In this episode of the Vint Podcast, Billy Galanko and Brady Weller cover their personal approaches to essential topics like wine buying, critic reviews, storage, and more! This episode is a treasure trove for wine enthusiasts and novices alike, offering a unique blend of personal experiences, expert advice, and industry knowledge.
Dive deep into the art of wine selection as Brady and Billy share their personal journeys, revealing how they've honed their skills in choosing the perfect bottle. Whether you're navigating local wine shops or browsing online selections, their tips and anecdotes will guide you in making informed choices. They unpack the influence of wine reviews and recommendations, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of how to interpret these resources to suit their palates.
Billy and Brady discuss the importance of proper wine storage, sharing their own setups and the crucial role of temperature and environment in maintaining wine quality. Whether you have a dedicated wine cellar or a modest collection, their insights will help you ensure your wine remains in its best form.
And for those looking to expand their wine horizons, Brady and Billy's conversation about discovering new wines and regions is a must-listen. They encourage stepping beyond the familiar, sharing stories of their own delightful discoveries and the joy of exploring the vast world of wine.
Subscribe and tune in on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to join Brady and Billy on this flavorful journey.
The Vint Podcast is a production of the Vint Marketplace, your source for the highest quality stock of fine wines and rare whiskies. Visit www.vintmarketplace.com.
Cheers!
Past Guests Include: William Kelley, Peter Liem, Eric Asimov, Bobby Stuckey, Rajat "Raj" Parr, Erik Segelbaum, André Hueston Mack, Emily Saladino, Konstantin Baum, Landon Patterson, Heather Wibbels, Carlton "CJ" Fowler, Boris Guillome, Christopher Walkey, Danny Jassy, Kristy Wenz, Dan Petroski, Buster Scher, Andrew Nelson, Jane Anson, Tim Irwin, Matt Murphy, Allen Meadows, Altan Insights, Tim Gaiser, Vince Anter, Joel Peterson, Megan O'Connor, Adam Lapierre, Jason Haas, Ken Freeman, Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Skyler Weekes, Mary Gorman McAdams, Nick King, Bartholomew Broadbent, Nick Jackson, Dillon Sykes, Mark Bell, David Keck, John Szabo, Channing Frye, Jay Hack, Julia Harding, Austin Hope, Michael Minnillo, Jermaine Stone, Jim Madsen, Santiago Archaval, Tom Smith, Sebastian Lowa, Matthew Crafton, Tony Parker, Andrew Caillard, Mike Veseth, Madeline Puckette, John Olney, Matthew Kaner, Amelia Singer, Chess Martin, and more!
In this episode of the Vint Podcast, Billy Galanko and Brady Weller cover their personal approaches to essential topics like wine buying, critic reviews, storage, and more! This episode is a treasure trove for wine enthusiasts and novices alike, offering a unique blend of personal experiences, expert advice, and industry knowledge.
Dive deep into the art of wine selection as Brady and Billy share their personal journeys, revealing how they've honed their skills in choosing the perfect bottle. Whether you're navigating local wine shops or browsing online selections, their tips and anecdotes will guide you in making informed choices. They unpack the influence of wine reviews and recommendations, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of how to interpret these resources to suit their palates.
Billy and Brady discuss the importance of proper wine storage, sharing their own setups and the crucial role of temperature and environment in maintaining wine quality. Whether you have a dedicated wine cellar or a modest collection, their insights will help you ensure your wine remains in its best form.
And for those looking to expand their wine horizons, Brady and Billy's conversation about discovering new wines and regions is a must-listen. They encourage stepping beyond the familiar, sharing stories of their own delightful discoveries and the joy of exploring the vast world of wine.
Subscribe and tune in on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to join Brady and Billy on this flavorful journey.
The Vint Podcast is a production of the Vint Marketplace, your source for the highest quality stock of fine wines and rare whiskies. Visit www.vintmarketplace.com.
Cheers!
Past Guests Include: William Kelley, Peter Liem, Eric Asimov, Bobby Stuckey, Rajat "Raj" Parr, Erik Segelbaum, André Hueston Mack, Emily Saladino, Konstantin Baum, Landon Patterson, Heather Wibbels, Carlton "CJ" Fowler, Boris Guillome, Christopher Walkey, Danny Jassy, Kristy Wenz, Dan Petroski, Buster Scher, Andrew Nelson, Jane Anson, Tim Irwin, Matt Murphy, Allen Meadows, Altan Insights, Tim Gaiser, Vince Anter, Joel Peterson, Megan O'Connor, Adam Lapierre, Jason Haas, Ken Freeman, Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Skyler Weekes, Mary Gorman McAdams, Nick King, Bartholomew Broadbent, Nick Jackson, Dillon Sykes, Mark Bell, David Keck, John Szabo, Channing Frye, Jay Hack, Julia Harding, Austin Hope, Michael Minnillo, Jermaine Stone, Jim Madsen, Santiago Archaval, Tom Smith, Sebastian Lowa, Matthew Crafton, Tony Parker, Andrew Caillard, Mike Veseth, Madeline Puckette, John Olney, Matthew Kaner, Amelia Singer, Chess Martin, and more!
You're listening to the Vint Podcast, where we bring you interviews and stories from around the world of wine and spirits, from winemakers and critics to sommeliers and masters stillers. We'll explore the people and businesses who are instrumental in shaping the future of today's food and drinks culture. Enjoy the show. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Vint Podcast. My name is Brady. Join back in studio by Billy Galanco. How was your weekend, billy?
Speaker 2:It was pretty great. Have you ever heard of Adam Perry? Lang Is the famous barbecue man.
Speaker 1:Is this a famous West Coast barbecue man? Thing?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure. All I know is that my friend, who worked in the culinary field hospitality for a really long time, let us know that there was a pop-up on by Adam or, yeah, perry Lang, and we went and we had his barbecue, and it was really amazing. He has 300,000, 400,000 followers on Instagram, so I think people know who he is. I'm not exactly sure where he's based, though, but that was the highlight of mine, yeah, sunset Boulevard, there you go, that was where the pop-up was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. What do they serve? Is it like pork? Do they do brisket and beef, or oh yeah?
Speaker 2:I mean he had all sorts of stuff. So he had an eight-pulled pork. He had a 48-ounce tomahawk that he sliced up for you. We had lamb, like lollipop lamb, what he called. So he had the standard pork ribs that he made not just standard, but his way Colossal beef ribs which are foot-long and six inches of meat on either side, or a lot of meat, three inches of meat. Yeah, let me add that to the pork. Yeah, I think that's it in terms of all the meats. There might have been one more meat that I'm forgetting and then a bunch of random sides. It was in conjunction with this Korean pop-up that's going on at the restaurant nearby that my friend's consulting, for he's doing the beverage program for them. So we got some good wine and some sides, also for free. That was nice.
Speaker 1:Oh cool. Yeah, it was reminded this past week that we had grown up eating a lot of beef, a lot of chicken, a lot of pork I guess a lot of chicken mainly. But I was always kind of like, ah, about pork chops. And then recently I just realized again that a really well-done pork chop is pretty good. It was really good. So I just want to make that comment for listeners.
Speaker 2:I think the range of pork chops, in particular the range from quality, is actually some of the most broad. Like a bad pork chop is so far from a good pork chop Really bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, that's a good comment and but yeah, a really bad one is just gray, tough, just horrible, right, exactly Inedible, exactly, it's like eggs. There are a million ways you can mess up eggs, just like pork chops. A million ways you can mess up pork chops.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just thinking about comparing this into a steak. This might be a hot button issue for some people. But you can overcook a steak, but the worst steak you can possibly make is not as bad as the worst pork chop you can make. I won't say the best steak you can make is as good as a pork chop, but it can go downhill pretty quick and unless you have like applesauce or something to slap on it, you can't even yeah, a little of your Virginia coming out with the applesauce on the pork chop.
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:I guess so, even though my mom taught it to me and she's from Chicago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know too much about Midwest food tradition, except for the deep dish pizza which I'm not even sure is a food tradition.
Speaker 2:I think it is between Chicago and Detroit style pizzas being medium and deep. But yeah, okay, enough about food today. Do you want to give a little preview into what we're going to do this episode? We're not going to have an interview, it's just going to be Brady and I covering some hot topics in one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hot button issues. We just put together a few questions, I think mainly centered around wine buying, preferences, storage, just yeah, what does my typical year look like of buying, storing and consuming wine and what does Billy's look like and what are the differences in the way that we do things? And hopefully there can be a little healthy debate and maybe some learning about how folks who spend a fair amount of time thinking about buying, drinking and storing wine might do things differently.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it was our first. Yeah, I didn't want to cut you off. I was going to say, especially for this time of year when everybody is also potentially buying wines for holiday parties or you're buying wines as gifts or even shopping for yourself, we figured now would be a good time to go over these, in case I don't know if you have a wine lover in your life and you're trying to buy something for them or talk about how they store wine. So hopefully it'll be helpful for everybody who can run the gamut.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we started at first. Couple of questions have more to do with buying habits and such. So the first thing we had here was how do you decide on where to buy your wines? What kind of shops do you buy online, and do you usually buy one bottle at a time, two bottles at a time, or do you buy in bulk with select wines? I'll take it to you to answer first.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would say it's changed a lot over the years and I think everybody has. I went through phases. First, when you're just when I'm studying, or I was first learning about wine you just buy to try to learn, I would say over the next decade or so, I really was into buying wine from wineries. While I was there I was like, oh, you can't get this anywhere else. This is amazing, which is actually very true. But then I ended up I'd come home from like a trip to Paso with 20 bottles and I was just like now I got a lot of Paso to drink and I think this is going to go into kind of we'll touch on it more.
Speaker 2:But for me, I'm always trying to try new things, new varieties, new regions, new producers.
Speaker 2:So the way we tend to consume, like we've mentioned on the podcast, is going to wine wine bars and trying multiple different wines.
Speaker 2:So when I'm in a shop like we have a couple nearby I'm looking for things that are either things I've not had before, things that I know are hard to find in terms of producer, or like certain region, and when I say things I haven't had before, it might be a variety I've never had before a region I've never had before, or like a blend, and then we typically will go in and if something, it's really spontaneous, if something peaks our fancy and then and I say we might, my fiance and I then once one of us grabs a bottle, it's rare that we leave a shop without probably getting four or like close to between four and six bottles. It tends to be like if we're going to carry this anyway, or if you're getting one, I want to get one. So, and luckily she has a very similar palette, so we end up getting four or six. It's not based on reviews. It would be based on all those things I said and how the wine was made If it was made in like a weird way also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're talking to the wine shop owner or you just looking at labels.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at the shop probably yeah, mostly but I'm looking mostly to the back label and Googling. I find it. I like it. For me, wine buying is more of an introspective process. I also find that unless you're at like a person working there pretty well and their level of, I guess, knowledge, I tend not to ask because, also like the run of the mill wine buyer, by the time you get to the point where it's like they know that you're about wine without you coming across as like a douchey and being like I'm a sommelier or I work in wine, it takes forever. So I just tend to do it on my own and then so that's for most places. If I go somewhere K and L where it's like they literally have a category expert walking around or something like that, I will ask, because that gets a little more in the weeds when you have more traditional wines. But when it's a mix of traditional and natural understanding, more how it's made is easier to help. What about for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's also evolved to, and I guess I won't go through the whole evolution of what I used to do and what I do now, but yeah, I think it's a combination, like you said, of in-store and online, obviously. But if I'm buying in-store, it's probably something I'm going to drink like that week or even that night, and if I have free time on a weekend or something and maybe my wife's not in town, I'd like to just go to shops and walk around and see what they have and just hang out, and so I always feel obligated to at least pick up one bottle if I go in there. So usually that's what ends up happening. If I'm in retail stores these days. It's not because the bulk of my buying online isn't because I don't want to support the local shops, it's just that the pricing sometimes is just so much better online. It's just extremely hard to compete and I don't fault anyone for that. It's just the reality of if you want to buy any sort of volume of wine. It's really tough sometimes to.
Speaker 2:Yeah for small shops, and that's in vain, though You're also looking for particular things. I feel like when you're buying, you have something in mind, whether it be a region or a producer, and that's harder to find just by wandering the shops, right, yeah, so exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the bulk of my buying I have in mind I want to acquire X kind of wine or from a certain region, but when I'm in a shop I'm more open to. I'll basically buy anything that they say hey, I had this recently, I just brought this in. Yeah, much more agnostic when I'm in a shop to what I leave with. And then online, there are four or five producers that I buy from every year, direct from the producer. I guess it's Barbersville Ridge, the Farm, grandville, and I feel like there's one more, but just, oh, linden in Virginia as well. So those are the ones that I buy from every year. And then, outside of that is just filling a case with a wine merchant, an online merchant, which for me is usually now hopefully the vintage marketplace, more and more especially as we do more single individual bottles, but Woodland Hills is also. I like to put together a case over the course of six or 12 months with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I think and we can talk about a little bit maybe briefly here, rather than because we have a little bit down further about talking about storing wine but, I think, understanding what's also in our sellers even though yours is bigger than mine, and but we're by no means like big collectors compared to people who have full sellers built under their house. But I have my wine fridge of I don't know 30 or 40 bottles of things I have collected over the years that are aging, and then I have another stuff that's not actually in the fridge, probably another 50 bottles around the house, maybe 40. And then so I have those.
Speaker 2:And there are things that Vinfolio that I bought, whether it be via NFT, like my giant magnums of Mondavi, or things that I thought were going to potentially increase in value, like some 2018 Palmer or this random Anjelous homage to I can't remember who. It's an homage to Elizabeth Boucher, I think, but anyway. So I have those collector wines there. I have these ones that are actually maturing that I'll drink some day here, some that are in like a closet maturing here, that are mediocre but they will age, and then I have like super investment wines in the UK like in a locker there. So it's that kind of frames why I'm mainly going to a shop and spontaneously buying wines, because that's the end goal is drinking it in the next month or so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point. Storage situation has a big effect on what you're buying for, and even though I have more dedicated storage at my house, it's maxed out now and so I'm moving into a similar phase. The urine I have my Eurocove and then I have a 40, 50 bottle like smaller fridge downstairs, and so between the two I can probably, in a good climate, store 175 bottles, but outside of that, which doesn't actually sound like too many more than what you said, you probably have 95 around the house, yeah, probably.
Speaker 2:So yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess it's a few more, but really at this point when I'm drinking wines out of the cellar, it's probably for an event or an occasion or something like that, and so if I'm going to move stuff around and make space in the cellar, it's going to be a wine that I intend to sit on for five plus years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we can make a move out of that. Yeah, I've moved away from, personally, aging wines for consumption. If I'm going to want an aged wine, I'm going to go buy it from somebody who's taken care of it for sure for a long time. But all right, cool. So let's go on to the next one. What is when you're buying wine? What is your opinion? Or how do you take reviews into account? And I like this other aspect to it reviews and recommendations. So if somebody recommends, who are you actually listening to? Or are their friends and family? And then how? What is the role of reviews in your purchasing process?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's more of a. If I'm looking at a wine or a producer that I just really know nothing about and maybe from a region that I just have less familiarity with, reviews obviously are going to play a little bit more a factor, because I just have less of a personal opinion or knowledge maybe. But I think I'd probably use it just as like a clearing stick. So you know, if a wine has 93 or 94 points and above from a critic that I generally have a favorable view of, then that's kind of like okay, passes the smell test. I can sort of make a decision from there. And I feel like when I'm typically buying these days, I'm probably sorting wines at 94, probably 94 points. So if there's at least one 94 point review on that wine on that particular merchant site, then I'm going to take a look.
Speaker 1:Tim Atkin, wine advocate, those are going to be, yeah, those are going to be probably the ones I look for. Lisa Prottie Brown, jane Anson, or folks names I'm going to look for. And then if James Suckling has a review on a wine that I'm really interested in and he gives it like a 92, it's probably really good. So I might go for that too.
Speaker 2:You're still on the Fade, james Suckling reviewer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think yeah, especially if he gives like a classically fuller bodied or yeah, like if he's reviewing like a Napa Cab and he gives it a 92 and other folks give it a 95, it's probably really, really good.
Speaker 2:And for our listeners background. It's a stereotype, but James Suckling tends to be very generous with his scores, so they all tend to be really high. So Brady's saying basically look for the anomalies, and these are ones that somehow stood out to him as different, which might be actually good, depending on your palate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the other I guess guideposts I use when I don't know a producer is to buy based on vintage, so you can get a little bit better idea of what was a quote, unquote good vintage in a particular region and then buy based on that, although, on the other hand, at the end of the day, the best producers produce really great wine and all of intiges. But it can be another sort of clearing stick for making a decision if that helps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I would say the way I use reviews. I don't really drink a lot for personal consumption, but especially for the marketplace or random advising clients. One would be definitely look at your respected critics, whoever's, how it's aligned with yours. Like you said, the wine advocate does work with William Kelly. We had him on the podcast. Jane Anson always provides a nice and her website's not just her anymore provides a nice counter to a lot of the mainstream reviews as well. So Jansis Robinson I think the website is just called Jansis Robinson Now. It used to be called Purple Point. That's right, yeah. And then there's Venus and a bunch of things.
Speaker 2:I get a consensus review, but then also see if there are consistent tasting notes. If people are still tasting the same things but maybe their numbers are different, that's a good sign of what the wine would probably taste like. And then again, yeah, using it to differentiate between vintages. So if somebody who's been tasting at some of these more prestigious producers for a decade even a burghound, for example, who get a taste in the barrel, then they give you an updated taste from the bottle. I like those opinions a little bit more because they do have a sense of what the wine should be what past vintages are and then how that might evolve. So I think there are I do like people like William Kelly who are newer to the space but he's also been tasting so for many years. But there are people like Burghound who's focused and years of dedication with just specific region allows for a nice depth and some context. As he's tasting younger wines, I think that's helpful as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think there are some keywords that you can look for in a review. If the reviewer says it's it compares this way to the last two vintages or something like that, or if they're comparing to other wines in the region, I think that's really helpful because they have a frame of mind and a context for what that wine could be or maybe has gotten to. I think Tim Atkin does a good job with that. I find that it's pretty hard to get really really high scores from him, which is, yeah, a positive flag for me.
Speaker 2:Nice nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I guess for my actual personal consumption, though, like a lot of the wines I'm drinking are just randomly obscure small producers that nobody's really heard of, imported by small, weird importers on purpose. So most of them don't have reviews and, if anything, if they do, that's more disconcerting for some of those more obscure, weird ones. Yeah, of course I like it when I'm drinking a good wine or like a I don't know a Krug or something, especially a champagne maybe, has good reviews. That helps. Sure, I guess they're a little more mainstream, but, yeah, not as much on the review side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you. Do you buy based on the conditions and context around how the wine was produced, whether it's like single vineyard for certain regions, or case quantity production or anything like that, like how scarce the wine is? Does that influence your decisions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm like a viticultural and vinification I like to say endured. I'm sure there are people out there who are actually actually work in the space that are way more nerdy than I am, but anytime I can read it extensively on the back or in the description about how the wine was produced, if it was a weird way, if they did something with the stems, if they left the skins on for a weird amount of time, any of those weird production methods. And again, like if the vineyard was small, large, unique aspect. I love all of that. So I'll eat that stuff up and though that makes it even different to me, even if it's like a wine from a like, say, like a Cote de Rhone.
Speaker 2:If you find a Cote de Rhone that's made in bulk, everybody can find Cote de Rhone, but this one they're like, oh, it was a small plot and it had a unique angle and we had this random mix of grapes as opposed to the normal GSM. At the beginning I'm like, oh, this will be nice. Like we had a Kunwa this weekend. I was just like gotta check out this Kunwa. So yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and because, because I think typically these days buying and then drinking for occasion, if we have a dinner party or some kind of celebration if I'm bringing out, like several wines that I've purchased, I like to be able to maybe have some of that story element to it too, or to be able to say, hey, like, this is a really cool wine. They only made 80 cases of it. It's from this kind of producer that you just would never find. I got it here. I don't know. It just helps with the and getting into price, which we're about to dive into a little bit, also makes me a little bit more price agnostic too, if I there are some of those elements to the story of the wine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I guess, talking about price, what are your let's do it in two ways what would be a good guide for you telling a consumer like a good band where you can get quality wine, and maybe name a couple of regions for like certain aspects, like certain bands? So if you're looking for quality wine under 25 bucks, what would you look at? And I guess, and then, yeah, are you looking above that? Give us some bands.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good question. I don't think the starting place should be how much do you want to spend when you're going out to buy a wine? It's just tough that way because if you're looking, if someone says to me I'm looking for a big, bold, juicy wine from the US, initially you might go to something like Napa, but then you can't really give them a wine in the $15 to $30 category. It's just the quality is not going to be there maybe. So I'd say in general, and for my own buying, I'd probably tell people this if they're trying to become a little bit discerning about what they're buying.
Speaker 1:I know other folks have maybe said around $14, $15 is a price point like not to go below just because it's super hard to get quality at that price point. But I think I'd probably put it these days more at 18 to 22. You can get a really good ball of wine for around $20 to $25, but I wouldn't go too far below 20. I don't think and that's just like a really broad generalization across all regions and all grapes, versus trying to be specific about one or the other I guess something to say would be the price or the quality, in my opinion, really jumps from 25 to 30 to 35 to 40 versus. Maybe that margin becomes a little bit narrower from 40 to 100. But then I also believe that there's a really big jump again after $115 or $120 or so, if that makes sense I think that's been my experience and then after $150, you're probably only paying for story scarcity, something like that, or the name of the producer, maybe. Yeah, that's my initial thought. It's not super granular, but does any of that resonate?
Speaker 2:I think that makes sense. I do think, though, it's the reality, that a lot of people are going to the store being like I want to spend X, and they know maybe they want a red wine, maybe they want a white wine. So I think the way I try to do it is, when my friends ask, they'll tell me how much they want to spend, and then they'll tell me the style, and I try to get them below. What I will say is to your point, I think there are like and I was trying to get at this earlier like bands of quality wines from certain regions that you can find for certain prices, so I think there's like under $25.
Speaker 2:If somebody came to me and was like I want a white wine that has like some minerality to it and it's not just like a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which you can find in their quality, we actually got one for this weekend. Sometimes you're just feeling one. Maybe he was feeling the Sauvignon Blanc, so we got it. So, but I could point people to like certain like alberinas, like certain Spanish wines, even like a Verdeo or or Grooners. So it's interesting where you can find some of these value wines that are well produced, not like in total mass that have some character to them under that in your band, like you were talking about between 1520, I think. But then using that same thing maybe you could find, like a regular Beaujolais, maybe even like a village in some run of the mill, spanish wines again, or Italian. But what I think is interesting there is you can use those levels to inform yourself for the next level.
Speaker 2:So it's if you're not finding literally any wines from a certain region under that price. That doesn't necessarily mean they're that much better. That just means their entry level wines are so much more expensive. So for Burgundy you're going to be paying, at least out here. I've saw, I guess when we were in Atlanta we bought some for $0.70.
Speaker 1:So I'm just talking about like the baseline Burgundy Rouge cheapest you could get, oh, the Vellage, or okay, yeah, even just macro Burgundy, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's like when you see that and then you see a cool Austrian Zwei Gelt that's like $17 that you can be getting really quality Austrian red wines for that like 25, 30 bucks. That's when you're getting into the producer putting their heart and soul of it. That's like their tier two, tier three wines. So I think that's to me a way of looking at is see where you can find and that medium price point that's no longer just a critter label, it's no longer just like a fanciful label, like it's actually like a region it's denoted and see what you can find in that cheaper price point and then you can take that and build on it for your middle price points, because the quality of that wine is just going to be getting better and you can just find so much value.
Speaker 1:I think, following that approach, yeah, and going to a good wine shop, you're going to have much better, much more opportunity to find wines in those bands. My favorite shop in Richmond when I was living down there, every wine in the shop was between $50 and $45 probably for the most part, $15 and $45 for the most part, and most of them were between $15 and $30. And I could close my eyes and grab something and know that it would be quality, and so there are exceptions to that and definitely depends on where you're shopping as well, like what you're going to find actually in those bands for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if the quality and just thinking about the grocery store, you're going to see I'm not going to speak, I don't know where everybody's listening to you but it's going to be a lot more domestic wines than you would see at some of these shops. So if you were to go and see the international section it might be a little lower and then you're going to have three or four big companies that are monopolizing most of that shelf space in the grocery store. So you just have to realize like a lot of the wines are going to be more similar and it's going to be harder to differentiate the true palette differences and the character that's driving the prices. And there it's going to be more brand driven and kind of placement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's probably the lowest I've ever paid for. A bottle of wine is like $4.50, $4.50. The most, I think, is $350 and the average is somewhere between $35 and $85. And that's a wide average.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we're throwing that out there. Let's see, I think the cheapest I still got was that sparkling ribolla gialla when we were in Italy last year. That was like a euro or two. It could have been when you're studying abroad in Prague we also. You could buy two liters of wine, so, but that was for like an actual bottle and that was actually pretty good. I was impressed the most all my own wines, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think you would actually drink, not for investment.
Speaker 2:Oh, not for investment. It was intended for investment, but I'm probably going to have to drink it. It's like 90 year old Madeira that I have, I think that was like 8.50, 9.
Speaker 2:At the time I bought it I thought I wasn't going to have to pay taxes on it on my way back in to the US. The VAT would have knocked off 20% and then I could have flipped it right here in the US for that price. But it was COVID and I didn't anticipate the tax office being closed at the airport. So no, no VAT. So I ended up paying a lot of VAT on all my Madeira. But luckily I like Madeira, so that's fine. But that was a downer.
Speaker 1:And your average is what Between 25 and 50?.
Speaker 2:It's 20% as VAT standard, pretty much.
Speaker 1:Now saying your average bottle purchase between 25 and 50.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, maybe I keep it between 20 and 30. Typically we might splurge a little bit above that for the right producer one I rarely see, but we don't really go much above 30 these days Because, again, it tends to be spontaneous and it tends to be we're going to have these soon, but if it's real, yeah, I would say that's probably a good rule of thumb, because I also like to your point our point earlier. If I want to drink something nicer, right now I still have a bunch around the house that has been aging, so it's probably like a champagne typically that I would go up above that and that's more in. Like the nowadays it has to be 50 or $60 range. Sometimes splurge on a Krug or something that's on sale. That's closer to two or three, but it's really a champagne. I think is the only thing that I'm buying at the store. That's like regularly throughout the year. That's above 50 bucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice. All right, let's move on. What do we have here? Discovering new wines. Yeah, we've talked about this pretty extensively. I know we have it on here of actively seeking out new wines in regions or sticking to our favorites. What's a surprising discovery that you've made or a random purchase that you've made? I think we would probably go forever on this. We talk a decent amount about either new regions, especially you. You're drinking pretty widely right now with your studies and stuff around, but yeah, I don't even think for me who doesn't drink quite as widely. I don't think I really only drink one thing either. It's, yeah, a little bit seasonal for me what I might reach for.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I've always drinking drinking, Wow Chosen my wine in a more exploratory manner. I think it's because I started in as a studying for my sommelier exams, but then ever since then, I find the history and the kind of geography and the regional nuances the most interesting part about wine. So I've always, regardless if I'm studying or not, I'm actually I have to narrow my drinking when I'm studying because most of the wines in the world aren't tested ever, so I have to go back to more mainstream stuff. But yeah, the weirder, the weirder the variety, the more obscure the more. They can tell me some story that's probably fake, that they found one vine behind a church that they've propagated and now I've made this wine more happy I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I think that it probably has a lot to do with how you got into wine. If you come into it from the standpoint of oh I started in wine education very early makes sense that you would be drinking more broadly Earlier on. Maybe I felt like when I started my started drinking more wine, it was really just trying to figure out what I liked and what the differences were, and so just by through that process, probably trying more monolithically at that point, then I do now, just because I was trying to figure out, like what does it mean that all the wines I like keep having sarah in them? So that was how it started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say also, something that I would recommend for folks is it can be intimidating to try to find new regions and especially if, like you, find weird grape names intimidating as opposed to exciting, like I do, and you could always like just start out small and by Googling or searching, like wine parallels to like your favorite wines, and it's always interesting to see what wines around the world are similar.
Speaker 2:And then I found that when you try one wine from a region that might be similar to something you like, there's also tends to be like two or three other wines made from a very similar region or not a region, like from the same region, maybe in a different style, and you're like, oh, let me see what else is known in this, this region and they tend to. It tends to be like a nice way to snowball and explore other ways, just trying to find parallels to what you're already familiar with. But I encourage everybody to branch out because I think there's always a way to drink more, better quality wine and probably for less than you think you think is possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and the more, the quicker you can get away from. This is the style I like and this is what I'm looking for, and just try and remove those expectations when you come to a new glass of wine or new bottle of wine. The better, like, the earlier you can do that in your journey. Otherwise you get into a rut of you expect every red wine to have the same characteristics of the last red wine that you like, instead of being a little bit more open-handed with oh, if this has a lot more acidity or is maybe more tannic, like that's not bad and doesn't necessarily mean that it's not a wine for me. It just means that this is a new aspect that I can learn to appreciate and try and understand and maybe I don't go back to that wine a ton. I think trying to remove those expectations early is helpful.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, I'd try. I recommend trying everything, even if you don't think you're going to like it, because you never know. Speaking of that random side story from this weekend, we went to this Japanese place for dinner on Friday and we had our dinner with shaved ice, a matcha shaved ice which is different than it's not like a snow cone, it's like a distinct style of Asian shaved ice. I recommend everybody get it. So my favorite dessert in the world is Taiwanese shaved ice, but this was Japanese, with just matcha basically poured on, then red beans, and I guess I had so much bitter matcha that we went to a wine bar afterward and we had it's when we go to.
Speaker 2:But there was a new bartender Our normal guys weren't helping us and it's one where they go and they pour you three glasses and you tell them which one you like after you describe the style and he gave me two and I thought, since he didn't really seem to know what he was talking about, because he was like this one's from the Rhone it has, and then he like checks the back of the bottle I'm like, all right, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. So I tried them and they just tasted slightly berry flavored water like absolutely no texture. It was, they were horrible. And I was like, oh God, this shitty new excuse, my language, our crappy new guys just given me some bad wine. And then I tried a third one and it was one that they had poured for me before and I knew what it tastes like and it turns out my, my palate was just absolutely shot from.
Speaker 2:I'm assuming it was the matcha shaved ice base. I could have been something else, but it was so weird Like I've never had wine not taste like wine. Everybody's like oh, don't drink coffee before your exams. That's never bothered me, I've never really had anything, but I think it's the fact that matcha, the tea itself, was so tannic and bitter that it basically gobbled on to a lot of my, my taste buds that were typically used specifically with red wines. So I think that that was a. That was a disconcerting experience, but I was back back on Saturday, just fine.
Speaker 1:I thought it would have been like palate cleansing, but I guess not.
Speaker 2:What are you saying? The ice or the?
Speaker 1:tea itself. Yeah the ice, yeah the ice.
Speaker 2:But it's so finely grained ice basically it becomes one with a matcha. You're basically just drinking like a frozen tea and then by the time it melts a little bit, it's just like tea, just lots of matcha. But it was so good, but yeah, no, I would do not have red wine with it. Anyway, so we can pivot from that. We have a few other topics on here. I don't want to drag anything out. I think we've touched on some. Let's talk about digital tools and apps. Are you still using? I feel like you use these more than I do. What are you using these days and what have you found most helpful?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was using inventory, which I still use. We had them on the podcast a while back. I think it's a really great tool, seems like one of the better ones out there that has like a platform for storing your wine. But for me it got a little bit of a challenge because as my cellar filled up, my Uracov filled up, I had to start moving things around. When I got new bottles it just became a little bit cumbersome continually updating, swapping out the location of the bottles, because with that particular app you have the option to log the location of the bottle in your like digital, like 3D seller, which is really cool and is super helpful for finding. I actually use it the other night to find where something was that I knew I had, but I just couldn't find it in the pulling out all the racks.
Speaker 1:I think that I would like a system like that more if I had a physical cellar room in my house that had an abundance of storage, where I knew that I would never have to move anything around just to make space. So the answer is yes, I use it. I still use it. I just don't update it as much now and I think some of those tracking can be really helpful at the point where I'm able to have a physical room cellar, which I don't know if I ever will, but if I do, I think I'd probably go for like a barcode system and just be able to scan wines in and out as I get them. Might sound like super hardcore, but I think that's actually probably the easiest way to reliably keep track of what's going on.
Speaker 2:Do you still use Vivino? I knew you had an interesting approach to scores on Vivino and in terms of their quality.
Speaker 1:I buy from Vivino only because sometimes they'll give you like a hey, 20% off this merchant, which is. I've gotten some really good deals on wines through there and I've found quality is pretty good, especially from the larger retailers on there. Yeah, I don't really use it for reviews or scores anymore. I'll check it, especially if I'm out and I see a wine and I don't know what it is and just want to see anything extra about it. That's on the label. I might scan it and see what people have to say or what the pricing has typically been. But yeah, I don't log anything on Vivino, so I don't actually don't have anywhere where I consistently log self-scoring. I know you may be right. No, it's a little bit more because of your studies, but I'm not doing that right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I only write notes to like formal tastings. But yeah, I don't use any digital tools. I think the digital things I would like, the apps I have or the things that I'm a member of, are just all content based. So I'm in the. The V is for Vino VIPs.
Speaker 2:We've had Vince on a few times. If you guys want to watch his stuff, it's all free on YouTube. But he has some additional content and access via his website, which is cool. He has like weekly or not weekly, like monthly meetups, I think, with him and you can hang out. He's actually coming and doing a launch party here in LA the end of the month which I'm going to go to, which are cool. And then I'm also we had Joe Fathrinian, so I pay to watch the wine show as well. And then I also still subscribe to SOM TV, the app.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. I primarily they have some interesting like historical and deep dives on some regions and they had I mainly watch for their blind tasting episodes. I think they're really interesting, but they don't make them as much as they used to. They're cleaning more into like a food, a food scene. So those are how I use technology and wine these days. But yeah, so I guess, moving on from there, we don't want to last too long. Maybe you want to pick one last topic and I'll pick one that we can ask about, maybe like a question from each.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe either learning from some mistakes in purchasing in the past, with either purchasing or storage, or the seasonal purchases note we have on which would you rather talk about?
Speaker 2:Let's do this the errors, the storing. Let's combine mistakes and storage. I would like to hear about any mistakes you've made with storing, but I have a specific one from my partner here, from Mei Yi, and then I can talk about other just mistakes in my learning process, but you go first there. What about you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't had too many like storing mistakes. I like soon after I started buying wine in any volume at all, I picked up like a pretty like just cheap wine fridge off of Facebook marketplace and started storing there. So I've always had pretty good luck with storing wine. I did because it was cheap, the shelves were bad and I had one of the shelves collapse once and break two bottles, which was terrible. So, yeah, if you're a fridge that you bought is 60 bucks but then the shelf collapses and breaks two bottles that are worth combined $70, then you probably should have just got $130 storage unit. Anyways, yeah, no real mistakes there.
Speaker 1:I think my main mistakes were probably been around buying.
Speaker 1:It's probably buying too much of things that I either didn't really know much about, in the sense that I might have bought two bottles of something that just because it seemed like for the region and like style of wine that the price was good and so I just bought it to have.
Speaker 1:Versus now I'm definitely like a lot more discerning about why I buy a particular bottle and how much of it I buy, and while I was building my seller, I definitely purchased two to three bottles of something that just because I thought that the pricing was good for that particular style and I wouldn't do that anymore. I felt like a mistake. I like that. That was probably on some of those like discount sites or like daily deal sites where I would buy some wine at that time, which is fine. I'm not knocking those sites necessarily, but there's a reason why you're getting a Napa Cab at $39.99. Not that the quality is always horrible, but the so the intrigue of that wine might not be super high and so you probably don't want three bottles of it just because the price was good.
Speaker 2:Yeah now that sometimes there are some gems. As someone who used to work for a producer say, you have a bunch of perfectly good wine and you need to move it out of certain places for like storage, for example for the next vintage. Sometimes it's just got to move. So those aren't horrible, but I think those are good tips. I would say the two mistakes I made I actually thought of one I personally made in addition to May's. The first one was when I first met her. She didn't store her wine in a fridge or anywhere. Really that was meant for wine.
Speaker 2:So one I will say wine is more robust than you think, so don't, if you're not going to be aging it for years. It's not the end of the world to put it in like a cabinet or a closet and as long as it's laid flat and outside of light like UV rays are the worst you should be okay for a short amount of time. So it's not that bad, especially for red wines. But she, when I first met her, they would store their wine above the oven and that was possibly the worst place, aside from the light issue. It was definitely dark, but that's the worst place to store the wine because she absolutely cooked the crap out of it and yeah, and they would just store that and their beer and everything. They were like this weird, we really only like the spirits up here. We just saved the beer for other people and I was like, oh, I wonder why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, next to the fridge and next to the dishwasher, those cabinets are also not great ones either, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and unfortunately for us right now we have some of our quasi-regular drinker not regular drinker one. Yeah, we have one next to the dishwasher and I have a buffer like two lines of like crappy things that we will just give to other people, or spirits or fortified wines that already even heated like a buffer before the wines. I'm still not their wines, I don't really care about that much, but I would still prefer it not be next to the dishwasher. But then the other mistake I had goes back to your wine fridge and breaking things. Before I moved to this apartment I had three wine fridges and I didn't feel like unpacking them all and packing them up again or having the wine like change temperature. So I tried to carry one out. Was it with me? Yeah, we tried to. We tried to move them full and I just tried taping the doors like likely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's tough.
Speaker 2:That was a horrible idea. So we were going down the steps and then one door burst open and like all the bottles flew out and only a few broke. But like one of them was like this semi-on that I had from Australia that I had been like carefully aging for at that point had been like four years and basically it was a wine. When I got it the guy was like do not try this wine until it's like X amount old. So I was like really looking forward to it and that broke. So that was sad. So definitely don't be lazy. Unpack your wine fridge, then move, put it back in. One of my best tips.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree with the not needing dedicated storage like a fridge. That's where you're keeping your wines. But for most people, if you're storing, if you have over 15 or 20 bottles on hand at any one time at your house and don't have a fridge, like I said, there are fairly cheap options for picking up a used fridge on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or something that will do a great job. The one I have I paid $60 for and it's been working for me for six years and keeps temperature and, yeah, it's great. So, yeah, I think that that's probably a small price to pay for knowing that your wines are in a good condition and going to be out.
Speaker 2:If anything, it's closer to the service temperature. I think that's my favorite part about the wine fridge is when you take it out, especially for reds. I keep mine as cold as possible because I keep reds and whites in there, but if you take it out your wine's also almost ready to drink, which is great, and that's, I guess that would be. My other biggest learning and mistake is drinking too many wines not at their proper temperature, either too cold or too hot. It can drastically change the quality of your experience and the quality of the wine. So just be very conscious about the temperature of the wine, what it's supposed to be served at, and then the same eventually goes for decanting.
Speaker 2:I think that's a little bit more advanced. If it's a really big red wine from a traditional region, some people aren't going to like it. If you just open it at the table and it's fresh out the bottle, you need to at least decant it, or at least double decant it. You could decant it, enjoy, decant it and then pour it back in the bottle so everybody can still see you pouring out of the bottle. But I think those are two things that are really important to me, and I'm still personally getting better at decanting. Sometimes it's a pain, but temperature is something that's so easy that you probably shouldn't try to mess that one up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I used to decant every red wine I would drink, and now I very rarely decant properly, and so I need to get back to a good middle ground between those two things. Nice.
Speaker 2:Anything you want to leave everybody with ahead of this as they purchase wine for the holiday season? Yeah, we'll have.
Speaker 1:I think we're going to do a little episode, or at least an intro to an episode, where we talk through some maybe like 12 wines of Christmas sort of thing. So take some of the tips that we gave, or just experiences that we shared, and try and apply that to your wine drinking and buying this holiday season. May will provide some quick notes on wines that catch our eye this time of year or regions, producers, that catch our eye. We'll do that in a later episode Sounds good.
Speaker 2:Next week we will be back with another interview and it'll be giving you a perspective of what the wine kind of buying scene is like and what the customer is like in Asia. Actually it's going to be a really interesting conversation. But just understanding how different cultures approach wine and how the wine world and consumption is just so different in that market, in those markets yeah, you're going to learn this many, many markets, but they're all very different compared to us. So we will be back with that next week. For now, this is our episode. Have a great week, cheers.
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