EP 0001 - Scott Osborn of Fox Run Vineyards Transcript
For our inaugural episode, we feature one of the Finger Lakes wine industry's great champions and leaders.
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S1-EP0001 - Scott Osborn of Fox Run Vineyards
FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
00:00:00:07 - 00:00:23:14
This is Viti+Culture where we share conversations with makers, growers, thinkers and doers, folks who cultivate a good life. My name is Chris Missick and I'm a lawyer turned winemaker in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. And I'm sitting down with great people in wine and other walks of life to hear their stories, learn their lessons and take their advice on the perfect pairing.
00:00:32:25 - 00:01:05:29
In this episode, I'm sitting down with a man who has been called the Robert Mondavi of the Finger Lakes, a pioneer that has taken his winery, Fox Run Vineyards to great heights and in the process has helped build the Finger Lakes wine region as well. He's been a friend, a mentor and a business partner of mine this last decade. We're sitting down with Scott Osborn to discuss his early days in the wine industry in California, the explosive growth of the Finger Lakes wine industry, his exploration of geology and the legacy he hopes to leave behind.
00:01:06:27 - 00:01:30:08
If you like this content. Please help us grow by liking this video on YouTube and subscribing to our show on your favorite podcast platform. Don't forget to visit our website at vitiCULTUREpodcast.com. Subscribe to our Substack where you'll get show notes, transcripts, musings and exclusive offers and check us out on all the major social media platforms. And now here's the show.
00:01:40:26 - 00:02:04:06
Chris Missick: So we are famous in our wine region for cold and snow and ice in the winter, but I want to start this conversation with fire. There was a fire at your home years ago. Yeah, and I think that it sets the tone for some of the adversity we face personally, but how our community and our industry comes together.
00:02:05:08 - 00:02:05:24
Scott Osborn: That was.
Well, I can tell you this, when your home burns, it's a life changing experience and, it's an immediate life changing experience, you know, for instance, the wine industry and what I've been part of here is a long changing experience. But boy, that house burning was a life changing experience. And and what was amazing was the way the community came together to support my family and I to help raise some money so that we could buy underwear and toothpaste and, you know, all of those things that you lose
when your house burns. And it was just an amazing experience. A group of people through a fundraiser and people came from all over the state, white wine industry, people came from all over the state. And even distributors, you know, their sales managers and stuff showed up for this. And it it it was and it was at Anthony Road. And, you know, John and Anne had offered up their place for for this fundraiser, and it was quite the experience.
00:03:30:17 - 00:03:49:08
Chris Missick: Now, for anyone who hasn't been to Fox Run, the house is right next door to a really cool old barn, which is where, you know, the tasting room is in. There were just so many things that in that minute when you realize it's burning down, I mean, what was going through your head?
00:03:51:09 - 00:03:56:11
Scott Osborn: Well, what actually was as I sat there and and before before anybody showed up, it was just me and my son. And only one car had driven by the house in 15 minutes or so that we were standing outside. And which is unusual for a 14. 14 is the 20th most traveled road in the state of New York. And only one car drove by and she actually stopped and and, you know, came running up to see if there was anybody in the house. And we were already out. But as I sat there, I just kept saying to myself over and over, tomorrow is going to be a different day.
00:04:33:25 - 00:04:35:19
Scott Osborn: Yeah. You know, and fire department started to show up. And it was pretty amazing because Art Hunt from Hunt Country, which is almost a half an hour away, he's he's a fire chief. And he heard the call on the radio and he drove all the way over. Wow. That's pretty amazing. And we didn't get out with any clothes, you know, overcoats and stuff. So it was it was one of the coldest October as I'd ever evenings I'd ever experienced. And I was standing there and I walked up and he said, here, take my coat. And he says. Don't worry about it, you know, I get it when you're done with it
00:05:17:04 - 00:05:31:15
Chris Missick: and it being in October was on the heels of, I mean, the busiest time of year for us, you know, I mean, that had to be a real challenge for you. Well, it exhausted your lose your home.
00:05:31:17 - 00:05:32:02
Scott Osborn: Yeah.And it it was it was just different. And, you know, fortunately, it was right at the end of October. So we were we were done with Harvest. Yeah. And, you know, it was it was that period of the yar. Customers are not coming in anymore. Harvest is over. And so there's this letdown that happens in that, you know, the fire happened, but Ruth's father died 10 days later. He just which which was a one, you know, a nail in the coffin, so to speak.
00:06:05:29 - 00:06:19:15
Chris Missick: But it reminds me of 1984 in our family, our house burned down and, you know, fortunate that we didn't lose everything. But, you know, all the photo albums that were in the garage that same year, I got meningitis and my mom's dad died. And I mean, you're right, when you haven't been through the experience of a house fire and particularly the experience of losing everything like that, the clothes in your back, nothing impacts you psychologically quite like that.
00:06:39:00 - 00:06:51:21
Scott Osborn: Well, you say that it's it's really interesting because when your house burns, you become part of a club. Yeah. That you really don't know actually exists out there. And that club as people just show up at the end of fifty dollars. Yeah. You know, they hand you a plate of lasagna and you have no idea who they are. And you go, why are you doing this. Oh my house burned down and you know, this is what you do now. So, you know, every time we know of somebody whose house is burning, you know, we're part of the club. Yeah. You know, we know exactly what theyneed, you know, and you know, they need that plate of lasagna or they need fifty dollars, you know. Yeah. Because a lot of times people can't access their bank accounts. Yeah. It's amazing the checkbook books, but,
00:07:26:22 - 00:07:40:23
Chris Missick: You know, everything's fine now. Fortunately, the house was rebuilt. It's gorgeous. Now sits on the property overlooking Seneca Lake. Some of my favorite memories have been some dinners with you and your wife, Ruth. Wonderful cooks and wonderful wine, and that's a wonderful time, so it is, it is. So when we go back, the interest for you with regards to getting into the wine industry. I know it stemmed from from an old sweetheart and you out west to California.
00:08:00:00 - 00:08:01:04
Scott Osborn: Yeah, I was actually living out there. I had gone out to visit friends and stayed and and, you know, I had a real estate company that specialized in ranches and resorts. And for those of you who are out there old enough, you know, 1980, the interest rates at 22 percent are unbelievable. Well, people don't buy property at that at that high interest rate. So I was out of work and my girlfriend at the time was working at Kanakis for Harvest and Connect. I got an order from the Stanford Alumni Association that bottled up the wine, but they did. The label went all the way around and they didn't have a label or to do it. So they need somebody to hand label these bottles of wine. And so I did. And and it took about 30 days to label a thousand cases and February comes around and Lane had gotten the job of assistant winemaker at Firestone. So we moved down there and I started working on the bottom line of Firestone and fell in love with a business close to my company and said, I'm going to take jobs that teach me how to be a winemaker. And so from Firestone, I went to Saccharomyces or Sellar Master, and then Ken Brown, who was the winemaker there, was starting his own winery. And so I went over to Byron for Harvest in 1984 and. You know, learned a lot there and at that. Time I hadn't visited family in a while, so I came back to visit my father and my mother here in Rochester and and. You know, being a cocky little California wine guy, you know, I figured I go wine tasting well at that time there are only about 20 wineries in the Finger Lakes and.
00:09:54:20 - 00:09:56:21
Chris Missick: Well, you know, what year was that?
00:09:56:23 - 00:10:05:28
Scott Osborn: 1984, OK. And so I go tooling around in the last winery, I ended up it was Wagner and. I tasted their 1982 Chardonnay and it blew my mind. It was the first really cool climate wine I'd ever had, that light, crisp acidity. It was so well-made. And and I just said, wow, this is what I want to do, you know? And I'd never tasted anything in California with with that complexity, with that lower alcohol, with the acidity, you know, the brightness, the freshness that it had. And and so I went back in and gave notice and packed my bags, figuring, you know, I'm I'm from California. I can get a job anywhere, you know, as a winemaker. And came back and I discovered that that's not true. Most of the wineries, if not all the wineries, either had a winemaker or, you know, the family that the owner was making the wines. And and that's how I got in sales. And I worked retail shops. And then I worked for a distributor. And then I was offered a job as general manager in our vineyards on Long Island. And so I went down there and for a couple of years, my father came down with cancer. I asked Dr Damiano if I could take a leave of absence, and he said, sure. And so I, my father didn't really need me, but I just sort of wanted to be around him. Yeah. In case he did. And, you know, in case his wife couldn't take him into the hospital or whatever needed to be done. And at that time, my my first partner approached me and said, let's buy a winery. And so this is 1992, OK? And I started looking around and I would show him winery after a winery and I would drive by Fox Run, which opened in 1990.
00:12:00:09 - 00:12:08:24
Scott Osborn: So this is two years later. Yeah. Not once did I think of stopping to say, hey, do you want to sell, you know. And Andy, my original partner, finally one day said to me, he said, don't I don't want to see any more wineries. Yeah. You know. You know my. The person who runs my construction company, Ruth, take her along next time you got to see something. If she likes it, I'll come down and take a look at it. Well. A little while later, I get a phone call from Larry Wilmore, who is the owner of Fox Run, and and Larry said, Scott, we would like to sell sell the winery. And we'd like to sell it to you. Yeah, and I said, well, why would you like to sell? You've only been open for two years. And he said, well, it's not retirement. Yeah, that's true, but why are you calling me? And he said, well, you don't want to make the second mistake in the wine business. And I said, well, what's the first? And he said, starting a winery and not knowing what you're doing. And I said, well, then what's the second? He said, selling it to somebody who doesn't know what they're doing. And we know that you've been in the business for years. We know you've been looking. And and in the back of my mind and I kept saying to myself, unfortunately, Scott, you have a father who's got a lot of money. So, you know, one thing led to another. I took over in 1992, 93 for harvest, and we closed on St. Patty's Day in nineteen. Ninety four,
00:13:34:13 - 00:14:15:09
Chris Missick: Fantastic, you know, thinking about how much the industry has changed in the Finger Lakes, there are owner-wine makers out there and there are owners involved in the vineyards. But the businesses in a lot of cases have grown to a point where the owner really is managing the business. I think that speaks to the growth, because you look around the industry now and there are people who have come from all over the world employed, you know, as winemakers, as specialists in hospitality, as specialists in wine club. What was Fox run like in 1992 when you first stepped in to visit? I imagine that was an owner operated winemaker, you know, viticulture run business.
00:14:15:11 - 00:14:22:24
Scott Osborn: Yeah, well, Jim Gifford, if you know your history way back, Jim Gifford was the consultant winemaker and you know, Larry Nadal just sort of took care of it. Larry was a psychiatrist and Adela was a retired schoolteacher. And so, that first year, 1992, there was 7000 people had come through the tasting room. In 19 or in 2006, we had over 80000 people taste wine. So it just shows you the growth that happened in 1993 when when we we finally owned Fox. Right. And there were 14 wineries on Seneca. Now there's well over 100. Yeah. You know, it was impossible to get people to come, you know, because nobody knew existed. One day I was driving to Rochester and to visit my dad. Yeah. And I'm I'm one of those people who looks at his watch. I got to be on time all the time. You know, it's it's just a something that I actually do. And I looked at my watch and it took me 55 minutes. Well, I haven't been brought up in Rochester ever. Way back then, there was this wall around, what, Rochester, which was perceived as one hour. And nobody would, for a day trip, nobody would drive more than an hour. So I started a radio campaign that said, hi, I'm Scott Osborn. I own Fox Vineyards. We're only fifty five minutes from downtown Rochester. Come down and visit our tasting rooms open, blah, blah, blah. Well, that next year we had 18,000 people show up from Rochester who said, well, we didn't realize you were so close.
00:16:07:17 - 00:16:08:09
Scott Osborn: And then I had my staff and myself would and say, well, you know, Anthony Road is only two miles down the road. You should go visit them. Yeah, well, then, Anthony Road, you know, Prejean is only five minutes down the road. You should go down and visit them. And so Rochester ended up discovering the Finger Lakes and, you know, then it became Syracuse and Buffalo. It was really interesting watching those changes over the last those early years.
00:16:32:18 - 00:16:48:21
Chris Missick: That is probably some of the best ROI on marketing money you ever spent. And it actually makes me think, Scott, you know, you made the decision to run that ad in Rochester. That's where you were from. It's a natural, natural place for us to go. Syracuse is about 55 minutes from Fox Run on as well. And in some ways, it it still feels like city wise, Syracuse has adopted the Finger Lakes a little less than Rochester has. Rochester feels more identifiable, as you know, the Finger Lakes City. I wonder how much of that stems from some of that early marketing efforts and decisions that were made in those first days of the wine trail of what the efforts you were putting out there?
00:17:14:19 - 00:17:23:13
Scott Osborn: Well, we did the wine trail, did a couple of surveys, and we noticed that the majority of people who were coming from Rochester, so we had limited the wine trail, had limited amounts of money. So we sunk that. Small amount of money into Rochester, and I think that had a lot to do with it, Cayuga Lake is much closer to Syracuse, you know, and and so we sort of felt that that would be. You know, Cayuga Lake Syracuse was Cayuga Lake, and that was just our feeling, so we spend our money in Rochester and I think that a lot to do it.
00:17:50:29 - 00:18:13:11
Chris Missick: Yeah, it has been great to see the synergy, though, between having having a kind of an urban center, which is experienced up until covid its own sort of restaurant renaissance, an appreciation of local foods. It's you need cities like that near these sort of agricultural agro tourism regions to help put more money into these businesses.
00:18:13:16 - 00:18:34:00
Scott Osborn: Oh, yeah. And, you know, it also gives people, you know, some place to stay that's relatively close by. Exactly. That was in the early years. That's one of the big problems that we would have is is there are no major hotels. Yeah. Bambis would close November 1st and not open until May or June, you know, and we would see all these people come down and, you know, I'd be working the register and there be a young couple and they go, oh, you know, we got mom. Dad decided to take care of the kids for the weekend. We got to we we where can we stay? And I would say, well, you probably could stay in Rochester and they would go, well, we're from Rochester. And I go, well, that's where people would be staying at a hotel, you know, because it was it was really challenging, you know, and and it took oh, jeez. It wasn't until the 2000s that somebody started building hotels. I think that was the Ramada up there was the first big hotel and. They had, I think, one hundred and twenty eight hundred and forty rooms, and and once he finished it, he said, Oh, I made it too small.
00:19:20:00 - 00:19:36:14
Chris Missick: Unbelievable. There are now several additional hotels, especially in Geneva, going up all over heads in beds is what we say in the industry we need. I want to go back just real quickly, your experience. You know, Santa Barbara specifically. So that's where Firestone is, you know, even from the period back then. And incidentally, Firestone makes a pretty decent reasonably do they sell a lot of Riesling? It's amazing to see how much that region has changed to. Have you been out there recently?
00:19:53:00 - 00:20:05:07
Scott Osborn: Well, probably not for five or six years, but yes, it has. When I was when I went there, there were eight wineries and all of Santa Barbara. And it's huge now. I don't know how many are out there, but there's a lot.
00:20:05:17 - 00:20:08:29
Chris Missick: So back in that era, I imagine you were spending time with the folks from Foxen and, you know, some kind of great old guards there as well.
00:20:13:17 - 00:20:14:28
Scott Osborn: Oh, sure, Foxen. And there's Santa Barbara winery. And then there's a couple that I can't think of offhand, you know, I should have said, but and my girlfriend at the time, Lane Tanner, she she left Zaca Mesa and started her own brand, and she made Pinots for a long time. And then she quit after Sideways because there was some challenges out there. Everybody was making Pinto and, yeah, and she's just she started Merlot, but she she's now working for her. I think it's Lumin, OK? And she's making Pinot again. And you've never had one of her Pinot, you should probably start because there's some of the best made in California and the least known for sure.
00:21:09:18 - 00:21:35:27
Chris Missick: Fantastic. So we've seen different regions in this country change. Americans seem to have adopted wine more and more, higher quality wine in terms of the effort, more authentic in terms of place. And our businesses have grown to you know, you and I have been in business together. We had a European venture. Some of my favorite memories are still having mussels and fries in Belgium with, you know, Chardonnay, you know, but there are also other places where else in the world have you been able to venture out and have wines made in our little wine region drink?
00:21:49:12 - 00:22:06:16
Scott Osborn: Well, we've we've been fortunate in in and it's some of it is very odd, you know. You know, we don't have the money to put, you know, in an international sales manager on the road and travel and try to pick up distributorships or importers. Our first venture outside the country was I got an email from this kid in Alberta and he said, we're looking for some Finger Lakes wines. And and it turned out later that we were the only one who responded to him. We started shipping our wines to Alberta and it was absolutely amazing because they had changed the way they did business. And they used to be everything was was run by the government. Yeah, they privatized everything except for the the warehouse and the shipping and the importation. And so it was just like the Wild West then. And then we we were going to Europe a lot with the New York Wine and Great Foundation and their MAPP program, which means market access program. And I was at a tasting in Belgium and and I kept trying to get an importer and they would say, well, you know, ship five cases, well, five shipping five cases to Europe. It's like 100 bucks a case. And, you know, you can't the price point is just totally out of out of range. And so I was talking to a friend of mine, Christian Classens, and I you know, I was lamenting about this and how, you know, if we were able to put together a container, you know, we could bring the price down to, you know, maybe ten dollars a case, you know? And so he said, well, you know, I'll put up the money if you find three other wineries. And I found Anthony Road and Bellangelo and we started a company. And in 2013, I think we shipped four container loads of New York wines to to Europe. And we could be price competitive on the shelf because of that. And we would take other other New York wines. If we had room on our container, we'd take other pallets of New York wines so we could make sure that we were getting New York wines to Europe, you know, where they could be price competitive. Yeah. You know, things changed and, you know, tariffs went up and, you know, and so it was it's been real hard at this point. Then China, just before the tariffs, we were shipping wine to China. And and I think once the tariffs go away, if that ever happens, then I think you'll see one of the largest markets for New York wines will be China.
00:24:49:14 - 00:25:07:18
Chris Missick: It's so complementary to the cuisines you find in all the different regions of the country. It's funny to use the word Wild West with regards to Alberta, because Calgary is sort of like the Texas of Canada. It is. And they have one of the world's largest rodeos.
00:25:07:20 - 00:25:09:24
Scott Osborn: Yeah, it's the oldest to one of the oldest. And what you were the featured wine for the rodeo weren't two years running. Our Chardonnay was the Chardonnay for all the boxes, you know, and you know what the all the the suites and everything like that, which was huge. Yeah. To have a little New York winery out there in Alberta, you know, pouring wine for all these cowboys. And we sold 200 cases in ten days of chardonnay, which was amazing. Wow. When you think about it. Yeah. And and they were getting I think it was seventy dollars Canadian per bottle. Oh God. I wish I could get that kind of money for my wife.
00:25:55:02 - 00:26:15:16
Chris Missick: To me that's sort of the exciting thing that happens in front of your winery that I had long been asked, you know, well, you're from California. Why didn't you just go to Napa Valley then? I would always say, well, you know, so I'm kind of the opposite of the mindset of guys like John Lennon. John Lennon was asked, you know, why do you live in. New York, he said, because it's the center of the world. If I was live two thousand years ago, I'd live in Rome,
00:26:16:00 - 00:26:16:25
Chris Missick: but I have to be at the center of everything. So there are people who do that. And then there are people who seek frontiers where there is still room to make big things happen. And, you know, I can't think of any better frontier story than an upstate New York winery selling to one of the largest rodeos in western Canada in the world. It's amazing. And, you know, and that you say that. And I know that's why you came to the Finger Lakes, because, you know, you didn't want to be in in a pond with a bunch of big fish. You wanted to come someplace where you could actually make a make a statement. You know, you're and you're a tremendous winemaker. And the wines that you are making, you know, they add to the overall quality and the experience here in the Finger Lakes. And, you know, there are a number of people who've come here just because, you know, they know that they can make a difference. You know, and it's funny because I do love the cool climate nature. I like the lower alcohol. I love Riesling. You know, what I love more than anything else, though, is there just aren't that many big egos. Right. So in every industry, if you're on Wall Street, in New York City, if you're in oil in North Dakota, any time there's a center of something and it attracts some great talent, you're constantly rubbing up against people who just don't have time for you because their egos are so big. But when we first moved here and I knew that that wasn't the mood of the region,
00:27:54:26 - 00:27:58:06
Chris Missick: I was reading up in Dawson's book as I was packing my things in California, Summer In A Glass.
00:28:00:11 - 00:28:03:04
Scott Osborn: That's a great read as a wonderful read. And it is.
00:28:03:15 - 00:28:20:17
Chris Missick: But I came here and really within about two months, I just called you up and said, hey, can I sit down with the person who started Fox Run? I'm in the wine industry now and I have no idea what I'm doing. And you sat me down and I mean, that was really the start of our friendship. But that has been one of those unique things about the Finger Lakes. And it probably is bred from the fact that, you know, we are real workers, were real farmers were were tied to this ground in this place. And it isn't just, you know, some retirement project for most of us.
00:28:40:16 - 00:28:56:18
Scott Osborn: Right. And it's also not corporate. Yeah. You know, I think once you get into corporations that are run either by stockholders or even somebody who's just made a ton of money on something else, you know, all of a sudden secrets are part of doing business and. And that's where people who don't really know what the wine industry is about to make is a big mistake that they make because the recipe is published all over. It's like cooking. Yeah. You know, and one of the things I always tell chefs that I run into or used to work for us or whatever, especially the ones that didn't want to share the recipes I got. How many famous chefs do you know that don't share the recipes? Well, you don't know any chefs that don't share the recipes. And and and that's the same thing with winemaking. You know, we all have recipes and we can all talk about it. But you can take my recipe and you can make. Yeah, but it isn't going to taste like Fox Run for a whole bunch of different reasons. And that misunderstanding is is key to, I think, why you see, you know, non-disclosure agreements and things like that going on and here in the Finger Lakes, because most of the wineries are family owned, even the ones that are corporate owned are corporate owned, because that's just the best way to to to run your business, you know, but their family owned corporations and, you know, there's there's a belief here that, you know, the better our neighbors do, the better we're going to do and the better our region is going to do it. And so any chance that we can get to help our neighbors, you know, it's going to to help the region be a better place.
00:30:42:16 - 00:31:12:18
Chris Missick: So I'm a big believer in the importance of place, whether you're growing grapes or not, like maybe your school teacher, the importance of place being your community, the food that is grown around there, the local barbershops, that those connections that make life worth living. But in wine, we talk about place a lot of times with regard to the actual soils, with regards to the climate, with regard to the influence of the winemaker. The French call it terroir. I know people debate whether or not it exists. I, I, I think it does. I think we still need to figure out what our terroir is here. Correct.
00:31:22:24 - 00:31:27:15
Scott Osborn: OK, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say the thing about terroir is, is. Most people don't understand, and so they make s*** up. Yeah, and you know about, you know, the slate and the soil makes it taste. Well, that's not true. But some writer who doesn't really understand it wrote about it. And people believe that. And that's the challenge with terroir. And I agree. I believe it exists. It's just a concept that's really hard to wrap your head around.
00:31:55:14 - 00:32:02:05
Chris Missick: It is because it takes in so many different factors. Right. Sort of. With that said and understanding that we have an evolving understanding of it here, we don't have, this isn't France. We don't have hundreds of generations of years and tens of generations farming the land yet. We'll get there. But you have a really cool series, because even though and I agree with you, you know, the specific soil, you aren't tasting that specific soil in the glass. It does influence how those grapes grow, the drainage, the composite of whatever is in the ground. And you've got a cool geological series where you highlight this.
00:32:33:26 - 00:32:35:12
Scott Osborn: Yeah. And it's we've been doing that for years. Just, you know, we've been trying to figure out the differences in our soil types and the elevations and all that kind of stuff. And it's very interesting to ferment something in the same way. And this is the challenge with trying to decide what your terroir happens to be. And that is if you're going to do comparisons, you have to ferment everything exactly the same way. You have to stop the fermentations at exactly the same time, which can be complicated during harvest. And so we've done it a couple of times. And then there are times when, you know, something else was going on and we didn't stop them at the same time. So even though we do have those separate wines, they are different just because the the winemaking was slightly different on it.
00:33:28:13 - 00:33:35:04
Scott Osborn: There are a couple that stand out for me. I always particularly like the Lake Dana expression.
00:33:35:06 - 00:33:38:28
Chris Missick: That's what I like too. You've got good taste. Yeah, thanks.
00:33:39:20 - 00:33:48:00
Scott Osborn: And so this is the other thing I just love about wine is we're constantly telling multiple layers of stories with every single bottle. So you want to share
00:33:49:17 - 00:33:50:02
Chris Missick: Lake Dana, a little bit of the history, how you came up with that name, why that name for your vineyard?
00:33:55:01 - 00:33:56:15
Scott Osborn: This was. It was interesting because I was, you know, the geology of the Finger Lakes, you know, and I was trying to figure out what, you know, what our property was and, you know, how many different types of soil and all that kind of stuff. And I was talking to a professor at the Hobart, William Smith of Joal, geology professor. And and, you know, I was talking about this. She said, well, let's I have my students do a special project. And so they came down, they dug a 150 test holes around the property. And, you know, then once they got done, they compiled all that information and she came down and said, well, guess what you have. And and I said, well, what? And she said, well, you have the shoreline of Lake Dana on your property. And and I go Lake Dana - I know Seneca Lake. She goes, well, 12,000 years ago when the glaciers were melting, they couldn't drain south because elevation south of us were too high. So the glaciers had to melt, you know, almost to Rochester and Syracuse before they started draining east and west. And then it took a thousand years to drain out to Seneca Lake. Yeah. And so you have the shoreline of Lake Dana and she goes, it's shorelines are really obvious if you're a geologist. Yeah. And it's six feet of a sandy soil that's unique to shorelines worldwide. OK, that's great. And she goes and the other thing you have is you got a hanging delta or what they call a paleo delta. And I go, and that is well, it turns out we have the stream on our property. There were a series of unnamed lakes where they found a shoreline, but it wasn't big enough for the geologists to give it a name. Interesting. But there were three of them between Route 14 and Seneca Lake. And this stream drained out in that area and created this delta. And that is eight feet of sand with some layers of clay in it. And the clay is pink, which is really fascinating when you dig down in it and you see these layers. So that's a hanging delta. And that's where we came up with the geology series. We made Riesling from Lake Daina and we made Riesling from the hanging delta using both the same clone's and the same fermentation techniques. And our winemaker.
00:36:25:09 - 00:36:49:13
Chris Missick: Claims that there's no difference, you know, but he's the only one. Yeah, everybody else says they can you know, they can find a difference between the two. And it's interesting, about 50 percent of the people like the lake, Dana, 50 percent like the hanging delta. And when they're tasting them side by side, I am blind. Tastings have always picked the Lake Dana, for some reason, I have to. I do think there is a difference.
00:36:52:00 - 00:36:53:27
Scott Osborn: Yeah, there is definitely.
00:36:54:01 - 00:36:56:01
Chris Missick: Peter Bell, your winemaker.
00:36:56:03 - 00:37:17:26
Chris Missick: Yeah, brilliant. And he has been a real leader for a lot of us as winemakers. And he's got so much experience. He's a particularly good at fortified wines, but he and he has a great scientific mind. But he's one of these people who once he has decided something. That is the answer.
00:37:18:01 - 00:37:19:04
Scott Osborn: That is the answer.
00:37:19:07 - 00:37:26:08
Chris Missick: Yeah, I'm not like that. I sometimes will go back and forth, but it's that sort of strong mind that has actually helped the region. And he's decided how to make great Riesling. And he does. Every cent does.
00:37:33:05 - 00:37:43:24
Scott Osborn: And, you know, but just to his defense a little he does change. Yeah. It takes years and years and years. For instance, he he like to make Chardonnay,but he hated it. And now he's sort of come around that cool climate. Shani's are actually really it's taken 20 years. But yeah. No, it's he's a fascinating guy. He's a great teacher.
00:37:57:21 - 00:37:58:06
Chris Missick: Yes.
00:37:59:00 - 00:38:11:24
Scott Osborn: I'm always enthralled and and amazed to listen to him speak, you know, to the consumer or to scientists or whatever, because he's just so he does it so well. And it's I love listening to him.
00:38:17:24 - 00:38:33:06
Chris Missick: And he he's also changed his mind in some ways with regards to how we ferment Riesling. And he's embraced a small part, but some new oak or some older oak, there's neutral, oak. And you have a bottle, you call it Sylvan, resulting in the sense you're your barrel fermented in aged Riesling.
00:38:33:13 - 00:38:42:04
Scott Osborn: Yeah, Ruth and I were in the Mosel and we were, you know, have and know friends there who owned wineries and we were touring around and you know, I called in a couple friends favors and got some nice visits at different wineries and and I notice there are these large casks that they were fermenting in nature in their wines, and so I came back to Peter and I said, you know, let's let's try this. And you go, no, you can't do that. And I go, well, why not? He says, well, it overlooks the wines. And I mean, you've taste this. This is a scene named a number of different wineries and and they're all over OK. And I said, let's use a 10 year old oak barrel with no flavor and see what happens. And and he goes, oh, yeah, we could try that. So we the first year we did it, we did one barrel, two months in the barrel after fermentation, and we cracked it off as a beautiful wine, but it lost a lot of the characteristics of that Riesling. And so the next year we did two barrels and Peter pulled it out after 30 days and it's still lost the aromatics that we really like in Riesling. And so now what we've done and we found that we just hit the sweet spot, and that is you use all really old oak barrels that have absolutely no flavor anymore. You fermentable the wine in the barrel and to dryness and it takes about 18 days, give or take, because when it's
00:40:06:26 - 00:40:12:10
Chris Missick: in a barrel and it's not a temperature controlled environment, these fermentations can really pick up a lot of heat. They can go fairly quickly.
00:40:14:25 - 00:40:17:16
Scott Osborn: And that might be in some cases where you lose the aromatics. But yep, anyway. And, you know, it it depends. So sometimes it goes in 15 days, sometimes it goes in 20, you know, so we we feel we've gotten to that. We found how to do that in a way that makes it really unique style of Riesling. And and when you pour to the consumer, the American consumer who believes all Rieslings are sweet. Yeah. You know, it blows their minds because it's so it's dry. It's crisp, it's lively. It it's really neat wine. I gave you two bottles.
00:40:50:28 - 00:40:51:19
Chris Missick: Well thank you.
00:40:52:24 - 00:41:13:25
Scott Osborn: And I haven't had this is the 18 vintage I think at home I have the 17, really excited to try it. I'm a big believer in some barrel fermented Riesling as well. It tends to be a blending component for me. I find that although we lose some aromatics, we really do gain some breath on the mid palate. Oh, the palate fillers.
00:41:16:12 - 00:41:25:11
Chris Missick: And, you know, and with that, I'm not quite sure how long you guys get from barrel, how long is it in barrel then for just about two or three months.
00:41:25:13 - 00:41:35:14
Scott Osborn: No, it's in a barrel. Eighteen days. We pull it out as soon as the fermentation is done we understand it, you get the palate feel that we're sort of looking for. Yeah. But you retain a lot of that aromatic. And now you know, I've talked about it with Peter about being a blending component. But, you know, as a standalone wine, it seems to do really well.
00:41:49:16 - 00:41:59:19
Chris Missick: It is. And, you know, you guys have been such a standard bearer for so long. You've got a house style. And Peter certainly does. It's hard to prevaricate from that too much is we do a single bottling called Fût de Chêne . And that's just because my wife told me that means aged in oak and in French. And but we that get to have extra strange characters on the label, right. So little carrots over.
00:42:16:04 - 00:42:20:03
Scott Osborn: Nice being married to a French woman. I'll tell you, that helps.
00:42:21:11 - 00:42:27:09
Chris Missick: It is. It is. You also produce a Traminette at and some other varietals that aren't well known outside the region. Care to talk about that? Because I particularly like your treatment at.
00:42:32:22 - 00:42:43:20
Scott Osborn: So I am really excited about that one. But it's really interesting. When I came here in 92 and 93 and, you know, the whole hybrid thing was it was it everybody talk bad about hybrids and, you know, the spectator, the wine enthusiast, none of them weren't even with, you know, they wouldn't. And they were you know, the writers would ask, why are you growing this? And then I read an article in The Spectator, probably 98 or 99, and all these great new varieties being grown in Oregon and Berko Noir was one of them. And I go, wait a minute, how can work and grow a hybrid? And I get criticized for it, but things changed. And, you know, one of the problems with the New York being a winery in New York in the early years is everybody remembered all the bad wines that had been made beforehand, the jug wines and, you know, things that just, you know, people never really liked. And and there was a lot of bad winemaking going on. And, you know, so you're going to develop. An attitude about. You know, these wines suck because everyone I've had is sucked, you know, but and I maintain that, you know, now with the younger generation, you know, whose parents have been drinking wine from all over the world. Yeah. They don't have the prejudices against New York that a lot of the older people And they want to know if a wine tastes goodand they don't care that it's one of the royal varieties, the Chardonnay or the Riesling or the Pinot Noir. You know, they don't care. They want good wine and and with good wine and art treatment that is outstanding. And, you know, but it just shows you what good winemaking can do for a grape. That is a wine grape.
00:44:28:21 - 00:44:29:10
Chris Missick: Exactly. You know, when I first had moved back here, I'd taken the bar exam in New York a couple of years before, and I just hadn't gone through the process of, you know, swearing in. And so when I was sworn in, it was probably a month after I had moved here and there was a gentleman who was there. His daughter had been admitted. He was a lawyer, probably in his 60s, and kind of smugly said to me, so where are you going to be practicing? I said, well, I'm actually not going to be practicing. I'm making wine in the Finger Lakes. And he said, what are you what do you do? And Taylor is all he knew.
00:45:07:00 - 00:45:07:15
Scott Osborn: Right.
00:45:07:21 - 00:45:24:25
Chris Missick: And I didn't get into an argument and I just said things have changed. And there is this in the older set, people who haven't rediscovered what New York is about, there is a misconception of what we're doing here, but it's changing.
00:45:25:00 - 00:45:55:21
Scott Osborn: Yeah, it is a lot. And, you know, it's you know, this is the older generation that prevents us from being in all the restaurants. It's you know, it's that older generation that has prevented us from, you know, being the great region that we are. But as we get those scores and as you know, the spectator and the wine enthusiast and Wine and Spirits magazine, write about us and give us these high scores. You know, we're breaking down that barrier.And so now in Rochester and Syracuse, you're seeing a lot more Finger Lakes wines on the wine list, you know, which is really important because that's where a lot of people will try the wine for the first time. That's also where, you know, your wine club members and your real fans they see on the wine list, oh, geez, I'm going to have that and Riesling or I'm going to drink that Chardonnay. You know, that's why they then support you if they if they can buy it. And I had one restaurant owner said, well, you know, I don't put New York wines on my wine list because nobody ever asked. And I said, well, why don't you put some on and see if they sell? Yeah. You know, because people aren't going to ask or if they do ask, they're going to ask the server. The server doesn't turn around and tell the owner, oh, by the way, I had 25 people today ask for New York wines. You know, that just doesn't happen. So, you know, it's changed and it's a real positive change. And there's some really fine restaurants that are you know, they make a point of carrying the good wines out of the Finger Lakes.
00:47:02:14 - 00:47:08:06
Chris Missick: And that actually brings me to another topic I wanted to talk with you about, Scott, just the business of wine.
00:47:09:26 - 00:47:19:23
Chris Missick: One of my favorite stories is your response to a liquor store owner with regards to you visiting the store. You know which one I'm talking about?
00:47:19:25 - 00:47:20:10
Scott Osborn: The one in Buffalo.
00:47:23:05 - 00:47:24:11
Chris Missick: if you could share that.
00:47:24:24 - 00:47:25:25
Scott Osborn: Yeah, I went into a we had just gone with a distributor statewide and, you know, so I was doing what we call a work with, which means, you know, you go out with the salesman or the sales manager in that particular market and you go visit all these different stores. And so we went into this one store. And as we're driving as first thing in the morning and I'm with the sales manager. Oh, yeah, this guy's great. You know, I know him really well. He's a personal friend. You know, we'll be able to get a placement here. And there's sort of this unwritten rule that when the managers come in, you make a placement. You know, you want to you know, the store owner wants to make him look good. So we go in there and there's also this courtesy that if there are other salesmen there, you let them do their presentations and then, you know, you sort of stand in line and touch about an hour. You know, we we made it to this guy, but I'd been wandering around the store and and I went over to the New York section and there were no wines on the wall. But then there was this huge stack of Chilean wines in front of it. Yeah. And yet, yeah, if you weighed more than one hundred and ten pounds, it was really hard to get in between that stack and the New York section. So I sort of knew that this guy was not a real fan. And yet so. We go through advertising through all the wines, and he goes, wow, you've got some nice wines, it's really nice. And I said, Oh, great. Are there any that you would like to carry? Oh, no, no, I don't have enough room.
00:48:55:27 - 00:48:58:01
Scott Osborn: And so the sales manager says, well, you know, we're discontinuing a couple of of wines and I can take them right away today. And you can put them right in there. No, no, no. And I said to the store manager or the store owner said, you know, that's a wonderful South African section you got there. And he goes, well, thank you. And I said, well, how many of your customers have been to South Africa? And he goes, Well, probably none. And I said, well, you know, about 15 percent of my customers are from Buffalo, you know. And, you know, I bet a lot of them come to your store and he didn't say anything. And then I said, well, when do you think Bob Mondavi is going to come in next? And he goes, never, and I said, you know, I'm the owner of my winery and you're important to me, and I've come all the way here, you know, to present some really nice wines to you. And he said, get out of my store. And he blew he threw me right out the store and the sales manager came over and he goes, I just want you to know it's the first time I've ever been thrown out of the store. And he goes, I can't believe it because this guy was at my wedding. Yeah. And and and that was sort of the attitude back in the mid to late 90s. Yeah. You know, and it's just it was tough back then. And, you know, you really had to be able if you were a salesperson selling New York wines, you had to be ready to have somebody tell, you know, all day long. And maybe you might get lucky at the end of the day with somebody saying, yeah, sure, I'll take these wines.
00:50:38:01 - 00:51:12:02
Chris Missick: You know, by the time I had entered the Finger Lakes wine industry, it wasn't like that at all in upstate, you know, you got some great stores like Market View Liquor. Oh, I mean, really, in Rochester, every store has a very solid collection of of New York wines. Closes for me, has been, you know, before the pandemic and when we were really trying sales in New York City. I mean, it is the toughest wine market in the world. And you constantly have the best winemakers in the world traveling there and meeting with folks.
00:51:12:24 - 00:51:22:17
Chris Missick: But even there, it's been amazing to see some of the placements that we have been getting and how much wine we have been able to move. So it's changing.
00:51:22:24 - 00:51:54:11
Scott Osborn: It is. Oh, it's a lot. And, you know, the problem in New York City is everybody in the world wants to be there, you know, so you have these huge wineries from all over the world that they can afford to have 10 sales people directly from the winery work in the market. And, you know, and and that's where the challenge comes in, because here we are, the small family owned wineries. You know, I'm I'm 20000 case winery, but that's like a garage winery in California or in some of these European countries. You know, it's like they spill more in a day than I make in a year. But, you know, that's the challenge with New York. And, you know, it's changing. Long Island has had a big effect on that, you know, because of their proximity and the amount of people who go visit the Long Island wineries. So it's opened up a lot of a lot of minds. And so there are a lot more acceptable to us coming in there. You know, your wines, my wines, a tons of wines here in the Finger Lakes that are all world class. Yeah. You know, and when you pour them to somebody who actually knows what they're talking about, it blows their minds. And, you know, they have no problem putting our wines on their wine list because they're good.
00:52:32:11 - 00:52:53:04
Chris Missick: Yeah, that is a weird feeling. Again, I'm actually I'm not distributed in New York City right now. Just it's not a focus for everybody. And but when we still were that feeling, when you're going down for sales meetings and, you know, it's it's New York City, we're used to a very different pace up here. And it's bustling and they're getting through I mean, dozens of wineries. And you're meeting with folks and there's, you know, wineries from around the world. And you're always talking to the regional like national sales manager for X Brand. And I'm like, I'm the owner winemaker with a couple handful of good, hardworking employees. And I drove down here last night. You know, it's a different world.
00:53:14:13 - 00:53:16:07
Chris Missick: It totally. But that's what I love about it, you know, and I think it speaks to the authenticity of the region that, you know, with that said, we do as you've mentioned, we've got a lot more wineries than we've ever had here. And I know that in recent years there's always questions like, have we reached a saturation in the number of wineries? Is it is it healthy for the region? I know Chateau Saint Michel. I think they make a million cases of their mainline Riesling and it would literally take every single one of us in the Finger Lakes teaming up to pour our Riesling in to make 250000 cases. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it just, you know, just the way it is that we have the number of wineries we do.
00:54:01:28 - 00:54:12:04
Scott Osborn: But we do have a lot of wineries and, a lot of them are, I think 80 percent of the winery's in the Finger Lakes, for instance, are less than five thousand gallons. Well, that's you know, they're selling whatever they can make most of it out of their tasting room and maybe they go out 50 miles in terms of distribution. You know, that other 15 percent, you know, have distributors, you know, and get out further. Like like you say you're not in New York City. Well, you don't have the production to be in New York City. And I think that's a sort of an example of, you know, there is room for people. There's a lot of room for people to produce a lot of one. Yeah. You know, and go national because, you know, there's a lot of room out there to do that. And, you know, now that we can ship, you know, to almost every state, you know, we have a big marketplace out there and people are coming to visit. So I don't think we're at that point. You know, there are some other considerations that would make our industry grow quite well. But you know that that's for another conversation, probably.
00:55:16:04 - 00:55:42:24
Scott Osborn: And, you know, when I think about it, I don't think of it in a this is good or bad. I guess the answer is or the question is, is there a way for the Finger Lakes to be to at least have one label that is everywhere in the U.S.? Are we going to reach a point where we can find enough market dominance so that everybody knows Finger Lakes and can pick up a bottle for dinner, whether they're in Oregon or Texas? That, you know, I mean, that's a tough question. It is totally possible, I think that what we need is an investment, you know, somebody who's got tons of money, who's willing to plant a lot of acreage, you know, and buy a lot of grapes, that the challenge that we have is, you know.
00:56:08:27 - 00:56:48:21
Scott Osborn: The cost of grapes, yeah, I mean, I'm paying 15 to 16 hundred dollars a ton for Riesling. Yeah. You know, in California, they're paying two or three or four hundred dollars a tonne. You know, that affects the final price on the shelf and, you know. Part of that high price is because there's just not enough. Recently being grown. Yeah, so until we have plenty of grapes out there, until we have wineries that are going national like Fox Run, you know, or you grow and you're national, you know, until those numbers. We need multiple wineries to be that large. Yeah, you know, and then you're going to you'll see them all over the place.
00:56:57:06 - 00:57:02:20
Chris Missick: I have to admit that I'm I'm perfectly comfortable where we are. I like the idea that we can ship we can serve customers in a lot of different places and it's a lot less stress on us having to travel around, particularly these days. Sure we can.
00:57:18:21 - 00:57:31:13
Scott Osborn: So I think the wine consumer is changing the palates or broadening hybrids are less expensive for us, not because they're inferior, but because they require less inputs. They're more suited for this client and you can get more tonnes per acre. So that's that's another. Reason for a higher price, you know, the less tonnes per acre, the higher the price of the grape is going to be. It is an interesting equation.
00:57:45:18 - 00:58:27:29
Chris Missick: You know, I know a lot of our vineyards, it's, let's say three to six tons per acre for Riesling. And I know in the Central Valley, some of these guys are pulling off 10, 15 tons. And yeah, it does speak to the fact that we're making a very different quality of Riesling. But when you are talking about that sort of just in other states, that grocery store placement, we can't compete on that price point. You know, so covid-19 has changed a lot of our businesses, we've discussed little bits and pieces of it here and there, we had changed our whole distribution model in about a year or two leading up to Covid-19. We had come out with a can like you guys. We were actually finding that
00:58:33:21 - 00:58:36:13
Scott Osborn: actually you made me to go to cans.
00:58:36:21 - 00:58:37:15
Chris Missick: I didn't make you
00:58:37:18 - 00:58:41:15
Scott Osborn: know, you didn't make me, but you gave me the idea, you know, Chris is doing that. I'll try that.
00:58:42:26 - 00:58:55:08
Chris Missick: You know, what we found was for canned wine in particular, it was selling great at events and, you know, places wherever people would gather covid-19 her our business wholesale wise, immensely, our distributors. Great. But it is a distributor that was more focused on on premise which we wanted. And without on premise, we saw sales fall at the same time. All the work our staff put in the taster and we saw Visitacion numbers were a little lower, but people were willing to spend a lot more. And we think it's because everybody was actually there for more of the experience. They weren't just on a bus getting drunk. Is that been your experience as well?
00:59:24:28 - 00:59:27:26
Scott Osborn: Yeah, I agree totally with that. And.
00:59:30:07 - 01:00:01:29
Chris Missick: covid-19 gave us an opportunity to change our business model. I think many of us were trying to figure out how to limit the amount of bachelorette parties and buses drive, you know, because they can be incredibly disruptive and they can ruin the experience for a lot of other people. And, you know, with covid-19 and the regulations, you had to be sitting down, you know, or you had to be outside and, you know, all of those things allowed us to change our the way we.
01:00:10:14 - 01:00:41:16
Scott Osborn: The way we handle the customer, the way we handle our tastings, and in doing so, we were able to discover that, you know, the majority of people, you know, they like going out wine tasting, but they also would like to taste wine and sit at a picnic table or and look out over the lake and spend time with their spouse or their friends and, you know, just enjoy life. And, you know, we've we've pretty much decided while we are we're in our own backyard. We we just kept buying more and more picnic tables. And so now I think what we're going to do is we're going to redesign it into sort of a wine garden. Nice. You know, with trees and picnic tables and, you know, all the different things that would allow a person to relax and be in comfort. Yeah, I think the the covid rules have given us an opportunity to separate our tables and chairs so that people were not encroaching on people's space. So it's a lot easier for people to relax. And, you know, it's for my staff and for me, the tension level, the stress level and our tasting room has dropped significantly.
01:01:31:29 - 01:01:33:24
Chris Missick: Yeah, it is true. I always hated this notion of a pub crawl in a van with wine because that's not what wine is about. And I think the other part of it is we all love wine, but we understand the importance of moderation and that wine should complement your meals and your life. It should not become the focal point of just getting drunk. That's not that's not why we make what we make. And that got shielded over the years with the way tourism had evolved. But if you're listening to this at home and you know you don't like that model, that it's another crazy wine trail, it isn't like that anymore. It's a lot more like what I experience when I visit my wife's family in Europe where, you know, we've got bigger buildings. It's not just, you know, off to the side of someone's garage barn. They were they're making their wine. But you're sitting down, you're having your questions answered. You're experiencing it. You're experiencing the place. You know, that's what's important. Yep.
01:02:37:13 - 01:02:42:18
Scott Osborn: And, you know, we've you know, I put up that gate and then I put up our planted a number of maple trees going up the driveway. My thought is, you know, when you turn and go through that gate, you know, and you drive up through this, hopefully in another couple of years, there will be sort of like a tunnel of trees driving under and that subconsciously it's going to click it's going to turn off the hustle and bustle of Route 14 and the crazy stuff that's happening at home, whatever that may be, the stress at work. And you're going to drive up there and it's going to change your attitude and you're going to say, oh, you know, maybe I can relax for a couple hours. And that's what I and you and many of us want. We want people to sit down and relax, enjoy some food. Yeah. You know, with our wines and, you know, and and realize, you know, this is a wonderful place and wonderful world to be in.
01:03:39:29 - 01:03:41:15
Chris Missick: And you mentioned this, the gate this was made by Sam Castner. Folks can find the episode with Sam, an amazing artist focused on iron works. And I guess this is kind of twofold. One, you've talked a lot in our private conversations about legacy projects. And two, we've also shared how surprised you were at this specific legacy project, just how large it was at first.
01:04:04:26 - 01:04:05:22
Scott Osborn: Yeah, it's
01:04:05:24 - 01:04:06:25
Chris Missick: it's really cool.
01:04:07:12 - 01:04:40:15
Scott Osborn: It's I'm assuming it still is the largest sculpture in the Finger Lakes. And, you know, when I went to Sam Castner, I saw him put up the red tail reg a sculpture there of the tree in the hawk. And and I said, wow, you know, this guy. I wonder if he could make me a gay. And my thinking of a gate is, you know, two columns with, you know, some metal thing in between. And Sam, Sam had a much different idea. You know, Sam had been working with Albert Paley. Albert Paley is the premier gate maker in the world. I think, you know, his gate at the St. Louis Zoo is just unbelievable to look at. So he came by one day after we talked and he said, hey, you know what? What kind of gate do you like? And Ruth and I were looking at it and and, you know, we well, we like this pergola a thing, you know, this overhead and he's OK. And I said you. You know, it's got to be tall enough for a bus or truck to get under and because we get great deliveries. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll work on it. Well, came back with its design, which we thought was pretty spectacular. And and he said, you know, it's going to be 20 feet tall and 40 feet wide. And I got OK. I have no idea what that means. So then he comes by for six months or eight months later and he digs these huge holes and and he said, I got to pour 39 tons of cement in here and I've got for a game. He said, yeah, yeah. Just for the Poles. OK, so he shows up one day and he's going to put the post the Poles and he puts the first one up. And I look up and I go. Ruth is going to kill me. I had no idea what 20 feet was until he put that first post up.
01:05:59:17 - 01:06:14:22
Chris Missick: And to frame it for folks, it's not just like 20 feet right next to the road, the way the fox run driveway is, you're driving. You actually go on a slight incline. So from the road, the gate is probably closer to like a 40 foot elevation when you're just looking up at it.
01:06:14:24 - 01:06:38:00
Scott Osborn: Yes. And when the gates themselves are spread out, it's I think it's. 60, it's either 60 or 80 feet wide. Each one of the gates weighs 6000 pounds. And Sam is so brilliant and so talented that one person can close these gates. And it's not a lot of effort. And I have a couple of very short women, you know, who can come down and they can close that gate without a lot of effort, that bloat which blows their mind.
01:06:53:05 - 01:06:56:19
Chris Missick: Yeah, that's fantastic. I have a hard enough time closing the deer fence on my own. It's fantastic. It's interesting. His work is popping up more and more, but I think he's going to be a name people will know in the art world well into the future.
01:07:10:21 - 01:07:11:20
Scott Osborn: Oh, I think so, too.
01:07:12:06 - 01:07:20:13
Chris Missick: And he's also the son in law of John and Anne and Martini. Yes, correct. But he doesn't really have a foot so much in the wine world. He is about his art.
01:07:20:21 - 01:07:32:21
Scott Osborn: Yeah. And he's a fabulous teacher. I know he does classes at Hobart, William Smith and and a college course on sculpture classes because one of the Keuka College, a couple of people from the sculpture class helped him build Argott and they filmed. And then the photography department film, the whole thing. Wow. You know, so there's we do have a DVD that. You know, that you can watch while you're standing in tasting room, and it's pretty amazing. It is.
01:07:53:13 - 01:07:55:06
Chris Missick: And we've put up a picture so folks have got to see.
01:07:58:28 - 01:08:28:08
Chris Missick: On the other part, legacy, I think of you as a young man, Scott. I plan on having my son worked next to you one day good, maybe doing an internship at Fox run with Peter Bell, but I think we're always thinking in the world of wine, this isn't for us. This is really for future generations. Other legacy projects, what's your thinking about your legacy in the Finger Lakes, just interested to hear.
01:08:30:16 - 01:08:41:23
Scott Osborn: You know that that is really a tough question because, you know, I got involved in this because I fell in love with industry. I've always been a people person. I love to meet people from all over the world. The college I went to had campuses all over the world. And so I you know, I spent my college years in other countries and. And wine was a tool that I could help me communicate with people, even if we had a hard time understanding each other because of the language barrier. Wine was the. The tool, I guess, would be the best term for that, and, um, and I love this, I get up every morning and, you know, I want to see people, I want to hear their stories. And, you
01:09:28:29 - 01:09:47:20
Scott Osborn: know, I want to tell my story. Well, my kids aren't as enthusiastic about that as I am, you know, and like, you know, my my daughter is a wonderful person. She's probably the most organized person in our company. Yeah. You know, but this is not her. It's not her dream. Whereas this is my dream now. And I remember when I was dating Ruth. You know, I, I. You know, I told her I loved her at one point, and so we started, you know, and she felt the same way. And so we started making plans. And and one of the things I said to her is I said, you know, this has been a dream of mine for my whole life. And and I I need you to understand that. What it is and that you can't be jealous. You know, you have to understand that.
01:10:35:08 - 01:10:56:15
Scott Osborn: This is not a competition against your affections and my affections to the winery and my affections to you, this is this is just a passionate thing that that I have to do. And I said, I want you to think about this. And she spent probably a good year, year and a half. And then one day she sat me down and she said, I get it, I understand it and I can handle it. And she's been a wonderful. A wonderful part of the growth of this business and but I think you need that you do, you know, and and I think when it comes to legacy and taking over the your children and, you know, Jessica and Michael, they may change their minds down the road and all of a sudden come on board. But, you know, at this point in time, it's it's Ruth and I and, you know, my mother's still alive at 94. So I figure I got plenty of time left to do.
01:11:36:23 - 01:11:40:26
Chris Missick: It is one of the truest things I've heard that this is an industry that you don't just work in. I mean, it is inside you.
01:11:43:26 - 01:11:44:11
Scott Osborn: Correct.
01:11:45:02 - 01:11:56:18
Chris Missick: And if that drive isn't there, you are in the wrong industry. Correct. So, you know, with that said, we actually have a Chardonnay that I wouldn't mind getting inside me right now. All right.
01:11:57:04 - 01:12:27:27
Scott Osborn: Well, I'm going to I'm going to let you describe it, because that's one of the things that we've we've started to do a fox run. I try to encourage my employees not to tell the customer what a wine tastes like because we want you all to to think about it. Yeah. And, you know, the other thing that we constantly say is there's no wrong answer, you know, because this is about you and this is about your flavor sensations, your taste sensations. You know, what you smell. I might not smell with you. You realize that we all know that. You know, there are certain smells that are strong. Peter, for instance, can't smell T.C.A. or quirkiness in a wine.
01:12:41:25 - 01:12:45:16
Chris Missick: He and that's because you're using DIAM right now.
01:12:46:10 - 01:12:49:00
Scott Osborn: That's why we went to synthetics at one point to. So you know, this and and and I know this is your wife's favorite wine. So, you know, and this was one of the things that really introduced us.
You know, our families together was the style here, but this is also the style that brought me back from California because this is the style that Wagner was. And Peter said this the other day, this is probably the best Chardonnay he's ever made.
01:13:20:09 - 01:13:21:27
Chris Missick: I'm loving this one right now, but it's brilliant. So this is the 20, 19 bucks run reserve chardonnay up Kaiser Vineyard named after John Kaiser, your current vineyard manager, named in honor of him.
01:13:35:04 - 01:13:46:09
Scott Osborn: So this is barrel fermented and aged in oak barrels for about 10 months. It goes through malolactic fermentation, which is a secondary fermentation that happens after the primary yeast fermentation.
01:13:52:18 - 01:14:10:29
Chris Missick: Beautiful notes of spring flower, white flower coupled with it like this hint of nectarine. It's like sitting on top of this beautiful sort of like creme brulee toast, you know, it's just sort of bounce out of the glass. It's beautiful. And the
01:14:11:20 - 01:14:14:24
Scott Osborn: what I'm noticing here is the the way it feels in your mouth. Mm hmm. You know, there's a creamy but soft and yet.
01:14:23:19 - 01:14:26:11
Chris Missick: Your salivary glands start to kick off.
01:14:26:26 - 01:14:55:23
Chris Missick: So that is the amazing thing about the Finger Lakes now. It takes a great hand like Peters to make a wine like this. But, you know, it's gone through malolactic. You feel that softness, it's not overpowering with the kind of the butterscotch, but it's gentle in the palate. But the acidity is still there. And it is it's that marriage of of the brightness that's causing my mouth to water. But with some of the lactic acid that has been teased out through the metal lactic fermentation, a lot of the aromatic notes carry forward into the palate. I think there's almost as nice savory quality to it on the palate, and it's probably some of the acidity, but it's hinting at some of that salinity, which is one of the things I absolutely loved in good chardonnay.
01:15:16:00 - 01:15:28:05
Scott Osborn: And. Even though Riesling gets all you know is sort of the premier grip of the Finger Lakes. I think on the white end, you know, there's Chardonnay and there's that, yeah, you know, and.
01:15:29:21 - 01:16:15:07
Scott Osborn: As we learn more and more about how to make sure today and it takes years and years, you know, it's one of the things that I think, you know, my friend Lane said this to me. She goes, you know, the learning curve here in the Finger Lakes is is really flat. She goes in California, you know, almost every vintage is the same, you know. And so the learning curve is really steep. Yeah. You know, she goes, you're going to be lucky to see two vintages, the same in 10 years, you know, and what that means to people who don't know is that that is, you know, you need consistency to learn on what you did right, what you did wrong. And if you have all these different years and different seasons and, you know, different rainfalls and different frost and all that, it takes years and years and years to to really fine tune so that you understand what to do.
01:16:30:27 - 01:16:32:11
Scott Osborn: And fortunately, you know, we've had Peter Bell since 1995. And, you know, I mean, he was a very talented winemaker when he came to us. But he is and he knows he's seen so many vintages the same. And when I say so many years before. Yeah. You know, and, you know, because of that, when he sees the grapes coming in in a specific manner, he's he's experienced them before and he knows what to do or he knows what to do. Yeah.
01:17:03:14 - 01:17:19:22
Chris Missick: I think 20, 19 as a vintage does not get nearly enough credit, you know, especially people who write about wine and don't make wine, love to write about are really hot years, you know, 12, 16, 20, warmer and dry.
01:17:21:24 - 01:17:33:22
Scott Osborn: But it is years like 19 and 17 and 14 that are making the wines. I love 11, 11 to nine. And before those rains, one of the things that I've noticed is with Riesling, the best Rieslings come out of years where it's raining during harvest. Yeah. And you know where in other areas, warmer areas, people, you know, they have heart attacks. If it rains, it's just typical for the Finger Lakes. Yeah. And a warm, dry year is. Not so typical lately, we've had more than in the last few years than we've had in the last 20. But. It's amazing how Riesling really, really shines in these sort of wet years, cloudy years, you know, and certainly does the same thing.
Yeah, yeah. You know, and as you when you get these warm, dry years, you're getting more of, you know, higher alcohols, you're getting more extraction. You know, the fruit is getting sometimes and in some cases, people let it hang
01:18:31:22 - 01:18:44:16
Chris Missick: too long and it gets these overripe flavors, you know? And, you know, that's another reason that I came here was I liked the flavor development that happened early on in the grape, which allowed
01:18:44:25 - 01:18:46:12
Scott Osborn: me to have acid.
01:18:46:14 - 01:18:50:29
Scott Osborn: Yeah. You know, crisptness, refreshing, you know, which I find goes with food much better. And I can also have a second and third glass, you know, and and that's what it's to me. I want to have my wife with food, you know, and in most cases, the only time I'm drinking wine is at dinner. Yeah, you know, sometimes if somebody comes by at lunchtime, I may have a glass of wine, but then I have to take a nap after that. But, you know, we in our family always drink it with dinner and food.
01:19:24:08 - 01:19:33:23
Chris Missick: Well, that is a beautiful wine, I always like your barrel fermented chardonnays. This is a truly standout vintage. It's really delicious. Thank you. I was thinking about that one. I was thinking about you. And I said, now I know Chris loves today. Yeah.
01:19:41:20 - 01:19:42:27
Scott Osborn: And, you know, so you'll like this. And this is actually out of the 19 vintage. This is one of the faves now. Well, good work. Thank you. You know, and we can do trades because it just, to pat, you on the back, you do make great Chardonnay I think, and that's one of the charges that we drink at home, is the Bellanglo.
01:20:09:05 - 01:20:17:14
Chris Missick: You know, we've got a lot of changes coming up with our own winery. We're going to be changing our name. By the time this airs, it's probably already happened.
01:20:18:06 - 01:20:18:26
Scott Osborn: Which is?
01:20:18:28 - 01:20:26:02
Chris Missick: So we're going to be going to Missick Cellars. And that is in part because this is the 10th year that we've owned the winery.
01:20:26:08 - 01:20:26:25
Scott Osborn: Mm hmm.
01:20:26:27 - 01:20:40:18
Chris Missick: And every year around wintertime, we talk about the fact that we love the business, the winery. But this wasn't our name. We kept it when we purchased it. And it's hard to pronounce for a lot of folks.
01:20:41:06 - 01:20:43:08
Scott Osborn: It's hard to spell too.
01:20:43:11 - 01:20:49:17
Chris Missick: It is. It is. And so, you know, with I always tell folks when they ask my philosophy, my winemaking, it's it's two things, deliciousness and authenticity. The most authentic thing for us is to let people know who's making the wine. And that it's a family wine business. Yeah. So we're going to be doing that this year. And part of it was really prompted after covid so much. It's not just the experience of the winery that's changed. It wasn't just the owners, wasn't just good scores. It was, uh, this isn't the winery we we stepped into a decade ago. Mm hmm. Oh, yeah. We made it ours.
01:21:21:13 - 01:21:24:19
Scott Osborn: Mm hmm. So. Oh, well, congratulations.
01:21:24:21 - 01:21:28:23
Scott Osborn: I think that's a great move. Yeah. Thanks. You know. Thank you. I can't wait to see the label
01:21:29:06 - 01:21:29:26
Chris Missick: we're working on it.
01:21:31:12 - 01:21:33:24
Chris Missick: Well, I really want to thank you for coming by, Scott.
01:21:34:05 - 01:21:45:07
Scott Osborn: Sure Chris. I totally appreciate the invitation. And it's always good to see you. And I haven't seen your lovely bride, and she's probably a year. It's too bad.
01:21:45:09 - 01:21:48:15
Chris Missick: But we have a new baby to introduce you to as well. Oh, so,
01:21:49:07 - 01:21:56:29
Scott Osborn: uh, it's girl, right? It is. Uh, well, we'll sit down and talk about how you take care of a teenage daughter.
01:21:57:26 - 01:21:58:16
Scott Osborn: You'll need that advice
01:21:58:18 - 01:22:00:15
Chris Missick: I can use all the advice I got there,
01:22:01:06 - 01:22:04:07
Chris Missick: I people can find you at FoxRun.com. Right?
01:22:05:00 - 01:22:19:24
Scott Osborn: And Instagram, Facebook, all the all the stuff. You know, we're open pretty much every day except, uh, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day. And and if the Bills ever make, the Super Bowl will be closed on Super Bowl Sunday.
01:22:20:08 - 01:22:51:07
Chris Missick: Sounds good. Well, everybody do yourself a favor. Pick up not just this Chardonnay, pick up their wonderful tawny port, some of their Rieslings, their Lembergers, Cab Franc, you're going to want to explore box run. It is really one of the great legacy players that still doing exciting new things in the Finger Lakes. Scott Osborn's a legend, and it's just a pleasure and an honor to have them here. I hope you enjoyed the show. This has been viticulture where we share ways to cultivate a good life.
01:22:52:01 - 01:23:06:20
Chris Missick: Don't forget to visit our website at VitiCulturePodcast.Com. Subscribe to our Substack, where you'll get show notes, transcripts, musings and exclusive offers and check us out on all the major social media platforms. Thanks again for stopping by.