Pours for Reflection | Episode 6

0:03Welcome to Uncorked, a cult wines podcast where we take you behind the scenes of the fine wine market. it um this week uh my usual co-host jonathan stevenson is unavailable um so i've had a step in at the last minute but a very trustworthy and high quality step in i must say so arash gatineau who you might have seen on the second pod that we did is joining him as my co-host today how are you doing yeah good to be here um i prefer to actually be invited for the second time rather than be the default option but um right i'm happy to be here again oh that set the tone hasn't it interesting yikes i thought second episode i thought i gave enough in terms of like quality anecdotes you know a bit of my experience in terms of what was going on in the market to be invited back properly but um yeah i suppose well hey default option is not the worst at least this time you have a different mic setup so you don't feel so restricted right um and joining us on the couch this week is someone who has been an absolute key part of the podcast up until this point.

1:08She's very much been behind the camera and we've convinced her this week to step in front of the camera and be our guest on the couch. It is Alexa Atkinson. How are you doing today? Thank you. And I just want to put it out there. You promised a bottle. Sorry, no, six cases of wine. So a case of six wines. What was it for being on the couch this week? I mean, none of the above. Dang it. I just thought maybe I could throw it in there. But no, thank you for having me. Very excited. Are you excited to be this side of the camera? You know, no, but, you know, I'll take one for the team. You know, that's what Cult Wines does.

1:39We're family, right? Yeah, absolutely. And what podcast episode are we on today? We are on episode six. Episode six. Well done, guys. Yeah, six months of content. Exactly. Six regular listeners as well. Hey, come on. We have a bit more than that. Well, look, actually, because you touched on listeners, we'll go into what the plan is. terms of the content for today so we thought as we are kind of into our sixth episode now we've got a few uh under the burn as i said we've got such a large following um we were actually going to review all of the listeners questions that have come into us via email through social channels when alexa you gathered these you'll probably tell me better where they've emerged from but yes we we do have quite a bit of uh you know commentary coming in which is you know great thankful to everyone who's you know sent in some stuff um yeah it's come from all over which is great we've also just had people naturally tell us how excited they are to stumble upon us which is great um i think yeah it's and more importantly they love to tell us when they think we're wrong so we get we get to address some of these accusations um yes we've definitely been told once or twice that maybe our suggestion of the like a decent price per bottle is maybe a bit too high yeah um so today hopefully we've uh redeemed ourselves a bit in terms of cost per bottle well Well, look, I mean, we've got probably far too many questions that will we actually be able to get through today.

3:00So we'll take it in turns, I think, just to pick one at a time and address as a group. But there's plenty to get stuck into and quite a few interesting different topics to go through. So, yeah, that's kind of the plan for today. Just before we get started on the listeners' questions, though, I'd love to ask you a few questions, Alexa, and I'm sure Arish will as well, about your own personal journey of wine. And maybe you can just tell everyone kind of your background, um how you joined the business and you know what you do and yeah hear a little bit about your journey shall we say yes well my wine journey is very i would still say in its infancy um i'm only w set level two but plan to do my level three going into the new year which i'm very excited about um i've always had a passion for for wine i didn't know as much in terms of grape varietals but i knew that i enjoyed it in terms of consumption and in a bad way um but just enjoyed wine and had a passion for for kind of learning more about it um in terms of joining the business i was actually brought on as the web designer um which quickly evolved into they realized sorry you guys realized that i was a jack of all trades um and could handle quite a bit more than just uh updating the website just talking up your own book here i mean i gotta get my resume out there somehow uh no i mean colt wines has quickly become my family i'm obviously not english so i'm from the states and i mean yeah you guys took me under your wing and showed me the ropes of the wine world and now i you know i now live by the wine calendar which is correct me if i'm wrong you're from your home state's california right yes which is obviously wine very much a wine very much wine wine country did you have much exposure to wine i don't know whereabouts in california you were but did you have much exposure to the kind of wine culture in california at all when you're growing up or yes and no we did quite a lot of trips to nappa as a kid but um obviously say I didn't get to partake in you know the unfortunately the wine drinking age does not follow European standards in the states so I think my wine journey started off a bit later than most we're from more like San Francisco area when I grew up and then we moved down to Southern California near LA so I think I was like in the middle between wine regions so not as much in terms of exposure but I have been to Napa quite a bit yeah I mean from my time that I've spent there you know it feels like food and wine is a like big part of the culture out of most of the places in the u.s you know whether it's you're down in la or up into san francisco or even you know further north into northern california it feels like it's you know it's structured such a strong part of the kind of identity i think yes to answer uh answer it briefly but also i think it's emerging more for from like the female dynamic of like being in the wine production world in the wine like the winemaking world um i think it's also trying to replicate that like french you know the longevity of having like generations upon generations of people within the industry continuing on legacy wise which i think is quite interesting we're seeing california grow into even though it's new newer world um trying to produce like old world which i think is quite interesting yeah it's interesting because they're there if when i think about it there are a lot of estates in california not exclusively but predominantly napa the dove do have like a very kind of heavy female yeah exactly you know um i find that making expertise especially winemakers yeah yeah do you see that both on the production side and on like the actual just drinking culture side as well because i mean a question comes up a lot i feel yeah i feel maybe in the uk and in europe it does feel like a little bit more male dominated yes whether it's the collectors whether it's the people you know we do tastings and events and i you know i'd feel pretty confident saying most events and tastings we're gonna do in uk or europe it's gonna be predominantly male in terms of the attendees and obviously obviously there's women there as well but always feels like it's probably gonna be a 60 40 70 30 split in terms of the attendees yeah i would i would reflect that that commentary in terms of like the split right right yeah absolutely yeah um i think in terms of i guess count like the maybe the west coast side of it female more drinking maybe it is more pop i think maybe you're right in saying it's more popular for maybe women to be in the wine scene over there um i think maybe it's the men just like a bit more beer in the states but i'm not sure interesting exactly the numbers and it feels like there's also a bit of a movement especially in like california for especially kind of like well-known females to kind of own wine brands that are maybe pushing more on like the natural side of things the organic side of things the healthier side of things maybe not necessarily solely just low or no alcohol but certainly you know i think it's is it cameron diaz has got that wine brand that kind of really focuses on the transparency of like the ingredients and what goes into it and kind of like a holistic approach to it yeah and just maybe being a bit more kind of i suppose position it in a way that i think probably will resonate more with that younger female audience yeah i would say so they're more like the traditional wine side people care about what goes into what they consume not saying older you know older generations don't um but i think it's more it's more of a popular opinion to know exactly what you're putting in your body um which is why we're seeing a trend in terms of younger drinkers you know sorry younger generations coming into that drinking scene and understanding to and appreciating you know different asset classes more i.e wine art and watches which i think is also very interesting yep have you what's the most memorable experience you've had with wine so far oh i i went to a hundred point wine tasting at 67 palmel okay last year uh paul de clerc who was on the couch it had an extra ticket available and i happened to be in the office that day nice um it was by far like i genuinely didn't feel like i should be there like i was like this ticket should have went to someone who has more um you know wine knowledge than me but i absolutely enjoyed it do you remember what the lineup was wines my so i from that everyone's like oh you're obviously gonna love the the the ross child it was 2019 2019's I think as well um they're like Ross Chow's gonna be your favorite and I was um and I went out of there just loving Kos Koste Estrano which one oh nine uh yeah it must have been oh nine right oh nine yeah I thought so I thought it was a mix between the oh nines and the 2019's as well I was just trying to figure 100 point cause would be oh nine maybe then I'm 10 year uh like I think it was like the Bordeaux vintages from 2009 to 2000 yeah so there I mean there was like a spectrum of them but there was like senya senya was there please apologize for it it's 100 points the vintage has got 100 points right yeah yeah yeah so because i know i'm was the one for you yeah uh that's that's my wine claim to fame i would say is being able to sit in on a hundred point wine tasting which i think what the price point because i know is about 10 10 a half thousand a case is that right around that sort of three no yeah definitely the most expensive 200 pounds bottle in bonds so plus gtv at we're looking about 250 yeah yeah right what was that comedy made at the start about listeners like i said i i didn't i didn't ask for the ticket i just happened to to stumble upon it so but yeah i would say that's my wine claim to fame not a bad one yeah i'm sure i can top that oh get out of here what's your most memorable one experience i would say wow most memorable wine experience would be either oprion 89 wow yeah nice um i mean when i was on the pod um for the first time the vega sicilia 65 was incredible oh yeah I had the Unico.

10:35And then probably any Loire wine I've had with a bit of age as well. They all qualify. Unbelievable experiences. But I still don't think you can go wrong with an unbelievable bottle of Old Bordeaux that's been stored perfectly. If you think about some of the experiences you've had from the 1990s, even before that, I had the pleasure of tasting some really older chem as well, which was just mind-blowing. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I would love to be able to experience some older vintages. I think right now the oldest I've ever done was in 1986, but it was from like a friend's vineyard in Saint-Emilion.

11:14But we had a tasting with Ramirez last week, and I got to try one of their 1996 Grand Reservas. Wow. Incredible. Really? Like, absolutely incredible. Loved it. Like, I think I haven't had the opportunity to appreciate enough older, like, older wine, and it just has such a different... sweetness i don't like not sweetness in the sense of sweetness but it has a sweet feeling to it like that nostalgic love of it um so go out get yourself an older bottle and just compare it to something young because it is definitely experienced yep yeah good advice but also i think what can i say but also i think if you're gonna do that like rioca is a good place to go yeah that's other experience because one it's not it isn't actually gonna break the bank you know i was you know i was looking recently on like colt x for example we had stuff like 97 and Rioja Alto at like, you know, under 50 pounds a bottle.

12:04And you're thinking that's unbelievable value for a wine of that age. And then, as you said, with like the Grand Reservas, because they're aged for longer, they're released from the winery much later, even though it's 97, it's actually probably only been in, well, that one was probably taken from the actual winery. But, you know, other examples will have only been on the market for a much shorter period of time. So at least, you know, the quality and the provenance of the wine is going to be maybe higher than, you know, a 97 Bordeaux, for example, has been on the market pretty much since you know the year 2000 right so that's 25 years worth of storage versus versus the older rockers you know have obviously been in the winery for longer um so it kind of i think kind of protects that whole experience a bit when it's being held at the like held yeah yeah yeah i agree so there we go um before we move on to listeners questions do you have anything else for alexa before we moved on no no all right hi guys no i think we're good i think it's a good intro long enough i know can we stop talking about me please um yeah before we get into listeners questions i just wanted to touch on a little bit of the the market news um you know we like to keep things topical um i think obviously the last time you know we were here um obviously sean was was on the couch and you know one of the things we talked about was you know that feeling that you know things had started to improve in the market we were starting to see some leading indicators you know i think we talked about sort of you know what what was kind of bouncing or what what was kind of starting to be bit up a little bit and you know we touched on you know some of the areas in the market where prices had started to either recover or stabilize or even start to move a little bit um so arash i'll throw it over to you i mean since that pod till now you know what further evidence have we seen around where the market is in terms of the current sort of conditions let's say yeah i mean it's um it's been a really interesting few months um but i think what's most pertinent for listeners or viewers is that the livex indices in september have shown the first signs of positive momentum yeah um not all of the indices because obviously there's there's many of them to track but let's take a look at the livex fine wine 50 which tracks the last 10 physical vintages of bordeaux first growth that's been up for the first time since march 2022 wow yeah so you know the percentages of what it's up i think it's up 0.3 percent in september march 22 was the last time yeah yeah i mean those words haven't come out of my mouth since march 2022 wow that's right when i joined and then i think in terms like the headline or benchmark indices like livex fine one 100 and livex fine one 1000 yeah the fine one 100 was up 1.1 percent in september okay which is quite a big move yeah in the context of what's happened in the previous um you know eight months of of 2025 so i've been saying this phrase a lot obviously one swallow doesn't make a summer yeah but it does feel like there is signs of a shift in sentiment within the fine wine market and you know we know that products like wine do thrive off sentiment and confidence yeah and you know momentum so let's see what the next three months bring before the end of the year um for observers of the markets clients of ours listeners who are interested in trends when it comes to to fine wine the period kind of september through to probably end of january is amongst the most buoyant yeah fine one in the fine wine market okay um it's not just because the seasonality of like celebrations like thanksgiving mid-autumn festival which maybe we'll assess the results of that in the next pod in terms of trade data from from asia or new year's christmas or chinese new year on the other side of the the the the calendar um you know but we're definitely in i think a different environment for for you know for fine wine where you know we can see a little bit of light at the end of that tunnel um which feels good to say um because it's been a dark tunnel for the last couple of you know you know a couple years is there any like early commentary coming out from i guess like people within within the trade or anything about these like re like the rebound of the indices or any like initial predictions that you can kind of think of without obviously giving any figures or numbers but like is there yes good question i look at it in two ways okay because the the indices will give us a signal in terms of like the how the market is where the market is heading but actually as we've talked about on this pod and as we talk about a lot at cult wines beneath that is like where are these transactions taking place okay what's the value of these transactions what's the volume of these transactions yeah and actually what is trading up so in the last week it was pleasing to see okay chateau de quen 2015 trading up okay tinie nello trading up 2010 2015 Dom Perignon Vintage is trading up what else is trading up Lafitte 19 yeah Lafitte 19 trading up some of the names that you would expect actually a couple of older Vintage are first gross like Hopenon 2000 and this is trading up people say what does that mean it's not just looking at one trade there has to be a minimum number of five trades taking place in that week in order to qualify for that criteria being able to trade up So I think what we're seeing is people are coming back into the market.

17:35When I say people, you mean people? I think if we think about the flows that can actually influence wine prices. Okay, you have consumers. Yeah. And I think it's very difficult to look at some of the prices, obviously not across the board, but for a lot of wines within our universe and say they're not good value to drink. Okay. we don't have enough time but you got a rattle like 50 off the top of my head but like yeah that's a no-brainer you buy that for your cell and you drink it home it's drinking superbly now um and then if you think about it from you know the global distribution in terms of hotels restaurants who are big liquidity can be big liquidity providers for yeah for fine wine what a great time to stock up a seller of a new restaurant what a great time to stock up a seller of a you know a new private members club you know what's good time to stock up a seller of like a you know a group of you know luxury hotels you know globally yeah that whole comment like buy the dip and be smart about it well i just think there's prices for assets don't go down in perpetuity like it just doesn't happen so why would it happen for for wine we've spoken about it a lot around people are drinking less okay yeah we're not going to go down that road today but it's very difficult to ignore the value on offer and that's across a broad spectrum of regions not just Bordeaux which has come off not just Burgundy you know which has obviously come off you know a lot but looking at stuff from like you know Chateauneuf-du-Pap 2017 don't put it in a glass for me to blind taste but you know some are like Domaine de Pagall you know what else we got in Chateauneuf-du-Pap we even look at their top end like a price of Rias that have come down significantly so in answer to your question i don't think it's a case of buy the dip okay okay and you know you're very generic in that i think you need because there's so many good options available you actually really need to be disciplined in what you're buying because we don't know whether we're in for a v-shape recovery actually we don't really know what the extent talk to shot about that yeah we don't know what extent of recovery is going to be right but you can hang your hat on certain labels producers vintages over the next five years where you know if you look at in terms of the probability or a simulation of where pricing is going to be you'd have to be a very very very brave person to bet against prices increasing from where they are in certain areas okay agreed so what else happens with livex in terms of what gets released for those who don't know let's let's you know play the app like is is it going to be stuff that's coming out over the next coming weeks or like How do these indices get released?

20:20How do we, for those who don't know? You have indices that are updated on a monthly basis. And you have indices that are updated on a quarterly basis as well. So these are the quarterly? I don't want to go through every single LiveX index. But for the listeners, the main indices, let's look at, as I mentioned, LiveX Find 150, LiveX 100, LiveX 1000. And within LiveX 1000, you've got the sub-regions and the categories, which will have you know your bordeaux 500 you'll have your italy 100 burgundy 150 champagne 50 rhone rest of the world yeah um those are the indices that we're talking about great there you go well look great uh great to have a little bit of a recap on that and as i said i think because we kind of were we're touching on this area it was just good to kind of circle back on that with with with the new information we have and it's been really good to hear your your insights and a bit more in depth around sort of where we think the market is right now genuinely and and and sort of where where it can go um so look we we said that you know six pods in we've managed to source a decent amount of questions and and uh input from listeners over the past few months um and we've collated them so i think the best way to do this is we'll probably just take it in turns to pick a question um and see if we can answer it as a group uh individually and collectively um do you one of you two want to kick us off and have a look through the list and see if there's something that tickles your fancy in terms of a question yeah i don't mind starting okay um i'm gonna go with a question for tom right here we go okay so people are we gonna direct direct no pressure so tom spotting the next big thing how do you identify rising producers regions early it's a good question um i think that because we were just talking about livex i think it's interesting because obviously the wine market has a lot more data these days that people have access to and i think that creates more efficiency so it makes people it makes it easier for everyone to kind of see the same trends but i think with that type of data it almost kind shows you the trend after it's occurred and i think the real winners come where you can sense a change in direction or a particular wine or a particular region or particular producer that is gathering interest because genuinely that is almost a precursor to any real evolution in let's say price for example so if you start looking at what is the precursors that can give you those indications i'd say generally speaking that they're going to be two or three different ways I think the first thing is, and this is probably the most obvious one, you know, it's critics, right?

23:05It's critics, it's the reviewers, it's the publications, you know, whether it's someone like a Neil Martin, whether it's someone like a William Kelly or John C. Robinson, someone who's influential, Antonio Giloni. And I think, you know, being really up to speed and up to date with the latest regions they're reviewing, the latest trends within those regions latest producers that you know might be um you know spotlighted that haven't been talked about before i think the other interesting thing about this is certain regions are what's the right way of describing this i think certain regions are more open for a change in direction when it comes to trends or particular producers that become popular versus not um you know somewhere like bordeaux is very well established it's such a well-established market it's hard to really you know spot the next big thing in bordeaux because well these things have been around for 150 years not much has changed there's not much opportunity to change even even if there's a new winemaker or lafitte rothschild or a new winemaker at one of the biggest classified estates it doesn't really have an impact on let's say demand or price in the market because the wines aren't marketed as being a representation of that winemaker the winemaker is coming in to be a part of the will and obviously a very important part but to represent the brand and the dna of the brand right so when you go to somewhere like like burgundy and other regions in the world where you have obviously generational change you know whether it's the parents going on to the the kids um you know and that can happen over multiple generations whether you have impacts from like inheritance law which forces families to sell off parcels or vineyards and just two really good examples this would be the generational side of things you know charles Lachaud coming in at Arnaud Lachaud was probably the best example of something you could spot as a change in philosophy of the wines you know Pascal Lachaud his father was a winemaker for a long time after Robert Arnaud who was Charles Lachaud's grandfather through his mother's side but anyway that that family's estate kind of went from Robert Arnaud into the Pascal Lachaud Arnaud Lachaud era and now in the modern times under Charles but you know there's three different completely different styles but actually when he came in and as a younger winemaker you know obviously there was a lot of hype around his influence from the main loire but you know in terms of his attention to detail on viticulture uh on a way that he was practicing organic farming the way that he wanted to change the philosophy of the of the vineyard in both how they handle oak in in the wine cellar i think they're the type of things that if you're really plugged in in 2014 when he when when that change happens and you can see the things that he's doing that's the type of thing that gives an indication okay this is something to look at because their plots are incredible like you can see they own romilly san vivon as a grand crew for example they had some you know some absolutely perfect plots in va romilly premier cruise and um you know newy san george and you know they've got a great profile of cote de nuy vineyards so you stop you know putting the pieces together and say you've got a change of winemaker you've got a young generation is a different philosophy and you have some fantastic terroir to use so those two or three things immediately and i know this is something that we did put us onto the Arnold show sent from the 2014 vintage you know and for us once we had the opportunity to taste his first vintage and we could see stylistically where this was going and don't get me wrong you know he's got better and better and better and you probably say maybe 18 19 vintage was probably his nadir in terms of really getting his his his stamp and blueprint on the wines and then from there they've really skyrocketed but you know some of the best returns from an investment perspective have come from collecting Arnold of the show you know from the 14 15 16 17 18 vintage getting in early buying buying at relatively cheap prices compared to how much you're paying now for the grand cruise and premier cruise so that's a good example of kind of you know understanding each particular region understanding how these changes can occur keeping an eye close to the ground in terms of some of these evolutions and i think the other thing is social media right and community tracking so i think they're the two biggest evolution since you know you know social media has come along right let's say that's in the last 10 years really let's say probably since 2012 i think instagram was instagram came about i know facebook was behind that but i think you know instagram as a platform has become massively influential in the wine market you know there's some massively influential wine collectors on on that platform who you know drink the greatest wines in the world and every you know it's just happened at the moment right there's a new white wine that i'm seeing crop up multiple times and it's it's a white wine it's a chardonnay that's been produced in uh burgundy that's been uh that's coming up and it's cropping up i'm seeing it on photos and i'm seeing it shared by certain people again and again and already i'm looking at going that i know that that's going to become something that's really popular can you put us out of our misery which which one is that so that shall not be named no do not so i'm gonna have to use my phone a little bit here because I can't remember because it also the first thing is a very unfamiliar bottle shape.

27:58Um, and it is the new winemaker that took over from Van Berg, who was a natural winemaker. And, uh, let's get out Vandenberg, you know, the Vandenberg wines in Burgundy. Yep. So, uh, what's it called? You speak amongst yourselves. I'm trying to get this out. I was just curious, like when he was saying like, obviously the hand over the hand down of generation, like, is that something you can taste like in terms of like, producers kind of passing the baton absolutely yeah absolutely I mean there's another great example in Burgundy would be the Domaine de Monti wines yeah and the quality for the wines you know nowadays and this is this is obviously no disrespect to the current team there but you can definitely tell the difference in terms of quality and and and style yeah yeah definitely not from a quality perspective but i think it'd be interesting to like you can you take like almost tasting their character the characteristic changes and what they've decided to do in terms of like do they change you know are they changing how it's stored or you know processes or how like i don't know i think it's just the winemaking processes yeah yeah the winemaking processes of you know have evolved tremendously um you know the use of technology is much more well understood and applied compared to generations before.

29:21So yeah, sometimes for good and bad. So I can put you out of your misery now. An up and rising winemaking Burgundy, Tino Kuban. Has a fantastic background. How do you spell that? T-I-N-O. Yeah. Kuban. K-U-B-A-N. New one for me. Yeah. He has several experiences and look where he had experience, okay? Felton Road. Pierre Ovenoy. Jean-Yves Bezos, to name a few. Yeah. Finally, it's set in a Mercer and it's taken over Bernard Van Berg. Bernard Van Berg was really famous for making natural wines in Burgundy, which are really popular, which is regarded as one of the most influential names. And his first vintage was in 2019.

29:55Yeah, and this is the name I can remember. So he renamed it Les Jardins Vivants. So, yeah, there's a particular white that he makes that has a really interesting bottle shape as well. But anyway, it's just a good example of, you know, this one. Have you seen that one before? this is not going to be good for people we'll make sure to include an image in the no I haven't heard of the producer either yeah so that's bottle yeah so it's a very unique style the bottle very non-Burgundian so you look at that and you don't even realise that's from Burgundy I think the Chardonnay comes from Merceau I actually don't even know if it follows the AOC Appalachian Controllo which I think is a question we have later on I was going to say speaking of AOC systems and out of Appalachian because we do have a question about that but that actually talks to a slightly different point beyond the burguini point because that actually talks about the philosophical point of his philosophy this new winemaker follows van van berg's which was also very naturally driven which is a johnny visa approach and we've seen that as a general trend across wine full stop right natural wines organic wines biodynamic wines and how can you sense that we can kind of sense that from the wines you see in restaurant wine lists you know the dominated old world wines of just having bordeaux and burgundy is changing and you're starting to wines from Jura for example um you know Gannivat and Ovenoy leading the way but then you kind of think well who's the next underneath that I think the other way to think about it is um I think in the wine market collectors are always looking for the next thing it's almost like a badge of honor if you talk to like the big wine collectors you want to be the guy that's discovered discover the next big thing and I think that as a kind of almost like a cultural representation of the wine collector of today it always means that there's room for these new up-and-coming producers to suddenly grow in popularity and everyone wants to be oh here's the next look well johnny bezo at one point was the next loire but now everyone says who's the next johnny bezo and prayer rock was probably the one before that so you kind of and now this is the new bezo so you've kind of got a list of like four wineries that have come one after the other who were all the next version of that and you know obviously we love our football we always see that in football right no who's going to be the next Messi and who's the next Ronaldo and you know obviously you have the new generation coming underneath and you go oh I mean Jamal he's the new version of you know what Messi was before it or whatever it might be but it's kind of see it in the wine in the wine world as well but um yeah the final point on that is you know social media can be a really good influence influencing factor in terms of the labels you're seeing people pick up um I also think that you know just spotting the trends that you are on the market the natural wines are becoming more popular and understanding who are the kind of leading lights in different regions around the world for that and community tasting notes so if you look on things like cellar tracker you know and you look at what people are tasting what people are saying about those wines again you can get a representation of that like you let's say that tino cuban wine you can go on cellar tracker and look at the reviews and the tasting notes and if you're seeing a guy from hong kong and a guy from you know new york and someone you know from from europe you know all having similar experiences and referencing them in a similar way or talking about them as the next x y and z again that starts to put you into a place where you think this is someone i should should be taking notice it travels well enough to at least be on your radar yeah and also from a gastronomic point of view i do think a big signal as well as if you go into like the top restaurants around the world like and you look at the wine list of like a michelin style restaurant then it'll give you a pretty good read on what's like in vogue or on on trend yeah um i wasn't in a michelin style restaurant a couple of weeks ago i was in stockholm um and it's the first time there and i was just so surprised by the wine list i saw there really like it was one of the most advanced lists i've seen for champagne like as someone who is really into champagne yeah to see some of the list of producers you know grow champagne yeah you know someone like you know the the emerging blanc de 100 % Pinot Meunier um so yeah I would say I would say there is also a bit of a hint there if you are into your food and you're going to restaurants and you're seeing the same similar kind of names that aren't the obvious ones so you're saying sommeliers are the tastemakers of our time oh I like that I never thought those words would come out of my mouth i think it's for it's one of the factors that i would also you know look at um among some of the others that that you mentioned before getting into like the actual signals that you get from looking at trades that you know take place for you know for certain wines and how um you know where their distribution is so it's interesting i think that's more of like a layer for like a a listener to think okay well hang on a minute when i do go to these restaurants i'm gonna maybe study a little bit more around the wine list and see if there's some names that actually i'm not necessarily familiar with and maybe that'll be the discovery to go i'm just going to punch that into cult x for instance or whatever nice point yeah um all right should we i mean let's move on let's move on let's move on you know ag you uh he's going next going on alexi cheese one to be fair yeah it doesn't have to be directed towards anyone right no okay um hang on no you've had your go uh first growth first top second gross like where the smart buyers are today and why i think there's a lot of value in bordeaux you know at the moment um and i think with the market to go back to the point we're making at the beginning but the market's showing some signs of recovery where do we think the action's going to be in terms of like price you know recovery and it's hard to look past the first growths it's hard to look past the first growths i think first growths are smarter than top second growths or i don't know i mean i was looking at an offer the other day and it was like 2012 2014 vintages right and like lioville puffer a lioville escasse you know decent names lynch barge and like the prices for the like 12 and 14 vintage is very very attractive like 600 pounds a 12 pack or 700 pounds a 12 pack so you know certainly way below 100 pounds a bottle even with gtv at on your table way below 100 pounds a bottle are we looking at this are we looking at this through the lens of i'm buying i'm buying to resell okay at a profit in a certain amount of time or i'm just looking to well let's answer both sides okay let's answer both sides from my perspective at least um i think from uh a rational investment point of view looking at the last 10 15 vintages of bordeaux first growth um is a great place to start um for investment for you know for you know for investment okay these are the labels that trade the most that probably trade every week um and have come off significantly in prices as you know as as we discussed yeah you know before yeah and we're starting to see them trade up yeah okay there's not one example of the first growths if you take lafitte mouton hope ryan margot i'll exclude latour for the time being look at the vintages from 2015 to 2019 and you look at the last print versus the previous print lowest print of the last three months they're all trading at the same level or above i mean the last trade price to trade that yeah so but then from a consumption point of view like one of my wines of the year this year has been monroe's 2014 yeah and that's available at like cheap yeah like 66 70 quid per bottle on the table yeah and there's multiple vintages of monroe's like that yeah so um okay well let's let's flip the script then right so what about what like what are some of the new and trending wines that people are like either collecting or investing in right now are you have you guys noticed any any on that side from a trendy perspective i think i think new world new world wines feel more popular what about rest of world that's what i mean rest of the world well i mean rest of the world for me i categorize as being like south america okay you know australia new zealand so but you definitely see a lot of people buying wines from the new world and let's say the rest of the world category for collection investment purposes than you did before, I think.

38:25Okay, so what about somebody who, this is kind of a combination of a couple questions that we have on here. What about, let's take it back to, I'm a brand new investor. I've never, you know, I'm just a wine enthusiast. I like drinking wine. How do I take that from being somebody who enjoys wine to somebody who would want to start investing in wine? Do you guys have any like top tips or... How would you help educate me from going from one side of the coin to the other?

38:56Well, keeping in mind, let's say I have 5 ,000 budget, like to get into it, to just see, you know, dip my toes in the sand, 5 to 10K. I think it's quite, I mean, if you think about the conventional investment thesis for looking at wine as an asset class. You know, the thesis is in order to generate like the best risk adjusted returns, you need to be well diversified. Okay, across regions, across vintages, across unit values and across kind of like resale strategies, maybe like medium term and then long term, then long, long, long term. So I think with, if you're just starting with 5 ,000 pounds, it's very difficult to get that that diversification okay so what what are you really seeking okay you're seeking labels that have a i think a track record okay labels that have um you know uh a strong secondary market okay so then you're naturally probably narrowing yourself down to stuff like bordeaux um you know italy not solely like the super tuscan wines but even like brinellos trade you know you know frequently or some of the you know barolos from like gaia or productory the barbaresco for instance trades regular as you know as you know as we know an entry point for those types of wine aren't necessarily so so high um and then looking at similar producers in champagne yeah um maybe focusing on like iconic vintages of champagne like a 96 or an 02 or an you know 08 yeah is it you know a pretty good place to start yeah um yeah and then outside that as you mentioned new world wines i mean like there's you can get exposure to some like the the most traded wines in the secondary market that you know are probably like 50 to 100 pounds per bottle from the new world so basically alma viva senior cheval des on for you know for instance yeah so what you're suggesting is don't put all your eggs into one basket make sure that you have wines within your budget but from different regions around the wine I don't just want to have like a standard response.

41:07It's really depending on the individual. The question is, do you want to have 5K in two cases of Lafitte 19? Give or take a bit of change. Or do you want to have 5K spread across, I don't know, five to seven different wines? And that's probably more of a personal choice rather than, I suppose, an investment choice. Okay, so what would be your top tip for a new investor? i think i think you're because you said you were grounded in like enjoying and drinking wine anyway yeah so i think at that sort of level which is obviously right at the beginning of their journey with a relatively small budget in the grand schemes of trying to achieve some of the diversification yeah i think you are still quite well placed at least choosing stuff that you have an affinity to with or represents the types of wines you like to drink because i think at that sort of level you know if you if you know you like a bordeaux blend for example you know you can't go wrong picking up five or six cases of like this type of stuff we just talked about that really good value right now that you know can be drunk you know represent good value in the grand scheme of like a second growth bordeaux from vintages that you're getting a really good value and then to the point around like new world wines and then maybe expanding to say well what about bordeaux blends from from the new world that i also you know you know would be in line with the types of wines that i like that are also going to provide different value maybe a slightly different you know more variation to my to my collection that could be stuff you know that we mentioned so you know katina zapata from argentina or it could be um you know wines from chili like uh mine's gone blank senior alma viva those types of wines so okay um yeah that'd be sort of where you'd want to get started to create a bit of fun and enjoyment around it i think i mean i can keep rattling off some questions for you guys is there any i know there was a couple on here that you specifically wanted to touch on tom sorry i'm going from producer hat to now on the couch hat and it's very strange for me uh yeah let's have a look at some of these questions right so uh accessibility versus aspirations the question was listeners say many can trade up from mass market brands for plus four to eight pounds how do we how do we guide that upgrade path i think maybe i think i think the point here was that you know people are willing to pay kind of like 15 to 20 pounds for wine at home i suppose it could be something like a chocolate block right in waitrose it's kind of in that sort of price point yeah and the viewpoint was you could easily trade up an extra five to ten pounds which doesn't feel like a massive stretch and suddenly you're getting into 25 30 and actually we're opening up some of the stuff that we were just talking about and i think on the last put i gave an example of yeah uh il poggioni 2016 which is kind of like 25 pound mark 150 pounds for a case of six which is effectively just a small trade-up from someone who's already willing to pay 15 to 20 but maybe there's a disconnect between the two where people feel more confident and secure at 15 to 20 pounds mark and are willing or confident enough to go up to the 25 pound mark which is only a small increase so the question is how do you create that pathway for people to have confidence in in trading up and spending slightly more but getting let's assume would be a much more transformational experience with a higher quality wine i think in terms of you know coming from someone who is probably still stuck in that you know 15 to 20 a bottle if i'm just having you know trying to grab something for the weekend um maybe from my perspective i've tried to try different varietals that are similar to the ones that i would be willing to spend a bit more on so i can get a taste for what it would be like but that's coming from somebody who once again in their probably infancy of wine journey if you will um but i think that's how i kind of start to justify spending a bit more for for different vintage you know sorry for different grape varietals um and just trying trying new stuff like i'll spend 10 15 more if i know that it's something that i've had before at an experience or an event that i know oh it really kind of takes you to that moment um so maybe it's more connected to the you know kind experience side of enjoying wine again for me from an investment perspective i do like to find something that i know is a has been recommended by others before is trading but also if you find it at a great price get a pack of you know a case of six let it sit there in you know a couple weeks time someone's going to snatch it up yeah i know it's um easier said than done but actually being able to travel to somebody's wine regions oh absolutely and go there and taste on site yeah really much better perspective on um you know the not only the history but um the winemaking philosophy the style of the wines you know that's going to educate a lot of people yeah and i mean it's not i mean it's not without the it's not it's not out the realms of possibility to go to champagne yeah you know hop on the euro star get the the tgb from paris and you're in champagne within a couple of hours as you mentioned it's not it's not too difficult um and other areas of europe where there's great wine produced portugal spain yeah um not just you know you know looking at france so but if you can't do that like the role of the local merchant yeah it's huge yeah absolutely i mean i i live in the southwest london area and i think almost in every neighborhood there's a good wine shop yeah yeah and yeah they're pretty good skip the major grocers go find your local pretty good this isn't a plug for them but like you know you can go there yeah you can go there and you can taste the wines but you know before you not all of them but they've got a selection of wines you can taste yeah they've got a good selection you know on site and it's quite a relaxing in you know environment so i think the role of the local retailer or shop has a you know a significant role you know role role to play yeah absolutely agree and also you know what i say to to friends who are looking to get into wine or you know clients that are just starting their wine wine journey is going there puts paint on that picture yeah and that's that's that once you're there you you understand what goes into it and you understand what you like and what you don't like you don't have a better perspective then naturally like you're going to up because i've never gone to a vineyard and never then left without buying a bottle of wine from them because you have that personal connection to it it really does make a massive difference when when you go and actually when you're in that in that moment i think we're all basically saying the same thing which is effectively like the go drink wine at the yard no but like you know effectively experience is what's going to get people to do that trade up and give that confidence but i think probably the thing that's a paralyzing paralyzing aspect is people not wanting to make an expensive mistake absolutely yeah you know not saying going from 15 to 25 is suddenly gonna bankrupt someone but you know still there's probably a little bit of fear of i don't want to go spend a load of money on a wine that then you know i don't like or enjoy and feels like a bit of a waste but one of the other things i was just thinking in my head when you guys were talking which just come that sort of aspects of like you know if you have other people that have an interest in wine you know let's say between three people you all go what if we were all willing to spend 20 pounds on a single wine each we put that together to get one bottle of wine just for the experience okay it's not a whole bottle of wine to have on my own but if there's three of us willing to explore further then clubbing together to say well you know maybe on a weekly basis let's get together and put our money together to get something that's two or three times what we'd normally spend but it gives us the opportunity to have that experience and then you kind of compound that over time well and like ag said if you go to the little you know the little local wine shop they're more than happy to help guide you with you can tell them like what your preferences are tastes you like flavors you like they can you know like you said put all you know put our money together go in 60 pound bottle of wine i'm sure we can find something that is new to us for an experience perspective as well as something that's gonna you know we're gonna enjoy from a taste perspective yeah yeah yeah there we go nailed it okay um i think i'm happy to go with the next question um which is talking about storage and proof okay um so not not necessarily the most glamorous of questions but i think a very important one when it comes to the world of wine investment and collection um so what minimum standard of storage or provenance should a new collector insist on okay well it depends i mean are we talking uh more in bond storage are we talking at home like well i think let's start with the world i suppose that's most common to to to us is the uh you know in bond storage yeah yeah and what are kind of like the the checks and balances that you'd need to go through um as you know an existing collector or investor or someone that's just looking to get started um i mean obviously the packaging is important is it an original wooden case is it possible to get a photo of of the case to make sure that you know it's being looked after in the right way i think there's certainly something to say to say you know the age of the wine has a big part to play in terms of you know what are the potential you know risks and certainly as the the price increases the rarity and the age you know obviously you want to do probably more more checks in terms of original purchase invoice you know what's the history and the provenance of the wine where has it been understanding how long it's been stored at that that particular warehouse if you can if you can get that information so you know it's like quite a lot of hurdles to jump through doesn't it yeah um but i mean is it it's hurdles that help protect your investment though so you know ways you know is the insurance on it worth it i'd say so for an in bond i think in cellar you have you have to really make sure that everything is you know if it's at your in-home cellar you have to make sure everything is in pristine conditions in order for it to be okay yeah i mean if it's home if it's home seller wines like duty paid wines obviously you want to be doing a lot more physical inspection of the bottles in terms of like what where the levels are how high they are um how's it being stored they're being stored upright so if you've got a dry cork or is it being side horizontal where you know obviously the cork will be moist obviously the light which is hard to judge post you know it's hard to judge how much it has been infected by light for example i mean yeah but if you keep in the original casing and stuff like that you're you know you're protecting your assets a bit more yeah and obviously there's a few tips and tricks for the rarer wines in terms of some of the things we were looking at in terms of certain like tell well you know sort of um processes they they employ in terms of how the label's designed where you might have you know the pan has been the example with the name being written inside the label you can see under a microscope there's little things like that or under a black light you might be able to see a certain aspect that's been applied to the label so you know it's authentic so there's little things like that you can do to further further authenticate especially kind of rarer older wines that are in circulation have they been doing that same kind of authenticity checks in the background i.e black lighting etc i know nfts are a bit newer but have they been doing that for a long time for somebody who hasn't really been in the industry in terms of like earmarking the last decade yeah proof tags yeah proof tags there's been it's been uh um a really crucial part of i think legitimizing you know uh wine trading wine collection and they've made significant advancements in that in the last 10-15 years i think compared to when i started and if you'd go to a one of the warehouses the great operation at the time but they just didn't have the technology or the know-how or expertise to be able to spot this yeah if you go there now i mean recently we were in um coast revolts and the level of like detail and forensic nature of like what they do there is you know it's incredible um i mean that le pan one was a good example but it's also having the knowledge and also being open enough to know what your spot you look you're looking out for and then having the technology to be able to do it and also the consistency in terms of the process to be able to regularly execute it on the mass scale.

53:17Exactly. Interesting. Yeah. I think that's a massive plus for people that are in the market or entering the market is the ability to identify fakes or wines with poor provenance. I think it's a lot more straightforward than it was 10, 15 years ago. it's insane yeah i mean technology even from you know obviously within the storage facilities but even down to the you know where the vineyards are at and what they're taking the entire industry as a whole in technologies enhancements have come a long way i think the one thing advice i would give is we have seen a proliferation of wine merchants and brokers who are offering stock that they don't physically have is that more the ex-seller stock no sorry no no the opposite you know this is stock so because of the advancement of technology and platforms like livex you have a lot of wine merchants or wine e-commerce platforms that are integrating stock that doesn't belong to them in their shops that you can buy um so they're broking they're broking but you know this instead of the old school broking it's very much kind of like technology driven technology driven and you can normally spot this by you know delivery time so if you know you go onto an e-commerce website you speak to the wine merchant and they say well it's going to be like eight to 12 weeks when wines in Europe generally speaking you're going to know it's coming from a source that's right now there's nothing necessarily wrong with that and it enables a much wider selection of stock to be available to people to people in the UK which is which is good but I'd say on a flip point in terms of this question in terms of what sort of storage and provenance should a newer collector insist on I think in those instances they're the ones that you want to make sure that there is enough you know consumer recourse to those particular items which you know the merchant hasn't possibly had the chance to check because they're physically not you know not with them right so i think in those instances you want to make sure that you either have some level of recourse so there's there's some extra layer of protection that you know this you know this wine is you know in the best condition authentic now i guess that most you know it goes without saying that most you know high quality reputable merchants who are dealing with physical stock they have in the inventory either their own stock or on behalf of custom reserves you know what how i would have a high degree of trust around that so again for this question or for a new new collector i think you know if you're working with with the big names the big wine merchants you know the well-known companies that are dealing with stock that they have in their own warehouse or customer reserves that they're offering not only do you know that those questions can be answered really quick and easily by them so it's an easy question to ask but two i think you have a pretty high degree of trust around that because it's so important to most wine companies my merchants business that you know customer reserves are looked after in the best way possible coming from the best source like you know just give an example of few things we do we have you know when we receive stock at a certain price level we photograph everything when it comes in we photograph the cases we photograph the bottle so at a certain price point and above everything that comes into us about that price point doesn't matter how old it is what the producer is where it's come from whether it's been direct or not we just deploy that because obviously that's at a level that you know the effort involved in doing it is going to be worthwhile now obviously you know some of the wines we're talking about earlier like you know an eagle porgione 150 pounds per case it's not feasible conceivable to check every single case that comes in for a wine like that yeah but that being said you know when the pallet comes in it was palletized um you know and physically inspecting the wines as they land we do we physically take a photo that's for insurance purposes when they come into our warehouse right because you know if there is an issue we've had it before three or four years ago we took a a delivery of um some u.s wines from uh scarecrow 2016 100 point wine and when it landed into our facility on on the pallet we physically inspected the cases opened the first box and you can see those raised corks so that then made us check check every single case on the pallet i think there was like 25 cases and it turned out like 60 of the cases had issues with raised corks which is resulting from exposure to high heat yep we then managed to claim you know obviously claim that back on insurance and it ended up being something that uh you know was covered on the insurance policy as something that occurred during the uh transport now we have if we hadn't have inspected it at the point that it landed and taken the photos we wouldn't have made didn't make the insurance claim so it's little things like this which you which make you realize like it is so important for us other wine merchants other wine companies with their own stock that they're buying for their inventory for stock that they manage on for customer reserves behind from an insurance perspective to protect themselves like we have to do these checks when the wines land so when it comes to this sort of question i think i think there is quite a lot of protection already baked in to that whole process because if you're not doing that anyway you're opening yourself up to quite a lot of potential danger in terms of the quality and the provenance of the wines there's only going to be an issue for you down the line and then the second aspect of that is that's where my advice would be probably to be even more um uh insistent if it is something that you're seeing being broke rather than being physically in stock because everything I just mentioned there could be an issue when it lands and it also could be an issue that they don't know about that could exist with a stock before it even gets to them.

58:22So you always want to make sure that that is probably just a thing that you insist on or making sure at least that, you know, it's checked upon arrival into your own warehouse or if you're storing it with that merchant, you get a photo or when it comes into them from their supplier that you have all of that information confirmed that, you know, the stock is as it is, as it appears, the bottles are good, the fill levels are good, the case is untouched you know etc etc so they're the type of things you can deploy to kind of mitigate the risks for you but i think to your point earlier on my kind of bond and duty paid or bond and out of home stuff you know clearly wines are in the bonded warehouse system are less risky than wines that are outside of the bonded system because of the fact that you know they haven't had duty or tax being paid on them they've been tracked pretty much through their whole lifetime for government tax purposes and generally speaking i don't know any bonded warehouse in the uk from a wine perspective that isn't temperature controlled humidity controlled up to a highest level of course some places might be better than others and some places might deploy better tactics than others and some might be able to provide a better you know tracking of all of that information than the other one but generally speaking it's in everyone's interest who run those operations to have perfect controlled temperature and humidity and all this type of stuff so as i said it's not absolutely foolproof i think it's kind of baked in a little bit to the whole bonded warehousing system and i think actually that's why we see so much wine globally traded through the uk because the uk has the largest and widest bonded warehousing system anywhere in the world for fine wine because the bonded warehouses don't really exist now you do get some now in europe but before that it wasn't actually possible because of tax laws yeah um places more like lockers for wine rather than like the actual yeah but legally until a couple of years ago as a private individual you couldn't hold withhold wines in france for example without tax so you know a french wine that's had tax being applied you have like the tax stamps on top of the bottle um so there's little things like that which obviously can tell you if it's already been tax paid in somewhere like france but because of that you legally as an individual couldn't hold a wine suspended of tax you know in france but that's changed i think the last couple years so we might see an evolution of that type of warehousing but i think for now you know collectors who are in asia collectors are all dotted all around the world even in north america there is a lot of people that actually choose to do all their storage and collecting and trading out of the uk just for that reason that the infrastructure and the history is there um i mean it gives you a certain degree of security the wine hub of the world yeah anyways um i'm not sure how many of sorry i'm not sure how many other ones we can get down to um but i think it might be an interesting one to kind of close with so like if you had let's say so we're trying to reduce the price the price per bottle point from one of our users perspective it's a bit too high um so let's say you had anywhere between like 100 and 150 a month to like go ahead and start a seller right um what would you guys recommend people should buy over the next like 12 to you know 6 to 12 months um and then at that point we're probably almost nearing the end of this pod okay i mean as we're approaching like a celebratory part of the year then i think we've got to start with champagne okay for sure yes um love a good shampoo and i mean there's so many good champagnes um but we're 100 to 150 pounds per case did you say or per bottle that's just a budget per month oh per month okay okay you're not just me drinking champagne for the whole whole month maybe I think champagne which champagne producer, I like Frederic Savard L 'Overture is a great buy for if you're into and you grow champagnes and I think price point is probably around 40 to 50 pounds per bot yeah outside of that outside of champagne uh stink italy's doing pretty good isn't it yeah there's just so many great brunellos yeah it's just so yeah it's difficult to to look past like as you mentioned pollo de soto yeah you know il pollo um they're two of my household favorites uh maybe spending a little bit more money but loranje yeah as well yeah um is you know is is you know it's delicious I've heard there's some really good Swedish wines as well I haven't tried them what about any recommendations for any sweet wines over the holidays any I mean there's incredible value in sweet wines I mean you can go in now and buy vintages of Riosec and Couté of decent age I mean I had Riesec in my 25-30 pounds a bottle in my Coltex portfolio I went to go do some testing on QA or I thought it was on QA, it was on live put it up for sale and it sold within like two minutes so definitely some sweet wines out there for this season as well I think might be a good shout again Rhone is extremely well priced some like the Chateauneufs also I think some of the incredible wines from like Loire Valley, some great you know, Chenin some great cab franc from loire valley as well but i mean i'm just looking at some examples here right so giocamo conterno barbera d 'alba francia 2017 93.1 38 quid a bottle great value you know so you know that's incredible so i mean okay six bottles maybe slightly over 150 but not a million miles away you know that's 93 points i mean conterno is probably the most well-known yeah but i mean if you're just building something up and you know you're you know it's incredible value you know as you said Reasect Com's the Reasect the second wine you can pick up last trade £54 for a six pack it's less than£10 a bottle for the second one I picked£40 for mine just for reference and you know £15 on my sale that I wasn't supposed to do so yeah there's definitely I think there's definitely accessible bargains and you know some stuff I mean Santem which is a Dennis Durant 2 wines I mean they're really good value again Bruno Giacosi you can get some of his entry-level wines.

1:04:49Ciro Paciente from Montelcino, £70 for a case of six. Le Volte from Ornolaya. Yeah. That's delicious. Le Cruzel from La Londe de Pomerol, £80 for a case of six. I almost bought that. Great value. La Rioja Alta. So many good values. Rioja Alta, Torre de Honor, Martello Reservo, Rioja 2015. So again, 84 quid for a six pack. 84 quid for a six pack. Well, it might be interesting. Maybe what we can do is we can put together kind of like a builder portfolio. Marquis de L 'Eme, third growth from Bordeaux, 2020 from Margot, 93 points, 88 quid for a six pack. Yeah, we can do that. I mean, even getting a bit.

1:05:32Well, I mean, this is interesting, actually, because we're tasting 2019 Burgundy in today. But, you know, entry level Bourgogne. And I know Bourgogne is obviously regarded as the lowest classification. but I actually think it kind of having a good quality bourgogne blanc or bourgogne red represents you know all winemakers want to make a really good bourgogne red or white because I think it represents real skill from the winemakers look to a certain extent everyone can make a great riche bourg if you've got the plot and everyone can make a good grand crew bourgony if you've got a good plot of lamb but it takes a lot of skill to make a good bourgogne so I actually think like this is the main cuacard la son floreau CLF 90 pounds for a case of six 2020 vintage obviously high quality vintage for the bourgoin laff on rocher 90 quid for a case of six again another high quality wine owned by the tessaron family that own ponte canet um we haven't even spent 100 pounds yet and you know there's there's there's lots of good options there is value you know you said cause that's no right oh nine so cause the next second second wine is uh pagode the cause 2017 scored 92 points last transaction 100 pounds for six all right i know and bang myself for Christmas.

1:06:41Oh, we've got an American one here. Just finished on that. Resonance from... Who are you in Resonance? Luis Jarreau. Pinot Noir from California. Oh, no, sorry, from Oregon. Oregon. £108 for a six-pack. Nice. And last one. It's a white wine from Ornelia. So Ornelia's white wine. Poggio Alegez... I can't pronounce Italian. Your Spanish was really good before when you were talking about the Rockers. No, Spanish was good. Poggio Alegez... Can I get an outtake of that? Toscana 2020 £110 for a case of six good value that's a very good one well like I said maybe what we can do is we can put together when we send out the descriptions of everything maybe we can put together like a Sampra builder for people and they can take a look at some of these wines and we can kind of pull them out because obviously we're just rattling off a bunch to you guys it might be useful to but I think it was interesting because it does represent the kind of regions we're talking about so places like Piedmont looking at Barbera for example some good value there Brunello de Montalcino Tuscany there's good value in there obviously border at the bottom end of the spectrum second wines are some of the good wines are really good value um spanish wines which already said again was fitting into that criteria not a huge amount of spanish american wines but obviously one or two examples in there um from oregon and uh we had a couple of sweet wines in there as well and a couple of whites so you know just goes to show under 150 pounds there's a lot of stuff there that's over a 90 point score that's actually of a decent decent age as well that's going to be delivering good quality wine and so again i think the point is especially addressing some of these listeners questions you you actually don't have to spend you know thousands of pounds to start buying and collecting good quality wines that are going to age now all these wines here they've got a bit of age on but they they would last happily for next couple of years easily yeah if not longer for both drinking pleasure and for you know resale perspective so yeah that's the takeaway i suppose just going through that list and what's our takeaway from it i think that's that's that's what the the learning is shall we say we were talking about um you know we're going and this is uh again an entry-level wine under 20 pounds a bottle from domain tours marshall and tours is the um a combination of pascal marshall the winemaker from burgundy and um uh tours is a canadian uh investor and collector um and they they combine to create this this this label this domain i have to say it does get a bit slightly confusing sometimes because there's a few different versions of the same brand but effectively those two came together to create this this winery in its domain um and you know i think the style of the wines is in in burgundy that you know they make very transparent wines you know very kind of reflective of um the place and the terroir it's not too heavy-handed um and i think stylistically you know they're not kind of heavy overly extracted types of wines they are kind of as i said transparent and and kind of aromatic and and light and they have a good amount of sort of freshness and balance and poise and i think you know probably the the leading wine in their whole stable and actually i might go on a limb here i think it might be the rarest wine in burgundy yeah i think they make a mousiney which is sub 200 bottles a year which i'm thinking might i mean there might be a one or two davenant wines that are around that sort of level as well but yeah i think you know it's and it's massively sorted after it's a few thousand few thousand pounds a bottle um so this is kind of the entry level the opposite end of the spectrum um and 2019 we've talked about 2019 before regarded as one of the the best vintages of burgundy in recent years i think it has the potential to kind of rival some of the best vintages over the years like 99 2005 2010 going back to sort of 1990 85 78 unlike some of those vintages it's drinking well yeah yeah like as we said before like on previous pods like the 19 is just so approachable yeah unlike the 05s which you know which you'll have to leave and kind of come around to but you know there's certainly a vintage that that's giving pleasure now right yeah it's beautiful yeah it's really good and i think you touched on a really good point in terms of like the entry level that's almost like the table stakes for a producer in burgundy like if you're if you if you produce a good bourgogne yeah then actually that creates the intrigue to then explore all the other wines within the yeah that you know the range um and if you're costa you get to charge like 250 250 quid for your bourgogne blanc there are benefits um what do you think of that alexa you like it yeah i mean it's it's gorgeous i think it just it feels like it like breezes i I don't know how, like you said, they're very light.

1:10:58It's like a very light touch. It's just, it's beautifully balanced. I mean, it's young. I don't know. I feel like it could age quite nicely. But also, it's relatively inexpensive. It's inoffensive. It's really easy. I think it's a fantastic entry, entry, Burgoyne. I did hear a rumor somewhere that the main tours is Musini. Yeah. in a blind tasting with other notable producers who shall not be named like your Chardonnay came out on top. Yeah. Interesting. So well worth the£2 ,500 per bottle. If you can find it. It's just impossible to find. I was going to say, it's not even about the price point there.

1:11:44It's about access. Yeah. I have a friend who's based in Asia. He's a big wine collector and he's always like, if you ever find it, let me know. Give me. Yeah. And five years later, I haven't found it. still on the hunt yeah it's a rare bird as they say right so thank you very much for listening for joining us it was a really enjoyable pod where we got to reflect on the last few episodes thank you very much Arash for joining and stepping in and taking over the reins I think you did a fantastic job yeah it'd be nice to be invited next time yeah we'll see whether Jay gets his seat back now yeah I think I gotta take it for it I might not give it up anymore and producer Alexa thank you the camera how did you feel you know I you seem quite comfortable there great yeah you know catch me on the couch for often I guess yeah exactly yeah you've taken to it very well so thank you very much for sorry Jay I appreciate it thanks for forcing me I mean asking to come on that's great to have you but always remember you can catch us on your favorite streaming platform that It could be on Spotify through Apple podcast.

1:12:55It could also be on YouTube if you want to see our faces at the same time. But whatever it is, make sure you like, make sure you subscribe, make sure you give us a rating or a comment. As I said, we have just gone through, you know, we had more that we didn't get to, listeners' questions. We love it when people engage and get in touch and leave comments, you know, whether it's on, you know, social media, LinkedIn or Instagram or one of the others or whether it's directly, you know, where you're listening to the podcast. Any of the above is acceptable and you can email us as well if you if you so wish so love to hear from you guys um please do get in touch especially if there's things you'd love us to talk about or to cover um so a quick teaser what's coming up next um we're kind of changing um direction slightly for the next couple of episodes so um we've we've exhausted the internal cult wines guests six episodes in so we will be uh bringing in some outside guests we've got three fantastic people lined up over the next few episodes so the first one joining us will be charlotte christensen who some of you who are into wine and follow people on instagram will know as the london wine girl um and certainly one of the uk's most engaging voices uh around wine especially for the kind of younger generation coming through um and she yeah she really makes wine feel accessible so it'll be great to have her on the show and hear some of her thoughts um after that we've got victoria daskal who is really big in the wine education and wine writing scene um and yeah she's going to bring a bit of sort of clarity to the sofa she's going to very much pick up where me me and me and jonathan are wrong and i'm sure we'll we're getting a grade at the end of it as to how you're gonna get a taste of your own medicine yeah you're gonna get a taste of your own medicine so um yeah nervously looking forward to that one now guarantee um and finally libby brody um who is a wine columnist for city am and I think she, you know, she appears in actually quite a few different publications.

1:14:45I'm sure you guys would have been familiar for her. Also very popular on social media. She's got a lot of followers on Instagram. She'll be joining us in the new year. So three sort of strong female voices from the wine world over the next three episodes and certainly going to keep myself and co-host Jonathan if he comes back. But whoever's co-hosting with me could be one of these two. We'll certainly be keeping us on our toes. But yeah, we're looking forward to that and we hope you enjoyed those episodes coming up as well. So make sure, as I said, you like and you subscribe because you'll get the notifications as soon as the latest episodes are out and you don't want to miss those.

1:15:18So thank you very much for listening and joining us. Take care.