Behind the Scenes at the Original Judgment of Paris Tasting

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French winemakers had been living off

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their old productions for many, many

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years, and they weren't living up to their work.

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And so that's why these California wines

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arrived. Of all things, were the best wines that day, were

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the California wines. Sit back and grab a

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glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K.

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Hey. Welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. We are available, of course, on your

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favorite podcast, Hangouts, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio,

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Pandora, you name it, we are there and always sponsored by the original

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Wine of the Month Club, touting some pretty interesting clubs. Now, the Napa

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series, the Sweet series, the Natural Wine series, et cetera.

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This is the beginning of an incredible series of

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podcasts and interviews I'm going to do. And we're going to

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start right at the core of this whole idea of the Judgment of Paris. I

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have Mr. George Tabor on the line with us today, and

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I just want to welcome you to the show, George. This is going to be

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a lot, a lot of fun. Great. Well, I'm very happy

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to be here with you. Thank you. Can you

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tell us, I think this story needs to be told.

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I lived through it in my teenage years. There was a movie on it,

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Bottle Shock, which really didn't do the story justice. After reading your book,

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what did the Judgment of Paris start out to be? What was Mr.

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Spurrier's idea in the first place? Just the cursory look at it.

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Well, he basically, you know, I was, you know,

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he didn't consider it to be, you know, the type of

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an event where, you know, the big winners and big losers,

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but just basically to show people what was happening

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in other places around the world in

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making outstanding wines. So I've given this book

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copies of the book, and you see them over my shoulder here. I've

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given many out to friends who are now becoming wine

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enthusiasts. And I had a young lady in the office yesterday,

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just graduated from college, and she, her father and I are friends and

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she wants to get in the wine business. And we'll talk about that, too, a

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little bit. But I said before you do anything, particularly in California, you

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need to read a copy of this book because it's going to tell you so

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much about the history and what happened back in

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1976, and that carries all the way to today.

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And here's this wine

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shop in Paris, rue de

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madeleine. Mr. Spurrier is an Englishman, right?

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Yep. Who fancied himself in wine.

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And you're a young journalist

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just out of college. A little bit more than that.

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But, you know, I was, I Was still in my. I think I was still

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in my 20s, certainly not 20. It was early. Early

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30s. But, you know, I was. I was still a kid.

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And so as a journalist, you. You moved to Paris, right?

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Yes, yeah. And so I. And this young

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lady is so interesting because she's like. And I want to go to. I want

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to go to Europe, and I want to study wine. I'm like, wow, this is.

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I've heard part of this story before, but what took you there

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as a young journalist to decide that this was the place to go?

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Was it. Was it the wine? Was it the food? Was it the lifestyle? The

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French young girls? Was it the young women there? What.

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Well, all of the above. I mean, it was.

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You know, we. I'd heard a lot about life in.

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In France, but until you really get there, you

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don't appreciate what just wonderful things can happen

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there. You know, the City of Lights

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had great interest in wine.

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All sorts of things just happening. The fact that Stephen,

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who was an Englishman. Why in the hell was an Englishman

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doing in Paris?

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Why was it American? Why was I in Paris? And, well, the

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answer is that they. They all were in,

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you know, in love with the

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wine and life size. Just the

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wonderful things that happened where wine was taking

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place. City of Lights. Yes, sure. Yeah.

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So you're talking. When did you get there? 70 something.

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Yeah, I was there about. Well, about three years before they

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actually left. And you were. This part's just

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my own curiosity because it's in your book, but I didn't quite grasp it. But

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were you an employee of Time magazine or you're an ad hoc

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journalist at Sydney? I was a full

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employer of Time. Okay.

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Worked for Time for a couple of years in the United

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States. But then, you know, I had pretty good

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French. They didn't have a lot of people who could work,

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work, work the business, as it were, in. In

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France. And so that's how, in effect, I. I got there. So

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were you. You went there particularly for food and wine

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or was. It was Time magazine stories? You know,

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you. In those days, you know, you only, you know,

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you'd have. In any given week in a story,

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story, you'd have four or five stories that you would have to do.

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So, you know, this was just another story. It was kind of the major

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story of my life at that point,

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which. It turned out to be. Obviously, we're gonna wait to talk about that, but.

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So, yeah, the wine trade. And I'm gonna reflect back

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in Palos Verdes, and there's one of your paragraphs Chapter 16 of the book talks

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about Palos Verdes, actually. But that's where my dad's store was. And,

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you know, the wine trade in America, particularly in California, was.

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It was restricted to a few great houses and some passionate

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people and some pioneers. There was certainly no trade. In fact, I love

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talking about the idea that I would stock the shelves with

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Sebastiani and it would say 100% cabernet on the label. Because we were

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so proud of the idea that we didn't blend grapes in those

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days. But my dad's shop was sort of a

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forefront of Los Angeles. There were five shops. If you. If you talk to Bruce

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Nyer, he'll tell you there were five shops in 1972 that you could visit in

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Los Angeles to sell anything. And one of them.

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So. So I know that Patricia Gallagher is part of

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this, and there's this idea now. Rue de Madeleine. Okay, well, actually, I have a

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different question. What was the climate of wine in Paris?

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Obviously, the French love their wine. They're much more acclimated to it at that time

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than America was. Was the corner wine shop

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a regular thing in Paris? Oh, yes, very much so. And then,

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you know, what Stephen was smart enough to

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know was, you know, that he could become the wine

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master for Americans,

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Englishmen, you know, all the

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foreigners around Paris. And that's why

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he got there. See, he's due on the show, I guess he's coming

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to Napa in a few months, and I'm going to meet him up

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in Napa and try and podcast with him. He's a good friend of another

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friend of mine, Melvin Masters, who's a great negotiat.

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So here you are. How did you hear about

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the idea that Steven Sperry was going to put on this

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California versus French tasting? Was it a. Well,

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Stephen had a variety of. Of

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things that happened. You know, he would have.

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He would do things that a lot of Frenchmen wouldn't do.

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And so he would just, you know, if he wanted to do something, he said,

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okay, let's. Let's do it. Let's. Let's. We'll get a couple of bottles of

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wine and see what it tastes like. And that's

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what. He was always there. So he always had something new

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and something property that, you know, was.

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Was. Was good for him. Something was going on because,

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you know, his main job was, of course, was

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to sell wine. Right? That's what. That's what he went for.

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But, I mean, the English sort of controlled,

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what, through the 50s, really, the. The distribution of Burgundy and

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Bordeaux. In. In. In England. Right. They were quite

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prolific in the trade of wine, French wine. Sure. For thousands

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of years. Yeah. They pretty much run the show. Right. And so

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he has a store. I don't know. I don't remember what Patricia

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Gallagher's relationship with him was. Was she part of the school that he was putting

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on? Is that what. Exactly. Yeah, they had. They had

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schools and programs and things like that. And that's how

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I attended a couple of those things. And that's how

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I first heard about the judgment of Paris coming.

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I was there. You attended those on. As a. Just a personal,

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you know, education on wine. You. You liked wine?

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Exactly. Yeah. I'm just gonna go check it out. Yeah, yeah. Because, you

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know, wine was. Wine was still for me in those days, you

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know, it was, you know, it was something

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almost very hard to get your hands around

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it. I just not. Wasn't an expert in it. And so, you know,

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I just. It was great to have somebody like Patricia and Stephen

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who could tell you about a wine tasting or. He also had

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shops, yet he also had, you know,

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visits around. Around the various wineries. Oh, yeah, right.

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Little tours and things. Yeah. So

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I just, you know, I just want to place myself there. Right. Because, you know,

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if you read. If you read A Movable

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Feast from. From Ernest Hemingway and you read about

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the romance of Paris in the twenties, and you fast

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forward. I think there was still tons of romance in the 70s. It was

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still not as commercial as it is today. And the Champs du Lazees was

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a place to hang out. And here's this young newsman's got a wine shop.

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He's got a class. And here's a young American who's come there

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to just document something in the. French

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culture about wine. I mean, yeah, I was

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in. In. In France at that time, but I didn't know an

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awful lot about wine when I had grown up in California.

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We never had wine at home, you know. Yeah, it's

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true. Every night I have a wine today.

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In those days, I never. Never just had. Where was. Where.

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Where did you grow up in California? At Riverside.

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On Riverside. Wow. Well, you know, that's the birthplace of wine in

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California. Right, right. I mean, hucamunga in the 1700s. This is a

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great story. I don't know if you've read the book from Francis

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Dickenspiel. It's called Tangled Vines. It's an incredible story.

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It's the. Let's see, arson, murder,

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and fraud in the wine business. That's what the story is. So it

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Starts with. But it starts in Rancho Cucamonga and the

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plantings in the 1700s and how it moved to Napa, but that's a different

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story. She's going to be on the show too soon. Okay. So you make.

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You know, I grew up with the iconic picture

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of. Of my dad's store. And my. And my father and I are standing in

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front of his first display of the Wine of the Month Club. This is 1975,

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and we had featured the Chateau Montelena 72 Chardonnay.

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And, you know, we were well acquainted, but that was on his way. As a

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very academic guy. He's got his master's in pharmacology, so he's trying to

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understand wine. Having bought a wine shop and you're

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in Riverside and the culture of wine really wasn't

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around here. It was more on the East Coast, I think, probably because

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we're so much closer. I think there was a lot more wine in those days

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on the east coast than there was on the West Coast. In fact,

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one of the stories. My dad was reading an article in the LA Times in

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1959 or 58 when. When Queen Elizabeth came here

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and Dwight Eisenhower hosted her and he poured

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Charles Krug Vineyard select at

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one of the lunches, not at the dinner. It was the first time a

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president had poured a California wine there. So history goes back to the

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50s. So now I've got Steven Spurrier

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and Patricia Gallagher put on these things. There's a young George Tabor there who's documenting

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things in Paris. And he. I understood from your book that

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they invited, you know, Gomeo and

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Michelin and all the rest of the periodicals and possibly some American

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ones, maybe Life magazine as well, to come to this tasting. And.

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No, no, because, you know, and nobody thought anything would be

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happening there. I mean, you know, everybody knew the French were going to win. I

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mean, of course, you know, that's. It's crazy to even

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have this thing, but if you can have it, you know, the French are going

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to have one. So do I waste the time of going to have.

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But I was lucky, smart. I

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decided to show up and see what happened.

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You know, we kind of give ourselves enough credit, even when things maybe we

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don't know that we're being lucky or that we're being smart. But whatever it is,

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you know, it created this amazing opportunity. In fact, I have a

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copy of the magazine here. And just to highlight that

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Jim Barrett did walk into my dad's store after the June 7

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edition of the Time magazine from 1976, and said, not bad for. For a couple

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of guys from the sticks. Which became one of his famous quotes. Right? Yes.

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And they had tasted together at Les Amie Devantes.

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So tell me what the structure of the tasting was

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from your book. It's very granular about what happened. But

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he decided to use French judges, which is an amazing idea in itself. Right, right.

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Yeah. Because, in fact, I think

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one of the things that's really important to understand is,

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was that the way that what Stephen doing was doing

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was to try to introduce to the

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French, not to the Americans,

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but to the French, what was happening in wine

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00:14:31,660 --> 00:14:35,500
in other places of the world. And California, you know, it was just

230
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one of the. One of those places that was also making wines.

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Most Frenchmen never had tasted a wine,

232
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but, you know, Stephen didn't. That didn't matter to Stephen. He just wanted to

233
00:14:47,780 --> 00:14:51,580
show it to the Frenchman of what

234
00:14:51,580 --> 00:14:55,260
was going on in the United States, especially

235
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in California. So he invited chefs, he invited noted

236
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wine authors, noted wine critics.

237
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He got the best that he could do. Really.

238
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He got the best. There was just no question about it. He didn't go out

239
00:15:11,580 --> 00:15:15,370
and field and, you know, grab somebody and he's, you know, he

240
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went and he went out and said, okay, look it up. I'm really important. If

241
00:15:18,930 --> 00:15:22,130
you want to have. Have something to do today,

242
00:15:22,850 --> 00:15:26,610
come and taste. Taste this wine. Tasting you. But you might find it's

243
00:15:26,610 --> 00:15:30,410
interesting. But nobody had ever say, hey, the California wines are

244
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going to win. Yeah. Well, my guess would be that they're like, oh, you know,

245
00:15:33,690 --> 00:15:36,850
I'll do it for fun, to see some old friends maybe, you know. Sure.

246
00:15:39,020 --> 00:15:42,540
Have a good time. Yeah. So. And it was held in a hotel.

247
00:15:42,940 --> 00:15:46,220
It's still there. Forgot the name of the hotel now.

248
00:15:46,540 --> 00:15:50,060
Yeah, he took it. But you got a room in a. Hotel in my book.

249
00:15:50,380 --> 00:15:54,180
Yeah, it's in the book. And. And

250
00:15:54,180 --> 00:15:57,260
they have. I forgot how many judges there were. Nine. Eight.

251
00:15:57,580 --> 00:16:01,420
Yeah. Eight. Nine. Something like that. Yeah. And so tell me the bath,

252
00:16:01,500 --> 00:16:05,130
like you're seeing there, you're this young man, you learned a little

253
00:16:05,130 --> 00:16:08,970
bit more about wine since you got there, and you

254
00:16:08,970 --> 00:16:12,690
respect these people that are sitting there and what. One of the things that

255
00:16:12,690 --> 00:16:16,370
was really important was I was the only. Since I was the only

256
00:16:16,370 --> 00:16:20,130
journalist that was there that day, I could get. Go around

257
00:16:20,130 --> 00:16:23,250
and I could listen to the

258
00:16:23,250 --> 00:16:26,730
winemakers do their

259
00:16:26,730 --> 00:16:30,250
testing, make their comments and all that. So,

260
00:16:30,550 --> 00:16:33,270
you know, very quickly, it became

261
00:16:34,550 --> 00:16:37,870
interesting because the judges were starting to get

262
00:16:37,870 --> 00:16:41,470
confused. You know, they weren't. They didn't just pick up

263
00:16:41,470 --> 00:16:45,110
a glass of Wine and say, oh, that's, that's French wine.

264
00:16:45,430 --> 00:16:49,230
You know, that's. Of course, that's, that's an excellent wine. Yeah, this

265
00:16:49,230 --> 00:16:52,350
is other stuff. I don't know what this other stuff is, but that's, that must

266
00:16:52,350 --> 00:16:56,190
be California because it's terrible. And then I'd look at the card and I'd

267
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say, hey, that's the. They had just tried French wines and

268
00:17:00,030 --> 00:17:03,810
the California wines. And these guys, guys, they liked California

269
00:17:03,810 --> 00:17:07,530
wines better than they were. So the, but the format

270
00:17:07,530 --> 00:17:10,130
was double blind. Right. Don't they bag them? And they actually.

271
00:17:11,490 --> 00:17:14,930
Yeah, they took them out of their original bottle. So the Frenchman couldn't decide based

272
00:17:14,930 --> 00:17:18,730
on. They made, they

273
00:17:18,730 --> 00:17:22,370
did it all, you know, correctly. Yeah. And so that.

274
00:17:22,530 --> 00:17:25,690
There's a comment in one of the, in your book and it's also my dad's

275
00:17:25,690 --> 00:17:29,090
newsletter, which much you must have gotten from your article in Time magazine

276
00:17:29,410 --> 00:17:32,450
about one of the French. One of the judges saying, ah, after you taste, I

277
00:17:32,450 --> 00:17:35,360
think one of the whites, he thought it was tasting Meursault and he was actually

278
00:17:35,360 --> 00:17:39,120
drinking one of the shards and he said something like, oh, we're back in France.

279
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:42,320
And he tried. What was the wine he got

280
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:47,400
right there. I mean, you and I know hard it is even

281
00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:51,240
for a trained, a trained psalm or trained master of wine

282
00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:55,040
to identify like that. Right. This, it's not that easy and

283
00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:58,640
there's a lot of elements that could confuse you. And here these

284
00:17:58,640 --> 00:18:02,250
folks are in this area and they're pretty confident. Now. He's, he's. Well, you know,

285
00:18:02,250 --> 00:18:05,090
these, you know, these are the best

286
00:18:05,650 --> 00:18:08,450
wine experts that France had to offer.

287
00:18:09,490 --> 00:18:13,090
That's amazing. And so they, and now we've tasted all the white wines

288
00:18:13,410 --> 00:18:17,090
and then they, they scored them by the group. So they did the

289
00:18:17,090 --> 00:18:20,610
whites first and then they announced the results at that point. Yes.

290
00:18:21,650 --> 00:18:25,330
And how was that? What was the temperature of the room at that moment? Well,

291
00:18:25,330 --> 00:18:28,960
at that point, then there was a lot of concern. You

292
00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:31,800
know, in effect, they had selected the

293
00:18:32,360 --> 00:18:36,120
California wines first and so they wanted to make sure they were. It wasn't

294
00:18:36,120 --> 00:18:39,560
going to happen the second time in a row. And sure enough,

295
00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:43,720
second time in a row they lost. The California wines

296
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:46,440
won. Well, it's not French.

297
00:18:47,480 --> 00:18:51,240
You know, they just did not understand what was

298
00:18:51,240 --> 00:18:55,080
happening. When we look at the score and my dad published those two

299
00:18:55,080 --> 00:18:58,860
in his newsletter and you have them here in your book. You know, the,

300
00:18:59,500 --> 00:19:03,020
the Chardonnays, the whites dominated. They didn't just win.

301
00:19:03,340 --> 00:19:06,860
Yeah, I think the top six spots were, four of them were, were

302
00:19:06,860 --> 00:19:10,700
California or at least Half. And the reds weren't. Didn't fare quite

303
00:19:10,700 --> 00:19:14,260
as well, but they did very well. Besides Warren's, you know, top

304
00:19:14,260 --> 00:19:17,420
position, the other brands did really well, too.

305
00:19:17,900 --> 00:19:21,500
And so I just, you know, so here's. So it

306
00:19:21,500 --> 00:19:25,260
happened. Okay? It happened. And there's the stories of the judges wanting their,

307
00:19:25,700 --> 00:19:29,140
their scorecards back and don't you dare, you know, take this off my desk and

308
00:19:29,140 --> 00:19:32,420
publish it. And. Yeah. Yeah, they were,

309
00:19:32,980 --> 00:19:36,820
they figured their job was on the, on the low.

310
00:19:36,820 --> 00:19:40,660
Yeah, it could be on the line. Yeah. On Crayab, you know, this is impossible.

311
00:19:41,459 --> 00:19:44,980
So you have these results, but it's still.

312
00:19:45,060 --> 00:19:48,500
Right. Is it still a story at that point? Is it a story yet?

313
00:19:49,220 --> 00:19:52,990
You know, it's probably confined to the, the, the streets of Paris at that

314
00:19:52,990 --> 00:19:56,590
point. Even in your magazine

315
00:19:56,670 --> 00:19:59,750
article. I mean, I'm going to pull it out here and just show the audience

316
00:19:59,750 --> 00:20:03,230
that's watching the, that's watching the podcast,

317
00:20:04,270 --> 00:20:07,910
even the. There's just one column in the, in the

318
00:20:07,910 --> 00:20:11,670
magazine. Right. It's just, it's not, it's kind of buried deep in the thing. And

319
00:20:11,670 --> 00:20:15,150
I don't even see a byline. There was no byline.

320
00:20:16,110 --> 00:20:19,510
You know, time. Time did have, you know,

321
00:20:20,470 --> 00:20:24,150
all the stories in the magazine were not, you know,

322
00:20:24,150 --> 00:20:27,590
written all the. Covered by

323
00:20:27,830 --> 00:20:31,350
somebody all the time. Yeah, there it is.

324
00:20:31,990 --> 00:20:34,870
Was there. Was there a chance that this was not going to get published?

325
00:20:37,590 --> 00:20:41,390
It could have well have happened because I think

326
00:20:41,390 --> 00:20:45,200
if the California wines had one,

327
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:49,080
say, half of the competition, I think the time would not have

328
00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:52,680
published the story really had to be that the California

329
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:56,080
wines had won in both categories, both

330
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:59,919
California and French had

331
00:20:59,919 --> 00:21:03,640
won. Then, you know, then it was then, then you had

332
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:06,880
a good story. It was. But it was still a sort of a slow

333
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:10,720
propagation around the States for this to mean

334
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:14,430
anything. It just seemed like it still need attraction. Right.

335
00:21:15,230 --> 00:21:18,950
And I know that even, I think you mentioned this, your depth of your

336
00:21:18,950 --> 00:21:22,750
book is amazing and understanding it. And I have all my friends that have

337
00:21:22,750 --> 00:21:25,950
read it now they talk about Mike Girgis, now they talk about Warren Wiarski and,

338
00:21:26,110 --> 00:21:29,630
and here's, you know, I think what was it? Was it Mr.

339
00:21:29,630 --> 00:21:32,350
Barrett or Mr. Wi was just sort of like out in the, out in the

340
00:21:32,350 --> 00:21:34,870
vineyard and so goes, hey, we won. They're like, okay, great, you know, what's for

341
00:21:34,870 --> 00:21:38,190
dinner? Yeah, they, they didn't have any contact

342
00:21:38,860 --> 00:21:42,380
that. No belief in that. This,

343
00:21:42,460 --> 00:21:45,580
this was going to, you know, change their whole

344
00:21:45,580 --> 00:21:49,260
lifetime. And that's what it did. You know, it just made their

345
00:21:49,260 --> 00:21:53,020
lives, it made their profits and everything.

346
00:21:53,100 --> 00:21:56,220
Just suddenly California wines were

347
00:21:56,700 --> 00:21:58,700
over the map and were

348
00:22:00,460 --> 00:22:04,300
expected to win that day.

349
00:22:04,380 --> 00:22:08,100
And they got, they got killed by, by the

350
00:22:08,100 --> 00:22:11,180
French. It wasn't, Wasn't it also, though, at that time,

351
00:22:12,060 --> 00:22:15,900
the French, the Bordeaux industry in particular was sort of

352
00:22:16,700 --> 00:22:20,380
in. In his ebbs and flows anyway, but it was not in a

353
00:22:20,380 --> 00:22:24,060
great state in the 70s. The popularity of its

354
00:22:24,060 --> 00:22:27,740
sales volume, I think quality, quality control was

355
00:22:27,740 --> 00:22:30,860
sort of. Wasn't there a problem there? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

356
00:22:31,590 --> 00:22:35,350
Well, the French winemakers

357
00:22:35,670 --> 00:22:39,350
had been, you know, been living

358
00:22:39,750 --> 00:22:43,030
off their old productions

359
00:22:43,590 --> 00:22:47,190
for many, many years and they weren't living up to

360
00:22:48,470 --> 00:22:51,990
their work. And so that's why, you know, when it here,

361
00:22:52,070 --> 00:22:55,270
when these California wines

362
00:22:55,830 --> 00:22:59,320
arrived. And what of all things were

363
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,880
the best wines that day were the California wine.

364
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:08,160
So it's. So that's fascinating to me because of those, you

365
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:10,800
know, you and I know we've been in this business a long time. We see

366
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:13,840
it ebb and flow. We see things come and go. We see, we see trends

367
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:17,480
come and go. Bordeaux, you always thought it's been here for 100 years or thousands

368
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:21,280
of years really, you know, well, since 1200, you don't think

369
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:25,130
there's anything different than what you know today. But there was these, these issues

370
00:23:25,210 --> 00:23:28,850
then about quality and in production

371
00:23:28,850 --> 00:23:32,250
quality, and now there's a chink in the wall, so to speak.

372
00:23:32,890 --> 00:23:35,570
I want to just one touch, one thing. When you write a story like this,

373
00:23:35,570 --> 00:23:38,730
and you wrote your story, you went back to your flat or your apartment, wherever

374
00:23:38,730 --> 00:23:42,450
you're staying, you wrote the story. And today it's so easy, right? We can

375
00:23:42,450 --> 00:23:46,050
just clip into an email or even just, you know, write a live in somebody

376
00:23:46,050 --> 00:23:49,730
else's database. What did you do then? Did you type it

377
00:23:49,730 --> 00:23:53,380
yourself and mail it? What was it teletyped? What happened?

378
00:23:53,700 --> 00:23:57,540
No, it was, you know, at the same time had, you know, because, you

379
00:23:57,540 --> 00:24:01,340
know, they had stories for everything, you

380
00:24:01,340 --> 00:24:04,980
know, for, for, you know, stories for,

381
00:24:05,380 --> 00:24:09,180
for several countries. And so, you know, it

382
00:24:09,180 --> 00:24:12,420
was. It was important to have a good copy, clean

383
00:24:12,420 --> 00:24:16,260
copy that would get to Paris and get,

384
00:24:16,420 --> 00:24:20,120
get to California. And how did that happen? Was it just mail?

385
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:25,400
No, it was, it was telephone, you know. Okay,

386
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:29,080
yeah. Wow. Because you'll say we take it for granted today, right?

387
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:32,040
Here you are, here you and I are, talking on, you know, on a camera

388
00:24:32,120 --> 00:24:35,640
in Rhode island, and we can say whatever we want and it's instantaneous.

389
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,920
But in 1975, that was a lot, a big difference. 76.

390
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:42,280
I'm going to read something. I'm going to read chapter 16, the first part of

391
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:45,280
this Chapter, because I want to. I'm going to step back now that we've understand

392
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:49,060
what the tasting was and what the impact in California on California wine was,

393
00:24:49,060 --> 00:24:52,540
which we haven't. Twice. Correct. But the first sentence of Your book in 19,

394
00:24:52,620 --> 00:24:56,420
chapter 16, page 155, is, in the summer of

395
00:24:56,420 --> 00:25:00,180
1975, Patricia Gallagher was making plans to visit

396
00:25:00,180 --> 00:25:03,780
her sister in Palos Verdes Estates, a wealthy coastal

397
00:25:03,780 --> 00:25:07,020
community south of Los Angeles. Well,

398
00:25:07,500 --> 00:25:11,100
I told my dad's 92 and still doing

399
00:25:11,100 --> 00:25:14,620
great, and I was with him. I took him a copy of this book a

400
00:25:14,620 --> 00:25:18,440
few weeks ago, and I read him this sentence. He goes, oh, yeah.

401
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:22,160
She goes. She says she came in the store. I go, what do you mean?

402
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:24,920
He goes, yeah, she came in the store, introduced herself and what she was doing

403
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:28,080
and that she was on her way to Napa to choose some wines or do

404
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:30,920
something, and she owned a little shop or was part of a shop in Paris.

405
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,880
My dad speaks French. So they had a little conversation. I said, you've never told

406
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:37,400
me this story. This is important stuff.

407
00:25:38,360 --> 00:25:42,200
So it was this. In your book, you talk about how she

408
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,230
had to find a way to get to Napa, which she's obviously got up there,

409
00:25:45,230 --> 00:25:48,790
but find a way to decide on what wines

410
00:25:48,950 --> 00:25:52,350
should be included and then get them back there, which apparently, in a

411
00:25:52,350 --> 00:25:55,750
logistical headache, to get samples back to

412
00:25:55,750 --> 00:25:59,390
Stephen for the tasting. Yeah, because they were very

413
00:25:59,390 --> 00:26:00,070
worried that

414
00:26:03,350 --> 00:26:06,230
the control people

415
00:26:07,030 --> 00:26:10,470
would not allow the California wines to.

416
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:14,440
To be. Be. And so they, you know, they had to make sure to.

417
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:18,200
To take the wines in with. With a group of

418
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:23,240
tourists that were coming in, you know, so it wasn't. It wasn't just,

419
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:26,759
you know, any freelance guy just wandering in and they

420
00:26:26,759 --> 00:26:29,560
dumps it. Yeah, right. That's not like

421
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:33,880
wines. So there's a French import issue or a

422
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,690
California export issue, like the. Getting them out is not a problem, but getting them

423
00:26:37,690 --> 00:26:41,250
in was the problem. Getting into France was

424
00:26:41,810 --> 00:26:45,130
where the great problem was. And there was some

425
00:26:45,130 --> 00:26:48,690
brainstorm with somebody that they're going to do this. They're going to put it with

426
00:26:48,850 --> 00:26:52,130
the tourists in their bags or whatever they're doing. Exactly, yeah.

427
00:26:53,570 --> 00:26:56,210
Because they were always fearful that

428
00:26:58,450 --> 00:27:01,730
somehow somebody's going to take away these things

429
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,640
and end the whole story.

430
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,120
Yeah, right. So how did she decide then? And it's

431
00:27:10,120 --> 00:27:13,800
in your book, and I want people to read it. But she goes around

432
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:17,160
and there's what, 50 wineries then, maybe not even that many.

433
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:19,160
Oh, California

434
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:25,080
25. Yeah. So she went and she tasted these things and

435
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,720
she said, well, and then she tastes Them. Do you know, if she

436
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:32,520
tasted them on a. With an opinion

437
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,960
of whether these things could win or just like, I need to find something

438
00:27:36,120 --> 00:27:39,720
that is competitive. Well, she.

439
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:43,520
She wanted, you know, she wanted to get something

440
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:47,160
that she was sure would have the.

441
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,960
The expert expertise of these

442
00:27:52,120 --> 00:27:55,810
winemakers to. To turn out good wine

443
00:27:55,810 --> 00:27:59,570
products, you know, so, you know, so. Because these.

444
00:27:59,890 --> 00:28:03,610
The winemakers and these. In those days, those. Those days

445
00:28:03,610 --> 00:28:07,290
were, you know, most. A lot of them were still not experts

446
00:28:07,290 --> 00:28:10,850
in this. You know, they were. They were. They were just still

447
00:28:10,850 --> 00:28:14,450
getting started in wine. Right. And so

448
00:28:15,010 --> 00:28:18,690
which. Which I. The story. And I have Violet Girgich

449
00:28:18,690 --> 00:28:21,930
coming on the show next week, actually, and I just

450
00:28:22,330 --> 00:28:25,890
can't wait to peel back Mike's story as an

451
00:28:25,890 --> 00:28:29,450
immigrant to. Or an immigrant to America, an immigrant from

452
00:28:29,530 --> 00:28:33,370
Croatia. And, you know, we know Mr. Barrett's story as a

453
00:28:33,690 --> 00:28:37,250
local attorney in Torrance who invested in this

454
00:28:37,250 --> 00:28:40,850
idea, which had to be a huge risk to think

455
00:28:40,850 --> 00:28:44,370
about this. Pretty much. I mean, now it's a beautiful,

456
00:28:44,370 --> 00:28:48,170
gorgeous place, and it's like Chateau Montalande exemplifies

457
00:28:48,170 --> 00:28:51,770
the lifestyle of Napa, but back then, you know,

458
00:28:52,100 --> 00:28:55,700
been shuttered for how long? And here's like, we're going to try and make wine.

459
00:28:55,700 --> 00:28:59,380
I mean, not as a. Who had ever heard of them.

460
00:28:59,700 --> 00:29:03,300
These were wineries that nobody had ever heard of

461
00:29:03,300 --> 00:29:07,140
before. So there was no recommendation that, hey, hey, this is

462
00:29:07,140 --> 00:29:10,500
a very good wine. This will tell us, you know, these were just wines that

463
00:29:10,580 --> 00:29:14,420
happened to be there. Yeah. And so she tasted them and, and

464
00:29:14,420 --> 00:29:17,780
decided, okay, we're going to get these back there. Warren's.

465
00:29:17,940 --> 00:29:21,290
Warren's story is a little bit different,

466
00:29:22,090 --> 00:29:25,930
but what is this character that you think you've

467
00:29:25,930 --> 00:29:29,530
got a Mike Girgich who's. Who's had some training, where he grew up,

468
00:29:30,250 --> 00:29:34,050
came to America. I love this. Love how you. The picture you painted of

469
00:29:34,050 --> 00:29:37,850
him landing in St. Helena and, you know, like, almost leaving

470
00:29:37,850 --> 00:29:40,810
his. Not even nowhere to sleep that night and

471
00:29:41,370 --> 00:29:44,970
figuring out something, you know, just by the seat of his pants with his

472
00:29:44,970 --> 00:29:48,750
$32 sewn in his shoe. Mr.

473
00:29:48,750 --> 00:29:52,510
Barrett had funds. He had investors. He was an attorney.

474
00:29:52,510 --> 00:29:56,230
He was a sharp guy. It's a whole different program just to put on

475
00:29:56,230 --> 00:29:59,790
the table. His other son, Beau,

476
00:30:00,910 --> 00:30:03,950
is my brother's class at Palos Verdes High School.

477
00:30:05,150 --> 00:30:08,950
And I threatened his secretary that if he didn't speak with me on

478
00:30:08,950 --> 00:30:12,190
the show soon, I would publish his high school photograph.

479
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:17,760
So. And then I surfed with the younger son, Kevin, who's not in

480
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:21,280
the movie or not in the part of the Winery. We were very young then,

481
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:25,080
but that relationship goes really far back. But,

482
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,520
you know, Warren came here to America or to California, looking for

483
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:33,160
something else, a break from his lifestyle,

484
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:37,560
and there weren't. I can't remember in your

485
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:41,320
book, if you talk about UC Davis having an enology school then, was it something

486
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:44,460
you could do then, or was he not even around? No, they didn't even have

487
00:30:44,460 --> 00:30:48,100
anything like that in those days. It was all bootstrap stuff. Yes.

488
00:30:48,100 --> 00:30:51,060
Yeah. There were only two or three people,

489
00:30:52,020 --> 00:30:55,300
only half a dozen or so people

490
00:30:55,700 --> 00:30:59,420
making wine in those days. I mean, I suppose why

491
00:30:59,420 --> 00:31:03,220
they bounced around, too. Pardon me? I suppose why they bounced around a little bit

492
00:31:03,220 --> 00:31:05,860
too, where Mike Girgich had worked at all those places and

493
00:31:07,620 --> 00:31:11,360
Warren's experience doing the same. Because

494
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,960
this is what fascinates about the wine business. And I don't know about you, but

495
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,560
my sort of. This is my 30th year of tasting wines.

496
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,400
I've calculated somewhere around 100,000, some ridiculous number

497
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:26,559
with a totally different approach. I mean, my approach is, like, based on value, but

498
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,240
it fascinates me to see people like that.

499
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,350
They didn't go to chemistry school, they didn't go to biology, they didn't study

500
00:31:37,350 --> 00:31:41,150
biology, they didn't study farming. They

501
00:31:41,150 --> 00:31:44,990
had a passion and a whim and an idea. Maybe

502
00:31:44,990 --> 00:31:48,630
not unlike yours. That's the key. That's the key to the whole story.

503
00:31:48,950 --> 00:31:51,750
They had the passion for it

504
00:31:52,550 --> 00:31:56,310
to. Just say, whatever my headwinds are going to

505
00:31:56,310 --> 00:31:59,270
be, I'm going to survive them. Yeah. Yeah.

506
00:32:00,230 --> 00:32:03,920
And so what is it to you, then, that wine does that? Because

507
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,720
it's bitten me now, and it took. I didn't have it 30 years ago. I

508
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,480
was just business for me, and I. My career is, you know, not as

509
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:15,320
elaborate as most, but it's. It's interesting. But I. It

510
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,960
took, I'm going to say, maybe the last five years, so

511
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:22,720
25 years of tasting wines where I said, you know, it took a little while

512
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:27,160
for the aha moment, whatever you want to call it. The. The moment. I

513
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:31,000
say, like the ratatouille moment, where the food critic tastes that ratatouille for the first

514
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:34,740
time. They remind him of his mother's cooking. What was it

515
00:32:34,740 --> 00:32:38,540
about George Tabor's. Was it the tasting itself?

516
00:32:38,540 --> 00:32:42,220
That's where you decide, wow, this is really a fascinating thing.

517
00:32:42,380 --> 00:32:45,980
Or is it prior to that? No, because, you know,

518
00:32:46,060 --> 00:32:49,300
again, I was. I was a

519
00:32:49,300 --> 00:32:53,100
reporter for Time magazine in those days,

520
00:32:53,820 --> 00:32:57,620
and, you know, you had to do all sorts of stories.

521
00:32:57,620 --> 00:33:01,170
You know, stories about, you know, this. This

522
00:33:01,170 --> 00:33:04,930
Subject or that subject or this. This new

523
00:33:04,930 --> 00:33:07,970
thing. This old thing, whatever it is. And so,

524
00:33:08,610 --> 00:33:12,250
you know, this. The tasting of the

525
00:33:12,250 --> 00:33:16,050
Paris tasting was, you know, it would have been

526
00:33:16,050 --> 00:33:18,930
very easy for me not to have gone that day

527
00:33:19,810 --> 00:33:23,490
because nobody else was there. And so some young

528
00:33:23,490 --> 00:33:27,090
French girl walks by, bumps you on the Champs Elysees, and she's like, let's have

529
00:33:27,090 --> 00:33:28,590
a drink, and you're done. You're not going to go to the town.

530
00:33:33,620 --> 00:33:36,900
But you had. You had to submit the idea first, is that correct?

531
00:33:38,660 --> 00:33:42,300
I had to tell Time magazine, hey, there

532
00:33:42,300 --> 00:33:45,780
was this event that's going to be next week

533
00:33:45,940 --> 00:33:49,620
in Paris, and I think it's

534
00:33:49,620 --> 00:33:52,660
an interesting story. You know,

535
00:33:54,270 --> 00:33:57,950
some of the people are here. But then go

536
00:33:57,950 --> 00:34:01,150
to it, taste. Taste it and see what happens.

537
00:34:01,470 --> 00:34:05,310
And, you know, chances are the California wines are not going to do very

538
00:34:05,310 --> 00:34:09,030
well. But that's okay. But, you know, just. We'll just see what happens. See

539
00:34:09,030 --> 00:34:12,790
what happens. So. But so were you. You were. I know that you were

540
00:34:12,790 --> 00:34:15,550
going to Stephen's class, I think, but did you really, like,

541
00:34:16,510 --> 00:34:20,310
have this ethereal experience with wine

542
00:34:20,310 --> 00:34:23,889
yet? Did you really realize this is not just an alcoholic

543
00:34:23,889 --> 00:34:27,529
beverage? It actually is a representative, like Mike Salachi of

544
00:34:27,529 --> 00:34:30,849
Opus One says, it represents a time and a place

545
00:34:31,489 --> 00:34:35,009
for that bottle of wine. Had that happened yet? Or he just still was

546
00:34:35,569 --> 00:34:39,409
still in Paris enjoying cassoulet and wine? Well,

547
00:34:39,409 --> 00:34:43,169
I was. You know, I had been working in

548
00:34:43,969 --> 00:34:47,329
France at that point for well over a year,

549
00:34:47,730 --> 00:34:51,490
maybe even up to two years. Check on that.

550
00:34:51,490 --> 00:34:55,330
Exactly. For. But it was, you know, I've been there. I've.

551
00:34:55,490 --> 00:34:59,130
I spoke very good French, so I could get around, you

552
00:34:59,130 --> 00:35:02,970
know, get the stories, get all the stories, have the interesting

553
00:35:02,970 --> 00:35:06,610
things, and this was just another different story that day.

554
00:35:06,770 --> 00:35:09,650
It's just something else. And we even

555
00:35:10,530 --> 00:35:13,730
covered a whole part of the world up in those days.

556
00:35:14,340 --> 00:35:16,020
You know, we went down to the

557
00:35:18,820 --> 00:35:22,620
other parts of France to do other stories. And so,

558
00:35:22,620 --> 00:35:26,380
you know, it would have been a very easy thing for

559
00:35:26,380 --> 00:35:30,139
me to skip the story and go off

560
00:35:30,139 --> 00:35:33,940
and pick up something else. Fortunately, it didn't happen. I went.

561
00:35:35,940 --> 00:35:37,940
The one in Paris.

562
00:35:39,820 --> 00:35:43,540
It doesn't. That's on. That's. That's. There's luck. Damn

563
00:35:43,540 --> 00:35:43,900
luck.

564
00:35:47,500 --> 00:35:51,260
I'm a firm believer in luck is a preparation,

565
00:35:51,260 --> 00:35:55,020
means opportunity. And, you know, the things that she. That

566
00:35:55,020 --> 00:35:58,820
what you were able to produce, maybe the fact that a

567
00:35:58,820 --> 00:36:01,620
young French woman didn't bump you on the Champs Jose and you went off with

568
00:36:01,620 --> 00:36:05,020
her, is luck. But, you know, you being there

569
00:36:05,260 --> 00:36:08,860
at the time, this is happening and thinking maybe this is a story. It all

570
00:36:08,860 --> 00:36:12,700
comes just from experience and being part of the program. Tell

571
00:36:12,700 --> 00:36:16,420
me about the. The other parts of France at that time, the wine districts. You've

572
00:36:16,420 --> 00:36:19,780
got the south of France, you get the Languedoc, you've got Burgundy, of course, which

573
00:36:19,780 --> 00:36:23,460
is obviously very famous at the time. But the Chateauneuf du Pape, the Rhone

574
00:36:23,460 --> 00:36:26,340
area, were those considered

575
00:36:28,100 --> 00:36:31,620
elegant places for wine, places for wine that people would study

576
00:36:31,940 --> 00:36:35,770
or be interested in knowing? Oh, yes. So, you know, the great

577
00:36:36,410 --> 00:36:40,170
wines of France, you know, no matter where they were. But

578
00:36:40,890 --> 00:36:44,690
the thing was that since in

579
00:36:44,690 --> 00:36:47,930
Paris it was easier to get around the stories and,

580
00:36:48,410 --> 00:36:52,170
you know, pick up stories and pick up, decide this is the

581
00:36:52,330 --> 00:36:55,930
one that's going to be. And that's what would happen that day. Was

582
00:36:55,930 --> 00:36:59,580
it like I could have gone to, you know, some

583
00:36:59,580 --> 00:37:03,300
stories in Belgium, you know, around there, any place

584
00:37:03,300 --> 00:37:06,260
in France. But, you know, I decided to

585
00:37:06,900 --> 00:37:10,020
pick out and propose to

586
00:37:10,420 --> 00:37:14,020
Time. And that's say, you know, you know,

587
00:37:14,260 --> 00:37:16,260
I didn't predict the story to

588
00:37:18,100 --> 00:37:21,540
the Time editors. I just said, hey,

589
00:37:21,860 --> 00:37:25,340
something's going to be happening next week. I think it might be

590
00:37:25,340 --> 00:37:29,160
interesting. So I'm going to go ahead and take a story, take

591
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:33,040
a picture that day and see what

592
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:36,880
happens. How many other George Taylors were there in France

593
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,000
at the time for Time magazine in Paris?

594
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:43,400
Well, there were a total of all of the

595
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:49,240
staff at Time would have been three or four

596
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:53,370
main reporters. So that's where

597
00:37:53,370 --> 00:37:57,050
it's not luck, George. You had an interest in something and

598
00:37:57,050 --> 00:38:00,730
you saw the opportunity and it happened. That's incredible. So

599
00:38:00,730 --> 00:38:04,450
I'm going to read you a paragraph from

600
00:38:06,290 --> 00:38:09,410
Ernest Hemingway's book, and I want to talk about

601
00:38:11,330 --> 00:38:15,090
the societal value of wine in general. So he writes this.

602
00:38:15,650 --> 00:38:19,500
As I ate the oysters with the strong taste of the sea and

603
00:38:19,500 --> 00:38:22,900
their faint metallic taste that the cold wine washed away,

604
00:38:22,980 --> 00:38:26,700
leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture. And as I

605
00:38:26,700 --> 00:38:30,340
drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with crisp taste of

606
00:38:30,340 --> 00:38:34,060
the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be

607
00:38:34,060 --> 00:38:37,900
happy and to make plans. And that last sentence for

608
00:38:37,900 --> 00:38:41,740
me is a huge sentence for what I

609
00:38:41,740 --> 00:38:44,420
tell my customers, what I try to

610
00:38:45,790 --> 00:38:49,390
instill the value of a good glass of wine

611
00:38:50,110 --> 00:38:53,870
because it loses the empty feeling. And

612
00:38:54,270 --> 00:38:57,870
you want to make plans, so to speak. And you don't do that with beer,

613
00:38:57,870 --> 00:39:00,949
you don't do it with gin, you don't do it with bourbon, but you do

614
00:39:00,949 --> 00:39:04,510
it with wine. And to me, that

615
00:39:04,510 --> 00:39:08,070
ethereal value is what makes

616
00:39:08,070 --> 00:39:11,630
this beverage this ancient beverage, right? I mean,

617
00:39:13,100 --> 00:39:16,740
they Found an intact Armenian, you know, I'm Armenian, so

618
00:39:16,740 --> 00:39:20,300
they, we know these things, but they found this 6,000 year old winery,

619
00:39:20,380 --> 00:39:23,900
you know, buried in the dirt with shoes and amphora. Right.

620
00:39:24,220 --> 00:39:27,980
So, so somewhere in the history of man, somebody fermented a

621
00:39:27,980 --> 00:39:31,100
grape or the grape fermented on its own and they bit into it. And this

622
00:39:31,100 --> 00:39:33,180
is, this was pretty good stuff, right? So,

623
00:39:34,620 --> 00:39:38,060
so it seems to me the lifestyle, the French

624
00:39:38,060 --> 00:39:41,600
lifestyle. And I talked about this with, with

625
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:43,480
Rex Pickett, the guy that wrote Sideways

626
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:49,960
the French paradox, which was, you know, they've been drinking wine forever

627
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:54,120
and they, they're thinner than Americans, they live longer than Americans,

628
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:58,120
and they take life slower than Americans. Was that something that, that intrigued

629
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:01,720
you with, with being in Paris and that's slow food

630
00:40:01,720 --> 00:40:05,560
and a good glass of wine? Oh, absolutely. Because,

631
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,670
you know, France was the, was

632
00:40:09,670 --> 00:40:13,350
the high point of everything that you could

633
00:40:13,350 --> 00:40:15,190
do in Europe at that point.

634
00:40:17,750 --> 00:40:21,390
I could have gone to Germany or

635
00:40:21,390 --> 00:40:25,070
Belgium or other places, but if you wanted to go to

636
00:40:25,070 --> 00:40:28,870
a really great country with great wines, great

637
00:40:29,350 --> 00:40:33,110
politics, great stories, go to Paris.

638
00:40:33,510 --> 00:40:36,470
That's what I wanted to do, was to go to Paris.

639
00:40:37,340 --> 00:40:40,940
Would you, would you tell young journalists or young

640
00:40:41,900 --> 00:40:44,860
enthusiasts for wine even, hey, you know,

641
00:40:45,580 --> 00:40:49,300
go, go to Paris, learn another culture, learn another language. Had

642
00:40:49,300 --> 00:40:52,780
you, like you said, you speak, you spoke very good French, which I study French

643
00:40:52,780 --> 00:40:56,620
now, and it's a tough language, right? Did you know French before you got there?

644
00:40:57,420 --> 00:41:00,380
I had studied in college,

645
00:41:00,940 --> 00:41:04,610
so they had two years of, to college,

646
00:41:04,610 --> 00:41:08,250
but, but that would, that didn't, that's when. You get there, you

647
00:41:08,250 --> 00:41:12,050
realize you didn't learn anything, right? Yeah. So much

648
00:41:12,050 --> 00:41:15,890
different now. But would you make that recommendation if somebody came to you today, a

649
00:41:15,890 --> 00:41:19,729
journalist or a young college student that just got out of college, like, what do

650
00:41:19,729 --> 00:41:22,290
you want to do? Like I did yesterday with this young lady. She's, I want

651
00:41:22,290 --> 00:41:25,170
to learn about wine. I'm like, well, you know, you can read all the books

652
00:41:25,170 --> 00:41:28,610
you want, but until you sit down and taste it with people and learn a

653
00:41:28,610 --> 00:41:31,650
culture around it, it's going to be difficult to understand it.

654
00:41:32,290 --> 00:41:36,090
I totally agree with you. You know, you, you've got to experience that.

655
00:41:36,090 --> 00:41:39,810
You gotta see what it was. It's all about, you know,

656
00:41:39,810 --> 00:41:43,490
what, you know, what, what, what it is and that. And

657
00:41:43,490 --> 00:41:46,690
because the French would love to talk to you about

658
00:41:46,930 --> 00:41:50,050
wine, they will not ever, you know,

659
00:41:51,170 --> 00:41:54,890
throw you out saying, you know, hey, you know about wine. Yeah,

660
00:41:54,890 --> 00:41:58,500
right? They love their wine. They love their wine. They

661
00:41:58,500 --> 00:42:02,260
will help you love wine as well. It's

662
00:42:02,260 --> 00:42:06,100
interesting because you said when we use the word passion between the

663
00:42:06,100 --> 00:42:08,300
California winemakers at the time of the 70s.

664
00:42:10,460 --> 00:42:14,180
And maybe my renaissance of understanding this

665
00:42:14,180 --> 00:42:17,740
is coming about from doing these conversations. I've been doing

666
00:42:17,740 --> 00:42:21,180
videos with winemakers for probably 10 years now, and

667
00:42:22,300 --> 00:42:25,800
the formula starts to come around. The formula is

668
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:29,200
not the chemistry like we talked about earlier.

669
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:32,560
You can go to school to learn the chemistry, but these guys are making wines

670
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:36,400
that today are still fantastic wines without the chemistry. It

671
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,520
was the value of the bootstrap education.

672
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,040
But one thing for sure that I get out of winemakers from all over the

673
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:48,760
world, whether it's Croatia or Italy or France, is

674
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:50,000
there's a deep rooted,

675
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:56,160
impassioned almost now at this point, doesn't even work. It's just a love. They

676
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:59,960
love the wine that they're working with. It's so

677
00:42:59,960 --> 00:43:03,800
interesting to me that that is part of. All right, so we

678
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,480
win. We won. We won this thing. And it's like, what? And it gets printed

679
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:10,840
in the Time magazine. It's got a little blurb. We don't even know who George

680
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,320
Tabor is yet. And it kind of starts to snowball

681
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:18,080
around that this thing won. And my dad wrote about it,

682
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:21,440
I think, in August of. I think it was in the August

683
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:24,280
newsletter of 1976.

684
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,920
When did it have the sort of sales. Let's talk business. When

685
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,920
did it have the sales pull through? When it's like, oh, my God, we're going

686
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:36,040
to run out of Chateau 73 Montalana Shard. We're going to run out of the

687
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:38,920
Stag's Leap Cab. When did that happen?

688
00:43:39,720 --> 00:43:42,920
As soon as the story got into the paper

689
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:47,430
the following week. As soon as Americans saw

690
00:43:47,830 --> 00:43:51,510
what was happening, then they started rushing all

691
00:43:51,510 --> 00:43:55,270
around the country to see, hey, you have these. You

692
00:43:55,270 --> 00:43:59,030
have these wines. Can we buy these wines? Where can we buy these wines? Hey,

693
00:43:59,030 --> 00:44:02,510
these wines are supposed to be really great. You got to tell me, where can

694
00:44:02,510 --> 00:44:05,910
I get them? The big retailer back then was

695
00:44:09,350 --> 00:44:13,200
in New York, Ackerman, Marilyn Ackerman, and one of the

696
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:17,000
big retailers back then. Were the wines even distributed on

697
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,520
the east coast by then? Do you. Do you know if you could get. Very,

698
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:24,280
very few, who would have. Who would have done that? Right? There wasn't

699
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:25,960
market for it. Yeah, who cared?

700
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:31,720
So. So now vintage 74. I can't remember the 74

701
00:44:31,720 --> 00:44:35,120
Chateau Montele, because we had it. I'm sure we had it.

702
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:38,120
Mr. Mr. Barrett used to come to my dad's store all the time, and he's

703
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:41,610
like, one day he comes to my dad's story. He goes, hey, Paul. He goes,

704
00:44:41,610 --> 00:44:44,890
my dad's name was Paul also. He says, can you help me out? I go,

705
00:44:44,890 --> 00:44:48,570
everybody in Palos Verdes wants to, you know, all the socialites, right? They all

706
00:44:48,570 --> 00:44:52,250
want to have me. They all

707
00:44:52,250 --> 00:44:55,770
want me to donate wines. So

708
00:44:56,810 --> 00:45:00,050
can you just put them in the store so I can just send them to

709
00:45:00,050 --> 00:45:03,850
your place? They're like, sure, I'll put them in. So we had the

710
00:45:03,850 --> 00:45:07,640
Riesling, and we had the Chardonnay, and we had whatever else they were making at

711
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,480
the time, two years before the tasting.

712
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:15,840
But there at that time, too, in Palos Verdes, we

713
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:19,480
had God, who was the other family

714
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:23,160
that started in that big winery. My dad used to feel like he

715
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,880
was outclassed, like this was now this elite.

716
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:32,000
My mind right now escapes me. But

717
00:45:34,110 --> 00:45:37,870
as a young guy stocking the shelves, I don't remember a surge. I don't remember

718
00:45:37,870 --> 00:45:41,590
those things. I was too young. I do know that Warren stayed at our

719
00:45:41,590 --> 00:45:45,070
house, and this was before the tasting. My dad bought his

720
00:45:45,070 --> 00:45:47,230
Riesling because he couldn't afford the cab at the time.

721
00:45:48,670 --> 00:45:52,430
And I was just looking at. On my office, I have the old

722
00:45:52,910 --> 00:45:56,070
flip boards that whenever I was a kid. When I was a kid, the cash

723
00:45:56,070 --> 00:45:59,790
register and somebody bought a bottle of wine, we didn't price them on the

724
00:45:59,790 --> 00:46:02,910
bottle. You would come and put it on the counter, and then you would flip

725
00:46:02,910 --> 00:46:06,670
through this sheet that my dad had. And so I have some on my desk.

726
00:46:06,670 --> 00:46:10,230
And we have all these things. We have, you know, we have Burgess, and we

727
00:46:10,230 --> 00:46:13,190
had Stone Creek or Stone Valley. We had

728
00:46:15,510 --> 00:46:19,190
Montelena, we had Stag's Leap, and

729
00:46:19,750 --> 00:46:23,430
they were like $2.50 for the whites.

730
00:46:23,830 --> 00:46:27,190
So. And the reds were like, what, four or five bucks, I think, or six

731
00:46:27,190 --> 00:46:30,510
bucks was like a big, expensive cabernet at the time.

732
00:46:32,030 --> 00:46:33,070
So do you think then

733
00:46:35,790 --> 00:46:39,470
it's almost impossible today to go to Napa and

734
00:46:40,190 --> 00:46:43,950
buy a land and expect to make any money? And

735
00:46:43,950 --> 00:46:47,750
it's almost that these iconic brands that have been around forever, Burgess

736
00:46:47,750 --> 00:46:51,590
and Stag's Leap and Chateau Montelana, if they haven't sold to corporate America

737
00:46:51,590 --> 00:46:55,200
yet, that. That have the land paid

738
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:59,000
off, and now they're getting premium money for the wines because

739
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:02,680
of the history. Did you get a piece of that, George? Did anybody

740
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:06,200
thank you by. Not one bit.

741
00:47:07,240 --> 00:47:11,000
You know, the

742
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,360
winemakers at that point, you know,

743
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:19,200
they didn't really. You know, they had a tough

744
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:22,580
time selling wine. And then

745
00:47:22,740 --> 00:47:26,380
until the Time magazine story came out.

746
00:47:26,380 --> 00:47:29,700
Soon as the Time magazine story came out, people could come

747
00:47:29,700 --> 00:47:32,900
rushing out, especially out of New York, and The, you know, the big

748
00:47:33,300 --> 00:47:36,859
capital cities. And then they just said, you know,

749
00:47:36,859 --> 00:47:40,420
hey, do you have any of this California wine from

750
00:47:40,660 --> 00:47:44,180
Montelena? I don't know what the name of it is, but something like that.

751
00:47:45,620 --> 00:47:49,340
Buy me a case of that. No. And so then the

752
00:47:49,340 --> 00:47:52,980
rush. Then the rush had to happen. Then the rush happened, and it was.

753
00:47:53,220 --> 00:47:56,500
To Napa and crazy. And, you know,

754
00:47:57,140 --> 00:48:00,820
Napa was never the same again. And it's now it's different again.

755
00:48:01,780 --> 00:48:05,580
We sort of prefer Sonoma just to the

756
00:48:05,580 --> 00:48:09,340
extent that it's less commercial. Now, Paso Robles being, you

757
00:48:09,340 --> 00:48:12,700
know, coming onto the map, is still a cowboy town. And

758
00:48:12,700 --> 00:48:16,470
Napa's gotten, you know, pretty commercial. And I was

759
00:48:16,470 --> 00:48:20,230
interviewed by the Napa Valley Register recently and the wine gal, and it was not

760
00:48:20,230 --> 00:48:22,590
an interview about me. I thought it was be about my business and what we've

761
00:48:22,590 --> 00:48:26,310
done all these years. But it was about how can we help these wineries compete

762
00:48:26,310 --> 00:48:29,949
now because it's so expensive to produce wine in Napa

763
00:48:30,190 --> 00:48:33,990
that you have to sell it for $100 a bottle or more. And the

764
00:48:33,990 --> 00:48:37,750
marketplace for those things isn't that big. The iconic

765
00:48:37,750 --> 00:48:41,470
brands like KMAS and Silver Oak, they're getting it. But if you're a

766
00:48:41,470 --> 00:48:45,230
boutique guy and you have to charge 150 bucks a bottle and nobody knows who

767
00:48:45,230 --> 00:48:49,070
you are, it's a tough animal. Oh, yeah. Really

768
00:48:49,070 --> 00:48:52,910
tough animal. Now, I can tell you, George, that Covid has

769
00:48:52,910 --> 00:48:56,390
been amazing for my business. Anybody that's direct to the

770
00:48:56,390 --> 00:48:59,190
consumer in America that had all the pieces in place,

771
00:49:00,150 --> 00:49:03,830
I'm waiting for Covid 20, because it may be politically incorrect to say,

772
00:49:03,830 --> 00:49:07,430
but we're selling a ton of wine right now.

773
00:49:08,130 --> 00:49:11,570
All right, well, listen, you know, we could talk, and I hope we can do

774
00:49:11,570 --> 00:49:14,530
it again. But I want to close with the next 10 minutes or so about

775
00:49:14,530 --> 00:49:18,250
the book on cork, because when I looked you up to talk

776
00:49:18,250 --> 00:49:21,570
about some of the things, and I saw this book, Le

777
00:49:21,570 --> 00:49:24,850
Bush in French. Right. La Bouche.

778
00:49:26,770 --> 00:49:29,570
What compelled somebody. Yeah, there's a copy.

779
00:49:30,610 --> 00:49:33,900
What would compel somebody to write a book on corkscrew?

780
00:49:37,170 --> 00:49:40,850
Well, you know, after the, you know, after the Paris tasting,

781
00:49:41,090 --> 00:49:44,730
you know, I could. Could write it, you know, of any book that I

782
00:49:44,730 --> 00:49:48,290
wanted to. Yeah, right. The publishers suddenly get

783
00:49:48,770 --> 00:49:52,570
discovered me. Yeah. And so, you know, these.

784
00:49:52,570 --> 00:49:56,290
These. These things turned out to be just outstanding

785
00:49:56,610 --> 00:50:00,410
subjects that. That they could

786
00:50:00,410 --> 00:50:04,050
learn a lot from more about winery. As you know,

787
00:50:07,330 --> 00:50:10,690
I wanted to learn about all the great wines of the world.

788
00:50:10,930 --> 00:50:14,770
And that's how I. That's how it happened. So you

789
00:50:14,770 --> 00:50:18,610
dispelled like the first few pages, which I haven't finished the book all the

790
00:50:18,610 --> 00:50:22,130
way, but you completely ruined my

791
00:50:22,370 --> 00:50:25,890
social club. You know, I give speeches at a Rotary club and Kiwanis, they all

792
00:50:25,890 --> 00:50:29,160
buy wine. Totally blew my rap because

793
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:33,240
I have a piece of cork from my uncle

794
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:36,440
Art, who passed away last year, two years ago, had

795
00:50:37,240 --> 00:50:40,548
participated with Coca Cola in 1970,

796
00:50:40,732 --> 00:50:44,480
1985, in assembling a piece of synthetic

797
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:48,040
cork to a bar cap to make a bar cap closure for Taylor Sellers.

798
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:52,320
So this is way before the idea of a foam

799
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:56,160
synthetic cork was being used in St. Francis or barefoot Cellars or whatever is

800
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:59,520
using it, you know, in the early 90s. And

801
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:04,400
you said in the book that Dom Perignon did not invent the

802
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:07,920
cork. And that's. That's one of my trivia questions, you know,

803
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,600
who invented the cork for wine as well? Don Perignon, the blind monk. And they.

804
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:14,240
And they also. I think you said, there's no. He wasn't even blind. Maybe he

805
00:51:14,240 --> 00:51:17,960
wasn't. I could see. And so now I have to change all my trivia

806
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:21,670
questions because of book. But this is

807
00:51:21,670 --> 00:51:24,630
a. It's a fascinating story, and I think it's important for people to understand because

808
00:51:24,630 --> 00:51:28,430
it is a question that I get. Probably one of the most prolific questions I

809
00:51:28,430 --> 00:51:32,030
get is, you know, what's the screw cap? You know, what's the point of it?

810
00:51:32,030 --> 00:51:35,070
Why is. Is it better or worse? Is that a clerk? And. And so.

811
00:51:35,950 --> 00:51:39,630
But you just thought it was an interesting subject to peel back

812
00:51:39,870 --> 00:51:42,990
to, have people understand, because you really dug deep into it.

813
00:51:43,630 --> 00:51:45,860
Yeah, because it's, you know, it's. It is

814
00:51:47,300 --> 00:51:50,860
a difficult subject. There's no question. It's not an

815
00:51:50,860 --> 00:51:54,420
easy subject to make

816
00:51:54,980 --> 00:51:58,340
these wines and then sell them to

817
00:51:58,820 --> 00:52:02,420
other places. And so I thought it was really

818
00:52:02,420 --> 00:52:05,300
important to learn about what

819
00:52:06,020 --> 00:52:09,700
the great wines of the world were made from and how the

820
00:52:09,700 --> 00:52:13,190
Californian wines could. Could go come in

821
00:52:13,190 --> 00:52:16,870
with them. Yeah. You did it. You know, I forgot that part, too. You've got

822
00:52:16,870 --> 00:52:20,230
some amazing depth in New Zealand here.

823
00:52:23,590 --> 00:52:26,950
I wanted to. I just lost a train of thought, but it was

824
00:52:30,790 --> 00:52:34,350
these. The screw cap, which is when I was stocking the shelf in

825
00:52:34,350 --> 00:52:37,270
1976, you know, 1975, and it was

826
00:52:37,660 --> 00:52:41,500
Gallo Rhine wine and red Burgundy and that

827
00:52:41,500 --> 00:52:44,700
stuff, Chablis, or my uncle would call it Shablis,

828
00:52:46,460 --> 00:52:49,420
you know, it always connotated a negative thing.

829
00:52:49,980 --> 00:52:52,220
And the general public

830
00:52:54,460 --> 00:52:58,300
thinks the cork is this romantic thing, which is true.

831
00:52:58,540 --> 00:53:02,300
And I just did a whole special email on canned

832
00:53:02,300 --> 00:53:06,130
wines, you know, that I tasted probably, I don't know, maybe 75 canned wines.

833
00:53:06,130 --> 00:53:09,850
I found five really good wines. I found a Russian Reverend Pinot and a

834
00:53:09,850 --> 00:53:13,450
250ml. I found a Lodi Cab

835
00:53:13,450 --> 00:53:17,130
vintage in a 187 that was very good. You pour it in a glass, people

836
00:53:17,130 --> 00:53:19,490
have a hard time even thinking it's canned.

837
00:53:20,850 --> 00:53:23,090
But I have to tell you

838
00:53:24,530 --> 00:53:28,250
in a whim, it was a mistake. Applied to

839
00:53:28,250 --> 00:53:32,010
study under the MW program. Now I'm 61. It's probably not a great time to

840
00:53:32,010 --> 00:53:35,780
start, but I decided I would try. And one

841
00:53:35,780 --> 00:53:38,860
of the questions that I got for the application was,

842
00:53:40,140 --> 00:53:43,900
what's happening with the marketing of wine and the value

843
00:53:43,900 --> 00:53:47,700
of the closure and should we keep up with the

844
00:53:47,700 --> 00:53:50,860
times, like cans or tetra packs or those kinds of things?

845
00:53:51,820 --> 00:53:55,620
And I wrote this, actually the best part of my application as far as they

846
00:53:55,620 --> 00:53:57,980
are concerned, that they liked because I had a.

847
00:53:59,670 --> 00:54:03,270
I had a kid ask me just weeks before to help them

848
00:54:03,270 --> 00:54:07,070
understand the packaging of a CBD drink. The

849
00:54:07,070 --> 00:54:10,790
CBD oil, the stuff that they harvest from marijuana, that

850
00:54:10,790 --> 00:54:13,830
is not the hallucinogenic part or the narcotic part. It's

851
00:54:14,310 --> 00:54:18,110
supposed to make you feel better, like aspirin. He was making a drink out

852
00:54:18,110 --> 00:54:21,750
of it and he was asking me, Mr. Callan, Karen, what do you think I

853
00:54:21,750 --> 00:54:24,670
should do with this? Should I put it in a cork? We want the elegance

854
00:54:24,670 --> 00:54:28,040
of a cork. Pull the cork out of the bottle and make the sound. And

855
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:31,400
I wrote this in the application to the Master of Wine. They liked this because

856
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:35,000
it was a contemporary application of a

857
00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:38,800
closure. But the punchline was. I asked the kid,

858
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:40,640
I go, what does it taste like? He goes, tastes like crap.

859
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:47,160
So how was this book received by

860
00:54:47,160 --> 00:54:50,840
people? Was it. The book has

861
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:52,820
done very well, you. Know.

862
00:54:54,820 --> 00:54:58,580
Because Americans are still learning about wine

863
00:54:59,060 --> 00:55:02,740
and, you know, so. So the book is, is. Is part of,

864
00:55:03,140 --> 00:55:05,940
Of. Of the. Their education.

865
00:55:07,220 --> 00:55:10,540
It's a. It's one of the most. And I couldn't believe that it had been

866
00:55:10,540 --> 00:55:13,860
done, but it was a very granular look at what.

867
00:55:15,140 --> 00:55:17,180
What was happening. I want to tell you a quick story and we'll get you

868
00:55:17,180 --> 00:55:20,500
off because I don't have a hard stop. But when my uncle Art was working

869
00:55:20,500 --> 00:55:24,260
with Coca Cola on this Taylor Sellers cork and his

870
00:55:24,260 --> 00:55:27,860
job, he was an MIT master's mechanical engineer. So his job was to take the

871
00:55:27,860 --> 00:55:31,420
synthetic cork, the little bar top size, and glue it to the bar

872
00:55:31,420 --> 00:55:34,380
cap. And he had to make the machine that would do that oriented and have

873
00:55:34,380 --> 00:55:37,620
all that stuff. In the meantime, the company in Ontario, I forgot the name of

874
00:55:37,620 --> 00:55:40,220
it now, was using synthetic corks and

875
00:55:41,980 --> 00:55:45,100
it was. St. Francis was one of the few wineries that was using it in

876
00:55:45,180 --> 00:55:48,920
California. I think Barefoot Sellers was using it. And I said, let's

877
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:52,400
go out, Unc, and we'll go see this machine. So we go to the machine,

878
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:56,240
we climb around. I position myself as bottling some wine. And he was my

879
00:55:56,240 --> 00:55:59,480
engineer, and we had overalls on. And they take us back into the warehouse, and

880
00:55:59,480 --> 00:56:03,040
there's the machine making corks. And we get in the car. This is how brilliant

881
00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:06,320
the guy was. He says, it'll never work. I go, why not? He goes, because

882
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:09,960
the machine they're using is for Italian shoe soles.

883
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:14,120
And he goes, the temperature of the foam as it gets to the outer mold

884
00:56:14,490 --> 00:56:17,730
is going to be different than the inner mold, and they're going to have inconsistent

885
00:56:17,730 --> 00:56:21,450
corks. And then he explained to me why the cell size would be

886
00:56:21,450 --> 00:56:23,610
different. And so we got back to the house, and we cut the corks in

887
00:56:23,610 --> 00:56:27,010
half. And he was exactly right. So I called Mike

888
00:56:27,010 --> 00:56:30,650
Houlihan, and Barefoot and I called the St. Francis winemaker. I forgot his name at

889
00:56:30,650 --> 00:56:32,970
the time. I go, how's it going? He goes, well, it's going okay. But every

890
00:56:32,970 --> 00:56:36,770
now and then, the cork bends and doesn't go in the bottle. And it was

891
00:56:36,770 --> 00:56:40,530
exactly the symptom that Art was telling us about, which was the cell structure

892
00:56:40,530 --> 00:56:44,320
of the cork. So I want to thank

893
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,120
you for this time, George. I know you have to get off, and I want

894
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:50,880
to. I want to reserve the right to come out and see

895
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:54,600
you and do this live and peel it back a little bit more

896
00:56:55,400 --> 00:56:59,040
or potentially do it again on Zoom Calls. But it's been a fascinating conversation,

897
00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:02,840
and I. And we appreciate what you brought to the industry. I

898
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:06,440
can tell you that I thank you because my career has been based on

899
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:10,280
the fact that you did this. Well, I was lucky.

900
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:14,580
Well, I don't know. I could have gone, you know, that day

901
00:57:14,580 --> 00:57:17,220
to another story, and, you know,

902
00:57:17,860 --> 00:57:21,700
California wines probably would become known, you know, five or ten years

903
00:57:21,700 --> 00:57:25,180
later. But. But, you know, it was lucky that. That day in

904
00:57:25,180 --> 00:57:28,980
Paris and I was. There, somebody put you there at the right time,

905
00:57:28,980 --> 00:57:32,700
at the right place for the right story to the world. And that's the

906
00:57:32,700 --> 00:57:36,380
part that really is really special for what you've done. So thanks again for

907
00:57:36,380 --> 00:57:40,100
the time. Thank you. I'll send you a link to this when it gets posted,

908
00:57:40,810 --> 00:57:43,490
and I hope I can come see in Rhode island or Vero Beach. Maybe that'll

909
00:57:43,490 --> 00:57:46,930
be better. Okay. Get to

910
00:57:46,930 --> 00:57:50,650
California. Yeah, that too. We'll be here. But I know Stephen's coming.

911
00:57:50,810 --> 00:57:54,250
I can't remember if it's October or November, but he'll be in Napa. And

912
00:57:54,970 --> 00:57:58,570
if you're available, join us up there. Yeah. Okay, great.

913
00:57:59,210 --> 00:58:01,210
Thank you. Good to talk to you. Thank you.