Sandy Road Vineyards (Hill Country)

The thing that most grape growers find out is that the minute you get grapes and you can make a little bit of wine, you get the wine bug, and then you're all in.

Howdy, vine trippers. I wanted to take just a moment before the show begins to tell you a little bit about the Texas Wine Lover website and app. It is a definite must-have for anyone wanting to explore the Texas wine industry. Now they have a website, it's txwinelover.com, but they also have an app that you can actually download to your phone. You can find it on the Apple App Store or on the Google Play Store for Android devices. And it's going to be kind of your one-stop shop for when you go out to visit these great places. So you get to listen to them here on the podcast or watch them on YouTube to learn about these wineries. But when you go to visit, make sure you're checking out that app because I'm sure you're probably going to want to visit other places in the area as well. And you can do incredible searches. It's the most comprehensive listing of winery information in Texas. And you can look for wineries in your area to go visit multiple places. You can sort those listings by finding out ones that are kid friendly, maybe some that are pet friendly. If you want to look for events or things that are going on, if you want to find those that can host RVs, just about any category you can think of, you can actually sort those listings and find wineries around you to go visit. The app is free to use for you and I. So it's a perfect, again, hand-in-hand tool when you're going out to visit wineries. Listen to them on this podcast, watch them on YouTube, and then start making your plans to go visit and use the Texas Wine Lover app when you go. Now it can also be a great tool. Maybe you're not even looking for a winery. You just happen to be traveling to someplace in Texas, and you just might think, you know, I've got a little extra time. I wonder if there are any wineries in the area. You can actually look them up in the Texas Wine Lover app. You can search either by the name of a winery or it's got a map view. So you can actually pull up a map of the area around you and see locations of wineries near you and go visit them and support the Texas wine industry. So you got to use the Texas Wine Lover app. It goes perfectly with this podcast. So make sure you check it out before you go on your next trip among the vines. Again, it's www.txwinelover.com or look up the Texas Wine Lover app on your favorite phone app store and make sure you get that downloaded and use it frequently. You will benefit from it and ask for Texas wines. Let's see the Texas wine industry prosper and go visit some of these fun places that I'm bringing to you on the show. 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 it for yourself. Ready to plan a wine tour? Use these episodes to choose the most interesting spots for you and your friends to check out. Most of all, enjoy hearing about the rapidly growing wine industry in the state and what makes our wines and wineries the best. Before we visit our latest stop on the trail, however, wanted to make sure you had June 6th on your calendar. So 12 Fires Vineyard and Winery, which was my very first episode of the podcast, has started doing some great food and wine pairings in their founders lounge. They call it the Chicken Tender Lounge, the first little place where they ever did tastings at their winery. And it's a really elegant, great dinner experience. I'm gonna be there on June 6th. I'm gonna be doing some filming, some other things for them. And I'd love to see you there. If you're interested, make sure you go to 12fires.com and check out those tickets to their Chicken Tenders, Founders Lounge, Wine and Food Pairing. Even if you can't go on June 6th while I'll be there, make sure you pick another date to go check them out. And make sure you stick around to the end of the episode where I will be revealing my very special wine wanderer bottle choice from this particular location, which is a very special estate wine from this location. And I'm gonna tell you more about that one towards the later part of the episode. I'm gonna keep the name of it secret for just a few more minutes. And for today, we are out at Sandy Road Vineyards in the Hill Country. And we're gonna sit down with Brian Chigoli, who's one of the co-owners of this particular location, along with Reagan Cividon and their families. This particular winery is actually in the Hill Country near the Wine Road 290, but a few miles north of the actual Highway 290 on, you guessed it, Sandy Road. And Brian, who we get to talk to in the interview, is a true Texan who brings a unique perspective to the winemaking world as a tech industry veteran and the incoming president of the Texas Wine Growers, which you might have seen on a recent podcast of mine featuring Texas Wine Growers Association. Now, here at Sandy Road Vineyards, there's a deep history and a very specific philosophy behind everything that they're doing at this winery. First, this land where the vineyard is has actually been in Brian's wife's family for multiple generations, dating back in the sandy area for many, many years, going back to the mid-1800s or so. The property itself still features the original 1924 farmhouse, which serves as a beautiful and historical reminder of the great family legacy that they are trying to preserve there on the farm. Now, their vineyard journey dates back to about 2016 when the winemaker Reagan Sividon actually married into the family, and a few wine conversations on the porch turned their holiday drinking time into more of a professional calling. Now, while their original vision was just to plant a vineyard and to take the fruit of that vineyard, those grapes, and sell them to other wineries and provide those to people making wine, soon they were bit by the wine bug making some wines from their own fruit, and they got hooked. And so it led them into this decision to start producing these great boutique estate wines from the fruit that they're doing right there in their own vineyard. And when they got ready to come up with a name for their winery and these wines, they decided to go with Sandy Road Vineyard, not just because they're on Sandy Road, but there's an interesting history with why it's called Sandy. So long time ago, when the settlers were first coming through this area, their wagons would get stuck in the sand of the Pertinalis River basin in this particular area. And some of those settlers, instead of trying to push forward or move on, decided to just plant roots and they named the town Sandy. Pretty original, I know, but they called that area Sandy and it became Sandy Road, was the road leading to Sandy. And so because the farm has been in this area, it's got a great history with the sandy area, they decided to stick with that name of Sandy Road Vineyards. And the vineyard that they planted is particularly special because it actually hosts three different types of soil. You have clay, you have limestone, and you have sand. And all of this within a single 16-acre vineyard plot, which really allows for a really interesting expression of terroir between even multiple parts of the vineyard itself. And another thing that Sandy Road is kind of famous for is they actually have a treehouse on their property. It's a really fun and interesting story. I'll let Brian share that in the interview. But it comes from the intersection of wanting to take down a 150-year-old tree that they needed to remove to put in some vines, versus also getting rid of an old mobile home that was on the property and they had these materials left from it that they didn't know what to do with. And when everything all came together, the treehouse overlooking the vineyard was born. And it's become a very famous spot for their vineyard. And it is actually where they hosted their tastings for many years before they built their full tasting room on site. They call it their original elevated tasting. Finally, their winemaking style is kind of a little bit rebellious. They they kind of consider themselves wild cowboys out here in Texas. And they want to focus in on the fruit of the wines and really showcasing the individual types of grapes that they're growing and what they can do, the expressions that they can bring through the vineyard there. And so they began by focusing mainly on single varietal wines so that they could get the great expression from each of those different fruits to see what they brought forward. And now they're starting to lean a little further into blending some of those together. So once they figured out what each of those individual fruits could do, now they want to see how they can all marry together in a great harmony with different types of red blends as well. And when I went to visit, it was a rainy Saturday, but that didn't stop me. I was able to sit down and have a great conversation with Brian. It was really interesting to hear his progression from the tech world into the world of agriculture and farming, and now producing incredible wines and sharing those with the Texas wine industry. So let's go hear what he has to say in the interview. And also, if you remember from my bonus episode, the incoming president of Texas Wine Growers. So we've actually been able to talk to Brian before, but I've not been able to talk to him a whole lot about this location. And now excited to be here on site. So without further ado, let's go ahead and talk to Brian and learn a little bit about Sandy Road Vineyard. So, Brian, tell me a little bit about yourself. How did you get started in the wine industry?

Well, first of all, I just want to say thanks for coming out here. Appreciate it. Love listening to your podcast. So thank you. Enjoy it a lot. Um, it's about 10 o'clock in the morning. So I was like, we're we're gonna we're gonna get going early this morning. So we're excited.

And we're trying to beat the big rainstorm that's coming through that's may make noise in this building.

We're super excited for rain in Texas, so we're we're ready for it. Um, how did I get started in the wine business? Uh well, so it's a long path, but uh um basically uh we had a winemaker marry into the family. Okay. So um I met my wife Adrienne at Texas AM, uh, right out of college. We got married, moved to Austin. Uh she got her graduate degree at at UT. Okay. And uh six. Yeah, that's right. That's right. House divided. Um, we're totally person divided. We're totally Aggies. So um but uh out here at the farm, uh her family has been out here for six generations.

Wow.

Um and her grandparents and and mom lived out here at the time, and so uh we would always come out to the farm for holidays and Christmas and and visiting and everything. And and so when Reagan, uh who's the winemaker at uh Ron Yates and Spicewood Vineyards, when he married into the family, um, he started coming out uh for the holidays too and bringing wine and uh we kept drinking it and enjoying it and um three more bottles now. That's right. After and what we learned in the last podcast, after a few bottles of wine, you can convince me to do about anything. So uh he was like he was like, you know, we should we should start a vineyard out here, and um that's kinda how it got started. Yeah. Yeah, then the the the romantic story is you know, my wife and I sitting on there's a porch swing on the on the porch of the farmhouse. So there's like the original 1924 farmhouse out here. That's where that's where the family lived, grew up, everything. Um and so sitting on that porch, it's a beautiful view of the sunset. And so you're looking at Texas Hill Country sunset, swinging on the porch, beautiful, you know, day, drinking wine, and you're like, this is where I want to retire. So that that kind of set the that kind of set the tone for us. It's like we're gonna retire out here, and we better have something to do when we're out here.

So the stage was kind of already set.

The stage was set, and then Reagan was like, you know, we could grow some grapes and then you know, we could make some wine, and then it kind of snowballed from there.

Ah and when was that around? What about around what time was that?

Uh so we started the vineyard in uh 2016. Okay, 2016. So we're coming up on 10 years. Um yeah, so it really flies.

But this land, as you said, has been in your wife's family for six generations.

Yes, yep. And the her side of the family's actually been here uh in Sandy uh since 1876.

Wow.

Yeah, so they they started at a different property and then bought this one and moved over here, but they've they've been right next to Sandy uh since then, basically.

150 years.

Yeah, a long time. So it's it's uh it's pretty cool to be able to keep the family legacy going and you know, keep the land in the family and and do something cool and productive with it.

So you planted a vineyard around 2016, and of course, those that know vineyards and grapes does take a couple of years to to get those grapes up and running and functional. About when did you decide, okay, we need to, we've got wines here, we need to open up a tasting room and get things going with that.

Yeah, so when we started, um the the vision was we're just gonna grow grapes. Okay. We're gonna sell all the grapes to Ron Yates, uh, where Reagan was working. Um, and so we were just gonna just gonna be farmers, just gonna grow grapes. But the thing that most grape growers find out is the minute you get grapes and you can make a little bit of wine, you get the wine bug, and then you're all in. So it's like we, you know, we got some grapes, we made a rose, uh, we made a red, and we were like, hey, these are pretty good, you know. And then uh we kind of sold out of those pretty quick because we didn't have a lot, and then it just snowballed from there.

Oh, that's that's awesome. Yeah. And you have so for a tasting room, I know this is a new facility that you've built. We can talk about that in a minute, but what did you do for like a tasting room at that time?

Yeah, so in 2019 is when we kind of started thinking about oh, maybe we should sell some wine. At that time, there were no other wineries on Sandy Road. Okay. Um, they're currently now five. So things started a trend. That's right. Yeah, things are you know growing in in this area uh a lot. Unintended. That's right. Um, but we're four out we're four miles uh north of 290 Wine Road. So we're like, nobody's gonna come out here, you know. Like we're not gonna be able to get anybody to come out here. So we were like, how do we start small um and kind of make a proof of concept? So I was I was a tech guy uh before I was uh in wine, and so I'm all about um you know starting new bus starting new business, starting new products, you know, iterating as you go, kind of innovating and prototypes, prototype it, try it out, see what works. If it doesn't work, try something new. And so we're always experimenting and trying new things. But we were like, hey, let's just see if we can get anybody to come out here. Right. So um part of our clearing the land, um, there was an old mobile home on the property. And you know, when you tear down a mobile home, you find a giant 60-foot metal trailer under it. And you're like, well, I don't I don't know how I'm gonna get reached. What do I do with this? Like we can't drag it to the you know dump or anything, you know. And so it's like, well, you know, Reagan uh his he and his father had a construction business. Oh, okay. So he's uh handy. He's very handy to have, yeah. Uh and so he's like, Well, I can weld, I can cut metal, it's like these giant I beams, like we should do something with that. And another bottles of wine into the into the family story where Reagan was like, I think a tree house would be really cool.

I could just see the scene of you and Reagan sitting on that porch swing with your wind in hand and Reagan saying, A tree house.

Yeah. Well, I think he's told the story before, but uh when we were planting the vineyard uh at the property, the vineyard is kind of on a little hillside. And we started at the bottom and worked our way up to the top. And um the story that I like to tell or don't like to tell is you know, when you put in a vineyard, you you do a lot of math to like get the spacing right. Our you know, everything's on two acre blocks. Um basically we have 11 rows an acre, they're nine feet apart, and so you can kind of do the math. How far and much space is it's gonna take. All right, so we did the math. And I told you I was an Aggie. Uh-huh. So Aggie math is a little is a little different than regular math. Aggie math came out one row short. So we messed it, we messed it up by by one row, and there was a big tree right there at the end where that last row was supposed to go. And uh, and Reagan's uh wife was like, no, you can't cut, you can't cut it down. Christina was like, No, you can't cut this tree down. It's a beautiful tree, it's 150 years old. Like, don't cut the tree down. And Reagan was like, We're gonna cut the tree down because we're planting grapes and we're in the grape business, and we need all the grapes we can get. And so he didn't win that battle. You're not in the oak business. And it's bad to have trees on the edge of the vineyard and all that. So uh, you know, the compromise was uh how about we'll build a treehouse there? So at least there's something cool there. We can look at the vineyard, and uh it turned out to be the greatest idea because everybody loves hanging out in the tree house. And yeah, uh it's it's a beautiful place, especially at sunset. You watch the sunset over the vineyard, it's the you know, hill country hills in the background. It's it's really, really nice. That became your kind of tasting room for the city. Yeah, so that was our that's how we started. That was that was our tasting room. One private table up in the tree. That was our elevated tasting. Um and uh it was literally just me up there um doing tastings for two years. Okay. And uh it became pretty popular. Word word got out that it was a fun place to hang out, and uh so we built a little uh pavilion, uh what we like to call it. It's kind of an indoor-outdoor uh space where we did uh other tastings. And then that kept getting full. And so uh about uh two years ago we started building this new building, and it just opened about eight months ago.

Okay, nice. So freshly minted here.

That's right, yeah. And now you got a lot more space than just one table sitting up in the two.

We have a lot more space, yeah. And we have uh, I mean, we can go into it in a little bit, but um, I I love our new space, uh full tasting room, full kitchen. We do a lot of good food stuff. Um we have a two-acre lawn uh with you know a patio and and uh seating outside where you can hang out in in the vineyard basically and enjoy a beautiful hill country day.

Do you still do your elevated tastings? Do you still have the treehouse open for those that want to check that out?

Yes, Andy does all the treehouse tastings right now, um, and it's uh it's a really good time.

Well, this may be kind of a silly question, but the name Sandy Road Vineyards, where did the name come from?

Yeah, so uh it's called Sandy Road Vineyards because um uh there's a a town down the road called Sandy. Okay. Um and so if you've if you've lived out here a long time like uh the the family, uh you that's just what you call the road, Sandy Road. Okay the road to Sandy. Um so if you're on 290, you'll see a little sign that says Sandy that way. There's not a town there anymore, but uh that's what we called it. And so if you're gonna put a vineyard on Sandy Road, you'd you'd call it Sandy Road Vineyards. So you were the first ones out here. And we were the first ones out here, so that's that's what we did. Um it's called Sandy because um back in the settler days when everybody was moving out west um in covered wagons, they basically followed the Pertinellus River, which is about a mile and a half uh south of us. Um and so the wagons were coming down the river and they got stuck in the sand. Ah. And so instead of keeping going, they just stopped and decided to name the town Sandy. Uh very creative naming.

We're gonna call this creek Sandy because that damn sand we got stuck in. So we got stuck in the sand, we call it Sandy. Over by Oak. You know Oak where the oak tree was?

Yeah, yeah. So, well, the the the other vineyard that we planted is called Post Oak Creek Vineyard. Okay. The creek that runs through the property is Post Oak Creek. Okay. Um so yeah, you're not far off. But uh yeah, here on the property, and when we started, you know, the Road to come in was all sand. So it was a sandy road. So that adds to it. The vineyard at the bottom of the hill is all sand. Okay. And I think that, you know, adds to a lot of what makes our wines different than a lot of places because there's not a lot of areas with that kind of sand. Right. Makes for lighter, more fruit forward wines. Good drainage in the soil and all that. Yeah. So we've got sand at the bottom, we've got clay in the middle, and we've got white chalky limestone at the top of the hill, which is pretty neat, uh neat and unique. And uh Reagan and I really kind of geeked out about oh man, we can plant the grenache in the sand and the Syrah in the rocks, and you know, you can really have different terroirs playing into the wine. And we behind you we've got jars of the soil type. So you can kind of, you know, people can come in and they can actually see, oh wow, that really is different just in this, you know, 16 acres, how different the soil is. So um that's that's kind of how Sandy Road Vineyard's got the name, and you know, the sand and um I think what makes a lot of the place special. Yeah.

Well, let's talk for a moment about your vineyard that you have here on site. So, what all do you have planted here and what how big is the vineyard and all of that? Yeah.

So the property uh in total is 100 acres. Okay. Um the vineyard is uh 16 acres here, and then about three years ago we planted uh another vineyard uh at the neighbors uh that's another six acres. So we have uh 22 acres of estate grapes that we farm.

Nice. And what what varietals do you have plants?

So we have uh 11 varietals now. 11? Yeah, um Spanish, French, and Italian, uh mostly reds. Uh we have one white grape now, uh Roussan. Okay, yeah. Um we've got um uh Grenache, Syrah, Morved, uh Tempernillo, Sangiovese, uh, and then Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbac, and we have a few that are uh unique to Texas. Okay, tell me about it. Marcellan, which is a French Bordeaux red grape, and then two Spanish red grapes, uh Prieto, Pacudo, and Mincia.

Interesting. So what made you decide to go with these three grapes that people may not have heard of before?

Wanted to experiment and try something new and you know prototyping again. Prototyping, see what works. So, you know that um, you know, we were researching, um, trying to find some different grapes because you know um have some blending grapes. I think you know, in Texas, uh red blends, I think, are really becoming the the stars of the show because you can um not only when if you farm really good grapes, but you can also the winemaker can put their uh fingerprint and you know, kind of make the best wine that they can make uh out of a blend. Instead of, you know, if you're just doing a single vineyard, single varietal wine, it's you're you're pretty much up to Mother Nature. You know, you can you can mess it up, but you know, Mother Nature is gonna make it the best it can be, and that's what you're that's what you've got for the year. But a blend, you can you can correct things, right? You can season, season your dish a little bit differently um to get the best add a little acidity here, a little color here. Yeah, depending on what you need, you know, lift the front, you know, lift the mid palate, whatever, you know, you can kind of play with it until you get a wine that you really like. So um that was kind of our thinking of getting some of those blending uh grapes.

Yeah. And do you do any single varietals from those? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so they add term So everything we do, we we do um, we do well, what now we're a lot more into blends, so we we're get coming out with our blends. Um, but when we started everything, uh single vineyard, single varietal, because we really wanted to get a feel for what this vineyard produces. Yeah. Right? Kind of understand each of the ingredients before you start blending them together.

And get a taste of the terroir that you have here in this location, yeah. What those can express as. Yeah.

We will continue to be very intentional about our blends and focus on blending first, making the best blends we can do, and then whatever we have left, we'll bottle a single uh variety of. Okay.

Yeah. So that kind of defines a little bit about your winemaking and Reagan's winemaking style, kind of focused on blends first and then singles.

Going forward, yeah. We've we've been all about single uh single varietals uh thus far. Yeah, just because young vineyard, we didn't know what everything was gonna taste like, and now we we feel pretty comfortable. We've got taken the training wheels off and we're working on blends.

So that next evolution to really see, okay, we know what the individuals are gonna do, what they taste like. Now let's see what we can get by mixing and matching and all of that. So, like a good chef putting together all the different ingredients for creating a magnificent dish. That's the idea. Well, do you source grapes from anywhere else besides your vineyard?

Only for some whites. Okay. So um, we've been getting uh a Riesling and a Chardonnay uh from Dell Valley Vineyard, uh Dell City, Texas. Yeah. Um amazing white grapes out there. Um, it's a very different um geography, geology, uh climate, everything uh from here in the hill country and um really well suited for white white grapes. So um we we love the fruit from there and we'll try to keep getting it as much as we can. Yeah. And do you process all those grapes here on site? Uh so we started and continue to process all of our stuff over at Ron Yates plannery because that's where Reagan is for his his day job. And so it's a lot easier to just make everything under one place than roll around everywhere. So having two locations kind of going back and forth between as long as as long as Ron will let us keep doing that. We'll love to stay over here.

Hear that, Ron? I'm talking to you. All right. Well, let's talk for just a second about the some of the challenges that we face here in Texas with growing grapes because you're very vineyard focused. And I know from your Texas wine grower's background, you're really big on the Texas terroir and grapes from Texas, 100% Texas. What happens in a situation like this year where we had a freeze on St. Patrick's Day, right when the vines were starting to do bud break and things like that, and then you start to lose vines. What does that look like? What and what are some of the other challenges you face?

Yeah, I mean, in in Texas, Mother Nature is is, I think, out to kill everything. So it's like it's a it's a big challenge to grow grapes in Texas. Uh we had a there was a big freeze in 2021, you know, the snow apocalypse that we had. Yeah. Um, but yeah, this year uh on St. Patrick's Day, we had um a very unexpected freeze. It just it here it got about to to 22 degrees actually um for about an hour. Uh, but it was under freezing for five hours. Um we had already butted out. It had been a hot spring, um, hot, you know, uh we had gotten some rain, so things were awake. We probably had you know six inches worth of you know green new growth on most of the vines. Um and so you get a freeze like that, it basically just kills that immediately. And the thing about um about vineyards and and vines is grapes only grow on the new shoots off of the one-year-old wood. So if you lose that, you pretty much lose all of your grapes for the year. So you know it's it's just something that you have to have the fortitude to to deal with, um, and uh and come up with a backup plan. But um we are lucky enough we we had really good uh uh crops in 23 and 25. Okay. So we have a lot of we had a lot of fruit, we have a lot of a lot of wine.

So we carry over that hump a little bit.

I think that'll carry us over for most. I I don't want to buy grapes if I don't have to. Um uh so I think that's probably I think we'll probably be all right, but we'll see. I t I tell you know, the biggest thing for me as coming from the coming from the tech world, you know, in software, you you can control everything. You know, it's like you know, it it does exactly what you you tell it to do something, it does it, right? Uh Mother Nature does not play that game, right? And so like the biggest thing was just like, you know, uh giving up control and just you know saying a prayer and drinking a glass of wine and and hoping that things work out and just learning how to roll with the punches. But yeah.

Well, we are blessed, I think, here in Texas to have some great vineyards. If you did have to buy grapes and things like that, it's and it's not like there's nothing there. We do have some great vineyards here in Texas. So hopefully that would help provide some extra fruit as needed. But what are some of the other challenges and things that you face here with the vineyard?

Uh well, this this year we also faced um a labor shortage. Um so the the the crackdown at the border had caused a a big delay in getting um you know the the crew that we've had for you know almost 10 years now. Yeah, same guys that we've had for 10 years come over every year. No the vineyard, no the vineyard property. Yeah, they they couldn't get into the country. Oh no. And uh so it at a critical time when you need to be pruning, you need to be, you know, like there's a lot of labor. And you know, we had you know a couple of guys here, um, but the main part of the crew was like no not here for about three months late. Oh my god. And so that had us has us way behind for the year too. So that that's been a that's been a struggle. So labor's a struggle, weather's a struggle.

Well, and like you say with software, yeah. Okay, so you run into a bug, you pause, and you work on that, and you can delay. Mother Nature doesn't work that way. It's not like you can just say, we'll prune three months down the road. I mean, you you have to go on this schedule.

Yeah, that's right. A vineyard, it it goes with a very regular cyclical cycle, and you know, things have to happen at certain times. You know, it the vineyard will wake up and start growing, you know, on a certain date based on how hot it's been, no matter what you do, right? Like it's it's coming, you know, and you got to be ready for it. And there are certain times in the life of of the vintage um when you have to really be on it. Like you have to, you know, when everything wakes up and all the shoots are coming out, you have to shoot then, right then. You have about a two-week window, and if you miss it, it becomes a lot harder to shoot then because then it's you know, stuff everywhere. So then it doubles the amount of work that you have, so which doubles your labor cost, which is you know, just all that sort of function. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. You know, fun things like that. But yeah, that's what makes it that's what makes it cool. Exactly.

And that's what makes Texas wine unique. You some of these things, these challenges and things we face.

Yeah, I mean, you know, every place in the world faces those same challenges. We like to complain about it a lot, right? You know, it fails in France too. It froze in France too. Bordeaux froze this year, you know. Bordeaux or Burgundy, I can't remember, but they they froze this year, so they're gonna have a bad crop. Okay. Um, I saw they all had their fires out in the vineyard, and I don't know if it saved anything, but everybody faces the same problems. So yeah, for sure.

What if your entire summer was a guided tour through the best of the Texas Hill Country? I'm Wine Guide Scott, and I'm giving away a couple pass to the inaugural Texas Hill Country Winery's Summer Season Pass. That's three full months of tastings and exclusive perks at over 35 Premier Wineries. A $100 value brought to you by Texas Hill Country Winery. Explore the region at your own pace, from legendary estates to hidden gyms. Enter now at Texasundervine.com slash giveaway. I'll announce the winner on May 29th. Cheers. Well, let's turn the corner from the challenges just a little bit. Talk about some positive things here. Uh, what would you say is a unique trait or characteristic of Sandy Road Vineyards that really you think embodies the spirit of Texas winemaking and Texas wines?

Uh well, I mean, I we're all native-born Texans. Um, we've we've all been in Texas for a long time. Uh I think we have a very passionate, strong uh Texas spirit. We're we're um always trying new things. We're we're a little bit of wild cowboys out here. You know, we we don't uh we don't like to follow the rules. We we'll try all sorts of you know new stuff and and uh uh just trying to trying to make it work. Um but very passionate about uh growing world-class wine. That's that's I I I really believe um Texas is positioned to be uh a world-class wine region, and we just need to really hone our skills in farming grapes the best way we can, making wine the best way we can. And it it's gonna be some, I mean, it it already is, but it's gonna be even better world-class wine um going forward. We're just getting started in Texas. So I think that's that's what we really embody in that. And I think when you come out here, you know, you you feel like you're part of our family, you feel that passion and excitement about winemaking, you get excited about wine, about Texas wine. Um, and hopefully you become an advocate of Texas wine too. Um, I think that, you know, that's kind of our our spirit that we have. What makes our wine, I think, unique and special. You know, Reagan learned to make wine from a winemaker who made wine in Sonoma, uh, California. Uh so our our style is very fruit forward. Um, it's a little lighter, more medium-bodied wines, um, but it's all about showcasing the vineyard, right? Like we again, uh it's about the farming. And and so the the we want the vineyard and the grape to shine through, not so much the winemaking. Um, but that's that's what you get when you come out. And I think it's kind of a fresher, um, fresher style that I think, you know, especially the younger generation is is more into. Not it's not your your granddad's, you know, super oaky Napa cab. It's it's more fresh and fun. And okay. Yeah. Very Texas.

And and you've got the land that's been here for 150 years that in the family. I mean, that that in itself is creams, Texas, right there. That's right. Yeah.

You're you're out on the farm. You know, we have we have uh we call it free range cows. We we've got cows on the property, so you know, when you're driving down the road, like you gotta watch out for the cows.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's it's you're out on the farm for sure.

Yeah. I I love this idea of I had this picture in my mind. Maybe I should use AI to make this picture, but I see the picture of you and Reagan, these uh cowboy software engineers making wine, you know, going through the vineyards on your horse with your hats and your laptops. Of course, Reagan may not necessarily want the laptop, he may want his construction.

He doesn't want any part of that. He is he's the opposite side of the software side.

So I think that's where it makes a team, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I I think that our family, uh, so uh me and my wife, Adrian and Christina and Reagan, uh we're all, you know, we're family, we're really good friends, um, and we all have very unique skills. And when you bring them all together, we kind of have compliments, all complimentary skills that help us uh kind of run the business. Um, so it's just it's been really a great blessing to be able to work with family and and not, you know, uh not be uh struggle, not struggle with that, you know. Like some people is like never work with family, you know. It's like, well, we're very lucky that to be able to do that and and enjoy it.

Well, I mean, it's like I like my day job, but there's some times where I'm ready to go home because I don't like these people that I have to work with all the time. So to love the people that you work with as well as get along and compliment, I think that's a perfect situation. It's been great. Well, tell me, let's talk about the wines for a minute. Yeah. So what would you say is your favorite varietal to work with?

I like bigger, bolder reds. Um, so the Timper Neo is always really good. Uh Reagan loves San Giovese. Um it's really easy to grow, really easy to make wine. He that's kind of, I think, his favorite. Uh the Marsellon is really nice. It's it's becoming a favorite of ours. That's my happy hour wine at the moment. That's at the end of the uh the day of doing tastings out here. We sit down and have a glass.

What are some of the characteristics of a marcellan?

So Marcellon, it's a it's a French Bordeaux uh red grape. Um it is uh they they cross-pollinated Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache. Okay. Uh so the idea uh was uh you know 10 or 15 years ago, uh it's getting hotter in Bordeaux. Uh Cabernet uh grows better in colder climate. So they were trying to make a clone of Cabernet that would do better in warmer climate. Oh, okay. Uh because Grenache loves the heat. Right. Uh and so uh we saw an article about that and we saw it was an approved Bordeaux varietal, and we were like heat. And we saw, well, we're like, you know, it's hot in Texas, so maybe it'll work in Texas. So that's kind of how we uh came upon that one. And it's been great. And that's your happy hour line. That's my happy hour line for sure. Yeah, it's doing really well.

So let's talk, and this kind of maybe leans back just a little bit into some of the challenges that we face because every season is full of vintage variation here in Texas. How do you deal with that? Do you do you strive to make your wines kind of try to taste the same every year, or do you embrace vintage variation and say, whatever the fruit brings us this year, this is the wine that we're gonna produce?

Yeah, we very much embrace vintage variation, right? Like um we, you know, I was mentioning we do single vineyard, single varietal wines mostly. And um we we want to showcase the fruit, right? So that means showcasing the the vineyard, showcasing the vintage. Um, and you can really taste it. Was it a cold year? Was it a wet year? Was it you know a hot year? What you know, like what happened that yeah. Um, it really is, you know, when you're making boutique, you know, small batch boutique wine, like that's really what you know what wine nerds geek out about, you know. It's like, you know, they they like to see uh the year in the bottle, right? Like that's that you're really taking a snapshot of the year and and putting it in a bottle. Um and that that's what makes wine different and special and unique from you know, if you're making craft beer, like you want that beer to taste the same all the time, right? Yeah. Um if you're you know, so that's really we that's really I think the difference in what makes wine special. Interesting. Yeah.