France is a Toilet (with Tom Gilbey) | The History of Wine

32:02Tom Gilbey:Yeah, so there's a dude down in the south of Sussex who decided that Sussex would be, he got a feud together and decided that Sussex would be an appellation, a bit like Chateauneuf-du-Pape. So it's like a glass of Sussex. Yeah, but what he forgot is that no one actually gives a fuck, whereas in Chateauneuf-du-Pape they do give a fuck. Yeah, so we should get to, I suppose, when the French start, you know, certain areas of France, certain vineyards, certain parts of certain vineyards, start becoming favoured by popes and kings, etc. which is a Chateau Neuf-du-Pape is a papal favourite. Chateau Neuf-du-Pape is the first.

32:36Tom Gilbey:The first Appalachian Controle wine in France. And this Appalachian Controle, you must remember that our listeners are incredibly thick and fat. Ugly as well. Ugly, smelly. Are they French? Many of them will be French. They listen to it just sort of like... They're being fed liquid foods. Not posh liquid food. They're drinking their boxed wine along. This is our lunch. Because we're of a certain class. But no, they'll be drinking sort of gruel through a pipe. Anyway, and it's good for them. But so France starts to kind of very quickly, as opposed to other countries, codify and it just becomes stuffy.

33:15That's what I'm trying to get to. I'm trying to take the thick listeners from this orgy of like partying and ecstasy that is the Dionysian cult to when does it become this sort of gate-kept thing?

33:27Tom Gilbey:Okay, so when Phylloxera hits, It's that bug that we're talking about. The whole of France panics and thinks, what the hell are we going to do? It's like COVID, but for vines. And so they go to Algeria and other North African countries which can still grow wine and start producing, and Spain, because phylloxera hits France first and then goes south. And they're producing all of these. They're being paid in Algeria to produce loads of wine because the French need it, because they're hooked and can't produce it themselves. So when they fix phylloxera, they work out that putting one on top of the other yeah works they've still got they're beginning to grow again and algeria are shipping algeria was the third biggest wine producing country in the world really yeah they they produced a lot of wine right good stuff no no okay right right but they were shipping but big stuff yeah you know it had lots of alcohol lots of because it's warm climate so they were shipping it all back into france and the french are going hang on a second and we don't need you anymore.

34:27Tom Gilbey:We can do our own. Yeah. But that's when they put in the Appalachian controller system to make sure they're not getting shit Algerian wine. Yeah, we don't want Algerian Chateauneuf-du-Pas. We want Chateauneuf-du-Pas. The grapes have got to be grown there, made in this way, so that... And this is 1870, so this is around the time Napoleon III, right? This is around... Yeah, I think this is around the time that Pasteur invents pasteurization, the cork. Yes, yes, yes. Modern wine, essentially, is around the kind of late 19th century. Yeah, but the Appalachian system really all happened in the 20th century, sort of all like because it just started there and moved everywhere because 1855 is the classification that's it the classification that's Bordeaux I think and that's because Napoleon III was it was the they used to have world fairs okay yeah yeah yeah the Crystal Palace was the first one that was yeah the Great Exhibition Great Exhibition all that kind of stuff it's the which they still do they have Paralympic Games look what these fuckers can do that's kind of what it is no but now they have it in like Abu Dhabi and Dubai those are World Fair yeah you're right they are the expos are the same thing it's this huge carnival of soft power basically um and so paris was holding one and for this he goes right let's codify the wine let's make it um rigid yeah uh you know i think it's in the palace of versailles maybe in the century before this where it starts to become uh the idea of table wine versus proper wine totally so table wine is like off sour wine that they give to the smelly the smelly french people peasants that's stinky uh yeah exactly well i think the rich people were spellier because it was a sign of prestige but how stinky can you be how much stink can you afford to rub on yourself yeah so the honkiest of honk french people are drinking very good wine and people who are using a little bit of links again table wine i think actually we're drinking the nice wine right the french are drinking the honk so we are having the i love that i absolutely love that the stuff brilliant yeah so the the what you're talking about the 1855 classification it's like a football league so So it's like the five chateaus that were the most expensive would be the Premier League.

36:28Tom Gilbey:Anyway, so it was a way of pricing all of the wine for the Brits, really. Because it's all marketing, really, all that stuff. Of course it is. And so much of wine originates here that the prestige of it, the kind of bullshit around it, is all basically from this 1855 idea of like it's a marketing ploy for French wines. But we are the best wine tasters of wine. The French don't know how to taste wine. they know how to grow it can you expand on that what how what do you mean by that well because they're smelly they're very smelly we've covered that i think they don't work we you can invade them tomorrow they wouldn't expect it england's always been a great market capital city is a toy for wine and if you think about if you think about all the influential wine journos at the moment they come from the they come from the biggest markets of wine so it used to be all english wine critics now there's a few americans and there's a few chinese chinese wine critics yeah my god yeah go on give us an impression that's pc gone mad what are they saying there's not enough rice in it do you want to try something else yeah let's talk about champagne i thought you might as well do that champagne now we've got no we're somewhere else i think we're at the chateau right oh have you bought french we're at the fizz that's not a champagne though oh right wait so this is where we're at this is fine right come on carry on tom sorry um tom i have a question you know how like white wine should be in the fridge yeah what did they do before fridges it was colder they didn't need fridges oh they put it put in caves yeah they put it in they so if you get if you go to the cellars underground cellars of any any wine place underground it will be 12 to 14 degrees which is actually the right temperature to be serving any any white wine and keeping it and keeping it right yeah and when does white wine because this is all, you know, what we're talking about really, red wine is the thing, isn't it?

38:19Red wine is wine, as they would understand it. And it's healthy for them.

38:23Tom Gilbey:It's got tannin, it's got phenols, all these good things. One of your five a day. It's five a day. And when does white wine become a thing? Pass. Right, should we do this? Suffragettes, I imagine. They're on white wine. They're running in front of horses. So this is not a champagne. This is made in the Abbey in Limu, which is arguably where sparkling wine was first ever produced here we go okay here we fucking go they could only make sparkling wine in champagne because they couldn't get the grapes ripe enough to make a still wine right okay which is why we in england make mostly sparkling wine because we can't quite do still wine yet but we you think we will okay but what i'm very excited about is with climate change surely france will become a desert soon and they'll fuck all their wines up They better not come over here.

39:13Stop the toilet. Go back to sleep, Uncle. He's woken up for a second. Stop the toilet boats. Stop the port-a-loo. It's coming over here.

39:23The great stink. The great stink. Or France, as I call it. Right. Good. Brilliant. Crawling up the channel tunnel. There you go. Thank you. There you go, Dan. Yes. so talk to us about when does champagne now this is there's a myth around this guy don perignon cheers thank you for this what a lovely idea yeah so talk about don perignon and the sort of the myth around champagne because as you say it's sort of it's in retrospect that it's imbued with this sense of class right yeah so everybody thinks

39:57Tom Gilbey:that sparkling wine was made in champagne it definitely invented in champagne it's all a mistake really because sparkling wine was figured out because someone left a little bit of sugar in a wine and stopped it and the fermentation happened similar to like penicillin but yeah yeah but it was either made by a brit called christopher perrott i think it is this is brilliant or a lot of great champagne no no sparkling wine actually the the person who tried to make sparkling wine properly is i think he's either a brit called christopher perrott or it's the monks down in the um santillaire abbey in limou the french have got fuck all i just feel like we don't get enough merit we don't get enough credit why do it next thing you'll tell us is the british invented striking this is incredible french have got nothing so yeah we either invented it or the monks in uh in the santillaire abbey in limou yeah well i'll drink to that and this is a bottle fermented sparkly wine so what they do is start with a still wine put a little bit of sugar in it and some yeast yeah and then the yeast eats the sugar gives us the carbon dioxide jobs are good brilliant and so don perignon is now that that's seen as now the like again it's been marketed as the highest class it's moe isn't it yeah and so he was a monk and he's credited with accidentally discovering champagne but that that's bollocks isn't it yeah but then the the discovery of champagne wasn't the discovery of what we see there which is a clear sparkling sparkling wine i'm getting a bit of a scouse accent yeah of course you know i mean You know Gerard in a post-match interview.

41:31I'm getting like... What's your favourite cheese? Melted cheese.

41:34Tom Gilbey:Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? That's the noise I'm getting. Yeah. It hits you back of the throat, doesn't it? The back of the throat's the course. You're right, Pat. You're right. Is that because you like it? That's lovely. No, it's new money, Phil, so. It's absolutely delicious. Thank you. The Scouts bloke has won the lottery and got a big TV. That's what I taste. And so it's sherbet tea, right? Yes, it is sherbet tea. and it's a really and the best place to get good value sparkling wine now is in France in all these pockets that aren't champagne because it doesn't have the branding associated to it champagne's just got the most fantastic branding so champagne's where sparkling wine became really good it became the clear they worked out how to get the yeast out which is called disgorging yeah and gives us a clear fizzy disgorging it's called disgorging that's what my wife needs she needs to be disgorged i think a couple of glasses are slow because that was there you i've never seen you leave my wife joke that no there was a slight lag on that which i've never seen yeah my wife i'll tune back in a second um no she needs to be thoroughly disgorged run like a flannel to get all the yeast bubbles out um but champagne as a region is uh it's just north of paris yes right and so this is where they accident is that where the sparkling wine starts where they master sparkling it starts in limu down in the south right down in the south yeah and then if paris is a toilet and then urinal and then don perignon takes it don perignon takes it to uh to champagne and starts doing it in the abbey and he's a monk and he does it in the abbey yeah he does it in the abbey and so how is is it just marketing is it all moets marketing that's meant that Don Pignon is now, how much does a bottle of Don Pignon go for?

43:21Like 170 quid? That's crazy. That's a load of bollocks, right? It's all bollocks. It's actually really good. No, I'm sure it's really good. But it's not worth the 100. It should be at 170 quid. But it's equally as good things for much cheaper, right?

43:32Tom Gilbey:This is so good, isn't it? It's delicious. It's delicious. How much? Three days work in the Abbott. 35? Yeah, it's 14 quid. 14 quid. Christ. But champagne's just become this incredible, like nowhere else in the world, marketing machine. Yeah. And it's now controlled by LVMH. Which own every, they're the big ones. Is that like Diageo? Is that similar? Yeah, Louis Vuitton, Moet Hennessy. That's a parent company that own all the brands. Yeah, it's one of the richest guys in the world. So they do two thirds of the whole of the volume of champagne. And champagne produced 300 million bottles a year.

44:05Tom Gilbey:The English produced like 12 million. He's worth 139 billion dollars. He's got a couple of quids. Bernard Arnault. I think he was the richest man in the world for a little bit. Yes. Wow. Yeah, he loves champagne. And he's got five kids. It's going to be like a real life succession when he dies. He's not spent any of that money on eyebrow trimming. It's a sign of wealth. Yeah, of course it is. He's got lice in his eyebrows. Push your limits. Train with precision. See the results. At Equinox, that's high performance loving. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com.

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45:49Tom Gilbey:So it's all being done by monks in monasteries. So they're the ones who are making the wine for sacrament. But basically they completely see it as vital to their diet. Yeah. Whether it's red, fizzy, white or whatever. Because it's safer than water and it's religious. yeah so wherever they go they make they make wine so you think the link between uh wine and christianity is completely yeah because i guess if christianity hadn't made wine slightly less kind of like women orgies in the forest eating goats more formalized more elitist more exactly it would always have been a fringe mad thing yeah well because when they were doing it was buckfast under a bridge yeah exactly yeah it's now becoming more formalized more holy more sacred it's what what wine can we pair with this burning tire yeah yeah yeah um so let's let's return to the americas because around the 20th century as you say wine starts to get good in a way that we'd appreciate it yeah uh and in america uh in 1920 that we're going to do a whole series on prohibition i find it fascinating yeah but the volstead act the 18th amendment they um they destroy the wine the burgeoning wine culture that has happened in america so as you say it starts in mexico it starts to spread up california i think that it's not good at this point but it's it's definitely the most it's the best climate in america for growing wine is californian wine yeah and then i think something like in 19 over the course of prohibition which is 20 to 33 the vineyards in america go from maybe the 700 vineyards it goes to less than 100 yeah in the space of 13 years because the amendment allows for sacrament wine you can still produce wine if it's for churches and you can brew wine for home use yes uh but you can't what like cleaning your toilet out yes if you if you were doing like a french themed night um so it destroys the californian wine industry yeah and what's also fascinating is that uh you know if you've listened to this podcast long since the beginning you'll know that obviously we talked about cromwell and the whole east coast of the of the new world of america in the 17th century as being very very protestant very puritan yeah prohibition is essentially it's the it's the it's the meeting point it's the conflict between that protestant uh puritan legacy and all these italians and spaniards and greeks and germans have all come in in the from the 1850s on trying to turn america into a big party trying to turn into a big toilet and so the germans spying opportunity so 1848 is this huge year of flux in europe year of revolutions yes the germans will flee and they see that the climate in the Midwest of America would be great for Pilsner.

48:30So they all start making Pilsner. Because they invent, and that's a form of lager or is it lager? It's, well, lager is German for beer. Cave, but yeah, sorry. For cave. Because lagering is when you store beers in cool caves and it was like the beginning of those sort of cold beers. So Pilsner, they, yeah, so Americans don't have the right, they don't have lager at this point. So the Germans introduced lager to America. Right. And then the Italians bring their, you know, sleepy wine culture with them to the American. and obviously the jews come in and they've got a massive abrahamic tradition of wine okay yeah and whining um oh shucks yeah uh so they they bring all that you know all that stuff there and so actually a lot of the prohibition is wrapped up in an anti-immigrant sentiment it's the it's the puritanical elements in the east coast yeah we just doing that that's not naughty don't drink wine yeah and so it's very it's wrapped up in anti-immigrant it was our most boring hunts we sent out there yeah america is founded by boring cunts and then it's made almost boring almost boring those are already boring yeah they might be boring but there are boring they were people who left here because it was too much fun yeah at the most boring time it's ever been but meanwhile

49:38Tom Gilbey:are all the guys on the east coast on the west coast just getting hosed and having a really great well the west coast because it's the they're all the spanish you've gone yeah yeah they've come up through mexico and then it's it's slowly pushed further further west yeah there's all there's the american mexican war and all that expansion but by the 1920 that's kind of that's started that's set as it were uh it's also massively wrapped up in um women's rights in that women at this point don't have any rights at all and this is when white wine comes in right yes the white wine starts the white whining i think white women white women whining starts about here um no because in in 1920s america if you're a woman you have no uh legal rights so if you're you and your husband is drunk a lot of the time to get through the industrial hellhole that is his life so you know domestic abuse if a husband hits his wife he might as well legally have hit his fridge it doesn't it doesn't mean anything in the law sure right so the law like well who cares yeah it's his fridge he can do what he wants to right so yeah women form the bulk of the temperance movement which is the thing driving prohibition fucking smacking me about so prohibition is wives stopping the boys from having fun it's women saying stop drinking so it was interesting we built up a lot of information and i like how you condense it is why i'm stopping the boys right so in 1920 yeah like a bunch of states have already been doing it but it becomes a federal thing yeah and it has the opposite effect on booze and that booze just fucking goes through the roof yeah and black market black market speakeasies the jazz boom organized crime yeah all this stuff it becomes more fun is that why yeah it's more dangerous it's more of a culture has to fall there's a whole you know the whole american story is um of like economic entrepreneurship right so then people just go well people want this so let's just keep it up but anyway but it's all it's unregulated yeah it's all it's all whiskey and gin and moonshine so wine essentially is destroyed in america having been you know burgeoning and doing quite well so 33 they realized oh this is actually all fucked we should probably let people drink because hitler comes to power and they go we need a drink we're in the 30s i want to drink i want to drink if we ever enter in the world finn's checking in on hitler from above he's the greatest man of he's the greatest man that's ever lived i don't know yeah um so 33 prohibition ends hitler comes power that can't be a coincidence right people are going fucking hell i want to see what this i want to have a drink with this guy yeah um what i like about it look is you can have a beer with him yeah that's what i like about it can't say the same of lenin or starlin or mal you can have a beer with him no one's saying i like you're like about mal i can have a chinese rice wine with him and have a pint of rice wine and really get into the stats about agricultural policy caused millions of deaths um prohibition kills the wine industry yeah and then in 33 it's it's uh whatever reneged or what's the word revoked and um wine starts to having been decimated it starts to be built back again um and we need to get to you know probably the like the defining moment of uh of this story that there's a lovely little bow tie that ties up this story which is American wine having been decimated starts to get so good that what would you say Tom by the 60s Californian wine is good again?

53:09Really good. Really really good. And so why do you know anything about that sort of re-emergence of Californian wine after Prohibition?

53:19Tom Gilbey:Well there's a lot of immigration there's a lot of Italian immigration into California so there's a lot of European influence going into bringing all sorts of vines there. And this is the northern California is the that's the wine-growing country. Really centered around Napa, yeah. And so we get to this point in 1976 called the Judgment of Paris. Do you want to tell us about this? So this is a tasting organized by a great man who's no longer with us, sadly, Stephen Spurrier, who organized a tasting of the greatest wines of America versus the greatest wines of France. It's like a World Cup, a World Cup of Waps.

53:58So it feels, because it's a British wine merchant, it feels like the Brits' role in wine is it's not to make it or even it's more to critique it and drink it. We're almost the gatekeepers of wine. Yeah, we are. We're the critics. We're the critical culture. We're not doing it. We're just sitting there, not very good, that's good and getting pissed on it.

54:15Tom Gilbey:Honestly, I joke and say the French don't know how to taste wine. We are much better tasters and evaluators of wine. It's fascinating. They just make the stuff. That's brilliant. I love that. I love that they make it. They just make it. They just make it. Like it's a factory. They don't understand it. I love that. I've learned so much this episode and it all completely fits in with my existing prejudice I love it it's perfect it's perfect you can come in anytime Tom so Stephen Spurrier it's great to cross the divide it is great to get other opinions that perfectly match mine so Stephen Spurrier organises this big tasting of the greatest wines America versus France you've got like the most expensive wines of Bordeaux yeah but the beauty about it is and there's a group of sommeliers judging the wines, quite a few of which are French.

55:06Tom Gilbey:Right. Not knowing what they're doing. Or double gay. Well, they're smellier. That's where the word comes from, I believe. And it's all blind. Who is the sommelier person here? Is he smellier than me? He better not be smellier than me. And anyway, long story short, the US wins. Who's testing this? The sommeliers. All the French sommeliers. They're blind tasting, marking each of these wines. So it's French and Californian Chardonnays and French and Californian Cab Saves. What's the fallout from this? Well, everyone assumes that France, with wine so central to its culture and its idea of itself on the world stage, would walk it.

55:46But now, is it like a unanimous decision? It's the number of votes.

55:50Tom Gilbey:So the winners, France wins both. Sorry, US wins both. Yeah, Napa Valley, Stag's Leap and Chateau Montelena. montelena which are amazing wines yeah i mean like amazing but i've heard that like this was so devastating to the french uh mind that the press wouldn't report it yes because he was like well this is bollocks what happens if we print this yeah like who are we yeah do we even smell like like what who are we as a country there are maybe stinkier men now it's impossible No one can smell as bad as us. And this kind of... And this is the new world can now race ahead. Yeah, this is 1976, where the greatest palettes in the world are saying...

56:33It's Hungary beating England 6-3 in football. Yeah, in the 50s. It's Australia beating England in the ashes. Yeah, this is... Is this when the marketing bullshit of the French wine industry is sort of... No, but it hasn't. The thing is, it still maintains so strongly. Yes. We all know this, but it's still product of France. Great. I feel it feels safe. I do feel safe drinking French wine in a way that I don't feel held Mexican. I don't know what the fuck's going on there. But the French are masters of marketing.

57:05Tom Gilbey:They've nailed it. And champagne better than anywhere in the world. So Tom, what, what, when does, to talk about the history of wine from 76 onwards, it's obviously it's become much more open. People are, palates are much more welcoming. people are much more open to the idea of like you know fuck it bolivian wine why not go for it georgian wine still no even though it's the oldest one no thank you um it sounds like petrol yeah and i mean the soviet era basically buggered all wine production because it essentially they tried to make fortified wine i think out of georgian wine which killed it um what is the deal we were saying the last episode with natural wine and all that shit it started in georgia and it's all shit wait so do you think natural wine shit i think because we many natural wines are and i think then what do you think in the natural wine trend i think it's a load of bollocks and i think in 15 years we'll stop it and look back saying what the fuck are we doing the amount of complexities in shit flavors i think it's the only thing that has that much focus on making shit quality stuff the the the history and tapestries of shit flavors that they make is extraordinary i think the thing is if you sat someone down an expert on natural wine said what is natural wine they wouldn't really be able to answer they would just say minimal intervention but every time i taste natural wine it has a distinct flavor i could tell you that's a bit like it smells like a horse's bum yeah it tastes like dirt it's got like a shittiness to it minimal intervention yeah so it's like syria yeah yeah it's just devastated having minimal intervention intervention on wiping your ass means you've got a shitty ass yeah let's bottle that well they do actually i actually got a very natural asshole as in i haven't wiped it for two years yeah it's like that perpetual stew you were talking about it's just it's just a build-up of flavor and so now when i do a poo it doesn't smell because i always smell because it could be anything at this point yeah can i just take you back before natural wine go on in the 70s and 80s the only wines that we could get in this country really were french right because they didn't export any wines from california or they drank it all there so we had all this french shit wine because they had the monopoly on what we'd be drinking it's only really throughout the 90s that we begin to get new zealand wine australian wine california and why is that like in terms of economic because the australians suddenly woke up and thought we can actually make a wine that tastes nice rather than the armpits.

59:40Tom Gilbey:Let's have a go at selling it. And so they did that. We don't need to drink this stuff to hit our wives. So why don't we make money off it while we drink Castlemaine and pound Sheila? Yeah, as long as it's alcohol, it doesn't matter. I don't need this complex shit. I just need to be pissed. I want a clean taste to refresh me after I've tired myself out hitting my wife. But it made the French wines better because suddenly they're on a shelf alongside these wines that were clean. so the main thing is the Australian wines and the New Zealand wines they were clean in flavour there was no armpit or arsehole or anything you don't get little notes of arsehole the French all had notes of arsehole should we end on this wine as well this is a French wine without notes of arsehole I'll believe it when I see it can you hold this ratio of course have you seen the documentary Sour Grapes oh it's a brilliant film it's fantastic you've not seen Sour Grapes it's an amazing film about wine fraud in New York I think I mean it shows the whole thing up it does show the whole thing up it's complete bullshit sorry everything everything everything's time has been saying about how essentially you know the myth of wine is it's a marketing success really yes and that if you're paying more than 20 pounds for a bottle it's because you have been uh tricked by a brand well i didn't say that you said that yes but but you you endorse that you endorse that and uh you know my words your sentiment but it's basically about this uh rich indonesian wine collector who basically um becomes this big star in the wine world selling shit wines but pretending they're great he he has well he pretends to have this palette yeah that can just distinguish a margot from a lafitte or whatever but he then brews them in his kitchen out of different bottles of wine sort of blends wine and so when the fbi uncover his kitchen it's just this mad yeah you know garage full of like um vials and buckets and stuff and and there's an amazing scene which is the scene where him and some uh other wine nonces are running around new york in a cab trying out different wines in bars and they're trying bullshit counterfeit wine that he's made but they don't know it and they're like going on they're going on with you know going along with it going oh yeah this is this is whatever this is and he's just made the wine himself in his kitchen it's amazing there is a lot of that in the wine trade Yeah.

1:01:59Tom Gilbey:So I've got you a nice wine. So where's this from? So this is from Burgundy. Right. And the beautiful thing about the French is they won't tell you anything about it at all. That does smell absolutely terrific. Literally nothing. I disagree. There's a definite hint of arsehole in there. Yeah, but it doesn't tell you. It's a good arsehole. It doesn't say anywhere on the back that it smells of arseholes. That's good, though. I think you want a little bit of arsehole on your wine. So this is from Burgundy, which is basically completely made by monks, monasteries and everything. and their grape variety is Pinot Noir.

1:02:31Tom Gilbey:So they worked out that the best grape variety to plant there was Pinot Noir, which makes a beautiful red wine that's really smooth. And this is from year 2050. So basically, the French learned to make good wine from the new world. Fuck yeah, that's good. I really like that. Yeah, that's very good. And they still make the best wine in the world. Burgundy, you think? France do. France. That is nice. But it's because, to wrap this up, because in many ways my view of this has basically been like this is a conversation horatio is having with his dad where his dad's actually interested in him that's what this has been like horatio's like dad and then the wine did this and he's like yeah yeah whatever um but to wrap this up what we've learned in this episode is that france is essentially a wine factory for the english yes and the england are the rightful heirs to wine yes it's for us and everyone else is sort of beholden to our tastes really does that give you a different viewpoint than you had before i thought this story would be about how the french um decide to gatekeep wine and how it's slowly becoming less pretentious with things like the judgment of paris bringing in the new world but really you're saying that it was the english that made france that up its own ass about wine because we wanted to use france as a as a wine cellar but the French did gatekeep wine from the Nazis right and that's what we're going to talk about on the Patreon yes very nice what a sell that is do you want to ask how much the wine was oh yeah how much was this bottle of wine we need to guess we need to guess I'd say 2015 I think that was a good year that must be 45 quid I'd say I'd say 30 I'd say 30 45 quid fucking hell your dad would bring this sort of stuff out wouldn't he yeah yeah I mean he likes the more pretentious he'd go the more classic he'd go for.

1:04:18He thinks anything organic or anything like that is complete woke tosh. I agree with him on that. I agree with him on that. I mean, a great tip when you're traveling, don't go for local wine unless it's one of like eight countries, basically. Or you're carrying

1:04:29Tom Gilbey:a lot of loo roll. Exactly, exactly. So listen, Tom, thanks so much for coming. Do you have anything you want to promote? No. No, great. Nothing at all. Well, follow you on Instagram. Oh, I'm going to have a book out. Oh, brilliant. Well, that's something to promote. Oh, I've got a book. Yeah, I keep forgetting that. You must lose sight of your enticement for one second when you're promoing things you must learn to flog it's a different world yeah yeah um the chateau's gone is that what the book's called the chat the chateau's gone fuck mom i shrunk the fuck i've lost my shadow mommy i lost my shadow can i have a book deal um when's the book out what's it called november it's called thirsty because brilliant yeah it's one big thirst trap yeah for a certain type of prison gentleman yes for my dad your dad you're sending thirst traps for my dad oh he'd love it it's got all his wines in all that kind of it's all arseholes brilliant a history of arsehole in a glass by Tom Gilbert is out in November Tom's going to stick around for our Patreon bonus episode where we're going to talk about wine in the Third Reich yes and if you'd like to join the Patreon you get a bonus episode every week for£3 a month and you get access to all the series in one go thanks so much for coming in this has been Finn vs History we will see you next week for where If you thought this was a bit fruity, don't worry.

1:05:45Next week, we will be in the warm bath of World War II. Brilliant. I can trail that now. Tom, thanks for coming in. We'll see you next time. Goodbye. Thank you.

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