From the heart of the Oregon wine country, you're listening to season five of the Wine

Crush podcast. Stories uncorked for casual wine enthusiasts around the world, featuring

winemakers from the Willamette Valley, sponsored by Country Financial. From origin stories

to terroir, here's your host, Heidi Moore.

Hey everybody, welcome to Wine Crush podcast. We are on stop number four of our road trip

to Idaho and we are with Ron Bittner of Bittner Vineyards. I love it when I get to meet somebody

actually in the flesh in person. We've had a really great conversation even before we've

gotten started here. So we're gonna have to kind of loop back to catch some of that gold

because it was good. But you brought us a Tempranillo today, which is one of my favorites.

And so thank you for doing that. Thank you for joining us and agreeing to this kind of

almost last minute. I think I kind of almost twisted your arm a little bit going, hey,

I'm gonna be there. You want to come? And you were so gracious to say yes and to actually

show up. So thank you for doing that. And you've not listened to the show and you didn't

really know what we were doing. So you're a really good sport. So thank you so very

much. But this is really all about you and bringing the Idaho wine industry to the rest

of the world and people who are interested in trying something different and new. And

part of that is learning what your backstory is. And we were just talking about it, but

your backstory was not wine. You have a much greater interest that wine is just part of.

So let's kind of start where you started kind of, you know, getting into the wine journey

and then we can circle back to the passion.

Well, the wine journey, I guess it started, might have been across the street at the College

wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I got a research grant to study native bees

at Purdue University of Indiana. And I thought Indiana was back east. I'd never been out

of Idaho, but my wife and oldest daughter and I, she was two at the time, headed off

to Indiana. I love Purdue. I learned a lot about native bees. Most people don't realize

there's 4,000 kinds of bees in the United States and one honeybee. Everything else is

primarily a native bee, not all of them.

And everybody just, when you say bee, it always goes directly to the honeybee or the bumblebee.

Right. And with a honeybee, they all want to know, well, what do you do with all the

honey? Well, the other bees don't collect honey. They're not social. There's no queens.

But pollen is the source of protein for all the eggs they lay. And then the honey, the

nectar that they just take out of a flower, they just use that to moisten the pollen and

give some energy. So I started at Purdue. I love Purdue, but I miss my mountains because

I grew up in the mountains about 80 miles north of here and a little town of 100 people,

you know, 14 kids in my class. So I came to see if I played some football here, went off

to Purdue, missed the mountains and was offered another research grant at the USDA bee lab

in Logan, Utah, in Logan, Utah. And I went there to study the alfalfa leaf cutting bee.

So I did my Ph.D. work on this little bee that was just fairly new in the sixties, didn't

know a lot about it. So I did a lot of research on it and did my Ph.D. on it. And that little

bee is the reason Idaho is such a great producer of alfalfa seed in the world, because it's

not like a honeybee. That's one of the flowers that primarily pollinates is alfalfa seed.

And because of the little bee and its ability to rapidly pollinate seed, a thousand pounds

that bee to Australia. And at first I was a little nervous about introducing a bug into

Australia because of all of the issues they've had. But because this little leaf cutter bee

can pollinate so rapidly, it helps conserve water in Australia. And that's always the

thing you got to honeybees take three months to pollinate, make seed. This little bee is

done in three weeks. And so I wrote the protocols at CSIRO and work with the farmers and researchers

and their wines. I wasn't really a wine person, but the Aussies are such fun people and they

were always wanting to have a drop of Shiraz. And so I came back, I started planning Shiraz.

Everybody said, what is that? It's Syrah, but doing some blends with my Petit Verdot

and Merlot. And the Syrah has just been a dynamic grape for us. And I can talk about

that a little bit more when we get into the wines. But anyway, I've had a career of working

with non honeybees that farmers can buy and manage the bumblebees. I've worked with bumblebees,

blue orchard bees, alkali bees. There's only four or five species that are commercially

available that a farmer can get for his crop. So I've been doing that for 40 years with

bees and they've taken me all over the world, all over the Middle East, India. So I appreciate

that little bee. It's on our labels. It's on everything. We actually have some watercolors

of bees on our labels that represent my PhD work, my master's work, bees I've worked with

in the world. So bees have been part of my life. I really, currently I'm on the board

of directors at a pollinator partnership out of San Francisco. It's the largest 501c3 in

the world promoting, educating people about bees. So that's been a fun project for me.

So bees, they're there. They're part of my life, always have been. They paid for a lot

of my wanting to try different things and wine growing. But when I finished up my PhD

on the hill that was overlooking the Snake River and Sanchapelle was just getting ready

to build their winery. And the first winemaker was Bill Broach building a house below us.

And he came up one day and he was building his house. I sit above him and you'll see

where when you visit there later today, it's pretty steep. And I knew it was going to be

the property for the view of the Snake River Valley. Bill Broach was the first winemaker

for Sanchapelle. He came up and we're visiting and I said, you know, I don't know what I'm

going to do with the sagebrush and it's too steep to farm. And he said, Bittner, you're

sitting on a world-class site for Chardonnay. And I said, well, Bill, that's cool, but what's

Chardonnay because I had no idea about wines. And he explained to me the slope, south-facing

slope, Snake River below us there, climate, soils, all of that. And so we started planning,

block of Chardonnay below our house. And we have about four acres there now. So yeah,

I've got my vineyards or some of the older ones here at 40 plus acres on the whites.

My reds are 20, 25 years old. So that's what started me. Didn't know what I was doing,

but I always loved to farm when I was a kid. And so that was where I got started while

a phone call from a young man and introduced himself as Greg Koenig and told me he was

gonna have a winery here in Idaho. And I said, well, that's cool, Greg. And he said, I'd

like to buy some grapes from you. And I said, well, that's cool too. But I said, where is

your place? And he said, well, it's gonna be right below yours. I haven't built it yet.

Greg and you know, back then as a grower, he was gonna to pay me by the ton or whatever.

It was a small block, but we got down there and he started sorting through the grapes

and he started throwing some of my grapes on the ground. And I said, wait a minute,

Greg, how's this work when you're paying me by the ton? And he said, I want to make the

best Cabernet I can make. And he said, this is a little bit of mildew, not enough color.

I said, here's the deal, Greg. I want you to make the best Cabernet, but I want you

to make some Cabernet for me. And so that's when our relationship with Greg Koenig, who's

really the wine master who created the name for Idaho, in my opinion, because of his reds

and his whites, he's done beautiful whites for us. So that was our start with Greg. And

he called me later that, I don't know, it was probably 98. He'd entered the 97 Cabernet

in a competition in New York. And he said, Ron, I said, what? And he said, we just got

a gold medal. Is that good? Beats me. I think it probably is. And then the 97 was invited

to the Jeffersonian Institute Competition for Excellence in Agriculture that year. And

it won a big award there. And so starting in 97, Cabernet was a great, great force.

We actually just on that same block got a gold in Denver with our reserve because we

only have an acre and a half of it. So we don't do a lot. My production on this 14 acres

that I have is typically 20 tons, including my neighbors. But it's all local right there.

But we made that into 1,500 case production. And that's where we've stuck all these years.

So it started with Greg. Then one of his helpers were the three amicos, Martin's magician.

My wife worked at the College of Idaho for Martin's dad. And we just got to be friends

with Martin. He's a super kid. And he and Greg and I, over the years, we'd hold dinners

together and do things. And we were known as the three amigos. So it's really been a

fun ride not having a background with wines of helping Idaho come ahead.

It seems to be an industry that's getting a little bit of attention now. It's small

still. And I love it because it's small. And there is this really great camaraderie with

so many of you that are, it's nice seeing that rising tide lift all ships adage. And

it still feels like you have that here.

We do. I don't know that much about grapes or didn't. I've learned to realize that our

wines that we make do really well in competitions. I never thought about that we would compete

with other people. I think it was seven years ago. For two years, I was chair of the Wine

Growers of America. And again, I don't know why I was chair, but I was there. Some of

the guys from Sonoma and Nampa Valley took my wife and I out to dinner that night. And

we all agreed to bring a cabernet along. And I said, fine. And I was still nervous about

it. But we sat down and these four guys over there from Northern California, they had 14,000

acres of wine grapes. These were the big guys. But nice because they were farmers, you know,

and I always get along well with farmers. And so we'd all brought and they said, how

no, 14 acres. I said, that's fine, you know. And so we had our meal at night and we were,

everybody was drinking the cabs they'd brought. And later that evening, Mary and I were sitting

there, but one of them said, turn the light up. And they said, Oh my God, this is Bittner's.

And I thought, Oh my gosh, what's wrong? They looked at me and said, Bittner. And I said,

what? And they said, you can play with us. That's a huge compliment. And it is from farmers

from Nampa Valley and Sonoma. And some of them are still friends, a couple of them are

even wine club members still. But it gave me the confidence that, you know, as a grower

and when they said I can play with them, that from there on, it doesn't, I'm not intimidated

by anybody talking about an Idaho wine. Part of that committee was Jerry Lohr, J. Lohr.

Going out to dinner one night. And so I asked him for his advice and he said, Ron, in the

wine world, you have to be really, really little or really, really big like me. And

so that's been my philosophy the whole life. He said, make good wine and keep it fun and

stay small or you got to start moving up the food chain. But in between it's a real hard

world because of all the costs involved. And even though it's hard at the smaller level,

he said, but, you know, just what it costs to put on, then you have to get really big

to recover anything. So I felt very fortunate to have people like that mentor me along the

way. I have a friend from the College of Ottawa. We were roommates. He invited me to Port of

R three years ago and he said, you know, my California neighbors got something to do with

red drapes in California. So he invited him over. He came over that night. I brought my

cab and, well, his friend was Andrew Beckstauffer of Northern California, has the most well-known

oldest Cabernet blocks in California. You're kind of running with the big boys. I was and

not knowing it, not intimidated by it, but, you know, he's a nice Cabernet, Ron. And his

wife brought a bottle of Tor, which is a $250 bottle. Beckstauffer's vineyards, he doesn't

have a winery, but he gets paid based on what the winemakers in California, he takes $1,000

times $250, $25,000 a ton for them to even buy. Here it's, you know, $1,500, $2,000.

And so I got to know him. He invited me down there. I still sit on the UC Davis Viticulture

Foundation just reviewing papers with viticulture each year. I still, I guess I'm not retired

at all, but I enjoy reading papers and viticulture and entomology. And I attribute that to getting

a good education here at the College of Idaho, going to great schools. And, you know, I enjoyed

research. I was with the University of Idaho as an extension specialist. And I was 76 two

weeks ago and I'm getting old enough. I don't, I argue more than I used to with people, but

it's been fun. And it's especially been fun coming from Idaho and watching these other

wineries. You've got some of the younger wine growers here and that are going to be talking

in the next two days. And, you know, they're going home, really want to grow. Amy and I

have been together, my daughter for so long, we look at it. And when people say, well,

you need more advertising, you need to grow. And I'm like, well, my wines take anywhere

from the time I plant them to when you have a glass, four to six years, we take a lot

of time to make these wines. And so I'm not, I'm not adding any more acres. We don't need

to. We're in a good spot. And our wine club is, has been really good to us. A lot of people

have moved into the Boise Valley. It's really grown. And I know I don't say anything about,

oh, they're from California because my wife was a secretary on a ranch from California

that I met 25 years ago. But some come with tremendous pallets and they also come with

like, wow, $50. That's nothing for a wine like this. And so we get told that over and

over allowing us to stay small and not just because they're from California, because we

make wines and we have friends with people who are school teachers that can't afford

some of our wines because our, our reds are all in that $35 to $50 range, but we make

exceptions. And because Amy grew up here and she's, you know, there's still people who

want to come out and just enjoy things. So we've got special deals for the locals that

don't choke when they talk.

Special deals for special people.

For special people. And that's what I've enjoyed about Amy. She's really a caring person and

she's doing other things. She's working right now to become a work in the foster care system

because what we've decided is we were three days a week. We're open Friday, Saturday,

Monday, Tuesday, we do some business, but then the rest of the time she needs to have

another life. And she's chosen a life now to learn about working with the state to interview

people who are bringing in foster kids. And I admire that in her. So we're trying to make

this a family business where we're all not stressed out and making good wine and moving

forward. And so enjoying yourself and your time together, which is so big.

It is.

Yeah. Life is short. So, you know, spending time with family and the ones that you love

and doing things that are prolific and good for the community and good for others is such

a big thing.

It is. And that's always been our philosophy. I lost a brother to cancer three years ago

and he's younger than me, but it just shook me to my core that life is too short and you

don't take anything for granted. So I have a beautiful wife and Amy and ten grandkids

and we have ports at Everbarrel, a port we have starting clear back 15 years ago has

got one of our grandkids name on it as they come along. And so our latest release, we

was in Australia, I fell in love with ports and especially the aging process with ports.

So that port just got a gold medal in Denver. So we make nice ports. We have fun with our

friends. My wife is responsible for several of the labels. Our Merlot, we do a limited

release of Menopause Merlot. And it is totally sought after. And it's almost a cult wine

out here. And we have an artist, Jill Neal from Bend, Oregon, who does these labels for

us. And so we have fun with labels like that. My wife is Hispanic. We do Tres Mujeres, the

three women, because she has two sisters. Her mother had two sisters. Her grandmother

had two sisters. And it's a late ripening harvest for Cabernet because a lot of this

valley, they want to drink Cabernet, but they can't handle a big cab like we make. So we've

made some for the local population, a lot of Hispanics here that love Tres Mujeres.

Mi Tierra is a bottle of wine that we spend more money on the barrels. And three years

in the barrels, take our three favorite selections. And it's a limited production. We've been

price of that, when Amy said this is going to go for $100, I'm like, we can't do that.

But we don't have any problem selling it because there are people who want a wine like that.

And it's gotten twice now, it's gotten 90 points with suckling out of the Wine Spectator.

So we know we're doing OK. People, when you go into a competition and they don't know

they're from Idaho, it's like, wow, Idaho.

You're surprising the population.

Well, this year, let's see, we started out with the San Francisco Chronicle. We like

that one, but it's a big competition. We did a gold on this Tempranil we're having here

today. Silver on the Petit Perdou blend, one of my favorite blends from Australia. And

our dry Riesling that I learned to love because the Aussies do it in a real dry style. And

from there, went to the Sunset Magazine International Competition. Our Syrah, 97 points, double

gold.

There's one of the highest ranked Syrahs there. By surprise, one of the judges said, wow,

this is like strapping wild horses. He said, hang on. I'd never heard that description

before. And Amy laughed because she always had little horses when we were growing up.

So I guess what goes around comes around because she said, yeah, strapping wild horses. Then

we just got our medals from Denver last week. And it's not just Bittner Vineyards. I mean,

there's some great wines coming out of this valley. And so it's fun to promote Idaho.

That's what we're doing right now.

It is. And Idaho is newer on the radar for a lot of people because people don't think

past Walla Walla. They don't think past Tri-Cities, you know, or, you know, even potatoes. Yeah,

for sure. Yeah. Idaho potatoes. And so it's really fascinating for me to read the history.

So I read a lot of the history of Idaho and the planting of the grapes way back in the

1800s. And it sounded like maybe some of them were pulled out during prohibition. Yeah.

And so now it's kind of this resurgence of not just Riesling, but several other varietals

that are obviously doing great things in the world of wine. And it's just going to take

time, you know, for it to, I don't know, catch on, word to spread, people to discover what

amazing things are coming out over here. Because I think when I first kind of dipped into the

Idaho scene a couple of years ago, there was only 60 wineries in the entire state. And

when I started, there was four of us. So you're, you know, obviously one of the, the OGs, you're

like the pioneer. You know, it's not exploding like Washington and Oregon, but, and we never

will because our grapes have to be planted on these hillsides and they're hard to farm.

And so we're not going to do big, expansive areas, but we can make really nice wines on

less, less acres. Yeah. It's yeah. And I don't even know if it's so much that, and I know

Oregon took quite a while to kind of get, you know, going as well. And you almost have

to have that ramping momentum, but it's also nice kind of being this hidden gem to where

you can stay small and you can, you know, kind of still surprise people with the great

wines that are coming out of here. Well, and the Pacific Northwest, when I was an extension

specialist with the University of Idaho, I mean, we worked with the guys from Oregon

and Washington. It was so cooperative and, and the wine industry has been that way too.

You know, going to Washington, Jerry Buchwalders, he helped me plant my vineyard because he

was coming down there doing things. I got to know the guys in Washington just from the

meetings and they were always very helpful to us. And Andy Perdue and Eric Daegerman,

you know, they're Washington wine writers, but they've just devoted a lot of time and

energy in promoting Idaho for us. Same way over in Oregon, you know, Greg Jones, we were

talking about earlier, worked with us to do our very first AVA and Greg and I've been,

you know, that was 15 years ago now, but you know, we've been friends ever since. So it's

been a very cooperative thing to watch the whole Northwest grow. And, you know, we refer

to ourselves as the Walla Walla wannabes because they've just exploded. But we're still in

a good position because, you know, when we enter these Northwest competitions and they're

judged without anybody knowing them, pop pop pop are right there with the rest of those

guys and we just don't have as many wineries and we never will, but we can still make really

nice wines down here. It's always nice when you're given that glory of, you know, those

that are considered to be some of the greats and you're sitting right there at the same

table with them, whether it's Napa or Oregon or, you know, wherever else for that matter.

I mean, Australia has their own thing. New Zealand has its own thing obviously. And that's

the beauty of wine is that it speaks to so many different genres and palettes and interests

for that matter. I mean, it's, you could be, I don't know, you can go on and on and on

and on and on with wine. And I think that's what's made it so magical.

And I never thought that I would look at wine that way, but it's, it is something that people

get together and discuss things. And it's, it's allowed me to have my career initially

with bees. And then I got into the vineyards and wine and I'm an entomologist and we were

the first live certified vineyard in Idaho. And there's only two of us still, but it's

live certifications is out of Salem. It's a third party certification that you don't

use a lot of chemicals and I don't need to, I have background in beneficial insects. And

so I've been live certified for eight years, no Roundup on our place. You know, everything

we do is by hand, even there's hardly any machinery on the place. If it is, it's a little

four wheeler that we use. I've still been able to make some really nice wines with fewer

than a couple of sprays a year. If we do need to do a mildew spray, but my workers and I,

especially Amy and I, my wife's Hispanic, but our workers are just, they don't get enough

praise, you know, they're out there six in the morning because it's already a hundred

by, you know, and it's just, and we love our workers. Four of them I've worked with us

for 12 years, two families, they are family to us. And my wife and I started a scholarship

at the college of auto for Hispanic kids about 10 years ago. And we've helped put four kids,

you know, Hispanic kids wouldn't have had that opportunity to go through a college like

the college of Idaho. And, you know, there are doctors now and you know, it's just, it's

fun. And being able to do those kinds of things, being able to have my vineyard certified live.

Last year we got the salmon safe award. I think there've been 10 of them in the Northwest.

We got one of them. And when they called me to tell me that there's no salmon around here.

And they said, no, but you're, you overlooked the snake river and that's part of saving

salmon when it ends up to the ocean. And so I've gotten awards like that, that just come

out of nowhere, but it's, it's what we do. We take care of the land and take care of

our people, all of them, including our workers. Cause we always tell people you wouldn't have

this first glass of wine without these people here helping you. We do dinners and we always

invite our workers to fancy dinners and they dress up and come. So it's just fun. It's

fun. It's very fun. Well, let's kind of just wrap this up because people are going to be

very interested to come see you now. And I know you have a lot of your wines dedicated

to wine clubs. So this is your motivation to join a wine club in Idaho. Yeah. And we

have several people from Oregon and Washington, but it's, we're limited and we're where we

want to be, but go to our website, make a reservation, come sit down and have dinner

with us sometime or lunch or whatever. And we'll, we'll talk about you joining. So, and

you are in the sunny slopes, a Caldwell area, correct? So what's the, is it bitnervineyards.com

is at the website and then you're also on social media. So I'm with Facebook, we do

some and my daughter does that. I haven't figured it out yet. We try and do some things.

That's why you have the younger, the kids do it. Cause even I struggle with it a little

bit. I'm learning slowly but surely I'm learning, but yeah, go on, check out the labels. I had

noticed the B labels, which are beautiful. The watercolor ones and was going to mention

that, but you beat me to it. And I did not see the menopause wine. So there's a whole

series of those are awesome too. Yeah. So I'm going to have to seek that out and, and

find those. And you can buy our wines online too. We're not in every state, but if you

go to Bitner Vineyards, there's a little shopping cart there. And I think menopause Merlot

is one that we have out there and there's four or five we'll put out for that. And we're

in, you know, we allocate a couple hundred cases into the Boise market is for some of

the restaurants and things, but mostly just show up at our place or order some online

and you'll have a good time. Yeah. Which is even better. I love showing up on, on place

and doing that. Well, Ron, thank you so very much. Thanks for bringing this Tempranillo.

This was absolutely fabulous. Has this really beautiful finish on it and it's really a nice

wine to probably for anything. It's not even just a dinner wine. I think you could probably

just drink this just in the evening and enjoy just a really beautifully elegant glass of

wine. Yeah. And the label on the front says Erlechi. Why does it say Erlechi? Mary and

I traveled to Spain several years ago with Basque friends and we stayed in a little B&B

and I asked the lady above that, what's that word above our bedroom door? And she said,

Erlechi will ask Basque for the bee house. Oh, how serendipitous. And so we named this

bottle after her. She's since passed away, but she took me around where the Romans kept

bees and everything else in Spain there. And so that's what Erlechi is. And so it's a fun

wine. Yeah. Well, that is an amazing way to just say goodbye and end the episode with

just another piece of information that I didn't have before we started. Okay. Well, thank

you very much for taking the time with us down here. Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you

for agreeing to be part of my crazy little project. And we're going to buzz up to the

house here in just a little while and see the views. Yeah, enjoy it. You know, we're

probably off here right now, but the other night, one of our barn owls, we keep barn

owl boxes there. And one of the young ones was out in the yard, just hopping around about

this time of day. I don't know if he'll be out there right now, but, uh, I sure hope

so. Cause I love barn owls. I did too. Yeah. And, uh, he's just learning to fly and he's

still big, but he was hopping around the yard and everybody's like, wow, look at that. He's

like beside the deck. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, I hope he's out there cause we will

definitely get some video and some footage of, of the hop around. My, my grandpa always

had barn owls in his big barn. So I always had a love for owls and barn owls. So anyhow.

Well, thank you so very much. It was so great to actually like meet you, meet you in person

and next time we'll meet Amy and Mary hopefully too. And I want to say that we went with you

because for the insurance reason, because I belong to Wine America. I was on a board

there for awhile, but we've always been involved with these big insurances out of California

and every time they think we're too small and Martin introduced me to you and I'm so

glad that you're going to be doing the coverage for us here in our little winery. So thank

you. We were very excited. I get excited with every new client and it's, it's for me, it's

extra special when somebody has been referred to me and, and honestly, I mean like this

podcast for me is such a educational piece cause I learned something new every person

I talk to. And even if I talk to you now, I'm going to learn something new from you

next time I come out and hang out. I don't sit still very well. I don't either. So this

is about as good as I do for about a half hour and I'm a fidgeter. So I actually did

quite well. I'm kind of feel like I'm seat belted in this chair. So, but no, I'll, uh,

we'll be back out in hopefully October ish. Um, Mary says I can stomp through her grapes

with her when they do their harvest. You know, they're fun kids too. So we're all, we just,