] making book and apply it to Texas wine you may mess your wine up it may not be the best so

[00:22:44] I would say in the cooking world you could follow that follow that recipe and it'd be

[00:22:50] beautiful no matter where you are for the most part right the wine making there's a lot of

[00:22:54] different nuances to wine or nuances to the grapes that could steer that wine to be

[00:23:00] not exactly what it would be if you would have followed that recipe and and in place where that

[00:23:06] the origin of that wine maybe even the same grapes from harvest to harvest the way they

[00:23:10] oh yeah in Texas yeah that's a huge other story for Texas is we're so dynamic in our seasons

[00:23:16] meaning one year is always different from the other so our ventages are very different so our

[00:23:22] vintage starts the year before really so you know like now it's what December 18th

[00:23:30] there's no there's no uh leaves on the vines they're in dormancy right now but those

[00:23:35] those roots are still growing underneath they're still there's still physiological activity in the vine

[00:23:42] yeah um it is dormant and it is resting but there's still stuff going on we we still water in the winter

[00:23:50] keep that roots on a wet so in those buds open up in the early spring they have the the water

[00:23:58] and the nutrients they need and that's part of the vintage so the vintage has started the year

[00:24:03] before yeah and you can get really philosophical about it too and that's often I can take people down

[00:24:11] a very holistic view of things but there's also science to back that up true and so we lean into

[00:24:16] both okay with our growing and our wine making but but to get back to the original question um Todd

[00:24:23] Kralo is my serious mentor wine I have a few others too um my work ethic I can actually look back now

[00:24:31] and when it comes to building the vineyard you know Jack Dordy was a great mentor for me for

[00:24:38] the few months that I was building vineyards for him back in 2008 so you know people rub off whether

[00:24:44] you realize it or not and they take a few years may take 10 years later but you'll you know people's

[00:24:49] work ethics and their attitudes they rub off and that's one thing I think you learn when you have

[00:24:54] a true passion and you're thinking well how did I figure this out or how did I learn that it's like

[00:24:59] so much didn't tell you yeah kind of learn that over time your influences and then you may not

[00:25:04] think about it until later uh he starts eating dots connect the one to be retrospective like that

[00:25:11] some people don't want to do that I can drive you guys to say I don't I don't recommend doing that

[00:25:15] all the time who are those influences or those people that led that lineage in here in Texas there are

[00:25:23] and I won't name names but I will point to one or two different people who have had massive

[00:25:28] influence on the Texas wine industry and those two people are Bill Blackman and a lesser known

[00:25:34] and lesser in the industry is Jim Brown and uh you know he was one of the original

[00:25:39] winemakers at Becker and Perdinalis okay and he's worked as a winemaker consulting job and his

[00:25:45] sons seriously active and and vineyard management with some of these wineries and a lot of the true

[00:25:52] lineage of local wineries here established wineries somehow their one or two links off the chain of

[00:25:58] of the uh Jim Brown and and Bill Bill Blackman so if you follow who taught who what

[00:26:07] you can often come back to those two guys and uh I would like to say I'm the school Todd

[00:26:13] Crowe yeah there you go uh Reagan jokes around and saying that he went to TCU and I guess I will too

[00:26:18] and that's Todd Crowe University here you go um so um I'm not gonna give him 100% of everything

[00:26:24] that I do now because there's probably some stuff that he didn't do or wouldn't do

[00:26:28] that I'd do in my winemaking but that's the beauty of winemakers that there's a lot of different

[00:26:32] ways to make one um I dig a vino one of our main focuses andy and I had or one of our main

[00:26:40] kind of concepts or ideas of how to steer our business is no we don't necessarily need to hire

[00:26:47] a consultant for the easiest stuff like putting a trellis system in that's very basic knowledge

[00:26:54] you may want to bounce some questions and do a little research before you build a trellis system

[00:26:59] why would we want to do exactly what the next door neighbor has done and learn from their mistakes

[00:27:04] we'd rather learn from our mistakes so you can take that concept and idea into winemaking

[00:27:10] which that could be an expensive mistake and the winemaking part of it but um it's important I

[00:27:15] believe in texas to uh the experience your faults because we're such a new industry and the

[00:27:22] great growing is so different here than it is in other parts of the world uh uh uh

[00:27:26] other parts of this country it's so different and so I think it's important to experiment

[00:27:32] and or just learn from from your boobies or your faults yeah because making wine with

[00:27:39] texas hill country grapes is so different than making wine with uh cool climate grapes that are

[00:27:44] grown in northern Washington uh it's just a totally different game um it all comes back to

[00:27:50] the same science yeah that's just applied differently and so um let me get back to kind of our

[00:27:57] history yeah uh once Annie I decided well they're about early 2017 I was already working with uh

[00:28:06] Fran part time here and they're helping the seller and by July 2017 I said hey or June 2017

[00:28:12] I said hey do you need a harvest hand and Todd was like yes so that started my

[00:28:20] larger big picture-wide making um career uh Andy at the same time he uh was saying you know what

[00:28:31] we need to make a statewide ourselves so let's start it doing the uh or started started working in

[00:28:38] the seller in 2017 and experiencing the 2017 harvest which was an amazing one so across the board

[00:28:45] usually 2017's and texas are pretty outstanding ones it was a great vintage for all regions of

[00:28:52] Texas the hill country the high plains the golf coast uh uh so you know those bottles are probably

[00:28:58] few and far between as they were two three years ago but pick up in 2017's and get a good idea

[00:29:02] of Texas terroir right and so uh about mid harvest he said you know I think we need to

[00:29:11] you know aim at having a tasting room so that's one of my ideas of making wine on the very small

[00:29:18] scale sort of broadened uh into having a tasting yeah now we're starting to get serious so

[00:29:27] just surround yourself with people in the line industry learn as much you can from your friends

[00:29:33] read as much as you can get as much of a firsthand experience as you can and no one knows

[00:29:40] everything about why I'm making i think that's one of the dilemmas in Texas is that there's a few

[00:29:44] people out there who may have a platform larger than others who say this is the way it has to be right

[00:29:50] and I respect those people's opinions but i don't think there's only one way to run a tasting

[00:29:56] room there's not one way to make wine um there's not one business plan that's a beautiful thing

[00:30:01] about doing businesses in Texas they're doing business in Texas is that you can create your

[00:30:05] you can be as you know you can create whatever you want to as far as how you run your business and so

[00:30:13] about mid 2017 is when the ideas for the tasting room the ideas for a production facility started coming

[00:30:20] into play uh the idea of how we use this beautiful property here in stonewall to enhance

[00:30:27] your experience to enhance the wine so uh we like the idea that the tasting room and everything you

[00:30:34] can't see from the road we like the idea of having been basically surrounded by vineyard now

[00:30:40] so it used to be that you just look out to the east and you see all all

[00:30:45] 12 acres over here yeah in the spring we just planted two acres of shardinay

[00:30:50] oh so we have a shardinay on our southwestern side um and so you're almost around it completely

[00:30:55] with grapes by 2025 will have uh our northwest section of our property will have three or four more

[00:31:02] acres planted uh majority white grapes yeah and uh so we can lean into more whites and more sparkling

[00:31:10] wines and uh you know when you come to the dig of eno you're going to experience the true

[00:31:18] Texas estate boutique wine experience and that's yeah grapes that are grown on property that

[00:31:25] travel maybe a production circle of sometimes two 300 feet that means where they're grown to where

[00:31:31] they where we make the wine to point a sail here um those grapes and what are that wine has only

[00:31:38] maybe traveled 300 feet not three 400 miles even though we do make wine out of grapes uh that

[00:31:44] we're grown in the high plains in west Texas um some years 80 to 90 percent of our grapes have been

[00:31:53] grown in the hill country this year is about 70 percent and so um we take a lot of pride

[00:32:02] in our relationships with our growers and at the point we're at now uh we love to talk about

[00:32:08] Texas' little pantry wine so there was an evolution uh business plan or as an evolution of uh

[00:32:15] you know who's gonna do what uh so that all came into play as we were learning

[00:32:23] more and more about what we were doing yeah and so uh it may have been a dumb way in some you know

[00:32:29] there's there's some boobies there and some mess ups right uh but like you said you learned

[00:32:32] from your own mistakes you do you do part of the process right well and i know that there's

[00:32:36] incredible challenges with doing your own vineyard and all of that one of those i saw this summer

[00:32:42] during the height of the growing season on social media photo of all the sudden multiple

[00:32:47] of your trellises completely flat on the ground and through a storm with big high winds tell me about

[00:32:53] that well i never thought i'd ever have to go through PTSD but i do have some PTSD related um uh

[00:33:02] yeah from that from the situation uh so

[00:33:07] I remember the date it's the summer solstice it was June 21st

[00:33:12] and uh my wife and i had gone saw the uh heason ashtras and New York Yankees play

[00:33:19] oh cool day before on the 20th and that morning we drove from heason to the high back here to

[00:33:26] the cell wall and a little weather alert saying rogue storms you know in the area i looked at that

[00:33:33] and thought man we need the rain good great we're ripening on the bonds we're halfway through

[00:33:38] variation are our white wands uh we have about a month out on our red wands with a perfect time to

[00:33:44] rain yeah we need some uh pull up to our house here in stonewall and the wind just hit our house like

[00:33:52] uh like a freight train yeah barbecue plit went blowing about man that is some incredible wind

[00:33:59] you know so i call up our vineyard manager and um Tony you know both Tony and i manage our vineyards

[00:34:05] but he's here on location and uh he has a great true passion for growing grapes and helps them

[00:34:11] the wine making process as well and Tony said and the wind is incredible i haven't seen it you know

[00:34:17] this strong in a long time and he said i'm actually gonna go turn the water off because you know

[00:34:23] the rain clouds are about to just dump buckets of water on us i mean they were low and they're

[00:34:29] huge thunderstorm head and uh so i said all right well call me back if there's any damage because

[00:34:35] i'm not our netzer up our head of he's our huge and yeah there may be some hail in there

[00:34:42] he calls me back about 10 minutes later and says uh oh i said what do you just go i can't believe it

[00:34:49] so well what exactly are you talking about he's like you just have to come and see don't be mad when

[00:34:55] you pull up i said oh shoot something i said well was it hail is like the wind's incredible i said okay

[00:35:03] so i tell my wife i'm running together vineyard for an hour i bet we have some hail damage

[00:35:08] or we have you know some bonds that are blown over that happens sometimes

[00:35:12] come for here we go so long story straight which we thought was a tornado that hit our vineyard was just

[00:35:20] some incredible down down drafts our neighbors recorded 80 mile an hour sustain winds for four

[00:35:28] minutes there was damage done i hurricane yeah hurricane level there was damage on the roof set

[00:35:34] bergs quarter down to 90 about a mile from here uh the chocolate factory down the road had some

[00:35:42] serious roof damage i'm thinking as i'm pulling up man a bunch of our vines have probably blown

[00:35:48] over we probably have a roof or two i'm thinking the winery maybe you know we have a slanted roof

[00:35:54] that's you facing dues and i thought i probably caught a lot of wind shoot i hope you know the rain

[00:36:00] is not too bad and i hope it doesn't hail yeah yeah yeah i pull up and i mean my heart just stop

[00:36:06] all of our vines are laying on the ground and the A-dakers have been blown over was that

[00:36:11] the combination of a couple things came into play there we have a we had our netting up

[00:36:17] we were holy you know we had our netting up which creates basically a sail yeah the wind came from

[00:36:24] northeast at or sorry the northwest at 80 miles an hour for four minutes and you just think

[00:36:30] of that when your full canopy the leaves catching all that wind plus the net the ground is ultra

[00:36:38] soft because i had rained the day before so you put all that together as the perfect storm to

[00:36:45] blow over the trellises our inpost didn't blow over a lot of our cordon wires uh had broke or just

[00:36:52] had enough stretch in them that our vines blew over to about a 45 degree angle now looked

[00:36:59] worse than it truly was um we'll see here in next spring or this upcoming spring how bad the

[00:37:05] damage was done if we had shrunk damage uh but we did have a couple saving graces with the vines

[00:37:11] and that was um the ground was wet we had been watering all year so we didn't have brittle wood

[00:37:17] we didn't have dried stressed yeah the vines were dry uh stressed because of the drought at the time

[00:37:22] but we had sufficient water within the first two weeks prior to that because of storms plus our

[00:37:30] supplemental irrigation so that really came into play um uh so you know

[00:37:40] what did i do i knew i couldn't do anything you know that happened at about five thirty in the

[00:37:44] evening yeah i knew i couldn't do anything that evening so uh i called Tiffany and i said you

[00:37:51] need to get down here and see yeah yeah i called my dad and a few other people and my brother and

[00:37:56] they all came and there's just no words to describe eight acres laying on the ground and

[00:38:02] i'm really hard on myself and i thought man i built this vineyard and here to live on the ground

[00:38:08] so we have roughly six five hundred vines out there that eight eight acres and uh

[00:38:15] i would say about 50 of them were visually damaged meaning cracks in the in the trunks um

[00:38:25] we had some broken shrunks that were just unavoidable but 50 or 60 is not bad at the 65

[00:38:33] right um so there are some management techniques uh that came into play a week or two later

[00:38:40] but so what did i do that night a lot of people say what did you do man like did you just come and

[00:38:46] each yourself i went to our 20 22 port or sorry 2021 port and i filled up two glasses

[00:38:54] a port one and it's beautiful to state 90% state and i went and sat out with Tony my right handman

[00:39:02] and we just talked about what we're gonna do tomorrow yeah that's all we did this is our plan

[00:39:07] we didn't bitching complain there's no i mean i'm gonna talk about being slapped with humility like

[00:39:13] facing some some pretty extreme challenges so in the morning i woke up at 5.36 am and got here and

[00:39:22] i started getting texts from the community so very first text i got was from a tyler and bob

[00:39:29] terbi vill over at nero paths and how can we help we just drove by last night saw it

[00:39:34] we didn't want to bother you last night but how can we help we're on our way to come over and give

[00:39:38] you a hand then they brought a few people from their tasting room

[00:39:43] minutes later ragan and ron call and say hey we know we got our crew we can take a day and come

[00:39:47] over and help my brothers here on a bobcat we created a system when defuse came out some neighbors came

[00:39:55] out um don't want to leave anyone out of that story uh but we had a lot of people locally here that

[00:40:02] just kind of rallied to the distress right and they were rallying to the distress over here at

[00:40:07] burgs in the chocolate factory the neighbors went out there and helped rebuild the roof and that's

[00:40:11] a true community spirit when damage happens from you know a natural disaster there's people out

[00:40:17] there immediately in this community it's like an old school barn raising but it's a vine raising

[00:40:21] a vine raising it truly was we had about eight ten people we had the uh so we basically got our

[00:40:27] hammer on our bobcat we went bought teapos and created a temporary trellis for that for the year

[00:40:33] we're actually about to start rebuilding the whole trellis system here and uh we did some some vine

[00:40:39] raising and that was about eight or ten people then we hold the vine up we get a teapose

[00:40:47] get it there just just pick the vine up every 20 30 feet yeah and that took us two days and so

[00:40:55] a full two days after they blew over we had them all up all back in all back up and we uh did

[00:41:01] really nice um a state vinavera add to some of that white wine we had enough fruit hanging on

[00:41:08] the riton the alvarenia to also do our bronchus state reserve which is a cellard a little bit higher

[00:41:13] alcohol uh cellar and new friend choke white wine which we just went through and it's beautiful um so

[00:41:20] we were able to get the vines off the ground before there's any significant damage to the grapes

[00:41:27] themselves um if you wouldn't have known that the vines for laying on the ground you know uh three

[00:41:34] weeks before we picked the grapes you wouldn't have believed but there was anything that was

[00:41:38] wrong with the vineyard so massive thanks to all the people who came out of the house um you know

[00:41:45] I've given wine out and I try to repay that way but you know um just thank you if there's ever an

[00:41:51] issue and I don't know about it call me up you know we'll be there to help you out um

[00:41:56] and so that was a humbling experience but it was also a uh created a lot of

[00:42:03] uh we feel really gracious to live here right if that's a grateful to live here if that's the right word

[00:42:08] um and further kind of uh drives our pride in this region or this area for Texas wine because

[00:42:17] so many people came out and helped out you know we forget that it was a 104 105 degree top temperatures

[00:42:23] those days yeah and that was hot yeah miserable it had just rained for a few days it was humid

[00:42:29] we had mosquitoes intense mosquitoes out here um during that time and everyone was just so helpful

[00:42:36] and cheerful and like at the end of the day you know you're like a man I'm breathing so shallow

[00:42:42] right I like I need to catch a breath right and it's like you realize there's no way you would have

[00:42:48] do what we did without the help of that 15 20 people who came and helped us out so thank you everyone

[00:42:55] um I'd love to hear that. If anything pops up let me know. I love to see that there's so much

[00:43:00] of a spirit of cooperation and there is community and it's really great among the wineries uh well

[00:43:04] let's go towards let's talk a little bit about the uh name of the winery for a second you mentioned

[00:43:09] in a moment ago in Dego Vino so you were gonna say there's their story behind that the Portuguese

[00:43:14] things like that. Well so there's kind of twofold story and they both go back to my brother so

[00:43:18] I really thank him for enjoying Spanish and Portuguese wives or Iberian wines um you know that's

[00:43:26] a great place to start or that's a great point anyone was wine making career you know like

[00:43:31] often you hear about excuse me you hear about you know how cheap Italian wine is well today

[00:43:37] it's not as cheap as it was 10 years ago but you can still pick up very um

[00:43:45] you can still pick up amazing bottles of temperneyo for under 15 dollars or at 15 dollar price points

[00:43:52] and um that are grown in you know in Spain um so the uh price point to taste

[00:44:01] the world you know phenomenal wines from a phenomenal growing region it's not difficult to do

[00:44:07] whereas if you want to drink some you know bergundin it's gonna set you back a bit when we first

[00:44:16] started deciding which plants we wanted to grow uh which which create variety we wanted to grow

[00:44:22] here uh it was easy to just say oh well we'll grow all temperneyo but we thought well let's

[00:44:27] plant a few small lots of our first four acres so uh we decided on temperneyo which was a no

[00:44:32] brainer uh it reflects our hot weather it's a hot weather great uh it makes beautiful red wine

[00:44:38] you can get away with some rosées out of temperneyo so we planted an acre and a half of that

[00:44:43] I'm excited to acre and a half of move ed which uh you know we'd have had stellar moveeds from

[00:44:50] you know William chris has a whole program on move ed and other winers in the area due to you so

[00:44:55] that was a great example of hey this grows great in the hill country and makes phenomenal wines

[00:45:01] good solid state or two and so did it acre and a half of I planted an acre and a half of

[00:45:07] move ed more vee dredre however you want to put it down here yeah however you want to slaughter

[00:45:12] the french pronunciation there's like 200 and some other different synonyms for me vee d so uh

[00:45:19] then we planted a half acre of turegan national because it's a hot weather grape and Andy said

[00:45:25] it kind of delivers a larger more supple red um and it has a bunch of wild unique uh attributes

[00:45:36] you know the tan in the the aromatics of the wine are very distinguished or distinguishable so

[00:45:42] you can tell that's a turegan uh often some wines may fall and they're like is that marlowe

[00:45:48] is that temper nia so perhaps you yeah you know you may be stuck in a little box on some wines

[00:45:54] we had had some thoughts of you know what white wines were gonna play it and at that time I didn't

[00:45:59] really want to play any white wines I thought there was this taboo thing about Texas

[00:46:03] hill country whites which actually turns out to be the exact opposite in our book but um

[00:46:09] Andy did some research and we were gonna plant alvareneo off the bat but he did a little bit more

[00:46:13] research and kind of followed his uh quirky wine um journey and and thought it was a grape

[00:46:24] out there called rinto ar intio that at the time we didn't even know doggluis has had a

[00:46:30] had a few acres planted and uh the nursery were working with where by our our stock um

[00:46:37] they had a riddle and they said that it would they thought that it would do well it's

[00:46:43] in a hot it's a hot weather white and uh loose clusters thick skins but they had an ability to retain

[00:46:50] acidity at a higher sugar level because they're planted around the world and just based on um

[00:46:56] based on what what that grape is doing at other regions we thought well Texas will be a great

[00:47:01] place for that just so happens that we have issues with retaining acidity as we ripen here because

[00:47:08] of the heat uh so we thought that would really help us out in our white wine program and it's

[00:47:13] a leading contributor or a leading uh blending white grape for vino verde production okay

[00:47:21] and we sort of wanted to take our alvareneo that way um the vino verde uh style even though we

[00:47:27] make it into more of a row in style uh but we we're about to have our vino verde here for 2024

[00:47:33] in the spring so um we chose uh so test plot of arinto which was 17 vines and a few alvareneon

[00:47:41] they grew great um they did fabulous canopy and training was very similar to what we were doing with

[00:47:47] our move ed so uh we had that original four acres we also planted about 200 sange of acy vines and

[00:47:55] they did really well so we thought well we're gonna plant more of everything we have the heat um

[00:47:59] so in 2019 we planted our larger deniered which we call the north block um and that's

[00:48:08] sent that was an additional eight acres on vertical sheet positioning or the trellis uh style vsp

[00:48:15] training style and uh so we ended up planting another acre and a half of terriganash now the acre

[00:48:23] and a half of arinto uh half acre of alvareneo um some more sange of acy but we also added into that

[00:48:32] some more traditional porcise varieties which are teem to cow um susau who could um we also planted

[00:48:42] more temperaneo and more more vent okay and then here's one that just sort of came out from the blue

[00:48:48] but they didn't have enough root stock at the nursery to plant as much teem to cow or susau as we

[00:48:55] wanted so we had to half acre so we decided you know being the masochist that we are we think we

[00:49:03] would uh they could really trouble some and throw another variety in there yeah uh so we planted

[00:49:08] cab fronk and a half acre of cab fronk based on a lot of traditional iberian blends have cab fronk

[00:49:15] has a backbone to them so uh a lot of teem to cows and terriga based wines uh if they're made into

[00:49:22] red wine often are blended with some cab fronk and uh the cabernet fronk grow beautiful out here uh

[00:49:30] and so our name adeguio vino is reflective on a our varieties but me both anian alaina my

[00:49:41] brother's wife went to uh porch a gold visit visit wine regions visit the ocean and they came

[00:49:47] back with this sense of a name adeguio which is porches for wine cellar um and that was just sort

[00:49:58] of an idea that they had you know so house of wine wine cellar yeah so house of wine uh they say

[00:50:06] you know my brother will tell you that in porch goal some cooler places they want to was like house

[00:50:10] of yeah you already knew what it was by the name when you're entering a restaurant so they just

[00:50:17] thought that would be a cool a cool name sort of get the spotlight off of our original name for

[00:50:23] a state which is bill your family being heard but you know i don't want to didn't want to raise uh

[00:50:28] you know it's just kind of a colloquial uh family vineyard right which it's fine for um

[00:50:35] our labels and it's fine for our vineyards here but we didn't want that as our um your brand name

[00:50:41] yeah that's what i was trying to say brand name yeah could you do let's be let's face it you have

[00:50:46] to make money and you have to have a brand name and our last name bilger yeah it's alcation and

[00:50:52] it's difficult to pronounce right yeah so adeguino is there's a roll off trip off the tongue

[00:50:59] well you neither does adeguino but it reflects how well we are so we grow nine different varieties

[00:51:04] now we're at 10 different varieties of grapes on the 14 acres and uh five of those are

[00:51:11] traditional iberian so like i said tinta cow, susau, terriganationale,

[00:51:18] orrento and alvarenia also we grow temperneo and mvd which are grown throughout the world but heavily

[00:51:26] in butchery and portugal and we've just recently planted an acre and a half a little bit over an

[00:51:31] acre and a half acre. 6.5 so i just go ahead and say two acres uh round it up round it out

[00:51:40] of shardney yeah and i really love shardney i love what you can do with it i love the old sort

[00:51:47] of challenging thing that yeah you can be a wine maker but if you can't make decent shardney you're

[00:51:51] not worth anything and uh also like sort of the um the challenge of the the you know people love

[00:52:01] to say well texas can't grow shardney right for the half we have great examples of it growing very

[00:52:07] well at texas hills in jones and city um i mean those are some of the oldest producing byes and texas

[00:52:13] planted almost uh thirty six yeah eight years ago um we had the the privilege of making a few

[00:52:21] ventages the shardney well from that vineyard one of that one of the ventages are 2020 a hill country

[00:52:27] shardney uh won a double gold at san francisco chronicle and was in the group of napons and no

[00:52:35] ma ground shardney's that was a forty five dollar plus shardney category and that was the first time

[00:52:41] to have in a double gold i believe in uh in that category okay i don't know he should so from

[00:52:47] from from the san francisco chronicle uh and that wine also that little oh wine competition

[00:52:55] that's you know this the top three wine competitions in north america right and uh

[00:53:02] you know you're playing in a you're playing it in a pretty pretty major leagues over there

[00:53:06] leagues you're playing in a pretty professional field there and so it was you know it was great to

[00:53:12] be able to see our wine was uh stacking up was received so well yeah um that's a true testament to

[00:53:18] to terroir yeah i believe that you know place does matter where these grapes are grown there's a lot

[00:53:22] of other contributing factors that matter but that is one of the i believe main factors is

[00:53:28] where it's grown how it's grown who's doing it you know well and that's a great lead in um we've

[00:53:33] talked a lot about your state here and then you talked about sourcing just a little bit but

[00:53:38] what's your vision of your state terroir here what do you what would you say that is well so the

[00:53:43] vision of the let's let's two or threefold here so yeah vision of you know how far will the

[00:53:49] estate go right now we have fourteen acres of grapes planted um we'll probably plant another

[00:53:59] three to four maybe five if we feel like getting crazy uh but you know land around 18 to 20 acres

[00:54:05] of the state uh grapes that should producing enough grapes that we wouldn't have to depend so

[00:54:12] heavily on other growers but with that being said we really to lean heavily into a grower of ours

[00:54:20] in Mason County and that's a rob par and par vineyards and uh we uh make wines both rosae and red

[00:54:29] out of a large portion of his vineyard he grows upwards to 20 maybe a little bit more now uh

[00:54:36] acres there up in uh up in Mason County northwest of the city of Mason um and he has a

[00:54:45] he has a very unique soil type up there granite lines down driven uh soils beautiful water coming

[00:54:52] out the hickory sands off for and that just so happens to be the new avia the hickory sands avia which

[00:54:58] is i guess it's i'm not sure exactly coming in the spring i just interviewed dim McLaughlin about that

[00:55:03] and um last episode and um he talked about then the spring is when it should come up for public view

[00:55:08] everything's kind of done on it yeah yeah so you know we're really looking forward to these

[00:55:13] smaller sub avia's or micro avia's popping up i think with uh myself dog Lewis and a few others

[00:55:19] really are looking forward to uh this little region down here at loc 290 being pertinels river basin

[00:55:25] or pertinels river valley but really you know one thing to call it like uh you know

[00:55:31] Texas Hill Country but that's a large large area instead of really focusing on these small

[00:55:36] unique areas is awesome but back to the original question we'll plant more um so we have two

[00:55:43] unique soil types here on the estate and that's a heavy clay sandy loam and then we have our

[00:55:49] just a few feet away the diverse the soil diversity is very unique out here in that we have really

[00:55:54] heavy clay sandy loam and the upper elevation uh of our vineyard and as the slope goes down we have

[00:56:00] really sandy almost beach sand just lime stones and this is all deposits uh from the pertinels

[00:56:06] river back in glacial days and so uh some people call the sandy beach limestone you know

[00:56:13] pertinels quicks hand because it's so loose you know you can have your tractor or truck through

[00:56:18] it and get it stuck just being dry wow so uh that really does drive a lot of uh unique flavor

[00:56:28] and aromatic components of wine here in the hill country that you can taste from other producers

[00:56:33] along along the pertinels river here right um uh the popular one on these tempering hills and

[00:56:40] red wines is a lot of people say it has a bit of a blueberry kind of finish um or in that purple fruit

[00:56:46] area yeah um i'd like to say that's a little bit reflective on that are a white sororzees i'd like

[00:56:51] to say there's a very strong interalty or a very strong dryness uh uh or sorry not dryness but

[00:56:58] uh just there's a uniqueness that really pops out on the whites and sororzees uh from growing

[00:57:04] in the slimes stone sand or or mix of limestone uh play and sandy love soil so we're blessed with

[00:57:12] beautiful uh soils to grow our vines in we're also blessed to be on a very slight uh hillside

[00:57:21] and sort of in the middle of the valley so we have a constant wind from the south to the north

[00:57:26] when we're in most of the year and then our wind from the northwest and the winter

[00:57:29] uh we always have airflow in our in our vineyard okay which is nice uh we don't have very many

[00:57:36] pockets where air is still right it has a lot to do with uh the placement of our rows uh but

[00:57:43] it also is just a unique geography of this area in our place here uh when it comes to the soil type

[00:57:50] and soil structure we're always trying to improve that and ways we improve that are our lenient

[00:57:55] heavy annual cover cropping okay and so that is seeding our vineyard with uh this annual cover

[00:58:04] crop for the winter cover crop uh we're we're doing a heavy seeding of ashian winter peas which also

[00:58:13] there are legumes so they give a natural nitrogen they put that back into the soil yeah but um

[00:58:21] we're no till farming and so we're really trying to improve the soil structure here through cover

[00:58:27] cropping we also plant ragrass and oats as well um there's some other uh crops that we planted

[00:58:33] as well we've done dicon radish she has we've done scavenging uh turnups and goo so there's a whole

[00:58:39] like reason behind that but the main reason is without being too specific or too technical

[00:58:46] is to improve the soil structure so we lessen the stresses on our vines okay because those vines

[00:58:56] everything comes back down to the soil that those vines are growing you know the soil is going

[00:59:01] to make it or break it including the finished product which in the low intervention why making

[00:59:07] low input why making that i do in the seller that's a very important component of the why making

[00:59:14] process is the growing of the grapes and um i believe the way we make wine truly reflects on our growers

[00:59:24] and the good job that we're doing and that they're doing in the vineyard hopefully they're doing

[00:59:29] in the vineyard with rob par he's an amazing job he's he's one of the ones who has learned so much

[00:59:34] from humility he's growing you know uh a bunch of different varieties mostly temperanium,

[00:59:39] vede, rassiana a lot of spanish varieties and and portuguese varieties so we're very

[00:59:44] similar in that sense but he also grows semi-on vignet and a little bit of shardonnay so he has his

[00:59:50] fingers in the white wines as well and you know those are estate driven wines terroadre wines

[00:59:58] so back to our estate vineyard here uh we've been herbicide free for three years we're about to go

[01:00:06] to our fourth year uh if this happens to be a rainy year uh we've had it easy to last couple

[01:00:12] years with the drought we haven't had to really fight weeds too much yeah um we'll see how that goes

[01:00:19] i'm guessing we're gonna have to spend a lot more time in the vineyard this upcoming spring

[01:00:23] like everyone's anticipating a wetter spring and summer with the umpio yes and uh those wetter

[01:00:30] weather patterns all pointing at lots of rain so you know we're still learning yeah and so we're

[01:00:37] we're entering our fourth year herbicide free but the vineyard that we just established the shardonnay

[01:00:42] we had lots and lots of yeah that was a forest of dead trees and and we ripped all those old

[01:00:48] dead trees out and all the shrub brush and all the old cedar and all tons of mosquito there in

[01:00:54] that shardonnay field which is separate from our other 12 acres um so we have had to use some herbicides

[01:01:00] out there to knock down all that intrusive uh plants yeah that are that are growing um but here

[01:01:06] in another year or two we're gonna uh switch to uh no till and herbicide free on that almost two

[01:01:14] eight years transition transition over there you know you can't let a philosophy make you work so

[01:01:22] much harder that you're taking away from your main objective and that's creating the highest

[01:01:29] quality wine you can and growing the most premium grapes possible so yeah there's a balance to

[01:01:37] everything so we will transition the shardonnay into uh herbicide free and no till um for its

[01:01:46] first vintage and that will be uh vintage 20 25 hopefully we'll be the first picking of the great

[01:01:54] the shardonnay um vineyard so we have a heavy focus on cover cropping we use a lot of uh we lean

[01:02:01] into the regenerative uh ideas of carbon capture in our vineyard so that goes hand in hand with

[01:02:08] the herbicide free well so uh we don't till deep we may scratch the surface a little bit to

[01:02:15] incorporate the seeds into the soil or not trying we're trying not to disrupt our first you know

[01:02:21] six to eight inches of soil that being there's a lot of reasons behind that but one of the main

[01:02:29] reasons i'm looking at it now is yeah there's all these great benefits of no till but hey it's

[01:02:34] hot here and we're in the drought right now even though it rained a few days ago we're gonna drought

[01:02:38] every time you rip that soil open you're releasing tons of moisture and you're dry that soil out

[01:02:43] so some of our vineyard practices um have these qualities or these great you know attributes that

[01:02:51] we weren't necessarily aiming at but there's some paving and stuff coming out of it so retaining

[01:02:56] more moisture in the soil by not tilling is extremely important to us uh because we are battling

[01:03:03] droughts um on a on an annual basis here in the hill country you know now we're into like your

[01:03:11] this since 2021 we've had any significant rainfall here about to be into 2024 yeah so that's really

[01:03:17] you know high up on our priorities is retaining as much moisture in that soil year round as possible

[01:03:23] so the regenerative techniques really help us out in that field um one of the other things that

[01:03:28] we just started doing two years ago and this year about to lean into it real heavy is uh using

[01:03:34] using beneficial insects uh it was a predatory insects um like green lace wings um praying

[01:03:44] mantis or praying mantids um there's a few others um releasing those at the right time of the

[01:03:53] season so early spring into early summer okay uh creating and more predatory natural defense

[01:04:01] to our insect populations okay uh trying to keep our grasshoppers and our glassy wing

[01:04:09] sharp shooters and thinking as much as possible so rather than just spray and think of a contact

[01:04:15] pesticide yeah the holistic view is and I jokily say this but let's send in the f16 fighter pilots

[01:04:23] let them do their job yeah and that's like the uh yeah that's your green lace wing that's your

[01:04:29] praying mantids um they're in their uh wrecking shop on yeah on other bugs you know and so

[01:04:37] it's a funny way to say it but let's send let's send the air force in there there you go uh

[01:04:41] lady bugs are pretty once it starts getting hot they die off yeah but um there's uh there's a

[01:04:49] arsenal of insects to use and their their numbers are huge yeah so you have to use a lot of them

[01:04:55] and it costs a lot of money but you think of that compared to pesticides which we will never let

[01:05:00] the pests get so bad that they're going to ruin our vineyard but if we can

[01:05:05] get out of the spraying pesticides uh in lean more into the uh beneficial insects yeah um one of

[01:05:15] the bad things about beneficial insects is that there are a few that we use that do bite or sting

[01:05:20] who um so working in the vineyard whoo it can get itchy sometimes yeah but at the same time

[01:05:29] having those green lace leagues having some of those uh beneficial insects are driving the wasps

[01:05:36] out and the hornets out so you know trade off yeah there's a trade off so as much as you spray

[01:05:42] pesticides there's always gonna be some wasps or hornets in your uh in your vineyard and I believe

[01:05:48] that last year we saw hardly any of those okay after increasing our number sure uh the price

[01:05:55] tag is a shock is real yeah but if you can offset your management and not have to rely so

[01:06:06] heavily on pesticides this one yeah and it reflects in our our cost obviously on our state models

[01:06:12] um but that's part of coming out to to a dig ofino is experiencing um a very sustainable operation

[01:06:21] yeah we're losing rows of vies to pd because you got the sharp you know that's another that's

[01:06:27] a real issue too yeah so um we don't have much piercest disease out here yet and hopefully we

[01:06:34] don't in the future but that's something that every growing area in North America has to deal

[01:06:41] including California um some areas far less than others would happen to be sitting in one of the

[01:06:49] largest hot spots of the world for piercest disease so um you know if everything was so easy

[01:06:57] everyone just crow grates with one little region they're not they're growing and there's

[01:07:01] some equally or worse places to grow uh vitus vinifera um in the world then here but this you know

[01:07:08] i'm not going to say it's the best but some years it's pretty good but the challenge makes it

[01:07:13] that destination yeah yeah it's like you know um there's that old saying you know getting there's

[01:07:21] more fun than yeah yeah the the the adventure of getting to your destination is sometimes better

[01:07:29] than the journey yeah the funds in the journey right so well transition just a little bit from

[01:07:35] the vineyard itself to more of the wine side of it now yeah so do you wear both hats you are

[01:07:40] the grower but you're also wine maker and all of that um you talked about it touched on earlier

[01:07:45] so you have your full production facility here now on side yeah we do yeah since 2018 we've been

[01:07:50] producing wine here um we uh we lean into our neighbors big time in 2017 2018 and I was making wine

[01:08:00] uh you know i was limited on my production in 2017 and 18 of how much I could make it wrong but

[01:08:05] you know working with Todd and and Ron being so cool about it you know looking back

[01:08:10] man what a great opportunity and I made a lot of our wine while I was working there in the winery

[01:08:18] which at the time I didn't realize how just amazing of an opportunity that is and uh

[01:08:25] you know at the same time a big pain in the ass too right so we're making wine over there we had

[01:08:30] a small tank over at pernell sellers where we met our white wine and yeah it's some help there

[01:08:35] um until we were set up to be able to full-time make wine here at at at our location so in 2018 I made

[01:08:42] two wines in our uh seller and that was our 2018 sanger of ac and some in our 2018 merlot also okay

[01:08:50] uh the triga and merlot blend which was our kubek hermisa which is very well received both in

[01:08:59] from our customers and at the contest we had her that was a blend of triga that made solely over at

[01:09:05] rons a couple tons of that and then merlot was blended later here once we consolidated our

[01:09:10] winemaking but you know running around making wine at two different little areas plus working

[01:09:16] harvest and then having this little thing of back your head you know merlot that's crazy you don't

[01:09:21] know that much of the whole line making here making all this wine um those are those kind of like

[01:09:26] balt's humility whatever you want to call it or that's you truly learn how to make wine like

[01:09:31] you could read a book all day but until you're tasting the wine until you're actively part of that

[01:09:36] process it that that goes a lot away not until your hands are purple yeah yeah and so um so that was

[01:09:44] like i said an incredible opportunity both Annie and i learned so much a work with Todd um

[01:09:52] and so uh or working for Todd uh and so 2018 we built our winery and we've been improving that

[01:10:00] winery since um uh as whether it's tanks or you know uh production tools or whatever you want to do

[01:10:09] you know the barrels that you have to buy every year or the layout of the winery it's just a

[01:10:13] it's in a moving uh evolution right so it's always yeah two steps forward one step back

[01:10:19] you just gotta get used to it you know and um figure out what works in the winery recently i've been

[01:10:26] really thinking about you know Benedict says after a few years of operation you sort of established your

[01:10:33] your flora right yeah established the yeast presence in your in your operation and uh this year

[01:10:40] i made a lot of wine which would be considered spontaneous yeast fermentation which is uh you know

[01:10:46] little yeast from the vineyard the yeast flooded around in the atmosphere in the winery

[01:10:50] we've made beautiful wines uh following that that idea of wine making or that that

[01:10:57] philosophic approach to why i'm making and that's utilizing the yeast that's already naturally present

[01:11:02] um and we used it all whites and from our vineyard we've used it on

[01:11:08] whites from other wineries or sorry other vineyards uh we've used it all reze and made

[01:11:14] considerable amount of red wine to using that spontaneous or natural fermentation process

[01:11:20] that doesn't mean that everyone coming out of here is spontaneous yeast fermentation

[01:11:24] um but a good amount of it is uh this this uh vintage 2023 yeah um and so the operations in the

[01:11:35] winery were much busier this year we had a bumper crop throughout Texas including that are

[01:11:40] our state vineyards here and that's great um but it also has a downside as i've never made so much

[01:11:46] wine in my life because we were contracted for certain tonnage or acres uh from other growers and

[01:11:52] some of those growers didn't have a problem pulling back a little bit and some of them

[01:11:56] needed to unload more grapes on others so pulling backwards and an option so we had them

[01:12:02] we just have to make the wine and so uh incredible learning process vintage 2023 all i'll never

[01:12:10] forget it lost 30 pounds lost in the mind but it's a great point to bounce back and realize you know

[01:12:17] you can't do it the same way every year based on what you did in the previous year because

[01:12:23] Texas vintages are changing so much this year people weren't fighting over

[01:12:29] contracts they weren't fighting over uh over grapes there's plenty of grapes in fact i'm not

[01:12:36] gonna really get into it but there you know some people are saying there's possibly 50 to 100 times

[01:12:41] they're just alone and throughout the whole state left on the vines or that one on the ground

[01:12:46] and so you know we could get into a toll topic a discussion about a state wine area is moving to

[01:12:51] Texas not producing Texas wine but selling the idea of producing wine yeah i don't want to go there

[01:12:56] but it exists yeah talk about it with other people but um there's no excuse for 2023 not making

[01:13:04] Texas wine i don't i don't care what your business plan was or is there was plenty of fruit to go around

[01:13:10] and those farmers were calling everybody in the phone book trying to sell their

[01:13:16] grapes and they had there was some very high quality fruit out there left on the vines and

[01:13:22] you know you can't you can't jump on every opportunity there are some opportunities that man up

[01:13:27] really wish i would have got some granosh this year and there was some granosh there later but

[01:13:32] we were maxed out in production space say you know that's the kind of year it was for our winery and

[01:13:38] 90% of the other winery is in the state of Texas is that there was an abundance of fruit out of

[01:13:44] fairly high quality and so despite the heat dome that we had in some areas and some varieties and

[01:13:53] depending on whether you may white rosé or red um yeah Texas is such a large state uh the heat

[01:14:00] didn't apply to all vineyards uh we had some amazing chemistries and some amazing quality fruit come

[01:14:05] out of this vintage and we had the opposite because it was weather driven whether it was rain or

[01:14:11] or high temperatures for a sustained period time um so i would say you sum up Texas wine making

[01:14:20] as kind of rolled with the punches yeah and uh so in the in the winery here for our estate vineyard

[01:14:28] it is heavily based on spontaneous yeast fermentations it's heavily based on whole cluster and

[01:14:34] whole berry fermentations very low and slow wine making without getting too technical last say

[01:14:42] low and slow i mean time but also mean low input wine making uh for our state that's what we

[01:14:52] hang our hat on yeah um like a good Texas brisket low and slow slow and slow and don't touch it

[01:14:58] that's right all right keep your hands out of the keep your hands out of the stoker

[01:15:01] the stoker ever told me he was ready keep your hands out of the wine and uh it's hard to say

[01:15:07] but it's true and that's one of the things that Todd would always tell me

[01:15:12] quit messing with the wine forget about it for a minute and just yeah be and i know it's real simple

[01:15:18] to say but it's very true in line making for us um now that doesn't mean that we're um

[01:15:27] um just throwing it out to the wind and letting see what happens we're not just seeing what

[01:15:33] happens in some cases we may yeah maybe rolling the dice in some areas but uh there's still

[01:15:38] protocol there's still a lot of thought given into the order of operations if you will um

[01:15:45] but at the same time we try to keep our fingers out yeah as much as possible from the wine

[01:15:51] and that is what a dig of you know is about and you'll taste that at our case in your room

[01:15:55] so not only will you taste that in our state wines but you can look out and see where they're

[01:15:59] down and if i'm here you can ask me if you can come see the winery and i'll show you our

[01:16:04] product where i like the wine facility yeah production facility winery seller or whatever you want

[01:16:08] to call it yeah so as a wine maker what are you and this is maybe a load of question but what are

[01:16:14] some of your favorite wines to make so my favorite wines to make i hate to say it because

[01:16:20] everyone wants to say it Texas is all about big bold and red i love the beauty and the freedom

[01:16:26] of making white wines yeah and so in rozeis as well but um you have a lot of area to steer your wine

[01:16:33] and white wine making um you have a you have this amazing ability to pick before it's too hot

[01:16:43] here in the hill country and so you can really pick grapes that will make your wine i believe you know

[01:16:51] you can you're not we're picking grapes you know 200 feet 50 feet from our wine making facility

[01:16:59] to maybe 40 miles in the beginning of harvest or not picking lebic fruit that early

[01:17:04] or we'll fruit this growing west Texas that early um so i'm interested in making white wines

[01:17:12] that are unique they have the elegance but when you take a sip of the white wine they're going to say wow

[01:17:18] you know i didn't know Texas produced white wines to this quality and so quality is a big thing

[01:17:25] now what does quality mean does that mean we're just um we make the wine and then we make sure

[01:17:30] everything's clean and get in the bottle on time no there's the quality goes all the way back to

[01:17:34] the vineyard from pruning to vineyard management all the way up through fermentation so what they call

[01:17:41] elevage which is post fermentation whether it's in barrel whether it's in tank that's a long

[01:17:48] management process it can be short too and on style of wine but right now i really gravitate towards

[01:17:55] barrel fermented whites and uh french barrels uh i enjoyed americanos but there's something about

[01:18:06] boredom burgundy and uh the characteristics that they can impart into our hill country whites

[01:18:13] um we also make white wine from other regions of Texas but hill country happens to be my favorite

[01:18:19] because i live and operate here and my families here and our grapes grow here and you know this is

[01:18:25] where we're at so you may hear me talking about the hill country more and you may hear me talking

[01:18:30] about other state growers but i'm talking about those hill country estate growers because yeah they're

[01:18:37] in the field managing their grapes they're in the winery making the wine and they're also there pushing

[01:18:43] the pen putting the taxes or writing taxes and sending them off you know and those are the people

[01:18:49] that really uh hold hold up into a high steam right if you want to say um but in the in the

[01:19:00] winery here i'm just always focused on each lot of wine and and i really get caught up in kind

[01:19:08] of the craftsmanship view of the wine so whether we're doing uh barrel fermentations with our white

[01:19:16] wines or in rosés to fermenting in stainless steel tanks uh just very interested in the craft

[01:19:23] manship of the wine making process and so there's a lot of different avenues you can go down

[01:19:32] whether it's the tools whether it's the process whether it's where the hill country grapes are

[01:19:37] grown that's what is my sort of passion in the in the winery is being able to do that a larger scale

[01:19:45] wire it's much tough to be able to yeah to make that style of wine but we're not big enough so we have

[01:19:51] we have more time more freedom there yeah more freedom so i still enjoy making red wines and uh

[01:19:59] so you know i don't view one as better than the other right but right now in my newer career of

[01:20:07] wine making yeah barrel fermenter lights and rosés that's your favorite that's my favorite

[01:20:12] well and i know that um congratulations by the way i saw that your v on yay just won a great champion

[01:20:18] at sanatonia in rano so you got some some notoriety going out there what are some of the the

[01:20:23] popular wines with customers so what are the ones that people you're really proud of the people say

[01:20:27] how you gotta get this when you go to the the 2022 uh vigny reserve that's one of my proud i'm very

[01:20:34] proud of that wine for a couple reasons hey i'm proud of that wine for our you know our growers uh

[01:20:41] the v-serts that's not a hill country grown grape that's grown up in shallow water which is north

[01:20:46] northwest of lubbick about 20 miles from downtown northwest uh they had a vineyard that they

[01:20:55] sort of rehabbed or the vigny when they first started talking about the vigny i was like uh we don't

[01:21:00] know but they've rehabbed it over the last over the last few years okay uh with dainel paint kind

[01:21:05] of leading that uh as a consultant um they were able to really make some or grow some beautiful

[01:21:12] vigny vans and we've made vigny last three ventures uh with their with their fruit but the frieches

[01:21:19] is becomes better and better every year so if jason's listening we want more ton of vigny some

[01:21:26] will plug that really quick uh but that wine is a majority barrel fermented white um and then it's

[01:21:39] was sellered uh 2022 vintage it was sellered 100% on new friend choke and uh the wine was sellered

[01:21:47] serally so it the wine sat on the fine leaves uh and we stirred it a certain amount of times

[01:21:56] every month uh in the life of that wine our excuse me the the we've sellered that wine for eight

[01:22:02] months and new friend choke maybe even into nine months so that's a heavy regimen of oak

[01:22:10] was a little bit higher alcohol wine so when i bottled it i was a little concerned

[01:22:15] at the alcohol it would be a little high but the fruit and the oak

[01:22:21] helped balance that out right it's helped balance that at high alcohol so i enjoyed that vigny

[01:22:27] that's why we bottled it but started hearing people from the taste scene room telling me how the

[01:22:33] great that wine was and how much they enjoyed it then people started thanking me for making a vigny

[01:22:39] in that style and i thought well no one's really ever thanked me for making a wine

[01:22:44] and uh i'm not bscne people started talking about that wine uh whether it was facebook posts saying

[01:22:51] wow this is a beautiful vigny and it was just like okay cool man we finally did you know

[01:22:57] did vigny right uh which there's no right or wrong but vigny can be a tough line to work with and uh

[01:23:05] long story short we entered it in some competitions it's one gold got some best to show or best

[01:23:10] to class and the biggest uh compliment on that wine was the 2023 San Antonio Laxuxio

[01:23:18] and rodeos international wine competition won grand champion which is the best wine of the

[01:23:23] of the uh entire yeah contest and says the first time that a Texas wine has won the grand champion

[01:23:32] and it's a white wine congratulations so yeah so it's thank you and so uh that felt really

[01:23:37] nice um about nice on that Tuesday morning to open up the email and the brother's footer was

[01:23:42] opened up his emails at the same time i called him he's like did you just read that email

[01:23:46] i said at first i said well is that the grand champion of the Texas he's like no that's the entire

[01:23:50] contest i said well great you know contest go so far and you know it's sometimes wine show better

[01:23:58] some days than others and so you know not to say that's the best vigny in the state i'm not saying

[01:24:03] that at all we don't have any arrogance in it uh we don't think we're the best wine makers we don't

[01:24:08] think it's the best wine ever but it does show very well and the and the customers like it and our

[01:24:13] friends like it and the other wineries compliment us for it so it's real nice to hear some kudos on a wine

[01:24:18] um it's great reason for our listeners to come check it out and so and on the side note hey it's

[01:24:24] Texas wine competition Texas wines should be winning the top awards at our Texas wine competitions

[01:24:31] it has one thing having a Texas competition where it's Texas versus Texas but when you have international

[01:24:36] competitions it is nice to see where your wines fall in the opinions of the tasteors or the judges

[01:24:43] and and so um we don't base our whole sales off of

[01:24:50] contest results right there's some that you want to brag on and that's

[01:24:54] and not to mention they raised so much money for uh local scholarships uh to be part of that

[01:25:00] and uh to uh help out that process is yeah it feels nice you know and so it's good for the

[01:25:05] community it's good for everyone so well let's get to the gritty details about so we got people

[01:25:11] interested in coming to check out a digga so let's talk about what that looks like when somebody

[01:25:15] comes in like what a tasting might look like so so we have a couple different uh ways you can

[01:25:21] enjoy a digga vina okay so when you come to the tasting room we have a beautiful um excuse me we

[01:25:27] have a beautiful outside seating area you can sit on our patio there's a modern architecture uh

[01:25:32] enjoy you know sitting in the sun or the shade or you can sit out underneath our oak trees and uh

[01:25:38] we kick a nice care of our lawn we take a lot of pride in the uh in our and our horticulture here

[01:25:44] at at a digga vina not just the the grape vines but we have you know we have uh red beds and

[01:25:52] and local um flora and fauna everywhere we have deer munching on our grass here in the mornings uh

[01:25:59] so you know you can come enjoy a bottle or a glass outside if we're slow we can do a tasting outside

[01:26:05] if we're busy we prefer to do our tastings inside the tasting room uh we have a you know

[01:26:10] a handful of sofa coffee table kind of living room feel uh seating areas here and we have a large bar

[01:26:22] that we we can conduct tastings at and so we also have a food truck on premise which is our

[01:26:29] digga vina casino which is our kitchen and uh chef mark uh who hails from uh just outside of

[01:26:37] burgundy france oh wow um he's been in the united states for 20 some odd years uh cooking and

[01:26:43] he made his way to texas and somehow our parallel universes found us uh brought your

[01:26:48] together brought us together and his family is a wine family and his brothers work at wine

[01:26:54] cooperatives and he loves the idea of the work that we do here and uh he contributes to our wine

[01:27:01] tastings by cooking food that you know he makes pizzas pairs you know they pair well he also has

[01:27:08] uh this month he's making rib and french style brisket not takes the style but the fatty components

[01:27:15] of those all three of those really uh pair well with our wines and so you know nothing's better

[01:27:22] than a classic rosa and some mushroom rizzato or some estate white and some mushroom rizzato

[01:27:27] there you go or maybe a slice of pizza or red you know yeah and so they pair well

[01:27:32] but he has an uh he's an excellent chef and quirky personality that he likes on on us pretty well too

[01:27:39] so we enjoy him being here so we have food options Thursday through sunday at a digga vina

[01:27:44] um right now we're open all seven days a week as we get slow we may close out on wednesday but

[01:27:49] until then uh uh we're open every day a week check us out at at digga vina.com obviously yeah we've

[01:27:56] got our facebook for hours and those could say yeah operating hours and all that are operating hours on

[01:28:01] saturdays or saturdays or eleven well before i quote it with do word you're probably not gonna come

[01:28:07] here we're not open any earlier than eleven we go from eleven to twelve thirty depending on what day

[01:28:12] it is okay we open website the best place to find it in every week we always close at six okay so

[01:28:17] gotcha make a reservation if you want to sit inside as the best way yeah but lock up come experience

[01:28:24] a digga vina and they can do that on the website the reservation reservations are on the website or

[01:28:28] you can call set so for your tastings do you have a set flight of wines or do the does the

[01:28:33] customer pick so we have a set flight of wines um and it's changing all the time okay seasonal seasonal

[01:28:40] i would say sometimes weekly so during the month of October we had a one hundred percent of state

[01:28:46] tasting so that was a state whites rosé as an anarets and so uh yeah like i said during month of

[01:28:52] October we were one hundred percent of state tastings okay and so that was five uh state

[01:28:58] tastings right and uh you know there's a bonus or a revisit poor um right now we have a state

[01:29:05] wines sprinkled throughout our menu but i like to focus on a lot of small lot wines yeah so one

[01:29:10] thing that kind of sets us apart is you know we're not on a calendar of changing up our tastings

[01:29:16] sometimes our tastings change because we made right out of that wine or maybe we have few

[01:29:20] wines that we want to showcase that are ready to drink now we think we'll pull some of that

[01:29:25] take you know some of the wines back and we'll present some of these new wines to see how they do

[01:29:29] um so i always want to you know Annie and i always want to make sure that people know that

[01:29:34] if you visit us in February when you come back in march april mage and whatever that is you come

[01:29:40] back in a couple months you're there to have a new wine out sometimes we're back in fourth and a

[01:29:47] month we'll have two different tasting menus um we're producing a lot more white wines and so

[01:29:52] those white wines are smaller lots so uh you know once we're we're at the very tail end of our

[01:29:59] alvarenia and a recycling but we've had our uh state whites on we're about to bring them back on

[01:30:04] full force okay and so uh here very soon you'll have the opportunity to taste maybe one or two

[01:30:10] ventures of our state whites and see what our program's about here and how much does it taste

[01:30:14] in cost? Tasting the five plus a report is twenty five dollars okay um and so we're in a state

[01:30:21] driven winery so you'll taste the wines here that you can't taste anywhere else yeah and uh

[01:30:28] we have some of the same discounts you know if you buy three bottles will refer to a tasting and

[01:30:34] we have some case discounts and things like that family friendly pet friendly very

[01:30:38] family friendly pet friendly okay we all have kids and we're very family oriented here at at a

[01:30:44] dig of e-know and you know we don't want to have any exclusivity where the you know you have to

[01:30:51] travel with kids and that's part of life and it's if you have the opportunity to do that bring

[01:30:57] them out you know uh it's as long as they're not going crazy in here we're fine with it so

[01:31:02] any maximum group sizes a larger your group the more important it is for you to make a reservation

[01:31:07] okay but we're not going to limit that we have outside seating we have a pavilion outside that we

[01:31:11] can move if it's too busy or too large of a crowd so you know communication is the key to all success

[01:31:18] yeah so if you want to succeed in your wine tour give us a call with love to answer the phone

[01:31:23] and talk to you go to the website make a reservation if there's any questions or concerns

[01:31:30] just send us or sorry send us an email or call us okay you will you'll get a reply what's the

[01:31:37] what's your busy and slow seasons what's the best time for somebody to come visit well you know

[01:31:42] our busy and slow seasons are so dependent on the weather yeah and so obviously our spring is

[01:31:47] our very busy time but we're about to enter in to uh pre Christmas kind of crowd and yeah that's

[01:31:55] families getting together and coming out sitting down having a glass of water bottle um so you know

[01:32:01] as the weather's nice there'll be people here okay uh but some of the best times I believe are

[01:32:09] the fall and the spring for our state if you want to really experience the outside and sit in

[01:32:14] an oak tree or sit out in the sun in the winter and gaze upon our vineyard or the vines right look at

[01:32:19] our neighbor's pasture it's beautiful in the spring um that's the best time to do it but okay uh we

[01:32:26] have air conditioning so the summers are great here too so you can come inside and have a taste

[01:32:30] in and it's just as nice okay yeah do you offer a wine club we do have a wine club all right what

[01:32:35] are the some of the benefits and how do people join so one of the benefits of our wine club is

[01:32:38] we're not constantly trying to sell you a wine club okay so we don't you know uh the second

[01:32:45] year here some some wineries the very first thing you hear is join our wine club and here's all

[01:32:50] the benefits you have a very simple wine club that's four times a year and maybe three on certain

[01:32:56] years but we don't charge you if you know I say that jokingly but um if we don't have enough wine

[01:33:02] we're not gonna have release wines so it's a three bottle club which is our friends club then we

[01:33:08] have a case club which is our 12 bottle club and uh those are both quarterly releases and with that

[01:33:17] some of the benefits are some discounts for yourself free tastings some fruit free uh glasses of wine

[01:33:25] some benefits if you bring some friends in uh but our parties are really what is the true benefit so

[01:33:32] when we have a release we have a true party we have a true meal not just a some little tiny bite to

[01:33:39] you know we go full um you know we go full sale on our parties eat drink be merry and bring a chair

[01:33:49] and enjoy yourself sometimes it's picnic style sometimes it's inside sometimes it's the

[01:33:53] facetile but we always try to have a band and uh we're about to you know get into some other little

[01:33:59] areas uh we have a friend who glows who blows glass and we're thinking about having them out doing

[01:34:04] a little demo during one of these just to kind of you know fast and see fun things uh and so our

[01:34:12] parties are really what I believe sets us apart for our three bottle and case club um our case

[01:34:18] club we try to do a uh founders dinner every every year and that's just a free dinner where we

[01:34:24] get all the case clubs to get case club members together and uh they get a few wines that we don't

[01:34:30] have um behind the bar for sale so I make a barrel or two something special for the uh case club

[01:34:36] every year um and that is some intimate barrel tastings through um when I say intimate that's

[01:34:43] one on one with me yeah maybe one on one with my brother and I and we're a

[01:34:48] testing or tasting some barrels um and the wine uh is always uh hand chosen by my brother and I

[01:34:57] okay uh for each release uh we time that we're very know the wines that are released are because

[01:35:04] the wines are ready to drink right you know and so that's another thing is we're still selling

[01:35:10] 2019's because we're just releasing some of our 2019's and 2020 reds because they're finally to

[01:35:17] the point where we don't release them we don't have to uh just release wine because we have it in

[01:35:22] bottle uh we we started making wine in 2016 and we didn't open our doors till 2020 and we had

[01:35:30] solid three four ventages there four ventages there of yeah wine waiting to open say

[01:35:36] agent ready to go um do you uh I know when you first started you talked about the idea of

[01:35:43] just growing the grapes here on the estate and maybe then branching out to distribution or selling

[01:35:48] those do you do any kind of distribution or do you only sell here in the taste room so we sell

[01:35:52] here in the taste you know most of our uh sales are here in the taste you know but

[01:35:58] we are sprinkled out into some restaurants and Fredericksburg, San Antonio, Austin,

[01:36:04] Street to Kitchen sells some of our wines uh who chef G just wanted James Beard award she's the

[01:36:09] first funeral uh James Beard recipient in Houston cool um and they they have a rose air red there

[01:36:19] they had a vignette I don't know if they sold out of it or not um and then we are in a few wine

[01:36:23] bars or shops throughout Austin and San Antonio area and so uh before the most part

[01:36:33] you gotta come here you gotta come here all right or visit you know yeah visit a few handful of uh

[01:36:39] restaurants that we'd like to see our wide and are very proud that our wines are

[01:36:43] are there do you sell your website we are working on that okay we had a marketplace for uh during

[01:36:50] COVID but um sort of shut that down I got you we're in the works of hopefully um selling on our

[01:36:57] website you're saying okay uh there's the app or two um that we have a few of our wines at uh

[01:37:04] think Somley and Texas Wine Club have released a few of our wines but look we are a very small

[01:37:10] one so um what I say small uh our 2018 vintage was like 1800 case or sorry 2018 was 1600 cases

[01:37:19] or 2019 was 1800 cases 2020 was just a 2000 cases okay uh we were a 30 we're a 34 hundred case

[01:37:29] winery at the moment and so you know our ideas of expansion aren't necessarily based on volume

[01:37:37] yeah you know our ideas of expansion are based on a state volume expanding so

[01:37:43] planning more grapes keeping the vineyard healthy and thriving and uh it's based on our relationships

[01:37:49] with our little country growers and our two or three growers in the high plans of West Texas

[01:37:56] and uh that's very driven by well relationships are what it's about um

[01:38:03] uh but also the quality of the grape growing so you can't always hit the floor running right so um

[01:38:10] we uh we also farm we custom farm in acre of saraat Neil new sums which are excited about we finally

[01:38:17] uh had our very first harvest this year got about close to four tons off of a single acre of saraat

[01:38:23] and this ross beautiful we're selling it on new friendship oak and um how about 175 to 200

[01:38:30] cases of that hopefully in a few years and uh that's a great relationship that we have with

[01:38:34] Neil and uh Daniel paid his uh manager um so we're excited about the saraat coming out of new sums

[01:38:43] we planted that uh you know four years ago and so yeah well he that's a long time to wait right

[01:38:51] it is so what in your opinion is the number one thing that sets a dayga vinau apart

[01:38:57] that would say i make a list or say i really have to go check that place out i want to go

[01:39:02] yeah as soon as i can that's an easy question i guess sir what sets a dayga vinau apart

[01:39:08] for many wineries in the state and lots of wineries throughout the world is that

[01:39:14] we grow a large percentage of our wine here on property

[01:39:20] i'm an owner of this company as well with my brother and his wife uh

[01:39:26] and odor is all three of us are actively participating in the grape growing the wine making

[01:39:33] the management our hospitality professionals who are also in the tasting room you know every weekend

[01:39:46] they are educated wine enthusiasts or wine professionals um

[01:39:52] um most of our uh employees that work with us are full time okay and so you're not just getting

[01:40:01] your local uh part timer on the weekend pouring some wine because they think it's a good way to make

[01:40:08] yeah uh a little extra money we have people who love wine and they're professional about

[01:40:13] it and it's their life and that's that's what it is for us as well and so it's not just us

[01:40:18] getting some grapes and make it wine it's a lifestyle and it's in typical lifestyle times

[01:40:24] and uh but we never want to focus on that we want to focus on positives and that's

[01:40:28] make growing grapes making wines so we're wine growers when you come here you'll just see it right

[01:40:35] off the bat and you'll experience it through our tastings or our glasses and uh that's what really

[01:40:41] sets a society is is are the people who work here and and what we do here and we're not the only

[01:40:47] ones who do it um but you know we got to brag on ourselves we we love to make wine yeah so that's

[01:40:55] that's the main thing that's set us apart is that we love to grow wine and we love to make make

[01:41:00] relationships with our customers and we love hearing all the positives and see even the negatives

[01:41:05] if they ever have them uh

[01:41:10] and there you have it from Michael himself i loved sitting down to chat with Michael in this

[01:41:20] interview uh i i was talking to him and i want to put together a t-shirt that says eat, drink

[01:41:26] and be merry and bring a chair and it says a digaveena on it i thought that was a great quote from him

[01:41:32] where he talked about those events they had on the property and i thought that t-shirt would be perfect

[01:41:37] and there today goes you heard they really do it all from the farming all the way to the

[01:41:41] wine making and really try to be sustainable and lower interventionist in the wine making process

[01:41:47] and their wines are winning awards as you heard in the interview with that great grand champion award

[01:41:52] and their wines are young like i said he just started their ventages in 2017 to 2018 so

[01:41:57] i definitely expect if you pay attention down the road you're going to see even more awards being

[01:42:03] given to this amazing winery and the wines that he's producing there now when you go to visit the

[01:42:07] tasty room is really fun it's kind of got this modern retro feel there's a lot of places to sit

[01:42:14] and enjoy your wine they even have a vinyl record player there so if you're into the retro vinyl you

[01:42:21] can play records in the tasting room uh their artwork that they have all around the walls of the

[01:42:27] tasty room we're from different artists they rotate that through and they allow people to

[01:42:31] purchase that artwork so every time you come the wall decorations might look a little different

[01:42:36] so it's like a new experience every time and the staff all man the staff is so responsive they're

[01:42:42] there to help you and educate you you're gonna have a really great experience when you go to sit in

[01:42:46] the tasty room there at a de gabino and check out that food truck while you're there amazing

[01:42:51] pairings with their wines now before you go make sure you check out their website it's www.adegavenho.com

[01:43:00] now you're gonna find a lot of things on their website when you go check it out you'll find more

[01:43:04] information about their story you'll hear a little bit about their sustainability practices and

[01:43:09] that low interventionist wine making philosophy that Michael has you can check out some of their

[01:43:14] upcoming events you can make reservations to come do your tasting and you could even find

[01:43:18] information on the friends and the founders club and join right there from the website if you

[01:43:23] really want to do that and lastly they do have a store online with a limited number of bottles

[01:43:27] there check out that website again it's www.adegavenho.com now don't forget when you go to see them

[01:43:34] make sure you tell them you heard about them on this podcast Texas Undervine now after our interview

[01:43:39] concluded I was able to sit down and enjoy a nice tasting of their wines what they had on their

[01:43:44] menu that day and one of the ones I fell in love with was actually their 2020 estate move

[01:43:50] Vedra so this wine is directly from there estate the bilgar family vineyards and it's got kind of a

[01:43:57] leathery and smoky effect on your nose but on the palate it's a lot of fruit just really bursting

[01:44:04] for things like raspberry and plum it would go great I think with some smoked meat so it's time

[01:44:10] to wheel out that barbecue and enjoy that move edra if you go you make sure you try that move

[01:44:15] edra if you can it is amazing I made that my wine library bottle for this episode well with that

[01:44:20] it's time to I guess get my nose out of the cellar and follow the fruit down the road wherever it

[01:44:25] takes me there's a lot more great wine destinations here in Texas that I know you're anxious to hear

[01:44:30] about and I want to bring more of that information to you as well now if you're enjoying the podcast

[01:44:35] will you do me a favor leave me a rating or a review wherever you get this podcast if you're watching

[01:44:40] the video on YouTube you can actually click the like button and the subscribe to get access to

[01:44:44] this channel to know exactly when new episodes are released and share it with your friends tell them

[01:44:48] all about it and more importantly when you go to to a day of veto for yourself and experience it

[01:44:53] come back here and leave a comment tell me what your favorite aspect of that vineyard was in the

[01:44:57] comments I'd love to read and see what you thought about it as well now I'd also like to solicit any

[01:45:02] feedback you'd like to send me about the show so if there are places that you would like to see me

[01:45:07] visit I'm still working on planning out my schedule of locations and I'm up to suggestions if you

[01:45:11] have some so send me that feedback as well as if there's anything you really love about the show

[01:45:16] or anything you think I can approve on a little bit make sure and send me those comments in that

[01:45:20] feedback you can email me at scottetexasundervine.com or go to the socials I'm on almost all of the

[01:45:27] social platforms at at Texas under vines you should be able to find me that way to send me a direct

[01:45:31] message there if that's your preferred method whatever you'd like to do or again leave a comment

[01:45:36] on the youtube video whatever you'd like to do is great I do relish that feedback and take it all

[01:45:40] to heart and lastly you can also check out my website at texasundervine.com to see a lot more content

[01:45:47] and to see the back episodes and all of that it's kind of my central location there at the website

[01:45:52] and with that my time is up so make sure to subscribe to the podcast and follow my socials to be

[01:45:57] notified anytime the next episode is released and until then happy trails and bottoms up y'all.

[01:46:10] Thanks for listening to texasundervine we strive to provide you with the best information about

[01:46:15] wine businesses all over Texas be sure to check out our website at texasundervine.com

[01:46:20] and follow us on our socials at texasundervine to stay up on all the upcoming episodes

[01:46:26] please email us with any suggestions or feedback also contact us if you're interested in donating

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[01:46:36] great info to you in future episodes above all travel safely and most especially drink responsibly

[01:46:44] .

[01:46:53] Vine trippers have I got a deal for you so if you haven't checked out the texas wine club yet

[01:46:59] you have to go check it out so you can get wine clubs at all of these different great wineries that

[01:47:04] I've talked about in the episodes but if you can't get a chance to get to those places

[01:47:09] and you want to sample some of those various wines this is the perfect fit for this podcast so

[01:47:14] I partnered with texas wine club if you go to their website they scour the whole state they choose

[01:47:20] great wines from all over the Texas wineries and they put them together into packs that they ship

[01:47:25] out every quarter you can pick out a package of three six or nine bottles and every quarter you

[01:47:30] can get a taste of different wineries throughout Texas without having to travel to them so

[01:47:34] if you've wanted to taste some of the great wine I've talked about on this podcast here's your

[01:47:39] chance without having to travel so what you're going to want to do is go to www.tx wine.com and pick

[01:47:47] your package that you want to try and when you put in my code Texas undervine that's all one word tx

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[01:48:01] can also find the link in the show notes here for this podcast and go check out texas wine they're

[01:48:06] a perfect fit with this podcast so go drink some great wine