Strikes, Somms, and Screwups: Schulner’s Wild Ride Beyond Hollywood

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You know, wine is all about stories. Like, I can

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sell a bottle of wine. I can make you fall in love with a

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bottle of wine before you even try it. And

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that's, that's what I do as a somm.

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

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with Paul Kaye. Hey,

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welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kaye. And we are in studio today in beautiful

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Southern California. Going to have a conversation with David Schulner. Let me

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read against his will. The AI is in

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the conversation. The prompt was 75 words. It says,

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today's guest has spent his career creating stories for the screen, but

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his latest chapter unfolds among vineyards. David Schulner,

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co-creator and showrunner of Netflix's upcoming series Uncorked,

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has moved from scripts, sets, and Hollywood pressure into the slower rhythms of

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soil, Seasons in Wine. I'm Paul Kaye, and today we

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explore how the creator of The New Amsterdam is becoming the

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storyteller's eye to wine, bringing the storyteller's eye to wine,

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and what happens when success gives way to different calling. First of all,

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I don't even like the way that's written. Good. Yes.

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As a member of the Writers Guild of America who was on strike in 2023,

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the use of AI in creative materials is a stance we have. It is really

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bad. Good. Yeah. I mean, I've done— I've done— I use a lot of it

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for different reasons to really shorten the cycle of

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what I do by myself. Yes. But, uh, every time I try to get it

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to be creative, it just— Right. Same with editing too, right? I mean, it's like,

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um, we haven't— it can't— I will say something though. I did

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take— we were in Ireland and I did some still shots knowing I was

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going to put them into, uh, an animation software. and

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then try and create a funny travelogue from the

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show with my friends. It had comedy built into

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it. It was okay. But it changes your face and

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stuff, but it's just a tool in my opinion. That's right.

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But let's explore this comment though. It talks about you going from

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the Hollywood side of things into wine.

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And you said you grew up in Miami. Yes. And you were a

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struggling artist, being a writer. Yeah, but that was—

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I signed with William Morris when I was 22, when I was still in college.

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Flew me to New York, and they said, we want to represent you as

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a playwright. Are you interested in television, movies? And I said,

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no. I said, I only want to do theater. Only want to do plays. Says

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no one ever. I think

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22-year-old playwrights, and again, this was 30 years ago, so TV,

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isn't what it is now. Yeah, of course. But no, I wanted to be

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Arthur Miller. I wanted to be a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in

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Chicago. Wow. I wanted to be a playwright. And so—

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That's interesting because it's a dramatically different

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part of writing would be playwright versus Hollywood scripting.

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But I think a lot of screenwriters start as novelists

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or playwrights. It's definitely

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definitely a pathway. How did you know that feeling? I was

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just— you just reminded me of something. I was reading this exposé on

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Gene Tierney, the famed actress. And she got offered

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something at Warner Brothers, like this extraordinary amount of money at the time. And her

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dad said, no, you're going to Broadway. Oh, wow.

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And I thought, that's just kind of the same story. Well,

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Broadway was romantic to me. Being a New York playwright was

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like the dream. being in Hollywood wasn't all

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that interesting. Says no one ever again.

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So what did you end up doing? So

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I waited tables. So my friends started a theater company in Minneapolis.

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So I moved to Minneapolis and we had a theater company together.

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I got into Juilliard for playwriting, but—

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and it's free tuition, but you still have to

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live in New York. You still have to get a full-time job to be able

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to afford to live in New York. And so the playwriting teacher at

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Juilliard told— who was John Robin Bates at the time, who's

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now a famous screenwriter and playwright— he said, you should

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stay in Minneapolis where you can write more and just send me

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your plays and I'll critique them. I'll give you notes. I

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mean, was that a path that kind of made sense back

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then? Would it make sense today? I think they still talk about me

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as the only person to have refused the Juilliard scholarship.

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I guess that's my sad claim to fame.

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But after waiting tables more than writing,

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I realized— oh, and my first

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Off-Broadway play at the Atlantic Theater Company was

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trashed in the New York Times. Just

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complete career-ending flop.

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Wow, that type of thing. Yeah. So I quickly— and

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the calls literally stopped coming. I think the next day I

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was supposed to meet with Lynn Meadow at the Manhattan Theatre Club, and I think

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in my head at least, the meeting was canceled. Yeah, that's right. Like after this

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review by the lead theater critic of the Times. Is that all it takes? That's

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all it took for me. Maybe a better playwright or a stronger person could

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have weathered that? Well, I don't know. I mean, I suppose that's the

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standard, you know, starving artist type scenario where, you

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know, you're on the cusp the whole time, right? I was on the cusp. You're

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always on the fringe. Yeah. And so,

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Ed Zwick read a play of mine. And

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my first meeting was with Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, who'd created Thirtysomething

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and My So-Called Life. And They asked

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me to write television for them. So I said yes. At

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that point, you're like, let's do it. At that point, yeah. Yeah, I said yes

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very quickly. And did that— was that transition like a difficult

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transition? It was. I was not a very good television writer.

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It's that 10,000 hours thing, you know. You know, what do you think? Well, that's

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true. Is it like an actor where

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it seems some actors can pick it up

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Momentarily? Yeah. And others take time, but you can learn it? Yeah,

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absolutely. And I was great with dialogue. I was bad with plotting. I was

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bad with story. Yeah. And in theater, you can hide that

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with, like, all my— looking back,

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all my plays were nonlinear. They all played with time, which was basically

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a way for me to hide my inability to tell a linear story. Oh, that

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makes sense. But I couldn't do that in TV. So I really had to learn

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how to tell a story. I never thought about that because TV is

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linear. Yeah, most of it. You go from start to finish. Yeah, for sure. And

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all my plays were jumping around in time and relied on an

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emotional through line rather than plot. You know, that's

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it. Everybody, at least— not

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everybody, because my wife doesn't, my kids probably don't, but I have the

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aspirations to be as creative as I can. Yeah. And

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I find that difficult as well to break away. I find it difficult to

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break away from a time sequence

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and go back in time or go forward in time and then create a story

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out of that. I find that very hard creatively. Yeah, me too. I'm pretty secure

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of why. But linear— Yeah, but,

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you know, wine is all about stories. Like, I can

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sell a bottle of wine. I can make you fall in love with a

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bottle of wine. before you even try it. And

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that's what I do as a somm, you know?

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Well, you went from— okay, we're gonna break right into it since this was a

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wine talk. It's wine talk. It's not a playwriting talk.

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I'm such a frustrated actor/writer that I wanted to hear about it.

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I'm happy to. Yeah, the wine.

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Well, I'll even start with this. I did this for 35 years. I sold wine.

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We sold a lot, tasted that literally documented taste of 100,000 wines in

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my career to do this. And that was an earnest attempt to

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bring to the customers the best thing I could find for the price range that

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we were offering, which was $18 or something. And, but it

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took me about 10 to 15 years of business

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side of it to realize the emotional side that you were just talking

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about. Right. Did you go to the emotional side first? Because I

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think so, because that's, You know, all my vacations,

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once I started making money in television, all my vacations

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revolved around wine. Wow. Like, I hiked

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all of Burgundy from Marsannay to Santenay,

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just walking through vineyards and— Wow. What a way to learn it. Yeah. Because you

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really kind of have to do that to figure out Burgundy. Right. But I don't,

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I can't, I couldn't, I don't, I can't remember any, where, I can't remember

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where we stopped to taste. I can't, I can tell you the restaurants we went

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to, but just all I knew was I loved wine. Walking through

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vineyards was my idea of heaven. So all my trips

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revolved around wine because I loved it so much. But you know that

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people, when I have conversations in a regular part of the day and I'm talking

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to people and my ability to recall geography

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is only because of wine. I didn't study it in school. I never paid attention.

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Yeah, for sure. So even if you don't remember where you tasted, walking a

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place like Burgundy, which is, you know, these micro vineyards,

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has to be just an amazing experience. It was amazing.

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Locked away, like when somebody says Marsanne,

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you go right to it. Yeah, for sure. So you're

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traveling, you're in TV, you're making shows,

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you're being successful there. Yeah. And

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then all of a sudden this wine opportunity came up. What, you were writing already?

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It was the writer's strike. So 2023, writer's

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strike. Yeah. New Amsterdam, the show I did on

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NBC for like 5 years, just wrapped. Had this big overall deal

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at Universal. Had this gorgeous office on the LA River. Like,

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this was like my time. Wait, isn't that a dichotomy? A

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gorgeous office on the LA River? Does that even— Yeah, right in

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Frogtown. So there's like, you have Salazar and La Colombe, and

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they've reclaimed the LA River. They planted these gorgeous

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trees and native brush. Wow. People are kayaking. There's

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a jogging path. Hills, you know? Oh, it was bucolic for

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LA. But it was like, it was

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exactly where I like dreamed of being. And then the

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writers' strike happened. And they

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suspended my pay. I lost my assistant and my development

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executive. And I lost, you know, I just, I lost my

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salary. Because there was no production, zero

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production. there was zero production and it was a

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mandated strike.

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So basically you had to picket for 3 hours a day

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and pick your own studio. My studio was ironically Netflix,

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who I'm now working for, because it was the closest studio to my house.

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Right. So I was picketing Netflix for 3 hours a day,

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and when it became clear that the strike was not going to end anytime soon,

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I was like, I gotta do something.

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I can't write. What else am I gonna do during this

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time to make it feel like I

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accomplished something? I needed to accomplish something. Yeah.

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Financially, I was prepared for this moment,

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even though it was strange to not be making money for the first

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time in, 35 years.

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So psychologically, I was really struggling. Well,

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you're prepared for retirement then, because that's what happened to me. Yeah. Go ahead.

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Well, every writer knows you just— you save during the boom times to

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make up for the busts. But psychologically, I

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was really struggling, and I was like, am I going to learn a new

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language? Am I going to go through all the classics,

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listen to all the classics while I was picketing, all the books I was

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always supposed to read but never did. Yeah, right. It's like, what can I do

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to mark this time? And I realized the only thing I loved

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as much as writing was wine. Wow. So I thought, well, what

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can I do in wine? So I thought, okay, I have 3

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hours a day where I'm picketing. I'm gonna—

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I'll study and try to pass the Court of

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Master Sommeliers. Certified exam.

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So that's what I did. I just set a goal for myself. What'd you do?

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You read podcasts? So every day during picketing, I

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would listen to podcasts, and then I had flashcards on my

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phone. So I'd hold my picket sign like this, and I'd just do

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flashcards. You're walking in circles for 3 hours a day.

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So I did flashcards and podcasts, and then I'd go back to my

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office and I would blind taste. wines.

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Wow. Um, in brown paper bags by myself. Yeah, that's really hard. And go

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through the grid. Um, so let's go to that cart— course, some of these,

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because it's, it's not new. It's been around, I think, since the '80s.

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And certifications in the wine trader certifications, they

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tell somebody, an employer or somebody you're talking to, that you've,

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you've studied, right? And would you recommend that to the average

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waiter, waitress, uh, person who just wants to learn

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about wine. Oh, for sure. Opportunity to, to have a structured way to

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study wine. Absolutely. And I thought I knew a lot about wine.

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I went in there a little cocky, like, and I realized

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how little I knew, um, once I started studying. Yeah,

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yeah. Because I interviewed the guy at the— who runs the Napa Valley Wine

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Academy, and it didn't take long for me to realize that's really critical.

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that there's a certain granularity to studying wine at

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that level, which is kind of like music where you need to know how to

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do the really— in order to do the really fancy things, you have to know

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the real basic things. Absolutely. You have to know those by absolute

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rote, and then you can move on to more granular things. Yeah. And I think

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nothing's more evidence than when you try to study Burgundy.

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And again, I've only been a SOM for 3 years. Wow. So what

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level you were— sorry, what level of the court

228
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did you go? So I went up, I passed the intro course immediately

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based on the knowledge I did have. And then from start to finish, it took

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me 6 months because I'd

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been drinking for 30 years. Yeah, right. Well, you've been driving for

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60, 45. And I'd been to a lot of the wine

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regions, which helped me understand

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what I was reading. What did you think you were going to do with it?

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Just have something to mark this weird strike, to

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mark this weird time, to say that I— I'm David Shulner, and

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I'm— No, not— it was just the fact that I had a certifi—

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I did something. So, you weren't considering a career in it necessarily?

239
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No, no. You were going to go right back to writing? I was going to

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go right back to writing. But then the strike kept going. Yeah. And then the

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actors joined the strike. So it became clear that this

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was going to go on even longer. So I got the certification

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and I started applying for jobs. Wow. Where'd you land

244
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first? So again, my wife thought I was going through a midlife crisis

245
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because no one wanted to hire

246
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a 50-year-old out-of-work writer who hadn't worked in

247
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a service in 25 years. Well, that's a bargain itself.

248
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So no, I couldn't even get an interview. Wow. Even though on all my

249
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applications, I said, being a showrunner

250
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is my— the best training for being a showrunner in television is working in

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service. 'Cause as a waiter, you know, you had 5

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tables, and they're all at different stages in

253
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the meal. Right. Someone's on apps, someone's on desserts, someone

254
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needs a main refired. And it's the same as being a showrunner.

255
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As a showrunner, I'm in the writer's room all day breaking

256
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episode 9. Episode 2 is being shot.

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Episode 3 is being edited. Episode 7's being written.

258
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Wow. And so I have all these episodes at different stages, and I have to

259
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do them all at the same time. Wow. So I was a really good

260
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showrunner because of service, because of working

261
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in restaurants. That's so interesting. And then, and

262
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what were they— when you asked them, can I come see you or talk to

263
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you, they would say, thank you, no? Well, I would just write up— I would

264
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interview, and I am sorry, I would send in my applications. I'd never hear from

265
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anyone. Yeah. Um, were you headed at the restaurants or retail or what?

266
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Uh, just restaurants. And I just— Michelin star restaurants. Well,

267
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I guess that would narrow the field. It narrowed the field. I thought, if I'm

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going to do this, I want to do it at a, at a high level.

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Yeah. Um, but again, I wasn't applying for a SOM job. I was applying

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for a waiter job, a service job,

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because I had no— and I was gonna say, I have no

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credits, speaking in TV terms. I had no— I

273
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hadn't had any experience in 25 years. So finally,

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Gwen, it's a Michelin-starred steakhouse run by Curtis

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Stone. Yeah. It's the closest Michelin-starred restaurant

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to my house. They were hiring. Joel

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McHale, who lived across the street from me, who's an actor,

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comedian, host, he and Curtis did a TV show

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together called Kitchen Confidential. So I called Joel

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and I said, hey, Gwen's hiring. Will you

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ask Curtis if I could come in and meet?

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So I got an interview. And they hired me. Well, this is

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interesting because it's clear, and I think even the listeners

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would know this, the viewers, that Hollywood is about connections. I mean, just

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to get your voice. A good friend of mine is David Zucker, the director. He

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actually directed me in a couple commercials. You know, he's,

287
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he's was having trouble getting traction recently just because,

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you know, he's been around so long. And so here you

289
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are leveraging the same sort of thing you need to do. It was harder to

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get a job in the restaurant industry than it

291
00:18:21,579 --> 00:18:25,138
was for me to get my first job in Hollywood. Wow. That's crazy.

292
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So, and yes, I, and I used my connections to get in the door to,

293
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to become a server. You just became a server? I became a server. And on

294
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my first day, I said to, I asked the wine director

295
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if I could be a part of the wine program. On the first day? On

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the first day. Are you a Gen Millennial? No, you're not. I'm, no,

297
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I was 50. So, um, that'd be a Gen

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Z Millennial thing. I wanna be, can I run the show, please? That's right. And

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just not run the show, just be a part of the program. Just be a

300
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part of the program. And, you know, I jumped around in time a little bit.

301
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At that point, I had not passed the certified test yet.

302
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So he said, pass the certified and we'll talk. Well, okay.

303
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Gave you a goal. Gave me a goal. And even before— so what happened

304
00:19:08,620 --> 00:19:12,325
was, even before that happened, he got— the

305
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wine director and the somm, I think both got COVID or got sick.

306
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This is still like, people are still wearing masks at the time.

307
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They both got sick, and they called me and said, would you

308
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be the somm tonight? And I said no.

309
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What is it with this no? You keep telling people no to how many things?

310
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Because I realized how much I didn't know.

311
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Yeah. Were you frightened at that point? Yeah. I had never been in the

312
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cellar. At that point, I had never tried a Grand Cru Burgundy.

313
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In my life. Oh, that— I had never used a Durand.

314
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Um, I, I knew all the things I didn't know. Yes. And at a

315
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Michelin-starred restaurant, I didn't want to mess

316
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up. Who'd they put there? Me. I called my wife and she said— It

317
00:20:01,070 --> 00:20:04,676
didn't matter what they said. She said, call back and say yes. So I did.

318
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And so I saw him that night, and it was amazing. It was

319
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everything I hoped it would be. That's incredible. What a great story. It was like

320
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a party. Yeah. It was like hosting a dinner party for all my best friends.

321
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Did you feel like you were walking on the eggs most of the time? Walking

322
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on air. I was walking on air. So actually it felt really good. It felt

323
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great. It felt like— You didn't feel like maybe you're gonna misstep and ruin

324
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somebody's evening because you hadn't tasted the Grand Cru? No, the first

325
00:20:30,910 --> 00:20:34,290
thing was a waiter came up to me and he said, I have a guest

326
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and they want a very light Grenache.

327
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And they're thinking of the one we have from the Priorat. And I was

328
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like, no, those— no, like, let me get in

329
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there. And so the fact that I— the

330
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fact that I knew that— Yeah, it just came to your head. I was like,

331
00:20:51,562 --> 00:20:55,225
they can't— let's, let's figure this out. Well, that's great. Yeah. So I

332
00:20:55,354 --> 00:20:58,873
felt like I knew exactly how to help and how to guide them. And what

333
00:20:58,873 --> 00:21:02,472
was the restaurant's management's response to your first night as

334
00:21:02,585 --> 00:21:06,120
the thumb? It was great. Yeah. Um, we— the

335
00:21:06,666 --> 00:21:09,268
Curtis's second restaurant called Maude,

336
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Michelin-star tasting menu, maybe 7

337
00:21:13,653 --> 00:21:17,412
seats, 7 tables in Beverly Hills. The same,

338
00:21:18,070 --> 00:21:21,620
our floor somm was supposed to work there on Saturday night to help them out,

339
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but they were still sick. So they asked me to come on

340
00:21:25,475 --> 00:21:29,266
Saturday to Maude. Is Maude like a seating thing? Like, is it

341
00:21:29,330 --> 00:21:33,109
5 seatings, 2 seatings a night or something like that? 2 seatings a night. 7

342
00:21:33,109 --> 00:21:36,468
tables, 20 guests a night. Wow, crazy.

343
00:21:37,292 --> 00:21:40,748
And completely different. So it was

344
00:21:40,926 --> 00:21:44,095
wine pairings. It was

345
00:21:45,002 --> 00:21:48,308
completely different. If Gwen was like a party, Maud was

346
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like a quiet, like a quiet dance. Yeah.

347
00:21:53,015 --> 00:21:56,753
And the GM at the time was also a

348
00:21:56,753 --> 00:22:00,511
Psalm. So she was all over me. My

349
00:22:00,511 --> 00:22:04,332
pours were too light, my pours were too heavy. I poured at the wrong—

350
00:22:04,364 --> 00:22:07,511
I poured too early, I poured too late. My thumb was on the label.

351
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So she was all over me all night. And it was, I loved it.

352
00:22:11,831 --> 00:22:15,556
It was incredible. It was exhilarating. Do you think that's—

353
00:22:16,150 --> 00:22:19,955
there's a million questions that just came outta that conversation, but the

354
00:22:19,955 --> 00:22:23,231
one that just popped in when you said what her discipline was like,

355
00:22:25,028 --> 00:22:28,456
Do you think that's noticed, egregiously

356
00:22:28,456 --> 00:22:31,923
noticed by the consumer when those kinds of things happen? I got you,

357
00:22:32,344 --> 00:22:35,406
I got my thumb in the wrong place, stuff like that. Or is that an

358
00:22:35,406 --> 00:22:38,715
internal thing that, that in its summation

359
00:22:39,238 --> 00:22:42,820
creates a better experience? I think

360
00:22:44,001 --> 00:22:47,155
any, any misstep can add up,

361
00:22:48,223 --> 00:22:51,135
and so you don't want one, because if you're allowing one

362
00:22:51,970 --> 00:22:55,388
piece of service to not be held to the highest standard,

363
00:22:56,142 --> 00:22:59,544
then you're setting it up for a lot of people to make a lot of

364
00:22:59,592 --> 00:23:03,267
little mistakes because it doesn't matter. Right. And then that

365
00:23:03,267 --> 00:23:06,813
adds up. That will definitely add up to a bad guest

366
00:23:06,813 --> 00:23:10,392
experience. So keeping every standard at the highest level

367
00:23:10,569 --> 00:23:14,324
ensures that everyone is— it won't

368
00:23:14,372 --> 00:23:18,173
allow for even the slightest misstep. I told this story

369
00:23:18,205 --> 00:23:21,588
many times. I just told you the other day. We were in Palermo at a

370
00:23:21,892 --> 00:23:24,553
seaside restaurant, and I ordered, uh,

371
00:23:25,002 --> 00:23:28,801
supertuscan guadalattasio, you know, that antinori thing. I just had it

372
00:23:28,801 --> 00:23:32,617
here, actually. I go, I know my— I have to play song with

373
00:23:32,617 --> 00:23:35,679
my friends because I know each one's palate, and I have to make sure I

374
00:23:35,743 --> 00:23:38,051
get stuff that they're all going to say, wow, that was really good. Yeah, because

375
00:23:38,067 --> 00:23:41,193
they say to me, that was average, or that's not bad, then I'm losing my

376
00:23:41,193 --> 00:23:44,419
credibility. of what I've done here. But the point is,

377
00:23:45,742 --> 00:23:47,784
I think this guy was Serbian.

378
00:23:49,517 --> 00:23:53,181
And I paid, I gave him a big tip on the side by myself

379
00:23:53,310 --> 00:23:57,119
because his service was so inspiring. And it

380
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,830
wasn't the most expensive wine on the menu, but he made you feel

381
00:24:00,830 --> 00:24:04,460
like you were getting treated, A, B, you ordered the

382
00:24:04,460 --> 00:24:08,010
best thing in the world. Yeah. And he respected that bottle so much that it

383
00:24:08,010 --> 00:24:11,065
came through in his service. Then I had the exact opposite

384
00:24:11,377 --> 00:24:14,909
experience recently in Beverly Hills. Won't

385
00:24:15,166 --> 00:24:18,312
throw anybody under the bus, but it was the sommier who knew everything and wanted

386
00:24:18,312 --> 00:24:21,764
to know who you knew and wanted you to know what he's tasted and wanted

387
00:24:21,764 --> 00:24:25,087
to know what tastings he's been to. And I thought, what an

388
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:28,732
ironic difference between how you bring service to the

389
00:24:28,732 --> 00:24:32,424
table. And I think this is what you've learned from this. Yeah. And I had

390
00:24:32,424 --> 00:24:36,021
a horri— I'll, I'll say, Nate, I had a horrible ex— my first Michelin-starred

391
00:24:36,021 --> 00:24:39,730
restaurant that I ever went to, After I got my job on Once and

392
00:24:39,730 --> 00:24:43,471
Again, which was my first TV show with Ed Zwick and Marshall

393
00:24:43,503 --> 00:24:47,244
Herskovitz, I treated myself to

394
00:24:47,822 --> 00:24:51,130
Jean-Georges in New York. Oh, really? And the

395
00:24:51,130 --> 00:24:54,839
sommelier made me feel like I

396
00:24:54,839 --> 00:24:58,227
didn't belong there. He made me feel uncomfortable

397
00:24:59,062 --> 00:25:02,385
and self-aware and embarrassed.

398
00:25:03,425 --> 00:25:06,837
He made me feel awful. And I never forgot, I was

399
00:25:07,127 --> 00:25:10,814
27. I'll never forget that experience. And so,

400
00:25:12,844 --> 00:25:16,649
I knew immediately what I didn't wanna do. Of course. And how not to,

401
00:25:17,375 --> 00:25:21,216
and like you said, to make everyone feel special. Everyone's spending a lot of

402
00:25:21,232 --> 00:25:22,669
money to come to these restaurants.

403
00:25:24,973 --> 00:25:28,296
They should be made to feel— It kind of goes back to what we were

404
00:25:28,296 --> 00:25:32,007
talking about earlier, which is, Some people are naturally hospitable and

405
00:25:32,039 --> 00:25:35,860
naturally want you to feel welcome wherever they do, and others

406
00:25:36,294 --> 00:25:39,521
have to learn it. And sometimes when you have to learn it, it's obvious, you

407
00:25:39,521 --> 00:25:42,748
know, it's just not part of the nature. And it's same with storytelling. It's same

408
00:25:42,780 --> 00:25:46,249
with, I have an audience. I need to take the audience by the

409
00:25:46,249 --> 00:25:49,877
hand. I need to make them feel comfortable to draw them into my

410
00:25:49,877 --> 00:25:53,650
story. And then I can push, I can push

411
00:25:53,779 --> 00:25:57,552
things. I can push their I can push their

412
00:25:57,568 --> 00:26:01,165
points of view. I can show them things that make them uncomfortable, but only after

413
00:26:01,165 --> 00:26:04,938
I've earned their trust. And I think that's what we

414
00:26:04,938 --> 00:26:08,679
try to do in hospitality as well. There was a— when I

415
00:26:09,209 --> 00:26:12,950
was at Xerox, my first job was at corporate America, and there was

416
00:26:12,982 --> 00:26:16,658
a young man who wrote a letter to all the sales reps and he

417
00:26:16,658 --> 00:26:19,532
called it the red carpet treatment. And I used it

418
00:26:20,432 --> 00:26:23,932
regularly in my customer service meetings with my company. And that was this.

419
00:26:24,526 --> 00:26:28,245
If Rosia, who is one of my customer service reps, invites me to

420
00:26:28,310 --> 00:26:31,626
dinner at her home, and I get there and I bang on the door, and

421
00:26:31,626 --> 00:26:35,182
she creeps the door open and peers out with one eye and says, hi,

422
00:26:37,319 --> 00:26:39,633
I'm not going to feel good about being there. I'm going to feel like, why

423
00:26:39,665 --> 00:26:42,863
am I here? But if she swings the door open and says, I can't believe

424
00:26:42,863 --> 00:26:46,230
you're here, thank you for coming, and invites me in with this

425
00:26:46,441 --> 00:26:50,202
wonderful smile. Yeah. And I— and then it led to the idea that

426
00:26:50,413 --> 00:26:54,249
we can't The people can't see us on the phone because we were largely internet

427
00:26:54,249 --> 00:26:57,942
and phone sales. So now we've gotta equate that

428
00:26:57,942 --> 00:27:01,602
smile onto the phone. Right, yeah. And that's when I realized

429
00:27:01,602 --> 00:27:04,990
that at some point after all these employees I had, that some people just,

430
00:27:05,889 --> 00:27:09,614
it's just not natural. Yeah, that's right. It's obviously natural to you. It is,

431
00:27:09,711 --> 00:27:12,825
it is. It's just a pleasure. I've been waiting tables since I was

432
00:27:13,018 --> 00:27:13,612
16.

433
00:27:16,936 --> 00:27:20,484
I love it. A part of me missed it for sure. I would, my

434
00:27:20,548 --> 00:27:24,208
daughter's a French-trained boulangère. In fact, she earned a star

435
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,081
with her chef in New York at Benno's before

436
00:27:27,788 --> 00:27:31,608
COVID and it closed, COVID. Now he's at Jean-Georges'

437
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:35,172
new restaurant. Okay. And so she was the baker of record at the time.

438
00:27:35,878 --> 00:27:39,394
And so we were always in New York doing things and

439
00:27:40,373 --> 00:27:44,146
constantly evaluating, so to speak. And

440
00:27:44,709 --> 00:27:48,181
I would do nothing, it'd be nothing more than— and now she's had 4 kids

441
00:27:48,181 --> 00:27:51,975
and she's back in LA. We're talking about a bakery, you know,

442
00:27:52,024 --> 00:27:54,842
commercial and local.

443
00:27:56,549 --> 00:28:00,189
It would do nothing more for joy for me to be the front man.

444
00:28:00,415 --> 00:28:02,827
Yeah. You know what she told me? You have to interview.

445
00:28:05,651 --> 00:28:09,135
I'm like, okay, where and when do I do this interview? What do you

446
00:28:09,168 --> 00:28:12,934
think of of this idea. There's a book by a guy named Patrick Hugh. He

447
00:28:13,046 --> 00:28:16,626
runs the Strand House in Hermosa Beach now.

448
00:28:17,236 --> 00:28:20,736
He wrote a book years ago called The Last Days of Haute Cuisine,

449
00:28:21,233 --> 00:28:24,492
and it's about Pavillon restaurant in New York from

450
00:28:24,685 --> 00:28:28,152
Henri Soleil. And it's about the

451
00:28:28,393 --> 00:28:32,101
couple sitting on one side of the table and enjoying, and that, that's

452
00:28:32,230 --> 00:28:35,970
their table for the night. Mm-hmm. And that it's all about the presentation

453
00:28:36,034 --> 00:28:39,565
and the meaning and the, the idea of this high-level cuisine.

454
00:28:40,292 --> 00:28:43,070
Is that still a thing? Is haute cuisine

455
00:28:44,556 --> 00:28:48,279
still on the upswing? Because certainly, let me equate it this way.

456
00:28:48,987 --> 00:28:52,804
The high-end wine area is still very solid. Yeah. I just got a huge

457
00:28:52,852 --> 00:28:55,940
order for some Grand Cru and some classified growth

458
00:28:57,993 --> 00:29:01,809
where the middle stuff is kind of suffering. Right. And then the low stuff

459
00:29:01,809 --> 00:29:04,525
is just slugging it out in the trenches at the markets. Right.

460
00:29:05,498 --> 00:29:08,525
But is haute cuisine still a thing? People still—

461
00:29:09,626 --> 00:29:12,150
You know, everyone's been asking me,

462
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:17,368
like, is Napa dead? Well, I can answer that

463
00:29:17,368 --> 00:29:21,178
question. Go ahead. Well, I would say no, but I would say

464
00:29:21,788 --> 00:29:25,622
there is room for everything. There's room for haute cuisine,

465
00:29:26,318 --> 00:29:30,141
and there's room for tacos. There's

466
00:29:30,141 --> 00:29:33,875
Broadway, there's Off-Broadway, There's La Mama, and

467
00:29:33,908 --> 00:29:37,688
then you have stuff in New Jersey. Like, there's room for all of it.

468
00:29:37,769 --> 00:29:41,391
Mm-hmm. There's room for the $250 tasting in

469
00:29:41,423 --> 00:29:45,200
Napa, and there's room for the walk-in tasting

470
00:29:45,297 --> 00:29:49,082
room in Napa. You don't need to choose one or

471
00:29:49,082 --> 00:29:52,535
the other. There doesn't need to be a fight, a fight

472
00:29:52,535 --> 00:29:56,310
fest, a smackdown between, you know, the $100

473
00:29:56,681 --> 00:29:59,994
Napa Cab and the $25 cab. Like,

474
00:30:00,074 --> 00:30:03,891
there's room for all of it. All of it can coexist. Well,

475
00:30:03,923 --> 00:30:07,580
let's see if we can peel that onion back because it's a very complicated

476
00:30:08,815 --> 00:30:12,519
issue with Napa itself. And since you're there working with Netflix on

477
00:30:12,583 --> 00:30:15,711
the show Uncorked, which— is

478
00:30:15,791 --> 00:30:19,303
that the working title or is that the real title? That's our working title.

479
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:23,152
Because come on, man, you can do better than Uncorked. There's

480
00:30:23,232 --> 00:30:26,456
already a show, a movie on Netflix called

481
00:30:26,456 --> 00:30:30,260
Uncorked. And once a Once a show's on Netflix

482
00:30:30,390 --> 00:30:33,908
that Netflix made, it rarely leaves the

483
00:30:33,908 --> 00:30:37,504
platform. Yeah. So we'll see. 'Cause I mean, I was

484
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,062
working on a show and we'll talk about that maybe off camera, but, and we

485
00:30:41,062 --> 00:30:44,912
call it, the producer, he's one of Bourdain's producers and

486
00:30:45,173 --> 00:30:47,502
he wanted to call it Through the Grapevine. I'm like, dude,

487
00:30:49,603 --> 00:30:53,186
anybody could have come up with that title. Anyway, so

488
00:30:53,523 --> 00:30:56,672
let's just, I'm gonna just lay this premise down and then we'll talk about it

489
00:30:56,672 --> 00:31:00,508
because I had Violet Grgich on the show recently and here's, tasting room sales

490
00:31:00,508 --> 00:31:04,347
are off 30%. We're there regularly, and the hotel prices have

491
00:31:04,363 --> 00:31:06,917
not changed even though occupancy is like 30%.

492
00:31:08,315 --> 00:31:12,009
And then I was talking to Stephen McPherson, who used to be

493
00:31:12,009 --> 00:31:15,783
the president of ABC TV. Probably know who he is. And he owns a

494
00:31:15,783 --> 00:31:19,542
vineyard called The Promise. Mm-hmm. And it's a members-only

495
00:31:19,542 --> 00:31:23,381
thing. It's beautiful. It's great. We have a really good relationship. And his

496
00:31:23,477 --> 00:31:27,175
tasting room manager at the time was telling us that that it's kind of

497
00:31:27,191 --> 00:31:30,894
known in Napa that the hotels are keeping their occupancy low,

498
00:31:31,296 --> 00:31:34,822
running a skeleton crew, not paying all the payroll that needs— they need to do,

499
00:31:35,305 --> 00:31:38,850
and living with 30% occupancy but still getting the, the revenue.

500
00:31:39,285 --> 00:31:43,120
If they lower the prices, we'd have more visitors, right? But that equates

501
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:46,741
to lower walk-in traffic at tasting rooms. And, you know,

502
00:31:46,919 --> 00:31:49,877
Napa has evolved. It used to be you could just walk in and it would

503
00:31:49,926 --> 00:31:53,658
be $25 for tasting, and now it's we want to do appointments, and it

504
00:31:53,658 --> 00:31:57,254
becomes much harder to navigate

505
00:31:57,254 --> 00:32:00,337
Napa than it used to be. And I think that's loosening again because of the

506
00:32:00,562 --> 00:32:03,388
troubles we're having. But I was talking to

507
00:32:04,721 --> 00:32:08,414
Jan Krupp. You ever heard of this guy? No. It's a crazy

508
00:32:08,414 --> 00:32:12,251
good story. I'm going to publish it in the next week. He's an

509
00:32:12,347 --> 00:32:15,864
MD who just gave up being a very well-known doctor

510
00:32:16,121 --> 00:32:19,890
when he created Stagecoach Vineyards. It's his

511
00:32:19,890 --> 00:32:23,570
vineyard. Okay. He, he bought it and made it what

512
00:32:23,570 --> 00:32:27,230
it is and then sold it to Gala for like $200 million. Right. Which

513
00:32:27,230 --> 00:32:30,970
is crazy. And I— and one of the questions I asked him was, would

514
00:32:30,970 --> 00:32:34,790
that happen today? Would you have gotten $180 to $200

515
00:32:34,790 --> 00:32:37,650
million? He's like, no, I wouldn't even gotten half of it. I wouldn't even gotten

516
00:32:37,650 --> 00:32:40,830
a quarter of it, probably. Yeah. So that's how different Napa

517
00:32:40,830 --> 00:32:44,570
is. And we were discussing this idea that Napa landed on

518
00:32:44,570 --> 00:32:48,301
this opulent over-extracted, micro-oxygenated wine.

519
00:32:48,980 --> 00:32:52,699
And that seems to be loosening too. So where is, where do you

520
00:32:52,699 --> 00:32:55,532
see it going now that you're studying it and you're working there?

521
00:32:57,464 --> 00:33:01,053
Like I said, there's room for all of it. Just because, you know,

522
00:33:02,174 --> 00:33:05,863
Realm is making these, I'll drink those,

523
00:33:06,603 --> 00:33:10,446
I'll drink those reductive, velvety, smooth wines

524
00:33:10,703 --> 00:33:14,162
all day long. And I'll also crave wines

525
00:33:14,501 --> 00:33:18,066
that Brad Grimes is making at Abreu, which are full of tannin and

526
00:33:18,131 --> 00:33:21,772
full of acid and full of fruit, and are wild and

527
00:33:21,772 --> 00:33:25,004
untamed, and require a lot of aging.

528
00:33:25,117 --> 00:33:28,905
Mm-hmm. But are exciting. Like, there's room for

529
00:33:29,083 --> 00:33:32,546
all of it. And yes, there's a

530
00:33:32,546 --> 00:33:36,250
downturn in Napa, but I was talking with Tor Kenward, who

531
00:33:36,250 --> 00:33:39,436
makes Tor, And Thor's been around forever,

532
00:33:40,193 --> 00:33:43,676
and Thor thinks it's a good thing. He thinks that it's gonna

533
00:33:43,676 --> 00:33:47,079
shake out the people who are there for ego or

534
00:33:47,531 --> 00:33:51,258
don't need to be there, don't have the

535
00:33:51,403 --> 00:33:54,920
passion that a lot of people have and

536
00:33:54,952 --> 00:33:58,237
need to stay in the wine business. Well, that's his

537
00:33:58,286 --> 00:34:01,235
viewpoint. But Bordeaux's, everyone's, Bordeaux's struggling.

538
00:34:02,696 --> 00:34:06,336
It's not just Napa. We were in Wine Paris and the, the

539
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:10,329
couple of quick observations. One was, yes, everybody— here's what's

540
00:34:10,329 --> 00:34:13,841
interesting to me about wine in general, and that's my dad's store in

541
00:34:13,889 --> 00:34:17,641
1975, same problem as it was today. It always is the same

542
00:34:17,641 --> 00:34:21,330
problem. Yeah. James Conaway wrote those Napa books like American

543
00:34:21,458 --> 00:34:25,162
Eden or something in the '90s. Yeah. No, 1990. And it was

544
00:34:25,227 --> 00:34:28,658
all about like how Napa's going downhill. I mean,

545
00:34:29,877 --> 00:34:33,393
Look, every industry I've ever wanted to be in is on the death knell.

546
00:34:33,506 --> 00:34:37,022
Yeah, right. I wanted to be a Broadway playwright. I wanted to be a TV

547
00:34:37,022 --> 00:34:40,682
writer. And now I wanna be in the wine business. Like, everything I

548
00:34:40,795 --> 00:34:44,375
love is like, people say

549
00:34:44,648 --> 00:34:47,233
is dying away. And, but

550
00:34:47,956 --> 00:34:51,536
because it's, you know why? Because these professions

551
00:34:51,729 --> 00:34:55,390
are vulnerable. There's an artistry involved. There's

552
00:34:55,647 --> 00:34:58,987
real people involved. You need to be

553
00:34:59,501 --> 00:35:03,210
vulnerable. You need to be working on a

554
00:35:03,210 --> 00:35:06,261
very kind of intimate level.

555
00:35:07,706 --> 00:35:11,206
And those things are always gonna be in danger. You said exactly right.

556
00:35:12,266 --> 00:35:15,895
And what I've learned was,

557
00:35:16,296 --> 00:35:19,250
has been, and I don't think it's ever gonna change,

558
00:35:21,112 --> 00:35:24,961
the business of wine is entirely different than the perceived romanticism of

559
00:35:24,961 --> 00:35:28,056
wine. That's right. Right. And the margins suck, and

560
00:35:29,066 --> 00:35:32,321
it takes nothing but what you said— passion and perseverance— to

561
00:35:32,818 --> 00:35:36,474
make it work. It's kind of like real estate. In the good times, all brokers—

562
00:35:36,506 --> 00:35:40,114
you know, the good times floats all boats. Yeah. But the, the, the

563
00:35:40,259 --> 00:35:44,043
lousy brokers, when the times are tough, fail. That's right.

564
00:35:44,508 --> 00:35:48,308
And you can't get into the wine business without the

565
00:35:48,453 --> 00:35:52,060
earnest passion to present a product that

566
00:35:52,060 --> 00:35:55,795
represents what your philosophy is in life, really, right? Is it—

567
00:35:57,013 --> 00:36:00,732
what are you trying to do here? Yeah. And, but there's also this

568
00:36:00,876 --> 00:36:03,970
weird thing, and I was going to bring it up with Wine Paris. I realized

569
00:36:04,002 --> 00:36:07,657
walking through with just thousands and thousands and thousands of vendors, 6,000

570
00:36:07,689 --> 00:36:11,184
wineries were there, and each with 10 to 25 bottles.

571
00:36:11,521 --> 00:36:15,272
So you're talking about 100,000 bottles of wine there. all in doing,

572
00:36:15,448 --> 00:36:19,295
trying to do the same thing. Yeah. It's not like a tech show where you

573
00:36:19,295 --> 00:36:21,924
go, there's some guy selling a semiconductor and somebody else is selling memory

574
00:36:23,159 --> 00:36:26,894
in the next booth. Yeah. Everybody in that building is trying for the same

575
00:36:26,990 --> 00:36:30,244
customer, whether it's retail or on-sale or off-sale, whatever. Right?

576
00:36:30,613 --> 00:36:34,380
Yeah. Or bulk sales or whatever they're doing. And I go, wow, what

577
00:36:34,380 --> 00:36:37,874
an interesting industry. And the other thing I realized is that none of

578
00:36:38,468 --> 00:36:42,042
cross-industry strategies work in the wine trade. I can't tell you how many

579
00:36:42,154 --> 00:36:45,633
people over the years have come to me to sell me wine that failed because

580
00:36:45,745 --> 00:36:49,294
they brought, um, a different industry

581
00:36:50,114 --> 00:36:53,395
of business sense. Right, right. And most recently,

582
00:36:55,180 --> 00:36:58,420
uh, this young man came to me. He was from MIT,

583
00:36:58,888 --> 00:37:02,211
Master of Business. And I tried to do a deal with him,

584
00:37:03,098 --> 00:37:06,243
and I offered him— he wanted $120 frontline for a case of wine, and I

585
00:37:06,243 --> 00:37:09,766
offered him $108, and he said no. And that was the end of the

586
00:37:09,766 --> 00:37:13,449
conversation. There was no negotiation. That's not the way we do it.

587
00:37:13,722 --> 00:37:17,498
Doesn't meet my pro forma, right? Done. And I

588
00:37:17,498 --> 00:37:20,439
never heard from him again till I saw him at a show like 5 years

589
00:37:20,455 --> 00:37:23,749
later. Yeah. And we'd never met. And I shook his hand, I said, told him

590
00:37:23,749 --> 00:37:26,658
who I was. He says, dude, I'm so sorry. He goes, I had no idea

591
00:37:26,658 --> 00:37:29,920
what I was talking about, right? Because he realized that those

592
00:37:30,579 --> 00:37:34,278
pro forma business school things don't apply. Yeah. I've seen it with

593
00:37:34,359 --> 00:37:38,043
rug manufacturers trying to apply to the wine

594
00:37:38,075 --> 00:37:41,919
trade. Doesn't work. And I think it's what you're saying. It's that passion

595
00:37:41,952 --> 00:37:45,656
and perseverance. And the people, and like, I think it's so easy to

596
00:37:45,672 --> 00:37:49,344
say anything, all the things people have been saying about

597
00:37:49,344 --> 00:37:52,664
Napa. But as soon as you meet the people making the wine there,

598
00:37:54,139 --> 00:37:57,892
you, I think you'll stop saying those things. Yeah. The real

599
00:37:57,924 --> 00:38:01,307
people. Real people like Graham and Alex MacDonald.

600
00:38:02,398 --> 00:38:05,573
Like, they're the future of Napa. Chris Morosoli, the grower.

601
00:38:06,167 --> 00:38:10,004
future of Napa. Like, these are great people

602
00:38:10,036 --> 00:38:13,376
with great stories who are making great wine

603
00:38:14,195 --> 00:38:17,807
and who have integrity and passion and, and, and

604
00:38:17,904 --> 00:38:21,516
care about pushing the ball forward. So it's interesting. You just

605
00:38:21,516 --> 00:38:25,305
triggered a thought. I've interviewed the

606
00:38:25,305 --> 00:38:28,259
Baird family. The Bairds used to walk in that store all the time. In fact,

607
00:38:28,420 --> 00:38:32,257
Beau, Beau will tell you that most likely, and this is, cracked me

608
00:38:32,257 --> 00:38:35,517
up because he said, we celebrated when my dad got home

609
00:38:36,191 --> 00:38:39,499
from Bordeaux, that he's on a trip at the time that they won the judgment,

610
00:38:40,848 --> 00:38:44,541
with a bottle of Meursault. Mm-hmm. He goes, I'm pretty sure we bought it from

611
00:38:44,637 --> 00:38:48,378
Pee Wee Liquor. They bought it from my dad. So why would you be celebrating

612
00:38:48,474 --> 00:38:52,167
beating the French, you know, Burgundies with the

613
00:38:52,167 --> 00:38:55,877
Burgundy? I guess maybe that would be the irony of it all, right? But anyway,

614
00:38:55,893 --> 00:38:59,631
that generation '70s, and even before that, the Mondavis of the

615
00:38:59,631 --> 00:39:03,431
world and the Napa Valley Vintners Association with Brother Timothy and Mr. Martini

616
00:39:03,431 --> 00:39:07,263
and all those guys. That would— that probably was that essence of passion

617
00:39:07,263 --> 00:39:10,919
and pursuit because they had no idea they're gonna make any

618
00:39:10,967 --> 00:39:14,719
money at it. Right. Right? Yeah. And then the romanticism

619
00:39:14,783 --> 00:39:18,407
hit, and, you know, the, the badge of honor of having your own brand and

620
00:39:18,407 --> 00:39:22,111
building this great château. And some of them are really ugly. Sorry, I just had

621
00:39:22,111 --> 00:39:25,719
to throw that in there. And then, and then Now,

622
00:39:26,008 --> 00:39:29,521
maybe that is, maybe this is right. Maybe this is a settling

623
00:39:29,617 --> 00:39:33,211
of passionate people. Every business has an

624
00:39:33,387 --> 00:39:36,627
evolution. Every business has an up and a down. Like, it's,

625
00:39:37,397 --> 00:39:40,990
and Napa was like during COVID like, I think wine sales

626
00:39:41,087 --> 00:39:44,792
were booming. Oh, we killed it here. Yeah.

627
00:39:45,257 --> 00:39:49,011
So every, it's just a natural evolution of any

628
00:39:49,043 --> 00:39:52,219
industry. You know, one of the byproducts of COVID here was

629
00:39:52,460 --> 00:39:56,280
They would buy anything I told them. And we were prolific digital marketers and we

630
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:59,780
were mailing. I mailed 33 million emails in 2022, you

631
00:39:59,780 --> 00:40:03,260
know? So it's just, we were really good at it

632
00:40:03,260 --> 00:40:06,920
actually. So I started to collect. I'm not a collector. In fact,

633
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:10,620
before you leave, we're gonna walk to the cellar. And

634
00:40:10,620 --> 00:40:13,920
then when they bought the company in 2023, nobody, they didn't want any of that

635
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:17,700
stuff. I had all this wonderful wines. Wow. And

636
00:40:17,700 --> 00:40:21,140
they did. They only wanted the wines they knew they could sell. Now I could

637
00:40:21,140 --> 00:40:24,696
have sold those things during COVID but COVID didn't last long enough, unfortunately. So I

638
00:40:24,873 --> 00:40:28,706
ended up with this great cellar of wine for the rest of my life

639
00:40:28,706 --> 00:40:32,474
here. But

640
00:40:32,474 --> 00:40:36,083
COVID did that. I could tell them any— in fact,

641
00:40:36,099 --> 00:40:39,563
Caymus at the time and Silver Oak too,

642
00:40:40,493 --> 00:40:43,717
you know, the 2 icons of the Valley right now, or they were anyway.

643
00:40:44,502 --> 00:40:48,159
Still are. They would never— they would've never come here

644
00:40:48,448 --> 00:40:52,079
because I was a club and it was, that it was passé for them. They

645
00:40:52,079 --> 00:40:55,731
didn't need the sales because they were on-premise. They all wanted on-premise. Why wouldn't you?

646
00:40:57,029 --> 00:41:00,867
But when they did come, finally, they go, will you help us? I said, if

647
00:41:00,932 --> 00:41:04,568
you stick with me after this is over, yeah, then I'll

648
00:41:04,568 --> 00:41:08,283
sell some of your wine. I could not keep Caymus 1 liters in stock.

649
00:41:09,154 --> 00:41:12,396
They gave me 18 a week. Wow. And I sold them

650
00:41:12,477 --> 00:41:15,719
instantly at $140 when now

651
00:41:15,784 --> 00:41:19,230
they're $89. Yeah, right. Yeah. So that's how

652
00:41:19,776 --> 00:41:23,470
good COVID was, and it just tanked. And I, I wonder

653
00:41:23,470 --> 00:41:27,276
what— since they brought it up, what you were in— were

654
00:41:27,324 --> 00:41:30,953
you in hospitality then about that time? No, I was just

655
00:41:30,953 --> 00:41:34,647
drinking a lot. Oh, because I'm wondering what happened if there

656
00:41:34,711 --> 00:41:38,260
was a resurgence, the opposite spike on on-premise

657
00:41:38,260 --> 00:41:41,793
sales when off-premise sales plummeted after

658
00:41:41,858 --> 00:41:44,506
COVID was over. I mean, we literally just back to

659
00:41:44,827 --> 00:41:48,658
2019, even before. Right. I wonder if that happened,

660
00:41:48,674 --> 00:41:52,168
if the hospitality on-premise sales rose or

661
00:41:52,761 --> 00:41:56,608
people just sort of backed off drinking a little bit. Yeah, I don't

662
00:41:56,608 --> 00:42:00,438
know. I'm not sure. Interesting. So what are you finding when you're shooting

663
00:42:00,454 --> 00:42:03,900
the show for Netflix? I don't know what you're allowed to divulge about what the

664
00:42:03,900 --> 00:42:07,635
show is about, but what surprised you of all this? So we're

665
00:42:07,635 --> 00:42:10,905
still, you know, so right now, so I'm writing with Darren Star, who

666
00:42:11,209 --> 00:42:14,206
created Emily in Paris. So, Darren's in Paris

667
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:19,046
filming the final season. So, once Darren gets back in the

668
00:42:19,046 --> 00:42:22,539
fall, we'll start the writers' room. And then we'll start filming

669
00:42:23,068 --> 00:42:26,818
around May of next year. And what do you think this is about?

670
00:42:28,100 --> 00:42:31,898
Can you say yet? Sure. I think it's about— it's funny, Darren

671
00:42:31,946 --> 00:42:35,631
and I, the Napa Valley Vintners asked us to come to their annual

672
00:42:35,647 --> 00:42:39,046
meeting. And one of the questions was, who's this for?

673
00:42:40,059 --> 00:42:43,674
Like, who's the audience of this show? And I— You asked that or they asked

674
00:42:43,674 --> 00:42:46,727
that? They asked that. Yeah. And I thought that was a great question. I don't

675
00:42:46,727 --> 00:42:50,370
know. And I thought about it and I told them this

676
00:42:50,420 --> 00:42:54,150
story. So

677
00:42:54,230 --> 00:42:58,007
when I was waiting tables in Minneapolis, the most expensive wine on our

678
00:42:58,007 --> 00:43:01,238
list was Silver Oak. So that's what I tried to sell the most of to

679
00:43:01,238 --> 00:43:04,713
make the most money. So I would tell the story of Silver Oak,

680
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:08,480
how we only get 2 bottles a week. It's highly allocated, blah, blah, blah,

681
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:11,780
blah, blah. And so I'd say, at the end of my spiel, it's like, so

682
00:43:11,780 --> 00:43:15,260
if you'd like a bottle, please let me know before they're gone. And

683
00:43:15,260 --> 00:43:18,960
I'd probably sell one a night. So I think we definitely got more than 2

684
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:22,360
a week. Yeah, of course. So that was my spiel. I don't even remember ever

685
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:26,040
being allocated like that, but good. Minnesota, maybe. So when I

686
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:29,740
moved to California, the first thing I wanted to do was go

687
00:43:29,740 --> 00:43:33,402
to Napa, and go to Silver Oak, 'cause I'd never even tried the

688
00:43:33,467 --> 00:43:36,695
wine, never had it before, but it was the wine I was selling

689
00:43:37,311 --> 00:43:41,095
so I could make the most money. But that was my dream. So

690
00:43:41,593 --> 00:43:45,241
I rode my bike to Napa from LA, 'cause I wanted to

691
00:43:45,241 --> 00:43:48,390
see California, and I thought that was the best way to do it. That's all

692
00:43:48,439 --> 00:43:50,420
uphill. All uphill against the wind.

693
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:55,742
So I get to Napa and it rains the whole time. I can't afford a

694
00:43:55,758 --> 00:43:58,460
hotel, so I'm camping. Camping in the state park.

695
00:43:59,738 --> 00:44:03,103
And I finally make my way to Silver Oak, drenched, muddy.

696
00:44:04,025 --> 00:44:07,401
I pay my $25 for the tasting, and

697
00:44:07,902 --> 00:44:11,310
whoever I'm talking to at the hospitality there, tell them I'm a waiter.

698
00:44:11,795 --> 00:44:15,546
And she says, oh my God, all the tastings are free if

699
00:44:15,546 --> 00:44:19,146
you're in trade. They refunded my money,

700
00:44:19,821 --> 00:44:23,334
and they asked where else I was going, and I said nowhere. Like,

701
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:27,637
I can't afford to— I can't afford all the tastings. Yeah. So

702
00:44:27,974 --> 00:44:31,603
she made calls for me and booked

703
00:44:31,603 --> 00:44:35,344
me for appointments at Caymus, Opus One, Grgich

704
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:38,474
Hills, um, and I think maybe Robert Sinskey.

705
00:44:39,775 --> 00:44:43,291
And I had free tastings. Wow. All these places.

706
00:44:43,788 --> 00:44:46,903
When was this? 25 years ago. And so

707
00:44:47,883 --> 00:44:51,587
I was treated I was wet, muddy, on my

708
00:44:51,587 --> 00:44:55,354
bike, couldn't afford a hotel room, and Napa rolled out the

709
00:44:55,354 --> 00:44:58,880
red carpet to me, and I was in awe. That's

710
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:02,455
crazy. I was treated like royalty, and I was a waiter.

711
00:45:03,369 --> 00:45:06,991
And I said, that's who the show's for.

712
00:45:08,001 --> 00:45:11,784
I wanna show Napa how I experienced Napa. What

713
00:45:11,784 --> 00:45:15,423
Napa— when Napa rolled out the red carpet for me,

714
00:45:15,990 --> 00:45:19,348
Like, that's why I wanted to give the audience that

715
00:45:19,510 --> 00:45:23,290
special treatment. So here's what I wrestle with, with

716
00:45:23,502 --> 00:45:26,377
wine media. I was on the— we were on a flight from Paris,

717
00:45:27,629 --> 00:45:31,386
and I see this wonderful production value wine

718
00:45:31,418 --> 00:45:35,078
show. It was on Grüner Veltliner, which I just thought of itself was really

719
00:45:35,078 --> 00:45:38,781
silly because you can't even pronounce it, let alone who's gonna

720
00:45:38,798 --> 00:45:42,146
watch this. And it was— the production value was really high.

721
00:45:42,567 --> 00:45:46,273
Fighting grapes. It was the worst. I was so

722
00:45:46,273 --> 00:45:49,964
embarrassed that a steward would see me watching

723
00:45:50,077 --> 00:45:53,910
this. And I thought, there's got to be better media than

724
00:45:53,910 --> 00:45:57,714
this. And of course, I'm a friend of Jason Wise of SomTV, etc. And there's

725
00:45:57,714 --> 00:46:01,351
another gentleman, Klaus de Jong. He was on the show recently. He called

726
00:46:01,351 --> 00:46:05,059
Wine Masters. He creates incredible footage, and

727
00:46:05,059 --> 00:46:08,416
it's mostly European marketplace. Mm-hmm. But

728
00:46:10,467 --> 00:46:14,198
we were in— we— I took 12 people to Bordeaux 2 years

729
00:46:14,198 --> 00:46:16,621
ago. And I'll never do that again

730
00:46:17,836 --> 00:46:21,156
because it worked and it'll never work like that again.

731
00:46:21,220 --> 00:46:24,118
Right, right. How is that possible? But anyway,

732
00:46:24,733 --> 00:46:27,852
there's 2 parts of this story. One is

733
00:46:29,501 --> 00:46:33,042
during Wine of the Month Club as a one-man show, basically, we sold 17 million

734
00:46:33,042 --> 00:46:36,570
bottles of wine. We tasted 100,000 and we treated a lot of

735
00:46:36,740 --> 00:46:40,400
thousands and thousands and thousands of customers to the idea of wine in the

736
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:44,040
$20 price range. And that credential was

737
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:47,640
interesting, but never really carried any,

738
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:52,060
um, persona weight with it. Nobody

739
00:46:52,060 --> 00:46:55,840
really cared. It was just a business. But when I show up with a

740
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:59,660
podcast card, uh-huh, and they Google the name and they look and see what's going

741
00:46:59,660 --> 00:47:03,240
on, I'm treated like— I'm like, I get the best treatment

742
00:47:03,240 --> 00:47:05,840
in the world. I'm like, I don't even deserve this, but I'll take it. So

743
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:09,245
anyway, the story goes, we were at Cheval Blanc. We're in the vineyard with

744
00:47:09,695 --> 00:47:13,079
Monsieur Clouet, and we're having, you know, $5,000 worth of

745
00:47:13,079 --> 00:47:16,881
samples. And one of the NBA stars from, uh, from

746
00:47:17,234 --> 00:47:20,955
France came down, Michael Pietrus, and we had a nice chat and blah, blah, blah.

747
00:47:21,950 --> 00:47:25,751
And I thought, I'm not gonna let this be what my friends think

748
00:47:25,751 --> 00:47:28,991
it is. Right. Like, they were extraordinarily flattered and

749
00:47:29,408 --> 00:47:32,921
happy to indulge, but I said, I want them to kind of

750
00:47:32,969 --> 00:47:36,049
see the other part. So I called ahead to a friend of mine who owns

751
00:47:36,915 --> 00:47:39,804
Château Canon-Chaigneau, which is a Landes Pomerol.

752
00:47:41,522 --> 00:47:45,024
Great wines. And we'd pull up on our bus and here's this

753
00:47:45,864 --> 00:47:49,591
cute château from the outside, but obviously not Cheval Blanc,

754
00:47:49,672 --> 00:47:53,344
not LVMH. Yeah. There's rusted pliers on top of the fermentation

755
00:47:53,393 --> 00:47:56,842
tank and the seats and the chairs in the tasting room don't match.

756
00:47:57,603 --> 00:48:01,444
And the glasses have spots on them. And I go, this is

757
00:48:01,478 --> 00:48:05,285
kind of more realistic Right? And so the point I'm trying to

758
00:48:05,285 --> 00:48:08,167
get to is I'm not into these

759
00:48:08,827 --> 00:48:12,595
vineyard drone shots, you know, in, in, in wine media. And

760
00:48:12,852 --> 00:48:16,181
I think that adds to the intimidation. And maybe your

761
00:48:16,181 --> 00:48:19,869
stories clearly points out it's not the intimidating.

762
00:48:20,063 --> 00:48:23,839
Well, I also, we wanna, we're definitely gonna romanticize

763
00:48:24,344 --> 00:48:28,120
wine. We're gonna romanticize the farming and we're gonna

764
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:31,674
show You're getting stung by wasps

765
00:48:32,027 --> 00:48:35,640
during harvest. Yeah, right. And you gotta wait, you're getting 5 hours of

766
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:39,429
sleep, and it's brutally hot, but also—

767
00:48:39,429 --> 00:48:43,090
Okay, so that's a good counterpoint to this romantic lifestyle. Yeah, but we get to

768
00:48:43,122 --> 00:48:45,611
show both. It doesn't need to be one or the other. No, that's true. We

769
00:48:45,611 --> 00:48:48,742
get to show all of it. I had the same experience. I went to Cheval

770
00:48:48,742 --> 00:48:52,483
Blanc, and then at Vue Sertan, which

771
00:48:52,531 --> 00:48:56,112
is right next door, the winemaker at Vieux Sertan, like, there was

772
00:48:56,144 --> 00:48:59,709
cardboard boxes everywhere. Same experience. Cobwebs. Yeah, right.

773
00:49:00,098 --> 00:49:02,270
And I love them both. Yeah. And they were both— No, it's great. And it

774
00:49:02,270 --> 00:49:06,025
was great. But yeah, you don't— I think you can do

775
00:49:06,107 --> 00:49:08,285
all of it. But like you said,

776
00:49:10,062 --> 00:49:13,635
what you're getting at is it's not just one thing. There's

777
00:49:13,651 --> 00:49:17,500
many experiences. And I think the drone shots through the vineyards

778
00:49:17,678 --> 00:49:21,483
are a cliché now, right? Just as is the Reservoir

779
00:49:21,597 --> 00:49:24,660
Dogs, your leads walking towards camera in slow motion,

780
00:49:25,321 --> 00:49:28,968
right? Right. There's certain things that have become cliché now, and it's our

781
00:49:28,968 --> 00:49:31,839
job to circumvent that.

782
00:49:32,943 --> 00:49:36,742
Because what's in the bottle is critical. And

783
00:49:36,839 --> 00:49:40,090
there's a group called Adani Global, and she's out of— they're out of

784
00:49:40,656 --> 00:49:44,469
Châteauneuf-du-Pape. It's Pauline Vicard and some famous women

785
00:49:44,501 --> 00:49:47,898
that work in that area, Côte d'Avontoux kind of thing.

786
00:49:49,577 --> 00:49:52,108
But they're, they're a think tank, and their,

787
00:49:53,422 --> 00:49:57,027
their position in life is to bring to the table the realities of the

788
00:49:57,027 --> 00:50:00,616
wine trade to the vendors. Okay. Like, wine

789
00:50:00,792 --> 00:50:04,157
is about consumerism. Let's face it, you and I can be as romantic as we

790
00:50:04,173 --> 00:50:07,906
want, but if nobody's buying it, you know, there's no industry,

791
00:50:08,098 --> 00:50:11,334
right? And, and there's a lot of doom and gloomers on

792
00:50:11,559 --> 00:50:14,603
Facebook and LinkedIn, all that, about the industry's in the tank or hope it still

793
00:50:14,603 --> 00:50:17,903
survives. It's like, come on, dude, it's been around for 6,000 years. It's not going

794
00:50:17,903 --> 00:50:20,791
anywhere. That's right. It's people like you and me which are always going to, you

795
00:50:20,791 --> 00:50:24,131
know, bolster the, the, the feeling of wine. Because it does—

796
00:50:25,858 --> 00:50:29,178
how you— how are you going to portray to the

797
00:50:29,468 --> 00:50:33,155
viewer this inspiration that you took to the table

798
00:50:33,912 --> 00:50:36,923
when selling a bottle of wine like Silver Oak in Minnesota? How are you going

799
00:50:36,923 --> 00:50:39,612
to do that? Because that's what we need. Well, I think, you know, like,

800
00:50:41,641 --> 00:50:45,410
it's a weird comparison because my kids can't drink. But when I make dinner at

801
00:50:45,410 --> 00:50:49,240
home, the kids are gone in like 15 minutes.

802
00:50:49,810 --> 00:50:52,840
Like, I cook for an hour. Yeah, I thought you'd say that. I love it.

803
00:50:53,250 --> 00:50:57,050
I love cooking. I give myself an hour, and 15

804
00:50:57,050 --> 00:50:59,450
minutes, they're off, and it's just me and my wife.

805
00:51:01,010 --> 00:51:03,080
When there's a bottle of wine at the table,

806
00:51:05,150 --> 00:51:08,950
every meal lasts longer. When we're out to dinner and

807
00:51:08,950 --> 00:51:12,744
there's a bottle of wine, Like, the

808
00:51:12,824 --> 00:51:15,285
time you have with your friends, with your family,

809
00:51:16,122 --> 00:51:19,790
increases exponentially with the amount of wine on the

810
00:51:19,790 --> 00:51:23,380
table. No question. And I think there's

811
00:51:23,444 --> 00:51:27,276
such, you know, being

812
00:51:27,292 --> 00:51:30,955
a playwright is a lot like now, it's like being a poet.

813
00:51:31,263 --> 00:51:34,763
It's kind of out of fashion. It's not

814
00:51:34,763 --> 00:51:38,386
sustainable. No. But there's something pure and

815
00:51:38,402 --> 00:51:42,139
magical about the theatrical experience

816
00:51:42,653 --> 00:51:45,989
or an incredible poem. And wine is art.

817
00:51:46,342 --> 00:51:48,973
Wine is history. And wine is—

818
00:51:50,112 --> 00:51:53,369
great wine is made by several

819
00:51:53,417 --> 00:51:56,465
individuals. What is your contemporary— well, first of all, do you like to cook?

820
00:51:57,283 --> 00:52:00,844
Sorry? Do you like to cook? I love to cook. And are you the main

821
00:52:00,876 --> 00:52:04,265
cook? I am the main cook in my house. Me too. Yeah. My daughter now

822
00:52:04,298 --> 00:52:07,570
lives with us because she's displaced by the fires, though she didn't lose her house,

823
00:52:07,635 --> 00:52:11,265
but they're still not there. Yeah. And so she and I work together. We started

824
00:52:11,265 --> 00:52:13,385
this new thing in the house, and I'll get to the real question, but we

825
00:52:13,385 --> 00:52:17,219
started this new thing because, you know, you fall into a rut sometime

826
00:52:17,219 --> 00:52:20,518
and you're making the same thing every few days. So we started to pick a

827
00:52:20,518 --> 00:52:23,899
cookbook. Yeah. And just find a couple recipes that, that are

828
00:52:24,093 --> 00:52:27,606
family-friendly to make. And, you know, like even Nancy Silverton, who was on the show

829
00:52:27,606 --> 00:52:31,310
recently, said Look, that cookbook you bought, you know, she, my daughter

830
00:52:31,310 --> 00:52:34,430
bought me an older cookbook. She goes, you really have to have a restaurant to

831
00:52:34,430 --> 00:52:38,270
make the recipe because the prep time takes so long. It's like, you really can't

832
00:52:38,270 --> 00:52:41,350
just do it, do it at home. But so we pick a restaurant. I just,

833
00:52:41,350 --> 00:52:44,729
we just did one from Jess Lander's Napa Valley

834
00:52:44,729 --> 00:52:48,390
Cookbook, which I wrote to her. I said, you know, we made

835
00:52:48,390 --> 00:52:51,770
this salad and these meatballs and they were incredible and they were

836
00:52:51,770 --> 00:52:55,030
relatively easy to make. Yeah. And she goes, thank you. That lit up my day

837
00:52:55,030 --> 00:52:58,207
that somebody actually opens the book anymore. Right. But it's a

838
00:52:58,674 --> 00:53:02,335
process that we like to go through. But you're right, having that

839
00:53:04,157 --> 00:53:07,994
bottle of wine, and that's— you have to show that

840
00:53:08,107 --> 00:53:11,898
romantic reason to have that bottle of wine on the table. And

841
00:53:12,157 --> 00:53:15,932
even in my house, here's the other thing I find. And are

842
00:53:15,932 --> 00:53:19,773
all your friends wine drinkers? No, no. And

843
00:53:19,853 --> 00:53:23,700
I think it's interesting, as I get older, a lot of people

844
00:53:23,700 --> 00:53:27,420
have stopped drinking wine. Yeah. Or can't tolerate it as well as they

845
00:53:27,420 --> 00:53:30,640
could have. In fact, 2 of my, one of my cousins who was the greatest

846
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:33,640
collector, and he used to tell me all the stuff he had, he goes, I

847
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:35,900
stopped drinking. Yeah. I was just sitting there with a friend of mine who has

848
00:53:35,900 --> 00:53:39,300
a beautiful underground cellar here in Arcadia. He goes, I have 2 bottles in it

849
00:53:39,300 --> 00:53:43,080
right now. Wow. And he turned off the air conditioner. Wow. Um, which is sad

850
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:46,460
in my opinion. Very sad. But, um, do you find that even

851
00:53:46,460 --> 00:53:50,151
this, this part's really interesting to me. In as

852
00:53:50,264 --> 00:53:53,940
intimidating as people think wine is, if you're not educated in it or

853
00:53:53,940 --> 00:53:57,423
you don't have the time to study it, you can still have an

854
00:53:57,423 --> 00:54:01,099
incredible conversation at a dinnertime or at a restaurant.

855
00:54:01,981 --> 00:54:05,770
And for me, the conversation always ends up, or at least part of

856
00:54:05,770 --> 00:54:09,494
it, is about the wine on the table without the intimidation. People that

857
00:54:09,606 --> 00:54:13,169
would, would've said the day before, I don't wanna learn about wine, it's too intimidating,

858
00:54:14,245 --> 00:54:17,198
end up in a conversation about wine. Mm-hmm. And I don't know if it's because

859
00:54:19,077 --> 00:54:22,609
at the moment, and they're tasting it, and something seems interesting, and they want to

860
00:54:22,626 --> 00:54:25,869
know more about it. And as long as you and I, or anybody else in

861
00:54:25,885 --> 00:54:29,514
this trade, aren't snobby about it, you know, you just

862
00:54:29,514 --> 00:54:33,239
release the information that you feel like, you dole it out, what you think is

863
00:54:33,351 --> 00:54:37,028
digestible. But it fascinates me that that happens.

864
00:54:37,767 --> 00:54:41,556
Yeah, and a lot of times, you know, you don't even have to be

865
00:54:41,556 --> 00:54:45,219
talking about the wine. But the only reason you're having the intimate

866
00:54:45,235 --> 00:54:48,610
conversations you're having with your friends and family is because of the wine.

867
00:54:49,333 --> 00:54:52,825
So whether you're talking directly about châteaux or

868
00:54:52,825 --> 00:54:54,704
soil or varietals,

869
00:54:56,770 --> 00:55:00,258
you could be talking about a memory you had back in high school, and the

870
00:55:00,258 --> 00:55:04,092
only reason you're there is because of this bottle. Right. So— We're not

871
00:55:04,092 --> 00:55:06,265
drinking Boone's Farm now, are we? No, exactly.

872
00:55:07,611 --> 00:55:11,364
Sugarized. We're already out of time, which is hard to believe it's been an hour.

873
00:55:12,770 --> 00:55:15,511
I hope we can do this again. Yeah, I'd love to. You know, we can

874
00:55:16,010 --> 00:55:19,622
share a lot of stories and probably move the needle a little bit on

875
00:55:19,961 --> 00:55:23,420
all kinds of things when it comes to doing this. So you're not in

876
00:55:23,517 --> 00:55:27,332
hospitality today? I am. I am still working at Gwen. Oh, you are?

877
00:55:27,477 --> 00:55:31,146
I am. I used to be every— I used to be the Tuesday night. Tuesday

878
00:55:31,146 --> 00:55:34,671
night was my night on the floor. I had to

879
00:55:34,671 --> 00:55:38,376
leave for, uh, to work on Uncorked. Um, but now I'm on

880
00:55:38,424 --> 00:55:42,134
call, so anytime Assam wants to go on vacation, gets sick,

881
00:55:43,065 --> 00:55:46,390
I'm, I'm, I'm there on the floor. They have, uh, just

882
00:55:46,454 --> 00:55:50,261
cocktails as well? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, full bar. I don't, I don't know why,

883
00:55:50,309 --> 00:55:53,649
you know, we, when we travel, we use the Michelin Guide because

884
00:55:54,484 --> 00:55:58,066
a couple reasons, but let's peel that back a little bit. There's a wonderful French

885
00:55:58,082 --> 00:56:01,310
movie called Le Huit, La Casa de los Ocho, which is the

886
00:56:01,455 --> 00:56:05,200
chicken the wing and the— anyway, it's a comedy

887
00:56:06,298 --> 00:56:09,512
between what would be Michelin

888
00:56:10,013 --> 00:56:13,548
and a rival, maybe Gault&Millau or something.

889
00:56:14,307 --> 00:56:17,782
And it's very funny. It's all in French, but it's very funny. And

890
00:56:19,341 --> 00:56:23,092
I'm wondering if that still has teeth. Now, I use

891
00:56:23,092 --> 00:56:26,504
it because I don't trust people that are on Yelp. What do they know? Yeah.

892
00:56:26,747 --> 00:56:30,287
Right? We can't possibly equate our palates and our experience

893
00:56:30,495 --> 00:56:33,436
with some guy that— oh, I love the Michelin Guide. Yeah, so the Michelin Guide,

894
00:56:33,452 --> 00:56:36,971
at least it's a regular and it's an internal rating

895
00:56:37,084 --> 00:56:40,924
based on the people that are educated inside. Yeah. And also, like,

896
00:56:41,085 --> 00:56:44,395
you know, I think a lot of people in service will say this, but like,

897
00:56:44,556 --> 00:56:48,348
we're a little— we're ruined. Like, I can't— bad

898
00:56:48,348 --> 00:56:52,076
service is really hard to stomach. Well,

899
00:56:52,108 --> 00:56:55,932
I suppose that was kind of the question about haute cuisine,

900
00:56:55,948 --> 00:56:59,672
if it's still valid. Obviously it is with— and LA just got

901
00:57:00,378 --> 00:57:04,199
Michelin back a few years ago, so now we actually have starred restaurants. And

902
00:57:05,034 --> 00:57:08,694
I found it interesting, mostly Asian. But, um, where is Gwen?

903
00:57:09,047 --> 00:57:12,692
Gwen is, uh, Sunset Boulevard, right in the middle of Hollywood. Um,

904
00:57:13,526 --> 00:57:17,235
Australian Wagyu, um, Creekstone, uh,

905
00:57:17,476 --> 00:57:21,232
incredible steaks, dry-aged in-house. This is not the— this one, did you

906
00:57:21,232 --> 00:57:23,673
just make a reservation? Yeah, yeah. Make a reservation.

907
00:57:25,460 --> 00:57:28,341
We, you know, or just come in, sit at the bar. Full menu.

908
00:57:29,442 --> 00:57:32,485
Great, great wine list. We're gonna have to do that. Yeah. Great wine list. Great

909
00:57:32,533 --> 00:57:35,123
wine. You know what it is now? Sorry? You know what it is now? The

910
00:57:35,139 --> 00:57:38,035
wine list? Yes. Yeah. I know where to find the wines now. I know where

911
00:57:38,035 --> 00:57:41,573
the cellar is. That's great. Pleasure having you in. Pleasure. Thank you.

912
00:57:41,895 --> 00:57:42,747
My pleasure. Thanks, man. Cheers.