Pedernales Cellars (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 that 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 trippers. Welcome to episode 55 of the Texas Under Vine podcast.

[00:02:41] And for today's episode, I'm traveling back to the picturesque Texas hill country. And I'm on my way to Stonewall, Texas to visit the lovely Pedernales Cellars. This particular winery isn't on the traditional 290 wine road. At least they're not front-facing to it. But they're just a little couple of miles off the road. You'll see a great sign for it there off the highway road 290.

[00:03:08] But they're back nestled off of the hustle and bustle of the loud traffic and everything. The noise that you get on Highway 290. Back into the really peaceful, serene area of the country. Again, just a couple of miles off the actual wine road 290. So you get a lot of quiet and a lot of peacefulness there at this beautiful winery location.

[00:03:29] Now when it comes to Pedernales Cellars, it was actually started as a vineyard project by the Culkins back in the 1990s. The current owner and CEO, Dr. Julie Culkin, her parents started this. They retired early from IBM and planted a vineyard, which is actually in a different place. It's actually north of Fredericksburg off Highway 16.

[00:03:53] And they started this vineyard project there and worked that vineyard for several years, trying different varieties and different things. But the heart of Pedernales Cellars is really the Culkin Vineyards there off Highway 16 north of Fredericksburg. But around 2005 or so, children, Dr. Julie Culkin and David Culkin, decided to leave their current careers to form a winery that they call Pedernales Cellars.

[00:04:23] That actually gets a lot of its fruit from that Culkin Vineyard and making wine from that, as well as from other locations as well. One of their first important plantings there at that Culkin Vineyard is Tempranillo, which is a varietal that they're very famous for there at Pedernales Cellars. And Dr. Culkin actually started her career as a philosophy professor, thus the doctor in her name.

[00:04:48] And she spent a lot of time in that career before switching directions and giving a lot of her time and attention now to Pedernales Cellars. Again, they started doing that around 2005. That was their first vintage. And they plotted out their place of land for the winery outside of that north of Fredericksburg area, more towards the Wine Road area where they are now in Stonewall, Texas. Again, just a couple of miles off the Wine Road 290.

[00:05:14] They are a 100% Texas winery using all Texas grapes, including those from that Culkin Vineyard, which they replanted to about 13 acres and including different varietals like Alicante Boucher, Petit Syrah, Graciano, Teraldigo, and Sangiovese. And they're really excited that this spring, they're actually going to release their first wine made from 100% organic grapes.

[00:05:42] It's a blend of Mouvedre and Grenache. So be looking for that wine coming out really soon. And another fun fact is they actually have a fun and really tasty rosé called Over the Moon Rosé. And it gets his name from Dr. Culkin and David's parents who, when they were at IBM, actually worked on the Moon mission, the Apollo 11 mission together. And so they created this rosé as a tribute to that foundation and their relationship.

[00:06:11] Their best known wines are actually Tempranillo and Viognier. And they both have both of those actually out in distribution at your local HEBs and other places. But if you come to the winery, you're going to get their reserve version of both of those varietals, which they kind of follow some of, especially for Tempranillo, the more Spanish regulations. So if you're familiar with those, what you get at someplace like HEB might be considered more of a Crianza style,

[00:06:38] which usually means about two years, combination of barrel and bottle aging. But their reserve style is more of a Reserva in the Spanish nomenclature. And it is, that means that it has three years of aging in both bottle and in barrel as well. So you get a little bit more age and a little bit more richness to those Reserva versions that you would get there at the winery itself. But like I said, you can get those other versions there at HEB.

[00:07:07] So if you haven't had a chance to get to Pedernales Cellars yet, and you were anxious to try their wines, go to your local HEB and or other types of locations. I know HEB carries them and you'll be able to find those wines. You can taste them before you go. And Dr. Kocan will talk a little bit more about that in the interview as well. And if you are an electric vehicle owner, you're going to be excited to know that they actually installed EV charging stations right in their parking lot right there.

[00:07:33] So you can take care of all of your electrical vehicle charging needs while you go inside to do your tasting and enjoying the scenery and the beautiful nature around this great winery. So when I went to visit, I was invited to go down into the wine cellar surrounded by all the barrels of that amazing wine that we had there. And I got to talk to Dr. Julie Kulkin, who is, again, the CEO and owner of Pedernales Cellars.

[00:07:57] And I was really excited to be able to interview her because she and I have actually judged a few wine competitions together. So we were familiar with one another and had talked a little bit here and there. But I wanted to sit down and really hear her story about this amazing winery, the vineyard behind it, the Kulkin Vineyard, and hear that story and the influence. This is a really important winery. It's been here for about 20 years in the Texas Hill Country.

[00:08:24] And so I wanted to hear that story directly from her. So without further ado, let's go to that interview so you can hear it as well. Howdy, Vine Trippers. I'm here at Pedernales Cellars and really excited. I'm here with Dr. Julie Kulkin and she's the CEO and owner of Pedernales Cellars here. And we're here coming from the actual cellar.

[00:08:52] You can see the great barrels behind us. And so we're going to learn a little bit about this amazing location and get you excited to come out here for your visit when you come to see it. So, Dr. Kulkin, tell me a little bit about yourself. What got you into the wine industry? Well, I always say I blame my parents. Okay. My parents, or our parents, I should say, my brother and I, they got early retirement. They were in corporate America with IBM. But back in the 90s, if people remember the 90s, there was actually early retirement from IBM.

[00:09:21] And so they had a chance to have a longer retirement. And they decided to plant a vineyard. At the time, I thought they were crazy because, you know, I'm used to my parents being, you know, corporate America. And suddenly they're like, no, we're going to go live in the countryside and grow grapes. So... Hey, we were IT. Now we're farmers. What's this all about? So I think they'll worry about it. So they did have a connection to being on farms.

[00:09:48] And they chose grapes, which was a very lucky choice. It was at the time, the other thing that was going on in Texas is, again, if you remember, was the emus. Oh, yeah. Everyone who's raising emus. Yes. And luckily, they didn't choose that because that turned out to be a pyramid scheme. And I was living in the Bay Area. So my father came out and he visited UC Davis and he was looking, getting information about soil types and things like that. And they did choose a very good location.

[00:10:15] We are actually located in Bell Mountain AVA, which is the oldest AVA in Texas. Anyway, so they planted, though, what you would plant in the mid-90s, which was Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc. The whites immediately did poorly. It was very obvious they were not in the right place. The reds did okay, particularly the Merlot. The Merlot was actually, in the long run, it was, we ultimately, after 20 years, we did finally pull out the Merlot. But for 20 years, it was actually a good project.

[00:10:44] The problem with the Cab is that, you know, we have a short growing season in Texas and Cabernet Sauvignon wants a long growing season to work out all the pyrrins. So, but they had no intention of making wine. I mean, they made wine once and it was really awful. They made it with a baseball bat and everything, just, you know, home wine. But anyway, but they sold the grapes to the wineries that existed at the time, of which there were about three. So, anyway, but it was an excellent experience.

[00:11:10] Obviously, you know, David and I, my brother and I, helped plant the vineyard. We would come occasionally and help harvest. Obviously, we were part of the baseball bat experience of making wine. Did each of you have your own bat with your name? It was just like, well, what are we going to crush the grapes with? He goes, well, we got this baseball bat. Let's clean it up. So, anyway. Anyway, but it was only after a decade that my brother and I, you know, we both had started our families and we had worked for, you know, a decade or so.

[00:11:38] And we decided, you know, maybe we'll start the winery. And anyway, so we expanded the vineyard at that point and we didn't plant any more Cabernet Sauvignon. We planted Tempranillo because at that point we knew, if you will, the track record with the grapes that my parents had started with. And we, as I said, we didn't pull them out immediately. We continued to work with them. But the reality is that that's when we took a bet on Tempranillo. And the rest of what we planted were Rome varieties, Grenache and Morbette. Okay. And Portuguese varieties.

[00:12:08] So, we have actually quite a good-sized block of Toriga Nacional in the vineyard. Because originally we were going to use that for port, but after about six or seven years we were like, no, that's way too good. To pour brandy over. And so, we have a number of wines that include that Toriga. Because it doesn't take much Toriga. Right. To significantly influence a wine. Okay. So, and it is a good blending partner. So, anyway, so that's how, you know, we got involved. It was really, if our parents had not planted the vineyard, we would never have considered starting a winery.

[00:12:38] That was not the end. That wasn't our background. My background is, I used to be a philosophy professor. Okay. And my brother was an IT guy. Yeah. So, he was following the family footsteps. You went off in to become a doctor and to teach philosophy. Yeah. Wow. How long did you do that before you started this project? Basically, 10 years, because obviously it takes, you know, for a decade. It takes a while to get a PhD. And so, you know, so delayed my entry into the full-time workforce. Obviously, you teach while you get a PhD.

[00:13:08] But, anyway, yeah, for about a decade. You know, I love teaching, right? The relationship with students is unique. And sometimes I'm like, oh, I miss that. But, you know, you do get a lot of, if you will, teaching moments in the wine industry. You know, talking about grapes that people haven't heard about, wine techniques they haven't heard about. So, it worked out. You're constantly learning. You're constantly seeking good knowledge and all of that. And now the grapes are your teachers and you are the student, right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:13:36] No, I mean, one of the things that we learned over the years was we did try other white varieties, right? But we finally just decided that it's just a red site. You know, the last thing we had was albarino. And it did okay. But, again, the red grapes do so much better. It was just, you know, why are we doing this? Yeah, you let the grapes, again, teach you and show you what's best here. Yeah. And over time and testing. So, how long ago did that full think process start? When was Pernella Cellars started?

[00:14:05] Our first vintage was 2006. So, basically a decade after the planting of Culkin Vineyards, which was 1995. And what we made was a family reserve. We just took everything that was in Culkin Vineyards or most of what was in Culkin Vineyards and we blended it into the family reserve. And so, that's our first wine. And we happen to have an event today where we're actually going through some older vintages of the family reserve. Oh, it's cool. Perfect day for it. Yeah.

[00:14:32] And I was just explaining to staff that, yeah, this was our first wine. Not this particular vintage, but, yeah, that 2006 family reserve. And that's why it got named that. It was sort of a nod to our parents. Yeah. And so, anyway, but, yeah. Well, how was this location and this site chosen? We chose, as I say, the vineyard is not located on this site. Right. Yeah.

[00:14:54] But as I say, the vineyards is a perfect place to grow grapes, but my parents still lived on the property and it would not have been a good place to have a tasting room. I mean, production facility would have been fine there, but the tasting room wouldn't. And it is interesting that we made that decision back in 2006. And to this day, there isn't a single tasting room on 16 North. Yeah. It's a very winding, climbing road.

[00:15:19] And it's, my mother had three accidents going back and forth between Fredericksburg and that ranch house before they moved into town. Was it just, I mean, one time someone just drove up to the end of the driveway and just pulled out right in front of her. Yeah. So, anyway, so we did want to have the tasting room there. So, we chose this location, obviously, even in 2006. And we're like the 8th or 9th G permit, which is the producing permit, in Gillespie County.

[00:15:46] So, there weren't a lot of winders at that time, but it was still already obvious, like, probably you want to be near 290. Sure. You're going to have, life is going to be easier along 290. We did not, but we did not purchase a property that was right on it. We actually chose to be slightly off of it because then we have the view that really, you know, 40% of the reviews we get mention the view.

[00:16:09] So, because it is, it's a gorgeous view, particularly, you know, on a slightly warmer day than today to sit out in the deck and just, you know, sip on wine. It's just very, very pleasant. So, anyway, so we chose it really with a view in mind, but it's, it's, it's a mile and a half south of 290. So, it was, it was a combination of factors. The building that you will, if you enter, if you come to the tasting room, was a 5,000 square foot second home. Oh, wow. Yeah, no, it was a huge place.

[00:16:38] It was partially because it got built over time. There was an original 1880s farmhouse that then got expanded in the 1970s and then in the 1980s. They doubled the house. They added a second kitchen, second living room, second, you know, everything. And they were basically more nearly living in the modern part of the house or when they visited. So, and then we've expanded it again.

[00:17:00] So, it's, you know, but to make it into a open space for a tasting room with a big U bar and, you know, the whole, the whole thing. Uh, and, uh, during the, the pandemic, we actually remodeled inside because we were closed. What better time to remodel? What else should be on to do? Yeah. So, uh, and, uh, we added a lot more seating at that point and took out a lot of merchandise that used to fill the tasting room.

[00:17:26] Um, so anybody who is, who, you know, hasn't been here for five years, they got to come back. Yeah. You got to come back because it is very different. It's nice because there's just, there is more seating inside. And so people, you know, on a day during the winter, you know, if it rains, uh, you know, you can just sit inside and still enjoy the view. Yeah. So anyway. Well, I love that. The, you, the proximity to 290, but the fact that you're kind of off of 290.

[00:17:48] So it feels like you're kind of going back in this little country drive where you bring that, when you first turn off right there to where the Pernanala Cellar sign is and you bring that little whiny road right up to the taster. It's so beautiful. And you feel like you're in the country with all the trees and everything. So it's kind of secluded, but still close enough right there to the wine road that it's easy for tourism to get in and out. Um, but you don't have the sound of the traffic going up and down and it's really kind of this beautiful, peaceful area out here. No, it's very nice. Yeah. Well, tell me about the naked Pernanala Cellars.

[00:18:17] So Pernanala Cellars is named, I mean, we are, when that view is a view of the Pernanala River Valley. So it is named after the river, uh, which, you know, winds through this area. Uh, it also means flint or flint stone. So the reason we have the arrowheads in our logo is because while, both while we were expanding, uh, Colkin Vineyards and when we were building the production facility that we're sitting in, because this was obviously not here. Yeah. Uh, we found arrowheads and that it just, you know, it was just sort of serendipitous, you know.

[00:18:47] And so we decided, uh, to use the arrowheads, but then also it's, you know, implied in the name and everything. So it all ties together. And so, uh, it's, it's, it's very much a nod to the Hill Country is, you know, Colkin Vineyards is in the Hill Country. And though most grapes in Texas are grown in the High Plains, the fact is it is a unique place to grow, to grow grapes. And so, uh, all of that sort of integrated, uh, of course, people say per denalis, that is a LBJ thing. Uh, and Lennon Baines Johnson had an enormous influence on this area.

[00:19:15] And in fact, most of the United States discovered the Hill Country because of the LBJ. Yeah, because there were lots, uh, you can hear this from, you know, old families in Fredericksburg that, you know, what happened was they had all these journalists who were coming and visiting the Texas White House. And they were, you know, had to stay somewhere. So they stay in Fredericksburg and they're like, well, this is really charming. I didn't know anything about this. The Germans and all this to be that bad. Well, and it would have been in the 1960s when this was occurring. This really would have been the old families and not many other people.

[00:19:44] Now, of course, Fredericksburg is extremely well-known. A lot of people have retirement homes in Fredericksburg. And so it's a completely different place. Though, interestingly enough, I mean, I live in Fredericksburg. You know, there is a completely different Fredericksburg that belongs to the locals. And it's just like, you know, you never go down Main Street. You immediately turn at Elk and go down either San Antonio or Austin or even Travis. You have your own way of moving around the town. Turn by the old oak tree. You always get to the cemetery. Yeah.

[00:20:13] So anyway, so yeah, as I said, Perdon Alice was how LBJ said it. And so a lot of people say it. I actually, I remember one, this was kind of a decade ago. One time I had an article and they interviewed me. And the article is all great. And then the editor took it and put Perdon Alice across the top. So having not obviously looked very carefully at the article, right? Has anybody ever approached you said you misspelled the name on your label?

[00:20:43] Exactly. Well, we get it a lot. I mean, you get a lot of things where it's misspelled. Yeah. And, you know, and people will even come in and say, well, how do you say it? And we say, we say Perdon Alice, right? We're not, we're not going to correct you if you say Perdon Alice. You know, it's that Texas Tway. You may slip some words into your letters. Exactly. Perdon Alice with Ed and Alice. Yeah. Got you. Well, let's talk about your fruit here. So you talked about the vineyard, Culkin Vineyard. Is that the sole place you get fruit?

[00:21:11] Or do you get some from the High Plains or 100% Texas, I'm assuming? Yeah. Where's your fruit come from? Well, I mean, recently we had, we replanted, at the same time we're doing this remodel, we actually replanted Culkin Vineyards. It would appear that in 2007, when we brought in those new vines, they had viruses in the nursery itself. And it's some of them, like leaf roll, is actually the acknowledged problem. There's even a federal program too, that if you want to spend several years applying

[00:21:41] to get some money back, you could, but we. Government. Yeah. I never see. And bureaucracy makes the money almost unattainable. So, but anyway, so we ended up replanting. The advantage of that is you really get to reconsider, like, what it is that you have in the vineyard. And, you know, over time you develop programs of wines. And one of ours is the KO. It's an allocation club. It's one wine a year, released either six or 12 bottles. Most of them are six bottles.

[00:22:08] And really we replanted for that wine. Okay. Because, you know, when you grow your own grapes, you have absolute control over what you're doing and the choices you make. Whereas, you know, when you're contracting grapes, you're giving instructions, but the fact is, you know, it's a dialogue. So, anyway, what we ended up planting that we didn't have before was Alicante Boucher. Okay. Petit Sera, which is a bruiser. That thing grows so quickly. It's silly. Oh, yeah.

[00:22:37] I mean, you compare it to the grapes next, like the Tempranillo next year, you're like, my grape. Yeah. It grows extremely quickly. It puts together the wood, the permanent wood very quickly. Tiroldigo. Okay. Which is an upcoming grape right now in Texas. And Sangiovese. Okay. Yeah. So, oh, and Graciano. Oh, really? Yeah. This is one of the things, I mean, we specialize in Tempranillo. We make a lot of Tempranillo. And the Tempranillo loves Texas. It loves the heat. It loves, you have to irrigate it because it can't deal with drought very well.

[00:23:07] But it makes these beautiful, large clusters. The, if you will, and it likes a short growing season. Tempranillo means a little early one. But the one thing that is a problem everywhere with Tempranillo, but particularly, it really shows up in Texas, is it's acid challenged. Okay. It's hard to get, the acidity drops off really quickly toward the end of the growing season. Right, as the flavors are developing. Yes. So, what we do now, which was earlier, we would just acidify. But now what we do is we blend with Graciano. Okay.

[00:23:37] It's Graciano, which is what they do in Rioja as well. That's a very common state. So, because Graciano is exactly the opposite. It retains its acidity and its tannins. It develops really strong tannins. It isn't as fruity though. So, it's nice to blend it rather than have 100% Graciano. I don't know. So, anyway, so that's one of the things we added because we've now regularly blend Graciano into our Tempranillos. So, anyway. But anyway, the rest of the fruit does come from the high plains.

[00:24:06] And while we do... Just supplement a little bit. Well, no, it's a good... I mean, you know, they say... Generally, the cited statistic is 80% of the grapes in Texas are growing. We basically get about 75% of our grapes from the high plains. And part of this is the whites. We do not grow whites, as I've said several times. We tried and decided against it. We specialize in Viognier. And Viognier, in particular, is not well suited to the hill country. Because it's also acid challenge. Yes.

[00:24:35] And so, it needs what the high plains have, which is the greater diurnal. That it's cooler at night than it is during the day. It's like a 30 degree difference, whereas in hill country, it's more like 20. Yeah. So, anyway. So, yeah. All of our whites come from the high plains. And that includes also Roussan. We used to do Alvarino. We sort of moved it out of the front. Yeah. A little bit of Marsan. Vermintino, when we can get it. Oh, that's hard to get. Yeah. Anyway.

[00:25:01] We just released today, literally today, a pet nap out of Simeon. Oh, really? Yeah. And we've gotten Chenin Blanc in the past. To some extent, we were married to Viognier. And it's turned out that Roussan seems to be the white that delivers in Texas. Because in vintages where you get almost nothing else, you could still get Roussan. And so, we do rely on that. Usually as a blend, not 100%. I was going to say, are you blending like Marsan in there, things like that? Oh, Viognier.

[00:25:30] Viognier too as well. Okay, it was Southern Rue. Yeah. And so, then we also have, I mean, in terms of the other wines that we make, just a regular program, right? And then outside of the Tempranillos, we make a GSM, logically. We do a Varial Morved, most vintages. We do have one Bordeaux blend. Yeah. And it's not always 100% Bordeaux varieties, but it is fundamentally. And that, generally speaking, is sourced from Newsom vineyards. Because we find they can ripen the Bordeaux varieties better than...

[00:26:00] He's so well known for a Cavendry, for sure. For sure. So, and then we have an Italian blend, which, for reasons I'm not going to explain it, is called Valhalla, which is a weird name for an Italian blend. But anyway, there's a story there. Anyway, so, that is all coming from the Hype Lines. Yeah. Those, not the GSM, the GSM we grow apart of, but yeah, those wines are all coming from the Hype Lines. We can't tease me when the good story. So, why is it called Valhalla if it's an Italian blend?

[00:26:27] What happened was the 2013 vintage, which is infamous in Texas, because it was the year there were four late spring freezes in the Hype Lines. One right after the primaries came out, one right after the secondaries came out, and one after the tertiaries. And then another one, just a good measure. As my brother said after you talked to either the Binghams or the Newsoms, I think we're just watching the rubble bounce this morning.

[00:26:54] So, anyway, we had contracted 100 tons, and we got four. Wow. Four percent. Four percent of what we had contracted. So, anyway, the thing is that immediately impacted the whites, obviously, because we just didn't have any in the 2013 vintage. And, anyway, but for the reds, there was sort of a pause before we suddenly was like, oh, crap, we don't have wine.

[00:27:20] And it turned out we reached out, Dave reached out, so does anybody have any more 2012? Because 2012 was a pretty good vintage. Yeah. So, and it turned out that Dave Riley at Dukemen did, and he had a blend of Alianico and Molto Paciano, which is not surprising for them. You're right. I'm sure. And so we bought it, and then we blend it with Tempranillo. And then, you know, we had a new wine, and we didn't, you know, didn't have any ideas.

[00:27:48] And so we came up with Valhalla because of the Swedish heritage on one side and the fact that the bar at Rice University, where my brother went, was called Valhalla. So we didn't think we were going to make the wine again, right? Anyway, the wine turned out to be immensely popular. Really? Yes. Because obviously Italian varieties were completely different flavor profiles than anything we had done before. And so that was the 2012 vintage released, I guess, in 2014 probably.

[00:28:15] And then in the 2016 vintage, we made it again. But by that time, the name had stuck. And so we just continued to sell our Italian blend Valhalla. I love that. I love this unique nature between you. Well, and just two vintages ago, I guess 22, we had a white blend, and we decided to call it Arcadia. So we have a white that's a home of the gods and a red that's a home of the gods. Just different places.

[00:28:41] So, you know, one of the things that I love, and this is my own personal thing, is I love when wineries name their wines something unique. Even if it's a single varietal. Just like, you know, in the old world, you're not going to go over and say, this is a Merlot. Oh, they call it the Chateau or Bayou or different things, typically. And so I like that when there's a studio, maybe even if it's just for a single varietal, because there's story behind it. And there's something that makes it unique to that location.

[00:29:07] Yeah, well, actually, along those lines, we have the Diva. Okay. Diva is, it was funny, I actually had a wine club event. And this person said, oh, I used to love your muscat. But I like this Diva, too. And I said, it's the same lot. But so we actually have... What do they like? We actually had a moment where we were coming out with a new vintage of the muscat, and we still had one. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, we can't, we can't try to sell two muscats.

[00:29:36] So I said, no, we're just going to rename it. And we named it after the vineyard cat, which she has fortunately passed away since. But she was this cat that, you know, you sort of looked at her, and she went meow. You got closer to her, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. She would just... Accelerated. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, the whole time you're petting her. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. So she was originally called Willow, and I was like, no, that's not a willow. So we renamed her Diva, and then we named the wine after.

[00:30:06] So that leaves to you will forever live on. Diva will live on. That's great. I love that. Well, you got your Le Coqca vineyard. How many acres did you have there? Well, it was, before the replanting, it was 18. It's now about 13 because we reduced the spacing on the rows. So, you know, that's going to place 30 years, and now with the replanting, about 20 years or so. So what have you experienced over time as opposed to things like climate change?

[00:30:34] Have you noticed any big differences or pressures of Pierce's disease that are starting to come in a little bit? What are some of the challenges you faced with that? Well, the Pierce's disease, you know, when my parents planned in the mid-90s, the view was that Pierce's disease stopped for I-35. Anyway, they did get Pierce's disease in those whites. You know, they were already compromised. So, yes, we've been managing Pierce's disease the whole time, basically. And that was why we pulled out the first set of whites, the 7-Log and Chardonnay.

[00:31:03] And that way we're like, no, just pull that out. It wasn't happening anyway. And, yeah, we never replaced. At that point, that was the first time we planted Morved. It was actually when we pulled those out. We said, well, let's just plant some things and see what works. And Morved was one of them. And San Sangiovese, which ultimately we now planted more of. So, yeah, no, that's always been a challenge. I don't know about, I mean, the thing about climate change is, I mean, very often it's really climate weirding. But we've been doing that all along in Texas.

[00:31:34] That I remember my, unfortunately, ex-husband at some point, he had visited my parents for like, I don't know, the second or third time. And, you know, my mom made the comment like, yeah, it's a really weird year this year. And he turned to me later. He's like, she says that every year. Every year. These are like their year. And that is the thing about climate change. In some ways, Texas wine grows are in better shape than many other places are used to very stable weather. Because we always have weird weather.

[00:32:01] We're always having to sort of, you know, turn on a dime like, oh, well, we're going to do that. But we're not. We're going to do something else. Because that's what happens every year. Because you have, you know, you don't know whether you're going to have a spring freeze. You don't know whether you're going to have the hail. You don't know whether you're going to have one of these periods in the middle of summer where suddenly it just all stalls out. Right? Everything stops growing because it's too hot. Right? Like plants are just shutting down and waiting it out, basically. So, yeah. That is. I mean, I do.

[00:32:29] The issue, actually, the industry in this area that's probably going to cease to exist is the peaches. Oh. Because they're not getting their freeze hours. Like this year, it hasn't frozen yet in this area. I mean, it's gone down to 39. Yeah. But this is. I mean, you have to be under 40 for like a lot of hours for the peaches to grow. So, I actually think the peaches may disappear, which is really sad because it's so emblematic. In fact, they have Peach Queen and Stonewall where we're located.

[00:32:56] But they may have the Peach Queen, but I don't think they're going to have peaches. So, yeah. That was one of the questions that came up. Because I didn't know that about peaches until I was, you know, in the industry. And someone said, well, with grapes, do you need freeze hours? I was like, no. What's a breeze? Oh, yeah. That's not a thing. I mean, you know, you do want enough cold weather. Those are dormant. Yeah. Because there are parts of the world where they're trying, like Madeira, you know, it's tropical enough that it's very difficult to get the vines to go dormant.

[00:33:26] My brother visited a winery in Thailand. Really? Yes. And they couldn't, obviously, it did not go dormant. And so they would get two crops a year. But the vines would only last, what, 10, 12 years. And they were just... And they showed up in the quality of each of those crops is not as good either. Yeah. Because you don't have the dormancy. So, but yeah. No, it's, yeah. But yeah. Challenges. But as I say, I mean, Texans are really pretty, you know, we are actually in a better

[00:33:53] shape than many other regions that are not used to this. That's an interesting thought. I haven't really thought through that, you know, with the volatility that we have of the weather here, we have to be adaptable already. And so we may not notice the climate change maybe as much as a climate that's pretty stable all the time. And they start seeing those shifts a little bit here and there as they go. Whereas for us, it's so bad. I never thought about that in those terms. That's an interesting idea. Well, you also become very aware of those varieties that deliver. Yeah. Year after year.

[00:34:23] That's why I say on the white side, it is Roussaint. I mean, it's just some of the worst years like 2020 still have Roussaint. Yeah. Yeah. So Tempranillo, same thing. Tempranillo also has the advantage that basically, I mean, excluding the Gulf Coast, right? It basically grows in all the major growing areas very well, which means that, okay, well, they'll hail here, but it's not going to hail everywhere. At least we haven't done that yet in Texas. So that becomes very important is to see those varieties that, you know, just are survivors.

[00:34:53] So Mourved is another one. Yeah. It's a survivor. Grenache does really pretty well. Well, it's only, and it's, I mean, not surprising. It's from the, it's drought resistant and all these things. But unfortunately, it's the color of fruit punch most years. So it's, you know, you have to blend it with something. Definitely blending for some color. And that's the Alicante Boucher. Alicante Boucher. Petit Seurat. Things like that. More E.D. colors. No, Petit Seurat. That was one of the new ones too. I mean, as I said, watching it grow and you're like, oh, okay.

[00:35:22] I see why that's the powerhouse of Southern France. I visited Southern France and a winery in the Lendoc. And she was describing, I can't remember the number, but the number was so big. You just couldn't believe that, you know, that's the area that, you know, supplied things like the French army, right? With its wine. And it was like one billion bottles a year or something absurd. But then you'd look at Petit Seurat and you're like, okay, if you're going to do that much, you're going to need something like Petit Seurat. Vigorous. Yeah. So, and delicious. So.

[00:35:52] Already? Excellent. Well, do you do any of the winemaking here? Pretty yellow winemaker. Does David do some of that? David was the original winemaker. He did the UC Davis certificate program. And I say he basically was the winemaker through the 2014 Vintos and some influence in the 15. And with the 15, we had Demi and she did the TTU certificate program. Texas Tech. So you're Texas Tech.

[00:36:20] And, you know, she came in as sort of an assistant winemaker, finished the certificate and then she became the winemaker. And her specialty was blending. She was really, really precise about the blending. Whereas David always had been very focused on structure. And you can really see this in a program, like I said, the KO, because they're, you know, these are supposed to be long aging wines. What's interesting is Dave's 13 and 14 are still drinking very well.

[00:36:44] Whereas her 15 and 16 did not last as long because it was really perfect when it was first made. But it's good to be drunk young. Yeah, not. So, which is sort of an interesting discovery. Anyway, so, and then when Demi left, she went to work with her family. She was, again, we started the same situation. We had someone who's assistant winemaker who's doing the TTU certificate program, Joanna. Okay. And she had started in the vineyard. She was like, I mean, she was like the assistant vineyard manager.

[00:37:14] We were so surprised when she wanted to do that. But she had gotten the bug from doing demos at like HEB, right? That's a part-time thing. Anyway, so, yeah, she was the winemaker for many, many years. She stepped down last year. She goes, she's, she's a, well, interestingly enough, I mean, it goes back to the theme. I mean, she's a very organized person and likes, you know, to plan. And it just became stressful trying to deal with these, like, all of a sudden you didn't have this or, you know.

[00:37:42] And so it just, she finally decided it just wasn't the right job for her. And so for, we'd already brought him in. We have now Tace, and he's South African. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, so he. First line culture there. Yes. And so he, yeah, in fact, he was nominated for the best young winemaker in South Africa. So, yeah. Anyway, so he's been with us for two vintages and said he will be here for next one.

[00:38:10] I was, we have to do the, what, the H2A, you know, process, right? So we don't know after that whether he's going to stay on, but he's, he's, he's a really good winemaker. Yeah. And he's really good about, like, you know, when he's doing his blending, he'll actually bring them down to, you know, where, you know, all of these, you know, the production people work in the production building, whereas all the hospitality people work in the building where the tasting room is. But he also bring wines down and sort of have us taste them and say, you know, which, which are these two. What are your thoughts? Yeah. What are your thoughts?

[00:38:41] We, one of the exciting things that we will be releasing in the spring, probably, is our first wine made with organic grapes. Oh, cool. Yeah. And he's blending that. It's going to be a rosé. Obviously, it was a 2024 is the first vintage that they're organic. So anyway, he was bringing that down. It's, it's a Grenache, Morvège, they blend. He was bringing it down and the Grenache is lovely. The Morvège, you know, needed some work.

[00:39:07] So it ended up being a smaller part of the blend than, than we would have, you know, he would have loved to do more volume or, but it just, it didn't work with the flavor profile. So, but anyway, but yeah. So yeah, taste is our winemaker. Dave obviously, you know, you know, gives inputs. Yeah. But the fact is fundamentally, you know, it's an independent winemaker. In his hand. Yeah. Well, you mentioned rosé.

[00:39:32] Rosé is not necessarily one of my favorites, but one of my favorite ever rosés is your, your over the moon rosé. And I would love to share that story. I've heard it myself and I'd love for you to share that story with my listeners about that. Yeah. Now the over the moon, what happened was our original rosé, right? Was we made rosé, I think since the 2007 vintage. It is a category that works well in Texas because we have, you know, we have a lot of red graves because of the warm weather, but we have six months of summer as well.

[00:40:00] So having a heavy wine in the middle of August when it's 102 isn't necessarily appealing. So rosé ends up being a good category. And obviously any rosés, if you will, home is Provence. Again, warm climate, which actually very much resembles the hill country. When I visited, it was like, it smelled like the hill country. Yeah. It was really sort of bizarre. I actually felt like I was at home. Our original rosé that we made since 2007 was the Texas dry rosé.

[00:40:27] And the reason for that was at that time, if you had a rosé in the lineup, the person would very often say, oh, no, no, I only, I don't drink sweet wines. Right. And you're like, no, it's a dry rosé. It's on the bottle. So. Our buddy thought it was a white marriage or something like a white zin. White zinfandel. So anyway, so we had that for many times. And then I don't remember which year that was like 16, 17. Rosé was so in. And so our distributor wanted to have the rosé.

[00:40:56] And so, OK, well, if it's going to be in distribution, we're going to have to do a different rosé in the tasting room. And that's when the over the moon rosé. This is one of the few wines that I've actually named that I think the name is successful. It's usually my brother's better at this. Anyway, the reason for over the moon rosé is that our parents met working on the Apollo 11 mission. They really. They literally met over a mainframe. They were working for IBM and they were contracted to NASA to do the computer programming.

[00:41:23] And yeah, they, you know, and the other sort of serendipitous thing was it must have been 2018. It was a 2018 vintage because we bottled it. And like a week later was Valentine's Day. And I took it. I have dinner with my parents every week on Wednesdays. And I took it with me to give to them because that was the 50th anniversary of, you know, the Apollo 11 mission or the ice plunge. And so I gave it to them and said, you know, we made this wine.

[00:41:50] And it says on the back, it commemorates, you know, their relationship and the fact that they were the founders of Colcombe Vineyards. So. Whoa. I love that story. It's great. And it's an amazing rosé. So good. In fact, I talked to my wife before I came here. I'm going to take a bottle back to her. She loves this and likes as well. Oh. And all of you, we kind of skipped this for a little bit, but all the wines you're across is here on site? Well, in practice, yes. Okay. But the fact is, I mean, just to talk about, you know, the logistics of winemaking.

[00:42:20] The whites are pressed off. Sure. In the High Plains and brought back down as juice. On the spread. Yeah. And then fermented here. So, yes, you know, to the extent that it just, you know, you're bringing white clusters of grapes down here. But you're bringing reds here and all the crush and all that. No, the crush pad is, I mean, it's not above us because that's more, it's over there. Absolutely. Yeah. So, but no, yeah, when this building was built, we actually built it in stages.

[00:42:46] This was the first, at one point, everything was down here and we actually, we actually did crush out there. Anyway, eventually got too crowded, but it was a crazy space at that point because you had tanks and you had everything. I bet, yeah. Yeah. But the joke was that, because this is literally an underground cellar is that, you know, when the zombie apocalypse comes, we're coming here, just bring some cheese and crackers. You got glibial wines to last through. Love it.

[00:43:20] Okay. Glibri for it. Well, our flagship wines are the Viognier Reserve and the Tempranillo Reserve. And the wines, the two main wines we have in distribution are, you know, a Viognier and a Tempranillo. They're not the same wines at all because the Viognier, in the case of the Viognier Reserve, is actually, it has some oak aging in it. Okay. Which is not true of the one that's in distribution. The Tempranillo, you know, the reserve, I mean, the term reserve doesn't mean anything, right? It can be used any way you want to.

[00:43:47] We do actually treat it according to the Reserva system, meaning it does have the full three years between barrel and bottle before we'll release it. It does make a huge difference. That bottle time with Tempranillo, it makes a huge difference. And so, whereas the one in distribution is sort of Crianza, so it's like two years, the reserve is three years. So, those are, I would say, easily our flagships and they're by intent. The GSM is extremely popular. And obviously, so is the Valhalla.

[00:44:17] But yeah, I mean, there's certain wines we always make, right? Well, we don't always make because we sometimes can't get the grades. Like, we've had years we cannot make a Viognier, right? That does happen. But we always make a Tempranillo. And then we have other wines we make by, if you will, like, oh, wow, the grapes are really good this year. Let's do that. And like the Malbec. About every third or fourth year, Malbec's really good in Texas. The other two or three years, not at all. So, we just don't make it.

[00:44:43] Maybe some Malbec, it ends up in the Bordeaux blend, the Nuzo. But yeah, I would definitely, you know, anybody who comes here, I try to always have both. Though sometimes I only have one between the Viognier serve, the Tempranillo serve. Because that's, if you will, the core of what we do. So. Your core red and white right there. Yeah. So, have you been doing this 20 years, at least with a taste to your almost now? So, are there any varietals that you've always wanted to kind of, I really would love to play around with that?

[00:45:12] I wish you could do this, but maybe you just haven't had a chance or does it grow well here or things like that? The Pinot Noir. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, obviously it's varieties that are just excluded in Texas. And, you know, Pinot is one of them. I know there's a few good Sauvignon Blancs, but it's not, you know, it's just not. It's harder. Yeah. And I mean, I think it would be fun to do a Chardonnay, because Chardonnay is all about winemaking, really, because it's a neutral grape. But, you know, we have so many to play with.

[00:45:42] One of the ones I'd like to, you know, if I, we can't, we're not growing whites, but I would love to see a Sertico. And Greek wine. Yeah, Greek wine, because I haven't seen anybody playing with that. And yet the Zinimavro, also lovely. So, yeah. So, those are ones I would love to see made at Texas, because I think they would do very well. Yeah. Well, let's talk about your location here for just a moment. So, we've got a big event. We've got a release, a wine club release party today.

[00:46:12] What types of events do you all do here on Sunday? Well, obviously, you know, the core events are for our wine club members. So, then we do a Valentine's Day pairing. We do what we, it's called, what we call a tasting room takeover. And it means, it's something we developed during the pandemic, just to, because you had to do seated tastings, right? And so, we're like, okay, well, let's just take over with some style of wine. And we'll do only Signature Series wines, for instance, you know. And those are single varietal, single vineyard wines.

[00:46:41] It's a completely separate. Most of what we make is blended. There are, you know, 100% Viognes, for instance. But like, those are Tempranillos. They're not 100% Tempranillo. So, the Signature Series was, you know, a way to do the single varietal, single vineyard. Anyway, so we'll take over the tasting room, and we'll have food pairings. And so, we do that several times a year. And we sort of do it, to some extent, based on what we have in our library, because we just set aside wine, you know, to return to later.

[00:47:12] So, we're doing a takeover style for Valentine's Day. We do try to do one event a year in the Colkin Vineyards. Okay. We used to do afternoon events, but the nicest time to be in the vineyard is July, which is not a nice time to be there in the afternoon. So, we've been, the last few years, we've done this at breakfast. Okay. Which actually works out very well. So, you know, we do a tour of the vineyard.

[00:47:37] And then, you know, we have breakfast and talk about, you know, share some other wines. And so, and until this last year, my father would come out. Oh, no. And anyway, he cannot, he doesn't have the mobility now to actually walk around a terrain that's out of even. So, but it's all on a slope. So, so we do that every year. And then we have events associated with the KO, the Colkin-Osterberg program.

[00:48:03] And those are fun because, and we usually do, this last year I did, did it as a blind tasting. And it was all they had to guess was like, what's the main variety? What's, you know, and I gave all kinds of hints and things. But it was just a chance to go through the techniques of blind tasting. And, you know, that's different from, it was, it really forces people to taste and not just drink. Yeah. And you have to gate your brain. Exactly. So, and the nice thing about the KO program is that, you know, normally you go to a tasting room, you get the current releases of whatever there is, you know, for the most part.

[00:48:33] But in the case of a KO event, it's always multiple years, right? Right. And so we, the 2012 was the first vintage of the KO. That one, I mean, we're down to, I don't know, 30 bottles, 20 bottles or something of it. And we just reached a point where it did, you know, you got better, better, better, better. And then it just did this, you know. And so we taste it every year internally just to see where it is. But we don't taste that with consumers anymore because we're just like, you know, there's no more interest. Yeah, it's leveled off. The 13 we still taste. 14 we still taste. As I said, the 15 and 16.

[00:49:04] There's a real following for the 16, interesting enough. So we still taste that one occasionally. The 15, though, is gone. And then 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. So we have a lot of wines to choose from. You know, for a while, we were always tasting all of them. And then it's like, no, we can't taste that much wine. So we'll pick some and do that. And so that's really fun. And so we do those events basically twice a year. We do things with the KO. So, yeah, that's just, you know, what we do.

[00:49:33] Well, let's talk about listeners getting excited. They want to, they're, you know, prompting them in and want to come. I got to go visit Cornelis. So what does a tasting typically look like? So when they come to do a tasting, you walk in, they want to do a tasting of your wines. Is it usually like a set flight of wines? Do the customers pick the wines? What does that cost? What does that kind of look like? So obviously we would love for you to make a reservation in advance. Could they do that on the website? You can do it on the website.

[00:50:02] They can call in. You don't have to, but it's always nice for us to know who's coming, when they're coming. But anyway, so we do do a set flight. So we had two tasting menus for someone who's never been here before. One is the estate tasting menu, and that's available seven days a week. We're only closed four days a year. So basically continuously available. It does change over time, though. So if she comes six months later, it's not going to be the same menu.

[00:50:31] And then on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we have a reserve tasting. And that's all, generally speaking, all reds. And sometimes we'll involve some older vintages. And so the estate tasting is, this time of year, is usually two whites and then three reds. And then we usually have something for bonus pouring. And as I said, the other ones are all red. So the estate tasting is $25 and the $8 and the reserve menu is $40. Okay.

[00:50:57] So, and if you come to people, they can, you know, one can do one tasting and one can do the other one. So if you want to share, you know, across those two menus. So those are the two we have. We have a separate menu for wine club members that is things that have been released to them, but not to the general public. So on the weekends, we're pouring three different menus, but if you're just walking off the street, you're not going to have the wine club menu. Well, you mentioned you're open all about four days a year. What are your typical operating hours? Well, during the week, we're open 10 to 5.

[00:51:27] And then on Friday and Saturday, we stay open until 6. Okay. So, and Sunday, we do not open until noon. Yeah. So. A little delay there. Yeah. Okay, cool. Do those hours change seasonally or they're pretty much locked in? Yeah, it's pretty much locked in. And then, of course, listeners can look that up on the website if you need to, to remind yourself what those hours are. What about the wine room itself? Are you family friendly, pet friendly? Can people, kids come? Or is it adults only? Animals, pets, things like that.

[00:51:54] Well, we're very, we're very dog friendly or pet friendly. We do not allow dogs into the tasting room. And it's, it's really accommodating. We used to. But we found, it's really too, A, it's against the health code. You're not supposed to, right? But we're out in Stonewall, so no one's out here very often. So, but then the other problem we found was if multiple people had their dogs inside, the dogs, dog-dog interaction was the problem. It wasn't, this dog's nice, that dog's nice, but those two dogs together are not together.

[00:52:24] Anyway, obviously dogs are very welcome out on our deck and we have, and can run around to some degree. We always have water bowl out there. So, you know, same, well, same with kids, no. They don't want to drink out in the water bowl, though. So, no, I mean, we're very family friendly. I mean, both David and I have families around, though, you know, mostly grown up at this point. And so the kids can come in the tasting room.

[00:52:52] We do ask if you make a reservation that you count your kids, even if they're not doing a tasting. And, of course, again, because we're off of 290, there's enormous lawn there for people to just, you know, people will bring Frisbees and, you know. Beautiful outdoor space. Yeah, a big outdoor space. So a lot of people, you know, families with young, very young kids, babies, will just put out a, you know. Yellow tip. Yeah. Blanket or something. Yeah, and just, you know, have the baby there and then they, you know.

[00:53:21] So, yeah, no, we're completely family friendly. So, yeah. What about food options? Do you provide kind of food options or can people bring their own ice chests with things? People can bring their own food. We do not police that. They can't bring their own alcohol. Sure. It's TV. It's ABC. And then we have charcuterie plates for purchase. You can order them in advance. Yeah. And then, yeah, crackers and, you know, little things. But, you know, if you want a full meal, you're going to want to bring it with you.

[00:53:50] Do you have any maximum group sizes for people? I know you want to have a reservation ahead of time for sure. But if somebody had a group of 12 or, you know, 15 or something like that, do you try to cap any of that? We try. I mean, we try to accommodate every group, you know. So, sometimes it's just necessary to do the tasting outside. Sure. Because it will just fill up the tasting room too much. But, no, we try to work with every group. Oh, God. To try. We've had groups of 30 and 40. We don't – you cannot show up with a group of 30 or 40.

[00:54:19] It expects it to the reservation. You're out of time. So, but, no. I mean, I think it's six. I think you can make a reservation to up to six people. After that, you're going to have to call anyway because the system won't let you make a reservation. So, because I notice it's a cunt. Yeah. So, how we know the larger groups are coming is because they have to call us and say, hey, you want to come with a larger group? And since you're open every day, it's easy to call and get a little somebody's having a problem. No excuse to do. What are some of your busier and slower seasons? What's the best time to come visit?

[00:54:47] Well, I mean, if you can come midweek, that's true all year round, right? It's always best to come midweek because it's just – there's fewer people here. You know, the busiest months are obviously the nicest months in terms of the weather, which is October and April. April, you have the additional benefit of the wildflowers, which brings people out. So, and, you know, the slowest months, so if you're looking for a slow month, are January. Okay. January, June, and September. For different reasons.

[00:55:17] Obviously, January, there's people who have decided not to drink for whatever reason. But it's an excellent time to go visit a winery. As it turns out. And then June, a lot of people go on vacation. We really see that. And it's getting hot. And in September, it's just the transition back to school sort of, you know, you would know very well. So, and just that change in schedule for a lot of people means that it slows down. And it's – in central Texas, it's still hot in September.

[00:55:46] So, you don't – you know, you have none of the advantages yet as – you know. I always say it's almost bizarre. You know, you're just grinding through September. It's like, no one's here. No one's here. October 1st. Wow. Where'd you guys come from? Doors open. The crowds are coming in. So, but anyway, obviously, it's extremely – my favorite month, actually. Interesting enough. Yeah. Partially because I just think it's – people don't – particularly if you're not from central Texas, you're not aware of this. We have absolutely gorgeous days in February.

[00:56:14] You know, it's like 77 degrees, a little breeze, and there's no bucks. And that's – that's prime territory. So, yeah, I really like being out here in February. So, even – and it's usually still – it's green, but it's not – it's not – obviously, sure. We have all – basically all live oaks on our property, so you're not looking at all these dead trees. They always have leaves anyway, so. You know what we've talked about – my wife and I talked about it. You've got two different types of wine tasters.

[00:56:43] You know, you've got the people that come out that are extroverts versus the people that come out that are introverts. And the extroverts want to come out on those busy ones where it's full of people and there's an energy and a crowd going on. Then you have the introvert wine tasters. You're like, what's that slow month? Because that's when I want to go and I'm the only one there, you know, or just a couple of people. So, it appeals to different people at different times. Yeah. No, no. Definitely. Some – you know, and you have a busy Saturday and there's sort of a buzz in the room. But it can also, you know, get a little overwhelming.

[00:57:13] So, yeah. But that's also the advantage of the deck is because really it never feels like there's just too many voices on the deck. Because lots of places to go, you just spread out to what you need. Yeah, exactly. So, in fact, you know, I've seen people – we have this large lawn. But these are little clusters of trees, right? And I've seen people grab a chair and drag it all the way down to the fence line just trying to reach a spot where – It's secluded. Completely secluded but under a tree. Yes.

[00:57:42] Then shade. Yes, exactly. Well, we've mentioned your wine club a few times. Tell me a little bit about your wine club. What does that look like and how do people join? Well, you can join online. You can join by calling. I mean, it's easy to join. There's – you know, obviously there's no sign-up here or anything. Basically, we have – you know, we have three levels, if you will. The three – a three-bottle level. I can't remember my own name. One is – Panorama is the 12 one. That's the one I remember. Vista. And what is the first one?

[00:58:12] It's something to do with View as well. Anyway, in any case, so fundamentally there's three-bottle, six-bottle and 12-bottle. The 12-bottle is fully customizable and starting, I think now, but basically in the new year, the six-bottle is becoming fully customizable. So – So they can pick their wines. They can pick their wines. We will set a package. Sure. And then you can go in and change it or just say, fine, I'll take that. Gator's choice. Yeah.

[00:58:40] So – and we have both a winemaker's choice, which will always include some white wine and or rosé. And then we have reds only because we make disproportionately much more red wine than we make white wine. And so at every level, you can choose those. But obviously, if you're a Panorama member or now a Vista member at six bottles and you only want Viognier Reserve, you can get six or 12 Viognier Reserve, right? You get no red wine whatsoever. So – and then the discounts are slightly different.

[00:59:09] So at the Panorama level, you get 25% off your package. And at the other levels, you get 20. Good on. Anyway, so yeah. Well, if a listener is getting excited, come visit. I mean, I have viewers and listeners from all over, not only the state, but all over the country. So sometimes it's a little long drive maybe for some people to get here. Is there any way to experience your wines outside of coming here? Distribution, selling online, things like that. Yeah, we do sell online.

[00:59:40] We just currently – I think we send to 35 states. People – I think consumers are always confused. Like, well, why don't you send to X? Well, actually, it's illegal. Yeah, right? Not in your control. It's illegal to ship to Utah, for instance. And then other states actually make it prohibitively expensive or time-consuming. And so that's – but everybody who – every state who wants to – wants their consumers to be able to experience Texas wine, we do ship to.

[01:00:10] So you can order online. We also are a distribution. So – but it is a limited set of wines that are in distribution. It's a sampling. Yeah, it's just a sampling. So we have, as I said, the Viognier and Tempranillo, which is the – you see – I mean, at this point, there's most HEBs I go into. I see them. We also make a wine – make wines for HEB that are private label to HEB. It's about – is it 40% of the wines in HEB are actually made for HEB? Oh, okay. Yeah. But they don't want to compete on price. Sure, right.

[01:00:40] Right. So anyway, so we make – it's called Six Generations. And there's a red blend and a white blend. And they're named for the fact that we are a Six Generation Texas family. Okay. Reason for the name. And it's explained on there. And yeah, so those are available. Those are the wines you're going to see around. But it gives you a good introduction to Petronalis if you've never had our wine before. Yeah. So if you're getting excited to come and you haven't had a chance to get here yet, you can still go out and get some of those at your local HEB or online.

[01:01:08] So you can get assembly ahead of time before you come and taste the good things here as well. So you talked a little bit about the location here and all the expansions you've done and expansions on the vineyard, things like that. What about future growth? Do you have plans for future growth or for new renovations or things that you're wanting to do or planning to do? You know, I mean, the fact is having a facility of the size, I mean, you're constantly doing new things. Yeah. We don't have any – I mean, some of the low-hanging fruit we've done over the last four years,

[01:01:37] we redid the road, the windy road. We put in the EV. There's charging stations. So if you have an electric, it'll be – oh, right. Yeah. So a lot of our initiatives, actually, that we are engaged with are around sustainability. It was only three years ago we put in the 55,000-gallon rainwater collection tank to this building. It was amazing. I mean, just how much roof – you don't realize how much water is coming off that roof.

[01:02:05] Because that was – we installed it during a drought. It rained once and it was 66% full. Yeah. No, it's just a lot of water that we can capture. So what we're working on right now is we're working with some other wineries to become – to develop a certification for Texas wineries so they can get certified sustainable. Okay. Yeah. We're doing it on the basis of the SIP certification that's out of California.

[01:02:31] The fact is there are some things that are – they're in that certification that you can never do in Texas, right, because every growing region is different, unique. And so there's things that, you know, can be really easy in one place but absolutely impossible to do somewhere else. Like New York State has just recently put together their sustainable. And again, obviously, their humidity is their problem, right, you know, and that's not our problem. So in fact, one of the sticking points is the Pierce's disease. Okay.

[01:03:01] Because the common treatments they want to say are completely prohibited. It's like, well, again, we'll just – all our vines will die. Exactly. So – You can't just rub or stamp. You have to customize it for your location. Customizable. Customizable. So anyway, that's what we're working on, you know, the most actively. I don't think in terms of physical plant we have any intention. We're not going to make the winery any bigger. Yeah. It's actually – you know, it's actually – we could make more wine than we do in this space, so we don't need to expand it.

[01:03:29] So anyway, and the Tasty, as I said, we remodeled only four years ago. So I don't – and we just redid the deck. So again, someone who hasn't been here for two years, that's a new deck. Okay. And, you know, you used to have a railing around it, and we thought that was a really nice deal was people could put their glasses on the railing. But then we realized that actually blocks the view, which is really one of the things that, as I said, 40% of the people who bother to write a review say, wow, what a view. And that's why there's a stem on the glass.

[01:03:57] You default your glass and enjoy the view. And we do have tables, too. I've also seen outside you have some T-shirts and things that say, seriously, Texas wine. Tell me about that. That is – as I said, my brother's better at naming things. You know, we were just – we had – when we first started, we had this tagline, you know, distinctively Hill Country. Okay. And, you know, after about two years, we're like, no, we don't need – it didn't really work. It didn't associate with wine, right? You know, that's part of the problem. So it can be used by, you know, a clothing manufacturer.

[01:04:27] So anyway, so the seriously – and it's seriously.texas wine. It was, you know, it really is kind of ironic, right? Because, you know, you so often, particularly in the early days, you're like, you really – seriously? Are you making wine in Texas? It's very often what people would say. And then we're like, no, seriously, we're making Texas wine. So that really sort of captured that experience. I mean, I even had someone ask, like, well, why – if you wanted to make wine, why didn't you go to California? I was like, because I'm a Texan. Right.

[01:04:56] Because the wine here is very different from California, you line? So, anyway, for all of us, that is the reason for the Seriously Texas wine. And we do have it. You know, I can give you a sticker. So you have it. You've got a water bottle. So – and then it's one of the things about Texas wine. We're still in a place where whenever you're talking about your brand, you're talking about Texas wine in general. Because there's still – there's a lot of people in Texas drinking Cali Cab still and don't even know there's wine in Texas.

[01:05:24] So you're always advocating for, like, no, try. And we are all aware of those people who tried it 15 years ago and got a bad bottle. And then it just stigmatizes the whole category. And, you know, I understand that. I mean, certainly 20 years ago to go and pick up Texas wine off the shelf was a pretty dicey affair. Sure. So now you have so many good options. You just – you know, you're going to be fine. Hashtag ask for Texas wine. Yes, exactly. All right. Okay.

[01:05:54] So, as always, there are a lot of great places in Texas to come experience that seriously Texas wine. What, in your opinion, really sets Pedernales cellars apart that really makes people say, Dan, I've got to move that up on my list and get out there and check it out? Well, I mean, just we are – I mean, we were wine growers first, right? And so we really very much look at the industry and our approach to winemaking is like,

[01:06:20] how can we make this into a sustainable industry where we are making quality wine every single year? And it did mean making choices. Like, when we start – pick Tempranillo, most people didn't – I mean, we would say – we would go to festivals and people would say, oh, have your cab. It's like, it's a Tempranillo. What? People didn't even know. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, people would walk in the taste room and ask, I've heard about your Tempranillo, right?

[01:06:43] So, you know, in that sense, we – for us, it's very, very important that we are consistently producing the best wine possible in Texas. Okay. And then you also get the chance to enjoy it looking at the Fabulous View. So, you know, from the customer point of view, we have a very – our staff has been with us. Most of us have been with us for a very long time because we have a bonus program that incentivizes them to stay, basically,

[01:07:12] as opposed to moving around. And so, you also have that, if you will, longer-term relationship that the people who work for us know the wine extremely well. Yeah. And, obviously, you know, we like them, too. So, and so, yeah, the service is excellent as well.

[01:07:30] So, now you get to taste those great wines and experience that attentive service that Dr. Culkin mentioned there in the interview when you go to visit. And you've got to make sure and try not only that Tempranillo that she talked of, but many of those great varietals that they have provided for you in the tasting room. Now, make sure to go and check out their website before you visit.

[01:07:58] It's www.peternaliscellars.com. And in case you're some of those LBJ people that don't know exactly how to pronounce Per-den-alis, it's Petern-alis, and you see the spelling of it down there. So, make sure you go to the right website when you go to check out their information because on their website, you're going to find a lot of information about those great wines that they have, what to expect when you go to visit them.

[01:08:24] You'll find information about their wine club and those wine clubs that she talked about and how to actually join them. You can join them right there on the website. You'll find information about their events, more information about their history, and read about their vineyard there while you're there. And then possibly buy some of those wines if you want to have some of them shipped to you as well. Now, don't forget, when you go see them, make sure you tell them you heard about them on this podcast, Texas Under Vine.

[01:08:50] Now, once I had wrapped up the interview, Dr. Culkin invited me up to the tasting room. They were actually having a wine club tasting event that day, and she invited me to be a part of it. It was a really cool event. They had a food truck out front serving these delicious and really amazing pizzas. I got to try a couple of those. And then I went inside, and they were doing a vertical tasting of their Texas Family Reserve wine.

[01:09:17] Now, if you remember from the interview, this was the very first wine that they made back in 2005 there at Paternala Cellars. And it's usually a blend of several of the different grapes that they have in their vineyard. It changes year to year based on the varietals or based on the percentages of those particular varietals that make up that blend. But they were doing a cool vertical tasting. That means we had multiple years that we could try of different vintages of that particular wine.

[01:09:45] Now, although I wasn't lucky enough, they didn't have any of that very first vintage to be able to try. They did have several years available for me to go through and see not only how this wine has evolved, how it changes based on the different percentages of varietals or even the varietals that are in the wine, as well as the effect that aging can have on this particular wine. And when all was said and done, I set my sights and had to buy a bottle of that Texas Family Reserve. Now, this is their 2015 vintage.

[01:10:15] So it is almost 10 years old right now. So unfortunately, they don't sell this or even taste it in the tasting room when you go to visit. But you can still taste that Texas Family Reserve and you'll get to taste their current vintage when you go. And I really encourage you to do that. It's a great wine and it really gives you that history of the place to know that this is kind of where they all got started. So make sure you try that Texas Family Reserve when you go to see them. All right. Well, it's time for me.

[01:10:44] I'm going to saddle up and move on down the road. I've got a lot of other great wine destinations. I need to go check out and bring that information to you in future episodes. But before I go, I would like to solicit a favor from you. Would you be willing to sponsor the podcast through my Patreon? So I do have a Patreon site. If you go to my website, it's www.texasundervine.com. And go up to the top when you get there. There's a little button, a little area that says become a patron.

[01:11:12] And you can actually click on that to go to my Patreon site. Now, for just a few dollars a month, you can help me bring all of this great information to you, the listener or the watcher, as well as many other people who are finding out about our great state and the great wine that we make here. For just a few dollars a month, you'll get access to things like behind-the-scenes photos, behind-the-scenes videos. I do a video walkthrough at each location at one of the levels based on what level you choose to subscribe at.

[01:11:41] You can even find out before everyone else where I'm going to next. I'll make some video announcements about the locations I have coming there. And so your support really helps me get this show out to you. And it's also going to give you some added benefits. So check that out. And if you don't want to do a monthly subscription, you can always just use the Make a Donation. Give Me a One-Time Donation. It really helps to cover all of my costs that I have for this podcast that isn't free, unfortunately.

[01:12:09] But it's such a labor of love and such a fun thing to do. And I hope you're enjoying the information I'm providing for you. Also, if you're watching the episode on YouTube, make sure to like, follow, and subscribe. And go down and leave me a comment. Tell me what's your favorite thing about Pedanala sellers. Or if you haven't been yet, what are you most looking forward to when you go to see them? And with that, my time is up.

[01:12:33] So don't forget, subscribe to my socials to be notified anytime a new episode is released. And until then, happy trails and bottoms up, y'all. Thanks for listening to Texas Undervine. We strive to provide you with the best information 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.

[01:13:03] 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. Above all, travel safely. And most especially, drink responsibly. Howdy, Vine Trippers.

[01:13:32] 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 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.

[01:13:59] 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. And one of the great things about that t-shirt is a portion of every sale goes to support the Texas Hill Country Winery Scholarship Fund. So, you know that by buying that t-shirt, you're also investing in the growing and flourishing of an amazing wine industry here in Texas.

[01:14:29] 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.