Podcast
The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast
Hosted by Forrest Kelly · EN
The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast delivers quick wine education for busy wine lovers. Host Forrest Kelly interviews sommeliers, winemakers, chefs, and wine experts sharing practical wine tips, wine pairing advice, wine tasting notes, and insider secrets from Napa Valley to Bordeaux.
Voted one of The Best Wine, Food and Travel Podcasts!
10episodes
Episodes
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Boone's Farm at the Drive-In to Château Pétrus — The Wine Coach's Incredible Journey Pt. 1-4
2d ago00:19:13Tap to summarizeLaurie Forster has always used humor to disarm people — it's a skill she traces all the way back to growing up in New Jersey, where you learn fast that a sharp wit is your best defense. On this episode of The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast, Laurie shares how that instinct, combined with a supply chain degree from Penn State, a high-stakes career in Fortune 100 tech sales, and a terrifying night performing stand-up comedy at the DC Improv, quietly assembled everything she needed to become The Wine Coach. Her one-woman show, Something to Whine About, is unlike anything else in wine education. Audiences arrive to find a flight of wines waiting at their seats and leave having competed in the Cork Dork Challenge, earned their drinking names, and watched a self-proclaimed wine snob get gently humbled by Laurie's blind smell test. The show has played Caesars Atlantic City, Caroline's on Broadway, and the HBO Women in Comedy Festival, where Laurie took over a Boston theater and ran a live wine tasting during intermission. Off stage, Laurie hosts The Sipping Point, a weekly podcast featuring chefs, winemakers, and culinary personalities. She leads international wine tours to destinations including Bordeaux and Tuscany, and her free Wine Coach app (available on iPhone and Android) puts her wine picks, podcast, and Q&A access in one place. For upcoming shows, tours, and her newsletter, visit thewinecoach.com. Find her on Instagram and Threads at @thewinecoach and on Facebook as The Wine Coach. @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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A Wine Tasting at a Rodeo in S. Dakota — It Was Better Than You'd Think Pt. 4
3d ago00:04:58Tap to summarizeWine tastings at rodeos. The Hank Williams Museum. A first sip of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill at the drive-in. In the final part of her conversation, Laurie Forster wraps up one of the most entertaining and wide-ranging wine conversations the show has ever hosted — and she saves some of the best material for last. Laurie's corporate tasting work has brought her to venues she never put on her bucket list and wouldn't trade for anything. Through all of it, her mission has never wavered: help people think different and drink different by trusting their own taste rather than deferring to wine culture's unwritten rulebook. While she's tasted bottles most wine lovers only dream about — Château Pétrus, Barolo, aged Sauternes — what genuinely excites her most is tracking down a killer wine under $25 and sharing it with an audience who didn't know it existed. Find Laurie on Instagram and Threads at @thewinecoach, on Facebook as The Wine Coach, and download her free Wine Coach app on iPhone or Android for wine picks, podcast access, and direct Q&A. Upcoming shows, tours, and events live at thewinecoach.com. And as Laurie would say — Cheers. @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Dinner Guest Who Got It So Wrong, Chef Chuck Had to Step In Pt. 5
3d ago00:05:56Tap to summarizeChef Chuck's method for finding out why a client is resistant to wine Mocktail and kombucha alternatives for clients avoiding alcohol The cardiovascular benefits of resveratrol in red wine, in moderation Why his tasting pours are kept small — four ounces or less, down to 2.5 oz for dessert wines The real purpose of a wine pairing: accenting the food, not overpowering it A story about a dinner guest who pushed back hard against the chef's fixed wine pairing menu How 30 years in the industry shaped his approach to expanding guests' palates Why eastern North Carolina diners tend to prefer sweeter wines like muscadine and moscato Using blueberry and strawberry wines as a bridge for sweet-wine-only clients Early signs of success this spring in shifting client palates toward the full tasting experience @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The Wine Coach Who Turned Hecklers Into Stars of the Show Pt. 3
4d ago00:05:25Tap to summarizeLaurie Forster has performed her wine comedy show Something to Whine About in some of the most iconic entertainment venues in the country — and in Part 3, she walks through exactly what that experience looks like from the stage. Audiences at Carolines on Broadway, Caesars Atlantic City, and the HBO Women in Comedy Festival have all discovered the same thing: wine education is infinitely more effective when everyone is laughing and has four glasses in front of them. The show is built to disarm. Guests get drinking names and chances to come onstage, competing in games like the Cork Dork Challenge and a blind smell test that has an impressive track record of humbling even the most confident wine snobs in the room. Laurie's secret weapon for dealing with hecklers? She built them into the show before they could cause trouble. Off stage, Laurie hosts The Sipping Point, a weekly podcast featuring chefs, winemakers, and culinary storytellers, and she leads wine tours to destinations like Bordeaux and Tuscany. You can find her events, tours, podcast, and newsletter at thewinecoach.com. @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Back Label - 1 Take, 1 Payphone, 1 Song That Refused to Die
4d ago00:04:37Tap to summarizeIn 1980, Jonathan Cain stood at a payphone on Sunset Boulevard, broke and ready to quit music for good. His father's answer became the seed of the biggest sing-along anthem in rock history. In this Back Label Story, Forrest Kelly traces how that phrase aged in a notebook for a year before Cain joined Journey and the band built "Don't Stop Believin'" around it for the Escape album. Along the way, you'll hear how Steve Perry wrote like a sommelier — capturing a smoky bar room not by how it looked, but by how it smelled, that heavy swirl of wine and cheap perfume — and why he invented South Detroit, a place that doesn't exist, simply because it sang better. Forrest breaks down the song's rule-shattering structure, with a chorus that doesn't arrive until the final 50 seconds, and the legendary session at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley where the band captured the instrumental live in a single take. From the unforgettable cut-to-black of The Sopranos finale to becoming the best-selling digital rock song of the 20th century and its 2022 preservation in the Library of Congress National Recording Registry, this is the full pour behind an anthem that refused to let the glass run dry. @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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She Walked Into a Cooking Class to Meet Men, Left With a Chef Husband Pt. 2
5d ago00:05:00Tap to summarizeBefore Laurie Forster became The Wine Coach, she was a Penn State supply chain graduate selling multimillion-dollar inventory planning systems to Fortune 100 executives — and getting quietly humiliated every time a wine list landed on the table. In Part 2 of her conversation, Laurie traces the full arc from corporate boardrooms to Australian vineyards, sharing the chain of decisions that led her to walk away from a six-figure tech career and never look back. Along the way she reveals how a cooking class became a life-changing moment — not just because it deepened her love of wine and food pairing, but because it introduced her to Chef Michael, now her husband, whose New York-New Jersey wit matched hers from the first sarcastic exchange across a kitchen counter. After a three-month sabbatical in Australia exploring wineries and reimagining her future, Laurie was handed a severance package and given the greatest gift of all: no reason to return. Today Laurie leads wine tours to Bordeaux, Tuscany, and beyond, and continues to build a community of wine lovers united by curiosity, affordability, and a complete absence of attitude. Learn more at thewinecoach.com. @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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N. Carolina Chef Tasted a Dozen Chardonnays So You Don't Have To Pt. 4
5d ago00:05:48Tap to summarizeBuilding a tasting menu isn't a weekend project. For Chef Chuck Hayworth of theresortchef.com, the spring menu alone took nearly a year to develop — tasting over a dozen Chardonnays and half a dozen Sauvignon Blancs from across North Carolina before locking in every pairing. Every wine on the menu comes from within 60 to 75 miles of his home base in Boone, the kind of farm-to-table commitment most restaurants only talk about. The spring menu features courses like asparagus, lemon seared trout, spring chicken with ancient grains, goat cheese, and a lemon olive oil cake for dessert — each paired with wines from the region, including a Linville dry white. And the summer menu, coming the second or third week of June, brings in heirloom tomatoes, mountain berries, and a whole new slate of North Carolina pairings. But the episode highlight might be Chef Chuck's search for the perfect wine to accompany a 5-to-7-hour braised short rib. His answer: orange wine from Hanover Park in the Yadkin Valley — one of the first producers of orange wine in North Carolina, crafting French varietals with a spicy back-palate finish that bridges the world between red and white. It's the pairing nobody expected, and it works. @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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New Jersey Jug Wine to Certified Sommelier — Laurie Forster's Wild Ride Pt. 1
6d ago00:05:40Tap to summarizeLaurie Forster — The Wine Coach — has built her career on a simple but powerful conviction: wine should be fun, accessible, and completely free of snobbery. In Part 1 of her conversation with Forrest Kelly on The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast, Laurie shares the full arc of her journey, from jug wine in New Jersey to certified sommelier, from corporate software sales to comedy stages, and from formal wine education to creating a one-woman show called Something to Whine About. What sets Laurie apart isn't just her credentials — it's her philosophy. After years of studying wine the traditional way, she realized audiences don't want a lecture; they want a great time. Armed with that insight and a surprisingly transformative comedy class at the DC Improv, she learned to meet wine lovers exactly where they are, using humor and interaction to make the education stick. Catch Laurie live as she performs Something to Whine About on July 10th at The Room at Cedar Grove in Lewes, Delaware. You can learn more about Laurie and her work at thewinecoach.com. @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Why Your Kids Are Getting Sicker Younger Pt. 3
1w ago00:05:48Tap to summarizeChef Chuck Hayworth has spent 26 years doing battle with the American food supply — and his clients keep getting younger. Chef Chuck opens up about his own cancer survivorship, why a diabetes diagnosis is the beginning of a health journey rather than the end of one, and how he brings entire families along on the medical meals process to make lasting change sustainable for everyone at the table. He also weighs in on the seismic shift reshaping the restaurant industry: whole generations of adults opting out of alcohol entirely, pushing beverage programs toward craft kombuchas, mocktails, and low-fermentation options. And yes, he still programs in four cheat days a month — because real life deserves a cheat sheet. Then things get seriously delicious. Chef Chuck walks through his Resort Chef tasting menu, rooted in Boone, North Carolina, where Appalachian and Blue Ridge mountain culinary traditions run hundreds of years deep. The menu pairs hyper-seasonal local ingredients with wines from the Yadkin Valley — one of the most undersung wine regions in the country, growing nearly every domestic grape variety you can name. @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Back Label - One Man's Palate Was Worth Millions — Here's How
2w ago00:04:16Tap to summarizeIn 1978, Robert Parker launched a free wine newsletter out of Baltimore with no industry connections and no advertising, building his reputation on a simple 50-to-100 point scoring scale borrowed from the American school grading system. That simple idea ended up reshaping how the entire world drinks wine, giving one man's palate enough influence to swing a bottle's price by millions and turn a 100-point score into an instant trophy. As Bordeaux winemakers began adjusting their wines to chase that score, critics coined the term Parkerization to describe a global drift toward riper, higher-alcohol, more fruit-forward styles. British Master of Wine Jancis Robinson saw the danger in that kind of concentrated influence and spoke out as early as the late 1980s, warning that one critic and one scale shouldn't control the international fine wine market. She built her own 20-point system as a quieter, more old-world alternative, setting up a decades-long debate over whether wine should be judged like a science experiment or experienced like a story. Parker retired in 2019 and The Wine Advocate eventually landed with Michelin, but his 100-point system is still stamped on wine shelves across America today, alongside the resistance to it that never fully went away. @thebestwinepodDiscover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:Wine PodcastMusic PodcastTravel Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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