With a Phd. In History, Chad Ludington Speaks The History Of Wine. Really Quite Fascinating.

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I think we are in a more serious wine moment. But as you know, wine

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consumption among the new generation of young people in

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America as well as in France is declining. 21 to 35

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crowd is not drinking as much wine as my crowd did and your crowd did.

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Why that is, it's not quite clear. Wine seems a little staid

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to them. Of course, natural wines, which kind of fall into that category of young

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creatives, are also doing fairly well in that crowd. But that's

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such a small percentage of overall wine production. Sit back and

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grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul

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K. Welcome to Wine Talks with Paul

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Kay. And we are in studio today in beautiful Southern California, about to have a

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conversation with Charles Luddings. It out in New York. Introductions in just a moment.

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Hey, have a listen to a show that's coming out with Florence

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Cathiard, and she owns the Chateau Smith aux Lafitte in the

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Pas Sac Leon district of Grave, as well

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as one of Lou, one of the historical properties in the Napa

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Valley under the Cathiard vineyard designation, once owned

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by Louis Martini. It's an incredible conversation. What an elegant,

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driven, athletic woman at that. But now, while we're here

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to have a conversation with Charles Ludington. You know, Charles, I keep putting down

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Chad. What do you go by? Charles? Please call me Chad. Since we're,

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we're not, we're not good friends here, Paul. So we're all good friends now. Chad

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has a BA in history, a master's in history, a master's of philosophy

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in history, and a PhD in history. And you

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know that. All from Ivy League

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schools. But your passion, you know, you, it's. I was

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reading your, your bio a little bit. It was talking about how you

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switched into the history of wine, which is really a fascinating subject because there aren't

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too many of you around that actually have this deep understanding of the

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value of the history of wine. How did that happen?

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Oh, that's a great question, Paul. I was

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after, after college, I played basketball for a year in

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France. And for better or for worse, I was in Paris and I fell in

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love with Paris and more so than, than, than

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basketball. So it was. And part of that

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was the wine, the food,

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and just the. Yeah. The whole

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Parisian life. And so

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I, I was hooked at that point. And

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then when I was treated to a team in Spain, I said, you know, I

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really want to stay here in France. And I found a way of doing that.

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And so I was. Went on to write a biography

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of this Franco Irish family who ended up in

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America, but that allowed me to stay doing research in Paris. And

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then eventually I went off to grad school and I was looking for

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a way to combine my interest in Irish history

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and French history. And I was working at a wine store in New

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York to kind of pay for my habit, as it were.

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Make the wine cheaper for a grad student by working on Saturdays at

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Aster. Sorry, not Astor. I was just thinking. Just

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thinking about after the. About Union Square wines and spirits, which

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is no longer where it used to be in any event. And then I

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was encouraged by one of my professors, a guy named Simon Shama, who was

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a cultural historian, to try to combine my interest in

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Irish and British history and wine. And next thing you

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know, I was off to the races with a. With a PhD on

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the politics of wine in Britain in the period 1649

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to 1860, when wine was a very politicized

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commodity because it was a highly taxed

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commodity and a source of revenue for the government, very important source.

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And it had all sorts of cultural and social and

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political meanings, what wine you consumed. And so I just found wine with this

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amazing lens onto British history.

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And you've expanded that into. Back into Irish history and French

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history. And I've just published a book on the Irish and Bordeaux,

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and I'm working on another version of that. And

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now I'm also. I'm going to back you all the way up to playing basketball

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in Paris. Sure, sure. Because that's fascinating stuff. And we're going to peel

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back some of that. We're not going to have enough time to do all the

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things that I want to talk about. We'll have to do this again. But we're

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going to Paris in a week. I'll go there as often as I can,

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stay as long as I can. If I can just get a layover for one

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night, I'll go to Paris and I'll go into town and I'll just hang out.

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I am with you on this. I'm in love with the city, and I can't

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wait to get there, and I can't wait to come back when I'm gone. And

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in fact, yesterday morning I had this aberration. I said, you know, we're supposed to

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stop in Paris on the way home from Sicily. So I think. Think we're just

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going to extend that. And I called American Express and got the flight moved a

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few days so that we could spend a few nights on the way out, you

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know, just. Just hanging. And so I get that, you know, it's Interesting about the.

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You played basketball. I know you played in college and you,

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you went to France. Isn't it interesting now? Because

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there's a huge interest in wine in the

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NBA. Huge. To the extent that they have wineries,

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not just brands, you know, there's. As you and I know, the celebrity endorsed brand

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is different than sort of the person that's involved with it. Like Dwyane

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Wade has a winery and I, I just find it

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culturally interesting that this has become such an important part. In fact,

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there's a restaurant here in LA that the Lakers call after a

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game. We're on our way over. Don't close the kitchen. Pull out a couple

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of Burgundies and some Grand Cruise and let's. We're coming to

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town. Yeah, it's amazing. Wine has,

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has really entered the NBA in, in, in a major way, as you just

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said. You know, I, I won. Of French

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players in the NBA has had on that. That's certainly

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possible. Tony Parker, who had an American dad who had

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gone over to play basketball in France just as I did, he married

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a French woman. Obviously, Tony Parker becomes this

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fantastic player, but he was very interested in, you know, having

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grown up in France, he was very interested in wine. And in fact he

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has a chateau down in a domain down in, in Provence now which

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mostly makes rose, which of course was having a moment, but I think he's, he's

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a pretty serious wine guy, him myself. And you

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know, there have been other Boris Diaw and other

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French players back, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and of

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course there are far more now. And as we saw in last

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summer's Olympics back in Paris with, you know,

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Wimby and quite a few others, the. France is

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perhaps the second best basketball country in the world at this, you

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know, currently. And all those players bring their

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Frenchness to the league. But you know, I don't know how much that had an

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impact on people like JJ Redick or LeBron James or

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Dwyane Wade and others who have professed this incredible interest

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in wine and have, you know, have serious collections, some

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of them. And I think it's become a thing among them to

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both to sort of to share wine with each other, but also to kind

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of there's one upmanship, there's competitive, you know, oh, I opened a, you

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know, Lafitte 82

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last night. What did you guys have? Yeah, it goes around and around

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and so it's, you know, it's. Yeah, it's an amazing, it's an amazing

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aspect of contemporary wine culture. And basketball

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culture. That's funny story, because I think I told you briefly, but we were at

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Cheval Blanc, we're having lunch in the vineyard with Monsieur Clay,

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and this big black dude comes down, and he's introduced himself

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as Mike Pietras. And we started talking.

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And then before I knew it, after I got home, I was on a Zoom

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call with him and Boris, talking about the lifestyle of Bordeaux and

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wine. But the way that happened was very bizarre.

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One of my guests on this trip was up on the roof of Cheval Blanc,

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and Mike was up there. They started talking, and my

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guest had been the cameraman at a Clippers game, and Mike had

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taken him out as he was shooting a basket and had, you

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know, lay up and fell on him. And he goes, you know, he

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goes, Mr. Patriots, do you remember me? You knocked me. You knocked me

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over. And he goes, I do remember that. And then

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he says, you got to come down and say hi to our group. And so

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he came down and I. And that's what started this sort of interest. And then

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I had a conversation with Dwayne Wade's number two guy, George Walker, up. Up in

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Napa. You think that's. And this is going to

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lead into this conversation about the lifestyle, wine, the history of wine, you know,

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developing this lifestyle. That, that. That I don't think

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is an opulent. It's not these. They're not chasing

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this opulent lifestyle that shows you've

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arrived in life. It's just. It's just the idea of

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wine and its complexities and its nuances and

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what it does at the dinner table. Is that. Would that be

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accurate? Yeah, you know,

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that's a fantastic question, because I suppose, you know,

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the. The academic in me and say you probably can't separate either

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one from the other, but. But, you know, to me, there are

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these inherent joys, and obviously there are to you, too, and to many of your

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listeners, just, you know, in wine. And once you discover

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those, you know, especially when you come

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from a background where maybe that just wasn't at all a part of what you

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grew up with, and you discover that and you think, oh, my Lord, you know,

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this. This wine is. Could be so complex

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and. And when you, you know, combine it with food

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and if you love both those things, athletes certainly love eating

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and, you know, some physical pleasures, after all the

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stress they're putting their body under, it makes perfect sense that people are just saying,

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look, this is great. I didn't know about this necessarily, growing

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up. Just like most basketball players, most Americans don't grow

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up in sort of fine wine families. Certainly

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my parents were just giving an example,

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were beer and

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Matuse and.

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Lancers. You know, my dad had a martini, his beer

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Matuse and, you know, occasional martini, and then

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spent a year in Lyon. He was a

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professor also and discovered

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Beaujolais because he played on a. He played on the local basketball team.

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And a lot of the games were around the city of Lyon,

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and some of them were up in the Beaujolais region. And, you know,

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after the games, you know, sometimes on outdoor mud courts. I'm not making this

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up, you know, where the ball wouldn't actually bounce, would

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you know, that there would be this big feast with

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the village that maybe you just defeated in hoops,

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and you'd sit down to the wine that came from the

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fields that surround the court. That's amazing.

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So there's, you know, so there's that discovery of wine. That's an amazing thing. Now,

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to the other point, you know, I think it's very hard to separate

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the. The historical aspect of wine too. Especially really

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fine wines have often meant

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to the consumers themselves. You know, I

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have, I've arrived. You know, I can afford this. And it's. So

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it's both a statement to oneself and of course, it's a way. It's, it's, it's.

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It's a display to. To others who know the language

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of wine that, you know, you've arrived. And you see this with, you know, going

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back to some of the things I've written on that about in the

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17th and 18th century in England, the

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merchants and the lawyers who have as much money as the

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aristocrats, in some cases more, they use wine

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and their appreciation of wine as

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a symbol to tell the aristocrats, we've arrived, we're

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here, we deserve to be here. And you see the same thing

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20 years ago, starting in the Chinese market,

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where wine, and particularly Bordeaux, more recently, Burgundy

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becomes a way of saying, you know, we. We. We've made money. You know, we're

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now a Shanghai millionaire, or we,

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and we know wine. And so wine becomes this way of telling oneself

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and also others that one is arrived. And so I, you know, I'm

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sure that's an. There's an aspect of that too,

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no doubt, among some players that, you know,

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we have, yeah, we've made it. We, We're. We've moved up a social class

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or we have just sort of, you know, we're. We're success in this world. It's

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because you mentioned earlier about the political,

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not fallout but the politics of wine in

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1649-1860 in Britain. And I thought

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to myself, it's not a whole lot different today. I mean,

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certainly the status. I had a conversation yesterday with the

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representative in China of lvmh, and she just corroborated what you just said, which

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is Bordeaux was the beginning of the Chinese awareness of wine.

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And now Burgundy's crept in there and they're starting. And I, as you and I

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know, all, you know, files, as Chuck Wagner said, not Chuck Wagner, but

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Paul Meyer said, you know, end up in Burgundy. But

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that's interesting that, that there's a. There

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was a political ramification to what you drank

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and how you were perceived by what you drank. And

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isn't that true today? I mean, really, you know, that's a.

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That's a good question. I don't think it's as politicized,

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certainly, in if we're speaking about the United States. I think

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it's more gendered, probably. Now, of course,

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gender these days is also a hot political topic

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when you look at the way people are. Men and women

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have voted in the last election and what seems to be sort of a

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male backlash. So certainly gendering of wine is also

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a form of the politics of wine in terms of

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what country you chose to drink from.

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There was a little bit of that moment in 2003 when the French

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didn't join us in our. I guess I'm going to go ahead. And I reminded

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people of this very event because of the today's tariff situation. I go, wait

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a minute. We politicized it. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's sort of

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a. What I guess I'll call in retrospect, the folly of the

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invasion. And the French didn't come along, go along. And so we had a, you

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know, our moment of pouring French wine down drains and changing French fries to

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freedom fries and all that. But I don't think I forgot

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now. There's sort of an. I don't think there's. At the moment, there's an anti

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French or anti Italian or anti Spanish wine bias

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or still a pro American wine bias. But

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that. That could change. You know, I do think the gendering of wine

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is pretty clear in the way that, you

242
00:14:51,426 --> 00:14:55,034
know, white wine for a very long time has been

243
00:14:55,122 --> 00:14:58,830
gendered female, and red wine, more male,

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is obviously having a moment. And back when I was working in the wine store

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in New York in the mid-90s, I couldn't sell rose

246
00:15:06,902 --> 00:15:10,742
de Provence to save my life. People would come

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in and we maybe offered one or two bottles. And I had had some

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wonderful experiences in the south of France where I just said, you know,

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on a hot day with, you know,

250
00:15:21,278 --> 00:15:25,062
grilled foods, you know, is a perfect one. A little

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more body than whites. It's not to be taken too seriously. And it's only, you

252
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know, six bucks a bottle. You know, it's. And

253
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New Yorkers at the time would not touch the stuff. It was either, you know,

254
00:15:35,962 --> 00:15:39,458
we didn't know is it neither fish nor foul, or they associate it with white

255
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Zinfandel. Look, I'm not a white Zinfandel drinker. And I was like, it's not white

256
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Zinfandel. And it's. You really gotta

257
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try it in the summertime in particular. And, you know, now obviously,

258
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you know, the section is often one of the largest

259
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in a hip wine store, and people are absurdly

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charging, you know, it's 35, 40 bucks

261
00:16:01,766 --> 00:16:05,430
for. For summer. Yeah. Domain Odd, though.

262
00:16:05,470 --> 00:16:09,286
I think I just bought some Etoile from Domain Auto.

263
00:16:09,318 --> 00:16:12,822
They got retails at 65. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I

264
00:16:12,846 --> 00:16:16,182
mean, Domain art has always been up there for a

265
00:16:16,206 --> 00:16:20,038
while. But. But yeah, I think it's the. It's the Brangelina effect,

266
00:16:20,094 --> 00:16:23,318
too. And so. But. And rose is

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largely. I guess it's. It's. What do they call

268
00:16:27,176 --> 00:16:31,008
it? Hampton's Tea here in New York? I've

269
00:16:31,024 --> 00:16:34,832
never heard that. That's great. And I think it's

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gendered. Mostly pink, you know, is gendered. Mostly

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00:16:40,600 --> 00:16:44,416
female. But. But, you know, I think it's also one of those. It's. It's

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not a white wine, it's not a red. So I think the men feel comfortable

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crossing over. It's, you know, it's. So, yeah, wine is gendered. It's

274
00:16:51,264 --> 00:16:54,874
therefore political. I don't. You know, we may get to a

275
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moment when wine becomes highly political in terms of the, you know, whether it's American

276
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wine or wine from the eu, if in fact the tariffs get slapped

277
00:17:02,138 --> 00:17:05,450
on, because then it becomes a class thing too, you know, who can afford it?

278
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And that adds a component to the politics of it that.

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That, you know, only the elites. I mean, I can go in most of my

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00:17:11,906 --> 00:17:15,510
stores here in New York and Upper west side,

281
00:17:15,970 --> 00:17:19,786
you know, I would say I'm probably going to find cheaper French and Italian

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wines than I am American wines.

283
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But, you know, you add a 200 tariff on

284
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those wines, next thing you know, all European wines are going to be

285
00:17:30,829 --> 00:17:34,677
more expensive and American wines will become the. The default wine for the.

286
00:17:34,733 --> 00:17:38,245
For the middle classes. I Guess we'll call it, you know, the. As you

287
00:17:38,317 --> 00:17:42,133
probably realize, there's a. There's a big difference between the wine shelves

288
00:17:42,181 --> 00:17:45,605
here in Southern California than in New York. And New York is a wine shop

289
00:17:45,637 --> 00:17:48,700
at every corner and some of them very specific

290
00:17:49,040 --> 00:17:52,456
regions and styles. In California, the import

291
00:17:52,528 --> 00:17:56,328
selection is considerably less in the fact.

292
00:17:56,384 --> 00:18:00,200
My son in law, who's in Potsdam, who is a

293
00:18:00,240 --> 00:18:04,040
devotee, you know, comes down to New York City

294
00:18:04,080 --> 00:18:07,544
to, To stock his cellar because there's such a

295
00:18:07,552 --> 00:18:11,272
variety there and stuff. He took me to a store not

296
00:18:11,296 --> 00:18:15,054
too long ago. I think it was in the Hudson. The city of Hudson.

297
00:18:15,102 --> 00:18:18,110
Hudson's a city too, right? Not just the river. Well, there's Hudson on

298
00:18:18,150 --> 00:18:21,502
Hastings. Hastings on Hudson, sorry. And then

299
00:18:21,526 --> 00:18:25,326
there's a little tiny village. With a little tiny wine shop.

300
00:18:25,358 --> 00:18:28,750
And you know, I thought, look, I've been doing this for 35

301
00:18:28,790 --> 00:18:32,574
years. I think I saw two brands that I recognized, you

302
00:18:32,582 --> 00:18:35,982
know, on the shelf and There was probably 200 SKUs in this shop, maybe more.

303
00:18:36,086 --> 00:18:39,742
And so I thought, wow, this is an interesting difference. But you know, let

304
00:18:39,766 --> 00:18:42,894
me jump on a subject that I think is interesting that I want you to

305
00:18:42,902 --> 00:18:46,542
reflect on. Our mutual friend Dr. Friedman,

306
00:18:46,686 --> 00:18:50,494
who's, you know, lecturing on the servitude,

307
00:18:50,622 --> 00:18:54,334
medieval servitude, but his passion is the evolution of cuisine

308
00:18:54,382 --> 00:18:57,998
in America. And you know, it's a very interesting.

309
00:18:58,094 --> 00:19:01,726
I love the subject as well. I think it's one of your passions as it's

310
00:19:01,758 --> 00:19:05,502
evolved. Do you think that, that there's been that

311
00:19:05,526 --> 00:19:08,846
renaissance of wine in America

312
00:19:09,038 --> 00:19:12,750
that the food went through in the 80s and continues to sort of change, or

313
00:19:12,790 --> 00:19:15,326
we're not there yet, or it happened a long time ago, like in the 70s,

314
00:19:15,358 --> 00:19:18,790
during the judgment of Par. And that's. And then we're just settled in already.

315
00:19:19,410 --> 00:19:22,550
Yeah, that's a great question. You know,

316
00:19:22,850 --> 00:19:26,522
historians were looking for trends and, and

317
00:19:26,546 --> 00:19:30,202
that certainly, you know, follows that idea

318
00:19:30,266 --> 00:19:34,074
that when, when did this trend start? You know, I, I think there's a lot

319
00:19:34,082 --> 00:19:37,578
of evidence that in, in the 70s,

320
00:19:37,754 --> 00:19:41,470
partly because certain producers like Heights

321
00:19:41,810 --> 00:19:44,750
were making really quality wines in California.

322
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:49,500
Mondavi stepping up their act. And

323
00:19:50,040 --> 00:19:53,472
you know, you get many other examples. Ridge comes on the scene

324
00:19:53,536 --> 00:19:57,312
sometimes not long after that, if I'm not mistaken. And so

325
00:19:57,336 --> 00:20:00,752
you have better American wines. And then of course you have, you

326
00:20:00,776 --> 00:20:04,256
know, 1976, you have the Judgment of Paris where, you know, Chateau

327
00:20:04,288 --> 00:20:07,660
Montelena and you know,

328
00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:11,100
Stagsley, you know, wins the prize. And

329
00:20:12,040 --> 00:20:15,600
actually we've won in both in Chardonnay and in

330
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:19,292
Bordeaux. Belen too. So that was obviously a big

331
00:20:19,316 --> 00:20:23,148
moment. But then you don't really. The 80s, the sort

332
00:20:23,164 --> 00:20:26,652
of counter evidence there is that. Yeah. But guess What? In the

333
00:20:26,676 --> 00:20:30,080
1980s, America's number one selling one was Wards Infidel.

334
00:20:30,500 --> 00:20:33,740
So how much of an impact did it really have? Good

335
00:20:33,780 --> 00:20:36,680
point. I think sometime in the

336
00:20:36,980 --> 00:20:40,348
1990s. So there's maybe a general

337
00:20:40,404 --> 00:20:44,106
trend, but it wasn't really clear,

338
00:20:44,178 --> 00:20:47,402
maybe not a deep Trend until the 1990s when you start to

339
00:20:47,426 --> 00:20:51,230
get what I'll call broadly the foodie movement.

340
00:20:52,050 --> 00:20:55,402
That is people's greater interest in seasonal

341
00:20:55,466 --> 00:20:59,114
food and sort of rejection of packaged food and instant

342
00:20:59,162 --> 00:21:02,986
foods that had been so fashionable after World War II

343
00:21:03,058 --> 00:21:06,570
up through the 1970s and early through the 80s is sort of the transition

344
00:21:06,650 --> 00:21:10,474
year beginning in 90s. Certainly by that point among the,

345
00:21:10,642 --> 00:21:13,670
I guess I'll call it cultural elites, there's this movement away

346
00:21:14,450 --> 00:21:17,990
from all that previous era and the

347
00:21:18,450 --> 00:21:22,170
packaged foods and processed foods. And I think with that came

348
00:21:22,210 --> 00:21:25,946
a greater appreciation of wine as part of that broad foodie

349
00:21:25,978 --> 00:21:29,802
movement. Because of course wine in most cultures, as you

350
00:21:29,826 --> 00:21:33,578
know, ours may be the exception in some ways,

351
00:21:33,674 --> 00:21:36,506
but wine and food grew

352
00:21:36,538 --> 00:21:40,346
symbiotically. And so you're into wine,

353
00:21:40,378 --> 00:21:42,934
you're into food, you're into food, you're into wine. The food go to together. You

354
00:21:42,942 --> 00:21:46,422
don't just drink wine without the food, you know, you don't eat food without the

355
00:21:46,446 --> 00:21:49,990
wine. And so I think that kind of took off in American society

356
00:21:50,150 --> 00:21:53,926
as well. And I guess the question again is how far did that penetrate

357
00:21:53,958 --> 00:21:57,750
down. I've got some. I edited a book few years ago called

358
00:21:57,790 --> 00:22:00,130
Food Fights How History Matters to

359
00:22:01,710 --> 00:22:05,462
Contemporary Food Debates. And some. One of the

360
00:22:05,486 --> 00:22:08,890
authors, Margot Finn and I and I can largely concurred,

361
00:22:09,390 --> 00:22:12,822
made the case that this was largely that the foodie movement was

362
00:22:12,846 --> 00:22:14,770
largely class based

363
00:22:16,750 --> 00:22:20,422
and that farmers markets may have been an attempt

364
00:22:20,486 --> 00:22:24,086
to and may still be an attempt to help local economies

365
00:22:24,198 --> 00:22:28,022
and sort of disrupt the dominance of big food and

366
00:22:28,046 --> 00:22:31,878
all that. But fundamentally it's a way for people who

367
00:22:31,934 --> 00:22:35,782
have cultural capital, not necessarily a lot of financial capital, but

368
00:22:35,806 --> 00:22:38,904
cultural capital to play the game of

369
00:22:38,992 --> 00:22:42,616
elitism. And you know, wine's caught up in that movement

370
00:22:42,648 --> 00:22:45,620
too. So you'll find that too cynical a take

371
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:49,704
doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but, but that implicates

372
00:22:49,752 --> 00:22:53,368
certainly people like me, you know, academic, growing up in a place like Chapel Hill,

373
00:22:53,384 --> 00:22:56,488
North Carolina, where, you know, the farmer's market is a big part of the local

374
00:22:56,544 --> 00:22:59,620
identity and it's a part of liberal politics. And so

375
00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,104
that said, I think we are in a more serious wine

376
00:23:04,152 --> 00:23:07,820
moment. But as you know, wine consumption among the new generation of young

377
00:23:07,860 --> 00:23:11,452
people in America as well as in France is declining.

378
00:23:11,596 --> 00:23:15,244
So, you know, with the 21 to 35 crowd is

379
00:23:15,332 --> 00:23:19,036
not drinking as much wine as my crowd

380
00:23:19,068 --> 00:23:22,720
did and your crowd did, which was, you know, we were increasing the amount.

381
00:23:23,140 --> 00:23:26,604
So how, you know, why that is, it's not quite

382
00:23:26,652 --> 00:23:30,444
clear. Wine seems a little staid to them. I think in some ways, you

383
00:23:30,452 --> 00:23:34,100
know, cocktails and craft beers are

384
00:23:34,140 --> 00:23:37,956
doing very well. Of course, natural wines, which kind of fall into that category of

385
00:23:38,028 --> 00:23:41,460
young creatives, are also doing fairly well in that crowd. But

386
00:23:41,500 --> 00:23:44,680
that's such a small percentage of overall wine production.

387
00:23:45,900 --> 00:23:49,092
So, you know, that's a long answer to your short question, but I think. I

388
00:23:49,116 --> 00:23:52,900
don't, I, I don't. I, I would love to peel that stuff back

389
00:23:52,940 --> 00:23:56,532
with you, but I wanted to, I wanted to dig back into your.

390
00:23:56,636 --> 00:23:59,892
The history of wine more than that. But there's certainly all that stuff. I

391
00:23:59,916 --> 00:24:03,662
just. Actually one of the most responses I've ever gotten on a comment, hey, you

392
00:24:03,686 --> 00:24:07,486
place a comment on LinkedIn or something, you know, usually it just stays

393
00:24:07,518 --> 00:24:11,150
there. And some people continue to comment. But the most

394
00:24:11,190 --> 00:24:14,302
replies I've ever gotten to one of my comments was one where I said, you

395
00:24:14,326 --> 00:24:17,694
know, it's a lot of lip service on the Internet right now, and there's a

396
00:24:17,702 --> 00:24:21,310
lot of reasons why they're not drinking. I think wine is generational. All generations

397
00:24:21,390 --> 00:24:25,230
come to it eventually, and there's lots of peaks and valleys along

398
00:24:25,270 --> 00:24:28,862
the way. And certainly you can't drink White Claw, you know, the rest of your

399
00:24:28,886 --> 00:24:32,730
life. So I think that's going to change. And not only that, that

400
00:24:32,770 --> 00:24:36,298
the marketplace, when the idea of, of a private

401
00:24:36,354 --> 00:24:40,154
labeling became as simple and pro. Profitable

402
00:24:40,202 --> 00:24:44,042
as it became, you know, 15, 20 years ago, you

403
00:24:44,066 --> 00:24:47,562
know, the marketplace was inundated with 50 cent a liter crap from

404
00:24:47,586 --> 00:24:51,242
Europe and packaged a thousand different ways. And that just

405
00:24:51,266 --> 00:24:54,938
put, pun intended, sour taste in people's mouth as well. I think

406
00:24:54,994 --> 00:24:58,506
that's my personal opinion. But I want to go back to. Because your, Your specialty

407
00:24:58,538 --> 00:25:02,266
is a history of wine, the politics of wine. And I, and I was

408
00:25:02,338 --> 00:25:06,162
reading your, Your, Your bio and you're talking about

409
00:25:06,186 --> 00:25:09,762
this, the Irish, the Irish movement in Bordeaux.

410
00:25:09,906 --> 00:25:12,962
And I started thinking, you know, it's so interesting to me, particularly

411
00:25:13,026 --> 00:25:16,258
Bordeaux. Burgundy is a little more protected.

412
00:25:16,434 --> 00:25:20,146
But didn't. Wasn't with Bordeaux. The rash shields

413
00:25:20,178 --> 00:25:23,922
are, what, from the Netherlands or from Germany? Yeah.

414
00:25:23,986 --> 00:25:27,650
And. And Napa was founded by immigrants.

415
00:25:27,730 --> 00:25:31,266
I mean, and so here's this indigenous product that

416
00:25:31,418 --> 00:25:34,754
is to reflect local everything, you know,

417
00:25:34,922 --> 00:25:37,230
terroir and the history.

418
00:25:38,570 --> 00:25:42,130
But so much of the popular regions of the world

419
00:25:42,250 --> 00:25:45,986
were founded by immigration, by people that came to this country, that brought the idea

420
00:25:46,018 --> 00:25:49,666
of wine, that brought the idea of the lifestyle of wine to those areas.

421
00:25:49,738 --> 00:25:52,870
And I find that fascinating. And here you are talking about the Irish

422
00:25:53,450 --> 00:25:57,218
in Bordeaux, which you don't, you don't hear, but that's

423
00:25:57,234 --> 00:26:00,524
not the most common thing you hear about. No, it's certainly not the first thing

424
00:26:00,532 --> 00:26:04,300
that comes to mind when you think of Bordeaux wine. Ireland has

425
00:26:04,340 --> 00:26:08,044
spent a lot of time, certainly in the second half of the

426
00:26:08,052 --> 00:26:11,404
20th century promoting the notion that it's all Guinness and

427
00:26:11,412 --> 00:26:14,940
whiskey. Once a big wine

428
00:26:15,020 --> 00:26:18,460
consuming society, and it was

429
00:26:18,500 --> 00:26:22,028
also Irish merchants were very important in the

430
00:26:22,084 --> 00:26:25,932
creation of modern Bordeaux. Remarkably so, in fact, they played an

431
00:26:25,956 --> 00:26:29,166
integral role in, throughout the 18th

432
00:26:29,198 --> 00:26:32,750
century that, you know, it speaks to your point

433
00:26:32,790 --> 00:26:36,366
that so often it's because wine is

434
00:26:36,438 --> 00:26:39,010
desired by people outside of the place it's produced.

435
00:26:40,310 --> 00:26:43,790
Savvy merchants and people, you know, who want to drink themselves but also see an

436
00:26:43,830 --> 00:26:47,450
opportunity, a market opportunity, go there, produce it and ship it off.

437
00:26:48,390 --> 00:26:51,982
So, yeah, the Irish did that in the 18th century, starting in the

438
00:26:52,006 --> 00:26:55,604
1690s. But they settle

439
00:26:55,652 --> 00:26:59,332
in Bordeaux, which was accommodating both to

440
00:26:59,436 --> 00:27:03,012
Irish Catholics because of course, France at that point had decided it was a

441
00:27:03,036 --> 00:27:06,852
uniquely Catholic kingdom. And Irish Catholics were in

442
00:27:06,876 --> 00:27:10,660
the 1690s being placed in second class status in their own

443
00:27:10,700 --> 00:27:14,516
society. So they go from an anti

444
00:27:14,548 --> 00:27:17,924
Catholic society to a very pro Catholic one. Meanwhile, Irish

445
00:27:17,972 --> 00:27:21,602
Protestants who are on top

446
00:27:21,786 --> 00:27:25,442
in Ireland go to France where you'd think they would be

447
00:27:25,626 --> 00:27:29,394
personae non grata because they are Protestant and Protestants had just been kicked out

448
00:27:29,402 --> 00:27:32,870
of France. But French tax collectors

449
00:27:33,370 --> 00:27:36,242
were too clever to kick out all their

450
00:27:36,266 --> 00:27:39,826
Huguenots on the grounds that we would reduce, you know, we'll

451
00:27:39,858 --> 00:27:43,634
reduce our tax base. So they. So that Protestant

452
00:27:43,682 --> 00:27:47,030
foreign merchants were actually found a small

453
00:27:47,330 --> 00:27:50,954
community of Protestants. They weren't, you know, as long as they paid their

454
00:27:50,962 --> 00:27:54,442
taxes, they were tolerated. But in the case of the Irish, what's fascinating is

455
00:27:54,546 --> 00:27:58,154
Protestant and Catholic, they all got along famously and went to the same, you

456
00:27:58,162 --> 00:28:01,338
know, cafe and

457
00:28:01,394 --> 00:28:05,178
hotel in Bordeaux. They had balls together, they went into

458
00:28:05,234 --> 00:28:08,350
business together, they hired each other's children and servants.

459
00:28:09,250 --> 00:28:12,602
Very rarely did they intermarry, but they were very much a

460
00:28:12,626 --> 00:28:16,406
community who worked together, slaughtered together and were friends.

461
00:28:16,478 --> 00:28:19,382
And in hard situations, they loaned, you know, they were loaning money. So it was

462
00:28:19,406 --> 00:28:23,110
really, they were Irish. The French didn't really draw a distinction between whether

463
00:28:23,150 --> 00:28:26,838
they were Catholic or Protestant. But there's

464
00:28:26,854 --> 00:28:30,614
about 65, 35. You know, money talks is what you're trying to

465
00:28:30,622 --> 00:28:34,438
say. But it was actually sort

466
00:28:34,454 --> 00:28:38,262
of a, sort of a marvel when you think about what's happening back in

467
00:28:38,286 --> 00:28:42,092
Ireland or in some ways in France itself, with this religious intolerance. But the

468
00:28:42,116 --> 00:28:45,596
key thing is really their role in wine production, which is that they were buying

469
00:28:45,628 --> 00:28:49,308
up all of the, what we

470
00:28:49,364 --> 00:28:52,924
now call first growth wines. I mean, when I say all, I mean literally

471
00:28:52,972 --> 00:28:56,120
all. And shipping them off

472
00:28:56,900 --> 00:29:00,652
to the two most lucrative markets that wanted those wines, and

473
00:29:00,676 --> 00:29:04,520
that was England and Ireland itself now.

474
00:29:04,820 --> 00:29:08,348
And no one else was buying Lafitte, Latour, Margaux, bouillon, et

475
00:29:08,364 --> 00:29:11,928
cetera. It was just for that market. It's also important to say that they weren't

476
00:29:11,944 --> 00:29:15,336
just buying and shipping. They were buying in what we would call sort of Emprimeur

477
00:29:15,368 --> 00:29:19,096
or even earlier, often in December, following the harvest. So the wines

478
00:29:19,128 --> 00:29:22,920
were super yellow. And then they would, they were the ones who would

479
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,744
raise the wines sometimes up to five, seven years, kind of like

480
00:29:26,752 --> 00:29:30,472
a Rioja. They would have them in barrel that long and then ship them. But

481
00:29:30,496 --> 00:29:34,120
they would also blend them for the market, for the taste of the

482
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:38,060
elite British and Irish markets who wanted them to

483
00:29:38,100 --> 00:29:41,516
taste somewhat differently than they would have without

484
00:29:41,668 --> 00:29:45,308
the addition of Syrah from the R

485
00:29:45,364 --> 00:29:48,800
Valley or Alicante, sorry,

486
00:29:50,180 --> 00:29:53,932
Grenache from up by, you know, just south of

487
00:29:53,956 --> 00:29:57,292
Barcelona and then

488
00:29:57,476 --> 00:30:01,308
morved from down by. From

489
00:30:01,364 --> 00:30:05,188
down by Alicante. So that reminds

490
00:30:05,204 --> 00:30:08,804
me of a word I haven't heard in a long time. Negociant. Right. That's

491
00:30:08,852 --> 00:30:12,500
exactly what they were. They were. I have not heard that in

492
00:30:12,540 --> 00:30:16,356
a long time. So what, so what Was this? The 18th century?

493
00:30:16,388 --> 00:30:19,924
You're talking about 19. This is the 18th century. And well, as you know, it

494
00:30:19,932 --> 00:30:23,444
wasn't until. Well, actually, let me back up here.

495
00:30:23,612 --> 00:30:27,188
Starting around in the, in the 1850s with the whole,

496
00:30:27,364 --> 00:30:30,770
as you know, there was a whole series of, of diseases that came

497
00:30:30,810 --> 00:30:34,370
from North America. In fact, with

498
00:30:34,490 --> 00:30:38,018
Odium, then Floxera and then downy

499
00:30:38,034 --> 00:30:41,323
mildew that hit France, 1850s, 60s,

500
00:30:41,432 --> 00:30:44,722
70s, one after the other. Phylloxera was the worst. But the two different types of

501
00:30:44,746 --> 00:30:48,110
mildew, powdery mildew and downy mildew, are also

502
00:30:49,130 --> 00:30:52,390
disastrous in some ways. Ultimately

503
00:30:52,890 --> 00:30:56,470
these were overcome. The phylloxer, certainly with American rootstock,

504
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,072
but. And then you learn copper sulfate. It seems like that on the vines help

505
00:31:02,096 --> 00:31:05,512
to keep away the mildew and the

506
00:31:05,536 --> 00:31:09,320
rot. But all that to say what then

507
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:12,700
happens is in the period 1850 to roughly

508
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,064
1930s, you get this change in the

509
00:31:17,072 --> 00:31:20,552
perspective of the consumer. Whereas

510
00:31:20,616 --> 00:31:24,146
previously they wanted the elite consumers in London

511
00:31:24,288 --> 00:31:28,110
and Dublin and in Hamburg and in New York, they

512
00:31:28,150 --> 00:31:31,822
wanted. And in Paris, they wanted wines that

513
00:31:31,846 --> 00:31:35,566
were blended, that is, wines that had about

514
00:31:35,638 --> 00:31:39,134
15%, depending on the year. You know, GSM,

515
00:31:39,182 --> 00:31:42,638
Grenache, Syrah, Morvedre. And

516
00:31:42,694 --> 00:31:45,850
then what then happens with all of the

517
00:31:46,390 --> 00:31:50,222
fraud? They didn't think of that as fraud, actually. But then what

518
00:31:50,246 --> 00:31:53,902
happens with all these diseases is you get wines coming

519
00:31:53,926 --> 00:31:57,354
in from elsewhere, from, in particular, from Algeria, France's

520
00:31:57,402 --> 00:32:01,242
colony, that is then being sent off

521
00:32:01,346 --> 00:32:04,830
as Bordeaux or later Burgundy.

522
00:32:05,890 --> 00:32:09,674
And you get all this. You get things that are labeled. So

523
00:32:09,762 --> 00:32:13,190
when in the period in the 18th century, when you had

524
00:32:13,970 --> 00:32:17,626
your Chateau Lafitte, it may have been 80% Chateau

525
00:32:17,658 --> 00:32:21,322
Lafitte, 20%, something else. And people were fine with that. They didn't think of that

526
00:32:21,346 --> 00:32:24,922
as fraud. You weren't putting anything besides wine in there, and you were making a

527
00:32:24,946 --> 00:32:28,772
better product. But starting in the 1850s, up until about

528
00:32:28,796 --> 00:32:32,292
1930, you get this notion that it's a process,

529
00:32:32,476 --> 00:32:36,196
that you're now selling me something that really isn't even

530
00:32:36,268 --> 00:32:38,240
close to what you say it is.

531
00:32:40,380 --> 00:32:43,028
And so, along with

532
00:32:43,164 --> 00:32:46,852
industrialization, awareness of microbes, because Pasteur

533
00:32:46,916 --> 00:32:50,628
comes along, he identifies microbes and germs, and everybody starts

534
00:32:50,644 --> 00:32:54,164
to panic. And then you have the fact that it's Algerian wine,

535
00:32:54,212 --> 00:32:57,972
which, frankly, there are prejudices, obviously, racial prejudice, against things that came

536
00:32:57,996 --> 00:33:01,508
from Africa. And

537
00:33:01,564 --> 00:33:05,380
now this idea of blending wines from

538
00:33:05,420 --> 00:33:09,108
two different places doesn't work anymore. So by the 1930s,

539
00:33:09,204 --> 00:33:12,772
what was done in the 18th century and demanded by

540
00:33:12,796 --> 00:33:16,484
elite customers in the 18th century, by the 1930s, that's a

541
00:33:16,492 --> 00:33:19,764
criminal act. And so you get the AOC laws in the

542
00:33:19,772 --> 00:33:23,396
1930s that say if you blend this one with that one,

543
00:33:23,548 --> 00:33:27,070
you are going to jail, and that those are still the laws in place.

544
00:33:27,610 --> 00:33:31,282
So it's a fascinating history of. It's a mental shift in the mind of the

545
00:33:31,306 --> 00:33:35,150
consumer as well as a shift in production in which

546
00:33:35,450 --> 00:33:38,674
you don't consider doing that now unless you're an unscrupulous

547
00:33:38,722 --> 00:33:42,418
winemaker, whereas the very best winemakers were doing that in the 18th

548
00:33:42,434 --> 00:33:46,066
century because that's what their customers wanted. Let me stop you. That's fascinating

549
00:33:46,178 --> 00:33:49,394
because. Not that I made a career of it, but the stuff we used to

550
00:33:49,402 --> 00:33:52,946
taste over the 35 years, every Tuesday, I mean, we saw everybody's

551
00:33:52,978 --> 00:33:56,678
attempt at trying to do something that they thought was innovative in this industry.

552
00:33:56,794 --> 00:34:00,574
And one of them was a great Wine. And the poor

553
00:34:00,622 --> 00:34:01,850
guy, it was called.

554
00:34:04,230 --> 00:34:08,062
Oh man. Anyway, he had two blends and he thought that he

555
00:34:08,086 --> 00:34:11,278
was going to set the world on fire by blending Sonoma juice with Napa juice.

556
00:34:11,294 --> 00:34:14,190
It was on the label that way, which you can do in the new world

557
00:34:14,230 --> 00:34:17,678
anyway. In California you can do that all you want. But this was

558
00:34:17,814 --> 00:34:21,118
stated on the label, we're going to do this. And I just, it just hits

559
00:34:21,134 --> 00:34:24,894
me as this, it just seems to repeat itself. Look at

560
00:34:24,902 --> 00:34:28,385
Joe Franzia, the Franzia brothers, you know, getting busted for

561
00:34:28,517 --> 00:34:32,185
making bottling white Zinfandel. But it was really Grenache

562
00:34:32,297 --> 00:34:36,041
and they, they faked the leaves in the truck so that the winemaker would think

563
00:34:36,065 --> 00:34:39,241
that was Zinfandel. And you know, they, they should have gone to jail for that.

564
00:34:39,265 --> 00:34:43,049
Actually. It was about to just got fined. But you

565
00:34:43,089 --> 00:34:46,329
know, it's just so interesting because this industry seems to

566
00:34:46,369 --> 00:34:50,121
have the attraction of that kind of thing that

567
00:34:50,225 --> 00:34:53,945
to, to do something that may not seem so kosher on the

568
00:34:54,017 --> 00:34:57,705
surface and then it changes, the rules change

569
00:34:57,777 --> 00:35:01,482
and now it's not a lot. It just seems what other product in the

570
00:35:01,506 --> 00:35:05,210
world has this not

571
00:35:05,250 --> 00:35:08,710
ambition but this allure to do that,

572
00:35:09,250 --> 00:35:12,666
to try something like this? I just think that's amazing. It's consumers

573
00:35:12,698 --> 00:35:16,442
who drive these changes in many ways. So again in the

574
00:35:16,466 --> 00:35:20,282
18th century, consumers, when you read the letters from merchants who

575
00:35:20,306 --> 00:35:24,042
are speaking on behalf of their customers, who

576
00:35:24,066 --> 00:35:26,270
are writing to their producers, to the Irish

577
00:35:27,970 --> 00:35:31,546
in Bordeaux who are really in many ways the producers of the wine,

578
00:35:31,658 --> 00:35:35,050
you know, it's please don't send me any of that stuff that hasn't been

579
00:35:35,090 --> 00:35:38,730
blended with a little bit of Hermitage. I want the

580
00:35:38,770 --> 00:35:42,202
Hermitage, I want the Grenache, I want the Mourvedre from

581
00:35:42,226 --> 00:35:45,710
Spain, what they call the Alicante and the Benny Carlo.

582
00:35:46,450 --> 00:35:49,626
And I want the Hermitage. And it's too thin

583
00:35:49,738 --> 00:35:53,226
otherwise and the customers won't like it.

584
00:35:53,378 --> 00:35:56,970
Likewise, when Hugh Barton, who

585
00:35:57,010 --> 00:36:00,618
was a member of the illustrious Barton family from

586
00:36:00,674 --> 00:36:04,490
County Forbana in Ireland, in fact, it was 300 years ago this

587
00:36:04,530 --> 00:36:08,362
year that Tom Barton arrived in Bordeaux. But his

588
00:36:08,386 --> 00:36:11,882
grandson Hugh, who was running the firm in Bordeaux

589
00:36:12,026 --> 00:36:15,706
during the 1780s and 90s when the French Revolution broke

590
00:36:15,738 --> 00:36:19,442
out, he was imprisoned. He was got out of

591
00:36:19,466 --> 00:36:22,834
jail because his French born Irish wife, Anna

592
00:36:22,882 --> 00:36:26,002
Johnston, the Johnstons are also still very much in

593
00:36:26,026 --> 00:36:29,794
Bordeaux. She was able to spring him from jail because he was

594
00:36:29,802 --> 00:36:33,282
French. But then they quickly got out of

595
00:36:33,306 --> 00:36:37,010
Dodge. But before going, he went into

596
00:36:37,130 --> 00:36:40,850
partnership with a French guy named Gastier and that became part

597
00:36:40,890 --> 00:36:44,482
of Gastier. You're Certainly familiar with that. But one of the things that

598
00:36:44,506 --> 00:36:47,954
he then tried to implore the French authorities saying,

599
00:36:48,122 --> 00:36:51,796
my stocks of wine that I have, they're

600
00:36:51,828 --> 00:36:55,220
no good to you because they're blended.

601
00:36:55,380 --> 00:36:58,932
They're, you know, the Chateau Lafitte is Chateau Lafitte, but

602
00:36:59,036 --> 00:37:02,820
it's much too rich and full bodied for the French market. So please

603
00:37:02,860 --> 00:37:06,468
let me get it out of here and ship it off to the one market

604
00:37:06,524 --> 00:37:10,356
that wants this stuff. Wow. Which is the British

605
00:37:10,388 --> 00:37:13,892
Isles. That's amazing story. I did a lot of business with

606
00:37:13,916 --> 00:37:16,720
Barney Gastier over the years early on.

607
00:37:17,340 --> 00:37:21,030
So let's. I don't know if it was your conversation or with

608
00:37:21,410 --> 00:37:24,510
Tim Hani about the definition of terroir

609
00:37:24,850 --> 00:37:28,394
having changed from was, I

610
00:37:28,402 --> 00:37:32,030
think I say despicable, but it was not a positive

611
00:37:32,610 --> 00:37:36,346
term in the world of wine. And now, of course, it's

612
00:37:36,378 --> 00:37:39,962
used, as aficionados like to say, it's the

613
00:37:39,986 --> 00:37:43,802
terroir. And it's driven by terroir and maybe even one of those

614
00:37:43,826 --> 00:37:47,248
air aristocratic terms that people don't understand what you're talking

615
00:37:47,264 --> 00:37:50,640
about. But I wanted to apply it to list the current

616
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:54,496
definition, which is what the vines have gone through

617
00:37:54,568 --> 00:37:57,952
to get to where they're at when they make the wine. And I have

618
00:37:58,136 --> 00:38:01,872
this opinion and I think you'd be the perfect person

619
00:38:01,976 --> 00:38:05,472
to reflect on that is all the history

620
00:38:05,576 --> 00:38:08,752
of. Let's just talk about the Irish who came to Bordeaux and all the things

621
00:38:08,776 --> 00:38:12,064
you're talking about right now and the blending and the unblending and then the illegal

622
00:38:12,112 --> 00:38:15,392
part of that. No longer an appellation allows that

623
00:38:15,416 --> 00:38:19,068
blending. Doesn't that all roll up

624
00:38:19,204 --> 00:38:22,348
eventually as terroir to

625
00:38:22,484 --> 00:38:26,172
that particular bottle. You're not going to taste the

626
00:38:26,196 --> 00:38:29,852
fact that some negociant Irish, negociant back in the day was

627
00:38:29,876 --> 00:38:33,676
blending, you know, Grenache and the wine. But wouldn't

628
00:38:33,708 --> 00:38:37,532
the mentality, the thought process, the education of the winemakers, the

629
00:38:37,556 --> 00:38:41,196
storytelling to the winemakers reflect

630
00:38:41,308 --> 00:38:44,730
in a bottle of wine like that. Well, that's

631
00:38:46,110 --> 00:38:49,798
another excellent and maybe very difficult question

632
00:38:49,854 --> 00:38:53,430
to answer because terroir, I mean, without, if

633
00:38:53,470 --> 00:38:57,318
you, you know, if you accept the blending of

634
00:38:57,454 --> 00:39:01,238
even, you know, 5%, 10%, 15% of wines from elsewhere

635
00:39:01,414 --> 00:39:04,130
into, you know, again

636
00:39:07,550 --> 00:39:11,248
and marketed as such, then fundamentally you're rejecting the idea

637
00:39:11,264 --> 00:39:14,620
of terroir or, you know, I don't just point out

638
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:18,620
Bordeaux at this point in, in Burgundy, at the same time,

639
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:22,544
their big wine to, to, to blend in the

640
00:39:22,712 --> 00:39:26,528
early modern era in the 18th century was Chateauneuf du

641
00:39:26,544 --> 00:39:29,740
Pape. So just as in Some ways, the, the, the

642
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:33,840
chickens had come home to roost. Because in

643
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:37,302
the, the late Middle ages, in the 14th century, in

644
00:39:37,326 --> 00:39:41,050
particular, 1309-1377, the Papacy

645
00:39:41,470 --> 00:39:44,170
was not in Rome, it was in Avignon.

646
00:39:45,070 --> 00:39:48,342
That's right. And all the popes were

647
00:39:48,446 --> 00:39:50,490
French, not surprisingly,

648
00:39:51,950 --> 00:39:54,530
all the Avignon popes, and

649
00:39:55,630 --> 00:39:59,238
they presumably were following the fashion of the court

650
00:39:59,294 --> 00:40:03,094
in Paris and of wealthy Northern Europeans who had taken

651
00:40:03,182 --> 00:40:06,984
to Burgundy wine. And what they

652
00:40:06,992 --> 00:40:10,760
called Vende Beaune was sort of. That was the. They didn't have any

653
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:14,584
particular conception of a specific terroir. But Beaune was obviously being the

654
00:40:14,592 --> 00:40:18,136
market town there. It was all called Vende Beaune. And that.

655
00:40:18,208 --> 00:40:21,832
That was the really fashionable wine in, at the

656
00:40:21,856 --> 00:40:25,560
court, both in Paris as well

657
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:28,780
as at the papal court in Avignon.

658
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:33,352
But those popes obviously also had a little

659
00:40:33,376 --> 00:40:36,984
weekend house just to the north of the town of Avignon, which became

660
00:40:37,032 --> 00:40:40,860
the pope's new castle. Hence Chateau Neuf du Pape,

661
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:45,032
which was planted with very different grapes. We know there are, I guess,

662
00:40:45,056 --> 00:40:48,180
what, 17 different types, or 13 or 17

663
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,904
of grapes that you can use. And now mostly

664
00:40:52,952 --> 00:40:56,456
Grenache and Mourvedre and Syrah and Sausso and counoise, whatever.

665
00:40:56,488 --> 00:41:00,042
But. But that wasn't the wine they were

666
00:41:00,066 --> 00:41:03,242
drinking at the court at the time. They were drinking wine that had come down

667
00:41:03,266 --> 00:41:06,842
from Burgundy, but those much riper

668
00:41:06,906 --> 00:41:10,682
wines, those much riper wines produced for much riper grapes because

669
00:41:10,706 --> 00:41:14,090
it's much hotter. And they also have those very large

670
00:41:14,210 --> 00:41:17,642
stones, of course, that reflect the heat even at night in the

671
00:41:17,666 --> 00:41:21,150
summertime, and really ripen. The Grenache and the Movedo,

672
00:41:21,730 --> 00:41:25,418
those were later desired back in Burgundy as a way to

673
00:41:25,474 --> 00:41:28,230
thicken up, give some greater body

674
00:41:28,660 --> 00:41:32,412
to Burgundy wines, which by the 18th century were

675
00:41:32,436 --> 00:41:36,044
considered in some ways too thin, without the addition

676
00:41:36,132 --> 00:41:39,692
of a little touch of Chef Neuf du Pape. So by no means was this

677
00:41:39,716 --> 00:41:43,196
just a Bordeaux thing. This was very. You know, it's going on

678
00:41:43,348 --> 00:41:47,132
all over the place. And again, it was not considered fraud. What

679
00:41:47,156 --> 00:41:50,844
was considered fraud was when you added something besides wine,

680
00:41:50,892 --> 00:41:54,732
grape juice. If you were to add elderberry juice or beets, that would

681
00:41:54,756 --> 00:41:58,392
be fraud. But, you know, you can blend your

682
00:41:58,416 --> 00:42:01,740
wines as you wanted, but the very idea of blending wines

683
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:05,832
takes away. So if you do that now in France, you have a Vin de

684
00:42:05,856 --> 00:42:07,780
France, right? So

685
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,380
Chateau Palmer makes a 19th century,

686
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:19,352
what they call a Bordeaux, 19th century blend. And

687
00:42:19,376 --> 00:42:23,192
it's basically, it adds. They get some wine from Hermitage, so some

688
00:42:23,216 --> 00:42:27,020
Syrah, and they put it in, and it's quite an expensive Wine,

689
00:42:27,340 --> 00:42:31,156
and it's, it's wonderful. But it's sold as a Vin

690
00:42:31,188 --> 00:42:34,836
de France, the lowest level, because there's some wine from the Rhone

691
00:42:34,868 --> 00:42:38,400
Valley, very high quality Amitage, but it goes in

692
00:42:38,780 --> 00:42:42,612
to. So what do you think? That. That's an interesting point. At least stop it

693
00:42:42,636 --> 00:42:46,372
there. They change it from vin de table because that, you know, that

694
00:42:46,396 --> 00:42:49,796
sounds much more generic. And now we have Vin de France. At least the word

695
00:42:49,828 --> 00:42:53,524
France is in there. But. Okay, so if the history of wine

696
00:42:53,572 --> 00:42:57,174
was to blend, and I guess the, the logic is the

697
00:42:57,262 --> 00:43:00,582
whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that's what was

698
00:43:00,606 --> 00:43:04,134
happening. Like, I, I don't think I've ever tasted an Algerian wine. I have to

699
00:43:04,142 --> 00:43:07,494
go check my database, but I would. I'm guessing this is earthy,

700
00:43:07,622 --> 00:43:11,334
heavy duty, you know, thick, thick

701
00:43:11,382 --> 00:43:15,126
skinned, extracted wine. But let's just. The idea

702
00:43:15,158 --> 00:43:18,130
of blending wines is now

703
00:43:18,990 --> 00:43:22,710
very appellated. I mean, it's very controlled by the appellation. Right.

704
00:43:23,410 --> 00:43:26,746
So what was the movement that, that

705
00:43:26,818 --> 00:43:30,522
created this, I'm going to say, chasm between the old world, which is what

706
00:43:30,546 --> 00:43:34,330
we consider today's world of wine, and Burgundy is only Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, et

707
00:43:34,330 --> 00:43:38,058
cetera. In the new world, which you can do whatever you want, you still.

708
00:43:38,114 --> 00:43:41,546
Right. That's the attraction of the French to America.

709
00:43:41,658 --> 00:43:45,354
Yeah. You can still mostly do what you

710
00:43:45,362 --> 00:43:48,634
want to, depending on where you are in Languedoc and where you are in Loire

711
00:43:48,682 --> 00:43:52,134
Valley. There are some rules here and there, but there are also places in Loire

712
00:43:52,182 --> 00:43:55,846
Valley and certainly in Languedoc, where you can do, you know, you can plant

713
00:43:55,878 --> 00:43:59,702
whatever the heck you want. What was the historical movement from the time that

714
00:43:59,726 --> 00:44:03,286
you could put Syrah in Burgundy?

715
00:44:03,398 --> 00:44:07,174
To do that and you go to jail? Well, this gets. So I'm going

716
00:44:07,182 --> 00:44:09,638
to try to tie these things together, but this gets back to your question about

717
00:44:09,694 --> 00:44:13,366
terroir. So my point was simply you can't really have this notion

718
00:44:13,398 --> 00:44:17,092
of terroir specifically in the way that you do now when

719
00:44:17,116 --> 00:44:20,520
you're allowed to bring in wines that come from a different terroir.

720
00:44:21,260 --> 00:44:24,600
So, you know, when you have two terroir together, it's

721
00:44:25,180 --> 00:44:27,840
no longer a terroir driven wine. That's right.

722
00:44:29,820 --> 00:44:33,604
And I would also argue that there was a sense terroir developed as a

723
00:44:33,612 --> 00:44:37,028
concept even while they were still blending, because most of the wine

724
00:44:37,124 --> 00:44:40,916
in what was labeled, you know, Vin de Bone, or, you know, Vin

725
00:44:40,948 --> 00:44:44,740
Deux de Grave or Poyac, it was

726
00:44:44,780 --> 00:44:48,504
mostly still from there, but it

727
00:44:48,572 --> 00:44:52,304
was. But not all from there. So, you know,

728
00:44:52,472 --> 00:44:56,192
we have these sort of binary clean cut categories that they didn't necessarily have.

729
00:44:56,216 --> 00:45:00,016
So terroir as a concept existed even when wines

730
00:45:00,048 --> 00:45:02,700
were still being blended, but

731
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:08,112
from different, different parts of the of France or from different vineyards, you

732
00:45:08,136 --> 00:45:10,620
know, 10 miles, 15 miles apart in a different.

733
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:15,824
But so a couple things happen in the. To go back

734
00:45:15,832 --> 00:45:19,424
to the Burgundy case, it's really in the 17th

735
00:45:19,472 --> 00:45:23,160
century when land ownership moves from

736
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,020
the church to private

737
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:30,024
individuals, many of whom are

738
00:45:30,192 --> 00:45:33,944
ennobled. So it goes from the lords

739
00:45:33,992 --> 00:45:37,560
of the church, you might say, to the lords of the secular lords, who now

740
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:41,000
own most of the land and therefore most of the wine production in

741
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:44,632
Burgundy. And what happens

742
00:45:44,776 --> 00:45:48,280
is that they are trying to sort of sacralize

743
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:52,140
their. They're trying to make a product for the market, obviously, because, you know, land

744
00:45:52,180 --> 00:45:55,452
ownership is only worth something if you can make money from the products of your

745
00:45:55,476 --> 00:45:58,760
land. So to sort of secularize their

746
00:45:59,540 --> 00:46:03,196
wine. It's at that time that they

747
00:46:03,348 --> 00:46:06,320
begin to emphasize

748
00:46:06,980 --> 00:46:10,764
what we think of as this medieval concept, which wasn't,

749
00:46:10,812 --> 00:46:14,412
but that of the Klima in Burgundy. That is, this

750
00:46:14,436 --> 00:46:18,278
is my specific wine. And since

751
00:46:18,414 --> 00:46:19,494
by circumscribing

752
00:46:22,542 --> 00:46:26,342
comes from a very specific area, and it comes from, with my noble pedigree

753
00:46:26,406 --> 00:46:29,942
and my noble care, you're ennobling the

754
00:46:29,966 --> 00:46:33,622
wine and therefore increasing the chances, you might say, of

755
00:46:33,646 --> 00:46:37,030
sale. Because then it becomes something that another fellow consumer might

756
00:46:37,070 --> 00:46:40,610
say, by drinking this wine, I'm drinking this noble product.

757
00:46:41,550 --> 00:46:45,254
And of course, the better the wine is, and the better its reputation

758
00:46:45,302 --> 00:46:48,750
is, the greater the profit margin for sale. So

759
00:46:49,130 --> 00:46:51,670
it's a way to subtly.

760
00:46:53,610 --> 00:46:57,170
Be. A businessman, despite being an aristocrat, by having this

761
00:46:57,210 --> 00:47:00,994
product. So it's really, you see that as part of

762
00:47:01,002 --> 00:47:04,594
the land change from church to secular authorities in

763
00:47:04,602 --> 00:47:08,290
Burgundy, the notion of Klima. And from Klima, you know, things

764
00:47:08,330 --> 00:47:11,650
get ever smaller, down to this idea that the Klima is the

765
00:47:11,690 --> 00:47:15,522
tailwalk, and this really matters. But, you know, one of the things that sort of

766
00:47:15,546 --> 00:47:19,242
shows just how invented this concept is, is if

767
00:47:19,266 --> 00:47:23,034
you look at the Clos de Vougeau, you know, the most famous Clos in all

768
00:47:23,042 --> 00:47:26,778
of Burgundy, it's

769
00:47:26,794 --> 00:47:30,202
also the largest, but it was put together from

770
00:47:30,306 --> 00:47:34,154
the 11th century to the 14th century by Cistercian monks who

771
00:47:34,162 --> 00:47:37,882
lived right around the corner at Seitou, and they

772
00:47:37,906 --> 00:47:41,642
had about a 13 kilometer walk over to the vineyard. Of course,

773
00:47:41,666 --> 00:47:44,554
they had lay brothers and lay sisters doing a lot of the labor for them.

774
00:47:44,642 --> 00:47:47,390
But, you know, we think of the idea of this close, this unified

775
00:47:48,070 --> 00:47:51,582
vineyard, where the Terroir is fundamentally the

776
00:47:51,606 --> 00:47:55,390
same. Done these intense studies of the

777
00:47:55,430 --> 00:47:59,262
Clos de Vougeot to show that it's an incredible mosaic, that the

778
00:47:59,286 --> 00:48:03,102
monks saying, this is just the right. This

779
00:48:03,126 --> 00:48:06,318
is clay and limestone here and nowhere. And outside of this wall, it's not clay

780
00:48:06,334 --> 00:48:09,950
and limestone. Within the coat of Ugeau, you get all of these different

781
00:48:10,070 --> 00:48:13,902
soil types. So what was really going on, it had very little to

782
00:48:13,926 --> 00:48:17,774
do with this notion of a distinct terroir, had much more to do with

783
00:48:17,942 --> 00:48:21,150
the wall was there purpose of wind protection,

784
00:48:22,370 --> 00:48:26,106
erosion protection. Because when the soil drops down to the bottom of the hill,

785
00:48:26,138 --> 00:48:28,154
it's contained by a wall. And you can take it back up to the top

786
00:48:28,162 --> 00:48:31,242
of the hill and put it there and let it go down again. It's to

787
00:48:31,266 --> 00:48:35,002
keep grazing animals out and it's to define the

788
00:48:35,026 --> 00:48:38,746
workspace. Because you have to pay people in cash or in kind

789
00:48:38,818 --> 00:48:42,458
or something to work this space. So it's a way

790
00:48:42,594 --> 00:48:46,250
before payments were all cash banks, but they're often in kind.

791
00:48:46,370 --> 00:48:48,770
Like, this is how much work you have to do. What do you mean, like

792
00:48:48,810 --> 00:48:52,658
10 hours or $100? No, no, no. It's

793
00:48:52,674 --> 00:48:55,070
the space that's. It defines work.

794
00:48:56,410 --> 00:49:00,242
But it's in the 17th century that you begin to see the

795
00:49:00,266 --> 00:49:04,114
emergence of. It's this terroir that really matters. And the same thing happens in

796
00:49:04,122 --> 00:49:07,522
Bordeaux in the 1660, when Arnaud de Pontac

797
00:49:07,666 --> 00:49:10,770
gives a name to his specific

798
00:49:10,850 --> 00:49:14,278
property, Aubrion. And that's it. So

799
00:49:14,474 --> 00:49:18,206
I found a document that I guess helped

800
00:49:18,238 --> 00:49:21,262
put me on the map as a wine historian. Very small group of people, by

801
00:49:21,286 --> 00:49:24,270
the way, wine historians. But it was the first mention of

802
00:49:24,310 --> 00:49:27,502
Aubrion. And it came from King Charles II

803
00:49:27,566 --> 00:49:31,342
Cellarbrook, a month after he was returned to the throne, restored to the

804
00:49:31,366 --> 00:49:35,118
throne in June of 1660. And there it is. Arnaud

805
00:49:35,134 --> 00:49:38,782
de Pontac is shipping this wine. He wants to go right to that

806
00:49:38,806 --> 00:49:42,448
elite market. But he's not calling it Vin de Grave, he's calling it

807
00:49:42,494 --> 00:49:46,076
it O O. And so it's

808
00:49:46,108 --> 00:49:49,080
this. I mean, I think we see the same thing now with

809
00:49:50,260 --> 00:49:53,804
this specification of. In the

810
00:49:53,892 --> 00:49:57,708
delimiting of the area and the quantity, which

811
00:49:57,764 --> 00:50:01,516
heightens the prestige of the product. So when you get a, you know,

812
00:50:01,668 --> 00:50:05,452
you can get your Macallan single malt, but then when

813
00:50:05,476 --> 00:50:08,972
you get a MA that is aged 15 years,

814
00:50:09,076 --> 00:50:12,316
it's finished in two different kinds of barrels and it's a special

815
00:50:12,388 --> 00:50:15,580
edition and they only make thousand bottles.

816
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:19,720
Well, now you've got a product that, look, not everybody can get.

817
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:23,272
There are only a thousand Bottles out there. Right. So terroir

818
00:50:23,336 --> 00:50:24,780
helps to, in a sense,

819
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:30,744
make land ownership and quality

820
00:50:30,792 --> 00:50:34,344
production into a more lucrative effort because you're

821
00:50:34,392 --> 00:50:37,864
limiting the amount that's being produced and you're

822
00:50:37,912 --> 00:50:41,656
delimiting the space from which it can be produced. And of course,

823
00:50:41,808 --> 00:50:44,872
very often you really are making a product that people find

824
00:50:45,056 --> 00:50:48,728
discernibly superior. But it's also. I mean,

825
00:50:48,784 --> 00:50:52,100
so it's also a marketing thing. So the notion that

826
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:56,136
for the anti terroir group saying, oh, it's this sort of French idea, that there's

827
00:50:56,168 --> 00:50:59,400
really a bunch of bs. No, you tell me that you can

828
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:03,080
make merceau anywhere in the world. No,

829
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:06,664
look, Merceau makes a pretty special chardonnay that's really hard to reproduce

830
00:51:06,712 --> 00:51:10,520
anywhere else. At the same time, there is some

831
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:14,060
truth to the idea that, that, you know, terroir

832
00:51:14,140 --> 00:51:17,676
is also and can be manipulated as a.

833
00:51:17,828 --> 00:51:21,596
As a way to market and as a way to limit competition. Wow,

834
00:51:21,628 --> 00:51:25,420
that is. That is a. It's right on. And this

835
00:51:25,460 --> 00:51:28,120
history. We're. We're already at an hour, if you can believe this. But

836
00:51:29,220 --> 00:51:32,492
because we haven't even touched on. And I wanted to get into this. I mean,

837
00:51:32,516 --> 00:51:35,484
I think we'll just say it for the next time, which is when you teach

838
00:51:35,532 --> 00:51:39,294
these things, when you do what you do as a wine historian, when you

839
00:51:39,302 --> 00:51:43,102
put on a tasting, when you have these conversations, I want to hear in the

840
00:51:43,126 --> 00:51:46,638
next episode how it's received and what people

841
00:51:46,774 --> 00:51:50,050
ask. But while we're on this subject of terroir,

842
00:51:51,110 --> 00:51:54,942
because I always thought, and this will be the final thought, that

843
00:51:55,126 --> 00:51:58,494
for instance, when the Nazis invaded Bordeaux and the stories

844
00:51:58,542 --> 00:52:02,254
about, you know, the. The local people stealing

845
00:52:02,302 --> 00:52:05,758
from the Nazis, the copper and then making copper sulfate, and then that guy

846
00:52:05,774 --> 00:52:09,524
disappeared. All these amazing stories have been handed down, not the least of

847
00:52:09,532 --> 00:52:13,236
which which you've probably read the book Wine and War having. I'm

848
00:52:13,268 --> 00:52:15,920
having dinner with the cladstrup in two weeks

849
00:52:17,180 --> 00:52:20,980
about Monsieur Hue and how

850
00:52:21,020 --> 00:52:24,772
that glass of wine that 1940 Vouvray kept him alive in

851
00:52:24,796 --> 00:52:28,612
the concentration camps. And the point I'm making is if

852
00:52:28,636 --> 00:52:32,372
you were to take the definition terroir, which you've just. You

853
00:52:32,396 --> 00:52:35,988
haven't diffused it, but you certainly have expanded the definition into this

854
00:52:36,044 --> 00:52:39,812
marketing angle, as. Whereas there is certain validity to the

855
00:52:39,836 --> 00:52:43,552
fact that it thrown in one place. I think you're wrong. I'm not saying

856
00:52:43,576 --> 00:52:47,264
terroir isn't real. Right. I'm saying I expressed that last night. I opened a

857
00:52:47,272 --> 00:52:50,752
bottle of Merceau and I also put a bottle of. Of A

858
00:52:50,856 --> 00:52:54,432
domestic Chardonnay. And it was radically different. So you can't argue that.

859
00:52:54,456 --> 00:52:58,176
Right. But it seems to me that if, for instance, Monsieur

860
00:52:58,208 --> 00:53:01,968
Hue, I went through that experience and his

861
00:53:02,024 --> 00:53:05,260
lifestyle change and his outlook on life change, all the

862
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:10,000
steel de Vi, you know, if it all changed, that that

863
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:12,580
becomes part of

864
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:17,400
what they do and how they think and what their lifestyle is. When

865
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:21,080
they make that next bottle of wine, the things that have rolled up into

866
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:24,140
his life becomes part of that expression.

867
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:28,504
That's the romantic part of what I think terroir might

868
00:53:28,512 --> 00:53:31,512
be. No, and I think it's a way of marking.

869
00:53:31,656 --> 00:53:33,820
Terroir is a way of marking

870
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:38,728
time and space, particularly space.

871
00:53:38,864 --> 00:53:42,536
But I should say terroir is a way of marking space, and

872
00:53:42,608 --> 00:53:46,312
vintage is a way of marking time. And, you know,

873
00:53:46,336 --> 00:53:50,168
human beings. That's a great way to put it. We like to do many things,

874
00:53:50,224 --> 00:53:54,008
but one of the things we really want to do, it seems to make

875
00:53:54,064 --> 00:53:57,832
meaning of our lives or give meaning to our lives, is to map out time

876
00:53:57,856 --> 00:54:01,624
and space. That really helps us, you know, just be human, I

877
00:54:01,632 --> 00:54:03,940
think. And so that.

878
00:54:05,220 --> 00:54:08,972
That terroir gives us a sense of, you

879
00:54:08,996 --> 00:54:12,652
know, I understand space a little bit because it's not just from

880
00:54:12,676 --> 00:54:16,156
wine. It doesn't come from, you know, from everywhere. It comes from this particular place.

881
00:54:16,308 --> 00:54:19,756
And then when you add to that vintage, which

882
00:54:19,908 --> 00:54:23,484
isn't really a thing, believe it or not, until

883
00:54:23,572 --> 00:54:27,196
the 18th century, because up to that point,

884
00:54:27,268 --> 00:54:31,052
almost all wine, as you know, was consumed within the year. So the

885
00:54:31,076 --> 00:54:33,934
next of, you know, what vintage is it? What do you mean, what vintage is?

886
00:54:33,942 --> 00:54:37,646
It's. Here's one that doesn't. It's

887
00:54:37,678 --> 00:54:41,438
only when you age wine beyond a year that you start to,

888
00:54:41,494 --> 00:54:45,310
you know. So which year? Yeah, this. This tastes like it was last

889
00:54:45,350 --> 00:54:48,862
year's. Yeah. So. So when. When you start to

890
00:54:48,886 --> 00:54:52,734
get into these wines that

891
00:54:52,742 --> 00:54:55,934
are more carefully made from a circumscribed

892
00:54:55,982 --> 00:54:59,736
space, they actually can last longer. And then that

893
00:54:59,808 --> 00:55:03,448
allows us to map time by saying, ah, which year? And then

894
00:55:03,504 --> 00:55:06,020
that becomes sort of a fascinating way to also.

895
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:10,696
Well, becomes one of the fascinating things about wine because not only does wine

896
00:55:10,728 --> 00:55:12,740
allow us to see, ah, there is a difference between,

897
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:18,168
you know, Meursault and Puligny

898
00:55:18,184 --> 00:55:21,816
Montracher, which is right next door. But the wine can be slightly

899
00:55:21,848 --> 00:55:25,654
different, often are slightly different. So there's both. There's the. There's the

900
00:55:25,662 --> 00:55:29,318
terroir that makes the difference, there's the producer that makes the difference, and there's the

901
00:55:29,374 --> 00:55:33,222
year that makes the difference. And all this becomes part

902
00:55:33,246 --> 00:55:36,118
of what makes wine magical? Because there are all these

903
00:55:36,174 --> 00:55:39,958
variables that that are, are, are both

904
00:55:40,014 --> 00:55:43,830
on the pallet, but in our mind too. And that's when, you know, that's why

905
00:55:43,870 --> 00:55:47,462
wine is endlessly fascinating to people like the two of us and

906
00:55:47,486 --> 00:55:51,302
obviously a couple, you know, a few hundred million other

907
00:55:51,326 --> 00:55:54,940
people on the planet, it just to find that aspect of it.

908
00:55:55,060 --> 00:55:57,436
But I guess what I'm trying to do is understand why is it so fascinating

909
00:55:57,468 --> 00:56:00,972
to us. And I think it's the fact that it helps us map time and

910
00:56:00,996 --> 00:56:04,828
space. That's an interesting thought. I had a woman on

911
00:56:04,884 --> 00:56:06,520
last week and she is a

912
00:56:07,700 --> 00:56:11,532
PhD. She has two masters in theology and a PhD in

913
00:56:11,556 --> 00:56:12,960
theology. And she's

914
00:56:15,060 --> 00:56:18,508
making that same connection through the Bible and

915
00:56:18,564 --> 00:56:22,062
wine as expression of, of God's will

916
00:56:22,246 --> 00:56:26,062
to our soul. And so that's a whole different level of

917
00:56:26,086 --> 00:56:29,090
conversation in regards to that. But it was really, really interesting.

918
00:56:30,070 --> 00:56:33,822
But that's a really important question because there's no other beverage that

919
00:56:33,846 --> 00:56:37,566
does that, that asks those questions. You know, it seems to be

920
00:56:37,638 --> 00:56:40,446
sort of unique that way. And of course, you know, that's one of the reasons

921
00:56:40,478 --> 00:56:43,902
it's been so important to so many religions. I mean,

922
00:56:43,926 --> 00:56:47,010
certainly within the broad Judeo Christian tradition,

923
00:56:48,290 --> 00:56:51,962
but even before that with, with, you know, Greek and Roman

924
00:56:52,026 --> 00:56:55,850
and the Mesopotamian, you know, I'm leaving out some cultures there too. But

925
00:56:55,890 --> 00:56:59,386
you know, within all these traditions, wine was

926
00:56:59,458 --> 00:57:02,442
this a

927
00:57:02,466 --> 00:57:06,170
distinctly spiritual beverage in a way

928
00:57:06,210 --> 00:57:09,978
that say, beer didn't become that, or other

929
00:57:10,034 --> 00:57:13,578
narcotics didn't become, become that

930
00:57:13,714 --> 00:57:17,350
said that. It, you know, it remains, I think, sort of

931
00:57:17,390 --> 00:57:21,222
unique in that sense. My dad, we were in Armenia and we

932
00:57:21,246 --> 00:57:24,934
were talking about wine shows and we'll talk about that next time

933
00:57:24,942 --> 00:57:28,502
we're off camera. But we were talking about wine shows together. But how do

934
00:57:28,526 --> 00:57:32,310
we take some of these concepts and put them into film, put them into

935
00:57:32,350 --> 00:57:36,102
reels so that people would pay attention more than 30 seconds depending on, you

936
00:57:36,126 --> 00:57:39,862
know, what we're talking about. And one of the, one of

937
00:57:39,886 --> 00:57:43,572
the subjects I wanted to peel back, and you'll probably be

938
00:57:43,596 --> 00:57:46,852
helping me with this when the time comes because we are in Armenia. We are

939
00:57:46,876 --> 00:57:50,548
sitting with the Pope of Armenia, the. They call him in Eshm.

940
00:57:50,724 --> 00:57:54,520
And I just was noticing that throughout his residence

941
00:57:54,940 --> 00:57:57,560
and throughout Armenia history and throughout Armenian

942
00:57:57,980 --> 00:58:01,700
icons, grapes are there. I mean, it's everywhere. I'm sure

943
00:58:01,740 --> 00:58:05,444
like most civilizations, the, the concept of

944
00:58:05,452 --> 00:58:09,078
wine and grape is there. And so my, my, my

945
00:58:09,134 --> 00:58:12,646
thought was how do we, how do I, how can I peel back

946
00:58:12,718 --> 00:58:16,374
the importance of wine in the cult?

947
00:58:16,462 --> 00:58:20,214
The, the religious culture of Armenia. You know, where can I

948
00:58:20,222 --> 00:58:23,974
go? Where can I find. Why are grapes represented everywhere you

949
00:58:23,982 --> 00:58:27,750
go? Grapes and pomegranates and that's. And I don't like pomegranate wine, so

950
00:58:27,790 --> 00:58:31,622
I'm not going to do that. And so I'll leave it at

951
00:58:31,646 --> 00:58:35,494
that. And, and we have a lot more to talk about next time and

952
00:58:35,502 --> 00:58:38,734
I hope we can do this soon. I look forward to our next, next discussion.

953
00:58:38,822 --> 00:58:42,190
I, I didn't even touch on half the stuff here, but this stuff was really,

954
00:58:42,310 --> 00:58:46,014
really, really fun, Chad, to hear. What you have to say and

955
00:58:46,102 --> 00:58:49,854
well, my, my pleasure. And, and again, I hope we can add more of

956
00:58:49,862 --> 00:58:53,598
these because I'm having as much fun as you are. So we will thank

957
00:58:53,614 --> 00:58:57,390
you again for this, this, this morning and we will

958
00:58:57,430 --> 00:59:00,926
reconvene if I, I'll be in Paris for a week and Sicily. I'll be back

959
00:59:00,998 --> 00:59:04,574
and I think when we come back sometime in April, we'll get back on and

960
00:59:04,582 --> 00:59:08,270
we'll, we'll talk more about the consumerism and, and how

961
00:59:08,310 --> 00:59:11,626
you approach it and, and to promote

962
00:59:11,658 --> 00:59:15,002
this. Great. I look forward to that. Look forward to it.

963
00:59:15,026 --> 00:59:18,586
Paul, safe trip and enjoy your wine

964
00:59:18,618 --> 00:59:22,330
drinking in Paris and Sicily and all those other places. Thank you. Cheers.