449: How the Hell to Judge a Wine with The New Wine Review's Jon Fine

25:43I like I went with a good friend of mine who's a wine consultant in Copenhagen and we drove around the northern road for three days. I spent a couple of days by myself in Oregon and I'm forgetting what month it is sometime in the late spring. I am going to get to Europe again, I hope, in the fall. Candidly, I don't get out as much as I'd like to. I mean, like, there's a publication to build, and there's a lot of work with that. And it's joyful, but, I mean, it means that there's an old conception of the editor-in-chief as being someone who's kind of swanning around town. There's just not a lot of time for that.

26:17Agreed. Like, you know, when I was in Oregon. And by the way, like, I've got an amazing job. This is not in any way a complaint, but it's like in Oregon, I was waking up at 536 in the morning, spending a couple of hours working, getting in the car, driving around, you know, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, four appointments, you know, fairly significant distances between both. Eating a quick dinner, coming back, doing a few more hours of work, going to bed at 11. Like, that's fine. EIC to EIC, this is straight talk. Exactly. No complaints. I love my job. No complaints. But it's definitely when you're doing that kind of work on the road, it can be tricky.

26:50I want to get into the publication because really the heart of it is not the ratings of wine. It is the color of wine. It is the characters around wine. And really one story that comes to mind right away, I was just reviewing yesterday's The Bear, The Bear's Big News. And Jason Wilson wrote a great piece about the absence of wine on this very popular television show. I love that piece. It's smart. Tell me about what's your take on the bear's absence of wine? So there's a couple ways I can parse this. One is like, what would be most realistic for a restaurant? And one is like, the actual, like, how you have to make a TV show.

27:30And there obviously, there's a pretty big gap in the show in terms of the reality of a restaurant. Like a restaurant like that has to make its money on drinks. It has to. and like it's funny like I knew all along like they're not really talking about wine which is weird but okay it's it's I don't need this to be a documentary but Jason pointed out like there are drinks but there's no bar and I'm like oh that's something they really should have thought about like and I I understand why the writers probably want to set this in the kitchen um there's more action in the kitchen like Assam is like running to a basement rummaging through bottles, pulling them out and popping them.

28:11There's not a lot of action there. But I mean, yeah, it's a major hole in the show. It's kind of weird. And obviously, like, people have been talking about it. And, like, Jason pulled that piece together very quickly. I was thrilled with it. And, you know, to me, it's, you know, the main point of it was that, like, the really funny thing about there not being wine on the bear as a show is that if the bear was actually a restaurant, it would be a wine bar. Like it would be, it would have a slightly more minimal menu. It would be like very obsessed with like, you know, I mean, the bear kind of looks like a wine bar, like the way we've been talking about.

28:46Like it would be very concerned about like getting their right kind of wine list. I mean, they'd be aware that that's where they're going to make all their money. And like there would be a mesh between the two things. It's a missed opportunity for sure. And I think, you know, in season three, episode three, we see sweeps like breaking the court committed service. That seems implausible. I love sweeps, but it seems like that would not be part of it. This is the drama of television. but let me ask you have you seen by the way I break quirks all the fucking time okay yeah all the time okay bro let me get into that because I do too and like how do you like that's always such a stress I'm the non-drinker I'm usually the one opening the wine and it's stressful yeah I mean it's practically like I mean I have a lot of wine I've got old wine I've bought old wine and um oh god I wish I could tell you I have a way what I will say is this I've gotten very good at once the cork breaks I've gotten really good at taking like a butter knife and like using it out with a butter knife so that the cork doesn't disintegrate into the wine.

29:39That's what I got. I am not good at it. I gotta get better. Have you seen Drops of God? I have not. I know I need to. Should I? No, I don't like it, personally. Why not? I don't like the show. I think it's really poor. I think there's some bad acting in it. I think the premise is incredible. And I know there's some TV podcasters who love the show and think it's the best in the world. I don't like the show, but I like the premise a lot. And I like the idea of secession and the idea of like wine in Japan and in France and how those two countries dovetail. Is there we're on the topic of media. Is there any portrayal of wine in media, the documentary or scripted that you think is good?

30:17Well, let's see. There are great books. OK, you're more of a book guy. No, no, no, no, no. But I will say this. The first Psalm documentary. Yeah. So good. Not only did I cry when I watched it, I cried more than once. um i i thought it was i got very into the the um the uh arc of all the characters um i thought that one pretty deeply um i thought it was extraordinarily well done um mondo vino like they obviously set up some straw men in there yeah which i may or may not agree with um it was it was more important in its time because i think it's like 2009 or 2010 when like you had to make a point about it's low interventionist versus like quote-unquote big corporate wine like whatever and going after Robert Parker, like, okay, fine, whatever.

31:03But in terms of movies, people would tell me, like, you know, you're in a band. You need to see Almost Famous. And I'd watch it and I'd be like, yeah, okay, this is preposterous. Like, this is not how, like, you know, journalism works. This is not how, like, bands work. This is not how bands interact with writers. Like, the guy in the band does not tell the guy just tell the truth or whatever the fuck it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So people have told me I need to see Drops of God. and I'm like, okay, cool. I mean, like, I saw Sideways, whatever. The thing about Sideways that nobody gets is that Miles is a very bad person.

31:38Like, that's not talked about enough. He stole from his mom. Yeah. And it's interesting that he's an unsympathetic character. It has not aged well. No. That is a pun. I mean, it feels like it has problems and it's not really brought up as a great film. No, I don't think it is. Also, they were drinking Sea Smoke, which I guess in the time they would have been drinking that. Shots fired. I fucking love this shot. What? I had a shot spot. I like the, like, yeah. She smoke is, I don't know, man. Like, I drank it for a little while when I was getting wine, but it's like, it's a very big syrupy wine.

32:06I just don't care for wines like that. I just don't. I'm going to ask you about non-alcoholic wines, NA wines. I feel this is close to me. I'm an NA guy. We talk about NA a lot on the show. I've not had a good one. So I think there's a broader way to look at, like, NA as a category. I've not had a good NA wine. So one pillar of what New Wine Review does is that we have a subscriber-only Slack, which, you know, where we're nerding out on stuff and trading stuff. It's really fun. But I bring it up because someone posted a Slack that basically said, like, all right, NA beer, like The Athletic, is really good.

32:48Like, it's basically beer. Why should I drink beer anymore? And the consensus, I mean, it was a huge threat on, like, a lot of smart people. The consensus was that there is no good NA wine, that NA liquor that tries to be whiskey is gross, but NA liquor, well, quote unquote liquors, that are based on botanicals can be really good, especially in the context of a cocktail. and that in a beer, which I've avoided, has taken a quantum leap in the past couple of years. And people were throwing around a couple of names. One of them was Athletic, I believe. The other one, I'm forgetting. I should know it.

33:27And they were just like, these are people that know drinking and they're like, I don't really drink beer anymore. Like, this is fine. And as someone who I enjoy wine a lot, I also don't have an enormous tolerance for alcohol. I mean, I'm 5 '9", I weigh like 145 pounds. Like, I would drink more wine if it had half the alcohol. Now, I understand that there's a vinification process and it's going to hit a certain number. But like, if I can drink three ice cold beers by the pool now that have no alcohol, I mean, that sounds great. Okay, so a couple points here. First, I'm going to link to the show notes.

34:02Jordan Michaelman just wrote a great piece about any beers. Correct. There are a lot of really good ones. And I think it's, you know, a couple names come to mind. United Artists Italian Style Pills, the Zero Dry Asahi. I love those beers. I think Athletic is good too. Any day as well. But back to wine, it seems like if you dealkalize wine, so you get all that age, you get all the process and the terroir, then you remove the alcohol. Something happens to that wine that doesn't happen with beer. Like you don't have the body. And you don't have something. And I think that's I think that's super astute because I mean, like, you know, alcohol is sugar initially.

34:45And if you don't take it out, you have grape juice. And if you have it, it's alcoholic. But if you take it out, it like they're important things that the alcohol does to the mouthfeel to like to the body. Probably I'm not in any way an expert on this, but probably in a way that like certain flavor compounds are activated. And you can't just sort of like pull out that thing and not have the house of cards sort of fall in on itself a little bit. But having said that, if we were talking five years ago and you were like, what do you think of any beer? I'd be like, it's fucking disgusting. It'll never be good.

35:14And obviously, I've got a lot more drinking. Luckily, not alcoholic, do you? And to find out that I'm wrong, because I'm hearing from Jordan and so many other people whose palates I really respect. Like, no, it's really good. I feel like we're five years away from great wine. And it seems like it's only great. Great NA wine. Yeah. Great NA wine, of course. It seems like that is truly going to happen and it's going to happen in a big way. And I feel like with N.A. Beer, you're going to get people who don't drink alcohol who are going to start actually writing about the N.A. category. And I feel you guys will probably be the first I look to.

35:47I'll look to Punch, of course, but I'll look to you guys as well. And how do you think about your editorial calendar? I want to get back to the publication. And how do you think about the big stories in wine? I mean, this is such a challenging category. I used to be an editor at Punch for years, and wine was always one of the most difficult categories. I mean, Talia Baioki, founder, has a great palate and aesthetic, and really led that charge. But, man, your job is hard, and I just want to really reiterate that. Well, I mean, I'm not digging ditches for$8 an hour. I mean, there are jobs that are hard.

36:23Okay. I'm typing and getting people to type stuff. Thank you for pointing that out. Good. But tell me what you mean by why you think it's so challenging. Because it's a moving target. And I think you've got, as you said, wine can be infinite. I think that's a paraphrase. You said that there's just a lot of places to focus on, and we could fall into traps. And I think there's a lot of traps in wine writing where you're writing about, you know, aesthetics and trends, and you're writing about natural wine. You're snarking on natural wine. You're using these, like, broad categories. I'm a fan of natural wine.

36:50No, of course you are. And I think it's a big part of, like, low intervention wines is part of your bag, and that's cool. But I think like even the most skilled wine writers, I could say the same about coffee writers, say the same about cocktail writers. They fall into these traps and these tropes and it starts to feel repetitive and it starts to feel the same and to be fresh, but also speak to like a broad audience. It's not easy. That's what I mean by that. Yeah, I mean, well, you know, that's a challenge, but that's a challenge, I think, with anything. if you have a publication that's about a particular, you know, enthusiasm or pastime.

37:25Like if this was a podcast about bicycling and I was running a magazine about bicycling, we'd say the same thing. If it was about sailing, we'd say the same thing. If it's about cooking, you could probably say the same thing. You know, you have to be mindful. Like I had friends who worked at food magazines and they would, every year they would dread the Thanksgiving issue because like you got to do it. And ultimately it's like, it's a turkey, it's stuffing, it's kind of the same thing. All right, fine. That's one issue. This is back when it was just issues. You know, we're going to do I'm sure we're going to do holiday wines.

37:53We're going to do seasonal wines. But it changes like, you know, what was good last year is not necessarily good this year. A new producer comes online. There is a new producer in a region that no one has really thought about who found a bunch of old vines who's doing great stuff at a great price. I mean, in the past five years, I would have told you five years ago that Chile is not a super interesting wine region. There are winemakers that have found old vines that are doing really cool stuff in and around Itada. I was just talking with someone about that yesterday. You know, for a long time, South African wine was really terrible.

38:26You know, producers found a bunch of old vines and they started making wines in a sensible way. For a long time, Australian wine was fairly monodimensional. Producers found some old vines. They started making it in an interesting way. So I'm repeating myself in terms of the story, but it's all, it's different people. It's different places. It's different terroirs. It's different wines. And I don't know. It feels fairly endless to me. I mean, talk to me in three years. I know. And hopefully you will talk to me. I will. We'll be back. No, this is really, really fun. It's great having you in. Let's go back to your time playing in bands.

38:57You went to 15 countries. You toured the world. You had a little money, I would imagine. What do you mean? Okay. Maybe you had a tiny bit of money. Wait, no, I'm serious. I'm setting up the question. to say, were you drinking wines along the way while you were touring the world? Because 15 countries is a lot to tour in a band. And give me some, are there any cool wine moments that you'd set up that you had had a little bit of a wine background with your father and opening grape bottles and had a little appreciation and you're on the road? It seems natural that wines would enter the fray. So I did most of my touring between the years of 1988 and 1995.

39:35And then again, for a concentrated period when my band Bitch Magnet got back together, we were asked to reunite by a festival in the UK called Altamars Parties. And we did like a tour. We went through Asia. We went through Europe. We went through America. So really, as a sort of wine interested person who could afford a bottle of wine, there was like, you know, that era of Bitch Magnet. And I remember in Europe when we were out of, actually, this only was true for the one show we did in Germany when I was like, by the way, like, there should be a local white and a local red. Like, make it smart.

40:11Like, just. That's great. That was in Cologne. They treated us great. I did this. The show was 12 years ago. I don't remember the wine. But I will say this. when Bitch Magnet played our reunion show in San Francisco I was friendly I am friendly with the winemaker Fred Scherer of the he's got an eponymous winery I had met him when I was doing a story for Food and Wine and we'd stayed in touch and he arranged to send like something like a case of his Pinot to the rickshaw stop which was great and we went through a bunch of it that night I flew to the next show with a bunch of it So I thanked you in the book, Fred, but thank you again.

40:51Yeah, this is great to go on the record. And then the guys are looking out for the artists in their lives. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm in a band now. We just recorded something. And, you know, if we do tour, it'll probably be Europe and I'll be paying close attention to this. John, what's the band? Let's talk about it. The band is called We Contain Multitudes. I love it. Great. We have a record that will be coming out early next year on a label called Expert Work. All this just happened. and we just recorded it late last year, and we just cut the deal with the label. We do not have any social media, and we do not have any footprint whatsoever online, and that's something that needs to happen.

41:25Are these former bandmates or these friends? It's the drummer from Bitch Magnet, who I've known since I was in my late teens, and who kind of ruined me for every other drummer. His name is Orestes Morphine, and he's one of the absolute greats. More people need to know about him. Many people do, but more people need to. Bassist Simon Kobayashi, who is from London, who we met when his band opened for Bitch Magnet. We just stayed in touch. he's the bassist I'm the guitarist he's a much better guitarist than I am so cool so you're setting up this band you have a deal you're editor-in-chief of a wine magazine fuck dude how do you keep it how do you keep it all straight I don't it's exciting for you I do not man I do not no it's it's and I mean it's awesome I'm not an organized person and thank you to all the people who keep me in check on that This goes for everybody at the New Wine Review, in particular, Sarah Parker-Jang, who's effectively our managing editor, and Xander Barron, our CEO, and Brittany, our operations person, and Sarah Keane, who does art, and Jason Wilson, who's our star writer.

42:26I love that you shout out your guys because I feel like we don't talk about our managing editors enough when we have them because they save your life. We would not have a publication. Actually, without any of these people, we would not have a publication. It's a very small team. I'm glad you brought that up. It's a great segue. way, you know, as I mentioned, you covered media, you know, you're a reporter, you covered the world that we kind of work in. And now you're on the other side, you're an editor-in-chief. But let me ask you, like, just in general, how does the new wine review stay in business?

42:57Like, what is your monetization plan? Like, I think it's a big question about, is it only subscriptions? Is it like partnership subscriptions? How does that all work? We are a subscriber-based publication. We do not accept any advertising now at all. We may accept advertising in the future, but it will not be from any entity in the beverage industry. So, you know, it's much cleaner to do it this way. I had a great experience at, you know, the magazines that I was involved with, Advertising Age, Business Week, Inc., where I was running the editorial side. They were primarily advertiser supported.

43:33And that's just a different game. And you have to sort of do it dance where you're doing right by the reader, but you also have to do give the advertiser, you know, basically stuff to work with, stuff that they can like sponsor. And like that is complicated and it can be really exhausting. And this is very clean. It's like, what does the reader want? Can we make that work? How do you acquire customers and readers? Like what's your what's your like model for customer acquisition? I mean, there's a there's a complicated customer acquisition model, and I'm frankly not the best person to speak to that.

44:04That's kind of in Zanders and Zanders and Brittany Martin. Like a good reporter. You're dodging the question. No, no. I mean, like, I literally, like, I mean, I've seen the spreadsheet. Like, I know, like, vaguely what the cost is supposed to be per subscriber. But, like, I couldn't give you. I wasn't asking that. No, it's totally fine. But, I mean, it's so we've got a newsletter with 10 ,000 plus, you know, names on it. There are ways to. It is very difficult to break through on social media. There are ways to do that. But we're bulking up our Instagram presence and we're, without going to great detail, we're exploring partnerships with a variety of partners.

44:40Okay. That's cool. I think so it's a blend of sub and partnerships. You're going to have sustained revenue from that. I mean, the partnerships are there to drive subscriptions basically. Right. Correct. Thank you for correcting that. So you're not taking partner dollar, but you're using partners to grow subs and bring in new audience and all that. Tough game. Like, you know, media has changed a lot. And like right now it's for food media, which, you know, of course, wine is lumped into this general category. We've suffered a lot of crazy, I would say, injustices in some ways, you know, the way Meta has kind of, you know, changed the game many times over.

45:13I think retail advertising is quite, quite, quite scary for anyone doing consumer publications. I think that's scary. I've talked about that a lot, but I don't know. How do you how do you look at food media's future? um well number one i'm very grateful that i'm not working for an advertiser supported um publication i mean i don't mean that in a snarky or mean way it's like it's hard and um advertisers want something for their money which is totally reasonable when there when there gets to be an imbalance between what they want and what is done right by the readers it gets uncomfortable uh what you have identified about the platforms like meta is significant and enormous and um Um, it, you know, the game has gotten a lot harder, but media was never super easy and most things worth doing are not super easy.

45:58And, you know, I, I covered media and I was talking to these, um, you know, publishers, men and women who had been around in the eighties and they're like, you wouldn't believe how easy it was. Like there was a memo that went around that told us how to sneak Coke into the Dominican Republic. Someone told me that, um, for, for the offsite. Um, like it just sounded crazy. And that in the year 2002, I was like, that's not this world anymore. Like it's and this this was before, you know, Google and Meta were the giant platforms that they are. But like, you know, people were moving to experiences online that has enormous implications.

46:30If your business model is selling an expensive back cover to some advertiser. And I say that with some sadness because I love print media. I love magazines. We just got bon appétit at our house. And like my wife and I were fighting over it, as we always do. The new editor is spectacular. I'm very excited about it again. Exciting things happening there, yeah. Very excited about it again. But, you know, she has to work with a much smaller staff and a much smaller budget than she used to. I mean, like, can you still do a really good magazine like that? Sure. I mean, is it harder? Yeah. Well said.

47:02I think we can put it there, put a pin in there. I think it's a great last thought about being excited about media because it's clear that the new wine review is an exciting place. And I just want to close and ask you, you know, when you're drinking a wine and maybe you've read about it on Punch or the New Wine Review or Bon Appetit or somewhere else, how are we as wine drinkers going to remember that wine? It's always the hardest thing. You mean how do they remember something you write about or how do you remember the experience of the wine? The experience of the wine. How do we place that away and then move on to the next bottle?

47:38Because I think that's a big part of this world is remembering the wine and maybe going back to it a second time. You know, it really depends on how serious you are about it. I take photos of every wine label that I drink. I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of – I'm insane. I'll just say that. But, I mean, I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of what I drink and I make little notes on it. Because, number one, I want to remember – I was doing this before I had this job, but I kind of need to remember too. um photographs help um but you know honestly it's about experiences and it's about being in places with people that you love or i mean having a great experience by yourself you know you know at a wine bar like you know reading a book and just gradually working your way through a magical bottle of you know beaujolais or burgundy or you know a great blau frankish from austria i mean it can be anything.

48:34And, you know, I think there's a lot of people who are new to wine when they go to a winery and they get excited because they meet the winemaker and then they bring the wine home. It's not quite as good. Like there is something there is something about setting. I mean, like in time, you learn to work that into your assessment. But I mean, it's like, you know, you remember a certain amount of standout experiences and the way that you remember more of them is, you know, you do the things you do with anything like you write you write stuff down, you take pictures of it. I love that sentiment. I think I'm still hanging on to like a wine from the Vino Verde region from Afros Winery.

49:08And I feel like I have this memory of this wine. I don't drink anymore, but I have this memory. And it's about the experience of trying it for the first time and then trying it again and again. I mean, my dad poured me a glass of wine in 1996 or 97 or 98. And like I remember how it felt. I remember how it tasted. And I remember saying like, okay, like now I get it. There's something here. It's cool. That's why we like wine. That's why wine is placed highly. I think when you talk about foods, it's like placed really highly in that hierarchy, right? It's very high for me for sure. John, and this is Taste.

49:44We asked guests about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. I know you've not reviewed these questions. I've not reviewed these questions. This is straight up the dome. The best fruit? Papaya or peach? The worst vegetable. Any squash. I will go to the mat on this. All squash? Any squash or eggplant. No, no, I'm sorry. Damn. No, squash. Because you can make eggplant parmesan. You can't really go to the squash. Taking strays. All right. The best dessert? Peach pie. Your favorite American fast food chain? I'll say what everybody says.

50:14Popeyes. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Biscuit? You like the biscuits? Not really. Okay. I have a high bar for biscuits. High bar for biscuits. Okay. Your favorite cookbook of all time? Oh, my God, dude. I know. This is why I give you these questions. All right. So number one, I got to give the important caveat. I've been very happily married for almost 20 years. My wife cooks. She's much better than I am. So I'm going to say Joy of Cooking because it taught me an enormous amount and it's still really great. A favorite recent cookbook discovery? Anything by Adelenghi. Yeah. That's not a great answer either.

50:52The Joe Beef one is really fun, but it's like— It's like - They're both great answers. I mean, but you don't, you don't like, I mean, you don't cook like Joe Beef at home. No, they're cool books. Oh, you die basically, you know? They're good cookbooks. And nothing but respect for Joe Beef. No, definitely. Okay. Your favorite wine bar in America? Well, I got to say Four Horsemen, but so let me give you another one. I probably would have said Terroir, but it doesn't exist anymore. No, it doesn't exist anymore. So favorite wine bar, it does have to be in America? It has to be in America. You're killing it.

51:20My next question is not America, just to give you a little preview. Okay, that's a - So we're starting with America. We're starting with America. I'm mentally thinking, oh, God. I'm really shitting the bed on this one. I will say, I will say. This is why I email you the questions. This is why I didn't want to look at it, because I didn't want to think about it too hard. I'll say Plastifetz for second place. I mean, I already said it. That's all I can think of, yeah. All right, your favorite wine bar, not in America. a coin flip between Noble Rot in London and Vervalais in Paris. I'm sure both of them get a lot of play, I'm sure.

52:01For a reason. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to get away from them. A couple more. A cuisine you would like to learn more about? Korean. Yeah. When Bitch Magnet reunited, we toured through Korea, and I discovered that, as with Turkey when I went there, there's just an entire universe of that cuisine that does not make it to America. And I like it. That was 10 years ago, like some more of it's here, but it's it is fascinating. There is always kimchi. There is always gochujang in our refrigerator. Always, always, always love to hear that. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Like type or specific? Both. So specific right now is the Ali from Quartz Creek Grocers, which is turkey, provolone, and broccoli rabe with hot honey and mayo, both of which I get on the side.

52:52Although historically, the Italian from Maine, which is somewhat difficult to explain, but it's great. Category. Oh, that's really hard because now I'm going to get into po 'boys and banhame. I should leave it at that. Leave it at that. I love this. Shout out to Italians in Portland, Maine. I love it. John Fine, this has been a real pleasure. Thanks so much. I've enjoyed the absolute hell out of this. Thank you so much for having me.

53:18This is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com. and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.