Wine With Friends

Episode 7 - Anthony Guerra (Part 1)

• Marcus Ginyard and Pablo Vega • Season 1 • Episode 7

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0:00 | 40:00

In Episode 7 of Wine With Friends, host Marcus Ginyard welcomes restaurateur and wine expert Anthony Guerra for the first installment of a special two-part series.

Anthony is the owner of Tutti Pizza, Oakwood Pizza Box, Capital Pizza Box, and Saint Pierre Wine Shop, and has built a reputation for creating spaces where great food, great wine, and community come together.

In Part 1, Anthony sits down with Marcus to talk about how he first found his way into the restaurant and wine world, the mentors and experiences that shaped his career, and the philosophy that guides his work today. He also shares what the role of a sommelier truly means to him — not just selecting wine, but serving as a guide who helps guests discover and enjoy the experience that best fits their table.

This episode is all about passion, hospitality, and the craft of creating unforgettable moments through food and wine.

Pour a glass and join the conversation. 🍷

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Wine with Friends, where meaningful connection and thoughtful conversation are always present when we share wine intentionally. This evening I have a special guest, uh Serial Restauranteur, owner of Oakwood Pizza Box, owner of Capital Pizza Box, St. Pierre Wine Bar, 2D Pizza in Charleston. I mean, this guy's all over the place. Anthony Guerra, thank you so much for being here tonight.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for having me. This is awesome to be here. I actually forgot about some of the things that we've so I'm glad you walked through that. You gotta coincidence to that. You know what mom, she may not be thrilled with everything I've done, but I feel like it's like mom, I'm okay. So did I get everything? I think that's everything.

SPEAKER_00

All right, so we got three pizza shops.

SPEAKER_01

Three pizza shops.

SPEAKER_00

Wine bar. Wine bar. What else is coming?

SPEAKER_01

Oh god. Oh no, I don't know. I I what what else is coming? My daughters cornered me this summer. We should back up a little bit. This year we opened up three of them. Wow. We did three places in a six-month run, although they took years to actually get away.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so they've been in the works.

SPEAKER_01

It's been in the work for a long time.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And it really overtook the summer. The girls cornered me, sat me down, and they're like, we need to talk. All right. How many girls you got? I have two girls. Two girls. Two girls, one boy. He just does whatever they tell him to. He's toast. He's the little guy. They said, Dad, you can do anything you want, but we're not doing any more restaurants during the summer. Okay. We need to have a real summer. So my goal is to build a real summer for the girls. That's my number one next goal.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. I love that. Well, my next goal is going to be open this bottle of champagne. Um, Oakwood Pizza Box, if you don't know, you gotta know. You want to give everybody just a quick rundown of Oakwood and how that started. Yeah. The way that I think about Oakwood Pizza Box is phenomenal pizza, incredible wine list, and amazing champagne. And so to hear that someone was doing something so special in Raleigh with pizza, but also champagne, um, which is why I thought it'd be fitting for us to start with a bottle champagne, um, which we'll get into a little bit later, but to tell us a little bit about Oakwood and how that got started.

SPEAKER_01

Oakwood is really my life, right? So uh the decor is those pizza shops that I remembered in the early 90s. Okay. Um we my wife and I were expecting, yeah, we always knew I was always in restaurants back up, always in restaurants, always knew we'd be in restaurants, love restaurants. I thought it'd be a matre D when I growed up. Like I thought it was like my whole life's mission. If I could graduate with a degree so my mom is happy, I'm gonna go be a Matre D in a big city and just dominate a room. Love it. Um, but for me, uh half of my career is pizza, half of my career was uh front of house. Um so Oakwood is sort of the both together. I'd spent my front of house time as a Sommelier and my back house is a pizza guy. So naturally, we would put the two together. Let's make a neighborhood spot. Um so wine is always a big part of what we love and what we do. Champagne is a natural pizza pairing, which I don't know that everybody tell us more.

SPEAKER_00

Tell us some more. Say it louder for the people in the back. Champagne is a perfect pizza pairing.

SPEAKER_01

Champagne, first of all, there's a range in champagne, right? You have your oyster, high minerality, high acid, bright Chardonnay, you have your full Pinot, you have your fruity mounier, you have everything in between. I think people need to drink more champagne in general. Cheers of that. And eating with champagne is truly, truly one of my favorite things. We use a lot of hard cheeses at Oakwood, so we use a grata panana that's age for 24 months. Wow. So that's the finish. So you have the cheesy goodness, you know, you you bite into a pizza, you get it. Um the finish on grata is what makes it snap with champagne. That's the key. All right.

SPEAKER_00

100% uh Pinot Mounier. This one right here. This is only the second champagne that I've ever had that's 100% Mounier. But first of all, you were talking a little bit earlier before we started, as I was opening the champagne, this would normally be foil, be foil, but this was paper.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And you know a little story about this producer and why why he's thinking about doing that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, Cedric Mousse is a wild man. If you meet Cedric, he is obsessed. So I had time with him in New York, and I actually traveled the next week, and we were in Houston together. So naturally in Houston, he's like, I don't know who the hell are you? Where are you? How do you show up everywhere? You're not from either place, why are you here? So, whatever, we get into it. So he's really big on sustainability. The paper here, obviously, you'll just go back to the earth and it'll disappear. It's not gonna stay around for a long time. His bottles are lighter. Uh, obviously, the natural practices are in the vineyard. Um, he's biodynamic, very, very concerned about the health of the earth. But he's one of the only producers, one of the first producers to be so obsessed that he makes his own sulfur. Interesting. So he has a sulfuring machine at the winery that he makes his own pure sulfur. So I only poked this gentleman with that. Yeah. And then he took a chart, a piece of paper, pen, started writing all of the chemistry formulas to create sulfur, which I did not do well in chemistry. Uh I'm sure no one in the in the Chapel Hill uh chemistry department remembers me. I barely passed. I skated through, I got my prerequisite.

SPEAKER_00

What were you taking chemistry for?

SPEAKER_01

Oh God, it was a mistake. It was a mistake. It was, I got, I got I got led astray. Uh I should not have been in that room. Uh, but he's that obsessed. And so the purity of the sulfur is what he actually would think is the problem with sulfur in wines in general. Okay. It's not just quantity of sulfur, but how the sulfur is derived.

SPEAKER_00

So why do we have sulfur in wine?

SPEAKER_01

Uh sulfur generally, in the United States, what's critical for us when we look at French wine is transport.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

If you and I were there, maybe we can do things a little bit differently, but stabilization in shipping is really in preservation. So that's not like that. If you could catch the fret, the fresh fruit of a mounier, it jumps out. Sulfur is gonna protect that. If you over-sulfur a wine, if you overdo anything, it'll ruin it. Right. But if you under it, this wine might be volatile, oxidative, just not delicious. The quality is critical. It is killer. This is killer. I love his wines.

SPEAKER_00

So I'd never heard of this producer. Talked to our good buddy Femi earlier today, and he helped me select this wine. Shout out Um Femi and Graft, wine shop down in Charleston. Um, we're coming for you soon, I hope. Um easily one of the most brilliant human beings I've ever been around.

SPEAKER_01

I totally agree. Off the charts. I off the charts, Smart. Like he makes me A, eager to learn more, and B, I immediately go, wow, I know nothing. Like I I wow.

SPEAKER_00

But that's one of the beautiful things about wine. Yes. But I love that there's so much to learn. It's funny you mention Femi and how knowledgeable he is. I would argue I feel very similar about you and your knowledge of wine. I was very surprised, don't take this the wrong way. You got this guy who owns a restaurant. Yep. I was very lucky to spend some time with you in your home. I appreciate you being so hospitable, drinking wine with Femi. And to hear you talk about wine, I was like, man, I thought this was just like a like a pizza guy. I mean, I saw the wine list at the shop, but like, I mean, you obviously really know your wines as well. And so what it does for me is like, man, there's so much to learn here. There's so much to dive into, and this is like a whole world of exploration here. Uh, is that something that you also kind of experience in one?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, a thousand percent. But you could learn about, you could learn about the past, the present, the future. You could learn about the evolution of of regions just by opening bottles of wine. Uh I'll naturally, I'm a curious mind no matter what. So, whatever, and I'm obsessive. So I think I think, you know, as soon as I grab something, I'm into this. Like I have a couple new obsessions, which probably not great obsessions, but they're obsessions now. But for me, uh, wine is no matter what, you can follow, you can learn so much. Like you could look at champagne and go back a hundred years plus, and you could talk about what changed, what's going on. I mean, we could talk about how what I find interesting is this is 100% mounier. Our parents, even if they were curious drinkers and really looking and searching, they would not have had the opportunity to drink a 100% mounier. That has a lot to do with modern farming practices in Champagne. Um climate change, no matter where anyone feels on this, yeah, it doesn't matter. It is warmer in Champagne, it is getting slightly warmer, and what's happening is that these varietals are ripening at a different pace. And there is a greater care to this grape. This was always sort of the forgotten third child to Chardonnay and Pinot. Those were always the star kids, and now it's Mounier's turn. And I think Mounier is the most compelling to me of the three. Interesting. Chardonnay is delicious, it has time and place. Pinot can be done incorrectly, it can be done beautifully, although it's dangerous. Mounier can be the most compelling or most exciting.

SPEAKER_00

And why is that? What what is what is it about Mounier that you think is?

unknown

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Is it just a new thing for me? Is it just a new thing? And it's an exotic thing, it's a fun thing. Uh producers are making it in different styles. Uh, some uh well I just drank a bottle uh from Jerome De Hoore. Uh Jerome was in town, actually, which is super cool. He's actually around the corner from Cedric Mousset. He lives essentially in the same region. They're doing 100% Mounier. He does it out of a Solero or at a large foudre. Uh it'll date back 20 years on his. Uh, the wines are incredible. Like you they're sit outside, have a cigar, sip this thing, like like wait, hang out with it for a really long time, which I I it they're super interesting.

SPEAKER_00

So you mentioned champagne being a great pairing, the perfect pairing for pizza. I like that. Perfect pairing for pizza. But you just mentioned cigars, champagne and cigars.

SPEAKER_01

Take time. Like if you sit and take time, I think there's some things that make you stop. My life is so stressful. If uh going and doing things and running the next thing at my phone, and what am I missing? Stopping, I think, is the key. And when you catch a great bottle of champagne, it'll make you do that. Cigars do the same thing. You're not really like, let me go, I'm on the run. Right. You know, Tony Soprano did it in the suburban, he's just like cruising. Uh, but most people just sit and you're sitting down and you're enjoying it and you're spending time with it. Uh, Jerome actually brought up the pairing. He was talking about, oh, but I I smoke cigars with this wine. I was like, really? I don't know, but this is a great, that sounds like a great idea. I love cigars and champagne. Dude, it's a I I looked at it and I was like, yeah. We did talk about it off camera. I was like, yeah, you know what?

unknown

Uh maybe.

SPEAKER_01

Why not? This might be an afternoon, an evening here. I hear you.

SPEAKER_00

All right, so when did you yes, please? Thank you. Thank you. When did you know that you were into wine? Do you remember the moment? Do you remember what you were drinking? Do you remember who you were with? Like, when did it click for you that, like, oh man, um I want to explore this? Okay, it's two part. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Two part. So a story that I've only told my dad recently. Okay, love that. Exclusive. Exclusive. This is an exclusive. I only told him recently. So my uncle was always into wine. He always had wine. He had uh, you know, we must have been we're talking early 2000s, late 90s. This is the Robert Parker era, this is California, this is here's big wine. He was a wine collector, he was going through um for some reason. We were holding his wine in our house. We had a basement. My dad's not a drinker, my mom's not a drinker. Like, they don't maybe there was a bottle of Don Perignon like once or twice. Like, I, you know, I go like, but not like we didn't drink, the wine wasn't on the table. Alcohol, we you know, maybe there's a beer with spicy chicken wings or Chinese food. But like, yeah, there's no beverage pairing of it. And this is in Long Island. Long Island. Got it. Um but the in the basement, I started seeing labels that were really interesting. And if anyone's ever seen a Turley bottle, like those Turly, you know, sort of like the Hershey Kish shape, big wide bottle, like it's so distinct. So I remember seeing them, and I had a uh I was dating someone at the time, and I was like, you know what we should do? Like, ah, this is really great. I'm gonna take one of these bottles, no one will ever know. We'll drink this. No one ever found out. Interesting. No one ever found out. The bottle actually was a Turley Hain Vineyard Petitserrah 2005. Okay. Which, if that's your first reference point, if anyone's ever had it, we're talking about probably 15.5 alcohol, full blast, like absolute max output. That's that's that's the important difference. I came clean with my dad, though, on that because uh When? When did you come clean with him? Like three months ago, four months ago. 20 years later. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. But I think I better late than never. Yeah, exactly. You know, Catholic guilt is a thing. You know, finally I have to admit this. I did, you know, I had penance and all that. Um, because the wine world brought me Tegan, Pastor Lacqua, and he was uh he's a brilliant winemaker in California. Okay. And Teagan and I were in the same room talking about wine and learning this thing and doing this, and he said, What was the first wine you ever had? And I said, It was 05 Hain Petits, Rah. He sort of stares at me funny. He goes, the first wine I ever made was 05. Shut up, Hain Petitzerra. Dude, that's sick. So we uh I and my uncle's loved the wine since, and I have to get them. He always throws these big birthday parties. I have to get a bottle sent to him from Turley. We're still working on this, but I want to return the bottle now, here 20 years later, or whatever it is. That's awesome. But that's sort of the first entry point into wine. But my family uh and I opened up a restaurant right out of Chapel Hill. So right after college, we opened up a pizza place, and we talked about my dad's wine pairing knowledge, non-existent. My brother doesn't drink at all. It was me, him, and uh, and my dad. So I was like, all right, well, I'll do the bar. I know very little about this, but I'll read some books and we're gonna work. And that's what I did. We read incessantly read. Uh I would digest books, draw maps, uh, all that kind of stuff. And then fortunately, there were some great wine reps that help guide me through actual tasting and seeing the wine in real life. But it's always those stories like with Tegan, um, the connection between the people and the wine that always hit for me. Like I'll look at these, I'll see Cedric's face smiling, laughing, drawing this. This the most elaborate SO2H2O split into O2 after heated at this point. Like, I'll always remember that. I always think of him. And I like that's the that's what makes wine that's really stick for me.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I was at a wine dinner a couple months ago, and the chef came out before the food came out, and he gave a little bit of a speech, and I don't remember much of what he said, but one of the things he said, a little phrase that I caught was stories over scores. You know, being more interested in the story than just the score. You know, you go to the grocery store or wherever, really, and a lot of times people want to tell you the score, whoever it is, whatever, you know, um, you know, wine um critic, whatever wine critic out there, you know, here's the score, but the story, right? So like hearing the story about Turley and and knowing that you've met this producer and and what that means for you to look at this bottle and see his face, and you know, to have gone to the vineyards and explored that. And I feel like if we can lead with those stories about the wine and about the people who are making them, absolutely for me, the scores don't really matter as much. I mean, not nearly as much.

SPEAKER_01

No, I agree 100%. I'm one of those people, and with the restaurant success and with having people trust us and believe in us, I believe in buying, I'll buy the people, and regardless of vintage reports, I'm buying it and I'm gonna stay with them, and I'll stay with you forever. Uh, I'm incredibly loyal. Uh, my wife and I both like very we're vehemently, we're going off a cliff with you. What do you need? We're there. It's always that. I think right now, I'm gonna take this in two directions. First direction, Cedric in 21, there's an awful vintage. He loses his entire production. There's no Mounier made, he has nothing. Whatever. Frost and hell. Frost and hail. Wipe everything out. So in 21, there's a bottle. Um Les Orange. And it, if you guys see the label, it's a bunch of men on there. It's his friends. I believe it's 11 people came together and gave him a portion of their vintage of a Chardonnay. Cedric doesn't make a Blanc de Blanc. Cedric made a Blanc de Blanc because he's he had nothing.

SPEAKER_00

But his friends gave him enough to make some wine that year.

SPEAKER_01

That's how he made wine that year. He would have otherwise made absolutely no wine. And that's like a really cool, like, ah, his vintage is uh 21's uh 21 should. Don't drink 21. It's like, wait, give me that bottle. Right. So we had we uh we bought a bunch of that. Uh I don't have any left because that story clearly did everyone immediately is like, I have to see this bottle. Okay. But if you see it around the wine shop, and it's uh it's one person with an umbrella, and uh he's like, This is the most important vintage to me because I had nothing. My friends came through with everything. And I think we see that now in um California and in uh in Oregon. I think it's very important to me now. I'm always you and I could talk about champagne in France until the end of time. Um, my mentor and I went to California this summer and we went to California we toured vineyard sites. Him and I both drink more burgundy than we can really like, you know, it almost makes me giggle how much burgundy we drink. You know, like life is good and we drink all these great wines, but um in California right now, I think with the decline, with I don't know, if you want to call it declining in drinking and the danger of this, uh if you want to talk about post-COVID running a business is incredibly hard. I mean, good God, I think we all can admit to that. Inflation, all these factors make it even harder to do business in in this country in California and to make wine. So I really try to champion a lot more of that than I ever have in my career. Because it's again, it's the people. I mean, we can't uh we can't do uh we can't have this without them. And I think at this point, that's why Pierre has a pretty significant slant to California, which I don't know if if 10 years ago, I think that Pierre would have looked different. Um, and I think that's kind of a story of where we are today in 25, and here we are looking forward, and what are we gonna do? Maybe that's also part of tariffs, right? I mean, these bottles are getting more expensive out of Europe, so maybe we should look domestically. Uh, you know, I don't know. Whatever. The wind's blowing us around, and I'm looking to see what I can do for my friends. We've we'll do anything for them. So we're working on some private label stuff, which is really fun.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Um can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, we I mean, I wanna I don't wanna so Michael Cruz, a dear friend of ours, is working on uh I call him up one day. And I was like, listen, man, I sell a lot of Lambrusco. What would you do if you made a Lambrusco? And I I mean, I don't get how what's the rating? Is this a is this a rated show? Here, but he he answers the following answers. What about Lambrusco? Like, how would you make Lambrusco? He makes Ultramarine in California probably the the it's probably the greatest champ. When it's you pick a Charlie Hines Blanc de Blanc and you drink it right now, it's almost every bit the octane of any champagne you'll have. Like it's the only one that can get that close. Yeah. It's that amazing. He's that he's spectacular, and his project cruise wines are really good too. Great petting hats, great sparkling, everything bubbles. So God, can we do Lambrusco? Like that'd be fun. Like pizza, Lambrusco. Oh, yeah. We'll go to Charleston, sense of the Charleston, we'll sense of the Raleigh. Like, this is gonna be great, Michael. He goes, what the fuck is wrong with you? I was like, oh, it was a bad idea. He's like, it's a terrible idea. And he hung up. Absolutely unprovoked. Six months later, he goes, Listen, I've been thinking about it. Oh. It's not the worst idea. Six months, he had you thinking about it. Oh god, it took me six months. You go call me out of nowhere. And I was like, God, I felt terrible for six months, Michael. And he's like, okay, but if we do it, it has to be my way. And I was like, of course it's your way. Of course. All right. I want nothing to do with that. You know that. I'm only here to just provoke. Just move the idea to the world. So we're talking to that. We'll see where that goes. That is in production now. Hopefully it makes it. Okay. I don't know. We'll see. But no, oh, the wineries now, they love us and we love them, and it's it's great to be able to have fun projects. You know, I think it's the most fun I can have right now.

SPEAKER_00

So you talk about people, and we've already heard some great stories about some of the people that you've met through wine. Um, but when you think about the people, your experience over the last 20 plus years of being in the industry, who are some of the people that stand out to you in terms of the relationships that you formed and built through this world of wine?

SPEAKER_01

Oh God. I mean, I think um first person is my mentor, he's uh is is William Derney. Okay. Billy Derney's my Billy Derney is almost like the North Star. I call him up and he absolutely will shoot it as straight as an arrow. Think of it like we're a basketball coach. He's definitely, he's not Bobby Knight, but it's it's intense. We'll go like it's straightforward. If you have a bad idea, you're gonna get it, or you're not running it right, or you're not keeping it tight. He's the first guy. Like, no, no, no. He's not Bob, he's not as intense as Bobby. He's what Ricky P. I got Ricky Patino on it. You know, you you you gotta you gotta work. You gotta put that guy.

SPEAKER_00

He's restaurant one. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Uh he's exposed me to uh with him. I've drank some of the greatest bottles of wine I've ever had. Um drank it with him, you could drink with you know I met Pascaline Le Peltier from him. I mean, Pascaline, one of the greatest honors of my life. Pascaline is is is easily one of the most impressive someliers in this country, and she is an absolute force. Walking into a restaurant with Billy Derney, and there's Billy walking three steps ahead of me. I'm two steps behind. My best friend Jason Stanhope, James Beard award-winning chef in Charleston's there with us, and she goes, Wait, are you the pizza guy in Raleigh? I look at him, and I look at Jason, I go, I am. She's like, I heard about that. Like, I heard about you. And we she blinded us on a bunch of wine, and I got them absolutely wrong. I got absolutely destroyed. I I well I was that's part of the journey though, man. It is. She poured uh Mousquet, back vintage muscadet, it was uh 05, uh Lunel Papin. Uh5 Mousquadet. I I would I was like, uh I didn't even know that wine could hate. I didn't either. I had it. I lived out there. I'm telling you, they it was beautiful. I I was like, I don't know, it's some sort of Shard Jura, Savine blend from Jura. Like, I don't know where I'm at. It's not Chablis, it's not. I was rolling through everything, and then she I was like, oh I'm out. I quit. That's all right, man. That's done. No, but she's brilliant. Um obviously, I think uh I'd be remiss and not talk about my partners in Charleston as people in this industry. I mean, Femi Miles, uh we have a beautiful, um beautiful pizza place down there together, and uh you know, Graft has been a the great source of love graft. Graft's great.

SPEAKER_00

Graft is great.

SPEAKER_01

Everything about it is just it's it's such a curated list, too. It's such a safe place to just feel like, I don't know, I'll just grab a bottle. Like, literally just grab one.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so talk about that. Talk about being a safe space for wine. How do we get away from this pretentious kind of inaccessible feel around wine?

SPEAKER_01

You know, I I think Femi is so good at this, and Miles is so good at this. Um you ever see Femi talk on Instagram, by the way? Can we talk about it for 30 seconds? Sure. The move? Have you seen a move on Instagram? No, I haven't seen the move. Okay, the move. All right, all right. So everyone's homework is photographed, and Femi will do the move. Okay. And it's this like short clip of him explaining a bottle. Yep. Do you know how good Femi is? I have seen the move, yes. Oh, oh, I know how good. Femi is so good that I got three phone calls after he released the move. One was my wife. Okay, that was expected. Okay, again, like you Why are we not doing the move or just No, no, no, no. Like, hey, that bottle of wine, can we get that bottle of wine? And it's like, yeah, it's been a pizza box for like three months, and you haven't touched it. You didn't give a crap about that.

SPEAKER_00

Until Femi started talking about it.

SPEAKER_01

Timmy talked about it, like, I gotta have it. It's like it's sitting there, it's 35 bucks. It's great. I've said it was great. Oh, never mind. Okay. Then um, my mom called me. She's like, wow, that was really good. What is that? It was a bottle of Timorasso from Italy from the Piedmont. Forgotten varietal that should have gone extinct, that got saved, that makes beautiful white wine. Right near uh, right where you're gonna grow every boroughload and all the nebulos and everything that's famous. Timorasso is beautiful. And then my mother-in-law, which immediately when you see a coffee mother-in-law, you're like, oh never.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, what'd I do?

SPEAKER_01

Oh no. She was like, hey, I saw this. I'm looking for a wine. I was like, what wine are you looking for? And you know, we walk through it. I'm like, Tim Barazzo, oh, did you see Femi talk about Tim Marasso from the Piedmont in Italy? Yeah, and it was so cute, but I left her a bottle of Tim Marasso, she helped us with the kids when we were in Houston. So left her with that. It was beautiful. But that's Femi's ability to talk to uh wine professionals, uh regular people. Anyone, anyone. And it's when you really know something so well that you could just explain the concept without it being there's no work to this. Here it is. Being casual, I think the sommelier, I think uh to me, I always, when I was a psalm on the floor, I always picked a bottle that was cheaper than what you were looking at, and I made it a competition. If you point at the bottom between this bottle and that bottle, I'm gonna go underneath in cost, because you're gonna have me over there. I'm gonna find a better bottle of wine, and it's gonna be cheaper. You're gonna save money, have a great night, and you're always gonna talk to me the rest of your life. I'm your guy. I love that. Yeah, I'm saving you money. We also, as a here's a hidden trick that I we always have a bottle or two, or sometimes more, that is slightly above wholesale cost.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

It's a gift. If you find it, it's my gift to you.

unknown

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01

Some wine professionals get mad as a hornet about it. Yeah, you're exposing the margins. Right, right. What is wrong with you? But I'll tell you a good wine experience I had. I was at Babo, must have been 15 years ago. Babo was like one of the hot spots in New York City. This was Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich before Mario had all of his transgressions and got 86. Um, great, great food. And Joe Bastianich, Lydia's son, did the wine. And the Psalm team had it was a beautiful Italian wine list. I was 20 years old with a fake ID. Let me see the Sommelier, let me see the wine list. This is great. So we go there, and clearly I know maybe nothing, less than nothing. And the Som clearly picks up on the fact that, well, he doesn't pick up on the fact I'm under 21, that's fine. He does pick up the fact that I know nothing and I am going to college and I'm broke, and I'm just taking my girlfriend out to Babo and police. He picked out a bottle of Sicilian Red. I fast forward, it's one of the first bottles I looked to get to when I ran the wine list in our first restaurant in Colomia. The bottle was $15 more than wholesale cost. Not bad. I never forgot that. Because I was like, that psalm threw me a lifeline, and I bet you they leave treats around the list. I don't actually know this to be true, but I believe it to be true, and I don't want anyone to dispel this myth.

SPEAKER_00

I think you're right, man.

SPEAKER_01

Have treats. Have treats.

SPEAKER_00

That'll be fun. I don't know everything about you know the prices of wines and how great wines are, but you know, I I look around a lot, and there's definitely some times where I'm out and I'm like, man, that's that's not that expensive.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, no, no. In in my pet peeve is when restaurants go for monster markups on it, that era is done. It should be done. We should kill it, we should all move on. I don't want, you're not gonna get, you're not gonna pay the mortgage, you're not gonna pay the rent on on one bottle of wine anymore. Maybe that was the case. It's done. Kill it. But we all should talk about this as being a beautiful wine at a as a reasonable price. Yeah. Um, I think the restaurants that don't sell wine is because the pricing is insane. It shouldn't be insane. It doesn't have to be. I want to see you every week. At Pizza Box, I want to see you every week. We see most of our guests at least four times a month. A lot of them, we see six times a month. Wow. If I see you six times a month, I don't need to, I don't want to. Right. I want you to just keep cruising with me. Yeah, of course. A lot of people come into Pizza Box and they'll buy uh pizza and a six pack of wine. Great. This is great for everyone. This is there's no negative. Uh, you know, the producers get to move value and we get to show you great stuff. You trip and fall, and I mean, I know we've drank our pepe together. You trip, fall, and drink a bottle of our pepe and eat a pizza, like that you're at a great place. Great spot. Yes. Oh, it's better for me as a restaurateur, as a wine lover, as a just a general person.

SPEAKER_00

You know, you talked about how when you were Assam on the floor, you wanted to make it a competition. You wanted to find something cheaper, better. In your mind, when you think about a Somalier, again, this is getting back to like people getting a little nervous about approaching Somaliers, thinking about, I don't know enough to ask questions or I feel uncomfortable with this conversation. What is it that you think is the job of a true Somalier?

SPEAKER_01

You're a tour guide. You're a tour guide. I'm not selling you tickets, I'm not selling you others. I'm making sure that your journey is exactly the journey you want to take. Where do you want to go? Some people, listen, I had somebody walk into Pizza Box, uh, maybe this was five months ago. Guy walks in, never saw him in my life, solo diner, walks into the champagne cooler, grabs a bottle of Crew Groset. Right away, bang, puts it on the table. I was like, All right. Okay. I look at my staff immediately, I'm like, I let me get, I got this one. Yeah. I don't know what's gonna happen here, but I got this one. And he looks at me and he goes, Who owns this place? Well, that's me, you know, whatever. Because I heard about you. It's okay, great. He's like, I heard you have ex you have rare stuff. I was like, okay, yeah, we do. You know, what are you looking for, buddy? You know, you drink a Cru Grosé. I mean, this is a $500 plus bottle of champagne. Immediately walk in, bang, that's what we're starting with. And that guest, he's like, I want, I'm looking for the exotics. And so I was like, we got exotics. And so he actually wanted a bottle. Um, it was a Koch Corton Charlemagne 2016.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. And you had it.

SPEAKER_01

Oh yeah.

unknown

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we have exotics. But like that guest wanted that. I was like, You want exotics? I was like, all right, give me, I need 15 minutes, drink this. I actually I had my wife, she was probably doing bath time with the kids. I was like, there's a bottle, it's on the left cooler, go down six, right hand side. This is what it looks like. Pull it, put it in a Yeti, I'll be right there. Kept it cold, Yeti moved it, opened the bottle. I mean, it was uh that guest was an $11,000 ticket, three bottles of wine, one pizza. Three bottles of wait. It was bananas. Three bottles of wine, three bottles of wine, one pizza. One pizza, eleven thousand dollars. Yes. That's awesome. But like that guest wanted that journey, but most guests do not want that journey. Right. So I'm here for like, okay, hey, it's uh first date. Cool, you want a great first date wine? We're all on different journeys.

SPEAKER_00

I'm not on the $11,000 one pizza journey.

SPEAKER_01

I wish I was. Man, that was it was a wild, but he it turns out he was in Bone. He lives in Bone in Burgundy. Okay, is making wine now in Burgundy, born in Washington, D.C. I looked him up and I was talked to him. We had a long conversation. Unbelievable, unbelievable journey. But like that was a rocket ship. Like, okay, you want to write a rocket ship. Okay, but we also have to be ready for it's my first date. What are we gonna open? I don't know her. She's staring at me. I want to look like a hero, but I don't want to spend that much money. I got you. Yeah. You know, like uh we get we have that bottle too. Exactly. Uh it's really tour guiding, it's not upsells. You're not a I hate the approach. A lot of restaurants actually compensate so many A's on percentage of sales. I vehemently hate it.

SPEAKER_00

Because you think that's leading them down the path of let me just sell the most expensive stuff.

SPEAKER_01

I don't want you to hunt everyone like that. It's the guy who lives in bone.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's not most people, and I don't want to do that. I want to move them into the right thing. Some of the it might be uh a great bottle. Here's a bottle I love right now, uh Maxi Magnon, uh Demorante. Uh chillable, crushable, red. He the bottle's great. I think it's $40 in pizza box right now. Drinks like a bottle that could be double triple the price. Drink that. It's phenomenal. Like literally, first date, pour it for 20 people. 20 gonna be like, oh, I like that bottle. What is that? There you go. Perfect. I would rather do that. I would never compensate anyone on a percentage of sales. That's not the point.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, I think that we need to hear a little bit more about that in the world of wine. You know, like let me help you go on your journey, not let me sell you the most expensive stuff or let me make you feel like you don't know what you're talking about, and I'm the like it's the worst.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. There's nothing worse than that. I uh we at hiring for Pierre, I'm I can openly admit I'm difficult to work with. I am aware of I am aware of my uh yeah, I am aware of it. I know. I just did a uh whatever, we can get into that later. But I've done a lot of studying of myself and why I'm this way. My wife describes it as persistent dissatisfaction. Okay. I'm happy but persistently dissatisfied. I'm always trying to like inch it forward. Trying to get better. And just a little bit. That's it. Fall forward. Okay. That's progress. I like it. Fly forward. Some days you climb, some days you fall. If it's forward, it's good. But we uh we we had done this. Uh, you know, everyone goes around the room, you know, the usual like icebreaker stuff, which was great. And it's like, you know, someone's like, I love uh terroir-driven wines of place and balanced. And I was like, what the fuck out of here? Stop it. Immediately stop. Like, like, no. I'm a level six man. I gotta get the take all that shut up. What the fuck do you like? What do you what moves you? What is compelling? What's delicious? Yeah, don't tell me about don't you get out of here. Vaguely French terms don't work here. Speak, just talk about it normally. Exactly. Be a regular person. I think more people would drink one. And I think it's coming. I think it is coming. I think it's this the the that that era is, I think, closing. I think with uh information flowing, you know. I hope restaurants get on board and get on the train. It's it's very obvious where it's going. Um and I hope Samoyers just chill out. Learn a bunch so that you can digest the information for the guest in a way that gives them snippets. Yep. You become a better tour guide, but everyone at the end has a better night. That's literally that's your purpose. To have a great night, not to like push you slightly past where you were comfortable.

SPEAKER_00

Don't do that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

All right. Shall we move on? What's going on? I got a little treat for you.

SPEAKER_01

Oh man, what's next?

SPEAKER_00

Let's go find out.