Heath Sparkling Wines (Hill Country)

[00:00:06] Howdy Vine Trippers, I wanted to take just a moment to talk to you about the Texas Wine Lover website and their phone app for both iPhones as well as Google devices. You can actually download this app, put it on your phone or just go to the website if you're not an app person. 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 a great information about the place before you go. And you'll be able to find other wineries in the area.

[00:00:33] So if you want to make a day of it, go see several other places as well. You can search by region. You can sort the listings, find ones that are kid friendly, family friendly, even ones that host RVs. All kinds of different sortable listings you can find there in that app and on the website. 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. So check out the Texas Wine Lover website. It's txwinelover.com or go to their app. You can find it on the Google Play Store or the Apple Store as well. 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. Each episode will cover a different vineyard, winery, or wine-related business operating in Texas. You'll hear interviews, descriptions, and details about each location. It will excite you to visit and experience them for yourself. Ready to plan a wine tour? Use these episodes to choose the most interesting spots for you and your friends to check out.

[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. Howdy, fellow Vine Tripper. Welcome to episode 63 for the Texas Under Vine podcast. Sparkling wine fans, rejoice!

[00:02:44] For this episode, I'm visiting Heath Sparkling Wines located in Stonewall, Texas to learn all about their amazing lineup of sparkling wines, as well as their recent efforts to consolidate all of their sparkling wine production facilities at their property called Invention Vineyards, just outside Fredericksburg in the production room there.

[00:03:10] So, Heath Sparkling Wines is actually part of the Heath family brand. It's all under kind of one big umbrella that includes multiple properties, starting with Great Creek Vineyards, as well as Heath Sparkling. They also have an owner's club and a Heath Vineyards Club. That's actually some wines that the owner, Brian Heath, and it's owned by Brian and Jennifer Heath.

[00:03:36] The owners, Brian and Jennifer, actually own a vineyard in Paso Robles, California, where they bring some fruit in to make special wines for that Heath Vineyards Club. Everything else they do is Texas-based. And then they also have Invention Vineyards, as well as Coleman Estate. So, multiple brands, all under one particular umbrella. But today, we're focusing in on the Heath Sparkling Experience and the wines they make there at Heath Sparkling Wines.

[00:04:04] Now, like I said, this brand was started by Brian and Jennifer Heath. And the Heath Sparkling part of it was actually launched in around 2015 or so, was their very first vintage, their very first release of a sparkling wine. And the winery itself has its own tasting room. Very beautiful, modern-style tasting room.

[00:04:26] And it actually sits on the same property as one of the other vineyard properties there under that umbrella, Great Creek Vineyards. So, the main Great Creek Vineyard and tasting room is located in Stonewall, Texas, in the Hill Country, right off the Wine Road 290. And the Heath Sparkling Tasting Room actually sits right next to it. So, you'll go to, when you go to visit the Great Creek Vineyards area, that's the sign you'll see where you'll pull in.

[00:04:56] But the Heath Sparkling is there on that same property. The winemaking team that is in charge of these tasty sparkling wines you're going to get at Heath Sparkling is headed up by their VP of winemaking, Jason Englert. Now, Jason has been in the wine industry since 1996. And he's actually been with Great Creek Vineyards since 2004, which was actually a couple of years before Brian and Jennifer purchased it in 2006 to take it over.

[00:05:26] And they kept him on tap there as their winemaker. And he's been with them now for 20 years with Great Creek and just doing an amazing job making incredible wines for all of their umbrella properties. But he leads a winemaking team. And one of the spear points on that team is the Invention winery manager, Ryan Miller.

[00:05:49] Ryan has actually been there as part of the winery itself at Invention since 2022. And when the Heath family brands came in to take that property over, they purchased the older winery that used to be there. They revamped it and rebuilt it into the now Invention vineyards that we know of today. And they kept Ryan on. He was originally working for the previous winery and stayed on with Heath family brands

[00:06:17] and is now the Invention winery manager and is working closely with Jason as part of this whole sparkling process. There's a whole lot that goes into it, which we'll talk about. But he is actually working very hand in hand with Jason on that. Now, as I said earlier, their very first vintage was in 2015. They were the first winery actually to be making sparkling wines in the traditional method, which we'll talk about in a few minutes, from Texas fruit. And again, that started back in 2015.

[00:06:46] And they continued that process and have now kind of perfected it into four different lines or four different wines that they offer in their sparkling program. The issues that they faced when they first started making this wine was they really wanted to use the traditional method. And I'll talk more about that in a couple of minutes and we'll go over the details of that. It's a much more complicated method that requires very specialized equipment. It's very expensive equipment. And nobody in Texas had that equipment at the time.

[00:07:16] There was a facility in California that had this equipment for doing the sparkling process, the second fermentation. And so when they first started, they would harvest the grapes here in Texas. They would then bring them to their production facility there in Fredericksburg or Stonewall and produce those base still wines that are needed for the sparkling wine. So it's Texas fruit that was processed here in Texas.

[00:07:42] But for the secondary fermentation, the sparkling part of it, they had to then send those still wines to this facility in California who had all of that specialized equipment to do the final processes of turning it into sparkling wine and getting that bottled and sent back so that they could then sell it. Over the last couple of years, they really wanted to bring that production process in-house.

[00:08:06] So they've recently taken the time to invest in bringing all that equipment to Invention Vineyards. And they are still waiting on one last piece. You'll hear about that in the interview. But they've been consolidating all of that so that they don't have to use any other companies. Everything will be done here in Texas and processed right here in the Central Texas area. Now, as I said, they have four great sparkling wines that you can taste.

[00:08:33] When you go to their tasting room, you'll get to set up a tasting to taste all four of those as part of your tasting. However, if you really want a special treat, it's such a beautiful tasting room. You really want to go through the process of getting and reserving the paired tasting. And the paired tasting is actually just a little bit more expensive.

[00:08:53] But they are going to actually take all four of those wines and pair each one of them individually with a specially crafted small bite through an in-house chef that they have there at the tasting room. Who's purposefully making these small bites to match up with each of the different four sparkling wines. They're amazing chef creations. So tasty, so good. And they change seasonally.

[00:09:19] So even if you've done the paired tasting before, it's worth it to do it again at different seasons. Because they will change with different flavors, different foods and spices and things that more match the season to be able to go with those wines. So it's worth tasting that paired tasting once or multiple times. All right. Before we go any further, I do want to go for those that aren't in the know about sparkling wines.

[00:09:47] Just to go into a few of the small details that make traditional method different from other types of methods. Now, the easiest form of sparkling wine and what you will probably find at a lot of different wineries that you go to who can afford, again, this heavy duty equipment and expensive equipment to do traditional method. It's something that we call forced carbonation or sometimes forced carb for short.

[00:10:11] And it's basically kind of like the way they make soda in that they are taking the CO2 and actually injecting it into the wine to force the bubbles in. And it's just one method of making sparkling. One of the downsides of forced carb is that those bubbles typically don't last as long. If you've ever opened a Coke or a Pepsi or something like that and taken a few drinks and let it sit for a while and come back, it starts to get a little more flat. Right.

[00:10:40] The bubbles don't last as long with forced carb as they do with some other methods. Now, there are other types of methods. There are pet gnats, which basically they don't finish the fermentation. They let the fermentation finish in the bottle to get a little bit of natural carbonation in it. There's also things like the tank method. If you've ever had Prosecco wine, that's what we call the tank method, which comes closest to the traditional method, except that it's done rather than bottles. It's done in a big tank and so forth.

[00:11:09] But the true king of carbonation, of making sparkling wines, is what we call the traditional method. Also, in the French, it's called method champenois. And if you recognize the word champenois to champagne, that's kind of where it comes from. There are a lot of EU restrictions about the word champagne.

[00:11:28] Champagne is a sparkling wine, but based on the EU's protections, you can only call a wine champagne if it's actually produced and bottled there in the champagne region of France. There are a handful of small places that were grandfathered in outside of champagne, but it's a rarity. And so that's why we talk about sparkling wines when we talk about this in the traditional method rather than champagne. Although champagne, again, is a traditional method.

[00:11:57] So let's talk about the traditional method itself and what makes it different. What is the process? Because it's kind of a long, exquisite process that's a little different. And so a lot of people may not understand how it all works and why it's special. So with the traditional method for sparkling wines, you're going to start like you would any other wines, right? You're going to harvest your grapes. You're going to put them in your tanks. You're going to process them, put the yeast in. You're going to do them like you would any other still wine.

[00:12:25] Matter of fact, you are making a still wine. This is what we call the primary fermentation. So the first part of it is like making any other regular wine. It's slightly different in that you really want a high acidity level in sparkling wines. So you're going to, you probably wouldn't want to drink those still wines very much because they're going to be really, really acidic as part of getting prepared for the secondary fermentation. But it's done the same way.

[00:12:52] You let the yeast then eat the sugars, produce the alcohol and the CO2, but you're making a base still wine. At this time, some sparkling winemakers will do some blending as well. Champagne that we mentioned a moment ago is actually typically a blend of three different grapes. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. Okay, but not all necessarily. They can be single varietals. They don't have to be blended.

[00:13:16] If you are going to do some blending, this is the time that they would do the blending of those still wines before they get ready to do the magic that makes it the sparkling, which is the secondary fermentation. Now, the first step in that secondary fermentation process, you'll hear it mentioned a few times in the interview today. So I wanted to give explanation. It's called Le Cours de Tourage. And pardon my French. I'm not French. So my accents are not the greatest there. A lot of times it's just called Tourage.

[00:13:42] But with Tourage, you have a special line that what you're going to do is you're going to, as you fill the wines, the already created still wines into the bottles, you're going to leave some space there. Because you're going to add in a little bit of extra sugar and some yeast into those bottles themselves to start a secondary fermentation inside that bottle. So although there's no necessarily sugars in there for the yeast to do anything with, you add the sugar in.

[00:14:09] That's the Tourage process to put that in. You will then cap it, typically with a crown cap, which is like you'd see on a beer bottle. And that then lets that yeast that you put in there start feeding on the sugar. Now, as the yeast feeds on the sugar, the byproduct of that is alcohol. So it's going to add a little more alcohol in. But it's also going to emit CO2. The difference is when you're making the still wine, the CO2 is typically allowed to just escape into the atmosphere.

[00:14:36] However, since we have kept this bottle, now that CO2 is not able to leave the bottle. It's being reabsorbed into the wine itself as the yeast that eats all of those sugars and transforms that. So this fermentation is going on inside of the bottle. It's typically laid on its side. And as the yeast cells begin to eat that sugar, they eventually die and they form what are called lees. So the dead yeast cells form kind of a sediment inside the bottle that are called lees.

[00:15:06] And the lees rest inside the bottle. Well, the lees can actually offer a little bit of flavor to the wine itself. Toasty, bready kind of notes that you typically get. That's called aging it on the lees. So as that fermentation kind of finishes, you still will leave that bottle to age for a little while. Sitting on those lees to provide some more flavor into the wine itself. Now, once you're done aging, you have to get those lees out of the bottle. And so you do a process called riddling.

[00:15:37] Riddling is very different now than it used to be. With riddling, they used to have to have these A-frame racks that they would put the bottle into, turn it kind of on its neck so that those yeast cells using gravity would slowly work their way down into the neck. And the winemaker would come in constantly and have to come in and turn the bottle a little at a time to be able to slowly get all those lees down into the neck of the bottle.

[00:16:00] Slowly getting that bottle more and more onto what's called the point where it's pointed straight down and where all those lees can accumulate and kind of settle down into the neck, right? So that is the process of riddling is getting all that sediment, all those lees, those dead yeast cells down into the very top, the very top of the neck of the bottle. Nowadays, there's really cool machines that do that. These gyropallets that go in and turn it every so often to get all these things to happen. Really fascinating.

[00:16:28] If you're curious about that, watch some videos of it on YouTube. They're really cool to see. You have to go into time lapse to see because they go real slowly. But it's a fascinating labor saver for sure. Now, once you have the lees into the neck, the question is, how do we get them out? Very fascinating process where they actually freeze the neck of the bottle, which takes those lees and forms it into a plug, a solid type of plug. Now, there's five to six atmospheres of pressure in that bottle.

[00:16:56] So once you've frozen that into a plug, you can actually open the crown cap and it shoots that plug out of the lees, out of the bottle itself. Now, when it does, of course, it's leaving a little bit of a gap because there are some wine and some other things that went out with that that were frozen. And so now you have this opening. So we want to do the last step, which is called dosage. Dosage is where you can now really make the wine taste the way you want.

[00:17:21] You're going to fill up that space that was left with a little extra wine and even some sugar to dose it a little bit. Dosage. To get it to the sweetness level that you want. There are multiple different sweetness levels, brute, extra brute, all kinds of things that determine the sweetness level of sparkling. They go beyond this discussion here. But that determines how much of the sugar and things they're going to add into that when they do the dosage.

[00:17:47] Once they've done the dosage, they can then put the cork in, put the wire cage on, and then they might age it for a little bit longer and get ready to sell you this beautiful bottle of sparkling that has all those bubbles integrated into the wine itself. So those bubbles become a lot more creamy. They're a little smaller than those bubbles. Typically, you would see in, say, a forced carb. They usually will last a little bit longer as well.

[00:18:09] So traditional method just brings such an elegance and such a beautiful way to make sparkling wine that's just above and beyond any other method, in my opinion. But as you can see, it's a long kind of complicated process. It's not the same as just making a plain old steel wine. And you have to have all this specific equipment to be able to do it that's really expensive. So that's why it's a lot more difficult to make a traditional method wine than a standard forced carb or pet nat or something like that.

[00:18:39] And they're bringing all of that equipment, like I said, here to Texas at Invention Vineyards. So they will have all of that set up there in the winery itself to do all the production here as well. And in addition, once they get all of that equipment here and settled in and up and running, they do plan to offer in the future tours of the production line for sparkling there at Invention Vineyard. So you can actually go in and see the tourage line. You can see the riddling machines, those gyro palettes.

[00:19:06] You'll be able to see the dosage line and maybe even some of the cages where they have the bottles sitting there resting and aging on the leads. Now, if you are a true sparkling wine aficionado, that is definitely the tour to take to really get that cool behind-the-scenes view of all these things. I actually was privileged to be able to go see some of those things. I didn't get to see them in action, but I didn't get to see the machines and gyro palettes and all that. You've got to check it out if you're even remotely interested in sparkling wine or just curious about the process.

[00:19:36] Now, I was honored when I visited to be able to sit down in front of that cool tourage line equipment and get to interview those two people I mentioned earlier, Jason Inglert, their VP of winemaking, as well as Ryan Miller, the IV winery manager, and got to talk to them all about all things heat sparkling and where they come from and where they're going and the excitement of the sparkling wines that they produce. So without further ado, let's go hear from the experts.

[00:20:12] Howdy, Vine Trippers. Welcome to this episode about Heath sparkling wines. And I'm actually sitting at Invention Vineyards. We're here. This is where the production facilities are for Heath sparkling and all part of the Heath family brands, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes. But I'm here with Jason, their vice president of winemaking, as well as Ryan Miller, their Invention Vineyards winery manager. And they're all part of the magic that makes these bottles when you drink Heath sparkling wines.

[00:20:42] And their production facilities, like I said, are coming here and they're building things out here at the production facility. So I get to sit down and talk to them about these great sparkling wines here in Texas. So without further ado, I will turn my attention over here. And so, Jason and Ryan, I'll let you guys decide who wants to go first. Tell me a little bit about yourself. So what got you started in the wine industry? Tell me about your wine journey. Well, you know, mine was purely by accident.

[00:21:08] I went to school at Texas Tech, graduated in 96 and took on, just happened to take what I thought was a part-time temporary job at Yano, it's called a winery. Oh, yeah. So I was there eight years. I've been in toward under a really smart guy, Greg Bruni, who's now retired from the industry. And learned most of it was on the job and self-taught and worked with some consultants over the years. And now here we are. This is my 29th harvest. Wow.

[00:21:36] And you've been here with Heath Faley Brands for? I was here before Brian Heath bought the Crape Creek Vineyards. Back when Ned Sims owned it. In 2004, my wife and I moved here. I took over the winemaking for them after Ned Sims had just passed away. Worked for his son and daughter. And then three years later, they sold it to Brian. And Brian decided, hey, this guy knows what he's doing and let's keep him on. I got lucky, I guess. And so you've been here now 20 years? Yeah, over 20 years. Wow. Yeah. Great.

[00:22:06] Been a while. Ryan, what about you? I started out just as a seasonal winery worker for a friend's family winery in California. And I liked it so much. I thought, oh, I'll study this. Listen, I wanted to stick to the farming side mostly. But I really liked it in the cellar a lot too. So I thought, well, I'll figure this out. And I went to school at Fresno State. Okay.

[00:22:32] Really liked it there and got a lot of hands-on experience both at state and at local wineries around Fresno. And eventually just graduated with a degree in enology. And really, that's when I just said, well, I'm really committed to this. But I love it. It's been great. Yeah, exactly. And so went to Paso Robles, made wine out there for a while from Monterey down to Santa Barbara.

[00:23:00] And then 2022, my wife and I were like, hey, I'd like to go back to Texas. And she's like, well, okay, let's consider it. And so we've been looking for a couple of years. And 2022 is the year that things kind of lined up where we both found jobs out here. And we ended up being acquired during the invention acquisition. And lucky enough, same thing. Hey, got to stay on. Okay.

[00:23:30] And it's been great. You worked at what was Slate Mills at the time, this winery. At the time, yeah. And then when Heath Family Brands purchased it and then took it over as invention, they kept you on staff. They did. Yeah. Thankfully. I think they kept my wife on and I was like, hey, we'll let them say. All right. And so you've been here with Heath Family Brands since the takeover. So a couple of years, you said around 2020? Two and a half years or so. Is that right? Kind of like that one. Two and a half years. I think we're in our third year acquiring. Okay.

[00:24:00] So. And you guys are the brain trust behind the whole winemaking philosophy here. That's what we'd say. There was a big, there's a group of, there's a group of us. Yeah. Led by Jason, of course. Yeah. We've got a good crew of guys. I think they're probably one of the best in the state. Okay. They're all winemakers and whatever their title, you know, they do a great job. Well, let's talk for a second about sparkling wines. And so I know that for a while there, Heath was one of the first, if not the first to bring

[00:24:27] sparkling wines, traditional method to Texas. And so let's talk about how did that originate? What, what, what started all of that process? You know, it was just, it was kind of on a whim. I think 2015 was our first. Wasn't great, but it was a, you know, we tried it as kind of a last minute trial. We decided, you know, this sparkling thing and it's just evolved and it's, you know, grown pretty well. It's become a popular, you know, product cross country.

[00:24:57] But, you know, now it's just evolved for us to just do all the hundred percent production in house. Okay. Well, and there are several different ways to do sparkling wines, some much easier than others. You know, you got the traditional basic forced carb or even pet nets and you've got the tank method with like Prosecco. But when you get into the champagne or method Champenois where you're really, I mean, that's a pretty intensive type of thing. Y'all committed to that early on. We did. We did.

[00:25:26] And early on, we also looked at doing a production facility all at once. But, you know, when you consider pricing of equipment and facilities, we said, well, let's ease into it. So what we did, we were making the base wines at Grape Creek Vineyard. And then we would, we had a partnership with Rack and Riddle in Hillsborough, California. So we would make the base wines and ship those base wines to them and they would do the method Champenois for us.

[00:25:53] And then they'd ship the wines back as bottled wines. Yeah. So. And as we see a piece of some of this equipment here, very, very expensive, very long process. Yeah. This is our first, well, one of the first pieces of equipment we've purchased is a tarage line, which is the first part of the method Champenois. So, and then we also have the Riddling Gyros in another building across the way. And so now we've, like we talked about earlier, we've got a dosage line on the water that will hopefully we might see it by the end of the year. And that's how you actually finish off. That's how we finish.

[00:26:23] That's the finish of the process. It is a long, interesting process. And I can tell people more about that through the previous part of the podcast, but that's really cool. So what made you make the decision to bring this on site now? Uh, I mean, there's some economics behind it and there was just some opportunity. Uh, when we purchased Invention and now Coleman, we decided to bring all of our production in

[00:26:49] house from those three facilities into Grape Creek just to consolidate employees, consolidate equipment. We can bleed off into both facilities if we need to, but we said, well, now we've got this space at Invention and there's an opportunity to maybe we just go full production. So, uh, you know, the initial investment's higher, but we'll save money on the production in a while. Oh, sure. I would think the transport costs back and forth and all that. Absolutely. When was the, the, the birth of Heath sparkling? I know you talked about it in 2015.

[00:27:18] You started making some bottles. When did y'all decide we want to make this our own property, its own thing and build a tasting room for it and all of that? I have to go back and look when we built that building. I think in my mind, it's not that long ago, but it's longer than it is. It's at least five years, six years. We'll have to go back and look at that. Yeah. So that's when we built the tasting room on the property. Um, and it's done well. I mean, if you haven't been to the property, it's distinctly different from the Grape Creek Vineyard tasting room.

[00:27:46] A little more modern, uh, different tasting, you know, process. There's food pairing with it. Um, it's just a different, a different atmosphere than there are other properties. So cool. And Ryan, had you worked with sparkling before? Was this your first dive into it? This is my first endeavor into it. I looked at sparkling as, uh, someone might look at brewing versus wine. To me, it's, it's a totally different process.

[00:28:14] It takes a, a, a very different skillset and knowledge base. Um, but it's learnable and, uh, we've got good consultants helping us out and, uh, we've got, I mean, the still wines figured out pretty well. And so we've been part of it. Right. The process. And that's long enough now that. Yeah. We can, we can start doing it. Did you guys ever get to travel up to rack and riddle? You kind of watch the process? I haven't. Yeah. We had once before, um, gone up there. They've helped us a lot too.

[00:28:44] Okay. Um, but yeah, we're, we've definitely tiptoed into this, you know, because I told Brian a long time. I said, if we're going to do that, we're going to need help because I've never done it. Like Brian was saying, he's never done it. So, and we have a great consultant, uh, helping us right now with the winemaking side. Okay. Or the sparkling side. Yeah. Um, and Ryan's jumped in and learned a lot of those processes, you know, that we've never done before. Yeah.

[00:29:11] So like you said, it's kind of like looking at brewing. It's you get one chance. So we don't want to mess it up for sure. Right. You want to make sure you're doing everything right from the start. Exactly. And it's all different as far as, you know, the way we farm those grapes are slightly different. When we pick those grapes, we pick them earlier. So there's a different mindset going into this than, than making just a still wine. Well, that's a great bridge into where we're, let's talk about the fruit for a moment.

[00:29:41] What, where do you get the fruit and where are you sourcing that? And tell me about the fruit a little bit. Well, I mean, we try to get most of all of our fruit from, from Texas high-planning grower, um, growers. Uh, our largest high-planning grower now is the Lehigh Farms. Okay. Um, we have, there's the varieties we use. We have trouble sometimes because they're, they're small producers like Pinot Noir. There's not a lot of people producing Pinot Noir.

[00:30:08] Um, I think it does well as long as you pick it early for a sparkle. Um, when we have a couple other growers that we purchase fruit from, but, you know, with Texas weather and mother nature here, sometimes we have to farm it out to out of state, but we don't, I mean, not that we're doing it every year on purpose, but it's just, it's just, you know, something we have to do sometimes. And you have to pick that fruit early to get the higher acidity, right? Yeah. We want the higher acidity. Uh, sometimes that throws a wrench in growers.

[00:30:38] Yeah. You know, habits. Their production schedules. Yeah. Yeah. We have to pick a month early. What? Yeah. You're not the labor to do that right now. Our machines aren't clean. Oh yeah. So, but yeah, it's, um, they're good about it. I mean, we treat them well and they treat us well. And what are some of the varietals that you use in, in the sparklings here in Heath Sparkling besides Pinot Noir? Chardonnay. Okay. Uh, the Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio and Chenin Blanc mostly. And like the Chenin Blanc typically has a little Trebbiano blended in.

[00:31:08] Okay. So, you know. And that's usually by our, we have four labels. The Euphoria is mostly the Chenin Blanc based. Yeah. Um, Ebullience is the Pinot Grigio. Um, and that's kind of like in a remodel style. We try to keep a little bit of color on that. Okay. And, you know, it's one of our top sellers too. Yeah. Surprising. And then, um, Adoration is a Pinot Noir and then typical Blanc de Blanc. It was our Chardonnay. Okay. So pretty, almost straight varietals for each one. Not as much of a blend. We try, yeah.

[00:31:38] Of course you have to supplement, I'm sure. Sometimes we do. You know, if we end up with more Chenin Blanc, we might push it to help out the, the Pino Grigio for short there or, you know, stuff like that. So. So is any of that fruit, estate fruit from your vineyards here or is it all High Plains for the most part? Oh, that's mostly High Plains. Okay. We used to have a little Chenin Blanc vineyard at Grape Creek. That's what we originally started the, the sparkling program with. And it just, the vineyard got old and started having some disease problems.

[00:32:06] So we pulled it up, replanted with a different rival. It was that front entry. Front drive. Correct. And it was kind of a lower area, a lot of water and things like that. Yeah. That's one of the difficulties of the farming aspect of it. All right. It is. Yeah, exactly. Agricultural product. Well, do you, and so this is kind of a silly question here, but you, you, the next question I typically ask is, do you process everything on site? We've already talked a little bit about the machines and the stuff that you're getting here. Well, let's talk about the still wine processing. Is that done here at Invention?

[00:32:34] Are you doing that over at Grape Creek or? It's done at Grape Creek. Then we'll process it through fermentation, clean it up, and then we'll truck it over here for whatever little aging we do and then torage. Yeah. For us, torage happens pretty quickly after harvesting. Yeah. So. And for listeners that don't know as much about how sparkling is made, there's really two, it's two fermentation. So you actually ferment a still wine the way you might normally make any other still wine, but you're stopping that a little early and then you're starting a second fermentation

[00:33:03] inside the bottle, which is really cool. And that's the torage where you're adding in the yeast and the. Torage bottling out. Yeah. Yeah. What are, you talked about the four different labels, four different types of sparklings. What are some of your favorite ones of those to deal with and work with as winemakers? Gosh. I mean, for Dracon, I really like the Pinot Noir. Okay. The Adoration. The Adoration. It's a rosé. Some is pretty. It's bubbly. It tastes really good. Yeah. I mean, so that's my go-to. Yeah.

[00:33:33] I agree. I mean, it's probably that one. The Bullion is surprisingly a very well made wine. It comes in. It's really not typical. Pinot Grigio is not typical of making sparkling with and it does well. So we enjoy making that one. What about from a winemaking perspective? Is there, so I know you've got such differences between making white wine and red wine. There's some similarities, but there's also some very distinct differences there. Is there a lot of difference in making those four different sparklings or do they kind of follow the same process?

[00:34:03] They kind of follow the same process. We might, there might be a little bit of, the only thing that might be different is yeast. Okay. But for the most part, we focus sparkling. There's, you know, companies that make sparkling yeast and so it's used for those wines, but one might be a little slightly different than the other. Yeah. I mean, there's, the process is the same. The initial fermentation, the process is the same. Cooler fermentations, you know, off the skins early. So, I mean. Except for maybe Pinot Grigio. Right.

[00:34:33] We might. We might, we might, we might have to treat the color a little bit there or something like that. But it's. Because that, that grape's not typically pure white. Yeah. Right. It's a little darker. And so we, we have to pull some of that back out. Okay. So yeah, not a whole lot of sorcery going on. It's pretty basic winemaking. Interesting. Yeah. It's interesting that all four kind of follow that same process. Do you have a, from a winemaker perspective, do you have any like, man, I really wish I could work with this grape for sparkling.

[00:34:59] Or I wish we could, you know, bring this like Pinot Meunier or which I don't, you know, that you tip them in champagne or things like that. Are there any type of grape varietals you think, man, I would love to work with this or see how this would do with sparkling. I think I'd just like to have enough every year to do it. We need that. You're more focused on the volume. Yeah. I mean, I think, I only know like one person has Pinot Meunier in Texas. And we've done, we've used that once because we were short Pinot Noir and we don't have a contract on it. So we didn't get it.

[00:35:29] But, but there's just not a lot of those varieties planted. Yeah. Chardonnay has a hard time in Texas. There's not a lot of Chardonnay planted in Texas. Pinot Noir is the same way. So Chardonnay does well. Pinot Grigio can do well, you know, but just Pinot Grigio, there's not a lot of it either. Right. Well, let's talk for a moment about the, the, the location, the Heath Sparkling Tasting Room. Tell me a little bit about the, do y'all do host, I have a wine club I know that's directly for Heath Sparkling.

[00:35:59] Do y'all have events for those things or different stuff that goes on in the tasting room besides the reservation tastings? Uh, well the, the tastings, so it's, there's a normal tasting where you can try the wine standalone. Um, and then there's also a paired tasting. Okay. Where we, uh, we have a chef in house that does a seasonal menu to pair with those wines. Uh, each bite is paired and made specifically for that wine. Okay.

[00:36:26] Um, and then as far as events, we, we offer our typical, uh, all when you're, when you're a member anywhere, you're a member everywhere. And for that we offer, everybody can have access to the same event. So there's nothing specifically for Sparkling. That's, um, a different event. So under the Heath family brand umbrella, when you're a member, if you become a member of Heath Sparkling, then you're a member at Great Creek, at Avention, at all places. You get benefits for the honest power. Yeah. You get benefits across properties.

[00:36:56] Okay. Right. And then I know that y'all do host back for my interview about Great Creek with Brian Heath. Y'all have a couple of different events that you do every year. Correct. Um, what, what are those two events? Uh, we do one in the winter, um, March or March. So we do a tank tasting. Okay. And that's at a Great Creek Vineyards and that's held inside our main tank room. Yeah. So people come and there's food, uh, they can try wines out of tanks that we're preparing to bottle and wines in barrels that we, you know, they're still aging. Yeah.

[00:37:25] That may be a progression. Right. And so, and then in, um, I think it's in September now we have Festa, uh, which is kind of a sit down dinner at Stout's restaurant on Great Creek, which is, they do paired, uh, course meal with our wine. Which is a lot of fun too. So they're small, intimate type, type events. Um, we don't do a lot. We don't do the big, um, wine club pickups, stuff like that. Yeah. Kind of focus on specifics, you know, events that people enjoy.

[00:37:56] So. And for the wine club, um, how does that whole thing work? If somebody decided, Hey, I really, I came to Heat Sparkling. I love the sparkling. I want to join the wine club for that. How does that work? Hey, we're back a house, man. No, there's a form. We fill it out just like anything else. And, uh, their, the membership starts pretty quickly. In fact, um, but they, they don't even have to, folks don't have to show up to sign up. Okay. They can sign up online on our website.

[00:38:24] Uh, there's a, a spot to join now and no fees or anything like that. Just, uh, Hey, you get, you get your wine. Discount. Discount. Four times a year. Well, uh, the main, the main, um, wine club, like Grape Creek and some of the others, it's actually five shipments a year. Okay. The sparkling is four. Sparkling is four. Okay. And then our J. Monchellers is two, yeah, two shipments. So. And, uh. Owner's Club uses like four, eight, and 12 bottles options.

[00:38:54] And they can do those pickups at, do they have to come directly to Heat Sparkling or can they do those at other locations? You can pick up at other locations. Um, we also have a drive-through pickup facility at Grape Creek Vineyards, you know, for, it doesn't mean you have to go inside and pick up, you just drive right through. Drive up, open your window. Bring your clubs. Drive it and go. Yep. Pick up all the clubs you want them to have. Yeah. So. Makes it convenient. But if they live in Georgetown or, or that. Yeah. In Austin. The North Austin area, they can pick it up there. Pick up there as well. At the downtown tasting room there in Georgetown. Yeah.

[00:39:24] So Heath Family Grants has multiple locations. They have the vineyard there on 290 outside Stonewall, which is where the Heat Sparkling Tasting Room is also located right next to that. Of course, then they have Kuhlman, which is more closer to High. They have this location in Venture, which is more toward on 16, a little south of Fredericksburg towards, uh, on the road towards Kerrville, but just outside of town. And then they also have the Georgetown tasting room in Georgetown, Texas for you Austin area people. We like closer. So they can pick up here at the, uh, I mean, not here, this is a mention.

[00:39:54] They can pick up at a great Creek at the tasting room window or the drive up window there, or they're in Georgetown as well. So a couple of different locations. And then our main street in Fredericksburg. Oh yeah. Main street. I totally forgot about that. Tasting room there on main street in Fredericksburg as well. Try to make it as convenient as possible for people. Yeah. Lots of different places and locations. And again, as part of that wine club now, you're a member with Heath Family. So you get to go and have things at different places. You get benefits at each place. Yeah. Okay, cool.

[00:40:22] Well, let's talk about the, the tasting room experience for a minute. We dabbed on it just a second ago. We got, so you'd said there's two tastings, one that's paired and one that's just a regular tasting. Right. And they need reservations to do that? It's a good idea, especially on the weekends. Okay. Uh, during the week is not so much just because the crowds aren't as big. Right. But it doesn't always, it doesn't hurt to just call ahead. Okay. Uh, during the weeks a little, it's quite a bit easier than during the weekends. Yeah. And there's less tasting availability that he's sparkling. Whereas we can, we can handle more people at Grape Creek.

[00:40:52] Sure. We can't handle as many people. It's a little smaller. It's a smaller facility. Tailored and curated. A little more intimate. Yeah. Yeah. Got you. Um, and then what are the operating hours? 11. 11 to 530. 530. I'm at 530. Okay. And that's every day or? Seven days of every day. The only one that's different right now is Coleman just because we're still on our construction. So, uh, they're right now they're closed, uh, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Yeah. But once the construction is done, there'll be seven days away. Just like all the other properties.

[00:41:21] But coming to Heath, they can come any day from 11 to 530. Absolutely. And always get checked the website to make sure. Except Easter Sunday we're closed. Easter Sunday. Yeah. So major holidays, I'm sure. Christmas, Thanksgiving. That can all be found on the website. Yeah. Got you. What about family friendly? If people wanted to bring kids, things like that. Currently, we, all of our properties were not, where there's no kids, no dogs. Unless it's ADA. Coleman will be. It is currently a family friendly, friendly and pets. Okay.

[00:41:49] Um, and that's just because they were before. We're just going to keep it like that for now. Yeah. But at Heath, they're going to need to make sure he's sparkling. They're going to need to make sure that they leave that stuff at home. They plan this. Correct. He's sparkling is 21 plus. Yeah. 21 plus ADA service handles only. What about groups? If somebody thought, Hey, let's get a bachelorette party to come in. Or we got a tour of us that wants to go up and go taste. Well, Heath sparkling is, uh, I believe it's four groups are the largest. Okay.

[00:42:16] But you can email and make a request, you know, and you just have to go through the manager and make sure that you punch all the right buttons. Yeah. So don't just wheel up into your big band. If you've got a party, party larger than four, you need to call ahead of time, like a week or so. And just make arrangements. Especially depending on the day, a Saturday. Yeah. Maybe a little further lead time. Yeah. Versus a Tuesday. Sure.

[00:42:41] So it just controls the crowd and, uh, the tastings that's, they don't usually do a tastings larger than that there. Okay. Just to get, you know, more one-on-one. Yeah. With our servers. Okay. What would you say are some of the busier or slower times? What's the best time for somebody to come visit Heath sparkling? During the week. Yeah. Yeah. And during the week. Weekdays. Yeah. It's always the best time to come. Um, they'll start getting busy on, depends on the time of year. Springtime is always busier.

[00:43:10] Uh, so Friday, Saturday, Sunday can be busy. And there's been some Mondays that are not crazy, but you know, people stay longer sometimes. Yeah. In town. But yeah, during the week is the slower times. And if you just want more of a one-on-one experience, it's going to be during the week. Okay. Well, we've talked a little bit about your locations, places that people can go to if they're not members to taste the wine.

[00:43:34] But do they, I know that for instance, I know for personal experience, the Georgetown Tasting Room, if you're not a member, then you can go up to like the to-go window they have there to taste the, are there places that people can go to taste the wines if they're not members yet? Yes, absolutely. I mean, you don't have to be a member at any of our properties to try wine. Okay. Just that when you become a member, you have access to more of the property. So, you know, and the discounts and the food, stuff like that. Yeah.

[00:44:02] So, I mean, I know people like to say we're wine club only. I mean, in a way we are, but we welcome everybody to come in the front door and try the wine. Okay. That's what it was. What about, do you do any kind of distribution with Heath Sparkling specifically? Or are there ways if somebody can't get to one of those locations, but they really want to taste it where like you buy it on your website or ways for people to taste it without being able to visit? Correct. Yeah. We have a wine club, you know, shop just like everybody else. Okay. Only distribution we will do is pretty small. It's usually local restaurants. Okay.

[00:44:32] So, it's small. I mean, we're direct consumer. I mean, that's our model. Yeah. So, that's what we push. Okay. I mean, like you said, we've got several places to buy wine. You know, you can go into Main Street and buy wine. You don't have to be a member to go in there to buy wine. Okay. Yeah. Online's option on the website. There's a spot to buy wine for anybody. Okay. Not just members. And it'll list what states we ship to and such. Member pricing and then non-member pricing. Absolutely.

[00:45:28] Okay. Especially in this stage of transferring everything here. And this already, you know, with the taraj line we put in late part of last year, the disgorging line, hopefully by the end of this year, the riddling machines. That's a long process. Yeah. It's already, I mean, a year and a half. Yeah. Yeah. It's 18 months aged. Yeah. Now.

[00:45:50] And so, and then with the primary fermentation, then that, and then the disgoragement part, it's quite a long-term deal. Yeah. For we'll be really up and under us. Yeah. Do you foresee maybe taking part of your winemaking team and making that these are just focused on the sparkling side of it? Is this such an engulfing process or do you still plan to just include that in the overall? It's, it's, I mean, it's always going to be a little bit in the overall.

[00:46:18] Ryan and then another employee we have, Wyatt, who's kind of become our bottling line lead is, you know, during taraj and dosage, they're going to be the main guys over here. Stepping up. Yeah. And, you know, for running those lines. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, he's, he's becoming the, the master of taraj and sparkling and stuff like that.

[00:46:40] You know, we both work with our consultant, but, you know, he's the one, you know, doing the ads, you know, all those stuff that we have to do to those, those lines before we get right to bottle. Well, on the idea of sparkling as well, something that I'm not familiar with, what is the, what does the seasonality of wine production look like with sparkling? I mean, with still wine, you've got a very distinct time of harvest, you know, fermentation. And I mean, they go into aging. It was a very specific thing.

[00:47:06] Does sparkling happen in a similar types of thing? Or do you do parts of these processes at different times of the year? Uh, so primary fermentation is the same time as, as our still winemaking is. And, uh, we'll quickly get that ready for taraj bottling. Okay. Um, we like to do that as quick as we can, just because the longer we wait is just extend your timeline. And so, uh, like we'll harvest this year.

[00:47:34] We'll hopefully be into taraj by November and, uh, maybe, maybe sooner. Yeah. And, uh, and then that'll lay down for at least a year, um, before we start riddling it. Okay. And then from then it'll, just as we can get to it, um, we'll, then we'll start disgorging and, uh, doing dosage and bottling and labeling and all that. So, yeah. Does, um, sparkling line having kind of an aging process to it? It does.

[00:48:04] Um, for like taraj, once we taraj and we lay those bottles down. And they're cages, you can't see them on the camera. Maybe you can on your camera or some of the, that's a taraj cage there. Yeah. Um, you know, they'll sit, like you said, for at least a year. Um, and so what it's doing, it's, it's laying on that leaves from the yeast, you know, that settles on the bottle. And that's where you get some of the aging qualities of the wine.

[00:48:31] Um, and then once it goes through riddling, riddling is a, we have these, I call them gyros and it rotates that cage so many times every hour for so many days. Uh, the longest being maybe five to seven days, as short as three days. And so it, it moves all that leaves to the neck of the bottle. So there's a little less surface area that touches the wine, but you're still aging on that leaves. And then you can hold it on point. We call that on point when the bottle straight up and down. And we can age it on that for as long as we want.

[00:49:00] You know, it depends on when we plan to, uh, discord and dosage. Uh, and so from that point, you know, in the past with rack and riddle, uh, in this first season for production here, we'll do 18 months, 16 to 18 months of, you know, lay down. Okay. And we may shorten that as we go, as we learn how to do this. Cause you, a lot of times the way we plan on, we plan on taraj lay down, uh, and then we'll dosage.

[00:49:29] And once we dosage, we'll go straight into another taraj to fill those cages back up. So, okay. But try to be efficient, efficient as we can. As it moves from one stage to the next. Right. So, so we're learning those processes now where we can, um, with the consultant help, help, of course, uh, how we can shorten that window without diminishing quality or, or changing the wine drastically. Okay. And so, cause the hope is to have, if people like a line, we want it to taste similar with some, with some vintage variation. Yeah.

[00:49:59] Well, and that's a good question. Are y'all doing vintage based? Are you doing non-vintage? Yeah. We've always done vintage based. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, a lot, and a lot of people don't. I mean, a lot of the French don't. Yeah. Oh, champagne isn't it? Right. Champagne. That's just the way, I mean, that's just the way that I've done it a lot. Yeah. So do you see a lot of vintage variation, but from year to year with those, or do you see a little bit? A little bit. Yeah. I mean, every, I mean, it's an agriculture where it's different. Weather's different every year. Right. Right.

[00:50:29] So, I mean, there's slight differences every year. Okay. We try to get as close as we can, but we can't control everything. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas in Champagne or some of those big Champagne houses, things like that, they're doing non-vintage so they can make sure to get a same flavor profile in the same year to year to year. Whereas you guys are okay with saying, okay, well, that's okay. We understand. This is Texas. We're going to have a little bit of variation from bottle to bottle. Yeah. Year to year. The cuvées are blended, you know, more precisely year to year. Gotcha.

[00:50:58] Well, those palettes, those take the place of the old monks who in Champagne used to have to literally rotate each one a little bit hand by hand. And now you said it does in three to five days or so? Yeah. It depends on the wine. And so, yeah, we'll have it running when you come do tours. We'll be able to see the machine running. It might scare you. Is it 200 something bottles, I think? So those do, yeah, 500. 500 fair bottles per cage. Wow. And we'll be able to do 12 cages at a time. Okay.

[00:51:28] That's a lot of moving and shaking going on over there, huh? Yeah, it could probably be pretty loud when it turns. Get all of them going at once. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, what would you say is the difference just from your own perspective? So if somebody goes to a winery, they say, oh, look, there's something got a sparkling. They don't know what it is, you know, if this is forced carb. What would you say is kind of the benefits of method Champenois, the traditional method, over, say, forced carb or tank method?

[00:51:57] For me, it's just, you can tell the difference. I mean, it's the quality of the wine to me is better. Something kind of silly is the quality of the bubbles. Okay. Usually in, you know, method Champenois, the bubbles are going to be tinier and firmer and creamier. Creamier. And they're, you know, they last longer in the bottle. Sometimes you look at forced carb or something like that and the bubbles are really big, like a carbonated water or something like that. Okay. You know. And they fizz out so fast. Right. They fade away, right?

[00:52:25] And the CO2 is diminished fast. And, yeah, we've learned a lot about how to make our bubbles last longer. Okay. So there is a technique to that. So, yeah, we'll learn in that process. And are all of your sparklings dry? Yes. They're all brute. They're all considered brute. And they'll have a different, there's slightly different dosage or sugar levels in each one. But what's the limit on brute? It's 1.2.

[00:52:55] It's 1.2%. Depends on which publication you read. There's a tenth of a percentage here or there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Yeah. So, yeah, ours are all considered brute. Yeah. And some are, you could consider extra brute because that ends at 0.6. Yeah. And we have the Blanc de Blanc, right? Blanc de Blanc is the driest. Yeah. Dryest. Yeah. That's like 0.53. Yes. So it's pretty, could be considered extra brute. Yes.

[00:53:23] We try to keep those same from year to year, but we also will do dosage trials prior to doing the disgorgement. So we try to get, you know, does it really fit last year's thing, the sugar level? Or because your acids might be a touch off here and there every year, your alcohol. So we try to get as close as possible to it. Part of the chemistry of the whole thing. Correct. The magic. Yes. Yeah. That's the hard part. Yeah. I guess, well, we should probably.

[00:53:48] I mentioned too is eventually this at Invention will offer production tours again. Correct. And that'll be catered to the sparkling process. So folks will be able to see, maybe it won't be running. I won't guarantee that, but they'll be able to see the tarage line eventually and the reeling machines and the disgorging line. They'll be able to see cages that are laying down and aging right now. But that's, you know, once we get all the equipment, so just give us time. Yeah. But. Yeah.

[00:54:16] I've always wanted to see disgorgement in person. I've seen YouTube videos and things of it, but it's a really interesting process. Yeah. You usually have to do the riddling gyros and time-lapse. You see the whole bit. Yeah. See the whole rotation. It's usually like one turn every eight hours. So it's not as exciting. Yeah. And you'll see that when you go to the sparkling tasting you're going to do later, you'll see it on our big screens behind the bar. It kind of gives you a virtual tour from vineyard to the disgorgement. Oh, cool.

[00:54:45] So it'll be, you'll be able to watch that. Yeah. So you can kind of see this. There's a lot of different places that people can go to drink wine in Texas, but not a lot of places right now for method champenois, a traditional method sparkling. But what would you say really sets He's Sparkling apart as the top spot that people have to say, this is sparkling wine in Texas and I've got to check it out. I mean, we're the only one that's purely sparkling. Okay.

[00:55:10] I think that sets us hugely apart because if you're, if you like sparkling wines, we have in the whole lineup, it's just sparkling wines. And so we can taste all those and really try a wide base of different styles. And versus I know, I know it's popular, it's picking up now in the industry. Yeah. Everybody's starting to offer a sparkling, but it's hard to offer more than one. Yeah.

[00:55:40] And He's Sparkling offers just sparkling wines. Yes. But I think that's, yeah, for me the biggest thing. You know, the thing for me that comes to mind with He Family Brands, which is our umbrella over all of our properties, you know, is that you get a little bit of something different at each one. Okay. Even with architecture, you know, the atmosphere and they're all fairly modern and clean and something different to look at. And we all, there's great patios at all of them.

[00:56:10] Yeah. To relax and enjoy the wines or the sparklings that you might try. Right. Sure. And different wines. They're different ones. They're not all the same. Yeah. Different styles, different, I mean, all things for different folks. Yeah. I think. All right. All things for all people.

[00:56:35] And if you are a fan of sparkling wines, then He's Sparkling is the Disneyland of Texas sparkling wines for you. And if you are not necessarily a fan of sparkling wines, maybe you haven't found one you like, or maybe you haven't really tasted very much sparkling and you're curious about it, then I encourage you to go do a paired tasting there at their tasting room. I am confident that when you finish that, you're going to walk out with a new favorite.

[00:57:02] And as always, check out their website before you go. It's www.heathsparkling.com. And on that gorgeous website, you're going to see videos of their tasting room, pictures, all kinds of stuff. But more importantly, you'll find out about what to expect when you visit. You'll see a little portal there where you can schedule your tastings. Now, if you're going to do the paired tasting, especially highly, highly recommended that you make an appointment beforehand.

[00:57:31] It fills up like crazy. It's busy all the time. And if you just walk up, you probably won't get a chance to do that. So always plan ahead and set up your paired tasting right there on the website. You'll also see the information about all four of those sparkling wines right there on the website. You can also find out more about some of the properties there under the Heath Family Brands umbrella and find out about their wine club. If you join their wine club, all the benefits you'll receive at all those other properties

[00:58:01] as well. And another thing to remember, if you have a hard time getting there, you can also do tastings of their Heath Sparkling Wines. It's not the paired tastings. That can only be done at their tasting room. But if you want to do just a basic tasting of the four wines, you can always do that at their Main Street Tasting Room in downtown Fredericksburg. Or you can go to their Great Creek Vineyards location in Georgetown, Texas, just north of Austin, and do a tasting there as well.

[00:58:29] And don't forget, when you go to see them, make sure you tell them you heard about them on this podcast, Texas Undervine. So after I wrapped up my visit with Jason and Ryan there at the Invention Production Facility, I was able to hop in my car because I had an appointment for a paired tasting. So I whipped on over across Fredericksburg and into Stonewall, pulled up onto the Great Creek property, and then walked over to the Heath Sparkling Tasting Room where I was able to sit down for a great paired tasting.

[00:58:57] Now this truly is a very amazing experience in this beautiful tasting room there. You get to actually be at a table with their knowledgeable wine stewards for your appointment where they bring you out the four different small bites created by their chef. And then they will pour each of those four wines in succession. And you get to taste them with the great little small bites they purposely paired with each of those wines.

[00:59:22] While their knowledgeable wine stewards tell you all about the sparkling wine process, some of the things I mentioned earlier in this podcast about that process, you'll get to hear more about that. And even during that time, they have a big kind of screen right behind the wine steward with gorgeous videos, time lapse of different things. You get to see a lot of the production and the things that go into making sparkling. It's truly an immersive experience that engages not just your taste buds and your sense of

[00:59:51] smell, but your visual and touch sensations as well as you get to really enrapture yourself into this tasting. And of course, at the end, I had to pick my favorite one to be able to choose for my episode wine library for this particular podcast. And the one I picked was the last one that we tasted as part of the tasting. It was their 2021 Adoration. So this particular sparkling wine is the one that Jason and Ryan talked about that comes from Pinot Noir grapes.

[01:00:21] So it's got a beautiful kind of rose gold color and hue to it when it gets poured into the beautiful flutes that they have there. And you get to see the awesome bubbles rising up from the bottom to the top. And the bubbles, speaking of, very creamy, very soft on the tongue. I find that a lot of times some sparkling wines, the bubbles can overpower the flavor sensations. You're getting more of the presence of the bubbles than the taste.

[01:00:46] But in this one, beautiful notes, red notes of like, I got some raspberry and some strawberry and things like that on this amazing, gorgeous wine. So the 2021 Adoration came home with me as my wine library bottle for this episode. Make sure you try that when you go. You will if you do the tasting and you can get some of your own. Okay. Now I must toast to my experience here at Heath Sparkling, but I must move on down the road

[01:01:15] to get to other great wine destinations here in Texas as well. And as always, before I go, I do have a special request for you, my listeners and watchers. As I mentioned in my last episode, I'm doing a summer donation drive to increase my computer capabilities for this podcast. This podcast is taking a long time to edit on my six-year-old computer. And so it's very slow. It needs a lot more help. So any help that I could get would be appreciated. Donations you'd like to give.

[01:01:45] I do have a Patreon page where you can actually give monthly if you would like to get some bonus materials for the podcast, or if you want to just do a one-time donation, that would be great as well. Anything you can provide would really help me foot the bill for this computer. My goal is about $3,000 to get to the processing power and the memory and the hard drive space and the things that I need to really produce this at a better level. So if you would be willing to donate, you can go to my website.

[01:02:12] It's www.texasundervine.com. Go to the very top where it says become a patron. There are links there. Not only to my Patreon page for monthly subscribers, but for people that want to just do a one-time donation as well. So thank you. My heart goes out to you. Please help me raise that money this summer to really help with this podcast production. Also, if you're enjoying the content, would you consider giving me a rating and review? That's free to you. Does it cost anything?

[01:02:39] It really helps me get the podcast in front of other people, share it with your friends, and you can do that rating and review wherever you get the podcast. So that really helps me see things. And if you're watching this on YouTube, don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe. And if you're watching it on YouTube, go down just below the video. Leave me a comment. So I'm asking you to tell me if you've been to Heath Sparkling before, what's your favorite thing about it?

[01:03:04] Or if you haven't been to Heath Sparkling yet, leave a comment down below just telling me what are you most looking forward to when you go based on hearing it and seeing it in this podcast interview today. And with that, my time is up. So don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and follow my socials to be notified anytime a new episode is released. And until then, happy trails and bottoms up, y'all.

[01:03:33] Thanks for listening to Texas Undervine. We strive to provide you with the best information about wine businesses all over Texas. Be sure to check out our website at texasundervine.com and follow us on our socials at Texas Undervine to stay up on all the upcoming episodes. Please email us with any suggestions or feedback. Also, contact us if you're interested in donating, sponsoring, or advertising on the podcast just to help us cover our expenses and bring even more great info to you in future episodes.

[01:04:02] Above all, travel safely and most especially, drink responsibly. Howdy, Vine Trippers. Did you know that I now have a merchandise store for Texas Undervine? I only have a handful of limited items, but you can go check those out and wear your Texas Undervine swag if you'd like to tell all your friends about the great wine locations we have

[01:04:30] here in Texas and maybe get them interested in the podcast as well. So there are things like t-shirts, there's a hoodie, there's a beanie, a ball cap, things like that. But one of the most exciting things I have right now is my limited time offer t-shirt. That's my season one t-shirt. So this is your Tasting Through Texas, Texas Undervine season one t-shirt. It's only going to be available for a little short amount of time. On the back, it has all the different locations like a band tour t-shirt. So this is a limited time item and you can go out and get it now.

[01:04:59] And one of the great things about that t-shirt is a portion of every sale goes to support the Texas Hill Country Winery Scholarship Fund. So you know that by buying that t-shirt, you're also investing in the growing and flourishing of an amazing wine industry here in Texas and all of those people that are going to come and make it even better. Check out that merchandise store. It's on my website at texasundervine.com. Just go up to the top. You'll see the link for the merchandise store.