October 9, 2025 • 21 mins
Sometimes I just get an hankering. Ya know, a chance to try and tell it like it is.
There is no óne-size" fits all solution to what is happening in our trade.
And there still are many successes in the trade...more to come on that front.
Wine is too important to the existance of man to address the ills of the trade with thinking marketing and packaging solutions will solve the problems. Certainly, the trade can make some contemporary adjustments to those issues, but those are not the core issues. They can't be, wine is a conduit for the human soul to the soil; deep rooted (pun intended) in our human history.
My solo chat in this episode of Wine Talks covers a smorgasbord of wine world goings-on, from L.A. distributor drama to the secret sauce behind great wine service. I tell some spicy takes on wine industry passion, poke fun at “credentials” (let’s just say WSET 1 is not exactly rocket science), and reminisces about both snobby and soulful wine moments—because hey, sometimes decanting at home is just as much about the class as the glass.
Ialso spin off on stories about meeting the Pope (fingers crossed for that podcast collab!) and a forthcoming series, Song of America, which promises inspiring immigrant tales—because let’s face it, who didn’t dream of inventing the bendy straw?
The thread running through it all is passion—whether you’re pouring Pinot or running a carpet empire on Santa Monica Blvd, it’s caring deeply that truly makes life (and wine) taste better. And don’t worry, Ikeep ranting about all the things that make me crazy in the wine world, so stay tuned and pour yourself a glass for the ride!
#wineindustry #winepassion #RNDCCollapse #winesales #wineeducation #WSET #wineservice #restaurantwinesales #NapaValley #properwineservice #hospitality #immigrantstories #SongOfAmerica #Armenianwinemakers #VaticanWine #wineculture #winestorytelling #celebritywines #farmtotable #wineexperiences
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey O. Hey, Paul K. Here we go. It's Wine
talks with Paul K. Man, so many things going on here. Wine
talks with Paul K. Working on a couple of really cool shows.
I was in Armenia last year and shot five days of
interviews with winemakers and we're weaving that into a really
cool show about sort of what it takes, what kind of people it takes, what
(00:22):
kind of perseverance it takes, what kind of passion it takes. You guys hear it
be talking about passion, like why. Like,
it's even hard to articulate because there aren't that many industries though. We
just got the phone with a vendor. He was talking about the way the industry
in Los Angeles anyway, with the consolidation of the
wholesalers and RNDC leaving, just walking up and leaving
(00:45):
thousands of reps on the street. Not, not this, not
hundreds of reps, but not at least thousands of brands
of wines and spirits and all the accessory items
like tonic water that have been abandoned by
RNDC because it was a huge company. And so there's a chart somebody has
posted on Facebook, etc, with the, you know, where these brands
(01:08):
landed. And so I just got the phone. I went to a tasting last week
in Culver City. It was incredible. Tasting from a winery, a group called
Serendipity. And they had some great brands there, new brands
from. From the collapse of rndc.
And so I got to catch up with some old friends and some people, and
these are real marketeers. These are people that really put
(01:29):
stuff on the street. And I was just talking to the sales manager just a
few minutes ago about how there's no
passion in the people that come to the table to sell wine.
And I've talked about this before, but some of the minimum requirements these
days, for instance, to get a job in the wine trade is, for instance,
a wit set W set degree.
(01:52):
Well, W set one is like red wine is
usually red, white wine is usually white.
Is there alcohol in wine? I mean, that's how simple it is. Almost anyone
in the world could pass W set 1 and W set 2 is not that
much harder. But it's necessary to start there so you can understand the sort of
growth of the education. But the idea being that you have to have some kind
(02:14):
of degree is trumped by the idea that that
degree can be ascertained by studying and reading and taking
a test and then you get a job. But do you really care?
Because the minute you walk into a wine shop or a
restaurant without the passion, it takes to
show the enthusiasm for the products that you really love that you're
(02:37):
carrying in your book that you want people, people
earnestly to understand when you pour it in
the glass, you have to have the passion. You have to care. You have to
just care. I think all industries in the world, if you're a salesperson, particularly,
you have to care. If you're an executive at, AT and T, you have to
care, obviously. But this wine, because it's so
(02:58):
intertwined with food and the arts, because it really is art,
that passion has to be obvious when you walk in the door.
I sold copiers for a living and it took passion.
I got yelled out of offices, literally. And how do
you recover from that? You've got to be earnestly believe
that you have the best product to solve the problems of the customer. That's
(03:22):
just the way life is. So one of the things that's kind of popped up
is this ambiance of wine and it's
intimidating. And we've talked about this before and yeah, it is.
Hello. It's a difficult subject. It's very
academic when it wants to be. Like when you take these W set
tests or the master sommelier or the master of wine tests.
(03:43):
Very, very academic. I was talking to a restaurateur not too long ago
and he said his bottle sales were off 40%.
That's a huge nut to, to absorb. I went to wine, I went to
Napa two weeks ago. Winery tasting rooms,
walk in traffic off 30%. Man, if you're
relying on that traffic, that walk in traffic, you are in big
(04:05):
trouble if you're 30% off. In this case, the restaurateur is off 40%.
And we just discussed a little bit of things. And I discussed this ridiculous idea
of changing the language of wine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well,
how's your staff, your waiting staff? How are they trained? And what
he goes, they don't know. That's what he said.
And I went a wonder, wonder, wonder,
(04:27):
wonder who, why sales are off.
I mean, seriously, if you don't have the passion. So the idea, for instance, of
proper wine service, I, I don't think it matters if you're a
novice or an experienced wine drinker
or people that go to fancy restaurants. What if it's the first time you've been
to a fancy restaurant and that steward comes out
(04:50):
with that bottle and the carafe and, you
know, the decanter and decants the wine and you're just sort of, you're just
sort of in awe. And I think I mentioned before, when we were in Palermo,
we went to this restaurant I had the most amazing wine service.
The guy could have been pouring, you know, two Buck Chuck. Well, it's not two
bucks anymore, but he could have been pouring, you know, Cali
(05:12):
red from Snoop Dogg, and it
wouldn't have mattered. You would have just gone, wow, this is incredible. I'm not sure
what it tastes any better, but sometimes it does. It just feels like it
tastes better. But, you know, I don't think proper wine
service is the snobbery of wine. I think it's the requirement
to express how ethereal
(05:35):
a glass of wine can be and how important it is to the human
condition to have that wine. And it changes it. When you do it
properly, it makes it feel better. It makes you feel better. It
adds to the ambiance. It adds to the
circumstance, you know, the pomp and circumstance of having a glass of
wine at a restaurant. I decant at home just for that reason. So
(05:57):
it's not the snobbery of it. It's the class of it. Is
that a better word, the class of it? You know, try and guess what I
am now. A zit. Hey. All right. It's classy. It makes
you feel like you're being taken care of when the proper wine service
comes. And I don't think that should be abandoned. I don't think it's gonna go,
and I don't think it's gonna be abandoned. I think I discussed this
(06:19):
idea, for instance. The opposite idea of what I'm talking about. Yeah, the exact
opposite. We were up in Monterey years ago, and we were sitting at the bar,
and we're watching these amazing supercars go by the
street. Everybody and their mother that had a supercar was in Monterey for the
Concours d'. Elegance. And we were there the first night. We were in a restaurant
right then, downtown Monterey, and happened to be right next
(06:41):
to the waitress's station at the bar. And across the bar
was the house pour wines, which was a brand called
Crane Lake. And I know it well, so. But somebody
had thought this was a good idea at the bar level of service
to put in big, big black felt pen letters,
big black felt pen numbers, the date that the wine
(07:04):
was opened. Now, you know that a red wine that's.
I'm not gonna say instable, but that's sensitive to condition changes,
like a vintage Bordeaux or something. You know,
it can last a day with very little degradation, but after a
day, you start to sense it. It's called oxidation. And there's
lots of devices to help prevent that or slow it down. But in this
(07:27):
case, we're talking about, I mean, literally, you're talking about at the time
what they call a house pour wine sold by a very well known distributor that
probably cost them like four doll. Not that concerned about
making sure the wine lasts more than a day or two because you're probably going
to pour through it anyway. Anyway, the date on the Pinot Noir that was front
and center of this group was at least two weeks old, if I
(07:50):
remember right. At least two weeks old. Now there's no way
that that wine is going to last two weeks. I don't care if you use
the greatest vacuum, you know, system in the world
or gas it yourself. It's going to, it's not
going to be good. And so waitress walked up and said, I'll need a glass
of Pinot as she's, you know, crumbling receipts and moving
(08:11):
stuff around and putting lemon slices in a glass of water while she's waiting
for the pour. And the waiter puts the glass right in front of me and
starts to pour the glass for the waitress. And I look at him, I go,
that's coming back. He goes, what do you mean, sir? I go, look at the
date. I go, seriously? And he goes, thank you.
And he opens a fresh bottle. So here's the problem I have that. I mean,
(08:32):
this is proper wine service. Why, why isn't somebody
making sure that those dates are current? And why
would you put on the front label and big black felt band? That's just, you
know, gauche. But anyway, the, the, if that had gone out, if
I hadn't sat there, it would have gone out. The waitress is too busy
worrying about making sure her client's happy and delivering when she does not
(08:54):
need to make that trip again because the wine's so bad. So
either one of two things is going to happen. The patron's going
to go, ah, what is this? And tell the waitress who's now
run off to another table to do something else but has to come back and
deal with the complaint and go back and get a fresh glass or they're not
going to say anything and they're going to come away with this terrible experience. And
(09:15):
I'm not sure in today's world, in particular in
hospitality, we can afford to have bad
experiences. You know, when I was doing the Wine of the Month club, we had
100% guarantee. We never asked the question if you
just didn't like it, even though I sent you a wine of good example of
what it was, we would send you a replacement. And it
(09:37):
wasn't worth the shipping cost, typically to get an open bottle back. So we just
shipped another one without any questions asked. And that was an important feature of the
club at the time, was that guarantee that you're going to love the wines if
you don't. If you don't love them. So it just. It's
just a fine line to dance where we're talking about the
generations coming behind us that don't really care about their. The experience
(09:59):
of wine that our parents did or that I did as my.
As a parent. But at the same time, there's still those
generations that appreciate that, and I think all generations will come to
it to understand the value of that
ceremony. It's a great ceremony to have that,
to have that, hey, other things going on.
(10:22):
We're headed to Rome to meet the Pope. That's right.
And, you know, the Vatican. My favorite trivia question
throughout most of my career was what
country is the highest consumption of wine per
capita? And by the way, nine times more per
capita than the number two country is the
(10:44):
Vatican. So I'm not sure what that means, but it's
a lot of wine going through there. But we got a chance to meet the
Pope and I emailed ahead
to see if I can get a podcast. And why? Well, you know, wine
is quite biblical, and it's mentioned
dozens and dozens of times in the Bible. It has
(11:05):
great root meaning to the life of Jesus Christ
and the church ceremoniously uses
it. And so I thought, well, what if
somebody in Vatican who actually would sit down if I take my little podcast studio
and somebody in Vatican would actually sit with me? I mean, I don't think the
Pope's going to do it. Do you, though? He is a White
(11:27):
Sox fan, and maybe if I bring a White Sox hat or something he autographs.
I don't know. We'll get it done right? But
I'm waiting to see what they say. They may just say, hey, this American guy's
coming. He's in the wine trade. They look at all the people been on my
show and they say, yeah, we like to do that. We like to have that
conversation. It's good publicity for us. Maybe I shouldn't bring up
(11:48):
the per capita consumption of wine at the Vatican for that
at that moment. But, you know, what's the
big deal? You know what I'm saying? In the meantime, I started a new podcast.
I'm going to release it the next couple days called Song of
America. Gentleman named George Mardikian,
who was a friend of my grandfather's, actually and my family's. But he was
(12:10):
a restaurateur in San Francisco. If you listen to a couple of the old timers
on the podcast, you will hear them talk about a restaurant called
Omar Cayenne's. And Omar Cayennes was
a very well known Middle Eastern restaurant owned by a gentleman
named George Mardikian. His book that he wrote, his
autobiography is called Song of America. And if I,
(12:31):
if I were you, if you're in the restaurant trade, hospitality or just
interested in interesting immigration stories, this is a book,
it's well written and it's really quite extensive. For instance,
George Mardikian was
planning on a restaurant in San Francisco and he decided to get a job
on a cruise line with the contingency that he could jump ship whenever he felt
(12:54):
like it and pick up the next one when it came to port to study
food recipes, primarily Armenian food recipes.
So he jumped ship in a few places, including Singapore and,
and Venice. Why Venice? Because there's an Armenian
monastery in the harbor or in the river
outside of Venice, and they have ancient Armenian recipes that
(13:17):
he mined out there for the restaurant. So Omar
Kayans. So many people, not so many people. Many tomes,
restaurant books of the day, you know, in the food.
The food change in America was in the 80s with the famed LA
chefs Ken Frank, Nancy Silverton, Jonathan Waxman.
And they credit Pat Ture of Maison
(13:41):
of bringing the chef
out of what they call the back house to the front house and greet the
guests. And if you go to Spago today in Beverly Hills and
Wolfgang's working, he will come out and greet you
every table that's not new. That was
happening in the. You could not leave Omar
(14:03):
Cheyennes without Chef Mardiquian coming out to say hi
and watch you eat. This is the Armenian trait. Watch you eat. The other thing
George Mardiquin did, which is not. Which is not touted as new, but it's,
you know, it's touted nowadays as a, as a aspect amazing thing, which is farm
to table. George Martian owned one of the greatest
parcels of land in the Napa Valley. Grew no
(14:25):
grapes. That land now is Quintessa Winery, one of the most valued
properties. But he grew new grapes. He grew. He grew new grapes, he
grew no grapes, he grew vegetables for the restaurant.
So you were getting farm to table. The other thing he did is if you
wore your uniform as a man of
military, you ate free and known for that. So people would go there,
(14:47):
like even Bruce Nyer of the Napa Valley, who's one of the
original guys up there that will tell you. I used to put on my uniform
and go eat because it was free. So Song of America as a podcast
is about immigrants. Such a hot subject now, right?
But immigration has all kinds of forms and so many
nationalities. And you know, it's rife with Armenian stories,
(15:09):
which we have a few already in the can. But this is
not for Armenians only. It's going to be all flights to America
and coming here and having social, financial
or political says, however you want to define success and
hearing these great stories about how great this country is
for people like that. My father in law, my grandfather came here in
(15:32):
1920 something, I think it was,
and he had a. I wish, you know, I wish podcasting
and the equipment you need that, the portability equipment you need to
do these stories was around then. But he was, he
was the carpet man to the stars. He had a huge
carpet store on Santa Monica and Vine in the heart of Hollywood. He was the
(15:54):
president of the Hollywood Rotary Club. This guy with this heavy Turkish accent,
seriously, in the 1950s, was president of one of the great
American social clubs. That's how great America is. And they
used to tease him as a kid. I would go to the meetings and they
would tease him of his accent, but he was the leader, he was the
main guy. And I thought that was really cool for that to have happened.
(16:15):
But Song of America is going to document these stories before they're all
gone and give inspiration to people that,
that live them or the people behind them that live them
for the rest of the public to hear them. Another one I missed, though. You
can hear part of the story on YouTube or on Vimeo, which is a guy
named Art Ikanyan A Y K A N I A N.
(16:37):
Art was my wife's uncle. He invented the straw
that bends. Now isn't that one of those things you say to yourself,
man, I wish I had a penny for every one of those I got. I
wish, you know who thought of this idea. He did
not only think about how to make a machine that would bend a straw because
there was always the bendy straws, like in the hospitals that would turn into paper.
(16:57):
But he invented the plaster one and then he invented
the spoon straw, the straw for the Slurpee.
And so he's got those patents and you would never know it.
In fact, there's a book out of immigrants of all the famous
inventions in America that were by immigrants, like the ATM machine
is an invention, the cement mixer an invention. All
(17:20):
immigrants, America is immigrants. There is no, I mean,
besides The Native American. Everybody else is an immigrant,
and that's who we are. It's a melting pot. It's an
amazing place. And these stories aren't being told.
The success of these people that come here with a
dream, and the dream's still alive. It's still alive.
(17:44):
I have a dream. I posted this on one of my beach rants the other
day. I have a dream to take wine
media to the household, the regular
household, and all the objections I've gotten so far from Hollywood, etc. Of
course, Hollywood's in a mess right now because of the portability of filming
and the cost of American regulations in different cities
(18:06):
that so much of the work has gone out of the country, even,
or to different states, for sure. So Hollywood's struggling, but the number one thing
I get is get us a celebrity like Stanley Tucci and we'll
do a show on wine. But wine, I don't want to do a show of
swirling and sniffing. Who cares? That is intimidating, and that
does propagate the aristocracy of wine. But the stories, these
(18:28):
stories, same stories as the immigrants, possibly. Same idea. Song of America. These
stories behind the people. And when I say I tasted 100,000 wines of my
career, I did just sheer mathematics, but I
heard a hundred thousand stories. I mean, literally every wine that was poured in my
glass had something to say. Some more interesting than others,
but something to say. And my job was
(18:50):
sort of to decide whether that story was obvious through the glass of
wine. So I heard 100,000 stories,
and some of them are amazing. Some of the passion it takes to do this
are amazing. Like, for instance, get on the
podcast and look for Zaya Unan,
an Iranian immigrant. That story alone, the first, like,
(19:12):
25 minutes, where he. How he got to America. Well, he just
invested $300 million. $300 million in
vineyards in Saint Emilion on the Right bank of
Bordeaux. Why? Why? Why do people
wonder, wonder, wonder why people,
when they are successful financially, seek
(19:34):
wineries, wine regions, in his case, Saint Emilion.
But so much of Napa is built up because of
wealth that was acquired through being a doctor or
government contractor or whatever you did to make your wealth. Why? Why does
that happen? What is the expression of wine that's. So that requires you
don't. You don't go off and buy a packaging company. Like, I made a lot
(19:57):
of money, some of my packaging company. You don't go off and buy,
you know, businesses that have no ethereal
human soul to them. But when you've arrived, it
seems to some people
financially, the idea is let's go back to our
human roots with wine. That's interesting to me. So
(20:20):
Zion, who did that after brilliant career in
engineering, has now got three Saint Emilion Bordeaux
wines in his name. I had a conversation with Kelly E. Carter
last week. Her podcast comes out, I think Thursday or it's already
out. Wow. What a story about. She
was like the woman in the locker room story. She's a tall woman. She
(20:43):
was in the Lakers locker room. She blended wine with Kobe Bryant. She.
She knows all about the history of celebrity
status of wines. And she we
just had a great conversation. We could talk for two, three hours without any problem.
But listen to that passion call and how
her celebrity status and her writing
(21:06):
as a journalist in general. She was the sports
writer for USA Today. I mean, all this amazing career
and now it's in wine. And she has a company called Napa Valley
Noir and it's a private touring company in the Napa Valley.
And she knows what she's talking about. Wow. Why? Why?
I used to write books. In fact, she won
(21:29):
LA Times. She's not one. She was a New York Times best selling author with
Venus Williams, the famed tennis player and their book
Come to Win. Great story. I want to finish reading it. So that's today's
rant. Got a lot more to talk about. And we're going to continue to talk
about the things that make me mad. No.
Okay. Cheers.
Hey O. Hey, Paul K. Here we go. It's Wine
talks with Paul K. Man, so many things going on here. Wine
talks with Paul K. Working on a couple of really cool shows.
I was in Armenia last year and shot five days of
interviews with winemakers and we're weaving that into a really
cool show about sort of what it takes, what kind of people it takes, what
(00:22):
kind of perseverance it takes, what kind of passion it takes. You guys hear it
be talking about passion, like why. Like,
it's even hard to articulate because there aren't that many industries though. We
just got the phone with a vendor. He was talking about the way the industry
in Los Angeles anyway, with the consolidation of the
wholesalers and RNDC leaving, just walking up and leaving
(00:45):
thousands of reps on the street. Not, not this, not
hundreds of reps, but not at least thousands of brands
of wines and spirits and all the accessory items
like tonic water that have been abandoned by
RNDC because it was a huge company. And so there's a chart somebody has
posted on Facebook, etc, with the, you know, where these brands
(01:08):
landed. And so I just got the phone. I went to a tasting last week
in Culver City. It was incredible. Tasting from a winery, a group called
Serendipity. And they had some great brands there, new brands
from. From the collapse of rndc.
And so I got to catch up with some old friends and some people, and
these are real marketeers. These are people that really put
(01:29):
stuff on the street. And I was just talking to the sales manager just a
few minutes ago about how there's no
passion in the people that come to the table to sell wine.
And I've talked about this before, but some of the minimum requirements these
days, for instance, to get a job in the wine trade is, for instance,
a wit set W set degree.
(01:52):
Well, W set one is like red wine is
usually red, white wine is usually white.
Is there alcohol in wine? I mean, that's how simple it is. Almost anyone
in the world could pass W set 1 and W set 2 is not that
much harder. But it's necessary to start there so you can understand the sort of
growth of the education. But the idea being that you have to have some kind
(02:14):
of degree is trumped by the idea that that
degree can be ascertained by studying and reading and taking
a test and then you get a job. But do you really care?
Because the minute you walk into a wine shop or a
restaurant without the passion, it takes to
show the enthusiasm for the products that you really love that you're
(02:37):
carrying in your book that you want people, people
earnestly to understand when you pour it in
the glass, you have to have the passion. You have to care. You have to
just care. I think all industries in the world, if you're a salesperson, particularly,
you have to care. If you're an executive at, AT and T, you have to
care, obviously. But this wine, because it's so
(02:58):
intertwined with food and the arts, because it really is art,
that passion has to be obvious when you walk in the door.
I sold copiers for a living and it took passion.
I got yelled out of offices, literally. And how do
you recover from that? You've got to be earnestly believe
that you have the best product to solve the problems of the customer. That's
(03:22):
just the way life is. So one of the things that's kind of popped up
is this ambiance of wine and it's
intimidating. And we've talked about this before and yeah, it is.
Hello. It's a difficult subject. It's very
academic when it wants to be. Like when you take these W set
tests or the master sommelier or the master of wine tests.
(03:43):
Very, very academic. I was talking to a restaurateur not too long ago
and he said his bottle sales were off 40%.
That's a huge nut to, to absorb. I went to wine, I went to
Napa two weeks ago. Winery tasting rooms,
walk in traffic off 30%. Man, if you're
relying on that traffic, that walk in traffic, you are in big
(04:05):
trouble if you're 30% off. In this case, the restaurateur is off 40%.
And we just discussed a little bit of things. And I discussed this ridiculous idea
of changing the language of wine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well,
how's your staff, your waiting staff? How are they trained? And what
he goes, they don't know. That's what he said.
And I went a wonder, wonder, wonder,
(04:27):
wonder who, why sales are off.
I mean, seriously, if you don't have the passion. So the idea, for instance, of
proper wine service, I, I don't think it matters if you're a
novice or an experienced wine drinker
or people that go to fancy restaurants. What if it's the first time you've been
to a fancy restaurant and that steward comes out
(04:50):
with that bottle and the carafe and, you
know, the decanter and decants the wine and you're just sort of, you're just
sort of in awe. And I think I mentioned before, when we were in Palermo,
we went to this restaurant I had the most amazing wine service.
The guy could have been pouring, you know, two Buck Chuck. Well, it's not two
bucks anymore, but he could have been pouring, you know, Cali
(05:12):
red from Snoop Dogg, and it
wouldn't have mattered. You would have just gone, wow, this is incredible. I'm not sure
what it tastes any better, but sometimes it does. It just feels like it
tastes better. But, you know, I don't think proper wine
service is the snobbery of wine. I think it's the requirement
to express how ethereal
(05:35):
a glass of wine can be and how important it is to the human
condition to have that wine. And it changes it. When you do it
properly, it makes it feel better. It makes you feel better. It
adds to the ambiance. It adds to the
circumstance, you know, the pomp and circumstance of having a glass of
wine at a restaurant. I decant at home just for that reason. So
(05:57):
it's not the snobbery of it. It's the class of it. Is
that a better word, the class of it? You know, try and guess what I
am now. A zit. Hey. All right. It's classy. It makes
you feel like you're being taken care of when the proper wine service
comes. And I don't think that should be abandoned. I don't think it's gonna go,
and I don't think it's gonna be abandoned. I think I discussed this
(06:19):
idea, for instance. The opposite idea of what I'm talking about. Yeah, the exact
opposite. We were up in Monterey years ago, and we were sitting at the bar,
and we're watching these amazing supercars go by the
street. Everybody and their mother that had a supercar was in Monterey for the
Concours d'. Elegance. And we were there the first night. We were in a restaurant
right then, downtown Monterey, and happened to be right next
(06:41):
to the waitress's station at the bar. And across the bar
was the house pour wines, which was a brand called
Crane Lake. And I know it well, so. But somebody
had thought this was a good idea at the bar level of service
to put in big, big black felt pen letters,
big black felt pen numbers, the date that the wine
(07:04):
was opened. Now, you know that a red wine that's.
I'm not gonna say instable, but that's sensitive to condition changes,
like a vintage Bordeaux or something. You know,
it can last a day with very little degradation, but after a
day, you start to sense it. It's called oxidation. And there's
lots of devices to help prevent that or slow it down. But in this
(07:27):
case, we're talking about, I mean, literally, you're talking about at the time
what they call a house pour wine sold by a very well known distributor that
probably cost them like four doll. Not that concerned about
making sure the wine lasts more than a day or two because you're probably going
to pour through it anyway. Anyway, the date on the Pinot Noir that was front
and center of this group was at least two weeks old, if I
(07:50):
remember right. At least two weeks old. Now there's no way
that that wine is going to last two weeks. I don't care if you use
the greatest vacuum, you know, system in the world
or gas it yourself. It's going to, it's not
going to be good. And so waitress walked up and said, I'll need a glass
of Pinot as she's, you know, crumbling receipts and moving
(08:11):
stuff around and putting lemon slices in a glass of water while she's waiting
for the pour. And the waiter puts the glass right in front of me and
starts to pour the glass for the waitress. And I look at him, I go,
that's coming back. He goes, what do you mean, sir? I go, look at the
date. I go, seriously? And he goes, thank you.
And he opens a fresh bottle. So here's the problem I have that. I mean,
(08:32):
this is proper wine service. Why, why isn't somebody
making sure that those dates are current? And why
would you put on the front label and big black felt band? That's just, you
know, gauche. But anyway, the, the, if that had gone out, if
I hadn't sat there, it would have gone out. The waitress is too busy
worrying about making sure her client's happy and delivering when she does not
(08:54):
need to make that trip again because the wine's so bad. So
either one of two things is going to happen. The patron's going
to go, ah, what is this? And tell the waitress who's now
run off to another table to do something else but has to come back and
deal with the complaint and go back and get a fresh glass or they're not
going to say anything and they're going to come away with this terrible experience. And
(09:15):
I'm not sure in today's world, in particular in
hospitality, we can afford to have bad
experiences. You know, when I was doing the Wine of the Month club, we had
100% guarantee. We never asked the question if you
just didn't like it, even though I sent you a wine of good example of
what it was, we would send you a replacement. And it
(09:37):
wasn't worth the shipping cost, typically to get an open bottle back. So we just
shipped another one without any questions asked. And that was an important feature of the
club at the time, was that guarantee that you're going to love the wines if
you don't. If you don't love them. So it just. It's
just a fine line to dance where we're talking about the
generations coming behind us that don't really care about their. The experience
(09:59):
of wine that our parents did or that I did as my.
As a parent. But at the same time, there's still those
generations that appreciate that, and I think all generations will come to
it to understand the value of that
ceremony. It's a great ceremony to have that,
to have that, hey, other things going on.
(10:22):
We're headed to Rome to meet the Pope. That's right.
And, you know, the Vatican. My favorite trivia question
throughout most of my career was what
country is the highest consumption of wine per
capita? And by the way, nine times more per
capita than the number two country is the
(10:44):
Vatican. So I'm not sure what that means, but it's
a lot of wine going through there. But we got a chance to meet the
Pope and I emailed ahead
to see if I can get a podcast. And why? Well, you know, wine
is quite biblical, and it's mentioned
dozens and dozens of times in the Bible. It has
(11:05):
great root meaning to the life of Jesus Christ
and the church ceremoniously uses
it. And so I thought, well, what if
somebody in Vatican who actually would sit down if I take my little podcast studio
and somebody in Vatican would actually sit with me? I mean, I don't think the
Pope's going to do it. Do you, though? He is a White
(11:27):
Sox fan, and maybe if I bring a White Sox hat or something he autographs.
I don't know. We'll get it done right? But
I'm waiting to see what they say. They may just say, hey, this American guy's
coming. He's in the wine trade. They look at all the people been on my
show and they say, yeah, we like to do that. We like to have that
conversation. It's good publicity for us. Maybe I shouldn't bring up
(11:48):
the per capita consumption of wine at the Vatican for that
at that moment. But, you know, what's the
big deal? You know what I'm saying? In the meantime, I started a new podcast.
I'm going to release it the next couple days called Song of
America. Gentleman named George Mardikian,
who was a friend of my grandfather's, actually and my family's. But he was
(12:10):
a restaurateur in San Francisco. If you listen to a couple of the old timers
on the podcast, you will hear them talk about a restaurant called
Omar Cayenne's. And Omar Cayennes was
a very well known Middle Eastern restaurant owned by a gentleman
named George Mardikian. His book that he wrote, his
autobiography is called Song of America. And if I,
(12:31):
if I were you, if you're in the restaurant trade, hospitality or just
interested in interesting immigration stories, this is a book,
it's well written and it's really quite extensive. For instance,
George Mardikian was
planning on a restaurant in San Francisco and he decided to get a job
on a cruise line with the contingency that he could jump ship whenever he felt
(12:54):
like it and pick up the next one when it came to port to study
food recipes, primarily Armenian food recipes.
So he jumped ship in a few places, including Singapore and,
and Venice. Why Venice? Because there's an Armenian
monastery in the harbor or in the river
outside of Venice, and they have ancient Armenian recipes that
(13:17):
he mined out there for the restaurant. So Omar
Kayans. So many people, not so many people. Many tomes,
restaurant books of the day, you know, in the food.
The food change in America was in the 80s with the famed LA
chefs Ken Frank, Nancy Silverton, Jonathan Waxman.
And they credit Pat Ture of Maison
(13:41):
of bringing the chef
out of what they call the back house to the front house and greet the
guests. And if you go to Spago today in Beverly Hills and
Wolfgang's working, he will come out and greet you
every table that's not new. That was
happening in the. You could not leave Omar
(14:03):
Cheyennes without Chef Mardiquian coming out to say hi
and watch you eat. This is the Armenian trait. Watch you eat. The other thing
George Mardiquin did, which is not. Which is not touted as new, but it's,
you know, it's touted nowadays as a, as a aspect amazing thing, which is farm
to table. George Martian owned one of the greatest
parcels of land in the Napa Valley. Grew no
(14:25):
grapes. That land now is Quintessa Winery, one of the most valued
properties. But he grew new grapes. He grew. He grew new grapes, he
grew no grapes, he grew vegetables for the restaurant.
So you were getting farm to table. The other thing he did is if you
wore your uniform as a man of
military, you ate free and known for that. So people would go there,
(14:47):
like even Bruce Nyer of the Napa Valley, who's one of the
original guys up there that will tell you. I used to put on my uniform
and go eat because it was free. So Song of America as a podcast
is about immigrants. Such a hot subject now, right?
But immigration has all kinds of forms and so many
nationalities. And you know, it's rife with Armenian stories,
(15:09):
which we have a few already in the can. But this is
not for Armenians only. It's going to be all flights to America
and coming here and having social, financial
or political says, however you want to define success and
hearing these great stories about how great this country is
for people like that. My father in law, my grandfather came here in
(15:32):
1920 something, I think it was,
and he had a. I wish, you know, I wish podcasting
and the equipment you need that, the portability equipment you need to
do these stories was around then. But he was, he
was the carpet man to the stars. He had a huge
carpet store on Santa Monica and Vine in the heart of Hollywood. He was the
(15:54):
president of the Hollywood Rotary Club. This guy with this heavy Turkish accent,
seriously, in the 1950s, was president of one of the great
American social clubs. That's how great America is. And they
used to tease him as a kid. I would go to the meetings and they
would tease him of his accent, but he was the leader, he was the
main guy. And I thought that was really cool for that to have happened.
(16:15):
But Song of America is going to document these stories before they're all
gone and give inspiration to people that,
that live them or the people behind them that live them
for the rest of the public to hear them. Another one I missed, though. You
can hear part of the story on YouTube or on Vimeo, which is a guy
named Art Ikanyan A Y K A N I A N.
(16:37):
Art was my wife's uncle. He invented the straw
that bends. Now isn't that one of those things you say to yourself,
man, I wish I had a penny for every one of those I got. I
wish, you know who thought of this idea. He did
not only think about how to make a machine that would bend a straw because
there was always the bendy straws, like in the hospitals that would turn into paper.
(16:57):
But he invented the plaster one and then he invented
the spoon straw, the straw for the Slurpee.
And so he's got those patents and you would never know it.
In fact, there's a book out of immigrants of all the famous
inventions in America that were by immigrants, like the ATM machine
is an invention, the cement mixer an invention. All
(17:20):
immigrants, America is immigrants. There is no, I mean,
besides The Native American. Everybody else is an immigrant,
and that's who we are. It's a melting pot. It's an
amazing place. And these stories aren't being told.
The success of these people that come here with a
dream, and the dream's still alive. It's still alive.
(17:44):
I have a dream. I posted this on one of my beach rants the other
day. I have a dream to take wine
media to the household, the regular
household, and all the objections I've gotten so far from Hollywood, etc. Of
course, Hollywood's in a mess right now because of the portability of filming
and the cost of American regulations in different cities
(18:06):
that so much of the work has gone out of the country, even,
or to different states, for sure. So Hollywood's struggling, but the number one thing
I get is get us a celebrity like Stanley Tucci and we'll
do a show on wine. But wine, I don't want to do a show of
swirling and sniffing. Who cares? That is intimidating, and that
does propagate the aristocracy of wine. But the stories, these
(18:28):
stories, same stories as the immigrants, possibly. Same idea. Song of America. These
stories behind the people. And when I say I tasted 100,000 wines of my
career, I did just sheer mathematics, but I
heard a hundred thousand stories. I mean, literally every wine that was poured in my
glass had something to say. Some more interesting than others,
but something to say. And my job was
(18:50):
sort of to decide whether that story was obvious through the glass of
wine. So I heard 100,000 stories,
and some of them are amazing. Some of the passion it takes to do this
are amazing. Like, for instance, get on the
podcast and look for Zaya Unan,
an Iranian immigrant. That story alone, the first, like,
(19:12):
25 minutes, where he. How he got to America. Well, he just
invested $300 million. $300 million in
vineyards in Saint Emilion on the Right bank of
Bordeaux. Why? Why? Why do people
wonder, wonder, wonder why people,
when they are successful financially, seek
(19:34):
wineries, wine regions, in his case, Saint Emilion.
But so much of Napa is built up because of
wealth that was acquired through being a doctor or
government contractor or whatever you did to make your wealth. Why? Why does
that happen? What is the expression of wine that's. So that requires you
don't. You don't go off and buy a packaging company. Like, I made a lot
(19:57):
of money, some of my packaging company. You don't go off and buy,
you know, businesses that have no ethereal
human soul to them. But when you've arrived, it
seems to some people
financially, the idea is let's go back to our
human roots with wine. That's interesting to me. So
(20:20):
Zion, who did that after brilliant career in
engineering, has now got three Saint Emilion Bordeaux
wines in his name. I had a conversation with Kelly E. Carter
last week. Her podcast comes out, I think Thursday or it's already
out. Wow. What a story about. She
was like the woman in the locker room story. She's a tall woman. She
(20:43):
was in the Lakers locker room. She blended wine with Kobe Bryant. She.
She knows all about the history of celebrity
status of wines. And she we
just had a great conversation. We could talk for two, three hours without any problem.
But listen to that passion call and how
her celebrity status and her writing
(21:06):
as a journalist in general. She was the sports
writer for USA Today. I mean, all this amazing career
and now it's in wine. And she has a company called Napa Valley
Noir and it's a private touring company in the Napa Valley.
And she knows what she's talking about. Wow. Why? Why?
I used to write books. In fact, she won
(21:29):
LA Times. She's not one. She was a New York Times best selling author with
Venus Williams, the famed tennis player and their book
Come to Win. Great story. I want to finish reading it. So that's today's
rant. Got a lot more to talk about. And we're going to continue to talk
about the things that make me mad. No.
Okay. Cheers.
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