June 26, 2025 • 51 mins
I forgot her exuberance, energy, and love of wine and music. I'm so glad I had the chance to remember. The wine world needs more Stephanie Morton-Smalls; she helps us keep our eye on the ball.
If you’ve ever wondered why some wines taste better when paired with heartfelt stories or Adele ballads, “Wine Talks” with Stephanie Morton Small and Paul Kalemkiarian has your answer (and maybe your calling as an emotional sommelier). Stephanie, a four-time founder and true wine globe-trotter, dives headfirst into the intoxicating marriage of wine, song, and feeling. She shares how her new venture, Wine Whisper and Song, combines storytelling, original music, and wine in a way that makes your palate and your soul say “cheers.” Spoiler: This isn’t your typical stuffy Napa tasting—think less “essence of leather-bound books” and more “let the wine remind you of your first crush or last breakup.” Paul and Stephanie uncork witty wisdom about letting wine seduce you emotionally before you bone up on tannin types or the history of Madame Clicquot. It turns out that the most memorable wines are the ones that make you feel—and maybe cry (then laugh) at the table.
🍷 Lessons Learned:
🍷 If your wine isn’t making you feel something, maybe you just need a better story, a power ballad—or both.
🍷 Wine wisdom: Don’t worry about gauzy tannins or soil maps; just let that Pinot Noir take you on an emotional rollercoaster worthy of an Oscar.
🍷 You don’t have to pass a wine test to fall in love—sometimes, all you need is a generous pour, a good yarn, and the courage to ugly-cry in front of strangers.
Cheers to wine that smells like heartbreak, tastes like adventure, and lingers like a power chorus!
#WineTalks #WineWhisperAndSong #WineEmotions #WinePairing #WineExperience #WineAndMusic #WineStorytelling #EmotionalWine #WineTasting #WineCulture #MindfulWine #WineInnovation #WineJourney #WineIndustry #WineConversations #WineWithSong #WinePodcast #WineLifestyle #WineMemories #WineEntrepreneur
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I remember wines by the emotion. I think of wines that have an emotional energy.
They are living beings at the end of the day, wine is living, we agree,
but it has an emotional energy. And
when you find that kind of those sensory nuances and you can bring them to
life and describe them for the audience as to why this wine
is a happy kind of, maybe a more
(00:23):
exuberant, more quite loudly
confident wine. And then you match it to the song and to this point in
the story. Then it all matches up. Sit back and grab
a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K.
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today with
(00:44):
Stephanie Morton Small. Introductions in just a second. Hey, have a listen
or watch actually, because I think his animation
in the way he speaks is important part of his story.
And that is Zaya unanimous. This guy
decided that living in Iran was not for him. At 12
years old, worked for a year painting bicycles,
(01:08):
earned enough to fly to America and start his life. It is
phenomenal story. It's about an hour and a half long. You won't even
know that once you listen to it. You'll freak out.
But now while we're here, here to have a conversation with Stephanie Morton Small.
She is a four times founder. She's also the founder of a new
project called Whisper and Wine. Whisper and Wine
(01:30):
Whispering Song and I want to talk about that. But been around the
world in the wine trade and so, so happy to have you on the show.
Thank you for coming again. Thank you very much. It's great to be back. We're
trying to figure out when that was. Right. Yeah, I think it was. Well, you
still have wine in the month club, so I think it was 2022. Was it?
That was a lot of fun. Oh boy.
(01:51):
They're selling it again. They think, oh really? Yeah. So
they can't keep up with your energy. I don't know what it is, but they
did, they, they did take two of my people and then one of
them lost her job somewhere along the line. The other one's still there
and it's different. She just says different. Yeah, of course, of course. I mean you
are everything that I. Suppose, you know, that's sort of a,
(02:14):
you know this. We'll talk about that a second. From an entrepreneur standpoint, which is
what you're doing, it's sort of a catch 22
to be in that position. My wife and I have discussed this
before and she still thinks we did the right thing, particularly in our
trade because large corporations, I've
seen So many companies fail in our industry that tried to
(02:36):
upscale themselves and not just stay where they're at. But I'm a
merchant. The guy in that picture is a merchant. My father was a merchant by
trade. That's the way Armenians think. We, we're not this global
going to build this giant corporation type people. And
this is what has tried to happen and they've all failed. They don't
understand it when they're coming into the business. When they bought. I don't know, it's
(02:57):
kind of interesting. Like look at vintage wine estates. You know, this was
12 or 20 wineries and every DTC thing you
could do direct to consumer business and went to public
failed. Geerlings and Wade, which was the
darling of wine subscriptions back in the day,
(03:18):
tried to go into all these different markets. Tanked,
really tanked. So how did you. What was your
path so far? My path?
I mean, I got into the London wine trade. That was where it all began.
I guess my love for wine started a little earlier, but
my time in getting into the business began in London and that
(03:41):
at the time, at the time, the UK was the biggest importer of
wine in the world and it was a really dynamic market to
be in. And you know, all the wines from around the world were coming into
London because of course there was, at that time there was no, there were no
English wines. And so it was kind of learning about
wine and doing all the exams and having so much fun, like tasting all
(04:03):
these magnificent wines from around the world. Well, they had. I mean, England
had everything to do with the wine trade.
Sherry, port, Bordeaux, Burgundy. Those were all.
I mean, the major markets were England and Russia. So. Yeah,
absolutely. I can see why. Is there, is there a wine shop in every corner
in London? Like, like in New York? Yeah. And in those days? Yeah, pretty
(04:25):
much. Pretty much. And it wasn't, there was no, it wasn't online in those days.
And there was. London didn't have a wine of the month club,
so. So yeah, it was down to the independent. There was my calling. I
did. I missed that opportunity.
Yeah. So what did you do there when you were there? I was
working really initially I was working in retail and then quickly went
(04:47):
into kind of sales and then into marketing side
of wine in. And I actually
ran the Bulgarian Wine Group. God, I haven't thought about that for a very long
time. I ran that Bulgarian Wine Group, Bulgarian Wine Group and I managed
Plymouth gin back when it was independent before it sold. Yeah.
So quite a while ago. Probably dating myself there. But yeah, But Plymouth
(05:09):
gin, that's a huge brand. Before. Yeah, before it sold, but yeah, it's
fantastic. One of the original gins, the first gin in a clear bottle. So I
was in kind of Wine and. Wine and Spirits in London
and then after
two, three, three or four years there, I
(05:29):
decided I wanted. I knew I would kind of work around the world,
I guess, but I wanted to explore and understand
all aspects of the industry. And I went to
the country that was, you know, booming and the real.
Really great at marketing in that time, and that was Australia. So I went
(05:50):
without a job and I went to Australia and I, I actually worked vintage
at Domain Chandon was where I got my. I got
my hands into. It has property. Yeah. Domain Chando in
Yarra Valley. Yeah. Really? It's fantastic. That was a fantast experience. We
really appreciate having been able to work with the crew there and
to. To learn so much about winemaking and viticulture at that time. That was
(06:12):
brilliant. So you just, you just like, I'm gonna try to
cover all my bases in this industry and, and
see where I land. Is that like. Or you had an objective like. Well, none
of us have. No, I don't have a plan. Yeah, no, I don't. I don't
think I went with that plan. I just felt very
kind of free. Free in life to kind of make. Carve
(06:33):
out my own path. I did feel quite freed up
from what society was saying that everyone should do, settle down or get married or
have kids or whatever. I was just kind of living it my own way. I
don't think I designed to do this kind of crazy moving
around the world that I've done. I always felt that it. That would
suit me, maybe, but I was. I didn't have a plan to kind of
(06:56):
see it through. I think it's a really. I. I follow my car. I would
have, I would have loved to have done that, to have that
experience in this trade. And I think it's so important. I have a
young intern that used to work here. Now she's in Bordeaux.
She went to enology school for her first year and she. I got her job
at Chateau Bay and I'm jealous.
(07:17):
Even though she's 19, but I'm jealous because I would have loved to be able
to do that and understand those cultures. Do you think that's part of.
I just wrote a story while you walked in. I was writing a story about
May Elian Long Song, the famed comtesse de Pichon
Longueville, the actual comtesse. And
she's talking about protecting Jewish families during
(07:40):
the German occupation. And my comment is,
isn't that part of the terroir? Isn't your history in this
industry bouncing around doing these things part of your personal
terroir to how you approach this? That's a beautiful way of describing
it. Never heard that before, but yeah. And I think this industry, I mean,
I mean, you know, knowing wine the way we do, you can either
(08:02):
explore wine through a glass and taste the world.
You know, as you, I've said this to you before, but as you've. You used
to do here every single day, you'd be tasting your way around the world, or
you can embark, you know, early on a desire
to kind of explore the world through wine. And I think both of those options
are beautiful. And I think the earlier you start
(08:25):
to move around the world, the
more you experience and you experience at different ages. And it's
a beautiful industry for that. And it's very welcoming. I think the wine industry is
very welcoming and I particularly enjoy all the
different cultures. We were just talking about Armenia. I can't believe it. Of all the
places in the world that I haven't been to and there's very few countries, I
(08:48):
guess now, but the one place I really want to go is
Armenia. And there's what's happening. There is, I think, one of the most exciting things
in the wine world today. You know, I'm gonna send you and the oldest, the
oldest in the, you know, of the wine. Yeah, well, they all make
that argument that, you know, they're battling that with Georgia. But I'm gonna send you
a reel I made because I was there and I shot the three days with
(09:09):
one of the TV stations. Oh, great. And it came at this. It was pretty
cool. Pretty cool piece. Love to see it. I like this idea.
Taste your way around the world. And that's not spoken
about much. But of course, you went to Australia, had to learn a new language
or a new accent. I think they took the mickey out of my
(09:30):
accent. Yeah, they make a lot of fun out of
the English. And then you went to Argentina. I did, yeah. That was
fantastic. Why? The Swiss
owners of a world class wine estate in
Argentina, they were just starting it up. It was built, the vineyard was
established and they wanted somebody to come in and manage the commercial side
(09:52):
of the property and take it from development to launch.
And I took it to being what was in the top 100 wines of the
world with wine spectators. So I was there for a long time managing
Finca di Sero. I was there actually
for five years, located in Mendoza in
Argentina. And then I managed. I
(10:14):
moved to London because it was more central to kind of racing around the world.
And then ultimately I was still managing Finca de
Seta when I moved to California recently. So would you say then.
Because I think not only did you have an important
rounding of your fingers in the industry, being
retail and marketing and Bulgarian wines, which is
(10:35):
very funny because we've done some here and there's a couple in the market still
manufacturing in Australia. Sparkling
that. Now, what would you call yourself?
Consultant. You know, that's an interesting
question. Right now I call myself an entrepreneur of
(10:57):
a startup, an innovative new way of
a new experience in wine that hasn't been done quite in this way
before in Wine Whisper and Song. So let's. Let's talk about that.
Innovation pulls in the different aspects. Innovation,
this trade. You know, you just talked about Armenia,
6100-year-old winery they found there. And so you can make that
(11:19):
argument. It's probably the same product as it was today, except it's
not as refined. But certainly the idea of
grapes being fermented into a beverage that represents something other
than that, actually. What does
innovation mean to you then? What is, I think
innovation. You can. I mean, you can have innovation where. I mean,
(11:41):
I crafted the first time augmented
reality was combined with animation, film and.
Wine. Yeah. And the. The Allen and the Dust devil back in
2017. So that was. That was criminal.
It was just coming at the same time. But this
involved a whole animation film in the whole kind of coming forward
(12:03):
into life. So that was fascinating. And it was bringing
tech into an industry which is
not so tech driven. And I think what I mean about
innovation with Wine Whisper and Song is just coming about an experience and doing it
in a different way. It's not the first
time that emotion and wine pairing has come into our
(12:26):
vocabulary. And certainly right now there's a big chorus about
discussing wines with regards to emotions, much more. But it's the
first time this blend of experience
has come into fruition. That's kind of interesting because
emotion, it's an
emotional decision when you go to the store to buy
(12:48):
wine. Stories are very funny and
I won't bore you with them now, but it is an
emotional decision. But this is a different kind of emotion. You're talking about
sharing an emotion of song and wine
in a specific environment. Tell me about what this is. Yeah. So Wine Whisper and
Song involves powerful storytelling at the core of it. There's an
(13:10):
inspiring talk with powerful storytelling and it meets
original songs of the speaker, songwriter and is
paired with wine. So an experience will be a.
An inspiring talk on mindfulness awareness,
intentional living. And it's by a speaker, songwriter, myself,
or other ones that I have Rhonda Ross, daughter of
(13:33):
Diana Ross and Berry Gordy. She is also one of the other speakers. And
it's having an inspiring talk. And then at
three different moments within the experience,
at a pivotal story moment. I mean, a really maximum kind of
emotion happening there in the storytelling of this aha moment, these
life's adventures and what's that's meant
(13:56):
a pause for a song from the
own original song and matched with a wine. So
the wine, I mean, if I think back to the wines I've tasted, probably the
same for you, is that I remember wines by the emotion. I think
of wines that have an emotional energy. They are living beings at the end of
the day. Wine is living, we agree, but it has an
(14:18):
emotional energy. And when you
find that kind of those sensory nuances and you can bring them to life and
describe them for the audience as to why this wine is,
you know, a happy kind of, maybe a more
exuberant, more, you know, quite loudly,
you know, confident wine. Sure. And then you match it to the song
(14:40):
and to this point in the story, then it all matches up. And then the
person is absorbing this wine and imbibing this wine
whilst resonating on many different levels, all the senses
and deeply, emotionally. And I look back on the wines
that I remember from my lifetime, and they are the ones which have
most connected emotionally with me or the
(15:03):
emotions that I was feeling at the time. I remember. Is this a new
language? I don't think it is. You know. You know what I was.
I think it's. I think it's the original language. I mean, it's not a
question of why are we talking about emotion and wine pairing.
And the question should be is why are we not? I mean, you think about
the language that we've been talking people, you know, in the industry. I
(15:25):
mean, I love talking about the technical details of wines,
but we can't get our knickers in a twist because somebody doesn't understand the difference
between powdery dappled or gauzy tannins. You know what I mean? And
also, we've come to reference wines in
relation to flavors. Right? But flavors are
so flavors. And food is not a universal language.
(15:47):
The enjoyment of food, yes, is a universal appreciation, but
food is, you know, geographically, you know,
changes and ingredients change. And therefore you might talk to somebody about
blueberries to somebody else. They might have a hint of, you know, the smell of
an acacia tree. And somebody else might be talking about tamarind. I mean, it's not
a global language. Whereas the global language which we as human
(16:10):
beings were born with is emotions. Emotions has been
there from the start. And so to, to pair
wines with emotions is almost more natural
than, than what we've been doing. And, and it also invites,
instead of explaining a wine in technical detail,
it's about experiencing a wine. And that's much more
(16:33):
profound. And I think that stays with people a lot longer.
That's really interesting. And my. If my face looks blank,
it's not because I don't understand. I get it. But I'm thinking
through some of these things I've been reading about in some of these, you know,
generations that are trying to, for instance, and I use a new language as
the question. They want to change the language of
(16:55):
wine. And I don't make any sense to me, but the language I speak is
different. My dad used to cringe at some of the stuff I would say,
because I grew up in a different era than he did in the wine world.
He grew up with Michael Broadbent and Harry Wa and that kind of talk. And
then in the wine trade. And then I do something. Now they want to change
it and they want to talk about Captain Crunch and Froot Loops descriptors.
(17:16):
And I want to tell these young adults, like,
the next generation is not going to understand what you're talking about. And I don't
understand what you're talking about. So that changing the language of wine does nothing.
But this might be that change, because emotions are
less, you know, they're more understandable between
(17:36):
humans. And then Gerard Bertrand told me in our
podcast that, you know, there's a life vibration
in the wine. Yeah. That led me to a new concept of when people
talk about tension in a wine. And I think that is the tension in a
wine. And so when you're saying that emotion
gets stirred up is that vibration and
(17:58):
that tension that you're sensing. And you don't know what it is necessarily, you know,
why it is. Which is another great thing about wine, is that they can tell
us how nutrients get into the roots, but they don't know why they get into
the roots and why they create this tension and this vibration
that is the mystery of wine. So
what do you do with this concept? So this
(18:21):
concept is great for wineries and I'm just launching it now. I
have actually done some pre launch events which were phenomenally
well received and the feedback of the wines
resonating with them and the experience. Actually somebody,
a woman came up to me and she said, this is the experience I didn't
even know I needed. And I was like, okay, yeah, this resonates so
(18:42):
that I know I was loving it. But I think it's
great for wineries that want a new experience to stand out
in, in their region for their tasting rooms, and they can spark
fresh conversations with new audiences or with wine club
members that they want to get into a whole new conversation with. It
taps into top trends, you know, of well being and
(19:04):
intentional living, mindfulness and speaker led social
events. I mean that's like 2025 is all about that, you
know. So I think it's great for wineries. It's
ideal for, you know, resorts
in wine country. And I'm talking to a couple at the moment, so that would
be a great way to spotlight their wine program. Because the wines are always
(19:27):
focused on the location and are brought from the winery
or the location that I'm pairing with. And then I think
one, one aspect I'm really excited about, and I'm not
sure who's going to be the first to launch this part of the concept is
I think it would be a great pre dinner event. So if you
had a private dining room, so, you know, a restaurant with a private dining room
(19:51):
and it could be in wine country or it could be in one of the
major cities, but to have a pre dinner for one hour
talk, inspiring talk with songs and
emotion and wine pairing and these three wines really showing up
and resonating with people with these
different emotions and then with those same three
(20:12):
wines, take them into the dinner. And I would continue with
Chef and we experienced the three wines when paired with emotions and then
the three wines when paired over dinner and just explore how that changes and
how people's subjectivity, you know, changes with regards to
the wine wines or with regards to their appreciation and understanding of the wine. And
I think that that could be a beautiful concept. I think that would be a
(20:34):
huge change. Instead of, in other words, sarcastically, instead of
standing there going, in 1385, you know,
I, I had a podcast with a wonderful historian of wine, but I thought to
myself, oh my God, you're gonna kill people. Stand up there in
front of dinner and saying, you know, that Madame Clicquot in
1769. I mean, just, that's a pretty crazy. And
(20:56):
I'm just thinking about this part of this current
movement and innovation, the world of the
Word innovation is dealing with
packages and tetra packs and things that aren't
really related to the experience of wine. I was talking about
Chateau Bailly, what she's done there, the way they've built their new
(21:18):
winery. It's an experience to go there. You'll come away
understanding the wine because of the experience. I was just
writing about Maille le Terroir, about Maillon
Longson, for sure, the Pichon Longville people.
It's built into their DNA now that they had this experience during the
war, that the emotion has to come out in the wine.
(21:40):
It's not a piece of tannin, but it's certainly a philosophy about
what you put in the bottle. And now the experience of
wine, which has always been the case.
My dad had dinners. This Les Amie de Vin thing was an experience of wine.
People came and they wear their min. So they'd have these dinners and Robin Mondavi
would speak is what I think is coming back to.
(22:02):
Not to. Like I say, I won't stick my neck out and say it's going
to regenerate the wine business, but I think the experience
of wine needs to be developed in this way.
And I just wrote down a couple of notes. One guy in
Cortona, Italy, who I met has a.
Actually has a jewelry store in Kansas City. Figure that one out. Strange.
(22:25):
Yeah. Right. In a jewelry store in Cortona. Yeah. But he does these
events called Wine Dine and Shine. And you show up and you put
up and he, you. You. He consigns you a piece of faux jewelry.
Big thing. And everybody sits around, talks about the food and the wine
and what they're wearing. And then they can buy that jewelry on the way out
the door if they want to. And I thought that was fabulously fun. In non
(22:47):
wine part of the country, Kansas,
where wine is a new thing. Yeah. That's a different way to come at wine
as well. Yeah. Rex Pickett, the author of Sideways, who was.
Who admittedly was dying on the vine
after the movie because he got none of it, is now
a phenom in
(23:10):
Napa. People go to whiners now to hear him and hang
out with him. This is a resurgence of the experience of
wine. What does it mean? But that's what people are wanting. I mean, it's.
You know, you look at Rob McMillan from Silicon Valley
bank or any of the major thought leaders in the wine
industry right now as to where we need. Where is our next step?
(23:32):
We just need to listen to what the audiences are telling us. The
audiences are saying, we want meaningful,
emotionally engaging experiences. They don't even ask
for wine. They want meaningful,
emotionally engaging experiences and then bring the wine into
it as part of it, not necessarily lead with it. And if we can
(23:54):
listen to what people today want, it doesn't mean that
any of the nuances are any less important. Trust me. I am so deep in
the beauty of wine and the technical and the details, and I love all
of that. But engaging people first and
then letting them explore that second is
what we are being told by the new younger generations
(24:17):
is the way that they want to come into anything. And it's not
just about wine. They want experiences. They want
experiences. And I think
as we approach these new audiences, and at this time in the wine industry, when
it's so critical to bridge
the new generation, should we say is giving
(24:40):
them what they are literally asking for? That's as simple as it gets.
And the thing is, I was thinking, because I knew I was coming to talk
to you, and I was thinking yesterday, I was thinking, how far different
is this than what we did? It's not if you think about
it and you tell me if I'm wrong, but for me,
I was seduced by wine first. That's not my job. That's my wife's
(25:02):
job. Okay, after your
wine, you're the person that constitutes you, the wine. But
for me, I was seduced by wine first. I continue to be seduced by the
wine first. Not every wine, but by. I'm seduced by the wine first. Then
I go and explore and find out, okay, well, hang on a sec. Which vineyard
did it come from? Which site? What was the soil type? You know, what's going
(25:23):
on with the winemaking or what's going on in the vineyard. But I explore the
details second, and I get seduced first. So it's so
strange in a way that we've been. We've
spent decades educating people into loving wine,
whereas they're asking, asking. They don't need to be explained.
They want to experience it. And it's no different to what we did.
(25:47):
Why are we thinking now, And I'm making this in the broadest possible terms, but
why are we saying, actually, you need to understand a
wine to fall in love with it? No, let people
fall in love with something. People don't fall in love with facts.
People fall in love with the way something makes them feel the
same way we did. And we just need to let people
(26:11):
be seduced and be inspired by wine before giving them
all the detail. The details are always there. All the complexity, the nuances,
the technicality is always there to be explored. But they don't
need to pass a test to fall in love. You know, I think we just
need to. As we're looking at these new generations, it's not just about the new
generations, you know, it's that, you know, I think there's a lot of people
(26:33):
asking for something different. And you know, even if, you
know Napa and Sonoma and the main wine regions, they do a
fantastic job of offering up an array of different
experiences as much as possible. But there's a lot of emphasis on
the typical wine tasting or museum version of that tasting.
And then sometimes there might be a concert or something like that, or a
(26:55):
wages to come and drink and be involved with the winery.
But how about coming up with new experiences whereby
that are experience led, emotionally engaging,
meaningful about life, you know. And I think
with regards to Wine whisper and song, it actually mirrors what
wine is. If you think about wine, it's from the vineyard to the
(27:18):
glass, from the glass, you know, vineyard to the glass. It is about
philosophies, intuitive actions,
intentional thinking and make a
mindful awareness in every aspect that blends to inspire
greatness. And wine Whisper and song actually embodies that same ethos
in inspiration for life. It's about, you know, an inspiring
(27:40):
talk about life, about living and about aha. Moments and
life's adventures in a beautifully entertaining way
and then that being an inspiration for
greatness in life. So, I mean, I don't want to sound condescending and think
that, you know, you didn't come up with something great, but it sounds to me
that this is just an extension of a nice dinner time conversation.
(28:03):
And I've meaning, yeah, it's very interesting to me
because the generations are talking about. We don't want to hear about your
father's and your mother's interpretation of wine and that they tasted wine. I mean,
they don't want. We don't care if you smell blackberries or blueberries. We want the
experience like you're talking about. I mean, my, my kids are all millennials and
they'd rather spend a hundred dollars on a sushi meal than save for mustangs. You
(28:25):
know, that's just the way they are and that's fine. But
as intimidating as wine is, I don't care what
level of expertise I'm sitting with with a glass of wine. If it's good,
honest wine, if it's really made to represent something,
it's never intimidating to those people because the conversation becomes Very
colloquial and very cool and very like, if they want to know the
(28:48):
answers to the questions that have the answer, because eventually
they ask. And I think you're saying this, why does this. Doing this.
Yeah, let them ask in their own measure. I think what you're saying
is that you're not pushing them with that information. You're happy to, and
that's the way you are. But I think, I think in the industry as a
whole, we've. We've leaned a lot into
(29:10):
defining different wines within our own portfolios as well. You know, this is
from this vineyard and this, you know, defining price points sometimes and
defining why it's in existence as opposed
to trying to connect the wine with other aspects or
with other ways of understanding the wine. I think that's
accurate. We're going to Napa the next week. Oh,
(29:32):
fantastic. I rarely taste when I go there. We go to
eat in a podcast usually, but
somebody invited me to a winery to experience
the tour and the tasting. And I'm interested to
see what this take is. Now. This is. I don't, I don't know the people.
I've never met them. I don't know their story, so I'm going to find that
(29:52):
out. But we did visit last time we were up
Catillard, which is the Napa
owned property by the chateau owners of
Chateau Smith aux Lafitte Pas of Leon.
And these were two. Now I find this really fascinating for me, these
are two French people that are now in their probably
(30:15):
late 70s, but they met on the slopes on the French national
ski team, right. And they had this great story,
adrenaline packed story. It goes back before that
with the family grocery store and all that. And I, I find that really fun.
That just, it's a fun thing when you taste the wine. You go, wow, this
is a really fun story about these people that did this and they do that.
(30:37):
We can't expect everybody to. To want to do what we
do. I didn't fall in love with wine. I
went to my father in 1988 and he goes, I'm going to sell the company.
Maybe you ought to check it out. And I said, okay. I was having trouble
with my partners at the time in the software company and so I went packed
wine for three months and then I. Then what happened when you tasted it?
(30:58):
And then I just still, I was, you know, I worked. There's that picture from
1975. I worked in a liquor store. I was in that beer box most
of the time. It probably so. And I was coming off
of corporate America. And then the smallest company could
ever want to start with a fishbowl full of business cards and a
two line phone. I didn't have. We didn't have an office even. In fact, the
(31:19):
first objection I ever got from the first sale, the guy goes, you don't even
have an office, do you? I'm like, no, we don't. Yeah.
So I didn't. It didn't hit me as
to what I was providing a service to people for
until much later. Maybe 10 to 15 years. Really? That
long? Yeah, I was a mail order marketer, man. I was standing at a booth
(31:41):
selling this idea of a subscription to wine. And that's was the most
important part. It was a. You were managing them, but you were getting on
with the managing of the business as opposed to. Yeah, it was a businessman. It
was. And it was a correspondence course in wine. Really. Yeah. If back
then, not today, these subscription models, at least a lot of them,
not gonna say categorically, but they're not about exposing
(32:03):
people to interesting things and finding this
Trader Joe's 2000 bottles of some Sebastiani
Cabernet Franc somewhere. It was about. That's what we were about.
Now it's about how cheap you can buy it and how much you can sell
for. So I'm fascinated with this idea and I'll tell you why. There's
another one, there's a master of wine, Susan Lynn.
(32:28):
I don't know, she's in Napa, Washington and she is a
concert pianist. Yeah. And she's
as well as Vanessa Conlon, who's the buyer for Wine
Access for a while. She's a opera
singer. Yeah. And. But Susan Lynn has been
playing with this idea of music and wine. Yeah. And. And,
(32:51):
and this is not the first time that music and wine has been brought together.
And. And it's a beaut. Artistic.
It's almost like. I mean wine is the meeting of art and science. And I
think a lot of people in wine have a musical bent as well. So. I
mean there's a lot of wineries talking about
wine in musical terms, I think. And I think you've turned that
(33:15):
into an experience. Yeah. Two and three actually. With food.
Yes. And actually really it's the inspiring talk
and the powerful storytelling to be. To drive the emotion
and then having the song match up to the song. I mean,
in my talks, literally the lyrics match the story. I mean I literally. The most
profound words I've written about some of the things that I've lived through
(33:38):
have been. I put into song. And therefore when you have that,
you know, banking up against the story itself and then you
taste a wine that is like really the essence of that
emotion, it becomes very powerful. Kind of
triad of, of, of parts.
And that's an interesting thing I was reading.
(33:59):
I go. What I like to do is I go back to the magazine of
this group. Yeah. This guy was a brilliant guy. I'll tell you this
story off camera because it's crazy, but there's. I read
articles from the 70s. Yeah. 60S and there's an article. I'm just
saying to you that the guy wrote a score. Yes. Around
some wine. Yeah. And I, and I sent it to my friend who's a
(34:23):
conductor. I haven't heard him play it yet, but I, I want
to hear your take on after you read the article. Then this, there's this score.
Oh, I'd love to. It's from 1975 or something. So
you're right, it's not a new concept. No, but your concept's new to. Yeah,
to emote. To get people to emote. This is like a
conversation too. Like I'm having dinner and the guys. You'Re playing, I
(34:46):
mean it doesn't necessarily happen during dinner. This, this would experience either a pre
donor experience or it'd be in the afternoon winery tasting room.
And it, and it's a way. I mean I think
the standalone talk is powerful. I mean these are,
I mean Ronda Ross, she's the daughter of Barry Gordy and
Diana Ross, as I just said. But she's also a Grammy nominated
(35:11):
songwriter, Emmy nominated actress and she's also a TED
fellow nominee. So the level of talks by herself, myself and some
others coming on board are really
amazing talks on subjects of mindfulness, intentional living. So
on that piece alone it's powerful. But then to have these three
interludes when songs that the person that's talking
(35:33):
has actually written the song really coming in and adding this power
piece and then the wine to match in that moment. It's so
digestive. And what a lovely way to spend an hour. It's not like you're just
sitting there listening to somebody and it's not preachy. It's aha moment.
And when I was doing the kind of pre launch events,
it reminded me of something somebody said to me a very long time ago,
(35:57):
decades ago, somebody said to me that one of my skills is
moving people on an emotional journey. And this effectively is. This is a curated
emotional journey. And there's one moment on one of my talks,
it's called Intuition talks. And the second pivotal story is a
very emotionally
charged story. It's a moment of massive
(36:19):
gravitas in my life and
it's a very meaningful moment. And I had tears in my eyes when I was
explaining and even my voice spoke, but I looked and the people in the audience
had tears in their eyes listening. And then, you know,
I shared the song relating to this story and I paired this
wine, which had a lot of complexity to it and depth. And then
(36:43):
we went on and a couple of minutes later, after that song and wine
experience, we've gone back to the talk and I'm talking and.
But then I'm moving on with the talk and I'm into a new story and
we love. And I'm laughing out loud and the audience is laughing out
loud. And that's the beauty of great storytelling, is
this is a. This is a whole, very carefully curated arc of a journey
(37:04):
whereby you can be like, you know, in one moment and then,
then the next moment you can be laughing. And it's. And that's what makes it
beautiful. This isn't like just sit there and hear somebody
preach whatsoever. This is. This is something where
people want to go back, even hear the same talk again. Because the stories change
and obviously the wines change every time. So every single wine whispering song
(37:26):
is actually a unique experience. That's kind of interesting. I've sat down
before. People have asked me to pair food and chocolate, whatever, and I was on
tv, blah, blah, and my initial responses were lousy. It's like
I said, oh, this is chocolate with pasilla peppers. I know what's going to go
with that. And I taste it. It's like, that didn't work and something off the
wall worked. Do you have to figure out or does it come
(37:47):
to you while you're writing these things or producing
these events or this concept, does the wine
pop into your head like, oh, this is obviously a tannat from Uruguay,
or do. You have a correct think about it? The
concept depends on me doing pre work with the winery.
So if it's going to be located at a certain winery, I'll work with them
(38:09):
in advance to see maybe what message they want to highlight, maybe they want to
show, because emotions is a very good way of showing up differences in
wines. Now we're all about, okay, well this comes from this site and that's why
it's different from that one, which is slightly warmer or whatever else. But if you
say, well, this is, you know, an
exuberant, happy wine, whereas this has got layers of complexity
(38:31):
in it, I get that is sitting back and think, so when you start to
do that, it's a great showcase of three different vineyards or three
different varieties or three different winemaking styles. And it.
And so there's. So I work with the winery beforehand
to identify which wines. And then, of course, when the people
leave, they can buy a mixed case of the Wine Whisper and Song wines. They
(38:52):
get the wine and the song. They get the playlist as they go. And
it's so immediately digitally shareable
and shareable with their friends as they can go. And the people that
I've done the ones with separately before launching
at the wineries, they are. They've gone and they've. I can.
I can see that they've played the playlist and they might
(39:14):
not remember my name, but you can bet they were met. They'll say, you know,
my gosh, there was this woman, she was saying this story, and oh, my God,
there was this moment, and then this happened. And they'll remember that and they'll remember,
but they'll remember the wine and they'll remember the story. They might not remember
my name, and that's not important in this, but they need to remember the feeling
of. Of what it makes them feel, because it's when you have that feeling,
(39:37):
they're the wines that you remember. I remember certain wines across the decade,
across decades. I will never forget those wines that in
certain moments when I had a really strong feeling that they're etched indelibly
on my mind forever. And that's in this world of
where there's so many wines in the world and wine club members are
beautifully fickle. You know, how do we get them to remember
(40:00):
our wine? How do we have them remembering that and telling
that story in two, three months time or later? And
this is wine Whispering Song offers that opportunity to really
have something imprinted on somebody, not just somebody's mind, but on
somebody's soul. It's less tech talk and it's more soul
stirring. It's kind of interesting because you're flying the face
(40:22):
of. You're flying in the face of going to the Napa Valley wine
tasting room, because so many wine tasting rooms, room
workers don't understand that part. And they're pouring off. They're talking about the stuff that
everybody now is saying is why wine is suffering. But
I'm not sure if I agree with that completely. But what you are doing
is bringing home in a simple, less expensive,
(40:46):
less egregious, not egregious, less complicated way
to do what normally Happens when you travel.
You go to Italy and you're sitting in front of the Parthenon and you have
this house, Trattoria red, and you think it's the best wine you've ever
had, because the emotions around sitting
(41:06):
there are unique to that moment. Exactly. And then you come
home, you taste the wine, you go, I didn't taste the same. Right. That happens
all the time. But the emotion. But the emotion and the wine got locked in
your mind, and you remember that wine enough to come back and order it when
you came back. So that is exactly what I'm talking
about. And none of this negates beauty of the
(41:27):
com. The complex and more nuanced
messages about sight and tannins and structure
and all of that. I'm just saying this is an alternative way
to engage with people that is very in demand in
the moment. That stuff's always there. Yeah. You can, like. That's always there to explore.
Exactly. You want to explore. Wine is available for you to do it. You can
(41:49):
read all the books that you got here, 100 at least 100 wine books at
home. And when I'm interested in a subject, I go, pull one out, pull it
in. Exactly. To read about it. And that's for me to know. But you don't
have to know that stuff. You just have to know how it makes you feel.
Exactly. And then after that, you might dig deeper. That's the idea, is
if you get people emotionally engaged, that's when they'll dig deeper. And
(42:10):
that's what all the wineries want, and that's fine. But let's emotionally engage
everyone first. I mean, it's just.
It's just doing it the same way that we. That we. That we did it.
You know, I look back on life and on the wines that I've remembered. It
was that way first. It was being seduced by the wine and having that
emotional connection first, and then going and
(42:32):
exploring and doing all. And I've done all the, you know, the wine exams
and the books and. But it was that way around. And so
it's just allowing new audiences to do what we did.
You know, it's kind of interesting. I had this thought and theory,
and I think it's reasonably accurate,
particularly with supermarket wines. In fact, my
(42:54):
employee who went with the new company sent me a sample of the last
shipment. Yeah. And I'm of Armenian descent, and there was a
Turkish wine in here, which is kind of interesting. How
did that go? And I thought, I want to taste this, because I've never tasted
A Turkish wine after all these years. And it was palatable, but
it was sugared up also. Right. And the sugar is like the most cloying thing
(43:16):
that never. It doesn't express anything except sugar. And there's actually a study
being done that where people
get tired of that pro forma.
Eventually they move on to the things. I guess that's why Zinfandel
drinkers. One of the other things. And as we move down the line.
But the point I'm making is it seems like
(43:39):
everybody can agree when they
taste a wine that expresses something,
where it's from. And I always ask winemakers when they come in here, so what's
the end game? You're doing all this. You're experimenting with grapes, you're changing the
barrels, you're fermenting cold or whatever you're doing.
What's the goal of all that? And
(44:01):
ultimately, it boils down to express
this time in this place. Right. And I think
your. Your. Your premise is basically that you're. You are
providing wines that you've produced or
calculated to express an emotion and feel like an emotion,
(44:21):
and that we want you to feel this too, when I'm done with it.
And that's what. Yeah, that's what we're kind of. What it is in the first
place is an expression of. And I think everybody agrees when they
taste that good glass of wine, they go, yeah, maybe they don't like the character
of it, like the flavors, but they sense this tension
and they sense this vibration that you're bringing out to
(44:43):
a human level. Really? Yeah, it's really interesting. So when is this launch
you're thinking. Well, I'm talking to a few winemones right now, so
we'll see. I'm not sure which one's going to line up as being the first
in the timeline, but in the next few weeks.
So it's happening right now. So, you know, that was just
what you wrote, talked about. Was it Diana Ross's Neat. Was it Diana Ross?
(45:05):
Diana Rossenberry, Gordy's daughter, who. Yeah. Who's
Rhonda Ross, and she's one of the speaker songwriters in Wine with Gary.
Gordon, the founder of Motown. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's a
big movement of wine, fine wine, in
professional sports now. For much of my career,
there's always endorsed wines. Fred Couples, the
(45:27):
famed golfer, was the first wine I tasted that was actually sort of
participating in it. Greg Norman, of course, she's got a whole brand
and his daughter runs. But there's been a huge movement
in professional Basketball, for instance, for fine wine. To the extent
that the Lakers, when they're done with their game, they call Boa Steakhouse in
Maria del Rey or wherever it is, Santa Monica, and they say we're coming over,
(45:49):
get some ribeyes going and we want these bottles. There's a huge
appreciation have you. Is that since you're at that level of,
of entertainer, is wine a cultural part
of Hollywood or music and singing and.
Yeah, I mean a lot of people have amazing fine wine
cellars and yeah,
(46:12):
that's. That's for sure. And they have. They might, you
know, and they might be sellers for showcase or they might have an in
depth understanding of the wines in their cellar. I think there's can go
both ways. Yes. Look what I have. And they're like,
yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So I think there's a couple
of different ways that can go, but yeah, and. And that's a great way to
(46:35):
experience this as well in a private event and pair up some of your wines
from your cellar in wine with Swansong as well. Yeah, there are
some fantastic cellars, not just in la. I mean across
the, you know, I think across the US people have developed cellars over
the last number of years. Yeah. Like somebody says, why do you have so much
wine, Paul? And I'm like, because the guy didn't buy it for me. And that's
(46:57):
what I was fortunately stuck. With it and
I'm drinking it. So here's a fun experiment for you. And we're gonna do
it. You did one of these 48 minutes already. This is
kind of down the road of what you're talking about because it talks about.
This is of a doctor in France. His name is Dr. Murray. He's
long past, but he wrote a book called Wine is the Best Medicine. It's sort
(47:19):
of like what is in the wine that makes you feel something or helps
you fix something. Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna. Now don't worry about
getting this right or wrong because literally anybody sat in your chair you're sitting
in. It's 33 chances that they're gonna. I
know you asked me last time. Yeah, it was fantastic. Maybe I'll get the same.
Same question. Okay. Yeah, let's do it. I'm all up for that. So
(47:42):
you're further along your career. Maybe. Maybe I'll have the right
answer this time. Gee, I wish I should. I should
have played it back. See which one I know. No, this is going to get
you. So what's the question? And these are all French wines. Okay, go. So the
question is, let's call it anemia. I don't think I ever asked anybody that. So,
okay, you can have a dry
(48:04):
champagne, a grave, or a Cote de
Bonne to heal anemia. And there's, of course, a dosage with
this.
So what are we going to go for? Iron in the soil. What's. Where are
we going to stand? The answer from. Let's go to the emotions. What,
do you have anemia? What's your emotion?
(48:27):
I feel pretty deflated and lacking energy, I
think, is what I'd be doing where I'll be at.
So if that was my. If that was my.
You're actually on the right track. You already see the right track thing. Part of
it. You said part of the right thing.
Well, if I was deflating and feeling a lack of buzz, then I'd probably go
(48:49):
for the champagne. But with the iron in the soil. Let's go with.
Let's go with the guav. Well, you're
33%, man. You're born out of 33%. You got it right.
It says exactly that. Anemia, or the pathological decrease in the number of
red blood cells manifests itself in a variety of disorders, among them
fatigue, vertigo, and a lack of general tone
(49:13):
is sometimes hemorrhage. And it says grave.
And it says. Because of their iron content. Yeah. The
vine that produces this type of wine is cultivated on pure sand
containing iron particles in a soluble form. Yeah,
see, now, that's where it pays. If you're going to be
on your podcast for that's where it pays to know the technical details of the
(49:35):
soil and the vineyard. So. So those years of knowing the tech
details does pay off in certain circumstances. I'm just saying that
sometimes emotions can be a way into that. It
is. You're going to give me another one. It's two glasses a meal, which I
certainly qualify there. I could get that
done. I must be anemic. I'm cured. If you work backwards.
(49:57):
I have two glasses of meal of a grave, so I must be anemic. Yeah.
Such a pleasure to have you back on. Thank you for having me back here.
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Good to be back paying us. You know, there's some
vineyards in Topanga, right there. Are there? And in
Malibu Canyon and even in Angora Hills. Yeah. There's
things happening over there. What's her name? Sandy Garber, who
(50:19):
owns one of the
wine distributors. She's actually survived all this.
Garber Associates. Actually, she lives in Topanga.
Yeah, I'm surprised you haven't crossed your path. No. There's not that many people in
Toyota. Well, now. In a long time. Yeah. But with all this
consolidation of distributors in Los Angeles and RN DC
(50:42):
walking in September and It's a crazy world right now. It
is a crazy world, and one that a lot of people, you know, as
somebody said in the industry, there's a lot of great talent out there in the
California industry right now, and a lot of companies are stepping up to employ that
talent. So I'm hopeful that I've got so many friends
affected by that move, but they'll land in all the great
(51:04):
places, I'm sure. I feel vindicated. I sold right at the right time. Yeah.
Paul, you got the sauce? You know this
fantastic. Thank you.
I remember wines by the emotion. I think of wines that have an emotional energy.
They are living beings at the end of the day, wine is living, we agree,
but it has an emotional energy. And
when you find that kind of those sensory nuances and you can bring them to
life and describe them for the audience as to why this wine
is a happy kind of, maybe a more
(00:23):
exuberant, more quite loudly
confident wine. And then you match it to the song and to this point in
the story. Then it all matches up. Sit back and grab
a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K.
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today with
(00:44):
Stephanie Morton Small. Introductions in just a second. Hey, have a listen
or watch actually, because I think his animation
in the way he speaks is important part of his story.
And that is Zaya unanimous. This guy
decided that living in Iran was not for him. At 12
years old, worked for a year painting bicycles,
(01:08):
earned enough to fly to America and start his life. It is
phenomenal story. It's about an hour and a half long. You won't even
know that once you listen to it. You'll freak out.
But now while we're here, here to have a conversation with Stephanie Morton Small.
She is a four times founder. She's also the founder of a new
project called Whisper and Wine. Whisper and Wine
(01:30):
Whispering Song and I want to talk about that. But been around the
world in the wine trade and so, so happy to have you on the show.
Thank you for coming again. Thank you very much. It's great to be back. We're
trying to figure out when that was. Right. Yeah, I think it was. Well, you
still have wine in the month club, so I think it was 2022. Was it?
That was a lot of fun. Oh boy.
(01:51):
They're selling it again. They think, oh really? Yeah. So
they can't keep up with your energy. I don't know what it is, but they
did, they, they did take two of my people and then one of
them lost her job somewhere along the line. The other one's still there
and it's different. She just says different. Yeah, of course, of course. I mean you
are everything that I. Suppose, you know, that's sort of a,
(02:14):
you know this. We'll talk about that a second. From an entrepreneur standpoint, which is
what you're doing, it's sort of a catch 22
to be in that position. My wife and I have discussed this
before and she still thinks we did the right thing, particularly in our
trade because large corporations, I've
seen So many companies fail in our industry that tried to
(02:36):
upscale themselves and not just stay where they're at. But I'm a
merchant. The guy in that picture is a merchant. My father was a merchant by
trade. That's the way Armenians think. We, we're not this global
going to build this giant corporation type people. And
this is what has tried to happen and they've all failed. They don't
understand it when they're coming into the business. When they bought. I don't know, it's
(02:57):
kind of interesting. Like look at vintage wine estates. You know, this was
12 or 20 wineries and every DTC thing you
could do direct to consumer business and went to public
failed. Geerlings and Wade, which was the
darling of wine subscriptions back in the day,
(03:18):
tried to go into all these different markets. Tanked,
really tanked. So how did you. What was your
path so far? My path?
I mean, I got into the London wine trade. That was where it all began.
I guess my love for wine started a little earlier, but
my time in getting into the business began in London and that
(03:41):
at the time, at the time, the UK was the biggest importer of
wine in the world and it was a really dynamic market to
be in. And you know, all the wines from around the world were coming into
London because of course there was, at that time there was no, there were no
English wines. And so it was kind of learning about
wine and doing all the exams and having so much fun, like tasting all
(04:03):
these magnificent wines from around the world. Well, they had. I mean, England
had everything to do with the wine trade.
Sherry, port, Bordeaux, Burgundy. Those were all.
I mean, the major markets were England and Russia. So. Yeah,
absolutely. I can see why. Is there, is there a wine shop in every corner
in London? Like, like in New York? Yeah. And in those days? Yeah, pretty
(04:25):
much. Pretty much. And it wasn't, there was no, it wasn't online in those days.
And there was. London didn't have a wine of the month club,
so. So yeah, it was down to the independent. There was my calling. I
did. I missed that opportunity.
Yeah. So what did you do there when you were there? I was
working really initially I was working in retail and then quickly went
(04:47):
into kind of sales and then into marketing side
of wine in. And I actually
ran the Bulgarian Wine Group. God, I haven't thought about that for a very long
time. I ran that Bulgarian Wine Group, Bulgarian Wine Group and I managed
Plymouth gin back when it was independent before it sold. Yeah.
So quite a while ago. Probably dating myself there. But yeah, But Plymouth
(05:09):
gin, that's a huge brand. Before. Yeah, before it sold, but yeah, it's
fantastic. One of the original gins, the first gin in a clear bottle. So I
was in kind of Wine and. Wine and Spirits in London
and then after
two, three, three or four years there, I
(05:29):
decided I wanted. I knew I would kind of work around the world,
I guess, but I wanted to explore and understand
all aspects of the industry. And I went to
the country that was, you know, booming and the real.
Really great at marketing in that time, and that was Australia. So I went
(05:50):
without a job and I went to Australia and I, I actually worked vintage
at Domain Chandon was where I got my. I got
my hands into. It has property. Yeah. Domain Chando in
Yarra Valley. Yeah. Really? It's fantastic. That was a fantast experience. We
really appreciate having been able to work with the crew there and
to. To learn so much about winemaking and viticulture at that time. That was
(06:12):
brilliant. So you just, you just like, I'm gonna try to
cover all my bases in this industry and, and
see where I land. Is that like. Or you had an objective like. Well, none
of us have. No, I don't have a plan. Yeah, no, I don't. I don't
think I went with that plan. I just felt very
kind of free. Free in life to kind of make. Carve
(06:33):
out my own path. I did feel quite freed up
from what society was saying that everyone should do, settle down or get married or
have kids or whatever. I was just kind of living it my own way. I
don't think I designed to do this kind of crazy moving
around the world that I've done. I always felt that it. That would
suit me, maybe, but I was. I didn't have a plan to kind of
(06:56):
see it through. I think it's a really. I. I follow my car. I would
have, I would have loved to have done that, to have that
experience in this trade. And I think it's so important. I have a
young intern that used to work here. Now she's in Bordeaux.
She went to enology school for her first year and she. I got her job
at Chateau Bay and I'm jealous.
(07:17):
Even though she's 19, but I'm jealous because I would have loved to be able
to do that and understand those cultures. Do you think that's part of.
I just wrote a story while you walked in. I was writing a story about
May Elian Long Song, the famed comtesse de Pichon
Longueville, the actual comtesse. And
she's talking about protecting Jewish families during
(07:40):
the German occupation. And my comment is,
isn't that part of the terroir? Isn't your history in this
industry bouncing around doing these things part of your personal
terroir to how you approach this? That's a beautiful way of describing
it. Never heard that before, but yeah. And I think this industry, I mean,
I mean, you know, knowing wine the way we do, you can either
(08:02):
explore wine through a glass and taste the world.
You know, as you, I've said this to you before, but as you've. You used
to do here every single day, you'd be tasting your way around the world, or
you can embark, you know, early on a desire
to kind of explore the world through wine. And I think both of those options
are beautiful. And I think the earlier you start
(08:25):
to move around the world, the
more you experience and you experience at different ages. And it's
a beautiful industry for that. And it's very welcoming. I think the wine industry is
very welcoming and I particularly enjoy all the
different cultures. We were just talking about Armenia. I can't believe it. Of all the
places in the world that I haven't been to and there's very few countries, I
(08:48):
guess now, but the one place I really want to go is
Armenia. And there's what's happening. There is, I think, one of the most exciting things
in the wine world today. You know, I'm gonna send you and the oldest, the
oldest in the, you know, of the wine. Yeah, well, they all make
that argument that, you know, they're battling that with Georgia. But I'm gonna send you
a reel I made because I was there and I shot the three days with
(09:09):
one of the TV stations. Oh, great. And it came at this. It was pretty
cool. Pretty cool piece. Love to see it. I like this idea.
Taste your way around the world. And that's not spoken
about much. But of course, you went to Australia, had to learn a new language
or a new accent. I think they took the mickey out of my
(09:30):
accent. Yeah, they make a lot of fun out of
the English. And then you went to Argentina. I did, yeah. That was
fantastic. Why? The Swiss
owners of a world class wine estate in
Argentina, they were just starting it up. It was built, the vineyard was
established and they wanted somebody to come in and manage the commercial side
(09:52):
of the property and take it from development to launch.
And I took it to being what was in the top 100 wines of the
world with wine spectators. So I was there for a long time managing
Finca di Sero. I was there actually
for five years, located in Mendoza in
Argentina. And then I managed. I
(10:14):
moved to London because it was more central to kind of racing around the world.
And then ultimately I was still managing Finca de
Seta when I moved to California recently. So would you say then.
Because I think not only did you have an important
rounding of your fingers in the industry, being
retail and marketing and Bulgarian wines, which is
(10:35):
very funny because we've done some here and there's a couple in the market still
manufacturing in Australia. Sparkling
that. Now, what would you call yourself?
Consultant. You know, that's an interesting
question. Right now I call myself an entrepreneur of
(10:57):
a startup, an innovative new way of
a new experience in wine that hasn't been done quite in this way
before in Wine Whisper and Song. So let's. Let's talk about that.
Innovation pulls in the different aspects. Innovation,
this trade. You know, you just talked about Armenia,
6100-year-old winery they found there. And so you can make that
(11:19):
argument. It's probably the same product as it was today, except it's
not as refined. But certainly the idea of
grapes being fermented into a beverage that represents something other
than that, actually. What does
innovation mean to you then? What is, I think
innovation. You can. I mean, you can have innovation where. I mean,
(11:41):
I crafted the first time augmented
reality was combined with animation, film and.
Wine. Yeah. And the. The Allen and the Dust devil back in
2017. So that was. That was criminal.
It was just coming at the same time. But this
involved a whole animation film in the whole kind of coming forward
(12:03):
into life. So that was fascinating. And it was bringing
tech into an industry which is
not so tech driven. And I think what I mean about
innovation with Wine Whisper and Song is just coming about an experience and doing it
in a different way. It's not the first
time that emotion and wine pairing has come into our
(12:26):
vocabulary. And certainly right now there's a big chorus about
discussing wines with regards to emotions, much more. But it's the
first time this blend of experience
has come into fruition. That's kind of interesting because
emotion, it's an
emotional decision when you go to the store to buy
(12:48):
wine. Stories are very funny and
I won't bore you with them now, but it is an
emotional decision. But this is a different kind of emotion. You're talking about
sharing an emotion of song and wine
in a specific environment. Tell me about what this is. Yeah. So Wine Whisper and
Song involves powerful storytelling at the core of it. There's an
(13:10):
inspiring talk with powerful storytelling and it meets
original songs of the speaker, songwriter and is
paired with wine. So an experience will be a.
An inspiring talk on mindfulness awareness,
intentional living. And it's by a speaker, songwriter, myself,
or other ones that I have Rhonda Ross, daughter of
(13:33):
Diana Ross and Berry Gordy. She is also one of the other speakers. And
it's having an inspiring talk. And then at
three different moments within the experience,
at a pivotal story moment. I mean, a really maximum kind of
emotion happening there in the storytelling of this aha moment, these
life's adventures and what's that's meant
(13:56):
a pause for a song from the
own original song and matched with a wine. So
the wine, I mean, if I think back to the wines I've tasted, probably the
same for you, is that I remember wines by the emotion. I think
of wines that have an emotional energy. They are living beings at the end of
the day. Wine is living, we agree, but it has an
(14:18):
emotional energy. And when you
find that kind of those sensory nuances and you can bring them to life and
describe them for the audience as to why this wine is,
you know, a happy kind of, maybe a more
exuberant, more, you know, quite loudly,
you know, confident wine. Sure. And then you match it to the song
(14:40):
and to this point in the story, then it all matches up. And then the
person is absorbing this wine and imbibing this wine
whilst resonating on many different levels, all the senses
and deeply, emotionally. And I look back on the wines
that I remember from my lifetime, and they are the ones which have
most connected emotionally with me or the
(15:03):
emotions that I was feeling at the time. I remember. Is this a new
language? I don't think it is. You know. You know what I was.
I think it's. I think it's the original language. I mean, it's not a
question of why are we talking about emotion and wine pairing.
And the question should be is why are we not? I mean, you think about
the language that we've been talking people, you know, in the industry. I
(15:25):
mean, I love talking about the technical details of wines,
but we can't get our knickers in a twist because somebody doesn't understand the difference
between powdery dappled or gauzy tannins. You know what I mean? And
also, we've come to reference wines in
relation to flavors. Right? But flavors are
so flavors. And food is not a universal language.
(15:47):
The enjoyment of food, yes, is a universal appreciation, but
food is, you know, geographically, you know,
changes and ingredients change. And therefore you might talk to somebody about
blueberries to somebody else. They might have a hint of, you know, the smell of
an acacia tree. And somebody else might be talking about tamarind. I mean, it's not
a global language. Whereas the global language which we as human
(16:10):
beings were born with is emotions. Emotions has been
there from the start. And so to, to pair
wines with emotions is almost more natural
than, than what we've been doing. And, and it also invites,
instead of explaining a wine in technical detail,
it's about experiencing a wine. And that's much more
(16:33):
profound. And I think that stays with people a lot longer.
That's really interesting. And my. If my face looks blank,
it's not because I don't understand. I get it. But I'm thinking
through some of these things I've been reading about in some of these, you know,
generations that are trying to, for instance, and I use a new language as
the question. They want to change the language of
(16:55):
wine. And I don't make any sense to me, but the language I speak is
different. My dad used to cringe at some of the stuff I would say,
because I grew up in a different era than he did in the wine world.
He grew up with Michael Broadbent and Harry Wa and that kind of talk. And
then in the wine trade. And then I do something. Now they want to change
it and they want to talk about Captain Crunch and Froot Loops descriptors.
(17:16):
And I want to tell these young adults, like,
the next generation is not going to understand what you're talking about. And I don't
understand what you're talking about. So that changing the language of wine does nothing.
But this might be that change, because emotions are
less, you know, they're more understandable between
(17:36):
humans. And then Gerard Bertrand told me in our
podcast that, you know, there's a life vibration
in the wine. Yeah. That led me to a new concept of when people
talk about tension in a wine. And I think that is the tension in a
wine. And so when you're saying that emotion
gets stirred up is that vibration and
(17:58):
that tension that you're sensing. And you don't know what it is necessarily, you know,
why it is. Which is another great thing about wine, is that they can tell
us how nutrients get into the roots, but they don't know why they get into
the roots and why they create this tension and this vibration
that is the mystery of wine. So
what do you do with this concept? So this
(18:21):
concept is great for wineries and I'm just launching it now. I
have actually done some pre launch events which were phenomenally
well received and the feedback of the wines
resonating with them and the experience. Actually somebody,
a woman came up to me and she said, this is the experience I didn't
even know I needed. And I was like, okay, yeah, this resonates so
(18:42):
that I know I was loving it. But I think it's
great for wineries that want a new experience to stand out
in, in their region for their tasting rooms, and they can spark
fresh conversations with new audiences or with wine club
members that they want to get into a whole new conversation with. It
taps into top trends, you know, of well being and
(19:04):
intentional living, mindfulness and speaker led social
events. I mean that's like 2025 is all about that, you
know. So I think it's great for wineries. It's
ideal for, you know, resorts
in wine country. And I'm talking to a couple at the moment, so that would
be a great way to spotlight their wine program. Because the wines are always
(19:27):
focused on the location and are brought from the winery
or the location that I'm pairing with. And then I think
one, one aspect I'm really excited about, and I'm not
sure who's going to be the first to launch this part of the concept is
I think it would be a great pre dinner event. So if you
had a private dining room, so, you know, a restaurant with a private dining room
(19:51):
and it could be in wine country or it could be in one of the
major cities, but to have a pre dinner for one hour
talk, inspiring talk with songs and
emotion and wine pairing and these three wines really showing up
and resonating with people with these
different emotions and then with those same three
(20:12):
wines, take them into the dinner. And I would continue with
Chef and we experienced the three wines when paired with emotions and then
the three wines when paired over dinner and just explore how that changes and
how people's subjectivity, you know, changes with regards to
the wine wines or with regards to their appreciation and understanding of the wine. And
I think that that could be a beautiful concept. I think that would be a
(20:34):
huge change. Instead of, in other words, sarcastically, instead of
standing there going, in 1385, you know,
I, I had a podcast with a wonderful historian of wine, but I thought to
myself, oh my God, you're gonna kill people. Stand up there in
front of dinner and saying, you know, that Madame Clicquot in
1769. I mean, just, that's a pretty crazy. And
(20:56):
I'm just thinking about this part of this current
movement and innovation, the world of the
Word innovation is dealing with
packages and tetra packs and things that aren't
really related to the experience of wine. I was talking about
Chateau Bailly, what she's done there, the way they've built their new
(21:18):
winery. It's an experience to go there. You'll come away
understanding the wine because of the experience. I was just
writing about Maille le Terroir, about Maillon
Longson, for sure, the Pichon Longville people.
It's built into their DNA now that they had this experience during the
war, that the emotion has to come out in the wine.
(21:40):
It's not a piece of tannin, but it's certainly a philosophy about
what you put in the bottle. And now the experience of
wine, which has always been the case.
My dad had dinners. This Les Amie de Vin thing was an experience of wine.
People came and they wear their min. So they'd have these dinners and Robin Mondavi
would speak is what I think is coming back to.
(22:02):
Not to. Like I say, I won't stick my neck out and say it's going
to regenerate the wine business, but I think the experience
of wine needs to be developed in this way.
And I just wrote down a couple of notes. One guy in
Cortona, Italy, who I met has a.
Actually has a jewelry store in Kansas City. Figure that one out. Strange.
(22:25):
Yeah. Right. In a jewelry store in Cortona. Yeah. But he does these
events called Wine Dine and Shine. And you show up and you put
up and he, you. You. He consigns you a piece of faux jewelry.
Big thing. And everybody sits around, talks about the food and the wine
and what they're wearing. And then they can buy that jewelry on the way out
the door if they want to. And I thought that was fabulously fun. In non
(22:47):
wine part of the country, Kansas,
where wine is a new thing. Yeah. That's a different way to come at wine
as well. Yeah. Rex Pickett, the author of Sideways, who was.
Who admittedly was dying on the vine
after the movie because he got none of it, is now
a phenom in
(23:10):
Napa. People go to whiners now to hear him and hang
out with him. This is a resurgence of the experience of
wine. What does it mean? But that's what people are wanting. I mean, it's.
You know, you look at Rob McMillan from Silicon Valley
bank or any of the major thought leaders in the wine
industry right now as to where we need. Where is our next step?
(23:32):
We just need to listen to what the audiences are telling us. The
audiences are saying, we want meaningful,
emotionally engaging experiences. They don't even ask
for wine. They want meaningful,
emotionally engaging experiences and then bring the wine into
it as part of it, not necessarily lead with it. And if we can
(23:54):
listen to what people today want, it doesn't mean that
any of the nuances are any less important. Trust me. I am so deep in
the beauty of wine and the technical and the details, and I love all
of that. But engaging people first and
then letting them explore that second is
what we are being told by the new younger generations
(24:17):
is the way that they want to come into anything. And it's not
just about wine. They want experiences. They want
experiences. And I think
as we approach these new audiences, and at this time in the wine industry, when
it's so critical to bridge
the new generation, should we say is giving
(24:40):
them what they are literally asking for? That's as simple as it gets.
And the thing is, I was thinking, because I knew I was coming to talk
to you, and I was thinking yesterday, I was thinking, how far different
is this than what we did? It's not if you think about
it and you tell me if I'm wrong, but for me,
I was seduced by wine first. That's not my job. That's my wife's
(25:02):
job. Okay, after your
wine, you're the person that constitutes you, the wine. But
for me, I was seduced by wine first. I continue to be seduced by the
wine first. Not every wine, but by. I'm seduced by the wine first. Then
I go and explore and find out, okay, well, hang on a sec. Which vineyard
did it come from? Which site? What was the soil type? You know, what's going
(25:23):
on with the winemaking or what's going on in the vineyard. But I explore the
details second, and I get seduced first. So it's so
strange in a way that we've been. We've
spent decades educating people into loving wine,
whereas they're asking, asking. They don't need to be explained.
They want to experience it. And it's no different to what we did.
(25:47):
Why are we thinking now, And I'm making this in the broadest possible terms, but
why are we saying, actually, you need to understand a
wine to fall in love with it? No, let people
fall in love with something. People don't fall in love with facts.
People fall in love with the way something makes them feel the
same way we did. And we just need to let people
(26:11):
be seduced and be inspired by wine before giving them
all the detail. The details are always there. All the complexity, the nuances,
the technicality is always there to be explored. But they don't
need to pass a test to fall in love. You know, I think we just
need to. As we're looking at these new generations, it's not just about the new
generations, you know, it's that, you know, I think there's a lot of people
(26:33):
asking for something different. And you know, even if, you
know Napa and Sonoma and the main wine regions, they do a
fantastic job of offering up an array of different
experiences as much as possible. But there's a lot of emphasis on
the typical wine tasting or museum version of that tasting.
And then sometimes there might be a concert or something like that, or a
(26:55):
wages to come and drink and be involved with the winery.
But how about coming up with new experiences whereby
that are experience led, emotionally engaging,
meaningful about life, you know. And I think
with regards to Wine whisper and song, it actually mirrors what
wine is. If you think about wine, it's from the vineyard to the
(27:18):
glass, from the glass, you know, vineyard to the glass. It is about
philosophies, intuitive actions,
intentional thinking and make a
mindful awareness in every aspect that blends to inspire
greatness. And wine Whisper and song actually embodies that same ethos
in inspiration for life. It's about, you know, an inspiring
(27:40):
talk about life, about living and about aha. Moments and
life's adventures in a beautifully entertaining way
and then that being an inspiration for
greatness in life. So, I mean, I don't want to sound condescending and think
that, you know, you didn't come up with something great, but it sounds to me
that this is just an extension of a nice dinner time conversation.
(28:03):
And I've meaning, yeah, it's very interesting to me
because the generations are talking about. We don't want to hear about your
father's and your mother's interpretation of wine and that they tasted wine. I mean,
they don't want. We don't care if you smell blackberries or blueberries. We want the
experience like you're talking about. I mean, my, my kids are all millennials and
they'd rather spend a hundred dollars on a sushi meal than save for mustangs. You
(28:25):
know, that's just the way they are and that's fine. But
as intimidating as wine is, I don't care what
level of expertise I'm sitting with with a glass of wine. If it's good,
honest wine, if it's really made to represent something,
it's never intimidating to those people because the conversation becomes Very
colloquial and very cool and very like, if they want to know the
(28:48):
answers to the questions that have the answer, because eventually
they ask. And I think you're saying this, why does this. Doing this.
Yeah, let them ask in their own measure. I think what you're saying
is that you're not pushing them with that information. You're happy to, and
that's the way you are. But I think, I think in the industry as a
whole, we've. We've leaned a lot into
(29:10):
defining different wines within our own portfolios as well. You know, this is
from this vineyard and this, you know, defining price points sometimes and
defining why it's in existence as opposed
to trying to connect the wine with other aspects or
with other ways of understanding the wine. I think that's
accurate. We're going to Napa the next week. Oh,
(29:32):
fantastic. I rarely taste when I go there. We go to
eat in a podcast usually, but
somebody invited me to a winery to experience
the tour and the tasting. And I'm interested to
see what this take is. Now. This is. I don't, I don't know the people.
I've never met them. I don't know their story, so I'm going to find that
(29:52):
out. But we did visit last time we were up
Catillard, which is the Napa
owned property by the chateau owners of
Chateau Smith aux Lafitte Pas of Leon.
And these were two. Now I find this really fascinating for me, these
are two French people that are now in their probably
(30:15):
late 70s, but they met on the slopes on the French national
ski team, right. And they had this great story,
adrenaline packed story. It goes back before that
with the family grocery store and all that. And I, I find that really fun.
That just, it's a fun thing when you taste the wine. You go, wow, this
is a really fun story about these people that did this and they do that.
(30:37):
We can't expect everybody to. To want to do what we
do. I didn't fall in love with wine. I
went to my father in 1988 and he goes, I'm going to sell the company.
Maybe you ought to check it out. And I said, okay. I was having trouble
with my partners at the time in the software company and so I went packed
wine for three months and then I. Then what happened when you tasted it?
(30:58):
And then I just still, I was, you know, I worked. There's that picture from
1975. I worked in a liquor store. I was in that beer box most
of the time. It probably so. And I was coming off
of corporate America. And then the smallest company could
ever want to start with a fishbowl full of business cards and a
two line phone. I didn't have. We didn't have an office even. In fact, the
(31:19):
first objection I ever got from the first sale, the guy goes, you don't even
have an office, do you? I'm like, no, we don't. Yeah.
So I didn't. It didn't hit me as
to what I was providing a service to people for
until much later. Maybe 10 to 15 years. Really? That
long? Yeah, I was a mail order marketer, man. I was standing at a booth
(31:41):
selling this idea of a subscription to wine. And that's was the most
important part. It was a. You were managing them, but you were getting on
with the managing of the business as opposed to. Yeah, it was a businessman. It
was. And it was a correspondence course in wine. Really. Yeah. If back
then, not today, these subscription models, at least a lot of them,
not gonna say categorically, but they're not about exposing
(32:03):
people to interesting things and finding this
Trader Joe's 2000 bottles of some Sebastiani
Cabernet Franc somewhere. It was about. That's what we were about.
Now it's about how cheap you can buy it and how much you can sell
for. So I'm fascinated with this idea and I'll tell you why. There's
another one, there's a master of wine, Susan Lynn.
(32:28):
I don't know, she's in Napa, Washington and she is a
concert pianist. Yeah. And she's
as well as Vanessa Conlon, who's the buyer for Wine
Access for a while. She's a opera
singer. Yeah. And. But Susan Lynn has been
playing with this idea of music and wine. Yeah. And. And,
(32:51):
and this is not the first time that music and wine has been brought together.
And. And it's a beaut. Artistic.
It's almost like. I mean wine is the meeting of art and science. And I
think a lot of people in wine have a musical bent as well. So. I
mean there's a lot of wineries talking about
wine in musical terms, I think. And I think you've turned that
(33:15):
into an experience. Yeah. Two and three actually. With food.
Yes. And actually really it's the inspiring talk
and the powerful storytelling to be. To drive the emotion
and then having the song match up to the song. I mean,
in my talks, literally the lyrics match the story. I mean I literally. The most
profound words I've written about some of the things that I've lived through
(33:38):
have been. I put into song. And therefore when you have that,
you know, banking up against the story itself and then you
taste a wine that is like really the essence of that
emotion, it becomes very powerful. Kind of
triad of, of, of parts.
And that's an interesting thing I was reading.
(33:59):
I go. What I like to do is I go back to the magazine of
this group. Yeah. This guy was a brilliant guy. I'll tell you this
story off camera because it's crazy, but there's. I read
articles from the 70s. Yeah. 60S and there's an article. I'm just
saying to you that the guy wrote a score. Yes. Around
some wine. Yeah. And I, and I sent it to my friend who's a
(34:23):
conductor. I haven't heard him play it yet, but I, I want
to hear your take on after you read the article. Then this, there's this score.
Oh, I'd love to. It's from 1975 or something. So
you're right, it's not a new concept. No, but your concept's new to. Yeah,
to emote. To get people to emote. This is like a
conversation too. Like I'm having dinner and the guys. You'Re playing, I
(34:46):
mean it doesn't necessarily happen during dinner. This, this would experience either a pre
donor experience or it'd be in the afternoon winery tasting room.
And it, and it's a way. I mean I think
the standalone talk is powerful. I mean these are,
I mean Ronda Ross, she's the daughter of Barry Gordy and
Diana Ross, as I just said. But she's also a Grammy nominated
(35:11):
songwriter, Emmy nominated actress and she's also a TED
fellow nominee. So the level of talks by herself, myself and some
others coming on board are really
amazing talks on subjects of mindfulness, intentional living. So
on that piece alone it's powerful. But then to have these three
interludes when songs that the person that's talking
(35:33):
has actually written the song really coming in and adding this power
piece and then the wine to match in that moment. It's so
digestive. And what a lovely way to spend an hour. It's not like you're just
sitting there listening to somebody and it's not preachy. It's aha moment.
And when I was doing the kind of pre launch events,
it reminded me of something somebody said to me a very long time ago,
(35:57):
decades ago, somebody said to me that one of my skills is
moving people on an emotional journey. And this effectively is. This is a curated
emotional journey. And there's one moment on one of my talks,
it's called Intuition talks. And the second pivotal story is a
very emotionally
charged story. It's a moment of massive
(36:19):
gravitas in my life and
it's a very meaningful moment. And I had tears in my eyes when I was
explaining and even my voice spoke, but I looked and the people in the audience
had tears in their eyes listening. And then, you know,
I shared the song relating to this story and I paired this
wine, which had a lot of complexity to it and depth. And then
(36:43):
we went on and a couple of minutes later, after that song and wine
experience, we've gone back to the talk and I'm talking and.
But then I'm moving on with the talk and I'm into a new story and
we love. And I'm laughing out loud and the audience is laughing out
loud. And that's the beauty of great storytelling, is
this is a. This is a whole, very carefully curated arc of a journey
(37:04):
whereby you can be like, you know, in one moment and then,
then the next moment you can be laughing. And it's. And that's what makes it
beautiful. This isn't like just sit there and hear somebody
preach whatsoever. This is. This is something where
people want to go back, even hear the same talk again. Because the stories change
and obviously the wines change every time. So every single wine whispering song
(37:26):
is actually a unique experience. That's kind of interesting. I've sat down
before. People have asked me to pair food and chocolate, whatever, and I was on
tv, blah, blah, and my initial responses were lousy. It's like
I said, oh, this is chocolate with pasilla peppers. I know what's going to go
with that. And I taste it. It's like, that didn't work and something off the
wall worked. Do you have to figure out or does it come
(37:47):
to you while you're writing these things or producing
these events or this concept, does the wine
pop into your head like, oh, this is obviously a tannat from Uruguay,
or do. You have a correct think about it? The
concept depends on me doing pre work with the winery.
So if it's going to be located at a certain winery, I'll work with them
(38:09):
in advance to see maybe what message they want to highlight, maybe they want to
show, because emotions is a very good way of showing up differences in
wines. Now we're all about, okay, well this comes from this site and that's why
it's different from that one, which is slightly warmer or whatever else. But if you
say, well, this is, you know, an
exuberant, happy wine, whereas this has got layers of complexity
(38:31):
in it, I get that is sitting back and think, so when you start to
do that, it's a great showcase of three different vineyards or three
different varieties or three different winemaking styles. And it.
And so there's. So I work with the winery beforehand
to identify which wines. And then, of course, when the people
leave, they can buy a mixed case of the Wine Whisper and Song wines. They
(38:52):
get the wine and the song. They get the playlist as they go. And
it's so immediately digitally shareable
and shareable with their friends as they can go. And the people that
I've done the ones with separately before launching
at the wineries, they are. They've gone and they've. I can.
I can see that they've played the playlist and they might
(39:14):
not remember my name, but you can bet they were met. They'll say, you know,
my gosh, there was this woman, she was saying this story, and oh, my God,
there was this moment, and then this happened. And they'll remember that and they'll remember,
but they'll remember the wine and they'll remember the story. They might not remember
my name, and that's not important in this, but they need to remember the feeling
of. Of what it makes them feel, because it's when you have that feeling,
(39:37):
they're the wines that you remember. I remember certain wines across the decade,
across decades. I will never forget those wines that in
certain moments when I had a really strong feeling that they're etched indelibly
on my mind forever. And that's in this world of
where there's so many wines in the world and wine club members are
beautifully fickle. You know, how do we get them to remember
(40:00):
our wine? How do we have them remembering that and telling
that story in two, three months time or later? And
this is wine Whispering Song offers that opportunity to really
have something imprinted on somebody, not just somebody's mind, but on
somebody's soul. It's less tech talk and it's more soul
stirring. It's kind of interesting because you're flying the face
(40:22):
of. You're flying in the face of going to the Napa Valley wine
tasting room, because so many wine tasting rooms, room
workers don't understand that part. And they're pouring off. They're talking about the stuff that
everybody now is saying is why wine is suffering. But
I'm not sure if I agree with that completely. But what you are doing
is bringing home in a simple, less expensive,
(40:46):
less egregious, not egregious, less complicated way
to do what normally Happens when you travel.
You go to Italy and you're sitting in front of the Parthenon and you have
this house, Trattoria red, and you think it's the best wine you've ever
had, because the emotions around sitting
(41:06):
there are unique to that moment. Exactly. And then you come
home, you taste the wine, you go, I didn't taste the same. Right. That happens
all the time. But the emotion. But the emotion and the wine got locked in
your mind, and you remember that wine enough to come back and order it when
you came back. So that is exactly what I'm talking
about. And none of this negates beauty of the
(41:27):
com. The complex and more nuanced
messages about sight and tannins and structure
and all of that. I'm just saying this is an alternative way
to engage with people that is very in demand in
the moment. That stuff's always there. Yeah. You can, like. That's always there to explore.
Exactly. You want to explore. Wine is available for you to do it. You can
(41:49):
read all the books that you got here, 100 at least 100 wine books at
home. And when I'm interested in a subject, I go, pull one out, pull it
in. Exactly. To read about it. And that's for me to know. But you don't
have to know that stuff. You just have to know how it makes you feel.
Exactly. And then after that, you might dig deeper. That's the idea, is
if you get people emotionally engaged, that's when they'll dig deeper. And
(42:10):
that's what all the wineries want, and that's fine. But let's emotionally engage
everyone first. I mean, it's just.
It's just doing it the same way that we. That we. That we did it.
You know, I look back on life and on the wines that I've remembered. It
was that way first. It was being seduced by the wine and having that
emotional connection first, and then going and
(42:32):
exploring and doing all. And I've done all the, you know, the wine exams
and the books and. But it was that way around. And so
it's just allowing new audiences to do what we did.
You know, it's kind of interesting. I had this thought and theory,
and I think it's reasonably accurate,
particularly with supermarket wines. In fact, my
(42:54):
employee who went with the new company sent me a sample of the last
shipment. Yeah. And I'm of Armenian descent, and there was a
Turkish wine in here, which is kind of interesting. How
did that go? And I thought, I want to taste this, because I've never tasted
A Turkish wine after all these years. And it was palatable, but
it was sugared up also. Right. And the sugar is like the most cloying thing
(43:16):
that never. It doesn't express anything except sugar. And there's actually a study
being done that where people
get tired of that pro forma.
Eventually they move on to the things. I guess that's why Zinfandel
drinkers. One of the other things. And as we move down the line.
But the point I'm making is it seems like
(43:39):
everybody can agree when they
taste a wine that expresses something,
where it's from. And I always ask winemakers when they come in here, so what's
the end game? You're doing all this. You're experimenting with grapes, you're changing the
barrels, you're fermenting cold or whatever you're doing.
What's the goal of all that? And
(44:01):
ultimately, it boils down to express
this time in this place. Right. And I think
your. Your. Your premise is basically that you're. You are
providing wines that you've produced or
calculated to express an emotion and feel like an emotion,
(44:21):
and that we want you to feel this too, when I'm done with it.
And that's what. Yeah, that's what we're kind of. What it is in the first
place is an expression of. And I think everybody agrees when they
taste that good glass of wine, they go, yeah, maybe they don't like the character
of it, like the flavors, but they sense this tension
and they sense this vibration that you're bringing out to
(44:43):
a human level. Really? Yeah, it's really interesting. So when is this launch
you're thinking. Well, I'm talking to a few winemones right now, so
we'll see. I'm not sure which one's going to line up as being the first
in the timeline, but in the next few weeks.
So it's happening right now. So, you know, that was just
what you wrote, talked about. Was it Diana Ross's Neat. Was it Diana Ross?
(45:05):
Diana Rossenberry, Gordy's daughter, who. Yeah. Who's
Rhonda Ross, and she's one of the speaker songwriters in Wine with Gary.
Gordon, the founder of Motown. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's a
big movement of wine, fine wine, in
professional sports now. For much of my career,
there's always endorsed wines. Fred Couples, the
(45:27):
famed golfer, was the first wine I tasted that was actually sort of
participating in it. Greg Norman, of course, she's got a whole brand
and his daughter runs. But there's been a huge movement
in professional Basketball, for instance, for fine wine. To the extent
that the Lakers, when they're done with their game, they call Boa Steakhouse in
Maria del Rey or wherever it is, Santa Monica, and they say we're coming over,
(45:49):
get some ribeyes going and we want these bottles. There's a huge
appreciation have you. Is that since you're at that level of,
of entertainer, is wine a cultural part
of Hollywood or music and singing and.
Yeah, I mean a lot of people have amazing fine wine
cellars and yeah,
(46:12):
that's. That's for sure. And they have. They might, you
know, and they might be sellers for showcase or they might have an in
depth understanding of the wines in their cellar. I think there's can go
both ways. Yes. Look what I have. And they're like,
yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So I think there's a couple
of different ways that can go, but yeah, and. And that's a great way to
(46:35):
experience this as well in a private event and pair up some of your wines
from your cellar in wine with Swansong as well. Yeah, there are
some fantastic cellars, not just in la. I mean across
the, you know, I think across the US people have developed cellars over
the last number of years. Yeah. Like somebody says, why do you have so much
wine, Paul? And I'm like, because the guy didn't buy it for me. And that's
(46:57):
what I was fortunately stuck. With it and
I'm drinking it. So here's a fun experiment for you. And we're gonna do
it. You did one of these 48 minutes already. This is
kind of down the road of what you're talking about because it talks about.
This is of a doctor in France. His name is Dr. Murray. He's
long past, but he wrote a book called Wine is the Best Medicine. It's sort
(47:19):
of like what is in the wine that makes you feel something or helps
you fix something. Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna. Now don't worry about
getting this right or wrong because literally anybody sat in your chair you're sitting
in. It's 33 chances that they're gonna. I
know you asked me last time. Yeah, it was fantastic. Maybe I'll get the same.
Same question. Okay. Yeah, let's do it. I'm all up for that. So
(47:42):
you're further along your career. Maybe. Maybe I'll have the right
answer this time. Gee, I wish I should. I should
have played it back. See which one I know. No, this is going to get
you. So what's the question? And these are all French wines. Okay, go. So the
question is, let's call it anemia. I don't think I ever asked anybody that. So,
okay, you can have a dry
(48:04):
champagne, a grave, or a Cote de
Bonne to heal anemia. And there's, of course, a dosage with
this.
So what are we going to go for? Iron in the soil. What's. Where are
we going to stand? The answer from. Let's go to the emotions. What,
do you have anemia? What's your emotion?
(48:27):
I feel pretty deflated and lacking energy, I
think, is what I'd be doing where I'll be at.
So if that was my. If that was my.
You're actually on the right track. You already see the right track thing. Part of
it. You said part of the right thing.
Well, if I was deflating and feeling a lack of buzz, then I'd probably go
(48:49):
for the champagne. But with the iron in the soil. Let's go with.
Let's go with the guav. Well, you're
33%, man. You're born out of 33%. You got it right.
It says exactly that. Anemia, or the pathological decrease in the number of
red blood cells manifests itself in a variety of disorders, among them
fatigue, vertigo, and a lack of general tone
(49:13):
is sometimes hemorrhage. And it says grave.
And it says. Because of their iron content. Yeah. The
vine that produces this type of wine is cultivated on pure sand
containing iron particles in a soluble form. Yeah,
see, now, that's where it pays. If you're going to be
on your podcast for that's where it pays to know the technical details of the
(49:35):
soil and the vineyard. So. So those years of knowing the tech
details does pay off in certain circumstances. I'm just saying that
sometimes emotions can be a way into that. It
is. You're going to give me another one. It's two glasses a meal, which I
certainly qualify there. I could get that
done. I must be anemic. I'm cured. If you work backwards.
(49:57):
I have two glasses of meal of a grave, so I must be anemic. Yeah.
Such a pleasure to have you back on. Thank you for having me back here.
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Good to be back paying us. You know, there's some
vineyards in Topanga, right there. Are there? And in
Malibu Canyon and even in Angora Hills. Yeah. There's
things happening over there. What's her name? Sandy Garber, who
(50:19):
owns one of the
wine distributors. She's actually survived all this.
Garber Associates. Actually, she lives in Topanga.
Yeah, I'm surprised you haven't crossed your path. No. There's not that many people in
Toyota. Well, now. In a long time. Yeah. But with all this
consolidation of distributors in Los Angeles and RN DC
(50:42):
walking in September and It's a crazy world right now. It
is a crazy world, and one that a lot of people, you know, as
somebody said in the industry, there's a lot of great talent out there in the
California industry right now, and a lot of companies are stepping up to employ that
talent. So I'm hopeful that I've got so many friends
affected by that move, but they'll land in all the great
(51:04):
places, I'm sure. I feel vindicated. I sold right at the right time. Yeah.
Paul, you got the sauce? You know this
fantastic. Thank you.
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