Why are there so many SNOBS in WINE???

Because wine is, the understanding of wine is so subjective, you get these people, man, who just feel like they're unassailable. No, this is great. Is it great? All right. The barrier to entry in the business is so low in the wine industry, which is kind of a problem. We can talk about that. Wow, so that was one of the earliest things that drew me to the business. I shot this podcast on location with Chad Thomas. He is the host of The Real Wine Podcast. He's worked in restaurants. He had his own importing company. Now he's a marketing director for Eagle Eye Brands, their imports. In this podcast, Chad and I cover a variety of topics, including snobbery in the wine world, why unique grapes are so exciting, and what you, as a consumer, don't know about the world of wine, especially when you lift the curtain. So sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoy the podcast. You've been in the business for a long time, especially, you know, you had the importing side. What do normal wine drinkers not know about the importing business and how wines, just you could go off on a tangent, how wines are selected, horror stories, anything like that? The main thing they don't know about the business is how broad it is, like how many different characters and roles there are in the business. They're often, I don't know, surprised. Oh, you know a winemaker? Or you've been to a vineyard? Yeah, there's a lot of them. And so I think that's the main thing, just the scope of the scale of the industry. I mean, it's small, of course, in terms of dollars and compared to other industries, but it's global, right? And every state has wineries. You know, almost every country has some wineries. And people don't think about that. And they're often surprised to get a sense of the reach of the business. Well, there's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of labels made every year. Sure. That's why people are specialized if you're a wine professional, because it's impossible to know the entire world of wine, right? Yes, yeah, yeah. But I think consumers would, if they knew like where wine, like a bottle, where a bottle could take them in terms of like, you know, conversation or ideas, right? Of course, it's a travel part too, right? The places you can actually go and, you know, have a wine experience. I think if they knew about that more, that that would, I think they'd find it engaging and more people would be, you know, excited about wine, because that's what excites me about it. That's where you want to get people all jazzed up. Yeah, of course. I'm glad you brought that up. I talk about the ultimate influencer because you have the experience with imports. You've worked, you started an import company, you sold it, you've got experience. You're the ultimate influencer. Because we're selecting the wine, right? You're selecting the wine to put on the market, like what you think is good. Yes, yeah, yeah. That's true. On the wholesale side, on the import side, absolutely. Yeah, people can only buy what's available. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. What do you see? You know, I'm in the media space. Obviously, I worked retail for a little while, but what do you see? Obviously, because you've got your hands in some marketing too. What do you actually see that's working in terms of how wines market? Because this is the big crisis right now. Yeah. Well, we could start a consulting business. If we can answer that question, we could go into business. We could start one anyway. Yeah. I would still make money. So what is working right in the wine industry? Is that the question? Yeah. From the marketing perspective, what's playing? What are people responding to? Customers. Generally, of course, it's, I think, the lifestyle thing, right? There's a shift. There's a generational shift into more connection with the producers and the wines, making sure that the wines are produced to the same kinds of ethical standards, for example, that transparency is important to consumers. And so I think the wineries, what's working is when the wineries or the distributors, anyone is telling a story about the wines that is, again, transparent. There's no marketing lingo and all that going on. There's no attempts to manipulate or deceive. I think if there's honesty presented in the bottle, in the production, and then in the marketing, that that is what's working the best. It's so funny you say that because we have a Slovenian wine. I was just talking to a Slovenian producer. He was telling me that he felt like what he was seeing in the business, in the domestic side, that people weren't just accepting stories anymore about the wine. The quality had to be, I mean, your definition was more encompassing, but a lot of producers and stuff, especially minimal intervention producers, were just trying to plan story alone. And he was saying that's just not working anymore. Yeah. It has to have a sense of authenticity to it. I think that's what the consumers are responding to, but especially new generation. This is a big period of transition. The boomers are out, of course, and everyone's got their eyes on the 23 to- Well, I'm an end of millennial, technically, actually. Let's talk about this Slovenia is a country near to my heart, the France. Yeah, that's why I brought it. Yeah, France to Chichen Itza. Yellow Muscat, Blauer Kohlner, Sauvignon Blanc from Stajerski right on the border of Croatia. Yeah. Minimal intervention guy or not? Yeah, for sure. A little skin contact there. All natural ferments. Oops, just knocked the mic there. That's okay. A little skin contact, but yeah, all native yeast ferments. They're fully organic in the vineyards and all that. They use just old barrels in the production. They have some tanks. Yeah. Tiny, tiny. I mean, it's a very, very small. So one of the things I wanted to say about this winery, and the reason that I love these folks is because it's a couple. They have the most fascinatingly cozy vineyard I've ever been in. It's very, I said human scale because the vines are trained up rather tall. They're very densely packed. The grasses and things are growing up. And so when you go in the vineyard, you really feel like you're in the vineyard. And it just had this incredibly inviting quality for me that really captured my fascination. And then to sit down and taste with these folks was just tremendous. I find these wines very fascinating. Well, it's so funny because as long as we've known each other, which is only a few years, I find, yes, the nose is great. We have a similar philosophy in terms of what we like about wine, the travel, being with the people, the connections, and style of wine. This is minimal invention, but clean. And I think a lot of people see yellow muscat, and they say, no, no, no, thanks. But the yellow muscat with these macerated wines, it adds a lot. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. You have the aromatic lift, but it doesn't go crazy floral or anything like that. For a macerated wine, this is very flinty. This is, and I hate when people say, this is like made in a pretty Frenchy white wine. It just smells like a big French white wine in essence. Besides the yellow muscat, it smells great. Yeah. Yeah, the glass is doing very well too. Stoltzler Cocoon is the line, but it's the size of glass. Of course, a lot of people aren't often using larger volume glasses for the whites, and I think they miss out sometimes. I want to, so I got a question about this wine. Taste it. So I love this style of maceration, a lot of producers, especially Slovenia is moving towards this lighter macerations. I mean, I would guess this has three, four days. Yeah, not long. Skin contact? Yeah, not long. Now here's the thing. You like, the wine's showing well, right? Yeah. And just the mouthwatering acidity, you know, like the sides, I'm just like, just salivating, it's great. The flintiness, the full body. Now here's the thing. It's not that fruity actually. It's quite mineral on the finish. Yeah. Now here's the thing. You and me, we're going to go gaga over this stuff. We're geeks. This is an unfamiliar flavor to a lot of wine consumers, especially even sometimes wine geeks, they're not nude. How do you bridge that gap and try to get people to taste these wines or, you know, obviously you work in the importing side, get people to stock these wines. Yeah. Well, one thing, well, okay. So the sales part of it is, you know, I don't do sales for like restaurants or retail. You may work with them a bit, you know, if they're doing events or something. And so that's one way I would say, you know, if there's reluctance, it's like, let us put it in somebody's glass. Even better, let us put it in someone's glass with some food. And if the food and the wine are working together, you know, that's a big pathway to acceptance. You know, they go, wow, people really enjoy this wine. Yeah. Well, you should keep some around, you know, put it on the shelves, put it on the wine list, you know? So that's one way to do it with food for sure. Now people don't realize too, like these are small producers. I mean, I'm guessing this producer knowing Slovenia, knowing this probably making 20, 30, 40,000 bottles a year. I don't know. It could even be less. Okay. So. It's pretty small. What people don't understand, they go to these places, like the normal, they go travel. Oh, I met this small winemaker, lovely. It's a real challenge to bring in small production wines. Yeah. Because there's just so much people. Can you touch on that? I mean, it's a pain in the butt. A lot of people don't want to bring on these small producers. They're hard to sell. You're absolutely right. And that gets back to your earlier question. Like what is about, you know, what is it about the industry that people don't realize? I think they don't realize how, I was talking about the scale of the business. I think they don't realize how precious really, and special, getting a hold of some of this wine is. And thankfully, almost every country, you know, everyone's got a specialist in the export or in, let's say, for importing the wines to the U.S. Everybody specializes or someone is going to specialize somewhere. You know, so whether it's a company, you know, like Venom, you know, those guys, you know, who specialize in Slovenia, Croatian wines, or if it's like Georgian Winehouse, you know, who specialize in Georgia. I'm trying to think of who's around anymore, who used to do Italy. The big one was, of course, Vindovino. But yeah, Vindovino was for sure. Now, right now, who are strong, like in terms of nationwide, like Winebowl is really strong. Winebowl, yes. That's exactly the one I was thinking of. So those kinds of people who really have a passion for certain areas, I think, are. . . But people, it's, wine is so weird. Like we all want, especially wine geeks, want the small production. This is a beautiful wine, and it's probably not super expensive, right? But yet. . . Yeah, not super. That's like the consumer, they say they want, but again, importers, you know, they're apprehensive to bring things out. They're like, can I sell this? You can't pronounce. Even me, I'm great with Slavic. I butcher the name, and I'm great with Slavic. You know, this style is particular. It's a weird conundrum, right? It is, yeah. It's weird. And this one in particular, I mean, it's, you know, the name of the wine is Steely, but it has a J in there. Yeah. How do you work with that? So yeah, that's a big factor too, you know. Is the labeling, is the design relevant in that? Does it make it more accessible, you know? If it moves into, like, an interesting picture instead of one of the more, like, you know, classic style labels that have, like, the chateau and the vineyards, maybe there's something that they can connect with in those more modern labels. But ultimately, I think it's going to come down to the relationship of the consumer to their wine supplier, whoever that is. If it's a restaurant or a retail shop, I think if the consumers have that kind of connection, then the world of wine opens, of course. And in a supermarket, you're not going to have that ever. And in an importer that's specializing in these type of wines, like, you're working with, like, a really, really good importer that's, I don't know the whole portfolio, but if you're just kind of hanging your head on producers, like, that's tough to make money, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, you're fighting in the tiniest little segment of the market. You know, I was the other day doing a wine dinner with a woman from Terlato. Yep. Which is, you know, the biggest wine company in the U.S. I don't even, they're huge. Well, Gallo, well, they're a producer, right? Gallo's technically the biggest, right? In the world, technically, I think. But they're a producer. Well, they're also import. They're also import. We're doing, I don't even know, like, Terlato is too, but go ahead. Yeah, they're big. And, you know, they're just working, like, the scale that they work on, right, is just, like, orders of magnitude greater than what anybody, like, any of these importers would be at, for example, on the import scale. Well, I find it, even for me, like, I like this niche-y, geeky stuff. But stuff that does well, either it's, like, super niche and geek, like, on high level, like, Burgundy Bordeaux. Bordeaux always does it. Or, like, stuff like the Costco brand wines, where it's more general. It's so weird how wine is segment, like, hyper-segmented, right? Yeah. But it's nice, though, because it provides an opportunity, right? You can do really fascinating and interesting things. You know, like, for me, it's been an area, a space, right, for me to engage with wine in the way I really like it. You know, I don't have to sell, you know, big box wine. I'm not worried about selling millions of boxes of, you know, Yellowtail or anything like that. So it's, that it's segmented, you know, provides a lot of opportunity and a lot of different ways to engage in the business. I agree. I think people just have to get a little bit. I was talking with this distributor working for Great Lakes, a young guy, and he was talking about his accounts are mostly mail me the stuff that sells a lot of them. He's like, yeah. But he was, I saw him at a small wine shop. He's like, okay, that's fine. I can sell that with a lot of work, and I can go buy this stuff that I really want to drink. Sure. And the glass is cool. Yeah. And I get to take this? Yeah. We'll talk about your podcast later. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't have mine. No, it's okay. So give me your last thoughts on this. So what I really like about it is the gentleness of the fruit aromatic. You know, it's really kind of more on the mineral side, but there's like these really interesting teases of almost like there's like a little pineapple, something slightly tropical, but it stays away from, you know, effusive fruitiness. And then as you said on the palate, that minerality just drives right through. It's mouthwatering. It just makes you want to have like some nice little thinly shaved, you know, cured meats, you know. It acts like a big white wine. These whites with light maceration where a lot of people can drink these. And I think, well, we can taste the Georgian wine next. Because George is also moving to that style as well. And let's talk, because I want to, go ahead. I was going to say, grab just one of the little vessels back there and we can use it for a dump. Oh, we can? Yeah, yeah. This one? Whichever. Your wife is not going to get mad? She'll never know. Okay. She doesn't watch, though. She doesn't watch the wines. Oh, okay. That's beautiful. I met you because you have a podcast. I'm going to link it in the show notes. A real wine show. It's just fun. It's just casual. But the best part about it is we shoot here and you bring all of the local community. We're here in Ann Arbor, Michigan right now. You invite everybody. We have food. We have snacks. Yeah. Talk about the importance of community in wine. Wow. So that was one of the earliest things that drew me to the business was seeing all these really fascinating people as I was learning the ropes and getting into the business. When I started going to tastings, I started running into these people. I'm like, wow, that's a really interesting person. And I'd go around the tastings and I'd listen and hear what they were talking about at the tasting table with the producers or the suppliers. And as I spent time around in the industry, I was like, man, I would really like to get to know these people more. And I would wish that other people knew these people as well because this is great. It brings in so much. The pathway to wine is wide open. You can show up from anywhere and wind up in the wine business. You can be a chiropractor. You could be a philosophy major. I know a guy who is a mechanical engineer. Anyway, you can come into it. And so you find a very diverse and deeply experienced community around wine. It's not like if you go to, I don't know, I don't want to poop on anybody's profession. But a lot of people in those professions will poop on themselves, especially at our age. We're starting to have little epiphanies. Well, the barrier to entry in the business is so low in the wine industry, which is kind of a problem. We can talk about that in a different thing. But part of the benefit of it is that it does allow all of these people to kind of just start accumulating in the industry. So community, to me, within the wine world is the most important thing because, of course, there's not enough of these wines. There's not enough access. The wines themselves can't do it. They can't travel the world. They travel the world, but they're not going to go to every person and every plate. So the number of people who are going to have this is extremely limited, almost just infinitesimal. Even in our small niche. Because there's probably less than 1,000 bottles of this imported in the U.S. Correct. Exactly that kind of thing. So the wine can't create its own community around any given bottle. So it really requires the people in the industry, I think, to have the interactions, the connections, so that we can keep the excitement and the energy and explain to people why this particular beverage is so important. We have to tell as a community, you know, because the bottles are good. People enjoy the bottles. But you can drink and, you know, forget about it. The next day, you might not even remember. Well, I'm going to open this while I ask you the question so you can focus on it. Because you are a rarity. You're one of these people in the industry. I noticed I liked you right away because of your positivity, how curious you are as a human being. Oh, thanks. I don't think that in the industry, I think it's a big problem where people are not super friendly, not open. There's an air of snobbery and also bigotry, I think. Even when I came back to Ann Arbor, I didn't want to come back to Michigan. But I did. I moved back for family. This poor corkscrew is awesome. It's like a Ferrari of corkscrews. Yeah, that's the Code 38. Do you know about the Code 38? No, I don't. Oh. So this is made by a guy down in Australia. This one actually is an interim model. It's called the Elite. It's been out of production for several years now. He still makes corkscrews, just a different style. How do I close the blade? Just a little slight pressure on the... Just push down a little bit on that part and pull it. This is sexy, man. Yeah, super. What is so funny? Us geeks can get off on just a little... And it's so funny. One of my friends who's a master of wine says, isn't it funny that wine's the only beverage where we need a special tool to open it? But if you have a tool like this... Why not? But we do have a screw cap, so we're not the fence, right? We're not the worst. So when I came to Ann Arbor, I tried to connect in the community. A lot of people were pretty abrasive and non-welcoming. I'm an Ann Arbor kid, so it's my hometown. When I came in the media business, I just got back from a trip where I was with some well-esteemed, well-known people in Europe. It's still not always the most friendly. That's what frustrates me the most. That's why it was cool when I met you. You brought everybody together. Yeah. I'm coming from the outside in. You're an Ann Arbor kid. You're a townie. That's right. I hope that's not derogatory. No, no, no. I love it. I embrace it. Do you see that in the business, or everyone knows you locally here? Yeah. I've been in the biz now for quite a while. Going back, I've been really in the business since the late 90s, 98. Somewhere around there. It's been a while for me, so I do lose touch with what it looks like from the outside. I've just been in it for so long. Then also doing things. Before I was doing the Real Wine Show podcast. Some years before I started, back in 01, I started doing something called Wine Jeopardy, which was self-explanatory. That's great. I love Jeopardy. Yeah. We had some fun with those. We did nine of those over the years. I just do it annually. Thank you. I've made a conscious effort throughout my time in the business to be engaged with the community. I lose sight of what it looks like from the outside. If someone were to walk into any given wine shop, how do they perceive it? Or if they look at a wine list, I just kind of forget what that is like. But I would say that with regards to the community, it's a problem. There's always been a problem, I think, in wine. A huge problem. Elitism and gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is what it is, more even than elitism, but it's also elitism. I don't feel like it's a… I understand because you talked about low barrier entry in my media space that people feel like you have to earn your stripes a little bit, which I get. Every business industry is like that. Yeah, that's not a bad thing. I don't think that gets passed on a lot to consumers. That is a huge problem. We want people to drink wine, not to walk away thinking… I'm in a weird space, right? I'm with wine journalists, MWs, Master Soms, big-time critics, but I'm also, I guess, I'm technically an influencer. I'm on, sometimes, food trips. Food people are the most fun to be with. They don't know anything about wine. They're intimidated a lot of times. It should be so linked together, but they complain about it quite a bit. Oh, really? Yeah. Food scenes? Yeah. What's the complaint? Is it that they… They don't know a lot? Yeah, they don't know a lot. If they ask questions, they feel like they're looked down upon. It's hard to… Wine is difficult. It's simple, but it's difficult, right? And it's constantly changing. It's always something different. Yeah, I don't know where that really comes from within the industry. I mean, I would blame the English. It's so funny because next week I put in my application for the Master of Wine, the vertices. That is tremendous, and kudos to you. I mean, I have the most respect for the Master of Wine program. To me, that is the ultimate. I actually look back… I'll be in Campania. I know you have roots in Italy. And the Greeks, in antiquity, they kind of developed wine culture. Before, you were just cutting water with wine, just drinking it as sustenance. The Greeks kind of developed culture around the symposium, everything. And when they came to Magna Graeca, they introduced, at the time, the people there to wine culture. So I think, inherently, elitism, snobbery has always been part of wine. Oh, you're going way back with it, huh? Yeah, that's right. So that's what I think. Like, you always had the base cheap wines, you know, give the Romans, you give the Rationale just for calories. And then you had the Cruz. You had the, like, Filarion in Roman times. Right, right. Yeah. Well, and it makes sense, I guess, because as we were discussing earlier about production levels, right? There's only so much, right? There's only so much wine of any given type of wine. There's only so much that is made. There's only so much that can be available anywhere. And so it kind of is, you know, you can't just produce it, you know, to serve everyone. Yeah, right. So I think maybe some of it is just built into the nature of the vine of an agricultural product, you know, that is so distinguished, you know. And I guess you could say the same thing about carrots in some ways, you know. There's only so many carrots that are getting grown, but, you know. We go off on tages, but this is what this podcast is all about. It's so funny because a good producer, and I can't remember the name, in California, convinced his dad to plant vines. He's like, why? We have lettuce here. And he's like, Dad, nobody pays $50 to go to a lettuce tasting. That's right. Yeah, for sure. You're right up my alley here, the Chaloury. So it's Mitzvahny 2020, made in Quaverie. I wanted to get you a Chinoury. I remember you mentioning that Chinoury was one of your favorites. I didn't have any at the house, though. I love the color on this, too. This is from Kakheti. You know, I go to Georgia often. It's where my wine career started. You like this really geeky. When I bring some of this to the Real Wine Show live tapings that you do, which if anybody's in Ann Arbor in the business, they should just come because it's awesome. We have fun. Everybody likes it when I bring these weird wines, and you especially, weird wines. Yeah. Why do you like these style of wines? Like, this is pretty geeky. This is quirky. Yeah, so I think, and maybe this goes back to what you were mentioning about elitism in the industry. I don't want to say I had a hard time. It's not that it was a hard time, but I've always kind of been on the outside of the industry. Maybe it's being black. I don't know. I mean, it wasn't bad. There's never anything over here. I wasn't the first person that anybody would want to talk. If somebody had a question about wine or if somebody was saying, well, who are the most important people in the wine, I'm never in, you know, I'm not on the short list, you know, for whatever reasons. I don't know what that is. And so I kind of naturally like, well, if that's going to be the case, well, then I'm just going to do my own thing. And for a long time, I mean, of course, I mean, Georgia's a little special because of its more recent availability in terms of these kind of quality type wines. But there are a lot of regions that just didn't hit, you know, in the classical hierarchy of wine. You know, it was Burgundy. It was Bordeaux. To a lesser extent, you know, it was the Rhone. Maybe even to a lesser extent, it was Brunello and Barolo and Tusk. You know, it's like this hierarchy in terms of where, like, you know, the kind of the classic wine conversation derived, you know. And so there's a lot of areas that just weren't getting attention. And I found it just naturally attractive, you know, to kind of, I guess, team up with the underdog or something, you know. But also, I just, I don't know, I like the styles quite a lot. Like this, the first time I went to Georgia, you know, I went in 18 for the first time. And I wanted to go because when I first tried these wines, I couldn't understand it. Like, where did they come from? Yes. You know. And what are they doing? And so I wanted to go see. And yeah, once I had the whole cultural picture, I was just, like, completely captivated, you know. Italian guy that goes to Georgia, you're like Gravner. Like, let's go Gravner. Yeah. Well, I wanted to go visit with Gravner too, which was great. He's got these really fascinating, you know, those glasses he has, those big goggles. With the thumb. Yeah. There's so many things I want to touch on what you just talked about. First of all, this is a beautiful example of Mutzvani. I think Mutzvani is fantastic. The tannins aren't really high. Also, Georgia is doing a lot better dialing back the tannins and the harsh extraction. But this is like tangerine peel, apricot, clean, earthy, minerally. It's beautiful. Yeah. They did a nice job on this. Chilauri is a, have you been up there? They're just outside. I've tasted their wines. I haven't visited them, you know, but I've tasted their wine. Yeah. It's just kind of a typical, you know, Georgian, like one of the, I mean, they obviously have some money. They got a pretty nice. Yeah. It's almost like a factory. Yeah. It's a bigger producer, right? Yeah. But they, yeah, they do a nice solid job with the wine. You know, I mean, it's just basic production, you know, it's not, you know, they're not particularly artisan. I would say, I mean, they are, but I mean, they just do what, this is how we make wine, you know? Yeah. And they wind up producing some really delicious wines. I like their Saperavi quite a lot too. These crazy stuff, these minimal intervention type of wines, this has gone away. But when it was starting to get trendy, you know, 10 years ago, there was also the separate branch of elitism and snobbery coming from the people that knew that. And I can get it because that's. It was more like a faddish, like fad. It was more faddish than snobby maybe. I don't know. Somebody wrote an article comparing like, when you talk about wine, maybe the high, high level collectible stuff and this minimal intervention stuff to like music snobs. Always looking for the next cool band. Yeah. I was going to say, you just fired that picture of a, oh my God, what was the movie with? Hyphodel. Cusack. One of my favorites all time. Okay. Yeah. Just remembering some of those scenes. Yeah, I guess it is like that a lot. And the funny part about it, you know, of course that, that schism was really pronounced because a lot of that new wave stuff, the minimal interventions was also kind of dirty and flawed. And that has come a long way too. It's everything's kind of come together as well. It's not there at least on our side of the business. I see that, right? Yes. Everything has kind of come together. It's like good wine or it's not good wine. Yeah. Do you think it hit with the consumer? Were consumers aware of that? Like there was a different, I don't know how that. I think so. Because if the real hardcore stuff was really, to me, only sold like places like York or we forget here or like in Manhattan, some swanky, there's a certain type of clientele that are there. Yeah. So maybe they weren't. I was getting at with the fad. Yeah. Then maybe they weren't aware of it, but I mean, like attracts, like that vibe attracts a certain type of. Yeah. I think that's kind of a, I don't know. I worked retail for a while. I still, I thought I found that just people like wine now in general, it's kind of melted together, but I really wanted to touch upon something we can talk about as we're minorities in the business. Yeah. And I can definitely, I still talk about this even with, with people like my entrepreneur friends, my therapist, everything. I still feel like I spent a lot of time in Europe that I'm an outsider. Still people look at me differently as my platform has grown up. They were really nasty. When I started my platform has risen. They're a little bit warmer. How can we use this guy? Exactly. Which I understand. We, you know, human interactions you're always trying to get something from somebody. I get it. Yeah. Actually. So funny. It's business. Yeah. Taught me what it's like to be a hot girl. Cause everybody's always coming at you and like, I give you things and you're like, what are they after? Yeah. But I still feel, I don't know if it's, I've always been thinking about this really deeply. Is it because the American British or European thing is a minority. I'm looking a little young. I'm not super young, but I look young. So I can relate a hundred percent. Do you feel like you still feel that in the business? As I was saying earlier, I did not really because it's I mean, a little bit, obviously it never goes away. I think, but I mean, in general, I would say, especially locally. No, because you're the big dog in the small pond. Like you're the connector. So, yeah. Yeah. And I also, I, you know, my, maybe my expectations are already set. You know, like I am anticipating this or that, or, you know, I kind of know where I am, you know, off somewhere else. You know, if I'm going to, you know, get trades like in Italy or something like that. Yeah. You notice it a bit, but it's, it's just simply like, who are you? And if you're just an unknown, people are going to compartmentalize. Exactly. I mean, that's what human beings, that's what we do. Yeah. It's just a way of managing, which, which was a pretty dynamic world. You know, like, you know, if you have say X amount of, say promotional dollars or marketing dollars, you know, where are you going to spend those? You know, are you going to, you know, invite some person who does what, I don't know, to, to dinner or back to the winery or, you know, are you going to go for the, you know, the known quantity? You're going to, the person who produces the content, the person who's doing the sales, the person who's doing actual buying. You know, of course, if you're an importer, if you're a buyer, it's a completely different game. On a brighter side. What do you think about this? I love the color of these wines. And I love this one really has a little bit of an orange reflection to it. I don't like using the word orange with the ambers. Yeah. I'm going to put the color up on the screen. We'll take a shot of this. Cause it's a beautiful, like bright neon tangerine. Yeah. It's really cool. It's apricotty like canned peach type of flavor. And this glass is pretty versatile. We've had like a lighter maceration, a heavier maceration. We're going to taste the red. I think we'll save them a look. Cause I'm about to be there. I'm going to be there. Which they do great stuff. They do. This one, this is a Bellone. Part of Frascati. Used to be in the past. Yeah. Part of the grape. But very, very salty. Very mineral. Yeah. It's like kind of hard to go back from. Yeah. We'll go right to red then. Yeah. I think this is excellent. My only small critique when it comes to grape macerated wines. I want a little bit more fruit on the back end. A little more pop on the finish. What I think is to introduce people to this style of wine. These are two perfect examples. Lighter maceration, heavier maceration. Oh, yeah. Right. Good point. I think they're perfect. I didn't even think about that. I was in Georgia recently with another content creator. I did a podcast with her. This was back in August. And she was just a casual, she was a travel podcaster. And, but she really liked these macerated wines. I mean, she loved them. Yeah. So, you know, we say they're difficult, but I think a lot of people will like them if they taste them. Right? Yeah. I think that's absolutely. I was going to get that. I was going to say the exact same thing. I mean, when we, when you have a framework and you, and you say like, okay, I have this corpus of knowledge, right. Around these traditionally styled wines. And then you hit something like this. You may like it, of course, and you can understand it and appreciate it. You may like it, but still it is like the other. Right. But I think especially for people who don't have that kind of experience or relationship to wine, where they know that, you know, this, you know, this place does this style, this place does that style. If they don't have that, if the whole thing is just an open book, you can throw something like this at them and they're just like, okay, it's just another type of wine. And then again, if you do it in the right way, like with some foods. You know, there's a new, uh, we have a Georgian restaurant now up in, uh, Farmington Hills or something. Isn't it really? Yeah. It's called Ananos. We should go up there, man. Yeah, we should. Yeah. I heard it's pretty good. But when you can put the, you know, the taste of the wine in context with the food, right? Then I think, yeah, people are just like wide open and they're really more accepting of it than the establishment. You know what the also challenge with that is though, at the flip side, in general, even the people that like wine, they don't want to, like your, like your wife, they don't want to know all the details, everything. Right. That's a lifestyle food and everything is a good way to, to, to package, but people of general, they like the, the experience of memory, but why it's kind of like if the wine's good there, it's, it's just an afterthought. It is what it is. Yeah. People aren't going to really get into it. Right. So how do you get into it, you're saying? I don't, I don't, you know, every business, you have a big funnel and you'll lose people as you go down. Right. So that's the, I guess, you know, everybody in the marketing side or communication side looking for the answer. But yeah. If somebody figures it out. Here's one thing I want to run by you. And again, going back to your comments about, uh, your line of inquiry about the, uh, you know, how to approach the business or approaches within the business. Like how do you industry people view, right. Uh, certain types of wines. You know, I think that, um, there's that a little bit, maybe it is elitism, but there's that desire that they have to feel that they know what's going on. Like, and so you have to break that down. Like, you know, to bring something in that's completely new to them, they're going to be a little defensive, right. Cause they are, they're doing a little bit of that gatekeeping thing, you know, and they want to have that authority, you know, and people are just not that open about admitting they don't know stuff. And I think there's resistance there. And so some of the presentations, you know, you have to really kind of, you have to massage egos. Yeah. And set it up just right. So that it's not a threat, but it's an open door. You know, I, it's so funny cause I think probably if we're all honest with myself, you know, like I, I understand what you're talking about because I know I come from that place too. Sometimes wine, the best piece of advice I ever got. He was an ex investment banker. So he had, he had capital right now. He does like a web portal as a hobby. It's he makes money, but it's obviously doesn't make the type of money he's invested. And he was asking me a question once about wine. And I said, I don't know, to be honest. And he took to me, he said, that's the way. He said, don't listen to every, we were in a media trap. He's like, don't listen to everybody around here. It was insecure. They don't want to admit they're wrong. You can't know everything about wine. It's impossible. Yeah. But you know, I, because wine is your, the, uh, the understanding of wine is so subjective. You get these people, man, who just feel like the unassailable, you know? Yeah. You can't really, you can't counter that. And you know, they can't be wrong. Right. Nobody can say that's not what it tastes like. I started with on this channel. When I see not this channel, just in my industry in general, I see people in the comments. They take people that are like MSs or MWs or other people to be the gospel. And I've tasted with a lot of people, great tasters. I think, Oh, I like tasting with, uh, buyers and porters cause they know right away they can sell the wine or not to the market. They're yes, no, yes, no, yes. It's really quick. But, um, just because wine is so subjective, just cause you know, a lot. Does it mean your, your opinions? Right? No, it doesn't. For me, for, for that person, I always tell people we're expert in wine that expert in your palette. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But for the people I'm saying is for those who want to like build a fortress around. I mean, you know, if you want to be like, like I say, like, uh, you know, a readout of knowledge, I mean, wine's a great place. That's your ego. Wine's a great place to be because you know, you can make these proclamations and like, how do you prove somebody is wrong? Right. You know, you're right. Oh, then you just can't. That's a great point. So they're just like stacking bricks and making a wall. And if you want to build a castle with sky, it's pretty, you can be, you can have all your defenses up. Nobody can really shoot at the arrows at you. Yeah. Because it is subjective. Yeah. So I see that part of it a lot. And that's why I was kind of torn between wine to say, is it elitism? Is it snobbery? Or what is it? I think it's just really egoism. Is that a word? Egoism? I think so. Yeah. Egoistic. Egoism. Yeah. Let's, uh, so this wine's excellent. I think it's delicious. Let's drink the Syrah, which I'm crazy about. I love Syrah. I'm weak in South Africa. Listen, from a great region in South Africa. Yeah. Shall I open it? Yeah, you shall. So talk, like this is from the region where it's big on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Yeah. The Himalayan Valley. Down the Walker Bay, like towards the Walker Bay, right? Yeah. And Elgin is down that way, I think too, right? Have you been here? Wax. No, I've not been in South Africa. I've been all around the world, almost every wine region in the world and the obscure ones. I still have not been to South Africa. Oh, really? My great savings. Hey, I've got, it's on the deck for, uh, we're going February of 27. Really? Yeah. Just some of the local, you know, KOs going. Uh, Tommy, my old import buddy. Are you guys just going as, as born or with Eagle Eye? No, no, just our own little trip. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay. So I'm excited about this Syrah. South Africa also, in general, pretty weak area for a lot of wine professionals because, you know, a lot of the best wines stay in South Africa or even if they're here, their distribution is kind of weird. I mean, my good friend is the, he is the one man show of wines of South Africa, America. It's only one person. Oh, really? Because they don't have the budget. You know, their currency is not that great, but, um. Give that a little whack. Okay. Thank you. So I'm excited. Yeah, the Lely Van Syren 20. I'm hoping that this, I haven't tasted it yet. I'm hoping this is, since from a Pinot Noir region, like those cool climate Syrahs out of Santa Barbara County that can act more like Burgundy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So to speak. Well, we'll see though. Yeah. We'll see. No, I think this is one of the reasons that I like this wine too, is because it does have more elegance than you might anticipate. No, this is great. Is it great? All right. And it's not Northern Rhone. That's the thing. It's not Northern Rhone, but it is Syrah. Yeah. Well, she does some, uh, some whole cluster on here too. It's got a little of the tomato. What's the year on this? Uh, 20. Okay. So almost Southern Hemisphere, almost it's like a 19 for a Northern Hemisphere, right? Yeah, right. Okay. How much is this? The nose is excellent. Oh boy. How much is it? I mean, I would, I don't know. It's a short answer. I would have to say, I think it would probably retail in the about 30. Yeah, that's what I'm guessing. Nose for me, tons of red fruit. You get the meatiness, get some tomato leaf type flavors, get the pepper, get the jerky type of flavor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It starts moving into that kind of roasty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit. But there's still this driving freshness underneath that, you know, it doesn't feel heavier. No, because sometimes these Northern, sometimes I love Northern Rhone. I love them and I don't drink them nearly as much as I want to. They can become so savory sometimes. This still has fruit, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm excited about this. So let's taste this. Yeah. The tomato and beef jerky. I like that a lot. Go. Folks, first of all, it's so funny. I have a good friend who's an MW and she said, people don't need to know about wine to enjoy. She's like, if a wine smells like puppy dogs, it smells like puppy dogs. To me, if it smells like tomato and beef jerky, fine. Right. Okay. You tell me what you think about this. I love it in some ways and I have a strong critique in another way, but go. So, okay. I would guess maybe the critique is there's a certain creaminess to this. Like it's a little lactic component that I'm getting in the back. Like I almost would like a little more acidic cut, you know, just a little bit more edge. I mean, it's got lift. It's kind of bright. So I like that. It's fruity and savory. It's a good mix of leatheriness, savoriness. Red fruit, more like red raspberry, maybe black raspberry, but not dark, dark fruit. No. Yeah. So yeah, I feel like there's a little more acid would be really nice for me. I want a little more. I want it to kind of drive up in the finish, you know, because it kind of wants to do, gets a little bit of a dropout, like in the mid palette it hits. And like you're saying, you get the fruit impression right away, but then it just kind of dives down a little bit and it loses a little bit of authority, you know, before it ramps kind of back up for the finish. I'd like to see a little more linear progression. I love when people from the outside look at people, like we look like completely, well, the way that we're describing, we're like completely ridiculous, but at the flip, like every single hobby or something, like I'm a big watch guy. I saw you at the big watch. The ball, yeah. Yeah. People get in, when they get into things, they get really geeky. So that's the cool thing. That's not my critique. Here's what, so I get the little hole in the mid palette. I think this is a fantastic wine. It was 35 bucks. I definitely think it's worth every penny. My only critique is because I want, I can see this could move to greatness. Here's my critique. It's from a warmer weather. Even though that's a cooler part of the South, it's got the, in the Southern Rhone, Grenache, GSM blends, they get this kind of waxiness as they develop. And I think it tastes a little too developed for a 2020. Oh, I guess so. Like it's, it's good because I liked it. You said it's waxy, I was thinking kind of lactic or creamy. It's almost the same. Like you, if you smell that or even have tasted wax, it's the same. Yeah. It kind of copes. So that's my only critique. And that's my only critique. Like it's drinking great now, but in terms of like ageability, we're talking about ageability. I think it's too developed for the point it's at right now. However, a great producer in Baja once told me, he's like, why are you giving wines benefit of the doubt? Because they can age. Nobody wants to age anymore. Why don't you drink? Well, there's that. It's like, okay, you can have some of those development flavors in a young wine that's on the shelf. So yeah, it's just kind of a stupid critique, but that was just my. Yeah. No, that's the thing. And you know, one of the things that we like about wine, I think the reason that we have a, uh, what would you call it? A, uh, a wine, like a baseline, like a standard, um, is because, you know, the, the aging curve, the arc is different, you know, for different regions. Right. Yeah. And for different varieties, you know. So you're not, I mean, I understand it of course, and you can't help, but reference the greats. Right. Cause I mean, this it's Syrah. So you're going to wind up in coat roti or something, and then you have to start, you know, you're like, wow, those are easily 30 year wines. Yeah. Right. And then so to start getting it, to make that comparison, I guess is almost unavoidable. And this is a challenge I think for up and coming wine regions. Right. Yeah. That's a big challenge, you know, especially if, I mean, now by price point, this is quite a bit less than you're going to pay for anything out of, you know, coat roti, certainly on the label. I wouldn't. You're still, I'm going to touch on that before we talk about your podcast that you're still, you know, get your hand in the importing side, you see with tariffs, everything in wine, all the great regions, everything's just going up drastically. How have you seen that negatively impact the wine business? A little bit for sure. Um, and it's really, it's, it's hitting. I mean, I think the classics are doing okay. And in fact, I think there's actually a little more attention, like people are kind of, there's a surgeon, a resurgent interest in standards. So like Bordeaux, especially Bordeaux, I'd say. Bordeaux's really strong still. Yeah. What's going on? Yeah. That's kind of a surprise. You know, that to me was like the most, like there was a time when I thought it was just completely moribund, you know, like there's just nothing, like there's nothing for me to do in Bordeaux. Right. Like I'm not going to be able to afford, uh, you know, to buy first growth. So what do I care? But on the flip side, you don't have to in Bordeaux. You can drink in a great vintage, good Bordeaux for 30 bucks. But go ahead. Yeah. But go ahead. Well, right. And so with that in mind, I was like, well, you know, where am I going to look? Right. Where can I go and experience greatness? Right. Cause yeah, you can get affordable, delicious Bordeaux, but if you really want, you know, the greats, you know, you have to go somewhere else. I mean, I did. I think a lot of people do. Very few people can afford, even though they make a tremendous number of say first growth. The volume is impressive, right? People don't realize. It's unreal. Like, why are people paying for that stuff? I don't get it. I mean, I've drunk them of course now, you know, but. I love, I love Bordeaux, but I do a lot of blind tastings and stuff with, with age Bordeaux, especially with my collector group and get just like, but we did one recently. We did like all the fives, like, so 2000, 2005, you could bring 85, anything with a five on it. Yeah. Sure. And one of the best wines I'm tasting was an aged can tomorrow. All right. Tomorrow's like 39 bucks. Yeah. It's like 39 bucks. Yeah. It's just, Oh my God. It's. Oh yeah. When they start aging them. I mean the, the battle really gets pitched. Yeah. Exactly. There's no guarantee that you're yeah. Your first growth bottle is going to show, you know, it's not going to best everything on the table. There's a handful of like third and fifth growth producers. I love that. I buy that. They're not now everything's going up, but they're not, you know, 50 to 60 bucks a drink. Yeah. Like wipe the floor with, you know, wines that are much more expensive. Yeah. With my tasting group, you know, we always taste blind as well. And it's, yeah, it's any preconceptions you may have had about wine go right out the window. That's when you shed her egos. Oh yeah. Blind tasting. Yeah. I met you because I was on your podcast, the real wine show. And I was amazed that I was just making just fun. It's not even like an important, we're just having fun. Talk about, uh, that's the whole ethos of my channel. Bringing fun back to the world of wine. Yeah. Why, why, why do you think we've lost? Wine is fun. Why do you think we've lost that in wine? Uh, well, I don't think that it was lost, but it was just reserved. I mean, it goes back. We were earlier speaking about, you know, like gatekeeping or snobbery, this kind of thing. And I think the people who were in wine were having a whole lot of fun. I'm pretty sure about that, you know, but it wasn't a priority to extend that fun. Right. To really just open the door for everyone and say, Hey, come have fun with us. That part wasn't there. And so I think that we're in a position, a place now, uh, industry wide where it's, um, and partly going back to the questions about, you know, rising costs of wine, increased competition, of course, new wine areas and things coming into the mix. Like people are like the industry has to be more responsive. They have to find new customers, right? If they're going to keep selling X number of bottles, you got to find X number of customers. Yeah. And so I think there's a greater understanding now that you can't just take like the market for granted and that they have to go out and develop it and build it. So I think that's where we are, that we're in a place where the industry is, is trying to throw wide the gates and bring more people in. Life. Uh, I feel like they're like everything in wine. Wine is kind of an archaic business. Yeah, it is. Wow. Yeah, it is. There's one company that it was not that long ago. Not that many years ago. I mean, really like double digit years. I don't even think it's been 10. Could be 10. I mean, I have to add in that COVID. So that's okay. But they were still using one of those old printers that had like those little things. You had to tear off like, you know, with the green and white striped paper. Like I was like, what is going on? Yeah. They're like fax me the order of like fax. What are you talking about? Yeah. It's an archaic business. Who has a fax machine? It was crazy. We have so much fun when we do the tapings here and I was the last two times I've had to travel or the last time I had like my first bit like basketball game. So I was like, I can't get toasty because we, we drink a little, we eat a little and it's a, it's fun. And I think that's what wine's all about. At the end of the day, I think it's wine is just meant to bring people together. For me, I always talk about philosophy of bottle wines to keep people at the dinner table that you love a little bit longer. Yeah. So conversations can flow. Yes. Yeah. And those conversations, what I love about them is that they can go anywhere. I mean, really, you could start at wine and wind up talking about anything in the world. Right. And so for me, I think that's just the most miraculous and special thing about it. I don't know if you're a shoe guy, who knows. But there's a lot of people in the wine industry, I think, who really like to get into stuff. It just tends to be, it attracts a lot of geeks and what I like. Yes. Yeah. Geeks. Yeah. I was on a podcast with a lawyer. He also knows my watches. He's a good watch guy. And he said the thing about, he brought up this concept and I was like, oh my God, it's a hundred percent right. That's why wine is so cool. He said things like watches, he's like the conversation at some point dies. Yeah. With wine, the conversation goes to everything. Yes. Right. Travel, food. And it gets emotional. A lot of times, I actually have found how, especially in my side of the business, wine trips with just, or with casual people. Because sharing a glass of wine and food with somebody, with anybody so intimate, then people start talking about like intimate relationships in their life, family, friends, everything. Because also usually wine was tied to that too. Yeah. And that's where people, you start, the clothes really start, literally, the clothes start to come off and people really share what's cool. And that's what makes wine cool. I think you become more real. Yeah. Right? As I'm buying. Yeah. It just opens the doors, I think, to great understanding too. I think you really can start appreciating that as people we face a lot of the same challenges or difficulties, you begin to understand maybe we have similar misconceptions about things. And maybe you feel, you might find that people are often guarded in regular life or outside of the wine life might find people to be guarded. But then once, like you're saying, once you sit down and you start making those connections, the guard comes down and you can really, I think, have much deeper understanding. Of a human being. Yeah. Or whatever it is you're trying to do. If you're trying to make a deal, make a business deal or something like that. When you can speak honestly about what's the value for you, what value do I expect to get out of it. When you can have, and the really good business people, I think, can do that all the time. They can always explain that part. But not everybody can. People are a little strange. And so wine can really be helpful even in, like I say, in a business context. Beyond just the interpersonal part, it can really help you to just be more direct and forthcoming about, well, what am I expecting in this? Whatever we're going to do, what is it I'm expecting, right? I agree. I have a friend that was a business consultant for young professionals. He taught them a little bit of what, why. He's like, because when you're at dinner and you want to get the business deal done, knowing what wine to order, the wine list, doesn't guarantee you get the deal, but it's not going to hurt you. Yeah. Well, making sure you order wine. I mean, some people don't even do it. Like, why are we sitting here? We're supposed to be getting some stuff done. Why is there no wine around? I mean, that's my own prejudice. That's what I want, to do the deal. If you think about all political business deals that happened maybe in the last 100, maybe 200 years, I'm guessing most of the time there was a bottle of wine at the table. Almost all because you're eating at a nice meal, everything like that. Yeah, and I think that's good. I mean, you could look at it and be like, well, what's wrong with us? How come we can't just have a normal unaffected conversation? But I think the benefit there is also that, again, because you become less guarded, right? I think there's more honesty. There's a greater exposition of honesty. And I just think it's easier to, if you really know it, instead of them playing games, you know, like, what am I thinking? What am I going to do? Let's get it out here, right? And then just start chopping it up. Well, that's the cool thing about one segment. In your show, you do the true or false segment, where you tell a story and you're like, is it true or false? Yeah. The thing I want to close with, I know people are drinking less and less these days, especially younger people. I was listening to a pretty big podcaster and he was talking about, he said, I think young people need to go out there, drink a little bit, go out, meet people, make some mistakes. Get beat up. Yes, make some mistakes. Yeah. And I was like, that's so true. And wine is probably, to me, the best beverage to allow that to happen because it's not like liquor where you're just getting blackout drunk. Yeah, yeah. It's not beer where you're just... Right, there's a culture around it, yeah. There's an intellectual component to it, right? Yeah, for sure. But you're right, and that's interesting when you say that about going out and making the mistakes. Because earlier I was saying wine is also this safe haven for people who are very egotistical, right? But at the same time, it's also a realm where you can go out and your ego's got to take its lumps, right? You might say something or do something that is a little less than ideal, and you just kind of have to live with it and make peace with it. So it kind of works both ways, and that's, again, what other beverage is so dynamic, right? It's just amazing to me. I'm infinitely fascinated. That's a good place to stop. Spotify's where most people can find you, right? I'll put it in the show notes. Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks a lot, Chad. I appreciate it. It's been a pleasure, Matthew. Thanks.