Festive Wrap Up

00:00:15: This is our Christmas Stroke New Year edition and we wish all our listeners very many happy returns of the season and all joy and love for twenty twenty six.

00:00:36: But now we're going to look back.

00:00:39: to the highlights of twenty twenty five our personal highlights and at the end we'll look forward to what may be in twenty twenty six and try not to use the word existential.

00:00:56: This is unusual because the first time we've done the podcast remotely normally we've been in the same room together so it's a little bit of a different dynamic.

00:01:03: so forgive us as we get up to speed and get our normal energy and spontaneity into the podcast.

00:01:11: But it's been a remarkable year.

00:01:13: I think it's been almost exactly our year since we started the podcast.

00:01:17: And just before we had a little briefing session and I said, can you remind me of the topics that we've covered?

00:01:25: We've done a lot in a year.

00:01:26: That's really impressive.

00:01:28: We have indeed.

00:01:28: Emily, what would have been your highlights?

00:01:31: What can you remember?

00:01:32: if you can remember?

00:01:35: The highlights

00:01:35: here are the highlights of the podcast, Doug.

00:01:38: Highlights of the podcast, yes.

00:01:41: I mean, aside from getting to spend more time with the two of you, obviously.

00:01:49: I was very happy that we managed to, even though we didn't get the recording, that we managed to get you two both over to Berlin.

00:01:58: That was definitely a highlight for me, having you here.

00:02:02: having you see the the wine fair and really other than that I would say our event as well at topless bakery that was brilliant to be able to bring the conversation to a live.

00:02:14: I just must say the the captions and this will be in the captions on the thing.

00:02:18: it's translated topless bakery as topless

00:02:25: baby

00:02:26: topless bakery.

00:02:27: So it's not a titty bar, it's actually called topless, T-O-K-L-A-S, just for the benefit of the readers and listeners who are looking at the caption.

00:02:39: Sorry, carry on, Emily.

00:02:41: And thanks for seeing that, Jamie, because I wasn't looking at the caption box at all.

00:02:46: I'll keep an eye on it.

00:02:49: Yeah, I think having that experience of being able to have this interaction with us, also getting questions to have different inputs was really interesting and I'd be looking forward to hopefully doing more of those things.

00:03:01: there would be my two of my highlights.

00:03:04: I really enjoyed our expedition abroad and I don't mean Berlin.

00:03:08: I love Berlin though it was.

00:03:09: it was really fun and interesting as well and educative.

00:03:13: but I loved going to the Isle of Wight the fact that you were sort of we tended to record maybe a couple of episodes, but we ended up recording five episodes on the day, uh, interspersed by a little swim in the English Channel and with fish and chips.

00:03:33: But I like the, I like the spontaneity of what we do as well.

00:03:38: I feel that a lot of podcasts and a lot of sort of shows are very much like rehearsed and, and, you know, they're taken position from the beginning and they see it through.

00:03:50: But We almost were talking about the subject and stuff is occurring to us as we're talking.

00:03:59: And I think this is like a sort of, these are genuine conversations that we would be having.

00:04:04: Were we in a wine bar?

00:04:05: Were we in a restaurant?

00:04:06: And we have wine.

00:04:08: It's in the background.

00:04:09: It's in the foreground.

00:04:10: We like talking about the wider ideas behind wine and also the specifics as well.

00:04:16: Yeah, but I particularly enjoyed, I think I enjoyed the Isle of Wight just simply because it sort of took us out of from our sort of like comfort zone and put us into a different place and we, the hospitality was also wonderful.

00:04:28: The hospitality was wonderful and the hotel was absolutely beautiful as well, like that they have, it's extraordinary, the terrace rooms at Ventner, wonderful spot.

00:04:40: Look

00:04:40: at the correction for that, it's come up as the terrorist.

00:04:49: When Doug said, I really love Berlin, it came out as I really love

00:04:52: Belinda.

00:04:53: So I hope her wife doesn't just read the captions, so she listens as well.

00:04:57: Was

00:04:57: he atop this by any chance?

00:05:00: I hope

00:05:02: not, Terry.

00:05:04: I think the point you made about the fact that this isn't rehearsed at all needs reinforcing, that basically what we've got, we sit together with a topic and then start talking.

00:05:15: And it's high risk because I mean, you could end up not having anything to say, but that's never happened yet.

00:05:21: And I think one of the strengths for me is that I'm talking with two people who I've got some history with, I know well, but also we come from very different perspectives and we do different things.

00:05:32: And so that's a real strength for me because it's, it brings, it brings a kind of like, it's like looking at a, a statue from three positions.

00:05:43: you see it's kind of different things.

00:05:45: you're seeing the same thing but you have different perspectives and it's when those different perspectives are shared that suddenly you can get some of the most interesting results and so that's been really good and it was going to.

00:05:57: the Sublime Wine Festival in Berlin was just fantastic because as well as being able to get together and do a live podcast it was just good to meet all those people and also to spend some time in Berlin.

00:06:10: which is fantastic.

00:06:10: And I think that one of the things we'd like to do with the podcast, I think I'm speaking for all of us next year, is to work on getting more remote podcast recordings.

00:06:22: And we're thinking quite seriously about traveling to wine regions.

00:06:26: And the two we've got in our crosshairs at the moment are the Longer Dock in Roussillon, South of France, to visit some really good growers there.

00:06:34: And then also to go to Georgia, maybe.

00:06:37: And there's so much good stuff happening.

00:06:40: that by,

00:06:41: you know,

00:06:42: by some clever editing and, you know, you could almost make like radio programs in location.

00:06:48: And that would be, I think a useful thing because the podcast, there's lots of fantastic podcasts around, but most of them tend to be interviews.

00:06:57: And after a while, you kind of, the same people are being interviewed all the time.

00:07:02: And I don't know if that's all that helpful, but actually going to experience places I think is a useful thing.

00:07:09: It's just another way of giving credit to the people who are doing the good work.

00:07:14: And that's what I want to do with my particular work is to try and help the good folk win.

00:07:22: And that's not always a given, especially at the moment where we've got some really difficult economic headwinds that the wine industry is facing.

00:07:31: And often it's the growers who do really hard work who are kind of bearing the brunt of the risk.

00:07:36: I agree.

00:07:36: I mean, I think we can talk about topics in an abstract way, but it's very difficult to say anything new.

00:07:44: The dynamic is interesting because of our three different perspectives, as you said, Jamie, but like going back almost to some primary evidence, as we would almost say, if you're a history teacher, but looking at source, and we talk about terroir, but when you're standing in a vineyard.

00:08:01: That's terroir.

00:08:01: That's what you're experiencing, feeling.

00:08:04: You feel it under your feet and in your hands.

00:08:07: Talk about wine culture and visiting a place like Georgia, and it's completely different.

00:08:13: You just get sucked in by the whole thing.

00:08:16: And you understand why the wine world has become shaped in the way it is.

00:08:22: So I think context is really, really important.

00:08:25: And I think the podcast will be different because it'll reflect our excitement.

00:08:30: are being in a different place and experiencing something at the time, in real time.

00:08:39: You know, there will be editing, of course, there has to be, but I think it'll come across in the way that we respond to the wines.

00:08:47: And, you know, I think I really enjoyed that bit.

00:08:51: I also enjoyed the bit where we taste wines because, again, it's like, you know, We're not going to mask anything, but we're trying to give our honest opinion.

00:09:00: And we're also being as open as we possibly can to the wine in the glass and its potential.

00:09:07: We're not trying to be negative for the sake of being negative or unduly sort of praising it.

00:09:13: If the wine doesn't merit praising, I think we try to be as true to what's possible.

00:09:18: Yeah,

00:09:18: I think that's also something that's great for listeners, I hope.

00:09:22: This kind of fly on the wall.

00:09:24: between conversations that don't necessarily always get recorded but could be relatively commonplace for us as peers and friends that we share conversations like this naturally and then having those conversations that bring up big questions and ideas or possibly areas that we don't know so much about to then investigate further.

00:09:46: I really love that because I find it sort of sparks off new areas of curiosity in me.

00:09:54: and sort of also humbles me a little bit to remember like oh my god there's still so much to know out there as well.

00:10:00: so I think it's it's quite cool and I think our travels that are going to come up in twenty twenty six will also be great because it gives again that kind of fly on the wall for like what our day-to-day work is also like going to these places the kind of insights that we gather.

00:10:15: but I think most of the times they really closed in the wine trade like they don't often make it out to the general public.

00:10:23: I think we also want to sort of like, this podcast is not geared just to the wine trade.

00:10:29: Of course, the wine trade, probably some people in the wine trade are listening to it, but we want to enthuse people who are not wine professionals.

00:10:39: I didn't start off as a wine professional.

00:10:41: Emily, you didn't.

00:10:42: Jamie, you didn't.

00:10:43: We all had different careers or different paths we were following until we got bitten by the wine bug.

00:10:50: anyone could be bitten by a bug and then just fall in love over the years.

00:10:56: So our investigations, as somebody said, feel like you do feel humble, you do feel you're always learning.

00:11:03: I don't think I know anything really, relatively speaking.

00:11:06: And the more I learn about wine, the more I realize there is to learn about not just wine, but the whole culture, history, geography, geology, chemistry, biology, all these subjects which are part of wine, they seem ancillary, but they're very much part and parcel of our knowledge about wine.

00:11:24: So looking back on this year that's almost drawn to a close, I'm interested to hear from both of you about your particular highlights.

00:11:34: There could be wine highlights, there could be other highlights, it could be travels, it could be memorable bottles.

00:11:41: Let's throw a few of these highlights into the mix.

00:11:46: Oh, that's difficult.

00:11:48: I mean, I do one of those.

00:11:51: I'm a very listical person, if you know what that means.

00:11:54: It's a very sort of male preoccupation with listing my top ten or top twenty.

00:12:00: But I always have to look, sort of scroll back through my phone and sort of check and see which bottles sort of move me.

00:12:06: There's usually not so much the wine itself is the context in which I was drinking.

00:12:11: Maybe it was the company.

00:12:13: Maybe it was the meal.

00:12:15: I have to say that more often than not, this might surprise some people, I very rarely have a bottle of wine in a restaurant that absolutely blows me away or blows me over.

00:12:27: And that's not the fault of the wine, more my fault.

00:12:30: It's just I'm distracted by other things like food, service, the company I'm with, whereas at home, I'm much more focused on it.

00:12:39: And I'm drinking it, eh?

00:12:41: It's not free, but I'm drinking it without... regarding it as an eighty pound, hundred pound, hundred and fifty pound wine.

00:12:49: I'm drinking it as whatever I bought it for, ten, fifteen pounds.

00:12:53: And I've drunk so many good wines this year.

00:12:57: And the reason is at home, the reason is because I always drink wines that I know I'm going to like.

00:13:03: It's like perverse to think about that.

00:13:06: I'm not into just trying a wine.

00:13:09: for the sake of it and thinking like if i don't want to drink it why would i bother?

00:13:13: uh i want to be able to finish the bottle and that's always my.

00:13:16: my acid test is like did me and my wife?

00:13:20: did we manage to finish the bottle you know effortlessly and not necessarily want another bottle but just was the bottle was the whole experience of complete.

00:13:31: we don't have to have talked about it but we just sort of register how delicious it was and that deliciousness is really.

00:13:37: It's a pretty sort of simple thing.

00:13:40: It's like the wine can be the background rather than the foreground.

00:13:43: When I'm with wine professionals, it's a slightly different experience.

00:13:47: The wine becomes more at the foreground.

00:13:48: Perhaps we are playing blind tasting games.

00:13:51: That's always fun.

00:13:54: And we're trying to maybe describe in more sort of whiny language what it is that attracts us about the wine.

00:14:00: What characteristics does it have?

00:14:04: What does it say about us as tasters that we like that those specific characteristics?

00:14:10: As you can tell, I'm stalling because I'm desperately trying to think which wines I've loved so much.

00:14:17: But actually, maybe

00:14:18: think about that bit more and I'll pass it over to Emily.

00:14:21: It's

00:14:22: a very good context setting there, I think.

00:14:24: OK,

00:14:26: I had plenty of time there to also think about my dive right in.

00:14:31: I think I have a couple of highlights.

00:14:33: um work highlight of the year I would say would be

00:14:37: that

00:14:38: at the beginning part of twenty twenty five I completed a job in Amman in Jordan and that was very cool.

00:14:46: um I'm very nice because I'd never been there before and you know one of the things I love about my job is that it takes me to corners of the the earth that I've never visited before and maybe wouldn't necessarily get to if it wasn't for that.

00:14:58: so that was.

00:14:59: that was very very cool and having an extra day at the end of it to spend that Petra and see one of the world's wonders was was pretty spectacular and memorable.

00:15:10: so that would be up there.

00:15:12: and then maybe in terms of like wine specific travel I spent quite a bit of time in in Greece again and I'd say one of the highlight trips would have been.

00:15:24: I finally went to Crete and visited, spent a couple of days there visiting producers and got totally spoiled, drank some amazing rare wines at a restaurant called Salis in Hania and yeah, I went to visit two producers just over the two days and one of them was Aori, you probably know the ones, especially you, Jane.

00:15:49: Really like those wines, fantastic, yeah.

00:15:51: But just spectacular vineyards, high altitude, mountainous, old vines ungrafted, the whole you know like reads like a like a song sheet of a great um a great piece of music.

00:16:06: but uh that was.

00:16:07: that was pretty cool for me, they would be my my two highlights.

00:16:12: I've been thinking about my highlights and it's like oh it's just like it's been.

00:16:16: I've just been so lucky to go to some nice places.

00:16:20: I went back to New Zealand for the first time in a long time in February and um I spent some time in North Canterbury, visited quite a few producers there, and that was a really, that was a very special time, you know, because these are just, you know, it's not, this is not like the factory wineries in Marlborough.

00:16:40: This is the people making wine and farming vineyards, and there were some really cool things happening there.

00:16:45: So that was a real highlight.

00:16:47: I did

00:16:47: a little

00:16:49: drive down to Central and visited some people there to notably Felton Road and and um Rippon just like it's like a pilgrimage going to those places just so fantastic.

00:17:01: then back to Portugal to Simplishment of Vinoche festival.

00:17:05: that happens every February um in Porto and it's like It's like wines without makeup is a strap line.

00:17:12: So there's people in Portugal making, you know, there's about a hundred and ten producers and they all have a barrel each and they're showing off their wines.

00:17:18: And this is people who are doing some amazing work and not getting a lot of recognition, some of them working more low intervention style, but it's very inclusive.

00:17:27: It's not, they don't measure yourself for dark side levels before you're allowed to participate, but it's about people.

00:17:33: Do you want to join this crew?

00:17:34: Is this your sort of tribe?

00:17:36: And so that's a fantastic event.

00:17:39: That was really good.

00:17:40: I'm just at risk if I start going through the year of missing out some of the memorable experiences.

00:17:45: But Portugal was big for me this year.

00:17:47: I went there, I think, five or six times.

00:17:51: And most recently did the Made in Clay sort of like Talia Festival, which is all people coming together, bringing wines that have been made in clay and variations on clay.

00:18:04: That's just such an exciting day because I think something special about clay and wine.

00:18:12: So whether it's crevaries or talliers or to nachos or whatever you want to call them.

00:18:17: There's some really cool things happening in the wine world in that space.

00:18:22: And Vineyard Verde at Alentejo, I spent some time in those regions.

00:18:26: I went to a festival called Blue Glue in Coimbra.

00:18:28: I went to see some really cool vineyards in Bayrada.

00:18:30: I'm very excited about what's happening in Portugal.

00:18:36: went to the Roussillon for a few days, and that was kind of eye-opening as well, because especially towards the northern bit of the Roussillon, you've got like a part of Elmari and those areas around there, just some insane terroirs, you know, like this is a very interesting place.

00:18:55: As long as you've got enough water to grow grapes, it's a very interesting place.

00:19:00: But so many other trips.

00:19:02: Oh, Greece.

00:19:03: Yeah, you mentioned Greece, Emily.

00:19:04: I had the most amazing time in Greece.

00:19:07: It's actually a holiday, but I did some wine things as well.

00:19:10: So I saw a lot of Nathans, went to see Mr.

00:19:12: Vertigo, Ferro, and Gammae wine bar, and then the next day went down to Sifnos and just had an amazing few days eating and drinking, including Cantina, which I think one of your friends is Somelia IV and they're coming to London actually in January, so I'm going to go to that.

00:19:34: She's going to be doing the wine selection for the co-lab they're doing in London in January, but the Cypnos was amazing.

00:19:41: There was such a beautiful experience and I was just drinking.

00:19:46: There's a wine bar called Lodgia and they had this amazing low-intervention selection of Greek wines.

00:19:52: So I tried

00:19:52: so many good

00:19:53: things.

00:19:54: And an epic view.

00:19:56: Oh, yeah.

00:19:56: So that was pretty, pretty special, actually.

00:20:00: But yeah, it's been an absolutely cracking year.

00:20:04: Just so many things.

00:20:05: And Canada as well, I went back to the Okanagan after they had the big freeze to see what was happening there.

00:20:11: And I was really nervous about finding, you know, a lot of wineries and deep, deep trouble.

00:20:16: But actually they responded in really clever ways.

00:20:19: to this big problem.

00:20:20: They had a big freeze that basically wiped out one vintage in the Okanagan for pretty much everyone.

00:20:27: And so this reminds you that when people are farming wine grapes, there's a level of risk involved.

00:20:33: It's a precarious thing to do.

00:20:35: But often when things go wrong, it brings out the best in people and they collaborate and they think of innovative solutions and I think that's really cool.

00:20:45: So yeah.

00:20:47: really, really good year.

00:20:48: And so the other highlight was going to Emilia Romagna, the trifecta of Bologna, Modena and Parma.

00:20:57: And you can do those all in like two nights and three days.

00:21:00: And you just cherry pick the best places to eat and drink.

00:21:03: And I had some amazing things there and came away with a massive love for lambrosco sobara.

00:21:10: I think lambrosco is very interesting when it's done well.

00:21:14: just discovered super cool things there.

00:21:16: that was very exciting

00:21:18: and let's not forget tortellini and brodo.

00:21:21: yes

00:21:25: so go on.

00:21:26: no no i said back to you

00:21:28: yes we thought you might have.

00:21:29: you might have recalled some of your great wine experiences after my three-minute speech.

00:21:34: um no why didn't go?

00:21:40: I mean, I can give a more sort of political perspective on the fact that I haven't been abroad.

00:21:45: I've been abroad hardly at all for the very reason that I'm a wine buyer and the market has been a bit depressed.

00:21:50: So I feel, yeah, I could go abroad and research stuff, but if I can't buy it, it's been like in the candy, kid in the candy store, not being able to touch.

00:22:03: And I think talking to quite a lot of people in the wine trade, they're in the same boat is they don't want to find something that they love a lot and they can't buy?

00:22:14: or they love a lot and they buy and they can't do justice to the grower because I think that's really unfair.

00:22:22: is that you sort of sail in promising the earth and then you're still sitting on the same stock any year's time.

00:22:31: So in a way I've religiously avoided epiphanies of the sorts that both of you are describing and going to places and falling in love with them because when you fall in love with something with a place you want to take something back as a memory.

00:22:48: and you know taking back wines that when you drink them take you back to the place is.

00:22:53: this is the most obvious thing to do and there's various places that I've bought.

00:22:58: I've been a buyer for in the past and I've done precisely that.

00:23:01: you know sort of you know, I've gone for a few days and come back with five wineries to add to our portfolio.

00:23:07: But now it's really not the time, unfortunately.

00:23:12: And I don't want to get on to our little existential sort of wine trade problem until the very end.

00:23:19: But I'm quite sort of pleased to see like after a few really difficult vintages, we've had like generally seem, twenty twenty five seems to have been quiet.

00:23:32: positive vintage in the sense that I'm getting positive noises from the growers.

00:23:39: You know, it's been, it's been, it's been really tricky the last few years and I'm not going to try to sort of avoid saying that.

00:23:47: The wine trade is, you know, sometimes I think people say everything is for the best and the best of all possible worlds.

00:23:57: That's sort of quote from Candid and I don't believe that, I think you've got to be realistic.

00:24:03: What Jamie said earlier about growers, I think we all think this is that we're here to support their efforts and to tell people the stories about what they're doing and particularly to reward or praise those who are working in the right way, you know, and I think we're all on the side of, you know, organics.

00:24:26: biodynamics, regenerative, you know, like people who farm intelligently and properly.

00:24:35: Because we're talking about the future of the earth.

00:24:37: Yeah.

00:24:38: So, you know, we're not.

00:24:40: we're not talking about sort of, we're not talking about praising factory farming as an idea, just because there's just to make more wine.

00:24:48: I think we're trying to be a bit more discriminating and get people to be a bit more discriminating in their choices.

00:24:57: Anyway, Jamie, are you drinking something there?

00:25:00: Yes.

00:25:00: I opened this last night, literally.

00:25:05: I could declare some level of connection with this.

00:25:09: Some levels.

00:25:10: This is one of the collab wines that I've done with Daniel Primak and Ben Henshaw of Indigo.

00:25:16: And this is the most recent addition, which is Salt Air, which is a Chardonnay made by Demet Segru at... So grew South Downs and it's a multi-vintage blend.

00:25:28: So it's.

00:25:28: it's a blend of three different vintages and It's really really good.

00:25:34: It's like a Kind of the theme running behind the collaborative wines that we've done is this kind of salty idea and this is like beautifully salty mineral expressive Chardonnay, and I think that multi-vintage thing really works for this

00:25:47: because

00:25:49: it's

00:25:50: It looks a bit Lord of the Rings desk.

00:25:53: What's that?

00:25:54: the typeface of the font?

00:25:58: Oh

00:25:58: yes, it's kind of like a Celtic sort of thing, isn't it?

00:26:04: And they've all got these really nice labels.

00:26:06: There's a South African artist who's done the labels

00:26:08: for all of them.

00:26:09: So it's just been really fun getting involved in this project because this wine is like... This is like, we're so happy with this.

00:26:16: It's just like, this is the second edition.

00:26:18: So the first, it's just been released.

00:26:19: The first edition was a multi-vintage blend, but this is the next, you know, twenty-five bottling version of it.

00:26:26: It's really good.

00:26:27: It's like, it's quite cool.

00:26:29: Okay.

00:26:30: Having mentioned Daniel Primec, now I remember one of my favorite ones of the year.

00:26:35: So a group of wine-trady people got together at the draper's arms, a wonderful gastropub in North London with an absolutely phenomenal wine list and a very fairly price.

00:26:51: We had mentioned it.

00:26:52: So plug plug.

00:26:59: And then we each brought two bottles of wine each and they were about like I think about eight or nine of us.

00:27:07: and I brought a bottle of still champagne from Maricotta, which is like a sort of blonde noir.

00:27:18: It was a Pinot noir white, so made in Amphora.

00:27:23: And I think it was the first wine of the, no, there's the second wine actually, came after Daniel's Dom Perignon.

00:27:32: And I'm sorry, but I think this blew all the other wines to smithereens.

00:27:38: and the other wines are very good.

00:27:40: Some of them are exceptional.

00:27:41: Actually,

00:27:42: no, it was a little further in the order.

00:27:44: I've got the list.

00:27:45: I've got the notes in front of me here.

00:27:56: That's one of yours, Doug.

00:27:57: Then we had Michele Perillo Nelson, oh, Nelson White, I'd put, because Nelson Perry brought it.

00:28:08: Yes.

00:28:08: It's called Nelson White.

00:28:13: It's called

00:28:15: the Devolpe.

00:28:16: Code de Devolpe, two thousand nineteen.

00:28:17: Nelson White, yes.

00:28:20: Yes.

00:28:20: And then we had to marry Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en-Côte-en.

00:28:35: two thousand and five,

00:28:37: yes.

00:28:38: Yeah, I don't know what could I say about mine.

00:28:40: So Lee, two thousand and five.

00:28:43: Look, look, door.

00:28:44: Yes, yes.

00:28:45: Sorry.

00:28:46: Well, that's just looking.

00:28:48: So,

00:28:51: um, we were saying earlier about salinity.

00:28:53: So I bring, um, I bring a sort of like, um, what do you call it?

00:28:58: Corporate on, on limestone, which has got this like, you know, chalky saline thing.

00:29:04: Then I. Then I got the masquerade, which is like, you know, looking at the Atlantic, okay, with a bit of age, but still young as anything.

00:29:13: Then we have the Blanc de Trois, the champagne on the sort of Kimmeridgean soil.

00:29:18: So you can see where my palette has been centered this year, purely on chalk and sort of like limestone and sort of marbles.

00:29:29: I guess it shows that the last two years demonstrate that I am definitely Moving away from red wines.

00:29:38: Well, I've been moving away for some years towards white leaner white wines.

00:29:44: The nearest thing I come to a red now is an orange wine probably But tonight I have a red wine.

00:29:51: so just to prove myself wrong but no, I love I love that sort of like.

00:29:58: it's a terrible word to use but elegance I love elegance and finesse and freshness and purity and all those sort of sort of almost abstract words.

00:30:07: but you know it.

00:30:08: and energy as well and you know when you taste it that a wine has like this.

00:30:12: this really specific biting energy that's sort of like you know knocks you back and sort of.

00:30:17: but it's also like a real tonic.

00:30:19: it makes you feel like really wow alive it's sort of crackling.

00:30:22: and um the Maricortain wine had that in spades.

00:30:26: i mean champagne's very difficult to ripen.

00:30:29: ripen grapes.

00:30:30: uh to make still wine i mean local warming is changing that to a certain extent.

00:30:35: but that was just delicious wine.

00:30:39: Anyway, so I'm drinking Pinot Noir because I can and it normally disappoints me as a great variety because it's so fragile and salty and I don't really drink burgundy anymore.

00:30:50: but I made an exception.

00:30:52: but actually this is from Alsace.

00:30:54: I can't even get that into frame.

00:30:59: Yeah, Frick.

00:31:00: Yeah, Frick.

00:31:01: For us, it's called, it's another sans-suffra.

00:31:07: So, sans-sulfite ajoutée, non-filtrée.

00:31:11: It's called ficellis.

00:31:14: And I love, I love Pierre Jean-Pierre's pinots.

00:31:19: They're just so eloquent and they're so, I don't know, it's got an earthiness and a sort of Slightly rasping quality to it that I wish.

00:31:30: I wish burgundy's which have become quite jammy and oaky a lot of them Avoid it.

00:31:35: Anyway, I'm gonna give it.

00:31:37: this is my first impression my first time of trying this.

00:31:40: It tastes like really good medicine.

00:31:42: It's only eleven and a half percent.

00:31:44: It's pretty amazing For a peanut one.

00:31:47: this day and age you'll find English Peanuts far more full body than that.

00:31:53: and The Frick wines, they're all aged in, they're all bi-dynamically farmed, etc.

00:32:00: They're all aged in these massive, ancient, food-dress, you know, big oak barrels.

00:32:08: So there's always like a slight sort of like warmth of oxidation on the wines, certainly more obvious on the whites, but noticeable to a certain extent on the reds.

00:32:20: And I love it.

00:32:22: The wines are so calm and deep and they're constantly changing.

00:32:28: And for me, the wine that I noticed most at the end of the evening is the bottle of wine that gave me five different glasses rather than one glass the same when each time I poured it.

00:32:41: And the thick wines are magnificent in this regard.

00:32:46: As they warm up to room temperature, they just become completely different.

00:32:51: And you think they're fragile because you sense the oxygen in them, but the oxygen somehow animates the wine and they just live in the oxygen.

00:33:01: Sounds really good.

00:33:02: And this is a new wine.

00:33:03: How much will it sell for?

00:33:09: I would imagine twenty five eggs of a hat in the trade, which is what that's going to be about.

00:33:14: thirty five, thirty six pounds on the shelf.

00:33:19: in a retailer.

00:33:21: But, you know, I don't like, I don't differentiate.

00:33:25: if a Pinot Noir is good enough, it can be whatever price it is.

00:33:29: I mean, it's a great wine.

00:33:31: That's the thing.

00:33:32: So I don't like, I don't have this hierarchy that burgundy must be more expensive.

00:33:36: It is more expensive.

00:33:37: It doesn't have to, it shouldn't be if the wine isn't good enough.

00:33:42: But if the wine is good enough and it's not burgundy, it should be the same price.

00:33:45: I mean, whichever way you look at it.

00:33:47: And that's why pricing, the whole pricing podcast, that really intrigued me.

00:33:52: Something I love to discuss.

00:33:54: And it's a bit of a chestnut, but I think a lot of people who go to restaurants and go to retailers, they're not quite sure what is good value when they actually arrive and they see a wine with a price tag of eighty to a hundred pounds.

00:34:09: And they're worried.

00:34:10: They're worried that they're going to get that much enjoyment out of the bottle.

00:34:14: So Emily, you're not drinking today.

00:34:17: Will you be drinking by Christmas time?

00:34:20: I'm hoping to have a little bit of wine on Christmas Day.

00:34:25: So maybe for all the listeners that I'm drinking herbal tea right now and have been for the last week and a half as I had knee surgery on the eleventh of December and I'm currently signed off work technically and which is fun when you're self-employed.

00:34:43: But yeah, I've got a long road of recovery because I had an ACL reconstruction.

00:34:50: So just managing, I had a little blue vine the other day and already, let's have a Christmas market.

00:34:56: And then it was like, oh, my knee doesn't like that.

00:34:59: So it's slowly started days for me.

00:35:01: But once I'm over the worst, I'll be very much looking forward to having a nice bottle of wine.

00:35:08: Are you mobile again yet?

00:35:09: Are you able to walk around?

00:35:10: No, I'm on crutches.

00:35:12: I'm on crutches and I can, I'm only allowed to weight bear on my injured leg, fifteen kilos.

00:35:18: So a light touch on the floor.

00:35:21: I

00:35:22: was a physio day.

00:35:23: So it's pretty pretty focused on recovery and rehab to get me back to walking, hopefully in four weeks.

00:35:32: I'm hoping to be getting

00:35:34: around.

00:35:35: Are you using crutches or?

00:35:38: Yeah, no, only crutches and then I have various people having to drive me to the physio or the doctor's appointments.

00:35:46: I managed to do a taxi by myself today, which was great.

00:35:48: It's just living on the third floor in an outbound apartment in Berlin, which is the equivalent of a fifth floor apartment in the UK is going up and down.

00:35:59: So I'm trying not to leave the house more than once a day as well, just because it feels like Everest at the moment to get up and down steps.

00:36:06: I have huge empathy for anybody in a wheelchair, in crutches, old now to another level that I already had before just because it's an effort.

00:36:18: It's a real effort.

00:36:21: What are you looking for?

00:36:22: drinking when you get back on your feet, so to speak, when your knees get back on your feet?

00:36:30: Honestly, I actually think I'd love to drink a really awesome bottle of champagne.

00:36:35: some Emmanuel Brochet, Le Monde Benoit, something like that.

00:36:38: Yeah.

00:36:40: Something delicious.

00:36:41: and yeah, blonde and white champagne would be my pick.

00:36:44: Or maybe just, I don't know, some room temperature orange wine would also be fine with me.

00:36:50: I think I'll be, I'll be so thirsty for wine by that time that any glass will taste spectacular.

00:37:00: I mean, I'm not saying like you should, you should do your anterior cruciate.

00:37:04: appreciate legemet or whatever but sometimes a break from wine really makes you appreciate it and I think it's we need to give our palates a rest.

00:37:11: I mean we're like drinking wine every day of our lives and sometimes probably too much of it.

00:37:16: I know that when I have clue and I come back my god wine tastes amazing and I don't know whether wine is any better.

00:37:25: it's just like you know it's.

00:37:27: it's the shock of right just rediscovering my taste buds, which have been nullified by whatever illness I've had.

00:37:36: And then if I want to break from wine, which I do, Jamie and I were discussing, this Christmas, not to celebrate, I'm going to be drinking champagne almost all the time.

00:37:47: Because I think I've discovered, rediscovered love grows champagne, a good growth champagne.

00:37:53: It's just right.

00:37:53: It just, you know, right, it sets you in the mood.

00:37:58: Everyone's happy if you've got like a. you don't have to ask do you like do you like red?

00:38:02: Do you like wine?

00:38:03: You know whatever this is this is the wine that everyone gets.

00:38:06: you're gonna be drinking champagne aren't you Jamie?

00:38:09: Yes, I was in champagne last week and I

00:38:13: had a couple

00:38:13: of hours spare.

00:38:15: So I was an eponaise.

00:38:16: I walked up the avenue to champagne and I managed to find this amazing Wine shop that was like a super cool quite a new one and they had this insane collection of all the grower champagnes you can imagine and some new ones and it's not cheap but it's like.

00:38:33: you know.

00:38:33: it's like I mean because good champagne has got expensive in the last five years.

00:38:37: it used to be an utter bargain but I found some.

00:38:40: you know I found a couple of bottles of sixty each.

00:38:43: they were really cool.

00:38:44: so I bought those.

00:38:45: and then there's something fun about going into a shop browsing the aisles and coming away with a couple of bottles.

00:38:52: And if you're a professional, it's like we go often, you know, I'll go and order some wine or order a case of wine and then work through it or something.

00:38:58: And then we'll deal with samples and things people send me because they want me to taste them on camera or to write about.

00:39:05: That's great.

00:39:06: That's really good.

00:39:06: But there's something that, you know, that takes me back to my early days of becoming a novice wine geek.

00:39:13: I was on a relatively tight budget, but I still enjoyed within the confines of that budget going into a wine shop that had a good selection.

00:39:20: chatting to the people and coming away with a bottle.

00:39:24: Then going drinking it and then going back and then telling them about my experiences with that wine.

00:39:28: They said, ah, it's cool.

00:39:29: You know, they're probably just tolerating me and everything.

00:39:32: And they said, well, maybe try this one now.

00:39:33: And it's like, there's something very rewarding about that.

00:39:37: We're going to a restaurant and finding things on the list that are in your sweet spot zone for, you know, what you can tolerate to spend and come by with something nice.

00:39:47: I went to Shebra this week for for lunch and found a really nice wine on the list that was lovely.

00:39:58: When I go to a restaurant, I tend to be looking to spend between fifty and a hundred.

00:40:03: That's my zone where I start looking.

00:40:06: If they've got some good stuff on there, I might go closer to a hundred if it's really cool stuff and they're using more of a cash margin than a GP.

00:40:16: But I will reward a restaurant that's got that's taken an effort producing a list where they've actually put really interesting wines into that list.

00:40:23: Because I know most of their customers probably aren't that wine geeks.

00:40:27: But when they've really taken an effort to produce a list with some really cool things on it, then you reward them.

00:40:34: And if they haven't, then I probably wouldn't drink wine at all.

00:40:36: If it was a restaurant where they haven't really got anything interesting.

00:40:42: But it's very satisfying.

00:40:43: And I think that's the... the thing I never want to lose.

00:40:47: you know in terms of wine that sort of geeky sort of satisfaction of exploring and finding cool things and learning.

00:40:56: and you know it's like yeah restaurants it's an expensive way to drink wine but it's so satisfying when you go into a place and you find something you sit with that wine in a way that's at home I tend to be you know, but I'm mixed between two or three different wines and try them and it's like sometimes just to sit with one wine is really cool.

00:41:16: It's like playing a record instead of listening to Spotify.

00:41:19: Exactly, you know, the old days you used to have an album, you used to be able to fit about twenty three, twenty four minutes on one side of an album.

00:41:26: And, you know, so you put it on, this is vinyl, obviously, you put it on, you listen through, then you turn it over and you listen through again.

00:41:34: There's something, something quite satisfying about that as well.

00:41:38: Whereas Spotify is like, yeah, tasting lots of little samples of things.

00:41:42: It's good.

00:41:43: I mean, I don't, you know, it's, it's, it's really an amazing resource for discovering music.

00:41:49: Just like going to a wine tasting where there's a professional where you can taste fifty wines or a hundred wines in a day.

00:41:54: That's an amazing sort of discovery opportunity, but it's not satisfying.

00:42:00: It's like going to the Pauli style, Pauli style sort of dinner.

00:42:04: where there's all these fancy wines flying around and I really can't stand this event because you get a little sip of something that's you know you'd never be able to afford to drink and then someone else comes around with another bottle and you get another

00:42:18: little sip

00:42:19: of something that's maybe twice the price of that and then something else comes.

00:42:23: and what are you doing?

00:42:25: you're not.

00:42:25: this is a wrong thing to do to a wine taking a little sip and of a status wine or a famous wine and just giving it a few seconds in a boisterous environment where people are doing silly things with their hands.

00:42:38: I mean seriously.

00:42:38: And

00:42:39: you're forgetting the photo on the iPhone for Instagram purposes.

00:42:44: that needs to be part of that transaction.

00:42:46: Yeah, that's part of the deal.

00:42:47: There's a little quick picture on the iPhone.

00:42:49: It's like, what is this?

00:42:50: It's like collecting badges or stamps or something.

00:42:52: It's like, you know.

00:42:53: There's nothing wrong with collecting stamps, but it's much better if you write a letter and you put it in the envelope and you post it.

00:42:59: You know, it's that sort of, it's a legitimate experience of using a stamp.

00:43:04: Whereas taking a picture of a bottle is not, I don't know, it's we've kind of lost something about wine, you know?

00:43:13: I don't think it's that bad.

00:43:14: I mean, it depends for what reason you're doing it.

00:43:19: I do it.

00:43:19: to remind myself.

00:43:21: Oh no, no, there's

00:43:21: nothing wrong with taking the picture.

00:43:22: What I'm talking about is that experience where you get multiple fancy bottles that you've never been able to afford to buy yourself flying around in an evening.

00:43:30: I know,

00:43:30: I agree with that.

00:43:31: And another one comes around, just like, what do I do?

00:43:33: I dump this or do I just slug it to get the next taste?

00:43:36: And it's like, and then the context of that, then taking a picture of it is like, I mean, it's like, you didn't even think about the wine.

00:43:43: This is the choice.

00:43:44: If you go to a restaurant which has a vast menu, And you think, oh, I better order lots of different dishes, because I don't know which ones the best ones are.

00:43:52: If you ever go to a restaurant, which has a very limited menu, then everything is cooked really well and precisely, you hope.

00:44:00: I mean, or even no choice.

00:44:02: I actually enjoy more going to no choice restaurants.

00:44:06: If I drink a bottle of wine, it's because I've chosen it.

00:44:09: And to go back to what I said earlier, I want to have a relationship with the bottle of wine.

00:44:14: I want to have a monogamous relationship.

00:44:17: And I want to really explore how that wine develops.

00:44:21: The best wines can give you so much, so much difference.

00:44:25: If you have five or six bottles of wine on the table, your brain becomes distracted.

00:44:30: You have a sensory overload.

00:44:33: You're never engaging with what's in front of you.

00:44:36: And I have colleagues, I love them dearly, but they have vast wine collections.

00:44:43: And so they have the luxury, when they invite you over to dinner, of saying, OK, we're going to open this, this, this, and this.

00:44:51: Suddenly, there's four or five bottles of wine.

00:44:54: You try them all, and you try them in such a cursory way that you think like, no, I don't really fancy that.

00:44:59: There's no, no, no, I don't fancy that either.

00:45:01: So they disappear to the cellar, bring out another six bottles of wine.

00:45:05: There's like, fifteen to twenty bottles of wine on the table.

00:45:08: None of them have been drunk.

00:45:10: None of them are any good.

00:45:12: Well, they are good.

00:45:12: Some of them are probably very good.

00:45:14: But had we restricted ourselves to one bottle, two bottles maximum, we've got so much more out of it, because we would have like sat back and relaxed.

00:45:25: But we were not relaxed because there were so many wines to try.

00:45:30: And, you know, and it just became cacophony, really.

00:45:34: Although the drapes on dinner we had, I've just looked at my notes, you actually brought four bottles along to that.

00:45:40: Emily, I think you got three.

00:45:42: Yes, but actually,

00:45:44: it wasn't too much fun there.

00:45:45: It was the best

00:45:46: environment to taste them, because it was relaxed.

00:45:48: It was relaxed.

00:45:49: There was no competition, and we enjoyed drinking them.

00:45:53: But yeah,

00:45:54: they all have, you chose them wisely.

00:45:56: They all have glass out of each bottle.

00:45:59: And you know, everyone bought Goodmine.

00:46:01: Everyone gave... the wine respect, each wine respect, you know, whether we liked it or not, we respected it and we tried it and we, you know, engaged.

00:46:11: I mean, you can say that's fun as an exercise, but if you go to dinner and you come back and you think like, I drank a brilliant bottle of wine, you really remember everything about that bottle of wine.

00:46:23: I remember fragments about what we had on the day and I remember, you know, the names of the wines and you took detailed notes and great photos as well.

00:46:33: And the Marie-Cortaine wine that I alluded to before was a highlight for me, but then I've had it since then as well, a couple of occasions.

00:46:43: So that's sort of reinforced that, you know, I took that away with me.

00:46:47: And this thing is like to take away.

00:46:49: wine is obviously the sensory experience.

00:46:52: It's, you know, what we drink on the day with the friends, it's the memories that are created.

00:46:59: That's the really, amazing part of drinking wine.

00:47:03: It's like carrying these memories on for, you know, months, years even, and then coming back to them and sort of like, you can come back to them and they can be unreliable memories, but there's something magic about the way wine unlocks parts of our imagination and, you know, association, associative sort of processing that I think is unique as a drink, really.

00:47:28: I think it's why you're love drinking wine and talking about wine is because one thing, it's a link in the process, you know, and it causes us to sort of, you know, do this podcast and write about it and visit places to find out, you know, how the wine came to be.

00:47:52: So wine is like the beginning of the journey.

00:47:54: It's the journey and it's the beginning of the journey and hopefully never the end of the journey.

00:47:59: Now that we've sort of talked about the wonder and the positivity and our highlights, should we discuss maybe the challenges of twenty twenty five and the wine business?

00:48:10: I

00:48:12: think that's a really good thing to do.

00:48:14: But just looking at the timing coming up to the hour.

00:48:19: And I think that would be a really good subject for a separate podcast.

00:48:23: OK, we'll reconvene again digitally then maybe for that one.

00:48:28: That suits me.

00:48:30: Yeah, because I feel we shouldn't also end on a sort of like negative note as well, because I mean, we're celebrating twenty twenty five.

00:48:40: God knows what twenty twenty six holds in store.

00:48:43: But I think that's I think it's been a really good sort of summary of what we've once enchanted us and excited us and, you know, and how we've why how and why we started to do this.

00:48:57: Yes.

00:48:57: Well,

00:48:59: then I say cheers and happy Christmas Happy New Year to the two of you and looking forward to making January a little bit brighter with our

00:49:11: And

00:49:12: we're hoping for a very fast rehabilitation process for you with your ACL which is definitely

00:49:18: yeah, yes

00:49:21: I hope that I hope that it's a smooth and processing that you get you get back to to full fighting, scrapping, fitness.

00:49:32: Just seeing from purple tea to champagne, definitely.

00:49:35: We want to see the champagne glass in your hand.

00:49:38: Reignite my professional football

00:49:39: career.

00:49:40: Yes.

00:49:42: Nice one, guys.

00:49:44: Great.

00:49:44: Lovely to see you all.

00:49:46: So that's goodbye from me.

00:49:47: Jenny, good.

00:49:50: Goodbye from me, Greg.

00:49:52: And me, Emily Harman.

00:49:53: Sorry.

00:49:55: So smooth, as always.

00:49:58: Thanks

00:49:59: for everybody who tuned in.

00:50:01: and just a reminder you can find us on Instagram at just another wine podcast.

00:50:07: I'm glad you didn't ask me that.

00:50:11: As well as all the

00:50:12: media channels Spotify etc.

00:50:15: etc.

00:50:16: Bye.