From Restaurant Critic to Sommelier: Anthony Giglio’s Flavor Journey

Discover the secrets behind tasting like a pro with Anthony Giglio—sommelier, longtime Food & Wine contributor, restaurant critic, cocktail expert, and creator of SUPERSALT. Anthony shares practical, no-snobbery tips for improving your palate, pairing wine with food, and making everyday eating and drinking more flavorful and fun. From mastering wine temperature to breaking out of your “usual wine rut,” this episode is packed with approachable advice you can use tonight. 

Key Takeaways:

•  Why wine temperature matters more than most people realize 
•  The “three sip” tasting method for understanding flavor like a pro 
•  Easy food and wine pairing strategies—including the “wine sandwich” concept 
•  How to identify your personal taste preferences and trust your palate 
•  Simple ways to discover new wines outside your comfort zone 
•  The story behind SUPERSALT and how it elevates flavor 
•  Quick wine chilling hacks using salt, water, and frozen grapes 

Check out Anthony's website for more on his books, events and Supersalt: https://www.anthonygiglio.com/

Transcript

Laurie Forster (00:30)
Welcome back to The Sipping Point. I'm excited to have Anthony Giglio join me in just a second. He's a professional taster. I'll get into his background, but first, just a few reminders. I have an event coming up on July 10th, my wine comedy show, Something to Wine About, and I'm going to be appearing at the room at Cedar Grove in Louis, Delaware. So if you want a weekend at the beach, kicked off by fun with wine and laughter,

then I think you should join me. Go to thewinecoach.com slash events and you can get all the information and get your tickets. As well, thewinecoachclub.com. have my latest pack of wine, three wines from volcanic soils in Italy and Greece. I'm calling it Lava to Glass. Three wines for under $100 with free shipping. If you use my special code, I will put that on the show page at thewinecoach.com.

click podcast and you will be able to get all the information to get those wines and taste why I think volcanic soil makes some of the best wines out there. All right, today on The Sipping Point, I'm joined by the ultimate professional taster, Anthony Giglio. He didn't just stumble into wine, he built a career tasting his way through it. From 15 years as a restaurant critic,

to writing and editing cocktail books, to becoming a sommelier and longtime voice at Food and Wine Magazine,

Anthony has turned curiosity into a full blown career across everything we sip and honestly anything we can taste. And now he's bottling up the expertise in a whole new way with his latest venture, Super Salt, which might just change how you season and sip everything.

Laurie Forster (02:18)
Anthony, welcome to The Sipping Point.

Anthony Giglio (02:20)
Real to be here, Laurie. Thanks for having me.

Laurie Forster (02:22)
Amazing. You have such a really interesting background and I always love hearing people's origin stories and how they came to wine and food and cocktails for you. And so tell us a little bit about how you came to be the expert and the authority that you are today.

Anthony Giglio (02:40)
I don't know, The half joke is I started in utero.

My mother was an avid, avid, like all mothers of the 60s, she dyed her hair, smoked parliaments and drank wine with dinner and Manhattan's before and after probably. we have home movie proof that on New Year's Eve 1966, she was smoking and drinking and having a great time during a New Year's Eve party. And then the camera pans down on her belly and she is eight months pregnant with me.

Laurie Forster (02:45)
Okay, there's a story there.

Yeah.

All right, well, that's a long history, but fast forward a little bit into when you started out in the working world, how did you find your way to wine and wine writing?

Anthony Giglio (03:16)
Thank

I'm a journalist first. like to always say that, especially today with journalism under siege. I'm your walking, living fact checker to everybody who tells me anything. I want to know where the proof is for that so that we can all make sure we're speaking factually. But I say that because I didn't know what I wanted to write about. I just wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write for magazines. This was in the mid-80s and there were very few men's magazines besides like GQ and Esquire, which were much older than

my demographic, but I wound up at a short stint at travel leisure, which didn't really work out. And then I went to, because they weren't letting me really write any, I didn't write, didn't read, I edit, do anything. I really wanted to be hands on. So I went to a small trade house where a very unsexy national real estate investor was the publication and their regional ancillary like Northeast Real Estate News.

Laurie Forster (04:05)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Giglio (04:14)
But I was a reporter learning how to write, interview, fact check, and publish. And it was really great. And I was there for almost, I think, three years. But year two is when my editor said to me, why are you here? And it was a really funny comment. I'm here because I want to learn what you do and take it on my own someday, maybe take your place, whatever. And she said, no, should, why aren't you at a wine magazine? And I said, what are you talking about? And she said, every morning we have coffee.

She was 10 years older than me. So we're really young. I'm 22. She's 32. She's single. We're both single. So we had dating lives and like we'd get together in her office in the morning. Back then you could smoke. So she'd be smoking and drinking coffee in her office. And she would say like, oh, this weekend I do this and whatever I was saying to her, I always ended with, and we drank this. And she said, you're so into wine. You love wine. I think it's a great, aren't you writing about it? And I said, I subscribed to Wine Spectator and Decanter and

Laurie Forster (04:58)
Mmm.

Anthony Giglio (05:08)
I'm pretty sure that I have to be a 70 year old retired British lawyer to write for one of those magazines. And she said, I'm hearing an opportunity for a 22 year old. That's what I'm hearing right now. And I tell my kids this who are now 21 and 23, that you never know when someone's going to sprinkle the pixie dust over your head, that advice that comes in or just the mention of something that could be something bigger. But, you know, like a therapist once said to me, what's meant to stay here stays here.

What's meant to come back later is here and what doesn't matter will just pass through you. So that must have went here. And within a few months, I was reading a details magazine and it said 92 careers for 1992. And it was become a sommelier and meet chicks, something like that. It was really funny. And I thought that that resonates. And it was a story about a right wine drinking.

Laurie Forster (05:47)
Yeah.

Anthony Giglio (05:54)
Kid from the Catskills who came to New York in the 70s, studied with the Sommelier Society and wound up opening a big wine shop on the Upper West Side. So I called the Sommelier Society. They still existed. They were on the East Side of Manhattan. I asked if I could sign up and she said to me, we have two seats left. It starts on Tuesday, starts at noon. And I said, noon? And she goes, well, this is for professionals in the wine trade. So I go back to my editor, Dora, Dora Hattriss, and I said, I have...

that idea you gave me a few months ago, it's percolating. And here's what I came up with. And she said, if I let you go on Tuesdays for half the day or more than half the day, I have no right to, but if you do, She said, I have no right to. So A, you're gonna have to take lunch at your desk the rest of the week to make up for it. And B, if you tell anyone, we'll both get fired.

So that's how serious I need you to take this, that we'll leave a jacket on your chair back when you used to have to wear a suit and tie every day. Leave a jacket on your chair on Tuesdays when you leave and I will cover for you. And we did it for eight months. She covered me for eight months.

Laurie Forster (06:52)
That's amazing. a

great mentor and supporter you had in her to be able to do both, to keep your job and do the training. And how did you finally make your way? Did you then work in restaurants and then bring it all together with the writing or did you always approach it?

Anthony Giglio (07:09)
I've been working at restaurants

always at night. I'm from a blue collar family in Jersey City, New Jersey. I've been a hustler since eighth grade, like worked as a bingo boy at the local bingo parlor, and then I was a coffee boy. And then I was a dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant in high school, and then to shop right, and then I was a bartender in college at a restaurant in Hoboken. So like I've always been in food. But she, Dora, came back into my office randomly once Monday morning, back when you used to clip.

want ads out of the New York Times Sunday section. And she slammed it on my desk and said, tell me you answered this yesterday. And I said, I read it. I'm like, it said Metropolitan area wine magazine seeks managing editor. And in the hierarchy of editorial, that's number two under the editor. And I said, I would never have answered that. It's too high. And she said, it's a wine magazine. How big could they be? Call it right now. And I called it. was wine enthusiast. They were just getting off the ground.

I went and met with Bill Tishman, he goes by Tish, and he said, I lied. There's nobody to manage, but I needed to give a big title to get somebody to answer the ad. And if you stick with me for two years, I'll teach you everything you need to know about how to run a wine magazine and it'll open doors everywhere. And he did not lie. in two years, within two years, maybe three, I was a contributor to Food to Wine Magazine and working.

at night at Windows on the World in the wine school at the top of the Twin Towers. I was assembly at night writing about wine during the day and everything was coming through it. It all came together really nicely.

Laurie Forster (08:34)
What a dream. and it goes to show you I have a 22 year old as well that, know, they can always say no. I mean, you got to shoot your shot. And if you don't, you know, you're you're never going to get it. But they can only, you know, they can only say no. So I love that. And I love your fairy dust advice.

as well. all right, great. So you've written, I think, over 11 books, some on wine, some on cocktails and various food and flavors. What is your approach to tasting? Maybe we can start with wine and then kind of morph into other things. But I know that's the one skill that I think is most important in the wine area is your tasting and really knowing what you love and how to taste and how to describe it.

not necessarily how to taste like a Somm, but for the everyday wine drinker to say, I like this type of wine, or this is what I'm looking for. I used to work in Astor Wines in New York City and you know, people just have such a hard time. You know, they say, I know what I like, but I don't know how to describe it. And I feel like that's such a great skill. What's your approach to tasting and teaching people about their palate?

Anthony Giglio (09:42)
You're absolutely right. Everyone, I joke that everyone thinks there's a right answer. And I joke there's only one wrong answer. White Zinfandel. But so seriously though, yeah, we both, we have this all the time. Even I'm sure you're at a dinner party, you're out with friends, you go to a restaurant, whatever. People think you have, you're going to pick because you know, you know better than they do. Everyone always says, you're the expert. And I say, you are the expert of your palate.

Laurie Forster (09:51)
You're right.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Giglio (10:09)
I cannot tell you what's delicious. If we start with the food, if you order your burger as well done as a hockey puck and I want my burger to walk off the bun, we do not have the same taste. Yet we can find common ground, but let's just start with our tastes are different. So if I pour something for you and you like it, congratulations, you have great taste. But if you don't, I'm gonna take you through the paces of three sips. And this is something.

Laurie Forster (10:30)
Mm-hmm

Anthony Giglio (10:35)
I wish I could patent this, but I I didn't invent it, but I've been owning it for years and it works. Let's start here to say the first sip of anything, wine, beer, spirits, cocktail, iced tea, it doesn't matter. It doesn't count because you still need to clear the palate of whatever was on there before that sip, which could have been coffee, brushed your teeth, ate a cheeseburger, whatever, but the palate's just not neutral yet. So that first sip could be

awful or not what you expected or terrible, right? Like, but I'll say, no, no, no, no. If, and if you like it in the first step, holy cow, you're going to love it on the second because the second is the one that counts. And this is the rinse. And I go like, so like the first one does take a sip down. goes, even talk about it. Don't even think about it. But if you say you like it, great, but it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Here's what counts the second one, but don't swallow. I want you to put it in your mouth with me. We can't talk. So I'm just going to go like this and then down and then pay attention and just

Laurie Forster (11:02)
Mm.

Anthony Giglio (11:29)
I literally watch people's hair standing as I explain what's going on in their mouth. I'm like, right now, there's a river of saliva pouring down your jawline between your cheeks and your lower gums. It's going to hop over your teeth. And you're just going to keep feeling waves of saliva. Like, you're to feel, we're going to call it the battle between fruit and acid. So saliva comes in, that's the fruit. Acid will wipe it clean, and it's going to keep happening. You salivate, it dissipates, and it's going to be waves and waves and waves. And they're like, I can't believe this. And I'm like, it's freaky. I'm in your head, right? Like, it's freaky. But.

Laurie Forster (11:34)
Mmm!

Anthony Giglio (11:56)
Why did ever see this before? Why did ever feel this before? Because you're not a dork like me who measures balance. You and I measure how long is this wine, how long does it finish, how does it finish? Is it sweet, off, dry, tannic, whatever? We do this every day, every sip. But if you like it now, after everything's done, after you feel the pull in your cheeks here, the roof of your mouth is tight, acid has won, do you like it? And I'll say you have no right to...

Laurie Forster (12:00)
Yes.

Anthony Giglio (12:20)
to like it if you don't like to, please remember that A, I didn't make it, no harm, no foul. Usually it's an event I'll say, I didn't pay for it, thanks to the sponsors, they paid for it. And C, I'm not here to judge you, I'm here to open your mind and your palate to some other opportunities that you're missing right in front of you, hiding in plain sight. And people, I'll say, I really wanna hear from people who don't like it. And usually it's always the same answer. doesn't really, it's not really refreshing. I tend to like red wine, you're pouring a white or I tend to like white, you're pouring a red. I'm like, all right.

Now we break everything open. Grab a potato chip. Grab a piece, and this is set up beforehand. If I could do this at a place, if I'm teaching a class and there's no kitchen, potato chips in front of everyone, or a hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano, or a nice hard Manchego or Gouda or something like that. But something simple, no mess, finger food. But now take a bite of fat plus salt. Swallow, and now let's take that third sip together again the same way. Sip, little swish, down it goes. And everyone just pay attention. And then you wait a beat and say,

Remember that river running down your cheeks? Where is it? It's gone. It's under your tongue, pooling over. It found the fat it needed to rinse. it's, call it acidity, acidity of the Zamboni. It keeps coming in and cleaning the palate and getting it ready for the next wave or the next flavor or the next bite, whatever it's going to be. But I can't tell you, if I could count the conversions, how many times people said, I would be programmed to hate this wine. I hate Chardonnay. I hate Pinot Grigio. I hate Cabernet.

Laurie Forster (13:27)
How's that?

Anthony Giglio (13:43)
I can't believe I like it. I'm like, right, because you gave it a fair chance. If after three sips, taking those same pace as I just gave you, you still don't like it, move on. Congratulations. You really are locked in your power. But really, but move on. There's plenty of other wine in the world. what I want everyone to remember from this second on is every party you've walked into, I've done it myself. And you take one sip or a friend passes you the glass and says, my God, you're going to love this. And you take one sip and say, no, you have given

Laurie Forster (13:52)
Yeah.

Anthony Giglio (14:09)
You've deprived yourself of the full experience of that wine and you've deprived the wine of showing its full self to you. Now, the bad news, Laurie, is that if someone, if you're the one offering the sip, I'm going go back for two now. I might even go for three. I'm going to go. But you see what I'm saying? That's that's where I'm that's what that's what I do. This is what I love to do with people.

Laurie Forster (14:22)
Right. Make sure it's a full glass if you're offering. I love the way you.

I love that because I have a little different approach, but we're saying the same thing. But when I'm talking about food and wine pairing, I teach people what I call a wine sandwich. And so I obviously have them try the wine alone because you can't understand how it is with food until you've tried it alone. That's your second sip, if you will. Then try the food, then go back to the wine. So wine, food, wine. And then on that second sip, which for you is the third,

That's where people are like, my goodness, this is a totally different wine. I thought that was too sour and now I love it. Or I thought it was too tannic and now it's really much softer. So I think that is such a crucial skill and I love the way you approach it. I know my listeners are gonna incorporate their three sips and you don't need to do this every time you're trying the wine. It's the first time, it's the first time.

Anthony Giglio (15:06)
Exactly.

No!

But by the way, all it really is is get past that first sip, because it's usually not what it's going to taste like. that's what we, mean, all of us do it. You take one sip of something like it's, by the way, and there's another tip. When you go to a party and there are three wines being poured at the bar or five wines at a fancy wedding, what should you be going, what should you be tasting? All of them. You should taste anything that's free and call it research. And I'm not saying this to get tipsy. I say it literally like little sips.

Laurie Forster (15:23)
Yes.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Giglio (15:46)
but try that Pinot Grigio you would never think of or the Merlot that sideways told you to hate. Try it and you'll be like, wow, that is actually delicious. I love it. And then take a picture of it and go to your wine shop and say, can you find this or something like it? Like that just, it just changes everything. But drink as much as you can, taste as much as you can wherever you can, especially when it's being offered for free, why not?

Laurie Forster (16:06)
Absolutely. so what are you tasting these days that you're, you know, we taste so many different things over the course of a year, but I know we get excited about certain regions or types of wine. and I'm wondering what that is for you right now that you think is such a great value or place to explore for people. Cause we all get in our wine ruts, if you will.

Anthony Giglio (16:28)
Um, I would say that I love that spring is finally, finally here. Um, it's been the longest winter in history. Uh, it's going to be 83 today. And then of course, know, 60 again on Thursday, but, um, spring's here. I'm definitely lightening things up. I want my high acid, low tannin reds out of the fridge. Like I keep them in my, I keep my wine fridge pretty chilly because I'd rather have a red wine be, and we're going to talk about temperature later. We talked about this already. Um, I'd rather have the red wine be too cold and warm up.

rather than the opposite where I can't cool it down. If I don't have frozen grapes in the fridge, there's no ice cubes allowed ever. But frozen grapes, people, frozen grapes, that's tip number 17 today. Frozen grapes, that's nature's ice cubes. No water goes into the wine and it's on brand and they taste good and you could eat them or refreeze them if you're my grandmother. ⁓ But ⁓ I'd say I pitched a seminar for the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen in June, Chilling with Red Wines because

Laurie Forster (17:12)
Mm-hmm. Love it.

Anthony Giglio (17:22)
Even though I've written about this, literally wrote about temperature in wine in 2001 in Esquire, an article I did, a guerrilla warfare piece taking down the biggest sommeliers in New York City for shamefully serving red wine at deplorable temperatures in the 70s and 80s. 80s, high 80s. I still am talking about it 25 years later. Like it's still aha for most people. I'm sure when you entertain and you pull out, you know, a 55 degree Cabernet, people are like, wow.

I didn't know you served red wine chilled or I like, I feel bad for anyone who says I prefer it warm because you're tasting half the wine. You're not even tasting the whole wine in balance. yeah, so I'm gonna pour some way off the beaten path like a Spatburgunder Pinot Noir from Germany, some classic of course, Scava from Northern Italy, Cru Beaujolais, because you have to always have a Cru Beaujolais in the conversation, which

Laurie Forster (17:54)
Yeah, no.

Anthony Giglio (18:12)
I just wish the French would make easier because I say to people like, you have to try Cru Beaujolais which opens a huge category. But as you know, you have to know the 10 village names or any of the village names. Morgon, Brugier, Chénave, Saint-Amore, Moulavant. But you have to go, I'm like, just go to a wine shop and say, show me the good Beaugelais. And they're not going to show you the Beaugelais Nouveau from November that's expired the first week of December. They're going to show you the good stuff. But high acid, low tannin.

chillable, gulpable reds for summer, it's my jam. They live in the ice bucket with the champagne. When you're outside on a hot summer day, they hold up to the cold because of their level of acid.

Laurie Forster (18:48)
I just did a virtual tasting, you we were calling it Lava to Glass and it was a bunch of volcanic wines and we had a Greek Vidiano white that was the first time I had had that grape picking it out for that class. It was delicious. We had a Suave from Veneto, but Etna Rosso from Sicily was wonderful.

Anthony Giglio (18:54)
I love it.

Laurie Forster (19:11)
And yeah, I love it. I call it cellar temperature, but I have a little wine fridge off here to the left and it's always like around 55 and it's delicious just at that temperature. And I think people when get confused because we'll say, you know, if they take a class or they read, you know, red wine should be served at room temperature. But I always say it's room temperature in a medieval castle in France, not in modern day, you know what I mean? 70 degrees? No.

Anthony Giglio (19:40)
I said it same as I think. like, it sounds so bougie to say cellar temperature, because it conjures the skeleton key 300 stairs down into the basement of the castle. It's the same thing. But yeah, the only way around is to say it needs to stay. Cellar temperature equals 55. If we could call everything 55, everyone would be happy. Or a good five minutes in an ice bucket with ice and water, because without water, it's useless. An ice bucket.

without water is only good for displaying oysters.

Laurie Forster (20:08)
Or

throw in some salt if you really need to chill it quick. That's another one. Yeah.

Anthony Giglio (20:11)
Yeah, that's the real pro tip. Salt

and water first and then ice and a lot more water and it's crazy how fast you can chill champagne in minutes. Minutes.

Laurie Forster (20:19)
Yeah, absolutely. Now, when we were prepping to come on here, you were mentioning that last night you did a little wine event that was connected with the Met Ball or the Met Gala. Is there any like fun celebrity info or you can share with us or tell us what you were serving because we like to live vicariously.

Anthony Giglio (20:40)
I would say this, when I posted it, was getting a lot of like, oh my God, you'll be at the Met Gala. Like, no, read the post carefully. I was at a viewing party across the street from the Met. It was pretty wild. Cause like even getting there was an obstacle course of police and gates and checkpoints. It was like a war zone to try to get to the Hungarian embassy where it was held in this beautiful old mansion that's now the Hungarian embassy. And so it wasn't like there was...

I'm not going to say they weren't famous people. I don't actually know all of the guests by name, but they were people from fashion houses. And I heard that Versace was in the house. There was someone from Gucci in the house. There were a lot of models wearing really beautiful, outrageously creative outfits and hats and, you know, like one of those fascinators that they wear, the British wear. So people really took it to the next level of dress. they had four female chefs from all over the world come in and cook.

a course each, and then they had to come up and explain each course and do a runway walk out as they left. The host was Jermaine Brown, who's in the theater and fashion world, and he was the emcee, so he had everybody learning how to walk, runway, and it was just a lot of fun. I I paired it with every course, took everyone to Alsace with Lucien Albrecht Pinot Gris and said, I'm gonna be honest with you. know, Laurie, I'm not gonna,

make you complicit, but I think you might agree that we kind of make fun of Pinot Grigio in the wine world as like the easiest choice. I mean, it's basically water with alcohol. mean, like there there's levels of Pinot Grigio, like the everyday supermarket ones are really just one dimensional vanilla, vanilla paint or whatever, you white paint. But I said, let's go to let's go to Alsace Pinot Grigio Pinot Grigio's cousin from France in one of the most beautiful wine regions of France where they make the ice that I was going to pour Riesling, but I knew I would get hackles.

Laurie Forster (22:05)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Giglio (22:26)
even though I would show you recently, that's not sweet, but we have to always hand sell that. But I poured an Albrecht Pinot Gris, and it was wonderful, really, really wonderful with this. Actually, it was a tuna ceviche, ⁓ scallops and shrimp and like a shrimp canal that was raw. It was really, really beautiful. So seafood and Pinot Gris was a great pair.

Laurie Forster (22:34)
Mm.

Yum.

That's great. And I have a running joke with a really good friend of mine. She loves Pinot Grigio and I'm always like, I don't drink Pinot Grigio, but she goes, but you love Oregon Pinot Gris. I'm like, yeah, it's a totally different thing. So, you know, it is very different. Same grape, different place. It's going to express itself. You know, you're a New Yorker. I grew up in New Jersey. There's just differences, but we're still people, you know, we're still wine people. So, did you?

Anthony Giglio (23:09)
Yeah, I grew up in New Jersey. I'm still here. I'm

in Jersey City right now. That's where I live.

Laurie Forster (23:13)
Okay, I grew up in Sussex County, so you have the more cool New York accent than I do.

Anthony Giglio (23:19)
You don't have an accent still?

By the way, in journalism school, I went to Fordham at Lincoln Center and in year two, we had to learn broadcast. And Dr. Brian Rose said to, it was really, it was like, it could be a Saturday night. He was like, Giulio Santinelli, Bruncatelli. He named like seven Italian kids. He's like, we need to have a huddle. And he said, for you to get anywhere in this course, we have to learn that there is a letter called R in the alphabet. Cause back then I sounded like.

Vinny Barbarino from Welcome Back Hotter, like my mother, father, water, coffee, talk, like literally the real New York accent that we all had. And he said, you'll never make it. And we had to listen to tapes of Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and that Midwest accent, that's the national standard. So this is me 30 years later, just a little there, the audience. I definitely say coffee. I do say coffee a little better than coffee.

Laurie Forster (24:03)
Yes. It's very subtle. Just a little, yeah.

Me too.

But I know you're just as into food and flavors as you are into wine and cocktails. So let's move there because you have a side gig creating something called Super Salt. Maybe you could show us the Super Salt itself. Tell us what is Super Salt and why did you create this? Why is it the perfect?

Anthony Giglio (24:13)
Anyway, I thank you.

Laurie Forster (24:34)
you know, last ingredient to really anything you might be making.

Anthony Giglio (24:38)
I'm really lucky that I had friends who pushed me to go commercial on this, to actually go to production professionally. But I've been cooking since I was very, young. My grandmother lived upstairs. And so I was up and down the stairs every day. And we'd cook breakfast together, learn to fry eggs together, learn to then roast beefs and grill steaks. My grandmother told me everything. We rolled out pasta all the time. I had it in my blood from childhood that I wanted to cook.

I hosted, I'm going to take one little detour and say, I was asked to speak at the Moth, the Moth radio hour back in 2012. And I tell the story of this not being cool in this Italian family. The men were not happy with Anthony wearing an apron and cooking with his grandmother. just, in the early seventies, that was not what boys should be doing. I should be outside throwing a baseball.

I've come to peace with my dad. The moth called it a white-collar son makes peace with his blue-collar dad. But I would have been a chef. I have no doubt I would have been a chef had my family not been so unfair about the idea of a man cooking. You can imagine how journalism went over. My dad was like, so you're going to type for a living? Is that what you're going to do? You're going to type? I mean, I can't break the stereotype.

I learned to cook and I've been cooking ever since. I'm the cook at home. My wife doesn't really cook. She's a baker, but I always was making seasonings and things like that. And I took inspiration from my friend, Sally Schneider, who wrote A New Way to Cook, which won like the Beard Award for best book back in 2000 or so. But there was this little tiny side note to roasting pork that was called Rosemary Salt. And it was garlic, like one garlic clove.

chopped with some rosemary, and then you add a little salt and you mix it together and you slather the pork with it. And I took that kernel and built it into this massively garlicky Southern Italian version, which was heavier on sage and had some rosemary and thyme and oregano, but it was just massively garlicky. And I started studying all the food salts that I could find in different stores. And most of never had any garlic or more onion than garlic or a little bit of garlic. This was really, really intense.

And I started to make it and give it to friends. And then if you invited me for dinner, Laurie, like, I am not going to stay out of the kitchen, even if you tell me you've got dinner handled. I'm going to come in anyway, because I can't help myself. Or I might whip up a little clover, two of garlic, and mix some salt in whatever you have in your fridge. I'm going to mix herbs and leave it on the counter for you. And then I would get a call the next day or the next week say, what did you leave here? This is incredible. Like, what is it? And everyone wants to know what it is. And I had no name for it. I've

polled friends for it, like, what do we call this thing? And we called it super salt as a goof. Turns out that I can't use that on any European, I can't sell it in Europe with that name because nothing's allowed to have a superlative before it, like salt can't be super, but it's doing well in America. I just got into Costco, so I'm really happy. But it's a very powerful seasoning salt that I have made in Italy, thanks to advice from several different friends. because of my Italian connection, my wife is from Sicily.

I use Sicilian sea salt, is a little stronger than people expect. So I tell you, start easy, start using it going easy and then learn how to build it as you go. But it's from start to finish. And you could put it on your eggs in the morning. You could scramble it. You could, you could make it into a salad dressing for your salad at night, season everything that goes in the pan or in the stove or on the grill. And then you can use it as a finishing salt when you're done. Or if you didn't use it at all, use it as a finishing salt, but it's just, it's so flavor packed. And my, my idea was.

This should make cooking easier for the home cook who doesn't have time to chop herbs and buy garlic and do all those things on a weeknight when you have family to work. This salt can solve a lot of your cooking needs in one quick sprinkle. it's just taking off. Started in 2020 and immediately got into Whole Foods all over the East Coast and a hundred Whole Foods. And then it's been slowly spreading across the country. And I just got Costco to...

Laurie Forster (28:12)
I love that.

Anthony Giglio (28:23)
put me online. That's the first step before they'll put it in the store, but it's now available in three packs online. And I'm thrilled beyond words that that's just a massive statement of trust.

Laurie Forster (28:32)
That's great. I'm married to a chef. don't know if I mentioned that earlier. And yes, I am. And that sounds perfect because it is a little intimidating to cook for someone like that, maybe like yourself who knows so much about cooking, but this could be that little ingredient that just kind of takes up my cooking to the next level, if you will. So I'm excited to try it out as well.

Anthony Giglio (28:36)
No!

Yeah.

but I can't wait for you to try it. And your husband too. I want your husband's opinion too. Yeah. I would love to know how your husband thinks too.

Laurie Forster (28:56)
I'll document my first ⁓ try with it. Yeah, I know he'll

love to check it out. He used to work in New York with the Macchionis at Osteria del Circo which you probably know of from back in the day, back in the day.

Anthony Giglio (29:09)
Oh, oh my God,

Laurie, can I take quick detour story? The piece in Esquire was born in Circo I used to be a restaurant critic in New York for the New York Sun, and I was off duty, but I was definitely on the radar of lot of restaurateurs. And I go to Circo with my then girlfriend, now wife. On my night off, I'm just there to have a quick dish of pasta, and one of the match honeys recognized me and brought the wine list and said,

Laurie Forster (29:14)
Absolutely.

That's right.

Anthony Giglio (29:36)
Signor Giulio, whatever you'd like, which is terrifying. So I tried to stay like at a hundred bucks and not go crazy, which is hard to do on that list. And they brought me a warm bottle of Rosso di Montalcino and it was warm and really warm. I said to the, so I said to the assembly, I'm like, I'm sorry, but do you not chill this wine at all? And he said, that wine, no. And that meant I didn't spend enough. I didn't write any of that in the article. just, but this becomes the story of, it's the story behind the story.

Laurie Forster (29:57)
Ooh. Ouch.

Anthony Giglio (30:02)
And I said to him, okay, so here's what's gonna happen. I need you to bring us an ice bucket, make sure there's water in it, and let's get this wine in shape. It's gonna take 10 minutes before any food hits the table. Thank you so much. And I definitely was a power play, but I was like, if he's not even gonna apologize for it, I'm gonna school you here on what we're gonna do, and you're not gonna bring food and ruin to her before the wine is ready. And I went home and wrote to my editor, AJ Jacobs, at Esquire. I was like, I have a fun service piece. I'm gonna go to the 12 best restaurants in Manhattan.

with an instant thermometer, your credit card, a driver, and a wingman. And I brought a buddy around and we tasted it. And I put a thermometer in every glass. We brought two red glasses of wine by the glass at every bar. you and I know that the temperature should be 55. 65 is the maximum. And that's to me, that's too warm. That's way too warm, but it's acceptable. Only one restaurant in 13 passed and it was La Bernardin. Everybody else went off a cliff, including Le Cirque.

Laurie Forster (30:31)
the

Yes.

Anthony Giglio (30:55)
at 75, 82, Le Grenouille at 88 degrees. I it was just a bloodbath of temperatures. And I called every single sommelier and said, this is again 26 years ago, I'm writing this article, I tested your wines and I want you to defend why the red wines are so deplorable by the glass. For $32 a glass, by the way, at some restaurants, for a glass. And they said, they all said invariably the same thing, nobody complains. And that goes back to you and me thinking,

Laurie Forster (31:13)
Mmm.

Wow.

Anthony Giglio (31:21)
Our friends will say, you're the expert. What do I know? Well, everyone should know that red wine should never be warm, ever, period. Now you know. And you would never accept your burger being not cooked the way you want, or your salad not being dressed the way you want, or your bagel not smeared the way you want. So if the wine comes warm, just say, I'd love to chill this. Thanks so much. I'm gonna bring an ice bucket.

Laurie Forster (31:38)
Yes, I have asked

for red wine on ice. I think also not that this is, it's an excuse, but it is a reality that a lot, have these visions of that these restaurants have these temperature controlled cellars and there's all these fabulous and yeah, that maybe have a couple stand up wine fridges, but the bulk maybe of what they have is really in a warm place, not.

a proper temperature to be storing the wine. And it's heartbreaking, especially when you are ordering that special bottle or these days everywhere is $14 or more for a glass of wine. New York, even you're way beyond that. That's a lot of money to get something that is going to be harsh and not taste its best. So I'm passionate about that as well.

Anthony Giglio (32:21)
Yeah.

That was the irony that you hear. We're at the 12, like, supposed, like, this was back then we were using Zagat as the barometer for the people's choices of the best restaurants in New York. And because of real estate, especially Manhattan, this is before Brooklyn exploded, but you have no room for storage. No one's going to put a fridge where they can put your seats to make more money, right? So that's what it came down to. I went to Babbo. My friend David Lynch was the wine director early on. And I would say to him, like, hey, what's the cellar look like? And he was like, the cellar, you're sitting on the wines. And they were under the

Laurie Forster (32:42)
Right?

Anthony Giglio (32:52)
all the banquets, the seats went up and it had boxes of wine under all the seats in the back of the restaurant. It's hilarious. Like this is it was like. There was no room for storage, no room for storage at all. Still is today, think in a lot of places. Yeah.

Laurie Forster (33:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, real estate.

Absolutely. my gosh, I could talk to you for hours and hours, I feel like, so we may have to do this again. ⁓ But if folks want to check out what you have going on, coming up tastings, et cetera, find out more about Supersalt, where is the best place for them to go?

Anthony Giglio (33:09)
Let's do it.

Everything is on my website. just AnthonyGiglio.com. So you can see the name in my square here. Just put a .com on that. That should get you there. But you could also Google a SuperSalt that comes right up. yeah, and I have, I'm working desperately to get a sub stack off the ground where I could then keep much more lively content going and like, you know, self published. But we have a page holder called Hold My Glass because I'm a storyteller. I'm always talking with my hands. You have to hold my glass for me. But

Laurie Forster (33:27)
Perfect.

Love that.

Anthony Giglio (33:46)
We'll see, I'm to get it off the ground, hopefully in the next month or so.

Laurie Forster (33:49)
That's awesome. Anthony, this has been so much fun. I just want to thank you for coming on The Sipping Point.

Anthony Giglio (33:54)
Thank you.

Laurie Forster (33:54)
hope you enjoyed my conversation with Anthony Giglio. I know I could have talked with him way longer. Such a fun down to earth voice in the wine world. Love that. And I'm super stoked to try Super Salt. It might just make my cooking taste delicious. I'll put links to all of this on my show page. You just go to thewinecoach.com, click blog, and you'll get all the information there.

If you want to find out about my July 10th wine comedy show in Louis, Delaware, just click on events. All the information will be there. All right, until next week. Cheers.