Last Updated on January 12, 2023 by

Angelica O’Reilly is the Owner of Distaff Wine Co. in Newberg, Oregon. Angelica and her daughters felt dictated about how and why people should enjoy certain wines. They noticed that the industry focused less on creating a conversation and learning and more on rigid rules and tradition. This led to them creating Distaff to make unique, fun wines, share their stories, and hear what loyal customers have to say. 

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

•  Angelica O’Reilly shares how she started in the industry
•  Angelica talks about the difference between wine and beer
•  What are the challenges in bottling wine?
•  The current status of the wine industry
•  Angelica gives a glimpse of the O’Reilly Family Wine

In this episode with Angelica O’Reilly

In the wine industry, women typically do not get much credit for what they do. This was what Angelica O’Reilly and her daughters realized, which made them want to start Distaff Wine Co.

Distaff, which means “women’s work,” aims to showcase the talent and diligence of women winemakers. Through the power of family ties and hard work, Angelica and her four daughters are bringing unique, hard-to-find varietals to the public.

In this episode of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast, Drew Thomas Hendricks and Bianca Harmon are joined by Angelica O’Reilly, the Owner of Distaff Wine Co. Angelica talks about how her family started the business, the inspiration behind their brand, and the impact it has brought to the industry over the years.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Barrels Ahead
• Drew Thomas Hendricks on LinkedIn  
• Bianca Harmon on LinkedIn  
• Angelica O’Reilly on LinkedIn
• Distaff Wine Co.
• Nomen Wine
• Owen Roe

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 0:21

Drew Thomas Hendricks here, the host of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast. On this show, I talk with leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry. Today’s episode is sponsored by Barrels Ahead. At Barrels Ahead, we work with you to implement a one of a kind marketing strategy that highlights your authenticity, tells your story and connects you with your ideal customers. In short, we help wineries and craft beverage producers unlock their story, unleash their revenue, go to barresahead.com today to learn more than a day Bianca Harmon our DTC strategist is joining us again. How’s it going, Bianca?

Bianca Harmon 0:54

Going really good, Drew. I’m excited to talk with Angelica today.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 1:00

Yes, today we have Angelica O’Reilly. I’m super excited to talk to her. She’s the Co-founder of Owen Roe Winery in the staff, Distaff Wine Company. Welcome to the show Angelica. 

Angelica O’Reilly 1:10

Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 1:15

Oh, that’s a pleasure to have you on. So Angelica, tell us a little bit about how you get your start in the industry. And make

Angelica O’Reilly 1:21

it oh gosh, many years ago back in 99, our family started owning a winery. And back then we did everything from from the vineyard all the way to the bottle. And we continued to do that with our family for many years. So as we had children they know in fly pans or backpacks or whatever, whatever they were, you know, however they were at the time in the vineyards, picking grapes right along with this eating them as we picked and then you know on the starting line in the winery as they grew older. High schoolers would work after school, crushing grapes cellaring you know, punching down bottling, everything that was involved in the wine business. So we got started in the winery way back in 99. And the reason why we did we started in your in the wine business is because my husband I always really appreciated a family lifestyle from farm to table. And we wanted to do something off the land. And that would be so we’re thinking maybe cheese cheese making. We both love cheese or winemaking. And so we visited a bunch of farms, you know, kind of walked in the muck and just really didn’t. We love the idea of having cheese but not making a lot of vineyards. Yes, right. So then we went to a lot of vineyards and fell in love. So we just decided that was where we were, we’re going to start so he started off making wine while I did all the extra things to keep us going. And there we went. So our children were always a part of it. And our sons.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 3:06

What did you do before the wine business?

Angelica O’Reilly 3:08

Well, we were both in college, or we got married, and he worked in a winery. Okay, after the first we started, we were kind of searching for you. What we want to do is we want to start a family. So what do we do? How do we would we how are we going to support our family? What’s our we want a farm to table kind of lifestyle, but we were down in California. So it was it was difficult to actually start in California is a very expensive place to live. There were a lot of vineyard lands for sale, but we could actually get the skill down there. So David started working in the winery while I started doing other jobs just to keep us going. And then a couple years into it. He was hired at a winery in Oregon, which is where we really took off for their winemaking. And then we started a few projects on our own and then in 99 started one row.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 4:03

Okay. Oh, that’s that’s fantastic. So what was that? What appealed to you about Oregon? I mean, I love the Newburgh area, and my wife. My wife’s from Beaver Creek. Oh, not quite. In California is to their

Angelica O’Reilly 4:19

right where it was long story. Well, first of all, California is where I’m from. And so And David is originally from Ireland. So he coming down his family moved out to British Columbia, Canada, and still first cousins all the rest of his hands back in Ireland. Well, he wasn’t used to the climate in California. And every time he would do a drive from BC down to college, he would just fall in love with these rolling green hills, Oregon. And for him, that was where he just wanted to settle. And he fell in love with Pinot Noir and um I wasn’t a fan of Pinot Noir was more of a cab and serraj. person, but, but I was willing to give it a go. So given that it was there were opportunities in Oregon, as opposed to, you know, the opportunities we had to start in California just weren’t there. So we use Oregon, and it was close to his family being in British Columbia, five, six hours away. So that’s how we chose Oregon.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 5:25

It’s a beautiful area. So flash forward. So Owen row, it’s phenomenal wines. But now you’ve got a few other ventures and the one that I’m really curious about so Distaff, as you say, have five daughters.

Angelica O’Reilly 5:36

four daughters. So I mean, I’ve us all together.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 5:43

So time talk to me how talk to me about the staff and this family operation.

Angelica O’Reilly 5:48

So my daughters have always been in the, in the wine business, working behind the scenes with me. And we’ve done everything from office, where to vineyard work, to lab to winemaking cellaring everything in the wine business, but we kind of thought, well, the guys get all the credit. And girls really don’t get a lot of credit here, though, they’re working really hard. And, you know, I made labels, my daughter created labels. So we thought well, it came time for us to to look at our Owen Roe and think of what we wanted to do his own note was very, very large for for a family business. So we decided to sell Owen Roe, okay. And at that point, we decided to start a winery of our own. So my daughters and I thought, well, we can do this on our own, we can we can showcase women. And so all of our labels have some image of a woman on it in some sort of profession. And we also wanted to my daughters are being of the millennial and Gen Z or generations, they wanted to do things that were very clean and truly sustainable. Not just me, I find this as an owner I’ve always been sustainable we we farm organically we is natural vineyards as we can even you know very ethical with our employees, just all the way down to, you know, everything about our winery was was true and good. So we decided, well, we can carry that a little further. Because when we did Wine tastings and wine events, we noticed that there was a vast amount of waste in the bottle. Yeah, so you know, oh, yeah, you’d go to a wine event and there’d be you know, there’s 11,000 wineries in the US right? There’s like nicer than just an Oregon and that again in Washington. I think there’s less than that maybe 700 or something but you count the southern parts goes up a little more. Anyways. That’s a lot of glass. And only 31% of glass is ever recycled. That’s

Drew Thomas Hendricks 8:02

amazing. And also the fact that what do you think about wine bottles, those are not using recycled glass.

Angelica O’Reilly 8:08

So any event after like we’d get a huge like Wine Spectator event for example, in New York or Las Vegas wherever they happen to be held. And we hear that just the cleaning glass at the end of the day. Where is vast amount of glass growing, it’s it’s not being recycled, it’s not just being thrown somewhere and if it has been recycled, while it takes just as amount of gas emissions to recycle that glass as it almost does the first time to make it and the first time to make glass is almost double that that’s 70% or more higher than this to make a PT bottle and

Bianca Harmon 8:46

not be asked of the glass bottles that people are paying the state so

Angelica O’Reilly 8:51

you’re paying an enormous amount of money for the glass as opposed to the PE t so a lot of your costume buying wine is in the is in the packaging. It’s it’s it’s in the box, it’s in the it’s in the fillers that you have to put in to protect that glass it’s very fragile. And so the PE T bottles, they’re half the weight, we can stick them in a in a box we have engineered a box is perfect size to fit 12 bottles in a box and a four bottle box and you can you don’t need any extra you know protection on the page. Again. No so when it comes time to recycle, you just throw your entire bottle recycling bin you sorry your box and recycling bin it all goes into your your home recycling

Drew Thomas Hendricks 9:40

and talk to the average to the average consumer the PE T talking about without Mrs plastic because this is some pretty revolutionary packaging for

Angelica O’Reilly 9:51

right right in fact SitePoint Australia a lot of a couple miners in Australia behind me semesterly just went eating A couple of their friends and they’re producing a lot of PE tea in their factory. So what is PE

Drew Thomas Hendricks 10:04

So what is PET stands for people that don’t normally

Angelica O’Reilly 10:07

Polyethylene terephthalate. So it’s a it’s a product that at high temperatures is molded into whatever shape you want to shape it in is plastic. And it is but it’s good. Yeah, it’s the good class. BPA. No BPA has, you know, no, nothing that is dangerous to your system. It doesn’t have there’s no leaching in it. It’s been tested for the only way it could leach is if you were to like, I don’t microwave your bottle or put it right. What you don’t do is wine and you’re sure there’s

Drew Thomas Hendricks 10:41

a will there’s a way to find out but

Angelica O’Reilly 10:44

I’ll be doing that right if you’re if there are any danger of of leaching with that BT bond, you’ve already cooked your wine you don’t have with a glass bottle. Some people ask that question. What about you know, leaching? Are you worried about that? Well, no, because we don’t put our wine in those kind of temperatures, you destroy the wine, regardless of whether it’s glass or plastic. So yeah, so PET is one of those products that that is also infinitely recyclable. And as many times as you recycle it, it also cuts down on those gas emissions by percentages. So and it can be recycled into clothing, car parts, you know, kitchen Tupperware, microwavable tablet, just whole bunch of you know, plain parts, whatever you you know, whatever you need them for, they can be recycled into so as an infinite amount of uses and an infinite amount of times it can be recycled like you can keep recycling at and it

Drew Thomas Hendricks 11:45

keeps us integrity.

Bianca Harmon 11:46

That’s what I love. Integrity.

Angelica O’Reilly 11:49

Yeah, like this.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 11:52

We’re all from plastic bottles.

Angelica O’Reilly 11:54

Yes. So it’s a very strong plastic. That’s it’s not that flimsy plastic that you in fact, people have to actually pick up our bottles to know that they are that they are glass.

Bianca Harmon 12:06

I mean plastic. Yeah, from this angle. They look like a glass bottle. It looks like

Angelica O’Reilly 12:12

a glass bottle. And it is plastic. And people pick it up and they squeeze it. And they just can’t believe it. It’s it’s one of a kind. And

Drew Thomas Hendricks 12:23

so the costs, talk to me about the car. I mean, this is this is a really interesting subject for me, too. I mean, the cost of producing glass bottles versus the cost produce a PE T bottle.

Angelica O’Reilly 12:33

We’re talking cents $2. Back, it’s enormous. I don’t have the numbers in front of me. And I wish I did. It’s a except, yeah, it’s like a third of the price isn’t that

Bianca Harmon 12:45

and you so daughter came up with this correct.

Angelica O’Reilly 12:49

So we, when we had own row, we were approached by a company in London, to put one of our brands into a PE T bottle. We weren’t quite ready to do that. And there was a lot of back and forth between us. But the bottles were a different shape. They didn’t look like bottles. So it wasn’t a wasn’t a no brainer. For me. I didn’t look and go oh, yeah, I’d like to see my wine and that kind of packaging. They were, they were taught they had the same kind of a neck. But it was a flat, A flat surface, almost like a foot box. Oh is Angular. And it was made to fit in the mail slots in Europe. So they could just pop their bottles. And they would bounce because they’re not breakable. So, you know, it’s an ingenious idea. But in the US, we don’t have no slots like that, and they didn’t want to pack and you know that within the US we would we would have the problem of them chipping over in the shelves. There are a number of things that weren’t, we weren’t quite ready to do that on the back. But that’s a great idea. We’d like to revisit that sometime. So my daughter is now we’re deciding what to do. As far as coming up with a product and how he wanted to package it. We decided to try PT. Where do you find PE T? Like who makes it in the US? Well, we did find a company at a California and they did. We bought all the PT they had and this was during COVID. So we yeah so it was it was a challenge. But we were able to bottle all our wines using this and we want to use the same to make it simpler one use the same PT bottle, same shapes. So no difference between the you know, a Bordeaux and burgundy bottle. It’s all the same shape.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 14:38

There’s no conscious or is there a challenge

Angelica O’Reilly 14:43

on there sure was there was we brought one bottling line in they had 16 trucks of which only one could do this kind of product. So and then when it came time to do one to change our capsules to a nova twist which was a It’s also a PE t so so if there were any new backup, if there were any kind of leakage or any kind of oxidation, any kind of issues with the PET at all, it wouldn’t be through the plastic itself, it would be in the in the castle. So because you have you have aluminum on on plastic, so we wanted to go plastic on plastic. Plus there are some other stores that want to do that one to carry our wine, but asked us if we do plastic on plastic. So it was a one step bottling, I’m sorry, one step recycling. So we said sure, we can, we can investigate. So this a while. But we found one company that came to our winery and backed in his bottling line and worked with us for a whole day which would have just taken an hour or so to bottle our wine, it took us a whole day to figure out the just the fitting on the top because no one had done this before. So we were the first people to do the plastic on plastic. So now we have it. Now we have the science we have, you know, we have the track we have we have we have what we need to make it happen. And where

Bianca Harmon 16:09

are you getting the capsules from now the plastic capsules? Sorry,

Angelica O’Reilly 16:14

we actually yeah, those are all local too. So we’re getting everything that we can, we did order some original ones from France. And that was that was a delay in our bottling because it was so far away, we’re trying to get everything as local as possible, because that was the only place to have them, we want to have everything as local as possible to also cut down on on the fuel. So even with our shipping in our RPG product, these bottles fit in half the size of a box that not it’s even smaller than that when you consider the packaging that a glass case takes this is you know, just a fraction of the size. And so you can fit twice as much in one truck that you can for glass 22 trucks or last one truck of PET plus the weight. Much lighter. It’s hassle eight

Drew Thomas Hendricks 17:07

o’clock case the wines gender about 36 pounds. So we’re looking at about 18.

Angelica O’Reilly 17:12

So we we weighed we did this tests on one of our I think it’s on Instagram or something like this to a lot of social media, but they’re really good at it. But they did a little test. And it was like 41 42 pounds for the glass versus 20 SEMO is exactly half and they have it on video. So that’s it on a scale, measured it.

Bianca Harmon 17:34

So we in the interior consumers are probably paying less, even shipping wise,

Angelica O’Reilly 17:39

they’re paying less and shipping. So we ship free because we can absorb those costs. But you can’t ship blast free without it really affecting you. Unless you’re selling unless you’re shipping an enormous amounts, you know,

Bianca Harmon 17:54

tell me are these wines then are they more of, you know, you’re not storing and saving these wines. These are like drink now wines.

Angelica O’Reilly 18:03

Okay, so there’s another question for the industry. There. There have been tests or data collected, I should say, on the pattern that consumers are, are drinking now. And most consumers drink wine, if not the day of purchase within a week of purchase. So there’s a vast majority of people that are buying wine to drink now. And there’s a small amount of people that are buying wine to lay down. And so we decided to make our wines to drink now. So we’ve make very judicial decisions on you know, when it comes to harvest on you know, what, what the acidity levels, what can a tendency want, because they have to be perfect in the bottle now, because the wine that’s being put in the bottle isn’t going to change. What you open up and drink now is what you’re going to open up and drink up in two or three years. If you save that bottle, it’s not going to change whereas the glass bottle, you actually we made wines traditionally. And the style where they were, you know, the tannins had to had to mellow out in the bottle. The acidity levels were high, you know, and they’re beautiful over time. But you had to be willing to lay that bottle down for 510 15 years to get it at its best. And people just don’t drink like that anymore. Yeah.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 19:35

You would still think that a wine would evolve in a bat bottle because

Angelica O’Reilly 19:40

it’s just yeah, it’s because of the way the product is is no oxidation at all. There’s no there’s nothing to make it. Change.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 19:53

Yeah, I thought there was an anaerobic kind of option to that. That’s amazing.

Angelica O’Reilly 19:58

That’s amazing. That’s a lot of people. Yeah. And I think it’s a break in the industry. And I really hope a lot of people do it. We’ve been asked by a lot of people, why don’t you guys you know, copyright this or you know, or patent on it or whatever. But it’s it’s not a personal thing to us, it’s more of a we really feel the wind industry needs to change. Old stuck in the mud, everybody’s stuck on their, their glass bottles, nobody wants to change, while these millions of autos are being tossed into the earth, and they don’t break down for millions of years. And they’re just sitting there on the earth, they can get, you know, crashed, but it’s about as small as they’ll get.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 20:39

Sorry, are you helping other wineries with this process? Now?

Angelica O’Reilly 20:42

We are not because we are is a brand that we’re developing ourselves a real concentrating on doing what we want it as you know, our mission, but we don’t we don’t hide it from any other winery. And if people ask us, where do you get, you know, where do you get your supplies from and stuff? We’ll help them out. But no one no one wants it. I mean, in fact, in the industry, I think winemakers agree that this needs to happen. But no one’s willing to take that step.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 21:08

I think the consumers one day maybe demand that step. Oh, yeah,

Angelica O’Reilly 21:12

the consumers are we have. So that’s one of the things about we have a wine club, that’s called a subscription. And it’s mostly online. And we have reorders. And we’ve never seen that before in the industry, where people just keep reordering their wine by mail. So it’s almost a breakthrough in that way as well is that people know that they can get their wine right at their door, there’s there’s nothing that afterward, they can actually throw in a suitcase, they travel with it. We had one person in here who is a scuba diver, my daughter told me just last week, a week before, and he had us at some scuba diving event and he had a glass bottle with them. And it shattered and shards got into his suit. And it took them it was a huge process and a bigger deal to get every last bit of glass out of that suit when want to go and he said came in and bought plastic and said From now on I am never taking and as a glass bottle with me, it’s only going to be paid at and that’s why he buys from us. And again, I’ve heard it from places resorts, they don’t like glass around a swimming pools, you know, golf courses, there’s places that just don’t want glass. Oh, yeah. You know, what

Bianca Harmon 22:20

has there also been a negative side of it at all? Do you ever get the you know, consumers love glass to write? It Right. So

Angelica O’Reilly 22:32

yeah, that’s a good question. Because we do have people come in with a lot of questions. And oftentimes, it’ll be people with questions that they really don’t want you to answer. They just want to challenge you on it. And they go away with all their questions answered. You go, Oh, I didn’t realize, you know, it’s just a matter of education, I think. I think people have a misconception of what plastic is, and how it can be dangerous to you, if you drink out of plastic. They have you know, the story about the heat. And you know, all those questions we can answer. And so they go away believing in signing up on our mailing list. So

Bianca Harmon 23:10

yeah, that’s me, because it’s just like, almost like sometimes the court versus the screwcap debate with red wines, you know? And there’s no way you can age this red wine with a screwdriver. Well, yes, you can actually yes,

Angelica O’Reilly 23:23

you can. Yeah. Yeah, your punch that back in the day. So this is a little different in that, you know, yeah, yeah, the, you know, the, the screw cap was a little hard to pass those times, but this is a little different. Because it’s the whole bottle, we’re asking people to change their entire bottle. And people who have a certain idea of the romance of what a bottle should be, like, have a really difficult time just holding that squishy bottle, turning the gap. But most people drink their their wine, you know, casually with dinner over the week. It’s not people are take if if yes, people would only bottle wines and glass that they intend to age over time. That would be fabulous. Because that will cut down on the amount of glass that’s out there. But the vast majority of wine isn’t made.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 24:21

You’re talking about 5% of wine should be in glass. Right? Right.

Angelica O’Reilly 24:27

There’s a time and place for it. Right? Exactly. And the customer goes out there to buy wine for tonight’s or wine birthday party. They’re having more girls night out whatever they’re having it for. They buy it for the now they’re not buying it to lie down their cellar. So those types of I’m not you know, I’m not dismissing glass altogether because there is a time and a place for it. But I think we have an entire waste of glass in our in our industry. I think it’s a big problem. I think our industry has a lot as has theirs I think our industry is responsible for a lot of the gas emissions in our atmosphere. I think that our industry has to change that. And it has to be answerable to, you know, what’s going on in our in our atmosphere right now?

Bianca Harmon 25:14

Well, it’d be even just think about just the taste in herbs alone, like a big tasting like I live in St. Alena, right. So big tasting room that sees hundreds of people think about how much waste is coming just from just from the tasting room portion, glass wise, where it’s like, you could make put those in PE tea bottles, and, you know, and then if you have, you know, I worked at a winery where they, there was this whole debate one time between the quarks and the screwcaps. And so they sold both of like their high end red light, because some people just had to have the cork where others like, were fine with the screwcap, you know? Or you could even maybe, if you just feel the need to make glass where you’re at least splitting the difference between the two, you know? Yeah.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 26:03

So you’ve got some yeah, that’s, this is a, this is a fascinating subject you’ve got so you’ve got a pretty revolutionary idea that you’re enacting. And that’s through I want to I want to talk a little bit about Noman wines. And this, this family, all the daughters in the all working together for this, what’s the like, what’s the point here? I mean, it sounds like it’s a realization of your dream when he graduated from college, have a family be on the farm, work with my family, and it sounds like you’re

Angelica O’Reilly 26:31

doing it? Yeah, so that’s really interesting, because it hasn’t been just, you know, this very smooth transit. My daughters did get they all went off to college, and they did their other things. One was traveling Italy, it’s time string COVID. So they were all in different places. And we decided at that time to all convenient our house. And so convenient our house, it was when we started to kick around these ideas, and say, Hey, let’s make this happen. And working together has been a challenge. We all have our different talents. But we’re careful not to intrude on the other person’s talents and their strong points and let them really, you know, flourish in that in that area. On the other hand, there’s times where we all need to step into an area we don’t like. And that’s a challenge, because so their challenge, just as there would be in any kind of a business. But it’s more of a challenge when you’re intimately connected to each other so much, you know, my husband and I have always worked together, you know, wife and husband teams

Drew Thomas Hendricks 27:34

feel left out.

Bianca Harmon 27:37

At all, he’s our

Angelica O’Reilly 27:38

biggest supporter, and he’s our biggest advisor. And eventually, we will have a Family Wine included in our packaging that he and I make together. So he’s not left out. So. But being our biggest supporter, I think gives him a lot of pride and joy. He’s very proud of his girls, especially because they’re so talented. I mean, all the labels are designed to buy my daughter, who is a navy military. And you will

Drew Thomas Hendricks 28:11

be behind us. I see the girl on the ladder there. Yes, painting. Yeah, all her artwork. So that is a fantastic artwork, I love it

Angelica O’Reilly 28:20

is incredible. And then our oldest daughter worked in restaurants, she managed restaurants. She did all the marketing for a Siberian California. And she knows marketing. And so she takes care of that aspect of it. Or the daughter is Maura is very talented with hospitality. People love her in the tasting room. They love her with events. So we just kind of step aside for her to do that. So we all have our strong points that we all know what we all have to recognize it and just say you’re really you’re better, you’re better at that. So you you go and do that. So, and none of them like paperwork. So she gets here. So and that doesn’t want to see a piece of paper in the wind or the SEC, take a picture of it and file it, you know, in the cloud. So yeah, so that falls upon me. So and I’m fine with that. So and then who’s making the why we all do. So they’re made at different places. We do a lot of, you know, custom pressure kind of thing while we’re getting going. But we actually go out to the vineyards. I was in the vineyards this morning, as in the reading last week, look at the grapes. And then we work with my husband, David, you work with him on what sort of flavor profile we want in the wine for it to be a drink now wine because that’s a huge challenge. So we need a lot of advice on that. So even though we decide what the final blend will be, and what the final product will be, we get a lot of advice. So

Drew Thomas Hendricks 29:56

now I gotta ask this because we’re now in where we can We’re in this in the middle of August. And you guys, we’re off to a really rough start at the beginning of this year with the frost and the freeze. How is how is the harvest shaping up now?

Angelica O’Reilly 30:10

Yeah, so some of that is made. I mean, oh, man is to really bring a new. Well, is that? I don’t know what that was. Sounds like no. No, no. Oh.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 30:32

Anyhow, that was that was.

Angelica O’Reilly 30:34

So yeah, so we got off to a rough start because we had that late freeze. And we already had, we already had, you know, the bloom. So it was a lot of the a lot of the grapes. The, the, sorry, a lot of the blooms were frozen. So we will not get a lot of you won’t get the tonnage that we would normally get. But what is there is actually looking really, really good. Today. No, I’m just looking really good. So we’ll have a lower yields, but there’ll be beautiful.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 31:09

So Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, that’s, that’s great news. So yeah.

Angelica O’Reilly 31:17

Yeah, for some vineyards, though, is a complete loss. So it just depends on where you are in the valley. So

Bianca Harmon 31:24

I was just up that way. A couple weeks ago, I wish I would have stopped by because you’re in the Willamette Valley, right? Yes,

Angelica O’Reilly 31:33

yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And anytime I mean, visiting our tasting room is, you know, and you’re currently in the tasting room, right. I’m currently in the tasting room. So we have the murals. And yeah, and we have a number of tables, we open the back door with a view. So it’s actually a nice place to hang out and visit. Enjoy wine.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 31:55

That’s fantastic. So So Norman’s, the one label, so talk to me about the O’Reilly landscape. You bet you’re planning on the O’Reilly Family Wine coming out? What’s what’s the future, I guess? What’s the future like?

Angelica O’Reilly 32:07

Yeah, I can’t tell you too much about that. Now, he’s still in the planning process. But you’ll see it when it comes, it will hit.

Bianca Harmon 32:16

That’s great. But you also still have your Distaff right. Oh, yeah. We

Angelica O’Reilly 32:21

still had that stuff. Mines, I just stopped mines are in glass, and we do not ship and that is they are made to last a little longer, because I’m not opposed to glass. But I’m opposed to shipping and I’m opposed to, to making wines that are drink now in glass. And so and those are also teaching bridles, and they’re varietals that are normally used in a blend. So you take petite Rideau, for example. And there’s you will be hard for you to find a straight petite for dough Davido are usually used, you know, in France for for color for extracting color, and usually in percentages, like 10% You know, just throw our salmon cannons in there because the cheaper dough is really hard to ripen. And in in those areas where they’re planted, they don’t ripen so they don’t fully ripen. So they ripen enough to extract fillers and tannins, but not to get their full flavor profile. So we actually have vineyards in Washington, and and actually our petite widows from Walla Walla, and that fully ripen because of the climate and the soil, they can fully ripen. And we can showcase that bridle and make an educational piece. And so one of the reasons for doing Distaff is my daughters were, you know, they would go out with friends and ask if they wanted to go wine tasting, they would often often be intimidated by the fact that they didn’t know how my daughter’s friends would be intimidated by the fact that they know how to how to go wine tasting. And so my daughters would say, well, it’s really not that hard. You just tell me what you liked. So we decided well, let’s let’s make this more of an educational piece. Let’s bring people into our our tasting room where we can teach them about bridles, teach them about, you know a straight cab, Frank, blah frogfishes And so a bit cheaper dough. And so we have those varietals, where people can come in and ask questions we can tell about where they’re from, and what they taste like. And in fact, we’ve done a few tastings with six just a more bed or blah Frankish where we’ve taken four or five, maybe six, or Joe sorry, blood, frogfishes or more more beds from around the world, especially where they originated from, and so people can extract from that. That line of wines. What a buff on fish tastes like, what when we’re bad tastes like what a petite burrito tastes like. So we’re doing more of an educational thing with our Distaff wine. Just half means the better half so it’s, you know, the better half of the family showcasing wines and educating people on varietals.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 35:01

I love that out. I would really dig that just those educational tastings, you get so much out of it.

Angelica O’Reilly 35:07

You do, you do. And it’s we like it to be interactive. So we want people that tell us what they’re picking up in these wines. And then when everybody starts to do that, you start to extract, oh, this is the common thread here. This is this is what applicate rideaux actually really tastes like and what it looks like and what the tannins are, like, what the structure is like, what the texture is, like. So a lot about you know, it’s coupled with, you know, this winemaking styles that can change that but then you get that in there too. Well, this is this is different because this winemaker does things in the style, so you can even

Drew Thomas Hendricks 35:39

Oh, that’s that’s fantastic. Now we’re now this is the Distaff tasting room close to nomen where is

Angelica O’Reilly 35:46

it? So so this staff tasting room, houses nomen so just staff wine company, is the wine company that’s going to get houses Nomen and eventually all the O’Reilly Family Wines. Okay, so no, no, no, it’s it’s a nomad means the word nomad. It’s a plan where it’s known as is Latin for name, so we’re all O’Reilly’s

Drew Thomas Hendricks 36:16

that’s how I was reading. I’m like, Oh,

Bianca Harmon 36:19

I thought it was no Ben.

Angelica O’Reilly 36:22

No, man, it’s all girls making it so an all girls running it and selling it. So that’s the idea behind the Noman. So, originally thought will

Drew Thomas Hendricks 36:30

happen. And then the longer I was like, No, I get it. Took me a couple extra minutes.

Angelica O’Reilly 36:37

I’ll say does that mean no men can have it? Well, no. This means that the the women make it

Bianca Harmon 36:44

the label what is the meaning behind the label, I’ve been staring at it on your background, and trying to depict what that means.

Angelica O’Reilly 36:53

That is a woman in a in a profession. So she’s in a business suit. So my daughter or daughters want to showcase women in every kind of profession eventually. So we just got going on these. So here’s the farmer. We just started. We did a few just to get going. But my daughter has just coming home from the Navy tomorrow. And she has hundreds these drawings on her computer. And she will start cranking them up want to do for their next bottling. So say Cabernet Sauvignon won’t won’t just have the one picture, it will have must have wait for just a second may grab a couple more bottles. Yeah, they will have. So here’s a couple more labels, they will have different pictures of women and different professions. So say a cab, instead of having just the one it’ll have, like 10 different professions on a one on one cab bot. So you can you can order like you can say you want a case of of Cabernet, but I want these six women depicted on it. So you can pick a doctor, you know, a engineer, farmer, so you can go six years on wattle. Yeah, so that’d be a lot of fun. So that’s what we’re working on next.

Bianca Harmon 38:07

So those would be great gifts and God works of that. Yeah. Wow. I

Angelica O’Reilly 38:13

love that. Yeah. Well, yeah, we just want to have a lot of fun in the wine business. We don’t want it to be this stuffy old world that people come in and say, No, you got that I know that one or a decimal is supposed to taste like or we just want people to enjoy what they’re drinking and just have fun with it and visit you know, it’s all about the people you’re with the you know, the food you’re having with it, just to have a lot of fun with it. That’s fantastic.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 38:39

So Angelica as we’re kind of wrapping down here, what where can people find out more about the staff and nomen wines and get it get a subscription? Yeah, you

Angelica O’Reilly 38:48

can go on to our website. And on our website you can actually subscribe to We have two different two different clubs. One is unfortunate one is the it’s not unfortunate. Unfortunately, with the one Distaff you can only come into the winery to pick out we don’t ship. But the Nomen Fortunately, you can ship everywhere so we can ship the gnomon on a minute. So you can do that online. But the Distaff you’ll have to come in to taste and it’s part of the experience.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 39:20

Sounds fantastic. Well, Angelica, thank you so much for joining us today.

Angelica O’Reilly 39:27

It was a pleasure to be here. And yeah, you just share a story.

Drew Thomas Hendricks 39:37

Sounds good. Angelica. Thank thank you so much.

Outro 39:47

Thanks for listening to the Legends Behind the Craft podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.