It’s Wine O’Clock Everywhere

0:03Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Oh my God. Oh, I hear someone. I hear someone, but I... Hi, Yvonne. Welcome to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan. Hi, Yvonne. How are you? I'm well. How are you? I'm doing very well. Tell us where you're coming from. I'm coming from Hastings City in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. Oh, you're in New Zealand. Okay. I love your very colorful background. I love the flowers in your hair. You're very colorful. uh i'm just i'm loving it very cheerful what time is it where you are so it's 11 a.m on wednesday morning and it's a beautiful spring day here in hawks bay and but the weather has been quite poxy lately so i kind of thought i should just put some color on what is poxy in pox means in my mind it means that there's a disease spreading is that what you're saying the weather the weather has been spreading a medieval disease?

1:08Yes, yes, Conan, it has. Sounds lovely. Yeah, of glumness and doerness. Well, the New Zealand Tourist Bureau must love you. Come to New Zealand for the pops. It's just been one of those seasons, you know, the start of spring. You just never know from day to day what you're going to get. You never know. Everyone thinks it's, no, you think it's going to be sunshine and flowers and blossoms all the time. And then you get a couple of days of murkiness and rain. and it's like, oh. So I was thinking that might be happening today. So I thought I'd put some stuff on that was bright and low. Well, guess what?

1:42You look fantastic. You look beautiful. Everything is popping. And tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do for a living? I do lots of things, but my core business, as I'm supposed to say, is I'm a wine writer. So I'm a, yeah, I taste wine for a living. You taste wine for a living? This sounds like a fantastic job. How does that work? You know, do you taste wines at night? How does it work? When does your day start? My day usually starts quite early. So the best time for me to start is as early as I can. So sometimes it's, you know, seven, eight in the morning, and I'll get up and quietly sort of pad out to my desk, which is actually my kitchen table where I'm sitting now.

2:29and um and i'll start tasting wines because wait at seven in the morning whoa yeah well because my brain's fresh you know and my taste buds are fresh there hasn't been stuff happening to them during the day i haven't had a zillion cups of coffee you know it's like well the only thing that's not fresh is is yeah my teeth because you don't clean your teeth before you start tasting right you can't brush your teeth before you taste wine because you're just going to be tasting the crest toothpaste I'm getting money for them I know you specifically mentioned that brand We don't have Crest over here What's great about Crest?

3:03Why should I be using this? Oh I don't know I just said that But now with extra whitening powders Have you ever considered brushing your teeth with wine? Yeah would you ever brush your teeth with wine? Well yes You can brush your teeth with wine But the outcome won't be that great So particularly if it's red wine After a day of tasting red wine Your teeth can go this really attractive Bluey, purple, grey and it sticks and everyone wants you to smile. Yvonne, you say that you get up at seven in the morning and you start drinking and you drink throughout the day. Tasting, Tasting Conan. Sure, tasting, yes, tasting.

3:39Sounds classier. You're not drinking it. No, no, no, tasting and tasting and tasting. And then do you actually write about it later on or are you just an alcoholic? I write about it later on. So the thing is I've got special equipment, My most treasured possession is my spit bucket, which I carry with me everywhere. It's got its own handle. See? That's nice. So you walk around carrying a bucket. That's nice. Regurgitated wine. Yeah. How lovely. Yeah, you don't want to look inside it. It's not pretty. But, you know, the thing is you look at the wine, you sniff the wine, you swish it around in your mouth.

4:24You think, OK, what am I smelling? What am I tasting? And you're writing notes the whole time and then you spit it out. So you actually think you must get some alcohol, though. Some alcohol must get passed through various capillaries in your mouth. Right. Yes. Yeah, a little bit for sure. Right. Do you ever get a little I mean, after a long day of just even wine tasting, do you ever get a little tipsy or? Yes. Yeah. I mean, you can't help it. Well, not tipsy, but it's like you get, it's exhausting after a big day. Like if you're judging in a competition and it's, you know, over 100 wines a day, by the end of it, you're, I mean, for a start, you do not want to drive.

5:03You don't want to operate any heavy machinery or anything involving a lot of technology. And you probably just want a cup of tea and a beer, you know, at the end of it. And then some more wine. Yeah. So Yvonne, you know, this is fascinating to me because I just, you know, I've always thought that even the guy who tastes ice cream at the ice cream factory, at the end of the day, he must have some days where he's like, oh my God, if I have to have another taste of ice cream, I'll go crazy. Do you, can you enjoy a glass of wine when you go out to a restaurant or is that the last thing you want when it's your job?

5:44Well, if it's like I said before, if it's been a really big day of tasting if i've tasted a lot of wine then yeah i'm gonna i want a negroni or a um something or a nice cleansing ale yeah yeah whatever you know or just like some pills or something you know something that gives you a high but it's like a clean high yeah clean high yeah a clean high that can't be smelled on your breath yeah um that's uh that's fascinating yeah well i guess sometimes you know if you go out to a restaurant everyone goes they hand you the wine list. They go, oh, you choose. You choose what we all drink. Come on. And it's like, sometimes I don't want to do that.

6:23And other times you'll have friends that go, oh, let's go out for a girls night. Let's go have wines. And I'm like, yeah. It's your profession. And there's no way that you can just chill and enjoy a glass of wine because all your friends are going to like the wine, but you're going to be thinking a little bit too many citrus notes for a cab, right? I'm tasting cinnamon when I feel I should be tasting basalt you know yeah possibly not salt I said basalt I meant the rock basalt oh yes yeah basalt or granite or graphite characters you're good you're good at this oh I just say things I don't think that I actually have a good palate how would we know if I have a good palate we're actually prepared to test this where you said that maybe we could give him some food he could describe and you could tell if he really has a knack for this.

7:19Yeah. Do I have a palate or not? Do you think you could tell? Yeah. Yeah. Because everyone does. Everyone has a palate, but some people can actually verbalize what they're smelling and tasting better than others. Everyone can taste. It just takes practice. So I don't know. What have we got to throw in front of you? I just rated our Team Cocoa snack cabinet. And from the fruity side of things, we've got Welch's fruit snacks if that's you know for your fruitier wines uh for your more autumnal we've got bear baked crunchy fuji and reds apple chips okay and then finally if we want to go something just a little bit more baseline we've got barnum's animal crackers okay what do you what do you guys think is best uh well i'm gonna defer to the expert yvonne yvonne what do you think i should be tasting oh my goodness so hold the options up again for me to have a look at uh animal crackers apple chips fruit snacks i think apple chips let's go the apple chips okay all right i'm looking forward to this i don't understand why if i know what it is ahead of time isn't that cheating i'm just gonna say it tastes like apple no it's got a kind of a no no i want you i want you to tell me what kind of apple and yeah because you have different apple varieties right yeah but i don't know like i don't know about apple varieties i don't get out much okay is it Do you think it smells like a red apple or a green apple?

8:38All right. Right now I'm smelling. I'm getting red apple. I think it's a red apple. It's also on the package. Yeah. It says Fuji and red. Well, I didn't see that. I actually didn't see that. And there's a red apple. And you're really good at guessing too. No, but I didn't see that. I honestly didn't see that. But I feel like you could make it up. All right. Well, deconstruct away. I'm trying to do something legitimate here. Oh, you're taking a cigarette. All right. So I'm looking just at you. I'm not looking at the package. But I did sense it was a red apple. Should I taste it? Yes. taste it and think about does it taste really sweet or is it dry or is it creamy or is it does it have a crunchy texture or does it have a rubbery it has a tang it has a kind of a tang a sharpness okay um would you say it's refreshing or i would say i would say it's no it's not refreshing um it's because i know my brain is saying oh it's an apple but then it's all dry and crunchy so my brain is saying red alert red alert this is a dry dried up old apple that you found it's from the civil war or something and then that's what you write that's what you write down i would say this is an upsetting wine um makes me think of a desiccated old fruit um yeah i think this is a terrible way to test my ability to check out wine i think that matt gave no thought to this, he just went to the snack cabinet, grabbed some shit.

10:03I did pick out the three things that I wanted to eat at that moment. I know, now we're snacking. It's quite citrusy. It's quite citrusy, yeah. Okay, that's cool, but apple's not a citrus, it's a tree fruit. I know. I'm telling you that it has a citrusy tang to it. So I do think that it has - Well, here's a trick though, Conan. Here's something you can do. This is what I do when I'm tasting wine. Like I've got one right here, this is Chardonnay. Oh, good. I have a wine right here. Oh, good. It's turning out to be a good day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, cool. Because we've got a big Chardonnay symposium happening in my town at the moment.

10:38So there's just Chardonnay everywhere. But what I do when I'm tasting wine is I sometimes think if this wine was a person, what kind of person would it be? So I kind of think about the wine with personality traits as well as aromas and flavors. So is this person fun? This is turning more into a test of can I open a bottle of wine? Oh, wait, it's got a cork? we don't see corks very often are you guys all screw tops now? well a lot of the wine is under screw top because screw tops are amazing for wine they are the greatest things ever in my opinion okay I've poured myself just a little bit great now your glass actually your glass is quite good I like the shape because the shape is really important when assessing wine because you don't want one of those small stumpy short little little glasses.

11:29This is aerating the wine. You want an elegant one. This is aerating the wine right now. I'm swirling the wine around as I've seen people do in movies. But also you could go all Cirque du Soleil on it and hold it from the foot and swirl. See? Very good. Hold it from the foot. You're holding it from the steam coming. Oh, can I say one thing? This glass is really dirty. Yeah, dish spots all over these. I mean, you know what the problem is? We have a podcast studio and Aaron Bleyart who works for us. You can take that one. Is a bachelor. I'm a good one. And I think he's, I think he lives, he's a hoarder.

12:04He's not that good with the dish. No, I think he wouldn't know a clean glass if it was shoved where the sun don't shine. So no, anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm sure some detritus is getting in there.

12:24What do you think? How am I doing? You're doing very well. But the way you're holding it has given me anxiety. So see how I'm holding the foot of the glass? Yeah, okay. Yeah, and then you can do it like lots of swirling it. Put a bit of wrist section in it. Oh, look at Sona. I'm crushing it. Oh, you guys got it too. Sona's a professional drinker. Sona's been drinking. Thanks, Yvonne. You're doing exceptionally well, my darling. Right, okay, so now we're going to snip it. This is going to be my new job. Sona was drinking in the womb. Oh, come on. No, you were. I had a nice wine glass in the womb.

12:54Okay, so I've swirled this about as much as I can swirl it. Yeah, you've swirled it loads, so enough of the swirling. Now we're gonna sniff it, and we're not gonna do any of this stuff, bullshit. You know, not gonna do it. We're gonna waft it through you. You just get your nose right in there. You see people, you just get your nose right in there. Are we trying the same kind of wine right now? Oh, we are. As her? No. Yeah. Oh, well, what a great experiment. What's up, someone in New Zealand with a glass of wine and someone in Los Angeles with some cookies and see if they have the same, put them on Zoom and see if they have the same notes.

13:30It's called Rayburn Russian River Valley Chardonnay 2020. Rayburn. Okay. Okay, great, great, great. So it is a Chardonnay, brilliant, all right. All right, and you have a Chardonnay. All right, let me tell you what I'm getting. I have a Chardonnay. I have the Tony Bish. Nice label. Pulse Bay Chardonnay. Tony Bush? Is that called? Bish. Bish. Bish. Oh, I'm sorry. I went a different way. what can you see that yeah yeah so tony bish now he is the absolute guru he's like the gandalf of chardonnay making here in new zealand he is mr chardonnay that's all he does he just makes chardonnay the whole time so this is his heartwood and it's beautiful like anyway enough i love him so we're gonna smell it and we want to we want to smell interesting things so i'm in my new zealand chardonnay.

14:17I'm getting aromas of toasty oak, like rising dough, biscuits, and roast peaches, toasted stone fruit, and like toasted stone fruit and spice. You know, just a little bit of spice. I'm getting hints of microphone. Oh, no. Wait, my microphone is closer to my nose than the wine. Hold on a second. Well, that'll do it.

14:49I'm getting essence. Well, it's a - We're waiting. Yeah. I don't know. I don't have good words. Use your words. You're a writer. Okay, okay. Does it smell fruity? Yes. It smells fruity. Okay. It smells fruity, but it also smells - What kind of fruit does it smell like? I'm getting kind of a grapefruit. Oh. Okay, good. That's great. And I'm also getting... What if he's wrong, though? Because I'm reading the label. No. Okay. He's not wrong. Because grapefruit is in... You definitely get grapefruity characters in good Chardonnay. So well done. Thank you. Thank you. And, you know, it does have a little bit of a mineral.

15:28It doesn't... I'm going to say it feels a little drier than a normal Chardonnay. So let's taste it. Let's taste it. Well, I think Sona already did. I swallowed it Is it okay to swallow? You can swallow, it's alright You don't need the bucket Oh! Oh! Easy What are you guys getting up to down there? What? That's how you do it You haven't had anyone spit on microphone before? I'm not judging you I'm getting This is very nice I'm gonna say For podcast wine This is pretty good This cool marine influenced region Is perfectly suited to exceptionally flavored chardonnay. Fresh layers of green apple and pear are accented by a creamy richness due to surly aging.

16:18Okay. Okay. So do you know what surly aging means? And this is a tip for anyone that's listening, watching. Someone goes surly, it doesn't mean, you know, moody and angry, which is what surly, S-U-R-L-Y means. Surly means on lees. So the lees, when the yeast is finished doing its ferment and it's basically dyed, they drop to the bottom of the barrel or the tank and they form like a really attractive grey-green paste in the bottom of the vessel. And some winemakers will leave the wine on the leaves for an extended period of time, or they'll stir the leaves through the wine, which gives a kind of a creamy textural character through the wine.

17:05So if you see Sir Lee on the back label of a wine bottle or on a tasting note, you can go, ah, right. So it's been aged on its leaves. And everyone will think you're a guru. Okay. So that's, yeah, but that's great. That's a really great descriptor. It's really good. And the mineral thing is interesting, Conan, because when you have grapes by the seaside, you're going to get that saline character in the soils. You're going to get sea breeze on the, you know, on the leaves of the vines and that's all going to end up in the berries and what's in the berries ends up in the wine. So you did really well.

17:38That's great. This isn't my podcast anymore. This is not Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan. This is now. But here's another thing. This is wine talk. Would you please be quiet? She's trying to host a podcast. Our host is Yvonne. Take it, Yvonne. We're pairing it with animal crackers. Is that good? Perfect. Okay. Yeah, pair it with anything. But one thing I want you to think about, guys. So Sona, this could be for you. Oh, yeah. One thing that I think about when I'm trying to figure out, is this a great wine? Like, is it a really good value wine? Is it deliciously made? Think about the length of flavor.

18:11So have a sip, swallow it, and then just kind of count how long you can still taste that wine for. Because, you know, so many wines, you know, you pour it in the glass and it looks pretty and you sniff it and you go, hmm, that smells delicious. And then you taste it and you go, hmm, yeah, that's really nice. And then it just disappears. and you're like, well, I'm going to have to keep sipping to keep the thrill alive. Yeah. And before you know it, you're wrapped around the clothesline outside. Oh, I think we all know what it's like to chase that thrill. When you chase that thrill down a bottle, the bottle always wins.

18:45That's not. The bottle always wins. The bottle will always win. I find the animal crackers are overpowering the wine. The animal crackers, and maybe just because these are powerful animals, but all I'm getting. But does your wine have good persistence and flavor? It can't fight the animal crackers. I don't think, I don't know what I would have to be drinking and probably vinegar to fight this animal cracker taste. But this is a very good white. I like this white. I think my issue is, what I don't like is I don't like a heavy wine. I don't like a heavy cab. Unless it's paired of course with a thick steak, say.

19:21But I, what I'm just - Well speaking - A boo? Yes? Well speaking of Cabernet, You know how before I said that sometimes I like to think of wines as people or the kind of personalities that they have, you know? I kind of thought about you, Conan, about what I would, if you were a wine, what tasting note would I write about you? And I kind of, it just came to me like just while I was waiting because we had some technical issues. And I thought about maybe Chateau Conan Christopher Cabernet, 1963, because I Googled you. Sure. Going rate$11.99 at most supermarkets. $11.99. It's a good price. It's a cost-to-living price.

20:09That's a good price for a wine that's 60 years old? Heard with episodes of Desperate Housewives. So here's what I wrote. Correct me, and I'm probably wrong here. No, go for it. Go for it, Yvonne. I trust you. A long, leggy red that, despite hitting its peak drinking window in 2009, is still clinging to layers of seasoned saddle leather, aromas of roast beetroot, freshly plowed earth, and Keith Richards. Flavor-wise, it has complex nuances of old swamp sandals and wet dog and blueberries. And new money.

20:52finishing with sinewy gum tingling skeletally dry tannins and delicious textures to finish you're going to hear from my lawyer you consulted me roundly no that's very nice I like that I would taste that wine based on that description well Yvonne this is nice and you gave us wow Sona I want you to pour yourself a little more glad you're not breastfeeding right now funny your kids would crash their little tricycles i also remember that you like um speaking of tricycles you remember you like bikes right bicycles yes i do yeah so i bought she's a bike taster my i'm getting notes so from one of my recent tastings um i took out the inner tubes of uh the bike tires and made these earrings.

21:45Ah. Oh, cool. Those are fantastic. I thought those were feathers too. From bicycle tire rubber. That's terrific. And as worn by our ex-prime minister, Jacinda Ardern wore these earrings. Very nice. Yvonne, you're clearly insane. And what we're gonna do is have you arrested. I'm contacting the authorities in your town. That's so cool. They're coming in through the window. You have bicycles hanging from your ears. You're trashed on your 90th wine of the day. No, this is very nice. I don't know that I have the capability to be a great connoisseur of wine. I don't think I have that ability, but I sure like that kind of numbness that comes after the third glass.

22:25The numbness. Well, I don't know about that, but this is why. Oh, I do know about that. It's good. All the pain goes away. Just to give you some idea as well of how seriously I do take my job, and there are lots of people like me that do this for a living. it seriously my business card i don't know if you can see that there has uh chief tasting officer oh very good you do taste you do take yourself very seriously that's good it's good to take your what's it like to take your profession seriously i have no idea it's a total joke i have never done it well uh it was very nice talking to you yvonne um i think i've learned a lot yeah i will not be eating first of all what i've learned is that these animal crackers are stale.

23:07They're very soft. They're stale. And I think they've been in our... I didn't notice. Yeah, I didn't either. I didn't think you would. They're just, there's no, they're not crispy at all. They're just, you know. They're kind of nice when they're soft. Sure. Okay. Said no lady ever. Yeah, like I am. You did very well. Sorry, dick joke. Anyway. I'm excited by your pellet. A cockaroo. Oh, boy. Yvonne, it was really nice talking to you. You are a bright spot in our day. you're bursting with color and it's nice to think of you down there in New Zealand drinking all this incredible wine and being a force of positivity in the world I say that's what I say thank you Conan we do try thank you the depression that comes after drinking is settling in so I'm returning to my native Ireland this has been so fun well it's been really nice talking to you Yvonne thank you so much for making time for us we really appreciate it thank you this is great the whole of New Zealand says Kyoto very nice well thank you very much you have a great day bye bye bye thank you enjoy that poxy weather Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O 'Brien Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gourley produced by me Matt Gourley executive produced by Adam Sachs Nick Liao and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf theme song by The White Stripes incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

24:35Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

25:18This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.