Ologies with Alie Ward
Enology Part 2 (HOW TO MAKE WINE) with Tara Gomez & Mireia Taribó
27 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the difference between wineries and vineyards?
Oh, hey, it's the lady who never unpacks her toiletry kit because you never know when you got a jam. And welcome back. You're here for wine part two. Last week, we chatted with the very charismatic, encyclopedically informed Andre Houston Mack, who gave you an in-depth and a very spirited discussion of all the different wines, how to drink them.
so-called old world versus new world wines, what gives a wine its taste, label drama, the rise of the sometimes hit or miss funky kombucha tasting organic or biodynamic wines, how to order in a restaurant, what to look for. That was a great start there. This week, we're so lucky to talk to a pair of indie winemakers and oenologists from a family-owned winery in California. And one of
was born and raised in Spain. The other is a member of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians and was the first Native American to own and operate a winery in the United States. And together their winery, it's called Kameen's Two Dreams. meaning the path to our dreams. They make wines with this low intervention, natural yeast, low sulfites.
We'll talk about what those mean later, as well as what got these two into winemaking, how grapes are harvested, why some are juiced with the stems, some weird balloon coffin chambers, wooden tea bags, lab work, tips for making your own wines. how they met, and the surprising story time on how they became a married duo in life and in work.
But first, thank you so much to patrons at patreon.com slash ologies for supporting the show for the last nine years and submitting questions that are smarter than mine. Thank you to everyone out there marching around in Ologies merch at ologiesmerch.com. And for folks who need G-rated, kid-friendly episodes, we have a spinoff show called Smologies.
And you can find that just by searching Smologies, S-M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S, in your favorite podcast app. Subscribe, tell friends. Also, thank you to everyone who leaves reviews for the show, which helps so much. I do uncork. I enjoy them all. I promise.
And thank you for this unaged, fresh one from Science Adjacent, who wrote, Dang it, Allie, not 10 minutes after listening to your recent Secrets episode, I'm sitting in my car enjoying a nice beverage and sploosh right down the front of my shirt. Sure wish I had a dish towel right now. And Ologies is the lingering ember in their campfire pit that warms their morning coffee.
Science adjacent, thank you. Grab a car towel. Everyone, no wine in the car. But I pray to all that is holy and unholy that you know that. Also, thank you to sponsors of the show who make it possible for us to donate every week to a different cause that is related to the ologists. Okay, analogy, it comes from the Greek, oinos, for wine.
As we mentioned last week, if you are spelling like the Brits, it's with an O in front. It looks like O-anology. Unfortunately, I am American, so that's just no O in front. So let's dive into a barrel of facts about wineries versus vineyards, what a winemaker does all day and year, what wines have skin in the game, metal versus oak, carbonic fermentation situations, DIY-ing wine.
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Chapter 2: How do grapes get harvested and processed?
Since I was a kid, there was a vineyard at home that my great-grandparents had planted. But it's just like a small amount, like just to make a barrel or two a year, just to drink at home with family and friends. And yeah, all the neighbors there in the village where my dad is from, which is in the bottom of the Pyrenees.
Back in the time, everybody had like, you know, olive trees, animals and vineyards because that's what they would eat, everybody. So yeah, when I was a kid, I totally remember going to the vineyard and picking the grapes and food stomping. And it was nothing technical at that moment because it was just like made at home. But after a month or so, you had wine to drink. And that's basically...
What'd you do there? But I never thought about becoming an analogist or winemaker or like, to me, wine was just, you know, drink at home and mate at home and didn't need to do anything else for that.
Sounds like a movie that you're just like, oh yeah, we just pick our grapes, we stomp on it. Okay, side note, if you're like stomping grapes in a bucket, sounds like an absolutely impeccable way to craft fungus wine. I got good news, I got bad news. So the yeast that ferments your favorite glass of Pinot, it's a fungus, all right? But that's the bad news, I guess.
But the good news is that if you foot stomp grapes, you're going gently enough to express the juice, but not hard enough to crunch the grape seeds and give the wine a bitter flavor. Also, the tannins, the alcohol in it that ferments, it's going to kill the foot stuff.
And if that is disappointing, you should listen to our firmology episode about cheese to learn about what's growing in your cheese that's delicious. Another point of good news, no one uses feet anymore for this unless it's a very niche label of wine or maybe it's a kink drink. No shame. But we're going to talk about how these two make grape juice in just a little bit.
And Tara, can you tell me a little bit about what got you interested in wine? Was that a big surprise for you to wind up and go, oh, this is where I'm supposed to be?
No, actually, it was pretty easy. I mean, I got my first Fisher-Price microscope set like at the age of four. And I just love looking at nature through a microscope. And then from there, it just kind of grew into chemistry set. So I was... Kind of a little bit of an odd child of really just like wanting to play with my microscope and chemistry sets.
But yeah, I just love looking at nature through the microscope. So I knew by like elementary school that, yeah, this is what I wanted to do. And none of my family knew. ever, you know, were in the wine industry. They just like to drink wine. And so when we were young, like I remember my parents always, you know, on the weekends going wine tasting up and down here, the Central Coast.
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Chapter 3: What unique winemaking techniques do Tara and Mireia use?
It was either UC Davis or Fresno State. And so I chose Fresno State because I wanted the hands-on experience. There was already a winery on campus. Oh my gosh, I could hear her now.
I can't keep her out again and
She's a mischief maker. She's very mischievous.
Yes.
So whatever, she's fine. Their cat did have a lot to contribute, but unfortunately we lacked an interpreter. Onward. Sarah, you're saying that Fresno and Davis both had programs. Was that tough to choose between them?
It wasn't because Fresno State had already the winery on campus. And for me, like I tend to learn better hands-on. So yeah, it was a pretty easy decision for me. And you're from California. Yes, I am from California.
Can you tell me a little bit about your history with the Central Coast? What is it about California and the Central Coast and Napa that is so good for wine as well?
Yeah, so I'm from Santa Barbara County. And what I really love about Santa Barbara County in general is just like all the different microclimates there. that we have within our county. I mean, we have over 70 different varieties within a 35 mile radius. We could be enjoying like Bordeaux varieties, Burgundy varieties, Italian varieties, all the varieties.
And so I think that's what draws a lot of the winemakers to our area, especially the women winemakers. I think the women winemakers are represent a larger percentage that is based here in Santa Barbara County itself.
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Chapter 4: How does Indigenous culture influence winemaking?
No, not at all. I was an intern. When we met, Tara was working at J.Lore and I came to do a harvest. It was my first time in California doing a harvest here. And I was living with two other interns and there are three other interns, but the other ones were working with Tara in the lab and I was working in the cellar. The cellar would start earlier, but also finish earlier.
And we only had, as interns, we only had one car and we all had to wait for each other and things like this. So I would go to the lab because there was the only place where there was computers. And we're talking about 20 years ago. So there was no social media, no cell phones.
So the only way to communicate with my friends at home and everything was like, I don't know what it even was at that time.
Some messenger, I guess. Yeah, she would check her emails, turn up the volume until she opened up her email. I wouldn't turn up the volume. It would just like disrupt the whole lab because everything just, all this music start playing and everything go off.
So one day Tara takes me and I am in the lab checking my emails and trying to send emails to my friends and family. And Tara's like, you come with me. And I'm just like, oh God, like now I'm really in trouble. Like she's sending me back to Spain. What's going on? She just walks me to her car. You're out of here. She takes me for a ride and I'm just like, where are we going?
Like, I was like all scared. And I mean, it was also like, I didn't speak English as good as now. So communication was a barrier too. And anyway, she takes me like she was at that moment making wine, basically the, I don't know, like a mile down the street from where her friend had a winery and she was making her own label there. So yeah.
I remember her taking me there and she's like, hey, this is where I make my own wine. And she takes me into this kind of like garage winery and opens the fridge and she's like, you like beer? I was like, yeah. So she gives me a beer and she's like, all right, start making punchdowns.
Yeah, I had like 20 punchdowns to do.
So I was like, all right, well, if you feed me beer, I'll make punchdowns. That's fine. And then after that, every day she would come.
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Chapter 5: What tips do the experts have for making DIY wine?
I'm so glad that you guys got together. And I know you're wondering, so was I. So doing punchdowns in winemaking is when you push the floating grape skins back into the juice to extract more flavor and more color. So picture like a giant potato masher squishing around a cranberry bog, but it's grapes and it's baby wine in a huge trough.
And this surprised me, but the average winery only has four or five employees. I pictured dozens like factory setting, but most of them know. So with teams being just about the size of a family, how are the chores divided? Well, I'm not sure like who does what roles when it comes to wine, but you guys are winemakers, but then there's winery owners. So those are people who grow the grapes.
Those are people who get the grapes and make the wine. Are they the same people? Like who does what when it comes to making wine?
I mean, it depends on the winery, I would say. It depends on the size of the winery. We are a really small winery. So basically we wear all the hats, Tara and I. We do have a little bit of different roles just because we have our strengths in like different areas and what we like to our different things.
But yeah, depending on the winery, I mean, bigger wineries, normally you have, yeah, you have the owner, which is actually at the end, the one that... makes money and pays money, but you have a white maker or you have like a general manager, you have a marketing person, you have a lot of different people that's involved. But for us, it's just Tara and I that we do everything together.
And as Maria said, we all know our strengths and weaknesses. within our own winery. And so Mireya, for example, she's more in the cellar. She's the one that does a lot of the tank movements, barrel movements. And I'm the one hauling the, because we work out of a few different buildings. So I'm the one that goes and picks up the barrels or picks up whatever she needs to get the work done. And
I'm always like in the truck, like hauling things from one building to another or I'm doing the analysis. So we know within ourselves what our strengths and weaknesses are. And so it makes it easy to kind of fulfill those roles.
When it comes to, let's say, a winery, I think what I was confused with is I thought a winery was only a place and not a business. And so I always thought that whatever wine you made only came from the grapes that you were growing outside. I didn't know that that's something that winemakers did because I haven't been on enough wine tours. But as a winemaker...
sourcing the grapes is, I imagine, a huge part of it. Can you walk me through it a little bit?
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Chapter 6: How does the aging process affect wine?
You put the grapes inside, fill it all, and then there's like a balloon that inflates and deflates and it presses. And then it has some drains where the juice comes out and the skins stay inside the press.
Yeah, the skins and seeds stay inside and just the juice comes out.
Yeah, through some drains and stuff. So, yeah.
What happens to all that stuff?
Are there like hogs sitting by being like, give it to me? I mean, if you have your own vineyard, you can take it back into the vineyard and use it as a compost there or like you ferment it first and compost it.
For us, we put it in a big container that we have outside the winery during harvest and then it gets picked up by a recycling company and then they use it for compost or recycle it, take it somewhere else and that's it.
Okay, so I was curious about these balloon machines and I looked up a video taken with some sort of GoPro and a tank of grapes being mushed. Wow. Imagine like a giant water heater cylinder on its side or...
better yet like a small submarine it's filled with grapes all right bunches of grapes are tossed in from a hole at the top like a submarine hatch and then it's sealed shut and the thing spins this way it spins that way it tosses them all around and then suddenly half of the tank starts to inflate like a big clogged artery, and it smushes the grapes against each other and the side of the tank.
Then it gets spun more of the juices drained off, and then the big balloon inflates again, and then spinning, smushing, draining, spinning, ballooning. I was mesmerized. I was just watching this thing like a toddler with an iPad. It's like seeing thousands of bubble wraps popping all at once, or like...
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Chapter 7: What are the roles of winemakers and winery owners?
So thank you. I feel like it really did a number on Merlot, but it really oversaturated Pinot Noir. And it's so interesting how much these pop cultural things can...
have influence. But I think it's more important to see if you like it or not. At the end, it's just like it doesn't matter which wine it is. It's if you like it, you like it. And then once you find a wine that you like it, try to remember it. And when you go to a store, say, hey, I like this wine or it was just, you know, you have something similar or you have.
And from there, start trying different things.
And when it comes to mouthfeel, Some of them feel drier. The tannins in red wine are higher than in white wine. But what are these properties chemically that give a different kind of mouthfeel?
Yeah, I mean, tannins come mostly from the skins and the seeds, but also from the oak. So either barrels or you can add artificial powder oak or chips or whatever it's allowed in this country to add to. So basically from oak and... So in general, yes, red wine has more tannin, which gives you this dryness on the palate.
So that's just basically a sensation of like, I don't know, like the proteins basically in the wine precipitate with your saliva. So that's why you feel like that precipitation, it just puts like a cover in your tongue.
So, yeah, as we touched on with Andre last week, some wineries use oak chips or even sawdust tea bags. They've been doing it since the 1800s. And according to the history and the science behind it, which was discussed in the paper, review of quality factors on wine aging in oak barrels.
The oak chips can create greater intensity of wood aromas, which are like coconut and vanillin, and a greater taste impact of bitterness and astringency than oak barrels. So those chips can create more of it. And individual winemakers can evaluate what their flavor and texture goals are when choosing between barrels and chips and dust and such. But how does Bradley Cooper feel about all this?
I know we're wondering. My guess is resentful because a barrel maker is called a Cooper and people bearing that surname, Cooper, probably descended from people who craft barrels and would say that oak chips are cheating and that you should buy more barrels.
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Chapter 8: How can listeners purchase wines from Camins2Dreams?
Oh, that one has a horse on it. Cool. Done. Is this a thing? Very much so. Enough so that scientists are like, let's fire up the spreadsheets. So one study titled Wine and Wildlife, an exploratory study of the depiction of animals on wine labels available in the United States, found that, quote, animals were depicted on 16.7% of wine labels overall with birds and mammals.
being the most commonly depicted animals. I can't imagine like a wine with a slug on it. It's probably not going to happen. But they say, as predicted, the depiction of animals was less common on wine labels from Europe than other regions. They say likely because a lot of European wines use traditional imagery. They say like chateaus and heraldic images and fonts.
And that attracts consumers that value the wine's heritage. So in a word, stuffier. Fewer goats and dogs and cats and stuff. Now, do the animals actually sell wine, though? Or are they just cute? Let's ask the 2026 paper, Influence of Wine Label Imagery. Eye tracking evidence and regulatory implications in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review.
And it explains that 20 years ago, wine labels mostly featured typefaces and fonts, but they conducted an experiment with the use of eye tracking. They write, we demonstrated that wine labels featuring images of animals draw attention more rapidly and sustain attention for longer than labels with inanimate objects.
And it all started, a lot of these papers say, with the explosion of the Australian wine Yellowtail, which features this little hopping wallaby. Honestly, I never even considered that Yellowtail was about a wallaby with that tail. I always just thought it was named after the tuna. I never even thought about it. And that's my bad for not turning on even one of my brain cells to consider it.
But yeah, the so-called critter wine sells more and faster than old-style labels, up to twice as many bottles, some sources say. So next time you're at the store, even if you don't drink wine, just cruise the aisle and report back on what critters you spot.
I searched wine in my photos on my phone, and I found so many pictures that I had just taken of bottles I didn't even buy that I was like, oh, look at that bat. Oh, that one's got a rhino on it, just that I thought were cute. We post a discussion thread on Patreon where we can all chat and I want to hear what you see. Oh, speaking of y'all, so much of it is perception and expectation.
And I did get some great questions from listeners. Can I ask you a few? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Okay. But before we open those up, let's donate to a related charity for Tara and Maria. And it's going to House of Pride and Equality in Santa Maria, California, which works to create visibility and awareness for LGBTQIA plus people and provide safe environments of inclusion.
and educate through advocacy efforts and community outreach events. And they say due to the lack of Latinx-focused queer spaces, they've been working toward that and a more equitable Central Coast for all since 2016. So you can find out more about them in the show notes or you can head to houseofprideinequality.org. So thanks to sponsors of the show for making that donation possible.
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