Mulled Minds | Episode 8

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, your host and CEO of Cult Wines, and I'm joined as ever by my trusty sidekick and co-host, Jay Stevenson. How are you today? Very well, very well. Feeling festive. Feeling festive. I know, this is officially our Christmas episode, I think. Exactly. Getting into the spirit of things. We won't let on how many doors of the advent calendar we've opened. But we are marching mercilessly towards Christmas Day, and we are very excited to have a very special guest with us today. we are joined by Victoria Daskal she has just done everything when it comes to wine and we're super excited to hear more about her story she's a wine writer she's an educator a W set instructor and that for regular listeners of yours you'll know how much W sets come up so be interesting to talk to you about that a global traveler which is important and you're a creative mind behind curated tastings and experiences that I think I don't know if these are your own words bring history, culture and people together, which I think is a really nice way of surmising it because I think really that's what wine is supposed to do.

1:13And you spent the past 15 years exploring wine and it's taking you to various different countries and wine regions. I'm sure we'll hear more about that today. We're very thankful for you to be here. So welcome to the podcast. Yes, welcome Victoria. Thank you both so much for having me. It's really a joy and a pleasure to just speak to you both and share what I love about wine with you both. Absolutely. yeah we can't we can't wait to hear more um as you know listeners uh each episode we unpack the key trends the insights and talking points and of course we're joined with industry experts as well as ourselves um and i suppose the theme today is kind of unpicking and unwrapping you know how people fall in love with wine you know from their first glass um to maybe that first you know memorable great bottle and actually it's a question we ask a lot of our guests sometimes like what was that moment what was that light bulb moment for you with wine and i think it's it's interesting because it's almost like everyone has that such a visceral memory of that moment um and of course as we mentioned with your travel and experience with great you know regions and different places that you've been to we're really looking forward to hearing some of your uh tips let's say around wine regions and and places like that but maybe as a kickoff because it kind of is the theme of today what was your first great bottle what was that light bulb moment for you uh okay so people have asked me that recently so I have something to mind already but I have to say it wasn't the great bottle it was the the moment that really kind of woke me up and it was before I knew anything about wine I was actually still a student in Montreal studying you know economics psychology nothing to do with wine yet and but I was in Montreal which was a city that is very cosmopolitan you know very international french influence all the way through and i was actually sitting in a wine bar with one of my best friends and we ordered a glass of penfolds which you know i love penfolds it's not my necessarily favorite wine but it's a wine that's very expressive and it was you know not a top wine but a wine that had so many aromas that just do you remember which label it was do you know i don't actually it wasn't grange let's just say that no charade maybe yeah it was definitely a Shiraz blend it's like a Shiraz cab blend but it was it was because it was such a it was for a novice it was straight away full of just these incredible layers how long ago are we talking we're talking like 20 years and how old were you there at that moment in time oh yeah sorry yesterday um you could do the same you could do the same to me later I don't know I can just say I think I was like 21 I don't know it was it was a long time ago but I didn't know anything about wine you knew nothing about wine literally nothing but i but i you know swirled the glass and suddenly i actually could um how did you know to swirl the glass i watched tv okay no but i i just swirled the glass and i could see that i feel that there were aromas like blueberry pie and you know cassis and spice and toast and just really big aromas that i'd never ever even thought like i never thought about that in wine like 21 year old you don't just think about wine But anyway, that was the moment that I actually got very curious about wine as, you know, something to pursue and learn about.

4:31And that stayed with me. And I think from that point, I started to look for wine tasting opportunities and learning and kind of picked up a few books and started to just investigate a bit more. So it wasn't the wine necessarily. It really was just that moment of like being a complete beginner, realizing there's something special in a glass. And it's, you know, it's not the same thing you don't necessarily get from every alcoholic drink. Do you think there are 21 year olds out there in the world today having that same experience? Yeah, I do. I think less than there were before or hopefully the same.

5:02I think it's I think it's happening, but it's, you know, it's it's we know that, you know, young people aren't drinking maybe as much as we did before. but I think now more than ever there's a curiosity for not just what's in the glass but like the people behind that wine and who made it in the story so I think young people can be engaged but because of yeah curiosity and kind of thinking there's a lot more in the glass than just the alcohol it's it's going to take a lot of different factors to get them engaged but I think it's happening yeah yeah yeah I think it's interesting as well the way that you've put that because obviously having you know had that moment with that glass and the way you described it it's there's a lot of the factors that I'm sure will come on to discuss about you know younger generations and getting into wine it's just interesting that you sort of answered that that very question at the young age of 21 without any pre-existing wine knowledge of can you tell the difference between you know a wine that's more than just a table wine and a and a wine that's really been made with you know the levels of winemaking skills so I think just anecdotally there with that story i think you've almost answered the question that it can often just be as simple as that just having that experience with a great a greater wine than maybe yeah yeah i mean on on that theme maybe i can ask you a question victoria's just to get your opinion obviously we're in the industry right so if you think about it from the sense of you know we want as many people to have that spark moment you know when you had that um penfold wine and then i suppose for a lot of people they can have the spark moment but the next bit's actually quite hard as well where do you where do you go after that spark moment i get that question a lot kind of like oh i know i like wine but i don't know what the next step is for you know obviously being an industry we want as many people to kind of gravitate up up the scale as possible but they're probably two of the key points of making sure that there's a moment where the spark can happen and then ensuring there's a way for someone to then know what to do next once they've got that curiosity from your perspective which which are the two of the hardest challenges for the industry today?

7:08I think, well, look, I can say from my point of view that after I had that spark, I ignited a curiosity. And so when I finished university, I moved back to Boston. And actually, besides working full time, I started taking wine courses. And I think that's the next point is maybe trying to have a little bit more of an education on the topic that you're interested in. And it doesn't have to be WSET. It doesn't have to be like a very formal qualification, But it's just got to be an environment where you can ask questions and you have someone that is equally passionate and can share their life experience with wine.

7:43And I was very lucky. So my next kind of stepping stone was landing with a wine educator who was just incredible. I mean, he had studied history at university. So that's when he started to, well, he taught his courses through a point of like the history and culture and geography and religion. And at that point, I was like, that's it. I'm done. I've got the bug. I'm never turning back. it's almost like you landed on finding like a mentor yeah i mean i i don't think he would he would have considered himself that but it's true i i really consider him as like that pivotal person that unlocked a world for me that was right that's it you know wine is everything and uh and so i took all of his courses that year you know learned a lot where were these courses sorry these were in boston these were like not nothing just privately run courses yeah they were just through like an adult education program in the evening so my my day job was so dull it was actually in finance initially and it just wasn't for me uh so in the evening we like finance and wine on this podcast but yeah i ditched the finance i went straight for wine and anyway he you know those courses kept me you know enjoying that kind of life and you know after a year of taking all the courses i could i knew that was it i'm not turning back now and actually moved to france after that and that's like that was the next point so again back to your question how do people get to these points i mean not everybody wants to work in wine that's for sure but people might want to pursue a hobby interest like learn as much as they can even just as a consumer right yeah i would still say go to courses go to classes join you know tasting groups together and learn keep learning yeah yeah interesting and obviously in your career today and some of us obviously i read off a whole list of stuff that you've been involved with and done like do you feel like that is that kind of like a part of the DNA of the things that you try and do in terms of helping people on those journeys?

9:33Sorry, in terms of exploration, like, you know, obviously, whether it's the tastings you host, the experiences you've had in your career, do you see that as kind of like a driving force of what you're doing, like helping make it easier for people to go on that journey? Yeah, absolutely. I think my probably biggest passion about the way I work in wine is to help share my knowledge and just whether it's through a tasting or an article or whatever, like a wine course that is maybe more formal, but still I want to do it in as much of an engaging way as possible to keep people curious. Because you can work in wine in so many ways, right?

10:08You can be the one making it or selling it or serving it. Or just enjoying it. Or just enjoying it. But let's say you're working in it. My passion is to actually teach and share about it, definitely. And I think then I end up bringing people along. Sometimes they don't realize they're going to end up working in it too after a while, yeah. somehow yeah i'm really intrigued by your career so after you had this moment in boston you then moved and relocated to france and then you dedicated yourself career-wise to wine at that point well so no that was my ticket in was actually just to teach english at a lycée so it was like my best friend from boston found this program where they were hiring people to teach at lycée's you know primary school um actually no secondary school and they were just 12 hours a week so we had a lot of time outside of that it was my way in to live in France and outside of those 12 hours I got involved working um actually a little bit on a vineyard I was in the south of France so a little bit on a vineyard also working with a gentleman from England who was actually operating this wine sales company selling wine to yachts that we were in Cannes actually in the south of France so selling wine to yachts that were coming into the port and wanting to restock so that was really really interesting because i had no idea how to sell wine and i had just like this deep dive yeah go and go and do it go and knock on and talk to the you know the captain or the chef walk around the marina my first wine i sold was actually a case of bordeaux um rock to come and it was i had no idea anything about bordeaux but i just found a way to sell it you know yeah anyway so it was just great like i was just really getting like slam dunked into wine you know just by all these opportunities and I was just taking it yeah yeah very nice and then how do you what was your next step after that because obviously you've gone into the more um journalistic element I suppose with wine was that your next port of call I mean were you always kind of passionate about writing and that side of things anyway or the the writing came a little later is basically after that year in France I had my um teaching kind of opportunity ended you have a one year to do it and but I knew I wasn't going back to my old job my old life so I needed to stay and actually make the whole wine journey a little bit more official so I actually applied to do a wine master's in France and there there is this program which is part of the OIV so it's an international organization of wine and wine it's sort of like the United Nations of wine but they also offer in there somewhere there's a there's a master's program that you can do and I found out about it and applied and yeah i did that the following year which was 11 months of just straight travel around the world so we go to 45 wine regions around the world 23 countries and we were a really tight group but we were 16 people from around the world so it's like you could make a documentary about that actually that's a really it was such an incredible year and what was the size of group who were doing you all did it together at the same time 16 and we were all different backgrounds some of them were sommeliers some of them were um you know young we were all quite young and there was people who were maybe inheriting land or inheriting a wine business so they were kind of being sent by their families to go and get a bit of an education first um some of us were working you know just different like importing different different backgrounds um you're aware that that was kind of the makeup of what the course was being around the world in that in that fashion yeah that was very appealing it was not a very it was not like an academic course where you're sitting in the classroom and studying for exams it was much more like field work like we're going to the vineyards asking the questions learning and at the end of those 11 months um you have to complete also an internship and then also write a thesis I mean my only regret is that when I did the when I did the course I didn't know that much about wine and when I think back to it I think god I really had some amazing opportunities but I just didn't appreciate them because I was such a novice now when I look back on it like wow we met some incredible people and um it was through that course that I started to write about what I was doing because I thought this is nice to actually visit these vineyards and like walk you know we were in Oregon and China and Mendoza you know so many places so I started to kind of blog it and uh my school director said oh it looks you know looks like you're interested in wine writing let me connect you with someone and he he sent an email to Jancis Robinson here in England he said I have a student who's interested in wine writing uh could you give some help or like suggest anything that's a good intro it was a it was a great intro of my life actually and and and she said yes you can you can write for my website for free but i will publish it and but it was so much more valuable than that because she actually helped me understand how to write about wine and how to ask questions and how to be more measured you know i was a very a lot more of an enthusiastic american and she was like you know what you got to be a little bit more you know measured and balanced and you know not take everything for you know you got to really ask the right questions and she was really really good about craft you know kind of creating that craft of wine writing in me so that was really not taking everything at face value yeah yeah we often have that problem when we go to order every year to taste any vintage they're like this is a classic vintage oh every year is every year is a classic vintage that's interesting in many ways right i think you know that that's just kind of the the rhetoric that builds and it's hard to I think one thing that's always struck me with with Jancis if we were to cover you know critics and how they write and I would say that it's not uncommon to speak to people more and more year over year where they find her way of writing to be actually now probably one of one of the better um critics to to get that balance for you to get that kind of really cutting through and like honest opinion yeah um so yeah I mean I I think that's that that's I mean like you said one of the best introductions you could have had i think given if you were maybe a bit more sort of flamboyant and and uh you know sort of positive maybe around around the edges of things but um yeah no i think i think her words now you know really consistently have always been giving that balance to things which i think is really helpful you know it's easy to keep following critics that are giving superlatives over superlatives and inflate his scores exactly exactly so measured yeah she does not you know mess around and and over over enthuse when it's not warranted right for sure when you were doing your wine writing like was there a particular area that immediately interested you was like an area of focus for you at all or yeah that's a really good question because i i still don't know i'm still figuring that out and it's sort of you know it's sort of following the story and what i learned actually from her as well but just from practices kind of keeping um maybe having an idea of what you're going to cover but also being open to like how that story might change significantly the more you talk to people about it and then you might pick up a better story because you've talked to like the neighbor who said actually did you know about this happening yeah you know and sort of just kind of keeping a very open open look and i mean yeah i i now like to yeah i i do a lot of work for decanter now i worked for world defined wine so writing different ways like profiles on important people um the way regions have been changing um but actually because this goes back to maybe more what i've really become more passionate about is not just wine as just the wine but actually wine as the product of our culture and i love to combine wine with history and wine with you know literature and just other ways because actually even after all the studying and i you know love wine education i actually still think like normal people don't need to know all those details and they just don't care and i don't think that's going to be the way that we're going to enthuse the next generation by learning about rootstocks and clones and yeah that's like the end of the journey right i mean even not not even not even for everyone yeah no one needs to know yeah unless you're literally unless you unless you want to right though at the very end of your you know you'll find out but I don't think at like a dinner party anyone needs to know that no or will remember that and I think it's just going to come across as like you're showing off because you happen to know this clone sure and there's a lot of that in in the wine world um I was going to say just sort of segwaying from that uh a little um you know you've obviously organized some fantastic experiences and and tastings and we've covered your your kind of memorable moment for for your your first bottle of great wine and what what would be your most memorable experience that you've created for your audience and like where was it and you know why was it so memorable that's a that's probably a harder question than even the first one but I think generally um I've had a lot of memorable ones a few were when I worked for another company I did a few events that were, I still can't believe I did them.

19:04Like one was with a professor from Oxford, Professor Charles Spence, and he was doing a study with his students on kind of cross modal sensory kind of studies where he was seeing can music influence our appreciation of wine. And, you know, so he came in and did a study on different like bass and, you know, heavy sounds and light sounds and frequencies and all these different kinds of audio influences and how that plays with what tastes better when you're listening. um taste difficult to even explain this i can't believe i got involved with that but essentially what that culminated is a tasting where we had fine wines from around the world paired with the london symphony orchestra playing different kinds of classical music and the tasting was basically this live was it a blind tasting it wasn't blind no they knew what we we knew what we had and it was all quite classic like champagne chablis sauterne bordeaux burgundy it was all very classic wines pretty fine wines but they all had different elements on the palate so whether it was like high acid and light and fine or more heavy rich tannic like low and um yeah and they tried to pair the music the science of it i don't get it actually still but i really found like it was like a pinch me moment when there was like the live symphony orchestra you know this oxford professor and his students and the wines and people in this live you know room just enjoying that and tasting it and really finding this kind of interesting collaboration yeah um that was like a once in a lifetime thing but since then i've done tastings that were a little bit more maybe low-key but still interesting like combining um you know things like for example wine and literature and i really like taking a book like a movable feast by hemingway and if you you know read this memoir it's 1920s paris you know all the writers and painters and he's really specific about the kind of wines he drank so it's not a wine book but if you love wine and you read it you will recognize so many villages and kind of name checks like crews and everything and so you can read it and almost like extract a wine list from that book and then which is what i did and so i just produced a wine tasting based on those wine styles so like sancerre and chablis and certain villages in burgundy um and so no they're no longer the same vintages obviously but it'll be the wines that you know he would have drunk and then reading out the passages of how he described them and who he was with you know a lot of them he was drinking them with um f scott fitzgerald so you know just really interesting to think about those people enjoying those wines and so yeah i like those kind of moments where it's not about the wine and food it's really about wine and like wider connections that you may not have even thought of yeah i mean that that that plays into the whole kind of you know the hugely interesting for a lot of people i mean obviously Tom you know studied history at university the whole history element to wine is fascinating to a lot of people so I think to your point you can almost kind of pull at these different things if someone's really big into their music and and pulling on that string of their their interest that would maybe take them down a wine tangent they hadn't thought of I think that's a really interesting way to think about not just the more obvious you know sort of face value ways to kind of engage people into wine from eureka moment to where to buy it to how to to read into wine it's more a case of okay well what are your other passions what do you think to connect with wine because a lot of the time when you enjoy wine it's so much more about the sharing the experience yeah you know that that's what can often shape your memory of a wine more so than the actual wine in the glass right so yeah i think that's really interesting yeah he speaks to a lot of people that go to on trips to wine regions and they come back waxing lyrical about this wine and they bought a few cases and they're like it was weird when I got back to London or to New York or whatever I opened the bottle it just wasn't quite the same didn't taste quite the same I was like yeah I think I know why exactly yeah on a Tuesday night Sunday beach holiday Tuesday night after work after you've just put the kids down to bed and you open a bottle it's not quite the same as when you were no definitely not you know young free and single on a beautiful trip during you know some beautiful vistas in the wine world but one thing I picked up on that you said around kind of this scientific experiment around sound and wine was your skepticism around kind of the science behind it one thing it just triggered in my mind was just your opinion around one of the more controversial winemaking techniques i think a lot of people talk about today which is biodynamics um you know a lot of people talk about kind of obviously the organic biodynamic natural wines obviously we know there's these movements around here some really dedicated you know people around natural versus non and what does that really mean it's a bit of a gray area in terms of the definition but clearly it's a quite a difficult thing to prove scientifically especially biodynamics what's your opinion given your extensive experience of regions you've you've traveled to winemakers you've met who've probably got completely different philosophies to each other i mean how do you find the science versus the art of those elements uh yeah i don't I don't know if it's, you know, I don't think you can scientifically prove the benefits of it.

24:19But I think if you step back and look at it holistically and see what the benefits are, you know, there's a little problem is that biodynamics. Firstly, it's not a lot of people understand it. And I think it gets kind of wrapped up with natural wine, but it doesn't have to be. It's actually entirely separate. It's something that's happening in the vineyard versus the natural wine that's happening more in the winery. And again, it's an ethos with natural wine. biodynamic i think a lot of people would actually be surprised at how many wineries are operating biodynamically they're just not announcing it because they maybe don't want to be associated with that kind of wine style which is like yeah maybe a little more funky and a little bit more witchcraft you know whatever but like there's a lot of very serious producers who are working that way just don't talk about it because they want to uh really just work on the land the soil the the overall biodiversity in their vineyard which actually probably scientific i don't know the science but i know that scientifically it is a healthier soil of course healthier so so then if you it's kind of like a subset of organic right in terms of how you treat the vineyards of intercultural process yeah so in order to be in terms of the lunar cycle like how much do you think that can affect i think so i mean we know that the moon cycle affects the tides affects the water so of course plants being made up of water it's going to influence you know how effective are the treatments that you're putting on them around the time of year i mean this does go back to you know farming for you know millennia it's not like a new thing it's just that someone decided to actually turn it into more of a yes a science a study um rudolph steiner so i don't think it's witchcraft no i definitely i think it's a really good thing um i don't think everybody needs to do it but i think those that do you can see the results in the quality of the grapes i do yeah i do believe that um but it's difficult to to do it at every price point yeah it reduces your yield massively yeah I mean obviously there's been big you know bastions in particular in Bordeaux you know Ponte Cane suffered massively when almost losing an entire harvest because they weren't biodynamic yeah for being that well no because also I mean recently has it been the mildew and obviously they can only treat it with the copper copper sulphur and that palmer are affected by that as well but I think in Bordeaux the real difficulty with Bordeaux is the size of the vineyards you know when you're doing kind of organic or biodynamic farming or viticulture it's very difficult to do over large vineyard sizes i think as soon as you get to like 50 hectares plus it's and you know you hear that from like chateau margot chateau palmer you know multiple times it's kind of like we endeavor to be organic we endeavor to try and follow biodynamics but the reality is volume with this size of vineyard it's just not practical sometimes yeah i think that's a good thing actually not to be so dogmatic about it and like sometimes the paperwork is just a show but really like if your mind is your heart and your mind is in the right place like you you want to treat it with you know respect minimize the chemicals then that's going to show you don't need to have the proof of well certification but i just think that some producers maybe are put off by you know thinking that you know if they if they commit to it they can never go back yeah in a worst case scenario and that for that reason And I think it's not worth doing.

27:31And also maybe feeling like peers, maybe just using that as a, as a, as a stamp of approval for, for means of actually not necessarily wanting for, for the best with it. You know, it's, it's, it's like a lot of these things really in wider walks of life where it's like, is it, is it just the, the ticking the box that you're achieving or is it really just, and that probably goes back to what you said about a lot of the producers that are and have been, you know, practicing organically for, for decades and centuries without needing to actually vocalize it because they just think well yeah it's just a way of life yeah and a guide as well if you take a step back from what as you said some of the more controversial elements of it what are the core pillars you know the core pillars are you know not using chemicals and pesticides in the vineyard you know having a very sort of hands-on viticulturalist approach to tending the vines and and you know harvesting life into bringing life into it promoting it you know not you know obviously not using tractors using horses you know all of these elements best practice you know but you're grape on that you know emphasizing biodiversity but yeah i mean the core pillars of biodynamic uh viticulture i think promote you know better quality products in the end right um what's your where do you stand on the whole natural wine thing i love it actually um i love it i don't i'm not you know i'm not like a fanatic about it it's not the only thing I drink for sure, but I'm curious about it.

28:55And in fact, I want to go to the big natural wine tasting happening in February. You might've heard about it. It's La Divoutée. Have you heard of this? It's in a cave in the Loire. I mean, it's almost like a rave more than a wine tasting, but you have to like turn up at the door, have your 10 euros of cash, walk in, get a cigarette and a glass, and just walk around the caves and taste wine, which is produced by all the, you know, the top kind of natural wine well you know i mean so it's like the 200 plus producers from the loire yeah savois jura you know beaugelais they're all there plus some foreign producers come as well and so they they do it in this kind of labyrinth of caves um in the in the loire region so it's really it's interesting because it's so um unofficial like it's not like the london wine fair yeah yeah yeah white tablecloths and yeah yeah and everything it's not like that at all it's much more down to earth really literally your underground yeah i was gonna say it's a bit more underground literally and you know and it invites like kind of art like a very much more like you know art and music and food and like it's a bit more fun which to me also captures like the love of natural wine it's like it's fun it's not necessarily fussy and pretentious it's not i wouldn't say it's the kind of wine that that's interesting so it's almost like you see the natural wine sees seen almost like emblematic emblematic of that of the style itself right it should not be over analyzed and you know held up to like does it pass every test on flaws and this and that like personally i don't like some of the flaws that come through with natural wine especially when it's been shipped across the world it doesn't like if it's got no sulfur added at all it can be really you know variable and i'm not a fan of some of the you know flavors that can develop some people are really tolerant of them yeah as much but if it comes through and it's fresh and it's got this incredible like purity and life in it they can be some of the most exciting wines ever yeah they're just the opposite of you know these kind of industrial coca-cola style wines again it's much more it's a different kind of thing but i agree that it can be really annoying when you're opening up bottles that just constantly surprise you and maybe like they're not kind of fresh flawed or something's not quite right and also the bottle variation between them is more significant um so generally i love it i'm still learning about it myself i'm still going to the tastings when i can but when you say you love it like it kind of sounds like to me the way you describe as much as you love the scene as much as yeah but maybe your love for the wines are a little bit more on the balance because of the some of the things you mentioned no i i and i feel like there's a little bit of an unpredictability yeah but you know you're not quite sure what you're gonna get which is also okay I don't mind that either I just think sometimes you know you're hosting a tasting and it's based around natural wines it's possible some of them are going to be funky and not you know I think I think massively that's like that that for me in a weird in the weirdest way around I think there's a lot of this in the market there's kind of creates and even people that you speak to that love uh natural wines and and they they kind of do so with such a vehement you know flag of I only like natural wines um but I do think in a weird way full circle that that can actually become quite an interesting on-ramp into the rest of the world of wine because actually you'll start to gain that appreciation maybe for the the variation that you get because of the way they're made okay well what what's the next step forward from there where it's just maybe more the organic practices of like certain producers maybe certain varietals are great so I think actually in a weird way around rather than the two kind of markets maybe somewhat butting heads in some respects I think I found that you know particularly when I was in Brooklyn in New York you know there's a massive wine scene there for natural wines and it's very much okay well we you know we don't we don't like drinking normal wines but then i think equally when that's what i mean yeah when we've come from a world where what was pre-existing before that sort of go back the last few decades is this is a chardonnay this is a over oak chardonnay that everyone is then knows as that being that and i think the whole excitement of natural wine is more about the experience of it all being a bit more different and it's almost like the people within that scene kind of pigeonholes themselves into like well i can't look at anything outside natural wine that's a shame and yeah and it's a shame for sort of like you know a lot of those elements you mentioned culturally like resonate like with me in terms of that combination of kind of you know being a bit more casual bit more stripped back like you know the interaction like music and art and wine and food and you know that being kind of the the kind of energy of the scene and you kind of want that to kind of infect the more stuffy side of the scene as well it's great that both exist you know and you don't need to necessarily be in one or the other you can kind of move between i like what you're describing in brooklyn i kind of i've recognized that you've around the world sometimes and i think it's a shame um but i think you know natural wine there's no strict definition necessarily like i i think it can be it's like a sliding scale of what but what what appeals to me is that you know when you do come across producers who are in that world some you there's a kind of genuine authentic wine you know using grapes that are maybe indigenous to their region thinking that i think every kind of era in wine is almost like a reaction to what's just been happening and someone's reacting yeah much like politics exactly exactly um no i think that's fascinating i really do think that's such a big area that i hadn't even thought of as much as to almost use this like new feverish energy for the new of of natural wine and actually start to just cross-pollinate that into a lot of the things that maybe are too stuffy too um you know sort of dated perhaps in in the more traditional world of wine because i think the other i think where those two worlds are colliding is a little bit on the collector side of things because you know i was in um we did a wine dinner in frankfurt last week and one of the questions was like oh what i think about natural wines from a collection investment perspective and i was like well actually some of the wines in terms of just pure price appreciation they've gone up the most in the last decade are actually natural wines um you know pierre ovunoy comes to mind um gavin ganivat from jura but also in burgundy you know uh johnny vizzo you know one of the biggest proponents of you know natural I'm in the domain pre-Iroc you know just names straight you know coming up like right at the top of the collector spectrum and new names that are coming along like Tino Kuban and and you know others within you know different different regions but I think it's interesting because you know that kind of friction we were talking about between kind of like the natural wine scene and then the kind of the more stuffier side of things that is where the two worlds are colliding a little bit because these wines are fetching two three thousand pounds a bottle in auctions um you know it's wines from i mean jura as a region's probably been the biggest benefactor of the natural wine yeah like domain de miroir for example like you know you're paying over a thousand pounds a bottle for for the pinot and the chardonnay if you can find it or the savinin like these wines are now at the level of you know more expensive than bordeaux first growths and so you start to kind of see this coalescing and this kind of coming together of those those two worlds and we talked about biodynamics and like the one the most famous proponent of biodynamic wine in the world for me is Domaine Loire you know Lally B's Loire introduced it in the late 80s when no one had really thought or heard about it and you look at the quality you look at the impact that her viticultural approach has had on the quality of the wines since she took over the Domaine in 88 and in the last 10-15 years like you have to say she's probably making the best wines in the world but again actually if you think about it from outside of the stuffy spectrum and just think about it from a kind of natural organic biodynamic movement like she very much follows a lot of those core kind of processes that a lot of people you know look towards in those types of wines so it's interesting to see how those worlds um kind of yeah work alongside each other because they are kind of generating these kind of collectible trophy wines you know from this completely new scene i also think to your initial point of you know how does the next kind of generation of drinkers come in i think natural one is probably a more natural way to get in because because of the wine bars because of the parties because of the even like the funky cool labels are more you know appealing and interesting and i'm not talking about the real like collector pricing yeah i'm talking more like van der swaff like easy drinking stuff but eventually they'll wind up going up and up and seeing who the real legends are there as well yeah i do think that is the area that might attract and then see who comes through i i often find when that's like some of the big names natural wines they're not cheap yeah like natural wines aren't really that cheap in the grand scheme of things like the you know because it is a game of you know what mother nature gave you and what you could put out you know on the other end so yeah i think with um volumes lower the it's very you know labor intensive work because you're not relying on chemicals um definitely and smaller scale producers and also then they do get a cult following actually and so they can come at a higher price um so yeah you're right they're not cheap but i don't think young drinkers always have to be drinking cheap wine i think they just like wines with personality a story a point of view you know that's interesting for them yeah um and maybe for our listeners at home because it's obviously an area you have a lot of expertise and is there kind of two or three names of wines to look out for that are kind of easily accessible Well, not the crazy ones we just mentioned in terms of price point.

38:08Actually, well, look, one comes to mind. I was picturing her as I'm talking about it as Judith Beck from Bergenland in Austria. And actually, in fact, the entire area of Bergenland is like a hot spot for natural wine producers. And they have a name for themselves. It's called the Panobili Group. And it's like this, I think it's eight producers that really like they kind of rise together by helping each other. they helped each other convert from organic to biodynamic right they help each other by you know just sharing practices they go to trade fairs together there it's like a real strong collective of producers who are all um you know organic biodynamic natural really high quality wines but it's all like austrian grapes like zweigald blau frankish and but just incredible quality so i would say if you're you know looking to get into it the prices are probably affordable they're not you know what sort of price point we're talking about um like anything from like 15 to 35 pounds yeah like for judith back wines from spark judith back judith back yeah spelt b-e-c-k yeah amazing wines one of my favorites yeah yeah so any other names outside of austria that come to mind sorry to put you on the spot i'm actually just writing this down but i'm taking notes for later i'm just like right i mean of course in beaujolais there's like la pierre i love here in the Loire there are many gosh I can't like sit and name everybody I think that's been really insightful thank you now let's you mentioned the game being played by the producers so I think we should maybe try and play our own game we often enjoy a game don't we Tom?

39:47we do and I'm going to host this game we're going to call this game Wine Fact or Wine Myth and it's going to be a fast-paced, sorry, a fast-paced, fun and myth-busting round. Okay. And I'm going to kind of read out a few statements that we kind of know to be commonly made in the market. I mean, all these look quite subjective to me. Well, it's, you know, part of the reason for the game. So I have to answer, myth or fact or... Well, you and Tom are going to decide whether you think these are kind of myth or fact or a bit of both. Do we need to explain or answer? Well, we'll find out. Yeah, I think so.

40:24It's not like the weakest link. No one's going to be asked to leave the room if any answers are wrong. Can I make a phone call? Don't rule that out. But let's first start with, which I think is kind of on topic from where we've headed with the conversation. Screw caps mean cheap wine. Myth. Myth. Myth. Okay. Tom, would you like to give us a reason as to why you think that's a myth? I think the use of corks at the moment is a lot around prestige and a lot of old traditional wine markets and producers feeling like they could never leave having a court closure. I think if you look at New World regions, a lot of them are almost entirely screw-capped.

41:04Yeah, New Zealand. New Zealand in particular. And one of my favorite Pinot Noirs in the world is Felton Road, which is an incredible wine. The other thing I would say is a lot of the big names that I know have been bottling under screw-capped for the last 20 years as testing. Chateau Margaux being one of them, it's been bottling under screw-capped since 2001, I believe. just for their own tests experimenting so look there's a desire because you know if you can eradicate you know some of the issues with with corks and oxidation you know i think that a lot of people would want to go there but i think one of the things that's unknown for age-worthy wines is with a screw cap you know you are very much completely almost entirely limitate limiting the exposure to wine to oxygen whereas with cork a little bit of oxygen can still get through the closure so over time they do mature and and that's really the unknown so i think the big change in terms of you know high you know the sort of prestige wines moving to court closures when there's probably more knowledge around that but there's hundreds thousands of amazing wines that are under screw cap and it absolutely does not mean that it's not a good wine i agree no i think definitely new zealand is a perfect example of a country that's fully committed to screw cap at every price point so for sure that's a great example of like of course quality comes under screw cap but but also you know i don't think every wine needs to be aged and as you're saying like the cork can allow for that even screw cap actually allows a little bit of oxygen transmission if you get the right setting but let's say you're not looking for that there's many wines that are destined to be drunk straight away like a great gruner velner from austria for example it can be under screw cap that's fine and it can be a phenomenal wine yeah it strikes me that it's another one of these many topics that is actually weirdly feeds back into this whole world of how do people get into wine what are the different ways of doing so i think clearly there's been a part driven by you know the the weather and the climate change but a big movement from a lot of regions to try and sort of maybe freshen a bit of their you know you look at italy look at bordeaux how they're you know they're sort of more commonly now trying to appeal with a wine profile that's more approachable when younger right so i think you know this whole maybe this whole kind of testing and cross referencing between people like margot that are testing the two um it might end up a world where the the wines actually are completely different and they're more consumable younger which i kind of think the audience now is yearning for in this world of you know scrolling yeah everything um yeah okay interesting so that's a good start um all wine gets better with age myth myth myth next question we don't have to dwell too much on that one um but yeah just a quick anecdote around that well like i've had you know exactly that question but as a statement like oh i've got a cellar full of all these wines that i've been aging i bought them at a deal in tesco like decades ago like i'm so sorry to like be the one to tell you that it's probably not like they're not at their best you've missed the boat on them and so it's just a lot of yeah maybe not a lot but some consumers think that that's the case and i think it's just worth reminding them that actually most wines are ready for drinking when they hit the market and it's just a small percentage actually that are gonna age and it's also asking like why age them is it because they're are they just holding or are they really evolving to to reach their full potential and that's what is the point of aging them is to get to this beautiful next chapter of their lives um so i don't think uh it's yeah i don't think enough people realize that actually i do agree i do yeah i completely agree with what you're saying i think there is a counterpoint to it and i think in the in the in the area that me and you specialize in you know there are certain wines i would i I would wholeheartedly tell people not to even think about opening for the first 10 years.

44:39Like, you're just not considering. You'll miss the point of that wine. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, when it comes to that rarefied atmosphere of the top, best wines made in the world, you know, they do need to be given time. But completely agree, you know, the vast majority of wine, you know, to your point, like a great Gruner Veltina, you know, you want to just be able to pop and pour and get it open. Yeah, for sure. um yeah i think that you know that to be honest that is a question we get asked quite a lot is when you're looking even back as far as the sort of early 2000s or maybe even like the late 90s for like the we're talking the very top labels of course but you know are they are they still in the window are they still are they are they over the hill and i think you know you at that level you only have to have some if you're lucky enough to have those experiences you can you can be you rest assured from good vintages that those wines will age on for decades.

45:32But it's about knowing which ones are going to do that. And maybe the ones from the Tesco meal deal aren't perhaps the right place to start for that. Another one here would be, you can't pair red wine with fish. Myth. It depends what fish. Interesting. Depends what fish. I don't think you can pair any red wine with salmon. I've yet to seen a good pairing. Like a very pale, light chilled Pinot Noir, you know, Oregon or an English Pinot Noir that is almost like, is it even a, is it maybe a dark rose? You know what I mean? Like, you know, it's a very pale, pale, pale, light, you know, like a salmon, I think that's a great, yeah, maybe like a roast salmon, like a baked salmon.

46:20And then a very pale, light, you know, like un-oaked, you know, like something. But by that stage, you might as well just pair it with a white. But it's a red. I think salmon is the most difficult. Like it genuinely is. I think that's a very difficult thing to pair with a red. I was going to play mediator. I just immediately when I think salmon, I just think of that like, you know, the richness and the fatty content. I just feel like it has to be kind of a sharper white or maybe even a champagne. The other one I find difficult, and it happens a lot with high-end burgundy, is sushi. you know a lot of like high-end burgundy tastings of red exactly but you go and taste these like you go like i remember in singapore we went to really like one of the top sushi restaurants in singapore and like open like crazy like grand prix burgundy's like all the top names and i just really struggle with that as a pairing it just i just find it kind of the metallic flavor of the fish with the with the even with like a light pinot but even like it just didn't work for me i find that's kind of a hard pairing to make work on a fish side like raw fish i i would say that's probably right i think maybe like a shabli like something that's like lighter oak or no oak at all right yeah but if it's got like mallow or oak any kind of richness it's difficult to pair it with um and then with like the ginger and the wasabi as well and then you're like all these flavors don't make sense so i think raw fish is i do think sushi is quite unique but i raw sushi with champagne yeah yeah that's that's a great pairing yeah yeah that's a great pair yeah it's quite i think it's quite a unique food stuff in that way because it's kind of like it's so many different things brought together to to hit that point of kind of umami isn't it but yeah i think sometimes just a cold beer maybe with sushi is the answer or a sake or a sake yeah um champagne must be expensive to be good.

48:11Facts. Okay, what's expensive? Yeah, good question. Yeah, good question. Because you don't find champagne's less than 20 quid, right? No. And if you do, then that's not where you should spend your 20 quid. Exactly. So then if people determine as wine as being expensive being over 20, generally most people will. Yeah. Most people, if you stop people on the high street and say it's over 20 pounds for a wine expensive, they'll say yes. Yeah, so you shouldn't be buying champagne. You should look at other regions that will deliver really well for 20 pounds like the cremants cremants i was gonna say yeah i mean that's even i mean again they're not on the same you know prestige level but for 20 quid which yeah that's my best advice to people whenever they're organizing well organizing the bubbles for a wedding it's always head for cremant because it's it's just going to give you that value with the same absolutely on on like a you know on a big big order um so we're going facts on this so we're Going fact then?

49:01First fact? Yeah, let's do fact, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's a nice change of pace. On topic. Yeah. Organic wine means no sulfites. Well, no sulf... No, that doesn't mean that. No, it's myth. Yeah. Myth, another myth. It's more the natural wine. Natural wine side of things. Yeah, and even then natural wine can have this... Even then some have a little bit of sulfur. Yeah, there's a tolerance to it, yeah. maybe for just because you're a wine educator and you've got such great knowledge would you be able to because i know a lot because a lot of people are confused around sort of the terminology like can you concisely summarize like your description of natural wine well no actually i can't i don't think that it's um it's a it's not good luck to all you beginners out there it's not so easy to define and if i simplify it too much i feel like that takes away from the sulfur dioxide is kind of like one of the key components in terms of like you know if you start if someone adds zero or you would generally say they're 100 % natural, right?

49:58Yeah, sure. Okay, so let's look at it from a point of view like minimal. Okay, like if you think natural wine is in the ethos of like minimal intervention. And what is that? So like that zero added, zero taken away. So it's a lot more than just your use of sulfur. But even then, some natural wine producers will avoid it all the way through production. But if they're exporting their wine to America, to China, they will put a little bit of bottling just at that bottling stage to make sure it will make the journey. And I would still say that's a natural wine, even though they've gone and used sulfur.

50:27So I don't think that means they're not natural. I just think they are - That's more like a transportation. Yeah, no, exactly. Make sure their product makes it to the destination. I just think, again, it's like the philosophy, you have to really - It's a preservative in a way, right? The addition of sulfur. Exactly, and I don't think it's the enemy. I think you can still be in the natural wine world. I mean, maybe this is controversial to say, and still use sulfur judiciously. But sometimes, to your point, when you talk about natural wines, the people either classified as like absolutely none or low yeah that's where i see kind of like the spectrum but people that have low i would still consider as natural yeah exactly i think low is still fine can i ask you another quick can i add another one wine fact or wine myth because it's tied to the same conversation which is this i think that i okay do sulfites give you a headache or a hangover um not me personally but i think it's no i think some people have like a a histamine issue with it i think that's what's going on um i think sulfites got a really bad rap for it yeah i think that's what's going on i think people have allergies to even tannin to the kind of elements of the wine but it's not necessarily sulfites and as we know sulfites are used throughout the food industry right so like fruit salads dried fruit salads that have been pre-meat the whole mns department i think yeah the salad hangover yeah often struggle so it's a wine myth right totally but it did get a bad rep for a while people would like reference it yeah easy like excuse but no i think it feels like it was almost paired in people's uh you know thinking to the fact it's i find it as as often now people say i don't like heavy reds they give me a hangover well generally speaking heavier red means higher alcohol and that makes sense that's going to give you the the hangover more so than the you know the additives um yeah i thought maybe good one to finish on in fact for fact or myth um this is a delicious wine fact fact i have to say i thought this is brilliant would you mind doing uh sure i mean victoria kindly brought this for us today which has been the first time on the pod yeah uh that's happened so yeah would you mind revealing sure i'm slightly scared to guess do you want our opinions on it before we yeah yeah let's do that first i'm not to put you on the spot no exactly just to see like where does your mind go when you're tasting it because i i will tell you i when I first had it, I didn't know necessarily what it was.

52:45So does it remind you of anything you've had before? Yeah, look, I think when I first tasted it, when we first came in, I think the one thing that struck me was how juicy and fruity it was. And it's got this nice crunchiness to it as well on the mid palate. As you said, it's quite young, so there's obviously a bit of grip and tannins there. It's kind of like, it's kind of medium to light bodied. It's not super dense or super heavy. Might go well with salmon actually. yeah i don't know why but in my head i was kind of like thinking i was thinking is it kind of this new wave of kind of i don't know um i was i don't know why i was in grenache like grenache maybe from a spanish producer because it had that juicy kind of ripe fruitiness and then it had like a little bit of bit of body but had like a lightness to it so that's kind of like where i immediately started thinking but i'm sure it's absolutely wrong you're really close actually okay that's where that was that was that was what i was thinking i sort of thought yeah my my thinking was just everything Tom said fresh rounded um really delicious like really like a scrumptious like mouthfeel and everything I just felt like kind of single grape varietal but from a lesser known region I was thinking more Italy like off coast of Italy maybe but yeah that would be my guess it is an old old vine wine it's a field blend of Tempranillo I think not Garnaccia but you were right because we are in spain yeah um bobal in even some varieties that are white so albio mayor pirules and you're in ribera del duero oh i was gonna say 900 meters above sea level from a very old vine uh a very old single vineyard 647 bottles made of it so it's so tiny uh this is bottle 443 um it was just a choice that i i wanted to bring it because actually when i tasted it initially i found a lot of black fruit and kind of smoky and initially it started to take me to like cotre tea and serra and i was like wow are we in northern rhone but no it's actually just really it was spicy wasn't it yeah it's spicy yeah it's very spicy it's like a little smoky it's um you know kind of lovely black and red fruit and i you know i love the wine i love the region but more importantly i actually love the fact that it's very old vines and it kind of brings in that heritage of the region as well because this was a an area that was known for bulk wine and those times but now it's probably the most like superstar region of spain you know rioja and rivera well the thing the thing this reminded me of and why i went for spain is it it had i think stylistically was similar to like commando g in terms of how like the the flavor profile was kind of like you know but i don't know i just felt because it's interesting it is terminal from old old vines because it doesn't feel super heavy on the palate it has like a lightness and that's why i was like it doesn't feel like it could be that from spain that's why i went for grenache maybe like a lighter style of grape variety it's really interesting though i mean it's beautifully well made yeah really lovely thank you so much for bringing that because it was it was such a nice um surprise really how did you come across it it's actually it is a winery that i'm working with um it's a small young winery very passionate dedicated they are making incredible wines at high altitude and actually they they make this is the first release of this particular wine they do make other reds and a white albio mayor from roberto duero also a rosé and kind of a chillable red i think they're almost like the new next generation yeah i really like them and actually when when tim atkin came out to visit them um this summer he selected this wine and one other wine they're number 17 so he selected two of theirs in their like top roberto duero report so it was really nice to see his kind of nod of approval as well because they're doing really good stuff and what's their approach for elevage is it a lot of not much oak right yeah it's like used yeah second vintage yeah it's not at all like covered no no absolutely um yeah it's i love that too it's like that next style of verbera because people think they know what to expect but actually that's what throws you off as well yeah yeah i think elevation in reds at the moment is a big thing for me that's where i sort of was thinking a little bit um yeah i don't know like you know sicilian like that that kind of like higher altitude um it kind of gives that that that vibe it's the next frontier isn't it yeah i think so yeah um but yeah absolutely delicious so thank you for sharing yeah no thank you very much that was great um yeah and for listeners at home definitely recommend seeking that out because um i'd find it very hard for anyone not to enjoy that for the style it is um right i think we've got time for just one last question um for me to you so if you could design the perfect first wine experience for someone just starting their wine journey thinking thinking about the setting bottle atmosphere what would it look like so the first interaction with wine for them i mean i would say it's always amazing when you're at the place that's making the wine like if you can you know on a let's say you're on a holiday and you happen to be in a region that makes wine is like do veer into a vineyard and see if you can taste there and and i would say that is a really special moment because when you can connect the dots of how did that wine even get to you in the glass like it's because someone's gone and made it and made a lot of life choices to like create that so if you can the sooner you can get yourself out to vineyards and travel i think you will understand how special this industry is and how special this product is um if you can't travel then obviously just i would say with friends that also love wine or maybe you can be the one to enthuse your friends but always sharing a bottle i think is the best way it's not just by yourself like with other people that also could learn together couldn't agree more and alternatively a wine bar in montreal of course back then i didn't even think of the label i was just like you know just coming to terms with it yeah fantastic um well look thank you so much for gatoria for joining us today thank you both a really really enjoyable i really enjoyed it yeah thank you so much and uh absolutely no doubt that uh the listeners at home will have thoroughly enjoyed um listening to your story which is um very uh impressive so look we are rounding up for the year as jay mentioned we're kind of marching towards christmas so um we want to thank everyone who supported and listening to the podcast so far we are available on all your usual channels so please make sure you subscribe whether it's on spotify youtube of course like subscribe please leave your comments we do read your comments email them in and we might even have another podcast in the future we answer some of your listeners questions um alexa is actually shaking her head so maybe we won't be doing that apologies we've got a busy schedule but look um have a fantastic end to the year thank you very much for supporting the podcast it's uh one that we've really enjoyed making so far this year and we're looking forward to um 2026 and what else we can do but as always uh i've been your co-host tom gering ceo of cult wines and jonathan has been the other co-host yes no thank you all for listening it's been great i think this is a great way to round off the the year um and uh yeah really looking forward to where we can take things uh in in 2026 thanks very much for listening and remember to like and subscribe

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