Taste The Story | Marc R. Kauffman | Barrels and Roots

In this episode of Barrels and Roots, I sit down with certified sommelier Marc R. Kauffman to talk about what really makes wine special, beyond the label, the price point, and the polished image people often see from the outside. 

Marc shares how studying in Bordeaux helped shape his path, how he built a career across restaurants, distribution, consulting, television, and international wine travel, and why wine is one of the most emotional and personal beverages in the world. We talk about what separates a truly great wine from one that is simply correct, why hospitality and entertainment matter so much when introducing people to wine, and how the industry needs to evolve to stay relevant with younger generations. This conversation also dives into authenticity, storytelling, social media, alternative packaging, the farming reality behind wine, and why the best way to understand wine is still to taste widely, stay curious, and keep learning.

What is one bottle of wine you remember not just for the taste, but for the moment or the people you shared it with?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Like I say, it's it it's different for everybody else. And I think the more a person tastes wine, the more they're going to learn to appreciate the difference. But a really great wine, for me, has to be very complex. It can't just be one-dimensional. Some wines you only taste oak or you only taste a type of fruit, like black cherry or something, and it's overwhelming. Those are not great wines. Great wines have balance, they kind of glide on your tongue almost like velvet, and the flavor remains and kind of makes you smile and go, oh yeah, that's that's a that's a great wine to me.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

All right. Well, welcome everybody back to the growing. This is my barrels and roots podcast. I've got too many podcasts. It's a problem when you have a lot going on. Uh to my barrels and roots podcast. And it's important that it's the Barrels and Roots podcast because I have a really, really awesome guest with me today. And would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Uh sure, Sean. Thank you. Uh my name is Mark Kaufman, and I am a certified sommelier. I do corporate wine tastings. And in addition, I work in the wine industry as a consultant for a large Italian winery. We do private label for corporate uh for different retail outlets. And I also work with a French packaging firm that does uh winery, wine closures for wine bottles. So I've I've been in most all aspects of the wine business.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

That's awesome. You know, and it's a very interesting business, and there's a lot that goes into the wine industry. And people don't realize I was just starting to think about that, and I was doing research into guests, and I was thinking about the Coopers. You know, you you don't a lot of people don't realize there's this whole profession about people who make the barrels and you know, the people that make the corks, and how do you cork the wine? And there's a lot that goes on. Um, but going back, what first pulled you into wine and when did you realize that it was more than just a job for you?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

That's uh there are so many aspects uh to that bottle of wine. It really is amazing. For me, I was fortunate enough to actually go to school in Bordeaux during my university days. So I was exposed to wine back when I was about 20 years old.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

That's a mild flex right there. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

I consider looking back on it now, it started my entire career path, but I didn't go there with that intention. I was a political science major. And my dorm room in Bordeaux happened to be next to the vineyard of Chateau Aubrien. And I got to know the winemaker there, and we became friendly, and I spoke fluent French even then. So we communicated well, and he toured me around the winery. I got to taste wine out of the barrel, which mortals don't get to do today at first growth uh Bordeaux chateaus. So when I came back to the U.S., I was in the restaurant business. Uh I was working for a restaurant group in Houston, Texas. And I went out to dinner one night at one of the top restaurants in Houston, and a guy who was introduced as their wine steward came on over to discuss the wine list with me. And I ordered a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pop. And he brought me a bottle of Beaujolais. And I had almost an argument trying to explain to him the difference between Châteauneuf du Pop and Beaujolais. And when I finally got what I had ordered, I thought to myself, wait a minute, this guy is the wine steward, and I know more about this than he does. I can do this. And that was before the word sommelier was even in use in the United States. So I was probably one of the first. So I went back to the restaurant group and told them about what I had done and my history in Bordeaux, and they put me in charge of their corporate wine buying, which I did for five years, then moved on to Hilton Hotels as director of catering, and then went into the wine distribution business full-time. Ten years in Colorado. And then uh here in California, I ran Stone Creek Wines for eight years, uh, and then I worked for a small Napa Valley family winery. And then for a large, I was headhunted to TetraPack, a large packaging company that does the box wines.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Then went into consulting for for them and several other people.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

So it's a long history. That's a lot. That's an awesome history. I mean, like yeah, that was awesome. You know, and it it seems to be that there was this this thread that kind of wove through your life and it all centered around wine. But I want to ask you this because there is this thread, and you've worked uh when I looked up your bio, you worked as a smallier, a judge, a winery GM, a consultant, and you've even been on TV, which is always fun. Which role taught you the most about wine and the wine world?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Uh I learned from every different role that I've had. And I've been fortunate enough to visit almost every major wine-growing region in the world through my work with TetraPak and my consulting. But as far as learning the most, I think it was preparing for the two television series that I did. One was for PBS called The Winemakers, and the other was a series called Best Bottle. One was a competition show, like Top Chef, but about winemakers. And so I had I had to learn a lot for that. And in the other series, I was one of the judges. So I eliminated the people. So when the questions were asked, I had to know the answers to virtually any question about wine. And of course, nobody can ever know everything there is to know. But I did a ton of research for the TV shows. That was kind of forced research uh that that I knew. We we filmed 10 episodes in France in the Rome. So I had to do intensive research into that area. Everything from grape varieties to the different soils to the different regions and specific winemakers. It was it for me, it was it's fascinating. But I learn, I learn every day as I'm as I'm in this. That's the great thing. You can never know everything there is to know about wine.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

I I love that you learn every day. Um if you are for reminding yourself in any career, any space, any place that you are forever a student, and to have that mindset and to have the ability to step back and say, I know much, but I know nothing. You know, it's always a great mindset to have because you come into things with that experience of freshness. I studied martial arts. I've studied martial arts a long time. Uh, I did Japanese-style jujitsu. Um, I am a black belt in that. Then I studied Taekwondo. I studied Muay Thai. I studied Capueta. And I've been Muay Thai is the thing that I've done the longest time. But whenever I would go to a new style, a new gym, uh, I would walk in, and my daughter was like, Well, should you go in wearing your black belt? And I was like, But I'm not a black belt of this thing. I'm entering this room completely, you know, open-minded. And I love that when I travel, when I taste a new bottle of wine, when I go to a new winery, I love to walk in there and go, teach me. Let me help me learn, you know, because there's so much to know. And I am not a Somalier and I am an expert in no way, shape, or form of wine. But, you know, I do have this question because I always want to learn and to refine my ability to be better with wine. And you've tasted and judged wines all over the world, you know. You've had some, I'm sure, amazing wine, some even more amazing wine, and some wines that just didn't hit. I'm not gonna say bad, but this weren't there. What separates, though, a truly great wine from just one that's a technically correct, okay, but not not doesn't have that that thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah, great question. Well, wine appreciation is different for everybody. I may find one wine really great and you may not you may not like it, and that's fine. That's the fun thing about wine is there's no one size fits all. Wine is kind of in addition, wine is kind of an emotional beverage. Not a little bit of segue here, but Coca-Cola tastes like Coca-Cola all the time, no matter what your mood is. A bottle of wine can taste different depending on the company you're with, the day of the week, how tired you may be, it's an emotional beverage, which and there's no other beverage like that. But you can you can usually taste the difference between a just an okay wine and a great wine. But one of the things I mean, a great wine has to be pretty much technically correct. If there's any outstanding flaw, you'll pick it up. But if it's somewhat bitter, it may not be ready to drink yet. The way we were we learned to judge wine actually in in class, we would time the finish of the wine, the length of time that the flavor of the wine stays in your mouth. We would actually time it with a stopwatch. And technically, the wine that had the longest lasting flavor was judged the best wine. Now, that had to be that it didn't have any, you know, off flavors or too much acidity or something like that. It had to be balanced. But that's technically how we do it. But um, like I say, it's it's different for everybody else. And I think the more a person tastes wine, the more they're going to learn to appreciate the difference. But a really great wine for me has to be very complex. It can't just be one-dimensional. Some wines you only taste oak, or you only taste a type of fruit, like black cherry or something, and it's overwhelming. Those are not great wines. Great wines have balance, they kind of glide on your tongue almost like velvet, and the flavor remains and it kind of makes you smile and go, oh yeah, that's that's that's a great wine to me.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

I love that. You know, I and also for me, like one of the things that I find is like what you said there, and I love and I love what you said right there, because wine is so personal. Wine is so um wine is so unique to each person because it's like I might have a glass of wine and it immediately takes me back to one of the happiest memories memories of my life, you know, the or another might be a wine that feels like a warm hug, you know, because there was a uh a shared experience with someone uh that was challenging, and then we became together and that hug was the memory. But you know, it's always, you know, I Coca-Cola, you don't I I don't always have those uh those moments where I'm just like, you know, yay, I am gonna remember something happy. Maybe you have a memory with it, but like wine is shared, it's not a singular experience, you know, generally not. And that's one of the beautiful things for me about it, and how uh I love that when guests come on and talk about that because you know, it is in one of my guests said that the wine is is in effect a social lubricant. We sit there and we connect and it allows us to share, have a great shared experience. You know, food can do that as well, but it's not always the same way as wine.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, I think wine tastes better with a group of uh friends, uh of people that you're with. Yeah, the shared experience about wine. I mean, wine's primary duty is to make people happy. So when you when you look at it like that, it's it's a life in and richer, if you will. Uh and that only gets multiplied when you're when you're sharing it with people.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

I love that. Um let me ask you another question. I I I was thinking about this, you know, because one of the one of the the beacons uh uh of light in the wine industry is UC Davis. They do such cool things, and the science is amazing. And you studied winemaking both at UC Davis and the CIA. Uh how do understanding production, and I'm gonna just for people who are not wine people, that would be the Culinary Institute of America, not the CIA, right? But uh not that CIA, the other CIA, which is such a funny name because I remember when I moved to the Napa Valley and everyone's like, oh, the CIA is over there. And it's like wow, pretty awesome. How did understanding production change the way you taste and talk about wine?

SPEAKER_01 13:48

I think that um it it did a couple of things for me. Understanding production helped me differentiate between the flavor of wine that comes from the process of fermentation versus the flavor profile of the wine that actually comes from the grape itself. And it might be a little esoteric, but there's a difference there. And it also enabled me to learn more terms so that I can simplify the understanding for the people that I work with when I do wine tastings with consumers. And I think that's really important because I I've seen too many wine people get too technical when they're doing a wine tasting. And people blank out when that happens. I think we need to find ways that are consumer-friendly to explain what's going on in the glass and what's going on in the bottle, and how how the grape becomes wine and all that without getting too technical. And to do that better, uh um understanding and some education is really necessary.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

I 100% agree because one of the things that I find with the wine industry, and it's just I think the nature of what's going on and the traditions, but it gets very, I'm trying to find the nice way to say this, stuffy. And for when we're trying to get new people in the door, I think you have to drop some of that and meet them where they're at. I I study at One Way Thai Gym and I love it. Really great gym. Uh, but the reality is that it is um catered more toward like all the guys that train there are prof or teach they're all professional fighters, and they they go hard. And like, so a guy that's like me, that's in his late 40s, and some of the other guys like me, and we're going to these guys, and they're out to like hurt people and win. And we're just like, dude, that's not my motivation. I am here to get in shape, I am here to stay fit. And you know, getting a fractured shin bone is not what I need right now. Right. Why I'm right? It's not, but why I'm bringing that up is that certainly you have to change your language, you have to change the the level of engagement that you have for different people. Uh, you know, maybe Joe from you know Iowa wants to come to a Napa winery and try some amazing wine. And he does not know about all of the fun terms. He does not know about tannins, he does not know about dry versus sweet. He doesn't know any of these things. And you might just go, Joe, this is how you can appreciate this wine. And and it kind of like tailoring the experience to people is something that I think is so important.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Absolutely, very important. You have to meet the people where they are. Here in California, people in the wine business, I think, tend to lose sight of the fact that not everybody is as into wine as some of us are. Because once you head east of California, the primary beverage consumption centers around Coca-Cola, milk, and iced tea. So it's not as wine focused as we are out here. California produces like what, 80% of all the wine that's produced in the entire country, anyway. So so yeah, there's a major focus on it here, but not necessarily that uh for others. So we definitely want to make it more understandable. And I'm not saying dumb it down, not that, not that. Uh, but f finding ways to uh transfer the knowledge and share the experience in a way that other people can uh can find friendly and uh and are find non-threatening. I think that's I love that.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah, yeah, non-threatening is a great way to say it. Like it's something that people can come to, enjoy, and go, wow, this is fun. And I like it. I want to learn more about it. But like this leads to my next question. You've you've seen wine from the restaurant floor to bulk production to private labels. Like, what do most wine drinkers misunderstand about how the industry actually works? Is there's a lot more to it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 18:17

That's that's a great question. I think one of the things that fools people is they think it's a grand lifestyle. And when you really look at what it costs to start a wine, a winery, you'll find out that it's basically farming. I mean, unless you're a tech mogul who sold your company for$50 million. But if you're starting from scratch, it's it's dirt farming, and it's four to five years before you see any payback. So it's not a good cash flow business from that standpoint. But people tend to look at the the sniffing and swirling and the you know the the uh royalty of the wine business and think that's what it's all about. And that's maybe five percent of the reality of the wine, of the wine business. Most of it's really hard work, whether you come up through actual winemaking and production where you where you literally start with bare soil and plant grapes. People, if you haven't looked into it, can't imagine the expense that it takes just to get started with a winery. Even before you build the building. The cost of just clearing the land and planting a vineyard that you can't even use for four years. I mean, you you you're already in debt, no matter what no matter where you go. Um, it's it's hard work. I think that's that's one of the the big things. Um and but like anything else, if you want to be an expert, it takes a lot of study. And it's not just fun drinking, it's getting very specific because there's so much to learn. There's probably somewhere around 1,400 different grape varieties that are used for wine production worldwide. I've maybe tasted a couple of hundred in my entire career. Um, but I mean it it's just people just don't realize how much how much there is to learn, I think.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

I um wine is is interesting to me. I I I was flying uh from I I I'm based out of Southeast Asia, but I split much of my time between here and home, which is California. It's Napa Valley, grew up much of my life in St. Helena. And um when I was flying home with my wife, but actually we were flying to Atlanta for uh a business trip, and then we were gonna head back out to California. But when we were flying across um Asia and we were flying over the Middle East, we had landed at Qatar. Um, but before we got to Qatar, we were flying over parts of the Middle East, and I looked down and I saw uh a city called Muscat. And I was just like, hang on, that that's where that varietal's from, you know? And it's just like, and then we flew over other regions and we flew up over Europe and we were flying over France, and we were flying over these regions that had names that were varietals, and it just popped to me like these are places, these are stories. All of these varietals come from a region and a place that was special like that. And you know, and it's the the history to it for me is is amazing because you know, we go back, it's going back really far, thousands of years. And yet it's still what else, what else can you step into right now and get something and go, hey, this has a like several thousand year tradition, you know, maybe some foods, but even still, foods change, maybe types of. Cheese? But really, wine is something that is just it goes way back. And you know, that's the power of it to me.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Yeah, wine and olives. Those are about the only two things I could think of that, yeah, maybe cheese. But yeah, wine for sure. I mean, and probably originated somewhere in the Middle East, uh 5,000 some odd years ago. Um uh when it was really when people actually did it with with purpose, probably thousands of years before that, somebody stepped on a bunch of grapes and came back a few days later and and ate them and got a little bit tipsy and thought, oh, I wonder why that happened.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Yeah. But right? And then they said, I like that. Well, let's see if we can do it again. Old grapes on the ground, let's stomp on them and see if it works again. I I want to ask you uh about something else because you're known for for a little bit of performance with the things, and you know, especially the way you interact with champagne. You know, for me, I I was a teacher for many years, and I had a boss who pulled me aside and she said, Sean, uh, what is you what are you doing here at this school? Because it was uh it was not like a kid's school, it was like a an adult type of a thing. And um I was like, Well, I'm teaching people, they're here for an education. And she said, No. I was like, What do you mean? She's like, they're here to be entertained. You entertain them, and then the education is a wonderful byproduct. But if you're not entertaining them, they're adults, they're not going to show up after a couple classes, they leave. And, you know, and I want to ask that for you. How important is entertainment in helping people fall in love with wine?

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Great question. That's exactly the premise that I use doing every wine tasting that I do. It's all about entertainment. The educational, what they learn, is a nice byproduct, but it's about entertainment. It's with my background and my get up, and yeah, I will saber a champagne bottle from time to time. I have been known to do that. But it's about an entertaining presentation. We we really learned that during COVID. One of the companies that I do wine tasting for, the Sommelier Company, was the first company to actually do a virtual wine tasting. The day the lockdown from COVID hit, they created the virtual wine tasting. And I probably did three or four hundred of those during the COVID time. At times I was doing three a day, one after the other, back to back. Uh, we were booked. We were booked at solid. So we had to figure out how to make it entertaining. And so that's my that's my real focus is uh the energy the entertainment factor. And I go through certain procedures about little anecdotes. People would rather hear fun stories that they can repeat to their friends and maybe impress their friends. I mean, that's the best part about learning about wine, is being able to impress your friends, right? So giving them anecdotes, showing them things like how to properly swirl the wine in the glass or how to actually taste like we taste when we judge wine. We don't just take a slug and swallow it. There's actually things to think about there. You see, when you see the light bulb in their eyes after they take that second swallow and do what I suggest they do in the way of experiencing the wine, they they go, oh wow, I've never tasted wine like that before. That's that's when it really works. But it's really about entertainment. That's what people want to do.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

They do. They want it. You know, that's why I I was talking to someone recently. I I have a media content company, and someone was talking to me about um TikTok and different types of media, and we were talking about TikTok shop. And one of the things that's interesting to me, especially here in Asia, they have like weaponized the the entertainment factor to sell things, and it is it is insane levels of of entertainment, and they're just like this is, and they're like, they'll have these crazy shows, and they'll be like having this comedy show, and then they'll pop out, and this is a product we're talking about now. And people are like, I am laughing my butt off, and I'm gonna buy that because I have now connected that entertainment with this product, and you know, it it just shows to me that we are entering into a world that is changing quickly. Tomorrow, I'm gonna have a fun episode that, or no, Saturday, that I'm doing with two really lovely guests, and we are gonna go through, and I have a list of about 30 celebrities, and these people have to pair okay, if I this celebrity was a wine, what wine would they be? And they're gonna have to sit there and try to think about the personal characteristics of that. And why? Why am I doing that? Because media and the wine industry is changing fast right now, and if it doesn't evolve, you know, certainly the traditions are beautiful traditions, and we bring people to that, but we have to evolve how we're meeting people, how we are finding them and connecting with them. But from your perspective, what needs to evolve for wine to stay relevant and what needs to stay the same?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

That's that's a really tough question. And I think practically everyone in the wine business today is is dealing with that in one form or another. The wine industry itself is not that quick to change. The wine industry is caught because the market is changing around it, the consumer base is changing, but wine has a lot of tradition to it, and it's not that agile. It's not able to change, but what it is is is also a lot of the wine makers, winery owners themselves, they can't just overnight repackage their product. Um it depends a lot on the price point, on the size of the winery. There's a lot of variables that go into this. Because if you've got a vineyard that's producing so many tons of grapes, and it's a certain type of wine, whether it's Cabernet Sauvignon or Zinfandel or Pinot Noir, you can't change to Chardonnay tomorrow just because Chardonnay might be more popular than Pinot Noir. But what you can do is look at trends like packaging, because the consumer base today, what we're finding, my generation, our generation, the baby boomers, I guess I'm a generation ahead of you, um, they're they're fading out. They're not the base anymore for the wine industry. It's the millennials, the Gen X, Gen Z, and their makeup is different. They don't want to spend$40 or$50 on something they haven't tried, and they may not want to invest in a heavy glass bottle that they can't take on the sailboat, or they can't take to the beach, or they can't take to the park. So alternative packaging, as we call it, is becoming the rage. You have wine in cans now, you have wine in Tetra Pack, you have wine in plastic bottles, even that these things didn't exist 15, 20 years ago. You couldn't sell a wine in a can to save your life. Now you can't buy cans fast enough. There's like a six-month wait to get cans to put wine in. But I'm not saying that every winery should change and put their wine in a can. It it depends on, like I say, a lot of things where your price point is. But the main thing the wineries can do is figure out ways to connect with their consumers. Be socially social media active. And that's one thing that the wine industry as a whole has really resisted. Um they have fought social media harder than just about anything else that I've seen. Uh, partly because at first they didn't understand it. Um, and also because it costs it. If you're going to do it right, you have to have somebody doing it.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

A winery owner or a winemaker or a general manager or a director of sales, I don't care what your your title is, you don't have time to effectively run a social media campaign for a winery that makes more than two or three thousand cases a year. If you're over that, you need a social media channel and you need either an agency or someone to do that. And that's that's been a resistance, uh, I think, and something that they're slowly coming around to.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

I agree. I that's that's where I make my business. My business is is is I actually have a media company that helps people um create social media. I'm gonna say my name because I love it. My company's name is Full Battery Media because of the idea that like you don't have enough energy in your battery to do all that, you know. Like for professionals, like if you're a CEO and you think that you I don't post my own content. I have a social media manager that posts things for me, specifically because it's exhausting. 40 30 minutes to get post scheduled and set on all platforms, making sure that it's set, making sure that everything's right, checking to see that the framing's correct, the first 30 minutes. If you're CEO, what else could you be doing with those 30 minutes? You know, and I think that like, I think that the but yet if you're not on social media, you're missing a huge segment of the population. So, you know, it's interesting like that. And I think that it's definitely something I see some wineries really stepping into, and I'm like, bravo, you guys are doing the right thing. But you know, I think that people have to, you know, goodness gracious knows that I wish that we could go back and shoot everything on film. Like, I love film photography, but look at this medium here. Like, we are on opposite sides of the world. I'm using digital technology to have an interview with someone. If you're not embracing the tools you have, you're not gonna keep up, you're gonna be falling behind. And I think one of the other things too is like people have to understand, like, I love that you are talking about farmers. One of the things that I think is something that went the winery went astray with, it was such groomed, everything was so groomed. And I've been seeing people using groomed AI images and such. Like, go back and recognize that what made the Napa Valley special in the origin, like, you know, those moments before before a couple families went to France and showed off. It was organic, it was real, it was raw. And I think that people think we need to realize too, we've gone so groomed that we need to get back to a little bit of that that reality, that authenticity. Because that to me is what growing up in in St. Helena, I got to meet all of these people that were like, I was like, hey, your name is the same as that that winery over there. And they're like, Yeah, that's that's my family. And they were cool people, they were awesome, genuine, wonderful people, and they were farmers who made this with their hands. They were salt of the earth people. And I think if you can show those stories more, you know, it's gonna help people because Gen Z does not like um everything being over-groomed, overmanicured. They are very all about authenticity. And I think that the wineries, and I mean millennials the same. They want to see something real, you know?

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Yeah, you're you're I think you're absolutely right, Sean. Uh, it's that connection that's that's really important. And uh yeah, they don't want to see slick billboard ads, they want to know that there's something real uh that's contributing to that, to that experience that they're gonna have that's gonna motivate them. And it's not so much about, I think some of the part of the reason that wineries shied away from social media so much is because the influencers, quote unquote, became so big. And the wineries certainly didn't understand that part of it because they can't, they can't show a return on investment directly for that. If you're a winery owner, one of the questions that's always in your mind is how am I gonna get a return on that? I've got when I buy a crusher, I know what that's gonna do for me. When I buy a bottling line, I know what that's gonna do for me. But if I'm gonna pay an influencer, how am I gonna see that as a return? You you there's no way to segregate how much business social media actually brings you. The only thing you'll be able to see is whether or not you stay in business over the long run if you don't participate. That's what's gonna make a difference, I think.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

I love that. Now, you know, you travel every year to taste new vintages in Italy and France. What keeps pulling you back to those regions specifically?

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Um I love the food. And I love and I love the diversity of the wines. Um, I I work with a large winery in Italy that's based in Emilia Romagna, near near the town of Bologna. And um they grow several different varieties there. Uh they're just south of Tuscany. So uh I get to taste lots of different wines. That's what the fascinating part is. And then when I'm in France, I'm usually staying in Marseille. So that's the Cote de Rhone area, and there's so many small regions around there that work with there's like 20 different grape varieties that grow in that region. And each area specializes in either Syrah or Grenache or Morvette or uh Sainsault or Roussan or Marsan. And um and I just want to visit as many of these places as I can. Uh, I was fortunate enough. Um, my last trip uh was just this past November, and I went to a winery in the little region of Bandol, B-A-N-D-O-L, which is about an hour from Marseille. So it's in southeast, southeastern France. Uh and whereas most of the contiguous regions grow a lot of Grenache and Syrah for their reds, these uh vineyards around Bandol use primarily um um uh a grape called Mourved, uh, which is one of the grape varieties in Chateauneuf-du-Pap, but they also grow a lot of another grape called Saint Sao. So their reds are not the Syrah-Grenache blends that we get in uh the Côte de Provence and those other areas. It's a different uh style of wine that's a lot heavier in character and has a spiciness to it. So that's just a different discovery. So I'm I'm always up to discover these other uh these other regions. And and the the fact I the reason I go back to the Italian area is because that's where my client is based. But if if it wasn't for that, I would be going to a lot of other other regions as well. Um for I was fortunate enough when I worked for TetraPak, they the division I worked for was based in France. So every six to eight weeks I was going to Lyon, which is where their headquarters were. And every trip I went to a different, I took an extra three or four days and went to a different wine region of France. I went to Champagne, I went to Loire, I knew Bordeaux, I went to Burgundy several times. So I really did a deep dive into each of those areas. And it's an experience that you just don't have unless you actually go to those regions. You can study these things. You can take a WSET course and you can read, there's lots of great wine books out there, and I advocate those. It's a great way to learn. But going to these regions and walking through that dirt and meeting some of those winemakers, there's no substitute for that experience.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

I love that. Yeah, I 100% agree. If you I studied um I studied jujitsu, and I'm going to go back to my point of reference because I'm a martial artist, I studied Japanese-style jujitsu, and I loved it. I love my experience. But the day that I showed up to a dojo in Japan, it hit different. The day that I went and I went to a Muay Thai gym in Thailand and saw all the professional fighters and felt the vibe and worked out in that in that Thai heat and felt the what it felt like there, it was a different experience. And if you can experience something, you know, this is the thing. Like, this is why I'm not gonna hate on AI. I'm not gonna hate on AI generated images, but what I will say is that if you can go to a place, immerse yourself in that, like I don't want to see groomed images, I want to go somewhere, and I want to taste the the imperfections. You know, there's there's a place down the alley behind my house that is what they sell something called Boonvet. And Boonvet is a type of of um, what would it? It's a vermicelli noodle with duck, um with a with duck in there, and it's just ridiculous. And I guarantee you, if more people knew about that uh restaurant, it would be a Michelin star restaurant, but it's not, it's a tiny little hole in the wall. Um and it is amazing for that because it's just great, but it's down an alleyway that is not the cleanest, that is that's it's gritty, you got motorcycles going past. But I wouldn't eat that food anywhere else because that is part of the experience, it's part of the authenticity, you know. And I think that going to those regions has such a magic uh uh in it that you know you have to have.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

It's definitely an experience. And the thing about it too is the wines if you pull the wine out of that region and ship it clear across an ocean and taste it a year later, it's different. The wine tasted in the country, on the property, tastes different. Even if you take the bottle home in your suitcase, which I do, um and open it a few weeks later, it's still gonna taste different than it did when you tasted it in the cellar with the winemaker on on that day. And that's that's partly because of the experience and partly because wine changes. It changes day to day. You never know one day to the next how that bottle is going to evolve.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

And that's part of the fun of it. I love that. Let me ask you this one last, uh a couple last questions. For someone who wants to understand wine better but feels intimidated, where should they start?

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Well, they there are courses that you can take there, and most in most states, there's someone or some institution that teaches a course. The Wine and Spirits Education Trust, W S E T, is one of the best sources of that. They have four levels of study. The courses that I pursued were the Court of Master Samoliers, and that is more restaurant industry oriented. You actually have to work in restaurants to follow, to follow the steps of that course. But as far as self-teaching is concerned, get yourself some good wine books. Um, start with fiction. I uh Kermit Lynch, who's a wine importer here in Berkeley area, he just published this at Poupon's Table. This is a great book about a French winemaker. Actually, the winery that I went to in Bandal uh just last November is the main character of this book. But there's books about the Champagne Vauve-Cliquot, the Widow Cliquot. These are narratives, these are uh in some cases fiction, but they're not just cut-and-dry teaching material. Because it's really hard to sit down and study a book. There are great, and there are great books out there, like The Wine Bible from Karen McNeil, uh, which as you can see is kind of my reference guide. But you're not going to sit down and read that cover to cover. This was a go-to one that I started with, Kevin Zraeli's Windows on the World Wine Course. This is this is one of the best ones, I think, to start with. Even though some of the information may be kind of dated in there now, it's still a good basic one. But really, self-teaching is where you is where you start. And the other thing is to just try as many different wines as you can. Because the only way you're really going to learn about wine is to taste. Because it's kind of a good news, bad news thing I tell people at my tastings. The bad news is there's so many different wines out there that the only way you're going to figure out which wines you really like is to keep tasting different wines. But the good news is there's so many different wines out there that the only way you're going to figure out which wines you like is to keep tasting different wines. So the bottom line is. You'll learn more as you taste.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

I love that. Where can people find more information about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Um uh you can go to uh sommeliercompany.com, uh, which uh is one of the groups I work with. There's another group called Somsation. Somsation.com. Uh I do wine tastings for both of those. I'm on LinkedIn also under my name, Mark R. Kaufman. Um, so any of those, any of those ways, um people people can find out about me, and I'm always glad to talk about wine and and see what we can do. I do appear frequently at I get booked for conventions and things. Um I'm gonna be doing one in Tampa in March, and I go to the big wine trade shows. We have one coming up next week in Sacramento, the Unified Symposium. It's the largest winery supply trade show in the US every uh every January.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Um that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

So yeah, I I get around a little bit, but always fun.