The opening line in Steve Heimoff’s profile of Greg La Follette in New Classic Winemakers of California reads:

“It has been said of Greg La Follette that he could bring a church to tears about Pinot Noir.”

In the clip below you can get a bit of a feel for how he earned that reputation.

In it Greg speaks passionately about working with Pinot, and it is infectious. At the tasting afterward I heard more people commenting on this bit of the talk than anything else.

Note: All these clips from Flickr are less than 90 seconds. I’m really enjoying the creative constraints. It’s kind of like Twitter for video.

Quick personal aside. I actually know Greg’s parents better than I know him, which is a little surprising given Greg himself is close to 20 years my senior. I met them at a Founder’s Club dinner kicking off last year’s Pinot on the River, my first. I was fortunate to spend a memorable night eating, drinking great Pinot, and chatting with them both.

The wildfires down in Southern California had just torn through the area (their house was spared), but they were undaunted and in great spirits. Both are longtime Pinot on the River vets and they made me feel right at home with their generosity of spirit and unexpected interest in my little winery project. With such great folks, it’s easy to see where Greg’s passion for life and wine comes from.

The other thing you should know about Greg and his label, Tandem, is that it is actually run like a real business. He doesn’t have an endless truckload of cash from which to draw to build his brand. He’s chipping away at it, paying down his debt piece by piece, old school style. Which to me makes his passion all the more authentic.

You can check out the new releases from Tandem here.

More clips Monday.

I’ll be posting a few clips from a very cool and interesting winemaker roundtable from last month over the next few days. Sponsored by Kendall-Jackson and benefitting the Sonoma County Wine Library, Steve Heimoff (his latest book can be found here) led a discussion with some of Sonoma’s top winemakers.

Today I’m featuring a quick clip of Merry Edwards talking about the Russian River Valley, and in particular the “Golden Triangle”.

In the clip below Merry talks about why she feels the Golden Triangle, a stretch of land shaped roughly like a triangle and blessed with Goldridge Sandy loam soils, is so special.

Aerial Photo

Below is an aerial view with a rough outline of the piece of land that Merry’s talking about. Some world class pinot is grown here, from Merry’s Klopp Ranch bottling, to Kistler, Dehlinger, Martin Ray and Joe Swan. And at the very tip of the triangle, near where Laguna Road hits River Road, is our 17 acre vineyard and the future site of Capozzi Winery.

The phallic, condom-looking shape wasn’t intentional. I swear.

Hope you enjoy the video and look forward to sharing more with you in the coming days.