The Wine Makers on Radio Misfits

Keith Beavers is a busy man. He’s a podcaster, wine educator, and tasting director for VinePair, one of the most widely read drinks publications in the world. He also hosts VinePair’s Wine 101 podcast, making the unnecessarily intimidating world of wine a little more approachable. Since Keith was last on the show, he’s been crisscrossing the country, exploring the ever-evolving American wine scene and releasing the first six episodes of The Great American Wine Tour, visiting a half-dozen iconic and emerging wineries along the way. This week, Keith sits down with Bart and Sam to talk about all of that, but let’s be clear, this visit was really about one thing: raiding Phil Coturri’s cellar. And Sam’s cellar, too. Because somehow, despite Keith’s vast experience tasting wines from around the world, he’d never really had the opportunity to dig into properly aged California wine. We decided it was time to fix that. We pull the corks on a few old bottles from Sonoma Valley and the Moon Mountain District, dive into what makes these wines so special, and generally expound on the virtues of California wine with a little age on it. The episode also features a cameo from Phil himself, because there was no way we were going to pilfer bottles from his stash without him showing up to drink them and tell us a thing or two. Along the way, we get into Keith’s adventures exploring American wine, the changing landscape of wine media, and emerging trends in East Coast winemaking, a subject near and dear to Keith’s heart. So sit back, pop a bottle of something American, preferably with a few years on it, and give this one a listen. It’s a fun one! [Ep 432]

Barbara Gorder, Managing Partner and Keynote Chair of the Direct-to-Consumer Wine Symposium, joins The Wine Makers to talk about the event’s 20th anniversary celebration, happening January 19–21, 2027, at the Hyatt Regency Monterey in California. This year’s theme, “The Masterclass,” brings together winery owners, marketers, and industry professionals for 3 days of fresh ideas, practical advice, and conversations about the future of direct-to-consumer wine sales. Featured speakers include sommelier and Maison Noir Wines founder André Mack, Jermaine Stone of The Wine and Hip-Hop Show, and award-winning advertising creative director Vinny Warren. Barbara gives us a preview of what’s planned, including sessions on AI, e-commerce, tasting room sales, hospitality, and customer retention, along with hands-on workshops and plenty of opportunities to connect with others in the wine business. There’s even a cocktail party at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and some golf at Del Monte. The symposium also serves as the primary fundraiser for Free the Grapes!, the nonprofit working to expand legal direct-to-consumer wine shipping across the country. After 20 years, there’s still plenty to talk about when it comes to getting great wine directly into the hands of consumers. [Ep 431] Registration: https://dtcwinesymposium.regfox.com

S.O.R.B.E.T. is back! The Sonoma Organic Regenerative Educational Tasting returns to Fort Mason November 8th, 2026. We sat down with old friends Katie Bundschu Tynan and Morgan Twain Peterson, who together conjured SORBET with our own Sam Coturri when some shit-talking messages about greenwashing vineyard “sustainability” got out of hand and turned into a full-fledged tasting event. SORBET 2025 was a sold-out smash hit. This year, SORBET has grown and evolved. They secured official 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, hosted field days to promote regenerative farming practices in the Sonoma Valley viticulture community, and threw a spectacular, sunset-splashed fundraiser dinner. Now they’re bringing it all back to where it started for one of the most unique and forward-thinking tastings we’ve ever seen. Expect more than 30 wineries and vineyards, hundreds of wines representing dozens of varieties, and every winemaking style you can imagine. What brings them all together? They’re all from Sonoma Valley, and they’re all farmed organically, regeneratively or biodynamically. So sit down, pop a bottle of SORBET-qualified wine and listen in as the crew talks about why they’re excited about SORBET 2.0, what’s happening in the wine world in Sonoma and beyond, and, while we’re at it…all the other events everyone is doing between now and 2027. Cheers! [Ep 430] SORBETWINE.org Tickets Here

This week we sat down with Robyn Sebastiani from SVVGA, Tim Zahner from the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau and Mark Bodenhammer from the Chamber of Commerce to lay out the upcoming Vintage Festival. The Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival is California’s oldest wine festival, with roots dating back to 1897 in Sonoma, the birthplace of California winemaking. The festival began when local playwright and Sonoma Union High School principal Ben Weed staged a theatrical pageant called The Vintage Festival at the Gundlach family’s Rhinefarm in 1897. The play featured Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, resolving local problems in a festive, Bacchanalian celebration. The 1897 event was deemed “a great success” by the local press. In 1898, Weed returned with another Bacchus-themed drama, set in a natural amphitheater, where Bacchus and his followers helped a young man win a romantic contest. For decades, Sonoma residents celebrated the grape harvest with the Vintage Festival, even during Prohibition (1920–1933), when alcohol was banned. According to a 1927 newspaper account, the festival continued with “dancing, games and feasting” using grape juice. The Great Depression and World War II caused the festival to lapse for several years. The festival was revived in 1947 with a full-scale community celebration: costumed participants, a parade of horse-drawn wagons, and live music from Mexican bands. This marked the start of the modern tradition, organized by local residents, and supported by philanthropic groups. Today, the Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival is held each September in the historic Sonoma Plaza—the largest town square in California and the site of the 1846 Bear Flag Revolt. It blends a free daytime street festival with wine tastings, artisan markets, live music, the sausage toss, and the signature Grape Stomp competition, alongside ticketed harvest dinners and the Grand Tasting at the Sonoma Barracks. The festival is both a celebration of Sonoma’s winemaking heritage and a living link to its agricultural and community traditions, drawing generations of Californians to honor the region’s “grape bounty, community spirit, and rich history.” {ep 429] We hope you can come join in the festivities. www.sonomavalleywine.com www.sonomavalley.com www.sonomachamber.org www.thewinemakerspodcast.com

This week, Jan Krupp from Krupp Brothers Winery joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Forging Eden, out Oct. 27. The book offers a front-row seat to the evolution of Napa Valley over the past 4 decades and Jan’s thoughts on where the region, and the wine industry as a whole, are headed next. It also tells the remarkable story of how he walked away from a successful medical career to chase an “impossible” dream: turning 750 acres of volcanic rock and barren mountainside into Stagecoach Vineyard. Experts told him the land would never produce world-class grapes. They were wrong. Stagecoach became one of Napa’s most influential vineyards, supplying fruit to Caymus, Duckhorn, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Spottswoode, Pahlmeyer, Hall, and many others, while Jan and his brother also built Krupp Brothers Winery. Forging Eden is the story of the enormous risks, crazy engineering challenges, and sheer persistence it took to build a vineyard that plenty of people believed could never survive. [Ep 428] kruppbrothers.com