“This fall, the Academy Award-winning film, SIDEWAYS, will stream on Hulu in celebration of its 20th Anniversary. Hitching Post Wines has partnered with Searchlight Pictures to showcase Hitching Post Highliner Pinot Noir, the wine featured in the movie. The Highliner Pinot Noir is always one of the most consistent, highly regarded wines of Hitching Post, and the 2021 is one of the best vintages of the past two decades. This 2021 vintage has a special label to commemorate the film and the Anniversary.”
“In celebration of this partnership, Hitching Post 2 and Hitching Wines announce a series of special events, including three Hitching Post + Sideways Winemaker Dinners scheduled for September and October. Hitching Post Wines will also offer specially produced and limited edition SIDEWAYS Highliner Pinot Noir wine available for purchase at the Buellton restaurant, the adjacent Hitching Post tasting room and select retailers throughout California.”
Chef and Winemaker Frank Ostini and Winemaker Gray Hartley of Hitching Post Wines join us to uncork all the events.
Hi, I'm Carla Hall of ABC's The Chew. You're listening to The SoCal Restaurant Show on AM/830KLAA. Whoo-hoo! And welcome back. It is The SoCal Restaurant Show. And happily, we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon, right here on AM/830KLAA. The home of Angels Baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AM/830KLAA Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. And we're proudly presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. Twenty years ago, an independent production company that was part of 20th Century Fox by the name of Searchlight Pictures released a little film called Sideways that I don't think they or the critical community had any idea what a popular phenomenon this film would be. And the controversy that it created with Merlot v. Pinot Noir. Front and center in all of this was Winemaker, restaurateur, and chef, Franco Steeney, and his winemaking partner, Gray Hartley, of Hitching Post-Wines. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Sideways, all of these good folks are joining forces with Searchlight Pictures to do a series of events commemorating the release of Sideways, but also showcasing the Hitching Post-Wines that were in the film. We never get tired of talking about the phenomenon that is Sideways and the impact that it's had in Bewlton and Sanning as Valley over the years. As I like to say, 20 years later, it is the gift that keeps on giving. And with that as the extensive background, it is a pleasure to welcome Frank and Gray back to the SoCal restaurant show. Gentlemen, good morning and welcome back. Hey, Andy. Good morning, Andy. Good morning to both. Frank, let's start out with you. Many years ago, and it must have been like 22 or 23 years ago, but we're dating ourselves, you had a regular customer at Hitching Post II by the name of Rex Pickett and kind of a writer, Bon Vivon, but, you know, he liked to hang out at the wineries in the Sanning as Valley. And, you know, Frank over the years is a chef and a restaurateur and winemaker, particularly with people in your restaurant. You hear a lot of talk and, you know, people make promises and you kind of take it with a grain of pepper. What happened with Mr. Rex Pickett? Well, Rex, of course, would hang out at the bar and he had us write in the book. He was an unpublished author and he would write in the daytime and come to the restaurant at night. After he discovered us at the bar, he met a winemaker just with a prospective friend of ours that had related our beloved fellow that has passed away. His son Drake has taken over with past wines. He found out that our region was a wine resource. Rex didn't know that. Rex had his story of angst and the travel of two buddies, so he did not have anything about wine. He discovered the wine region, started putting that in his story, descended the bartender. He was writing in the end to his book and then he had a crush on a waitress, told her she was in his book. They actually never dated. He made up a bunch of stuff, but a whole bunch of it was true. We were here at the Hitching Post and, you know, so now we get to celebrate 20 years of sideways, but quietly and the Andy were celebrating 40 years of Hitching Post wine. So we were here before the movie. We're going to be here for many more years going forward. It's just such an exciting thing. And Frank and Gray, it's sold out, but the first of the sideways festivities in terms of these special dinners that you and Gray are being part of and featuring the portfolio of Hitching Post wines is tomorrow. Is tomorrow evening at the Hitching Post? Can you just give us a little idea of the wines that are going to be available because I understand there's some special releases and they also will be available online at select retailers, but also at the Hitching Post tasting Roman Bealton adjacent to Hitching Post too? So tomorrow night at our place, there will be at our personal celebrations and local dinners. We'll come together and some of our desk fans. We will be showing wine Hitching Post Highlighter P&R that was served in the movie sideways, the 2001 Hitching Post Highlighter P&R. And then we will be showing the current release, which has the special sideways 20th anniversary neck label on it, the 2021 Hitching Post Highlighter. We will also be showing the end of the seatos in here. We're showing the 2014 and 2020. We have some other big bottles that are older wines that we might show too. It's just a fantastic commemoration of what has happened and where we've come from there. We were 20 years into making P&R when this time sideways came and every year, we think we've gotten better. We've learned and we think we still have a lot to learn, Andy. We're young in the winemaking business and we've not done it for only 40 years and we hope that Hitching Post's wine goes on another 40 years. So it's an exciting time for Hitching Post to once. And even more exciting, Frank and Gray, because we should acknowledge at the recent wine and fire weekend that is put on by the Santa Rita Hills Wine Alliance, one very prestigious winery in the area, that being Hitching Post Wine, you both were vintners of the year for 2024. So definitely congratulations on that. Bringing Gray into the conversation for a moment here and then we'll pause and come back after our break. Gray, as I recall, you're actually visible in sideways the movie in one of the scenes that's in Hitching Post too. For reference, because the movie is going to be available come the fall, it's being streamed. Where can we see you? Andy, that's fun. When Jack and Miles are walking to the restaurants and they're coming through the front door, just as they come into the restaurant, I'm in the background with a family and I'm scrolling a glass of wine. And then the second time is a little later in the film, just a few minutes, when Jack and Miles are sitting at the table and noticing a beautiful girl across the room and Jack says to Miles, "Oh, that girl's kind of hot." Miles says, "Oh, that's, that's Maya." Well, I'm right over their shoulder wearing a different shirt with a different woman. In fact, it's Frank's sister, Terry Austin. Hey, let's kick them. What fun. Now, Frank, I understand when they were shooting, there is an expression in Hollywood getting left on the cutting room floor. I believe there was more that was shot that you're visible in that made it into the final film. But as I remember, we see your arm as that kind of what it came down to. Yeah, I, I, of course, didn't want to be a background person like that, you know, just a non-district person in the movie. I couldn't, but everything was so real. But when they asked for somebody behind to cook behind, it's real, like, I've done that for 12, 30 years, I can do that. And so I was the, when the first scene in Virginia, where they do look and say, "There's Maya." The grill is going and made me flame it up by putting our basting on the fire and makes it flame up because it burns it while it was bassy. And it glows the whole room and I had to do a big fire to make that happen. And, you know, we shot that thing 10 times and, and, you know, but ultimately all you can see is my hands on the grill. So the rest of me ended up on a cutting room floor, which is just fine. So it was also real and wonderful and authentic. And I think that's part of the love of the film is there's so much authenticity about what goes on. It's real people doing real things, being real flawed and just like we all are. And it's like, it will be a classic. We know in the mean and gray in 30 years, we'll toast, we'll toast to that movie because it will still be 50 years old, which will make it truly, truly a classic. And you both have maintained a friendship with the director who really, you know, we co-wrote the screenplay, won an Academy Award for it. Pretty renowned filmmaker, Alexander Payne, again, you've kept up that relationship with him in 20 years. And what really is spectacular, Frank, that we'll mention before we go out for the break and pick up the conversation on the other side. But coming up on October 12 at the Napa campus of the Culinary Institute of America, also known as Copia, they're going to be doing a dinner and a screening honoring the 20th anniversary of Sideways. And as I understand it, you're the special guest and you're putting the food together. And the two celebrities besides yourself are Virginia Medson, who I understand is quite a wine aficionado and, of course, Director Alexander Payne. That's true, and Alexander insists that we have to drink more low at any Sideways celebration that you attend. And I caught that in an article that was written in the one. It was just magazine, and it kind of tipped us off that that would be a good idea. So we are, in all of our dinners, are serving them a low-based, lit wine blend called Fortop. But I'm also reminding Alexander that he no longer has final privileges. That is actually the winemakers that get to decide what wines we drink. But we took his cue, as we always have. It's all about timing. It's all about the brilliance of Rex Pickett and Alexander Payne and everything that happened, and we're so critical to them. And we're so honored to celebrate this at the Copia Napa, sort of the pinnacle of wine businesses in California to be returning there after going in the 1980s and doing pop-up parties. And we've all come so far, and the business has gained so much, and we're still a big part of it. Well, Frank, it's really amazing that the Copia campus was preserved, and the Culinary Institute of America was able to take that over and continue to maintain some of the traditions of the original founding of Copia. But you're talking about the intersection of the entertainment business and food and wine. That's all it at Copia. When we come back, we're going to discuss some of the other dinners locally that our listening audience still have an opportunity to participate in, where both you and Gray will be present, and there'll be those portfolio of Hitching Post wines. So stand by. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. We are talking with the winemaker proprietors at Hitching Post wines, and Frank Ostini also wears another pith helmet as the executive chef and restaurateur of Hitching Post, too. We're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Produce. Give us a minute. We'll be right back.
