A recent experience at a local restaurant here in the Napa Valley (shout out to Rutherford Grill) really got me thinking about how the right wine can truly elevate an evening and connect people in a world where we are all moving a million miles an hour!

We're Diving into:

• Why we like to sit at the bar
• The magic of Syrah and why you should be drinking more of it
• The importance of a pioneer family and their delicious wine from Napa
• An exciting new movement you need to know about

Here are a few of my favorite things:

Olives and Olive oil from our awesome American Olive Farmer. Use code SipWithNikki for $10 off your order!

Sollevato Wines...yes I'm biased, I make it! Use code PODLISTENER for 10% off your order!

Mi Sueño- check out their story on the Today Show

If you'd like to Support the Podcast, you can buy me a glass of wine and get a shoutout on a future episode.

Please leave a RATING or a REVIEW (on the podcast platform), or thumbs up and subscribe (on YouTube!)

Questions? Comments? Guest requests? nikki@sipwithnikki.com

Wine.

It brings people together.

Not that we wouldn't have had the same kind of conversation if we were all drinking cocktails or beers, but we wouldn't have shared it with him.

I mean, if Michael turned to this guy that he met three minutes ago was like, Hey, dude, do you want a sip of my old fashioned?

That would just be weird, right?

But with wine, it's not weird.

Welcome to

Sip with Nikki.

I am your host Nikki Lamberti, and thank you as always for sharing your time with me.

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I'll share an ad with you later in the episode, but you can actually get some of their beautiful olives and brine them at home or just buy their gorgeous olive oil and I'm sitting here admiring my olive tree that was recently gifted to me.

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So this episode stemmed from an experience that Michael and I had recently at a local restaurant here in the Napa Valley, and it just really got me thinking.

about how wine brings people together and how it's so unique.

And so I wanted to share that story with you, but also give you some tips on how you can incorporate this concept into your life, even if you don't live here in wine country.

We are also going to be highlighting a fantastic Sip Spotlight wine today, a 2019 Syrah, and I'm going to talk about why you should be drinking more Syrah.

And this wine came from a very unique producer and a family that has an amazing story here in the Napa Valley.

So I'll be sharing the details of that with you.

And then finally.

Just touching the surface on a very cool campaign, no, not politics, a very cool wine campaign that I am a supporter of and I want to share a little bit with you about how it can help bring you joy.

So we had a lot to cover.

Let's do it.

So last night, Michael and I were in the Napa Valley doing some work on our wine and we decided to go to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner.

And shout out to Rutherford Grill.

It's fantastic and just consistent and great.

And one of the things that we love to do there, if we can, is actually sit at the bar.

Now, when we got there, it was about six o'clock on a Saturday night, so it was busy, but we chose to actually Wait to get some seats at the bar because we always meet the most interesting people when we sit at the bar there.

It's a pretty big bar, and it's always a nice mixture of locals like us and tourists, and the bartenders are fantastic.

Shout out to the whole staff there.

So, With patience, we were able to snag the two spots at the bar and then there was a, another single spot available where a gentleman sat down and he clearly looked like he had gotten off work.

He was in sort of a dress shirt and vest and could tell right away that he was a driver who takes, you know, guests to wineries here in the Napa Valley.

So we sat down at the same time and started chatting and it turns out that's exactly who he was.

And he works for a.

well known tour company out here called California Wine Tours, who does a great job, uh, putting itineraries together and then driving guests for the day.

So shout out to Paul, our new friend.

I think I probably had met him over the years in passing, but it was really nice to get to know him.

So Michael and I ordered a bottle of Ciroc.

When we sat down at the bar, because we were planning to have two of our favorite items at Rutherford Grill.

The French dip, which is to die for.

And their ribs, which we hadn't had in a while because we always get the French dip.

So we were gonna get French dip and ribs and split them.

And so once we knew that, we could sort of back into deciding what wine we wanted to drink.

And then a couple of different Syrahs on the menu.

And we love Syrah as a pairing with barbecue or anything smoked or anything off the grill.

So we knew with having those beautiful Texas Hill Country ribs that they have there that we wanted some Syrah.

So, we tried Misueño, which is Spanish for My Dream, Misueño, which is a Napa Valley winery.

And it was fantastic, and I'm going to talk more about that wine in just a moment.

But here's what was so cool and really got me thinking.

So, our new friend Paul, sitting next to us at the bar, had a beer, and once we had our bottle of Syrah.

It was really a no brainer to ask the bartender for another glass to pour him some.

I mean, I saw that he was consuming alcohol, so I didn't have to assume that part.

And we said, Hey, do you want to try some of this?

And he said, sure, twist my arm.

And it just felt very natural because we had been talking for a few minutes and we were sitting there at the bar and This is one of the things, and I've talked about this before, that I love about wine.

It brings people together.

Not that we wouldn't have had the same kind of conversation if we were all drinking cocktails or beers, but we wouldn't have shared it with him.

I mean, if Michael turned to this guy that he met three minutes ago was like, Hey dude, do you want a sip of my old fashion?

That would just be weird, right?

But with wine, it's not weird.

We wouldn't have brought him into our circle by literally sharing a glass of wine from our bottle with him.

And that's just one of the things that I love about wine.

You know, Karen McNeil, who's the author of The Wine Bible, was my guest on season one of Sip with Nikki, episode 24, you'll hear Karen and I have

a fascinating conversation about how and why wine is emotional, meaning it evokes emotion and we get into why wine matters and why it's important.

Karen has always said, and it always stuck with me that wine is a communal beverage.

Not a communion beverage.

My mind goes to growing up as a Catholic girl.

And yes, communion was one of my favorite moments within the traditional Catholic mass because it was wine.

And even though we'll never really know the origins of that wine, it should tell you early on that if that was like the highlight for me, that the wine was definitely in my future.

So.

No, but not a communion beverage, a communal beverage, a beverage that brings people together.

I mean, in its history, that's what wine has always been known for.

We say it's traditionally has not been a single serving beverage, right?

It's served in a bottle, which is meant to be shared with other people.

And that's one of the things that you'll hear if you're a.

Regular listener, you're hearing this as a common thread through many of the things that I talk about, that I love how wine really brings people together.

So, It was just really fun to make a new friend and sit at the bar and then share this wine with him.

And then we started talking about this wine, Mi Sueño, and I have known about this winery for a while.

It's been on my radar, probably had tasted some of their wine over the years, but it had been a while.

And, uh, One of the things that is so cool about this winery is that their owners, Rolando and Lorena Herrera, are both Mexican Americans.

And I'll put the link in the show notes.

There was a very cool piece on them in the Today Show a couple of years ago talking about their origin story and how they're one of very few.

Latino owned wineries in the area, Misueño meaning, again, my dream, and then their catchphrase is a taste of the American dream.

They make some beautiful wines and today's Sip Spotlight

is their 2019 Napa Valley Syrah.

And this Syrah last night was a killer pairing with the French dip and with the ribs.

It was fruit driven because it is a Napa wine.

But one of the things that people love about Syrah, and I don't think anybody drinks as much Syrah as they should.

It gets overlooked.

But man, what a great pairing it is.

with barbecue and, and smoked meats and things like that because Syrah, the grape, just naturally has kind of peppery, spicy, smoky notes to it, herbal notes to it.

Sometimes you'll even read a winemaker's notes of Syrah and they'll say, oh, this wine has hints of bacon fat or butcher block or charcuterie.

You're like, what?

So no, there's no bacon actually in the wine, right?

But just the genetics of the wine and how it presents itself in the glass sometimes really can have a little bit of that sort of savory meatiness on top of the fruitiness of the wine.

And as I've talked about in food and wine pairings, sometimes you look for similarities between the food and the wine.

So a peppery, savory, smoky wine with a peppery, smoky slab of ribs, hello, beautiful pairing.

It was fantastic.

So that's my challenge to you.

If you are a carnivore, find some great ribs, make some smash burgers.

If you're a vegetarian, you could still roast some beautiful vegetables on the grill, get that smoke and char, and then find a Syrah in your local wine shop, whether it's a California Syrah or from the Rhone region in France.

Or if you want to try this beautiful Mi Sueno from Napa Valley, again, the link will be in the show notes, but try it and then send me an email, nikki at sipwithnikki.

com.

How was that pairing?

Had you ever tried that pairing before?

Did it blow your mind?

I hope it does.

I think it will.

And now they're sort of back on my radar after having that wine last night and I'm excited to go visit.

They have a tasting room down in Napa and I just think they have a fascinating story.

Their owner, winemaker, Rolando, as you'll read on their website, he was the first Mexican American to be hired to work in a wine cellar.

So Now historically in the vineyard workers here in this area, there's been a strong component of Mexican Americans, but in, you know, cellar positions, ownership, and winemaking, it's been really non existent to rare until recent years.

So 1997 is when they actually started their dream, Mi Sueño, and it's fantastic.

And I'm, I'm still thinking about that wine last night and that pairing.

So.

Check them out.

You can order online and have it shipped, but if you're coming to the Napa area, this is one that I'm definitely going to include on my top list of recommendations that people ask me for all the time.

Going back to the idea of wine, bringing people together in a couple of weeks, I am going to have an encore interview with Karen McNeil and Dr.

Hobie Wedler from episode 13.

And the three of us are going to talk about this very cool.

And very important initiative and campaign that Karen McNeil is one of the creators of and it's called Come Over October.

I'm going to read a quote from the website Come Over October.

We all know that good company, good conversation, laughter, and conviviality contribute to an enhanced lifestyle.

We want to encourage people to put down their devices and share in each other's company.

So earlier this year, the three founders of this movement, I'm going to call it, Come Over October, they created this idea, Come Over October, to encourage everyone

in the month of October, have people over, open a bottle of wine, put down the devices, spend some time talking and enjoying and getting back to the basics.

Share stories, be together, reconnect, eat delicious food, and slow down in a world that is moving, they say, fast and furiously.

And we all know this, right?

Maybe that's part of why you're a listener of Sip with Nikki is just taking that 20, 30 minutes in the car to learn something new and learn about how to elevate your enjoyment when it comes to food and wine.

I just don't think there's enough of this happening anymore because we're all so busy.

It's one of our favorite things to do here in our home, is to have friends over for pizza night.

It's Sunday today, and I've got eight sourdough pizza dough balls proofing in the kitchen right now, thanks to Dan Richer.

pizza guru from episode one.

And we do this more Sundays than not.

We have friends over.

It could be two friends or five or sometimes it's 15, but it doesn't have to be fancy.

And I think that's one of the things that I also love about pizza.

It's communal.

It brings people together.

Hey, grab a dough, make your own pie.

We cut it up and we all have a piece.

Like there's definitely some parallels between that and the wine.

It doesn't have to be fancy.

It doesn't have to be expensive Napa Valley wine, but think about this and think about how much joy you can add to your life and the people that you love just by incorporating this back into our crazy busy lives.

Another catalyst for the come over October campaign is that recently there's been some stories and advice coming out about rethinking the health benefits of wine and how consumption of any alcohol is now not good and that we

should stay away from it and that is certainly not the case and that is something that Karen, Hobie, and I are going to talk about in our episode that you'll hear next month.

So really, this one simple thing of getting spots at the bar at our favorite local haunt, meeting this very nice gentleman next to us, sharing a

bottle of beautiful and surprising wine that has a really significant and interesting story of its founders, all just got me thinking about.

the bigger picture of wine and enjoyment, and I wanted to share those thoughts with you.

It's a lot, right?

I'm a lot.

I'm aware, but these are all of the thoughts that kind of string together in my head on a day to day basis, and I just wanted to get them out there to you, to your ears, to your heart, because I truly believe these are simple things that can enhance your life.

And the lives of the people that you love.

If you'd like to be an angel and support the podcast, buy me a glass of wine.

That'll help us to, you know, check out something new next time we're at the Rutherford Grill.

You can be an angel and support the podcast with the link in the show notes.

Also, check out Misueño and Solavato Wines and American Olive Farmer.

You know I just can't stop sharing all the things that I love that I think should be on your table.

Stay tuned for our Comeover October official episode happening in a few weeks, and whatever you do between now and then, I'll see you there.

As always, I hope that you SIPP well.

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