Duff Bevill
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
I guess so. I came to Sonoma County, uh, uh, in 1973. So it'll be a 52 plus years. Well, it'd be 52 years in March of 2025. So, uh, been a long time. I moved here to, to work for a guy who was, there was a great wine, great boom going on in California in the early 1970s. And I was part of that. And, uh, five, five years later, I started my own company. I've had it ever since. So, uh,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
And the interesting part of this whole circle of life is the guy who I came here to work for, his son, his only son, is a partner of mine now. It's sort of a handoff process now from the guy who got me involved full-time in agriculture. His son has been my partner for quite a few years, and he's taken over the company for us. We farm about 1,500 acres of wine grapes in Sonoma County.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
We have 150 employees, something like that. Holy smokes. The reason I sent you those two wines, I always look for some kind of little story that might add a little interest to it. In Sonoma County, and I'll make this brief, there's Sonoma County is a recognized wine grape appellation. And within Sonoma County, I think there's 18 Appalachians. Now I should have checked that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
I kind of lost track at 13. And we manage vineyards throughout Sonoma County, but my wife and I also own some vineyards too. And the two wines you're sampling there are from two vineyards that we own. One is in the Russian River Valley, and the other is Dry Creek Valley. Dry Creek Valley, that's this one. Both of them are Sauvignon Blanc, and that Sauvignon Blanc is the same clone
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
So these two are the same clone of Sauvignon Blanc, and the vineyards are roughly the same age of the Sauvignon Blanc from the Russian River, that Nori. We planted that in 1999. So it's 20, what's that, 25 years old. And then the Keegan property, which is the other one, the Dry Creek Valley, that one's almost 30 years old.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
And so what's fun about this, I hope, is you get to see same variety Sauvignon Blanc, two different Appalachians. The vineyards are about 15 miles apart. The Russian River Valley is a much cooler region than the Dry Creek Valley and two different winemakers. So the two the winemaking style Sauvignon Blanc, a common denominator of Sauvignon Blanc is citrus flavors, fresh cut grass.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
It's been described as smelling like fresh cut alfalfa. And the two styles that are typically made of Sauvignon Blanc is they pick them a little less ripe, still ripe, but a little less ripe. And that emphasizes brighter acidities, a little more citrus qualities. Like have you ever taken a any kind of a citrus and rub the skin. Rubbing it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
What you're doing is releasing all those aromas from the oils. And so you do that to a lemon, it smells like a lemon. You do that to an orange, smells like an orange. And if you do the grapefruit, smells like grapefruit. Sauvignon Blancs, when they're freshly fermented, smells like you've stuck your head in a big bucket of grapefruit rinds. Not the bitterness, but that fresh grapefruit.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
That's what Sauvignon Blanc does when it's very early in the fermentation, finishing the fermentation process. The other style of Sauvignon Blanc, they pick it a little bit riper, and so it stays on the vine, you know, usually 10 days to maybe 14 days longer than that other style. So it gets a little bit riper, and it starts moving from those citrus qualities that I just described.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
That becomes more reduced, and it becomes starting to have more like tropical fruits. So mango, I don't know how much you guys get mango back in your supermarkets back there. Yeah, right. I've heard descriptions like lychee nuts. I don't even know what a lychee nuts tastes like, but lychee nut is one of those descriptors, but usually just riper fruit flavors.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
And those guys and those styles, they tend to ferment them and keep them a little bit longer or keep them in oak barrels. And so it adds complexity. So the more ripe, they want to have more complexity. Less ripe, different kind of complexity. So both of those wines are made in a similar style. They're both about 13, almost 14% alcohol. Or I think one of them probably says 14% alcohol.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
And the other one's 13.9 or something. 13.9, yeah. Both made in the same style, same philosophy. But the vineyards are 15 miles apart. So they're going to be different. And I'm hoping you guys can see the difference between the two.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
You guys in the Midwest can probably see 15 miles in any direction over here.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
Yeah. So over here, you're lucky to see more than about a mile in any direction over here. So, So in your operation, how far apart from one end to the other are you? Well, let's see. On the north end of Sonoma County is a little town called Cloverdale, and we're up close to that town.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
Sonoma County is a million acres, and it probably takes you 45 minutes to drive from the northern end on Highway 101 to the southern end, assuming no traffic. Well, we break our operations up into four districts. So we have four managers. Okay.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
And just because of the amount of acreage or amount of distance you'd have to cover to get them, even though they're pretty small vendors, they range from six acres to 75 acres in size, but they're scattered all over the county. And Russian River flows right through it. And there's only a half dozen bridges on the Russian River. So if you're farming
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
You have two vendors across the river from each other. It might take you 45 minutes to get to each one of them because you've got to drive around on a bridge to go over the river. So we break it up into districts. Most of us, most of the guys in the vendor management business here, that's how you operate.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
You break it up into regions, assign supervisors to those areas, and they have their own equipment operators and their own form, and their own personnel. So there you go.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
Do each one have – I don't even know about this.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
Do you see a little cap like a segment on top of that cork on either end of it? Or does it look like one solid piece? It looks like one solid piece. It looks like tofu.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
They're different styles, and again, that's part of the marketing. The Lambert Bridge is in what's called a Bordeaux style. Okay. Because Sauvignon Blanc Bordeaux, it's an original region. And then the other one you're pouring right now is a Burgundy style bottle. And then you get into colors, and there's smoke, and there's green, and there's all sorts of different shades. It smells different.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
Does it? Do your finger test, Dave.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
But I think he was just screwing with me. The purpose of that is, it's really mostly for red wines, is my belief, my understanding. And so when they're lying on their side aging for years and years and years, they start dropping sediment out. And so when you get ready to drink that bottle of wine and you turn it upright, you want the sediment to fall down into the edges.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
So when you're pouring the wine, it's not getting in your glass. So that's sort of part of that story on that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
Could be. Now, it's interesting. The Lambert Bridge is 100% Sauvignon Blanc grape, but the Nori is, and I just read, and I have the owner of Nori send me some footnotes on tasting notes, and I didn't realize he blends that. with 3% of a variety called Gewurztraminer, and that's an Alsatian or a German-Austrian grape variety that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
And that just gives it a little bit different, like, I think, fruity quality to it. So there's an influence of that in there, too, and I can't tell you exactly what it is. What are you getting out of it?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
And that's the acidity. And that's a winemaker style. They'll choose to make them in one particular style or the other, and they have certain emphasis and the balance. And both of them are – the reputation of Sauvignon Blanc is it's really good with seafood. That's like the go-to. You want to have like a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Zinfandel. They sell just steaks, hamburger even, you know. Right.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
But Sauvignon Blanc is great with fish. I mean – The truth is all of us guys in the business, we drink it whenever we want to drink with whatever we want.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
We don't care. The comments you're making, you made a comment earlier that you had some bad experiences with wines before you came back to California and gave it a try. Yes. With some better quality. A lot of people confused, like both of those. are bone dry. There's no residual sugar at all in those wines. So all that, that sweetness you're sensing is actually, and that's a goal of a winemaker.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
That's the fruit that's coming through this, the quality of the fruit coming through. And that's, that's a plus. I mean, that's a compliment to the grower and the winemaker. When you're, you're sensing that sweetness to it, that's fruit that you're, you're picking up. They're not, not sugar, which is, which is a compliment to a very good either of these.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
No, I like Sauvignon Blanc. Spending all my adult professional life in Dry Creek Valley. Dry Creek Valley's history is Zinfandel. It goes back to the late 1860s, like 66, 67, 1867. So Zinfandel has been in this valley forever. And I was lucky enough to come here when a lot of the old children of Italian immigrants were still, they were in their 70s and 80s when I met them.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
And they were all, you know, ancestors of that red grape that their immigrant parents planted and grew. They didn't bring it from Italy with them, but they planted that grape before Prohibition. And then after Prohibition. And so we, you know, my favorite red grape still is Zinfandel. There's others, but still Zinfandel. And I love Sauvignon Blanc.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
Sauvignon Blanc does really well in Dry Creek Valley. It's made me money. So I like it for that side of it too, you know. But yeah, my favorite white grape is Sauvignon Blanc and favorite red, it's got to be Zinfandel still.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
I'm glad to like wines and hoping to come to California and see you sometime.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
The Labrador Bridge is a pretty small production, and I think it's only for their tasting room and their wine club. Okay. And Norrie's the same thing. He's a one-horse operation. He sells – he's actually –
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
uh a japanese immigrant he came here to work in the wine industry many years ago started his own winery after he got a lot of experience and so he sells most of his wine back in i think most of it goes to tokyo i think so it's a small production too that's available i mean uh you can get that his uh his uh facilities here in northern california so if you go online with either one of them
Farm4Profit Podcast
Some More Wine! Catching up with Gavin and Grayce
you can figure out how to get your hands on those wines.