Redefining Wine Tourism: Intimate Journeys Beyond Typical Wine Country Tours

Enotoursim has been a staple in the tourism trade. One of my favorite podcast was with XXX Duput, the woman who delivered the wines from Napa to Steven Spurrier in Paris for the Judgement In Paris. She was the leading Enotourist company in America.
As time would have it, Enotourism had seen its days, slumping a bit for the past decade...until now. Though wine sales are off and the wine industry is scurrying to define the cause of this slump, enotourism could save the day. Meet Bill Callejas, he is grassroots and has created an enotourism company from sheer passion.
Bill Callejas didn’t just stumble into wine tourism—he reverse-engineered it from the ground up, blending the precision of his production background with a storyteller’s flair and an explorer’s curiosity. You’ll be hard pressed to find a more nuanced perspective on wine travel, or a more convincing case for ditching those cookie-cutter tours. In this episode, you’ll discover the real difference between “just another wine trip” and a thoughtfully crafted, immersive journey that brings you shoulder-to-shoulder with winemakers, artisans, and even the family matriarch preparing your meal. Bill reveals how he and his partners built World Wine Destinations around the idea that travel and wine are each a world unto themselves—each deserving of respect, intention, and creative design. Listeners will learn how each trip is structured like a multi-day live show, full of distinct characters, rising action, and the slow burn of discovery that comes from tasting with local experts in quiet, off-the-map villages. Expect revelations on why genuine wine travel can’t—and shouldn’t—be “dumbed down,” why asking winemakers about their intention often leads to the best stories, and how wine acts as a cultural glue, binding food, land, history, and people in an experience you can literally taste. Whether it’s the ancient amphorae of Greece, the wild terroir of Argentina, or the unexpected intimacy of Paso Robles, you’ll come away with an appreciation for how travel, when done right, changes not just what’s in your glass, but who you are as a drinker and a global citizen. Buckle up—one glass at a time, you’ll learn how the story of wine is best lived, not just told.
✅ Think you know wine travel? Think again.
✅ Discover how storytelling and immersive experiences are redefining wine tourism.
✅ On this episode of Wine Talks, host Paul Kalemkiarian sits down with Bill Callejas of World Wine Destinations to reveal why their unique approach skips the cookie-cutter tours and takes you straight into the heart—and the culture—of the world’s top wine regions.
✅ If you thought wine was just about tasting, you haven’t heard the stories that bring each glass to life. Hit play and get ready to plan your next adventure (and maybe reimagine what a wine trip can be)!
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World Wine Destinations
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Corner Wines (Plano, Texas)
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Website: https://www.cornerwines.com
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#winepodcast #winetourism #winetravel #wineculture #worldwinedestinations #BillCallejas #PaulKalemkiarian #winestories #winemakers #winetasting #culturalexperiences #wineregions #wineeducation #foodandwine #winehistory #immersivetravel #wineindustry #PasoRobles #winetrips #oenotourism
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Wine is a social and cultural bonding agent,
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if you will. It is able to bring people together
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around stories and around meals and around
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tasting. But there's also historic aspects
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to the role that wine has played. Sit back and grab a
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glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K.
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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today in
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beautiful Southern California, about to have a conversation with Bill colleges
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of world wine destinations. Yes, I am the guy that tastes 17
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million bottles of wine. I didn't taste 17 million. I sold 17 million
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bottles of wine, but I did taste a hundred thousand bottles along the
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way. And I heard a hundred thousand stories. And that's what Wine talks is about.
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It's telling the stories of the wine trade. So welcome to the show.
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Thank you very much. Really happy to be here. This is going to be a
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lot of fun because I was kind of explaining on a previous take of this
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show that my
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dad had started this idea, and I found one of his business cards. He got
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that far in the idea anyway, which was to produce
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trips to the famed wine fairs of
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the world. At the time, we're talking about 1975, 76, 77.
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And, you know, tourism was probably not nearly as
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popular as it is today, but that's not what you always did. And
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we'll get into that in a second. What. What landed you here in Eno?
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Tourism. That became such an interesting idea. It really
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stems from personal interest in wine and.
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And not as anything serious, but just understanding and learning about
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wine and meeting
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my partners who had a wine shop in
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Plano, Texas. We'd come down from New York. I was looking for a new
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bottle shop, and Jim and Linda McDivitt had this
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store called Corner Wines. And Jim had a
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very, very, very, very effective way
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of teaching and expanding your taste. And
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that's really what drew me into the shop to understand more and more about
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wine. And he just mentioned that they were trying
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to get a travel program off the ground that would be
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sort of a community built around the win customer
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base. And as we talked about that and they
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told me about a little bit, I said, you know, that's something
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we could probably do ourselves if you wanted to do it. I
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come out of the production world, and I've been moving people and
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dealing with logistics and hotels and restaurants and
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all kinds of destinations, air travel and such, for years. I
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can move that. And, you know, the wine. What if we put that
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together and started a wine travel company? And that's how world
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wine destinations got off the ground. We discussed that Briefly
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in our pre call and that is every
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company that
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entered the wine trade and we were in the direct to consumer wine
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business, which is a very important part of the trade now. But every company that
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started, that would start with this sort of comprehensive idea of
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what they're going to do to the wine trade, they're going to completely revamp the
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whole world. They're going to make everybody think differently about wine. And so they're going
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to have a subscription model, which we were of course, they were going to have
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travel, they were going to have accessories, they're going to have rare wine
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finds. All the things that you, that you sort of try to build into a
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wine company. And every one of them landed back
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at just a subscription model because they found it too expensive and too hard to
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do. Was that was logistically were you expecting what
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you found when you started this conversation with your wine shop?
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There were no real surprises other than
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both of us
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understood that there was the wine business and there
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was the travel business. And they really were two
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separate professions and they had to be dealt as such.
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And anybody, and I know you have that's led a wine trip before,
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it is a nail biting, harrowing experience
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because nothing can go wrong and everything
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potentially can't. And you're traveling internationally and
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we're out in some pretty rural areas as
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wine growing, as grape growing tends to be. And
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there was a real good respect between us that Jim and
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Linda understood the wine and I understood the
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logistics and the building of experiences because part of
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my background was also in production and as a
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creative director, a writer director. And a lot of the
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last 15, 20 years of my career was
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built around live experiences created for
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audiences that were brand storytelling.
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And these are huge events and
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auto shows and those sorts of things where you
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have to emotionally connect an audience with
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a product or a service, a story, and
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what is actually happening within the
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production that stimulates them and engages them and
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helps them care. And that's really seemed to be the
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secret. Could we build wine experiences
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using travel as the way to connect people? And could we
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pull it off? And we started back in 2010,
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early 2011, and we've been going ever since.
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We're now going into the last trips to
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2025. How many trips a year are you doing
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now? It depends. Sometimes it's two, sometimes
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it's four. There's no set, there's no
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set, there's no set target, if you will.
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We usually present our customer base and the people that we market to
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with five or six options and we start to see who's interested in this
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and who's interested in that. And
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initially we thought, boy, we'll be really lucky if we
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can get people to do this once,
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maybe twice. There really wasn't a lot of wine travel at
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the time, and certainly not the kind we were doing.
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And so we now are at a. At a place in
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25, 20, 25, where we're entertaining
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about a 92, 93% repeat rate.
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We have customers that have done 10 and 12
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trips with us over the years. And over the last
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several years, we've had customers do two trips a year, which
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is a pretty big commitment on their part. So
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something about these trips is they're finding really
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enjoyable. They're telling their friends, they're bringing their friends, and they're
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expanding that base. You know, it's interesting you.
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You use a term, not what we are doing. And I'm wondering. And
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you and I discussed briefly Joanne Dupuis, who was doing shows
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in the 70s, and I won't bore you with that detail again, but
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I wonder what that. What is different that you think is different about when you
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say what, not. What we are doing right off the bat?
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I think both Jim and I agreed that we were not real big fans of
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tours. And so we wanted to create a
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travel experience that was built around wine and food.
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That was not the typical tour. It would be something we
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would want to go on and not be hustled and moved about
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on some relentless schedule that stepped
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on your enjoyment of being able to spend time and getting
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to know winemakers and getting to know the culture
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and other things. But the part that resonated with
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me, and it's how we structure trips now,
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is out of my experience in production. And if you think
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about episodic television, you are doing a
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shoot. And this shoot has multiple days, and it has multiple setups.
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And you're trying to accomplish this, and you're trying to string it all together
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to a script, to a concept, to an episode,
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to bring it to some enjoyable
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outcome. And the way we look at it is each
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day is like a shoot. Each day has
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setups. Each day has characters. Our
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talent is both our customer base and the winemakers
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or the restaurateurs or the hoteliers, and they
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all fit into a day. And we structure where we go
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and how long it takes to get there, and what is the wine
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experience? What is the eating experience? And we structure all
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that on a daily basis, and then we need to raise it the second
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day, and we need to give them Some breathing room the third day, and we
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have to bring it up again. So we have to orchestrate an
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individual day's storytelling with anywhere from seven to
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12 days of storytelling, so that the whole experience
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feels like an
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emotionally based experience, that it feels like a story,
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and it presents them with a wide array of things.
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And it's very hard for somebody to find something that they don't like within any
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given day. So that's really what makes us different.
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Because, you know, it's interesting, I suppose. Had you been on a wine tour
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by yourself or had your. Your partners been on a wine tour?
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Jim and Linda had, and they had originally had a
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travel agent that was putting together a couple of trips for
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them. Some of those were on a cruise and they would do it
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and. But you were sort of bound by the boat,
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and you were bound by where the boat was going and what
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relationships the cruise company had with what wineries.
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And we were very much about wanting to bring people
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into the regions, but to find the undiscovered producer,
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the small volume, low production, high
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quality producer that may or may not have had very much
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distribution in the States, in particular in
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Texas, you know, more specifically. And
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so being able to free ourselves from that
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kind of confine, you know, really
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led to the creation of an immersive experience
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that moved us deeper and deeper, not only into the
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wine regions, but deeper and deeper into the conversations
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and moments with the winemakers and the marketers
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and the staffs and the
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culture, the wine culture and that in any of these
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countries. So we really take people in
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to places that they normally would never go. You know, it's kind
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of interesting thought because you said travel agent. My mind went to
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an old movie called if It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium. Now
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that is effectively sort of
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a satirical view and almost
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depressing view of humanity when it comes to being put on a tour. The title
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says it, which, if it's Tuesday, must be Belgium. In other words, we don't know
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what we're doing, but if it's Tuesday, we must be in Belgium. Because that's what
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the, the, the script says. And
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it's, it's, it's not funny. I watched it again. I go, this
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is really, really bad. But it was very funny in the 60s. It was a
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very important film at the time. And I started thinking when you said, we use
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the travel agent to go on a tour, and that certainly would be
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exactly the wrong thing to do because the travel
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agent's objective is completely different than what sounds like your
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objective is which is to tell the story of wine. You know, it's interesting
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because I've been pitching on the show forever, and. And
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it's. It's part of the complexion of wine right
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now to tell the story. And so here you are doing a
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story like life. It is. It
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does have that, I think, being in the live event experience,
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you know, where you've got an audience of 3,000, 5,000,
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10,000, you're working
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out of a. Sometimes a sports truck, multi camera,
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sometimes, you know, the front of house operations,
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calling live cues and presenting
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a lot of moving parts, a lot of video roles, and of
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course, executive speakers who always like to wing it
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because it's really confused. She's got her right.
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So you're really having to engage people. And one of the things that I
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noticed at front of house, which is, you know, really in the
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back behind the audience calling the show and
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accused, is as soon as the lights would go out, when the
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speaker would come up, you would see all the little phones
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and all the laptops light up as the audience would immediately
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just disconnect from what was going on there. And we
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really focused ourselves on how to change that and what
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could we do? And that was to somehow involve them in the stories.
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So in content that we developed, we involved
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a lot of the people in the company and a lot of their outposts and
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a lot of their regions and all that in the story. And they were now
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seeing themselves as part of what the presentation
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was. And it just wasn't talking heads and rolling the financials.
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We applied that same thinking. Here is our
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winemakers, and I call them ours, they're obviously
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not, but we have relationships that we've developed over time
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with many winemakers who understand our brand
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and they understand our people. They call
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one another and they say, definitely meet with the world. Wine
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destinations, folks, because they're different. It's
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not drive by wine tasting. They're not here to
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pound wine. They're here to ask questions,
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hear what you've got to say, listen to your stories,
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and not a huge thing on the technical side.
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They want to get a feeling for what it is that you're doing.
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So when we have these families that have been in business, you know,
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on farms, and we have one place we go
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in South Africa, that they're operating in a winery that
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was built in 1798 and still making wine in that
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handmade way, it is
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just an experience that puts
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our guests into their world,
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into the winemaker's world. And that's
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the only promise we really make everything else sort of spills
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out in some wonderful way. We don't overly
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describe every minute of the day. There's flexibility,
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there's plenty of free time. But we get them
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immersed in the wine culture, the food and
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the things that there are to see and do. Where else are you going to
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go on a safari. Thank you. Than wine tasting in South
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Africa? There are things we do there we can't do anywhere else in the world.
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As an example, you did this since
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2010. So your first actual trip was when.
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The first one that we did as worldwide destinations would have been
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January. And it may have been 2010, it may be a 2011.
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And we went down to South America and we had
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had some very good relationships Jim had built with
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distributors and he was very keen on
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Argentinian and Chilean wines. And so because of the
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relationship with the distributors that he had, they would help
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open doors for us to get us into the wineries. It was a terrific
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model. And that is actually how we met
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Stephanie Morton Small when she was the chief brand
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officer at Finca to Sara. And you know, that has
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become a decades long relationship
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and
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those kinds of opportunities to bring people to places that they
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might not normally go. I want to go to
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Rome, I want to go to Paris, I want to go to this.
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Well, how about Santiago or how about
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Mendoza, Argentina? What? You know, so
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it was, it was very new and very different and taking them out
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into the rural areas and we would go to the cities too, but
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most of it was, was going out into the vineyards and going out into the
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rural areas. And that was something that a lot of these folks had never done
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before. I think that we were discussed this briefly, but I'm going to say it
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here for the listeners. And I, and I. But it's a new. It's not new,
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but it's the way I've been placing it in the podcast
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and on other shows. It's an important feature of wine, which
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is if you were to pick five elements of a culture to
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describe a culture, you certainly. If the culture has a
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language like Armenian, we have a language. If you have land, Armenian
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happens to have land too. They may not, who knows in the near future, but
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they currently have land. So those are two important features of a culture.
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Certainly cuisine would be part of that and then possibly music
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or, you know, books and things. But then wine has to be in the
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top five expressions of culture.
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If they have a culture of wine in their trade and almost every country in
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the world has something or spirit of some sort, how
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does that play into your role when you get
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to a destination like that? Because we're focused on
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wine travel. The way we look at wine
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across those points, and they're all part of it, is
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wine is a. A social and cultural bonding
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agent, if you will. It is able to bring people
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together around stories and around
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meals and around tasting. But there's also
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historic aspects to the role that wine has played. We
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find that in Greece. And you know, our Greece folks will tell,
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you know, they'll say, well, this is where wine was invented in
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winemaking. And then we all know that that didn't happen there.
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Armenia, that 6,000 year old Georgia will. Fight you on
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that too. Georgia, yeah, it's all that. But the
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idea was that the common thread was that
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all these folks enjoyed wine. And we were plugging into
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not only the culture of a country,
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but also into the wine culture and the food and wine.
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Because most of the rest of the world,
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they don't really treat wine as a cocktail. There's always
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food around it, or there seems to be. And
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we in the States have tended to substitute
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wine for cocktails in a lot of occasions.
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And the food and the wine are almost are inseparable.
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The idea that having a meal
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prepared by the winemaker's mother or by
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the family being out in the vineyard, coming in
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for a meal that's sourced completely by the food that's around,
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that's growing around the area and the region is really a
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spectacular experience. And it
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pulls all those elements together. Wine seems to be right in the
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center of it for this kind of trout. I mean, wine is.
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It's been said in various tomes that it's the
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intellectual part of a meal and that you don't get that from Jack Daniels
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or beer. You have a good time, but you don't get that sort of
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cerebral stimulation that you get with a glass of wine. You know,
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it's kind of interesting when you're talking about the culture expose. I sent a young
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lady off. In fact, she's coming in this week to do a podcast with her
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mother. She spent six weeks at Bayi in the pace of my own district.
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We got her internship there through the Wine of the Month club.
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Internship. And I was just talking
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to her the other night. She's a college student, she's probably 19 or 20.
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And I said, well, there's a new book out from the Cladstrup
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family. They wrote the book Wine and War. And the book is about
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Eugenie, the last Empress of France.
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And she started to talk. She says, oh, yes, blah, blah, blah. I'm like thinking
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to myself, how would you know that you're studying
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winemaking at Cornell? You're not. This is. She goes, no, we went to
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Chateau Guiscord and they talked about how she used to stop there all the time
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on her way to Brittany. And I'm like, oh my gosh. How
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important then is culture around wine,
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particularly wine of these old districts, like let's call them Old World.
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I mean, how important does that feel and how stimulated
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do your guests get when they start connecting these dots?
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Greece in particular.
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I recall that we were visiting a museum in
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Crete and
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there were the wine vessels, if you will, the
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terracotta. Yeah. The amphora and those things. And
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you could see wine in the art. You could
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see that wine was a through, you know, was sort of a
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throughput through the various
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aspects of their history and their archeological history.
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And so it was very much eye opening in
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Mendoza. You hear them talk about
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what the Malbec business used to be when it was a
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state run. The wine business was a state run
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enterprise in Argentina. And Malbec
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got a pretty bad name from that. And
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later on, when the government let go of that
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sort of socialized ownership of that wine business,
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Nicholas Catena was sort of the guy that came out and led the
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resurgence of Baalbek. And when you meet, you meet his
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daughter, you know, you meet Laura, you meet Adriana, you
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meet, you know, some of the other kids that I call them
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kids, they're, they're, they're all grown. But you need them and you understand
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that they are components in a, in a wine story that
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is historic and that redefined an industry
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within that country. And you can find it in Paso Robles,
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which is one of the two domestic trips that we do. When
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you're on a property and they're pointing over there to the foundations
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where, well, there was the cabin where, you know, Jesse
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James, when Frank James was hiding out after they got
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run out of Missouri or wherever it was. And you're seeing these
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connections to these different, to these different historic
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moments. And here they are existing in a vineyard. And
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here's stories are fascinating. Here's where James Jean crashed on Highway
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46. I was so
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disappointed when I went there because I went to the little diner there on the
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way. And it goes 300 yards from here. James Jean. I don't want to
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be 300 yards from the place. I want to be at the place. You know,
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I just passed through it in May on my way
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out of one of our wine tours. In Paso Robles.
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And they have put the. You know, they got the fence up and they've
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got now a new plaque and they've got a light and they've.
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They're sort of modernizing it. But. Yeah, it's a bit of a
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disappointment. But I don't know what I was expecting. Sort of a torn up
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Porsche or what was I expecting? Yeah, I don't know. It's just like you're standing
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there and that picture is so iconic. And there's that last. James Dean's
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last stop before he died. You know that. Yeah. I mean, it. It's.
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You stop and you look. You do. I. You know, we. My
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wife and I thought we were going to retire in Paso and we'll. We'll talk
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about Paso because I think it's a great wine district. And actually in some
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cases. I had a conversation yesterday with Jason Haas of
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Tablas Creek, and it's actually a district of California
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that actually is rather expressive and in a very short
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amount of time has been able to produce wines of terroir character. Now it's
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got. It's got that opulent fruit forward sort of mystique.
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Mystique, but sort of a public Persona about it because that's what
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sells. But you also can insure yourself to have an
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Adelaide, you know, district wine that will have a
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character that's different than the rest. But I think it's important. But we really
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thought we were gonna. We were gonna retire there. And I bought 60 acres
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and I went and bought boots, you know, and I have a cowboy stuff.
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And I realized that was never gonna happen. You know, that was just not my
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Persona. And it ended up being a beach house in Hermosa where you can
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see my color. I've been there quite frequently lately, so. But when you go to
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Paso and you take these people, are they. Are they abused? Are
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they surprised? Are they mystified that this even
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exists? And it's so big. The biggest
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eye opener. And it's why we. We chose Paso
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because it fit our brand and our model of going
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into wine producing regions of the world
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and finding the undiscovered
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gems that were there. And
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we started working on Paso in
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2021. And I went up and down the
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coast, basically.
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We had sort of put Napa and Sonoma off to the side
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because that was very overdeveloped in its wine
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tourism sort of vibe. But basically went
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down from Lodi and Livermore all the way down to
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Temecula. And taking a look at the wines in
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San Diego county, and it came back to
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Paso. Paso was doing things with Rhone
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wines. And we had
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been to the Rhone, we'd been to Southern Rhone, and we have tasted
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Rhone wines in Greece. We have tasted, you know,
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Rhone wines in South Africa, just understanding what people were doing with the
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varieties. But Paso and
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Jason Haas is a great example. Jason
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took us on probably one of the best vineyard tours that we
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had ever been on around the world. And
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he. We had been scheduled for a previous visit, and he got
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called up to a sustainability conference in Napa, and he said,
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I can have somebody else do it. And I said, I'd love for our people
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to meet you, and I'd love to wait. So the next year,
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he did it. He took us through, and in every
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single place in Paso, we learned something. And
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now, since so many of our people are now adding Paso
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into their mix of world wine experiences, world
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wine destinations experiences, they're able to ask questions
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that relate to what they learned in South Africa or what they learned
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in France or what they learned in Greece. And the
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winemakers get into this. So Paso
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gave us the intimacy, the time with the
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winemakers, and there's some sensational
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winemakers there. And it also had multiple districts.
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So drinking on the west side with Michael Barreto, with
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Carl Boker in Willow Creek area, and then going
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over to Creston on the east side and drinking
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with Sterling over at Cass or with
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Patty Bellow at B and E.
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It really gave us a good mix of
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what Passer was capable of and some exceptionally
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good wine. And now Slow coast as its own
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Ava has emerged. It's been quite an experience.
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So it filled the things that we had based our development
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on internationally. And Paso was the best place
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to not replicate it, but to expand that experience and do
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it domestically. We're going into our fifth year. You said going into
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Paso, I just had this huge flashback. There was
456
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:33,120
a winery called Creston Manor, and I forgot what it
457
00:28:33,120 --> 00:28:36,760
became. It was owned by Alex Trebek. That's
458
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:39,960
right. And he had the great. He had this couple
459
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:44,080
came over their name now, but they were relentless. And they
460
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,840
would come, and the wines were good, and they would come to my office, and
461
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:50,360
they would just put the pressure on me and squeeze on me to buy
462
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,280
more. And I said, finally, I said, look, if I can come and taste
463
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:58,040
with Alex Trebek, I'll buy more. And it never happened. So, yeah,
464
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:02,120
just trying to leverage that. Yeah, the property is just down from
465
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,880
B and E, and. And there's lots of stories about it that
466
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,920
everybody's happy to share. I think there was even a Jeopardy
467
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:13,560
question about it. But anyway, you know, on the,
468
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,360
on, on the web, it's kind of a confusing and
469
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:20,520
problematic subjects for me to
470
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,930
follow after all these years of doing this. And every
471
00:29:23,930 --> 00:29:27,450
generation that comes into this trade or comes into any trade really has
472
00:29:27,850 --> 00:29:31,450
fresh eyes, but also has probably neglected some of the history. And
473
00:29:31,450 --> 00:29:35,210
wine is so. Is so unique. And I think your story,
474
00:29:35,850 --> 00:29:39,490
just the idea that you brought from another industry, sort of the
475
00:29:39,490 --> 00:29:43,170
logistical part of it, is pretty rare because there's not too many industries that
476
00:29:43,170 --> 00:29:46,490
cross over into the wine trade because wine is
477
00:29:46,490 --> 00:29:49,890
controlled. There's three tiers here in America. And it's such an
478
00:29:49,890 --> 00:29:53,690
emotional purchase that, you know, none of the business
479
00:29:53,690 --> 00:29:57,330
school. And I can't tell you how many MBAs I've had on this
480
00:29:57,330 --> 00:30:00,530
show that, like, yeah, I tried to use the stuff I learned at school, and
481
00:30:00,530 --> 00:30:04,050
it just doesn't work, you know, because it's so different. But one of the things
482
00:30:04,050 --> 00:30:07,810
that bothers me is most influencers are going to say,
483
00:30:07,810 --> 00:30:10,810
we're going to make wine simple. We're going to dumb it down, we're going to
484
00:30:10,810 --> 00:30:14,330
make it approachable. And I just. I just don't see that's possible.
485
00:30:16,330 --> 00:30:19,930
It is antithetical to the approach that we've taken,
486
00:30:20,770 --> 00:30:24,130
which was to introduce and expand
487
00:30:25,010 --> 00:30:28,770
first an appreciation for international
488
00:30:29,010 --> 00:30:32,810
wines. And so many people have been, if
489
00:30:32,810 --> 00:30:36,370
you're from the east coast, you're drinking a lot of Italian and French wine. If
490
00:30:36,370 --> 00:30:39,850
you're out west, you're drinking a lot of California wine. And if you're in
491
00:30:39,850 --> 00:30:43,250
Texas, it's sort of a fight to see who's going to dominate
492
00:30:44,130 --> 00:30:47,180
in there. But California has a big footprint here.
493
00:30:47,660 --> 00:30:51,260
Our idea was to bring people that
494
00:30:51,740 --> 00:30:55,460
enjoyed wine and enjoyed travel and bring them
495
00:30:55,460 --> 00:30:59,100
into places that they normally wouldn't go and expand their
496
00:30:59,100 --> 00:31:02,500
appreciation of what was being done with these
497
00:31:02,500 --> 00:31:06,340
wines and there and thereby be able to
498
00:31:06,340 --> 00:31:09,620
expand their understanding. Okay. And the
499
00:31:09,620 --> 00:31:13,460
winemakers would certainly all tell us about the wine's
500
00:31:13,460 --> 00:31:16,940
technical aspects. And there are questions asked about
501
00:31:16,940 --> 00:31:20,610
why, why this long in this wood and why this
502
00:31:20,770 --> 00:31:24,530
in, you know, all the sorts of different aspects of how
503
00:31:24,610 --> 00:31:28,410
the wine is being made and what the winemaker does. But
504
00:31:28,410 --> 00:31:32,010
we do ask a question sometimes and we get some amazing
505
00:31:32,010 --> 00:31:35,650
answers. And it was like, what
506
00:31:35,650 --> 00:31:39,250
was your intention for this wine when you first
507
00:31:39,970 --> 00:31:43,770
started putting this in the barrel or in the tank? But what was
508
00:31:43,770 --> 00:31:47,430
your intention and how close did you get? Get to that?
509
00:31:47,830 --> 00:31:51,510
And then you begin to get the stories of the happy accidents
510
00:31:52,070 --> 00:31:55,830
and the things that they thought were not working. And
511
00:31:55,830 --> 00:31:58,790
the slight change and the
512
00:31:59,030 --> 00:32:02,870
suggestion from another winemaker. This is what we're doing
513
00:32:02,870 --> 00:32:06,590
with that thing. And the
514
00:32:06,590 --> 00:32:09,270
stories then speak to a community
515
00:32:10,550 --> 00:32:14,350
in a highly competitive business. And again, Tassel Robles is a
516
00:32:14,350 --> 00:32:17,830
really good example of this, and so is South Africa, for that matter.
517
00:32:17,910 --> 00:32:21,650
These wine makers talk to each other, and they all are of
518
00:32:21,650 --> 00:32:25,330
that idea that especially with international groups coming in,
519
00:32:25,650 --> 00:32:28,930
if we engage with these people and we expand
520
00:32:29,410 --> 00:32:33,010
their knowledge of our wines, it's going to be good for business.
521
00:32:33,010 --> 00:32:36,370
It's going to be good for all of us. Go back to Napa in the
522
00:32:36,370 --> 00:32:40,090
70s. So that has been a big part of
523
00:32:40,090 --> 00:32:43,410
it. And we don't want to dumb anything down. We want
524
00:32:43,650 --> 00:32:47,220
our folks to ask better and better questions. And we
525
00:32:47,220 --> 00:32:50,700
noticed one thing. I think it was somewhere in Spain on a trip. And I
526
00:32:50,700 --> 00:32:53,660
noticed that a couple of our customers always had notebooks
527
00:32:54,620 --> 00:32:56,940
and they were taking notes. And
528
00:32:58,540 --> 00:33:02,219
part of our swag. Now our trip bag is a
529
00:33:02,219 --> 00:33:05,820
World Wine Destinations notebook with the pad, nice, small, can fit the
530
00:33:05,820 --> 00:33:09,500
thing. And people are taking notes. They are
531
00:33:09,660 --> 00:33:13,340
asking questions based on something they heard at a previous
532
00:33:13,420 --> 00:33:17,010
winery. They are getting knowledge about the
533
00:33:17,010 --> 00:33:20,770
varieties. They're getting knowledge about the wood. You know, when
534
00:33:20,770 --> 00:33:24,330
they see their first barrel cooperage, which we ran into in France,
535
00:33:25,130 --> 00:33:28,490
you know, these things are expanding.
536
00:33:28,810 --> 00:33:32,410
They're understanding how complex the business is. And
537
00:33:33,290 --> 00:33:37,010
we sort of tell the winemakers, don't feel like you have to pour a
538
00:33:37,010 --> 00:33:40,650
half a glass in for this tasting. Yeah, right. Because none of us
539
00:33:40,650 --> 00:33:44,330
feels good about dumping your wine, because it's not about it not tasting
540
00:33:44,330 --> 00:33:47,300
good. They'll ask for more. But
541
00:33:48,340 --> 00:33:51,380
they're going through this in a really
542
00:33:52,900 --> 00:33:56,660
expanding way to do that. And that has been
543
00:33:57,060 --> 00:34:00,899
really effective. But they do that about the food, and they do it
544
00:34:00,899 --> 00:34:04,580
about the historic or archeological sites. They do it about
545
00:34:04,660 --> 00:34:08,420
the music. And whether it's Portugal or whether it's
546
00:34:08,420 --> 00:34:12,200
Spain, it doesn't matter. They get into it. It's
547
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,640
the intellectual part of the meal. And I don't see how you can talk about
548
00:34:15,720 --> 00:34:18,960
dumbing it down. In fact, there's a guy from England who's an
549
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,600
amazingly successful influencer called the Wine
550
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:26,400
Wally, which is sort of the wine idiot in the English language. You
551
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:30,160
know, the Queen's English. And you should hear
552
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:33,440
him talk now. I mean, he's talking because he's done this for long enough that
553
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:37,080
he's learned all this stuff. And he. I don't. You know, now he's no longer
554
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:40,920
dumbed it down. You know, he's talking about all this stuff. And I don't know
555
00:34:41,149 --> 00:34:44,709
because I don't think it exists. I think you can learn as much as you
556
00:34:44,709 --> 00:34:48,389
want to learn. And there's never ending. Even the winemakers you, you are,
557
00:34:48,389 --> 00:34:52,069
you visit are learning every day, as you said, they're
558
00:34:52,069 --> 00:34:55,709
experimenting and they made a mistake and something happened. White zinfandel was a
559
00:34:55,709 --> 00:34:56,429
mistake, you know,
560
00:34:59,469 --> 00:35:03,069
so I just, it just annoys me that a generation comes in, this is
561
00:35:03,069 --> 00:35:06,109
particularly Gen Z in this case, and
562
00:35:07,190 --> 00:35:10,630
ignores all the previous stuff and
563
00:35:10,790 --> 00:35:14,390
decides that something has to change when it really can't change.
564
00:35:15,190 --> 00:35:18,950
How does it change? How does the interest level of your troop,
565
00:35:18,950 --> 00:35:22,790
of your troops or your guests? How do you change
566
00:35:22,790 --> 00:35:23,190
that?
567
00:35:26,310 --> 00:35:29,910
I don't know that we have to change it. I believe they
568
00:35:29,910 --> 00:35:33,670
change it themselves by us presenting them
569
00:35:34,300 --> 00:35:37,860
with enough of an experience and the ability to have
570
00:35:37,860 --> 00:35:41,180
emotional experience, emotion based
571
00:35:41,260 --> 00:35:45,020
relationships with each
572
00:35:45,020 --> 00:35:48,620
aspect of what constitutes or what comprises the
573
00:35:48,620 --> 00:35:52,380
trip. So some of them were not big
574
00:35:52,380 --> 00:35:55,980
fans of archeology, if you will. They left thinking
575
00:35:55,980 --> 00:35:59,580
differently after they went to a dig in
576
00:35:59,660 --> 00:36:03,430
Santorini, okay? They left differently thinking
577
00:36:03,430 --> 00:36:07,030
about olive oil after Crete. They left differently
578
00:36:07,030 --> 00:36:10,750
thinking about barbecue after they had their first
579
00:36:10,750 --> 00:36:14,030
asado at a winemaker's house
580
00:36:14,430 --> 00:36:17,790
in Mendoza. These things,
581
00:36:18,670 --> 00:36:22,270
each one of these activities in a given day is an opportunity
582
00:36:22,590 --> 00:36:26,110
to engage. And what we've done is simply listen to what they like
583
00:36:26,950 --> 00:36:30,710
and what works and construct the trip around that.
584
00:36:30,870 --> 00:36:34,390
We talk with our guests for months before
585
00:36:34,470 --> 00:36:38,110
these trips go. We are the. Each itinerary
586
00:36:38,110 --> 00:36:41,910
is customized. We mix the winemakers that we go
587
00:36:41,910 --> 00:36:45,670
to. We always add new ones. We go back to some sensational
588
00:36:45,750 --> 00:36:49,590
great experiences. But we are constantly expanding
589
00:36:49,590 --> 00:36:53,310
our own understanding and therefore bringing our customers along with
590
00:36:53,310 --> 00:36:56,970
that. But they're the ones that change themselves. And sometimes
591
00:36:56,970 --> 00:37:00,770
it's pretty amazing to see it especially and the
592
00:37:00,770 --> 00:37:04,610
perceptions that people had about South Africa. It's, it's
593
00:37:04,610 --> 00:37:08,410
absolutely amazing the transformation that they go through. And that
594
00:37:08,410 --> 00:37:12,009
part of travel is extremely. I mean, that's its
595
00:37:12,009 --> 00:37:15,610
superpower. It's transformative. And wine and food
596
00:37:15,610 --> 00:37:19,370
help that you turn a thought. And it's. We were
597
00:37:19,370 --> 00:37:23,000
in, we were on, we were in Paris and this is recently,
598
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:25,960
but we were with friends who were on a,
599
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,840
you know, corporate thing tour, you know, where they rewards tour.
600
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:33,760
And so it was like all these. I used to have to build those. For
601
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,360
merit, I'm sure all these carpet guys and we're in the biggest hotel
602
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:40,520
in Paris. And it was, you know, we went down the. They go, come on
603
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:43,280
down to the basement and have, you know, it's free breakfast. I'M like, I'm not
604
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:46,920
going to eat American scrambled eggs and bacon because
605
00:37:47,240 --> 00:37:50,360
you're on a tour. I'm in Paris, you know, I'm going to go get a
606
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:54,120
Paris pastry or something. But anyway, they had scheduled,
607
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:57,680
supposedly, a lesson, a cooking lesson with Alanda,
608
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:01,200
Casa's sous chef at some restaurant. We got on the bus, we got there, and
609
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:05,000
it was the worst thing you'd ever been through. It was horrible cooking
610
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,840
class. And what I'm saying is it was the kind
611
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:12,440
of cooking class you'd get on a tour put together by a travel
612
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:16,080
agent. Then when we were Sicily on the same trip,
613
00:38:16,530 --> 00:38:20,370
we were in this very small town, and we booked ourselves in a cooking
614
00:38:20,370 --> 00:38:23,250
class, and that was amazing. I mean,
615
00:38:24,050 --> 00:38:27,450
we broke open the fava beans and peeled them ourselves, and then we put them
616
00:38:27,450 --> 00:38:30,610
in the pot and we boiled them, and then we rolled the dough and we
617
00:38:30,610 --> 00:38:34,130
put it in the pizza oven, and it was incredible. I'm
618
00:38:34,130 --> 00:38:37,850
guessing that's the difference between your tours and
619
00:38:37,850 --> 00:38:41,610
any other tour. We hand pick these folks because we're not
620
00:38:41,610 --> 00:38:45,330
bound by any previous existing relationship. We
621
00:38:45,330 --> 00:38:49,050
are not compensated in our business model by
622
00:38:49,050 --> 00:38:52,290
commission from the places we go. No, that's important. And
623
00:38:52,610 --> 00:38:56,450
that is something that my partners
624
00:38:56,450 --> 00:39:00,170
and I sort of agreed upon right up in the front. If we
625
00:39:00,170 --> 00:39:03,930
are going to be different, we cannot be beholden to
626
00:39:03,930 --> 00:39:07,770
habits that are linked to how we monetize this
627
00:39:07,770 --> 00:39:11,580
company. And so we pick whoever we
628
00:39:11,580 --> 00:39:14,220
want to deal with. And that's down to guides.
629
00:39:15,020 --> 00:39:18,740
Okay? We hand pick the guides, we hand pick the
630
00:39:18,740 --> 00:39:22,580
restaurants. We hand pick the winemakers and the wineries.
631
00:39:22,580 --> 00:39:25,980
We hand pick the hotels. We stay in boutique
632
00:39:25,980 --> 00:39:29,660
hotels, we stay out at vineyards. We do not rush
633
00:39:29,660 --> 00:39:33,420
to the biggest brand. And, you know, we don't.
634
00:39:34,140 --> 00:39:37,760
But the other thing is, too, is we don't get involved in the airfare.
635
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:41,840
We give our guests the absolute freedom to
636
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:45,600
fly however they want on whatever carrier they
637
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:48,720
want to fly on, use their miles, do whatever they want,
638
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:52,800
get there, we'll get you at the airport and you're on your way.
639
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:57,360
Wow, That's a really great feature for somebody traveling who doesn't want to.
640
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:01,280
I'm one of those guys. I don't want to travel the way most
641
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:05,360
travel. I done it too much, and I just do it myself. Besides
642
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,040
the fact when I ran Wine of the Month, Club,
643
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:12,520
Federal Express let me charge our Federal Express
644
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:16,280
bill on my American Express card, which was amazing. For over 20
645
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:20,120
years, we were charging over $2 million a year on shipping charges.
646
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:25,320
And, my friend, none of those numbers are staggered. I had like 4 million points
647
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,240
at any given time. You know, I can go anywhere. I want to do the
648
00:40:28,240 --> 00:40:31,370
highest class that they offered. And it didn't really matter because I. I wasn't paying
649
00:40:31,370 --> 00:40:35,170
for it. So what's next? It makes a huge difference. It makes a
650
00:40:35,170 --> 00:40:38,610
huge difference to. To our. To our guests because
651
00:40:39,090 --> 00:40:42,930
it allows them a great deal of flexibility. And a lot of them will
652
00:40:42,930 --> 00:40:45,970
go in early to a market. You know, if they want to do the
653
00:40:46,530 --> 00:40:50,170
typical tourism things, let's say they've never been to Paris or
654
00:40:50,170 --> 00:40:53,490
they've never been to Athens or whatever, and they want to do some of that.
655
00:40:53,570 --> 00:40:57,090
Sure. They add a couple of days up front, or they add a couple of
656
00:40:57,090 --> 00:41:00,740
days in the back and then get that done.
657
00:41:00,740 --> 00:41:04,540
Or they fly to another destination or another country and finish up
658
00:41:04,540 --> 00:41:08,260
their trip. That's great. It really. It's really built for them.
659
00:41:10,420 --> 00:41:14,100
Well, what's next? What's. What's on the books right now for the next trip?
660
00:41:15,620 --> 00:41:18,980
Our next trip will be into Oregon, into the
661
00:41:19,060 --> 00:41:22,500
Willamette Valley. And Jim and Linda are leading that.
662
00:41:22,900 --> 00:41:26,700
That is only our second domestic destination ever. And this
663
00:41:26,700 --> 00:41:30,460
is the first trip that. That will run there. So we'll
664
00:41:30,460 --> 00:41:33,780
see how that goes. We have great. This schedule already.
665
00:41:34,820 --> 00:41:38,620
Yeah, it was sold out almost immediately. That goes down the 25th through
666
00:41:38,620 --> 00:41:42,420
the 30th of of August. And the
667
00:41:42,420 --> 00:41:45,380
two domestic trips are our shortest trips.
668
00:41:46,180 --> 00:41:49,860
They're, you know, basically five and a half, six days in and out.
669
00:41:50,990 --> 00:41:54,590
Ironically, I don't know what the numbers will end up being in
670
00:41:54,590 --> 00:41:58,190
Oregon, but Paso Robles, on a dollar per dollar
671
00:41:58,190 --> 00:42:01,550
basis, is probably one of the most expensive trips we run.
672
00:42:02,110 --> 00:42:05,790
Because the costs of. Of doing
673
00:42:05,790 --> 00:42:09,350
wine travel in California are significant. Not because it's
674
00:42:09,350 --> 00:42:13,030
California, but because the wine industry. Trades like
675
00:42:13,030 --> 00:42:16,590
that is absolutely, you know, into
676
00:42:17,830 --> 00:42:20,390
maximizing. They have to, I mean, a lot. Of them
677
00:42:22,070 --> 00:42:25,750
without tasting for $85. I mean, it's ridiculous. A lot of people
678
00:42:25,750 --> 00:42:29,550
do it. And that was another thing. And as I lived in
679
00:42:29,550 --> 00:42:32,390
Nap. I love Nap. I lived in nap in the 70s,
680
00:42:33,430 --> 00:42:37,270
in 78, to be specific. And they were
681
00:42:37,270 --> 00:42:40,230
still, despite Chateau
682
00:42:40,230 --> 00:42:43,970
Montelena's rise, became. There was still enough.
683
00:42:45,010 --> 00:42:48,450
There was still enough of what Napa was, where you could
684
00:42:48,450 --> 00:42:51,810
drift in, meet a winemaker, taste,
685
00:42:52,850 --> 00:42:56,450
understand a little bit. It was really approachable. And.
686
00:42:56,610 --> 00:43:00,450
And the case is very different now. And you do
687
00:43:00,450 --> 00:43:03,490
get a feeling in some of the more developed markets
688
00:43:04,370 --> 00:43:08,090
that there's a lot of bottling of lifestyle, and
689
00:43:08,090 --> 00:43:11,450
that lifestyle demands that that be a $350 or
690
00:43:11,450 --> 00:43:15,110
$500 bottle of wine. And I'm enough
691
00:43:15,110 --> 00:43:18,830
of a barbarian that once I get past 150, I really
692
00:43:18,830 --> 00:43:22,430
can't taste the difference. So it's just
693
00:43:23,550 --> 00:43:27,230
the idea of being able to find places that
694
00:43:27,230 --> 00:43:30,990
are undeveloped and undiscovered, even though they've
695
00:43:30,990 --> 00:43:33,790
been making wine for 300 or several thousand years.
696
00:43:34,910 --> 00:43:38,750
Which leads us into next year to Croatia
697
00:43:38,750 --> 00:43:42,480
as an example. We'll be hitting Croatia a year from now, next
698
00:43:42,720 --> 00:43:46,000
September. Wow. For the first time, opening up a new market.
699
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:49,400
That was a last time we were there, and we're out of time, actually. But
700
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,960
last time we were in Croatia, you know, we traveled the coast. There's some
701
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:56,080
amazing things. And I didn't recognize any of the grapes. Of course,
702
00:43:57,039 --> 00:44:00,880
you know, they're not even grapes. I know. From different parts of that
703
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:04,720
part of the world because their Croatian grapes are different. But, man, the wines
704
00:44:04,720 --> 00:44:08,140
were so solid. And I relied on the psalms to
705
00:44:09,020 --> 00:44:12,580
pair things and to just tell us, you know, the stylistically what we're looking for,
706
00:44:12,580 --> 00:44:15,620
and they would pick them for us. This has been quite fascinating. I hope we
707
00:44:15,620 --> 00:44:19,380
can do it again. We're out of. Absolutely. Happy to. It's
708
00:44:19,380 --> 00:44:23,020
really, really fun. I'm interested to watch the progress
709
00:44:23,580 --> 00:44:26,860
of wine world destinations and
710
00:44:27,260 --> 00:44:30,580
what you're doing. And I think the next time we get on the call together,
711
00:44:30,580 --> 00:44:34,310
I'm going to ask you how your personal growth
712
00:44:34,310 --> 00:44:37,910
in wine has become. You just said you had one little threshold there.
713
00:44:37,910 --> 00:44:40,990
You, over 150 bucks can't tell the difference. But
714
00:44:42,750 --> 00:44:46,510
that's probably a good thing, actually. Jim would probably be
715
00:44:46,510 --> 00:44:49,950
screaming right now. It's like these.
716
00:44:50,110 --> 00:44:53,790
The. The. The ability to learn about wine
717
00:44:54,190 --> 00:44:57,910
is always going to be driven by taste. Just my opinion. It's
718
00:44:57,910 --> 00:45:01,570
got to start with what's in the glass. And then if I really want to
719
00:45:01,570 --> 00:45:05,170
analyze that, I can ask questions and I can study and I can
720
00:45:05,250 --> 00:45:07,890
go deeper. If I want to expand my
721
00:45:08,930 --> 00:45:11,970
palette of wines that I like,
722
00:45:12,770 --> 00:45:15,810
then this is how I've been able to do this,
723
00:45:17,090 --> 00:45:20,810
and it seems to work. Well. Good
724
00:45:20,810 --> 00:45:23,730
luck out there. We look forward to hearing more about it in the near future.
725
00:45:23,810 --> 00:45:27,440
And so glad that Stephanie was able to get us together and have this
726
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:31,280
conversation. I think it's a really important part of our trade. And you
727
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,720
stumbled across, you know, a methodology that seems to
728
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,440
change the landscape of it a little bit. And. And
729
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:42,000
maybe this is the answer to some of the woes
730
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:46,040
of the wine tree, which is getting these experiences under people's
731
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:49,840
belt so they can have that conversation with their friends, and they can
732
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:53,420
talk about, you know, how interesting the subject matter
733
00:45:53,420 --> 00:45:56,540
is absolutely. Absolutely.
734
00:45:56,780 --> 00:45:58,780
Cheers. Cheers.