Hot Tub Conversations : Ryan Alfaro
Winemaking, Fred again, and old man hobbies (Szn 1: Ep 3)
Today’s Hot Tub Convo is with Ryan Alfaro 🍷
Ryan and I met on the basketball courts of UCLA and soon became pals and roommates. He now resides at the esteemed Farm Cottage on Alfaro Family Vineyards in Corralitos, CA (Santa Cruz mtns) where he makes wine and lives with his wife Justine (aka Yung Weenie) and their bull terrier Blitz.
When we lived together in college you hadn’t decided to pursue the winemaking thing. What did you learn about that path or yourself that made you want to get into it?
Yeah, I definitely was not thinking about winemaking. Even though my dad was a winemaker, he wasn’t having me try wine or anything at a younger age so I really wasn’t exposed to it.
I think it was when I was around 20 years old, during winter break, my dad for the first time asked me if I was interested in learning a little bit about wine.
He broke it down that it all starts from a sense of place.
He pulled out two different wines from two very different regions: one from Santa Barbara and then one from Santa Lucia Highlands, which is up here near Santa Cruz. Two drastically different climates, drastically different wine making styles. It was an eye-opening experience to realize, OK there is a whole world of differences from wine to wine, region to region, and each one tells a story of the place it’s from.
So that was the first seed of the idea for me and then I chose to study abroad in France where winemaking is more than a job, it’s a lifestyle. In France each region has different rules and if you want to be part of that region, you have to follow these rules and only make certain wines.
Everyone is making the same varietal in these regions, so it becomes all about telling the story of your family’s story over multiple generations. I saw kids my age, running around in these stone dungeons in a house in the countryside and it’s their whole life. They’re fifth generation winemakers and they’re trying to make enough money to be stewards of their land and share their family’s story. They have animals and gardens and wine is just one part of it. It’s so different from what we mostly have here in California where it’s such a luxury good. In France it’s just a big part of the culture.
Brandon: The storytelling and personal aspect of wine is something I kind of wrote off until you started making wine. The first date that Daphne and I went on was a camping trip in Santa Barbara and I brought a bottle of your wine. And recently when we went out to NYC, we stayed with Megha and she opened a bottle of your wine. It just hits different when you can share that experience and connection.
Ryan: I love that. At the end of the day that’s what I love most about it: sharing wine with friends, showing them new wines, that’s what it’s all about.
Tell me about your label Farm Cottage Wines, which is separate from your family’s label Alfaro Family Vineyard. When did you decide to start your own label?
I had worked for a winemaker down in Ojai and I learned about a technique called whole cluster, which is where you ferment the grapes with the stems included. I was not a winemaker at this point, I was just hands helping out my father on the family vineyard, but the chipmunks were running in my brain and I said, Hey Richard I think the Trout Gulch could really work well with whole cluster.
It was the polar opposite of what we had been doing with these grapes for 24 years, but he was supportive of the idea and set aside a really small amount of grapes to try it out. I thought it was just going to be an experiment we would blend away, but we both ended up really liking the wine and he said, You made this wine, this was your idea, you have to bottle it separately from Alfaro. So that was kind of the push to create my own label.
Shout out to Richard, I love that story. So how did you come up with the name and label?
It took me about 10 months to figure it out. I thought about calling the label Petrichor, which is a word for the smell of a wet rock and a characteristic in wine, but it felt forced and not very personal.
Farm Cottage is what we call the house I live in now on the vineyard. We’ve been calling it that since my grandparents lived here growing up. It’s personal and a kind of a memoir of where I’m from. It’s cool, I’m happy that’s what I ended up going with.
What’s new at Farm Cottage these days? Do you still have pigs running around?
We had a pig that turned into 300lbs of pork so no pigs for a while. We had some farm to table ham for Thanksgiving though.
Weenie has the pottery studio in the back. We just built a fence for the new dog. His name is Blitz and he is currently terrified of anyone.
Can you tell me more about that apprenticeship you did in Ojai?
The winemaker is Adam Tolmach and he owns The Ojai Vineyard. He just celebrated his 40th year. It was one of the most incredible experiences. It brought me back to the European study abroad that I did. We had lunch together every day in his house, he cooked for us. We blind tasted wine, and he was constantly studying and teaching us about tasting wine. It felt like a community gathering. He has such a personal approach, like when I went down there to interview, it was all about who I was as a person, it didn’t matter what I had done with wine.
I think I just struck gold being able to work with him at such a young age, because he's 40 years in and still trying new things every year, working with new varietals and still has more genuine curiosity anyone I’ve met. We’re still in touch all the time, I ask him questions and he's an open book, which is special because a lot of winemakers kind of treat it like they have a secret recipe.
Brandon: That’s such a dope relationship to have. Reminds me of this video about Fred Again and how he attributes much of his success to being mentored by Brian Eno. Brian was a successful producer/forefather of ambient music and once they got connected Fred would just soak up everything from him while also carving his own lane.
Ryan: I feel really lucky. Did you feel like you had that with writing?
Brandon: For me it's more been writing communities, which is like peer mentorship. I took a writing course earlier this year and that was all about writing in community and from conversation, so that has definitely shaped how I think about writing and kind of indirectly led to me doing these types of interviews. I realized I enjoyed the conversation part just as much as the writing part. But ya, without that sense of support of community, I don’t know if I would be still going.
What's something that's caught your curiosity recently?
Pool has been like my new love for the past two months. That’s the latest old man hobby. I think it comes down to being not good at something, but still going for it and knowing you're not going to be good at it for a long time. You start to see micro increments of improvement, and I like that feeling. I don’t think people should just stick to what they’re good at. For me, trying new things is a way to get out of my shell.
Brandon: I feel like we’re at the age where a lot of people are doing marathons or tri’s and I’m so curious about the mindset of that. I’ve sworn them off because I’m scared of injuring myself and putting myself on the IR for my other hobbies, but I think I’m starting to see what people get out of them. If you can go from not running a ton to doing that, then it just serves as a proof point to yourself that you can do other things that might seem out of reach.
Ryan: Ya and it’s a mental and physical barrier at the same time. And to be clear, I’m also on Team Never Running A Marathon.
What’s your dream hot tub crew?
Ok number one - Steph Curry. I’m a huge basketball fan and I think he has to be considered the greatest at something on Earth. So that would be really interesting to pick his brain because he's got a whole different mindset.
Hunter S. Thompson, always thought that would be an interesting one.
JD Salinger was a big one for me back in the day. Like everyone read Catcher in the Rye, you know?
And then one last one for a Mount Rushmore – there's a winemaker named Pierre Gonon who's probably my favorite winemaker, and makes my favorite wine on the planet and I've yet to meet him. He comes from a lineage in France, and they don't make a ton of wine and it's not this super high tech place. It would be interesting to pick his brain just because he'll always have one more vintage than me. He’s gone through every climatic condition possible. OG legend.
How about you?
Brandon: I just started watching Barry, and I think Bill Hader is such a legend. He wrote for SNL for years and his impressions are incredible and he just seems like a really good dude in podcasts I’ve listened to.
Second pick would be Steve Kerr. I think he’s the man and obviously he has all the stories from the Warriors, but he played with Jordan too so he has all that lore.
I feel like four people total is the right number, so I’m gonna go Obama with the last pick. And I feel really good about that squad.
Ryan: OK I’m subbing out Hunter S Thompson and plugging in Anthony Bourdain. I think Hunter would be too erratic.
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Thanks for joining me and Ryan in the tub. To taste the official wine of Hot Tub Talks you can order directly from the Farm Cottage website or demand that your local restaurant carry it.