All language subtitles for V.is.for.Vino.S01E02.Santa.Barbara.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB

Welcome to Santa Barbara County.

A once sleepy wine region
turned a top travel destination

by the film "Sideways," where
Miles played by Paul Giamatti

famously declared his detest for Merlot,

but more importantly, his love for Pinot Noir

and that's why we're here.

Get ready to watch, learn, and drink.

Welcome to "V is for Vino."

I'm here in Downtown Santa Barbara,

which is about an hour and
a half North of Los Angeles.

It's a perfect getaway for us Los Angelenos

trying to get out of the city,

and do a little hotels, restaurants, you name it.

Santa Barbara has anything for as long as you need

to recharge.

So while Santa Barbara the city
has that warm So-Cal weather

that we love.

Santa Barbara, the wine growing region

is actually fairly cool.

It's about 45 minutes North of here.

It's cool because the Santa
Ynez mountains on either side

act as a funnel to funnel the cool ocean air

right through the vineyards.

And if you couple that with the fact

that because of low average rainfall,

the wine makers don't have to harvest

before the fall rains come
in, you're left with a nice long,

cool, growing season, which is perfect

for Burgundian style grapes like Chardonnay,

and more importantly, Pinot Noir.

So how did wine making get started in Santa Barbara?

Well, a lot the same way that it got started

in most of California, church.

Let me explain.

See back in the day like late 1700s,

the Spanish occupied California

and they wanted to impose Christianity

onto the native Americans
who were living in California

at the time.

So what did they do?

Well, they established 21
religious outposts or missions

all the way from San Diego, up the coast to Sonoma.

And if you've ever driven up
the 101 freeway in California

and seen the bells marked El Camino Royale

meant the King's road.

Those are symbolic markers of the journey

between each of the missions.

At these missions they grew livestock, and crops,

and most importantly, religious ceremonial wine,

and then eventually just wine.

Despite all of that, Santa
Barbara wine making as we know it

is actually fairly young.

It started really in the 1960s

but didn't take off until the 1990s.

There's over a 100 wineries
in Santa Barbara County now,

it's one of the youngest and most exciting areas

in California,

and we're gonna go to one of the wineries, right now.

Pinot Noir, the winemakers
who make it deserve a medal,

or plaque, or at least a pat on the back,

because it's one of the
most difficult grapes to grow

for a couple reasons.

It's prone to a lot of mutations

while it's here on the vine.

Some of these mutations are good,

we like Pinot Blanc, Pinot Meunier,

you probably know Pinot Grigio,

all members of the Pinot family.

But the real problem is the
thin skins that Pinot Noir has.

So these are extra susceptible to mold, rot, mildew,

anything under the sun, literally the sun.

It can get sunburned.

Pinot Noir also has notoriously low yield.

It doesn't produce a lot of grapes,

so wine makers don't have a lot of leeway.

It needs a nice long, cool dry growing season

but when winemakers do
it right, it's really fantastic.

It's silky and supple and smooth and elegant.

It produces red fruit flavors
in the realm of pomegranate,

and cranberry, cherry is a big one,

but it's with age where Pinot Noir really shines.

Think barnyard, truffle, mushroom, dried meats,

dried leaves, and earth,
really everything under the sun,

that's what's so cool about it.

Now I talked a little bit about how Pinot Noir

has thin skins,

and because of this it doesn't have a lot of tannin.

Now, tannin is that element in wine

that kinda dries out your
mouth and give it a bitterness.

Because the tannins are low,

Pinot Noir doesn't necessarily need food,

it's great to drink on a Tuesday afternoon.

But it also goes very well with a lot of food

because it has high acid.

It goes just as well with a
steak, as it does with chicken,

and even pairs really well with salmon,

that's one of the most famous pairings for Pinot.

Chardonnay.

Everybody loves Chardonnay,

because Chardonnay loves everybody.

It's really versatile.

It's grown in almost every wine region in the world

because it likes any type of climate,

and really cold climates
like Chablis and Champagne.

I'm talking really cold,

it can produce wines that
are very steely, and minerally,

and high acid, crisps, think yellow, fruits,

lemon, and green Apple, when it gets a little warmer,

you can get even the tropical notes

like mango, and pineapple.

Now there's big misconception

that Chardonnay tastes like Oak,

or Chardonnay tastes like butter.

But those are actually winemaker decisions,

Those aren't necessarily
Chardonnay characteristics.

See a winemaker decides if he's going to Oak his wine

or if he's gonna let it go through what's called

malolactic fermentation,

which without getting a little nerdy,

is when harsh malic acid turns into lactic acid,

literally like lactate,

and that's where you get those butter,

and those custardy flavors.

It generally tends to be a medium

to fuller-bodied white wine.

It's gonna taste like minerals or fruit

or have low acid, or high acid,

largely based on the region that it was grown.

Speaking of where it's grown,

it's usually grown with Pinot Noir.

It's actually a pretty known fact that if a winery

makes good Pinot Noir, they make good Chardonnay,

and vice versa.

And why is that?

Well, if you have any uncles

who were really into ancestry.com,

he could tell you Chardonnay

is the daughter of Gouais Blanc, and Pinot Noir.

But the real reason is a place
called Burgundy in France.

See, Burgundy is a place that makes Chardonnay

and Pinot Noir by law exclusively for 100s of years.

We tend to emulate in the new world what France does

in the old world.

France is kind of like the Beatles of the wine world.

It's arguable if they were the best

but they are definitely one
of the first at what they do.

And when climates match, we don't reinvent the wheel

and they're even sometimes blended together.

Champagne is Pinot Meunier,
Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay.

How are you doing man?

I'm doing good, welcome to, welcome to the vineyard.

Thanks for having us out.

We can see the beautiful
Santa Maria Valley behind us,

this is kind of a place that
sort of the heart and soul

of Santa Barbara wine making.

If you're looking for wines
that are elegant, restrained,

more European in style,

if you're looking for something complex,

if you're looking for
something that really represents

the soil it comes from, I don't think it gets better

for the money than Santa Barbara County.

What is your background?

How did you get into this in the first place?

Well, I was a, I was a high school English teacher,

and the kids drove me to drink, and I went pro.

Got a call from my mom and my stepfather,

said "We just bought a piece of property near Lompoc,"

and I worked there as a vineyard
manager and the winemaker

for about 22 years with my wife Chanda,

my family decided to get out of the wine business

and to lease the vineyard out,

and now a little over two years now

I've been the wine maker and the brand ambassador

for J. Wilkes wines up here in Santa Maria Valley.

Jeff Wilkes was the vineyard sales person

for these vines that you see behind us.

There's 900 acres of vines here in this vineyard.

Jeff was extremely influential in getting people

to understand the importance
of Santa Barbara County

and Santa Maria Valley.

2010, Jeff actually passed away at the age of 56

which was a huge tragedy for all of us,

and now we've kept the brand alive,

hoping that not only are
we celebrating Jeff's legacy

and what he did for Santa
Barbara County wine-making,

but also to put out a delicious,
balanced, high value wines.

Beautiful way to be honored for Jeff,

and I know a big thing for him was, you know,

wine is all about the people you share it with.

I always say that it's far more important

who we drink with than what we drink.

I'd rather drink Lucky Lager with my boys

then Romanée-Conti with my enemies,

unless it's a really great vintage

then I'll put up with their douchery...

We're gonna talk today I think a little bit about

Pinot and Chardonnay. - Yeah.

Tell me a little bit about your philosophy

behind what those grapes should be.

Well, you know, I, you know, "Sideways" was 12 years ago,

that weird movie really
brought all these people up

that we'd never seen before in busloads.

So Pinot Noir - They all wanted Pinot.

They all wanted Pinot.

The, in a post "Sideways" world

I think what we're recognizing is that

Chardonnay is the best grape we grow

in Santa Barbara County,

'cause 95% of all Chardonnays are grown in areas

that are way too warm.

So I'm gonna go on the record to say

the best grapes we grow in Santa Barbara,

both in the Santa Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley,

Chardonnay is the best grape we grow.

It's the most expressive...

That's a bold statement.

It, you can do whatever you want it,

Chardonnay is sort of like the editorial model

of the wine world.

It's not so much about her
but the clothes you hang on her,

if it was a woman I'd want her in a little black dress,

no couture, no big sort of Carmen Miranda hat,

showing off the quality of the grapes

and the quality of the place where they're grown.

With Pinot Noir, we're about, you know,

25 to 30% new French Oak as well,

the Pinot noir here, a lot of
it in the Santa Maria Valley

is old vine, so we have a lot of sources

for our fruit that really do produce amazingly

intense Pinot Noir,

and one reason that is we get so much wind.

You can see the fog coming in off the Pacific ocean

right now, built-in air conditioning, fog, wind,

all that has amazing effect

on keeping the amount of
growth limited in the vineyard,

the level of crop, moderated
and small, and the intensity,

and the ability to show
that beautiful sense of place,

minerality, elegance,
restraint, but also a lot of flavor.

And here's the deal.

We think too much about wine.

We talk too much about wine.

It's the only beverage that I know that keeps me

at table with the people I
love, an average of an extra hour

every day of my life.

And I think it really is so important for us

to get to table, and to relax and have time,

delicious things, and love.

And you put those things together

and those are the best experiences we'll have

as human beings.

Yeah, well, on that note, let's get to it.

All right.

Lets go try some wine - Let's do it.

Oak, seems pretty simple, right?

Wine goes in, give it a little time,

better wine comes out.

If only it were that easy.

Well, first off, why Oak at all?

Well, a couple reasons.

Number one is flavor.

See winemakers aren't beer makers.

There's only grapes in wine.

You can't throw in coriander and orange peel.

So Oak gives wine makers a
way to add their hand prints

onto the wine, and add some
flavors that you wouldn't get

from the grapes themselves.

Number two, mouthfeel.

It contributes to a velvety soft mouthfeel,

that really helps harsher wines.

First off you have to get the barrels.

Where did they come from?

Well, trees that are at least a hundred years old,

cut down, dried in the staves for two to three years

in the wind, in the air, and the elements,

then taken to a cooperage,

where a cooper turns it into barrels,

he can make a barrel a day if he's lucky.

So we're a 103 years and one day in,

and we haven't even seen any wine yet.

Now there's two types of Oak that are primarily used

for wine aging, white French
Oak, and white American Oak.

Now French Oak is usually used for lighter,

more delicate wines, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir,

and imparts darker spice
flavors, espresso, and clove,

and allspice, whereas American
Oak has a lot sweeter flavors

and it's a little more strong,

so it can stand up to Zinfandel and Petite Sirah,

and it usually adds flavors of coconut, and vanilla,

and even dill and some cool stuff like that.

So you pick your Oak and you're done right?

Wrong, how much new Oak
versus used Oak do you wanna use?

A brand new barrel puts a lot of flavor

and a couple of uses a little bit.

Usually winemakers are up for
some combination of the two,

say 50% new, 50% used Oak.

How long do you wanna age?

You can age anywhere from a couple of weeks

to a couple of years,

some wines actually have requirements by law

of how long you have to age.

Barolo in Italy needs to be aged for 18 months,

grand reserve of Rioja, 24 months.

How big do you want the barrels?

Smaller, more effective,

but they're also more expensive.

How much char do you want on your barrel?

The staves can be toasted
from light, medium, to heavy,

just like coffee, and that's
gonna affect the final flavor

of the wine.

And all this is assuming you even have the money

to Oak at all.

These barrels costs between 800 and $1,500 a pop.

Do you wanna pass that cost on your consumer?

So because of this, a lot of winemakers use

Oak alternatives, Oak staves, Oak chips,

Oak powder, put right into the wine.

Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The barrels waste the holes outside of the barrel

and it's not necessarily
eco-friendly to make these barrels

to transport them and to store 'em.

But the good news is the barrels we do make

get a lot of use.

Barrels that are used for Sherry or Bourbon

tend to be repurposed for
long-term aging of scotch whiskey.

And we usually end up parting these into furniture,

or wine racks, or sometimes
flowerpots which all in all,

isn't a bad life for a tree.

All right, rock and roll.

Let's do it.

I'm going pirate style.

Barrels and all.

All right, so this is a brand new vintage

of Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir.

This is from a single vineyard.

This wine is about five months old.

Do, to read the barrel, says, 2007, 23rd barrel,

François Frères is the name
of the barrel builder in France

from the Vosges forest,
and it is a heavy toast barrel.

So that kind of, that will gives you kind of an idea

on how to read the barrel.

That's some very nice color to it,

Pinot Noir can be very, very light-colored,

somewhere between a garnet and ruby,

should be very bright, cherry fruit,

maybe a little bit of raspberry,

we decide how to blend this wine

and how to make it into a final J.Wilkes wine.

We also have three other
vineyards that we can blend in.

So we have all the different vineyards to blend,

to make the wine.

All the different Oak
treatment to blend in the wine,

and then we can decide what percentage of each

goes into the final wine.

So you're not taking directly from one barrel

putting in a bottle?

No, no, it takes a lot, many, many days

of blending trials, and we
really challenge ourselves

during the blending trials,

we may spend two or three
days just blending this wine.

You guys are like fortune tellers, man.

I mean, you needed to see now

and you need to see the future.

Our main focus is to make
the wine delicious on release.

And we, we just know that the vineyard sources

have a great capacity for aging,

and great wine takes care of itself.

I would say five years is where the magic happens

between losing the baby fat

and starting to show the more
delicate and complex aromas

that emerge when the wine has been aged properly.

Try it out.

Get, definitely get a little
bit of toast from the Oak,

a little that gaminess, big
bright cherry fruit, good color.

Pinot Noir is the most
frustrating in a femoral grape

in the world to handle in the cellar,

'cause it tastes every day.

Taste it every day for a week, two weeks, a month,

and then if you figure that
the wine needs something

or maybe that barrel needs
to be taken out of the blend

that's when you do it.

Pinot Noir will challenge my belief

that everything can be understood

through science and laboratory analysis.

I think it would be a perfect opportunity to toast

Jeff Wilkes we'll continue
making great wines in your name.

Thank you to Jeff,

thank you to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome to the "V is for Vino" Nerd Lab.

We take complicated wine topics and make 'em simple.

Today, we're talking body.

Body.

Body is one of the five major components of wine.

You've probably heard wine
described as light-bodied,

or medium-bodied or full-bodied,

and they're talking about
the weight or the mouthfeel

that a wine has.

A lot of things contribute to body.

Alcohol contributes to body,

higher alcohol wines tend to feel more full.

Sugar, sugary wines are more viscous.

Tannin, tannin gives the wines a firmness,

a backbone that adds to body,

and Oak, Oaked wines tend to have a little more body

as well.

And the best way that we can describe body

in terms we may understand is milk.

Now this is fat-free milk,

and this will be your equivalent
of a lighter-bodied wine.

You can see it pours really easy,

it swirls around the glass really easy,

and in the mouth, it feels kinda light,

kinda close to water,

whereas when you go a little
heavier, this is half and half,

this would be your equivalent
of a medium-bodied wine.

Little more slow to go around the glass,

and when you taste it,

it's got a lot more weight,

kinda coats the mouth a little more

and then you'd get up to a full bodied wine.

This is heavy cream.

You can see slow to pour out,
really thick around the glass.

And really kinda coats the inside of your mouth

and has a lot of weight to it.

Now body is not necessarily
an indicator of quality.

In fact, some of the best wines in the world

have a light body.

More a function of place, and grape, and climate,

than anything else.

You can put body on a scale,

over here at number one, you have light-bodied wines,

and over here you'd have full-bodied wines.

So light-bodied, wines, think Riesling and Prosecco.

Then you'd get into medium-bodied white wines

like Sauvignon Blanc, Gewürztraminer.

Then in the middle things get kinda interesting.

You have a crossover between full-bodied whites

and lighter-bodied reds.

So Chardonnay, Viognier, and White Rhone Blends

have about the same weight as Pinot Noir,

and Gannay, and lighter-bodied reds.

Then you go over here to
medium-bodied reds like Barbera,

and Merlot and up top Petit
Sirah, Zinfandel, Cabernet,

are your big full-bodied reds.

You wanna match your food when you're pairing

with the weight of this scale.

So down here you'd have light foods,

think oysters and Muscadet,
both on this part of the scale.

You get in the middle, you do maybe chicken or salmon

with a full-bodied white or light-bodied red,

and then up here, rich dishes,

big stews, hearty steaks with the full-bodied reds.

I hope you learned a little something about body

and thanks for geeking out.

We needed to learn how to cook a few dishes

that would pair with our J.Wilkes wines,

and for that, I had to do an industrial park

in Buellton to get the best
food in Santa Barbara County.

Ask anyone, and I mean anyone

where to get food on this side of town?

And they're gonna send you here.

This is Industrial Eats.

All right, so tell me a little
bit about the restaurant.

Well, we bought a catering company, my wife and I,

17 years ago, and the rest
of this industrial building

that we're in, was just basically storage,

wine storage, there was a rental company,

it was a mechanic kinda place.

And about 10 years ago, I just got this idea

of doing something, and I said,

if I could do this 10 years ago,

and they said "No, you can't 'cause it's not commercial,

it's, it's industrial."

Around 2005 "Sideways" comes out

and the entire valley just explodes.

The number of wineries quadruple,

and they wanted the tax revenues, you know?

So, so they, they changed their tune

and they were like "Yeah, sure do it."

Three years ago we opened.

You're packed all the time,

in a place where you maybe shouldn't be packed.

I love restaurants in unconventional spaces.

And everything here is a little unconventional

you look at the walls...

Yeah I say it's the inside of my head.

They're just things I've collected over the years.

Some antiques, the photographs are from

a good friend of ours, there are artists that I like.

And you seem to know everybody who comes to the door.

I mean, I watch you around the room.

And I love the commune, it's
almost all communal space too

is the other thing. - Yeah, totally, yes.

You meet people here when you sit.

Oh, it's, I, people give each other food to taste

- That's...
- Strangers give each other food to...

I love it.

There were, there were some in the Valley

who said "Don't do communal seating, it won't work",

it's not, that's not what people here want,

and it was just important to me that it had that feel,

it really be a part of the community.

And obviously this is not fine dinning

but we've taken some of those techniques.

And some of that, certainly that care for the food,

that level of care for the food we have that here,

but it's much more accessible.

Get it to where you think there's enough flavor

and then put in 10 times more.

I hate on Yelp when I get a three star,

it's like give me a one-star, or give me a five-star,

don't give me a three star.

Yeah, yeah, I hate...

God, yeah.

Well, we've been talking about it long enough.

You wanna get to cooking?

Sure. Let's do it.

All right, let's do it.

All right.

This is like learning from the master.

So what do we, what do we making?

We're gonna do two dishes today,

we're gonna do a pretty simple

roasted chanterelle mushroom dish,

got some thyme, a little bit of Chardonnay,

and some butter that's bomb.

First time in six years they've been around

'cause of the drought.

We'll do that with the Pinot, I think today.

Perfect. - And with the Chardonnay,

we're gonna do some awesome Manila clams,

farm-raised down in Ensenada

on the Baja Peninsula, by a
friend market, the Jolly Oyster.

He's got a shack on the beach in Ventura,

we're one of his only wholesale clients

and he ships them up to me once a week,

and they're amazing, yeah. - Lucky us.

All right, let's do it.

Cool, so let's get the chowder started.

Perfect.

So we tell people in the restaurant

this is proper clam chowder,

the way clam chowder is supposed to be,

I don't know when it became the wallpaper paste

that most people expect it to be,

but this is just...

That's a lot of garlic.

We use a lot of garlic here,

where we use a lot of everything here.

We like our flavor to be where you'd expect it to be,

and then 10 steps beyond that.

So garlic, shallots... - Pen chowder - Bacon...

Bacon

That's our bacon that we make here in-house.

You make it in-house?

We do. - You cure your own bacon?

We cure all our own meats.

Yeah, yeah.

We make our own ham, beef
tongue pastrami, Rosemary ham,

smoke our own turkey, make our own bacon pancetta.

So you did the bacon and then you put on?

Olive oil. - Olive oil.

Lots and lots and lots of olive oil.

So, and these are purple potatoes.

We're gonna throw that in the oven,

get that sweating a little bit.

As with everything we cook, this is all we got,

are these two ovens.

It's cold or it's oven, that's it?

Yeah. - Jeez.

Have a look at our potatoes and garlic and shallot.

Oh yeah. - Those look all right.

Add our clams in there, add some white wine.

This is our Parmesan broth.

So we go through about two 80 pound wheels

of ground up Padano Parmesan on a week.

And then we save all the rinds

and we take a big pot of water and we put shallots

and potato and all Parmesan rinds,

and we boil that and we make essentially a stock,

then a bit of heavy cream.

So white wine, Parm broth, heavy cream go into there.

Let's have a look at our clams.

Those are all opening, nicely

The doneness of this dish is kind of determined

by when the potatoes are done.

Done so that's perfect timing.

I'm at home, I don't have a wood-fire oven,

how, what do I do?

Typically, this is just done on a stove top.

Yeah.

It's just done, you know...

It's done on a stove.

Yeah, a little bit of butter, little thyme,

little salt, pepper, hit it with a little bit of lemon,

I like the thickness of that.

You don't want it too thick,
but the starch from the potato

just tighten it up just a little bit.

Look at that

The toasted Garlicky bread crumb over the top

just for texture.

There you go.

All right.

Let's check out those clams.

Oh, that's chowder like I've never seen before.

It's true.

That stock, it's gotta be the Parmesan rind.

Yeah. - That has to be what that is

'cause it's just so, it's so deep.

There's so many layers going on

you don't even know where to start with it.

It's not too thick, it's not too soupy.

Yeah, the salt content of the clams and oysters

is a bit higher, 'cause they're
actually on the ocean coast,

so I didn't add any salt to this.

There's no salt?

There's no salt in that,

it's all natural salt from the clams themselves.

Unreal. - Yeah, yeah.

Awesome, this is fantastic.

The clams go great with a lightly-Oak Chardonnay

for a couple reasons.

The creaminess of the dish goes great

with the slight creaminess of the Chardonnay.

While the acid in the Chardonnay
cuts through that richness.

Finally, a full-body dish with a full-bodied wine

makes for a great pairing.

We're gonna start the...

Oh the mushrooms?

No, the mushrooms - We're gonna start

the mushrooms - Yeah, yeah.

So again garlic and shallot, incredible mushrooms,

I'm just gonna tear 'em a little bit.

The garlic reminds me of
that scene from "Goodfellas"

where he slices it so thin...

Totally - It dissolves in the pan.

Absolutely.

So the base is actually the same?

Essentially. - Pretty much, yeah.

Lots of olive oil, and then
we just pop that in the oven

get those mushrooms roasting.

How hot do these guys get?

We like to keep the one on the right,

which is primarily for pizzas at about 900

and this one over here at about 700,

and that's where we would normally do

a lot of this saute work.

This needs to be real hot

'cause it has to happen really fast.

You gotta do it quick, wow.

Yeah.

That's hot as hell.

Yeah, it is.

A couple of Ciabatta toast that we make up

to help soak up all this great sauce we're gonna make

with the mushrooms right now.

There it is. Beautiful.

You see how they roasted up really nice.

You really don't,

you don't need to do much but warm these.

You just wanna warm 'em

really accepts an incredible texture,

and now we're just gonna hit it

with little wine, fresh
thyme, tiny bit of chili flake

and just a little bit of butter,

maybe more than a little bit.

Gorgeous.

It's perfect.

Oh God, those smell, if you could be here.

So lemon juice, a little bit of salt,

little bit of pepper, that is the stuff.

And then you just kind of gently...

Oh just right on top of the bread?

Right on top.

And let it soak it up. - And let that sauce

soak into that.

And I think that's about as nice a thing you can do

to a Chantrelle.

Time to try?

Yeah, try it. - Let's do it.

Oh my God.

I don't know those...

the texture of those mushrooms is sick.

Yeah. - Just absolutely gangster.

Enough acid in the sauce to kinda cut through

but not so much that you're
gonna overpower anything.

Bold flavors of like the garlic,

look at the garlic.

It's thin enough that it's not like,

there's no spice to it anymore,

like when it drops, it just melts.

You got the bread soaking
up everything on the bottom.

Those savory earthy notes
that you get with the Pinot Noir

go great with the earthy mushrooms,

and the high acid Pinot Noir,

cuts right through that butter.

Thank you so much...

Santa Barbara is one of my favorite wine regions.

We touched on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay

but they're making everything up here.

Italian varietals, Rhone varietals...

Next time you're in LA,

take the drive up and check it out.

We'll see you next time on "V is for Vino."