Inventing the Coravin: Greg Lambrecht on Transforming Wine Culture and Expanding By-the-Glass Exploration

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I believe that no

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matter how silly we might be in our marketing efforts

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and everything else in the wine world, wine will still

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survive one way or the other. And it's going to be a matter of scale

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and it's going to be, you know, is it growing or is it not growing?

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But it is going to be there, and it's going to be there for

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its core strengths. Its

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core strengths are it is the most social beverage. Sit

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back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks

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with Paul K. Hey. Welcome to

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Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today in not so

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beautiful Southern California. A little bit of rain out there. About to have a conversation

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with Lambrecht. Greg Lambrecht. How did I say? Right. Yes. That's

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close. I mispronounce it so, you know, you can say. I mean, it's

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German, right? German, Austrian and Dutch. Because you could probably put

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like, you know, an Arabic twist. Oh, yeah. Oh, you should hear

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the Dutch say it. He is a chairman

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and inventor of the Coravan, which you've seen a thousand

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times and I have maybe more than a thousand times, which is a

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device used to preserve wine as you pour off a bottle,

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and it can last for weeks. But. So glad you're here. Thanks for coming on

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the show. Thanks for having me, Paul. I really appreciate it. So when you say

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chairman and inventor, obviously you invented this product. We're going to talk

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about that. But you no longer, like, run the show. No, I mean,

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so I come from medicine originally. And so I've had multiple medical

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companies where I was CEO. They're businesses that I founded.

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, incurable entrepreneur. I

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can't help myself. And I got into

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Coravin because I loved wine, but I had absolutely no idea how to run a

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consumer product company. I did medical devices. Big difference. And so back

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in 2011, when I founded Coravin, I made the life choice

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of no longer being CEO. And, you know, probably the

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best decision I've ever made. I've been able to hire great CEOs and work with

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great CEOs to run the business. And then by becoming

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chairman, it's a role that nobody really. They don't know what

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you do. And so you can basically do whatever. You want, which is great.

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And so I do all the fun stuff at my medical company and at. Coravin,

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I asked Chap GTD and it says, ask him what he does. No kidding.

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That's great. I don't really dig in

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deep there. So you. So you are then from the medical

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field? Yeah, yeah, I've been working because I heard you talking before. I walked in

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about number of certain types of surgeries that go on and the

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number of dollars that go with that. Yeah. So did you start like just thinking,

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I'm going to create medical devices that are. I fell into

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it. I had a. I was in. My first career was in physics and I

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was working in plasma fusion, the kind of nuclear power that doesn't work still.

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And I began to realize. I worked in

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Japan after I graduated undergraduate on a fusion reactor and I

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realized it wasn't going to happen. And so I kind of had a

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crisis like, oh my God, I've spent all this time learning

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this field that's not going anywhere and so what am I going to do? And

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so I ran back to my university and went to grad school and sort of

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hid in mechanical engineering, which was the easier of the things that I had studied.

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And one of my professors was like, you seem like an inventive

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guy, Johnson and Johnson wants to invent something,

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I'd like you to do it. And I was like, okay. And so,

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you know, I had no experience in medicine. I'd been to the doctor, I'd never

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had surgery of any kind. And. And so I fell in love with it. I

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loved, I loved that. Number one. It's not all

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that I was building fusion reactors was for billions of dollars and take forever

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and there's governments involved and here, you know, this piece of metal, it was a

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needle and a catheter that went into your vein and a little shield that slid

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out over the needle to protect the healthcare worker from AIDS and

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hepatitis and that kind of thing, which was big back in the early 90s, late

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80s and, and I came up with this thing and it wound up being

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really successful. And I was like, wow, I, I can positively

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influence so many people's lives. Yeah, easily. How

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interesting. And, and you know, that product's used all over the place

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still. So you know, you invent it, it gets out into the market and then

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it's sort of like as an inventor, if your goal is to make people

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happy, I didn't even have to do any additional work. It was out there

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and every year it's used. Right. And so that interesting position because

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a. I'm conscious of a couple thoughts. One, I don't think people

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in general realize on a day to day basis when a product is

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introduced, whether it's medical or. I'll tell you a story a little bit about my

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wife's uncle, but you don't think about the

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origin you don't think about the consequence of it. You don't think about the trial

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and error of it. Oh, yeah, you just. It just. I get, I get to

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use it. How interesting it is. It's. A lot of people have the

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misbelief that medicine comes from universities

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ultimately or from some sort of scholastic

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endeavor somewhere. And what I realized was it's companies that

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are doing it. Johnson and Johnson, for example, the one that I worked with then.

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And then I worked at Pfizer and Stryker and

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I've worked with Medtronic in the past. So, you know, these, these companies

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are, you know, actively involved in inventing new things to try to make people.

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Yeah. And it's one of the things that I love about the United States is

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that it still has this venture capital world that is willing

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to put money at risk to create something new. Doesn't always

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work out, but when it does,

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it can change the course of a particular medical field.

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And I've loved my part in it as the inventor. I

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always thought it was interesting that generationally venture capital is

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venture capital. It's always been the same. They'll invest in 10, maybe 20

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units to get one thing that hits. And it's changed. You know,

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when I was selling software back in the day, it was a certain way you

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went about it to find people to do it. Now there's like, you know, crowdfunding

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and all that kind of stuff. But it's the same thing. What is? Shark tanks.

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It's the same thing. Yeah, right. I think the United States is willing to put

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money at risk. We're gamblers at our

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core. And I think that is

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a character that is pretty rare in the world where people

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will take like retirement funds and pension funds, that

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kind of thing, and then put a portion of them at risk on these crazy

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ventures. That boy, if they work out, it's going to be world changing. But if

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they don't, okay, we lose a little bit. Not many cultures around the world

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are willing to do that kind of thing. I really could only have this career

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here. What, what did this gentleman's who said

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you look like an inventive guy. What does that mean? Because this

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may not leads to the question, is this a. Have you noticed

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in your realm of entrepreneurs

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that it's sort of a learned type of risk

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ability avoidance? Not avoidance, but risk tolerance

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as an inventor or is it something this guy just noticed in you?

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You know, there's, there's, it's a, it's a great question. And

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just thinking off the top of My head that there is definitely

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a natural entrepreneurial

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spirit that is part of a person or not that.

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And it's, it's risk taking for sure. It's also

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a culturally inhibited,

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uninhibited person. Like I, I don't care what your doctrine is.

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This is better. Right. And a willingness

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to force change in behavior. Because you think about it, in

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any entrepreneurial endeavor, you're trying to get somebody to change something

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and change for the better in some way. And so you've got to

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be willing, not only able to see the change,

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but unwilling to stop until others recognize that

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change is what should happen. And so I think there's that kind of

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force of will component, ferocity of

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purpose. A friend of mine described it as that he would look for ferocity of

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purpose. Ferocity of purpose. And I think then there's the other part.

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There is a learned portion. You know, you can have all that

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spirit and still be a bad entrepreneur. Yeah. And I was

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very lucky to get hired by a guy who's actually

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one of the co founders of Corbin, who, Who also

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saw that in me, hired me into Pfizer and we helped to develop

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a process of invention. So it's not just a light bulb

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going off at random, but there you can methodologically schedule

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invention. That was his belief. That's interesting. And then you could execute on a

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plan to invent and create. And so Josh Macaur,

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walking companies and md, MBA engineer, he's an amazing guy

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and he's been phenomenally successful in my field of medicine, medical

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devices, but now teaches at Stanford. He developed a program to teach this to other

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people that's now taught everywhere around the world. So he's a

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great guy. And he. And I learned

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how to do this and I was lucky enough to have that skill set. When

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I ran to the problem that I was like, I want to be able to

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taste that wine, but I want to commit to the bottle. Right. I just wonder

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like I was at usc,

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the picture of my father there, he came to America as well as an

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entrepreneur. He just had that in him to do things and try things and test

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things and just, you know, fail and go to the next one. But they started

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teaching entrepreneurship in college about. Right when I

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graduated. Yeah. And I always thought, how do you teach that? Yeah. I mean

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maybe there's some methodologies, there's some practicalities to it and

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like you said, there's a schedule to it. But. But it doesn't take away. And

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I've seen this many times. And not only vendors that would come sell me wine.

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When they use the cordovan we'd have all these conversations over all kinds of things

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they want to do. The one thing I've always noticed and I worked for Xerox

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which was, you know, a Fortune 500 company and yeah. Super important, entrepreneurial. Every

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business, every salesperson that thought they're going to hit it with a

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product. Yeah. But no one knew how to do it. Yeah. You know, we all

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thought we were going to retire at 35 and you know, find a, you

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know, invent the best cheese slicer around or whatever. But it never happens.

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Yeah. And I've always found it interesting. I along

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the way have found personalities is that will never happen even though they wish it

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will happen. There's no way that personality is going to get there. I think

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so. I mean there's an unwillingness to quit

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and can be self destructive unwillingness to quit no matter what. I

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believe so much, I'm not going to stop. I think that's

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absolutely necessary. And

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then it's just the important learned

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part of being an entrepreneur is how to target. So I am going

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to dedicate the next 10 or 15 years of my life to something because I

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really believe in it. How do you pick the right thing? And

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that picking and that process of invention and picking is what

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Macaur taught me. And it all comes down to

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a really in depth and unique perspective on the unmet need on the problem that

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needs to be solved. And I'll give you an example with Coravin. I mean

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when I invented Coravin, the need that

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was being addressed that was out there was how do I preserve an open bottle

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of wine? Right. How do I get a bottle that I've opened to last

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longer than the day or two or three. But that question's been asked forever.

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And it's like Vacuvans. What comes from that? All kinds of stuff. Spray

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cans of everything. I asked a different question. I

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asked how do I drink a glass of wine from this bottle today and then

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drink it again five years from now? How do I do that? How

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can I drink a glass of wine from any bottle I own any day of

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the week, whenever I want without having to think about when I'm going to drink

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it again? It's not possible with vacuum or

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spray cancer. And so I asked a

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different question that's interesting. And that different

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question enabled me to oh, if I

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don't want to open it, it's just like medicine. I can use a syringe and

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suck it out or I can do what we do. That's interesting.

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My wife's uncle. I'll tell you the story now. He passed away years ago, but

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he invented first the flexi straw and then invented the spoon straw.

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Whoa. And. But it's exactly what you said. Yeah.

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711 had called him Southland Corporation at the time. He said, we need this

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straw for this new drink called the Slurpee, and we want a

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bigger straw. Like a boba straw, Right? Yeah. And so he went home and was

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sitting at his table. He'll tell you the story. And I took out a pair

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of scissors and cut the spoon out. Yeah. So he

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went back as, no, you don't need a bigger straw. Right. He did a better

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straw. So that's exactly what you're saying. It's

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a different way to look at it. It is a problem. It's not always some

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radically new technology or foundational material

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or whatever. It's a different view of the need

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and understanding what the size of the market is that that need represents. You

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can actually characterize a market side without knowing what the product is

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just by understanding the need and the value of solving that need. If we could

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solve this need, how many people would benefit? And what is the. What is the

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extent of that benefit that each person will experience? I

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didn't fully comprehend it in that way when I came up with Coravin in particular,

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because I really invented it just for me. Were you a wine guy before that?

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You know, I mean, did you like wine? I loved it. I

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loved it passionately. I grew up

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in Newport beach, down south from here. Yeah, we just got back from Laguna this

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morning. There you go. I used to bike to Laguna every day during high school

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to surf, to body surf and play volleyball, beach

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volleyball. So I fell in love with wine with friends of mine brought me up

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to Napa Valley because I looked older when I was in high school. I was

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16, and I had a beard. And I apologize. The statute of limitations is

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over. And Tony Pageau poured me my first glass of wine,

225
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and I fell in love. And I just thought it was incredible. And what I

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love about wine is, you know, I was in

227
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Wally's yesterday in Santa Monica, and you sit down, you look

228
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around you, and you notice there's thousands of different

229
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wines. And I love

230
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that there's this insane variety

231
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that I can taste and taste and taste. And I'll never taste it all,

232
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but I want to try. I love. I loved that. I

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love the exploration. I love the comparison between Chardonnays from

234
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California and Oregon and Burgundy and, you know, I. I

235
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had a passion for wine when I was 30, when I came up

236
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with. When I invented Coravin. But, you know,

237
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I was also frustrated by it because I work in medicine. I can't

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be drunk. Right. I can't. I've got to be sharp. I'm in surgery

239
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all the time supporting cases. And. And so I.

240
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I wanted to be able to taste and explore faster than

241
00:14:43,190 --> 00:14:46,990
750 millimeters. And committing to it, that's gonna, that's

242
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gonna open this conversation. I don't want to go there yet because of

243
00:14:51,030 --> 00:14:54,830
so much of what's happening in this industry. And so we'll

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talk about that in a minute. Hopefully. We'll probably run out of time for that,

245
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but. So you're thinking that I'm gonna tell you a funny

246
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story. At my dad's shop, in that picture right there, we used to

247
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sell who was who. I thought that might have been your son. Right.

248
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You look very similar. Yeah. And we talked. We spoke the same way.

249
00:15:12,430 --> 00:15:16,230
Yeah. And I'm the only one. We were talking about personalities

250
00:15:16,230 --> 00:15:19,230
of the three, my brother and sister that

251
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would have done something like, oh, yeah, this wine of the month club seems like

252
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a pretty good idea. Dad, you know, he's fledging along and took. Take it over.

253
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And it took a little bit of, you know, I felt ready for it. Let's

254
00:15:29,990 --> 00:15:33,780
just backtrack a little bit. Because I had worked at corporate America and seeing

255
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how the hierarchy works and the structure works, and then I went off and

256
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sold software with a company that had a fishbowl of business cards and a two

257
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line phone that we had an office. Yeah. And so I'd done both of those

258
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extremes. And so my dad said, hey, the one of the month, I've been

259
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offered it for sale. I'm tired. You know, before I sell it to

260
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somebody else, do you want to come check it out? And I felt prepared to

261
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do that. And I could. You know, risk is not a problem for

262
00:15:58,260 --> 00:16:01,880
me in general. Yeah. That's not the point. We used to sell. Okay.

263
00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:07,040
Marbles. Bags of marbles at

264
00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:10,720
the liquor store. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so if somebody wanted to. How

265
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many drop, you know, stab size. Sterilize the marbles.

266
00:16:14,480 --> 00:16:17,440
Yeah. And drop them in the bottle and bring the bottle back up to the

267
00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:20,400
ullage to where it needs to be, and then you can record it. Yeah, that

268
00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:24,200
was, that was the preservation system. Yeah. Reformatting. Yeah. I know

269
00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:27,280
a lot of people. Right. I know a lot of people that have that. Save

270
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their half bottles, empty half bottles so that they can po.

271
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Empty App bottle and put a cork in it. And even water

272
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bottles, like small water bottles, a Coke bottle, the plastic stuff in

273
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smaller volumes, trying to reformat. And it works for a couple of days,

274
00:16:42,300 --> 00:16:46,060
right? It does the job. I was looking for something

275
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different, right? One of the wines that I fell in love with very early on

276
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was served to me by my grandfather in

277
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law and he had a big collection of wine. Like this is the first guy

278
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that I met that had thousands of bottles. He was really important

279
00:17:00,230 --> 00:17:03,790
physician in Cleveland and you know, root

280
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cellar and all these wines. And I remember looking at it going, there's four,

281
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5,000 bottles down here. You're, you're 85. Like,

282
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what's the plan? Do the math, right? He lived to 104, so

283
00:17:16,550 --> 00:17:20,190
the math actually worked out. Pretty good job, right? But he

284
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served me my first hermitage.

285
00:17:23,990 --> 00:17:26,470
It was a Shah Hermitage, 1985. And.

286
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:30,920
And I loved it. And I went out and I bought some.

287
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This is back when it was still reasonably affordable. And

288
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I tasted it, new vintage, and it was all white pepper. And it was

289
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completely different from the wine that I just had. And I was like, is that

290
00:17:40,920 --> 00:17:44,520
a vintage thing? And he's like, no, no. The white pepper goes away after about

291
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six or seven years and then it's all forest floor and then it becomes

292
00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:51,800
olives and blood and bacon and meat. And that's what I

293
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liked. And I was just so fascinated that this wine changed so

294
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much. And one of the reasons I came up with Corbin is I wanted to

295
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watch. I wanted to not have to pull a cork on a full

296
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bottle of wine I didn't think was ready. I wanted to be able to taste

297
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it now, taste it later, taste it again, learn

298
00:18:09,910 --> 00:18:13,510
how it went and how it changed. There's so much,

299
00:18:14,230 --> 00:18:17,430
it's such a living thing. You talked about this

300
00:18:18,070 --> 00:18:21,910
and it was understanding the marketplace that you are going

301
00:18:21,910 --> 00:18:25,500
after. And I don't think most, most entrepreneurs even

302
00:18:25,500 --> 00:18:28,860
bother with that part of it. They just. And

303
00:18:29,260 --> 00:18:32,940
if you ask the Institute of Wine, the Winery

304
00:18:33,420 --> 00:18:37,260
Masters of Wine. No. The American Quartermaster.

305
00:18:38,380 --> 00:18:41,820
No, it's the association of Winemakers in America. Oh, yeah, yeah.

306
00:18:43,420 --> 00:18:46,220
Why am I drawing a blank? Anyway, if

307
00:18:46,620 --> 00:18:49,900
100,000 people, if you ask a hundred thousand people in America to drink wine,

308
00:18:50,540 --> 00:18:53,740
they would have told you back then, 25,000.

309
00:18:54,440 --> 00:18:58,000
That includes the person who has the house Chianti at

310
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Olive Garden, they would say yes. But they're not a

311
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:04,680
candidate for the Coravan or for, you know, a wine club at the time that

312
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:08,480
I was selling wine in my wines club. So it's really a Very

313
00:19:08,480 --> 00:19:12,280
small niche of people. But the Coravan in this case

314
00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:16,520
not only addresses the consumer part of this, but I

315
00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:20,160
learned of it. And many, many distributors in Los Angeles

316
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:23,200
use it because they don't want to go through a whole bottle of wine in

317
00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:25,640
a day, or they only come. They came to see me sometimes. I was the

318
00:19:25,640 --> 00:19:28,740
only app they had on the day. Pull the cork. You got to open a

319
00:19:28,740 --> 00:19:31,700
whole bottle of wine. Yeah. Now the reps sometimes, like, wait, I get to take

320
00:19:31,700 --> 00:19:35,140
it home, because. Yeah, but that was. That

321
00:19:35,540 --> 00:19:39,180
broadened the market for this thing. And was it part of the plan originally, you

322
00:19:39,180 --> 00:19:42,579
thought, you know. I was

323
00:19:42,660 --> 00:19:46,500
remarkably naive about the wine industry.

324
00:19:46,660 --> 00:19:50,340
I knew there were wineries, and I still are. Right? Yeah. Well, I'm

325
00:19:50,340 --> 00:19:54,020
learning. I am. Yeah, I'm learning. And the more you taste, the more you know.

326
00:19:54,450 --> 00:19:58,090
But I knew wineries might have an interest in

327
00:19:58,090 --> 00:20:01,890
it because I was talking to Tony Pageau and what he would do

328
00:20:01,890 --> 00:20:05,690
with it. And then I knew restaurants had an interest

329
00:20:05,690 --> 00:20:08,970
in it, but I did not understand the whole importer

330
00:20:08,970 --> 00:20:12,210
distributor structure in the US at all. I had no idea how wine made it

331
00:20:12,210 --> 00:20:15,490
to the wine store or the restaurant. I had no clue. And

332
00:20:15,970 --> 00:20:19,730
I was in a wonderful wine store locally. I live in Boston now. There's

333
00:20:19,730 --> 00:20:23,370
a place called Marty's Newton, which has a great collection, really wonderful people, and Marty's.

334
00:20:23,370 --> 00:20:27,180
Wonderful. And I was buying a lot of my

335
00:20:27,180 --> 00:20:30,940
wine from them, and I made a bet with

336
00:20:30,940 --> 00:20:34,620
them before they knew what Coravin was, that I could

337
00:20:34,620 --> 00:20:36,860
steal a glass of wine from one of the bottles in the store and they

338
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would never be able to tell. And I did that because

339
00:20:40,659 --> 00:20:44,100
I set this spec for myself. I want to make it fast and

340
00:20:44,100 --> 00:20:47,540
easy enough to do that I could walk into Marty's and take a glass.

341
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And so one day I came up and I had a glass of shat enough

342
00:20:50,620 --> 00:20:53,920
in my hand to Marty, and nobody knew where I took it from. I bought

343
00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:57,040
the bottle, and he goes, show me this thing.

344
00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:01,160
And I showed him Corbin. He goes, come back. It was an early prototype. Come

345
00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:04,760
back with me. And there was a distributor in a back

346
00:21:04,760 --> 00:21:07,560
room, and I showed it to the distributor, and I was like, do you have

347
00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:10,360
any interest in this? And he goes, I'm doing everything I can not to leap

348
00:21:10,360 --> 00:21:14,160
across the table and knock you unconscious and steal that from. So

349
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:17,440
that's what we learned about it. They are an important part of the market. There's

350
00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:21,090
like 40,000 distributor reps in the United States. That's 40,000 units,

351
00:21:21,090 --> 00:21:24,930
right? That's changing, of course, but yeah. Yeah, well,

352
00:21:24,930 --> 00:21:28,690
yeah, the wine industry. I mean, I got into this, founded

353
00:21:28,690 --> 00:21:32,530
Coravin in 11 and then launched the product in 2013

354
00:21:32,610 --> 00:21:36,050
in the US 14 in Europe, 15 in Asia. And

355
00:21:37,090 --> 00:21:40,810
you know, at that time, wine was going up and up and

356
00:21:40,810 --> 00:21:44,650
up. And you know, the 2009, 10 vintages of Bordeaux and Napa Valley through

357
00:21:44,650 --> 00:21:48,250
the roof. And then with all

358
00:21:48,250 --> 00:21:52,090
this madness with the pandemic and then who knows what's going

359
00:21:52,090 --> 00:21:55,850
on now and the younger generation and this, the World

360
00:21:55,850 --> 00:21:58,770
Health Organization and CDC going crazy. I mean,

361
00:21:59,570 --> 00:22:03,370
it's a weird time for the industry. I feel bad. I feel

362
00:22:03,370 --> 00:22:07,170
badly because Corbin sales are highest they've ever been. But I don't

363
00:22:07,170 --> 00:22:10,290
understand why wine's going like that and we're going like this. Well, it would seem

364
00:22:10,290 --> 00:22:13,730
to me that makes some rough sense. First of all, the wine

365
00:22:14,170 --> 00:22:17,810
depression is. Yes, it's noticeable. They're still

366
00:22:17,810 --> 00:22:21,370
drinking a ton of wine. Yeah, right. It's just that not a small market. You

367
00:22:21,370 --> 00:22:24,410
know, part of the pressure. We can talk about that later. But part of the

368
00:22:24,410 --> 00:22:28,090
pressure of sales coming from all kinds of competition. But

369
00:22:28,090 --> 00:22:31,570
there's also overproduction. And so you mix all that together and all of a sudden

370
00:22:31,570 --> 00:22:34,810
you're not going to have the same volume as. You had and potentially overpricing. Right.

371
00:22:34,890 --> 00:22:38,690
Yeah. And there's. And certainly. And I was telling the story today to somebody

372
00:22:38,690 --> 00:22:42,300
about Napa Valley. Like you, you know, try to make wine Napa, you're not gonna

373
00:22:42,300 --> 00:22:45,900
be able to sell for less than $150 a bottle. Yeah. And if you want

374
00:22:45,900 --> 00:22:49,660
to buy good grapes. And so all that goes. It's just perpetuating. I think

375
00:22:49,660 --> 00:22:52,900
much of that has to do with the fact it's an agricultural product. It ebbs

376
00:22:52,900 --> 00:22:56,740
and flows. And you can. It's a five year reaction. If you

377
00:22:56,740 --> 00:23:00,420
plant today, you can't use it for five years. And if there's a. If

378
00:23:00,420 --> 00:23:04,020
there's a depression at that five year point, you may pull it out. You're screwed.

379
00:23:04,020 --> 00:23:07,500
Which they're doing now. And you look at the. Like Rioja can spend six years

380
00:23:07,500 --> 00:23:11,340
in barrel. Yeah. And then bottle. And then. And then you've got champagne and

381
00:23:12,120 --> 00:23:15,000
same thing. They want to sell it when it's ready. And. And they've got this

382
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:18,840
CIBC thing that's deciding how much you can harvest and trying

383
00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:22,480
to make a prediction about what. What we're going to do it.

384
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,160
And everybody respects the cvc and I too. But it's still. It's nearly

385
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:29,720
impossible to predict what a global market. The Wine of the Month club. When my

386
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:33,080
dad Started in the years I ran it. And Trader Joe's

387
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:37,160
relied on the fact that somebody would overproduce because

388
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:40,950
of. Of the fluctuations in the market. And there'll always be something interesting

389
00:23:41,110 --> 00:23:44,630
sitting around at a discount to get to move it on. Yeah, because you have

390
00:23:44,630 --> 00:23:47,510
to move it on. You can't sit on a wine for too long unless you

391
00:23:47,510 --> 00:23:51,150
have a coravan, of course. But. But so let me. During

392
00:23:51,150 --> 00:23:54,790
this process that I did all this tasting, we always tried stuff,

393
00:23:54,950 --> 00:23:58,790
you know, we. We looked at stuff. I had customers always ask me, you know,

394
00:23:58,790 --> 00:24:02,230
how do you handle this problem of a non open bottle of wine, opening a

395
00:24:02,230 --> 00:24:04,670
bottle of wine, having half a bottle left to put in the refrigerator. All these

396
00:24:04,670 --> 00:24:08,010
people's ideas. So I. We used to use the private

397
00:24:08,010 --> 00:24:11,210
preserve. And there was. There's another one called Vineyard Fresh now and there's a few

398
00:24:11,210 --> 00:24:14,690
others. Those were the. By the way, the best of the. Systems that were out

399
00:24:14,690 --> 00:24:18,170
there, the argon. And yeah, those guys are great too.

400
00:24:18,490 --> 00:24:21,890
So I would. I would do tests just like you were talking about. You did

401
00:24:21,890 --> 00:24:25,290
Willie's Wine Bar and what you're doing with Wally's, where I would

402
00:24:26,490 --> 00:24:29,730
spurge a bottle. Not spurgeon, you know, all the different

403
00:24:29,730 --> 00:24:32,930
machiations. I'd come back in a week and I'd taste them all over again. Yep.

404
00:24:32,930 --> 00:24:36,530
And there were differences between the ones that were

405
00:24:36,530 --> 00:24:40,370
treated. And there was a logical difference in the ones that weren't treated. Sure. And

406
00:24:40,370 --> 00:24:44,050
then there was one test we did where we opened the bottle, poured it off,

407
00:24:44,450 --> 00:24:47,490
sprayed it, then vacuum in it. Oh.

408
00:24:50,690 --> 00:24:54,250
So all these different emaciations. I love it. As an

409
00:24:54,250 --> 00:24:57,970
engineer, we call that the Taguchi method. Isolation of variable. Yeah, that's

410
00:24:57,970 --> 00:25:01,170
right. So it was interesting. But here

411
00:25:01,740 --> 00:25:05,420
comes this device. So you took your medical

412
00:25:05,420 --> 00:25:09,260
experience, your medical device experience, for instance, it's obvious with

413
00:25:09,260 --> 00:25:12,980
the needle as sharp as it is, as it pierces and seems not to

414
00:25:12,980 --> 00:25:16,060
stick on a cork and then it seems to seal. It's all those cool things

415
00:25:16,060 --> 00:25:19,860
that happen with this. Were those byproducts of just

416
00:25:19,860 --> 00:25:22,700
playing around with it or like part of the original concept.

417
00:25:23,660 --> 00:25:27,420
Very part of the original concept. I developed a chemotherapy delivery system

418
00:25:27,500 --> 00:25:31,140
for Pfizer way back when. And we were looking at other

419
00:25:31,300 --> 00:25:35,060
alternate uses of it too. And so it's an implant that goes underneath the

420
00:25:35,060 --> 00:25:38,260
skin and there's a tube that goes into your heart and you would stick this

421
00:25:38,340 --> 00:25:41,820
implant with needles. So you could inject chemotherapeutic

422
00:25:41,820 --> 00:25:45,500
agents during the course of somebody's therapy. And that could go on for

423
00:25:45,500 --> 00:25:49,260
months. And so because this implant was stuck multiple times,

424
00:25:49,260 --> 00:25:52,380
you had to make a needle that didn't do damage to things. And so there's

425
00:25:52,380 --> 00:25:56,220
a category of needles called non coring needles. They don't remove the

426
00:25:56,220 --> 00:25:59,980
material they go through. And so I had a familiarity with it and

427
00:25:59,980 --> 00:26:03,466
I think I developed this product back in, in 1993,

428
00:26:03,614 --> 00:26:07,280
94 and I invented Coravin in 99. So

429
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:11,040
you know, it wasn't an immediate thing. Yeah, the concept was there.

430
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:15,080
I had the skill set right. Of the technology and it was once I

431
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,560
stated the need then, then it became obvious.

432
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,320
And so I was very lucky to not come from the wine

433
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:26,080
industry. So I didn't have any cultural inhibition to change. Like I, I didn't

434
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:28,320
think there was a right way or a wrong way of pouring a wine. You

435
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:32,110
know, I just loved wine that nothing held me back. And so I,

436
00:26:32,190 --> 00:26:35,110
I remember sticking a needle through and I had a syringe and I tried to

437
00:26:35,110 --> 00:26:38,790
suck the wine out one of my chemotherapy needles but that creates a vacuum

438
00:26:38,790 --> 00:26:41,870
and so it sucks back. And so I'm like, okay, I can't pour half a

439
00:26:41,870 --> 00:26:45,230
bottle doing that. Yeah, right. And so I got to push the wine out. And

440
00:26:45,470 --> 00:26:48,750
because I was a nuclear physicist, I understood gas

441
00:26:49,390 --> 00:26:53,070
and the periodic table of the elements and I knew the noble gases. And

442
00:26:53,310 --> 00:26:57,080
argon was the first one, is the first one heavier than oxygen. It

443
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:00,920
has no smell, no taste, no color. And so I

444
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,640
was like, okay, I'm going to try argon and I'll inject it into the

445
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,760
bottle and that'll build pressure and it'll push the wine out. No air will get

446
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:10,520
in when I'm pouring. Just argon will go in and it'll push the wine out

447
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:14,200
and replace the wine. It's that easy theoretically. Should have seen

448
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,520
prototype number one. I actually show prototype number two in all my videos.

449
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,160
One was a disaster. But you know what, it, it

450
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,870
worked fast. And so the, the Coravin still has a non

451
00:27:24,870 --> 00:27:28,710
coring needle of the same design. It has a pressure regulator, a trigger

452
00:27:28,710 --> 00:27:31,990
and an inert gas. And I made

453
00:27:32,470 --> 00:27:36,230
an early, early prototype that was hard to use. It's all been iteration

454
00:27:36,710 --> 00:27:40,350
on the system to make it easier and easier to use. And again, I was

455
00:27:40,350 --> 00:27:43,270
just doing it for myself. I didn't think anybody else wanted to drink this way.

456
00:27:43,270 --> 00:27:46,830
And I was running two medical companies at the time, so I was

457
00:27:46,830 --> 00:27:50,590
super busy. But I did want to make sure, I think

458
00:27:50,590 --> 00:27:54,230
the other way that medicine came in was the way you test a new

459
00:27:54,230 --> 00:27:58,050
medical dev or medical thing is you do a randomized

460
00:27:58,050 --> 00:28:01,730
Prospective clinical trial. Right. You compare A and

461
00:28:01,730 --> 00:28:04,850
B randomized, and you see if there's any difference.

462
00:28:06,050 --> 00:28:09,690
And so with. You normally hope that your device has a positive impact.

463
00:28:09,690 --> 00:28:13,250
Right. With Coravin, I was just. I was like, I'm going to run a randomized

464
00:28:13,250 --> 00:28:16,890
prospective trial with wine, and I'm going to. Because I

465
00:28:16,890 --> 00:28:19,730
wanted to be able to drink my shot of Hermitage

466
00:28:20,370 --> 00:28:23,050
today, come back to it five years later, and it should be no different from

467
00:28:23,050 --> 00:28:26,800
a bottle that was not accessible test. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna

468
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:30,040
test it at five years. You've done that five years? Oh, yeah. Literally, I've done

469
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:33,200
19. 19 years blind tasting.

470
00:28:35,120 --> 00:28:38,880
Yeah. I have not had that success. Oh, yeah. It. Well, it comes

471
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,520
down to usage. So there's the way to use it and not use

472
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:46,320
it. Yeah. So nobody washes their Coravin. I feel like somebody's mother. Like,

473
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:49,560
why do you never wash? I have seen many dirty ones come through. Like the

474
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:53,180
stain. Yeah. The white one particularly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

475
00:28:53,660 --> 00:28:57,340
We called that R2D2. That has been terminated.

476
00:28:57,500 --> 00:29:00,700
So maybe one day we'll bring it back. But

477
00:29:01,340 --> 00:29:05,180
yeah, wash your coravin. So I call it clean clearance cellar Wash it

478
00:29:05,260 --> 00:29:08,460
end of the night, any day you use it. This is true for distributors,

479
00:29:08,460 --> 00:29:12,060
importers, wineries, restaurants, and consumers.

480
00:29:12,380 --> 00:29:15,100
And then the other thing is the needle

481
00:29:16,060 --> 00:29:19,900
is that has wine in it or air

482
00:29:19,900 --> 00:29:23,420
in it. From the last just before you go on to the next bottle. Give

483
00:29:23,420 --> 00:29:27,180
the trigger a quick press. It sparses the whole system, clears the needle of any

484
00:29:27,180 --> 00:29:30,340
wine and fills with argon so that only argon goes in.

485
00:29:30,900 --> 00:29:34,700
But we've done five year blind tastings with the Burgundy producers. Their wine, they

486
00:29:34,700 --> 00:29:38,500
Corvin them. They couldn't tell. Wow. 30 different Burgundy. Even

487
00:29:38,500 --> 00:29:42,180
getting down to like a half a bottle. Oh, yeah, Yeah. I poured a

488
00:29:42,340 --> 00:29:45,830
last glass of a bottle, Bordeaux to a master of

489
00:29:45,830 --> 00:29:49,430
wine writer for decanter and a master sommelier

490
00:29:49,430 --> 00:29:53,270
in New York. I remember it was a $20 Bordeaux.

491
00:29:53,750 --> 00:29:57,150
Reignac. Chateau Reignac. Oh, I know the wine. I love that wine. It's a great

492
00:29:57,150 --> 00:29:59,270
wine. It's great $20 wine. And

493
00:30:01,270 --> 00:30:04,910
one unbed Coravin down to the last glass five years ago, but had been first

494
00:30:04,910 --> 00:30:08,590
accessed nine years before. And then another bottle had been accessed

495
00:30:08,590 --> 00:30:12,230
multiple times down to a half bottle over 1, 2, 3, 4 years. And then

496
00:30:12,230 --> 00:30:15,570
there was a fresh bottle and we blind tasted them and they couldn't tell.

497
00:30:16,130 --> 00:30:19,970
So it's. That's quite the statement. Blind. It's true.

498
00:30:20,290 --> 00:30:24,090
The benefit of being true, I mean, blind tasting, we've been written up In Bloomberg

499
00:30:24,090 --> 00:30:27,890
and Decanter, I did a blind tasting with Jancis Robinson with wines that were out

500
00:30:27,890 --> 00:30:31,490
three and four years written up in the Financial Times. So

501
00:30:31,650 --> 00:30:35,450
you've. Let me stop you there. You've. Not only have you created

502
00:30:35,450 --> 00:30:39,050
this device, which is obviously industrious and entrepreneur

503
00:30:39,050 --> 00:30:42,190
and successful, but you immediately are

504
00:30:42,190 --> 00:30:46,030
hobnobbing with the greatest minds in the business, like, right out of the chutes here.

505
00:30:46,030 --> 00:30:48,630
I don't want. I don't want to take years to meet these people. You know,

506
00:30:48,630 --> 00:30:52,390
I did want to name drop, but it was, it was part of the strategy.

507
00:30:52,390 --> 00:30:56,070
When we launched Coravin, we knew

508
00:30:56,070 --> 00:30:58,950
we couldn't. There's 34 million Americans who drink wine.

509
00:30:59,750 --> 00:31:02,950
There's no way you're going to advertise to them to sell them a device. So

510
00:31:02,950 --> 00:31:06,780
we're like, okay, how. How do we get to them? We'll start

511
00:31:06,780 --> 00:31:10,620
at the wineries, then we'll go to the sommelier restaurants because

512
00:31:10,620 --> 00:31:14,300
we can get to them. And we'll talk to the critics in the press. So

513
00:31:14,300 --> 00:31:17,860
Wine Spectator, Robert Parker, here in the US.

514
00:31:20,260 --> 00:31:23,820
You'Re not so James Suckling. You know, these guys have an

515
00:31:23,820 --> 00:31:27,620
influence and a bullhorn. And so if they

516
00:31:27,700 --> 00:31:31,340
believe, they will talk about

517
00:31:31,340 --> 00:31:35,070
it. It. That was our theory, and it worked. No, it's a valid

518
00:31:35,070 --> 00:31:38,270
theory and it's a really important theory before I get to it, because I want

519
00:31:38,270 --> 00:31:42,070
to elaborate on. But I just thought of an image. I had a woman

520
00:31:42,070 --> 00:31:45,870
complain to me when I sent her a screw cap wine, which I

521
00:31:45,870 --> 00:31:49,070
tried to avoid generally, but I. This was a great wine

522
00:31:49,470 --> 00:31:53,270
and she tried to open it with her corkscrew and broke her corkscrew,

523
00:31:53,270 --> 00:31:56,030
and I. She wanted me to replace it. Have you, have you heard of any

524
00:31:56,030 --> 00:31:59,830
stories like somebody. Oh, yeah, didn't. Yeah, we've had. You could.

525
00:31:59,830 --> 00:32:03,460
Corbin, you could Corvette a screw cap once. Yeah, right, Exactly.

526
00:32:03,530 --> 00:32:07,330
It'll go through. It'll go through. Self seal. Yeah, it won't self seal.

527
00:32:07,330 --> 00:32:09,690
And you're. The second time you try to do that, you will break the needle.

528
00:32:10,090 --> 00:32:13,770
But it's. We made a Corbin screw cap adapter. So you actually crack the

529
00:32:13,770 --> 00:32:16,490
bottle open, put our screw cap on, and you can puncture it like a cork.

530
00:32:16,650 --> 00:32:20,290
And so. That's funny. Yeah, I just, I just thought. Anyway, you know

531
00:32:20,290 --> 00:32:22,250
this when you said to get to the people,

532
00:32:24,730 --> 00:32:28,490
I. I've seen so many devices come through and I've tested many. In

533
00:32:28,490 --> 00:32:31,930
fact, the software I used that has all my wines I've tasted in house

534
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:36,120
was. It was a beta database that never got published, but I

535
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,960
still use It. Yeah, I see a lot of products that come through. I've

536
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:43,720
saw the, you know, the, the aerators come

537
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:47,320
through, which is a beautiful product.

538
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:51,200
And it has some aeration value to it. I don't think

539
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,520
generally it does a lot that anybody could tell, but it generally works.

540
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,560
But then there was a product that came along here which was called the Bev

541
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,980
wizard. And it was a master of wine, Patrick Farrell, that. That had.

542
00:33:01,060 --> 00:33:04,500
Had designed it. And what it is, is two opposing magnets,

543
00:33:04,900 --> 00:33:07,780
the really strong magnets from China. And

544
00:33:08,580 --> 00:33:11,620
he found the idea in an 1800

545
00:33:12,900 --> 00:33:16,740
patent for bourbon House. And it would pass through

546
00:33:16,980 --> 00:33:20,660
the Bourbonwood if it aged in oak, whatever. The tannic, whatever comes

547
00:33:20,660 --> 00:33:23,980
from oak. And this is what they. He was not prepared to pay for the

548
00:33:23,980 --> 00:33:27,380
study to figure out what it is that does this. But it realigns

549
00:33:28,070 --> 00:33:31,710
the molecules and it softens anything that's been aged in

550
00:33:31,710 --> 00:33:35,350
oak. Very cool. And it works. Yeah. In fact, my uncle

551
00:33:35,350 --> 00:33:39,150
who invented the spoon straw, my wife's uncle, he didn't believe me when I

552
00:33:39,150 --> 00:33:42,950
told him the story. Now he's an MIT master's mechanical. I also went to mit.

553
00:33:42,950 --> 00:33:46,150
That's okay. So. Yeah, same thing. You can look him up. And he.

554
00:33:47,030 --> 00:33:50,710
I drove to Laguna beach, took beverage with me. We went to three

555
00:33:50,710 --> 00:33:53,990
bars and grabbed random sounds.

556
00:33:54,470 --> 00:33:57,450
You want a shot of bourbon? Yeah. Okay. Tell me which one you like better.

557
00:33:57,450 --> 00:34:00,770
Yeah, yeah. And it worked on every. It worked every time. But it was an

558
00:34:00,770 --> 00:34:04,210
ugly product. Yeah. It was a blister pack at a liquor store.

559
00:34:05,010 --> 00:34:08,770
It had no sensual value to it. Yeah. At least

560
00:34:08,770 --> 00:34:12,530
the. The Venturi does. Yeah. Venturi is beautiful. Looks like

561
00:34:12,530 --> 00:34:16,370
a 1910 jet engine. Yeah. He gives you a gift and it feels like.

562
00:34:16,370 --> 00:34:19,170
Yeah, I got this really cool thing. And so. Same with the Corvettes. Got a

563
00:34:19,170 --> 00:34:22,890
very classy look to it. Yeah. So that's. That's why you hire

564
00:34:22,890 --> 00:34:26,359
a great team. So I am. I am not an

565
00:34:26,359 --> 00:34:29,959
aesthetically pleasing designer. It's just not. I'm a

566
00:34:29,959 --> 00:34:33,719
functional guy. Yeah. And form follows function. We know this. Right? It

567
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:37,119
does. So I was very simple. It was minimalistic for sure. And

568
00:34:37,679 --> 00:34:41,319
I still have that influence on the company. I mean, we've

569
00:34:41,319 --> 00:34:44,799
got an incredible engineering team. We've got an incredible design

570
00:34:44,799 --> 00:34:48,559
team. What are they doing every day? Oh, we're always. So we have

571
00:34:48,559 --> 00:34:52,399
three different systems now. We've got Timeless, which is the original needle based system.

572
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:56,880
Two different versions of that. And then we've got Pivot, which is a new

573
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,680
system that pours wine from a bottle. You. With any closure, you take the closure

574
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:03,560
out. You put our stopper in. Our stopper has a valve and you pass a

575
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,800
big tube through and it pours very quickly. Preserves the wine only for a month,

576
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,720
but it works well. And, and so it's been used by restaurants because it can

577
00:35:09,720 --> 00:35:13,360
pour. So you can pour a five ounce. Glass in three seconds. Okay. It's super

578
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,440
fast. Because that would be a complaint of the radio. It's too slow. It was

579
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:19,730
an Australian who complained to me that that's why I designed. Well, I got to

580
00:35:19,730 --> 00:35:21,490
complain. There was no charge. I accept.

581
00:35:23,570 --> 00:35:27,210
So I, I, you know, that's the big advantage of being out in front is

582
00:35:27,210 --> 00:35:30,810
that you get the complaints first. Yeah. Redesign. And it's your responsibility to redesign.

583
00:35:30,810 --> 00:35:34,410
So. And the third thing, the third thing is sparkling champagne. Oh yeah. We're

584
00:35:34,410 --> 00:35:37,970
demonstrate that in a bit. That was, that was, that was

585
00:35:38,050 --> 00:35:41,690
huge for us. That changed everything again. And for

586
00:35:41,690 --> 00:35:45,510
me personally. Yeah. Well, when I sold

587
00:35:45,510 --> 00:35:49,270
Wine of the Month Club, they only bought my 15. The, the

588
00:35:49,270 --> 00:35:51,910
retail stuff, that was 15 to 20 bucks. The stuff I sold through the club.

589
00:35:51,910 --> 00:35:55,550
Yeah. In the meantime, there's a massive collection here

590
00:35:55,790 --> 00:35:59,630
for lots of different reasons. Part of it was Covid. They wanted nothing to

591
00:35:59,630 --> 00:36:03,430
do with it. So I was sitting here and around the corner there's 2,500 to

592
00:36:03,430 --> 00:36:07,110
3,000 bottles and a lot of it is champagne. Oh, wow.

593
00:36:07,110 --> 00:36:10,800
Yeah. And I made the huge mistake of teaching my son in law about

594
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:14,040
champagne. So my depletion is much greater.

595
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:18,040
Yeah. Rate is greater than accumulation. Yes. Than I expect. Than I expected

596
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:21,360
it to be. It is the wine that runs out in my house fastest. Yeah.

597
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:25,160
And it's because of Spark Corbin Sparkling. I, I have, I have six

598
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:28,200
bottles of champagne open all the time. Oh, really? Wow. And I have different ways

599
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:32,000
to experience it. It's. And, and now I, it works

600
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,560
so much. It's one of those things that exceeded our expectations. You know,

601
00:36:35,790 --> 00:36:38,990
we wanted wine to last for a month on a Corman. Sparkling champagne guys are

602
00:36:38,990 --> 00:36:42,830
saying it's nine months. Some English sparkling guys have tested it for a year and

603
00:36:42,830 --> 00:36:46,670
they're like, yeah, we don't know when it doesn't work, but it's still working. So

604
00:36:46,670 --> 00:36:50,230
it's way better than we thought. It's rare to have that happen in

605
00:36:50,230 --> 00:36:53,670
engineering, to have something be better than what you were trying for. Normally you're struggling

606
00:36:53,670 --> 00:36:57,310
to get to some goal. What a great opportunity, particularly in champagne

607
00:36:57,710 --> 00:37:01,510
for the consumer. Because champagne is so different from bottle to bottle, from

608
00:37:01,510 --> 00:37:05,360
manufacturer to manufacturer, and, and it's

609
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:09,120
so brand focused, you know, in the industry. Right. Yeah.

610
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,600
And I told the story the other day. I think. I think VUV makes 25

611
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:16,400
million bottles a year. Dom Perennial's gotta be in the 4 or 5 million. Yeah.

612
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,320
And it feels like it's a little boutique fancy house. They

613
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:24,160
do amazing job of branding, but people just reach for Vuv when they

614
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:27,600
go to a liquor store. LVMH is a master. Yeah.

615
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,450
And so. But here you get. You're giving them a chance to have this

616
00:37:31,690 --> 00:37:35,050
wide variety of sparkling wine, which is so dynamic and it's so great.

617
00:37:35,130 --> 00:37:38,810
It's the thing that I realized. I didn't drink much champagne before we

618
00:37:38,810 --> 00:37:42,050
developed sparkling. We developed it during the pandemic, so that's how I spent my pandemic.

619
00:37:42,050 --> 00:37:45,850
It was great. I had to test it on 220 different sparkling wines.

620
00:37:46,090 --> 00:37:49,690
I had a great pandemic. My spouse and I, we loved it.

621
00:37:49,930 --> 00:37:53,730
But the thing that I realized was that the world of sparkling is

622
00:37:53,730 --> 00:37:57,530
as big as still. Like, it's. You can get sparkling wines from

623
00:37:57,770 --> 00:38:01,490
Germany sect. You know, you can get wines from South Africa. There's

624
00:38:01,490 --> 00:38:05,230
a sparkling wine producer in Massachusetts. Massachusetts. That. With indigenous grapes from

625
00:38:05,230 --> 00:38:08,790
Massachusetts, England, you know, very, very good

626
00:38:08,790 --> 00:38:12,310
wines. Tasmania in Australia is making really good

627
00:38:12,310 --> 00:38:15,990
sparkling wines. Sparkling shiraz from. From Barossa. You

628
00:38:15,990 --> 00:38:19,710
know, there's all these different wines.

629
00:38:19,710 --> 00:38:22,830
Sounds like you're having a ton of fun. Oh, yeah. Well, you. Now you found

630
00:38:22,830 --> 00:38:26,230
the secret. So you've been everywhere in the world. For this

631
00:38:27,190 --> 00:38:31,030
Chairman again. So I'm chairman. I get to do what I want. And, you

632
00:38:31,030 --> 00:38:34,530
know, we. I am about as

633
00:38:34,610 --> 00:38:38,330
happy as I can imagine. People

634
00:38:38,330 --> 00:38:41,730
ask me whether I would leave my medical device job and do 100% of my

635
00:38:41,730 --> 00:38:45,410
time on Corbin. I don't think so. I would become ungrounded.

636
00:38:45,970 --> 00:38:49,730
And I love still the. There's a

637
00:38:49,730 --> 00:38:53,490
piece to surgery. There's a patient on the table with a particular

638
00:38:53,490 --> 00:38:57,290
problem. Your goal and sole goal of everyone in that room is that

639
00:38:57,290 --> 00:39:00,720
one problem. And you will do whatever your

640
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:04,920
role in that room is to make sure

641
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,600
that that patient's outcome is the best as possible. But

642
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:12,080
the wine side of my life,

643
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,960
going from a consumer with no training

644
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:19,680
and still no training. Right. But going from a consumer and wine

645
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:23,200
lover to someone who can walk into a winery anywhere,

646
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,720
walk into a restaurant, anywhere in the world. Exactly. It. The other piece that I've

647
00:39:27,720 --> 00:39:31,240
gotten through Coravin is, you know,

648
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:35,080
wine is part of our culture, and it's been part of our culture

649
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,360
for thousands of years. And there is a.

650
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:43,320
There are cultural differences between the United States and

651
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:47,000
France. And even within France And Australia and China

652
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:50,520
and Japan and Korea and South Africa and

653
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:54,330
Brazil. And so one of the things I

654
00:39:54,330 --> 00:39:56,730
realized as an inventor, entrepreneur that I love

655
00:39:57,850 --> 00:40:00,970
is trying to change behavior

656
00:40:01,530 --> 00:40:05,250
toward this better behavior that I see and I want others

657
00:40:05,250 --> 00:40:08,170
to see. And in medicine, you can imagine the

658
00:40:08,730 --> 00:40:12,530
resistance to that is enormous. Right. I'm not going to introduce this new spinal implant.

659
00:40:12,530 --> 00:40:16,050
Are you crazy? I could ruin my career as a physician. The

660
00:40:16,050 --> 00:40:18,490
hospital's like, I don't want to touch that thing with a 10 foot pole. We'll

661
00:40:18,490 --> 00:40:21,170
never get paid for it. And government's like, that's got to be unsafe. They got

662
00:40:21,170 --> 00:40:24,990
a whole litany of things. You got to push these gu. And

663
00:40:24,990 --> 00:40:27,550
I love that part. I didn't realize I was going to run into the same

664
00:40:27,550 --> 00:40:31,150
thing with wine. Right. The French

665
00:40:31,150 --> 00:40:34,710
invented the screw cap and they don't use it. There's all kinds of.

666
00:40:35,510 --> 00:40:37,990
Well, let's peel that back a little bit

667
00:40:39,830 --> 00:40:43,350
because I've determined with listening to all the pundits and

668
00:40:43,430 --> 00:40:46,670
every generation has their pundit and they have their opinions of what's going on. I'm

669
00:40:46,670 --> 00:40:49,910
listening to LinkedIn and all the social networking and

670
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,640
wine ebbs and flows as we talked about. But is it culturally

671
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:58,640
relevant, if not the most culturally relevant

672
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:02,840
product or consumable that a human can have? In my

673
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:06,480
opinion, yeah. And that's the side that, that I want to

674
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:10,120
understand how we're going to tell these people and get the excitement that you

675
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:13,200
got when you had your hermitage and learn to

676
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,000
teach the general public that this really does exist

677
00:41:18,510 --> 00:41:22,310
and not. What I'm fighting is that packaging

678
00:41:22,310 --> 00:41:25,870
is not the cultural relevancy of wine. Putting it in a small bottle, putting it

679
00:41:25,870 --> 00:41:29,670
in a can, putting it, making it low, alk. All those little

680
00:41:29,670 --> 00:41:32,590
emaciations to sell more versus

681
00:41:33,070 --> 00:41:35,950
understanding the cultural value and that soul,

682
00:41:36,910 --> 00:41:40,350
you know, that soul touching value of a glass, the proper wine,

683
00:41:40,910 --> 00:41:44,590
because it has to, that has to exist. Because it has for

684
00:41:44,590 --> 00:41:48,170
6,000 years plus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I

685
00:41:49,610 --> 00:41:52,330
believe that no matter how

686
00:41:53,210 --> 00:41:56,730
silly we might be in our marketing efforts and everything else in the wine world,

687
00:41:57,770 --> 00:42:01,450
wine will still survive one way or the other. And it's going to be a

688
00:42:01,450 --> 00:42:04,610
matter of scale. And it's going to be, you know, is it growing or is

689
00:42:04,610 --> 00:42:07,730
it not growing? But it is going to be there. And it's going to be

690
00:42:07,730 --> 00:42:11,210
there for its core strengths.

691
00:42:12,260 --> 00:42:15,220
Its core strengths are it is the most social beverage.

692
00:42:16,020 --> 00:42:19,780
It is the most social beverage. That's something that Guillaume d' Engeville

693
00:42:19,780 --> 00:42:23,540
of Volnay said to me. You know, he's like this Is the most social

694
00:42:23,540 --> 00:42:26,420
beverages. You know, think vodka's not a social beverage.

695
00:42:27,300 --> 00:42:30,180
I say it all the time. Jack Daniels. I don't do Jack Daniels as shoot

696
00:42:30,180 --> 00:42:33,900
the breeze with my friends. Exactly. You know, he's like, wine is social. It's what

697
00:42:33,900 --> 00:42:37,660
it is. And I think that's gonna keep it going. I think

698
00:42:37,660 --> 00:42:41,460
the other part that's gonna keep it going, and this is the piece that I

699
00:42:41,460 --> 00:42:44,830
want to expose people to is that

700
00:42:44,830 --> 00:42:48,390
variety piece. One of the things that you see in wine is that it's got

701
00:42:48,390 --> 00:42:52,110
so much variety that it's intimidating. It's overly variable.

702
00:42:52,270 --> 00:42:55,630
2000 grape varieties in Italy. Right. You're never gonna figure it out.

703
00:42:55,710 --> 00:42:59,550
Armenian grapes. Like, there's grapes everywhere, and then there's

704
00:42:59,790 --> 00:43:02,590
140,000 different wines bottled every year.

705
00:43:03,550 --> 00:43:07,390
So, you know, people, when they go to a wine store, they find a

706
00:43:07,390 --> 00:43:11,000
wine that they like, they tend to buy that one over and over

707
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:14,800
again. Oh, I like cake bread. Cake bread is a great wine. Sure.

708
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:18,640
Chardonnay is beautiful, but, you know, open up your

709
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:22,320
mind a little bit. So the place where I

710
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:25,920
want to. I've tried to get people to use Coravin and wine

711
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:29,720
stores to explore wines. And some people do total wine and spirits will do it

712
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,640
to get people to try new and more things.

713
00:43:34,770 --> 00:43:38,050
The wine bar, restaurant, the restaurant wine by the glass list.

714
00:43:38,930 --> 00:43:42,730
That is where people will take a flyer. That is

715
00:43:42,730 --> 00:43:46,250
where they're like, okay. Or they'll listen. Like you interact with a

716
00:43:46,250 --> 00:43:49,610
psalm. Right. Or somebody who knows about wine. They're passionate about something that's on the

717
00:43:49,610 --> 00:43:53,210
list. And the best thing that a consumer can do is walk into a

718
00:43:53,210 --> 00:43:56,610
wine place or into a restaurant that has a decent wine list and buy the

719
00:43:56,610 --> 00:43:59,970
glass list in particular. And it's what I do is ask

720
00:44:00,210 --> 00:44:03,670
somebody, what are you drinking? What do you love? What are you

721
00:44:03,670 --> 00:44:07,310
passionate about on this list? What do you really care about? And

722
00:44:07,310 --> 00:44:10,950
to experience somebody else's passion for a reason,

723
00:44:11,430 --> 00:44:15,190
and then taste and smell that in a glass, that

724
00:44:15,190 --> 00:44:17,990
discovery moment. And hopefully you'll then go out and buy a bottle of. I just

725
00:44:17,990 --> 00:44:21,590
did it at Wally's. I had a clements bush cabinet. I've had a lot of

726
00:44:21,590 --> 00:44:25,350
the non cabinet, the Trochan Rieslings. And I'd never had the

727
00:44:25,350 --> 00:44:27,230
cabinet before I had a glass of it because I had it on the buy

728
00:44:27,230 --> 00:44:30,150
glass list and fell in love with it. I immediately walked over and bought it.

729
00:44:30,150 --> 00:44:32,950
Like I. You know, that's an interesting thought because we were at the restaurant last

730
00:44:32,950 --> 00:44:36,670
night. Laguna beach at Surf and sand, their new restaurant. They just remodeled the whole

731
00:44:36,670 --> 00:44:40,470
place. It's really, really nice. It changed a lot. But the. I thought

732
00:44:40,470 --> 00:44:43,870
the list was very well curated. I told the SOM that. I said it's really

733
00:44:43,870 --> 00:44:47,190
good. Listen. Turns out he was a psalm from the Disney Network.

734
00:44:47,670 --> 00:44:51,510
So he was at Napa Rose and then. And Club 33. And

735
00:44:51,510 --> 00:44:54,450
I think he worked at 21 Royale as well, which is upstairs.

736
00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:58,560
And I told him, I said, this is a really curated list. It's beautiful. Now

737
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:02,120
here's. Here's the issues that come with this idea of yours.

738
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:06,360
It's the right idea. Like if there's a properly curated list and there's

739
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:10,000
interesting wines to pour by the glass. Yeah. The question is, did they use a

740
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:13,720
Coravate? Do they use a proper preservation method?

741
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,160
Because those are the wines that aren't open all the time, the interesting ones. That's

742
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:20,960
it, right. It's not the first one. So, you know, we've. We've. And

743
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:24,790
it's. It change in behavior. Right. It's a risk for some

744
00:45:24,790 --> 00:45:28,030
to put an interesting wine on a list if they don't use Coravin. Right. Because

745
00:45:28,030 --> 00:45:31,470
they're like, when am I throw. Champagne was the worst. Right. People have got

746
00:45:31,470 --> 00:45:35,310
fired for opening 10 bottles of champagne, 15 bottles of champagne. And

747
00:45:36,350 --> 00:45:40,110
I really want to encourage restaurants

748
00:45:40,190 --> 00:45:43,990
to open up their wine by the glass list because the

749
00:45:43,990 --> 00:45:47,550
ones that do are financially successful at it

750
00:45:47,790 --> 00:45:51,570
when they do it. 67 Pall Mall in London has almost a thousand

751
00:45:51,570 --> 00:45:54,490
wines by the glass. There's a place called Sticks and Stone is in Burgundy or

752
00:45:54,490 --> 00:45:57,170
in munich that has 900 wines by the glass.

753
00:45:58,210 --> 00:46:01,730
Right. And they. They have Corbin, a

754
00:46:01,730 --> 00:46:05,570
cruvent of some sort. Is it Coravin? No, it's Corbin straight up. And. And

755
00:46:05,570 --> 00:46:09,290
you know, they. The funny story about 67, which I'll tell

756
00:46:09,290 --> 00:46:13,010
if we have time. But anyway, the. The. We've actually just launched a.

757
00:46:13,170 --> 00:46:16,850
To encourage people, we've launched a guide. And it's not a

758
00:46:16,850 --> 00:46:20,570
guide on quality. We don't judge your quality of your wine list. It's the number

759
00:46:20,570 --> 00:46:24,270
of wines you have by the glass. So 20, 40, and 60

760
00:46:24,270 --> 00:46:27,910
or three different levels. 60 or more are three different levels of. In our

761
00:46:27,910 --> 00:46:31,750
Coravin guide. And we're launching it city by city. So it's here in

762
00:46:31,750 --> 00:46:35,510
California. It's not yet in New York. It will be, but I was just in

763
00:46:35,510 --> 00:46:39,150
Melbourne, Australia, and we're in Australia, and I looked on the.

764
00:46:39,390 --> 00:46:42,430
Our guide on our Corman site

765
00:46:42,910 --> 00:46:45,990
and found this place, City Wine Shop. And I walked into City Wine Shop because

766
00:46:45,990 --> 00:46:48,630
they had 20 wines for the glass. And I'm like, okay, serve me your favorite.

767
00:46:48,630 --> 00:46:52,380
4. Nice. Teach me about Grenache

768
00:46:52,380 --> 00:46:55,260
from Australia. Teach me about Nebbiolo from Australia. I've never, I don't know him. And,

769
00:46:55,260 --> 00:46:58,660
you know, teach me about. What are your, what's your favorite Tasmanian wine? What's your.

770
00:46:58,660 --> 00:47:02,060
And they, they came over and the Psalm was psyched. And they get to pour

771
00:47:02,060 --> 00:47:04,420
me all these different things because they're using Corbin. They didn't know I was a

772
00:47:04,420 --> 00:47:08,260
Corbin guy. And, and I'm, I'm tasting through these wines.

773
00:47:08,980 --> 00:47:12,820
I learned. Right, exactly. No, I, I left it. I, you know,

774
00:47:12,980 --> 00:47:16,420
sometimes I, I, I don't want to work. Sometimes I just want to.

775
00:47:16,580 --> 00:47:20,140
No, but that, that, but in a big scale,

776
00:47:20,780 --> 00:47:24,380
because, like, we go back to the population, availability for

777
00:47:24,380 --> 00:47:27,980
wine drinking is not that big. But then you added the idea that distributor

778
00:47:27,980 --> 00:47:31,780
reps can have this and then they can save the bottles. And distributors themselves

779
00:47:31,780 --> 00:47:35,580
love you for saving their inventory. But now

780
00:47:36,380 --> 00:47:40,060
if you can expand with this idea, the house,

781
00:47:40,060 --> 00:47:43,830
pour the glass, pour at a restaurant and

782
00:47:43,910 --> 00:47:47,750
expose the public to all these different

783
00:47:47,750 --> 00:47:51,510
things that they can test at no risk

784
00:47:51,510 --> 00:47:55,270
of buying a whole bottle and not liking it. And

785
00:47:55,590 --> 00:47:59,190
the restaurateur or wine bar can also par off a couple

786
00:47:59,350 --> 00:48:03,070
on the house just because they want

787
00:48:03,070 --> 00:48:06,750
people to experience it. Wally's is doing it. I was just

788
00:48:06,750 --> 00:48:10,470
at Wife in the Somme, close by. Close by here. I know

789
00:48:10,470 --> 00:48:14,100
him. They're doing it. They're doing comparisons of Chardonnay from California and Oregon.

790
00:48:14,650 --> 00:48:18,410
And you can order. That's just an order. Yeah. 3 ounce or 6 ounce pours

791
00:48:18,410 --> 00:48:22,250
of. Each, which is the old craft beer, you know, Little rat. Yeah. But now

792
00:48:22,250 --> 00:48:25,730
it's this beautiful place with a tree on the inside. And, you know, he's got

793
00:48:25,730 --> 00:48:29,570
a great long wine by the glass list. Yeah. And he's

794
00:48:29,570 --> 00:48:33,130
like, yeah, it's a good portion of what I sell. And it allows you to

795
00:48:33,130 --> 00:48:36,810
do comparisons. It allows you to, you know, explore wines from

796
00:48:36,810 --> 00:48:40,300
white wines from the northern Rhone. Right. It

797
00:48:40,300 --> 00:48:44,060
encouraged exploration. How

798
00:48:44,060 --> 00:48:47,700
are you getting to. Because I'll tell you a story. Not too far from

799
00:48:47,700 --> 00:48:50,140
the wife and the son was in the restaurant. Friend of mine, and he was

800
00:48:50,140 --> 00:48:53,740
just complaining his bottle sales and just saying

801
00:48:53,740 --> 00:48:57,460
that now changes the whole perspective. Bottle sales are off

802
00:48:57,460 --> 00:49:01,260
30%. That's it. Well, you don't need bottle sales. That's it. And so we've

803
00:49:01,260 --> 00:49:04,740
actually. One of the things, I'm a scientist, so I want to do tests.

804
00:49:05,140 --> 00:49:08,860
One of the things we did globally was we took a set of restaurants that

805
00:49:08,860 --> 00:49:12,620
didn't use Coravin and we Only worked with the restaurants who were willing to share

806
00:49:12,620 --> 00:49:16,300
their wine sales data with us. So here's their bottle sales, here's their

807
00:49:16,300 --> 00:49:19,380
glass sales, here's their wastage because they're dumping some of the glasses down.

808
00:49:20,580 --> 00:49:23,620
And then we gave them a Coravin

809
00:49:24,180 --> 00:49:27,700
Timeless sparkling, and then we measured their

810
00:49:27,700 --> 00:49:31,420
sales after. So Gordon Ramsay was part of this and some of his

811
00:49:31,420 --> 00:49:34,610
restaurants. And. And we saw

812
00:49:35,490 --> 00:49:39,170
that the bottle sales stayed the same. Glass sales

813
00:49:39,170 --> 00:49:42,930
went up, revenue went up, profit went up because you're selling a better

814
00:49:43,250 --> 00:49:47,090
dollar margin. Glass of wine wastage plummeted.

815
00:49:47,330 --> 00:49:51,050
And so economically, it made sense. That's how Wife and the song got started with

816
00:49:51,050 --> 00:49:54,450
us. We were doing an event, and he took part in the event, and he's

817
00:49:54,450 --> 00:49:58,090
like, yeah, no, I changed my wine list as a result because it was economically

818
00:49:58,090 --> 00:50:01,920
good for him. And my belief is that

819
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:07,280
this creation of an opportunity to explore variety

820
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:12,000
is a virtuous circle, that the consumer benefits

821
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,680
and the restaurant benefits. And

822
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:20,960
if you can find. There are very few examples in the world where

823
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:24,920
you find something that. Where everybody gets better. Right. Normally somebody's losing

824
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:28,640
out. And I really do believe it's a win, win, win. Well, yeah, it's a

825
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:31,920
win, win, win. And I really do think that people are drinking much

826
00:50:32,780 --> 00:50:36,500
intentionally now. I think economically, bottle sales are

827
00:50:36,500 --> 00:50:39,900
going down. I think this health thing people are worried about, with

828
00:50:40,220 --> 00:50:43,740
which I can go into forever because of my medical stuff.

829
00:50:44,140 --> 00:50:47,860
But so there. I think bottle sales are on

830
00:50:47,860 --> 00:50:51,500
the decline, but glass sales aren't. And so. And

831
00:50:51,500 --> 00:50:55,180
if we can expand that section and then encourage people

832
00:50:55,180 --> 00:50:58,380
to explore in the volume they want, the quantity they want,

833
00:50:58,940 --> 00:51:02,720
it'll be thought. It's. You know, because this industry is so slow and

834
00:51:02,720 --> 00:51:06,280
because it takes time for people to come to the table sometimes. But I think

835
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,720
this is an incredible opportunity for the industry in general

836
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:14,160
to get over this hump, because I don't think the humps last forever. Yeah. You

837
00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:17,840
know, this store here that we sold Bartles and James, and we've done it

838
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:21,600
all. Gallo was all there, 1.5. You know, Ryan, wine, stuff like that.

839
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:24,600
They make some good wines. Yeah. It was all. You know, there was. Those are

840
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:28,190
all cycles that this industry has gone through. And. And the one piece of it

841
00:51:28,190 --> 00:51:31,910
that never changes is this. This connection. And you say

842
00:51:31,910 --> 00:51:35,510
it's social. The social almost dilutes.

843
00:51:35,750 --> 00:51:39,310
Yeah. What it really is, because I think it's a connection to the

844
00:51:39,310 --> 00:51:42,910
earth. In the soul. Yeah. And it reacts to the

845
00:51:42,910 --> 00:51:46,710
soul different than any other product because of what its purpose is. Yeah. In humanity.

846
00:51:47,510 --> 00:51:51,230
So beautifully said. This Is interesting because we are

847
00:51:51,230 --> 00:51:55,080
up in Concord Elegance, you know, the. One of the greatest

848
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:57,960
car shows in the world. And the money and the cars. You know, we watched

849
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,480
a Ferrari not sell for $21 million because there wasn't enough

850
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:05,120
money. Didn't meet minimum, you know. So here. Yeah. And here we are

851
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:09,160
in this environment, and I'm in a restaurant at a bar. I'm having

852
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:12,960
a martini. And I noticed that the house pours behind the bar

853
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:16,920
were from one of the regular distributors around here. And I know the

854
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:20,560
wine well. It's just not very good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And somebody decided

855
00:52:20,930 --> 00:52:24,050
that they were going to take big black felt pen and write on the label

856
00:52:24,050 --> 00:52:27,770
when they opened the bottle. Yeah. And I happened to notice that the Pinot noir

857
00:52:27,770 --> 00:52:31,410
was open two weeks earlier. Holy cow. That's gone. Not even a

858
00:52:31,410 --> 00:52:35,250
vacuum. Yeah, right. Just the cork sticking out. Yeah. And so I happen to

859
00:52:35,250 --> 00:52:38,610
be next to the waitress station and the waitress came up and says, you know,

860
00:52:38,610 --> 00:52:41,890
glass of Pinot. You know, just calls it out. The waiter, the

861
00:52:41,890 --> 00:52:45,690
bartender, didn't even bother. Didn't. Yeah. To look at the date, though, somebody

862
00:52:45,690 --> 00:52:49,510
had gone to a painstakingly. Didn't smell it. Nothing. Didn't. Didn't

863
00:52:49,510 --> 00:52:51,830
do anything. And he set it up right in front of me and poured it.

864
00:52:51,830 --> 00:52:54,070
And I just looked at. I go, that's coming back. He goes, what do you

865
00:52:54,070 --> 00:52:57,830
mean? I said, well, look at the date. It's your date. It's brown. Right. It's

866
00:52:57,830 --> 00:53:01,670
not supposed to be. And he thanked me. Yeah. You know, but wow. You

867
00:53:01,670 --> 00:53:04,950
know, it's. It's. It. It was a

868
00:53:04,950 --> 00:53:08,590
fundamental problem. Right. It is no longer products like

869
00:53:08,590 --> 00:53:12,220
Coravin would. Should prevent that.

870
00:53:12,290 --> 00:53:16,130
That. And it's one of the responsibilities of Corvin. Who's telling these people this.

871
00:53:16,610 --> 00:53:20,250
So, you know, it's. It's interesting. It. We have

872
00:53:20,250 --> 00:53:23,090
tried different strategies in different countries and

873
00:53:25,010 --> 00:53:28,810
every culture is different. And that's true in restaurants as well. And getting

874
00:53:28,810 --> 00:53:32,450
people to change is different. So the highest density usage of

875
00:53:32,450 --> 00:53:36,050
Coravin in the restaurant world is London bar none. Really?

876
00:53:36,050 --> 00:53:39,500
Wow. Every restaurant uses corporate. They use every part of Coron

877
00:53:39,740 --> 00:53:43,340
Sparkling, Timeless, extensive. They use the same version. We're talking about same

878
00:53:43,340 --> 00:53:47,060
version. And we have a pro version as a longer capsule. So for the

879
00:53:47,060 --> 00:53:50,780
trade at the same price. So it pours more glasses,

880
00:53:50,860 --> 00:53:52,940
so it's more efficient. So

881
00:53:54,220 --> 00:53:57,580
London just changed and they got it and they

882
00:53:58,460 --> 00:54:02,300
optimized it and it's like a normal part. We're almost

883
00:54:02,300 --> 00:54:06,040
saturated in London. We can't. And Australia is the same. Australia

884
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:09,760
is an Enormous market. You wouldn't open a restaurant in London without. Without Corbin.

885
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:13,440
And. And same with. Same with Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane. You know, I was just. Just

886
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:17,280
there. And they don't have a cultural resistance to change. They just don't

887
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,160
care if it's good for the consumer. They do it.

888
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:24,520
And they don't fear change. We were talking about the entrepreneurial spirit in. In

889
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:28,360
Australia. They have no fear of change. Right. Their culture. That's interesting.

890
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:31,720
Doesn't care. That's really interesting. And France, Paris,

891
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:35,800
you know, getting them to change. Oh, they're French hard.

892
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:39,680
Yeah. But you know what? They're not all just French. Like,

893
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:43,280
Burgundy accepted Coravin right away. Champagne accepted Coravin, sparkling right

894
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:47,000
away. They were just open to it. More out of necessity. Right. Sparkling,

895
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:50,800
it goes flat. Burgundy. The prices, the production's so

896
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:53,880
tiny, they couldn't afford to open the bottles all the time. For press that came

897
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:57,720
by, they started Coravining everything. I just heard a famous producer who I've

898
00:54:57,720 --> 00:55:01,480
never met in Burgundy, has a Corvin in their cell,

899
00:55:02,180 --> 00:55:05,820
like, hooked up to a big tank, and they're serving to everybody by

900
00:55:05,820 --> 00:55:09,660
Corman. So, you know, they have need. Right. Whereas Bordeaux

901
00:55:09,660 --> 00:55:13,460
doesn't. Bordeaux's got so much damn volume and so much that not as

902
00:55:13,460 --> 00:55:17,060
many Bordeaux producers use carbon. And so I. The way you sell it

903
00:55:17,140 --> 00:55:20,980
depends on how that culture responds. Does the appellation

904
00:55:20,980 --> 00:55:24,780
control. Have you seen that the Appalachian

905
00:55:24,780 --> 00:55:28,310
control, have an impact on how they think towards something like this?

906
00:55:28,620 --> 00:55:32,180
Like the Bordeaux appellation, Burgundy is very

907
00:55:32,180 --> 00:55:35,980
specific with their Appalachian control. And maybe that's just a shot in the

908
00:55:35,980 --> 00:55:39,420
dark. I don't think so. They have not played a big

909
00:55:40,060 --> 00:55:43,540
factor. So, for example, I mean, I think CIVC and

910
00:55:43,540 --> 00:55:47,340
Champagne is extremely conservative about any form of sparkling

911
00:55:47,340 --> 00:55:51,060
preservation system. But that hasn't stopped Bill Carcinoma from using it

912
00:55:51,060 --> 00:55:54,900
and Krug from using it and Dom Perignon from using it and Ruinar

913
00:55:54,900 --> 00:55:58,620
from using it. They don't. They pay attention to CIBC

914
00:55:58,620 --> 00:56:01,460
for what they do. But Coravin's sort of outside of that.

915
00:56:02,820 --> 00:56:06,340
That's not a responsibility of those guys. Right. They have control

916
00:56:06,500 --> 00:56:09,700
for appellations and that kind of thing and making sure labels are good and

917
00:56:09,940 --> 00:56:12,340
bottle formats are the same. But with us,

918
00:56:13,540 --> 00:56:17,380
the reality is that wine is such a global

919
00:56:17,540 --> 00:56:21,180
thing. You can find one Riesling producer in

920
00:56:21,180 --> 00:56:24,990
Japan and in. In Germany and in Italy and in the US

921
00:56:24,990 --> 00:56:28,510
and, you know, so they. They. They

922
00:56:28,510 --> 00:56:31,910
need to be able to sell their wines in all these different markets. And so

923
00:56:31,910 --> 00:56:35,710
they can't have somebody telling them how. And

924
00:56:35,710 --> 00:56:39,070
I Think the. One of the things that was really important to me was that

925
00:56:39,070 --> 00:56:42,870
the winemakers believed in Coravin. So every time we develop a new system, we give

926
00:56:42,870 --> 00:56:46,190
it to them first before we launch. Because if they don't believe in it,

927
00:56:46,750 --> 00:56:49,510
like this Pinot noir that was at the restaurant that was two weeks out, three

928
00:56:49,510 --> 00:56:53,330
weeks out. If that glass had gone to the table, that consumer

929
00:56:53,330 --> 00:56:57,090
would have thought that is what that producer intended. That's

930
00:56:57,090 --> 00:57:00,890
the problem. That's one of the problems. Either they think that. Yeah. Or they.

931
00:57:00,890 --> 00:57:04,450
Or they reject the wine and they go with a crappy restaurant. Yeah. It's one

932
00:57:04,450 --> 00:57:08,170
of the two. Both are bad. Yes. And so the.

933
00:57:08,730 --> 00:57:11,850
We wanted to make sure that the producers knew Coravin worked so that when they

934
00:57:11,850 --> 00:57:15,570
saw Corvin being used on their wine in a restaurant, they didn't freak out. Right.

935
00:57:15,570 --> 00:57:19,270
And say, what are you doing to my like wine? I have noticed a

936
00:57:19,270 --> 00:57:23,110
couple of restaurants that put on the menu Coravan. A Coravan list versus a raider

937
00:57:23,110 --> 00:57:26,750
list. Yeah. More and more and would

938
00:57:26,750 --> 00:57:30,510
help me tremendously because I send back so many by the

939
00:57:30,510 --> 00:57:34,190
glasses. My wife drinks only likes Bordeaux varietals and cabinets and

940
00:57:34,190 --> 00:57:37,910
things. And I first asked, when did you open

941
00:57:37,910 --> 00:57:41,550
this? And if they lie to me, I'll. I'll know. Yep. Or

942
00:57:41,550 --> 00:57:44,510
they'll open a fresh bottle now. You just wasted the rest of the bottle. They

943
00:57:44,510 --> 00:57:48,330
pour it off for somebody else that. That just accepts

944
00:57:48,330 --> 00:57:52,050
it but realizes it's not very good. Yeah. And that's not a good

945
00:57:52,050 --> 00:57:55,770
reflection on the restaurant brand. I mean, why would you do

946
00:57:55,770 --> 00:57:59,610
that? It isn't. And you would. So I think in

947
00:57:59,610 --> 00:58:03,330
the end. Not in the end, but part of the issue that

948
00:58:03,330 --> 00:58:07,090
we run into in restaurants is that sommelier's job was essentially

949
00:58:07,090 --> 00:58:10,930
an art critic. Right. And they had to

950
00:58:10,930 --> 00:58:13,930
know if you look at the quartermaster, Sommelier, they didn't start teaching business until just

951
00:58:13,930 --> 00:58:17,610
recently. And so it's insane because

952
00:58:18,650 --> 00:58:22,490
a good portion of the profit of a restaurant comes from beverage.

953
00:58:22,810 --> 00:58:26,610
I remember when somebody told me, wine pays for the kitchen. Oh, no question.

954
00:58:26,610 --> 00:58:30,330
Right. And so to not think about the business potential of wine

955
00:58:30,330 --> 00:58:33,770
and the business potential of wine by the glass, which is the most

956
00:58:33,770 --> 00:58:36,330
profitable dollar margin wise

957
00:58:37,130 --> 00:58:40,250
opportunity in a restaurant is tragic.

958
00:58:40,650 --> 00:58:44,370
And so I'm hoping more and more

959
00:58:44,370 --> 00:58:48,130
that. That restaurants will put things like Coravin by the glass

960
00:58:48,130 --> 00:58:51,930
because some of the consumers are beginning to recognize what that means. Okay. The wine

961
00:58:51,930 --> 00:58:55,610
hasn't changed. I don't have to worry about when. And we're seeing

962
00:58:55,610 --> 00:58:58,850
it more and more around the world. This is the Coravyn by The glass list.

963
00:58:59,490 --> 00:59:03,170
That's an interesting thought since you've already

964
00:59:03,170 --> 00:59:06,450
loosened up this idea of being able to expose consumers to

965
00:59:07,170 --> 00:59:10,690
a variety of varietals. For instance, I used to even

966
00:59:10,690 --> 00:59:13,530
say my first time I featured an Armenian wine in the Wine of the Month

967
00:59:13,530 --> 00:59:17,370
Club was at Voska Hot. The white wine wine. Yeah. And. And my pitch

968
00:59:17,370 --> 00:59:20,370
to my consumer, my customer was, you're not going to walk into

969
00:59:20,690 --> 00:59:24,450
Wally's even and say, do you have any Volska Hot? Yeah. But you're going to

970
00:59:24,450 --> 00:59:26,690
have a chance to taste it. That was the pitch of the Wine Month Club.

971
00:59:26,690 --> 00:59:30,490
You're going to taste something that's a correct representation of what it is. Yeah.

972
00:59:30,490 --> 00:59:32,530
And if you don't like it, then don't get it next time you go to

973
00:59:32,530 --> 00:59:35,090
the store. But now you know. But now you know. And I'm not unless there's

974
00:59:35,090 --> 00:59:38,490
a good examples. But there's obviously there's this whole

975
00:59:38,490 --> 00:59:42,130
aristocracy of wine and this, the psalm thing. And you said mentioned the

976
00:59:42,130 --> 00:59:45,630
Master of Wine program is now teaching business which is so important. Important

977
00:59:45,790 --> 00:59:49,590
to do this. And part of the pitch

978
00:59:49,590 --> 00:59:52,430
that people are doing in the Gen X is they've got to change the language.

979
00:59:52,430 --> 00:59:56,070
And I don't believe any of that. But maybe this loosens the

980
00:59:56,070 --> 00:59:59,750
aristocracy a little bit. I went to a fancy

981
00:59:59,750 --> 01:00:03,310
port tasting like love Port. You know Don Schliff by chance.

982
01:00:03,310 --> 01:00:06,990
Yeah, no, I don't, I don't. Don't used to run Wine Warehouse. Oh, wow.

983
01:00:06,990 --> 01:00:10,390
And he was the first sales guy to call on my father in 1972 from

984
01:00:10,390 --> 01:00:14,190
Wine Warehouse House, which is now Breakthrough Beverage. Oh yeah, breakthrough. But he has one

985
01:00:14,190 --> 01:00:17,910
of the greatest port collections in the world. Top

986
01:00:17,910 --> 01:00:21,590
five at least. I mean we've done amazing things.

987
01:00:21,990 --> 01:00:25,830
Anyway, did want to cut at Beverly Hills Wall street recently.

988
01:00:26,949 --> 01:00:30,670
And it's the aristocracy of wine. Yes. You know these

989
01:00:30,670 --> 01:00:33,510
guys, everybody comes depending on the subject.

990
01:00:33,910 --> 01:00:37,640
Anyway, he. I was talking to some there, there

991
01:00:37,640 --> 01:00:41,120
great guy. Yeah. Very knowledgeable. And I came away going,

992
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:45,600
I think he's. I think he's good in for the consumer. But not

993
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:49,360
all psalms are good for the consumer because they want to protect their academic

994
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:53,200
base and all this stuff that they know that you don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And

995
01:00:53,200 --> 01:00:56,200
I'm actually thinking about in my mind because I love obviously media, as you can

996
01:00:56,200 --> 01:00:59,800
see. Yeah. Creating a little mini series, mini drama,

997
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:03,600
the handheld stuff of the ways psalms

998
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:07,440
react and consumer reacts in a restaurant. And it could be comedy.

999
01:01:07,600 --> 01:01:11,040
I have access to a dark booth restaurant and set up these little

1000
01:01:11,040 --> 01:01:14,280
skits that would have some fun showing the

1001
01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:16,960
aristocracy of Psalm and some

1002
01:01:17,600 --> 01:01:20,840
naivete. Or the consumer, however. I haven't written in my head yet, but I thought

1003
01:01:20,840 --> 01:01:24,320
it'd be really fun to use that as a training method. I love it.

1004
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:28,680
You gave me an idea, and this is how brainstorming works. But I love

1005
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:32,450
the idea also of having, you know, different consumers at

1006
01:01:32,450 --> 01:01:36,210
a. At a mock table and a fixed wine list. Wine by the glass and

1007
01:01:36,210 --> 01:01:39,770
bottle. And just watch different sommelier answer this

1008
01:01:39,770 --> 01:01:43,610
question. Right. What should I order? Right. And just see that kind

1009
01:01:43,610 --> 01:01:47,250
of thing. See what happens and see what somebody actually winds up

1010
01:01:47,250 --> 01:01:50,370
ordering and then what they think about it. Right. You're talking about live, though. You

1011
01:01:50,370 --> 01:01:53,850
want to do a real. Yeah. Like, film the sommelier, you know, in the. In

1012
01:01:53,850 --> 01:01:57,250
the beginning. Film the couple or the people in the beginning and then film them

1013
01:01:57,250 --> 01:02:00,860
afterwards separate from each other and have them comment on the wine. The wine

1014
01:02:00,860 --> 01:02:04,660
choices. Like the person comes out of shark tanks. Exactly. Are you. That guy's

1015
01:02:04,660 --> 01:02:08,460
crazy. I can't believe he suggested that wine that was, you know. Or that was

1016
01:02:08,460 --> 01:02:12,140
amazing. Like, that would be. I like that. And just to see the. Because there

1017
01:02:12,140 --> 01:02:15,980
are. I mean, there are some beautiful salespeople in the

1018
01:02:15,980 --> 01:02:19,460
soulmate world. Yeah. I mean that. The good ones have gotten me to their job.

1019
01:02:19,460 --> 01:02:22,940
Purchase things that I shouldn't have. And I try it. I'm like, oh, wow. That

1020
01:02:22,940 --> 01:02:26,700
really was, unfortunately, very good. Right. The job is to sell stuff. I mean,

1021
01:02:26,700 --> 01:02:30,300
that's the reality of wine. Despite this romantic opinion we have of

1022
01:02:30,300 --> 01:02:33,590
it and touching our souls. You got to sell the stuff. It does both.

1023
01:02:34,150 --> 01:02:37,790
I think it's. You know, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with separating with my

1024
01:02:37,790 --> 01:02:41,630
money for an experience. I don't forget. It was a sommelier in

1025
01:02:41,630 --> 01:02:45,190
Paris, guy named Xavier Rousseau, who said, you know, it's our job to create memories.

1026
01:02:45,190 --> 01:02:48,910
People don't forget. Yep. It's all about the memory. It's like, it's the worst thing

1027
01:02:48,910 --> 01:02:51,630
in the world if somebody doesn't remember your restaurant, doesn't remember you, doesn't remember that

1028
01:02:51,630 --> 01:02:55,430
evening. I wonder if, you know, we're just gonna keep talking here, even though we're

1029
01:02:55,430 --> 01:02:58,670
way past time. I'm sorry. The demonstration. Because we have too much to talk about.

1030
01:02:58,820 --> 01:03:02,180
About. But in 1993, we went to

1031
01:03:02,260 --> 01:03:05,940
Venexpo in Bordeaux, and my father, at that

1032
01:03:05,940 --> 01:03:09,660
point was well educated in wine. He was teaching wine all the things that were

1033
01:03:09,660 --> 01:03:12,900
happening in the 70s and 80s and 90s prior to today's

1034
01:03:13,140 --> 01:03:16,540
accolades. And we went to Tour d'. Argent. Oh, yeah. And

1035
01:03:16,540 --> 01:03:20,260
I'd Closed an escrow for my parents when they're on vacation from my grandmother's

1036
01:03:20,260 --> 01:03:22,820
house. And my dad goes, I'm going to treat you to Tour d'. Argent. So

1037
01:03:22,820 --> 01:03:26,490
we went. And that was 1993.

1038
01:03:26,970 --> 01:03:30,170
And my, my wife and I went back

1039
01:03:30,490 --> 01:03:33,770
last year. Because of that experience.

1040
01:03:34,090 --> 01:03:37,890
Yeah. Because we wanted to relive the, the, the memory of

1041
01:03:37,890 --> 01:03:41,450
that. And part of the memory was my dad and my dad spoke French,

1042
01:03:42,330 --> 01:03:46,174
ordered a bottle of Lafitte 45. It was 3,

1043
01:03:46,246 --> 01:03:50,010
500 at the time. Okay. And the. It came out of

1044
01:03:50,010 --> 01:03:53,690
the basket and the ullage was like this. Yeah. And my dad explained

1045
01:03:53,690 --> 01:03:57,380
to psalm in French, he says, like, look, if it's good, I

1046
01:03:57,380 --> 01:03:59,860
buy it. If you open it and it's bad, you buy it. And the guy

1047
01:03:59,860 --> 01:04:01,700
goes, no. Yeah, he's not in France.

1048
01:04:03,620 --> 01:04:07,220
They won't take a cork bottle back. Oh yeah. So we end up with a

1049
01:04:07,220 --> 01:04:10,940
62 cost Estelle. And. But a

1050
01:04:10,940 --> 01:04:14,700
great wine, by the way, Very good wine. But the whole point

1051
01:04:14,700 --> 01:04:18,420
was what you just said was that experience took us

1052
01:04:18,420 --> 01:04:21,820
back there. Yeah. And we had that memory of that. And I think that's so

1053
01:04:21,820 --> 01:04:25,540
critical for wine. It's, it's an experiential. And I think the industry

1054
01:04:25,860 --> 01:04:29,400
needs to go back to promoting those experiences, that emotional

1055
01:04:29,400 --> 01:04:33,160
connection. It's. From a medical standpoint, the, the olfactory

1056
01:04:33,160 --> 01:04:36,480
memory, the smell memory is one of the most powerful in the human

1057
01:04:36,560 --> 01:04:40,040
conjugate. It's linked to memories. Incredibly. Yes. You can smell your

1058
01:04:40,040 --> 01:04:43,840
kindergarten. Do they scientifically, what do they. Oh, yeah. It's one of

1059
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:47,520
the oldest senses because it's been around since

1060
01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:50,480
the creatures were in the water. Right. And you had to know what you were

1061
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:53,840
swimming through. Yeah. And so, you know, they.

1062
01:04:55,040 --> 01:04:58,800
I believe that's part of it for me. It is. I've had a memory loss

1063
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:02,400
issue due to a brain injury from surfing.

1064
01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:06,440
And so wine is a way I remember things. It's the way

1065
01:05:06,440 --> 01:05:10,080
I remember people. It's a way I remember places. And so

1066
01:05:10,960 --> 01:05:14,800
it fills that for me. And it does bring you right back to

1067
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:17,360
the first time you had it, the first place you had it there. I grew

1068
01:05:17,360 --> 01:05:20,640
up in pv. Oh, what? Palos Verde. So I

1069
01:05:20,800 --> 01:05:24,370
surfed all the indicator, bluff coat of, you know,

1070
01:05:24,370 --> 01:05:28,210
Haggerty's. I was Laguna Beach. Newport Beach. Yeah. Right.

1071
01:05:28,210 --> 01:05:31,810
And body surfing at the Wedge. And I. Oh, well, that's was a

1072
01:05:31,810 --> 01:05:35,410
mistake. That's serious stuff, as it turns out. It was mistake, yes.

1073
01:05:35,410 --> 01:05:39,250
Yeah. I got as far south as Huntington Cliffs. We'd

1074
01:05:39,250 --> 01:05:42,050
surf there. The biggest day of my life. And Most

1075
01:05:42,610 --> 01:05:46,370
panicky day of my life was surfing the cliffs. That's a

1076
01:05:46,370 --> 01:05:50,190
rough spot. But is there a difference

1077
01:05:50,190 --> 01:05:52,790
in camaraderie in the industries like

1078
01:05:53,990 --> 01:05:57,510
I sense, particularly since the podcast started, which is now 500

1079
01:05:57,510 --> 01:06:00,870
episodes long, man, I show up at a winery

1080
01:06:01,190 --> 01:06:04,910
or I call ahead and I'm bringing the podcast and the

1081
01:06:04,910 --> 01:06:08,750
response is amazing. The camaraderie in this industry

1082
01:06:08,750 --> 01:06:12,430
is amazing. And I wonder if the same in the medical device

1083
01:06:12,430 --> 01:06:15,980
industry. Medical device industry, yes.

1084
01:06:15,980 --> 01:06:19,780
Ish. The relationship that you form

1085
01:06:19,780 --> 01:06:23,180
with surgeons when you're in the medical device industry because you co develop

1086
01:06:24,220 --> 01:06:27,740
also you're selling to them. And it's their job to protect their patient.

1087
01:06:27,980 --> 01:06:30,780
Right. And to protect their hospital. And so

1088
01:06:31,660 --> 01:06:35,380
some of my strongest relationships are with physicians. Some of my strongest friendships are

1089
01:06:35,380 --> 01:06:39,180
with physicians. Because by nature

1090
01:06:39,340 --> 01:06:42,950
of the work, there's so much at stake

1091
01:06:44,070 --> 01:06:47,870
that you only work with people that you truly trust. You have to

1092
01:06:47,870 --> 01:06:51,590
believe when I tell a surgeon, hey, we tested it in this way, here's the

1093
01:06:51,590 --> 01:06:54,710
ways that it can fail, here's the ways that it can succeed. They have to

1094
01:06:54,710 --> 01:06:58,310
know I'm not lying to them. Right. Because dishonesty in medicine is a

1095
01:06:58,310 --> 01:07:01,830
risk and an intolerable, absolutely intolerable risk.

1096
01:07:02,150 --> 01:07:05,510
And so you by nature form very close

1097
01:07:05,670 --> 01:07:09,270
relationships once people trust each other. And there is a big barrier to that

1098
01:07:09,270 --> 01:07:12,890
trust. Right. Well, you have to earn it. You gotta earn it. And

1099
01:07:12,890 --> 01:07:16,690
so I love that part. And you know, if I were to fly to

1100
01:07:17,330 --> 01:07:21,090
San Antonio, Texas tomorrow, I would call up a surgeon I know. And

1101
01:07:21,090 --> 01:07:24,210
he. And the other thing is doctors, lawyers and bankers drink all the wine, Right?

1102
01:07:24,210 --> 01:07:27,250
Yeah. And so doctors love wine.

1103
01:07:27,970 --> 01:07:31,330
And so I. The coravin part of my world

1104
01:07:31,730 --> 01:07:35,490
crosses over with the surgeon part of my world. They also can't

1105
01:07:35,490 --> 01:07:38,530
drink a ton because they got to do surgery. So by the glass has been

1106
01:07:38,530 --> 01:07:42,220
a big thing. Yeah. For surgeons. Yeah. And so

1107
01:07:42,540 --> 01:07:46,100
there's a wine connection with me. And I would never leave

1108
01:07:46,100 --> 01:07:49,820
medicine. I love the people and I love the

1109
01:07:49,980 --> 01:07:53,820
work and I love the socializing, the wine and food

1110
01:07:53,900 --> 01:07:57,579
piece of it. You just triggered a thought that was

1111
01:07:57,579 --> 01:08:00,780
so funny. It separates

1112
01:08:01,500 --> 01:08:05,140
the people that collect and play

1113
01:08:05,140 --> 01:08:08,980
and want to understand that we're trying to move the general public into that

1114
01:08:08,980 --> 01:08:12,740
direction with wines by the glass and testing other things. But when my dad

1115
01:08:12,740 --> 01:08:15,920
started, started selling memberships to the original One of the month club in

1116
01:08:15,920 --> 01:08:19,400
1972, he would go to doctors and attorney

1117
01:08:19,400 --> 01:08:23,120
shows and set up a booth. Yep. And they were miserable. Yeah.

1118
01:08:23,120 --> 01:08:26,160
Yes. Because they knew it all already. Or they at least thought they knew it

1119
01:08:26,160 --> 01:08:29,600
all. Already. And they didn't need an Egyptian

1120
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:33,440
merchant, you know, who was very well trained and very knowledgeable and

1121
01:08:33,440 --> 01:08:36,000
very academic, just like them. He's a pharmacist by trade anyway,

1122
01:08:37,360 --> 01:08:41,120
and master in pharmacology. But it wasn't until he

1123
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:44,880
went to the LA County Fair in 1984, where there was a million

1124
01:08:44,880 --> 01:08:48,520
and a half people that would walk through the turnstiles and go to the gold

1125
01:08:48,520 --> 01:08:51,320
medal booth and see what's going on in the wine world, that

1126
01:08:52,120 --> 01:08:55,880
he found the client base that he was looking for. But it's

1127
01:08:55,880 --> 01:08:59,680
an important distinction because you're with both

1128
01:08:59,680 --> 01:09:03,440
exist still. They're both important for us. One to

1129
01:09:03,440 --> 01:09:06,840
migrate from one to the other and the other one to satisfy the needs of

1130
01:09:06,920 --> 01:09:07,720
the collectors.

1131
01:09:11,179 --> 01:09:14,179
The thing that I never want to happen to me, and I've been fortunate to

1132
01:09:14,179 --> 01:09:17,579
taste insane wines all over the world because of Corbin. And

1133
01:09:18,619 --> 01:09:21,699
the thing that I never want to have happen to me is to believe there's

1134
01:09:21,699 --> 01:09:25,539
a right and a wrong, a good wine and a bad wine. And I

1135
01:09:25,539 --> 01:09:29,259
never want to believe that there's. That if it's not expensive,

1136
01:09:29,259 --> 01:09:32,939
it's not good. And I never want to be close minded.

1137
01:09:33,179 --> 01:09:36,819
And I feel badly for people that have gone in that direction. As a

1138
01:09:36,819 --> 01:09:40,520
consumer collector, I only drink Burgundy or I only drink Bordeaux, I only drink water.

1139
01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:44,680
And there's so much opportunity out there. There's so many beautiful wines

1140
01:09:44,680 --> 01:09:47,240
being made. There's that opportunity to explore. And maybe

1141
01:09:48,360 --> 01:09:51,520
I need variety to keep me going. And I find a lot of surgeons do

1142
01:09:51,520 --> 01:09:55,360
as well. They're often bored with their work because they were the top of their

1143
01:09:55,360 --> 01:09:58,800
class and they went to medical school and they were the top of the medical

1144
01:09:58,800 --> 01:10:02,360
school. And then they go into neurosurgery or that's not a good example. Let's say

1145
01:10:02,360 --> 01:10:06,170
they go into orthopedic surgery and they became really good at hitting hip. They

1146
01:10:06,170 --> 01:10:09,690
do, you know, replacement. They do hip. And so then they

1147
01:10:09,690 --> 01:10:13,170
realize that here they're with. They were the smartest person. And

1148
01:10:13,650 --> 01:10:17,210
in the end they're doing the same surgery every day. Yeah, They're a car mechanic

1149
01:10:17,210 --> 01:10:20,970
that only does one thing. Mufflers. Right. My do. My. My good friend

1150
01:10:20,970 --> 01:10:24,770
is a surgeon at Kaiser and he does knees. Yeah. And that's it. I

1151
01:10:24,770 --> 01:10:28,250
just do knees. He's very good at it. Right. Caltech grad, that kind of thing.

1152
01:10:28,250 --> 01:10:31,930
Right. And. And so they need the variety. I think that's

1153
01:10:31,930 --> 01:10:35,670
why they love wine. It's because their work is the same thing every day.

1154
01:10:35,830 --> 01:10:38,830
And we pay them to do a perfect Job at the same thing every day.

1155
01:10:38,830 --> 01:10:42,670
Right. But they need that. That's interesting. We, we. I was

1156
01:10:42,670 --> 01:10:45,350
at a Margot tasting Tuesday. Tuesday.

1157
01:10:46,390 --> 01:10:48,950
And you were talking about the variety. You're talking about

1158
01:10:50,870 --> 01:10:53,750
bad wine. I don't want people drinking bad wine

1159
01:10:54,790 --> 01:10:58,550
and thinking it's good or whatever. Right. So

1160
01:10:59,600 --> 01:11:02,680
a. We tasted the 14. It was incredible. And that 14 always had a bad

1161
01:11:02,680 --> 01:11:05,280
rap in Bordeaux. And we're getting in the wine. Geeky stuff, but that's just the

1162
01:11:05,280 --> 01:11:07,560
way it was. And this was. I thought it was the best one in the

1163
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:11,240
group. Yeah. Because it had come around finally. So you never know. Yeah. But this

1164
01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:14,880
is the definition that I throw at winemakers when they come here, particularly the French.

1165
01:11:15,600 --> 01:11:18,880
There is no such thing as a bad vintage.

1166
01:11:19,120 --> 01:11:22,920
Yeah. Because if the wine is made honestly, if it's to

1167
01:11:22,920 --> 01:11:26,420
reflect where it came from, when it came from it, then

1168
01:11:26,420 --> 01:11:29,940
it's successful. Yeah. If it's been doctored up and play with like so many wines

1169
01:11:29,940 --> 01:11:32,460
at the market and all that stuff we see that's different. But make it taste

1170
01:11:32,460 --> 01:11:35,820
the same. If there's an honest wine that's made to reflect

1171
01:11:35,820 --> 01:11:39,260
honestly, then it can't be by definition a bad

1172
01:11:39,260 --> 01:11:42,980
vintage. Yeah. Because it was made properly for that vintage.

1173
01:11:42,980 --> 01:11:46,580
Yes. Right. And it's going to be different than the one before. That's the nice

1174
01:11:46,580 --> 01:11:50,340
one. And this is the part that I think confuses the Gen Xers. And

1175
01:11:50,340 --> 01:11:53,670
what has caused the problem with. With at least amongst

1176
01:11:53,830 --> 01:11:57,470
pseudo academics in wine is it's not

1177
01:11:57,470 --> 01:12:00,750
consumer driven to the pallet. It is if you go, if you want Josh and

1178
01:12:00,750 --> 01:12:04,510
apothic red, you're going to get the same stuff every time. But the. A

1179
01:12:04,510 --> 01:12:08,230
real wine, an honest wine, you. The consumer has to come around

1180
01:12:08,230 --> 01:12:11,470
to that. To that bottle is. The bottle is not going to come around to

1181
01:12:11,470 --> 01:12:15,230
you. You get to taste it and feel it and understand it and know

1182
01:12:15,230 --> 01:12:17,110
where it came from at the time it came from it.

1183
01:12:18,960 --> 01:12:21,840
We're not going to craft it around what you expect it to be. Yeah. Well,

1184
01:12:22,160 --> 01:12:25,960
you can't hope to. And people like cilantro or

1185
01:12:25,960 --> 01:12:29,760
they don't. Yes. But that doesn't mean cilantro is bad or good. No,

1186
01:12:29,760 --> 01:12:33,040
exactly. So there's frequently

1187
01:12:34,000 --> 01:12:37,080
the worst problem for the Corbin guy is I Corbin a bottle at home and

1188
01:12:37,080 --> 01:12:40,360
I'm like, I don't like this wine. And so I give it to somebody else.

1189
01:12:40,360 --> 01:12:42,800
And I frequently. I used to write, don't buy any more of this wine. I

1190
01:12:42,800 --> 01:12:46,320
don't like it. And on the label, that's funny. Right. But I wound up Giving

1191
01:12:46,320 --> 01:12:49,940
it to friends. And I'm like, well, maybe you'll like it. I don't. But it

1192
01:12:49,940 --> 01:12:53,340
doesn't mean it's a bad wine. Yeah. I mean, when you, when you said I

1193
01:12:53,340 --> 01:12:55,420
don't like it and we'll wrap up with this. When you say I don't like

1194
01:12:55,420 --> 01:12:59,100
it, that doesn't mean it's atrocious. You

1195
01:12:59,180 --> 01:13:02,940
maybe don't like the structure of it, maybe you don't like the, the flavor

1196
01:13:02,940 --> 01:13:06,540
profile may, but it's not because. It'S just bad day. Right.

1197
01:13:06,620 --> 01:13:09,740
And there's. I always tell people there's two things involved in the wine tasting. There's

1198
01:13:09,740 --> 01:13:12,860
the wine and the person. Yeah. And if you come in and you've just had

1199
01:13:12,860 --> 01:13:16,650
a lousy day and you, you drink a wine and it's, it's, you're,

1200
01:13:16,650 --> 01:13:19,490
you know, it's not the right wine for that lousy day. I've had a bottle

1201
01:13:19,490 --> 01:13:22,090
that I wrote, I don't like this. And then I came back and I tasted

1202
01:13:22,090 --> 01:13:24,850
it again and I was like, I love this. And then I read my note

1203
01:13:24,850 --> 01:13:27,770
and says, I don't, I don't like this. And I'm like, okay, so, yeah, and

1204
01:13:27,770 --> 01:13:31,490
that's, that's me, right? That's the person that you bring. It's the person

1205
01:13:31,490 --> 01:13:34,290
you had it with. Maybe you were with somebody you don't like and you stuck

1206
01:13:34,290 --> 01:13:37,410
in it. So there's a wine as part of that,

1207
01:13:38,130 --> 01:13:41,980
you know, the whole milieu of whatever it is that's going on around you.

1208
01:13:42,130 --> 01:13:45,610
You. It's also the reason why people will come to me and I buy wine

1209
01:13:45,610 --> 01:13:49,090
from them that they had, you know, while they're sitting in front of the panther

1210
01:13:49,090 --> 01:13:52,930
pantheum in, in Rome. Yeah. And they go, it doesn't taste the same.

1211
01:13:52,930 --> 01:13:56,650
Yeah, well, yeah, because the kids are pulling on your shirt. Right.

1212
01:13:56,650 --> 01:14:00,450
You're not looking at a thousand year old dome. You're

1213
01:14:00,450 --> 01:14:04,050
not looking at this ancient, you know. Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, brilliant building

1214
01:14:04,530 --> 01:14:08,050
as an engineer. Incredible thing. Yeah,

1215
01:14:08,050 --> 01:14:11,550
incredible. Well, what's your next step? Stopping this

1216
01:14:11,550 --> 01:14:15,190
whirlwind trip you're on? Oh, I just came back from literally a

1217
01:14:15,190 --> 01:14:18,270
trip around the world in a lot of our different markets. And

1218
01:14:19,390 --> 01:14:23,150
so I'm now back in the US and so I'm splitting my time between

1219
01:14:23,150 --> 01:14:26,870
my surgical company and so I go through whiplash from a

1220
01:14:26,870 --> 01:14:30,590
time zone standpoint, but also from a purpose standpoint. Like I'm not selling

1221
01:14:30,590 --> 01:14:34,070
you my spinal implant today, or I'm not supporting a surgery with my spinal implant,

1222
01:14:34,070 --> 01:14:36,960
but that's my next stop is back into surgery

1223
01:14:38,320 --> 01:14:42,080
when I go training or take a. Bottle of wine with you, of course. But

1224
01:14:42,080 --> 01:14:45,800
after. After. Yeah. Right. Such an honor to have you here and hear the

1225
01:14:45,800 --> 01:14:48,040
story and I hope we can do it again. We have so much to talk

1226
01:14:48,040 --> 01:14:51,720
about. And really the fact you get to meet with

1227
01:14:51,720 --> 01:14:54,880
the people, the players in this industry and get a perspective

1228
01:14:56,160 --> 01:14:59,600
that keeps us inspired, because it's hard to be inspired

1229
01:14:59,600 --> 01:15:03,160
sometime in this trade. And then you get to hear from the people that make

1230
01:15:03,160 --> 01:15:06,730
it happen. And that's really, really what keeps me going. It's worth. It's worth the

1231
01:15:06,730 --> 01:15:10,450
work. It's a. It's a. It's an unmet need and that

1232
01:15:10,450 --> 01:15:14,170
was met by wine and Society 6,000 years ago. And it's something that's brought us

1233
01:15:14,170 --> 01:15:17,770
all together and, you know, we just need to keep perfecting and keep

1234
01:15:17,770 --> 01:15:21,610
perfecting and keep perfecting, modify as it needs to change with

1235
01:15:21,610 --> 01:15:24,690
the culture. Right. A little bit. As Florence

1236
01:15:24,770 --> 01:15:27,970
Cathayard said, welcome to civilization. Yes.

1237
01:15:29,090 --> 01:15:31,250
Cheers. Long may last. Cheers. Take care.