Stories From the Cellar

Stories From the Cellar tells the stories of the people, places, and wines in the Vine Street Imports portfolio. We import wines primarily from Australia and South Africa, plus Italy, England, New Zealand, and Slovenia. From up-and-coming producers to established legends, you’ll hear the stories of how our winemakers were propelled into this vinous universe. You’ll hear what lights them up, the raison d’être that gives meaning to their work. We'll also share short educational snippets about various wine regions, and we'll talk about wine culture and the wine business. Ultimately, the purpose of this show is to tell stories that bring wine alive. By understanding the greater context behind the bottle, it renders what’s inside it a little more… human. Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi. Special thanks to @snacktime for the music. @vsiwine vsimports.com

Elena Brooks (Dandelion Vineyards) Part 2: Changing Palates and Perceptions of Australian Wines 08/12/2024

Elena Brooks (Dandelion Vineyards) Part 1: The Story of the Bulgarian-Born Woman Putting Her Mark on South Australia’s Wine Scene 08/12/2024

Elena Brooks (Dandelion Vineyards) Part 1: The Story of the Bulgarian-Born Woman Putting Her Mark on South Australia’s Wine Scene In today’s episode, which is part one of two, Elena Brooks from shares how she went from making pantyhose-filtered wines as a teenager in Bulgaria to a true winemaking visionary in South Australia. Elena has multiple wine brands, including three that we import: Dandelion, , and . All of these brands are based in McLaren Vale but feature varietal wines from all over South Australia. Elena makes some of our highest volume wines, but don’t confuse that for low quality. These wines often come from single, old-vine sites, and they are drinkable and acid-driven while staying true to the benchmark styles of their respective regions. Elena has made quite a name for herself in Australia and the US, and her path to success success was entirely self-made. It involved immigrating from Bulgaria to Australia around the age of twenty and learning the customs and language of a new country. In this episode, you’ll hear how Elena’s first experience with wine was at a 45,000-ton Bulgarian winery that employed 500 people, including her mom. When communism fell in 1990, an influx of foreigners, namely Australians, came to work at this winery for big supermarket brands. At the age of 12, Elena was interpreting at the winery after school, and a few years later she’d move to Adelaide to study winemaking. Elena was drawn not only to the winemaking side but the marketing of wine, as marketing wasn’t exactly a thing in communist Bulgaria. She’s a true entrepreneuer in every sense of the word, diving not only into the product, wine, but the sales, marketing, and philosophy of the product. Part one sets us up for part two, which delves into Elena’s wines, the challenges and opportunities in Australia today, and which region Elena would classify as Grand Cru if Australia used the cru system. To begin, we have to go all the way back to Elena’s childhood in Communist-era Bulgaria, when she remembers tasting her very first wine, a sparkling herb infused white wine… 00:29 Wine Culture in Bulgaria 01:32 Childhood Entrepreneurial Ventures 03:43 The Analytical Mind Behind Winemaking 06:27 Accidental Entry into the Wine World 15:36 Transition to Australia 18:44 Starting Dandelion Vineyards Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi. Special thanks to for the music! Vine Street Imports | /episode/index/show/2bc035bc-cdb0-4516-b31e-58cbad70793b/id/32521862

Raising the Floor: Premiumizing South African Wines 07/11/2024

South Africa's Hidden Gems: Wine Regions Beyond Stellenbosch & Swartland 07/11/2024

Walker Bay: The Rising Star of South African Wines 07/11/2024

Stellenbosch: Where South African Wine Tradition Meets Innovation 07/11/2024

Swartland: The Dynamic Evolution of South Africa's New Wave Wine Region 07/11/2024

Catching up with Trizanne Barnard: Aha moments & wine consumption trends 06/10/2024

Australia's Evolving Wine Styles: From the Parker Era to the Natural Wine Movement and Beyond 04/22/2024

Australian Wine Prices: How Did We Get Here? 04/22/2024

Western Australia: Hidden Wine Gems from Margaret River and Beyond 04/22/2024

Victoria: Where Australia's Cool Climate Wines Shine 04/22/2024

South Australia: The Heart of Australia's Wine Industry 04/22/2024

Johan Meyer (Mother Rock & J.H. Meyer Signature Wines) Part 2: Brutal! wines, Stompie's gripe with old vine Chenin Blanc, and his brand new Wine of Origin appellation called Piket-bo-berg 12/16/2023

Johan Meyer (Mother Rock & J.H. Meyer Signature Wines) Part 1: The Swartland Revolution & filling the natural wine gap in the market 12/07/2023

Johan Meyer (Mother Rock & J.H. Meyer Signature Wines) Part 1: The Swartland Revolution & filling the natural wine gap in the market Today's episode is with Johan Meyer (also known as Stompie) from and based in the Swartland, South Africa. If you’re privy to the natural wine scene in the Cape, you’ll know these labels without a doubt. I often hear people say that there are three guys that really put natural wine on the map in South Africa and that is Johan Meyer, Jurgen Gouws of (there’s an episode with him a few back) and Craig Hawkins of Lammershoek and Testalonga. In this episode, you’ll hear how Stompie got into natural wine, and how it wasn’t always what he did. At the beginning, he was working for a big commercial winery called Sutter Home – you might have heard of it – out in California. After another stint at a smaller winery in New Zealand, plus a transformative experience at Matassa in Southern France – a natural wine project started by Tom Lubbe, a New Zealander who grew up in South Africa South – Stompie returned home determined to do his own thing. He shares how the Swartland Revolution which took place around 2010 helped pave the way for newcomers like himself, and how at that time, there was a huge gap in the market for affordable natural wine made at scale. Enter: Mother Rock Wines. That is all part 1 of my conversation with Stompie. In Part 2, we talk more about the wines, including his 'Brutal!' series, which is a natural wine “club” of sorts, to which Stompie was the first South African producer ever invited. You’ll also hear about the new wine of origin appellation that he has established at his high elevation home on the Piketberg Mountain, about two and a half hours north of Cape Town. Plus, stick around for the end of part 2 where you’ll hear why Stompie is called Stompie. To begin the story, we need to go all the way back to Stompie’s childhood in the Garden Route, where the dominant type of farming was not of grapes, but of cows... Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi. Special thanks to for the music! Vine Street Imports | /episode/index/show/2bc035bc-cdb0-4516-b31e-58cbad70793b/id/28979438

Ben & Luc Cowley (Auntsfield Estate): The story of Marlborough's first commercial winery 11/13/2023

Ben Cowley (Auntsfield Estate): From the film industry to wine 11/13/2023

Ben Cowley (Auntsfield Estate): From the film industry to wine Today's episode is with Ben Cowley, the viticulturist at based in the southern valleys of Marlborough, New Zealand. Auntsfield is unique in Marlborough for two main reasons. First, they put a heavy focus on their Pinot Noir production in an industry that is almost entirely focused on Sauvignon Blanc. Unlike many Marlborough vineyards, Pinot Noir makes up half of Auntsfield’s vineyard area, as it’s particularly well suited to the old clay hillsides found there. Second, Auntsfield was the first commercial winery to be established in Marlborough in the late 1800s. A Scottish immigrant named David Herd planted his first vines in 1873 at a time when most agricultural work had to do with sheep, not wine. As you’ll hear Ben explain, wine was made at Auntsfield until the 1930s when prohibition kicked in and the vineyard closed. Fast forward about 70 years, and Ben’s parents Graeme and Linda bought the property and restored the wine estate with the help of their sons, Ben, the viticulturist, and Luc, the winemaker. Before getting into wine, Graeme and Linda were movers and shakers in the New Zealand film industry, having been the first people to rent motion picture cameras, which kick started the independent filmmaker movement. Ben followed in their footsteps and was working in the film industry in Auckland before his second career in wine. As you’ll hear, an unsteady freelance paycheck and a newborn baby got Ben and his wife thinking about their futures, and then a house break in was the straw that broke the camel’s back. They packed up their car and headed to the south island on the fateful day of September 11th, 2001. In this episode, you’ll hear all of those stories, plus we’ll get into New Zealand's wine scene – the challenges, the cool stuff happening, and the balance between old-school and next-gen. We talk about why the Cowleys are so passionate about Pinot Noir, and why Marlborough became synonymous with Sauvignon Blanc. For a deeper dive into the wines and the site, check out the episode just after this one with both Ben and Luc. But first, the story of Auntsfield as told by Ben, who could never have imagined such a dramatic switch from film to wine... Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi. Special thanks to for the music! Vine Street Imports | /episode/index/show/2bc035bc-cdb0-4516-b31e-58cbad70793b/id/28612718

Louis Schofield (Worlds Apart) Part 2 - The magic of South Australian wine 09/25/2023

Louis Schofield (Worlds Apart) Part 1 - How Taras Ochota and others helped shape Louis' winemaking ethos 09/25/2023

Louis Schofield (Worlds Apart) Part 1 - How Taras Ochota and others helped shape Louis' winemaking ethos Today's episod is with Louis Schofield from based in Adelaide Hills, Australia. Louis is a jack-of-all trades wine industry legend who spent a decade working in fine wine retail and dining, including at the acclaimed Orana and East End Cellars. He was content in that world, until he met one of his biggest mentors, the late Taras Ochota of Ochota Barrels. Taras was a mover and shaker who is widely credited as having been the impetus behind South Australia’s new wave. His style can be summed up as punk, boundary-pushing, minimalist, small-batch wines. Or, as Taras puts it, “I reckon you can often see the styles of music people like in the wines they make. I like edgy music, rawer, sharper, and my wines tend to be all elbows and knees sticking out." Louis met Taras when he was working at East End Cellars, and he was was quick to accept when a friend alerted him that Taras was looking for harvest workers. Seven years later, Louis is still an integral part of the Ochota Barrels production, helping Taras’ wife Amber in the cellar after Taras’ tragic passing in 2020. At first, Louis was reticent about starting his own label. “There were enough people making shit wine without me doing it too,” he told me. But with a bit of a nudge from Taras, Louis and his now wife, Hannah, co-founded Worlds Apart in 2017. Their wines could technically be called natural, with no additives but minimal sulfur, but they avoid rigid dogma and focus on crafting wines that are pure, vibrant, and most importantly, speak of place. They source grapes from all over South Australia, notably McLaren Vale, Adelaide Hills, and Eden Valley. You’re going to find verve and energy in Louis wines, a bit of texture in the whites, and lacy tannins in the focused reds. In this episode, which is part one of two, Louis and I talk about his experiences at Orana, East End Cellars, Ochota Barrels, and even that time he did a harvest in Arizona with Maynard James Keenan from Tool. We talk a lot about Taras, and the impact he and Amber continue to have on Louis’ wine identity. There are some really special memories that Louis shares in here, and having never met Taras myself, I feel really lucky to have gotten to hear firsthand from someone who knew him so well. In part two, we talk a little bit more about Louis wines, and the extraordinary places that they come from, why Louis believes that “in South Australia, the path to Burgundian style winemaking is not paved with Pinot, it's paved with Grenach,” as well as his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities present within the Australian wine industry today. To start our conversation, we begin with how Louis got into winemaking in the first place. It was a circuitous route, starting with a job in music, and briefly, shed engineering… Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi. Special thanks to for the intro music! Vine Street Imports | /episode/index/show/2bc035bc-cdb0-4516-b31e-58cbad70793b/id/28124297

Matt Gant (Gant & Co.) Part 2 - The new era of Australian wine 08/28/2023

Matt Gant (Gant & Co.) Part 1 - Matt's story from the Barossa to the Douro to Margaret River 08/28/2023

Matt Gant (Gant & Co.) Part 1 - Matt's story from the Barossa to the Douro to Margaret River Today's episode is with Matt Gant from wines based in Karridale at the southern tip of Margaret River, Australia. Matt has been a friend of Vine Street for the last two decades. We began importing his First Drop line from the Barossa in about 2004/2005. We no longer work with First Drop – nor does Matt – but last year we picked up his newest venture, Gant & Co. These wines come from the family estate established by Claudia’s father in Karridale, which is a cool-climate subregion of Margaret River, highly influenced by both the Indian and Southern oceans. The lineup includes a Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc, which is made in a savory rather than fruity style with lees aging and subtle oak presence, as well as two lighter-bodied reds. The first is called Nouveau. It’s made in the Portuguese Palhete style, which is a nod to Matt’s many years working in Portugal. He is actually currently a partner in a project at Quinta da Pedra Alta in the Douro, and this co-ferment of red and white varieties is similar to the base wine of port prior to fortification. Think crushable, chillable red that’s also a really serious wine made from dry-farmed grapes, indigenous yeast, etc. etc. Finally, the Jeune is a light red blend of Cab, Merlot, and Malbec, and it’s made in what Erin Larkin from the Wine Advocate calls “a summertime Cabernet.” Listen to the second episode of this interview to hear me fangirling over this wine. These wines disprove every trite American perception of Australian wine as sunshine in a bottle. They are light and acid-driven, yet pack so much flavor and texture onto that slender frame. They’re really great wines, and they’re such an incredible value, especially for Australian wine these days. Our conversation is split into two parts: in the first episode we talk about Matt’s background, and how his palate has evolved over the years thanks to his time working abroad. In the second episode, we get into Karridale and the wines. To begin, Matt started by sharing with me his very first memory of wine growing up – not in Australia, but in a small town near in the county of Essex, just northeast of London... Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi. Special thanks to for the music! Vine Street Imports | /episode/index/show/2bc035bc-cdb0-4516-b31e-58cbad70793b/id/27862998

The Backstory: Gant & Co. 08/28/2023

Martin Dicuzzo Part 2 (Magna Montis) – New wave Malbec and the realities of inflation in Argentina 08/07/2023

Martin Dicuzzo Part 1 (Magna Montis) - Martin's story from Shanghai to the Uco Valley 08/07/2023

Martin Dicuzzo Part 1 (Magna Montis) - Martin's story from Shanghai to the Uco Valley Today's episode is with Martin DiCuzzo, the owner and winemaker of based in Argentina’s Uco Valley. Magna Montis is the first Argentinian producer that Vine Street has ever imported. Ronnie was really drawn to these wines because they’re so unlike the typical fruit bomb stereotype of wines from Mendoza. They are super fresh and bright, even the ones aged in oak. If you know the rest of our portfolio that is largely built off the “new wave” ethos – you’ll know instantly that they fit right in. The lineup includes three Malbecs – there’s the Tupungato, which is fruit-forward, fresh and bright, the Paraje Altamira which is aged in oak and is more classic in its profile, and the Machinte, the most premium wine, which is very elegant and powerful – as well as one uniquely floral and saline Chardonnay. In this two part conversation with Martin, we talk a lot about this new chapter of Argentinian wine. Part 1 is all about Martin’s background, including his nearly four year stint living in China working for Bodegas Norton as an Asian distribution manager. We talk about how he got into winemaking without any formal education, and his big hopes and dreams for his country’s wine reputation. In Part 2, you’ll hear about the praise Martin got from Tim Atkin in his first ever vintage, his experience meeting Ronnie and the Vine street team for the first time – including how Ronnie simply could not believe that Martin had never heard of the Grateful Dead – and of course, we’ll touch on the wines and the reasons behind his winemaking ethos. Martin grew up in a pretty quiet neighborhood in a middle class family. His childhood obsession, which turned into something of a lifelong passion, was music. He had a rock band and even started his own company importing music electronics. For much of his twenties, it really didn’t seem like wine was anywhere in his future… Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi Special thanks to for the music! Vine Street Imports | /episode/index/show/2bc035bc-cdb0-4516-b31e-58cbad70793b/id/27679470

Jurgen Gouws Part 2 (Intellego) - Surf trips in Bali, pet nats, & natural wine in the Swartland 07/17/2023

Jurgen Gouws Part 1 (Intellego) - Harvests in Russia, Afrikaans culture, & natural wine in the Swartland 07/17/2023

Catching up with Mick Craven: Pinot Gris, Polkadraai Hills, new cellar toys, and cheesesteaks 06/12/2023

Franco Lourens Part 2 (Lourens Family Wines) 05/29/2023

Franco Lourens Part 1 (Lourens Family Wines) 05/29/2023

Why now is the perfect time to sell English sparkling wine 05/08/2023

Stories From the Cellar

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