Creating Memories through Experiences w/ Kim Busch & Kylie Enholm, Folded Hills

Hey listeners, just want to let you know that we've released the latest compilation of show notes in book form, covering episodes from 2022 to 2023. It's full of insights on sustainability, marketing, and even has a few celebrity sightings. Pick what up on Amazon and support the show. Welcome to X-Shadow. The podcast that navigates the business of wine with unique perspectives and insights with your host Robert Vernick and Peter Young. Welcome to this episode of X-Shadow. In today's episode we're going to be doing a deep dive into hospitality at Bolton Hills Winery and our guest are Kim Busch, the founder and co-owner of Full of Hills Winery and Kylie and home director of Operation. If you could please give Peter and myself a brief overview of your background, maybe because it's with you Kim. Sure. So my husband and I are Midwesterners. We were living in St. Louis, Missouri on a large farm which was the original Bush Gardens. It was called Grants Farm after Ulysses S. Grant, who was the original farm stutter of that land. And it's still open free of charge to the public. We get about half a million visitors there every year. But in 1998 my husband and he was invited to kept in the U.S. World Cup Polo team here. And we fell in love with the area. We bought a house in Montecito, used it just in the summers and then made the leap to California full time in 2002. And because we had raised our children, our four children at Grants Farm, their hands in the dirt, taking care of animals. It was important to us that we do the same out here. So we looked around and in 2004 found a ranch called Fold of Hills that we did not name it. It had been that same name since the 30s. It was a very run down. And in 2011 we added more land to make it a 600 acre agrarian animal paradise. And Kylie? Yeah, I started in the wine industry in 2018. 2019 was actually when Fold of Hills opened officially the two tasting rooms. And I read about it and I remember reading it and saying, "Man, that's a really cool place. They're focusing on a lot of really cool things." And 2021 I got the opportunity to join the team and hopped right on it. So I've been with Fold of Hills since 2021, started as wine club manager. And then for about a year and a half now I've been director of operations. So Kim, why did you decide to get into wine and start Fold of Hills particularly since you've got more of a beer legacy? That's a great question, Peter. So you're right. Andy comes from a beer background. But he's a farmer or a rancher now in California. Cept his hands in the dirt is very interested in crops. And when we purchased the additional ranch in 2011, we inherited 15 acres of organic row crops. And we always thought about growing grapes. When our youngest went away to college in 2014, we looked at each other and said, "Okay, what's another organic product that we can row crop or some kind of a agrarian product that we can grow?" And we all said, "Okay, it's time to grow grapes." So we did not intend to start a winery, not at all. We just intended to grow the grapes, sell the grapes. But the vineyard care manager, whose name is Ruben Seller-Zono, he's a legend in this valley. After a couple years in, he said, "These are some of the finest grapes in the valley and we think you should start a label." My husband as much as he's involved in was involved at Aniser Bush. He had no idea how to start a label. So that's kind of when I got involved. Our idea was to create a fusion of our life and history in St. Louis and our new life out here in California to create something really special. So we decided to make a nod to Andy's family history and his St. Louis roots. The heritage labels almost all have a name that harkens back to his family. So for example, Lily Onhizer was born in 1844. She married a Dolphus Bush in 1861. And we named our first wine, our Lily Rose, after her. And we've had six generations of lilies down to our eight-year-old granddaughter, Lily. So we combined that history and decided to do the nod to the heritage labels. And then we added on our very California roots with photo labels, the reserves, which a lot of the photos we took ourselves. So it's very much a grassroots project. It didn't hurt that we also had a pre-prohibition vineyard on the property as well. So that served as a bit of inspiration as well. When you mentioned that you had road crops and you were looking for what a grigory and product. And you said grapes, but why grapes? Are you guys passionate about wine or you know, had some familiarity with wine? Well, so when we decided to plant grapes, we asked a number of our friends, what should we grow? What should we plant? And they all said, well, plant what you love to drink. And I love to drink Pinot Noir and Andy love to drink Budweiser. So turned out neither of those things were helpful because we were to our area where we are is too hot for Pinot and too cold for cab. So what we decided to do was listen to the land because we very much feel that we're stewards of the land. We don't own it that we are just taking care of it for generations to come. But we decided to listen to the land. We did a year's worth of research and climate testing and terroir and to find out what the land wanted and the land said, "Rones." I didn't know anything about rones. Andy really didn't know anything about rones. I knew Sera, but I didn't know it was a rone. We just kind of dove in and figured it out as we went. But the grapes have turned out to be so phenomenal that we really feel like listening to the land and Mother Earth was the way to go. Those who aren't familiar, where is Folded Hills located exactly and what kind of wines does it make? Yeah, the first winery is you drive north into the central coast. We're actually the southernmost vineyard on the central coast. But we're right off the 101. That's where the estate vineyard lies. And we're four miles as the crow flies from the ocean. But we're in a really unique spot where it's a transverse mountain range that lies east to west. So, all subitay's a dream about now are south in Montecito. But that's more of an urban tasting room as opposed to the state vineyard. You mentioned rone varieties. Is that predominantly red rone varieties? So we grow a few in our red vineyard. It's our hillside vineyard. We grow granosh and Sera. And then we have a white vineyard called the Creekside Vineyard that lies right next to our tasting room. And that's going to be Claret Blanche, Marseau, and Grinosh Blanc. And for scale, roughly, what is the production level of the wineries combined? Yeah, so we shoot for around 5,000 cases, but it obviously varies from year to year. And it depends on the yields that we see off of the vineyard as we're heavily a state grown. So we'd love to take a deep dive into all your hospitality experiences. You've mentioned that you have two tasting rooms. We want to be a state, the "home-stead" and one in downtown Montecito. And you also have a farm-stead with animals where you can feed animals and by grow other foodstuffs, by foodstuffs. So for context, how many visitors do you get per year at each location? So it's hard to measure. Especially the farm-stead obviously, there's a lot of drop-ins there. But in general, we see roughly 8 to 10,000 people a year. Montecito sees the fewest as a small little tasting room, closer to 2,500 people through there, with the home-stead seeing the majority of our guests. And where do most of these visitors come from? And does it vary a lot by location? It doesn't. We see, I would say, the top five, we'd be looking at Santa Barbara locals, L.A., Ventura, San Diego is another big one. And that's where the majority of our traffic is coming from. And you mentioned hospitality. Peter, we're both Andy and I have hospitality in our bones. So I mentioned that we lived in St. Louis at Grant's Farm, which was the original Bush Gardens. And then Andy's father opened a number of other Bush Gardens around the country. So this is something that we've lived with our whole lives. And even before we opened the tasting room or had a winery at all, we welcomed so many people, kids, youth groups, churches, to the property. And now that there's a winery there, it's just added value to everybody. And we feel so strongly about hospitality that we hire for it. I think that hospitality, there's a gene. And it's very difficult to teach if you don't have it. So we believe that our employees are our most important customer. And if our employees and our team feels supported, then they will look after their guests in the same manner. So our motto of hospitality is five star service and surprise and delight. So our employees kindly meet everybody we go out and look for ways to surprise and delight every person who comes into the tasting room or the farmstead. Sometimes that's a special poor opening bubbles. Sometimes it's a baby pig, you never know. And so what kind of experiences do you offer at each tasting room? Are they like a walk-in drop-in? Is it reserve seating? So Manasito is a smaller urban tasting room. So are somewhat contained there with what we can do. But for example, we launched our sparkling lily rosé there. And we brought in one of our miniature horses from the ranch. We brought her into the tasting room. We had her decked out in a unicorn horn. And everybody just loved that. The Manasito tasting room is really a slice of ranch life right in the middle of this beach side town. So you feel like you're on the ranch there. So we've done that. We've just launched vinyl nights in Manasito. So we have, we're spinning records. on Thursdays and we'll start Sundays as well. So we try to do smaller educational, cheese and wine pairings, things like that, and Montecito. And then at the estate, we can do anything. We have Clyde'sdale's that you can oftentimes not all the time, but come and see and feed and pet. We have events large and small. We try to do one large event a month and then a number of smaller events. So a large event, for example, could be a polo game. So on the ranch, we have our own polo field. And I mentioned that's what brought Andy out back in 98 was polo. So we host probably 60 games a week during the season. And our guests can go over and sit and taste and watch a polo practice. But every year in May or June, we put on a very large polo event where you come in you tailgate and we have a tailgate contest so that people put this beautiful spread on. We have all kinds of food and they bring in their own picnics and then we host a polo game so they can meet the horses and the players up close and personal. We're doing this coming Saturday. We're doing an October fest. So we have a big Oonpa Bayan. We'll be singing Sweet Caroline from the tables and yes, we'll be serving beer as well as wine. So there's really no end to what we can do at the estate tasting room. We're large and we can definitely take a lot of people there. And how much do these experiences cost in terms of like what's the range? We try to keep our prices just enough to cover our expenses. So for wine club members, they'll definitely get a discount on their tickets. But for example, the October fest is $95 and that's all your dinner, your live music is much beer and wine as you can drink. So and then some we do hikes through the vineyards and over to our lake and that cost what was that? $60. So they range anywhere from you know like minimal would be $15 for something small to $195 for a wine maker dinner with soup all farmed to table with our own produce and a local legend chef and that was super high end and also quite beautiful. And so what do you want people to take away from the experiences I full of tales? So this is what I teach the entire team is I believe that people can buy wine, good wine in a lot of different places. In fact, I tell the team all the time you think your job is selling wine, it's not. Andy's father, Gussie was a master at creating experience. So what we're trying to do is create memories making you have a visceral feel of being in nature and being cared for. So Andy's dad's motto was making friends as our business and he made friends wherever he went. He in fact, he was the one who created the perfect pairing of beer and baseball. He literally changed the landscape of sports marketing when he owned the Cardinals baseball team. So we want people to take memories away because at the end of the day no amount of marketing money could ever match the word of mouth that you're going to get from your friend or your relative. So we want to we want to have them taste phenomenal wine which thanks to our incredible wine maker, Angela is born. We do and our beautiful grapes. But we want them to take away a memory as well, whether they fed a baby pig, whether they tasted wine that was just grown 500 feet from them to picking their own strawberries to watching a polo match. We want them to remember the whole experience of folded hills. And what do you think you do differently at your taste germs and your events compared to other winery experiences? I would say events and experiences. We have a full-time events manager who were just throwing ideas right and left. The poor girls just started and her head is spinning. I would say that. Kylie, what do you think? I think we have opportunity to create those experiences that other tasting rooms just don't have. We have a private lake dock that we do experiences. We have ATVs that we use for tours that we take groups out onto the vineyard and you can see where the grapes are growing. A lot of tasting rooms are burdened by the fact that their vines aren't where they're located. And I think we're in a really unique position to have them on site and have them accessible. And then also having the ranch there visible, also accessible so that people can see truly what the family is about, what folded hills is about. It's very genuine, it's very authentic. As well as not too many wineries have a camel and a zebra that you can come and feed, which we do. That's definitely true. I have been to a winery in the Hunter Valley where there were kangaroo outside but I think they were just wild kangaroo and not part of the line. There's no nino cifres in that part. That's very cool. So how do the wine sales differ between the two locations? Is there a big difference between what's sold in Montecito versus the estate? There's a huge difference in what's sold. I would say who we see in Montecito tends to be more wine club members. They're stopping in equally I would say for tasting fights and glasses. But we like to call it. It's more of a cheer scenario in Montecito. There's the people that you see day in and day out. There's guests that are tasting stuff knows by name. They know their preferences. They know their dogs names and that's it's tiny. That space lends itself to creating those connections and making that special space for people to hang out. The homestead simply because of its location draws in. I'd say more people seeing our sign on the side of the 101 and deciding to stop in. Or maybe they've stopped into Montecito and because Montecito has such a ranch feel it wets their appetite to come out and really experience the whole picture. When you mentioned that your event and experience pricing is primarily to cover its cost for the most part. So presumably selling the wine club is a big part of the purpose of the tasting rooms and the the estate. Do you get good wine club conversion at the your various hospitality experiences? I would say we're often shocked by the conversion. People just love the experience. Most importantly they feel that five star service. They've been surprised. They've been delighted. We hire for that hospitality gene of warmth and and someone who's passionate about taking care of others and in service of others. So I think our guests feel that for sure and then you put them plop them in the middle of 15 acres of organic grow crop and 15 acres of organic grapes and animals and this phenomenal wine that Angela makes biodynamically, organically, sustainably. You feel the authenticity when you're there whether it's the Montecito tasting room which is just a slice or if you're immersed in the ranch. So yes they are important. I mentioned that we're about 98% direct to consumer which is good. I would like to increase our wholesale percentage by about 10% and get the word of folded hills out a little bit more. Or even 20%. It's a yeah if you're you need to want to balance the marketing of wholesale with the economics of direct to consumer. Exactly. You mentioned that you're surprised by how well club converts. Did you have a specific expectation when you started around club conversion that you've just blown away? There are days that we just blow it out of the water. We compare ourselves to our peers. We try we actually we really don't compare ourselves to anybody. We just try to do the very best folded hills we can. We try to improve on ourselves day over day month over month. But as you look into wine director your sales platforms and yet your peers there are days that were shocked. Yes pleasantly. In what's the most attractive benefit that gets people to sign up for the club? I say the wine first and foremost. I mean people here all the time that people are floored by the fact that they're not getting that stuff he knows that wine headache that the wine is made so beautifully I mentioned organically and biodynamically. Angela really believes in creating a wine that is with minimal intervention. So the every year that vintage variation shows itself in your glass which we're so proud of. I love the fact that every year tastes different. I love that differentiation in each vintage. So first and foremost it's it's the wine. There's no question she makes just incredible wine and then they're tasting it in this beautiful setting and then they they hear about the events and I think word of mouth is that full of hills really takes care of their members. That's super important to us. Obviously it's a very large part of our business and our revenue. So we're we're going to roll out the red carpet for them at every opportunity. I did see on the visit page that there's a special area reserved for club members. But I didn't see that necessarily in the club benefit page. So is that an important benefit for members? I think it's more that because we roll out the whole the red carpet for them they can go tasting over at the private lake. They can go over to the private ranch which is not accessible to nonmembers. They're invited to wine club events at the private ranch. They can feed a Clydesdale over there. They can go you know meet and greet a zebra who's not so nice by the way. The camel's much much more pleasant. So it's not so much that there's a seating area although we do have a winery room that is reserved for wine club members if they want to come in and use that. But it's more the access to you know 300 acres of property that it's at their fingertips. And you mentioned where the visitors are. I'm curious if the wine club has a different demographic in terms of where people live, who are members versus the hospitality members. It's a little bit different. About almost 10% are local, you know, within an hour of us. And then our next biggest segment is actually St. Louis. So while they don't, they don't tend to visit us all the time, that's our second biggest state that we actually have members in. And we go there twice a year, if not more sometimes to hold events and make sure we show them some love. God, interesting. I was wondering how you naturally happened or if you were working out making that St. Louis connection. Well, it's no. The St. Louis connection was always there because both Andy and I are from St. Louis on his emotions in St. Louis, the grants farm where my husband grew up is there. It's a 300 acre farm. So we will host people there. In fact, we launched our business in St. Louis in 2017, April of 2017, we launched in St. Louis purposely because this was our heritage. This was, you know, the whole heritage line of our wines is about St. Louis and family members. They definitely feel the love. So when members visit a tasting room, do they go to both or do they probably go to one of the two? They're pretty evenly split. Some of our members have their favorites. The homestead appeals to those with families because the farm set is located directly across the street. Members get discounts on our organic produce that we have over there. It provides a little bit different of an experience, but Monacito sees its fair share of members as well. So I think it's probably preference-related and then we have those that kind of like to bop in between the two. And you mentioned how you're blown away by the conversion rate on the flip side of that there's also all wine clubs have churned. How have you seen that impact based on different things that you're offering from a hospitality perspective for wine club members? I don't know that I would really call it a churn rate for us. People drop off for the sort of the normal reasons, aging out or health or financial, but we don't really see it so much as a churn rate because of all the events that we do. I mean, we are very cognizant that the majority of our revenue comes from wine club members. So we definitely want to make them feel as welcome and comfortable and part of folded hills as they possibly can. Not saying we don't have a churn, we absolutely do, but it seems to be absolutely manageable. So you mentioned the farmstead and that's another core element of the entire folded hills experience. Can you go into a little more detail on exactly what it is? Yes. So the farmstead, the name of the business is folded hills, winery, farmstead and ranch. It's very integrated with the winery. In fact, it's, in my opinion, the heart and soul of the brand. It does a fraction of our revenue, but it's, it really reflects our care and feeding of taking care of the land and the animals. It's really important to us to keep the land sustainable, to teach people about crops and how organic is so important. We love to see children go out there with their little spade into the eupick fields and they dig up their carrots and they pull it out. And there's this just filthy dirt rate laden carrot and they're just chewing away at it. They just love it. So that's super important to us. The farmstead is absolutely the heart and soul of the brand. And I love the fact that it's right across the street from the tasting room, the estate tasting room, so they can walk back and forth and experience the animals and we have baked goods there and we have other sort of farming, ranchy items that they can buy. We have ice cream, which is kind of weird that they buy produce, but the biggest sellers are the animal feed, ice cream and baked goods. Not so much the carrots and lettuce. Sounds like a family-friendly experience. Very much so, yes. So what percent of people go to both the estate tasting room and the farmstead? It's hard to have that as a hard statistic. We would estimate about 30% of the people over at the home-stead tasting room end up at the farmstead and it's something that our stewards work really hard to figure out about the guest. Is it something they're interested in? One of our new implementations at the start of this year was to start providing complimentary feed to our guests as they were leaving and only if they wanted it. But the farmstead is only open right now for a day, Saturday and Sunday during the summer also on Mondays. So we wanted to make sure they still got to have that experience even if it was closed. So that has been going really well. Guests are definitely surprised and delighted by it, but it helps us to encourage. And I would say the number of people going to the farmstead from the tasting room has definitely increased since we started that. I work at the tasting room at the estate quite often and it's about 50/50 and I'll say, "Oh, if you go over to see the animals and some will say, "Oh, yes, we already went." And some will say, "No, what are you talking about?" So I love it when I can say, "Oh my gosh, you've got to go over there or come over and taste wine." It's really cool to see the synergies between the two. It had you think about those synergies and connection from a business perspective between the winery and the farmstead? It's an interesting question. I think that they work together because we are about educating people about the importance of eating organic and supporting local farms, supporting local wineries. I think that that's really important. I do think that there's an opportunity at that farmstead to create more of a lifestyle, more of a. I don't know, we're exploring that right now, Peter. I'm not really sure. Are there any wine benefits at the farmstead specifically? Yeah, members receive 15% off the organic produce there. And I believe you also have a guest house that was available for rent on the properties at. Is that correct? We did. Well, we do have. We have a number of buildings and guest houses on the private ranch. We do have a three-bedroom, two-bath, newly remodeled farmhouse that we allowed wine club members to rent for farmstays. A year ago, though, my husband was diagnosed with a serious illness, and we've curtailed the farmstays on the private ranch. Right now, we're negotiating, though, for another property very close. And part of the intent of that would be to open that. There's another three-bedroom house on that property to wine club members. So having a place to stay on the ranch was another big benefit for club members and so it sounds like something you want to keep going in the future. We absolutely hope to get those open sooner than later. Again, we find that the more people are immersed into that farm life and organic living, the more important and connected they feel to the land. How do you see the Santa Barbara wine region differentiating itself from others in California or even globally? Yeah, I think it's too fold. I think one, just simply the diversity of grapes on the central coast in Santa Barbara County in itself. There's more than 75 varieties planted in this wine country here. You can taste more different varieties in a day's drive than you can in a day in France. The climate here is unique. We're dealing with, again, that transverse mountain range, that east to west, which is usually a north-south orientation. So we have these microclimates within Santa Barbara. There's seven different AVAs and they all behave very differently from each other. So it makes for a very successful growing region for a lot of different varieties. And it was interesting when I told you when we were trying to decide what to plant. If you were in the Santa Rita Hills, it was very clear what was going to work there, Pino Arne, a few other riddles. If you're in Happy Canyon, you're like, "Oh, we're all cabin charred." And, well, no one had planted where we were. This was, actually, that's not true. When we purchased the ranch in the property, we realized that there was a pre-prohibition vineyard on the property. That's another reason why we decided to plant grapes. I don't know what they were, but it was a Swiss Italian family. So we're sort of guessing San Giavace. So other than that, no one had planted as far south as we had planted. So we took a big risk planting there. And we did the vast majority in own root. So that was also a big risk. But we think it paid off. And now there are people who are planting a little bit closer to where we are as well. Are there still grapes on the property that from those pre-prohibition days? Yeah. And we've talked about doing some soil DNA testing and we just haven't gotten to it yet. We know exactly where it was. We have a picture of it. In fact, it's up at the farmstead. But we have not done that DNA testing yet. No. There is still the basement where the wine was made. So we have that. The estate tasting room called the homestead is in the original farmhouse that was built in the early 30s. The original basement is there. It's the exact same footprint. And there's a really cool cypress tree that's hundreds of feet tall now that was their first Christmas tree back in 1930. I'm curious, going back to Santa Barbara wine region, how do you see visitors who are partaking in hospitality and tourism? How do you see their expectations of Santa Barbara versus other places that they visit? I think they're blown away. They seem to be blown away. People, you know, we got a lot of tourism from the Napa Valley when that valley was hit so terribly and tragically with fires that they had. And there were a lot of tastings in farmstays that came down to us. And when they discovered that, they just love it. I think Paso Robles does a better job in my opinion in marketing. I think that for some reason, despite what was it, wine and spirits or one of the big publications saying that the central coast was the fastest growing wine region in the world, I think it's still somewhat a little bit sleepy. And I'm not sure why, but when people get there, they are very pleasantly surprised. We have phenomenal restaurants in the valley. better in my opinion, the ones in Santa Barbara, and incredible wine that you can taste everywhere, different experiences of lining, and all sorts of different things that you can do in the valley. So, see tourism just going up and up. And, curious, is there between the other growers in the area, is there a camaraderie or a knowledge sharing that you all do together, if you could talk a little bit about that? One of the things I love about that is that in the region, there's a very strong feeling of rising tides, raise all boats. We are very supportive of each other. Keep in mind, we didn't know anything about the wine business. And so, we reached out to Pete Stoltman, who was our business advisor, and he was phenomenal. He just opened up everything, and do this, don't do that, or try this, or try, I think we were a little bit avant-garde for him, and some ways, because we don't know what we're doing, we aren't held to this little box, and we don't really care that we're doing something wrong. That's worked out sometimes well, and most of the time well, and a few times not so well. But people are so supportive here, and thank goodness, because we have learned a lot, we didn't know what we were doing at first. And I'm curious, is there, do you have an example of something that you tried, didn't get the results you want, and you pivot away from, and you learned from it? Sure, I'll give you one of each. One that was not as successful is we did a sunsooth, a sulfur-free sera, and we didn't market it that way, so that when people got their wine club, we should have told them to drink it first. All year, year and a half later, they're like, "That wine was terrible!" And we're like, "Yes, it was." "See, by now, yes, it is." So that was one that didn't work out so well, but one that did, we dragged our youngest son with us to a barrel tasting with Angela on his 21st birthday, figuring that he had never had a sip of alcohol. But that exactly, it's your plenty of beer before that. We said, "We want you to pick which one of these blends you like best?" And he looked at us, he said, "I hate 'em all." I'm like, "Okay, well, which one do you hate the least?" And he said, "That one." "Okay, well, we're gonna name that wine 21." And Angela said, "You can't name a wine a number." And we said, "Why not? Watch us." So we named that wine 21, and now we should be naming it 25, and people love it, it sold out. So we just kind of roll and do what sounds fun, and that's for me, that's the most fun about this business. It's just kind of trying something new. - That's funny, is she Australian? - New Zealand. - New Zealand, okay, 'cause I was gonna say, the Aussies have used numbers all the time, especially Penful, right? - I thought I thought she didn't want us to name it on a wine bottle. - Well, different casts and everything, I never know what's what, it's just a bunch of numbers. But, so what do you think are the biggest opportunities and challenges you see for folded hills of the next two or three years? - That's a great question. I would say certainly wanting to increase the wholesale is definitely one of them. I tend to be more of an opportunities person than a what if person than a challenges. I kind of look at challenges as an opportunity, and I know that sounds, I know that might sound right, but it's really how I approach everything. I don't know, I think we're gonna hit all kinds of challenges. Certainly post-COVID, the numbers were out through the roof, and now tourism is down across the valley. We hear that all the time. So we're gonna look to increase the awareness of folded hills. We're really well known locally, but I would love to get a little bit further abroad. - What do you think, honey? - Yeah, I think you covered that. (laughing) - And you mentioned you make about 5,000 cases a year as part of the opportunity to grow the production of the winery? - It depends. We truly love our estate. It was planted intentionally and purposefully, and we farm it in that same manner with that in mind. So we're not pushing yields. We're looking for the best quality fruit that the vineyard can produce at the level that it wants to. We farm, and right now we're picking to the biodynamic calendar. So that really leads a lot of the decision making. We will not be picking until Friday because the moon's not in the right position until 3 a.m. on Friday. And so we, not two, 3 a.m. three, specifically. But I mean, Angela was out there this morning. She was there for the pick. We picked for our sparkling Claret Blanche. It was very special. It was very exciting. It was clusters were hand picked and hand sorted, and she goes through and she's checking them. And I think the magic of the estate vineyard is that level of control and intentionality. And so I don't know that we see ourselves expanding beyond that for now, only because that's-- it means so much to us. Again, that authenticity and that staying true to who we are as a brand, the organic biodynamic vineyard really speaks to who we are. And I mentioned that we were talking about trying to expand wholesale to a certain extent. But to Kylie's point, we really don't want to increase our volume. We don't want to grow more. One of our challenges, and it is a big personal challenge, is that a year ago, my husband was diagnosed with a glioblastoma. Which is a malignant, inoperable, in his case, brain tumor. So where's we might have been able to hit the road and go out and sell wholesale and do events in different cities before we really-- it's just not a priority. He's doing absolutely, fantastically. You would never know. Thank goodness. To the point of the challenge turned into opportunity is I've already actually started an organization, a foundation called Grapes for glioblastoma. We haven't launched it yet. But it's extremely important to me. We're going to give a portion of every bottle sold to folks who are not as blessed as we are. So for example, it's an all-cancer. I think it's an expensive thing to treat. So if you need to have treatments say across the country, but you can't afford to have a loved one come with you or stay in a hotel or get another room for your daughter or whatever, we want to help with some of those expenses. And so because so much of the treatment is experimental and uninsured, we really want to help people who aren't in the same position where we have great care two hours away and Los Angeles. So that's something that really is important to me because selling wine and selling grapes or selling wine in our case is really wonderful. But at this stage of my life, to be working as hard as I am, and taking time away from my friends and grandchildren, I really want to be making a difference, not just selling wanting. So we'd like to wrap up each episode on a personal note and we are curious. What is the most cherished bottle of wine that you have in your cellar and when do you plan on drinking it? Well, Angela Osborne was our founding wine maker and she is back. It's a bigger question than just what bottle we like. In 2020, I actually left the business completely because I felt like there were some decisions being made that I wasn't a part of. One of them was to let Angela go as a wine maker and bring another wine maker on. So a year ago, when I came back to the business, I thought to myself, I really missed Angela's beautiful wines. I wonder if she would come back. So I reached out to her. It's an incredible testament to her that she took my call. Much less is decided to come back to folded hils as a wine maker. She made a wine in 2019 and a state granache. It has the picture of a barn on it that's right there next to the farmstead. And that wine will blow you away. And I've had-- so she made it in 2019. We did a tasting about three months ago and that wine has aged so beautifully. I love her wines because they have such an elegance and a nuance. They pair so beautifully with the lighter foods that I like. So we've only got a couple of those bottles left and I'm hoarding them. And I don't know when I'm going to enjoy it, but it might just be a Tuesday night. Might be tonight. Similarly, one of my favorites is Angela's 2019 cluster carbonic sara. And that was one that-- I would say that was a decision that Kim made that could have knock on super well in calling a wine a cluster. But that's right. It went well. It does really well. It's one of the top sellers in the tasting room. It's a beautiful summer wine. We serve it with a bit of a chill on it. But the really cool part about the 2019 is when we opened it three months ago, it tasted amazing. And carbonics aren't known for their age worthiness. But if it speaks to Angela's wine making ability and the quality of the grapes that we're seeing off the vineyard. So still one of my favorites. I think I've only got two bottles left. So I'm hanging on to it for now. I agree. That was a good story. Angela, I want to name this whole cluster carbonic cluster. And she said, you can't name a wine cluster. Do you know what people will think? And I said, yes, I do. And yes, they are correct. We all know that. So what this business is. Well, we want to thank you for sharing so much about Photo Hills winter and it's a diverse offering of hospitality and tourism for members and people who stop in. We appreciate sharing all that and the knowledge. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to have a son. Thanks for joining us. If you loved this episode of XShotto, we'd love for you to subscribe. Rate and give a review on iTunes. Or wherever you get your podcast. Until next time, cheers. [MUSIC PLAYING]