Wine with Meg + Mel
The fun + frank podcast which helps you navigate the world of wine. Hosted by Australia's first female Master of Wine Meg Brodtmann, and self-titled Master of Sabrage Mel Gilcrist.
Wine with Meg + Mel
Where we get our wine entertainment, news and lols.
Everything we follow about the world of wine.
Wine News
- Wine titles – daily wine news
- Winebusiness.com
- SVB
- Harpers.co.uj
- Drinks business
- IWSR
- Euromonitor
- Jancis Robinson
Wine Reviews and stories
- Halliday
- The Real Review
Podcasts
- Wine Blast
- Food Matters
- Got Somme
- Thirty Fifty
- Interpreting wine
- Wine Victoria Podcast
Instagrams
- @Huntress_wines
- @The_angry_somm
- @Shittywinememes
- @Karafoodwine
Movies + Series
- Side ways
- Somm
- Blind side
- Drops of God
- Uncorked
- Red Obsession
- Sour Grapes
Follow us on instagram @winewithmegandmel
Hi and welcome to One with Megan Malvick here to help you navigate the world of wine. I'm Megan Christy, I'm a master of wine, meg Brotman, and we're doing something a little different today. We are we're going to do what we do. What we do yeah, if you like listening to us, here's what we listen to, what we watch, what we do, what we do yeah, if you like listening to us. Here's what we listen to, what we watch, what we follow. If you want to absorb yourself in the world of wine, this is just all our recommendations we can give, basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean, if you're working in wine, what sort of trade media we read? Yeah, where we get our news, where some of the fun facts come from? Yeah, exactly how we keep ourselves informed, and I spend a lot of time, like every morning. That's the first thing I do when I get to work spend 15 minutes just catching up on what's happening in the world of wine cool okay, but first meg what you been drinking so I had.
Speaker 2:I got it from nicks and um, we had some friends over on cup day so I had champagne to start with, yeah, but I got out the big boys. I got it from Nex. It was $130, so it's not cheap. It's from Nahr in Germany, so it's a 2022. Donhoff, niederhauser, hermanns Hall Riesling Spätlese. It was unbelievable, fortunately. So it had just a touch of sugar, um, being sprat lazy, being the second. So you've got cabinet, which is the lowest level of ripeness, and you're spat lazy. Then you're ouch lazy, yeah, um, it was just a german riesling. We're gonna have to do an episode on german. It's not going to be cheap, but it is.
Speaker 2:It's ethereal, oh look, you don't have to but the people we were drinking with weren't really into wine so, yeah, that was great because they drank, um, the sort of other wines Pete's rosé, which is delicious, yeah, but Pete and I kind of got to have the. Are you watching that Jesus turns into one? That is so funny that video.
Speaker 1:we yeah, we're going to go off track. Go back to it. I'll edit that.
Speaker 2:So it was, yeah, beautiful wine. I know it's expensive, but it's a kind of special treat to us because we try not to drink during the week, yeah. And also, you've got it in your fridge, you've spent the money, yeah, so it's kind of in the past, so the price doesn't really count. No, I agree, and we're not going out for dinner.
Speaker 1:This is not a financial advice podcast.
Speaker 2:No, but Pete did buy Wagyu steak, which was down from $120 to $69 a kilo.
Speaker 1:Oh my God that's crazy.
Speaker 2:He bought two pieces, but there was five of us, yeah, and we didn't finish it. That's how rich.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So it's well worth buying just one piece. It is very expensive and only eating it once a month Okay, that's all you can afford. I know we are in a bit of tightening times at the moment, so that's what I've been drinking. It's absolutely delicious.
Speaker 1:Okay, fun fact.
Speaker 2:The fun fact I was reading quite a while ago now, but I was going through my fun facts cleaning them up, which I failed to bring with me today, but thankfully I revised them and I think it was in Spain that people were renovating their house and they found an urn which actually contains wine. They think they've dated it to about 4,000 years ago. Yeah, and they've got. It was still sort of this rust-coloured liquid, but they tested the liquid and it actually is from grapes and it was, at some point, wine. They didn't taste it because clearly it would have been absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 2:No, I so would have tasted it. But what's so amazing is these dudes could have just seen it and kind of gone over the thing, but they actually rang archaeologists at some university who came out and, you know, dug it out. That would have held up all their renovations and stuff, yeah. So there are some really good people out there that are invested in the past, history of you, know their country and what's happened in the past. So just a little proud moment for people who are doing it well for history and their knowledge. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, we like that. Okay, so we're just going to go through everything, like everything we can think of all our. Some of them will be recommendations, some of them might just be. Look, this is a thing. Where do we start? Do we start?
Speaker 2:serious, don't start with instagram, because I don't really follow. No, I was going to finish on instagram.
Speaker 1:It'll be a fun recommendation that's why I thought we'll start serious. Meg, where do you get your serious wine updates? Okay so.
Speaker 2:I subscribe to the Daily News, which is an Australian, so they have two sections. They give you the Daily News. It publishes wine titles, publish Australian grape and wine, Yep. But they also scout around the world, so there's always some global news underneath that. So I mainly read that for Australian news, yep. Then I subscribe to WineBusinesscom, which is out of America, and they again send a daily update.
Speaker 2:And so it's more the finances. This winery is doing it tough. Great prices have dropped this year in California. There's this much bulk wine. But it's just to get a feel for what's happening in the industry from the ground level. One thing that if you're really into the wine industry and you are in a winery and you can go and it used to be the Silicon Valley Bank and it went broke but it's been bought out but the SVB, silicon Valley Bank, do a wine survey every year and then they give you a feel. Well, they give you all this data about what's happening in the US how much sales are through D2C, how much is out of cellar doors. Really, you can put your data in from Australia, they don't care, they just put it in the other bucket.
Speaker 2:Okay, but that gives you access to what they're doing and it is the biggest read on what is happening, what has happened and what will happen with the industry. It is Rob Miller who does it is phenomenal. He's it's from a banking background, so it's all about the finance and it just gives a. It's the pulse of the industry in the US. So the Silicon Valley bank report it's not about the finance and it just gives a. It's the pulse of the industry in the US. So the Silicon Valley Bank Report it's not called that anymore, but if you look at SVB you'll be able to find it. I subscribe to harperscouk, which is a UK wine mag and drinks business which is UK-based. Yeah, I'm finding, though now they're less. I just think maybe the UK trade is a little bit stagnant at the moment, so I'm not getting as much kind of news out of them. I very rarely subscribe. I do subscribe too, but I very rarely read in details decantercom or Wine Spectator or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get a lot of decanter and stuff.
Speaker 2:I get it all, but I don't really read it. I know Mel subscribes to Jancis Robinson's newsletter because I somehow get it still at your old work address. So I've got mine, so I get two news things.
Speaker 1:What about IWSR? Do you look at that? Yes, I get that once a week. They have some really good stats, euromonitor.
Speaker 2:So Euromonitor does some, some wine stuff, but they also give you I just got global global trends. So what's happening in retail globally?
Speaker 1:okay, so we're just naming heaps here of all this. What is actually worth following? Let's say top ones.
Speaker 2:IWSR yep um Wine business for me winebusinesscom, yeah, and probably drinks business if you want to cover off UK US.
Speaker 1:Okay. So then what about more like lifestyle, trying new wines and stuff? Do you follow Halliday and what's Hewan's? One again, wine review yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for work. Yeah, the real review. I see Wine of the Week and you know they cover Australia and New Zealand so I tend to have a look at what's going on in New Zealand. So Stephen Wong, who's an MW, writes for them, so I have a look, but I'm not that interested in what people. Wine Spectator do some very good in-depth articles. They've just covered one off on the Southern Rhone and there's been a few updates in the Southern Rhone so I thought that was quite interesting For education purposes, because I will be teaching. I do keep up to date with you know what's happening in DOCGs in Italy, but for my own personal use I don't tend to read them. I don't need a wine recommendation from James Halliday.
Speaker 1:No, well, I mean, I guess it's not aimed at someone like you. It's aimed at more wine enthusiasts than industry people who already kind of know their stuff. Okay, what else Podcasts? Wine Blast. Yeah, you love Wine Blast.
Speaker 2:Susan and Peter Barry, husband and wife, mw team. They don't put them out with all that with sort of the same frequency. They sort of seem to go a run of weeks with nothing and then there's a couple. But they do some really, really interesting stuff. They've got access, obviously, to interesting people interviews. It's very interview-based, a little bit science-y sometimes. So people might remember we did that Like Strike episode and that came about from listening to them.
Speaker 2:I subscribe to a thing called Food Matters, so it's not just, it's's really, it's more from the health perspective. Um, oh, fun fact, uh, that medical study that you can't drink any no wine is good for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, someone's I think jamie good dug into the science of it yeah no, I just don't believe any of these things, honestly. Like there's every day and either an article comes out saying wine is good for you or one is bad for you. Like there is just so much crap out there from both sides, but the baseline is just when they, when you look at just drinking moderation, hey, that's fine, um so what was I talking about?
Speaker 2:Food matters.
Speaker 1:Food matters. What about Gottham Once again? Look, it's not aimed at us, I do subscribe to it, but I don't often.
Speaker 2:I will dip in and out.
Speaker 1:I don't tend to listen to whole episodes, so Gottham is probably, if you're more of a beginner, it might be interesting. So, especially right at the start, what they did was they got a wine and they'd tell you which wine to go out to buy and then they kind of taste it with a master some who says you know, it tastes like apples or it's medium plus acidity, or so it's kind of good practice. I guess, if you were into like just getting into wine, yeah now.
Speaker 2:But now it's, more interviews. They tend to do interviews with winery people and I just find their Instagram. What does the Master Somme prefer? Krug or, you know, moet and Chandon. It's just wines outside our normal league.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I see what you're saying, so I just find that it kind of is the antithesis of how they started. Yeah, that's so true, but that's only on Instagram. They don't tend to do that, you know. Taste them on there. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:When you take snips for Instagram, you kind of need to take something that's really cooking, but I know what you're saying, so I've got one for podcasts as well 50-30. Oh, look, it'll be in the show notes. I think it's called 50-30. It's the guy who teaches Wes at level three and he basically goes through like chapter by chapter and teaches the lesson. Have you listened to it? No, oh, my God, he is fantastic. If you are studying Level 3 Wesset, you go to Chardonnay and he will basically just teach you a lesson of Wesset 3 in your ears and it's really, really good.
Speaker 2:But haven't you finished it? Because once the book's done, does he?
Speaker 1:like no, it's good for if you're studying. Okay, Say for me if I'm going in to teach a like a level two. I just like putting him in my ears and listening, because he doesn't just give the facts, he tells stories.
Speaker 2:A teaching style yeah.
Speaker 1:The teaching style is really good. He doesn't just say, oh, Chardonnay is maybe acidity or whatever he's like, here's what the hills are like and here's what the people are like. Oh, nice you know he gives a lot of really good information. Yeah, he does, he's great. So if you're starting level three or even if you just want, like, some extra, it's not crappy to listen to. It's really good to listen to.
Speaker 2:So it's 30 50s level three wine podcast. I really recommend that one. Um, what else to listen to podcast interpreting wine, which is, oh, what's his name? But again, I've sort of stopped listening to it, um, because he's gone. He's now doing lots of georgian and things and I just find it a little bit boring. I've got to be honest. My podcast is if you're just scrolling through, is All American Politics Australian. Grape and.
Speaker 1:Wine.
Speaker 2:And Wine Victoria started doing one, and they interviewed Andrew Shedden the other day, which I haven't listened to, but it sounds like a really interesting episode. Okay, so Wine Victoria podcast yeah, well, here's always good to listen to Australian Grape and Wine. They haven't updated this for years. The Australian Wine Research Institute they have podcasts and YouTube channel that I dip in and out of depending on the topic. I don't subscribe to it, yeah, but mine's mainly Wine with Meg and Mel, of course.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, of course course. Do you actually listen to us? I don't listen to it this morning driving back from prison. I don't normally listen to us, but someone messaged this morning saying that, um, they would like all their celebrity news delivered by us because they listened to the wine celebrity one episode. And then I had to go back and be like what did we say again and I listened back and now I'm just waiting for Brad Pitt's people to get in touch to sue us.
Speaker 2:So you, I didn't know any of the information, so I'm completely clean, true, yeah, well. And Dolly to pay us to endorse her.
Speaker 1:No, Dolly, get in touch, Dolly. Meg would appreciate that. Oh, and.
Speaker 2:Kylie's people will sue us as well, because we dissed the fact that her Prosecco was made in Italy and not in Australia.
Speaker 1:We just dissed it, though we didn't say any potentially defamatory remarks Anyway.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's something that you've said that you haven't read, so it is hearsay. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:Allegedly Love that Allegedly.
Speaker 2:Can I allegedly in hindsight, yeah, you can go back and edit that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so for fun, let's go into Instagram. Do let's go into Instagram? Do you follow anything on Instagram?
Speaker 2:A lot of people that I know. So one of my favourites is Huntress Wine or Wine Yarra Valley. Huntress Wine, huntress Wine. She's out of New Zealand. She kills her own animals. She's a winemaker. She's the most amazing Maori woman Just Janine. I judged with her a few years ago.
Speaker 1:She's just fantastic and she just does some really interesting stuff around native foods in New Zealand and her wines and things. I like Cara, cara Foodwine, our friend Cara from Herald Sun. So she has a lot of wine content. But she also has a lot of aspirational content because she gets invited to all the penfolds, like you know Mother Cup and Australian Open and stuff. She's a lovely person.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to be jealous. I look at her life.
Speaker 1:And also I think she must be exhausted. She's pregnant now and she is still attending all this stuff. I messaged her the other day and I was like how are you doing this? So she's clearly not sick like you were. Yeah, no, she's having a much nicer time.
Speaker 2:But even the little frock that she had on in the birdcage.
Speaker 1:I know she's gorgeous. How dare she. She looks fabulous as a tiny little bump, I know Anyway shout out to you.
Speaker 2:So yes, I subscribe to her and I love her stuff because she does do a lot of high-end restaurants and stuff. You know destinations, but she does some basic stuff too.
Speaker 1:She's so approachable with her wine, she never goes too crazy, so she's a good follow.
Speaker 2:So I follow World Loves Melbourne for places to eat and drink, which is a guy which I really like.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I follow a lot of meme ones because I find memes really funny. So one of them is the angry som the underscore angry, underscore som, and it's just some really funny stuff. Pot of you. You're asked for your butteriest chardonnay and it's Donald Trump in a blonde wig.
Speaker 2:Don't need to see that I'm feeling very, very sad at the moment. True.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's some really really funny kind of meme type stuff from him, and shitty wine memes are very good.
Speaker 2:What else do I? Yeah, cara Food, cara Food's fine, oh shit, just the best.
Speaker 1:I know she put something up the other day that was like Spanish wines or something. I was like can you taste that? And so the other thing as well is that because she works for the Herald Sun, every winery in the freaking country is sending her every single sample, so she tastes every wine ever like as much as yeah, but she tastes them in a much less wanky way than like the holidays and stuff do.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, she's about how you actually use the product. Yeah, you know she's not about she doesn't use that sort of WCT speak, or whatever.
Speaker 2:And it's very much. Oh, it'll be delicious with blah blah, blah, blah blah and she's great. Okay, movies so well, sideways, which you know everyone raves about that film. They are two of the nastiest human beings on the planet. They go away for a weekend because the guy's getting married, basically so he can have an affair. Yeah, that's the premise of the story. Yeah, it is. And he's going with his mate, miles, who's played by Paul Jimmy Allen. He's a very good actor who is miserable because his marriage is broken down, remember, yeah yeah, the wife left him, I think, but it is.
Speaker 1:It's just a couple of like iconic moments. Like they're going wine tasting and so like the main guy's really into wine and his mate's just there to basically have a piss up and cheat on his wife, right, and so he's just going along and so the first guy's like describing the wine and he's tasting all the aromas and this and that, and he's so the first guy's like describing the wine and he's tasting all the aromas and this and that, and he's trying to get his friend to get into it. And then he looks over and goes are you chewing gum?
Speaker 2:I haven't seen it for years. We saw it in Chile. It was called entrecopas, which means between glasses. Oh yeah, very weird. Yeah, that is weird. Why is it called Sideways? Yeah, I can't remember, but the guy who wrote it is an absolute oenophile. Like he loves wine, loves it, and I think he now owns. I listened to an interview with him. It was a really really good interview, yeah, and I think he has a vineyard in Southern California, somewhere like Santa Barbara way, and he's just really, yeah, geeky into his wine and it's sort of his ode to the love of wine. That's nice, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like it's going to. Oh yeah, the other iconic scenes from that. This is the movie where he's like I'm not drinking any fucking more. If anyone orders, he goes, just be Meg, she can't talk. I know she's not going to copy you once, You're okay, but no, it's where he's like just be chill, right, we're going on a date, Don't be all like you, Even if they order Merlot, just be fine and drink it.
Speaker 2:And he goes. No, If anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving.
Speaker 1:I'm not drinking any fucking.
Speaker 2:Merlot and reportedly dropped. Merlot sales around the world.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's sideways. Som, do you watch that? That is the show.
Speaker 2:I don't know where you can stream it now. I watched the movie, the first movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a movie, isn't it? It's not.
Speaker 2:I watched both of them Do you not love it, I loved it. They're such a bunch of wankers, I know.
Speaker 1:That's why I love it. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Like I feel like you, the arrogance of the men in that, and the women are much more humble. Isn't that what it's?
Speaker 1:like, though Isn't that what it's?
Speaker 2:like being a master of one.
Speaker 1:Don't you experience that? Not with my couple. So do you think Soms are more wanky than W? Yes, of Not with my kind of wine. So do you think Somme's are more wanky than W? Yes, of course they are.
Speaker 2:You're right, it's also American, true, different breed, so maybe American Masters of Wine, but mostly I mean certainly when I did it they're mates of mine and I don't do wankers, true.
Speaker 1:So if you haven't seen Somme, it follows what four people who are trying to get their master sommelier and it shows them like say they do service challenges. So they have to. I will never forget they, um. So one of the challenges is like he walks in and he's like okay, I'm your server today and they go. Okay, we have a party of 14 people and we'd all like to share this one bottle of wine before we move on to our normal wines, and so he had to pour this one bottle equally between 14 people, but you're not allowed to go back and top up anyone. So he had to do that perfectly. So, like service challenges like that were crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the service is impressive, I've got to say.
Speaker 1:It is impressive and yeah, I'm sure they play up a lot of things for TV, but I mean it's really impressive watching what they do.
Speaker 2:Of course they're wankers, but it was done by two guys that I think they didn't get it.
Speaker 1:Oh, probably. Whose pass rate is really?
Speaker 2:low. Have you seen Blindside about the first African?
Speaker 1:Yes, I loved that. Oh, my God, that was so good. That's about the African. Is that a true story? Yes, oh, everyone go watch that Zimbabwe.
Speaker 2:So they put together a team of Zimbabwean sommeliers and they picked the best people for wine service out of Zimbabwe. These people don't have access to a lot of great wines and they trained them up. It was like a competition to train them up.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, they're so cute and sweet.
Speaker 2:I'm not giving no spoiler alert, but they didn't win as a country. But it is the greatest story of hope and joy. When they go to some of the Chateau in France, their faces are just like like what are we looking at?
Speaker 3:It is just so filled with joy.
Speaker 2:It's know it is just so filled with joy. It's gorgeous. It's called Blindside. I'm not sure what streaming service it's on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure either. Drops of God. Drops of God we absolutely loved. So Drops of God is on Apple Plus and that's the one about the Japanese bloke it's based on a Japanese manga which is a Japanese sort of cartoon.
Speaker 2:Sorry, children, I know you're going to tell me it's not a cartoon, but anyway, it's a Japanese manga. It's about a French man who has two children one with a Japanese woman who lives in Japan and his daughter, who grew up with him in France, and the father is a complete dick. Yes, arrogant, yeah. Woman who lives in Japan and his daughter, who grew up with him in France, and the father is a complete dick. Yes, arrogant, yeah, but his children have both inherited his incredible palate and he dies, and they have to compete for his inheritance.
Speaker 2:It's so good, which is phenomenal amounts of wine and an amazing apartment in Tokyo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Don't believe everything that they say about wine it's a little bit romantic. They take some liberties with actual wine technicality. But it's so good, it's just such great watching. It's a great story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is really good.
Speaker 1:I binged it Uncorked, did you see Uncorked? Is he about the black dude? He wants the black guy trying to become master and his dad tells him that he can't he's a stupid industry.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's quite good. It's quite good. Yeah, red Obsession narrated by our very own Russell Crowe.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen Red Obsession. Is it good? You obsession is a good? You're kidding.
Speaker 2:No, it's about it's a lot about China, but the obsession with high-end wines, the prices that people will pay, the guy that bought Thomas Jefferson's French cellar, which turned out to be fake he doesn't actually, he doesn't reveal how much it cost him? Yeah, but it's reportedly in the millions. Yeah. The other one is it's what's it called? Oh, sour Grapes, that's what it is. Sour Grapes with Rudy Kernoghan. He's out of jail, is he? Yeah, he's gone back to was he from Malaysia.
Speaker 1:Okay, so Sour Grapes is about the guy that counterfeit.
Speaker 2:So he took all the bottles, he got himself into all these sort of rich people and tasting groups and they'd have, you know, romani Conti every night and he would take the bottles home and then refill them, recork them yeah. Oh, but he had an amazing palate to be able to do it, yeah, and put them on Wow, no, yeah, people will believe what's on the label. That's the thing, it just goes to show, and then he put them on the auction circuit.
Speaker 2:Yeah For a clipper Wines and then he got called out because he started actually counterfeiting labels and there's a weird oh he made a year that didn't exist. From a Burgundian wine. The producer goes.
Speaker 1:I didn't make that year. I didn't. Yep exactly, and then he closed.
Speaker 2:But there's that woman they interview whose job is wine fraud. Like she looks at all the different she's in the movie. She looks at all the paper and the type of stamp and the type of ink that was used. Very cool, what a job. So that's actually really good. What else? There's some good movies.
Speaker 1:I think they're all the main ones I can think of.
Speaker 2:The worst one is that one with Keanu Reeves?
Speaker 1:I don't know it.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I think it's from the 2000s or 1990s. You know, they put the smudge pots out in the vineyard and they saved the vintage. It's all very romantic. Which Drops of God is a little romantic as well.
Speaker 1:It's a bit like that, but it was good, so we put up with it. Okay, I want to finish off on my favourite skit, which I don't know. You might have all seen it if you're on Wine, TikTok or whatever.
Speaker 2:People send it to me all the time. Me too, I've seen it.
Speaker 1:People, send it to me all the time Me too. You were the first person that ever sent it to me.
Speaker 2:I just love it, but I get it at least once a month. Someone sends it to me and I go oh funny, even though I've seen it a thousand times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my friends sent it to me again last week, but I actually hadn't seen it in a while, so it cracked up. It is funny, so we will leave you this. You next week, until next time, enjoy a glass of wine drink.
Speaker 3:well and lo, I have turned water into wine. What's wrong? He's done merlot again. What's wrong with merlot? What's right with merlot? Jesus, yeah, can you do me something else? Like what? Like a? Like a Malbec or a Pinot Noir or something? Yeah, no, I can't do those ones, I'm afraid. What about like a Rioja? Or oh, I'd have a Rioja. No, I can't do Rioja. I mean, I'd settle for, like a Chateauneuf-du-Pape, just drink it. I could probably do a Shiraz, wow.
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