On today’s episode, Mark catches up with Morgan Twain-Peterson, owner, founder and winemaker of Bedrock Wine Company in Sonoma, California. Morgan grew up in a winemaking family as his father Joel Peterson was founder and winemaker of Ravenswood. Ravenswood started out as a side-hustle for Joel (as Morgan describes it), then it became the world’s largest producer of red zinfandel.

Since starting Bedrock in 2007, Morgan has become a bit of an old-vine guru and has rehabilitated numerous vineyards that would have otherwise been torn out. He also wrote his Master of Wine research paper on the nurseries and dissemination of vine and rootstock post phylloxera in California from the 1880s onward.

Mark and Morgan get into the nitty gritty of California’s history as well as recuperating these vinous treasures, soil health, regenerative farming, and so much more.

Useful links:

Bedrock Wine Company Website: here

Bedrock Podcast: here

On this year's Thanksgiving episode, Jessica and Mark have on Austin Farina, wine director of Jeffrey's, Sammie's, and a number of other MML Hospitality restaurants. They kick off the discussion with a commentary of the recent publishing of the Michelin guide for Texas. Then, they dig into Thanksgiving pairings from overall pairing guidelines to Austin's recommendations. He is loving Western Sonoma Coast, Cali Zin and Mexican and Texas selections.

References:

https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/texas/restaurants

https://mmlhospitality.com/

https://jeffreysofaustin.com/

On today's show, Jessica meets up with Simon Kelly, export manager of te Pā winery in Marlborough, New Zealand. Te Pā means "at home" or "the home" in Māori, and the owner and founder Haysley MacDonald can trace his family history to the early Māori settlers who landed on Wairau Bar 800 years ago. Simon explains how Haysley went from selling most of the fruit from the his land to larger wineries and then the path to make and bottle all estate wine.

Simon has extensive experience in the wine industry and really breaks down the state of the Kiwi wine industry from the meteoric rise of Sauvignon Blanc to perhaps a lack of recognizing individual regions within the broad category. Enjoy this episode with a plate of briny oysters and, of course, a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

Links:

Te Pā winery website: here.

Banville Wine Merchants (importer of te Pā): here.

Recent Wine Enthusiast coverage of Māori owned wineries: here.