Exploring Wine Tech w/ Julien Fayard, Fayard Winemaking

Hey listeners, I want to tell you a little bit about Offset, a proudly independent commerce platform and brand studio based in wine country. I've personally used their ecommerce platform, Offset Commerce for over a decade, and I've found it to be one of the most intuitive and functional platforms on the market. Don't just take my word for it, establish luxury brands and leading independent producers and merchants like Brian Estate, Bedrock Wine Company, Arnold Roberts, and Acbee Fine Wines use Offset Commerce and Love it. Go to OffsetCommerce.com to learn more. That's OFF-SET-Commerce.com to learn more. Welcome to Ex-Shateau. Ex-Shateau. 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 Ex-Shateau. Today we're getting the wine makers perspective on wine making technology and our series on video and video and video and video and video and video and today we have Julian Fayard, a consulting wine maker in Napa Valley with us. Julian, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Peter. I'm very excited to see you and talk about this very interesting subject that actually I have enjoyed for many years. So it's good to talk about it because it's usually hidden. Yeah, exactly. That's what we like to do. Talk about the things that are hidden from you. Julian, I know you, but many of our listeners may not. Can you give us a brief overview of your background? So I'm French-born. French trained to my uncle build a wine ring in the 70s in France and I studied with my cousins and that's one of the reason why I am in the wine business. So, studied wine in France, came in the US in 2006. I started to work for a consultant named Philip Melchard. It was already established at the time and worked for him for eight years. Managed all his custom-crush clients and as well start building winery for those projects and then he helped me start my own consulting as well and in 2013, you know, too much work. So we try to put everything together. It was a bit early in his career. So I just went on my way and kept going with my load of clients and built two wineries. So one in Cumzville, one in the industrial park, South Snappa, where we make most of the clients wine and then manage three other wineries in the body. So what's the total scope? So you manage three wineries. You have how many like consulting clients do you have? How was the scope of production? Is it just Snappa or? So mostly Napa Centric, I would say 85 percent. Then I do a lot more and more cabin pinole from Sonoma, which is super interesting in the landscape of wines in America and then although it food the CRF food hills and then I make a little bit of wine in Provence, Bordeaux and recently Serbia. Okay. The random at all. You know, you meet people and life happens. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's cool. That's definitely a global footprint, which I think helps play into our discussion today around wine technology. When you think about using technology, do you have a framework or process for how you evaluate technologies and look at using them? Yeah. So there's no established process a lot of it is trial and error and also I mean if we take for example, we have a software that manages all our production used to be Excel. We knew we could continue on Excel, but we also knew we needed something more robust and so the acquisition came about observing trials and then doing the jump and then now I think we will not know how to go back. So then you know that the step has been worse a while because you've changed how you work to a point that you graduate. You don't know how to go backwards and I mean you could, but you can't do it at a scale you're doing it. So the evolution was needed. But always at the time when you're ready for the transition, you're maybe not ready. Or you're so used to what you're doing that you're like, oh, I can do it myself. But then you realize this has to the fact, usually that was really needed and a piece of mind. Yeah. So yeah, you shut her a little bit when you think about the old way. Yeah, you have a sense that you need that and then when we go over the different technology, I can tell you what triggered. There is always a trigger and that trigger can be for different reasons, but usually it's already set in your mind why you need it. And how do you usually hear about new technologies? A lot of travel, a lot of exchange. I have and my team, we have a very curious mind. We also have a lot of interns at travel come that have, I mean we have the world in the cellar. So they bring with their knowledge, but it's also observing, I mean, luckily the the wine world is not a very technologically fast pace environment. It's a chips time 60 and 10 years you'll get maybe a half a movement. And so a lot of the technologies have been, we observe them. We see them growing, we poke at it and then there's not too many, it's a players and a lot of them come to us, which is a good thing to us and we have a chance to assist them, listen to them, give them maybe a trial or a space to develop and try their technology. We did that with a couple startups. So you're doing a passive watch, active in the participation, but it's, you know, you're not active in their company. And you're both in France and in the US and in NAPAN Sonoma, do you see a difference in new technology usage between the two or do you hear about more, you hear about new things from both sides and try them out? Yeah, so there is some, I think the French new technology or the newest technology is mostly in anything that is in contact with wine, oak treatment, oxygen, nutrition, yeast, that technology, more of the bio, you know, how to ferment. And then I think in the US, it's a little more logistics mechanical and we have more resources in the way in the US to pay for things that a human could do, that makes sense. We're in France, we want to automate. Yeah, a little more. In France, they'll have a guy do it before they automate. It's a different they have more technicians. So I would say that would be the divide between the new world and the world world. The new world is a little more on logistics, mechanics, removing the pain of working physical, frances, the more on the techniques and the becoming more accurate, cost saving, control and so forth. Interesting. And you mentioned a lot of the new technology companies come to you. When they come to you, is there something that maybe adds a spark and you know, a lot of times in their marketing, they might have case studies from other whimakers, references as clients or maybe just you know the salesperson or videos or whatnot. Like what's kind of more impactful in your mind when these different companies come to you and present their technology? You know, it sometimes it comes in waves. So you'll have someone, for example, the automation of software, free software. It's been known for 20 years that you need to have a wet chemical reaction to have something accurate. But more and more coming with mobile solid state. So in the system coming, you already have a background of, okay, this has been tried this many times. This guy is just picking up someone's work and adding a new element that didn't exist before, inspired by another technology or another company that masters at technology better and now applies it to a small market. So we have, we have that understanding. It's rare to see someone that comes with something that is a total innovation to a point that you've never seen before. So I think the knowledge base is kind of the guarantee of what we look at. And that's goes back to the slow change in the wine business. But are there like certain things that they could tell you, right? Whether that's, I'm going to give you a free trial or like your neighbor, Philippe Melca uses this that is like more meaningful for you to perks your ears up and says, oh, maybe I should try this. Yeah, I think if you want to acquire new technology, you get to be a place where you can say, oh, shatulatu, I used it. So it's going to be cool. Like that's good marketing. But maybe what applies to them doesn't apply to me. So for me, look at the people that are at the head of that, you know, is it a salesperson? Is it an engineer? Is it a crazy seven cellar guy that had a crazy ID and that is trying to apply it? I think you look at the seriousness of the endeavor as well because scalability is everything and having a great idea is one thing. But being able to develop it, be reliable customer service. I mean, we have that in our wall winery monitoring system. So those guys are in use it and they can fix it at night while in the morning. It's, you know, someone is up and working. I think that's what you look at is, is it viable as a company or is it just something that, you know, if it breaks? If we're looking at a system with a use microwave to warm up barrels, so you don't have to warm up your wall room. So you can work per barrel. So you'll have like 10 barrels out of 200 that are doing malo and so you can just focus on those. As it's a great idea. I mean, it's conceptually great. The problem is you have to remove the bottom of each barrel. You have to monitor each have to make sure each one works. They bang them. They take the barrel down. How many break? What happened when you break it? And then we did a different technology which was a door to do fermentation. We use that very practical, but they created a door at the beginning that was reusable that you could move from barrel to barrel. The door was 250 bucks. So it was pre-expensive and so you could reuse it. You buy it once, but then it up with the 80 dollar door that you throw away with the barrel. And because no one was managing the time of removing the door, putting a lid and moving it to the next door. No one wanted to do that. It was too complicated. It leaked to be screwed right. And it's just the idea was great. The usability was bad. And so that almost sounds like It's a bit of maturity of the idea and the company itself so that they can and actually support all the things that go wrong and have like customer service and that operational support. And so like, how easy is it to implement? So to answer your question is, I look at the seriousness of the people, but I also look at the practice city of it. And some people you feel are way too far. The technology is not there yet. The ideas are good, the sense is good. They are just way too far. And so it's gonna take years, it's gonna fail, someone else's gonna pick it up. So that's where sometimes we stay away from those 'cause we invest as well. And so it's a little sad when you see it, but it's part of the red team. But it happens, especially with technology, right? So when you're looking at these things, do you have any like return metrics, ROI metrics that you use to evaluate or do your clients force you to have anything like that? So the metrics, we use the for example, on the wood, the infusions, we look at the price of oak versus the price of the state and the service. The pump over system, I looked at what is the cost of the failure on one tank. And then it's a risk assessment. But if I do one time, one mistake, it costs me 120,000 on average. If it costs me that much, then that pays for the system. So I look at it more statistically in insurance. We look at, look for example, like we're assessing right now for steaming diesel versus power, electric power, which form is totally backwards. But it looks like the diesel, I'm just waiting, we're doing tests next week. The sense is that the diesel is going to be cheaper. Oh, interesting. More efficient. The units more efficient, the maintenance on the unit is the cost of the units have price. The kilo-what is so fucking expensive right now. Sorry. Yeah. But I mean, PG&E doubled. I mean, we're looking at alternative sources. Right, right. Yeah. Well, it's part of being in Northern California. The cost of electricity in California is higher than other places. And some of these technologies, are really about improving quality versus reducing cost. How do you factor that in your evaluation? So quality, a lot of people would take quality as improving the quality of the wine, for example. For me, it's like the difference in the average is. So if you have a $15 bottle of wine or a $300, you can improve both quality at a certain delta that is the same, the difference in difference. So on the $15, I won't show as much than on a $300, but it'll be the same delta. But you're changing like sanitation, for example, controlling sanitation. You also remove risk. So because you remove risk, more of your barrels make the final blend. So you might not increase quality. You're going to increase your quantity. So the bottom line is better. And it creates those problems, which is, for example, oh, we have too much of the best wine. So now we have to drop some barrels. So after it's the success of the brand and the consistency and I think people are happier about the wines we make. I mean, could you do a statistical analysis to manufacture what the average score is? But would you buy any technology that you thought just improve quality but didn't reduce cost in anyway? Correct. For example, if it's pure like the way we filter, it's the same price. But like we do Polish filtration, that's actually an added cost. But we reduce the risk. And when we have rackings and prognetic vintage, where the wine don't want to deposit, we can't force it a little bit. So we're not on sterile. But we have an added cost. So we bear all the cost of the filtration and the cartridge and the maintenance, all that stuff. So that's added to improve the quality, the stability of the wines. Still be a not sterile filter when we go to the ball, but have a better control on our biome in the wine and so forth. So that-- and we change the technology that we used to be on cross flows and light cross flows. And we went to different membrane, different substrate. So that will change. That would be added to the process just to better the process. And so we have a better control. So it's an less VA, less sulfur ads. And I guess how do you think about how much you're willing to pay to improve quality when there's no cost reduction? So it's more expensive and it improves the process and the quality. But to me, it's almost like there's some-- quality can be a little bit like cyber security, like you could spend an endless amount of money improving quality or trying to lock down your security. And then when do you stop? Yeah, when you stop, that's a good question. I think there's a common sense. It's a little bit empirical. I mean, we look at what's the added cost. It's a couple of bucks again on-- it's a measure if we're dubbing the price and there's a problem. I think what we add, the delta in which we work is very tiny, is 10% to 20% cost max on the overall product. So we're still at the place where no one's going to raise a flag. The biggest cost in wine is-- and I see from the CPA because a lot of the stuff I do is gear to CPAs and to accountants-- is when you drop your volume, waste, accidents, that's when your price goes up by a lot, by 30.4%. If you have barrels that don't make the blend, if you have to distill wine, if you have to filter, that's where the costs are. So all those are usually a lot less. And then yeah, if I see the best, then finish that question is, we love manipulating as humans. And if you don't do something, you feel like you've not done anything. I think there's a point where you have to learn to stop. This is going to be all right. That trust to process. Don't control yourself. Yeah, that's interesting. So the things that really moved the needle are why is not making the cut or meeting the bulk out a bunch of things. And yeah, go and move down in the program because it was just making that fruit cost even more expensive for the stuff that's left, I guess. And the idea was when we did the review and we have every lot and we look at the blends where they go and the price point of each blend. Usually you go through each one and say, OK, this is your worst. And I like to say it's your worst block, meaning that's the bottom of the pack, which we always point that was the best. But sometimes you look at, where is my bottom line? Where is my lowest point? And how satisfied I am with that? If it starts from here, it's already a good one. I think it's a win. And that number is the number that costs. How low you? And the more you ratchet that up, the more efficient you are in your process, then it's up to marketing to decide how to transform that into dollars. Yeah, right. And find the markets and make it worth the cost. And we talked about the beginning how wine technology is sort of under the radar and not very talked about. And I think that's because why making is often portrayed as a very artisanal thing and hands on. I think people think of Lucy. I love Lucy stomping on grapes in a barrel, but why makers do? Do you think if people learned about all the technology that is used to make wine, that changes that impression in that dynamic? Yeah. I mean, is it better that your pasta or your bread is made in a machine or by hand? I don't think people care. It's when you bite in that bread, that feeling, and add a discussion recently about, for example, mechanization in the vineyards. And people are like, what about the romantic side of the cruise and the hands in the vineyards? I'm not going to care. At some point, it's what does it cost to make wine? And they still know there's a whimemaker that cares, and that the wine is still made with passion, but it might be with less hands in the mix. Yeah. I look at it a little like if you can automate some of the things that are repetitive, not super high skilled things, then you can reallocate all that time to doing important stuff. That actually impacts the quality of the wine and everything else and make it better for people. For example, with the automation of the pump overs, so used to be a crew, eight, 12 people with pumps, dragging the hoses, just pumping the wine. And when we put the automation, we still have a crew, but now they spend time on top adjusting the speed, smelling, doing addition, do more technical work. And when the guys was up there for an hour with the hose, I mean, after 10 minutes, it's on his phone today. Now, I think we've proven quality because we pay more attention, and they come back with feedback and smell like this, and they have more time to do technical work, being more precise on temperature, being double shaking. I mean, just yeah, it's a lot of little details that we can have more skilled people that will not apply in a certified job to stand on the ladder for hours, but they are interested in wine, so they'll do it, but they'll do it, and we can give them projects that are more interesting, and they can give us feedback. Yeah, for sure. And so, do you spend much time thinking about technology in the vineyard as well? Like, how do you think about viticulture technology versus why making technology? Yeah, so viticulture technology is a lot linked to, so for example, we'll have like all the ferromones, all the organic progression there. But now, I mean, in California, we're actually surprisingly slow to mechanization in the vineyard to be able to format low cost organically or large acres. And I think there's a lack of skilled tractor drivers and supplies and resources that needs to come, and so there is company like New Orleans and Pilling, so if there was time to show up here that have that technology, but not yet developed the market. So that's coming. With the recession that is happening right now in the grape industry, I think people will be forced, and we'll adapt it quick. Most of the time, I try to have those more tractors come, and like I'll go to Switzerland, and a lot of time, I say, well, we'll prep it, we'll put a Kubota engine in it, and we'll remove some of the options that break often, and then you all have something you can repair on site that all the parts are available, but then the people didn't want to take the risks and they were imported to it. So it's there, it's available, it's just required as a company to raise their hand and start importing. - So you think technology in the vineyard sort of lags behind technology in the winery? - Very different. I think technology in the vineyard is actually very well-known. developed but it's always the knowledge is the same, the acquisition of the knowledge is different because of the the Curitivator for example, that's existed for 50, 60 years, we still disk here because disk is because the central value, that's the middle field, but that's how the acquisition, I don't think it lags is different. We're starting to see like for example, Frission Science, they did all that subflow measurement and a lot of super super hot information, never vulgarized in a way that it's massed approach. There's a new company coming now they do a real-time measure of whales, whales depths, well flow reservoirs. So for example, something I put in 12 years ago was the depth meter and so we record our well to drop how the well recovers and so forth. So we can throttle our pump depending on how good our well is doing. So there's a demand from the county and the counties in general to make that mandatory and so that technology can give you to your real-time and that's starting to, those guys are able to make it affordable or cell phone, you know, a real-time independent, you can lose power or you'll still get the data. And so that's happening, there's a lot of technology at that level that is becoming, there's a real-guareration of the chips and the sims, you can have a full number but anywhere giving you data for a very low cost, that 10 years of what didn't exist. Yeah the internet of things kind of technology. And with what Musk is putting in the sky right now that's also pretty amazing on what you can do or you can do it because we can pilot, we can throw stuff in the distance. I mean with the our whole winery control, I can see machines going wrong as they are failing before I used to have to wait for the guys to take a temperature on the tank to see that oh shit. Yeah so you gain time, you gain speed but I went through like maybe four different companies of data communication that would log in until I found this one and those guys are electronic and equal guys so they'll pop in a new machine and just take it over and now I can do it from my computer. So that was a lot of trial and error. And as a consulting why maker do you think about technology different for like your own winery versus your clients wineries? No it's most let's say it's first do they need it. So for example we look at the diesel steamer diesel steamer I can put on a truck and go around that steam everywhere. I don't need five machines. Practically it's better to have one in each place but so a reason to choose diesel might be also we don't have the same power requirements. I mean I have a winery from the late 1800s the power is special as its own dimension but yeah sometimes we browse the machine and say oh yeah it's the same voltage it's just you know different phase and you're like fuck you can't use it. So I think I don't care what type of wine we make we try to run everything at the same level and have those technology blank. It's also good for users not to have to change platforms to have to change you know machines is a little bit more used to it or train on it. So your team is more familiar with the right thing and come there better to have the same thing across got it. And so some of the wine make technologies that you told me you used today and we'd like to deep dive a little bit into our Vin wizard in event sent you in the France in the France every set. So maybe we'll start with Vin wizard. Yes. What is it and how do you do Vin wizard is a the whole winery automation. So this was started with the automatic pump over system so basically it's a brain with you know a very I mean interface where you can log in and you can set your times and you can stay to your temperature on and off on the tank so you can cool hot eating cooling pump overs when you want to pump over what speed so forth they're really good at so now they do also what they call environmental so they're logging into your glyco system your AC if you have mixtures yeah they'll grab the Wi-Fi so my CO2 sensors they used to trigger really low and so a lot of the cooling here was going out because there was a little bit of CO2 and now I can throw my CO2 level threshold through that where before I couldn't so now I can be more efficient energy they started so those guys are from New Zealand which is a little more efficient there the system here they give us the option but they can't tie with PG&E but they can for example if you have a tank they first do porcelain so they they'll send one minute of glyco and they'll close it for two minutes they'll diffuse in the tank and then they'll keep going this is very efficient for energy wise but then they can throw that depending on PG&E pick hours and if you tell them I need my tank at this temperature at this time the system will wait until it gets off pick hours also what the way we use it for example used to be that we sent a work order so the guys are having a morning at six print pick up change all the vows get the tank changing get to temperature wait so four to six hours then they can start to do like additions at our temperature sensitive and we use that in no two so much because at 22 because we use different type of bacteria that are very temperature sensitive and we have to be very precise at various MFSTM but now we set the time so the tank will start at 4 a.m warming up mix you know at 530 when they arrive at 630 by the time they're ready the time will be at temperature then they can do the ads we don't have to wait for the afternoon because you have to usually we have you know end of crush cleaning prepping for the next day barrels so it's you have a fresh crew and we attend to stuff right away but with the technology now we can manage also temperature from afar but I was saying earlier when the glyco system goes sideways I see it the nitrogen system like we get that arms and so we can get to it before it becomes a problem in the winery so how did you hear about venn wizard it was at arken stone was the first winery that had it as a pilot project actually the kid that was there became a partner and now get out of the win business and he's in the wineteknobt so he joined the company and Lloyd and so we kept touching base with him and looking at what they were doing and so they came to us and so now I have two wineries and building where this is part of the baseline project to put all the wiring ready for wineries because I can pilot it from the forer and are there other technologies or companies that do something similar and then you chose venn wizard why did you choose venn wizard over so for example if you buy you also want to stank net tank net if you buy 20 or 30 controllers they'll give it to you give you the interface and say thank you for the business and you have to find an electrician and you have to kind of understand it yourself where here we have technicians that they come and it was not without pain I mean we had days without the system and we had relays that burnt and like they're getting a lot better with there's a learning curve on their end and our end but we've been passionate because globally we we were benefiting from the really good system but we have checks so like the guys are waiting for the tanks to start if they don't start in the morning get a phone call they're like hey system you don't start you know so we have ritual controls we don't only rely on it but also we we lined up everyone's work based on that so if the system fails they're ready to manually do it and so force like we pick up and then say it's 95% of time yeah when it works you're a lot more efficient yeah used to be right you could go up yeah before I put the system in I had a automation on tanks already so the guys in the morning they will come seven minutes pick you know and do it by hand which was very efficient so all it does now it starts on its own versus turning a button so you like maybe for you know a hundred grand of equipment is it worth a guy turning the button no but you have a piece of mind like I have a tank that is warming up at night that I don't know something really wrong with the is it just really going too fast and I can mix it in the night see the drop of temperature and be like okay it's just there's no problem though or I can call the guys they can run to the winery we have a problem that take right and you know you mentioned a hundred grand of stuff is it expensive to install this what's the cost and like kind of ROI you know the minimum installation is about 50 grand and then you that's the brain and then you get a pipe to it so any valve is a hundred fifty bucks the runs are cheap because it's all air controlled which is pretty cool and you can run on small compressor we looked at that also in case you know we have a major power out so we can still run things very easily so that I mean cost of pipes installation of pipes so forth but that's a pretty lightweight that would set up like we can do our guessing we can do the air during pumpover that's automated and then I was looking at a different I forget the name but they had all that but they also had like nutrition had and liquid nutrients and bricks monitoring and it is still keep coming with it but we're like I don't think you're ready so we could try it but we know it's not gonna be accurate yet and so when it touches tanks and it touches the wine for me it's like it needs to be very very accurate otherwise we will do mistakes and it's too costly right that's to your point of losing a whole tank of wine could be 120 grand and that's a it's a big mistake 100 grinds hour way more than the yeah which gives us as much as it costs to install the thing right so from their perspective it's like no they they don't have as much on the line too because usually their damages might be limited to what you paid them or something like that's pretty tough but that was a problem I had between you know Vin and Vin wizard they got really close to tie for example we could set up in our work order software to communicate to the tank room that's all there is just they stopped at us taking the responsibility who's calling the order and they couldn't agree right as well why don't you do something that pushes the information where the user pushes it right but then that I go well on which side is it because then that information has to be related accurately to the other side and so they couldn't agree the only way - Yeah. - Let's do it is someone buys the two companies. - Yeah. (laughs) So the liability is the one place. Hey, maybe that'll happen, who knows? Speaking of in-event, what is in-event, and how do you use that? - It's a software management. So this replaces the glorious Excel, which we still use. (laughs) Excel will never die. (laughs) So what I like about that is two sides, organization, KiniNes, so you create all our work orders. We can see, you know, Wudas, what we record every single information. And then on the other side, you have the clients that have their wines at our place. They can see everything happening in real time. So is there a geek that can see the temperature? So for us, they can see where the galonage is if they wanted to some forecast. And then we have all the CPAs, and we are a junior regulated industry. And so our compliance people look in there as well. So that saves a lot of time on emailing. We get a couple of questions always like, "Oh, what is this? What happened here?" And then I go back, for example, like we shipped for market and you need to know, you know, how many cases were valid on that one product and it's in there. So it's a one place, you know. - So the compliance people can pull the information themselves before they had asked you for something, you had to prepare it and send it to them. - All the cost things done in there, compliance is done in there, all the traceability, the clients can see the wine composition, the viator composition, we can see all the work that was done. Everything's recorded. So it's our traceability for product. If you have a problem on the batch of yeast, you can get the batch number and trace down every lot that was used on that batch. Possibilities not used a lot in wine business. And the US, in France, it's huge. And it's coming. It's food. When they will become an official food product and then we'll have all the problems of traceability that regular food product have. - Right. - It can be with your dog in the wine range more. (laughing) - It's not good for all the dog books. The wine books. But I think so Inovian is really a tool of communication. That accenter can go back decades. And it's also how we organize our team structure. We keep up where, you know, where's the work at and so forth. Pulse out all our lab information in there. So you can do a lot of forensic. If we have an issue, what happened? You go back and everything there. - And so how did you end up hearing about intervention? - There's a lot of those softwares. We tried Venex II, we tried couples of different wines. And this one was from the get-go user friendly. Very intuitive. We looked at it for about a year and a half to years and keep booking the bear. And that was a nice and newer company trying to figure it out. So it took us a minute and then we jumped on it. And I was like, you know, it's, we had Venex II for six months and we were kind of like, it was clunky. I tried one one day. The guy took about 40 minutes to try to explain to me how to put the vineyard sources in the system. Like, no. And that's like his ideas and his software was great. It was just a UI where you were working on someone else they stopped remotely. And so the lag between the two was like, this stuff is okay. Like, you know, late '90s, early 2000. That was shit. This is not there anymore. Now you need to be web-based. And yeah, then had done the change yet. 'Cause you wanted to be on the server to be independent. I like that, doesn't work. So, yeah, took the time. Then we switched and I was like, you know, Venex II, I did the switch and I switched up. Like, if I, I'll bite the, bite the bullet and then if I have to switch later, then we'll do that at some point you have to. I think software, you know, try on the errors, it's time spent. And time spent is okay. - Yeah. And so Fenty, I would have that. - So CTI is actually, it's a reader that used to be for G.C.M.E. people to read the blogs and they adapted to wine to do V.A. Malik, alcohol, SO2 and so forth. And this trip is little less than a buck-a-pup. So that was the first one where we could have quick, accurate software reading, no reagent, you know, it's all, so it's a chemical. It's a solid chemical reaction, which is good. - What did you have to do before? You had to like, take a sample, bring it to a machine. - Yeah, so either we had our A.O. on-site but you have to have the reactant that are fresh. There is always the user error. Always send it to the lab and you need 24 hours for the results. So this was, we're both too like, rack to tank, do the number, bring it down. The problem we have recently, so we're putting a PhD on it right now to work with those guys is every 30 analysis, we get one that is way off and that's not good. It's just not a can't bear. And what's weird is that it's not, you get one off. - It's a reset after and that reads wrong. All the others are read fine, but you repeat and the error is repeated. And so we're starting to look at what's going on. And that's kind of slow us down because we're like, if you're really a pinch, use it, but if it doesn't make sense, like you have to add 30 part or it reads like 83 to say, lab. (laughing) - That's like, yeah, there must be some kind of combination of chemicals in the wine that's what I call a fragile technology. And you know, it's a little bit like that because you spend a week without including information in there, you'll lost. And the time to catch up is huge. It needs to be done as you go. The sentia, same. When they started to be off a little bit, the guys put it in the drawer and that was it. And instead of calling the tech, I mean, it's $2,000 for the machine. It's not crazy costly. But I'm like, we spend all that, we've got three machines for different wineries. And my feeling is, there's a reason why, that is not that complicated, but no one can tell us why. And so that's why we're putting the itori hitter and guy to do the R&D on that track. - Why did you choose to buy it in the first place? No one else had run into this. - It's the problem. - Yeah, it was very, but we double check ourselves a lot. And so that's why we saw those inconsistents in numbers. - I say we don't just trust. And was that trust be verified? - But the people who had used it before had not seen this problem, like answers. - No, there's a constant. So they're changing, the substrate, they are changing the software. So as things change, they are not as consistent and new problems arise. And I think that a problem was the supplier. So they probably the supplier won't under something. And so they went to a different supplier. You never know exactly, but there is stuff where you can go back. And you know then that, then you have to find an solution. So yeah, that's a good little tool. Is it to put in place? But that's in the search for SO2 check. So many like those bugs. Maybe we had little bugs with the, was that a high, a little computer in it? Or a little bit of wine or check vies, offer to all. I mean, it was pretty cool. I mean, we invested actually in one of those, one had a solid state sensor, which for me would be like, oh my God, love all depths, oxygen, diesel oxygen. I mean, there's so many cool stuff, but that's still, we need to break through in technology to change how we approach chemical analysis. And we tried the first, I mean, the first was a $40,000 investment. And we put maybe twice as much in lab in there samples. And we're too complex of an operation to be consistent. So you can use that in a state, because you can calibrate, but then we're like, okay, our usage for it is not, doesn't work. So then we sold it. Interesting. And then, and of France, but it's just so, little company, they're changing how, you know, in the cheaper wines we use staves. And I always hated stave. I rather use like 10% of oak, but they came with a system. So it comes from actually the whiskey. So in whiskey, you know that if you extract under pressure, you will raise your extraction time, it will go faster. So it's the same reply to wine. So we do our extraction, oak extraction in 10 to 12 days, instead of three months, three to six months for staves. We can control really detail what we put in the infuser. We can adjust it by day, like if you feel like fuck, we didn't get it right, you can stop it. - What is it exactly? How does it use pressure to. - So pumps do it as something you're dropping a tank. - Yeah, it's tank, you connect to the main tank, and it will pump about 20 or 30 years, 500 gallons out, and it'll extract it under pressure, even under pressure. So there is a certain amount of time and a speed, and so in that soul calculated, depending on the lab on the wine, and then they push it back into the tank, and then repump it out. So there is a back and force like that to extract. So there's another small tank with some oak inside or something. - And then we use blocks, and the blocks that we've treated and heated are closer to a barrel. So the extraction taste is actually very similar to what you have in a barrel. And then after we do a four year of aging in oak, so we still get a regular micro-ox traditionally done, and a natural integration of the oak, which has basically changed the way the oak gets into the wine, but we still have oak, so the advantage of block versus stave versus chips is how they are cooked, and the block is the closest to stave in the process of cooking, and it's done all face, and they can do it. So that has changed. - So you don't need a by as much new oak, but you might still age it in the old barrels or something to get the oak. - And we go from 40,000 that are in oak to foreground. - Well, is that device expensive? The blocks I assume are cheap, but it's the 4,000. The machine we ran, we could buy it. It's about the price of a pump, 80, 90 grand. It's not bad. The problem is if you buy a machine, you're kind of tied to that company, so that's already in buy the machine, because I think there is other machines coming online. People that have pretend to bring them, haven't brought them yet. By the time the other guys were ready to shut those guys had the machine in the winery functioning, and spin the ball. three years now we're really happy so we're expanding on more entry-level products. And if you rent they might come out with a new technology that you could just rent like sort of like a car lease. Exactly. And, man, there was a couple of stuff that made this still. like there was a company we used that did a lot of mobile costabilization for example, used a lot of glycol. Those guys do it through an electric process. So in one pass you can go from unstable wine to stable actually sterifilter-radity bowl. So in the same pass. And that company just went under after two years. So that technology is there and it'll pop back up. And you could do other super-cool stuff like you could modify pH. You can do a lot of changes, little detail changes on the fly. And so that's coming. It's just in it's to have a company that is more established, run the machine as a service. And then I think the cost of having tech and management, you know, all that stuff was too high. Right. So yeah, if you do it as a service, then that covers the maintenance and all that. And the size of the trailer I think was little small. They could do like forest detailed jobs on a couple barrels. That was perfect, but they couldn't charge what they needed to. I think they didn't have the resources to build the bigger trailer though they kind of fell off way. Yeah, sometimes it's not the tech it's the business model, right? I mean, it's, you know, great ideas. Great. Yeah. Doing it is the hardest part. Yeah, absolutely. Every time we put something in place with the guy, I'm like, okay, tell me about the dirty work, like what systems do we need? How we control or check what can go wrong? Like all the bad stuff, like the cool stuff. Everyone wants to do it. But bad stuff is when it makes it run. Yeah. So there's a lot of people, they see new technology. It's the sentient type of thing. Easy to miss it. We bring it. We'll miss here. You check it. It's easy to use. The problem happens because in the drawer doesn't get out. And that's how you went backwards really quick. So now it's like, okay, let's do the hard work of understanding why it's failing. Why it was not why it's failing and how we use it with its flaws because there's a lot of advantage. So yeah, for a 3% error, how do I use a 97%? So you definitely look at a lot of new technologies. You use a lot of technologies. If there's one thing that's coming up soon that looks super exciting to you now, what would that be? Interesting. I mean, the disdainters have been a huge bump in the last years. We have so much, I think, was still a little bit ahead of the curve on what we use. And I'm like, okay, what are we? It's also, for example, I'm doing in for-offermitation in ground, like old-school stuff. But the new winery is going to have that, and I'm going to put the technology in there. So it's how do you couple a probe in an for-off and be able to pilot our fermentation prepressage, but still have that very natural. There's a huge demand for those type of wines. And I think we have so much control that we're able to have those type of vessel and fermentation come back to an aging. Come back to an aging. So yeah, using the oldest school of aging techniques and technology, leveraging newer technology to make sure everything's running properly and it's clean and safe. It's modern natural wines. You see, you often see natural wines as being two hipsters in a garage, wood-striping everything. I think we can be very advanced, very technical, winemakers, we're going very natural. So everything around the product's control, but the product itself is untouched and follows some fruit. And so it's a kind of a rhythm that we're doing non-sulfur cabs from Prachal Hill. It's the most expensive episode wine in the world. We're doing a super-leading on sulfur because we control our metro view. We know those vineyards, the pH 3637 year in year out, it's going to be rich, powerful structures, stable. The vies don't move. And it's that something we didn't talk about. We monitor our vies on average, winemey-wise. And I can see if there's an internet, it's not clean. We sit quick. And yeah, so now we're like, okay, let's stop around those vats and all the way. And we monitor if something happens, you filter, sulfur, you go back to the traditional route and you'll still make a good wine. But if we can bring it all the way to the finish line, it's cool for the consumer. We have so much people that ask us about sulfur and wine. Say, well, here, you have one bottle of whiz sulfur and one whiz out. Just spend one night whiz one, one night whiz the other. And depending on the company, you might have an headache, but this doesn't have to be the wine. So even though the headaches do not come from sulfur, people are just going to be like, well, yeah, I don't. It's a whole another thing, different compound. Thank you for sharing all that insight and knowledge. We like to wrap up each episode on a more personal note. So what is the most cherished wine in your cellar and when do you plan on drinking? Oh, sure. I just received our land 21 and I'm really excited about what they're doing because they are really going in a different route. If you want innovation and wine making for Napa Valley, I think those guys are really ahead. Really really ahead. I have a couple bottles of ice over to them. I'm looking forward to drinking. Yeah, I would say those two. You're good. Because they're excited about their both now. I'm excited about Napa. There's a really cool stuff in Europe. I think Napa, we are entering a new chapter that is consumer driven versus critic driven with whimekers that have a little more confidence into producing wines that they truly believe and find the audience and diversify the characters and not try to blend in a crowd. And that's rich. It's cool for the consumer. Consumers winning a lot. And you might have a lot of wine that are not your cup of tea, but you might find yours. It's good for brand stability over time. If you find the quality wine that fits your bill, your travel stuff, but you'll still come back to it. And I think for your consumer base, it's really good. It's exciting. The future of Napa looks brighter and brighter, I guess. Yeah, the wines are interesting. Yeah. Well, Julian, thanks so much for your time and for sharing all these insights on all these technologies that are in the wine field today. Thank you, Peter. It's exciting. Always something new. If you follow sleep, keep dreaming about new technology. We'll do. But we never do. Hey, listeners, if you love the show, support it by buying a show notes book. They not only compile two years of episodes, but also organizes them into themes for better learning. They can be an inspiration to listen to or relist into an episode or provide a quick reference of the key learnings from a show. Go to xchatto.com and click on the store page for easy links to buy. Thanks for listening. Until next time, cheers.