Bubbles Without Rules: Garth Hodgdon and Champagne Happy Hour

Summary

In this episode, Garth Hodgdon shares his unexpected path from aspiring college professor to becoming a respected sommelier and Champagne expert. He offers insight into what makes Champagne so unique—from its production process to the wide range of styles available—and highlights the joy of discovering smaller, lesser-known producers.

Garth also talks about the versatility of Champagne when it comes to food pairings, encouraging listeners to move beyond traditional wine norms. Plus, we discuss the Champagne Happy Hour Club, his effort to bring distinctive and exciting bottles to wine lovers across the country.

Takeaways

• Garth's journey into wine began in college while working in restaurants.
• Champagne can be enjoyed in various ways, including unconventional glasses.
• Domaine Mea is a small champagne producer with a rich history.
• Champagne's aging process on lees adds complexity and flavor.
• Temperature affects the tasting experience of champagne significantly.
• Champagne pairs well with a wide range of foods, including fried and spicy dishes.
• The Champagne Happy Hour Club offers a way to explore unique champagnes monthly.

Wines Tasted

Domaine Mea "Sig"Nature $69

Domaine Mea Le Grillon $69

Check out Garth on Instagram HERE and get all the detail on his wine club Champagne Happy Hour HERE

Transcript

Laurie Forster (00:01.34)
All right, Garth, welcome to The Sipping Point.

Garth (00:04.972)
Thanks for having me.

Laurie Forster (00:06.714)
Awesome. Now I have connected with you through Instagram and I love your fun down to earth videos on champagne, different bottles, different tips about champagne. But I noticed that you start a lot of the videos doing a shambong. So I wondered if maybe I don't have an exact shambong, but I have a similar device. Maybe we could start things off that way. Let's do it.

Garth (00:32.93)
Let's do it, why not? It seems like the right thing to do.

Laurie Forster (00:35.988)
Yes, give us a lesson. So it's almost like a, ooh, it's ready.

Garth (00:40.224)
I mean, it makes it makes a mess always no matter what you do. I the lesson for this is always have a little serviette to clean it up when you make the mess. Yeah, that's always my my tip.

Laurie Forster (00:48.978)
Right? This is kind of like a wine glass with a straw, it'll work.

Garth (00:54.028)
Yeah, I've never seen that, I think it's gonna be, I think it's gonna work. Well anyways, cheers, having a little bit of fun.

Laurie Forster (00:57.896)
All right, cheers.

Laurie Forster (01:06.098)
Wow, delicious. That's our jumpstart. Well, great. I always love to start my interviews just learning people's origin story as I call it to wine, because most of us didn't grow up wanting to be a sommelier and maybe didn't even know what it was till a certain point in our life. So how did you come to this amazing job in wine and specifically champagne?

Garth (01:08.418)
it really gets you going. Yeah.

Garth (01:19.832)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (01:32.31)
Yeah, I mean, it was a fairly long journey, but I was in college and I thought I was going to be a college professor. I was studying philosophy and English and sort of just started working in restaurants to pay bills as we do in college. And I saw all of the wine reps coming in and, you know, they do a wine presentation for the staff and then you'll sit at the bar and have a martini. And I thought I could probably do that. And so it spiked my interest in wine. And throughout the years, I sort of just.

started studying a little bit more and asking questions. And at one point I was working for a restaurant and I asked if I could volunteer to help because I was almost done with my studies in college and nowhere near becoming a professor in my head. It wasn't something I was prepared to do. So I was just trying to find a little bit of something to keep me busy. And I started volunteering and I had a clipboard and I was doing inventory and that manager that was running the program just quit. And he said, the owner looked at me goes, you're the only person on staff that even knows what Merlot is.

You're now the sommelier." And he handed me a business card like three days later that said, Garth Hodgdon did sommelier. I had to go home and look up the word. Had never heard it in my life. And then, know, long story short, that guy who I was working with in Sacramento at the time ended up in Yountville at Bouchon for Thomas Keller and called me out of the blue one day and said, hey, Anita Sam, when can you start? And so two weeks later I was there and I worked for Bouchon in Yountville for two and a half years as the head sommelier.

I went to the French Laundry in Yonfil after that. I was there for three and a half years. And then I spent a year at Perse in New York as a sommelier. So I started off, you know, in a small restaurant in Sacramento. And then I found myself, you know, in Manhattan on the fourth floor in Columbus Circle serving some of the best wine to, you know, pair with some of the best food in the world. So that was sort of my journey into restaurants. then fell in love with champagne. And I started working for Krug. I was the national ambassador for Krug champagne for five years. I traveled the country. covered

Laurie Forster (02:58.376)
Wow.

Garth (03:27.534)
40 states, worked 320 days a year on the road and that kind of burned me out after five years. And then I thought to myself, it's time to do something new. What do I want to do? I love champagne. And so my wife and I started a champagne import company. And now five years later with that, we've got a national club and we distribute in 20 states and we have an online store and we drink champagne out of bongs on Tuesday morning.

Laurie Forster (03:51.636)
I love it. This is a dream. mean, if this doesn't inspire people, I don't know what will. And how amazing that you really just did kind of fall into it perfectly. And I have seen in your bio that you've since done training with the court of master sommeliers and 45 seconds in the documentary SOMM That's something.

Garth (03:57.166)
Yeah.

Garth (04:02.562)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (04:15.178)
Yeah, 45 give or take, I'm not 100 % sure. I never timed it. But yes, I did study and throughout my years working in restaurants, I ended up passing the advanced sommelier exam and I took the master exam. Four or five times sort of lose count those those years blur a bit. But the first time I took it was in Dallas that year that they were filming the SOMM movie the first one. And there was a moment where Ian and I were sitting

waiting to get called into an exam and we were having a conversation. And I'm sure if you watched the video or the movie, subtitles would say inaudible when I spoke, because I couldn't tell what I said. It probably wasn't important, so they just hushed me. yeah, that's my claim to fame. was on the SOM documentary for... You have to look real close because it was pre-beard and glasses, so I don't look like myself. But I was there.

Laurie Forster (05:00.358)
Interesting.

Laurie Forster (05:08.562)
Yeah. Well, great. Well, your main focus, it seems these days is champagne. And that's how we connected. And you have the champagne happy hour dot com where folks can join the club and get two bottles of champagne every month. And what I love is that they're not the same old champagne names that people are probably used to seeing. No offense to things like Krug and Laurent Perrier and beyond. But these are small production.

Garth (05:18.062)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (05:30.754)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (05:35.08)
houses and we're going to actually talk about one of them, Domaine Mea. And I did a little research on your website, which is fabulous on the story behind the wine, but tell me why you chose this champagne house to share with our listeners.

Garth (05:52.248)
Domaine Mea was a champagne that we found on our very first trip over to the region when we were starting the business. And we met with Franck and Sophie and just fell in love with them. We fell in love with their wines. They've become very good friends of ours, but also their champagnes are just absolutely fantastic. And it's a really interesting sort of dynamic about what we do with smaller growers, because this is a producer, Domaine Mea, that they're in a Grand Cru village of Louvois.

And so if you study, you know, like we did for the court, you know, you've got your flashcards, you memorize all 17 ground crew villages and you think, wow, those are special and they're everywhere. This is the only producer that comes to the United States from this ground crew village. There's 17 ground crew villages, only one coming from this. So it's sort of a unique thing. So it's sort of like fun for those nerdy people that they're like, yeah, I've heard of that village, but I've never tasted it. So it's kind of fun in that sense. Sophie is the winemaker. And she took over from her mother.

So she's a second generation female winemaker, fifth generation for the family. Amazing. They're all organically farmed. This is a Brut Nature so no dosage added. So zero grams per liter of residual sugar, which makes it sort of hip and cool. You know, when we're talking about checking boxes, the champagne checks a lot of the boxes. But for me, it all starts and ends with what's in the glass. That's the most important.

Laurie Forster (06:50.132)
amazing.

Garth (07:10.766)
And so you can have all the story and the coolest labels like this one has a really cool label It's got a piece of chalk with balloons like but the balloons are a great bunches like it's just like the arts really well done But if you you can have all of that and if the champagne is not great, it's not that interesting. But for me, it's great So that's sort of why I chose it because you said let's drink champagne. I said, let's choose something that we're gonna enjoy Yeah

Laurie Forster (07:15.559)
It is.

Laurie Forster (07:29.448)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (07:34.308)
Absolutely. And speaking of what's in the glass before we get to tasting this delicious champagne, what do you think of my glass and what is your preferred glass to enjoy champagne with?

Garth (07:48.194)
I love your glass. That's a very standard sort of champagne glass you would find in the champagne region. So a lot of people would look at and say, maybe that looks like white wine or something. That to me is a champagne glass. This I poured a flute just because I hate myself. This is the worst glass to drink out of. But I tend to drink out of just a universal white glass. This is Zalto Universal or AP. I don't know what they call it. I have a lot of different glasses that I tend to drink out of.

Laurie Forster (08:13.278)
Okay.

Garth (08:17.314)
I don't have a brand that I like, I like shapes and this is the shape that I...

Laurie Forster (08:21.908)
Okay, great. so, Brut Nature zero dosage, so there's no added sugar in the dosage process here. So this obviously is gonna be bone dry for real. And tell me a little bit about, you know, a lot of people, if they're not super champagne nerds, maybe like us, might not realize that there are red grapes in making champagne. So tell me about the grapes they use and how it affects the style of this one.

Garth (08:25.678)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Garth (08:41.016)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (08:51.95)
Yeah, so this is 90 % Pinot Noir and all of you probably have realized that this is not a red wine. Pinot Noir is a red grape. And the quick thing about how Pinot Noir is red is all grapes, save a few, but we won't get into it. All grapes have clear juice inside. Go to the grocery store and grab a red grape and squeeze it, clear juice will come out. So to make red wine, you squeeze that juice, but then leave it in contact with the skins and the juice will extract the colors.

and the flavors and tannins and everything from the skin. But if you quickly squeeze the juice and remove it from the skin so that it just has just the juice and you ferment it, you can get clear juice from red grapes.

Laurie Forster (09:32.36)
Yeah. And this nose on this, you get that toasty, bready note that champagne is known for. I think I read that this is aged on the lees for four years. Is that correct? So you're really going to get that note here. It's amazing.

Garth (09:39.171)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (09:44.98)
Mm-hmm. Yeah Yeah There's some barrel fermentation which allows oxygen to sort of incorporate itself into the wine a little bit as well So that gives you some breath on the palate and then the lees aging lees are a really magical thing and we just think lees aging but people don't really realize that lees will slough off during their sort of It's really not sexy to say but lees are dead yeast cells fermentation happens. We leave the yeast in the in the bottle

And while that's happening and aging for four years, those lees are sloughing off amino acids, proteins, all sorts of things that add to weight, body, flavor. There's 320 different things that it can add to the champagne in different levels. And so that's why the longer you leave something on the lees, that deeper, richer, nuttier, creamier characteristics that you get out of the champagne. And four years is, I mean, enough to really work some magic in this class.

Laurie Forster (10:38.408)
Yeah, it's really beautiful. Lovely. And what I love about a well-made champagne or champagne method sparkling wine is that these bubbles are so gentle that they just kind of, I don't want to say evaporate, but they just really settle on your palate so wonderfully. And that to me, when I'm doing classes or whatever and telling people, you can tell a sparkling wine that's not

Garth (10:55.096)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (11:01.314)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (11:07.91)
well made because it's sometimes assaulting. You know what mean? The bubbles are just so aggressive. This, it's, you get the bubbles and then it just kind of lays on the palette so well.

Garth (11:13.72)
Yeah.

Garth (11:20.17)
Yeah, champagne to me is not necessarily about the bubbles. Yes, that's what makes it champagne is that it goes through secondary fermentation and bottle and that allows for the bubbles to be in the wine. That's why people drink out of flutes because you can't really see, but because of the bubbly because that's a little frosty because the bubbles are trickling up the side, right? That's what makes champagne fun for a lot of people. I had a great champagne wall wine maker tell me once he said to make great champagne, you make wine and then you add the bubbles. That's a gross oversimplification of the process, but

Laurie Forster (11:32.979)
Yeah.

Garth (11:49.848)
To me it says, if you don't have great wine, it doesn't matter what you do to it. And that's why a lot of times people will chill something down really cold and put it in a flute or put it in a shambong and chug it really fast because then you don't have to taste what you've got in your glass. But if you've got a really great champagne, you can put it in a glass like this. You can put it in something bigger. You can let it warm up or go flat. And if your champagne isn't good when it's the same temperature you drink your red or white wine or it's not good once the bubbles are gone, then you probably didn't have good champagne to start with. And that's sort of...

the mentality that I always go with is I don't really fuss. I know if you look at my Instagram, you see all the glassware and the temperature and all of these things. And I think that's really just to illuminate the point that we take champagne way too seriously sometimes. And I get it, there's a bottle, it's got a different cap on it, it makes a noise, there's pressure. You could put an eye out. There's all sorts of things that go, do I sabre do I not sabre? All of these different things that go into drinking a bottle of champagne. Is it a celebration? Is this the right bottle for my mom's?

Laurie Forster (12:37.588)
Hey

Garth (12:46.584)
birthday or whatever it is, right? And for me, it's Tuesday morning and we're drinking a bottle of champagne and I haven't been struck by lightning. Your house hasn't like, you know, the wind hasn't blown it down. Yeah, like nobody's coming after us because we're drinking champagne out of white wine glasses or bongs on a Tuesday morning. And I think that to me is what's the most important thing is that we realize that you drink champagne the same way you would drink any wine. If you would drink a wine,

Laurie Forster (12:55.252)
Burnt down.

Laurie Forster (13:13.352)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (13:14.88)
on your patio out of a plastic tumbler, put a champagne in it and do it. You'll enjoy it exactly the same.

Laurie Forster (13:20.582)
I love that. Now you brought up temperature. And I used to work at Astor Wines in New York City way back in the day when I was just getting into wine. And I remember wine buyers saying that a lot of times they would evaluate and taste their white wines and maybe the champagne as well warm because you can tell an inferior wine when it's warm right away. If it's a good wine, it's going to taste good warm, but it'll taste better with the chill on it.

Garth (13:26.254)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (13:45.1)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Laurie Forster (13:51.124)
Proper temperature, usually people are probably keeping this in a kitchen refrigerator unless they're geeks like us and they have the wine fridge. So coming out of the fridge at like 39 degrees, maybe 40 degrees, what do you think about that temperature or what do you think is the sweet spot for serving champagne?

Garth (13:56.504)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Garth (14:04.184)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (14:11.598)
I don't like mine straight out of the refrigerator. I think it's too cold. I generally take my bottle of champagne out 10 to 15 minutes before I'm planning on having my first sip. Sometimes you can't wait that long and you've got to drink it cold. But I think, you know, the normal person will open a bottle of champagne and it will last long enough that it will come up to temperature out of the refrigerator. For me personally, I like mine, you know, 50 degrees Fahrenheit where that's just slightly below most people's cellar temperature.

Laurie Forster (14:21.78)
Hey

Garth (14:39.15)
and then let it warm up in the glass. I don't use an ice bucket. I generally don't like to put a bottle of wine on an ice bucket to sort of keep it cool, mostly because I finished champagne before it warms up. But you said warm and I think, know, warm for most people is probably that 50 to 60 degree temperature. don't think, I know you weren't and I'm never saying when I like a champagne warm or white wine warm, it's not 80 degrees. It's, you know, warmer than you would think, I think.

Laurie Forster (15:04.478)
Yeah, true, true.

Garth (15:07.648)
is the thing and people are scared of that. And yeah, it's, mean, I'm not a scientist. Like I said, I went to school for English and philosophy. So that means I took zero math classes in college. That's how my brain works. But you know, the science of it all is basically that molecules move faster when they're warmer than colder. So when you get something ice cold, it's tight. It's, you're not smelling anything. You're not tasting anything as much. As the wine warms up, you taste more esters.

you get more sort of out of the wine. And I think that's why you and I and other people tend to like things just a touch warmer because you do get more out of it. And I have these two glasses because I tend to like to do just sort of goofy little experiments and just say, this is the same bottle, pour it at the same time, let them warm up, taste them side by side, see what you think. And I was doing that just a little bit beforehand, because I wanted to make sure that I was ready to go.

Laurie Forster (16:01.406)
Why not?

Garth (16:05.164)
And it's interesting when you taste them side by side out of any two glasses, pick a white wine glass and a champagne flute, pick a red solo cup and a whatever that cup with a glass straw thing that you had was called, I don't know what that is, but taste them side by side and you'll see the difference. And I don't think that for me, it's something where I'm like, you have to like one or the other. It's about experimenting. And I think wine, there's so much less now,

Laurie Forster (16:16.276)
Right. I don't know. Right.

Laurie Forster (16:26.12)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (16:31.052)
but when we first started, there's so much gatekeeping. There's so many people telling you what you should and shouldn't do and what you should and shouldn't like. And as someone who spends a lot of time drinking on the internet, I come off as an influencer, but I'm not really trying to influence anyone to drink a specific wine or do a specific thing. The influence that I'm trying to assert over people is learn your palate, trust your palate. The most important thing about wine is do you like it? I could give you a.

Laurie Forster (16:54.216)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (16:59.026)
Right.

Garth (17:00.078)
$300 bottle of champagne that's the best champagne. But if you don't like it, then there's no point. Like why would you bother drinking something you don't like? And so my experiments and my sort of ambition in life, if I can leave a mark, you know, by someone watching a minute video of me on the internet is just to make them think, wow, we should try something different. I should try that. I don't know why I always drink my champagne in the flute. I guess that's just what I was told. That's what my mom and my grandma did. Therefore,

that's what I'm going to do. And sort of it's breaking that thought pattern of I have to do it this way because that's what I've been told or that's what always happens. Or the one time I had champagne was at Uncle Carl's wedding and they put it in a flute. So I guess that's what I'm supposed to do, right? And if you can just sort of break out of that a little bit and say, I'm gonna try something new. I'm gonna experiment a little bit and maybe you'll learn something new or maybe you'll say the flute's the best and Garth and Laurie are crazy and that's fine. But at least you

Laurie Forster (17:37.842)
Right.

Laurie Forster (17:55.508)
I

Garth (17:58.68)
tried it out and you know why you like something. That to me is the most important.

Laurie Forster (18:01.084)
Right. Yeah, I don't know if you'll approve, my daughter and I started this little video series on Instagram once a week. I was reading an article from the American Association of Wine Economics on LinkedIn, and they were listing the top 10 sparkling wines in the US. And I was kind of aghast at what the top 10 were, because it was not what I expected, or maybe what you and I might place as the, yes, sparkling wines.

Garth (18:16.92)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (18:20.984)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (18:24.717)
Mm-hmm.

Sparkling wines. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. I don't know why I did the air quotes, but.

Laurie Forster (18:31.028)
So I was kind of looking at it and I was, my daughter's 22 and so she's a Gen Z and I was like, my God, I can't believe like Barefoot is the top 10. And she's like, my God, mom, I love Barefoot. That's like one of my favorites. And I was like, okay, maybe I'm being a little bit of a wine snob here, know, just not having tasted these wines really, just, you know, knowing them by name. So we've been working our way through the top 10. Some of them I'm like, okay.

Garth (18:48.728)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (18:57.282)
Mm-hmm

Laurie Forster (18:59.954)
this changes my mind a little bit. It's better than I expected that I had in my mind. Some of them that we both said we would never put in our mouth again. So it is interesting when you challenge your assumptions because especially for us going through, you know, our SOMM certifications and training, I mean, you wouldn't dare throw out, you know, Andre or Cooks into the mix of the conversation. But if we remember when we got started, you know,

Garth (19:03.97)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (19:08.856)
Mm-hmm

Garth (19:16.941)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (19:22.606)
Right.

Laurie Forster (19:28.104)
I mean, I think Boone's Farm was the first wine I ever tried. you know, why am I to be a snob that these might be, you know, popular because of price or taste, et cetera. But I think four of them are Prosecco, which is interesting. And only one of the top 10, Veuve is an actual champagne. What do you think? This is mostly a price situation. Is champagne more intimidating? What do you kind of think about that?

Garth (19:31.137)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (19:41.902)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (19:47.32)
Right.

Garth (19:57.784)
think it's a lot of things. mean, think it does start with price and availability. You know, this champagne is not $14.99 and there's, let me see if it says it on the back. No, there's about 5,000 bottles of this made. So that means it can't be at every grocery store. It can't be, you know, floor stacked at Costco. just by pure, you know, principles of supply and demand, it just can't be. so Domaine Mea may be the best champagne in the world, but

Laurie Forster (20:11.132)
wow.

Garth (20:27.82)
only 5,000 people, 10,000 people a year are gonna find out because you just don't have the ability. Veuve Clicquot makes 30 million bottles a year. So that's part of why I think it makes that list. And price, obviously. When you're just grabbing a bottle to take over to a friend's house, you don't necessarily always grab the 70, 80, $90 bottle of wine. You'll take something that is easy to drink and you can have a conversation about it. Because we're not all wine stars. We don't all wanna sit around and...

Laurie Forster (20:54.418)
Hey

Garth (20:55.758)
talk about, you know, whatever wine snobs talk about when they drink wine. And, you know, people ask me all the time, they go, Oh, do you think that Prosecco is a this or that? It's a competitor? Do you think? I love that because you've got to start drinking sparkling wine sometime. The first wine that I really remember drinking a lot of was yellowtail. I had a buddy in college and the goal every night was to buy the cheapest bottle of wine so we could get the drunkest. And so it was a magnum of yellowtail, I think was like

Laurie Forster (21:14.292)
Mmm.

Garth (21:21.71)
299 at the time or something like that. so every night we'd switch off who bought it and we drank a lot of yellowtail and you go back to that wine now and it's probably not very good, but you have to start somewhere. You know, we don't all just wake up drinking Dom Perignon vintage, you know, I mean,

Laurie Forster (21:35.165)
Yeah.

Garth (21:39.246)
Maybe some people do, but most people don't. And so you have to like kind of build your taste. And that's why we do these experiments. And that's why we, you know, do it with champagne. I always do it with champagne because that's my love, but do it with Prosecco. Do it with your barefoot. Do it with whatever you want to do. And sort of just like, like I was saying before, learn. And I think to your point about trying these wines, if you're a wine professional, if you're a sommelier, if you're a writer, if you're a podcaster, if you're anything and you haven't

Laurie Forster (21:56.275)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (22:08.654)
tasted these or experienced these and you're actively going at them, I think you're doing a disservice to everyone because if you don't understand what these wines taste like and why people are drinking them, then I think you're just sort of, I don't know, this is making me sound old, but a poser, right? You're just sort of saying like, yellow tail is bad. Have you tried it? Have you drank Barefoot versus Lamarca versus Veuve Clicquot like you're doing? Then you can actually know what you're talking about. And I think that's

Laurie Forster (22:23.838)
Yeah.

Right.

Garth (22:37.73)
That's also the hard part of being a wine professional is that you can't know everything. And that's why people take these certifications like the court of master some ways, because to do that, you have to have a depth of knowledge in so many different things. And I think that sort of like brings you up to the level where you can start talking about wine in an intelligent way. But I also think that's what makes it so scary, right? We're sitting here, I'm saying you've got to drink everything and try everything before you can even know anything. And I, you know,

Laurie Forster (22:41.8)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (23:00.306)
Yeah.

Garth (23:06.69)
That's a form of gatekeeping that I don't want to put on anyone. It's basically just know what you like, find what you like, and then sort of take that path. If you taste this and go, it's too this or too that, then go to the wine store. know, go visit you at Astor, you know, 10 years ago and say, hey, I had this bottle of whatever and it was too, and don't be scared to use dumb words. It was too harsh. was too.

fruity, was too alcoholic, right? Those aren't words that we'd use as wine professionals. But if someone said them to us, we'd know what that means. And you'd be able to steer them in that direction. And then, you know, you can always turn around at the end and look back at your path and say, I followed this path to get where I am now in my palate. I know I like this. You know, you got to you got to kiss a few frogs along the way. But, you know, wine is fun because along the way, you know, even the frogs are fairly tasty.

Laurie Forster (23:39.305)
Right.

Laurie Forster (23:52.617)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (24:01.172)
Right. And it's all about trusting your own taste. And I feel like that's what you and I in our roles and what we do in wine are there to support people in having that confidence and being able to find what they love and then ask for it when they're out at a store or restaurant, that sort of thing. then champagne has so many different styles, even within the same producer. And I love that we're tasting another selection here.

Garth (24:11.214)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (24:25.646)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (24:28.532)
Tell me a little bit about the second one and I know that the grape varietal composition is very different as well. Let's talk about how these taste different based on that.

Garth (24:28.664)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (24:39.342)
Yeah, and so I chose these two from the same house because there's La Grillon and Signature that we're drinking today. And the signature is sort of the signature of the southern portion of the vineyards that this winery owns. And so they're in Louvois as I mentioned, which is contiguous with Bouzy and Ambanay. So there's a lot of red fruit influence in the first wine that we drank. And the second wine that we drank is 30 % Pinot Noir and 70 % Chardonnay. And that's because then you'll see the compass on the label that sort of has, it's pointing.

Laurie Forster (25:06.385)
Yeah, they're beautiful. Yeah.

Garth (25:07.788)
Yeah, the compass pointing north and that is an indication of it. These are the wines from the northern part of the holdings that the family has. they're vineyards up and around lewd. You say north, it's like 10 minutes driving, but you know, a long time ago it was a lot further by horse and up over the hill. So this is the northern part, portion of their vineyard holdings and it's Chardonnay dominated. So it's the same winemaker. It's the same vintage.

It's different grape varietals and in different sort of proportions. And to me, that's really interesting because you get to see this picture of this house where it's not the same. It's not all just Pinot Noir. It doesn't all have the same signature. The wines are very, very different. And you kind of get a sense that champagne doesn't always taste the same. love doing, you know, this is a house, but I love sometimes doing like a blanc de blanc tasting. So a blanc de blanc is generally 100 % Chardonnay or at least 100 % white grapes.

And if you do it from different houses and different villages, people will walk away and go, wow, those were so wildly different. Because sometimes people will ask the question, what does Blanc de Blanc taste like? And it's like, you can't answer that question because they're so dramatically different, even in the same style. From house, style, vintage, village, there's so many different things that can happen in Champagne. And that to me is why I say all the time that Champagne is the most exciting wine region in the world because

Laurie Forster (26:16.36)
Wow.

Garth (26:27.734)
within the same house, within the same village, within the same vintage, you can get dramatically different expressions of terroir, expressions of vintage, expressions of grape. The winemaker has an influence. There's so many different things that you can do when making champagne and nothing against the big houses, but the big houses have always pushed for and it's less now, but in the past, especially house style consistency, we want the champagne to taste the same every year all the time. I had a,

Represented from a big house once say we want you to like push the door of your favorite retail store and grab a bottle and every year it tastes the same and You know consistency is to be applauded. I think but that's you know, that's coca-cola. It's the same every time It's listening to your favorite band, but on CD It's the same every time and I think champagne you can get so many different expressions and even the same wine You know the signature this year and next year will be dramatically different. They'll have some of the same fingerprints, but they'll be dramatically different because the

Laurie Forster (27:21.972)
Mmm.

Garth (27:26.06)
The vineyard give you different things every year. And I think that's the joy of small houses. The other reason that I say champagne is the most exciting winery in the world is because we're in this big generation shift right now. There's many, many, of these growers for one reason or another, they're passing along to the kids. The kids are starting to work in the winery. The new ideas are happening.

There's new ways of farming, of winemaking, new things that people are doing. so sort of that old generation is starting to retire and the new generation is coming in. And so there's all this excitement and all this experimentation that had never been happening before. And so you go now to champagne, you and you walk into a wine bar on a Tuesday night and people are drinking from, you know, bottles of labels you've never seen before and villages you've never tried before and great blends that you've never like thought to blend together. And you really get this just like

really fun, cool, exciting experiment that's happening in Champagne right now. In a region that's been around forever and has all these laws and rules and you think of, know, caviars and Bentley's and it's in wingtips and it's not, it's, you know, young kids in sneakers drinking in the street with their friends, but they're doing really, really, really cool things and I'm just like really happy to be a part of it.

Laurie Forster (28:27.444)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (28:37.918)
That's exciting. with the predominance of Chardonnay in this one, how would you, for people that are listening, thinking about these two, how would you describe the difference in taste?

Garth (28:47.052)
Mm.

Garth (28:51.67)
Yeah, I think for me, Chardonnay always tends to have a little bit more linear quality to it. The acid and structure tends to show a lot more. This being from the northern part of the Champagne region, it does have a little bit more weight and body to it. And I think that's something that people are starting to do in Chardonnay as well as a little bit longer in the vineyards before harvest. So you pick up a little bit more of that fruit and that weight. To me, I think that the...

The Pinot Noir has that red fruit, that floral note, that depth, that like sort of breadth on your palate. You taste it on the sides of your tongue and the side of your tongue and the back of your palate as you're going through. And to me, the Chardonnay is just a little bit more linear, a little bit more straight, but still has that sort of like fruity nutty characteristic as well.

Laurie Forster (29:21.47)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (29:39.154)
Yeah, they're both delicious, but that's a really great way of comparing. we're all about, my husband's a chef, so we're all about wine and food, being part of the team. And that excites me having them together and finding great pairings, but they don't have to all be fancy, like you said, right? I mean, you can have champagne on a Tuesday. So what would be something unusual that you love to enjoy with champagne that maybe people haven't thought of as a great pairing?

Garth (29:43.746)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (29:48.718)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Garth (29:57.603)
Mm-mm.

Garth (30:06.806)
Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing to me about champagne is that it really does pair with almost everything. The only thing it doesn't really pair with is really sweet. So stay away from desserts. But I mean, the classic is potato chips or french fries or anything fried or salty makes really, really great partners with champagne. But I like it with Moroccan food. I like it with something that's slightly spicy. I love it with meat. You know, do like a steak frites and a

Laurie Forster (30:27.156)
Mmm.

Garth (30:35.906)
bottle of champagne and you might just be blown away. Because think about you've got the fatty meat of the steak frites, maybe the sauce that you put on top, maybe you put Bernaise on top, you've got the French fries, maybe you've got a little salad with the vinaigrette on it or something like that. All of those things will pair differently with a glass of champagne in a way that you would think, this needs a Bordeaux or a super Tuscan or something like that because it's red meat. know, champagne does some really interesting things and a lot of pairings.

particularly because we're talking about it, you know, the red wine and the meat will match each other. And sometimes the champagne because it's lighter will come in and lift up the flavors of the beef in a different way. And so instead of having those big rich flavors, I've had champagne and beef pairings where the beef almost ends up tasting floral and like exotic because it's picking up different notes in that dish. So again, I know, I know.

Laurie Forster (31:21.46)
ooh

Laurie Forster (31:27.604)
Now I'm getting hungry. Thanks a lot, Garth.

Garth (31:31.574)
Again, think it's, yeah, tacos would be great. Maybe we'll have tacos with the rest of the bottle for lunch today. But I think it's another one of those things where the freedom to experiment is what you should take away from it, is you should taste a glass of champagne and say, this will go with whatever I'm eating next, right? Like if you had a friend coming over and they said, I'm picking up takeout food and I'm gonna bring it over for dinner. And you don't know where they're picking it up from. You can open a bottle of champagne and be guaranteed that it's gonna go with whatever they bring over.

Laurie Forster (31:34.419)
Yeah.

Garth (31:59.724)
And that to me is the versatility of champagne, unlike any other wine.

Laurie Forster (32:03.752)
I agree. Yeah. And speaking of champagne and happy hour, which I know is one of your favorite things. Tell me about the champagne happy hour club. How does it work? If folks are interested in signing up, what does that look like?

Garth (32:18.742)
Yeah, Champagne Happy Hour is a club we when we started importing champagne a couple years ago, people started asking us, how do we find your champagne? How do we get your champagne? And we realized there was a demand for people really wanting, you know, to have more champagne in their life. And so we started the club. called Champagne Happy Hour. And every month you get two bottles of champagne shipped to you. And what we do is we much like we're doing here today, we focus on one producer. Every month you get one producer. The next month you'll get a different producer. And it's always changing. It's always fun and exciting new.

We go back to Champagne all the time to find new producers to put in the club. And it's really just again about experimenting and finding new favorites. And every month it's the most exciting thing because people will write and say, we tried that rose. was the best. our new favorite rose. And so it's really simple. You go to Champagne Happy Hour, you sign up and you come along the journey with us. And every month two bottles show up and we have a good time. sometimes we send out little treats and presents and we do trips. We just got back from Champagne with

some of our club members and we did some really, really fun, exciting things. it's just sort of building a community around champagne and we do that by drinking and drinking the same thing together every month. you know, my goal, our goal is to really just make sure that people are drinking as much good champagne as they can. And you don't have to just find what's on sale or on a floor stack in your local grocery store. I mean, we're not all lucky enough to, mean, I live in Chicago and I can see like out my window, three great wine shops, but sometimes people have

more limited access to the really great champagne. And so we tried to make it so we shipped to, you know, 95 % of the zip codes in the United States. So, you know, everybody can have great champagne. Yeah.

Laurie Forster (33:52.03)
That's awesome. Love it. Now I know that neither of us are doctors, but did you see the recent study that came out that said drinking champagne lowers your risk for cardiac events? Yes.

Garth (34:06.104)
sudden cardiac events are reduced by drinking champagne. Yes, I saw that. About 30,000 people sent it to me in my DMs, which is great. No, it's an interesting thing because I remember once seeing it.

a report that apples could give you cancer. so, you know, it was something about the wax coating or, know, but it was basically an apple a day talk keeps the doctor away and then there's this and so you take it all with a little bit of a grain of salt. But I think this is probably the most accurate study that's ever been done in the history of the world is that if you drink champagne, you're going to be happier, you're going to be smarter, you're going to live longer. I don't know if any of that's true, but you keep

Laurie Forster (34:27.284)
jeez.

Laurie Forster (34:32.425)
Right.

Laurie Forster (34:52.678)
I love it. I wonder if it has to do with the amino acids that you were talking about. You know, that is what makes champagne different than, you know, say a glass of Barolo or a Chardonnay potentially. So I wonder maybe a Chardonnay that's aged on the lees or something might have some similar.

Garth (35:02.403)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (35:08.992)
Yeah, the article wasn't, yeah, the article wasn't as specific about what particular things in the champagne made it better than like you say, a glass of Barolo. But yeah, maybe that's what it is. I'm just gonna keep drinking champagne and maybe someday we'll find out.

Laurie Forster (35:16.626)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (35:25.844)
Well, I know folks want to definitely find you on Instagram because your videos are amazing, educational and fun at the same time. So if folks want to check those out and follow you, what's the best place for them to find you?

Garth (35:35.074)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (35:40.974)
I'm just Garth Hodgdon on Instagram and we do, it started with one bottle review where you drink an entire bottle of champagne and then do a review. And the first couple, if you go back to the beginning, they, you know, you get pretty drunk drinking a bottle of champagne sometimes. And so I've sped up the, the speed at which I drink a bottle of champagne. So you get through an eight to 10 minutes and you can still talk at the end before it all kicks in. So it's a fun thing. And we, like you said, we do things about temperature and glassware and all sorts of things. So.

Laurie Forster (36:05.181)
Nice.

Garth (36:10.456)
Garth underscore Hodgdon on Instagram.

Laurie Forster (36:12.852)
Perfect. Well, this has been amazing. I could talk to you for another hour because there's so much, so we might have to have you back on to talk about champagne. But thank you for sharing these wines from Domain Mea with us. Champagnehappyhour.com. If folks want to join the club, I'll post the links on my show page. And Garth, just thank you for your time. This has been so much fun. And thank you for allowing me to drink champagne on a Tuesday at noon.

Garth (36:21.645)
Gladly.

Garth (36:29.72)
Mm-hmm.

Garth (36:39.378)
I mean, listen, we have free will to do with the things that we enjoy. So Tuesday morning, champagnes, think we should all be doing it more often. Laurie, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I feel like we just scratched the surface. So let's drink champagne together again sometime. All right. Cheers. Thank you so much.

Laurie Forster (36:46.385)
Me too.

Laurie Forster (36:52.584)
I would love that. Cheers.

Thank you. Thanks a lot. Awesome.

Garth (36:58.252)
Yeah.