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
Sugar-Free Wine: Exposing the Marketing Myth
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Meg and Mel tackle misleading wine marketing claims, exposing a company that touts "zero-sugar wine" as revolutionary when most dry wines already contain negligible sugar levels. They investigate a suspicious endorsement from a non-existent Master of Wine and taste-test the underwhelming products.
• Most dry wines already contain minimal sugar (around 0.5g per litre or less)
• The fermentation process naturally converts grape sugars into alcohol
• Laboratory testing confirmed the "zero-sugar" wines contained typical residual sugar levels
• The company's advertisements quote "Judith Smalls," a Master of Wine who doesn't exist
• The hosts found the wines extremely acidic and unpleasant despite premium pricing
• When questioned on social media about their claims, the company deleted comments
• Low-alcohol wines achieve their status through earlier grape picking, often sacrificing flavour
• Marketing terms like "clean," "natural," and "zero-sugar" are often misleading in the wine industry
• Higher quality wines focus on balance and flavour, not dubious health claims
Find out who Judith is! If you've encountered similar misleading wine marketing, we'd love to hear about it.
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Welcome and Episode Reintroduction
Speaker 1Hi and welcome to Wine with Meg and Mel. We are here to help you navigate the world of wine, although this week we are quite busy. So instead of bringing you a new episode, we are going to have one of our old favorites in your ears. So this one was one from our very first season. We'd probably only been doing it for about six weeks or something, and this was the week that I told Meg that there was genuinely being a wine promoted as sugar-free, which absolutely outraged her, and I'm not sure if I've ever laughed so much. So I really hope you enjoy this episode. We know we had a lot of fun with it and we'll be back with you next week. Hi and welcome to Wine with Meg and Mel. We're here to help beginners navigate the world of wine. I'm Mel, and I once drank champagne in a toilet cubicle just so I could savour it without distraction. That was savour, not savor, just so you know. But I am joined by Meg Brotman, australia's first female master of wine, who I'm sure would never do such a thing.
Speaker 2That's been selfish of you, isn't it?
Speaker 1No, no, no, no. So it was when I was like a brand new wine ambassador and I'd never been exposed to much champagne. I think I'd only had like one glass in my life and it was a new champagne I'd never tasted and I actually really wanted to enjoy the moment and everyone had got a glass. So I took my glass and I went, because it was this busy bar, and I went and sat in the toilet and just like that's not the whole thing, I just had a few sips, because I really want I was like really appreciating the moment.
Speaker 1Oh, that's so cute, no no, I haven't done that.
Speaker 2I do remember taking a bottle of Kingfisher beer to a toilet in India once, because I basically couldn't leave the toilet and I needed some rehydration. That's all I had.
Speaker 1Not as pleasant as champagne. Not quite the same story. You can cut that if you like. Tori, that is definitely staying in here. All right, Meg, how's your week been? What have you been drinking? Oh, I've just got back from New.
Speaker 2Zealand, so we went to the South Island and everyone knows Marlborough as being famous for Sauvignon, but we famously don't really drink Sauvignon. So I went to Framingham, which is a Riesling producer. They focus on Riesling. They had lots of small batch wines there, a full skins, one Cool. They were all delicious. The only thing I have a bit of an issue with the Kiwis is they tend to add sugar to their Riesling and I just think I get that off dry. But these are perceptibly quite sweet and I think that they just celebrate the acidity. But they said the guy in the cellar door who was lovely, he said that that's what their market demands. But the more serious wines at Framingham, the tiny thousand litre volume wines we were tasting, were just extraordinary.
Speaker 1So, meg, do you know if we can get that in Australia? You definitely can.
Speaker 2I've Googled it to buy them and you can definitely buy Framingham wines in small wine shops. So just Google and have a look. They'd be on small allocations because they don't really make a lot. They do make Sauvignon and pinot gris. The pinot gris was delicious, but the Rieslings were just sublime. They were really good.
Speaker 1Amazing, and have you got a fun fact for us this week?
New Zealand Wine Adventures
Speaker 2I've got a bit of a weird fun fact. My son's really into history and we were talking about American history and he told me that apparently when George Washington was president because he wasn't- elected in.
Speaker 1I think to get people to vote, they used to provide free alcohol. Wait, so we have a sausage sizzle here.
Speaker 2Yes, we have the democracy sausage and they just got them and in the text that he showed me said they got them soused to go and vote, to promote them to go to vote. And it just reminds me of Scott Morrison promoting that guy that said come and have a beer after you've had it.
Speaker 1Oh my God, your vaccine. I know what would make me more likely to vote.
Speaker 2Obviously, alcohol has been used as an inducement for a variety of things across the history. So who followed George Washington? Oh, Jefferson, I think Luca would know.
Fun Fact: Alcohol and Voting History
Speaker 1But yeah, I just thought that was quite interesting. Oh my gosh, that's crazy. Okay, meg, this week we are talking about something that is pushing the boundaries with the biggest wine innovation in our lifetime. They're blending old and new to create unique experiences that are making history. They're making wine for innovators, disruptors and change seekers who will never settle for anything but the best, who are ripe for transformation and, what's more, it's endorsed by a master of wine.
Speaker 2Sorry, is that?
Speaker 1your marketing guff, or is that theirs?
Speaker 2This is straight from their website. Wow, and who is this master of wine that's supporting this disrupting wine?
Speaker 1I hope you are on the edge of your seat, judith, who is Judith? We don't know. We're going to go there, we are going to find out who Judith is. But, meg, did you know that wine now comes with no sugar?
Speaker 2Wow. Wait, so what have the Champenoises been doing all these years with zero dosage?
Speaker 1Mate, I don't know, but this is definitely what is?
Speaker 2Oh my God, so what defines zero?
Speaker 1sugar All right. Well, according to them, they're just saying that there's zero sugar. And even if you look on their label, it says zero sugar, zero carbohydrates. All this On their website. It says that they use a specific technique that is both traditional and unique oh, fermentation, figure that out. Yeast To make sugar. Now, look, they're called pure the winery. Well, I came across them on Facebook. They're doing a lot of marketing and Facebook advertising and I just came across it screenshot. It sent it to Meg, like what the hell is going on here? But I think we really need to get into it, because if people are promoting this, I think we really need to get into it, because if people are promoting this, it's pretty harmful for the industry. And what is it saying about the rest of our wines? So, meg, firstly, to start off, is sugar-free wine revolutionary?
Zero-Sugar Wine Marketing Claims
Speaker 2Nope, we ferment wine to dryness. Now I'll just go through a little bit of science for you. There are two primary sugars in grape juice glucose and fructose. They're both there in equal proportions. When we use yeast to ferment the sugar, to produce alcohol, it consumes the sugar and we have left what are called non-fermentable sugars, which aren't glucose and fructose. They're sugars that yeast can't ferment, Yep, and tiny tiny amounts. But we ferment most of our wines, in fact, except for our late harvest to what we call dryness, which is no sugar or as low as you can possibly go.
Speaker 1So when you say we, do you mean Rob Dolan or do you mean the majority of the wine industry?
Speaker 2Any wine that is dry, red, white sparkling has been fermented to less than one gram per litre of residual sugar, and I would say in most cases less than half a gram of residual sugars. For example, I looked at our wines our Seven Yang is 0.22 grams per litre of residual sugar. So that's glucose and fructose. It may be 0.1 of glucose and 0.12 of fructose, but we put them together. We call it GNFs glucose and fructose. So we are definitely below the 0.5 grams per litre mark in all of our wines. Everything that I checked yesterday was below 0.5.
Speaker 1What about just wines in Dan Murphy's? Yeah, what percentage would you say?
Speaker 2Dryness is dryness. So legally, let me remember, I think dryness is below 2 grams per litre. Yep, well, technical dryness is 7 grams per litre because they have sub-threshold sugar. But really, when I was at uni, anything below two grams per litre was considered to be dry. But we also had a very antiquated method of measuring sugars that had a lot of blue factor, so it always made it look higher than it really was. Now that we've got these enzymatic kits, we can laser pinpoint how much glucose and fructose is in our wine.
Speaker 1And this percentage that you're talking about, or this small amount of sugar. Can you tell us what that would be like? Is it a teaspoon or teaspoons?
Speaker 2four grams of sugar, so it's four. One teaspoon is four grams in one liter. Imagine putting a teaspoon of sugar in a liter of water, yeah, and then take out a tenth of that teaspoon, oh, and put that in.
Speaker 1So that's what most wines consist of. That'd be 0.4 grams per liter. Okay, so there's nothing. Nada, you can't perceive it. There's nothing. And it's not like they're pouring sugar into the. That right it's just natural.
Speaker 2No, no, no sugar from the grapes, From the grapes.
Speaker 1Yeah, okay. So firstly, I mean, what's your take on this? They're saying zero sugar Like it's completely revolutionary. They are literally. All that bullshit I just read out is from their website. Innovators, changemakers they said they're making history. Is there anything new about?
The Science of Sugar in Wine
Speaker 2this at all. No, it's like gluten-free ham that cracks me up. Yeah, ham, as far as I know, has pork flesh and nitrate salt. So when they put gluten-free on my local deli which they do I just think, okay, this is pure marketing hyperbole. And they say they've established a wine fermentation to convert all natural sugars to alcohol. We do that anyway, that's what everyone? Does, and can I just say we got the sugars done. We actually did an analysis.
Speaker 1So we have like a full-on machine that you can put the wine into and it tells us how much sugar is actually in it, right, it tells you exactly how much glucose and how much fructose is left in this wine Go.
Speaker 2How much fructose is left in this wine Go. So the red has 0.15 grams per litre of glucose and 0.13 of fructose, giving you a total of 0.28 grams per litre of sugar which is dry, which is what our seven, yang was 0.22, to give you a point of reference, we don't claim it's sugar-free. The white wine had 0.26 of glucose, 0.18 of fructose, giving you a total of 0.44 grams per litre of residual sugar leftover sugar in the wine. And the sparkling had 0.12 of glucose and 0.24 of fructose, giving you a residual sugar of 0.36 grams per litre. So nothing to see here. That's exactly what we would have and if you want to see, I can print off one of our analyses yeah, we will One for our LIP.
Speaker 2This is something that we have to give the government to prove that we're doing what we're doing. So it's a legal document and show you what our residual sugars are.
Speaker 1Okay, so this isn't just necessarily questionable marketing. It's almost downright lies at this point, isn't it?
Speaker 2No, it's almost downright lies at this point, isn't it? No, it's not lying. Zero sugar, pretty much zero sugar. But one of the things they're touting as well is the fact that it's um, it's low in calorie. And it's not low in calorie because it's zero sugar. It's low in calorie because it's ten and a half percent alcohol if we made it, it's just a lower alcohol, yeah but I love it. Say hello wine. Goodbye sugar. I'd actually say hi sugar.
Speaker 1What's the other thing they say? Oh, they say uncomplicated taste, zero sugar, pure pleasure.
Speaker 2It just infuriates me because it's the same as Cameron Diaz's clean wine.
Speaker 1It's the exact same stuff.
Speaker 2It is taking something that we just take for granted and we just accept as normal and marketing the crap out of it.
Speaker 1It's almost preying on the fact that people don't understand to the same degree. Like no, not everyone knows about wine to this extent, so let's take something that they don't know about and use it against them. Yep, gluten-free ham. Yeah, Gluten-free ham all over again. Absolutely. Or fat-free ham. Yeah, gluten-free ham all over again. Absolutely. Or fat-free lollies. You know those lollies, they're natural confectionery or something.
Speaker 2It says it on the front yes, 99% fat-free.
Speaker 1Like what? Like every other lolly is full of fat. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2It's the same thing, and they used to have a banner on them in spanish saying 100% sugar, yeah, and we just used to laugh and then they eventually changed it to natural sugar because obviously the marketing buff who'd done it for the? International markets didn't think to put the word natural in it, so I was that's hilarious.
Speaker 1So I was basically saying it was 100% sugar.
Speaker 2So you could blend this pure wine with some haritos and you'd have a 50-50. Yeah, have a party.
Speaker 1Okay. So, meg, it's just oh Okay. So there's the fact that. Look, that's one thing in itself, but it gets even more dodgy, right, because in the ad, all these ads that are all over my Facebook, because in the ad, all these ads that are all over my Facebook something I noticed when it popped up and I was just kind of looking at it. I was amused by this whole thing. It's annoying, but you know, it was also amusing. But then I saw a quote from a master of wine on the advertisement. It said zero sugar wines from Pure the Winery, a good glass, without feeling guilty. And it was by Judas Smalls. This master of wine and I'm like what kind of master of wine would associate themselves with this? And so I screenshot it, sent it to you, and then what?
Speaker 2did you reckon Phantom Master of Wine? Because Judith is not a registered master of wine.
Speaker 1We looked her up.
The Mysterious Master of Wine
Speaker 2She's not on the Institute of Masters of Wine. I tried a number of spellings, thinking maybe they've misspelled her name. I tried it as Jules, julia, judith S-M-A-A-L-S, because it kind of sounds Scandinavian. Yeah, had a look. Had a look by region, had a look by name. No such person exists. So that is fraud, literally, and that is something that we as Masters of Wine are kind of always on the lookout for.
Speaker 1But you spent how many years of your literally how many years, how much money Exactly, like getting the hardest thing that you can possibly achieve in our industry, and then people like this are just going around slapping Master of Wine on their abs and you don't see it a lot, because the Master of Wine Institute will actually come after you, yeah.
Speaker 2So watch out, judith. Since you don't exist, you better go one and hard.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's just, it is a, and it just belies any substance to their marketing, because if they're willing, to do that they're willing to do that.
Speaker 1What else are we going to lie about Exactly? It's just it is frightening, okay. So I I also took the benefit of the doubt. You tried different spellings and I thought let's give them a chance to explain themselves. So I actually commented on this thing because I noticed all their marketing team was writing back to the comments and I wrote um, who is this master? I never heard of her and I thought maybe they'll write back and say oh, actually she's, she's stunning. She hasn't gotten it yet, but she's almost there or something. They ignored me, so then a colleague posted there as well and they hid his comment. So then I commented again and said no, seriously, we can't find her anywhere. Who is this person? And then they just started deleting every comment who was questioning anything, and only the even good ones. And who are they?
Speaker 2That is the thing, right, Because I mean, if you do that, you know you come from a big company background where marketing is absolute key and your credibility is key. So if they're doing that, does the company exist.
Speaker 1Well, they export globally, it says. When you look them up, it says Europe. It doesn't actually give us a country. We still can't figure it out right. The director comes from Spain. One of the directors we found is based in Spain. The wine itself is Italian, but then if you want to send them a letter, the address goes to Dublin.
Speaker 2Wow, yeah, it gets deeper and deeper. Doesn it, though? Yeah, I guess dublin? You know it is in the eu, so they've kept it european. It is very, very odd. Is there any? Our team, our winemaking team, on their website. So it is none of that it is.
Speaker 1It is pure fluff, but and here's the thing that would be okay there is a lot of that in this. It wouldn't be okay. There is a lot of that in this. It wouldn't be okay, but there is a lot of it. In this world that is, you know, shit pops up all the time that isn't necessarily legit. However, apparently this is in BWS. Now I need to confirm this, but in the comments section they said that they were buying it at BWS, which is one of the major retailers in Australia, like by Woolworths Exactly, and it is sold not just in a little pocket of the world, they're literally exporting worldwide.
Speaker 2This is not a little operation, yeah and the branding, which I'm sure you'll show a photograph of, is very obvious. I mean, it is a branded product. That's what they want it to be all about pure winery just the name. It's in a white bottle and it's very uncomplicated taste with zero sugar, pure pleasure. It's just so infuriating I can't tell you. It's just misrepresentation of what wine is all about.
Speaker 2Yeah, and you know, I can understand people wanting to drink hard seltzers and low calorie drinks and low alcohol, but they aren't lying about what it is. It's like water with a bit of flavor and a little bit of vodka. I have neutral spirit to it, but this is pretending to be something. I'm not so upset by the zero sugar claim. It's not because there's no such thing as zero sugar in wine, but they've mastered some magical alchemy to ferment all the nasty sugar that's in everyone else's wine. I mean, seriously, people, you are drinking wine out there. Is it sweet? No, are we leaving sugar in it? No, some, but mostly no. Yeah, mostly no. That's the thing. I'm surprised they can get away with it.
Speaker 2There was another one recently that I read about and I think it was a seltzer that basically sort of said that it was somehow better for you and you're allowed to put on nutritional information, but you can't add that that's somehow better for you and so they've been taken to your ABEC or somewhere to court.
Speaker 1So I'd be interested to see what happens with this and like I've said it before, I'll say it again if you want a healthy beverage, have a smoothie. You're not going to find that in alcohol.
Speaker 2No, exactly Exactly. And if you want to have a low-calorie drink, that's a different thing entirely, yeah. Have a hard seltzer.
Speaker 1A gin and tonic diet, yeah.
Tasting and Reviewing Pure Wines
Speaker 2You know, with diet tonic water, don't go towards the pure, pure, the winery. I reckon it's time to taste this stuff. Yeah, well, I've just poured the sparkling out to us and the thing that concerns me most, just by looking at it, is A I've lost 100% of bubble, but it's a very yellow, gold colour, which We've got no idea what the grape variety is. It's from Italy, it's from Vinnie San Marzano in Oliveto in AT. What's AT in Italy? Ten and a half percent alcohol, 6.2 standard drinks, so really not any lower than a lot of bottles. Yeah, it smells like, as I would expect, a little bit of apple juice, so slightly sort of oxidised cooked fruit character.
Speaker 1So there's no varietal on the oh my God.
Speaker 2Okay, that is pass.
Speaker 1Okay, wait, hang on I haven't had any yet.
Speaker 2It is super dry. Okay, guys, if you're making a zero-sugar wine, drop your acid back a little bit, because my God, that is just so drying on the palate when you taste it, bubbles accentuate acidity. Anyway, there's not a lot of bubble in there, it is like apple juice.
Speaker 1That they've poured vinegar into. Oh, that's what I'm getting. Oh, the acid is ridiculous. It's what we call that sweet and sour.
Speaker 2Yeah, so it is definitely dry. It's dry as hell. The acid is not, and the reason the acid's not is so high is because they're picking at 10.5% of potential alcohol, so you're not losing the acid. So they should probably put a little bit of malolactic fermentation in there to just ameliorate or deacidify or do something to make it more pleasant.
Speaker 1So like translation, sorry. When grapes have all this lovely acid in them, the younger they are. So if you think about like an apple, like a green apple, before it's ripe, it's really tart and acidic. Ripe, the riper it gets, the acid goes down, the ripeness goes up and the sugar goes up. So if they're picking earlier, it means they're keeping all this acidity right, yeah, but and so the expense of getting lower alcohol and their flavor and flavor. But they're full as calories.
Speaker 2They got this awful tart, acidic flavor, see one of the things that we can do with wine is we can actually de-alcoholize wine so we can make a 13 and a half percent wine and then we can bring the alcohol back and that gives you flavor. But I'm guessing that these guys aren't doing that because there is no flavor apart from apple, which is what you, when we're tasting grapes to see how they go white grapes, yeah, during the ripening season, apple is sort of the very first thing you see. Green apple, yeah, and that's all there is in that wine, I mean maybe in an aperol sprints.
Speaker 1Well, I'm tipping that out. I'm not finishing that let's. That's not pleasant taste. The next one. The next one is a, so it just says white wine. But I've looked up on their website and apparently their white wine is Chardonnay and it's a Sauvignon, so I guess it's Sauvignon Blanc. Oh, how's it spelled? Thank you, s-a-u-v-i-g-n-o-n. So.
Speaker 2Sauvignon. Okay, so it's not sauvignon, it's sauvignon, two very high-yielding grape varieties. Oh, and it's full-bodied with 10.5% alcohol and no ripeness to it, so this will be interesting. Do you know what full-bodied means what? Oh, it smells like chardonnay, a little bit of peach A little bit of lemon pith.
Speaker 1It's not very aromatic, though it doesn't have much intensity.
Speaker 2Again Yep, no sugar people. I should have left it in. Super acidic Finishes very, very short Chardonnay flavor Imagine.
Speaker 1Like you know, there's like really sour lilies when you're a kid, how it makes you laugh, Like that face you make. Yeah, there's like really sour lollies when you're a kid, how it makes you like that face you make. Yeah, it's. That's the face I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2Wow, it is low alcohol, though, so you know it's good for you.
Speaker 1To be fair, we're not having these chilled, we just open them up. My tasting is If they were chilled, would that Worse? Oh, really.
Speaker 2What happens is, when we bottle white wine, we tend to have some carbon dioxide in there yeah, just a small amount and when you have the wine chilled, the dissolved carbon dioxide stays in the white wine and that makes acid look more acidic.
Speaker 2So, if you want to get, if you taste a white wine that you think is too young and too acidic. Just shake it and you can get the CO2 out of it, from the dioxide. Do you want to try the red, or are you too frightened to no, no, no. What's the red made from? I can't wait to try this red.
Speaker 1No, no, I'm pretty sure it's Corvina. Let me find it Bar Corvina. Let me find it. Barbera and Merlot. Oh, barbera, high acid grape variety.
Speaker 2Yay, looking forward to this, my dentist Booking a visit, andrea, because I ain't going to have any enamel left on my teeth, I think, after this. So pretty reasonable color it looks like a pinot. Yeah, sort of a, you know, a light garnet.
Speaker 1Oh God, yeah, what is that I want to say? Oh my God, and I feel like we're being really harsh, but it is so warranted, isn't it? How much are these? It was $85 for three.
Speaker 2Oh my. God Imagine what deliciousness you could be drinking for like $26, $27 a bottle? Yeah, okay, so the smell is to me Garbage bin. No, it's. How delicious is this you could be drinking for like $26, $27 a bottle? Yeah, okay, so the smell is to me Garbage bin. No, it's more like prune juice. Oh, my God.
Speaker 1It does taste like prune juice. Yeah, ew Cooked fruit spectrum. Oh, my God.
Speaker 2It does smell. So maybe they have picked these really ripe and then de-alcoholized them. Yeah, really ripe and then de-alcoholize them. Yeah, it looks like aged cask wine pruney. All right, I'm going in. Tannins are okay, quite dusty, which I'd expect from mellow acid. Seems better in this, a little bit softer. Yeah, the acid isn't probably went through a malolactic fermentation, which just a heads up. Guys, I'd put your whites through as well. More palatable, but just seems a little bit cook jammy characteristics.
Speaker 1It's so jammy.
Speaker 2You've got to watch the video, people, because we're watching it at the moment. We probably shouldn't be doing two things at one time.
Speaker 1No, but I'm going to put links to this. We're going to put up pictures, and I'll put up as well the picture that shows the advertisement in where, specifically, they quote a master of wine that doesn't exist hashtag. We're starting this hashtag. Um, who is judith?
Speaker 2who is? Where is judith?
Speaker 1it's like where's wally? Tell us wally, waldo, tell us pure the winery. Who is judith?
Speaker 2I just just saw that the son inherited the process from his father, who'd been making it for many, many years A natural process. So again they're using this term natural, which would suggest that it's pure, 100% fermentation. But Daniel's daddy came up with the technique.
Speaker 1It's an ancient and traditional technique? Well, of course it is.
Speaker 2That's why everyone is using it, respecting the nature and the plant as much as possible. Honestly, stop People. Wine is fabulous. It is grown by people that love grapes. It is made by people that love grapes and wine. And you know, we protect our land and what we do and we just want to make gorgeous, fabulous deliciousness for you and then people come out and just take that away from us by somehow suggesting that this wine is uncomplicated taste. It is an uncomplicated taste.
Speaker 2It's very simple, it's very basic, but it ain't pure pleasure, which is great. All right, I'm sorry. No, I'm not apologizing.
Speaker 2Yeah, don't apologize for that, Because we work hard, you know, to respect the vine and the grape, and it's a history that's been going on for millennia and we've just been trying to improve it over that millennia. And suddenly someone thinks oh no, that's not good enough, we have to have zero sugar wine. Well, we have, and I can show you an analysis to prove it, and it's exactly the same as these guys All right, Tell them Meg.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2I'm just a little paid off. I'm going to drink my sparkling wine. Okay, our sparkling wine.
Speaker 1Luckily, we pre-prepared our own sparkling wine for you to wash them out that week. Yes, okay, okay, look, we're going to finish there because once again we're over time. I could go on forever. Yes.
Speaker 2So, everyone, your mission this week is to find out where Judith lives.
Final Thoughts and Question from Jess
Speaker 1Oh my God, please tell us about Judith. But I think we should just finish off by saying no, like we didn't just come on here to rant as fun as it's been it. Finish off by saying no, like we didn't just come on here to rant as fun as it's been. It's just important to keep your eyes open when you see claims like this. Don't just believe them and I know it's hard, because what else are you meant to believe. But if you go onto their website, have a look, if they actually give you more information and detailed, actually telling you how they do what they do, then it might be something that you can believe. But, honestly, you go onto their website and it's just so many buzzwords about disruption and innovation and we are the future of wine, and that's when you know that it's just marketing spin.
Speaker 2In actual fact, I think they are the antithesis of the future of wine, because this is a lot of what was done in the 30s, 40s and 50s oh yeah, when it was all about just high volume piss, yeah, excuse me, getting some alcohol out there and people were just over-yielding because they just wanted alcohol and they were fermented to dryness. I mean, you know, people have been carrying wine that's drier than this around in their goat bladders for hundreds of years Just because you put it in a white bottle and call it pure doesn't mean that it's any different to what we've been doing.
Speaker 1All right. Well, if you guys out there have encountered a similar winery, you've tasted similar wines, please send us this stuff. We'd love to taste it and have a look at what's going on out there. We don't love to taste it and have a look at what's going on out there.
Speaker 2We don't love to taste it?
Speaker 1No, we don't, but it's interesting. It's good debunking all these things and helping you decipher what's real and what's not. But before we finish up, we do have a question, meg, this week this has been sent in from Jess. You know the lovely Jess Villapao. Oh, yes, yeah. So she has a wine collection at home. She's been collecting wines for the last 10 years or so, but since she was like 18 and didn't actually know what she was buying. And now she's looking back through everything. She's looking at varietals and ages and stuff. She actually has no idea what's worth drinking, what's worth keeping. Do you have any top tips about how she can decipher, without opening it, what to keep and if?
Speaker 2you've spent more than it could be worth keeping for five years. This is really rule of thumb stuff.
Speaker 1This is not absolute.
Speaker 2If anything's under $15, open it with your friends that don't really care about wine that maybe would drink pure. Other winery wine. If you've spent over $30, just look at the years. Other winery one yeah. If you spend over $30, just look at the years. I mean most wines under $50 will go $5 to $10 years, yeah. But my advice is open it. If it's yucky, cook with it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean she normally drinks richer red wine, so Shiraz and Cabs, they're more likely to live on than like a Pinot, right, yeah, like a cheaper Pinot. Yeah, like to live on than like a pinot, right, yeah, like a cheaper pinot.
Speaker 2Yeah, like a cheaper Shiraz will last longer than a cheaper pinot. $25 Shiraz for Barossa will go longer than a $25 pinot from the Yarra.
Speaker 1And if you've got like a Sauvignon Blanc there. Just tip it straight down and sing Don't do it, don't drink it. Seriously, it'll taste like mushy peas, tin peas, all right. Well, that's all we've got time for this week. We'd love to hear your feedback about this episode and send in any questions, of course, that we can answer at the end of our episodes. We'll be back next week, but until next time, we hope you enjoy your next glass of wine and find Judith. Oh, where is Judith?
Speaker 2I don't know, drink well.
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