Carter Creek Winery Resort And Spa (Hill Country)

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

[00:00:16] You can actually download this app, put it on your phone, or just go to the website if you're not an app person.

[00:00:22] And if you ever want to go visit some of these great locations that we've been talking about in the podcast, this will give you great information about the place before you go.

[00:00:30] And you'll be able to find other wineries in the area, so if you want to make a day of it, go see several other places as well.

[00:00:37] You can search by region, you can sort the listings, find ones that are kid-friendly, family-friendly, even ones that host RVs.

[00:00:44] 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 that are going on at the different wineries.

[00:00:56] So it's your one-stop resource that goes hand-in-hand with this podcast to be able to find those great places to go visit.

[00:01:04] So check out the Texas Wine Lover website.

[00:01:07] It's txwinelover.com.

[00:01:09] Or go to their app.

[00:01:11] You can find it on the Google Play Store or the Apple Store as well.

[00:01:14] Enjoy your trips among the vines and use that app.

[00:01:17] Welcome to Texas Under Vine, an exploratory podcast to scout out the best Texas wine country has to offer.

[00:01:47] I'm your wine guide, Scott, and I'm here to lead you on an auditory expedition to the vineyards and wineries across the great Lone Star State.

[00:01:56] Each episode will cover a different vineyard, winery, or wine-related business operating in Texas.

[00:02:01] You'll hear interviews, descriptions, and details about each location that will excite you to visit and experience them for yourself.

[00:02:09] Ready to plan a wine tour?

[00:02:10] Use these episodes to choose the most interesting spots for you and your friends to check out.

[00:02:15] Most of all, enjoy hearing about the rapidly growing wine industry in the state and what makes our wines and wineries the best.

[00:02:23] Howdy, fellow Vine Tripper.

[00:02:37] Welcome to Episode 53 and Season 3 of the Texas Under Vine Podcast.

[00:02:43] So this is the premiere episode for Season 3 of the podcast.

[00:02:47] And for this particular episode, I've got a big one for you today.

[00:02:51] I was privileged with being able to go out to the heart of the Texas Hill Country into the Wine Road area and visit Carter Creek Winery Resort and Spa.

[00:03:03] And there, I was able to sit down and visit with their winemaker, John McPherson, as well as their general manager, Derek Stutz.

[00:03:11] Now, for those that don't know, John is no stranger to the Texas wine industry.

[00:03:17] He is the son of the legendary Clinton Doc McPherson, who can easily be argued as the father of the modern Texas wine period.

[00:03:28] He, along with several of his buddies and teachers there at Texas Tech University in the late 60s, early 70s, really wanted to see wine grapes become a new agricultural crop for West Texas in the High Plains area.

[00:03:43] And they planted what is now famous Sagmore Vineyard and began producing different types of grapes and harvesting grapes out there.

[00:03:51] And Doc was also instrumental in starting Yano Estacado Winery there in Lubbock, which was the second winery opened in Texas and the first one since Prohibition ended way back in the 1930s.

[00:04:06] So pretty important family history there.

[00:04:10] He's also the brother of Kim McPherson, who's the owner of McPherson Cellars in Lubbock.

[00:04:15] You've heard him on this podcast as well in the past.

[00:04:18] And so he and Kim, John and Kim, both grew up in the early roots of the modern Texas wine period, running around the vines, helping out at Yano Estacado and earning their chops there under the incredible tutelage of their father, Doc McPherson.

[00:04:36] So John actually has a degree and background in food science and chemistry.

[00:04:42] But around 1985 or so, he really wanted to pursue his knowledge of sparkling wine production, especially traditional method, sparkling wine production.

[00:04:52] And in 1985, we just didn't have anything like that.

[00:04:55] We didn't have the equipment.

[00:04:56] We didn't have that kind of production going on here in Texas.

[00:04:59] So he decided to follow to the heart of the U.S. wine territory at that time, which was in California, and moved out west to learn more skills, to study in that industry, and to perfect the sparkling wine production, a traditional method there.

[00:05:15] And he actually settled in Temecula, California.

[00:05:19] Now, while he was there in Temecula, he actually met a fellow by the name of Jim Carter, who had a vineyard there.

[00:05:26] And they began talking.

[00:05:27] And Jim actually created three different winery resorts.

[00:05:32] Carter Creek Estate here in Johnson City is just one of the three.

[00:05:35] The other two are Carter Estate Winery and South Coast Winery Resort, which are actually there in Temecula.

[00:05:42] So this here, Carter Creek Estate, was their first indulgence into the Texas wine industry.

[00:05:49] And John will tell you a lot more about that during the interview.

[00:05:53] Now, there at Carter Creek, their first vintages of wine actually date back to 2017.

[00:05:59] But the story of the property is a little further than that.

[00:06:02] It was actually purchased in 2010 with Jim Carter's vision of putting in this winery resort there in Johnson City.

[00:06:11] And but construction didn't really begin until around 2015 to 2016 on the actual property itself.

[00:06:18] So that's when they started ramping up production for the wines leading to the 2017 vintage being their first vintage.

[00:06:24] But the winery itself didn't actually even open until late 2019, early 2020.

[00:06:30] There was a lot of weather delays and things like that that caused things to take a little longer to get completed.

[00:06:36] And then, of course, they opened right as the COVID pandemic was kind of picking up steam and starting in full stride.

[00:06:44] So they basically opened and had to immediately close again from the government shutdown.

[00:06:48] So it was kind of a tumultuous start to get going.

[00:06:51] But they were able to ramp back up after the COVID slowed down and things began to open back up.

[00:06:56] And now are fully functional for the last several years have been been doing really well.

[00:07:01] Now, they do have a vineyard on site there and they do produce Texas wines.

[00:07:07] They get grapes from multiple sources.

[00:07:10] You'll hear about that.

[00:07:11] But they actually on their vineyard on site have planted some of the new PD resistant varietals that were created by a professor at UC Davis.

[00:07:21] And they are planted there on site in their vineyard.

[00:07:25] They hope to release very soon their first bottling of some of those resistant varieties, the PD resistant varieties that they've got there.

[00:07:34] And when they do, they're going to be one of the first commercial wineries out there releasing these full-blown varietals and not just using them as mixing or blending varietals, but full-blown varietals that they're going to call a state reds.

[00:07:48] And again, John will tell you more about that in the interview as well.

[00:07:51] But don't worry, when you go to visit, you're going to find a good sampling of both reds, whites, and rosés.

[00:07:58] And knowing John's background in traditional methods sparkling wine, they do have a few sparkling varieties available for those of you that really like your bubbles.

[00:08:07] They have a really cool Tempranillo sparkling rosé.

[00:08:10] And they also even have a sparkling peach wine, which you'll hear a little bit more about that as well.

[00:08:16] And John is also a big fan of port wines and port wine production.

[00:08:21] So they also produce a port there.

[00:08:23] So any of you who are really into fortified wines and dessert wines, you're going to find something to fit your palate there at Carter Creek Winery for sure.

[00:08:31] Now, in addition to great wines, this location at Carter Creek Winery Resort and Spa has something for everyone.

[00:08:39] They even have a brewery on site called Old 290 Brewery, which is also the name of their restaurant that they have there as well.

[00:08:45] Full-service restaurant.

[00:08:46] They have a barbecue smokehouse called JC Smokehouse.

[00:08:51] They have everything you could want from amenities that you get at a resort.

[00:08:55] They have lodging.

[00:08:56] They have a spa on site.

[00:08:58] You can do the whole package here at Carter Creek Resort and Winery and find something for everyone.

[00:09:03] And it makes a great home base.

[00:09:05] For those of you that want to go out to the wine road on 290 and maybe visit multiple wineries, but you need a place to stay, here is your spot.

[00:09:13] And you've got everything that you need there as your home base.

[00:09:15] Or if you just want to come out and spend a week and just enjoy some time at the resort, at the winery, just enjoying everything Carter Creek has to offer, they've got you covered there too.

[00:09:26] So I was actually privileged with being able to go out to Carter Creek Winery the night before our interview for a fabulous wine-paired dinner.

[00:09:35] And got to hear John talk about some of these wines throughout the dinner.

[00:09:39] I was lucky to be seated next to his brother, Kim McPherson.

[00:09:43] So we got to talk a lot as well at the table there.

[00:09:46] And when John came around, we talked all things Carter Creek.

[00:09:49] We talked about the status of the Texas wine industry.

[00:09:52] They told all kinds of fun stories.

[00:09:55] It was a really cool, fun event.

[00:09:57] Now, the next day, I ventured my way back to Carter Creek and actually got to sit down with the cameras on with John, as well as the general manager there, Derek Stutz,

[00:10:08] to hear a little bit about Carter Creek and their amenities and all the things you can expect when you go to visit there.

[00:10:14] So let's get to that interview now.

[00:10:24] Howdy, Vine Trippers.

[00:10:25] Welcome to Carter Creek Resort and Winery.

[00:10:28] And I'm here with the winemaker, John McPherson.

[00:10:32] And today, we're going to talk to him just a little bit about his history as well as about the history of this location.

[00:10:38] So you can get excited to come visit this incredible winery and place that we have here.

[00:10:43] But without any further ado, let's talk to John.

[00:10:45] So, John, tell me, how did you get into the wine industry?

[00:10:49] Well, Scott, that's, you know, it goes way back.

[00:10:52] I grew up in this business.

[00:10:54] My father started Yano Estacado back in the mid-70s.

[00:10:59] And prior to that, he started doing experimental grape growing there in Lubbock.

[00:11:03] And I was, you know, 8, 10, 12 years old.

[00:11:07] And that was how weekends and summers were spent, going out to the vineyard and doing things out there.

[00:11:13] And it wasn't necessarily what you thought of as a kid as something that you wanted to be doing.

[00:11:18] But, you know, I grew up in that business.

[00:11:21] And it was something as, you know, ag is you either fall in love with it or you quickly figure out a way to get out of it.

[00:11:28] So, you know, I loved what we did.

[00:11:32] And my dad was always kind of a wine junkie.

[00:11:35] He made stuff at home.

[00:11:36] He had a cellar.

[00:11:38] We always had things cooking down there that he was doing.

[00:11:41] But as he got more into it, research was part of it.

[00:11:45] He was a chemistry professor there at Tech.

[00:11:48] And he had a little wine lab in the chemistry department where he was doing some wine research.

[00:11:53] And that was really his thing.

[00:11:55] He really got into that.

[00:11:57] And the idea of getting Texas a different crop besides cotton and sorghum out there on the high plains,

[00:12:04] grapes were something that were looked at as being a potential.

[00:12:07] And the more he experimented with it, he got others, you know, infected with the bug.

[00:12:13] And they started planting more vineyards.

[00:12:15] And before you knew it, there was, you know, about 100 acres out there that there was no home for the fruit.

[00:12:21] You know, it was something that was a function of what are we going to do with all these grapes, Mac, when they come in.

[00:12:26] So my dad decided to start Llano Estacado.

[00:12:30] And that was in 76.

[00:12:32] I was 14 by then.

[00:12:34] And had a chance to just, you know, kind of be a cellar guy.

[00:12:38] I worked with a couple of different winemakers that came in.

[00:12:41] And we had one of the first Australians in the country come in and was a winemaker there at Llano way back.

[00:12:47] And then I had a guy from Davis.

[00:12:49] And then, of course, my brother came in after Joe Norman, who was a Davis guy, left.

[00:12:54] And so Kim was there.

[00:12:56] And Kim and I worked together for a number of years before I graduated tech.

[00:13:01] And both Kim and I are food science majors.

[00:13:04] So I think our approach to wine is very much in a scientific food background.

[00:13:10] And my second degree is in chemistry.

[00:13:14] Kim went into horticulture.

[00:13:15] But in the end, we both were, you know, all about how do you make better wine?

[00:13:20] And certainly in Texas, back in those days, it was, you know, a lot of experimentation going on.

[00:13:26] And I think that trying to figure out what was growing best here, the types of varieties that did well.

[00:13:32] My father had really gone into Native American and French-American hybrids because he thought they were going to handle the weather better.

[00:13:42] Okay.

[00:13:43] And as it turned out, we all saw the vinifera being really the ones that made the better wine.

[00:13:49] And they seemed to weather fine.

[00:13:51] You know, they handled everything.

[00:13:53] And I think as more time went on, it became apparent that certain varieties were things that Texas really needed to focus on.

[00:14:01] Things that came out of these hotter climates in Europe, whether it was Spain or southern Italy, you know, southern France.

[00:14:09] It was something that these varieties were the ones that kind of took the marker and became, you know, noticeable as making great wine.

[00:14:16] And so I think that, you know, when I left in 85 and moved to California, my goal, I wanted to get into méthode Champenois sparkling wine production.

[00:14:27] Okay.

[00:14:27] And wanted to be a sparkling wine guy.

[00:14:30] And I was going to come back after being out in California and do sparkling wine here in Texas.

[00:14:37] But the economy in Texas really took a nosedive in the late 80s.

[00:14:42] And there wasn't a lot of opportunity to come back to.

[00:14:46] And my dad, smart man that he was, said, you know, you got a good job out there.

[00:14:52] You just better stay put for the moment.

[00:14:55] And he had started work on a winery that was coming up called Tayshia.

[00:15:00] And I thought maybe that was going to be the thing that was going to bring me back.

[00:15:04] But a lot of things changed there.

[00:15:07] And that Tayshia later became Caprock.

[00:15:09] And Kim did a stint there when the bank had taken it over.

[00:15:14] So he was at Caprock.

[00:15:17] And, you know, we ended up just staying in California.

[00:15:19] My wife and I, the longer we stayed, the harder it was to even think about leaving.

[00:15:24] Got those roots put in, pun intended.

[00:15:25] We did.

[00:15:26] We, you know, had two kids.

[00:15:28] And, you know, it was something that I think, you know, the longer I had stayed, the deeper I got involved in what I was doing there in Temecula.

[00:15:37] And Temecula is very much a wine region like Texas in that it was kind of the unsung hero of the state.

[00:15:45] We didn't have a lot of notoriety at the time.

[00:15:47] And the wines coming from that region were not, you know, things that people were, you know, looking to saying, oh, we got to get us a good Temecula cab or something.

[00:15:57] It was like, you know, they just didn't talk about it.

[00:15:59] But the sparkling wines that I was doing were what were really, I think, set a lot of things going in that region in respect to how we gained our reputation when I was at Culbertson.

[00:16:10] And Culbertson later became Thornton Winery.

[00:16:13] And I was, you know, one of the most award-winning sparkling wine guys in the state at the time.

[00:16:20] And had contemporaries like Eileen Crane and Donnie Dyer and Dave Stevens who were all, you know, coming out of Napa and Sonoma making incredible sparkling wines.

[00:16:31] And it was fun to be part of a group of people.

[00:16:33] We had the Classic Methods, Classic Varieties group that all focused on Methode Champagne wine.

[00:16:42] It was something that, you know, we got together once a quarter and tasted wines.

[00:16:47] And we did promotional tours and stuff of California back in the, this was late 80s, early 90s, trying to promote Methode Champagne wine.

[00:16:57] You know, that whole cycle, sparkling's come and gone.

[00:17:00] It's up and down, you know, when people have a lot of prosperity, you know, sparkling's, you know, you can drink a lot of it.

[00:17:06] But when times are tough, it's, you know, it becomes one of those beverages that not necessarily everybody gravitates to.

[00:17:12] But, you know, Prosecco's huge these days.

[00:17:15] And I think, you know, my abilities with sparkling is, you know, brought some new stuff here to Texas for what we're doing for sparkling's here at Carter Creek.

[00:17:24] So, you know, my background, when I met Jim, I think that, you know, he had a big vineyard there in Riverside County that he had planted in the mid-90s.

[00:17:38] And that's Jim Carter.

[00:17:39] That's Jim Carter, owner of Carter Estate, Carter Creek and South Coast, all of that.

[00:17:44] He had put in about 140 acres up in the mountains of Riverside County, it's a little area that's part of the Palomar Mountain Range where Mount Palomar is.

[00:17:57] And Siaguatibia is what they're called.

[00:17:59] But he put that in and was really a great grower.

[00:18:02] He had the idea that he was going to sell grapes.

[00:18:04] And he was working with a number of wineries in Temecula, one of them being Callaway, which was a big, you know, big wine producer.

[00:18:12] And they were a big corporate winery.

[00:18:15] And they underwent some restructuring.

[00:18:17] And that winery got sold out from the corporate structure and became a private winery.

[00:18:22] And when that did, they cut his contracts.

[00:18:25] And so he had all these grapes without really...

[00:18:28] A home.

[00:18:28] A home, yeah.

[00:18:29] And that was when I met him in 2001.

[00:18:33] And he was pushing to try and sell me fruit when I was at Thornton still.

[00:18:38] And I was like, Jim, you know, I didn't know this guy from a bale of hay.

[00:18:43] And I just said, you know, I'll take a look at it.

[00:18:46] But, you know, we really don't need any fruit.

[00:18:48] I've got contracts with other guys.

[00:18:50] And anyway, when I went out and saw that vineyard up in the mountains, I was just blown away.

[00:18:55] He had done everything right up there.

[00:18:59] And it was one of these things that he said, I'm going to build a winery.

[00:19:02] I'm going to do a whole thing.

[00:19:04] I'm going to have a resort.

[00:19:05] We're going to have a hotel, you know, restaurant.

[00:19:08] And I, you know, I've met a number of people always like Jim where you see the money and you think, yeah, I bet you're going to do this.

[00:19:16] Big ideas.

[00:19:17] Right.

[00:19:17] Right.

[00:19:18] Right.

[00:19:18] And he got after it.

[00:19:19] And, you know, that was in 2003.

[00:19:22] He came to me and said, I want you to, you know, come be the winemaker.

[00:19:27] He was serious.

[00:19:28] So the fellow that I was working with, another winemaker, Javier Flores, who he's part of the Mexican wine industry.

[00:19:36] Okay.

[00:19:37] He grew up in Ensenada and worked for LA Cheto, which is one of the big wineries down there.

[00:19:44] And Javier and I have been working together since 89.

[00:19:48] So here we are 2003.

[00:19:50] Yeah.

[00:19:51] 14 years together.

[00:19:52] And I said, well, if you're going to hire me, you got to hire Javi.

[00:19:55] So Jim hired us both and we started working for him in 2003.

[00:20:01] And we're still, you know, still there.

[00:20:03] It's a part of the family.

[00:20:03] Doing all of that.

[00:20:05] And Jim, you know, in between then and here even, he started a second winery in Temecula called Carter Estate.

[00:20:12] Okay.

[00:20:13] Which is our kind of high-end cream of the crop stuff that we do.

[00:20:18] We, you know, hand select all those things that we're doing for that project.

[00:20:22] But while we were doing all this, you know, Jim had bought some apartments in San Antonio.

[00:20:30] And he was coming back to Texas quite a bit.

[00:20:32] And I told him, you know, Jim, the Texas industry is like blowing up.

[00:20:36] You know, we could be doing stuff, you know, even with our California stuff back there if we wanted to.

[00:20:43] And this is your chance to get back to what you had always thought about.

[00:20:45] Get a foothold.

[00:20:46] And he came through here and saw this piece of property here at 290 and made a decision to buy it.

[00:20:54] And I remember when he came back and said, I just bought 80 acres out there.

[00:20:57] And I said, you're kidding me.

[00:20:58] And he's like, yeah, we're going to do this.

[00:21:00] We're going to make a winery.

[00:21:01] And so, you know, when he started this project, I think the whole industry in Texas had really evolved to the point where people were more attracted to what was really going on here.

[00:21:15] And the room for us to say, oh, we're bringing some California stuff and do that.

[00:21:20] But it had become very apparent that, you know, there were a lot of guys here that really wanted it to be Texas 100%.

[00:21:27] They didn't want any of this out-of-state stuff.

[00:21:30] And I realized then that, Jim, you know, we're probably going to have to really focus on Texas fruit.

[00:21:38] I think it's going to be better for us as a reputation.

[00:21:42] And, you know, not necessarily think that we're going to bring out stuff from California and do it.

[00:21:48] So we, you know, made the plans.

[00:21:53] And I, you know, started talking to my brother about the fact that, you know, Kim does custom crush for a number of people.

[00:21:59] And so it was like, how can we fit into this role here?

[00:22:03] And he said, well, whatever, you know, you need to do, we'll make it work.

[00:22:07] We'll do something.

[00:22:12] We wanted to buy and what things we wanted to make.

[00:22:14] And he had all those connections with all the vineyards there in the High Plains and all of that.

[00:22:18] Sure.

[00:22:18] He's got, I mean, he knows a lot of the growers.

[00:22:20] I know some of them.

[00:22:21] And, you know, it was just a function of, you know, the family had those connections.

[00:22:25] And so we started making the wines.

[00:22:28] We did that in 2017 was our first vineyard.

[00:22:32] And this place was being built at the time.

[00:22:34] And Jim had very serious plans that he was going to open, you know, on time.

[00:22:39] And didn't really realize that winters can be very wet here and springs can be very wet here.

[00:22:45] So construction got delayed a bit because of weather and whatnot.

[00:22:50] And by the time we did get ready to open, of course, pandemic rolls around.

[00:22:53] So it just kind of made it a little harder to get going and gain some traction.

[00:22:59] But I think where we're at now, it's, you know, we're in a good place.

[00:23:03] We've got some beautiful wines that, you know, some of them are maybe a little older and vintage from what we started with.

[00:23:09] But, you know, they're well made.

[00:23:10] And I feel that, you know, the craft of what Kim and I do, certainly when you talk about winemaking,

[00:23:18] and our background is food science, guys.

[00:23:21] It's all about how you handle fruit and what you do with it start to finish that makes it, you know,

[00:23:27] you capture it in the bottle like you want.

[00:23:29] So we, you know, we've had some great vintages.

[00:23:34] And I'm very happy to be, you know, part of this, you know, family and what all we've been doing in respect to,

[00:23:41] you know, what Jim dreamed up way back in the, you know, early 2000s with South Coast and going forward.

[00:23:48] And so you're still doing the winemaking there in California as well as here?

[00:23:51] Absolutely.

[00:23:52] You know, we've got the two wineries in Temecula occupy, you know, probably a good 70, 80% of my time.

[00:24:02] Here in Texas, you know, I work with Kim during harvest to get things done.

[00:24:06] And then I usually come out in November to check on everything, see how it all went,

[00:24:12] what wines are going to go into what barrel and how we're going to handle things.

[00:24:17] And then we make plans for bottling and get ready to, you know, roll it forward.

[00:24:22] I work with Kim on making some of the cuvées or, you know, we do several sparkling wines here at Carter Creek.

[00:24:28] And so under my guidance, he's doing, you know, Chenin Blanc we do and a Tempranillo that we make a rosé with.

[00:24:37] And then he makes those cuvées and then we bring them out to California where I have at South Coast,

[00:24:44] we have the facilities to do secondary fermentation.

[00:24:47] And so we do the secondary fermentations on these and then bottle them and then they come back.

[00:24:53] So it's Texas fruit.

[00:24:55] It's all Texas wine, but it's, you know, it's finished out there with, you know,

[00:24:59] there's just not that infrastructure here in Texas for doing sparkling wine yet.

[00:25:04] There's a few guys that have some of it, but, you know, it's something that, um, it's,

[00:25:08] it's a big expenditure.

[00:25:10] And when you've made that investment like Jim did out at South Coast, it just makes sense to,

[00:25:15] you know, keep using it.

[00:25:17] Yeah.

[00:25:17] We, it's not that much to truck, truck, uh, you know, truckload of wine out to, to, to California.

[00:25:23] So in fact, I just got our 24 Tempranillo a couple of weeks ago.

[00:25:28] It came in with some shit and the Chenin Blanc that we're doing.

[00:25:30] I do a sparkling for my brother and I do the sparklings for here.

[00:25:35] So we, we trade off.

[00:25:37] He does, he does our tables and I do his bubbles.

[00:25:40] Well, so before you got started, even here at Carter Creek, you were already known for

[00:25:44] Method Champenois.

[00:25:46] So at that time, were you still doing all the riddling by hand?

[00:25:49] We do at Carter Estate.

[00:25:51] Yeah.

[00:25:51] The wines that we do at Carter are all bottle fermented Method Champenois.

[00:25:55] And they are, you know, minimum of a four to six years entourage.

[00:26:00] So they've got that big yeasty note there.

[00:26:03] They carry that very classic sparkling character.

[00:26:06] They're different than say the Charmotte process that we do here, which I think when you look

[00:26:11] at the two processes, it's either the one where the accent's more on the development of

[00:26:18] the fruit and the yeast component.

[00:26:20] That's part of it.

[00:26:21] That's the bottle fermented stuff.

[00:26:23] And then when you do Charmotte, it's a lot more about the grape itself and how you can

[00:26:27] really varietal character.

[00:26:29] So yeah, show that, accentuate it in a way that you have nice fruit.

[00:26:33] It's very pretty.

[00:26:34] It's not necessarily carrying that yeasty complexity that, that the other stuff does.

[00:26:39] So there's, there's a time and a place for either one, but I think that it's something

[00:26:43] for us.

[00:26:44] It's, you know, I keep my team very busy.

[00:26:47] In fact, when I go back, we've got a bunch of disgorging to do at Carter Estate for the

[00:26:52] sparklings that we do there.

[00:26:54] So it will, it will, we'll just go from that into, you know, we've got olive production, you

[00:26:59] know, Jim's got a thousand olive trees at Carter Estate.

[00:27:03] So olive oil.

[00:27:05] We move into olive oil.

[00:27:06] In fact, all my guys are, that were in the vineyard right now, they're getting ready to

[00:27:10] start harvesting olives here in a few weeks.

[00:27:12] Second harvest.

[00:27:13] Yeah.

[00:27:13] And it's, it's one of those things.

[00:27:16] It's funny because Jim's son, Jeff, he's kind of like, you know, we're, are we in the

[00:27:21] wine business?

[00:27:21] Are we in the olive oil business?

[00:27:23] What's, you know, it's the resorts, you know, it's true marketer.

[00:27:26] It all keeps it busy though.

[00:27:27] It's just, I think it's a great, great bunch of things going on always at the South Coast

[00:27:34] and Carter Estate.

[00:27:35] And then of course here.

[00:27:36] Sure.

[00:27:36] Well, I'm intrigued by this idea of being a winemaker with your foot in two different

[00:27:42] terroirs or two different locations there in California, as well as here in Texas.

[00:27:47] So tell me, what do you see are some of the challenges between great growing and winemaking

[00:27:52] there in California versus here in Texas?

[00:27:55] Well, you know, growing up in this business, uh, certainly Texas has always had the weather.

[00:28:02] You know, that was one thing that, um, my dad always could say, you can count on it to

[00:28:07] freeze or hail at some point, you know, during the growing season.

[00:28:11] And it, and it, you know, you, we always have that, you know, whether it's, you know, springs

[00:28:16] that suddenly get warm and everything buds out and then it cold snap.

[00:28:21] And, you know, the wind, you, you know, I do think the panhandle up there in Lubbock is

[00:28:26] probably one of the best places in the state for growing growth because of the, you know,

[00:28:31] it's arid.

[00:28:32] It's, you don't see a lot of issues with, with rain necessarily, but you do get a lot

[00:28:38] of hail.

[00:28:39] Yeah.

[00:28:39] You know, one of the vineyards that we work with, uh, Leahy last year, they had a massive

[00:28:44] hail and it took out probably three quarters of their vineyards.

[00:28:48] And, you know, it was, um, devastating obviously to them because they've lost all those contracts.

[00:28:55] And, and, you know, what, what they've got, but, you know, the, the industry is kind

[00:29:01] of in a, in an odd place in some respects with sales and all of that.

[00:29:05] But, you know, talking about, you know, the difficulties of grape growing here versus

[00:29:09] California, I think the weather does seem to be a little bit more perfect there in many

[00:29:14] respects, but, you know, climate change is a real thing.

[00:29:17] And I do think that we're seeing, you know, warmer, warmer winters, drier winters out in

[00:29:25] California that we're dealing with some of the, um, aspects of how we set fruit.

[00:29:30] We, we, we had a kind of poor set this year in our vineyards.

[00:29:34] It was a little lighter crop than what we'd anticipated, probably a good 20, 30% in some

[00:29:39] respects on certain variety.

[00:29:41] I mean, it was just because it was a damp, it kind of got damp at the end of May when

[00:29:47] things were flowering and they just didn't set as well.

[00:29:51] But I think that, um, you know, what we, you know, the real challenges are always going

[00:29:57] to be, how do we get people to, you know, to keep drinking wine?

[00:30:01] You know, because I think our, our competition out in the marketplace is, you know, runs the

[00:30:07] gamut from abstinence to, you know, spirits and, and, uh, craft beer.

[00:30:13] So, you know, people have a lot of choices and obviously if you're not, you know, drinking

[00:30:18] a lot, then it becomes something where, you know, if you have a glass of wine, you may not

[00:30:23] have a beer.

[00:30:24] If you have a beer, you're not going to drink something else.

[00:30:26] So it's, it's, um, you know, I think those are probably the big challenges is how we

[00:30:31] keep the consumer engaged, how we can continue making products that are, uh, price sensitive,

[00:30:39] you know, cause I think a lot of young people don't want to shell out 20, $25 for a bottle

[00:30:45] of something that they really know nothing about and maybe don't have a, a pension for it in

[00:30:51] respect to flavor.

[00:30:52] Like, it's like, I don't even like wine.

[00:30:53] So why am I going to spend 25 bucks on something like this?

[00:30:57] So, um, you know, that, those are, I think the biggest challenges are how we keep the young,

[00:31:02] you know, the new, the new wine drinkers engaged.

[00:31:05] And we develop some things that, you know, for me, I'm a lot more classic in my approach

[00:31:11] to wine and what I want to do.

[00:31:12] I'm not one of these, let's add sugar and flavors and make, you know, blueberry Merlot or, you

[00:31:19] know, whatever.

[00:31:20] It's kind of something where it's like, I think the fruit can speak for itself, but sometimes

[00:31:26] that's not necessarily maybe what the younger crowd may be looking for.

[00:31:29] And they may need something that's a little bit more entertaining or whatever.

[00:31:33] So I guess how, how we approach that and what we develop as a, as a new sort of flavor or

[00:31:40] wine style may be something that's, that's going to be a challenge going forward.

[00:31:45] And, you know, we see how this all plays out.

[00:31:49] So do you find yourself trying to appeal to two different palates?

[00:31:54] For instance, making wines and things specifically for palates here in Texas versus maybe wines

[00:32:00] in California for maybe different, slightly different palates there.

[00:32:04] Yeah, no, there is a, I would say there's a distinct little bit of a difference there.

[00:32:10] Yeah.

[00:32:11] People I find really in Texas, they, they do talk dry.

[00:32:14] They say they like it dry, but you find that, you know, sometimes a half to three quarters

[00:32:19] of a percent residual sugar are a little bit more in what they really do like.

[00:32:26] Bone dry is not necessarily where it's at.

[00:32:29] And certainly I think California has evolved because within the state, you've got these

[00:32:35] appellations of, you know, Napa Sonoma, you get the Paso Robles and everybody's got a little

[00:32:40] bit different take on how they want to address their styles.

[00:32:44] I always think of Paso being this really ripe, opulent style of wine that's tends to be higher

[00:32:51] in alcohol and, you know, leans heavy on oak sometimes.

[00:32:55] Um, doesn't have some of the finesse that, you know, you might see out in Napa and Sonoma,

[00:33:00] but, you know, these are, you know, stylistic things.

[00:33:03] And I know with Texans, you know, we find, you know, oak is not necessarily what they're

[00:33:09] looking for.

[00:33:10] They do like fruit, you know?

[00:33:11] And so I think blends tend to be a little bit more popular here possibly, but, you know,

[00:33:19] it's like, what, what research do I have?

[00:33:21] I just, you know, can see what, what we do to ourselves.

[00:33:24] Yeah.

[00:33:25] And, um, you know, it's something that, uh, I think having these different wine styles

[00:33:31] is going to be, you know, key to being successful certainly going forward.

[00:33:35] Yeah.

[00:33:36] Well, what about varietals?

[00:33:38] Do you get to play with different types of varietals here in Texas?

[00:33:41] Then maybe you get to play with varietals there in California.

[00:33:44] Any differences?

[00:33:45] Primarily the same.

[00:33:46] We do a lot more Bordeaux varieties in, in our area, mainly Jim, when he planted Wild Horse

[00:33:52] Peak, which is our big vineyard for South Coast and Carter estate.

[00:33:57] Uh, that's a lot of Merlot, Cab, Petit Bordeaux, Malbec, Carmenere.

[00:34:03] Yeah.

[00:34:04] So we, we do a fair amount of that.

[00:34:07] And then, you know, I've always felt our region was more suited to, you know, Rhone and Italian

[00:34:12] varieties.

[00:34:12] So we do have Syrah and Morvedra and Grenache, Sangiovese.

[00:34:17] Um, we do a little bit of stuff with some Portuguese varieties, Toriga National and Verdello as a white.

[00:34:24] Um, of course, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir are things that we grow for our sparkling

[00:34:30] program.

[00:34:31] But, um, here, you know, kind of same in Texas.

[00:34:35] I mean, Tempranillo, I find is probably one of the reds that, uh, you, you know, consumers

[00:34:41] know it now.

[00:34:42] And it's something that I, I do think every, every winery probably has a Tempranillo on

[00:34:48] their list as well as Grenache and Syrah and Morvedra.

[00:34:53] And these are all things that, you know, Kim and I for years have said, that's what, that's

[00:34:58] what we ought to be doing here.

[00:34:59] I mean, the focus is, should be on what grows well, not necessarily what the market's demanding

[00:35:05] because everybody's drinking Cabernet.

[00:35:07] You know, it's kind of like, we're not going to make a Cabernet here in Texas, probably

[00:35:11] that's ever going to, you know, outshine Napa or, or do something to, to, you know, make

[00:35:17] Bordeaux take a second look.

[00:35:19] But, um, you know, you can make, you can make them fine.

[00:35:22] That's great.

[00:35:23] But I, I would rather hang my hat on a Syrah or a Tempranillo.

[00:35:28] Yeah.

[00:35:28] There's warm weather.

[00:35:29] Viognier is one, uh, Peak Pool, uh, certainly.

[00:35:33] Chenin Blanc that we, we still, you know, are using always for the sparklings that we do.

[00:35:38] It's, it's, they, they, they perform very well here.

[00:35:41] Well, there are a lot of great people, arguably in the Texas wine industry, but anyone could

[00:35:47] probably make an argument that your father, Doc, um, was very influential and maybe even

[00:35:53] considered the father of the modern Texas wine period, uh, with all the amazing things

[00:35:58] they did in that chemistry lab basement, um, going on even to the vineyard and the winery

[00:36:04] and so forth.

[00:36:04] So do you have any great memories or stories of things that you saw when you were growing

[00:36:10] up with him?

[00:36:11] You know, he, uh, he was such a gregarious guy.

[00:36:15] And I think, well, well, I, I, things I remember are always how he would get these phone calls

[00:36:22] and they'd come, you know, in the evening, seven, eight at night, and they would be all

[00:36:27] of these different guys.

[00:36:28] I mean, uh, Paul Bonarigo, uh, Messina Hoff, he'd call, talk to, you know, and talk to

[00:36:35] my dad about it.

[00:36:36] Doc, well, you know, what do you think?

[00:36:38] And Paul was getting his winery going.

[00:36:40] Bob Oberhelman, who he used to have Oberhelman here.

[00:36:44] I don't know what became of Oberhelman, but Bob would call, uh, fellow who had, uh, the original

[00:36:52] guy over at Grape Creek, um, oh, Sims, um, you know, they, they get, my dad would just

[00:36:58] get these calls and my mom would be, you know, he's going to be on the phone all night.

[00:37:02] He's doing consulting again.

[00:37:04] And, you know, he, and he just would get on and talk with these guys.

[00:37:07] And, you know, it's something that when I left in 85, you know, the industry was just starting

[00:37:12] to take off really.

[00:37:14] And I, uh, you know, didn't get to see, I would hear about it, you know, so I, you know,

[00:37:20] my dad had come out and visit or I'd come back and visit and there's always stuff going

[00:37:24] on.

[00:37:25] And I just think, you know, the sheer, uh, amount of, you know, people who wanted to get

[00:37:32] on that bandwagon with my dad, you know, like I, my mom always thought he was a little crazy,

[00:37:37] you know, wanting to do all this wine stuff, but he pursued it in a way that, you know,

[00:37:43] there was a scientific bend to it because he wanted to show, or, you know, you could have

[00:37:49] viticulture on the high plains, you could grow great grapes out, out there in Lubbock.

[00:37:54] And, um, that was that.

[00:37:57] And then the winemaking piece of it, it's like, once you have it, you, if you've got the grapes,

[00:38:01] you can make wine with it, you know what you're doing.

[00:38:04] And so he infected a lot of other people, you know, with the, with the fever and the

[00:38:09] bug don't want to get into the wine business.

[00:38:11] And I think that, you know, for me, that's just, you know, it's, it's part of the legacy

[00:38:15] now that I kind of look at and, you know, I try to keep people in my appellation involved

[00:38:22] and be, you know, stay on that same sort of role about helping others in our valley and

[00:38:28] trying to make better wines.

[00:38:30] You know, it's like, it's one thing if you just say, I'm going to make it and it's for

[00:38:34] the tasting room and whatnot, but you know, you do want to be beyond that.

[00:38:38] You know, I think you should think bigger.

[00:38:40] And certainly just because you have people coming by your little rosé or whatever, it's

[00:38:45] something that you want it to be better each year.

[00:38:49] You want to see improvement.

[00:38:50] You want to see the quality go up.

[00:38:52] And that's, you know, for me and Javier, the, that's our big goals at South Coast and Carter

[00:38:58] Estate.

[00:38:58] And certainly here at Carter Creek, we want, we want the wines to be able to, you know,

[00:39:03] stand alone and be able to take, you know, people take notice of them if they're comparing

[00:39:08] it to anything else they may be drinking in respect to wines from around the world.

[00:39:13] So sharing that knowledge, sharing that experience that you've had with others around you.

[00:39:17] Oh yeah.

[00:39:18] I mean, there's, there's a wine's passion.

[00:39:20] I mean, you gotta have a passionate take on it.

[00:39:24] I mean, if you're not loving it, then I don't know.

[00:39:26] Are you in the business?

[00:39:27] You shouldn't be making it, you know, because I do feel that that's part of what really

[00:39:33] translates in the glass.

[00:39:35] You get it when you smell it, the aroma, the flavors.

[00:39:39] It's, it's something about the guy who is out there struggling in the vineyard, growing

[00:39:44] it.

[00:39:44] You know, he had to have a lot of passion to even get up that day and go, you know, sand

[00:39:49] fight or do whatever he had to, to take care of the vineyard.

[00:39:53] And then, you know, for us getting it picked and getting it in and making it, it's, it's

[00:39:57] even more so.

[00:39:58] So I think that, um, you know, having, having that kind of thing come out of, you know,

[00:40:05] one individual like my dad, it, uh, meaningful.

[00:40:09] Yeah.

[00:40:09] Are you still working with Javier?

[00:40:10] You mentioned him a few moments ago.

[00:40:12] Yeah.

[00:40:12] Yeah.

[00:40:13] No, he's, he's running all the traps back home right now.

[00:40:16] So it's, it's good.

[00:40:18] I, uh, felt, didn't feel bad leaving, you know, we just had wrapped harvest.

[00:40:23] We had, uh, we just crushed our, uh, port varieties.

[00:40:26] Um, what's today?

[00:40:28] Saturday.

[00:40:29] So like Wednesday, we crushed our last grapes.

[00:40:33] Last stuff came in.

[00:40:34] Yeah.

[00:40:34] I had one block of cab off a wild horse peak come in and then the port stuff.

[00:40:39] And so left him in charge of figuring all that out and doing it.

[00:40:43] So it's good.

[00:40:45] I have a, I've got a great group of guys that, you know, I've been blessed with for

[00:40:49] the last like 15 years, really.

[00:40:51] So, I mean, of course, hobby for longer than that.

[00:40:54] Yeah.

[00:40:54] Yeah.

[00:40:54] Yeah.

[00:40:54] Yeah.

[00:40:54] We're like brothers.

[00:40:55] So it's, that's great.

[00:40:57] Now, I know you've got your growers here in the high plains and of course, Kim up there

[00:41:02] in Lubbock doing some of the, you know, connections there, the crushing and the babysitting of

[00:41:07] some of those wines.

[00:41:08] But what about out in California?

[00:41:09] Do you get a chance to get out to the vineyard very much?

[00:41:12] In other words, do you get to get out to wild horse and check on the fruit and see how

[00:41:16] things are progressing and so forth there in the vineyard?

[00:41:17] For half to you, you know, my assistant winemaker, she is a agronomy major from Iowa State.

[00:41:28] Okay.

[00:41:28] And so she's really was, you know, big into the vineyard stuff and our vineyard manager, she works with him very closely on keeping, you know, spray programs going and ground cover stuff and pruning schedules, all of that.

[00:41:45] It's something that, you know, I'm, I'm attuned to it because I'm the guy that when the owner comes, you know, Jeff at this point, Jim's son, he wants to know, you know, what production are we looking at?

[00:41:57] What kind of tonnage?

[00:41:58] What kind of yields?

[00:41:59] What kind of gallons?

[00:42:01] What kind of cases?

[00:42:02] What do we got?

[00:42:02] You know, I have to be able to translate all of that and make sure that we, we keep the pipeline field going.

[00:42:09] So it's something that, um, you know, yeah, I, I'm, I'm out in the vineyards.

[00:42:15] We, as sampling is, uh, you know, it's one of the, for me, the fun parts of, of the start of the grape season, you know, is going out in the vineyard and, you know, watching it as it goes from just blooming to fruit.

[00:42:28] And then monitoring the fruit throughout because, you know, we, uh, we do fight mildew quite a bit.

[00:42:35] We had a lot of mildew pressure.

[00:42:37] They have a lot of that here.

[00:42:39] Not so much, you know, I think Texas, it's because it's a little bit more arid.

[00:42:43] They don't fight mildew quite as much.

[00:42:45] Interesting.

[00:42:46] So you really do have your finger on the ground to the glass process, especially there in California, huh?

[00:42:53] Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, it, it's, it's part of my everyday life.

[00:42:58] Yeah.

[00:43:00] Yeah.

[00:43:00] Well, what do you think your father, if he was alive today, would think of the modern Texas wine industry?

[00:43:07] I mean, to have taken Yano Estacado to be the second winery in Texas after prohibition, including Val Verde.

[00:43:16] Um, now it's grown to some estimates say over 500 different wineries.

[00:43:21] Um, it's now shown to be a $20 billion industry here in Texas.

[00:43:26] I mean, your dad himself said that he, one of his goals was to make grapes a important crop here in Texas.

[00:43:33] And, and I think we've definitely seen that happen over the last 40 or 50 years, uh, since he kind of got us started on this train.

[00:43:41] And so what do you think he would think about this particular industry where we're at now here in Texas?

[00:43:46] That, I think it was probably in his, you know, last years he passed, you know, um, I guess them eight years ago.

[00:43:56] Yeah.

[00:43:57] Ten years ago.

[00:43:58] So anyway, he, uh, I think he was amazed that, um, it had grown to be what it had come.

[00:44:09] And I think, you know, it was always funny.

[00:44:11] We would, Kim and I would joke with him about, well, you know, doc, it's because of you that we're doing this.

[00:44:16] Yeah.

[00:44:17] And he was like, I had nothing to do with it.

[00:44:19] I hadn't, you guys did that on your own.

[00:44:21] I didn't make you go do that.

[00:44:23] And it's like, yeah, like hell you, you know, I'm told to get up.

[00:44:26] We're going to the farm, you know, getting the truck, you know, we didn't, you know, Saturdays were.

[00:44:31] We're pruning today.

[00:44:32] That was it.

[00:44:33] Weekends, you know, we'd go to church on Sundays, but then we're out in the vineyard.

[00:44:37] It was, it was always like that.

[00:44:39] Yeah.

[00:44:39] You know, I didn't feel like I had a choice.

[00:44:41] And he's like, I, I didn't make you do that.

[00:44:44] And it's like, man, no, you kind of did.

[00:44:46] But Kim, uh, you know, Kim went to California early.

[00:44:50] Um, and part of that was when he graduated tech and food science,

[00:44:55] he, uh, had gone to work for a company called Anderson Clayton, which made salad dressing.

[00:45:01] And they were in Plano.

[00:45:03] And anyway, uh, he was there for a while and they wound up having a big turnover in the company and layoffs and stuff.

[00:45:10] And he got out and decided, you know, I don't know if I'm going to do this anymore.

[00:45:15] And that's when the guy that was at Yano, the fellow who'd graduated from Davis had been working there that I was working under.

[00:45:23] He was going to leave.

[00:45:25] And so my dad said, why don't you go out there to Davis and take some classes?

[00:45:29] Cause Doc was tight with a lot of those professors there in the, uh, Enology and Viticulture department at Davis.

[00:45:36] So he was able to get, this was before, you know, all the stuff with schools and that registration.

[00:45:41] And so he got Kim into Davis and Kim took a couple of years of classes there and, and, you know, came back to Lubbock and was able to.

[00:45:52] You know, do, do what he did at Yano.

[00:45:54] And I think that, um, you know, for me being part of all of that timeframe, that was when I, you know, really realized this, this is a great lifestyle really, isn't it?

[00:46:04] And, you know, it's not, yeah, you work hard during the summer and then you got these years, the rest of the year to kind of watch the wines and then you get them bottled and then you start all over.

[00:46:15] And, you know, it's a big cycle.

[00:46:17] So I think, you know, my dad, he, he probably never really thought it was going to be as big as it was.

[00:46:24] I know when we built, you know, when he built Yano, it was just, I mean, that main building, if you've ever been there, it's that big old concrete block building.

[00:46:34] And it was, uh, you know, that was it.

[00:46:37] And it was just, you know, it was a one, one big old thing that didn't look like much.

[00:46:43] Kind of middle of nowhere at that point too.

[00:46:44] Yeah, it had to.

[00:46:45] You know, the Lubbock was still a dry, it was a dry city.

[00:46:49] You couldn't even buy, you had to go outside the city limits to buy alcohol.

[00:46:52] So my dad had to get some, some laws changed there to be able to even put a winery in.

[00:46:59] So he, he was a, he was a gamer.

[00:47:03] I mean, he had to do the political stuff and the, the, uh, academic stuff and all the things that he did do that really got it going again.

[00:47:11] And then I think that, uh, you know, and I, I can remember as a kid going to Val Verde winery and meeting Tommy Clawyer.

[00:47:18] Yeah.

[00:47:18] The family.

[00:47:19] And, you know, my dad, he, he just loved going down there just because he was actually seeing a, you know, real winery.

[00:47:25] Yeah.

[00:47:25] You know, at that point.

[00:47:26] Especially when it's been going since 1883 or earlier than that even.

[00:47:30] Right.

[00:47:30] Yeah.

[00:47:31] And it was, uh, it was just for him.

[00:47:33] It was like, you know, he's, my dad was like a kid when the, you know, he'd go down there, but it was, it was a good time.

[00:47:38] I remember those times, you know, fondly.

[00:47:41] And, and certainly as he started planting his vineyard there in Lubbock, that Sagmore vineyard, which has become a historic site.

[00:47:48] I think that's, that's exciting.

[00:47:50] Texas Historical Commission.

[00:47:52] Yeah.

[00:47:52] We're going to have a marker out there and, you know, Kim's working hard to, to replant part of that, that, that, that's there.

[00:47:59] I mean, it's been under cultivation since the late sixties.

[00:48:03] So, um, anyway, uh, he was doing all this research with T W T, uh, TV Munson stuff and was looking at all those grapes thinking they were going to be the, the thing that we needed to plant in Texas.

[00:48:16] But obviously, you know, it's, uh, you know, those types of grapes and those varieties don't necessarily make the wines that some people are looking for.

[00:48:27] But I do think there's a fellow in, uh, Kansas that's, that has developed a whole program with all of these, uh, Native American and Munson varieties that, um, I think he's got about 30 acres now.

[00:48:41] Outside of Lawrence somewhere that he's doing all these, you know, wines that are, which is very interesting.

[00:48:48] And maybe it's something that, um, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a niche.

[00:48:52] With climate change too.

[00:48:54] Yeah.

[00:48:54] It'll be interesting to see.

[00:48:55] We were talking about that a little last night.

[00:48:57] Uh, so I was able to enjoy a amazing wine dinner here with you and your brother, Kim last night.

[00:49:04] And, uh, I'm afraid to got to sit next to Kim at that dinner and we got to talking a little bit about some of the new Walker varietals, the, uh, PD resistant, Pierce's disease resistant varietals.

[00:49:15] And he said, I think that y'all had some planted here.

[00:49:17] Can you tell me a little bit about that?

[00:49:19] We do.

[00:49:19] Um, you know, this, this part of Texas has a lot of, you know, smoke tree sharpshooter and the smoke tree sharpshooter carries the Xylella fastidiosa bacteria gets that.

[00:49:34] Yeah.

[00:49:34] It gets in the vine and you're, you can say dead vine real quick.

[00:49:38] Um, and so when Jim actually built this place and was developing it, he, we had, he had had the idea.

[00:49:45] We're going to make cuttings and he had 5,000 cuttings of Cabernet that we had done back in California there.

[00:49:52] He brought out and planted.

[00:49:55] Vineyard took off, looked really good for about a year.

[00:49:58] And I had cautioned him.

[00:49:59] I said, Jim, you know, that area is just rife with PD and Pierce's disease is not something.

[00:50:06] I mean, we went through a lot of that in Temecula.

[00:50:08] We were, we were ground central, ground zero for, uh, a big pandemic, so to speak, that came in, in, um, the late nineties on nursery stock.

[00:50:20] We got a sharpshooter called the glassy wing sharpshooter and that all came in on nursery stock ornamentals that were for the housing boom.

[00:50:30] That was kind of going on in Southern California at that time in the, in the mid nineties.

[00:50:35] Yeah.

[00:50:35] A lot of, a lot of housing tracks are putting in, you know, ornamental plants.

[00:50:39] Well, these bugs came in on it.

[00:50:41] And next thing you know, we had a big, uh, problem with it in Temecula and, you know, a couple of thousand acres got ripped out and had to be replanted because of Pierce's disease.

[00:50:53] So that's when California and UC Davis took it very seriously because they recognized if this sharpshooter moved up the state, which it did, they started finding them in San Joaquin Valley.

[00:51:06] And next thing you know, there's a few in central coast and in Napa.

[00:51:09] So everybody, you know, got very serious about pest management and spray programs.

[00:51:16] And Davis then took the initiative to start looking into research for developing these, uh, Pierce disease resistant clones.

[00:51:25] And, uh, Dr. Andrew Walker, who's, you know, one of the main geneticists there, he took old school plant breeding techniques and started working with.

[00:51:38] Vinifera grapes and bringing in American native stuff, which is resistant to PD and breeding it in there.

[00:51:46] And over time, it's been, took him about 20 years to actually get to the point where he had four white clones and four red clones that are PD resistance.

[00:51:57] And they are a big hybrid of a bunch of different stuff.

[00:52:01] The grapes that we planted here at Carter Creek are a Paciente Noir and Eronte Noir.

[00:52:08] And they have similar parentage in that there's Cabernet, Zinfandel, and Petite Syrah in them.

[00:52:16] And then one has Chardonnay, one has Sylvana, and then they have this smattering of, of Native American stuff that brings in the PD.

[00:52:26] But they're about 98%, uh, Vinifera.

[00:52:29] Okay.

[00:52:30] And they do present differently.

[00:52:32] They do grow a bit differently.

[00:52:34] Okay.

[00:52:34] They, they look a little different, but the grapes, uh, they're both red.

[00:52:38] They make a wine that I could say you'd be hard pressed to not think of it as a Cabernet and Zinfandel blend or something.

[00:52:46] You know, they've just very nice, very solid little red.

[00:52:49] So, um, we have our first vintage coming, um, in November, maybe I've got, I have three barrels.

[00:52:58] We did last, last year that we're going to be bottling, um, here this November and hopefully we'll probably get it out first of the year.

[00:53:06] I reckon.

[00:53:06] I know personally, I'm looking forward to trying some of those.

[00:53:09] I'm, I'm excited about it cause it did turn out very nice.

[00:53:12] It was inky black stuff.

[00:53:13] It was just color was, was nonstop.

[00:53:16] And, and, um, I think the depth of character is really, really nice.

[00:53:20] So looking forward to see what it's going to present.

[00:53:23] It's going to be probably one of the first hundred percent commercial releases of these Andrew Walker clones.

[00:53:30] So, um, guys in California are playing with them, but they're using them more as buffer zones and in riparian areas where they do have sharpshooter presence.

[00:53:41] It's called a blue green sharpshooter, very small, different than the glassy wing.

[00:53:46] But anyway, they, they use that as a buffer zone and it seems to be working.

[00:53:51] And then usually those grapes get blended in with some other red wine or what have you.

[00:53:56] Yeah.

[00:53:56] Sure.

[00:53:57] To release as a blending there.

[00:53:58] I mean, I think it could be a marketing issue for some people.

[00:54:01] You know, a lot of people might see those and they think, what in the world am I drinking here?

[00:54:05] I know cab, I'm familiar with that, but what is this?

[00:54:08] Zinfandel, sure.

[00:54:09] Yeah.

[00:54:10] Errente Noir.

[00:54:11] I don't know what the heck is that.

[00:54:12] Yeah.

[00:54:12] So we, we call it a state red.

[00:54:14] We, we've, we've, it was a blend in the end.

[00:54:17] It's about a 50, 50 blend of these two varieties.

[00:54:20] So it's going to be our state red and, um, yeah, I have to, I have to get you a bottle for sure.

[00:54:25] Cause I think it's going to be very exciting.

[00:54:27] Well, and just a little bit of education for my listeners, in case you're wondering and you don't really understand or know what Pierce's disease is.

[00:54:34] Um, it is a, uh, problem with some of the vines in it, especially in more humid areas, but it's been with climate change.

[00:54:41] I think spreading more and more a little bit into this area, especially in the hill country.

[00:54:45] Uh, it's struggling now.

[00:54:47] Um, and it's, there's a insect that carries a disease that can actually be put into the vine itself.

[00:54:54] It kills the vine.

[00:54:55] Now you're thinking, well, what's the big deal?

[00:54:57] Can't they just rip it up and plant a new one?

[00:54:59] Well, yes, that's kind of what you actually have to do.

[00:55:01] If you have a vine that's infected with Pierce's disease, you must go in and pull it out and replant.

[00:55:06] The problem is if you know much about the grape cycle and for wine, especially it takes after you plant a vine,

[00:55:13] typically at least three years before you can even yield enough of a crop of grapes to even start making wine from that.

[00:55:21] A lot of times you don't really get your full varietal characteristics until a good five years after the vine is planting.

[00:55:28] So think about if your vineyard gets, gets infected with Pierce's disease and you have to rip it out.

[00:55:34] You've just set your business back at least five, probably three to five years before you can get a good harvest off of those grapes.

[00:55:41] And then you have another several years that you have to create that wine and age that wine before it's even ready to go.

[00:55:47] So Pierce's disease can put a winery and business back seven to eight years sometimes.

[00:55:52] And that can be devastating for a lot of businesses.

[00:55:55] So that's why these Pierce's disease resistant varietals are such an important part of the terroir here in Texas,

[00:56:03] especially now in the central Texas hill country area, but also in the Gulf Coast region where it's a lot more humid and a lot more prevalent down there.

[00:56:11] Yeah. And the disease pressure is still there.

[00:56:13] You know, the bug hasn't gone away.

[00:56:15] Exactly. And all it has to do is feed on the vine and it's kind of, you know, like a mosquito with malaria.

[00:56:22] You know, the bacteria, the thing gets in you and the vines got it.

[00:56:26] And then it takes, it can take two or three years for it to eventually kill the vine.

[00:56:31] But, you know, it happens and it's, you know, it's one of those things.

[00:56:34] How do you prevent it?

[00:56:35] And I think this is one way of trying to, you know, stave off the inevitable and do something that may be better productive, at least for this region.

[00:56:45] You know, they don't deal with PD so much up in the panhandle.

[00:56:48] It's not necessarily an issue.

[00:56:50] So that's a good thing.

[00:56:53] The winters are harsh enough there that, you know, the glassy wing doesn't, or the smoke tree, any of these sharpshooters don't.

[00:56:59] Don't impress.

[00:57:00] Don't, yeah, they don't manifest themselves there.

[00:57:02] Okay.

[00:57:03] Good.

[00:57:04] Good.

[00:57:04] Well, in addition to those, and we talked, I know you have your High Plains growers, but what else do you have planted here on site?

[00:57:11] I know you talked about Cabernet and you talked about.

[00:57:13] Yeah, Cabernet's gone.

[00:57:14] Oh, it's all gone now.

[00:57:15] Yeah.

[00:57:16] Okay.

[00:57:16] So what do you have planted here?

[00:57:17] It's just the Aronte Noir and the Pascante Noir.

[00:57:20] So it's just those two walkers here.

[00:57:21] Those two, yeah.

[00:57:21] Nice.

[00:57:22] It's about eight acres.

[00:57:23] Okay.

[00:57:23] And, you know, it's down in the holler down there as you enter.

[00:57:28] As you come in.

[00:57:28] It struggles a bit, but good struggle.

[00:57:31] Struggle's good for grapes, you know.

[00:57:32] Makes them have more complexity.

[00:57:35] But, yeah, we're, you know, Kim and I are looking at what we're doing at my dad's because I would like to see, you know, he and I talked about Sangiovese and Chenin Blanc for that.

[00:57:48] And, you know, of course, I struggle finding Sangiovese in the state because I don't have any set contracts at this point.

[00:57:56] And it's something that those guys who have the contracts, they have the grapes.

[00:58:02] So some years I struggle trying to, you know, Kim will go, I got a guy, I got 10 tons.

[00:58:08] I need eight of it.

[00:58:09] He can have two.

[00:58:09] Yeah.

[00:58:10] They'll toss you a little bit on the side there.

[00:58:12] You know, so I make do with some of that in, like, our Plateau Red blends that we do, you know.

[00:58:19] And that's one thing that is unique.

[00:58:22] You know, our wines here, I think the Plateau White and Plateau Red are both, you know, real marker wines for what we do for what shows that vintage.

[00:58:32] You know, like I work and get, you know, a certain amount of Viognier, which we may, we'll do a varietal Viognier or a Roussan, but then, you know, have a little extra with some Peak Pool or, you know, whatever we do.

[00:58:44] We make these blends that then, I think, target what is the highlight of that vintage for, you know, the high plains up there.

[00:58:52] So, but yeah, we're trying to get some Sangiovese and Shannon Block going out there at my dad's place after we get the historical thing all nailed up.

[00:59:02] Yeah.

[00:59:02] It'll be great.

[00:59:03] Yeah.

[00:59:04] And I've heard the story, and I can't remember if it was Kim that told me, but someone told me that the story goes that the reason it was called Sagmore Vineyards was because the arms of the vine sagged more than any other vineyards.

[00:59:17] I think that's hilarious.

[00:59:18] Tell me about that.

[00:59:20] My dad, his buddy, Bob Reed, who was a horticulture professor there at Tech, the two of them, they, that was their, you know, Bob had a little piece.

[00:59:31] He had about five acres right there next to my dad's 10 acres.

[00:59:34] So, you know, it was something that was, they, they did their things and they, they, that was how they spent their summers and their weekends were out there in the vineyard.

[00:59:43] And I think that they had a lot of fun doing it.

[00:59:46] My dad had a, at one point he, you know, chemistry class he was teaching.

[00:59:51] He had a, he had a Spanish student who came in and this guy brought him, they were called the, the, the Volkswagen clones because they came over in his Volkswagen and it's in a, in a spare tire.

[01:00:06] He brought a, he brought a, my dad called them Spanish A and Spanish B.

[01:00:12] And we didn't know, he didn't know, the guy didn't know what they were, but he knew my dad's love for grapes.

[01:00:17] And he goes, Hey, I brought you, you know, some cuttings from my parents' vineyard or someone's vineyard family.

[01:00:23] And so he had a red variety and a white variety and we had those.

[01:00:27] And Kim and I still firmly believe that that Spanish A, which was the red was, was probably Tempranillo.

[01:00:33] Okay.

[01:00:33] From what, the way we remember it, because there's these big old long clusters and who knows if the white was, you know, Maccabio or, or I, we don't know.

[01:00:43] We just, it was, it was unique though.

[01:00:45] And so my dad had, you know, had that out in his vineyard along with all these other things.

[01:00:51] And yeah, you know, it was, it was interesting that, you know, Sagmore was one of those kind of ground zeros for what, what did become the modern industry.

[01:01:01] So it's nice to have that certification and the plaque that's going to be part of what, what's the history of it.

[01:01:09] That's exciting.

[01:01:11] So as a winemaker, what are some of your favorite varietals to work with?

[01:01:16] So what are some of your favorite wines to make?

[01:01:18] Well, I, you know, to be honest, you know, bubbles have always been, have always been the passion.

[01:01:26] But, you know, when you get into, you know, sparkling, you know, you can take it a lot of different ways.

[01:01:32] And certainly, you know, it doesn't always have to be, you know, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that are the main, the main grapes of that.

[01:01:39] But, you know, we make, you know, I do a red sparkling Tempranillo for here at Carter Creek.

[01:01:45] Okay.

[01:01:46] Back in California, we do a red Syrah.

[01:01:48] I do for a sparkling Syrah.

[01:01:51] It's called our Ruby Cuvée as well.

[01:01:54] Okay.

[01:01:54] And anyway, it's, you know, Syrah's like, I just, I do think that's one of the greatest reds around.

[01:02:02] Yeah.

[01:02:02] It and Grenache and Morvedra probably make one of the most seamless kind of red wines.

[01:02:09] So for me, those are, those are real favorites.

[01:02:11] I do like, you know, working with Italian varietals.

[01:02:15] We do a little, you know, certainly Sangiovese and then try to take that in a bit of a Tuscan way.

[01:02:22] We do a Primitivo here at Carter Creek, which those grapes come out of a vineyard in La Mesa.

[01:02:31] But it's something that, you know, I, I, you know, people always ask me and it's like, you know, they're like your kids, right?

[01:02:38] You know, it's like, who's your favorite kid?

[01:02:40] It's like, well, the one who's the best behaved and, you know, sitting here in front of us.

[01:02:44] That's what I did have to babysit for so long.

[01:02:47] So, you know, I, I have wines that, you know, it's time and place always and things that, you know, like here having a glass of rosé with you or, or, you know.

[01:02:56] Yeah.

[01:02:57] But yeah, I tend to gravitate to sparkling wine a lot.

[01:03:00] It's just, I like bubbles.

[01:03:02] I think it's exciting.

[01:03:03] And those wines always kind of speak to me in a different way than, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a big Cabernet Merlot guy.

[01:03:11] I mean, I make a lot of it.

[01:03:13] I have an appreciation for it.

[01:03:15] And certainly, you know, you do have to.

[01:03:18] Sure.

[01:03:18] You do have to.

[01:03:19] Get to the market.

[01:03:20] And I think, you know, it's just different though, to, to have something that has bubbles in it.

[01:03:27] So those are, those are things that I like to gravitate to.

[01:03:30] So are there any, as a winemaker, any varietals that you had not had a chance to experiment and play with, but you've always wanted to?

[01:03:40] You know, Jim's made it pretty easy for me in that respect.

[01:03:43] Cause he, when he envisioned the resort as it is at South coast, much like it is here at Carter Creek.

[01:03:50] The idea was, is that we're going to have people coming from all over and they're going to want virtually everything.

[01:03:57] Stuff from home.

[01:03:58] Yeah.

[01:03:58] They're going to want red.

[01:03:59] They're going to want white, sparkling, sweet, dry, fortified, you name it.

[01:04:04] So when he planted the vineyards there at South coast and wild horse peak, you know, he didn't do it with the idea that we're going to have a variety.

[01:04:12] Yeah.

[01:04:12] And I am, you know, there's, there's probably something if I thought hard enough, you know, like Montepulciano might be one that I've worked with here in Texas.

[01:04:21] You know, Kim's got guys, he brings in some of that and it's a, it's a great, and I just see it as I don't get to do that in Temecula.

[01:04:29] And I like to have that, but certainly, um, you know, I've, I've had the ability to play with virtually everything.

[01:04:37] And it's, it's fun because it keeps, it keeps you, you know, passionate.

[01:04:42] And I think something new and something different always coming at you is, is makes you, you know, take time to study or go look up something or always be tasting.

[01:04:52] You know, that's, that's the big thing that, you know, my, uh, the assistant winemaker I mentioned earlier, she just went for her diploma on WCET.

[01:05:02] So, you know, she's, she's big into wine and Javier's big in, you know, we're, we have tastings with our crew, you know, we will, we'll say we're going to make this new, you know, new style.

[01:05:13] We do something or we want to try.

[01:05:15] So we go out and buy samples of everything out there available.

[01:05:19] And then we sit and taste them and, you know, try to come together as a team to say, can we do this?

[01:05:25] Do we want to do this?

[01:05:26] This is, I mean, one, one recent one was a bourbon barrel aged red wine.

[01:05:31] That was an idea, which I'm not, you know, not big on putting bourbon, bourbons, you know, good on ice.

[01:05:39] Right.

[01:05:39] I don't need it.

[01:05:40] And if I want it in my wine, I can just add it.

[01:05:42] But anyway, we started doing that and we went through all of these bourbon barrel aged reds that were taken over the market.

[01:05:50] And it's not, they're not very attractive.

[01:05:53] Yeah.

[01:05:53] So, you know, we figured out what can we do to make one that, you know, is going to be highlighting not only the wine, but the aspect of bourbon that's there.

[01:06:04] And so it's a bit of a trick to kind of get those massaged together because I don't really think of bourbon and red wine necessarily being a marriage, you know, like Coke and bourbon.

[01:06:15] I don't know.

[01:06:16] But I don't know.

[01:06:17] We, you know, those are, those are things that, you know, we work on and try to perfect and make better.

[01:06:23] So, you know, with my crew and what we do and tasting, it's, it's a good thing that we, you know, we have that ability to kind of play with all of it and work with it and just be creative.

[01:07:02] Okay.

[01:07:04] Yeah.

[01:07:04] And I think that over the last two decades, three decades, as I've seen, you know, Portugal has shifted a lot from making these fortified sweet reds into making more red table wines.

[01:07:16] Because the market has sort of dropped off with port consumption, really.

[01:07:21] I mean, I don't know how much port you drink.

[01:07:23] Right.

[01:07:23] I know I may, may hit two bottles a year, you know, and that's usually around the holidays.

[01:07:28] And it's something that, um, when we first planted our vineyard in Temecula at Carter, uh, estate, we put in a port block.

[01:07:38] We put in actual Tinta Cow, Tinta Roise, Tinta Nero.

[01:07:42] Okay.

[01:07:43] Torriga National.

[01:07:45] And, um, I think the, those are the, yeah.

[01:07:49] And we had some Zinfandel.

[01:07:50] Okay.

[01:07:50] Because it's California, yeah.

[01:07:52] I got to have a little Z in your California port.

[01:07:54] But, um, I had the opportunity to go to Portugal and that's when I really saw what they were doing with the Portuguese.

[01:08:01] Yeah.

[01:08:02] They weren't necessarily turning them into port.

[01:08:04] They were making these incredible red table wines.

[01:08:06] Yeah.

[01:08:06] Some dry Torriga.

[01:08:07] Yeah.

[01:08:07] So we started, we started doing some of that and we have a, have a Torriga National and we do have a red Portuguese blended Carter, uh, estate called, uh, Penrose.

[01:08:18] Okay.

[01:08:18] Which highlights these as a dry red table wine.

[01:08:21] But, um, what we did in, in California, you know, the, the one that we have here is part Torriga National that came off a piece of a vineyard that sadly is gone.

[01:08:33] It was at my dad's, uh, Idolo.

[01:08:36] He had a property in Idolo.

[01:08:38] Okay.

[01:08:38] Right.

[01:08:38] But it's all cotton now, but it used to have a vineyard and he had planted some Torriga out there.

[01:08:43] And, um, you know, we worked with some Texas, making some Texas stuff and blending some of the stuff we had from California to kind of bring it up because, you know, port isn't just a mistake wine that, you know, I've known guys that just like have some wines that they don't really think are right.

[01:09:01] Yeah.

[01:09:01] Or maybe a little oxidized.

[01:09:03] They're like, oh, we'll just put that in our port program.

[01:09:05] It's like, that's not how you make.

[01:09:07] Yeah.

[01:09:07] You know, you really set out to.

[01:09:09] Intentional.

[01:09:10] Intentional.

[01:09:10] I mean, you're picking stuff, not necessarily over the top ripe.

[01:09:15] It may be 25, 26 bricks.

[01:09:18] Depends on the variety.

[01:09:19] Certainly some of them, the riper they get, you actually see a decline in how the varietal expresses itself.

[01:09:27] Like you get Torriga National too ripe and it loses all that real pretty kind of lingonberry and, and rose petal notes.

[01:09:36] It just kind of becomes pruny.

[01:09:39] Yeah.

[01:09:39] You know, it's not the same.

[01:09:40] So we work to try and get the varieties, you know, ripe to their ripe.

[01:09:45] And then, yeah, when we're, what we do in California, you know, we'll have it on the skins usually.

[01:09:51] Very cold.

[01:09:52] We ferment that generally very cold because we want to pull it off at a point where when we fortify it, you know, we do stop it.

[01:10:00] Yeah.

[01:10:00] And, you know, that's, that's what hobby, hobby's got that chore this weekend is catching, catching it when it's going to be ripe.

[01:10:07] Yeah.

[01:10:08] I think that, you know, make, making a great port there, there's a place for them.

[01:10:13] But I don't know people, I think because they're either high in alcohol or they're very sweet in general that, you know, they, people just kind of gravitated away from them.

[01:10:22] I don't know.

[01:10:23] Maybe it's that and they don't want to, you know, everybody thinks you got to smoke a cigar with a glass of port, which I don't, I don't necessarily feel that's, you know, you got, it's a got to, you know.

[01:10:32] Some people enjoy that, but some people don't.

[01:10:35] Yeah.

[01:10:35] I just love the taste of how grapey it is.

[01:10:38] Yeah.

[01:10:39] It's got this profile.

[01:10:41] Unique character.

[01:10:41] Yeah.

[01:10:41] It really is.

[01:10:42] It's a, it's something that, you know, it's over extracted in a really good way.

[01:10:46] Yeah.

[01:10:47] You know.

[01:10:47] Cool.

[01:10:48] Cool.

[01:10:48] Okay.

[01:10:49] Well, we talked a little bit about making your favorite wine, some of the things that you enjoy making.

[01:10:53] We also talked about making wine specifically for the market to the palate.

[01:10:58] Well, let's talk here about Carter Creek Resort and Winery and some of the wines you make here.

[01:11:02] What are some of the wines that have really gone over well that the people who have come here taste your wines and they say, wow, this is really good.

[01:11:09] I got to get more of that.

[01:11:10] They kind of really tend to fly off the shelf and do really well here at Carter Creek.

[01:11:14] Well, you know, our sparkling wines are things that have taken off.

[01:11:21] Jim did when we started doing the sparkling.

[01:11:24] He did really beg me to make a flavored one that I was not so keen on, but said if we're going to do it, we're going to do it right.

[01:11:33] And we do a peach.

[01:11:34] We take our brute and then we do add some natural peach concentrate and flavorings to this to get it to be peachy.

[01:11:45] And it's something that, you know, I, both the, myself and Javier, we're very sensitive to this because especially Javier, he came out of a soda aspect when he was in Mexico.

[01:11:58] He worked for Pina Fiel.

[01:11:59] So he knows these artificial flavored things.

[01:12:02] So we're real sensitive about how you come across with those flavors in these wines that you want it to sing peachy and be peachy, but you don't want it to be like.

[01:12:12] Chemically kind of taste.

[01:12:13] Exactly.

[01:12:14] So, you know, that was one that is, is very popular here.

[01:12:17] And, you know, the, the brute, the, uh, Tempranillo Rose sparkling that we do, I make a Tempranillo Rose.

[01:12:25] Um, again, it's probably not a bone dry Rose.

[01:12:29] It's carries around six or seven grams per liter.

[01:12:33] So it's about 0.7, you know, three quarters.

[01:12:36] So it's just, it's nice.

[01:12:37] It's round.

[01:12:38] It's lush.

[01:12:39] Um, those are things, uh, you know, the blends we do are red blends.

[01:12:44] We have Maverick, which is a Rhone style, uh, red blend.

[01:12:48] It's Syrah, Grenache, Morvedra.

[01:12:51] Um, but like I spoke earlier, the plateaus, the two, the plateau white and plateau red really accentuate that vintage for those particular varieties.

[01:13:01] So some of those we pull out and we'll make, I have a Tempranillo and a Sangiovese, uh, from 23 that'll be coming.

[01:13:09] Of course, the estate red, I mentioned, um, the whites, we, we just,

[01:13:14] gotten, uh, written up in, um, Texas monthly for the Vintners cup with our Roussain, our 23 Roussain.

[01:13:23] You know, it's funny cause I thought, you know, this is a nice wine.

[01:13:27] We got it all done.

[01:13:28] Yeah.

[01:13:29] I had, Kim had done one, his Roussain, I think it's a hundred percent.

[01:13:33] And I, mine, I was like, I just feel like that Roussain needs.

[01:13:37] So, so I had some Grenache Blanc and a Viognier, it's, you know, makes up maybe 12% of the blend, but it really, I think made that Roussain so much more expressive.

[01:13:48] And, um, so, you know, I think when people come here, you know, you're looking at wines that are going to highlight what Texas does in respect to, you know, some of the different varieties.

[01:14:00] Cause the Plateau White's like a blend of Albariño and Vermentino and Peak Pool Viognier.

[01:14:06] And these are all great varieties, you know, for the state to, to be focusing on.

[01:14:12] And some of them, if I feel like they're worthy to take into that single varietal, like the Roussain, that's what we do.

[01:14:18] Um, we make a Roussain Viognier blend.

[01:14:21] Um, we opened originally with a couple, uh, two vintages of a wine that, uh, we call Gloriosa, which is a take on the Edelsvicker, which is an Alsatian style white.

[01:14:34] That is, uh, blends of Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Muscat.

[01:14:41] If you go to, if you go to Alsace.

[01:14:44] Yeah.

[01:14:45] They're not a, they're not a sweet.

[01:14:46] Everybody thinks Riesling or Gewürzt.

[01:14:48] It's like, oh, it's a sweet wine.

[01:14:50] Usually, you know, they are in certain parts of Germany, but when you go to Alsace, it's, it's, it's, these are done in a very dry, you know, stately style.

[01:15:01] So, um, we have a couple of those.

[01:15:04] We don't really do any big sweet offerings here that are like, I mean, we do have a Muscat.

[01:15:10] I should take that back.

[01:15:11] I do have, we do have one, one sweeter wine.

[01:15:14] That's our Muscat Canelli, which I'm, you know, I think again, Muscat Canelli is one of those that ebbs and flows.

[01:15:20] People, they, you know, you either like it or you don't, but I find it always to be one of those wines that was some fruit and cheese.

[01:15:27] It's like, you know, it's perfect.

[01:15:30] So.

[01:15:30] It's sweet, but it's not overpowering.

[01:15:32] Yeah.

[01:15:32] And that's kind of how we, we try to keep, I keep that dialed back to where, you know, we stop it where it's got maybe 25 to 30 grams per liter.

[01:15:41] Yeah.

[01:15:42] Which puts it at about two and a half, 3% residual sugar.

[01:15:45] And it's, you know, not, not too sweet.

[01:15:47] Uh-huh.

[01:15:48] Nice.

[01:15:49] And nice character, you know.

[01:15:50] Yeah.

[01:15:50] It's like that real bubble gummy, you know, fruit stuff that.

[01:15:53] A little orange to it.

[01:15:54] Yeah.

[01:15:54] It makes Muscat so lovely.

[01:15:56] Well, let's talk about this location here at Carter Creek.

[01:16:00] I think I remember you saying you planted in 2017, but when did the actual winery and the resort open?

[01:16:07] What are the dates for all of that process?

[01:16:09] Jim started construction on this.

[01:16:12] We bought the property, I guess, around 2010.

[01:16:15] Okay.

[01:16:16] Um, construction started, I guess it was probably 15.

[01:16:22] He started grading and doing stuff, 16.

[01:16:25] And then, yes, construction was, things were going up in 17.

[01:16:30] I remember coming here.

[01:16:32] Uh, my niece got married at Austin in 17 and we came here to see how it was developing.

[01:16:39] We just received the, uh, the brew equipment had come in and, um, you know, that was something

[01:16:47] whenever Jim, you know, had the idea for the place, he goes, I think we need to have a brewery.

[01:16:52] You know, the men are going to come and want to drink beer and the women are going to come

[01:16:55] and want to drink wine.

[01:16:56] I said, I don't know if it's necessarily that.

[01:16:58] Always 50-50.

[01:16:59] That sexist straight out like that we can say, Jim, but, you know, probably not a bad idea.

[01:17:04] Have at least options.

[01:17:04] So we, we bought this 15 barrel system, which was probably a little overkill really.

[01:17:09] I know our brewer, Justin has his hands full when he's, when he's making beer here, but,

[01:17:15] um, I came in this, it was, you know, the pads for the, for the, uh, mongolows were all done.

[01:17:22] And this one building was kind of partway up and the equipment was, you know, stacked in

[01:17:28] the air and it was a big mud hole because it had rained like for three days before we came.

[01:17:34] And I just remember my son, he, his girlfriend was with him and anyway, she lost her shoes

[01:17:40] out and she got out and started walking and it was like, they just sucked right off her

[01:17:45] feet.

[01:17:46] So we, we had fun just seeing that, you know, come together.

[01:17:50] Cause I came back, that was when Jim was like, well, we need to, you know, have wine for when

[01:17:55] we open.

[01:17:55] So that was the first vintage I started, you know, coming back into Lubbock and, you know,

[01:18:00] working with Kim's on the start of what our program has kind of grown into becoming with

[01:18:05] the wines that we do.

[01:18:07] So it's something that, um, the whole development of this place, once we did open in, it's probably

[01:18:14] late 19, early 2020 that, you know, that's when, you know, the pandemic was, was taken

[01:18:21] off and we literally, I was here when we closed.

[01:18:25] Um, I was here, you know, we were going to do some stuff and then it was like, everything

[01:18:30] was getting, yeah, they were, I was on a big phone call with the wine growers in Temecula

[01:18:35] as they were, we were looking at what our Valley was going to wind up having to do for,

[01:18:40] for closing all of the wineries and everything.

[01:18:43] And, you know, when you have a resort like this, I mean, we, we couldn't, we couldn't have

[01:18:47] hotel guests, we couldn't have restaurant guests and we had just staffed up everything.

[01:18:53] And, you know, finding staff and getting people in place, very difficult in this area.

[01:18:58] And we were at a point where it was just like all the air got let out and they were just,

[01:19:03] you know, it was, it was tough.

[01:19:05] And then, so when we really did get reopened later 2020, um, you know, it's been, you know,

[01:19:12] now 21, 22, 23, you know, we're about two and a half, three years now really into it.

[01:19:18] And I think it's, yeah, it's been a slow ramp up, but we've also seen a steady sort of decline

[01:19:24] in how people travel, how people drink, how, you know, it changed everything.

[01:19:30] It really did make a, I think a difficult, you know, opening even more like what, what,

[01:19:40] what are we, what are we really looking at?

[01:19:41] What are we doing?

[01:19:42] How are we going to survive all of this?

[01:19:44] Because, you know, it's, I think the industry is still, you know, whether tourism, it's

[01:19:49] still not quite what it was pre pandemic.

[01:19:53] And, you know, it's, who knows where it will go, but I think that, um, yeah, it's, it's

[01:19:59] been, it's been a, I think for Jim, it was, it was a lot, you know, to, to have to take

[01:20:05] on and do.

[01:20:06] And then they had the idea of, you know, uh, building some apartments here in Johnson

[01:20:10] City, which I think was great because housing is so difficult to find.

[01:20:16] And I know probably a little controversial, but it's still something that was very positive.

[01:20:20] I feel for the region to have, you know, these.

[01:20:23] For labor.

[01:20:24] Yeah.

[01:20:24] I mean, everybody, you know, wants to work in the wine industry, but, you know, where are

[01:20:29] you going to live?

[01:20:30] You're going to live in Marble Falls and Bernie and Austin and San Antonio and drive an hour

[01:20:34] and a half.

[01:20:35] That's just crazy.

[01:20:36] Yeah.

[01:20:37] And here we are right outside of Johnson City on the beautiful Wine Road 290, beautiful,

[01:20:43] picturesque location here.

[01:20:44] So we talked about the brewery and the winery, but what are some of the other amenities that

[01:20:49] you have on site here at Carter Creek?

[01:20:51] Certainly.

[01:20:51] We have a spa, a lovely day spa that, you know, hits all the high points that you'd want in

[01:20:57] a spa.

[01:20:58] Of course, you know, swimming pool, hot tub, all of that is part of it.

[01:21:02] They've got a weight room, you know, workout stuff for, you know, if you want to do cardio.

[01:21:07] So, you know, I think as a resort property, how Jim laid it out and certainly planted it,

[01:21:14] you know, we've got, you know, wedding facilities here.

[01:21:17] We've got, you know, yeah, the restaurant.

[01:21:19] Everything is sort of, I mean, you could come here and not go anywhere.

[01:21:23] You could just really, in fact, I spoke with a woman as I came over today.

[01:21:27] She was just, and she's here for the next four or five days, just enjoying doing nothing.

[01:21:33] But, you know, sitting out and looking at, you know, the views that we have here across

[01:21:38] the Edwards Plateau.

[01:21:40] I think it's something that, you know, it's a very special area.

[01:21:43] You know, growing up, my mom, she was German.

[01:21:46] She came from town Roscoe, which is up in the panhandle.

[01:21:51] And her family reunion every year, all the mullers, they'd get together at Chanted Rock Park.

[01:21:58] Oh, yeah.

[01:21:58] As a kid growing up, we came here.

[01:22:01] This was the highlight of the summer was to come to Fredericksburg and spend, you know,

[01:22:06] get to stay at the Peachtree Motel or whatever.

[01:22:09] And we, you know, spend a few days and see all the relatives and everything, cousins.

[01:22:14] And it was a lot of fun to be able to, you know, experience that.

[01:22:19] But now kind of being in it again and be part of it in a way that it's exciting to come back

[01:22:27] and, of course, see all the limestone.

[01:22:30] Yeah.

[01:22:30] I mean, that's just what it's about.

[01:22:32] Central Texas area.

[01:22:34] And there are guest cottages here on site?

[01:22:36] Oh, yeah.

[01:22:38] 60.

[01:22:39] Okay.

[01:22:40] 60.

[01:22:41] 78.

[01:22:42] 78.

[01:22:42] I should bring my GM in over here, Derek Stutt, so you can start, you can really put the questions

[01:22:48] to him about the part because he lives it and works it.

[01:22:51] Yeah.

[01:22:51] You know, I just get to come and spend, you know, spend a week here or there.

[01:22:57] But yeah.

[01:22:58] You do all the heavy lifting.

[01:22:59] Well, yeah.

[01:23:00] I think having those guest cottages is an amazing benefit for wine tourism.

[01:23:05] For those people that maybe want to come out and spend the weekend out here, check out

[01:23:09] the wine road, or maybe they want to come during the week when it's a little slower, they

[01:23:14] need a place to stay, and you've got this amazing location for people to kind of come

[01:23:18] here, enjoy the wines, the beers, the massages, the resort, all the things that are here at

[01:23:24] the resort, but also be able to have a short distance to travel down the road to a lot of

[01:23:29] these other great wineries that are in the area as well.

[01:23:31] It can become your central hub, the kind of place for people to go that want to go see

[01:23:37] places but need a place to stay, as I said.

[01:23:39] So I want to welcome Derek Stutz to the podcast, who is the general manager for Carter Creek

[01:23:44] Winery and Resort.

[01:23:45] So tell me a little bit about yourself, Derek.

[01:23:47] Well, what got you here?

[01:23:48] What led you into this industry?

[01:23:50] Yeah, no, so me and my wife have been coming up to the Texas Hill Country and enjoying the

[01:23:54] wine for 15 years, you know, when there was just a handful of wineries up here.

[01:23:58] Really fell in love with the, you know, the passion back then, you know, you could sit down

[01:24:01] with the winemakers in the tasting room and they'd be the one pouring your tastings and you

[01:24:05] got to really hear the stories in this one.

[01:24:06] We fell in love with it, very much fell in love with, you know, what I could consider

[01:24:10] this side of the wide road, kind of this side of Stonewall.

[01:24:14] And yeah, no, we stumbled upon Carter Creek just a few months after they had opened up.

[01:24:20] I have a picture of me holding my daughter out here in the lawn from, you know, 2020.

[01:24:26] And so that was great.

[01:24:28] And I knew that it was always been a goal of mine.

[01:24:31] I had been in the hospitality business for a while now.

[01:24:33] Always was my goal was to get up here to the Hill Country.

[01:24:35] We absolutely love the Hill Country.

[01:24:37] And to get into the wine business and I, you know, I knew that if I was going to do it,

[01:24:41] I wanted to, you know, be a part of something that I could really believe in.

[01:24:46] And, you know, I have an extreme passion for Texas wine.

[01:24:49] But then, you know, as I've, as I've been here, you know, now for a while and I just,

[01:24:53] I got an unbelievable passion for what John is doing and the lineage that we have here.

[01:24:58] I can't describe it anymore.

[01:24:59] And then obviously being able to share the, share the vision that Don and Jim Carter had

[01:25:04] here with Carter Creek.

[01:25:05] And, you know, it's not a bad place to come to work to every day.

[01:25:08] Yeah.

[01:25:09] And so, yeah.

[01:25:10] And, you know, we, it's up here in the Hill Country, it's called the Hidden Gem.

[01:25:13] Because it is a little bit hidden.

[01:25:14] We're a little, you know, we're a little bit off 290.

[01:25:17] It's a good and a bad thing for us, you know, operationally.

[01:25:20] But, no, but once you get up in here, you know, I would say 100% of the people

[01:25:24] absolutely fall in love with it.

[01:25:26] And we see them over and over again.

[01:25:28] But, yeah, we, like you said, you know, we, it is a place where you can come.

[01:25:31] And like John said, you can come and you can just be here.

[01:25:33] You don't have to leave here.

[01:25:35] But what we are really trying to become, yes, we want to be that.

[01:25:37] We also want to be the hub for really this growing side of the road.

[01:25:41] We have some amazing partners down the road because we just really believe in the Texas

[01:25:45] wine that we partner, we literally partner with, we share the passion with.

[01:25:49] And we, you know, being really the only accommodations like this up this way, you know,

[01:25:54] we want to be that hub for everybody to gather.

[01:25:57] You know, when the wineries are closing down the road, we're kind of getting going up here.

[01:26:00] The restaurant is open.

[01:26:01] And so we find those people kind of migrate their way this way and can continue that.

[01:26:05] And, you know, we do have that beer.

[01:26:07] The beer was, we got one of the most award-winning beer makers in the area.

[01:26:10] And he's doing some very unique stuff that nobody else gets to do in the beer world.

[01:26:14] And then, you know, be able to share John's passion every day with the team.

[01:26:18] And so, yeah, incredible team out here.

[01:26:20] You know, if you haven't been out here, come out here, you'll fall in love.

[01:26:22] It's a real destination.

[01:26:23] It really is.

[01:26:24] I mean, it's something that it makes it, I think, real easy to, like you said, it's a hub.

[01:26:30] It's a destination.

[01:26:31] But you can, you're literally, you know, 15, 20 minutes to another three dozen wineries or more.

[01:26:38] I don't know.

[01:26:39] I mean, it's just, it's easy to go off on any tangent out here and find some great fun.

[01:26:45] And the thing I love about it is like, you could be the couple that's coming up for the Hill Country

[01:26:49] looking for that romantic getaway.

[01:26:51] Anyway, we have all that.

[01:26:53] But then you can also be a family with young kids.

[01:26:54] And we love that.

[01:26:56] You know, we get families to come out here.

[01:26:58] Mom and dad can enjoy a glass of wine while the kids are doing their thing out on the grass.

[01:27:01] And we've got all that stuff for them.

[01:27:03] So, you know, that's what I really like, that it is truly like a hub for the Hill Country that everybody can enjoy.

[01:27:10] And it's not, you know, we want everyone, locals, those coming from all other places.

[01:27:14] It's not just a taste here.

[01:27:15] It's so much more.

[01:27:16] Exactly.

[01:27:16] Yeah.

[01:27:17] Well, we talked a minute ago about weddings and things like that.

[01:27:20] So, what other types of events and things do you provide here at Carter Creek?

[01:27:24] Yes, we run the whole gamut.

[01:27:25] Yeah, we do.

[01:27:26] We have a couple wedding venues here on property.

[01:27:28] Obviously, the lawn right out here is a real popular one with the view.

[01:27:31] And we have a lower wedding lawn for kind of your smaller weddings.

[01:27:34] We've accommodated weddings and everything from, you know, the 25, 50 to, you know, a couple months ago we did one that was 175.

[01:27:42] The whole gamut of things.

[01:27:43] We do have multitude.

[01:27:45] We have all kinds of space.

[01:27:46] So, we can really pull off anything you want.

[01:27:48] We've hosted things like the Smithsonian Group during the Eclipse.

[01:27:51] Entire property buyout of the Smithsonian.

[01:27:53] And we hosted this grand, you know, all kinds of events for them.

[01:27:57] Star wash parties.

[01:27:58] And, you know, it was a great thing.

[01:28:00] And then we hosted the Texas Wine Auction here back in the spring, which, you know, we had about 400 people in attendance out here.

[01:28:06] Absolutely amazing.

[01:28:07] I think everybody had a great time.

[01:28:09] You know, we have our large pavilion out here, which just makes it, you know, just no better place in the hill country than an evening out here on the lawn.

[01:28:17] Yeah, music, right?

[01:28:18] Music.

[01:28:19] Music.

[01:28:19] Yes, we have live music every Saturday night out here on the patio or, you know, depending on the time of the year out in the pavilion.

[01:28:26] And then every Friday we always have something going on, whether it be a movie out on the lawn or some other kind of, you know, music bingo or things like that.

[01:28:33] So, we always try to keep everybody engaged.

[01:28:35] And, yeah, we do have the spa on the property, which has a whole other aspect of the property.

[01:28:39] And so, we get people that come for us for that.

[01:28:41] Yeah.

[01:28:42] Well, I was lucky to be able to last spring attend the Texas Wine Auction that you hosted here.

[01:28:47] What a great event.

[01:28:49] Supports such an amazing cause.

[01:28:50] Thank you so much for opening up your property here.

[01:28:53] For that event, it was a really entertaining time.

[01:28:57] But let's say that listeners are now getting excited.

[01:29:00] They want to come visit Carter Creek and check it out.

[01:29:02] Let's talk a little bit about what a tasting might look like.

[01:29:05] So, if someone came in to visit and they wanted to do a tasting, do they do like a set flight of wines or does the customer pick the wines?

[01:29:12] And then what does it cost?

[01:29:14] Do they need reservations?

[01:29:15] Things like that.

[01:29:16] Yeah, great thing about us.

[01:29:17] We're open seven days a week.

[01:29:18] Our tasting room is open seven days.

[01:29:19] It's one of the few places open seven days a week.

[01:29:22] We're open pretty much 11 to 6 every single day.

[01:29:24] Okay.

[01:29:25] And so, we offer four tasting.

[01:29:27] We have kind of our select tasting, which is, you know, all of our tastings are five wines.

[01:29:31] Select is kind of our most popular, you know, of John's wines.

[01:29:34] And then we have a sweet and bubbly, obviously, with what John does.

[01:29:37] And then we kind of have the reserve tasting, which is, you know, kind of some of our more elevated wines.

[01:29:41] And then you can also do a custom tasting.

[01:29:43] Select five of any of the wines.

[01:29:45] About $20 to $30 is kind of, you know, the custom is going to be $30 and our select and our reserve is about $20.

[01:29:51] Okay.

[01:29:52] You do not need reservations.

[01:29:53] We have plenty of space so we can really accommodate anything.

[01:29:56] You know, if we're looking to get into a group of 30, like today we have a group of 38 that we're going to be hosting for a tasting and lunch at the same time.

[01:30:05] And so, no, we can make anything happen.

[01:30:07] But, you know, of course, October and spring, we always, you know, advise you try to make a reservation if you can.

[01:30:13] Larger group.

[01:30:14] So, you don't have like a group size limit or anything?

[01:30:16] No.

[01:30:17] Yeah.

[01:30:17] I mean, a couple weeks ago we did a group of 55.

[01:30:20] Okay.

[01:30:21] So, we can make it happen.

[01:30:22] Well, we talked a minute ago about families and kids.

[01:30:25] So, you kind of addressed that a little bit already.

[01:30:26] But what about pets?

[01:30:28] Are you pet friendly?

[01:30:29] Yes.

[01:30:30] The entire property is pet friendly outside of pets physically in our restaurant or in our tasting room because we do serve food in both of those.

[01:30:37] But anywhere out on the patios, the lawn, absolutely.

[01:30:40] And even in our villas up in the, we're pet friendly.

[01:30:42] Yeah.

[01:30:43] So, tell me a little bit about your restaurant.

[01:30:45] So, you've got food.

[01:30:46] So, restaurant is open seven days a week for dinner.

[01:30:48] Okay.

[01:30:49] But it's open for lunch Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

[01:30:52] Okay.

[01:30:52] And then Saturday and Sunday, we're open pretty much all day for brunch all the way through dinner to nine o'clock.

[01:30:57] And so, yeah, during the week, the hours are five to nine in the evening.

[01:31:01] And we have our chefs, Chef Caleb Hill.

[01:31:04] We snacked him up from Fredericksburg.

[01:31:06] And he's one of the most renowned chefs around here.

[01:31:08] And he's really elevated offerings that we have here.

[01:31:11] And there's not a bad thing on the menu.

[01:31:14] Well, if somebody is out exploring out here and maybe they brought their own food, maybe an ice chest or something like that, is that allowed?

[01:31:20] Can they bring their own food in?

[01:31:22] Of course, we'd prefer it here.

[01:31:24] But, no, we want, you know, obviously, you can come out to the pavilion and you can absolutely do that.

[01:31:28] You know, we have no issues with that.

[01:31:29] We do truly want this to be a welcoming place.

[01:31:32] Yeah.

[01:31:32] But I would say, we do have some amazing food.

[01:31:34] And we try to make everything on property from the wines to the food extremely affordable for anybody.

[01:31:38] Yeah.

[01:31:39] So, the restaurant on site is called the Old 290 Brewery.

[01:31:42] Okay.

[01:31:42] It's a playoff.

[01:31:43] Our drive coming in across the property is the Old 290 Highway.

[01:31:47] Oh, really?

[01:31:47] And so, when they built the new 290 Highway here, it split the ranch in half that was across the road.

[01:31:54] And so, it was a playoff there.

[01:31:55] So, yeah, it's great.

[01:31:56] And so, that's, yeah.

[01:31:57] It's a piece of history right there.

[01:31:59] Yeah.

[01:31:59] So, when you, so, some people get confused when you look up the property.

[01:32:02] It's the Carter Creek Winery Resort and Spa, which encompasses the entire property.

[01:32:06] And then we do, you know, as a restaurant, we market that separately as the Old 290 Brewery.

[01:32:10] But they're all obviously on the same property.

[01:32:12] I like that.

[01:32:13] That's really interesting.

[01:32:15] Well, let's talk about what are the best times to come visit.

[01:32:17] I know you mentioned earlier, you talked about October and spring being kind of busy times.

[01:32:22] So, what are the best times to come visit?

[01:32:25] What are the busy and slow seasons?

[01:32:28] The best time for a listener to come check out Carter Creek.

[01:32:30] Yeah, obviously, right now we're in the busiest of the seasons for the Texas Hill Country.

[01:32:34] So, October is really busy, you know, pretty much through the middle of November.

[01:32:36] And then it picks up again kind of beginning of March, really through May.

[01:32:40] You know, it gets really pretty busy up here.

[01:32:42] Just kind of depends.

[01:32:43] If you like to be around the crowds and a little bit of the excitement, come during those times.

[01:32:47] If you want the real peace and quiet, hey, come up here in July.

[01:32:51] You'll be able to really spend time with my team and really get you into the wines.

[01:32:57] It's a service, especially at that time.

[01:32:59] But we do have, you know, such a large property.

[01:33:01] I have such an awesome team that, you know, you're going to get that level of service anytime.

[01:33:05] But, yeah, I mean, it just kind of depends on the experience you want.

[01:33:07] Gotcha.

[01:33:09] Okay, so maybe somebody has tasted these great wines and they said, I want more of those.

[01:33:14] Do you offer any kind of a wine club or distribution or things like that?

[01:33:18] Yeah, yeah.

[01:33:19] So we have a wine club.

[01:33:20] It's, you know, three bottles, six bottles or a case.

[01:33:24] And we have four allotments a year.

[01:33:26] And so those allotments are in March, June, September, and December.

[01:33:34] So just having this.

[01:33:35] I would add that if you become a member here, it makes you a member out in California.

[01:33:41] Oh, okay.

[01:33:42] So benefits that are here share out there.

[01:33:45] So somebody where then was a member here and they went up to Temecula, they could go there.

[01:33:49] I mean, have similar benefits.

[01:33:51] Yeah, we get a lot of those cross members that are coming back and afford to see the properties and are just excited about.

[01:33:55] Which makes it very unique in there, especially if you travel, you know, get out and go.

[01:34:00] It gives you a chance to see the other properties and, you know, be part of that.

[01:34:05] And some of the unique things about our membership is obviously, you know, you're typical as your member, you get your discount on the wines you're on property.

[01:34:12] But because we are resort property, you get discounts property-wide.

[01:34:16] So you get discounts in the restaurant.

[01:34:17] You get discounts on the accommodations.

[01:34:19] You get discounts at the spa.

[01:34:20] So especially if you're, you know, semi-local to the area, it could be a real good benefit.

[01:34:26] What was that old marketing phrase from American Express, I think it was?

[01:34:30] Membership has its benefits.

[01:34:31] So they have these great, you get the wine club and you get all these great benefits on top of that.

[01:34:36] I love that.

[01:34:37] That's really cool.

[01:34:38] Well, let's talk more to distribution though.

[01:34:41] Do you have any way for people that maybe can't get on site here?

[01:34:44] They're not wine club members.

[01:34:45] But is there any way for them to taste your wine?

[01:34:48] So do you do any kind of distribution outside of the state or outside of the state?

[01:34:53] Or do you sell your wines online?

[01:34:55] Can people go to the website and buy them?

[01:34:56] Yeah, no.

[01:34:57] So we do.

[01:34:57] We do.

[01:34:58] We sell on our website, cartercreek.com.

[01:35:00] You can get our wines.

[01:35:01] We do ship to 38 of the states, you know.

[01:35:04] And so, yeah, that's definitely the easiest way.

[01:35:06] And we're always running some promotions on that online store.

[01:35:10] So that's a great way.

[01:35:12] Distribution-wise, we do distribute to a couple of local restaurants.

[01:35:14] I'm looking to expand that.

[01:35:17] But, you know, we want to be able to, you know, John to have the bill to keep his passion,

[01:35:22] what he does, you know, not looking to get too big for our britches.

[01:35:25] And, you know, and so we're very selective on who we get those wines out to.

[01:35:31] Yeah, we just don't.

[01:35:32] Our production at this point, we haven't ramped it up to say we're going to go be in every,

[01:35:36] you know, HEB or what have you.

[01:35:39] And that's a very competitive chunk of the industry that it's grueling.

[01:35:45] It's a, you know, we do that in California.

[01:35:47] We have our wines in distribution.

[01:35:49] And it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, we have a wholesale director and she goes out there and fights every day.

[01:35:55] Yeah, it's a whole other animal.

[01:35:57] It is.

[01:35:57] And I think that keeping these wines here at the resort, just in Texas, I think it's,

[01:36:03] it makes them extra special.

[01:36:05] So it's a, you know, I don't know that that's something that we're going to pursue, but yeah.

[01:36:10] Well, and I do love that you sell them online.

[01:36:12] I think that's great because I do have listeners all over the state, heck, all over the U.S.

[01:36:18] and even in other places of the world, maybe that really think this is cool.

[01:36:22] I want to taste these wines.

[01:36:23] I really like them, but I can't quite get there and I need a way to do that.

[01:36:27] So very good that they can purchase those all online, get them delivered straight to their homes

[01:36:32] and enjoy those amazing wines that you make, John, there at home as well.

[01:36:37] Yeah, you get pretty much all the wines shipped in those 38 states.

[01:36:40] We just have two wines.

[01:36:41] We have one called Group Therapy and then the Ruby Cuvée, which are kind of restricted to Texas.

[01:36:45] Sure.

[01:36:48] Plans for Future Growth.

[01:36:49] What does the future look like here at Carter Creek Winery?

[01:36:52] Yeah, no, I think, you know, we're Jim, you know, with his vision he built here,

[01:36:57] he didn't leave much to expand on.

[01:36:59] And so, you know, no, I think we're very comfortable with where it is right now.

[01:37:04] And, you know, we want to continue to just help promote this side of the road with what we have.

[01:37:09] And so there's no media plans for, you know, large growth here on property.

[01:37:14] Just more building on what you have currently.

[01:37:17] So you're getting more people out there, which is what we're trying to do, get more people through your door.

[01:37:21] Appreciate it.

[01:37:21] I'd like to see our venue down front get, you know, a little bit more production out of it.

[01:37:27] Okay.

[01:37:27] That's my goal.

[01:37:29] I know Jim shares that.

[01:37:30] Yeah.

[01:37:31] You know, that's not like we're adding 20 more rooms or doing something like that.

[01:37:36] But I think that, you know, yeah, it would be ideal to see that little vineyard throwing about 20 tons of grapes.

[01:37:43] Yeah.

[01:37:45] So, but yeah, Jim designed it and did it.

[01:37:48] So, you know, it's something that it's, I don't think you can put much more here and make it any better.

[01:37:54] You got so many things that you offer here.

[01:37:56] So I get that.

[01:37:57] Yeah.

[01:37:58] Well, we've got a lot of places in Texas that people can go to drink wine.

[01:38:03] So tell me a little bit about why Carter Creek is special.

[01:38:06] What are the things that really make Carter Creek different and unique that would make my listeners say,

[01:38:11] I really got to go and check that out the next time I'm out there and make reservations and get here to the winery

[01:38:17] so they can check out all that Carter Creek has to offer?

[01:38:20] What sets it apart?

[01:38:21] Do you want to go first?

[01:38:23] Do you want to bring some stuff?

[01:38:24] This is a $64,000 question.

[01:38:26] And I'm going to say the answer is right here in the glass.

[01:38:29] Okay.

[01:38:30] I feel that, you know, beyond the property, I mean, whether you wind up staying here or, you know,

[01:38:37] you stayed down the street in another hotel, you still can't find, I think, wines of the caliber that we have here at Carter,

[01:38:46] except at probably one other winery, which I'll point to up in Lubbock.

[01:38:49] And that's my brother's place.

[01:38:51] And I do think that because of our legacy and our passion for what we do, we do have, you know, wines that are memorable.

[01:39:00] They're wines that you can hang your hat on.

[01:39:03] You can take them somewhere and you're not going to be embarrassed because of, oh, you brought some Texas wines.

[01:39:09] It tastes like dirt or, you know, it tastes like sand or whatever.

[01:39:13] You know, people, I can always remember all the comments that people used to make fun of Texas wines about.

[01:39:18] And it's like, no, these are serious wines.

[01:39:20] These are great wines.

[01:39:21] And I feel that, you know, certainly for Carter Creek, one thing is that sets us apart is that, you know, we've got great winemaking going on.

[01:39:30] Yeah.

[01:39:32] Did you want to add to that?

[01:39:33] Yeah.

[01:39:33] I mean, so absolutely everything that John said.

[01:39:36] But for me, it's, you know, it's the same reason me and my wife kind of found this place and fell in love with it.

[01:39:39] It was, it's an oasis for one.

[01:39:41] I got to truly believe that, you know, for up here and up here on the road, it's, it's an oasis that just feels different than, you know, a lot of places up here.

[01:39:49] And it's kind of a, so for that and then be able to, you know, have the lineages that we have, I can't express that enough.

[01:39:54] And, and, you know, the passion that, you know, John and Kim have who we consider part of the family too.

[01:40:00] You know, it's just, it is no better, there's no better thing to sell every day and be a part of every day and lead a team that gets to share that passion every day.

[01:40:08] And, and so, you know, I think that's what really makes us unique.

[01:40:11] It's really, we got, we got one of the strongest Texas wine lineages there is.

[01:40:15] And, you know, I try to express that and share that story every opportunity that we can.

[01:40:19] And, and so, yeah, hope, hope everybody can get out here and get out here and see us and share that passion with us.

[01:40:25] Cheers.

[01:40:26] I'll drink to that.

[01:40:27] Me too.

[01:40:28] Nobody gave me any.

[01:40:30] Here's to you, Scott.

[01:40:31] Thank you.

[01:40:41] And the fruits of that amazing Texas wine lineage are readily visible in every bottle and tasting in every single glass that you get there at Carter Creek Winery.

[01:40:51] The facilities there are spacious and beautiful, and they offer just about anything that you could need.

[01:40:57] If you want to go spend an incredible stay in the Texas Hill Country Wine Region, or even just visit for an afternoon of tasting some amazing wines there that John has produced.

[01:41:07] Now, as always, make sure you check out their website before you go.

[01:41:11] It's www.cartercreek.com.

[01:41:15] And it's a very informative website.

[01:41:18] You're going to find all kinds of things there about the winery, the brewery, their restaurant.

[01:41:24] You can find things for their wine club.

[01:41:26] Remember those amazing benefits.

[01:41:28] Membership has its privileges.

[01:41:30] And so you can find out about that, how to become a member there.

[01:41:33] You'll find their events calendar, all the things that are going on, and even information about making your stay, your accommodations, and reservations for the spa and all that kind of fun stuff.

[01:41:44] And remember, if you are a member there at Carter Creek, your membership provides discounts on all of those services.

[01:41:51] Not just the wine, but on everything they offer, even there in California.

[01:41:55] If you decide to go to Carter Estate or South Coast Winery there in Temecula, those benefits still apply.

[01:42:02] You're a member there as well.

[01:42:03] So it's like getting three memberships in one.

[01:42:06] Now, don't forget, when you go visit them, make sure you tell them that you heard about them on this podcast, Texas Undervine.

[01:42:12] What an amazing time I had, being able to sit down and visit with John and Derek and hear all those amazing stories.

[01:42:20] I think one day I really need to do a bonus episode of this podcast where I can sit down with both John and Kim McPherson together in the same room to hear them tell all of their stories and the things that they remember, their experiences throughout this modern Texas wine period.

[01:42:36] It's definitely a historical thing that's very fascinating and they're great personalities and fun to talk to.

[01:42:43] But you can actually taste the Texas lineage in all of the wines here at Carter Creek and the craft that goes into them.

[01:42:51] I was able to enjoy several glasses after our interview and I had to settle in on what did I want to pick for my episode library bottle for this particular episode.

[01:43:01] And I ended up choosing the vintage 2018 Maverick.

[01:43:06] So this is a red blend of several different Texas grapes.

[01:43:10] It's got, let's see, Mouved, Carignonne, Syrah, Cinso, and Cunhoa in this blend.

[01:43:16] And again, very well crafted, some strong bright red fruits in this flavor.

[01:43:23] The silky tannins across your tongue, the mouthfeel was great on it.

[01:43:27] There's some great oak characteristics on the nose of the wine.

[01:43:31] Really enjoyed this fantastic offering that I felt like was a good characteristic of what Texas can do with wine and the absolute craftsmanship that John and Kim helped put into this amazing wine.

[01:43:44] You'll definitely need to try a bottle of it when you go to visit them.

[01:43:48] Well, that wraps up the first episode of season three, episode 53 of the podcast.

[01:43:54] And I told you it was a whopper of a podcast.

[01:43:57] Now, if you'd like to hear more interviews like this and see this continue on, I can really use your help if you want to donate to the podcast or even become a Patreon subscriber.

[01:44:07] And as a Patreon subscriber, you get some bonus added benefits that not everyone else gets.

[01:44:12] So you can actually get access to behind the scenes photos of the winery before you go to visit.

[01:44:17] You can also see I do a video walkthrough of each location so you get a feel for what it looks like before you go to visit.

[01:44:25] And then I will even, for some levels, give you a bonus sneak peek into where I'm headed next.

[01:44:31] So you'll know before everyone else what's coming down the road in these different interviews that I have coming and the episodes that are coming down the line.

[01:44:40] So all for just a few dollars a month.

[01:44:42] If you go to my website, www.texasundervine.com, and you go up to the top, there's a button that says become a patron.

[01:44:50] When you click that, you get the option for a one-time donation.

[01:44:53] Or if you want to go to the Patreon site and check it out and possibly consider spending a few dollars a month just the price of a glass of wine to help sponsor this podcast.

[01:45:03] It really goes a long way towards helping me with my expenses as I put all of this out of my own pocket.

[01:45:09] I don't make money on this podcast at all.

[01:45:11] And so being able to help me foot those bills and get out to other places, visit other wineries, bring more great content like this to you.

[01:45:19] It would really make a difference to me and to all my current Patreon subscribers.

[01:45:23] Thank you again from the bottom of my heart.

[01:45:25] You really make this show work.

[01:45:27] Also, if you're watching this episode on YouTube, make sure to like, follow, and subscribe to the podcast.

[01:45:33] And while you're there, go ahead and leave a comment.

[01:45:36] Tell me what is your favorite thing about Carter Creek Winery Resort and Spa?

[01:45:41] Or if you haven't been yet, what's something you're looking forward to experiencing when you go after listening to the interview today?

[01:45:49] And with that, my time is up.

[01:45:51] So don't forget, subscribe to the podcast and follow my socials to be notified anytime a new episode is released.

[01:45:58] And until then, happy trails and bottoms up, y'all.

[01:46:07] Thanks for listening to Texas Undervine.

[01:46:09] We strive to provide you with the best information about wine businesses all over Texas.

[01:46:14] Be sure to check out our website at texasundervine.com

[01:46:17] and follow us on our socials at Texas Undervine to stay up on all the upcoming episodes.

[01:46:22] Please email us with any suggestions or feedback.

[01:46:26] Also, contact us if you're interested in donating, sponsoring, or advertising on the podcast

[01:46:30] just to help us cover our expenses and bring even more great info to you in future episodes.

[01:46:35] Above all, travel safely and most especially, drink responsibly.

[01:46:50] Howdy, Vine Troopers.

[01:46:51] Did you know that I now have a merchandise store for Texas Undervine?

[01:46:55] I only have a handful of limited items, but you can go check those out and wear your Texas Undervine swag

[01:46:59] if you'd like to tell all your friends about the great wine locations we have here in Texas

[01:47:04] and maybe get them interested in the podcast as well.

[01:47:06] So there are things like t-shirts, there's a hoodie, there's a beanie, a ball cap, things like that.

[01:47:13] But one of the most exciting things I have right now is my limited time offer t-shirt.

[01:47:17] That's my season one t-shirt.

[01:47:19] So this is your Tasting Through Texas, Texas Undervine season one t-shirt.

[01:47:23] It's only going to be available for a little short amount of time.

[01:47:26] On the back, it has all the different locations like a band tour t-shirt.

[01:47:29] So this is a limited time item and you can go out and get it now.

[01:47:33] And one of the great things about that t-shirt is a portion of every sale

[01:47:37] goes to support the Texas Hill Country Winery Scholarship Fund.

[01:47:41] So you know that by buying that t-shirt, you're also investing in the growing and flourishing

[01:47:46] of an amazing wine industry here in Texas

[01:47:49] and all of those people that are going to come and make it even better.

[01:47:52] Check out that merchandise store.

[01:47:53] It's on my website at texasundervine.com.

[01:47:56] Just go up to the top.

[01:47:57] You'll see the link for the merchandise store.