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Put Some Altitude in Your Glass
35: Mark & James Blanchard: Blanchard Family Wines
Apr 19, 2022
35: Mark & James Blanchard: Blanchard Family Wines
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0:00
[upbeat music] You're listening to Denver Wine Radio, the podcast about Colorado wine. My name is Paul Bonacquisti.
0:10
I'm the winemaker at Bonacquisti Wine Company, an urban winery I launched back in 2006 in Denver, Colorado, where I've been making and learning about wine ever since.
0:20
I'm sitting down with other wineries and wine experts to find out what makes Colorado wine so unique, and to help you find the wines you like to drink. And now, let's put some altitude in your glass. Okay.
0:35
Welcome everybody to Denver Wine Radio. Special guest in the studio today, James Blanchard from Blanchard Family Wines. How's it going today, Paul? Real good. How are you? I'm doing fantastic.
0:46
Beautiful day out here in Denver. It is. Yes, it is. It's wonderful. Hey, tell me about Blanchard Family Wines or a little bit about your background. I would love to.
0:54
It, it's a circuitous story to get to where we are here today, but, uh, starting off with two, two Midwest boys from Illinois that grew up having no exposure to wine, no idea what we, we were...
1:04
[laughs] anything about the wine industry whatsoever. Pretty, pretty humble Midwest backgrounds, and we both discovered wine in our 20s.
1:11
Uh, I went off to the Air Force Academy and initially learned wine kinda through the Air Force with the etiquette classes and, and all that officer training of, uh- Wow... you know, how to be a respectable gentleman.
1:21
Uh [laughs] they teach you a little bit about wine and some of those formalities.
1:24
And then, and then my first military assignment was out in Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in the Central Coast area, uh, near Paso Robles, Santa Barbara, uh, area, Santa Ynez area. Loved it down there.
1:34
Uh, my brother, uh, went to school up in Chicago, and started paying his way through college, uh, starting off as a stock boy at 19 in a liquor store, and eventually by the time he graduated, he was a, a wine buyer for a couple wine shops in the Chicago suburbs.
1:46
And we found out through our college years that we both developed this passion for fine wine independently, not knowing each other and, and where our paths were going, and came home one year for Christmas and started the conversations and realized, wow, we haven't had anything in common in a decade and [laughs] and then finally, uh, we're having a conversation here about something that we both enjoy, that we're both passionate about, and we had the same feelings about.
2:06
And that was kind of the, the spark right there early on in life for the wine journey.
2:11
It, it ended up eventually here, you know, 20 years some later where we've got a winery out in Healdsburg, California, in Sonoma, and one here in Denver, Colorado. Yeah.
2:18
So how long ago did you launch the, the winery in, in Healdsburg? So we started the one in Healdsburg, uh, almost 15 years ago now. Uh, my brother subsequently moved to Napa to, to make a go of it in the wine industry.
2:30
Started working for Francis Ford Coppola, uh, at Niebaum-Coppola out there in Napa. Uh, eventually moved over to the Sonoma side to help open up his new location in Sonoma.
2:39
Went back to Napa, worked for another small mom and pop operation in Rutherford. Came back over to Sonoma again, uh, to work for the Jackson family, uh, at La Crema in downtown Healdsburg.
2:49
Eventually realized he loved Healdsburg, he loved this, the wine industry,
2:53
but got a little, you know, a little bit of an early midlife crisis and a little frustrated with the, the progress, uh, of where the potential was in the wine industry.
3:02
And, uh, at the time, I was teaching in the business school at the Air Force Academy.
3:06
I had a entrepreneurial bug in me, and we were out in, in California one year and just talking about life and, and where we were both going, and kinda decided, well, let's start, let's start making wine.
3:18
Uh, let's buy some grapes. Let's make some wine. Yeah. And, and we had, you know, no idea what we were doing, where this was gonna go, how do we do this?
3:24
And, and fortunately, my brother had two great mentors in Healdsburg, uh, Gene Chapanar, who was a, a winemaker, and his buddy Carl, who owned a Cabernet vineyard in the Healdsburg area.
3:35
Got together and sat down for lunch with my brother and sketched out a business plan on a napkin and said, "Hey, let's help these kids out." And, uh, we bought some grapes. We made some wine.
3:44
Uh, like I said, that was about 15 years ago now. Wow. And just kept making, buying more grapes, making more wine and- Sure... uh, growing the business. That's fantastic.
3:53
And then finally, you ha- you, you have a location obviously in, uh, in Healdsburg? Yep, we have our location in Healdsburg still where, uh, most of our wine comes from and what people envision production- Sure...
4:04
entails. Uh- Did you ever buy vineyards out there, or- No... or just sourcing? We continue to buy grapes. Yeah.
4:08
Uh, we, we realized, you know, as, as you well know, the, uh, the Hollywood model of the wine industry is w- we all own a vineyard in our backyard.
4:15
We walk the grapes in the mor- you know, we walk the vines in the morning. We, we handpick the grapes. We bring them in. We stomp them with our feet. [laughs] We make everything in house. We bottle it.
4:23
We put our name on the label, and we sell it out of the trunk of our car. That, that's what Hollywood tells us you should do. That's right. But as, as you well know, that's, that's a small niche in the market.
4:31
Uh, most people specialize in different things, and we realized we're not farmers. We're more a little bit on the production side.
4:36
We've had the same winemaker with us for the whole 15 years, but, uh, we're more focused on creating experience and sharing wine, teaching people about wine, creating experiences around wine, and that's where we thrive, and that's where we wanted to focus and let the farmers do what they do best.
4:53
All right. So you're operating in California, and then you said, "Hey, let's go check out Colorado." Kind of.
5:01
I, I continued to spend, I d- I did a 20-plus year Air Force career, so while we had the winery, I was still active duty Air Force as a pilot, kind of doing the winery thing on the nights and weekends, helping out my brother with, you know, marketing and finance and sales while he was working more of the production and, and the nuts and bolts of it.
5:19
And I spent about the last eight years of my career, maybe t- actually, more like 10, 12 years of my career, uh, here in Colorado up and down the Front Range. I went back and taught at the Air Force Academy.
5:27
I went to grad school in Boulder. Spent some time up in F.E. Warren in, in Cheyenne while I was living in Fort Collins, and I, I love Colorado. And I went to the Air Force Academy as well.
5:35
I s- I spent just the, the largest chunk of my Air Force career up and down the Front Range here in Colorado, and it, it became my new home.
5:42
It's where my family was born, that's where my friends were, and that's where I put down my roots. And so when I got out of the Air Force and I had to figure out how,
5:49
how is it that I now go full-time with the company, how is it that I transition my career into this, this business w- we had started without leaving the place that I had grown to love and become my home?
6:00
And so kinda went through some ideas and thought about- You know, maybe we could go to national distribution, maybe I could work some more of the online stuff from here.
6:09
And as I traveled around Colorado and I started visiting all the different urban wineries there were at the time, and you know, even five, six years ago there weren't as many as there are today. True.
6:20
I saw that there, there was a little bit of gap in the Colorado market. There was, it's a great food scene, it's a great beer scene, but the wine scene wasn't discovered yet, and I felt that was a little unfortunate.
6:33
And there were a few guys out there, the people like Carboy, um, that was just starting to spread the word down here in the Front Range of what Colorado wine can be.
6:42
And so my initial thought was, let's just bring what we do from California, let's bring it here to downtown Denver, let's kind of recreate the experiences we do in California- Mm-hmm...
6:51
but let's do it here in downtown Denver. And that was, that was my vision four or five years ago when we started planting the roots here to open up a winery.
6:58
And as, as we'll discuss here over the coming minutes, that, that vision has changed a little bit over the last five years. [laughs] As does any business model, right? [laughs] The more you go along. Okay.
7:08
So then tell us about the location here- Mm-hmm... in downtown Denver. So we had searched for several years.
7:13
Like I said, we went around and visited our, our peers, uh, to see where everybody's located, what they're doing, how they're operating.
7:20
Um, and we looked for a lot of spots for a couple years, and just kept striking out and kept getting discouraged.
7:24
And, uh, we'd put a bid on a property and lose out, and just things, things weren't working out, and I was getting really frustrated by the process.
7:31
And our, our architects and designers were working on another space in a development called the Dairy Block, and they said, "Why don't you come down and check this place out?
7:38
It's a little bit smaller, a little bit more, um, you know, in the action than you were looking for."
7:44
I was looking for more of a, more similar to what you have here, more of a, a kind of off-the-beaten-path production space where I could crush some grapes and- Yeah... and operate.
7:52
Uh, they brought me into this Dairy Block development and, and the minute I walked into the center of this alleyway, I fell in love. We felt home.
7:59
Um, it's a mixed-use development with hotel, office, restaurants, bars, retail shopping. There's just a lot of activity. It's right next to Coors Field, and the, the energy we felt was contagious.
8:12
The collaborative nature of what they do there was what we were looking for in a development. And so like I said, we, we fell in love with the space.
8:19
We negotiated the lease, started construction down there in our, in our spot in the Dairy Block.
8:23
It's in the middle of an alleyway, which sounds really weird if you haven't been there before, um, that we operate in an alleyway, but it's a, it's a beautiful development.
8:30
Love it so much that my, my wife ended up, my wife and I got married there two years later right in the middle of the alleyway right in front of our business. Oh, did you? So it's- Ah, right on...
8:37
it's, uh, it's our family s- spot now. So that's how we ended up in the Dairy Block, and again, it really functions more like a wine bar than a production facility.
8:45
It is a, a licensed production facility, it is a limited winery, but- Mm-hmm... really we function a little bit more like a wine bar experiential center down there than, than what people view as a winery. Yeah.
8:55
And congratulations, by the way, uh, 5280 Magazine- [laughs]... mentioning you in the, um- Thank you... uh, yep, 14 of Denver's best wine bars, and, uh, yeah, nice- Well, it's taken-... nice work there...
9:07
taken us a couple years to get there, but, uh, it's definitely a vision of ours to be able to be a central location where people can come experience different kinds of wine. And I love that we've gotten that notoriety.
9:18
I love the people that are on that list too. It's a nice mix of wineries and traditional wine bars, and we are kind of a hybrid.
9:25
And we've really prided ourself on the last three years now of transitioning to more of a Colorado focus, um, and spreading the word to people here in Denver about, which is unfortunate, what Colorado can do with wine.
9:37
Yeah. Now you, you've got a great wine list. Of course, you have your, your wines from California. Mm-hmm. But you, and you ha- you carry other winery, other Colorado wineries' wine on your list.
9:45
Absolutely, and that's something that, that's that transition we've made here over the last three or four years. Again, my vision when we opened was just to be a California winery.
9:53
We'd been operating in California for 10 years prior to this. We believe and still do believe today that Sonoma is one of the best places in the world to grow grapes.
10:02
It's one of the most diverse appellations in the world, um, as far as, um, again, different microclimates within a single region.
10:10
Uh, Sonoma's got a lot to offer, and we still believe, again, it's a world-class location to grow grapes, and we're, we're keeping those roots. However,
10:18
once we opened up here, you know, I already knew there was good Colorado wine here, but I didn't know the extent of it. And when we opened, we had our lineup, and we primarily make still wines.
10:28
We didn't have any sparkling wines on our menu, we didn't have any sweet wines on our menu. Um, and we started getting requests for those products.
10:34
And as I explored, you know, what our license allows here in Colorado, thankfully Colorado have some flexibility in their licensing laws that other states don't,
10:42
and realized that we could carry other Colorado products, um, in our tasting room.
10:46
And I started looking for some higher quality sweet products, and I started looking for some higher quality sparkling products, and we came across Sauvage Spectrum and the Storm Cellar.
10:56
Um, I had known Steve and Jamie prior to opening up here, uh, from the Storm Cellar, which was a nice connection. I had not, uh, known Sauvage Spectrum yet.
11:04
But those were the first two wineries that we started looking at to say, "Can we bring in some of your products to expand our portfolio?"
11:11
And really it was a, a selfish intent of I need a more diverse listing on my, my wine menu as people come in and ask for products, and that was the start of a complete change of our business model. Nice.
11:24
Then are you actually producing that at the Dairy Block? We're working that direction. Okay. We do bottling at the Dairy Block. Oh, nice. Um, so we do a, a minimal amount of production there.
11:33
We do some, some, uh, blending and bottling, uh, operations there. We're doing some, uh, this morning in fact. But our initial movement was to just start carrying other Colorado wines, and we've since expanded.
11:45
Uh, we've carried 10, 12 different producers on our lineup. We've had 15 to 20 different SKUs from other Colorado producers.
11:52
Um, I think this last 12 months we were probably a 50/50 sales mix between California and Colorado, which is fantastic. I do believe we probably sell more Colorado wine of other people than anyone else in Colorado.
12:03
I don't think there's a, a bar or restaurant or wine shop in Colorado that sells as much Colorado wine as we do, which w- we're very proud of.
12:09
And so over the last 24 months, I've really wanted to get more into true Colorado production and have Colorado wines in our brand, um, which as you know, the last 12 months to try to go into Colorado production is an awful time [laughs] to start this model.
12:24
[laughs] Yes. Uh, so we do have a couple Colorado wines under our brand that, uh, w- were produced in conjunction with another winery to help us out to get, to get our start going. Yeah.
12:32
And we'll probably continue with the custom crush model u- until we can, you know, till Colorado, uh, gets a few more grapes [laughs] in production and we can get a little bit better production facility out here.
12:42
Ah, fantastic. Let's do this. You brought wine with you today. Yeah, let's dig in.
12:46
[laughs] Um, so I did bring, uh, what we have bottled are two of our, two of the Colorado wines in our brand, and then I brought something that, uh, is not yet bottled, which we'll talk about in a minute.
12:55
It's kind of a hybrid product. But the two wines I brought you today, our Rocky Mountain rosé and our Dairy Block blend, are both Colorado products. Um, they're the first two Colorado products under our label. Nice.
13:05
Um, the rosé we're drinking is a, uh, Cabernet Franc/Malbec/Petit Verdot blend, so, um, Bordeaux varietals but here in Colorado. And we, we love serving rosé at our place.
13:15
It's something we get to do here in Colorado that we don't get to do in California as much. When visitors go out to Sonoma and Napa and they're spending that money for their annual trip or their
13:28
wedding anniversary or [laughs] or what- you know, their 50th birthday, whatever special occasion they go out to Napa and Sonoma on a buying trip for, unfortunately they don't think about rosé.
13:37
They're going out to buy big Cabs and Russian River Pinots, and they're looking to spend the money, and they, they go into a taste room and they have an expectation of what they're supposed to taste and what they're supposed to buy.
13:48
And so some of those products, like rosé, I think get neglected a little bit, where here in Denver, particularly in our location, the Dairy Block, you're here to enjoy a glass of wine.
13:57
You're gonna sit on the patio, you're gonna have a charcuterie board, you're gonna have a glass of wine with friends, and rosé is the perfect product for that market. Yeah. And so we, we sell a ton of rosé.
14:07
We love talking about it because so many misconceptions about rosé. It's cheap, it's sweet- [laughs]... it's mass produced, um- Even, even after-... it's not a quality product... even after all these years- Oh, still...
14:17
there's still... It's just crazy to me. I- 50% of my customers order a rosé, and as soon as they drink it, they say, "Wow, it's not sweet." Exactly. [laughs] Yeah, I, I told you that.
14:26
Rosé's not designed to be sweet, you know, uh, from, from its origins in Provence. So this is a dry rosé. We typically have three to five rosés on our menu.
14:36
Still or sparkling, California or Colorado, uh, so we can put together quite a lineup of rosés for people and let, let them try a whole flight of rosé and learn what high-quality dry rosé should be, whether it's California or Colorado.
14:50
Yeah. Well, I'm gonna give this thing a whirl. [laughs] Wow. Yeah, super juicy. Mm-hmm.
14:58
To me it's kinda like there's a melon or this, uh, yeah, this big fruit up front, but then, uh, I pick up some of the tannins from, from the Cab Franc and the Malbec and- Absolutely.
15:10
There's no confusing that this is a Bordeaux [laughs] or heavy red-based varietal rosé, which is what we love. The current rosé we have from California is a rosé of Grenache, and it had very light skin contact.
15:22
We have guests confuse it and, and we pour it for them, and they say, "No, I ordered the rosé, not the Sauvignon Blanc." I say, "That, that is rosé, it's just so light in color." Wow.
15:30
And so to be able to pour that in conjunction, uh, with this product, uh, we also carry a rosé from the Storm Cellar right now, um, and a sparkling, uh, brut rosé, that have four distinctive colors to them, four distinctive flavor profiles to show, again, the, the variety of rosé, uh, on the marketplace.
15:49
And this one to me, you're right, very, very rich, very juicy. It, it's, it's not a light-bodied rosé. There's a- No, not at all... a lot of structure to this. There's tannin to this.
15:57
So when people ask me, you know, "Hey, I'm getting a charcuterie board. What wine should I pair with it?" Uh, that can be a difficult question. You've got a variety of cheeses, a variety of meats.
16:07
You've got pickled vegetables. You've maybe got some bread and some jam on there. It's a lot of different flavors going on a charcuterie board.
16:14
A, a, a rich rosé like this is, is a great pairing for everything on that board. Yeah. This is delicious, and [laughs] I think I almost drank all of mine. [laughs] That's all right.
16:24
We've got a couple more wines for you today, so, uh, we won't be thirsty. So th- again, all Palisade fruit, Grand Valley product, uh, here, so really happy with this one. Nice. That's fantastic.
16:33
And what is this, um, what does this retail for? Uh, this retails for, I think, 28. Nice. Mm. Super delicious. That's another thing that we, we like to... Uh, sorry, as I- It's all right...
16:47
pour this for you here, our second wine. It's not that we necessarily wanna push the prices on the consumer. Sure. Um, and we all understand the inflationary, uh, world we live in right now, but
16:57
one of the things we, we really talk to a- and, and promote to our Western, uh, Slope partners is that, uh, their wines have more potential than I think sometimes they give themselves credit for.
17:10
Um, I think there's been a long history here in Colorado of under-appreciation for the wine or we just have to make the peach wine and the cherry wine to appease the market, and it gives the market the idea of that's what Colorado wine is.
17:23
And so even those high-quality wine producers here in Colorado that are, they're putting their wines on a national scale, they don't realize that the marketplace is ready for a certain level of pricing with that quality.
17:36
Operating the downtown right in LoDo Denver tasting room, um, we, we can get away with or not get away with, we can expose the customer to putting Colorado wine right next to California wine, side by side, even in blind tastings, and show them the quality stands up to it.
17:54
And it's not to bring down the California quality, it's to amplify the Colorado quality and say, "We can price our Colorado wines right alongside Washington, Oregon, and California, and be confident with that placement."
18:05
Absolutely. I've loved doing that, uh, for years, just, you know, and even on this show, doing- Colorado versus the world- Mm-hmm...
18:13
where we, we taste similar price point wines, usually four or, you know, at, at least four together, and it's, it, it really comes down to, uh, your taste, your p- your taste profile. Ne- there's never a quality issue.
18:27
And going back, [laughs] I had that s- the same issue when I first opened here, which was, uh, 15, about 15 years ago. The, the public at that time, uh, uh, just exactly what you said, there was still, it was fruit wine.
18:42
Their, their experience with Colorado wine was fruit wine or sweeter wines, and possibly even lower quality. They just had a turnoff. So it's been- Yeah... I mean, it's been a [laughs] industry-wide- Yep...
18:54
battle ever since I jumped in. And I don't think it's, even, even five, 10, 15, 20 years ago, I don't think it's that Colorado couldn't produce that high quality wine.
19:01
I think the producers believed they had to produce that wine for the market- Right... 'cause the market wasn't ready- Right... for what Colorado could do. Exactly.
19:09
You have a lot of tourist traffic through Palisade and a lot of sweeter, sweet wine palates- Mm-hmm... coming into the tasting room, and, and if that's what sells, that's what you want. Yeah.
19:19
You're gonna make more of that. It, it's, it's a, it's a chicken and the egg battle- It is. It's-...
19:23
but I'm, I'm really excited that there is a new generation of winemakers and winery owners right now in Colorado that are saying, "We're, we're bucking the trend.
19:32
I understand we sell a lot of peach wine, [laughs] but I know we can do better."
19:36
And they are doing better, and they're, they're pushing the issue, and we're gonna keep selling their products and [laughs] telling people about it.
19:44
And we get a lot of tourists at our spot, which is great, too, a lot of out, out-of-staters because we are, you know, located downtown.
19:49
And so to let people from around the country know, uh, what Colorado does on a high scale is, is really important for us. Absolutely. It is.
19:57
It's an exciting time, uh, to be in the Colorado wine industry and, uh, producing wine for, for folks. So we're gonna take a break, and when we come back we're gonna taste the second wine that you brought,
20:10
and you're gonna tell me a story about being in an airplane. [laughs] I can do that. Okay. And maybe even a crazy story, something that happened. [laughs] Coming back on Denver Wine Radio.
20:24
Welcome back to Denver Wine Radio. Our guest today, James Blanchard from Blanchard Family Wines here in Denver, Colorado, and also Healdsburg, Colo-, uh, California. Am I saying that right?
20:35
Heald- Heald- Healdsburg, yeah Healdsburg, yeah. Oh, great. Hey, so you brought a second wine today, and I wanna know what it is. Yeah. It looks beautiful. The, the second wine we have here is the Dairy Block Blend.
20:47
Again, both of these are, are n- named a little bit in tribute to our location here, located in the Dairy Block. So this wine, really love this wine. I, I just tasted it again.
20:57
Um, I actually haven't had it in [laughs] a couple months, and so I took a little sip here.
21:01
And me and my wife and one of our managers just got back from a trip to Sonoma a couple days ago, and we, we like to take our staff to Palisade and we like to take our staff to Sonoma.
21:13
We, we've done a pretty good job in the three years we've been open here of getting most of our staff members out there and rotating them through to expose, um, themselves to those, those two markets and learn firsthand what we're talking about here in Denver.
21:24
But as I took a sip of this wine, it almost brought me back to Sonoma from last week in saying I could have put this wine in a lineup of anywhere, any winery we went to, um, over the four days we were there, and it would fit right in the middle of that lineup.
21:39
It would not stand out as, again, a Colorado product or a, you know, a, a, again, I wanna say a, a non-standard product. It- Right...
21:47
this would fit in any lineup I tasted out in California in Sonoma last week, um, which is both good and bad. Good in, in a quality standpoint. I wanna say bad in the idea of it is unique, though.
22:00
While this would fit in every lineup I tasted in California, it would hold its own, it's a unique product. And what's unique about this one, it is cold-hearty hybrid varietals. This is a blend of Petit Pearl and Verona.
22:10
Oh, nice. And I just taught a Colorado wine class as part of our Wine Wednesday series at our location here in Denver, and we did four Colorado wines, this being the final wine in the lineup.
22:21
And obviously nobody in the class had ever heard of those varietals, which I love. Right. Um, and I was joking with my staff members.
22:27
I had two new staff members that we just hired a week ago, um, that sat in on the class to learn with us, and I said to these two staff members, "You know, as soon as you learn the 8,000 varietals that we can make wine out of, we're gonna create new ones."
22:41
[laughs] "So you're never gonna be done with this process. There's no end to the learning 'cause we're just gonna keep creating new varietals as soon as you learn them all."
22:46
And Tom Plocher out of the University of Minnesota, leading researcher for cold-hearty varietals, we were lucky enough to meet him at VinCO this year, created these two varietals to, uh, again, be cold-hearty resistant, meaning that they, they typically bud later in the year.
23:01
They also go dormant earlier in the year, yet still ripen within that shorter growing season that we have here in Colorado to produce really nice, dark, rich, bold red wines that stand up against any red wine in this country or any red wine in the world,
23:15
yet don't have a 500-year history of growing. [laughs] They've got a few year history of growing, and they still create a beautiful red wine that I love. Yeah, so this is, uh, so you said Petit Pearl and Verona? Correct.
23:28
Okay. Wow. Super rich. I have, if I was blind tasting, I would have guessed Syrah, maybe Merlot, something or even a blend of that, but that's, that's how it comes off to me. Absolutely.
23:46
But man, it is delicious. Mm-hmm. Super dark fruit. Not heavily oaked either. It's not- No. So- It's a, it's a nice balanced wine, a nice drinking wine, but it's got great depth and complexity to it.
23:59
You know, great, uh, extraction and tannin from, from the grapes. Like I said, you would easily confuse this for a Syrah or a Merlot anywhere in the country. Absolutely.
24:07
Um, you, you wouldn't think that these are two grapes you've never heard of before.
24:10
And, and that's, that's the unfortunate nature and why you have to call things the Dairy Block Blend instead of the Petit Pearl or Verona because you put that on a store shelf, you put it on a restaurant menu-
24:20
Nobody's gonna go to a steakhouse in Denver right now and order Petit Pearl. Exactly. Um- They've never heard of it [laughs] They've never heard of it. Uh, I hadn't heard of it until, you know, two years ago.
24:29
So the ability to, to,
24:31
for us to take a product like this, called the Dairy Block Blend, put it in a tasting flight where the customer doesn't know until they taste it what it is, and then get through their flight and come to a, come to their server and say, "What the heck is this amazing wine?"
24:43
And you get to tell them a little story about
24:46
a cold hearty varietal, something new, a h- something that you haven't heard of before that's a Colorado product, and they just open their eyes of, "Oh, wow, I, I, I thought I knew everything about wine.
24:56
I thought I was a oenophile, but this is fantastic. This is new." Um, it's really exciting for us to be able to do that. Yeah, that's cool. This is, this is, we need more of this in Colorado. Mm-hmm.
25:06
Especially with, uh, the, how the weather [laughs] has treated us the last couple of years.
25:11
But excited to see more of this coming out, and I'm excited to work with it, uh, hopefully here in the next, maybe this fall or at least in, by next year in 2023.
25:21
And I hope we, I hope we do plant more of it here in Colorado. Not only is it delicious, but, uh, as you mentioned, you know, the, the trouble we've had, uh, the last year with, with grapes and harvest and the weather.
25:31
You know, in the, that 2021 harvest, as a whole, the Colorado industry produced about 10% of normal of their production. It was awful. I mean, people,
25:40
th- the unfortunate nature is a lot of Colorado wineries over the next 18 to 24 months are gonna have a lot of California and Washington and Oregon wine on their menu 'cause they just have to fulfill the demand.
25:48
But given that, when you look at the varietals that survived and the varietals that didn't survive, these cold hearty varietals like Verona and Petit Pearl did really, really well last year.
25:58
They produced grapes while your Bordeaux varietals, your other Vitis vinifera didn't produce grapes, and it's a lesson that the industry here has to take of, I understand that right now today,
26:09
Cabernet Sauvignon is still the largest planted varietal in Colorado. It just is. Yeah. And they think that's what the people want. But if it doesn't grow, it doesn't grow. [laughs] So- [laughs]...
26:19
uh, you gotta rip the Band-Aid off and say, "Hey, let's, let's roll the dice and plant these varietals, and educate the consumer this is just as good as Cabernet. We just need to learn the varietals." Right.
26:31
I, and I agree. We, I had this conversation with Doug Caskey, and, and we both felt like Colorado does so many grapes very well. A lot of varietals grow here and make excellent wine.
26:45
And rather than doing the rah-rah for one grape or two grapes to say, "Hey, this is what, what the, what's the best in Colorado," it's, it just doesn't make any sense. Mm-hmm. So.
26:56
If you look at a, uh, a time lapse chart of the most planted varietals in California,
27:03
most wine consumers today would assume that Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay were the most planted varietals for the last 100 years in the US, and that's just not true.
27:12
Cab didn't become the most planted varietal in California till the '80s. Zinfandel was, was the most planted varietal for decades and decades in the US.
27:20
So to make the assumption that Cab will always be king, um, is a little pretentious, or to assume that something like a hybrid varietal won't become king in Colorado is shortsighted as well. Yeah.
27:31
And like you said earlier, you, an area gets known for one particular grape- Yeah... and that's all they're expected to drink when they come into the tasting room. Completely agree. We, we almost got in a little,
27:42
a little heated argument, uh, the other day, or again yesterday when I was teaching this class about different regions of the world or different regions of the US and their ability to produce at the top level.
27:54
And this particular customer was arguing that a, a particular wine coming out of New Mexico is as good as anything coming out of California. And I respectfully said, "No.
28:04
Um, they have a very high quality product, but that particular grape will never rival, you know, uh, the California Cab." But that doesn't mean a New Mexico grape won't rival a California wine.
28:18
You just have to find the right grape for the right place, planted and grown the right way and produced the right way, and almost anywhere in the world can produce a fantastic product.
28:28
It just may take generations and generations [laughs] to figure out what that is. Right. [laughs] Um, and it, it's time-consuming, it's expensive, it's painful, but it's fun as well.
28:37
Lots of patience in the wine industry you need. [laughs] Absolutely. So, so okay, so tell me about a time, you flew a lot, Air Force Academy. You flew for, uh, what, what did you fl- for 20 years? I flew for- Your-...
28:51
uh, 20 years, uh, mostly helicopters, a little bit of fixed-wing airplane as well. And people do ask a lot, you know, it, it- they say, "It seems like quite a, a, a departure, military life and winery life.
29:03
How did you make this transition?" And I, I do say there's a lot of parallels. It really wasn't that dramatic of a transition.
29:09
I get asked a lot do I, do I miss flying, do I miss the military life, and I said, "I think if I went into some sort of boring, mundane office job I would."
29:20
But being in the wine industry, being a producer, running a wine bar in downtown Denver and one in California, it's not boring.
29:28
[laughs] And there's a lot of parallels, particularly with regards to managing the chaos and managing the team and, and those aspects which I love. But it really was the military that led me to wine exploration.
29:40
As I mentioned earlier, my first assignment was in Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in the Central Coast region around San Ynez, Paso Robles, uh, Santa Barbara.
29:48
And during the day or during the week, we would fly missions around these, these areas, and we'd have to learn about the terrain and the climate, weather patterns, temperature changes, uh, the geography and how that would affect our flying,
30:02
and particularly learning about things like the marine layer and, and, and inversion layers, and these diurnal shifts, and all these- Yeah... these temperature changes that I would see as I flew my helicopters.
30:12
And then I would go on the weekends, and as a, you know, 23 to 26-year-old lieutenant in the Air Force, you don't make a lot of money. You're living in California, there's not a lot you can do cheaply.
30:21
But back then in the- You know, late '90s, early 2000s, you could still go wine tasting relatively affordably. Go grab a loaf of bread and some cheese and drive around Santa Ynez and, and go to these wineries.
30:35
And I would hear them talk about these weather patterns and this terrain, and they would talk about this vineyard over here and this mountain range and how it affected the wind patterns and temperature patterns, and I would say, "Oh, oh, I get what you're talking about.
30:47
I flew this valley yesterday, and I can speak to how it looks like from 500 feet or 1,000 feet and how it affects me as a pilot."
30:55
And seeing that connection between the farmer and what I was doing was really eye-opening to me and, and really one of the things that got me hooked on wine, is how it affects so many different aspects of, of life and the stories with it.
31:09
So, so that, you know, definitely led me to explore my wine more. But throughout my career as it progressed, I really felt like I was living two lives.
31:18
I would live this military life during the week and wear the uniform and fly the aircraft and train for combat or, or go to combat and, and, and have this very blue collar life. And then on the weekends
31:30
I'd drive down to Denver and host wine tastings and go to wine dinners and go to these non-profit charity events and, and live a completely separate life, and the, the two rarely crossed paths.
31:40
And I would come back on the Mondays and we'd, we'd talk about it, talk about it to my military, uh, colleagues, but you know, you couldn't really s- understand it.
31:49
And I had the opportunity one time to fly a mission f- uh, Cheyenne, Wyoming down to Centennial, down to the Denver area. Uh, we had a, a, a mission we had to do.
31:58
And fortunately through the wine industry I had a lot of contacts with sports and pro athletes and got to know a lot of the Denver Broncos.
32:05
And so I had an opportunity to bring a bunch of Denver fans with me on this particular mission, got to fly down to Centennial Airport.
32:13
Well, if you know, the Broncos' training facility is right in the pattern of the Centennial Airport. Right. So we got to fly our helicopter down.
32:20
We got to fly over practice with our helicopter with the doors open and hang a big Denver Broncos flag from the door of the helicopter- Nice...
32:29
flying over the, the field so everybody could see us, and the players are waving at us. We got to land down at Centennial Airport to have lunch, get the aircraft refueled.
32:36
And, and while they're refueling the aircraft and we had our lunch break, um, I got to arrange for us and the crew to go to the practice facility, get a tour, get down on the field, take pictures with John Elway, with John Fox back then, and Peyton Manning, and introduce all of my Air Force colleagues to these pro athletes and again, take pictures on the field and get a full- Yeah...
32:56
uh, tour of the facility. They gave us practice jerseys and everything and, uh- Very cool...
33:00
um, so it was a nice, uh, a nice little treat to be able to blend that, uh, that wine business with the military business for at least one day- Yeah... um, and, and make it all work out. That's awesome. Love that.
33:12
[laughs] Love this Dairy Block blend too. Well, thank you. I've got one last wine for you. This is gonna be kinda unique.
33:20
So one of the things that I mentioned that we love about the Dairy Block, and the wine industry in general, is collaboration.
33:28
I've, I've really, really been happy as I've become more and more immersed in the Colorado wine industry as to the, the collaboration within the industry.
33:39
You know, California wine, it's big business, and there's, there's friends out there, but it's, it's a corporate cutthroat business out there in California.
33:46
You're all battling for the same resources and the same dollar and- Hm... the same customer.
33:51
Here in Colorado, because it's a little bit newer, younger, smaller industry, it's a very collaborative, uh, work environment and, and there's a lot of wineries, even for us being the new guy in town, that we share equipment, we share ideas, we share lab testing.
34:04
Um, "Hey, I'm out of bottles. Do you have any bottles I can borrow?" [laughs] "H- hey, my corker's broke. Can I borrow your corker?" Right.
34:10
Um, you know, those type of things, uh, don't happen as much out in California and, and I really love that. But that, that translates into what we do at the Dairy Block as well.
34:18
It's a very collaborative environment between the restaurants and bars and hotel and, and retail space.
34:24
And we were lucky enough to have some friends of ours open up a distillery in the Dairy Block as well, Deviation Distilling. Um, they'd been friends of our family for a little while.
34:32
They'd had another production facility out on Santa Fe, and they wanted to open up a little bit more high traffic, uh, tasting room for their product as well.
34:40
And they opened up down the alleyway with us, down the alleyway from us in the Dairy Block.
34:43
And we've always wanted to do a whiskey barrel aged product, and they had wanted to put their whiskeys in a wine barrel for an aged- Sure... product as well.
34:52
And, uh, when they moved into the neighborhood, it was a, a great opportunity to do so. And so this particular product, it's our second release now of what we call our Whiskey Zin.
35:01
Um, this is our California Zinfandel, uh, that was brought in here in bulk and put into their bourbon barrels, and then simultaneously we took their bourbon and put it into our whiskey barrels.
35:11
Uh, the first release of this, uh, we, we had that co-aging for about eight months, released that product, um, again, as the, uh, the Whiskey Zin, and it lasted about two months in our tasting room- Mm...
35:24
and we sold it all. Uh, this is the second batch of it. This is our 2018, uh, Dry Creek Zinfandel from California that is, uh, currently sitting in Deviation Distilling whiskey barrels.
35:34
It's only been sitting in the barrel now, uh, what you're tasting, for about three weeks. Um, so we need to give it a little bit more time, but- Oh, wow... it's a fun product.
35:43
You know, you do have a little bit of that whiskey nose to it, but it's a really smooth wine, actually much more so than the first one. The first one was pretty hot [laughs] Well, yeah. [laughs]...
35:52
with the bourbon in it. This one's a little bit more mild, a nice smooth product, but just a fun departure. Zinfandel's a fun wine to play with.
36:00
We make a lot of zin, uh, in California, and it's just a great way to collaborate with your neighbor where they've got a whiskey on their shelf that's been in our zin barrels and a zin on our shelf- Yeah...
36:08
that's been in whiskey barrels and create some fun tasting opportunities. Yep. Those first cycles through the bourbon barrel, [laughs] yeah, g- makes, uh, makes a strong- It sure does... strong product.
36:18
But this, wow, this is really nice. This, this is gonna come out nice. A little more time. How mu- what, how much- You expect to, uh, leave it in the barrel? Not sure. Like I said, we did eight months on the first one.
36:28
Yeah. Uh, this one, been a few weeks. Uh, my brother has, uh, one going on in California right now with a distillery called Alley 6.
36:35
Um, he's only been about six weeks in the barrel out there, um, for his first attempt at it. So we're gonna keep trying it, we're gonna keep tasting it, see what we think. I don't think it needs much, though.
36:44
The product from California came pretty finished. Mm-hmm. So it's mostly just absorbing that bourbon. And, and again, we love doing these joint tastings.
36:52
We have a joint tasting coming up with Deviation here later this month where we're gonna do a cocktail and wine pairing class where we'll be able to have two cocktails and two wines, and we're gonna have, uh, cheese and chocolates, and we'll be able to do, uh, you know, a wine and a whis- wine and a spirit with the cheese, a wine and a spirit with the chocolate- Nice...
37:11
and really, you know, show people how those flavor interactions occur in, in both products. Uh, so we, we, we love these kind of joint projects. Yeah, th- that's fun.
37:21
So, so yeah, they have a, so they're w- they finish their whiskey in a, uh, in a, in your wine barrels? Yes. We, we ship out our Zinfandel barrels- Yeah... um, and then, you know, get and do that cross-aging.
37:33
Uh, we're gonna work on some other stuff as well. Um, we're trying to figure out how to do this with a white wine as well, you know, and, and what's gonna work on a white.
37:40
Little bit more complicated with the white than the reds, but- Yeah... I think they wanna put some whiskey in our, uh, either Chardonnay or Viognier barrels.
37:47
And then we're, we're trying to figure out how to go the other direction, uh, what I can do with a, a white wine. You can do it. [laughs] Uh, I, I think we can do it. I, I, I Googled it.
37:55
There's some other people doing some white wines in whiskey barrels. It- It's the best... um, so we'll, we'll give it a shot and, you know, it, it's fun, it's experimental- Yeah...
38:02
and, uh- That's one of my favorite profiles out of, out of bourbon barrels- Really? Okay... is doing white wine, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Years ago I cycled, uh, I started with Chardonnay just on a accident.
38:13
Uh, just as I wanted to, I was gonna make an aperitif out of it, and then, and then it turned out, I tasted it after a couple of months in the barrel and I went, "Wow."
38:21
[laughs] And so then I started cycling, um, I did Gewürztraminer, then I did, uh, Pinot Grigio. They're, they're just fun. Yeah. Yeah.
38:31
It, it, and I like our ability to be able, you know, we pour most of our wines by the flight down in our tasting room, and so you have the ability to experiment and play with things.
38:40
You know, people are having a small pour. You know, if you don't like it, you don't like it, no big deal. If you do like it, great, buy a glass, buy a bottle.
38:46
But it's, it's fun to be able to have the ability to taste these small, you know, small amounts and play with things and do a couple barrels of this, a couple barrels of that.
38:53
And, you know, we're, we're generally a pretty traditional winery in how we produce wines, but it's fun to play every once in a while. Absolutely. Well, James, man, this is great. Thanks for coming down today.
39:04
You're welcome. We love doing it. I got, I got one more question, you know- Okay... 'cause we love music around here at Denver Wine Radio, so what, uh, what's your flavor? Ooh, what are we listening to right now? Yeah.
39:14
For me personally, me and my wife are big country fans. All right. Uh, Chris Stapleton is kinda where we're at right now. It was our, my, uh, my wife's walk-up song to her wedding was Tennessee Whiskey. Oh, nice.
39:26
Uh, she's a Tennessee girl. She's from, uh, the Nashville area. So coming here to be involved in the wine industry, Tennessee Whiskey was kind of fitting for her.
39:35
[laughs] And, uh, like I said, that's what she walked down the aisle to, not the Wedding March. And, uh, we were fortunate enough to go out to Nashville and see Chris in concert with my parents just a couple months ago.
39:46
He's got, he's got a lot of good music that's spoken to my life over the years and, uh- Good... uh, he's, it's good to sit down, listen to him, drink a glass of red wine at home and, uh, and, uh, enjoy it. Good.
39:57
Love to hear that. Hey, once again, you gotta check out Blanchard Family Wines, downtown Denver in the Dairy Block, and, uh, they've got Colorado product, they've got California products.
40:09
And, uh, course as we mentioned, one of the top 14 best wine bars in Denver from 5280 Magazine just recently. And, uh, thank you again, James, for c- for coming in today. You're welcome.
40:21
We, we love talking about, uh, we love talking about wine, we love talking about Colorado wine, so grab a glass and let's keep chatting. Got it. That's our show for this week.
40:32
Thank you so much for listening to Denver Wine Radio. Your homework for the week is to go out and taste some Colorado wine.
40:40
If you have any questions or comments, or just wanna let us know what you're drinking, go to denverwineradio.com, where you can email us or leave us a voice message. We'd love to hear from you.
40:51
And remember, put some altitude in your glass. [upbeat music] Produced and distributed by the Sound Off Media company
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