When Andre Mack steps into a room, the air crackles with the energy of a man who's not only shaped my understanding of wine, but redefined what it means to build a brand in the industry. Our latest conversation whirls from his early days as a sommelier at Per Se to the legal wrangles with Mouton Rothschild that led to the birth of Maison Noir Wines. Join us as Andre peels back the layers of his journey, highlighting the importance of identity, the power of humor, and his unyielding dedication to crafting a narrative as compelling as his vintages.
Navigating the rigors of the hospitality trade, the artful balance of responsibility, and the pursuit of excellence - these themes resonate throughout our dialogue. Andre delves into the grind that underpins success, sharing insights on time management and strategic delegation that are as relevant to budding entrepreneurs as they are to seasoned restaurateurs. His stories of transition from NBA dreams to a life steeped in viticulture underscore the beauty of unexpected paths, while his advice on seizing moments and striving for improvement is a toast to the relentless spirit of ambition.
But this isn't just a chat about the grind; it's a celebration of creativity, the evolution of the American palate, and the merriment found in breaking wine's traditional confines. Andre’s infectious energy animates tales of branding ingenuity, misadventures turned wine-blending triumphs, and the embrace of a culture that welcomes new audiences to the vineyard's fold. By the time we clink glasses over the bright future of Relativity Vineyards and the Bung Podcast, you're bound to see the world of wine through a refreshingly different lens - Andre Mack's.
Join our Jabrone Gang! https://www.patreon.com/officialbungpod
Instagram: @officialbungpod
TikTok: @officialbungpod
When Andre Mack steps into a room, the air crackles with the energy of a man who's not only shaped my understanding of wine, but redefined what it means to build a brand in the industry. Our latest conversation whirls from his early days as a sommelier at Per Se to the legal wrangles with Mouton Rothschild that led to the birth of Maison Noir Wines. Join us as Andre peels back the layers of his journey, highlighting the importance of identity, the power of humor, and his unyielding dedication to crafting a narrative as compelling as his vintages.
Navigating the rigors of the hospitality trade, the artful balance of responsibility, and the pursuit of excellence - these themes resonate throughout our dialogue. Andre delves into the grind that underpins success, sharing insights on time management and strategic delegation that are as relevant to budding entrepreneurs as they are to seasoned restaurateurs. His stories of transition from NBA dreams to a life steeped in viticulture underscore the beauty of unexpected paths, while his advice on seizing moments and striving for improvement is a toast to the relentless spirit of ambition.
But this isn't just a chat about the grind; it's a celebration of creativity, the evolution of the American palate, and the merriment found in breaking wine's traditional confines. Andre’s infectious energy animates tales of branding ingenuity, misadventures turned wine-blending triumphs, and the embrace of a culture that welcomes new audiences to the vineyard's fold. By the time we clink glasses over the bright future of Relativity Vineyards and the Bung Podcast, you're bound to see the world of wine through a refreshingly different lens - Andre Mack's.
Join our Jabrone Gang! https://www.patreon.com/officialbungpod
Instagram: @officialbungpod
TikTok: @officialbungpod
bung pod. Welcome back, wine wonder boy. And we got jazzy jay. Jazzy. What is a bone? The hole of the barrel is called a bung hole. Inside the bung hole is called a bung wine with mayhem. That's what it's about. All right, welcome back to the bung pod. It's your boy, your boy, ian King, aka Wine Wonder Boy, and I got my co-host with me, jazzy J. Say what's up? Hey, if you like this podcast, please rate us five stars, if you can, on any platform that you're watching this on. Come, follow us, talk to us at Official Bung Pod on all social media platforms and catch the visual podcast on YouTube at OfficialBungPod as well. So we have an awesome guest today. I'm very excited.
Speaker 1:He's a huge influence in my early on wine career. I used to listen to podcasts with him on it constantly when I was just learning. He is a sommelier, oregon winemaker, merch creator. I'm rocking it right now bone thugs and burgundy. Um. He's an author 99 bottles youtube, bon appetit world of wine host, which now went international, which is amazing. Owner and founder of and son's hospitality group, and his wine lists are listed on the wall street journal, huffington post, black Enterprise. And he's also just a badass motherfucker. Please welcome, andre Mack. Hey.
Speaker 1:Andre hey what's going on, guys? Yeah, let me put the air horns in post. Thanks for joining us, man. You've been gracious enough to send us a bottle of the new noir. Yeah, yeah, so I've been following your career for a while. You have maison noir, um, which, and it was, was it previously a muton noir as well, or?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I started a company in 2007. And so you know, mouton Noir was kind of like a nickname that I was given when I came to New York. You know, just all playful in a way. You know I considered myself the black sheep within the four walls of the restaurant.
Speaker 2:You know, I was probably one of the few people who had worked at the French Laundry and came to New York to work at Per Se. So I think there were a lot of New Yorkers that came to, they came and they came and trained there, but you know they didn't work there and so you know, for me it was just like you know, I just did things my way within those four walls and you know it was a black sheep. And then, you know, looking macro, like you know it was a black sheep. And then, and then you know, looking macro, like you know, there's not a lot of people that do what I do, that look like me, and so for me it was all about just leaning into that Right and so like talk to me, that's a great question.
Speaker 3:Is this the Mouton in your book? You had nicknames and you eventually gave your staff nicknames as well. Is that what? That was, mouton right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there was a name and so it's funny because you know we do a pre-shift meeting at the beginning of each shift and you know I'll talk about wines and you know wines and styles and highlight producers, and we were talking about Robert Bialy, which is a California producer that makes Syrah, and this particular I'm sorry Zinfandel, and this particular Zinfandel was actually called the black chicken and it was kind of an homage to during prohibition time, when people would come to the farm and buy stuff and then they would say, let me get a black chicken, which that was like they get them booze wine, and so that was kind of that started the whole kind of joke and everybody was like, oh, they used to be called the black chicken and everybody's trying to make up names like hell, no.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, people came around and well, we should call you black sheep, and then, and then I was, and then someone said, oh and so and I was like, oh, okay, like you know, I was like I was like, okay, and then I designed the logo that's on the back, yeah, on that. But I designed the logo that was my screensaver and so and that was that was it, and then I just joked. You know, all the time, like I just talked about, like that t-shirt, like bone thugs and like all of that happened at work, you know, you know the candy, you know you know a magnum, you know it costs $45,000. Right.
Speaker 2:And I was always like, oh, I'm gonna make this one, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do hell, yeah, um. But lo and behold, what happens is that you realize is that you know, in the real world, when you're grown up, you know the liquor business is pretty litigious, right. So next thing, you know, I'm getting sued by mouton rothschild. I'm in this legal battle where they serve me Back and forth I mean it was almost. I mean six years, five years, something like that and what surprises that only the attorneys get paid.
Speaker 2:And this is this stupid like. And when you really understand the game, it's big bank to take little bank, right, like they have so much money that they would just bleed me dry, and much money that they would just bleed me dry. And so I was like, fuck it, I'll just change the name, but I'm not signing any paperwork because they try to do that to set precedent, right. So they're like, oh, we protected our trademark, we set precedent. And I was like I'm not doing that. And so I just changed the name and we just kind of moved on and so now it's called mason noir wines, and it's so funny because a lot of my distributors they protest and they still have it listed as as Mouton Noir.
Speaker 1:Mouton, yeah, yeah so you know.
Speaker 2:So it had that thing, but you know it was a nickname that I just kind of ran with and and it's that thing that, like, I feel like we have all felt like black sheeps out, you know, misfits, outcasts, all of those things, like like we've never, like we didn't fit in. And for me, I, you know, I tell people like you should lean into that and embrace that Right, because that's that's what makes us all different, especially in a, in a world where everybody is conforming, everybody is the same. You know, it's that whole saying is like they laugh at me because I'm different and I laugh at them because they're all the same.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that for me was like do you, and that's going to set you apart in the world? And that's kind of the approach that I took with wine and like when you name you know I didn't name my wine Chateau, andre Mac or some bullshit like that Right, because to me it's like what the fuck does that mean to anybody?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't mean anything. And so for me, it was like, okay, like it gave me creative license to do things differently, right, and so that was it. You know, so, by naming a wine, love drunk, that sparks some type of emotion or thought process or filling, and someone, and that's what wine is about. It's an, it's an emotional thing, and so that's to me. That's why I was like, oh, so I'll just name them, these names and things that like mean something to me or could mean anything to anybody else, and to me, that's what made wine fun. Um, you know, and that was always been the mission for me was like how to make wine, you know, accessible to like to everyone, and even like in those four walls of the restaurant, like you think about, it's like 2004, we're at the number one, so number one restaurant in the wine.
Speaker 2:I'm doing a pre-shift meeting and I describe a wine as bang it. It's like this wine is bang People. The staff is looking around like can he say that? Right, I'm not talking. Everybody's looking around like who the fuck says that? Who's this guy? Right, and that was it. And I think for me, it made me, you know, relatable to the staff. It made wine really the way to be able to talk about it in a way that wasn't nostalgic and wasn't wasn't funny and obviously, obviously I could talk about wine at many different levels. Right, you know, you know the wall street guy that comes in and wants to do the fucking. You know the wine smackdown. Right, I could do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, totally yeah, but ideally, you know, for me it was always about trying to meet people where they were at and explain wine that way and really wanting you know, just like. It's just grape juice, like like, and when I say that it's not like disrespectful, it's like, you know, simplifying it but still having respect for it, right yeah, that's why I'm not a blender, right, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like, you know what I mean, like it's like those kinds of things, and that's that's kind of how it started. I don't even know what we're talking about. You just got me, you asked me. I don't even know.
Speaker 1:Well, I had a question because of I mean, you are a huge influence in the wine industry. You do so much.
Speaker 3:How the fuck do you keep doing all this stuff?
Speaker 1:you know what's your schedule like how do you have peace of mind?
Speaker 2:you gotta delegate, right, you know, and and I say that with ease, but I have to tell you that you know I had to pay somebody and lay on their sofa to work that shit out, right, because for me it was like if I had to tell you twice I might as well do it myself. And and I was that person. You know I move, I would like move 200 cases like before and then go to service, right. So it was just one of those things where I realized that you can have it all. I think a lot of people don't think that you can have it all, but you have to manage it all. You can have it all. You don't have to manage it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally so, like you know, so for me, you know our restaurant group, we have a director of operations right, I talked to one person, as you know what I mean. It's being able to to manage it all and we all have the same 24 hours and it's just like where you want to dedicate yourself. You know, um, I don't do any victory laps. You know it's really hard for me, I don't smell. I don't celebrate small victories. I don't small. I don't celebrate any victories. I don't know it's really hard for me, I don't smell it. I don't celebrate small victories, I don't smell.
Speaker 2:I don't celebrate any victories? I don't know. It's just, let's keep going. Somebody asked me to do something. I was like shit, you should have asked me two years ago. Let's do it. Let's check it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, and I think for like, for some like. So people just see this part of my life, but you know I can remember, you know, working at a restaurant and like life was going nowhere fast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right I remember those days.
Speaker 2:you know I used to put cocktail sauce on plates at Red Lobster. Yeah Right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Starting from the bottom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I remember, just like you know, going out with the waiters know me realize like, well, shit, I'm just as smart as they are like I had to wait tables and you know they were like, wow, like every night you're on your hands and knees and you're cleaning the wall and the trays and I was like, yeah, because I want to experience every single moment of that, never fucking doing it again but you can say you've done it right and by doing it, I would never I know how long it takes and I would never ask anybody something I won't like.
Speaker 2:you know, I'm walking down the street. I'm like yo yo, yo man, we're going to catch this motherfucker who doesn't clean up after their dog. Well, I'm gonna go get a bag, one of you go get like a bucket, yeah, any of that. And I think just for me, it's just like you know, we just you know.
Speaker 2:I just realized like like we're not here forever and it's like let's just go and, yeah, this is what I want to be doing, like I don't I there's no joy for me sitting on a beach at all yeah, right, my wife's miserable, like why don't you go back to the hotel, right? You know, I got sand in my ass and I can't see my. You know what I?
Speaker 3:mean, yeah, I feel you you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So, so for me, like it's just, it's just one of those things, and, like you know, I I've dreamt about it, but I thought about it. You know, a lot of the ideas that I'm fortunate enough to present today are just same ideas that I had in 2004 yeah right, you know, I look back at some of the labels.
Speaker 2:I designed those labels in 2008, and we just used them for a project in 2020. And so, yeah, so, just for me, it's just one of those things. It's like this is it and you know there's a lot of that kind of shit Like so, like I, I wanted to play basketball at, you know, for a living. I wanted to be in the NBA, and so I worked hard, thought I worked hard, um, and you know, for me, potential is a bad word, like when I hear that it's like you could be good.
Speaker 2:But you're not good enough, like right now. And I wasn't good enough. You know, I played a little college and I realized that and I kind of let that go and I always said, like if I was ever good at something else, I would never, ever let it go, I would squeeze the life out of it. Hell yeah, and lo and behold, like this wine thing comes along. By watching old episodes of fraser and I see that there's, there's something to it and that was it. And then you dig in. You're like well, wait a minute. Like there's a competition for this shit, like yeah, like, and like well, like it's like, hold on, I get to wear like suits like you know, expensive suits eyes and carry mouth watches all that shit and I was like here and like and you know that was it.
Speaker 2:You know my mom was always like well, baby, you work in a restaurant, you're supposed to go home hungry.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So it's like way to like eat and drink above your pay grade. But also I realized that you know that it could really be this career for me and that was it. And, like you know, one thing leads to the next thing and it leads to the next thing and, you know, showing up is 80% of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the wine world is crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can move pretty fast. And that was that was it. You know, even the restaurant it was just. Like. You know, I read a magazine one day. I saw these three people in this, in this article, and I picked up the phone and called all of them and I was like, hey, somebody worked at Charlie Trotter. I was like, hey, man, I would love to come and stage with you guys and they. You know, that's something that they normally do in the kitchen but they normally don't do in the front of the house.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so I told them I called Virginia Phillips but she didn't answer. And then I called the only master sommelier in the state of Texas, scottie Paul Roberts, and like I got to meet like this wild, like pulled up, and they're like, oh, meet me in the back. You know, he didn't even call. I never spoke to him. It was like, okay, I got you and show up, thursday four o'clock, back door I was like all right, let's show up.
Speaker 2:I don't know what to expect and I just remember we're walking down the stairs. This is a thursday, he said on monday. Sorry, I couldn't get back to you. On monday I accepted the job to be the wine director for all the thomas keller's properties that's crazy you're the wine director for thomas keller's all of his properties.
Speaker 2:So yeah, he was so, he. So there was a position that didn't exist. They were expanding, uh, and he became this thing and he was in texas, I was living in san antonio, he was in houston, and I just remember walking down the stairs and him telling me that, and then we were talking. He's like hey, who, like you know, tell me about yourself, kid, kid, right, we're drinking an espresso. Then, I think, a sales rep came and now, all of a sudden, we're drinking margaritas out of Pinot Noir glasses, right. And then he's like hey, man, it's time to work the floor.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:So then I get up and he's like no, bring your margarita with you. And and, uh, and I worked the floor and you know I had, you know I, it's easy, I just hadn't learned the table number. So I knew, and I, you know, I was familiar with some of the things on the list. And at the end of the night he's like, hey, kid, I like you. Um, I have to hire six sommeliers. Do you want to come to the french laundry?
Speaker 2:and I was like fuck yeah that's crazy to tell you the truth, I'm out like before. I got out of the car we pull up in the back and I was like this is stupid. Really, I don't want to go. Yeah, I didn't want to go in. I had cold feet. I was like this is so dumb, I don't want to do this. This is like blah blah, blah, blah blah and just look at you now right, just by showing up.
Speaker 2:Things happen, yeah, when you do, and that's that's how I built a company. That's all. Of that is just showing up that's crazy.
Speaker 3:Wow. So you big news you just went international um with bon appetit. So I'd like to understand, because you don't exactly foretit. It's a magazine, right?
Speaker 2:And you contract with them yeah, so they're a magazine and magazines as they get out in the content world. They were a really shining example of how a magazine created this huge community and and basically it was the test kitchen, so where they were testing recipes and all that. They turned the cameras on their employees okay and it was this huge thing, uh.
Speaker 2:And so they big following whatever. And then during the pen, outright, yeah, during the pandemic, they were looking to expand and, like wine wasn't a thing that most people would tell you didn't think that would work on on those platforms, right. So they reached out to me and, um, I was like all right, you know maybe. So you know, you know, my thing is like take the meeting. You know, I took the meeting and then it got like somebody. I just just felt kind of lame. I was like I'm not doing that shit, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that, and I just remember they're do that.
Speaker 2:And I just remember they're like do you like? They're like, well, what about just like, reviewing wines under 15 bucks? And before I could say something, someone was like do you even drink wine under 15 bucks? It's like, of course I do. And then, and then I was like I was just kind of on the fence and then I was like hey, can I use emojis? And they were like yeah, and I was like sign me up. And that was it.
Speaker 3:Hell yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Use emojis in my book and the publisher was like, nah, they, they, they just, it was just so funny. They made it like so difficult or whatever. And I just remember talking to the editor Maybe she's listening. She says, well, you know, andre, like where's, where's the? You know, you have a video game, you have this, you have like, have all this, you know this stuff. And, like you know, I guess somehow she was bored with the book and I just said, well, I gave you the million dollar idea. It was emoji.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You didn't think it was right. But there we go, there it is Right. Yeah, yeah, it was the million dollar idea, and so we didn't. We didn't end up using it in that. And then when, uh, when bon appetit was like hey, you know you can, you know you could use this, you know you can use them, I was like okay, because wine, like you, when you start to think about wine, is naturally about a feeling yeah, right, it's like the way that we communicate.
Speaker 2:It's, it's, it's a vibe right. It's like how way that we communicate it's a vibe right. It's like how it makes you feel, I think is an easier way to explain to new people who come to wine and so that's, you know. It's like, well, how do they communicate with each other? So let me communicate with them that way.
Speaker 3:So you've been doing a lot of seminars recently and I believe, if I'm following correctly, that you've been doing a lot of seminars recently and I believe, if I'm following correctly, that you've been doing a lot of talk on like branding and marketing Somewhat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know it's interesting. So like graphic design, like I didn't know, it was this love for me, right.
Speaker 3:It's just so funny.
Speaker 2:So at Per Se we do a pre-shift meeting and like, so the chef has the menu, uh, and then the front of the house, so the maitre d, you know they list, like you know, talking points or whatever, and then the wine department had the back of that page, so we had one full sheet and I would spend probably about 30 or 45 minutes doing page outlay on on microsoft word, right, because I didn't know how to use anything else, and so it had graphics and all kinds of stuff. And I just remember someone saying, wow, like did you go to school for that? And I was like, no, I got kicked out of school. No, I didn't. And that was the first time I heard someone say, oh, you're pretty creative, I just didn't.
Speaker 2:I just never thought about that, yeah, and when it came time to finally, like you know, when the wine the company became came to fruition, like I just couldn't afford a designer, yeah, and so I bought like a, you know, I bought an old imac on craigslist for 200 bucks and I just stared at the screen, uh, and and taught myself how to use it and, uh, so a lot of like what's been branching out, what's really cool is like, um, you know, so I do a lot of graphic. You know, I just did deliver a keynote speech at a graphic design conference, and so it's like those kind of things I get to do, like I was in Canada, you know, just giving a talk about myself, but within those conversations are talks about branding Okay, right, and I didn't go to school for it, so it wasn't. You know, I'm not like, oh, look at the colors and put all that school for it, so it wasn't.
Speaker 2:You know I'm not like, oh, look at the colors and put all that, like all of it just came natural to me in a way, yeah, that, like you know, it was really hard for me to be able to explain it to other people so they could do it for themselves. So to me it just felt natural to me the progression and how I put those things together, um, and then, and then the use of technology like I really built this company in the early days of Facebook dark posts. So Facebook dark posts was the beginning of their advertising platform, right, so I, I use that and it was pretty. It was robust. Anything that early that started early was robust and and like it was pretty detailed.
Speaker 2:You could market down to a T somewhat. It almost felt somewhat illegal and now they don't do some of those. But you could market to race, uh, you could market to if uh, to their employer. You could market, uh, down to the road, um, and a lot of things that we did. It's like we ran an ad. So if I was going to Colorado Springs, I would run ads to Coloradoado springs and then people be like, oh, wow, like I, I just I saw that you know, people were used to it, but that's really how I, how I built it and so I talk a lot about about that and so somewhat designed. So it's in all of those talks. It's not specifically on marketing, but a lot of that kind of falls within the parameters of telling my story.
Speaker 3:Well, even well, even for your book. I mean you, I, you know, I listened to a lot of books and I did listen to your book, and so I feel like I actually already know you because I've been listening.
Speaker 1:By the way, props for reading your own book for the book. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Huge detail that's important to a lot of people. And the hard part was because it's, it's, I'm, I'm, I'm reading the book, like so I'm reading, yeah, there's, it's no personality, what I really wanted to was to go off strip, what I'll go off script, like why the fuck? Like I wanted to somebody, I want to give somebody extra that thing, yeah, yeah. And so I do sound a little monotone in it. I was it was so funny Cause I just looked it up, cause I was like, oh, is it on Spotify and so, and it is, and so, um, yeah, it's just like, oh, okay, but yeah, I it was. It was a really fun experience.
Speaker 3:Putting the book together felt was somewhat therapeutic yeah, I believe it was honestly how you placed it together and how you told your stories and how you would have this bottle of wine and pair it with that story. Honestly, for me, I mean, it shows back to the branding and marketing of just the side of your art. I mean that's not generally what you see or listen to, um, in a book. It's here's the chapter, here's the story. Let's go on to the next chapter. Here's the story, but you actually paired it with the wines and these experiences, which was I thought was really, really fun and cool right, let's take a break for a minute, because Jazzy has got something to tell you.
Speaker 3:All right, let's talk about it. So did you know we do have extra episodes on Patreon and you can only get these for $5. What, yeah, crazy? I know Dope, so go to Patreon. Link is in the description of the episode and subscribe $5. You're supporting us and you're getting to learn more about the wine industry. Let's go, woo, all right, all right, all right, guess what? I think Ian has something to tell us.
Speaker 1:I do, I do. We got some merch going on right now. We got, say, what we got handbags no way. We got stickers. What we got tank tops right now for the summertime, oh hell yeah, we got some windbreakers too. So go to bungpodstore and get your bungpod Pod merch, yeah.
Speaker 2:Wine is the placeholder of time, the reason why you go on vacation. You're in Portugal, you're on the beach, you grab a three-year-old bottle of Vinho Verde and it's the most amazing. You're watching the sunset, you're with your people and then you come back to the States and you're trying to find that bottle Right. Yeah, a couple years later you find it. You're like, oh my god, like this is horrible, this doesn't taste the same. And then you're like it's an experience, right, and it's everything else. It's the beach, it's all of those things, and for me it was like, okay, uh, with the book, it's like there's a connection to all of those stories. Those bottles were there. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So when I, when I talk about per se catching on fire, yeah, on the first day of service, that was a bottle of wine that I had open for a guest, so I opened it to candidate it and they ran late for lunch. So like what was happening was lunch had ended and now we're doing the transition. So people were coming in, the employees are coming in, staff know all that stuff was happening. And I remember walking around the like into the service station and I was like. I was like I was like, oh man, it's like somebody's smoking crack and like you know, they were like I said no seriously smells like somebody's smoking crack, and they all paused for a long time.
Speaker 2:They're like andre we don't know what crack smells like right, which is like but and then I had to explain.
Speaker 2:It's like oh, you know, I grew up, you know, in the crack era, in, like, in trenton, new jersey. So like, yeah, you would see that you could smell it. They would be in the schoolyard, you know, putting the fire to the glass and you could see it flicker, like I'd be sitting on the porch, but you could smell it and it smelled. And then I was like, oh yeah, okay, it smells like an electrical fire. Okay, guys, you know, smoke started to billow through the, through the vents and all that, and I and I remember I had grabbed the guest was like, oh, we're gonna leave before that. And then I grabbed the ball. They like here, give me the canner, it's like you enjoy it. And so I bought it back to the station and everybody there was having family meal and I so. So when I think about that wine, I think about the fire. And so the concept was how do I, you know, tell my life, my wine life story? And through these bottles?
Speaker 2:yeah, and so super cool, and so the title of the book is, you know, 99 Bottles of Black Sheep's Guide to Life-Changing Wine, and so those are the wines that define my life and part of the book is to encourage other people. What's your 99? What are the bottles that you remember that define your life, right, like, and you know, some of it was water, it was. Some of them are really expensive wines, you know know, some of it was water it was. Some of them are really expensive lines. You know, the first entry in the book is oh, you know, you know. Or your san perry, right, uh, or the sparkling water, yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, san pellegrino was like when I quit, but when I first got into that it was, it was, you know, old english 800, you know, and I talk about. You know, I was a kid who was raised by hip hop and popular culture. You know, hip hop is the only genre of music that tells it's aspirational. It tells you like. It tells you what fashion, it tells you what car to drive, it tells you how to wear your pants or your clothes. It actually even tells you what woman to be attracted to, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like it's that only genre music does that. So like you're listening to and you're like, well shed, you know, ice cube drinks 40 hours, right, you know what I mean obviously I have to, oh my god, this tastes like ice, cube, piston, charcoal, charcoal, right.
Speaker 2:So so that was, and so the book was really fun and like, in a way, and therapeutic, of being able to go back and really like what you remembered and to be able to dive deeper into those stories and so, and it made me relive like living in New York and and just like my whole career which, like I say, I don't I don't do a lot of reflecting, right, because it's hindsight is 2020. So, like you know, I think in a lot of those instances, you know, out of fear, you know, I'd be on the floor curled up in the fetal position, right, because you could clearly see where it went wrong. And so the book was really fun. And then we wanted to be you know I don't take myself serious so the idea was like we wanted it to be like a wine guide and so inside of that you could learn. You know it's like oh, what is, what is? You know what is Chateau, enough to pop.
Speaker 2:And then also, I always felt like it was kind of like native learning by reading it through the stories, you've got an inside track into, like how things worked in the restaurant and how just you know like how I got into wine and so it was a really, really fun project for me, you know. You know, looking back on on it it's like oh, wow, okay, it was cool. But then I think of covid, it didn't really. You know, its growth was stunted in a way right, because you know it came out in october book tour. You know we did a little bit in the fall with a, with a big push coming like and you know the next quarter, and then it all got shut down because of covid. Um, I'm working on my next book, which is great I signed, you know, for when I'm here, it's the. You know it's the largest wine book advance in the history of publishing oh shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we got a book coming out. It's called thirst trap how to love wine without monogamy, um, and so, uh, I'm really excited. It's more of a wine 101 book, um, which I said to myself I never wanted to do because I feel, like you know, there's already the definitive wine 101 books out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so so.
Speaker 2:But then you know, you start to realize, like you know, the thousands of the dms I get each day are really just people asking the basic questions yeah, so it's like okay. So maybe it's the tone and and which I I talk about it that maybe we should. Uh, you know, maybe you should do a book. So I'm excited and like we're working on that now. Uh, so it's been really fun hell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome man. I love that. I love how you fuse like, because I grew up in hip-hop too, and I love how you fuse wine and hip-hop together, because that's always been he brings it up like every podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm here for the, here for the music, but I'm like I can't remember, remember even what I did today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like, and sometimes I, when people don't. Uh, when I try to explain who you are to some people, I'm like he's kind of like the wine, Jay-Z, like a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's weird. And then you think of, like, how, how that, like wine, is now a big part of that culture. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's not. You know it was a really great article. You know where they were talking about. It's not about for basketball players, it's not. It's it's not about the chain anymore, it's not about the car or the house, it's about what they can bring and everybody trying to work together on the wine and I think that's really cool. You know it's like.
Speaker 2:You know the idea, like so iconically culturally, like the barbershop, right, the fact that like totally the show has a show that he's in the barbershop, yeah, getting that, and they're drinking 1990 latour like that, really like worlds colliding yeah, really kind of cool to see. Yeah, then we've all kind of seen what happens when wine becomes part of popular culture. You know, you look at sideways yeah, just one scene you know 45 seconds long and it decimated.
Speaker 2:You know a particular grape right, yep right and then elevated pinot noir in that way and you really got to see that um and even like, think about rosé. You know the fat jewish, you know with that, you know how rose, you know rosé. At some point I think it's imploded a little bit, but you know, let's call it. Five years ago, rose was larger than wine as a category yeah and that you know, like you think of, like you know producers that hadn't that never made rose, and then their first vintage that come out and they make 45 000 cases.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right so it became this big thing and part of popular culture and I'm anxious to see where wine goes as it continues to kind of go down that path yeah, well, and speaking of the wine, I know ian had a couple questions about your winery in oregon and that whole.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean also, I just kind of want to get have you explain a little bit of this wine, of the new noir to so, yeah, what's in it? What's in it? And I have a, I think I have a a little bit of a guess of a large, a large quantity of pinot green possibly. So my guess is some pinot gris, just because of the color, and I think it's probably like a skin fermented are you drinking the same thing?
Speaker 2:no, I'm drinking something else oh we're not anything. It looks close enough. Um, yeah, no, so it is uh sorry. Skin contact. Pinot gris there's some gewurztraminer in it I was gonna say gewurztraminer uh, and there's a little bit of uhot Blanc as well. Okay nice, and so I originally made this wine in 2020 and skin contact, and so it looked orange. So the two vintages that I've made, one looks orange and the other one looks Romano style. This way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I'm honest, right, I fucked up. I let the wine sit on the skins too long and then, due to some communication, miscommunication, it was bottled and now, you know. So now there's all this clamoring. People are like when's the next finish all this? So there's that, but they're expecting something that looks totally different. Right, there's something that looks orange, and I'm like fuck, and so you know, and, and I guess, like how I attacked everything, it's like you, you just own up to it and you just roll, and so what we're doing is, if you look at that label, it there's a there's on the top right. It says late. There's a stamp on it on the front label on the front, on the front I don't see anything you don't see anything on it.
Speaker 2:Oh, maybe they gave you. Oh, we shipped you, it didn't have any wax on it no yeah, okay, yeah, so, yeah.
Speaker 2:So because we, because we, we pay people to wax it. We don't wax it all at once, because we made a whole bunch and it cost me 50 an hour. So what? We? Basically, if you look at it, we bought these stamps from amazon that said late, okay, and we just every single label that says late and that differentiated this wine from the next one, and then I had to go out and tell the story that I messed up that like that I waited too I mean you might have waited too long, but it doesn't taste like phenolically bitter, so like when I think of leaving on the skins too long.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't taste like phenolically bitter, so like when I think of leaving on the skins too long, especially for an orange one.
Speaker 2:It's down and that's why I didn't. I didn't, like if it was bitter, then I wouldn't even fuck, I wouldn't even put it out right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, the wine tastes great to me, but it wasn't what people thought it should look like and what it would continue to, and so this is the one off, like I fucked up so I'm just gonna put this on and I put the sticker on it and and that was it, and so it's been well received and we'll probably we'll move back to how it's supposed to look. But that was that was just kind of it, and so it's for me like.
Speaker 3:So new noir, it's like orange is the new black yeah that's well and honestly so you're telling me, like I have an og bottle right here, like this is very like.
Speaker 2:So this, this one, in some ways, because they, because once it's done, it's, it's over, yeah, and you know, 2024 will look orange, like, like, like the others, okay, it's just, it's one of those things that it's. It's one of those things where you just pivot. I'm just honest. I think one time I had to pay some money and I bought bottles from China and they weren't sterile and basically the wines all started to re-ferment in the bottle. My life was over, my company was over, but we narrowed it down and I called everybody and I said hey look, I said to them exactly what I said to you. I said I'm sorry. I said to them exactly what I said to you. Yeah, I'm sorry, and, uh, we will go ahead and recall those. And you know I, you know I had to sue all that over, but I thought I thought it was all over but for me, it's just like you know approaching everything with you know being authentic, and that's it.
Speaker 3:That's all I can ask, and that's one thing I totally respect about you because you know a lot of time in the wine world especially with the podcast we've currently been having is a lot of people say what good they've done, like this is what I've seen, this is what I've done. But you know what I want to hear how you fucked up, especially when we're winemakers and we're like I work mostly in the tasting room or out in the vineyard and you know what we're. We're human. We fuck up. It's okay. But like people need to understand, like mistakes happen and I appreciate that you even can say that and be real with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think all of it is. I think you know what?
Speaker 2:what has gotten me this far in life is being honest and authentic and generous yeah, totally so do you still also have the wine shop yeah, we have the wine shop, yeah, so we have about eight food businesses here in brooklyn. And so the idea was I, um, I just I wanted to be part of the legendary restaurant landscape of New York and I wanted a bar. I wanted a wine. Yeah, like I've been here, like I just want a bar, like, if I wasn't traveling, this is where you could find me. And so I had moved my family to. We had moved to Lyon for four months for, like, language immersion for my, my two boys.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And in 2016, and then also we were, I guess we were kind of trying on as a family, like if, like they, if my family was going to live there for six months out of the year, and I mean I wouldn't, it didn't matter to me. Like it's like I'm in new york, I need to go to work it's six hours west, I need to go see my family in six hours east, uh, and so I just remember at the end just you know, the experience of like eating there in restaurants. I, just when we came back, I was like listen, like nobody's going anywhere, like we're gonna open a bar, and so I had signed the lease in 20 at the beginning of 2017. Took me three years to open this bar. That's like you know, 400 square feet and, to be honest with, for a lot of contractors and people in new york, it just you know 400 square feet and, to be honest with, for a lot of contractors and people in New York, it just you know it was just too small.
Speaker 2:Like most people's get out of bed price 250 grand. I was like the whole project is 65,000. Right, um, and so in the meantime, I guess what happened is it's you know I'm I'm competitive and somewhat vindictive in a lot of ways. So I was selling wine in LA and I had, like this really kind of weird and somewhat horrible experience selling wine at this wine shop, where I felt like the person was was condescending and weird and like and I don't walk in saying anything right and I'm not like I'm saying I'm a big deal or anything right, like I'm just thankful of your time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm thankful of your time. We present the wines and we let the wine speak for themselves. We could talk about the wines and I just remembered walking out of there feeling like I could do this better than this person. Yeah, and I had some friends who owned a store in my neighborhood that wasn't getting much traction and I called them like before I even got in the car and I said, hey, man, if you are, you still looking to sell, and if you are, I'm your guy. And so I bought the store in 2019, in April 2019.
Speaker 2:And uh, and so it's just been a really fun experience and kind of like right on scale or ahead of the, the head of the curve, in the way that a lot of restaurants, you're kind of not a real restaurant group, now hospitality group, unless you have a wine store. So the idea is like you have a restaurant, you have all these loyal people that trust you with the wine selection Like why wouldn't they buy wine from you at retail? And so it was just really fun and the wine store is like 200 square feet.
Speaker 2:But it's all in my neighborhood and so during the pandemic we just kept expanding and so we still have that and that's been really fun and really awesome to be able to provide these things inside of my neighborhood, right when I feel like I was going outside of my neighborhood to get some of these things and to be able to and be able to have that and build that and like and it's all on this one street here. It spans like seven blocks, but yeah, so I still have that and the restaurant is like cool. You know, like for me it was like I was fascinated with these meat antique meat slicers and that's kind of how it started. I bought it, then I had you know it was, you know I had it at the crib, you know I named it Kimbo slice. Like it was just awesome. And then I was like and then really, you know, we would entertain. You know my last trip, I would travel like almost every single week and then, like, I think my last like trip was always around like right before Thanksgiving, so it was like November 19. And and so we would start to entertain, like you know, all the way through the holidays and then, you know, the bar just became really an extension of our home and so so it was really fun. And then thematically it was just, like you know, I want to celebrate country hams and so it's the largest selection of country hams in one place at 15 um give or take some black market ones off in, so and it's all american cheese, uh, and it's all american wine back to the 60s, and so it's a really fun place.
Speaker 2:You know, I think to drink and like some of the greatest value in wine today is old American wine and it's so funny because some of the stuff is not the stuff that most people would think. Like you know, when you said collectible wine, you know I mean I just bought a whole bunch but like we can't even get Kenwood Jack London, so Kenwood Jack London Vineyard, we bought, bought cabernet and we have it from 1985. We sell it for probably 85 bucks on the list and it's just amazing, right, you know, and that there's really no market for that, like there's they're not people buying that wine at auction. You know what I mean, right? So it's a real, you know what I mean. So it's not an auction market for it and it's really great and I think you the idea of introducing people into.
Speaker 2:You know, drinking older wine takes some experience to. You know, everybody thinks that it's supposed to be. You know that it's going to be big and bold and jammy, like how current releases, and so it's just really awesome to be able to do that. You know, I think the wine list is like 700 selections and it's this all old, old American wine, wine which is, and then by the glass, we kind of have like some of the new young guns, um, but it's just, it's been really remarkable.
Speaker 2:I was just in atlanta. Someone came up and they were like, oh my god, like we're at your place and we had, you know, 1976 petite syrah and he was like that one's amazing. And so there's, there's something really fun. Fun about that and like you know, and it's a place that it doesn't exist anywhere in the world, yeah, uh, and it's, and it's in my neighborhood and I got that, you know. So for me it's like really fun. And then we just kind of built around that. You know I yeah bakery.
Speaker 2:You know, I grew up in san antonio, texas. So when I'm feeling homesick, you know breakfast tacos, my jam, and so the idea was like let's do breakfast tacos. And you know, you know and connect the dots. It's like my world's collide and I grew up, you know, putting tortillas in the microwave store-bought stone meal. We mill our you know 80 of our grain, we press them to order, and you know we're the largest purchase of benton's but you know we spent his bacons, farmstead cheeses, uh, or you know, um, you know, and organic, you know you know organic eggs, and so it's just been really like a fun thing to kind of you know culinary, wide culinary worlds kind of collide in that, and so it's like that. You know I have a seafood restaurant. It's bought into a pizza, a pizza place, you know New York style pizza, and so it's just that part has been really, really fun for me, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it's just that part has been really, really fun for me. Yeah, yeah, and so that's what I spent the pandemic doing.
Speaker 3:Good, that's awesome. I know, Before we started this podcast, we were actually talking about going into a wine shop here in Chilean. It's a very small town, so you know it's definitely a and it's an expensive town is really where I should say but yeah, you know. And then we started the bung pod and here we are. So another thing I wanted to bring up was you went to Oregon not because of the Pinot Noir, but because of the Chardonnay, and what was your question?
Speaker 1:It was yeah, I mean, how would you compare your experience with Oregon Chardonnay to your experience with Burgundy?
Speaker 2:Actually. So it's the other way. I actually did go to Oregon because of, because of, because of Pinot Noir.
Speaker 3:Oh OK.
Speaker 2:But also same question, but for Pinot Noir so the idea was like, um, uh, any rest, any you know great restaurant, great wine list that I had a hand in building and being a part of that really kind of bookend on red and white burgundy, uh, and so that was like a really a first love. And then, you know, I didn't really have the gumption to to like try to do something in france or anything like that. I was just like I'm domestically here and what I felt, where I felt like people were doing cool stuff with pinot noir was was oregon, you know. You know people talked about, oh, russian river, all that, but I was just like oregon to me seems, seems like the place to be. I want to be there. And actually that was part of the wine list that I really like kind of delve into. Um, you know, I think a lot of times, like in those big wine lists, you know, as a, as a buyer, you want to put your mark on it, and so for us it was like for me it was really growing the, the, you know the, the willamette valley pinot noir section, and so I got to really know, know a lot of the producers and become familiar with it. And then we also had family there, like on my wife's side, her mother's side of the family, and so you know we would go. And then you know, just like you know, it's just that crazy thing, stars align Somebody we had met at the restaurant.
Speaker 2:You know he was buying some of the great vineyards in America. He bought the occidental vineyard that Kistler made famous in California. He bought Seven Springs Vineyard, which was one of the most famous vineyards in America, and I think that property was actually split in half because of divorce. He got both hats back together, signed this Hong Kong lease, a 99-year lease. He needed to kick everybody out, which made people in Oregon angry because they just had handshake deals. And so I just remember running to him on the street, like on 57th Street, and he's like oh hey, kid, how's it going? Last time I talked to you you were going to make wine, blah, blah, blah, and I said, oh yeah, I got a couple projects in Napa. And then he said, well, you should call Gretchen, my assistant, she'll get you a ticket. And I came out to how I got there. And so, while being there, what I did witness through Seven Springs, through Eveningland, was this evolution of Chardonnay, which was just remarkable when you really think about white wine from Oregon, the first things that come to mind are Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris. And that's easy. Right, the early settlers there were of Germanic influence and that's what they planted, right, you know, the early settlers there were of Germanic influence and that's what they planted.
Speaker 2:When it came time to plant Chardonnay, you know, we called our good friends down at UC Davis in California and we're like, hey, we need some Chardonnay. And they provided and gave us the Winty clone, which is a late ripening clone that's more supplemental to the climate in California and not to Oregon. So a lot of times. So we had made shitty Chardonnay was always flabby and there was like some micro. I think Bethel Heights really kind of thrived. They did like 50, 50, you know. So it was like they did 50, went to clone and 50 like Dijon clones.
Speaker 2:But I think when the Valley got hit and started planning Dijon clones, things changed and it was like trying to think of what vintage I think it was 2007, eveningland chardonnay that that I think was on the cover of the wines picked it like really kind of changed the game where people were like like I remember taking the chardonnay to some people you know some prominent people and asking you know something about you know, you know, is this, you know, is this a good you know oregon peanut? I mean oregon chardonnay, and they were like this could be in the the running for the best Chardonnay, and so that that's kind of how you, you know how, that kind of how you saw that kind of happening, but like Chardonnay, and so we only make, we make a stainless steel Chardonnay and then we do like a single vineyard Chardonnay and I think it's like, yeah, it's my mom's service. She's like, yeah, where was that yellow top? Um, it's been remarkable to kind of to be able to see that.
Speaker 2:And now you know, and like you know you've made it, because now we have like our own chardonnay conference or you know, or whatever that might be yeah um, you know, I mean, you know it, to me it's a little bit different in the way of like, if you know, in the way that it's somewhat that I would explain um, organ, pinot noir, like, being like the best of both worlds, right, you know, it does have have some of that fruit that you associate with california, uh, but then it has the, you know, the chihuahua taste of the land that you find, um, um, in burgundy, right. So the minerality, um, yes, it has the minerality, the acid, all of those things, but less, but, you know, but with a little bit more fruit, uh, and depending on what producer and how they're using oak, um, but you know, I was really, you know, privileged in a way that you know I got to work with, you know, dominic lafon and you know who I really regard in the world kind of regards is probably one of the best white wine makers in the world. Yeah, a friend of mine had, you know, had contracted him and he came, he was consulting on the project there, and so it was just a really interesting way to look at it and then to get some insights and, you know, to be able to use, you know, some of his secret toast barrels and all that kind of shit, but like it was just a. It's just been a really fun, remarkable thing. And I think when I first started, you know seven Springs was expensive and so I remember you know making a couple of barrels, coming back to New York to sell them and you know, and how it all washed out. You know they were $80 a bottle wholesale, you know so like, but not a lot. You know you sell a lot of it.
Speaker 2:I pat myself on the back but you know I still pick up bartending shifts because I have to pay a mortgage and uh, and that's you know. That's where I realized like I really want to speak to a younger audience about wine and I don't think that you could do that at that price point, and so that's what changed. And also just understanding that you know a revenue center for a restaurant but for the wine program, is the wine by the glass, and so that's what I really focused on wanting to make wine by the glass. You know that were a little bit higher in asset. Right, the asset is that lifeline they could stay open a couple of days earlier and there was margin built in for them that they could actually make money and that, like knowing the business on that side, felt like I felt like it helped me in a way to be able to talk real business to the buyer.
Speaker 2:Right Like yeah, we can all talk about wine and it's great and I feel confident that they hit that. This wine hits on that mark. Now let's talk business. Like let me talk about P&L. Right, because that's really what your job is about. Right, like you can memorize all the regions in the Loire, but like you'll get fired if you're like, if your numbers aren't right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah exactly that was the thing is like hey, like, like, you can make money with this, um, and I like, and I understood that and it's like. So, specifically, our everyday luxury wines are meant to be by the glass, and just so happened on the retail, which I didn't understand.
Speaker 3:It fell under 20, under 25 bucks, yeah, and so so that all worked out for me in that way okay, so you, now that you brought up the younger generation, this is actually kind of been a topic that we've talked about a couple of times, yeah, and you are going to bring up the same question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:So you have a club W that is kind of targeted to the new generation, but we've been talking about how the upcoming generation is being affected. Did I word that correctly?
Speaker 1:I feel like I mean yeah, I mean with the new uh generation coming out. I mean this question is uh, there's a lot of I guess there's a lot of ways you can go with it. There's branding, there's marketing, there's winemaking styles, there's also alternative vessels like pouches, boxes or screw caps and or cans. Um, but for the new generation, especially like with your club w? Um, how are you trying to target the, the new generation, especially with the? So?
Speaker 2:club has transformed into wink and I kind of like set the party ways with that. I'm not part of that anymore. I can just tell you the premises on it. It was just like making wine fun and accessible at a different price point. It was called Club W and it was the wine club. Then it morphed into because, when you really think about it, people aren't acquiring wine clubs for 300 million dollars, they're quite.
Speaker 2:We were making our own brands and that kind of thing, and so that was. That was what was cool. You know, to me, if I had to explain it, it was kind of like, uh, urban outfitters of wine, right. When you looked at the label to me they're kind of like look like the t-shirts, right, you know, when you walk in with t-shirts, like that kind of thing, yeah, but it was like just talking, you know, talking to people in a different way. So I think like summer, summer water was was their brand and I think that was a big breakout for them.
Speaker 2:That really rode the the wave of rosé and I think so price point. And the way they talked about wine and how wine was, I I think was a really great thing. I think, how you know personally how I, how I look at it now, is is, you know, being able to communicate with people at different levels about wine, right, making it more accessible and like, not less intimidating. And I think you know for me, you know where the fun creative part comes, you know is somewhat in the labeling and then the message um, and you see that, like you know, you know it's so funny because you know people, you know they poop, poo and they say marketing, but, like you know, so if I put the shit in the brown bag, that's still marketing yeah, yeah right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So like you totally around people talk about it as being a bad word, but like, I don't think so, like, even, like you know, if you're talking about orange wine, natural wine, that's marketing. Yeah, like, decide, the fact that you decide to do that, or whatever, there's marketing, all of it, right. So, like, I get it when people talk about overly being overly marketed. Um, but I think you know a younger, you know it's kind of like the same thing. They want to make sure that what they're drinking is real. Um, you know. So people talk about additives and all that kind of stuff, but like people just want to want to believe in what they're drinking.
Speaker 2:You know, part of some of it is interesting to me because, you know, I think we always romanticize about other countries. You know, I hear people talking about like you know, they don't take the wine to the lab and I'm like, well, they couldn't afford to take the wine. Like, so it's some of that stuff. But like I'm psyched about all of it. You know, I think a lot of people are like, oh, what do you feel about natural wine? Now, it's like, well, to be honest with you, there's nothing natural about wine, right, if you just let grapes sit there, they don't become wine, right.
Speaker 2:So, like, in that thing, like you know, talking about low intervention, I understand that. I understand why people are into that and that's cool. Um, you know, as a good friend of mine says, you know, if it's good, I want to drink it, right, I'm part of the good one. Yeah, um, but, but you're ready, but like, but you know I'm allowing other, you know I'm giving grace to everybody else, like, if this is how you got here, that's great, you know, and what's interesting from like my journey is, like you know, the american palate has has become a little, has become a little, has become a little a little bit more sour.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, you know American palette is sweet and so you know we invented the cocktail to cover up shitty boots. So, like during the prohibition, right, like when you like, when you really think about it, like you know, think about your favorite Clint Eastwood movie. You know he rolls in the town, kicks the saloon doors open, he walks up to the bar. You know he tells the bartender he's like you know, slaps a coin or sack on the thing.
Speaker 2:He's like whiskey, yeah the bartender back there like he doesn't have a wax mustache, with armbands on and shaking anything right, comes back and puts the bottle of whiskey on the in a shot glass and puts it on the bar yeah, is that the real history of cocktails?
Speaker 3:I had no idea yeah, so like I had no idea either, but that's amazing right, so prohibition.
Speaker 2:They had all these speakeys and all that, and so they had all this bootleg, like you know, alcohol and it wasn't good. So that's where they think about it. They're adding fruit flavor, like that kind of stuff, flavoring and sweetness yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:So when you think about that and so what? What? You've kind of stuff flavoring and sweetness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, yeah. So when you think about that and so what, what you've kind of witnessed is you know this kind of evolution as, as they're starting, you know like it's comes back a little sour like think of the rise of kombucha.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:Sour beer. Yeah, yeah, you think about those those groups, right, and then that leads you. If you want wine, a lot of those people come to wine through natural wine, yeah, and so, like I'm, I'm here to welcome everybody to the party. I don't, I could care less how you got here and I think it's great, and if that's what brought you to wine, then that's cool, um, and that's it. And the more people that we have drinking wine, I think it's great, um, and so you know less of the dogma and you know, and this bullshit, if that gives a natural wine, and then you say the now natural wine, like whatever, that there's people who make bullshit in that segment and there's people who make bullshit in the other section. Yeah, and you figure out what you like and yeah and I think that's you know.
Speaker 2:I think that's what's cool and fun about, about all of it. In a lot of ways, it's just like. It's just, it's just cool, like to see, like it's like all of a sudden someone's like hey, do you like these wines? You know, and it's like you know is that people are like oh, I drink this because they give me headaches and it's all this other shit. But like I don't care and a lot of it is probably not true or whatever, but like the idea of it, I think like it's just cool, like you're just seeing more people into wine and um, and I get it yeah, yeah, I mean we're the same way.
Speaker 1:I mean we started this podcast because we love wine a lot. I didn't like the pretentiousness of wine and yeah, when I first started, and honestly, hearing you talk and also the winemaker I was working with at the time really cut down of like the bougie, you know, pretentiousness, and I was like, okay, well, I can actually access this, and so that was that was like my journey into it. And hearing you talk on different podcasts and, uh, everything you've done uh really helped me access wine in that way and that's what our podcast is supposed to be doing as well. Yeah, everybody, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, create the world that you want to live in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, make it more relaxed, like we're all here for the, we're all here for the same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when I saw the label OPP, I was like holy shit, this guy's my this is my guy and I think, like to me it was just like one of those things that like constantly in my life. It's like how do I fuse and my those things in my life right like?
Speaker 2:yeah like I said, I always say, like I'm a kid who, like, was raised on hip-hop, punk rock and skateboarding and and how, and then fell in love with wine and like, how do I put those and fuse those things together? And you know, opp was interesting because, you know, we, we were, like I said, I was making, you know, this wine in seven, seven springs and we were leasing space inside of another winery and and you know, it's like 80 dollars, right. So I'm like, oh shit, like I like I need to figure out something. And then we purchased eight barrels of finished wine from that winery that we're releasing and we moved, we moved into the new facility. We just always, you know, those barrels were marked as OPP because I didn't make other people, and then we blended that in with wine that I made from seven Springs, that bought the cost down and OPP was just a bandaid, right, like it looked. You know, I just said, you know, fucking, I'm gonna make it look like my four-year-old did it and we're just gonna roll.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I couldn't afford. You know, I think it was. You know, graphic designer was like 25k and I was like, well, shit, I don't have 25k for glassware, glasses, uh, courts, labels, any of that shit. Yeah, and so, um, until that was it, I was like and then also like you know, you don't, I don't understand part of that business where I had signed up for the bottoming line but I didn't have ttp approval, and so somebody came back what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 3:I was like so we, did OPP and it was like okay, what like one off right.
Speaker 2:That's my thought and like we'll change the label, fix it the next time, and then it just kind of stuck. So it's kind of like morphed into that whole thing of like. To me it's just more inclusive of all the people that have a hand in making it. You know, from the people who are on our bottling team, the people who are on our picking team, you know all of those things. You know a lot of those people work there but they're not spending $40 on a bottle of Pinot Noir.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right For a lot of the stuff that they have a hand in making and building. You know the scenes. They can't actually afford those wines that they make and to me this was a homage to them. Just, you know at you know it used to be, you know prices going it used to be 20 bucks. Yeah, like the idea that they could enjoy something that that they were a part of to me like made me feel special in a way. That was like okay, great, um, and that's kind of, and that was it. It was. It was like okay, we're just going to go with OPP other people's P&O, you know and the back label, as you guys know, the back label is the front label, so it's called other people's P&O. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And with me, knowing that this business is litigious, you know people are like how do you get away with that? It's like, you know, and I always tell people, well, opp could mean a lot of different things to people. This means other people's penal, but you know, if you're from, you know Ontario, you know it's Ontario provincial police. You know, if you're from Orleans, it's you know Orleans prison, right, you know. And so you know, and that's the kind of thing like the idea of like you know, peak in your interest, opp, what like, what's what's going on here? You're like catching people's attention, uh, in a way, and the black and white design really just kind of came through.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I'm pretty old, I'm dating myself here, but like when we would go shopping, when you would go to the grocery store, uh, the grocery stores didn't have their own brands, like that.
Speaker 2:Like where they had their own branding, you know like, yeah, sacred of the lakes or whatever it was, there was an aisle called the generic aisle and so when you would go, we would go. We're a military family, so you know you did like that one shop a month. So you went down every single one forever, and every night you would go down an aisle, you know it's like a mosaic of colors, right, you see it everywhere. And then you turn down this one aisle and it's just stark white and so dark white, and so everything's generic is everything is white. And then it has black font on it. So you, so it'll be six pack of cans all white, and they'll just say beer on it, bags say peanut butter on it, and I just remember that like and kind of the things like, so how do you stand out when you walk down a wine? Now, it's like a mosaic of colors, and how do you stand? And like that was it.
Speaker 2:And then also, like we're talking about mouton noir, it's like it fit, right, it's black and white yeah, so we do the light, simple labels um, and if that whole idea is like we don't take our serious ourselves, serious right yeah yeah, what we do in the wine is and that's kind of the whole idea of like we pay the 25 000 so for the designer, so we didn't have to jack up the price, right.
Speaker 3:That's funny that you bring up like the whole concept of like we're not serious, but we still make quality wine, because where I work it's called hard road to hoe, and then but they have, but they make great wine, and I mean it's all based on this brothel up like and all this stuff, but it was. It's that same concept, though, yeah.
Speaker 2:The thing is like it's like you know, having a sense of humor and, and you would think, like a serious place like the French laundry and per se, I tell, I tell people a lot of times like the chef has a really amazing sense of humor, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I have to preface that, well, he tell people a lot of times like the chef has a really amazing sense of humor, right, yeah. And then I have to preface that, well, he's not back there in the kitchen cracking jokes and slapping his knee, right, and that instance of humor really comes through on the menu. So you think, like you're spending all of this money, right, you know it's really expensive. And then you sit down and there's all these quotes and like, so we actually had. You know, there was a menu I'm called tongue in cheek, which was tongue.
Speaker 2:Right, it actually consisted of tongue and cheek Right, and so it's that way in which he had a sense of humor that really like allowed me to lean into my own, and especially when I thought about you know lines and like having, like you know, I've always felt like the greatest foil to pretension is humor.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, we can laugh at ourselves and all those things. That kind of takes away a lot of that tension and I felt like that was the really. One of the ways that I wanted to to approach wine was through humor and through like. This kind of thing that's fun, this very serious thing, that's fun. And then you know and you gotta be careful with that like critter wine under under 20 bucks, that's different, you know. You know a sense of humor in a way that's playful, and I thought that was really cool to kind of let people bring down the guard, and that was it. And you know.
Speaker 2:And then also the whole thing of like, like all of it, like Mouton Noir, all this other thing. You know I'm generally, you know, the last person that when I walk into a room people think I'm the last person that knows anything about wine, and I actually like that. They don't see me coming, right, I mean, and that. And it goes back to this thing of like. You can't judge a book by its cover. So you look at these wines with very simple labels but they're complex, they're flavorful, well-made, um, and I think they over-deliver for the price point that they're at. And that's the part where I talk about like it's, it's in, like what we're all talking about. The reason why the company was named, what it was is just that is to strip away all the pretense. Yeah, right, and you know, and I'm a walking example of that, right, just when I walked in, you know, some people are like, can I help you, sir? It's like, no, I'm here to show the wines. Yeah, and they can't believe it.
Speaker 3:You know, they're like what you know it's so funny because I have, like I'll have, a lot of 21 year olds being at the winery that I am and I'll I try to give them a basic lesson of how to taste, and when I do it I go. At the end I'll go, you know, even as young as you are, if you start getting your palate right, and then when you go into the big wine industry, you could probably turn on any big ceo by the way that you talk about wine so if you learn now.
Speaker 2:They'll never see it coming, but they'll be very impressed no, and that's it, like you become more confident, like drinking, understanding your palate. Yeah, if that's what you want to do, right? You know, for some people it's like hey, I just want to sip mine, I'll fucking think about it. Cool, and I'm all for that too. Yeah, um, yeah, it's like, but you know, but I get it. It's one of those weird ways where you have to um, you know, like it seems like you have to come with all this knowledge and then enjoy it and it's all weird. It's like so why do wines have tasting notes but cocktails don't?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Think about it.
Speaker 2:Cocktails are just a list of ingredients, but nobody has any questions. But all of a sudden everybody thinks wine is. So it's complicated. When someone's like, well, I don't know what I smell, I was like well, what the fuck do you smell in a Paloma or a Margarita?
Speaker 3:I never even thought about that. Classic cocktails I never even thought about that.
Speaker 2:And just think like those old cocktail, like classic cocktails, where generally someone's had them before and they kind of know what to taste. But when you think about like the stuff that they, when you go to a cocktail bar and they mix all kinds of shit up, you're like like there's no. There's a, there's a list of ingredients and that's it. There's no tasting about what, what it's supposed to taste like or what you can expect, but somehow about what what it's supposed to taste like or what you can expect. But somehow where wine becomes, you know, and like we made our own bed in that way, the wine industry and that in that way, but like it's trying to like help people put their guard down and like what do you taste Like? There's no wrong answer Taste it Almost. Do you like it? Like no one. Like no one says when you're doing a guard, you're like so what do you?
Speaker 3:taste?
Speaker 2:I honestly, I've never even thought about that yeah and so, and so, you know, I just try to break it down in a more practical way for people to say, like it doesn't have to be that way. It's like do you like it? First and foremost, who gives a shit about anything? Like, do you like it, you like it. And then also, like you know, somebody says, well, I like it all. And I said okay, okay, and then the thing is like just understanding that, like now, tasting different wines from different places, and that's why I talk about, in my opinion, wine is not this race to find a soulmate and you want to be with the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:Wine is just cool in a way that, hey, I'm going to the Oysterbeg, so I'm going to bring these wines. Hey, we're going to a barbecue, I'm going to a barbecue, we're bringing these wines, right, like the idea that, like, the situation can dictate what somebody, what wines, you bring, and then and then having some of the favorites within that category, and that's what I want people to understand and that's what's fun. It's like, you know, kind of dressing for the occasion, right totally, absolutely totally I love it um.
Speaker 3:Another quick question that I had. Uh, you had a wine that was known as e equals mc squared um. I wanted I was that part of your first label yeah, so that was uh.
Speaker 2:I actually designed that label on. I was wondering really the name too yeah, so it was, and so what that was was really it was a color, was going to be a collaboration between me, so a mentor of mine, uh, his name is mac mcdonald okay and so my last name is mac.
Speaker 2:So that would be e equals mc square, so mc short gotcha uh, evolution, and I think that's what we, I think that's what we had called it, and so that was just kind of a concept, that like I really wanted to do. And so from that concept, and then I, when I left the restaurant, I, you know I left the restaurant to go make wine, and so that was kind of one of the things. And then, and then, you know, I started this. You know, I came along on this project and started a distribution company here in New York with some other partners, and so from that idea of E equals M3 squared, we came up with Relativity Vineyards and that became a private brand that we made within that company and so, but that original idea was about me and my mentor making more wine.
Speaker 2:And Mac, I remember, you know, was in San Antonio and there was an article and it was talking about, you know, african-americans in the wine business and they talked about it like being like a unicorn, yeah, and I remember like there's no social. So I remember I wrote an email to the editor and basically saying, you know, I am that fable creature that you seek, and so it's about, like that, like me being in the industry when I thought about it, and then I reached out to Mac McDonald and it was really funny because I just remember it, he's so great, I just remember, like every five minutes he goes you're black, right, I go, yeah, I'm black, and like it was just, it was interesting. And, like you know, I, you know I try to tell a lot of people, like you know, when you don't see anybody that looks like you, you don't think it's for you and you know, and I think, fortunately for me, you know I didn't, I wasn't bought up that way. Like you know, I think, like for me, my mom always instilled like you can do anything and I like, and I was dumb enough to believe her Right, but that, but that I think for a lot of people that's true. And so you know, here was a person who was doing something that I didn't know that I could do.
Speaker 2:You know I was a sommelier and that you know it's like something about it, like I hadn't told him that I was moving to Napa and I and I, the first day I show up, the first day he calls me, he's like hey, what are you doing, buddy? And I thought that he knew I was there and I was about to say how do you know I'm here? And I said I said, yeah, well, I just pulled up to Dini DeLuca and he goes where I go, here in Napa. He goes. What I said? I thought you knew he goes. No, I didn't know. He's like where are you staying? I said well, they put us up in a hotel. He's like nope, you're going to stay with me. So anyways, it was just like that was the so that was the idea and concept.
Speaker 2:I was still working in the restaurant for the, and then, and then it never really came to oh yeah, what's the? No, this was after I met him, this was before I met him, right, and so like that was kind of how our relationship started and that was it. And so MC Square was kind of like acknowledging his impact and influence over me and wanting to have a project together, which we never did, but it did lead to something else, that kind of you know, that gave me the courage to continue to do it. You know, I always think that, like you know, through life, it's it there, it's all stepping stones, right, it's like this thing, the next thing that gets you, the next thing that gets you, the next thing that prepares you, next thing, um, and so kind of like you know, you know somewhat of a never-ending story, but like that is life. And so I, and that was it. So e, e, e, e, hosensee square that I did yeah, awesome that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was fun all right, I think we're about out of time right now. Um. Thank you so much, hey. If um anything that you want to plug, please do now and we'll put it down in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Um I'm plugging the bunghole, the bung, actually, that didn't sound right. Anyways, bung pod, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, that's kind of why we named it. That Bung podcast, yeah, yes, that's why we named it, that we appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, check the show notes for all of Andre Mack's stuff he's got going on. We're going to put all the links in there. Thank you so much for coming on the pod man. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:This was a great time.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Oh, we need to do our go-ahead cheers. Give me some wine. I need a little bit more in my glass. This is awesome, by the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is phenomenal.
Speaker 1:New Noir, go get the new noir guys. Cheers, cheers.
Speaker 3:Cheers.
Speaker 2:My guys didn't do that. That's bad luck, but I'm with you guys.
Speaker 1:We respect it. Thanks, man.
Speaker 3:Thank you again. Hey you, Now that I have your attention and you've listened to this wonderful podcast that we had to offer, we'd like you to scroll down. And what are they going to do when they scroll down, Ian?
Speaker 1:Scroll down and give us some feedback. Rate us on your podcast platform ideally five stars stars, and if you would give us some critical feedback, you can dm us on instagram at official bung pod. Let's hear it, let's go. It is only two of us writing this show, two of us producing the show. It's me, ian king, jasmine shattuck and the lovely, lovely Becca Hines as our producers and our writers are me, ian King and Jasmine Shattuck.
Speaker 3:Let's go. Thank you.