August 24, 2023 • 49 mins
Elizabeth Gabay is a Master of Wine living in the South of France who is author of two definitive books on rosé wines and a frequent lecturer on the subject “Rosé: Understanding the Pink Wine Revolution” (2018) is a global overview of the history and styles of rosé. “Rosés of Southern France” (2022), co-written with her son, Ben Bernheim, is a handbook highlighting the terroir, traditions and regional diversity of the rosés of southern France. Gabay produces a rosé in Slovakia called Sen.
The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET.
The Connected Table Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-connected-table-live--1277037/support.
The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET.
The Connected Table Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-connected-table-live--1277037/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
and their guests and not those ofW FORCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates.
We make no recommendations or endorsements radioshow, program services, or products
mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall
be extended to W FORCY Radio.It's employees are affiliates. Any questions or
comments should be directed to those showhosts. Thank you for choosing W FORCY
(00:21):
Radio. Welcome to the Connected TableLive where your hosts Melanie Young and David
(00:45):
Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We enjoy bringing you our listeners to
dynamic people who work front and centeraround the world in wine, food,
hospitality, and spirits. We loveshare the story and where they are and
where we're going with you. Andwe're really excited because today we're taking you
(01:07):
to the South of France, oneof our many favorite locations. Right David,
absolutely, Melanie, do you loveRose? I love it all year
round, yest me too. Itcomes in many different forms and styles and
tastes and flavors, and so it'svery versatile people think it's a summer drink,
but it's not. You can absolutelydrink it year round. Do you
know one of my pet peeves,David, One of my pet peeves is
(01:30):
people say, oh, it's asummer beverage, and the marketers stop marketing
and the people stopped drinking. Andit's like I always compared to white jeans,
they're perfectly acceptable after Labor Day.And some of my favorite Rose's or
gastronomic Rose's that really pair well withlots of wonderful foods. We're really excited
today because we have on our showan expert on this topic. We're continuing
(01:52):
our Master of Wine series which westarted in twenty twenty three, and our
guest today is Elizabeth Gabay. She'sbeen a Master of Wine since nineteen ninety
eight. She's based in the Southof France. Has a British accent,
and I learned traveling with her inSicily has American citizenship. She was born
in the United States. I've hadthe pleasure of traveling with Liz on our
(02:15):
Etno Days trip, which we didin September twenty twenty two. We've actually
traveled with her a couple of times. Yeah, well we and then most
recently during Sicilia on Premerse she ledto master classes, one on Rose's of
Sicily and another Unsparkling Wines, andshe travels with her son and co author
Ben Bernheim, who also met finallybeen hearing great stories about him. She's
(02:37):
author of two books on the topicof Rose Rose Understanding the Pink Wine Revolution
and then Rose's a Southern France,which is the most recent, and we
hear she's working on another book calledPink Bubbles. She joins us as we
said, from the south of France. Bonjeur, Liz, bonjour Menini and
(02:59):
David Liz. Let's start with yourbackground. You live in the south of
France, have a British accent andUS citizenship. As we learned, where
did you grow up in What wasyour childhood like before you get into wine.
Yeah, it's one of those things. My father died fairly recently and
we had to go along and theysaid, what's your family background? And
I sort of started doing the tourof the world and they kind of okay,
(03:23):
we'll forget that. So yes,I was born in New York.
So I am actually a New Yorkerwith an American passport and when I was
two the month before this is abig giveaway of my age. The month
before Kennedy was shot, we movedback to the UK because my mother was
missing her family in the UK andLondon was sort of getting to be quite
(03:49):
buzzy, so we moved back toEngland. And so I grew up in
London. I'm a regard myself asa Londoner. Went to school in London
and lived there almost all of mylife, apart from going to university,
until we moved to the south ofFrance in two thousand and two. So
a Londoner who moved to France andthe American passport is something that is there.
(04:15):
Do I think about it a lot? Not really know the internew international
generation I think that moves around andhas multi passports. Well, we'd like
to join their group. You know. I grew up when you know,
I was alive when Kennedy was shottoo, And you grew up in the
swinging sixties then in London, fromwhat I went very much. So.
(04:36):
My parents had met as art students, so all of my parents friends were
artists and architects. Sort of quitea trendy family. I've got photograph graphs
of me in Carnaby Street. Iremember going down the King's Road. We
just lived a very nineteen sixties Londonlifestyle. We had a neighbor who owned
(05:00):
a couple of top top nightclubs inLondon, and so as a child sometimes
we were allowed to go up therebefore it opened and see the flashing lights
and see the bands before they startedplaying. So yeah, quite quite a
delic on very six days and visionsof Twiggy going through my Yeah, I
(05:21):
visited a Carnibie Sweet and Twiggy.I mean, I'll never forget for some
reason, Austin Powers. Yeah.I mean when I was little, I
watched Lucy I Love Lucy went toLondon and I remember, just like you
know, elbows in front of theTV set and Lucy came out in a
miniskirt and I went berserk. Idemanded that my parents buy me a miniskirt
because I wanted to be a swingingchick from London. And I think it
(05:43):
was like five. It's like veryformative, but what a fun time to
live there. Really probably one ofone's heydays. So curious, you know,
we reference that you're a master ofWye but you know, no,
no child wakes up a goals.I would it be a why writer of
one day? You know you can'teven drinkwine. So when you were young,
what did you aspire in your lifeto become. I think I wanted
(06:09):
to be an archaeologist or historian.So history was, I suppose still is
my main passion in life, andso I did a degree in medieval history
and went on archaeological digs and myfirst job was with a history magazine called
(06:29):
History Today in Soho, and thenI moved to an economic publisher in Oxford.
And then bizarrely, my father hadalways worked in computers, so I
was a very early user of computer. It's not very good at it,
but I was an early user,and I got a job because I could
(06:50):
use a computer working for Saddler's Well'sRoyal Ballet. I'm doing marketing. So
I then moved back to London andin the nineteen eighties I was in the
Middle theater was my other passion workingthere. But I must have always been
interested in wine, because I havewine books from the age of sixteen.
(07:14):
My first book of tasting notes wasas a twenty one year old camping down
the Loire, and it's got wonderfultasting notes like nice, good, quite
nice and anyway. After about twentywines, I realized that maybe a bit
of diversification beyond nice would be good, and so I started copping down what
(07:36):
Hugh Johnson wrote about the same wineand matching what I thought. And then
I went backpacking around the world.I went around vineyards in the Napper,
New Zealand, Australia, and cameback to France aged twenty six. My
parents came to London aged twenty six, and my parents had just bought a
(07:58):
little tiny holiday cottage and Provence.So I came down to visit them no
job, having come back from traveling, and one of the neighbors said,
you know, there's all this wine, why don't you try selling it in
London so I can really Okay,doesn't sound too difficult. So filled up
my car and drove back to Londonfull of wine, and then realized I
(08:18):
knew nothing, absolutely nothing. SoI saw that Christie's the auctioneers, were
running a series of once a weektasting run by Stephen Spurrier to teach bankers
how to go to upmarket restaurants andbuy top wines. So I signed up
(08:39):
for the tastings and tasted the mostamazing wines. But I couldn't afford to
do the second series, and soStephen said, if you would like,
you can pour the wine. SoI poured the wine and then he said
why don't you do certificate? Sohe really triggered it, and then before
I knew it, I started doingthe Masters of Wine. So there was
(09:01):
no great plan. My whole lifejust seems to have been one loose development
after the other, and amazingly kindof all in the same direction too.
I kind of like that, youknow, everybody makes young people feel like
they have a master plan. Andsometimes, as I've written, serendipity,
if you allow it to line onyour shoulder, it will shine the way
(09:22):
I'd live in hope with that.Yes, I mean my son Ben,
who works with me, was notgoing to work in wine, and serendipity
ended up. Accidents happen, yeah, traveling working in vineyards Soamelier and then
COVID and then he came back andstarted working. So yes, I think
serendipity is very important and I thinkthat's also that carries on into how we
(09:46):
ended up working in Rose and thatLiza ended the life story talk saying there
was that the cottage in Provence andworking in Provence, and you know,
thirty years later, sort of fallinginto the fact that people have stopped talking
about read and started talking about Rosie, and all of a sudden they're asking
difficult questions about Rosie and have nobodyelse to ask. And I was here
(10:09):
so that I was the person theyasked. So yes, again, it
was no great plan to be aRose specialist. I just happened to be
here at the right time and rightplace. You know. For those listeners
wondering what that fourth voice is,that's Ben Bernheim, which Liz's son and
co author on some of her books, which we'll get to in a little
bit. Welcome to the show aswell, Ben, So Ben, I'm
(10:31):
curious since we've introduced you and youkind of fell into it as well.
Are you considering or have you consideredor are you pursuing certification as well.
It's a very good question. Peopleask me how long I've been preparing for
this or for a career in mine, and actually it's been even longer than
Liz. Oh. Actually there wasone great story we visited a vineyard.
(10:54):
Ben asked the wine maker looked upat one of these big fermentation to and
he said, how many glasses ofwine in a fermentation tank? And the
winemaker said, good question, andhe looked at me and he said,
I think you're able to taste onyour own. And for the rest of
the visit he and Ben were calculatinghow many glasses of wine per fermentation tank?
(11:18):
Many years ago. Many years ago, I think you were like seven
years old, So yeah, anearly starter. Well, the grape doesn't
fall far from the wine, doesit. As they say, I am
curious, what was your thesis whenyou were going for your Master of Wine.
So the first year I did theexam for the Master of Wine was
the first year they did an extendedessay as it was then called. So
(11:43):
it wasn't the research paper as itis now. It was very much a
prototype. And my paper was onclonal selection. Because clonal selection in ninety
three was still radically new. Peoplewere only just beginning to talk about it.
I had to find produced that wereplaying around with different clones. I
remember talking to a producer in Australiaand the Mornington Peninsula who had three different
(12:09):
peno noir clones and this was like, wow, that's exciting. So it's
very very different. We didn't havethe websites, we didn't have internet research.
The MW and I took it wasvery much you're out there visiting vineyards
and talking to producers. So oursphere of interest was very individual. You
(12:31):
know. Now, if you lookat students essays, they've all read the
same Internet article and they've all beento the same Zoom Talk and you get
a lot of identicate answers. Butwhen I did it, we were very
individual. I think that's refreshing.I know that we did a sponsored podcast
on Batsby's and biodiversity with Bordeaux,and damn at that tenline wasn't like all
(12:52):
over a zillion articles because everybody wasreading from the same material and it's nice.
You know, I kind of missedthose days where you actually went out
into the field and did field work. That comes into something that with The
Master of Wine is quite interesting inthat should wine tasting notes just be tasting
(13:16):
notes? And how much analysis andhow much personality should we add to everything
we do? And I think that'sone of the advantages of the press trips,
like where we met we were actuallytalking to producers and could put a
face to the wine and how importantthat is, and learn their passion and
why they got into the business,and learn how they farm their land.
(13:37):
And there's nothing like being out therewith them learning about that. We argue
that all the time to people whojust want to send us samples. It's
just not the same. Sometimes it'sbeen quite good in that you can speed
through and work out which wines youlike. We tasted two hundred and fifty
Province roses the other week. Ithink if i'd had to it's all two
(14:00):
hundred and fifty producers, I mightwell be dead by now. Well that's
a well taken point. Well,you know, tastings like that have their
place, particularly when you're looking atthe how the wine is made, the
technicality, and you're comparing it withother wines and vintages and styles. But
when you're working on a story aboutthe producer and the region, you've got
(14:22):
to get You've got to feel thedirt and meet the people to get behind
the story. So they both havea place, but it's a very different
way to cover. Yeah, soyou live in Provence, you are a
rose specialist rose as you reference andwe concur I mean there was like twenty
years ago, thirty years ago,you couldn't sell it here. It was
(14:43):
just called pink stuff and it wasconsidered cheap, attacking bush blush wine.
And then this revolution game. Infact, your book, you have two
books, Rose Understanding the Pink WineRevolution, in which you wrote in twenty
eighteen. In the Rose's a southernFrance. So from your perspective, because
(15:07):
you're in Europe, we're in theUnited States, so we're seeing it one
way, you're seeing another what spurredthis on? What raised the revolution flag?
And raise the pink flag? Thatactually was a real voyage of discovery
because, as Ben said, thebook got commissioned because we live in Provence,
in southeastern France, and the editorpresumed that the majority of the book
(15:31):
would be on Provence. And thenwhat was particularly interesting was just it's Rose's
been around for centuries, but thetwentieth century revolution, I would say started
in America. I think just buildingon that, I think when we talk
about the Rose Revolution and the ModernRose book, it's very much modern rose.
(15:54):
Rose is a historic wine style alongwith other wine styles, and it's
easy to think that until twenty fifteen, nobody was drinking it. Just one
example, in nineteen thirty six,when they created the first aocs in France,
one of those six was exclusively rose, and that was one of the
founding aocs was a rose. SoI think it's very much the modern rose,
(16:17):
very much. So let those carryon. I think it's it's important
to distinguish that rose isn't some inventionfrom nowhere. It's a certain style of
rose or a certain take on itthat's very mud. Yeah. Yes,
it was Tavel nineteen thirty six asa first appellation, but everything seemed to
come back. Actually, serendipity isthe theme of this conversation. You know,
(16:41):
Prohibition in America fortified groan ash forecclesiastical wine. After Prohibition there was
all this grenache and it made fruitywine in the style of Tavel, which
was the appellation. And then whenthe Gis came over to Europe, they
looked for rose like the rose theyhad in America. So Matteash Lancers five
(17:06):
rosas, and by the nineteen fiftiesLady Bird Johnson, I think she made
pink popular, and pink was justall the rage. Princess Margaret drank pink.
Hollywood stars had pink. Thank goodness, we didn't have any purple wine,
but you know, we could havegone all purple Melanie. So pink
(17:27):
became very, very fashionable. Andthen in the sixties and seventies, as
red and white wine became better,rose wine sort of slipped back. And
then the modern rose Revolution is howtechnology stepped in and it became a cleaner,
fresher, more elegant wine. Butthere is this wonderful storyline which is
(17:52):
quite complex. You can find quitea lot of far more references to rose
than people realize throughout history, andthat was wonderful discovering it. And I
think the other big thing was Bentcame back from university while I was writing
it, and this is what everyyoung man wants to come home and being
told you're drinking a case of rosefrom a different country every night. But
(18:17):
what was interesting. So I cameback from university in twenty seventeen, and
I was very involved with wine whileat university. I don't think I had
had a single rose at university oreven heard anybody talking about it. And
this was twenty seventeen, which isnot that long ago, and people serious
wine people weren't even aware of Rose'sexistence. Even on the mw exam.
(18:41):
There's it's been a hard struggle toacknowledge. Ten to twelve percent of world
sales are rose and that doesn't includechampagne or sparkling pink, so you know,
it's just including sparkling wine. Pinkwine is probably a fifth of wine
drunk, but it has still lookeddown upon, which is you know something
(19:04):
I'm aggressively fighting a lot. Well, I'm curious about something. So you
mentioned you referenced Ladybird and Princess Margaretand the stars lets of the late fifties
or early sixties. Do you haveany thoughts on the fact that women,
which are a significant part of winebuyers in the United States over sixty percent,
(19:26):
drove the Rose Revolution because many youknow, for a long time it
was considered a gurly wine. It'spink. A lot of men didn't drink
pink, you know, And I'mjust wondering if that helped drive sales.
I think it did. I thinkit's not a very pc thing to claim
nowadays, but yes, I thinkit did make a big difference a country
(19:49):
by country. So in France,men don't seem to mind being drinking Rose.
Uruguay was a very rose drinking SouthAfrica it was women. America was
women, so it depends on whichregion. Australia, I think men don't
like drinking Rose. That's a slightlynon macho drink. James Bond drinks pink
(20:15):
champagne in several books, and Rose, Danche and Rose, so that was
not an unmasculine thing. So it'sa very interest. I think, yes,
women played a big, big part, but it's leveled out. I
do believe it drove women drove sales. I think women dravel ladder sales.
(20:36):
But it's an even playing film andmany areas and industries it's now an even
playing film. I think Instagram hasreturned it to being a woman's drink.
I think Instagram has actually been quitea sexiest way of marketing Rose. So
since twenty ten, you know,we've had all of these bikini on a
yacht drinking Rose. All the influencersfor Rose are women, and then there
(21:02):
was what was it, the brose, so there was obviously a fight back
Rose different. You know what I'dlike to do, I'd like to take
all the men and have them dothe same thing women do in bikinis.
I'd like for men to do thesame thing and see how that reaction is
because it was hilarious. It wouldbe hysterical, and I think it would
(21:23):
be a game changer and how peopleperceive all this stuff and how silly it
is mountains Instagram. Yet with that, they may kill them. You know,
That's just the way I think,because I always think if women's doing
it this way, how would aman do it? But is it interesting?
Size? Just going back to whatwas saying about different markets and different
perceptions in different countries. I thinkwith Rose, maybe even more so than
(21:45):
with other wines, because it's sonew, individual countries have very, very
very different Rose attitudes. And Ithink one good example of that is actually
there's a marketing campaign for a certainRose group of Rose's where they have pictures
of people in their advertising campaigns,and the length of the skirt of the
(22:07):
woman in the picture varies depending onwhich country the ads are being shown in,
and it's a shorter skirt in Americaand a longer skirt in France.
Oh that's kind of interesting. Well, it's like going topless. You know.
Europeans are very cool about going.We had a long talk about going
topless the other day, David,and it's like, you know, in
Europe, you know topless speeches,people are very nobody cares steptic care.
(22:29):
It's gy like people drink rose whenever, right, But over here it becomes
like a whole sexist thing. AndI think that's kind of the same with
rose. They sexify rose, whichis unfortunate because it should be the wine
for all people who are like areally good glass of rose. So let's
kind of dive into you know,you wrote a book the Rose's of Southern
France. You live in southern France, but they, as you know and
(22:51):
we all know, they're wonderful rose'saround the world. And you actually did
a lecture on the rose's of Sicily, and you produce a rose as well
from Slovakia. So let's talk aboutwhere you think there are some lights still
to be shined on rose that peoplereally should think about, and also about
your rose. So during lockdown,when nobody could go to wine fares or
(23:17):
anything, I was writing a loadof articles about rose, and so samples
were coming in and Ben had thebright idea if we just call out for
samples across Southern France. We coulddo an e guide on the rose's of
Southern France. So we tasted athousand rose's over a couple of months and
(23:37):
wrote this e guide, And whenwe finished it, we realized that even
if the majority of the wine wasfrom the Mediterranean with the same grapes,
there was a lot of variation,but we didn't know what the inner details
of why the variation. So thebook Rose of Southern France is an attempt
(24:02):
to try and define why rose's indifferent appellations are different, why some are
better some are not good. It'sa year since we wrote it and we're
already going, oh my goodness,the second edition is going to have so
much more to go back to yourquestions and other specific regions to shoot that
need to be need to have alight shone on them. I think it's
(24:22):
easy to think, let's look atAustralia or Chili or somewhere very far afield,
and it's easy to forget that mostrose is produced and most rose is
drunk in more or less the southof France and Frances is the biggest importer
of rose, but by far,not America, not China, not the
(24:44):
UK, and it's easy to overlookthe fact that there's, yes, there's
incredible diversity, and incredible rose's tobe discovered in far flung places. But
there's a lot of diversity even withinwhat can seem to be a monolithic South
of And if I can go back, actually a question you're asking what started
the modern rose revolution. It's easyto point at Brad Pitt or a specific
(25:08):
wine maker or a specific wine Ithink Liz would often say it's Peter Male
and that perception of Provence and lavenderand lavender field, and of course Peter
Mayle's Provence, which is what capturedso many people's imaginations. Isn't the Provence
of code to Provence or of Provencestyle rose. That's the sort of diversity
(25:30):
that's Those are the rose's that needto have more attention given to them because
they are Provence and they can beProvence style, but also they're not as
a duo working together, we arehorrendously geeky, and that we can go
to a vineyard. And I rememberwhen we were writing the book last year
and Ben suddenly says, and whatis the pressure in your press, and
(25:53):
what is the exact size of thepress, And started to sort of register
those details, and we had neveractually thought that the subtle differences about the
levels of the press and the sizeof the press were making such a significant
difference. So that was last year'sthing. This year we've been talking about
(26:15):
malolactic fermentation in rose, temperature control, yeasts, acidification, so we get
more and more geeky, which actuallygoes on to the Slovakian rose. So
having thought about how everyone in Provencewas making rose, we started going no,
(26:36):
no, if we made a rose, we might try something slightly different.
And every time we mentioned it toa wine maker, they looked a
little horrified that we were suggesting somethingquite so erradically different. Didn't jump at
the chance to work with us.And I was working in Slovakia and I
met a wine maker who I thoughtwe might have that artistic curiosity, and
(27:03):
then Ben met him on holiday afew months later, but by accident,
I was doing a tour of Bratislava'sbest wine bars as one does, yes,
as one does, and bumped intohim and really got on and I
tasted his wines and they were alllovely. So then we called him up
and we said, we have thiscrazy idea of Vladimir, Would you be
(27:26):
interested in working with us with arose. We would like to do a
rose that has twenty four hours skincontact, not one hour as in Provence,
spontaneous fermentation in barrel and then agedfor eleven months plus in barrel.
Went yeah, all right, thatsounds good. So it's largely cabinet serving
(27:51):
on from the oldest organic vineyard inSlovakia on an ancient volcano. And it
tastes a bit like a fine Burgundy. It's a rose, but it takes
like a fine burgundy. One thingwe're keen to really emphasize, and this
wine is putting our money where ourmouth is. That rose is not a
(28:14):
category of wine, and it's noteven necessarily a color. It's a catch
all for anything that is somehow betweenred or white. And is a very
light red rose? Maybe is ablonde noir rose? Maybe? Where is
a sparkling rose? A rose?It's an orange wine a rose. Orange
wine looks pink sometimes, and sofor our wine is our rose ye dark,
(28:40):
it's quite dark, and it's verymuch on the light red end of
the spectrum. In fact, theGerman distributor decided that actually it was a
red wine, and they put iton the red wine list of their catalog,
and we're very keen also not toput the word rose on the label,
because although we're proud of the act, it's a rose, it's a
(29:02):
wine, and rose should be judgedas a wine, as a good wine
or a bad wine, as anage worthy wine or not as a product
of grapes and terwa's first and foremost, and as a rose or a pool
side drink second. So I thinkwe are discussing locally the difference between premium
(29:22):
rose and an aperative style rose.And shockingly, this has become a major
major issue in France. So Idon't know. I mean, maybe you'd
come across this when you travel,but how people People want to have a
wine that it suits every market.They want it to be an entry level
(29:45):
wine and a premium wine and awine their ages, and no one wine
can do everything. You just havedifferent categories of wine. And this has
become a World War three argument inFrance. At the end, well,
I think it's an argument that's notgoing to end very soon either, because
we've come across we've traveled together,but we've also done a lot of traveling
(30:07):
on our own and gone to regionswhere the rose's are all very different from
each other from region to region,and some are drinking at the pool rose.
As Ben said, some are verygastronomic. Styles of rose sum are
aged even up to ten years beforethey get released. There's a whole world
of rose out there, as youvery well know that. I think the
world is still learning to come toterms with how to use it, and
(30:30):
it can be confusing. I thinkone thing to be careful about, I
mean premium. The word premium,you know, the opposite is not premium
so or less or so. Ithink an apparti rose can be a wonderful
wose it could be a premium eppartifrose. We always say appartif style versus
a more gastronomic enjoy with your foodstyle. And gosh, we were just
(30:56):
in a brutso tasting through Terostola toBruce, so just the range at that
master class of those wines in thatcategory was eye opening. I think this
is a very good point to me. We've been discussing how to define.
Our next big project is defining premium, defining premium rose and actually doing a
(31:22):
report on the world's top four hundredRose's, and we've been investigating that.
One of the things that people oftensay, why do we enjoy working with
rose? And our feeling is thatred wine is there's a there's a limitation
(31:42):
as to how much variation you canhave, same with white wine. But
because rose is a new category,almost anything can go. We have tasted
the most weird and wacky Rose's,and but we've often said at the moment,
because rose is still it's a bitlike an adolescent, it's trying to
find its way. We don't mindif the rose is not perfect as long
(32:07):
as it's an artistic expression, aslong as it's it's creative. And I
think that for us is the mostimportant thing is that it's not a formulaic
wine. There is some thought andcreation going on with it. Well,
I think a couple of things.I think premium, you know, kind
of like the word elegant, whichI kind of roll my eyes when the
(32:30):
nurse producers go elegant. It's elegantthen to describe a damn thing for me.
Premium is in many cultures, includingthe United States, it's based around
a price point, a premium.You can be very careful with that word
and frankly, I would find anotherword because it is too tied. If
I were a producer and I produceda really wonderful apertif rose, or a
(32:53):
really wonderful rose, but the pricepoint was lower, but it was the
best in its price point, orany wine, and somebody said it's a
premium. A premium is a tome, is as a price tag and
other things. So I would justthink about that when you do that,
I think it's something that we haveto think about because the person who commissioned
(33:16):
it commissioned it as premium. Butwe're talking to people this week about fine
rosie, So is it a finewine because nobody talks about premium reds or
premium whites when when talking about finewine, they just talk about fine wine.
And everyone somehow knows what that means. Well, some people do,
(33:37):
when some people don't. I mean, fine wine means there's a finesse fin
finesse to the wine. Right.Well, I've been told of for using
the term swimming pool wine, asit's not derogatory. As you said,
there are some fantastic wine that youwould have by the pool. You'll it's
(33:57):
like it'd be like saying you're childold. It'd be like having children and
comparing im saying, you know,they like to be happy. We saw
I show less night er I did, and the child just wanted to be
happy, and that seemed to bea problem. But you know, it's
a happy wine, you know,exactly to the to the people as you
talk about zen, your wine whichyou describe in the process, it goes
(34:21):
through mallow. It's a darker red. Thank you said, it's a cabernet.
So I'm like the person who doesn't. Let's say you're talking to someone
who's not in the trade or someonewho's just curious. Why why would what
did they say to well, whyisn't it just a red wine? Why
is it a light red versus arose? How would you answer that?
So there is no legal definition forwhat is rose? Right, So the
(34:49):
nearest definition, which is by nomeans, I think it's almost one hundred
percent. It's probably about ninety percentaccurate. It doesn't finish fermentation on the
skins. So red wine finishes fermentationon the skins. Orange wine finishes fermentation
(35:10):
on the skins, white wine androse does not. And that's the nearest
we have come to giving. Sowhite wine and rose should not or is
rarely tannic. It can have sometannins, but it won't have powerful tannins.
(35:32):
And this is you know, alongwith whether the wine is premium or
fine or fun there is also theother level of what is a rose,
which is why I brought it upbecause when you as you described it,
and you talked about the mallow andthis and that, I'm like, well,
it sounds like you're talking about redwine. But you actually you did
(35:52):
a very good response to my question. For the people who would wonder about
just over half of the world's rose, it was a third, it's now
about five years ago it was abouta third and now it's about a half
is pale in color. But howdo they know this? So there is
(36:15):
a rose research station in Provence andthey evaluate the percentage of the color of
rose, judging what rose's submitted tothem and fire competitions they've organized with a
lot of competitions that they submit tothe Rose Research Center what color were the
(36:38):
rose's So it's a very rough estimatebecause there's a lot of rose made that
isn't submitted into competitions. But it'sonly about half of the world's rose's are
pale, and of course color doesn'ttell you anything about a rose. Many
Provence rose's are fifty percent white grape, fifty percent red grapes. You have
(37:02):
many, many roses that are madefrom some roses that are made from one
hundred percent gray or pink grapes,which can be very pale, but maybe
even finished fimentation on the skins,and that breaks that rule. And at
that point, maybe they're an orangewine. Maybe they're a white wine.
Nobody really knows. You have someroses and they're quite rare, but you
(37:23):
have some rose's made from tanturia grapeswhere the skin is dark and the juice
is dark. And even if they'redirect press and you do everything by the
book for a pale rose, they'redark. They will be darker than a
red wine in the glass. Infact, we've just made another rose with
a Tenturia grape again in Slovakia,with a very aromatic grape, one of
(37:45):
its grandparents's muscat. It's a tenturia, so it smells a bit like a
muscat, looks like a red wine. It's a rose, and we've put
it in a cacia barrels again justto sort of challenge and intellectually provoke the
discussion that that is important. Ithink for us Rose, we both enjoy
(38:10):
the intellectual discussion of Rose. Whatis the tentteria that you use? Don
I do? No? Okay?Interesting? I think I think your third
book needs to be Rose provocation.That's a nice idea because as we're talking,
there are so many elements. Youknow, it's it's it's not a
(38:34):
simple wine. Some you know youcan and I can see you go from
picnic to pool too, you know, a wonderful meal and with with incredible
finesse at a fine dining restaurant,and there's a range, and it can't
you can't be paid. You can'tpigeonhole it. Much like you can't pigeonhole
people judge it by their skin color. You really can't judge a Rose by
(38:57):
it's Q and it's hard two.Yeah, you can't put Rose in a
corner exactly. And I think that'ssomething that we're sort of feeling increasingly strongly
about. I mean, it wasinteresting tasting the premiere Crew Shapley today,
and our scores were our tasting noteswere no more that the price. The
(39:22):
prices were comparable to top Rose,and the quality was comparable to top Rose,
and I would say the age worthinesswas comparable to top Rose. Just
because one of them is slightly pinkand isn't a prettier bottle sometimes doesn't really
mean that we should be less lesscaring about it or less serious about it.
(39:43):
Yeah, so yeah, so thatis I like the idea of that
book. We also we have afterthis top Rose report, Ben has another
geeky project on single parcel wines,which is an interesting one for rose because
so often rose is picked, orthe grapes for rose are picked because that's
(40:07):
whatever the wine maker has left orbecause the parcels didn't make a good red,
or maybe they're a blend of whateverwas left over. And it's rare
to find single parcel or single vineyardrose's. But then we realize, actually
(40:27):
in the south of France it's it'srare to find single parcel or single vineyard
reds and whites as well. Butwhat is a single pass to the single
parcel? And but also you can'ttalk about rose in isolation. I think
you mentioned you've you've traveled a lot, You've tasted rose's from all over the
world that are very different in stylethat are very diverse, as are the
(40:50):
reds and the whites. I assumeduring those travels, and we think it's
unwise to look at a rose fromsomewhere else and not to taste the reds
and the whites, because a goodrose will have some sort of family resemblance
with the reds and the whites.I would expect in a region with very
tannic reds maybe or very tannic,oaky reds, I would be surprised if
(41:15):
they're able to make a light,delicate you know, we talked about elegant.
If they're able to make a rosethat's five alcohol percentage points lower than
the red simply because they won't havethe grapes, they won't have the terawa,
they won't have the expertise, theywon't have the traditions. There's also
the passion of the wine makers.We've just done six months ago, we
(41:37):
did a big tasting of the redand white wines of Provence, and we
thought the producers would be, oh, well, it's our lesser wine,
it's not our rose. And italso it turned out that they red and
white wine is the real soul andpassion of Provence producers not rose. For
(42:00):
many of them. They were like, this is our baby, this is
this is our little pride and joy. We earn money with the rose,
but we love our red and whites. I mean, they make good rose's
as well, but it was theyloved their reds and their whites. You
know. I find that interesting becausehaving traveled through Provence a bunch of myself,
(42:22):
I've actually been to the laboratory invitebon Is where it is and gone
through the process of tasting wines withthem there. We've been through Provence a
bunch and you see a lot ofrose production, and it's always interesting to
walk into the winery and say andhave them say, oh, by the
way, we make a red two, would you like to taste that?
(42:42):
Exactly? It's the other way aroundin so many other areas well. That
is a big problem. I thinkquite often the rose is not even on
the website, so you have toreally hunt for it. But yeah,
we were looking at pink sparkling,but that sort of shifted to one side
temporarily. People talk a lot aboutProvence style rose as being the revolution,
(43:08):
the success story of the wine world. For the last few years, pink
prosecco is growing at a far fasterrate, and it was already about eighty
eighty five percent of the volume ofCode of Provence, and it has a
lot more potential to keep growing.I think it's really not impossible that by
twenty twenty five, the default pink, or that the pink that people will
(43:30):
be drinking the most of, willbe prosecco, not Provence. It was
like the party. I went toa party last week and somebody brought out
a bottle of Spanish Carver, butit was called They said, oh,
have a glass of prosecco, andas it's not prosecco, it's Carver,
And so one person tasted it andsaid, oh, yeah, well that's
why I don't like it. Ilike prosecco and I don't. Okay,
(43:52):
I should I should not have saidanything, obviously, that was the wrong,
wrong response. Well that's it seemslike in a lot of areas,
including Kava and Port, they're,you know, they're coming out with a
pink. Craft has the pink.Everybody's coming out with their rose version of
(44:12):
something, and you know, thegood news, here's the good news.
There's more for everybody to try andlearn and discover it's less pressure on Provence
if they have a bad year,you know. But you referenced before we
went on air that there, youknow, in the summer of twenty twenty
there are some challenges. We can'tget into it too much because they're running
out of time, but how youknow, just kind of summarize how we're
(44:36):
in twenty twenty three, the thirdpart of twenty twenty three, right now,
how are things? So? Wehad a damp May in June which
caused a lot of mildew, butas an area, we had had very
limited rain for the past two years. So even with a lot of rain
in May and June, the watertable have not been plenished. So that
(45:01):
is that the water reserves have beenbad, and the summer is hot and
it is dry. So the grapeswere very big by the end of June,
promising a very big crop. Soeverything is looking good, just hoping
that the heat isn't going to shriveleverything up for a lot of producers.
(45:23):
But what we have noticed is sotwenty twenty one wasn't a particularly good year.
It was very wet, No,it was very cool. Twenty one
was very very cool, and wedidn't like it. But this year the
twenty twenty ones that had been agedin oak was showing beautifully. So I
(45:45):
think what we're seeing in Provence isgreater adaptability to the vintage. So a
hotter, dryer year, where it'smore concentrated, they're making a wine that's
bigger. I think I would actuallyslight disagree, and I'd say, oh,
because this is what happens when youwork with your son. Okay.
(46:05):
What the last two or three yearsof tastings have shown is that rose producers
in Provence and elsewhere who make thesame rose to the same formula every year,
regardless of vintage, really doesn't work. The results swing wildly and the
rose tends not to be great.The producers who vary the recipe and do
(46:28):
more or less of mallow or moreor less oak, or bottle a bit
later or even a bit earlier,harvest earlier, harvest later, and who
vary their wine making to the vintageas you would expect for a red or
a white, those are the rose'sthat come out really well. And I
think we are saying more of thatin Provence, and that's what this was
(46:49):
currently. But it's it's also Ithink important that the wines that come out
well, of the wines where thewine maker listens to the vintage rather than
to some Rose recipe. So it'sstill think that's important in wine making anywhere.
Yeah, anywhere that you have towork with that, you have to
work with what you have and thenit's the wine maker's magic and crap.
(47:09):
That's quite new with Rose. Ithink this is this is a new shift
in Rose wine making. Until fairlyrecently it was a very con formulaic and
we have noticed far more vintage variation. I would say in the past few
(47:31):
years that we've just done a verticalof Clodotompe, which is gard Bertron's super
expensive Rose, and every year sincetwenty eight twenty nineteen we have so we
tasted twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen,eighteen and nineteen in twenty one. Every
(47:55):
year they add on another vintage forus, and it has been fascinating seen
the incredible variation in styles with eachvintage and how each style is evolving with
age, so that that is increasinglysomething that we are aware of. This
has been such an interesting conversation ofthe intellectual side of Rose. We have
(48:22):
to wrap it up, but wewant to just again say we've been speaking
to Elizabeth Gabe, master of Wineand her cohort and son and co author
Ben Bernheim, and the two booksyou have which I know you're available online,
Rose Understanding the Pink Wine Revolution andThe Rose's of Southern France to be
(48:42):
continued. It's a it's a topicthat is much deeper than many people think
and definitely one that we enjoy.And I think now we're going to be
thinking about a glass of rosea bottleto open with dinner. Right, Oh
yes, so what you guys atthat time we don't know if still we
have an refrigerator. Thanks for joiningus. A toast to you and try
(49:06):
to cool down down in the southof France. All right, thank you
very much, man, Andy andDavid lovely speaking to you. Great to
speak with you, and also youBen. Thanks for joining us today.
Until next time we see you,hopefully in person. You've been listening to
The Connected Table Live with Melanie Youngand David Ransom. It's a great conversation
always over a bottle of wine ora glass with people in the industry,
(49:29):
and we always say to you,stay insatiably curious. Thank you
The topics and opinions expressed in thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
and their guests and not those ofW FORCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates.
We make no recommendations or endorsements radioshow, program services, or products
mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall
be extended to W FORCY Radio.It's employees are affiliates. Any questions or
comments should be directed to those showhosts. Thank you for choosing W FORCY
(00:21):
Radio. Welcome to the Connected TableLive where your hosts Melanie Young and David
(00:45):
Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We enjoy bringing you our listeners to
dynamic people who work front and centeraround the world in wine, food,
hospitality, and spirits. We loveshare the story and where they are and
where we're going with you. Andwe're really excited because today we're taking you
(01:07):
to the South of France, oneof our many favorite locations. Right David,
absolutely, Melanie, do you loveRose? I love it all year
round, yest me too. Itcomes in many different forms and styles and
tastes and flavors, and so it'svery versatile people think it's a summer drink,
but it's not. You can absolutelydrink it year round. Do you
know one of my pet peeves,David, One of my pet peeves is
(01:30):
people say, oh, it's asummer beverage, and the marketers stop marketing
and the people stopped drinking. Andit's like I always compared to white jeans,
they're perfectly acceptable after Labor Day.And some of my favorite Rose's or
gastronomic Rose's that really pair well withlots of wonderful foods. We're really excited
today because we have on our showan expert on this topic. We're continuing
(01:52):
our Master of Wine series which westarted in twenty twenty three, and our
guest today is Elizabeth Gabay. She'sbeen a Master of Wine since nineteen ninety
eight. She's based in the Southof France. Has a British accent,
and I learned traveling with her inSicily has American citizenship. She was born
in the United States. I've hadthe pleasure of traveling with Liz on our
(02:15):
Etno Days trip, which we didin September twenty twenty two. We've actually
traveled with her a couple of times. Yeah, well we and then most
recently during Sicilia on Premerse she ledto master classes, one on Rose's of
Sicily and another Unsparkling Wines, andshe travels with her son and co author
Ben Bernheim, who also met finallybeen hearing great stories about him. She's
(02:37):
author of two books on the topicof Rose Rose Understanding the Pink Wine Revolution
and then Rose's a Southern France,which is the most recent, and we
hear she's working on another book calledPink Bubbles. She joins us as we
said, from the south of France. Bonjeur, Liz, bonjour Menini and
(02:59):
David Liz. Let's start with yourbackground. You live in the south of
France, have a British accent andUS citizenship. As we learned, where
did you grow up in What wasyour childhood like before you get into wine.
Yeah, it's one of those things. My father died fairly recently and
we had to go along and theysaid, what's your family background? And
I sort of started doing the tourof the world and they kind of okay,
(03:23):
we'll forget that. So yes,I was born in New York.
So I am actually a New Yorkerwith an American passport and when I was
two the month before this is abig giveaway of my age. The month
before Kennedy was shot, we movedback to the UK because my mother was
missing her family in the UK andLondon was sort of getting to be quite
(03:49):
buzzy, so we moved back toEngland. And so I grew up in
London. I'm a regard myself asa Londoner. Went to school in London
and lived there almost all of mylife, apart from going to university,
until we moved to the south ofFrance in two thousand and two. So
a Londoner who moved to France andthe American passport is something that is there.
(04:15):
Do I think about it a lot? Not really know the internew international
generation I think that moves around andhas multi passports. Well, we'd like
to join their group. You know. I grew up when you know,
I was alive when Kennedy was shottoo, And you grew up in the
swinging sixties then in London, fromwhat I went very much. So.
(04:36):
My parents had met as art students, so all of my parents friends were
artists and architects. Sort of quitea trendy family. I've got photograph graphs
of me in Carnaby Street. Iremember going down the King's Road. We
just lived a very nineteen sixties Londonlifestyle. We had a neighbor who owned
(05:00):
a couple of top top nightclubs inLondon, and so as a child sometimes
we were allowed to go up therebefore it opened and see the flashing lights
and see the bands before they startedplaying. So yeah, quite quite a
delic on very six days and visionsof Twiggy going through my Yeah, I
(05:21):
visited a Carnibie Sweet and Twiggy.I mean, I'll never forget for some
reason, Austin Powers. Yeah.I mean when I was little, I
watched Lucy I Love Lucy went toLondon and I remember, just like you
know, elbows in front of theTV set and Lucy came out in a
miniskirt and I went berserk. Idemanded that my parents buy me a miniskirt
because I wanted to be a swingingchick from London. And I think it
(05:43):
was like five. It's like veryformative, but what a fun time to
live there. Really probably one ofone's heydays. So curious, you know,
we reference that you're a master ofWye but you know, no,
no child wakes up a goals.I would it be a why writer of
one day? You know you can'teven drinkwine. So when you were young,
what did you aspire in your lifeto become. I think I wanted
(06:09):
to be an archaeologist or historian.So history was, I suppose still is
my main passion in life, andso I did a degree in medieval history
and went on archaeological digs and myfirst job was with a history magazine called
(06:29):
History Today in Soho, and thenI moved to an economic publisher in Oxford.
And then bizarrely, my father hadalways worked in computers, so I
was a very early user of computer. It's not very good at it,
but I was an early user,and I got a job because I could
(06:50):
use a computer working for Saddler's Well'sRoyal Ballet. I'm doing marketing. So
I then moved back to London andin the nineteen eighties I was in the
Middle theater was my other passion workingthere. But I must have always been
interested in wine, because I havewine books from the age of sixteen.
(07:14):
My first book of tasting notes wasas a twenty one year old camping down
the Loire, and it's got wonderfultasting notes like nice, good, quite
nice and anyway. After about twentywines, I realized that maybe a bit
of diversification beyond nice would be good, and so I started copping down what
(07:36):
Hugh Johnson wrote about the same wineand matching what I thought. And then
I went backpacking around the world.I went around vineyards in the Napper,
New Zealand, Australia, and cameback to France aged twenty six. My
parents came to London aged twenty six, and my parents had just bought a
(07:58):
little tiny holiday cottage and Provence.So I came down to visit them no
job, having come back from traveling, and one of the neighbors said,
you know, there's all this wine, why don't you try selling it in
London so I can really Okay,doesn't sound too difficult. So filled up
my car and drove back to Londonfull of wine, and then realized I
(08:18):
knew nothing, absolutely nothing. SoI saw that Christie's the auctioneers, were
running a series of once a weektasting run by Stephen Spurrier to teach bankers
how to go to upmarket restaurants andbuy top wines. So I signed up
(08:39):
for the tastings and tasted the mostamazing wines. But I couldn't afford to
do the second series, and soStephen said, if you would like,
you can pour the wine. SoI poured the wine and then he said
why don't you do certificate? Sohe really triggered it, and then before
I knew it, I started doingthe Masters of Wine. So there was
(09:01):
no great plan. My whole lifejust seems to have been one loose development
after the other, and amazingly kindof all in the same direction too.
I kind of like that, youknow, everybody makes young people feel like
they have a master plan. Andsometimes, as I've written, serendipity,
if you allow it to line onyour shoulder, it will shine the way
(09:22):
I'd live in hope with that.Yes, I mean my son Ben,
who works with me, was notgoing to work in wine, and serendipity
ended up. Accidents happen, yeah, traveling working in vineyards Soamelier and then
COVID and then he came back andstarted working. So yes, I think
serendipity is very important and I thinkthat's also that carries on into how we
(09:46):
ended up working in Rose and thatLiza ended the life story talk saying there
was that the cottage in Provence andworking in Provence, and you know,
thirty years later, sort of fallinginto the fact that people have stopped talking
about read and started talking about Rosie, and all of a sudden they're asking
difficult questions about Rosie and have nobodyelse to ask. And I was here
(10:09):
so that I was the person theyasked. So yes, again, it
was no great plan to be aRose specialist. I just happened to be
here at the right time and rightplace. You know. For those listeners
wondering what that fourth voice is,that's Ben Bernheim, which Liz's son and
co author on some of her books, which we'll get to in a little
bit. Welcome to the show aswell, Ben, So Ben, I'm
(10:31):
curious since we've introduced you and youkind of fell into it as well.
Are you considering or have you consideredor are you pursuing certification as well.
It's a very good question. Peopleask me how long I've been preparing for
this or for a career in mine, and actually it's been even longer than
Liz. Oh. Actually there wasone great story we visited a vineyard.
(10:54):
Ben asked the wine maker looked upat one of these big fermentation to and
he said, how many glasses ofwine in a fermentation tank? And the
winemaker said, good question, andhe looked at me and he said,
I think you're able to taste onyour own. And for the rest of
the visit he and Ben were calculatinghow many glasses of wine per fermentation tank?
(11:18):
Many years ago. Many years ago, I think you were like seven
years old, So yeah, anearly starter. Well, the grape doesn't
fall far from the wine, doesit. As they say, I am
curious, what was your thesis whenyou were going for your Master of Wine.
So the first year I did theexam for the Master of Wine was
the first year they did an extendedessay as it was then called. So
(11:43):
it wasn't the research paper as itis now. It was very much a
prototype. And my paper was onclonal selection. Because clonal selection in ninety
three was still radically new. Peoplewere only just beginning to talk about it.
I had to find produced that wereplaying around with different clones. I
remember talking to a producer in Australiaand the Mornington Peninsula who had three different
(12:09):
peno noir clones and this was like, wow, that's exciting. So it's
very very different. We didn't havethe websites, we didn't have internet research.
The MW and I took it wasvery much you're out there visiting vineyards
and talking to producers. So oursphere of interest was very individual. You
(12:31):
know. Now, if you lookat students essays, they've all read the
same Internet article and they've all beento the same Zoom Talk and you get
a lot of identicate answers. Butwhen I did it, we were very
individual. I think that's refreshing.I know that we did a sponsored podcast
on Batsby's and biodiversity with Bordeaux,and damn at that tenline wasn't like all
(12:52):
over a zillion articles because everybody wasreading from the same material and it's nice.
You know, I kind of missedthose days where you actually went out
into the field and did field work. That comes into something that with The
Master of Wine is quite interesting inthat should wine tasting notes just be tasting
(13:16):
notes? And how much analysis andhow much personality should we add to everything
we do? And I think that'sone of the advantages of the press trips,
like where we met we were actuallytalking to producers and could put a
face to the wine and how importantthat is, and learn their passion and
why they got into the business,and learn how they farm their land.
(13:37):
And there's nothing like being out therewith them learning about that. We argue
that all the time to people whojust want to send us samples. It's
just not the same. Sometimes it'sbeen quite good in that you can speed
through and work out which wines youlike. We tasted two hundred and fifty
Province roses the other week. Ithink if i'd had to it's all two
(14:00):
hundred and fifty producers, I mightwell be dead by now. Well that's
a well taken point. Well,you know, tastings like that have their
place, particularly when you're looking atthe how the wine is made, the
technicality, and you're comparing it withother wines and vintages and styles. But
when you're working on a story aboutthe producer and the region, you've got
(14:22):
to get You've got to feel thedirt and meet the people to get behind
the story. So they both havea place, but it's a very different
way to cover. Yeah, soyou live in Provence, you are a
rose specialist rose as you reference andwe concur I mean there was like twenty
years ago, thirty years ago,you couldn't sell it here. It was
(14:43):
just called pink stuff and it wasconsidered cheap, attacking bush blush wine.
And then this revolution game. Infact, your book, you have two
books, Rose Understanding the Pink WineRevolution, in which you wrote in twenty
eighteen. In the Rose's a southernFrance. So from your perspective, because
(15:07):
you're in Europe, we're in theUnited States, so we're seeing it one
way, you're seeing another what spurredthis on? What raised the revolution flag?
And raise the pink flag? Thatactually was a real voyage of discovery
because, as Ben said, thebook got commissioned because we live in Provence,
in southeastern France, and the editorpresumed that the majority of the book
(15:31):
would be on Provence. And thenwhat was particularly interesting was just it's Rose's
been around for centuries, but thetwentieth century revolution, I would say started
in America. I think just buildingon that, I think when we talk
about the Rose Revolution and the ModernRose book, it's very much modern rose.
(15:54):
Rose is a historic wine style alongwith other wine styles, and it's
easy to think that until twenty fifteen, nobody was drinking it. Just one
example, in nineteen thirty six,when they created the first aocs in France,
one of those six was exclusively rose, and that was one of the
founding aocs was a rose. SoI think it's very much the modern rose,
(16:17):
very much. So let those carryon. I think it's it's important
to distinguish that rose isn't some inventionfrom nowhere. It's a certain style of
rose or a certain take on itthat's very mud. Yeah. Yes,
it was Tavel nineteen thirty six asa first appellation, but everything seemed to
come back. Actually, serendipity isthe theme of this conversation. You know,
(16:41):
Prohibition in America fortified groan ash forecclesiastical wine. After Prohibition there was
all this grenache and it made fruitywine in the style of Tavel, which
was the appellation. And then whenthe Gis came over to Europe, they
looked for rose like the rose theyhad in America. So Matteash Lancers five
(17:06):
rosas, and by the nineteen fiftiesLady Bird Johnson, I think she made
pink popular, and pink was justall the rage. Princess Margaret drank pink.
Hollywood stars had pink. Thank goodness, we didn't have any purple wine,
but you know, we could havegone all purple Melanie. So pink
(17:27):
became very, very fashionable. Andthen in the sixties and seventies, as
red and white wine became better,rose wine sort of slipped back. And
then the modern rose Revolution is howtechnology stepped in and it became a cleaner,
fresher, more elegant wine. Butthere is this wonderful storyline which is
(17:52):
quite complex. You can find quitea lot of far more references to rose
than people realize throughout history, andthat was wonderful discovering it. And I
think the other big thing was Bentcame back from university while I was writing
it, and this is what everyyoung man wants to come home and being
told you're drinking a case of rosefrom a different country every night. But
(18:17):
what was interesting. So I cameback from university in twenty seventeen, and
I was very involved with wine whileat university. I don't think I had
had a single rose at university oreven heard anybody talking about it. And
this was twenty seventeen, which isnot that long ago, and people serious
wine people weren't even aware of Rose'sexistence. Even on the mw exam.
(18:41):
There's it's been a hard struggle toacknowledge. Ten to twelve percent of world
sales are rose and that doesn't includechampagne or sparkling pink, so you know,
it's just including sparkling wine. Pinkwine is probably a fifth of wine
drunk, but it has still lookeddown upon, which is you know something
(19:04):
I'm aggressively fighting a lot. Well, I'm curious about something. So you
mentioned you referenced Ladybird and Princess Margaretand the stars lets of the late fifties
or early sixties. Do you haveany thoughts on the fact that women,
which are a significant part of winebuyers in the United States over sixty percent,
(19:26):
drove the Rose Revolution because many youknow, for a long time it
was considered a gurly wine. It'spink. A lot of men didn't drink
pink, you know, And I'mjust wondering if that helped drive sales.
I think it did. I thinkit's not a very pc thing to claim
nowadays, but yes, I thinkit did make a big difference a country
(19:49):
by country. So in France,men don't seem to mind being drinking Rose.
Uruguay was a very rose drinking SouthAfrica it was women. America was
women, so it depends on whichregion. Australia, I think men don't
like drinking Rose. That's a slightlynon macho drink. James Bond drinks pink
(20:15):
champagne in several books, and Rose, Danche and Rose, so that was
not an unmasculine thing. So it'sa very interest. I think, yes,
women played a big, big part, but it's leveled out. I
do believe it drove women drove sales. I think women dravel ladder sales.
(20:36):
But it's an even playing film andmany areas and industries it's now an even
playing film. I think Instagram hasreturned it to being a woman's drink.
I think Instagram has actually been quitea sexiest way of marketing Rose. So
since twenty ten, you know,we've had all of these bikini on a
yacht drinking Rose. All the influencersfor Rose are women, and then there
(21:02):
was what was it, the brose, so there was obviously a fight back
Rose different. You know what I'dlike to do, I'd like to take
all the men and have them dothe same thing women do in bikinis.
I'd like for men to do thesame thing and see how that reaction is
because it was hilarious. It wouldbe hysterical, and I think it would
(21:23):
be a game changer and how peopleperceive all this stuff and how silly it
is mountains Instagram. Yet with that, they may kill them. You know,
That's just the way I think,because I always think if women's doing
it this way, how would aman do it? But is it interesting?
Size? Just going back to whatwas saying about different markets and different
perceptions in different countries. I thinkwith Rose, maybe even more so than
(21:45):
with other wines, because it's sonew, individual countries have very, very
very different Rose attitudes. And Ithink one good example of that is actually
there's a marketing campaign for a certainRose group of Rose's where they have pictures
of people in their advertising campaigns,and the length of the skirt of the
(22:07):
woman in the picture varies depending onwhich country the ads are being shown in,
and it's a shorter skirt in Americaand a longer skirt in France.
Oh that's kind of interesting. Well, it's like going topless. You know.
Europeans are very cool about going.We had a long talk about going
topless the other day, David,and it's like, you know, in
Europe, you know topless speeches,people are very nobody cares steptic care.
(22:29):
It's gy like people drink rose whenever, right, But over here it becomes
like a whole sexist thing. AndI think that's kind of the same with
rose. They sexify rose, whichis unfortunate because it should be the wine
for all people who are like areally good glass of rose. So let's
kind of dive into you know,you wrote a book the Rose's of Southern
France. You live in southern France, but they, as you know and
(22:51):
we all know, they're wonderful rose'saround the world. And you actually did
a lecture on the rose's of Sicily, and you produce a rose as well
from Slovakia. So let's talk aboutwhere you think there are some lights still
to be shined on rose that peoplereally should think about, and also about
your rose. So during lockdown,when nobody could go to wine fares or
(23:17):
anything, I was writing a loadof articles about rose, and so samples
were coming in and Ben had thebright idea if we just call out for
samples across Southern France. We coulddo an e guide on the rose's of
Southern France. So we tasted athousand rose's over a couple of months and
(23:37):
wrote this e guide, And whenwe finished it, we realized that even
if the majority of the wine wasfrom the Mediterranean with the same grapes,
there was a lot of variation,but we didn't know what the inner details
of why the variation. So thebook Rose of Southern France is an attempt
(24:02):
to try and define why rose's indifferent appellations are different, why some are
better some are not good. It'sa year since we wrote it and we're
already going, oh my goodness,the second edition is going to have so
much more to go back to yourquestions and other specific regions to shoot that
need to be need to have alight shone on them. I think it's
(24:22):
easy to think, let's look atAustralia or Chili or somewhere very far afield,
and it's easy to forget that mostrose is produced and most rose is
drunk in more or less the southof France and Frances is the biggest importer
of rose, but by far,not America, not China, not the
(24:44):
UK, and it's easy to overlookthe fact that there's, yes, there's
incredible diversity, and incredible rose's tobe discovered in far flung places. But
there's a lot of diversity even withinwhat can seem to be a monolithic South
of And if I can go back, actually a question you're asking what started
the modern rose revolution. It's easyto point at Brad Pitt or a specific
(25:08):
wine maker or a specific wine Ithink Liz would often say it's Peter Male
and that perception of Provence and lavenderand lavender field, and of course Peter
Mayle's Provence, which is what capturedso many people's imaginations. Isn't the Provence
of code to Provence or of Provencestyle rose. That's the sort of diversity
(25:30):
that's Those are the rose's that needto have more attention given to them because
they are Provence and they can beProvence style, but also they're not as
a duo working together, we arehorrendously geeky, and that we can go
to a vineyard. And I rememberwhen we were writing the book last year
and Ben suddenly says, and whatis the pressure in your press, and
(25:53):
what is the exact size of thepress, And started to sort of register
those details, and we had neveractually thought that the subtle differences about the
levels of the press and the sizeof the press were making such a significant
difference. So that was last year'sthing. This year we've been talking about
(26:15):
malolactic fermentation in rose, temperature control, yeasts, acidification, so we get
more and more geeky, which actuallygoes on to the Slovakian rose. So
having thought about how everyone in Provencewas making rose, we started going no,
(26:36):
no, if we made a rose, we might try something slightly different.
And every time we mentioned it toa wine maker, they looked a
little horrified that we were suggesting somethingquite so erradically different. Didn't jump at
the chance to work with us.And I was working in Slovakia and I
met a wine maker who I thoughtwe might have that artistic curiosity, and
(27:03):
then Ben met him on holiday afew months later, but by accident,
I was doing a tour of Bratislava'sbest wine bars as one does, yes,
as one does, and bumped intohim and really got on and I
tasted his wines and they were alllovely. So then we called him up
and we said, we have thiscrazy idea of Vladimir, Would you be
(27:26):
interested in working with us with arose. We would like to do a
rose that has twenty four hours skincontact, not one hour as in Provence,
spontaneous fermentation in barrel and then agedfor eleven months plus in barrel.
Went yeah, all right, thatsounds good. So it's largely cabinet serving
(27:51):
on from the oldest organic vineyard inSlovakia on an ancient volcano. And it
tastes a bit like a fine Burgundy. It's a rose, but it takes
like a fine burgundy. One thingwe're keen to really emphasize, and this
wine is putting our money where ourmouth is. That rose is not a
(28:14):
category of wine, and it's noteven necessarily a color. It's a catch
all for anything that is somehow betweenred or white. And is a very
light red rose? Maybe is ablonde noir rose? Maybe? Where is
a sparkling rose? A rose?It's an orange wine a rose. Orange
wine looks pink sometimes, and sofor our wine is our rose ye dark,
(28:40):
it's quite dark, and it's verymuch on the light red end of
the spectrum. In fact, theGerman distributor decided that actually it was a
red wine, and they put iton the red wine list of their catalog,
and we're very keen also not toput the word rose on the label,
because although we're proud of the act, it's a rose, it's a
(29:02):
wine, and rose should be judgedas a wine, as a good wine
or a bad wine, as anage worthy wine or not as a product
of grapes and terwa's first and foremost, and as a rose or a pool
side drink second. So I thinkwe are discussing locally the difference between premium
(29:22):
rose and an aperative style rose.And shockingly, this has become a major
major issue in France. So Idon't know. I mean, maybe you'd
come across this when you travel,but how people People want to have a
wine that it suits every market.They want it to be an entry level
(29:45):
wine and a premium wine and awine their ages, and no one wine
can do everything. You just havedifferent categories of wine. And this has
become a World War three argument inFrance. At the end, well,
I think it's an argument that's notgoing to end very soon either, because
we've come across we've traveled together,but we've also done a lot of traveling
(30:07):
on our own and gone to regionswhere the rose's are all very different from
each other from region to region,and some are drinking at the pool rose.
As Ben said, some are verygastronomic. Styles of rose sum are
aged even up to ten years beforethey get released. There's a whole world
of rose out there, as youvery well know that. I think the
world is still learning to come toterms with how to use it, and
(30:30):
it can be confusing. I thinkone thing to be careful about, I
mean premium. The word premium,you know, the opposite is not premium
so or less or so. Ithink an apparti rose can be a wonderful
wose it could be a premium eppartifrose. We always say appartif style versus
a more gastronomic enjoy with your foodstyle. And gosh, we were just
(30:56):
in a brutso tasting through Terostola toBruce, so just the range at that
master class of those wines in thatcategory was eye opening. I think this
is a very good point to me. We've been discussing how to define.
Our next big project is defining premium, defining premium rose and actually doing a
(31:22):
report on the world's top four hundredRose's, and we've been investigating that.
One of the things that people oftensay, why do we enjoy working with
rose? And our feeling is thatred wine is there's a there's a limitation
(31:42):
as to how much variation you canhave, same with white wine. But
because rose is a new category,almost anything can go. We have tasted
the most weird and wacky Rose's,and but we've often said at the moment,
because rose is still it's a bitlike an adolescent, it's trying to
find its way. We don't mindif the rose is not perfect as long
(32:07):
as it's an artistic expression, aslong as it's it's creative. And I
think that for us is the mostimportant thing is that it's not a formulaic
wine. There is some thought andcreation going on with it. Well,
I think a couple of things.I think premium, you know, kind
of like the word elegant, whichI kind of roll my eyes when the
(32:30):
nurse producers go elegant. It's elegantthen to describe a damn thing for me.
Premium is in many cultures, includingthe United States, it's based around
a price point, a premium.You can be very careful with that word
and frankly, I would find anotherword because it is too tied. If
I were a producer and I produceda really wonderful apertif rose, or a
(32:53):
really wonderful rose, but the pricepoint was lower, but it was the
best in its price point, orany wine, and somebody said it's a
premium. A premium is a tome, is as a price tag and
other things. So I would justthink about that when you do that,
I think it's something that we haveto think about because the person who commissioned
(33:16):
it commissioned it as premium. Butwe're talking to people this week about fine
rosie, So is it a finewine because nobody talks about premium reds or
premium whites when when talking about finewine, they just talk about fine wine.
And everyone somehow knows what that means. Well, some people do,
(33:37):
when some people don't. I mean, fine wine means there's a finesse fin
finesse to the wine. Right.Well, I've been told of for using
the term swimming pool wine, asit's not derogatory. As you said,
there are some fantastic wine that youwould have by the pool. You'll it's
(33:57):
like it'd be like saying you're childold. It'd be like having children and
comparing im saying, you know,they like to be happy. We saw
I show less night er I did, and the child just wanted to be
happy, and that seemed to bea problem. But you know, it's
a happy wine, you know,exactly to the to the people as you
talk about zen, your wine whichyou describe in the process, it goes
(34:21):
through mallow. It's a darker red. Thank you said, it's a cabernet.
So I'm like the person who doesn't. Let's say you're talking to someone
who's not in the trade or someonewho's just curious. Why why would what
did they say to well, whyisn't it just a red wine? Why
is it a light red versus arose? How would you answer that?
So there is no legal definition forwhat is rose? Right, So the
(34:49):
nearest definition, which is by nomeans, I think it's almost one hundred
percent. It's probably about ninety percentaccurate. It doesn't finish fermentation on the
skins. So red wine finishes fermentationon the skins. Orange wine finishes fermentation
(35:10):
on the skins, white wine androse does not. And that's the nearest
we have come to giving. Sowhite wine and rose should not or is
rarely tannic. It can have sometannins, but it won't have powerful tannins.
(35:32):
And this is you know, alongwith whether the wine is premium or
fine or fun there is also theother level of what is a rose,
which is why I brought it upbecause when you as you described it,
and you talked about the mallow andthis and that, I'm like, well,
it sounds like you're talking about redwine. But you actually you did
(35:52):
a very good response to my question. For the people who would wonder about
just over half of the world's rose, it was a third, it's now
about five years ago it was abouta third and now it's about a half
is pale in color. But howdo they know this? So there is
(36:15):
a rose research station in Provence andthey evaluate the percentage of the color of
rose, judging what rose's submitted tothem and fire competitions they've organized with a
lot of competitions that they submit tothe Rose Research Center what color were the
(36:38):
rose's So it's a very rough estimatebecause there's a lot of rose made that
isn't submitted into competitions. But it'sonly about half of the world's rose's are
pale, and of course color doesn'ttell you anything about a rose. Many
Provence rose's are fifty percent white grape, fifty percent red grapes. You have
(37:02):
many, many roses that are madefrom some roses that are made from one
hundred percent gray or pink grapes,which can be very pale, but maybe
even finished fimentation on the skins,and that breaks that rule. And at
that point, maybe they're an orangewine. Maybe they're a white wine.
Nobody really knows. You have someroses and they're quite rare, but you
(37:23):
have some rose's made from tanturia grapeswhere the skin is dark and the juice
is dark. And even if they'redirect press and you do everything by the
book for a pale rose, they'redark. They will be darker than a
red wine in the glass. Infact, we've just made another rose with
a Tenturia grape again in Slovakia,with a very aromatic grape, one of
(37:45):
its grandparents's muscat. It's a tenturia, so it smells a bit like a
muscat, looks like a red wine. It's a rose, and we've put
it in a cacia barrels again justto sort of challenge and intellectually provoke the
discussion that that is important. Ithink for us Rose, we both enjoy
(38:10):
the intellectual discussion of Rose. Whatis the tentteria that you use? Don
I do? No? Okay?Interesting? I think I think your third
book needs to be Rose provocation.That's a nice idea because as we're talking,
there are so many elements. Youknow, it's it's it's not a
(38:34):
simple wine. Some you know youcan and I can see you go from
picnic to pool too, you know, a wonderful meal and with with incredible
finesse at a fine dining restaurant,and there's a range, and it can't
you can't be paid. You can'tpigeonhole it. Much like you can't pigeonhole
people judge it by their skin color. You really can't judge a Rose by
(38:57):
it's Q and it's hard two.Yeah, you can't put Rose in a
corner exactly. And I think that'ssomething that we're sort of feeling increasingly strongly
about. I mean, it wasinteresting tasting the premiere Crew Shapley today,
and our scores were our tasting noteswere no more that the price. The
(39:22):
prices were comparable to top Rose,and the quality was comparable to top Rose,
and I would say the age worthinesswas comparable to top Rose. Just
because one of them is slightly pinkand isn't a prettier bottle sometimes doesn't really
mean that we should be less lesscaring about it or less serious about it.
(39:43):
Yeah, so yeah, so thatis I like the idea of that
book. We also we have afterthis top Rose report, Ben has another
geeky project on single parcel wines,which is an interesting one for rose because
so often rose is picked, orthe grapes for rose are picked because that's
(40:07):
whatever the wine maker has left orbecause the parcels didn't make a good red,
or maybe they're a blend of whateverwas left over. And it's rare
to find single parcel or single vineyardrose's. But then we realize, actually
(40:27):
in the south of France it's it'srare to find single parcel or single vineyard
reds and whites as well. Butwhat is a single pass to the single
parcel? And but also you can'ttalk about rose in isolation. I think
you mentioned you've you've traveled a lot, You've tasted rose's from all over the
world that are very different in stylethat are very diverse, as are the
(40:50):
reds and the whites. I assumeduring those travels, and we think it's
unwise to look at a rose fromsomewhere else and not to taste the reds
and the whites, because a goodrose will have some sort of family resemblance
with the reds and the whites.I would expect in a region with very
tannic reds maybe or very tannic,oaky reds, I would be surprised if
(41:15):
they're able to make a light,delicate you know, we talked about elegant.
If they're able to make a rosethat's five alcohol percentage points lower than
the red simply because they won't havethe grapes, they won't have the terawa,
they won't have the expertise, theywon't have the traditions. There's also
the passion of the wine makers.We've just done six months ago, we
(41:37):
did a big tasting of the redand white wines of Provence, and we
thought the producers would be, oh, well, it's our lesser wine,
it's not our rose. And italso it turned out that they red and
white wine is the real soul andpassion of Provence producers not rose. For
(42:00):
many of them. They were like, this is our baby, this is
this is our little pride and joy. We earn money with the rose,
but we love our red and whites. I mean, they make good rose's
as well, but it was theyloved their reds and their whites. You
know. I find that interesting becausehaving traveled through Provence a bunch of myself,
(42:22):
I've actually been to the laboratory invitebon Is where it is and gone
through the process of tasting wines withthem there. We've been through Provence a
bunch and you see a lot ofrose production, and it's always interesting to
walk into the winery and say andhave them say, oh, by the
way, we make a red two, would you like to taste that?
(42:42):
Exactly? It's the other way aroundin so many other areas well. That
is a big problem. I thinkquite often the rose is not even on
the website, so you have toreally hunt for it. But yeah,
we were looking at pink sparkling,but that sort of shifted to one side
temporarily. People talk a lot aboutProvence style rose as being the revolution,
(43:08):
the success story of the wine world. For the last few years, pink
prosecco is growing at a far fasterrate, and it was already about eighty
eighty five percent of the volume ofCode of Provence, and it has a
lot more potential to keep growing.I think it's really not impossible that by
twenty twenty five, the default pink, or that the pink that people will
(43:30):
be drinking the most of, willbe prosecco, not Provence. It was
like the party. I went toa party last week and somebody brought out
a bottle of Spanish Carver, butit was called They said, oh,
have a glass of prosecco, andas it's not prosecco, it's Carver,
And so one person tasted it andsaid, oh, yeah, well that's
why I don't like it. Ilike prosecco and I don't. Okay,
(43:52):
I should I should not have saidanything, obviously, that was the wrong,
wrong response. Well that's it seemslike in a lot of areas,
including Kava and Port, they're,you know, they're coming out with a
pink. Craft has the pink.Everybody's coming out with their rose version of
(44:12):
something, and you know, thegood news, here's the good news.
There's more for everybody to try andlearn and discover it's less pressure on Provence
if they have a bad year,you know. But you referenced before we
went on air that there, youknow, in the summer of twenty twenty
there are some challenges. We can'tget into it too much because they're running
out of time, but how youknow, just kind of summarize how we're
(44:36):
in twenty twenty three, the thirdpart of twenty twenty three, right now,
how are things? So? Wehad a damp May in June which
caused a lot of mildew, butas an area, we had had very
limited rain for the past two years. So even with a lot of rain
in May and June, the watertable have not been plenished. So that
(45:01):
is that the water reserves have beenbad, and the summer is hot and
it is dry. So the grapeswere very big by the end of June,
promising a very big crop. Soeverything is looking good, just hoping
that the heat isn't going to shriveleverything up for a lot of producers.
(45:23):
But what we have noticed is sotwenty twenty one wasn't a particularly good year.
It was very wet, No,it was very cool. Twenty one
was very very cool, and wedidn't like it. But this year the
twenty twenty ones that had been agedin oak was showing beautifully. So I
(45:45):
think what we're seeing in Provence isgreater adaptability to the vintage. So a
hotter, dryer year, where it'smore concentrated, they're making a wine that's
bigger. I think I would actuallyslight disagree, and I'd say, oh,
because this is what happens when youwork with your son. Okay.
(46:05):
What the last two or three yearsof tastings have shown is that rose producers
in Provence and elsewhere who make thesame rose to the same formula every year,
regardless of vintage, really doesn't work. The results swing wildly and the
rose tends not to be great.The producers who vary the recipe and do
(46:28):
more or less of mallow or moreor less oak, or bottle a bit
later or even a bit earlier,harvest earlier, harvest later, and who
vary their wine making to the vintageas you would expect for a red or
a white, those are the rose'sthat come out really well. And I
think we are saying more of thatin Provence, and that's what this was
(46:49):
currently. But it's it's also Ithink important that the wines that come out
well, of the wines where thewine maker listens to the vintage rather than
to some Rose recipe. So it'sstill think that's important in wine making anywhere.
Yeah, anywhere that you have towork with that, you have to
work with what you have and thenit's the wine maker's magic and crap.
(47:09):
That's quite new with Rose. Ithink this is this is a new shift
in Rose wine making. Until fairlyrecently it was a very con formulaic and
we have noticed far more vintage variation. I would say in the past few
(47:31):
years that we've just done a verticalof Clodotompe, which is gard Bertron's super
expensive Rose, and every year sincetwenty eight twenty nineteen we have so we
tasted twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen,eighteen and nineteen in twenty one. Every
(47:55):
year they add on another vintage forus, and it has been fascinating seen
the incredible variation in styles with eachvintage and how each style is evolving with
age, so that that is increasinglysomething that we are aware of. This
has been such an interesting conversation ofthe intellectual side of Rose. We have
(48:22):
to wrap it up, but wewant to just again say we've been speaking
to Elizabeth Gabe, master of Wineand her cohort and son and co author
Ben Bernheim, and the two booksyou have which I know you're available online,
Rose Understanding the Pink Wine Revolution andThe Rose's of Southern France to be
(48:42):
continued. It's a it's a topicthat is much deeper than many people think
and definitely one that we enjoy.And I think now we're going to be
thinking about a glass of rosea bottleto open with dinner. Right, Oh
yes, so what you guys atthat time we don't know if still we
have an refrigerator. Thanks for joiningus. A toast to you and try
(49:06):
to cool down down in the southof France. All right, thank you
very much, man, Andy andDavid lovely speaking to you. Great to
speak with you, and also youBen. Thanks for joining us today.
Until next time we see you,hopefully in person. You've been listening to
The Connected Table Live with Melanie Youngand David Ransom. It's a great conversation
always over a bottle of wine ora glass with people in the industry,
(49:29):
and we always say to you,stay insatiably curious. Thank you
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.