Special Episode! Meet the (Wine) Makers #16: Kurtis Ogasawara, Director of Winemaking at Robert Mondavi Winery

How did a kid with no background in winemaking, a D1 scholarship to wrestle in college, and an interest in Mechanical Engineering end up making wine at one of the most famous wineries in Napa? You could call it fate. This week, we had the honor of sitting down with Kurtis Ogasawara who is the Director of Winemaking at Robert Mondavi Winery. Like a lot of winemakers we have met, he didn’t start out expecting to be a winemaker, and began with a background in science and math. But, maybe the most amazing thing about Kurtis is that his experience as a Division 1 college athlete has influenced how he sees the winemaking process - which he likens to a team because of all the different people and talents that have to come together to make something special. Join us for this fun and fascinating interview, and gain a new appreciation for this storied winery and one of its amazing winemakers. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Kurtis Ogasawara
• 2:00 Interview with Kurtis Ogasawara
• 31:39 Outro and How to Find Kurtis Ogasawara and Robert Mondavi Winery

Transcript

Show Notes

Introduction to the Interview with Kurtis Ogasawara, Director of Winemaking at Robert Mondavi Winery 00:00

Hello, and welcome to this special episode of The Wine Pair Podcast! I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and for this special episode, I am on my own as my wine pairing partner in crime is busy making cakes for her Baby Cakes micro-bakery, which by the way you can learn more about if you head over to her website lovebabycakes.com.

Today, we are going to introduce you to Kurtis Ogasawara, Director of Winemaking at Robert Mondavi Winery. Robert Mondavi Winery is one of the wineries that put Napa and America on the winemaking map, and you will hear Kurtis talk about their famous To Kalon Vineyard in Oakville where they introduced the world to their first famous wine, Fumé Blanc. Kurtis is a bit of a Renaissance man, an athlete and scientist, who found his way into winemaking. But more about him in a minute.

First, as a quick orientation to what we usually do in our podcast podcast, in most episodes we learn about, taste, and review two to three wines that are reasonably priced, which means under $25, and should be easy to find. However, for this special set of episodes, we interview people who are involved in actually making wine. Because part of what we want to do with our podcast is to educate ourselves and you on different aspects of wine knowledge in a fun, entertaining, and unstuffy way, even fun and entertaining as Decanter magazine has called our podcast, and that is what we are doing today!

A small plug before we get to the interview with Kurtis - if you like what you are hearing or are interested in hearing our other “regular” episodes, please subscribe or follow our podcast so you can hear more - especially since you are only getting one half of The Wine Pair Podcast in this episode! You can also go to our website thewinepairpodcast.com to send us a note or subscribe to our newsletter, you can follow us on Instagram and Bluesky at The Wine Pair Podcast, and, if you like what you are hearing, you can even leave us a nice rating and review, we won’t mind!

Ok, let’s get to the interview with Kurtis

Interview with Kurtis Ogasawara, Director of Winemaking at Robert Mondavi Winery 2:00

Interview Questions:

• Tell us a little about yourself - your background, your family, etc., and if wine played any part in your growing up
• Tell us about how you got into winemaking. Was this something you had planned for and pursued, or did it "find" you?
• Did you have a mentor, or someone who taught you the ropes?
• What do you think defines you as a winemaker and makes you and your wines special?
• Tell us about a few of your latest releases and what makes you excited about them.
• Do you lean more towards the art or the science of wine (or both)?
• What’s something surprising, interesting, exciting, or funny you have learned about yourself since you started making wine?
• Are there any important or interesting stories about your wine or the people you work with that you think would be important for our audience to know?
• If we were to invite you to Sunday Night Dinner (a tradition in our Italian American family), what of your wines would you bring and why?
• How can people find your wines and follow you (your website, social, etc.)

Outro and How to Find Kurtis Ogasawara and Robert Mondavi Winery 31:39

Thank you very much for listening to our interview with Kurtis Ogasawara, and I just have to say, and I am sure you heard it in the interview, Kurtis is a really great person, easy to talk to, and just very natural.

Now, in case you are worried about how to get in touch with Robert Mondavi Windery, don’t worry, you can find out all of this information on our website thewinepairpodcast.com in our show notes for this episode. But so you have it, here again is the information about how to find out more about

Website: https://robertmondaviwinery.com/
Instagram: @robertmondavi
Email: wineclub@robertmondaviwinery.com; reservations@robertmondaviwinery.com 

And, we hope you will subscribe to our podcast The Wine Pair Podcast and follow us on Instagram, and visit our website at thewinepairpodcast.com where you can reach out to us and sign up for our newsletter, and you can also reach out to me at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com if you want more information, and we look forward to hearing from you!

But for now it’s time to go, and as we like to say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine.

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