Winemaker Jon Leahy of Becker Vineyards

NOTE: This is an approximation of the audio content. Please confirm any specific quotes or facts with speakers before publishing. 

Shelly Wilfong  
Hey y'all. Did you know that 97% of us wineries are small, and that 85% are classified as very small. That's why it's so hard to find your favorite wines and discover new small producers in stores. Sommly wants to make it easier for wine lovers to discover. Hear the story and shop from producers of all sizes. The best part you can bring the winery experience home with orders delivered right to your doorstep. It's easy and free to support your favorite wineries. At Sommly you can search for and "favorite" wineries, give wineries great reviews and shop from wineries you won't find in retail. While you're there, you might discover some new ones to visit or even a new wine club to join.  Check out sommly.com. 

Looking for a custom crushed partner? Bending Branch Winery offers full spectrum beyond the bottle service. The experienced winemaking team specializes in red wine production. Advanced extraction options are available to get the most out of red wine grapes. Join Bending Branch and its clients in producing highly awarded wines. For more information email Dr. Bob Young at Bob at bendingbranch.com.

Welcome to This Is Texas Wine. I'm Shelly Wilfong, a wine educator writer, and Texas Wine Enthusiast. On this podcast, I share Texas wine news interview the most important people in the Texas wine industry and bring you the information you need to be a more informed Texas wine drinker. Thanks for joining me on this Texas wine journey. This is episode 62 And today my guest is Jon Leahy, the winemaker at Becker Vineyards, one of the first and one of the largest wineries in Texas. We take a look back at some of the most memorable wines he's made, his extensive travels, and what's next for Becker Vineyards. But first the Texas wine news and I've got a last minute ticket giveaway for Toast of Texas. Whether you're a regular listener are joining in for the first time. Welcome to This Is Texas Wine. 

Lana Bortolot has yet another new article in forbes.com that covers wine women in Texas. This is part of a series that she's done for Women's History Month. Her final article is called "Women and Wine, the Texas Torch Carriers." While the first article profiles the women who pioneered the industry, this article showcases the women that are carrying the torch forward. She writes about Karen Bonarrigo, Chief Administrative Officer and co owner at Messina Hof Winery. Julie Kuhlken, CEO and co-founder at Pedernales cellars and Roxanne Myers president of Lost Oak Winery. The article also named Susan Johnson, owner and co-winemaker at Texas Heritage Vineyard as an up and comer. I'm wondering if Lana listens to This Is Texas Wine because I've had all these women as guests on this podcast. 

750 daily recently published a feature article about how viticulture programs are shaping the wine industry. Author Shelby Vittex article "How viticulture programs drive success for emerging wine regions" has a strong focus on what's going on here in Texas. It also mentions programs in Colorado, Washington, Virginia and Minnesota. But the main focus of the article is on Texas and it highlights Maureen Qualia, a fourth generation Texas winemaker who went to California to learn winemaking in the early 2000s. I bet you've heard of Val Verde winery, the only Texas winery that survived prohibition. That's her family's place. While Maureen was studying and working in California. The Texas wine industry was growing from about 50 wineries in 2005 to 270 when she returned home in 2013. And that time Texas Tech University's Viticulture and Enology Department grew from a two year viticulture certification program in 2007 to a four year undergraduate degree in viticulture and enology. She said "My intention and going to California was always coming back to participate in the growing Texas wine industry. If it wasn't for our local programs, I don't think we would have seen this exponential rise in quality that we're seeing." The article says that Texas Tech offers the only four year degree for Viticulture and Enology in the state and that program started in 2009. It also offers non academic certificate programs. They've got a viticulture concentration that was launched in 2007 and also a winemaking concentration that was launched in 2012. And these are both geared towards second career people. They've had well over 1000 students complete these programs, which is a sizable group of wind professionals who are surely shaping Texas's industry. Maureen goes on to say "We can't produce enough students to fill the needs of the local industry. Every single one of our four Summer students has a job in Texas wine at this point." The article doesn't mention any of the other educational programs across the state but they're there from Grayson College to Texas A&M to the newcomer Palo Alto College in San Antonio. Oh and I almost forgot about Shriner College and Kerrville. In Texas we are rich with opportunities to learn about wine. 

And speaking of education, there are more opportunities than ever to get wine certifications under your belt at Texas wineries. The William Chris Wine Company is offering not only WSET courses, those are the internationally recognized Wine and Spirit Education Trust classes, but also a specific Texas Wine Ambassador certification that's the one that I took back in January. And if you're listening from a bit further south, you can also earn the WSET level one at Majek Vineyard and winery and Schulenberg. This is offered in conjunction with the Texas wine school. So folks go take the classes take the test and get the pins. There are several wine schools across the state where you can continue your WSET learning journey with higher level courses but it's pretty cool that you could get started on your wine education at a Texas winery. 

This summer, I'm taking another trip up to the Finger Lakes of New York to help judge the 23rd annual Finger Lakes International Wine Competition. If you've been listening for a while, you'll remember that I judged last year too and got to share a bunch of Texas wines during a presentation for my fellow judges. During that competition, Texas wineries won quite a few metals. These include Spicewood vineyards, they won a best in class for Tempranillo, Pedernales Cellars and Ron Yates won a platinum for Tempranillo. There were also tempranillos awarded double gold from Christoval and from Ron Yates and Sandy Road also went to gold for Tempranillo I could go on. So yes, Texas wines did really well in 2022. And in 2021. Also, these judges apparently like some really bold Texas wines, and no, I was not a judge at the tempranillo table. So I'd recommend that you check out this competition and feel extra good about entering because it's one of the largest charitable competitions in the world. The competition and other events held locally. All benefit children with cancer. The competition actually takes place at the summer camp where children with cancer can attend free of charge. Check out the entry process by clicking on the link in the show notes. All entries need to be received by May 12. 

Soon I'll be heading for the Austin area where I'll be attending the annual Wine and Food Foundation's Toast of Texas event on Sunday, April 23. And thanks to Texas Wine Growers I've got a couple of sets of tickets to give away. If you'd like a pair of tickets, please email me at Texaswinepod@gmail.com And those will be first come first serve and I'll get you squared away. This is for the main event which takes place from 2:30 to 5pm. Again, it's on April 23 at Star Hill Ranch in Bee Cave. That main event features a whopping 30 wineries and they're lining Main Street with tasting tables. It's a sip and stroll type event that also features a silent auction, yummy food, and lots of opportunities to chat with winemakers and winery owners. Now the VIP event that precedes the main event is sold out and while I appreciate all of your emails, I do not have any additional tickets to share for that event. But if you already have tickets to the VIP event, you'll be tasting my top five Texas wines and hearing from five fabulous winemakers. First of all, Claire Richardson is pouring a wine called Lou Adah, at least I hope I'm saying that correctly. It's a white Rhone style blend from Uplift Vineyard. That's the new wine brand from William Chris and it's a Marsanne / Roussanne blend. Ab Astris winemaker Mike Nelson will be pouring next and he's bringing Stello which is another style of white Rhone that features not only Marsanne and Roussanne, but also Clairette Blanche and Picpoul Blanc. Moving on to the red wines Barbara Lecuona from Siboney CellArs is another one of my picks and she'll be pouring Travis which is a GSM blend. That's Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre and yes, all three of the first three wines are Rhone blends. Next Spicewood vineyards is on my list and Ron Yates will be presenting. He's pouring The Independence. It's a Bordeaux style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petite Verdot and finally we're ending on a sweet note. Liz Kuehne, assistant winemaker at Wedding Oak Winery will be discussing their late harvest Riesling.  It's the only single varietal wine in the bunch, and it's a sweet wine. And basically every time I've tasted it, I wonder why I'm not drinking wines like that more often. All five of these wines are Delicious and I am thrilled to be able to share them with this VIP gathering. So congratulations to these five wines for making my list. Now all the attendees at Toast of Texas will have the opportunity to order these wines through a partnership with HEB. But only those attending VIP will be tasting these VIP wines on Sunday. Wine & Food Foundation hosts cool events like this one, all year long. You really should join the organization if you haven't already. I'll have a table there at the main event where I'm dispensing free Texas wine recommendations and advice and giving out some cute Texas wine postcards. So please come say hi, and email me if you want those free tickets to the main event. They're yours thanks to the generosity of Texas Wine Growers. Find links to all these stories in the show notes at thisisTexaswine.com. And that's the Texas wine news.

This is the time in the podcast when I asked you to do something for me and there are a couple of things that you can do for me today that are free and help grow the podcast. One is to share the podcast with others. You can do that on social media by tagging Texas wine pod and your stories and post thanks to Morgan Perry for her recent Instagram sharing that she was drinking Teroldego and she was inspired to do that after hearing my recent podcast episode with Kalasi Cellars. How fun is that? You can also review the podcast on Apple podcasts and on Spotify and leave a few remarks. This is especially beneficial to me now that my new website has a reviews section that pulls directly from both Apple podcasts and Spotify. You can even leave a review right on the podcast website. Thanks to my most recent reviewers. Jwhat photographer who gives the podcast five stars and says "The best wine podcast so great to have a podcast promoting Texas wine and our industry. Love everything Shelly is doing to promote what we have to offer in Texas." Thanks, John. 

And now it's time for our interview. Jon Leahy has run one of the biggest winemaking operations in the state at Becker vineyards. He's not from here. In fact, he was busy making wine in California when he was lured to Texas by the Beckers. After 11 harvests with Becker vineyards, he's made a lot of wine. He's made some changes. And he's made a lot of jokes. Here's our conversation. 

In preparation for our interview, I of course did a Google search on your name. And one of the first things that came up is "Becker vineyards new winemaker arrives for harvest" date, July 2012. By Jennifer McGinnis. 

Jon Leahy  
Yes, yes. So you've been here? Yes. I actually, yes, Iactually started on the fourth or sixth of June that year, so. And every year I get a reminder on our little payroll thing a year anniversary is so but yeah, I started in June of 2012. So this, this past harvest was my 11th harvest here at the winery.

Shelly Wilfong  
What on earth convinced you to come to Texas because you were making wine in California and had been for a while? Yeah.

Jon Leahy  
Yeah. Well, the speed limit here was a lot higher than in California. So that's true to know, I was actually recruited for the job. Dawn from Benchmark Consulting. She's the principal partner there. It's a winery or wine industry, Headhunters, you know, executive position, headhunter, and she called me one day and I met her off and on throughout the years, and she called me one day and she's like, I got your phone number from your friend Brian. And I was like, I don't any have a friend Brian anymore. He was funny. Anyway, she, at first, I was like, you know, I think that's great. You know, she goes, I understand you have family in Texas. And I'm like, Yes, I'm familiar with the area. But then she was like, We got to interview and I was like, No, I'm, I'm happy where I'm at, um, you know, in the middle of St. Helena, my office was my back patio at the time, and, you know, a mile and a half from my job site kind of deal. So she finally convinced me to take some wines, the Beckers shipped out a bunch of wines that they were making at the time. And they asked me to pair them with like varietals or like, styles from the immediate area. And I did and, and then I did a a recording, much like this, you know, pre recorded, where Dawn would ask me some leading questions and just record my responses, and I would discuss each one. And on the morning that we're getting ready to do that my wife was heading out the door for work, and she's like, how honest Are you going to be? I was like, Well, I'm going to tell the truth. And she just looked at me like, she's like, so you really don't want the job? Not me. You don't have to be mean, to be honest. Now. She was teasing me. So my wife has the same sense of humor that I do. But ya know, it was actually it was wonderful because the only ones that I tasted that had faults in the morn, horrible faults that were pretty much technical. faults, you know, that can be readily rectified with one experience or two. You know, if you've had that happen to you before and trust me, I've probably made every mistake you could possibly make. The the, what intrigued me was the quality of the fruit that was shining through that really was the reason I came out here was like, wow, this is going to be fascinating.

Shelly Wilfong  
Do you think the Beckers were expecting you to have anything critical to say?

Jon Leahy  
I think they were fully prepared for it. But Dr. Becker has an extraordinary palette. If you're going to say something critical, you better be able to back it up, because he can dive as deep as anybody else can into it. So and that that I've learned over the last decade, he does not mind honest opinion, and he does not want you to hold back. You know, he wants you to be forthright, you know, be honest and stuff, but you know, and be prepared to have a good argument, you know, which is a lot of fun. So, and of course, I can go all of almost 15 minutes without being a smart aleck.

Shelly Wilfong  
I can take it. Yeah. You mentioned that during the interview that you were interviewed by many growers, 

Jon Leahy  
oh,my gosh, oh, that was .... That was just unbelievable. The first thing we did is the then General Manager, Brett, who was the general manager, when I first came on board, took me on a tour of the High Plains. And here in the hill country of all of our growers at the time. Every single grower grilled me, like it was the final job interview for the CEO position of a multinational corporation. I mean, it was, it was hilarious. And I by the end, that was four days for very intense, long days, get back home. And I'm like, I don't know if I even have enough energy to have a cocktail.

Shelly Wilfong  
I guess they liked what they heard, though.

Jon Leahy  
I suppose. So. And I got a lot of good natured jabs are being from California, you know, it's where I was born, you know, I'm truly a Californian. And there are a lot of very interesting takes on what it is to be a California, especially here. There was not one rude grower that I dealt with at all, but they were not going to let it slide that I was through California. So it was kind of fun.

Shelly Wilfong  
Well, everyone, I'm sure wanted you to succeed if you were the person chosen they want to do to succeed because I think Becker's success is, is so good for our industry as one of the biggest wineries in the state.

Jon Leahy  
It is good for the industry. But everything that's good for the industry is happening right now. I mean, we have got some incredibly good, talented people in our industry. Currently, we've got great fruit, you know, you cannot make great wine without really good fruit, you can make really bad wine with any quality of fruit, you know. But if you're going to make truly great wine, you need good fruit. And these growers, probably some of the most conscientious, hard working people I have met in the industry in the last 25 years.

Shelly Wilfong  
And it seems like in the decade that you've been here little over a decade, fruit quality has has increased I know technology has absolutely. How's it different now going out to the high plains? 

Jon Leahy  
Well, it doesn't change overnight. First of all, any any real true quality differential that you're going to make, it's going to take, you know, anywhere from three to seven years to show a true shift. So they were really starting on it well, before I got here. You know, it was I think the analogy is with Jennifer and that first interview was like it was like being the backup quarterback, the star guy, you know, gets injured and you're getting ready to go into the playoffs. I mean, they've all the hard work has been done. And you just got to run a run that home run back, you know, you've got to get it done. It wasn't easy, but it he really see the quality there. Where they choose to plant, what varietals they're planting, knowing more about their soil, their structure, and then working with wineries. And I think probably the biggest improvement was there wasn't a grower we were dealing with it didn't want to know how and why we're making the wine the decisions that were going behind. Why did you choose to use this yeast or, you know, temperature? Or, you know, why did you put it in this barrel? What did you do and why, you know, they, they were very, very interested. And we've got a lot of good growers who are running their own labels now too. So it and you can't it's probably one of the few industries that you really cannot stress the fact that the more wineries the more variation on the fruit from the same vineyard. The more choices people have, the better it is overall, you get to see what creativity does you get to see somebody's view on what this cab should be like from this vineyard. You've got three or four people doing the same thing. Which is really important.

Shelly Wilfong  
And winemaking. You have a chance every single year to knock it out of the park or something else.

Jon Leahy  
Yeah yeah well let's not go into that something else. I I get butterflies every year right before harvest and I could become the nervous Nellie and I it because the only thing I can think of is like am I gonna mess this up? When I'm making the right call? Am I doing you know I said we're picking tomorrow though no matter what and then I go home and I'm like, oh god did I just messed that up? So, but yeah, you do you have every every year you have a different set of circumstances Mother Nature throws you curveballs left and right. You have new varietals that you're trying out or a new vineyard or you know, you've decided to do a barrel trial or a new yeast trial or something just to see if you can accentuate something that you really want and the idea there is, you know, taking one of our reserve Cabernets, for example, the Canada family vineyards up in Plains we we get about 40 to 50 tons of Cabernet from them and I'll break that cost comes in the same day or two, you know, two truckloads basically. So we'll break that up into six different lots of Cabernet from same vineyard, same block, and we'll try different use do different protocols on it. I ended up with six distinct Cabernets that I can then back blend together still be vineyard designate still be Cabernet. But the decisions made during fermentation and then aging vary. So that gives you a good palette to choose from.

Shelly Wilfong  
You have a lot of labels, a lot of SKUs... I don't know what to call them. You have a lot of SKUs at Becker

Jon Leahy  
we do indeed and as a winemaker, especially one that is, shall we say slightly focused challenged. I love to jump from project to project. It is wonderful. You not just SKUs but we we deal with 24 I'm probably gonna get this wrong. 24-25 different varietals all the way around. We've got Rhone varietals, we've got Italian varietals, we've got Spanish varietals, we've got Bordeaux varietals, you know, all vinifera and it's wonderful because I can make the some of my favorite things are some of these off the wall blends that we come up with for some of our standard labels like our ((??)) labels which are the four seasons so you get four different blends a year to play with. But then I also have some absolutely fantastic fruit like Merlot It's one of my favorite fruits to deal with. Merlot has got a audit and a development and a palette when it is fully ripe and fully expressive. It's just a gorgeous thing. And blends so well with Cabernet and petite for dough and walbeck. Cap Fronk, you know, you've got the five of the six major Bordeaux varietals there. So it is a lot of fun. But it is an organizational nightmare. Sometimes, as far as I'm concerned, like I've got to keep those listed out. I've got to know what excuse we have to develop when we're running out, you know, backdate that, you know, I've got to get this ready by then. So there's a lot of administrative detail that goes into it as well as the creative end.

Shelly Wilfong  
Do you have a big winemaking team supporting you?

Jon Leahy  
I do I have probably one of the best teams in the state. I'm not fully proud of the people I work with. And I'm very happy to work with him. Because these these folks can hold an argument they can tell you this is why we should change this the way we're doing it. Why did you do this? And then, and I'll counter with that sounds good. But I want it done this way. And this is why and then they're like done on it perfect. But you know, I've the core of my team has been the same since I arrived here. So we've got about eight people in the cellar, not including myself or the assistant winemaker. So 10 people total. And then I've got a great vineyard team out there, but a vineyard manager and five guys out there. And it is important to have that, you know, winemaking is not a spectator sport. It is it is a team and team effort completely straight across the board. I get to take all of the glamour at times and all of the responsibility to and sometimes I am the person responsible for those.

Shelly Wilfong  
Maybe the blame on occasion.

Jon Leahy  
Exactly, exactly. Yeah,

Shelly Wilfong  
that's a lot of a lot to keep straight. So I'm glad you've got some support. You had shared some statistics on a previous podcast that you did. And at the time, I think is a couple years old. But you talked about the case production here. Is that something you're wanting to share again?

Jon Leahy  
Yeah, we're we're mas o menos 100,000 cases. So we there are a couple of years that we went over that and a couple of years that were slightly under that and that holy depends on the fruit for that year and whether or not we had a very good harvest. You know, after my first year here in 2012, which was an outstanding harvest. And we were at at that point in time, I think we were around 60 or 70,000 cases that have to go back and look to get the exact number but roughly right around there. And we were on a gross projection for for several years but in 2013 we had that late spring freeze that, you know we lost 85% of the fruit straight across the state So, you know, we came in with very little fruit for the 2013 year and then 2014 was affected to anything that affects the grape vine this year will affect the next year's fruit as well. We came in with about 50% of projected contract, you know, the contracted volumes, and 15, we were back on track. And then 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. Were all excellent on on point ears. And then in 19, we had a the two pronged tragedy here was in September, we hit some record highs 103 105 degrees in the high plains in the respiration cycle on that plant shuts down and it just goes into a DORMANCY or mild dormancy, and you're waiting, the sugars aren't developing, and everything's just in, you know, holding kind of a suspended animation. Then a couple weeks later, you know, within 10 days, it starts the temperature start cooling off, starts producing again, less than a month later, the second stress that happened was right before Halloween, they went from the 70 degree high to a 23 degree overnight low. And that killed off some of the next year's buds, it damage some of the vines. It was funny, because it was the very older vines, the very younger vines that took most of the damage, but the mind and so that we're about five to 18 years old seem to do really well. But we did have quite a few of our growers had to cut some of the vines down and retrain. So that was a three year process almost. And so you know, in 20, our harvest was down really low. 21 was also low due to weather. And then of course, 22. We're just starting to come out of it. But we're also in a drought. So that's not producing this me further.

Shelly Wilfong  
When you see how certain varieties respond to the dramatic shifting weather. Does that make you want to focus more on certain styles or certain varieties certain blends and maybe cut others out of the program?

Jon Leahy  
It's funny, you say that you always have these great ideas and you know, but let me diverge from that question for just a moment. So part of the answer is, I always make wine on paper first. Every year, it's cheaper to make wine on paper. And if you don't understand what that means, it just basically means I tried to sketch out the vineyards, the tonnage is I know where some of the programs are gonna go to but what do I need to do? This is some of the trials I want to make, then you have to make that call when you start seeing the quality as it comes in. Yes, the weather does want me to, to scream sometimes, but I don't think it's ever made me want to drop a particular program. It just makes me wonder about the you know, this last summer, we had the hottest July on record. Yeah. And so it's like, okay, what are we doing? You know, how, how is that affecting? Do we need to shift the canopy? How's it the canopy management to keep the moisture in, you know, keep the sun off the fruit? What do we need to do? So? It can be frustrating. You know, like I said, Mother Nature's always gonna throw you curveballs.

Shelly Wilfong  
You've got a lot of growers on the high plains and in other parts of the state, I presume. But tell me a little bit about your estate vineyard.

Jon Leahy  
No, it's wonderful here, the right in the middle of planting, more than doubling our acreage here, where as a matter of fact, we're planting again tomorrow. And we've been planting this week. We're in the middle of a four year growth phase here on the estate vineyard. We're in year two of four. This year, we've we're gonna go from 45 to 90 acres. And, and actually, we were just discussing this this spring there. We picked up another piece of property here just across the road from our estate and we think we're going to develop about 10 acres over there. So it will be about 100 acres in the next three years. next five years 100 producing acres or roughly hopefully about five 450 to 500 tons of estate fruit so that's gonna put catapult us up into probably the largest estate vineyard winery in the state or if not the largest, it'll it will be pretty close. And that's just for estate grown fruit. So the potential of estate label on there, we're planning, Dr. Becker was the first one to plant Viognier in the state of Texas a number of years ago, replanting Viognier here on the property first time in almost two decades, and then we've planted some probably the biggest decision was that we're actually going to yank out the older Cabernet, and Merlot and replant with Rhone varietals in the very far back vineyard so that that vineyard is that's 30 levels 9092 to 1995 when it was planted. So it's time

Shelly Wilfong  
to just realize, yeah, so had you had Viognier that came out and now you're replanting it or you're just adding to what was already there? 

Jon Leahy  
We'reactually we had Viognier  and the Viognier  was actually yanked out several years before I arrived. And Dr. Becker really wanted to replant it and we had several environmental challenges that we had to overcome one of them which is flocks around finding some resistant rootstock. Which is ironic, since Texas is the one that supplies the flocks of resistant rootstock to the European replanting last century. The thing that we can't get away from, can't get away with here is complete 100% organic or biodynamic vineyard. The environmental pressures are just too great on some of those things like the powdery mildew index and things. But what we do here is an integrated pest management program. So that we're not excessively using anything. For the most part, you know, the Bordeaux mixture, which is one of the probably the easiest things to use the a blend of sulfur and copper, that take care of quite a quite a host of things. But one of the things with phylloxera was, like I said, trying to find the right root stock for the right area.

Shelly Wilfong  
After this four year planting program, will the estate be completely planted as much acreage as you have available to plant? Are you still have more?

Jon Leahy  
Oh, yes. Okay. Quite a bit. Yeah. The our vineyard extends from Jenschke's Road to Luckenback Road. Okay. Yeah. So we've got quite a bit in the back. That's good. We could plan if we want to do we've got the water too. So I don't I think, you know, 90 to 100 Acres is a lot to take care of. Sure.

Shelly Wilfong  
Tell me what you mean, we have the water? Because we all want water right now?

Jon Leahy  
Yes. Well, we were very fortunate in a line here in this part of the county that and we're the aquifers that we've got a couple of 400 gallon a minute wells that, you know, deep wells, we have not stressed them. You know, we try not to water unless we absolutely need to. But in the last two years, that's not been an option. It's been watered. And we're all literally crossing our fingers. praying for rain. That we do have the well capacity for what we currently have. And and we can certainly, if we ever decided to grow beyond that, I think we could, because we would have water to support it. But right now, since we started this a few years ago, ordering the grade bonds literally three and a half, almost four years ago, you're on almost a two year backlog on vines. We were not in the middle of a drought, we had plenty of rain and our aquifer was pretty high. So that's probably the only thing that will really stymie the growth pattern. If if we continue this trend. We may have to readjust, you know our thoughts and growth past what we have now.

Shelly Wilfong  
Maybe it'll rain someday, too.

Jon Leahy  
Oh, we can only hope.

Shelly Wilfong  
I want to talk a little bit more specifically about Cabernet Sauvignon. That's kind of my question du jour for a lot of people I've been interviewing lately because I feel like people have radical opinions pro or con. Yes, absolutely. And I want to know from you because you have made a lot of award winning Cabernet Sauvignon. What's the secret? What's the magic sauce?

Jon Leahy  
Being a smart aleck Irish winemaker, I think would be.

Shelly Wilfong  
Not everyone could be blessed. 

Jon Leahy  
First of all, it was California and as they come to call myself Irish is almost a joke unto itself. The patients, you really do you have to have patience with Cabernet is a workhorse of a grape. It always has been it's probably the best kept secret about Napa Valley's it's the easiest wine there to make. It really when you figure out how much environmental abuse that grape can take and still produce a good wine, it really is a great wine to teach somebody how to make wine. And and it's done quite frequently. I think here learning over the years about Cabernet learning how it expresses itself at what you know what, you know, fermentation temperatures do to it, what different yeast do to it, different programs. Cooler versus warmer ferments, you know how to bring forward you know, how to deal with things. You know, Cabernet is also notorious for pink berry, everything else can be fully ripe. And suddenly you got like, you know, three or 4% of the berries are pink and just not ripening up. But you've got to, you've got to grab it, it's time to harvest phonetically it's time to harvest and what to do with that, you know, tenant management, all of the decisions that you have to make, and every single one of those decisions has a pitfall on to itself. You know, I do believe Texas can grow and has grown and does produce good Bordeaux varietals. One of the things one of the very first articles I read in 2012 was another wine person with with an opinion stating that Texas was the wrong place to grow Cabernet. And so I was like well, that sounds like a challenge and see if they're if they're right i mean i read the arguments all sounded good and they were not just blowing off steam. They were literally laid out a really good argument about why they didn't think Texas was the right area. But after seeing the soils especially up in the High Plains, and here in the northern Part of of the hill country. I was just felt like that may not be true and I think I think we've proven that over the last decade. We've produced a quite a few award winning Cabernets,

Shelly Wilfong  
from many vintages so it's not like you just got lucky that one year

Jon Leahy  
right Well, I think I got lucky.

Shelly Wilfong  
Yeah, I actually had a quote that you said Cab is a workhorse, a great wine to learn on you can make good wine and make many mistakes and it's very forgiving grape.

Jon Leahy  
It is a very forgiving grape. Absolutely it is. Pinot Noir. Not so much. Yeah, Pinot Noir is a very temperamental grape. Bud makes a beautiful wine when you when you get it right.

Shelly Wilfong  
Is there a problematic grape that you think is equally troublesome in Texas?

Jon Leahy  
Depends on Yes. It's any grape that comes in at 4am and I'm not awake. But, no, I don't think so. Not for not for what I deal with. You know, I do have a couple of Rhone varietals that you do. Take some kid gloves. One of them is Counoise . The some people say it's a Rhone varietals a very obscure Rhone varietals normally used in a blender. And normally used mostly in the Chateauneuf du Pape area. But we do a single varietal bottling up and have a couple of times and we get it from a brilliant set of grapegrowers our mouths Yes, yeah. So So Nick Seaton and Anthony Ferguson are are just wonderful folks and really know what they're doing and they produce such beautiful fruit. And it's probably the easiest thing in the world is to tease Nick Seaton, which is a horrible habit I have. And he's a very forgiving man, thankfully. But wonderful. They grow some great Rhone varietals up there in the cocoon, while the first year we got it from them, you know, Kuhn was, is a very light colored grape. So like a real burgundy, it's a very, very light color on its own, and the color doesn't deepen until the vine gets older. So deepens a little bit so you've got to be prepared that is a red wine that's quite light in in color body is medium. So it belies the color belies the body. As is most the case with with grapes. The but it's got such a fruit punch to it that not fruit punch but a punch of fruit to it's that it brings out a lot of these these brilliant red fruit notes especially in blends along with Syrah and Grenache some of these more tannic varietals and this Counoise has lighter tannins so it helps mellow that astringent quality that those grapes have. But on its own we taste it out of the barrel we decided this will be fun just a bottle on its own for fun just a couple 100 cases here for the winery. You gotta hand sell it to people teach them that this is a rattle you're not normally going to find try it in it flew out the door. People grabbed it and and all I was looking for a Pinot, I think I like this and I can't fault him for that. But I can't say what's the Pinot substitute isn't, you know, there is no substitute for Pinot Noir but Counoise its own is a brilliant grape and we're just this last week we were up supporting the the Lubbock uncorked the wine industry up there, and we poured Counoise that that event and we that was the first one we sold out,

Shelly Wilfong  
right, yeah. I like it. I have to admit I haven't had as many single varietals read as I have Roses. Yes. So I enjoy those. Yeah, absolutely. I have a couple of wines that I want to mention that you've made. And I'd love for you to tell me what makes them unique, special or just yours. Your initial thoughts. I have three. The first is the 2019 Barbera from Tallent Vineyards.

Jon Leahy  
Oh, yeah. It's a beautiful wine Barbera. It's kind of like you know, you fall in love with that wine every year all over again, you really do. It's a brilliant wine it is very light and tannins so Barbera by itself is not going to last 30 years in the bottle by any longshot but only when it's ripe. phenolic ly ripe. It's a wine that just it's very seductive. You put that in the glass and there is not any food that doesn't go with it. And here's the brilliant part about is it doesn't need food. You can sit down and have a glass of wine with good company and it makes almost a golden moment in life on its own but Drew (Tallent) who is an absolutely great farmer. His vineyard sits up in in Mason sits on hickory sands primarily so these old you know 350 million plus year old deteriorated granitic sands. No phylloxera can grow on that. That's it's on its own on one area. And he just has a very deft hand with without and that Barbera has produced and we used to have the vineyard right next to him just a mile down the road and we grew Barbera up there to at the old Peters prairie vineyard. And the Barbera off of both of those we we had made a Barbera early on and have been a number of years between because I was using the Barbera and some of the Italian blends that we were doing and on and some other non traditional blends because that Barbera that velvet that offers it. And then a couple years ago, we're like, you know, we haven't done a bar pair in a while let's let's look at the Barbera from 19. And so we deliberately put it into some French oak brand new French oak a little bit and some brand new American oak to just to try. And we ended up blending them back together and it made this beautiful wine. So and it's done quite well.

Shelly Wilfong  
It has in fact, it's the most awarded Texas wine of 2022.

Jon Leahy  
Yes, yeah, it is. And it's the most consumed in my house.

Shelly Wilfong  
What I was a little surprised by is to see on the textbook that it's got some RS (residual sugar) 

Jon Leahy  
Yeah, it's just 4.5 grams. So it's just below the human threshold of sweet. Yeah. And that's not uncommon, especially with some of these really mellower varietals, you can have a complete fermentation and still have Rs, you know, they're of those six sugars that are in there, three of them are readily fermentable and one of them you can struggle with to get it to ferment all the way. When you get over five grams per liter or point five Rs, that's when you start to taste sweet on the receptors of your tongue. Below that you're really not you're tasting fruit, if you're tasting sweet, could be oak could be fruit to be a combo. One of the brilliant things and you'll you'll see it when you see on the tech sheets of some of these iconic Cabernet is to assure between two and three and a half grams of Rs in there, which is still considered dry. Anything below five is considered dry. Anything below point five is considered bone dry and doesn't always serve as the wine well. But with that, you get a roundness on the palate that allows the fruit to express the tannins to mellow, and the acid to blend together and it creates the back palate that finish. So for me when I'm looking at a wine when I'm judging a wine, I'm judging in a very simple method. Because I only have 10 fingers, I can't count to 100 I judge the palate front, middle and back and I assign on numerical score to that one, one and two for the front palate three and four for the middle and five and six for the back. And then I'll try through the lifetime of the wine in the barrel when I go through tasting the wines. I start writing my notes and then the scoring and see if the scoring changes and that helps me two and a half years later when I'm or three years later, you know we keep our wines in barrels for for quite some time here. And that was one of the things that I probably the biggest influence I had honestly was starting to age the wine to its full maturity. When I come back then a few years later, I'm able to go back through the notes and see okay, this is what I felt like when it was young when it was this you know, this is very awkward young line to starting to show the majority to what I feel is ready to be to be bottled and then that helps him gonna come back to to do some cross blending to

Shelly Wilfong  
smart. I like that. Wine number 2. 2017 Unita blends Cabernet Sauvignon. Tell me about that.

Jon Leahy  
Oh, that was fun. So have a good friend of mine who was a mentor early on in my career, Corey Beck was the president of Coppola wines. And I called my boss Dr. Becker one day and said, Hey, we noticed you do a claret and we do a claret and we would like to get together and do a claret together. And they were very excited. And Cory forgot to mention that he knew I was the winemaker here. He didn't really I just assumed everybody would talk and then the buzz was they're coming for a meeting to see if we can do a blend with Coppola do a 50%, Texas 50% California blend, label it as such, you know, do this just for fun. And it really was just for fun project. And it was very flattering to the day that Cory and his team members arrived. I was on the bottling line with my guys solving one of those little tiny hiccups that usually happen at the modeling. Yeah, that most opportune time. I think the boring the most boring day on the bottom lines the best day in the world. It means nothing exciting has happened. So I was running about five minutes behind for the meeting. I walked over there, open the door and I was like, tell me you got your shots before you came into the state. And I thought I thought Dr. Becker just looked at me like why do you have to be that way? So no, it was it was a lot of fun we took so the idea behind it was I got to go through and taste all the wines from California in here. And I matched up and one of the caveats the for the agreement was that I got to blend the wine and and I at that time I didn't really care about that was Cory it asked if I would mind doing that if he you you blend the wine so they sent us all these samples of wines from the different Sonoma vineyards and I was already familiar with most of those vineyards to begin with. So if I took the blend was you know if I used 30% Texas Cabernet then I used 30% California Cabernet. So it took me a long time to make that blend. I wanted to make sure that it was equal 5050 to the cab and I think it's cab, cab franc and Merlot are well in there that ended up being in the final blend.

Shelly Wilfong  
And was that just a one year project or two? Yeah, just one time.

Jon Leahy  
We made quite a bit of it. We sold quite a bit, but then we held back some so that we could release it later here at the tasting room. And then yes, it was a lot of fun. And 2017 great year for Texas. Oh, absolutely. It was bad year for Houston. But a great year for the grapes in the high plains.

Shelly Wilfong  
The final wine and and to tell you the truth. I'm not sure where I got this information because I didn't actually see this one on your website. It may be from one of your recent tastings from Facebook. The 2017 Semi on from being in vineyards.

Jon Leahy  
Oh yeah. And that was a fun project. That was me having a lot of fun. So 2017 was extremely ripe here and Semillon which is a wonderful white Bordeaux varietals. It does blend very well with Sauvignon Blanc and it also does a very nice dessert style if you let it go into a late late harvest style dessert wine. But we harvested it I think it was about 24 and a half Brix. I tend to go overripe on a lot of fruit because I'm looking for phenolic ripeness. So there's sugar as a secondary concern, until I decide that I'm smelling and tasting. Now I do look at the chemistry and just don't ignore it. You know, that's also extremely important. And I actually default to looking at that first and foremost and start on the phenolic end of it. It just turned out that it was just such a gorgeous wine. And then I had about 10 barrels. I was like you know, the French, and sometimes the Aussies make a gorgeous white Bordeaux that's been barrel aged for a number of years. I was like I want to try that. So I hit the wine right next to my office and in plain view of everyone. We aged it for 44 or 46 months before we bottled it. That was barrel aged the whole time. Self topped. And it was funny because about two and a half, almost three years into it also door my office opens up and it's Rachel are the assistant winemaker and the enologist. And she just gives me this look like. And said looked at me she goes, Do you even have a plan for that? Because do you know they're still 2019? Semillon back there? I was like, yes, please don't tell anybody where it's at, you know, and then it was about 42 months, 41 or 42 months into it. Dr. Becker found it. And he's like, Is this is this labeled correctly? And I was like, Yes, sir. It is. He's like, we need to taste this. And I was like, No, we really don't. I said it's a very bad wine. It's horrible. I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. He's like, Oh, no, no, we're tasting it now. He tasted it. It was so good. We actually have another follow up on the 2019 Vintage that it's still out and barrel being aged currently. Oh, yeah. We did we bottled it. And we're, you know, a small amount. And everybody's like, how are we going to sell this, you know, people are even gonna be used to it. I was like, Look, taste it. It is definitely a wine for food. I said, or a slice of hard cheese. You know, whatever you want. But it we sold all on there was 245 cases that we ended up bottling in they went out the door. Quickly. It took less than nine months to disappear. Yeah, it was accepted very well. And it went into a couple of nice restaurants. There were a couple of chefs that were very happy to have something that expressive.

Shelly Wilfong  
And then I told John that I noticed that the alcohol was quite high on this wine.

Jon Leahy  
It was because it was extremely ripe. times And yes for a white wine. But if it was not hot, yeah, so it was imbalance and that's probably my, my biggest thing about wine is balance. I really could care less what the final alcohol is. I'm not making alcohol and making wine. Alcohol is a legal requirement to lay label it is an adult beverage. I'm not encouraging you to go out and drink for the alcohol but it is it to me it's secondary. If it's not dominant, then I'm making the balance is there. You You're not going to smell it initially. You're not going to taste it. It's not gonna be hot on the palate, then you're fine. Whether that's 13% or almost 17%. Yeah, but that wine carried itself very well with what you're gaining in the oak and the probably the trickiest thing to learn was one of the things Chardonnay, Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, they will all do this. When you put a good white wine into 100% new oak like Chardonnay, that's probably the thing that most people are going to be familiar with. Six to nine months into it, you're going to start tasting all of those toasted flavors that's going to be almost overwhelming. And your first reaction is I've overdone it. We need to yank it out. I can't have more oak That's the wrong thing to do, that will guarantee that you will only taste toasted notes in that wine for the remainder of its bottle life. You leave it in wine to me like a brand new Chardonnay in brand new French oak needs to say a minimum of 24 months, you go through this gangly period, you get this period where it's like super toasted, no fruit, no florals, and then it suddenly blooms about 18 to 21 months, it suddenly comes out again, you've kept it in a reductive atmosphere, you have protected those floral components, those terpenes are, are tight in there. And then suddenly, a little introduction of oxygen and they break apart and you get all of those notes back. And you've protected the wine and that wine has been made in such a manner that it will stay really true to its varietals and true to its character for a number of yours in that bottle. And that's that's the real magic about oak is you get those interplay with the tannins. You'd have the the benefit of aging in there, and then the slow oxygen absorption during the aging process. Yeah,

Shelly Wilfong  
you've got me craving a white burgundy right now. Thanks a lot.

Jon Leahy  
And when you find a good one, it's really good. Yeah.

Shelly Wilfong  
Yeah, if you can afford it. My goodness, I know. I know. Right? Well, you've brought up some of your thoughts on Oak. Tell me you said that was maybe one of the biggest changes you made. So 10 years ago, were most of the wine stand in stainless are a lot of neutral. Oh, can you introduce more new or just tell me about your whole theories and or your whole approach around oak,

Jon Leahy  
we and we have always done a little bit in stainless. And yes, we did some then the the oak program wasn't huge when I got here. But they were also turning around a lot of wines pretty young, you know that a lot of demand. So and there's a different way to make wine when you need to release them young versus when you can age them. So it wasn't that they were producing bad wines at all they weren't, it was just a different style. And in a very accepted style was a much much more fruit forward style. And I still like fruit forward wines. And I still do that. And most of my style choice can be cataloged as fruit forward. The age in process that I like is the protection of the wine and then showing what a mature wine can do. You're never going to know the maturity of the wine industry until you have those mature wines until you can show that these are vintage. These are true classic vintage wines. And that it's a slow process because they you know, when I got here, they were buying a couple of 100 barrels from a different from a MK barrels. Wonderful American oak, we switched over to a demo. So American barrel, it comes from the same family farm in southern Missouri that that's been producing barrels for 150 180 years, same family wonderful area. And then we also added some (brand) French oak forest as it is very, very tight grain. So if you're going to age a wine for more than 18 months, you need a very tight grain barrel in there, and that that has a lot to do with the origin as well as the the uptake of tnn and toasted notes. So we slowly started adding and as we grew, our fruit contracts grew, we had to grow the barrel program more than I started saving the oak instead of every three or four years, I started saving it 5,6,7 years to keep that neutral barrel. I wanted more neutral oak in there. And, you know, generally, the general rule of thumb don't like something more than 20 to 25% new oak but final blending. You know, when I say blending, I'm not just talking about blending mirlo With Cab and Cab Franc, but the same cabs together with some will wage a new some Allegiant neutral, or some will be stainless, you know, a small amount just to see if I can keep that fruit. But the oak, so it takes a number of years to get that aging program going and increasing the volume and getting that going. So it's a lot of planning,

Shelly Wilfong  
and a huge capital investment. Yeah.

Jon Leahy  
Absolutely. And it was very fortunate to work for a successful winery that has a good cash management. You know, we it's probably one of the few wineries that I've worked for that actually have solved all. We can only buy it if we can pay for it. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Very, very stable. A

Shelly Wilfong  
lot of big fans of Becker, I actually saw a Facebook group called something like we think Becker is the best winery in Texas. join this group, if you agree. And there are a bunch of members, maybe it's all your wine club, which is huge, by the way I hear. Yeah, it's fair. sighs Yeah, that's great. And you do fun cruises.

Jon Leahy  
We do we're actually getting ready to do Bordeaux this summer in July, July of 2023. So we were doing six days on the ALMA Alma waterways is our cruise where a wine host we've done a multiple Winehouse cruises with them. We've done the Rhone from Amsterdam up to Basel  Switzerland we've done the see this last year we did two, two cruises in 2022. We did a July cruise the colors of pronounce. So he started up in Burgundy went down through Leon all the way down to Arles. And that was a wonderful, wonderful trip. And in November, just this past November, we did the upper Danube. So we started in Budapest, and then went up through Austria. And one of the wonderful things is I'd never been to the Wachau, so I just had wonderful wines from there but to see, to smell to experience and it was latter part of November right before Thanksgiving. So it started snowing when they were Lintz. Christmas markets were open if you talk about just a romantic time. And, and then my wife and I were walking around and most of the tour group had left to go to Strasborg and we stayed to walk around the town and go to the Christmas market. And the funniest thing was the 20 Something Austrian kids who are all like six foot six to you know, sculpted blond hair, blue eyes, brown hair, green eyed, you know, very happy and they just walk around and there's in a pack and then all of a sudden they're doing these shots at the Christmas market and they're doing this champ shot and then all of a sudden one of them in turn around and one of them comes running up and he's dressed as a clown and he's got a a twister game. The old fashioned Twister game, he throws it on the ground and guys do the shot doing twist.

Shelly Wilfong  
That sounds like a party.

Jon Leahy  
It was it was awesome. And I was just sit there looking locked in and I look over and this other guy is about my age. Austrian gentleman's looks over looks at me. He's just like,

Shelly Wilfong  
another day in Austria

Jon Leahy  
exactly another day. But we had a wonderful time we got to meet a lot of great people. You know, it was just fantastic. So very, very fortunate. Yeah, those those cruises are very nice. And we're doing we're actually going back to to the Mosel on the Rhine and 2024 November 2024. We're doing a trip. That'll start in Luxembourg. And then it'll go up the Mosel and then hit the Rhine and we'll go up the Rhine to about Switzerland. Again. So I'm going to make a Riesling this year, in order to have Texas reasoning on that trip to for a little fun comparison.

Shelly Wilfong  
I like it. Who's growing it?

Jon Leahy  
I'm going to try to steal some from jet Wilmoth if he lets me 

Shelly Wilfong  
So Becker has a very large production and I guess is the second largest winery in Texas.

Jon Leahy  
I believe. So.

Shelly Wilfong  
Is it possible that Texas can grow all the grapes that Becker needs for full productions?

Jon Leahy  
Yes, as a matter of fact, so probably the the biggest complaint I've seen through the years is that our Iconoclast mine wasn't all Texas. And the So five, six years ago, we decided that we were going to make that change all Texas and I, I know this is hard to believe, but it does take five or six years for the grapes to produce, you know, three to five is what people say. And in all reality, it's five to seven years before vineyards fully productive. And you can't just turn on a dime, you know, I can't just say I'm gonna have 500 tons of this fruit next year, I've got to find if it's available, if it's not I got a grower that can plant it and grow it we you know, in partnership. So it's taken a number of years. So we our icon program is all after 2020 Vintage is going to all be Texas, and that was probably the biggest, you know, investment in time and energy stuff. But it it it's the mark of a immature to mature industry area. And there is nothing wrong with being all you know wanting to be all Texas and everything. We've been very, very proud of that. It's there's we've got damn good fruit. And we do make good wines. But we also had a market to support ourselves. And I think the smartest thing was the business plan. So that icon program built a lot of what this winery is. So and then to take it to all Texas is just the mark of to me of great success.

Shelly Wilfong  
Tell me more about that label. It's that right behind you. Okay, the middle and right now that brown and like the Iconoclast. Yes, that's a cab.

Jon Leahy  
Yeah, we had we have a cab in there. And then we have a Merlot. Okay, so they're two different wines. Right, right. Gotcha. Yeah. And they're two different slightly different colored labels to delineate. And so we're redoing that label to in honor of the fact that we're going to be doing that. So I know. I t's I always say that looks like Teddy Roosevelt, but it's actually I belief self portrait of Tony Bell, who's the artist responsible for a lot of the artwork on the on the labels.

Shelly Wilfong  
Cool. That's one of your larger production. Two of your larger production lines.

Jon Leahy  
It is in the Tempranillo and the Chardonnay and the Claret are all very large production wines. So a lot most of our wines are very small production wines. They're very you know, they're six to 900 cases each kind of thing but the larger ones like our tempranillo which we have a tempranillo reserve and a tempranillo regular temperature which is our distribution market temperature. So we purchased about 180 190 tons of tempranillo throughout the state to make both of those wines plus the Touriga national that I use as a little blender in the in the Tempranillo, and then the Cabernet for the icon cab was the biggest challenge the cab and Merlot getting getting enough together so we finally got enough planted and enough into maturity that we're able to do that. But then the claret is always been a Texas you know, blend of the Bordeaux varietals available in Texas and then of course the the we also do Sauvignon Blanc. So there there were very few sources of Sauvignon Blanc when I first got here but now there are about four or five vineyards that produce a heavy amount of Sauvignon Blanc.

Shelly Wilfong  
The Becker website mentions that Becker is the largest purchaser of premium Texas grapes in the state. 

Jon Leahy  
Yeah, so two years ago, when we sat down and started looking at that we were we were looking at it at that time we were we were purchasing about 12 and a half percent of all of the available fruit and in Texas so we have we have a ferocious appetite for grapes.

Shelly Wilfong  
I love that you're planning more vineyard vineyards too because

Jon Leahy  
it really is a great investment especially here this for the the estate I mean, if we get a full production of 500 tons that's gonna feed quite a few of our programs or help feed quite a few the programs because we're planting you know Grenache, Syrah, you know, Mourvedre Cab franc, Tempranillo, Viognier, Chardonnay. Barbera. I'm trying to get a little bit of Charbono to plant so

Shelly Wilfong  
yeah, don't skimp out on that Barbera anymore. We want the single varietal Barbera going forward. Yeah, this is another potentially touchy subject but are you still doing the for sale in Texas only?

Jon Leahy  
Oh, yes. And I did a yes. On the couple of labels because it has absolutely nothing to do with fruit coming from outside of the state. It has everything to do with one thing the legal the legal COLA that allows you to sell across state line. And if you don't want to you don't have to you can for sale and state in any State of the Union as a winery and I love the the misinformation that came out several years ago about that. So it was like oh, yeah, we'll just make all Texas want to put up for sale state. Oh, like, you go there. Here you go.

Shelly Wilfong  
So it actually is Texas wine.

Jon Leahy  
Yeah, most of them are now we do when we do make like the Icon, the Icon wine or and 2013. We had a few few wines that were not Texas to save the market. And this is where I think the core of that criticism arose. From the 2014 season when we we released several other wines that were not all Texas when we took Texas off the label and we put for sale in state only Yes, because we did not do an interstate commerce cola on there. In order to do that you'd have to have an appellated and American appellated versus no appellation at all. It really there's you're only allowed to appellate if you are from that state or from a conjoining state. Like I could appellate New Mexico wine here in Texas, make it in Texas and call it New Mexico because we share a state state border. But if I buy grapes from Washington or Oregon or California, or you know, Missouri, I cannot apply it from there. Because I don't have a contiguous border to them and Texas. So American appellation is for that. But For Sale in State only covers two major things. One, it's not from the state and you're not a cola, and you're not shipping out of state, I can't ship those wines to our wine club. I can't distribute them out of state because there's no interstate commerce cola on there by the Fed. Or it is your small winery. And there are a couple of our neighbors here in Texas that were always labeled For Sale in State Only and were 100%, Texas, and always felt bad when that argument came out. It's like they don't want to ship out of state they're making 1000 cases and selling it here. Why would they have to get a Fed cola? Now they're free. Don't get me wrong. I mean, it's the easiest thing to do. You just supply them with the artwork and what the wine is, and they tell if it meets the interstate commerce standard, and they approve it and you're done. There's no fee involved, that's probably a great service, actually, that are one of the great services that our government does, especially for business. So it can be both of those now for us 99% of the time and for sale in state is because it is not 100% Texas, and hopefully we won't have another freeze like 13 And since we've already planned and taking the five to now almost seven years to get to where we're going with the icon that it will all be state and we that's why we're redoing labeled for the icon for our next minute. And it's not as touchy subject. I mean, it's just it's what's required. You know, there's a state and federal requirement to produce alcohol and I have no choice but to follow the letter of the law. Yeah, so and when I love it when People argue about things that are like that. They just know, I was like, well, good, good for you, please don't do that you're gonna get in trouble.

Shelly Wilfong  
Indeed, I don't want to end on that note, I'm gonna ask you kind of a final question about about your next 10 years in Texas. How do you think the industry is moving forward positively? And then also, what do you think we need to do to really take it to the next level in Texas in the next 10 years?

Jon Leahy  
No, that's that's a long, so you got another hour?

Shelly Wilfong  
Let's open some of those wines.

Jon Leahy  
Oh, yeah. I'm sure I'll make really good, good conversation. First of all, yes, I think Texas is on a great track. Are you kidding me? We have world class wines. And I'm not the only one producing them. I'm be foolish and very egotistical to say so there are some really good people. And when I taste good wines, I think one of the things that that I, I always think this is really good. How do I make one that good? And how do I do that? I mean, always, and it's not jealousy? It's almost a little bit of like, almost impostor syndrome, you know, like, did I really do I mean, is that, you know, you're constantly challenging yourself. So you can find that I can go out and taste wines for my neighbors and find those wines. That's a great sign. That's a sign that people are doing great. We're making wonderful fruit and we're making wonderful decisions. We just don't have enough fruit. We need more vineyards, you know. And yes, I think in the next 10 years, we're going to see that I think we're going to see an equilibrium met with demand and fruit. And and I think the next big step is out of state distribution on a broad scale by many different wineries, to get people to know there are enough people that have been coming as tourists now that you know, the word is out slightly. And we do have a couple of neighbors who they make it a point to sell wine in like New York, or in Atlanta or Chicago, you know, in a limited amount there to give people some choices. But I think the real key and the key to our success is convincing Texas restaurants to carry Texas wine and not apologize for it. There's nothing to apologize for, but it is an uphill fight. With a lot of restaurants in this state. It's not an uphill fight with his Texas consumer. And Texans love to support Texas there. And that is one of the best things that I ever came across. I thought this was while it was like kind of cool. Imagine if California or Oregon's or Oregonians felt the same way and just 110% went by and there was like, we obviously pretty, but you know that Texans love to support Texas products. And, and now we just need to convince, you know, I was in a restaurant that bragged about everything from Texas, except their wine list. And they have not had did not have one wine from Texas. And when I asked, you know, and they're like, Well, you know, Texas doesn't produce good wine. I said, Well, here's my card. Why don't you come up and see if I can change your mind? Yeah,

Shelly Wilfong  
yeah, sometimes that people in our own state that are the hardest to convince sometime, right?

Jon Leahy  
Yeah. But no, I do. I have great feelings. I think, you know, there's a lot of good talent out there. There's a lot of good people that have been working in this industry for a long time have had a lot of really good influence on it. And I really see, we're starting to attract out of state talent to people who want to come here to make wine that have been making wine and other places. So that's a great sign. Yeah, I love it. I'm very optimistic for it.

Shelly Wilfong  
Well, thank you for your time and expertise and all you've contributed to this place in this industry.

Jon Leahy  
I've enjoyed every minute of it, actually, you know, all the frustrations as well as the accolades 

Shelly Wilfong  
and the cruises.  

Jon Leahy  
And the cruises. Yeah, I think one of the best things I enjoy is it, honestly is my wife and I get to sit down in the evening and have a glass of wine. So it's like, this is fun. I made this. here,  have glass. That's perfect. Yeah, she's always been the one I want to impress the most.

Shelly Wilfong  
How sweet. I don't want to keep you from her any longer. Oh, no. I appreciate your time.

Jon Leahy  
She's just gonna make me mow the lawn.

Shelly Wilfong  
Anything that you didn't say that you want to say? 

Jon Leahy  
I think a shout out to to all my fellow wine people in Texas and a big thank you. Just wonderful supportive wonderful people. And it really it it's been very gratifying to be able to work in an industry with as many good people.

Shelly Wilfong  
Thanks, John. Stay tuned for demerits and gold stars.

I'm just back from a great weekend in Waco where I attended Rootstock Wine Fest and had a great time I saw a bunch of Texas wine lovers and podcast listeners there too. So my gold stars go to Sarah holder, the festival director to Joey bagnasco and the rest of the team Valley Mills vineyards and to all the festival volunteers for handling every last little detail from curating the list of wines that was for that day to hanging the twinkle lights for the VIP dinner. Speaking of the VIP dinner, it was an incredibly picturesque and delicious wine paired dinner that was set up on the Washington Street Bridge that stretches over the Brazos River and it was just a dreamy night so huge congrats to the whole team. And thanks to James Smith at Chateau Wright for assembling my tent, which by some miracle didn't get blown into the Brazos. It was very, very windy. And that's it for this episode. I'll be back in two weeks with an interview with Phil Lopez of Silver Spur Winery in Hico. Get in touch, you can send your feedback questions or ideas for future episodes to Texaswinepod@gmail.com. Don't forget to check out the episodes that you might have missed. There's a lot of good stuff in every one. If this podcast resonates with you, please consider supporting it by going to the website and clicking support the podcast. That's where you can donate virtual Texas wine which is actually just a donation to my podcast expenses. I really appreciate it. You can do that at thisisTexaswine.com. And finally, thanks to Texas wine lover website for promotional assistance. Texas wine lover is here to help wine lovers discover more Texas wine but they're also a resource for the wine industry. They've got a complete list of all the vineyards in our state. So if you're a winemaker looking for more grapes use that list to find out which vineyards are growing the grapes you're interested in. That's at TX wine lover.com Cheers, y'all.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai