Gary: Hello everybody and welcome to wine library TV. I'm your host Gary Vaynerchuck and this is my friend is the thunder show a.k.a. the internet’s most passionate wine program. As you can see, we have a guest. For Kanye West this year but I don’t know working out so well but Jason thanks for being on the show men.
Jason: Thanks for having me.
Gary: Why don’t you tell the Vayner nation who you are and how you roll.
Jason: Well, I am Jason Diamond. I work at a winery called Penswoods which is in Pennsylvania, Chad Ford area actually. I'm 23 years old. I just graduated from Cornel and all my experience really was in finance originally but you know it turns out it's probably not the bets time to be going in that. So I figured you know when I follow my real passion which was wine. It's like about a year’s worth of viniculture analogy, a bunch of nerdy stuff up there.
And so it's start—at the Cornel yeah. And so I just start calling a bunch of vineyards really. And then I met the owner and wine maker at this winery and really kind of like this thought about Pennsylvania wine and what it could be and what it should be and to know what’s kind of missing and kind of been helping to spreading the word ever since.
Gary: Where did you grow up?
Jason: I was from Villa Nova which is outside of Philadelphia—university, going on with basketball.
Gary: They’re hot this year.
Jason: They’re hot.
Gary: One of the 18 in—
Jason: They’re rocking out right now.
Gary: This is the best start they’ve ever had. They’re looking good. And so did you grow up with any wine interest? Were your parents into wine?]
Jason: Never, I mean my parents think I'm crazy that I even drink wine. I mean they think I'm nuts and I spend all my free time, all my extra money on wine actually but you know—
Gary: When did you get the bug?
Jason: Pretty much at Cornel, I took you know like I said a couple of classes up there ands that’s really where it got started. But I don’t know, I mean I think it's just the fact that there’s always just so much stuff to learn. You can always learn something new and like you can never really be an expert of wine. It's just the fact that you can always just go out and you know just search of wino. I just kind of like learning new stuff. And so I think it's kind of what drew me to wine.
Gary: Sure, that makes sense. It's exactly category.
Jason: Plus it's good, it taste nice.
Gary: It is a delicious beverage, refreshing at times as well. when did you find WLTV?
Jason: Really seriously about probably this year, just this year really.
Gary: This year as in 2010?
Jason: No, no it's 2009, at the end of 2009 really when I just started working here. I started getting really more into the whole—
Gary: Marketing—
Jason: Yeah marketing just about that type of stuff—
Gary: You said “oh, look at this show. There’s people that watch, we need to be on that”.
Jason: So but yeah you know just start doing some more research and really started trying to take a winery which has really no Facebook, Twitter and you know anywhere and kind of trying to push that all before now until I have found you and kind of start hounding you up on Twitter and Facebook and send you emails and sending one of your emails and finally they said—
Gary: We caved.
Jason: Yeah.
Gary: hey, the hassle is something we don’t disrespect. On the flip side and addition, Pennsylvania wines especially the wines from the Chad Ford area definitely intrigue me. You know we’re about to probably hear what the owner of the winery sees. But what I see is really shocking potential for PA to be a player. Now Pennsylvania itself has such bull crap liquor loss that I’d rather see them not succeed given the calminess like approach they take into wine selling to the consumer. But you know that being said, I can't really blame the wine makers and definitely can't blame the terraqua which clearly in that area I think has potential to make some noise and really you know as much as I enjoy your hassle and we’d love to make you happy there’s a big part of me that is doing this show because I want to continue to build on my personal legacy. And I want in 25 years that people look back in us and like “Oh Gary is talking about PA wines” that are now you know one of the three or four most important parts of the US that produce wine. I really think PA has that kind of potential.
Jason: Yeah, it's definitely up and coming. You know we really got the wine maker here interested was I mean, he may want it in Italy for a long time. Actually he started off making wine in a symposium which is a multiple—and the reason why he made it there was because he just kind of want to prove in people that you know even a year in an area was kind of produces wine that people don’t really think that highly of. But he wants to kind of prove he can make a great wine there and so that’s kind of same approach with Pennsylvania. So you know he brought all these people from Italy and—
Gary: He loves the challenge.
Jason: Yeah. So he brought all of his friends from Italy. They drove around motorcycles and start tasting grapes. And they said, “You know these grapes are awesome”. They send them back to Austi the research facility in there and they said “you know these grapes are just as good as the wine you made that got a 95 or whatever”. And he said “all right”. So, before he even made his first bottle of wine invested over a million dollars worth of equipment and you know really have the dedication to kind of—
Gary: How old is this winery?
Jason: The first vintage was 02’. So yeah, it's not really that old.
Gary: No, and how old are the vineyards?
Jason: The vineyard is about 30 years old. So it's one of the older vineyards in Pennsylvania which is good.
Gary: Yeah for sure and what is the price point? What is the suggested price?
Jason; So the chardonnay is $33.50. The merlot reserve is $38.00 and the Ameritage is $55.00 double nickels.
Gary: Double nickels, very good. Now, does that make a difficult for you from marketing standpoint that I know that every single person watching in WLTV and all the people watching in youstream right now vomited that does price points for Pennsylvania wine?
Jason: Absolutely, I mean that’s the thing that’s tough you know because the price points of Pennsylvania, they’re higher right now.
Gary: And why is that?
Jason: I mean I really can't tell you because it's a new area I guess and you know he’s invested so much money into it and is having troubles seeing—
Gary: I think it's a super difficult thing to figure out from an economic standpoint which is that it becomes supply and demand and casual right? I mean they’re not moving in a quantity.
Jason: You say the name “Pennsylvania” you say “wine” in the same sentence and people kind of you know turn their heads and walk away.
Gary; Sure, have you done some events?
Jason: Oh yeah, we do lot of events, lot of dinners—
Gary: You personally?
Jason: Yeah.
Gary: And how are you feeling?
Jason: I mean the most fun part of my job is I say “here, you know try this wine” and pour to them and “oh, this is great”. When is aid “yep, it's 100% Pennsylvania grown grapes” and like watching their jaw at the floor. So I mean that’s the most fun.
Gary: And do you guys have any restaurant I mean have you been able to get into places like Le Bec or in their PA?
Jason: I know that for the 02’ vintage. They use to have it at Feltin which is a restaurant four seasons. I'm not sure if it's a Le Bec. We’re really starting to push a lot of restaurants now. We just had a great wine dinner at Table 31 Philadelphia, a lot of you know steak houses taking it up even some small like Dilworth town which is a small really kind of fancy place but some places, I mean you pour the wine and it kind of just speaks for itself. People really you know they want to get on board.
Gary: Well them let’s see if we want to get on board Mot. Penswoods 2007 chardonnay reserve.
Jason: $33.50.
Gary: $33.50 and what does this aged in?
Jason: French oak. It's a mixture of new and once used French oak.
Gary: And then after that the program you guys get rid of it? Or they go into some two and three as well?
Jason: We do use some tow and three even four for dissolving in blanc. We have some four I think.
Gary: All right, well let’s give it a sniffy sniff to see what’s up. now thef irts thing that comes across my palate is this wine has an enormous actually a ginormous amount of vanilla coming through.
Jason: Yeah, to me I get a lot of like a lot of tropical like I get this pineapple component but when you take pineapple, you throw it a pot with butter, you're going to make a dessert and you simmer down the butter and vanilla. I kind of get that.
Gary: It's very Betty Crocker-esk. I mean it smells like a dessert. The vanilla is very dominant. For some people it could be a turnoff because it's so dominant. I mean I feel like I took a vanilla shower. I mean it's like really a lot wchih is fine.
Jason: We have the butter in it. We've got the oak, preserve vanilla—
Gary: No but there might have to be the vanilla villain even they have to make an appearance because there’s quite a bit of that coming which is fine. There was also a little hint of like some citrus apple kind of thing on the back end I'm picking up a little bit on. But yeah, I mean wow. That's a big does. All right, let’s give it a whirl.
Now how many Chad Ford area wineries in Pennsylvania are there that you know of?
Jason: We’re part of what’s called the brandy wine valley wine trail.
Gary: What does it called?
Jason: The brandy wine valley wine trail, so there is eight wineries on this little trail which are—
Gary: You got a map and—
Jason: Yeah, you get the simple car. You get your whole—
Gary: Very common thing in the wine world in this 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th year destination wine areas is they have these wine trails and obviously you know when you got a small nick group that are all under one principle of raising the awareness of a certain area, they make this little maps. And you know this way you hit them all up and it gives everybody a fair shot and it's great. I mean it's a smart marketing for everybody to get a shot. So that’s what this clearly is.
Jason: Right.
Gary; Do you work in tasting room?
Jason: I do work in tasting room.
Gary: how many people would you get like on a Saturday or Sunday?
Jason: You get a lot of people coming through there Saturday and Sunday, they’re our biggest day. We’re also open during the week and it's kind of empty. But—
Gary: Saturday, how many would you get?
Jason: 100 over I mean generally 1500 in the weekend.
Gary; And of those let’s say 100 because it's an easy number to work with, how many of them are you know jokers or youngsters looking to get cocked?
Jason: I’d say like not even 15%. You know we have people that are really interested in wine you know. We’re starting to spread a little bit so you get more and more serious people coming through which is nice.
Gary: Are you still mainly dealing with you know the Phili crowd and all that?
Jason: A lot of Phili crowd. I mean we’re only like 30 minutes outside of center city Philadelphia.
Gary: Nice, it's kind of like a nice date thing for like the UPEN crowd—
Jason: Exactly so you get a lot of people coming out. They go taste wine and they go to diner afterwards so.
Gary: Are you getting a lot of 22 to 30-year-old demo pips coming through?
Jason: Yeah, you definitely get that and then you get a lot of even more the local area. People are a little bit older and you know people in Chad Ford area but, you definitely get you know people come out I mean we actually don’t allow it anymore but we get a lot of like bachelorette parties. But we’re not—
Gary: That’s devastating. You could have really parlayed that. That would have been awesome.
Jason: I know but we’ve had it before.
Gary: You need to fight to bring back the bachelorette parties.
Jason: We've had it before. You know you have people coming and wearing tiaras and stuff like that and someone broke our radiator. So our wine makers said that’s it. And we shut it down.
Gary: That’s a classic old-world move. Buy a new radiator and you get those little 25-year-old, that’s a big cooper you do.
Jason: I know.
Gary: I'm devastated for you. That maybe not the most hard feelings on wine library TV history right there. Back to the wine, you know this is my not frustration, this is reality of why these you know three, four places like we talk about this all the time. Any time we have wines from those off beat other 46 kind of places, this is solid chardonnay. There is nothing even remotely close to wrong with this which is the first thing people think. Next, I think there’s a ton of people that would enjoy this. You know if pour this in a party to even like solid wine analogy with people. Many people would have blink twice like “oh, where’s the chard from?” It's a little more cool climate if you know, is this make on you know what I mean? That being said, there’s also you know it's not the most complex chardonnay I've ever had in my career. So it is a here one-dimensional and so what is that end up feeling like? This ends up feeling like for me wow, this taste like a whole lot of $15.00 to $19.00 Washington State or Malcolm from say style $22.00. Start looking at $33.50 and like yeah, the value plays a little worrisome. You know it's a classic for my palate 87, 88 point type wine, nothing wrong with that at all, very well-made. And that would be like the thing that probably stands out most to me. You can really feel the balance of this wine. I think it's just the situation of the fruit not carrying enough of the weight in this example. How popular is this in the tasting room?
Jason: This one and the merlot are actually very popular as well. They’re pretty popular. I mean we also made like a white zincel wine which people really you know jumped all over you know but—
Gary: The blush style, sweet? And that continues to be a backbone. You know again, the Virginias, the North Carolinas, the Arizonas, all these different places you go especially on the east coast you see quite of people still making roce based wines. You know holiday weaseling and Michigan and you know those kind of the places and they tend to be popular.
Jason: You know that’s the thing, tons of people do that and with us we’re actually starting to rip out a lot of minds because he doesn’t want to deal with it anymore. He wants to make wine the way he wants to make it.
Gary: And what he consider as real wine right? Instead of a novelty Christmas holiday gift. Okay, now how much is this merlot?
Jason: $38.00.
Gary: Now merlot is brand equity. It's a little soft sideways so you take merlot’s brand equity and you take Pennsylvania’s brand equity and you slap for $38.00 price tag, how much production of these are you making?
Jason: It's about 150 cases. It's very small. Everything is very small.
Gary; So that will kind of allows you to also in a position where just on you know hard hassle and salesmanship than you guys can get through in the inventory?
Jason: Yeah.
Gary: Now, what’s been the biggest push for the brand? Has any articles or what’s been like the biggest push that either he has told you about or you’ve witnessed from a marketing standpoint that’s brought enough awareness or orders?
Jason: There hasn’t been any articles. It hasn’t been reviewed by any magazines. Actually it took him like three months for me to allow me to come down here.
Gary: You were debating that with him?
Jason: Yeah. I has to say—
Gary: And then he watch in YouTube or wine library TV and he was like, what’s this guy? Are you serious?
Jason: There is actually a video that came up with some guy named SidaX which is the true wine kind of source and he actually imports wine from Italy as well. And so he saw that and kind of thought it was hilarious and like the fact that you know there is 4000 people watching at you know with two days on the internet. And so I kind of convinced him a little bit to do this.
Gary: So the nose on this wine is pretty fierce. It has some real darkness and some intensity. It's a pretty interesting nose. I really like it, very classical.
Jason: Yeah definitely a lot of dark fruit like that you know really dark blackberry even get like just a little bit of like the really high grade dark chocolate like a 60%, 70% dark chocolate very back end.
Gary: So making the merlot reserve since 02’? Or you're not sure?
Jason: I think 05’ is actually the first vintage of it.
Gary: This is the first vintage ever?
Jason: I believe so, yeah. I think this is the first vintage that he bottled as a varietal. So this is 100%.
Gary: Let’s give this a whirl. This wine has some serious backbone. It's definitely well-made. There’s some really good fruit here, explosive black currant, gorgeous blueberries coming through, very dark wine. I get a little cedar box and a little tobacco on the back end. The wine is very smooth and well-made. This is exceptionally well-made.
Jason: I think this one was a double gold medal one of the international wine competition which is always nice to tell people in the tasting room because “oh, it's nice”.
Gary; They have no idea what that means but they’re like “good, great”. I mean you could be like triple gold from the Chris Mot association of wine students and they’d be like “amazing” that Mot is just unreal. Guys this is where it's too bad that you were on the show for the winery because people would think I'm being nice because I tend to be a nice guy. This will be way better off if I was just doing this by myself. I think people would feel more comfortable. But let me tell you something, this wine is stellar. This is explosive fruit. Do I wish it was $25.00, $28.00? Yeah, because I do taste 90 point type of wines in that price range but this does not scare me one bit at $38.00 price range. I'm sure you guys have like case discount.
Jason: We like a 10% case discount on this and that.
Gary: This is a very, very good bottle of wine. This is one of the best bottles of wine I've ever had from the state of Pennsylvania. We had a good review on Chadford on the thunder show. This is really, really good. I like this a lot. It comes across very St. De Millon-esk to me just great silkiness, really outrageous silkiness coming through and the fruit is unparallel. I think this is one of the better efforts I've seen in a long time and I'm going to score this wine 90+ points. I like it a lot. It's good. It's really good. Nice! Good job! All right, let’s move on. That was very, very impressive. I did not see that coming. Penswoods 2005 ameritage which is funny name reserve.
Jason: Very original.
Gary: You don’t put the blend in the back of the label. Why not?
Jason: I don’t know.
Gary: Why the front?
Jason: He’s so secretive about it. I mean he—I don’t even really know what the—
Gary: In my logic, in this episode?
Jason: I don’t know, I may have to double check. Send it to me first. I'll show it to him.
Gary: So you don’t know the blend of this?
Jason: Yeah. It's cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cab franc and then there is sanjovesay and carmonaire.
Gary: But you don’t the actual—
Jason: I don’t know the percentage breakdown of it.
Gary: It's not a filed blend right?
Jason: No.
Gary: Field blend meaning that you know the vines are actually in the filed mixed not just all race and merlot or—the vineyards are separate blending. But you don’t know?
Jason: I don’t know what the blend is. It's mostly cabernet sauvignon.
Gary: Got it. all right, great color, let’s give this a sniffy sniff. That’s an awkward nose.
Jason: This on hasn’t been opened out long. It's definitely a little bit earthier. You know you get kind of like—
Gary: Which is okay because the cabernet franc is doing that and that’s fine. I don’t mind it but it smells like thin earthy if that makes sense. You know there is like subtle topsoil coming through.
Jason: I get a little bit like charcoal-y kind of burning leaves.
Gary: Super charcoal-y like super like somebody burnt the fire in the woods because they live in the rural part of the world and they won't get in trouble you know? Like burning trash, I mean really. And then there’s a little on the tail end kind of like a grapey grape you know like nerds candy skittles, great flavored bigly chew kind of thing, artificial candy kind of style, a little bit of a hot mess on the nose for me just completely you know it's like those magazines like US Weekly like How Could They or I don’t know what the titles are anymore you know who dress worst or you know fashion faux pax. This feels a little bit on the nose like that. It just seems like a little awkward to me. But it could be young and may need to come together.
Jason: I think it does. I usually decant this one when I'm serving it so that that definitely helps it out a little bit.
Gary: Let’s give it a whirl. Now the price point in this is?
Jason: $55.00.
Gary: Right, double nicks. You know it's got a score a little bit higher than 55 but it's definitely not going to completely blow me away. I think this wine is actually shockingly thin in comparison to the merlot. And really if we were just chilling here now and we’re just talking about wine, this is exactly what would come out of my mouth. I think that maybe the merlot was really the backbone of this wine in the past and the reason he pulled out the merlot was because there was something going on there and oh my God, wait a minute is merlot the varietal that in Pennsylvania has the most—like that’s my natural reaction based on this because this is considerably thinner. It lacks a lot of the depth that the prior wine had. It's more expensive. It's the first time it sounds like this merlot used to be part of this and now when I taste them here, it makes a lot of sense to me of what it could have done for this because this desperately needs that depth and backbone that this wine has in space.
Jason: I think the merlot really is going to be the premier grape in Pennsylvania.
Gary: That’s a really interesting cool thing.
Jason: I mean because it ripens a little bit earlier. The growing season’s, I guess a little bit short range.
Gary: Is that the talk?
Jason: Yeah, I mean he’s just trying to figure out right now. I mean he’s had the vineyard for a little while and has been planted there for a while. It was a mess before and he’s kind of really figuring out what grows the best, what doesn’t you know, what to rip out, what’s to plant the new stuff so he’s really liking the merlot. He likes the chardonnay. And he actually likes sauvignon blanc as well.
Gary: The Senior Vase is actually quite dominant on this profile for me especially on the tail end. That was like this after taste comes where I really feel the sanjo. I don’t know. I'm really not feeling this wine. I think this is a really classic example of just you know wine in this category at this price point that I just can't recommend. For me, this comes across like a 78, 79 point wine. Again, one palate, just one dude, t wasn’t decant as much as the other one. We got to go and visit these guys because they’ve got a lot of energy and excitement and taste for yourself. But there is enormous excitement for my palate or the merlot based on what you're saying as you're in the trenches. You know this is going to be top of the conversation for me. I'm really now really curious to see what merlot is going to be doing in Pennsylvania. But the chardonnay had some highlights and I'm excited, eventually try the sauvignon blanc but most of all and what I hope this show accomplishes more than anything else is people recognizing how much seriousness is going to in places not named Washington, Oregon or California in this amazing country of ours.
Jason: Absolutely. I definitely agree with that. I mean he’s definitely has a commitment there and you know.
Gary: What’s his name?
Jason: Geno, Geno Razzi.
Gary: Geno Razzi. Geno, I love you. Please don’t kick my ass for that last review.
Jason: He’s going to hunt you down.
Gary: Is he? He’s like that. I kind of feel like I'm in trouble now that being said, a fitter good showing for me. I'm a little disappointed with the last wine but hat merlot really makes this episode for me. Any partying shots? Any things you want to leave the Vaynernation with?
Jason: I don’t know, nothing really. I mean just you know I like to tell people to keep an open mind and just try lots of new stuff and—
Gary: What do you think is the MO of the whole vibe we've got?
Jason: Absolutely so I think that’s why we kind of you know fits.
Gary: Okay good. Well, question of the day. The guest gets to ask it, fire away.
Jason: I've been—
Gary: Wondering?
Jason: Yeah, I couldn’t figure anything out but I don’t know. What is the last thing that really shocked you? You know it could be a wine. It could be .lady Gaga getting robbed last night at the Grammys. It could be an electrical outlet, I don’t know. Whatever do you guys think? What is the last thing that really shocked and surprised you?
Gary: Thanks for being on the show.
Jason: Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.
Gary: You, with a little bit of me, we’re changing the wine world whether they like it or not. Geno, be kind. Good job men.
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