How French Village Life Changed the Hoffman Family’s View of Food, Wine, and Culture

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Bottle of wine is a time capsule to some extent. It is the embodiment of

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what happened in one given year. And you could push that a

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few, you know, one way or the other a little bit. But ultimately it's a

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good vintage if it captures exactly what happened in that year.

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

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with Paul Kay. Hey,

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welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay and I am in studio today. It's sort

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of a blustery day after a huge storm here in Southern California. About to

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have a conversation with Steve Hoffman, tax prepar pair and food and

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wine author. But have a listen to a show that I just put out.

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It's an incredible conversation with

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a gentleman named Greg Lambreck and Greg Lembreck, a

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nuclear physicist who invented the coravan. It's an incredible,

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incredible conversation. But now while we're here, here to talk about Steve, welcome

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to the show. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. I'm going to read this thing from

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Chat gtp since everybody's using AI and I certainly do too, but it's

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rather, rather magnanimous. Today on Wine Talks, we sit with the Steve

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Hoff, author, journalist, and a man whose life story

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reads like a map of curiosity. How about that? Already

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I'm in. I'm flying.

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Hoffman's path has swung through kitchens, newsrooms and French

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markets, each chapter sharpening the way he observes people, culture, and

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the seasons that define our lives. His book A Season for that isn't

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just a memoir. It's a precise, unvarnished look at change,

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identity, and the quiet truths we only see when we slow

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down. Wow, that's, that's awfully impressive. Oh, yeah,

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I'll take that. I may borrow Almost better than natural intelligence.

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Certainly mine. You know, I got this, I think,

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I think a PR agency or a PR person work reached out to me and

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asked if, you know, you wanted to be, I wanted you on the show and,

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and I and sent me a book and we read most of the book. I'll

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admit to the listeners it's, it was really

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struck home for me. But let's go back to your career for a little bit.

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Just that's not what you do every day, or at least we just

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mentioned six months of the year. What's your regular vocation? Yeah,

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my job that actually pays the bills is tax preparation. And I've been doing that

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for almost 25 years. I was a language and

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literature major in college, studied French, English and Ancient

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Greek. And my wife was an aerospace engineer. And so

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she went to work and I Raised our kids for

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obvious reasons. And then at some point

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we were having trouble having baby number two and we thought it was the stress

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of her job. So we sort of tag team. She jumped out of the ring

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and I inherited my mother in law's tax business, which sounds

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like one of the worst ill fitting careers that you can imagine for a

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language and literature guy. But I ended up loving it. And so I've been doing

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that for 25 years and only really

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added my writing career on as a midlife

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resumption of an early love of words and books

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and writing. And over those years it's

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gradually evolved to about a half and half proposition where

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I work the first half of the year in tax preparation. I do about five

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or six hundred tax returns. That pretty much funds us through

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the end of the year. I consider it sort of a form of self patronage.

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I'm kind of my own grant program so I don't have to go out and,

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and make money with my writing. With every assignment I take on, I can kind

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of write with some creative freedom because the, you know, the bills are

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paid by, by about July or for the most part paid by July.

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You know, you said something interesting. You inherited your mother in law's tax

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business. And, and I did. I deliberately stayed away from my mother in law's

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business which was, she was there in trash. And so

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they wanted me to do this, but you know, my

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father had, had gotten an offer for the wine of the month club and

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said son, I think you may come check this out. And of course it paved

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the way for my career. But this is kind of interesting because your wife is,

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she's from Slavic country, right? She is half

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Romanian. Yeah. So her father was 100 Romanian. And

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so yeah, we've. She's an aerospace engineer from trade.

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From, from Romania or here she went. No, no, no. She was, she was born

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and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, but from. Grew up

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on Rice street on the east side of St Paul where

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there was a little Romanian enclave. And

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so her dad was named John Lapidat and she grew up Mary Jo

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Lapidat. We met in 1987, but she was born and

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raised in the Twin Cities and studied as an aerospace

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engineer. She got her engineering degree at Madison

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and then got her aerospace engineer master's at Stanford

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and then worked for Honeywell for a bunch of years. And she. Since we

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both have this weird sort of right left brain thing going, she's since

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begun a career as an artist. And so she's an artist photographer. I'm now

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Tax preparer, food writer. But she is a former. I literally did marry a

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rocket scientist. So that's like. Yeah, you can imagine how often that joke gets

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told in our household. It doesn't take a long time. You sort of bring it

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up in the book in the beginning about how you met her and this whole

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dichotomy, this irony between their two lifestyles. And you're rearing and I,

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you know, it's. It's fascinating. It's kind of what drew us into the story

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in the first place. But it's interesting.

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I consider myself a creative person that's kind of, you know, I'm not the

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organized, structured guy. If you saw the rest of the studio I'm sitting in, you

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see how what a mess it is. And my wife is that structured

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accountant type. She's an accountant. How does that

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balance in your lifestyle? I mean, you've. It's. Particularly when you sort of have a

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hard line, stop. You know, in six months, you know, April 16th. And it's like,

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well, now we're going to start the creative side. That seems like that transition is

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hard. The transition from the writing season into tax season is really easy

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now. After 25 years, it's very linear. You know, my

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time is blocked off in one hour increments. My. My clients all sign up for

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their appointments ahead of time. And so that

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doesn't. No longer takes as much of my brain as it used to, as much

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sort of psychic space. But the transition out of taxes into writing

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is very hard. It takes much longer. It's getting into that

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place where you're not just solving problems

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in a world that you are already more or less a

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master of, but you're always asking questions about,

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what does this mean? Who am I?

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What is important to me? What are my foundational goals and

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values? And that fuels the writing, but that it's

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very hard to dip in and out of that mentality. You've got to kind of

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be in there. I call it big ship. You know, you can't turn an

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ocean liner very fast. And it takes me a long time to get started and

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a long time to stop. That makes a ton of sense because

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the writer's block in itself is a hurdle that we all

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have. And here you have to shift gears. Not just like

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sit in front of sitting at Starbucks on WI Fi trying to write something. But

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you've come out of a completely different environment.

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Absolutely. Think that is why the creative process is so interesting to me.

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And I've always wanted to act,

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and I'm Using this platform and other platforms in the

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wine trade to foster that creative spirit that

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I think I have. But why do you think

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that exists, this ability to create

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when you really on a roll and then the ability to just be

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completely stymied when you're trying to figure something out? Yeah, I think. Well, I

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think two things. First of all, I think a lot of people think that you

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can just be creative and decide that you're creative and then start being creative.

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And I don't think. I think creativity

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requires a set of skills that any other

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activity does. You can't just step onto a tennis court and be a good tennis

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player. You can't just decide you like a glass of wine and

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be a wine expert. It involves repetition and iteration

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and being in that world for enough

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time and doing the same thing over and over so that you actually

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establish skill sets. And I think a lot of people underestimate the amount of

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rigor is involved in actually being creative. But then

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the other part of your question is just sort of like, why do we get

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lost in creativity and why does it take us so long to

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get into that mindset? And I just feel like creativity is usually asking us to

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be slightly better than we are. A lot of times our

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jobs, we more or less understand everything that needs to be done for a job

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because we've done it. They're relatively straightforward

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activities. Creativity is always asking you to be

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a little bit better, to think a little bit beyond what you thought before, to

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be a little bit better than who you are. David Bowie once had a really

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good image for what that's like he said, it's like being in a

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pool where you're dropping down into the deep end and at some

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point you're not over your head, but you're not touching bottom either, and you're kind

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of bobbing up and down at the edge of your edge of your

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physical size. And I feel like creatively that's what happens when you're doing

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it right, which is you're not quite comfortable. You're a little in over your

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depth. You're not drowning, but it's not easy either. And I just

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think that's where the best creative work happens. And it's a really

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hard place to reach and stay in. You know, it's interesting. I

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don't know the words of that song, that Suffragette City. No, I'm kidding.

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You know, while you're saying that, reflecting on

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the. The access to creative tools these days, with of course, the

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Internet and now AI and all the other Even prior to

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AI, there was all kinds of wonderful things to do and having to be on

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TikTok or be on. On Facebook, Instagram, and

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continue to create. And now it's created this

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burnout feature of, I think, a generation that

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doesn't. Didn't understand what you just said. You know, the, the, the crux of what

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you just said is really important. It's been around since creativity, you know,

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humanity. Absolutely. And all of a sudden now access to creativity

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and displaying your creativity is creating a burnout in

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this because you can do it so fast. If you don't do it fast enough,

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then somebody else is doing it ahead of you, and you're. You. You're clamoring for

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attention on the social networks. And I think you've created a whole

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different generation of. I do, too. And I think some of the

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impetus or the encouragement to just churn out

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content has really. It looks like creativity, but it actually gets in the

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way of creativity. It's more like a grind. It's more like

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a marathon. Creativity is about sort of

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sitting still with yourself and being creative,

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finding a way to be comfortable with that or at least make something out of

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that. And that's why I think that AI is going to. It's going to be

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a very long time before AI creates writing

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that really means something, because all good writing comes out of a perspective. It

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comes out of a very specific set of life circumstances that can't be

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recreated by anybody else. And you write out of that the very

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unique weirdness of your life. And everybody's life is

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weird because everybody's life is unique. And I don't know how AI is

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ever going to recreate that. Know that. That sense of writing out of a. Out

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of a single perspective. And you're looking at life through this little keyhole

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of your own experience. And, you know, that's. I.

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That's where writing happens. That means something to me. Anyway, I don't think

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AI is going to get there for a while. I completely agree. And I, I

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don't know how it could ever. Because it hasn't ever led a

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life. Yeah, it just, you know, and it admittedly has no common

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sense in those kinds of pieces. There's a. There's a lot of

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people on the web. You know, there's one, One person I won't call on any

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names, but I listen to podcasts

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and they don't make any sense. Their English

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is average at best. She's

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not native English is not English is not her native language.

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But then she writes this Amazing stuff. That's really thoughtful.

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And I'm thinking myself, there's a problem here because

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there's no way her brain can create what was written on a

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post, but because the way she,

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you know, presents herself on a podcast is just the English. Well, I don't know.

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You know, I'm a different. I'm a different person live than I am on the

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page. I'm a. I'm a better thinker and a better expressor of myself on the

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page than I am live. So I can kind of see that. I can see

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somebody who would be sort of tongue tied in front of a microphone, but then,

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you know, alone in a room as an introvert, the words start

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flowing, that they get in touch with some place in themselves that they

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can't. They can't access when they're in front of other people.

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I can see that. I'll buy that.

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I'll buy that. It's. Well, it's. I just kind of

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creates a lot, you know, this is a person that creates a lot. And I,

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I do envy that. When I sold the Wine of the Month club, I thought

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I wanted to be an actor and, and realized

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that, like you just said earlier, that that creative process

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takes a lot of time and energy to foster and,

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and to find the chasms in your brain that, that make it better

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and, and practice it, just like you have to practice anything.

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Absolutely. You have to put time into it. Your. Your book, A Season

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for that Lost and Found in the Other Southern France. I'll hold it up in

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case somebody's watching. There she is. My baby.

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You know, it drew me in immediately, and I'll tell you why. My father

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spoke five languages. He came from Cairo. What? French was one of them. I never

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spoke French with him, but I, I set out about five, seven years ago

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to, to learn to speak with him before he passed away. And we had a

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great exchange as he was. Life with his body

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was fading. And I always thought it was fascinating

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that he could correct my grammar when he

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learned it in high school in 19, you know,

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48, not even. And.

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But the, the idea. This goes back to your. Your creative idea

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thought process. This is a very organic

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story about your pursuit.

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Maybe it's for an alternative lifestyle. Maybe it was to. To

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dig deeper into your Francophile needs.

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Maybe it was a curiosity to your.

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To. To picking up and moving like you did. Tell me how

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this, like how you convinced your Romanian wife that this was going

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to be an idea where you're going to take your whole family and move them

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to the south of France or in a small village, no less, and

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try and recreate a lifestyle or create a lifestyle. Yeah.

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There had always been a sense of adventure that we embraced. We, we liked

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even from early on in our marriage. In our 20s, she was doing well at

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Honeywell. She was already a manager. And we

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took three months off and lived in French Polynesia and just kind of showed up

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and lived for three months on reef fish and breadfruit and

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mangoes and papayas. And it started

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off almost as disastrously as this French trip did.

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We didn't know what we were doing. And that was part of the fun, the

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sort of screw it, we're just going to give this a try. And

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we are partners. We were looking at the world shoulder to shoulder.

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And we like being in that position. We like kind of testing our wits

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and seeing what the world had to throw at us and overcoming as

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a team. So it's not quite as crazy to imagine that we would do

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this thing. And it really, it derived from our kid,

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from ultimately way back from my taking my

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junior year of college off, living in Paris, learning how to speak French, falling in

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love with French language and culture and literature. But then

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the travel bug and the interest in

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looking outside, you know, in trying to combine both

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a comfortable, more or less bourgeois

259
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middle class existence and then also having these

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tangents where we try to figure out something a little less

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ordinary. The tension between those things has sort of animated our marriage for

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as long as we've been married. So we both like making enough money to

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pay all the bills. We would have trouble being pure bohemians, where you don't know

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where the next paycheck's going to come from. You're sleeping on your friend's couch. And

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sometimes that can be a very creative place. That just wasn't how we were wired.

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So we are always caught a little bit

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between this longing for adventure and

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this need for a certain amount of stability and predictability.

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And so this was after a period where we'd done the kid

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raising thing, those busy middle parenting years. Our kids had both gone

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to French immersion school in St. Paul, so their curriculum had all been in French.

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And one day Mary Jo was sort of like, I've

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commuted these two damn kids to St. Paul for

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45 minutes a day, five days a week for nine years. They

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better speak some pretty good French by the time we're done with all this. Why

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don't we go to France and put them in school

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and let them actually really cement that language? So while it was

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my love of France in the French language and my fluency. That was

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the sort of

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the energy underneath this. It was also very much Mary

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Jo's decision. And this is going to be another one of those times where

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we throw a dart at a map, see where it lands, and

283
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get there and start figuring it out when we get there. And as you know

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from reading the book, it doesn't go very well. When we first arrived,

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we were very much under prepared, but with the

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difference being that we had kids this time and kids who were at the edges

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of their capacities and something needed to be different this time.

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And that's where the book really starts, is in that moment of

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her saying, this isn't working. You're not doing enough. You're the

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one who speaks French. You're the one who loves this country. You're not.

291
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You're not doing enough to bring us along. And I don't want this to be

292
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another trip where we just sit and watch you speak beautiful French. Something more interesting

293
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has to happen this time, and that kind of unleashes the whole

294
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series of events that make up the

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narrative of the story. It's so funny. I just

296
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got back, but not just back last year it took 12 people,

297
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which the, the trip didn't start out that way. It was just. I wanted

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to go do some podcasting and we were going to be in Monaco for the

299
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Grand Prix, and then we ended up in Bordeaux, whatever. And I

300
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was very cognizant. And my French is okay,

301
00:18:32,889 --> 00:18:36,650
you know, I can hang. I have a hard time hearing it, you know, which

302
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is probably common. But I can have a conversation. I walk into wine shops

303
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and I discuss my shop here in America, whatever. But I was

304
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very aware of the fact that I didn't want my guests,

305
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so to speak, my friends, to think Paul's showboating

306
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with these people. And so I was very cognizant of that when I was going

307
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through the daily tasks and trying to communicate with store vendors and

308
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things, that I wasn't acting like that person. But let me

309
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ask you this question.

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Americans are very focused group. American

311
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history is short. The American

312
00:19:14,290 --> 00:19:17,730
personality abroad. You know, if you, if you, if understand

313
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what the French think of Americans, what the Italians think of Americans and what the

314
00:19:20,930 --> 00:19:23,810
rest of the world think of Americans, you get a clearer view of who Americans

315
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are, which is its own culture and has its own peculiarities about it.

316
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So what do you think the value to your kids

317
00:19:31,170 --> 00:19:33,650
and your marriage and your lifestyle,

318
00:19:34,930 --> 00:19:37,340
the. The value of this trip was?

319
00:19:39,020 --> 00:19:42,740
That's a great question. And I don't know that anybody's ever asked that

320
00:19:42,740 --> 00:19:46,340
question before. And I think what I would say

321
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is, yes, there's

322
00:19:50,100 --> 00:19:53,860
the easy sort of. Well, the kids got to think of

323
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themselves as world citizens, and so they weren't stuck in the mentality of

324
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being America, being American, and looking out at the rest of the world the way

325
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most Americans look out. But I don't know that that was the most valuable thing.

326
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I think a couple of things. I think it gave them confidence.

327
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That has nothing to do with the fact that we were in France. It had

328
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to do with the fact that they were challenging themselves to the edges of their

329
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abilities at a young age. Being asked to really step up

330
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and meet kids

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in a strange land. There was no English. We were in a very

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sort of backwater part of rural southern France, and

333
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they had to find some resources in them. And

334
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I think it was really scary when they went through it. But when we got

335
00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:41,280
back, we could see a new confidence in both of them

336
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that I don't think they would have had. You can find that elsewhere. But that

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was one of the biggest things for me. The biggest thing

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was because we were this

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little island of Americans in our

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house because we were challenging the kids. So,

341
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you know, they're being challenged at such a level

342
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during most of their days. We created this little refuge in

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our house where they could come back and they could throw off their backpacks and

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they could watch friends if they wanted to, and they

345
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didn't have to be on at home. And

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one of the beautiful things about living in France is that, especially in rural France,

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I think, is that the tradition of family and even

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grandparents being at the table together twice a day,

349
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really. The kids had an hour and a half break for lunch, and you could

350
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see all the grandparents taking their kids home from the

351
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elementary school, holding their hands. They're going to go sit and have lunch together. Then

352
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they're going to go back to school. And at the end of the day, they

353
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were going to go back and they were going to have dinner together. And that

354
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tradition gets sort of romanticized. But it had a very practical effect for

355
00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:54,360
us because we entered into that. And what it

356
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did was it taught us to be a family even to this

357
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day. We can fire up the stove. We got a bunch

358
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of raw ingredients. We get together as a family, we put something together. We

359
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sit down and talk with the TV off. We actually don't own a tv.

360
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But that experience

361
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and being in a cultural setting

362
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where that was really important taught us really,

363
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how do you be a Family together, how do you interact together? How do you

364
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spend lots of time together? And I feel like we got to know our kids

365
00:22:28,020 --> 00:22:31,620
better than average because we were in there on their

366
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wavelength for so much time during that trip. And then that trip fed that

367
00:22:35,300 --> 00:22:39,100
kind of habit over many of the years afterwards as well. That's

368
00:22:39,100 --> 00:22:42,900
a great explanation of some of the value of

369
00:22:42,900 --> 00:22:46,190
this. I mean, the. I know that even

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with you French, not your primary language, you still

371
00:22:50,390 --> 00:22:54,030
probably had those moments where you got home and you just said, okay, you know,

372
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I can speak English, and you're trying your brain, but

373
00:22:57,670 --> 00:23:00,590
it's so good for your brain. It's so good for the kid's brain. Let's lay

374
00:23:00,590 --> 00:23:04,430
the land a little bit for the listeners. This is. You picked

375
00:23:04,430 --> 00:23:07,350
up and you moved to France and you moved to this little town, but you

376
00:23:07,350 --> 00:23:10,550
call it the other southern France. Why do we call it the other southern France?

377
00:23:10,550 --> 00:23:13,710
Yeah, I think because most people think of southern France as the Provence in the

378
00:23:13,710 --> 00:23:17,120
Riviera. You know, they think of it as a glamorous. Right. Yep. Saint

379
00:23:17,120 --> 00:23:20,440
Tropez and. Yeah. You know, the Lubero

380
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:24,240
Mountains. Peter Mayo. And, you know, there's, there's,

381
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,920
there's. That's what I think most people think of in southern France. And that's east

382
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:31,200
of the Rhone. So, you know, the Rhone river divides the country in half, not

383
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:35,000
dissimilar to the way Mississippi divides the US Southern coast in half. And

384
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:38,680
on the east side of the Rhone is Provence and the Riviera, and you

385
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:42,490
eventually get to Italy, and west of the Rhone is Languedoc, and

386
00:23:42,490 --> 00:23:46,010
then eventually you turn south and get into Roussillon, which

387
00:23:46,090 --> 00:23:49,690
leads eventually the Spanish border. So it's.

388
00:23:50,090 --> 00:23:53,010
Go ahead. No, I was just gonna say it's. It's the other southern France in

389
00:23:53,010 --> 00:23:56,650
that sense. It's sort of the forgotten sister of the

390
00:23:56,650 --> 00:24:00,130
glamorous touristed Provence and, and

391
00:24:00,130 --> 00:24:03,930
Riviera. And, you know, in some ways, that was

392
00:24:03,930 --> 00:24:06,960
an advantage to us that it was a little bit forgotten because we got to

393
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:10,640
spend time in a place that didn't see many tourists, and there was an

394
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:14,120
opportunity to integrate that I think would have

395
00:24:14,120 --> 00:24:17,000
encountered a much harder barrier if we were in a tourist town.

396
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:21,040
I would, I would agree with that. I think that kind of goes back to

397
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:24,800
most, most travelers who go to

398
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,800
France for the first time. They go to Paris, obviously. And

399
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:32,240
the reputation Paris has had for many years, I don't find it

400
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:36,090
myself, is that they're not friendly to Americans and they, they're very rude

401
00:24:36,090 --> 00:24:39,690
and, and I don't I don't find that at all. And

402
00:24:39,690 --> 00:24:43,210
it's generally accepted that when you go to the rural parts of France and Italy

403
00:24:43,210 --> 00:24:46,930
that you. You're greeted with what much more congeniality

404
00:24:46,930 --> 00:24:50,570
and. And friendliness. And I suppose that would be true, but then there's less

405
00:24:50,570 --> 00:24:53,810
English. I mean, you go to Paris now, everybody speaks English. I mean, it's kind

406
00:24:53,810 --> 00:24:57,530
of disappointing, actually, because. Absolutely, absolutely. And even. And even in

407
00:24:57,530 --> 00:25:00,980
parts of rural France now, in some of the larger

408
00:25:00,980 --> 00:25:04,740
villages that are like the Pluvo village, where they

409
00:25:04,740 --> 00:25:08,380
have the most beautiful villages in France, those get

410
00:25:08,380 --> 00:25:11,900
very heavily visited. And there's

411
00:25:11,900 --> 00:25:15,100
Gourd, for instance, in southern France with this beautiful vista out

412
00:25:15,980 --> 00:25:19,100
over the vineyards and the hills. And

413
00:25:19,580 --> 00:25:23,420
again, it was mentioned in Peter Mayle's books. And we went

414
00:25:23,420 --> 00:25:26,830
there one day again, feeling like our place is a little

415
00:25:26,830 --> 00:25:30,670
scruffy and a little backwater. And we got to

416
00:25:30,670 --> 00:25:34,390
Gordon and it was magnificently beautiful and everything was kept up and there

417
00:25:34,390 --> 00:25:37,870
was. The cobbles were. But then we went to our first restaurant and there was

418
00:25:37,870 --> 00:25:41,190
a menu this big, and it was in, you know, English, French,

419
00:25:41,750 --> 00:25:45,350
Italian, Dutch, German, you know,

420
00:25:45,510 --> 00:25:49,110
and it's like, this is not what I signed up for, you know, so.

421
00:25:50,490 --> 00:25:53,450
But to your point, I think that

422
00:25:54,410 --> 00:25:58,090
the historical rudeness, quote unquote, of Paris

423
00:25:58,570 --> 00:26:02,170
is really just simply what happens when

424
00:26:03,290 --> 00:26:07,130
they have been overrun for decades by American tourists, many of

425
00:26:07,130 --> 00:26:10,770
whom don't speak English, many of whom come with a sense of entitlement

426
00:26:10,770 --> 00:26:14,530
about what they have a right, the kind of experience they have a

427
00:26:14,530 --> 00:26:18,330
right to have, and they don't do really any research ahead

428
00:26:18,330 --> 00:26:22,050
of time and don't really know what they're getting into. And if that

429
00:26:22,050 --> 00:26:24,730
happens once or twice in a little remote village, it's not a big deal. And

430
00:26:24,730 --> 00:26:28,250
you get to be the person who educates that American,

431
00:26:28,410 --> 00:26:31,770
if that's the hundredth American you've seen that day at the

432
00:26:31,850 --> 00:26:35,490
cafe, and they've all been that way, without speaking your

433
00:26:35,490 --> 00:26:38,410
language and coming to your country with expectations of privilege,

434
00:26:39,130 --> 00:26:42,610
it's not surprising that there's a little bit of rudeness. I also think, though, that

435
00:26:42,610 --> 00:26:45,850
the rudeness of France is also partly a cultural

436
00:26:45,850 --> 00:26:49,580
misunderstanding. And it's just simply that Americans tend to be friendly. We

437
00:26:49,580 --> 00:26:53,340
tend to make connections really quickly and get kind of deep

438
00:26:53,340 --> 00:26:57,060
with each other emotionally quickly. And then

439
00:26:57,300 --> 00:27:00,540
it reaches a bottom where it can stay a little bit shallow, where it's kind

440
00:27:00,540 --> 00:27:04,260
of this yucky, yuck, hail, fellow, well met attitude about

441
00:27:04,260 --> 00:27:07,700
life. And in France, that just simply doesn't happen. Anybody in France,

442
00:27:08,020 --> 00:27:11,540
it takes a While to get in, to become a part of somebody's life.

443
00:27:11,700 --> 00:27:14,940
But then once you're in, quite often you're in for life. And that was one

444
00:27:14,940 --> 00:27:17,970
of the experiences we had there. It took a very long time for us to

445
00:27:17,970 --> 00:27:21,130
feel a part of things. But then now those people have remained friends

446
00:27:21,450 --> 00:27:24,890
for, you know, for the rest of our lives. Ever since we've been there. I.

447
00:27:25,130 --> 00:27:28,730
That's an interesting perspective, being in the wine trade there.

448
00:27:28,730 --> 00:27:32,450
I've had many, many, many French expats

449
00:27:32,450 --> 00:27:35,530
here that. To sell me wine. And they come here for a reason. The women,

450
00:27:35,610 --> 00:27:39,290
particularly the women who, who kind of fled

451
00:27:39,290 --> 00:27:41,210
this patriarchal society of France,

452
00:27:43,330 --> 00:27:46,930
have a common thread among them. They're very strong,

453
00:27:47,970 --> 00:27:51,410
they work very hard, they're very shrewd and

454
00:27:51,970 --> 00:27:55,170
they come with a purpose. When they walk into this office to sell me wine.

455
00:27:55,330 --> 00:27:57,810
And they've all been that way. And I've had a couple that would come. I

456
00:27:57,810 --> 00:28:00,650
had one woman, she was great. She's back in Champagne now. She grew up there,

457
00:28:00,650 --> 00:28:03,650
but she would come. She was one of the toughest people I ever dealt with.

458
00:28:03,730 --> 00:28:07,410
But it was clear to me that amongst them was this

459
00:28:07,410 --> 00:28:11,150
drive to prove to themselves. And the only

460
00:28:11,150 --> 00:28:14,870
way they could really do it was in America. And they didn't want to speak

461
00:28:14,870 --> 00:28:18,590
French, though a couple of them would stay. I had one woman who would book

462
00:28:18,590 --> 00:28:21,710
the last appointment of the day, which was 2 o', clock, and then she'd stay

463
00:28:21,790 --> 00:28:25,550
and help me practice my French. We would just speak French and I would, you

464
00:28:25,550 --> 00:28:29,150
know, we buy wine from her. But it was interesting. But here's a pitch that

465
00:28:29,150 --> 00:28:32,710
I make when I talk to, to people about

466
00:28:32,710 --> 00:28:35,390
wine. And if you were to find culture,

467
00:28:36,540 --> 00:28:39,980
you know, you'd have to say a language, if there is one

468
00:28:40,540 --> 00:28:44,180
land, if they still have it, certainly cuisine, the

469
00:28:44,180 --> 00:28:47,740
arts and wine. And that's how I tie the wine into that conversation.

470
00:28:48,140 --> 00:28:51,819
But I found it really important when I was studying France

471
00:28:51,819 --> 00:28:54,860
to understand the history of France,

472
00:28:55,500 --> 00:28:58,980
Napoleon and Catherine de

473
00:28:58,980 --> 00:29:02,780
Medici and the whole evolution of food there. And

474
00:29:03,220 --> 00:29:06,940
you have a section in the book where you. Where you're trying to

475
00:29:06,940 --> 00:29:08,900
create cuisine out of the local

476
00:29:10,660 --> 00:29:14,420
fish and mullis and all kinds of things. And then the

477
00:29:14,420 --> 00:29:17,460
kids are like, you know, we're not having any of this kind of thing.

478
00:29:18,420 --> 00:29:21,780
No hamburgers in this town, I suppose. And so, yeah,

479
00:29:22,100 --> 00:29:25,540
was that the objective is like really the immersion not only

480
00:29:25,620 --> 00:29:29,460
in the, the, the language, but wow, we're going to

481
00:29:29,690 --> 00:29:32,970
cook what these people cook. Very much so,

482
00:29:33,770 --> 00:29:37,130
you know, that was partly my response to that early.

483
00:29:38,330 --> 00:29:42,010
Little bit of a Slap upside the head from Mary Jo, my wife,

484
00:29:42,970 --> 00:29:46,770
when she said, this isn't working. You need to do something new. And one

485
00:29:46,770 --> 00:29:50,330
of my first efforts to try to integrate us

486
00:29:50,410 --> 00:29:53,730
as a family into this place was to cook my way into it. I'd always

487
00:29:53,730 --> 00:29:57,370
been. I'd always love food. I had always loved wine, but

488
00:29:57,370 --> 00:30:01,210
as a. As an enthusiast, as a. As a drinker, I hadn't been really.

489
00:30:01,990 --> 00:30:05,710
I hadn't had anything like a wine education until we

490
00:30:05,710 --> 00:30:09,550
got here and then I got a very deep one, obviously. But

491
00:30:09,550 --> 00:30:13,270
yes, the cooking was an initial effort to. Well, what do you do? You know,

492
00:30:13,350 --> 00:30:17,190
it sounds great from a couch in Shoreview, Minnesota, that you're

493
00:30:17,190 --> 00:30:20,150
going to go live in this village for six months and of course you're going

494
00:30:20,150 --> 00:30:22,830
to become a part of things. And then you get there, it's like, well, how

495
00:30:22,830 --> 00:30:26,590
does that happen? You can't just walk up to people and shake their hand

496
00:30:26,590 --> 00:30:30,270
and say, I want to be your friend. And especially in an 800 person village,

497
00:30:30,270 --> 00:30:33,390
it's really more like an extended family than it is like a village. And they

498
00:30:33,390 --> 00:30:36,230
don't particularly. They're fine, you know, they don't need you. They don't need.

499
00:30:37,270 --> 00:30:40,790
They're living perfectly lovely existences

500
00:30:40,870 --> 00:30:43,830
without your presence in their village. And so there was no.

501
00:30:45,270 --> 00:30:48,870
One of the initial sort of hurdles was there was no inherent

502
00:30:49,030 --> 00:30:52,870
desire on the part of our neighbors to welcome us in. We had to earn

503
00:30:52,870 --> 00:30:56,510
that. And my first effort to earn it was to

504
00:30:56,510 --> 00:31:00,320
get out there and ask questions of the local grocer and asked questions of

505
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:03,800
the fishmonger who came every Friday and delivered his son's

506
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,000
fish from the Mediterranean and the shellfishmonger and started to try

507
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,720
to cook my way into the village. And eventually that

508
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,199
ran up against exactly what you're saying, which is that a. I wasn't much of

509
00:31:15,199 --> 00:31:17,480
a cook and I wasn't getting better fast.

510
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,240
And it's a very strange cuisine. I mean, we think of

511
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:26,080
Mediterranean cuisine as the thing that we're all supposed to be eating for our

512
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,800
health. But when you are in the Mediterranean itself, it's a

513
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,880
very strongly flavored, very smelly,

514
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,360
very, you know, full of

515
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:41,880
unusual ingredients, you know, I mean, not, yes, garlic,

516
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,480
of course, but anchovies and lots and lots of shellfish

517
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:48,800
and lots of fish, but lots of small little oily fish.

518
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,800
And the meat traditionally has not been pork and

519
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:57,000
beef. It's been lamb and wild boar and some wild

520
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:00,510
game and yes, certainly chicken, but also duck. And suddenly

521
00:32:00,990 --> 00:32:04,710
there was this whole new vocabulary of cooking that I had never

522
00:32:04,710 --> 00:32:08,230
been familiar with. And my

523
00:32:08,230 --> 00:32:11,630
attempts to cook eventually work out, but early on,

524
00:32:12,110 --> 00:32:15,749
especially with my first attempt to cook

525
00:32:15,749 --> 00:32:19,470
the rabbit that I got from the local grocer that

526
00:32:19,630 --> 00:32:23,390
my daughter told me looked like a chihuahua and that she was not going

527
00:32:23,390 --> 00:32:27,100
to touch with a 10 foot tall. Yeah,

528
00:32:27,900 --> 00:32:31,580
exactly. So, yeah, it was an effort to integrate.

529
00:32:31,580 --> 00:32:35,380
It kind of failed for a long time. And that failure eventually led

530
00:32:35,380 --> 00:32:39,220
to, you know, my asking to pick grapes. We were there during the

531
00:32:39,220 --> 00:32:42,900
fall semester, we were there during the grape harvest. And I

532
00:32:42,900 --> 00:32:46,540
realized at some point, as I watched the vineyards around the village start

533
00:32:46,540 --> 00:32:50,060
filling up with people, that that's what was happening and that that was

534
00:32:50,060 --> 00:32:53,770
maybe that's what this place wanted to talk to me about. I

535
00:32:53,770 --> 00:32:57,530
had arrived, I think, with some preconceived notions about what this trip ought

536
00:32:57,530 --> 00:33:01,250
to be. And I finally stopped talking and shut up for a

537
00:33:01,250 --> 00:33:04,570
while and listened. And what the place was trying to tell me is that this

538
00:33:04,570 --> 00:33:08,370
is a place that's surrounded by vines in the, you

539
00:33:08,370 --> 00:33:11,890
know, the largest vineyard in the world. And this is how people make their livings.

540
00:33:11,890 --> 00:33:15,170
And this is, this is the culture of this place. If you're going to be

541
00:33:15,170 --> 00:33:18,690
a part of this, you need to get out there in those fields and, and

542
00:33:18,930 --> 00:33:21,980
accept what it's trying to tell you. That's a

543
00:33:22,460 --> 00:33:26,260
whole conversation. I don't want to forget that. But

544
00:33:26,260 --> 00:33:29,500
I want to ask you this one question about, you know,

545
00:33:30,220 --> 00:33:32,860
I did a podcast with Frederick Caston. He was

546
00:33:33,980 --> 00:33:37,740
an amateur when he was a teenager. He won the amateur

547
00:33:37,740 --> 00:33:40,700
French chef contest in Avignon, and

548
00:33:41,900 --> 00:33:45,700
he came to America, became a famous chef. And he was

549
00:33:45,700 --> 00:33:48,700
telling me in this podcast that one of the

550
00:33:48,940 --> 00:33:52,620
criteria when he won is that they go check the trash

551
00:33:53,340 --> 00:33:56,860
after the cooking contest is over

552
00:33:57,420 --> 00:34:01,020
because it's. They're so efficient with their. What they cook.

553
00:34:01,260 --> 00:34:04,700
They don't throw anything away. And I think that's part of the cuisine that

554
00:34:04,940 --> 00:34:08,580
Americans probably don't understand. And it's hard for me sometimes to

555
00:34:08,580 --> 00:34:12,100
stomach some of this stuff. I mean, you got. You go to Paul Buku's restaurant

556
00:34:12,100 --> 00:34:15,600
and you see this inflated bladder, you know. Yes, Right, right,

557
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:19,320
right. And you kind of think, wow, this is gross. And it does

558
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:22,560
have unusual smells. And it's things that Americans just probably

559
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:26,480
aren't, you know, accustomed to. Absolutely.

560
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,200
I mean, I think Americans think of smelly food as inevitably bad

561
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:34,000
food that has gone off and living in

562
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,440
the Mediterranean, smelly food is what you crave. And, you know,

563
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:41,440
like, you're saying the, the, the kids of our grocer in

564
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,200
town, they're like, Thursday night Thing that they wanted

565
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:49,000
was, was, you know, roasted tripe in a, in a tomato

566
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,520
and garlic sauce. Like, that was a family, that was a serious family meal.

567
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:56,520
Wow. In this village of these kids who are in their teens, you know,

568
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:00,440
so it's amazing. Yeah. It's learning that that, you know,

569
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:05,680
strongly smelling food is not food that's gone

570
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,820
bad. It is a, it is something that you can learn to love. And we

571
00:35:08,820 --> 00:35:12,500
did eventually learn to love it. And it's changed really, how

572
00:35:12,500 --> 00:35:16,060
I react, how I interact with food ever since. Well, thank goodness you'll live in

573
00:35:16,060 --> 00:35:18,140
an apartment building where you make the stuff. And

574
00:35:20,300 --> 00:35:23,740
probably the worst, my first exposure to that smell

575
00:35:24,220 --> 00:35:27,620
was in Southern California on a Friday night where they're making

576
00:35:27,620 --> 00:35:31,300
menudo for the next day. Absolutely, man. You walk into that,

577
00:35:31,300 --> 00:35:34,380
and I'll never forget the vision that the guy's holding this big piece of tripe

578
00:35:34,380 --> 00:35:38,120
up and he's whacking at it with his knife, and it stunk. The high heaven

579
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:40,760
in the, in the kitchen. And you never get rid of that sort of gut

580
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,440
smell. Right. Even when it's washed, even when it's in a soup,

581
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:48,280
there's still that, there's still that intestinal sort of. You fall in love with

582
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,400
that. Yeah. And eventually you fall in love with it. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm like as

583
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:55,120
I fall in love with anchovies. I didn't love anchovies. And now I, I can't

584
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:58,880
live without it. Wow. I have a lot to

585
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,680
learn and. Because even when you go to Paris, you only have

586
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:05,810
quiche, you know, and croissants and, you know,

587
00:36:06,290 --> 00:36:09,970
crepes, and, you know, that's American,

588
00:36:10,610 --> 00:36:14,330
stomachable French food. Yeah. It's French hotel food. Right. It's

589
00:36:14,330 --> 00:36:18,130
not French regional food. Even the five mother sauces, you get into those and,

590
00:36:18,130 --> 00:36:21,130
you know, those are all palatable. Though the one I did try to make from

591
00:36:21,130 --> 00:36:24,930
scratch, which was the espanol, I couldn't, I almost threw

592
00:36:24,930 --> 00:36:28,290
up when I ate it. Really. So I don't know if I used old beef

593
00:36:28,290 --> 00:36:31,490
bones or veal bones or whatever. I was boiling down, man, but it was

594
00:36:31,490 --> 00:36:34,760
disgusting, so I couldn't eat it anyway. I, I, I

595
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,880
do feel like I've mastered a few of three of them, but some

596
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:42,240
are evading me. Well, I think that takes us back to earlier in our conversation

597
00:36:42,240 --> 00:36:45,520
where you're talking about creativity. And, you know, sauces are a form of

598
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,320
creativity, and they're, they're, they're something that you, that you don't

599
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:53,000
just follow an ingredient list and a set of directions and

600
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,440
Master there. They require touch and feel and

601
00:36:56,440 --> 00:37:00,040
flavor and tasting and working your way. And I, I think

602
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:03,200
I, you know, I think it takes you a dozen times before you can get

603
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,360
really good at some of those things. You know, off subject, but I'm going to

604
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,160
get into this grape culture thing, but we had a party last night at a

605
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:11,960
friend's house as a brunch. It was a New Orleans brunch. And I. And I.

606
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:15,800
I was in charge of the cocktails and same

607
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:19,560
thing. You know, the recipes are in the book work, but

608
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:22,920
when you put it in your mouth, you got to determine where you think that

609
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:26,620
balance needs to be and where it is 100%. And sauce is certainly are

610
00:37:26,620 --> 00:37:30,260
like that as part of the cuisine. So

611
00:37:30,260 --> 00:37:33,660
there's an episode in the book where you take a day trip down to a

612
00:37:33,660 --> 00:37:36,900
winery in a vineyard, and for the first time, you're sort of

613
00:37:37,380 --> 00:37:40,900
on the hot seat to describe a wine or to talk about

614
00:37:40,900 --> 00:37:44,420
wine and to hear from the two locals that are making the wines for you.

615
00:37:45,300 --> 00:37:48,860
Was that the jumping off point into understanding the

616
00:37:48,860 --> 00:37:52,580
culture of winemaking in that area? Are you talking about the blending,

617
00:37:53,060 --> 00:37:55,780
the assemblage? Yeah. So that actually comes fairly late.

618
00:37:56,900 --> 00:38:00,500
That was, yes, a before and after formative

619
00:38:01,460 --> 00:38:05,220
moment. I wouldn't say that that's where I

620
00:38:05,220 --> 00:38:08,740
felt like where I learned about wine was literally

621
00:38:08,740 --> 00:38:12,540
just out in the field picking grapes, listening to people who'd done

622
00:38:12,540 --> 00:38:16,140
this all their lives, and then following the grapes back to the

623
00:38:16,140 --> 00:38:18,900
winery where they would dump them and they would.

624
00:38:21,060 --> 00:38:24,740
Sometimes they choose carbonic maceration, and sometimes they choose

625
00:38:24,980 --> 00:38:28,570
traditional fermentation. And on some other

626
00:38:28,570 --> 00:38:31,410
day, this huge vat full of

627
00:38:31,970 --> 00:38:35,810
grapes and juice would have been fully fermented. And they empty that out and move

628
00:38:35,810 --> 00:38:39,330
that, and you've got to do what's called the decoupage, the

629
00:38:39,330 --> 00:38:42,610
pulling of all the skins and seeds, and

630
00:38:43,570 --> 00:38:47,090
they call it the stems out and press that and

631
00:38:47,570 --> 00:38:50,610
add that to another vat and just

632
00:38:51,090 --> 00:38:54,930
being on site, listening to people who knew what they were doing talk about this,

633
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,720
who'd done it all their lives, and who were still in love with the process.

634
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:03,120
That was the education. And what it taught

635
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:06,400
me is how much

636
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,840
winemaking is still an agricultural

637
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:13,840
endeavor. I think we have a

638
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,320
couple of wine centers in the US but we don't have a wine

639
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,920
culture yet. I would say wine is still something that a

640
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:24,370
certain type of person gets interested in. And there

641
00:39:24,530 --> 00:39:28,170
it's in the blood and it's in the soil, and

642
00:39:28,170 --> 00:39:31,330
it's a part of every single day. And

643
00:39:33,250 --> 00:39:36,890
I really fell in love with that end of things, with the production end of

644
00:39:36,890 --> 00:39:40,290
wine, it's very blue collar, it's semi industrial.

645
00:39:40,530 --> 00:39:43,810
It's guys that would be on a construction crew

646
00:39:44,210 --> 00:39:47,090
on a new construction project in a suburb

647
00:39:48,210 --> 00:39:51,790
in a city in the U.S. these are these same guys who are quote,

648
00:39:51,790 --> 00:39:55,110
unquote, making wine there. And I just loved that

649
00:39:55,510 --> 00:39:59,150
earthiness and that kind of camaraderie that I felt

650
00:39:59,150 --> 00:40:02,750
being part of a team transforming this raw

651
00:40:02,750 --> 00:40:06,230
material that grows out of the ground, out of very rocky, very unforgiving

652
00:40:06,230 --> 00:40:09,830
soil, and turns into something a little bit transcendent.

653
00:40:10,070 --> 00:40:13,790
But the process itself, in getting to

654
00:40:13,790 --> 00:40:17,570
know the vines themselves, not just the grapes and not

655
00:40:17,570 --> 00:40:21,410
just the smell of wine in the square foot above a glass,

656
00:40:22,930 --> 00:40:26,570
was just a huge re. Education and reordering of my thinking

657
00:40:26,570 --> 00:40:29,850
about wine. And I really fell in love with that part of it. You know,

658
00:40:29,850 --> 00:40:33,490
it's interesting you said a lot just then, because I think

659
00:40:33,490 --> 00:40:37,330
wine is entirely transcendent. I think it is

660
00:40:37,490 --> 00:40:40,450
best put to me by France Florence

661
00:40:40,610 --> 00:40:44,090
Catiar of. Of Smith o Lafitte.

662
00:40:44,410 --> 00:40:47,290
And she owns a winery here in Napa Valley too. And she.

663
00:40:48,170 --> 00:40:51,530
I think I forgot the question I asked her, but her answer was,

664
00:40:51,770 --> 00:40:55,370
welcome to humanity, right? Yes.

665
00:40:55,450 --> 00:40:59,250
Because I wrestle here with the business of

666
00:40:59,250 --> 00:41:03,010
wine and there's obviously very important. Wine is driven, consumer.

667
00:41:03,010 --> 00:41:06,690
It's consumer driven. We have to sell it. That's how we stay alive. Just like

668
00:41:06,690 --> 00:41:10,220
you do tax preparing. But it's deeper than that.

669
00:41:10,620 --> 00:41:13,980
And you nailed on the head, it's a very agricultural product and

670
00:41:14,540 --> 00:41:18,340
agrarian lifestyle is completely different than any other lifestyle. And

671
00:41:18,340 --> 00:41:21,700
I had a young intern here, right here in the studio that she went on

672
00:41:21,700 --> 00:41:25,540
to Cornell enology school and she got a internship

673
00:41:25,540 --> 00:41:29,100
at Chateau Bailly this summer. And she almost didn't take

674
00:41:29,100 --> 00:41:32,340
it. And I said, you know, Lisa, what are you doing? She said, well, I

675
00:41:32,340 --> 00:41:36,190
don't really want to be in the vineyard. I go, hey, honey, if you want

676
00:41:36,190 --> 00:41:39,750
to be a winemaker, you know you're going to be in the vineyard. Yeah. And

677
00:41:39,750 --> 00:41:43,510
the. And I had the conversation with the directist recently and

678
00:41:43,510 --> 00:41:46,590
she said, I put her in the vineyard and she fell in love with the

679
00:41:46,590 --> 00:41:50,350
vineyard. And that seems to be where the

680
00:41:50,350 --> 00:41:54,150
humanity occurs, you know, where this connection to the

681
00:41:54,150 --> 00:41:57,790
soil and the lifestyle and the earth is

682
00:41:57,790 --> 00:42:00,710
the transcendent part that when you have that glass of wine

683
00:42:01,610 --> 00:42:05,090
and here you are. And I think the wine itself can be a

684
00:42:05,090 --> 00:42:08,690
transcendent experience. But the way that you get there,

685
00:42:08,690 --> 00:42:12,370
there's no magic really in it. I mean, if you look at all the steps

686
00:42:12,370 --> 00:42:16,130
involved from planting a vine to drinking a glass

687
00:42:16,130 --> 00:42:19,690
of wine. So much of it is just good

688
00:42:20,330 --> 00:42:24,010
husbandry. It's just good taking care of

689
00:42:25,770 --> 00:42:29,600
the place, of the soil, of the plant itself,

690
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:33,600
of the grapes as they grow. It's a huge amount of just sort of engineering

691
00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:37,040
and quality control and attention paid to this thing.

692
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:41,000
But it's not like you wave a magic wand at some point in the

693
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,800
process between when they arrive at the vineyard and when you bottle the wine,

694
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:48,000
and suddenly all the magic happens. The magic happens

695
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:52,720
in just the craziness that

696
00:42:53,170 --> 00:42:56,610
fermentation releases all these esters and all these

697
00:42:56,610 --> 00:43:00,250
aromas, and that the

698
00:43:00,250 --> 00:43:03,570
very same species of a plant in

699
00:43:05,250 --> 00:43:09,049
15 different places can produce all these different varietals of

700
00:43:09,049 --> 00:43:11,890
wine, and each of those varietals can taste a little bit different.

701
00:43:13,410 --> 00:43:17,090
That's real magic, but there's no magic in the process. The process is just

702
00:43:17,090 --> 00:43:20,940
really hard working, paying really close attention to this

703
00:43:21,500 --> 00:43:25,100
thing and making sure that nothing goes wrong, that you don't have

704
00:43:25,100 --> 00:43:28,380
disease, that you don't have mildew, that you don't have damaged

705
00:43:28,460 --> 00:43:32,300
grapes that come, you know, that. That. That get fermented. It's.

706
00:43:32,300 --> 00:43:36,140
It's just this really careful attention to detail, and then

707
00:43:36,140 --> 00:43:39,820
the magic happens in the fermentation itself. And to some extent, I would say maybe

708
00:43:39,820 --> 00:43:43,620
in the aging, you know, in the. The. The

709
00:43:43,620 --> 00:43:47,300
judicious use of a certain amount of oak or the. The. The way that you

710
00:43:47,300 --> 00:43:50,940
choose to ferment, etc. But that was part

711
00:43:50,940 --> 00:43:54,700
of what I really loved about this, is it brought what can

712
00:43:54,700 --> 00:43:57,700
be kind of a douchey enterprise

713
00:43:58,420 --> 00:44:01,860
back down to earth. These are just hardworking people who know what they're doing, and

714
00:44:02,260 --> 00:44:05,860
they observe carefully all year long. He said

715
00:44:05,860 --> 00:44:09,540
something very defining, and I've been discussing this at length

716
00:44:10,020 --> 00:44:13,540
recently. What you just

717
00:44:13,540 --> 00:44:17,120
defined was the idea that you're a

718
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,600
steward of what the earth gives you. You're a steward of

719
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,640
the vineyard itself to. For it to produce the best fruit it

720
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:28,200
can produce. And what that means is if you do it

721
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,760
right, if you do that exact thing, if you're expressing what that

722
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:34,440
vintage, that year, that location has to offer,

723
00:44:35,240 --> 00:44:39,000
then there are no bad vintages. There

724
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:42,650
are bad wines because they're made that way. But if you're expressing

725
00:44:42,650 --> 00:44:46,210
exactly what you just said, then that's a good vintage.

726
00:44:46,450 --> 00:44:50,250
It may taste different than the previous year, the one after it, but that's what

727
00:44:50,250 --> 00:44:53,890
you got. Yes, I love that. And

728
00:44:54,210 --> 00:44:57,890
it's that sense that a bottle of wine is a time capsule to some extent.

729
00:44:57,890 --> 00:45:01,650
Right? It is the embodiment of what happened in one

730
00:45:01,650 --> 00:45:05,370
given year. And you could push that one way or the other

731
00:45:05,370 --> 00:45:06,770
a little bit. But ultimately,

732
00:45:09,370 --> 00:45:13,130
it's a good vintage if it captures exactly what happened in that

733
00:45:13,130 --> 00:45:16,890
year. And that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best

734
00:45:16,890 --> 00:45:18,890
wine. And then, of course, there are some wines

735
00:45:21,210 --> 00:45:24,890
that are considered failures until

736
00:45:25,210 --> 00:45:28,970
they spent some time in a Cav,

737
00:45:28,970 --> 00:45:32,810
and 15 years later, we look back and decide that that was actually

738
00:45:33,380 --> 00:45:37,140
a remarkable vintage. So there's also this just

739
00:45:37,140 --> 00:45:40,020
the fact that it's always living. It's a living thing that keeps

740
00:45:40,500 --> 00:45:44,300
constantly evolving, you know, even after it's supposedly. Inert in

741
00:45:44,300 --> 00:45:47,780
a bottle. That's fascinating because I just had a tasting of

742
00:45:47,860 --> 00:45:51,580
Margot Angelou's tasting, and the 14, which was

743
00:45:51,580 --> 00:45:54,740
not considered a great vintage in Bordeaux, was incredible. It was like the best of

744
00:45:54,740 --> 00:45:57,740
the show at that day when I was sitting there. But I remember

745
00:45:57,740 --> 00:46:01,580
1989 was a very rough year here in Napa Valley. The wines are

746
00:46:01,580 --> 00:46:05,310
very tannic, and they were just. A lot of the wineries didn't release them

747
00:46:05,550 --> 00:46:09,230
in the 1990 was a great vintage. And so they put the 90 on the

748
00:46:09,230 --> 00:46:12,430
shelf. And then I made a fortune selling 89 because they're sitting in the warehouse,

749
00:46:12,430 --> 00:46:15,310
they didn't want to release it. And I bought all this stuff, and they turned

750
00:46:15,310 --> 00:46:18,510
out to be really good wines at the end. But what. But that's.

751
00:46:19,070 --> 00:46:22,750
And I'm not sure how much of the current industry you stay

752
00:46:22,750 --> 00:46:26,270
abreast of and what's going on and the decline in sales and Gen Z's and

753
00:46:26,270 --> 00:46:30,060
all the things that are going on in the marketplace of wine. But

754
00:46:30,060 --> 00:46:33,420
I think what you just described was the staying power of wine, the fact that

755
00:46:33,420 --> 00:46:37,060
if a real wine, an honest wine, describes that year,

756
00:46:37,140 --> 00:46:40,980
that time, and. And we don't know sometimes as

757
00:46:40,980 --> 00:46:44,220
humans whether it's going to be a great vintage in the future or not. Just

758
00:46:44,220 --> 00:46:48,020
like this 14. Absolutely. In the business side, when you go to

759
00:46:48,020 --> 00:46:51,460
the supermarket in Minnesota and you look at Josh and Apothic Red and these things

760
00:46:51,460 --> 00:46:54,420
that have been doctored up and sugared up and acidified and everything,

761
00:46:55,780 --> 00:46:58,660
it's very interesting to me. Those wines never

762
00:46:59,460 --> 00:47:03,140
develop in the bottle. They can't. They're full of crap. Right. And they just

763
00:47:03,220 --> 00:47:06,820
fall apart when time enters into the bottle.

764
00:47:07,140 --> 00:47:10,980
Whereas an honest wine like we just talked about

765
00:47:10,980 --> 00:47:14,780
can actually get better. And we. We're not good enough to understand what's

766
00:47:14,780 --> 00:47:17,700
going to happen in the future, because it's up to nature to tell us that.

767
00:47:18,340 --> 00:47:21,540
Absolutely. The other. The other thing I'll Excuse me for interrupting, but

768
00:47:22,340 --> 00:47:26,060
the other thing that we really learned that I think is important is

769
00:47:26,060 --> 00:47:29,860
that I think again, as Americans, we

770
00:47:29,860 --> 00:47:33,700
tend to want the best things. And we think of

771
00:47:33,940 --> 00:47:37,660
wines that are age worthy and that

772
00:47:37,660 --> 00:47:41,460
have aged for a long time as the best wines. And one of

773
00:47:41,460 --> 00:47:44,100
the other things we learned is that there are some wines that are meant to

774
00:47:44,100 --> 00:47:47,620
be drunk young, they don't age well, but they're beautiful

775
00:47:48,660 --> 00:47:52,260
wines for what they are in the first three to five years after

776
00:47:52,260 --> 00:47:55,140
they're made. You know, a Grenache is not a long

777
00:47:55,620 --> 00:47:59,060
lasting varietal as a rule, but a. But a young,

778
00:48:00,580 --> 00:48:04,300
fleshy, voluptuous Grenache from the south of

779
00:48:04,300 --> 00:48:08,100
France is a wonder to drink and it's

780
00:48:08,100 --> 00:48:11,060
beautiful to drink young. And there are a lot of, I think there are a

781
00:48:11,060 --> 00:48:14,100
lot of, you know, wines that don't make it to America

782
00:48:14,900 --> 00:48:18,660
because they're from little

783
00:48:19,060 --> 00:48:22,740
sub regions and secondary regions around the Old World.

784
00:48:23,460 --> 00:48:27,140
But in those places, people love their two year old

785
00:48:27,140 --> 00:48:30,500
wine that isn't overly tannic, but that's beautifully fruity,

786
00:48:30,820 --> 00:48:34,540
that goes wonderfully with food, and they

787
00:48:34,540 --> 00:48:37,300
just drink their friends wine from one village over

788
00:48:38,340 --> 00:48:41,300
and are perfectly happy and yet are not in any way

789
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:45,800
defective as lovers of wine, as experts about wine, as people

790
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:49,080
who understand what wine contributes to a good life.

791
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:53,320
You said something interesting too, that I wanted to touch on. That's the cultural

792
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:58,280
aspect of wine in America versus Europe. And it's

793
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:01,800
a very slow industry. Obviously it's only one time a year that it occurs.

794
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:05,920
And so the evolution of the understanding of wine

795
00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:09,770
is vintage to vintage. The

796
00:49:09,770 --> 00:49:12,890
first time we went to Monaco for the Grand Prix, I'll never forget this. I

797
00:49:12,890 --> 00:49:15,890
have a picture of it somewhere. We're walking

798
00:49:16,690 --> 00:49:20,010
right after the race is over, they break, they start breaking that thing down like

799
00:49:20,010 --> 00:49:23,730
immediately. And they've put up these giant guardrails with these huge

800
00:49:23,730 --> 00:49:26,610
bolts that are trying, they're now being ratcheted off.

801
00:49:27,250 --> 00:49:30,930
And I took a picture, Whoa, my chair just fell. I took a

802
00:49:30,930 --> 00:49:34,050
picture of one of the construction workers dinner.

803
00:49:35,230 --> 00:49:39,070
And it was a bag of shoestring potatoes, a

804
00:49:39,070 --> 00:49:42,270
thing of olives or something, and a three liter bag in the box of

805
00:49:42,270 --> 00:49:45,950
Bordeaux. And I thought,

806
00:49:45,950 --> 00:49:47,310
man, can you imagine OSHA

807
00:49:49,950 --> 00:49:53,230
guys pulling a spigot out there, you're taking a break, having a glass of wine.

808
00:49:53,230 --> 00:49:55,870
Fantastic. It's really, really fun. But it is a,

809
00:49:56,990 --> 00:49:59,990
when you think about the history of wine in America and it's just, it's young

810
00:49:59,990 --> 00:50:03,350
and it's, it's, it's a lifestyle that,

811
00:50:03,670 --> 00:50:07,310
that when you Make a lot of money. You think this is romantic lifestyle you

812
00:50:07,310 --> 00:50:10,870
want to chase, and you try to buy this chateau in Napa, and you're paying

813
00:50:11,030 --> 00:50:14,830
a fortune for land and grapes, and you have to sell. Now, wine has

814
00:50:14,830 --> 00:50:18,550
to be a minimum of 150 or 200 a bottle, which is not,

815
00:50:18,950 --> 00:50:22,750
you know, the primary market spot. And I think so

816
00:50:22,750 --> 00:50:26,510
many people realize that this is. This is not what I. It was

817
00:50:26,510 --> 00:50:30,160
cracked up to be. You know, I love the lifestyle of being here and love

818
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:33,000
being in the vineyard, but, you know, trying to make a dollar at it

819
00:50:33,720 --> 00:50:37,560
is completely different than the environment I came from. Yeah.

820
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:40,400
And, you know, I think Napa's been its own worst enemy to some extent. In.

821
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:44,120
In that it's, you know, that's where it is. And

822
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:48,720
it depends on, you know, on people being over $400 million

823
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:52,800
an acre for. For vineyard in Napa. At that point, you can't just

824
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:56,630
make good wine. And I think there's an extent

825
00:50:56,630 --> 00:51:00,350
to which in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, it

826
00:51:00,350 --> 00:51:03,790
was pushing, trying to be extraordinary in a way that the

827
00:51:03,790 --> 00:51:06,630
terroir was not made for.

828
00:51:07,510 --> 00:51:11,310
And so it was out on the bell curve.

829
00:51:11,310 --> 00:51:14,230
It was way out here, but it didn't necessarily mean it was a better wine.

830
00:51:14,790 --> 00:51:18,550
What do you think of this concept? I get different opinions,

831
00:51:18,950 --> 00:51:22,280
but since you lived it and tried to make some of this food, and

832
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:26,240
eventually we're successful at it, the idea that what

833
00:51:26,240 --> 00:51:29,880
grows together goes together. Yeah, that's a really

834
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,400
interesting phrase. It's used a lot. I think it's

835
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:36,280
mostly true, but I don't necessarily

836
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:41,200
think that that means that there's

837
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:44,600
something. Some magical chemistry that happens that makes

838
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,280
the food that grows in a region go with the wine that goes in the

839
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:52,030
region. I think it's more cultural. I think it's just simply that there's a

840
00:51:52,030 --> 00:51:55,790
wisdom in centuries of

841
00:51:55,790 --> 00:51:59,390
culture and agriculture evolving. And over those

842
00:51:59,390 --> 00:52:03,070
centuries, human beings tried to make things taste the best that

843
00:52:03,070 --> 00:52:06,390
they could in that part of the world. And

844
00:52:07,510 --> 00:52:11,190
that to the extent that it's true that what grows together, goes together,

845
00:52:11,190 --> 00:52:13,590
it's because there's a certain

846
00:52:14,310 --> 00:52:18,090
inevitability that over centuries of working really

847
00:52:18,090 --> 00:52:21,930
hard every single day, every year, year after year, century after century,

848
00:52:22,090 --> 00:52:25,170
to make the best things that can be made, the most flavorful things that can

849
00:52:25,170 --> 00:52:28,650
be made out of these circumstances, this soil, this climate,

850
00:52:28,970 --> 00:52:32,690
this air, the aromatics that surround these

851
00:52:32,690 --> 00:52:36,250
vineyards, at some point, those

852
00:52:36,250 --> 00:52:39,770
start sort of growing into each other. And there's just

853
00:52:40,250 --> 00:52:43,840
this history and this culture of this is what you drink, because this is what

854
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:46,240
we grow here. And this is what you eat, because this is what grows here.

855
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:50,080
And, yeah, they go together in that way. I think it's. I think it's. I

856
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:53,120
don't know that you. But I don't know that you could. I heard your other.

857
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:56,880
One of your other guests is talking about pairing, and I think that's a fascinating

858
00:52:56,880 --> 00:53:00,560
topic, and I very much agree with him. I

859
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:04,240
don't know that I believe as much in pairing

860
00:53:04,720 --> 00:53:08,480
as it's cracked, it's been cracked up to be. And part of that comes

861
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:10,600
from our experience in France, which was

862
00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:16,040
you didn't make a red wine

863
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,560
lamb stew and then think to yourself, in

864
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:23,920
our part of the world, in the Languedoc, you didn't think to yourself, well, I

865
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:27,640
need to go to the big city wine shop so that I

866
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:30,680
can buy a Burgundy or a

867
00:53:31,240 --> 00:53:35,000
California Cabernet that's going to perfectly pair with

868
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,520
this lamb stew. You drank the wine that

869
00:53:39,170 --> 00:53:42,450
your neighbor made in the village because

870
00:53:43,250 --> 00:53:46,650
that flavorful wine was what had evolved to go with that

871
00:53:46,650 --> 00:53:49,090
flavorful food. And so

872
00:53:51,170 --> 00:53:55,010
I don't think pairing goes well with how wine

873
00:53:55,010 --> 00:53:58,650
has been consumed and created over

874
00:53:58,650 --> 00:54:02,330
the centuries. It has generally been a relatively humble thing that you

875
00:54:02,330 --> 00:54:06,110
have on the table every night, because it's part of the. It's

876
00:54:06,110 --> 00:54:09,750
part of the ritual of. Of eating a meal together. You know, it's

877
00:54:09,830 --> 00:54:13,430
so true. I think you're talking about Tim Hanai, the master of wine. Exactly. I

878
00:54:13,430 --> 00:54:16,990
was fascinated with that interview. Yeah, he's fabulous. And I bring him on

879
00:54:16,990 --> 00:54:20,830
regularly because he's so interesting. But I had a conversation also years ago with

880
00:54:20,830 --> 00:54:24,470
Jonathan Waxman, the famed chef. He owns Barbuto in New York. And

881
00:54:24,550 --> 00:54:27,750
I just went to Barbuto in Brooklyn. Yeah. Oh, yeah, New York. I was in

882
00:54:27,750 --> 00:54:30,670
New York last. A week ago, and I was there. Yeah. That's great. So Jonathan,

883
00:54:30,670 --> 00:54:32,390
he was on the show, and I. And I was able to get him on

884
00:54:32,390 --> 00:54:35,840
the show because of a mutual friend named Melvin Masters who passed away recently.

885
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:40,600
But he made a great comment. And it's true, as even

886
00:54:40,600 --> 00:54:44,280
as we're sitting here talking and you've brought up all these different varietals and

887
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:48,120
regions of the world to talk about wine. He goes, I come home,

888
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,760
and I decide what I want to drink first, what I want to open, what

889
00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:54,760
character of wine I want to experience. And I think that a lot to do

890
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:58,400
with the transcendent part of wine. Taking you to a different place in

891
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:01,930
time. Yep. And then I open the refrigerator and see what there is that I

892
00:55:01,930 --> 00:55:05,010
want to eat with it. That's great. And I, and I go, that's. And that's

893
00:55:05,010 --> 00:55:08,610
exactly. Maybe it's because we're seasoned at this. And I think

894
00:55:08,610 --> 00:55:11,690
Tim is right. And I don't know if he says this explicitly,

895
00:55:12,090 --> 00:55:15,770
but I think pairing, and I see it so many,

896
00:55:15,930 --> 00:55:18,690
so many show. Even in la, there's a restaurant, we're. Gonna do a pairing thing.

897
00:55:18,690 --> 00:55:22,370
We're chefs will come in and we're gonna have wine. I think it,

898
00:55:22,370 --> 00:55:26,190
I think it promotes the aristocracy of wine. 100. I'm trying to

899
00:55:26,670 --> 00:55:30,510
mitigate. And I still go. It intimidates people,

900
00:55:30,590 --> 00:55:34,390
huh? It intimidates people. Yeah. Because they think they're not. They're not good

901
00:55:34,390 --> 00:55:37,710
enough to do it. So. And so then they're intimidated by wine, and then they

902
00:55:37,710 --> 00:55:41,190
don't want to experiment with it because they think they're doing it wrong. Exactly. That's

903
00:55:41,190 --> 00:55:44,990
exactly what happens. And there's no formula for it. There isn't. So.

904
00:55:44,990 --> 00:55:47,510
And it's really, the formula is, what do you do, what do you like to

905
00:55:47,510 --> 00:55:50,110
drink and what do you like to eat? That's the formula. Well, and here's, I

906
00:55:50,110 --> 00:55:52,350
mean, here's the other way of putting it, turning it on its head, which is

907
00:55:52,610 --> 00:55:56,050
if you're making a particular dish and you have a beautiful, perfectly

908
00:55:56,050 --> 00:55:59,890
aged, you know, 1980

909
00:55:59,890 --> 00:56:03,730
something bottle of a great wine, are you really

910
00:56:03,730 --> 00:56:07,290
gonna try to go to the local wine shop and try to

911
00:56:07,290 --> 00:56:11,050
pair your dish with what's supposedly the perfect pairing? Or are you

912
00:56:11,050 --> 00:56:14,770
gonna drink that fantastic bottle of wine whether or not it supposedly

913
00:56:14,770 --> 00:56:18,610
goes with this particular meal? I just don't think it holds water

914
00:56:18,610 --> 00:56:22,320
in the end. And I think everybody's. The experience of drinking

915
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:26,040
wine is so subjective and so contextual that the idea of having a

916
00:56:26,040 --> 00:56:29,600
formula that this goes with this is just really hard to back up. I just

917
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:33,160
think every once in a while you just have a moment and

918
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:36,360
it's beautiful and it's with the right people and the light is right and you're

919
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:39,680
in the right place and the wine tastes beautiful. You could have that same wine

920
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:43,080
a week later with different people in a different setting, it would taste entirely differently.

921
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:47,080
And I'm about celebrating

922
00:56:47,590 --> 00:56:51,390
those moments that come out of nowhere that are these just

923
00:56:51,390 --> 00:56:55,150
sort of beautiful instance where it all comes together. And I do

924
00:56:55,150 --> 00:56:58,030
think that's one of the things that wine does better than almost anything else is

925
00:56:58,030 --> 00:57:01,790
that something about if you did that around a keg of beer, it wouldn't

926
00:57:01,790 --> 00:57:04,910
be the same. But if you have the right people in the right setting with

927
00:57:04,910 --> 00:57:08,630
the right weather with the right view, and the conversation is great.

928
00:57:10,070 --> 00:57:13,590
And then you also have a really nice wine. Like, there's something

929
00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:17,920
that just turns the dial up another notch or two that's different

930
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:21,320
from any other kind of experience like that. That's the undefinable

931
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:26,200
part of wine, and I think that's what makes it so special. That's

932
00:57:26,200 --> 00:57:30,039
the welcome to humanity part of this. Yeah. Yeah. We're out

933
00:57:30,039 --> 00:57:33,760
of time, but I have to tell you this funny story. Jean Noel Formaux. He

934
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:37,520
owns a winery in Napa Valley. It was called Chateau Portel when he

935
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:41,200
came to America. And then he went through some health issues

936
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:44,800
and his wife divorced him and. And he was going to die, and then all

937
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:48,560
of a sudden he survived. And now he has a winery called vgs, which

938
00:57:48,560 --> 00:57:49,760
stands for Very good.

939
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:55,440
There you go. And he's very, very French. He's a good friend.

940
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:59,600
And so I was listening to his podcast the other day,

941
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,720
and he said, I didn't catch it the first time around. He says,

942
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:07,200
you can have a bottle of wine that you fall in love with in an

943
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:10,940
experience that you're with. You could be in France and you could be

944
00:58:10,940 --> 00:58:14,140
at a little bistro and having this glass of wine, and you think it's so

945
00:58:14,140 --> 00:58:17,980
great. And he goes, do you think that wine tastes the same when

946
00:58:17,980 --> 00:58:20,740
you open the bottle after your wife just told you she was going to divorce

947
00:58:20,740 --> 00:58:24,580
you? Exactly, exactly. You

948
00:58:24,580 --> 00:58:27,060
know, he's talking from experience, of course, but I thought, wow,

949
00:58:29,460 --> 00:58:31,900
this has been fascinating, and I hope we can do it again because I think

950
00:58:31,900 --> 00:58:34,980
we have a lot more to talk about. We're already past an hour. I'd love

951
00:58:34,980 --> 00:58:38,260
it. This has been a wonderful conversation, and you're very good at what you do.

952
00:58:38,790 --> 00:58:42,190
Thank you. You know, there's one. There was one episode in

953
00:58:42,190 --> 00:58:45,870
Armenia. I was shooting a show there, and the

954
00:58:45,870 --> 00:58:49,590
director goes, we gotta pull over and we've gotta buy some wine

955
00:58:49,590 --> 00:58:52,990
from that roadside vendor. I'm like, what? He goes, yeah, let's do that. So he

956
00:58:52,990 --> 00:58:55,550
films the whole thing. And then he goes, now you gotta taste it in front

957
00:58:55,550 --> 00:58:59,310
of her. I said, come on. He goes, no, you gotta taste it. And I'm

958
00:58:59,310 --> 00:59:02,790
telling you, it was completely palatable.

959
00:59:03,190 --> 00:59:06,150
I mean, the fact that it was in a 1 liter Coke bottle was irrelevant,

960
00:59:07,860 --> 00:59:11,220
but completely palatable. And I thought, you know, this is so indigenous.

961
00:59:12,180 --> 00:59:15,860
It's such an. It's such an expression of. Of. Of

962
00:59:15,860 --> 00:59:19,580
the location. Yeah, yeah. This is what they make. This is what they make

963
00:59:19,580 --> 00:59:22,499
in this part of the world. It's like a. It's like a radish or a

964
00:59:22,499 --> 00:59:25,460
tomato. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna do it again. We're gonna talk about the second half

965
00:59:25,460 --> 00:59:28,980
of the book. I love it. And when I finish it, and then we're going

966
00:59:28,980 --> 00:59:32,500
to discuss. Continue this discussion on the wine. It's really been a great,

967
00:59:32,500 --> 00:59:36,180
beautiful, great chat. Thank you for the time, buddy. I appreciate it. Cheers.