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Ologies with Alie Ward
Enology Part 1 (HOW TO DRINK WINE) with André Hueston Mack
01:14:01
To chill or not to chill? That is the question. And then a bunch more questions. Thankfully, author, winemaker, sommelier, and Enology expert, André Hueston Mack is on hand to explain Old World vs. New World wines, corks vs. caps, red, rosé, orange, and white wines, stemware, judging a wine by its label, the best glass of wine he’s ever tasted, needless snobbery, aeration, decanting, and what those legs are doing dancing around your glass. Also: how to open a bottle with no corkscrew. Next week: how to make wine. Stay tuned.
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- [00:00]
A
Oh hey, it's the Tic Tac that you dropped on the sidewalk that you're afraid someone might mistake for drugs and then be disappointed. Alie Ward and welcome to the world of wine. So analogy. It can be spelled with an o before the E or not. We're not in Britain. We're not going to pretend we are. So we're dropping the o. That's how you spell it in the country that I'm in. But either way it comes from the Greek for wine. And an enologist, it's fully something you can major in and become degreed in, is schooled in the science of wines or the study of the nature or qual or varieties of wine. So we are serving up two glasses of it this episode with a world renowned sommelier and winemaker. And then next week we're going to talk to a pair of married winemakers and enologists who cover more of the behind the scenes of what it's like to run a winery. So consider this first one kind of a how to on enjoying and understanding and appreciating wine and reading labels and faking your way through a wine list or not and at a chill or not chill with your wines. So this ologist is someone I've been eyeing for so long and their schedule is bonkers, but it was so worth the wait. At the very start of their career as a sommelier or a wine steward, they were named Best Young Sommelier. They began working with the chef Thomas Keller, becoming his head sommelier. We'll talk about why that's a huge deal. They founded their own Mouton Noir wines, meaning black sheep, but later rebranded to Maison Noir. We'll talk about that too. And they're an author of the book 99 A Black Sheep's Guide to Life Changing Wines. So we will get to that way of life in just a moment. But first just a quick thank you to patrons@patreon.com Ologies who support the show for as little as a dollar a month and submit questions for the ologists. Thank you to everyone spreading the word about our kid friendly spinoff called Smologies S M O L O G I E S which are shorter and classroom friendly G rated versions of Ologies episodes. We won't be having one for this one obviously, but thanks to everyone supporting our merch for from ologiesmerch.com and tagging ologies Merch Ologies Merch on Instagram so we can repost you. And thanks as always to folks who leave reviews for ologies which help us so much. I read them all. I was so touched to see your responses to last week's Oops All Secrets wall to wall confessional episode. Thanks for listening. So glad we just got to hang out while we finished this episode. Also thanks to CO says who wrote a review saying listening to ologies is like reading a small, incredibly well written book on your favorite topic printed on paper that feels good on your fingers in just the right font. But doing it while you scrub the tub clean or lie on the floor because you are too tired to clean the tub all while your friend passes you notes. See you see how. Hey, I've got crib notes on wine grapes for you. Here you go. Also, thank you to sponsors of the show who make it possible to donate to a cause of the ologist choosing each week. Guts are incredible. We've talked about them a lot on the show. It's working for you 247 doing a lot behind the scenes. When it's doing its job, it's quiet. Which is great because a boring gut leaves more room for an interesting life. And they have these new Culturel Complete three in one biotics. They're mini chews you just easily pop in your mouth every day, no water needed. They help with occasional bloating and gas and let's just say, digestive discomfort. So Culturel Probiotics the science of a Boring Gut can see website for details.
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B
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- [03:58]
A
One thing I love about my long term friends is I'm still learning things about them, especially if we travel together. But maybe you have a buddy that you brought on a weekend trip who you didn't know has to do Scream Yoga at dawn Surprise. But vrbo vrbo does not surprise you when you book a vrbo Vacation Rental, VRBO Care and 24. 7 Life Support from Real humans are included. If something is not as described or isn't working, vrbo can step in to help make it right. I don't know what to tell you about the Scream yoga though. Book today on the VRBO app. If you know you VRBO terms apply. See vrbo.com trust for details. Okay, onto the episode, we logged onto a video interview and they had a glass of wine in hand and a very cool down to earth aura with infectious curiosity and a lot of knowledge about their work. And I'd like to share a quote of theirs to. To just get you into the vibe. They say wine is not a beverage reserved for the elite, but can and should be enjoyed by everyone. So let's get into enology. We'll chat about red versus versus orange versus white wines, food pairings, wine glasses, how to open a bottle without a corkscrew, how your favorite wine got its name, judging a wine by its label, wine snobbery, aeration, decanting, to chill or not to chill. And what those legs are. With author, winemaker, sommelier and enologist Andre Houston Mack.
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B
Oh, he himself.
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A
Hi. First time. So glad you're here.
- [05:48]
B
Hey, I'm excited to be here. Hold on, I gotta pour up. I just got off the plane.
- [05:53]
A
Oh, man.
- [05:54]
B
You know, so we got a little. Sorry. You know, I'm not rude. I would offer you some, but I
- [05:59]
A
have a watered down Diet Dr. Pepper, which sucks.
- [06:02]
B
There you go. Comparatively, drink them if you got them.
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A
What are you drinking?
- [06:09]
B
A little bit of a Chenin Blanca tank sample from one of the vineyards we work with.
- [06:14]
A
You work with 7, 13. How many vineyards do you work with?
- [06:18]
B
We work with like quite a few on an average year. Maybe 16, 17. Just depends we get our choice to pick between both of them. But yeah, we make quite a bit of wine.
- [06:26]
A
So you're a Somme and a winemaker?
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B
You know, I mean, I got into wine, so I was sommelier and then that next transition for me was really wanting to continue to learn about wine outside of the four walls of the restaurant. And I felt like if I could make my own wine, I could continue to learn, but also I could be an entrepreneur. And so, yeah, I started this company
- [06:44]
A
back in 2007 and this is Maison Noir.
- [06:48]
B
Maison Noir wine. We've been through some name changes. The alcohol business is pretty litigious.
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A
And if your wine brand even remotely sounds like another wine brand by accident, you can expect multi generationally wealthy vineyards to lawyer up. But his name is now secure. And Andre isn't a stranger to the cutthroat world of business and rich people. He worked in the financial sector for a while, fielding calls about stock prices, but cubicle life was not for him.
- [07:16]
B
I think the moment that was just lost for me is when it was just more like, I'd love To interaction with people physically. Like, you know, being able to, like, talk to them, read body language, walk up to a group of strangers. And that part right there was the part that kind of made me think, ah, it's time to go. Like, maybe I want to do something else.
- [07:33]
A
And then when the gigantic bank he worked for merged with another, a door opened or an escape hatch padded with a little extra money so they didn't
- [07:43]
B
need our department anymore. So we could reapply or we could take severance and leave. And that felt like the right opportunity for me.
- [07:51]
A
Maybe this is totally off course, but were you drawn to some of the storytelling with each wine? I feel like every wine has like a personality and a history and who loves it and where it's going. Like, was that constant learning part of it for you?
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B
Yeah, I mean, well, it's the whole idea of, you know, it's history, biology, chemistry. And then the new part was telling the stories about what made these wines great. The local people made the local wines to go with the local food. And so hence you hear me say lots of times, you know, if it grows together, it goes together.
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A
Oh, I love that.
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B
It was just such a fascinating time, like learning something new, being able to dive into it, giving it your everything, every waking moment. And then being able to go to work, go to a restaurant and apply those things that you learned.
- [08:37]
A
You mentioned personalities for so many years. As a psalm and like an expert, do you ever see, like different personalities gravitating toward different wines? Can you clock someone where you're like, this is going to be like a thick bodied red or this person's definitely a rose early?
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B
See, I'm a steer clear of that because that's, that's a little profiling there. Yes.
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A
Okay.
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B
And what I would say is mainly it's because we knew them, but there were definitely types. No, that's what's great about wine is like, wine was about the moment. You know, this is what I tell people. I said your relationship with wine is not about monogamy or it shouldn't be. Mine isn't. Mine's about exploring and tasting everything. And then not define a soulmate is just to define different wines that you like for different occasions. You know, it's like, oh, so I'm going to this restaurant. I like to have this with this. Oh, you know, well, we're going to an Italian steakhouse. You know, I want Brunello. Right. It's Italian steak wine. You know, I'm gonna choose a different wine that I would choose if I was going to the beach and we were having oysters. Right. That to me is the fun part about wine. It's like dressing up. It's like an accessory that you bring. Right. You go to the beach, you wear a certain attire, you bring certain things, you might bring certain things to eat on the beach. So all of those things, to me, what's always just fascinating because it was like, it's how you tell a story. I can tell you more about a situation, less about the people coming in and like looking at their shoes, their watch, their clothes, whether they had a dress shirt on with a. With a fleece on top. Right. With dress pants on. Right. But more I like to look at like, oh, we're going to this place. So this is what we should bring. I like this for a backyard barbecue. Depending on who's there. You know what, let's bring a larger format, you know, maybe not as expensive. Just, you know, bigger bottles show more festivity in that way. And it's about sharing. So I don't know, I just like the idea of the social aspect of wine too. Right. It is the conduit. It's the gel that brings us all together.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Wine should be, you know, like 20%. It's in the background. It sets the mood, the theme. Any more than that, you know, then it becomes a wine tasting or a wine dinner or somewhat obnoxious. I'm not against any of those things. I've been in those rooms. I like to be in those rooms. But I think, you know, most of the time when we're talking about wine and outings, you know, wine's there to set the mood.
- [10:53]
A
You know, you've been Assam at French Laundry, Thomas Keller's restaurant, which is. I've never even been. I've. I've known like three people who have gone. It's such a destination, like a bucket list restaurant. So chef Thomas Keller is behind New York's Per Se and Northern California's the French Laundry, which is a confusing name for a food establishment, but the building outside of Napa was a clothes cleaning business in ye olden times. But both the French Laundry and Per Se have been awarded three Michelin stars and various James Beard awards. Thomas Keller is like Meryl Streep level of honors in the restaurant business. A meal, for example, will set you back at minimum $500 a person. And getting a table has been described by restaurant goers. I looked on Reddit as Taylor Swift eras tour levels of difficulty, that is verbatim, just refreshing. A webpage crossing Your fingers on the first of the month. For the following month at promptly 10am you can try for a spot at the French laundry. But diners recommend that you you alert your credit card company that an unusually large purchase may be coming through. If you're like, hell no, never. Gas is $7 a gallon. You can check out Thomas Keller's cookbooks from the library for free. And his roasted chicken recipe is like the gold standard for poultry. But yes, imagine, just imagine being the person who knows and recommends wine to diners there. My intestines buckle just imagining the stress. What's the training like to become a sommelier? Like at that high a level?
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B
It's really intense. Yeah. I think a lot of people, you stay there long enough, what people say, a common thing you hear, it's like they made me into the person that I am. And a lot of those experiences, they're young people. I was young. Or you know.
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A
Mm.
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B
It's interesting to say that but like somewhat your values, what you should value or not or just the mentality. But this is a place that offers you discipline. It's intense. You know, up until that point, I had always associated hard work with like your back having to hurt. You know what I mean? It was like back breaking work. Now it's that too. But like also what you realize is that it's like the mental load was heavy. That part was intense where hyper alert, like just making sure that everything went well. Like you're supposed to be on alert. So the guest experience is seamless. But it was intense. I mean, for like New York, I mean, they hired a famous retired ballerina to teach us how to walk with grace through the dining room.
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A
Wow. Wow.
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B
We're like, you know, passing feathers and doing the mignonette and training. And so, you know, it was a lot of that, like a lot of information, understanding things. But you know, you know, why, why does that work well here? Why does the farmer do it that way? In hindsight, it's funny because you say it was like one of the most memorable experiences I ever had. But then it's also like, yeah, there's a little, I wouldn't say trauma in that way. It's just kind of like basic training. When you go through something, there's some training things that are hard and they're supposed to be right. They're supposed to be uncomfortable because the standard is so high. You know, they used to have the saying there. It's like work to impress the person that you work side by side with because there's Nobody in the world that's in it like you are. And any guest that walks through the front door will be blown away if you can blow your peer away. And it was kind of that thing. Not a competition in that sense, but more of a bond to say that we're gonna push each other each day to be the best and push our way to perfection, which is something that is unachievable.
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A
I mean, that's the Ivy Leagues. You don't get much higher in America especially. But when it comes to global wines too. You worked in Napa as well. You've got a lot of wineries that you work with. And you're a vintner. You know, a lot of places in Oregon. Can you explain a little bit? And I know this is like a huge question, but imagine that you have never tasted wine or you're a kind of person that like opens up a wine list and like starts sweating. Can you explain a little bit of what to look for in California versus French, maybe versus Spanish wines? What's some broad strokes if you know nothing?
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B
Yeah, I guess kind of the easiest way to do it is to break it. Like in the wine world, we talk about New World versus Old World.
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A
Okay.
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B
Old World is, you know, Western Europe. So you look at Western Europe, the traditional wine grown regions, and Spain, UK would be included in that. And then you look at what New World is. So New World is North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand.
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A
Okay.
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B
Old World leads with not fruit, but more with like what they call terroir, more of the taste in the land. So it's more, you know, earthy kind of flavors and those kind of things that you taste first. And then there's fruit. And New World leads with fruit. So generally if you put your nose in the glass, it's going to be fruit. So thinking about New World, New World is a lot warmer. The warmer the grape grown region is, the hotter it gets, hotter it gets, the riper it gets warmer. More sugars can be translated into alcohol. Right. So this is that. That kind of pendulum. Like the higher sugar levels will give you more alcohol. So you have ripe grapes and then you introduce yeast. Yeast. Eat the sugar, kind of have that Pac man, and then they poop out alcohol, right? So you see that little trail. And so you have more. More sugar means you have more potential for alcohol. More potential for alcohol means more weight and body on the palate is how it's transcribed, like the. How you feel it. So Old World wines tend to be lower in alcohol, more acidic. They have acid. So acid Is an amplifier, right? You accentuate acidity on the sides of your tongue. So if your sides of your tongue start to tingle or you start to salivate, that means the wine is high in acid. So what you have in old world wines is they lead with acid. New world wines lead with fruit and ripeness, which some people perceive as sweetness, but not sweet.
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A
Okay?
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B
So when you divide it that way, that's how you know you can say, okay, if I'm looking at wines from California or from South America, Chile, Argentina, those wines are going to tend to be more fruity and more ripe and more alcohol. Old world wines, France, Germany, Italy, those wines are from cooler climates, which don't have as much sun, so they have lower potential alcohol. So lower alcohol, more acidity, and then they tend to have a little bit more nuances in the flavor. So you're thinking about mushroom, you're thinking about, like, mineral gravel. Like, all those things you hear people say, those tend to lead in old world wines versus in new world wines, even though you find them in both. But that's the generality that I find that really kind of helps people break down just a vast world of wine.
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A
And if you need just a quick primer about how wine got into your body and how long it took, you can think at least 8,000 years, according to UPenn biomolecular archeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern, who has been called the eclipse Indiana Jones of ancient alcohol. The whole process is sort of magical, is what he told National Geographic in 2011, saying you could even call fermentation the first biotechnology. And sadly, Dr. McGovern, I just looked him up. He passed away last August at the age of 80. But not before securing like, hero status among fellow fermentation scholars, who, according to his New York Times obituary, refer to themselves as drinkologists. I'm sorry, as an olongologist, A drinkologist sucks shit. And I'm sure they wouldn't mind me rebranding them to paleoanologists. Just change your business cards. Forget drinkology ever happened. But if you're hungry and you want to break bread with your wines of antiquity, we have a gastro Egyptology episode on making sourdough bread using ancient yeast from Egyptian tombs. We also have a zymology episode about brewing. But if you want to start with alcohol drinking ologies, you may want to listen to our melitology episode about bees. Since the first hooch that was ever cultivated may have been mead or, like, fermented honey water. And is it actually honey wine? Because sometimes it's called honey wine. Nope, no grapes. So honey wine is a misnomer. Wine by definition is fermented grape juice. And most wines are made from this species called Vitis vinifera. This and winemaking grapes are small, thick skinned and really tart. They look like dusty blueberries compared to a big, thinner skinned table grape that you would eat. But both are typically from the same species, which can have up to 10,000 different cultivars. Also, you can't just plant a wine grape seed and then become a vinter in a few years. Them things are sliced, they're frankenvined onto hardier root stock. So they gotta just keep like sowing limbs on, essentially because the rootstock that they use is more bug resistant. And this is just like the secret truth behind apple trees from our pomology episodes. And also we got a lot of episodes. If you're curious about cider, we have a whole ciderology episode. But cider is not wine. So pardon moi.
- [20:16]
B
And then you can go in and break into your nuances of, you know, French red wines are different because of the different regions. So Bordeaux or kind of more, you know, brooding, more power in that sense, you know, more gravel, more like oak barrel and aging. And then you look at something like further south in Burgundy, like Pinot Noir, it's a little bit more elegant. Pinot Noir is a thin skin grape. It evolves in the glass. So lots of different styles, even just in one country. But generally speaking, the overall rule is that New world wines tend to be a little bit more on the fruit spectrum and more alcohol, whereas European wines tend to be less alcohol, more nuanced and acidity.
- [20:52]
A
So to recap, so when it comes to, like, types of wines, generally speaking, and this was news to me, I didn't know Old World wines are named for the region that the grapes were grown in. Think Burgundy or Chianti or Chablis, which is actually a Chardonnay grape. And famously, Champagne, which legally must be grown in the region of Champagne, France. And this is even written in the Treaty of Versailles. And also just Champagne, Illinois. We're not talking about you, although there is a place named Champagne in Switzerland. And they got away with calling their wine Champagne. They're like, people won't know. But the EU gave them a wrist slap and they conceded that it was tricky of them and that they'd phase it out, even though their sales, when they did that, dropped by 75%. And, you know, people working at those companies were sweating. But what can you do? France wins so Old World wines, you can look for them by region. And different regions tend to produce grapes and wines with different characteristics. Now, New World wines, like from America, Chile, Argentina, Australia, they tend to be named by the grape variety, like Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, which is very popular red wine. Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay. And again, these tend to be more fruit forward with higher sugar in the grape and then higher alcohol content. Generally speaking, there are variations. I love you, but don't email me. What's with the swirling in the glass? Looking for legs? Is that sugar content?
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B
It's alcohol content, but what's interesting is it's less of that. So swirling the glass here, like you see me doing, this is more about aeration. So the wine has been in the bottle for, you know, maybe 18 months or something like that. So you want to pour the wine in the glass and this helps with helping the wine open up, right? So the glass serves as like a mini decanter that you can drink from. And so you pour the wine in and you swirl and you see me doing this. A lot of times it's more of a nervous tick, right, than anything else. But this is like, you know, so it's just aeration, letting air get into the wine. So oxygen is the enemy to wine, right? Wine is a living, breathing thing. And as soon as the cork is pulled or the top is open, air starts to attack the wine. It starts to break down the wine and starts to soften the wine. But to a certain point, the wine will deteriorate and become vinegar, depending on how long it's left out.
- [23:14]
A
And so vinegar, you can note the vine even in the word, which I never clocked before, means wine turned sour. And that's because it involves a double fermentation. Like in wine, yeast gobbles up the sugars and spits out alcohol. But the second fermentation happens when bacteria gobble up the alcohol and make acetic acid. And oxygenation in general can enhance or it can damage a wine depending on the wine and the amount of exposure to oxygen. So oxidation can happen in the winemaking process, and we'll talk about that more next week. It can also happen in the bottle. It can happen once the bottle is open and certainly after a bottle's been opened, enjoyed and re corked if you didn't finish it. So some people close up a half empty or half full bottle, depending look at it with a vacuum pump, sometimes with mixed results. And there are even gadgets to replace the oxygen in the bottle with an inert gas like argon to keep it fresher. But let's go back to what happens when you uncork or unscrew a bottle and pour it into a decanter, which is like a serving pitcher for wine, or just straight into your glass. And then you swirl around feeling very fancy.
- [24:35]
B
And so what you see, too, what you can see now here.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Is you see what people call the legs, and you start to see how it looks like tears are forming. Right? But what it is, is it's alcohol. It's alcohol. It's evaporation. So what you have is the alcohol being evaporated. So the overflow is the alcohol coming up, pushing up, being evaporated. And on either side of that is the tears that fall down. So what that really tells you, people are like, look at those legs. Generally what you're looking for is how fast or slow they fall versus if they are any or not or if they look good. You know? You know what I mean? Right.
- [25:12]
A
So the legs that you're seeing dripping down the inside of the glass are actually arms of alcohol reaching up, if you will. And when it comes to how much alcohol is in the wine, you can swirl it around, you can think about it, you can deliberate mentally, but you can also just look at the label for abv, or alcohol by volume. There's just numbers, which it feels less like being a cool witch looking at tinctures. But some people like math.
- [25:42]
B
So that's the whole idea. And what that tells you, the slower they fall, the more alcohol.
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A
Got it.
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B
It's one of those things, too, where you can just pick up the bottle and look at the back. Right. You know what I mean? But it's just one of the things of wine that I find to be, you know, trivial but, like, fun. I think I have a fun time with a lot of those kind of things just in the business, too, you know, the small snippets of what they knew about wine. And they can be fun moments to really kind of educate and let people understand, like, oh, this is the reason why it's that way. And, you know, some of it's folklore, some of it isn't. But here's the real kind of truth behind it.
- [26:12]
A
I feel like I see red wine decanted to breathe more than I see white. What's up with that?
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B
Yeah. So that's true. This is a great segue. You're good. You're good. I like this. Thank you. So just right now, we were talking about the evaporation and we were talking about alcohol, and we're talking about how oxygen starts to eat away at wine and make it deteriorate, soften it up, right? And it's the tannin. So what you have is in red wine. So let's back up a little bit. You have white wine, you have red wine. So the color actually comes from the skin, but not to juice inside.
- [26:44]
A
Okay?
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B
And so what you do is it's. You soak most red wine grapes, extract the color. You soak the juice on the skins, right? So you just crush it, and it's called like a, you know, cold soak. And you're extracting color. And while you're extracting color from the skins, you're also extracting tannin. So tannin is like the compound that sucks the moisture out of your mouth. So people who enjoy black tea understands that, you know, that dryness that you get in the inside of your mouth from tea, that's the same thing. And that's a preservative in wine. And those can be bitter. You know, they're rough. And when you decant a red wine, there's a couple reasons why you decant a wine. But normally what you're talking about is you're decanting a red wine to let it breathe, right? And so let it breathe, but also you're helping break down the wine slowly. So it could be a young wine, a youthful wine, that needs a little time in a decanter to kind of just soften the edges, if you will, makes the wine a little bit more palatable, less tannic. And so what you're doing is you're allowing the oxygen to come in. And generally you do it on a wide surface. So, you know, a decanter that has a wide surface.
- [27:44]
A
And so, yeah, a decanter is something from which you decant something you pour from. It's a pitcher, but with expensive grape juice. You can picture one of those science chem labs flasks. The Erlenmeyer is a flask that you would see in clip art to mean, like, science. And it has a flat, wide bottom and a skinny rim. Rumor has it that even one of the world's most esteemed wine critics, the late John Michael Broadbent, enjoyed an Erlenmeyer flask as a decanter. But heads up, if you're like, we got some of those at work. Don't. Do not smuggle one out of the lab. You do not know what it's been used for. And dawn dish soap may work on oily birds. But it's not enough to save you if you got a weird flask with some crazy stuff in it. So get a new one or just go to Home Goods and find a wine decanter on sale.
- [28:40]
B
So something like this, you see how it has a broad. You want more surface to air ratio so the wine can be exposed and be softened. Another reason why you can't red wine is generally because it's an old wine. You would decant it in a smaller decanter, more narrow. And what you're doing here is you're removing the sediment. As a wine ages, some of the pigment of the color and particles start to fall out of the wine and it produces this fine kind of sediment on the bottom of the bottle. It's not that it will hurt. You just kind of interrupts the experience of drinking wine. Right. Because it can get grainy or gritty for me, Like, I can't drink orange juice with pulp in it. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, I don't know if I'm supposed to swallow or chew, you know, those kind of things. It's weird. Yeah. So basically, you're decanting the wine just to remove the particles and the sediment from the bottle into a drinking vessel that you can pour when the wine throws. Sediment is what they call it. Normally, when they have that, the wine is old. So at this point, air is definitely detrimental to this wine. They can have a shorter period of time that it can be exposed to oxygen. And you want to be able to drink the wine in that window. Depending on how old, sometimes it could be 45 minutes.
- [29:45]
A
So for younger wine, you'd pour from the bottle into that decanter or pitcher that has a nice wide base so it has some air contact. And then some of the alcohol and those edges get aerated away. Now, for an older wine, you'd use a more narrow decanter, so it didn't have as much air contact, but it would help you pour off. The sediment stays at the bottom. But okay, so decanting is just for red wines. Right.
- [30:12]
B
And then you see some people decant white wine, you know what I'm saying? And generally when you see people decanting white wine, it could be to help break down the wine. Maybe there's a little bit of skin contact, but generally you see some white wines being decanted for temperature control. So maybe the wine came straight out of the, you know, your refrigerator or your Eurocav or whatever, and you want to pour that bottle into a decanter. Get more surface to air ratio to help cool the wine down and get it to the right temperature.
- [30:37]
A
Just a side note, a Euro cave is one of those huge, nice wine fridges. I don't have one. And temperature wise, storage wise, obviously, red wines served lower than room temperature, but white wines tend to be cooler. Is there a reason for that? I'm sure there is. Could there possibly be any logic?
- [31:01]
B
Well, I mean, that has really been a, you know, somewhat of an epidemic in this country, I would say, is that a lot of the red wines are being served too hot and the white wines too cold. So in a white wine, when it's served too cold, there's no nuance. It's like a numbing effect. You know, I remember going when I was in college when I discovered that if you put tequila, you would put, like, the shitty tequila in the freezer. And you put it in the freezer, and it would never freeze. So how, you know, if your roommate was drinking it and filling with water, you'd put it in the freezer and the bottle would crack. Right. So we had. We've seen that happen a couple times, but so it takes the bite off. So when you drink tequila that's been in the freezer, it numbs it. So you don't taste anything. It just goes down, which is very dangerous, might add.
- [31:45]
A
Right. But you don't want to make it too easy for Jose.
- [31:49]
B
And then. And then you have it, and you're like, okay. But there's no nuance. You don't get the pepper and all the things that you taste in tequila or any spirit or any wine, so it numbs it. So the fact that you might have paid $200 for that, you know, to have that great white Burgundy experience, but if it's served too cold, then you don't even get to pick up on the different nuances that actually tell that story of that wine and set it apart and the reason why you paid that amount of money for it.
- [32:14]
A
And as the temperature hits closer to the 60 degree Fahrenheit, Mark, we can taste more of the wine. And for more on that, we have a whole gustatology episode that goes into way greater detail on how aroma influences the taste of things and. Yeah. How your whole taste receptor system functions. Also, just a heads up, drinking an iced beverage with your meal means that your food tastes less flavorful. And I am an ice queen. This is news to me. So do not over chill your white wines. 43 degrees works well for a sparkling white wine, but on the other end, of the white wines, like a Chardonnay, some experts say is best around 50 degrees Fahrenheit or 10 Celsius. But your refrigerator is probably set to around 37 degrees Fahrenheit. So let it sit on the counter a few minutes. Like, let it d. Chill. A white wine should not be icy. Andre says.
- [33:10]
B
And so with red wine, what you have is when red wine is served too warm. And so we had this notion when we said room temperature, well, that was room temperature, really, meaning cellar temperature maybe 40, 50 years ago. So not to get anybody upset here, you can call it what you want, but the earth is a lot warmer place than it used to be. And so room temperature.
- [33:29]
A
Anyone who gets pissed at that is like, are you kidding me? Don't worry. It's a science podcast.
- [33:34]
B
Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm just checking. I'm just checking. I ain't trying to mess nobody's audience up. You know what I mean?
- [33:42]
A
Oh, that should not be controversial, dude.
- [33:45]
B
It should not be.
- [33:46]
A
It's a fact. So while the ideal wine cellar is 55 degrees or 12, 13 degrees Celsius, the temperatures of cellars, yes, they're rising. I fact check this.
- [34:00]
B
So that being said, room temperature is a lot different than it used to be. Red wine should be served somewhere around 66. I would say 65 to 66, you know, under 70, for sure, is how I like to drink them. And it's funny because a lot of people are like, wow, it's really. Have a chillin. It's like, no, that's how you're supposed to drink it. When a red wine or any wine is too hot, especially red wine, it accentuates the alcohol. So all you get is this burning effect of the wine tasting. Like it has way too much alcohol. So it amplifies the alcohol, and that doesn't allow for a great wine drinking experience.
- [34:32]
A
Ah, well, you know, that reminds me that the thing that's going to hit your nose is going to be what is kind of emanating off. And when it comes to glasses, when it comes to, like, the glass you're drinking of has a wider base and a more narrow nose to it. I always think of. Did you ever watch. Oh, my God. Olivia Pope? What was that show?
- [34:55]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [34:57]
A
Why can't I remember it right now?
- [34:58]
B
Oh, shit. We did a whole thing. Scandal, scandal, scandal, scandal, scandal, scandal. Yes, yes.
- [35:04]
A
It's handled. Olivia Pope had, like, a goldfish bowl on a stem and also red wine. She always had, like, the best white cashmere coats. And I'm like, the fact that she could keep that stuff clean, I was like, good on her. I couldn't. But, you know, I think about those big globe glasses and red wine and these narrower glasses. I'm sure you've seen the meme of, like, a heavy stemware, that if you are at a restaurant and you get a glass of wine and, like, heavy stemware, you know it's going to be garbage. Like, if the glass is not absolutely like a egg level of fragility, it's going to be a shitty glass of wine. But where does the stemware come in? And the experience of what you're drinking it in?
- [35:48]
B
You know, that was really funny because that was definitely kind of the mentality that I took when I opened a little wine bar here in my neighborhood back in 2020. And I remember, I think I was talking to my mother, and I was like, no, no, no. You want to set the tone right at the beginning so they might look at the wine by the glass page. But I just want people to know when they touch the glass, they'll understand why we don't serve $9 glasses of wine. Right. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, no, it is on. Right. Even though the glass might cost more than the bottle of wine you just bought. But that's okay, because it's a tool. A wine glass is a tool. Right? Yeah. So you want, like, to have the most seamless transition from the wine in the glass to your palate. And so what you want is a very thin, rimmed glass that comes to the mouth. These are some of my favorite here.
- [36:31]
A
And he's drinking a chenin blanc. And the glass he's holding, it's very fetching. It's this angular stemmed one. It's elegant, it's modern. Think of like a tall triangle on a stick with a very thin stem held so that the wine doesn't warm in your hand, which is nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit. And sure, there were really nice glasses like this for, I checked, like, $16 on sale at CB2 or a higher quality one can cost around 50 bucks just for one. There are so many wine glasses. Some purists stick to very specific bowl shapes, like wide, round ones. But say a champagne flute, those are tall and narrow to prevent the bubbles from fizzing off too quickly. But old champagne glasses were wider. That's because they had a hollow stem, which were a real bitch to clean, which is why people don't use them anymore. But like, in the 60s, 70s, whatever. They'd have this hollow stem where the bubbles would keep going up, but they had a wider open face anyway. There's physics behind each glass, which is fun to deconstruct. Like, evolutionary traits. Like, what's the why? There's almost always a why.
- [37:43]
B
And then you have a wide base. So you have a wide base, so you have more surface to air ratio. And then you have a more narrow top. Right. And that's almost kind of like cone or that narrowing really helps direct the wine on the palate. But as far as aroma, it's helping really direct it into your nose. You know, you want to inhale through your nose, and then you want to exhale through your mouth, Right? So you want to open up your olfactory senses. So inhaling through your nose, blowing out through your mouth. Not like this. You know, sometimes I say that people are like, that's not what we're talking about. Right.
- [38:14]
A
We're talking about Andre takes, like, a
- [38:16]
B
good whiff, you know, and then you can constantly smell. You know, 80% of taste is actually smell. You know, I learned that through eating Brussels sprouts growing up. As a kid, that was the magic trick to plug up the plug hole. And glasses can get really expensive, and to me, they matter, and so they don't. So, hey, I got this great bottle of wine. If I don't have anything else to drink it out of, it'll be a plastic cup or the bottle. Right. Ultimately, what the experience ultimately is enjoying the wine. And that's contradictory in some ways, because people will say, oh, well, if you drink it out of a shitty cup, it's like. But ultimately, the wine is supposed to deliver the pleasure. The tools and the things that you have around you are supposed to make those things easier to enjoy. And that's kind of how I always looked at glassware. Even though, like, I'm a glassware fanatic. I, like, I have a whole bunch right here. But, like, I don't bring my own glassware to the restaurant. I'm not that kind of girl.
- [39:10]
A
Do some people do that? Do they open up like a briefcase like in Pulp Fiction, and it's got, like, a special glass?
- [39:16]
B
It's handcuffed to the wrist. Yeah, they do. And in certain occasions, I understand it, you know, so in New York City, if you ever want to watch sommeliers in the wild. Yeah. Yeah. You can go to this place called wu's Won Ton. And generally speaking, they're generally the table that's not all Asian. Right. And there's huge tables With Lazy Susan, the food is amazing, and then basically, it's where we go and, like, we meet and hang out. You order this amazing food, and everybody brings wine. So there'll be boxes of wine, and then some people will bring their own glassware. And I feel like that is the okay occasion to do that.
- [39:49]
A
Right. That's a tool of the trade, and that's among peers, and you want to have the best experience with it. But speaking of tools of the trade, I'm so curious. I can't even imagine how many bottles you've uncorked. What do you use to open up? Do you use a simple wine key? Are you one of those things where, you know, the ones that look like hairy armpits that go. Or are you like, an electronic wine opener? Like, what's the gold standard?
- [40:15]
B
Okay, we'll work backwards. Electronic. Absolutely not.
- [40:18]
A
Okay.
- [40:18]
B
There was a thing called the rabbit, but actually, I think that term got taken over by another industry. When I say rabbit, I'm like, they're confused. There's some confusion here.
- [40:28]
A
That's a different electronic.
- [40:29]
B
No, you can't open a bottle of wine without one. Different episode, different one.
- [40:34]
A
And I will say use the corkscrew. That fits you best. I know friends who use electric ones because their hands need some extra help. That's fine. Of course, this is just some pretty inside baseball for soms. And yes, the rabbit corkscrew looks kind of like if a garlic press had a curly proboscis. And the corkscrew that looks like a head on top with two arms that have hairy armpits, that's called a wing corkscrew, where you screw the curly worm into the cork, and then you jazzercise the arms or the wings down to leverage out the cork. What does Andre think about those?
- [41:08]
B
So the Jazzercise ones, Those. Absolutely not. Those are the ones that you always get in the Airbnb, and you're like, fuck. And then you end up breaking one off. You know what I mean? I call it the Jazzercise size. What's happening then? Then the Ahso, which I love, and I have some stuff over there. Hold on a second. Hold on. All right, let's see what we got here.
- [41:29]
A
So Andre is looking around his desk right now for a wine key that's like two pieces nestled together, a short handle with this two pronged fork. It looks kind of like a miniature roast carving fork with a corkscrew between those two tines.
- [41:43]
B
All right, I'm back.
- [41:45]
A
Nice.
- [41:45]
B
We got here.
- [41:46]
A
Okay.
- [41:47]
B
All right, so here, this is called The Duran. So this is a special key, right? You see it here? Right? And.
- [41:53]
A
Oh, nice.
- [41:54]
B
All right. And so what's interesting about this one is that it's two wine tools in one. And so what you might have seen before is something that looks like this.
- [42:03]
A
Oh, yeah. It's like a two pronged.
- [42:05]
B
Yeah, you know, it's like Wolverine, right?
- [42:08]
A
Yeah, you definitely could kill someone. Yeah. With that.
- [42:11]
B
And so this was called a butler's corkscrew. And they would take it and you wedge it between the side of the cork and the bottle and then you turn and turn and eventually you pull it out. So you see these all the time. Inexpensive, kind of looks old school.
- [42:23]
A
Yeah. And my notion would be to sink it in like rattlesnake fangs. And that is not correct. You do not stab the cork. Right?
- [42:31]
B
You do not stab the cork.
- [42:33]
A
Okay.
- [42:33]
B
You do not do that. And what makes this device different, called the Duran, is that it's the second piece. You screw it down in the cork and then you turn it all together. So when you use this, this keeps the cork intact.
- [42:44]
A
Smart.
- [42:45]
B
So you see a lot of these at fancy restaurants that have, you know, a really killer wine selection because that
- [42:50]
A
literal two pronged approach is helpful for long and old corks, which, you know, likely you're not going to find at a TJI Friday happy hour, because time and place for everything, folks. But the most common wine opener, of course.
- [43:05]
B
And then generally speaking, what people use is what's called a waiter's corkscrew. Things that you've seen so many times before. You know, this one is called the pull tab. You know, you've seen these, you might see some people in restaurants and then you might have seen something like this.
- [43:19]
A
And Andre pulls out what looks like a lovely little simplified Swiss army knife with a corkscrew nestled between these two outfolding levers.
- [43:28]
B
This right here is Craig Hill and Andre Mack.
- [43:31]
A
Oh, I don't know that this is.
- [43:32]
B
Yeah, this is the best wine key.
- [43:33]
A
Hell, yeah.
- [43:34]
B
So I designed this with my friends down in and Greenpoint and we design what we have thought as one of the best wine keys.
- [43:42]
A
So it's like the other wine key, but it looks like half a pliers on one side.
- [43:46]
B
So yeah, so it has that, this ratchet system.
- [43:49]
A
Cool. I've never seen one of these. This is amazing.
- [43:52]
B
Just the small details in it that make it the best wine key.
- [43:56]
A
Oh, it's beautiful. Let's say that you are on a beach, you're camping, someone has brought a bottle of wine. No one brought a Corkscrew. What do you do in a pinch?
- [44:06]
B
Okay. So generally speaking, and I've seen somewhere that people take their shoe off and they put the wine, the base of the wine in the shoe, and then they kind of hammer it up against a tree or hard place my thing. When in doubt, push it in.
- [44:19]
A
Okay.
- [44:20]
B
Just push it in. Push it real good. So I've been in a hotel where I was trying to get into a bottle of wine. I just took the back end of my toothbrush and pushed it in. Nice, right?
- [44:29]
A
Get a stick.
- [44:29]
B
Yeah, get a stick and just push it in. You know, I've seen some people where they will maybe drill a screw in and then try to pull it from that or, you know, all kinds of different stuff. But ultimately, I think on the beach, I feel like you're not enjoying, you know, an old bottle of wine. You know what I mean? It's like, remember earlier we talked about having a wine that kind of fits the activity? Yeah, yeah. So if it's not a screw cap and it has a cork in it, generally I would say just push it in. That cork is not really going to do anything to the wine. And you go ahead and you start to enjoy the wine.
- [45:00]
A
As one of the world's finest psalms. How do you feel about screw caps?
- [45:04]
B
I love them. Screw caps, to me, are just all about getting the party started. It tells you what the wine is meant for. You know, a lot of those are like, you know, they're meant to be aged two to five years. Maybe some of them can go longer. But generally speaking, screw caps are just a sign of, like, this wine is accessible and, like, let's get with it.
- [45:22]
A
Awesome.
- [45:22]
B
Let's get the party going.
- [45:24]
A
Let's not slam this against a tree in our shoe if you've forgotten.
- [45:30]
B
Yes. Let's not do that.
- [45:31]
A
Okay. I have great questions from listeners who submitted approximately 1 million, but we'll ask you just a couple. All right. Next week, we're going to dive into more about caps versus corks and the whole backstory of how you make wine and how it goes from the vine onto a shelf into your glass. But first, let's donate to a cause of his choosing. And this week, it's Food bank for New York City, which is New York City's largest hunger relief organization. They also serve New Yorkers with SNAP assistance, personal finance support, connections to health support, and more to build self sufficiency and create a lasting stability. So that, again, was Food Bank New York. And thank you to Andre for the heads up on them. And the sponsors of the show who make these donations every week possible. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. If you haven't heard me gushing about Squarespace for years, it's an all in one website platform. Whether you're trying to grow a business you have or if you're just a baby business getting started, it has everything you need. That's where I secured my domain name. It helped me build a professional site. I can update it so easily. I've been using Squarespace since before Ologies existed. After procrastinating for years, I literally built my website in one evening. They have templates, they have flexible editing tools. Squarespace. Squarespace also makes it easy to share your work. You can book clients, you can get paid. They have built in tools for scheduling and invoicing an email all in one place. Whenever someone I know needs a website, whether they're a scientist that needs to put their work up or someone who's just starting a business, I'm like, dude, Squarespace. So head to squarespace.com ologies for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use Offer Code ologies to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. You can do it. Listen, I work from home. I record in a dark, windowless room in my house. If I leave the house, it's a miracle. If I leave the house, I'm probably wearing Miracle Bomb. What is that? You ask me? It's this stuff I put on my face. It is from Jones Road Beauty. It's this really creamy dewy tinted balm. It works as a blush, works as a bronzer, works as a highlighter. Also a lip tint. You just blend it with your fingers. You go. They also have this thing called a shadow stick, which is this high pigment eyeshadow. They have it in eight matte neutral shades. It's dermatologist tested, goes great with Miracle Balm. The reason I like Miracle Balm is because I live in Los Angeles, which eleven and a half months of the year is a desert. Or at least my skin thinks so. Little Miracle bomb. Boom. I used it before they even became a sponsor. So if you want makeup that brings out your natural glow instead of hiding it, Jones Road is the way to go. And for a limited time, our listeners are getting a free shimmer face oil on their first purchase. When they use Code Ologies at checkout, just head to Jonesroadbeauty.com and use code Ologies at checkout. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. My face sent you.
- [48:26]
B
And Doug. There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [48:35]
A
Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
- [48:39]
B
Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married.
- [48:44]
A
Me to a human, him to a bird. Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
- [48:47]
B
Anyways, get a quote@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
- [48:51]
A
Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.
- [48:55]
B
Pool days call for cookouts and lots of laundry. This Memorial Day at Lowe's, save $80 on a Char Broil Performance Series 4 burner gas grill. Now just $199. Plus get up to 45% off. Select major appliances to keep dishes, clothes and food fresh. Having fun in the sun is easy with us in your corner. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's, valid through 527, while supplies last. Selection varies by location. See associate or lowe's.com for details.
- [49:24]
A
I'm Livy Dunn, All American gymnast and Vuori athlete. When you travel and train as much as I do, you find happiness where you are on the mat or on the sand. Movement and comfort are essential. That's why I live in performance Joggers by vuori. Made from Dream Net fabric that's made of 89% recycled materials, effortlessly soft and made to move as much as I do. My happiness starts here in the softest joggers on the planet. Get 20% off your first purchase at vuori.com libby that's v U-O-R-I.com l I v-v y exclusions apply. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on US orders over $75 and free returns go to vuori.com libby and discover the full versatility of Viori clothing exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Okay, so to submit questions for the ologist ahead of time, you can join via patreon.com ologies for as little as a dollar an episode and help support the show. And you can also see what ologies we're cooking up. But let's stick our nose into the mailbag. Let's savor your questions. They had some great ones and I feel like you are the person to answer them. Okay. La la la la Mish the fish Cameron, Nene, Emily, Stauffer, Ellen Durnel, Evan Davis, oren Stanforth, Mary DeVoe eating dog hair for a living. All wanna know Mish the fish asks, are wine food pairings bullshit? Cameron, why do some wines taste terrible with food, but great alone? Vice versa.
- [50:53]
B
Okay, so are they bullshit? I would say no. Like, wine is there to make the food taste better. That's what I've always looked at it. That's why you order the food first and then the wine.
- [51:01]
A
Oh.
- [51:02]
B
But to me, it's all about resetting your palate back to zero. Right. So you're having the wine. So for each bite, tastes just like the first bite. Right. So, you know, we talk about palate fatigue. I guess the best way to do it is so you're eating a steak, and the first bite is tremendous. Third bite, fourth bite, fifth bite. And now you're slowing down and you're like. And now you put it in your mouth, it doesn't pop with the same flavor. It's not the same. And so you're like, okay, but you finish it anyway. And so what's interesting is what you realize is that if you look at a crude example, chewing a piece of gum, chew a piece of gum 30 minutes, start to lose flavor. You know, maybe 10 minutes, your jaw is hurting, but it's lost all favor. Maybe you put it on the side of your plate and somehow miraculously, 15 to 20 minutes later, that piece of gum ends up back in your mouth. There's nothing wrong with that. But you're like, yeah, chewing already chewed gum that you chewed is okay.
- [51:52]
A
That's fine.
- [51:53]
B
That someone else has chewed. Maybe, maybe not.
- [51:55]
A
Right. But depends on how much you like them.
- [51:57]
B
Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally, totally. But when you start to chew that gum at the beginning, it has more flavor than it did when you took it out.
- [52:05]
A
Yeah.
- [52:05]
B
Meaning that you experienced palate fatigue and that you. The flavor was starting to dawn because it was fatigue. And then you put it back in and at this have the same strength of flavor, but it does have some flavor in it. And so that's when you talk, talk about eating. So introducing wine that helps your palate wash clean really helps set up the next bite. And so how do you do that? You do that by comparing, like, flavors you match like, with, like. So if you have a rich sauce with pasta or rich cream sauce you want to use, you can do two different ways. You can compare like, with, like. So you can go with a rich, creamy Chardonnay. So those two things balance yourself out and you stay at this high level. Of creaminess. Or you can do something that has a little bit more acid and a little bit more linear, Right? So maybe an Austrian Riesling, right, That's angular and sharp, that has tons of acid. So that acid's gonna cut through the richness and the creaminess of that. And so there's a different style that's a contrasting. So you're contrasting to both of them are to neutralize the palate. So when you take another bite, it's the same, the same intensity, same flavor.
- [53:05]
A
So, yes, sips of wine serve like putting your gum on the plate, taking a little break from one flavor to anew for the next bite. Also, if the gum thing, if that's freaking you out, you can listen to our discussed ology episode about revulsion. And if you have contamination anxiety, you may enjoy our OCD episode for some strategies from one of the world's experts on that.
- [53:28]
B
Now, that might be a lot to think about when people are like, well, shit, I just want to have a burger and a glass of cab. Well, you can do that too. And what's awesome about it is that it's an experience much like enjoying art. Like, you get to choose the art and like, you get to explore looking at a painting and what it means. And I think, you know, food and wine pairing is an art and pairing it together is an art form. So I think sometimes it's hard for other people that are new to it to kind of understand it. And it's interesting because when I first got into business, I was so confused by it. It was like the way those people talk about it, food and wine pairing. It's like the skies parted and cherubs came out and played trumpets. You know what I mean?
- [54:05]
A
Yeah.
- [54:06]
B
And so that has never happened to me. And so this is the way that I had always explained it to the staff.
- [54:12]
A
We had a whole episode on Cheese with Kira from Own your Funk, who's also. I think she's New York based. She was great. We talked all about cheese and touched on wine pairings. But there's a lot of cheeses and a lot of wines, but okay. Another type of wine we haven't talked about yet. But Carlos Barakal, Greg Wallach, Kat Angelis and Cara Young and Yasmin Alou wanted to know about biodynamic. Carlos asked, what are biodynamic? Win they how wine was made a hundred years ago. I have two friends who are very, very into wine. One will not touch biodynamic wine. The other, it's her favorite thing on Earth. And it's just so interesting. They're both kind of wine snobs in totally different ways. So I take their advice either way. But, yeah, what's up with biodynamic?
- [54:55]
B
So when people talked about, was it the way that wine was made back in the day? Some of it. Right. So the whole idea is like, when you talk about biodynamics, it's more about like letting the vineyard speak for itself, even if it stutters. Right. So you get where I'm going. Right. So it's about lower intervention regenerative farming. A really kind of hands off approach to making wine. So that's natural yeast. And sometimes when you use natural yeast to inoculate, meaning there's the ambient yeast, sometimes it can get stuck. You know, there's lots of different things, but that is how wine was made back in the day. Whereas traditional way is. We're going to help. Sure. That it sings every single time the same way, meaning that you lose some of the nuance to have consistency.
- [55:37]
A
Oh, got it.
- [55:38]
B
And that's what the traditional winemakers play with. And that kind of margin of how much do you get it to be perfect every time? The exact same way, no matter what vintage and where to be hands off at. So the wine has those nuances and those things that you love in wine. Biodynamics is just, you know, it's a more holistic approach in that way. Right. There's lots of faults with both things. So, like in traditional, we'll use chemicals to farm because we want that consistency. Where in biodynamics they don't use any kind of chemicals in that way. It's all about taking care of the vineyard, replenishing nutrients and fertilizing the soil in the way that you can really amplify what the vineyard is trying to say. Two different methods. I think biodynamic is, you know, where people are like, oh, it's kind of funky, it's kind of weird. Like, I think that's the first thing that people notice that's off putting. But, you know, I always say it's like beer. When you first had your first sip of beer, nobody's like, that was great. That was amazing. No.
- [56:31]
A
Yeah. You come through the back door. Typically when you start drinking coffee or, you know, or alcohol, and then you start going, oh, okay. Just a side note, I went to Spain with my husband's family recently, and natural wine, not as popular there as it is in, say, California. One server said that they call the kind of funky, scrumpy aroma of natural wines. Monkey's ass. All right. If you'd like to hear also more about Scrump, you can see our ciderology episode. I myself enjoy Notes of Monkey's Ass, but Gigi knows, wanted to know if you like drinking it natural wine. And Timmy H. Said, is natural wine really that girl, or is it just a trend?
- [57:14]
B
Natural wine is wine on the spectrum.
- [57:17]
A
On a spectrum from amazing to.
- [57:22]
B
And there's different levels, but, like. But when I say that, you know, obviously, and all fun with that, but, like, in that sense is, you know, natural wine. We talk about. It's a living, breathing thing. And that's when we say, even if it stutters, like, the natural part of it is how it's supposed to come out, you know? So, like, this is the thing. It's like, I drink natural wine, but I don't drink the bad natural wines. So you see what I'm saying? That's the difference where I think people don't understand there's shitty wine within traditional. There's great wine and there's mediocre wine and natural wine. There's shitty wine, there's mediocre and there's great. But both categories. I try to stay away from the shitty wines. So is natural wine that girl? I'm sure that you can find some girls, and if they're for you, you know, and some people. Yeah, of course, people buy organic stuff because they think it's better for them, but some people buy it because it's more of a way of life. It was a way that makes them feel. And so I think in both those things, natural wine is just kind of new.
- [58:14]
A
So you thought maybe there's just red and white wines, right? No, there's more. There's so much more. Orange wine. I always wondered. This is made from white grapes, and it keeps the skins in contact with the grape juice for a little longer than white wine. Red wine comes from red grapes that has a long period of skin contact. White wine, again, is from white grapes that have short skin contact and is from red grapes that have short skin contact also. I just want to take a moment. I want to acknowledge. White Zinfandel. This is made from red grapes. Usually they would be turned into a Zinfandel red, but the skins have really short contact with the juice. And so white zinfandel is actually technically a. It was made by accident at the Napa Sutter Home winery in the 1970s. It's a sweet rose with fruity notes, not super expensive. It was all the rage for decades after its 1975 introduction, however, certain persons that I know have been shamed from enjoying a crisp, chilled glass of White Zinn because they've been told it's passe. And I need those people who are listening, some of whom are named Fancy Nancy Ward, to know that their beloved White Zinn is a and is again, all the rage. Please enjoy what you enjoy. The coolest thing a person can do is like what they like and not care about trends at the moment. So if your name is my mom and have at the whites in.
- [59:43]
B
They didn't have the term orange wine back in, like, 04. Yeah. In order for it to become a movement, it took people. And now I feel like it's settling into, like, you know, it's not a trend, so it's clearly here to stay, you know, so everybody's settling and I think that's great. So, yes, it could be that girl, depending on, I don't know, depending on the wine. Is she wearing shoes? I don't know.
- [60:02]
A
Yeah. How's she treating?
- [60:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, totally.
- [60:08]
A
How do you feel around her?
- [60:10]
B
There you go.
- [60:12]
A
I love funky wine. I actually love it, but I like kombucha, so, you know, it's so funny
- [60:18]
B
because, you know, the American palate was all about sweet. And then slowly it changed with kombucha sour beer, which I feel like both of those are kind of the gateway into something like natural wine in that way. I find it fascinating to look at and talk about. And obviously I'd like to enjoy wine.
- [60:32]
A
Yeah.
- [60:32]
B
Whether it's traditional or biodynamic or natural. If it's good, I want to drink it.
- [60:36]
A
I like a little scrump. I think it's tasty. Two more questions if that's okay from listeners.
- [60:42]
B
No worries. Yep.
- [60:43]
A
You mentioned a shitty bottle of wine. Good bottle of wine. Dawson Chandler, Hester Dingle, Erla Bramkelkin, Gene Pompeo. Rye of the Tiger Linea, the farmer, Caro Young and Mag Zaroni. All these people wanna know, in Dawson Chandler's words, what makes a bottle of wine good in the eyes of wine enthusiasts? Hester asks, what makes a good wine? And do the price points actually increase with quality? Especially if, let's say you're date and you're like, do I want to order the second most expensive wine? Do I want to cheap out? Where does the price point come in?
- [61:13]
B
Price point? Like I like to say, in wine, you're supposed to get what you pay for. Okay, so then you're like, so what does that mean?
- [61:19]
A
Yeah.
- [61:20]
B
So generally speaking, you pay for what you get for, like, meaning that sometimes, like, everybody thinks it's marketing. It's part of that, but part of it not. Right. If it costs a million dollars an acre to buy that land, then that's going to be, you know, another $35,000 to plant it. Then you got to figure that for three years you get fruit, but you can't use it for anything. So it's not until that fourth leaf that you actually. So you already had it for four years, and then it's just the quality of your grapes. So generally, something like that, you're going to get better quality. And what does that mean? Better quality means more nuance, better fruit from how it's being grown. So if you want to know, okay, this bottle of wine is 20 bucks, and this bottle of wine is 100 bucks. What's going to be the difference is land cost. Right. How much it costs? Does it spend time in oak barrels? Are they new oak barrels?
- [62:04]
A
New?
- [62:04]
B
Twelve hundred dollars. Well, right. They stayed two years in there. They stayed two years in there. The shortcut that this bottle, the $10 bottle might do is wooden staves inside of a stainless steel. Some of them might teabag it with sawdust. Right.
- [62:20]
A
I didn't even know that was possible.
- [62:22]
B
Yes.
- [62:23]
A
Wow. Okay.
- [62:24]
B
So there's lots of different things that give the flavor of it. But generally speaking, the quality of a high quality wine is that they're not going to use sawdust. They're going to use real barrels, and they're going to use real barrels each year. They're using the finest grapes. They're doing lots of stuff, regenerative farming and great things in the vineyard. The site that they chose from is a lot better site, just maybe based on them drilling down and taking samples about what grows best there. So there's lots of different things that count towards that. Now, ordering a wine in a restaurant, I think it's not second expensive is. There's no cheat code in that way. Right. Like, if you're working at a place with a waiter or sommelier, generally you can say, I'm choosing between these two. What do you think?
- [63:06]
A
Got it?
- [63:07]
B
Or if you want to sound real sophisticated, you're like, hey, which one of these two you think will go better with the food we order?
- [63:13]
A
Because remember, a contrast or a compliment will make your food taste even better and reduce that palate fatigue in a good meal.
- [63:21]
B
Or you can say, I generally like these types of wines. What do you have on this list that tastes similar to what I You know what I like to drink. The key for pricing is always don't say it out loud. Just point. So you can say. You're gonna say, hey, you know, whatever. You think that would go great with this meal. And. And then you find a bottle on there, and he's like, and I could like to stay around here.
- [63:40]
A
Okay. Oh, that's smart.
- [63:42]
B
And then point to the price. Right?
- [63:43]
A
Yeah.
- [63:43]
B
So, like, you can let. Generally, if there's a sommelier, let the sommelier do his job.
- [63:48]
A
Or her. Or them. Yeah.
- [63:50]
B
And then you're like, oh, send them on their way.
- [63:53]
A
That's such a good move.
- [63:55]
B
And the idea that we love that it allows us to do the job. It allows us some way to bring you something that they could be excited about. And when they're excited about it, then that's, you know, that it goes a long way and it's infectious. And then when they come back to the table, they might tell you a story about where it came from. It's a way to engage. They're not there to talk down to you. Yeah. Like, go do your job.
- [64:16]
A
Yeah.
- [64:16]
B
Your job isn't to stand over to make me feel bad or something, right? No. And I think the anxiety comes from some people. The first part is price. I think after that, if it's not good, so you eliminate the first one easy by saying, yeah, we'd like to do something like this.
- [64:30]
A
And I think back to some of my favorite meals. And like at Bestia, we had an amazing somm with a pairing at Animal. I don't know if you ever went to Animal. Helen was the Somme there.
- [64:40]
B
Yeah, I went to Animal. Yeah, I loved it. Yeah.
- [64:42]
A
Yeah.
- [64:42]
B
Remember Helen?
- [64:43]
A
Helen was amazing. This is Helen Johanneson, who is a celebrated sommelier who has opened up a series of shops in LA called Helen's Wine. She's great. That dinner I had was 13 years ago, and I still remember how lovely she was and how great her stories and the wine pairings were 13 years ago. Also, part of it was just lovely company. It was a dinner with Jarrett when we first met, and I met his best pal, this chef in LA named Miles, who ended up officiating our wedding. He's the best. My friend. I don't know if you know. Do you know who Miles Thompson is? He's a chef out here in la. He opened Baby Bistro.
- [65:25]
B
I know. Baby Bistro. Yep.
- [65:27]
A
So Andy is a psalm there. They're mostly all natural wines, and it really adds so much to the meal, especially if you're excited about it. I feel like soms geek out about it a little bit, and they'll tell you, like, you know, this has a minerality to it. This was grown near the ocean, you know, and you're like, oh, my God, story time with it, and I appreciate it more.
- [65:48]
B
No, but that's the whole idea. That's like letting them do their job. You know, they travel. Travel is part of their job, where they go to these regions and learn from the winemakers and see it and smell the air, taste the dirt, and then they get to come back to Baby Bistro. Yeah. You know what I mean?
- [66:03]
A
It's so good.
- [66:04]
B
That's why I just tell people, like, let them recommend something for you, you know, that turns the tables. Right. It takes the pressure off you. There's less anxiety, and they're excited because it's their job. Sommelier is a tour guide. Yeah, they're more akin to a tour guide.
- [66:17]
A
Totally. You know, it's funny. My friend who loves biodynamic wine, she asked for little samples to try a couple. She's like, can I try this one? And this one does that. I wonder if that pisses Psalms off or not. Does sommelier hate that? It does. I'm just like, just get one. You know, it's like a $13, $14 glass. Just get it. If you don't like it, get a different one.
- [66:37]
B
It just depends on where it's at. I was messing with. I was messing with your friend. Sorry.
- [66:42]
A
No, I. I get embarrassed. I'm like, just.
- [66:45]
B
Well, if the restaurant is busy, they're pissed. Yeah, right? If they're busy, they're pissed. They are super pissed. I'm gonna call her out now if it's not. So if it's. If it's not that busy. Yeah, I'm sure they would go the extra mile to do that, but.
- [67:00]
A
Yeah, but I'm like, this isn't a gelato counter. But you did mention, obviously, like, sommeliers are there to be a tour guide, but if you do not have someone like you nearby. Last listener question, which I love, and I think this is a. You're the perfect person for this question. Matthew Cowley. Stephanie Tout Berman, Red Toke. Oren Sanforth. J. Shea asked. Matthew said, I'm a sucker for the art on contemporary wine labels. Stephanie says, I find myself buying the wine with the cutest labels. Red Toque to Wine labels actually help wine generate better sales. And you have designed a lot of wines under your label, and they're fucking great.
- [67:38]
B
Thank you.
- [67:39]
A
And they're very Modern. They're very monochromatic. It's usually black and white with these bold letters. And this very, like, fresh, modern, almost like curated art on the labels. And they're so striking.
- [67:53]
B
Thank you.
- [67:54]
A
No, they're amazing. And I read that part of that came out of the fact that a designer was going to charge you tens of thousands of dollars. You were like, no, dude. As a result, you've got amazing, really, really, like, signature labels. Graphically, they're bold and stark with big block letters. They look like a Sharpie on paper. When it comes to labels, I imagine that's gotta be what a lot of people are picking off of. And how does a winemaker decide other than, you know, cost?
- [68:24]
B
Well, it becomes art, I think, you know, it's an extension of their art. Like, what do they want it to look like? And there's. The thing is everything is marketing. If I decided not to put a label on it, it's marketing. If I decided to put in a brown paper bag, it's marketing. Anything that you do to it is marketing. Even if you want it to be anti marketing. Right. So I always look at it is like, it's, you know, it's really up to the. The artist. Like, what do they want to put on? You know, some people are drawn to music, and maybe, you know, it's a painting off an album cover from an artist that they like. But here's the deal. I think if that's how you buy wine, then that's how you buy wine. But also know or leave room or space that sometimes it's not built on the label. And so my artwork that I put on there is to do the opposite. Like, my whole thing is that I dumbed down the labels. My labels were inspired when I was a child. And we'd go shopping, we would. Do we go shopping once a month. And so I hated it. And you would go down every single aisle, every single hour while your mom pulled out her coupon book and he bought everything. And sometimes you might have to get a second cart. You turn down these aisles, and every time you turn down the aisle, it'd be like a mosaic sea of colors. And then you'd round this one and turn the corner, and it was stark white. And this was called the generic aisle. I don't know if you're holding this.
- [69:36]
A
Yes, I remember this. And you'd be in the generic aisle. It was all black and white. God, I missed that. Or sometimes it was yellow and white. And that was so stark. I wish we had that. So Google the words generic aisle. Or if you're Canadian, like our lead editor, Mercedes, check out the no name brand in the grocery train. No frills. It's literally art and blessedly a bargain.
- [70:01]
B
So that's. That was the idea for the labels.
- [70:04]
A
Oh, that's genius.
- [70:06]
B
So in the back bar, like the mosaic of colors, and then you come to this stark label, which is black and white. And, you know, to me, it's just all stripped down. It's kind of like, you know, I was telling somebody, like, my brand is kind of like Mike Tyson. When he came to the ring, it was just like, no bullshit. It came to the ring, no shirt on, no robe. Right. He just had his shorts on. He had his shoes on, no socks. Right. You know, just ready. Who stood on business, like no frills. Yeah, right, right. It's like, it's like there's no need. There's no need for all that. You know, the fight would be over before, like, longer than it would, you know, will take me. Taking off the robe would last longer than the fight. You know what I mean?
- [70:45]
A
Yeah.
- [70:46]
B
And so that's how I look at it, where it's just stripped down, where it's like. Like, let's just let the wine speak for themselves and for the labels. I wanted the labels to be that, you know, they're just black and white and they're not named after me. Right. Because. And some people have that, you know, where maybe they're thinking more legacy. And it's like they'd say Mac Estates. Or maybe I would just, you know, had a tad bit of narcissism and I just say Andre Mack Sellers. Right? Yeah. But when I think about both those names and to somebody who's new to wine, what does it mean?
- [71:14]
A
Yeah.
- [71:14]
B
Who the fuck is Andre Mack? Yeah, yeah. Even though they have their phone in their pocket, there still has to be the will to want to know who it is to look it up. And so that was it for me. I wanted things that resonated with people or meant something to them or that would lead down a train of thought. We have a wine called Love Drunk. I'm sure right now you're like, well, what does that mean? But you know what both those words mean. And then you're trying to figure out this thing and they get to interpret, you know, have a moment of how they interpret it. I have a wine called Opp. Other people's Phenol. Like, we just like to have fun. We like to have so much fun with it in a way that like, it fits. The whole idea of my life in a lot of ways is that you can't judge a book by its cover. And I say to people all the time, without the label, doesn't matter. Like, drink the wine. If I had to spend more money on the labels than the wine, then I would have to charge more for the wine. That's the whole thing. It's the packaging. Is the packaging. But ultimately, it's about what's inside the bottle. And you're right. And the bottle and the label are tools to market.
- [72:12]
A
Yeah. And my last question. Best glass of wine you've ever had? I know that you've had a lot of them, but what is one that like that? Ratatouilles. You?
- [72:23]
B
Ratatouille me. 85 reas. Chateauneuf du Papat. And when I taste that wine, I've only tasted it twice. After the initial experience I had when I tasted that wine, it was a day that per se caught on fire on its first day of service.
- [72:40]
A
No.
- [72:41]
B
And I just remember it was surreal. Like a movie. People are being bustled, like, through the restaurant. The whole building's getting evacuated. You know, the firemen coming in, rushing into the dining room, hitting the wall with an axe, realizing that's where the fire was. Flames burst out. Just a different experience.
- [72:59]
A
Wow. What an imprint in your brain.
- [73:02]
B
Yeah. It was cool, though. I mean, not that there was a fire, but, you know, it wasn't like a sad memory. It was just like. Just a really amazing kind of time to be alive. Like, in this timeline of, you know, this was the opening of the most anticipated restaurant opening in New York City history.
- [73:16]
A
Yeah.
- [73:16]
B
Even the restaurant scene was new. And then, you know, something as big as that happens, and then you remember this most amazing wine, you know, And I always think that wines are also a placeholder of time. What makes those wines great a lot of times is the ambiance, the people that were around drinking them. So much so that I wrote a book called 99 Bottles. And 99 Bottles tell my wine life story through 99 Bottles. Right. And the bottles that I've tasted and the stories behind them. I think it starts off with Old English 800, which is malt liquor. And that's where it starts.
- [73:48]
A
Was it taped to your hands at all? Did anyone duct tape it to your hands?
- [73:52]
B
Yeah. So that came later. My assistant told me that. I was like, you guys are fools. I never heard of shit like that. So it's hilarious. Yeah. And then it just kind of moves through different chapters of my life and different wines that I had. And you know, it's a French laundry section, there's a per se section. And. And it just kind of goes through that whole thing of being able to tell stories through bottles of wine or things that meant to you. And when you drink those wines or think about those wines, you also think about those stories.
- [74:19]
A
You can read the whole story In Andre's book 99 Bottles, a black Sheep's Guide to Life Changing Wines, where he explains, explains that this wine is made with 100% Grenache grapes. And I was curious what the tasting notes are for it from what I found. People describe this saying it has a musty nose, but a smooth and soft texture with hints of cherry and spicy mint, but with a silky finish. One Wine Forum member weighed in with their take. I'm going to read it through a monocle. Delightfully ripe notes, arguably at its apogee, showing a guillotine like cherry liqueur note to complement the fresh pepper that fanned out on the palate until the pepper notes emerged with air. Many of us mistook this for a Chambol or a Vulgnire. Now, if you simply must taste this, but you are not a sommelier at a restaurant currently engulfed in flames, you can get yourself a bottle of this exact vintage. 4 $33,653 via winesearcher.com or you could buy groceries for the next six months.
- [75:26]
B
So it was a really kind of fun way to look at it.
- [75:29]
A
Amazing.
- [75:30]
B
So, yeah, I would say 85. You'll see some of my most favorite ones in there. But I think the 85 one was pretty fun and remarkable. First time me tasting a Chateauneuf du Pap, that old. One of the greats. We were serving it to a guest who had bought it in and there was a lunch table who had stayed over. And so when they started to evacuate the building, they were like, we're done, but you guys should enjoy it. And then all hell broke loose. So it's a changeover and you have the new servers coming in, the old servers leaving for the shift. And so we're drinking the Chateau Reyes, eating our staff meal, and then the alarm starts to come on. It was great. It was great. Yeah. So glad I remember. And this is so funny. It's like some people are gonna be like. But he didn't even talk about how good the wine tastes. Well, that goes without saying, right? Like, like the icing on the cake was the fire and everything around it. The wine was superb. You know, it was like nothing I ever had. And so it was just a beautiful thing. It was like drinking old Burgundy.
- [76:22]
A
Amazing. And what a, what a story. It's funny. I'm going out to dinner with my friend who loves natural wine and orders samples.
- [76:28]
B
That should be fun.
- [76:30]
A
But yeah, I'm going to tip her up. I won't tell her it was you, but I'm excited to have a glass of wine with her.
- [76:37]
B
It's going to be funny.
- [76:39]
A
This is amazing. Thank you so much for being here.
- [76:41]
B
No, thank you. Anytime.
- [76:44]
A
So ask winemakers whiny, confused but well meaning questions because look how much more I know now. And you. So thank you so much to Andre Houston Mack for taking the time to hang out and chat wine. Please head to his website@Andrehmac.com to find out more about him and his wines. You can also join his nearly 1 million followers on Instagram to find out what he's up to day to day and week to week. He's so lovely and informed. Thank you again Andre. We're gonna link those sites in the show notes and also link Food Bank New York City and we have tons more links on our website@aliewarden.com Ologies Enology Again, smallogies are shorter, kid friendly and classroom safe episodes. Just search Smallogies on your podcast app and you can subscribe there. You can support Ologies by joining our patreon@patreon.com. ologies for as little as a buck a month. You can also outfit yourself with ologies merch via ologiesmerch.com we got hats, we got totes, we got swimsuits even. Thank you to Aaron Talbert who admins the Ologies podcast. Facebook group. Avileen Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly R. Dwyer does the website smoothly. Timing our interviews is scheduling producer Noelle Dilworth. Keeping a cork on all the chaos is Managing Director Susan Hale pouring over our transcripts. Our editors Jake Chaffee and lead editor and Chief Canadian Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn added the notes of theme music and if you stick around to the very end, you know I may tell you a secret. And this week you know I advise in these crazy times, just take the risk, live the life. Cut the bangs. Text your crush. We're all gonna die. And today I did in fact cut bangs. Will I outsource them to the wonderful Rory at Perch Salon in Eagle Rock in la? She's the best. But hot tip for those who are unsure about bangs and hair texture, two words air Dry babes. Get those bangs wet, use a styling gel, okay? Shape them into swoops or what have you with a comb. Clip em with those, no bend little hair clips. Let that shit dry for like an hour. Go out in the sun or whatever. Use a diffuser. When they're dry, they're gonna look crispy and you're gonna freak out. You just ruffle them up and know they're not crunchy or flaky. And you can run a straightening iron over them if you need to. This is a game changer, okay? Go do something. If not bangs that gives you butterflies, you're never gonna know until you do it. So do something small, big, whatever. Okay. Bye. Bye. Pachydermatology, homeology, Cryptozoology, Litology, Nanotechnology, Meteorology, coal factology, pathology, serology, cells.
- [79:34]
B
What do you want to taste?
- [79:36]
A
Your chardonnay?
- [79:38]
B
No.
- [79:39]
A
You know when you have leftover food or you have vegetable choppings and you're like, what do I do with them? I'm not sure if you know this, but when it hits the landfill, food waste turns into methane, which is a potent, potent greenhouse gas. It's not great in there, but there is good news. There's this thing called a mill food recycler and I love ours. It makes keeping food out of the garbage as easy as just dropping it in. It's so cool. It's kind of like the size of a small laundry hamper. When we have scraps or when we have leftover food, we toss it in there and it magically overnight dehydrates it, it grounds it up, it doesn't smell bad. I was blown away. Mill handles almost anything. You can keep just filling it for weeks and then what you get out of it is something that looks kind of like nutrient rich coffee grounds. You can put them in your garden, you can add them to your compost. Milk can even get them to a farm for you. And I feel so much better than just putting it into the garbage or keeping it on my counter for three days because I forgot to unload it into the compost. So if your eyebrows are up and you're intrigued again, I love ours. Go to mill.comologies for $75 off your order. Mill.comologies love it.
- [80:49]
B
You ever realized how long you've had your pillow and then immediately decide not to think about it? Like that thing has been through a lot with you. At a certain point it's less of a pillow, more of a long term relationship. That's why Coop Sleep Goods is running their Memorial Day sale with up to 40% off site wide. So if you've been thinking about upgrading your setup, this is the time. Because I'll deal with it later has been your strategy for a while now. Coop pillows are adjustable, super comfortable, and designed to fit how you actually sleep. Plus they've got sheets, toppers, everything to upgrade your whole setup. So if your bedding is feeling a little well loved, this is your moment. Head to coopsleepgoods.comcomedy that's coopsleepgoods.com comedy and shop the Memorial Day sale for up to 40% off now through May 26th.