EP6: Wine Wisdom: Insights from Peter Andrews oWine Wisdom: Insights from Peter Andrews on South African Wines and Their Makers

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
All right.
Peter Andrews of culture wine.
We are here today.
last time I saw you, man, we were, we wereprobably on the dance floor in Mexico and
then, next thing I knew it was like, wherewould Peter go?
And everyone's like, well, he, he, flewout to South Africa at like 3 a And I was
like, dear God, that must've been ahorrible flight.

(00:24):
but welcome to the show and super happy tohave you here today.
Yeah, thanks man.
Yeah, that was,
That was a rough morning.
I basically didn't sleep for two days.
So I got to the airport very early, wasafraid I would miss my flight.
So I forced myself to stay awake.
And then I was just like a total nut jobfor two days until I got to South Africa.

(00:47):
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
Well, you know, we have a mutual friendand we decided to have this podcast
because I'm super interested.
Just
You know, in food in general, I also have,you know, an agriculture background, but I
would say in the last several years,what's intrigued me a lot has been the
idea of taste, which I think, Somalias areprobably some of the best tasters in the

(01:11):
world, right?
Besides maybe your, your top chefs, butthen Somalias are really trained in that.
So I find that super fascinating, but, Imean, why don't you just tell us a little
bit of your background and kind of whereyou've come from and what you're up to
today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I was, so I'm, I'm the founder ofCulture Wine Company, which is the only

(01:33):
importer, wholesaler and retailer in theUS that focuses exclusively on South
African wine.
So we have access to so many differentamazing wines in this country.
But for some reason, for many years, SouthAfrica has been very underrepresented.
So I launched this company to try to growthat representation.
I've been in the wine industry for

(01:55):
15 years now, a little more than that.
And I started off in kitchens.
So I went to cooking school and thought Iwas going to be a chef, had plans to open
a restaurant and kind of this farm totable concept years and years ago.
And went and cooked and lived in Italy andrealized during those 80 hour work weeks

(02:17):
for like a couple of euros an hour, itwasn't.
It wasn't a path I wanted to take for thelong haul.
It's hard to have a quality, like a workto life balance.
So thankfully the wine or the cookingschool I went to started us even as 18
year olds, they had a special license tolet us taste wine underage in a class

(02:38):
setting.
So I was 18 years old, like learning howto taste wine, like analytically and
professionally, which most 18 year oldsare, I mean, I'm not saying I was good at
it, but it was a good, good start.
Good planted the seed.
And so after I got back from Italy, Idecided I was going to switch into the
wine world and never really looked back.

(02:59):
Wow.
So this is all taking place at 18 yearsold.
So, yeah.
So basically I came from a pretty poorfamily and I learned how to cook because I
was a sick father.
And so I kind of was either frozen mealsfor like my entire teenage years or, you
know, fresh food occasionally.
So.
That brought me to cooking school andthen, you know, again, as like an 18 year

(03:23):
old, I was doing some wine classes, butalways thought food would be the path
forward.
Then at 21, when I was living in Italy,that's where I realized I wasn't going to
do food full time.
And that's when I moved into the wineside.
Luckily, the part of Italy I was in calledFriuli Venezia Giulia, which is like in
the far northeast.

(03:44):
It's on the border of Austria, Slovenia.
It was part of the Austro -HungarianEmpire until World War I.
So the influences are like Germanic,Slavic, Italian.
So the food and the wine is reallyinteresting.
So fortunately, the region I was in is oneof the most famous white wine regions in

(04:05):
Italy.
And so I went to a couple of wineries ondays off and it was just like all these
things kind of clicked.
And...
Yeah, I came back and started doing allthe big wine certifications and went all
the way up to the last prerequisite of amaster of wine.
And yeah, I've been in mostly in retailfor my career since, but yeah, food

(04:28):
brought me to wine for sure.
And it like, you know, they always,they're very symbiotic.
So having that background is always veryhelpful when I'm looking at buying a wine,
looking at talking about a wine to asommelier, like it's all, it all is super
helpful.
Right.
And so, I mean, with the food and wine, Imean, because wine also sounds pretty

(04:52):
intense, at least the training part, butyou would say that it was a little bit
more relaxed than the food part.
Both were kind of hectic, man.
My cooking school was like verymilitaristic and it was good.
I needed it.
I was like totally a shithead growing up.
But I like the school would basically...

(05:13):
Like if you didn't come to, if you didn'tcome to class with like a freshly pressed
white chef coat with like a T iron in theback, no facial hair at all.
Like if you came with any of those thingsincorrect, you would get kicked out of
class.
And if you got kicked out twice, you gotdropped and then you would have to make up

(05:34):
each class was six hours long.
And so if you had to make up a class, youwould have to do two six hour classes back
to back for three weeks straight.
So it was like pretty hardcore.
So it kind of forced you to either take itseriously or essentially get out.
And so that really actually kind ofwhipped me into shape pretty fast.
And then the wine side, by the time I gotto the last level of, I did what's called

(06:00):
the Wine and Spirits Education Trust, orWSET.
There's kind of two paths you can takewith wine certifications if you want to
even go that route, which you don't haveto, but if you decide you want to, you go
like,
the Court of Master Sommeliers, which isan American based program.
And that's like, you know, sommelier ledrestaurant led.
And then you can go to the WSET, which isLondon based.

(06:23):
And it's really all about economics andlike kind of, it gives you, I think to me
a more rounded education around wine.
And I went that route.
And so when you go to the last level, itwas called a diploma.
I was tasting.
between 50 and 100 wines a week, everyweek for two years.

(06:44):
And so by the time that was done, I waslike, I'm really tired of wine.
I still love it so much, but it was just,it was hectic, man.
So you have to just, it's like free throwshooting.
If you want to get really good at it, yougot to like practice that muscle over and
over and over again.
And that's like, so to me, anyone can be agreat taster.

(07:05):
It's just a matter of shooting all thosefree throws, you know.
Basically, dude, I went through thisprogram based out of London called the
WSET.
It's like a four -step program that getsincreasingly more challenging.
Then after you finish their last, which isthe diploma, you can go through Master of
Wine.
The Master of Wine program is incrediblyhard.

(07:26):
There's like 250 of them in the world.
It can take up to 10 years to pass thisthing.
You could become a doctor and a lawyerbefore Master of Wine.
So anyway, I went through all the waythrough the diploma, but I was tasting 50
to 100 wines a week for two years while Iwas doing that.
So it was hectic.

(07:48):
It was grueling, but it was also likereally amazing and very challenging.
I was very lucky to live in California andit really actually, I didn't fully realize
that until I went to South Africa for thefirst time.
And I met with...
these sommeliers there who were doing thisprogram as well.

(08:09):
And they were really struggling to findthe wines that they needed to taste to be
able to get like a full spectrum of likewhat Southern Italy was like, what parts
of France were like, what parts ofCalifornia were like.
Whereas like I could call a distributorwho was focused entirely on Italy and get
some of the rarest kind of Italian winesthe next day.

(08:31):
And so I was incredibly, incrediblyfortunate to be able to.
taste and taste and taste wines from allover the world constantly.
So that was a long process to finish thatin 2018 and have been continuing on the
wine path since.
Wow.
Interesting.

(08:51):
I mean, a hundred to 200 wines a week.
I mean, sounds like a blur in multipledimensions.
I mean, not only in taste, but even, Imean, I'm sure you're drinking small
amounts if you can.
You guys, dude.
That's right.
We're like two years straight.
That's right.

(09:11):
That's right.
Okay.
See, I learned something there.
You don't drink every sip or you'd be justhammered the whole time.
man.
So I mean, are you when I'm curious on thetaste side of this in this part.
So is there someone who's kind of rightthere over your shoulder explaining?

(09:32):
the components of taste to you when you'redoing that type of thing, or is it a lot
of it just individual and you're trying tofigure it out or how does that work?
Yeah, it's a little bit of both.
It's definitely like on you to put in thetime and to like try to get it.
But like, if you don't know what a guavatastes like, how the hell could you
possibly pick it out in a wine?

(09:52):
You know, like if you live in Kansas, youprobably don't have access to tropical
fruit very easily.
And that is these kind of things areelements of wine.
And so.
I think the best, so basically theseprograms are offered by different schools
around the world.
And the best ones will find ways for theteachers to help you grasp what these

(10:14):
flavor profiles are.
But then a lot of it does come down tolike, you just kind of start to memorize.
Like well, Sauvignon Blanc often hastropical fruit flavors while Chardonnay
does not.
And then you start to kind of break itdown.
But for me, what I always recommend, Iteach classes now for that.
that program, the WSCT, and also teachsome consumer classes.

(10:35):
And honestly, what I always recommend isjust like when you go to the farmer's
market, when you go to your grocery store,like pick things up and smell them, you
know, or when you're cooking, payattention.
And I think that's a big part of it is itactually forces you to be more present.
It's easy to just like eat and drink andjust like go through life and not really

(10:56):
pay attention to smell and taste.
But when you actually like kind of slowdown and start to think about like, okay,
I'm eating a green apple or I'm eating ared apple.
Why do they taste so different even thoughthey're both apples?
Right.
And then you start to kind of like putthat in your memory bank.
And then when you taste wine, you're like,this wine has green apple.
This has yellow apple.

(11:17):
This one has red apple.
And each of those means maybe a differentgrape or a different warmth or coolness of
the climate.
And you start to, you know, put thingstogether as you pay attention more.
Right.
That's, it's super fascinating because inherbalism, a lot of the work we do is, is
working with people even on theirdigestion.
Most, you know, like all your Vedicmedicine, Chinese medicine, typically the

(11:42):
focal point of disease is at the digestionlevel.
It's like, we always go there first andjust knowing, I mean, we work with a lot
of people just on like chewing your food.
because a lot of people don't actuallychew their food myself included.
I'm one of those like rapid eaters, right?
And so I've noticed as I've had to chew myfood and then because in herbalism, the,

(12:06):
the taste is actually an indicator of theaction that it will have on the body,
right?
So whether it's a stringent or sweet orsour, that tells us how it's going to act
in the body.
But until I really started into theherbalism path, I was not tasting my food.
I was not tasting things that I drink andjust realizing how much I'm missing out on

(12:30):
the sensory experience of life and howdull those senses were for me.
And I think that's what's so fascinatingbecause like you're saying now it's like,
if you want to be good at tasting wine,you actually need to be good at just
tasting everything and be present.
And I do think it's such a powerful way tobring presence is just through taste and

(12:51):
And through, and really it's, it'spleasure, right?
At the end of the day, a lot of it isbased on pleasure of the senses in a good
way with this type of thing.
So it's just super fascinating to me, youknow, cause you guys are like the super
tasters.
Well, I'll say there's two things to that.
I think number one, what you're talkingabout is a few steps down the line, right?
So if someone's like curious aboutlearning how to taste wine, you're not

(13:15):
going to start today and tomorrow be agood taster, right?
And what it really means is like,
you have to start paying attention, butit's all it's about like homing in and
like honing your skills.
And it's like it's like a free throw shot,you know, and like if you want to be good
at free throw shooting, you have to do itconstantly.
And it's the same thing.
You're just like constantly trying tosmell and taste.

(13:36):
And so I feel like that's a reallyimportant part of it.
It's it's it's it's it's in us, right?
Like taste is in us, right?
It's and I think that the second part isis like.
The taste is so supreme and smell is sosupremely tied to memory.
And so I think it's so powerful.

(13:57):
So I love when I'm teaching a class andsomeone's like, this reminds me of like my
grandma's house or like my, the soup mygrandma used to make, or, you know, my
dad's like red sauce or whatever.
And it's like, that's like the coolestthing ever because that smell will be in
their mind forever.
Right.
And so there'll be things throughout therest of their life that that happens.

(14:19):
And so for me, like when I first moved toItaly, I was scared as hell.
I didn't speak a single word of Italian.
I was freaking terrified.
And I remember getting to this littlevillage that I was going to live in and it
was May, the entire village had jasmineplanted.
So imagine getting to a little town and itsmells entirely of jasmine everywhere you

(14:40):
go.
And so now that smell, anytime I smelljasmine, I can find it in wine in like a
second.
And I immediately go back to that liketerrified, amazing, excited feeling I had,
right?
That memory.
And that is like what smell and taste isall about.
And I think that's what happens as youstart to pay attention more.
Cause now you're like, my God, this littletown smells like this.

(15:02):
This food smells like this.
This apple from this specific part ofWashington state smells like this.
And now you start to like, it just allstarts, the world gets kind of smaller and
in a really great way.
Definitely.
Yeah.
We have a huge Jasmine.
Like someone has like a wall of it downthe street from here.
And it's like, when it, when it's on, it'son, you know what I mean?

(15:23):
And it's interesting because it's like, Iwas thinking the other week of like, wow,
smell is so interesting because it'salmost, I don't want to use the word
forceful, but there's no way out of it,right?
When a plant wants you to smell it,there's no way you could be like, no, I'm
going to like plug my ears.
I don't want to hear this sound.
You know what I mean?
Like, I mean, you can plug your nose, butwhen it,

(15:45):
it's in the air, it's right there.
And it's there's no stopping it, which iswhich is really fascinating.
And yeah, my my my ex girlfriend was likewhat I would consider a super smeller.
And I think it made her an amazing cook.
She was a very intuitive cook.
And she knew how to cook things andprepare them and spices and all these
different things.
And it was like, because I felt like shewas such a good smeller, you know,

(16:10):
compared to me.
And so yeah, it's all really interestingstuff.
And so you
Once you finished your school and like yousaid, this school was kind of, it's not
only the training, but it's also thebusiness side.
And the wine industry has like a lot of,you know, like any other industry, right?
When you look at the supply chain and thenthe distribution, it has a lot of

(16:31):
different components.
And so what were you doing at firstcompared to what you're doing now?
Yeah.
So see, after I got back from Italy, Ireached out to a mentor.
and told him I was all in on wine and wasbasically asking him like, what directions
can you take?

(16:51):
Because like you said, the wine world,it's really complex.
Obviously, it's a very old industry, butyou could go into production, you could go
into importing, you could go intodistribution, you could do retail, you
could do sommelier, you could do a millionthings.
Nowadays, you could be an influencer,right?
There's like a million ways you couldengage with it.
And...

(17:11):
I wasn't sure which direction to take.
And so his advice was keep doing thecertification route while you figure it
out, number one.
And number two, get into retail.
And it made it, I was like, that'sbasically I went and stocked shelves at
this like 10 ,000 square foot, like megaliquor store that mostly sold like jug

(17:32):
wine.
But it was really important for me becauseI was like touching bottles and so as
weird as it sounds I was like constantlylooking at different labels and Always
moving things around and like I think justlike touching and seeing and seeing the
names and seeing the brands over and overand over again was a super helpful to just

(17:52):
like start understanding the like the thescale of the wine industry and then I
started going into more like
hand -sell bottle stores and kind of go onthat route.
So the last, that was all within RhodeIsland.
And then I went back to Italy and madewine in the Northwest, did a harvest

(18:16):
there.
And I remember I had this really beautifulmoment where I was harvesting the oldest
section of Barbera, this red grape thatwas on the property.
This was at a place called Cantina orCascina Iulli.
It's a small like natural producer, likean hour and a half from the Barolo area.
It's very like famous area.

(18:37):
And he was known for Barbaro.
It's just like juicy, low tannin, full-bodied red.
And it's native to that area.
And I was harvesting a section of vinesfrom 1935 that were planted by the
winemaker's grandfather.
And...
you always harvest in pairs.
And I was harvesting with the winemaker'sfather.

(18:58):
So his father had planted these vines andhe did not speak English purposefully.
He barely even spoke Italian.
He mostly spoke the dialect of Italianfrom that area called Pia Montese.
And I was finally good enough with Italianwhere I could actually hang with this guy
all day and chat.
And I remember just like him sharingstories about this vineyard his father

(19:19):
planted and...
how hard of work it was and how gratifyingit was and just being like, okay, this is
100 % my world.
Like I am gonna be fully in this, this daysolidified it.
And it was this really special, amazingday.
And it ended up being that the winemaker'sfather's last harvest.
He passed away later, about a year later.

(19:40):
And so it was all just really important togo there, to see a harvest, to pick the
grapes, to help make the wine.
And then shortly after that, I moved outto San Francisco where I am now and have
been in a couple of different retailsettings and import setting.
And then, you know, launch this companyjust six months ago.

(20:03):
Wow.
Super cool.
And I really the it's something thatfascinated me and I got such a great
opportunity with the almond industry to beable like, you know, when, when Mike
called me to go.
do some work for them in India.
You know, normally you get trained inCalifornia and in the office there, and

(20:28):
then you would maybe go somewhere else.
But even then you don't really do thatvery much in that industry.
It's mostly a California industry.
Whereas I got thrown directly into themarket in India, and I was actually
trained as much by the buyers as I was bythe shipper side in California, which was
super, super unique, but it like,

(20:49):
It's something that's so interesting to mein food because most people don't get the
opportunity to see the ins and out of anentire supply chain, which I think is
actually like, it's almost like aspiritual thing to me, you know, like it's
almost like this, this really importantthing to be able to see like to go to a
farm at the farm levels, see the treewithout the crop and then see the crop and

(21:15):
the harvest.
and then watch it get processed and thento be able to go across the world and see
someone consuming that product, you know,in India and then watching the supply
chain there.
It's super unique.
So I can really relate in that way of howkind of precious that opportunity is

(21:35):
because it does connect you at a deeperlevel.
And the fact that you, you know, almondsdoesn't have the kind of lineage.
and prestigious wine.
So I can imagine how special of anexperience that was, you know, to be with
that, you know, something that's beenplanted by grandfather after grandfather.
Yeah, I mean, I think too, like, you know,in the end, wine is agricultural.

(21:57):
It's, it's, it's definitely a lifestyleproduct, you know, so, you know, almonds
don't have like, people dressed up in niceclothes, like walking through the
orchards.
There's no almond influencers yet, butlike,
There is still a really hard industry.
It's hard to make wine.
It takes a lot of talent.

(22:18):
It takes a lot of hard work and grit.
It's honestly something hard to do as youget older.
It's just like you need a young workforce.
But the cool thing about the wine world ismost people who are really serious about
it will work a harvest.
They will work in all three kind of tiersfrom production to distribution to like...

(22:40):
selling to the end consumer.
And it's cool.
I think it's why you meet so manypassionate people in the wine industry.
Even the ones that are like pretentious ashell and like snobby, like it's usually
because they're super passionate, but theydon't really know how to actually
articulate that in a like a relatable way.
But it's amazing.
So that's one of the coolest things islike, I've been really fortunate to travel

(23:04):
around the world all because of wine, allover Europe.
obviously now to South Africa a lot, allover California, many more places.
And like you always have this like easything to connect about.
And like I was just in South Africa and atable with two guys from Slovakia, two

(23:25):
people from Cameroon, a person fromAustria, a person from Germany, one
American, me, and then three SouthAfricans.
And none of us knew each other.
And we're all like having the best fuckingday.
We're just like chatting.
talking like, you know, like all of usdidn't have a ton in common, but we also
had a lot in common at the same time, youknow, and it was, it's like wine.

(23:47):
I just looked at the table.
I was like, this is entirely because ofwine and how like, how cool is that?
You know?
Yeah, no, that's awesome.
So before we kind of go into culture wine,the company that you've started, tell us a
little bit about, you know, when I work myfirst job,
which was in China, I worked for a smallcompany, an American company, as a family

(24:13):
-owned social enterprise, and I soldorganic coffee and honey that came from
the south of China, and we were selling itin Beijing and these places.
And that was where, unfortunately, I wasat the age, and I didn't have the
diligence that you had.
And so it was more of a relaxed startupenvironment.

(24:34):
And so I didn't...
get to like, you know, super coffeeprestige level of like tasting coffee.
But what I did learn was is like, okay,you know, you can't take a crappy grown
bean off of a bad soil or bad growingpractices and then do the most amazing
roasting and then do the most amazing, youknow, coffee making and still have a good

(25:00):
product, right?
It really is about you have to grow itsuper well.
then you have to roast it well, then youhave to prepare it well if you're really
gonna get this top level type ofexperience, right?
And so tell us a little bit about winefrom that perspective.
Yeah, so hold on.
First off, did you say your first job wasin China?

(25:20):
That's amazing.
So not just like, you know, working at In-N -Out in Bakersfield, it was all the way
in another continent.
Yeah, well, technically.
Technically my first job.
Well, it was like under the table, butlike at 16, I was working at the paintball
field.
That's how I met Mike and them, right?
Was I was, I was actually on duty thefirst day they showed up to the paintball

(25:44):
field when they moved back to Bakersfield.
That's how we all met, but that was like acash under the table, like three day a
week, two day a week job.
And then yeah, my first,
my very first job.
I moved to Beijing dude, like 15 daysafter graduating with a one way ticket.
and, yeah, it was like this, cause I wasactually, I was trying to start a coffee

(26:08):
company.
Okay.
So I went to India to study before mysenior year.
And after India, I went to Nepal becauseIndia was so hot that summer that I was
like, I am not traveling the rest ofIndia.
It's the, this is absurd.
And my buddy was like, dude, I'm going togo to Katmandu next week after the school
programs over.
I was like, what's the weather like?

(26:28):
He's like, it's like 84 right now.
I was like, book me a ticket.
And so in Katmandu, I was drinking atpoints in time.
I was drinking some coffee from there.
And obviously a lot of times coffee isassociated with like the higher elevation,
the better the coffee, right?
Like a lot of Colombian coffee in themountain regions.
And I got back to San Diego and I was.

(26:49):
cruising around the like organic fancierstores.
I never saw Himalayan coffee and I waslike, here's my entrepreneur opportunity.
And so next thing you know, I actuallyfind some random Nepali guy who has like
one container of Himalayan beans sittingin the port in Los Angeles.
So I get a sample, go through all this,but anyhow, I'm at an entrepreneur meeting

(27:13):
at San Diego state and I run, I meet thesepeople.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm trying to start acoffee company.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
And they're like, we actually have, youknow, a friend who has an organic coffee
and honey company.
You would be a great fit to go work forthem in China.
And I was like, let's do it.
You know, so that's, that's kind of how Iended up there, but I definitely didn't

(27:35):
get the, the intense training.
It was more like hit the streets and tryand make some sales.
I mean, that's like the beauty of life,dude.
It's like,
just say yes, like take opportunities,like especially as you're younger, it's
like just like get out there and just getyour feet wet and like ask questions and
it just will open so many doors.

(27:56):
It's an amazing thing.
Definitely.
It was one of the better, more terrifyingdecisions in my life, for sure.
But yeah, I mean, so I imagine wine isquite similar to some of these crops,
right?
Where it's like the growing aspect.
You can't just grow it well.

(28:19):
You've got to do everything well.
Yeah, dude.
So I think there's a few different paths.
If you are doing big industrial wine, thenyou're going to do...
You're going to spray the sprays, use thepesticides, use the herbicides to make
sure you get the crop, right?
Because at the end of the day, for the bigguys, it's about the bottom line and about

(28:40):
having X amount of volume every year.
But the producers I work with, and I thinkthe producers most millennials and Gen Z
really care about are the ones that aremore natural and more minimal
intervention.
And that's who I work with in SouthAfrica.
And that's what most, I think, a lot ofthe better producers in the world are
doing.
And so,
They're at the mercy of Mother Nature.

(29:02):
And so it all starts with having the rightvines and the right soils.
And that gets really complicated, but tojust distill it down into a very topical
way, it's like certain wines do better incertain types of soils and climates,
right?
It's the same as coffee beans will do bestat high elevation, right?
So there's certain climates that it needsand same with wine.

(29:24):
And it's fairly...
Fairly versatile and pretty durable grapevines.
You really want to stress them out to makehigher quality wine because the more you
stress the vine, the lower the yield, thelower the yield, the better the
concentration.
And then that yields better wine.
But in the end, if you're a producer thatis not using the sprays and is really at

(29:48):
the mercy of mother nature, that meansevery vintage is a different story, right?
And so...
Like a good example.
This is I was just in South Africa.
We got back last week I was visiting oneof my producers this incredible region
called the Swartland the Swartland is likehas been making wine for a long time, but
it really kind of found its stride in thelast like 25 years and A lot of these

(30:16):
producers kind of came in and realizedthere's always a beautiful old vines dry
farms.
So no irrigation
which stresses the vines out, again,lowering the yield but better
concentration.
It's very dry.
It's very hot.
It's just an intense place to grow wine.
And these producers in the last 25 yearsor so have really found a home there and

(30:38):
they're pushing the boundaries and makingsome of the best wines in the Southern
hemisphere.
And so I went to visit one of theproducers I work with called Clean
Amoscale and they own the oldest vineyardde Savillon Blanc in South Africa.
And it's...
planted in 1965, it's these bush vines,dry farmed, it looks sandy soil, it's

(30:59):
crazy.
And it's all organic.
And one of the problems they have there isbecause it's organic, there's a bunch of
like pests.
So antelope, field mice, birds, birds area huge problem, and even guinea fowl.
And so if it's not antelope eating all theleaves, which exposes the grapes to be

(31:22):
burnt,
It's mice and birds pecking at the fruitand then which exposes them to bacteria.
And so all these things create problemswhen you try to make the wine without
adding all these like enzymes and thingsto help it get through.
So crazy enough, this producer who makesincredible natural wine, they had an issue

(31:44):
with 2022 because of the fruit not beingas good a quality as they needed, all
because of vineyard pests.
And so these things are just like part ofagriculture, you know, and if you're going
to make a product that's very much like astory of a year, then that's the risky
take, you know?

(32:04):
And so it's not just putting the rightgrapes and the right soils in the right
climate.
It's also like tending to and realizinglike Mother Nature has a different story
for you every year.
And that's part of it.
You know, that's part of the fun, part ofthe exploration.
Yeah, it's what makes it exciting in oneway and also just can be absolute

(32:26):
catastrophe at the farm level.
And it is like, man, I can't imagine likejust looking around here in Peru right now
in the valley, in the sacred valley here,there's really not a lot of like the main
thing you have would be birds, right?
But you don't have any like thing likedeer or antelope or other.

(32:46):
types of, of, of animals like that who areinterested in your, in your crop, you
know, and they're, and they're all aboutit.
And, you know, actually in Mexico, I thinkthey use, like, if you saw like the, the
mage plant that really the much biggerlooking agave, it's, it's a lot bigger,
but they usually would use that for like aboundary mark and they'll use that.

(33:08):
And then Hawthorne with its thorns to keepout like deer and certain animals, but
like birds can still move through it.
but they have all these natural kind ofways of keeping out these, these certain
animals.
But it's like you said, I mean, that's onething Mike's dad just always talks about
is like, you could do everything rightthat you can do right.

(33:28):
But then mother nature has always gotsomething for you every year, whether it's
a hail storm or a pest or you know,whatever it might be.
It's, it's a really intense thing.
And like you said, it does create kind ofa story.
One thing really quick to just not go toofar into the weeds, but I have to go a
little bit here.
you know, I, I was hanging out with this,olive oil farmer in Bakersfield when I was

(33:52):
back home and just super interested to, togo deeper into that plant and, and the
fruit.
And I, you know, I didn't realize howimportant it was with like stressing those
plants and then understanding that thereason, the main reason probably that, you
know, the, the Mediterranean istraditionally produced.

(34:14):
the best olive oils is because a lot of itis dry land farmed, right?
They're, they don't have irrigation and,noticing that like, yeah, it's like, if
you cut water, like in California, causeyou know, some farmers have access to easy
water.
It's like, they'll cut water two or threemonths in advance before harvest in order
to shoot up the polyphenol content.

(34:35):
And then that gives you different flavorsand all these things.
so with wine,
Is there certain components thatdramatically change with that?
Is it certain constituents or what'schanging?
Yeah.
Wine also is all the flavors you taste arefrom polyphenols.

(34:59):
Most people call them just phenolics orphenolic ripeness.
Basically, a grape has three stages ofripeness.
It has sugar, acid, and phenolic,polyphenolic ripeness.
All of those hit at different times.
So the art is harvesting when they're atequilibrium, right?

(35:20):
But Mother Nature doesn't always give youthat.
So for instance, I was just in SouthAfrica, there's Southern Hemisphere, so
it's March and they're harvesting, right?
Our harvest is in the fall, theirs is too,it's their fall.
And they had like, talk about like a crazyyear, their winter last year started with

(35:41):
catastrophic flooding like rains theyhaven't seen in nearly 100 years.
And then roads were taking out crazy, butit built the aquifers back up in a lot of
places, right?
So that's great for an area where itdoesn't get much rain other than in the
winter.
But then they got this crazy heat spikesright before harvest, which forced the

(36:04):
white grapes to get picked quickly.
Because what happens with grapes is,
You know how grapes are green?
They're like these little teeny greenberries and then they start to change
color.
So when they're flower all the way togreen, all they're doing is developing
acidity and acids.
And then once they start changing color,all they're doing is developing sugar, but

(36:25):
the acidity is dropping.
And so during that time, phenolic ripenessis starting to catch up to all of that.
So you have acidity at a peak and you havesugar starting to catch up.
and acidity is starting to drop, right?
So you're basically trying to get theseesaw to be balanced with phenolics kind
of like hanging out off center, trying tolike bring it down.

(36:47):
And so if you get a heat spike, whathappens is the sugar spikes and the
acidity plummets, but maybe the phenolicshaven't actually caught up, right?
And so now you're like, shit, do I harvestnow and have a grape that's not perfectly
ripe?

(37:07):
Or do I risk the heat continuing and raincoming and it absolutely destroying the
vintage?
So these decisions have to be madesomewhat quickly around and sometimes
saving, you know, saving a harvest.
And it's, it's, they're really challengingdecisions to make.
And so in South Africa, they just had thisheat spike that forced a lot of producers

(37:30):
to start picking whites, but then thetemperatures dropped and the red started
to catch up in ripeness.
But then, but the issue is that it's nowso late in the season, some of the reds
are never gonna catch up in rightness.
So they're always gonna be a little underripe.
And so this is only in some cases, butit's a really, it's a very like long

(37:53):
winded way of saying like there'ssimilarities to what you're asking about
with olives.
And it's really all about understandinglike.
exactly what you're looking for in termsof ripeness in the fruit and then just in
some ways praying that the weather holdsup for you and then you know that you time
it out the right way.
It takes a lot of skill.

(38:16):
Right.
And so this when you say like you just usea insider term right to a layman when you
said like that'll impact the vintage.
So is the vintage just like does that meanlike this year's unique
compilation of everything that happenedwhich produced this wine.

(38:36):
That's this year's vintage.
Yeah, exactly.
So, you know, even if you're in, let's sayyou have one contiguous vineyard, right?
And let's say that's 20 acres.
Those 20 acres are most likely not goingto ripen at the same time.
There might be like a couple little hillsor like one is facing east, one is facing

(38:58):
west.
And so they all ripen at different times.
and even if it's the same grape.
And so what'll often happen and what I sawhappen this year is like one producer
picked one of their reds, a grape calledMrevedra.
It's originally from Southern France.
It creates a kind of like rustic full-bodied red, but when it's ripe, it's

(39:21):
really like textured and fleshy almost.
One of the vineyards ripened fairly earlyand it was, you know, when you have a lot
of sugar, that means a lot of alcohol.
Right?
So it had a decent amount, like a 14 %alcohol wine, which is medium plus the
high in terms of like alcohol percentage.
But then another section didn't get asripe as they wanted, but they had to pick

(39:45):
it because it wasn't ever going to get anybetter.
And now you're risking like rains coming,birds coming, whatever, and losing it
altogether.
So you got to pick it.
And so now you make these two batches ofMervedra.
One is fairly ripe, one is not.
And now you're going to
you're going to blend those and meet themin the middle.
And now what you hope is that the fairlyripe and the like barely ripe create a

(40:10):
wine that is well balanced.
But what can happen in the worst casescenario there is that it doesn't really
work.
And now you're tasting a wine and you'relike, it's like it's disjointed.
I'm tasting really ripe fruit, but I'malso tasting greenness.
Like what the hell is happening?
Right.
And that's.
That's kind of what you're learning how totaste as like a professional.

(40:33):
So then when you're a buyer or if you're awinemaker, you're like, how do I avoid
that?
Or how do I ensure that there's betterbalance in the wine?
And that comes all the way back to like,this unbalanced wine is coming from the
fact that this vintage was challenging andsome is ripe, some is not.
And you start to just put all those piecestogether.

(40:54):
Wow.
That is...
massively interesting.
Yeah.
Cause I mean, there's blending all thetime.
with like, even with olive oil, right?
A lot of people don't realize that ifyou're buying an olive oil and it has
multiple countries on the bottle, youprobably don't want to buy that.
because that means it's been sitting inbarrels versus getting a single origin,

(41:15):
olive oil, which means it's probably beenbottled within like four hours of being
harvested and pressed, you know, it's a,it's a completely different, quality and
all sorts of things.
So, okay.
I have one question about that.
I mean, is like, is, do they ever make thedecision of, okay, actually this is these,
these two separate, you know, harvest offthe same property.

(41:39):
Like they're not going to blend welltogether.
So do they ever just decide like, okay, wecan't use like whatever one that happens.
Yep.
Happens a lot.
So it, if you're a quality producer, yourname is your reputation.
Right?
And you, if you're not happy with it,you'll often say, okay, I have to release

(42:00):
less wine to the market this year, whichmeans I'm going to make less money this
year.
Right?
And then you would usually sell the stuffoff in bulk because there's probably a
grocery store brand or something down thestreet that may want to put it into a
larger blend.
That's so large that your little amountthat wouldn't work gets, is insignificant

(42:20):
to this, you know, ocean of wine thatthey're making.
So you see that a lot.
But the problem is that if you're a smallproducer, like the producers I work with,
that could be catastrophic.
The difference between a profit and a lossis not large.
And to them losing maybe a whole vineyardor a whole section of a vineyard because

(42:43):
of this that they can't blend in is a bigchallenge.
But on the other hand, a good example is aproducer of mine decided not to bottle one
of their
vintages of red.
And it was because the fruit quality tomake the style of wine that they need,
that they want to make this natural winethat's native yeast, no sulfur added.

(43:06):
It has to be flawless.
But when you're an organic producer andyou have birds and another thing I didn't
mention is baboons are an issue in SouthAfrica.
Baboons like literally go in and thatlittle bastards don't even eat the fruit
They just fucking rip it off and thenthrow it and they but they'll like to
destroy vineyards so in this vintage theyjust there's so many little bastard pests

(43:34):
coming in at the very end and Made thefruit not perfect so then this little like
spoilage happened in the back end of theproduction and they realized shit we can't
bottle this and
So for me as an importer, I mean, I feelfor them tremendously because they're a
tiny producer and they don't have themeans to just let a vintage go away.

(43:58):
But at the same time, that makes merespect them times a million because
they're not going to put a product outthat they can't put their name on.
And to me, that is like, OK, I now respectwhat you're doing even more.
And that's like, I got your back and we'reworking together.
We're going to figure out how to worktogether for years.

(44:18):
and I'll figure out how to support youanother way while this vintage isn't going
to be around.
And so now for a whole year, I'm trying tofigure out how to stretch the previous
vintage into two years, which I shouldonly need one.
So you see things like this, and it can bereally challenging.
And then I think it's my role as animporter and a marketer to try to help

(44:39):
continue telling their story and make surethey get through this on the other side
even better.
But...
Yeah, it can happen a lot and you see ithappen quite a bit.
That's super interesting.
Yeah, that does not happen with almonds.
We'll sell you the almond dust off thefactory floor.
There's no joke.
The factory floor is so clean that theyactually do suck up almond dust and then

(45:03):
make that into a product.
my God, that's crazy.
It just doesn't have, I mean, the...
Yeah, that that lineage component, right?
That deep lineage and the brand for everysingle estate.
Most agriculture industries don't worklike that, right?

(45:24):
Like you're no one's like, I buy myalmonds specifically from this region,
from this farm in California.
You know that that's something that isunique to really, you know, probably a
fraction of the agriculture products inthe world.
I can think about wine and olive.
you know, oil off the top of my head.
I know there's there's more than that, butthat's in general.

(45:46):
When you think of agriculture commodities,it is much more of a commodity and you
wouldn't be willing to take as big ahaircut in order to protect against the
potential damage to the brand.
You know, it makes total sense.
I can actually almost see, though, like apotential like startup innovation.

(46:06):
where if you, if you could test at alaboratory level, like, okay, here's the
flavor profile of this grape that we havethat is not usable with our stuff.
And then other farms are submit or othervineyards are submitting their stuff they
can't use.
And then if there could be a match tobring these two disparate ones together,

(46:28):
that would happen to work.
And then it would be like, let's blendthese, you know?
Yeah.
I mean, there are brokerages that do this,dude, in the wine world.
There's huge ones here in California thatbasically entire, like, they're so deeply
involved in that element on such a majorscale that they, basically their
projections for where the industry is,like, where we have too much planted, we

(46:52):
have not enough planted, we're over-cropping, we're under -cropping.
Like, their analysis on a given year iskind of like where the industry is headed.
So almost every year there's thesebrokerages and then some other kind of
like research firms that'll say like,okay, California is overplanted by 15 ,000

(47:12):
acres or it's underplanted by this.
And I think we're overplanted right now tohave equilibrium between supply and
demand.
But yeah, I mean, that's exactly whatyou're saying.
There are people who like literally dothat for their job in there.
Yeah.
And I think that's why, on one hand,people are growing grapes.

(47:36):
They're risking a lot.
Growing grapes is inexpensive.
And just like, I would say the one thingthat growing grapes has in common with
every agricultural product is that thegrower, in every sense, makes the least
amount.
It's always like, if you're the almondgrower, the grape grower, the apple
grower,
you're making less than the distributorthan the retailer in terms of margin, you

(48:00):
know?
And it's really hard.
And that's why there's so many like littlesmall kind of co -ops that'll take on
little small producers to try or growersto help them try to like make a living out
of it.
But it's challenging to do that, to grow.
And yeah, these, I think, sorry, likegoing on a tangent, but I think.

(48:25):
What I was meaning to say too is like, Ithink this is why people are so interested
in like natural wines and these minimalintervention wines, because a lot of these
producers, whether they had a great yearor not, they're going to put it into a
bottle.
And I think consumers are down to supportthat because at least it's like, they feel

(48:47):
like it's genuine.
It is the story of the year.
It is the producer like putting theirheart and soul into this bottle.
and for better, for worse, the quality maybe good, the quality may not.
but I think that's a big part of what thatnatural wine minimal intervention movement
is.
Right.
And so I want to talk more about thenatural wine side of things.

(49:10):
I mean, I really just started to learnabout that in the past couple of years,
but I really don't know what it means.
I'm not a huge, you know, wine drinkermyself personally.
so.
What does that mean?
I mean, I think most people for a longtime would have assumed that they're
always drink like wine is natural, butthat's not the case.
And it's not the case with most productstoday and in certain places, especially in

(49:34):
the U S and so what does that really mean?
I mean, honestly, dude, I think there's alot of greenwashing and I think there's a
lot of confusion even within the industry.
There are some folks who are super staunchabout particular aspects of winemaking
where they won't buy it.
And I think some of that comes from justlike a little too dogmatic, but in

(49:56):
essence, I think the element of naturalwinemaking is that it is coming from a
vineyard that is farmed organically,either certified or not, or at least
sustainably.
There is native yeast used.
So grapes have a native yeast, like abloom on the grape that can create the
fermentation on its own.

(50:18):
Oftentimes, that yeast is not strongenough to actually finish the
fermentation, so you need to give it aboost of some additional.
I'm trying not to go too far down theweeds, but that's a challenging thing.
Then usually, there's no enzymes added,there's no additional non -natural things
that a fermentation would need to finish.

(50:40):
You let the fermentation start and you getit to the finish line.
You should be keeping your…
your winery very sanitary, so no spoilageyeast and things can get in and create off
compounds.
And then the last thing would be duringfermentation and during bottling, sulfur

(51:00):
is probably the most controversialelement.
It shouldn't be, because sulfur isnatural.
It's a naturally occurring compound.
But in the wine world, you often seepeople say, I don't want any sulfur in my
wines.
Sulfur is usually used at least at thebottling.
to help it as an antioxidant.
And so if you want to drink your wine likea year or more down the road, you usually

(51:24):
need a little bit of sulfur bottling tohelp ensure that it can age.
And there are some folks in the naturalwine world who think there should be zero
sulfur, they call it zero zero.
So it's none added during production andnone added at bottling.
And that usually can create some funkywines with very short amount of time in
bottle.

(51:44):
So it can get, it's really complicated asyou can tell.
And for me, and this is why I think it'scomplicated is because everyone has their
own interpretation of it.
To me and what I look for is that there'sconsistency.
I think you can harvest, you can, you canfarm wine organically or, you know,
sustainably.
You can use native yeast and you can use alittle sulfur in your production and then

(52:09):
still make a natural wine.
And I think importantly, it's clean.
It's fault free because you have a cleansanitary cellar and you are able to age it
and know that every bottle is relativelyconsistent because of that little bit of
sulfur use.
And like as someone who has worked inretail for a long time, what's critically

(52:31):
important to me is every time I give you abottle of wine, I know what you're going
to get out of it.
And I want, I think you as a consumerprobably want that too.
And.
I don't want to work with the wine,especially shipping all the way from South
Africa where it's not super stable becauseit was like no sulfur, blah, blah, blah.
I want to know that I can give my Somaliasand consumers a bottle and they know what

(52:56):
they're going to get, the consumer isgoing to get, you know?
And I think that that's super, super,super important if you're going to spend
20, 30 plus dollars on a bottle of wineand it can still meet the like social
values and the environmental values thatpeople want.
And so, yeah, that's does this doesnatural wine then?

(53:18):
I mean, do people not like collect thoseas much?
Is it not collectible in that way?
Well, I think I think the issue is thatwhat people a lot of people consider
natural wine is like really on the far endof the spectrum where it's like not
filtered, not fine.
So super cloudy.
There's no sulfur.

(53:39):
And so those are.
typically not going to last like superlong.
But there are some like classic producersthat are natural and like have been that
way forever and they are super ageable.
And I think the so it really as everythingin it, it depends.
But I think most what I'm seeing in thenatural wine world is it's mostly younger

(54:05):
drinkers that are getting into it becausethey they want to they're environmentally
conscious.
you know, Gen Z millennials, they'resocially like they have very strong social
values usually, and they want to supportthings that they care about with their
purchasing decisions.
And I think natural wine, you know,organic green, better for you, whatever
the category or the way you describenatural wines, I think that's a big

(54:29):
element of it.
And I don't know if that crowd iscollecting wine as much as they're just
buying to drink, you know?
So I think.
most of the wines people buy forcollecting are like the high, high end,
you know, a hundred plus dollars a bottlekind of wines.
And I think that's a different worldaltogether.

(54:50):
I mean, I think they're often natural orwhatever, but it's, it's different.
It's very complicated.
It's hard to distill it down.
And I think the wine industry right now isstruggling to like,
work with natural wine because it'scomplicated.

(55:12):
But on one hand, it's getting more peopleinto drinking wine, which is a challenge.
It's been a challenge.
I think a lot of younger folks are notdrinking.
Like you just said, you don't really drinkvery much wine.
I think a lot of younger people wouldrather be on the healthier side of life or
whatever, and they're not drinking wine asmuch.
Natural wine is getting them into wine,which is crucial.
We want more people to find anappreciation for it and be interested.

(55:37):
And natural wine, I think, is doing thatmore than any other wine.
But I think the problem is that there's alot of misunderstandings around it and a
lot of like intense, it should be nosulfur.
Like for instance, I went to a wine shopand tried to sell them wine and they're
like, I will only buy it if it's undercertain parts per million of sulfur.
But they couldn't explain why this levelwas like their most important thing.

(55:59):
So it's just like this number that theyfelt was not good.
It's a natural compound, again.
So I think what's really important is thatwe take that interest in the younger
generation that is like, cool, I lovenatural wine, help them understand what it
is, and then kind of help continue guidingtheir journey to know that like, it's a
very wide and all encompassing kind ofelement of wine.

(56:21):
And there's a lot of styles to it and tryto help them find more to it than just
being like, I only like natural wine, ifthat makes sense.
Yeah, no, for sure.
I mean, and it's...
Yeah, in some ways it's like you said, itbecomes, you know, for most people in a
busy day to day life, it's, you know, wemake a lot of decisions based off of

(56:43):
headlines and, and tick -tock videos andblogs and, and, and it's keywords.
And it's, I think for people who arereally deep into things, it's, it's really
bothersome because it's like, you'remissing the point.
At the same time, it's also like, well,
you know, everyone is on the wheel goinground and round with their job and their
family.
And there's not so much time, but I mean,even the fact like, I mean, people take

(57:06):
sulfur supplements, you know what I mean?
Like, I mean, so it's, yeah, but it's,it's interesting because I actually do
view, I mean, I view wine very much as a,as a, you know, if, if I were to drink
more wine, it would be as a healthsupplement, essentially.
You know, obviously I think, you know, Iwould bring in the component of pleasure

(57:26):
and community if possible, but in general,I very much viewed as a medicinal thing
because it is, it's rich in all thesepolyphenols and antioxidants.
It's just a matter of, you know, how muchare you drinking?
Right.
It's really, but you can treat itmedicinally.
And for those who don't know, I mean, youknow, herbal medicine, right before

(57:47):
distillation was invented, it was all donein wine for the most part.
Right.
So you would put your herbs in all thesemedicinal plants into a bottle of wine or
whatever vessel, you know, that they woulduse.
And then you would let it extract into thewine.
And that's how you had your herbalmedicine.
And then when they figured out like, youknow, distillation was this like just like

(58:12):
moment for the alchemists who created itbecause it was like, whoa, we've now
gotten the essence of the wine.
Right.
And so for them, they viewed like this,this distilled alcohol as like a precious
gift from the gods, because now theycould, you know, you could extract
medicine better.

(58:33):
You could do all sorts of extractions waydifferent than you could with wine.
Right.
Because if I have like a 14 % wine, I'monly going to be able to get out a
fraction of the constituents out ofwhatever medicinal herb that I'm looking
for.
But if I have a 40 or 50 % distilledalcohol,
Now I can extract even more medicinalproperties out of the plant.

(58:55):
but it's interesting because originallyall of these things, I mean, it's really
modern culture that views alcohol assometimes a potentially bad thing.
Right.
And we think about all of these negativesides, but there's no doubt that, I mean,
wine is medicinal and you just gotta be,you gotta find your way through it.
And what's, what is your own personalrelationship with, right?

(59:17):
It's like, Hey, if you buy a bottle,
and it can't last more than one night.
All right.
Let's play with that.
But if, but if you can drink a glass everythree days or, you know, here and there,
that's, that's a fantastic thing,especially if it, if it is having, you
know, that good medicinal polyphenolcontent, I mean, this is it's good

(59:39):
medicine for a reason.
I'll go buy a bottle of water.
Make it South Africa.
Yeah, dude.
Yeah, well, it'll be a dog it'll be It'sgonna be it'd be a little expensive to
find a South African wine down here.
I've never been wine before I want tobring one up next time you come I Will I

(01:00:00):
will I mean, it's definitely it's growinghere, dude I mean everything
agriculturally is booming in Peru thesedays, you know, the other big one here was
what is peace?
Right?
You know, Pisco is really big down here,but now the wine is becoming more and more
of a thing.
And I think it's, you know, it's, it'sdecent for the price.
I mean, that's, that's a problem, right?

(01:00:21):
Is when you're ignorant, you it's, it's,it's, it's kind of a blessing, you know,
like ignorance is bliss.
So I can drink whatever they pretty muchgive me.
And I'm like, you know, and so it wouldbe, it would be fun.
I'll bring you some bottles next time Icome home.
That way you can give, give the proper.
Tasting to it.
Yeah, man.
Yeah, I'll say so I like to kind of wrapup on the natural thing like For me with

(01:00:47):
with culture wine and I think what themessage I try to really like get through
when I meet with sommeliers or consumersthat are really like hardcore about
natural wine But it's again this confusingthing.
I think for me what's really important isour people Supporting good people hard
-working people that are doing it theright way

(01:01:09):
And so to me, that is like, again, I thinkit's important to find producers that are
not spraying a lot in the vineyard or notspraying at all, like herbicides,
pesticides, using regenerativeagriculture, dry farming as much as
possible, and then clean cellars.

(01:01:29):
You know, native yeast is important, butI'm totally down with the little sulfur
because I do want to see wines evolve in abottle and have consistency.
And so.
All those things from a production pointof view are important, but at the same
time, like in South Africa in particular,I see people fight through adversity more
than any region I've been to by far.

(01:01:53):
In any given day, there's usuallysomething called load shedding where the
government shuts down power for anywherebetween two and sometimes 12 hours.
So that is very challenging when you'retrying to run a winery, especially during
harvest or bottling time.
There's no subsidies there like there arein the EU for grape growing and wine
making.

(01:02:14):
Sometimes in the EU, there's even rebateson bottles sold and none of that exists in
South Africa.
And beyond that, just the general pay peryear is challenging.
So there's not a lot of money to reinvestback into the wine, buy new oaks.
It's mostly neutral barrels and peopleshare equipment a lot.
And I think the things that people...

(01:02:38):
go through in a given day, in a given yearthere are so extreme.
And like that's what I'm supporting moreso than like natural or whatever box it
fits into.
That is so important to me.
And that's like what I like to talk aboutmore is like, I'm just like so impressed
and respect what these producers aredoing.

(01:03:01):
And I think that that is really the key tome is the people behind the wine more than
anything else.
Yeah.
And, and it's, it's interesting becausethere, there is, like you said, I mean,
like the electricity challenge, I mean,that could be devastating when you have
this schedule, right?
When you're talking about it's like, Hey,if we wait another couple of days, what

(01:03:23):
happens to sugar and acid if the heatspikes, but all of a sudden like
electricity's out, you know, and Ibelieve, right.
I mean, isn't, I mean, South Africa isalso having some pretty gnarly water
issues now in the cities.
Yeah, there's yeah.
Water is a big, big problem there.
Mexico City, Rio and Johannesburg are alltowns that have like very serious water

(01:03:49):
restrictions right now.
And yeah, I mean, that's a real big issue.
And it's another thing, South Africans,the wine industry obviously can use a lot
of water, but I think what's phenomenalabout what I'm seeing in so many,
especially the producers I work with isthat they're dry farm.
And so that will assuredly make youryields lower because if you can't pump it

(01:04:15):
with water, it's just not going to grow asmuch.
You're not going to get as fat of berries.
But if you're producing quality wine, thenthat's the point.
And so for me to support these producersthat are not taking water from the
municipalities to grow their grapes anddry farming, that's just like another
element of
the quality that they're doing.
It's another incredibly important piece ofthe story.

(01:04:37):
And it's like, I'm so stoked to supportthat.
Yeah, it really is.
I mean, for, for anyone who's not inagriculture, you know, when I look at like
us agriculture, you know, and this isn't,I mean, I love my farmers, but you gotta
be real at a certain point.
And it's like, a lot of these guys arekind of, you know,

(01:05:00):
You're just very out of touch with thenatural world in ways.
I mean, they still check the weather.
They still do all these things and mothernature is still very much involved.
But there's a big difference when you'redry land farming and the only rain and
water you're going to get is whatever thesky gives you.
And you don't have a pump where you'rejust going to start pumping out of the

(01:05:23):
ground or from a canal instantly.
And it's a completely.
different type of experience and challengethat and you're right dude, it is it's
absolutely Impressive.
It's also a massive roller coaster, youknow I mean regular farming is a roller
coaster But this type of farming is iseven bigger and I agree I do think that's

(01:05:46):
where the story in lies every year andthat's what makes it so difficult yet so
rewarding is to see what because really itis like it's like a
What did we produce together with mothernature this year?
Like what came of it?
At the end of the year and like, how didwe adapt and respond to the given

(01:06:08):
conditions?
But you're not necessarily strong armingnature like a lot of modern, Western
farming does, right?
It's like, Hey, I don't care what'shappening next week.
I'm planting my seed in the ground withmy, with my digital tractor and I'm going
to put water on it immediately, pump itout of the ground.
Like,
It's a completely different type ofexperience and one to definitely be

(01:06:31):
respected to another degree.
I couldn't agree more.
It's super cool.
So tell us, I mean, what exactly isCulture Wines?
What are you guys doing?
What's the fundamental of that?
Yeah, so it's just me for now.
I hope I can grow it, be a team.
But right now I'm the bookkeeper, I'm theadmin, I'm the sales guy.

(01:06:55):
I'm the janitor.
I basically, I started, I went to SouthAfrica in 2023 and was like completely
enamored.
I got inspired like beyond belief when Iwent there because I went just on a

(01:07:15):
holiday.
I had left a job that I was in anexecutive role and was just like,
burning the candle at both ends and sostressed and burnt out.
And finally was able to travel to theother side of the world with like complete
mental freedom.
And when I was there, I ended up at a winefair and I met nearly 30 producers.

(01:07:40):
I tasted every single wine there and itjust like blew my mind.
My perception of what South African winewas relative to what it actually is was
completely different.
And that's because what we see here in theUS, historically what we've seen has been
the more like large scale brands that arekind of the opposite of what we're talking
about, where they're doing moreirrigation, more spraying, more, you know,

(01:08:03):
they're built to export around the world.
But these small minimal interventionproducers were like mind -blowingly good
and I had never heard of any of them.
And so I basically came home and was soinspired by that trip.
I was like, I want to import.
I'm ready to start my own business.
I don't think there's much of these in themarket.

(01:08:24):
Let me do research." And the researchbacked it up.
There's less than 1 % of all wine importedinto the US is from South Africa.
And so I was like, this is crazy.
These producers are so supportive of oneanother.
They're making incredible stuff.
I'm going to do this.
And so I went back a few months later.
I pitched several producers to work withme and let me be their US importer.

(01:08:48):
And I ended up partnering with nineproducers to import 22 wines from them.
And so I import and wholesale throughoutCalifornia.
And then I have an online retail store andlike wine club, and I shipped to 44 States
in the U S and you know, like I saidearlier, it's the culture wine companies,

(01:09:08):
the only importer wholesaler and retailerin the U S that focuses just on South
African wine.
So wildly underrepresented.
I started the company to just be like aconduit for their stories, for the
winemaker stories.
And so I try to work with as many womenowned and black owned wineries as I can.

(01:09:29):
Still, even in South Africa, where a largemajority of the population is black, you
see very little black winemakers or blackownership.
And so my goal is to try to bring as manyblack and women owned brands as possible,
or at least
winemakers, it's possible, into the US andtry to tell their stories and give more of

(01:09:50):
a platform and share their stories.
And so I got my first container into theUS in November of 2023.
I've almost sold that in the first fivemonths of being in operation and have
another one leaving South Africa actuallythis week.
So it's been successful.

(01:10:10):
It's been working.
It's definitely really hard.
A large part of my day on the wholesaleside is like reaching out to sommeliers
and wine buyers and be like, hey, this iswhat I started.
This is the story of South Africa.
I promise you it's not the large highalcohol, super oaky wine you think they
are.
They're light, they're fresh, they'remineral, they're organic, sustainably

(01:10:33):
farmed wines.
Please give me 30 minutes to taste, youknow, and let me, let me try to change
your perspective or at least set afoundation of what's happening there.
And.
I have a not as large of a success rate asI would like, but I think it'll happen
with time.
I think as more people, what I'm seeing isthat when I do have an appointment with

(01:10:55):
the sommelier or a wine buyer, everysingle appointment I've left with now has
been like, whoa, when I'm walking out thedoor, like this was really eye opening.
Like what's happening there, like it isreally high quality, it is fresh, it is.
exactly what I'm looking for.
And it has been completely changed what Ithought South African wine was for the

(01:11:18):
better.
So as more people in Somalia taste andhave that realization, they'll talk to
other people in the industry.
And I think my mission of trying to getmore people into South African wine is
happening like one buyer at a time.
But the reaction has been what I've hopedit would be almost entirely across the

(01:11:39):
board.
And which shows me that it's possible.
Right.
And it's just a matter of like, continuingto beat the drum and keep getting more
people to try the wine.
Right.
So that's awesome.
So when you like, once you get themeeting, typically then the wine will

(01:11:59):
speak for itself in combination with thestories that you have to share.
when you said like, maybe you don't haveas many as you would like, is the strike
rate, is like the phone call to thetasting quite a bit of a challenge?
Yeah.
So basically like for me, what's importantis not to get into the largest retailers

(01:12:20):
and restaurants, to get into therestaurants and retailers that are like
me, right?
That are storytellers, they're brandbuilders, they care about the product,
they care about the people.
But, you know, those places are...
highly sought after by every importer.
And like I said earlier, California, we'revery lucky to have some incredible

(01:12:40):
importers here, but it means there's a lotof competition for me now.
Right.
And so on one hand, we're all kind of init together trying to develop a really
strong wine industry here with a lot ofdiversity, but it means buyers are getting
barraged with people like me trying toshare really cool stuff.
And so I'm emailing and I'm trying not tobe too bothersome, but I'm basically

(01:13:01):
saying like, Hey, like,
This is a story and I'm actually down toeven come share it with you just from an
educational point of view.
Like you don't have to put it on yourlist, but I guarantee you you're going to
try this Pinotage or you're going to trythis Chenin Blanc and it's going to change
your perception on South African wine.
And even if I do that, even if you don'tbuy it, but now you say like, dude,

(01:13:22):
there's actually cool shit happeningthere.
That's still a win.
And so for me, that's kind of moreimportant because as someone who is a wine
educator who
Like it's so important for me to try toteach and educate in my sales meetings are
more like educational meetings and theyare like, buy this at this price and I'll
give you this deal.

(01:13:43):
That's more important.
And so the more people that just come onboard and at least say like, yeah, dude,
eyeopening really cool.
I like, I appreciate what you're doing andyou know, let's we'll keep chatting.
That's a win.
Because in the end, like,
I'm like an informal ambassador to SouthAfrica and their wine.

(01:14:05):
And that's so anytime someone's perceptionchanges, that's exactly what the goal is.
Right.
Yeah.
You're probably the most formal ambassadoractually.
So then what happens, right?
Like you go to, you go to this, you know,educational tasting sales meeting, and

(01:14:27):
then these are some all the A's like,
Where are they working?
Are they a sommelier for a store or for arestaurant?
Or what is their role?
Yeah, it's a mix of both.
So I have this list that I mentioned, andI'm basically just focusing on trying to
get in with them.
And it's because I want them to bestorytellers like I am.

(01:14:50):
And so these folks are either running wineprograms or they're running retail stores
or wine bars.
And so I have, like I said, I have 22wines and I'll usually bring like five or
six.
I'll often bring like rocks from thevineyards because I think it's for some
reason, like all the wine people,including myself, we like love rocks.

(01:15:11):
We're like, cool, this is sandstone.
This is quartz.
This is granite.
And for some reason we're all like veryinformal, uneducated geologists.
And so I'll bring maps, I'll bringpictures, videos, like whatever I can to
bring the producer in the region to thebuyer.

(01:15:34):
Because I think South Africa in particularis so wildly beautiful.
It's actually very similar to Californiaand climate and topography.
So when you start to see some of thesethings, you're like, it kind of reminds me
at home.
And then the barrier kind of drops alittle bit, which I think is important.
And yeah, and just, you know, chat withthem.
Like also learn, like what works well foryou?

(01:15:57):
What doesn't?
You know, just why do you not have anySouth African wine on your list?
What's your perception of South Africa?
You know, all this stuff is good for me toknow and to learn.
And even the buyers who are like, you knowwhat, like it's cool, but I'm not gonna
buy it.
I'm not gonna, this wine isn't gonna workfor me.
I still like to ask like, why?

(01:16:19):
Cause that's good information.
And so anytime we can just have likeconversations where we're both learning
from one another, it's, it's great.
It's helpful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I imagine it's like that.
That would be an interesting challengewith just knowing how many different
growing regions and, and I'm sure there'strends during the year, every year of kind

(01:16:40):
of what, you know, where people'sperception is going.
And so that I'm sure there's a lot ofdifferent parameters of why, why they
would do that.
yeah, super interesting.
is a much different world than a lot ofagriculture commodities.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a lifestyle product, man.
It's really what it's all about.

(01:17:00):
Yeah.
And so you started this.
So you import, you do e -commerce, you do,you know, retail, you know, distribution
to retail.
You know, tell us about, tell us aboutsome of your, your, your favorite farms,
your, your favorite founder stories.
I mean, you've got some amazing stories onthe website.

(01:17:20):
different, you know, different vineyardsand tell us about some of those.
Yeah, man.
It's hard to pick.
Just a couple of the 20 tell us about thewoman who is like 26 years old when she
became like that.
That's an interesting one.
Yeah, I was gonna mention her and anotherone.
So there's two that I would quickly talkabout one is Brookdale estate.

(01:17:43):
And it is made by a producer named ChiaraScott farmer.
Chiara is a
Badass.
She grew up in a township.
So in South Africa, you still have a verystrong legacy of apartheid.
It's very real.
It's going to take generations for it tobe unraveled.

(01:18:04):
It's very challenging.
And townships are very much a legacy ofapartheid.
And so she grew up in one.
And most families there are not intoalcohol because they've seen alcohol tear
apart so many families.
Right?
So it's rare to see someone want to workin alcohol coming from that world, but
Chiara was very interested in it.

(01:18:25):
And so she enrolled in Elsenberg, which isa great winemaking school there, and then
was brought into this amazing programcalled the Protege Program.
And this program brings in like seven tonine recipients a year.
It is a paid internship and that puts themin a three year program where they do one

(01:18:47):
year internships.
at three different wineries, right?
So at the third year, she ended up at thisvery new estate called Brookdale, which I
now import.
And she was working under one of the mostfamous winemakers who was consulting for
them, his name was Duncan Savage.
And basically by the end of thisinternship, she had done such a great job

(01:19:08):
and proven herself so well that she tookover the head winemaking role.
Duncan went off to focus on his own labeland...
Chiara became the youngest head femalewinemaker in the country at only 26.
And so to come from a township, a non-alcohol drinking family, all the way to
be the youngest head female winemaker islike, the odds of that are very low.

(01:19:33):
But when you meet her, you can totally seewhy.
Like she's ultra charismatic.
She's incredibly talented.
Every year her wines are getting better.
She's just a total rock star.
And she's...
inspiring so many more young black womento get into winemaking.
And there are more women, more people ofcolor getting into the protege program,

(01:19:55):
getting into winemaking in South Africa.
And it's just a great thing.
And I think Chiara is very much aninspiration for a lot of folks to do that.
And then there's another winery calledScions of Sinai that I work with.
And that is...
That is owned by a seventh generationgrape grower and winemaker named Bernard

(01:20:17):
Brudel.
And Bernard is like, the guy is just eats,sleeps, and breathes this land.
So basically there's a little area ofStellenbosch called the Helderberg, and
it's right on the water.
So it's quite cool relative to the rest ofthat region.
And so he makes more like elegant, kind ofalmost salty, like very mineral wines, red

(01:20:39):
and white.
But the land that he farms is owned by hiscousin.
And the short story is that his familyused to own a couple hundred acres and his
dad ended up having to sell what wouldhave been inherited by him after just some
kind of sad industry related issues.

(01:21:01):
And now what's left in his family is ownedby his cousin.
But Bernard does the farming for him.
He brokers grape deals.
He...
works his ass off to keep this land dryfarmed, regenerative, bush farm, bush
vines, and ensuring that it stays as highquality as its potential, and it doesn't

(01:21:25):
get sold into, you know, bigger bulkproducers or whatever.
And so he makes these incredible winesfrom this vineyard.
And in particular, this grape calledPinotage, which has had, I think, a
challenging reputation.
And his wine is completely game changerfor this great variety.
And so like when I walked the vineyards ofBernard, I'm like blown away by his

(01:21:50):
passion, his knowledge, his like, he'sjust such, he's just one of those people
who you just like magnetize to with howincredibly talented he is.
And then you taste the wines and they'relike, everyone who's tasting them has been
like blown away by them.
It's been some of my fastest selling winealong with Chiara's at Brookdale.
And it's all about the amazing peoplebehind these very high quality wines.

(01:22:15):
It's awesome to represent them.
That's that is amazing.
You mentioned the name of a grape,Pinotage, if I believe if I'm pronouncing
it right.
I'd like to learn more about that side ofthings because you know, coming from
Bakersfield, California, right?
Like that's where the cotton candy grapewas invented, right?

(01:22:37):
The table grape.
And actually, I think both.
I mean, by far, like the number one likegrape genetics company is in
Kern County in Bakersfield.
And I actually think the second largestwas also there at some point.
but tell us a little bit about that sideof, I mean, do you, are these wines coming

(01:22:59):
from South Africa?
Are they the same type of grapes thatyou're going to find in pretty much every
other region that you would expect aroundthe world that produce wines, or are there
some unique grapes to that area?
And like, when did they get there and kindof tell us the story of that?
Yeah.
So.
They just, South Africa just had its 365thwinemaking anniversary.

(01:23:24):
Grapes are not indigenous to South Africa.
There are no indigenous grapes like inItaly or Portugal or Greece.
So grapes are all brought there bycolonizers.
The history of South Africa is very muchtied to colonization.
And that's something for me that'simportant to talk about.
I don't want to shy away from the realdark history of the country.

(01:23:46):
But I think what the potential of the wineindustry today for South Africans and for
the economy and for upward trajectory ofgrowth out of challenging situations, I
think is amazing.
So I think it's like, I think it'simportant to talk about the history of
colonization, but also like what grapescan do for so many there.

(01:24:09):
So there's a lot of French varieties.
You see a lot of Syrah.
Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay,Cabernet.
But then there's this grape calledPinotage.
Pinotage was as a cross of two grapes.
It's a cross of a grape called Pinot Noir,which most people are familiar with.

(01:24:31):
And then another one called Cinceau, whichmany people don't know about.
And Cinceau is originally from SouthernFrance.
And it's typically a grape that in itsbest examples can be like...
kind of wild red fruits and like kind ofalmost a little bit bitter in the finish.
And so Pinotage is a cross of those twograpes.

(01:24:52):
And that was created in South Africa inthe 1920s.
And I think that for decades, it's beenmade in a way where it is high alcohol, a
lot of new oak, kind of intense, but PinotNoir and Cinsaut's grapes are much better
when they're treated.
kind of more delicately, right?

(01:25:14):
And lower alcohol and try to enhance thearomatics.
And I think that in the last 15 or soyears, you've seen producers start to
treat it that way and it's changing thewhole philosophy of the grape.
So like for instance, Bernard at Scienceof Sinai, he makes a pinotage that's grown
from like a mile from the ocean.

(01:25:36):
So cool climate.
It's grown in sandy silica soil.
It's old bush vines that are dry farmed,so low yield.
And he only does stainless steel.
So that preserves aromatics and it helpsit so it stays fresher and juicier.
And so when I bring that wine tosommeliers and wine buyers who have read

(01:25:57):
about Pinotage or have had examples thatare more like high alcohol and intense,
They see it and they're like, no, youbrought me peanutage.
And they taste it and they're like, shit,this is incredible.
I didn't know it could be like this.
And I think that is the future of thatgrape.
And actually Bernard's peanutage, the onethat I'm talking about, which is called

(01:26:17):
Atlanticus, it's like $20 on my website.
It's part of the reason why I even startedthe company, because I was on the fence
about it, about South Africa, like, can Isell this?
It's a tough sell, people won't know aboutit.
people want Italian, they want French.
Am I gonna be able to like open eyes anddoors with these wines, you know?
And then I tasted this Pinotage and waslike, holy shit, I'm all in, I'm starting

(01:26:42):
this company.
And it's because it is something that'sunique to South Africa, it is an entirely
new direction for the grape.
And I think it has that wow factor to itto start making people think differently
and feel differently about it.
So yeah, Pinotage is...
you don't see it really anywhere else inthe world.

(01:27:03):
And I think it's just really found itsfooting in this style.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Interesting how it could be a grape that'sbeen around for, you know, a hundred
years, but then just because of how it'sbeen, you know, produced, then it, it
hasn't been appealing.
And now that that can change that is, thatis fascinating.

(01:27:29):
So what about, I mean, are there any otherunique varieties that have been bred in
South Africa that you're really excitedand interested in as well?
Or is it mostly just that one?
Well, no, there's a ton.
I mean, I think there's none other thatwere crossings that were made there.

(01:27:54):
However, they grow Chenin Blanc.
which is originally from the Loire Valley,but they grow so much of it now that if
you add up all of the acreage around theworld and combine it, there's still not as
much as in South Africa.
And so it is their white grape.
And it is a fucking awesome wine.

(01:28:14):
Like it is a great variety that expressesits terroir or its kind of origin,
probably as well as any grape in theworld.
So like if you were growing it in theSwartland, which is hot,
arid and really hard schist soil, whichmeans the vines really struggle to dig

(01:28:35):
deep, which means a smaller canopy, whichmeans less fruit and more intense fruit.
If you have it from there versus a coolclimate further east in what's called the
Walker Bay, which gives you a little bitmore linear kind of like acid driven
wines, you have the exact same grape toradically different styles.

(01:28:56):
So what I want to do is I grow myportfolio, is be able to bring in several
Chenin Blancs so I can tell that story.
And eventually be like, okay, Somalia,like you love Loire Valley Chenin Blanc.
Well, yeah, Vouvray and Anjou andSauvignères, which are all in Loire, all
have different soil and different stylesof Chenin.

(01:29:19):
Well, the Swartland, Walker Bay.
And Stell and Bosch also have similarradically different styles of Shannon.
So let's talk about that.
Right.
And that's like, that's my goal.
So I basically built my portfolio now tohave just a little touch of each style and
region.
And now I want to kind of start developingdepth within all that breadth.

(01:29:40):
Shannon is a great, that does that.
I think Sarah is phenomenal out of there.
So Sarah is originally from the RhoneValley in France.
It is a pretty.
Chameleon like variety just like Shenanwhere it can grow in cool climates and
grow warm climates It can grow in avariety different soils But I think it's
best examples come from Kind of extremeareas where the soils are poor and you

(01:30:06):
really stress the hell out of the vinesAnd South Africa can do that.
It's very sunny be very warm Not a lot ofrain so you can find places where it
struggles and you can make great sera So Imake that same producer Bernard
He has a very cool climate, Syrah grown amile from the ocean.
These Bushmines, epic wine.

(01:30:27):
Like it tastes to me like something fromthe Northern Rome from some of the best
producers.
And I've seen sommeliers as well be like,whoa, this is really serious wine.
And then, and that's like 40 bucks.
That's like one fifth the cost of theseNorthern Rome Syrahs that I'm talking
about.
And then you go,

(01:30:47):
to another area called Bot River, and Iimport one from a producer called Luddite
Wines.
Also dry farms, but different kind ofricher soil.
And these are pretty powerful, bulkysirahs, but still super elegant.
And so it's another grape that like growsin a lot of different parts of South
Africa and creates such different stylesno matter where it is.

(01:31:11):
And I think that, you know, that is reallywhat I'm talking about when I talk to
sommeliers or consumers.
is like, even if you have Syrah, Shenan,Pinotage, Cabernet, it expresses itself so
differently between the different regionsthat you can actually like really dive in
and like, it can be super interesting evenif you're trying the same grape from a lot

(01:31:34):
of different places.
Yeah, that you mentioned so thateverything that you just talked about
right there in terms of like,
being next to the ocean or this really hotregion or the soil here, that is what you
would reference as terroir.
Yeah.
Like kind of all of the, all of thedifferent climatic factors in combination

(01:31:56):
would be what you would call terroir for aplant.
Yeah, exactly.
So it's like, you know, it's interesting.
I think right now there's been some kindof theories that terroir doesn't really
exist, that it's actually wine maker.
or grape grower and winemaker, but I thinkin South Africa you have either granite or

(01:32:16):
you have sandstone or you have schistsoils and then some variations of those
usually.
And if you have schist in a warm climate,it creates a very different wine than you
have sandstone in a cool climate.
And so, yeah, as I'm learning more aboutthe different soils of the different
regions, you can start to see throughlines.

(01:32:37):
But for me in South Africa,
some of the through lines that I see,regardless of where the grapes are grown,
is there's often this beautiful salinityin the wines, which seems kind of weird,
but it's like, in particular, the grapesthat are grown near the coast, the mid
-palate finish of the wine can havesalinity to it.

(01:33:00):
It's really interesting.
And in some cases, there's even this kindof kelpiness, this salty kind of...
oceanic -ness to some of the Serralas thatI get as well.
And it sounds weird when you try it, itadds this element of nuance and depth that
is just so beautiful and I think reallyunique to South Africa.

(01:33:21):
And so you could say that there's asalinity to some of the wines and that is
some of the terroir of South Africa.
And you can keep going down the list ofdifferent parts that are like that.
Definitely.
Yeah, I think that there is going to bequite a bit of, you know,
different theories on that moving forward.
I was just reading like three weeks agohow essentially they tested and they're

(01:33:44):
like, yeah, actually like the genetics ofthis tea is not as important for flavor
expression as the microbial communitiesthat were active in that soil.
And I think that is going to, you know, Ithink we would be, we would be foolish to
think that it's one thing, right?
Like this is that like that oldreductionist thinking of, you know,

(01:34:06):
It's like, well, there's only one thingcontributing to this flavor, but it's
like, yeah, it's going to be the wind andthe breeze in that region.
And it's going to be the amount ofsunlight and the different soil.
But I do firmly believe that like themicrobial population is going to probably
show to be the most important one becauseit's the microbes who are able to go and

(01:34:30):
actually fetch all of the minerals andthings that the plant can't reach.
Right.
Like plants don't walk.
Right.
So that's what the microbial communitiesand the plants are doing.
The plant is saying, Hey, I'm going totrade you these sugars and starches that
I'm going to produce through myphotosynthesis.
And I'm an, and you guys bring me like thecopper and the, you know, the selenium,

(01:34:53):
like all of these things that I can'treach with my roots, you go collect them,
bring them to my root, and then I'll tradeyou this sugar for it.
And that's why, that's why having.
these robust microbial communities, whichis, I mean, you know, a foundation of
regenerative agriculture is that all of asudden you do find like, wait, this fruit

(01:35:15):
has way more flavor complexity becauseit's getting all the micronutrients.
Whereas traditional, let's not call ittraditional.
Let's call it petrochemical industrialagriculture complex, right?
Which says like, you know, well, you justneed nitrogen and potassium and.
phosphorus, you know, these three mainones and don't worry about the rest of the

(01:35:37):
things, you know, and, and then you, youend up with fruit.
Like, dude, I can't even begin to tell youthe first bell pepper that I cut into when
I came back to the U S a couple monthsago, I was like, this is just water.
There's nothing in here.
I was shocked and just coming back to Peruand just seeing like the depth of color,

(01:35:59):
the smell, as soon as I cut it,
the taste, but also seeing that it wasn'tjust this watery, you know, fake vegetable
thing that was just pumped with the basicsynthetic things.
It's a totally different experience.
And I think that's, that's going to bereally exciting to see how much flavor

(01:36:21):
actually changes, especially as thesevineyards approach more and more
regenerative because.
you know, a large part of that is themicrobial communities will change
dramatically, but it takes time, right?
It takes you about three to five years toreally get the system going.
And then it's going to be quitefascinating to see what kind of flavors

(01:36:43):
are produced.
Yeah, dude, totally.
Bernard walked me through a vineyard thathe and another couple of winemakers
decided to basically buy to convert toregenerative.
And it's like on top of the hill of wherehis existing regenerative vines are that
are flourishing.

(01:37:05):
And this one is like, you know, they'rebush vines.
So they're only like two feet off theground.
So they're very, very hard to farm.
They're not trellis high up to make yourlife easier and to make your entire.
They're bush vines that are likesprawling.
And so you have to plant, you get less ofthem in an acre, which makes your yield
lower.
They naturally yield lower per plant.

(01:37:27):
So even more.
you know, reduced by per acre.
But again, the quality is immense, but wewent to this new one that he's going to
convert.
It's going to take him at least five yearsand you could just see the difference.
Like they didn't look healthy.
They look scragg.
They just needed help.
And so I'm so stoked to watch this year byyear evolution of this vineyard because

(01:37:49):
he's going to make it like the healthiestversion that it can be.
And then it's, it's regenerative.
It's, it's.
It's helping itself, right?
It's standing on its own two feet.
And it's not BS when it comes to the winebecause you taste wine from vineyards like
that and you can taste concentration.

(01:38:11):
So like you're saying where you cut into abell pepper and it's just like a crunch
and there's no real like there, there.
It's just kind of this like wannabe flavorof pepper.
And then you taste one that's likeorganically farmed and you're like, it's
just like a complete game changer.
It's the same thing with wine.
You taste it and you're like, the flavorlasts for a long time.

(01:38:32):
There's a ton of different flavors.
It's just so clear when you have somethingthat's like mass produced to something
that's made by hand and lower yielding,it's truly like night and day.
There's no similarities at all.
Yeah.
No, it's...
It's exciting, dude.
It's really exciting to see, I guess, youknow, because we've been in so much of

(01:38:58):
that, you know, Petro Ag system where wehave had so many agriculture products that
have been just like this diluted versionthat people 150 years ago would have been
like, what the hell are you guys eating?
This is trash, you know, and that, like,we're, we're, we're approaching the
opportunity to kind of come back to,

(01:39:18):
to some of that, you know, just complexityand the dimension that it provides, right?
It's just, it's, there's so much moredimension provided with all the flavor and
the experience.
And, you know, we're right in the midst ofthat transition.
So it is cool.
And I'm super pumped, you know, I, I'mreally pumped that you're doing, you know,

(01:39:40):
that as a core of this business and theselection of the vineyards, because I do
think, I do think that is, is important,not only from.
a flavor taste, you know, point of view,but also just, you know, how are we, how
are we, you know, treating this earthmoving forward?
And so it's, it's, it's cool to hear that,that you're doing that.
so any, any, like, any tips as we closefor like, not even South African, we're

(01:40:06):
not going to let you have your own, youknow, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll do all
your website and stuff.
We'll, we'll post all the links and, andpeople should definitely go, go, you know,
get.
get some wines and have that experience.
And just to say, like, I think that's alsoone of the coolest things, right, of
today.
It's like, you can cultivate your own kindof like world experience at home and a lot

(01:40:31):
of times better than you might actually dotraveling in some ways, right?
Like you could decide to like make a SouthAfrican meal.
with that South African wine that youordered and put on some South African
music and just immerse yourself.
Like that, that is something that is a lotof fun that I've gotten into in the past

(01:40:54):
years of just when I, you know, as I, Ididn't cook before, dude, you know, like I
didn't grow up in a household where likeyou learn how to cook.
when I lived in India, I had a privatechef cause I was working like seven days a
week and
Then again, it was herbalism that waslike, wait a second, like I can cook food

(01:41:14):
medicinally and there's a whole method tothis.
And that got me into cooking, but it'sreally just connected me so much deeper to
just cultures in general and flavor andexperience.
And now I look back, I'm like, dude,you've traveled to so many countries and I
almost need to go back just to do foodtours.

(01:41:34):
Like purely like I would, I would be like,I am basing my future travel.
more around like food and drink thananything else because I find that it is
you know like the coolest thing but whatwould you what would you say are like some
very basic like here's what you shouldlook for when you're buying a bottle of
wine gen z millennial how about for methat's a tough one I think it's I I

(01:42:09):
What would you look for?
I mean, I think that often, I think a lotof people these days are looking for like
lower alcohol styles of wine and likefresher.
So I think like oftentimes you can go tolike, if you look at an area that
typically a little warmer climate likeSouth Africa, for instance, and you see

(01:42:31):
something that's like 12 and a half to 13% alcohol.
Sometimes that can be an indicator thatthe wine is like, they're really trying to
make it in a fresher style, which wouldmean that they're really caring for the
fact that it's not getting like overripeand just like there's a lot of thought put
into the when the wine should be, thegrapes should be picked.

(01:42:52):
So that's sometimes a good way to look atit.
I think on a more granular level in theUS,
you know, every wine that's imported hasto have on the back label who it's
imported by.
And I think if you can learn a fewimporters that you like, then you can kind
of look for that on the wine.
So you go to a retail store and you'relike, cool, I've seen like imported by

(01:43:15):
culture wine company on a lot of thesebottles.
I dig what that importer is typicallybringing in.
They've got a palette that I like.
And so I think if they, if people startto,
pay attention to the back labels of whatthey like, see who's importing the wine,
and then kind of follow them, that'llusually open their palette by a pretty

(01:43:38):
substantial margin.
It also helps if they follow that to thengo to a retailer and say, hey, I really
liked Scions of Sinai, imported by CultureWine Company, can you try and find that
wine?
And then it helps the buyer know how totrack it down.
Because oftentimes as a retail buyer,you'll be like, a person will come in and

(01:44:00):
be like, hey, have you heard of winery X,Y, and Z?
And then you can't really find out how tofigure out who's importing it.
Whereas if you can give that informationto the retail buyer, then they'll be able
to find the wine for you in like fiveseconds.
So yeah, that's an easy way to just payattention to importer.

(01:44:20):
And usually you'll start to find somepretty interesting.
kind of through lines.
And then the easiest way would just be toget a subscription from Culture Wine Co.
That way it's just it's coming no matterwhat and you're going to get some
different stuff I imagine.
Yeah, two bottles a month shipped to youfor no additional charge of shipping.

(01:44:42):
It's like, duh, just do that and you don'thave to leave your house.
Yeah.
Why do we need research until we need to?
Does that come with a music playlist atall?
So I usually, so I do two bottles everymonth for $69 and it's free shipping.
And then I also, you get like 10 % off thewebsite always.

(01:45:05):
And if you decide you want to add bottlesto that month's shipment, that will ship
for free with the bottles, plus 10 % off.
And then I record a video or like three tofive minutes, talk about the wines or like
the through line.
So this upcoming month will be two Serasfrom South Africa.
And so I'll talk more about like, what isSura, where did it come from and what are

(01:45:26):
the two styles you have?
And then I'll usually put on like someSouth African music in the video and then
like put a credit to it.
But yeah, dude, like I have a playlist onmy Spotify called Songs of South Africa.
I have it on my culture, Wine Co.
Instagram, like in the link tree.
And yeah, for me, like music is a big partof my life.

(01:45:48):
I love discovering music.
When I travel places, I travel for food,wine, and music.
That is like the three things I travelfor.
And so I always try to bring back music.
I keep adding to that playlist and dude,South Africa has some incredible,
incredible music.
So it's fun to explore that and share it.
You know that.

(01:46:09):
Yeah, no, it was hilarious.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that was like one of thefirst moments where we probably like first
connected at the, at the bachelor partywas.
I do it was funny because three daysbefore that I was in the car like playing
Sun L musician for Pete in the car.
And then when you were walking up, becauselike I'm always trying to probe those

(01:46:31):
guys, right?
It's because like, you know, these guysare all producing some of the bigger songs
happening now and like they're all in themusic scene.
And so I'm always trying to like plug inthese little tidbits.
And so, you know, I've been, I alreadytalked to a couple of different guys and
then I turn over and you're like,
pumping Sun on musician as well.
And I was like, what?
Cause like, honestly, I haven't met asingle, like I haven't met a single DJ.

(01:46:54):
I haven't met anyone who knows about thisguy.
And it's some of the most beautiful musicthat I've ever heard.
And so that might actually have to be oneof our trips these days.
You know, like I would, I would love to,it'd be an expensive trip, but I would
love to go to a, like an African.
music festival, but Sun L Musician wouldhave to be playing for me to be there.

(01:47:18):
But as long as he's playing, then like,I'm there for sure.
Dude.
Well, yeah.
So South Africa has amazing music and it'salso like, obviously from Peru, it's not
easy.
I mean, flying from Mexico was gnarly.
I can't even imagine from Peru to SouthAfrica, but if you can make it like it's
long journey, but if you can make it toSouth Africa, it's very affordable.

(01:47:41):
And you can definitely travel on a budget.
You can ball out and still be veryreasonable.
But what you get for your money there isepic.
And the hospitality is genuine and warm.
Their culture is rich.
It's super inviting.
People are supportive.
It's a beautiful, beautiful place totravel.

(01:48:03):
And it's safe.
It's got everything you want.
And it's outrageously beautiful.
one of the most beautiful places I've everbeen in the world.
And that's like not just Cape Town.
It's like the entire Western Cape justkeeps unfolding and like giving you more
beautiful things.
So it's a place you should definitely tryto go.

(01:48:25):
And like, whether it's you or a listener,like can always hit me up.
And I'm so happy to help with anitinerary.
On my blog or my website, I have like awineries and restaurants to visit.
In South Africa, you can always hit thatup.
It's just a list right now, but Ieventually want it to be more like day by
day, but at the least it's a start, but Iwant people to have a good time there.

(01:48:47):
So anything I can do, like I'm, I'm herefor it.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
We'll have to figure it out.
One of these days I would, yeah, maybeI'll tag along on a trip, go see some
vineyards and, eat some awesome food, seesome music and, and drink some wine.
That would be absolutely fantastic.
Well, all right, brother, man.

(01:49:09):
Absolutely, you know total pleasure to seeyou here today get to spend a little bit
time learning more about what the worldyou're in and Yeah, it's you know,
appreciate it so much appreciate whatyou're doing and keep rocking, you know
Keep keep after those Somalias and doesyou know those people keep educating and
and I'll check in with you at some pointsoon.

(01:49:30):
Yeah.
Thanks dude I appreciate you having me onman.
I appreciate it.
See you soon

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