The SECRET to Drinking BETTER WINE!!!

They send you Sasakaya by mistake. Yeah, 2016. In a great vintage light. Yeah, I called them. How many bottles you got? Six. And there was wine, all the rest of that. I'm like, this is so much more fun than drinking beer with the buddies. Because we have food, and we have wine. Pretty woman. Pretty women, and they're intelligent. What else do you have here that you really like? Yeah, the Casa, the, you know, their project, the Nuit St. Georges. We had the, we had just the straight bone one, right? I didn't know they had Nuit St. Georges. They do, we have a couple of those. If you want to learn something, get a mentor. And you'll, you'll kind of, you'll, you'll come up to speed a little bit quicker, a little bit faster that way. One of my favorite Bordeauxs of all time. Oh gosh, yeah. That's got about 30 more years on it. So, I'm sure my daughters will enjoy it. Your, you know, your friends buy $30, everybody buys a $30 wine. Do you want a $10 wine? Doesn't matter. Classic producer. Yeah, absolutely. We have some, uh. The Rhone. Le Vieux. Le Vendroson. What's that? You brought that? Yeah. That could have been one that could have showed up. The Northern Rhone. I was overwhelmed. Like, I brought, like, maybe a Concha y Toro, like a $15 bottle of wine. You know, and I show up and they're like an $18.99 Dekru. And they're like, what, $33? Like, you can't. And I'm like, why did you get on the penultimate list? Because who doesn't like, who doesn't like the enthusiasm of that Bill Harlan? They're like, I was hiking in the woods one day and I was between these valleys and I looked around and I'm like, as the story goes, he's like, I'm looking around, I go, who owns this foggy property? They don't own it. So, he goes to, like, the land bank or whatever in Napa and he's like, who owns this land? And he's like, nobody really knows. He goes, can I claim it? And they're like, well, yeah. And he starts growing wine. So, it was like this secret project. He grew, like, grapes for, like, 10 years even before he made an announcement with it. What kind of wine do you see so often? We have that. You have the William Sullyum a lot, tons here. Yeah, down here. Thanks to you, I know them a little bit more. Thirteen's and... I shot this podcast on location at Dr. Brad Bearclaw's house. He is the emcee or the organizer of my monthly tasting group. A lot of you that follow me on Instagram, when you see I go to these monthly tastings where we taste Madeira from the 1800s, old Grand Cru, Premier Cru Burgundy. You're like, where the heck are you getting all these wines? It's thanks to Dr. Brad and everybody else in this group. In this podcast, we talk about the importance of tasting groups and we just do some wine geek stuff. I hope you enjoy. We both prepared a wine to blind each other on. Mine's a little bit lighter, so let's go with mine first here. Definitely. When I first met you guys, when I first met this tasting group, it's because I picked up a Lebanese winemaker and he wanted me to take me to this Lebanese restaurant and I was amazed how good the wine selection was. I was like, do wine people ever come? They're like, yeah, there's actually a group next week. You should show up. They're fine. If they don't know you, they're fine. It ended up, we met and I was amazed that first tasting, we did wines for your 60th birthday or something. You brought a Cade Syrah and I had never tasted that before. You're on the list, right? You have Cabernet as well. Are there Cabernets as well? Cade Syrah? No. Only the Syrah. Sorry, not Cade. Colgan. It was a Colgan. Yeah, it was a Colgan Syrah and I was like, wow, this is serious stuff. But I loved that we tasted everything blind. That was awesome. I mean, everybody's all about blind. Even when we're drinking these super nice wines, we're always in blind tasting. It is. If you do it once in a while, you're like, okay, yeah, I'm going to get through it. If you do it every month, over and over, you're really forced to frame yourself to get there. Sometimes we do it on an evening, right? And you've worked all day. When I came home today, I was kind of wound up about something at work. And you have to be ready to focus on it. You can't come in the day and go like, geez, I had the best day of my life. My head's in the clouds. Yeah, I'm going to taste wine. And you don't put yourself there. You have to stop and go, I'm going to give these wines the attention they deserve. You're spending time with people that like to study it. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's amazing because you're the emcee, you organize the group. I think it's amazing because we're with a bunch of people that are super passionate about wines. They all have big-time collections. Some of the people in my business, like the wine media space, when they see me hosting what we're drinking, they're like, what are you doing? I'll come over. I'll come drive over. Really flatter. It's really saved. I had some rough years kind of getting through this and keep on going. And the group really saved me. It kept the passion going, especially because you guys have wines. The problem with people, young people in my business, I get now a chance to taste these wines. But it's really hard for younger people in the business because they're just so expensive nowadays. Let's start out with this bad boy and tell me what you think of it. Immediately, I just get that nice red rose, some cherry, even a little bit of acid on the nose. Very nice, luscious. Great, nice grip right around the outside of the top of the palate, right across the back of the throat. A little bit of heat in there as well. This is really well-constructed. It's got a great cherry to it. I like that I have some nice wines. Maybe not to the level when we'll talk about some of the wines that you guys have. But I like that you guys welcome me bringing exotic wines. And this is from a country maybe you haven't tasted from before. Probably not. What do you think about the quality? You feel like it's more... What would you compare it to? When I think of a wine, I might think of it a little differently. I like wine with a velocity to it. I like it to walk through. Sure, you can get some wines that have a single note. Okay, that's lovely. But wines that move from front to back, back to front, and they just kind of hang out there. That I find more appealing. Because then I spend a lot more of my time in the nose of it. And I just find I get a lot more enjoyability with it. Do you have a grape that you would compare this to? Like what does it remind you of? In a way? Nebbiolo. If I had to... The nose. Yeah, the nose. You think it has the tannin though? It doesn't have Nebbiolo tannin. No, but it's heavier than a Barbera. I don't get the Syrah in it. I don't get the pepper. I don't get the rest of that. Yeah, I mean, Sagartino. I don't think it's... it might just be a little too light for a Sagartino. Yeah, I look... that's the power of beauty of wine tasting, right? The deduction. Working your way through the road. I don't get Volcano in it. I mean, I don't get like that Dark Ash or anything like that. So, you know, it moves me north. I don't necessarily get Brine in there as well. It moves me inland a little bit. Maybe mountainous region. I think it's right, but I don't think it's... It's not fleshy. You know, the over-ripeness that you get of Valley wine. It is high elevation. What do you think about the overall quality? Oh, it's lovely. I think it has the nose. It jumps out of the glass, which not a lot of wines jump out of the glass. I don't know if that's a... You would be more knowledgeable about it in the industry than I am, but if it jumps out of the glass, it's inviting me in. Oh, and I like that. That's a great way to put it. I'm impressed with your deduction, actually, when you were tasting. I mean, because I have to say, a lot of people... I think I relate to you a lot. A lot of people that... The joke on my side of the business, and then you guys can joke on your side. Like, you guys are the ones buying wine. Like, you're buying all this stuff. Like, kind of supporting the industry. The joke sometimes with people like in my side of the business, I think sometimes it's jealousy. It's like, oh, people don't have any taste. They have the money, they can buy it, but they don't have taste. But that was really impressive. I mean, that's... I'm new to the group. I mean, fairly new. It's been three years for me now almost. But you guys, how long have you been doing it? The group's been around for 30 years, right? So, they invited me in 1999 to be a part of the group. I was overwhelmed. I brought maybe Concha y Toro, like a $15 bottle of wine. You know, and I show up, and they're like, an $18.99 Dekroo, and they're like, $33 Ykem, and I'm like... I'm like, way outgunned. So, oh my gosh, I've got to up my game to at least a little bit. But they have been drinking before me at least another 15 to 20 years. I don't even know. How did you become the MC? You're like, lead the group. Oh, yeah. How did you become the MC of the group? Well, number one, I was the youngest guy there. I showed up to the tasting one night, and they had straws in their hand, and they handed me the short straw. On purpose. It was rigged. And so, I got it, and there I am. Now this makes sense. I never heard that story. Now I understand why you have empathy. We have two women in the group. They're not collectors, but you're quite empathetic. Now you remember what it was like to be intimidated and bring a Kanchi Toro to some kind of serious tasting. Right. Let's reveal this wine, the one that I brought. Now, quality-wise, you said it's really good quality. It's hard to say price. Let's say it was an American wine. American wines are going to be more expensive. What do you think? You can try it. You want some more? You can try this. I'll splash a little bit more. So if you're saying like... If it's American, because American wines are always going to be more expensive, right? Yeah. Generally. Generally, not always. I mean, I would be... If I spent $60 to $70 on this bottle, I'd be very happy. Yeah. It's from Armenia, and the grape is called Ereni. I don't know that grape. It's my friend. It's one of my favorite grapes in the world. It's only in Armenia. It's kind of a cross, but it's like, for me, kind of a blend between... There's a famous consultant there. He says it's like between Sangiovese and Pinot Noir. My friend makes this. He works for a big winery, and this is his personal project, the Barsigian Vineyards Hasparas 2022 Single Vineyard Ereni Noir. We'll leave it later so Amy, your wife, can taste it. Because it's just... No wine. Yeah. Fun wine, right? Single Vineyard. Yeah. 2022. You know, very approachable. Yeah, very nice, light. I mean, not light, but I mean, I like it. No, it's more medium body. Yeah. Along those lines, so you're always learning. That's the cool thing. I like... One of my favorite things is we did a tasting. You know, we do a monthly theme. For those of you that don't know, we did a monthly theme, and I think last year, one of them that we didn't have so many people was just bring a random bottle. Right. And I remember you were like, oh my gosh, this is so much fun because we were all trying to guess what blind tasting is really powerful for us in the business. But what do you like about blind tasting? What I like about blind tasting? I think it removes a lot of bias. I think it... Sometimes the knock when we do blind tasting is if we do a certain grape, it's all going to be exactly the same. And if you can pick out the nuances between a lot of similarities, that can be just as entertaining and just as fun as some wines with just extreme variability. The hard thing with extreme variability is placing them in a way that you don't have something that overwhelms the rest of the flight or the rest of the tasting. And that can be a challenge sometimes. And we have a lot of guys who've been drinking a really long time who have really strong opinions of where things should be placed. And I try to navigate that a little bit, and it's hard sometimes because, as you know, someone all of a sudden just whips in a 30-year-old Burgundy, and you're like, oh, wrong time for that. But that's okay. Well, thank goodness for that guy. Yeah, thank goodness for that. But it's fun at the same time. I mean, it's fun in the same way, but it's... That's what's fun about blind tastings. And I'm willing to stick my neck out. I'm okay. I don't mind being humbled. I don't mind getting it wrong. It's a process of learning. But in two, if I'm willing to maybe blurt something out, what I feel, others might jump in and say, you're 100% wrong. And then they're 100% wrong, or they're 100% right. Oh, that's the power of blind tasting. Yeah. And this is the main theme of the video. I always tell people, if you want to drink or learn about wine, or just for social, because some wine's a social beverage, we can talk about that. You get together with a group. It doesn't have to be a group. It could be your friends. Right. My $30. Everybody buys a $30 wine. A $10 wine. Doesn't matter. Yeah. But what you've been doing, you've been part of the group for a long time, since the 90s. What value do you extract, or what do you enjoy, in terms of being that part of this tasting group? I think my cellar reflects, oftentimes, experiences that I've had with the group, their tastes, and certainly bottles that they maybe purchased over the years. And so I went like, hmm, wow, they held onto that wine for 30 years, 40 years, 10 years. And I want that experience at some point in the future. So I'll buy that way. Other times, they sort of like reading a book. If you want to learn something, read a book. If you want to learn something, get a mentor. And you'll kind of, you'll come up to speed a little bit quicker, a little bit faster that way. What is it, 10,000 words? That's a fine. 10,000 words, or whatever, 10,000. And in that regard, I think that's where collecting wine has been beneficial for me. Because I've avoided too much of this or too much of that. Yeah. Oh, so you've, it's actually helped you kind of curate your cellar a little bit too. Yeah. And to realize too, oh my gosh, I might have to get in there and start drinking some of this stuff. I find it, you told me earlier, you're like, it's great, because we leverage you. We have a guy in the group that loves sweet wines. Always bringing cameras. Like we have a guy we talk about loves burgundy, loves champagne. Loves old Madeira. I love when he brings those 1800 Madeiras. I'm not. It's incredible. Nobody has those. Yeah. Very few resources can even get those. No, it's incredible. And I think it's amazing that everyone can, I mean, now I'm the young, quirky guy that brings all the weird wines. Fantastic. It's, you've actually entered a renewed sense of enthusiasm. And exploration that needs to happen. Because a lot of those guys are the same age that get together. We all play cards on Tuesdays. And so we drink wines every, like this, every week at their house. But, you know, their palates are, you know, yeah. It's, it's, it's Rhone's, it's some Bordeaux's, it's Rhone's, it's Bordeaux's. And one guy brings some other stuff. But, I mean, largely it's, I'm a little bit more myopic. And that's fine, they're lovely wines. No, it's, for me it's amazing to, well, I find, I got into wine, and still my passion is these obscure grapes, obscure regions, weird parts of the world. But, I mean, I love drinking the classics. We'll talk about some of these memorable wines. And I, you know, I don't, people my age, I don't have friends that were drinking these type of wines. You know, I get the opportunity to, let's, like, you have a couple bottles here that mean something to you. And some pretty famous name. You want to kind of tell me why these mean? Oh yeah, before we get to your wine, we'll wine taste here. We'll start with the, the 06 Burgundy. So this came from Alan Seller. Alan Goodrich was one of the members of our group. And he was a provost at a local university. But before that, he was actually the Dean of Biological Sciences when I was at Ohio State. Now, I didn't know him at that time, but we had a shared relationship with a, with my advisor who, who Alan went toe-to-toe with, you know, over and over and over. And I went toe-to-toe with this. Oh, it was a guy, it wasn't a woman. It was a guy. And yeah, we just, we had like, he had issues with him, I had issues with him. And so Alan and I would always talk about this particular individual that was my, my advisor in undergrad. And, and so, you know, I got to share a lot of stories with Alan. And, and Alan and I got to, um, talk biology and different things and birds. And he was really intelligent. He had a great seller. So I was over there one night and he was selling 900 bottles of 86 Bordeaux. And one of the auction houses was at his house. And so we had a dinner and we opened those up. And how many bottles did he have? He had 14,000. And he was selling off 900 to, uh, one of the auction houses. Anyways, so, you know, lo and behold, I thought, well, this is my time to strike if Alan's selling wine off. So, you know, I, I circled back to him about a month later and I said, well, hey, can I come over and, you know, I'm interested in buying some wine. He pushed me away for a while. All of a sudden, he decided he was going to move to Naples. And, you know, his wife passed away and he found new love. And, so I went over there and he begrudgingly sold me 1% of his seller. So, I still keep some bottles around to, um, to do that. And this was one of those. I'm hoping that we get the Nuit St. Georges premier coup Les Moussieres 2006. It was kind of from Zaki's. Okay. He bought a lot from Zaki's. He bought a lot from, um, Bottom and Butterfield. Was that the one? Yeah. Zaki's, great, just north of Manhattan. Just, just north of Manhattan. Great wine. Like, legendary wine shop, right? Um. He bought a lot from Ackermare on Condit. I hope I'm not traveling for the Burgundy. I always love when we do the Burgundy tastings. So, that'll need to show up because it's already, what, 20 years old. So, it's ready to roll. But, that was kind of Alan's specialty was, was that. Premier, really solid Premier Cru. Really solid, you know, Bordeaux's. You know, that was his, this thing. And, and, um, he was a lot of fun. I liked Alan quite a bit. He's no longer with us, but, it's a reminder. Oh, it's great to hold, and that's wine too. Like, I have bottles I know that I'll probably never drink. But, they're a memory. Yeah. They're key. And, what do we have here next? That's another, I love this wine. That's another great memory wine. So, Charlie, one of the members of our group, Dr. Valone, called me up and said, hey, it's, it's a Tuesday, we're gonna do a tasting in Cleveland. Why don't you get in the car and come on out? So, and, just to, for, it's what, an hour and a half, two hours, two and a half, down to Little, Little Italy. So, I show up to, Charlie's house, or Charlie's, our medical office. We get in the car, we drive another 45 minutes to Sandusky to pick up Dr., Dr. Allen, the ophthalmologist. And then, the three of us, make our way to this Italian restaurant in Little Italy that's gonna be closing. And so, we're down there, and we're, we're eating, and eating, and man, I have never eaten so much in my entire life. And, the guy hands me, you know, this bottle. Because, because I never complained about, when I was given seconds, and I actually asked for thirds, and he was so impressed that I could eat that much. So, on the way out, he goes, I want you to have that. Castello di Rempola, great wine. The San Marco 97. I believe this is 100% Merlot, if I remember right. I think the San Marco is their super Tuscan. I, I can't remember off the top of my head. Great producer of Chianti Classico. Oh yeah. So, this is the bottle he actually gave you? the bottle he actually gave me. we'll get a little open at, I mean, it's, but you know, one of the guys, remember Don brings the D'Alceo. Yeah. You know, which is their more modern, modern style. But again, you know, fun, fun evening, and then we drove home, at like, I don't know, whatever time it was, and I get home at like three in the morning, and I gotta go to work the next day. But, you know. You know, it's part of Charlie's antics. You know, like, get in the car, we're going to go to Cleveland, we're going to do a tasting, we're going to eat his big dinner, then we're going to drive two hours home, and you'll be fine. Another one of his big antics is to bring 1800 Madera. Yeah. So, the last one, great, one of the, one of my favorite wines of all time, the Marques de Marietta Castelli Gai Rioja Gran Reserva, 2011. I was just in Rioja camp, back in November. Great wine. The, the first one we had was the 1968, and that was in a, Amy and I had been married five years, and we celebrated our 68. Yeah, it was, it was amazing. In fact, it was in a chalet in the Poconos. So, we'd been married, and so, I'd gotten it from Brown Derby out of Lincoln, Nebraska. And so, I, you know, I pay check, I spent a fortune on it, right. At the time, I spent like $130 on this bottle of wine, you know. To me, at that time, I got a lot of money. And so, we procured it, took it to the chalet, we opened it up, and they put it in the canner, and, you know, about five or ten minutes later, the hostess comes over, she goes, we have a problem with your wine, I go, what's that? And I go, nobody in the chalet can smell their dinner, because your wine blew the room apart. So, every five years, or 15, like 5, 10, 15, 20, we open a bottle up. Really? Yeah. How many vintages do you have of this? Um, ooh, geez. I don't know, any more. Blue Shrag, I did eight, nine, because they don't do them every, eight, nine, this is what, the 11th, it might be a 95, or four down, I don't think there's 94, but. I love about the group, you and the group, even though you have very deep cellars drinking, I mean, these are some great wines, some of the great wines in the world. Yeah. You're not adverse to, when I bring just unique stuff, or stuff that's, you know, not as expensive, nobody's. Yeah, fun. It's just all about drinking sports, because you never told me this, how'd you get into wine? I don't even know how you got. Oh my God. So, I was asking Amy about this the other day, and I said, do you remember the story? And she has sometimes a tendency to forget like, pivotal moments like that. She's just kind of like, like, whatever. You're not gonna get on with it. But I had met her. She was a, she was an anesthesia resident. I was a dental student. And so, you know, we went on a date, whatever, and she ordered Merlot. And I was like, Merlot? What is this Merlot thing that you're ordering? It's like a beer guy, right? And so, I was like, well, if she orders Merlot, maybe if I get a second date, I'll order Merlot, you know? So, you know, I did. And then, you know, we went out a few times and she graduated. And that was kind of the second experience with it was, she was working for a dentist in Columbus who was really into German wines. Oh, okay. And, yeah, Dr. Hoffman. And so, we, he invited us over to his dental assistant's house. And so, we had dinner at their house and he brought German wines. And I know there was a Riesling. I remember that. There was something called a Liefermelch. I think them got that name wrong. But, I think he used it as like a balance point for something else. It was just cloudy because I'm really interested in like my wife or my girlfriend at the time or being my new girlfriend. And here's a dentist I could potentially work for. So, my head was a little bit in the clouds but I was more blown away by the German wines. And I was like, wow, this guy really knows like a ton about it. And so, then, so that was like this all sudden like, hmm. We went to a tasting after the movie Big Night. Okay. Tony Shalhoub, a restaurant in Columbus. Actually, we went and saw the movie and then you went over to the restaurant and they put on that dinner and there was wine and all the rest of that. I'm like, this is so much more fun than drinking beer with the buddies because we have food and we have wine. Pretty woman. Pretty women and they're intelligent. Wow, this kind of checks a lot of boxes off. So, it was really a lot of fun. We get back to Columbus or back to Toledo when we moved up here and then I met Paul Heinrichs and Mike Kastner at a Toledo Dental Society invocation. Also, in our tasting group. Oh, in our tasting group. And it was Paul Heinrichs' installation dinner for the President of the Toledo Dental Society. So, now he has all this wonderful wine and at the Toledo Museum of Art and Chef Erica put the dinner on and so, it was really pretty exciting. So, then I'm hooked. Right? Because that's sort of like where I got my start. It's like, well, I got to start collecting some bottles now. I don't know what the heck I'm doing. It's almost the same when I got into wine. I love the intellectual component of it too. Like, the conversations, the culture. Let's actually, let's taste your wine. Okay. Here we go. You get to blind me now. All right. And now, like I said, my first memory of you was a Colgan Syrah. And then also, you brought that Costa Brown from Bone. He's making, and I didn't even know that. Like, that's the cool thing about, our group is so, like, I know that everybody can have, make friends in this kind of group, but like, you know, Don brought that, brought that Dun Petit Syrah. It's only like, two vintages or three vintages of that wine. Right. I mean, no Costa Brown was making, like, wearing Bone. Who gets to drink Bionic Frog? Yeah. Don will bring Bionic Frog. But, I guess the cool thing is, if you have like, a tasting group and you don't have expensive wines, like, and you're new, everything's like, new and a discovery, right? Yes. You can buy $10, $20, $30 wine. It's amazing. First of all, this note's got some age on it, so it smells wonderful. It's like, tons of tobacco. This is like, in the, I personally feel like this is more California fruit than it is Bordeaux. That's what I think. You're spot on. Okay, more cast. It's got the tobacco flavors, got the black cherry. it, I, blackberry. I haven't tasted it yet, so I don't even know what the year, let's, let's taste it. I feel like it has the green of Cabernet Sauvignon. So, so, um, I don't think it's Syrah. I know you like Syrah like I do. Mm-hmm. I do like Syrah. I love when we did our Northern Rhone tastings, and, I don't drink nearly enough, like, Hermitage Cote Roti, but when I'm with you guys, because you have to hold those wines forever. Like, you have to put them in the cellar. This is, um, I'm trying to think of, this reminds me, this is probably great wine because it's got development, but it's still so concentrated. Like, I don't even know, time-wise, this probably, I'm thinking of, this kind of resembles to me, probably a richer style of some of the Napas in the 90s, the mid-90s. That's kind of what it reminds me of, but I'm not sure. what, what do you pick out? I mean, you know what the wine is, but what do you pick out? So, you know, when I, I got on this list before I could afford to get on the list. So, I figured I was, I was leveraging my, my time, that eventually I'd get offered something, something along this line. Now, after this many years, I look back on it, and it's nice, I like it, but, but that's, this is a decision I made 20 some years ago. Would I buy this again today after having something maybe a bit more food appealing than, you know what I mean? So, and that's what's fun about wine is I have to go back to the original premise. Yeah. Of, would I do it again today? And I've dropped off the list. I find these very interesting, well, they only open these up every once in a blue moon. Oh, so I feel, thank you, I feel special. But again, I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of examples out there today that, that can compete with this, but it's really well made. Am I in the right ballpark? I'm in, am I in Napa? Am I getting renaissance done? You're definitely in Napa. It's definitely Napa. So, here's the, here's the thing about, especially Napa, like Napa, like, when you get in, a lot of people, when they get in the wine, they drink Napa right away. In America. Right. But they're expensive. I mean, I feel like you can, like Bordeaux offers ridiculous value from one, super Tuscan, you get the same type of flavor for 25, 30 bucks. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. But do you find, now we're north of, you know, 10 times that. Do you, do you find like, is it still appealing to you? I know, and I'm not, this is not judgment. I know when I was in practice and making more money, like putting a nice bottle of wine on the table on that dip, that was an ego thing. Like that. Sure. And I liked having some nice, you know, nicer wines in front of me. Now it's a little bit different. I'm in the business because you get fooled and blind tastings all the time. Yeah. And I'm just like, give me the best value for money. Like, I don't care. Right. But do you feel drawn? I mean, you're still on a few lists. Like, who are, you're on still Costa Brown's list. Costa's, I'm probably going to sell you them. Yeah. Because I think they offer great value. Huge portfolio. I used to never like those wines, both those producers, because I would only taste them young. When you guys are bringing them to age, I'm like, oh, 93s and 98s and, you know, 2000s. You're like, oh my God, these things just have such stay power. what else? I'm going to have some on. Oh God. I have to think about that. Um, this one I used to be on. Um, I'm on Harlan's list. Okay. So I do get, um, I don't get that one. I get Promontory and I get penultimate. And, um, I love Pena ultimate. How many bottles of the, let you have a Harlan a year. Oh, let me do I get a year of Harlan? I get six or eight. They'd let you have that man. Let you between the penultimate that in the maiden. So I, I get eight to 10. I'm not a Napa guy. It's not my style of wine, but I still, the most impressive, I hate to say what's the best one you've ever taken. The most impressive one. Now you're drinking this, you're saying, well, you know, I'm not as enchanted. Like, what do you think? How's this wine showing right now? I think it's, I think it's your spot on with it. That tobacco, the, you know, the greenness to it. This, I don't know if this wine is ever going to show secondary or tertiary characteristics. You know, that's, and that's the issue with some of these, uh, I don't want to use the word hedonistic, but he's just so well, new oaked. I mean, it's grippy and it's big and it's huge. But does it ever reveal a soft side? Well, and, and that's, and that's time will tell. I have a collector friend in New York. Well, he used to live in New York. He moved to Washington state and unfortunately his wife passed away. I don't, I haven't talked to him recently, but I went to his house in New York. His cellar downstairs was so full. He opened the door. It was, he couldn't even get like, like it was just so full. And he just had, whatever. And he didn't care. We were there. He was just, he's like, I'll pop all night. We were drinking, you know, 60s, 70s and a half bucks. But I, the thing you were saying, and I'm going to swear, he said, he talked about Penfold grease. Like I sold all my grains. He's like, the ****** doesn't age. No, it just, it just doesn't, it doesn't start to show any tertiary. No, it doesn't show that. Yeah. Reveal, reveal a little bit. I want us, I want that story. And you know, if that's, if it's always on chapter one, I don't know. And you, do you know the avian? I'm going to guess now that I know Napa, I feel it's so powerful that it's got to be Valley for, for, I don't know. I think it's, I mean, now you're talking, it's on the list. Is it something like, I don't know. I found like some of those, well, granted, I wasn't tasting these Colt Cabernets back in the nineties and the 2000s. I mean, now it's just stuff like screaming your heart. It was quite elegant. Actually young. Oh yeah. But. Maybe kind of. Rutherfordy. Oak. It's, it's too dark to be Oakville, maybe a stags league district type of. Hell Hills. It's hard for me. Cause I don't remember, like I was, I'm not too young to, I don't remember these lines in the nineties. Right. Because, because really those weren't expensive. They flew off the shelf because they were really popular at the time and nobody saved them because they were delicious and everybody drank them. They didn't know they could be saved. And so, I mean, I'd be, I'd be really leery today to buy anything on the secondary market. Cause I would think the storage issue would just be like. Do you buy from auction? I do. Yeah. What sites do you use? I generally use Chicago Wine Company and Winebid. I use those two. What are you looking for mostly when you're buying from auction? I'm, I'm looking for, you know, like, fun. I want to see something that somebody just like, like, Ooh, they, they drop that in. I've had that before. That was a vintage that we've had, you know, another time, one of their time. So I'm going to like hunt that. I'm going to hunt that down. Yeah. What, what did we have? Like some Chateauneufs. Oh, okay. Like maybe a Rayos or, you know, somebody that just like, like I took, I took a stab and I bought like 51, 55 and 58 Barolos. I bought them all. And I would say every third bottle was court, but the other two were really good. You know, um, I found somebody had put on, like, what are they? 1954. Uh, they were Gigandas. And again, just, they'd come out of someplace and I'm like, well, that's worth a stab, you know? I mean, they weren't, they weren't expensive at all. I think I bought like 12 bottles for like 600 bucks and half of them were bad. Oh, that's what happens in the auction. The other half were great. And so you, when you go into that, knowing that you're just taking a wild ass guess, it's a role. And it's so fun. It's, it can seem absurd to some people, but it's like, it's a hobby. It's like, it's different for me. Cause this is my business. This is my livelihood. Now for you, it's just hobby and fun. And that's why I actually, I still like tasting with you guys. Uh, so much. It not only is the wine drinking some ridiculous wines, but, um, there's less serious. It's just a hobby. It's fun. Yeah. Like, you know, let me have one more swig of that before we, before I, okay. Am I, do you know if it's, you know, the AVA is a Valley floor. Is it, uh, we'll figure it out. Okay. Let's uh, okay. Give me the, I'm going to say mid nineties. Am I in the ballpark? A little younger than that, but it's still 20 years old. Okay. It's almost 20. So we're still, Oh, say so seven 18 years. Okay. So, um, I don't know because I just, like I said, I think it's Napa cab. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's take a look at it. Take a look at what we got. So you've had the, um, you've had the Sarah, but Hogan Cabernet. So you didn't have the gap 2008. Yeah. Hogan Cabernet. Seven. Uh, from St. Helena. So it is Valley or, um, you get the rightness in it. That's super. I mean, that's super, super right. Tractive. Uh, oh, eight. oh, I, I can't remember. I remember I did, uh, a couple of years ago, a retrospective Oh seven, which was like the, with like a, like, like 13, just a great vintage in that. I don't know what, Oh, although in Napa, most like nine out of 10 vintages are super good. When did you stop buying that? I think I stopped buying it around 2000 and 12, 13. Okay. Yeah. So this eight would have come out like three years later. So 11, I think I have a couple later vintages, but, about the, about our tasting group. What I know it's always difficult when you have a lot of personalities, when you're organizing a tasting group. Oh, sure. Logistics and everything, but you keep doing it. And, uh, what do you like about it? Like if you, if you had to tell, like, I have a lot of people that actually watch when I post about our tasting, they're like, Oh man, I wish I could, you know, be part of a, like a taste. And I say, just go start one. You don't have to, it doesn't have to be crazy wines like this. What, what are the things that you actually enjoy about it still? Cause you're still so much. Yeah. You're still doing and organizing. Yeah. Number one, I get to get together with, you know, people's that's a really different walks of life, but get together with a, a like-minded group of people taste and enjoy. Um, obviously where we have dinner ads, wonderful. And then taste wines. I get to leverage that experience, um, with, with different, different bottles. So I can buy this and they can bring that and they can bring this and you bring yours. The next thing, you know, there's 15, 16 bottles on the table and, and I can make notes. And now I know that, you know, uh, I would never have maybe tried bets in the past. And it turns out that, wow, does bets age like, Holy moly, this is like really amazing. Or, or, you know, someone brings a Texas hill country wine. And, and so it's given me an opportunity to like, to like, you know what? Maybe let me stop at a winery someplace, um, out in the Pennsylvania and buy a Chardonnay and bring it to a tasting and try to pass it off. Um, because you have to use language and you can't just stick it in. You have to say, I want to see how this is developing. I want to see how this is coming along. You have to couch the conversation, but if you can slip something in from a, a different region that maybe he's made in a certain profile, that's, that's what's fun about it and keeps it sort of exciting. You guys did like the Canadian Chardonnay I brought. Loved it. Which is, he's one of the great producers as well. so you like the learning experience and the, I always say wine's about people, like wine's all about the people. Yeah, it is. Like I brought my friend last one who is just drinks wine casually. Like he loves it, but he makes money, but he doesn't value it. Like he doesn't know anything. Sure. Um, but he was like, man, that was a blast. Yeah. And he was like, it's all about the people. You're right. It's all about the people. That was so much fun. And I have to tell you, you probably, the group was instrumental in a couple parts of my wine. For, I'll give you an example. The first time we did a white Burgundy, we did Chardonnay from all around the world, mostly white Burgundy, but we, remember we got fooled by a O'Shaughnessy. We thought it was white Burgundy. That was the only one we thought was white Burgundy from Napa. I used to think that white Burgundy was the most overrated wine style in the world because I've been tricked a lot drinking young ones, like Chardonnay from all over. Great. But we were drinking aged ones. Yeah. And the best wines were LaFleur. Like Charlie brought the LaFleur. LaFleur. Oh God. And I was like, wow. I was like. And then he throws in, if you were there that time, he throws in an Adriana White Bones. Yeah. And I was like, what did you do to our brains? You just scrambled them. I mean, and that's, what's kind of fun about it. It's just that like spontaneity at times and, and just, you know, have a, have a good time with, there's other reasons I'd like to explore. You know, sometimes it's tough to like, to be able to do Greek wines or to be able to do Armenia or, you know, I'd, I'd like to get other people from the wine trade. A couple of our members who, you know, passed away or don't come anymore. We're part of the wine trade. And so, you know, when they were, they were a lot of fun, but, but yeah, it's, it's a good, that's why I guess I keep doing it until we find somebody younger. Don't expect me to take over because I'm always traveling. you're always traveling. It's, it's me, it's me for a while. But, you know, I will say that like the, the two ladies that consistently show up, oh my gosh, they are just delightful. They see things in a different, you know, different light. They smell differently. Um, they, their, their descriptors are different. It's very refreshing to have Joelle and, and, um, Rachel and Rachel. Um, Michelle, you met last month. She used to come a lot more with her husband, Neil. She's tasted over 300 different like varieties. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Bye. Appreciate it. Yeah.