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Welcome to the Kim Monson Show podcast. Kim Monson is your host. The California wine industry contributed $84.51 billion to the California economy in 2025. Guest host Dr. Jill Vecchio and award-winning winemaker Stuart Spencer discuss the challenges vintners face with the market and public policy from Sacramento. State Farm agent Roger Mangan addresses car theft. Jody Hinsey with Mint Financial Strategies notes that April is financial literacy month. ————————————————————————————– The Kim Monson Show airs on KLZ 560 AM every Monday thru Friday, 6-8 AM MST. You can listen to the live stream by going to www.klzradio.com
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It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
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The socialization of transportation, education, energy, housing, and water. What it means is that government controls it through rules and regulations.
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The latest in politics and world affairs.
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Under this guise of bipartisanship and nonpartisanship, it’s actually tapping down the truth.
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Today’s current opinions and ideas.
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On an equal field in the battle of ideas, mistruths and misconceptions is getting us into a world of hurt.
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Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
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Welcome to the Kim Monson show. I am Dr. Jill Vecchio and I’m guest hosting the show today. Kim is taking a much needed day off and that’s how desperate she was. She has me back on again. So let’s have a conversation. Thanks for listening. Each of you are treasured and valued and have a purpose today. Strive for excellent. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. We were made for this moment in history. Thank you, producer Joe and all of the team for your great work. The website, a reminder, the website is Kim Monson. That’s K-I-M-M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter. You’ll get first look at all our upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays, which are really good. I highly recommend them. And you can email Kim at at kim at kimmonson.com. So it’s pretty easy to remember all this. Thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. Very generous folks. And thank you to Hooters Restaurant for their sponsorship. There are three locations, Aurora, Westminster, and Loveland. They have great lunch specials Monday through Friday for dine-in or takeout. Wednesdays are Wings Day. Buy 20 wings and get an additional 10 for free. Offer is for to-go or dine-in. Hooters Restaurant’s a great place to get together with friends to watch your favorite teams. So today’s word of the day is milieu. I learned this in medical school, and I’m still not very good with my French. It has a French origin, French Latin. It’s milieu. It’s a noun. It is spelled M-I-L-I-E-U. So it means surroundings, medium, as in like an environment. In medical school, we kind of learned it when you made a petri dish to see if a bacteria would grow. In the petri dish, you had this kind of solution of all these different, you know, yummy things the bacteria might like to eat. And we called that a medium in a petri dish. So surroundings, medium, environment is from 1854 from the French, milieu, meaning middle, medium, or mean, as in like a mean average, not angry or nasty. Literally middle place, 12th century from mi, meaning middle from the Latin medius, and lieu, L-I-E-U, meaning place. So when they say in lieu of something, that’s in place of something. So it’s the same thing, middle place. Using a sentence, maybe the cultural and economic milieu of California is making it difficult for several industries to survive. And we’re going to talk about one of those, another one of those industries today. Last time I guest hosted, we talked about the oil industry. So this time we’re going to be talking about farming, some parts of farming, and I think in the future we’ll talk about other parts of farming. And it’s not just California that’s kind of being put under the gun. Small farmers are under attack in the Midwest. You know, I know less about the southeast, but I definitely know the Midwest and California. So this is what we’re going to talk about today. I think you’re going to really enjoy this conversation. It’s not going to be the results aren’t fun, but I think you’re going to hear things that nobody’s talking about. Let’s see, quote of the day. Let’s see here. Good farmers who take seriously their duties as stewards of creation and of their lands inheritors contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course, but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery. That was quoted by Wendell Berry, B-E-R-R-Y. So let’s see, now we have headlines of the day. Man, so much is happening every single day. You get one headline one day, the situation’s totally different the next day. I had a TV anchor friend years ago who said breaking news is broken news. Whatever they say, breaking news, this is happening. almost just stop right after they say that one sentence. Something is happening or there’s been a shooting. Whatever they say after that is most likely completely not the truth. We usually find out the truth hours, days, months, sometimes years later. So breaking news is broken news and it’s constantly… Okay, so for instance, on the 3rd of April, which would have been Friday, One crew member, let’s see, oh, a fighter jet was shot down over Iran. One pilot had been rescued and then the other pilot was missing. By the next day, by the next day, one crew member had been rescued. Oh, I’m sorry. I had been rescued, another missing after a shutdown by yesterday. Was that it, Joe? Yesterday, the second fire pilot had been rescued within something like 24 hours inside Iran in like a completely cool rescue mission. At least that’s what we’re being told. So it’s fascinating. Yeah. One headline, the next day, yeah, we took care of that. That’s pretty neat. Once you get into war situations though, it’s funny because Iran at exactly the same time said they had shot down a bunch of, what do they call it? A bunch of military planes. And we’re like, wait a second, we haven’t been hearing that they shot down a bunch of military planes. What’s the truth here? And it turns out they have shot down some drones, U.S. drones, and then we lost the refueling plane with six, with the pilots and four extra staff on board. Then I think there was another, and then this one plane that we just talked about, but they have shot down drones. So Iran is… propagandizing or claiming that they’ve maybe had more or implying that they’ve had a lot more success than they have. But you never know what to believe, do you, do you, Producer Joe? It’s hard to know. With war, it’s always, it’s not just a ground war. It’s not just a ground chess game. It’s also a propaganda game, isn’t it?
SPEAKER 16 :
It absolutely is. I think, actually, there’s, I don’t know where I read it, but one of the biggest revolutions in war was the ability to transfer information well, the radio. Once that happened, the war kicked up significantly. And since then, we’ve played an information game more so in war than what war was.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right. And it was Joseph Goebbels, the famous Nazi propagandist, said, if you tell a lie often enough, people will think it’s the truth.
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And it’s just so frustrating. They’ve absolutely done that. And they’ve done that in multiple different facets of our life, unfortunately, too.
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Yeah. And it’s hard when you don’t even know what to believe from your own government sometimes, because, you know, everybody does it. Everybody does it. Are we how are we doing for time, Joe? Okay, so we’ve got Roger Mangan from State Farm is one of our wonderful sponsors that allows Kim and all of her guests and me today to have great conversations like this.
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And I’m talking with Roger Mangan with the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance Team. And we recently had talked about car thefts in Colorado, 2025. Colorado was one of the top places in the country for car thefts. Have we improved at all on that, Roger Mangan?
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Actually, it has gone down since 2023. The… Car thefts in the United States peaked in 23 and have declined since with 850,708 stolen vehicles in 2024, making a 17% decrease from the previous year. But 850,000 cars were stolen. California, as usual, leads in that category. I’m not sure it’s something to be proud of, but at the same time, they have had a number, let me give you a number that is current.
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Well, while you’re looking that up, Roger, car theft, what that does is that can affect people’s mobility on where they go, how they get to work. It’s not just the car is stolen. There’s a whole lot of other things that occur with that.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, the inconvenience is enormous. You, of course, have that coverage if you have comprehensive on your car. If you do not have comprehensive, then you have no theft coverage. So if you have an older car, and by the way, if you have an older car, you should look at all of your coverages. Collision probably is something to think about. taking off of your car because if you had a $1,000 premium, collision would probably be $200, $250 of that $1,000. And if it’s an older car, maybe you should self-insure it. But I would probably always leave comprehensive on because that’s theft and hail damage. And we talked about hail damage before. Guarantee, we’re going to have hailstorms in Colorado. And I would say probably anywhere from 10 to 15 hailstorms, some of them small. But at the same time, if they hit your car, that’s probably a $4,000 to $8,000 claim, and comprehensive would cover that. But getting back to California, California had 6,248 thefts last year compared to Colorado that had 998, if you can imagine. The difference, let’s see, around the Colorado to 1,000, next to California is 6,248. Not a great place to live, especially if you own a Chevy Silverado pickup, 1,500. Seems to be the popular car. In Colorado, it’s the Hyundai Elantra that’s very popular for theft here in this state. States with the fewest, like Maine, had 42 car thefts last year. But what’s going on in the country? Most cars that are stolen, probably 40% of them are returned within two days. People take joyrides and they just want to drive your car. And if your car is easy to steal, like the Elantra, then that is the target car. And what you should probably do, there’s a… There’s a device you can buy, like a clutch lock. I’m not doing this, to be honest with you, because it’s such an inconvenient thing. But if you have a nice car and you’re going to park it in the street someplace or in a parking lot and you’re going to be gone for a long period of time, you can buy a device from any of the auto sales places where you actually lock the clutch down and they can’t. There’s no way they can steal a car with that device. There are other ways to prevent that as well by having a switch to take the power off the starter. A lot of things you can do, but car thefts are still an issue, not as bad as it was in previous years.
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Well, and I used to hear stories of people’s cars being stolen out at DIA. And so that would probably be a place, if you’re going to be gone for an extended period of time, to use one of these devices.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yes, yes. There’s devices you can lock your steering wheel, but the better one is the clutch or the brake. You can put this device on, and they can’t really move the car at all. Even if they tow it, they can’t take it off without attracting a lot of nuisance. Right. Okay.
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And if people would like to talk with you about any of their insurance coverage, how can they reach the Roger Mangan team?
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You know, give us a call at 303-795-8855, and you would enjoy talking to our team of experts at the Roger Mangan Agency.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. That number is 303-795-8855. Like a good neighbor, the Roger Mangan team is there.
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The Kim Monson Show is expanding and augmenting our voice and reach. In addition to the Kim Monson Show broadcast, we have created the Kim Monson Newsroom and the Kim Monson Community. We call them the three presses, and they are foundational to free speech and engaging in responsible self-governance. Go to kimMonson.com, click on the newsletter tab. And sign up for the weekly email newsletter and the Daily Digest. And join the Kim Monson community, which is a modern salon where you can contemplate, connect, and converse around the principles we cover daily. Sign up today at kimMonson.com.
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With all the chaos and confusion in our world, how can you plant yourself on a foundation based on truth and clarity? The Kim Monson Show is here to help. Kim examines news, politics, and opinion through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom, and shares human interest stories that will inspire you and make you smile. Tune in to The Kim Monson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m., with encores 1 to 2 p.m., and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM, the KLZ website, and the KLZ app. Shows can also be found at kimMonson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
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Welcome back. I’m Kim Vecchio. I feel like that sometimes. I’m Dr. Jill Vecchio. I’m filling in for Kim today. So check out Kim’s website at KimMonson.com, and you can email Kim at Kim at KimMonson.com. Thanks for contributing to support Kim’s independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. Through all of Kim’s work with veterans, she’s honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation and all they’re doing to raise the money to remodel the official USMC Memorial, which is located right here in Golden, Colorado at 6th and Colfax. Paula Sorrells. is the president of the foundation. She’s a Marine veteran and a gold star wife. Paula and her team are working diligently to make the remodel a reality. You can help by donating at usmcmemorialfoundation.org. That’s usmcmemorialfoundation.org. So I’d love to welcome a guest who got up very early this morning because he’s calling in from California at Pacific time. His name is Stuart Spencer and he is the president of the Lodi Wine Grape Commission in California. So Stuart, welcome to the show. I’m going to let you introduce yourself a little bit because you have a very impressive resume. And I’m going to make you talk about that award that you won, too.
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay. Well, thank you, Jill. Happy to be here and happy to be on the show. So, yeah, I’m a second-generation winemaker here in California, fourth-generation California farmer. And I grew up in the wine and grape business as free labor for many years for my parents and had the fortune of – getting a job at one point in the industry working for the Lodi Wine Grape Commission, where I’ve been there for almost the past 27 years. And we are the trade association for Lodi area grape growers and vintners, which represents about 20% of California’s wine production. And so we do everything from marketing and promotion to education and outreach and out in the vineyard and in the winery and everywhere someone wants to listen and talk about growing grapes and making wine.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, and I was so excited to have you on because I’m kind of a self-proclaimed kind of a wino. You know, my husband and I are both real fans of the art of winemaking. And we’ve been out to California so many times. We almost we wanted to retire out there. And, you know, thankfully we couldn’t afford it at the time because now the whole climate is even worse than Colorado is. But the reason I like to talk about California stuff especially is because whatever’s happening in California, whatever the political milieu is in California tends to be parallel Colorado. uh… so in in what’s happening with farming in california in general the farming industries are kind of being attacked it seems that that’s also happening elsewhere in the midwest and so forth so that’s what i what what i wanted to have you on can you tell people on because load i was really i remember it from uh… you know going to california wine tasting i remember load i was famous for zinfandel grapes like people would load i would grow the grapes And you said you have 130 different varieties of grapes. So it’s obviously not just, and this is Zinfandel. They actually make a red Zinfandel and then the white Zinfandel was really popular years ago. That’s like a blush wine. But it’s the same grape. It’s just how you handle it for the wine. So you were really famous for Zinfandel grape growing. And from Lodi, which is what, located east of the Bay Area, east of San Francisco, Napa?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, we’re about an hour and a half drive from San Francisco. We eat directly east.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay. Okay. So just kind of for people to orient. So what would happen is the wineries would buy grapes from, correct me if I make any mistakes, would buy grapes from like a low dye farmer. And usually most of those are smaller farmers. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah. So a couple of things here. First, you know, ours is a very much a multi-generational farming community with many of our families going back four or five, six generations now. I have been farming here in California since people first came out here looking for gold. It is very much an independent farming community, so over 90% of the grapes grown in our area are sold to other producers, the processors who actually make the wine and then put it on the shelves. The challenge we face is, you know, there’s still about, you know, 5,000 wineries in California, but most of those are very small. And, you know, there’s a few very large players that purchase the majority of the grapes. And, you know, we’re one of those regions where we have a lot of small producers, but we also have to sell to these very large producers that have been buying grapes here for generations since the end of prohibition, basically. And so that’s kind of the economic dynamics of it. But, you know, it’s a community business. You know, they grew up around growing grapes. We joke, I mean, our police cars actually have grape clusters on the doors. High schools are named after grape varieties. Are they really? You know, we had our first grape festival in 1907, and so it’s really very much a farming community with the values that go along with the farming culture.
SPEAKER 17 :
Wonderful. And you just feel, so people, I’m sure people understand, but grapes like Concord grapes, grapes you buy in the grocery store are not at all like grapes that are used for wine. Actually, if you go out and pick a grape off of, you know, from a vine, a grape vine in Napa or something, it may not taste so great, number one. Certainly the juice doesn’t taste all that great. right away and at different stages, but it’s just the art of how they make the wine that it’s remarkable how much change takes place.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, it’s actually, you know, you have your raisin grape varieties, which are certain varieties. You have your table grape varieties, which are usually seedless now. And then you have your wine grape varieties. And, you know, we grow, as you mentioned, over 130 different wine grape varieties here in the Lodi region, one of the most diverse parts of California. Um, And actually, wine grape varieties taste really good, especially when they’re ripe and ready to pick. It’s just they’re small and they have seeds in it, so people don’t like to eat them as much. But I grew up eating them, so I prefer much more over the table grapes you get in the store.
SPEAKER 17 :
That’s interesting. And so do you want to talk a little bit about, just so people kind of appreciate wine, uh the differences in different kinds of levels of wine like like the screw top gallo although screw top they make some very nice screw top wines these days so you can’t use that to judge anymore it’s more shelf stable that’s why they use the screw tops but uh the um kind of difference between like a four dollar or seven dollar bottle of wine or box wine and like a mid-level wine, and then the expensive wine. Because, you know, people think, oh, wine is wine. It doesn’t matter. Oh, this is fine. I don’t know why anybody would pay that much money for a bottle of wine. You know, can you just kind of help people to appreciate that a little more?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I think, I mean, one of the things that’s important to understand, I think, is the wine quality across all price points has improved dramatically over the years. You know, the technology, the art, the craft. um from both growing the grapes to making the wine is improved so you find much higher quality wines across the full spectrum you know price is going to be related to several things one it’s going to be you know where it’s coming from the underlying land values and costs there to um you know the brand that goes along with it and then in three you know really how it’s made and how they’re targeting that price point so You know, you can craft wines that are approachable, you know, lower price point wines, you know, which is where the majority of wine is still drunk in this country. And then you can make very artisan craft wines that can, you know, end up costing, you know, hundreds of dollars a bottle. And so there’s a whole range of styles and price points for you. And some of it is based upon marketing and branding and some of it is, you know, inherent quality.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right, and it varies as to how much work. I mean, we visited one winery, just like a private tour that a friend arranged, and they actually choose… They have a conveyor belt and like eight people standing on either side of the conveyor belt choosing individual grapes, right? And they made one wine per year. That was it. So that was how… kind of exclusive in how much work went into it. They have certain processes that make it more expensive, more labor intensive. You have to have people tending the vines. The vines have to be trained like a little bonsai tree. And they have to be trained to grow a certain way so they maximize yield and exposure to the sun for the grapes. It’s fascinating. And then you have to treat the dirt, the soil, a certain way. And different types of soil will be good for certain types of grapes. And you have 100-year-old vines that can give this kind of grape. It’s really an amazingly diverse, considering it’s farming, right? It’s an amazingly diverse and highly specialized grape. industry?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, and one of the things we joke about is it’s actually three industries in one, you know, the first is the farming and the growing the wine grapes. And the second is the, the processing of the making and turning it into wine. And the third is the actually marketing and selling of it. And, you know, there’s not many people that possess skills in all three of those categories. So it’s, it’s a challenging industry, but it, uh, you know there is a lot that goes into it and you know one of the challenges with with the wine business is there’s a very long lead time so you can’t make changes quickly it takes three to four years before you get a crop after planting a vine. And then the processing and making it can take anywhere from six months to three years or longer. And then it starts to sell and that can take a year or more to sell through a vintage. So it’s a long lead time that makes it a very capital intensive business and challenging to adjust quickly to changes in market conditions.
SPEAKER 17 :
Exactly. And just so folks know, like red wines, they may pick the grapes in 2020, but the wine isn’t going to be ready to put on a shelf until 2024. I mean, you know, roughly, let’s just say, but like you said, it may be four years from the time that somebody had to grow the grapes and sell the grapes. Somebody had to pay for those grapes before they make any money off of that bottle of wine. Of course, it’s overlapping with the years, but, and once you plant a vine, it takes years for it to be established. And if you have to tear out a field of vines or a vineyard because of pests or some kind of disease, plant disease, that is so expensive to have to replant it and wait that many years. And this has happened over and over in California. I’m just trying to give folks some background of what this industry really… Have some appreciation for what the industry really… is and does and how difficult it can be to manage all of the levels and if different people are involved at every single level.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, it’s a complicated business and it can be capital intensive and costly. I mean, it runs over $30,000 an acre to plant a vineyard in the Lodi area right now. And the economic returns aren’t matching what you need for planting a vineyard right now. Unfortunately, vines can live to be very old. Certain varieties are better suited for that than others. And we have some of the oldest vineyards in California right here in Lodi going back to the late 1800s, early 1900s. And they’re still producing and can make very delicious wines. But there’s a lot that goes into it.
SPEAKER 17 :
Wonderful. Well, we’re going to talk about some of the current issues in California when we come back for our break. But we are able to have wonderful conversations like this thanks to wonderful sponsors like Karen Levine.
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SPEAKER 21 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
All Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s kimmonson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back. I’m Dr. Jill Vecchio, and I’m filling in for Kim today. She had a much deserved, well-deserved day off today. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter at Kim’s website at KimMonson.com. That’s Kim, K-I-M-M-O-N-S-O-N.com. And I can’t talk right today. Email Kim at Kim at KimMonson.com. Thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our freedom to write of speech. Your financial freedom is shaped by more than numbers. It’s shaped by planning for the realities of your life. At Mint Financial Strategies, Jody Hinze and her team help you to assess your current reality while planning for your future. Additionally, Mint Financial Strategies helps you navigate through your emotions regarding the economy, your career, and the market while encouraging you to evaluate family dynamics that could influence your financial well-being. These insights help Mint Financial Strategies to design a strategy that fits your life. Take that step toward financial freedom. Call Mint Financial Strategies today at 303-285-3080. Again, that’s 303. And welcome back, everybody. We are talking to Stuart Spencer, who is the president of the Lodi Wine Grape Commission in Lodi, California, just east of San Francisco. And they supply wonderful grapes to a bunch of the wineries in California that then mix those grapes with other grapes from different vineyards and maybe different varieties from different vineyards, things like that, to make wonderful, wonderful wine. Now, we’re talking about – we gave you a little bit of background in the last segment on wine in general. We want to make sure that you learn a little bit about the wine business. But let’s go right to what is happening in California. Now, I saw a podcast, and Stuart was on that podcast, and that’s why I wanted to have him on the show today because it was so good and kind of scary. Is it true, Stuart, that in the last five years in California – they have lost 25% of their vineyards and growing land or it’s gone fallow. Can you explain that? Is that true?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, it’s actually somewhat worse than that. The California wine grape harvest peaked around 2018 at 4.2 million tons. And in 2025, we processed 2.62 million tons. So we’ve seen almost a 40 percent decline oh my gosh in the amount of grapes um processed over the last last you know eight years and um and you know what we’ve seen the last couple of years is hundreds of thousands of tons you know left unharvested um in the vineyards in the fields and uh we’re seeing you know vineyards getting abandoned across the state and and um It’s a real economic challenge.
SPEAKER 17 :
That’s heartbreaking. Wow. I feel like I just want to fly out there and get some grapes myself. Can I make my own wine? Please, I’ll do anything. But, I mean, that’s just frightening. So explain some of the factors going into this, because it’s kind of remarkable, and I did not know about this, and I’m sure other people don’t either.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, I think there’s a lot of things going on, and there’s kind of the confluence of a lot of headwinds that came together around the same time. And one of the challenges we faced is during the pandemic, everyone, you know, appeared to be drinking more. Yes, good reason. You know, a lot of it was actually what they called pantry loading, where people were buying alcohol and wine and other things and kind of stockpiling it. And so there was a spike in sales. And, uh, you know, the industry and many thought that there was going to be, um, continued growth. So they kind of, um, doubled down on growing more and producing more. And then as we came out of the pandemic, the, the, the news went the opposite direction and sales went the opposite direction. And so, you know, we’re seeing declining sales of wine and all alcohol products in the U S we’re seeing, um, globally, uh, uh, decline in, in alcohol consumption and, uh, There are a lot of factors at play here. You know, you’ve got the economic factors. We went through a very inflationary period that’s pinching a lot of consumers. You have a lot of health aspects of wine that are driving a moderation effect across the country and the world. You have the GLP-1 drugs that I think are having an impact on wine. You’ve got an aging baby boomer population, which has been carrying the industry for a long time.
SPEAKER 17 :
You’re welcome. I think that was just me.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I hear you did well. But, you know, and the baby boomers was a very large demographic group. And so as they’re aging out and slowing down, the younger generations are not at the same scale and size. It’s not so much that they’re not drinking wine like previous generations or will. It’s just the scale of the demographic groups and where they’re at in their life. And so these things are all going on. And then I think one of the things I’ve been working a lot on is our industry is changing. Our producers, our largest processors are becoming much more multinational and divesting of California. And so instead of purchasing local grapes, they’re going out and sourcing cheap bulk wine from overseas and bringing it here instead and blending it in with California wine. In some cases, they’re labeling that American or they can blend up to 25% foreign wine. In other cases, they’re labeling it where it comes from, but you know, they are the biggest processors. They’re the ones that, you know, bring it to market. And so it’s creating a real challenge. Right.
SPEAKER 17 :
Let’s talk about that some more because that is fascinating. So what kind of countries? Are we talking about Italy, France? Are we talking about Chile, Argentina? Where are we talking about that they’re bringing in? So in other words, folks, another country will be making wine in, And Stuart will tell you more about tariffs and subsidies and things like that. But they’ll be making wine at a very low price. And then it’s kind of like, this is kind of like having manufacturing in China, right? So it’s, they’ll make wine at a lower price, lower economic restriction or lower environmental restrictions, maybe not a sustainable farming practices, things like that. They’ll make the wine and then they ship it over in what these big bladder things on container ships, they ship the wine here. And then these big operations will use cheap wine and and mix it with their good wine and not let us know that that’s what’s happening?
SPEAKER 14 :
Is that an accurate condensation? Yeah, I mean, more or less. We live in a globally connected industry and economy. And so when there’s excess supply in the world, it’s now affecting us here. And our largest producers used to just be more focused on California products. But now, you know, over 90% of this bulk wine is coming from, you know, places like Australia and Chile, Argentina, New Zealand. And then you’ve got a lot of bottled product coming in from the European and EU where they, you know, massively subsidize wine production there and they have massive oversupplies. So that wine’s getting dumped into the global market as well. And and really driving down prices. So the Australian growers are losing money too. The Chilean growers are losing money too.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, wow. So this is a worldwide problem, but California may be getting more affected.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, we’re importing everyone else’s problems and mistakes. And so, you know, one of the things that took place in Australia is they over-planted uh, red varieties and they were selling a lot to China and then they got in a trade issue with China and China shut them out. And so, um, they’ve now been, oh, China has now opened up the market back to Australian wine, but it’s about half the size it was, um, before the, the trade issues. And so, uh, that really set them back and, and, you know, they have probably two to three years of excess supply right now that is just kind of flooding the global market. And, uh, You know, it’s impacting our growers here because our biggest processors are not renewing the contracts and instead going to places like Australia and Chile and buying this wine up really cheap, bringing it here. And as you’ve said, these big bladders that hold about 6,000 gallons and, you know, in some cases labeling it Australia or Chile or New Zealand and other cases, you know, blending it in with California wine and they can legally label it American.
SPEAKER 18 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 14 :
And so these are… Well, even to make it worse, some of this is also being subsidized by our federal government through a loophole in what is called our duty drawback program. And so that is allowing a portion of the swine to enter the US marketplace and not pay the alcohol taxes on it. you know, the federal alcohol tax on wine is $1.70 a gallon, and they can get up to 99% of that, up to 99% of that refunded on a matching export. So that, you know, you have wine coming out of Australia, like, you know, $2.70 a gallon, and if, you know, the alcohol tax is $1.70, that’s a significant subsidy on that wine. And so this is a loophole we’ve been trying to fix, but there’s some real vested interests in keeping that in place.
SPEAKER 17 :
Now, who are some of those vested interests?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, it’s going to be a couple. I mean, first, on the wine side of it, it’s going to be the largest wine companies, you know, Gallo, the wine group, Delicato. constellation that are taking advantage of this. And, but a couple of years ago in 2021, it got expanded. There was a lawsuit and, um, it got opened up to, uh, spirits, tobacco, beer, and petroleum projects too. And so, um, these products are also coming in and getting the alcohol taxes refunded. And on the spirit side of it, it’s massive first year, uh, It was available to them. There was over $500 million in duty drawback refunds related to excise taxes. And so this is creating a really perverse incentive to offshore production instead of keeping it domestically grown.
SPEAKER 17 :
That, you know, it’s so sad, but sometimes trying to correct these things, one of the problems is if the big corporations have that much power, they’re going to be running, they’re going to have their lobbying groups, the state house and the state legislature and to Congress to prevent, to allow them to keep doing what they’re doing, even if it’s putting small farmers and small wonderful farmers wonderful areas that are creating beautiful product like Lodi that can put them out of business. I kind of call it sometimes consolidate, control, and destroy. It’s kind of like the big corporations, they just keep getting bigger and swallowing up everything, swallowing up everything until the kind of diversity and the essence of the industry gets destroyed. And then we’re left with whatever they want to give us, which is too bad. I mean, maybe I’m overstepping, but that’s kind of the way it is.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, I think just one of the things I’ve learned is I’ve been looking really hard into this for the last two to three years. And the more layers I peel back, the more I realize the people I thought were working with us and for us are working against us. And, you know, we have our largest lobbying organizations called the Wine Institute. And, you know, they all claim they represent 85 percent of the wine produced in California. But when it comes to critical issues around trade and industry business, they’re going to represent the interests of four to five players. And we were back in D.C. last year, a group of us kind of advocating on this very duty drawback issue and um you know we sat in in one of our congressman’s offices and explained the situation to him and the first question out of his mouth was where does the wine institute sit on this and so um right it was quite clear that um you know if it was going to be hard to get anything done without them on board and so you know it it does and over time what that happens is and you’re seeing this across a lot of industries A lot of agriculture is more efficient to offshore products and then bring it in as finished product or partially finished product and then assemble it or bottle it here and put it into the market. But there’s a lot lost in that process. Right. is the economic engine of rural communities. And so when you offshore your agriculture, you are offshoring the economics of a lot of our rural economies across this country.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, exactly. We’re going to go to break right now, but we’re going to continue for a few minutes after we get back. Thanks to great sponsors like Lauren Levy, we get to have wonderful people like Stuart Spencer on this show.
SPEAKER 15 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
April 26, 1777. Colonel, the British are raiding Danbury and burning the town. I’ll go tell them. Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington mounted her horse and rode 40 miles through night and pouring rain. That’s twice the distance of Paul Revere to sound the alarm.
SPEAKER 01 :
Quickly.
SPEAKER 07 :
assemble at my father’s house the kim monson show is our modern day sybil luddington bringing us the latest breaking news in the battle for truth and freedom ben’s plumbing heating and cooling is proud to stand with kim will you stand with us get engaged with the issue that keeps you up at night so that you can influence your school and community with truth and justice And for quality craftsmanship at a fair price, call or text Ben’s Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling at 303-995-1636. That number again is 303-995-1636.
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SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back. I’m Dr. Jill Vecchio, and I’m filling in for Kim today. Check out Kim’s website at kimmonson.com. And that’s kim at kimmonson.com is her email. It’s kim at kimmonson.com. The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk. The Center is focused on the functional values of America, honor, integrity, and patriotism. Through their K-12 educational programs, training for educators, and portraits of valor, of over 160 Medal of Honor recipients, the Center is helping to instill honor, integrity, and patriotism for our next generations. Check out their website. It is AmericanValuesCenter.com. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.com. And we’d love to welcome back Stuart Spencer, who is the president of the Lodi Wine Grape Commission in Lodi, California. We’re talking about the wine industry. And, you know, I think you mentioned this, and we kind of started off the conversation, that 40% of the vineyards and the grape-growing land has gone fallow. But I think I would like for you to emphasize more how much… waste is going on. So Lodi is a region that grows amazing, beautiful varieties of grapes. And those are farmers. They are small, small independent farmers. And if they grow grapes, they go to all the trouble to train the vines, take care of the soil, have people come in to pick the grapes or whatever. That is a lot of investment in what they hope is going to be a product that will be sold so they can send their kids to college, feed their families, pay for the farm and the farming, and take care of all of the property the way that it should be taken care of. If they can’t sell the grapes that are on the vine, talk about what is happening with those farmers and the crop.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah. So, you know, we mentioned earlier that, you know, the crop is 40% smaller than it was back in 2018. And I think everyone on the industry and, you know, even though the farmer side agrees that, you know, some of this needs to come out to align supply with where demand is, um, you know, but we’re working against ourselves when we’re importing instead of supporting local. And so, um, it’s a significant economic loss. Our gross value of our wine grape crop in our region was over $500 million a few years ago. And I think this year was about half of that. And so when you pull that much money out of a local economy, it has significant impacts. And in many cases, our farmers, it costs them $2,500 to $3,000 an acre to farm at the very low end. And so you are farming the whole season with the hope of selling those grapes at the end of the season. And over the last couple of years, you know, for a lot of growers, certain varieties that has not materialized. And so, you know, the grapes are rotting on the vine after they’ve spent, you know, thousands, if not millions of dollars farming it. And there really aren’t any bailouts. We’re not like the Europeans where the European Union will come in and pay them to buy up excess wine or grapes. So they’re left basically taking in the shorts. And it’s had consequences that reverberate through the whole local economy.
SPEAKER 17 :
So you have how many acres of land vineyards of grapes hanging on vines, rotting, or they fall off onto the ground and rot, which then is a problem because then you’ve got more pest and disease potential, right? With all of this rotting fruit, not only kind of, you know, it’s kind of stinks sometimes.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I mean, I think that the leftover fruit poses less of an issue from a disease perspective. It does increase your mildew pressures in the coming season. And I think one of the bigger challenges is that they’re under this economic strain is they’re minimizing their farming operations as best they can. And so that is creating additional disease and pest pressure. And we have some invasive pests in the area and some diseases. If you’re neglecting some of those things, it has the potential to exacerbate the whole situation by spreading more disease and
SPEAKER 17 :
and allowing these invasive pests to get you know further uh established and spreading throughout the region right exactly now we’ve got about we’ve got about three minutes can you let’s end this hour because the hours are replayed separately so let’s end this hour with um a quick what is one one or two quick things we’ve got about three minutes that uh we could do that you would recommend that could be done to help somewhat
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, the first thing is buy local and support true California-grown wine. I think when you go to the stores, or Colorado wine for that matter, supporting your local farmers, I think, is the key core piece that any consumer can do. I think, secondly, in our case, we’ve got 85 wineries in the area that make delicious wine. Most of them are growers selling grapes as well as wineries selling it, and it’s a great place to visit, very affordable, approachable place. And I think a third thing people can do is if they want to, they can reach out to their federal, their congressman and talk about some of these practices we’re talking about today with duty drawback and some of these incentive programs that are allowing imports to come in at a cost advantage over domestic production. And those, I think, three things would all help at a very individual level.
SPEAKER 17 :
Great. Thank you very much. So we’re going to finish out the show with a quote. Farming looks mighty easy. Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield. That was from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. One of the other things I wanted to mention quickly is we’ve got like one minute. And when we come for the next hour, I would love for you to talk about your sustainable practices because you yourself developed a lot of these. So I’d love to talk about that. And talk about just farming families in general because you had some really great things to say about farming. sharing what farming communities are these aren’t huge growers these are just average people on a farm and sometimes it’s just somebody in their house they’ve got maybe an acre of land and they throw in a few vines and they just love to see it it is beautiful stuff to watch and and and to watch it grow and then they pick it and they sell it and they have some fun with it and i’d also like to talk about maybe co-ops When we get back to if you have what kind of cooperative organizations you have that then what what could they do to help with some of this problem when we for our second hour, if that would be OK.
SPEAKER 14 :
That works.
SPEAKER 17 :
OK, so in the meantime, today, be grateful. Read great books. Think good thoughts. Listen to beautiful music. Communicate and listen well. Live honestly and authentically. Strive for high ideals. And like Superman, stand for truth, justice and the American way. You are not alone. God bless you and God bless America. Stay tuned for our two.
SPEAKER 19 :
And fast on a rough road, riding high through the mountains, climbing, twisting, turning further from my home. Young like a new moon, rising fierce through the rain and lightning. And I don’t want no one to cry, but tell them if I do.
SPEAKER 05 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 03 :
The socialization of transportation, education, energy, housing, and water, what it means is that government controls it through rules and regulations.
SPEAKER 04 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 03 :
Under this guise of bipartisanship and nonpartisanship, it’s actually tapping down the truth.
SPEAKER 04 :
Today’s current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 03 :
On an equal field in the battle of ideas, mistruths and misconceptions is getting us into a world of hurt.
SPEAKER 04 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome to the Kim Monson Show. This is hour two. I am Dr. Jill Vecchio, and I am thrilled to host the show today. Kim keeps giving me a microphone. I don’t know if she knows what she’s creating here. Kim is out today on a much-deserved day off. Let’s have a conversation with us together. Thank you for listening. Each of you are treasured and valued and have a purpose. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. We were made for this moment in history. Thank you, Producer Joe and the entire team for your wonderful work. If it weren’t for Producer Joe, I’d be a hot mess out here. He’s telling me, you got one minute, you got three minutes. Okay, now do this. Now do that. I’m sure he doesn’t have to tell Kim this. She knows it already, but I really appreciate all of his help. Kim’s website is Kim Monson. That’s M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter. You’ll get first look at all of our upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. And you can email Kim at Kim at Kim Monson dot com. Thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. And thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. From Parker to Golden, Little Richie’s Pizza and Pasta is your go-to for real New York-style pizza, hearty pastas, and that unbelievable local vibe. Little Richie’s is serving up daily specials, quick and tasty weekday lunch deals, and a happy hour. The locals actually build their plans around. Whether you’re bringing the crew, catching up with friends, or flying solo for a hot slice, Little Richie’s is your neighborhood hangout. Now, today’s word of the day, because we talked in the first hour about the wine industry and what’s happening in California’s wine industry. We kind of gave you a little bit of background on wine, and I’d like to talk a little bit at the beginning of this hour, during this segment, about wine. why you should care about the California wine industry. Even if you don’t drink wine, it is part of our farming heritage. And there is some real history here that I’m going to let you know a little bit more about. The word of the day is alluvium. It’s A-L-L-U-V-I-U-M from the Latin alluvius and from alluvium. A-L-L-U-E-R-E, alluere, to wash against. So alluvium is loose clay, silt, or sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed on a floodplain in an alluvial fan or beach or in similar settings. So they call it like an alluvial plane or an alluvial fan. is where water has caused clay, silt, sand to flow down an embankment or kind of a grade. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is typically geologically young and is not consolidated into solid rock. Sediments deposited underwater in seas, estuaries, lakes, or ponds are not described as alluvium. Floodplain alluvium can be highly fertile and supported some of the earliest human civilizations. And alluvial soil is wonderful for growing grapes, vines, for making wine. So California, some of the most valuable and treasured land in California is alluvial soil from alluvium. And they think sometimes there are mentions in Wikipedia that alluvium was thought to, and it was revered soil because it may have been related to Noah’s Ark, to the flood during Noah’s time, and that that flood, that incredible amount of water created alluvial soil that now we can enjoy in drinking wine. So I found that kind of fascinating. Wikipedia even said so. So now, today we’ve got our special sponsor. Oh, hold on just a second. Yeah, Jody Hensie from Mint Financial Strategies, and she’s joining us. Hi, Jody. I wasn’t on the right page of my notes. I’m sorry. Welcome to the show. How are you? I’m doing good, Jill. How are you? Good. So this is, April is Financial Awareness Month. Is that right?
SPEAKER 20 :
It is. It is. I didn’t know that out of my 26 year career. I had just heard that a couple of weeks ago. It’s like, oh, I didn’t know April was financial literacy month.
SPEAKER 17 :
So it would be a good topic to talk about today. Yeah. So what kind of things? Well, first, what did you want to talk about today? If otherwise, I’ll just start asking questions.
SPEAKER 20 :
Well, for sure, you can certainly ask them questions. But I think, you know, financial literacy tends to focus a little bit about, you know, knowing it all. But I think it’s not necessarily knowing everything because nobody can know it all, including myself. But I think it’s more about just being in control of your finances.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, keeping track of them. Somebody said to me once, a banker friend said, you know, most people don’t even know how much money is in their banking account.
SPEAKER 20 :
That’s so true. We call that the leaky bucket, you know, just knowing where your money goes each month. Because, you know, if you don’t know where it’s going, oftentimes, you know, you’re overspending. So we call that the leaky bucket.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, and it’s funny because with the online banking, it’s easy to know, but it’s also, and we have credit cards, we have debit cards. When I was a kid, my mom wrote checks for everything. So she had the checkbook with an ongoing balance and had to know exactly where she was all the time. And that’s how she knew where she was all the time. But now we have so many different ways to take money out of our accounts. And we’re paying off credit cards online or over the phone. It’s just crazy. It’s harder to keep track now than it used to be, I think.
SPEAKER 20 :
Yeah, I think especially for our younger generation because they don’t even know what a check register is, right? And so they’re so used to that automation that they can oftentimes get into trouble because they’re not managing their financing, they’re not keeping track of things. So it’s very, very easy for them to go into overdraft or they’re constantly putting things on credit card and paying things in arrears as opposed to planning ahead. So that can be a trap for sure.
SPEAKER 17 :
It is. And it’s hard. The financial industry, I mean, you have to admit, they make things really hard for us to figure out. They make it really difficult. The terminology makes no sense. It’s very confusing. And it’s kind of, well, why don’t you just call it this so I could understand it better? They have all of these, you know, they have derivatives and you have to understand index markets and all these. It’s so complicated that I think a lot of people just say, well, I’ll just buy into this mutual fund. I don’t really know much about it. This looks good. And they end up using weird reasoning and emotion to do things rather than having somebody like you help them along.
SPEAKER 20 :
Oh, I completely agree, Dr. Jill. In fact, that’s one of the things that I wrote down was just, you know, the noise that we have today. I’ve never seen it like this. Just the amount of information people are being inundated with. It’s like a fire hose with social media, 24-7 news, all the hot tips and complicated products. I mean, all the confusion and emotion it causes. So I think when we’re talking about financial literacy, you know, you really have to sift through that. When you were talking about the word of the day, that’s kind of what I was thinking about is just sifting through all of that noise when we’re talking about, you know, planning and being educated and being able to kind of filter through that.
SPEAKER 17 :
Ah, so you help people create a monetary alluvial soil. Yes. No, I was trying to which can thrive their their economic progress. That’s well, that’s wonderful. It’s interesting. I love it that you that you liked that word for that reason, because it is that you have to find the right financial person. Now, am I right? Are you a fiduciary?
SPEAKER 20 :
Yes. I’m an accredited investment fiduciary, which means we must always act in the best interest of our clients, which not all financial people are. Here, here.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 20 :
Yes. So when you’re doing your research and doing your due diligence on who to work with, you definitely want to ask that question because not all are considered fiduciaries.
SPEAKER 17 :
And the people who are not fiduciaries are going to poo-poo how important fiduciaries are. And believe me, I lost a lot of money with somebody who was not a fiduciary who would push things on me that he got some kind of little spiff. We call them spiffs, right? Like some little bonus if he sold me this stock rather than something else. And he had incentives, corporate incentives from his bosses to tell me not to sell something when it clearly needed to be sold. Right. I mean, it’s like I’m losing this much and he would just let it go down to zero. It was it was just wild. So I would totally agree. It makes a huge difference. Yeah, so it’s important for people to understand the difference between just like a, what would you call it, what do we have, Merrill Lynch financial advisor versus somebody like you that’s a fiduciary, right?
SPEAKER 20 :
Yeah, I would say it’s more of a transactional brokerage that may not be considered a fiduciary versus somebody who does have those credentials for sure.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, exactly. Now, what happens to you if somebody says, hey, wait a second, or some fiduciary? I mean, what do people do if, it’s not just if the stock goes down. Ah, the stock went down, I’m going to sue my fiduciary, right? So what are some of the limitations of what you do? What do we have left, like a minute left, I think?
SPEAKER 20 :
Yeah. I mean, you know, fiduciaries, like I said, you know, we’re more focused on the planning process. I mean, obviously we make recommendations too, but again, those recommendations are independent. or should be independent of commissions or fees or anything like that. So again, you should have confidence that your financial advisor is always acting in the best interest. So I think that is an important point that you bring up there. And I think when you’re interviewing somebody, you always want to make sure that that person has your best interest at heart. So those are great questions to ask. And I don’t think you should ever be embarrassed to ask, how your financial advisor gets paid. If that person isn’t willing to tell you or is embarrassed to tell you, that should be a red flag right there.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes, hear, hear. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Jodi. And can you tell our listeners how they can reach you again? Absolutely. You can check us out on the web.
SPEAKER 20 :
Our website is mintfs.com or you can email me. It’s super easy. It’s Jody with a Y at mintfs.com or you can call me or text me. Our text line is 303-285-3080. Again, that’s 303-285-3080. And our contact information is on the Kim site as well.
SPEAKER 17 :
Thank you so much, Jodi, and have a great day. Thank you. You too, Dr. Joe. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. We are so blessed to have wonderful sponsors like Roger Mangan from State Farm so that we can have wonderful conversations like this.
SPEAKER 08 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
With all the chaos and confusion in our world, how can you plant yourself on a foundation based on truth and clarity? The Kim Monson Show is here to help. Kim examines news, politics, and opinion through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom, and shares human interest stories that will inspire you and make you smile. Tune in to The Kim Monson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m., with encores 1 to 2 p.m., and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM, the KLZ website, and the KLZ app. Shows can also be found at kimMonson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
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Karen Gorday and her team at Radiant Painting and Lighting are dedicated to integrity, transparency, respect, and care as they work with their clients. Karen and her team promise to provide honest and dependable service that you can trust with clear communication so that they get it right the first time. Radiant Painting and Lighting goes above and beyond to ensure satisfaction and comfort through your project. Make your appointment now by going to paintwithradiant.com. That’s paintwithradiant.com.
SPEAKER 10 :
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SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back. I am Dr. Jill Vecchio, and I’m pleased to host Kim’s show today. Kim’s website is KimMonson.com. You can sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter, where you will get first look at all of her upcoming guests, as well as the most recent essays. You can email Kim at Kim at KimMonson.com. Thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. Through all of Kim’s work with veterans, she’s honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation and all the work that they’re doing to raise the money to remodel the official USMC Memorial, which is located right here in Golden, Colorado, at 6th and Colfax. Paula Sarles is the president of the foundation. She’s a Marine veteran and a Gold Star wife. Paula and her team are working diligently to make the remodel a reality. You can help by donating at usmcmemorialfoundation.org. That’s usmcmemorialfoundation.org. So now in our second hour, we had our first hour with the same guest. So I would encourage you to listen to that first hour if you haven’t already. As well, you don’t have to do it before you hear this one, obviously. But Stuart Spencer has been wonderful to spend the full two hours with us. I am going to give a little introduction of you this time, Stuart. He’s the executive director of the Lodi Wine Grape Commission and second generation winemaker at his family winery. St. Amant, A-M-A-N-T in Lodi. He joined the commission in 1999 and took over as executive director in 2018. He represents over 750 growers, 750, 80,000 vineyard acres supporting over 80 wineries. That’s pretty impressive. Stewart was instrumental in developing Lodi rules for sustainable wine growing, and I want to talk about that this hour. America’s first third-party certified sustainable wine growing program and championed the creation of the Lodi Wine Visitor Center in 2000. He has been a vocal advocate for California’s wine grape industry and was named 2026 Leader of the Year by the California Association of Wine Grape Growers, being recognized for his advocacy on trade policy, sustainability, and the long-term viability of family farming. Congratulations for that, Stuart. I can see why they did it based on our conversation so far.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, thank you. Appreciate the recognition.
SPEAKER 17 :
I didn’t think you’d probably bring that up, so that’s why I wanted to read it out to everybody so they can understand that you are a real mover and shaker here. Now, it talks about the sustainable practices, and essentially, I just want to reiterate in the second hour, because some new people may not have heard the first hour. that people who grow grapes for wine or table are farmers. And especially in both industries, small farmers. And farmers are a different kind of breed. So let’s talk a little bit about the special, what makes small farmers so special and sustainable practices are critical. They’ve really been, Well, I’ll let you explain because you do it really well. Why, why do you need to have sustainable practices in farming? And I don’t mean, I don’t mean solar panels and windmills. Okay. That’s not the same thing. Sustainable means you can keep going year after year.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah. So I think, you know, the, the, the first part of your question there was about the farming communities and, you know, I have the fortune of working and living in a multi-generational farming community. And I think when you are a farmer and you know, as you’d said earlier, you know, the soil is your, your bank account and, um, and you protect that and nourish it as best you can. You, your kids grow up in your, on your farm and your vineyards. Um, you know, you, you look at life through a longer term lens. And, uh, so the decisions you make today will affect your kids and the generations after you. And I think, That drives a lot of the values within a community. And I think the second piece of it is there is an incredible sense of community that is resident in agricultural farming-based communities, that they take care of each other and they take care of their broader community. And I think that’s the core piece that I think, from a value perspective, that’s important to understand. And in our case, this led to the creation of a sustainability program And what I like to point out is sustainability has become very much a buzzword right now. And all the corporations want to use it and stuff to make it look like they’re, you know, good citizens. And it’s become very top down driven. And by that, I mean, it’s, you know, the retailers and the big companies pushing back down through the supply chain and to the farmers. But In our case, it really began shortly after our organization was formed back in 1991, and we started at the time what was called an integrated pest management program, which was really just about kind of peer-to-peer, grower-to-grower education and introducing… more environmentally friendly farming practices from cover cropping to beneficial insects to monitoring and economic thresholds and all sorts of things that kind of drive your day-to-day decisions. And out of that, you know, grew the first sustainable certification program in the country and has become a model used around the world called the Lodi Rules for Sustainable Wine Growing.
SPEAKER 17 :
Wow, that’s impressive.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, it is pretty impressive program. And it’s, you know, we started out with, you know, six growers and 1500 acres and it’s grown to over 70,000 acres across all of California. We have some growers up in the state of Washington and also in Israel, we have some kosher wineries over there that are very interested in farming to our set of standards. And so what I also like to point out about sustainability and, you know, it’s, It’s moving in the same direction as organics and a lot of other products, but sustainability and our certification is what we call a do-no. You get recognized for what you do, not what you don’t do. And so there are 150 standards in there that you go through and you’re audited to, and you have to achieve a certain level of sustainability across a whole spectrum of practices that is fairly comprehensive.
SPEAKER 17 :
And do you find that farming is, in some ways, I know like gardening and some of these things are actually going back to what they were 50 years ago. And I think some of the farming, some farming is as well, I mean, we’re back to no-till, to reduce erosion. Some practices that… We’re done a long time ago. Is it happening? Cover crops, right? That was not a thing for decades, at least in the Midwest, because I have farmland in the Midwest, grew up farming. My dad grew seed corn and soybeans and stuff. So I spent my whole youth walking around cornfields and bean fields and pulling weeds and all this stuff. And the Roundup thing kind of freaks me out a little bit. But it’s nice to see at least parts of the farming going backwards. Is that happening the same thing with the vineyards?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, very much so. I mean, I think it’s, you know, pretty insightful of you just kind of seeing that on a broader level. And, you know, one of the things we see on a daily basis is there’s this push for, you know, more and more technology in farming, which on some levels is good, but on certain levels, I think going back to these old practices, and kind of tried and true things is going to be more successful and going to connect us more with the land and the practices that were being implemented before we had all these tools and and so you know one of the interesting projects we’re working on right now is um is with dogs where we are actually have actually trained dogs to identify um what’s called the leaf roll virus in vineyards and in the vine mealybug which spreads the virus and one of the biggest challenges of managing the spread of this virus and pest is detection and finding it because you don’t see it in white grape varieties and so visually you can’t identify it and And we’ve been able to train dogs, much like they train dogs to sniff out drugs, to sniff out this virus in a grapevine. And it’s an old practice, but the dogs are more effective than the most sophisticated laboratory instruments.
SPEAKER 17 :
Isn’t that amazing? And so I always kind of said, and I’m not preaching or anything, but they’re saying God gave us everything that we need originally. And all we have to do is just recognize what that is. I’m a retired physician, and medicine is really going back to, let’s go back to these herbs. Let’s see, because all the pharmaceuticals came from herbs anyway. So let’s go back to the original herbs, see what we can learn about what does what. And it’s fascinating. I love to see it. Chinese medicine had it right all along in some ways, in some ways, in pharmaceutical industry. But there are pendulum swings, right? But I love that. And can you tell us why some of the vineyards have roses at the end of the vineyards, like next to the roads and things?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, I think… I mean, historically, roses would see mildew first before a grapevine would, and so that’s why they were historically planted. I mean, quite honestly, now most of them are done for aesthetic reasons, but you really need to be monitoring your vineyard for mildew pressure. But, you know, one of the things you just said that reminded me is that… is that we look at vineyards and our farms in a holistic sense, kind of like our own personal health. You need to be taking care of yourself in a healthy vine, in a healthy person that’s going to be less susceptible to disease. And we saw this during the pandemic with COVID, the ones that were, to a great extent, getting the sickest were those that were diabetic or obese or had those issues and the same principles apply in a vineyard, you know, if the vineyard is healthy, if the farm is healthy, it’s balanced, it’s going to be less susceptible to disease pressures, less susceptible to pest pressures. And, and you’re going to use less, um, you know, intervention, uh, which is, you know, pesticides or what to address those things. Um, and, and, you know, like humans, you know, there are cases where you do need medicine and, and, uh, And that’s appropriate, but minimizing that is what’s at the core of our sustainability program.
SPEAKER 17 :
Exactly. And having practices that don’t require aggressive or the things that have side effects. Like don’t take a pharmaceutical if you don’t have to because there are always side effects to that. So it’s kind of like keeping to a minimum the intervention, right?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I mean, everything has a side effect. And, you know, farming is an interventionist practice in and of itself. And so you’re not farming in a complete vacuum. And so in your practices affect your neighbors, et cetera. And so, you know, you want to minimize where you intervene and intervene where necessary for the overall health and sustainability of the vineyard and the property and your crop.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right. And, you know, just to reemphasize that, anytime you have noxious weeds in a neighborhood, all you need is the wind to blow and it’s your neighbor’s problem, even if they’ve been responsible. So it’s the same thing with the pests, same thing with the vineyards. You may be doing everything right, but if your neighbor isn’t, then it’s still going to be your problem, right?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, and that’s kind of the core of our program is, you know, the community values I spoke with earlier is that, you know, we’re all, as farmers, you’re all in this together, you know. As a farmer, your brand in our area is Lodi or California. And so what we do affects our neighbors and what they do affects us. And so we recognize, you know, it’s kind of a rising tide lifts all boats. And so when one struggles, you know, we all struggle. And so it’s important to work together on these things.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right, and I remember in that movie, Bottle Shock, they said, hey, look, if one of us wins, we all win. Let’s all pitch in and pay for this plane ticket kind of thing, right? Because, yeah, it is a whole community thing, and it’s a whole industry. It’s a whole industry thing with the wine industry because there are so many levels involved with different people with different skills at each level that you can’t do without. And you have to have the right quality and the right practices at every single level for it to work.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s… You know, the people part of this is a huge piece of it and you need the right people in the right place. And, you know, I’m fortunate I’ve grown up in this industry and there’s incredible people and, you know, it’s a great industry to work in. And we just need to get everyone aligned, you know, working together again to get us through these challenging times.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right. Well, hang on. We’re going to go to break and we’ll be back. And let’s see. I think we want to talk about a couple of solutions here and a couple of other things. So.
SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
All Kim’s sponsors are in inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back. I am Dr. Jill Vecchio. Kim is taking the day off. Website is KimMonson.com. That’s K-I-M-M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter. You’ll get first look at all of our upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. Email Kim at Kim at Kim Monson dot com. Thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. We are back with our guest, Stuart Spencer. And I just give you a little bit of a rehash of what we talked about in the first hour. Something like a 40 percent of the vineyards and grape growing land in California, the whole state of California, 40 percent. is fallow or has grapes rotting on the vine because the market is, the supply is, a lot of the supply is coming in from Europe and other countries. And there’s a worldwide overgrowth of overproduction of grapes. So everybody around the world is kind of desperate to do something with the grapes that they’re growing and have paid for and have paid to take care of. So there’s this kind of economic battling in trade and some of the big wineries and big winery groups are importing wine made in other countries that’s not nearly as good most likely it’s a lot cheaper and they get some weird economic bonuses uh… from our own government to bring in wine at a much lower price that’s already made from foreign countries just shipped in And that’s leaving wine growers like the whole Lodi region is grape growers, not wine growers, grape growers. Like the Lodi region kind of with grapes just sitting on the vine or rotting on the vine. which is really sad, or they go to harvest them and they can’t find any winery to buy their grapes. So that’s kind of what we’re talking about. This is really kind of a crisis. And the reason I want you all to think it’s important, if you also have not seen the movie Bottle Shock, it was done several years ago, but I think it really opened people’s eyes to the whole wine industry. And the fact that it started out as a bunch of farmers in the 19, what started in like the 1930s, but then there was prohibition and all that, but it really came into its own In the 70s, in 1976, Napa Valley was discovered by a Briton living in France who wanted to see what California wines were like and was very impressed. He was actually already impressed before he came over. But he chose a bunch of California wines because he found them to be so creative compared to French wine. So he took some of the California wines over to Paris and had a blind taste testing with some of the greatest, you know, palates in the world for wine tasting. And the United States, the California wines took first place in red and white. And it just blew the California, the winemaking world off. apart, especially the French, because they’re like, wait a second, we’re supposed to be the best at all this stuff. Who are these California people and what are they doing differently? And it turns out that some of these European countries have, because I just want you to understand how important it is to save the wine industry in California. It is unique around the world in many ways because France and Italy, their governments regulate how they can do their wine, how they can mix it and so forth. Whereas the reason the California wines won was because people had the freedom to experiment with mixture of this many grapes from here and this many grapes from this year and this year and this year. Whereas in Italy, you can only have grapes from a different region. like growing year, only 10% of the grapes. Anyway, it’s technical, but I want you to, California had freedom to make great wine. using all kinds of different methods and combinations, whereas other countries didn’t. And I think that kind of shows, in a way, just how freedom is better than force, right? Freedom to make the best wine possible versus a government forcing you to only do things a certain way, and the result was lackluster or not as good as it could be. So anyway, I just wanted to give that little background. Stuart, I’m sorry I took so much time doing it, but I… we can’t let the California wine industry deteriorate. It’s too special for the whole world. I, I feel so strong about that. Can you comment, Stuart?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, just, I mean, a couple of things just to give you a sense of what’s happening. Um, you know, we mentioned earlier that, uh, between 2018 and 2025, you know, we’ve lost 40% of the California wine grape crush. And, um, During that same time, the U.S. wine market has shrunk 12% and California wine has lost 20% market share, but imports have gained 7% during that timeframe. So, as you mentioned earlier, our largest producers are outsourcing and bringing in both bottled product from Europe and bulk wine from Australia and replacing California-grown wine. You know, the wine industry is not going anywhere. It’s going to be continue to be here. We’re in the middle of a major reset. And, you know, there are a lot of choices that need to be made and hard choices. And those are being made now. And, you know, in California, we don’t have government intervention in the U.S. like you do in Europe in terms of. the rules and regulations around what you can grow and where you can grow it but you know the other thing they do have is a massive subsidy system that you know allows them to compete on a much more economical basis on a global scale and and so that’s where it gets frustrating when when we talk about you know trade and tariffs and all these things these days is we’re not competing on a level playing field and you know right it’s not a free market right it’s a manipulated market Yeah. And, you know, and the unfortunate thing is we’ve got people manipulating it on both sides. And, you know, we have Europeans, you know, perpetuating oversupply through subsidies. And then we’ve got our own government and kind of our own advocacy organizations kind of tweaking the rules to benefit the large players and benefit imports over domestic production. And so those are the kind of things that need to be addressed.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right. Now, can I… Maybe this is going to be kind of a stupid question. I hope not. But in the Midwest, when… Farmers wanted to have a better negotiating… The biggest growers would get the best prices when they sold their grain or something, right? With the elevators, when they sold grain in the fall. So there was always this unfair playing field of the little guys. So what my dad and a bunch of others started to do was to form co-ops, where a bunch of small… farmers would get together, pool their grain together, and negotiate together for better prices and for better contracts for, you know, different storage or whatever. So that was really useful. Is there, have you… Have you done anything like that for these small growers? I just keep thinking, isn’t there some way that you all can harvest the grapes and make your own wine or find somebody of your own to make your own wine?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I mean, the challenge is the co-op model doesn’t work very well in the wine industry. It works better in commodity industries like corn and things like that. But wine is a very value-added industry. And, you know, the last co-op in California closed in the early 2000s was actually in Lodi. And a lot of them kind of came out and were formed after Prohibition in the 1930s. But, you know, in a market where there’s a lot of variability and value add, you know, the co-op model has never been, has not proven to be very effective. And so that is a challenge, you know, and, you know, one of the things, you know, we do and one of the things my organization here is to kind of, you know, market our region and brand our region and demonstrate that Lodi wine can be a higher value product and We’ve had a lot of success. You know, the reputation and quality recognition of the wines around the world has grown significantly. But, you know, we’re still being drug into this larger global commodity market for wine, too, that’s kind of dragging the whole state down and dragging our region down.
SPEAKER 17 :
Does Elon Musk like wine? I mean, you would think he could just kind of, here, I’ll take it. Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I have no idea about Elon. That’s outside my scope.
SPEAKER 17 :
You know what? South Africa could use a wider selection of wine, I have to tell you. I can’t remember what the varietal is that grows in South Africa, but you go into a liquor store, a wine store, and it’s all this really inexpensive, just you don’t even want to touch this wine, and then there’s something, I can’t remember the name of it, But it’s their own varietal.
SPEAKER 14 :
And then there’s nothing else.
SPEAKER 17 :
That’s all there is to choose from.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I think you’re thinking of Pinotage, which is a variety mostly grown just in South Africa.
SPEAKER 17 :
It was good. It was good. But yes, that’s right, Pinotage, right. It was nice, but it was kind of a bit of a dearth of variety. I think we’re ready to go to break. So we want to thank, hang on there, Stuart, and we’ll catch you on the flip side. Thanks to Bose and Law, we’re able to have wonderful guests like Stuart and wonderful conversations like this.
SPEAKER 21 :
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SPEAKER 15 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
With all the chaos and confusion in our world, how can you plant yourself on a foundation based on truth and clarity? The Kim Monson Show is here to help. Kim examines news, politics, and opinion through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom, and shares human interest stories that will inspire you and make you smile. Tune in to The Kim Monson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m., with encores 1 to 2 p.m., and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM, the KLZ website, and the KLZ app. Shows can also be found at kimMonson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back. I’m Dr. Jill Vecchio, and I’m pleased to host the show. Kim is out of the studio today. Kim’s website is Kim Monson. That’s K-I-M-M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter. You’ll get first look at all of our upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. Email Kim at Kim Monson dot com. Something that should be on your bucket list is to visit the Center for American Values located on a beautiful river walk in Pueblo. The Center for American Values was co-founded by Medal of Honor recipient Drew Dix and Emmy Award winning documentary maker Brad Padula. The center is focused on honoring our Medal of Honor recipients and teaching and upholding the principles of America, honor, integrity, and patriotism. For more information, check out their website, AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.org. So we are back with Stuart Spencer for our last segment. And I did want to… give you some time to tell us about Lodi and why everybody that’s listening to this show needs to go out to beautiful Lodi because there’s nothing like going to see the vineyards and going to a winery and talking to the people that make the wine. It’s just a really special, special experience. And my husband and I have done that so many times, but we’ve not been to Lodi. So tell us about what we might find when we visit there.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, I think, you know, when you visit any wine country, you know, one of the things is the combination of people and place. And, you know, we have a very special place here in Lona. We have this unique spot where we have beautiful soils and climate that allow wine grapes to flourish and all sorts of other agricultural crops. And, you know, we have about 85 wineries in the area. Over 60 of those offer regular tasting experiences. It’s a very approachable price. We’re a farming community with farmer values. And so when you walk into many of our tasting rooms, the owners are there and the people that grow the grapes or make the wine are present. you know, the price points are much more approachable to the average tasting fee in Lodi is $16.
SPEAKER 17 :
Most of our wines in the 20, 20 to $30 range, you know, Napa was $50, $50 for like a half ounce, three half ounce tastings.
SPEAKER 14 :
Crazy. Yeah. And one of the challenges California is facing, I think is, you know, people are saying it’s too expensive, but I think they’re looking at through a, lens of Napa Valley, which is, you know, only 4% of the industry and makes some very great wines, but it has become expensive. And, you know, we try and, you know, make ourselves very much more approachable. We have an incredible diversity of varieties. There’s 130 varieties. So you’re not going to just walk into every winery and see Cabernet Sauvignon or Zinfandel. You’re Spanish varieties like Albariño, which are white varieties, and Portuguese varieties like Verdello. And you’re going to see Italian varieties like Sangiovese and Barbera. You’re going to see Old Vine Zinfandel. You will see some Chardonnay and Cabernet, but you’re going to see an incredible diversity of wines that really make it a fun, interesting place to visit. We’ve got some great food in the area, delicious places to eat, and it really is a welcoming community that I think embraces those kind of core farmer values.
SPEAKER 17 :
It’s funny because when Tom, my husband, and I went to Napa for our honeymoon in 1993, tastings were mostly free. The big places were maybe $5. It wasn’t hard to get a private tour by the owner. It wasn’t that difficult. We did Napa and we went to Sonoma for many years. And suddenly it seemed like after, before 2008, after 2008, It just seemed like the whole thing changed. It became so expensive. They were very snooty about everything. And you had to join the wine club. I mean, it was just very different atmosphere. And it took all the fun out of it. So we stopped. We kind of stopped going, but it was always one of our favorite things. So I think Lodi is going to be our new place to go. Because what exactly… The way you’re describing it, it sounds like the California we fell in love with. The California wine country that we loved in 1993 is now in Lodi, right?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I think one of the things you’re kind of hitting on is that the organic nature of going wine tasting is missing. And I think the industry is a victim of its own success to a certain point where you know, so many people were coming that a lot of rules and stuff got put in place, but you know, in our community in Lodi, there’s still the opportunity to go to a tasting room and ask them, you know, what, what do you like? And they’ll recommend the neighbor down the road. And, and that kind of experience and discovery, I think is what has been missing. And I think is really what gets people hooked and interested in wine. Cause it’s this What makes wine fun and interesting is this great connection of place and people and history and culture and food that all come together in this incredible product. Not everyone loves wine, but there are a lot of us that do, and it’s all those things that make it such a great product.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, it’s always nice. It’s a wonderful gift. You go to somebody’s home. It’s always nice to bring them a bottle of wine. And even a lot of times we have friends that even if they don’t drink, they love getting bottles of wine from other people so they can give it to somebody else. So it’s kind of like, you know, things flow down and, you know. Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine, folks, so it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. And it’s just a matter of whether or not you like it. And the best wine is the one that you like, right? That’s the best wine. The best wine for you is the one that you like.
SPEAKER 14 :
And that’s kind of our attitude in Lodi, too, is that we don’t want to bring in any rules and all that. It’s just about enjoying it and traveling. If you like a sweet wine, we have some places that make sweet wines. If you like dry wines, we have dry wines. And it’s a combination of those things that I think makes it a very fun and interesting place to visit and discover some delicious wines.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, and my husband and I were up for a wedding in Seattle, and they have one little town north of Seattle that had a whole bunch of tasting rooms. It was very expensive, and we went to two different tasting rooms. We used to love, they made great zin, and they had some great different varietals years ago. We were excited to see that. Everything was exactly the same thing. Everything was Bordeaux blend, the Cabernet, Merlot, all that. Or an un-oaked Chardonnay, kind of that citrusy kind of Chardonnay stuff. That was it. That was all we had to choose from. We even went around and said, does anybody have red Zinfandel? Does anybody have, you know, oaky, buttery Chardonnay or, you know, stuff like that? Nobody in town out of like 30 tasting rooms. So Lodi has a much greater variety than you’re going to find just about any of the big places like Napa and Sonoma. You’re not going to find that same variety.
SPEAKER 14 :
No, and I think that’s one of the things that’s appealing to a newer generation of kids who are getting into wine is they don’t want to do what their parents did, so they’re looking for all these other different flavors that come from wine grapes. And we have a lot to offer in that regard, and they’re at approachable prices, so it makes it a great place to visit.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, so we’re going to be signing off in just a minute. How do people get more information on visiting Lodi?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, you can go to LodiWine.com or visit Lodi.com, and both of those places have great resources for the wineries and hotels and food to visit, and we welcome all. We have a beautiful wine visitor center that we run, and our staff there is very well-trained to kind of direct people to where their interests might be best met.
SPEAKER 17 :
Wonderful. Thank you so much. So we’re going to sign off, but thank you so much for joining us, Stuart. I look forward to meeting you when we go out to Lodi.
SPEAKER 14 :
Happy to have you.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, great. Take care. Quote, for the end of the day, beer is made by man, wine by God. And that was from Martin Luther. Let’s see. Well, so today, be grateful. Read great books. Think good thoughts. Listen to beautiful music. Communicate and listen well. Live honestly and authentically. Strive for high ideals. And like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. You are not alone. God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 19 :
To this great unknown I don’t want no one to cry But tell them if I don’t serve
SPEAKER 05 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
