Moist January | Episode 9

0:03Welcome to Uncorked, a Cult Wines podcast where we take you behind the scenes of the fine wine market. it i'm tom gearing ceo of cult wines and your podcast host and as always i am joined by my co-host jonathan stevenson jay stevenson i haven't actually quite landed on which one i'm going to go for for this podcast but normally we go through both throughout the whole pod so we'll go with jay jonathan jay jonathan how are you very well yeah very well enjoying the new year so far good start to the year yeah i think so um weather's been slightly miserable but um you know where there's wine there's a way so to disappoint people at home you are doing dry january which a lot of people listening to this might also be doing the same thing yes yeah um attempting to i think given the weather uh my sort of commitments to dry january will be up and down depending on uh and we're going to put you to the test today we are going to put you to say more like damp january slightly moist moist january yeah exactly that'll catch on and for those of you just heard those tones this is our guest of course we're joined by libby brodie thank you so much for being here for those of you who are unaware of libby and i'll be honest if you like wine and you're on social media particularly instagram i'll be surprised they haven't come across you because you are one of those sort of influence shall we say of the world that is very commonly popping up especially on my discover feeds i'm sure a lot of people will be familiar with your voice uh but you are a wine communicator um you'll also be well known as being a city am columnist um but what i wasn't aware of is your kind of background and sort of your career spanning theater and film as well as now in wine which we're we're going to love to hear about but um you know one of your things is about sort of breaking down barriers and making wine you know more human comfortable confident and approachable yeah hopefully i mean fingers crossed that's what i'm trying to do with my job um yeah so i think that uh when i was learning about wine which was relatively recently we compared to one of my colleagues, it really surprised me that I'd been drinking pretty much hardcore for decades.

2:01And there was so much that I didn't know about that would just make the wine experience better. And I realized that the people I was hanging out with, my friends, they're fairly well-traveled. They're fairly well-educated. They're a wine-drinking crowd, but they didn't know the right service temperature or what certain words on a bottle meant. And I just thought I'd love to communicate that better to people so they can enjoy this brilliant, brilliant product. And what do we determine is hardcore drinking, if you don't mind me asking? uh well you'd have to speak my doctor about that but no i actually think i drink less now i work in wine right because my appreciation of it has gone up far more so i'm drinking better quality wine i'm drinking less of it because i'm thinking about it more um and also i think you know in your 20s i don't know about you maybe you had wonderfully pure youths but um in my 20s it was basically what can i get for free right you know who's buying me that drink what the lukewarm uh wine at a theater opening night yeah i'll have that whereas i think now it's it's not necessarily an everyday occurrence and uh there is most days to be honest but it is sort of drinking something better and nicer and thinking about it more yeah drink less but drink better i think is the mantra yeah but i mean what was your like was there a kind of a moment which twigged for you in terms of your interest and love for for wine in particular was you talked a little bit more about just obviously as i'm sure we've all experienced in our early early 20s just drinking for the social fun element of it but was there a moment that got you into wine uh very much so so my my family did not they're not wine pros should we say and I think that is something I found quite interesting coming into the wine industry lots of people do seem to have a background where their parents collected they went to wine tasting someone their uncle had a cellar I didn't my parents had wine at every meal I would say most meals particularly when I was older but you know it wouldn't be more than 10 pounds a bottle max and there wasn't a lot of knowledge going on there so there was a culture of having wine at the dinner table yeah you had wine it was there but it wasn't a necessity and it wasn't really known about in the way that I do now.

3:53Right. And then I went to a wine tasting with a boyfriend. It's always boys. It's always boys. I went to a wine tasting with a boyfriend in my early 20s. And he, at this tasting, we had Bielka Samon Rosé Champagne. Yeah. And I had this and I said, wow, that is so much better than Smyrna Fice. That was your benchmark. That was my takeaway. It wasn't a high bar to me as well. well Sommelier Fice is great actually they sent me some cans recently and I it took me right back I still love it it's refreshing I've got nothing I'd rather have that than a Pinot Grigio anyway the uh segue from Pinot Grigio poor thing um so basically I did actually say that to Matthew um of the house Bill Cart Sam of the house uh at a lunch years later um and he was like oh great better than Sommelier Fice we'll put that straight on a press release yeah I was like sadly I haven't so from then I started like reading books about it talking to sommeliers I think one of the biggest things in wine is talking to people about it and everyone in wine and this is something sorry i realize i'm rambling on to that question already but this is something that i think people don't get when they're intimidated by wine is that people who are in wine love to talk about it so if you sit down at a restaurant and say to a sommelier i'm having this dish what do you think i should drink with it do you not think it's more about the way that they talk about it because i think that it goes without saying people that are like wine like talking about it but maybe as a disconnect for those that are maybe earlier in their journey feeling daunted by the way that we might talk about wine especially like a sommelier sommelier could be very technical they could get into elements that are just so far over your head that maybe feel intimidated by it well i think uh there are good sommeliers there are bad sommeliers like in any industry in any job and i think one of the skills that sommelier has is to read the room and to read the table to know who they're addressing so whether they're sitting next to they're serving someone who is really interested in the limestone chalky soil or whether they've just been asked by someone oh i'm gonna have the chicken what would go best with that um you know they they that's part of their job is to read the room who they're talking to and balance that knowledge i do agree with you very much about the language around wine but i'm just saying in the situation of sort of learning about wine and getting into wine i think don't be put off by asking questions yeah and i think where i completely agree with you and maybe is a little bit of a top tip for those that are more at beginner level is when you go into a restaurant what you sometimes forget is that is the sommelier's job that's what they're paid to do and sometimes you can feel intimidated they come over i'll give you the wine list but actually asking those questions is around you know is around their job right so it is a good i think it's a great piece of advice for people that is use the tools are in front of you and if it's a sommelier and they're a good one they're someone that can really you know have a big impact and hopefully enable you to choose a great bottle so i think it's a that's a great piece of advice yeah and i think extending from that i think maybe that uh as as far as like the diners go if they're if they're there and they are feeling intimidated it probably it doesn't help but the fact that they don't then ask anything because then the sommelier feels obliged to come over and ask them or introduce themselves to them and then it's it's immediately that sort of weird situation where they're just sort of thinking they've just had to come and deal with the sommelier when maybe they didn't want to or whatever but I think that's an interesting way to look at it that sommeliers are actually really at the forefront of actually helping that whole situation because when you go out for dinner and you you order a wine that's really when a lot of people will order wine right They may not necessarily just choose wine when they're out and about if they're drinking otherwise, but that's the real kind of touch point for people that are getting into wine.

7:22So I think that's really interesting to think that. And sometimes people think they're intimidating and they don't want to bother them. Yeah, exactly. They're so busy. That's what I mean. So we're just going to go for that one. And they don't actually know. What people need to realize is that, are you pouring a second glass already? We're like two minutes in. Baller. Someone's not doing dry January. Wow. Okay. But yeah, I think that generally people go, you know, they think that they're sort of being a problem or an issue. And in fact, that is genuinely, as you've just said, the reason those people are there.

7:52They are there to help you. Going back to your, so you said obviously that it didn't necessarily come from your parents. So I'm interested to know now, what does it look like when you do go back for a Sunday dinner? Is it you then now leading them into, are they more interested by everything now that you're so involved in wine? Or are they just like, oh, shut up. I think my parents are proud of me. Yeah. I think I'll bring that's about it I think I sort of take care of the wine if I go back for Christmas I'll do the wines if I'm going back for lunch or dinner I'll bring the wines and I might chat a little bit about it I would say max maybe 30 seconds my father will often say oh that's really quite nice oh that's very I really like that and then I'll say oh it's 80 pounds a bottle and he'll sort of spit it out cough and you know the idea of spending more than 10 pounds a bottle of wine is still sort of horrific um why would you so but they're also you know although we love food at home that they're also not the generation that go out and dine you know we as a generation i'm sort of putting us all lumping us all in the same generation here uh food and drink for us is an entertainment we go out to dine and drink for fun yeah i don't think previous generations did in the same way not as much yeah what do you think a reasonable amount of money is to spend on wine a reasonable amount of money totally depends what you're playing with what's what's in your wallet no but i mean in terms of you know your everyday enthusiast and everyday these okay so because you said your dad like anything over 10 pounds for him yeah aghast yeah i think in modern times like in the context of wine as a product like where do you and you must have a lot of experience going to a lot of tastings where you drink the range of wine yeah where do you think people should okay so my sweet spot for wine well i probably spend a bit more than the average person but my sweet spot is probably between 15 at the bottom then to like 35 and i know i'm getting some really good wine i will say this i do not want to shame anyone for what they can and cannot afford or what they do or do not like i think that is boring and dull and not the point of an actual wine communicator but i will say that knowledge is power and key and i've had people say to me i wouldn't spend that on a bottle of wine because because i'm not a wine snob but they spend a couple quid more on a fair trade coffee or a couple quid more on fair trade chocolate but there isn't that understanding that wine is farmed.

10:03There is an understanding of the workers in the field, the process, the time it takes, the plants growing, all of that. And I think if you explain that to someone and go, if you work backwards, that's tax, that's the bottle. What you're actually getting from the wine, you've got about a pound of, I think it's an average now, if you have a nine pound bottle of wine, the actual what's left over once you tax is 50 % of it, and then you take away the cost of the bottle and the packaging and the label, what you end up with is one pound to cover the actual wine and everyone's fees, everyone's salaries, all those workers in the field all those winemakers and when you put it like that people reframe how they think of what they're buying um and i think that's quite important i think it's interesting to make that you know that that comparison to like coffees i mean coffee prices obviously with inflation have just gone up exponentially and actually just people will just without thinking go and just continue to pay those prices for coffee if they're a coffee drinker right but i think part of the development of what you're saying around the education in wine is if you do start to appreciate it and start to then treat it as more of a research project then you can actually find wines ahead of that curve that almost okay they're obviously prices are affected by inflation but less so in some ways than than other more mainstream you know consumable goods so you're actually almost beginning to get into that world of like oh if i find this one that is better value yeah then i'm almost drinking ahead of time right you're getting better value and also just going back to what you said about i wouldn't pay that for a wine it's like where's the inflection point is it like i own like if it's suddenly 16 pounds not 15 will i not drink that wine and then it's kind of trying to work out from there well what is the driver is it simply just they just don't appreciate what they could allocate to wine versus other things or but it's the dis i mean from it just from a pure mathematical economic perspective it's the disproportional benefit you get from spending that extra five pounds to your point from going from that nine pound bottle to 15 almost the entirety of that six a pound apart from the slight increase on VAT the almost entirety of that six is actually going on the wine yeah so that one pound that was going to wine is now maybe six or seven and that's actually a 600 increase in the quality you're providing the winemaker to actually make a better wine and so that's where I was asking the question a little bit earlier just around sort of you know I do think it's reasonable for people to maybe just spend that extra five to ten pounds versus that kind of base level I think a lot of people do think ten pound bottle of wine I think well if you can just push yourself to 15 or 20 I can guarantee you your experience is going to change like significantly and i think you'll find wines that suddenly you fall in love with you know and you'll have experiences which will absolutely blow out the water what you were previously having and i just think it's especially in this day and age you get an uber in london these days and you know even going around the corner costs 15 20 quid or you go to a pub and i mean pints these days are 650 to eight quid just for one pint yeah oh pints have gone up crazy absolutely crazy and your and your point about the one uh the coffee is a really good one i'm not sure if you follow me on instagram at libby brody um but uh but i did an insta post about this recently where it is a real pet peeve where you easily spend four pound fifty five pound without even thinking about it on your takeaway coffee in the morning so many people standing at the station on my way in today holding their cups for four pound fifty coffee it's one little coffee and it's gone whereas a bottle of wine you've got five glasses maybe six glasses maybe three given how you drink um and um and in this beautiful i just don't have the bowl to myself you know and it's been it's taken months years to create and it's something to be shared and enjoyed over a whole meal and people won't spend you can't have it on a commute though and that's true that's a really good point i'm not sure your bosses will be happy when you turn we can solve for that i think like maybe a cult hat you know with the two the beer hats you used to have with the straws yeah just with two bottles of wine like a miniature yeah that'd be good let's move slightly on to uh so a big thing of yours is around sort of wine and snobbery um and it carries that reputation especially for women um what barriers do you think women face in the wine world and how have you seen that change in recent years it's a big question it's a big question just thought we'd take it down yeah fair enough yeah so my column yeah my column is called wine without snobbery um snobbery doesn't have to be gender focused i would i would say that's sort of two different things to tackle in in the wine world um but if we are talking about being a woman in the wine space it's fascinating particularly in what your region really your area of wine the fine wine world is a lot more male dominated and when i started in wine which really wasn't that long ago a few years ago i was often the only woman at the the trade tastings or the press or like maybe there'd be one other and you sort of nod to each other and i was often on press trips being the only woman again and that has totally changed that is completely different now there's often um on press trips i've been on press trips um this man will remain nameless but um i went on press trip which is all women and one man and we're friendly we're friends and afterwards he said when we were getting the flight home i found that quite awkward at times you know you you you ladies were talking about lady things and you know and you know and he had and i thought that was so fascinating to me because i thought well yeah i found things quite awkward sometimes when i went to press guys and you guys were talking about actually quite often lady things but um and again in a slightly awkward way for me um and i think that shift has happened really quite quickly and i credit part of that um well and we can talk about this later because i think it goes into also ethnicity and socioeconomic backgrounds and all of that but with the pandemic and also with the rise of these other platforms um that people are using to access wine and the rise of social media where um there's a lot more women creating content i think that i've seen than men there are some fantastic men doing as well um but the visuals of that people learn in different ways right so some people want to read a book some people want to get um a visual image some people listen to a podcast um people get their information different ways and i think social media content creation it's interesting you say that i don't want to go off on a tangent but i was having this conversation last week because we were i was talking about um hayley beaver's new cosmetic brand rude which i think she sold um for like 800 million but valued her a billionaire and you know the conversation i was having just around cosmetic products and the proliferation recently especially through social media but a lot of female entrepreneurs being behind them but then from the context of saying like okay if you went back 20 years ago and said right name a female billionaire it'd be very very difficult to come up with names off the top of your head but then even the ones you could name like let's say you know from the walmart family you know it's generational wealth often you know in heineken family you know you think of like the obvious female billionaires that they quite often be generational wealth and now what i think is interesting with and i don't know if this connects to your point but i think it's interesting in terms of the empowerment of of women i think platform i think social media the ability for people to create these brands these personal brands to communicate with a huge audience and to create you know Hayley Bieber in three years has created a billion dollar company now yes she's a celebrity but she could she basically did it all on her own she created a brand she had the distribution and she had the ability to go out and create that wealth to the point where she's now probably twice as wealthy as her husband Justin Bieber who you know has been you know quite high profile person but I think we're seeing this more and more this empowerment and the ability especially from a from a female perspective which I didn't think existed before I just don't think the tools were there.

17:18I don't think the platform and distribution was there to enable women to be able to have that position where they could create, you know, these brands without, you know, I don't know. I just feel like it's interesting. I do think it's fascinating that when social media, I would say this in the wine world, because that's what's relevant to me, started taking off. And there were these various women taking pictures, images of themselves and the wine and events they went to and stuff. there was a lot of pushback from i would say the middle-aged men in wine um there was a lot of backed out about it a lot of uh mockery around it oh influences or i will go on this trip but will there be any influences there all of this sort of stuff and i thought that was really interesting because it's not doing anyone any harm yeah certainly not their careers they you know they're writing for to canter or they're already sorted but this is a way that as you have just pointed out that women were able to be entrepreneurs and make a name for themselves and create income for themselves and suddenly this platform which was dominated by women in that way was somehow very bad very lowbrow and yet their blogs seem to be highbrow interesting um you know it's sort of it was i feel there was a gender bias there even more interesting is that many of these chaps have now taken to instagram and other social media platforms and are on it because you know the world moves forward we change but do you feel also you're communicating to the next generation to a new generation as well but i wouldn't would you say your target audience is those more established historical wine snobs if we call them that but let's say i mean i hope that i have a broad appeal personally um because i will also say that a lot of people go to social media and go oh influencers they know nothing loads of them are diploma grads loads of them have you know you've got mws on there you've got to play mcgrads on there you've got wset like qualified qualified people in wine and because they're attractive or taking photos or spending time on a reel people assume they are less and that is something going back to your point that i have definitely come up against and i know lots of my colleagues women female colleagues have come up against the sort of assumption i was at a press trip recently um i'm gonna tell you two stories actually one of them actually does beggar belief but this one was a recent one and uh i was there with another female colleague about my age and um i was actually i think i was the only person who has a regular newspaper column on that trip uh and but she writes for two publications regularly as magazines and this wine producer had done the whole tasting and it was really good it was a great tasting it was a really fascinating producer brilliant tasting and he spent the whole time talking to the guys right really and then as we left the tasting he He turned to me and my colleague went, so do you girls have a blog or something?

20:03And I went, no, I'm here representing my newspaper, the most read business paper in London. And my colleague here writes for two magazines. And he just went, oh, oh, oh. In fact, the guys had blogs. And nothing wrong with blogs, by the way. I'm just saying it in comparison to how he meant. And the other thing that happened, which was true. How recent was that? That was, I don't know, out the press. No, but within the last. In 2025, yes. Okay, fine. So the, and then the other one that happened, which was mental. And I, and I, and I'm actually a great teachable moment for my male colleagues, I feel.

20:39We were in Greece. I wouldn't aggan out this one because it was a couple of years ago. In Greece, having a dinner. I'm the only woman at the table. There are other women in the press strip. You know this one. Only woman at the table. And we're all having dinner, talking to the winemakers. And the waiter comes around and I noticed that he pours all the men's wine from a decanter. and when he gets to me, he pours it from a bottle and I went, sorry, excuse me, can I just, can I just check? Am I, am I having the same wine as everyone else? And the waiter looked at the winemaker and the winemaker looked at the waiter and they had this like back and forth discussion and then the winemaker goes, well, you see, this is a very special wine.

21:16No way. Absolutely. That's terrible. Not for the women. Oh my God. And again, I think I was the only one there with a regular newspaper column, you know, and I, I, I, I couldn't really believe it. And I said, no, I would like to try the wine that everyone else is having. And it was interesting because I had two of my lovely male colleagues either side to me and they were shocked because you don't see it. You don't, if it's not something that's being done to you necessarily, you wouldn't even notice. And it took me being vigilant to notice because you're having a chat and then you suddenly notice this different pouring going on.

21:47And one, someone at the table did say, well, what's the big deal, Libby? You got the same wine in the end. I said, yes, but I had to notice. I had to be confident enough to raise it question it, bring it up, which not everyone would be. I was like, I think I'm doing a job equal to you guys and then I immediately am reminded that certain people around this table see me as second class so that was, I think these things do happen well these things do happen. It's interesting obviously with wine as well because I think, you know, even over the last sort of 30 years, there has been some influential females in the wine world, especially when it comes to journalism, chances problems are the obvious personally, but even someone like a Serena Sutcliffe you know master of wine but obviously you know massive part of the fine wine it's just so shocking to hear especially this like now in this current time it's like it's unbelievable but even i know you're saying it you know fine wine end of the market has been dominated especially in consumer side by by metals but i do feel that historically wine has been maybe more open than other products to women maybe i don't know maybe i'm miss miss me drink it yeah but in terms of being influential you know like john sis robinson has been a very influential voice she's basically god or goddess.

22:53You don't really get higher than Duncest. That's true. And there are so many. But maybe the bar was just placed so high for people to get to that point. I mean, there's so many women that I respect admire, writers in mind, of previous generations, of current generations. It's huge. And it's massively changing. I'm just giving a couple of examples to show that these things still do happen. And if you think then, if you add in any ethnicity barriers, and I do think socioeconomic barriers as well, that may be less so. but i think you know if you it's a it can be a bit of a minefield that's one of the main things we need to push in making wine accessible yeah that it's not just and i realize i'm saying this to two white men on this podcast but it's not just the the voices it's not just that because i think the food study they did a survey um and i think 48 percent of women would prefer to drink wine as opposed to i think i'm fudging and say about like 24 percent of men and the point is you've got this massive audience of women who do buy wine who do drink wine who do enjoy wine so it just makes no sense that the people talking about wine come from this one tiny demographic you need a whole spread you need a whole spread a whole range a whole diversity to make the visibility of wine more more important i think it's yeah i mean frustratingly so but i think it's one of those things wine is definitely in that category of you know lots of other professions i mean across the last few centuries that have just inherently been dominated by men i mean we um uh a colleague of ours of mine in in america um lorraine was uh she often talks about how she got into wine and she worked in banking and the reason she got into wine was because she wanted to be able to actually uh hold her weight when sitting at a dinner table and the wine list was passed around and it was never given to her first because it never was back then and um i just think that whole dynamic has been the case in so many of these you know industries which is it's just going to take time right to shift but i think it's shifting far quicker now than it ever has done in wine for sure yeah um i mean you guys must have noticed this in the people sort of investing in wine uh going to auctions buying what the the age has gone down from what I understand you guys will know better than me.

25:08And the people that you're seeing coming to your tastings, people you see coming to auctions, that's changing as well, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think when we look at the male-female divide as well, the other thing for us that's interesting is just geographically how that changes. And I think in Europe, we're still very male-dominated when it comes to the fine wine market. But in places like Asia, I think we've always been probably 50-50, maybe even slightly more female-dominant. And so especially places like Hong Kong and China, there's a lot of big female collectors, drinkers especially influencers as well so i don't know whether there's that asian thing versus you know kind of uk and europe uk and europe been a bit more traditional still to this day um but yeah look we are seeing we are seeing a shift in terms of you know the the age of people that are coming to you know buy and start collecting wines and we're starting to see some those some of that shift in terms of the generation um i think the i think the real problem for the fine wine market at the moment um and i was writing about this week is we are starting to see you know maybe some of those traditional collectors you know sell off their collections you know we're seeing kind of these big people going to auction now either transferring it to the younger generation or just selling off their collections and the question i have and i suppose my only concern around the top end of the market is are there enough new young collectors coming onto scene to take up all of that supply if you look at the bill coke uh auction in the u.s and all the wines that you sold you know into market you know those wines need to be now filtering down into the kind of you know 30 and 40 year old collectors who are starting their collection and going on that journey and i just wonder whether there is a balance at the moment it feels like maybe there's slightly too many of the older generation either you know maybe dying off or the generational shift or just selling off their collections because they've suddenly realized i've got 5 000 bottles of wine and never going to drink them and so what else are they going to do with them i think it's that that aspect is definitely something that i've i've been discussing more often recently which is you know we talk a lot about the the younger generations not drinking as much not just wine but across the board but i think equally there's there's such a bigger focus now in the in the media in in general society around health and longevity and i think you're actually seeing as much of that elder generation actually almost being forced out of alcohol wine for their health benefit um to tom's point is it is it then going to be a struggle for those very top end wines to pick up market elsewhere i guess the one benefit in some ways is that obviously the market has corrected so they're they're not as expensive as they were three years ago but certainly there's there's a big void there if that does continue in that in that fashion you are seeing that trend around the health side of things i saw someone this morning um who was saying oh my wife's pretty much like giving up drinking alcohols he's like i've got a drink on my own now and you know but the reality is like you're just not going to drink as much right and he's not just gonna open a bottle of wine on his own and drink it especially if his wife's now not drinking and i remember seeing another big collector from the Middle East for lunch a few months ago and he was saying oh the biggest problem I've got now is like my friendship group where we'd meet up maybe once once a month and all bring bottles like two three of these guys and I'm not drinking anymore so then like the group's dwindling and you know people don't want to you know open a whole bottle of wine at lunch and you know he was just saying like my opportunities to drink are becoming more limited so he was I'm just at a point now where I'm I'm not really adding anything to my collection anymore because I just don't think I'm ever going to get around to drinking it so it's interesting to see how that health element of wine is starting to impact people's buying patterns and don't you think there'll be a pendulum swing i mean i know there's this whole health thing around alcohol consumption and obviously you know it's it is a dachshund so you know i totally get it to an extent yeah um i do personally feel that wine is slightly different to various spirits and but i think what we also have to acknowledge here are the benefits of wine and i think that people when they're talking about well-being there is this sort of spartan-esque you can't do anything I have no refined sugar no alcohol and social media is making it worse and that's the few absolutely and that's the few but that's not sustainable I think most people want to know how to make a more moderate lifestyle and if you look at the blue zones you know where people have the healthiest lifestyles the most longevity wine is so what's a blue zone?

29:08a blue oh there are these areas of the world regions of the world that they have studied and these are regions where the population they live the longest and they live the healthiest and they they analyse everything and yes all about exercise and what have you got in a location as an example um well i think like large parts of italy um you know uh but you can higher reaches in china and stuff like that but in most of these areas wine is an almost daily thing now it's not a lot it's one or two glasses a day it's not so i've blown it already yeah you you're this is it it's not even lunchtime and You're done.

29:44But actually, wine in itself is not the enemy. People have been drinking this for centuries. It's a huge part of our... We are actually biologically evolved to break down alcohol. We've done that since we were apes. So I think that our bodies are fine with alcohol to a certain degree. And actually, it's beneficial for us. Dr. Laura Katena does a lot of work on this obviously she she's a wine producer and she's also a doctor and she's fascinated by how this works you should definitely look up everything she's written on it because she's saying it sort of depends which of course makes perfect sense on your individual body so and what you're doing like day to day if you're a sedentary job nine to five monday so if you have um so there are links that people have said there are links to breast cancer and wine um however there's a um opposing link to cardio issues and why actually it's good for that so depending on your family breakup makeup family makeup you can sort of decide what works for you and also i think when people are talking about their health and well-being i love that i did that in quotation marks well-being well no i'm very big on well-being but um it's the idea of uh if alcohol is bad for you if you get crackingly bad hangovers you black out you're vomiting if your body does not like alcohol then avoid it just like people avoid gluten or dairy if you're lactose intolerant your body might not be good with alcohol but most people's are yeah my little don't make us do it yeah yeah and i do think the younger generation has been this huge furore in the news about gen z gen z not drinking and everything yeah i think they are drinking not drinking as much wine yeah they're really into their craft gins and beers and stuff like that um they might be drinking less in a way that we they don't open two three bottles at lunch maybe but they they are still drinking and also why are we obsessed with them i'm sorry but have that have those has that age group ever been the ones like funding wine no like when you were when you were we're not gen zed it's a great point but you know like when i was 23 i wasn't going you know what i want to invest in yeah white burgundy you know i was like you know i that's not what i it would have been a smart move it would have been really i wish i had been thinking like that but i was still kind of on the cusp of the smell of ice years um so what i i think you can't strophelo white burglary can you have you i'm just saying you can it's possible um but i think that we need to stop this obsession with them because they're not the people doing anyway it's our generation it's gen vita now it's the people you've got you need to have some money to be able to invest or collect wine because that's just you know you have to so you need to have enough of an income to be able to do that and that does definitely price certain ages or careers out of it but that's about it i think everything sorry you go no no just because tying in the health and the generational thing i think the only thing that's maybe slightly different this time around is i do feel like that you know if you think about the cultural reference points that we had as millennials growing up you know there there was a lot of cultural reference point that was kind of grounded in alcohol alcohol consumption went in deep for me do you know okay but if you think about now especially like the you know you know tech like tech i'm gonna use this as this broad term like tech bros being very influential in terms of people who people look up to especially the new generation you've got people like brian johnson who's now like this fixated on longevity and like you know doing everything in his power to understand every single aspect of his body and how to you know live to 150 now to your point like that's a very extreme way of living and if you look at alcohol in that regard look i'll be honest with you if you looked at it in that regard fundamentally you are going to realize that alcohol probably has a detrimental impact on your body if you look at it like a molecular level i can't see how wine a molecular level has a benefit or alcohol has a benefit to your body but you're forgetting about all those other elements like the cultural elements the social elements the psychological elements to relax relaxation it thins your blood but think about all the heart issues think about all the friendships you've created over the years like those moments where you create those friendships you met someone for the first time and how you You know, it's a lubricant to social experience.

33:45Is it a coincidence that we're having a single epidemic at the time that wine is plummeting? I think there's a link there. Everyone going, everyone's single. Oh, the male loners epidemic. Oh, everyone's single. That's the divorce issue. No, it's the fact that we're not drinking enough. That's how people meet. But no, I think, yeah, it's very important socially. I feel like we've gone slightly off topic. We've gone down a number of segues during this. But I think that, actually, a fascinating story about the tech pros, but it's not pro wine so i feel like maybe i shouldn't say it but sort of tech bro basically met a tech bro at a city am event and he's from england or he was you know he went to la he's moved there silicon valley proper in that like elon musk heartland sort of stuff and he came to a party and he brought a bottle of wine yeah and they were disgusted by him and they were like how could you bring that how could you drink that do you know how bad that is for you when he was in san francisco he took wine yeah and and but on the table they had laid out drugs like all the pills and the powders were out there for the dinner party uh but they didn't they saw that as efficient like you take a pill and you get high you take this and you get buzzed yeah but there was no pleasure and i said that's fascinating so they've just missed the point of wine then right which isn't to get buzzed yeah that happens but actually an over analytical approach it's pleasure yeah so all this like tech bros and health and longevity you're missing the point of life life is about pleasure community enjoyment i mean it's about food drinking people that's and that's since pre-biblical times we've done that we've come together around the table with martin zuckerberg and he said he hasn't even had a cup of coffee ever in his life i just feel sorry for him okay so my point is like if you think about a new generation like these people are put on pedestals you see them as like being the most uber you know successful people in the world the people to look up to and they have this way of life and this way of talking about life whether it's that approach that you just talked about whether it's the extreme brian johnson approach yeah i'm just saying like when when we were growing up our generation like all of our reference points whether it's good or bad were probably more on the hedonistic lifestyle element of and wasn't it fun yeah you know the 90s and like the early 2000s like it wasn't really about like being do you mean i have very few good memories on instagram around paul denan for example why that becomes so popular it was and all the stories he makes up on that on that page they're funny because they're reference points to you know that cultural shift that movement but if you relay that into the future for the next gen what's their version of that going to be oh it's going to be like mark zuckerberg talking to jensen huang around like having some sort of you know zero alcohol products and whatever i don't know it just feels like there's a there's there's a disconnect there between what we had and what they're experiencing yeah but yeah i'm i'm so in agreement with you Libby around I just think it is this moment in time I think firstly everything we've said around social media how quickly trends can come in and out of fashion right and that that's been accelerated massively so I think only it won't it won't take too long I think before I think of all the alcohol products wine is probably the one that has the most elements that are interesting at beyond the wine itself beyond the drink if that makes sense like maybe a few spirits whiskey maybe but um I think it would just take time for that to come back around and probably become a by-product of this new wave of longevity and things like that, to your point.

36:55But we're also seeing sort of an increase in certain wines, right? So sparkling wine consumption's up in general. People are, so yes, there is the well-being thing, but I think there is an increased and sustained interest in champagne, but also in other sparkling wines as well. And I think that's continuing for a number of reasons. I think firstly, and actually possibly, actually it is also the Instagram effect because the pop of a bottle, the look of the sparkling wine, there is something very attractive visually, audio of a bottle of sparkling wine. But also they're lighter. They're generally lighter in alcohol than still wines.

37:31And I think that sort of if we focus on the trends of lower in alcohol, more celebration, it looking good, sparkling wine is here to stay. It's going to keep going. Can I just ask you a couple of questions around your work? So obviously as a columnist at City AM and obviously on social media, you know, content for you, you must have a round the clock pressure to be producing content. Is that fair to say? I can sometimes feel a bit like a monster that needs feeding to keep up your own relevance. But I love a story. Yeah. I mean, if you look at my previous career in theatre. Does it come natural to you to be able to just constantly like be coming up with, would you describe us as a naturally very creative person?

38:11I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure if I'm creative. but I definitely love communication and a story and to tell the story when I was in my theater which is my main career I was a producer that's backstage that's not on stage that's like the business part I'm the business part of showbiz so I did all the contracts and the but what I did love was creating a story and getting an audience on board and I think that that's served me quite well in the wine world because I can attract an audience I can communicate a story I can get key messages across hopefully in an engaging way so is it is it too much pressure No, that's a bit like someone saying, oh, now you're in wine.

38:46Do you ever like not want to drink wine? And you're like, no. But I'd imagine like once you go on like a journey with social media, you start it, you get followers, you then start getting sort of engagement. There's a pressure to increase like, oh, you got to keep that momentum going. You got to keep delivering for your audience. And that almost creates its own level of stress. Stress. I don't know. The beauty of social media is that it's your own page. So you can kind of do it on your own, off your own bat when you're ready and when you want to. and just when people get upset about following someone just unfollow them it's a bit like having a magazine to hand you've got advertorial you've got editorial you've got beautiful images you've got interesting captions you've got some education in there like i think people get too worried about all of this do you try and stay led by the story as opposed to like for instance start of year you know news resolutions i don't know if you do them but i do goals okay yeah goals so within your framework of what you do do you then have goals for the year where you think okay i want to try and tackle this as a theme and therefore you're looking for stories around that or do you just let the stories come and then work with them as you as you see i'm probably a bit more whim whimsical like yeah i just do yeah i i i think i sort of fly by the seat of my pants a bit in life so someone will come in i go god that's interesting i'll put something on about that or you know it i used i think i used to be a planner and then life got too busy and i just went oh sod it i'll just do what comes in when it does and what's what i find particularly interesting and what's great with your social media as opposed to when you're writing for a newspaper or you've got a commission from an editor is it could be entirely personal.

40:13So I can say, I love this. I hate this. Now you might sometimes stare people up. I've definitely written things as well that people haven't always enjoyed. But it's personal pieces. And I think it's all very subjective, isn't it? Wine is subjective. I think that's also how wine is changing. And obviously with your platforms, you're making it far more democratic as a thing, which is so useful because I think that many people have you know, in our generation, when we were grazing, you had the experts and they would go, this is 94 points. What does that mean? It means that one person really liked it.

40:46But I mean, what, how, what is the personal relevance? I think what we're noticing now from people purchasing wine and learning about wine is that they're far more interested in how they can personally engage with it. How, you know, they want to know the background story. They want to know the people who created it, why they created it. Like want to know more about the wine itself. And then they want to be able to make their own decisions and choices. And I think give them the information. People aren't stupid and I think a lot of wine communication historically has sort of thought people are stupid.

41:14I'm the expert. You don't know what you're talking about and it's this many points and this is what I say. I think now we are embracing a way of communicating about wine which is people aren't stupid. Let's give them some knowledge. Let's give them information and then they can decide if they want to buy it, if they want to drink it, if they don't. I think obviously social media is quite an aspirational thing for a lot of people. Do you maybe the last comment question for you on this is, is there like a secret to your success in terms of how you've built up your audience and your, and your kind of following, do you think?

41:44I am very persistent. I think, I think I get on with people. Yeah. I like people. Like I like meeting people. I like having a drink with people. I like, so most people I connect with on social media is because it's social. Yeah. It's social media. I have, when I first got onto Instagram, wine, Instagram, I started on my actual family like Instagram and then people were going why are you posting these pictures of bottles it's really boring so I started a wine Instagram so I could take my hobby over there and um and then you start chatting to people I've got some of my very best friends in the world I met through wine and we go on press trips together or trips together we drink wine together and I think part of the fact that my career did have a very steep very fortunate trajectory is I genuinely know how to tell a story hopefully and I genuinely like people and want to connect with them.

42:34And if you give me a job, I'll get it. I used to be a producer, so I'll get it to deadline and under budget. But, you know, so that's sort of, I think it's that kind of, just go for it. Just go for it, say yes and do it. And I also have a very low embarrassment threshold. I was going to say the cringe factor is quite a, you know, a lot of people just never get there because they're just like, I don't want to put myself out there. Oh no, I've regularly embarrassed myself loads. Spitting, spitting at events, disaster. so um so yeah now i regularly sort of embarrassed myself in multitudes of way and i think you just go it's life i'm a real person let's just crack on i think i heard someone say on instagram or on social media they were like success on social media is just on the other side of cringe yeah i mean i'm probably pretty cringe depends on what your cringe level is i know my one of my friends hannah is like oh but you know just me i'm just being me so just to move on to um a podcast i recorded last week we looked at the fine wine market in 2025 so we did our kind of you know top wines of 2025 we looked at you know what the trends were in the market um for those of you that uh were interested in that show there's a separate podcast on that and a report coming out so make sure you listen along and download that report um but yeah there's some interesting data that came out there um do you want to hazard a guess or does it do you know the answers to this question do you want to hazard a guess on the top three most traded wines of 2025 don perignon was in there Senja Senja not in the top three but it was in the top ten top ten a really interesting one for me just because Calms-Obreon Calms-Obreon was in the top ten not top three Rioja Alta Rioja Alta Grand Reserva 2011 second most traded wine in the market last year which I thought was really interesting and do you have any knowledge of why that would be like what's brought that to the fore I think Rioja value for money just like collectors drinkers consumers Consumers, they love it.

44:24They love Rioja. They love the big names in Rioja. One, because the value's great. Two, because there's volume. And three, because generally speaking, a way that obviously Rioja's aged, a lot of the Rioja that comes onto the market is ready to be consumed, right? So again, looking at that particular example, it's the 2011 vintage. So if you just think yourself in the broad spectrum of fine wine, it has to be one of the best value wines you can buy out there, whether you want to put it into your cellar and drink it in a few years' time because it's going to age. or whether you just want to crack it open and have a good example of a mature bottle at the dinner table.

44:56And it's not going to break the bank. You know, you're talking probably in the region of 200, 250 pounds for a case of six in bond. Okay. Higher than what we're talking about in terms of what's a reasonable price to spend on wine. But, you know, I think it's, it's so accessible to everyone. And again, I just think there's a level of consistency, especially around Spanish wines. And I find it in Vega Sicilia. And I know we're going to have a different end of the spectrum. And Vega Sicilia always comes up as one of the most traded wines in the market. and Valbuena I have never ever opened a Bolo Vega Sicilia in any scenario whether it's with complete beginners experts experienced people in different countries and people haven't either rated it the wine of the night or top one two or three that's brilliant and again I don't know whether it's the approach of winemaking especially with the you know the longer aging and the style but they're just they're just crowd pleasers you know people understand and they're not they haven't got this level of complexity that maybe Burgundy and Pinot Noir has for a beginner where they're sitting there going i can't believe this is 500 pounds a bottle i don't get it and i think with rioca it doesn't it doesn't try and um you know show itself as being something that's super complex in terms of you know oh you're an idiot if you don't understand why this wine's good so do you think people are they are doing this to drink they're trading this because they're going to drink it themselves or do you think people are seeing it as an investment that they're just going to keep in bond forever yeah look i think when we look at a secondary market trading obviously you have different participants who are buying right is people buying just immediately to drink it's people that are buying to put in their home seller or in a bond and it's people that are looking to trade to to invest and make money in a weird way i think at that lower price point it does become more difficult to actually make money from investment just because of the cost of carry from storage and insurance is going to eat into any profits at let's say 250 pounds per bottle if you're spending 15 pounds on storage per year that's you know that's effectively five percent of the total cost so i don't see it as a massively great speculative investment asset but at the same time if i'm a collector and i'm starting on my journey i can safely put that into my collection whether it's inbound or at home draw down on it over the next five ten years but also know that at any point in time if my tastes change or i get a divorce i need to sell off my wine collection it's a wine that's easily tradable so it kind of has a lot of elements and i always think about this aspect about optionality and i think optionality when it comes to people that collect wine or you know buy wine not for immediate consumption i think sometimes it's around optionality you want to buy wines that excite you that interest you that when you when the time is right you go to drink it you're going to enjoy it but also at the same time if at some point in the future your circumstance change or your taste change you can resell it easily yeah and i think that optionality comes in bucket loads when you buy something like rioca alto without the pressure of the price tag right because if you try and translate that into bordeaux and suddenly you're spending five times as much so let's say a thousand pounds on a second growth wine from a good vintage of a decent amount of age there's a bit more pressure then in terms of like is this a good decision should i be buying this wine am i actually going to drink it if i need to resell it can i resell it with something like a roca alta at 250 you're getting 96 plus point wine maturity age ability and liquidity and i think that is it's almost like the perfect combination yeah i was going to say i think roca as well if we you know you made jokes about pinot grigio um i think it's one of those uh off there i think i think we'll come on to that that was in the outtake um but i think Rioja is one of those wine that i think at all levels Rioja is quite familiar wine to people so therefore as a result of that there's enough good Rioja at the more affordable price points that we talk about for people to feel that familiarity when they then jump into something like a Rioja Alta whatever it is um i think there's there's much more polarization like you in Pinot Noir in different regions where that immediate kind of feeling of I have no idea what's going on here with this wine at that price point I think that helps Rioja and then I think on the other side of things I was going to say anecdotally I've noticed a lot more conversations that I'm having with collectors, investors and a lot more of the people coming to us or to the market at the moment are having that hat on that you said where it's like a little bit of I want to cover both bases I want to be familiar with the wines I'm investing in I want to know that even if my situation changed or if I just wanted to drink them I'm I like them I know them um I think that pure investment focus on at least people I've been speaking to has been less obvious in the last few sort of maybe six twelve months I think people are now looking at it going I want to have a collection I want it to improve in value but I also want to be able to maybe lean into it for drinking as much as I do potentially need to sell it if if situation changes so I think that's an interesting point I mean I find that very reassuring to be honest because I think that wine you know it's farmed these winemakers toil for ages you know to make this product and they want it to be enjoyed i when i when you speak to winemakers and you go how do you want people to think about your wine they're like i want it to be enjoyed round table with people i don't i don't think the idea that it's always kept forever and ever and ever traded and never actually enjoyed i love the fact that people are collecting and investing in wines that they actually want to drink maybe as well so maybe you get two cases and one you keep there and one you have to drink can you see how it develops over time and i think that's one of the the basics when you're starting a collection because i speak to a lot of people who want to sort of start collecting their wine yeah um and i sort of say you buy a few so you can try one now try one a few years try like but it is about that enjoyment and that pleasure and and i think that's probably why regions that people enjoy drinking do quite well on the investment collection because as you say it's what people know and that's why education is so important that's why going to tastings i think the only friction point from a winemaker perspective is you know i absolutely want all of your wines you ever produce to be consumed but the other friction that exists is you know the economic friction which is you know these guys do need to make the wine they do need to release it they can't keep it in their cellars because their cellars aren't big enough and they've got the next vintage coming along and look most of the top winemakers in the world are making wines to be consumed in the next 5 10 15 20 years they're not immediately ready to be drunk and so there is a friction point right because they need to move out of their cellars they need to generate economic value from it but at the same time they've made a product that isn't ready to be drunk straight away but they want to be drunk eventually no 100 but what i'm saying is a friction point in the middle is who is responsible now for being a custodian of that wine and so i think that what i've always believed in is i believe in this education around there isn't such a thing as collection or investment or drinking it's all one thing and what that one thing is that whether you're a collector you see yourself as a collector or someone who's going to consume wine in the end or someone who wants to retain the economic interest those things are aligned then they're not misaligned because whether i resell in 10 years time i'm going to resell that wine better in 10 years time if it's perfect provenance it's been stored correctly whether in your house or whether in a professional storage facility and you're a custodian for that wine for the next generation but what i will do to protect it the economic interest is the same thing i'll do to protect the quality of the wine so if i then open it in 10 years time i'm going to be doing the same things the same behaviors are going to drive me to protect that wine so when i drink it it's the best possible expression of itself and i think for me it's a little bit of a trade-off and i think there is some from an economic perspective there is some value that someone should derive for being a custodian i don't think it should be egregious and that's where the speculation comes into it which is different right william kelly releases his wines people snap them all up they take them off the market and suddenly you've got to pay two grand for a bottle of ballgrain aligote now that's speculation that's that's demand supply coming very very extreme but look i think if you have a new release of Bordeaux or a new release of you know most burgundy wines or Italian wines etc etc if they need to be aged for the next 10-15 years I think the custodian of that wine should either be protecting it and having that cost to carry so they can enjoy it in the future themselves but if they don't enjoy it and they resell it to someone else to enjoy whether it's a restaurant a hotel or another private individual they should get some benefit from it and the benefit in it will be the appreciation of the value of that wine I completely I completely agree with what you're saying and i think that that is partly what makes wine such a special thing to collect and invest in because it is a limited product which is why people buy there is that the law of you combine that with the law of supply and demand yeah it is something of the moment um and that's obviously very attractive as you say in whenever it comes into its own in 10 years or whatever and that's brilliant they can either drink it or they can sell it and that's wonderful they have the freedom to do that so no i do agree with you that there is that that sort of supply and demand issue i'm i makes me a little bit ick that's a technical term um when people as you say bulk buy stuff and then to drive the prices up and all that and it keeps it from the people who actually might really love that wine but that's an emotive point rather than a practical one and it's a certain tier of wine as well that you're talking about and i think also to tom's point i think that if it's managed in the right way it can become a massive tool uh for the wine for the brand for their abilities to continue to make great wine right i think like in like i think what's what's also in equal measure you'd imagine that most winemakers if the wine is being drunk too young um they would equally be like i'm not you know as much as they don't want the wine to never be drunk they also don't want it to be drunk not in its prime window right so um because that or in a new market that could immediately impact how well that's taken up because you see that an awful lot when i was in the us whereby the vintages available in merchants in wine shops um yeah they weren't really the right vintages but just because distribution wouldn't allow for it so people will then have a massive misconception of a certain producer region immediately because they're just not able to access the right stuff so um yeah i think that's just one of a few things that is is definitely it needs to be maybe managed better than it is but i do think there's a world where it has to exist like tom said because if you're saying that wine's not going to be consumed for 10 years anyway until it's optimum it needs to be stored in the right place yeah but the other thing is it's interesting it's like in the last maybe sort of 20 years when wines become more of a financial asset or something that has become so valuable that you want to protect at all costs i think it's going to result in the future generations us being able to drink back vintages of stuff that you can't really do today like even you go back to like 80s and and 70s burgundy the amount of times you open bottles and like they haven't been stored well or you know you can't trace it you open the box and you're just like hang on this is an 85 burgundy it's just it just doesn't taste right it doesn't feel right how where's this been how someone looks after it i just don't think that infrastructure was in place for such a large period of time so i think us looking back now into those periods of time it's very rare that you get to try perfect examples of those wines whereas i think in the future we'll have the opposite effects and i think what we do on our side of business i know something that jay works with quite extensively is we we look at like this ecosystem this life cycle where it's kind of let's say a new release from you know Gaia for example like the Barbaresco right the new vintage and no one's really buying that to drink right now but let's say collectors have it in their in in their portfolios we then partner with you know the entree for example so like Michelin star restaurants big restaurant groups who effectively look at us as like almost like a secondary sort of inventory that they can draw down on so we'll have like Michelin star restaurants that are looking through and going oh this is stuff that we want to draw down and have in our restaurants and that's for me that's kind of like the perfect life cycle which is we're almost leveraging um the economic value in wine appreciating as a way to get investment capital to store and preserve these wines so then when they do go to the michelin style restaurants the consumers in those restaurants are then getting the best examples of those of those bottles and i think again that's another way for a winemaker or wineries to look at it which is not necessarily as like an evil if their wines aren't immediately drunk but looking at it as actually a useful utility that exists within the market to make sure that their bottles end up on the right tables in the best condition possible yeah yeah it goes back to that point we made about the sommeliers i think every part of the the chain in in fine wine in particular needs to be aware of what that you know represents tom yeah give us a bit of a rundown on what we yeah i mean it's um so it's a village level maurice sandini from domain arlo um i think it was picked based mostly on the vintage um but obviously it's a great producer and it's a great example of village level burgundy drinking really well but yeah it's just me more 2017 vintage I think I was having this conversation a couple of days ago drinking really well up and down the scale village premier especially some of the Grand Cruze 17s are just absolutely phenomenal and I think it's one of those vintages that got kind of slightly overlooked because you had the Riper 18 19 obviously before that you had 15 and 16 so I think if you talk to collectors you know people maybe are overlooked the 17 vintage I think also I think it's a little bit of an earlier drinking vintage so actually the wine's a little bit more approachable I think it recently having tried even like 2010 Burgundy you still feel like they need to be left alone for a bit so I think if you look at the most recent vintages of Burgundy 17 has been overlooked a bit of an off-prime vintage so I think prices aren't as high as other years so actually getting a better deal but drinking really well and they've got a nice balance of the acidity and freshness that comes from a slightly cooler vintage but I still think it's got that approachability it still has nice levels of fruit on it and I think all up and down the Côte de Nuit you know everything's showing really well from Chambourg Moussine, Maurice Saint-Denis up to Gervais Chambartin from examples I've had recently have done really well but this is obviously Domaine Arlo's Maurice Saint-Denis which yeah I think is drinking really well in terms of its price point around sort of 55-60 pounds per bottle so you know yeah It's a nice bottle My dad would be gobsmacked Gobsmacked!

58:21What do you think? um i think it's really beautiful it's really light really fresh and i was i'm it's interesting you said that because i was thinking oh 2017 yeah i don't really write or see a lot of that vintage i get quite excited about 2018 2015 but um but this is very light very fresh um bino noirs tend to have for me like this sort of you know you get your own tasting notes in your head right you get your own sort of yeah yeah i think so i'm sort of like i get this sort of dry like dried rose petals in a wooden box kind of right for me sort of is that but this is actually really it's light it's got as you say that lovely like fine fruit there but it's got in the edges of the savory into it as well and yeah i think it's very nice yeah i think it finished like for for for good or for bad i've kind of fallen into this trap of really liking high acidity wines whether it's white or red and um i i do struggle sometimes with you know the really ripe vintages not just from burgundy but other regions when you haven't you know maybe the acidity is a little bit lacking i always need that acidity that persistence that backbone because i feel like that's the that's the kind of like the spine that holds the wine together um so again that's why i like 17 because i think okay in lean vintages that aren't ripe enough you get too much acidity too much tannins you don't get enough fruit and that's obviously when it can go the wrong side but i do think you said it's quite light it feels like it's kind of balanced it has a nice perfume to it aromatics but it has got that core of acidity which is kind of where you finish so that's yeah and it's and it is just slightly saline almost is the lasting taste i get which i think is nice to have um almost meaty yeah it's got it has got i think that sort of savory note towards the end but very light very fresh and very on trend right now lighter fresher wines yeah everyone wants them yeah good way to ease into moist january for sure um just ease into something moist yeah exactly um

1:00:07uh what's yeah i'm going back to the 17 vintage i think it's interesting because i do think sometimes it's challenging for the the wider market for such a panning of like you know the bordeaux 17 not a great vintage um upon release not every vintage has its has its day has its day this is what i was going to say but i think i think sometimes in in france in particular bordeaux burgundy i think given that they're so different obviously all vintages are very different but i think generally people will lean towards vintages that are across both good you know generally good like the 18s good across both you know yeah versus 17 i think sometimes that's a good way to approach burgundy is look for those vintages where where bordeaux's been pound like 13 another another example um but actually yeah i was just going to say bordeaux 17 is drinking really well really affordable as well we've got quite a few in the in the wine fridge obviously they're also in a really decent little spot yeah so have you got time for a quick touch on burgundy 20 new vintage obviously yeah I was going to say it sounds like it's going to be another challenging release just the quantities are tiny right and I think it kind of goes leans into just this element where I just think for Burgundy this side of Christmas it's about just trying to backfill where you can't find obviously new access to the new release I think there's going to be a lot of eyes on the 18s the 20s the you know 21s i think um just as a sort of snippet i think for for people looking to to get into burgundy new release i think it's probably going to be one where you're going to struggle to get as much as you might like um yeah i mean obviously burgundy is one of those areas that's really and it's it's in a rock and a hard place because obviously the inflationary period it's gone through just purely from demand and you know how many people want to buy and collect it's burgundy you know far outstreet supply but then at the same time if you look at recent vintages how many vintages have been absolutely decimated by different sort of climatic conditions whether it's you know the white side obviously this year in 24 it's mostly the red wines that have been affected and production levels are absolutely minuscule so yeah you just you kind of go from one year to the next hoping there's going to be more allocations more supply and and you know there's there's another challenge for the winemakers to deal with which is impacting um the supply side i think 25 is back to normal yield so that's a good thing to know that you know that's coming along and that's in the cellars um i've heard that 24 is actually a really gorgeous vintage limited in supply but a very classic fresh yeah yeah vintage in itself yeah of the berries that survived they were of optimal quality yeah they um yeah exactly they did it for those that were failed um yeah so if if looking at burgundy then i think and that was one other thing i wanted to maybe finish on was just around your report which i was obviously reading the last iterations of edit for um the market itself has in 20 you know last year was was was kind of a two-folded side of the market and i thought it was really interesting going back to what you're saying about older vintages yeah to see how many of those prime vintages like 96 is 98 2000 like vintages that maybe needed that time to to be able to reach their windows i think now to see lots of those wines and examples of wines that have produced good return in the last year it's kind of playing into that kind of scarcity aspect but also the fact that they are you know fantastic vintages of bordeaux in particular i'm just thinking of the top of my head is that i think it's come around to real kind of moment in the sun for like good prime vintages of bordeaux because prices have come off and because access has kind of opened up a little bit where people are opening up their cellars yeah um that would be a certainly i would suggest anyway a great place for buyers to be looking is like older vintages of bordeaux um to pick up good deals while they exist currently yeah i think i think i mean the headline is that you know the wine market's dropped sort of 30 from the peak but you know we're seeing a slowdown of it you know sort of 23 24 25 kind of 10 depreciation 8 now we're looking at sort of around six but in the last quarter of the year actually prices started to come up activity starts to pick up a little bit um uh you know one solo doesn't make a summer so you know it's very much you know to wait and see how much of the market recovery will start filtering through to a broader spectrum of wines but i think where we saw the last quarter of the year it was kind of the most liquid wines the obvious blue chip names that have kind of benefited the most it's kind of like they're almost like the bellwether of the wine market when things start picking up there the things will start sort of you will noticeably see happen quickly so you know sassacaya for example a super tuscan wine immediately you know we're seeing multiple of interest is trade up opus one's been trading up um salon um 2002 1997 has been trading up but i think to your point jay what's interesting is i think after the last two or three years where prices have come down i think you know you are seeing people look for like that level of maturity where it actually looks quite good value you know sort of 90s bordeaux early 2000s things that have got now sort of 15 to 20 years of bottle age on it and actually after kind of the period we've gone through coming out of kind of quite more accessible prices from a collectible perspective and we've definitely seen that in the trends in terms of the types of wines that are starting to pick up attention and demand in the market and they're now in their window as well right so it's like you're not having to speculate at those levels before you're saying actually just buy now and drink you know that's that's kind of the if you can afford to with some of those those back vintages um one final closing question um i have for you which is if wine and wine investment are to truly democratize what still needs to change uh more grassroot level everyday education more normalizing of wine wines are in supermarkets anyone of legal drinking age can pick one up um but we don't have the access state people don't have the access to just knowing a bit about it people want to know about stuff people are interested and engaged and we should embrace that on a variety of platforms we also need to increase visibility um uh of a range of different voices and different looks and different people having their thoughts and opinions on wine because i do very i do really believe that people are drawn to something when they recognize themselves in it i thought the pandemic was brilliant because it drove a lot of the the wine producers online and that gave access to a lot more people who didn't go tasting rooms and didn't have cellars and didn't have wine knowledge who were stuck inside and go you know i'm going spend a bit more and do a wine tasting online or something like that the point is we want to embrace wine education wine knowledge for everyone who want to make it something that they want to engage with because it's entertaining and interesting and and part of their daily life of having a glass of wine with a gorgeous meal with their gorgeous friends that's that's that's what we need to just bring everyone into the wine umbrella that's a good rallying call yeah yeah to wine and umbrellas no that's great um well i think yeah we've really enjoyed having you um thank you for uh making up for some of my um i've had a bit of a headache if i'm honest today so i want the tagline today you've made up for for that definitely and really interesting insights um thank you so much for joining us i hope we can do some more stuff alongside other things that you're doing this year and uh to your point i think yeah i think we're in a good space with with with the market we've got some interesting avenues to explore around how to further engage people and tom do you want to finish us off yeah no just to echo jay's uh thoughts thank you so much for joining us i know people at home listening would have really enjoyed that we had some superb anecdotes in there and luckily a lot of uh names were kept private and confidential um so yeah dm Libby if you want to know who those people are um but yeah absolutely brilliant having you here thank you so much superb guest but yeah that's it from us uh that's our first podcast of the year in the bank and we hope you carry on listening for the rest of the year because we've got some great content coming up now as you know we are available on all of your favorite podcast channels we are available on Spotify we are available on YouTube as well if you want to look at us whilst we're talking but if you don't look at us just go to your favorite podcast channel and all you have to do is have us in your ears which is painful enough i know um but look what we'd love you to do is to like we'd love for you to subscribe and we'd love you to let us know what you think about the podcast um please get in touch leave your comments as long as they're nice um and you know you never know we might bring up one of your questions on on a future podcast but once again thank you so much for listening and we will see you soon thank you very much cheers