From Shiraz Overload to Rare Grapes: Matt Talbot’s Bold Approach to Australian Wine

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I was working for a wine brand in the Yarra Valley and the vineyards guy

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said, oh, I've got a friend who planted it commercially. And

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he took 2 rows just as a, I'm gonna plant it and see what this

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climate change thing does. It was a terrible variety for the Yarra. Sit

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back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with

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Paul Kaye. Hey, welcome to Wine

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Talks with Paul Kaye. And we are in studio today, beautiful Southern California, about

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to have a conversation with Matt Talbot of Patch Wines. Have a listen or watch

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of Matthew Matthew Zain from Armenia.

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He showed up for a 1-week vacation and he's been there 10 years.

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And kind of jealous because I've always wanted to move to another country and just

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do something. Probably not gonna happen now. But anyway, have a

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watch of the show. Matt, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

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So what's— you got a big tour going on here and, you know, your

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path through America seemed rather, rather complicated.

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Hectic. Yeah, it's always really hectic. We try and, get a lot

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in when we're here. So usually a 2-week trip at least once,

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sometimes twice a year. So, well, if you fly 20 hours or

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something. Yeah, depending on where we come in. LA is pretty good, 14, but usually

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we just sort of head into Dallas. It's sort of 16 hours ex-Melbourne, which

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is, um, yeah, it's a long flight in economy, which is

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fun. Yeah. Wow. Yes, that makes it even longer. It

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does. I, I vowed years ago that I'm not doing that. I don't care, whatever

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it takes to get— Yeah, I'm a little bit broken. We flew luckily to fly

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to Europe business in June this year. So it was

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hard getting on at Melbourne at— Well, I'm gonna turn you on to this

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website I found and I'd never trusted them. And I'll tell you

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the name when I remember it. But she does

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incredible business class tickets. Yeah. I

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don't know how she does it, but let's just say we were flying to Paris

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for Wine Paris. Air France was like, oh,

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$13,000 round trip or something for my wife and I. And she did it for,

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like $600. Wow. Yeah, for both of us. Yeah. And so

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I'm like, I call this woman now. I just like, I just call her because

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she'll take care of it. We had a very similar thing out of, out of

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Jakarta. So not out of Melbourne. Out of Melbourne was wildly expensive. Yeah, probably. There's

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a little hack out of Jakarta. So try and keep that one quiet though. Yeah,

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it'll blow up and everyone was doing it. But no, it's okay. I'm only

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5'10, so I'm a short guy. So all right, no worries. Don't need the extra

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legroom so much. But, um, yeah, no, look, it's always a hectic trip. It's, you

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come a long way and wanna see as many people as we, as we can.

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So try and get a few states in. Well, let's talk about that. I mean,

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this is, it's a, there's a couple things I wanted to talk about at the

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beginning. One is the industry's tough. I just read an article that,

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that one of the big buyers of wineries in California bought another

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one. And, and the article basically focused on the idea

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that consumption's down, Gen Z's a whole, all the issues that go with

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what's happening in the industry. But you have a, there's an extra level of

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pressure because Australian wines in my career,

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35 years, have ebbed and flowed over the years. I mean, they've come and they

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go and there's, you know, they were prolific, you know, Penfolds

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and all those brands were here and then they were gone.

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And then is there extra headwinds to you

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coming to America and trying to move wines? I think— Because they're from

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Australia? I hear that too, that Oh, so-and-so was here and they did really well

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and they're not here anymore and they're not. I think it's, um,

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we're having the same issues with consumption. I think it's sort of blown out a

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little bit with that pre-COVID numbers, COVID skyrocket. Yeah, right. So

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coming back into normality a little bit. Um,

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there's more brands on the market. I think something

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for Australia is the barrier to entry for anyone making a brand is

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ankle high. Yeah. You know, you can, anyone can buy Fruit Maker brand and off

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they go, but that's what happened. Other wine's good. Then it just, you know, there's

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more noise in the market. So I think Patch has

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only been here a year. St. Hilary and the brand I work

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for also has been here a few years. I think the American market's

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hard, but I think, I think it's sort of

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a varietal mix. But what are they told? What have you heard?

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Like, One Aussie maker told me

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years ago that they put the pressure on the

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currency trade in that Australian— what's the base

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of Australian currency? Just that, AUD, Australian dollar. Yeah, okay,

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so that exchange changed and so

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the value of it changed. And then there was a marketing issue

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then. I mean, I brought in a whole container of

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375s of Late Harvest Penholdt Sémillon. I mean, I

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sold it all. And I don't know if you could even do that today. No,

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I think the consumer or even the buyer

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sort of awareness of what styles of wines are coming out of Australia

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now is we've got stuck in that sweet, that's

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overripe Yellowtail Plateau. Yellowtail, it's a success story

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on one side, but it really set us up for a tough

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gig after that. So when you're doing this, when you're out

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about, you're going to Kansas, you're going to Texas, you're going all over the

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states and you've got these patch wines, you're making these.

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What are they telling you on the ground? I think Australian wine

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is not something that people are banging

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down the doors to, come and bring your Australian winemaker to us. It's,

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I think, for Patch and some other brands I see that do well here, like

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I said, it's this varietal mix. It's showing, trying to show people that we're not

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just Shiraz. Yeah. And unfortunately we are really heavily

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dominant Shiraz. And still the other brand I work with

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is Shiraz dominant, but we have these other varieties that have

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been a real surprise for me in the market that are the ones that the

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buyers are like, oh, these are fun. These are exciting. These are not what I

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expected. That's what we, every day, not what I expected out of Australia. Not what

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I thought. you coming in, I'm going to see some of these varieties. So

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I think for us as a country and

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individual regions and winemakers, I need to look at that. And

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Australia is moving into that. We're seeing a lot of Shiraz coming out and other

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varieties coming in, but it's also, you're hesitant from

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a point of view where this could be

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hot right now, but then pendulum swings again and it's a slow

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process to get things back in the ground and fruit back. It's an interesting

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problem because when you said

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Shiraz, I mean Shiraz, I can't remember the last time

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I discussed Shiraz on this show and it's been 550 episodes. Yeah,

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well, it's not, it's, it's not a thing here. It's, people

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know it, people understand it, they've seen it. We showed some

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Shirazes the last week and every time I come here and people are surprised that

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I haven't had Aussie Shiraz on a list for a long time or on the

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shelf, we haven't, we've carried one and it's the standard. Same old one that's always

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there. Syrah in general is tough to sell in America. Yes. I mean, period. It's

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just not a grape that people, though I did have one the other night, a

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GSM anyway, and it was really good. And I was like, wow, I haven't tasted

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this profile in a long time. Yeah. Yeah. And at the

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winery, the Day brand does a GSM and it's our biggest selling wine at our

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tasting room. So is that, is that varietal? And, and

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for the listeners, Shiraz is also Syrah. Did

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they, Is it still in Australia? Is it a

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popular varietal? It's still, it's having its issues like it

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is probably here, but you speak to retailers, it's still the biggest wine probably sold

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off the retail shelf in volume. It's there. It's just the amount

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of brands in the market. There's the amount of Shiraz on the market

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and the amount of bulk Shiraz on the market by these big companies that are

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paying growers last year to basically put the fruit on the ground.

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Because they've got millions and millions of liters stored up in tanks from

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the previous year or even the year before. So you're seeing

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a flood. There are probably less Shiraz spots on wine lists, so we're all sort

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of fighting for less spots. So that's why I think this glut of Shiraz is

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probably there. But Shiraz is still highly in demand.

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There's still some very high quality Shiraz being made. There's some high

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priced Shiraz being made and sold through Australia too. It's just, Everyone has one.

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It grows everywhere. It's like a weed in Australia. It does well in lots of

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regions, right? So, well, I suppose it's, it's kind of the national red

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grape. It is. Yeah. But it's an interesting thought. You just said it and we

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were talking about the bulk market and that's changed and there's tons of bulk Shiraz

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in the marketplace. And I can tell you here in America, in the DTC world

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of things, it changed. The whole industry shifted,

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the club world, when the idea of bringing in

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these huge, you know, 20,000-liter

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packs of bulk wine into America, bottling them in all these brands

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and selling them, you know, they're paying 50 cents a liter or something ridiculously low,

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ruined the marketplace. You know, this club here was really

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built on finding interesting wines that were real wines. And then all this stuff

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came in and Groupon and all that changed everything. And, and

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I think that's part of the pressure, at least that started part of the

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pressure for a lot of these brands that came into America. 'Cause it was crap

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and the consumer went, this doesn't taste very good. I don't care if it's $5

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or— I mean, it sets a level where Australian Shiraz sits in. Yeah. Yeah.

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Right. And then it just, the conception of it's there. Yeah. That's the price I

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wanna pay for it. And, and to recover from that, it's a long time. So

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what I read, you have a Nebbiolo

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Bianco. Yeah. Which is Arneis in, in trade.

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I see here Grüner Veltliner here. What

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was the inspiration for growing these grapes in

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Australia that it might have. Well, I guess for Patch, it's,

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I've had a long history, sort of 20-odd years now in the wine industry. Grew

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up in the Yarra Valley with a very old historical winery

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that had a small vineyard, had planted vineyard for, to

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sell extra fruit to Hardys of the world. Lots of Shiraz. And Yarra Valley is

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not a great region for Hardy Shiraz. It's, you know, Chardonnay and Pinot country.

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But out of that, in retail,

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into the hospitality world and then into sort of wholesale and working

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along. I just got, I was very interested in the alternate varieties and

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Australia's sort of really pushed into alternate varieties. It's sort of the

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new wave we're seeing. Italian, very heavy,

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sort of Iberian varieties also very heavy, but

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this sort of unique variety in the way Australia can grow a lot of

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varieties in different areas. And Patch was never

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about, you know, I've seen the model, own a vineyard, farm the vineyard,

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make the wine. That's what you do. And I think that's a great model

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and it's been the model, but I want a bit more flexibility.

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And so I work with growers and buy fruit like a lot of smaller

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brands here do. They sort of work with growers and bring in fruit and do

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that. But the alternate variety piece was more interesting than

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looking at what the market was doing with Shiraz and

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Pinot and Chardonnay. The big sort of 3 varieties we do is there's these unique

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varieties that buyers and somms and consumers are

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interested to look at now. You know, it's true though. I think

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I have a son, I have 3 son-in-laws and they all have the different consumption

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habits, but one of 'em in particular will not

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drink Bordeaux, will not drink Chardonnay, will not drink Burgundy,

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and seeks things like this. And he'll be intrigued to hear our

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conversation because he looks, he goes to these wine shops in Southern

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California and and but grew up in New York, or spent a

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lot of time in New York, where there's all these individual little wine shops that

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have these— like, he took me into one not too long ago, and there were

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maybe 300, 400 SKUs that I recognized, like, 2.

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Yeah. You know, and I'm like, wait a minute, I've been doing this for 35

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years, I recognize 2 wines. Yeah. So do you think this is—

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is— now, do you think— is the concept behind this idea

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market-driven by reaching into the bag of tricks to

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find new consumers that are interested, like my son a lot, in

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other varietals besides the standards? I think so. I think wine can

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get a little stagnant. I think sometimes we do the same things

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and trying to get younger

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drinkers or new drinkers into wine, it's always the sort of

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same adage. People don't wanna drink what their parents drank or their grandparents drank. They

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wanna try something different. I think it's true though. It is true. My parents weren't

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big wine drinkers at all, so I sort of had a clean slate.

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Those drinkers are always going to be there. I think those sort of noble varieties

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will always have a place. But I think it's driven by

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the new wave of buyers that want to have something different. They're more intrigued by

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the smaller, unique varieties that are offering consumers something

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different. Try something that may look like Shiraz or Chardonnay, but it's not trying to

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sort of branch people out, getting people more excited about wine, I guess, if

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they're drinking the same thing over and over. they may lean out

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towards other drinks, which is, I think, which is sort of happening.

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I guess the problem is you're probably not going to see stuff like Gruner Veltliner

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or Nebbiolo Bianco or these things be mainstream, but there

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are more and more getting planted and they're quite versatile. And the

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drinkability piece I think is the big one. The stylistic

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change in these wines, like more made for drinking versus the

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aging piece. You just conjure up a ton of thoughts. And

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one of them was, uh, for in

217
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the '80s, '70s, '80s, the most popular white wine we used to

218
00:13:28,497 --> 00:13:31,894
sell, and my dad sold— his shop was called Sundial Chardonnay. It was just a—

219
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it was like the beginning of the sugared-up stuff. Yeah.

220
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And those don't— those, I think, have lost the attraction,

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particularly if you're bringing things like this to the marketplace that have an honest

222
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sense of where they're from and what they are. And I think that's

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an important feature of what this generation's looking for. But you mentioned the

224
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model idea, and I was like, wow, aren't we struggling with this idea of the

225
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traditional model? And there I saw recently at

226
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Costco, Ducru-Beaucaillou, a second-growth

227
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Bordeaux at Costco. At Costco, yeah. In a

228
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2014, no less, which wasn't the greatest vintage in the world. But wow,

229
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why do they have 2014 in inventory that they can put it at Costco? Exactly.

230
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Doesn't that tell you a ton? It is. And this,

231
00:14:17,047 --> 00:14:20,609
yeah, the model of you've got a vineyard, the fruit's coming in and we, I

232
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see a lot of it, a lot of wineries that sit on old stock and

233
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there's a lot of distressed stock. Yeah. We've just seen this probably here as well

234
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and around the world that there's businesses that are,

235
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I think preying's a hard word, but they are, that's their model. They do that

236
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and they get those out. So it's, it's how do you fix

237
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that? But I, It's a bit of a, again, the pendulum swings and

238
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it'll come back, but there's so much of it. And I think we're seeing in

239
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Australia that vines coming out and Bordeaux's coming out and a bit of a

240
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reset. We're seeing the big retailers,

241
00:14:53,187 --> 00:14:56,992
sort of our equivalent to Total maybe, went hard in

242
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buying brands. Really? And now they're like, oh, it's hard to make

243
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money out of the production side of these things with vineyards and growing. And now

244
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they're trying to exit these brands, but that's some amazing brands,

245
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beautiful brands that have been grown by

246
00:15:11,838 --> 00:15:15,416
private people that have built these brands up. And now these big

247
00:15:15,464 --> 00:15:18,605
guys are trying to offload them because they're not making money

248
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through the production side. Realizing that it's really hard to grow, really

249
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hard to make wine. So keeping brands, selling brands,

250
00:15:27,009 --> 00:15:30,609
lock, stock, everything, and keeping brands, just the brand,

251
00:15:30,625 --> 00:15:34,140
selling everything at the back end. And then working the bulk market. So

252
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consumers aren't even getting that brand anymore. They're getting something else, which is

253
00:15:37,780 --> 00:15:41,400
sad because there's some really nice brands in Australia that that's happening to. So

254
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hopefully the sort of iconic brands get picked up again. But

255
00:15:45,140 --> 00:15:47,040
hard if you're going to come into the market right now and you're going to

256
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pick up a brand that a big retailer's owned,

257
00:15:51,220 --> 00:15:55,060
sold through their own shops. Like, at what point does the independent

258
00:15:55,060 --> 00:15:58,120
trade go, well, how do we buy this wine? How do we sell it to

259
00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:01,450
our consumers? So it's kind of, I kind of feel I

260
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mean, I'm glad I don't have to deal with it daily anymore, you know, selling

261
00:16:05,070 --> 00:16:08,770
a bottle of wine. And it was a great run and we enjoyed it. And

262
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I still obviously relish the industry, but

263
00:16:11,690 --> 00:16:15,390
then I get a little jealous because the way this, my dad's

264
00:16:15,390 --> 00:16:18,990
business was founded was finding these overstocks, these things that didn't

265
00:16:18,990 --> 00:16:22,390
sell, the, you know, the million reasons why things are in

266
00:16:22,390 --> 00:16:25,970
inventory. Mm-hmm. And finding them and putting 'em to the consumer and getting

267
00:16:25,970 --> 00:16:29,350
great reviews. And so I'm a little jealous I don't get to take advantage of

268
00:16:29,350 --> 00:16:32,810
some of that today. Yeah. But not as jealous as I'd want to do it

269
00:16:32,810 --> 00:16:35,909
again. Yeah, get back into it. I think there, you know, you have days

270
00:16:36,728 --> 00:16:40,341
where you just, it's, you get beaten over the head and then you have

271
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days where everyone loves everything. Yeah. And you walk out going, it's

272
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just this up and down of ride the wave of, and the home's the same.

273
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We go in the trade and you have miserable days and days where things were

274
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working and, but it, we've got, it's sickly, I

275
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guess. Our hospitality guys are really struggling. Retail

276
00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:02,390
struggling. It's expensive to do business now. Yeah. Our people are expensive.

277
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Everything's expensive. Everything's expensive. Our labor's expensive. It all has to translate

278
00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:09,840
somewhere. So there was a, there was an article yesterday in one of the trade

279
00:17:09,840 --> 00:17:13,260
mags about Gundlock-Bunshu, which, you know, one of the classic

280
00:17:13,260 --> 00:17:16,840
traditional Cal Sonoma-based wineries going

281
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BK. But then

282
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maybe this is a sign of the times, and I don't believe that the old

283
00:17:23,620 --> 00:17:25,960
world, old school, old model ever dies, right? This is just,

284
00:17:27,908 --> 00:17:31,167
dyed-in-the-wool wine, right? There's this

285
00:17:31,841 --> 00:17:35,085
group of collectors, a group of people that just understand this. And, and I think

286
00:17:35,085 --> 00:17:38,842
every generation comes to that realization once they go through all the

287
00:17:38,906 --> 00:17:42,518
trendy things. Right. Um, but when Gundlach-Puntschu goes under,

288
00:17:42,920 --> 00:17:46,468
goes under, you have to think somewhere the

289
00:17:46,468 --> 00:17:49,534
market has to change. Somewhere somebody has to look at that and go, wait, we

290
00:17:49,534 --> 00:17:52,874
got to make some shit. Or they're just saying, I don't want to deal with

291
00:17:52,874 --> 00:17:55,250
that part of it. Like, I don't want to put my wine in cans. I

292
00:17:55,250 --> 00:17:58,013
don't want to put it in a bag in the box. I'm gonna sell what

293
00:17:58,013 --> 00:18:01,676
I want. And then they suffer the consequences of not making the change or

294
00:18:01,708 --> 00:18:04,825
finding the places for it. But

295
00:18:05,001 --> 00:18:08,600
that part's a little scary. It is.

296
00:18:08,937 --> 00:18:12,488
I think we've never gone down that path. The can thing at Australia has really

297
00:18:12,488 --> 00:18:15,107
struggled, really struggled. And I mean, bag in a box was

298
00:18:16,103 --> 00:18:19,782
huge. Yeah. Pre my time. And there's some

299
00:18:19,798 --> 00:18:23,495
brands that have tried to premiumize it, but it's been a really hard slog. There's

300
00:18:23,495 --> 00:18:27,151
some great Burgundy box wines now that— They are. They're improving quality. Yeah.

301
00:18:28,106 --> 00:18:31,301
But it's still in a vinyl bladder, like a, like a numbing thing. But let's

302
00:18:31,301 --> 00:18:34,408
talk about this for a second. These, and I, maybe this is

303
00:18:35,314 --> 00:18:38,940
evidence of the difference of what you're doing compared to what the

304
00:18:38,940 --> 00:18:42,731
traditional viewpoint is. Grüner Veltliner, for instance, I'm looking at the

305
00:18:42,731 --> 00:18:45,832
bottle, is Austrian and it's

306
00:18:46,683 --> 00:18:50,454
got great pedigree. It's got Grand Cru capabilities

307
00:18:50,550 --> 00:18:54,245
there. And, but, and here you have a contemporary

308
00:18:54,277 --> 00:18:58,004
version coming from Australia, the new world, you know, maybe that's something to do with

309
00:18:58,004 --> 00:19:01,591
its attraction. And I've said this before on the show, I think,

310
00:19:01,672 --> 00:19:05,249
but I was coming home from France. I was on, on the, on the flight

311
00:19:05,621 --> 00:19:08,550
and I looked at what to watch and there happened to be a show

312
00:19:09,584 --> 00:19:13,314
on Grüner Veltliner. Oh, wow. And I thought, let's

313
00:19:13,314 --> 00:19:16,927
find out what they're trying to tell the you know, the

314
00:19:17,232 --> 00:19:20,781
air-flying public. That great movie. It was

315
00:19:20,781 --> 00:19:24,441
embarrassing. Really? Yeah, completely embarrassing. And what it was was

316
00:19:24,474 --> 00:19:27,765
2 MWs, no discredit to the degree,

317
00:19:28,632 --> 00:19:32,325
wearing traditional lederhosen and

318
00:19:32,325 --> 00:19:35,601
other kinds of female— and trying to be funny.

319
00:19:37,062 --> 00:19:40,209
Cinematography was great. Lighting was great.

320
00:19:40,900 --> 00:19:44,640
But the message was horrible. Horrible. Yeah. And I don't

321
00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:47,780
think I'd ever try a Grüner Veltliner if I saw this. I had to turn

322
00:19:47,780 --> 00:19:51,400
it off before the stewardess saw that I was watching it. Embarrassed to be watching

323
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:54,700
it. So how does Patch

324
00:19:54,700 --> 00:19:58,360
getting this to the marketplace and showing people that, hey, we've got this interesting

325
00:19:58,360 --> 00:20:01,360
wine here? Yeah. I mean, Grüner's done very well at home. We have a lot

326
00:20:01,360 --> 00:20:04,580
of importers that are bringing in some really good Austrian Grüner. So it's been around.

327
00:20:04,920 --> 00:20:08,639
So I think for me, not trying to be too out there. It's a small

328
00:20:08,639 --> 00:20:12,153
brand and being too crazy. How are you

329
00:20:12,169 --> 00:20:15,201
pulling, are you getting terroir out of these wines? Are you getting—

330
00:20:15,939 --> 00:20:19,661
Oh, I don't think yet where this fruit is from

331
00:20:19,709 --> 00:20:23,432
Yarra Valley again. Is it gonna be the home

332
00:20:23,432 --> 00:20:27,089
of Grüner? Probably not. It's a very cool climate. Yeah. It does Chardonnay, Pinot Gris,

333
00:20:27,250 --> 00:20:30,603
a lot of sparkling wine. So it grows there. Is the soil that great? Probably

334
00:20:31,598 --> 00:20:34,934
not as amazing as as Austria. It's not as

335
00:20:35,463 --> 00:20:39,264
stony or anything like that, but it's ripe enough to get it there. And I

336
00:20:39,296 --> 00:20:43,033
think for me, it's not trying to dictate where these wines go.

337
00:20:43,081 --> 00:20:46,689
It's patches in exploration. So as much as me making these wines is learning about

338
00:20:46,689 --> 00:20:50,506
how these varieties work. So it's a

339
00:20:50,506 --> 00:20:54,067
grape expression rather than— It is. And I, look, we work

340
00:20:54,115 --> 00:20:57,707
with in the same vintage, we did Arinto, Portuguese white variety,

341
00:20:57,755 --> 00:21:01,078
and Gruner. Both fairly neutral varieties. Yeah. Right.

342
00:21:01,832 --> 00:21:05,140
Can be quite beautiful in their neutralness, if that's even a word.

343
00:21:05,268 --> 00:21:07,757
Sure. So trying to eke something out of them. So we did a little bit

344
00:21:07,757 --> 00:21:10,920
of sort of foot stomping on some of the fruit, but not trying to be

345
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:14,084
skinsy and just trying to eke a little bit more texture and weight, but really,

346
00:21:14,276 --> 00:21:17,552
you know, not adding yeast for anything. We're not fining or filtering anything. So

347
00:21:18,130 --> 00:21:21,823
letting it be an expression. And playing with, yeah, playing with a

348
00:21:21,823 --> 00:21:25,627
variety that is not so obscure, but it's a little bit out

349
00:21:25,627 --> 00:21:29,055
there that wine buyers and people know about.

350
00:21:29,103 --> 00:21:32,869
Like we opened a wine store, wine bar, sort of based around Patch as a

351
00:21:32,869 --> 00:21:36,226
bit of a quasi-cellar door, but it's fast become a bit of

352
00:21:37,492 --> 00:21:39,488
a locals hangout and sort of looking after smaller brands.

353
00:21:41,356 --> 00:21:44,115
And we sell a lot of German Riesling and a lot of Austrian Grüner.

354
00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:47,846
And so all the brands, how many different varietals are you growing there?

355
00:21:49,842 --> 00:21:52,463
So I don't, we don't have a vineyard as such for Patch, but I've done

356
00:21:52,463 --> 00:21:55,667
2. What are you buying? I mean, the juice, you've got fruit. Fruit, natural fruit.

357
00:21:55,747 --> 00:21:59,467
Yeah. We've got fruit. There's Grenache here and there's, that's Grenache. Yeah.

358
00:21:59,952 --> 00:22:03,476
But I've made 25 varieties in 5 years. What? Yeah.

359
00:22:04,236 --> 00:22:07,406
Wow. I've got a list of them on my phone somewhere, but we made, we

360
00:22:07,406 --> 00:22:11,232
made, there's a variety, a Turkish variety called Bogazkere, which

361
00:22:11,830 --> 00:22:15,316
was 2 rows in a vineyard in the Yarra Valley. Yeah.

362
00:22:15,492 --> 00:22:18,958
translates to throat scratcher in English because the tannins are

363
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:23,163
so aggressive. Like that will never— Is that like a tannat type aggressiveness? It's

364
00:22:23,275 --> 00:22:27,031
more, it's more, it's got a real cayenne pepper heat to it

365
00:22:27,191 --> 00:22:30,898
and this real scratchy tannin. But— What made you go

366
00:22:30,898 --> 00:22:34,718
there? Or anywhere else in the Caucasus country? It was in the vineyard and

367
00:22:34,830 --> 00:22:38,506
the, the, I was working for a wine brand in the Yarra Valley and the

368
00:22:38,586 --> 00:22:41,972
vineyards guy said, oh, I've got a, a friend who planted it

369
00:22:41,972 --> 00:22:45,728
commercially and he makes commercial Bogoskire and He took 2

370
00:22:45,728 --> 00:22:49,404
rows just as a, I'm gonna plant it and see what this climate change thing

371
00:22:49,501 --> 00:22:52,711
does. It was a terrible variety for the Yarra. Cold, wet,

372
00:22:53,273 --> 00:22:56,597
really hard. And he never, they'd never picked the fruit. And it

373
00:22:57,849 --> 00:23:00,064
sort of gets back to the story of Patch is I was running this wine

374
00:23:00,113 --> 00:23:03,950
business, big vineyard, small wine brand, selling a lot of

375
00:23:03,950 --> 00:23:07,401
fruit, but a big hospitality part of the side of the business, weddings and

376
00:23:07,401 --> 00:23:10,757
hospitality. It was a very, unique property.

377
00:23:12,078 --> 00:23:15,883
owned by an opera singer called Dame Nellie Melba, who was Australian. She had

378
00:23:15,883 --> 00:23:19,511
a property there when she settled and this vineyard was sort of off the back

379
00:23:19,511 --> 00:23:22,971
of it. But we had a lot of staff that

380
00:23:22,971 --> 00:23:25,881
didn't have interest in wine. They were just running around hospitality stuff.

381
00:23:26,770 --> 00:23:30,469
And this was end of '19, heading into 2020 vintage.

382
00:23:30,968 --> 00:23:34,128
I said, let's just pick some fruit from the vineyard that we don't sell and

383
00:23:34,128 --> 00:23:37,014
we don't make a lot of wine off and we'll make a staff wine and

384
00:23:37,014 --> 00:23:40,116
just get them involved. We picked this

385
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:44,538
mixture of rows. So Cabernet, Merlot, Malbec, Petit Verdot,

386
00:23:45,006 --> 00:23:48,204
Boguskere, just machine picked it all together

387
00:23:48,803 --> 00:23:52,330
into a fermenter. Field blend. Wrote Shed Red on it. It was fermenting in

388
00:23:52,362 --> 00:23:56,044
the machinery shed. And a

389
00:23:56,108 --> 00:23:59,691
week later, COVID. 5 days later, and Melbourne's the most locked down

390
00:23:59,755 --> 00:24:03,403
city in the world. All the kids that were supposed to be helping were Gone.

391
00:24:04,270 --> 00:24:07,964
At home, living their best life. 'Cause it was that. So here's me

392
00:24:07,980 --> 00:24:11,659
stuck with this one fermenter of randomly ripe,

393
00:24:11,835 --> 00:24:15,369
'cause everything, Cabernet, Merlot, Malbec, Verdot, and then this Boggers

394
00:24:15,369 --> 00:24:18,550
Kita thing all fermenting away. And it sort of kept me busy 'cause our whole

395
00:24:18,582 --> 00:24:21,730
business got shut down. Yeah. We all got sent home, but the vineyard kept operating

396
00:24:21,730 --> 00:24:25,457
because it was essential and it was close to harvest. So I was sort of

397
00:24:25,473 --> 00:24:29,087
there and punching down twice a day and borrowed an old hand

398
00:24:29,087 --> 00:24:32,892
crank wooden basket press and from a cellar door across the road that hadn't been

399
00:24:32,956 --> 00:24:36,649
used and cleaned it down. And, um, wow. We

400
00:24:36,649 --> 00:24:40,342
pressed this thing to 2 old hogheads. We had 2 old barriques, sorry, sitting around

401
00:24:40,342 --> 00:24:43,249
and fermented through, went to,

402
00:24:44,501 --> 00:24:46,444
went through malo and we sat there and now what are we going to do

403
00:24:46,444 --> 00:24:50,008
with this thing? And the, you know, Melbourne was still shut down and, um,

404
00:24:50,859 --> 00:24:54,632
I'd had this thought about Patch through my sort

405
00:24:54,632 --> 00:24:58,479
of wholesale days and listening to winemakers and we speak about a

406
00:24:58,479 --> 00:25:02,214
patch of dirt or a patch of vines and just this concept of working

407
00:25:02,230 --> 00:25:06,012
with different patches and being able to be very flexible. Oh, that's clever. So

408
00:25:06,012 --> 00:25:09,539
that's where it came from. And yeah, Patch Shed Red was the first wine we

409
00:25:09,539 --> 00:25:13,337
did in 2020. I mentioned the note of 700 bottles with this backbone of this

410
00:25:13,450 --> 00:25:17,297
Turkish acidic grape, but then all the

411
00:25:17,297 --> 00:25:20,614
components of Bordeaux. Was that what, how that, how

412
00:25:21,015 --> 00:25:24,734
did it turn out? It was, well, me being in

413
00:25:24,750 --> 00:25:28,341
that piece where everything was, this natty

414
00:25:28,437 --> 00:25:32,076
theme was coming into Australia and Melbourne. So we bottled it super

415
00:25:32,140 --> 00:25:35,811
early, like September of that year. Oh, okay. So it was clear glass, cork

416
00:25:35,811 --> 00:25:39,642
wax. So it was bright, bright. Right. And it was, and it was

417
00:25:39,658 --> 00:25:42,928
that softly pressed through the hand crank, but you can't get a lot of extraction

418
00:25:43,024 --> 00:25:46,792
out of a hand crank basket press and 700 bottles and friends came and

419
00:25:46,792 --> 00:25:50,398
helped wax. It doesn't quite look as schmick as the wax does these days. But

420
00:25:50,799 --> 00:25:54,101
yeah, we sold that through. And the full circle piece on that is that the

421
00:25:54,230 --> 00:25:57,555
vineyard that I left high school to go and work with,

422
00:25:58,198 --> 00:26:01,636
settled in the mid-1800s by Swiss-French settlers.

423
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:06,183
Their iconic wine, which it still is today, is Bordeaux Red. And that

424
00:26:06,231 --> 00:26:10,055
vineyard, they look across at each other from where Château Red was started.

425
00:26:10,103 --> 00:26:13,911
So funny. It was never going to be the, it was never like,

426
00:26:13,927 --> 00:26:16,208
I'm going to make that wine because that's what I set out to be. Yeah.

427
00:26:16,754 --> 00:26:20,530
They made a Marsanne-Roussanne blend, which was sort of my pick of those wines. But

428
00:26:21,337 --> 00:26:24,671
That's crazy stuff. We did Shed Red a few years and every year after that,

429
00:26:24,719 --> 00:26:28,423
we sort of worked with the grower. We farmed that fruit separately. We

430
00:26:28,423 --> 00:26:32,216
picked it separately, vinified it separately. And there was one year where Bogus Kere, we

431
00:26:32,216 --> 00:26:35,287
had one fermenter, which was one barrique.

432
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,557
That's so— and that was the one, like, we can't, we can't release that. It's

433
00:26:40,669 --> 00:26:44,461
just, no one can pronounce it, which is one of the hardest things

434
00:26:44,461 --> 00:26:47,403
with unique varieties is people can't pronounce it. They're really not going to touch it.

435
00:26:48,862 --> 00:26:51,673
And we didn't even press the fruit to get the tannin, but it was so

436
00:26:51,673 --> 00:26:54,404
tannic and it was always a nice part of the Shed Red blend. So

437
00:26:56,477 --> 00:26:59,984
yeah, that's, well, one of the 25 varieties that have come across the table. It's

438
00:27:00,049 --> 00:27:02,868
a great story about the patch and how it started,

439
00:27:04,010 --> 00:27:06,581
but there's a lot buried in that story. And part of it is,

440
00:27:07,738 --> 00:27:11,402
do winemakers, should we seek these

441
00:27:11,498 --> 00:27:15,240
kinds of ideas where we're out propagating grapes that don't

442
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:18,837
really belong in those areas or don't traditionally wouldn't, you just do it

443
00:27:18,902 --> 00:27:22,546
anyway. Yeah. That's one part of the story. I'll talk about that in a

444
00:27:22,546 --> 00:27:25,436
second. But the other one that's really interesting to me,

445
00:27:26,544 --> 00:27:30,301
well, there's a restaurant in San Francisco, it's closed since, and I

446
00:27:30,301 --> 00:27:33,736
went to it and they had nothing but Turkish, Armenian,

447
00:27:34,234 --> 00:27:37,831
and Lebanese wines. There was no domestic, no Australian, no French, no nothing.

448
00:27:38,569 --> 00:27:42,053
And obviously all grapes, all indigenous grapes of things that

449
00:27:42,583 --> 00:27:46,112
we'd never heard of. And the headwinds to that, and

450
00:27:46,128 --> 00:27:49,063
I'm Armenian descent, I've done

451
00:27:50,202 --> 00:27:53,746
2 or 3 shows in Armenia on wine, and that's the number one

452
00:27:53,746 --> 00:27:57,355
question come from this caucus group.

453
00:27:58,077 --> 00:28:01,365
Turkey, the Turkish want to be the same, Lebanese want to be the same. There's

454
00:28:01,365 --> 00:28:04,909
only like one Lebanese brand everybody knows, Château Bouzard, and the rest are— Yeah.

455
00:28:05,695 --> 00:28:08,582
And that is, how do you bring to a

456
00:28:09,705 --> 00:28:12,447
foreign diasporan country like America or even

457
00:28:13,650 --> 00:28:17,180
Europe, grapes you can't pronounce. Yeah. From regions you've never heard

458
00:28:17,180 --> 00:28:20,970
of, from countries that even less heard of as far as wine production.

459
00:28:21,020 --> 00:28:24,860
I mean, isn't that just all of the headwinds you could possibly want? I think

460
00:28:24,860 --> 00:28:28,500
so. I think so. But I think the wine world,

461
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:31,880
they like to, that's what they like to do. You know, maybe the geeks want

462
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,740
to do that, huh? Well, I think it's driven by buy. They always want something

463
00:28:34,740 --> 00:28:37,280
that someone else hasn't got. Yeah. And at what point is we just run outta

464
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:41,100
things to give them? But, you know, we're seeing Assyrtiko planted in

465
00:28:41,100 --> 00:28:44,730
Australia now and we've got a great Italian

466
00:28:44,730 --> 00:28:48,410
family in Heathcote in Victoria, not far from where you're from, that are

467
00:28:48,410 --> 00:28:52,050
championing a lot of Italian varieties. They've got

468
00:28:52,050 --> 00:28:55,890
Nerello Mascalese on the ground now. Is Heathcote the place to

469
00:28:55,890 --> 00:28:59,430
grow it? I'm not sure. It's very hot. Fiano Nero d'Avola, which

470
00:28:59,430 --> 00:29:02,710
Tulluri, my day brand, does, and they're the best-selling wines

471
00:29:02,710 --> 00:29:06,550
here. Fiano Nero d'Avola out of Australia. So we go and

472
00:29:06,550 --> 00:29:10,370
show— That says a lot. They do really well. I love

473
00:29:10,370 --> 00:29:14,190
Sicilian wines. They're very different. Yeah. They're more fruit-driven, not in the

474
00:29:15,233 --> 00:29:18,954
Yellowtail sweet style, but really pretty and really aromatic. And they do

475
00:29:18,987 --> 00:29:22,067
well. They, those varieties were planted based off

476
00:29:22,516 --> 00:29:26,301
sustainability and water sourcing. And Shiraz is thirsty. Yeah. It

477
00:29:26,301 --> 00:29:29,927
likes a lot of water. It looks really sad in summer. Yeah. Nero d'Avola looks

478
00:29:29,927 --> 00:29:33,665
as happy as it can be. Yeah. Right. 38-degree weather, no water. It sits up

479
00:29:33,761 --> 00:29:37,515
and looks very happy. Fiano the same. So maybe we are

480
00:29:37,515 --> 00:29:41,204
looking at those varieties that were planted and slowly coming into, okay, well,

481
00:29:42,583 --> 00:29:46,270
What are more suited? Australia can grow a lot of things. That doesn't mean you

482
00:29:46,270 --> 00:29:49,284
probably should. It'd be interesting to taste that because

483
00:29:50,358 --> 00:29:54,173
the Sicilian versions of those wines and the Puglian versions of those wines

484
00:29:54,189 --> 00:29:57,747
have great influence from the volcanic soil, great influence from the Mediterranean

485
00:29:57,747 --> 00:30:01,418
Sea. And so much of their character is rounded by

486
00:30:01,418 --> 00:30:04,592
these salinity and

487
00:30:05,009 --> 00:30:07,958
ashes and things. And here you take that same grape, put it in a different

488
00:30:07,958 --> 00:30:11,699
environment, And get a completely different character. Nero especially, I

489
00:30:11,699 --> 00:30:14,301
think, I was obviously in Europe and we were in Puglia and we were in

490
00:30:14,430 --> 00:30:17,947
Sicily and looking at some of those wines and much more

491
00:30:17,947 --> 00:30:21,577
structured, much harder climate. Definitely.

492
00:30:21,641 --> 00:30:25,464
Heathcote. Beautiful. Not getting the love that they

493
00:30:25,496 --> 00:30:29,190
would get in Heathcote versus Sicily, but we always get the more fruit

494
00:30:29,190 --> 00:30:32,579
weight and not fruit weight in a sweet way, but just in brightness. Yeah. Right.

495
00:30:32,868 --> 00:30:36,174
We bottle those wines. The Nero gets picked probably March, April,

496
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:40,616
and we bottle that October, November. Where, so it's not sitting in oak, it's not

497
00:30:42,012 --> 00:30:45,652
drying out in a bad way, but we're trying to protect and capture that primary

498
00:30:45,652 --> 00:30:48,571
fruit. The Fiano is picked in March and bottled in June.

499
00:30:49,405 --> 00:30:52,580
That's just with demand for that SKU for us is that it's,

500
00:30:53,815 --> 00:30:57,487
it needs to be out to market and we've made it more and

501
00:30:57,487 --> 00:31:01,031
more in that style to get it to market sooner. Do you think that

502
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,860
Well, that's actually, I was just listening to a podcast with Beau Barrett from Château

503
00:31:04,860 --> 00:31:08,560
Montelena, and we have a family history with the Barretts. And he was

504
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:12,400
talking about that, that old, old, old concept, particularly for them

505
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:16,060
back in the '70s in, in, in Napa, which was, you know, the

506
00:31:16,060 --> 00:31:19,520
Riesling and these, those kinds of things are cash crops. You can ferment them and

507
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:23,140
get them in a bottle and start getting revenue right away. So

508
00:31:23,140 --> 00:31:26,740
that's an important part of the wine business I don't think is, is, you know,

509
00:31:26,740 --> 00:31:30,380
recognized by most people because we all think we got this romantic lifestyle.

510
00:31:30,620 --> 00:31:33,310
We're gonna own a winery, but you don't have to wait 5 years before you—

511
00:31:33,310 --> 00:31:36,710
That's right. Put it in, leave it in tank or barrel and have huge barrel

512
00:31:36,710 --> 00:31:39,890
rooms. I mean, Tallurah is a small winery. We're at 10,000 case

513
00:31:39,890 --> 00:31:43,670
production. Tobias, our winemaker, he needs the space back

514
00:31:43,670 --> 00:31:47,370
the next year and patch is smaller. We're a, in my biggest year, we'll do

515
00:31:47,370 --> 00:31:51,170
1,000 cases across. I think the worst year was 10 varieties, which is

516
00:31:51,170 --> 00:31:54,290
manic. But I need those tanks and the barrels back. Yeah. You got it. Because

517
00:31:54,290 --> 00:31:57,610
there's more fruit coming in. So we're pushing to bottle, which then you're tying stuff

518
00:31:57,610 --> 00:32:01,392
up in tying cash up in bottles and corks and, and stuff like that.

519
00:32:01,456 --> 00:32:05,092
So there's a real— I wonder if— A wonder of managing that.

520
00:32:05,381 --> 00:32:08,392
Hearing that again, and I've, I've said this thousands of times, which is

521
00:32:09,290 --> 00:32:12,830
people always ask questions about the industry and it's like, look,

522
00:32:13,295 --> 00:32:17,043
the vineyards are— you can't change when the vineyard needs to be picked.

523
00:32:17,156 --> 00:32:20,840
No. And you can't change that you gotta crush it right away. And, and that

524
00:32:21,064 --> 00:32:23,852
if the previous vintage is in a box sitting on the warehouse floor and you

525
00:32:23,868 --> 00:32:27,360
need that box for this current vintage or the fermentation tank to the storage tank,

526
00:32:27,873 --> 00:32:31,465
that whole, it just pushes backwards. And you got to get it out. And the

527
00:32:31,481 --> 00:32:35,220
foundation of my dad's company in 1972 was, well, when we got

528
00:32:35,268 --> 00:32:38,767
larger and we needed to buy thousands of cases at a time,

529
00:32:39,185 --> 00:32:42,731
that was the premise, was we got to get this stuff off the floor. And

530
00:32:42,731 --> 00:32:45,717
it's really good, but I can't have 2 vintages on the shelf at the same

531
00:32:45,781 --> 00:32:48,269
time. And so we need to move it some way. And that's kind of what

532
00:32:48,269 --> 00:32:51,799
the premise was. But you said something earlier about the

533
00:32:53,228 --> 00:32:56,678
Turkish Grape and other varietals like these. Do you think that the

534
00:32:56,678 --> 00:33:00,367
storytelling, you said the consumer wants to tell a story, they want to have exclusive,

535
00:33:00,447 --> 00:33:02,548
they want to do something that no one else has done. Do you think the

536
00:33:02,548 --> 00:33:06,125
storytelling part of having a glass of wine with friends

537
00:33:07,521 --> 00:33:11,338
is an important part of what the current marketing is about? I think

538
00:33:11,354 --> 00:33:15,076
like any brand, you need to have relevance and a story that people can associate

539
00:33:15,124 --> 00:33:18,797
with. Yeah. Here I am, another Australian brand with 3 different Shiraz

540
00:33:18,909 --> 00:33:22,678
that all look fairly similar at different price points is probably not gonna

541
00:33:22,678 --> 00:33:25,740
do it. It's, People want to hear the stories of why we, why these things

542
00:33:25,740 --> 00:33:28,656
are planted and the brand and where the brands come from and

543
00:33:29,714 --> 00:33:33,319
unique varieties help that. And yeah, small batch is, it's

544
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:36,828
hard, isn't it? Because small batch is not overly commercial and probably not going to

545
00:33:36,844 --> 00:33:40,610
make anyone plenty of money, but people are looking for those interesting stories and,

546
00:33:41,347 --> 00:33:45,096
you know, stories where people have got passion

547
00:33:45,096 --> 00:33:48,750
projects and that's what they're doing. And those sort of resonate,

548
00:33:49,102 --> 00:33:52,661
I think, with people. I think they do. I think, um, When we talk

549
00:33:52,661 --> 00:33:56,287
about how I, I, I try to articulate this

550
00:33:56,559 --> 00:34:00,345
irony in the wine trade, which is 99% of the people in the marketplace will

551
00:34:00,345 --> 00:34:02,832
say, I'm intimidated by wine. I don't understand wine. I just know what I like.

552
00:34:03,233 --> 00:34:06,217
Okay, that's the drinkers. They— I ran into a woman the other day in the

553
00:34:06,217 --> 00:34:09,827
market and she was like, I wanna— it was music to our ears. She says,

554
00:34:10,276 --> 00:34:13,453
I wanna drink something different than what I drink every day. And I'm like, wow,

555
00:34:13,501 --> 00:34:17,127
congratulations. But on the flip side of

556
00:34:17,127 --> 00:34:20,848
that, invariably, almost every conversation I have at dinner with

557
00:34:21,217 --> 00:34:24,554
friends, relatives, or complete, you know,

558
00:34:24,570 --> 00:34:28,131
first-time conversations comes back to wine.

559
00:34:28,323 --> 00:34:31,772
Hmm. And I was at a big event the other day,

560
00:34:31,788 --> 00:34:34,114
huge event. I mean, incredible fundraiser

561
00:34:34,178 --> 00:34:37,948
for this group. And they were pouring an Armenian

562
00:34:37,964 --> 00:34:41,734
wine. And despite all of the fundraising going on for

563
00:34:41,734 --> 00:34:45,167
this high-tech school that was being funded, the

564
00:34:45,167 --> 00:34:48,680
conversation at the table was about the wine they were pouring. And

565
00:34:48,952 --> 00:34:52,738
though it might be intimidating in the proper scenario,

566
00:34:53,300 --> 00:34:56,941
it's rather engaging and enlightening. We did a tasting

567
00:34:56,973 --> 00:34:59,909
last night here and we were showing

568
00:35:00,823 --> 00:35:04,673
a Rinto and Cab Franc and things that people aren't going

569
00:35:04,673 --> 00:35:07,336
to be drinking. And there's a young guy. Yeah. I don't know how old he

570
00:35:07,384 --> 00:35:11,154
was, mid-late 20s maybe. And he was— this

571
00:35:11,154 --> 00:35:13,913
Rinto was blowing his mind and he bought a bottle and I was like, you

572
00:35:13,913 --> 00:35:16,723
are not who I thought would come in on a Wednesday night

573
00:35:17,575 --> 00:35:21,126
and be shouting from the rooftops and making everyone taste

574
00:35:21,126 --> 00:35:24,902
Orento, you know, from a little region called Nagambi in

575
00:35:24,966 --> 00:35:27,875
Victoria. Like, it's crazy. But he was just like, this is what I wanna drink

576
00:35:28,341 --> 00:35:32,117
and these are the stories you wanna hear. So I think it

577
00:35:32,117 --> 00:35:35,347
comes down to owners of venues and restaurants just

578
00:35:35,893 --> 00:35:39,267
get stuck in the— Do you think it's back to a hand sell? I mean,

579
00:35:39,283 --> 00:35:43,060
we're talking about hospitality briefly. And hospitality is what

580
00:35:43,093 --> 00:35:46,064
we do. And so much of this

581
00:35:47,720 --> 00:35:50,981
is about service, hospitality. And

582
00:35:51,594 --> 00:35:54,162
do you think it comes down to that? And like the experiential part of what

583
00:35:54,275 --> 00:35:58,086
wine is? I think so. Like where you showed the Nebbiolo Bianco, which is a

584
00:35:58,086 --> 00:36:01,849
whole nother crazy wine. Yeah. That set us up early at a steak

585
00:36:01,849 --> 00:36:04,148
restaurant yesterday. It was like, how much have you had of this? How much is

586
00:36:04,164 --> 00:36:07,265
there available in the country? I'm gonna sell it through. I was like, How's a

587
00:36:07,313 --> 00:36:10,188
steak restaurant going to sell through all this Nebbiolo Bianco?

588
00:36:11,570 --> 00:36:14,942
But then I see levels of service and I

589
00:36:14,942 --> 00:36:18,524
think we keep blaming COVID. Like the pre-COVID

590
00:36:18,556 --> 00:36:22,395
service standards in Australia were amazing. We've lost a lot

591
00:36:22,395 --> 00:36:25,575
of those hospitality people that wanted to do hospitality for

592
00:36:26,105 --> 00:36:29,767
their career. We are very lucky at Urban Vineyard,

593
00:36:29,783 --> 00:36:32,995
our wine bar bottle shop. We have a guy there. He's still one of them.

594
00:36:33,412 --> 00:36:36,553
Brian, and he's pretty crazy. He's pretty out there. But

595
00:36:37,562 --> 00:36:41,232
everyone just is like, this guy is the best at it.

596
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:44,869
And I think it delivers. And he's the one that puts German Riesling and Grüner

597
00:36:44,869 --> 00:36:48,571
and orange wines and stuff into people's glasses. I'm like, how are we selling all

598
00:36:48,571 --> 00:36:52,241
this German Riesling in a suburb that's an hour out of

599
00:36:52,241 --> 00:36:55,846
Melbourne? That should be, and it is Shiraz and Chardonnay country.

600
00:36:56,231 --> 00:36:58,602
So he has to have a lot of trust. I mean, people have to trust

601
00:36:58,634 --> 00:37:01,840
him to do Because you don't just— no one walks in and says, I'd like

602
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:05,040
a Riesling. No one walks in and says, I want a Gruner. No, I think

603
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:07,440
he just pours them and tells them it's this and they think it's that. And

604
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:10,800
he says, how was that? Oh good, I love that Sauvignon Blanc. Oh, it's Nebbiolo

605
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,560
Bianco. Well, that's the term Nebbiolo Bianco. Like,

606
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:18,340
I've never heard of that before. And Arneis is one of my favorite Italian

607
00:37:18,340 --> 00:37:22,120
whites. In fact, if I was to pick a, a

608
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,820
genre of white wines, it would be the obscure Italian

609
00:37:25,820 --> 00:37:29,160
whites that intrigue me the most, right?

610
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:32,560
Vermentino. Vermentino. We've made a Vermentino. We were just in, my partner and I were

611
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:36,320
just in Puglia sitting there drinking Falanghina and we drank a lot by the

612
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:40,040
end of that trip. It was just amazing. Yeah. I got

613
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:43,720
bailed up yesterday by a, some buyer about

614
00:37:43,720 --> 00:37:47,520
Nebbiolo Bianco. Yeah. It's not a thing. I don't believe you. You had to

615
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:51,000
ChatGPT and I just sat there and smiled. It's really, it's not a thing.

616
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:54,300
It's a synonym, I guess, for Arneis, but it is used there.

617
00:37:54,696 --> 00:37:58,181
Before, that's got a few different names. I met a guy in South

618
00:37:58,181 --> 00:38:01,826
Australia because I saw this Nebbiolo Bianco many years before I'd even started Patch.

619
00:38:02,580 --> 00:38:06,113
And I was like, never heard of Nebbiolo Bianco. Who is this? He said, I

620
00:38:06,113 --> 00:38:09,790
couldn't sell Arneis to save myself. Did some research and saw this,

621
00:38:09,806 --> 00:38:13,210
changed the name of the wine. And people were intrigued by this

622
00:38:13,210 --> 00:38:16,855
because Nebbiolo has become quite big as a varietal. Yeah. Right.

623
00:38:17,513 --> 00:38:20,932
And then everyone sort of, when we did it in 22, I think we made

624
00:38:21,028 --> 00:38:24,636
32 dozen. We took 2 rows out of this vineyard just to test it and

625
00:38:24,636 --> 00:38:27,426
all the somms went crazy. What is this? I need to have it.

626
00:38:28,323 --> 00:38:31,194
And then they found out the year after it was Arnaise, but I kept buying

627
00:38:31,226 --> 00:38:34,866
it because the consumer enjoyed it what it was. And it's a beautiful wine. It

628
00:38:34,898 --> 00:38:37,800
just has, it's been hard as a variety, Arnaise, in its makeup.

629
00:38:38,682 --> 00:38:42,322
Well, I think it's a, you know, trying to go through like that shelf right

630
00:38:42,354 --> 00:38:45,849
there in that picture. You know, my dad was well known for, in the

631
00:38:45,881 --> 00:38:49,570
'70s for having created a wine shop. You know, there were probably 5 wine

632
00:38:49,570 --> 00:38:53,270
shops in Los Angeles that were of note. This was one of them because

633
00:38:53,270 --> 00:38:56,670
he would do that. And the other thing he did that, that, that was new

634
00:38:56,670 --> 00:38:59,890
to the industry was just nothing goes on my shelf unless I taste it first.

635
00:38:59,890 --> 00:39:03,270
Yeah. It's hard to believe that, that would— it was ever like

636
00:39:03,270 --> 00:39:07,110
that. But, you know, they would walk in, the liquor guy would walk in with

637
00:39:07,110 --> 00:39:10,590
his Jack Daniel's and say, oh, by the way, the new cab from Mondavi's in

638
00:39:10,590 --> 00:39:13,530
here, put it on the shelf. And my dad's like, no, you wanna open and

639
00:39:13,530 --> 00:39:17,176
taste it? We'll taste it. And, and that's, kind of where this discretion came from.

640
00:39:17,737 --> 00:39:21,361
He also catered to a lot of aerospace executives who

641
00:39:21,490 --> 00:39:25,274
had dinner parties and things. But there's also a group, and

642
00:39:25,274 --> 00:39:28,931
that's what this patch is about, called Les Amis du Vin, which was

643
00:39:29,123 --> 00:39:32,491
part of the story. You had to have a store to get a chapter. And

644
00:39:32,491 --> 00:39:35,891
they used to hold these magnanimous events for the neighborhood,

645
00:39:36,821 --> 00:39:40,670
you know, tastings. Basically it was tastings of the day, right? But women

646
00:39:40,670 --> 00:39:43,717
would get dressed up, they'd wear their minks, and they'd go to a restaurant and

647
00:39:44,102 --> 00:39:47,924
they'd have a speaker. And I keep thinking we're

648
00:39:47,956 --> 00:39:51,298
kind of going back to that. Hospitality is coming back. I know that

649
00:39:51,346 --> 00:39:55,010
post-COVID everybody suffered through this. First of all, none of the workers that knew

650
00:39:55,010 --> 00:39:58,505
hospitality came back to work. Like, that was too hard. I don't wanna do it

651
00:39:58,505 --> 00:40:02,340
again. Way too hard. And then when they did, the workers that

652
00:40:02,550 --> 00:40:06,341
did get to come back weren't hospitality trained. And I

653
00:40:06,341 --> 00:40:10,171
think that's changing again. So, and I

654
00:40:10,464 --> 00:40:13,934
tell the story before, the best wine servers I've ever had in my career

655
00:40:14,244 --> 00:40:16,602
is in— was in Palermo from a

656
00:40:16,666 --> 00:40:20,106
Slovakian wine

657
00:40:20,138 --> 00:40:23,496
steward. And I tipped him separately because it was so—

658
00:40:24,093 --> 00:40:27,109
I was so energized. I was so enthused to watch him

659
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:31,078
prepare to service, to service the wine.

660
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:34,596
Yeah. I'm wondering if you see that coming back,

661
00:40:35,128 --> 00:40:37,695
not only in Australia but in America too. I think service is—

662
00:40:39,584 --> 00:40:43,300
it's getting better. I think people are now probably not It's

663
00:40:43,300 --> 00:40:46,620
not okay to be average at that. Yeah. And, you know, everything's going up and

664
00:40:46,620 --> 00:40:50,340
I think we're seeing the cost of living at home is, it's every day I

665
00:40:50,340 --> 00:40:53,640
open my phone, it's cost of living this, cost of living that. So out of

666
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:57,000
COVID everyone had money, they didn't go, boom, everyone went everywhere. They didn't care. Let's

667
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:00,040
just get out. But now you're seeing people are probably spending a bit less. They're

668
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,860
going to venues less. It's funny. Like the bottom

669
00:41:03,860 --> 00:41:07,580
end of hospitality is doing okay. It's feeding the masses. And then this

670
00:41:07,580 --> 00:41:11,370
huge gap the top end at home is doing very well. Yeah, that's

671
00:41:11,370 --> 00:41:13,650
right. So that says a bit about spend, right? Like, I'll wait. I'm not gonna

672
00:41:13,650 --> 00:41:16,290
go out 2 or 3 times a week. I'll go. Yeah. Thanks. So the top

673
00:41:16,290 --> 00:41:19,510
end's going well, but you look at these lists that they write and

674
00:41:19,510 --> 00:41:23,290
they're exorbitantly priced. Yeah. The pricing is ridiculous. Oh, it's

675
00:41:23,290 --> 00:41:26,870
disgusting. Yeah. It's, and we have a wine bar and we, our

676
00:41:26,870 --> 00:41:30,610
model's a bit different. We set all our bottle stuff is retail price and you

677
00:41:30,610 --> 00:41:33,230
do a little corkage to drink in. So you're drinking it at retail price, which

678
00:41:33,230 --> 00:41:36,992
is that. That's fair enough. Yeah. Well, we set our margin as a bottle shop

679
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:40,184
and with people sitting around, it's fun. So we, we do that. But I

680
00:41:41,147 --> 00:41:44,917
think people do expect it. You know, it's, it's, I think here's different

681
00:41:44,917 --> 00:41:48,511
because tip, the tipping game is very different. Yeah. But it's not

682
00:41:48,511 --> 00:41:52,105
everywhere. I mean, the prices, you know, usually the typical

683
00:41:52,843 --> 00:41:56,517
restaurant markup is 2x the retail price.

684
00:41:57,608 --> 00:42:00,993
Some do 2x the wholesale plus 5 or something like that.

685
00:42:01,266 --> 00:42:04,747
But I don't think that's changed much. I haven't seen a whole standard.

686
00:42:04,940 --> 00:42:08,000
It's been like that forever. Even at home. Yeah. I don't think anybody's backing off

687
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:11,720
of that. But then I have restaurateurs telling me my bottle sales

688
00:42:11,720 --> 00:42:15,480
are off 40%. Well, here's an interesting thought. I asked

689
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:18,780
that same restaurateur, I said, how is, how is your staff

690
00:42:18,780 --> 00:42:22,100
trained? Yeah. You know what he told me? He goes, they don't know shit. Yeah,

691
00:42:22,100 --> 00:42:25,880
exactly right. Well, what do you expect then is gonna happen?

692
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:27,740
Well, half of 'em, you gotta point to the wine on the list and then

693
00:42:27,740 --> 00:42:30,900
they walk off with it so they don't forget it. Yeah. Right. Where when I

694
00:42:30,900 --> 00:42:33,940
ran restaurants, all the guys were engaged and they knew most of the bottles. If

695
00:42:33,940 --> 00:42:36,270
they didn't, it was a shock. And they knew where to go and find it.

696
00:42:36,270 --> 00:42:38,490
They knew how to serve it. You didn't need a somm to come over and

697
00:42:38,490 --> 00:42:41,950
help you unless it was something very special. But

698
00:42:41,950 --> 00:42:45,010
opening sparkling is a good one, right? That's the one that gets them. Yeah, right,

699
00:42:45,010 --> 00:42:48,230
right. This crazy concept of this cork and

700
00:42:48,230 --> 00:42:51,970
pressure. But I think people enjoy service. And if you can give it

701
00:42:51,970 --> 00:42:55,670
without, we're not a high-end wine bar, but people come

702
00:42:55,670 --> 00:42:59,370
and we're in the suburbs and you give excellent service. I think that's what

703
00:42:59,370 --> 00:43:02,741
people want. They want to feel You don't need to go over the top. You

704
00:43:02,757 --> 00:43:06,543
don't need to be Michelin star or anything like that. Just give it.

705
00:43:06,607 --> 00:43:09,142
And I think if you've got staff, that's the thing, you need to put energy

706
00:43:09,174 --> 00:43:12,816
into the staff and finding staff that are engaged, that want to learn about

707
00:43:13,971 --> 00:43:17,565
wine and Gruner and Nebbiolo Bianco and Nerinto and crazy

708
00:43:17,597 --> 00:43:21,271
varieties. But because I think the consumer is, if you are

709
00:43:21,271 --> 00:43:25,057
confident about it, and that's where we do well at Urban, is they'll

710
00:43:25,057 --> 00:43:28,048
back us in if it's going to be All right, it's crazy. Let's try it.

711
00:43:28,983 --> 00:43:31,385
I think enough. They go, you know, I, I go back to my sales training

712
00:43:31,401 --> 00:43:34,334
when I was sold, sold all my life

713
00:43:35,830 --> 00:43:39,542
and understanding that consumer that's sitting at that table asking the questions that

714
00:43:39,542 --> 00:43:43,286
makes that consumer feel confident that you've got their best interest in mind. And when

715
00:43:43,318 --> 00:43:47,132
you make a suggestion finally after you've earned their trust, that they're gonna

716
00:43:47,664 --> 00:43:50,417
open it with welcome arms. It's not gonna be resistant to it. They're gonna say,

717
00:43:51,167 --> 00:43:54,005
you know, they ask the questions, they interested in what I'm doing, what I'm eating,

718
00:43:54,119 --> 00:43:57,891
what, What I usually drink? All those questions that

719
00:43:57,891 --> 00:44:01,580
help people understand that you've got them, they've got your

720
00:44:01,612 --> 00:44:05,389
back. They want you not telling people what you should

721
00:44:05,389 --> 00:44:06,841
be drinking. Well, I think

722
00:44:09,117 --> 00:44:12,296
putting energy into a wine list or an offering too, so many times at home

723
00:44:12,344 --> 00:44:16,072
and here you go, oh, there's the same 5 wines on by the glass.

724
00:44:16,201 --> 00:44:19,171
I get it. There's a commercial list and the hotels all have the same because

725
00:44:19,171 --> 00:44:22,770
that's the same at home. They all done by the big companies. But even it

726
00:44:22,770 --> 00:44:25,450
feels a little bit lazy. Some of the venues we see, oh, you can tell

727
00:44:25,450 --> 00:44:28,830
that being from the industry, one wine company's written this

728
00:44:28,830 --> 00:44:32,110
list. And the owner's like, you know what? The minute you walk in, I get

729
00:44:32,110 --> 00:44:34,930
a rebate or I get free glass or I get whatever out of the back

730
00:44:34,930 --> 00:44:37,210
of it. But someone will write it and they'll print it and it just sits

731
00:44:37,210 --> 00:44:40,350
there. There's not a single vintage on it. It's

732
00:44:40,350 --> 00:44:44,170
just— We can walk in any restaurant in Los Angeles. I can

733
00:44:44,170 --> 00:44:47,510
tell you who the supplier was, at least up until a couple years ago. when

734
00:44:47,767 --> 00:44:51,409
all of this has changed radically. So let's go back to Patch for a

735
00:44:51,409 --> 00:44:54,089
second. And we're actually out of time. It's unbelievable. But

736
00:44:54,538 --> 00:44:58,293
you've got this Turkish rose, you've got Grüner, you've

737
00:44:58,293 --> 00:45:02,096
got Grenache here, you've got Riesling. Is there something in the vineyard right now

738
00:45:02,850 --> 00:45:05,369
that we don't know about that you're seeing if it works?

739
00:45:06,139 --> 00:45:09,974
Also, this Italian family that we work with has got some interesting

740
00:45:10,070 --> 00:45:13,777
stuff. We'll see what's there. Patch is going through a bit of a

741
00:45:13,777 --> 00:45:17,560
change. I think I'm quite busy with my day job as well. So it's

742
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:21,255
sort of, how do you manage the time? And giving that the

743
00:45:21,255 --> 00:45:24,870
respect that it needs to pay my wage and pay me for me to

744
00:45:24,870 --> 00:45:28,682
do these things. One thing I'm excited

745
00:45:28,682 --> 00:45:32,458
about, we found a little vineyard in the Yarra, sort of outside the Yarra.

746
00:45:32,506 --> 00:45:35,705
It probably was almost at the southern end of the Yarra that had Pinot Meunier.

747
00:45:36,219 --> 00:45:40,056
So we've done a— Wow. Yeah. Another thing just to

748
00:45:40,056 --> 00:45:43,690
play with, but that I've gone, sparkling category is very

749
00:45:43,690 --> 00:45:47,250
strong at home. Very strong. So yeah. Big sparkling in the Yarra Valley. A lot

750
00:45:47,250 --> 00:45:50,570
of sparkling, a lot of Chardonnay, Pinot-based. There's Chardonnay and Pinot there. So there's Pinot

751
00:45:50,570 --> 00:45:53,890
Meunier. So there's a 100% Pinot Meunier Blanc de Noirs

752
00:45:53,890 --> 00:45:57,509
that's sitting in bottle. I've been dying to

753
00:45:57,509 --> 00:46:00,910
taste a champagne-based still

754
00:46:00,910 --> 00:46:04,190
wine from Pinot Meunier. Champagne-based. Yeah.

755
00:46:04,190 --> 00:46:07,790
There's some Pinot Meunier out there. There's some Pinot Meunier in Australia.

756
00:46:07,954 --> 00:46:11,759
that do still wines. I have no idea what character to

757
00:46:11,792 --> 00:46:15,438
expect from it, but— Yeah, I'm not sure we've got it 100% right. It can

758
00:46:15,438 --> 00:46:18,874
be a little lean in times. Yeah, I would suspect that. One from King Valley,

759
00:46:18,890 --> 00:46:21,878
Nomad Ben's sort of similar to what I do. Sort of a, he's a bit

760
00:46:21,878 --> 00:46:24,804
bigger than me. I'd love to see his wines here. They're amazing. He does a

761
00:46:24,853 --> 00:46:27,035
Pinot Meunier and it's knockout. We have it in the shop.

762
00:46:29,044 --> 00:46:31,247
But for us, that's a very cold site where we got this one from. And

763
00:46:31,247 --> 00:46:34,037
it's, so that was bottled and it's just sitting and I'm,

764
00:46:35,380 --> 00:46:38,870
Again, Méthode Traditionnelle sparkling wine is not great for the

765
00:46:38,870 --> 00:46:42,170
pocket. I mean, those are wine geeky things to

766
00:46:42,170 --> 00:46:45,590
want. Pinot Meunier from Nièvre

767
00:46:45,590 --> 00:46:49,130
Valley. Yeah. Well, I think that's just that sparkling and it will package it well

768
00:46:49,130 --> 00:46:52,830
and it'll change package on this. But that, so it's

769
00:46:52,830 --> 00:46:56,550
been fun doing these things. I think looking to probably streamline a

770
00:46:56,550 --> 00:46:59,670
little bit and is there something I want to do? It's been hard. Like Nebbiolo

771
00:46:59,670 --> 00:47:02,250
Bianco, we made every year and then the vineyard said, you know what? We're not

772
00:47:02,250 --> 00:47:05,147
going to sell it to you. So you go, okay, well now what? Gruner's a

773
00:47:05,147 --> 00:47:08,951
one-off. Arinto, we made it once, people love it. And

774
00:47:08,951 --> 00:47:12,724
then they, they, they pull the vineyard out so that fruit's gone,

775
00:47:13,402 --> 00:47:17,203
you know? So then what's the retail of these? $30 in America.

776
00:47:17,284 --> 00:47:20,820
$30. That's fair enough. Yeah. Really fair.

777
00:47:21,189 --> 00:47:23,150
You know, the other day my wife was at a

778
00:47:24,822 --> 00:47:28,579
conference, about 8 women went out to dinner in Orange County,

779
00:47:28,676 --> 00:47:32,465
one fancy steakhouse, and she sends me this exhaustive list. Yeah.

780
00:47:32,822 --> 00:47:36,592
and says, you know, text me, pick something for us. And they

781
00:47:36,608 --> 00:47:40,185
wanted a white, and they went, and my eye caught the Lewin

782
00:47:40,281 --> 00:47:43,939
Estate Chardonnay, which is one of the first wines I was

783
00:47:43,971 --> 00:47:47,500
allowed to buy when I started working with my dad. It was in

784
00:47:47,500 --> 00:47:50,756
1983 or something. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it was so good.

785
00:47:51,430 --> 00:47:54,687
And I thought, I don't know, I gotta support this brand 'cause it was part

786
00:47:54,687 --> 00:47:58,376
of my early career. And I never heard back from 'em. I gotta

787
00:47:58,392 --> 00:48:01,667
ask her what they thought of this wine. 'Cause, 'cause I was surprised it was

788
00:48:01,699 --> 00:48:04,990
on the list. The Art Series version or just the— I, it didn't say. Okay.

789
00:48:05,151 --> 00:48:07,864
It was like, you know, you're talking about the wine list, it just said Lewin

790
00:48:07,864 --> 00:48:11,509
Estate. And it could be one of 2 different levels of pricing. Yeah. I

791
00:48:11,638 --> 00:48:14,303
mean, all beautiful wines. Yeah. Yeah.

792
00:48:14,383 --> 00:48:18,221
That's, it's a, it is a bucket list for me to get down

793
00:48:18,221 --> 00:48:21,898
there and, and tour as much

794
00:48:22,235 --> 00:48:25,930
wine country in Australia as I can. But

795
00:48:25,930 --> 00:48:29,249
it's stacked up a bunch of other places I gotta get to. That are probably

796
00:48:29,249 --> 00:48:32,870
closer, right? We have had some good groups through Wine Australia that have come

797
00:48:32,870 --> 00:48:36,590
out. There's some nice jobs that it's, but for them, that's, it's

798
00:48:36,590 --> 00:48:39,390
even more hectic than my schedule, I think, at the moment. They come in and

799
00:48:39,390 --> 00:48:41,730
they're in a region in the morning, then they go to another region in the

800
00:48:41,730 --> 00:48:44,910
afternoon, then they're somewhere else and they fly. And then it's, how do you get

801
00:48:44,910 --> 00:48:48,730
your 5-minute window with these buyers? But— But you gotta do it. You gotta

802
00:48:48,730 --> 00:48:51,260
do it. You gotta do it. You gotta do it. But no, I think like,

803
00:48:51,586 --> 00:48:55,369
For Australian brands, it's hard to get in, get

804
00:48:55,369 --> 00:48:58,976
your offering right. It's that you can't just be, I'm gonna be this and you're

805
00:48:59,008 --> 00:49:01,525
not. No, you're not gonna be that. Nothing. Find out where your bottle wants to

806
00:49:01,525 --> 00:49:05,212
be. In the '80s, maybe. Maybe. You know, Hardee's

807
00:49:05,212 --> 00:49:08,723
and I'm trying to remember all the brands, Penfolds.

808
00:49:09,781 --> 00:49:13,307
What was the other big brand that was here? There were a

809
00:49:13,307 --> 00:49:17,010
few. And like I said, I bought containers

810
00:49:17,010 --> 00:49:20,620
full of Late Harvest, the semion, and people were buying it. It

811
00:49:20,620 --> 00:49:23,800
was— I even, I think I even bought more than Trader Joe's bought that year.

812
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:27,520
Wow. Yeah, it was nuts. So I wish you luck in your trip. Thank

813
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:29,980
you. Thank you for coming in and spending the time with me today. And we'll—

814
00:49:29,980 --> 00:49:33,400
I appreciate it. Tell the story. It's— thanks for having me. Rather, rather interesting. No,

815
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:37,040
it's been fun. And yeah, we're really happy that the brands have been supported

816
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:40,080
so far. So, well, you got Nick on the job here, so that's, you know,

817
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:42,840
he's done great. We've had a good couple of days here. Yeah. So we'll bounce

818
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:46,040
around the country for the next week and a half and good luck. Keep having

819
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:47,580
a crack. Yeah. Thank you. Cheers. Appreciate it. Cheers.