If you'd like to Support the Podcast, you can buy me a glass of wine and I’ll give you a shoutout on a future episode!

Not everyone loves wine. I know this. And while it’s hard for me to relate, I can respect it. 

For our 70th Episode, I'm re-sharing one of our most listened episodes to date!I Last year, I sat down with my friend Heather, who’s not exactly a fan of wine (she calls it "rotten juice"). She wanted to learn more about what all the hype is about. You’ll hear us sip, swirl, and banter our way through some whites and reds, with Heather offering her unfiltered reactions that are both hilarious and insightful.

We dive into the sensory experience of wine: smells, tastes, and even how food changes everything. Listen to hear if Heather realizes there’s more to wine than she thought... At the end, you'll hear a new update from her, 1 year later... does she like it any better?

Listen as we open 5 different bottles of wine and discuss:

• What’s that smell?
• The one that was “stanky”
• If cheddar popcorn and chili pistachios hold up as wine pairings 
• The definition of cougar juice 
• Drinking for taste, not to get drunk
• Is non alcoholic wine a thing?

Get my favorite wine preservation system, the Coravin Pivot, so you can take your time with your open bottles. 

You can purchase my small-lot 2022 Sollevato Sangiovese that is “Not Bad” Here- Use discount code PODLISTNER for 10% off. 

Information about the lovely and light Croix Chardonnay we tasted here: 

For Pride Mountain Vineyards Viognier, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon visit their website or call 707-963-4949 to place an order.

Want more tips to get the most out of your wine? Get my Wine Tips Cheat Sheet here.

Questions, suggestions and guest requests? nikki@sipwithnikki.com

Oh, my God. It is doing something. I can understand the fire extinguisher analogy.

Yay. It didn't make the wine bad or weird in any way for me. It made it softer.

It's so weird to pay attention to this.

Like that statement right there. Yeah, we're done. My work is done. It's just if you pay attention, there's so much to it. Right?

Yeah. Okay. I'm beginning to understand why this is appealing to some folks.

Hello, and welcome to episode number 70 of SIP with Nikki. Holy cow. How did we get here? I am so thrilled to be here with you for another week.

And in honor of this milestone episode, I wanted to re release one of the most popular episodes that I have shared since the start of the podcast, and that is with my friend Heather, who does not like wine.

So if you're not a wine lover, if you don't get what all of the fuss is about, or maybe you've got someone in your life who is just not along on the wine journey with you, this episode is for you. So just a year ago last April, Heather and I, who have been friends for over 25 years, we live separately. She is in Austin, Texas.

I'm of course, in Northern California, and we had a girls trip to Lake Tahoe and we rented this beautiful Airbnb right on the lake.

And Heather, especially in recent years, has been very forthcoming with the fact that while she supports my endeavors of moving to wine country, studying wine, making wine, having a podcast about wine, she does not like wine. So she had the brilliant idea of doing an episode where we talked about that.

And what you're gonna hear is me bringing a few bottles of wine, sitting down in our living room, and just seeing what we see, seeing her reaction. She is very unfiltered, which is one of the things I love about her.

And I will say that through our time together and at our tasting, there were some light bulbs, and that's all I'm gonna say.

So ahead of re releasing this episode a year later, I reached out to Heather and I said, hey, let's check in and see where are you A year later, what do you think about wine? What have you learned? Has anything changed? Or do you still think it's rotten juice?

So stay tuned for the outro of this episode at the very end and you'll hear Heather's current day update about how it's going. In honor of our 70th episode, if you'd like to be an angel and support the podcast, you could do so using the link in the show notes.

Buy me a glass of wine and I'd be ever so grateful. So here we go with my friend Heather, who doesn't like wine. Are you having fun on our girls getaway weekend in Lake Tahoe?

Yes, I'm having the best one.

What's been your favorite part so far?

Activity wise? I really liked the hike. The smell of the pine trees was something that I really enjoyed.

So it's funny that we're going to be using our sense of smell and.

You kept saying when we were walking over the pines that it reminded you of a certain smell from growing up in Louisiana.

Yeah.

And that is part of the reason that wine can be so special and emotion evoking because our sense of smell is linked to memory.

Yeah.

And that's one of the things that I love about wine and why I've chosen to dedicate my life to this beverage that you don't like.

Yeah. And you've never liked not fond of wine. You've heard me refer to it as rotten juice, which I know is offensive to all the wine drinkers out there.

That's okay. That's why we're doing this. Not everybody loves it and not everybody's world revolves around. And I still love you.

That's right.

And you're still a kind, intelligent human being who's contributing to society in a positive way, even if you don't like wine.

Yeah.

I think mentioned to you when you started doing your podcast that I was like, wouldn't it be funny you could reach a wider audience of those that don't drink wine and why drinking wine is cool or why people who you love drink wine try to understand that. And I think that's where that stemmed from is I was like, you are obsessed with wine. I am not fond of wine. I don't drink wine.

So, yeah, I'm excited to learn why this is so cool to some people.

Well, thank you for being open to trying. If nothing else, hopefully there's just some little light bulbs that come away from it. I'm not gonna try to change your life. You of all people.

I know that you know what you like and you don't like what you don't like.

I did.

You are set in your ways, and that's what I love about you. So I'm not gonna try to do any convincing.

But even just in the two nights that we've been here on our little trip when I've been serving myself some wine, you've had some really good questions.

Yes.

So those are the types of things that I think people that are not crazy wine nerds might be curious about whether they wanna taste and learn or whether they just wanna not feel lost in a conversation around people in their lives who are passionate about it. Otherwise, it all just sounds like wa wa wine wah tannins.

And you're right.

The conversations we' weekend about why you like it and like what you're actually experiencing when you drink wine is different from just, let's drink wine till we're wasted or until we're drunk. You have taught me that you enjoy it for the taste and the flavors that you experience.

And there's a ritual, if you might say, like a spirituality to drinking wine that I think is cool. But I've already learned a lot about the passion that it's not just about, let's get a buzz on. You drink wine to do that. It's a lot more.

So I am open to trying to experience what people who appreciate wine are doing when they're drinking wine. So that's what I would like to experience. And so I really think too, like, for people in your life that don't drink wine or alcohol.

I don't drink alcohol really now anymore. For those of you listening who may know.

Because we're me. Because we're old.

Because we're old. My.

And you drank it all in your 20s and 30s.

Yeah, it's all gone. I have a tolerance for it anymore. I feel like I get sick when I drink alcohol of any kind. So I don't. I haven't drank for years now, but I think.

But I'm not like, pulling you off the wagon or anything. With this experience, people are gonna at me like, your friend Heather, you totally pulled her down the drain.

No, we're here to learn about why wine is cool and why the taste. I should learn about what we're actually tasting. And that's the point of wine.

There's a different part of it that because my bestie is passionate about it.

I want to learn more involved.

Like I was saying earlier, if you don't drink wine and you have a friend that's a wine drinker, you can have an appreciation, but also appreciate. Don't convert.

You can just have appreciation and awareness.

Just like I can have appreciation for things that I'm not a Die Hard in my life, like, I don't know, football and things that my partner is really into that make his world go round. I'm never gonna convert. I'm never gonna be Die Hard. But I can at least understand some of the terms and the vocabulary.

So that when I do wanna, as a good partner, sit down and watch a quarter or two. Is it a quarter?

There are four quarters. You got it. One quarter.

And then there's the mission where I get the wine. It's just nice to have that appreciation and not feel lost when I dip my toe in that world, you know? So I think that's what you're doing here.

So thank you.

You're welcome. I'm excited.

So let me set the scene for our listeners. First of all, we are in this fabulous Airbnb in the north of Lake Tahoe. And it's kind of like log cavity feeling.

And as I'm sitting here, it's going into the sunset hour and we have this beautiful deck and we're looking at Lake Tahoe literally as we sit here.

It's gorgeous.

We're at the coffee table in the living room in front of this cute little wood stove and we're not drinking to get drunk. But I did open five different bottles of wine.

I know. I was like, are you wasting this on me?

No, because thank goodness. You know that contraption that I showed you that has the gas, the argon? Yeah. So that's called a Coravin. These are gonna be gassed.

And we're driving home on this trip, which is great. It's not like we're flying. We can drive home with these in the car.

And Michael and I can take our time finishing these bottles over the next week or two because they'll be preserved from that argan from the coravin, which is so cool. Big fan link in the show notes to get yourself a coravin, by the way. So I've opened two whites and three reds.

And they're all different, but they're all kind of staples. And then we've got two sort of wild cards which are lesser known grapes that you may or may not know much about at all.

And then I made us a little cheese plate because we're gonna talk about what happens when you introduce salt and cheese and nuts and protein and does the wine. And so we have a couple different mixed cheeses on the plates. We've got some cheddar popcorn on there.

We've got some nice little flatbread and some marcona almonds. Let's just go for it. Let's just start with the first wine and just ask away. So the first wine on your left, it's a white wine. Okay.

That obviously did. I. I didn't have to tell you that. Right.

I got it.

Okay.

I'm Quick. All right.

You give me a swirl.

Okay.

Don't taste it.

Okay.

What do you smell?

I don't know. This is why it's hard. I don't. It smells like wine to me. Ding, ding, ding, ding.

You are cor. Ladies and gentlemen, she wins. The end. We're done. Okay, so let's break it down.

In an earlier episode, I used the acronym few, F, E, W, fruit, earth, wood. Did you listen to that?

I did, yeah.

She's a longtime listener. First time caller.

Yeah.

Okay, so do you remember learning about that?

Yes.

Okay, so let's start with F. Fruit. Okay. Does it smell fruity? Yes or no? This one's subtle, I'm gonna give you that.

It's not like screaming out of the glass, but I'm getting some subtle fruitiness.

Yeah. I think there's grapes in here. Isn't that a fruit?

There were grapes once upon a time.

I win. I got it right.

And then we put them through fermentation. And now there's all these other compounds in there, and they mirror compounds that we know from fruits and flowers, which is why we smell them.

This wine is not like berries, right? You're not getting like tutti, frutti, cherry, strawberry. No, Generally white wines, and this wine is Chardonnay are gonna have notes of citrus.

Maybe some apple. I'm getting a little more green. Like tart apple.

Yes. Ooh.

Okay, talk to me.

I eat a lot of apples. And now that you're saying that.

Okay. Think of what a green. Like a granny smell.

Yeah.

Do you smell it?

Yep. Yeah, when you said apple, that's exactly what I thought. The green one, the tart one.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, so shout out to Carol, my mother, her favorite wine is Chardonnay.

Yeah. Most people's moms and aunts and grandmas favorite wines are Chardonnay because there's a ton of them on the market. It can be very value priced.

It can even come in a box. Does Carol know anything about that?

Yeah. Box is Carol's. What is it? Bouquet of choice. She is a box queen, box wine girl.

But I don't think there's any shame in that game because you have said wine is subjective, Right? It's whatever you like.

I always say, like what you drink, Drink what you like, but know why you like it.

Yes. That's what I'm learning today, is why this might be.

So we identified some fruity and some apple. Do you get any earthy notes? Do you smell mushrooms? Do you smell leaves? Do you smell minerals?

Do you Smell a wet sidewalk after summer rain in Lake Tahoe? No, no, the swine's. It's pretty mellow on the nose. And then W is wood.

You said wood.

Do you think?

Yeah, maybe like a. You said leaves. I smell leaves.

Now there's like a freshness. Like a botanical freshness. Okay, so we have maybe a guess of what we think it's gonna taste based on the nose and our fruit. Earthwood. Now taste it.

Okay.

It's not bad. Yay, you guys, we got it.

Not bad.

In my world, when people say not bad, especially when they're from the northeast. Hey, it's not bad. I take it as a compliment.

Concentrated that hard on what wine might be. So maybe that is why it wasn't that bad.

Yeah. You're giving it its full attention. Right. And you're looking for things to notice. You're paying attention. And you said not bad.

And that makes my heart happy. Yeah.

It wasn't like a rotten juice. No.

Which I've seen you do that many times over our 25 year friendship. You even did it with something a few nights ago.

Yeah, okay.

But this is not bad.

I'm really hard to read. Like my emotions.

Don't Y'all. There is no. And listen to me. So I've been with her for three days now and the y'all has rubbed off. And now I'm y'all. Ing.

There's no guessing with Heather. It's one of the things I love about her. There's not a lot of filter. If you can imagine someone even more expressive than me, which is hard.

We could take it on the road, Nick. We could make money together, I guarantee you.

So in addition to this wine being, quote, not bad, we just took that one sip together and then we went off on some crazy tangent. First of many, I'm sure. It's been probably at least a minute since we've swallowed that wine. For me, it's lingering.

Yeah.

And I almost got a little butterscotchy butter. Yay.

Oh, my God. Do I have a sophisticated palette?

I think you do.

When you say it, I can identify it. I don't know if you're putting it in my head, but I do.

Stinky gym socks. Stinky gym socks.

Nope.

Stinky gym socks. No, you're not getting that. Okay, good.

But butterscotch. Yeah.

Oh, my God, that's crazy. Little butterscotchy finish. Try a bite of the white cheddar popcorn. This might be a fun test. Let's chomp it on the microphone.

Okay.

Okay. So we got some salt and some cheddar going on in the palate. Let's try this one again.

Ooh, it got stronger.

It did. What about it got stronger? A taste or texture or feeling?

I don't know. I just know that it's different for me.

It got sharper, like, more acidic.

Yes.

Did you get that?

Yep.

Yeah. That's because we added fat, probably from whatever cheese, like, chemical that makes white cheddar popcorn appear to have cheddar going on and salt.

Right.

Okay.

And it changed the wine with this wine. Did you like it better with or without the popcorn?

Without.

Okay. So just something to notice. Right. By the way, this wine is from very close to my house in Sonoma County.

Do you know what that means?

No.

They're old barrels. They're used. They weren't holding wine for the first time when they had this wine in it. They had held other wines before.

Same kind of wine or any other.

Probably white wine, probably other Chardonnay. But it means that it's not oaky because all the oakiness was sucked out of the barrels. The first wine and the second wine and the third wine.

How many times can you use a.

Barrel as long as you want?

Like, 100 years.

Most people don't use them that long. Been a decade.

Well, I don't know if it's. Oh, it makes it even more better.

It's just neutral, and it's not imparting quote, oakiness. So the w. The woodiness about the wine. This wine is a lowercase small font. W.

Some Chardonnays, you will put your nose in the glass and you're like, oh, my God, it smells like a tree.

That's new oak.

That's not this, right?

Yeah.

This is a pretty subtle Chardonnay. I thought this would be a fun one to taste with you because it's not a quote Butterbomb.

Thank goodness. I know I'm not a fan of.

The butter bomb, but do you know what wines that have a high butteriness and high oakiness. That's what we mean by Butterbomb. Do you know, in the industry. And I hope people don't cancel me when I say this.

Yes.

What those wines are Sometimes called the.

Ones that are butter bombs, especially Chardonnay.

Like big, buttery, oaky Chardonnays that our moms and our aunts and our grandmas have drank for decades. I don't know if you know this. No. But you got the second part right.

Juice.

Cougar juice.

Cougar juice. Have you ever heard that you're canceled?

I'm canceled?

No, I haven't.

What are you called by you canceling me?

No, but based on, like, cougar fur.

A woman of a certain age.

Okay, okay.

Who tends to gravitate towards that wine. It's a huge stereotype, but there is some truth to it. This is not that style of Chardonnay.

No. Cause it's not buttery. Yeah. It's not a butter bomb. Cougar juice.

All right, so as we move on from wine number one, tell me, like, one or two things that you learned or.

Okay, I learned that you have to keep that acronym in mind when you're smelling and that the smell is important, and then that anything you eat with a wine will change the taste of the wine. Yay.

Gold star. Okay, cool. So let's go on to our second white wine that is already in the glass.

Good.

Okay, so this is not Chardonnay. This is a different grape. Give it a good swirl.

And what is swirling doing that is important?

It makes you look freaking fancy. You look good doing that.

In my brand new Riedel glasses that I brought on vacation with us, swirling gets oxygen in the glass, which just means that you smell and taste more.

Okay.

Because wine is chemistry in the glass, and the chemistry in the glass is volatile. And when it comes in contact with oxygen, things release, and it simply lets you smell and taste more.

Why do people pour it in that other glass container before pouring it in the wine? The decanter, I think it's called.

Yeah, same thing. What swirling does, decanting does exponentially because a decanter puts a lot of surface area of oxygen on a wine, and it helps the wine to open up.

What are you getting on this?

It still smells just like wine to me. But it does smell different than the other wine. I just.

Here's the cool thing. Smell it. And this is why we do glasses in front of us. Go back to your Chardonnay and smell from one wine to the next.

Wow.

It did different, huh?

Yeah.

How can you smell the wood?

Not the wood, the leaves in this one. The old one.

The earthiness of the Chardonnay.

This one. Flowery. Does it smell like flowery?

The Blue white wine is flowery. It's very floral.

Yeah. Okay.

And I would put flowers in the e. Fruit, earth, wood, flowers I'm gonna put in the under earthing. Okay.

Okay.

What about fruitiness?

Just tell me what's in earth flowers.

Anything but fruit sticks and anything but wood. Could be spices, could be flowers, could be like you were saying, leaves or minerals or dirt. Like grass, forest, mushrooms.

Basically anything natural that's not fruit.

Okay. Helps.

So, yeah, this wine definitely has a floral. If you smell it and you go, okay, hi, floral. I already noticed you.

And now I'm gonna push you aside in my brain and I'm gonna see what else is in there and dig deeper. Let's look for some fruit smell again. Let's look for some fruitiness that's not floral. Do you get your green apple in here?

Yeah. Okay.

What about a pear?

Yes, that's what I smell.

What about a peach? Mm, maybe early season peach, not ripe, like dripping down your chin, but that's.

The only ones I eat. Smells good, though.

It does smell good. I just wanna dip my finger in this glass and put a little bit of this behind each one of my ears.

Cause this wine is known for being very floral and then wood. Not very much on this. As minimal as the Chardonnay, right?

No, it's not as strong. Dang. When you go back and forth.

That's why we do it.

You can really tell. Yeah. And now butterscotch baby.

Back on the first one.

Like, big time.

Totally. Yep. Okay, so you have an idea based on the second white wine, which I haven't told you what it is yet.

What you think you know, what it may or may not taste like. Okay, Taste it.

Sour.

And seed. And there we have it.

Still. You can taste. There's a difference. I just don't know what it is. I like it better than the first one.

Nice. What do you like about it?

It's just. It's lighter. It feels like it's not as a heavy. That's how I describe it.

Heavy flavor or heavy feeling in your mouth?

Feeling in my mouth.

Mmm. Okay, so this is Viognier from Pride. Viognier is a grape that you don't see a lot of.

I have never heard of a wine called VION. VIONNET. VMAs.

VMAs are awards, I think. Open a bottle of that.

MTV Music Awards.

Viognier. Viognier. It looks like Viognor on the label because it's French and we say Viognier.

Viognier.

Oh, you said it Better than French.

What do you want?

Viognier is known for being very floral and aromatic. This grape is in the same family of grapes as Riesling and Gewurchtaminor. When I say that, what do you think? Riesling.

I think of sweet. I know Riesling's sweet. I don't generally prefer sweet things. In general, I don't generally prefer sweet.

Things, but you're friends with me. So in another previous episode called hey, Sugar, Understanding Sweetness in Wine, about three episodes back, I talk about the. Exactly.

What you said is a very common perception that when people hear Riesling, even if they don't know anything about wine, they go, oh, I know that's sweet.

Yeah.

Not all Riesling is sweet. It can be made in a sweet style, but it could also be made in a dry style. Dry is the opposite of sweet. Dry means all the sugar became alcohol.

Okay. Oh, Dry is the opposite of sweet in wines.

Yes. Okay.

That's good to know.

The word dry is tricky because it has two meanings in wine. We just talked about the first one. Dry, not sweet. Sugar not present became alcohol.

Wine drinkers also use the word dry to describe how wine feels in their mouth. When it literally makes your mouth feel dry, that is a separate use of the word dry, and that comes from tannin.

Okay.

This wine does not feel like that. Chalky, bitter, astringent. We're going to save that for the reds.

Oh, God. I don't know if I'm going to make it. I don't know if I'm. That's like the real rotten juicing.

But do you like this one?

Yes. When I say, like, I don't want to drink it, but I don't like.

Does this one offend you less than most? Yes. I thought you were gonna say. When I say, I don't mean, like, I want to drink a whole bottle. You said, I want to drink it.

I don't want to drink it again. No, I can tell that I prefer this taste over the first wine taste. Okay.

There we go.

Okay. Okay.

It's not Chardonnay. It's floral. It's dry, not sweet. And it's wonderful with shellfish.

If we go out to the coast on Monday to bodega and we get, like, oysters and shellfish, we'll take this with us. It's really fun with briny things that taste of the ocean in your mouth. It's also great with spicy food.

You know me, I love jalapeno and serrano on all things and A lot of times when you're trying to pair wine with something spicy, after you have the spice in your mouth, the wine tastes like shit.

Yeah.

This wine is like a little fire extinguisher in the mouth. In fact, hold on, I'm gonna get you one of your chili.

Oh, chili pistachios.

Pistachios. Which normally I would not recommend with wine tasting because the chili would just overpower.

Okay.

But I want you to try, so.

I'm gonna eat the pistachios.

I've been housing this bag of chili pistachios during our girls weekend.

Oh, you want me to have another one?

Okay, I'll sit down.

Okay, I'm gonna eat them.

Give me one.

Sorry.

Me. You want to share?

They're so good.

Focus. Stay with me.

Okay.

Nice little chili.

Okay. And then taste. Right. Oh, my God. It is doing something. I can understand the fire extinguisher analogy.

Yay. It didn't make the wine bad or weird in any way. For me. It made it softer.

It's so weird to pay attention to this.

Like that statement right there.

Yeah, we're done.

My work is done. It's just if you pay attention, there's so much to it. Right?

Yeah. Okay. I'm beginning to understand why this is appealing to some folks because it is more than just drinking an alcoholic drink to.

Yeah, for me, and you mentioned this at the start of the recording, but I love to drink wine because it tastes good. I'm not drinking to feel it and I'm not drinking to get drunk.

And sometimes the alcohol almost gets in the way because I want to have more because it tastes good, but I don't want to pay the price and feel it.

What about can you make non alcoholic wine that tastes just as good, or is that not a thing?

Oh, Hot Topic, Hot topic. We are children of the 80s. Yes, there is non alcoholic wine just like there's non alcoholic beer. Right.

It's a purist thing. Like, this is what wine is for me.

And I'm not gonna speak for everyone. I'm just not there yet. But I know that's important. And I know of late people are drinking less or choosing not to drink at all for health reasons.

So these non alcoholic wines are coming forward in the market and on people's radars. There's different ways to make them, but the main way is to make an actual wine in the same process and then literally de alcoholizing.

There's a process where it literally puts the wine through a centrifuge, essentially, and removes the alcohol.

Wow. And then it's supposed to taste the exact same.

Yeah.

Do you think it does? Have you done. Have you done this?

I don't.

You don't think it tastes the same?

I don't. But to be fair, I have not tasted a lot of them, and there's more on the market now than ever.

So I probably need to dig into that and just be aware so I can speak about it more intelligently than I am right now. But it's a great question. Let's move on to a red. Not a lot I was gonna. Do you guys hear her? Waste it. Okay, so this is our first of three reds.

I think you saw what it was, so I'm not gonna try.

I didn't see.

Really?

I didn't look. I can't see the wall. You have the labels turned away from me.

All right, let's give it a smell.

F, E, W. Let me swirl it around. Y'all look at me.

She's got a nice swirl. Hey, do not spill that wine and swirl on our Airbnb white carpet. I'll lose my security deposit.

It smells like cherries. Is that right? Is it?

It's very fruit forward. And typically, this wine is known for having a cherry note, so that jumped out at you right away.

Right away.

So this wine, I would say, is a capital F for fruit.

There's a. I like the other F word.

Capital, all caps. Okay. What about any earthiness?

Yeah, there's something in here that's not cherry or fruity.

Just concentrating really hard.

I can't identify what it is.

Do you want me to give you suggestions or give you a moment?

Tell me some suggestions, but make some of them wrong.

Okay, so rotten fish.

Nope.

Licorice.

I don't like licorice.

So anise.

What's anise?

A spice, like star anise.

I don't know that. Okay.

Tobacco.

Yes. Ooh, there's tobacco in this. It smells like some kind of tobacco. A sweeter tobacco.

Cherry tobacco. Oh, yeah. All right. And let's look at our wood. Do we get any oaky?

I do smell wood. I don't know what it is.

Every time. Every time. You said, I do smell wood. I don't know.

I don't know what it is, but I know there's a wood smell.

Okay, so there's some. This wine was probably aged in oak barrels.

Okay.

If it's not jumping out at you like, oh, okie. They're probably not new. They're probably used. So we're going to put a small W on here.

Am I right?

Sure.

What about the cherry part? That's the. That's what I smell. Yeah.

Now, when I say yes and for sure, the tobacco.

Now that you've said that, it's definitely both.

So did the person that make this wine put cherries and. Or tobacco in the wine at any point?

No, it was in the earth.

It's chemistry in the ground. The same compounds that make cherries smell and taste like cherries are in here.

Wow.

The same compounds that make tobacco smell and taste like tobacco are in here naturally from the fermentation process. It's not necessarily that these grapes were grown near a cherry tree. Big black holes in a cherry tree.

Remember, that was one of my karaoke songs that I would sing.

Which song is that?

Black Horse in a Cherry Tree by KT Tunstall. And I'll say, no, no, no, no, no, no. Then no, no.

I don't know the words.

No, but when you were saying, like, did it come from the air and come from the water? Not directly. Okay. It's not like the roots of these grapevines were sucking up what was in the ground.

We say to that if roots were like straws, literally sucking up the flavors of the soil, then tomatoes would taste like shit manure. They'd be sucking up the flavor of the manor.

Yeah, you're right.

That they're fertilized with and they don't.

Yeah.

Okay.

Science.

Science. Okay, so give it one more smell.

Okay.

And then give it a taste.

Do you always swallow your wine? Every time.

Every single time.

Because it does something every time, letting more and more oxygen in.

You got it.

So is it changing the smell, or is it just making it stronger?

That's a good question.

Both. The cherries. I.

Do you like cherries?

Yes.

So are you excited to taste?

Yeah. And it's red. And I normally had a bad experience with the red wine when I was, like, 20, but anyway, let's try it.

Well, we're not 20 anymore.

No kidding.

Or 30 or 40 anymore. Wait, we're 40s. 40s. Barely.

Okay. Normally when I taste red wine, it's like, immediately gag. And this is not gag.

It's like, good, because I made it.

This is my wife. You know what?

Oh, my God.

It's not disgusting.

Hashtag not disgusting.

Congratulations. Cause, Nikki, I do not like red wine.

I was waiting for you to make the rotten juice face that you make with all red.

It's not there. It doesn't taste rotten. Tastes like wine, but not.

She's taking another sip. You Guys.

Oh, my God. It's pretty good for you. Good job. I'm serious. I'm not disgusted by this. And when I taste red wine, it's like, red wine.

She's scrunching her face in many different ways right now. I'm. I'm so proud of you.

I'm serious. This is not gross. You know, I would tell you if I thought if I.

Girl, I know I've been with you for the last three days.

I love that you didn't tell me this was yours, because maybe I would have had some bias in, like, trying to support you. Sure.

Thank you for that. I love you.

It's pretty good.

Yay.

I'm so proud of you. The cherry situation.

The cherry situation is high. So let's see if you remember the type of grape, the type of wine that I make.

It's the Italian grape with an S. Huh?

It rhymes with schman gervaisi.

Sangiovese. I know. I have a hard enough time pronouncing your wine's name. That's, like, legit. I haven't tasted your wine.

I know.

Did I taste it last night? It was the pride.

I was saving this. I was saving this for our podcast because I really wanted to truly capture your first unfiltered impression that you've ever had this wine.

I can't believe the smell of the tobacco and the cherry. Are those the two strongest things in here?

Yeah, I would say.

What else is in here?

Violets, purple flowers, little pepper, Spice.

Pepper.

It's very cherry. Forward.

Very cherry. Yeah. Thank God. I like cherries. What if I didn't?

Right? It's funny, too. So this is the tricky, slippery slope with wine.

When we try to pull out notes of fruit and flowers and things that we can all relate to. When I say licorice, and you're like, I don't like licorice. Like, right away, I'm like, shit. Why did I say that?

Because now you have a negative connotation. Right?

But it's not strong. I don't taste licorice. Yeah, I taste that cherry. I taste that tobacco and that. Now that you've said pepper, there's something that's spicy in there.

You have one of these long, skinny white cheeses. Triangle like this.

Yes.

All right, I want you to try that.

Okay. This is the goat cheese.

This is goat Gouda.

I learned about cheese last night, y'all.

We did this with cheese last night.

It's so good.

It's so good. Now try the wine again.

Okay. It made it Less spicy. It's, like, lighter. Is that right? Yes.

Wow. She's taking another sip. You guys. I should be videoing.

This cheese makes me want to, like.

Gulp it because I'm thirsty, and that's my problem is, like, a bite and a sip and a bite and a soup and a bite and a sip. And then I ate all the cheese and drank all the wine.

It did make it better. Didn't make it, like, grosser. It's good by itself, actually.

Didn't make it grosser. Typically. Sangiovese, the name of this red grape, is in the middle of the spectrum of red grapes.

When we talk about boldness, concentration, and then specifically tannin. Right. Tannin, as I mentioned, is what can feel chalky, astringent, sometimes bitter.

If a wine is really tannic, which is not this one, it could be like a fuzzy sweater on your teeth. Okay.

Ew. I'm not sure I want to feel that. Is this. There's a strong aftertaste. It's in my mouth. It is not bad.

Again, a red wine thing that I have again experienced afterwards.

So you like what's lingering?

Yeah, it's not bad. It's not bitter.

You know, like pleasant. And it almost makes you want to take another sip.

So we're going to replace the word aftertaste, which has a negative connotation, with the word finish. This wine has a pleasant finish or a long finish.

That's the word in wine that you use to say you like how it's still hanging out in your cheeks and your tongue, and you're like, it's pleasant. It's not off putting. It's not drying, and it makes me want to have another sip. It's a pleasant finish. It has a soft finish. It has a long finish.

I don't know. I just had soft kitty, warm kitty, little Bolivar. I just got that in my head.

Big bang. I'm so proud that's your wine and that I like it.

I'm so relieved. Cause I was like, this is gonna be interesting.

And I had already decided that if you tasted my wine and said rotten juice, like, I wasn't gonna edit it out. Right. This is not a commercial for my wine. This is really capturing unfiltered thoughts of someone who says they don't like wine.

So Sangiovese is in the middle of the spectrum, like I said. So it's not as bold and rich and heavy and tannic as Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Syrah, some of those.

But it's not as Light and see through in the glass like Pinot Noir would be. Which is one of the lightest reds. Sangiovese, especially the way that we make it, is very much in the middle of the spectrum.

So congratulations, dude.

Thanks.

I'm serious. That's amazing.

Thanks. You knew me when. Just gonna pour another one.

Let me just rinse it out. Just kidding. Water in your mouth, not in the glass.

Oh, who taught you that?

This. Check. I know.

Why is that?

She has a podcast.

Why is that important?

Because you're diluting the flavors in the wine by adding the tiny bit of water. It's better to have whatever residuals were left from the first wine.

Do you guys hear me crying now? I'm the proud teacher.

There's a whole art to this I'm learning. My appreciation is growing.

I'm proud of you just for being open and for trying. So you still have your solo off to the left in case you want to have more. Take both of these glasses. So we're gonna finish with two more reds.

Just remember which is which.

Okay?

Okay. Just smell back and forth between these two wines. Take a minute with them. Think about your fruit, earth and wood.

Ew, that one stinks. Ooh.

Okay. Ew.

Maybe it's because I smelled this one first.

What stinks about it?

I don't know. It's not as bad as, like, when I stopped and gave it a second and smelled it again, but smelling it.

So you have such a strong reaction about a smell. Me, as a wine professional and someone who pours wine for people, My first reaction is, oh, is it corked? Is there a foil? Is there a flaw?

And I smell that. There's not a flaw. This wine is.

I'm flawed. Is that what you're saying?

This wine is clean. That was just your personal reaction.

Now that I'm not smelling this one and that one, it's not as bad. Okay. It's changing, clearly.

Let's do some swirling. Okay, so just based on smell, the first one that you were smelling was more appealing to you?

Yeah.

If I said you can only have a sip of one of these, I.

Would choose this one. Okay.

In this scenario, we're just gonna call Wine one.

Okay.

Okay. Let's go through fruit Earthwood on Wine one.

This is the hardest part.

Roll it around in your glass. Not only swirling, but see how I'm tilting the glass and then rotating it, coating the inside?

Oh, yeah.

So pretty. Try that. And then here's another thing.

Okay.

Take your free hand over the top. Swirl it like you're covering like a lid, trap it, and then release it into your nose. Stronger?

Yeah, super stronger. So is it earthy or is it fruity?

Well, to me, this wine is false fruity.

Yeah, yeah. There's fruit in here too.

Okay. Cherries jumping out at you or Granny Smith apples or maybe darker color red fruits.

Like dark color, dark color.

Blueberry or a BlackBerry.

BlackBerry.

Okay. Woody. Spicy spice, pepper spice or baking spice. Like clove, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg.

Yes, clove. It's the baking.

I can't remember. You loved pumpkin spice or you hated pumpkin spice.

I do like pumpkin spice.

You seem to remember there's a very strong affinity one way or the other with you.

Yeah, I do like pumpkin spice.

You like it. Okay, so mine is the pumpkin, but the spices that accompany pumpkin, pumpkin spice, baking spices, which comes from barrels.

Is there a nutmeg?

Sure. Yeah. So of all the wines that you've had today, the two whites and the sangiovese, this wine, these two have the most new oak on them.

Some of the barrels that held both of these red wines in front of you were new, which is going to amp up a little bit of the oakiness, the woodiness, and the baking.

Can I smell your. Why the smell? Turn in that one, Nancy. God dang. The cherry's in there.

When you change. Yeah.

It's fun.

This is science. It is science. When have you ever had three different types of wines in front of you?

That's been the biggest thing that I'm noticing is I can't identify, but I know they're different, and that's cool.

And it takes a while to identify and be able to pull out these things. It's just like being a musician or a sport. You were a gymnast, right?

All of those things take training to hone in, but just the fact that you can say they're different to me is a level of appreciation in and of itself that you've never had. Go ahead and taste it and see if it tastes like it smells. What causes that dry feeling in your mouth? T word?

The tannins.

This wine definitely has the most tannins.

It tastes the most like red wine. This is what red wine tastes like to me. I don't enjoy it. It's. It's just. I think it's the bitter. Maybe it's the tannins, but I don't.

This wine has a good amount of tannin. Have another bite of any of the cheeses on your plate or even the popcorn.

Mm.

Are we the same person? Are we the same Person. I grabbed a bite of mimolette, which is this really orange? French.

I'm not sure what it is.

Is it the truffle one? I'm getting truffle.

Yep.

You got truffle. Ooh, this is gonna be fun. Okay, so you got a little truffle cow's milk from Spain. Try the wine again.

Are you supposed to smell it as you drink it?

Is that, like, smell before?

You know how you drink whiskey? You don't inhale. You're supposed to just. I don't know. That's what I was told because it's so strong. But you smell before and then drink.

Before, during, after all of it.

I think it mellowed it out. Yay. It's definitely not as strong. Yay.

Weird.

Yes.

Yes. Because I think. Confirm this for me. But I think what was off putting about this one on its own to you, that you didn't love was the tannin.

Yes.

Which tastes like bitter, Feels like dry, chalky.

Yes.

So here's what's happening with tannin. This is the science. Tannin comes from the skin of the grape.

If we had table grapes, red grapes from the grocery store sitting here right now, I would tell you to peel the skin off the grape and just put the skin alone in your mouth. You would feel the dryness, same as you would if you put a tea bag in your mouth. Hee hee. Tea has tannin. Okay.

Which I was telling you because you drink a lot of tea.

A lot of tea. Yeah.

What happens when tannin is in your mouth is it forms a bond with the protein in your saliva. Your saliva gets bound up and taken away by tannin. What neutralizes the perception of that tannin is salt.

Golly. It is way more enjoyable if you eat the cheese first.

Did you just use the E word when drinking a glass of.

Yeah. I didn't say I wanted to drink it the whole glass. I said it's more enjoyable.

You use the E word. This is pride Merlot.

Oh, my golly.

Normally, I know from my past, merlot has been my least favorite red wine. I know. I don't like Merlot. Yeah. This is, like, different. When you add a little bit of mindfulness to what you're doing and the cheese, and it's fun.

I'm, like, smiling from ear to ear. You are smiling.

Cause you've had four sips of wine, which is the most you've had in a year.

Less alcohol I've had in A few years. No, I don't think it's that, but that's enjoyable.

Okay. Okay, let's finish the last one. Okay.

This is the one that I thought was stanky.

Stanky. Let's finish with the stanky one.

Okay.

Let's see if it's. If the stank has changed in the glass.

I love that stank.

I want to climb in that.

Ooh, glass smell. Okay. It doesn't smell bad anymore.

Okay.

It's not as tanniny as that one.

Okay.

Still tastes like red wine, though. It doesn't have as much flavor in it.

Okay. As the merlot.

Yeah.

Okay.

I guess. Strong. It's not as strong by itself. So maybe if we eat food with it.

Let's try it. I would do a bite of popcorn with this. That's what you could do. Whatever. Or try an almond. I was about to say.

Can I try an almond?

Yeah. Because I'm a almond. Get her with her swirl now. You guys, she's.

It's a tornado up in there. That made it different.

Different how?

Better.

Okay, so this is a very classic red grape that you probably know that you hear people drink all the time, and it's bigger and bolder.

Yeah. I don't like it as much as I did the food with the merlot.

I'm not surprised. Okay. An acquired taste.

Yeah.

This is Cabernet Sauvignon.

Ooh.

And you just made a scrunchy face. Why? You hadn't made that face this whole time with this wine. You were loving it, but you hadn't made a scrunchy face until I said the name.

The Cabernet is the one that I had the bad experience with.

You said that with merlot. How many bad experiences did you have?

Merlot and Cabernet. Red wine has not been kind to me. Okay.

In the past, maybe you weren't kind to that red wine.

It was probably cheap, and I probably wasn't kind to it.

And you probably drank too much of it.

Way too much of it.

Okay.

Yeah. I was not appreciative or mindful.

Yeah. And they taste similar to me.

They are similar.

Yeah.

So these grapes, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are like sisters. They are originally from the same place in the world, the Bordeaux region in France. And they're very often blended together, these two wines.

Merlot and cap together.

Correct.

And then is that called something if.

It'S 75% or more of one of them?

It's called that. It's just called that. Okay, but it'll say Merlot blend.

Nope, just says Merlot or cat.

How will you know if it's blended then?

You don't.

Oh, okay.

Okay. These wines, the Merlot is about 90% Merlot with a little bit of Cabernet, and the Cabernet is like 90% cabernet with a little bit of Merlot.

I call them sister wines with the cheese.

And drinking the Merlot after is better than this.

Merlot can be a gateway red for people, too, because it's softer and fruitier, where Cabernet Sauvignon tends to be like, boom, pack a little more punch. Right. So for most people, and just look at how much progress you've made in our time here tonight.

I know Cabernet is an acquired taste because it tends to be less fruity than the Merlot and have more earthy and the tobacco and herbal notes.

Yeah, definitely.

And take some getting used to if you're not into these wines, but more power. Okay. You did great.

Thank you. I will tell you that what I am enjoying the most about this is eating the food and then tasting it afterward and seeing the difference in the taste.

And there is a big difference. The food with it is a game changer for me in terms of, like, enjoying or appreciating it more. Just drinking it.

I don't want to drink it, but having a purpose behind why you drink it, I think for me has been the most eye opening.

My work is done.

It is definitely an experience.

Yeah.

You feel like you have an appreciation of why I turned my whole life upside down and left everything that I knew to chase this and study this and make this and very fulfillingly do this right. Teach people, experience, expose people, open people's eyes. I love that's, like, my favorite part about what I get to do.

It's really cool to have a peek into your world where you've spent so much time and energy and sweat and tears and money and, oh, my God, tears.

A lot of tears.

It's a world of its own. And I do feel like I understand it better now. But I'm so proud of you. This really is legit. And even tasting these now, no.

Thank you to the Merlot and the Cab. Yours is good to taste.

It's a softer red. So I'm not surprised that of the reds. This is where you landed.

Awesome.

Not being a big red drinker. So that's part of the reason we also make Sangiovese, because not everybody loves Cabernet and not everybody loves any type of wine. Right.

My advice is if you're not a wine drinker or you don't understand it, go to a tasting, somebody who's educated, like my friend Nikki, and have an experience.

Thanks for this idea on the podcast. Yeah, appreciate. Don't hate. I love you.

Yeah.

Here. Cheers.

Cheers. Yay. Fascinating.

Fascinating was definitely the word for it. And entertaining even for me, listening back to it. I hope that it was eye opening for you. As she had those aha moments.

It was certainly very fulfilling for me to witness her having those moments where it started to make sense. And while I was not out to convert her to a wine lover, nor was she looking to do that, I think we got to some level of appreciation.

So when I reached out to Heather this week and asked her how it's going and how her impression has or has not changed in the last year, here's what she had to say.

I've definitely given wine an upgrade. It's no longer rotten juice to me, but it is still funky juice.

I have found that I have a much greater appreciation for what wine is now since our chat. And I have found that when I'm in an environment where folks are drinking wine, I do ask to taste it now.

And I do the technique you taught me, you know, I swirl it around and I give it a smell and then I suck it in with some air and. And I try to identify what I'm actually tasting, like what floats to the top, Is it earthy? Are there fruits? Are there flowers? Do I taste leaves?

And it's fun. I feel like I'm not very good at it, but I definitely now think that wine is cool.

And I've even talked to my friends about going to a wine tasting, but I do plan to spit it out.

There you have it. My work as a wine educator is done. I can lay my head down at the end of the day. Very fulfilling for me.

If you'd like to try any of the wines that Heather and I spoke about.

So Pride Mountain Vineyards, Viognier, which the new vintage just released, Viognier, as well as the ever delicious Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, link will be in the show notes for that as well as that beautiful Lacroix Chardonnay. And of course, if you want that life changing Sangiovese that she experienced that is my very own solavato.

Whatever happens between now and our next time together, I hope that you sip well.