April 17, 2024 • 63 mins
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Uncork the secret life of a wine influencer with our special guest, Wine with Paige, as we traverse her journey from novice to certified American wine expert. The Bung Pod's very own Wine Wonderboy and Jazzy J welcome you to a world where Washington vintages dazzle and wine trends like milk meets Merlot make for eyebrow-raising sips. Paige spills the grapes on her Walla Walla adventures, and together, we tackle the genuine palette of experiences that come with the title of 'wine influencer' – all while savoring the crisp notes of a Loire Valley Shannon Blanc.
Raise your glass as we share the eclectic side of oenophilia through our personal escapades, from mixing Coca-Cola with reds to the surprise wine gems waiting in the United States' less acclaimed wine regions. We even recount travel gaffes that serve as learning moments for any aspiring globetrotter, emphasizing the wealth of history and culture in storied wine destinations. Blending becomes an art form in our discussions, where a small grape percentage change can lead to a symphony of flavors, and wine marketing emerges as a craft that's as intricate as the winemaking process itself.
Tune in for a toast to community and craftsmanship, where we navigate social media's complexities, the labyrinth of wine laws, and the joy of sharing a good vintage. We share our insights into the importance of a diverse tasting regimen, the wonders of honing your aroma dictionary, and the warm tradition of enjoying a bottle among friends. Our episode concludes with a hearty cheer to Paige, inviting our listeners to support her wine-fueled passion and to join us in celebrating the vibrant, ever-evolving narrative of wine on the Bung Pod.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bung pod.
Welcome back, wine Wonderboy.
And we got Jazzy, j Jazzy.
What is a bung?
The hole of the barrel iscalled a bung hole.
Inside the bung hole is calleda bung Wine with mayhem.
That's what it's about.
Welcome back everybody.
(00:21):
Welcome back to the Bung Pod.
It's your boy, ian King, akaWine Wonderboy.
I have my co-host with me, jazzyJ Say what's up.
We have an awesome guest today.
For you guys, this is our firstremote podcast experience, so
this will be very fun and alearning experience as well.
But we have Wine with Paigewith us.
(00:44):
What up, paige?
How's it going?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hello, hello, hello, excited to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Good, could use some more sunshine.
It's been gray and dairy inNapa, but uh, other than that
great.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Nice, so you're based in Napa.
We're up here in Washingtonstate, um Shalan area to be
specific.
Um, you were up here recently,um, how was your visit here?
Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It was great.
I need to come back.
I was there just like two days,so too short yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Super short.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
But it was beautiful, it was fantastic.
Great wine, great people.
It was fun.
Have you had many Washingtonwines before?
Um, yes, I will say I drink alot of California, being in
California, um, but I loveWashington wine and so, yeah,
I've had a fair share okay, nice, mostly from Walla, walla or
(01:38):
yeah, so Walla Walla was myfirst Washington trip.
I went nice 2022, I think, umand so that was my first
Washington trip and I feel like,yeah, I drink a lot of Walla
Walla, um, just kind ofWashington in general.
So Lake Chillon and then um,rocky Rocky Ridge were new to me
.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Do you remember any uh WallaWalla wines that you had that
were of note, any producers thatyou can remember?
It was probably a while ago,but I should have referenced my
notes.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Even I have to reference my notes for
everything.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I mean you have so many wines it's hard to like
remember all of them.
You know he's actually reallygood at that.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
For some reason, like he just has like a little index
in his head and I'm like how inthe world do you remember all
that?
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I wish I could Like.
My new year's resolution thisyear was to keep a running Excel
sheet of everything I've tastedthis year, and I did really
well in January, and I haven'tupdated it.
Oh no, I have like photosbecause, like when you're doing
walk around tastings or whenyou're, like, out tasting with
people, it's hard to, like,obviously, update an Excel sheet
(02:49):
.
So like I've taken photos ofeverything intending to put it
in, but yeah, it's been twomonths now so I might've lost
that.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, are you drinking anything right now?
Just water, just water.
You got some water.
That's cool.
We have a little shannon blancright here from the loire valley
.
Um, francois chedain, theproducer, uh, near vouvray, but
he's amazing.
He's a really um small producerin the loire valley, the wine
(03:19):
shop I used to work for in santabarbara.
We always brought it in it's.
Yeah, it's really good.
Um, so let me ask you the firstquestion I have on my list Um,
tell us a little bit about yourwine background, like what's
your experience in wine and howyou got into doing what you're
doing now.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, so my wine background started with wine for
dummies.
Um, I was in college.
I was like freshly 21.
I was going through a businessprogram, um, and I felt like I
really didn't fit in with theother business school kids.
Um, and.
I was like, okay, what dobusiness people know about?
Like, like, how do I fit inthis business world?
Um, and I was like wine andgolf, but it was like December
(04:03):
when I decided this, so wine wasthe choice.
Um, and it was Christmasdecember when I decided this so
wine was the choice.
Yeah, um, and it was christmasbreak.
I picked up wine for dummiesover break, like, devoured it
and immediately fell in lovewith, like, just the depth and
breadth that wine covers.
Like I I like wasn't evendrinking it at that point, I
just really, like from a nerdyperspective, fell in love with
(04:24):
it.
Um, and was it well written yes,yes okay very well written,
very easy to understand like myparents don't drink at all, so I
had no wine background at all.
Um, and I I felt like itcovered everything really well.
I really liked it.
I still it's like my mostrecommended book to people when
they're trying to figure thingsout oh, that's awesome and from
(04:46):
there I picked up every singlebook I could find in my library
and just became obsessed.
And since then I've done my Wset two, my W set three and I'm
a certified American wine expert.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Nice, hey, that's awesome, congratulations.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
You eventually want to go on and do more.
But uh, it's hard to run abusiness and study at the same
time.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, definitely, I want to do my diploma at some
point.
And then the French winescholar is really interesting.
I'm a little bit of aFrancophile, so yeah, that would
be really fun.
I think that would be.
So can you tell us, like, whatexactly is an influencer, and
can you give us like a behindthe scenes look at what your day
(05:29):
is like?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yes, ish to both of those.
Okay, I feel like for a longtime.
I like hated and stillsometimes internally cringe at
the word influencer because Ithink there's such a negative
connotation that goes along withit.
But in the wine world there'sthis incredible group of people
who are really knowledgeableabout wine.
Most of us have credentials,we're very passionate, we love
it and it's just somebody whoacts as kind of a conduit
(05:56):
between wineries and consumers.
We translate the knowledgebecause a lot of people in the
wine industry like speak thewine nerd terms like I love that
, but you have to be, able tospeak, consumer too yeah, so
it's really just somebody who,like, is creating content that's
fun and engaging and translatesthe information and brings it
to people where they're at, onsocial media.
(06:16):
Um, as for what my day-to-daylooks like, it really varies it
really really varies.
I try to.
I thrive on routine, so I tryto structure my day or my weeks,
on a day-to-day basis.
Monday I sit down and I reviewwhat content is doing well and I
write all my scripts for thingsthat I have coming up.
(06:36):
That week I send recaps ofprojects if I had paid
partnerships to partners andjust kind of like get a feel for
what's trending.
Um Tuesday is when I filmeverything.
The other perk of doing thisbulk thing is I only put on
makeup like twice a week.
I like I like to gremlin, so Ilike gremlin days where I don't
(06:59):
see or talk to anybody.
I can just like be on acomputer.
Um but so Tuesdays I will filmeverything, uh, edit videos,
engage with the community.
Wednesday's my client day, so Ido have some clients who I do
social media for, so I'll runtheir social media pages, or, um
, if I have photos to edit,cause I do freelance photography
as well.
That's what.
(07:19):
Wednesday is for, just thingsfor other people, thursday is
when I write, so I have awebsite in addition to Instagram
, and so I'll do all my contentwriting on Thursday.
And then Friday is a catch upday, whatever I didn't get done
the rest of the week, but, but,but.
But.
The caveat to that is thatthere's always opportunities to
taste with winemakers theseevents.
(07:40):
So, like yesterday, I spent allday over in Lodi, um, so I did
not get any blog writing done,but I made a bunch of content.
I met with people.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I learned a lot more about the region, um a lot of uh
and Zinfandel over there rightand Lodi, yes, yeah, Like lots
of really beautiful old gnarlyvines yeah.
Um they have.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I think it's 40% of California's old vines are in
Lodi, which.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I didn't know, but that was pretty cool.
That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I love old vines.
They're just so pretty yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
They're so pretty, um , all right.
So I'm going to ask a questionis so you kind of explained that
you brought, or like picked up,wine for dummies, but when did
you really decide like I'm goingto make this a career and like
launch it?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
it was never like a singular moment, um, it really
just kind of happened and didn'thappen.
Like I never set out to be aninfluencer or content creator.
So at some point it was when Iwas doing my WSET3.
I had just moved to California.
I had lived in New York prior.
(08:52):
I moved out to California for adifferent corporate job, but I
was coming up to Wine Countryall the time because I loved it.
I was doing my WSET3 because Iloved it, and so I had this
moment where I knew I didn'twant to work in corporate
America forever.
But for these corporatecompanies, like I was doing
e-commerce, I was doing digitalmarketing, I was doing strategy,
(09:19):
and I looked at these winerywebsites that I was visiting and
their social media and most ofit was really terrible at the
time.
It's gotten better, but there'sstill a lot of really bad
winery websites, yeah, um.
And so I was like, okay, whatif?
What if someday I work formyself and I do like something
with either winery websites,wine strategy, digital marketing
strategy or photography,because I also have a
photography background and Ilove photography.
(09:40):
Um, so that's kind of what Ilike was like something over
here is what I want to do.
And I started posting onInstagram as a way to build my
photo portfolio and just kind ofshare about what I was learning
and nerd out some more, andaccidentally became an
influencer along the way.
(10:01):
Turns out other people wantedto learn about wine from social
media and I enjoyed sharingabout it and it really just
brought together so many piecesof my background in a way that I
never expected or even reallyknew existed when.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I began.
So you brought up websites.
How important do you think fora winery, how important do you
think having a good website isLike?
How many people do you reallythink go to the website and use
it?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I mean, I think it's crucial whether you're doing
like, whether you're sellingwine online, like whether that's
your goal to sell the wineonline, or whether you're trying
to get people in your tastingroom.
They're going to visit thewebsite and they want
information, and they wantinformation to be easy.
Um, so, like, it doesn't haveto be like a complex, like crazy
website, but it needs to beeasy to navigate.
(10:52):
Um, and that's actually so.
I did wine with page on theside for what?
Three years ish, I think?
Um, no, two years, two yearsbefore I transitioned full time,
and that was really, honestly,talking about winery websites
was like what made me make thefull dive.
It was during 2020, when all ofthe wineries were panicking and
(11:14):
realizing they lost their foottraffic and needed digital
traffic, and so I started doingwinery website feedback sessions
, like for free Cause I wasstill being paid by corporate
America at the time, yeah, yeah.
So like I was just having thesegreat calls with winemakers
about how they could likeimprove their website, make
things easier for people to findand buy their wine, and I
(11:35):
realized that was really what Iwanted to do so did you like
cold call them, or did you likedrop off a business card um?
I wine with.
Page was already like two yearsold at that point, so I had a
good good site as an audience atthe time.
Okay, um, so I just posted onthere.
I posted on the offering, thefree sessions, and people were
(11:56):
more than happy to take me up onit yeah, yeah, were they, what
would you say?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
like your website sucks, let me help you like,
honestly, nicely.
Yes, you need a facelift, honey.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I mean I would go through the whole, like I would
go through their website.
I would look at, like if I wasa consumer, like going in, like
can I find, like can I even findthe wine to buy?
Can I find information like whywould I want to buy this wine?
Like I mean, now their hoursmatter it didn't matter at the
time because it was COVID butlike yeah, or like can I even
find, like your events?
Cause so many people were doingdigital events at the time.
(12:32):
And I mean I feel like to me asboth somebody who worked in
e-commerce and like was workingon websites all the time, but
also as generally just a youngperson who's chronically online,
some of the things seem obvious, but they aren't to everybody
yeah yeah, I can totallyunderstand that, especially for,
(12:55):
like I hate to say, but, like,the older generation that didn't
grow up with, like, having aniphone or yeah, whatever it is,
you know it.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
you really got to dumb it down for all generations
and we're just not at the pointof, like this is going to sound
terrible, but we're not at thepoint of, like, getting rid of
that older generation that, likehas no knowledge.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Um, but I feel like people are getting much better
with being able to handle socialmedia and just any websites I
mean, I think I think we had toin 2020 was really like a
wake-up moment for a lot ofpeople yeah, yeah, absolutely
yeah, so many people got um, uh,uncomfortably introduced, I
(13:45):
feel like to e-commerce.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You know, and also just marketing on social media.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
So yeah, so with social media and just in general
, what wine trend do youabsolutely hate?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I don't know that I hate any.
If you could, I I mean I thinkI hate the people who hate on
wine trends more than anythinglike um, I'm on, are you on
grape loop, the wine communityfor people in the industry no,
no it's.
(14:24):
It's kind of like slack ishokay for people in the wine
industry okay, so like people,all right.
Yeah, it's a great website downum, but somebody recently on
there was complaining aboutapparently there's a tiktok
trend where people are addingmilk to wine.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, okay there's also another trend, that is,
boxed wine with sprite, and Isaw someone do it and I was like
I saw like red red wine withcoca-cola one time that's
popular in spain.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
That's been popular in spain for oh yes, and it's
really good is it really good?
Speaker 1 (15:05):
it's really good, it sounds so gross okay, so you've
tried it.
It's like a cherry coke yeah, Ican see if it's, if it's like a
mexican coke, um with the uhcane sugar sugar yeah, the real
sugar instead of like theamerican coke.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I hate them yeah, and then you want like a fruity, a
fruity fresh wine, like a youngcompany.
You know, like spain, somethingelse to wine like a young.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Campanile like.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Spain.
You'll have to try it.
It's good.
I guess no doctor said youshould try it.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I guess you know.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I know I've been just hating on this and I don't even
know it's good.
I also saw Did you try it inSpain?
Yeah, I did, yeah, okay, so itwas authentic, it was real.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, it was an authentic Coke wine, authentic
Coke yeah, that's amazing.
The other one, though, that Isaw recently was sweet and
condensed milk mixed with redwine, what which sounds
disgustingly good, and Iactually bought a can of it, but
I haven't tried it yet.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Okay, you got to let me know how you like that.
Yeah, I don't know if I'll trythat one I can't.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I need to find a bottle of wine that I don't mind
wasting a glass of.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Did you just find that online or were you Like, is
that?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
trending on TikTok.
I just scrolled and it came upOkay, like went to the shop or
whatever it is, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Oh, interesting.
Or putting wine through like ablender for a while.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Oh yeah, or like using it they get frothy yeah,
frothy yeah.
Oh, that's that stresses me out.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Okay, I might hate that one that might be the one.
There we go.
Yes, totally, there's betterways to do that.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Do you need everything to be a latte?
I don't know.
Um.
Well, speaking of other wineregions, um, do you have a
favorite wine region that you'vetraveled to?
It's hard to choose Um or onethat you're pleasantly surprised
by.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I've been pleasantly surprised by a lot, Cause my
life goal is to visit all 50States and go to a winery in
that state.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Oh okay, so I've been to some bad places but yeah,
don't um bring out I mean don'tcall out the bad place,
obviously, but um which Stateshave you been to thus far?
Speaker 2 (17:17):
um washington, oregon , california, texas, alabama,
georgia.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Okay I've been to georgia as well for wine, the
state they like to bring in napagrapes, they do that oh
interesting yeah, more juicethan grapes.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Um what?
New york, connecticut,tennessee?
Tennessee was my first wineregion.
I actually visited rightoutside now, oh wow interesting
michigan, I'm from michigan.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Okay, I might be forgetting somewhere, but that's
the gist of it okay, and thenhave you traveled to like any
European areas or yeah, and Iwill say, when it comes to like
the most beautiful wine regions,those take the cake for sure.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Like I was in Chianti Classico a couple of years ago
and that was stunning.
Um last summer I was in um theDuero Valley.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Duero Valley also incredible because they have the
terraced vineyards that wasjust so cool to see.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, I really want to see the go to Rias Baixas and
see the pergola system thatthey have for their albarino
there.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, that would be really cool.
I have not been there yet, butthat's high on my list too.
Or uh, in greece.
I would love to go to greecewhere they do the like, the
little nests oh yeah, basketsyeah I'm going there in 2025 and
I'm so excited, so excited.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, I'm gonna go all the places.
Is that your first time goingto g Um?
So, like back in like eighthgrade, for my mom's like 50th or
whatever, we took a cruise fromSpain to Turkey and you know I
couldn't appreciate it at thetime.
I probably could have drank,don't get me wrong, but I didn't
(19:13):
.
And even if I did, it's notlike I could really embrace what
I could embrace now.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I can't even remember what I had last week.
Um so, but yeah, I'm going toGreece and, like some of the
Greek islands, and then we alsoare ending up in Italy, so
obviously I'll be staying therefor a couple extra days to, yeah
, go see some fun places yeah,I've never been to europe, I
(19:43):
still need to go.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I know ever I need to go.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, you do, I need to go he, he had a trip plan and
then and then his passport wasgonna expire what?
In like a month three months,three months, and they wouldn't
let him in yeah, I don't reallytravel.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
You know, I obviously I don't really travel uh that
often um internationally atleast.
And I didn't know the wholerule of the eu about the
three-month thing or somecountries at six months your
passport can't expire.
I was one day off.
They tried to get me on theplane.
They said if your, if yourflight was booked um yesterday,
(20:26):
then you would be on this planeright now.
I'm like mother.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
That's heartbreaking he called me and he's like you
will not not believe whathappened, and I was like, only
to you, only to you.
And he's like working onDuolingo, like working on his
French and everything, frenchand everything.
Oh gosh, it was so bad.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Luckily, I mean.
My girlfriend picked me up fromthe airport and she was just so
bummed out for me that we ohyeah.
At this point we like juststarted dating, so she wasn't
coming with, I wasn't going totake a year trip.
You know, someone just startedto date.
So, um, she picked me up fromthe airport and then she was so
(21:08):
nice.
She was like, okay, let's go toall the parisian uh bakeries
and kitchens and wine bars inSeattle, and so that's what we
did for like the whole afternoonand I was like, okay, this is
good, this is fine, it's okay.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
I'm having a good time right now, this is okay.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
She's like you should order in French.
I'm like no, no, Settle downthere, shut up.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
No, oh, that's so sweet of her though, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I know right, you need to reclaim that, so nice.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, this time she's coming with me, since you know
she's with me still.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Surprisingly yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Surprisingly Enough.
So what is so?
We talked about trends that youhate, but is there like a
tasting note that you I wouldn'tsay hate but just like disagree
with, or you're like I don'treally agree with that tasting
note for this varietal, or apopular tasting note that's out
(22:09):
there.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Like I don't like how it tastes or I don't want.
Like I think the note itself iswrong.
Like the note itself, you'relike I don't want like I think
the note itself is wrong.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Like the note itself, you're like I don't think
that's right.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Um, I think the term foxy is interestingly debated,
Right I so I grew up in Michigan.
Like I taste, I've tasted a lotof Michigan wines and a lot of
weird I mean now my parents arein Georgia, so I've tasted a lot
of southern wines.
Yeah, I think I know what foxyis like I've had a lot of
(22:41):
muscadine in my life, a lot ofit, um, but I've had, like I've
gotten into like debates withpsalms who have never had
muscadine, but they think theyknow what like foxy is when
you're describing it and I'mlike, okay, I'm like I've
actually tasted it.
Yeah, I can tell you that it'slike, it's not that yeah, yeah,
(23:04):
what about um mousy?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
because?
That one mousy is one that I, Iwouldn't say disagree with.
I just haven't reallyexperienced or know exactly what
mousy is um, or I haven't, Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I feel like it tastes like wet, like you know, like
do you ever have a friend whohad a hamster?
Yes, or have a hamster,multiple?
Like I feel like mousy to me islike what, like when their
bedding gets wet, that's what itsmells like it's like wet
Speaker 1 (23:40):
hamster bedding gotcha okay like I've also heard
of like day old kombucha.
Like if you have like akombucha bottle, that's been
like you know you drank half ofit and you just leave it on the
counter room temperature andthen you try it the next day,
it's like furry and it kind ofstuck sticks in your throat like
(24:02):
right here it's nasty andthat's what I've never done,
that I don't think I want to,based on that descriptor yeah
yeah, it's not great, I wouldn't
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I want to hear that story.
I wouldn't recommend it.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I feel like I would be afraid to drink kombucha.
I left out.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, like it's literally, it's been a while for
me.
I haven't drank kombucha sincecollege.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Since that experience .
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, Since that experience really, I used to be
big on kombucha in college, youknow it was all the rage.
And then I was like after thatday, old one, I was like I can't
get this taste out of my throatBecause it's stuck in my throat
, kind of.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yuck, I learned to make it once.
Oh, that's fun At a winery anevent where they taught us how
to make kombucha, which was veryinteresting, but then I was.
They gave us us everything totake it home and keep doing it,
but I was convinced that I wasgoing to poison myself.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
I could understand that.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Like the Mother Scobie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Have you ever done blending trials?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Not in official capacity.
I've done where wineries haveblending workshops for consumers
.
So I've done that a few times,which is always interesting and
what have you created?
Um, I have a beautiful blendover here that I'm waiting to
try still.
Um, it tasted like blueberrypie when I bottled it.
(25:32):
It's been like a year um it'slike aussie Shiraz to me.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Blueberry pie.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I like blueberry pie.
When I bottled it it's beenlike a year.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Um, it's like aussie shiraz to me.
Blueberry pie, I like blueberrypie.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I feel like the most interesting, like insightful one
that I did was in chianticlassico actually.
Um, that's cool.
It's like they allow smallamounts of like cabernet and
blend and you wouldn't thinklike 1% of cab mixed with San
Giovese would make a hugedifference, but it completely
changes everything.
It was really interesting tosee, like how, how the very
(26:05):
small amounts can make such abig change.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, that reminds me of those uh memes, that like
shitty wine memes, you know, oryou know whoever on Instagram
posts and they're like oh, I cantaste that one percent of
petite verdot you can.
You can, though, like yeah,especially when you're doing
blending trials and you see thesuch a huge difference of uh
(26:29):
with it.
I mean, I'm doing that rightnow, we're blending for bottling
soon and, um, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
It's wild that one percent can really do to
something you know do you ever,or whatever, when you're doing
your blending trials, do youever, like, accidentally forget
to take a note of what you madein the testing tube and you're
like this was great, what wasthat?
Speaker 1 (26:52):
um, not really I've.
We're pretty, pretty good aboutwriting everything down.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Much more professional than I have been in
my blending sessions.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, I mean, when we're doing blending, that takes
like the whole afternoon,that's like our whole day is
like we're doing blending stuff.
And so at the first round weusually taste for faults.
Um, we taste, taste each barrellike like okay, this one's
faulty, or um, or like this onejust doesn't have the fruit
notes that we want, but it hassome earth, so let's mark it for
(27:24):
you know something to add intoa blend, for something complex,
um, but, and then we do likeanother round for each kind of
blend that we're looking at,because we have a couple
different, like you know,bordeaux blends that we do um,
and so we'll mark.
We have like a high end, amid-tier and like a low end
bordeaux blends.
Um, it's not really like low,it's just like um, approachable
(27:48):
it's not yeah yeah, exactlyapproachable entry level.
You know people pleaser um kindof wine, and so our bottom of
the barrel stuff goes into acompletely different blend that
we don't even sell in TastetreeMountain, I think.
But yeah, so we do about like Idon't know, I taste each barrel
probably eight different times.
(28:11):
I want to say it's a lot.
All right, let's take a quickbreak for a second, because I
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(28:33):
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(29:16):
Now let's get back to the show.
Yeah, it's a rough life, it's alot, and so I do a lot of.
I always have my phone on me,so all my blending notes and
stuff I'm like, okay, it's justlike in my phone, like I don't
even have it yeah, and I'm stillum copied on that.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
So everything you've been doing I've been getting
notified I'll take you off ofthat, yeah because we used to
work together and now I'msomewhere else and so we still
have a shared tasting notes, andso all day today I've just been
I was doing tasting notes forthe upcoming releases making you
(29:49):
thirsty If you're reading them.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I was like I'm so excited for my interview today.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
I was like I'm so excited for my interview today.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Good stuff coming up.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
So what do you love most about?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
your job being a blogger and everything that you
get to do.
I really love creating, Like Iloved photography and I love
storytelling.
I used to.
Before I did this, once upon atime in another life, I used to
shoot weddings.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Did you finish, like, with your business degree?
Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, so when I was in college I used to shoot
weddings and high school seniorportraits and I really wanted to
be a fashion photographer but Iwas like that's not practical.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
So I'll get a business degree.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
So I got my business degree and worked in corporate
for several years, but thecreativity factor and just
having the opportunity to tellstories and engage with people's
stories and share those storiesis really my favorite part.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Oh, that's so fun, gosh, she gets me.
She's like another me Biggolfer wino into photography.
I'm here for it.
Business.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Business and marketing.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Business and marketing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
She's a business lady , I just create things.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And then do post-production.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah, that's all I do .
I just point fingers and tellthem what to do.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, basically Men typically need that, do
post-production yeah I justpoint fingers and tell them what
to do.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yeah, basically, men typically need that yeah, yeah,
especially when I'm in businesswith him, I'm like all right,
here's what your tasks are thisweek.
Yeah, um, not wrong, not wrong.
Hey, you get it done though Itry and if you don't, you're
like I'm always falling behindon everything you are.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah I feel like that's just the chronic state of
everyone's life right now Idon't know, oh my gosh, it feels
like they're up to date oneverything they need to be doing
.
Not at all.
Not at all.
I need to pay my taxes I do too.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I did get that done.
Actually, I made my boyfrienddo that for me.
Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
There you go, so you know.
So I have a question just aboutsocial media in general for
marketing.
Do you still think because itseems Instagram is so like
saturated Do you still thinkit's a great place to build a
community and reach new people?
(32:19):
Or do you think there's othersocial media platforms are
better for reach and then theothers more for kind of
marketing?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I think Instagram still has a place.
I mean, I still know so manypeople who are pretty much only
on Instagram and don't useTikTok, Um, so I think it still
has a place.
It's definitely changed andevolved in the last couple of
years, Um, but I still think ithas a place and I I, I mean, I
(32:48):
have great conversations in myDMS all the time, um, with
people asking me forrecommendations or where they
should go or telling me like thewine they're drinking.
So I think I think it's alittle bit harder to have
community on Instagram and theway during the pandemic, it was
so much easier because peoplewere doing Instagram lives and
people were chronically onlineand it was easy.
Um, I do think it's gottenharder and it's gotten more
(33:09):
saturated, like you said, but Ido think it still has a place
and I love it.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I will say I love how I mean, even when we reached
out to you, you were sosupportive and I mean I
appreciate it so much, but youwere really good at responding
and even with so many followersor whatever it is like, it was
still you behind the screen,whereas, like some people, yeah,
(33:35):
they have, have a social media,but they don't have any control
over it.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
So I really did appreciate that well, thanks,
and I think that's somewherelike small wineries can win,
because it's typically like thembehind the scenes answering the
dms like being able to havethose one-on-one conversations
with people who are asking like,oh, I have a bottle of your
wine, what should I pair it withtonight?
Or questions like that.
But yeah, thank you.
(34:01):
I'm not always, I'll admit I'mnot always great at answering my
DMs.
I'm trying to be better.
Another one of my newestresolutions.
Hey well you did it for us.
It is always me who answers.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It is you Exactly?
Yeah, it is you exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
It's a lot of work, like one person you know and you
get so many totally especiallyspam a lot.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
It is um also, though .
Hold on circling back, though,to your original question,
because I think it's interestingtoo no, I mean I love it.
I just I think this is such aninteresting question because
things are evolving so quicklyon social media right now, um,
and I think tiktok is reallyinteresting.
I know there's the like will westill have tiktok in three, six
months, like because of thelegislation stuff.
(34:42):
But I do think tiktok is reallyinteresting from an opportunity
to educate consumers, because Ithink people have longer
attention spans on tiktok.
Like I use it to learn things,like I will watch a three minute
five minute long video on thereto learn something, whereas on
Instagram it's still much moreaesthetic.
So I think it has a place.
(35:04):
There's also some likeconflicting, confusing stuff,
though, about wineries being onTikTok.
So wineries themselves can'tbecause the platform is still
largely under 21,.
But there's been, like there'sbeen great examples like bell
gloss, like their wine, theirwinemaker has a tiktok and he
does stuff and so it's notofficially the brand, it's him,
(35:26):
but he's obviously using thewine and showing the wine and
like wait, so for wait.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Okay, so a winery.
I'm so confused.
Yeah, technically a winery.
I'm so confused.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Technically, a winery should not have a Tik TOK
account because the platform asa whole has like, the percentage
of age group that's on there isstill largely under 21.
I am just like people are doingit it exists, oh yeah I've
(35:58):
connected with people on there.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
I'm not gonna name who it was, but yeah totally.
And then like as a creator,like technically, I can't post
anything that's directly sellingwine on tiktok interesting and
that's why we're allowed to beon there, because we just talk
about why we don't sell it yeah,yeah, exactly exactly know that
yeah, oh interesting, that'scool, and so wait, did someone
(36:22):
like did someone reach out toyou?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
or is it like in the fine print it's nobody reached
out.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
This is just a general general thing that
social media managers are awareof.
Okay, based on like, so like.
There was a tipping point forlike instagram, like once upon a
time, technically, wineriesweren't allowed to be on there,
but then the platform becameolder and so okay so that kind
of yeah, that kind of goes on tothe topic.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Back to like websites is when you click on the shop
it says are you 21?
You know how easy it be toclick yes, even when I'm 15.
Like yeah, how, how do I?
I mean?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
it just it protects the winery.
Obviously people can lie, butit protects the winery, yeah
just legality because, god, Iwish I knew that when I was
young united states is not afriendly to wine or alcohol
beverages, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Oh yeah, there's so many weird laws that are left
over from, like prohibition,that are just ridiculous, even
in certain states, yeah, likealabama being one of those yeah
utah, utah.
Yes, more of a religious thing,which pennsylvania used to be
that way as well, but they'regetting better they changed
(37:45):
their laws, I think yeah,pennsylvania is still a monopoly
state, though, right um I kind
Speaker 3 (37:52):
of think so so we know someone that actually works
for the distribution company ofPennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Um he came one of them, yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah.
And he came to Washington anddid a like, went through all
these Walla, walla, shalan,wherever it was, and was like
okay, we're going to take thisone one, like if you have this
amount of quantity, we will takethis wine and we will take that
(38:25):
wine and yeah, he bought likepallets yeah, pallets of wine to
take back to, or take back,obviously, but to ship to uh
pennsylvania to sell it there.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Um and like their liquor stores yeah, yeah,
because it's like state run.
Yes, when I, when I was doingmy w set three, I swear I used
to have more hours in my daylike I was working in corporate.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
I worked for I was doing my w set three.
Funny how that works.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
I was building wine with page, and then I also, on
top of all of that, was doinglike 10 to 12 hours a week for
um this Martin Reyes, who doesall sorts of fun things in the
wine industry and one of themwas import distribute and he
like pretty much exclusivelyworked with Pennsylvania because
it was a monopoly state, solike if you could get the buyers
for the state to buy the wine,it was like the whole state.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So even for like Utah , you have to go through this
whole, um, you can get your winein there.
But it's like a process, likeso I actually talked to someone
and they're like um, I will sendyou the excel sheet and then if
we, they have these weird assnumbers and I had no idea what
they were.
They're like if it's minus one,we're like if it's minus one,
we need more.
Or if it's plus one, we need.
Or like plus three, we needless, or something.
(39:41):
I'm like what, where are yougetting these numbers?
First off, but so you could hitlike the variety, so like we
had a negative one on Rieslingand it also was based on like
how much people bought.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
So if they had a?
Speaker 3 (39:58):
negative one on Riesling.
You, um, they needed moreRiesling but they would also
only take so many companies andyou had to like send them so
many pallets because obviouslyit went to the whole state of
Utah.
So it's a fascinating way toget wine to Utah.
(40:23):
I mean, I know people here inChelan that live in Utah but I
don't want to expose theirsecret.
But there's a place in Wyomingthat they would send their wine
to and that was the place.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And you get it sent to wyoming and they just pick it
up.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, I have a wine influencer friend who's based in
utah, and she does the samething.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Okay, that's not wyoming, you gotta do whatever
it takes, I guess.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, I have family in Alabama and Georgia so I go
down there.
I try to go down there onceevery two years, sometimes turns
into Once every four.
Sometimes I've had a bunch ofwine from Georgia, dolonaga,
georgia specifically.
There was a winery I was in inDahlonega and they had the
(41:21):
grapes shipped from.
It was Sonoma, and then someNapa, and then they had just
juice from Washington State andI was like that's crazy, just in
a refrigerated truck, it's justlike so weird.
Yeah, it's gnarly.
And then they were growinggrapes on the property too.
But I did some viticultureeducation as well and I've
(41:48):
worked in, you know, our vinesthat we have here, and so I'm
familiar with how vines shouldbe propagated and I definitely
weren't doing a great job inthat specific area at least.
Yeah, well, yeah, it wasinteresting.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
So I went wine tasting there this summer with
my boyfriend and um, because myfamily's there.
So we went up, yeah, and it wasfunny because we were tasting
through all the wines and likeI'm like I need to try local
things because I like that's thewhole point of my like
resolution is to taste winethat's grown in all 50 states.
Um, and as we were tastingthrough, it was funny because,
(42:30):
like the, the, our um host likecame back and was like, oh, like
, which one's your favorite?
And like, consistently, timeafter time, my boyfriend's
favorites were the ones thatwere sourced from napa or sonoma
.
Yeah, and like he wouldn't knowahead of time and then he'd be
like I like this one and yeahit's funny because we had a, uh,
we have a friend, we did aninterview with her.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Actually, uh, bree and she, I think it was in
Michigan, and because, yeah,she's from Michigan, she's also
from there and she goes to thiswinery and they do a tasting and
it was a blind tasting and Idon't know if it was the same
variety or if it's just ageneral tasting.
But she goes, oh uh, at the endshe goes I really like this
(43:17):
particular wine.
And they go, oh well, that'sfrom walla walla.
And she's like, yep, thatsounds right.
Yeah, but literally all therest were from michigan or
wherever, and she just happenedto fall back on washington,
because that's what she knows,some stuff too through her wine
(43:40):
education and, uh, she's a repfor Crew Selections, which is a
local Washington distributorhere in Porter as well.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
There's definitely truth to be said about having a
house palate to wherever youdrink frequently.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Totally A thousand percent.
Yeah, I still have, I think, ahouse palate for Santa Barbara
wines.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
I think you do too.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
They're just the most interesting to me.
Yeah, I have a house palette,for sure.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
I definitely have a house palette in Chelan, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah, I don't necessarily.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I'm still learning Washington too, because I've
only.
I mean, I grew up here but Iafter high school I went down to
Santa Barbara and that's whereI picked up.
Wine was down there and I wasworking in production.
I was a manager of tasting roomand then worked at a wine shop
as well, and I tried so manylocal Santa Barbara wines,
(44:36):
especially Pinot Noir from likeSanta Rita Hills and Santa Maria
Valley, and then Chardonnay,and they're also their Rhone's,
the kind of lighter, lighter,elegant style of like grenache.
That's beautiful, um, and Istill I just crave those kinds
of wines now, um.
And then coming up to washington, I'm like learning more about
(44:58):
the state.
Still, um, I still don't know asmuch, I feel like as I should,
because, well, the winery I workfor I keep it usually pretty
ambiguous on the podcast of whoI work for, but they're all a
state.
And so I came here because I waskind of excited, because I
(45:19):
heard a lot of Washingtonwinemakers source from different
vineyards and I was like, cool,I've been to all these
different vineyards within SantaBarbara, I'm excited to go and
see other vineyards.
And I was like, cool, I've beento all these different
vineyards within santa barbara,I'm excited to go and see other
vineyards.
And then I came here and I waswith one vineyard the whole time
and it's, it's totally finebecause, uh, they're making good
wines now and, um, I love themto death.
But, uh, I was excited to gosee the rest of the state, you
(45:42):
know.
So now I have to do my own kindof traveling.
I've been to walla walla nowand um, but to, like the red
mountain area, um, I still needto do more traveling over here
well, it just shows theimportance of regions, I mean
right even down to thewashington, like to the state
avas.
Yeah, um, where in uh,california, I did a lot of blind
(46:06):
tasting with my tasting groupsand my friends in the industry
and I felt like there was a lotof like taste variation between,
like, napa, sonoma, paso, santabarbara, san luis obispo.
Um, I felt like there was a bigtaste variation between those
AVAs and then, coming up here,it's so subtle sometimes to me
(46:32):
because I feel like they're allI don't know.
California's a really big state, so there is that.
Yeah, it's long, but Washingtonis kind of short, but yeah,
it's so interesting.
Um, but yeah, I've, it's sointeresting.
I'm still kind of learning the,uh, the taste tasting portion
of like different vineyards,like where they're grown, like
Walla, walla versus Red Mountain, versus Yakima, et cetera, et
(46:55):
cetera.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
How long have you been there now?
Speaker 1 (46:57):
I've been here for two years.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Um yeah, I grew up North of Seattle, um really I
feel like I've dealt with youlonger than that.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, two years man, that's it.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Huh Interesting.
Two years April 22.
Huh, okay.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Yeah, it's been crazy kind of mentioned that you're
like the liaison between thegeneral, like consumer, wine
consumers and winemakers, that,and also sommeliers that could
have just more head knowledgeand more technical vocabulary to
explain things, and I've Iagree with you that I feel like
(47:40):
a lot of times it just kind ofgoes over the head of a lot of
people when they're trying totaste wine or trying to learn
about it.
So for people new to wine, whatis a two part question, do you
have advice for them?
Also, do you have any winesthat you would recommend to them
as well?
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Biggest thing is to taste as much as you can.
Um, biggest thing is to tasteas much as you can.
So as soon as I finished winefor dummies, I started going
through each of the um.
Is it 12, 12 noble varieties,18 noble varieties?
It's been a long time since Idid this but, like each of the
main grape varieties I likewould sit down once a week.
I would go buy a nice bottlefrom my wine shop and I would
(48:23):
make a dinner that was supposedto pair with it like
traditionally pair with it, andand I would sit down, try the
wine, try the pairing, like readabout it while I was drinking
it.
Be a nerd.
It was like my me date time.
It was really fun.
But that taught me a lot.
Like I started to develop apalate, I realized what I liked.
It gave me an opportunity toactually experience what I was
(48:45):
reading about.
Um, and so I mean there's nosubstitute for tasting.
You can read as much as youwant, but like it comes down to
actually tasting things and thentotally develop.
That too is to smell everything, like literally everything.
Like smell fruits in thegrocery store, smell socks,
smell hamster cages, smelleverything.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
So when I first the mousy thing man.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
So when I first met him, he was totally he was
telling me about that and I waslike, like I get it, I
understand why you're doing this, but, like, if I saw you in a
grocery store, I would be likewhat is this crackhead doing?
Just smelling everythingScratching the orange, and be
like, oh yes, that's citrus.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Yeah, and orange peel smells different than like the
actual inside of an orange,totally.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Versus the pith.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Yeah, yes, totally.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Big difference, man.
I was doing tasting notes today.
We came up with some crazy ones, which is fun.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
You always have some weird ass crazy it's like the
more you smell and the likenerdier you get about it, the
more developed your aromadictionary gets, and so, like,
totally, it's just practice.
Biggest thing is practice.
Drink all the wine, yeah so doyou do, uh, very much blind
tasting at all not typically, um, because I mean, with what I do
(50:12):
, I've thought about it forreviewing wine purposes, like
yeah, and it might be kind offun to do.
But typically I mean becauseI'm talking to consumers, I feel
like it makes sense to have allthe information a consumer
would have.
So, like yeah, no, I don'tusually blind taste.
Every once in a while I do forfun.
I also like joke that it's aparty trick, like totally, if
(50:35):
you're like you're good at it,then it is I'm not, I'm not good
at it, I'll admit that eitheram I for if you're at a party,
if you're at a party and it'snot wine industry people, it's.
It's easy to do there becauseit's almost always a cab, yes, a
pinot, a chardonnay, a sauvblanc, and nobody expects you to
(50:56):
go beyond that like.
So, if you can like, name thatvariety.
So you do it as a party trick,but never with industry people.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yes, and I'm out oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, I used to do it all the time with my buddy,
axel.
We kind of came up in the wineindustry together and he's a
winemaker now in Santa Barbara.
So, um, I was just down therelast weekend and I got to see
him, which is nice.
But, yeah, we used to blindtaste each other and we used to
do like the, the, the three youhave to guess the region, the
great variety and the vintage,um, and you know that was our
(51:33):
goal, uh for sure, is to learnas much as we can about it.
And, uh, and also the winemakerat carhartt, uh, chase carhartt
.
He used to blind taste me ongreat variety, um, because
obviously it's going to be fromthe same area.
It's his winery.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
Yeah, we did a blind tasting recently and I brought a
local wine actually.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
I botched that.
So bad, so bad.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
It's a winery that he should know very well actually,
or like decently well.
And then he brought aChardonnay and I'm I'm not going
to say I hate Chardonnaysbecause I there's a lot of
Chardonnays I have found that Ilike, but immediately I like,
(52:18):
tasted it and I looked at him.
I was like why do I want tojust immediately say Chardonnay
right now?
And it was, it was a Chardonnay, and that was the only time
I've ever gotten it right.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Well, that was your first Burgundy, too, that you've
ever had.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
So I was just like immediatelynew.
So at least I can say I know myChardonnays.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
You do, you definitely do.
Yeah, I tried to bring you onethat you would actually guess,
so there's that.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
What's wrong with you ?
Speaker 3 (52:51):
that doesn't help my like.
Let her have her ego moment.
Thank you, page.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Thank you hi the um, the guy who I used to work for
martin reyes.
He's a master of wine, so Ifeel like every time I meet up
with him, he also tries to blindtaste me.
What is this?
Speaker 1 (53:10):
I love those friends.
Oh, my God.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
But I feel like, because I know him well enough,
I know what he gets excitedabout, that I can usually get
close using like the contextclues of him, like totally, I've
done that before.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yeah, they're like okay, what, using the context
clues of him Totally, I cheat.
I've done that before.
Yeah, they're like okay, whatis his budget?
Is this Chateauneuf-du-Pape oris this Gigandasse?
Speaker 3 (53:34):
So at the winery that I currently work at, we
actually have a sandstoneChardonnay which is super unique
, definitely different, but Ihave been and I put it at the
first of our tasting list.
So anytime I like, before theyeven grab the menu and can look
(53:54):
at the tasting menu, I'm likeare you planning on doing a
tasting?
And then I hand them the firsttasting and say try this.
And don't look at the menu, seehow you like it.
And they're like.
And then I asked like what doyou think it is like?
Work on their taste budsespecially.
You know, as a tasting you'vegot to, you've got to work on
(54:15):
those little things.
And they're like maybe a saltBlanc or a Pinot Gris.
And then I'm like actually it'sa Chardonnay but it's fermented
in sandstone and so it's.
It's really fun to see thedifferent vessels and show what
grapes can do.
I mean the whole like.
But I hate buttery chardonnays,blah, blah, blah.
(54:37):
And it even goes down the samepath as like merlots.
Yeah, you know, there's seemslike there's always a bad rap
about merlots and chardonnaysand it is so misunderstood.
I love misunderstood, and soI've been doing that and every
person that's just like.
When I do it, they're like well, now I kind of want to buy a
(54:58):
bottle of chardonnay because Iactually like this one and
because I blind tasted them andyou know I understand the whole.
I don't like butteryChardonnays or blah, blah blah,
and I do love stainless, but thesandstone is very unique and if
you haven't had one, you shoulddefinitely try it.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
My, uh, my hot take is that I love party buttery
Chardonnay, but I also reallylike it at a cold room
temperature Okay.
Room temperature, but a littlechilled above room, not like a
hot room, but I keep my housepretty cold because I have wine.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Like cellar temp like 55?
.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
I like it a little warmer than cellar temp and it's
funny because I have a video ofone of my best friends
literally calling me a sociopath.
Because of this I like justfound it again yesterday and
sunday too where I was likeremember when you were really
mean, because I like my roomtemperature buttery chardonnay,
thanks do you go around androtate all your bottles, like
(56:04):
every so often?
Speaker 3 (56:05):
no, not formally.
No, yeah, not formally and I'mlooking for something yes how
many bottles do you think youhave in your little cellar?
Speaker 2 (56:16):
I'm not sure right now.
At one point it was over 400 um.
Oh my goodness but.
I think I've been.
I've been trying to I mean, thereason I have them is to taste
them and go through them, soI've been trying to be better
about uh, making my way throughthem so do you think you have
more or less than 400?
It's probably less than 400.
(56:37):
It's probably somewhere betweentwo and four hundred right now
but there's like 12 boxes.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
Well, I know where to come to your house if we ever
really shut down please comehelp, I think yeah, I had like
two, I think 250, whateverbottles, and then we started
this podcast.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Now I'm like down to, you know, probably, I don't
know 75 you need an excuse tolike.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
You need an excuse and someone to drink with,
because that was my problem forthe longest time, because I had
moved up to napa in january of2021 and things were still shut
down.
That was like the second wave,like post-holiday of shutdowns
and I feel like it took like agood year and a half for the
world to be normal, and so ittook until like really this last
year to like make local friendsand feel like I had a community
(57:29):
here, until I was just likesitting on the bottles being
like well, I can't drink them.
Speaker 3 (57:34):
All that's literally why we started the podcast is so
we can drink our wine I need tostart breaking out mine more.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
Wine is so much more fun with friends, oh, totally,
especially with someone you canappreciate it with yeah, I don't
like opening wine by myself,unless it's like a bottle that I
really don't give a shit about.
You know, um stuff that I love.
Speaker 3 (57:56):
I'm just like I feel like it's wasted on me well, and
I like warn him, like if I havethings to do later, I'm like
open a bottle, that's like meh,and then when I have time, I'm
like all right, let's get bougieyeah, yeah, I have um a
specific section on my rackthat's for for, because it's
(58:17):
usually not me who wants to openwine, like just like two
bottles so it's specifically formy boyfriend to open when I'm
like I'm not drinking tonight.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
You want wine?
Choose from that box, like Idon't care yeah, yeah, you can't
appreciate the good stuff yeah,no not at all, because now I'm
gonna have to drink.
Speaker 3 (58:39):
Yeah, exactly, that's so fun.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (58:43):
It's funny, my girlfriend.
She likes wine.
She used to work in theindustry, she works in the
restaurant industry now, um, butshe just never.
She never drinks it like ever.
If she opens a bottle, she'llnever open bottle by herself.
It has to be with someone elsebecause she'll drink like a half
of a glass and be like I'm donefor the for the whole evening I
(59:03):
will say I love my corbin forthat reason.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Cause if I I like wine as part of the meal to me,
so, like if I'm home alone, Idon't really want, like I don't
want to open a whole bottle, butI still want wine as part of
the meal, and so I will Corbin.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
I actually got my pretty much like my in-laws and
also my parents that and they'relike so what do I do with it?
I'm like you know when youdon't want the whole bottle this
?
Is a solution.
Speaker 2 (59:33):
Yeah, like, oh, you like don't want the whole bottle
, though, and I'm like, oh mygod every time I post about the
caravan there's people who arelike why didn't you just open
the bottle?
Or I've been using it more.
I have like a girl dinnerseries with pairings and so like
I love it, thank you, I'm notgoing to open like a whole
(59:54):
bottle for girl dinner, I justwant my one glass.
Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
And there's so many people every time I show using
the Coravin in those videoswhere they're like why didn't
you open it?
Like what are you doing?
Yeah, I feel like that wholeconcept is underrated.
Especially, at least here inthe U?
S is just like no, you don'thave to just open the bottle and
get hammered.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Like, yeah, okay, actually, going back to your
question about wine trends, thatI hate.
I think that's something itdoes so well on social media.
Anytime I'm like, haha, I'mdrinking from the bottle, doing
something ridiculous, but Idon't like it.
(01:00:40):
I show that very, very littlebecause I don't like it.
That's not what wine is to me.
Wine is about like communityand coming together and the
stories and it's part of themeal, like it's.
It's not.
I feel like you show that verywell on your social media.
Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
I feel like you show that so well.
Like you're very elegant inyour approach and you show your
love for wine um all the time.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Uh, but yeah, you're not like crazy excessive about
like oh, drink the whole bottleand like you know which is
awesome so you're doing a greatjob with the views that that
type of content gets.
It's tempting sometimes, butyeah for sure, yeah Um um page.
Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
Do you have time for doing like a quick patreon
episode after this?
Uh, sure what it yeah like it'snot the same thing same thing.
It's just a second episode thatwe put on our patreon.
Sure you're good with that?
Yeah, yeah, it's a quick 30okay, yeah, cool, so we'll just
pause this one and then continueour conversation I'll send you
(01:01:49):
a new invite link.
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Okay, um, but for this episode I do want to wrap
it up real quick.
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Um page, anything that you've got going on that
you want to plug at all um, yes,so I have a bunch of fun free,
free downloadables for peopleboth in the wine industry and
consumers.
I have a checklist for how towork with wine influencers for
small wineries, and then I alsohave free Napa maps and Sonoma
(01:02:16):
maps and all sorts of guides onwine with pagecom slash
downloads.
And then also please follow meon Instagram at wine with page.
Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
Awesome.
You guys heard it here.
All of her links will be in theshow notes.
So go check out the show notes.
It'll be the first thing yousee when you go to the
description of this episode.
It'll be her links.
So go there, support her.
She's awesome.
She's doing a great job.
She loves wine.
She's a great educator to gosupport.
Thank you, paige.
(01:02:45):
Job she loves wine.
She's a great educator to gosupport.
Thank you, page appreciate it.
Cool cheers, thank you.
Bung pod.
Welcome back, wine Wonderboy.
And we got Jazzy, j Jazzy.
What is a bung?
The hole of the barrel iscalled a bung hole.
Inside the bung hole is calleda bung Wine with mayhem.
That's what it's about.
Welcome back everybody.
(00:21):
Welcome back to the Bung Pod.
It's your boy, ian King, akaWine Wonderboy.
I have my co-host with me, jazzyJ Say what's up.
We have an awesome guest today.
For you guys, this is our firstremote podcast experience, so
this will be very fun and alearning experience as well.
But we have Wine with Paigewith us.
(00:44):
What up, paige?
How's it going?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hello, hello, hello, excited to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Good, could use some more sunshine.
It's been gray and dairy inNapa, but uh, other than that
great.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Nice, so you're based in Napa.
We're up here in Washingtonstate, um Shalan area to be
specific.
Um, you were up here recently,um, how was your visit here?
Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It was great.
I need to come back.
I was there just like two days,so too short yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Super short.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
But it was beautiful, it was fantastic.
Great wine, great people.
It was fun.
Have you had many Washingtonwines before?
Um, yes, I will say I drink alot of California, being in
California, um, but I loveWashington wine and so, yeah,
I've had a fair share okay, nice, mostly from Walla, walla or
(01:38):
yeah, so Walla Walla was myfirst Washington trip.
I went nice 2022, I think, umand so that was my first
Washington trip and I feel like,yeah, I drink a lot of Walla
Walla, um, just kind ofWashington in general.
So Lake Chillon and then um,rocky Rocky Ridge were new to me
.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Do you remember any uh WallaWalla wines that you had that
were of note, any producers thatyou can remember?
It was probably a while ago,but I should have referenced my
notes.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Even I have to reference my notes for
everything.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I mean you have so many wines it's hard to like
remember all of them.
You know he's actually reallygood at that.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
For some reason, like he just has like a little index
in his head and I'm like how inthe world do you remember all
that?
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I wish I could Like.
My new year's resolution thisyear was to keep a running Excel
sheet of everything I've tastedthis year, and I did really
well in January, and I haven'tupdated it.
Oh no, I have like photosbecause, like when you're doing
walk around tastings or whenyou're, like, out tasting with
people, it's hard to, like,obviously, update an Excel sheet
(02:49):
.
So like I've taken photos ofeverything intending to put it
in, but yeah, it's been twomonths now so I might've lost
that.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, are you drinking anything right now?
Just water, just water.
You got some water.
That's cool.
We have a little shannon blancright here from the loire valley
.
Um, francois chedain, theproducer, uh, near vouvray, but
he's amazing.
He's a really um small producerin the loire valley, the wine
(03:19):
shop I used to work for in santabarbara.
We always brought it in it's.
Yeah, it's really good.
Um, so let me ask you the firstquestion I have on my list Um,
tell us a little bit about yourwine background, like what's
your experience in wine and howyou got into doing what you're
doing now.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, so my wine background started with wine for
dummies.
Um, I was in college.
I was like freshly 21.
I was going through a businessprogram, um, and I felt like I
really didn't fit in with theother business school kids.
Um, and.
I was like, okay, what dobusiness people know about?
Like, like, how do I fit inthis business world?
Um, and I was like wine andgolf, but it was like December
(04:03):
when I decided this, so wine wasthe choice.
Um, and it was Christmasdecember when I decided this so
wine was the choice.
Yeah, um, and it was christmasbreak.
I picked up wine for dummiesover break, like, devoured it
and immediately fell in lovewith, like, just the depth and
breadth that wine covers.
Like I I like wasn't evendrinking it at that point, I
just really, like from a nerdyperspective, fell in love with
(04:24):
it.
Um, and was it well written yes,yes okay very well written,
very easy to understand like myparents don't drink at all, so I
had no wine background at all.
Um, and I I felt like itcovered everything really well.
I really liked it.
I still it's like my mostrecommended book to people when
they're trying to figure thingsout oh, that's awesome and from
(04:46):
there I picked up every singlebook I could find in my library
and just became obsessed.
And since then I've done my Wset two, my W set three and I'm
a certified American wine expert.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Nice, hey, that's awesome, congratulations.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
You eventually want to go on and do more.
But uh, it's hard to run abusiness and study at the same
time.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, definitely, I want to do my diploma at some
point.
And then the French winescholar is really interesting.
I'm a little bit of aFrancophile, so yeah, that would
be really fun.
I think that would be.
So can you tell us, like, whatexactly is an influencer, and
can you give us like a behindthe scenes look at what your day
(05:29):
is like?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yes, ish to both of those.
Okay, I feel like for a longtime.
I like hated and stillsometimes internally cringe at
the word influencer because Ithink there's such a negative
connotation that goes along withit.
But in the wine world there'sthis incredible group of people
who are really knowledgeableabout wine.
Most of us have credentials,we're very passionate, we love
it and it's just somebody whoacts as kind of a conduit
(05:56):
between wineries and consumers.
We translate the knowledgebecause a lot of people in the
wine industry like speak thewine nerd terms like I love that
, but you have to be, able tospeak, consumer too yeah, so
it's really just somebody who,like, is creating content that's
fun and engaging and translatesthe information and brings it
to people where they're at, onsocial media.
(06:16):
Um, as for what my day-to-daylooks like, it really varies it
really really varies.
I try to.
I thrive on routine, so I tryto structure my day or my weeks,
on a day-to-day basis.
Monday I sit down and I reviewwhat content is doing well and I
write all my scripts for thingsthat I have coming up.
(06:36):
That week I send recaps ofprojects if I had paid
partnerships to partners andjust kind of like get a feel for
what's trending.
Um Tuesday is when I filmeverything.
The other perk of doing thisbulk thing is I only put on
makeup like twice a week.
I like I like to gremlin, so Ilike gremlin days where I don't
(06:59):
see or talk to anybody.
I can just like be on acomputer.
Um but so Tuesdays I will filmeverything, uh, edit videos,
engage with the community.
Wednesday's my client day, so Ido have some clients who I do
social media for, so I'll runtheir social media pages, or, um
, if I have photos to edit,cause I do freelance photography
as well.
That's what.
(07:19):
Wednesday is for, just thingsfor other people, thursday is
when I write, so I have awebsite in addition to Instagram
, and so I'll do all my contentwriting on Thursday.
And then Friday is a catch upday, whatever I didn't get done
the rest of the week, but, but,but.
But.
The caveat to that is thatthere's always opportunities to
taste with winemakers theseevents.
(07:40):
So, like yesterday, I spent allday over in Lodi, um, so I did
not get any blog writing done,but I made a bunch of content.
I met with people.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I learned a lot more about the region, um a lot of uh
and Zinfandel over there rightand Lodi, yes, yeah, Like lots
of really beautiful old gnarlyvines yeah.
Um they have.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I think it's 40% of California's old vines are in
Lodi, which.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I didn't know, but that was pretty cool.
That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I love old vines.
They're just so pretty yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
They're so pretty, um , all right.
So I'm going to ask a questionis so you kind of explained that
you brought, or like picked up,wine for dummies, but when did
you really decide like I'm goingto make this a career and like
launch it?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
it was never like a singular moment, um, it really
just kind of happened and didn'thappen.
Like I never set out to be aninfluencer or content creator.
So at some point it was when Iwas doing my WSET3.
I had just moved to California.
I had lived in New York prior.
(08:52):
I moved out to California for adifferent corporate job, but I
was coming up to Wine Countryall the time because I loved it.
I was doing my WSET3 because Iloved it, and so I had this
moment where I knew I didn'twant to work in corporate
America forever.
But for these corporatecompanies, like I was doing
e-commerce, I was doing digitalmarketing, I was doing strategy,
(09:19):
and I looked at these winerywebsites that I was visiting and
their social media and most ofit was really terrible at the
time.
It's gotten better, but there'sstill a lot of really bad
winery websites, yeah, um.
And so I was like, okay, whatif?
What if someday I work formyself and I do like something
with either winery websites,wine strategy, digital marketing
strategy or photography,because I also have a
photography background and Ilove photography.
(09:40):
Um, so that's kind of what Ilike was like something over
here is what I want to do.
And I started posting onInstagram as a way to build my
photo portfolio and just kind ofshare about what I was learning
and nerd out some more, andaccidentally became an
influencer along the way.
(10:01):
Turns out other people wantedto learn about wine from social
media and I enjoyed sharingabout it and it really just
brought together so many piecesof my background in a way that I
never expected or even reallyknew existed when.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I began.
So you brought up websites.
How important do you think fora winery, how important do you
think having a good website isLike?
How many people do you reallythink go to the website and use
it?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I mean, I think it's crucial whether you're doing
like, whether you're sellingwine online, like whether that's
your goal to sell the wineonline, or whether you're trying
to get people in your tastingroom.
They're going to visit thewebsite and they want
information, and they wantinformation to be easy.
Um, so, like, it doesn't haveto be like a complex, like crazy
website, but it needs to beeasy to navigate.
(10:52):
Um, and that's actually so.
I did wine with page on theside for what?
Three years ish, I think?
Um, no, two years, two yearsbefore I transitioned full time,
and that was really, honestly,talking about winery websites
was like what made me make thefull dive.
It was during 2020, when all ofthe wineries were panicking and
(11:14):
realizing they lost their foottraffic and needed digital
traffic, and so I started doingwinery website feedback sessions
, like for free Cause I wasstill being paid by corporate
America at the time, yeah, yeah.
So like I was just having thesegreat calls with winemakers
about how they could likeimprove their website, make
things easier for people to findand buy their wine, and I
(11:35):
realized that was really what Iwanted to do so did you like
cold call them, or did you likedrop off a business card um?
I wine with.
Page was already like two yearsold at that point, so I had a
good good site as an audience atthe time.
Okay, um, so I just posted onthere.
I posted on the offering, thefree sessions, and people were
(11:56):
more than happy to take me up onit yeah, yeah, were they, what
would you say?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
like your website sucks, let me help you like,
honestly, nicely.
Yes, you need a facelift, honey.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I mean I would go through the whole, like I would
go through their website.
I would look at, like if I wasa consumer, like going in, like
can I find, like can I even findthe wine to buy?
Can I find information like whywould I want to buy this wine?
Like I mean, now their hoursmatter it didn't matter at the
time because it was COVID butlike yeah, or like can I even
find, like your events?
Cause so many people were doingdigital events at the time.
(12:32):
And I mean I feel like to me asboth somebody who worked in
e-commerce and like was workingon websites all the time, but
also as generally just a youngperson who's chronically online,
some of the things seem obvious, but they aren't to everybody
yeah yeah, I can totallyunderstand that, especially for,
(12:55):
like I hate to say, but, like,the older generation that didn't
grow up with, like, having aniphone or yeah, whatever it is,
you know it.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
you really got to dumb it down for all generations
and we're just not at the pointof, like this is going to sound
terrible, but we're not at thepoint of, like, getting rid of
that older generation that, likehas no knowledge.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Um, but I feel like people are getting much better
with being able to handle socialmedia and just any websites I
mean, I think I think we had toin 2020 was really like a
wake-up moment for a lot ofpeople yeah, yeah, absolutely
yeah, so many people got um, uh,uncomfortably introduced, I
(13:45):
feel like to e-commerce.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You know, and also just marketing on social media.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
So yeah, so with social media and just in general
, what wine trend do youabsolutely hate?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I don't know that I hate any.
If you could, I I mean I thinkI hate the people who hate on
wine trends more than anythinglike um, I'm on, are you on
grape loop, the wine communityfor people in the industry no,
no it's.
(14:24):
It's kind of like slack ishokay for people in the wine
industry okay, so like people,all right.
Yeah, it's a great website downum, but somebody recently on
there was complaining aboutapparently there's a tiktok
trend where people are addingmilk to wine.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, okay there's also another trend, that is,
boxed wine with sprite, and Isaw someone do it and I was like
I saw like red red wine withcoca-cola one time that's
popular in spain.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
That's been popular in spain for oh yes, and it's
really good is it really good?
Speaker 1 (15:05):
it's really good, it sounds so gross okay, so you've
tried it.
It's like a cherry coke yeah, Ican see if it's, if it's like a
mexican coke, um with the uhcane sugar sugar yeah, the real
sugar instead of like theamerican coke.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I hate them yeah, and then you want like a fruity, a
fruity fresh wine, like a youngcompany.
You know, like spain, somethingelse to wine like a young.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Campanile like.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Spain.
You'll have to try it.
It's good.
I guess no doctor said youshould try it.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I guess you know.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I know I've been just hating on this and I don't even
know it's good.
I also saw Did you try it inSpain?
Yeah, I did, yeah, okay, so itwas authentic, it was real.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, it was an authentic Coke wine, authentic
Coke yeah, that's amazing.
The other one, though, that Isaw recently was sweet and
condensed milk mixed with redwine, what which sounds
disgustingly good, and Iactually bought a can of it, but
I haven't tried it yet.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Okay, you got to let me know how you like that.
Yeah, I don't know if I'll trythat one I can't.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I need to find a bottle of wine that I don't mind
wasting a glass of.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Did you just find that online or were you Like, is
that?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
trending on TikTok.
I just scrolled and it came upOkay, like went to the shop or
whatever it is, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Oh, interesting.
Or putting wine through like ablender for a while.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Oh yeah, or like using it they get frothy yeah,
frothy yeah.
Oh, that's that stresses me out.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Okay, I might hate that one that might be the one.
There we go.
Yes, totally, there's betterways to do that.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Do you need everything to be a latte?
I don't know.
Um.
Well, speaking of other wineregions, um, do you have a
favorite wine region that you'vetraveled to?
It's hard to choose Um or onethat you're pleasantly surprised
by.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I've been pleasantly surprised by a lot, Cause my
life goal is to visit all 50States and go to a winery in
that state.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Oh okay, so I've been to some bad places but yeah,
don't um bring out I mean don'tcall out the bad place,
obviously, but um which Stateshave you been to thus far?
Speaker 2 (17:17):
um washington, oregon , california, texas, alabama,
georgia.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Okay I've been to georgia as well for wine, the
state they like to bring in napagrapes, they do that oh
interesting yeah, more juicethan grapes.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Um what?
New york, connecticut,tennessee?
Tennessee was my first wineregion.
I actually visited rightoutside now, oh wow interesting
michigan, I'm from michigan.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Okay, I might be forgetting somewhere, but that's
the gist of it okay, and thenhave you traveled to like any
European areas or yeah, and Iwill say, when it comes to like
the most beautiful wine regions,those take the cake for sure.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Like I was in Chianti Classico a couple of years ago
and that was stunning.
Um last summer I was in um theDuero Valley.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Duero Valley also incredible because they have the
terraced vineyards that wasjust so cool to see.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, I really want to see the go to Rias Baixas and
see the pergola system thatthey have for their albarino
there.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, that would be really cool.
I have not been there yet, butthat's high on my list too.
Or uh, in greece.
I would love to go to greecewhere they do the like, the
little nests oh yeah, basketsyeah I'm going there in 2025 and
I'm so excited, so excited.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, I'm gonna go all the places.
Is that your first time goingto g Um?
So, like back in like eighthgrade, for my mom's like 50th or
whatever, we took a cruise fromSpain to Turkey and you know I
couldn't appreciate it at thetime.
I probably could have drank,don't get me wrong, but I didn't
(19:13):
.
And even if I did, it's notlike I could really embrace what
I could embrace now.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I can't even remember what I had last week.
Um so, but yeah, I'm going toGreece and, like some of the
Greek islands, and then we alsoare ending up in Italy, so
obviously I'll be staying therefor a couple extra days to, yeah
, go see some fun places yeah,I've never been to europe, I
(19:43):
still need to go.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I know ever I need to go.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, you do, I need to go he, he had a trip plan and
then and then his passport wasgonna expire what?
In like a month three months,three months, and they wouldn't
let him in yeah, I don't reallytravel.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
You know, I obviously I don't really travel uh that
often um internationally atleast.
And I didn't know the wholerule of the eu about the
three-month thing or somecountries at six months your
passport can't expire.
I was one day off.
They tried to get me on theplane.
They said if your, if yourflight was booked um yesterday,
(20:26):
then you would be on this planeright now.
I'm like mother.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
That's heartbreaking he called me and he's like you
will not not believe whathappened, and I was like, only
to you, only to you.
And he's like working onDuolingo, like working on his
French and everything, frenchand everything.
Oh gosh, it was so bad.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Luckily, I mean.
My girlfriend picked me up fromthe airport and she was just so
bummed out for me that we ohyeah.
At this point we like juststarted dating, so she wasn't
coming with, I wasn't going totake a year trip.
You know, someone just startedto date.
So, um, she picked me up fromthe airport and then she was so
(21:08):
nice.
She was like, okay, let's go toall the parisian uh bakeries
and kitchens and wine bars inSeattle, and so that's what we
did for like the whole afternoonand I was like, okay, this is
good, this is fine, it's okay.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
I'm having a good time right now, this is okay.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
She's like you should order in French.
I'm like no, no, Settle downthere, shut up.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
No, oh, that's so sweet of her though, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I know right, you need to reclaim that, so nice.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, this time she's coming with me, since you know
she's with me still.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Surprisingly yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Surprisingly Enough.
So what is so?
We talked about trends that youhate, but is there like a
tasting note that you I wouldn'tsay hate but just like disagree
with, or you're like I don'treally agree with that tasting
note for this varietal, or apopular tasting note that's out
(22:09):
there.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Like I don't like how it tastes or I don't want.
Like I think the note itself iswrong.
Like the note itself, you'relike I don't want like I think
the note itself is wrong.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Like the note itself, you're like I don't think
that's right.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Um, I think the term foxy is interestingly debated,
Right I so I grew up in Michigan.
Like I taste, I've tasted a lotof Michigan wines and a lot of
weird I mean now my parents arein Georgia, so I've tasted a lot
of southern wines.
Yeah, I think I know what foxyis like I've had a lot of
(22:41):
muscadine in my life, a lot ofit, um, but I've had, like I've
gotten into like debates withpsalms who have never had
muscadine, but they think theyknow what like foxy is when
you're describing it and I'mlike, okay, I'm like I've
actually tasted it.
Yeah, I can tell you that it'slike, it's not that yeah, yeah,
(23:04):
what about um mousy?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
because?
That one mousy is one that I, Iwouldn't say disagree with.
I just haven't reallyexperienced or know exactly what
mousy is um, or I haven't, Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I feel like it tastes like wet, like you know, like
do you ever have a friend whohad a hamster?
Yes, or have a hamster,multiple?
Like I feel like mousy to me islike what, like when their
bedding gets wet, that's what itsmells like it's like wet
Speaker 1 (23:40):
hamster bedding gotcha okay like I've also heard
of like day old kombucha.
Like if you have like akombucha bottle, that's been
like you know you drank half ofit and you just leave it on the
counter room temperature andthen you try it the next day,
it's like furry and it kind ofstuck sticks in your throat like
(24:02):
right here it's nasty andthat's what I've never done,
that I don't think I want to,based on that descriptor yeah
yeah, it's not great, I wouldn't
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I want to hear that story.
I wouldn't recommend it.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I feel like I would be afraid to drink kombucha.
I left out.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, like it's literally, it's been a while for
me.
I haven't drank kombucha sincecollege.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Since that experience .
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, Since that experience really, I used to be
big on kombucha in college, youknow it was all the rage.
And then I was like after thatday, old one, I was like I can't
get this taste out of my throatBecause it's stuck in my throat
, kind of.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yuck, I learned to make it once.
Oh, that's fun At a winery anevent where they taught us how
to make kombucha, which was veryinteresting, but then I was.
They gave us us everything totake it home and keep doing it,
but I was convinced that I wasgoing to poison myself.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
I could understand that.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Like the Mother Scobie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Have you ever done blending trials?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Not in official capacity.
I've done where wineries haveblending workshops for consumers
.
So I've done that a few times,which is always interesting and
what have you created?
Um, I have a beautiful blendover here that I'm waiting to
try still.
Um, it tasted like blueberrypie when I bottled it.
(25:32):
It's been like a year um it'slike aussie Shiraz to me.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Blueberry pie.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I like blueberry pie.
When I bottled it it's beenlike a year.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Um, it's like aussie shiraz to me.
Blueberry pie, I like blueberrypie.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I feel like the most interesting, like insightful one
that I did was in chianticlassico actually.
Um, that's cool.
It's like they allow smallamounts of like cabernet and
blend and you wouldn't thinklike 1% of cab mixed with San
Giovese would make a hugedifference, but it completely
changes everything.
It was really interesting tosee, like how, how the very
(26:05):
small amounts can make such abig change.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, that reminds me of those uh memes, that like
shitty wine memes, you know, oryou know whoever on Instagram
posts and they're like oh, I cantaste that one percent of
petite verdot you can.
You can, though, like yeah,especially when you're doing
blending trials and you see thesuch a huge difference of uh
(26:29):
with it.
I mean, I'm doing that rightnow, we're blending for bottling
soon and, um, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
It's wild that one percent can really do to
something you know do you ever,or whatever, when you're doing
your blending trials, do youever, like, accidentally forget
to take a note of what you madein the testing tube and you're
like this was great, what wasthat?
Speaker 1 (26:52):
um, not really I've.
We're pretty, pretty good aboutwriting everything down.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Much more professional than I have been in
my blending sessions.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, I mean, when we're doing blending, that takes
like the whole afternoon,that's like our whole day is
like we're doing blending stuff.
And so at the first round weusually taste for faults.
Um, we taste, taste each barrellike like okay, this one's
faulty, or um, or like this onejust doesn't have the fruit
notes that we want, but it hassome earth, so let's mark it for
(27:24):
you know something to add intoa blend, for something complex,
um, but, and then we do likeanother round for each kind of
blend that we're looking at,because we have a couple
different, like you know,bordeaux blends that we do um,
and so we'll mark.
We have like a high end, amid-tier and like a low end
bordeaux blends.
Um, it's not really like low,it's just like um, approachable
(27:48):
it's not yeah yeah, exactlyapproachable entry level.
You know people pleaser um kindof wine, and so our bottom of
the barrel stuff goes into acompletely different blend that
we don't even sell in TastetreeMountain, I think.
But yeah, so we do about like Idon't know, I taste each barrel
probably eight different times.
(28:11):
I want to say it's a lot.
All right, let's take a quickbreak for a second, because I
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(28:33):
topic ideas, we want to hearabout it.
Go to patreoncom slashofficialbungpod and talk to us.
Now let's get back to the show.
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We have an official bungpodstore.
We got some merch goingbungpodstore.
(28:54):
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(29:16):
Now let's get back to the show.
Yeah, it's a rough life, it's alot, and so I do a lot of.
I always have my phone on me,so all my blending notes and
stuff I'm like, okay, it's justlike in my phone, like I don't
even have it yeah, and I'm stillum copied on that.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
So everything you've been doing I've been getting
notified I'll take you off ofthat, yeah because we used to
work together and now I'msomewhere else and so we still
have a shared tasting notes, andso all day today I've just been
I was doing tasting notes forthe upcoming releases making you
(29:49):
thirsty If you're reading them.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I was like I'm so excited for my interview today.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
I was like I'm so excited for my interview today.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Good stuff coming up.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
So what do you love most about?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
your job being a blogger and everything that you
get to do.
I really love creating, Like Iloved photography and I love
storytelling.
I used to.
Before I did this, once upon atime in another life, I used to
shoot weddings.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Did you finish, like, with your business degree?
Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, so when I was in college I used to shoot
weddings and high school seniorportraits and I really wanted to
be a fashion photographer but Iwas like that's not practical.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
So I'll get a business degree.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
So I got my business degree and worked in corporate
for several years, but thecreativity factor and just
having the opportunity to tellstories and engage with people's
stories and share those storiesis really my favorite part.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Oh, that's so fun, gosh, she gets me.
She's like another me Biggolfer wino into photography.
I'm here for it.
Business.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Business and marketing.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Business and marketing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
She's a business lady , I just create things.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And then do post-production.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah, that's all I do .
I just point fingers and tellthem what to do.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, basically Men typically need that, do
post-production yeah I justpoint fingers and tell them what
to do.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yeah, basically, men typically need that yeah, yeah,
especially when I'm in businesswith him, I'm like all right,
here's what your tasks are thisweek.
Yeah, um, not wrong, not wrong.
Hey, you get it done though Itry and if you don't, you're
like I'm always falling behindon everything you are.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah I feel like that's just the chronic state of
everyone's life right now Idon't know, oh my gosh, it feels
like they're up to date oneverything they need to be doing
.
Not at all.
Not at all.
I need to pay my taxes I do too.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I did get that done.
Actually, I made my boyfrienddo that for me.
Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
There you go, so you know.
So I have a question just aboutsocial media in general for
marketing.
Do you still think because itseems Instagram is so like
saturated Do you still thinkit's a great place to build a
community and reach new people?
(32:19):
Or do you think there's othersocial media platforms are
better for reach and then theothers more for kind of
marketing?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I think Instagram still has a place.
I mean, I still know so manypeople who are pretty much only
on Instagram and don't useTikTok, Um, so I think it still
has a place.
It's definitely changed andevolved in the last couple of
years, Um, but I still think ithas a place and I I, I mean, I
(32:48):
have great conversations in myDMS all the time, um, with
people asking me forrecommendations or where they
should go or telling me like thewine they're drinking.
So I think I think it's alittle bit harder to have
community on Instagram and theway during the pandemic, it was
so much easier because peoplewere doing Instagram lives and
people were chronically onlineand it was easy.
Um, I do think it's gottenharder and it's gotten more
(33:09):
saturated, like you said, but Ido think it still has a place
and I love it.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I will say I love how I mean, even when we reached
out to you, you were sosupportive and I mean I
appreciate it so much, but youwere really good at responding
and even with so many followersor whatever it is like, it was
still you behind the screen,whereas, like some people, yeah,
(33:35):
they have, have a social media,but they don't have any control
over it.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
So I really did appreciate that well, thanks,
and I think that's somewherelike small wineries can win,
because it's typically like thembehind the scenes answering the
dms like being able to havethose one-on-one conversations
with people who are asking like,oh, I have a bottle of your
wine, what should I pair it withtonight?
Or questions like that.
But yeah, thank you.
(34:01):
I'm not always, I'll admit I'mnot always great at answering my
DMs.
I'm trying to be better.
Another one of my newestresolutions.
Hey well you did it for us.
It is always me who answers.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It is you Exactly?
Yeah, it is you exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
It's a lot of work, like one person you know and you
get so many totally especiallyspam a lot.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
It is um also, though .
Hold on circling back, though,to your original question,
because I think it's interestingtoo no, I mean I love it.
I just I think this is such aninteresting question because
things are evolving so quicklyon social media right now, um,
and I think tiktok is reallyinteresting.
I know there's the like will westill have tiktok in three, six
months, like because of thelegislation stuff.
(34:42):
But I do think tiktok is reallyinteresting from an opportunity
to educate consumers, because Ithink people have longer
attention spans on tiktok.
Like I use it to learn things,like I will watch a three minute
five minute long video on thereto learn something, whereas on
Instagram it's still much moreaesthetic.
So I think it has a place.
(35:04):
There's also some likeconflicting, confusing stuff,
though, about wineries being onTikTok.
So wineries themselves can'tbecause the platform is still
largely under 21,.
But there's been, like there'sbeen great examples like bell
gloss, like their wine, theirwinemaker has a tiktok and he
does stuff and so it's notofficially the brand, it's him,
(35:26):
but he's obviously using thewine and showing the wine and
like wait, so for wait.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Okay, so a winery.
I'm so confused.
Yeah, technically a winery.
I'm so confused.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Technically, a winery should not have a Tik TOK
account because the platform asa whole has like, the percentage
of age group that's on there isstill largely under 21.
I am just like people are doingit it exists, oh yeah I've
(35:58):
connected with people on there.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
I'm not gonna name who it was, but yeah totally.
And then like as a creator,like technically, I can't post
anything that's directly sellingwine on tiktok interesting and
that's why we're allowed to beon there, because we just talk
about why we don't sell it yeah,yeah, exactly exactly know that
yeah, oh interesting, that'scool, and so wait, did someone
(36:22):
like did someone reach out toyou?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
or is it like in the fine print it's nobody reached
out.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
This is just a general general thing that
social media managers are awareof.
Okay, based on like, so like.
There was a tipping point forlike instagram, like once upon a
time, technically, wineriesweren't allowed to be on there,
but then the platform becameolder and so okay so that kind
of yeah, that kind of goes on tothe topic.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Back to like websites is when you click on the shop
it says are you 21?
You know how easy it be toclick yes, even when I'm 15.
Like yeah, how, how do I?
I mean?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
it just it protects the winery.
Obviously people can lie, butit protects the winery, yeah
just legality because, god, Iwish I knew that when I was
young united states is not afriendly to wine or alcohol
beverages, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Oh yeah, there's so many weird laws that are left
over from, like prohibition,that are just ridiculous, even
in certain states, yeah, likealabama being one of those yeah
utah, utah.
Yes, more of a religious thing,which pennsylvania used to be
that way as well, but they'regetting better they changed
(37:45):
their laws, I think yeah,pennsylvania is still a monopoly
state, though, right um I kind
Speaker 3 (37:52):
of think so so we know someone that actually works
for the distribution company ofPennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Um he came one of them, yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah.
And he came to Washington anddid a like, went through all
these Walla, walla, shalan,wherever it was, and was like
okay, we're going to take thisone one, like if you have this
amount of quantity, we will takethis wine and we will take that
(38:25):
wine and yeah, he bought likepallets yeah, pallets of wine to
take back to, or take back,obviously, but to ship to uh
pennsylvania to sell it there.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Um and like their liquor stores yeah, yeah,
because it's like state run.
Yes, when I, when I was doingmy w set three, I swear I used
to have more hours in my daylike I was working in corporate.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
I worked for I was doing my w set three.
Funny how that works.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
I was building wine with page, and then I also, on
top of all of that, was doinglike 10 to 12 hours a week for
um this Martin Reyes, who doesall sorts of fun things in the
wine industry and one of themwas import distribute and he
like pretty much exclusivelyworked with Pennsylvania because
it was a monopoly state, solike if you could get the buyers
for the state to buy the wine,it was like the whole state.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So even for like Utah , you have to go through this
whole, um, you can get your winein there.
But it's like a process, likeso I actually talked to someone
and they're like um, I will sendyou the excel sheet and then if
we, they have these weird assnumbers and I had no idea what
they were.
They're like if it's minus one,we're like if it's minus one,
we need more.
Or if it's plus one, we need.
Or like plus three, we needless, or something.
(39:41):
I'm like what, where are yougetting these numbers?
First off, but so you could hitlike the variety, so like we
had a negative one on Rieslingand it also was based on like
how much people bought.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
So if they had a?
Speaker 3 (39:58):
negative one on Riesling.
You, um, they needed moreRiesling but they would also
only take so many companies andyou had to like send them so
many pallets because obviouslyit went to the whole state of
Utah.
So it's a fascinating way toget wine to Utah.
(40:23):
I mean, I know people here inChelan that live in Utah but I
don't want to expose theirsecret.
But there's a place in Wyomingthat they would send their wine
to and that was the place.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And you get it sent to wyoming and they just pick it
up.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, I have a wine influencer friend who's based in
utah, and she does the samething.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Okay, that's not wyoming, you gotta do whatever
it takes, I guess.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, I have family in Alabama and Georgia so I go
down there.
I try to go down there onceevery two years, sometimes turns
into Once every four.
Sometimes I've had a bunch ofwine from Georgia, dolonaga,
georgia specifically.
There was a winery I was in inDahlonega and they had the
(41:21):
grapes shipped from.
It was Sonoma, and then someNapa, and then they had just
juice from Washington State andI was like that's crazy, just in
a refrigerated truck, it's justlike so weird.
Yeah, it's gnarly.
And then they were growinggrapes on the property too.
But I did some viticultureeducation as well and I've
(41:48):
worked in, you know, our vinesthat we have here, and so I'm
familiar with how vines shouldbe propagated and I definitely
weren't doing a great job inthat specific area at least.
Yeah, well, yeah, it wasinteresting.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
So I went wine tasting there this summer with
my boyfriend and um, because myfamily's there.
So we went up, yeah, and it wasfunny because we were tasting
through all the wines and likeI'm like I need to try local
things because I like that's thewhole point of my like
resolution is to taste winethat's grown in all 50 states.
Um, and as we were tastingthrough, it was funny because,
(42:30):
like the, the, our um host likecame back and was like, oh, like
, which one's your favorite?
And like, consistently, timeafter time, my boyfriend's
favorites were the ones thatwere sourced from napa or sonoma
.
Yeah, and like he wouldn't knowahead of time and then he'd be
like I like this one and yeahit's funny because we had a, uh,
we have a friend, we did aninterview with her.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Actually, uh, bree and she, I think it was in
Michigan, and because, yeah,she's from Michigan, she's also
from there and she goes to thiswinery and they do a tasting and
it was a blind tasting and Idon't know if it was the same
variety or if it's just ageneral tasting.
But she goes, oh uh, at the endshe goes I really like this
(43:17):
particular wine.
And they go, oh well, that'sfrom walla walla.
And she's like, yep, thatsounds right.
Yeah, but literally all therest were from michigan or
wherever, and she just happenedto fall back on washington,
because that's what she knows,some stuff too through her wine
(43:40):
education and, uh, she's a repfor Crew Selections, which is a
local Washington distributorhere in Porter as well.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
There's definitely truth to be said about having a
house palate to wherever youdrink frequently.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Totally A thousand percent.
Yeah, I still have, I think, ahouse palate for Santa Barbara
wines.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
I think you do too.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
They're just the most interesting to me.
Yeah, I have a house palette,for sure.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
I definitely have a house palette in Chelan, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah, I don't necessarily.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I'm still learning Washington too, because I've
only.
I mean, I grew up here but Iafter high school I went down to
Santa Barbara and that's whereI picked up.
Wine was down there and I wasworking in production.
I was a manager of tasting roomand then worked at a wine shop
as well, and I tried so manylocal Santa Barbara wines,
(44:36):
especially Pinot Noir from likeSanta Rita Hills and Santa Maria
Valley, and then Chardonnay,and they're also their Rhone's,
the kind of lighter, lighter,elegant style of like grenache.
That's beautiful, um, and Istill I just crave those kinds
of wines now, um.
And then coming up to washington, I'm like learning more about
(44:58):
the state.
Still, um, I still don't know asmuch, I feel like as I should,
because, well, the winery I workfor I keep it usually pretty
ambiguous on the podcast of whoI work for, but they're all a
state.
And so I came here because I waskind of excited, because I
(45:19):
heard a lot of Washingtonwinemakers source from different
vineyards and I was like, cool,I've been to all these
different vineyards within SantaBarbara, I'm excited to go and
see other vineyards.
And I was like, cool, I've beento all these different
vineyards within santa barbara,I'm excited to go and see other
vineyards.
And then I came here and I waswith one vineyard the whole time
and it's, it's totally finebecause, uh, they're making good
wines now and, um, I love themto death.
But, uh, I was excited to gosee the rest of the state, you
(45:42):
know.
So now I have to do my own kindof traveling.
I've been to walla walla nowand um, but to, like the red
mountain area, um, I still needto do more traveling over here
well, it just shows theimportance of regions, I mean
right even down to thewashington, like to the state
avas.
Yeah, um, where in uh,california, I did a lot of blind
(46:06):
tasting with my tasting groupsand my friends in the industry
and I felt like there was a lotof like taste variation between,
like, napa, sonoma, paso, santabarbara, san luis obispo.
Um, I felt like there was a bigtaste variation between those
AVAs and then, coming up here,it's so subtle sometimes to me
(46:32):
because I feel like they're allI don't know.
California's a really big state, so there is that.
Yeah, it's long, but Washingtonis kind of short, but yeah,
it's so interesting.
Um, but yeah, I've, it's sointeresting.
I'm still kind of learning the,uh, the taste tasting portion
of like different vineyards,like where they're grown, like
Walla, walla versus Red Mountain, versus Yakima, et cetera, et
(46:55):
cetera.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
How long have you been there now?
Speaker 1 (46:57):
I've been here for two years.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Um yeah, I grew up North of Seattle, um really I
feel like I've dealt with youlonger than that.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, two years man, that's it.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Huh Interesting.
Two years April 22.
Huh, okay.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Yeah, it's been crazy kind of mentioned that you're
like the liaison between thegeneral, like consumer, wine
consumers and winemakers, that,and also sommeliers that could
have just more head knowledgeand more technical vocabulary to
explain things, and I've Iagree with you that I feel like
(47:40):
a lot of times it just kind ofgoes over the head of a lot of
people when they're trying totaste wine or trying to learn
about it.
So for people new to wine, whatis a two part question, do you
have advice for them?
Also, do you have any winesthat you would recommend to them
as well?
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Biggest thing is to taste as much as you can.
Um, biggest thing is to tasteas much as you can.
So as soon as I finished winefor dummies, I started going
through each of the um.
Is it 12, 12 noble varieties,18 noble varieties?
It's been a long time since Idid this but, like each of the
main grape varieties I likewould sit down once a week.
I would go buy a nice bottlefrom my wine shop and I would
(48:23):
make a dinner that was supposedto pair with it like
traditionally pair with it, andand I would sit down, try the
wine, try the pairing, like readabout it while I was drinking
it.
Be a nerd.
It was like my me date time.
It was really fun.
But that taught me a lot.
Like I started to develop apalate, I realized what I liked.
It gave me an opportunity toactually experience what I was
(48:45):
reading about.
Um, and so I mean there's nosubstitute for tasting.
You can read as much as youwant, but like it comes down to
actually tasting things and thentotally develop.
That too is to smell everything, like literally everything.
Like smell fruits in thegrocery store, smell socks,
smell hamster cages, smelleverything.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
So when I first the mousy thing man.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
So when I first met him, he was totally he was
telling me about that and I waslike, like I get it, I
understand why you're doing this, but, like, if I saw you in a
grocery store, I would be likewhat is this crackhead doing?
Just smelling everythingScratching the orange, and be
like, oh yes, that's citrus.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Yeah, and orange peel smells different than like the
actual inside of an orange,totally.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Versus the pith.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Yeah, yes, totally.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Big difference, man.
I was doing tasting notes today.
We came up with some crazy ones, which is fun.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
You always have some weird ass crazy it's like the
more you smell and the likenerdier you get about it, the
more developed your aromadictionary gets, and so, like,
totally, it's just practice.
Biggest thing is practice.
Drink all the wine, yeah so doyou do, uh, very much blind
tasting at all not typically, um, because I mean, with what I do
(50:12):
, I've thought about it forreviewing wine purposes, like
yeah, and it might be kind offun to do.
But typically I mean becauseI'm talking to consumers, I feel
like it makes sense to have allthe information a consumer
would have.
So, like yeah, no, I don'tusually blind taste.
Every once in a while I do forfun.
I also like joke that it's aparty trick, like totally, if
(50:35):
you're like you're good at it,then it is I'm not, I'm not good
at it, I'll admit that eitheram I for if you're at a party,
if you're at a party and it'snot wine industry people, it's.
It's easy to do there becauseit's almost always a cab, yes, a
pinot, a chardonnay, a sauvblanc, and nobody expects you to
(50:56):
go beyond that like.
So, if you can like, name thatvariety.
So you do it as a party trick,but never with industry people.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yes, and I'm out oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, I used to do it all the time with my buddy,
axel.
We kind of came up in the wineindustry together and he's a
winemaker now in Santa Barbara.
So, um, I was just down therelast weekend and I got to see
him, which is nice.
But, yeah, we used to blindtaste each other and we used to
do like the, the, the three youhave to guess the region, the
great variety and the vintage,um, and you know that was our
(51:33):
goal, uh for sure, is to learnas much as we can about it.
And, uh, and also the winemakerat carhartt, uh, chase carhartt
.
He used to blind taste me ongreat variety, um, because
obviously it's going to be fromthe same area.
It's his winery.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
Yeah, we did a blind tasting recently and I brought a
local wine actually.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
I botched that.
So bad, so bad.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
It's a winery that he should know very well actually,
or like decently well.
And then he brought aChardonnay and I'm I'm not going
to say I hate Chardonnaysbecause I there's a lot of
Chardonnays I have found that Ilike, but immediately I like,
(52:18):
tasted it and I looked at him.
I was like why do I want tojust immediately say Chardonnay
right now?
And it was, it was a Chardonnay, and that was the only time
I've ever gotten it right.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Well, that was your first Burgundy, too, that you've
ever had.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
So I was just like immediatelynew.
So at least I can say I know myChardonnays.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
You do, you definitely do.
Yeah, I tried to bring you onethat you would actually guess,
so there's that.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
What's wrong with you ?
Speaker 3 (52:51):
that doesn't help my like.
Let her have her ego moment.
Thank you, page.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Thank you hi the um, the guy who I used to work for
martin reyes.
He's a master of wine, so Ifeel like every time I meet up
with him, he also tries to blindtaste me.
What is this?
Speaker 1 (53:10):
I love those friends.
Oh, my God.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
But I feel like, because I know him well enough,
I know what he gets excitedabout, that I can usually get
close using like the contextclues of him, like totally, I've
done that before.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yeah, they're like okay, what, using the context
clues of him Totally, I cheat.
I've done that before.
Yeah, they're like okay, whatis his budget?
Is this Chateauneuf-du-Pape oris this Gigandasse?
Speaker 3 (53:34):
So at the winery that I currently work at, we
actually have a sandstoneChardonnay which is super unique
, definitely different, but Ihave been and I put it at the
first of our tasting list.
So anytime I like, before theyeven grab the menu and can look
(53:54):
at the tasting menu, I'm likeare you planning on doing a
tasting?
And then I hand them the firsttasting and say try this.
And don't look at the menu, seehow you like it.
And they're like.
And then I asked like what doyou think it is like?
Work on their taste budsespecially.
You know, as a tasting you'vegot to, you've got to work on
(54:15):
those little things.
And they're like maybe a saltBlanc or a Pinot Gris.
And then I'm like actually it'sa Chardonnay but it's fermented
in sandstone and so it's.
It's really fun to see thedifferent vessels and show what
grapes can do.
I mean the whole like.
But I hate buttery chardonnays,blah, blah, blah.
(54:37):
And it even goes down the samepath as like merlots.
Yeah, you know, there's seemslike there's always a bad rap
about merlots and chardonnaysand it is so misunderstood.
I love misunderstood, and soI've been doing that and every
person that's just like.
When I do it, they're like well, now I kind of want to buy a
(54:58):
bottle of chardonnay because Iactually like this one and
because I blind tasted them andyou know I understand the whole.
I don't like butteryChardonnays or blah, blah blah,
and I do love stainless, but thesandstone is very unique and if
you haven't had one, you shoulddefinitely try it.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
My, uh, my hot take is that I love party buttery
Chardonnay, but I also reallylike it at a cold room
temperature Okay.
Room temperature, but a littlechilled above room, not like a
hot room, but I keep my housepretty cold because I have wine.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Like cellar temp like 55?
.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
I like it a little warmer than cellar temp and it's
funny because I have a video ofone of my best friends
literally calling me a sociopath.
Because of this I like justfound it again yesterday and
sunday too where I was likeremember when you were really
mean, because I like my roomtemperature buttery chardonnay,
thanks do you go around androtate all your bottles, like
(56:04):
every so often?
Speaker 3 (56:05):
no, not formally.
No, yeah, not formally and I'mlooking for something yes how
many bottles do you think youhave in your little cellar?
Speaker 2 (56:16):
I'm not sure right now.
At one point it was over 400 um.
Oh my goodness but.
I think I've been.
I've been trying to I mean, thereason I have them is to taste
them and go through them, soI've been trying to be better
about uh, making my way throughthem so do you think you have
more or less than 400?
It's probably less than 400.
(56:37):
It's probably somewhere betweentwo and four hundred right now
but there's like 12 boxes.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
Well, I know where to come to your house if we ever
really shut down please comehelp, I think yeah, I had like
two, I think 250, whateverbottles, and then we started
this podcast.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Now I'm like down to, you know, probably, I don't
know 75 you need an excuse tolike.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
You need an excuse and someone to drink with,
because that was my problem forthe longest time, because I had
moved up to napa in january of2021 and things were still shut
down.
That was like the second wave,like post-holiday of shutdowns
and I feel like it took like agood year and a half for the
world to be normal, and so ittook until like really this last
year to like make local friendsand feel like I had a community
(57:29):
here, until I was just likesitting on the bottles being
like well, I can't drink them.
Speaker 3 (57:34):
All that's literally why we started the podcast is so
we can drink our wine I need tostart breaking out mine more.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
Wine is so much more fun with friends, oh, totally,
especially with someone you canappreciate it with yeah, I don't
like opening wine by myself,unless it's like a bottle that I
really don't give a shit about.
You know, um stuff that I love.
Speaker 3 (57:56):
I'm just like I feel like it's wasted on me well, and
I like warn him, like if I havethings to do later, I'm like
open a bottle, that's like meh,and then when I have time, I'm
like all right, let's get bougieyeah, yeah, I have um a
specific section on my rackthat's for for, because it's
(58:17):
usually not me who wants to openwine, like just like two
bottles so it's specifically formy boyfriend to open when I'm
like I'm not drinking tonight.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
You want wine?
Choose from that box, like Idon't care yeah, yeah, you can't
appreciate the good stuff yeah,no not at all, because now I'm
gonna have to drink.
Speaker 3 (58:39):
Yeah, exactly, that's so fun.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (58:43):
It's funny, my girlfriend.
She likes wine.
She used to work in theindustry, she works in the
restaurant industry now, um, butshe just never.
She never drinks it like ever.
If she opens a bottle, she'llnever open bottle by herself.
It has to be with someone elsebecause she'll drink like a half
of a glass and be like I'm donefor the for the whole evening I
(59:03):
will say I love my corbin forthat reason.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Cause if I I like wine as part of the meal to me,
so, like if I'm home alone, Idon't really want, like I don't
want to open a whole bottle, butI still want wine as part of
the meal, and so I will Corbin.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
I actually got my pretty much like my in-laws and
also my parents that and they'relike so what do I do with it?
I'm like you know when youdon't want the whole bottle this
?
Is a solution.
Speaker 2 (59:33):
Yeah, like, oh, you like don't want the whole bottle
, though, and I'm like, oh mygod every time I post about the
caravan there's people who arelike why didn't you just open
the bottle?
Or I've been using it more.
I have like a girl dinnerseries with pairings and so like
I love it, thank you, I'm notgoing to open like a whole
(59:54):
bottle for girl dinner, I justwant my one glass.
Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
And there's so many people every time I show using
the Coravin in those videoswhere they're like why didn't
you open it?
Like what are you doing?
Yeah, I feel like that wholeconcept is underrated.
Especially, at least here inthe U?
S is just like no, you don'thave to just open the bottle and
get hammered.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Like, yeah, okay, actually, going back to your
question about wine trends, thatI hate.
I think that's something itdoes so well on social media.
Anytime I'm like, haha, I'mdrinking from the bottle, doing
something ridiculous, but Idon't like it.
(01:00:40):
I show that very, very littlebecause I don't like it.
That's not what wine is to me.
Wine is about like communityand coming together and the
stories and it's part of themeal, like it's.
It's not.
I feel like you show that verywell on your social media.
Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
I feel like you show that so well.
Like you're very elegant inyour approach and you show your
love for wine um all the time.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Uh, but yeah, you're not like crazy excessive about
like oh, drink the whole bottleand like you know which is
awesome so you're doing a greatjob with the views that that
type of content gets.
It's tempting sometimes, butyeah for sure, yeah Um um page.
Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
Do you have time for doing like a quick patreon
episode after this?
Uh, sure what it yeah like it'snot the same thing same thing.
It's just a second episode thatwe put on our patreon.
Sure you're good with that?
Yeah, yeah, it's a quick 30okay, yeah, cool, so we'll just
pause this one and then continueour conversation I'll send you
(01:01:49):
a new invite link.
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Okay, um, but for this episode I do want to wrap
it up real quick.
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Um page, anything that you've got going on that
you want to plug at all um, yes,so I have a bunch of fun free,
free downloadables for peopleboth in the wine industry and
consumers.
I have a checklist for how towork with wine influencers for
small wineries, and then I alsohave free Napa maps and Sonoma
(01:02:16):
maps and all sorts of guides onwine with pagecom slash
downloads.
And then also please follow meon Instagram at wine with page.
Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
Awesome.
You guys heard it here.
All of her links will be in theshow notes.
So go check out the show notes.
It'll be the first thing yousee when you go to the
description of this episode.
It'll be her links.
So go there, support her.
She's awesome.
She's doing a great job.
She loves wine.
She's a great educator to gosupport.
Thank you, paige.
(01:02:45):
Job she loves wine.
She's a great educator to gosupport.
Thank you, page appreciate it.
Cool cheers, thank you.
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