In this episode of the “VinePair Podcast,” hosts Joanna Sciarrino and Zach Geballe are joined by VinePair’s tasting director, Keith Beavers, to go over some basic wine terms and explain what they mean.
The world of wine is filled with nuance and vocabulary that, unless you’re an expert in the subject, might be confusing. What does it mean for a wine to be crunchy? Funky? Can “natural wine” ever actually be achieved?
Tune in to find out.
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Check Out The Conversation Here
Joanna Sciarrano: From VinePair’s New York City headquarters, I’m Joanna Sciarrino.
Zach Geballe: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.
J: And this is the VinePair Podcast, and today on the pod, we have Mr. Keith Beavers, our wine tastings director, podcast guru, and host of the “Wine 101” podcast.
Keith Beavers: All these hats.
J: So many hats. Keith, thank you for joining us.
K: Hey, thanks for having me. This is awesome.
J: I got the wine guys on today. Me and the wine guys. So we’re going to talk about some wine stuff then.
K: Let’s talk about some wine stuff. What do you say?
Z: Fantastic.
K: I like wine.
J: Great. So, Zach, we thought it’d be a good idea to kind of chat through some confusing wine terms today. I’m not a wine person, necessarily, so I will put that to the two of you and we can chat through what they mean, why they may be so confusing right now, and then we can take it from there.
K: That’s great. Yeah, I can’t wait.
J: OK. So let’s start with maybe an easier one. What does it mean when someone says a wine is tight?
K: Zach, you go first.
Z: Sure. Like all of these terms, some listeners might disagree with our definitions or our explanations. But to me, I’ve always thought of wine as tight when it kind of meets the criteria of: you open the bottle, you taste it right away, and for whatever set of reasons, the wine just doesn’t have that much going on. Maybe there’s not a lot of evident fruit character. Maybe the wine tastes a little bit harsh. And in the generous reading, it’s because most wines — especially red wines, but all wines — need exposure to oxygen to allow the various flavor compounds and whatnot to start to really express themselves. Sometimes, you can also experience this in particular with really young wines that might have been bottled relatively recently. They do need some time to come together in the bottle. So if you’ve tasted a wine that was just bottled within a month or two, it can definitely show that character. But I’d be curious to know Keith’s experience and thoughts on this. Sometimes, people say the wine is tight as a way to get around saying the wine isn’t very good.
K: Well, my wife and I had a term back in the day: The word “interesting” meant to “leave the tasting room.” Put the wine down and leave the tasting room. Wine terms are crazy because really, what you’re doing as somebody who’s tasting wine is you’re just trying to understand what you’re experiencing. Because wine is such a unique drink, it’s one of the most expressive alcoholic drinks we have. It’s hard when this thing that you’re smelling is just oxidizing in front of you and throwing these things at your brain. And you’re hoping that your brain has the experience of certain aromas that you can attribute to what you’re smelling. It’s a crazy experience, and I totally agree with Zach that “tight” basically means a wine needs more oxygen to open up and show you what it wants to show you. Sometimes, it’s just a tight wine, it has a tautness to it. Sometimes, that’s just slight grippiness. Some Pinot Noirs have a slight tannic grip to them all. The Pinot Noir in general doesn’t have a lot of tannin in it naturally, sometimes through little oak exposure and whatever tannin is in the wine it can be a little tight. Especially an Oregon Pinot Noir can have this bright, fruity note to it. There’s a really fun documentary called “A Year in Burgundy,” where this winemaker and his daughter, who’s winemaking as well, are talking about the wine, and she keeps on saying the word austere, austere, austere, and that could be considered tight. I think that one term can mean multiple things and that’s my wine is so damn confusing. But if someone says to me, this one is tight, I’m not going to disbelieve them.
J: I think that’s why this conversation is very helpful because it can mean a lot of different things. But I’ll keep things moving. Next term: noble grapes.
K: Oh boy.
Z: You take this one first.
K: I never went to school to be a sommelier, so I don’t have any of the background in the curriculum for that. I don’t necessarily don’t like the term “noble grapes.” It’s a general selection of varieties that are most well known and made into wine. There’s Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, and Chardonnay. They’re grapes, and they’re made into wine. But there’s also Sangiovese. There are other varieties out there. Also, what is noble? It means you’re better than somebody else? It’s never going to go away. It’s a term that will always be around. Noble grapes were this fun thing we did back in the day when we were still trying to understand wine. Because let’s be honest, Prohibition happened and we had to relearn how to taste wine in this country. There are terms that were brought up that were used like certain parts of your tongue taste certain parts of this and that which it was debunked, all that stuff that we thought back in the day. And I think the term “noble grapes” is from that era. I don’t think we ever had to worry about it ever again, but it’s going to come up and there is a list. Did somm school start that?
Z: No, no, no. This way predates the rise of anything involving sommeliers, in my opinion. Part of it comes from a very Eurocentric, monarchic idea of existence where people, animals, grapes were divided into noble animals and everything. Seriously, you look at the medieval history of Europe, and there is nobility in all of these different categories. There are people and other living beings, and there’s commoners, peasants, whatever you want to call them. And that notion took hold in the wine industry, as it did in many other parts of human life. More recently, I think you saw it more as a like this idea that those varieties that we outlined a moment ago and maybe a few others that you could throw in, are the best grapes. And if you can grow those grapes, then you have a great wine region. If you can’t grow those grapes, well, then your wine region sucks. And I think we would all agree that bullsh*t. And I don’t think there are that many people who are active in the wine industry these days who aren’t dinosaurs in one form or another who still believe that if you can’t grow Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir, your wine region isn’t very interesting. We have many of those wine regions already. We don’t really need more of them, frankly. So I think it’s just a term that I don’t know if it will ever totally die out. There is something about understanding what historically have been considered some of the preeminent varieties, but I don’t think there’s any particular reason we need to be beholden to that outdated model. It’s like, you can learn about the Ptolemaic geocentric model of the universe, where everything supposedly revolves around Earth. You can learn about it. It doesn’t make it right, right? But you can say this has historical value, and it’s interesting to know about. But we no longer exist in that. We live in a heliocentric universe, as it turns out, and the same is true with grapes. There are so many other interesting and exciting grapes being grown all over the world that are just as valid and just as worth enjoying and thinking about as those six or eight or 10 or 12, or however many would be considered noble.
K: Right. And some people made that list and said, these are the ones, but also another thing consumers will come across is the international varieties. And often you’ll have a country that has an indigenous list of varieties that they make wine out of. So the term international variety is really a term attributed to varieties that can grow all over the world, but they’re really just French varieties. Whenever someone says international, they’re saying Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and stuff like that. I brought that up because it’s very similar to the noble variety thing.
Z: But there is something about noting what are the most widely grown varieties. That’s useful information to have, even if it’s not necessarily a qualitative judgment to just that people grow a lot more Cabernet Sauvignon than they do Graziano. It doesn’t make one of those a better variety than the other.
K: We’ve defined it for you, listeners.
Z: What else have you got, Joanna?
J: Okay, next one. Crunchy. What do we mean when we say a wine is crunchy? Please, someone tell me.
K: Zach, I’m shaking my head.
Z: I think you’re the crunchier of the two of us.
J: true. It’s true. But you’re in Seattle.
Z: But I’m not a very crunchy Seattleite. As discussed previously, I don’t wear sandals. In any case, when I think of crunchy as a wine, I think you’re describing generally a class of wines that are almost exclusively red wines. And then I would say our light to medium-bodied, but have a fair bit of tannin and acidity if that makes sense. You could look at Beaujolais, as Keith mentioned earlier, as an example of a crunchy red wine or some expressions of Pinot Noir. Sometimes you can see this with red wines from northern Italy or things like that. Not so much Nebbiolo, but some other varieties. Dolcetto or something like that. What I think of when someone were to ask me about a crunchy wine or describe wine as crunchy to me, what I would think about is more tart than super-ripe red fruit and with some present tannin and a lot of acidity. It’s a style of wine that lots of people like. It’s maybe not my absolute favorite style, but I certainly recommend or recognize and understand its appeal. Does that square with your experience, Keith?
K: This is the problem with this term.
J: Is this a newer term?.
K: Yes, it’s a newer term, and my definition of crunchy is the complete polar opposite of Zach’s. That’s the problem with this word. Last year we had a really great wine in the Top 50. I think it was a Sémillon from South Africa. It was crunchy. It’s a weird one because we have wine terms like this one is just so confusing. It’s like minerality, which I actually like. We need to have a whole podcast episode on minerality. I have the research.
Z: I’m ready to have a podcast.
K: I do. I just, I can only get so many things in one season, bro.
Z: Season three, come on!
K: It’s coming brother, it’s coming. The way I see it, there is a way that people are making wine these days and it’s very minimalist or low intervention, which is again, these are all problematic terms. But the thing is there is this oxidation thing happening in wine these days and in white wine, especially, that oxidation — when it’s done well — brings this sort of granola aroma. And it’s in white wine often, and I feel like whenever there’s an oxidative note that actually is beneficial to a winemaker that knows what they’re doing and knows how to make wine and let these wines breathe in certain ways of the winemaking process. Like you said carbonic maceration, Beaujolais, I get what you’re saying with the crunchy stuff. And it makes sense. But for me, I see it as a slightly oxidative, a little bit sweet. This granola, crunchy idea. I don’t know that I care for the term. I would rather say it’s caramel or something like that, but that’s how I see crunchy, and that’s why I think it’s problematic.
Z: Yeah. Well, that’s are divergent definitions.
K: What do you think about that? Is that crazy?
Z: I certainly understand the style of wine you’re trying to describe. I don’t know that I would have necessarily thought of their word “crunchy” or I’ve heard it used in that term all that often. But you’re right that part of what’s also challenging about wine these days is that you have a lot of wines that are much more styles that are more prominent. There isn’t a great agreed-upon term. Part of this right is the challenge that happens at any time that jargon becomes public. Right? It’s one thing for wine professionals to have a shorthand that they understand that describes some of these specific styles. It’s when they make their way out into the masses, which happens with wine through tasting notes and descriptions and things like that. I don’t think that either of those two styles has necessarily a great agreed-upon term that is understood — even by industry professionals, let alone the public, to signify here is the kind of wine we’re talking about. There are a lot of things that could fall under that. And the same is true with a light to medium-bodied red wine that has elevated acidity and some tannin like that’s a mouthful. Crunchy is the term that I’ve heard used to shorten that. But again, it’s hard to explain that to someone who hasn’t already understood and internalized those concepts, right?
K: I guess part of this is I have only seen the word “crunchy” used with wines that I’m trying to describe. I have never seen anyone make wine with non-oxidative skin contact. “Crunchy” is often used with a certain style of wine in the media.
Z: There are wines that could share some similarities with the wine that might be described as crunchy, but I don’t think they would fall into that. Maybe for idealistic or ideological reasons. But a crunchy wine is like granola, right?. It’s a good way to think about it. You have to enjoy a certain kind of grittiness, like the sensation of your mouth maybe being a little bit as you eat it. Otherwise, you don’t have granola and you have other kinds of similar flavored things, but with the edges sanded off a touch.
K: Yeah, it’s like listeners if you think it’s crunchy, say it’s crunchy. That’s a new one.
J: OK, next term, we’re getting a little closer here. Funky.
K: OK.
Z: You’re definitely the funkier of the two of us.
K: I’m a funky dude, but I don’t like my wines funky. No, I like good wine, funky or not. But I think what’s happening now is people are considering funky wines that have been compromised in a certain way that the winemaker believes adds to the complexity of the wine. And when somebody interacts with a wine that has seen too much oxygen that has seen spoilage yeast, that has taken on the aroma compounds that certain bacteria create, no matter what variety is being made from. You’re getting certain things that these compounds are going to give you. There’s a yeast called brettanomyces, and this yeast is not the beneficial yeast used when making wine. It is the yeast that continues to eat the sugar once the beneficial yeast dies and it produces stuff. Some of those compounds are our actual aromas that interfere with the actual fruit and the inherent precursor fruit the wine wants to give you. So funky wine to me is a wine that doesn’t smell right. But people, for some reason these days, are promoting wines that are kind of “off.” I understand that when you get a cheese and it’s stinky, that’s awesome. But for some reason, for me, a wine that’s funky is not really my jam, but I think funky is a good term. Maybe it separates certain wines from other wines. It helps define a category.
J: Yeah. I just want to interject here, too, because I think it’s interesting because it seems like there’s not a palate change, but people tend towards things like a sour beer or a cider, kombucha. So it seems like those styles of drinks are gaining popularity or have been recently.
K: People want a little bit of hurt.
J: People want some funky wine. Zach, what do you think?
Z: So I think that Keith pretty much got it. Generally speaking, when you stick your nose in a glass of wine, the thing you expect to smell first is fruit. And if it’s not fruit, it’s probably something floral. Or maybe it’s like baking spices or other things from oak. To me, a funky wine is something that doesn’t smell like any of that. It can smell like a lot of different things, and some of them can be “correct” for the style of wine. It depends, you can stick your nose in the glass of Fino Sherry, and it definitely doesn’t smell like any of those things. But what I will say there is also something about the notion of degrees of funkiness. You get a little bit of that funky note, but it goes along with other stuff. I’ve said this on the podcast before, I apologize. But like, there’s a fine line between BO and the way that someone that you love smells. I don’t want to smell anyone else’s BO, but if you live with someone and you’re married, you get used to their smell, and you come to like it. And so there are wines, I think that can walk that fine line where there’s a little something going on. Some people might turn their nose up at it, maybe quite literally, and be like, “I don’t like the way this smells.” There is something in there that isn’t just fruit and flowers and spices, and I don’t like it. Some people could say, “I don’t give a sh*t about BO, give it to me. I like riding the subway in the middle of summer.” That’s just a difference of opinion. I don’t think only one of those people is right or either of them is totally right. But I will say that what Keith got to is an important point to notice here, which is that I personally do not believe that a wine can be a great wine or even a good wine if the only thing you are smelling is the funk. A little funk goes a long way and can be actually an interesting way to add some aromatic complexity to a wine. But once you get to the point where that’s all I smell, I’m no longer just in the wine because as Keith said, no, it’s no longer about the varietal character of the wine. It’s only about whatever else happened to it. I don’t need that in my mind.
K: But here we go with the confusion. There are wines that are funky and earthy and weird from Italy, specifically in Tuscany, that I think are really cool. There’s some Morellino di Scansano that can be really swampy. But then also we were just tasting for the Thanksgiving list, we’re tasting wines for our Thanksgiving list and there was a Pinot Noir and I’m like, “God, it smells a little animalistic, it’s a little primal. It has this sweaty note to it that’s just adding to the awesomeness to it.” It’s not a product of the spoilage yeast or any issues in winemaking, it’s literally just the way the clone, where it was grown, how it was made, how much oxygen it was given. It had this beautiful chewing as to it, but there was something to it. And in my mind, I’m like this funky. But it was a good funky. So like right now, funky is being used like what Zach and I have been talking about something’s flawed in the wine, but for some reason, people are promoting those flaws. But there’s also another thing here where you can just smell a real funky Pinot Noir from like Sonoma or something like that and just feel like, “Oh, that’s funky. I don’t know.”
Z: Yeah, I think it’s about A) personal preference, that’s fine. And B) There’s a difference between savory umami and fruit-sweet aromas.
K: That’s right.
Z: But to me, but to me, it’s once you tip over into the realm of things that are very clearly not a product of whatever was going on in the grape, but our product of the fermentation and the aging and my eyes, a negative way. That’s where something’s funky in a way that I don’t want any part of.
J: OK, so our last term here and we’re about to open our drinks to accompany our last term, is “natural.”
K: Here we go, guys.
J: Yeah, I need a drink for this, I think. Keith and I are drinking Korbel “Natural: Champagne.”
Z: California Champagne. Be very clear.
J: Russian River Valley Champagne, and Zach you’re drinking?
Z: I have the Brut. That was what I was able to find at my local grocery store.
K: The Korbel Brut. Nice.
J: I’m going to try this.
Z: OK, well, there’s the sound of it opening. Was not the most professional, but I’m trying to podcast and open wine, which is a little tricky.
K: Well, this reminds me of being Roman Catholic. Ooh, that’s bubbles.
J: I don’t get why this is considered natural. I don’t pick that up from this wine.
K: Right?
J: It’s not funky or crunchy.
K: No, it’s neither funky nor crunchy. It’s more like a sour beer. It’s sour. It’s all sweet. It’s sweet. It’s narrow on the palate. It’s not bright. It’s tight, a little bit tight, actually giving you a little bit tight. It’s not very balanced wine, and this is the kind of wine you make a cocktail out of? Well, I don’t know anything about cocktails except those on “Cocktail College.” So it does say
“natural” on the bottle. And I believe that because this is a very large, highly produced brand that is all over the country, they’re trying to jump on a particular word that has become very popular lately. It’s been around for quite some time.
J: Yeah, it’s an old one, right?
K: It’s an old one. So who wants to approach this?
Z: Let me say a little bit about this. You go first and then and then we get that. So I have a slightly different wine than you guys. And it’s interesting. It is very different from what I expected. Mine actually is a little funky. Smells like oyster shells.
K: See, that’s your funky. Yeah, it’s good.
Z: Yeah, I guess so. It’s very weird. I expected this to be much sweeter than it is. It’s not all that sweet. I don’t think it has a whole lot of complexity, but it is fine. Most likely, the rest of this bottle will be an apple spritz or something. But it’s better than I thought it would be. I don’t know what my expectations were, exactly. It’s definitely drinkable. I was not sure it would be natural. I mean, it’s OK.
K: And we all have to start with a deep breath for this one. This is like a deep breath term.
Z: I know it’s Friday, almost the weekend. We’re good.
J: I know you can’t define it, right? We cannot define natural wine.
Z: Well, the reason you cannot define it is because wine is inherently unnatural. It is not a natural thing. This is my big beef with this whole term. And the whole idea is that the very act of making wine is fundamentally unnatural in the sense of like, you cannot go find wine in nature like it does not happen. Grapes do not magically become wine without human intervention and especially the kinds of grapes and the kinds of wines we’re talking about everything from the decision to plant a vineyard to cultivating that vineyard, harvesting the grapes like grapes where you are an evolutionary feature of vines so that birds will eat them, ship them out and there are more vines. We completely interjected ourselves into the process. Thankfully, because wine is awesome, but it is not an unnatural product in any way, shape, or form. And obviously, the people using that term are not using it for a lot of different reasons. I’m not sure why the Korbel family is using it other than maybe it’s a fad. It’s trendy, it’s whatever. It looks good. But I hate it because it’s wrong. It’s just an inaccurate way to describe anything about wine. And it also then means that we don’t talk about the things that are actually kind of interesting and meaningful within the broader “natural” umbrella, if you want to call it that. There are a lot of things going on in wine that are really cool and really exciting and should be championed. An emphasis on organic and sustainable viticulture and emphasis on exploring different varieties of different wine styles. Then, as previously discussed on this podcast, your international varieties and very mainstream styles — those are all great things. I’m glad that they exist. I’m glad that this movement has brought them to the fore. But the term “natural” is so wrong. It’s just an inaccurate way to talk about anything involved in wine that has allowed a lot of unscrupulous actors into the category, including with the Korbel family or whoever owns it. And it sets this notion that other wine is unnatural. And as I said, all wine is unnatural. That’s the great thing about it.
J: But when people use the term natural, they use it to mean low-intervention, right?
Z: Yeah, maybe. But I don’t know. Right. Well, I mean, this is not a sparkling wine. Méthode champenoise wine is not low-intervention. It’s very high-end. It’s one of the most labor-intensive wines. You want to talk natural, we can talk about wild grapes. You can talk about fruit or something, right? You want to pick that and say, that’s a natural strawberry vine, but nothing you take from it is natural. Once human hands get involved, it ain’t natural.
K: Yeah. And Jamie Goode had a really great article on VinePair, and I found it very interesting because I was always wondering where the hell this stupid term came from. And it started with humility and fun, and it came to America and we did something with it and we always do a thing and turned it into a monster. It’s a great article. The beginning of something like, maybe we are in a post-natural wine world. The beginning of the article was really cool. It happened in the Loire Valley. There were these winemakers in the Loire Valley trying something new and different, just trying to see what wine would be like if you didn’t do much to it. This “low-intervention,” and they would bring it to the French bistros. And in certain French bistros and wine bars, it gained some popularity and it was just this fun little thing that was happening, and it could have stayed there. And but it came here, and when it got here, it was humble. I remember I had a restaurant and a wine shop. I watched this entire thing happen. I watched natural wine begin. I watched an organic movement happen. Then the biodynamic movement happened. And then whatever happened after the biodynamic movement, this natural wine thing started coming around. And at the time, as wine buyers, people were using the word natural wine, we didn’t think of it as anything but “can I sell it to my customers.” It’s low-intervention, fine, you’re doing whatever you’re doing. Is it good? Can I drink it? Can I sell it to my customers? Will they enjoy it? That’s all I cared about, and the natural wine term kept on coming up and coming up and coming up. And then I think at some point the media got a hold of it or I don’t know what happened, but then the low-intervention went from a fun idea to an absolute dogma. It was like this thing that people had to do. And what happened was that the natural things that happen during the fermentation process that we talked about in the whole crunchy, funky thing was written as mieses and volatile acidity and over oxidation and stuff like that. This is what would be considered lazy winemaking, because you’re just letting things happen when we’ve had decades and decades and decades and decades of progress in how we make wine, how we make wine better and more palatable. And so what’s happening now is that the flaws that come from “low-intervention wine” are taking over every single grape that’s made into wine. So if you’re making Pinot Noir, if you’re making more low Cabernet Franc, whatever, whatever inherent qualities or aromas that those varieties want to give you, you won’t get them. So it’s just unfortunate that we have this natural wine term, that is people are saying the wines are alive. It’s wine, guys. It’s fermented grapes, and then a human turns that into something beautiful. And if that human allows that wine to be compromised, you just want to call it natural wine and call it a day? I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense to me.
Z: And I think that the last thing I want to note here after everything that Keith said: I think it’s someone’s prerogative to say that what matters most to them is a methodology as opposed to the finished product. That’s a thing that a consumer can decide if they really want. I don’t think that as a winemaker, you should be. I think you should be a bit concerned about making the best wine you can, right? And adherence to an ideological, dogmatic approach maybe should not be to your North Star. I don’t tend to, like most of the wines that come from people like that. Some of them work; some of them don’t. And they care more about the process than the final product. Whatever, people can do that. It’s also clear that like, it’s very strange to me, but maybe not surprising that the places where this style has flourished as it’s consumed in big cities are some of the places where people feel the most distanced from nature. And so someone living in New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles, whatever can dupe themselves into thinking that by drinking “natural wine,” they’re engaging with nature in a way that drinking other wine doesn’t. And that, to me, is just silly. It’s maybe a harmless kind of silliness, but it’s very clearly so.
K: They’re engaging in what I would call a scam. It’s just it’s not right. This is the thing: The term “natural wine” should never exist, but it will. And unfortunately, we’re stuck with it. I don’t know when it’s going to go away. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to drink a wine that smells like mouse and Band-Aids. We just can’t call it natural wine. I wish that we wouldn’t. Stop calling it natural wine and call it low-intervention. Own up to your laziness, right? Because now, winemakers that make this “natural wine” are proudly saying in the media that they infect their barrels with brettanomyces. They want us to know it now, so it’s no longer like, “it’s natural because it just happens.” Now, they’re actually doing it. So how’s that natural? So why don’t we just call it low-intervention wine and say, hey, if you dig that mousy Band-Aid, wild “funky” stuff, great. Just don’t call it natural wine, right? Low-intervention makes sense. Like, how about we have a low-intervention section on the wine list instead of a natural wine?
Z: When does it go from medium to low? Like no one can say. To me, we can talk about the way a wine is made and the way a wine tastes, and those are things that can be communicated. But when you start trying to say this style of wine is x amount of intervention, like there’s just no metric for that. And so I’d rather we talk about other things personally, but this has been super interesting. Very great to hear your perspective on these things, Keith. And hopefully you feel at least a little bit more familiar and have a little better understanding of these terms, Joanna. And you had some California Champagne while you’re at it.
J: Yes, definitely. Listeners, drink wine that you like. Drink delicious wine. That’s what we want for all of us, really.
Z: And if you have other terms or things like that or you’re confused by, email us at [email protected]. Maybe we’ll do a follow-up on this with Keith again or with Adam. Who knows? But we’re always happy to try and clarify and debunk a bit.
J: Well, Zach, Keith, thank you so much for this wonderful chat, and we’ll talk to you guys next time.
Z: Sounds great.
Thanks so much for listening to the “VinePair Podcast.” If you love this show as much as we love making it, please leave us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.
Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and Seattle, Washington, by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit. Also, I would love to give a special shout out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all of this possible, and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team, who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.
Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.