442: Ray Coursen Recalls the Napa Valley of the 1980s and Before

I'll Drink to That! Wine Talk

Levi Dalton

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4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2018

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ray Coursen is the owner and founding winemaker of Elyse Winery as well as Jacob Franklin Wines, in California's Napa Valley. He is also involved with winemaking for Purple Heart Wines, benefiting the Purple Heart Foundation.

Ray relates how he arrived in the Napa Valley in the 1980s, and shares conversations he had with several wine world figures at that time. He discusses the history of some key vineyard sites, as well as the attributes of numerous grape varieties that he works with. Ray also divulges some of his unusual winemaking techniques. Further, Ray points out what has changed in the Napa Valley over the last several decades.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'll drink to that where we get behind the scenes of the beverage business.
0:05.1	I'm Levy Dalton.
0:06.1	I'm Erin Scala and here's our show today. Riggi. Ray Corson of a lease winery in Napa Valley as well as Jacob Franklin and
0:28.4	Purple Heart. Hello sir how are you? I'm well thank you. So you actually grew up on a dairy farm. I grew up on a dairy farm in Newton,
0:36.1	New Jersey up in the northwest corner of Sussex County and you know my joke is I outgrew
0:41.7	my need for milk so it was time to get off the farm.
0:45.0	You know, got drafted in the army, went to Vietnam, came home, fooled around in Africa for a couple years,
0:51.0	and decided it was time to go back to school.
0:53.7	So I'm a graduate of U-Mass, and my degree is in Palmology.
0:57.8	So I had planned on having an orchard,
1:00.5	because we had a couple orchers up the street
1:02.4	from our dairy farm, and they didn't work near as hard as I worked.
1:06.0	So I looked at that and I go, well I like apples so it wouldn't be a bad idea.
1:10.0	And then getting myself through college, I waited tables, tended bar, got the wine bug.
1:17.0	I came out to California in 80, was it, 78, ended up going back to Boston and worked at a great wine shop, Bower wine shop on Newberry Street, and he buried the hook on me.
1:30.0	And what was it, was 79 for Christmas Eve, he opened a 47 Margo, and on New Year's
1:38.2	Eve he opened up a 47 de Kim, and I was shot. It was all over at that time, you know, I'm a big guy and I can drink and I was giddy drinking these wines and you know I never looked
1:51.0	back since and so I got over the uncomfortable part of not knowing enough of the wine business and then told my fiance one day I said listen
2:00.9	I want to move to California. I want to move to California I want to make wine so my father-in-law's
2:06.8	secretary had a nephew who he and his wife had a winery. It was Jeffrey Patterson and Ellie Davis from Mount Eden.
2:15.9	So they agreed to let me work there. So that was my first job in the business up there picking grapes digging ditches and washing boxes.
2:25.8	I was the old man on the totem pole.
	...

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