Flying Whale Wine featuring guest Maba Ba. In this episode, Maba dives into the meticulous process behind creating their signature red blend, the Flying Whale Gold, which aims to capture the essence of big California Cabernet without the heavy tannins. He also discusses the challenge of crafting a fuller-bodied rosé and the exciting journey of developing a new Viognier that balances floral notes with a creamy texture.
Maba highlights the collaborative spirit at Flying Whale Wine, emphasizing the importance of blending Grenache Noir and Syrah for their red wine. With the recent launch of their 2023 vintage, listeners will gain insight into the soft launch at Aspen Food and Wine and the feedback that shaped their final products. Tune in to discover what makes Flying Whale Wine stand out in the crowded wine landscape!
00:00
Welcome to the best five minute wine podcast with Forrest Galley.
00:18
You got the vineyard and is the vineyard ready to go?
00:23
No, the vineyard been ready to go.
00:25
The vineyard never stopped.
00:26
The vineyard was already going, DJ and his family are running it really well there.
00:31
There is a restaurant on the vineyard that's wonderful, independent of the vineyard, but
00:37
it's a collaboration and it works really well because it brings people onto the vineyards
00:42
quite often on top of the wine.
00:45
So the vineyard never stopped working, it just changed hands.
00:48
Okay, so outside of being the promoter of the Flying Whale wine, and I can see why that
00:57
What else do you do in the business on a day-to-day basis?
01:00
Well, I had to work on getting the juice that we have.
01:03
So basically the deal that DJ and I have is that DJ makes his wine under the Mint Sol
01:08
Pirate and we together make the wine under Flying Whale, it's a different juice.
01:14
I was happy with the red and the rosé that we have.
01:17
I've always been a big California Cab fan and so I wanted to mimic sort of a big body
01:24
California Cab, but with less tannins and make it a bit more silky, a bit more juicy,
01:32
less dry, you know, so you can have it a little chill.
01:36
And for the rosé, that one took longer to work on.
01:40
I did a lot of back and forth and a lot of work on it on the winery to get it to where
01:45
it is because I've never been a big rosé drinker.
01:48
So I wanted to make a rosé more for big body red drinkers.
01:53
So it's a fuller body rosé, dry and silky, very round.
01:57
And so right now what I'm working on is the white wine, it's a Viognier.
02:03
I decided I wanted to do a Viognier because it's not the easiest grape to work with, but
02:07
once you get it right, I think it's a beautiful grape.
02:10
I love the flower that you can taste on it, but it can be a bit too acidic for me.
02:17
So I'm trying to make a Viognier that flows more, that has the buttery of a Chardonnay,
02:23
but still has the flower aspect of a Viognier.
02:26
So I will go back to work on that at the winery until I get it right.
02:31
Looking at the website, flyingwhalewine.com, are you in those pictures on the flash?
02:40
You can see founder, I'm under that picture.
02:43
The beginning video, that was the launch because we finally launched in August, we
02:49
And then at the bottom video, I believe it's me and DJ at the winery.
02:53
It's very, very nice.
02:55
Very aesthetically pleasing.
02:57
Okay, so you've got three products or two, right, and then coming soon.
03:02
So tell me about the black bottle.
03:06
So the black bottle is the Flying Whale Gold.
03:09
That's the first one that I worked on is my red blend.
03:13
It's inspired by a big body California cab.
03:17
That's what I was trying to achieve because I'm a big fan, I've always been a big fan
03:20
of big California cabs, but I wanted to make one with less tenons.
03:25
So it comes up more silky and rounder.
03:29
You know, when you have some of the big California cabs, sometimes when you drink it, it kind
03:33
of dries out your mouth a little bit.
03:35
And that's why they're so nice to have with a juicy steak or something that waters your
03:41
mouth to balance it.
03:43
Instead, I wanted to make one that you can have with those big meals, but you can also
03:47
have a little chilled and it's more fluid, it's more round and silkier.
03:52
And I achieved it by mixing Grenache Noir and Syrah together as a blend.
03:57
How long has it been out?
03:58
Yeah, I started producing this.
04:00
So this is the 2023 vintage, but we just launched it in August of 2025, this past August, we
04:08
Before that, we were just doing private tastings, etc.
04:12
So we soft launched at Aspen Food and Wine in June, but the wine itself was not yet in
04:18
We just had samples at the time.
04:20
We were bringing 100 bottles at the time just to kind of like gauge the audience and gauge
04:26
And then we fully launched in August.
04:41
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