Could Be One Of The Most Influential Restaurants Of Its Time. Meet Pat Terrail Of Ma Maison.

If you were to reflect on the most influential restaurants during the renaissance of food in America, you could not exit the thought without thinking of Ma Maison. Not only a Hollywood scene of its own, the fresh take on French cuisine started the change in how Americans saw food. One of the most poignant contributions to the food scene was bringing the chef out of the "back-house" into the "front house" to glad hand the guests. And make the chef Wolfgang Puck and you have a recipe for success.

In this episode of Wine Talks, I sit down with legendary restaurateur Patrick Terrail, famed for establishing the iconic Mamaison in Los Angeles. The conversation dives deep into the evolution of fine dining in America, exploring how Ma Maison revolutionized LA's restaurant scene with innovations like alfresco dining and a keen focus on both classical French and emerging California wines. Terrail shares vivid anecdotes about the opening years, the challenges he faced—including an infamous bad review—and how he returned to his French roots to refine his vision. A highlight is the pivotal role Wolfgang Puck played as Ma Maison's chef, and how their partnership helped shift LA’s culinary direction. Terrail also reflects on his storied family history, connected to Tour d’Argent, and the larger shift from the maitre d’-driven restaurants of mid-century France to chef-centric establishments in America.

Beyond restaurant life, Terrail reveals the intensity the hospitality business demands, explaining that it consumed his life to the point of delaying marriage until he “divorced his restaurant.” The episode is filled with insights on the wine industry—past and present—punctuated by fascinating detours about old-school wine traditions, organic viticulture, and the art of running an iconic, people-centric restaurant in Hollywood’s golden age.

✅ What really happens when a legendary French restaurateur meets a true wine aficionado?
✅ Legendary restaurateur Patrick Terrail joins host Paul Kalemkiarian for an unforgettable deep dive into the stories and secrets behind fine dining in America.
✅ On this episode of Wine Talks, get a rare look behind the scenes of LA’s iconic Ma Maison, pioneering wine lists, culinary passion, and why good wine storytelling matters now more than ever.
✅ If you’re obsessed with food, wine, and the people who shape culture, this conversation will leave you hungry for more. Listen now! 🍷✨

#WineIndustry
#RestaurantMasters
#CulinaryHistory
#FoodAndWine
#HospitalityLeaders
#WineCulture
#FrenchCuisine
#RestaurateurInsights

 

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Carson, Leno,
Fallon. Now it's
Wine Talks with Paul K.
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are here in studio and
we have a very special guest that we're going to introduce in just a moment.
Wine Talks is available, of course, on Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and

(00:22):
wherever you hang out with your podcast. I'm just. I'm
not sure where to start this, but I'm very honored to have one of the
great restaurateurs of our time on the show. He's in
Florida right now. The accolades are too much to mention. So I think
what's going to happen during this conversation is that the. The accolades
of what Patrick Terray has done to the

(00:44):
cuisine in America will just come out in the stories. He was the
procreate of the Mama's own in Los Angeles from
1973 to 1985 at the storied
address of 8368 Melrose Avenue,
and a cultural icon, a Hollywood
icon. And I want to start this Mr. Ture with

(01:06):
I got your book the Taste of Hollywood from.
Oh, please tell me. Patrick. Patrick. Okay. My
grandfather is Mr. Terrail. Okay, I'll do that. Thank you.
Do people say Terrell because of the American accent or do they say it the
French way? Terai. No, they say Terrai, like in rye
bread. Oh, there you go. Okay, got it. So I got online and

(01:28):
I got your book the Taste of Hollywood, the Story of Maison,
which is an incredible story. But I bought two copies. I bought one for
our mutual friend Melvin Masters. He was unaware of the book and
he wanted to read it, so I bought it for him and I kept one
to read. But the one I received to me is incredible because
it's got an inscription from you. So I'm not sure what bookstore I

(01:50):
bought it from, but it says, you're quite an artist. By the way, you have
some drawings here. Looks like a can and it says
Victor and it says Ernie's and it says, from
Maison to the greatest San Francisco host, a wonderful friend.
That was Victor and Ernie in San Francisco. Yes. And
so that's funny. He died. Yeah, he died a few years ago, I

(02:11):
guess. Yeah. So Victor Gotti.
Yeah. And Ernie's being one of the great institutions of food in
America. Not Right. It was in San Francisco.
Yeah. And when I was wanted to get to is this is a
very French, you know, maybe something from the days of Le
Pavillon or Lutece. Ernie's was that style of restaurant. It

(02:33):
was a pavilion of the West Coast. So
generally it was just. That's the way it was. It was this type of service
and the type of food and the traditional haute cuisine
kind of thing. Right. You know my friend
John Mariani, I'm sure you know him. Yes. The fruit
critic for Eschwar magazine for many, many years.

(02:55):
And we were talking that today.
Le Pavillon, Victor Ernes,
La Maisonette in Cincinnati,
all those restaurants, it's over. It's a new era.
That haute cuisine that those represented. And
I've had this great conversation with Patrick Q. Who was the Los Angeles

(03:18):
Times, Los Angeles Magazine food critic for many years
studying that. But it seems like maison was
part of the cutting edge change of cuisine in America.
I don't know about that, but I think that Mommy
Zone brought something to LA that LA did not have.
When I started the big restaurants in LA

(03:41):
with the Italian
restaurant on Valentino's.
No, before that. Really? No,
no, no, no, no. It was on Wilshire
Boulevard and the name would come
to me, but there was only two or three great restaurants in LA

(04:04):
at the time. And we were the first
restaurant that had a patio.
Nobody would eat outside until we
came in. And then the Bistro eventually got
a patio, but our trick was
to sit outside and that. That

(04:26):
idea, which, through your book, we're talking about Provence,
you're in the south of France. You know, a very typical way to
dine. Had this conversation with Melvin Masters, since that's where he
sort of started his career. And you're coming from
this amazing storied family of restaurateurs.
I mean, Tour d'argent, you know, one of the greats,

(04:49):
probably still one of the leading restaurants of the world.
Did you think that this was something you were going to do when you started
out as a young person? You were in a sort of,
you say, a silver spoon life. You were thinking of being
a naval architect. And you. Yeah, but
I. I've got you a funny story about that. Yeah.

(05:13):
I visited the Naval Academy before I went to
college. Yes. And have
you ever been to the Naval Academy or to West Point? I've
not. They eat like this. Oh,
okay. That's funny. And that's not for

(05:33):
me. Was that the
turning point for you? Like, I don't think I want to do this because I'm
not going to eat that. No. Yeah, that was the turning point. Then I
went an extra year to school in
America to learn English,
and my counselor said, you should go to the

(05:54):
hotel school at Cornell.
And I got accepted, it seems.
I wanted to ask that question because it sounds like to me, based on your
book, that the teacher there at Riverdale School was quite a mentor
for you. In other words, he recognized or she recognized that
there's something else for Patrick Ture to do.

(06:17):
And it's not going to be a naval architect, it's going to be going into
the hospitality business. Was that a. Well, I wasn't very good
at math. Are you?
Well, that's a, that's a good start then for that. And
I think that she, the counselor, made the
right decision. And, and

(06:38):
besides that, I got a partial
scholarship. Wow. Now this
family, you know, Cornell's not an easy school today. It's not, it
wasn't an easy school to get into back then. And it's hospitality school is known,
believe. It or not, in those days there
was only 600 students

(07:01):
total in the hotel school. Wow.
There's 150 per class
for a four year program. And I think two
out of ten got accepted. That was very
outer. This is quite special. And because of what your

(07:22):
accolades at high school or because the Ture family
was in, you know, I, I, I.
Did have that such bad grace, you know, don't put me down.
I didn't know. I wasn't there. Obviously I
had worked in the hotel restaurant industry when I was young
boy. I worked with my family

(07:45):
and obviously I know a lot about food. I
grew up in it. So I guess I was
qualified to go to hotel school for sure. And my
being French didn't hurt. No. And that was your native
language is French? That's right. And you came to America
to, and you learned English through, through high school or

(08:07):
through the means? I learned it through high school. I grew up in
Greece. I grew up in Athens. Yeah. Okay, so let's, this is what was so
fascinating about what you've done in your career and how you've moved around and the
types of cuisine that you've been exposed to.
And the story of your family's history in the restaurant business
is pretty amazing. So my daughter's a

(08:29):
boulanger in New York. She's quite a good baker. She's trained in Paris.
She went to Alain de Cass School of Pastry in
Isanjo. Do you think for a young
entrepreneur, chef or
restaurateur, that this kind of experience
is necessary and critical to even think about being in the

(08:52):
food business? Well, you know, I have a true story about
that. You know, the food business, whether it's the bakery
business, the chef business,
you have to learn like the piano. If you want
to become a pianist, you have to learn how to play
classical. That's interesting. Yeah. And you have

(09:14):
to apprentice. And once you learn how to play classical
music, then you can become a jazz player.
But you have to have good
bases of knowledge and you can only learn
those through school and
apprenticeship and then you rely on your own. It's

(09:36):
such a trying business. And, you know, looking
through your book, the hours you spent, it's. It consumes
your life. And I assume, and I'll tell you my little quick story. We
took our daughter around when she was looking for a savory school to go to
after she was trained in pastries in Paris and worked. She worked actually
one of Landa Casa's bakeries. She came to America and she

(09:58):
decided she wanted to get savory training as well. We went to different schools. It
seemed to me when we went to this hear the speeches for
the acceptance into the cooking school, it was almost an escape
from college for many kids. Like, well, I'm going to go be a. I'm going
to go be a TV chef and my career will start that
way. And the understanding, I think, from

(10:19):
most people that enter school like that is that this is going to take a
lot of time and a lot of energy and you're going to start at the
bottom and you're going to work 12 hour days just to get to a point
where people respect what you're doing. Is that the case?
Yes, it is. You know, there's a wonderful book out
called Dirt Dirt by

(10:41):
Bill Buford. I'll check that out. And
you can either get an audible or you can buy it.
It's a writer who writes an
unbelievable book about being a
stagier in strength. Wow. And he's
like 40 years old when he's doing this. It's

(11:03):
unbelievable. Have your daughter read it and you should read it
too. I will. So dirt. And it's. So he's a 40 year old
that starts his stagier at that age. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah, it's very funny. It's very funny.
He's a very, very good writer. We will get that. Because
I just finished Chef's Drugs and Rock and Roll and this is where your name

(11:25):
popped up, that I was interested in having this conversation because I
had a conversation with Ken Frank. I've had Joaquim splash out on the show
and I want to peel back this idea because I
watch what my daughter's gone through and I watch her get up at three in
the morning and go bake and prep for food, you
know, clean the kitchen at Six o'clock at night and come home and.

(11:46):
And it just takes passion to do this.
And so that's the question for you is like this passion. You had to have
it. Was it because you think that your family was in it? Tour
d'argent, part of the family, the George. I think it's
either inbred. Either you like it or you
don't. And it's funny, you know, I didn't get married

(12:08):
till I was 55. Yeah. And
Ed McMahon was your best man, so. Yeah,
but. And the reason I didn't get
married, I was married to my restaurant. That's what it takes.
I went to a psychiatrist while I had the
restaurant and I asked him, I said, you know, I

(12:30):
grew up with beautiful women, I've had wonderful relationship,
but I can't seem to tie the knot. And she
said, don't pay me. Wow. I said, well, why not? She
said, because the answer is when you divorce your
restaurant, then you can get married.
Wow. That's. That's pretty good advice. Is that what

(12:52):
happened? That's what happened. You got married in
1990. What year did you get married?
19. Let's see, 20 years ago. So.
So in 2000. Yeah. Because the picture's in
the book. Yeah. And I. And believe it or not,

(13:12):
I have a 12 year old son. I noticed that on your Facebook
page. He's living. He's sitting in the hot tub, he's eating. You know, you're having
breakfast or whatever you're doing together. It seems like you're very close.
All right, I'm very, very close. And right now
I'm his teacher because he's homeschooled. Oh, my
gosh. How is that? This is really

(13:35):
hard. It's. My wife
doesn't have the patience. Yes, I do. That's the answer.
And it's like what, six hours on a zoom call with your teacher? Is that
some. A day or five hours a day or something? He goes to class
at 8:00 in the morning until 4 in the
afternoon. It's all video. Wow.

(13:56):
And it's very, very, very difficult. That's very
hard. That's very hard. It's very difficult for him.
Yeah, for sure. Because kids need to get out and get interacted and
exchange and get fresh air. I mean, just. But the teachers
are very, very tough. And how does he, like, even focus?
Even though I want to get back to Mama's Own, but how does he. I

(14:18):
need to know this because I'm a grandpa now, so how do they,
how do they stay focused Looking at a monitor with what? All the kids
are on the same page, right? Well,
he's in a thing called Georgia Cyber
School. It's specifically designed
for video. I see. And these teachers

(14:41):
are unbelievable. They keep their
attention, they call on them.
It's amazing what they do. I think the teachers are working
much harder than they had to when they had a classroom.
Yeah, much harder. Well, more power to you,
Patrick. Maybe they have to be dressed and they

(15:04):
have to say the pledge of Allegiance in the morning.
They have to be on time. They're on
video. So Leticia knows what they're doing.
It's really amazing. Actually, he's learning more
now that he was in private school last year.
Wow, that's quite a testimony. And your patience

(15:26):
and parenting is phenomenal because this is
a really tough time for both kids and parents. And for you
to do that is pretty amazing because I'm sure a lot of parents can't do
it or just can't. Don't have the patience. And I have to exercise with
him every day. And he makes me go on a three
mile good boy bicycle

(15:48):
ride. Excellent. Every day. That's excellent. Now
I have to remind him I said, you know, I'm going to be 80
years old. He said, I don't care, you
50 right now. That's quite a
relationship that you're building. And what a great. I was actually trying to
figure this out this morning with my wife because my daughter's engaged and

(16:11):
I don't think we're having a wedding in the first quarter. I don't think it's
going to happen. I don't think California is going to loosen enough. So
I, I wondered what's going to happen to, to the kids and my daughter
particularly with her wedding when in 20 years, 30, 40 years, they're
talking about their days to their grandkids. Well, I got married
during the COVID time or I was going to school during the COVID You know,

(16:32):
whatever that, whatever history tells us about what Covid was, they'll be
telling their kids about it. And I wonder what that's going to sound like.
It shouldn't be. I tell you what, I hate to
be 16, 17 and dating
today. Yeah, forget it. You know, I want to go back to what you're talking

(16:52):
about with the lifestyle of Maison, because I was looking
at reading your book. I mean, you did things like you worked in
Liberia, you were a steward on Pan Am, which is phenomenal.
Wasn't that the go to airline at that era, the 60s and
70s, those days? Yes, that's like, amazing, right?
You trekked all over the world. You tasted foods from everything. Did you know.

(17:16):
Did you know George Mardikian from Omar Cheyennes in New York,
in San Francisco? Oh, he was an
Armenian restaurant in San Francisco. Very famous, near Johnson. Okay.
It was very similar trek across the world to. To
learn about food and what to do. So I want to go back to what
you said about learning the classics. In your piano

(17:38):
metaphor, are you talking about the Escoffier
style of cooking that we need to. As a chef, you should
know those basic. Yeah, we need your five sauces. You need
to know your five sauces. You need to know what a churn
mushroom is a turn. How to peel a potato in eight
strokes. You need how to die.

(18:01):
Shave it. There's some basics you have to know
before you can start creating modern
paintings. Picasso. Picasso was a
very, very, very good classical artist.
Before you start going crazy. Wow. Yeah, that's a really good
point. There's a really great book out

(18:24):
by a woman named Tilar Mazzio. She wrote about the
Ritz on Plas Vendome during the war.
I read it. Isn't that great book? Yeah. She talks about
Picasso, that. That era. So when you. When you. When you. When you had
this idea that Maison was going to be an outdoor
restaurant, it was going to be French cuisine, was it going to be classical French

(18:46):
or was it going to be the idea of sort of the Chez Panisse kind
of thing where you're going to try and break? It
wasn't. Okay, so now, now I've got it placed. Right. So was that
what you wanted? You wanted in a scoffier style restaurant or were you thinking,
don't know, we're going to do something? I had no idea. But what did you
do? I didn't know where I was going.

(19:08):
I wanted an outdoor restaurant. I wanted to keep it simple.
And then
there was a restaurant in New York that I liked and I would try
to emulate them. And I tried. And if you read in the beginning of the
book, I got a terrible restaurant.

(19:28):
After you first opened. Yeah. And I had the
worst restaurant review ever written. Oh, no.
About a restaurant in la. Ever.
Wow. Not good. Then I said, I better go back
to my roots. And my roots were French. So I went to
France and I went looking for a chef.

(19:51):
On my trip, I went to the south of France
to a restaurant that was becoming very
famous, called Lo Aziz. And the chef was Louis
Chi. Louis Che was
really my mentor in food, and he was the mentor
forges in New York,

(20:12):
among others. And I met
Roger Verge then and they were
going a whole new direction of food. And
the south of France and Los Angeles
is the same weather, the same
kind of season, warm weather. And they're the ones who

(20:35):
inspired me to reclaim my misery.
And then I ran across Wolfgang and
Wolfgang became my chef. And he came
out of the south of France. He had
worked in a restaurant called Beaumanier and Beaumanier is
in south of France also. You know, when I first met Wolf,

(20:58):
he didn't speak very good English, but he knew what good
food was. And we were on a wonderful
journey together. Him with the kitchen, me with the front of the
house. And we were a perfect marriage for
about 10 years. You know, that's interesting. I want to go back
just briefly to Roger Verger and the

(21:19):
beaucous and the chappelles of the world. I have a book in my
kitchen, it's called the Great Chefs of France. Is written in
1977, talks about, you know, the book, right,
Madame Po. Yeah, very well. And so what I did
a couple of years ago is that I, I pulled the book out and I
plotted all the restaurants and I was going to go to Rouen, we're going to

(21:39):
go to Trogo, and we were going to go to see Monsieur Orsi
in Lyon, and we're going to see Pablo Cruz. And what was
interesting to me going through the book is that most of those restaurants in
France, these, the Michelin Etoile, were open
and they were either family run or they've been handed to the chef after
them. And the cultural history of cuisine in France is so

(22:02):
much different than America.
Do you see America? Is America behind in
a timeline like French. What am I trying to say is the French
cuisine and the French idea behind a chef, you know, with the MOF
program and the history of food in France, is
America behind that curve? Are we going to get to a point where restaurants are

(22:24):
around for 40, 50, 60 years, or are we going to be that new
world where we're just creating new things and trying new things and
then restaurants come and go as they have. It's an
interesting question. You would ask me that question
in March of last year. I would say I would have a
different answer. But with COVID

(22:46):
today and what it doing to the restaurant business,
I don't know, and I don't know if you read recently,
but 21 in New York closing down forever. Yeah,
really sad, really sad. Four Seasons closing down
forever. Amazing. So I don't know, I don't know what's
going on in la. My good. My best friend in

(23:08):
LA is Bob Morris.
Rest Paradise Trove. And
I tell you, right, he's not very happy. Well, no, it's a
mess. I, I don't know. I don't know how Wolfgang is doing
it. He's not very happy. No. Well, the LA county
thing, you know, they challenged it. Mark Girgos, the famous, the famed criminal

(23:31):
attorney, challenged the LA county shut lockdown and
he won. But then days after, Governor
Newsom decided to shut everything down. I have a cousin who owns a restaurant in
Pasadena called Mi Piache and he was actually, when
they moved outside. And this goes back to your point about the south of France
and what you were trying to do in Maison when he moved

(23:54):
outside, he actually, he was doing better in
June and July than he was last year. June, July.
Yeah, yeah. And every seat was outside.
And, and, and. But then they shut him down again. And then we
shut him down again. So now he's spent. That's the problem. They spent thousands of
dollars to put tents and heaters and lighting and music and then it's all

(24:16):
shut down. I'm going to go back to, to Wolfgang.
I met him recently. I did a champagne
lunch with the, the Rothschild family. And
then right after I went to a very famous port
tasting. Don Schliff here in California, probably one of the great
port collections of the world, held a port tasting. And

(24:38):
we were talking about things from the 1850s and 1870s
and. And your old partner was there. Wolfgang was there. I sat
next to him. Now, I didn't want to act like the devotee. I Love your
food, Mr. Puck. So I asked him the question about Kavkaz, the restaurant
Kavkaz, which eventually became Spago. Did you know the
Markarian family that at Kavka? No. You

(25:00):
didn't? No. So his eyes lit up because this
was the beginning of something for him, I guess
after leaving Mama's Own to do that
part of the California history is fascinating to me. Tell me
what year you were in the south of France talking to the folks, trying
to find a chef. 73.

(25:22):
73. And so it sounds like to me
that that revelation for you was this is going
to be now we're going to have to have a chef centric restaurant. We're not
going to have appropriate tears
focused restaurant. We're gonna, we're gonna bring the chef out onto the
floor and, and teach Americans that this is what food is

(25:43):
about. Is that what the revelation was that was going on for you?
That since you. Oh, yeah, definitely. I, I, I, I, I think
that you'd have to go back. I don't know how old you are,
but.
Well, at that time, there was
a group of guys called Gui, Miu, Malk

(26:05):
and Mihau. Yeah. And they're the ones who brought
the chefs up front through the magazine. I
see. And I took my cue from them. I
think. One of the Milot brothers was one of the judges at the
Judgment of Paris with Steven Spurrier in 1976.

(26:27):
They're no brothers. It was ongoing.
Kiss. Yeah, he was. I'm sorry. He was
the, the judge. And,
and they had a vision.
They did very well with their magazine. And
I got to know Kish extremely well. I went to China

(26:49):
with him. I brought him to la. And
they, they tried and they succeeded. They're the
ones who made beaucouse. They're the one who made all
that whole school foisboro verse
they discovered and made those chefs. And my
uncle Lantarai was not very

(27:12):
fond of them because she was a true
restaurateur. He believed the chefs in the
kitchen and he's in the dining room. And the chef
should stay in the kitchen. As when Bakrush
came out front in the dining room.
My uncle at the time was very pissed off.

(27:34):
Was he a Tour d'argent then? Yeah. The only Tour
d'arthur. How long did. What was that tenure for?
For. I'm sorry, how long was that? That he was owner of Tour
d'argent? And what, what years was that he. Died from
which inherited the toilet.
Wow. For his father. And then when he died

(27:56):
10 years ago, his son took it over.
Andre. And he said to me, you can't
do what you're doing. And I said to him, you have
to. And then. I'm not going to go
into details, but you need a new shaft. Called
me and he said, how do I get in touch with the

(28:18):
guys like Bercuse and Berger? I said, I'll
call them. I knew them quite well.
And he didn't like them at the time. Eventually he
made peace with the whole thing and he accepted it.
But it took him a while to adapt.
Tour d'argent just for the listeners, is across the river from Notre

(28:41):
Dame. No. Yeah. And
it's been open since 1582. And one of the
great wine cellars probably in the world.
Yeah. It. My great. My great.
My grandfather took it over in
1902. Wow. Was it in

(29:02):
the family prior to that or. No, no, My
grandfather bought in 1902. Wow. My great
grandfather at a restaurant called the Cafe au
lait, which closed right before the First World
War. Interesting. And they had. He had it during the
French Revolution. Wow. You know, you said in the

(29:24):
book, you talk about how the
fork possibly showed up at Tour d'argent as one
of the first places in the 1850s. And I was, I've. In the
book the Great Chefs of France, it talks about Catherine de Medici
coming to France with, you know, she married in the. I forgot
which king. And you know, she's been credited with bringing the

(29:45):
fork to France. And it jives completely with the
timing of the Tour d'argent and the idea of the fork.
Well, the first restaurant, most people
don't know there was no restaurants in
France until after the French Revolution.
Really. There were cafes. Just

(30:08):
cafes. Well, the idea of service like
that. The main reason all the chefs used
to work in for the royals and the words
restaurant comes from a guy who opened
a restaurant after the French Revolution. Wow. And all that.
It said

(30:31):
come and get restored. That means restore your
appetite. Interesting. And that's where the
word restaurant came from. How interesting. So after
the French Revolution, d'estro is. Not a
French word. It's a Russian word. Wow. It
means fast. And when the Russians were occupying

(30:53):
France, when Napoleon.
The Russians, that's where the beast were word
came from. So weren't the Russians as well
sort of responsible for the idea of plated
service in courses?

(31:17):
Well, that was from the Tsar area also earlier.
Yeah, that's from the song. Yeah, the shark family.
Interesting. So I'll go back to the chef thing. So have you seen the
movie? It's a comedy. It's a French comedy. Common Chef.
It's a very cute movie. It's a kid that's trying to become
a chef and he's trying to be the chef centric

(31:40):
type restaurant. Wherever he works, he keeps getting fired because he keeps coming
out of the kitchen, going into the clients and trying to
create food or change, tell them what to eat as
a neighbor. The movie Comb on Chef.
Is that a French movie? It's a French movie. Yeah, it's on.
I don't know where I saw it. There's a. There's a website called film fry

(32:03):
filmfra.com. it's all French movies with French
subtitles. I can look it up. It's really cute. It's really cute. But the idea
of a French centric restaurant coming to Los Angeles in the
form of Mama's Own. Were there any chef centered restaurants before
Wolfgang came into the Mame zone? Oh yeah,
there was a thing called On vine

(32:27):
street called Urban Tea Cafe,
belong to Kit Marshall. And there was Scandia. Oh,
Scandia, right. You know, big, big restaurant. It was
a very famous, at the hotel
downtown.
Windsor. The Windsor, the

(32:49):
Rinser Yacht, another one. That was a big restaurant. Is that chef
centric? Not many, but so, so
then the. Question begs, because this is a tough question for any restaurateur. If anybody
knows the answer to this question, you know, we'd all be somebody
would be famous and rich forever. And that is
the success of a restaurant has so much to do with the maitre d or

(33:11):
the owner, the procruitaire, the chef, the food,
you know, the ambiance, who knows why. But all of
a sudden Maison becomes the place to go in
Los Angeles, particularly for the Hollywood set.
And I'm wondering a couple things. One is, you think that could ever happen again,
do you think there'd ever be a restaurant where, you know, the,

(33:35):
I'm not going to say the elite but just the celebrity status that Mama
Zone ever had? Now that's a good question. No, no, I, I, I, I'll
answer that question very briefly. Hollywood at that
time is a very small town.
The Fly from Mtn Burbank
from Paramount, Onelrose from

(33:58):
Motor Rider. I'm
sorry, MGM in Culver City. The
drive was 15 minutes. Oh wow. Like
today you couldn't do that. No,
you can't do that. So that was very key. The

(34:18):
restaurant had a very good location. So
geographically Hollywood was small. That's right.
And it was the heyday and everybody used to know
everybody. You could drive in front of the
bistro or, or the
Saint Germain, the rest of the hall, look at the

(34:41):
parking lot and you know who was dining there, you
know, the people's cars. Wow.
Are you ready? So it was a
very unique period. Was this, I
mean it couldn't have been a pre thought idea that you were going to create
a restaurant that was going to attract these people and become so famous. You just

(35:03):
wanted good food. Good food, good service
and a very protective omega.
Yes, very protective. It's funny you know, people
ask me, do you have any pictures of the restaurant people dining
in it? None, just the, just these promo shots
of the book. But nobody's sitting at their table. Not Orson Welles over

(35:26):
by, you know, on the way to the bathroom. Nothing. I don't have any of
that. Never was shot, never was
done. And I'm sorry. Well, but that was
just what you wanted. You, you, you know, once they started coming, obviously if these
people are coming, the Orson Welles and The Suzanne Plechettes are coming to the restaurant.
You're going to want to protect their identity. And they're, they're going to ask you

(35:46):
to be discreet. In the first place, I never took a
picture. You never took a picture. And it's funny, you know
Austin Welles, a good friend of mine, it looked like that. And when he
died and I was in his house the night he died. Wow.
I said, what a jerk. I have nothing to remind
you of him. Wow. Not even, not even a signed

(36:08):
autograph. All this stuff, all this amazing history.
You could have had at least something to show for it and. But you've got
some good pictures. I was talking to one of the vendors. I taste wines on
Tuesdays. I start at 9:30, I finished at 2:00. I taste, I don't know, 75
wines every Tuesday. And I have a myriad of vendors that come through here.
And yesterday was an old timer. It was Mark Toll. In fact, I was

(36:31):
looking through your credential. Your book here, the very first page, I just started
reading it. I didn't, I hadn't read it. The acknowledgments. Larry Lipson. I knew Larry
well. Oh yeah, Larry is a good friend by.
Back in the day we conversed many times about
wine. But anyway, this one vendor, he
says, really, you're gonna. I gotta listen to that podcast

(36:52):
with Patrick because I remember going and
walking to the bathroom and I could have sworn Orson Welles was sitting
there. But I never found out if it was him. I go, yeah, that was
probably him. Yeah, it was Shiv. We should buy the bathroom. Yeah,
it's pretty amazing story. So once it
looked like Mommy's Own was going to be happening, was part of the

(37:14):
Hollywood crowd. Did you have to adjust your
thought process on how this restaurant was going to go based on the clientele that
was coming in or it was already part of the DNA? Well, yeah, I
ran the restaurant. I didn't care. The
plumber or Paul Newman, they were all important. That's
excellent. Tell me about the wine culture. Mommy

(37:35):
zone. You're Talking about this 60s and 70s,
1976 California wins. Beats the French at the
Judgment of Paris. And you know, it still takes many years for the
California wine scene to develop into a world class
operations. But how important was the wine list at
Maison and what type of clientele was taking advantage of?

(37:58):
I'm sure I'm assuming you had the Burgundies and the Bordeaux and probably some California
wines, but was that an important.
We were the first restaurant to
have California. I Mean, a very strong presence
with California wine. I think the first one
was. Let's see, I remember the first time I

(38:20):
served Callaway wine. Oh, Callaway, Yeah. Wow. Like,
Callaway was a very, very special human
being. Brilliant guy. And a lot of the
wines that Shelly Czech made were very good. They were. Did you
get your number said shelter? I did not. My
father, you know, he. My father started this in the late 60s, early

(38:42):
70s, and he went to Napa many times. I don't think he crossed paths with
Mr. Chelichev. Many others. Jim Bear was a neighbor from
Chateau Montalena. I mean, Dave Stair from Dry Creek. I
remember the first very well known
vineyard of any credibility
was Jordan. Correct. And

(39:04):
we had. Jordan was really very
good at the. Time
when you had the French, I'm sure you had Burgundies, the high end Burgundies. Yeah.
I thought there's a picture of you handing Gene
Kelly. Yeah.
And so how important was that to the ticket? I mean,

(39:26):
in today's environment and this. And we're going to be on an hour here, so
I don't want to take too much more of your time and maybe we'll do
it again. But today's culture, if
I'm training, we've trained many restaurants on service.
And, you know, the key is you can double a ticket
by the alcohol service at a restaurant. I mean, it's very important.

(39:46):
Part of the gross profit margins of a restaurant. Was it like that,
by the way? I'm not a believer. Or not. You don't. Okay, that's what I
want to ask you about back then, particularly. All right, let me ask you. A
house. Like was a house wine
rebuttal from France? Yes, in the house
Bordeaux. It was
1999, the bottle. I made more money on the

(40:10):
house wine than I would do on a Bordeaux.
Okay. So yeah, my philosophy is
look about. Or feed the Austrian or
whatever. If you added 25%,
you would sell it. If you would add 50%,
you'd have a hard time. They wouldn't move. So you better off doing

(40:33):
volume than not selling them. Correct.
So the margins were in the house and the pores. And
we sold more housewives than anything. Else, but it was Bordeaux. So
that's pretty. That's pretty good. Not too many house Bordeaux
around a house.
Champagne, which was. Was

(40:55):
a champagne menu. It wasn't a
champagne. It was a blonde Le Blanc Tremont
menu southwest of France. And
I was the first one to bring it in here. And we did
a huge business with it. It was crement but it was method
champagne. Wa. Probably. That's right. So, you know, it felt

(41:17):
like, and tasted like champagne, but it was. Now there's
a. These are the
Italians and
Chamo and they're are giving the
champagne a run for their money. Oh, you know,
there's two things. There's. Well, we can talk for hours on the wine industry right

(41:38):
now because it's, it's as messed up as. As the restaurant business is.
In fact, I'm making incredible deals right now because the
on premise stuff is gone. There's no restaurants buying anything.
So getting first growth Bordeaux, I'm getting Grand Cru Burgundies in here because
they can't sell them anywhere else because no one's buying. And
I think that's going to be going on for a little while because even if

(41:59):
the restaurant's open tomorrow in Los Angeles, it'll still take
60, 90, 120 days for them to get back up to purchasing
power to take advantage of these things. So it's, it's kind of a mess
as well. But I'm just. People are drinking a lot of.
And a lot of rose going on. A lot of rose. Richard
Angel. I mean, they're going like

(42:21):
hotcakes. Well, you mentioned it and that's an important thing that you
said because the world is smaller now in the world of
wine. Every district in the world has a. You can get Burgundy rose, obviously. You
can get Bordeaux rose, you can get Tuscan rose. Mr.
Sasha Lachine had a vision. Yes.
With Whispering Angel.

(42:43):
Yes. It's huge. In fact, I have a rose club now.
I mean, a million balls a year. Yeah. Isn't that phenomenal?
And his father would be very proud of him.
Alexis Lachine. Alexis Lachine. Chateau
Lacombe and others. Chateau Criol,

(43:06):
chateaubrioil Chie. That's the Bordeaux house.
He sold it. And then Sasha left,
took the money and opened Chateau de
Chault. Right. And now
Gutierrez Free Ranger as well. As his high end version of the
rose as well. Yeah. The point I was trying

(43:28):
to make was that the regions of the world have all been producing now sparkling
wines. They're all producing. You
mentioned Andrew Chelyshev, Alexis Lachine. I'll tell you a quick cute story.
The woman who took Mr. Spurrier around in
1976 in Napa. Her name was Joanne Dupuis
and she was a Napa resident since the 40s.

(43:50):
And she found herself at Chateau Lacombe with
Alexis Lachine on one side and Andrei Cheliceff on the other having
l. When the. When they announced the
winners of the Judgment of Paris, and Mr. Barrett was with her.
And it was this amazing story because Mr.
Barrett gets a phone call. He walks back into the lunch, and

(44:12):
Lexis Lachine is there, and Andre Telechev. And he whispers to Andrei Chelicev, we
just won. And he had the white Chardonnay. He had the Chardonnay beat that beat
the Burgundies. And Andrei Chelicev says, don't
tell anybody in the room. We're guests of the Lachines
here. We will not discuss us winning the. The Judgment
of Paris in front of them. So they didn't announce

(44:34):
it, and they waited till they got on the bus that left. It's a very
cute story about. And here the. The reason I brought it up is what an
amazing amount of wine, celebrity
and. And. And influence
in one room. You have Andre Telecheff on one side of this young lady
and Alexis Laina on the other. And. And they made it happen. So.

(44:55):
So. But the question really was, would the Plechettes
of the world or the Orson Welles of the world or the Newmans or the
Ed McMahon, would they sit down and say, okay, I'd like this for dinner or
lunch and a glass of. Call
something out a Grand Cru Burgundy or a glass of
Lif. Well, at lunch, it was mostly glass of Haas

(45:17):
wife, the Chardonnay. No.
It's funny. I grew up when I was a wine steward
at Statler. In my college year, people
used to say, I want Chablis Boutique. You
say? And they would name
the wine by the label. As I grew

(45:38):
older, all those names disappeared. Yes, they have.
And it became Amant. Chardonnay,
a Pinot, you know, and
all those labels, the Pre Frisade, Shabri, they all
disappeared. Yep. And
I don't

(46:02):
remember. Free cliche was no longer
in demand. I remember when Matus
was the biggest drop of wine in 19.
I would say 50, 62, 63.
Oh, early on. That's early. Yeah, because we

(46:24):
had it at my dad's farm, my dad's wine shop in Palos Verdes. He bought
it in 69. We had tons of Matuse and Lancers. And.
Yeah, when you said Chablis, you know, Gala would bottle that stuff under the
label Chablis, which was, you know, sort of internationally illegal, but. And they
would have. The red wine was hearty Burgundy. Yeah. And the
people thought that's what it was. I used to abide by the

(46:45):
habituality.
It was delicious. Right. But those. Don't deny.
Don't deny Gallo, the Fact that they
did make a very good Burgundy. They did, and they still
do. They still make very good wines. You know what's interesting about those
eras, that era is those wines were screw caps. Right.

(47:06):
And, yeah, it took. That was. That was a
negative connotation about the quality of wine. If it was a screw cap back in
1969, 72, whatever, it was not good. I mean,
it was a cheap wine. And now, you know, screw caps are very well
accepted in some countries. Last night.
Last night, screw cap, really? And I have not

(47:30):
seen that all these wines. I mean, I see a lot of wine, but this
Ruffino in a screw cap. Yeah. That's
amazing. Well, it's a lot easier for us to open than. Than it was. Than.
It is a cork, though. I had a customer
complain that I broke her corkscrew because she tried to open a screw
cap with her corkscrew, and it broke. The. It broke.

(47:51):
You must have been blown. It's
a bit of a problem. You know, I. I would like to do this again
one day. We have so much to talk about. We kind of bounced around. But
it's been such a pleasure having you. It's been an hour. I don't want to
take any more of your time, but you have any time. School to do. But
thank you so much for the time. Let me ask you a question. Sure.

(48:12):
When I had Mommy's Own, I did a lot of firsts.
We were the first people to serve Perrier. We were the first people to serve
Aviel, and we were the first people to
serve still champagne. Are you familiar
with still champagne? So still champagne, I mean, are you talking
about, like, I've bought Pinot Noir from Domain

(48:33):
Carneros. It's made by Marcel do,
and it's a funny story,
but it's bothered a bottle of champagne. Then I brought it
in, and then the custom said, well, it has
a regular core in a bottle of champagne, but has no
bubbles. How

(48:55):
confusing the customs. Said, well, we
can't let that in. And why not? They
said, well, it's the champagne bottle. It's still, and
it's got a regular quart. So it's not
champagne. I said, no, it's
still wine. May Five Bird shall go. And

(49:18):
you should find out. It used to sell very well,
but now nobody has it in
America. I'm going to find out. I think Moet is with Southern wines of
spirits right now. But that's interesting. So it was like a 60, 40 Pinot Noir,
Chardonnay kind of thing, or is it just A, you know, varietal as a
chardonnay. It's a

(49:40):
champagne grape, really. Huh.
Yeah. I have to find that I've never had it all these years,
you know. Very good, very good. And so you poured that as what,
for lunch? Paratif kind of thing? Or was it a.
Just on the list? Yeah. Very expensive.
Interesting. I remember when I started, we were the first

(50:02):
person to bring Rose. Tavel was number one.
Tavel. Yeah. Well, you're right. Ros has grown. No
matter. Now you can't get
it. Highly allocated. You can't get out. It's
very hard to get. You have to, you know, you have to be on the
list. Oh, you know. You know I became

(50:23):
popular in Hollywood, don't you? No. People would come back from
the festival in Cannes, and that's what they would
serve everywhere. Ah. That's why Domain ot,
I don't think I've had. I think I've been offered it one time in 30
years from the vendor. Yeah, it's very good stuff.
But I'm very close to the representative that handles Desclan.

(50:45):
You know, the. That's Jim
Rush. His game used to be a Southern rider spirit. Yes.
You remember all these guys, huh? Well, you know, I used to be with hi
Marker. Wow. That's an old time.
I left a restaurant, I was vice president of Iron Walker. Oh, I didn't know
that. After you left, you went. You went there. So were they with.

(51:09):
Were they with the Bohemian group?
They were Southern. Okay. Yeah. So you. Yeah, that's right. I didn't think about
this, you being in Los Angeles, you know, all those guys that
were work streets then. And it's a different. I mean, it's a totally. You know,
back then, it was Patterson's. You only had fixed prices. Everything was the
same. You know, you can only sell Jack Daniels for the same price as the

(51:30):
other guy and when. And Bob Balza. Did you ever meet
Bob? I didn't do him. My dad knew him. He spoke. My
father started two chapters of Leslie Divine.
And. And I'm. I'm bringing that back. In fact, I wanted to
talk to you about that, but I'll do it next time. I'm bringing it back.
I'm trying to decide what Les Amie Devant is. You

(51:52):
know, what is it? What is it going to be in the millennial generation? But
back then, my father had Bob Bowser speak a couple of times to the group.
M. Mandavi. Very, very good. Nathan
Croman. Yeah, I remember Nathan very well. All those
guys from that that era, Henry Wa
was spoke to the group, pretty

(52:13):
interesting time. And I'm so happy to have your
opinion of that. And it's nice to speak to somebody that remembers
those days because it's a different part
of the wine world. It's a whole different world.
I think that the new generation

(52:33):
doesn't appreciate
the, let me put it this way, they appreciate life
in a different way that we did that. And
people like Balzer and Nathan Thoman,
I don't think we'll survive then because

(52:54):
the millennium, they don't
bring the same amount of respect that the wine
deserves. I agree with that. And that's kind of like why
these conversations are happening on this podcast. And I think it's important. Let
me. Since we, we're going to open a Pandora's box here.
But the wine culture right now is. It's a mess. And the reason

(53:15):
it's a mess is the Internet and the Groupon culture,
the coupon culture. And so I've said this a
thousand times on this podcast, but what happens now? If you can imagine this,
Patrick, they're bringing in, and I know this for a fact, it's
not like, because I'm hearsay, I know guys that have lost contracts
because they're charging €2 a

(53:38):
liter for juice coming from Europe in,
in 20 liter tetra tax, you know, they bring it into New York and they
bottle it on a bunch of different brands. And so what the millennials and much
of the wine consuming public is seeing are these
messaging. You get 15 bottles for $45, you get 15 bottles
for $60. You can have $3 wines. And

(54:00):
it's all as you would know, if you're going to pay €1 a liter,
it's just can't be any good. So
the stories are being lost, your stories being
told. Now it's being. But it's lost amongst these millennial generations.
The restaurant story, the plight of food. They
should know where this stuff is coming from. They should know how it got here.

(54:22):
They should know how the experience of a good Burgundy or a
good Bordeaux is so different than the stuff that that's out on the streets right
now. So I'm trying to, in my own way, well, decongest.
Somebody once said to me, I used to teach, you
know, at Cal Poly Pomoto.
Really? Yeah. They have a wine, a food program. There, don't they, at

(54:44):
Kellogg Center? Yes, the hospitality.
And I had a class there and I would
say to them, if you always drank Gallo,
you never know what a good wine is. But once you Drink
a very good wine, then you know the difference.
It's hard to go back, you know. So,

(55:07):
you know, if. Why would you have good glassware?
Get out cheap. You'll never know what bad mine is. But meanwhile, I had
a very good story about Mr. Lachine. Yes.
And I was in a restaurant with him, and we
were in the bottle of wine. And you know how they bring the bottle,
they make you taste the wine and they swirl it

(55:30):
out. And he would take the wine and he would swirl it and
nose it, and he would look at the wine. Stewart, he says it's
definitely red.
Coming from him. That's very funny.
Well, I agree with that. I mean, people
over emphasize that stuff. You know, people say,

(55:53):
can I have a white wine or a red wine or a rose wine with
my fruit? My answer is, you should have wine, period. If you like
it, then it's good. That's it. And that's the bottom line. Something that you
like. But there is, you know, the comment you made earlier is a very important
comment. There's. There's some value to a properly made wine.
And whether you're a novice at wine tasting or you're

(56:14):
aficionado and you study it, you can tell, and it makes you feel
something different than a cheap wine might. What. Since you're. Since we're on the subject
and you're willing to talk a little more, what is
your opinion of. And the idea of
now organic? Biodynamic had a
conversation with a master of wine last week who started a program

(56:37):
called Raw Raw, which are, you know, it's not a certification,
but it's just a classification of wine. And the question
is this. I talked to a lot of winemakers from all over the world, and
many of them were harvesting and processing wines
organically already. And the comment is, the listeners have heard this a
thousand times. My kids are playing in that vineyard. They're

(56:59):
getting their hands dirty. I don't want pesticides. And so the
idea of organic wines really isn't that
new, but it's being popularized. And
that philosophy, it comes out of the earth. A
potato. Yes. Comes out of the earth. It's
organic. Yeah, exactly.

(57:21):
Grape comes out on the valley. It's
organic. Yes. All right. Now,
I was out in Bordeaux two
years ago, and I went to a friend of mine, Alfred
Tichron. Love
the wine. And he stopped killing

(57:43):
the earth with a tractor. And now he
brought in horses to till the earth with the
horse pulling the till. Yes. That's
fascinating. And I said, why are you doing that? He
Said because the tractor used to push the earth
down while the feet of the horse

(58:06):
turns the soil over. Very interesting. And
he finds that's more organic. And then if you go, have
you been in Bordeaux lately? Last time was
20:15. No, 16. Now they
have all these big cement. Oh, the eggs. Eggs,
yeah. Made of the earth of the vineyard.

(58:29):
Yes. You know that. Yes. They probably had that in
California too, right? Yeah, the eggs coming around. But
isn't that not unlike the caucus countries that have been making wine
underground and they're in their earthen, their earth and
amphora for centuries. Yeah, but all that
stuff's coming back. Yes, I think it's. So they're all

(58:51):
going back. Back to the old way as opposed to the
new way. Well, so
everything comes around. I agree with you.
Wine should be natural anyway. But organic is organic is
organic. When I see
organic bananas for 69 cents,

(59:14):
an unorganic banana. That's right, 38
cents. I
fucking. I see the same thing here, Ralph. You should go
to taste differently. Well, that's a good question. I ask
that question to chefs all the time. I ask Joachim Michel and I get different
answers. And here's the question. You and I go to the. Now Joaquim talks

(59:36):
about. You know, he was, I forgot the restaurant in Nice that he's. That he
learned his craft at. He said we would go down to the. To the shore
and we would buy our fresh fish and shellfish, and then we'd go to the
farmer's market and we'd buy our fresh organic foods. And so that's what we did.
This nouvelle cuisine idea has been around for a long time.
And so I said, okay, let's go to the market together. I'm going to buy

(59:57):
all conventional, you're going to buy all organic. We're going to cook everything, the same
temperatures, the service the same way, and which one's going to taste
better? And he said, it will always be organic. And
I've get a different answer from different chefs. And I think it all has
to do just like wine. And just like food, you know, it's the
passion of the maker and the farmer that's going to create

(01:00:18):
the better food. I tell the story before my daughter,
the Boulanger in New York. She takes me to an organic wine
shop in Brooklyn and she wants to buy a
Sicilian Neo Diavola that's supposedly biodynamic.
I take it to the counter. It was $75. And this is only a few
years ago. Like, I'm like, Lisa, I. I've got 30,000

(01:00:40):
bottles behind me here in my warehouse. Why don't you buy a $75
biodynamic Sicilian red? We took it back to the hotel. Is undrinkable.
There's nothing wrong with it. I mean, there wasn't, it hadn't turned, it wasn't
oxidized or just, just wasn't well made. And it
led me to believe at that time, like, just because it's made
organically or biodynamically doesn't make it better. And I still

(01:01:02):
believe that the experience of a good glass of wine, like you
said, should be the experience of a good glass of wine. It should
taste good to you. Look, the
people who've been making wine for hundreds of years, organic and
not organic, they know how to make good wine. That's it. I agree,
I, I agree. It's a, it's, go ahead. I guess

(01:01:24):
I'm old fashioned. No, I don't think so. I
think that the stories we want to tell, we want people to understand about
wine and food. Now let me ask you this question. I don't want to take
any more time, but I love this question. It's an important question. And
that is the evolution of, and maybe the premise of
Maison actually sort of underneath the premise of the

(01:01:46):
restaurant. If you talk to Bordeaux winemakers
and you talk to as you have all your life and Burgundy winemakers,
the evolution of food in those districts. Tuscan food
with Tuscan wines, Pimonte foods with Pimonte wines,
Burgundy with Burgundy, et cetera. And when I told that
to Jacques la, and I had that story, talked to him on a

(01:02:09):
podcast, I said, we don't have that in California. We don't even have
indigenous wine grapes. Right. Zinfandel, which is our only hope to
be indigenous wine grape is Croatian. So in
California, we didn't get a chance to start with
grapes of our own and foods of our own. And I sort
of positioned it as a not a bad thing, but just sort of an unfortunate

(01:02:32):
thing. And he's like, no, the beauty of California
is it's the new world. You can take whatever you want,
grow whatever you want, and prepare food around it any way
you want. Was that what sort of the Mommy's own sort of premise was at
that point? I, I agree. I, I, I, I think it's
all in the taste of the buyer

(01:02:55):
of the people who's eating the food. That's it. You know, we
want to have a fide of soul with the red wine. That's your privilege. That's
right. But it's interesting. That's the rape. My father
in law, and he likes arty
wine from the Southwest. I can't drink them, they
have too much acid.

(01:03:16):
I'm a Bordeaux person. You're right, though. I mean, I
say the old way, I'm a claret person. They're claret person.
Right, Claret, Sebillian. So,
so here's, here's a. It is an old word. It's a, you know, the
English version of Bordeaux. Right, right.
So when I go home now, and because of COVID I'm

(01:03:38):
drinking, I'll admit I'm drinking better. I mean, this is a
very common outfall. The wines I'm selling more of now. I
don't think In January of 2019, I could have sold
$50 cabernet from California, $100 bottle of Camus. I
would never have been able to sell those to my clientele prior to Covid.
And now I can't keep them in stocks as people are drinking better because they're

(01:04:00):
spending their money on this kind of thing. But what's happened to me
is I know I'm going to have a glass of wine when I get home
no matter what. So instead of saying, what are we having for
dinner? And choosing a wine, I go home and say, what do I feel like
drinking? And if it's a Rufino Chianti with a screw
cap, that's what I feel like. And I'll eat whatever I'm eating. Or if it's

(01:04:21):
a high end Burgundy, I feel like Burgundy. If I feel like my wife
and I don't agree, we feel like drinking quite often. But
that's okay. The other night I
felt like a very rustic Pinot. And there's a new one from California I
just brought home and I loved it and she couldn't stand it. But I just
thought I was so ethereal. And so thing is that the way you feel about

(01:04:42):
wine is like, what? What am I going to drink tonight? And then, oh,
really? Last night
I cooked dinner. I made ravioli
with mushroom cheese sauce and
we had a nice lucido
donkey. Perfect. Thank you so much. It was such a great

(01:05:06):
pleasure. My pleasure as well.