Dave McIntyre's WineLine

In 2015, Pepe Raventós was riding his motorcycle along mountain roads near the Penedes coast, in an area called Costers del Montmell, when he spotted an abandoned vineyard on a hillside. Before long, he had purchased the property and set out revitalizing the remaining old, bush-trained vines. Raventós, known for making some of Spain’s best sparkling wines at Raventós i Blanc, started making high-elevation, natural still and sparkling wines he calls Can Sumoi.

This is an edited transcript of my conversation on August 5 with Michael Kaiser, the new executive director of WineAmerica. We discussed WineAmerica’s recent achievements in Washington on behalf of the country’s wineries, efforts against the anti-alcohol movement, and Michael’s reflections on tariffs and the need to secure disaster relief funding for wineries facing the vagaries of weather and wildfires.

Maryland’s wine community celebrated its pioneers last month, saluting six founding wineries and the families who laid the foundation of the state’s wine industry. The series of commemorations, held over two weeks in late July, were an opportunity for reflection by a community facing serious headwinds at a time when it is gaining momentum and market acceptance.

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I have a luxury most wine lovers would envy — a generous cousin who lives in Sonoma County. I visit Susan whenever I’m in Northern California, to catch up on the family stories (she always seems to remember one I hadn’t heard before) and enjoy her fabulous cooking, while trying to convince her skittish kitties that I’m the one male human they can trust. Susan also loves wine and is happy to offer me a home base to explore wineries whenever I visit.

We rarely eat steak at my house anymore, partly for dietary reasons but mostly because beef is so expensive these days. So when we do splurge on a pack of two flatiron steaks from Costco, I use it as an excuse to dig an old wine out of the cellar, a mini “Open That Bottle Night,” as it were.1 And an excuse to use my Durand puller for old corks.2 I have neither method nor madness to the selection process; I just sort of go somewhere in the basement and start rummaging around.

Something prompted me to look at my old Wordpress blog from before I migrated here to Substack, and I found this piece from February 2023. This was the heyday of hand-wringing about the fate of wine and hysteria over the lack of interest young consumers showed it. As you’ll see, I tend to be more optimistic than the Chicken Littles. It still rings true to me, so I offer it anew. It got two “likes” on Wordpress; I hope it resonates better here.

I chatted live on Substack with Michael Frey, who along with his wife, Nicole Dooling, makes DIRT Wine at her family’s Mariah Vineyards, high on a ridgetop in Mendocino County. What follows is an edited Q&A from our live conversation, covering regenerative viticulture, the radical transparency behind the DIRT label, and what it all means for consumers standing in front of a wine shelf. Dave McIntyre: Give readers a little background — how did you end up farming at Mariah Vineyards?

Earlier this week I met with a visiting French winemaker, and I thanked her for bringing the heat. Much of the eastern United States is under a heat dome similar to conditions making headlines in Europe. Yes, we have air conditioning and we are very grateful for it, but Saturday is July 4, a national holiday traditionally celebrated outdoors with parades, concerts, cookouts and fireworks.

This wasn’t your typical wine dinner. There was no winemaker presenting the latest vintage, for example. There was only one wine, paired with four courses of seafood at The Oceanaire Seafood Room in downtown Washington, D.C. The audience was a small hodgepodge of writers, influencers, content creators, wine retailers and forlorn environmental lobbyists. And there was Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a filmmaker and environmental advocate in her own right.