the Pavle Milić show
Pavle Milic has spent 40+ years in the hospitality business — co-founding FnB restaurant in Scottsdale, building Los Milics Vineyards across three Arizona tasting rooms, and writing about wine for Phoenix Magazine for the past decade. Now he's pulling up a chair with people from well outside his own world and seeing where the conversation goes.
If you have any questions or ideas for an upcoming show, and if you would like to be a guest on the show, email psst@pavlemilic.com
Cheers!
the Pavle Milić show
016: Vineyard Guru Fritz Westover of Vineyard Underground Podcast and Westover Viticulture Academy
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Renowned vineyard consultant Fritz Westover takes us on an enlightening journey through the art and science of viticulture. His expertise in vineyard health, irrigation management, and pruning practices reveals the delicate balance between nature and nurture in producing exceptional wines. We explore his personal story and the remarkable pathway that led him to become a cornerstone of success for vineyards across America, offering listeners a rich tapestry of insights and experiences.
Our conversation touches on the unique challenges faced by grape growers in Virginia, Texas, and California. We discuss the importance of education, workshops, and direct problem-solving to empower local growers. The creation of the Virtual Viticulture Academy emerges as a resourceful platform, offering comprehensive educational content and ongoing support, ensuring grape growers worldwide can access crucial knowledge and innovative solutions. By sharing cross-regional insights, we aim to address niche market challenges and strengthen the viticulture community through collaboration and knowledge sharing.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Insights into vineyard health, irrigation, and pruning, balancing nature and nurture in wine production.
- Viticulture challenges and solutions in regions like Virginia, Texas, and California, highlighting knowledge sharing.
- Virtual Viticulture Academy as a global resource for grape growers, offering educational content and support.
- Edutainment in viticulture education through platforms like the Vineyard Underground Podcast for community learning.
- Discussion on plant nutrition, climate challenges, and vineyard management
Resources from this Episode
https://www.vineyardadvising.com/
https://www.vineyardundergroundpodcast.com/
https://www.virtualviticultureacademy.com/
Follow and Review:
We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.
Episode Credits
If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know we sent you.
Welcome to Wine World, the podcast that takes you from vineyard to glass. Each episode, your host Paple Milich, winemaker, restaurateur, and columnist, explores wine grape growing, wine making, and wine and food pairings, focusing on Arizona and beyond. Join us as we visit vineyards, chat with restaurateurs, and meet the pioneers behind top wineries. Whether you're a wine enthusiast or curious about starting your own winery, Wineworld offers the perfect blend of education and entertainment. Pour yourself a glass and tune in to discover the stories behind the bottle.
SPEAKER_02In 2019, I was invited to Dos Cabezas to have dinner with a guy named Fritz Wetstover. The story goes: Kent Calligan of Calaghan Vineyards was searching online for information about moisture probes to fine-tune his irrigation regimen. He came across a video where Fritz was demonstrating how to properly set up the probe. Kent ended up connecting with Fritz, and it turns out Fritz is a vineyard consultant with a ton of experience. To give a little more context, when we were establishing the Los Milix Estate Vineyard in Elgin, a wonderful woman named Nikki Check, who was also a vineyard consultant in Arizona, helped us tremendously to get the initial vineyard infrastructure in place. However, her involvement was temporary. She was just there to get it started. Thankfully, we had Juan Flores in our team. Juan, with his vineyard experience in Oregon and Arizona, brought valuable muscle memory and expertise. He knew the vineyard cycle inside and out when to start or delay pruning, shoe thinning, leaf removal, hedging vines to control vegetative growth, and so on. That said, one critical component we were missing was a way to assess vineyard health beyond just visually noting that it looked vigorous. Back to Fritz. When I arrived at Dos Cavesas, I finally got to meet him. As a new wine grower, I was thrilled. To my surprise, he mentioned that he had married an Italian woman from a town near Florence, Italy, and spoke Italian. We exchanged a few words as I had picked up some Italian while spending time at my stepfather's tratoria. Beyond his personable nature, I was even more excited to learn that Fritz not only knew far more about vineyards than I did, but he was also in a position to take on new clients in the area. Both Ken Callaghan and Todd Bastack, those cavezas, were already working with him at some capacity. Fritz was the missing link we needed to ensure our newly planted vineyard in Elgin thrived. He was also instrumental in transforming Jenny's vineyard in Elfrida into a healthy and productive one. From implementing best pruning practices to using moisture probes for better irrigation management, he provided invaluable expertise. He also gave us insights into fertilization and managing our spraying program. In this episode, you'll hear about the Westover Viticulture Academy, where for an annual fee, members gain access to a wealth of instructional videos, resource materials, and weekly calls. Fritz hosts his version of a, you know, happy hour where growers bring their questions and he shares answers and insights. He also hosts the immensely popular podcast Vineyard Underground, which is a treasure trove of knowledge for growers. We cover a lot in this conversation. So if you're interested in planting a vineyard or already have one, regardless of scale, this episode is worth the listen. I can confidently say that our vineyard's success, both in quality and quantity, is largely thanks to Fritz Aspectees. So, okay, enough of the introduction. It doesn't do him justice. Let's get this show rolling. We have been talking about this for, I don't know, let's just say months, to be able to get our schedules in line to actually sit down and have a conversation that hopefully provides value to more than just you and I. So Fritz, I never got a chance. I mean, I know that we talked about you background in the past, but tell us how you wind up in the world of dirt and grapes. Ciao, Pavle. How are you today? You know, I woke up this morning, Fritz. Now the kids are healthy. My wife still likes me, and business is okay, sir.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Likewise, we woke up in the same side of the bed this morning. And, you know, I feel like this is kind of a continuation of our car time when I come to Arizona and visit with you, and we get to drive out to your vineyard, and we just have that windshield time, car time, whatever you want to call it, and we just catch up on personal life and goals and aspirations and where we've come from and what we're doing and where we want to be. And I think that's so much fun. And you're really good at that. You know, that's why I was excited to be on your podcast because I knew the flow was going to be good, the conversation, the questions. I don't know what you're gonna ask me, Pavle, but it's just gonna be uh car time hangout with you for sure. And I think you asked, I think you asked about my background, how I got involved in this. So I love chit-chat. This is marking my 25th year working in vineyards. So it's a pretty big year for me. I started in 1999 with my first vineyard job. And as we were chit-chatting before the recording started, about two weeks ago from the date of our recording here, I went back to Penn State. I was invited by the viticulturist there, who's a dear friend of mine, to do a pruning workshop with Penn State University. And we had growers from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, the surrounding area of Virginia. And it was such a huge honor because that's my alma mater. I went to school at Penn State. I'm from Pennsylvania. I grew up in the Poconos. And so to go back to my homeland, so to speak, and where I used to be first learning about grape growing and now presenting on grape growing was just surreal. Full circle. Yeah, yeah. And so even the viticulturist who is the extension viticulturist, Mark Chen, was there at the meeting attending. And I was speaking with, no, it wasn't just me, there were some other fantastic speakers. There was folks from Virginia and Pennsylvania as well. But it was really cool. And it was not, it was probably a half hour away from the vineyard that I worked at with the Chadsford winery at that time in 1999. And that really just brought things full circle. But the reason that I got into grapes when I entered Independent State was mostly because of my father. He was a home winemaker. And so I have these memories growing up where my brother and I, we'd get up early in the morning and he would take us out to the woods. He knew a spot in the woods, right? That he heard about because he was a barber. So he talked to his clients and they'd tell them, you know, oh, you know, we like to can, we like to this and that. And so they brought him to these areas where you could pick wild cherries or choke cherries, or he found elderberry patches. These are all Pennsylvania native fruits. He made dandelion wine. He made wine from, we'd go to the pick your own peach and apple orchards. We used to pick brambles, and we went by brambles and all four different species of blackberries, black raspberries, raspberries, dewberries. We'd pick all this stuff in the woods and he would make wine from it and ferment it as kind of a recipe winemaker. So that kind of got the wine on the table early. But, you know, I went to school at Penn State in horticulture and actually didn't pick grapes right away. I actually didn't know at that age. Who knows when they're, you know, 17, 18 years old what, you know, what they're going to do with the rest of their lives. And so I actually was in the library and I found this magazine, it was Money Magazine, and I saw on the cover this picture of a man standing in front of a vineyard. And that man ended up being a grape grower in Oregon. And his name is Doug Tunnell. And he was pretty famous for his work as a journalist and went back to his farm, his family's farm back in Oregon in the Willamette Valley back in the early days and grew Clarette and Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. And he had this article in Money Magazine for some reason, and it stood out to me. So I sat down and read it, you know, like top to bottom. I didn't do anything else. Did not pass go, did not collect $200. I just read this article. And I got to the point at the end, he's talking about his whole history and the how wonderful it is to work in the vineyard and grow on his property and produce wine. And that resonated with me and thinking about my father. And then he got to the part where he said, when the vines are dormant, that's when I go on my ski trips. And I love snowboarding and winter. So I said, that's that's for me. All right, sold. And so all of a sudden were you, Fritz? I was 19. Okay. Yeah, 19. And that's when I said, okay, I need to learn everything I need to or I can about growing grapes because this sounds amazing. And now that I'm a viticulturist 25 years later, Pavle, you know, that pruning season, when it's your vineyard, you can maybe take off and wait a little while. When you're helping everyone else in their vineyard, that's all you're doing is going from vineyard to vineyard. So there's no scheme. Well, it's very it's not the way I imagined it when I was 19, but I still get out and get my trips in. So that's kind of how it started. But then, you know, to make a condensed version of it, I pursued that. I drove all across the country and back in my van at the time, and I'd, you know, camp and visit wineries and, you know, all through college. Then I went to grad school at Penn State and I got a master's in plant pathology, working with grapes and with trunk diseases and use of compost and vineyard nutrition and replant diseases and things like that that were a challenge from the plant pathology point of view. And then I went off to Italy and did a little stent there. And after I graduated with my master's and did a harvest just to get somewhere different, right? Get some new perspectives and learned a little Italian, learned how the Italians make wine, a little bit about the culture there was amazing. And I then started my first job at Virginia Tech as a viticulturist. So my first through viticulture industry job or academic job was with Tony Wolfe at Virginia Tech. And I worked at an Ag Research and Extension Center. And so helping the industry in Virginia to develop, looking at research projects that would help them improve their quality or yields or whatever it might be or disease management. Did that for two years. And then I moved on to Texas AM and was the viticulturist there for seven years. And uh I got married, and then, you know, things moved in terms of jobs, and the jobs were down in Texas. So I moved down to Texas in it was in 2007 and did seven years of the extension service there.
SPEAKER_02And so it's in Fritz. Yeah. Sorry, if between Virginia and Texas, both uh sort of academic jobs in a way. This is working together with people who had been years in both the states, obviously, or this is working directly with students. What were specifically sort of some of your emphasis in both these jobs?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so usually the positions that were formed with the university were based on grant dollars. And those were sometimes gathered by the industry itself, the wine industry itself, and then allocated to create positions that were specifically helping grape growers in whatever challenges they had. So I work directly with growers. I wasn't teaching students at all, unless it was a guest lecture. And so our responsibility there is basically to be a servant to the agricultural industry, and that is specifically the wine grape component of the ag industry in Virginia. So, you know, any kind of we put on meetings, pruning workshops, canopy management workshops. If there was research on rootstock trials, on vigor management, on grapevine nutrition, on how to control grape berry moths or specific pests or diseases, we would then take that information we learned from the research and then extend it, that's the extension component, out to the growers directly through these tailgate meetings or through annual conferences where we'd speak. And then there was a component of wandering around and doing site visits. I shouldn't say wandering around, but visiting vineyards with intent specifically, if they had a challenge or an issue, going out and helping them solve those problems. And so that really was where I guess you could say I cut my teeth on the whole, you know, helping growers directly. That's where I learned to walk through vineyards, look at problems that growers were having, and help them solve them. And, you know, you don't always have a solution, but as you work with more and more growers, solve more and more problems, and then also just being observant of what the growers are doing and how they're solving their own problems. And then that's part of the extension. Then you go to another vineyard, say, well, I don't really know about this, but the grower over here has tried this and it seems to work. Maybe you could try that. And that ends up being a compilation of information over many, many years where you've been in many, many vineyards and you've seen a lot of problems. I'll never say all of them. There's always going to be a new one, invasive test or something. You've seen not only the problems, but you've seen people resolve them. And the growers, it might be something they can resolve in a season. It might be something that takes three seasons to fully remediate or improve on. And so not only can you learn how to advise growers on what the solutions are, but you can start talking about the work that's involved, the timeline that's involved, the economics, the drawbacks, the pros and cons. And then you can really provide a grower with informed decision making and help them on their path to what the best choice is for their specific situation. And so by working with Extension in both Virginia Tech and then with the Texas wine industry for all those years, it really set me up in a kind of a unique position where I just worked with so many vineyards already and had seen so many issues because I came into challenging uh growing areas. You know, compare Virginia or Texas to California, for example, and it's uh it's day or night. I mean, there's many more grape diseases in the eastern United States and the southeast and the southwest. There are many more insect pests. We have weather challenges during the growing season, where in California it's usually dry during the growing season. That's why they have less disease pressure. We have black rot, we have downy mildew. They don't have that in California. We also have what they have there, powdery mildew, bunch rots. And then we have phoemopsis, and I'm just rattling off a bunch of fungal diseases here because that's what really the biggest challenges are for most growers in these areas. If they can't get clean fruit at the end of the season, they can't make wine. And so when it's raining every month at any given time during the growing season, you need to be prepared to manage that and prevent disease. So I guess I cut my teeth, so to speak, in some of the most challenging grape-growing regions. And when I eventually went to California to work back in 2013 and 14, I elected to leave my position at Texas AM to get out to California and get that experience. I felt I had served my time in the Texas system. I wanted to work in California with some larger vineyards. There were challenges that I hadn't worked with yet, like irrigation and water quality, economics, mechanization, things that just weren't happening, you know, on the eastern United States, at least not at a large scale. And I wanted to get my feet into that and learn that. So I worked with an organization called the Vineyard Team. And they had one of the original sustainability certification programs in the central coast of California. It was called SIP, SIP, sustainability in practice, uh nice acronym. So I worked with that nonprofit for about two years. And it actually is very similar to my extension responsibility. I put together workshops for grape growers. We took surveys on what their challenges were, tried to bring in experts and speakers to talk on those topics and bring outside information. And I think that was the key, is I had contacts outside of the West Coast. So I was able to bring in fresh information from people that may not have been in front of that audience before. And that's been a kind of a unique thing I've been able to do is kind of bring people together from not only different growers within a state, but from state to state or coast to coast. And then you start putting together a bigger picture of, you know, what the challenges are in each area and how you can cross-pollinate some of those solutions. And so that's been really, really the fun part for me is working in those areas and making introductions and bringing concepts from place to place that, you know, could potentially be solutions to growers' problems. And so that's been fun. So I did, I did the California thing for two years. And when I was doing that, Pavley, I started consulting on the side, you know, kind of a side hustle, so to speak. The organization said, that's fine if you want to do that, just do it on the weekend and the evenings. And then, you know, the weekends and the evenings turned out to be the fun thing that I was doing on the side, helping more growers. But I just really loved that. I really liked working the one-on-one and I wanted more of that. And that's why I jumped out and started my consulting company. That was back in 2013, really, where I launched it. But I went solo with that in 2014, later in the year, and just jumped in the water head first. But I put my toes in the water first, Pablo, and proof of concept, had some clients, showed that I could help them before I jumped off and went on my own.
SPEAKER_02Good for you. Fritz, when you first started, when you actually went all in, where was the vast majority of your clients, your growers, the people you were helping?
SPEAKER_01Okay, when I left Texas and went to California, I had the idea in mind already that I would consult on the side just to, you know, help those growers I was already helping. So I put together a list. And I've I've actually had young viticulturists call me in the, you know, in the last few years and say, hey, how did you get started? And this is what my advice I gave them. I said, here's what I did. It may or may not be for you. I don't know. But I put together a list of it was 18 growers, it was 20 that I thought I helped the most in Texas. And I said, okay, I think these 10 would probably want this kind of service. These five would like this service. And I created three different tiers of, you know, consulting and advising at three different levels. And I presented that to them. And it just so happened because of the good relationship that I developed with them and the fact that I showed that I could help them, 18 of the 20 said yes. And almost all of them went right into the category I recommended. So it was really, I don't know, intuition or hard work or luck, or you know, maybe they thought, let's give this guy a chance. He's young and he's helpful, see where it goes. I don't know. But it really just worked out well. So I worked with those 18 growers, and that is what kind of seeded the development of how I organized myself as a consultant. And because I did a lot of it from a distance, I would travel and visit a few times a year, but it's not like I was nearby. I had to develop a new model that involved a lot of long distance advising. And so I couldn't just call my consultant friends in California and say, hey, how do you run your business? And then copy it and paste that into my world. I had to create something that was a little bit different. But the fun part was doing that. And I had no idea if it was going to work. So I just daydreamed about it and thought, well, what sounds practical? And, you know, and then kind of went with it. And it's it's still evolving, even, you know, 10, 15 years later, that that concept still evolves over time.
SPEAKER_02That's a good segue, Fritz, into the academy. And I just have a brief story to share, at least tell the listeners how we started rubbing elbows and working together. I believe, and please correct me if I play a little telephone here. Ken Caligan of Calaghan Vineyards, I believe, was doing a sweep in the internet about soil moisturizer probe. And he ran across your mug in the interwebs talking about this very thing. And I believe it was Ken who initially brought you out to Arizona. And this sort of lined up with the time when I just had entered the world of wine growing. And I believe you were visiting, you were, I think, a Todd in Kelly Pasta Catos Cabezas. Yeah. And I think I showed up, and I don't know how I came to know that you spoke Italian, but I was really excited. So obviously I got there and I started yelling at you in Italian. And anyway, so I'm getting distracted here with the story. I think I yelled back.
SPEAKER_01Did I yell back right away? Was it like a call and response right away?
SPEAKER_02That's there was a little cognitive dissonance because you did not look Italian. You looked more like an Austrian bicyclist, and then you were yapping your yap hole in Italian. Anyway, so back to the academy, which I believe is what when you were talking about this new model in terms of trying to reach people that are not necessarily close to you. Tell us more about the academy, Fritz.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, great shout out for uh Kent Calaghan and Todd Bostock. They are the ones that brought me in. Kent did find me online. So your story aligns that he was putting in some soil moisture sensors and yeah, I had some experience with that. And then I think the conversation went, we started talking about other stuff. I said, Well, what do you what do you guys do for plant nutrition? What are you doing for you know these issues? And I started uh digging a little deeper, and then it just turned into, hey, we should probably get together and just kind of review what we're doing here and see if you can bring any outside information. And so that's how we started working together. But at that time, I guess it was 2018. That's when I launched the concept, became a reality of Virtual Viticulture Academy. And where that stemmed from is really my work as a consultant. So I worked with growers all over Texas. I was also working in Georgia because I started consulting in Georgia even before I moved to California, because they would allow you to consult if you were a state employee for Texas AM, you could consult out of state. But in state, it was a conflict of interests. But I had a few growers in Georgia that had similar grape varieties. They were working with Pierce's disease-tolerant hybrids, things that I was working with by chance. And so I would go and consult out there. So I was consulting in Georgia, I was consulting in Texas, I consulted in a few other states around there, the periphery as well. And I'd filled up my client roster, you know, after a few years. And I had created all this content to distribute to my clients, you know, pamphlets on vine training or small videos I was making for them. So that again, with that distance model, if someone says, Hey, you know, my crew's coming. We're planting a new vineyard. Do you have any videos to show the proper way to plant a grapevine? Or do you have any videos to show leaf removal in the fruit zone so my workers can see that and visualize it? So I started making these short videos, short format. And then I started posting them online for social media just to kind of get the information out there. Because my model was always with the extension service to be a public servant. So everything I was just giving away for free. And I enjoyed that because it enabled me to, you know, fill the model of just helping great growers out. You know, wherever they are, whatever they're growing, here's some information. I hope it helps you. But I got to the point where I just couldn't physically be in more vineyards. So my clientele list was maxed out, which is a good problem to have, right? That was good. And still figuring out how to make that work as a business and it was working. But I couldn't be on the road all the time living in a you know van just driving vineyard to vineyard. Although it does sound kind of like fun, right? I mean, you know, I do have a little gypsy in me, I think, sometimes. That sounded great. But what I really discovered was I had all that content and it was kind of stuck in this bubble, right? Where I was just using it with my clients. And so I had the concept. When I went to a conference with my web developer at the time, it was on digital marketing. And I thought, well, why don't I create some online courses? Maybe someone would be interested in purchasing an online course, and that could be another business that I would do, but also fill my model to help grape growers. And so I went to this conference in Denver and I realized there's this whole online world for coaching, education, all the types of things for all kinds of niche markets that you can get into. And I thought, well, that's what I'm doing. I'm in this interesting field of grape growing. It's got a really distinct, you know, you know, clientele or following. It's not a big market, it's a small niche. And so my idea then was, well, if I make a course, what I heard was people buy courses online and the completion rate is really low. I don't know if anyone listening out there ever bought an online course. And then they got about two-thirds or one-third of the way through, and they're like, I'm busy, I'll get back to that later. And then it falls off the wayside. Well, did you really help that person? You know, if they didn't complete the course, did you have a transformative experience or did they have that transformative experience? Did they really see success or those wins that they were hoping to get by buying it in the first place? And do I want to encourage someone to pay for something with that anticipation of having this transformative experience and this win? And then they never achieve it, right? So I thought, well, how could I, you know, do that better? Right. So the model was, well, what if I showed up every month or every two weeks and helped that great grower over and over again, you know, and then encourage them to keep moving through the process and answered any questions they had along the way. And that's what started the model and the idea for Virtual Viticulture Academy. So, you know, I hadn't been hauled about what I would call it, but basically I created a website, you know, platform, whatever you want to call it, where all of my content was there. So you could look at a guide on how to train a young vine or how to plant a vine. You could see me do an entire one-hour video field course on grapevine pruning for spur pruning. And then I'd go to another vineyard and I would start bringing hiring videographers or getting the vineyard manager to hold my iPhone with a stabilizer. And then I got savvy and clipped a microphone on myself. And then I got even more savvy and put the dead cat wind blocker on it, you know, in the windy days. So actually, quality wasn't terrible. The great thing is, you know, I wasn't teaching people how to do videography. So it was okay if my videography was mediocre because I was working with grape growers and farmers, and they didn't really care so much about that. At least I hope they didn't. They just wanted content and to learn. And so I started creating all these medias, video, audio, you know, handouts, pamphlets, and tried to make it so that however you like to learn, you would find something there that you can learn from. And so then I started showing up live every two weeks or twice monthly and doing this thing called live vineyard advising where growers would ask questions. So, you know, you're in the field, you know, this Pable, you see a leaf with a spot on it, you see a vine that's weak or all of a sudden turned red and it's supposed to be green. What on earth is happening with this grapevine? So, what the grower can do is they take a photo of it, they take a 30-second video, they ask their question, they send it to the support email for the academy. And then me and my team, we assemble it into uh a presentation or slide deck. And twice monthly I go live and it's on a Zoom. You know, everyone shows up, all the growers, it's a membership. So if you're a member of Virtual Viticulture Academy, it's like you are part of the group, you have uh advisor now, that would be me, or Rachel in there too. She's she's also has a master's in horticulture and is a viticulturist. And so I'm developing a team in there now so we can best accommodate growers from literally all over the globe. So the idea was there's no borders if you grow grapes and you're in, you know how we talk about food deserts, you know, the where you don't have access to nutritious, healthy produce or vegetables or fruit in some of those out-of-the-the-way areas. There's also viticulture deserts, too. Like vineyard information is lacking because someone's growing grapes in a new spot where they're they're not in a surrounding industry or they're not in an industry that's been developed or evolved over time. They're kind of pioneering it. And so we served those growers and we continue to all over the country, all over the globe. And we now have members in the academy from 33 states and 10 countries. Wow. And so everything's in English. So we do have English-speaking, you know, growers in other countries that join, you know, Mexico, Canada, of course, Italy, France. We have some in England. It's just a really interesting eclectic mix. Australia, New Zealand, and growers there. There's small growers sometimes. There's commercial growers. And the idea is the platform is there for them to learn and to become better grape growers, but to get some continued education. They're not just taking a course on their own. The courses are there. I'm there too to answer their questions. We're there with our support throughout the year, throughout the growing season. If they're looking for information on something, we can send them the info, a link so they get right to it. And basically it's just a continuation of that public education and support. It's just now it's under, I guess, the platform that I thought would be most useful, number one, intuitive to kind of navigate through, but also have that personal touch, that, you know, the access to where I get to actually see a grower on a video call or communicate with them on email or whatever it might be. And so that was just kind of uh an extension. So that started in 2018 and it's still going strong today, like I said, with members from around the globe. So, in a nutshell, that's kind of the concept of the academy. And I think the first thing you did when we met is I said, hey, you should really, you know, get inside my academy and check out, you know, the content, check out the videos. If you have a worker and they're new and they don't have a background in viticulture, you know, on a rainy day, sit them down in front of that pruning video or a canopy management video. That way they can still be learning and you know that they're going to be getting information that you find is you know useful and that you trust.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I speak for myself, especially back in 2018. I do want to mention that the academy, it caters to the person who is just starting out, all the way up to the person that is a veteran that has been doing it for quite some time. And also, for it's you didn't mention, but the resources that you have pertaining to guides on how to do certain stuff, but also vendors that you recommend or people you should be talking to, even outside of the academy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we do a couple other things. We have our Thirsty Thursday social every month where I bring in, you know, I don't want it to be just about my experience or my team's experience. I've got all these contacts from working over the years from all the university system, through grower organizations. And so we bring those experts into the academy, and you have access to them during these meetings where you can ask them questions. So if you know we've had Marcus Keller, who wrote the book on the science of grapevines, we've had him in there to hang out and ask him plant nutrition questions. We've had industry experts from New Zealand. We had our sheep expert, Kelly Mulville from Hysenus Ranch in California talk about the art and science behind grazing sheep in vineyard and how it impacts plant health, soil health, and nutrition. And vines grow differently when animals are in the system. And they've shown that. So interesting. So we bring those experts in. You have access to those experts as well. We kind of have a round table, if you will, of experts in the academy in different topic areas. We have, you know, my friend Paul, who's in California with Helena, he's a, we call him the spray mixologist because he knows organic sprays, he knows conventional sprays, he knows the things you can add to the tank to make the spray work better, like an organic adjuvant or something like that. He knows what's compatible, what's not. So, you know, the expression, you know, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Well, you and I know a lot, Pavle, but we also know a lot of people who know a lot more than we do on certain topics. And so I want to be the facilitator to bring that together. And so that's kind of been the model. So we do that. And then you mentioned vendors. Yeah, I mean, sure. With my clients, I go through a lot of vendors. I know who I like, who I don't like, or who I prefer and don't prefer. And so I do have a list of some of the preferred vendors I work with. And a member would, you know, ask them to give my members discounts. And I'm really careful about that as a business person too, because I never want there to be a conflict of interest where I'm recommending this certain service or vendor because there's, you know, some kind of a financial gain for for me or my organization. So what I ask the vendors to do is just be members, just like the grower is. And so that way it doesn't matter if you buy from them or not, or how much you buy from them, it doesn't really impact me. It helps my members to get that discount that they are getting for being part of that group. So I think that's been the way I wanted to do it from the start. And so it doesn't muddy the waters that way. I can still work with the vendors and help make those introductions because that's part of the network there. People need to get stuff done. They need equipment, they need grape vines. So I want to link them up with the resources that I find have worked the best for me and that my growers have come back to me and said, you know, these nursery did a great job. The vines are healthy. When my machine broke and I broke it in my vineyard, this dealer shipped me the parts and walked me through how to replace it. This person sent someone to my site to help me. This soil moisture sensor company came out and fixed the sensor when it broke. You know, those are the people that customer service is like everything to me. Those are the people that I want to recommend to my growers. So I kind of curate that and act as a filter to try and get rid of some of the noise so that a grower can just go right to a trusted source.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna shift a little bit and talk about Arizona for a moment, and then we'll touch on your podcast. I believe the latest numbers from AOT is that right now we have 156 federally bonded and licensed wineries in the state of Arizona spread throughout three major wine-growing regions. You've now had quite a few years of experience visiting our part of the world. For those growers from the state of Arizona that may not know of you, can you, obviously that they already know about your background, can you illuminate, put a little sunshine on some takeaways, observations, and things that you've seen here in this state that might help them? A couple of morsels of your wisdom, if you will.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah. First of all, Pavle, I love Arizona wine. And I will tell you, in my business model, it makes no sense almost at all for me to be getting on an airplane, flying out to Tucson, jumping in a rental car, and driving around Arizona to look at vineyards. But I love it. Number one, the wine is phenomenal. Working in the Texas High Plains, that's probably the most similar climate that I work in to the Arizona region. You have monsoon rains towards the end of the season. We actually, in the high plains of Texas, could have rain almost at any time during the season. So it's a little bit different weather pattern, but in terms of higher elevation, you know, 3,500 to 4,500 feet on the high plains, you can get even higher to 5,000 or more in Arizona, similar varieties, similar ripening varieties. You have cold damage you have to be concerned about some years, late spring freezes. You have hail that can come and wipe out your crop. That's something we deal with in Texas and also in New Mexico and surrounding areas. So there's a lot of similarities. But what really drew me to Arizona was the quality of the wine, the growers. I mean, I have to say, I have a lot of fun when I come to Arizona with anyone I work with. Everyone's been fantastic, and I just work with a handful of growers there. And so does it make sense to go there? Logistically, maybe not. But for I look at it like a little getaway where I get to help great growers out, eat some good food, hang out with people who make great wine, and feel like that's how life should be, right? Help people out and enjoy doing it. And it's so beautiful. I mean, I'll try and sneak away on a trail run or something or a hike or something when I'm out there. So beautiful in the Sinoida area and Elgin and that area too. But growers in Arizona, what are the things that I think I want, let's talk about things that I think maybe I've impacted or or helped solve there? Definitely in terms of plant nutrition, it's a little different in some of the areas I've worked there than it is in Texas, for example. We find that some of the most commonly deficient nutrients would be zinc and magnesium. So if the grower in Arizona that's listening to this has not yet done plant tissue tests at Bloom or Varasian, those are the two time periods that we in the industry recommend doing those tests. Go out and collect either petioles or leaf blades. I like to do whole leaf with petiole attached. And I do have um guidelines on Virtual Viticulture Academy that are free and available to the public. So if you're listening and you're not a member of the Academy, you can still go to the Academy website and download the standard recommended values for nutrients in your leaf tissue, whether it's petiole or leaf blades, or if you're doing a soil sample, I have guidelines there for what you should be looking for in your results. So that's all available there. And I think that's the first step. Nutrition was one of the things that I think some of the growers I was working with had not been doing their due diligence in taking their samples and seeing what's going on. So immediately I think I was able to get some quick wins on some magnesium fertilization, some zinc fertilization. Some growers were able to put things through a drip irrigation. Some growers did not have that, but they could spray something. And I just had familiarity with these products and nutrient deficiencies. And they do impact fruit ripening. They do impact, especially with zinc, fruit sets, and lots of other functions in the vine. And then I think with vine training and pruning, I think that there, this is probably the biggest impact that I'm able to carry from region to region. And there's a lot of similarity. We just have to change from cold, hardy, you know, cold regions to warm regions, you know, are we single trunking, double trunking, things like that? But let's not get lost in the weeds. I think the biggest thing was what's the proper way to train a young vine from the ground up so that we have a healthy structure? That's the trunk. If we're doing spur pruning, that's the cordons and the spurs. What's the proper way to hold your pruning shears and make your cuts so that you're maintaining good vine health, good nutrient and water transport. You're not causing any dieback in the plant by how you prune. What can we do during the growing season to green prune or train the vines to get into production faster? I think you might attest to the fact that you've seen your vines get into production quite quickly in some of your young blocks. And that's by using some of these practices. And then once the vines are established, then we start to hone in on okay, what is the what's a reasonable yield? And I think sometimes we are surprised that if the vine's healthy and you've done all of your canopy management, your leaf removal, your pruning was done properly, you can actually ripen more fruit than a lot of people think and still have high quality. And so that's kind of a conundrum we we run into people thinking, and this is a common winemaker, you know, thought if the yield's low, the lower the yield is, the higher the quality of the wine. I think we've debunked that with science and with many studies around the country and around the world. So we still have to decide in places like Arizona, you know, how much should we be cropping on Marsan versus Roussan? How much can we crop on Temperinillo versus Graciano and still make the wine style that's going to be number one, what we're after for quality, but number two, it's economically viable. I think those are some things that I've been working on in Arizona with growers like yourself and other growers there. And I love pruning. I love grapevine pruning.
SPEAKER_02So I know we can probably talk an hour alone just on diet back on this idea of cutting, pruning close to the bud versus leaving a little space to mitigate dive back. But I do want to say something, Fritz. I've been fortunate and lucky in a way because I've seen the change in one of the vineyards that we acquired that was planted in 2009, and you started having touch points with it in 20, I want to say 2019. So I've seen how we've managed to sort of, I don't want to say turn around because it's not that it was in a bad state, but the quality of the fruit and the vigor, I mean, you really have been very helpful in that vineyard. But I also had the experience of establishing a vineyard from the ground up with you. And the example now that we're at, you know, this is year six, is the estate in Sonoita and Elgin, which it's, well, let's just say we're very happy with the vineyard and your help with it. I want to talk briefly about segueing into your podcast because I think any more how we get information, Fritz, we're able to curate our interests. And I remember early on looking for references and information online about viticulture. The academy was very helpful. But then I want to say it's been two years, Fritz, since you started recording your podcast. And and then obviously there's there's the obvious reasons in terms of you know spreading the gospel, but what led you to start the podcast to begin with, considering you already had sort of the the academy where you were reaching a lot of folks?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, great question, Pavle. Okay, you might notice that I'm not too shy. I always love public presenting. A few people know this, maybe you do. I used to be a pitch man all through high school and college. That's kind of how I paved my way. So I always liked, you know, presenting and sharing what I knew. And it really helped me get out of that shell of you know, public presenting, doing all that early on. And so I really enjoyed public speaking and I found out that that's where I could have the most impact when I would go out and talk at a conference. You know, growers would come up to me, we'd start a relationship, they'd actually try some of the things I was talking about. It was a way that I found new clients, it was a way that I found eventually growers who maybe were a good fit for the academy to become a member and get that distance kind of advising that they needed, they just needed a little help or reassurance. The podcast idea actually came up well before I started Virtual Viticulture Academy. And I actually, because I thought that would be a great way to help more grape growers and you know, to share some of this information that I have with growers in other parts of the world. But really, on the selfish side of things, Pavle, it was a great way for me to reach out to experts and say, hey, you want to hang out with me for an hour and just shoot the breeze about grape growing or diseases or mechanization of a vineyard, or, you know, how do you rip out a vineyard and replant properly, or all these things that growers were asking me about. And maybe I was lacking some information or depth of knowledge on. And then I could go, you know, hang out with a person and ask them all the questions that I have and all the questions that I've been getting from my growers that I felt I was not answering as well as I wanted to. And so there's part of that too. So I sat on a microphone, not literally, but I had a microphone in my closet here for eight years and just couldn't get over that hurdle, that barrier, you know, to start because then I thought, well, then I'm gonna be editing audio and this and that. So, you know, I found so what was the resistance?
SPEAKER_02What was happening?
SPEAKER_01What was the friction? The friction was time. It was, you know, it wasn't that I didn't have great ideas. I had a whole book of ideas, you know, a whole notes page in my phone when I'd sit on the airplane flying back from visiting vineyards wherever I was consulting, I would literally sit on the plane and write down ideas for podcasts, you know, things that I learned, new ideas. I had this ongoing list and it's still there in my phone. And I fulfilled some of those things by now, but it's ongoing, it's evergreen. But the idea was I just didn't have the time to edit it, to promote it and market it. So eventually what I did is I just bit the bullet and I found a company that could do that for me. And so I knew that was going to cost money to do. So I, you know, there's a little resistance there too. It's a big investment to hire someone to do all of that for you. But I found a great company. Uh, big shout out to Emerald City Production. They do my podcast uh production. So they they took everything out of my hands so that I can just show up to this microphone I'm standing in front of now and talk to the grape grower or talk to someone like you. And yes, Pavle, I've had you on my podcast. So let's let's make sure we put that in the show notes where growers can go out and winemakers can listen to the podcast with you and Kent Calaghan and Todd Bostock. That was a really fun episode about Arizona wine. And that's what I do. I do, you know, feature different regions, feature different experts on the podcast and and ask them all the hard questions, you know, that growers want to hear the answers to.
SPEAKER_02Tell us, tell us the name of the podcast.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. How about that? It's called the Vineyard Underground Podcast. So yeah, Vineyard Underground Podcast again started two years ago. Um recorded. This week, episode 70. So we've definitely got it's been growing, good following. It was well worth the investment up front to do it in my mind because of the response that I've gotten from growers. I now have growers from all over the world that are getting back to me through, you know, you can go to vineyardundergroundpodcast.com and there's a button there that says ask Fritz. And so you click the Ask Fritz button and growers can ask me questions. And I've got questions from all over the world, Pavle. It's been such a cool experience. I even recently, last week, now that I'm kind of, you know, in my studio, the growing season's in a down cycle, I did this thing where I offered 15-minute consulting calls, advising calls, just free for anyone out there listening. And Pavle, I had growers from, let's see, Bulgaria, from Vermont, from Texas, from California. Who to help? Well, I just gave a number of slots on the calendar. And I said, when they're filled, they're filled. And these are the people who came. And it was so cool to talk to these growers who I've never met in different parts of the world. And when we showed up on the Zoom call, they're like, oh, wow, this is so cool. I'm actually talking to you and I've been listening to your podcast. And you know how it is. You have you're a podcast listener. If you ran into one of your, you know, podcast hosts that you've been listening to and following, you kind of feel like if you do your podcast well, you should feel like you kind of are hanging out with that person. You know, someone listening now, I hope whoever's listening, you feel like you're hanging out with me and Pavle, and you're just kind of, you know, fly in the wall, but you're there and you kind of can feel our personality and feel, you know, the vibe of how we interact with people. And so you kind of, it's almost a different media. It's it's a little surreal when you finally meet that person in person, one-on-one, or even on a video, it's like, oh wow, this is cool. You know, now we're actually interacting, but you feel like you know them a little. It's a little weird, right?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think before we started recording, I shared the story with you. I just got back from a research trip in Napa, and I got a chance to meet Jim Dwayne in person of Inside Winemaking and CV Vineyard and been listening to him, you know, for the last, gosh, we're going on five years. And it's so interesting to, you know, the voice seems so familiar. And I think I said this to you. Very little got lost in translation between what you get on the headphones and the person in in real life. And he was an awesome dude to hang out with, very generous of spirit. But anyway, so back to you, Fritz. So 70 podcasts under your belt. Give us, you know, two or three examples of some guests that you've had on that you didn't think you would have access to. Because I think one thing leads to another. And are there guests that you're, I don't want to say surprised, but that you're like, well, yeah, I got a chance to talk to this person. This is so cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I'll give examples of people who maybe I didn't expect might say yes so readily. And then some people who I thought would be interesting, but then was just blown away when they got on, like just had no idea it would go that direction or it'd be so informative or that I would learn so much. And sometimes the script that I had in mind, just throw it out the window. We found something else to talk about. We're gonna go down that rabbit hole. But uh, yeah, we're on episode 70, is what I'm currently recording at the time of this recording here, you know, two years into it now. And, you know, I would say I do every other week. It's on Tuesdays, is when my podcasts come out. And in the future, I may go to weekly. That's definitely something to look into. Right now, I'm sticking to the every other week, is what I can kind of keep up with with my consulting business on the side and everything. But I just interviewed a researcher, Jose Uber Torres, in Canada this past week. So that episode will be coming out, and we'll put that in your show notes, hopefully. But he is an expert on grapevine trunk diseases. And what I love about Jose is he is so into the community of research. So there's researchers in Spain and France and Australia and in California. They're a very small group. It's a very tight group, and they're like a small family and powerhouse of information about grapevine trunk diseases. So fungal diseases that enter through pruning wounds primarily and get in fungal diseases will grow into the wood. Some grow fast, some grow slow, some cause dieback, some cause, you know, clusters to shrivel, some will, you know, kill the whole vine within years. There's different symptoms that they share. So it's such a gray area for grape growers out there when they see symptoms because these diseases are hidden in their vines. And unless you take a saw and cut open a vine, you won't find the infection. So it takes a while until the symptoms show. And I just I had all these questions that I that growers asked me. And I, again, I didn't feel I had all the answers. And Jose, I knew was in this inner circle and would have the latest on things that weren't even published yet. So data on, yeah. So I mean, I found out that we were concerned about grapevine diseases affecting pruning wounds, the spores landing on a recent pruning wound and growing in there. So he talked a lot about different methods of controlling and preventing that. We went into detail on that, but he talked about how the climate and the influence that temperature and humidity have on these diseases. And then the diseases are so different in each region. One region has more of u typa, the other region has more esca. These are different diseases. So it really helped me to deep dive in that topic. And a grower who's listening to that, I think it's going to totally blow their mind and open their world up to what they need to be thinking about and what they need to learn and what they need to start doing. And because the preventative measures are different for all of those circumstances for climate and varieties and region. So that was great. Let's see others. You know, I did a podcast once on use of biological products in vineyards. There's a whole movement now of companies coming up with biological organisms or compounds that are produced by plants, animals, insects that are found in nature. And we're finding that some of these will have antifungal properties. So they act as a fungicide. They can grow into the vine or colonize a leaf and act almost, you think of like gut health and bacteria, and there's these things, you know, these beneficial organisms that live within our bodies that help us to do certain things and respond to the environment and nutrition in certain ways. And some of these organisms do similar things with plants, and it's such a not well-known topic. So, you know, I had Pam Morone on, who's worked with biological control and biological spray products and has developed some with her company she's worked with and just learned so much about the field and how it works and where they find these organisms in nature and now how you know growers are finding strains of organisms local to them that are more adapted for their region that might have more success. And it is such an interesting field that we know so little about and that I see being kind of the future in development for regional specific recommendations in the future, you know, and then we do nuts and bolts stuff, like we'll get a guy on there who will talk about how to evaluate your distribution uniformity in your irrigation system. So if you want to geek out about, you know, uniformity and your watering of your vineyard, we've got you covered too. But, you know, my whole philosophy, Pavle, is I want it to be engaging. I want it to be fun. The first thing I say to whoever I'm interviewing is like, forget that we're recording. Let's just hang out, like we're hanging out in a cafe or having a beer together and chat. And I'm gonna hit you with questions and there's no wrong answers. Let's just have fun. And any kind of story you have or anecdotal, it doesn't have to be science driven. I want you to talk about what you think could be interesting. Let's explore all aspects because I come from the academic background, but I know that a lot of what I advise is based on science, and that's the foundation. But I also have observation skills, and my growers do too. And we may not have data or research information to support some of the things that we're doing, but we see consistently that they're working. So I'm a believer of sharing and distributing that information as long as I'm clear about where it's coming from. You know, anecdotally, this works well. You could try it. Research shows that this works well. And there's three or four studies that have shown this. So you should definitely feel confident implementing this. But maybe this anecdotal thing, try this on a row or two in your vineyard, see how it results in your site and climate. And then if it's positive, think about expanding it. You know, those kinds of approaches there.
SPEAKER_02No, I think that between the academy grits and the podcast, I mean, there's a trove of information that is applicable in years and years of not only your experience, but other people's experience. So collectively it's a hell of a resource. So I speak for myself when I say that. An avid imbiber, I guess, since we're doing my podcast of your information. Fritz, let's let's let's start slowing down this car so we can head to the red stuff. A young whipping snapper wants to get into your line of work, Fritz. Now that you have a couple of decades under your belt, let's say you were able to give yourself a little advice 20 years ago of someone that wants to get started in your world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that question. And like I said, you know, part of what I do is as much as possible mentoring young viticulturists, vineyard managers. The cool part about that is a lot of times they don't have a vineyard, but they work for someone. So they they actually end up getting into the academy through their employer, and then they we can interact together. But what I would say to someone who is really early in the stages, and you maybe you're in your 20s, maybe you're in your 30s, even, but you're thinking of starting a career, it's never too late, is the first thing I'm gonna say, because I know many individuals who got into the wine industry or even the vineyard industry, more specifically in viticulture, later in their careers. And we have so much more information available now that was not available when I started. I was looking for, you know, an old university publication or a book, and you had to really deep dive and read just to get one piece of information. And the good news is you have so much information at your fingertips now. And the bad news is we have so much information at our fingertips now. And so you need to, you know, kind of know where your good resources are. But my advice would be to just get your hands in it right away. Go out. The first thing I did was get an internship. And that's what anyone should do. You should call Pavle up and see if he can work in his vineyard pulling weaves and you know, shoot positioning and hedging and working with the crew, and then definitely go to the restaurant when you're done because it's killer. And then you should find out, you know, what universities are doing research, and you should try to follow that. So follow if you're in social media, follow their social media, whatever it is. But you need to kind of drink from the fire hose. And it's gonna seem overwhelming and daunting at first. But what's gonna happen is over time and repetition, it's going to sink in that information. But there's a lot of things you can do. You don't start off by being a vineyard consultant. I think we all can, you know, say that no one starts off being an expert, right? And to consult and be an educator, you know, you need your 10 years of experience or so usually to get there. But that doesn't mean you can't work with other experts. So you need to find out who those experts are and eventually get an internship or work with them or follow them and find one or two that you think are doing some really good work. If you've read the science of grapevines and you think Dr. Marcus Keller's a top viticulturist, I do. I can tell you who I follow and who I am excited, you know, of what they're going to do next. But you've got to follow them and get your hands dirty. And I guess that's really it. Just make sure that you know all aspects of what you're getting into and realize you can go into several things. You can be a vineyard manager, right? You start off as a worker, you could be a vineyard manager. You could get an advanced degree or a master's and become an educator and get into a university extension position. You could work for a nonprofit, you could work for a grower organization, you could work in private research. There's a lot of things you can do there. If your goal is to start your own vineyard someday, just be prepared for the fact that it takes a lot of money to plant a vineyard. And you cover some of this on some of your podcast episodes too, Pavle. It's not something that you start off doing as a young person because it's just such a big hurdle and it's hard to make an income. Just growing grapes, for example, very challenging, as we know. And the market changes. And right now we're in a kind of a saturation phase in the wine grape market in many regions, as probably heard, Pavle. It was the first year where growers in Texas that I work with in such a bustling industry that's up and coming, where we had fruit that was available for sale and no takers at the end of the year. So there's ebbs and flows. So I don't know if maybe that was more of a rant or a ramble about things that someone said. It wasn't like this one key piece of advice, but if I'm going to go back to it, I'm going to say, you know, get out there and work in a vineyard. No, but make sure you love it.
SPEAKER_02I think I wanted to ask you the question, Fritz, mainly because you do come from academia. And we just got done talking about how just through the academy and even your podcast alone, those could be sort of companions to someone actually just going straight to business, working with a vineyard crew at a winery that has vineyard holdings. But I think what you provide, Fritz, I might upset some people, but could be a replacement for UC Davis or some schools that teach viticulture. Am I upsetting somebody by saying that?
SPEAKER_01No, I mean it's not a replacement. It's an alternative. You know, here's the thing. There you go.
SPEAKER_02See, that was a way better answer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, the here's the thing. I get a lot of growers who say, hey, I want to get into the they're new growers, they're prospective growers. You know, I really want to get into this. I want to learn. So the first thing they do is they find a university or a community college that has a program that's like a certification program. So if you're the kind of person who likes to have that certification and you put it on your wall behind you, and you maybe you say that'll help you get your job or something, that's great. There are programs that will walk you through, you know, the step-by-step process of planting and cure and caring for a vineyard, talk about vine management, disease management, crop estimation, all the little details you need to know to effectively manage a vineyard. I guess what I'm doing is I'm taking away the certification and all the formality and creating a space and a platform where you kind of come in as you want. And if you want a lot of information, it's all there. If you just want to learn about pruning, you can search through pruning and watch videos and content on that. You know, so it's really more of an a la carte, but I want to make it entertaining and fun as much as possible. I kind of call it edutainment. You know, you want people to say, okay, I can listen to this for an hour and not, you know, pull my hair out. There's anecdotal stories peppered in, there's, you know, personal stories and experiences thrown in, there's things that are fun. And so, yes, someone theoretically who wants to get started, if they want to start by listening to your podcast and my podcast to get an idea of the world of wine and the vineyard underground in my case, they're going to learn a ton and it's free. If they want to go to virtual viticultureacademy.com and go on the website. There's tons of free videos and content there too. And if they decide to take the next step and become a member, then they, you know, of course, can dig deeper down that rabbit hole and get some of the longer format content and longer videos where we go into depth on details about maybe pest and disease management and what to put in a spray tank and what's compatible and you know, really nitty-gritty stuff that's not entry-level info, but it's there when you're ready. You can jump on it. But yeah, I would say by far, some of the people who've come in and have done both vineyard certification programs with a university, we don't need the name names, but there's several out there, and then have done, you know, the format that I do, they tend to stick around because we we're there all the time. If you do a certification, you have your certification and then you're on your own. What I'm offering is more of a continued education. So it's a little different model. I guess it's not fair to compare them because I show up and I'm there and I'm answering questions and continuing that relationship and following. So I've got growers that I know by first name in, you know, 30 different states. And I remember not always, I do my best to remember, oh, yeah, that's right. You're growing Marquette in um Illinois or Iowa, and you're growing Frontenac Gris in Nebraska. And oh, you're the Grenache grower in Santa Cruz that comes in and asks questions all the time about canopy management and pruning. And sometimes we'll go in and someone will send me a picture and say, here's how I think I'm supposed to prune this vine. And so I'll put the picture up on the screen and draw lines, you know, on it. Well, you can cut here, but if you cut here, it's gonna have this consequence of, you know, die back. And so we actually dissect and go into that nitty-gritty. And that's why it's so much fun because you don't have that kind of interaction everywhere. And so I'm trying to create that so someone can go in and you know what's really cool though. I didn't even mention this, Pavle. Some of my growers can't be at the live stuff. So we recorded it all when I do my advising sessions, and then we bookmark each question. So if Pavle, you say, Hey, I had a question for Fritz, I'm gonna send it in to the support. I know he's gonna answer it on Monday when he does his thing, and I can't be there live. So you get you get the recording, and then there's an actual bookmark for your questions. You can click on the video and just listen to me answer your question. And you don't have to kind of listen to the hour or two-hour video of all the questions. But I have growers, the new, the new growers, they want to sit there and listen to everything. They're sponging in all the information. They want to hear the growers from questions, the questions from growers from all the other states, in addition to their region, because they find it interesting. And that's what I love. I want that grower who's curious, not just about what's helping them, but what's going on in the window of the world of wine growing.
SPEAKER_02Where can people get some edutainment and then some tell our listeners, my kind sir, where to find you, where to get a hold of you, and where to find your info.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, Pavle. By the way, this has been fun. You made me do all the talking. Is was that the purpose? Yes, sir. Okay, all right. Well, when I get you on my podcast again, it's your turn. All right. Okay. All right. So if you want to find me the best place to go, start by listening to the podcast. If you're a podcast listener, you can find it anywhere you listen at Vineyard Underground Podcast or visit Vineyard Underground Podcast dot com and you can scroll through past episodes, and that's where you have the Ask Fritz button. So you can click on the Ask Fritz and you can directly message me and I read all of those messages. And if you're just interested in learning more about grape growing and would like some hands-on resources and video resources, check out virtual viticulture academy.com. That's where I host everything. You can see what if you're interested in what a membership looks like. There's a join tab, hit that. You can read through, you know, what we do there and how it works. And you can always just try it for 30 days. I tell people if you're not sure if it's right for you, you can jump in for 30 days and and see what's in there and check it out, you know, and then hopefully show up live for something so we can hang out.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. Fritz, I so much appreciate your time. I know I'm probably gonna see you sooner than later, hopefully uh Q1 of next year, sometime, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Yeah, I'll be in Arizona. I'll be walking, putting uh my footprints in your vineyard, Pavle, and hopefully tracking some dirt into your wine bar and restaurant a little bit after that, because that's one of my favorite things to do as well. Fritz, thanks again.
SPEAKER_02I so much appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Pablo. Pleasure to be here. Good luck this next season. Chao, Cairo.
SPEAKER_02And that brings us to the end of the show. But before we say ciao ciao, I wanted to let you know that if there are any questions about winemaking you'd like me to tackle on the pod, don't hesitate to email me at psst at povlamilik.com. That's ps at povlomilic.com. Also, if you dug the content and you know someone who would get value from it, please share it. And lastly, if you have been enjoying the show, head on over to wherever you listen, leave us a review, and subscribe. Until next time, this is your host, Pavlamilik.