Last Updated on April 6, 2023 by
Andrew Quady is the Co-founder and CEO of Quady Winery. His path into the wine world started when he and his wife, Laurel, moved to the San Joaquin Valley to pursue a rural lifestyle.
While there, Andrew discovered an unused patch of the rare Orange Muscat grape varietal, known in Italy as Moscato Fior d’Arancio. These grapes became Quady Winery’s first full-bodied sweet wine, Essensia, and marked the birth of the winery’s Muscat expertise.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Andrew Quady shares how he got into the wine industry
- Andrew talks about his first effort at making wines under the Quady Winery label
- The origins of Quady Winery’s Elysium Black Muscat dessert wine
- Andrew shares how the winery came up with its Electra line
- The process of making low-alcohol wine
- Andrew gives a glimpse of their winery, Quady North, in Oregon
- How Salt of the Earth functions under the Quady banner
In this episode with Andrew Quady
How do you make a lasting mark in the industry? What can you do to set yourself apart from the competition?
Today’s guest was lucky to discover an unused patch of the rare Orange Muscat grape varietal, leading to his winery’s muscat expertise. Today, Quady Winery remains celebrated for its legacy and continues to offer more product lines to its customers.
In today’s episode of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast, Drew Thomas Hendricks and Bianca Harmon are joined by Andrew Quady, Co-founder and CEO of Quady Winery, as he shares his journey in the wine industry and how he and his wife made wines under their label for the first time. Andrew also talks about their product line-making process and gives a glimpse of the other brands under the Quady banner.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Barrels Ahead
- Drew Thomas Hendricks on LinkedIn
- Bianca Harmon on LinkedIn
- Andrew Quady on LinkedIn
- Quady Winery
- Quady North
- Darrell Corti on LinkedIn
- Randall Grahm on LinkedIn
- Cowhorn Vineyard
- Salt of the Earth
- “Biodynamic and Regenerative Farming With Craig Camp of Troon Vineyard”
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Barrels Ahead.
Barrels Ahead is a wine and craft marketing agency that propels organic growth by using a powerful combination of content development, Search Engine Optimization, and paid search.
At Barrels Ahead, we know that your business is unique. That’s why we work with you to create a one-of-a-kind marketing strategy that highlights your authenticity, tells your story, and makes your business stand out from your competitors.
Our team at Barrels Ahead helps you leverage your knowledge so you can enjoy the results and revenue your business deserves.
So, what are you waiting for? Unlock your results today!
To learn more, visit barrelsahead.com or email us at hello@barrelsahead.com to schedule a strategy call.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Legends Behind the Craft podcast where we feature top leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry with your host Drew Hendricks. Now let’s get started with the show.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 0:19
Drew Thomas Hendricks here I’m the host of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast. On the show I talk with leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry. Today I’m super excited we have a legend on the show Andrew Quady of Quady Winery. Before I formally introduce them, I want to give a quick sponsor message. Today’s episode is sponsored by Barrels Ahead. At Barrels Ahead, we work with you to implement a one of a kind marketing strategy. When that highlights your authenticity, tells your story and connects you with your ideal customers. In short, we have wineries and craft beverage producers unlock their story to unleash their revenue could have barrelsahead.com today to learn more. Today we have Bianca Harmon on the show. She’s one of our DTC strategist at Barrels Ahead. How’s it going, Bianca?
Bianca Harmon 1:05
I’m great Drew. Looking forward to talking to Andy today.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 1:09
Yes, I’m super excited to talk with Andrew Quady. He’s the co founder and CEO of Quady Winery in Madera, California. Welcome to the show, Andrew.
Andrew Quady 1:19
Thank you, Drew, and Bianca. It’s gonna be fun to join you too. And I think I never get tired of telling the story of of Quady Winery. So
Drew Thomas Hendricks 1:30
yes, and you know what, to in full candidness I gotta tell our listeners, I can’t wait to hear it. We started the show and I forgot to hit record. So this is actually the second time you get to tell it. So Andrew, please tell me how did you start? How did you get into the wine business?
Andrew Quady 1:46
So our first effort at making wines under the our own label came about in 1975. When I was it was my I guess I had been a winemaker for about three, three years then at 75. Right. So any case Darrell Corti who is a legend in the wine world himself, especially when it comes to things like Sherry and port, he asked me to make a port for him from Zinfandel grapes are grown without irrigation in in the elevated part of Amador County about the 2000 foot elevation something like that. So that was at the time I was working for a winery called Lodi vintners. And I was the winemaker there. And I was able to let the owners of the company allow me to use their equipment and everything to make this port which is going to be under my own label and such so. So we made the port. And I managed to get it I changed jobs, actually, shortly after I’ve made the port and, and so I’ve had a friend though in the Napa Valley, who let me move the port over to his winery, barrel that down there for a few years. And then we got it bottled at another winery over in Napa. And that was the first quality for it. And I made 1600 cases of it. Oh, wow. So the reason it was such a large amount was that the tank size where I was working, the smallest tank they had was about 30,000 gallons so and I wanted to be able to put at least a couple of feet of pumice on the bottom of the port so we could pump so we could pump it over. Yeah, so that ended up making about you know, ended up with 1600 cases of pretty good Zinfandel port. So that’s how I got started.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 4:07
That’s great now it’s 1600 cases. How did you sell How did you sell six oh
Andrew Quady 4:14
that’s that was really important part of it as you could imagine because as it turned out Darrell Corti really only not one wanted 100 Or so he had an end he had these this consortium of stores I think all together with the him and that his conservative of stores, they bought maybe three or 400 cases. And so when I got in the port business I don’t know what happened but the time that I changed jobs, and I was working for a really big winery in Madera called went by different names. The old name for it was mission Bell. The time I was one working there, it was called heublein Fine Wines and heublein was a company known for vodka they owned. I think they might earn Smyrna Smirnoff vodka in that in those days. So, but they were in the wine business, they owned mission Bell, they own bull you and they own Eagle look. And I worked at the facility in Madera. Okay. And so I had, after about the time, we got the wine, the port bottle, and we were in, it was ready to sell. And Darryl had received his 100 cases or so I started getting phone calls from people about the fact that they wanted to sell my port or something. I got a phone call from a company in San Francisco that wanted to sell it there and a company and wanted to sell it nationwide. And pretty soon, after a few years, the 1600 cases was about gone. Well, that’s, that’s fantastic. And that’s how I got golden gold. But
Drew Thomas Hendricks 6:12
before that, know that, now’s the time to ask, let’s say you had a brief career in the explosive industry.
Andrew Quady 6:18
Well, yes. So before I went up to Davis and and got my master’s degree in science, winemaking, I was working in chemical engineering in college. So I had a degree in engineering, and working for a company that military. And the I didn’t really that much. I mean, it was an interesting job. A lot of technical problems and challenges. But after I met my wife, my wife and and we got married. My main interest was food and wine. And I just started like to cook and, and we had subscribed to the Time Life series of cookbooks, which came every few months. And oh, yeah. And I was just starting to learn about wine. And then one of the guys at the place where I was working, told me to read this column by Robert balls, or for the LA Times, and Bowser was always talking about exciting new things in the wine business. And so I thought, well, yeah, maybe if I change jobs, I might just go back to school and become a winemaker. And the chemistry wouldn’t be wouldn’t hurt me at all. See, so that’s what I did. And one day, I got a phone call actually, it was New Year’s Eve. And they’d had a an accident at the, at the fireworks factory, which had a fire there. And a building which contained a lot of rockets had caught on fire. And the rockets were taking off on their own. And so they it was quite a bit of an excitement. That night, and Fontana, which is where the business was located. And the the rockets went up in the air, and the payload wasn’t high explosive. It was just a bunch of aluminum foil. There was a it was actually the rocket was a countermeasure of military countermeasure intended to fool the enemy’s radar by creating a bunch of false targets. So the air they launched the National Guard and all sorts of things. And then the net result though, the plant decided to close and they laid everybody off, which was great because I now had six months of unemployment. Well, and I in I got myself admitted to UC Davis and was on my way to getting my second degree. And food science actually with a specialization in winemaking. Oh, wow. So there we go.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 9:18
That’s how that’s how you went made it and if it wasn’t for that mishap at the fireworks factory. Get the leeway so big. So I got I just started. So you are. Talk to me about Muscat. You’re synonymous with that.
Andrew Quady 9:34
Hold on, I gotta turn this phone off here. We’ll stop it here. Okay. Okay, so what was the question guys?
Drew Thomas Hendricks 9:45
Yeah, we just want to get right right into.
Andrew Quady 9:48
That’s a good place to that’s a good place to talk to. So we’re, we’re done talking about port for a while. So the Muscat thing What Laurel and I did after we, after I graduated, as we just we took our net worth, which was maybe, I don’t know, a couple $1,000 or something like that. And we blew the whole thing on a trip to France and came back and went on food stamps. And I but any case before that, when we were in France, one of the places we went to was some kind of a little restaurant near in the town of orange, which is in the in the Rhone Valley see. And actually, when we were in a rhonj, we, they have a Roman amphitheater, they’re sort of almost like the Colosseum in Rome, but it’s in the middle of France. So it’s a little it’s a little Coliseum, still probably bigger than most of our a lot of our football stadiums. But anyway, so they had this thing, and we were wandering around there, and then we move on to have lunch. And so we found this restaurant, and I and ordered that price fix lunch, which came with a dessert, which was a piece of cake. And the cake was accompanied by a small glass of Muscat wine. And this was a wine that are you familiar with musket bombed Vinnies Oh, you guys very much. So it was bombed to the knee. So bonus, as made near that nearby, the city of orange. And the the we thought it was really an exciting thing and was really delicious. And then to the cake and the and the wine went so well together? Yeah. And it just seemed the perfect way to finish a lunch. And we’d really never had a dessert wine like that before. I’ve had so turns, but in the whole my whole experience at UC Davis and all the organoleptic things. I’ve never had a fortified Muscat. Yeah, like bombed Vinnies which is, which is really it’s a fortified juice. But they get the Muscat grapes nice and ripe. And they get the fermentation started. And in the maybe it ferments a little bit not much enough to create a one or 2% alcohol, let’s say and then they add neutral spirits or they had actually some kind of great, a great neutral spirit to it. And that was bombed to the knees. Okay. And that’s and no book No. Okay, age at all whole thing is done in stainless steel. So you, you make it in the fall, you bottle it in the spring and you buy the next day, fall you’re making another batch. Very simple. So after by the time I got to Madera and I was working there, and we sold, we were selling all the port. I started in the port business actually with a little 40 foot square winery that we put up behind our house. And they leave make wine there on evenings and weekends. And then the farm advisor for Madera County. One day, I forget where they came by or just called me up on the telephone, he wanted to know if I might be any interested in some orange Muscat grapes. And I had had those I’d worked with those grapes actually, in Davis as a student. We had a project one, one year in the winemaking part where we’re supposed to make a wine from from these orange Muscat grapes because they had some growing into at UC Davis. But as far as I knew, there weren’t really any commercially grown in California at that time. And I thought it might be fun to make a another wine besides port, especially a white desert wine, which would be a company which would be you know, another sort of expand our offerings of dessert wines. Having both, I had been thinking about white port, but now these Muscat vines appeared and I remembered the bones of a nice wine and France. And I thought, Okay, what if I made these these grapes into something along the lines of the boom to the knees? And so that was really the first effort into Muscat grapes. And the variety is different from Muscat, Blanc, or mustard, or Moscato bianco, or Muscat Canelli, which is all the same thing which is the The main variety that is used in France to make Boehm to bunnies and also the main Muscat variety grown in Italy in the better wine regions which is near Scotland. Asti, for example. Yes, that’s all. That’s all this Muscat Canelli, Moscato Bianco. So, but orange Muscat was different because it had this orange apricot character and had a little bit of like bitterness to it turns out as a very high or very high phenolic for white grape. And so we arranged to have to buy some from these growers. And they were it was down in Reedley is where their their vineyard was. Where’s really? Oh, it’s about an hour south of here. Okay. Yeah. I think what happened is, there’s a winery down there called Chateau LaSalle. Which, if you remember that, that was once a brand of the Christian Brothers. Yeah. And so the Christian brothers had a had a facility down there that made this a white sweet, Chateau LaSalle I think they call it and then they also had a brandy operation down there in Reedley so but some farmers from Madera had bought the, bought the vineyards, not in the winery, they bought the vineyards. And so they own this. They own a lot of Muscat grapes, among which was about a 10 acre, parcel of this variety, orange, Muscat, you know, most people had really never heard of. So I got the idea of trying to make a nice dessert wine and and what I did differently than what they do in Bogota bunnies is probably the skin contact is a really important thing. I decided to give it some skin contact to increase the freital character and give it more body.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 17:04
And then also the beautiful color. Yeah.
Andrew Quady 17:07
And of course, then you get the color too, right, you get some that golden color comes out. And then give it a little age and Franschhoek to add another level of complexity that way. And that was that was sent to us, you
Drew Thomas Hendricks 17:24
know, how did I and then from
Andrew Quady 17:27
the I’m sorry, the name? Yeah. Oh, well, it was the essence of the grape, because of the skin contact period. So we were capturing the essence of the grape. No relation to the Hungarian wine of the same, but we were named, but we were actually fortunate enough to be able to get that name trademarked because in those days, there was none of the Hungarian Sensia for sale in the United States. And so they let me trademark it. And so any case, so we had of since you mean it is now within a few years, though, we were selling more of that than we were the port. And that’s how we really got going in this business and, and down the road to making a lot more different kinds of Muscat wines.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 18:14
Yeah, then I, when I first got my start in the wine industry back in the early 90s, that in San Francisco, I’d definitely remember selling these scents in the illicium. And there was nothing there was nothing really like that. In the other sweet wine category. It was, it was a very special.
Andrew Quady 18:34
You’re right in dimension Elysium to like a red sweet dessert wine like that had never been done. Of course, everybody’s had port, right, which is a red sweet dessert wine. But this was one with just 15% Alcohol. And which was bottled when it’s young and fresh. So we were really just like with a Sensia, capturing the aromatics of the orange Muscat grape. The Elysium was capturing the special or aromatics of the Muscat Homburg, which in California is called Black Muscat. And the, that grape variety and I was surprised, but a grower how we’ve been black Muscat, a grower, in men tikka, and some black Muscat and drew Do you remember the novitiate Winery at all?
Drew Thomas Hendricks 19:38
I don’t
Andrew Quady 19:38
appreciate it in Los Gatos. So the religious order that had the winery, okay, and their most popular wine was made from Muscat Hamburg. And they had but they were not doing very well financially. And so they But, but on the other hand, they they got this guy and Ben Mantega to put in some acreage of Muscat Hamburg. And then they then they went broke. And so he called me because somebody told him Well Andy Quady is by Anna Muscat grapes call him. So we started buying this guy’s black Muscat. And that’s where Elysium came from. And the neat thing about it was that if you got those grapes really ripe, they start to smell like roses, or they make the wine smell like roses. And my professor at Davis, I talked to him about this. Well, actually, I can’t remember it might have been in one of his classes. But beta phenethyl alcohol, which is the aroma of roses, especially red roses, is found in wine. And found in cognac. Really, it’s a it’s metabolized. It’s generated by yeast, infections in grapes. And I’m certain precursors that come from the from certain varieties of grapes. And black and the Muscat Hamburg is the one that has the most recognizable level of it in there. So yeah, so sort of, so we, we did a lot of experiments with the guy in his vineyard and, and pulling leaves to get more sunlight on the grapes, which seemed to bring more flavor and getting the grapes to a very high level of sugar. Like, we’d like to higher harvest from around over 26 bricks, which is way, way high for most, no, but so we’re picking these things in October, which everybody else was picking them in early September or something,
Bianca Harmon 21:45
you have to worry, I mean, with like when people are doing late harvest, so you know, you you want the bowtie buttress because you want that you want that rot that mold, but sometimes if there’s too much rain, they can go well, Bianca
Andrew Quady 21:59
That’s right. Why they the people had most people who are trying to make and we couldn’t should have gotten into the late harvest thing a little bit. But most wineries who are thinking of sweet wine, are thinking of something along the line of a sub turn. Yeah, right, Marie, or, or Trockenbeerenauslese or something. And those are detritus affected. Right? Right. And so what I was doing was just working with non botrytis affected grapes. And not even raising they were they were starting to shrivel a little bit if you pick up at 26 or 27. But we didn’t want to raise them. We wanted them to be have the not have a raisin taste to have the flavor. Oh, that bright fruit, right. So we were doing something quite different. And also from a business standpoint, you know, you didn’t need to sell it for $50 for a half bottle. Sell it. Yeah, like $10 for a full bottle.
Bianca Harmon 23:03
It’s interesting, though, that you were I guess I was just asking because I worked at a winery here in Santa Lena, where we had a Muscat and we had a Moscato, Moscato present day. And our Muscat grapes were still coming in earlier. So like right around, sometimes the Sauvignon Blanc would be. So it’s interesting to me that you’re still harvesting in late October for it.
Andrew Quady 23:28
Yeah, on the black Muscat. Orange, the orange does come in early. And also the Muscat kamilly. It comes in. We use all three now. That’s the canal. The canal is the first one. In fact, here in Madera. This year. We’re about I think we’re finished with the finale and have finished with the orange. And we’re just on September 1.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 23:52
Were you affected at all by the we’re in August right now. And I know you had some big fires in Madeira. Earlier this year by you somebody were you affected by this? Oh,
Andrew Quady 24:00
not this year? Yeah. Well, you know what, there was one earlier in Yosemite. Yeah. By grant by Wawona Grove or something like that grant. Brooke. Any case? Yeah. And it but it wasn’t the wind was blowing the wrong way. And we didn’t get any smoke from Oh,
Drew Thomas Hendricks 24:18
yeah. Thanks, God. We hear hear the news. They hear the cities and I always kind of wonder what happens there. But getting back to black Muscat here. Just ask a random question. Why does the religious orders like Muscat so much? Seems like both of the orange Muscat and black Muscat came from sacrificial or sacramental wines and
Andrew Quady 24:40
oh, that’s a good question. I don’t know. They like sweet wine. See the the, you know, if it wasn’t Muscat, it would still probably be sweet. frequently. And yeah, teach me. I don’t know.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 24:58
Just kind of kind of crust and watch
Andrew Quady 25:00
the religious connection with sweet red wine. Yeah, sacrificial youth sacramental, that sacrifice, sacramental use
Drew Thomas Hendricks 25:08
sacramental use. So then some black Mosca you did the sweet what happens if you do a dry version
Andrew Quady 25:14
of Black Muscat? I’ve never tried it. There are there are of course dry versions of, of Moscato Bianco. And like, like, especially in oil sauce, right. So those are the those are very successful. Yeah.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 25:36
I was wondering if there’s a very good reason why, oh, you never want to do that.
Andrew Quady 25:40
You know what, here’s one thing about Muscat grapes. And they’re one of the reasons why winemakers like to make sweet wine out of them. It’s because they taste like dessert. They have the there are very floral, and the floral thing. It’s almost why do we need that flowery thing for a dry wine? It’s like, most people are like dry wine. They like fruit, but they don’t want it to distaste like a bowl of flowers, you know? So I think that’s because you can make them into dry wines. And you could make the black Muscat into a dry wine.
Bianca Harmon 26:17
So does your black Muscat actually read in color? Because there’s very few grapes that actually produce a red juice. So does the black musket produce that darker juice color? Yeah. Interest
Andrew Quady 26:31
not a real? It’s not a real black wine, but it’s a light read.
Bianca Harmon 26:36
Yeah. Interesting.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 26:40
So then you have kind of moved into talk to me about the Electra line. That’s something I’m not
Andrew Quady 26:47
so Okay, so we came up with the first Electra in 1990. My winemaker and I were was sort of thinking about other types of wine that could be made from these orange my stat and, and also we had some Muscat Canelli grapes that we were working with for a Sensia. And so at that point, we’d only made a Sensia. So we’re making a 15% alcohol, sweet wine. So both Mike Blaylock, by winemaker at the time and myself we we’d both been to college and studied, you know, modern winemaking and were understood how you could make really nice, sweet white wines by using sterile filtration for event fermentation. So when you’ve got a when you’ve got a wine that’s 15% alcohol, like a Sensia, and it also has got a level of sugar in that same range, that same 15% Sugar 15% alcohol, something like that. It the yeast long, if there’s yeast in there, they won’t format, they won’t format it, there is a cow formula that if you take the alcohol and you follow it by one number you add on the sugar. And if that number exceeds some number, then we just call a deli unit then that a vote for man. So the great thing about that is you can take that line, you can put it in an oak barrel and you can age it that way. You don’t need to worry about it reformatting. It’s never going to reformat in the bottle. But if you have a say a 10% Alcohol wine with 10% sugar in it. You can’t bottle that. You can’t put that in a barrel. You can’t do anything with it, except keep it real cold so it went from it. And then filter out all those yeast using sterile filtration. Get all the yeast filtered out and then bottle it with zero yeast in there are very, very small number of tiny, tiny, tiny numbers of yeast. And then if you did that, right, you were real careful. Your wine wouldn’t reformat. So that’s what
Drew Thomas Hendricks 29:22
they did. And if you did it wrong, you’d have an explosion factory again. Oh, you
Andrew Quady 29:26
just tell your bottles blowing up or they blow all the cap See, or people would unscrew it and they would they’d lose half their bottle because it would fit right out the top as soon as they unscrew the top you know? Yeah. So that’s how you make Moscato Dostie and, and all the low alcohol German wines that way too. And so you’ll learn about that and in school and you’ll learn about Millipore filters and stuff, and how do you have a sterile atmosphere in your body? mean setup and all that stuff. So Mike Blaylock and I decided to, we would experiment that with that and we made and so what we did is the first one we made. We took some fermenting orange Muscat choose and it tasted it, and when it tasted really nice, without measuring the alcohol or anything just tastes good down, we put it in the refrigerator and stop the fermentation. And later on after the yeast have sort of settled out to the bottom, we tasted it and we tasted this is wonderful. And then we bottle we checked the alcohol it was only four and a half percent. Oh, and so we thought oh, look at it’s whatever. Okay, fine. We’ll, we’ll we’ll Barlet four and a half percent. And so we were ended up being a percent lower alcohol in Muscat. elasti. But that’s, that’s the way we’ve made a sense of or electro ever since. And then the red Electra, which we made with the Muscat Homburg is about four and a half percent the electors only four and a half percent.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 31:10
I had no idea that’s gotta be. It took a while for the low alcohol wines to really, they’re all the rage right now.
Andrew Quady 31:18
I know. And ours is even lower than Moscato Losties. Got to be the lowest one out there almost. Maybe there’s some that are down around two. I don’t know. If you get low enough. You don’t even call them wine. In fact, you can’t call them wine. Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah, yeah. Well in, in Europe, you’ve got to have at least 7% to put the word wine on the label.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 31:42
Really? What if it’s like six? What do they call it?
Andrew Quady 31:45
They call it partially fermented grape juice. Oh, wow.
Bianca Harmon 31:49
I didn’t know that. Yeah.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 31:53
Yeah, no.
Andrew Quady 31:55
I mean, we we are our importer in the United Kingdom. That’s why he didn’t want to import it. Also, you know what? He was doing so well with the Essensia since he was, you know, all these nice restaurants and in the UK, and why did he want to mess up a good deal by just selling something that’s cheaper? Right. So yeah, so. So we never did that. But yeah, that was that was in the 90s. Yeah, we do sell it in Holland now. Germany. I think a I think I know we’re selling the low alcohol. Electra in Holland.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 32:41
Yeah, I don’t think yeah, the timing is just perfect for electro right now. And also the, your, one of the, the Essensia. The, the the skin contact was one of the original orange wines, which is also all the rage right now. And then obviously in contact fermentation. Exactly.
Andrew Quady 32:59
Orange wine. And then that course that all gets gets all confused with orange Muscat and everything. But yeah, we’re right. By the way, the way we made a sense here, we were making wine from Orange Muscat grapes. And it sort of tastes like orange. And by the way, it happens to be buried and in the method known as orange winemaking, which is, which is really a little bit more fermenting on the skins that we do. Yeah, we do. So some soaking for a few days.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 33:31
It is funny that I see it now. And all the all the bars, they’ll have red wines, white wines, orange wines, and I always think of a subsea Oh, this is very different. Yeah, yep. So. So that was the 90s. We’re just kind of going. I’m just kind of going through the whole chronicle history of you. But so you did make the break from from Madeira. And now you have a winery up in Oregon. Quady North?
Andrew Quady 33:57
What foods? Yeah, so I’ll tell you about Quady North. So we, my wife and I really tried very hard to discourage our children from going into the wine business. Why? Because the there wasn’t any money in it. And we felt we didn’t want to have to support them, or winery, which barely was making enough to support us see. So don’t don’t don’t go in the wine business. Our son so, so we wanted our son to become a lawyer. Because my CPA lawyer in the firm, be about right. So any case he studied, he went off to UC Santa Cruz and he studied, you know, political science and and then he was supposed to go meet with his counselor and talk about what he was going to do with his life after he graduated. And the counselor said If you want to be a winemaker, you see wine
Drew Thomas Hendricks 35:06
following a passion, so
Andrew Quady 35:07
he said he came, he said he didn’t care about whether he made any money adding a winemaker. So he was living with his girlfriend over there. And she hadn’t graduated yet. And so I called up my good friend, Randall Grahm, and asked him and I said that my son might be interested in but and then, and he said, Okay, I’ll I’ll, I’ll interview your son. And so he went it or herb went over to body dune. And they hired him. And so he worked over there for a couple of years, until Melanie finished her degree. And then the two of them came back to Madera and we hired herb to be assistant winemaker on the condition that he went to Fresno State. He took all the classes he could take on winemaking and viticulture and everything. And then he did all that. And then he decided he just didn’t want to work for us because he realized he wanted to make dry wines. So he found a winery to to work for up in Oregon. And he went to work up for a winery that was getting started up there called Carl horn, and they were doing biodynamic. And he helped them get started. And then cow horn actually had financial problems and couldn’t afford him or whatever. So he went over to this other winery called Troon. And oh, they hired him. He they hired him to be as assistant winemaker and then he became the winemaker there when the winemaker quit.
Bianca Harmon 37:01
So, podcast. Yeah. Yeah, we had turned on the podcast.
Andrew Quady 37:07
new dimension herb at all.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 37:10
It was it was the new wine. It was the new winemaker there.
Andrew Quady 37:14
Yeah. All right. So any case Herb was the winemaker before that? Probably before the one they had, but herb after wild got a got some got some friends together and investors and was able to start his own winery with some investors. And they used a leased facility. They they rented some space and what used to be an old pair process pair storage place deal. And so they they had his winery did there and he actually has done quite well. And he does some a lot of does a wines on his own under his own label and also custom custom crush customers. Oh, yeah. And just earlier this year. We we financed to do winery for him so he doesn’t have to the least winery more or least silty?
Drew Thomas Hendricks 38:17
Yeah, so I’ve just came online in January of 22.
Andrew Quady 38:21
Yeah, so he’s got his new winery on 100 acres of land that we’ve got there in the Applegate Valley. So he’s, he’s off on his own. That’s great.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 38:32
Yeah, success story. It’s not right. Out on the parents go anymore. That’s great. And that’s it. That’s a dry Rhone varietals. That’s what he
Andrew Quady 38:43
specializes in. Exactly. And that Ron Ron, Ron grapes also must. Also he does Cabernet Franc. Okay. Oh,
Drew Thomas Hendricks 38:51
great. Yeah, I hear that Applegate Valley is really good for that warmer, warmer area.
Andrew Quady 38:57
Yeah. Yeah. Then compared with the rest of Oregon, right, where there are rules. So
Drew Thomas Hendricks 39:03
Andy, I gotta, I gotta ask him. 79 is now 2022. How do you stay motivated over all these years?
Andrew Quady 39:11
Well, the problem is that we can’t make enough wine. And we have to keep expanding. And right now we’re at about, oh, we’re making about 170,000 cases. We’re trying to grow. We have a we have enough land here. By the time we use a bunch of a for wastewater disposal, we can make maybe 300,000 cases. So we’re, we’re looking at would be coming up a 300,000 cases at about five, six years from now. And yeah, and where
Drew Thomas Hendricks 39:50
do you see so where’s the growth segment? As you’re doubling your production? Is it going to be in the Essensia?
Andrew Quady 39:57
No, it’s all of that low alcohol. All on the electra.Sure, which established a new brand to cold Salt of the Earth. Uh huh. Oh, which is doing very well. So we have a Electra red Electra, there’s a Rosae Electra there’s a sense in Elysium there are vermouth all under the Quady banner, and then under Salt of the Earth, which is a separate company, just two mines. Moscato Rubino and Florida, Moscato. Oh, but just a little bit more alcohol than a sensing Elysium. are then I then the electric, more like seven and a half instead of four and a half.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 40:38
No. So I was wondering on that, on that low alcohol, we’re starting to see these low alcohol beers, and they’re calling them athletic beers. You’re gonna embrace athletic wines.
Andrew Quady 40:49
Athletic, really lower alcohol,
Drew Thomas Hendricks 40:51
you can go on a run right afterwards.
Andrew Quady 40:54
So they’re like, What was the member? Then? There was a time when you when if the beer was below a certain amount? I don’t know. under age people could drink it or something. Yeah. Alcoholic beers.
Bianca Harmon 41:09
No.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 41:11
I think it was like a three
Andrew Quady 41:12
to beer you could eat can Yeah, something like
Drew Thomas Hendricks 41:16
that was a while ago. Yeah. All the all the microbreweries by us are now having these, the cephalic beer section. We’re like the three and 4% beer.
Andrew Quady 41:26
So that’s they’re they’re keeping them down below for that. Yeah. And then you remember when the beers were? They were starting to make them like 10.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 41:35
Yeah. The pendulum that we saw centers, but I love what you’re doing with Electra there. That’s that’s exciting.
Andrew Quady 41:46
So yeah, it’s you know, it’s we have a bigs, what is what has happened with us, is that there’s a huge slice of Americans who love soft drinks, they grow up on soft drinks. And then and it may also be that a lot of people just can’t handle drinking beverages that are sour, see. And so there’s a big market for wines that aren’t sour and bitter sweet instead. And so that’s what so if you make a what we’ve done, actually, I guess, is to have something that is in that category, which also has a nice flavor profile. That is very appealing to too many Americans. And we know that’s the case, because we can’t make enough notice. That is so run out every year.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 42:54
Oh man, I’m happy. I’m so happy. It’s a success. And so Andrew, we’d kind of wrapped down here Andy. What, um, where can people find out more about you and Quady Wines? Where do they I’m sorry, Drew, where can people find out more about Quady Winery online?
Andrew Quady 43:11
Oh, probably just go to the website, quadywinery.com The place to start, or that’s the Salt of the Earth website to
Drew Thomas Hendricks 43:20
Yes, I’m gonna check that out. Yeah, I’ll be Salt of the Earth sounds good. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today.
Andrew Quady 43:30
Thank you Drew. This has been fun. Thank you, Bianca.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 43:36
Have a great day. Yeah.
Outro 43:44
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