SOMM: Into the Bottle (2015) - full transcript

What-- What is a sommelier?

A sommelier is a position
in a restaurant.

Who is responsible
for the wine program.

They oversee service
to the guests.

That's a very simple way
to look at it.

You know,
and I'm just keeping
people happy.

I'm popping corks,
a very simple job.

But that is open
to interpretation.

If you don't work
in a restaurant,

you're not a sommelier.

That's end of story, period.



Yeah, I don't agree.

So a sommelier is somebody

that takes care of wine,
period.

Somms are now educators.

They're judges.

They are suppliers.

They are distributors.

As soon as I stop working
the floor,

I'm no longer a sommelier,
though.

I feel like a sommelier

when I'm opening
a $5 bottle of wine

with a $300 corkscrew.

In today's world, sommelier
seems to be very cool word

where you can put
on your business card.



I'd like to be alive

when that definition
is finally written

to my satisfaction.

Can there be
any other business

where there's
so much bullshit?

[no audible dialogue]

[man]
To take all of the amount
of information

in a sommelier's brain
and translate it

into a digestible form
for a guest is not easy.

It's because there's--

there's so many things
you want to say,

but you don't actually want
to do that

and scare people off.

You actually want to enjoy--

have them enjoy their meal.

There's so much stuff

to know about wine

and knowing
how to taste wine,

let alone there's over 1300
identified grape varieties.

There's also different regions,

names, places, producers.

There's hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of wines

that come out every year.

[woman]
I think people
who are new to wine

somehow get the idea

that they should know
all that stuff about wine

before they can enjoy wine,

before they can talk
about wine,

and that's really a shame.

When I go to a restaurant
and I open up a wine list,

it's one of the best parts
of my week

because it's an adventure.

I see a particular
geographical location first,

and then I start to think
about everything

that went
into making that wine--

the history, the soil.

So for the average person,

a wine list
is really difficult to read.

They're not--
They're not friendly.

You get a wine list
in your hand,

and you look for that wine
that you know,

and if it's not there,
what do you do?

You know, panic sets in.

Because there's
no descriptions.

There's nothing there.
There's no text.

It's just a line
with a producer,

where it comes from,
a vintage, and a price.

The wine list becomes a very
interesting exercise

in social psychology

because the sommelier,
if there is a sommelier,

is where the people
are nervous.

They're where the people
will be very sensitive

to the price point.

They have no idea
what goes with what.

[man]
And that's basically
the tricky part

because it's intimidating.

You don't want to look stupid.

If you're insecure
and on a table

and open the wine list,

your business partner
might perceive that.

Your date might see that.
And you want to look good.

So that's kind of where
the sommelier steps in,

which is great,

which is why we have our jobs,

so that you have
these lists of wines,

and there's somebody there
that can talk you through

what you're looking for.

There's a lot of
great sommeliers out there,

and what they do--
and the good ones do this--

they make you take
a little vacation

while you're sitting
in a chair,

and suddenly
you're being told

about some guy
on the top of a hill

making some crazy wine,
doing this amazing job,

that's got, like,
really old barrels,

and there's a dog there,

and you're just
totally transformed.

There is potential energy
in these bottles,

and there are stories
to be told.

I don't look at myself

as a cork puller.

I look at myself
as a storyteller.

[McClintic]
I think there's
this great misconception

that winemaking is this
glamorous dream job.

You know some place
where the wine is produced
that's awful?

No. All wonderful places.

Ugly places have never made
nice wines.

It's not because
of ugliness and beauty--
and beautiness.

It's about energies

because energies build
potential of a place.

And if the energies are good,
the place are always harmony
and beauty.

[McClintic]
Yeah, wine is grown in the most
beautiful places in the world.

but the actual work involved--

nothing could be further
from the truth.

Wine is about rising
to challenges

and overcoming adversity,
and it's always just a miracle

that the stuff
actually gets made
and gets into the bottle.

The things that
we're trying to translate

into the glass

are things that are
much bigger than any of us--

the rocks, the sun,
the wind, the rain.

Those are things
that are eternal.

A lot of people making
their living making wine

are everyday farmers.

And they spend their life

essentially controlling
this plant

that does not want
to be controlled.

[Meredith]
The grapevine
is a true vine,

and if you're not growing it
on the trellis

in a commercial vineyard
and you just let it go,

it will climb a tree.

Winemaking is relentless.

You know, harvest
is going to come

when it's going to come,
and you need to be ready
for it.

It's not just that you can
harvest these tracks of land
by yourself.

You have to organize
groups of people,

sometimes 20, 30, 40 people,

and they have to be ready
on a given day

to come together
harvesting these grapes.

And the logistics
are mind-numbingly complex,

and everything goes wrong,

and that's a good harvest.

There's over
a hundred variables

that translate into what's
in the glass in front of you.

Whether it's rain,

frost,

heat spikes,

drought,

wind.

The weather could come in.

You could have
a tropical storm

that's coming in
two weeks before harvest.

You can have a good season
all year,

but when you arrive
at a harvest

and the weather changes,

and you harvest
under the rain,

the good season...
[laughs]

has nothing to say
at the end.

[Cauble]
You don't want to harvest
right after the rain

because the grapes
actually swell,

actually absorbing a lot of
the water diluting the wines.

[Kruth]
The other problem is
if the weather changes

after it rains,
you get disease pressure,
you get mold.

You literally lose
60% of fruit to a fungus.

It's a lot of stress.

Come on,
what are you going to do,
not harvest the grapes?

You have to make the wine,
you know,

I mean, you live on that
for an entire year,

and so when the vintage comes,
you pick it.

[McClintic]
That's a normal vintage.

So there's a lot of
unpredictability
with a normal vintage.

And then there are vintages

that are absolutely disastrous.

[Mattiasson]
There's been plenty of wars
and hails and stuff,

and they are brutal,

but it's the first time
I've heard of a earthquake

screwing you up
during harvest.

So at least we have

a good story to tell
the grandkids on this one.

It was, like,
the nicest weather we've had
in I don't know how long.

Great year.
We dodged the drought bullet.

We got spring rains,

everything lined up perfectly.

We had an earthquake.

We were woken up
at 3:20 in the morning

with the earthquake.

Made sure the family's okay,
went outside,

turn off the gas,
all the earthquake stuff.

And then try to--
you know, take stock
of what was going on.

And the first thing
I'm thinking is

I gotta find out
what's going on
with our barrels.

All the barrels are--

that are normally stacked up--

are all just tossed around
in there

like a mad giant

just went in there and had
a temper tantrum.

I mean, it was just nuts.

This happened two days ago.

Yeah, so we're still
picking up--

I mean,
we're literally just--

literally picking up
the pieces

because the pieces
are all over the ground
right now.

Our house came off
the foundation,

and chimneys fell down

and all a bunch of stuff
busted up.

I mean, it's like...

heavy, definitely heavy.

For some reason,
even though our house
is totally screwed,

and we probably lost
a ton of wine,

it's kind of exciting
in a weird, masochistic way,

like, all right,

you know...

[laughs]

You know, mother nature
was creative this year.

This was a first.

And so the 2013's
always going to carry

a special signifier now,

along with it, that this is
the earthquake vintage

and there wasn't
as much of it

for the producers
that lost wine,

and I think it's going to be
a pretty neat little legacy,

this vintage going forward.

Now this vintage
is always going to be marked
in that way.

I think it's pretty cool.

[McClintic]
When you're talking
about a vintage,

you're really talking
about weather,

and weather, unlike climate,
is completely variable.

There are very few vintages

that a winemaker deals with

that are problem free,

maybe like one every 10 years

you get that magical vintage.

The reality about vintages

is it's variable.

Every year is different,

but a great wine,
a great vintage,

will age very, very long.

[man]
Wine is living, and so wine
is always evolving.

Wine is never static.

[McClintic]
Wine wants to become vinegar,
right?

And if you could catch it
in the right place on its arc,

and it's 40 or 50 years deep,

you've got
the craziest flavors

that you never tasted before.

Wines with age

are probably the dream
the winemaker had

when he or she made it.

And we have the chance
to drink in the moment

where that dream is realized.

We got an '88 Muscadet.

This is a bottle
that probably costs
about $15 now,

for a new retail bottle,

this was probably
three or four dollars maybe

when this bottle was bought.

Doesn't have to be expensive.
It just has to be
the right bottle of wine

stored the right way,
opened at the right time.

Some of the most expensive wine
in the world

are crazy old bottles because
there's just less of them,

and everyone wants to drink them
in their peak.

I love old wine.

I mean, I love old Napa cav.

I love old Barolo.

I love old chardonnay.

I mean, I think aged wine

is just
a really beautiful thing.

I generally don't like
most old wine

because wine has to be
stored perfectly.

Some people might think
old wine is always good.

That's not correct.

Some wines
should be drunk young.

And that's just
the reality of it.

But when you get that,
like, magical bottle,

that's been stored perfectly
for 20 or 30 years

and it was meant to be,
you know, it gives you
an experience

that a young bottle of wine
can't give you.

[McClintic]
Wine does not like heat,

and it doesn't like light.

Wine being stored
in your back seat,

you know, in the Vegas sun
for 20 minutes

will completely ruin
a bottle of wine.

There's no better wine

than a wine you have
at the Domaine.

For me that's a huge part
of the personality
of the house,

is what's going on
in the cellar.

The cellar is
a very important private place

because this is where
the wine rests.

This is where the wines
will change.

This is where you keep
your old bottles of wine,

and that's actually where you
spend all of the time.

There's a sense in the cellar

that man takes the process
of growing wine to a point,

and that point involves
the moment when the cork goes
in the bottle.

You walk into these cellars,

and they're very deep
beneath the earth.

You're-- typically you
walk down sometimes three or
four or five flights of stairs,

and you come
into this very dark space.

We have to duck because
the ceiling's a little low,

and you can't really see
very well.

And you get to the bottom,

and there's mold everywhere.

The cellar
is a whole microclimate,

I will say,
with the right temperature,

the right humidity.

[man]
The best storage
you can think of,

you know, it's always
about 55 Fahrenheit, 11 Celsius

during the winter
or during the summer.

You have the vapor
from the wine

for the bottles,

so this create
a special environment.

[Cauble]
You smell the cellar.

It almost smells
like the personality

of the wine.

It just smells
kind of like a wet,

kind of rock, or almost like
a bag of mushrooms.

And you may have seen some,
you know,

like mushrooms growing
on the bottles,

but even on some of the corks.

It has no effect
on the quality of the wine,

but it looks pretty amazing.

[Chave]
Then you have
this fungus growing,

and this is totally alive.

Yeah, the Latin name
is Aspergillus niger,

the black cellar mold.

And we take care
of this fungus.

It's living from alcohol
being in the air,

and it's keeping
the air fresh,

and that's something
we are very proud of.

It will change according
to the time, the year.

It's going to turn white,
and then it's going to be
all black.

That's a sign
of a very good cellar.

They treat this fungus
like their little pet.

And literally they pet it.

You can touch it.
It's like a black cotton ball.

You know
these producers' wines,

and you're like,
"Wow, this is why this wine
smells like what it does."

It's not just the grapes
and the soil

and the yeast
that fermented it.

It's actually where
it was aged in all of these
different funguses.

You have the sense
in a classic old cellar

that that winemaker

has taken that bottle

and given it to time.

Every single bottle has
a date printed on the label,
typically,

and that date tells a story

about what happened
in that given year.

There are very few bottles
that don't,

and one of the exceptions
would probably be champagne.

So with champagne,
the weather is so bad there

that it's only
very, very special vintages

where the weather was perfect,

that they actually declare
a vintage.

They typically blend
the wine from multiple
vintages together

so that way you have
an even expression of champagne
every single year.

When you're going to bottle
a vintage champagne,

that means it's a story you
actually want to tell
on its own.

1969, Dom Ruinart.
It's a rare bottle.

We have 19 left in the cellar,

so this would be
18 after today,

and there's probably
less than 15 in the world,
I would say.

Ah.

The color is...

As you can see,
it's pretty gold,

which is something you expect
for a 45-year-old champagne.

[Dame]
White wines, as they age,
develop color,

and red wines, as they age,
lose color.

So there's the pigmentation.

[McClintic]
As it goes, those fruit
elements start to fade,

and these beautiful secondary
characteristics take over.

Earthy characteristics--

flowers, herbs, spices.

[Dame]
They develop
that slightly nutty--

the oxidated quality.

There's still a great acidity,

some effervescence,
not too strong,

but as you can expect,
with such an old champagne.

All of that baby fat
sheds away.

[Dame]
And it becomes more
of a whole than pieces.

It's very intensely perfumed.

It's this snapshot.
It's this piece of history,

it's bottled history,

of what happened
to those grapes in that year.

You can taste the warmth
of the '69 vintage,

which was-- which was actually
a very warm vintage,

a lot of sunshine,
great harvest,

very healthy grapes.

And it's tend to show,
I think,

that dried apricots,

dried pineapple
sort of flavors.

It's really the sign
of a warm year.

[swishes]

Drinking history.

It's good. Shit.

[tower bell ringing]

Our archives
keep a lot of secrets.

Grapes have been here
since Roman soldiers

covered Germany
in the first century.

The first documents
about winemaking

dates back to the year 700.

This is the invoice book

from the year 1492.

They really documented
all single details

of what they sold,

when they sold the wine,

and who were the customers.

For me, I think, like,
goosebumps are running
down my neck

when I hold this
little booklet in my hand,

and it is as old as when
Columbus discovered America.

History gives wine

heart and soul.

I really didn't like history

until I got interested
in wine grapes

and realized

that the history of wine

is the history of Europe.

I don't think sommeliers
gravitate towards great wines
of the world

because of history.

I think history naturally forges
the great wines of the world.

From the beginning
of our story

wine has been there.

[Meredith]
If we go back thousands
and thousands of years,

the very first
cultivated grapevines

were just sticks that people
stuck in the ground

from vines that they found
in the forest.

There's a lot of evidence
this happened in Spain

and in the northern coast
of Africa

and in other parts
of the Mediterranean coast
of Europe.

Certainly the Phoenicians

began to explore
the Mediterranean,

and we know
that they brought wine.

The same thing happened
with the Greeks,

we know that the Greeks
took grapevines.

We know that the Romans
did the same thing.

[Grieco]
I want to go back to Rome, man.

I want to go back
to the Coliseum.

I want to sit there
in the sands.

I want to see
a gladiator fight.

I want to eat a corndog
and a big flask
of goddamn grape juice

from the Romans.

The Romans drank
with a vigor

that I would love to have
more of in my life.

[Hepp]
Caesar told his troops

to drink at least one
to 1 1/2 liter per wine a day

because he knew that wine

keeps the troops healthy,

and Caesar doubled the quantity
from 1.5 to 3 liters

when his troops
needed to fight.

So I think this was
the start of doping,

when the Roman soldiers

went into battle

after having a couple
of liters of wine.

And the wine they drink

we nowadays call "golden wine."

It's not white.
It's not red.

It's a combination
of all the grapes

being harvested together.

It has got
religious significance.

When Jesus changed water
into wine,

it was probably a good start

because there must've been
something there.

When they served it
at the last supper,

well, you know,
must've been a good vintage.

But lest we forget,

when Noah and his ark
landed on Mount Ararat

in the Caucasus Mountains

of what is now Turkey,

first thing he did,

the very first thing,

was to plant a vine,
grow grapes,

make wine,

and get drunk and pass out
naked in his tent.

It's a spiritual beverage.

It's what-- literally
spirit in the sense
that it's alcoholic.

It's ecstatic in the sense
it has the potential,

taken in excess,

to take you out of yourself,

which is a quasi-religious
experience.

Is that the reason
why it becomes a sacrament,

why it becomes Christ's blood?

Probably.

Really, the roots,
in my mind,

of roles of wine we know today

came really from the monks.

[Grieco]
They spent all day, every day,

out in the vineyards

working the soil,
working the vines,

and, most importantly,

documenting what they did,

so quite a few of the great
wine areas of Europe,

we know exactly what they did
and when they did it

because of
these religious orders.

In France, this happened
over centuries,

and it happened at a time

without economic pressure
at all.

Ultimately in Europe,
history is revered.

It's part and parcel

of what they do every day.

They walk through the streets,

and it's there
in front of them.

Most European winemakers now,

many of them
have been handed

properties and vineyards
and chateaus

from their parents,
grandparents,

great grandparents,
sometimes 13, 16 generations,

and they have no cost of land.

They have the vineyard.

It's their job
to take care of them,

their job to make the wine.

You know,
my family has been always
in the wine business.

As it happens often,

in Italy or in Barolo,

my father took over
his father,

which took over his father,
which took over his papa.

We go back almost 200 years.

Well, I'm-- I think--
I'm the seventh generation.

My daughter is now
11th generation.

In Hermitage
I'm the 16th generation,

and so we know exactly the wine
I'm making in Hermitage,

I'm making from vines
that were planted by my father,

my grandfather,
my great grandfather,

so we know them so well.

[Parr]
There's so much history
at Hermitage, you know?

Think, going back in 400 BC,

when the Romans
planted vineyards there,

and to think about today,
there are still
vineyards there.

It's still called Hermitage.

They still have Syrah.
It's kind of mind boggling.

The legend of Hermitage
goes like this.

There's this knight,

who fought in the Crusades,

and this guy is a war hero.

This knight
comes back injured.

And as a reward,
the queen of France
allows him to recover

and heal his wounds
on top of this hill.

And he never leaves.

And the villagers down there

know that he's up there,

this legendary war hero,

and they started calling him
the hermit.

And that's how Hermitage
got its name.

If you get
on this journey of wine,

and you kind of get bitten
by the wine bug,

and you fall in love with it,

you end up having epiphanies
along the way.

One of those bottles
happened to be
a 1990 Chave Hermitage.

I didn't know Syrah
could taste like that--

smoked meat, pepper,

Provençal herbs,

violets,

blackberry, blueberry,

granite.

I fell in love
with Syrah that day,

and it was a bottle
of Chave Hermitage.

Jean-Louis Chave--
he is the wine.

He lives on the hill
of Hermitage.

This is the hermit.

This is the hermit
on Hermitage today.

He is on that hill,

and he is connected
to his little plot.

If I had to pick
one epiphany wine,

one wine which made me say,
"This is it,"

it's 1969 Chave Hermitage.

So I'm gonna open
a bottle of Hermitage, 1969.

It's an important wine for me

because I was born in 1968,

which was a catastrophe
for wine,

so they haven't even bottled
a single bottle of '68,

so my dad saved for me,

a '69 red Hermitage.

Old bottles are very important

because of the memory
of the Domaine.

It's like your old books.

Once you drink it,
it's gone forever,

but before being drunk,
like when you touch a bottle,

it's a reality.

And then you drink the wine,

and then the wines
will be gone.

It will be in your memory.

His history goes so far back.

The Chave family
has been there so long.

The same family,
who's owned it since 1481...

[Chave]
This wine was made
by my grandfather

when my father started
to work with him.

Maybe they were sharing
some experience with my dad

that decided on that blend.

It's a piece of history
for us.

Yeah, the color is perfect.

Yeah, it's a very good bottle,
actually.

This whole philosophy
is like people come and go,

but the vineyard
is still around,

and wine can age
for a very long time, actually.

When we open a bottle,
we taste it,

we go back to everything
what happened

from now all the way
to back then,

the link between generation.

It reminds them
of a time and a place...

and work that was done
with specific people

in specific times.
You know?

And it's like you almost see
their life flashing
before their eyes

in that one bottle of wine.

[Grieco]
How I define greatness in wine

is that great wine--

this applies across
the board--

must have a sense of balance,

complexity,

delicacy,

sense of place,
a.k.a. terroir,

ability to age,
and yumminess.

And I look
at those six criteria,
and I say, "Holy shit.

"Riesling exceeds all
expectations in these six areas.

Why can't other people
see this?"

Somms have a love affair
with Riesling

because it's crisp,

it's high acid,
it's mineral,

and when you taste as much wine
as sommeliers taste,

you end up craving wines that
don't fatigue your palate.

You crave wines
that refresh your palate.

The biggest misconception,

probably, with the public,

is that somehow Riesling
is going to be sweet,

and, yes, there are a ton
of delicious sweet examples,

but there's also
some amazing, bone-dry Riesling

that is not sweet at all,

and when that gets served
to someone

who I know
doesn't like Riesling,

they go,
"Wow, this is Riesling?"

I'm like,
"Yeah, it's Riesling."

Most of the great Rieslings
of the world

are grown in slate soils,
particularly in Germany,

but there's some
incredible examples

coming from Austria

and Alsace as well.

If you look
at where Riesling is grown,

and then you think
about World War II

and World War I,

and how is Germany
gonna occupy France,

it's literally right
through that narrow corridor

that is Riesling Mecca.

The two last wars,

World War II and World War I,
of course,

were quite devastating.

Most of the vineyards
have been destroyed.

Most of the winemakers died,

so nobody was left
to do the hard work
in the steep vineyards.

[Hepp]
There were big parties
going on

after World War II,

from soldiers also,

so they drank
and they enjoyed

all these famous vintages.

I mean, somebody comes
invading your country,

and they drink up
most of your inventory
you can't hide.

Don't see a lot of
'37s and '38s around, do you?

'39s?

The winery is now more
than 270 years in family,

but that's not
our original building.

We lost it
in the Second World War,

by bombs.

They've adapted
in that way.

I mean, they're used to it.

Look at Champagne.
I mean, the whole World War I,

the trench war--
the most horrific

blood-to-nose battle to battle
in history,

and at the end of the war
was what?

Trenches, rats,
and dead bodies. Right?

And look where Champagne
is today.

Planted out with the most
expensive wines in the world,

and the quality's
never been better.

Our cellars were raided
during the Second World War,

so we don't have anything
prior to mid-40s.

The German came
and they took over, actually,
this house.

My great grandfather
and grandfather

were smart to hide this cellar.

That's why we still have
these old bottles of wine.

If you've been
to some of these wineries,

you see
all that history unfold.

You can't help but have
a visual association

with that grape and that place

and what people went through.

I think it makes
the great Riesling,

and it makes the region
that much more enriching.

I love these places
in the world for food or wine

where cultures clash,

and nothing pushes
evolution more than conflict

and struggle.

And it forces the people
to evolve,

the food to evolve,
the wine to evolve.

And to me it's where
a lot of the best wine
and food is made.

Now, this is also
a painful process

without a doubt.

The greatest winemakers

still went through
a little rough patch

and then came out.

Alsace, France
is so fascinating.

Whenever there was a war
in Europe,

because of the location
of Alsace,

we never missed one.

We never missed a war.

Alsace once belonged
to Germany,

and there was wine growing
in Alsace in those days.

Now Alsace belongs to France,

and they still grow wine
on the same vineyards.

To explain the Alsace history,

a good example would be
the three last generations.

My grandfather
was born Prussian,

and he studied German.

He didn't speak any French.

My father was born
just before the Second War.

And he studied half French,

and then the war came,
and he studied German.

Results-- he don't speak German,
he don't speak French.

He speaks Alsatian language.

My generation--
I studied French and
I speak fluently French,

so three generations,
three languages.

People in Alsace
have the structure

of the German culture,

and they also have
the romance of France.

[Parr]
Clos Sainte Hune Riesling,
I think,

maybe the most--
one of the most compelling wines

on this planet.

Clos Sainte Hune
is certainly revered

as one of the great examples
of Riesling

from one of the great
Riesling growing areas

on the planet Earth.

[Parr]
These wines can age
50 plus years, no problem.

[Dame]
It's one of the greatest single
vineyards in the world.

It produces a wine
that's almost indescribable.

[Parr]
Bergamot, lemon,

all these kind of flavors
you get when they're young.

In its youth,
it's like a slap
across the face

from your mother
when she's pissed off

that you came home late
at night when she told you

to9 be home at 10:00,

but she still forgives you
and loves you the next day,

and ultimately
Clos Sainte Hune will do that
with you also.

And then as they get older,
you get that orangesuckle
bergamot tea,

this very kind of honey
and crushed rocks.

It's got history behind it.

It's got an unbelievable
family behind it

that can go back, I think,
12, 13 generations.

Our father took over in 1952,

just after World War II,

and we know how difficult
was that period.

He basically had to sell

all what he could produce,

so he only put a few bottles
on the side, very, very few.

So this '62--

[chuckles]
I must confess is quite rare.

And the more I handle it,

the more I have--
how you call it?

Goosebumps or chicken bumps,
whatever that is. You know?

It's-- It's all what about--
this business is about,

sharing great wine

and sharing the passion
for wine.

So, Julien,
why don't you come here

and have a little sip with me.

So here is Julien,
13th generation.

1962 was rather exceptional
for Alsace,

and I guess,
like the English would say,

the proof is in the pudding.

What do you think?

Still very fresh.

Very fresh, complex minerally,

intense, shiny.

It has a great acidity,

the aftertaste.

Well, you have to put
this wine in your memory.

You have to register everything.

Every little detail
of each vintage

has to be registered
in your mind

in order for you to eventually
have it blind one day

and tell us,
"Oh, my God, I remember.

This is 1962."

Huh?

We know where we come from.

I know
where we are going to go.

I mean, of course
I'm going to die,

hopefully earlier than you,

so we are just in transition.

We are just making sure

that what we have today,

as far as our vineyards
are concerned

and the shape of the winery,
if I may say,

and how the winery is
performing will be donated

to our 13th generation,

in the best possible shape,

so to speak.

- Cheers.
- Cheers.

Skelt. In Alsace we say,
"Skelt."

Skelt. Alsatian dialect.

[Puckette]
In France they do things
through meticulous study,

very little experimentation,

and trying to understand

what it is that they have
around them.

In the U.S. you have people
over here going,

"Well, shit,
can I grow wine here?"

"I don't know."

"Well, Frank,
let's give it a try."

American ingenuity

is constantly playing
with things.

Much of the traditional
European paradigm

is based on the opposite.

We brought grapes
in from Europe.

We're not even using
our own grapes.

We thought one was, Zinfandel,

and then it turns out
it's Croatian.

It's not even ours.

I think an American
has an advantage

over European because of--

his spirit is much freer.

There's a lot of freedom
for American winemakers,

wine growers,

to have an experiment
with different grape varieties.

It's a good thing.

It's a young wine region.

I think in maybe
a hundred years

we'll figure it out.

[McClintic]
We are kids in a candy store.

We can plant any grape
we want in any place.

We have no limitations.

[Puckette]
Washington--
it's a crazy region

because there's all these grapes
growing everywhere,

and there's--
like it has no feature,

like, "Oh, there's
good red wine here.

Oh, there's
good Riesling too."

Washington grows a wide range,

probably three dozen
different grape varieties.

And what's amazing to us

is how we have challenged

this classic idea

that you have to grow
Cabernet in Bordeaux

and Riesling in Germany

and pinot noir in Burgundy,

and you can't mix
these things.

What's really great
about what's happening

right now in the landscape
in California

is there's
so much experimentation.

We work with Trousseau Gris,
Pinot Gris.

Frappato,

Lacrima di Morro,

Blaufr nkisch,

Pinot Noir,

Syrah, Grenache.

Mourvèdre,

Cabernet Sauvignon.

And we have this climate

that we can do
anything we want.

I'm really into Riesling.
I'll fancy Riesling.

They grow Riesling here,
it'd be badass.

Don't forget that
most American wine businesses

are first generation,

so American winemakers,

by necessity,

have to think more
about the market.

The reality is
cost of living here--

it's a different animal.

You know?
Like, you want to live
in California

where 90% of the nation's wine
comes from?

You know?
Like, you gotta make some cash.

There's so much bottom-line
stuff going on,

and, you know,
I'm perfectly happy

with really scraping by

and roasting squirrels
under bridges

as long as I can make
really great wine.

Wine tradition is,
in California,

is an oxymoron,
in my opinion.

We don't want tradition.

That's not what this place
is about.

It's not us.

What a lot of people
don't understand

is California wine,
after the gold rush,
was booming.

We have, like,
1200 wineries now.

We had 800 wineries
in the late 1800s.

It's not like we had
wars fought on our own turf.

People in Alsace are hiding.

You know? They're hiding,

you know, dodging bullets.

They're trying not to die.

We didn't have these problems.

We had a booming wine industry.

We did have this
one thing, however,

and the worst part of it

is we did it to ourselves.

[Lemon]
Prohibition really was a break.

It was an enormous break
in the way--

the whole culture
of American wine.

Whatever we were trying to do
before Prohibition,

it just wiped that slate clean,

and we're only going now
on a hundred years

of winemaking.

It's just tragic.

Yeah, it did screw up
the wine industry,

but it also stopped
a whole lot of things

that could potentially
still be in play

that would've been really bad.

There was no minimum alcohol.

There was no regulation.

And so when
Prohibition happened,

we were, like--
everybody stopped.

We needed
a little sobriety check.

We're talking about grapes
that are the most popular grapes

in the United States.

We're talking
about French grapes--

Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot.

These are all wines from France,
grapes from France.

If Prohibition had not happened
in the United States,

I think we would be
much more focused

on Italian varieties.

I suspect that things
like Barbera

and maybe even Nebbiolo

or Sangiovese.

Spain also might have had
a greater influence.

It's often forgotten

that some of the whites
in California

that were dominant
pre-Prohibition
were Spanish wines.

[Mattiasson]
It's one of the reasons,
I think, styles have changed

so much the last 56 years.

Every decade style changes
because we're still figuring out

what the hell we are
as an industry.

[McClintic]
Then you've got this guy,

Robert Mondavi,

who comes along in the '60s,

and he's like,
"I've got an idea.

"I'm going to open up a winery,

"and not only a winery,

"like a huge, ambitious winery,

"like--
like I want to take down
the French.

"I want to make the best wine
in the world

here in California
at a time--"

It's like-- It's like,
imagine the economy goes down
in, like, 2008,

and you're like,
"I wanna open up
a car manufacturer

in Detroit."

That's what
Robert Mondavi did with wine.

The guy's got brass balls, man.

[Cauble]
If anybody thinks
about American wine,

the first thing
they think about

is Napa Valley,
without a doubt.

I think if Robert Mondavi
didn't exist,

California wine
wouldn't exist.

[woman]
At that time, you know,
in 1960s,

the valley was still kind of--

kind of held back,
you know.

There was-- I think there
was 17,000 acres of grapes.

Today there are 40,000.

Much of the valley
was for sale.

It was still sort of
recuperating

from phylloxera,
from Depression,
from the war and all that.

And many people
didn't believe it,

but he went forward,
built a new winery,

the first new winery
since Prohibition.

So this particular bottle
is the first vintage

created by
the Robert Mondavi Winery,

which opened in 1966.

At one point he was small.

He was boutique.
He was family owned.
He was cool.

And I still think he is

because that part
is, like, history.

You know? And that--

So even if you buy big wines,
like, what's the story?

Why do you buy them?

Why do they become successful?

There was some guts there.

[White]
This was the model
that Mondavi set--

even with this first vintage
is what's still in use today.

You could almost feel, like,
anxiety probably in the bottle,

but also, like, hope.

I think it's amazing.

Wow, this is--

this is actually
an incredible bottle.

It's very, very,
very aromatic,

very perfumed.

The fruits
are red and high toned,

like red apple skin

or like a dried cherry.

And then there's this beautiful

sort of cigar ash

but it's very, very vibrant

and very, very alive.

For me, I think ageability

is a necessary tenet
to greatness in wine.

And this is undeniably
one of the great wines.

[Dame]
In your first wine,

you produce a wine
of that quality

I mean, there's more than luck
in that one.

I wanted to produce wine

to compete with
the finest wines of the world.

Here's the Europeans.
Think about
from their perspective.

You've been doing it
this way from the beginning,

the times the Romans planned
the damn places, right?

And all of a sudden
along comes Robert Mondavi.

I went throughout the world

to find out what
my competition was.

That's something which,
you know, I think

we've all learned
from Robert Mondavi.

He used to always go
around the world

and taste other wines

and always have a bottle
of Mondavi with him,

and he used to, like,
always compare his wines

to other great wines.

Just an incredible voice
for Napa Valley.

I think he understood
that if you made a name
for Napa Valley,

and how great this place is
in the world, everyone rises.

So it wasn't about
any particular winery.

He wanted to actually speak
how beautiful this place was.

In this fine wine business,

it's not going to take
five years, not ten.

It's going to take a lifetime.

You have to be willing
to take a gamble.

You have to put
your whole heart and soul

into what you are doing.

But that's all.
It's very simple.

To figure out what a wine
should cost in the marketplace

is probably the hardest thing.

There really isn't one thing

that solely determines
the cost of the wine.

I run the other way
when it comes to determining
those sorts of things.

Um, the gut.

There is some reason
why wines are expensive.

There's some reason
why wines are cheap.

Wine that's inexpensive?

It is inexpensive

in a large part
because the costs

of producing it
were much lower.

It's because the grapes
cost less to purchase.

A lot of things
are mechanized

both in the vineyard
and in the winery.

[McClintic]
You know, you have to mechanize
everything at that point.

You have to
or you're not going to have

a viable economic
business model.

[Meredith]
And so it ends up being

a very uniform,
predictable product,

and that's what it is.

It's a product.

It's a commodity product
where you can buy it

for two, three, four dollars
a bottle.

With wines
that are 20 to 50 dollars,

presumably many of them
are handcrafted,

and there's a lot of work,

and a lot of effort
went into it.

I think there's
this inherent guilt factor

with a lot of people

to spend over $20 a bottle
on a wine.

I know my parents have it.

My parents are the best,

but there's a lot of people,
a lot of family,

a lot of friends I know,

they have this guilt factor

associated with
a bottle of wine

that's over $20,
let's say.

More often than not,
those wines are handcrafted,

painstakingly handcrafted,

and there's a lot of hands
that touch that wine,

and so get the guilt
out of your system

because there are a lot
of people who have a job

because of you.

Well, the profession's
the reason.

First you've got the guy
who's got to prepare the soil,

the guy who's got to study
the soil.

The guy who's gotta say,
"Your soil's good for Cabernet,"

the people
that farm it every day.

Then you go to the harvesters,

the people that pick
the grapes.

Then it comes into the winery.

You have to have
somebody who's there
at the sorting table

to make sure that nothing--

what they call M.O.G.,
material other than grapes,

is getting into the wine.

You have the--
the guardians

who usher the grapes
and the juice

into the winemaking process.

The guy who made the barrel.

If you go into a cooperage,

there are about
15 different roles

just in the cooperage alone--

the guy who's in charge
of making sure

that the wood
is seasoned properly.

Then the guy who's
in charge of making sure

that the barrels are sanded,

then the guy who is there
to make sure

that the drums are all there
in the barrel is sound
and tight

right down to the guy
who runs the hose in it

to make sure
it's tested well.

If it gets to the winery, okay.

Now you have to maintain
those barrels,

and that takes
a whole team of people.

And then who has to know
when it's time

for the wine to come
out of the barrel,

when it's time to go
into the bottle.

Who's designed the label?
Who's designed the bottle?

Who's going to make sure
that the corks are sound

and safe and gonna be secure?

What about the capsules?
Who's going to put it
in the boxes?

Who's going to be involved
in driving it to the port?

Taking that ship
across the ocean?

And who's going to be involved
in getting the container
to the warehouse?

And you've got
three tiers of sales
element involved.

What about the guy--

the sommelier who's got
to take inventory?

So up until the time
the cork is pulled,

you've got, I would say,

hundreds of hands
that have been involved

in this process.

[Puckette]
The cost of labor?
Some things cost money.

But then there's
this other thing

that I'm putting
my heart and soul

into this thing.

I'm making an art,
a form of art.

How much is that worth?
How much is art worth?

A lot of wine
is a luxury product,

so when you get to
that real top of the pyramid,

you're paying
for how many other people

want to spend
that huge amount of money

for that wine?

I'll give you an example.
DRC made wine--

has made wine
for many, many years.

They've always used new oak.

They've had the same vineyards,

but the price of the wine

is always higher.

Every year they increase--
almost every year--

and people buy it.

That's-- the wine is amazing.
Wine is great.

Every year they produce
at a very, very high level.

So that doesn't mean that,
you know,

perhaps the cost of good
is going up.

It's just demand and supply.

This is considered,
pound for pound,

the most expensive wine
in the world.

It's not uncommon
for a bottle of DRC,

depending on
which vineyard it is,

depending on the vintage,

to open up, current release,

five to ten thousand dollars
a bottle.

It's just crazy stuff.

I think if you look
at each individual grape,

depending on where you are,
it could be up to $5 a grape

if you break it down
to the grape.
It's crazy.

Aubert de Villaine,
since 1974,

has been the proprietor

of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

Um, he's the legend, man.

If you get a winery visit
at DRC,

it's like the Holy Grail.

So to spend time
in a cellar with that man

is like, for any sommelier
or wine person

anywhere in the world that's--
that's kind of the pinnacle.

Something in the cosmos

has to align or you really
gotta know somebody

to get a winery
appointment there.

They don't do
winery appointments.

I've never been there.

Most of my friends
have not been there.

And they're some
of the foremost experts

on Burgundy in the country.

Voilà. Oui.

We shall taste--
We shall open the bottle here

if you don't mind.

[McClintic]
I think the mark
of a legendary winery

is it doesn't matter
what vintage it is,

it's going to be great,

and certainly you can say
that about DRC.

In off vintages,
bad vintages,

these wines trade
for thousands of dollars.

It's the real deal.

You're not going to find
a better expression
of Pinot Noir

in the world.

This is a--

It's a bottle of
Echezeaux, 2004.

And '04 is one
of the vintages

where things were difficult
during the season,

but we had a very good,
beautiful end of season

with north wind, sun,
clear skies.

It's a vintage
I personally like very much.

[swishing wine]

You have this special texture,

this special way
to touch your palate

that a wine
of a difficult year

has a texture
that is a little more sharp,

a little more acid.

This bouquet of a forest,

you know,
for a unique forest.

None of yet the rose petal,

but I know it will come
in what, 10, 20 years,

and it will make
a delicious wine.

Uh, you know what?

I think what many people
don't understand,

it's that wine
is made to drink

and to-- if you are thirsty,
to quench your thirst.

Many people think of wine
only as an object of culture.

And it is
an object of culture,

but it is-- it is also food.

It's food.
It's an element.

And it's important to take it
that way too.

We always like to kid around
and say

that wood
is the spouse of wine.

And so if you--
just as in real-life marriage,

you should choose your wife
very, very carefully

'cause otherwise you're only
going to pay for it in the end

in terms of quality of life.

And in this case
it's quality of wine.

Oak is a vessel.
You can either ferment wine
in the vessel,

and/or you can age it
in the vessel.

It has been the basis
for a vessel to transport wine

for God knows, like,
I think the Etruscans started
using the barrel,

so we can say
thousands of years
we've used oak.

It's only in the last 25 years
we've begun to say,

"I don't want oaky wine.

[McClintic]
There's neutral oak,

which imparts no flavor,

and then there's new oak,

which does impart flavor.

You start with the wine.

You make it,
you ferment it.

and then you put it
into oak barrels.

All these additional flavors

are added to the wines.

[McClintic]
French oak, you're typically
going to get vanilla,

cloves, cinnamon,
baking spices,

that add to the wine.

With American oak

you get dill, coconut,

even a higher extract
of vanilla.

I'm not that interested in wine
that tastes of vanilla.

Vanilla is not a natural taste
of a grape.

It's something added.

So, let's say,
instead of making wine,

let's make a drink,
a cocktail,

something like that.

If you can taste the oak,

you've kind of, you know,

missed the fruit.

You can think of oak like salt.

You've had a dish
that's too salty,

that's all you taste,
is salt,

and so the question becomes,
how much oak is too much oak?

Fifteen years ago customers
liked one with more body,

more rich, more oaky,
more extreme.

Now, even if you use oak,

you say,
"Oh, no, I don't use oak."

Now there's certain situations

where oak is called for
like salt is called for.

Right?

Certain Cabernets without oak
would be so austere

and intensely harsh
on your palate and grippy

that you need oak
to buffer that.

And someone's opinion of what's
too much and what's too little

depends on how much
they like oak. You know?

What's true is you can cover up
a lot of mistakes
in the vineyard

and cover a lot of mistakes
in the cellar with oak,

and so a lot of people
abuse it in that way
and say, "You know what?

We screwed up a little bit,"
or "These grapes are shit,

"so why don't we just slap
a big vanilla bomb on it

and call it a day?"

Wine is made here,
in the vineyard,

not in the cellar.

In the cellar you have to work
for preserving

what the nature gave you
in the vineyard.

And the wood is good way

to maintain a wine
in good conditions

during the aging process.

If you look
at the great oak debate,

I mean, it's politics.
It's Republicans as Democrats.

They are party lines drawn

with oak and non-oak,

and it's always gonna
be like that.

If you're going to look
anywhere in the world,

and you want a place
to see an example of this,

just look at Barolo.

[Cauble]
So what we have here
is a 1985 Barolo

from Elio Altare.

He is one of the most,
I would say,

influential modern producers
of Barolo,

and this is one
of the first vintages

he actually made
with using new French oak.

Barolo is a place
in Northern Italy,

and the grape is Nebbiolo.

It's interesting that Barolo

was made for hundreds of years
the same way,

and the aging would happen
in these big botti,

these big barrels

that the grand, grand
grandpas had built.

The wines were very austere,

very serious, very tannic,
very dry, high acidity.

You would have to wait years
before you could approach them.

This is a really rare bottle.

I think there's less
than six or seven bottles

at the estates,
pretty incredible
story of what happened.

Some crazy winemakers,

and I include my dad Elio,

he was one of the first
to start approaching
the winemaking

with different techniques.

They started moving from,
you know,

big botti, the big vats,

to French oak.

It changed tradition.

It kind of caused
a very big problem.

Wasn't necessarily a war with,
you know, with weapons,

but it was a war
with words for sure.

It smells incredibly elegant,

really, really soft,
incredibly floral.

It really has a lot
of Burgundian traits to it.

A big crisis hit Barolo.

We're talking about mid '70s,
late '70s.

Most of the young people
would leave the countryside

to work in the Fiat factories
that make cars in Torino

because being a farmer

was like really the last job
on earth.

Just wine wasn't
a business back then.

That's when my dad in '76

took his car, went to Burgundy
for the first time

and just starting, you know,

our curiosity visiting wineries,

and then he got in touch
with some winemakers

who worked
in different wineries.

Those guys were famous
making amazing wines.

They were very expensive.
They were all rich
and superstars.

Here they were starving.
They were poor.

So my dad came home
with all these crazy ideas,

went to his dad and said,

"Dad, why don't we try this?"

And the answer was,
"No way, you can't try."

[chuckles]
You can't not think
about the relationship

between Elio and his dad here.

The move towards using
new French oak on this wine

caused a massive fissure
between him and his father,

which never really
repaired itself.

[Silvia Altare]
My grandpa would've told you,

"Oh, buy a bottle of Barolo
but drink it in 25 years."

Thank you.
Maybe I want to
drink it tomorrow.

[Cauble]
When you put a wine
like Barolo in new oak,

it's going to soften
the tannins.

It's going to make it
easier to drink

and more approachable
when it's young.

[Silvia Altare]
My dad started buying barrels,

but to make space
in the cellar for barrels,

he had to buy a chainsaw as well

to cut the big botti
in pieces

because there was no space,

so he was cutting in pieces

these botti that
one of his ancestors had built,

you know, those botti
were a hundred years old.

Grandpa would not accept that,

so that was the big--
big break between them.

You know, in the 1970s
and the 1980s

people hated each other over it.

It was either you were
on the left or the right.

It was, like,
you were using new oak?

Your neighbors
wouldn't talk to you.

I mean, it's--
it's a pretty big deal.

Once he put new oak
on his wine,

the wines sold,

and they're more expensive.

Wine's very soft,

but it does have this
kind of orange peel, fennel,

and kind of tar component,

which is classic in Nebbiolo.

The wine's delicious.

[Silvia Altare]
Twenty-five years ago

it was a huge fight.

Today some of my best friends

are son or daughters
of traditionalists.

I talk to them.
I don't have a problem
with that.

Well, my dad
wouldn't talk to them.

Cancel that.
[laughs]

[Dame]
Wine is constantly changing.

It's living.
It's breathing.

And as a result

how can you have
an appreciation

for a single great variety

when it's made in
so many different styles

and so many different places

and so many different vintages

and all the things
that go into

whether you like Pinot Noir,

Cabernet, or Chardonnay

or Sauvignon Blanc.

That's a great question.

I think the hardest thing

for me to stomach
about the whole game

is the whole idea
of points.

I'll meet people that,

"Oh, you know, I only collect
wines above 90 points."

"From who?
Uh, you know, which demigod
do you follow?"

Taste is so different.

You can't all look
at the same piece of art

and all want to put it
in your house.

How we look at points--
this is a super
polarizing topic.

Essentially points are
to tell you what to think

if you don't have
an opinion yourself.

Well, the rating system
was first created

to help consumers.

It really was.

Because before that

the people who wrote
about wine

were actually hired
by the wine marketers

to write about wines.

So suddenly you had these
independent people coming out

with these mailing lists,

and one of those guys
was Robert Parker
in Wine Advocate.

And he started putting points
on the system.

Personally, I hate points.

I revere and respect
Robert Parker.

I revere and respect
the Wine Spectator

because what they do

is get more people
to drink wine.

That's ultimately what I want.

At the end of the day
it's a really lazy way
to describe a wine.

It attempts to put two numbers
next to something

that has been produced
by so many passionate people.

I don't even remember
the last time I thought
about points.

I mean, it's not relevant
to sommeliers

to think about,
like, a hundred points.

I think that most of us
would be like, "Ew,

if a sales rep
starts quoting points..."

[Parr]
I mean, if you buy a bottle
of current vintage Barolo,

which got a 99 points,

and you go home and open it,

there will be no enjoyment
from it.

You know, it's--
yeah, it got a high score,

and you open it.

Yeah, if you waited 10 years,

absolutely, it'll be better,

but it doesn't say
"99 points, wait for 10 years."

If I gave one of these critics

25 wines

that they had given scores to,

what do you think the odds are

giving the same score
back to back?

I don't know.

Answer that yourself.

Points in Wine Spectator
and Robert Parker

were a huge part
of my beginning.

I didn't know
the world of wine,

and I didn't know
a lot of people,

but I could read a publication,

and what I got
out of Spectator

and what I got out
of Robert Parker,

these critics,
were "Here are wines,

great wines of the world
that you should try."

This wine got a hundred points.

I'm like, "Okay, what's
this wine all about?"

From a sales perspective,

it offers confidence to people,

perhaps, to create
short lists of wines

and that it benchmarks us
against other great wines

of the world.

[Cauble]
Max Schubert
was the winemaker

at Penfolds
starting late 1940s,

and his creation of Grange

totally changed the way
the world looks at Australia.

What Max Schubert wanted to do

was make a world-class
Bordeaux style wine

in Australia,
and he went to Bordeaux.

He studied the great domaines
of Bordeaux,

and he figured out
exactly what they did,

studied their template to a T.

Only problem was there wasn't
a lot of Cabernet in Australia,

so he adjusted that template
with the Syrah grape.

You have to think
about at the time

the world was basically
drinking fortified wine
down in Australia.

That was the fashion
of the day.

So to make not only
a dry table wine

but to make a wine that
would stand the test of time

30, 40, 50 years later

was revolutionary thinking
for his day.

Think of the blend of Cabernet
with Syrah or with Shiraz.

It's a quintessential
Australian blend,

and Bin 60A out
of the Vintage 1962

is deemed to be
the crème de la crme

of that offer ever.

[man]
Now, this one
is incredibly venerated...

the rarity of this wine.

I mean, 5,000 bottles
of this wine

were made in 1962,

and I'd probably say
less than a dozen

exist to this day.

It has received
many global accolades.

Harvey Steiman,
Editor of Wine Spectator,

gave it a hundred points.

Considered the greatest
Australian wine ever made.

It's been given
perfect scores by many people.

The Bin 60A came in
at number 7

of the greatest wines
ever made on this planet.

Most critics,
most wine people,

would say that this
is your bucket list wine.

You have to try this
before you die.

This bottle hasn't moved
from the winery

since it was bottled
in 1964.

The cork
has thankfully done its job.

Absolute heaven.

Yeah, the wine's
in fantastic shape.

Very, very sundried black plum
and blackberry

and almost stewed lamb
kind of characteristic.

[Gago]
Now, I say of wines that get
perfect scores in their youth,

really they're still
on probation.

You know, is it a hundred
going that way,

or a hundred going that way?
You wouldn't know.

But when a wine that's 30, 40,
50, 60 years of age

gets a hundred points,

that wine can't hide
behind alcohol,

extract, or oak.

It's basically naked
in front of you.

It's unplanned.

Regardless of what you feel
about point scores,

if you are a high-end winery

and you have
a big case production

and you get over 95 points
on your wine,

you're not going to be
unhappy about that.

Do point scores matter?
Point scores may matter
for some.

We like our point scores.

We take our point scores
with stride.

We appreciate them.
We're not going to
give them back,

but that's not the first thing
we tout at all.

But if we're asked,

then I'll say, "Yeah,
that vintage of Grange
got 100 points.

"Yeah, that vintage
of Grange got 99.

Yeah, that vintage
of Bin 60A got 100 points."

Of course I'll say it
if they ask,

but I'll say it,

and then I'll move back
into the vineyards,

they style, the history,
the why.

That's what's most important.

[Grieco]
Forget the money
that you paid for the bottle,

forget who the hell made it,
and even for a moment

forget the history and all
the shit that I love so much.

It goes with food.

The opportunity for a sommelier
to pair wine with food--

it's indisputable
that it can heighten

and change an experience.

A lot of food and wine pairing
is bullshit.

A lot of food and wine pairing
is over-thought.

To say food and wine pairing
is bullshit?

Okay. I mean, that's like saying
peanut butter and jelly
is bullshit.

There's a reason
why that works.

Right?
A reason why we like that.

If you just had peanut butter,
you'd do this...

[smacking roof of mouth]
Right?

Or that jelly
has acidity in it.
It cuts it.

[slurps]

[swishes]

So my favorite food and wine
pairings are simple.

Muscadet and oysters.

A glass of Chianti
and a piece of lamb.

Sausage
and some Gewurztraminer.

It's almost cliché,
but a lot of people heard it,

but what grows together,
goes together.

Plants and food
that grows in an area

and grapes that grow
in the area,

the wine and the food
tends to match up

almost every time.

People in France will say

Sauternes and foie gras
go really well together.

You would think
that the savoriness
of the foie gras

and the sweetness
of the Sauternes
might be a conflict,

but actually
that's the richness.

They just both
kind of come together

and really make the experience
much more harmonious.

To me a food and wine pairing
is like a relationship

between two human beings.

It's like a marriage,

hopefully, with no divorce.

Traditionally Brussels sprouts,
asparagus, cauliflower,

all of those green,
leafy vegetables
are really hard to pair.

[McClintic]
Rosé can pair
really, really well

with awkward vegetables.
How many times you had
a salad on the table,

you're like, "Dude,
my wine tastes terrible"?

"I got vinaigrette
in my mouth

and this wine tastes sour.
It's awful."

If you are stuck
in a wine pairing

and don't know what to do,

don't forget champagne.

Champagne is an enormous
food friendly style of wine.

You can even go
through the entire meal
with that.

There's something to be said
for trial and error--

example,
Syrah and Indian food.

You know,
usually with spicy food,

the last thing you want
is a spicy wine.

You just think
it would be overkill,

but for whatever reason,
Syrah and Indian food
is incredible.

Yeah, you've got
some good ones out there--

Spam and Gew rztraminer.

[Puckette]
Red bean chili
and sparkling wine.

[man]
Peanut butter ice cream
and Beaujolais.

Popcorn and chardonnay
is pretty cool.

Chardonnay doesn't pair well

with a lot of things
because of oak.

Oak tends to conflict
with pairing,

but when you have
buttery things,

popcorn, it works.

Save the milk.

Like a decent Marsala

and chocolate chip cookies,

like nut-free
chocolate chip cookies,

and then when you add
the Marsala,

it tastes like there's nuts
in your cookies now.

The consumer still believes

that red wine
doesn't go with fish.

Simple as that seems,

like some of the best pairings
I've had lately

have been light red wines
with fish, so...

Oh, I'm hungry.

Every dish has an opening
for wine.

Hot dog with normal toppings,

so we're talking about bun,

we're talking about relish,

we're talking about ketchup,

maybe a little bit of mustard,
maybe raw onion.

I would say probably
the most fun one here

might be a Beaujolais.

You don't have a wine
that is too scholarly

or too pontificating.

And it's a hot dog,
for God sake.

You know?
We all love hot dogs,

and Beaujolais
is not fussy either,

so they should be together.

[Parr]
The most underrated region
in the world

is Beaujolais.

I'd probably have to say
Beaujolais.

Beaujolais, I think,

delivers the best quality
and drinking experience

for red wine,
dollar for dollar.

Some of the most
pleasurable wines

that I come across.

Beaujolais would be
at the top of the list.

There are two types of wines.

There are intellectual wines,

and there are
just delicious wines.

This wine
is certainly intellectual.

It's got crazy finesse.

There's a lot going on
in this wine.

It's super complex.

It just also happens to be
insanely delicious.

I can't keep my hands off it.

It's like catnip
for sommeliers.

Sommelier can be the best
and the worst.

They are very important

if they make the bridge

between the producer

and the drinker.

Producer is
Jean-Louis Dutraive.

It's a hundred percent Gamay.

I don't always have
the exact same taste
as my guests,

and oftentimes
that's a lot of the case

with a lot of sommeliers,
is that their taste

is totally different
from the tastes of the guest.

The inside joke in the wine
production business now

is that everybody
should be producing

Trousseau Gris in California

because the somms
think it's so great.

I think the things that
people hate about sommeliers

is that we're so opinionated

about one particular style
of wine

or how wine should be.

He's got so much knowledge,

and his tastes
have changed remarkably.

Since the moment
he started his journey
into the wine business...

till the moment
that he's a sommelier.

- [camera shutters clicking]
- [no audible dialogue]

You can bet
that the guy's going home

and drinking some crazy
oxidized natural wine.

This happens to be
a crazy natural wine producer.

He uses barely any sulfur
in the winemaking process,

hardly extracts at all.
He doesn't do anything.

He lets it sit in the tank,
slightly submerged.

This crazy new red variety
made by a guy in eggs

that are lined with wood

that are buried
in the forest out back,

and only the girls
can touch 'em kind of a thing.

And he's able to achieve this

with complete
minimal intervention.

It's absolutely insane
how he does this.

But these beautiful floral
and spicy herbaceous notes...

You know so much.

What?

On the other side,

you've got this person
who picks something

that you've never heard of

from a region that you
don't even know exists,

that tastes like
what you really want,

and it exposes you
to an entire new world

that you never knew existed.

I mean,
you taste a lot of wine,

and this wine
has crazy X factor,

so we're talking about
the southern part of Burgundy,

just below Pinot Noir Mecca,

and you're going to pay
$30 a bottle

for a bottle like this

whereas Burgundy

can run you
into triple digits.

And if you had this
with just about anything,

even seafood,
you want red wine with fish,

this is your ultimate play
right here.

Over time any wine drinker--
it's not just the sommeliers--

people who drink wine a lot,

you want to drink
the truth of what

is coming from the earth.

And that means tasting
the dirt of where it comes from.

And at the end
of the day most wines
that are fruit forward,

you can't taste
what's behind that.

It's like there's
all this makeup

in front of seeing the truth

of what's in the glass.

[Dame]
I don't they
they can help themselves.

I don't believe sommeliers
can help themselves

from the constant thirst
for knowledge,

and we do love to share it.

And I think that's--
that's the part of
the equation you left out.

We love to learn,
and we love to share it.

Sometimes
a little bit too much.

[McClintic]
If you're going to talk
about sommeliers,

you've got to talk
about the old-school guys.

And if you're going to talk
about the old-school guys,

you've got to talk
about Fred Dame.

Fred Dame is perhaps
the most important sommelier

in-- which means anything
in America.

[Cauble]
I mean, I think wine service
in America

would not be anywhere close
to where it is without Fred.

So the idea of a sommelier--

think of the white gloves.

You think of, you know,
the tastevin buttoned up,

and you picture a butler.

And then there's Fred,

who's either in a wine dinner

at some major market,

or he's hunting
in the middle of nowhere.

Have you ever seen
the movie Star Wars?

I kind of think of Fred Dame

as the character of Yoda.

Why are we sitting
in the middle of a duck pond?

'Cause it's beautiful.

And you talk about sommeliers

in the world of wine
and the vintages.

Great.

But look at the experience.

It's about the experience.

[chuckles]
Fred Dame has probably
opened more great wine

for people than anyone.

[McClintic]
You have a guy who's been
on the floor that long.

Fred has got more stories
in his back pocket

than you could
possibly imagine.

I used to work
at a restaurant called
the Sardine Factory,

Monterey, California.

And one of the owners
is Ted Balestreri.

The other's Bert Cutino.

We're all good friends
with Leon Panetta,

who was the head of the CIA
at the time.

Of course the hunt
for Bin Laden was on.

And when I was
the cellar master there,

we bought a bottle
of 1870 Lafite.

[Parr]
1870 Lafite is priceless,

among the rarest wines
on the planet,

if not the rarest wine.

[Dame]
So it's been sitting
in the cellar,

and every year they have
a New Year's Eve party,

and Leon comes to the party.

So he's always asking
about the 1870 Lafite.

So they're sitting there
one night.

It's probably
the end of the night.

They've drunk
a lot of wine, had a good time,

and Ted goes,
"Tell you what, Leon.

"You get Osama bin Laden,

I'll open that bottle
for you."

And everybody had
a good laugh.

And a couple months go by,

and his wife Silvia calls Ted
and goes,

"You ought to be watching
the 6:00 news

and tell Fred to get
his corkscrew out."

So we had a dinner.
It was very special.

I didn't know where it was going
to be till the last minute

because it involved
a lot of people

way up in the security world,

but we opened that 1870 Lafite.

But how do you serve 50 people

out of a single bottle of wine?

So I got a pipette,

and I got CIA shot glasses.

with the logo on them.

The Secret Service guys
are like,

"You know, guys,
I only got one.

"If I drop this, we're screwed.

Can you give me
a couple feet here?"

So we decanted it out,
I pipetted it,

and we all tried 1870 Lafite.

Just intense and powerful,

sweet fruit,

and 1870 was
one of the most celebrated
Bordeauxs of all time.

[Dame]
If you just drunk the wine
by itself,

you sat there and had tears
in your eyes,

but when you consider

what bin Laden did

and all the things
that occurred,

it was spectacular.

You can take the most expensive
bottle of wine you have

and-- in your collection--

get a great connoisseur,

a great sommelier,

and two guys off the street,

set it down and pull that cork,

and everybody's enjoying it

in a little different way.

That's the secret of it.

The complexity and the layers

are there for those
who want it,

but they're not essential
to the enjoyment

of wine.

Wine is very much like life.

You know, life is these series
of fleeting moments,

and then it's done,

and-- and that's--
you know,

sometimes you just gotta open
the bottle of wine and drink it.

You've got
this bottle of wine.

It's in a restaurant.
It's been ordered.

It's going to come
to a table.

And with it in
that 25.4 ounces of liquid

are all these stories.

The people, the place,
the soil,

when it was harvested.

How much work
you put into it,

what you went through,
how much you made,

how much it cost,
none of that matters.

It all comes down
to that one bottle

that's in front of two people.

[Parr]
One of the most
important things about wine

is where it ends up

and who opens it
and when they open it,

who do they open it with.

And the experience they have,

you know, the sex they have,
the fight they have,

the dinner they have,
the memory they have.

And it should really create
joy in your life.

Because your perception
is what makes it special,

and people forget that.

Just imagine
how many of those bottles
are just going out there

for all these people to just,
you know, have their way with.

Once you pop a cork

and you put it in that glass,

only one thing matters--

is it delicious?