The Pour Decisions Edition

Summary

Slate Money: "The Pour Decisions Edition"

Date: April 1, 2017
Host: Felix Salmon
Co-hosts: Jordan Weissmann
Guest: Bianca Bosker (Author, "Cork Dork")

---

Episode Overview

This special sequel to Slate Money’s “wine edition” takes a delightfully offbeat detour from hard business news to focus entirely on the world of wine. Hosts Felix Salmon and Jordan Weissmann are joined by wine journalist and certified sommelier Bianca Bosker, author of "Cork Dork." The trio imbibe assorted wines (blind!), riff on wine economics and culture, debate price-versus-quality, and crack open the secrets of restaurant wine markups, sommeliers, and the crafted mysteries of taste. Spirited, candid, and tipsy—as promised.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Blind Tasting Challenge (00:05–26:22)

• For the episode, each host brings a couple of bottles with the wines tasted blind.
• Felix admits his past hostility to blind tastings, yet they all gamely participate—an ironic nod:

  “I spent about half an hour of the first wine episode railing against the insane practice of blind tasting...and so that’s why we're doing it this time.” (Jordan, 02:07)

The Art of Tasting and Spitting (05:00–06:00)

• Bianca describes the ceremony and skill of wine spitting, including tricks sommeliers use at big tastings like La Paulee, a famed Burgundy event:

  “It is literally an orgy for wine. That’s how I found this guy that became my guide...he could spit standing five feet away from the bucket.” (Bianca, 05:30)

Does Wine Get Better After Opening? (06:55–08:37)

• Cheap wines sometimes improve after they’ve been open a week, gaining flavor as astringency softens.

Alcohol Levels & Tasting Techniques (09:55–12:15)

• Discussion of how to judge alcohol by “legs” and by the burn on one’s throat.

  “You have to be able to tell the difference between 10%, 11%, 12%, 12.5%. And so I feel that—how far down is it in my throat that it’s burning...” (Bianca, 11:41)

Blind Wine Reveal – White Wine #1

• It’s a Grillo from Arianna Occhipinti (Sicily, ~$18, natural wine)

  "If I’d known that this was an Arianna Occhipinti, I would have liked it more, I can tell you that." (Jordan, 19:31)

2. Wine Additives, “Natural” Wines & The Great Flavor Debate (12:23–20:25)

• Bianca summarizes her controversial NYT op-ed on industrial vs “natural” wine:

  “There are about 62 different additives that can legally be added to wine, and you never have to disclose any of them.” (Bianca, 13:00)

• She argues processed wines have their place, especially as gateways for new drinkers.
• Her piece sparked outrage among natural wine purists—one even posted a photo of her in a wine bar online.

3. Economics of Wine & Restaurant Wine Pricing (22:30–26:07)

• Felix quotes Bianca’s description:

  “Wine is a progressive tax on restaurant patrons and the food is basically like your basic payroll tax. ... How much you spend on wine is how much you’re actually going to contribute to the funding of this establishment.” (Felix summarizing Bianca, ~03:12)

• Bianca reveals that high-end restaurants sometimes offer old vintages at prices below auction value due to lack of demand.
• The trio discusses why restaurants mark up wine so heavily (“liquid keeps restaurants liquid”) and the ethics of “freeloading” by not ordering any wine.

4. The Restaurant Sommelier Experience (31:24–34:08)

• Most diners rarely encounter an actual sommelier; skilled servers often step in instead.
• Bianca emphasizes that the best wine lovers are flexible and willing to trust sommeliers—if the expertise is trustworthy.

5. Price vs. Value: Choosing Wine at Restaurants (25:02–26:07; 59:45–63:43)

• Wine pricing correlates with rarity and brand as much as with intrinsic “quality.”

  “A $600 bottle of wine is not 10 times better than a $60 bottle of wine. It may be 10 times more rare, it may be 10 times more famous, ... but it’s not just about the taste. It’s about the composite experience of that wine.” (Bianca, 63:12)

• Pro tip: On a restaurant wine list, the sweet spot for value is typically $50–$150, especially for less famous regions.

6. The Subjectivity of "Quality" in Wine (40:10–45:26)

• Bianca frames wine quality as highly subjective and not easily defined—even among experts.
• The group draws a parallel with music: pop hits can be perfectly crafted but sneered at by connoisseurs, just as “manufactured” wines are scorned despite their mass appeal.
• Jordan asserts:

  “You will find very few music lovers who don’t appreciate [Call Me Maybe] for the fact that it is this incredibly well-crafted, really beautiful, perfect pop song. ... What I don’t think exists is the equivalent of ‘Call Me Maybe’ in the wine world...” (Jordan, 43:08–44:28)

7. Drinking Wine for Enjoyment, Not Pedigree (46:18–52:46)

• Bianca recounts the madness—and unexpected joys—of grand Bacchanalian events, where rare bottles are consumed wildly.
• They debate whether there’s a “right” way to drink wine; conclusion: not really. Social contexts and pleasure matter as much as analysis.
• On the importance of learning to describe aromas, not just tastes, for deeper wine appreciation.

8. Blind Wine Reveal – “Meat Wine” and Manufactured Wines (53:50–58:16)

• Bianca reveals her “Sledgehammer Pinot Noir,” a mass-market, “bro wine” from California designed to be big, bold, and chocolatey (and nothing like traditional Pinot).
• Sledgehammer’s actual tagline: “Meat wine.”
• Despite the snobbery, the wine is drinkable and arguably more enjoyable than expensive, overly engineered bottles.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Wine Markups & Restaurant Economics

• Felix (Summarizing Bianca): “Wine is a progressive tax on restaurant patrons.” (03:12)
• Bianca: “You’re not paying $14 for the leaves [in a salad]. ... You're paying for the rent, the utilities, the laundry service...” (25:41)

On Additives and "Mad Science" Wines

• Bianca: “They are engineered like Peeps, Oreos, or, you know, new Doritos flavors.” (13:39)

On Tasting & Perception

• Felix: “It’s impossible to read your book without something to drink.” (07:39)

On Wine Snobbery vs Popular Wines

• Bianca: “Bad wines are wines that taste good to large numbers of people.” (41:37)

On Price & Value

• Bianca: “A $600 bottle of wine is not 10 times better than a $60 bottle of wine. … It’s about the label. It’s about what you paid for. And those things do inform the flavor.” (63:12)

On Manufactured Wines

• Bianca: “Sledgehammer was really designed to be a wine for bros ... the actual motto for the wine is ‘Meat wine.’” (54:02, 56:23)

---

Key Time Stamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:05 | Episode intro, setup for wine edition, guest intro | | 05:00 | The art and social awkwardness of wine spitting | | 06:55 | Wine transformation after being open; experiments with party guests | | 09:55 | How sommeliers assess alcohol level in wine | | 13:00 | Additives in wine; natural vs processed debate | | 19:17 | Blind tasting reveals: Grillo from Occhipinti | | 22:30 | Restaurant economics: why wine is so expensive at dinner | | 31:24 | Encountering (or not) real sommeliers at restaurants | | 40:10 | Is one wine “better” than another? Subjectivity and analogies | | 46:18 | Celebratory wine excess at La Paulee; drinking for joy | | 53:50 | Sledgehammer Pinot Noir: “bro wine” and mass-market creations | | 59:45 | Navigating restaurant wine lists and price cues | | 62:54 | Final advice: good wines, great values, and what makes wine "worth it" |

---

Final Wine Buying Tips from Bianca (59:45–63:43)

• Avoid “gimme wines” (e.g., basic Cabernets or Sauvignon Blancs on by-the-glass lists) as they carry a markup “tax.”
• Look for lesser-known regions/grapes for better value.
• In restaurants:
  • Under $50–$60: higher markup, but okay value
  • $60–$150: “sweet spot” for quality and selection
  • Over $150: paying for reputation, rarity—not necessarily quality
• In stores: $20–$50 (or $80) buys excellent wine, often from offbeat places—but not the famous big names.

---

Conclusion

The “Pour Decisions” edition is a rollicking, deeply informed, and refreshingly honest conversation about the culture, economics, and, above all, the joy of wine drinking. The hosts and Bianca Bosker demystify sommeliers, debunk wine snobbery, and remind listeners that wine is--and should always be—about pleasure, curiosity, and personal discovery.

---

For further reading and fun:
Check out Bianca Bosker’s book, Cork Dork, for even more stories and insights from the front lines of wine obsession.

Transcript

[Felix Salmon]

The following podcast contains explicit language.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Hello and welcome to the second wine edition of Slate Money. As last time, we have given up this week on even pretending to cover the business and finance news of the week. And instead we are going to get sloshed. Jordan Weissman Hey. Hey everyone. You were here last time. Now this is the sequel. This is The Wine Edition 2. Wine Edition 1 was episode 60, I believe.

[Felix Salmon]

It's a fondly remembered, cherished episode.

[Jordan Weissmann]

It was a good we recorded it on the 4th of July. We had Carl Storchman as the guest.

[Felix Salmon]

I believe Felix waxed rhapsodical about the virtues of during that episode.

[Bianca Bosker]

And we got to hear about his scatterplot parties, which sounded like we also.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Because I was just listening to it to remind myself of what we have already covered in the world of wine. We also talked about the utility of a 1959 Chateau Lafitte in terms of getting strippers into bed.

[Felix Salmon]

Jesus.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I ain't a real source of wisdom, so. But Bianca Boska is also is, is the, is the, is filling Carl Storchman's seat right now. She's much better than Carl. Is many, many things. What's your story, Bianca? And why are you here to talk about mine?

[Bianca Bosker]

So I'm the author of a book called Cork Dork, which is my new book. And I basically, I guess I'm here because I quit my job as the executive tech editor at the Huffington Post, got a job as a lowly seller rat and started training to become a sommelier. So now I'm here to talk about it.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And are you in the industry still?

[Bianca Bosker]

So I'm a certified sommelier. I am a car carrying sommelier. I can, you know, you can't wine with the license. But I'm not currently working on the floor. No.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Okay, so. So we are going to cover something which we didn't really cover in the first wine episode, which is the whole question of sommeliers and restaurants and that's a whole level of wine, which is fascinating to me. We are also going to do something else which we didn't cover, which we didn't do in the first wine episode, which is we are going to drink our wines blind. I spent about half an hour of the first wine episode railing against the insane practice of blind tasting and how completely stupid it is. No one should ever do it. And so that's why we're doing it this time.

[Bianca Bosker]

I also say though that there is, I mean as a liberal arts major, I can justify just about anything, but I think there's definitely a money and economics angle to this. I mean, we think about ordering wine, the business of wine, you know, wine is really the thing that helps keeps restaurants afloat.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Right.

[Bianca Bosker]

I mean, so I think so we.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Are definitely going to talk about that.

[Felix Salmon]

You had, you had maybe your book has one of my favorite descriptions of the economics of wine I've ever seen. It was like one line. We'll get to it.

[Jordan Weissmann]

What's the line? We may have just, it's where you.

[Felix Salmon]

Were saying basically wine is a progressive tax on restaurant patrons and the food is basically like kind of your basic like payroll tax. That's like what everyone pays. And then how much you spend online is kind of where you are, is how much you are actually going to contribute to the funding of this establishment. And so rich people who can blow $1,000 on a bottle pay more in wine tax than the, you know, than when I show up at a, you know, three star Michelin restaurant. I'm basically paying like the minimum, you know, whatever I can afford.

[Bianca Bosker]

Right.

[Felix Salmon]

I thought that was like a perfect way to describe it.

[Bianca Bosker]

Thank you. Well, I appreciate that. You're my new favorite person.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yeah, no, it is. And I have to jump in as well and just say Bianca's book is called Cork Dork. It's available in all good bookstores and it's excellent and it's a really fun read. And so go read it. You will learn a lot about wine. And we are, because this is Slate money, going to be talking about the economics of wine. But we are going to revisit that perennial question about price versus quality and whether there's any correlation between the two. We did cover it in some depth last time, so we're not going to have exactly the same conversation. But we really can't do any of this without drinking.

[Felix Salmon]

Yeah.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So we've all brought wine. I brought one bottle. Bianca, of course, being a cork dork, brought two. I feel like we should start with Bianca's white. Okay, so because you bought a red and a white, right?

[Bianca Bosker]

I did, yeah. I think we should also do something tells me we should do my red and your red close to each other.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Okay, so that's the plan. We're gonna do your white followed by Jordan's white, followed by my red followed by your red.

[Bianca Bosker]

Alright.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Okay. But let's start with your white.

[Felix Salmon]

So this is one of the things you talked about earlier in the book is that there is an art to spitting.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yes.

[Felix Salmon]

I never felt so self conscious about my inability to do the basics of reading that sentence.

[Bianca Bosker]

Good. Well, you're about to feel much more self conscious because I'm about to judge you.

[Felix Salmon]

That's why I'm going to swallow.

[Jordan Weissmann]

No, no spitting wine. It's wonderful when you see, like, wine tasters go, and, you know, there's this beautiful clear stream which goes like 3 yards and lands exactly where it's meant to land.

[Felix Salmon]

It's like one of those Belgian fountains.

[Jordan Weissmann]

It's the wine tasting equivalent of those chip riffing tricks which poker players do. And you're like, oh, you've just done this so much that you can do it effortlessly and perfectly. Well.

[Bianca Bosker]

When I was at La Palais, which is this big Burgundy bacchanal, I mean, it is literally an orgy for wine. That's how I found this guy that became sort of my guide to it, because I was like, you can spit standing five feet away from the bucket without even turning your head in the direction you've been here before. And I was right. I mean, he's been every year, so. Cheers, guys.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Cheers.

[Felix Salmon]

I'm trying to apply some of the lessons, like I was trying to pick up reading from.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So I'm smelling this wine.

[Felix Salmon]

I have to catch it.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I don't know what it is, and I already know I don't like it.

[Bianca Bosker]

Really.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I know. I'm going to. We're going to taste it.

[Bianca Bosker]

I have to give the caveat. It has been open for a few days, but, you know, surprise. You know, I think people also. Wine is a little heartier than people allow, so it doesn't have to be open with and drunk within 24 hours.

[Felix Salmon]

This is another thing you talk about is how the sommeliers at these restaurants will often, like, kind of scavenge the leftover bottles from, like, the really expensive, really wealthy, like, diners who come in and just leave them and then, like, bring them days later to share with people, which suggests that there is a little bit of a half life to them where they're people.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Especially Americans, I find hyper conscious of how long a bottle of wine has been open and feel like it just by dint of having been open for a few days. Must therefore be bad. And they'll be like. They'll sort of pour it down the drain without even tasting it. Don't do that.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah, well, the other trick actually is that I found. So as I was researching my book, I became an insufferable friend because I would throw dinner parties and I would tell people I was inviting them over for dinner, but I would actually be inviting them over to replicate many of the Scientific literature's seminal studies about wine. So I would bring them over and then I would, you know, do. I did, like, the red white. You know, the white wine, and then the white wine dyed red study on them. I did, like, you know, three wines, three very different price points, and one of them actually had, like, a 6.99 Chilean cabernet. And it had been open a week, and it had become delicious. Like, there's something about taking a really cheap wine, and if you open it up long enough, it. It gets better.

[Felix Salmon]

That's been my. I was actually thinking about that this week because it's basically impossible to read your book without something to drink. Like, it was just like. It's absolutely, like, just. It can't be done. And so I've been just kind of nursing this one bottle of red that I got for, like, $10.99 on the, like, bargain table at, you know, Wine Exchange over down the street. And it has gotten significant, like, significantly less astringent and.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Aw.

[Felix Salmon]

And I was like, I wonder. So is there, like, is that actually a thing that sometimes bad wines is, like, just become a little. Or not bad wines, like mediocre wines, just get a little bit.

[Bianca Bosker]

Well, I think the oxygen can sometimes mellow them out, and that can help, I think. Who knows, the things that may breathe out of it as they've been. I actually don't know exactly scientifically why that happens, but I can tell you from my own experience that sometimes, I mean, I think there's amazing wines that you know, especially as more expensive wines, fine wines that do get worse very quickly as you leave them open. They're very delicate, especially older wines.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So I am going to show my age now and admit that I was born in 1972 and a very lovely. And Bianca will know exactly just how lovely this friend of mine was for my birthday, bought me a bottle of 1972 Vega Sicilia. And that was very nice friend. That was a very nice friend. It's an impossible to find vintage. Like, 1972 in general was like a shit vintage around the world. Spain is the one place where it wasn't a shit vintage, but it was very small quantities. So trying to find this, it's impossible to find. Anyway, we opened this up, we had a great meal at Casa Mono, but, yeah, that thing transformed over the space of, like, five minutes. It would change. Be different for the better, for the.

[Bianca Bosker]

Worse, or just different.

[Jordan Weissmann]

It got better and then it got worse, and it didn't last that long. We were like, we're very Happy that we didn't decount this half an hour ago, because it would have been. But you never know. Anyway, that's a whole other question about fine wine. Let's talk very quickly about the op Ed, which you wrote in the New York Times, and how it relates to this rather buttery white that you have served us. Jordan? Well, I mean, let's just say alcoholic.

[Felix Salmon]

Isn't that alcoholic? So, okay, I've been trying to. So wait, let's. Before we get to the op Ed. So one of the things you said in your book is that when you're, like, doing the wine swirl thing, there are specific patterns about, like, the.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Well, look at the legs.

[Felix Salmon]

Yeah, you can look. So one of the things you said is, like, you look for the way the wine falls down the glass, and if it falls in little fingers, that means it probably has a lot of high. It's high alcohol. If it falls in, like, sheets, it's low alcohol. And I'm looking at the way this kind of fell down my glass. It looks like it's sheets. So to me, that's. It's not really burning. So it's telling me low alcohol.

[Bianca Bosker]

Right. So I think you're getting to the second part. So I think that, you know, it is a little dangerous to trust your eyes too much when it comes to wine. I mean, that's where that infamous study of experts getting fooled into the red wine, that was actually a dyed white comes in. But, you know, I think that you're right. So sugar and alcohol can create what, you know, you describe as fingers. Some people describe them as tears on the wine, and that is helpful. I actually think you're generally going to be more accurate if you feel for the alcohol in the wine. So I do that.

[Felix Salmon]

Does that mean something besides drinking it?

[Bianca Bosker]

So it can. So actually, I was at this boot camp from master sommeliers, and it was a bunch of aspiring master sommeliers, and then this round table of actual master sommeliers. And I remember one of them gave the advice that you should hold the glass up and take a sniff of wine like you're ripping a big line of coke. And if it makes you. If it kind of makes you, like, your eyes gonna water, if it pinches your nose, you know, those are the alcoholic aromas. And the more you get that kind of pinching feeling, the higher the alcohol. I find it's helpful. When I take a sip of wine, you actually swallow it and then kind of like exhale, like you're almost like checking your breath. And for Me, I feel how far back. I feel it burning, right? And so if it's like just the back of my throat, you think about a tequila shot, right, you feel it burning all the way down because it has much higher alcohol. So for wine, you have to able to tell the difference between 10%, 11%, 12%, 12.5%. And so I feel that. How far down is it in my throat that it's burning, in which case more. 14.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So I'm gonna say this is a high alcohol wine.

[Felix Salmon]

Maybe I'm just too used to chugging straight rum these days to deal with the Trump administration, but to me, this seemed low, so I don't know.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So be angry.

[Bianca Bosker]

So what would you say? Do you guys want to give a percent?

[Felix Salmon]

11. Okay, 11. 12.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And I'm gonna say 13 and a half.

[Bianca Bosker]

I'm gonna say 11.5 12%.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Well, you know what it is?

[Bianca Bosker]

I don't know the alcohol level, though.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Okay, so what is it? Let's see. Let's see what this wines.

[Bianca Bosker]

Well, first, I want to. So I want to say, I think, you know, for people that haven't read the New York Times op ed, I think it's helpful to provide a little context. So essentially, the story kind of takes as a peg the natural wine movement. Right? So right now, this big, big movement to drink natural wines. And the idea behind natural wines is there's nothing added, nothing removed. They're organically made. And for a lot of people, that's very confusing because, well, isn't wine just grapes and yeast? What else would it be? What else could you add or could you remove? And the answer is, how little do you know?

[Felix Salmon]

Apparently, 60 different additives.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah. Yeah. So there's about 62 different additives that can legally be added to wine, and you never have to disclose any of them. So most of us don't realize it. I think wine has really enjoyed this halo of greenwashing. And my story basically, you know, and the traditional line is that, you know, these processed wines are no better than processed foods, that they should be dismissed, that they are the lowest of the low, they are the scum of the wine world. And so my op ed was basically saying, first of all, people need to know that these things go into these wines. We should be aware that there are these differences, but also that we shouldn't dismiss these wines outright, that they do have a place that they can. Well, first of all, I should know, you know, that they are engineered like Peeps, Oreos or, you know, new Doritos flavors.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yeah. There's never going to be a vintage difference. You know, if you buy the 2015 or the 20 or 2010, it'll taste.

[Bianca Bosker]

Exactly the same, right? I mean, they're not looking to express terroir. They're looking to make a wine that's going to please people's palates. So they bring in amateur drinkers and.

[Jordan Weissmann]

They basically say, as we discussed, asked in the last wine episode, if you do blind tastings. And we can not discuss how stupid they are because we did that last time. And if you want to.

[Bianca Bosker]

And we're blind tasting right now, so.

[Jordan Weissmann]

If you want to find out how stupid they are, just listen to the last wine episode. But, like, if you do blind tastings, people really genuinely do prefer cheaper wines to more expensive wines. So. And what. And what these people are doing is they're basically giving. They're doing blind tastings for a whole bunch of normal people and saying, what do you like? And they're giving the people what they like.

[Bianca Bosker]

Give the people what they want.

[Felix Salmon]

Not so awful.

[Bianca Bosker]

I argue that it's not so awful. I would say that this. I basically argue that there's a place for these wines that, you know, they can be a gateway for some drinkers to move on from, you know, the Two Buck Chuck to, you know, the incredible natural Chenin Blanc from the Loire. And I will say, just as a side note, the reaction has been insane.

[Jordan Weissmann]

No one liked this, right?

[Bianca Bosker]

That's not true.

[Felix Salmon]

I enjoyed it.

[Bianca Bosker]

I mean, you're showing your bias.

[Jordan Weissmann]

My gosh, I liked it. I had a lot of friends who hated it.

[Bianca Bosker]

So here's the thing. I got so many positive emails and personal messages about it from people. But, you know, the reaction on social media was often much more negative. You know, where people that were real natural wine advocates. I actually had someone threaten me. I had someone post a. I was out at a wine bar. It was a natural wine bar. She took a picture of me.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Oh, my God.

[Bianca Bosker]

Unbeknownst to me, and posted it on my Facebook wall and said, what are you doing in a natural wine bar? Right.

[Felix Salmon]

Wait, so I have a question.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Okay, wait.

[Felix Salmon]

About this specifically. So in your article, you kind of talk about, like the mad science wines, right? The ones are like, carefully engineered to taste of raspberries and maybe some chocolate, because people like chocolate. And then there's the other end, which is like the really nice vintages, the natural wines. At the same time, there are these, like 60 different things you can throw into a wine. So if you're just looking at, again, like the bargain table at, like, you know, your local wine shop, and it's got, like, a bunch of stuff from Spain and, you know, Italy. That's like 12, 13 bucks. What. I mean, what. What's the likelihood that that's actually, like, quote, like a traditional wine? I mean, how likely is it that that also has some stuff added in? Is there?

[Jordan Weissmann]

Very likely.

[Bianca Bosker]

Very likely.

[Felix Salmon]

Yeah, exactly.

[Bianca Bosker]

I mean, I had had this conversation last night. I'm from Portland, Oregon. I had a high school reunion with a lot of other Portlanders, and one woman said, you know, well, all these additives, this is why I drink European wines. And I literally. And she said, and, you know, do you think that's a good idea? And I said, quite honestly, no, I don't. I mean, the thing is that people just don't talk about. There's no openness. So even, you know, if you're a winemaker, you sell to a distributor who sells to a restaurant or to a wine store. If you're the distributor and you ask this winemaker, you know, are you putting crap into your wines? No, of course not. We would never do that. We believe in the terroir, blah, blah, blah. So, of course, then if the sommelier, the rest, or, you know, whatever asks the distributor if anything manipulation has gone into these wines, of course the answer is no. So the problem is there's just no transparency. So people fall back on, I think, these stereotypes or, you know, these ideas of what makes them feel good to drink. But it's really hard to know because you just don't have to disclose it. I actually think. All right, so you ready?

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yeah.

[Bianca Bosker]

So do you want to take any guesses?

[Jordan Weissmann]

No, I don't want to take a guess.

[Bianca Bosker]

Oh, oh.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Because I don't want to take a guess. Because that's the party trick aspect of blind tasting. And there are. There are a couple of areas where blind tasting can be useful in terms of pedagogy and learning about how different types of grapes and wines taste. But the party trick of identifying wine from tasting it blind.

[Felix Salmon]

I think the idea is we were just talking about how you identify the alcohol. It's to get you to the party trick. You learn about the wine in order to. Then you learn all the details that are interesting and actually useful to then get your. As like, the party trick is sort of the educational device. It's the pedagogical device to do it.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I don't like.

[Bianca Bosker]

So here's the question. Can you take a guess at the continent?

[Felix Salmon]

I'm going to guess. I can't I'm so bad.

[Bianca Bosker]

That's fine. Pass, Felix. Mr. 1972. Vega. Cecilia.

[Felix Salmon]

Yeah.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I'm going to.

[Bianca Bosker]

He just made a face, by the way.

[Felix Salmon]

I'm going to guess New World.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I'm going to guess New world. I'm going to say California.

[Bianca Bosker]

Okay.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yeah.

[Bianca Bosker]

Do you want to take a guess at, like, is this a mad science wine? Is this a natural wine? Is this somewhere in bikinis?

[Jordan Weissmann]

This is. I'm going to say this is a. On the manufactured end.

[Bianca Bosker]

All right. You want to see it?

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yes.

[Bianca Bosker]

Okay. So, Felix, I know you love female winemakers.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I do.

[Bianca Bosker]

So this is a Grillo. So this is.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Oh, it's Italian.

[Bianca Bosker]

Sicily.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Okay.

[Bianca Bosker]

This is from Ariana Occhipinti.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Oh, my God.

[Bianca Bosker]

This is my favorite.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I love Ariana Occupinti. I hate this wine.

[Bianca Bosker]

So this is. This is from her second label. I love Grillo. It's an incredible wine. I thought this was a cool wine because it's not expensive. I mean, it's about $18 a bottle. I don't. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's that expensive. It has been open a couple of days. So, you know, I give you pass on that, Felix. But I don't like that. I know there's no.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And what's the alcohol?

[Bianca Bosker]

12.5%.

[Felix Salmon]

So it was right.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So we were right in the middle. Okay. So, I mean, you know, but as I say, like, now, if I'd known, and if you listen to the old episode, if I'd known that this wasn't Ariana or Kapindi, I would have liked it more, I can tell you that.

[Bianca Bosker]

Of course, I can guarantee.

[Felix Salmon]

And that's fine.

[Bianca Bosker]

That's part of the flavor. It's okay. But I think, you know, for those who don't know, Arianna Oke Pinti, she's young, she's in her 30s. She believes very much in terroir. She does use natural methods. I don't know if that's the same for her second wine, the sort of cheaper offering it is. Actually, I think it's a really lovely wine and I think you would have.

[Felix Salmon]

Enjoyed it in horror at his error. How have I gone? My palate betrayed me.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I mean, to be fair, I generally drink her reds, and I have a thing about Sicilian whites. But, yes. No, I feel you guys have all.

[Bianca Bosker]

Just heard the inevitable rationalization that happens.

[Jordan Weissmann]

No, but I'm gonna stick to my. That's fine. You don't have to like and say a. I don't like it. And B, I definitely would have liked it more if I'd known what it was.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yes, that's fair.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Okay, so enough of that. So I want to move on to the question of wine in restaurants, which is really the core of your book.

[Felix Salmon]

Bianca, as I attempt to pour this wine with extremely shaky hand. So.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So Jordan just backhanded Bianca there.

[Bianca Bosker]

I wasn't gonna say anything, but he.

[Felix Salmon]

Did, and this is why I am a blogger still.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So, Bianca, what is backhanding?

[Bianca Bosker]

So backhanding is very poor form in restaurants, but it basically is when you pour a bottle of wine, so you're showing the back of your hand to the guest. So you should be pouring open handed, even if it means using a hand you're not as comfortable with or changing the direction, but you want to pour so that the palm of your hand is facing the person.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And we are drinking Jordan's white, which we don't know what it is. And we are talking about restaurants, which is like backhanding is the only place you ever worry about backhanding is in a restaurant. Wine in restaurants is really the core of your book. You talk a lot about how to serve wine, about the economics of how the restaurant makes lots of money by upselling people, and about the sort of delicate dance that sommeliers do in terms of trying to give people the most pleasure at a price that isn't going to shock them, while at the same time trying to make lots of money. The thing which I don't think you really address in the book, but has always been stuck in the back of my head when it comes to wine in restaurants, is that they are delicious. And I've had many delicious wines in restaurants. But. But for obvious reasons, it's much more expensive to buy any given wine in a restaurant than it would be in a wine store. So for those of us who have finite amounts of disposable income and that, you know, if we spend money here, it means less money to spend there. Does it really make sense to buy good wine in a restaurant at all because it's just so much more expensive that way?

[Bianca Bosker]

Yes, it does make sense. Okay, so it makes sense for a couple of reasons. I mean, in general, the people that. I think when people put together a really thoughtful wine list, oftentimes the sommeliers, the beverage directors, are keeping an eye out for wines that you may not be able to buy outside of restaurants. Some wineries actually don't want to sell their wines retail. So you, you know, there's some really fantastic producers that you may have an incredibly different difficult time finding outside of a restaurant. By the same token, you can find some really cool vintages. You can find older wines that you might not find out of a restaurant. In some cases, you can actually find values on wines and restaurants. Just as an example, I will never forget where I was when I was convinced for the first time in my Life that an $800 bottle of wine was a bargain. And I was in the cellar at Oriole, the restaurant. It's a Michelin star restaurant in times 30 year old restaurant. And they have been getting these incredibly rare allocations of Burgundy, of Ikem, of these incredible wines. And they have back vintages of them going back, you know, 20, 30 years and no one buys them, right. They had this incredible demand de la Romane Conti right wines. And they've had them in their cellar. They don't really sell them. It's more of the pre theater crowd or, or corporate expense account crowd. And so they haven't really raised the prices on these wines. Now I haven't bought them, but if you're someone that buys DRC or buys really expensive wines, you could actually find them for less at the restaurant than you would be able to buy them if you could even buy them at auction.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And this is, and this is the one, this is one very, what you might call edge case is that you find this in Bandol in France, for instance, quite a lot. But also in Paris restaurants which have been around for decades have sellers with wines which have been in there for decades, which are very old in general, at retail, it's hard to find old wines. So if you're buying like 20, 30 year old wines, often, if, often the restaurant hasn't been increasing the price of the wines on the list in accordance with the amount that the value of those wines has been going up. But put those kind of crazy edge cases to one side. If I'm buying $25 wine retail, which is gonna cost me $95 in a.

[Bianca Bosker]

Restaurant, come on, how different is that from paying $14 for a salad? I mean, you went out to eat at a restaurant because you want to know the perspective that the chef has that this restaurant has, because you're there for the experience. And I do think that, you know, people oftentimes look at a wine list and they say, oh my gosh, you know, well, how much could that be if I buy it at retail, right? And the answer is, you know, if you could buy it maybe like half or a third as expensive, right? But you' Ignoring the fact that, again, liquid helps keep restaurants liquid. I mean, this is, you know, you are. It's not that you're just overpaying. I mean, you're helping to support.

[Jordan Weissmann]

You are supporting the restaurant.

[Bianca Bosker]

The restaurant and these people that work in it. And you know, again, when you. I think people do, and I have done this before, I think before I wrote this book, roll their eyes at a $14 salad. And the point is that you're not paying $14 for the leaves. You're also not paying, you know, $40 for the bottle of Grito. You're paying for the rent, the utilities, the laundry service that does this, the insurance.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And in fact, if you don't order wine, you are kind of freeloading on the restaurant.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah, I mean, a little.

[Felix Salmon]

Not, I would say, probably depends on the restaurant, right?

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah, it depends on the restaurant. But I do think that restaurants prefer it when you order wine.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Let's talk about this wine then.

[Felix Salmon]

I have a follow up question related to Felix's.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So this, I have to say, I definitely prefer to Bianca's white to the occupanti.

[Felix Salmon]

I am shocked. I bought this assuming Felix was gonna despise it.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I like it. It's simple, it's coiffable. It's not. It doesn't have quite the amount of acid that I normally like, but it's a perfectly delicious wine.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah, I think it's a nice wine.

[Felix Salmon]

I mean, I bought this partly because I was curious what you thought it would smell like. I'm curious what you.

[Jordan Weissmann]

It doesn't smell of much. I mean, it's not a sophisticated wine. It doesn't have a huge amount of complexity. It's definitely a kind of wine, which I'd be happy to drink on a porch in the summer.

[Felix Salmon]

I was about to.

[Bianca Bosker]

I was thinking of a picnic. It'd be lovely. But, you know, that's not a bad thing.

[Felix Salmon]

No, so that's also. But you said picnic wine is technically used as sort of like a sort of backhanded, mean thing that sommeliers say.

[Bianca Bosker]

Right. But I actually don't think it is a mean thing.

[Felix Salmon]

I love picnics personally and want wine for them, but. Okay, so should we reveal what it is? Yeah, let's check it out.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So wait, wait. Since the official. Like, Bianca's gonna tell us what it is?

[Bianca Bosker]

Well, look, I think, you know, it's funny, I have to confess because I can see the bottle, right? And so, like, I'm a little biased. And I was like, well, maybe it's Riesling, but Smelling it. I don't get anything.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I don't think it's Riesling.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah, I don't think it's Riesling. I mean, it's. I think it has, like, a really nice sort of white, floral nose. It has some melon. It has some peach. It is. This is gonna sound dumb, but, like, actually a little bit of, like a kind of plasticky secondary note to it. I mean, I think it's. You know, it could be. I think of it as like a more.

[Jordan Weissmann]

You're not answering the question.

[Felix Salmon]

No, no, no. She's actually. No, this is.

[Jordan Weissmann]

This is doing. But this is also the party trick, right? We're doing the party trick.

[Felix Salmon]

Well, no, so this is part of.

[Jordan Weissmann]

The party trick is to go through all of this. Like, what am I smelling? What am I tasting? Before you come up to the. What actually is the wine?

[Felix Salmon]

So should I reveal. Do you want to give it a guess or should I just reveal?

[Bianca Bosker]

Look, I think it's an Old World wine. I think it's. I want it to be like an aromatic grapevine, like a Gerwirtztraminer or like a Viognier or something.

[Felix Salmon]

So it is, in fact. So, okay, it is a Viognier that I got from. That's.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Open it up. I'm gonna open it up here.

[Felix Salmon]

Not a particularly expensive one, but it's from.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Oh, it's Neil Rosenthal. I just saw the back of it. The front of it is.

[Felix Salmon]

Yeah. So it's from. It's from Chevonne, which is kind of near. So your book talks mentions, like, not.

[Jordan Weissmann]

To be confused with Chevenix. This is not Chevenix, it's Chevonay.

[Felix Salmon]

So your book mentions Vionnet, like, four or five times. And that's part of the reason I bought it. So I've always sort of had a soft spot for that grape for reasons we don't have to get into. But I've been to Vienne where they. You know, near where Kondrio comes from. And one of the characters in your book described it as smelling plasticky, like rubber chicken.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And that was the word you just used.

[Felix Salmon]

Yeah. And so I was like, is that something that people actually get from it? Because to me, I'm like, oh, it smells like honeysuckle. That's, like, what Viognier smells like to me. Like, that's one of the reasons I've always liked the wine. It's like, literally sitting on a porch with flowers.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah.

[Felix Salmon]

And. But it's like someone who smells it and, like, I guess has the training gets like, literally rubber chicken or I.

[Bianca Bosker]

Forget, freshly molded dildo, I think. Yeah.

[Felix Salmon]

Was the other one. Yeah.

[Bianca Bosker]

And so also, I mean, there is. I didn't say this, but like, you know, the other get that you often get is that like creme fraiche note.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I want to go back to the restaurants just for a minute. And the line from your book, which really stuck with me, which is where you said you can't make margin on shit people don't know. And also that if people are going to be ordering a viognier in a restaurant, they want to. They're going to expect a viognier. That you need a certain amount of kind of typicity in a typical restaurant list. And if you put weird wines which don't taste like you think they're going to taste like, that's just like a massive sort of eek, eek, danger, Will Robinson kind of thing going on there. And you want to be very careful about putting those on list. And so when you say that, well.

[Bianca Bosker]

Those become a trigger wine. Right, Right. So you go from the sort of hidden. I mean, those become wines that take some explaining, that need a little bit of a footnote. Right, right. To say, just FYI, this was aged in amphora. Right. And there's something off about it or whatever, something strange.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And how much did this cost?

[Felix Salmon]

Like 25 bucks. Where a conjurel will easily cost you, like 60.

[Bianca Bosker]

Treating us so nicely.

[Felix Salmon]

I figured I'd still have most of.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So this is a good wine. But this is the number one question, and I've been asking a few people since I knew you were coming on this show. I've been asking a few of my friends, like, when you go out to a restaurant which serves wine, you know, what percentage of the time, like the last hundred times you went to a restaurant which served wine, out of those hundred times, like, how many times did you actually encounter a sommelier? And the general answer is somewhere between like 5 and 10. How about you, Bianca? I mean, how often do you encounter sommelier when you go out to eat?

[Bianca Bosker]

That's a really good question. I think if I'm going out to eat, I tend to either go someplace that's never going to have a sommelier or someplace that will have a sommelier. Like, if I'm going to eat something in the middle, I'll just make it at home. But I think that. But the problem is that even if there isn't a technical sommelier position, a lot of really great restaurants have fantastic servers that are trained as if they're sommeliers.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Okay. So that was one of the questions I wanted to ask because, like, you go through all of this, like, unbelievable, like, trials of fire in this book to become a sommelier. And there's a whole bunch of servers across the nation who haven't done that. And so does that make them worse? Should I actually listen to my server who says, yeah, that's a dry, fruity red or something. Is that going to be helpful to me?

[Bianca Bosker]

So honestly, I've had. Now that I know more about wine, I'm a little bit more discerning in whose advice I take. I think people feel this. They feel like they look at the wine list and it's a multiple choice test and they have a hundred options and they have to choose the right one without any help whatsoever. And I was really struck by the more that someone knows about wine, the less specific they often are about their choice. Right? So they'll go and just say, you know, if there is a sommelier at the restaurant, they, you know, the guest closes the book and the wine list and basically says, here's my budget and this is the style of wine that I like. And that could be as specific as saying, I had a great, great, you know, Viognier from Guy Lehon. Like, it was great. Or just saying, I tend to like wines from New Zealand. And they direct you to that. I just say that like. So I, for example, I was out to eat the other night and I was trying to find a dry Riesling to order. And in general, my first instinct these days is really to put my trust in the sommelier. And then the guy started talking about, well, this one's really fruity. It has a lot of ripeness. And I was like, but is there residual sugar? He's like, well, there's a lot of fruit. And I was like, well, you're not answering the question. And immediately I quite honestly lost trust in him because, you know, I felt like we were talking past each other. And so I just, you know, went off of my own knowledge.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I find that often, and this is increasingly happening with me is I'll find myself at a restaurant, restaurant, which has a very short wine list which has obviously been chosen with great care. And I'm like, I have a feeling that this is a place where I shouldn't be able to go wrong no matter how hard I try. And that's the kind of restaurant which I really like. And in your book, you talk about a diner at Oriole who orders a sauvignon Blanc, which is more expensive and less good than something else on the list. I'm like, why is that on the list?

[Bianca Bosker]

In that case, I think going back to your point about why would you order wine at a restaurant when it's so marked up, you know, you're going for that curation. I mean, ideally, you can put yourself in someone's hands and they're gonna blow your mind and they're gonna take you somewhere incredible. I mean, even working wines, like, I had such a blast. Even if someone's gonna spend, you know, $10 on a happy hour wine, I wanted that wine to raise some serious questions that they'd never asked themselves before, about where wine came from and how they experience, taste and smell. And I think that a good sommelier can do that and you're going to rely on them. So that's why it's silly. Going back to your question, like, I think that, you know, you can't, right? You want someone to trust you, like to come back. But at the same time, there is an effort to get the most money possible out of a guest. I mean, hence this incredibly complex system of really keeping notes on guests. I mean, when I, I was doing an apprenticeship at Moorea, which is this two Michelin star restaurant, it's very expensive. They only begin to get excited about a bottle of wine that's around $300 a pop. And they keep tabs. So you come into the restaurant, they print a little soigne, a little ticket when you sit down, and it informs the staff of basically your level. You could be a wine px, which is a personne extraordinaire, which means you spend a lot of money on wine. You could be a wine ppx, which is personne. I mean, you spend a whole shit ton of money online.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Can I just, I want to jump in here. And you say like early in the book that you met one sommelier who sold. Now, I can't quite believe this is true, but I think this is what you say in the book. $3 million of wine to one person.

[Bianca Bosker]

She said that he came in because the first time I talked to her, I was like, wow, like $3 million a year is an insane amount to sell of wine for a restaurant. And I asked her about it later and she was like, oh, no, no. We sold that to one client. And he apparently would come in on this crazy corporate idle card. I mean, I think he ran his own business and just would wine and dine to no end. And the man apparently had very expensive tastes, but it just $3 million.

[Jordan Weissmann]

One person spending $3 million in one restaurant in one year. It's what she told me, which is just mind blowing. But that's the 1%. Jordan's favorite wine article in recent months is the headline in the water.

[Felix Salmon]

Is it $30,000 too much to spend on wine? To which I respond, per month. Per month. Too much to spend on wine. To which I responded by clipping the headline and tweeting, I want to raise this writer's taxes personally, but we need to move on.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So I want to move a little bit out of the restaurant and into just drinking. And as I said in the last wine episode, drinking and wine especially is about storytelling. And a large part of the story is about this thing called terroir, which is just this untranslatable word just meaning that the spirit of the place.

[Bianca Bosker]

Somewhereness.

[Jordan Weissmann]

The somewhereness. And I feel like that's a wonderful thing for people who have ever traveled in wine country. They kind of understand the idea that this wine comes from somewhere. So I bought a wine which comes from somewhere, which we can drink. And Bianca Bean.

[Bianca Bosker]

Oh, we don't have. Oh, I see. We have. Well, we have another one that we should drink that's from.

[Jordan Weissmann]

From somewhere else. Yeah, but we're gonna drink my wine first because for reasons which will become obvious, and then we can try and take a little guess as to where it comes from. And then we will drink Bianca's wine and see where it comes from somewhere else.

[Bianca Bosker]

I think I've had your wine, though.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So what do you think of this?

[Bianca Bosker]

I don't know, but I'm biased. See, this is a problem. So ideally, when you're blind tasting, we would cover, uh, decant. Right. So you're actually not actually ever seeing.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yeah, my bottle kind of gives it away on a. On a bunch of different levels. This is also. I brought this because this is Slate, and this is a favorite wine of Slate chairman Jacob Weisberg. And I might actually try and track him down and. And give him a glass of it at some point.

[Felix Salmon]

This is like one of those, like, I. For me, like, where color definitely influences what I think I'm tasting. Because I looked at it immediately. It's like, oh, it's cranberry colored. It's very bright red. Like, the light cuts right through it. And I'm like. And I taste. I'm like, oh, yeah, cranberries. Like, that's just like. Like cranberries with, like, something like, kind of a little bit, like, harsher and like, a little bit more like Almost.

[Bianca Bosker]

Smoky, if I were. But if this is one. And I'm trying to separate the fact that I'm a little biased by what I think it is, I think you'd be totally right. Because in general, cranberry is like a go to for red wines associative of wines from Italy.

[Felix Salmon]

Okay.

[Bianca Bosker]

And so it's. But I think you're also being biased by the color.

[Felix Salmon]

You're a chump. Yeah, I know. I think I am too obvious.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I think Bianca is exactly right. What is the wine, Bianca?

[Bianca Bosker]

So this is. I think this is just what I think it is. Based on my memory. Not really based on the tasting notes. Is actually from a natural wine producer, I believe, in Sicily.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Absolutely right.

[Bianca Bosker]

Oh, thank you. Well, but that was not like a blind tasting prowess. That's just. I remember drinking it. I love this wine. And it does have a lot of smokiness, actually. I remember drinking it over a course of dinner and it gets even more barbecuey.

[Jordan Weissmann]

His name is.

[Bianca Bosker]

I don't remember.

[Jordan Weissmann]

His name is Frank Cornelison.

[Bianca Bosker]

Oh, of course. Oh, I should have known that.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yeah, he. He's not far from Occupinti, actually. They're both Sicilian.

[Bianca Bosker]

Great minds think alike. We're just really on the.

[Jordan Weissmann]

We both.

[Felix Salmon]

They're literally high fiving their wine choices.

[Jordan Weissmann]

As I watch from Sicily.

[Bianca Bosker]

But you're gonna have to drink the spit bucket afterwards.

[Jordan Weissmann]

But I have to say, I'm gonna.

[Felix Salmon]

Come out of hazing like, sorry, I've never had a 1972 whatever drink the skin pocket. This is my fate on the show after three years.

[Jordan Weissmann]

But okay. Am I not. Am I not correct in saying, Bianca, that my natural Sicilian wine is better than your natural Sicilian wine? Because this is a question I wanted to get to, which is the whole question of, like, does it make sense to say one wine is better than another?

[Bianca Bosker]

I don't think it makes sense to say one wine is better than the other.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Or in general. There's a difference between good wine and.

[Bianca Bosker]

Bad wine in general. That you are right. Is that what you're trying to get? I mean, no, but I think in general that one wine is better than another. Based on what definition? I mean, I will say that. You know, one of the questions that I was very curious about in my book was exactly this question of wine quality. And I spent all of this time studying, sacrificing mouthwash and teeth brushing in order to understand how to tell the difference between types of wine wines. And I got very frustrated at one point because I realized that I could tell the difference between, you know, Chenin Blanc and Viognier and goodwirtztramine or whatever. But that I couldn't. I didn't really know what I was judging them by, you know, what was a good Chenin Blanc? What was the definition? And so I did go in search of this question of what defines a good wine. And I really feel like I looked at it from every angle, economic, looking at the chemistry of the wine, looking at wine critics and what they say. And what I found is that there really wasn't disagreement, any agreement on what made for a good wine. There was disagreement on what made for a bad wine. But then even when I looked at that, and that's what led me to manipulated wines, to looking at this process by which, you know, wines are really engineered from the consumer backwards and really engineered. These are the wines that people typically say are bad, right? That every connoisseur rolls their eyes at, that prompts them to make threats against someone that defends them. And, you know, bad wines are wines that taste good to large numbers of people. And I just.

[Jordan Weissmann]

That doesn't mean that they're not bad.

[Felix Salmon]

Can I jump in? How? I'm analogizing this for myself as like kind of the civilian here. Like, you know, to me it's just a lot like music, right? Like, you see, this is.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I really wanted to bring in this music and analogy because, wait, I'm the.

[Felix Salmon]

One who did it, so I'm gonna give the analogy and then you can elaborate on it. Okay. You can be my side allowed to.

[Bianca Bosker]

Listen to us at the end of this episode versus the beginning and the sheer volume after four glasses of wine.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Let me tell you about Katy Perry, right?

[Felix Salmon]

Like, you know, one of my all time favorite albums is like Ascension by John Coltrane, which is just like a free. It's like a free jazz, like monument. And if you haven't listened to. If you haven't kind of prepped yourself to listen to that kind of thing, most people are not gonna put that album on and hear like double drums and saxophone skronking and be like, whoa, this is great. But if you're like a ser. If you're a fan, you've spent a lot of time on it, it's going to move you and it's really interesting. You know, I also like fucking Call Me maybe and all that. Like, I think that's a great pop song that is, you know, some. It's, you know, it still moves me in some way. And frankly, I also like Ke$ha, which is not great. Like. But, like, in some way, like, it's still. You feel something, and so it's like what you get out of it. And if a cheap thing. If you get something out of the cheap thing, it's okay.

[Jordan Weissmann]

No, it's about what you can. This is. This is where I completely disagree with you. Call Me maybe is a close to perfect pop song. You will find no one. But let me. But that's exactly what I was going to. You know, I was going to say, you will find almost no one. Everyone agrees that Call Me maybe is incredibly manufactured. It is certainly the musical equivalent of, you know, the very manufactured wines that we were talking about earlier. But you will find very few music lovers who don't appreciate it for the fact that it is this incredibly well crafted, really beautiful, perfect pop song. There will be very few people anymore who sort of say, well, I only listen to Beethoven. And I think Call Me maybe is utter shit. You know, that's. That you don't find that anymore. What you do find is a lot of people who say, I only drink Romanee Conte. And I think that Tupac, Chuck is utter shit. Like, that happens a lot more. And. And Call Me maybe, like, really works on its own, you know, on its own terms perfectly. It's a great construction. And what I don't think exists is the equivalent of Call Me maybe in the wine world, where you can say, this is the absolutely perfect manufactured, you know, critter wine.

[Felix Salmon]

Really? Cause I think, like, there is, like, good picnic wine out there.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So that's the question. Like, Kumli maybe is a better pop song than most other pop songs. Can you say that, like, one manufactured wine is a better wine than all other manufactured wines?

[Bianca Bosker]

I mean, look, I don't think I have drunk enough manufactured wines to have given a thorough catalog of all of them and their relative points. You know, But I think that. Look, where I disagree is that there's. As it is right now, I think the wine world dismisses the Call Me Maybes, the manufactured wines out outright, and it refuses to consider that there could be something redeemable about them. There's not even a willingness to consider that they have a place. They're so far off the reservation that they just. People shouldn't drink them. They shouldn't be. They shouldn't exist. And so I just. I don't. I guess I also. I don't think that. That. I don't think your analogy is a perfect analogy either.

[Jordan Weissmann]

All right, so let's move on to the final wine of the. The show.

[Felix Salmon]

As our ability to analogize breaks down with each additional glass.

[Jordan Weissmann]

We have one last wine. This one's another red, which comes courtesy of Bianca Bosker.

[Bianca Bosker]

Indeed. Oh, sorry.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Well, this one is much darker, but not a lover.

[Bianca Bosker]

I'm boring you. Open hand.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I'm a lover of lighter reds. This is my personal taste in reds, at least right now. And often you find this, by the way, in wine drinking circles, is that people start off with liking the heavy stuff, and then as they learn, more.

[Bianca Bosker]

Smoother, less tannin, less bitter.

[Felix Salmon]

That's the same in beer. It's almost like people sweeter.

[Bianca Bosker]

A little residual sugar.

[Felix Salmon]

Yeah. The whole beer world started off going crazy for hops and now has moved on to light sours and things like that.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So the question I have for Bianca while we're drinking her wine is, what is the best way to drink wine? And specifically, you have, as you mentioned, this wonderful scene in your book where you go to this, like, Burgundian bacchanal where people are drinking trillions of dollars of latash and getting utterly shit faced. And I have had a couple of wine parties a little bit like that, where people. Where people are just like, I'm just going to open my cellar and just drink unbelievably great wine.

[Bianca Bosker]

Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate that.

[Felix Salmon]

I've known you all this time, Felix.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And I feel like, in a weird way, in a counterintuitive way, that's like the best way to drink wine. Most of us, and I think maybe it's some kind of puritan upbringing, we have this feeling like the best way to drink wine is completely sobered. So you can totally appreciate all of the subtleties and everything. And you spit things and you make sure that. And. And then there's the complete opposite. Let's just get drunk and drink awesome juice. And the things which stick with you for a long time, I mean, yeah, some of them are the great sober meals over your anniversary dinner where you had one spectacular bottle of Lafitte or whatever. But a lot of them are the crazy, wonderful drunk parties. Is it bad to drink great wine when you're drunk?

[Bianca Bosker]

Is it bad to drink great wine in a bad way when you're in a bad way?

[Jordan Weissmann]

Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[Bianca Bosker]

No, I don't think so. I mean, you know, as I described, like, La Polai was, this. Is this Burgundy bacchanal, and it was ostensibly a celebration of the wines of Burgundy by the people that love it most. I mean, you have to know someone who knows someone to get Even a ticket to this thing. And by the way, the gala dinner is $1,500 a person, and it's BYOB, and you're expected to bring treasures from your cellar. And on the other hand, it was a total Burgundy genocide. They just dumped these amazing wines, barely paused to savor them. It was just crazy how much great wine and just one got dwarfed by the next. But I think that it was, first of all, it was this incredible hedonistic experience. And I do describe it as being like an orgy, because everyone was there to do something else to someone else's body in a way that elicited pleasure. And, you know, I watched react to.

[Jordan Weissmann]

That 1959 Lafitte again in Magic Mike XXL.

[Bianca Bosker]

And then, you know, grown men hand feeding each other cheese. There was a truffle Santa Claus with this bag of mushrooms who just shaved. I mean, I had a guy come up to me and never spoke to him in my life, never even seen him before in my life, offer me his bottle of wine and just asked me, can you have an orgasm standing up? And I will say that on the one hand, it was just this excess, and on the other, it was this kind of. Kind of no holds barred celebration of this physical experience. And I also think that the wine, just to go back to your question, I mean, we are. And you talked about this in, you know, Wine episode number one, but we are so primed in those surroundings to enjoy the wine more. Right? Because it is this special thing. It is rare. You know, we paid $1,500 even to get in the door. And we're lucky to be here. So that is how, you know, that makes the wine taste good. And by the way, La Palais was a place where Rudy Carnewan, who's one of the biggest wine forgers, was the first person to be convicted of wine fraud in the US and by the.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Way, watch the documentary about him on Netflix.

[Felix Salmon]

Source Grace.

[Jordan Weissmann]

It's awesome.

[Bianca Bosker]

Sounds great. But he passed off a lot of his fakes at La Palais. And I think that, you know, some people would roll their eyes and say, well, it's just a sign that, you know, wine experts don't know anything. They'll drink whatever. But, you know, you are. It is just part of the experience. And so, you know, that is true.

[Felix Salmon]

Sure.

[Bianca Bosker]

Felix, you have our permission to get rip roaringly drunk and drink however many bottles of Vegas Cecilia you want.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Thank you. And I will totally take you up on that. And if you do that in a restaurant, I can say from personal Painful experience. It can get extremely expensive, especially if George at wildair is your. The person drinking, bringing wine to you. But it's worth it and it's lots of fun. And don't worry about being drunk when you're drinking fine wine.

[Felix Salmon]

I feel like it's just gone. Have we just managed. I want to trace the arc of the show. We've gone from Felix arguing that it's not worth it to buy expensive wine at restaurants.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I can't answer that.

[Felix Salmon]

Felix arguing you should actually only buy drink great wine.

[Bianca Bosker]

Felix advises, get really drunk, and then you won't care how much you spend.

[Felix Salmon]

On shower yourself in money.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So, Jordan, I have to. I just want to come back here. I was genuinely asking the question of whether it makes sense to buy expensive wine in raspberry. Cause I think it's an interesting question. And I drink expensive wines at home. I drink them in restaurants. I drink cheap wines at home. There's no such thing as a cheap wine in a restaurant. Really. You're always gonna be spending at least $30 or $40 when you're buying a wine in a restaurant. So. Yeah.

[Bianca Bosker]

Well, I think, though, to answer your question about, you know, just enjoying a glass, I do think you can go the Felix way and you can get really drunk and spend a lot of money on wine, or you can also. I do think a lot of people.

[Jordan Weissmann]

More than once a year because. Because it gets, like, unaffordable otherwise.

[Bianca Bosker]

But I do think that a lot of people don't. They assume that their wine education starts at a glass of wine and also that it ends there. That anything that you learn about wine is only applicable to wine. And I would say two things. First, if you want to get more out of wine. And Jordan, I don't know how much you drink, but, like, in general, you know, a big part of the pleasure is the smell. And I think a lot of us never actually learn how to identify smells, how to put names on them. Hence this idea that it's crazy to think about about like, plastic and a Viognier. And so I would suggest that, you know, if you want to learn more about wine, that people just start by smelling everything and trying to either describe it in words and. Or just say the name. So, you know, smell this plastic garbage can that we have on here and, you know, try and internalize the smell of plastic smell like the parsley when you're cooking at night. And I just think. I don't know. I found that the things I don't know about you, Felix, but, like, the things that I have learned about wine have made me enjoy so many other things so much more.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So.

[Felix Salmon]

Okay, we have to talk about what this is we're talking about.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Let's talk about what this wine is. What is it, Jordan? What do you think of it?

[Felix Salmon]

I have no idea. I'm having a little bit of trouble with it. It's like I'm feeling trouble.

[Bianca Bosker]

In what way? What do you mean?

[Felix Salmon]

I feel like I'm drinking, like, a mocha or something at Starbucks. Like, there's, like, a lot of, like, chocolate powder or something, like, coming at me. And I don't know if this is good wine or bad wine, quote, unquote, or, like, what it is, but it's just, like, it's not. Not. I don't know how far into a bottle of this I could get, Felix.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I don't love it. I don't have the same negative reaction as I did to the occupinti. Weirdly enough, if you served this to me at a restaurant, I would take a sip and go, that's nice. You're fine. You can pour that bottle. It's not off. It's not off.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah, there's no flaws.

[Jordan Weissmann]

There's no flaws. And I would drink it at the restaurant, and I would never think about it again. So it's one of the. It's like an accompaniment to food, but I don't. I'm not getting any beauty or sophistication or complexity.

[Felix Salmon]

So I think I'm eating Cocoa Pebbles. And you're, like, totally forgettable. This is interesting, the gap in there.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So, Bianca, what is it?

[Bianca Bosker]

So this one I'm taking off our. I really, like. Put it on here. So this one is sledgehammer.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Oh, my God. That is a sledgehammer. Oh, so this is.

[Bianca Bosker]

Okay, so this is a wine.

[Jordan Weissmann]

This is the wine. Is this. Okay, So I have this theory which bros want chocolate, which I don't really 100% believe. I believe, for the purposes of this podcast, that California Pinot is just an inherent oxymoron, that no one in California should grow Pinot Noir. That's not where Pinot Noir belongs to.

[Bianca Bosker]

There's, by the way, many emails that have been exchanged about this already.

[Jordan Weissmann]

One of them.

[Felix Salmon]

My response, this is, fuck y'.

[Jordan Weissmann]

All.

[Felix Salmon]

I like Pinot jalapeno.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So it would never in a million years have occurred to me that this would be a Pinot Noir. Because it doesn't taste like a Pinot.

[Bianca Bosker]

No, it doesn't taste like Pinot Noir. Not in any way. Does it taste like Pinot Noir. It says Pinot. So just for people that can't see it, it says Pinot Noir in big letters on the label. But I brought Sledgehammer. I find this wine fascinating. So this is a wine that was made by treasury, which is the company that I write about in my op ed and in my book that does this sort of consumer group designed wine.

[Felix Salmon]

Interesting.

[Bianca Bosker]

And Sledgehammer was really designed to be a wine for bros. The actual motto for the wine. And I don't think I'm making this. Maybe I'm getting the words wrong, like, in the wrong order, but it is, and you can only grunt it. So excuse me.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Wait, can I grunt this in? Full grunt. This is what the wine label says. With a name like Sledgehammer, we have an ethical obligation to deliver big, bold red wines. This Pinot Noir is no exception.

[Felix Salmon]

This is how Felix was and darker.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Than the other options. It's the only Pinot Noir worthy of the name Sledgehammer.

[Felix Salmon]

Now I know how Felix would. How he would sound doing the trailer of, like, a Fast and Furious sequel, which.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Who in their right mind would try and make a Pinot Noir big and bold and Sledgehammer. That makes no sense. It's the wrong grape for that.

[Bianca Bosker]

Right. But, you know, look, it just. The point is to say Pinot Noir on the label. It doesn't taste anything like what you think of a Pinot Noir. It's. You know, I would say we don't know because you can't. You don't have to disclose it, but I guess there's some mega purple in here. Something to fill it out, to give it this deep, dark, rich color. It doesn't look like Pinot Noir. You know, it's a $9 bottle of wine, but the actual motto is meat wine.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Good.

[Bianca Bosker]

And we just have to beat our chest for a little while after we say that.

[Felix Salmon]

That tastes like a brownie.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yeah.

[Bianca Bosker]

But it does. And so I think.

[Jordan Weissmann]

But it's also. I mean, I have to say, given. Given the branding and the labels, like, I have had, you know, vintage Bordeaux, which is bigger and bolder than this. Like, this isn't that much of a sledgehammer, to be honest.

[Felix Salmon]

I bet the want. The branding is for the Burr who thinks he wants a big, bold wine, but in fact, may not be ready for, like, something huge and, like, super tannic or whatever.

[Jordan Weissmann]

But there's a limit.

[Felix Salmon]

They want, you know, cereal milk.

[Jordan Weissmann]

There's a limit to how. There's a limit to how big and bold. A Pinot Noir is ever going to be sure, right? I mean, like, if you want Amarani or a Zinfandel or something, you. Or a Petit Syrah, you can do that. It just makes no sense to. If you want a Patisserat, why you'd buy a Pinot Noir.

[Felix Salmon]

The bro they were selling this to knows what a Pinot Noir is. That's like. That's the key here.

[Bianca Bosker]

This is the ke$ha of mine.

[Felix Salmon]

So, yeah, I mean, so this. This is not one of my favorites of her songs. This is minor KE do, but I'm sure.

[Jordan Weissmann]

But it's also weirdly, I mean, you know, if you ask any wine snob, the idea that there would be a sledgehammer Pinot Noir is just such an oxymoron that, like, that would be their Platonic ideal of a dreadful wine.

[Bianca Bosker]

Right.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And it's not undrinkable. I've had many wines which are much worse than this.

[Bianca Bosker]

Right. So have you had wine? But I bet you've had wines that are quote, unquote, good wines that are worse than this.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yes, I've had a $400 araujo from California, which was worse than this. You know, like a really big, expensive California Cabernet which just tasted like cough syrup. And I'm like, I cannot drink this. I cannot get it down my throat.

[Bianca Bosker]

But I just. I mean, look, I think it. I think that there is someone that may drink this over. I don't know, maybe even if they're drinking it over, like, Smirnoff or Bud Light, maybe they wouldn't have bought this bottle to begin with.

[Felix Salmon]

Yeah, I think definitely. Definitely.

[Bianca Bosker]

Thank you, Jordan.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Thank you. So it turns out that there is a purpose for growing Pinot Noir in California, and that's to create Sledgehammer.

[Bianca Bosker]

I'll send you home with this wine. You can enjoy it over the weekend.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I'll drink it over the weekend.

[Felix Salmon]

The Slate officers will descend on it. Otherwise, it's fine. Don't worry.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Someone in Slate will find their way of drinking this. I think that's all we have time for. This. Bianco's back onto the Cornelison because, you know, I have to pat myself on the back here and say I did bring the best wine. That's the end of the wine podcast. I think we should end with, like, an impromptu numbers round. Bianca, when you go to a restaurant and you're looking at a wine list, you don't have a huge amount of information. You can see the. The region and the what vintage and the number. The only number There, apart from the vintage, is the price. Tell me what information you get from the price and tell me to what degree. You should start thinking that if it's more expensive, that makes it more desirable in some way.

[Bianca Bosker]

When I'm looking at a wine list, I'd say there's a few tiers that I divided up into. And so if the wine. You're right, it's really rare that we're going to see a wine that's 30 or $40 on the list. So if I see a wine, at least in a nicer restaurant, I should preface this by saying that in general, the markup in a restaurant is you're paying about three times what they paid for the bottle of wine. So if I see a wine that's about, you know, $50 a bottle or $60 a bottle, I'm not expecting a whole lot. It could be really good. It could be for. From some unpopular region, you can find a lot of great hidden gems.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And can I, by the way, shout out to Bianca Bosca, who, early on in her book name drops Monda's Noir from the Savoie, which is her example of, like, this obscure region where you can find great values, which is totally true. And like my favorite wine.

[Bianca Bosker]

Oh, it's delicious.

[Jordan Weissmann]

It's amazing.

[Bianca Bosker]

Although now it no longer feels obscure. I drink those wines a lot, and they're delicious.

[Felix Salmon]

Mango Savoir hipster is what I'm hearing.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Yeah, yeah. Bianca was drinking Mondez Noir before. It was cool.

[Felix Salmon]

I couldn't even pronounce it right. I'm like.

[Bianca Bosker]

I wasn't gonna correct you.

[Felix Salmon]

I'm listening to Ke$at the mall in Minneapolis. You're like the one listening to.

[Bianca Bosker]

You can't hear Mondoir over the KE dollar at the mall. No, but I think. Look, I would just say one quick piece of advice for people. If you're looking at a by the glass list and you don't know anything about wine, don't go automatically for the gimme wines. The gimme wines are the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. They're the California Cabernet, the California Pinot, the things everyone's heard of. And they are there because people say, give it to me. I don't care how much it costs. And if you order a gimme wine, you will pay a gimme tax. So in general, even if it's not the cheapest thing, I think you get a better value wine for something that's a little off the beaten track, that you've never heard of from a Place you can't pronounce. That being said, Felix, I think it's a great question. So I think that if I was just looking at the numbers on the list, wines that are under, you know, $50, $60. I mean, I know that I'm gonna be paying a higher markup, but not necessarily bad quality wine, but probably not the best wine. If it's something between, let's say, 60 and 150, to me, those are the wines that have something special about them. But then above 150, to me, it starts being. These are the brand name wines. Either super. Either they're these cult classics that are made in very small quantities, or they're just the kind of big name, crowd pleaser, brand name, whatevers. Right? I mean, Domain de la Roman Conti is not going to be under, you know, I mean, it's going to be probably four figures, but then I'm going to be ordering a wine that isn't just delicious, but is. You know, I'm paying for the reputation. I'm paying for the brand. I'm paying for the scarcity. So I keep it under there.

[Jordan Weissmann]

So basically, what you're saying is that in a restaurant, the sweet spot is between, like, 50 and 150, which I guess means that in a wine store, the sweet spot would be between, what, like 20 and 50?

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah, maybe a little more, but I think you.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Maybe between 20 and 80.

[Bianca Bosker]

Yeah. I think the thing is, you can drink really, really great wine for maybe $20 a bottle. It's not going to come from Burgundy. Right? I mean, it's not going to come from these regions.

[Jordan Weissmann]

I should have bought my $20 burgundy.

[Bianca Bosker]

Do you actually have a great $20? I would love to know what that is.

[Felix Salmon]

You just shot up.

[Jordan Weissmann]

No, I don't. I have a great $20 Bergeolais, which is not actually a Burgundy, but it's.

[Bianca Bosker]

Sure that's fair. No, no, no. But that still counts. No, but I just. I think the point is that it's not that a $600 bottle of wine is not 10 times better than a $60 bottle of wine. It may be 10 times more rare, it may be 10 times more famous, be 10 times snobbier in some way, but then it's not just about the taste. It's about the composite experience of that wine.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Right.

[Bianca Bosker]

It's about the label. It's about what you paid for. And those things do inform the flavor.

[Felix Salmon]

Flavor.

[Jordan Weissmann]

Okay, so that's it. That's the end of our impromptu numbers round. Bianca, thank you so much. For coming on to Slate Money. It was awesome. Thank you, Zach. Thank you for somehow managing to edit this into a semblance of coherence.

[Bianca Bosker]

And edit out the slurring.

[Jordan Weissmann]

And to edit out the slurring. If I sound ridiculously drunk, it's because I am, because we've been drinking wine the entire time. Next week, we will be back with with a slightly more sober edition of Slate Money, but it will still be good. In the meantime, write to us. Email is slatemoneylate.com and many thanks to Steve Lichtai, June Thomas, Andy Bowers, and all of the other producers around these parts. The Panoply Network is at Panoply fm and we will talk to you next week on Slate Money.

[Bianca Bosker]

Electric Wire love. The sun was coming up? Red, red, red wine and whiskey on your tongue? Tangled up in your sheets? You saw the real me? You, you, you giving me something to believe?