Alright guys, welcome to another episode of live with a cork in the road and I'm Kelly. I'm your wine Explorer here in Atlanta, Georgia and I am chatting with people who are shaping the southeast wine industry
Hello, thanks for pushing play today on episode 104 of the cork in the road Podcast. I'm Kelly, your host and I'm excited to share this conversation with Alice Anderson of Âmevive wine. This was recorded live at preens le pop up here in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was during Alice's very first visit ever to Atlanta and after some coffee and pastries arrived from the airport and some hugs from Perrine and Claudio's kids at the wine shop. She sat down with me for this recording and just share a little bit about her journey in wine on leave as a small winery based in Santa Barbara County and Alice her partner farm, a historic 10 acre vineyard that was planted in 1971. We talk about how and why she chooses to use biodynamic and regenerative organic farming practices that allow her to focus on the ecosystem of the vineyard as a whole. She also talks a little bit about the chickens, sheep and ducks that roam throughout their vineyard. This was really really fun to have her in Atlanta to visit because her wines are relatively new to the Georgia market, but they are already captivating an audience they are made with intention, attention to detail and even the labels are special because they are all designed by her mom. These are wines with community at heart and you'll hear her passion for producing energetic wines that are good for the planet and that represent a sense of place. So thank you, Alice for being on the show. And thank you to Bon Vin selections a wine and spirits wholesaler and importer based here in Atlanta and former podcast guest Steven Meir for making this conversation possible. And of course a special thanks to Claudio and Perrine of Le pop up for providing the perfect recording studio space for Alice's visit. Coming up for a fork in the road LLC. I'm so excited about our next event at epicurean hotel here in Atlanta on May 13. I'm teaming up with Donna of P Sherrod, my design partner for the leather wine pocket handbag that we created, to host a wine and fashion pairing showcase. We have three other local Atlanta designers onboard from clothing and jewelry to design five looks that will be paired with wines and dishes for five themed experiences for all of our guests guests will also have a chance to shop the looks and meet the designers after the event so you can head to www.org under a.com. For the ticket link, I think there were only 13 or something left though the last time that I checked before we sell out the Epicurean theater so head that way if you're interested in joining us on May 13. Our wine pocket handbags are available for purchase right now on wine enthusiast.com with free shipping, but we also will have those bags available on site during the showcase for all other event updates you can follow at a fork in the road on Instagram because I'm also about to release the ticket link for my next blind tasting event at the oenophile Institute here in Georgia details to come but let's just say you don't want to miss this because it will involve a twist on the typical blind tasting format and a cash prize. There are quite a few other fun things in the works right now. So I'm just feeling very grateful and excited these days. Thanks for being here. The next episode will drop the week of May 15. So until then, may the fourth be with you. Cheers. And please take care
We totally match. This is the Podcast outfit if you guys didn't know - well, welcome to Atlanta. It's so good to have you. We are recording the podcast here from Le pop up in Atlanta. Welcome, Alice.
Thank you. It's so nice to be here.
I feel so lucky to have you here. Because you've been on tour. You've been on tour this whole week like bus tour. Alice shows up. You roll in. You've been on the road all week, though.
Yeah, it's a bit of a mad dash to get all of my life together. I get literally the ducks in a row for leaving town for a few days. But yeah, I did a little event with my California distributor on Wednesday, New York for two days. And here we are in Atlanta for the weekend.
You can get on a plane at 6am. And you can be having coffee with me in Atlanta for a podcast at 930 in the morning. So thank you so much. Is this your first time in Atlanta?
This is my first time.
No, wait. Okay, so I actually did not know that. And I'm thinking this is a big deal to have your wines now here in Atlanta and we walk in and there are your wines on the table in the pop up. How does it feel to walk into a shop and see your wines?
Yeah, it's amazing. I'm super grateful for the support and for Steven at Bon Vin for believing in me and sharing my wine with his community and most importantly telling the story because I think the These wines are a little bit different than the, you know, the standard version of California. And they often need a little bit of a story to really understand them and get them in the right hands. So it's really cool. Yeah, it's humbling and awesome.
To see these wines and to see people you have a big fan following here in Atlanta already, and these wines just arrived. But you're on the road, showcasing your spring release. And I've seen a few of your club members posting their shipments as well. So tell us what's in the spring release right now. We'll just start there with what are you putting out in the world?
Yeah, for sure. I actually have a couple of club members in Atlanta. So I told them about what I'm doing today. So hopefully we see them along the way. First wine in the 2023 spring offering is Albarino. Albarino is from Martian ranch vineyard, it's a certified organic biodynamic vineyard. The next wine is from the estate. So it's actually 2021 Vintage skin contact Marsanne, which has become a really interesting and one of my favorite wines of the spring release. The third wine is a nonvintage sparkling Mondeuse which is a bit crazy my first attempt at a red sparkling wine, but happy with the outcome and you know, excited to evolve it in the future. But it's mostly 2021. So 2021 is the base wine made like a red wine. And then I use the residual sugar from the 2020 to ferment to add the natural bubbles, and then I disgorge it so it's mostly clear. The fourth wine is back at the estate. So it's a wine called periphery which has become one of my favorite wines to make. It's just beautiful. It's a co fermented field blend of the three varieties of old vines on the property. So Marsanne, Syrah, and Mouvedre all picked together from the same spot in the vineyard, dish them together and it just makes this totally different style of Rhone wines something you've never experienced before. And really true. The truest wine from Ibarra-Young from the old vines. And Okay, the next one I forget what number I'm on at this point. Is Gamay, so 100% whole cluster gamay from a vineyard I used to make wine for a few moons ago 2018 to 2020 I convinced the owner to graft viognier over to gamay for me and I've been sourcing the grapes ever since. So that was one of the wines that I originally released with my start in 2019 with Âmevive and still love making the wine today. So that was Albarino Marsanne, sparkling red, periphery, gamay, rose. Also you get rose, a rose a from the estate
number 500 in the lineup, okay.
Yeah. Number six is rose from the estate, graciano, which is my brightest fruit that I that I grow a little bit of skin contact. It's a really bright pink color. It's fun to drink and fun to make.
So a rainbow of Âmevive wines shows up in these packages across across the country. And they're so excited to get this because the way that you talk about them, they're so close to your heart like these wines are truly designed from your creativity and what you like to drink. Did I also see though, that in this release, you're getting a bonus collaboration product. Some people were showcasing what comes in the package with the wines.
So I as part of my wine club, I also offer a plus provisions component to it. Not everyone's in the press plus provisions club. But at least half of the wine club is which is really exciting because the whole thing with plus provisions is to feature other artists feature other creators. So it changes every shipment and it tends to be someone that's close to me in some way or or a product that I enjoy. And it's always handmade and thoughtfully created and curated. So this time was a provision by my one of my best friends, Rachel jabroni. She has a outdoor origami surface company called Kama. So it's essentially a platform for recreating outside in any form so there's a hard bottom and a little bit of a foam layer on the top and it's really really durable, waterproof fabric, totally washable. And using the scraps of her normal product. She wanted to create something for The plus provisions clubs so she created these amazing little sacks that kind of double is dry bags or anything you could imagine lunch pails, beer, koozies impromptu ice buckets. So they're all fun colors inside, outside, they change. And I had a good time choosing colors for, for my special provisions plus wine club members. So that was fun.
And it's a friend of yours like this is a true collaboration. It's just for your members, just for your wines, collaboration all around. And I see this, of how you talk about your wines and then talk about the people that are involved. It is a group effort all the time. And I heard some really cool words used to describe the wines that you just told us about. So I've seen people say pure bottle joy. I've seen people say light on their feet, or ethereal are these words that you ever use when you're speaking about your wines.
Yeah, you know, ultimately, I want to create something that brings you life. I want to create a wine that's energetic on its own something that when you fill a glass and and enjoy it, you feel lifted. You know, you don't you don't feel tired at the end of the day. And I think for the most part, I've achieved that. But certainly, those are the wines I like to drink wines that are a little bit lighter on the palate, but also incredibly nuanced. Have a little bit of tannin structure, but don't necessarily have weight and alcohol. But something that still you think about, you know,
hearing you talk about it, I know that it represents the place. And I know that you are so close to every single wine, and even the project is something that you created and started on your own. I feel like picking the name of a line of wines is a really big deal. So tell me about the name Âmevive - I know there's a special background to it. Where did this idea come from? And how difficult was it to land and commit to the name of your wines? That's got to be a big decision.
Yeah, it is. It is. I've got friends that just you know pick a random word and go for it. But I definitely wanted to make something that was you know, it to be honest. Firstly, trade markable was really important just because I didn't want to deal with all the hoopla on the end if there was some conflict of interest, etc, etc. So thinking about it that way. I wasn't necessarily attached to the feeling of France, but that is certainly where I fell in love with Syrah and began a of course and and white Rhones, to specifically Marsanne, which is how I started my brand. So I was playing around with things and it's hard. You know, a lot of like thesorous work and coming across words that like, feel alive. So I ultimately ended up making up a French word. So I made it up. I made it. I asked my French friends, they're like, alright, well give me we'll give you this one. You got approval. Okay. So, um, I mean, so Âme with the circumplex and Vive is like living lively. So together, it's lively soul. So yeah, it works. There's a few mispronunciations but we're, we're all cool. It's, it's all good.
I didn't know that you made it up. But now that even makes more sense because that means even from the name, it's all created by Alice like this is an Alice brainchild from the very get go. And we're admiring the bottled wines. Like I'm looking at the labels right now. And I'm looking at you and it's like, oh, like this is your project. But I know that it's the result of a lot longer journey than that. And if I recall correctly, you did say you're inspired by the road in particular, but this project was born as an ode to your time living in the northern Rhone.
Yeah, well, I ended up I was in New Zealand First. And by coincidence, I ended up living with now one of my best friends. Her name's Mary Paul, a French woman and we shared this tiny little it felt like a hotel room doing an internship in New Zealand. So because I lived with her, we ended up hanging out with all the French people in New Zealand and I was lost at every dinner conversation I had no idea was going on because everything morphs to French, and I didn't speak French at the time. And she was like, you know, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do after my seven months in New Zealand. I mean, I grew up in the suburbs of California. I didn't have like a global perspective of where I wanted to be or traveling, that sort of thing. But she was like, you should just come to France. I'm like, Are you sure. And she was super sweet. And I wasn't ready for that experience. But her and her now husband picked me up from the airport and made me feel super comfortable. And yeah, we went toward the castles and laoire and took me and dropped me off. At my job. It was super, super sweet. And that's how I ended up in France for the first time just as an intern at Domaine Pierre GALLIARD. And they were kind of going through some winemaker changes, and I ended up staying on full time. So I went back to America to get my new visa and came back and was the cabbie ship here, our yard from 2015 through 2017. And it was, yeah, such an amazing, amazing family amazing experience, amazing to live that lifestyle for a little bit and meet some awesome people along the way and get access to, you know, the best wines in the world.
Truly a magical place to be learning about wine and with the people involved to I mean, what a magical place northern road, like in general, yeah, big fan, big fan over here. But I do think that having that experience would bring you closer to the land and kind of probably developing what you want to be doing was the end game, to have your own label is that when you kind of had this idea?
certainly, you know, seeing friends in France, plant their vineyards, and just start working and eventually making wine three years later was amazing, you know, friends that don't necessarily come from money and just, you know, putting their getting their hands dirty and putting in the work and, and seeing the efforts. It was that was certainly inspiring. And yeah, I mean that the culture of wine in France is, is is amazing. And the fact that you know, if if you're a winemaker, you're also a grape grower, and that I fell in love with, you know, that was, that was where I truly understood that I wanted to grow what I make, as far as wine wise, you have this energetic through line through the whole process, and you can feel you're so much more in tune with what's going on. And it just feels more whole.
And that makes sense to hear you say this now that I know that you have your own place in California, and you have your hands on every single step of the way. You're involved. And you saw that in France, like that was something that you knew you want it because there's a lot of different ways to make wine. And you want it to be part of the growing and the production. What skills have translated from that time in France to now you're in Santa Barbara, you're in California, a whole different market, a whole different region. Anything that you think is a through line that you're bringing from France, particularly to your place in California?
Oh, yes, certainly. I mean, I think the beauty of winemaking and winemakers along the way is, you know, everyone comes from this like, distinct lineage of places they've worked. And from all of those places you've worked, you pick your favorite things that you want to continue into whatever your next project is, and for me my own project, right? And that's why like, winemakers are so diverse, and everyone has a particular style. So of course, like I've picked up so much along the way, both from the people I worked for in France and the people I socialize with and tasted with and you know, still am in great contact with and and the people I've worked with in California to like I've picked up moons of things along the way. And that's yeah, that's what's shaped ONVIF for sure.
Tell me about the vineyard, the place because I can look at like your Instagram, I can look at your website, and I can see the pictures. But I'm sitting with you here and I would love to hear how you describe the vineyard that you're working with right now. What's it like? What's it like when we visit there?
Yeah, well, it's it's a historic vineyard in in Santa Barbara County. So one of the oldest vineyards planted there, was planted in 1971 by a woman named Charlotte young. It's absolutely stunning. old vine spacing. So 12 by six rows, you can drive a pickup truck down the center, kind of rolling hills, all sprinkled with 200 year old woods, huge Valley oak trees. It's incredibly picturesque and then you've got views of the Santa Ynez mountains with lots of I mean this time of year native flowers popping up everywhere. It's stunning. So the vineyard has been leased out to winemakers since 1986, Charlotte Yun planted the vineyard. She was truly a farmer at heart, but never really had the bug for making her own wine. So she sold the grapes until Bob linquist took over the lease in 1986. Bob is certainly I mean an amazing inspiration to me. And he's credited for transitioning everything to organic practices in the mid 90s, before organic was ever cool or trendy or talked about, but he absolutely believed in it. And he had the lease all the way up until 2018. After 2018, the lease was up and we came excited and running towards it. After figuring out the finances of everything, we jumped on board and put our own spin on everything. So since we've been there, of course, everything is beyond organic practices. But further we're fully no till so transitioned everything to not disturbing the soil at all. We make all our own farm made biodynamic compost, create homeopathic sprays with our compost teas. And probably most iconically, we have a large duck and chicken population roaming our vineyard floor, we bring in sheep in the winter. And the whole goal is to create a closed system. So not bringing in anything, producing all of the nutrition on the property for the vines. All of that leads to, you know, a lower carbon footprint across the board, but also, you know, a nutrient dense ecosystem where all of our native plants can flourish alongside these vines, where we're inviting the entire ecosystem of life to cohabitate with these old vines.
So beautiful. It is a system, you've created a little world, a little pocket, where you are seeing all of these things combined to interact with each other all these elements. And you've seen it now for several years. You've had a couple of vintages from that property. So what's it like to experience the same place? But different years? How do you adjust?
Yeah, it's so cool. It's so cool. It's so cool to look back at photos from the year we took over. And two photos now and see how much more lush the vineyard floor is. Notice the diversity of wildflowers and species popping up in certain places, noticing species that have been dormant or non existent for many, many years of tillage. And finding those again, is beautiful. And then wind chemistry wise, you know, we say every time you make any sort of change in farming, it takes three to seven years for your plant to kind of adjust to the new system. So of course transitioning everything to no till was a bit of a shock for the vines. They've had the nutrition of the understory being tilled under, for, you know, almost 50 years, 45 years. So the the shock of of changing the farming system. It's dwindling now. And we're starting to see higher sugar amounts with also higher acid amounts and a little bit more. Well hope we're hopeful for a little bit more fruit on the vines. We still have pretty low yields. But it's it's really cool to see. And it's nice to hear people that have also known the vineyard for many years noticing that too. And noticing the hard work and the intention that we put into the place
super intentional and you are able to adjust to what the land is telling you to do. Because you're there every day you get to see this happen. Are you farming the way that your neighbors are in terms of the region that you're in as a whole for Santa Barbara? What is it like comparatively to other vineyards in the area?
Sure. I mean, there's certainly a really strong push for regenerative agriculture in Santa Barbara and I think in California in general, probably globally. I think I can say at this point. Not too many Many people are strict. No Till I can't think of another vineyard, another vineyard of scale around me that doesn't tell a little bit. And I understand. I understand all of the reasons why somebody would tell. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of grazing going on specifically with sheep. I get a lot of questions about grazing birds in the vineyard. So yeah, dog tractor, the, the Ducks are amazing. The ducks are amazing. So yeah, there's certainly a bush, I of course, you know, I'm an open book when it comes to those sorts of things. So it's, it's important to be able to farm holistically for for something that's, you know, a luxury beverage, you know, we should be setting the standard for, for farming as we're not necessarily farming, like, a food group. You know, it's, it's something that we, you know, brings us a lot of pleasure, but we don't necessarily need
Well, we do need, like, need want. There's a blurred line there. But yeah, I do think that I'm excited about the way that you are farming, because I see other people learning from each other in regions where that's becoming really important. But where do we go from here? Ellis like on a on a more of a higher scale with the industry? How do we take what you're doing, and move it throughout the industry? What are the most important practices to you that you think would move the industry forward?
It's hard. So I mean, we could we could talk about the government level, or just, you know, transitioning to a conventional vineyard. So maybe we'll start with just trends and transitioning a conventional vineyard, but just to get away from herbicides. That's the biggest thing, their soil killers. So if you can avoid using herbicides, even around the fence line, at all costs, it's much better.
So one thing that would be one would be one thing. Yeah. I love that. And you use your compost really, really beautifully. And I want to hear about this because I think I saw you mentioned one time that you moved 30 tonnes of compost. What is that being used for? Is this something people can learn from you about to how are you using the compost?
Yeah, so the compost is an absolutely amazing tool to boost the microbiome of the vineyard floor. So we take all of our essentially our waste, so we use our vineyard clippings, we take them out of the vineyard, ship them, so they're a little bit faster to digest. We bring back all of our pumice from the winery. And we use whatever else we have around the vineyard. So you know, egg shells, poop from the chicken coop. We also collect cow poop from our friends, grass fed free range cows. We put our biodynamic preps in there, everything. So as many components you have, the better. The more diversity you have in compost, the better and essentially, microbes and macro arthropods break down your compost and create this mystical, magical, nutrient dense and microbe dense material that gets distributed to the vineyard floor. So we use our compost in a couple of ways. Just as bulk compost on the floor that we spread before the rainy season. But we also booties so we make compost teas that we spray both on the floor and on the full year canopy. And yeah, it's it's a boost of life. And it helps I mean to put it basically it helps everything start working underground again.
I mean, it really is this recycling, reuse all of that, like, we learned this in elementary school, reduce, reuse, recycle. And here you are putting it into absolute practice and you're inspiring people. But then I think about these practices that you're using. And I know it's hard work. You've said this, it's difficult at the beginning, but once you do it, it makes a lot of sense. And it just becomes part of your ecosystem. But who inspires you what motivates you to continue to do the things that you're doing now in the way that you're doing them who inspires you? Oh,
I mean, so many people along the way. I have a lot of passion and a lot of depth of interests. And I kind of have the mentality that once I get into something i i see it through you know, I want to do it the whole way. But it's amazing to be able to teach people and host people and learn from friends and you know everyone along the way,
you do have a community of people and you have also an entire fan club. I'm tell you right now, in Atlanta, I see your wines in places of the people that I respect that are selling the wines and drinking the wines and serving the wines. And when people found out that you were coming, everyone got really excited. And I received a question when someone found out that you're going to be on the podcast, I received a question. So my friend Elizabeth Dames, she's an advanced somm, a friend of Steven. She's a master sommelier candidate. She's incredible. And she loves your wines. And she said, I would love to know. Can you tell me a story about one of your favorite wine memories? Were you with? What was the bottle? Why was it so memorable? Tell us where that just took you.
Oh, I mean, yeah, sure. More recently. I mean, yeah, I'll give you a more recent one, which was crazy. I still can't believe I was in the situation. We were tasting with John Louis Chave in his cellar, and he opened a bottle of 1962Hermitage blanc that was absolutely singing. And yeah, we're down there. It's dark. It's dreary. There's mold all over the bottle. I mean, somehow the cork comes out perfectly. I'm with some of my best friends and John Louis and my partner. And just to feel Marsanne Well, Marsanne and Roussanne presented so old and so elegant. It was really emotional wine of the trip, for sure. really special.
You say emotional, how often does it happen to you where you have an emotional reaction to the wines that you're drinking?
Yeah, it's a bit I'd say. And that's good. It should move you right. I'm not good at putting tasting notes together. I'm not good at picking out exact flavor profiles and regurgitating that, but it's just not my specialty. But I certainly can feel a wine you know, I feel with texture. And yeah, emotional wines are they stick with you a little bit, you know, wines you want to emulate and wines that just ultimately bring me joy. Yeah, a little bit. You know,
when I asked you about wine memories, I saw your eyes light up and I saw you go into this place in your head, like I don't know, wine memories elicits a feeling. And I saw you have all these feelings. Just even asking you to think about wines that you enjoy was a beautiful moment to sit across from you. And watch that
there's so many even just drinking my friends wines is is absolutely special, you know, new wines they've released. And, you know, they care deeply about and it's, it's all so cool.
And you drink your friends wines, and you share your friends wines, and they're doing the same for you. We're also in a really cool space right now with a bunch of maps all around and I'm looking at some of our favorite places of wine growing regions. And I know you've talked about the northern region and that you spend time there but what is it about the northern region that intrigues you like to this day, you're still working with a lot of the grapes that you were inspired by? But what is it about the northern known for you?
Yes, the northern Rhone is funny. There's a bit of a challenge there, right. I feel, you know, the farming, the ecological farming is a little bit behind the northern rhone, actually. And it's really fun to be able to see people, you know, pushing in the right direction, towards sustainability. I mean, even some of my favorite wines in the world aren't farmed. Well, which is really sad. Yeah, so raw is is a beautiful grape, like I love a whole cluster. So raw, that's crisp and deep, and maybe a little herbal and crunchy. That special. It was, yeah, there's a lot of history there. The hillsides are incredibly striking and beautiful. It's moderately hard to live there in the wintertime, as I'm a California grill. So in the winter, everything is green in California. And I didn't realize that when I moved to France in the East Coast is like that, too. In the winter, you know, everything turns brown and most of the country except for California where the hills turn green. So that was a little bit mind blowing. It was the most it was the first time I ever really noticed spring was living in France. And that was truly like, Whoa, I get spring now.
So you saw the seasonal changes in the same place. You saw the vines go through big seasonal changes.
Sure. Certainly. I mean, every Yeah, everything loses its leaves in the northern rhone. It was striking,
so we can drink Northern Rhone Syrah together anytime you want. Because I'm pretty obsessed. And I think there is something really special when you find a connection to a place. And then you have people that are making those wines. That's why we're smiling about wine memories. It's the combination of all of those things. Yes, the beverage is great, but we've been exploring the other components that can bring you to a place or to a wine. And now you're creating those moments for people through your wines. I'd like to remind you that someone might say, my favorite wine memory was drinking Âmevive . Like, that's amazing. And speaking of connection, we're sitting here with our good friend Steven, and I have to ask how you connected with Steven, because he is the reason that now the wines are able to be on the shelves. So how did you two meet?
Yeah, I, we were just chatting about that on the car ride over it was through a mutual friend, our friend Noah, who lives in New York, Noah used to work with Steven, when Steven was in New York. And when he moved here, he connected us Steven came out to the vineyard got to experience it experienced the controlled chaos of Yuvaraj young and all the animals and everything we've got going on over there and tasted the wines and who we are
and didn't run away ran toward ran toward you and the portfolio instead of a way. So you brought him into the space. But what intrigues you about the Georgia market like in the southeast here, your wines are relatively fresh on the shelves? What was it that convinced you like, Yeah, I'm gonna take a chance on Georgia.
I mean, to be quite frank, I didn't know too much about the Georgia wine scene. But the enthusiasm is, you know, it's felt. So it's, I'm delighted to be here and delighted to make wines that make people happy and have a place in their homes and a place that they're opera row. And yeah, I'm excited to explore Atlanta and Georgia to because this is my first time I've never I've actually never been to this part of the country. It's embarrassing.
No, You came to the airport. And we picked you up, we gave you coffee and pastries. And we sat you down to talk about wine. You have a whole day though. Like what what's on the schedule for today that you know of? I know, we're talking before you're experiencing, but you've got people drinking your wines with you at lunch? You've got some other events going on? What do you know is ahead for you here in Atlanta?
Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna butcher this.
So maybe I should ask Stephen. What's the tinerary for today?
So we're doing lunch at Lucian? Am I saying that right? And then we've got a press or a consumer event at the press shop. And then we've got after party, I do believe it's called at kinship. And then yeah, we're doing a brunch tomorrow. There's some stops along the way.
That was pretty good for never have been here, you just named a couple of key places. And all of those places are going to welcome people to experience your wines with you. How cool what do you get out of going to visit the markets? Where your wines are? What does it do for you personally, when you leave here, and you've seen your wines, you've interacted with the people who are drinking them? What does that do for you?
I mean, it's it's amazing. It's really cool to be able to share this story with somebody that's interested and and help educate towards, you know, more holistic farming and also the style of wines I like to make and a lot of times it's a new style for people so and usually they like it. So it's it's nice to see kind of people's brains working and thinking and have them experience something new.
You're also going to be incorporating food today, because you mentioned the lunch. So just in general, when you open some of your wines, do you have any favorite combinations that you would say hey, like this food with this with my wine? Do you have any memorable combinations that you want to suggest to people for enjoying in their homes?
Yeah, I think ultimately, my wines go well with the types of foods that we tend to eat now I think that's kind of global. So transitioning away from, you know, heavy butter dishes to more like lighter foods, more vinegar based foods, salads, sandwiches, fish, sushi. Anything fresh, my wines tend to go great with but certainly like when you get into the serraj and the gammy category, it can definitely pair well with a herb steak or something of that sort. But I'm a lighter eater, I tend to I tend to eat light. So yeah,
so drink light, eat light, eat vegetables, drink your wines, have your sushi all the things like feel light and ethereal. We'll go back to that word that word to me. That word is such a compliment for your wines. And I feel like it makes a lot of sense in the way that you're talking about the farming and bringing the place and the energy into the beverage that you could just share with people. You do this all the time else. It's so exciting. So what are you looking forward to most in the coming year? I'm excited for you. I want to know what you're excited about, like 2023. What What brings you joy right now?
Oh, oh, so much. I mean, I'm excited to grow a little bit. We tried to grow a little bit last year, but the yields were super small. But with all of the rain that we've received in California, it's I mean, we're always optimistic as farmers, right, you have to be otherwise, you'd lose hope. But we're super excited for Well, we hope to be a bountiful harvest. As you know, vines are starting to wake up right now they have moist soils, which is super special, hoping to grow a little bit. Hopefully, I might make when we already, I already released two new wines this year, the sparkling Monday's and the skin contact Morrison, but maybe another fresh wine in the fall. It's my life is crazy. So I'm also excited to rein it back a little bit and be a little bit more focused on. I'd like to just like feel more organized. Although I get it all done. Sometimes it feels like a whirlwind. Sometimes you look back, you're like, how did that happen? How did I accomplish all these things?
Well, you're doing it all and you're taking care of an ecosystem while you do all of this. And you're making a sparkling. I totally forgot to ask you. Is that happening on site for you?
Well actually, that wine has a lot of people to think this was my first attempt at sparkling wine. So I don't have I didn't have my own crown capper. Did everything very, you know by hand. So yeah, the concept was mine. But I you know, I used Paul autos barrel filler, I called my friend Mikey from Scar of the Sea, who makes a lot of sparkling wine. And I was like, you know, do you think I can do this? And he's like, you're a little bit crazy, but it might work and might be great. So his help, you know, I borrowed the crown copper from actually two people because I needed twice for one from Dreamcoat, my friends, Ryan and Brett and another from Microsoft, that Lo Fi. So lots of friends came to help me create this new wine. And eventually we'll get our own equipment for the but we don't make very much sparkling wine 70 cases. So that's the best thing about I mean, we have an amazing community in Santa Barbara. And on the Central Coast in general, were super supportive. And if somebody needs something like the next person is running, to give it to them and lend a helping hand, so grateful in that way for sure.
Your wines are a product of the community as well. And hearing you talk about your friends in the area and sharing the resources, the knowledge, sharing stories, inspiration, all of that, I can hear that you're kind of a cornerstone of what's happening there. And it's exciting to see more people discover the region as a whole.
Certainly, you know, welcoming the Master Sommeliers out there this year was really cool and sharing with them the diversity of Santa Barbara County because I think Santa Barbara gets a little bit confusing. You have world class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but also this like very booming road scene and lots of microclimates along the way. It's a bit crazy. But if you understand the geography, it makes sense. You know, if you look at a map, the region's make sense.
And then people are tasting the wines and then they're going to seek out more of those grapes. You're introducing people maybe to a grape they've never had before, to be honest. And then it's like, oh, well, that's grown domestically, and now you might inspire people to be finding more Marsan to view finding more Mondeuse like your they might be the first time they've ever had those grapes is from your wines. Yeah, pretty cool. That's great. So how can people find you and connect with you if they want to learn more? If they want to be those club membership coming to Georgia? What's the best way to reach you and find out more about you do?
nice yeah. Well, you can always shop wines on the website, www dot A M E v i v e wine dot com. But my spring release was super super allocated this year. So the wine shop is only open until April 24. I'm not sure when this podcast is coming out.
Sorry everyone you can try next time.
So my fall release will be sometime at the beginning of August. You can always join the wine club anytime. If you sign up after April 24. Your first shipment will be the fall shipment which is also a delicious lineup mostly lighter style red It's one or two whites thrown in there. You can send me an email if you have any questions or anything like that. It's just Alice at my website, find me on Instagram. I try to be social. I try to be up to date, but a lot of good photos of the farm and the animals
I was gonna say if you want to see cute animal pictures, and you want to see farming and action, follow amvivewine Instagram, and I was laughing with you earlier or sitting outside. I love that you said that people they didn't know that you make wine. If you find your Instagram page, people might not know that you make wine. Thank you have a farm with animals.
I'm trying to incorporate more bottle shots. Because I do have a product I sell. But yeah, I mean, I truly love being outside. I love farming. I love the feeling of of all of that the feeling of the connection to the land, the feeling of the animals walking around the property and the joy that brings it's special.
Well, thank you for taking time away from them to visit us here in Atlanta. We're so lucky to have you. Thank you for being on the podcast today. Cheers to you, my friend.
Cheers. Thanks for having me.
Thanks for tuning in to the A Cork in the Road Podcast coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia, and interviewing people who are changing the wine world in the southeast and beyond. can find more about a cork in the road @acorkintheroad on Instagram. And make sure to check us out on www dot a cork in the road dot com See you soon guys Cheers.
