April 18, 2024
She Has The Passion And The Experience. Meet Wanda Mann
"Wine Talks with Paul K" dives into the vibrant world of wine with the featured guest, Wanda Mann, who brings her extensive knowledge and passion to the conversation. In this not-to-be-missed episode, the main points covered are: 1. **Demystifying...
"Wine Talks with Paul K" dives into the vibrant world of wine with the featured guest, Wanda Mann, who brings her extensive knowledge and passion to the conversation. In this not-to-be-missed episode, the main points covered are:
1. **Demystifying Wine Talk**: Paul K and Wanda Mann tackle the complexity of wine terminology, deliberating on how it can sometimes alienate new wine enthusiasts. They discuss the importance of simplifying wine language to make the experience more accessible and enjoyable for consumers.
2. **Consumer Trends and Preferences**: The discussion takes a turn into the latest trends in the wine industry, such as the rise of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol wines, and the increasing popularity of canned wines. Paul and Wanda weigh in on how these trends reflect the changing landscape of consumer behavior and the need for the wine industry to adapt.
3. **Diversity and Inclusion in the Wine Industry**: A significant portion of the conversation shines a light on the importance of diversity within the wine world. They share insights on the progress being made and the ongoing need for inclusivity, concerning both the consumers and professionals in the field, regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation.
4. **Cultural and Generational Shifts**: This episode also delves into how wine is woven into the social fabric across different cultures and generations. Wanda and Paul discuss the role of organic and biodynamic wines, the irony surrounding new-age beverages, and the continuous shift in generational attitudes towards wine consumption.
5. **The Power of Storytelling in Wine**: Finally, the podcast emphasizes how each bottle of wine tells a story and that learning about wine is an endless journey. With anecdotes from Wanda Mann's own life and career, including her transition from the events director at Princeton Club to a respected wine enthusiast and writer, there's a personal touch that resonates with anyone who values the narrative behind their glass of wine.
Wanda Mann is the East Coast editor of SOMM Journal and East Coast Editor of The Tasting Panel. A native New Yorker, she graduated from Pomona College in California. Through her event planning at the Princeton Club, she fell in love with wine, moving into the industry and eventually sharing her insights on a popular lifestyle blog aimed at women enthusiasts. A poignant story shared by Wanda highlights her father's determination to thrive as a chef in New York's diverse kitchens despite facing significant adversity, demonstrating that passion and grit can overcome barriers—a testament to her own path in the often-intimidating world of wine.
Transcript
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Carson Leno
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Fallon. Now it's
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wine talks with Paul K.
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Hey, welcome to wine talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today, about
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to have a conversation way out in Harlem with Wanda man. Introductions in just a
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moment. Wine talks, of course, available on iHeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, wherever you
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hang out for podcasting and have a listen to claude
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Roquette. He has lived and worked on the greatest vineyards and
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areas of wine in France, but landed in Napa Valley
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working for the Smith Haute Lafitte Bordeaux house at a winery called
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Cathiard. The wines are fabulous wines, and we talk about the
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French coming to America and using the new world,
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let's call it the new world, to make wine. You start to see a great
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difference in not the quality, but the depth of the wines and the
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complexity here about that as well. I just released an
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episode with Frederick J. Ryan, the CEO of the Reagan
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foundation, but more importantly, author of the book
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White House a History, the preeminent
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authority in America on what was poured when in the White House. And all
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the history that goes with it is really quite interesting. Probably due
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for a second episode just to catch up on all things at the White
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House. But now, while we're here, we're here to talk about wine with Wanda
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man. Wanda is the east coast editor of the famed trade
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magazine Psalm Journal, as well as the tasting panel. Welcome to the
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show. Thank you for the invitation, Paul. Happy to be here.
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Well, I've been watching you online. I guess that's what we do these days, right?
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Yeah, that's true all the way. We watch everyone
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online. And you've been contributing to the wine space
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for quite a long time. And you grew up in
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New York? I'm a native New Yorker. I was born on this island
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of Manhattan, so this is my hometown. Wow. There can't be that many of you
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around. You know, people always say that. I guess
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it doesn't seem that there are, but I'm like, you know, we have all these
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hospitals and babies are being born in New York every day. But it is
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you're more likely to encounter. I'm just thinking in terms of
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the wine community in New York. There's a handful of us that I can think
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of that were born in Manhattan. But, you know, New York is where people come
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to make their dreams come true. Right? So
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not everyone's born here, but, you know, we're here. We're here. No,
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that is interesting. Part of New York is that it does have that sort of
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moniker that whether you're coming from Europe or whether you're coming
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from in America to land in New York to take your
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shot because there's such a hotbed of not only food and
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wine, but entertainment and all the rest of industry.
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Anything you want to do, New York has it. You know, I'm not sure if
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we're still the city that never sleeps. I think since lockdown, people have
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gotten a little groggier. But definitely it is a place where
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you can invent, reinvent, rejuvenate, you know, pursue
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that dream, that passion. So it's nice to know that we still have that going
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for us. Well, we miss it. Like I told you, my
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daughter lived in Harlem as a boulanger
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for a restaurant that earned a Michelin star. And now
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she's in Potsdam. You ever heard of Potsdam,
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Sarah? Where is that exactly? Well, it's not the edge of the world, but you
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can see it from there. It's as far north in New York as you can
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get. Okay. Okay. It's quite
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a. Quite different than Manhattan, actually. I would think
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so. But you ended up in college in
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California. Actually, just down the road from where I'm at today. How did that
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happen? Yes, I went to Pomona College. I'm a proud
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sage hen. That's our odd little mascot. How did
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that happen? Yes, I had no family in California. I'd
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never even really been to California until I visited Pomona
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the year that I was graduating from college, Pomona became a very
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hot school. So I actually went to high school in Massachusetts.
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I went to boarding school. And that year a lot of us applied to
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Pomona. I think it really started moving up the rankings in that time.
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And I flew out to visit in the
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deep depth of winter in New England. And I went to
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sunny Inland Empire and I said, oh,
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it's a good school. That's a bonus. I really like this weather.
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Yeah. I have to say, the sunshine
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played a major decision. But I did like the fact that it was a small
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school. There were no teaching assistants. So in
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some ways, it didn't feel so different from Andover. It was just
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much better weather there. Well, all five
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of the schools in that group are highly acclaimed
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educational institutions. So, I mean, you could have. You did very well for
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doing that. Well, why didn't you stay in California? I
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finally got home sick. I stayed a couple of years after graduation,
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but I left home at 14 to go away boarding school. And then
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I did a junior year in high school in Spain and a junior year in
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college in Spain. So I'd always been kind of a bit of a nomad.
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And I was ready to be back near, near my family, quite
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honestly, and enjoy New York. I never really
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had, you know, teenage experience in New York. I went away
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to school at 14. I would come home for break, so I wanted to
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experience my city as an adult. And good
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decision. Yeah, it's been great. It's been great.
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You know, it's interesting. New York used to be, when we were there, pre
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COVID, man, there was a wine shop, like, on every corner. I mean,
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it's one of those towns where wine is an important
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part of the culture. Certainly the restaurant, food, the hospitality side
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of New York is incredible. The hotbed of
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restaurants and Michelin stars. But there always seems to be a wine
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culture that just sort of runs itself. It just
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kind of takes care of itself. It's got wine bars, it's got wine
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shops. Did that, was that part of your, you know,
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post college lifestyle?
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To be honest, no, not really.
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I wish I could say that it was. I got into wine and very
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roundabout way. When I
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graduated, I eventually ended up working as an events planner. So I
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was working with nonprofits. I was producing red carpet galas. Took
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a few detours, and I ended up becoming the events director at the
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Princeton Club in midtown. And part of my responsibility was
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putting on the wine and spirits tastings for the members, because those
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were no brainers, they were profitable. My general
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manager was happy and got members in the club. The events always
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sold out. So I started meeting people in the industry, and at that
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point, really, my wine knowledge was, it's white, or it's red, it still,
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or it's sparkles. I really didn't know much. I was the person,
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like, do we have the tasting mats? Do we have the decanters? Are they chilled
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right? But through doing those events, I started meeting people in the
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industry. And someone invited me to have lunch one day, said, oh, you were
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so great to work with. Why don't you come one day to one of our
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events that aren't at the Princeton Club so you can enjoy the tasting?
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And that was really my first time sitting across from a winemaker that was
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probably about 2010 or eleven, and I realized there
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was this whole world I didn't know about. You know, he talked about these
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grapes like they were children, you know, throwing around these terms,
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malolactic fermentation, trellis systems. And I'm
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nodding my head and thinking, boy, I have a lot to learn. And that was
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really the catalyst. I started going to more tastings. I started buying
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books. I was already writing at that point, I had a pretty
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popular lifestyle blog and newsletter with. With
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advertisers, and I covered fashion and food and arts and
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culture, but I slowly started integrating wine content.
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And then I think it was at a time where a lot of women my
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age were at a point in our career where we wanted to know more about
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wine. Your early thirties, you're making a little more money, you're going
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to events, you're going to fancier restaurants. You want to be able
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to say something other than white wine. So as I was
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learning, I was sharing with other women especially, who wanted to know,
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what is Chardonnay? What is suncer with what is
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Vermentino? So it was just. It was kind of like the right
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moment, the right time. So I always laugh when people say, oh, you're so new
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to this. It's just when I started, there was no instagram. You
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know, it was a blog. And I used to
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do in person events for my readers. But,
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yeah, I've been kicking around for about 15 plus years now
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doing. Do you think that that is an academic
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curiosity where you sat there, or was it
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driven by your need to
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understand wine specifically or food?
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I always try to pin this down. What is this motivating factor
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that piques our curiosity at some point and we just have to learn
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more? I think it's a little bit of both. Being an
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anthropology major, I think I'm just always naturally curious about
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any type of culture that's different. So the
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wine culture is certainly something that was new and exciting, a new way
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of looking at the world. And it brought in all the issues that I was
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interested in. Culture, language, science,
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artistry, spirituality, it's all there in wine. And
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my dad was a professional chef, so I always grew up with the love of
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flavor. And so even though we spend a lot of time more
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focused on food, my dad did buy me my first bottle of wine when I
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was 16. So I think all of these things kind of combined. Like,
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wow, this is something that, yeah, it tastes good. I'm getting a little
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older, I'm appreciating more about it. But really,
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for me, yes, the wine should taste good. That's
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important. It being delicious is an important part of its appeal.
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But I think the stories are really what attracted me, just
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learning why people do this, why
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people collect, why people change careers to become
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winemakers, why people continue when they lose
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everything in a fire. You know, just what is that drive? So I
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think that's really what keeps me interested, are the stories. It's funny
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you said collected. I am not a collector. We never even. My
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business was about $15 to $20 wines after 35 years
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of doing this. And I never collected it. Never even told. I thought,
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you know, collecting wine for a financial gain was really not a good idea.
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But now, because I sold the company and the buyer wanted
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nothing to do with our seller, I've got like, I don't know,
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3000 bottles almost of some pretty cool stuff. And
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I. This mentality of collecting has settled in. I'm like, man, if I
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drink that, I'm not going to have it anymore. And that's
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like, I'm like, you shouldn't care,
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just drink it because what are you doing anyway?
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But you're an anthropology major.
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Yes. Well, look,
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I had 30,000, 30,000 cases here almost at all
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times. And so I really didn't need a seller and I really didn't need
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any. But now I have to have one. But you know, anthropology major is
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an interesting viewpoint for the wine business that, you
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know, they found that winery in Armenia 6000 years old. They found the winemaker
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shoes or maybe did they have cellar rats back then? Maybe that was
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a cellar rat shoe, we don't know.
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But there is something very historical about wine as a beverage. Was it part of
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the curriculum at all when you were in college? You know,
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not at all. I mean, Pomona, like, you know, was not a
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party school at all. I think the only wine I ever drank
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during the Pomona years was a wine cooler and some
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boone's farm.
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I was like, oh my goodness, all those years in the west coast, I never
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visited Napa, Sonoma, Central coast.
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It really was not a part of the experience. And then recently I met Chapney
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Corson, also Pomona College
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graduate. And what sparked her interest in wine was a
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wine tasting class at Pomona. And I'm like, they didn't have that when I
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was there. Well, that's so interesting. Wouldn't it be
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anthropologic? Anthropologic? Anthropologic,
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anthropological. I mean, wouldn't, wouldn't
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wine be part of that curriculum? Because it goes so far
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back. You know, I think you've given me a good
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case to go to the school and say I'd like to be an adjunct in
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the anthropology. I may have found
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a new gig, but no, we talk about anthropology
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covers linguistics, archaeology, culture.
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And I'm sure we must have talked about wine at different points, but it was
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never a focus. There were no wine classes at Pomona at
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all, so. Well, I think this is what separates wine
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from every other beverage is this historical viewpoint
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and its cultural additive to, you know,
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lifestyle. I mean, you know, they know, they know what vintages King Tut
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liked. They have to tell you something, right? There's something
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unique and ethereal about this glass, the wine. I just wrote an article that I'm
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going to post today, a short article on the
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contemporary issues with wine in the marketplace
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and how I think history has its back because
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it's not going to go away, of course. And if somebody wants to drink it
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out of a can, let them drink out of a can. But that's eventually going
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to be a non issue as well. But for you,
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you sat at this table, you tasted this wine, you heard these stories, and
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now you realize you'll never learn at all. Yeah.
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And even now, I mean, I think even if you
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talk to masters of wine and master psalms, I think that's the beauty of wine,
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is that you will never know at all. So it keeps it exciting and it's
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also very humbling. So that's why I'm always a little, I have a bit
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of trepidation when someone says you're a wine expert. I'm like, I may know
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slightly more than you just because I've immersed myself in it,
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but to call myself an expert, I
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don't feel that. I feel I'm someone who's learning. I'm passionate. I
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like to share that information. It has certainly made topics that
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I didn't have much interest in before more interesting to me.
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So I think about geology at Pomona. Rocks for jocks, we
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called it. I hated geology. Well, once you get into
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wine, you become like a soil and rock nerd, right?
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Like really riveting and exciting. Like, if
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only they had taught this through the lens of wine, I would have found it
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interesting, perhaps. So I, you know, I always regretted not going
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on to grad school. I was admitted, and then my life took a
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different direction and I decided not to go. But for me, wine has
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kind of filled that void of ongoing education. You
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know, they say that it has for me, for sure. I mean, my
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mom, if she was alive, would have gone, you know, who is this kid
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who understands, like, world geography? Like, I didn't care.
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Exactly. But that's one of the subjects that your brain
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wraps around when you start studying wine as well as, like you said, rocks and
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things. And part of that says,
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and maybe this is where this contemporary viewpoint of the wine
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industry is. And I think, and we'll talk about that a second, why I think
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it's going backwards a little bit. But is that the intimidating
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factor for your friends, let's say, who consider you an expert when
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you bring up sheast or chalk or,
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you know, granite and tap roots and all those things that,
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the buzzwords that we know but make everybody else's eyes
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spin, is that the intimidating factor for all?
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And we're going to talk about the cultural aspect of this, too. But is that
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in general, the things that people go, oh, you know, I really, I just want
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a glass of wine. I don't want to hear about it. Yeah, I think it
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can be, but it doesn't have to be because I think, you
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know, sometimes wine can feel like inside baseball, right?
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Those of us in the industry, you know, we throw around our
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vernacular and our way of speaking about wine because it's a language
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that we know. And sometimes we forget when we're talking to consumers
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and new drinkers that they're not familiar with those terms. So when you
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say, oh, yeah, it went through Mallow, oh, yeah, this wine has
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some va, and they're like, what are you talking about? Right.
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So I think, you know, I've been doing a lot of events with consumers now
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at festivals, at private clubs here in New York. And I
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think at the beginning, you just want to talk in very simple terms. They
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can understand. It shouldn't read, you know,
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like a taste sound, like a tasting note or
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a scientific description. I always tell people, I want you to leave with maybe
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three things you didn't know before. So then when you go to that cocktail
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party, for example, the number of people who don't is like,
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oh, I don't think I like Sancerre, but I like Sauvignon blanc. Well, I've
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got a surprise for you. Sancerre is Sauvignon Blanc. How about
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that? Oh, I don't really like Chardonnay, but
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Chablis is great. Well, you know what? That's really
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funny. Or people who think we talk
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about all these different flavors, and I've had someone genuinely ask,
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so, like, do they add, like, when you say it tastes like
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strawberry and hibiscus and tea leaves, do they
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add that to the wine? No, they don't. But, you know, there's some
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shared chemical compounds between those fruits and
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wine. Now, you don't need to rattle off the name of all the compounds to
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show off, you know? So I think sometimes we just need to be a
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little more simple when we present it. And then for those people
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who want to know more, they'll start geeking out like I did. They'll find information
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on their own. They'll start going to more advanced tastings and
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seeking out more, you know,
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challenging experiences. But I think we do ourselves disservice when we
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say, you can only talk about wine in this way.
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I agree with that, and certainly unintentional because
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I suppose in order to describe things or to talk about it, to understand, if
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you really want to dig deeper, you're going to figure out that, yes, like, we'll
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just say the other night I had a dinner with a french winemaker who came
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to our home, young man, and no one else in the room would have
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understood this. When I told him, I said, I've got a sparkling wine here, grown
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in, you know, it was in sheath. And he goes, oh, absolutely.
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And it's not champagne. It's not an expensive bottle, but it's really good because
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he understands what that's supposed to be like, and certainly no one else in the
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room was going to know that, right? So it's unintentional that
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this vernacular occurs because you've got to study it.
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How many people do you think when you have those events with the consumers
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and you try to bring the language to a point where most
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people can understand it? How many think come away percentage wise
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with at least the idea, I'd like to take the next
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step. I'm sure this is a guess, but because most people go, hey, I went
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to this event. It's really cool. The guy was talking about this and that, and,
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you know, I still like, you know, my, my apothec red. So
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what do you think? There's a group?
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I think so, because I think the fact that they even showed up for that
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event shows that there's a virgin. Now, once in a while, you see someone whose
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partner clearly dragged them to the tasting like, honey is date night and we're going
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to a wine tasting. I had an
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experience last year in Aspen. There was a couple
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sitting front row center, and one of them
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looked miserable for the first ten minutes, like, I don't want to be at this
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event. She made me come to this tasting. So I kind
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of kept looking over at him, and I said, I think he's
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softening up a little. After two sips, we get to the
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third wine, he's nodding, he's participating. After the
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session ended, he's the first person I went to, and I said,
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am I wrong? But I had a feeling in the beginning, you don't really want
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to be here. She made you come, didn't she? He goes, yeah, but I got
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to tell you, this was really fun. I learned a
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lot. And he's like, I would do it again. Wow, that's great.
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So I think that when you make it real, if you keep it down
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to earth, that even those folks who think they're not
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interested, and sometimes it's, like I said, sometimes they
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didn't know if it's a science geek, they really cling to
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the science. Like, oh, I didn't know that. Or someone who's really into,
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who's environmentalist. And I hear about all of the sustainability
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efforts and wine. Sometimes it's a social justice perspective
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when they hear about whiny, sort of very involved in
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important social justice issues, you know, gender diversity, racial
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diversity, equity parity. So I think, you know,
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you meet people where they are. So I would like
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to think more than half the room will
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continue to go to wine tastings, will go to wine shops and step
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out of their comfort zone, because that's the main thing I tell people, we all
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have our comfort wines just like we have comfort foods. But I challenge
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you. When you go to your wine shop, don't always reach for that same bottle
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that you always get. Have a conversation, develop a good
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relationship with your wine cellar, and
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expand a bit. And you don't have to like everything. And there's nothing wrong. I
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don't care how many points it has. You're allowed not to like
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it, but understand why you don't like it. Maybe
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you like a more acidic wine. Maybe you like a less acidic wine. Maybe you
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like more complexity. Maybe you, you know, you, you like
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lots of tannin, grippy wines. Maybe you like a jammy
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wine. There's nothing wrong, but understand what you. Do and don't like,
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you know, that's a great thought. And I had a buyer here at one of
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my wine shop was open. It was dore. He was one of the
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best pallets buying pallets in Los Angeles, for sure
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of my experience. But uncannily, he was able
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to take somebody's record. Some walks into the shop
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and says, I usually buy you this. And he'd say, well, I'm going to take
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you over here to try something else. And that's a
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talent for a wine shop owner or a wine club owner,
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to be able to hear a particular style and
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then take the next step, left or right,
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north or south, as to what that person might like. And that's an important thing.
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But you said something very important. This is the part we're going to peel back
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now, and that is this experiential part of
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wine. I think the industry has been plagued
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by a couple of things, and one of them is the advent of the
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Internet and the advent of
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50 cent a liter wines coming from Europe being bottled with fancy labels
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and being sold as something more than they are,
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and the disillusion of the consumer.
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Because the story can't be when you're sitting at dinner with your friends, hey, I
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got this for $5 on the Internet.
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There was a new club started during Christmas that I watched called Vino Cheapo, for
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my God's sake. I mean, give me a break. So why would you, you know,
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why would you do that at dinner? Hey, I got this. At Vino Cheapo, you
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know? Yeah, maybe the wines are good. I don't. Well, that's a
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different story. But the point being,
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I think that wine actually is going back to, like, the seventies and
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eighties, when my dad had his wine groups and the Les Amie Devant was around
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in America. And you would go to the dinners and you would hear from the
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winemakers, and that's where you start to understand
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the differences and the history and the romanticism and why
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a glass of wine is different than any other beverage. Are you seeing
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more of that? You know, I've noticed, you know,
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when I go out to eat, I'm really impressed. When I look around the
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dining room and I see young people in their twenties and thirties
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with really good battles on the table. I think we're
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living in an age where the younger generation,
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they really care about what they eat and drink, and a great deal
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of their disposable income goes there. And I know we
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talk about, you know, they're not drinking enough. And
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part of that is, look, when you're young, you don't necessarily want to drink what
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your parents are drinking, right? And we were all young once,
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right? So it's a process. But I do notice, at least here in New York,
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I feel hopeful because I see that they're not just saying, oh, give me the
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cheapest or the second cheapest. I look, I'm like, oh, they spent more money on
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wine than we did tonight, and they're enjoying
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entertainment. So, yeah, I think
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people want to be a part of the conversation, and I think social media
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has fueled that. You know, when you see people, one of your friends
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in college who suddenly is a social media influencer, talking about wine,
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it's like, oh, I want to speak that language, too.
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So I think social media has really helped to fuel that conversation. There are some
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downsides to it as well. But I do think it has captivated
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a larger audience in a way that wasn't possible with just
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a print magazine. I think you're right. I think as
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well, probably in the magazines that you contribute to,
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a lot of articles are about the decline in sales
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for the listener. We're not talking about like this 30% drop in sales. We're talking
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a few percentage points. It's also coupled with the
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overproduction of wine and everybody jumping in to see
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if they can make a million dollars. And of course, we know how that works.
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That will add it and the advent
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of the supermarket formula wise. Now, this is an interesting problem
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that we have, and I just realized the complexity of it as we're
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talking. You walk into about Ralph's market, supermarket,
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safeway, you know, Kroger's or any of the East
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coast chains, and virtually the shelf is the same.
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Right? It's a popular. Well, the beauty of New York City is you can't
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buy wine in the supermarket. Well, that's true. That's true.
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So for me, when I, it always throws me off when
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I'm in another state and I'm like, oh, my goodness, they have
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a whole aisle of wine. I'm like, how does anyone navigate this? There's
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no one to help you. That's a really good point. I didn't
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think about that. Maybe, and I'm sure it's not the intention of the bureaucrats of
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New York, which was to actually create a system that forced
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somebody into looking at wines other than what's at the supermarket. Because there is no
432
00:26:21,528 --> 00:26:25,288
wine in the supermarket. Exactly. Even though, look, there is a lobby,
433
00:26:25,336 --> 00:26:29,112
you know, that very much wants to be able to sell wine in a
434
00:26:29,128 --> 00:26:32,896
supermarket. And of course, the wine shop and liquor store owners are
435
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:36,312
lobbying against it, of course. But I think the wine
436
00:26:36,368 --> 00:26:39,756
shop does a much better job of creating a
437
00:26:39,780 --> 00:26:43,396
wine culture than a supermarket, which feels much more
438
00:26:43,420 --> 00:26:47,220
utilitarian. You go there for your necessities, you have your list,
439
00:26:47,332 --> 00:26:51,076
you grab what, you know, the times I've been out of state and
440
00:26:51,100 --> 00:26:54,844
I've walked through these large wine aisles, they lack
441
00:26:54,884 --> 00:26:58,544
that energy that you get in a wine shop.
442
00:26:58,964 --> 00:27:02,372
Well, there's no, there's no question. And that was a point I was going to
443
00:27:02,388 --> 00:27:06,066
make. But since you live in New York, you don't get
444
00:27:06,090 --> 00:27:09,418
to experience it like I do. But if you go to Vaughn's here at Ralph's,
445
00:27:09,546 --> 00:27:12,922
it's the same shelf, you know, there's Cali red right in the middle.
446
00:27:13,018 --> 00:27:16,570
There's menage a trois and floor stacks of Josh
447
00:27:16,722 --> 00:27:20,242
and you don't get to make a decision. In fact, I posted a picture the
448
00:27:20,258 --> 00:27:23,818
other day of the Ralph's market Cabernet
449
00:27:23,866 --> 00:27:27,658
section. Every single wine had a shelf talker.
450
00:27:27,786 --> 00:27:31,448
So it was either about the price or is about the points that got it.
451
00:27:31,546 --> 00:27:35,104
And I posted. All I wrote was, how do you make a decision?
452
00:27:36,164 --> 00:27:38,932
And it kind of goes back to what I'm talking about, which is we need
453
00:27:38,988 --> 00:27:42,484
these wine shots. We need the department manager anyway at a large
454
00:27:42,524 --> 00:27:46,292
supermarket, if they have one, to help us break out. But
455
00:27:46,308 --> 00:27:50,100
then on the flip side of this, and you probably experienced it, we
456
00:27:50,132 --> 00:27:53,876
need those wines for people that don't drink wine to come into the fray.
457
00:27:54,020 --> 00:27:57,644
Grab a bottle of an interesting label and like, have you seen the freak
458
00:27:57,684 --> 00:28:00,994
show label? They're like a carnival picture. Yes, yes. Right?
459
00:28:01,774 --> 00:28:05,182
And they grab, they go, oh, this is interesting beverage. And then they move to
460
00:28:05,198 --> 00:28:07,874
the next step. And it's sort of like you need that entry level
461
00:28:09,174 --> 00:28:12,830
conversation before you can get to the stuff that we like to talk
462
00:28:12,862 --> 00:28:16,494
about. Absolutely. I always say very few Americans
463
00:28:16,534 --> 00:28:18,874
grow up, you know, drinking
464
00:28:20,094 --> 00:28:22,950
Brunello, Bordeaux,
465
00:28:23,102 --> 00:28:26,710
Burgundy. So you know that the palate, you know, there's a
466
00:28:26,742 --> 00:28:30,416
gateway. You have your entry level wines to kind of sparked the
467
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,704
excitement. That's actually a really good point. I never drank
468
00:28:33,744 --> 00:28:37,592
gin. My dad made me. I made a martini every night for him. Son, make
469
00:28:37,608 --> 00:28:40,936
me a martini, but I never drank it. And then till I was an adult,
470
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:44,744
now I drink too much for it. So, yeah, I never understood why my dad
471
00:28:44,784 --> 00:28:48,576
liked whiskey. I'm like, oh, smells like listerine. It's horrible. But
472
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,312
then once I got into wine, I started appreciating, you know, spirits
473
00:28:52,368 --> 00:28:56,184
as well. Yeah, you got to start. You got to start. That's the key
474
00:28:56,224 --> 00:28:59,468
thing. What are you hearing about non
475
00:28:59,516 --> 00:29:03,244
alcoholic? And this goes back to my romantic view of wine
476
00:29:03,404 --> 00:29:07,224
and the ethereal value of glass wine. But non alcoholic is hot.
477
00:29:07,724 --> 00:29:11,252
It is not. Sure I get it. I'm trying to figure out low alcohol, which
478
00:29:11,268 --> 00:29:14,544
I think is a better product, but
479
00:29:15,404 --> 00:29:18,944
bag in the box, all this cans.
480
00:29:19,804 --> 00:29:23,654
Had a conversation with the Cornell professor who's working
481
00:29:23,694 --> 00:29:27,206
on a food grade lining to help canned wines go
482
00:29:27,270 --> 00:29:31,006
longer. And I can only look
483
00:29:31,030 --> 00:29:34,790
at that having watched my dad's wine shop and my wine shop and everything go
484
00:29:34,822 --> 00:29:38,606
through its cycles as just blips in the consumption of
485
00:29:38,630 --> 00:29:42,302
wine since we talked about this 6000 year old winery in
486
00:29:42,318 --> 00:29:45,638
Armenia. These are just consumer
487
00:29:45,726 --> 00:29:49,254
pieces that just kind of go up and down. And really,
488
00:29:50,514 --> 00:29:53,954
I think the low alcohol, because there are definitely times that I
489
00:29:53,994 --> 00:29:57,802
prefer lower alcohol wine right and again,
490
00:29:57,858 --> 00:30:00,614
you know, being more conscious of what we're consuming.
491
00:30:01,594 --> 00:30:05,154
And I think it also allows your friends and
492
00:30:05,194 --> 00:30:08,970
colleagues who don't drink to at least still participate in the ritual with the no
493
00:30:09,002 --> 00:30:12,786
alcohol. But as I said in an interview that I
494
00:30:12,810 --> 00:30:16,530
did last year, personally, I like my wine with alcohol. To
495
00:30:16,562 --> 00:30:20,374
me, that's what a wine is. I like the alcohol.
496
00:30:21,914 --> 00:30:25,258
I don't think we should demonize it. I think there's a real movement
497
00:30:25,306 --> 00:30:29,094
now that seems to be surging
498
00:30:30,194 --> 00:30:33,666
moderation. Drink smartly, but enjoy. But I
499
00:30:33,690 --> 00:30:36,894
think, just like we shouldn't overdo sugar,
500
00:30:37,234 --> 00:30:40,770
we know that too much sugar can be bad for us. Yes, too much
501
00:30:40,802 --> 00:30:44,010
alcohol is bad. But, yeah, the no
502
00:30:44,082 --> 00:30:47,874
alcohol, I read recently, what's the chain
503
00:30:47,954 --> 00:30:51,214
of Boisson? That a lot of their stores are closing.
504
00:30:51,964 --> 00:30:55,236
They started in New York. I believe they have some on the west coast, and
505
00:30:55,260 --> 00:30:58,424
their whole model was alcohol free beverages.
506
00:30:59,844 --> 00:31:03,500
And so the cynical part of me is like, maybe people realize they were
507
00:31:03,532 --> 00:31:07,260
spending $30 for a pretty bottle of iced tea or fruit juice.
508
00:31:07,372 --> 00:31:11,212
Yeah, right. Maybe that's the problem. Well, it's
509
00:31:11,228 --> 00:31:14,624
kind of interesting you just said this, and it just hit me.
510
00:31:15,644 --> 00:31:19,406
This generation, LMNOP or Z or X or whatever we're talking
511
00:31:19,430 --> 00:31:23,118
about, and millennials as well, they were all about
512
00:31:23,206 --> 00:31:27,014
organic biodynamic. They're all about what you put in your body, but they drink white
513
00:31:27,054 --> 00:31:30,494
claw, which is kind of ironic. Exactly. But at the same
514
00:31:30,534 --> 00:31:34,286
time, for the listeners, non alcoholic wine is
515
00:31:34,430 --> 00:31:38,110
wine. And of course, it certainly has something to do with what
516
00:31:38,142 --> 00:31:40,310
you start with. It needs to be pretty good for it to end up being
517
00:31:40,342 --> 00:31:43,742
pretty good, removing the alcohol. But then they have to put
518
00:31:43,798 --> 00:31:47,532
back stuff in order to make it palatable. And so
519
00:31:47,548 --> 00:31:50,508
they put water back, and they put flavoring agents, whatever they do. And so all
520
00:31:50,516 --> 00:31:53,704
of a sudden, now, a non alcoholic winery is not really
521
00:31:54,484 --> 00:31:57,820
wine, obviously, but it's not as
522
00:31:58,012 --> 00:32:01,524
clean as maybe a biodynamic wine
523
00:32:01,564 --> 00:32:05,284
is, or an organic wine might be. And so maybe there's an
524
00:32:05,324 --> 00:32:08,104
irony between the generational
525
00:32:09,084 --> 00:32:12,872
output outlook on what you put in your body and
526
00:32:12,888 --> 00:32:15,720
the idea that we're not drinking alcohol, but what about all the crap we're putting
527
00:32:15,752 --> 00:32:17,444
back into the wine to make it palatable.
528
00:32:19,144 --> 00:32:22,856
Yeah. And again, I don't want to disparage, and a lot of people who are
529
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:26,664
working very hard in the low nose space, as they call
530
00:32:26,704 --> 00:32:30,496
it, but I don't think, I think they
531
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,232
can all coexist. Yes. Oh, that's a good one
532
00:32:34,368 --> 00:32:37,928
day when we talk about wine, traditional
533
00:32:37,976 --> 00:32:41,752
definition of wine is that it is an alcoholic beverage. Yes. And
534
00:32:41,768 --> 00:32:45,488
if you want to do something wine inspired or wine adjacent
535
00:32:45,536 --> 00:32:49,104
or a wine proxy, well and good. But I don't think
536
00:32:49,144 --> 00:32:52,720
that I would hope that the goal is that, oh, 50
537
00:32:52,792 --> 00:32:56,304
years from now, most wines will be alcohol free,
538
00:32:56,464 --> 00:33:00,112
because I think that completely changes this history, this
539
00:33:00,168 --> 00:33:03,804
narrative, this legacy. So I think we can have innovation
540
00:33:04,294 --> 00:33:08,142
because we're a diverse population and people want to try these things,
541
00:33:08,198 --> 00:33:11,870
go for it. But let's recognize wine kind of is
542
00:33:11,902 --> 00:33:15,430
the foundational drink that we're working with. And I think
543
00:33:15,462 --> 00:33:19,246
that's like the beginning of this conversation, was that these little. Little blips and
544
00:33:19,270 --> 00:33:22,942
little consumerisms, it led me to have this
545
00:33:22,998 --> 00:33:26,742
conversation in my head about most winemakers and vineyard owners that
546
00:33:26,758 --> 00:33:30,182
are not engaging this industry because they think they're going to make a billion
547
00:33:30,238 --> 00:33:33,672
dollars, will tell you that they're just passing through and they're just stewards of the
548
00:33:33,688 --> 00:33:37,320
land and stewards of the beverage. And we think about it, you know, Madame
549
00:33:37,352 --> 00:33:40,936
Clicot was making wine in the late 17 hundreds. Champagne. It's
550
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,520
pretty much the same as it was, you know, the profile, the flavor
551
00:33:44,552 --> 00:33:48,240
profile might be a little different, but it's a fermented grape juice
552
00:33:48,272 --> 00:33:51,824
beverage that's got bubbles in it and it's sealed with a cork. And it's pretty
553
00:33:51,864 --> 00:33:55,632
much the same after 300 something years. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of
554
00:33:55,648 --> 00:33:59,372
interesting, speaking of her, you
555
00:33:59,388 --> 00:34:03,172
know, she was a pioneer. She was. Had
556
00:34:03,188 --> 00:34:06,916
her back against the wall to get into this industry. But a woman who was
557
00:34:06,940 --> 00:34:09,184
a formidable businesswoman of the time
558
00:34:11,164 --> 00:34:14,836
in women and wine, it's still kind of a struggle out there. And here you
559
00:34:14,860 --> 00:34:18,064
are, an influencer and a writer.
560
00:34:18,484 --> 00:34:22,252
Have you encountered any headwinds and sexism
561
00:34:22,308 --> 00:34:26,064
in this industry? Oh, I think, you know, whenever people ask
562
00:34:26,104 --> 00:34:29,552
this, I'm like, you have to remember, wine is a microcosm of
563
00:34:29,608 --> 00:34:33,400
everything else in our society. So this idea that somehow
564
00:34:33,432 --> 00:34:36,104
the wine industry would be a utopia, Shangri la,
565
00:34:36,184 --> 00:34:39,784
Kumbaya, that all of these other problems in the world. No,
566
00:34:39,864 --> 00:34:43,448
we have the power of wine. That, you know, it's kind of
567
00:34:43,496 --> 00:34:46,044
keeping. Us safe transcends it all.
568
00:34:47,704 --> 00:34:51,310
No, it's just not true. So,
569
00:34:51,342 --> 00:34:55,142
yes, I've experienced things, you know, just as I experienced them when
570
00:34:55,158 --> 00:34:58,886
I worked in other industries, but I do see
571
00:34:58,910 --> 00:35:02,350
the progress that has been made. You know, when I first started going to wine
572
00:35:02,382 --> 00:35:05,206
tastings, 20
573
00:35:05,390 --> 00:35:08,742
1011, I was often
574
00:35:08,918 --> 00:35:12,374
definitely the youngest. Now I'm no longer the youngest person in the room, which
575
00:35:12,414 --> 00:35:15,394
is, you know, you've reached that stage like oh, I'm
576
00:35:15,694 --> 00:35:16,434
sorry.
577
00:35:20,234 --> 00:35:23,882
So I definitely. I can check that list. Okay. Not the
578
00:35:23,898 --> 00:35:27,094
youngest anymore, but I was the youngest. I was often
579
00:35:27,474 --> 00:35:31,170
the only woman and often the only person of
580
00:35:31,202 --> 00:35:34,586
color in the room. Now, when I go to tastings,
581
00:35:34,770 --> 00:35:38,210
especially in a city as diverse as New York, you think about it.
582
00:35:38,362 --> 00:35:42,114
To have events in New York that didn't reflect the diversity
583
00:35:42,154 --> 00:35:45,906
of this city, it's kind of crazy. Yeah, it is. Now I
584
00:35:45,930 --> 00:35:49,724
go to taste things, and I see different ages, different
585
00:35:49,804 --> 00:35:53,556
backgrounds. Yeah. The progress has been
586
00:35:53,580 --> 00:35:57,188
made. Now, it doesn't mean that there
587
00:35:57,236 --> 00:36:00,708
doesn't linger some of these issues that just exist in our society
588
00:36:00,796 --> 00:36:04,300
still. You know, people who want to mansplain, people who assume
589
00:36:04,332 --> 00:36:07,692
because, oh, you must only like sweet wines.
590
00:36:07,748 --> 00:36:11,588
Right? You know, people will make off. Oh, let me tell
591
00:36:11,636 --> 00:36:15,076
you about the grape and Barolo. Oh, really? Oh,
592
00:36:15,100 --> 00:36:18,348
Borrello is not the name of the great. Thank you for enlightening me.
593
00:36:18,436 --> 00:36:19,104
Yeah,
594
00:36:22,124 --> 00:36:25,780
well, that's. Yeah, it exists for sure. It
595
00:36:25,812 --> 00:36:29,532
exists for sure. So the question, because I was at the AAA, and
596
00:36:29,548 --> 00:36:33,196
for the AAAV, for the listeners, it's the association of
597
00:36:33,220 --> 00:36:37,052
African American Vendors event in Napa. And I think there
598
00:36:37,068 --> 00:36:40,572
were 22 or 25 tables. I tasted every wine that was there. Oh,
599
00:36:40,588 --> 00:36:44,230
wow. And they were fabulous. You know, the whole lineup was amazing.
600
00:36:44,302 --> 00:36:48,070
Right. And I've had a lot of conversations with folks
601
00:36:48,102 --> 00:36:51,838
from there. I had a conversation with Dwayne Wade's operative, George
602
00:36:51,886 --> 00:36:55,622
Walker. George. Yay. George is fabulous. Yeah. And we had
603
00:36:55,638 --> 00:36:59,102
a great conversation. Yeah. It's an
604
00:36:59,118 --> 00:37:02,366
intimidating subject, and I wonder if that's not the root of
605
00:37:02,550 --> 00:37:05,434
why people of color, women,
606
00:37:06,694 --> 00:37:10,242
LGBTQ community hasn't been involved. Because on
607
00:37:10,258 --> 00:37:14,106
the outside looking in, it's kind of intimidating. We talked about it a little
608
00:37:14,130 --> 00:37:17,826
bit before, rather than an exclusive, you know,
609
00:37:17,850 --> 00:37:21,626
an attempt to keep people out. I don't think that was really the
610
00:37:21,650 --> 00:37:25,374
case, but I think it's just an intimidating subject. And
611
00:37:25,674 --> 00:37:29,522
barrier exists. Yeah, intimidation definitely can be
612
00:37:29,538 --> 00:37:32,938
a factor. And how much of a fact, I think, varies from
613
00:37:32,986 --> 00:37:36,670
individual to individual. So I think, yes,
614
00:37:36,702 --> 00:37:40,114
there are trends that we see that impact groups,
615
00:37:40,494 --> 00:37:44,194
but always say we have to keep the individual in mind. So,
616
00:37:45,174 --> 00:37:48,982
yes, I did notice there were people coming up at
617
00:37:48,998 --> 00:37:52,790
the same time as me that I saw kind of drop out and always
618
00:37:52,862 --> 00:37:56,558
wonder why they faded away. Did they get tired of being the only
619
00:37:56,606 --> 00:38:00,294
one in the room feeling like they weren't being heard or seen? Whereas my
620
00:38:00,334 --> 00:38:04,010
nature is I just keep showing up. I'm a little bit stubborn that way. Like,
621
00:38:04,042 --> 00:38:07,858
I'm not going to let that deter me. So I think it is important
622
00:38:07,986 --> 00:38:11,330
to always say it's not enough to give people a seat at the
623
00:38:11,362 --> 00:38:15,090
table. You have to respect their presence and let their voice be
624
00:38:15,122 --> 00:38:18,810
heard. So I think there was a tendency in the beginning like,
625
00:38:18,842 --> 00:38:20,934
oh, well, more people are coming. That's great.
626
00:38:22,074 --> 00:38:24,654
But are they feeling welcome?
627
00:38:25,914 --> 00:38:29,578
Good point. So, and how do we do that without pandering?
628
00:38:29,666 --> 00:38:32,410
How do we do that in a respectful way? And I'm not saying I have
629
00:38:32,442 --> 00:38:36,120
all the answers, and there's certainly a learning curve, but I think
630
00:38:36,152 --> 00:38:40,000
if a true intent is there, people sense it. And I
631
00:38:40,032 --> 00:38:43,736
can tell the difference. When someone is inviting me, like,
632
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,416
oh, Wanda, we know you've been to Italy. Wow. At least 20 times.
633
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:51,072
You've written so much about Italy. We want to tap into you for your expertise
634
00:38:51,128 --> 00:38:54,312
there, as opposed to, oh, we need a black woman in the
635
00:38:54,328 --> 00:38:58,160
lineup. You sense the difference. I'm very sensitive to
636
00:38:58,192 --> 00:39:01,984
that because I don't believe in tokenism. I don't like feeling like I'm being
637
00:39:02,024 --> 00:39:05,814
pandered to. But you also have to create
638
00:39:06,114 --> 00:39:09,014
a pipeline for people to get the experience
639
00:39:09,674 --> 00:39:13,306
and the education. So it's great to see the scholarship programs that
640
00:39:13,330 --> 00:39:17,090
exist now. It's important to show that there's so many
641
00:39:17,122 --> 00:39:20,242
other careers and wine. You don't have to be a writer or a
642
00:39:20,258 --> 00:39:23,714
winemaker. You can work for an importer if you have a
643
00:39:23,754 --> 00:39:27,042
legal interest. You can use your law degree to work in the wine
644
00:39:27,098 --> 00:39:30,874
industry, be a publicist, be a copywriter, work in
645
00:39:30,914 --> 00:39:34,686
marketing. So I think there's so many other areas that aren't
646
00:39:34,710 --> 00:39:38,510
as visible that would benefit from more diversity across the board
647
00:39:38,622 --> 00:39:41,926
in terms of age, race, gender, all of
648
00:39:41,950 --> 00:39:44,794
it. You know, that's a fascinating point.
649
00:39:45,534 --> 00:39:49,326
There are so many angles to this industry and to do. And I
650
00:39:49,350 --> 00:39:53,070
spent, like I said, there are already 35 years buying wine and bought a lot.
651
00:39:53,262 --> 00:39:57,070
I think I sold 17 million bottles. But I have
652
00:39:57,102 --> 00:40:00,884
gotten all that traction all those years. Doesn't
653
00:40:00,924 --> 00:40:04,716
compare to the exposure I've gotten through this
654
00:40:04,780 --> 00:40:08,228
podcast, which was generated just because I kept hearing great
655
00:40:08,276 --> 00:40:11,716
stories here in the shop. I decided to put a microphone in front of the
656
00:40:11,740 --> 00:40:15,180
stories, but traveling the world, and I was telling this to Angela McCrae the other
657
00:40:15,212 --> 00:40:18,908
day on the podcast. I said, you know, you're in the
658
00:40:18,916 --> 00:40:22,304
beginning of a career here, and you are going to find that
659
00:40:22,804 --> 00:40:26,424
the welcoming arms around anywhere you go in the world
660
00:40:27,184 --> 00:40:30,800
that you are participating in this industry and the way you are, in her
661
00:40:30,832 --> 00:40:34,384
case, with the AAAV that you're going to be, you're going to have an
662
00:40:34,424 --> 00:40:37,912
amazing experience. Like you just said, you can go to Italy
663
00:40:37,968 --> 00:40:41,792
and represent yourself, and you're like, it's a whole community and a
664
00:40:41,808 --> 00:40:45,400
whole fraternity. And, I think, irrelevant of your
665
00:40:45,432 --> 00:40:49,204
race or your sexual orientation or your sex.
666
00:40:50,184 --> 00:40:53,982
It's worldwide recognition that we're on the
667
00:40:53,998 --> 00:40:57,094
same page, or we try to be. On the same page, you know? It's so
668
00:40:57,134 --> 00:41:00,982
true. And I sometimes feel very corny because I feel like I say it
669
00:41:00,998 --> 00:41:04,230
at every press trip that I'm on, but I'll look around the
670
00:41:04,262 --> 00:41:08,030
table, and I'm like, how else would this have happened?
671
00:41:08,062 --> 00:41:11,854
That me, you know, humble background from
672
00:41:11,894 --> 00:41:15,454
New York, first in my family to go to college. I'm
673
00:41:15,494 --> 00:41:19,118
sitting with someone who has a title, whose family's been making
674
00:41:19,166 --> 00:41:22,806
wine for 400 years, someone who's a mayor, someone who's a
675
00:41:22,830 --> 00:41:26,274
dignitary. I was like, we would never have met
676
00:41:27,014 --> 00:41:30,574
with if not for wine. And not only not are we
677
00:41:30,614 --> 00:41:34,086
meeting, we're enjoying each other's company. This is the ultimate
678
00:41:34,150 --> 00:41:37,590
icebreaker, because we all have this passion, and it lets the
679
00:41:37,622 --> 00:41:41,406
walls down. It's almost like we give someone the benefit of
680
00:41:41,430 --> 00:41:44,594
the doubt. Now, look, there's some jerks and wine, too, but in general,
681
00:41:46,294 --> 00:41:50,094
you're a wine person, okay? We can have a conversation, and then if, you
682
00:41:50,134 --> 00:41:53,846
know, it's, you know, it kind of opens the door. And that's what I
683
00:41:53,870 --> 00:41:57,478
really love about it, that people that I
684
00:41:57,526 --> 00:42:01,014
never would have encountered, you know, are in my circle now and in my
685
00:42:01,054 --> 00:42:04,390
corner and have really been great allies and
686
00:42:04,422 --> 00:42:08,006
supporters because we have this shared passion, and I think they
687
00:42:08,110 --> 00:42:11,598
see how much I love it. You know, you can't think of any other
688
00:42:11,646 --> 00:42:15,022
industry, and this is more for the benefit of the
689
00:42:15,038 --> 00:42:18,718
listeners. But that that occurs in, like, if you make
690
00:42:18,766 --> 00:42:22,324
widgets or semiconductors or if you make lawn furniture,
691
00:42:22,744 --> 00:42:26,496
nobody cares. If you go to the manufacturing section of Paris
692
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,248
and have a conversation with a lawn furniture maker, the man you show up in
693
00:42:30,256 --> 00:42:33,800
the wine trade, and that
694
00:42:33,832 --> 00:42:37,080
conversation is in recognition, and acceptance is
695
00:42:37,112 --> 00:42:40,840
immediate. And I think that bodes
696
00:42:40,872 --> 00:42:44,640
well for the industry when it comes to BIPOC and LBGQ
697
00:42:44,792 --> 00:42:48,404
community and different sexes, in that
698
00:42:49,124 --> 00:42:52,524
it really eventually has no
699
00:42:52,564 --> 00:42:56,148
barriers. It's just making people aware of
700
00:42:56,276 --> 00:43:00,052
that they did exist. And I say this because I had
701
00:43:00,068 --> 00:43:03,748
a conversation with Elizabeth Taigny of Cornell Vineyards
702
00:43:03,836 --> 00:43:07,476
in Spring Mountain and a very strong
703
00:43:07,540 --> 00:43:11,144
woman and a very good winemaker, and she
704
00:43:11,844 --> 00:43:15,476
almost was offended when I asked the same question. I just asked you about
705
00:43:15,540 --> 00:43:19,264
women in wine. And she goes, why does it even enter the conversation?
706
00:43:19,964 --> 00:43:23,772
Why do I have to have that conversation? I just make good wine.
707
00:43:23,828 --> 00:43:27,676
I go, you're right. Yeah, no, I get that.
708
00:43:27,780 --> 00:43:31,384
And it's. Sometimes I'll see a headline,
709
00:43:31,724 --> 00:43:35,396
let's black woman wine writer. It's like, well, why
710
00:43:35,420 --> 00:43:38,956
can't it just be wine writer? But I
711
00:43:38,980 --> 00:43:42,740
get it's important to acknowledge people
712
00:43:42,812 --> 00:43:46,440
who break barriers, and it's
713
00:43:46,472 --> 00:43:50,120
hopeful to think that we reach a point where it's so diverse that you
714
00:43:50,152 --> 00:43:53,744
don't have to call it out anymore. Correct? Not quite sure we're there
715
00:43:53,784 --> 00:43:57,632
yet. I was on a panel last year and this question came
716
00:43:57,688 --> 00:44:01,312
up. It was a women and wine symposium. Like, do we still
717
00:44:01,368 --> 00:44:04,880
need these events in these organizations? I
718
00:44:04,912 --> 00:44:08,520
said, the reality is, as far as we've come, women are still making
719
00:44:08,632 --> 00:44:12,474
around eighty seven cents to the dollar compared
720
00:44:12,514 --> 00:44:16,282
to what men make. Era, which they've been talking about since I
721
00:44:16,298 --> 00:44:20,138
was a little girl hasn't passed. But I haven't heard that acronym in a long
722
00:44:20,186 --> 00:44:23,922
time. Yeah, but it's true. And there's still people still working
723
00:44:24,018 --> 00:44:27,674
on that. So there are still issues, you know, when we
724
00:44:27,714 --> 00:44:30,962
look at healthcare, when we look at socioeconomic
725
00:44:31,018 --> 00:44:34,746
issues, you know, some of us are doing really well and we feel like,
726
00:44:34,770 --> 00:44:38,312
hey, I've made it. And maybe your little
727
00:44:38,368 --> 00:44:42,084
circle of friends is doing really well. But when you look at the statistics,
728
00:44:43,664 --> 00:44:47,464
women are still, you know, not getting our fair
729
00:44:47,504 --> 00:44:51,288
share of the pie sometimes. So I think it's important to
730
00:44:51,456 --> 00:44:55,032
not say, okay, we're done. So I think that's why it's
731
00:44:55,048 --> 00:44:58,804
important, and I think it's important for people who feel marginalized,
732
00:44:59,144 --> 00:45:02,668
you know, for women to get together. I'm the immediate
733
00:45:02,716 --> 00:45:05,988
past president of La Dame Descoffier. You know, we
734
00:45:06,036 --> 00:45:09,644
have 44, 45 chapters around the
735
00:45:09,684 --> 00:45:12,944
world of women in wine, food and hospitality.
736
00:45:13,564 --> 00:45:16,924
And, you know, I think it's important for women to have these
737
00:45:16,964 --> 00:45:20,140
communities where they feel like not only they can
738
00:45:20,332 --> 00:45:24,124
dis a bit, but have a support system, benefit from the
739
00:45:24,164 --> 00:45:27,132
knowledge of those who've gone before you. How did you navigate these
740
00:45:27,188 --> 00:45:30,496
challenges to hear from people who have been there before? You know
741
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:34,352
what? I have seen change, so we have to keep at it. But
742
00:45:34,408 --> 00:45:38,080
we're not done. We're not done. But I get what she's saying. You don't want
743
00:45:38,112 --> 00:45:41,960
the fact that you're a woman or a black person, an asian, Latino, to always
744
00:45:41,992 --> 00:45:45,084
be the leading headline, because
745
00:45:46,824 --> 00:45:50,124
I think it's a delicate balance. It's a delicate balance.
746
00:45:50,784 --> 00:45:53,768
There may not be an endgame to that. Maybe it's just
747
00:45:53,816 --> 00:45:57,070
humanity, you know, and it's just the viewpoint of humanity,
748
00:45:57,142 --> 00:46:00,830
humans that you're not going to change the DNA, and you
749
00:46:00,902 --> 00:46:04,074
need to raise that flag all the time.
750
00:46:04,814 --> 00:46:08,366
When I was. When I reached out to the AAV in
751
00:46:08,390 --> 00:46:12,126
2000, I can't remember what social upheaval there was, but it was
752
00:46:12,150 --> 00:46:15,430
early, two thousands. And I wanted to see if I could
753
00:46:15,462 --> 00:46:18,774
feature black owned winery wine in my
754
00:46:18,814 --> 00:46:22,628
club. And I found the association that just
755
00:46:22,676 --> 00:46:26,452
started, I guess, because it was like 2004, 2006 or something, and there
756
00:46:26,468 --> 00:46:30,060
were like five members, I mean, literally like five members that were making wines,
757
00:46:30,092 --> 00:46:33,464
and none of them made enough wine for my club selection.
758
00:46:33,884 --> 00:46:37,340
So then when I recontacted Angela
759
00:46:37,532 --> 00:46:40,756
for the show, and now there's 200 members of the
760
00:46:40,780 --> 00:46:44,340
association, and, you know, there should be more than that. And
761
00:46:44,452 --> 00:46:47,502
when I brought it up with my friends or other people in the community, the
762
00:46:47,518 --> 00:46:50,142
wine community, they're like, I didn't know that even existed. I didn't know that was
763
00:46:50,158 --> 00:46:53,234
a thing, you know, that there was such an association.
764
00:46:53,654 --> 00:46:57,430
And. But I think the prevailing theme when I was talking to everybody,
765
00:46:57,462 --> 00:47:01,294
there was like, we know that we're. We're
766
00:47:01,334 --> 00:47:05,126
representing ourselves as a black winery, but we'd prefer just to represent
767
00:47:05,190 --> 00:47:08,830
ourselves as a winery when the time comes to do it, because we make really
768
00:47:08,862 --> 00:47:12,358
good wine and we make. There's a wide
769
00:47:12,446 --> 00:47:15,674
range of quality. Not quality, wide range of styles
770
00:47:16,044 --> 00:47:18,744
from Virginia to Napa.
771
00:47:19,764 --> 00:47:23,224
There was. There was a woman there. I couldn't believe this.
772
00:47:23,524 --> 00:47:26,384
And it's actually pretty good. But she makes
773
00:47:27,404 --> 00:47:30,308
a method champagne canned
774
00:47:30,476 --> 00:47:34,292
sparkler. Interesting. And so if
775
00:47:34,308 --> 00:47:37,996
you, if you take the next thought, like, okay, how you disgorge it, and she
776
00:47:38,020 --> 00:47:41,732
goes, I don't. I'm
777
00:47:41,748 --> 00:47:45,494
like, whoa, okay, so whatever. But it's really, it's really
778
00:47:45,534 --> 00:47:49,350
quite good. But anyway, the point being, we know we
779
00:47:49,382 --> 00:47:53,222
should continue to wave the flags and
780
00:47:53,278 --> 00:47:56,958
present the thing, but not, like you said, the leading element of
781
00:47:57,006 --> 00:48:00,454
that conversation, it should be, oh, by the way, this is a black owned winery,
782
00:48:00,494 --> 00:48:03,166
or this is a chinese owned winery, or this is a women owned winery or
783
00:48:03,190 --> 00:48:06,710
women winemaker. So that the
784
00:48:06,742 --> 00:48:10,442
recognition exists, but you really want them to swirl that glass and
785
00:48:10,458 --> 00:48:13,938
go, wow, this is really good. Exactly. You know, just, I want my
786
00:48:13,986 --> 00:48:17,482
writing to speak for itself. When I give a presentation and
787
00:48:17,498 --> 00:48:21,050
look, you know, I think every person of color knows that
788
00:48:21,082 --> 00:48:24,474
look, I've experienced it. You know, when I walk to the front of the room,
789
00:48:24,514 --> 00:48:28,290
like, hey, welcome to the event. Like, oh, you're the presenter. Yo,
790
00:48:28,322 --> 00:48:30,254
girl, that looks kidding.
791
00:48:32,754 --> 00:48:36,170
But at the end of it, I wouldn't say, well, she was a great presenter.
792
00:48:36,202 --> 00:48:39,494
Like, oh, she was a great black wide presenter. Yeah.
793
00:48:40,514 --> 00:48:44,330
You know, and it's complicated. Look, our history is so young. You know,
794
00:48:44,482 --> 00:48:48,114
it wasn't that long ago that my mom was a little girl in Georgia
795
00:48:48,154 --> 00:48:51,890
attending segregated schools. So the past is never
796
00:48:51,922 --> 00:48:55,442
really the past, to quote Faulkner. Right. And this is our very recent
797
00:48:55,538 --> 00:48:59,034
history still. And like I said, we have a long way to
798
00:48:59,074 --> 00:49:02,438
go. And these organizations like AAA are important
799
00:49:02,526 --> 00:49:05,926
because the fact that it went from nine to now, 200
800
00:49:05,990 --> 00:49:09,766
producers shows that by creating a structure where
801
00:49:09,790 --> 00:49:13,126
people can learn from each other, learn how to navigate from a
802
00:49:13,150 --> 00:49:16,434
supportive group, to help eliminate some of those roadblocks,
803
00:49:17,134 --> 00:49:20,446
it's important to have that. I think you're right. We're not a
804
00:49:20,470 --> 00:49:23,902
monolith. So you have to balance that group support with
805
00:49:24,078 --> 00:49:27,724
being able to be your individual self. And that's what I try to do.
806
00:49:27,854 --> 00:49:31,680
Where was your father a chef? Oh, you know, it's filled.
807
00:49:31,712 --> 00:49:35,216
My dad, had he. He came too soon, because he would have been a television
808
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:39,128
personality for sure. You got 10% of
809
00:49:39,136 --> 00:49:42,840
it. You're. You know,
810
00:49:42,872 --> 00:49:46,444
my dad's story was really interesting. He grew up in rural North Carolina,
811
00:49:47,264 --> 00:49:50,888
moved to New York as a teenager, went to Brandeis
812
00:49:50,936 --> 00:49:53,324
High School on the Upper west side. That's where.
813
00:49:54,134 --> 00:49:57,870
Yeah. And let's say, unlike me, my
814
00:49:57,902 --> 00:50:01,470
dad was not that into school. He was always cutting class,
815
00:50:01,582 --> 00:50:04,234
and his favorite thing to do is hang out at the
816
00:50:04,894 --> 00:50:08,314
library at Lincoln center and listen to old jazz albums.
817
00:50:09,134 --> 00:50:12,966
And there was a man in the neighborhood who was a chef. And one
818
00:50:12,990 --> 00:50:16,486
day he said to my dad, like, come here. I see you all the time.
819
00:50:16,590 --> 00:50:20,194
You don't seem like a bad kid. What are you doing? And
820
00:50:20,314 --> 00:50:24,122
he said to my dad, since you're not going to school anyway, I
821
00:50:24,138 --> 00:50:27,186
think, I don't remember if it was a week or two weeks. But anyway, he
822
00:50:27,210 --> 00:50:30,414
took my dad into the restaurant, and
823
00:50:30,754 --> 00:50:34,370
basically my dad apprenticed and discovered that he really
824
00:50:34,442 --> 00:50:38,154
loved being in the kitchen and he was good at it. So he never
825
00:50:38,194 --> 00:50:41,786
went to culinary school, but he worked his way up. And, you
826
00:50:41,810 --> 00:50:44,802
know, my favorite story is when he cooked for his fun day. And I was
827
00:50:44,818 --> 00:50:47,956
like, oh, dad, this video, beef stew is so good. He's like, that is Bouffe
828
00:50:47,980 --> 00:50:51,620
Bourguignon. So he really
829
00:50:51,692 --> 00:50:55,364
was a student of french classical cuisine.
830
00:50:55,484 --> 00:50:59,084
That was the foundation. But I always said I had the best of both
831
00:50:59,124 --> 00:51:02,564
worlds. He made the best north Carolina pulled pork
832
00:51:02,604 --> 00:51:06,420
barbecue I've ever had in my life. That's true. He also introduced me to Boeuf
833
00:51:06,452 --> 00:51:09,664
Bourguignon and Pate and wine.
834
00:51:11,124 --> 00:51:14,840
Yeah. He didn't work at any well known restaurants, most of them are
835
00:51:14,872 --> 00:51:18,320
probably Kohl's now, you know, the nature of it in New York, but that's how
836
00:51:18,352 --> 00:51:22,104
he supported us. You know, that's a very french thing to do,
837
00:51:22,144 --> 00:51:25,656
which is, you know, they kind of have to declare at some point we're not
838
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:28,496
going to go to college. We're going to either be a chef. I just got
839
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:32,256
done with a podcast with Frederick Caston, who's exactly the same story, except
840
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:36,032
in Avignon instead of New York. But basically, you know, in the
841
00:51:36,048 --> 00:51:39,604
wine industry, it's like that, too. You can sell her out your way to
842
00:51:40,424 --> 00:51:44,166
being the winemaker, or you can go through, you know, Cornell
843
00:51:44,230 --> 00:51:47,554
White school or UC Davis and figure that out. But
844
00:51:48,854 --> 00:51:52,670
what would he say about the kitchen environment? Was it less
845
00:51:52,822 --> 00:51:55,594
racist? Was it more accepting?
846
00:51:56,294 --> 00:51:59,354
Oh, interesting. I mean, I think definitely,
847
00:52:00,694 --> 00:52:04,502
you know, at that time, I know he definitely had experiences.
848
00:52:04,598 --> 00:52:08,366
I've heard about them. I think,
849
00:52:08,430 --> 00:52:11,430
you know, I must have inherited this from him. Like, it's not going to keep
850
00:52:11,462 --> 00:52:15,086
me from doing a thing I love and I think I'm pretty good at, and
851
00:52:15,110 --> 00:52:17,994
I want to keep getting better. So he kept showing up,
852
00:52:18,934 --> 00:52:21,830
but I know he had challenges. And I said to him, I said, dad, you're
853
00:52:21,862 --> 00:52:25,102
so mean in the kitchen. Like, when I would go visit him at work. But
854
00:52:25,198 --> 00:52:28,230
I think he never wanted. He wanted to have that
855
00:52:28,262 --> 00:52:31,534
authority. It was important for he was
856
00:52:31,574 --> 00:52:35,142
running that. He was running the kitchen. And
857
00:52:35,238 --> 00:52:38,754
sometimes the people, most of the people that he supervised
858
00:52:39,134 --> 00:52:42,902
weren't black. Right. So was a diverse crew in the
859
00:52:42,918 --> 00:52:46,606
kitchen. So he wanted. It was very important for him to have
860
00:52:46,630 --> 00:52:50,302
that presence of, I'm not your best friend.
861
00:52:50,398 --> 00:52:54,006
I'm the leader. And for many people, that might have been the first time
862
00:52:54,070 --> 00:52:57,902
they encountered a person of color who was the authority figure.
863
00:52:58,078 --> 00:53:01,634
Right. I can see that. And now it's much more common.
864
00:53:02,534 --> 00:53:06,022
But when he was doing it, not so much. Well, you think about it, the
865
00:53:06,038 --> 00:53:09,766
kitchen environment, like I said, my daughter was a. Worked at the
866
00:53:09,790 --> 00:53:13,034
Lincoln restaurant. You know, almost every chef
867
00:53:14,254 --> 00:53:17,846
that's celebrated today in their heyday was like
868
00:53:17,870 --> 00:53:21,566
that. You had to, because think about the line chef, the sous
869
00:53:21,590 --> 00:53:24,754
chef, the line cook, the saucier. These people
870
00:53:25,254 --> 00:53:28,990
most probably don't give a crap about anything, right? And so if you let them
871
00:53:29,062 --> 00:53:32,894
to their own, to their own leading, you're going to end up with
872
00:53:33,014 --> 00:53:36,678
a poor product. And so it takes an authoritative figure
873
00:53:36,766 --> 00:53:40,606
to manhandle the kitchen to make sure it comes out
874
00:53:40,630 --> 00:53:44,294
the way the leader wants it to come out, because once that plate
875
00:53:44,334 --> 00:53:47,630
leaves the kitchen, it's a representation of that
876
00:53:47,662 --> 00:53:51,446
person. How much his
877
00:53:51,510 --> 00:53:55,046
team respected him. Right. You know, so.
878
00:53:55,150 --> 00:53:58,734
Yeah, but definitely, I think you're right. I inherited a lot of that. I just
879
00:53:58,774 --> 00:54:02,282
use it in wine. My cooking is decent, but. Well, but you're
880
00:54:02,338 --> 00:54:06,082
Ladame d'Escoffier. I mean, the father of
881
00:54:06,098 --> 00:54:09,626
french food. Your dad had to be proud of that, you know? So.
882
00:54:09,770 --> 00:54:13,346
Yes, for sure. For sure. I
883
00:54:13,370 --> 00:54:17,018
find the wine trade very similar to the
884
00:54:17,066 --> 00:54:20,826
hospital food trade because it is hospitality. When it's all said
885
00:54:20,850 --> 00:54:24,050
and done, we try to put out a product that people are going to appreciate
886
00:54:24,162 --> 00:54:27,666
and bring people together that they talk about. And that's the one thing about wine
887
00:54:27,690 --> 00:54:31,304
that's such a fascinating. I'm sure it's with you,
888
00:54:31,384 --> 00:54:35,232
whether you're sitting at dinner with your best friends who understand a little bit
889
00:54:35,248 --> 00:54:38,324
about wine because you've been hanging around them for a while or
890
00:54:38,784 --> 00:54:42,272
somebody you've never met before, but the conversation
891
00:54:42,368 --> 00:54:46,112
always comes to what's in that glass. Yeah.
892
00:54:46,208 --> 00:54:49,672
And then they like to throw out something that they learned that they know, and
893
00:54:49,688 --> 00:54:53,432
all of a sudden, this unintimidating, unthreatening conversation
894
00:54:53,488 --> 00:54:56,988
of wine happens. And I love
895
00:54:57,036 --> 00:55:00,364
that. Yeah. And I try not to be like the know it
896
00:55:00,404 --> 00:55:03,980
all. Cause I'm not. But I like to move the
897
00:55:04,012 --> 00:55:07,828
conversation forward because it's. It really is. It's not political. You
898
00:55:07,836 --> 00:55:11,652
don't have to worry about, you know, offending anybody about making, you know,
899
00:55:11,708 --> 00:55:15,064
disparaging comments. You can just talk about it.
900
00:55:15,924 --> 00:55:19,716
Yeah. I think as human beings, you know, we're drawn to ritual as well.
901
00:55:19,780 --> 00:55:23,184
Right. And everyone is so busy, more of us are working from home.
902
00:55:23,634 --> 00:55:27,234
So the ritual of sitting at a table, sharing a bottle
903
00:55:27,354 --> 00:55:30,922
is something that I think is primal in us. And
904
00:55:30,978 --> 00:55:34,570
wine kind of forces us to take that time out and
905
00:55:34,602 --> 00:55:38,354
savor the moment, the conversation. We're so much to go.
906
00:55:38,394 --> 00:55:41,922
A grab and go culture. You grab your coffee, you grab a slice, and you
907
00:55:41,938 --> 00:55:45,570
eat it walking down the street. And wine kind of
908
00:55:45,602 --> 00:55:49,242
forces us in a very beautiful way to remember what it's like just to be
909
00:55:49,258 --> 00:55:52,910
together. True. Such
910
00:55:52,942 --> 00:55:56,614
a. You were already at our time, which is unbelievable.
911
00:55:56,774 --> 00:56:00,622
With so much to talk about, but a fascinating conversation.
912
00:56:00,678 --> 00:56:04,474
I hope we can do it again. Yes. Hopefully in person one day.
913
00:56:04,774 --> 00:56:08,366
Yeah. We have not plans to get to Manhattan in the near
914
00:56:08,390 --> 00:56:12,234
future, unfortunately. They used to love doing that to visit my daughter. But
915
00:56:13,534 --> 00:56:17,298
we're always in Napa, and we'll keep tabs of each other. And
916
00:56:17,306 --> 00:56:21,090
if I love, I take my little portable studio up to Yonville and I just
917
00:56:21,122 --> 00:56:24,890
sit in the hotel conference room, and we do podcasts many
918
00:56:24,922 --> 00:56:28,666
times up there, so we'll just keep tabs and see what
919
00:56:28,690 --> 00:56:31,362
your travel plans are next time you're up there. We could be up there as
920
00:56:31,378 --> 00:56:34,174
well. Sounds like a plan for sure.
921
00:56:35,034 --> 00:56:38,854
Thank you for the time today and cheers. Cheers.
922
00:56:48,234 --> 00:56:52,074
Thank you for listening to wine talks with Paul Callum. Caryn, don't forget to subscribe
923
00:56:52,114 --> 00:56:55,826
because there's more great interviews on their way. Folks, have
924
00:56:55,850 --> 00:56:58,274
a great time out there in the wine world. Cheers.
00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:02,674
Carson Leno
2
00:00:03,294 --> 00:00:06,734
Fallon. Now it's
3
00:00:06,814 --> 00:00:09,794
wine talks with Paul K.
4
00:00:11,374 --> 00:00:14,566
Hey, welcome to wine talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today, about
5
00:00:14,590 --> 00:00:18,406
to have a conversation way out in Harlem with Wanda man. Introductions in just a
6
00:00:18,430 --> 00:00:22,262
moment. Wine talks, of course, available on iHeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, wherever you
7
00:00:22,278 --> 00:00:25,374
hang out for podcasting and have a listen to claude
8
00:00:25,414 --> 00:00:29,260
Roquette. He has lived and worked on the greatest vineyards and
9
00:00:29,292 --> 00:00:33,012
areas of wine in France, but landed in Napa Valley
10
00:00:33,068 --> 00:00:36,764
working for the Smith Haute Lafitte Bordeaux house at a winery called
11
00:00:36,804 --> 00:00:40,396
Cathiard. The wines are fabulous wines, and we talk about the
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French coming to America and using the new world,
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let's call it the new world, to make wine. You start to see a great
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difference in not the quality, but the depth of the wines and the
15
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complexity here about that as well. I just released an
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episode with Frederick J. Ryan, the CEO of the Reagan
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foundation, but more importantly, author of the book
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White House a History, the preeminent
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authority in America on what was poured when in the White House. And all
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the history that goes with it is really quite interesting. Probably due
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for a second episode just to catch up on all things at the White
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House. But now, while we're here, we're here to talk about wine with Wanda
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man. Wanda is the east coast editor of the famed trade
24
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magazine Psalm Journal, as well as the tasting panel. Welcome to the
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show. Thank you for the invitation, Paul. Happy to be here.
26
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Well, I've been watching you online. I guess that's what we do these days, right?
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Yeah, that's true all the way. We watch everyone
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online. And you've been contributing to the wine space
29
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for quite a long time. And you grew up in
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New York? I'm a native New Yorker. I was born on this island
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of Manhattan, so this is my hometown. Wow. There can't be that many of you
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around. You know, people always say that. I guess
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it doesn't seem that there are, but I'm like, you know, we have all these
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hospitals and babies are being born in New York every day. But it is
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you're more likely to encounter. I'm just thinking in terms of
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the wine community in New York. There's a handful of us that I can think
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of that were born in Manhattan. But, you know, New York is where people come
38
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to make their dreams come true. Right? So
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not everyone's born here, but, you know, we're here. We're here. No,
40
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that is interesting. Part of New York is that it does have that sort of
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moniker that whether you're coming from Europe or whether you're coming
42
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from in America to land in New York to take your
43
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shot because there's such a hotbed of not only food and
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wine, but entertainment and all the rest of industry.
45
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Anything you want to do, New York has it. You know, I'm not sure if
46
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we're still the city that never sleeps. I think since lockdown, people have
47
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gotten a little groggier. But definitely it is a place where
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you can invent, reinvent, rejuvenate, you know, pursue
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that dream, that passion. So it's nice to know that we still have that going
50
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for us. Well, we miss it. Like I told you, my
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daughter lived in Harlem as a boulanger
52
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for a restaurant that earned a Michelin star. And now
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she's in Potsdam. You ever heard of Potsdam,
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Sarah? Where is that exactly? Well, it's not the edge of the world, but you
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can see it from there. It's as far north in New York as you can
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get. Okay. Okay. It's quite
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a. Quite different than Manhattan, actually. I would think
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so. But you ended up in college in
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California. Actually, just down the road from where I'm at today. How did that
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happen? Yes, I went to Pomona College. I'm a proud
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sage hen. That's our odd little mascot. How did
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that happen? Yes, I had no family in California. I'd
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never even really been to California until I visited Pomona
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the year that I was graduating from college, Pomona became a very
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hot school. So I actually went to high school in Massachusetts.
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I went to boarding school. And that year a lot of us applied to
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Pomona. I think it really started moving up the rankings in that time.
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And I flew out to visit in the
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deep depth of winter in New England. And I went to
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sunny Inland Empire and I said, oh,
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it's a good school. That's a bonus. I really like this weather.
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Yeah. I have to say, the sunshine
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played a major decision. But I did like the fact that it was a small
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school. There were no teaching assistants. So in
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some ways, it didn't feel so different from Andover. It was just
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much better weather there. Well, all five
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of the schools in that group are highly acclaimed
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educational institutions. So, I mean, you could have. You did very well for
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doing that. Well, why didn't you stay in California? I
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finally got home sick. I stayed a couple of years after graduation,
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but I left home at 14 to go away boarding school. And then
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I did a junior year in high school in Spain and a junior year in
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college in Spain. So I'd always been kind of a bit of a nomad.
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And I was ready to be back near, near my family, quite
85
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honestly, and enjoy New York. I never really
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had, you know, teenage experience in New York. I went away
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to school at 14. I would come home for break, so I wanted to
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experience my city as an adult. And good
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decision. Yeah, it's been great. It's been great.
90
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You know, it's interesting. New York used to be, when we were there, pre
91
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COVID, man, there was a wine shop, like, on every corner. I mean,
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it's one of those towns where wine is an important
93
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part of the culture. Certainly the restaurant, food, the hospitality side
94
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of New York is incredible. The hotbed of
95
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restaurants and Michelin stars. But there always seems to be a wine
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culture that just sort of runs itself. It just
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kind of takes care of itself. It's got wine bars, it's got wine
98
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shops. Did that, was that part of your, you know,
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post college lifestyle?
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To be honest, no, not really.
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I wish I could say that it was. I got into wine and very
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roundabout way. When I
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graduated, I eventually ended up working as an events planner. So I
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was working with nonprofits. I was producing red carpet galas. Took
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a few detours, and I ended up becoming the events director at the
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Princeton Club in midtown. And part of my responsibility was
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putting on the wine and spirits tastings for the members, because those
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were no brainers, they were profitable. My general
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manager was happy and got members in the club. The events always
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sold out. So I started meeting people in the industry, and at that
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point, really, my wine knowledge was, it's white, or it's red, it still,
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or it's sparkles. I really didn't know much. I was the person,
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like, do we have the tasting mats? Do we have the decanters? Are they chilled
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right? But through doing those events, I started meeting people in the
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industry. And someone invited me to have lunch one day, said, oh, you were
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so great to work with. Why don't you come one day to one of our
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events that aren't at the Princeton Club so you can enjoy the tasting?
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And that was really my first time sitting across from a winemaker that was
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probably about 2010 or eleven, and I realized there
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was this whole world I didn't know about. You know, he talked about these
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grapes like they were children, you know, throwing around these terms,
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malolactic fermentation, trellis systems. And I'm
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nodding my head and thinking, boy, I have a lot to learn. And that was
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really the catalyst. I started going to more tastings. I started buying
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books. I was already writing at that point, I had a pretty
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popular lifestyle blog and newsletter with. With
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advertisers, and I covered fashion and food and arts and
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culture, but I slowly started integrating wine content.
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And then I think it was at a time where a lot of women my
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age were at a point in our career where we wanted to know more about
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wine. Your early thirties, you're making a little more money, you're going
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to events, you're going to fancier restaurants. You want to be able
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to say something other than white wine. So as I was
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learning, I was sharing with other women especially, who wanted to know,
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what is Chardonnay? What is suncer with what is
136
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Vermentino? So it was just. It was kind of like the right
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moment, the right time. So I always laugh when people say, oh, you're so new
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to this. It's just when I started, there was no instagram. You
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know, it was a blog. And I used to
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do in person events for my readers. But,
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yeah, I've been kicking around for about 15 plus years now
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doing. Do you think that that is an academic
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curiosity where you sat there, or was it
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driven by your need to
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understand wine specifically or food?
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I always try to pin this down. What is this motivating factor
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that piques our curiosity at some point and we just have to learn
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more? I think it's a little bit of both. Being an
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anthropology major, I think I'm just always naturally curious about
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any type of culture that's different. So the
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wine culture is certainly something that was new and exciting, a new way
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of looking at the world. And it brought in all the issues that I was
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interested in. Culture, language, science,
154
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artistry, spirituality, it's all there in wine. And
155
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my dad was a professional chef, so I always grew up with the love of
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flavor. And so even though we spend a lot of time more
157
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focused on food, my dad did buy me my first bottle of wine when I
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was 16. So I think all of these things kind of combined. Like,
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00:09:38,984 --> 00:09:42,552
wow, this is something that, yeah, it tastes good. I'm getting a little
160
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older, I'm appreciating more about it. But really,
161
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for me, yes, the wine should taste good. That's
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important. It being delicious is an important part of its appeal.
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But I think the stories are really what attracted me, just
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learning why people do this, why
165
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people collect, why people change careers to become
166
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winemakers, why people continue when they lose
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everything in a fire. You know, just what is that drive? So I
168
00:10:12,548 --> 00:10:16,292
think that's really what keeps me interested, are the stories. It's funny
169
00:10:16,308 --> 00:10:20,060
you said collected. I am not a collector. We never even. My
170
00:10:20,092 --> 00:10:23,932
business was about $15 to $20 wines after 35 years
171
00:10:23,948 --> 00:10:27,184
of doing this. And I never collected it. Never even told. I thought,
172
00:10:27,644 --> 00:10:31,364
you know, collecting wine for a financial gain was really not a good idea.
173
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But now, because I sold the company and the buyer wanted
174
00:10:35,180 --> 00:10:38,572
nothing to do with our seller, I've got like, I don't know,
175
00:10:38,668 --> 00:10:42,332
3000 bottles almost of some pretty cool stuff. And
176
00:10:42,348 --> 00:10:46,140
I. This mentality of collecting has settled in. I'm like, man, if I
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drink that, I'm not going to have it anymore. And that's
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like, I'm like, you shouldn't care,
179
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just drink it because what are you doing anyway?
180
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But you're an anthropology major.
181
00:11:02,254 --> 00:11:05,998
Yes. Well, look,
182
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I had 30,000, 30,000 cases here almost at all
183
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times. And so I really didn't need a seller and I really didn't need
184
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any. But now I have to have one. But you know, anthropology major is
185
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an interesting viewpoint for the wine business that, you
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know, they found that winery in Armenia 6000 years old. They found the winemaker
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shoes or maybe did they have cellar rats back then? Maybe that was
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a cellar rat shoe, we don't know.
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But there is something very historical about wine as a beverage. Was it part of
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the curriculum at all when you were in college? You know,
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not at all. I mean, Pomona, like, you know, was not a
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party school at all. I think the only wine I ever drank
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during the Pomona years was a wine cooler and some
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boone's farm.
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I was like, oh my goodness, all those years in the west coast, I never
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visited Napa, Sonoma, Central coast.
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It really was not a part of the experience. And then recently I met Chapney
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Corson, also Pomona College
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graduate. And what sparked her interest in wine was a
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wine tasting class at Pomona. And I'm like, they didn't have that when I
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was there. Well, that's so interesting. Wouldn't it be
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anthropologic? Anthropologic? Anthropologic,
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anthropological. I mean, wouldn't, wouldn't
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wine be part of that curriculum? Because it goes so far
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back. You know, I think you've given me a good
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case to go to the school and say I'd like to be an adjunct in
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the anthropology. I may have found
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a new gig, but no, we talk about anthropology
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covers linguistics, archaeology, culture.
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And I'm sure we must have talked about wine at different points, but it was
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never a focus. There were no wine classes at Pomona at
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all, so. Well, I think this is what separates wine
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from every other beverage is this historical viewpoint
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and its cultural additive to, you know,
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lifestyle. I mean, you know, they know, they know what vintages King Tut
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liked. They have to tell you something, right? There's something
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unique and ethereal about this glass, the wine. I just wrote an article that I'm
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going to post today, a short article on the
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contemporary issues with wine in the marketplace
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and how I think history has its back because
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it's not going to go away, of course. And if somebody wants to drink it
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out of a can, let them drink out of a can. But that's eventually going
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to be a non issue as well. But for you,
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you sat at this table, you tasted this wine, you heard these stories, and
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now you realize you'll never learn at all. Yeah.
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And even now, I mean, I think even if you
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talk to masters of wine and master psalms, I think that's the beauty of wine,
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is that you will never know at all. So it keeps it exciting and it's
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also very humbling. So that's why I'm always a little, I have a bit
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of trepidation when someone says you're a wine expert. I'm like, I may know
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slightly more than you just because I've immersed myself in it,
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but to call myself an expert, I
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don't feel that. I feel I'm someone who's learning. I'm passionate. I
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like to share that information. It has certainly made topics that
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I didn't have much interest in before more interesting to me.
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So I think about geology at Pomona. Rocks for jocks, we
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called it. I hated geology. Well, once you get into
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wine, you become like a soil and rock nerd, right?
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Like really riveting and exciting. Like, if
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only they had taught this through the lens of wine, I would have found it
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interesting, perhaps. So I, you know, I always regretted not going
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on to grad school. I was admitted, and then my life took a
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different direction and I decided not to go. But for me, wine has
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kind of filled that void of ongoing education. You
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know, they say that it has for me, for sure. I mean, my
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mom, if she was alive, would have gone, you know, who is this kid
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who understands, like, world geography? Like, I didn't care.
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Exactly. But that's one of the subjects that your brain
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wraps around when you start studying wine as well as, like you said, rocks and
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things. And part of that says,
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and maybe this is where this contemporary viewpoint of the wine
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industry is. And I think, and we'll talk about that a second, why I think
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it's going backwards a little bit. But is that the intimidating
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factor for your friends, let's say, who consider you an expert when
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you bring up sheast or chalk or,
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you know, granite and tap roots and all those things that,
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the buzzwords that we know but make everybody else's eyes
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spin, is that the intimidating factor for all?
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And we're going to talk about the cultural aspect of this, too. But is that
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in general, the things that people go, oh, you know, I really, I just want
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a glass of wine. I don't want to hear about it. Yeah, I think it
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can be, but it doesn't have to be because I think, you
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know, sometimes wine can feel like inside baseball, right?
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Those of us in the industry, you know, we throw around our
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vernacular and our way of speaking about wine because it's a language
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that we know. And sometimes we forget when we're talking to consumers
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and new drinkers that they're not familiar with those terms. So when you
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say, oh, yeah, it went through Mallow, oh, yeah, this wine has
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some va, and they're like, what are you talking about? Right.
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So I think, you know, I've been doing a lot of events with consumers now
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at festivals, at private clubs here in New York. And I
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think at the beginning, you just want to talk in very simple terms. They
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can understand. It shouldn't read, you know,
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like a taste sound, like a tasting note or
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a scientific description. I always tell people, I want you to leave with maybe
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three things you didn't know before. So then when you go to that cocktail
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party, for example, the number of people who don't is like,
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oh, I don't think I like Sancerre, but I like Sauvignon blanc. Well, I've
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got a surprise for you. Sancerre is Sauvignon Blanc. How about
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that? Oh, I don't really like Chardonnay, but
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Chablis is great. Well, you know what? That's really
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funny. Or people who think we talk
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about all these different flavors, and I've had someone genuinely ask,
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so, like, do they add, like, when you say it tastes like
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strawberry and hibiscus and tea leaves, do they
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add that to the wine? No, they don't. But, you know, there's some
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shared chemical compounds between those fruits and
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wine. Now, you don't need to rattle off the name of all the compounds to
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show off, you know? So I think sometimes we just need to be a
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little more simple when we present it. And then for those people
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who want to know more, they'll start geeking out like I did. They'll find information
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on their own. They'll start going to more advanced tastings and
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seeking out more, you know,
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challenging experiences. But I think we do ourselves disservice when we
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say, you can only talk about wine in this way.
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I agree with that, and certainly unintentional because
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I suppose in order to describe things or to talk about it, to understand, if
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you really want to dig deeper, you're going to figure out that, yes, like, we'll
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just say the other night I had a dinner with a french winemaker who came
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to our home, young man, and no one else in the room would have
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understood this. When I told him, I said, I've got a sparkling wine here, grown
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in, you know, it was in sheath. And he goes, oh, absolutely.
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And it's not champagne. It's not an expensive bottle, but it's really good because
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he understands what that's supposed to be like, and certainly no one else in the
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room was going to know that, right? So it's unintentional that
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this vernacular occurs because you've got to study it.
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How many people do you think when you have those events with the consumers
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and you try to bring the language to a point where most
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people can understand it? How many think come away percentage wise
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with at least the idea, I'd like to take the next
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step. I'm sure this is a guess, but because most people go, hey, I went
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to this event. It's really cool. The guy was talking about this and that, and,
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you know, I still like, you know, my, my apothec red. So
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what do you think? There's a group?
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I think so, because I think the fact that they even showed up for that
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event shows that there's a virgin. Now, once in a while, you see someone whose
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partner clearly dragged them to the tasting like, honey is date night and we're going
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to a wine tasting. I had an
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experience last year in Aspen. There was a couple
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sitting front row center, and one of them
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looked miserable for the first ten minutes, like, I don't want to be at this
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event. She made me come to this tasting. So I kind
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of kept looking over at him, and I said, I think he's
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softening up a little. After two sips, we get to the
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third wine, he's nodding, he's participating. After the
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session ended, he's the first person I went to, and I said,
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am I wrong? But I had a feeling in the beginning, you don't really want
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to be here. She made you come, didn't she? He goes, yeah, but I got
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to tell you, this was really fun. I learned a
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lot. And he's like, I would do it again. Wow, that's great.
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So I think that when you make it real, if you keep it down
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to earth, that even those folks who think they're not
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interested, and sometimes it's, like I said, sometimes they
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didn't know if it's a science geek, they really cling to
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the science. Like, oh, I didn't know that. Or someone who's really into,
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who's environmentalist. And I hear about all of the sustainability
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efforts and wine. Sometimes it's a social justice perspective
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when they hear about whiny, sort of very involved in
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important social justice issues, you know, gender diversity, racial
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diversity, equity parity. So I think, you know,
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you meet people where they are. So I would like
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to think more than half the room will
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continue to go to wine tastings, will go to wine shops and step
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out of their comfort zone, because that's the main thing I tell people, we all
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have our comfort wines just like we have comfort foods. But I challenge
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you. When you go to your wine shop, don't always reach for that same bottle
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that you always get. Have a conversation, develop a good
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relationship with your wine cellar, and
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expand a bit. And you don't have to like everything. And there's nothing wrong. I
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don't care how many points it has. You're allowed not to like
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it, but understand why you don't like it. Maybe
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you like a more acidic wine. Maybe you like a less acidic wine. Maybe you
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like more complexity. Maybe you, you know, you, you like
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lots of tannin, grippy wines. Maybe you like a jammy
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wine. There's nothing wrong, but understand what you. Do and don't like,
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you know, that's a great thought. And I had a buyer here at one of
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my wine shop was open. It was dore. He was one of the
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best pallets buying pallets in Los Angeles, for sure
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of my experience. But uncannily, he was able
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to take somebody's record. Some walks into the shop
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and says, I usually buy you this. And he'd say, well, I'm going to take
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you over here to try something else. And that's a
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talent for a wine shop owner or a wine club owner,
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to be able to hear a particular style and
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then take the next step, left or right,
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north or south, as to what that person might like. And that's an important thing.
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But you said something very important. This is the part we're going to peel back
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now, and that is this experiential part of
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wine. I think the industry has been plagued
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by a couple of things, and one of them is the advent of the
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Internet and the advent of
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50 cent a liter wines coming from Europe being bottled with fancy labels
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and being sold as something more than they are,
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and the disillusion of the consumer.
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Because the story can't be when you're sitting at dinner with your friends, hey, I
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got this for $5 on the Internet.
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There was a new club started during Christmas that I watched called Vino Cheapo, for
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my God's sake. I mean, give me a break. So why would you, you know,
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why would you do that at dinner? Hey, I got this. At Vino Cheapo, you
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know? Yeah, maybe the wines are good. I don't. Well, that's a
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different story. But the point being,
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I think that wine actually is going back to, like, the seventies and
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eighties, when my dad had his wine groups and the Les Amie Devant was around
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in America. And you would go to the dinners and you would hear from the
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winemakers, and that's where you start to understand
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the differences and the history and the romanticism and why
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a glass of wine is different than any other beverage. Are you seeing
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more of that? You know, I've noticed, you know,
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when I go out to eat, I'm really impressed. When I look around the
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dining room and I see young people in their twenties and thirties
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with really good battles on the table. I think we're
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living in an age where the younger generation,
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they really care about what they eat and drink, and a great deal
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of their disposable income goes there. And I know we
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talk about, you know, they're not drinking enough. And
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part of that is, look, when you're young, you don't necessarily want to drink what
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your parents are drinking, right? And we were all young once,
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right? So it's a process. But I do notice, at least here in New York,
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I feel hopeful because I see that they're not just saying, oh, give me the
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cheapest or the second cheapest. I look, I'm like, oh, they spent more money on
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wine than we did tonight, and they're enjoying
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entertainment. So, yeah, I think
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people want to be a part of the conversation, and I think social media
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has fueled that. You know, when you see people, one of your friends
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in college who suddenly is a social media influencer, talking about wine,
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it's like, oh, I want to speak that language, too.
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So I think social media has really helped to fuel that conversation. There are some
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downsides to it as well. But I do think it has captivated
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a larger audience in a way that wasn't possible with just
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a print magazine. I think you're right. I think as
411
00:25:03,750 --> 00:25:07,554
well, probably in the magazines that you contribute to,
412
00:25:08,654 --> 00:25:12,326
a lot of articles are about the decline in sales
413
00:25:12,470 --> 00:25:15,902
for the listener. We're not talking about like this 30% drop in sales. We're talking
414
00:25:15,958 --> 00:25:19,446
a few percentage points. It's also coupled with the
415
00:25:19,470 --> 00:25:23,222
overproduction of wine and everybody jumping in to see
416
00:25:23,238 --> 00:25:26,110
if they can make a million dollars. And of course, we know how that works.
417
00:25:26,182 --> 00:25:29,846
That will add it and the advent
418
00:25:29,910 --> 00:25:33,686
of the supermarket formula wise. Now, this is an interesting problem
419
00:25:33,750 --> 00:25:37,270
that we have, and I just realized the complexity of it as we're
420
00:25:37,302 --> 00:25:40,410
talking. You walk into about Ralph's market, supermarket,
421
00:25:40,442 --> 00:25:43,970
safeway, you know, Kroger's or any of the East
422
00:25:44,002 --> 00:25:47,614
coast chains, and virtually the shelf is the same.
423
00:25:48,434 --> 00:25:52,074
Right? It's a popular. Well, the beauty of New York City is you can't
424
00:25:52,114 --> 00:25:55,334
buy wine in the supermarket. Well, that's true. That's true.
425
00:25:55,834 --> 00:25:59,594
So for me, when I, it always throws me off when
426
00:25:59,634 --> 00:26:03,386
I'm in another state and I'm like, oh, my goodness, they have
427
00:26:03,410 --> 00:26:07,240
a whole aisle of wine. I'm like, how does anyone navigate this? There's
428
00:26:07,272 --> 00:26:11,096
no one to help you. That's a really good point. I didn't
429
00:26:11,120 --> 00:26:14,360
think about that. Maybe, and I'm sure it's not the intention of the bureaucrats of
430
00:26:14,472 --> 00:26:18,184
New York, which was to actually create a system that forced
431
00:26:18,224 --> 00:26:21,512
somebody into looking at wines other than what's at the supermarket. Because there is no
432
00:26:21,528 --> 00:26:25,288
wine in the supermarket. Exactly. Even though, look, there is a lobby,
433
00:26:25,336 --> 00:26:29,112
you know, that very much wants to be able to sell wine in a
434
00:26:29,128 --> 00:26:32,896
supermarket. And of course, the wine shop and liquor store owners are
435
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:36,312
lobbying against it, of course. But I think the wine
436
00:26:36,368 --> 00:26:39,756
shop does a much better job of creating a
437
00:26:39,780 --> 00:26:43,396
wine culture than a supermarket, which feels much more
438
00:26:43,420 --> 00:26:47,220
utilitarian. You go there for your necessities, you have your list,
439
00:26:47,332 --> 00:26:51,076
you grab what, you know, the times I've been out of state and
440
00:26:51,100 --> 00:26:54,844
I've walked through these large wine aisles, they lack
441
00:26:54,884 --> 00:26:58,544
that energy that you get in a wine shop.
442
00:26:58,964 --> 00:27:02,372
Well, there's no, there's no question. And that was a point I was going to
443
00:27:02,388 --> 00:27:06,066
make. But since you live in New York, you don't get
444
00:27:06,090 --> 00:27:09,418
to experience it like I do. But if you go to Vaughn's here at Ralph's,
445
00:27:09,546 --> 00:27:12,922
it's the same shelf, you know, there's Cali red right in the middle.
446
00:27:13,018 --> 00:27:16,570
There's menage a trois and floor stacks of Josh
447
00:27:16,722 --> 00:27:20,242
and you don't get to make a decision. In fact, I posted a picture the
448
00:27:20,258 --> 00:27:23,818
other day of the Ralph's market Cabernet
449
00:27:23,866 --> 00:27:27,658
section. Every single wine had a shelf talker.
450
00:27:27,786 --> 00:27:31,448
So it was either about the price or is about the points that got it.
451
00:27:31,546 --> 00:27:35,104
And I posted. All I wrote was, how do you make a decision?
452
00:27:36,164 --> 00:27:38,932
And it kind of goes back to what I'm talking about, which is we need
453
00:27:38,988 --> 00:27:42,484
these wine shots. We need the department manager anyway at a large
454
00:27:42,524 --> 00:27:46,292
supermarket, if they have one, to help us break out. But
455
00:27:46,308 --> 00:27:50,100
then on the flip side of this, and you probably experienced it, we
456
00:27:50,132 --> 00:27:53,876
need those wines for people that don't drink wine to come into the fray.
457
00:27:54,020 --> 00:27:57,644
Grab a bottle of an interesting label and like, have you seen the freak
458
00:27:57,684 --> 00:28:00,994
show label? They're like a carnival picture. Yes, yes. Right?
459
00:28:01,774 --> 00:28:05,182
And they grab, they go, oh, this is interesting beverage. And then they move to
460
00:28:05,198 --> 00:28:07,874
the next step. And it's sort of like you need that entry level
461
00:28:09,174 --> 00:28:12,830
conversation before you can get to the stuff that we like to talk
462
00:28:12,862 --> 00:28:16,494
about. Absolutely. I always say very few Americans
463
00:28:16,534 --> 00:28:18,874
grow up, you know, drinking
464
00:28:20,094 --> 00:28:22,950
Brunello, Bordeaux,
465
00:28:23,102 --> 00:28:26,710
Burgundy. So you know that the palate, you know, there's a
466
00:28:26,742 --> 00:28:30,416
gateway. You have your entry level wines to kind of sparked the
467
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,704
excitement. That's actually a really good point. I never drank
468
00:28:33,744 --> 00:28:37,592
gin. My dad made me. I made a martini every night for him. Son, make
469
00:28:37,608 --> 00:28:40,936
me a martini, but I never drank it. And then till I was an adult,
470
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:44,744
now I drink too much for it. So, yeah, I never understood why my dad
471
00:28:44,784 --> 00:28:48,576
liked whiskey. I'm like, oh, smells like listerine. It's horrible. But
472
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,312
then once I got into wine, I started appreciating, you know, spirits
473
00:28:52,368 --> 00:28:56,184
as well. Yeah, you got to start. You got to start. That's the key
474
00:28:56,224 --> 00:28:59,468
thing. What are you hearing about non
475
00:28:59,516 --> 00:29:03,244
alcoholic? And this goes back to my romantic view of wine
476
00:29:03,404 --> 00:29:07,224
and the ethereal value of glass wine. But non alcoholic is hot.
477
00:29:07,724 --> 00:29:11,252
It is not. Sure I get it. I'm trying to figure out low alcohol, which
478
00:29:11,268 --> 00:29:14,544
I think is a better product, but
479
00:29:15,404 --> 00:29:18,944
bag in the box, all this cans.
480
00:29:19,804 --> 00:29:23,654
Had a conversation with the Cornell professor who's working
481
00:29:23,694 --> 00:29:27,206
on a food grade lining to help canned wines go
482
00:29:27,270 --> 00:29:31,006
longer. And I can only look
483
00:29:31,030 --> 00:29:34,790
at that having watched my dad's wine shop and my wine shop and everything go
484
00:29:34,822 --> 00:29:38,606
through its cycles as just blips in the consumption of
485
00:29:38,630 --> 00:29:42,302
wine since we talked about this 6000 year old winery in
486
00:29:42,318 --> 00:29:45,638
Armenia. These are just consumer
487
00:29:45,726 --> 00:29:49,254
pieces that just kind of go up and down. And really,
488
00:29:50,514 --> 00:29:53,954
I think the low alcohol, because there are definitely times that I
489
00:29:53,994 --> 00:29:57,802
prefer lower alcohol wine right and again,
490
00:29:57,858 --> 00:30:00,614
you know, being more conscious of what we're consuming.
491
00:30:01,594 --> 00:30:05,154
And I think it also allows your friends and
492
00:30:05,194 --> 00:30:08,970
colleagues who don't drink to at least still participate in the ritual with the no
493
00:30:09,002 --> 00:30:12,786
alcohol. But as I said in an interview that I
494
00:30:12,810 --> 00:30:16,530
did last year, personally, I like my wine with alcohol. To
495
00:30:16,562 --> 00:30:20,374
me, that's what a wine is. I like the alcohol.
496
00:30:21,914 --> 00:30:25,258
I don't think we should demonize it. I think there's a real movement
497
00:30:25,306 --> 00:30:29,094
now that seems to be surging
498
00:30:30,194 --> 00:30:33,666
moderation. Drink smartly, but enjoy. But I
499
00:30:33,690 --> 00:30:36,894
think, just like we shouldn't overdo sugar,
500
00:30:37,234 --> 00:30:40,770
we know that too much sugar can be bad for us. Yes, too much
501
00:30:40,802 --> 00:30:44,010
alcohol is bad. But, yeah, the no
502
00:30:44,082 --> 00:30:47,874
alcohol, I read recently, what's the chain
503
00:30:47,954 --> 00:30:51,214
of Boisson? That a lot of their stores are closing.
504
00:30:51,964 --> 00:30:55,236
They started in New York. I believe they have some on the west coast, and
505
00:30:55,260 --> 00:30:58,424
their whole model was alcohol free beverages.
506
00:30:59,844 --> 00:31:03,500
And so the cynical part of me is like, maybe people realize they were
507
00:31:03,532 --> 00:31:07,260
spending $30 for a pretty bottle of iced tea or fruit juice.
508
00:31:07,372 --> 00:31:11,212
Yeah, right. Maybe that's the problem. Well, it's
509
00:31:11,228 --> 00:31:14,624
kind of interesting you just said this, and it just hit me.
510
00:31:15,644 --> 00:31:19,406
This generation, LMNOP or Z or X or whatever we're talking
511
00:31:19,430 --> 00:31:23,118
about, and millennials as well, they were all about
512
00:31:23,206 --> 00:31:27,014
organic biodynamic. They're all about what you put in your body, but they drink white
513
00:31:27,054 --> 00:31:30,494
claw, which is kind of ironic. Exactly. But at the same
514
00:31:30,534 --> 00:31:34,286
time, for the listeners, non alcoholic wine is
515
00:31:34,430 --> 00:31:38,110
wine. And of course, it certainly has something to do with what
516
00:31:38,142 --> 00:31:40,310
you start with. It needs to be pretty good for it to end up being
517
00:31:40,342 --> 00:31:43,742
pretty good, removing the alcohol. But then they have to put
518
00:31:43,798 --> 00:31:47,532
back stuff in order to make it palatable. And so
519
00:31:47,548 --> 00:31:50,508
they put water back, and they put flavoring agents, whatever they do. And so all
520
00:31:50,516 --> 00:31:53,704
of a sudden, now, a non alcoholic winery is not really
521
00:31:54,484 --> 00:31:57,820
wine, obviously, but it's not as
522
00:31:58,012 --> 00:32:01,524
clean as maybe a biodynamic wine
523
00:32:01,564 --> 00:32:05,284
is, or an organic wine might be. And so maybe there's an
524
00:32:05,324 --> 00:32:08,104
irony between the generational
525
00:32:09,084 --> 00:32:12,872
output outlook on what you put in your body and
526
00:32:12,888 --> 00:32:15,720
the idea that we're not drinking alcohol, but what about all the crap we're putting
527
00:32:15,752 --> 00:32:17,444
back into the wine to make it palatable.
528
00:32:19,144 --> 00:32:22,856
Yeah. And again, I don't want to disparage, and a lot of people who are
529
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:26,664
working very hard in the low nose space, as they call
530
00:32:26,704 --> 00:32:30,496
it, but I don't think, I think they
531
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,232
can all coexist. Yes. Oh, that's a good one
532
00:32:34,368 --> 00:32:37,928
day when we talk about wine, traditional
533
00:32:37,976 --> 00:32:41,752
definition of wine is that it is an alcoholic beverage. Yes. And
534
00:32:41,768 --> 00:32:45,488
if you want to do something wine inspired or wine adjacent
535
00:32:45,536 --> 00:32:49,104
or a wine proxy, well and good. But I don't think
536
00:32:49,144 --> 00:32:52,720
that I would hope that the goal is that, oh, 50
537
00:32:52,792 --> 00:32:56,304
years from now, most wines will be alcohol free,
538
00:32:56,464 --> 00:33:00,112
because I think that completely changes this history, this
539
00:33:00,168 --> 00:33:03,804
narrative, this legacy. So I think we can have innovation
540
00:33:04,294 --> 00:33:08,142
because we're a diverse population and people want to try these things,
541
00:33:08,198 --> 00:33:11,870
go for it. But let's recognize wine kind of is
542
00:33:11,902 --> 00:33:15,430
the foundational drink that we're working with. And I think
543
00:33:15,462 --> 00:33:19,246
that's like the beginning of this conversation, was that these little. Little blips and
544
00:33:19,270 --> 00:33:22,942
little consumerisms, it led me to have this
545
00:33:22,998 --> 00:33:26,742
conversation in my head about most winemakers and vineyard owners that
546
00:33:26,758 --> 00:33:30,182
are not engaging this industry because they think they're going to make a billion
547
00:33:30,238 --> 00:33:33,672
dollars, will tell you that they're just passing through and they're just stewards of the
548
00:33:33,688 --> 00:33:37,320
land and stewards of the beverage. And we think about it, you know, Madame
549
00:33:37,352 --> 00:33:40,936
Clicot was making wine in the late 17 hundreds. Champagne. It's
550
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,520
pretty much the same as it was, you know, the profile, the flavor
551
00:33:44,552 --> 00:33:48,240
profile might be a little different, but it's a fermented grape juice
552
00:33:48,272 --> 00:33:51,824
beverage that's got bubbles in it and it's sealed with a cork. And it's pretty
553
00:33:51,864 --> 00:33:55,632
much the same after 300 something years. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of
554
00:33:55,648 --> 00:33:59,372
interesting, speaking of her, you
555
00:33:59,388 --> 00:34:03,172
know, she was a pioneer. She was. Had
556
00:34:03,188 --> 00:34:06,916
her back against the wall to get into this industry. But a woman who was
557
00:34:06,940 --> 00:34:09,184
a formidable businesswoman of the time
558
00:34:11,164 --> 00:34:14,836
in women and wine, it's still kind of a struggle out there. And here you
559
00:34:14,860 --> 00:34:18,064
are, an influencer and a writer.
560
00:34:18,484 --> 00:34:22,252
Have you encountered any headwinds and sexism
561
00:34:22,308 --> 00:34:26,064
in this industry? Oh, I think, you know, whenever people ask
562
00:34:26,104 --> 00:34:29,552
this, I'm like, you have to remember, wine is a microcosm of
563
00:34:29,608 --> 00:34:33,400
everything else in our society. So this idea that somehow
564
00:34:33,432 --> 00:34:36,104
the wine industry would be a utopia, Shangri la,
565
00:34:36,184 --> 00:34:39,784
Kumbaya, that all of these other problems in the world. No,
566
00:34:39,864 --> 00:34:43,448
we have the power of wine. That, you know, it's kind of
567
00:34:43,496 --> 00:34:46,044
keeping. Us safe transcends it all.
568
00:34:47,704 --> 00:34:51,310
No, it's just not true. So,
569
00:34:51,342 --> 00:34:55,142
yes, I've experienced things, you know, just as I experienced them when
570
00:34:55,158 --> 00:34:58,886
I worked in other industries, but I do see
571
00:34:58,910 --> 00:35:02,350
the progress that has been made. You know, when I first started going to wine
572
00:35:02,382 --> 00:35:05,206
tastings, 20
573
00:35:05,390 --> 00:35:08,742
1011, I was often
574
00:35:08,918 --> 00:35:12,374
definitely the youngest. Now I'm no longer the youngest person in the room, which
575
00:35:12,414 --> 00:35:15,394
is, you know, you've reached that stage like oh, I'm
576
00:35:15,694 --> 00:35:16,434
sorry.
577
00:35:20,234 --> 00:35:23,882
So I definitely. I can check that list. Okay. Not the
578
00:35:23,898 --> 00:35:27,094
youngest anymore, but I was the youngest. I was often
579
00:35:27,474 --> 00:35:31,170
the only woman and often the only person of
580
00:35:31,202 --> 00:35:34,586
color in the room. Now, when I go to tastings,
581
00:35:34,770 --> 00:35:38,210
especially in a city as diverse as New York, you think about it.
582
00:35:38,362 --> 00:35:42,114
To have events in New York that didn't reflect the diversity
583
00:35:42,154 --> 00:35:45,906
of this city, it's kind of crazy. Yeah, it is. Now I
584
00:35:45,930 --> 00:35:49,724
go to taste things, and I see different ages, different
585
00:35:49,804 --> 00:35:53,556
backgrounds. Yeah. The progress has been
586
00:35:53,580 --> 00:35:57,188
made. Now, it doesn't mean that there
587
00:35:57,236 --> 00:36:00,708
doesn't linger some of these issues that just exist in our society
588
00:36:00,796 --> 00:36:04,300
still. You know, people who want to mansplain, people who assume
589
00:36:04,332 --> 00:36:07,692
because, oh, you must only like sweet wines.
590
00:36:07,748 --> 00:36:11,588
Right? You know, people will make off. Oh, let me tell
591
00:36:11,636 --> 00:36:15,076
you about the grape and Barolo. Oh, really? Oh,
592
00:36:15,100 --> 00:36:18,348
Borrello is not the name of the great. Thank you for enlightening me.
593
00:36:18,436 --> 00:36:19,104
Yeah,
594
00:36:22,124 --> 00:36:25,780
well, that's. Yeah, it exists for sure. It
595
00:36:25,812 --> 00:36:29,532
exists for sure. So the question, because I was at the AAA, and
596
00:36:29,548 --> 00:36:33,196
for the AAAV, for the listeners, it's the association of
597
00:36:33,220 --> 00:36:37,052
African American Vendors event in Napa. And I think there
598
00:36:37,068 --> 00:36:40,572
were 22 or 25 tables. I tasted every wine that was there. Oh,
599
00:36:40,588 --> 00:36:44,230
wow. And they were fabulous. You know, the whole lineup was amazing.
600
00:36:44,302 --> 00:36:48,070
Right. And I've had a lot of conversations with folks
601
00:36:48,102 --> 00:36:51,838
from there. I had a conversation with Dwayne Wade's operative, George
602
00:36:51,886 --> 00:36:55,622
Walker. George. Yay. George is fabulous. Yeah. And we had
603
00:36:55,638 --> 00:36:59,102
a great conversation. Yeah. It's an
604
00:36:59,118 --> 00:37:02,366
intimidating subject, and I wonder if that's not the root of
605
00:37:02,550 --> 00:37:05,434
why people of color, women,
606
00:37:06,694 --> 00:37:10,242
LGBTQ community hasn't been involved. Because on
607
00:37:10,258 --> 00:37:14,106
the outside looking in, it's kind of intimidating. We talked about it a little
608
00:37:14,130 --> 00:37:17,826
bit before, rather than an exclusive, you know,
609
00:37:17,850 --> 00:37:21,626
an attempt to keep people out. I don't think that was really the
610
00:37:21,650 --> 00:37:25,374
case, but I think it's just an intimidating subject. And
611
00:37:25,674 --> 00:37:29,522
barrier exists. Yeah, intimidation definitely can be
612
00:37:29,538 --> 00:37:32,938
a factor. And how much of a fact, I think, varies from
613
00:37:32,986 --> 00:37:36,670
individual to individual. So I think, yes,
614
00:37:36,702 --> 00:37:40,114
there are trends that we see that impact groups,
615
00:37:40,494 --> 00:37:44,194
but always say we have to keep the individual in mind. So,
616
00:37:45,174 --> 00:37:48,982
yes, I did notice there were people coming up at
617
00:37:48,998 --> 00:37:52,790
the same time as me that I saw kind of drop out and always
618
00:37:52,862 --> 00:37:56,558
wonder why they faded away. Did they get tired of being the only
619
00:37:56,606 --> 00:38:00,294
one in the room feeling like they weren't being heard or seen? Whereas my
620
00:38:00,334 --> 00:38:04,010
nature is I just keep showing up. I'm a little bit stubborn that way. Like,
621
00:38:04,042 --> 00:38:07,858
I'm not going to let that deter me. So I think it is important
622
00:38:07,986 --> 00:38:11,330
to always say it's not enough to give people a seat at the
623
00:38:11,362 --> 00:38:15,090
table. You have to respect their presence and let their voice be
624
00:38:15,122 --> 00:38:18,810
heard. So I think there was a tendency in the beginning like,
625
00:38:18,842 --> 00:38:20,934
oh, well, more people are coming. That's great.
626
00:38:22,074 --> 00:38:24,654
But are they feeling welcome?
627
00:38:25,914 --> 00:38:29,578
Good point. So, and how do we do that without pandering?
628
00:38:29,666 --> 00:38:32,410
How do we do that in a respectful way? And I'm not saying I have
629
00:38:32,442 --> 00:38:36,120
all the answers, and there's certainly a learning curve, but I think
630
00:38:36,152 --> 00:38:40,000
if a true intent is there, people sense it. And I
631
00:38:40,032 --> 00:38:43,736
can tell the difference. When someone is inviting me, like,
632
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,416
oh, Wanda, we know you've been to Italy. Wow. At least 20 times.
633
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:51,072
You've written so much about Italy. We want to tap into you for your expertise
634
00:38:51,128 --> 00:38:54,312
there, as opposed to, oh, we need a black woman in the
635
00:38:54,328 --> 00:38:58,160
lineup. You sense the difference. I'm very sensitive to
636
00:38:58,192 --> 00:39:01,984
that because I don't believe in tokenism. I don't like feeling like I'm being
637
00:39:02,024 --> 00:39:05,814
pandered to. But you also have to create
638
00:39:06,114 --> 00:39:09,014
a pipeline for people to get the experience
639
00:39:09,674 --> 00:39:13,306
and the education. So it's great to see the scholarship programs that
640
00:39:13,330 --> 00:39:17,090
exist now. It's important to show that there's so many
641
00:39:17,122 --> 00:39:20,242
other careers and wine. You don't have to be a writer or a
642
00:39:20,258 --> 00:39:23,714
winemaker. You can work for an importer if you have a
643
00:39:23,754 --> 00:39:27,042
legal interest. You can use your law degree to work in the wine
644
00:39:27,098 --> 00:39:30,874
industry, be a publicist, be a copywriter, work in
645
00:39:30,914 --> 00:39:34,686
marketing. So I think there's so many other areas that aren't
646
00:39:34,710 --> 00:39:38,510
as visible that would benefit from more diversity across the board
647
00:39:38,622 --> 00:39:41,926
in terms of age, race, gender, all of
648
00:39:41,950 --> 00:39:44,794
it. You know, that's a fascinating point.
649
00:39:45,534 --> 00:39:49,326
There are so many angles to this industry and to do. And I
650
00:39:49,350 --> 00:39:53,070
spent, like I said, there are already 35 years buying wine and bought a lot.
651
00:39:53,262 --> 00:39:57,070
I think I sold 17 million bottles. But I have
652
00:39:57,102 --> 00:40:00,884
gotten all that traction all those years. Doesn't
653
00:40:00,924 --> 00:40:04,716
compare to the exposure I've gotten through this
654
00:40:04,780 --> 00:40:08,228
podcast, which was generated just because I kept hearing great
655
00:40:08,276 --> 00:40:11,716
stories here in the shop. I decided to put a microphone in front of the
656
00:40:11,740 --> 00:40:15,180
stories, but traveling the world, and I was telling this to Angela McCrae the other
657
00:40:15,212 --> 00:40:18,908
day on the podcast. I said, you know, you're in the
658
00:40:18,916 --> 00:40:22,304
beginning of a career here, and you are going to find that
659
00:40:22,804 --> 00:40:26,424
the welcoming arms around anywhere you go in the world
660
00:40:27,184 --> 00:40:30,800
that you are participating in this industry and the way you are, in her
661
00:40:30,832 --> 00:40:34,384
case, with the AAAV that you're going to be, you're going to have an
662
00:40:34,424 --> 00:40:37,912
amazing experience. Like you just said, you can go to Italy
663
00:40:37,968 --> 00:40:41,792
and represent yourself, and you're like, it's a whole community and a
664
00:40:41,808 --> 00:40:45,400
whole fraternity. And, I think, irrelevant of your
665
00:40:45,432 --> 00:40:49,204
race or your sexual orientation or your sex.
666
00:40:50,184 --> 00:40:53,982
It's worldwide recognition that we're on the
667
00:40:53,998 --> 00:40:57,094
same page, or we try to be. On the same page, you know? It's so
668
00:40:57,134 --> 00:41:00,982
true. And I sometimes feel very corny because I feel like I say it
669
00:41:00,998 --> 00:41:04,230
at every press trip that I'm on, but I'll look around the
670
00:41:04,262 --> 00:41:08,030
table, and I'm like, how else would this have happened?
671
00:41:08,062 --> 00:41:11,854
That me, you know, humble background from
672
00:41:11,894 --> 00:41:15,454
New York, first in my family to go to college. I'm
673
00:41:15,494 --> 00:41:19,118
sitting with someone who has a title, whose family's been making
674
00:41:19,166 --> 00:41:22,806
wine for 400 years, someone who's a mayor, someone who's a
675
00:41:22,830 --> 00:41:26,274
dignitary. I was like, we would never have met
676
00:41:27,014 --> 00:41:30,574
with if not for wine. And not only not are we
677
00:41:30,614 --> 00:41:34,086
meeting, we're enjoying each other's company. This is the ultimate
678
00:41:34,150 --> 00:41:37,590
icebreaker, because we all have this passion, and it lets the
679
00:41:37,622 --> 00:41:41,406
walls down. It's almost like we give someone the benefit of
680
00:41:41,430 --> 00:41:44,594
the doubt. Now, look, there's some jerks and wine, too, but in general,
681
00:41:46,294 --> 00:41:50,094
you're a wine person, okay? We can have a conversation, and then if, you
682
00:41:50,134 --> 00:41:53,846
know, it's, you know, it kind of opens the door. And that's what I
683
00:41:53,870 --> 00:41:57,478
really love about it, that people that I
684
00:41:57,526 --> 00:42:01,014
never would have encountered, you know, are in my circle now and in my
685
00:42:01,054 --> 00:42:04,390
corner and have really been great allies and
686
00:42:04,422 --> 00:42:08,006
supporters because we have this shared passion, and I think they
687
00:42:08,110 --> 00:42:11,598
see how much I love it. You know, you can't think of any other
688
00:42:11,646 --> 00:42:15,022
industry, and this is more for the benefit of the
689
00:42:15,038 --> 00:42:18,718
listeners. But that that occurs in, like, if you make
690
00:42:18,766 --> 00:42:22,324
widgets or semiconductors or if you make lawn furniture,
691
00:42:22,744 --> 00:42:26,496
nobody cares. If you go to the manufacturing section of Paris
692
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,248
and have a conversation with a lawn furniture maker, the man you show up in
693
00:42:30,256 --> 00:42:33,800
the wine trade, and that
694
00:42:33,832 --> 00:42:37,080
conversation is in recognition, and acceptance is
695
00:42:37,112 --> 00:42:40,840
immediate. And I think that bodes
696
00:42:40,872 --> 00:42:44,640
well for the industry when it comes to BIPOC and LBGQ
697
00:42:44,792 --> 00:42:48,404
community and different sexes, in that
698
00:42:49,124 --> 00:42:52,524
it really eventually has no
699
00:42:52,564 --> 00:42:56,148
barriers. It's just making people aware of
700
00:42:56,276 --> 00:43:00,052
that they did exist. And I say this because I had
701
00:43:00,068 --> 00:43:03,748
a conversation with Elizabeth Taigny of Cornell Vineyards
702
00:43:03,836 --> 00:43:07,476
in Spring Mountain and a very strong
703
00:43:07,540 --> 00:43:11,144
woman and a very good winemaker, and she
704
00:43:11,844 --> 00:43:15,476
almost was offended when I asked the same question. I just asked you about
705
00:43:15,540 --> 00:43:19,264
women in wine. And she goes, why does it even enter the conversation?
706
00:43:19,964 --> 00:43:23,772
Why do I have to have that conversation? I just make good wine.
707
00:43:23,828 --> 00:43:27,676
I go, you're right. Yeah, no, I get that.
708
00:43:27,780 --> 00:43:31,384
And it's. Sometimes I'll see a headline,
709
00:43:31,724 --> 00:43:35,396
let's black woman wine writer. It's like, well, why
710
00:43:35,420 --> 00:43:38,956
can't it just be wine writer? But I
711
00:43:38,980 --> 00:43:42,740
get it's important to acknowledge people
712
00:43:42,812 --> 00:43:46,440
who break barriers, and it's
713
00:43:46,472 --> 00:43:50,120
hopeful to think that we reach a point where it's so diverse that you
714
00:43:50,152 --> 00:43:53,744
don't have to call it out anymore. Correct? Not quite sure we're there
715
00:43:53,784 --> 00:43:57,632
yet. I was on a panel last year and this question came
716
00:43:57,688 --> 00:44:01,312
up. It was a women and wine symposium. Like, do we still
717
00:44:01,368 --> 00:44:04,880
need these events in these organizations? I
718
00:44:04,912 --> 00:44:08,520
said, the reality is, as far as we've come, women are still making
719
00:44:08,632 --> 00:44:12,474
around eighty seven cents to the dollar compared
720
00:44:12,514 --> 00:44:16,282
to what men make. Era, which they've been talking about since I
721
00:44:16,298 --> 00:44:20,138
was a little girl hasn't passed. But I haven't heard that acronym in a long
722
00:44:20,186 --> 00:44:23,922
time. Yeah, but it's true. And there's still people still working
723
00:44:24,018 --> 00:44:27,674
on that. So there are still issues, you know, when we
724
00:44:27,714 --> 00:44:30,962
look at healthcare, when we look at socioeconomic
725
00:44:31,018 --> 00:44:34,746
issues, you know, some of us are doing really well and we feel like,
726
00:44:34,770 --> 00:44:38,312
hey, I've made it. And maybe your little
727
00:44:38,368 --> 00:44:42,084
circle of friends is doing really well. But when you look at the statistics,
728
00:44:43,664 --> 00:44:47,464
women are still, you know, not getting our fair
729
00:44:47,504 --> 00:44:51,288
share of the pie sometimes. So I think it's important to
730
00:44:51,456 --> 00:44:55,032
not say, okay, we're done. So I think that's why it's
731
00:44:55,048 --> 00:44:58,804
important, and I think it's important for people who feel marginalized,
732
00:44:59,144 --> 00:45:02,668
you know, for women to get together. I'm the immediate
733
00:45:02,716 --> 00:45:05,988
past president of La Dame Descoffier. You know, we
734
00:45:06,036 --> 00:45:09,644
have 44, 45 chapters around the
735
00:45:09,684 --> 00:45:12,944
world of women in wine, food and hospitality.
736
00:45:13,564 --> 00:45:16,924
And, you know, I think it's important for women to have these
737
00:45:16,964 --> 00:45:20,140
communities where they feel like not only they can
738
00:45:20,332 --> 00:45:24,124
dis a bit, but have a support system, benefit from the
739
00:45:24,164 --> 00:45:27,132
knowledge of those who've gone before you. How did you navigate these
740
00:45:27,188 --> 00:45:30,496
challenges to hear from people who have been there before? You know
741
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:34,352
what? I have seen change, so we have to keep at it. But
742
00:45:34,408 --> 00:45:38,080
we're not done. We're not done. But I get what she's saying. You don't want
743
00:45:38,112 --> 00:45:41,960
the fact that you're a woman or a black person, an asian, Latino, to always
744
00:45:41,992 --> 00:45:45,084
be the leading headline, because
745
00:45:46,824 --> 00:45:50,124
I think it's a delicate balance. It's a delicate balance.
746
00:45:50,784 --> 00:45:53,768
There may not be an endgame to that. Maybe it's just
747
00:45:53,816 --> 00:45:57,070
humanity, you know, and it's just the viewpoint of humanity,
748
00:45:57,142 --> 00:46:00,830
humans that you're not going to change the DNA, and you
749
00:46:00,902 --> 00:46:04,074
need to raise that flag all the time.
750
00:46:04,814 --> 00:46:08,366
When I was. When I reached out to the AAV in
751
00:46:08,390 --> 00:46:12,126
2000, I can't remember what social upheaval there was, but it was
752
00:46:12,150 --> 00:46:15,430
early, two thousands. And I wanted to see if I could
753
00:46:15,462 --> 00:46:18,774
feature black owned winery wine in my
754
00:46:18,814 --> 00:46:22,628
club. And I found the association that just
755
00:46:22,676 --> 00:46:26,452
started, I guess, because it was like 2004, 2006 or something, and there
756
00:46:26,468 --> 00:46:30,060
were like five members, I mean, literally like five members that were making wines,
757
00:46:30,092 --> 00:46:33,464
and none of them made enough wine for my club selection.
758
00:46:33,884 --> 00:46:37,340
So then when I recontacted Angela
759
00:46:37,532 --> 00:46:40,756
for the show, and now there's 200 members of the
760
00:46:40,780 --> 00:46:44,340
association, and, you know, there should be more than that. And
761
00:46:44,452 --> 00:46:47,502
when I brought it up with my friends or other people in the community, the
762
00:46:47,518 --> 00:46:50,142
wine community, they're like, I didn't know that even existed. I didn't know that was
763
00:46:50,158 --> 00:46:53,234
a thing, you know, that there was such an association.
764
00:46:53,654 --> 00:46:57,430
And. But I think the prevailing theme when I was talking to everybody,
765
00:46:57,462 --> 00:47:01,294
there was like, we know that we're. We're
766
00:47:01,334 --> 00:47:05,126
representing ourselves as a black winery, but we'd prefer just to represent
767
00:47:05,190 --> 00:47:08,830
ourselves as a winery when the time comes to do it, because we make really
768
00:47:08,862 --> 00:47:12,358
good wine and we make. There's a wide
769
00:47:12,446 --> 00:47:15,674
range of quality. Not quality, wide range of styles
770
00:47:16,044 --> 00:47:18,744
from Virginia to Napa.
771
00:47:19,764 --> 00:47:23,224
There was. There was a woman there. I couldn't believe this.
772
00:47:23,524 --> 00:47:26,384
And it's actually pretty good. But she makes
773
00:47:27,404 --> 00:47:30,308
a method champagne canned
774
00:47:30,476 --> 00:47:34,292
sparkler. Interesting. And so if
775
00:47:34,308 --> 00:47:37,996
you, if you take the next thought, like, okay, how you disgorge it, and she
776
00:47:38,020 --> 00:47:41,732
goes, I don't. I'm
777
00:47:41,748 --> 00:47:45,494
like, whoa, okay, so whatever. But it's really, it's really
778
00:47:45,534 --> 00:47:49,350
quite good. But anyway, the point being, we know we
779
00:47:49,382 --> 00:47:53,222
should continue to wave the flags and
780
00:47:53,278 --> 00:47:56,958
present the thing, but not, like you said, the leading element of
781
00:47:57,006 --> 00:48:00,454
that conversation, it should be, oh, by the way, this is a black owned winery,
782
00:48:00,494 --> 00:48:03,166
or this is a chinese owned winery, or this is a women owned winery or
783
00:48:03,190 --> 00:48:06,710
women winemaker. So that the
784
00:48:06,742 --> 00:48:10,442
recognition exists, but you really want them to swirl that glass and
785
00:48:10,458 --> 00:48:13,938
go, wow, this is really good. Exactly. You know, just, I want my
786
00:48:13,986 --> 00:48:17,482
writing to speak for itself. When I give a presentation and
787
00:48:17,498 --> 00:48:21,050
look, you know, I think every person of color knows that
788
00:48:21,082 --> 00:48:24,474
look, I've experienced it. You know, when I walk to the front of the room,
789
00:48:24,514 --> 00:48:28,290
like, hey, welcome to the event. Like, oh, you're the presenter. Yo,
790
00:48:28,322 --> 00:48:30,254
girl, that looks kidding.
791
00:48:32,754 --> 00:48:36,170
But at the end of it, I wouldn't say, well, she was a great presenter.
792
00:48:36,202 --> 00:48:39,494
Like, oh, she was a great black wide presenter. Yeah.
793
00:48:40,514 --> 00:48:44,330
You know, and it's complicated. Look, our history is so young. You know,
794
00:48:44,482 --> 00:48:48,114
it wasn't that long ago that my mom was a little girl in Georgia
795
00:48:48,154 --> 00:48:51,890
attending segregated schools. So the past is never
796
00:48:51,922 --> 00:48:55,442
really the past, to quote Faulkner. Right. And this is our very recent
797
00:48:55,538 --> 00:48:59,034
history still. And like I said, we have a long way to
798
00:48:59,074 --> 00:49:02,438
go. And these organizations like AAA are important
799
00:49:02,526 --> 00:49:05,926
because the fact that it went from nine to now, 200
800
00:49:05,990 --> 00:49:09,766
producers shows that by creating a structure where
801
00:49:09,790 --> 00:49:13,126
people can learn from each other, learn how to navigate from a
802
00:49:13,150 --> 00:49:16,434
supportive group, to help eliminate some of those roadblocks,
803
00:49:17,134 --> 00:49:20,446
it's important to have that. I think you're right. We're not a
804
00:49:20,470 --> 00:49:23,902
monolith. So you have to balance that group support with
805
00:49:24,078 --> 00:49:27,724
being able to be your individual self. And that's what I try to do.
806
00:49:27,854 --> 00:49:31,680
Where was your father a chef? Oh, you know, it's filled.
807
00:49:31,712 --> 00:49:35,216
My dad, had he. He came too soon, because he would have been a television
808
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:39,128
personality for sure. You got 10% of
809
00:49:39,136 --> 00:49:42,840
it. You're. You know,
810
00:49:42,872 --> 00:49:46,444
my dad's story was really interesting. He grew up in rural North Carolina,
811
00:49:47,264 --> 00:49:50,888
moved to New York as a teenager, went to Brandeis
812
00:49:50,936 --> 00:49:53,324
High School on the Upper west side. That's where.
813
00:49:54,134 --> 00:49:57,870
Yeah. And let's say, unlike me, my
814
00:49:57,902 --> 00:50:01,470
dad was not that into school. He was always cutting class,
815
00:50:01,582 --> 00:50:04,234
and his favorite thing to do is hang out at the
816
00:50:04,894 --> 00:50:08,314
library at Lincoln center and listen to old jazz albums.
817
00:50:09,134 --> 00:50:12,966
And there was a man in the neighborhood who was a chef. And one
818
00:50:12,990 --> 00:50:16,486
day he said to my dad, like, come here. I see you all the time.
819
00:50:16,590 --> 00:50:20,194
You don't seem like a bad kid. What are you doing? And
820
00:50:20,314 --> 00:50:24,122
he said to my dad, since you're not going to school anyway, I
821
00:50:24,138 --> 00:50:27,186
think, I don't remember if it was a week or two weeks. But anyway, he
822
00:50:27,210 --> 00:50:30,414
took my dad into the restaurant, and
823
00:50:30,754 --> 00:50:34,370
basically my dad apprenticed and discovered that he really
824
00:50:34,442 --> 00:50:38,154
loved being in the kitchen and he was good at it. So he never
825
00:50:38,194 --> 00:50:41,786
went to culinary school, but he worked his way up. And, you
826
00:50:41,810 --> 00:50:44,802
know, my favorite story is when he cooked for his fun day. And I was
827
00:50:44,818 --> 00:50:47,956
like, oh, dad, this video, beef stew is so good. He's like, that is Bouffe
828
00:50:47,980 --> 00:50:51,620
Bourguignon. So he really
829
00:50:51,692 --> 00:50:55,364
was a student of french classical cuisine.
830
00:50:55,484 --> 00:50:59,084
That was the foundation. But I always said I had the best of both
831
00:50:59,124 --> 00:51:02,564
worlds. He made the best north Carolina pulled pork
832
00:51:02,604 --> 00:51:06,420
barbecue I've ever had in my life. That's true. He also introduced me to Boeuf
833
00:51:06,452 --> 00:51:09,664
Bourguignon and Pate and wine.
834
00:51:11,124 --> 00:51:14,840
Yeah. He didn't work at any well known restaurants, most of them are
835
00:51:14,872 --> 00:51:18,320
probably Kohl's now, you know, the nature of it in New York, but that's how
836
00:51:18,352 --> 00:51:22,104
he supported us. You know, that's a very french thing to do,
837
00:51:22,144 --> 00:51:25,656
which is, you know, they kind of have to declare at some point we're not
838
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:28,496
going to go to college. We're going to either be a chef. I just got
839
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:32,256
done with a podcast with Frederick Caston, who's exactly the same story, except
840
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:36,032
in Avignon instead of New York. But basically, you know, in the
841
00:51:36,048 --> 00:51:39,604
wine industry, it's like that, too. You can sell her out your way to
842
00:51:40,424 --> 00:51:44,166
being the winemaker, or you can go through, you know, Cornell
843
00:51:44,230 --> 00:51:47,554
White school or UC Davis and figure that out. But
844
00:51:48,854 --> 00:51:52,670
what would he say about the kitchen environment? Was it less
845
00:51:52,822 --> 00:51:55,594
racist? Was it more accepting?
846
00:51:56,294 --> 00:51:59,354
Oh, interesting. I mean, I think definitely,
847
00:52:00,694 --> 00:52:04,502
you know, at that time, I know he definitely had experiences.
848
00:52:04,598 --> 00:52:08,366
I've heard about them. I think,
849
00:52:08,430 --> 00:52:11,430
you know, I must have inherited this from him. Like, it's not going to keep
850
00:52:11,462 --> 00:52:15,086
me from doing a thing I love and I think I'm pretty good at, and
851
00:52:15,110 --> 00:52:17,994
I want to keep getting better. So he kept showing up,
852
00:52:18,934 --> 00:52:21,830
but I know he had challenges. And I said to him, I said, dad, you're
853
00:52:21,862 --> 00:52:25,102
so mean in the kitchen. Like, when I would go visit him at work. But
854
00:52:25,198 --> 00:52:28,230
I think he never wanted. He wanted to have that
855
00:52:28,262 --> 00:52:31,534
authority. It was important for he was
856
00:52:31,574 --> 00:52:35,142
running that. He was running the kitchen. And
857
00:52:35,238 --> 00:52:38,754
sometimes the people, most of the people that he supervised
858
00:52:39,134 --> 00:52:42,902
weren't black. Right. So was a diverse crew in the
859
00:52:42,918 --> 00:52:46,606
kitchen. So he wanted. It was very important for him to have
860
00:52:46,630 --> 00:52:50,302
that presence of, I'm not your best friend.
861
00:52:50,398 --> 00:52:54,006
I'm the leader. And for many people, that might have been the first time
862
00:52:54,070 --> 00:52:57,902
they encountered a person of color who was the authority figure.
863
00:52:58,078 --> 00:53:01,634
Right. I can see that. And now it's much more common.
864
00:53:02,534 --> 00:53:06,022
But when he was doing it, not so much. Well, you think about it, the
865
00:53:06,038 --> 00:53:09,766
kitchen environment, like I said, my daughter was a. Worked at the
866
00:53:09,790 --> 00:53:13,034
Lincoln restaurant. You know, almost every chef
867
00:53:14,254 --> 00:53:17,846
that's celebrated today in their heyday was like
868
00:53:17,870 --> 00:53:21,566
that. You had to, because think about the line chef, the sous
869
00:53:21,590 --> 00:53:24,754
chef, the line cook, the saucier. These people
870
00:53:25,254 --> 00:53:28,990
most probably don't give a crap about anything, right? And so if you let them
871
00:53:29,062 --> 00:53:32,894
to their own, to their own leading, you're going to end up with
872
00:53:33,014 --> 00:53:36,678
a poor product. And so it takes an authoritative figure
873
00:53:36,766 --> 00:53:40,606
to manhandle the kitchen to make sure it comes out
874
00:53:40,630 --> 00:53:44,294
the way the leader wants it to come out, because once that plate
875
00:53:44,334 --> 00:53:47,630
leaves the kitchen, it's a representation of that
876
00:53:47,662 --> 00:53:51,446
person. How much his
877
00:53:51,510 --> 00:53:55,046
team respected him. Right. You know, so.
878
00:53:55,150 --> 00:53:58,734
Yeah, but definitely, I think you're right. I inherited a lot of that. I just
879
00:53:58,774 --> 00:54:02,282
use it in wine. My cooking is decent, but. Well, but you're
880
00:54:02,338 --> 00:54:06,082
Ladame d'Escoffier. I mean, the father of
881
00:54:06,098 --> 00:54:09,626
french food. Your dad had to be proud of that, you know? So.
882
00:54:09,770 --> 00:54:13,346
Yes, for sure. For sure. I
883
00:54:13,370 --> 00:54:17,018
find the wine trade very similar to the
884
00:54:17,066 --> 00:54:20,826
hospital food trade because it is hospitality. When it's all said
885
00:54:20,850 --> 00:54:24,050
and done, we try to put out a product that people are going to appreciate
886
00:54:24,162 --> 00:54:27,666
and bring people together that they talk about. And that's the one thing about wine
887
00:54:27,690 --> 00:54:31,304
that's such a fascinating. I'm sure it's with you,
888
00:54:31,384 --> 00:54:35,232
whether you're sitting at dinner with your best friends who understand a little bit
889
00:54:35,248 --> 00:54:38,324
about wine because you've been hanging around them for a while or
890
00:54:38,784 --> 00:54:42,272
somebody you've never met before, but the conversation
891
00:54:42,368 --> 00:54:46,112
always comes to what's in that glass. Yeah.
892
00:54:46,208 --> 00:54:49,672
And then they like to throw out something that they learned that they know, and
893
00:54:49,688 --> 00:54:53,432
all of a sudden, this unintimidating, unthreatening conversation
894
00:54:53,488 --> 00:54:56,988
of wine happens. And I love
895
00:54:57,036 --> 00:55:00,364
that. Yeah. And I try not to be like the know it
896
00:55:00,404 --> 00:55:03,980
all. Cause I'm not. But I like to move the
897
00:55:04,012 --> 00:55:07,828
conversation forward because it's. It really is. It's not political. You
898
00:55:07,836 --> 00:55:11,652
don't have to worry about, you know, offending anybody about making, you know,
899
00:55:11,708 --> 00:55:15,064
disparaging comments. You can just talk about it.
900
00:55:15,924 --> 00:55:19,716
Yeah. I think as human beings, you know, we're drawn to ritual as well.
901
00:55:19,780 --> 00:55:23,184
Right. And everyone is so busy, more of us are working from home.
902
00:55:23,634 --> 00:55:27,234
So the ritual of sitting at a table, sharing a bottle
903
00:55:27,354 --> 00:55:30,922
is something that I think is primal in us. And
904
00:55:30,978 --> 00:55:34,570
wine kind of forces us to take that time out and
905
00:55:34,602 --> 00:55:38,354
savor the moment, the conversation. We're so much to go.
906
00:55:38,394 --> 00:55:41,922
A grab and go culture. You grab your coffee, you grab a slice, and you
907
00:55:41,938 --> 00:55:45,570
eat it walking down the street. And wine kind of
908
00:55:45,602 --> 00:55:49,242
forces us in a very beautiful way to remember what it's like just to be
909
00:55:49,258 --> 00:55:52,910
together. True. Such
910
00:55:52,942 --> 00:55:56,614
a. You were already at our time, which is unbelievable.
911
00:55:56,774 --> 00:56:00,622
With so much to talk about, but a fascinating conversation.
912
00:56:00,678 --> 00:56:04,474
I hope we can do it again. Yes. Hopefully in person one day.
913
00:56:04,774 --> 00:56:08,366
Yeah. We have not plans to get to Manhattan in the near
914
00:56:08,390 --> 00:56:12,234
future, unfortunately. They used to love doing that to visit my daughter. But
915
00:56:13,534 --> 00:56:17,298
we're always in Napa, and we'll keep tabs of each other. And
916
00:56:17,306 --> 00:56:21,090
if I love, I take my little portable studio up to Yonville and I just
917
00:56:21,122 --> 00:56:24,890
sit in the hotel conference room, and we do podcasts many
918
00:56:24,922 --> 00:56:28,666
times up there, so we'll just keep tabs and see what
919
00:56:28,690 --> 00:56:31,362
your travel plans are next time you're up there. We could be up there as
920
00:56:31,378 --> 00:56:34,174
well. Sounds like a plan for sure.
921
00:56:35,034 --> 00:56:38,854
Thank you for the time today and cheers. Cheers.
922
00:56:48,234 --> 00:56:52,074
Thank you for listening to wine talks with Paul Callum. Caryn, don't forget to subscribe
923
00:56:52,114 --> 00:56:55,826
because there's more great interviews on their way. Folks, have
924
00:56:55,850 --> 00:56:58,274
a great time out there in the wine world. Cheers.
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