Interview with Beth Barnes from Chris James Cellars.

Listen to George and Lisa as they talk with Beth about the beginnings of Chris James Cellars and how they have grown since their last visit.  Learn about the wines they produce and the many awards they have won.  Also find out how you too can stay in the vineyard in your RV like George and Lisa did.

Transcript

Outro  0:00  
Welcome to RView with your hosts George and Lisa Hernandez each week listen as George and Lisa talk about their RV and travel adventures all around the world. George and Lisa travel in their 40 foot Class A Tiffin motorcoach and tow their Jeep Wrangler, always looking for fun and adventure.

Beth Barnes  0:30  
Hi, welcome back to RView. I'm Lisa RichartHernandez.

George  0:33  
And I'm George Hernandez.

Beth Barnes  0:34  
And we have a great guest with us today, Beth Barnes, from Chris James sellers. And this is a place that we stayed at a harvest host in Oregon, just back in 2020, when we did our cross country trip, and we've been getting quarterly wine shipments ever since then, and we were just excited to circle back with her and hear about all the progress. So welcome, Beth.

Thanks, I'm super excited to be here.

Our state your harvest house was like probably one of our favorite stays that we talked about all the time. And for people that don't know what harvest houses are, if you're not a member, you pay like $99 a year. And you can stay at all different, like wineries and breweries and farms and stuff across the country. And they just ask that you spend like $20 at whatever place you go to. And we always joke that this was one of our most expensive days, because we ended up buying so much wine and loved it so much. We joined the wine, we joined the wine club. And so now every time we get a shipment, we're like so like, Oh, that was such a great night, you know? So I love your story about how you and your husband got into the business. Would you mind just why don't we start with just share that story with our listeners do our with our listeners so that they can kind of hear what we heard when when we met you for the first time?

Sure. So my husband and I are not originally from this area, like so many others we've moved here more recently. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and my husband is from Maryland and Florida. And we met in Indianapolis. We were both finishing up our MBA. And on our first date, Chris mentioned that he wanted to retire on a vineyard. I of course thought in my head. We That sounds great. We're both engineers. We'll make a bunch of money. And someday when we're ready to retire, we'll buy vineyard. And we'll sit there on the patio and we'll drink wine overlooking the picturesque vineyard. Little did I know. I'm not even sure I really knew it was farming. Turns out it is. But I certainly didn't foresee it happening kind of as it did. We moved to Salt Lake City in 2010 after he finished up his engineering undergrad and graduate work. Loved it. But it was so dry. You would not believe coming from the east coast. It's just not something you're used to. Yeah. But we've we've pretty quickly decided that that was not our forever home. So we did last three years. Totally enough. The skiing was great. Yeah. The people were great. It was that dryness. started visiting up here in early 2011. We came in April. It was my birthday weekend and we were just doing a quick one country getaway because we were not that far away from it. Love the area. We stayed on the other side of Carlton compared to where we are which were on the west side of Carlton. We stayed at an adorable little place on the east side of Carleton toured around Carlton and McMinnville and Newberg. And just loved it. It reminded me of Pennsylvania, with the rolling hills and the trees. And it was green and a little bit warmer than salt lake was that time of year, and it was misty. And so you automatically knew well, it's not going to be a really dry place. Right. Next thing I know when we get home. My husband comes to me with three properties he found on Zillow that he would like to go and look at first I was like, oh, maybe we you know, don't do that. But he convinced me it was worth another, you know, wine getaway weekend. That's all it was we just another trip to wine country. We came up we found ourselves a real estate agent who is well known for vineyards. That was sort of all he did. And we went and we looked at these three properties. Two of them were not suitable. So one was timber farm that a timber was only halfway there. So you wouldn't want to go in a cut it down at that point, right? The value would be lost. And the other one was so steep that that we were in his land rover. And we went to try to go into the road to go into it. And it was steep and overgrown. So he actually very short into the driveway. You know, I don't think this is a good idea. So we, we abandoned that one. But the one we ended up with is 62 acres. It also was an old timber farm. But the parents had passed away and left it to their kids. The three kids didn't really want it. And of course, when there's three of them, it's hard to decide who would get it anyway. Right. And so they had had it up for sale, but no one had been able to find water on it. And it certainly was not being looked at as a potential vineyard site, because we are about as far west as the eight, the Yamhill Carlton Aava goes, for those that don't know, a VAs are aggravated viticulture areas, which are areas of the region that are thought to have really high quality fruit that would result in beautiful wines that would be similar from each of those HBAs. But we're Yamhill Carlton ABA, okay. And so when when we got on site, our real estate agents thought oh, I don't know, you know, you're out in the foothills of the coastal range. That could be some crazy microclimates that are not ideal. So he was not too high on it at first. But I have some great old photos of, of my husband, when he first got to see the property, and he's smiling ear to ear as he looks at it, and can already in his head, see the layout, where the blocks would be where the house could go, things like that. So we decided to go ahead and move forward and put in an offer. Then my husband came back and with the real estate agent, they came out to the property and did some due diligence. So first and foremost was water, we decided to consult with a geologist about where to drill, because the people who had abandoned their offers before us had all called Water winters, which are the people who walk around with the sticks and the Dowsing and all that good stuff. Yeah, we decided to go a little more scientifically called a job geologist, she marked a couple of spots on the map. And we were fortunate enough to hit water on her first try. It's not a great well, it's shallow and dries up every year. But at that point in time, a bank wouldn't give you a loan without knowing that there was some source of water on the property. So that was a big checkmark. Then we rented a backhoe and did soil test pits around the property. They did, I think this team, and we hired a local soil expert to come out and work with Chris and our real estate agent as they played around with the backhoe for a day. And he was ecstatic at what he was being. So it's primarily volcanic soils, which are well suited and desirable for grades. So that was another big checkmark. And the last thing was to get the county to come out and make sure that we would be able to replace what was considered the existing home on the property. It was an old single wide that was in the middle of a bunch of trees and things have fallen on it. So it was clearly not being used as a house. So that the county saw it as an existing home and gave us a replacement permit. So we had, I think four years to build a house on the property. Because out here, it's actually hard to be allowed to build if you don't have a replacement permit, because they want to keep it very rural. And so there are ways you have to be profitable for seven years as a farm, or there's an existing home. But it's a little more challenging than some other places you might think, oh, it's your land, you should be able to put out on that. Too. Two houses on it used to get 62 acres. Well, it doesn't quite work that way. So we were fortunate enough to get that replacement permit. And so we ended up buying it in late 2011 started clearing so we were still in Salt Lake City until 2013. We worked with a local logging company to do the clearing from the five acres of the clearing in 2012. And so the first vines went in, in early 2013. And that was just four acres. And it was solved now belong computer noir and then every year since then we have added on so now we're up to 25 acres with 17 different types of grapes. Wow, that's

George  9:57  
awesome. It takes yeah

Beth Barnes  9:59  
It takes about three years to get fruit. So our first vintage was 2015. We made 200 cases, not much. Every year, we grew on that as well. So now we do 3000 cases a year. Wow. And we built the apps, it's a lot. Well, I mean, it's really a good number for boutique winery to stay at. So that's where we're holding. And then we built the winery in 2016. So Chris, designed it and built that. And it was done in time for harvest, though just our second year, we were able to make the wine on site, instead of going and renting space somewhere else. And then a tasting room that you guys saw we opened in 2018. Had some renovations along the way. But that was kind of the first step into selling wine, that first tasting room and doing some local events. Yeah, so when, of course has grown tremendously since then.

So we must have only because Yeah, you were still like very small in 2020. I mean, that was four years ago. But wow, I can't believe it's been four years. Yeah, but it was a you didn't have anywhere near that many acres. Because that time he was like, we're going to add like a couple acres a year or something like that. And I was like, wow, it's gonna take a lot longer to get some wine out of these grapes than I ever imagined to it. Yeah.

George  11:27  
Yeah, that's one of the things that really surprised us how long from, you know, from seed to bottle? How long that process takes? Yes.

Beth Barnes  11:34  
So for passion project, not a profitable project, right?

Oh, for sure. Right, I talked to I talked to all the small winery owners about that particular aspect, there is very much a passion project that you've got to be, you've got to love it, because it takes so much work and so much time. And if you are going to own the land and convert it into vineyard, it takes a bunch of money. And so you really got to kind of have your ducks in a row. And with day jobs, we've had David on this whole time to pay for it. A lot of the smaller wineries. Instead of having land and planting it, they will just rent space in a winery and purchase grapes. And that way you don't have the crazy capital investment that that you can have going about it the other way. I don't know that we knew that. You could even do that when we started this because we were so naive.

Unknown Speaker  12:40  
Maybe we would have done that had we known but you have to buy land and put in a vineyard and

George  12:48  
you got stuck with it. And it seems like it's going fantastic. Because it's just, I was looking on Google Earth at the vineyard. And I was just mental note of what it was like when we were there. And I remember the big hill to get up to your tasting room. There were no, there were no grapes on the left hand side or the right hand side on the way up to you basically had grapes just on the backside of the wine tasting room. So now I saw vineyards and I'm like, wow, we need to make a trip back there. Yeah,

Speaker 1  13:25  
yeah, we probably had 10 acres planted, maybe when you guys were out something like that. And we put in some additional acreage kind of on the far backs. The Far Eastern side, I consider it back because it's the opposite side of what you enter from. But the far eastern side we had added the more around the time you guys were out. I

George  13:47  
was gonna say that was the part that you are working on when we were there. It's yeah, on the east side of vineyard back over by your house, right?

Speaker 1  14:01  
Yep, yeah. And then in 2020 20, we didn't plant anything, which it didn't wasn't because of COVID It just was already a plan here of not doing anything so so really conveniently. So then in 2021, we added seven more acres and that's what you encounter first as you drive in the driveway now so it's on the west side of the property. And that that a vines. This summer 2024 will be the first summer we'll get any fruit off of those vines. So it takes three years. And that is because we irrigate the one block that we have, which is over by the tasting room that we did not put in irrigation that took more like five years to train to get fruit. And that was even with hand watering them just to keep them alive. Wow. But when you have irrigation in place, it's faster to start producing and then And it's faster ramp up time to because that first year, no matter, irrigation or know, the first year is always going to have a smaller amount, then you will get in subsequent years until you reach full production, right. So every year grows a little bit. And so three years, you get something on irrigated find five years ish on a non irrigated.

George  15:26  
Wow. Yeah, so you definitely want a well and water right?

Speaker 1  15:30  
Well, and it's really it comes down to do you want the expense of installing the irrigation? Because it's not free, right? Or do you want to try and save a little bit there, but you're still going to need to do some amount of watering if you don't want half of them to die. So then you're paying someone to go around and hand water it from a tank on the back of a tractor, or Chris had created this little PVC rig that allowed them to water four vines at once. So they would turn it on, do four vines, let it go for a few minutes, turn it off, and move it to the next step four, in an effort to at least speed it up some, but then you have to lug around that big plastic rig instead of a hose to each one. So yeah, hand watering is not exactly a fun chore.

George  16:25  
No doesn't sound like it and it sounds like you're gonna pay one way or the other. So you might as well pay for not having to do that.

Beth Barnes  16:32  
Right. And the plus of having the irrigation in. Once it's there. You don't go and take it back out. So we had a I don't remember it probably wasn't 2020 But maybe 2021. We had a weekend where it was triple digit every day. Super unusual for us. We are not normally even above like mid 90s, let alone 115. So we we chose to pre water. The block before that week happened that weekend happen so that they would have just that little extra pick me up right give us give it a vitamin water before it has to go run the marathon. Yeah. And it seems to help. Yeah, it seemed to help. We didn't have any burn damage on either the fruit or the leafs. But we definitely heard of a lot of that here locally from that particular weekend because

it was so hot. Well, yeah, it was we there was a lot. I mean, we got down to Alabama, this past summer was like 110 degrees. There was a lot of hot places this summer.

Speaker 1  17:42  
Right? Yeah. Alabama. Scary in general. It's always hot and humid, right. Yeah.

George  17:47  
So one thing that I don't think we've mentioned is that your vineyard is in Oregon. We've been talking about?

Beth Barnes  17:55  
Yeah, that's right. It's in the middle. Yeah.

George  17:58  
You're west of Portland. Correct. So you're south

Beth Barnes  18:01  
and west of Portland? Yeah, about an hour and 15 minute drive. It's closer to there's a slightly larger town called McMinnville. Which is sort of the heart of wine country out here. Yeah. And that's where you're back 20 minutes, correct that we opened a tasting room there in December of 20 plane. Not exactly an ideal time COVID at all. In fact, everything has to be outdoors. Well, but when a good spot becomes available, you can't pass it up, you know, assuming you can pay for it in some way, which again, they jobs. You can't turn it down, because you may never get that opportunity again, right. Knowing it. It could lose money for a few months or six months, even a year. Who knows. Even still, you know, eventually it's gonna turn around. And we were lucky that that spot, it had two tables outside that had awnings and heaters. Because that time was when you had to still be outside. Everything's still had to be outdoors. And so we had really diligent customers that even though it was the middle of winter, they were there because they could sit out we had blankets and they could turn on the heater and sit out there and still enjoy. What was normal life.

Yeah.

Now of course, it's indoor outdoor. Everything's back to normal essentially. Now. Yeah, I would say it only took, I don't know, two or three months. It's even that where it was not breakeven, right. So it was still losing a little bit of money but not not as bad as it could have. And then once the indoors open backup, which I think was March of that following year, then it was totally fine. There's enough space inside that we can have four Five groups at once still. So it was pretty much back to normal at that point. And since then we've taken over additional space inside that we use as some event space or overflow for the tasting room. We've got this great little lounge area up front with a couple of super comfy sofa as

George  20:25  
your website. It's beautiful. What's your, what's your website with

Beth Barnes  20:30  
all that? Chris James sellers, C E, Ll erra.com. And it's got lots of great information about the tasting rooms. It's any events we have coming up. We have an experiences page that tells the flight for the week, because we have a tremendous number of wines. If you happen to peruse the current release section, you'll see I maybe 30 plus one or more.

George  21:01  
I was telling Lisa, I looked through your list and I said, Wow, they've grown because when we were there, there was you you had a selection, but nothing like you have now. Right?

Beth Barnes  21:13  
Well, and that goes back to what we briefly talked on earlier is how long it takes. So first, you have to grow the grapes. And then depending on the type of wine you're making, if it's going to be barrel aged, we leave things in barrel for at least 18 months. And so we're only now releasing our 2020s for reds. And we make small lots of many things usually 100 to 150 cases. Which results when you think about 3000 cases in a whole lot of different wines. Yeah, so we make you name it and we probably have it or something very similar to it. Anything from sparkling wines. We've got a couple of great ones of those right now. We have dry wipes. We have soaked white, sweeter whites benefits or wine. And then for the Reds we've got Pino of course, because this is for those that don't know the Willamette Valley is world known for Pinot Noir. So we of course have Pinot Noir, but then we make a slew of Italian red, several which are grown on our property of La GREIN and Dolcetto. And then in our newer plantings, we also have Kobe Otieno Nebbiolo trolled ago and Barbera. This year will be the first year we'll get that for. But then we buy fruit from Columbia Valley. Another well known wine region in this area, it's a high desert. So it's going to be hotter and drier than here in the Valley. So you get the bigger read the mailbag tab FOB catstrong, serraj, more vendre or low, just all of those bigger, bolder friends. So we buy the fruit and we truck it to our winery, and then we make it Oh, alongside the wines that we grow.

Okay, so you don't grow all the grapes for your wines? Correct?

Correct. We have 17 different varietals planted, which is very unusual. It's an unusual approach in the area most people focus on internal are. And then the second was probably the Chardonnay and third Pinot GRI. And usually they're, they're strictly ones most often and it's mostly Pino so to have about one acre blocks on most things, is not typical. Okay. But my husband he, when he was choosing what to plant and what to make, he was and he still is a winemaker that hasn't been doing it all that long. And so his background is engineering. He likes science. He likes experimenting. And so he's experimenting with all these different varietals, which pique his interest. He's like, Oh, my back. Oh, we will have to treat them. I have to try that. Yeah,

George  24:24  
I remember you telling us that when we first met you that he's a

Beth Barnes  24:30  
scientist, right, who wants to try different things and see how they're different. See how the different oak impact the wines. So what a lot of consumers may not know is that behind the vineyard, there's all the winemaking process and all the choices you can make that impact the wines along the way in there. There's different winemaking style such as, you know, if you want to take white grapes, and treat them like a red wine, so you do skin contact during fermentation, that's going to make something called an orange wine. And it's called that because oftentimes it has an orange tint to it. But it doesn't necessarily have to like in terms of color, right? If you take red grapes, and you treat them like they're white grapes, meaning you bring them in from harvest, and you press them right away, to get the skins and the juice separate, then you're gonna likely make a Rosae out of it. And it's called that because it's usually some shade of pink, the color in the wind comes from the skins. So the juice inside is really all essentially the same color, more of a whitish color. So the longer you let the juice and the skins together after harvest, you're gonna get more color, be it a red one that you're doing it on, or a light line that you're doing a skin contact,

George  26:06  
right, so you're patient, you're essentially letting the skin bleed out or die the juice.

Speaker 1  26:13  
Yeah, so it's the color, the tannins, the flavors that are in the skin. And the longer it sits together and the aromatics can be increased by doing a little bit longer in soak and skin contact.

George  26:29  
Everybody, everybody thinks she just squeezed some grapes, throw them and

Unknown Speaker  26:34  
clean them, you stomp on them with their bare feet. We've all seen I love.

George  26:44  
So do you use any kind of special barrels? Because I know the barrels can also make a big difference in the wines Correct?

Beth Barnes  26:51  
Yeah, so that's something my husband's been experimenting with a little bit more and more recently, there are barrels from all over the world. So of course, everyone knows about French oak, but you can get hung up or you know, can Romanian oak and American oak. And then at least within the American oak, there are different sub grouping. So Pennsylvania, oak, Virginia oak, then we get these barrels called the Symfony barrels that are a blend of different American oaks. And so he's been trying different varietals and, and different posts, that you can have a light post and medium toasted dark toasts, all of which impart different flavors, right? All of this and experimenting has different character, right? It can different varietals, reacts differently. So he's been trying different varietals and different kinds of oaks to see what he prefers what he likes. Because really, he's mostly making for himself. Everybody else like it great. But then it's something that you learn as you go, right? So any good experiment, you track what you're doing. And you can reproduce it and change it to refine what you're doing what you want as the product.

So will you have like from the same grapes? Will you have different wines every year? Or will you have like, like your standard like these, this is the wine that we make out of this specific grapes or whatever. Do you see what I mean? Like, what do you change out the barrels? I

mean, yeah. So being a small winery, year over year, the wines will likely be different, at least some amount different, not necessarily, like drastically different. But the vintage, so the weather during that vintage will be obvious. You know if it's a hot year, like 2018 was a really hot year in the area. And so all of the wines from that year, were a little bit bolder than they normally would be a little bit darker, a little bit richer in terms of the reds. Okay, that's just a characteristic of the vintage

George  29:08  
right. That's why some, like real wine kind of stores will love of vintage and I want that. Yeah. And they look for that year specific year, because you're not going to get that same taste. Oh, you know, oh, I want a 1926 bottle. Well, that's because that specific year was perfect.

Beth Barnes  29:27  
Oh, I gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Some

of the bigger wineries where they're trying to get a little bit more standardized product year over year, they they make it in such quantities anyway, that it sorts of all blend together. With a small, smaller wineries. We don't necessarily have that impact where you have so much that the different things might kind of come in year over year. Right, but smaller, smaller producers where we only make Do 100 or 150 cases of something, you're gonna get that vintage difference in a much more obvious way. And then the decisions around barrels and things key is changing year over year to try and hone in on what he thinks kind of that perfect combination is for that varietals. And so maybe that first year that he's playing with it, he picks a barrel that he didn't love. So the next year, he picks a different barrel, it's gonna taste different than the prior vintage, we normally do something in the ballpark of 25%, new oak on our red wines. So we might do four barrels of something and one would be new, and the other three would be neutral barrels. Because he doesn't love the intense oak flavor, he likes a little bit more of a moderate flavor. Whereas there are some wineries here that they make everything in new oak, which a barrel can be considered new oak for three years before the toast that is on it is worn off, and it becomes a neutral barrel. Neutral barrels are still used for red wine storage, because you still get the desired oxygen exchange, you just won't get that toast imparting any flavor on the wines. We use mostly neutral, like I said about 25% are usually new.

Wow. That's so that's so interesting. There's

George  31:33  
just so much that goes into.

Beth Barnes  31:36  
It's a it's a very, very intricate hobby.

Unknown Speaker  31:42  
Yeah, you know, like, yeah, kidding, he

Beth Barnes  31:44  
must have had to learn so many things. It's just really, really interesting. But and

then as soon as you decide from going, I'm going to make wine, or I'm going to go grapes, to turn it into I'm going to make wine, it becomes a very different business, right? If you're growing grapes and selling them, you're a farmer, your sales channels are not direct to consumer, it's a, you need less people to sell the grapes to. Whereas as soon as you're making wine, you then have to have a brand and likely a tasting room and a wine club and a website, you need to be able to ship wines and all these things that and it's a highly regulated thing. Wine is very controlled. And so it comes with a whole different set of business problems and an opportunity and demands as far as staffing and all that stuff.

George  32:44  
Because I think you guys do it all yourself right? For

Speaker 1  32:48  
the most part. So between Chris and I we cover. I say 90% of the things we hire into the tasting rooms because we do have a job so we can't spend time strictly in the tasting room. But I have a fantastic tasting room manager in McMinnville. She's there 40 hours a week. And then we have a whole slew of part time people to cover the other hours, as well as the estate tasting room and any events that we're doing. So for example, last weekend, we were at Newport seafood and wine. This weekend we'll be at Portland seafood of mine. And the weekend after that is McMinnville food and wine classic. Keeping the tasting rooms open, we have a booth and we pour wine at them. So I still go and represent us with my friend who works at the table with me typically. And were there three, four days, whatever the event is just promoting the brand and selling wine.

Beth Barnes  33:50  
Oh, that's cool. That's cool. So a lot of

Unknown Speaker  33:54  
work that it's fun to talk to people. Yeah,

Beth Barnes  33:56  
yeah. You've so you've won some awards?

Speaker 1  34:00  
Correct. So we've been very lucky over the last couple of years. Um, let's see. So the biggest one that we were surprised to learn in, I think it was early 2022. There's a magazine here called Great Northwest Wine Magazine. It's regional to Pacific Northwest. They do a platinum judging each year, where you have to have been invited to send the lines in in the first place. We've been fortunate enough now for the last couple of years that have the highest rated keynote each year, which we were very surprised about and thrilled Of course, well that's awesome. And we've got numerous you said that area so well known for pinos right so there's a lot of competition. Yeah, so that's Yep. That's a big award for you. It is it's fantastic. And so fun. These competitions. The magazine each year names a, like an Oregon of the year. We're in a Washington winery of the year, so one from each of these states. So in 2022, we were named the Oregon winery of the Year by Great Northwest Wine Magazine. We were really excited about it and made a whole big deal out of it and had a little announcement party. Yeah, thanks. And then at the recent shows, we've gotten several Best of Show awards. So they go through at these shows, and do blind tasting, of wines that are submitted for the competitions. And we generally do fairly well with them. This show coming up this weekend, we have the best of show for whites, and it's our 2022 diverts demeanor. And we also got a double gold on our 2019 serraj. At this particular one. So it's always fun to see which of the wines that I submit? Well, every show I submit something different because we have so many wines that, you know, I like to give them all a fair shake and put different ones in. I think last weekend, the coup de Roos got a gold medal. It's always exciting, though.

Beth Barnes  36:12  
Oh, that's cool. And I mean, when people come to visit Oregon, they do that whole, like wine country tour and stuff like that. Do you have any suggestions for people that are looking to come to area like, like, where to come to your place? And is there other wineries and stuff around there? Like what do you what do you suggest for someone that wants you?

Yeah, so there now are tons of wineries out here. I think in the state of Oregon, there's something like 900 wineries Oh my 100 vineyard, Wow, here in the Willamette Valley, I think it's five to 700, something in that ballpark. So there's a lot to choose from. And the the ones you're going to want to look for are going to be the smaller hidden gem, you probably know of some from that are in your area that are from this area that can afford to market around the country, and they have distribution around the country and all those great things. Those are great wineries. But if you're coming out here, might as well try to find ones you can't get a hold of right in your local area. And the best people to help you do that outside of Google, which is great, are the local tour company. So we work with several, they will work with customers who are coming into town, find out what your group is like, what wines you like, is that you all want to just taste pianos. And they will find places to visit that will fit what you're looking to find. And they're going to know the hidden gems to visit because this is their job. This is what they do all the time. And they're going to be able to drive you around safely. And you won't have to be concerned about you know, have I had too much. They got you covered with that. So I do recommend if at all possible during the state plan at least a day of going out with a tour guide. And in terms of where to stay. McMinnville is kind of in the heart of it all right now. And there's a lot of Airbnbs Of course, there's a new tiny home village rental where I think it's seven tiny homes in a little circle. So you and your friends if you have a bunch of people coming could kind of take it over. Oh, that's clear. It's a couple of hotels down there. The Atticus is really nice. And then getting into Carleton, it's a little bit smaller. But it's all wine focused that it's a very small town, and the single block A Main Street sort of town. But there's more wineries than I think there are people living in Carlton. So it's another good spot to hit. And the food out here is world class now as well. Awesome. We have new restaurants popping up all the time that offer something new and interesting. And you can't go wrong with any of them really, but just ask at any of the wineries where they recommend and kind of you know start picking through the suggestions of where to where to stop as well

George  39:30  
into any of our friend RV friends. You do still do the harvest host and I will tell you that was one of the most beautiful places that we stopped in. And we enjoyed it so much, Lisa and I still remember like it was yesterday. We got a bottle of wine from you. We joined the club. We were so excited about that. I think we bought three bottles as we were like, Oh we're gonna take this on the road with us and have some wine with us. The first bottle we killed that night and it was just It was so good. It just tasted your wine is fantastic. I love your wine. But sitting outside in the actual vineyard, it was a full moon that night. It was beautiful. And I do have to tell you a funny story about that. But we were sitting out there and was just so peaceful and quiet that we were like, this was the best choice that we've made so far on any harvest host, or any place that you know, we did a cross country trip, and that's one of the stops that was really a highlight for us on that trip.

Beth Barnes  40:33  
You know, we still talk about that. I said, Man, because like the where the tasting room is, or, like at that time, we were parked right there. And just so our listeners know, like, we have a 40 foot coach, and we made it up the hill. And the Jeep made it up. And we had no problem parking. And it was a nice level gravel, like parking space. So it was great. But we were sitting there drinking our wine, and it was, you know, nighttime, and I said, Man, I wish they would turn those lights off at the house because I can't really see the stars very well. And I walked around the side of the building and there was the moon. It was no star. It was no lights from your house. It was just this gigantic full moon. I thought, oh my god, it's the moon that's so bright. And it was so pretty. You know, it was like, you could just see the vineyard and

George  41:24  
we had these visions of stargazing. It was gonna be a beautiful dark night, and we're gonna see all kinds of stars. And the brightest thing was, we literally thought you had a spotlight on us. We're like, Yeah. Oh, that was

Speaker 1  41:39  
funny. Yeah. Yeah, we once we get into our house, we just go in and we turn it. There's very little light action from our house. Yeah. But we do get a lot of people who come out here so we're on both harvest toast and another service called hipcamp. Okay, and that's one I call it you know, Airbnb front land, basically. Yep. And so we get a lot of people who are tent campers too, and they come out to stargaze because we do have an unobstructed view. And it is pretty dark out here in the hills. Assuming you don't come with a full moon. Or we get a lot of people who come out when there's meteor shower. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And they they're really good. They can stay up till the middle of the night. And then the next morning, they're like, Oh my God, it was amazing. Did you see it? And I always have to respond. No, I was asleep. Yeah. No, I was asleep. Yeah,

George  42:40  
we actually work here.

Speaker 1  42:43  
Right, right. I work nonstop. So no, I don't stay up till two in the morning. Or watch meteor showers. Although I wish I could. And we do an event in fall. It's our stargazing night. It's a fundraiser that we do with a group called the Carlton observatory project. They are raising money to put an observatory in down they're actually going to do it in McMinnville. So they did change the location there. They do roadshows. They bring high powered telescopes out, we put them in the vineyard, we do a fruit of wine pairing on the patio, wait for it to get darker. And then once it is, we go and they have them pointed at something. So all you have to do is look through it. And you can see Saturn or Jupiter, oh my god, the moon, like you're on it. It's, it's my favorite event we do every year. Now we do about 100 people at it. So it's also the biggest event we do each year. But it's just it's always so cool to attend that time and see the things you can't really see with your naked eye.

Beth Barnes  43:51  
Wow, that's such I love that event idea. I've never heard of anything like that before.

George  43:56  
While enjoying a nice glass of wine.

Beth Barnes  43:58  
Yeah. And would they just find out? Like, would they find out about that event? Like just on your website? Or where would they go if they?

Speaker 1  44:06  
Yep, so our website and I don't think we have the one for this year posted just yet. But if you go to our website, and I believe at the very bottom of any of the pages, you can sign up for our newsletter. And that's a great way to find out about new wines that we're releasing events that are coming up wines that we're running out of, and you have a last chance to get a hold of them. And just general updates. So that's kind of an easy way to keep hearing from us. You can also check our Instagram and our Facebook and all those other great social media things that we all love. Yeah. And it's just Chris James sellers on all of those things.

Beth Barnes  44:47  
Okay, and that's CLL ARS like cellar like wine cellar.

Speaker 1  44:52  
Like wine cellar. I know, right? Yes. And on our website if you hover over the experience Link, that's where you'll see a drop down that will take you to events. And actually in there also is the wind cruise that we're doing in 2025. Oh gosh, tell us about called Ryan. Yeah. So we've been, we did one this year in July with the company is called Alma waterways, ama waterways. And Chris, my husband was asked to be the wine host on a river cruise in Portugal, this past summer. So we went for a week and we went down the Douro River and back, which was amazing, if you haven't had an opportunity, it's gorgeous. The Paris vineyards are incredible. I don't know how they farmed them. It's, it must be so hard because of the different levels. Wow. But during that cruise, they asked if he wanted to do another one. And so in the summer of 2025, we will be on the cruise called Rhine castles and Swiss Alps. And it goes down the Rhine River, starting in Amsterdam, and ending I think it ends. Basil, basil, how you say it, somebody must know how to say it, right. But it ends there. And then there's a land extension at Lake Como Italy. And so we'll be doing that trip, which we're really excited for.

Beth Barnes  46:32  
That sounds awesome. Awesome. Is all the pricing and stuff for that on your website? Or? Yeah,

Speaker 1  46:38  
there's a page on our website. And there's a button to reach out to Nicole Zima, who is our coordinating travel agent, and she can answer all of the great questions that people might have. And there's some fun pretty pictures and the path like the the journey that it goes on listed out there as well. We've been wanting to do one of those and there's small ships. So the this one I think can hold maybe 250 people Yeah. And it's very wine focused. So the wine, the excursions, there's always a wine focused option. And there are tastings onboard the boat. So we will actually take some of our wines, and we will do a tasting with local wines. Oh, that's there's food every two hours. I swear. They keep you very, very full. Oh,

Beth Barnes  47:34  
that's awesome. I love those little like, more smaller cruises. And like with that, like, higher level of services offices, we Yeah, that's really fun. And I found that you get to spend more time in the ports and stuff then like if you're on a big giant cruise ship, like a Carnival Cruise or something like that. Yep.

And you're contending with less people. Yeah, to do it. You know, those things cruises are 1000 plus people, you kind of get to know you're quite a bit smaller. Yeah,

you kind of get to know people and make new friends. That's really cool. Well, let's check that out. For sure. Because we're always looking for some new adventure to go on.

George  48:13  
This one sounds like a good one.

Beth Barnes  48:15  
Oh, he's already pulling it up. Yeah, he's got his laptop. He's like, Oh, I'm gonna go check that out.

George  48:19  
I'm all over

Beth Barnes  48:22  
it. It'll be booked. Podcasts edited.

Speaker 1  48:28  
Email, Nicole. Now. What? And what's really fun about it, you guys didn't get to meet my husband. My husband is very much more on the introverted side. He's very smart. And I consider him an introverted engineer. Yeah, I know. So on these cruises, he has to lead the guided tastings. So he's out there talking. And he has a very dry sense of humor, that He'll crack a joke and no one will get it. And I'm just like, Oh, my God. And I make a PowerPoint presentation for him to walk through. So it's very much it's very much funny and cringy for me all at the same time. But customers love it because they can ask him any question. And he will have a thoughtful answer and go into as much detail as people want to hear. Yeah, that's

George  49:28  
really good. That's when that engineering mind kicks in. They want to tell you every detail. Yeah,

Beth Barnes  49:33  
I'm sales and marketing. I'm the opposite of engineering. So you just want to get to the bottom line like a question for Well, let's see what else is there that we can wrap this up? We've got angels about your new Tell me

Speaker 1  49:50  
tell you the new wines we have. So this month our new release is our governor's demeanor from 2022 which is As I already said, it's the best of show up Portland. This coming weekend, which is great. Last month was our Cabernet Sauvignon. And before that we had our new GSM recently. So that was December. And next month is our thumbnail Blanc, which is always a fan favorite. It is from our estate. And it's always highly coveted by people. We get great awards on it. So that one will be in. What month is next? What month are we on here in March will be April. Wow.

Beth Barnes  50:38  
Yeah. Are Already Oh my god. It's already March 1 this week.

Unknown Speaker  50:42  
Yeah, yeah.

George  50:43  
Wow. So what was? What was the sabe?

Beth Barnes  50:47  
It's our 2023 Sauvignon Blanc. And that is in April, or club members can get it now. Yeah, that's why I was that's probably the letter wine club. Yeah, sure. Our wine club. We, because we have so many wines. Our club members can fully customize their shipment, which I'm sure you enjoy. As you're thinking about the different wines we have, you can go in and entirely change it. But our shipments, if I'm shipping to you, they're twice a year if you're picking up there three times a year. And then we have a silver, a gold and a platinum level. It's one, two and three cases a year respectively. And you get discounts on your shipments, as well as cases outside of your shipment. All the information can be found on our wine club page off of our website. Or you can always reach out to me just best at Christine sellers.com for any information. But to me, the biggest perk is that it's customizable. And you can get access to our unreleased wines and our library wines, in addition to our current releases that anybody could get a hold of.

George  52:01  
Yeah, and I can attest to that. Because we always get an email from you, reminding us that a shipments coming out. And if we want to substitute change, because you tell us what's coming, and we can customize it or pick some I think one time I did request I was like, oh my god, I love this wine. Just send me the you know, I think we got three bottles? I think so. Yeah, all three just sent me the same one. Because it's so good. Yep.

Speaker 1  52:31  
And I'm fine with that. I just want to see that many bottles leave my inventory. I don't care what the bottles are you pick whatever you like, right, exactly. Get the balls out of my hair.

Beth Barnes  52:41  
Yeah. Do you? Do you have a lot of members of your wine club now? Yeah,

you know, it goes up and down. And right now it's been a tricky time with things being so expensive. And so it does wind a little bit, as the economy, you know, appears a little more challenging. But we have a decent sized club, and always growing at more, which is it's kind of the old faithful in terms of sales at the time when you need them most. Yeah,

that's great. That's great. Well, we'll

George  53:14  
do everything we can to get the word out. And I

Beth Barnes  53:17  
know I want to go back up that way so badly, like it was that we just really didn't get to spend enough time on that whole west coast of Oregon and, and, and Washington State. I wanted to go back there. And yeah,

George  53:33  
we were totally surprised by Oregon. I'm gonna be honest, we went there. And we, we didn't have low expectations. But we were like, Okay, it's just Oregon. Let's just zip through. And then we were like, Oh my God, I wish we would have planned more time. It's so beautiful.

Beth Barnes  53:49  
Yeah, cuz we didn't really want to explore wine country at all, like, literally your place was like our harvest hose for one night. And then we were, I think it was the night before we went like to the redwood forest or something. From there. Yeah,

George  54:00  
cuz that's where we finished the other two about.

Beth Barnes  54:06  
You could easily spend, you know, a week plus, just in this area bopping around to different wineries to different regions within it. So there's lots of I think there's nine different sub HBAs now or something like that. So to go and hit a place and each one, and then there's different wine regions. So you've got Columbia Valley, Walla Walla, down here in the Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon, has wine regions as well. So if you wanted to even be wine focused, there's still so much to hit. And then you've got to go to the coast and maybe up to Seattle and down like you said to the redwoods. There's a lot out here and the states are way bigger than you think they are when you're from the East Coast. Oh, yeah. That's what I learned everything west of the Mississippi. There really Dang, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. We're heading out to Arizona. In a couple of weeks. We've got a family motorcoach Association show out there that we're gonna have a booth for. And so we're like, oh, God, we're gonna be all the way in Tucson, Arizona. Like we got to hit everything we can while we're over this way. But yeah, we're just not far north. Yeah, but

George  55:25  
who knows? We didn't plan anything after. No.

Beth Barnes  55:29  
We're looking at each other. We're already gonna be halfway there.

You're already halfway there. Colin sick for a few days and make it a longer Yeah, there we go.

George  55:41  
I mean, I'm down for that. I have to twist my arm.

Beth Barnes  55:45  
Yeah, yeah. So he's

also down for the river cruise in 2005.

George  55:50  
Yeah. Well, we'd love cruising. So that that fits right into our lifestyle. And you've been wanting something like that. And we did want to do a river cruise. We actually did. European cruise, Mediterranean cruise. But we initially started with a river cruise, and then ended up on a regular cruise. Hi, and it was beautiful. We loved it. But our initial thought was to do a river cruise. So that's still on the plans. We might have to do this one. Yeah, yeah.

Beth Barnes  56:21  
Well look into it and contact Nicole, she, she's a great planner, social liberal answer. And we're going to do a couple of zoom sessions coming up for information about it as well. Just find it on the 25th of March. So watch here in the next week or so. I should send out an email about that, too. So then you can get some questions answered by coming to the Zoom sessions.

Oh, cool. So it sounds like people if they want to visit the area, they visit your website, you can schedule either to go to the tasting room at at the vineyard or you've got one in town. Is that correct?

Yes. And they are they both have the same wine. But it depends on what you're going for at that moment. Are you looking for somewhere? That's really got the scenic beauty and you want to go for a couple of hours and really sit and enjoy? Or do you need just a quick glass before dinner? In which case the McMinnville tasting room is great. It's more convenient. It's right by dining, shopping, lodging. It's the more fast you can stop in whereas the estate it takes a little bit to get there. But once you're there, you're not gonna want to leave.

George  57:41  
No, yeah, you're not. I was gonna say if you want to really experience it, that's the way to do it. It's

Beth Barnes  57:47  
helpful if you have the time. Yes, I agree. And if people are coming out, and they're interested in getting, you know, a quick tour, if they reach out to me, I'm happy to try and plan it, too to do that for them when they're here. You know, scheduling? Yeah, I

know. I know. You're great. We really enjoyed that. When we came on. He sat with us and showed us all the pictures of everything from you know how you got the whole photo album. And it was, it was just Yeah, cool. It's in both tasting rooms. I

Speaker 1  58:23  
can flip through it. It shows the whole progression from 2011 ish. Until 2018. I really need to update it. I just haven't found yet to do it. And to do I know I'm just I sleep What do I do that for? I

George  58:41  
stopped doing that's overrated.

Beth Barnes  58:43  
And I know you have you have stuck. You have one one child or how many kids? Do

Speaker 1  58:48  
you have one and he is 11. Now Yeah. And

Beth Barnes  58:52  
I think to myself, it must be so cool. Kind of just growing up there in that land and learning all that stuff and just kind of living in the in the vineyard grapes.

Speaker 1  59:06  
You think so? But he never goes outside? He's a video game. Oh, yeah. And so he to pull him away from his electronics is like breaking his arm.

George  59:20  
That's a whole nother podcast. Yeah, we've heard that. Yeah. All right. We could

Speaker 1  59:24  
probably go off on that for a long time. Someday. I think he'll appreciate it.

Beth Barnes  59:29  
Yeah, hopefully, hopefully. Well, it's so great. Catching back up with you. And will again, it's Chris James sellers. Their website is Chris James sellers. That's e ll ars.com. And CHR is ja mes they can visit you in Oregon or go online and they can join your wine club or you can ship wine all over again.

Speaker 1  59:54  
You can Yeah, I was just gonna say you can buy from almost any place not every state allows us to ship to them, but most of them, and if you're in a state that doesn't allow it, you probably already know that.

Beth Barnes  1:00:09  
And you'll just have to come to Oregon and see it in person. Right. Exactly. And our friends that are fellow our viewers, definitely check out the harvest toes. If you're in the area. It's a great day. What was the other one?

It's called hip camp. Oh, yeah. See a MP. And it's, it allows RVs, tent campers, vehicle campers, it's a much broader range. And it's a per night fee, instead of the one through the website, you know, one time to the website. Gotcha. I like to tell people to have both of them in your back pocket so that if you can't get into somewhere via harvest hosts, you can check hipcamp and see what else was available before you revert to public lands, as campgrounds? Yeah.

George  1:00:59  
And you you still only allow just a few RVs right or one RV?

Beth Barnes  1:01:04  
Yeah. Right. So usually, unless it's a couple of friends that are coming together and they want to share the space, then I usually only do two. And that's if I want to put somebody in the vineyard spot. It depends on what we're doing in the vineyard as far as tractor stuff. So usually, there's one in the gravel where you guys were by the tasting room, right? And there might be one in the vineyard. And then my tent campers are usually at the base of the vines by the tasting room. So again, not particularly close to anybody. So it's all very, it's very spaced. Yeah,

George  1:01:40  
that's what I was trying to get at that. If you do get a spot, don't expect to see a bunch of RVs. It's like you have the place to yourselves. It's beautiful. We I mean, we really, I can't tell you how much we loved it. Because we were there by ourselves. There was another RV, but we couldn't even see them, they you put them in the middle of the vineyard. And it was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. And I'm glad we got to talk to you and share your vineyard with our friends. And hopefully they can go and check it out and enjoy it for themselves. Yep.

Lisa RichartHernandez  1:02:15  
And we will post all of this information in our show notes. And you can also find it at RViewpodcast.com. And we will put all the links to everything there and reach out to bath if you want to order some wine or stop by and check out the vendor. Yeah, that's it.

Beth Barnes  1:02:37  
And we'd love to have everyone come out and visit us. And thank you guys so much for chatting with me and letting me come on and kind of tell people about what we're doing. Yeah, awesome.

George  1:02:47  
Thanks.

Lisa RichartHernandez  1:02:48  
It was great to catch up with you. We'll talk to you soon.

George  1:02:52  
Bye bye.

Lisa RichartHernandez  1:02:53  
Thanks, friends. 

Beth Barnes  1:02:54  
Bye, everybody.

Outro  1:02:57  
Thanks for listening to another episode of RView. Don't forget to drop us a line at RViewpodcast.com That's the letter R view podcast.com And like, subscribe and follow us so you don't miss out on our next adventure.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai