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

0:00 I think we are in a more serious wine moment. But as you know, wine consumption among the new generation of young people in America as well as in France is declining. 21 to 35 crowd is not drinking as much wine as my crowd did and your crowd did. Why that is, it's not quite clear. Wine seems a little staid to them. Of course, natural wines, which kind of fall into that category of young creatives, are also doing fairly well in that crowd. But that's such a small percentage of overall wine production. Sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K. Welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today in beautiful Southern California, about to have a conversation with Charles Luddings. It out in New York. Introductions in just a moment.

0:44 Hey, have a listen to a show that's coming out with Florence Cathiard, and she owns the Chateau Smith aux Lafitte in the Pas Sac Leon district of Grave, as well as one of Lou, one of the historical properties in the Napa Valley under the Cathiard vineyard designation, once owned by Louis Martini. It's an incredible conversation. What an elegant, driven, athletic woman at that. But now, while we're here to have a conversation with Charles Ludington. You know, Charles, I keep putting down Chad. What do you go by? Charles? Please call me Chad. Since we're, we're not, we're not good friends here, Paul. So we're all good friends now. Chad has a BA in history, a master's in history, a master's of philosophy in history, and a PhD in history. And you know that. All from Ivy League schools. But your passion, you know, you, it's. I was reading your, your bio a little bit. It was talking about how you switched into the history of wine, which is really a fascinating subject because there aren't too many of you around that actually have this deep understanding of the value of the history of wine. How did that happen?

1:50 Oh, that's a great question, Paul. I was after, after college, I played basketball for a year in France. And for better or for worse, I was in Paris and I fell in love with Paris and more so than, than, than basketball. So it was. And part of that was the wine, the food, and just the. Yeah. The whole Parisian life. And so I, I was hooked at that point. And then when I was treated to a team in Spain, I said, you know, I really want to stay here in France. And I found a way of doing that.

2:31 And so I was. Went on to write a biography of this Franco Irish family who ended up in America, but that allowed me to stay doing research in Paris. And then eventually I went off to grad school and I was looking for a way to combine my interest in Irish history and French history. And I was working at a wine store in New York to kind of pay for my habit, as it were. Make the wine cheaper for a grad student by working on Saturdays at Aster. Sorry, not Astor. I was just thinking. Just thinking about after the. About Union Square wines and spirits, which is no longer where it used to be in any event. And then I was encouraged by one of my professors, a guy named Simon Shama, who was a cultural historian, to try to combine my interest in Irish and British history and wine. And next thing you know, I was off to the races with a. With a PhD on the politics of wine in Britain in the period 1649 to 1860, when wine was a very politicized commodity because it was a highly taxed commodity and a source of revenue for the government, very important source.

3:44 And it had all sorts of cultural and social and political meanings, what wine you consumed. And so I just found wine with this amazing lens onto British history. And you've expanded that into. Back into Irish history and French history. And I've just published a book on the Irish and Bordeaux, and I'm working on another version of that. And now I'm also. I'm going to back you all the way up to playing basketball in Paris. Sure, sure. Because that's fascinating stuff. And we're going to peel back some of that. We're not going to have enough time to do all the things that I want to talk about. We'll have to do this again. But we're going to Paris in a week. I'll go there as often as I can, stay as long as I can. If I can just get a layover for one night, I'll go to Paris and I'll go into town and I'll just hang out.

4:30 I am with you on this. I'm in love with the city, and I can't wait to get there, and I can't wait to come back when I'm gone. And in fact, yesterday morning I had this aberration. I said, you know, we're supposed to stop in Paris on the way home from Sicily. So I think. Think we're just going to extend that. And I called American Express and got the flight moved a few days so that we could spend a few nights on the way out, you know, just. Just hanging. And so I get that, you know, it's Interesting about the. You played basketball. I know you played in college and you, you went to France. Isn't it interesting now? Because there's a huge interest in wine in the NBA. Huge. To the extent that they have wineries, not just brands, you know, there's. As you and I know, the celebrity endorsed brand is different than sort of the person that's involved with it. Like Dwyane Wade has a winery and I, I just find it culturally interesting that this has become such an important part. In fact, there's a restaurant here in LA that the Lakers call after a game. We're on our way over. Don't close the kitchen. Pull out a couple of Burgundies and some Grand Cruise and let's. We're coming to town. Yeah, it's amazing. Wine has, has really entered the NBA in, in, in a major way, as you just said. You know, I, I won. Of French players in the NBA has had on that. That's certainly possible. Tony Parker, who had an American dad who had gone over to play basketball in France just as I did, he married a French woman. Obviously, Tony Parker becomes this

6:02 fantastic player, but he was very interested in, you know, having grown up in France, he was very interested in wine. And in fact he has a chateau down in a domain down in, in Provence now which mostly makes rose, which of course was having a moment, but I think he's, he's a pretty serious wine guy, him myself. And you know, there have been other Boris Diaw and other French players back, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and of course there are far more now. And as we saw in last summer's Olympics back in Paris with, you know, Wimby and quite a few others, the. France is perhaps the second best basketball country in the world at this, you know, currently. And all those players bring their Frenchness to the league. But you know, I don't know how much that had an impact on people like JJ Redick or LeBron James or Dwyane Wade and others who have professed this incredible interest in wine and have, you know, have serious collections, some of them. And I think it's become a thing among them to both to sort of to share wine with each other, but also to kind of there's one upmanship, there's competitive, you know, oh, I opened a, you know, Lafitte 82 last night. What did you guys have? Yeah, it goes around and around and so it's, you know, it's. Yeah, it's an amazing, it's an amazing aspect of contemporary wine culture. And basketball culture. That's funny story, because I think I told you briefly, but we were at Cheval Blanc, we're having lunch in the vineyard with Monsieur Clay,

7:35 and this big black dude comes down, and he's introduced himself as Mike Pietras. And we started talking. And then before I knew it, after I got home, I was on a Zoom call with him and Boris, talking about the lifestyle of Bordeaux and wine. But the way that happened was very bizarre. One of my guests on this trip was up on the roof of Cheval Blanc, and Mike was up there. They started talking, and my guest had been the cameraman at a Clippers game, and Mike had taken him out as he was shooting a basket and had, you know, lay up and fell on him. And he goes, you know, he goes, Mr. Patriots, do you remember me? You knocked me. You knocked me over. And he goes, I do remember that. And then he says, you got to come down and say hi to our group. And so he came down and I. And that's what started this sort of interest. And then I had a conversation with Dwayne Wade's number two guy, George Walker, up. Up in Napa. You think that's. And this is going to lead into this conversation about the lifestyle, wine, the history of wine, you know, developing this lifestyle. That, that. That I don't think is an opulent. It's not these. They're not chasing this opulent lifestyle that shows you've arrived in life. It's just. It's just the idea of wine and its complexities and its nuances and what it does at the dinner table. Is that. Would that be accurate? Yeah, you know, that's a fantastic question, because I suppose, you know, the. The academic in me and say you probably can't separate either

9:07 one from the other, but. But, you know, to me, there are these inherent joys, and obviously there are to you, too, and to many of your listeners, just, you know, in wine. And once you discover those, you know, especially when you come from a background where maybe that just wasn't at all a part of what you grew up with, and you discover that and you think, oh, my Lord, you know, this. This wine is. Could be so complex and. And when you, you know, combine it with food and if you love both those things, athletes certainly love eating and, you know, some physical pleasures, after all the stress they're putting their body under, it makes perfect sense that people are just saying, look, this is great. I didn't know about this necessarily, growing up. Just like most basketball players, most Americans don't grow up in sort of fine wine families. Certainly my parents were just giving an example, were beer and Matuse and.

10:11 Lancers. You know, my dad had a martini, his beer Matuse and, you know, occasional martini, and then spent a year in Lyon. He was a professor also and discovered Beaujolais because he played on a. He played on the local basketball team. And a lot of the games were around the city of Lyon, and some of them were up in the Beaujolais region. And, you know, after the games, you know, sometimes on outdoor mud courts. I'm not making this up, you know, where the ball wouldn't actually bounce, would you know, that there would be this big feast with the village that maybe you just defeated in hoops, and you'd sit down to the wine that came from the fields that surround the court. That's amazing.

10:59 So there's, you know, so there's that discovery of wine. That's an amazing thing. Now, to the other point, you know, I think it's very hard to separate the. The historical aspect of wine too. Especially really fine wines have often meant to the consumers themselves. You know, I have, I've arrived. You know, I can afford this. And it's. So it's both a statement to oneself and of course, it's a way. It's, it's, it's. It's a display to. To others who know the language of wine that, you know, you've arrived. And you see this with, you know, going back to some of the things I've written on that about in the 17th and 18th century in England, the merchants and the lawyers who have as much money as the aristocrats, in some cases more, they use wine and their appreciation of wine as a symbol to tell the aristocrats, we've arrived, we're here, we deserve to be here. And you see the same thing 20 years ago, starting in the Chinese market, where wine, and particularly Bordeaux, more recently, Burgundy becomes a way of saying, you know, we. We. We've made money. You know, we're now a Shanghai millionaire, or we, and we know wine. And so wine becomes this way of telling oneself and also others that one is arrived. And so I, you know, I'm sure that's an. There's an aspect of that too, no doubt, among some players that, you know, we have, yeah, we've made it. We, We're. We've moved up a social class

12:32 or we have just sort of, you know, we're. We're success in this world. It's because you mentioned earlier about the political, not fallout but the politics of wine in 1649-1860 in Britain. And I thought to myself, it's not a whole lot different today. I mean, certainly the status. I had a conversation yesterday with the representative in China of lvmh, and she just corroborated what you just said, which is Bordeaux was the beginning of the Chinese awareness of wine. And now Burgundy's crept in there and they're starting. And I, as you and I know, all, you know, files, as Chuck Wagner said, not Chuck Wagner, but Paul Meyer said, you know, end up in Burgundy. But that's interesting that, that there's a. There was a political ramification to what you drank and how you were perceived by what you drank. And isn't that true today? I mean, really, you know, that's a.

13:28 That's a good question. I don't think it's as politicized, certainly, in if we're speaking about the United States. I think it's more gendered, probably. Now, of course, gender these days is also a hot political topic when you look at the way people are. Men and women have voted in the last election and what seems to be sort of a male backlash. So certainly gendering of wine is also a form of the politics of wine in terms of what country you chose to drink from. There was a little bit of that moment in 2003 when the French didn't join us in our. I guess I'm going to go ahead. And I reminded people of this very event because of the today's tariff situation. I go, wait a minute. We politicized it. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's sort of a. What I guess I'll call in retrospect, the folly of the invasion. And the French didn't come along, go along. And so we had a, you know, our moment of pouring French wine down drains and changing French fries to freedom fries and all that. But I don't think I forgot now. There's sort of an. I don't think there's. At the moment, there's an anti French or anti Italian or anti Spanish wine bias or still a pro American wine bias. But that. That could change. You know, I do think the gendering of wine is pretty clear in the way that, you know, white wine for a very long time has been gendered female, and red wine, more male,

15:00 is obviously having a moment. And back when I was working in the wine store in New York in the mid-90s, I couldn't sell rose de Provence to save my life. People would come in and we maybe offered one or two bottles. And I had had some wonderful experiences in the south of France where I just said, you know, on a hot day with, you know, grilled foods, you know, is a perfect one. A little more body than whites. It's not to be taken too seriously. And it's only, you know, six bucks a bottle. You know, it's. And New Yorkers at the time would not touch the stuff. It was either, you know, we didn't know is it neither fish nor foul, or they associate it with white Zinfandel. Look, I'm not a white Zinfandel drinker. And I was like, it's not white Zinfandel. And it's. You really gotta try it in the summertime in particular. And, you know, now obviously, you know, the section is often one of the largest in a hip wine store, and people are absurdly charging, you know, it's 35, 40 bucks for. For summer. Yeah. Domain Odd, though.

16:05 I think I just bought some Etoile from Domain Auto. They got retails at 65. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, Domain art has always been up there for a while. But. But yeah, I think it's the. It's the Brangelina effect, too. And so. But. And rose is largely. I guess it's. It's. What do they call it? Hampton's Tea here in New York? I've never heard that. That's great. And I think it's gendered. Mostly pink, you know, is gendered. Mostly female. But. But, you know, I think it's also one of those. It's. It's not a white wine, it's not a red. So I think the men feel comfortable crossing over. It's, you know, it's. So, yeah, wine is gendered. It's therefore political. I don't. You know, we may get to a moment when wine becomes highly political in terms of the, you know, whether it's American wine or wine from the eu, if in fact the tariffs get slapped on, because then it becomes a class thing too, you know, who can afford it?

17:05 And that adds a component to the politics of it that. That, you know, only the elites. I mean, I can go in most of my stores here in New York and Upper west side, you know, I would say I'm probably going to find cheaper French and Italian wines than I am American wines. But, you know, you add a 200 tariff on those wines, next thing you know, all European wines are going to be more expensive and American wines will become the. The default wine for the. For the middle classes. I Guess we'll call it, you know, the. As you probably realize, there's a. There's a big difference between the wine shelves here in Southern California than in New York. And New York is a wine shop at every corner and some of them very specific regions and styles. In California, the import selection is considerably less in the fact.

17:56 My son in law, who's in Potsdam, who is a devotee, you know, comes down to New York City to, To stock his cellar because there's such a variety there and stuff. He took me to a store not too long ago. I think it was in the Hudson. The city of Hudson. Hudson's a city too, right? Not just the river. Well, there's Hudson on Hastings. Hastings on Hudson, sorry. And then there's a little tiny village. With a little tiny wine shop. And you know, I thought, look, I've been doing this for 35 years. I think I saw two brands that I recognized, you know, on the shelf and There was probably 200 SKUs in this shop, maybe more. And so I thought, wow, this is an interesting difference. But you know, let me jump on a subject that I think is interesting that I want you to reflect on. Our mutual friend Dr. Friedman, who's, you know, lecturing on the servitude, medieval servitude, but his passion is the evolution of cuisine in America. And you know, it's a very interesting.

18:58 I love the subject as well. I think it's one of your passions as it's evolved. Do you think that, that there's been that renaissance of wine in America that the food went through in the 80s and continues to sort of change, or we're not there yet, or it happened a long time ago, like in the 70s, during the judgment of Par. And that's. And then we're just settled in already. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, historians were looking for trends and, and that certainly, you know, follows that idea that when, when did this trend start? You know, I, I think there's a lot of evidence that in, in the 70s, partly because certain producers like Heights were making really quality wines in California.

19:45 Mondavi stepping up their act. And you know, you get many other examples. Ridge comes on the scene sometimes not long after that, if I'm not mistaken. And so you have better American wines. And then of course you have, you know, 1976, you have the Judgment of Paris where, you know, Chateau Montelena and you know, Stagsley, you know, wins the prize. And actually we've won in both in Chardonnay and in Bordeaux. Belen too. So that was obviously a big moment. But then you don't really. The 80s, the sort of counter evidence there is that. Yeah. But guess What? In the 1980s, America's number one selling one was Wards Infidel.

20:30 So how much of an impact did it really have? Good point. I think sometime in the 1990s. So there's maybe a general trend, but it wasn't really clear, maybe not a deep Trend until the 1990s when you start to get what I'll call broadly the foodie movement. That is people's greater interest in seasonal food and sort of rejection of packaged food and instant foods that had been so fashionable after World War II up through the 1970s and early through the 80s is sort of the transition year beginning in 90s. Certainly by that point among the, I guess I'll call it cultural elites, there's this movement away from all that previous era and the packaged foods and processed foods. And I think with that came a greater appreciation of wine as part of that broad foodie movement. Because of course wine in most cultures, as you know, ours may be the exception in some ways, but wine and food grew symbiotically. And so you're into wine, you're into food, you're into food, you're into wine. The food go to together. You don't just drink wine without the food, you know, you don't eat food without the wine. And so I think that kind of took off in American society as well. And I guess the question again is how far did that penetrate down. I've got some. I edited a book few years ago called Food Fights How History Matters to

22:01 Contemporary Food Debates. And some. One of the authors, Margot Finn and I and I can largely concurred, made the case that this was largely that the foodie movement was largely class based and that farmers markets may have been an attempt to and may still be an attempt to help local economies and sort of disrupt the dominance of big food and all that. But fundamentally it's a way for people who have cultural capital, not necessarily a lot of financial capital, but cultural capital to play the game of elitism. And you know, wine's caught up in that movement too. So you'll find that too cynical a take doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but, but that implicates certainly people like me, you know, academic, growing up in a place like Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where, you know, the farmer's market is a big part of the local identity and it's a part of liberal politics. And so that said, I think we are in a more serious wine moment. But as you know, wine consumption among the new generation of young people in America as well as in France is declining.

23:11 So, you know, with the 21 to 35 crowd is not drinking as much wine as my crowd did and your crowd did, which was, you know, we were increasing the amount. So how, you know, why that is, it's not quite clear. Wine seems a little staid to them. I think in some ways, you know, cocktails and craft beers are doing very well. Of course, natural wines, which kind of fall into that category of young creatives, are also doing fairly well in that crowd. But that's such a small percentage of overall wine production. So, you know, that's a long answer to your short question, but I think. I don't, I, I don't. I, I would love to peel that stuff back with you, but I wanted to, I wanted to dig back into your.

23:56 The history of wine more than that. But there's certainly all that stuff. I just. Actually one of the most responses I've ever gotten on a comment, hey, you place a comment on LinkedIn or something, you know, usually it just stays there. And some people continue to comment. But the most replies I've ever gotten to one of my comments was one where I said, you know, it's a lot of lip service on the Internet right now, and there's a lot of reasons why they're not drinking. I think wine is generational. All generations come to it eventually, and there's lots of peaks and valleys along the way. And certainly you can't drink White Claw, you know, the rest of your life. So I think that's going to change. And not only that, that the marketplace, when the idea of, of a private labeling became as simple and pro. Profitable as it became, you know, 15, 20 years ago, you know, the marketplace was inundated with 50 cent a liter crap from Europe and packaged a thousand different ways. And that just put, pun intended, sour taste in people's mouth as well. I think that's my personal opinion. But I want to go back to. Because your, Your specialty is a history of wine, the politics of wine. And I, and I was reading your, Your, Your bio and you're talking about this, the Irish, the Irish movement in Bordeaux.

25:09 And I started thinking, you know, it's so interesting to me, particularly Bordeaux. Burgundy is a little more protected. But didn't. Wasn't with Bordeaux. The rash shields are, what, from the Netherlands or from Germany? Yeah. And. And Napa was founded by immigrants. I mean, and so here's this indigenous product that is to reflect local everything, you know, terroir and the history. But so much of the popular regions of the world were founded by immigration, by people that came to this country, that brought the idea of wine, that brought the idea of the lifestyle of wine to those areas. And I find that fascinating. And here you are talking about the Irish in Bordeaux, which you don't, you don't hear, but that's not the most common thing you hear about. No, it's certainly not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Bordeaux wine. Ireland has spent a lot of time, certainly in the second half of the 20th century promoting the notion that it's all Guinness and whiskey. Once a big wine consuming society, and it was also Irish merchants were very important in the creation of modern Bordeaux. Remarkably so, in fact, they played an integral role in, throughout the 18th century that, you know, it speaks to your point that so often it's because wine is desired by people outside of the place it's produced.

26:40 Savvy merchants and people, you know, who want to drink themselves but also see an opportunity, a market opportunity, go there, produce it and ship it off. So, yeah, the Irish did that in the 18th century, starting in the 1690s. But they settle in Bordeaux, which was accommodating both to Irish Catholics because of course, France at that point had decided it was a uniquely Catholic kingdom. And Irish Catholics were in the 1690s being placed in second class status in their own society. So they go from an anti Catholic society to a very pro Catholic one. Meanwhile, Irish Protestants who are on top in Ireland go to France where you'd think they would be personae non grata because they are Protestant and Protestants had just been kicked out of France. But French tax collectors were too clever to kick out all their Huguenots on the grounds that we would reduce, you know, we'll reduce our tax base. So they. So that Protestant foreign merchants were actually found a small community of Protestants. They weren't, you know, as long as they paid their taxes, they were tolerated. But in the case of the Irish, what's fascinating is Protestant and Catholic, they all got along famously and went to the same, you know, cafe and hotel in Bordeaux. They had balls together, they went into business together, they hired each other's children and servants.

28:09 Very rarely did they intermarry, but they were very much a community who worked together, slaughtered together and were friends. And in hard situations, they loaned, you know, they were loaning money. So it was really, they were Irish. The French didn't really draw a distinction between whether they were Catholic or Protestant. But there's about 65, 35. You know, money talks is what you're trying to say. But it was actually sort of a, sort of a marvel when you think about what's happening back in Ireland or in some ways in France itself, with this religious intolerance. But the key thing is really their role in wine production, which is that they were buying up all of the, what we now call first growth wines. I mean, when I say all, I mean literally all. And shipping them off to the two most lucrative markets that wanted those wines, and that was England and Ireland itself now.

29:04 And no one else was buying Lafitte, Latour, Margaux, bouillon, et cetera. It was just for that market. It's also important to say that they weren't just buying and shipping. They were buying in what we would call sort of Emprimeur or even earlier, often in December, following the harvest. So the wines were super yellow. And then they would, they were the ones who would raise the wines sometimes up to five, seven years, kind of like a Rioja. They would have them in barrel that long and then ship them. But they would also blend them for the market, for the taste of the elite British and Irish markets who wanted them to taste somewhat differently than they would have without the addition of Syrah from the R Valley or Alicante, sorry, Grenache from up by, you know, just south of Barcelona and then morved from down by. From down by Alicante. So that reminds me of a word I haven't heard in a long time. Negociant. Right. That's exactly what they were. They were. I have not heard that in a long time. So what, so what Was this? The 18th century?

30:16 You're talking about 19. This is the 18th century. And well, as you know, it wasn't until. Well, actually, let me back up here. Starting around in the, in the 1850s with the whole, as you know, there was a whole series of, of diseases that came from North America. In fact, with Odium, then Floxera and then downy mildew that hit France, 1850s, 60s, 70s, one after the other. Phylloxera was the worst. But the two different types of mildew, powdery mildew and downy mildew, are also disastrous in some ways. Ultimately these were overcome. The phylloxer, certainly with American rootstock, but. And then you learn copper sulfate. It seems like that on the vines help to keep away the mildew and the rot. But all that to say what then happens is in the period 1850 to roughly 1930s, you get this change in the perspective of the consumer. Whereas previously they wanted the elite consumers in London and Dublin and in Hamburg and in New York, they wanted. And in Paris, they wanted wines that were blended, that is, wines that had about 15%, depending on the year. You know, GSM, Grenache, Syrah, Morvedre. And then what then happens with all of the

31:46 fraud? They didn't think of that as fraud, actually. But then what happens with all these diseases is you get wines coming in from elsewhere, from, in particular, from Algeria, France's colony, that is then being sent off as Bordeaux or later Burgundy. And you get all this. You get things that are labeled. So when in the period in the 18th century, when you had your Chateau Lafitte, it may have been 80% Chateau Lafitte, 20%, something else. And people were fine with that. They didn't think of that as fraud. You weren't putting anything besides wine in there, and you were making a better product. But starting in the 1850s, up until about 1930, you get this notion that it's a process, that you're now selling me something that really isn't even close to what you say it is.

32:40 And so, along with industrialization, awareness of microbes, because Pasteur comes along, he identifies microbes and germs, and everybody starts to panic. And then you have the fact that it's Algerian wine, which, frankly, there are prejudices, obviously, racial prejudice, against things that came from Africa. And now this idea of blending wines from two different places doesn't work anymore. So by the 1930s, what was done in the 18th century and demanded by elite customers in the 18th century, by the 1930s, that's a criminal act. And so you get the AOC laws in the 1930s that say if you blend this one with that one, you are going to jail, and that those are still the laws in place.

33:27 So it's a fascinating history of. It's a mental shift in the mind of the consumer as well as a shift in production in which you don't consider doing that now unless you're an unscrupulous winemaker, whereas the very best winemakers were doing that in the 18th century because that's what their customers wanted. Let me stop you. That's fascinating because. Not that I made a career of it, but the stuff we used to taste over the 35 years, every Tuesday, I mean, we saw everybody's attempt at trying to do something that they thought was innovative in this industry. And one of them was a great Wine. And the poor guy, it was called. Oh man. Anyway, he had two blends and he thought that he was going to set the world on fire by blending Sonoma juice with Napa juice.

34:11 It was on the label that way, which you can do in the new world anyway. In California you can do that all you want. But this was stated on the label, we're going to do this. And I just, it just hits me as this, it just seems to repeat itself. Look at Joe Franzia, the Franzia brothers, you know, getting busted for making bottling white Zinfandel. But it was really Grenache and they, they faked the leaves in the truck so that the winemaker would think that was Zinfandel. And you know, they, they should have gone to jail for that. Actually. It was about to just got fined. But you know, it's just so interesting because this industry seems to have the attraction of that kind of thing that to, to do something that may not seem so kosher on the surface and then it changes, the rules change and now it's not a lot. It just seems what other product in the world has this not ambition but this allure to do that, to try something like this? I just think that's amazing. It's consumers who drive these changes in many ways. So again in the 18th century, consumers, when you read the letters from merchants who are speaking on behalf of their customers, who are writing to their producers, to the Irish in Bordeaux who are really in many ways the producers of the wine, you know, it's please don't send me any of that stuff that hasn't been blended with a little bit of Hermitage. I want the Hermitage, I want the Grenache, I want the Mourvedre from

35:42 Spain, what they call the Alicante and the Benny Carlo. And I want the Hermitage. And it's too thin otherwise and the customers won't like it. Likewise, when Hugh Barton, who was a member of the illustrious Barton family from County Forbana in Ireland, in fact, it was 300 years ago this year that Tom Barton arrived in Bordeaux. But his grandson Hugh, who was running the firm in Bordeaux during the 1780s and 90s when the French Revolution broke out, he was imprisoned. He was got out of jail because his French born Irish wife, Anna Johnston, the Johnstons are also still very much in Bordeaux. She was able to spring him from jail because he was French. But then they quickly got out of Dodge. But before going, he went into partnership with a French guy named Gastier and that became part of Gastier. You're Certainly familiar with that. But one of the things that he then tried to implore the French authorities saying, my stocks of wine that I have, they're no good to you because they're blended.

36:55 They're, you know, the Chateau Lafitte is Chateau Lafitte, but it's much too rich and full bodied for the French market. So please let me get it out of here and ship it off to the one market that wants this stuff. Wow. Which is the British Isles. That's amazing story. I did a lot of business with Barney Gastier over the years early on. So let's. I don't know if it was your conversation or with Tim Hani about the definition of terroir having changed from was, I think I say despicable, but it was not a positive term in the world of wine. And now, of course, it's used, as aficionados like to say, it's the terroir. And it's driven by terroir and maybe even one of those air aristocratic terms that people don't understand what you're talking about. But I wanted to apply it to list the current definition, which is what the vines have gone through to get to where they're at when they make the wine. And I have this opinion and I think you'd be the perfect person to reflect on that is all the history of. Let's just talk about the Irish who came to Bordeaux and all the things you're talking about right now and the blending and the unblending and then the illegal part of that. No longer an appellation allows that blending. Doesn't that all roll up eventually as terroir to that particular bottle. You're not going to taste the

38:26 fact that some negociant Irish, negociant back in the day was blending, you know, Grenache and the wine. But wouldn't the mentality, the thought process, the education of the winemakers, the storytelling to the winemakers reflect in a bottle of wine like that. Well, that's another excellent and maybe very difficult question to answer because terroir, I mean, without, if you, you know, if you accept the blending of even, you know, 5%, 10%, 15% of wines from elsewhere into, you know, again and marketed as such, then fundamentally you're rejecting the idea of terroir or, you know, I don't just point out Bordeaux at this point in, in Burgundy, at the same time, their big wine to, to, to blend in the early modern era in the 18th century was Chateauneuf du Pape. So just as in Some ways, the, the, the chickens had come home to roost. Because in the, the late Middle ages, in the 14th century, in particular, 1309-1377, the Papacy was not in Rome, it was in Avignon.

39:45 That's right. And all the popes were French, not surprisingly, all the Avignon popes, and they presumably were following the fashion of the court in Paris and of wealthy Northern Europeans who had taken to Burgundy wine. And what they called Vende Beaune was sort of. That was the. They didn't have any particular conception of a specific terroir. But Beaune was obviously being the market town there. It was all called Vende Beaune. And that. That was the really fashionable wine in, at the court, both in Paris as well as at the papal court in Avignon.

40:29 But those popes obviously also had a little weekend house just to the north of the town of Avignon, which became the pope's new castle. Hence Chateau Neuf du Pape, which was planted with very different grapes. We know there are, I guess, what, 17 different types, or 13 or 17 of grapes that you can use. And now mostly Grenache and Mourvedre and Syrah and Sausso and counoise, whatever. But. But that wasn't the wine they were drinking at the court at the time. They were drinking wine that had come down from Burgundy, but those much riper wines, those much riper wines produced for much riper grapes because it's much hotter. And they also have those very large stones, of course, that reflect the heat even at night in the summertime, and really ripen. The Grenache and the Movedo, those were later desired back in Burgundy as a way to thicken up, give some greater body to Burgundy wines, which by the 18th century were considered in some ways too thin, without the addition of a little touch of Chef Neuf du Pape. So by no means was this just a Bordeaux thing. This was very. You know, it's going on all over the place. And again, it was not considered fraud. What was considered fraud was when you added something besides wine, grape juice. If you were to add elderberry juice or beets, that would be fraud. But, you know, you can blend your wines as you wanted, but the very idea of blending wines

42:02 takes away. So if you do that now in France, you have a Vin de France, right? So Chateau Palmer makes a 19th century, what they call a Bordeaux, 19th century blend. And it's basically, it adds. They get some wine from Hermitage, so some Syrah, and they put it in, and it's quite an expensive Wine, and it's, it's wonderful. But it's sold as a Vin de France, the lowest level, because there's some wine from the Rhone Valley, very high quality Amitage, but it goes in to. So what do you think? That. That's an interesting point. At least stop it there. They change it from vin de table because that, you know, that sounds much more generic. And now we have Vin de France. At least the word France is in there. But. Okay, so if the history of wine was to blend, and I guess the, the logic is the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that's what was happening. Like, I, I don't think I've ever tasted an Algerian wine. I have to go check my database, but I would. I'm guessing this is earthy, heavy duty, you know, thick, thick skinned, extracted wine. But let's just. The idea of blending wines is now very appellated. I mean, it's very controlled by the appellation. Right.

43:23 So what was the movement that, that created this, I'm going to say, chasm between the old world, which is what we consider today's world of wine, and Burgundy is only Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, et cetera. In the new world, which you can do whatever you want, you still. Right. That's the attraction of the French to America. Yeah. You can still mostly do what you want to, depending on where you are in Languedoc and where you are in Loire Valley. There are some rules here and there, but there are also places in Loire Valley and certainly in Languedoc, where you can do, you know, you can plant whatever the heck you want. What was the historical movement from the time that you could put Syrah in Burgundy? To do that and you go to jail? Well, this gets. So I'm going to try to tie these things together, but this gets back to your question about terroir. So my point was simply you can't really have this notion of terroir specifically in the way that you do now when you're allowed to bring in wines that come from a different terroir.

44:21 So, you know, when you have two terroir together, it's no longer a terroir driven wine. That's right. And I would also argue that there was a sense terroir developed as a concept even while they were still blending, because most of the wine in what was labeled, you know, Vin de Bone, or, you know, Vin Deux de Grave or Poyac, it was mostly still from there, but it was. But not all from there. So, you know, we have these sort of binary clean cut categories that they didn't necessarily have. So terroir as a concept existed even when wines were still being blended, but from different, different parts of the of France or from different vineyards, you know, 10 miles, 15 miles apart in a different.

45:12 But so a couple things happen in the. To go back to the Burgundy case, it's really in the 17th century when land ownership moves from the church to private individuals, many of whom are ennobled. So it goes from the lords of the church, you might say, to the lords of the secular lords, who now own most of the land and therefore most of the wine production in Burgundy. And what happens is that they are trying to sort of sacralize their. They're trying to make a product for the market, obviously, because, you know, land ownership is only worth something if you can make money from the products of your land. So to sort of secularize their wine. It's at that time that they begin to emphasize what we think of as this medieval concept, which wasn't, but that of the Klima in Burgundy. That is, this is my specific wine. And since by circumscribing comes from a very specific area, and it comes from, with my noble pedigree and my noble care, you're ennobling the wine and therefore increasing the chances, you might say, of sale. Because then it becomes something that another fellow consumer might say, by drinking this wine, I'm drinking this noble product.

46:41 And of course, the better the wine is, and the better its reputation is, the greater the profit margin for sale. So it's a way to subtly. Be. A businessman, despite being an aristocrat, by having this product. So it's really, you see that as part of the land change from church to secular authorities in Burgundy, the notion of Klima. And from Klima, you know, things get ever smaller, down to this idea that the Klima is the tailwalk, and this really matters. But, you know, one of the things that sort of shows just how invented this concept is, is if you look at the Clos de Vougeau, you know, the most famous Clos in all of Burgundy, it's also the largest, but it was put together from the 11th century to the 14th century by Cistercian monks who lived right around the corner at Seitou, and they had about a 13 kilometer walk over to the vineyard. Of course, they had lay brothers and lay sisters doing a lot of the labor for them.

47:44 But, you know, we think of the idea of this close, this unified vineyard, where the Terroir is fundamentally the same. Done these intense studies of the Clos de Vougeot to show that it's an incredible mosaic, that the monks saying, this is just the right. This is clay and limestone here and nowhere. And outside of this wall, it's not clay and limestone. Within the coat of Ugeau, you get all of these different soil types. So what was really going on, it had very little to do with this notion of a distinct terroir, had much more to do with the wall was there purpose of wind protection, erosion protection. Because when the soil drops down to the bottom of the hill, it's contained by a wall. And you can take it back up to the top of the hill and put it there and let it go down again. It's to keep grazing animals out and it's to define the workspace. Because you have to pay people in cash or in kind or something to work this space. So it's a way before payments were all cash banks, but they're often in kind.

48:46 Like, this is how much work you have to do. What do you mean, like 10 hours or $100? No, no, no. It's the space that's. It defines work. But it's in the 17th century that you begin to see the emergence of. It's this terroir that really matters. And the same thing happens in Bordeaux in the 1660, when Arnaud de Pontac gives a name to his specific property, Aubrion. And that's it. So I found a document that I guess helped put me on the map as a wine historian. Very small group of people, by the way, wine historians. But it was the first mention of Aubrion. And it came from King Charles II Cellarbrook, a month after he was returned to the throne, restored to the throne in June of 1660. And there it is. Arnaud de Pontac is shipping this wine. He wants to go right to that elite market. But he's not calling it Vin de Grave, he's calling it it O O. And so it's this. I mean, I think we see the same thing now with this specification of. In the delimiting of the area and the quantity, which heightens the prestige of the product. So when you get a, you know, you can get your Macallan single malt, but then when you get a MA that is aged 15 years, it's finished in two different kinds of barrels and it's a special edition and they only make thousand bottles.

50:16 Well, now you've got a product that, look, not everybody can get. There are only a thousand Bottles out there. Right. So terroir helps to, in a sense, make land ownership and quality production into a more lucrative effort because you're limiting the amount that's being produced and you're delimiting the space from which it can be produced. And of course, very often you really are making a product that people find discernibly superior. But it's also. I mean, so it's also a marketing thing. So the notion that for the anti terroir group saying, oh, it's this sort of French idea, that there's really a bunch of bs. No, you tell me that you can make merceau anywhere in the world. No, look, Merceau makes a pretty special chardonnay that's really hard to reproduce anywhere else. At the same time, there is some truth to the idea that, that, you know, terroir is also and can be manipulated as a.

51:17 As a way to market and as a way to limit competition. Wow, that is. That is a. It's right on. And this history. We're. We're already at an hour, if you can believe this. But because we haven't even touched on. And I wanted to get into this. I mean, I think we'll just say it for the next time, which is when you teach these things, when you do what you do as a wine historian, when you put on a tasting, when you have these conversations, I want to hear in the next episode how it's received and what people ask. But while we're on this subject of terroir, because I always thought, and this will be the final thought, that for instance, when the Nazis invaded Bordeaux and the stories about, you know, the. The local people stealing from the Nazis, the copper and then making copper sulfate, and then that guy disappeared. All these amazing stories have been handed down, not the least of which which you've probably read the book Wine and War having. I'm having dinner with the cladstrup in two weeks about Monsieur Hue and how that glass of wine that 1940 Vouvray kept him alive in the concentration camps. And the point I'm making is if you were to take the definition terroir, which you've just. You haven't diffused it, but you certainly have expanded the definition into this marketing angle, as. Whereas there is certain validity to the fact that it thrown in one place. I think you're wrong. I'm not saying terroir isn't real. Right. I'm saying I expressed that last night. I opened a bottle of Merceau and I also put a bottle of. Of A

52:50 domestic Chardonnay. And it was radically different. So you can't argue that. Right. But it seems to me that if, for instance, Monsieur Hue, I went through that experience and his lifestyle change and his outlook on life change, all the steel de Vi, you know, if it all changed, that that becomes part of what they do and how they think and what their lifestyle is. When they make that next bottle of wine, the things that have rolled up into his life becomes part of that expression. That's the romantic part of what I think terroir might be. No, and I think it's a way of marking.

53:31 Terroir is a way of marking time and space, particularly space. But I should say terroir is a way of marking space, and vintage is a way of marking time. And, you know, human beings. That's a great way to put it. We like to do many things, but one of the things we really want to do, it seems to make meaning of our lives or give meaning to our lives, is to map out time and space. That really helps us, you know, just be human, I think. And so that. That terroir gives us a sense of, you know, I understand space a little bit because it's not just from wine. It doesn't come from, you know, from everywhere. It comes from this particular place.

54:16 And then when you add to that vintage, which isn't really a thing, believe it or not, until the 18th century, because up to that point, almost all wine, as you know, was consumed within the year. So the next of, you know, what vintage is it? What do you mean, what vintage is? It's. Here's one that doesn't. It's only when you age wine beyond a year that you start to, you know. So which year? Yeah, this. This tastes like it was last year's. Yeah. So. So when. When you start to get into these wines that are more carefully made from a circumscribed space, they actually can last longer. And then that allows us to map time by saying, ah, which year? And then that becomes sort of a fascinating way to also.

55:06 Well, becomes one of the fascinating things about wine because not only does wine allow us to see, ah, there is a difference between, you know, Meursault and Puligny Montracher, which is right next door. But the wine can be slightly different, often are slightly different. So there's both. There's the. There's the terroir that makes the difference, there's the producer that makes the difference, and there's the year that makes the difference. And all this becomes part of what makes wine magical? Because there are all these variables that that are, are, are both on the pallet, but in our mind too. And that's when, you know, that's why wine is endlessly fascinating to people like the two of us and obviously a couple, you know, a few hundred million other people on the planet, it just to find that aspect of it.

55:55 But I guess what I'm trying to do is understand why is it so fascinating to us. And I think it's the fact that it helps us map time and space. That's an interesting thought. I had a woman on last week and she is a PhD. She has two masters in theology and a PhD in theology. And she's making that same connection through the Bible and wine as expression of, of God's will to our soul. And so that's a whole different level of conversation in regards to that. But it was really, really interesting. But that's a really important question because there's no other beverage that does that, that asks those questions. You know, it seems to be sort of unique that way. And of course, you know, that's one of the reasons it's been so important to so many religions. I mean, certainly within the broad Judeo Christian tradition, but even before that with, with, you know, Greek and Roman and the Mesopotamian, you know, I'm leaving out some cultures there too. But you know, within all these traditions, wine was this a distinctly spiritual beverage in a way that say, beer didn't become that, or other narcotics didn't become, become that said that. It, you know, it remains, I think, sort of unique in that sense. My dad, we were in Armenia and we were talking about wine shows and we'll talk about that next time we're off camera. But we were talking about wine shows together. But how do

57:28 we take some of these concepts and put them into film, put them into reels so that people would pay attention more than 30 seconds depending on, you know, what we're talking about. And one of the, one of the subjects I wanted to peel back, and you'll probably be helping me with this when the time comes because we are in Armenia. We are sitting with the Pope of Armenia, the. They call him in Eshm. And I just was noticing that throughout his residence and throughout Armenia history and throughout Armenian icons, grapes are there. I mean, it's everywhere. I'm sure like most civilizations, the, the concept of wine and grape is there. And so my, my, my thought was how do we, how do I, how can I peel back the importance of wine in the cult?

58:16 The, the religious culture of Armenia. You know, where can I go? Where can I find. Why are grapes represented everywhere you go? Grapes and pomegranates and that's. And I don't like pomegranate wine, so I'm not going to do that. And so I'll leave it at that. And, and we have a lot more to talk about next time and I hope we can do this soon. I look forward to our next, next discussion. I, I didn't even touch on half the stuff here, but this stuff was really, really, really fun, Chad, to hear. What you have to say and well, my, my pleasure. And, and again, I hope we can add more of these because I'm having as much fun as you are. So we will thank you again for this, this, this morning and we will reconvene if I, I'll be in Paris for a week and Sicily. I'll be back and I think when we come back sometime in April, we'll get back on and we'll, we'll talk more about the consumerism and, and how you approach it and, and to promote this. Great. I look forward to that. Look forward to it.

59:15 Paul, safe trip and enjoy your wine drinking in Paris and Sicily and all those other places. Thank you. Cheers.