Meet the Wine Press: W. Blake Gray, U.S. Editor, Wine-Searcher

W. Blake Gray is a prolific wine writer covering industry topics that often generate plenty of commentary. Currently U.S. Editor for Wine Searcher, Gray was previously Wine Editor for the San Francisco Chronicle and Food Editor for SF Weekly. In 2013 he won the Louis Roederer Award for Best Online Wine Columnist. He discusses topics he's covered from the state of Israeli wines to trends in zero-alcohol "wine" and the impact (or not) of cannabis on wine consumption. Follow X @wblakegray


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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
and their guests, and not thoseof W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are
affiliates. We make no recommendations orendorsements for radio show programs, services,
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Any questions or comments should be directedto those show hosts. Thank you for

(00:21):
choosing W FOURCY Radio. Welcome tothe Connected Table Live. We're your hosts,

(00:44):
Melanie Young and David Ransom. You'reinsatiably curious culinary couple. We enjoy
bringing you the dynamic people who arefront and center and behind the scenes in
wine, food, spirits and hospitalityaround the world. And we have launched
a new series. We love doingseries. This one's like Meet the Press,
Meet the Wine Press, and Meetthe Food Press, where we have
conversations with journalists about their craft andsome of the stories they're working on that

(01:10):
are of topic. We're really excitedto have our guest today, who we've
had the pleasure of traveling with Italy, a couple of times, right,
yea, A number of times,actually, yeah, yeah, And I
think he's really one of the topwine reporters in the country. He comes
with a lot of great background andcredentials, and I've been following him for
years since he was writing for SanFrancisco Weekly. In the San Francisco Chronicle,

(01:36):
we're talking about Blake Ray or wBlake Ray's his formal byline. He
is the US editor for Wine Searcher, which is one of the most widely
visited wine websites ever, and weuse it all the time. He has
been in the business a very longtime. Previously, he was wine editor
for the San Francisco Chronicle and foodeditor for San Francisco Weekly. He's been

(01:59):
writing about wine professionally for more thana decade. Interestingly, he also lived
in Japan, and we saw agreat roundup in Wine and Spirits Magazine on
Japanese restaurants. He's incredibly intelligent ona lot of topics we've learned. In
addition to living in Tokyo for eightyears before moving to San Francisco, he
is a Baltimore Oreos fan. Apparentlyhe's into zombie movies and I think he

(02:23):
had a strange reporting job early inhis career, which we're going to ask
him about. He kind of letonto it when we were in the Marama.
We'll ask him about that. We'vebeen with him in Tuscany and the
Maremma, and I think a coupleof other places. So welcome Blake,
Thank you, glad to be herein beautiful San Francisco. Which that is
actually a background, but it's funny. I'm not the world's most tech savy

(02:44):
handler of zoom that. I usedto have my apartment space heater in the
background, and then one day someonesaid you could hit a backdrop, and
I hit a button. This isthe first one that came up. So
it was perfect. There you go, perfect for you. Right, Well,
we love the Bay Area. Youmust have had location services on.
Yeah, it's probably true. Yeah, it's a good thing. I'm not
doing it in Oakland. Then Ihave to say, right, so you're

(03:05):
in San Francisco now, but wherewere you born and raised? Blake Wanner
raise in Baltimore. That is ahome of the first place, Baltimore Orioles.
Yes, do you eat those wonderfulcrabs? Are you a crabby?
Oh my gosh? Yeah, youknow the only thing. We have that
discussion and I love this discussion andwe have it on press trips of if
you're on death row, what's yourlast meal? And mine would always be

(03:27):
crabs. It's just that you probablydon't get the good crabs in prison,
and if you do, they're probablynot the kind you eat. But in
any case, yes, definitely allthe crabs. Yeah, still go back
to Baltimore and visit, get crabs, do crab cakes, Yep, all
that fun stuff. I love theMaryland Shore. It's great. Yeah,
yeah, I love I love allcrustaceans. And of course, So did

(03:50):
you study journalism at Jay school ordid you just pick it up as you
worked on the job. Well,my degrees are in mass common psychology.
But and in college I thought Iwas going to work for television, so
I more of my courses in schoolwere in that area. But I worked
at the school newspaper, and thatreally we had a daily. I don't

(04:11):
know if school papers still do that, but we had a daily. We
covered news. I worked up tobeing features editor, and that was when
I discovered what I wanted to dowith my life, thinking that, of
course, newspapers were going to bein industry. That were going to be
here forever. So that was theinspiration for this series to so some love
to our fellow journalists because it isa difficult and challenging career to be in.

(04:36):
So what was your first major reportingassignment, and let's talk about some
of your more unusual beats. Okay, So the first I having graduated as
a features editor and writing about musicand movies and that sort of thing,
wasn't exactly the best candidate for anews reporting job, which is how you

(04:57):
start out. The first thing Iactually ever did was I got job as
a stringer for a newspaper covering ifYou're an old time baseball plan Danny McClain
was charged with criminal conspiracy and Icovered that six week trial. That was
a first story news story I evercovered, and that got me a gig
as a police and courts reporter fulltime. So that was my first full
time gig, you know, standingI spent I spent a little over a

(05:23):
year at it, and one yearI was I was sitting standing in the
kitchen at a journalist party and amultiple reporters around in Central Florida, which
is where I was working, andI was in the kitchen with the police
reporters talking about various corpses we hadseen, and I realized, yeah,
I don't know if this is exactlywhat I want to do with the rest
of my life, and so Iswitched to being a sports reporter. Well

(05:46):
that's fine. Did you get tocover the Orioles? I did write,
yes, So no, I didn'tget to cover them, but in the
way that sports fans often do whenthey're young, I did get to interview
or A Weaver, the legendary magicmanager who was always my favorite, and
Earl can we curse on the show? Yeah? Can we can curse on

(06:09):
the show? Okay? Because Earlsays, you know, fuck or shit
is about every third or fourth word. And I'm standing in the Orioles dugout
interviewing him for just a pretty lamefeature that I probably don't even want to
see now. But you know,my spine is tingling. I'm just so
exciting. Earh we were saying fuckto me. Oh my god, It's
the greatest moment of my life.And I'd still say that was one of

(06:31):
the highlights of my journalism career.And I can't even remember the story.
That's funny. So how did youbreak into wine writing and food writing and
wine writing. So you know,I had worked my way up to being
a sports columnist by my late twenties. And I went to an NBA playoff

(06:53):
games, the first one I covered, and I was so excited and I
was sitting in the front row.Oh my god, I'm the front roads
so Orlando Magic game, which youknow, you could probably date it because
they hadn't been in the playoffs allthat often. But you know, I
was at this front row of thisplayoff game and I was just like,
this is great. I can't believeI was doing this. Here I am
and all the other sports writers aroundme were just bitching and moaning about this

(07:14):
and that, you know, thefood in the press box and how far
they had to walk into parking lot, and they were all overweight and unhappy.
And I looked around and said thatthat's going to be me. So
a few months later, I quitmy job and went backpacking around the world.
And it was while I was doingan unfortunately large percentages. I never
really I've never spending time in Europe. I started off in Europe, not
the best use of my savings,but it was while I was doing this

(07:42):
backpacking trip. It took a monthand did volunteer work in France, and
that was really where you know,a lot of wine lovers in my age
have that kind of French origin story, and that was really where I fell
in love with wine. Eventually endedup never didn't go back to the US
for eight years. It ended upin Japan, and Japan is where I

(08:03):
pursued my love of wine. Butin terms of writing about it that I
used to read Wine Spectator and I'dread it and think, oh my god,
these guys are so knowledgeable. Icould never do this. How do
they know this is in ninety twoand that's a ninety incredible? I really
seriously was odd by their their categoricalknowledge. But then after I read it

(08:28):
for a couple of years, Istarted kind of deconstructing how the stories were
written and said, you know,I mean never know they were seeing a
ninety and ninety two. But Ican write better than this. So I
decided that I would try my luckas a wine writer. And you know,
still trying my luck today. That'spretty impressive, giving how hard it
is to get a paying job asa run writer. Right now, you've

(08:50):
done pretty well for yourself. Imean, I'm still paying the rent,
so that's okay. There are upsand downs. You know. I don't
want to share my bank bounce withyou, but but I'm paying the rent,
so I can't complain. Yeah.So a little bit of back background
on you. You actually lived inJapan for a while, Yes, I

(09:11):
did. And is that where youmet your wife? That is yes,
she's an important she's an important andyou were an export. Well that's that's
said. So tell us a littlebit about why you were in Japan and
what you were doing over there.Was it journalism? Yeah? So why
I was in Japan, As Itold you, I went back back in

(09:31):
around the world. I had around the world airplane ticket. In Japan's
where I ran out of money.So I just decided that rather than you
know, get on a plane,go back to Florida, go back to
go back to the newspaper industry,which is what I had always thought I
was going to do. At thetime. This was at the very end
of Japan's bubble era, and youcould make you know, decent money in

(09:54):
Japan. Everybody teaching English, teachingEnglish conversation. So I thought I would
stay there and rebuild my bank accountto the point where I wouldn't come back
and be impoverished. And I reallykind of sucked at teaching English. I
wasn't I talked a little too fast, as you could probably tell from this

(10:15):
interview. And but what I diddiscover was that there are jobs there writing
in English for Japanese companies, andso I quickly tipped onto a couple of
those. I had the worst jobthat I ever had, so I know
people. I had a friend incollege who worked cleaning aquariums, and he
ended up cleaning every aquarium by siphoningwith a with a hose with a garden

(10:39):
hose the bottom of the aquarium,and once in a while he'd missed and
it would go to his mouth.So when I tell you my worst job
ever, it's not that no.I had this job writing an English English
dictionary for Japanese learners, and therewas a six thousand word vocabulary, and
I had to define all the wordswith other words in the set, and
it was really monotonous, and Ididn't speaking to Japanese when the company spoke

(11:00):
English. Better than cleaning aquariums withyour mouth gott to say. But anyway,
I advanced from that after I learneda little Japanese and I got a
job as a advertising copywriter at aone of the larger firms in Japan,
and that was essentially still why I'mnot homeless today. Like you know,

(11:22):
that was the most lucrative job thatI ever had. I'm not lucrative in
the sense of, you know,I mean I live in a Bay Area.
Like people make more money for Googlein a day that I probably made
it a year then, But fora writer, it was really really good
money. And I actually really enjoyedwriting advertising. I didn't expect to.
But surprisingly, if you've come froma journalism background, you advertising is like

(11:43):
poetry because journalism you write on thefact level. And I really, honestly,
I try not to be that guywho complains to his editors and my
editor watches this and say, ohyeah, but you know, I try
not to be that guy who complainsabout my phrase being turn a phrase being
changed, because what's important to mewhen I'm telling a story is that you

(12:03):
get the story, that the factsare told, and so no individual turn
a phrase or whatever is all thatimportant. But in advertising it's often I
spent a month on a slogan onceand ended up coming with one word and
yeah, and that that's what youdo, and then you have to justify
it. You know, we discussevery single every single participle, so you

(12:28):
know, that was kind of interesting. It was definitely a change of pace
from writing, and uh, youknow, I enjoyed it. I I
like more of the fact gathering ofit aspect. I like telling stories and
and that I prefer journalism. Butit did really enjoy you know, I
like I also just like writing.Like the other thing that advertised, the
only thing that I have that's likeadvertising in my daily life now is Twitter.

(12:50):
And I'm glad that Twitter has goneback from you know, Ala Musk
is crazy and and I can't standhim. And then he bought it,
and like a lot of other people, I was like, oh, I'm
not going to be Twitter anymore.But nothing is really popped up to replace
it. And I'm glad to bekind of back on Twitter again because that's
the only thing that reminds me alittle bit of advertising writing that you have
to be really concise, you gotto be a little funny, you got

(13:11):
to get your message across, youknow, journalism on the web, I
mean, my stories get longer allthe time because they used to try to
keep them into seven hundred word which'reeasy to read. But I was like,
yeah, I could sell it.I can tell another fifty percent of
this and then people probably don't readit. You know, there's there's no
real word count living on the weband that probably hurts us, but you
know, yeah, it's a funthing onbout Twitter. I'm just rambling.

(13:33):
See this is why I need Twitter, because well, you know, I
want on Twitter. You're very activeon Twitter. Sadly, we Connected table
has been hacked and suspended for somereason. We're not sure why because we
were talking my tweet. Yeah,I'm not sure what we did wrong.
We hadn't done anything, so whoknows. But you can follow us on
Instagram listeners at the Connected table andwe are active at the connected table dot

(13:56):
com. You know you talked abit about your writing style. Curious,
how do you take your notes?What's your note making? Do you do
you do handwrite? Do you dothe so Peter at home? I I
was a hold out to this whenI was back when I was on newspaper,
I did everything by hand on legalpads on the phone, and that's
now I realized that's just silly.You know. Now I'm doing a phone

(14:18):
interview, or if I were doinga story about this, I'd be typing
on my computer because then the notesare just easy. You know, you
make typos, you fix them,but then you have thew notes all ready
to go. But when I'm outinterviewing people, this is extremely old school.
But yeah, I have a reporter'snotebook that fits in the back of
my pocket, and I do handwrittennotes. And you know, if I

(14:43):
don't get something, I asked somebodyto repeat it, you know, I
get them to verify the important stuff. I'm sure that I miss out.
I know that monor journalism school wouldtell you to use your phone to record
interviews and I and I'm sure thatI miss out on some sent since in
an interview. But A, thisis the way I was trained, so

(15:03):
that's something to it. But thenB and I'm just going to be very
honest because that's how this is howI am. It takes a lot less
time. If I interview somebody forthirty minutes and I slow them down,
I make them repeat whatever is themost important thing. But I've interviewed somebody
for thirty minutes, and I havehandwritten notes, so that's my thirty minutes.
If you interview with somebody for thirtyminutes and you record it, then

(15:24):
there's thirty minutes that you listen toit again, and then probably thirty minutes
that you listen to it again.So handwritten notes this is you know,
a journalism school professor, if theystill exist, are probably going to get
on there and go, oh mygod, but it is. It is
just handwritten notes are just more timeefficient when you're out in the field.
It's good to know. I loveit when some people take out their notebooks
on press trips. I mean,you know, I can might have the

(15:46):
same thing, Melanie. I knowyou always have a little notebook with you.
And I actually take my notes onmy phone because it's replaced my need
to carry a pen in a notebook. But so I just sit there,
and you know, the winemakers alwaysthink I'm texting my girlfriend or something like
that, but I'm not, becauseI'm just taking notes on my phone.
My thumbs. I'm just not thatfast, yeah, just not that fast

(16:06):
on my phone. I you know, I don't know that I'm that fast
in writing, but I'm just significantlyfaster writing than I am taking notes on
my phone. I do a lotof recorded interviews and then I download the
transcript. I found a free transcriptdownloader and that's been really helpful, including
the podcast when we transcribe for theblog. So you cover a lot of
really interesting topics that are very newswhere they you know, is there a

(16:27):
certain type of you know, let'stalk about your current role wine search or
you're the US editors, that's fairlysignificant. Do you when you come up
with stories, are you thinking aboutthat audience and who are you writing for?
Yes, I don't. I thinkI've been writing for your audience is
the most important thing. So ina sense, I miss writing for I

(16:48):
don't write very often now for newspapersand the mass audience, which isn't wine
friendly. And honestly, I missthat because I think I made it.
It's arrogant to say this, butI think I made some contra u to
the to the wine community and thatsort of thing and explaining you know,
why I did a story once,why why acidity is important, that sort
of thing. But uh, youknow, no wine searcher audience. These

(17:11):
are people who by definition they're willingto buy wine online. Uh, they're
looking for wine. We have alot of data. The Wine Searcher is
a Wine Searcher is a tech companyand it's it's mainly a search engine and
uh, you know, we havewe have this journalism on top to hopefully
bring people in, but we havea lot of data on who use this

(17:32):
Wine Searcher and what they're interested in. Uh. And they tend to have
some money uh, and they're willingto spend money on wine. Uh.
And they know a little bit aboutwine and somewhere from a little bit to
a lot about wine. Point being, we don't have a lot of people
who don't who need to be toldwhy a city is important, and I
would like to be telling you know, that kind of intro story. They

(17:52):
don't need to. But I likewriting for this audience, so it's interesting
that we don't. I would notdo I would probably not do twenty best
wines under fifteen dollars article for WineSearcher because that's just not what our audience
is looking for. It's funny becausethat was a big part of what I
did when I worked in a newspaper. But it's not what our audience needs.

(18:17):
Uh. I do love the factthat I don't have to apologize for
recommending expensive wines. Because if youread Eric Asimo off the New York Times,
which I recommend, he's great,or Dave mcintyon to washim post,
whichever recommend, because he's great.You read these guys and you read the
comments, and you'realk about the NewYork Times, right, I mean,
New York Time's got a very wealthyaudience. New York Times puts real estate

(18:37):
articles on the front page all thetime about they only had a million dollars
to spend, how could they geta condo? You know. But with
their wine articles, if Eric recommendsa wine that's you know, twenty three
bucks, people like I don't know, why would I ever spend twenty three
dollars a bottle of wine. Idon't have to deal with that person.
That person is not a wine searcher. So you know that I'm still I

(18:57):
still think of it because I Ithink of myself when I think of myself
and my relation to wine. ThoughI write, I know I have a
lot of industry people, and Ido write for trade magazines as well.
When I'm running for wine searcher,I am a consumer advocate. I'm about
consumers first. So if I'm writing, if I'm writing about it, I'm

(19:18):
not going to write about something that'slike a three hundred dollars wine and not
care that it costs three hundred dollars. But at the same time, I
don't have to apologize for saying,you know what, NAPA cabs three hundred
dollars, this is a good wine. If somebody thinks it's too expensive,
you know, then they can buya cheaper wine that we also recommend,
you know. So what's interesting iswe know it's been while they reported wine

(19:41):
consumption is down, yes, andthat you and one of your recent tweets
and you sat down with I thinkwas the Wine Market Council, Chris Miller.
No, that was the cannabis we'regoing to get into. And you
said it was a recent tweet thatthe latest Nielsen a report and Wine business
every type of wine slipped in salesover fifty two weeks except sauvignon blanc box

(20:03):
wines the twenty to twenty five dollarscategory Chilean wine, which kind of surprised
us. Shocking to me, shockingthey've been slipping wines. Yeah, yeah,
the twenty twenty five, and Iwant to point out that twenty twenty
five was basically flat. But Igot to you know, I looked at
the Nielsen numbers, but it wasn'tdown. That's that one was the only
one of that group that's flat,but wasn't down everything else. So you

(20:27):
look what's not on that list.Red wines are all down. Every red
wine, every red variety is down. Sparkling wine is down, Rose is
way down, the rose boom isover. You know, all these things
are down. Yeah, Chilean waskind of shocked because Chile's chile wines have
been dropping in the US for sometime. But I'm just guessing, you

(20:49):
know, Nielsen only does food anddrug stores, so they're not doing the
high end wines. My guess isthat Chile is doing really well because for
people downsizing what they're spending because Chileis you know, the average price of
Chilean wines in US food source isreally really low. But good for them.
They've you know, recuperated a littlebit. And then South Africa being
up. Yeah, good for SouthAfrica. The industry could really use it.

(21:11):
On the other hand, I don'twant to speak wrong, but they're
like eighth or ninth or tenth somewherein there in terms of size of the
export countries marketing to the US.So it's it's it's up, but it's
still not a very major exporter tothe US unfortunately. Yeah, the Sauvignon
blanc was interesting to me. Youknow, are people like so over you

(21:34):
know, I think the rose thingis interesting. We're kind of I think
there's just been such a lot ofbad rose. Yeah, people as making
people have always made rose as aside product, and they're thinking, oh,
you know, we can drain alittle bit of the juice off,
and you know, that's this iswhat happened to Merleau pre sideways. You
know, everybody's out. Merlau wasthe place to be, and they started

(21:56):
making in areas that weren't good forit, and they made a lot of
crappy or low which was good totake down. I think rose is like
that now. I mean I rememberI was an advocate for rose, you
say, twenty years ago when thereweren't very many of them, and the
ones you got used to tend tobe really good. Which you have a
lot of wineries now making rose thatdon't take it seriously and they're not very
good. Yeah, it's it's beendisp but we've been craving like the child.

(22:18):
Great it's become the Pino Griggio ofFrance. Sorry Consortio Pino Grizgio Delavanzzi.
But you know, there was somuch cheap Pino Grigio made. It
put a blemish on the fact thatthere's actually some really good Pino Grigio out
there. Yeah, you know,I the thing with Pino Griggio is uh
and there is a certain extent aboutthis with seven yearlong but writers are ashamed

(22:44):
because we don't have a way tosay it. The hardest thing I have
to describe, and I have totry and do it all the time,
is I like this wine. Ittastes good. It's not trying to do
too much. It's a refreshing winethat's going to go with my dinner.
You know, that doesn't make peoplewant to buy wine. So people are
always overstating, which is why youknow, to me, the white wines
that get like over ninety three pointsin any publication generally not the white wines

(23:06):
I want to drink because they're likebarrel fermented got mouth so that they can
be oh my god when you tastethem, which isn't what I want with
dinner. A good pino grigio forme. You know. Kermit Lynch used
the phrase once in his newsletter AMalford's for when you're looking for that,
and I thought, this is great, you know, and then that is
for me what pino griggio is.And there's nothing wrong with that. And

(23:30):
I honestly think that sevenel Blanc isgetting some of that now. You know
New Zealand seven year blancs got allthat, you know, herbacious character,
and you know people are looking forthat too. But yeah, I mean,
I think people are going to sevenyear old Blanc because it's not it's
not not Okay, it's not mallow, it's not Sharney. If I could

(23:52):
only drink one of them the restof my life, and I like both,
I drink any of both, itwould be Shartenay. Sharney is a
better great But but you know,I don't know when I buy a Battle
of Sharnay whether it's going to tastelike you know, Sharnay, or whether
it's going to taste like barrels andmallows. So yeah, it's give me
a good shennon blank and I'm happy. So I'm happy to see the South
Africans and we love our loirs.You speaking of South Africa and seven year

(24:17):
block, I want to say myfavorite wine from South Africa is the seven
year block. I think they maketerrific seven year old blocks. So they
are kind of well poised in thismoment when Americans are looking for and if
you're listening to this and you haven'ttried a South African seven year bloc,
go do so. Yeah, welove South African wine. I think across
the board, South Africa makes somebeautiful wine. Yeah, yeah, and
quite arranged. A lot of yourwriting goes without a lot of controversy.

(24:41):
You've taken stands on things that othersfeel. Are they disagree? What was
your most challenging and an article youwrote that you had a lot of blowback.
How did you handle it? That'sa good question. I wasn't ready
for this one. Can we can? We? Can I pass and get

(25:03):
back to this. I need tothink about this, Okay, I haven't
any I will say this, Ihaven't had that much blowback in a while.
I think a lot of the industrypeople who used to give me a
lot of flak have just kind ofcome around and accepting, Oh, that's
who Blake is, and it's probablyjust more trouble, but it's worth to
give him a hard time. Ithink I got more blowback at when I
worked in newspapers than I do now. And there's also probably the sense that

(25:29):
people thought it was more important.Oh you've got to counter with this is
saying in the newspaper, I knowyou. I think you took a stand
on certifications and oh yes, ohyes, okay, I should be Yeah,
that's a good one. Yeah.No, I think that the certified
sustainable thing is program is pretty muchbullshit, and as you can see,
I'm not afraid to say so.And the California Sustainable Wine Growing Association does

(25:55):
not like this. But I amvery pro organic and biodynamic viticulture, extremely
pro organic and biodic viticulture in myown buying of produce, because I don't
just drink, you know, Ieat food, and so you know,
I go to farmers' markets to buyorganic goods. You know, I want

(26:15):
to do that with my wine.Sustainable is not organic, it's not they
allow roundup. I don't want it, you know, I mean, you're
either you're either organic or you're not. And to me, sustainable is just
a way of saying we care aboutthe environment, but not that much,
you know. I think if you'renot sustainable, and you're not farming sustainably

(26:37):
in some way, then that's thestory. Yes and no, I just
don't think. I don't think theline between sustainable and other con to me
the larger. Okay, you're notwrong, but if you have three categories.
On the far left, you've gotcertified organic, then on the far
right you've got you've got you know, nineteen seventies France with every chemical allowed,

(27:00):
and in the middle you've got tocertify sustainable. I think because the
nature, I think most wineries havefigured out that farming, as you say,
with some sustainable aspects is just betterfor them. So I think the
gap between sustainable and unsustainable whatever youcan call it, regular conventionable, is
not as big as the gap betweenorganic and sustainable or biogenetic. Pladandemic doesn't

(27:23):
get enough credit for it because it'syou know, weird philosophy and stuff,
but it's also a great regimen forfarming, for the health of the drinker
and for the health of the vines. Well these days, you know,
going back to the slipping in wineconsumption, having a sustainability statement on your
website is almost mandatory now if you'remarketing selling wines to environmentally conscious or health

(27:48):
conscious consumers. Which leads us tosome other topics. First one, you
have recently also written about wine versusweed and the curious in your research is
marijuana consumption impacting wine sales? Soresearch shows that it's not. I just

(28:11):
wrote this recently because the declassification ofweed is a big deal, and if
you read the story, you knowthat basically all the experts I talked to
see now it's not making any difference. But I don't think that's going to
continue. I think declassification is abig deal. In the story I mentioned
I smoke weed. I like weed, and I can get high now.

(28:32):
I shop on the weed store.We have a bunch of whaed stores.
I have more wheed stores near myhouse than wine shops. But the one
that I usually patronize has a brandthat I like these days because it's on
sale on Mondays by two get onefree. So I'm spending thirty bucks for
three eights of really high quality weedwhen it's really high quality. California demands

(28:56):
that the weed be organically grown,which you know, that's right in my
sweet spot. And every batch ofweed is lab tested and they shows the
percentage of THHC and plus all kindof ainoids to four digits. And I've
been bitching at wineries for years andyears and years. How come when it
says fourteen point five on a label, it's actually fifteen point nine. You
know, they all we can't.We can't possibly tell you how much alcohol

(29:18):
is in the wine. No,they can do it in other countries.
Argentina can do it as screwed upa country as Argentina as politically. They
can stamp the bottle of wine beforeit goes to the consumer within with a
tolerance of one point five percent.But the United States of America, we
can't do that. You know.In any case, wed the quality of
weed that I'm buying is so high. And speaking of high, I can

(29:41):
get high for I have calculated this, because this is who I am.
About ninety cents. It takes meabout ninety cents worth of weed to get
high. I can't get drunk forninety cents. I looked this up.
I can I could possibly buy thelowest shelf vodka and take shots of it.
Maybe I could get an equivalent buzzfor ninety cents, but it's the
lowest show vodka. It's not organicallygrown, lab tested, So you know,

(30:07):
I think at the low end,I think weed is going to it's
going to be harder to wean youngerconsumers off of weed because younger consumers are
much more concerned about the money thatthey spend. Now. The thing is,
weed and wine go together pretty well. I don't think weed and spirits
go together, but yeah, I'vehad weed and wine together plenty of times.
They go together great. So that'spart of why it's not hitting wine

(30:30):
sales now. People who are buyingwine are getting weed in addition to it,
and they're having them at the sametime, or they're having them on
different occasions. But I have tothink. I think that the reclassification of
weed, with the US government literallysaying this is not as dangerous as we
thought, is going to make animpact on the market. Yeah, I
think it is too. One ofthe things in the article you interviewed Christian

(30:55):
Miller, the research director for theWine Market Council, will give him a
shout out, and you know,he said, the reason consumers are drinking
less alcohol is that they're just tryingto drink less. Usually it's for health
reasons, right, and there's verystrict do you, I very strict do
you? I will thank goodness outthere. What was interesting is that the

(31:15):
study showed that cannabis is a factorpeople drinking less bubbly, which I didn't
quite get. I didn't either,And in fact, after I talked to
Christian that night, we had somechampagne and weed to see. Seriously,
that's the kind of thing you do, you know you do if you cover
this topic. Uh yeah, youknow, I don't know. It wasn't

(31:38):
still champagne, it was. Itwas interesting though, and I think that,
yeah, I think Christian may havementioned it that it was probably a
case of occasions that shamp you know, bubbly and when we when he says
bubbly, So I had champagne,but when we you know, the bubbly
it's perseco that dominates the bubbly market. And maybe people are having prosecco to

(32:02):
party and they just rather have weed, you know. And that makes some
sense to me. If I'm hangingout with my friends and I want to
party and have a good time.Am I necessarily going to drink or I'm
gonna have weed? You know,I might. I might be more up
if I have some nice sativa andnot not to sink in my sofa indica.
But you know, there's no alcoholthat you can buy like. That's

(32:25):
another thing with weed that some ofit may be marketing, but there is
a real difference between sativa's for mentaleffect and indica's for physical effect. There's
nothing like that with alcohol. Youdrink enough alcohol, you're gonna get buzzed
in exactly the same way. Peopleused to have this thinking that tequila is
somehow different. But there's been alot of research. There's no that every

(32:45):
every alcohol buzz is an alcohol buzz. I don't know about that. Tequila
makes me crazy, That's all I'mgonna say. I'd be climbing poled or
something with tequila me and hard spirits. I don't know. You know,
I'm waiting for some publicists to inviteus to a weed and wine comparing pairing
session. Now, oh, I'vebeen invited to those. I've been invited

(33:07):
to weed dinners. I will tellyou something and here I may be a
stick in the mud. But Idon't like weed beverages, and I don't
think that they're going to take off. I don't think they taste good,
and I don't like to be andI don't think you can get around that,
because if you want to if weedtaste like sage, like a really
powerful stage, and I don't likesage, you know it's it's it's in

(33:28):
verrely. Really, when do youlike sage? I mean occasionally, like
in a ficasia a little bit orsomething, but it's just so you know,
I don't want a sage flavored beverage. And the other thing I don't
I'm a flower guy. If I'msmoking weed, I want to smoke weed
because the best thing about it.Similarly to alcohol, I don't want to
take that one drink too many.I like to be buzzed and not drunk.

(33:51):
I like to be high but notwasted. So when you smoke,
it hits you immediately, whereas ifyou take any kind of edible, and
that includes drinks, I got towait a little while and see how it's
going to get to you, andthen maybe a little more wasted than you
want to be. And that's Ithink I know that the wine issue has
been worried about weed beverages, butI think that's a misnomer. Weed beverages
are never going to go with foodas well, and I think people are

(34:13):
going to run into a if youdo it enough, you're going to at
some point over consume when you weren'texpecting to. You know, we've all
over consumed an alcohol, but weknow it when we're doing it. What
about the other elephant in the room, the zero alcohol, zero alcohol wine,

(34:36):
because in in Italy they announced they'retrying to ban that topic, that
term zero alcohol wine. What haveyou tasted and what are your thoughts on
the whole movement? Yeah? Imean Anthony Justmandi is a writer in Vancouver
and he just recently wrote a rantabout this that I retweeted that you know,
there is no such thing as zeroalcohol wine, and philosophically I agree

(34:58):
with that. You know, Ilike to say this because when you work
in a newspaper you get attacked byevangelicals who haven't read the fucking Bible and
don't realize that wine is all overthe Bible. But you know, that's
the thing. I mean. Ioften used to say this that wine is
God's gift. It's really true.Whine is God's gift to us because if
you take grapes and you put themin a bucket and you just leave them

(35:20):
there, they will become wine.Conversely, if you want to make you
should really look into it. Ifyou think you're in a non alcoholic wine,
look into how it's made. It'san extremely invasive, mechanical, unnatural
process. And to me, thattakes away the joy of what wine is
all about. You know, it'snot there's nothing natural about it. So

(35:40):
it's you know, and Welch's grapejuice, which is you know, Welch's
grape juice was started by a whitesupremacist who wanted evangelicals and you look all
this up, who wanted evangelicals tobe able to get the benefits of grape
juice without having the horrible, youknow, alcohol that comes with wine.
You know, that's that's where that'sthe original non alcoholic wine as well as

(36:02):
grape people. So now I'm againstit. Generally speaking, I think I
drink I don't. I rarely drinkwine with lunch unless I'm on a pressed
trip. But your iced tea,drink water or drink sparkling water. There
are plenty of beverages you don't needto have wine. Recently, I was
in Texas, and last year Texaswines had really come a long way.

(36:25):
By the way, I think,if you haven't had them in a while,
it's good time to revisit. Butany case, we were at a
winery where they were making a nonalcoholic rose and it was pretty good,
and I decided to drink it withlunch because I don't generally drink wine with
lunch anyway, keep me fresher forthe afternoon, and I could see how
it worked, and it was allright, Probably the best non alcoholic wine

(36:45):
I ever had. And you're gonnaask me which brand, and I forget
sorry, but at the end ofthe day, I would have rather had
iced ty. You know that there'sno reason to spend twenty bucks on a
bottle of manipulated grape uwes to gowith your meal. I also don't understand.

(37:06):
I've written about non alcoholic spirits afew times every years, and I
have decided that this is something youcan only write about so many things,
and I've decided at this point thisis not something I'm going to specialize in.
Other people are going to do it, and I'm I'm not going to
write a non alcoholic wine wrap up. But I don't you often get when
I first started writing about alcoholic espirits that I get here from alcoholics who

(37:29):
would say that they wanted to beable to take part in, you know,
the pleasure pleasures of drinking culture,you know, going to bars,
having something that looks like wine ina restaurant, you know, or a
dinner or whatever. But I don'tsee how this is helpful. I mean,
you're still having the same You're bringingup the same triggers. I got

(37:51):
to think it's got to be betterfor you to just drink sparkling water,
maybe with a twist. It is, and you know, you go to
restaurants, they're expensive. If there'sactually an article out I was telling David,
I think it's a day or it'sweekend about mocktails and how kids are
going out with their parents and orderingmocktails. And there's a lot of pro

(38:12):
and con on that, but itwas you know, it's a whole another
way for restaurants to make money,but is it really worth it. I'm
a bigger believer that if you don'tdrink less. Turn to lower alcohol,
lower ABV if you want to watchit, you know, and have sparkling
water in between that gat Yeah,yeah, good for the restaurants. They
need to do what they need todo to survive, and there's a good,

(38:34):
good markup on that stuff. Butat the same time, when I
was a kid, I really likecandy cigarettes. I don't know if you're
old enough to remember those, butnothing more than hard candy that looked like
a cigarette. And now those arebanned for the idea that they're gonna and
I'm sure they were probably made byR. J. Reynolds or whatever,
but they're meant to introduce kids tothe idea of having a cigarette in their
mouth. And how is kids orderingmocktails not the same thing. That's exactly

(38:57):
what the article discussed that, youknow. On the negative side, it's
like candy cigarettes and candy cigarettes wasreferenced and I was like, wow,
remember those they are? Yeah Iliked them. Yeah, of course I'm
not. You know, marijuana usedoesn't lead to heroin. I ate candy
cigarettes one of my favorites of kidand I've never had a cigarette in my
life. So another really interesting articleyou interviewed Israeli producers, wine producers about

(39:24):
what's going on in Israel now inthe wine in Why don't you talk to
us about that and what your reportingsfound. Yeah, so, okay,
for one thing, we did notWe expected a ton of flak from that.
My editor was pretty nervous when wedid the first story. We didn't
get it, so we did anotherstory. You know, my job was

(39:45):
covered the wine world, and myfirst thought when October seventh, the Hamas
terrorist attack happened, was, youknow, that was harvest. I wanted
to know. I wanted to readsomebody in Israel writing about what happens during
wine harvest, and nobody wrote it. So again, we were pretty afraid
of flak because we try to bea political but I wanted to know.

(40:06):
So I wanted to know. Ianswered the question, and then I got
to you know, again, nobody'sfollowing. Is there really wine issues?
It's a significant industry for Israel,and it's they saw a lot of wines
in the US. Something I learnedfrom the second story is not just the
Jewish people that apparently they're they're doingreally well in Texas with Christians who there's

(40:28):
this whole I'm not religious there,but there's this whole theory among certain Christians
that the Jews have to be inIsrael for armor getting to take place.
Go somewhere else for the expertise onthat, but in any case, that's
the thing. They want the Jewsto be in Israel. They don't want
it to be you know, runby palace sign or whatever. So I'm
not an expert on this, butyeah, no, it's it's interesting to

(40:50):
talk to the Israeli wineries now thatthey are all. Most of them are
pretty distant from the fighting. Theones that aren't aren't. Does there aren't
there aren't that many. I've beenIsrael on wine trips and I can tell
you they're they're definitely is tension whenI hope we have enough time for this.
The most interesting thing to me aboutIsraeli wine is that when they created

(41:12):
this nation of Israel, they givethe crappy land to the Palestinians. Basically,
they gave they They're like, wewant all the good land where we
can grow food to feed ourselves,and we'll give to the Palestinians this cold,
windy places up in the hills.Well, you know, Israel you
look at where on the map thehot places are really hot and it's a
cold place. Whinny places up inthe hills are the best for wine making.
And people didn't really tip to thisin the Israel Israeli wine industry to

(41:36):
like the nineties. So now you'veget this situation where a lot of the
better wines in Israel are coming fromvineyards in Palestinian territory, but not Gaza,
the West Bank. So I thinkthat's a continually interesting thing. And
I got to tell you, youdon't some of my interviews, A couple
of my interviews with the Israeli winerieshave gotten a little contentious because I've been,

(42:01):
like I said, I've been thereand looked at it with my own
eyes. The settlers are not niceto the Palestinians, so I don't really
want to publicize settler wineries. Butin terms of but here's where I draw
my personal line that if you know, if vinta culture is agriculture, and

(42:22):
if if there's a vineyard in aPalestinian grown area, then you know that
why not. And there are Palestinianowners of vineyards that sell grapes to Israeli
wineries. So in any case,the ones, the only vineyards that are
really effective at Ones is they're notnear There aren't that many vineyards there Gaza
because Gaza's hot. Getting back tomy description of how Israel was formed,

(42:43):
why the land is there, it'syou know, the around that border of
Gaza is down in this valley,and that's not really where the great wines,
great grapes of Israel come from,but a lot of them do come
from the north, so that upnear Golden Heights, you know, there's
been a lot of shelling come down. They're not at full war with Lebanon
and fortunately not with Syria because ifthat happens, we're probably looking at World

(43:05):
War three. But they're not atfull war with you know, with these
countries. But there is there arerockets coming across all the time, gunfire
and things like that. So that'swhere their troubles are. But the main
thing that they're facing right now isjust personnel shortages because some many of them
are in the army. I willtell you one other things from talking to
Israeli is that they don't understand whythe rest of the world has forgotten the
Hamas terrorist attack. That to them, this was and I'll make the comparison

(43:30):
to nine to eleven. I think, if you know, after nine to
eleven, I'm not a perfect person. I wanted to kick but take some
take some fucking names, you know. I when when we killed Osama bin
Laden and I opened the best bottleof California sparkling wine ahead in the house,
Fuck that guy. And I feelthat way about nine to eleven.
It's easy for me to see whythe Israelis feel that way about October seventh,

(43:54):
and they don't understand why the restof the world has forgotten this.
Know, I was sitting in jazzfests talking to a friend who's married to
an Israeli wine importer, and shewas I said, just think about we're
sitting at this jazz fest. Whatwould what would happen if somebody attacked jat
New Orleans jazz fests. People wouldbe you know, it would be like,

(44:16):
we're going to go after them,and people would be you know,
you would just hear about it.So you think about that, and that's
what happened. People were just livingtheir lives and attacked. What's interesting about
the article just circling back because wehave about two or three we have about
four minutes. Uh that yes,Uh, the shelling is affecting because wine

(44:37):
has to be still, and thenoise and the and the reverberations impact wine,
and the personnel problems are challenging andand basically sales are really down of
Israeli wines in Israel. But youinterviewed Jay Bucksmum of the Royal Wine Company,
which is a big importer, andhe said sales are through the roof
in the United States, which youalluded to with the in Texas with I
didn't know about the Christians, butwine. It's my takeaway on it was

(45:02):
wine becomes a political statement in thesense you support Israel by supporting is by
drinking Israeli wines. And I keptI started to think about food and wine
being used in diplomacy and making astatement. And I recently learned like watermelons
are apparently somebody said no watermelon margaritasfor summer because watermelons are apparently a symbol

(45:27):
of Palestinian sympathy. And I'm like, when did food and wine become and
their consumption become symbolic of a politicalstance. Yeah, but you know,
all wine, all wine is aniche product, right, I mean unless
you're making Barefoot and you know Gallo, Gallo is the masters in the wine

(45:49):
group. A couple of others massmarketing, but almost all wine. You
know, Napa Valley cabernty is aniche product, right, I mean navelites
of both. That four percent ofall California lines come from Napa and probably
you know that means something like twoand a half three percent of all wines
from California and Napa cabs. It'sa niche product. They're all niche products.
So if you have if fifty percentof Americans are dead set against what

(46:10):
Israel is doing in Gaza and twentypercent of Americans support it, and I
don't know, I'm just making it, pulling these figures out of the air.
But then twenty percents a lot.Yeah, yeah, speaking of Napa
cab, one last thing to talkabout before we start wrapping up. You
wrote about a region that I wasn'tfamiliar with, the El Dorado wine regions.
You said is making some of thegreat California cabs. I mean,

(46:35):
where is it? And talk tous about it as a as a final
wrap up thinking about wine searcher,Yeah, Eldorado is really underappreciated even in
California because most of the wines aren'tin distribution. It's in Gold Country,
so basically north of Sacramento. It'sSacramento is the closest big city. It's
kind of spread out. They're mostlyfarms. Grapes are not their main main
thing. But why it's special winewise is the elevation. It's the highest

(47:00):
elevation wine growing area in California.So it's it's a it's cooler, so
that's important. Most of this placesin Gold Country they're making zinfandel and the
heat and they do some of thosereally good. But Eldorado's doing something very
different and then b not only isit cooler, but they're above the fog
line, so it's both cool withwith really good son. If you're going

(47:22):
to compare it to anywhere, it'sprobably Uco Valley, Argentina, you know,
which is where some of the bestwines from Argentina come out of.
Uco Valley's gotten bigger, and I'ma fan of Ugo Valley wines, I
got to tell you, But UcloValley's got bigger and more powerful companies making
more wine that get on the marketand elder Rada. They're kind of farms

(47:42):
that you know, you generally buy. They're selling direct to consumers. They're
just not that well known even inCalifornia. But for me, that's my
best, little known West Coast wineregion. Well, we took notice and
we're going to give it a shot. You said, interestingly, a lot
of the vines that they have theyhave old vine cabernet, which doesn't tend

(48:02):
to happen in the more commercially successful, shall we say, regions of California
because they rip the vines out aftera certain time when they don't produce very
well. Yeah, right, andthey don't have elderado. They're not making
a fortune, so they're not youknow, they're not quite as you know.
Napa's Gota makes great wines, Napamakes great cavalry. I'm not going
to say they all, but replanting'sdone by algorithm. So really we've been

(48:29):
talking with Blake Gray Wine Search asus editor. You also have the Gray
Report, and you write about alot of really terrific stories that cover the
world the news regions. We couldgo on and on about some of their
recent articles about how all the regionsearly are reclassifying and trying to be like
Burgundy. We won't go there becausewe don't have the time, but we

(48:50):
love to ask this question. Ifyou were a wine grate, describe yourself.
Yeah, I mean, i'd behard for us to beat Miles's description
of himself as Pino Noir in Sideways, because that's one of my favorite parts
of the movie. But I hopeI'm not that anal. I don't know
if I were a wine grape,I guess I want to be Zinfandel.

(49:14):
I guess I want to be alittle prickly and have a chance to maybe
that you know, you know,I'm probably gonna grow my bushes out in
all kinds of areas that I havea tendency to do too much and be
too powerful. But if you youknow, if you trim me just right,
I'm going to be really interesting.I guess I'll take that. I
love it. I love it.So let's be very clear where our fans

(49:37):
our listeners can find and follow you, because if you google Blake Gray,
it's a little scary. There's aTikTok store out there who's nineteen called Blake
Gray. Did you know that?Yes, he became There's also a female
country singer named Blake Gray. Andfor a while I was number one,
she was number one, and thenthis guy came up his devastating Instagram post
that made him number one, andhe's been number one Blaker ever since.

(49:59):
Was he to put cuddle question mark? Question mark question mark? How can
I compete with that? I mean, you cuddle, that's the that's you
know. But yeah, I know, W Blake Gray. It is my
real name. I started using itas an affectation in ninth grade and then
I realized when I was in thenewspaper ad. You know, I'm not
sure it's I'm not sure it's theright affectation for the twenty twenty four.

(50:20):
But on the other hand, ismy byline my whole career. So look
for W. Blake Gray wind searcherdot com. Click on the stories.
A lot of people don't don't clickon the stories part. That's the thing.
Yep, yeah, click on thestories because this is some really terrific
journalism, and we support journalism.We want our listeners to support journalism.

(50:40):
It's hard work and you are agreat example of someone doing it right.
So thank you, Blake for joiningus on the Connected Table. Well,
thanks, it's been great to seeyou guys, and uh hope you see
you next time in person, andwe hope so too. Wherever it is,
we want to raise a glass withyou. You've been listening to The
Connected Table Live. You can findall our shows on more than forty podcast

(51:01):
channels. It's evergreen content you canlisten on demand at your convenience. Follow
us on Instagram at the Connected Table, and check us out on the Connected
table dot com. Our messages alwaysstay insatiably curious. Thank you,