Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 111 - Anthony Giglio Returns

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

The great Anthony Giglio comes by to teach us about wine and save our summer!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, it's also a show. Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I am Tom Papa and I am Breaking Bread with you. If only you could reach through the Metaverse. That's what's going to happen. We're going to go to the Metaverse and we're going to end up breadless. People are just going to be eating fake little digital bread. things and being like we're breaking it look at us we're having fun and relating uh we were born at

the right time great show for you today we have anthony gillio on the program returning you may remember anthony is a good friend of mine uh we became pals years ago through my cousin jimmy and we all uh all united in all things italian in new york and wine and food and anthony is a, I would like to call him. I don't think he would put this on his resume, but I'll call him our own breaking bread, saumolier. He knows everything there is to know about wine, and we have a great conversation today. I figured as we're going into summertime. Let's break out of a rut and see what Anthony can teach us about how we should be celebrating and enjoying ourselves and what we should be drinking more than anything. And I have to say he possibly, I haven't acted on it, but you'll

see when we during this conversation, he may have opened my mind. He has opened my mind to the possibility of introducing white wine to my roster. I know, I know. It sounds like, it sounds blasphemous to even say it out loud. But the things he described, the way he described it. This is what's good about a sommelier, who knows what they're talking about. They know exactly what it is and exactly how to relate it. And I have a little free time today. And I'm thinking maybe I do go to the wine shop and follow up on what he actually was talking about.

But he made it seem so refreshing and so filled with fruit and joy that, well, you'll just have to listen. See if he sways you too. And if you are a white wine drink, you'll be like, Yeah, Tom, I'm saying this to you for a while. Well, I don't know. I'm still not sold. This program is brought to you by what? Oh, look at this sponsor. Tompapa.com. Wow. He bought ads on his own podcast because we have a lot of shows coming up. This Friday, July 1st, Ryan Hamilton and I are in San Diego doing a co-headlining show, which is very exciting. Then we've got July 16th at the Borgata in Atlantic City, which is a perfect summertime show. And then all through the end of July and August, we are hitting a bunch of clubs as I finalize with the final touches on what will be my recording for my new Netflix special.

And that will be happening in September. I will be announcing where and how you can come to that if you'd like to for the next Netflix tape. probably next week. I'll let you all know about that. But hitting places like Salt Lake City and Brea, California, and the improv in Tempe, Arizona, and hitting Hawaii, even going to Hawaii. That would be nice to know that we have people in Hawaii listening to Breaking Bread. I had pokey last night, which was my daughter's favorite. I can't, you can't, you can't, You can't deny a nice bowl of rice and beautiful fish and pineapples. Nothing wrong with that.

Not a thing I'm making all the time, but I'll eat it. What's interesting to me is that all these pokey places in L.A. have, they just have that. And there's got to be more to Hawaiian cuisine than just a pokey bowl. But that's the only thing on the menu in all of these places. Someone's got to open a Hawaiian joint that combines teaky drinking, boozing it up with zombies and scorpions. with all of the other parts of Hawaiian cuisine. I mean, there's lots of different, there's lots of different stuff when I go over there, isn't there?

I'm not just eating burritos. Maybe I am. I don't know. Maybe this will be our big food tour when we go to Hawaii and perform at the House of Blues over there in September. That would be exciting. And then we also announced a whole bunch of dates coming up in the fall into the winter. We have this little pause right now that we're in where I can just kind of pat around the house and go to a wine shop and make dinner for friends.

Just this little sliver. And then we're going to be going back at it. We've going to Boston at the Wilbur. We've got a run of two shows, two nights in Texas, San Antonio and someplace else. We've got Chico, California. We've got a whole bunch of dates that we just released and just announced. So go to Tampapa.com for all of that. All right, let's jump right in because this is a great conversation.

Anthony really knows this stuff. He's going to be joining me, hopefully, in August when my family meets at the Jersey Shore and starts making our own tomato sauce like the Italians are supposed to do. Anthony's grandmother does it as well. and just an excuse for him to bring me some wine, really. He also created Super Salt, which is this amazing salt. I don't know if you remember from the last time he was on. It's this herbed salt, garlic and thyme and just like this amazing process.

And he finally was like his lifelong goal to actually figure it out. And he did. And I keep it on my counter. And it's called Super Salt. And you really should get some. I just can't stop putting it on everything. that I make. Anthony also, you can follow him on Instagram at Anthony Giulio.com. It's G-I-G-L-I-O. And also go to Anthonyigilio.com for, oh, yeah,

add Anthony Giulio for Instagram and then Anthony Giulio.com for all of his stuff. He's a great writer, too. I mean, you'll tell just from the way he described stuff, you'll want to read his writing, food and wine, and, uh, a bunch of places. Wherever anybody has ever written about wine and food, Anthony has been a part of it. And he's hilarious, which makes him perfect for our show. Not only is he know stuff and he loves all this food and wine, but he's also pretty damn funny. All right, enjoy this conversation.

And we're off. Welcome back, Anthony. Good to see you. Hey, Tom. I'm so happy to be back here with you, man. I know. This is so cool. We're coming into summertime.

I don't go by the calendar, by the autumnal equinox spring solstice bullshit. I go Memorial Day, it's summer. Let me just start celebrating. It's when you put your white jeans on, like every Greto in New Jersey. Come on, man. It's time to bring out the white jeans. And I was thinking about you because I was in New Jersey. I had some shows in New York last week, which I've got to make sure to tell you when I'm coming

in and doing those shows because we should go hang out of the cellar and stuff. Well, I was looking on your calendar and I was in Aspen. Sorry to be fancy, but that was away. Whoa. Sorry. So what are you doing in Aspen in the summer? We're not skiing. It's the Fudo-Wan Classic, which I think it's next year will be its 40th anniversary.

And I, dude, I was there from my 26th. I don't know how that's possible, but 26th in a row, man, pretty crazy. So were you talking? Were you attending? What happens at the food wine class? I am a speaker. Ooh, fancy. Let me loosen my bowtie here.

I'm thrilled, thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. They put me on the stage 20 years ago probably. I used to go as press, but I filled in for someone who had to bail out the last minute. And it was actually in front of wine editor Letty Teak, who's now the wine critic at the Wall Street Journal. And she liked what she heard and invited me back. And they haven't stopped inviting me. That's amazing. That is so cool. All right, I definitely want to hear more about that. But let me just set the summer stage for us because I don't know if you're into this kind of thing. But in August, I will be taking my sister's tomatoes from City Green up in Clifton. And we will, we're going to, I know we talked about this a little bit. We're going to be making our own sauce under the house. Classic old Ginzo. style we're going to have the big pots and we're going to be canning if you want to take a drive down to

the jersey shore i'll have a tank top ready for you you can come stir some sauce and say hello it'll be that'll be the that'll be like august like early august uh i will be there and if you want to come up and and and can with the sicilians my mother-in-law and her crew will be doing it probably like the third week they start they wait a little bit more ripe yeah i know we i'm i hope we're not pushing it. I literally just got a text that the first tomato of the season just came off the farm. So they're just starting to pop. And I literally just got that from my niece. And yeah, I hope that we're not pushing it, but it just happens to fall that I have a wedding to go to. And that's when I would be in Long Beach Island. That's fantastic. I'm totally taking you up on that. All right. Cool. And then

yeah, we have some pizza stuff to do. We have a lot of stuff on the calendar. But here we go. For our listeners and why I wanted you to come on, just as we're coming into a new season, to give our listeners some ideas of some wines and some foods and some good things to pair it with. Last time you were on, the biggest takeaway, other than the wines that I went searching for, and I think about, you know, it's funny. Like, when a comedian does a bit, for some reason, you'll listen to all this comedy, and for some reason, someone says one thing about a, uh, uh, uh, uh, a, uh, a comedian. a spare tire or something and it just sticks with you forever, when you talked about when you,

when you tell people that drink some wine and now just take a potato chip, yep, and just take a bite of a potato chip and drink that wine again. Now that's in my head all the time that whenever a pour a bottle of wine, a glass of wine, I'm now eating like tons of chips, which I know isn't the goal of it. But I think about you and I think about chips and then I'm off to the races. And Tom, that's how I democratize it just to say like, you know, the truth is I say fat plus salt, which could be in everything, right? Like, you know, at the top of the hierarchy would be a great hunk of Parmigiano-Rijano cheese.

But if all that's in the pantry is a bag of chips, breadsticks with sesame seeds, although it's not ideal, but like anything, I always say your peanut butter in the pinky jar will change everything. Because that's all I do, a little fat and salt, and then the wine completely blooms in a different way. Yeah, completely different. Does it make it better or it just changes it? I would say, I'm supposed to say it doesn't change it or make it better. But the truth is, if I had to guess how many people have reacted over the years, this 90% of the people would say I prefer it after the chip.

Meaning, is it just as good before? I always say this. if you like the wine by itself before a food, congratulations. You're going to love it with food. But for me, it's more about people to say, I don't like this. You know, you just, you know, you just poured me a reesling and I'm a cab guy. And I'm like, that's great. But can you do me favor?

Just take a bite of this chip. And then we'll talk about that again. And then their hair goes, I'm like, holy, I can't believe it. That this tastes is so much better. And I'm like, that's all it takes. It's just opening up all of your senses in your mouth, right? Your taste buds are just. Yeah.

Yeah, especially, especially on the white side, it gives the acidity something to grab onto. Because when you just sip a wine by itself, like two, and I say two steps, right, the first sip doesn't count. Second sip, you start to feel the acid literally between your teeth, along your gums or roof of your mouth. You start to tangle and get, you start to feel drier and drier and drier. But when you add a little fat, the acid has something to play with. And it makes everything just expand and last longer. And in red wine, it's the fat is common tannin. the bitter puckery sensation.

So it's just about coating the palate. Right. And it actually lets the wine do a little bit more in your mouth before it disappears. Wow, what a great description. I've never even thought to ask it or have heard it describe that way. That's perfect. All I just hear is you're just eating, drinking this and eat that. That's really, that is great.

All right. And now why, another reason why I'm excited that you're on, because we are coming into, we are in summer. and, you know, I am traditionally all in on red wine. I love chate de noves de pops. I love Barolos. I love Portoes. I love some California.

But it's always been red. And whenever I hear people write like that white doesn't count, I'm always, I've always been like, yeah, forget those white wine drinkers. But I have to say, I'm. I'm open to changing my mind this season because, you know, as much as I love red wine on a hot day, it's tough to pop open. A big, well, right. Well, I'll say like that I'm, you give me two paths to take here. Okay. First is before we throw red overboard, can we talk about how we talk about red in my house, which is there's the high acid, low tanen reds. And then the reds that you described, every single reds, you're, you you just named is the high tanon, high alcohol reds. Like those are the big, powerful, you know, mouth filling, warming reds. But there's a whole other category hiding in plain sight that probably is the biggest side of it is Pinat noir.

So Pinotihuahua, you know, would be the lightest of reds in common wine speak, right? But I want to take it a little geekier and say, if you go to any wine shop and just say, super high acid red for summer, they know what you're talking about. and they're going to turn you on to gamets, beaulets, really good bojolets. So, like, Tom, you and I grew up doing the Bojolet Nouveau craze of the 90s, which was garbage wine, complete, well, party wine. In France, it's not taken seriously at all.

It's just the party wine for harvest day. It's like Halloween for winos. But we, we, of course, being insecure and bougie and aspirational, turned it into this grand, the great bojolet nouveau day. Yeah, so it's coming out. Here we go. They're here. They're finally here.

But that being said, I know that, but I had, but this, this past winter, I, I had some. Like, they just were headed at the shop and I grabbed it. And it was really delightful. Yeah, but and Bozile DeVote is delightful. So let me back up and say, I'm not trashy and I'm saying there. That's a party wine, literally. And the rule in France, by the way, Tom, is that Bozene de Beau,nevo comes out literally on the calendar the third Thursday of November every year. And that we see all the ads here like, Le Beau, Blas, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But the job. But the joke in France is if you still have it in your house by Christmas Eve, make vinaigrette. Because it's just, it's like, it's not to be taken. There's no age on it. It's just like little bottled grape juice that's barely fermented. But the real stuff comes out in the spring. And that's when you get what they call the crew beaujolets. And those are like the 10 village names.

It's, you know, it's something to Google. But for more lunch, like this goes back to dating my wife. We were at Soho steak. You know, I've hung out in the neighborhood and years passed over on Thompson Street. and we're sitting on the sidewalk, and I, of course, not being a wine geek yet, I order a cabernet and it's 150 degrees on the sidewalk, and the cabernet is 150 degrees because they don't have it chilled. And then a French couple sits next to us and orders oysters, champagne, and Brouille, B-R-O-U-I-L-L-L-O-I,

which is one of the 10 crews of Bojolet. And I was kind of like thinking like, baller move, two people ordering two bottles of wine at the same time. Yeah. And then so the champagne. and in the bucket is the champagne and the brouille. And when he presents the brouillie, it's dripping with sweat. It's like how my people drink everything out of the fridge. My grandparents, like, the gallon was in the fridge of the Fortissimo.

So I said to the waiter, I'm like, excuse me. And by the way, we're basically sitting next to each other because, you know, New York, the tables are a fist apart. So I called the way to the other side and I'm like, how do they get the chilled red? And we get the boiled cabernet and he goes, and he goes, the French, they know how to order. Oh, oh, that hurts. But I went home and I went home and did my homework. Yeah, that gave you a quest.

Probably built your whole career. And you chill, yeah. And in France, the bourgeois in the summer is chilled in the ice bucket with the champagne. Like, you could leave it in there. And because it's so low in tannin and so high in acid, it can take the cold and not tighten up or close up or not fall apart. You put a cabin in the ice bucket for half an hour. It's going to be a tannic closed monster. Right, right.

But the good news is anyone that's too cold will warm up. The bad news is, Tom, if we are ordering dinner and someone will be. brings us a hundred degree bottle of red, what are we going to do? We can't put ice in there, not in front of me anyway. Yeah, no. But you know what I'm saying? Like you can't show. You can't power chill at that fast food's going. Like all I say is that too, the red wine is too cold. It's a good problem. But when it's too warm, you got to do some work. By the way, can I give a freebie to everyone listening? Yes, please. Instead of ice cubes, frozen grapes. I keep Ziploc bags of frozen grapes in my freezer. And when friends come over,

we're outside, I literally just pop a few in the glass. I mean, they're on brand. I mean, it's made with grapes. It's not like those plastic, refreasable flamingos. You could buy it, part of rebar and whatever. But like, these are frozen grapes and they,

and you can put red or green, whatever you want, and they're edible, tossable, or if you're my grandmother, they're refreasable. I mean, you know. And what do you toss them in?

Into the wine. I'm saying if your wine is water, if you're outside. Any wine. Any wine, you can't hurt it because frozen grapes don't have any, they're not going to leach any water into the wine. They're literally adding ice without ice.

Makes sense? Brilliant. Yeah. And it's completely on brand. I mean, people take that and people like, what do we have in Sangria? I'm like, I just chilled your wine for you. You're welcome. You're welcome.

That's brilliant. Okay. So what are the other reds that you would have in the summertime? So I'm really, really keen. And you're not going to be surprised here on Etna Raso from Sicily. And that's a category. So in Sicily, Mount Etna is its own distinct region. And on Mount Etna, there's only Etna Roso, Etna Red, or Etna Bianco, Etna White.

And both are delicious, by the way, Tom, add the white to the other column you want to talk about because the reds are made with a grape called Narello Mascalese, and they're often compared to great red burgundy, which equals peanut noir. So they're high acid, low tannin, chillable, gulpable, deliciousness. And then the whites are from a grape called Caricante. That's really, really beautiful. And literally one of the few wines I've ever agreed when, you know, wine snobby reviewers say, oh, this is a has great salinity about this wine. I'm like, who thinks of salt in their wine?

But this, when you, when you swirl them, you actually smell the sea because they're getting their upwind of all the marine air around them. And they actually take it on. In both of them? In the rows? No, no. In the whites. The white. The Caracomp is just, yeah, it seems to take it on really.

It's interesting. Oh, that is interesting. But so, so Etna Roso, I would say anything. I told you gamet, and there's even, you know, you could buy gametes around the world. California has beautiful gamet, but the grape is gamet. But Gamma, you know, like all of us, all, for all of us Americans, the big problem is, we speak grapes, go to Europe and mostly their addresses, just like Etna Roso is an address. You're not going to find Norella Mascalese. He's going to say et Noroso.

Gamet's address in Europe is Bojolet, which is a place. and all those little village names are, you know, addresses that are more specific. So Brueyi, Sheena, Cote d'Briyi, et cetera, et cetera. Right, right, right, right. But all you have to go to a wine shop, just say, any good Baudelae, by the way, any good Baudelae, and they'll say, sure, sure, sure. And they're going to have Baudelae Nouveau. They're going to have Baudelae, Bojelage, which is a blend of all the villages.

But good Baudelaire, you know, you can find really, really great ones. Oh, Velage is a combination of all the different. Yeah, it's a blend of the villages, yeah. Oh. Oh, that's interesting. So those 10 crews, let's call them villages, even though they're not. It's more complex than that. But, yeah, 10 village names, but the Bosolet village means it's from all over the place.

Cruise means the, like the premiere of the, of that year. Yeah, the crew would be the special designation. So they're like saying, like this area, Bruillet, you get, you're, you know, we're going to call you a crew Baudelaire. So that area around Buryi, Cote de Brier. So all the different village names are classified. by a crew system. So they're the 10 crews and they're ranked from lightest to biggest. So like you'll always find around Valentine's Day. They always have St. Amour on menus and St.

DeMore is crew Beaujolet from one of the bigger crews like from one of like so Moulin Avant and Saint-a-Moor are like the most like Pina Noir actually, even though they're Gama, and by the way, this area is south of Ganges. So like it's it's southern part of Burgundy. I mean so you you start to see an overlap into peanut noir like into burgundy how the wines taste interesting it is interesting so and peanut noir from everywhere but when you have a label when you have a a a winery and they have their whatever their wine is and then they have the crew uh i always thought that that just meant like a higher level of a better a better depending on you know so that's that's burgundy where the crew matters like it's premier crew

Grand Cru, those are distinctions. You never see them on American models, obviously. So in France, that means something depending on the region.

And to make it more confusing, it's different in Bordeaux than it is in Burgundy. So you think you're buying higher in one, but it's really lower in the other. And it's maddening. I don't dig that deep with my people because it's already confusing enough

just talking. Right. You know, when I say, so you like Chardonne, you love Burgundy. And they're like, no, I said Chardonnay.

And I'm like, right. I'm not talking about the color of the wine. And Burgundy has two grapes, Chardonnay and Pinotaur, so white burgundy, red burgundy. Right. It's just, it's like, like, the cartoon like. Right. It's just hard to keep it all straight.

Norello mascalese. Exactly. This is the wine that I've been drinking, this latte. Cut it out. I love this one. What are the odds? What are the odds? Can we tell everyone that we did not plan this?

Yeah. That's a mind meld. Tom, that's a mind meld. Because my people come, part of my people come from Sicily. So I'm always interested in like finding a really good Sicilian wine. And I found, I found this label. So Tom, turn it around and show me again. Can you show me the back label?

I want to see who brings it in. Kermit Lynch. Kermit Lynch. So what's really super interesting about that label is that it tells you the grape, which is definitely. for the American market because in Italy they would not put it on the label. Oh, really? I told you they don't usually give you the grape. They just give you Edna Roso, but this is giving

you the grape. So that's super interesting. I love that. Yeah. I wish they all did that. I wish they all did that for us. It's a really nice one. Lato suit. Yeah. I've had that once or twice. Yeah. But I can, you know, I, whenever I bring groups to Cisley on tours, we go to a bunch of wineries all over Edna. It's just a lot of fun, man. I'm actually planning my next tour for next June. Oh, really? Oh, that's amazing. If anybody wants to come, just email me. Okay, so

let's distill, we've been doing a lot of talking. So let's distill just for our listeners, if you are going out tonight into the wine shop and you've got red on your mind in your summertime fun, we should

be telling them go for Beaujolet? or just if you want to be that if you want to be that specific sure a good I say a good I want you at the good you know what I mean like yeah don't give me the bad bourgeoisie I want the good good stuff but Tom honestly here's what I said to everybody go in and say I need some chillable high acid red chillable chillable chillable take it home and you're going to chill that you know what out of it right and then you can taste it as it warms up and you'll see you know how it gets how it changes but totally fine if you just say chillable high

acid red, some are sipping, they get it. They're going to take you right to the wines around the shop that are super light. And would you, for your just your own personal preference, are you thinking, what country are you thinking? For you, just, I'm coming over and you want to put something out. Are we going Italy? We going Spain. We going France.

What are you reaching for? If it hasn't been apparent already, I'm a crew bowl. Baudelaire guy for like that. If I'm really want to impress you, I'm going to pour you some beautiful crew Bouges from Bouguille, Morgon, a really great, great light to medium-bodied reds that can handle the chill. But now I'm not going to make them ice cold, ice cold, but like they can handle a good dunk in an ice bucket. Got it, got it. And throw some grapes in it.

Yeah, my dog, my dog, my dog approves. My dog approves of that and, and hates the golden retriever that's. going up the street. All right, cool. All right, so you want to dip into the white world? Yeah, yeah, man. I mean, like, and that just opens up everything, man, right? I mean, so it, you know, we speak of a hierarchy of grapes, right?

So, like, that if you, like, and this, by the way, there's this amazing grape varietal chart. That's, it's, it's a mockup of the periodic chart of elements, you know? Oh, yeah. And it's made by. DeLong, D-E-E-L-O-N-G. He's a British guy, Steve DeLong. I met him years and years ago in New York. His maps, by the way, his wine maps are gorgeous.

And the periodic chart, I've given it to friends, and they hang it on their dining room walls. It looks amazing. It has the lightest, lightest, lightest grapes all the way up to the heaviest reds. And then he has these beautiful maps. And the two most clever ones I love are subway maps of France and California. So it's a mock-up of our New York.

subway map. Yeah, yeah. All the regions with all the stops and the express. And it's just, it's, it's so, so smart. But he's ever evolving more and more beautiful Y maps. But the periodic chart of grapes is really good. Yeah, that periodic one is, this is, are there that many grapes that it seems kind of comparable to the periodic chart?

I would say, if I had to guess, it's been a long time since I've seen it. There are over 400 grapes listed. really yeah yeah yeah and and and he didn't do it's not willing-nilly i mean by the way if we if we i just taught these two classes this weekend uh in aspen and there's 600 grapes available in spain alone and over 400 in italy but yet the world only knows probably about you know 10% of spanish grapes and 20% of italian grapes but sure 600 in spain 600 grace it's crazy that's amazing um so this jar all being processed into wines um yeah whether it's very esoteric in micro doses.

Right, right, right. This is weird, but we're going to make wine out of it anyway. It's like people in college making bongs out of coke bottles. We talked about that in one of my classes. I said, you know, if I, who here likes Malbeck? And everyone raised their hand. And I said, some people raise their hands. And it's like, so how do you feel about Bordeaux?

And they were like, I don't like cab. And one person said, I'm not a cab fan. You just asked me about Maldek. I'm like, the five red grapes, the official. you know, five grapes of Bordeaux are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet-A-Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdun. Like, Malbeck, nobody knows that Malbec is used. It's not from Argentina.

It's from Bordeaux. And I said, but they only use maybe one or two percent, if at all, because it's very presniquity and prone to mold when it grows at sea level, which is Bordeaux. But in Argentina at 5,000 feet in the Andes, it grows magnificently. So I did, I did. Beautiful. I'm not a funny guy like you. but I did call it the Evita Peron of grapes, thrown in the gutter in Bordeaux, and rose to be the queen of Argentina.

It's good. I like that. All right. So for someone like myself who is, who kind of has a weird, a weird distaste for white wines, open up my mind. I would ask, the first question I would ask you is, do you mind oak or you prefer no oak? I like oak.

You like oak? Okay. So that disqualifies a lot of the whites I was about to suggest me. But let's be honest, that's just a kind of a knee-jerk reaction of something I've had at one time. I haven't explored white at really much at all. You're a big red guy. You're used to.

to oak. So that's, there's a, there's a complete parallel right across, right? So by the way, you would love big, rich, delicious burgundy, white burgundy. So chardonnays that have seen oak. And there's a, there's a fine line time because of our, you know, we're old enough to remember when, you know, the oaky California shardday was the standard. Yeah. And unfortunately, a lot of people still live in that, in that stereotype and say, oh, I don't like okie shardinets. And I'm like, but they're not all oaky. And there's levels of oaky that are really real oak and elegant or there's cheap wines that use oak tea bags, if not other, oh, I'm not kidding, like other tricks to make them, quote, unquote, oaky.

Oh, yeah, oak tea bags. Absolutely. They shred, like the Christmas tree shred, or they shred oak barrels that are old. And then they put them in cheesecloth bags and they dip them in the bar, and they're stainless barrels so that they could give a little oakiness. And in some countries, that's completely fine. Sounds soulless, though. It's awful.

Totally awful. Yeah. I say this, Tom, to most people who say, I don't like chardonnay. Categorically, I hate chardonnay. I'm like, can I beg you to think about this before you say that again? At every party you go to, every wedding you go to, even your friends who are generous, but don't have good taste in chardonnay. Most chardonnay is cheap. Most chardonnay. It's literally the filler at every wedding, every corporate event, is always a cheap chardonnay.

You're right. If you would only spend 25 or 30 bucks on a great chardonnay, and here's the one that I could completely cure you with. If I pour you a Shabbly, Shabbly is a village in Burgundy where we could say Chardonnay might have been born. We have like, we can find it back to like 1080. And it's one of the few villages in Burgundy where the chardonnay is oak free. So it's clean, crisp, minimally unadulterated chardonnay. And let's like let's start that as our baseline. Then as soon as you leave Shabli and go to other villages in Burgundy, you're going to start to see a little more oak.

But the oak is judiciously used and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you're just like, and, you're just like, craft, you know, crafted a certain way and toasted a certain way so it's not so overwhelming. We here in the new world went a little cuckoo in the 90s with the oak and that just ruined the party for a lot of people. And then it became commodified. Like every shard, it's like picture, like picture them like in a factory, like pushing the buttons like oak, butterscotch toast. And it just all just goes into the wine. It's terrible. Yeah, my wife actually, we were at dinner the other night and she said to the to the waitress, you know, she goes, I want a chardonnay that's a little buttery that has it's a little butter and i remember even hearing that when i was younger

like that's that was oaky and buttery yeah and that kind of thing and she was always she she she had moved to like pinogrigios and stuff like that but then was had this feeling for for going back to the chardonnay and she was like really enjoyed it like she really enjoyed this yeah and and that's funny time because pino grigio on the spectrum of of body is one of the lightest i like to call that it's the wallflower at the dance. Pino Griger really doesn't have a lot to say. It doesn't offend. It doesn't form.

It doesn't insult. It really just hangs out there in the background. By the way, Pinot Gris lovers will all be writing to you now. Tell me what a jerk I am. But I always say like, peanut grue is great. If you don't know what else to do,

you start here. Just start at Pino Gros. And then we're going to click it up a little bit with it, you know, the next level up, the next level up. I poured a suave recently. So suave from Northern Italy, right? from the Venetado. Rico Suave?

Rico Suave. In our day, that's what we would make the joke about it, right? But suave, I was pouring Pra. PRA is the producer, Pra Suave. And it's a fantastic value for like $18. And on the website, the winemaker says it. He's like, we crafted this specifically for Pino Grigio lovers to know that there is something better.

Really? And because they're in the same region as Pino Grigio. Pito is from the same area. and they couldn't stand how insipid. Because Pinotrigi, its popularity, was then dulled down into they all have to taste like nothing. It's a competition to win the market for people who want nothing. I want to get buzzed. I want to feel sophisticated holding a glass of wine, but I don't want anything.

I don't want to feel anything. I don't want to be. Okay. So for you, for you, because you've got good taste, for you, when you go the opposite of that, when you are in the white wine world and you've got peanut, which is doing nothing and you're looking for that something. Can you describe what that something is that makes you the happiest? The something is super juiciness. Think of, oh my God, my friend, Andrea Robinson. She's a master's song. I used to work for her at Windows on the World back in back in the 90s. I helped her write her first book, which was Wine and Food Made Simple. And she had this

brilliant phrase for describing what we both loved in a lot of wine, but especially in whites, shirt-staining fruit. It's like the super ripe summer plums that when you bite into them, you don't realize how juicy they're going to be and they run down your shirt, like right down your face. It's like, so if you lean over the sink to eat these ripest summer plums, think of like the ripest summer fruit, beautiful peaches, white peaches. I want all that yesterday with a peach just exploded all over me. So I love, love, like, so we call that like that super juicy ripe fruit.

I love that. And of course, of course, I want acid to underpin it all. so that you have the burst of fruit and then acid is going to come in and refresh you and then more fruit. So waves and waves of fruit and acid, fruit and acid, that to me is the ultimate white wine experience.

And I'm a big, big fan of white roan red. So you love the roans. You just mentioned the roans earlier before. You said, I think you said, shut up to pop. So, Tom, nobody knows about the white roans that are hiding in plain sight in every wine shop. And you could just call it Coke. You know, you've heard of Coke-Durone.

So remember, remember, Bojolet Village is all of the villages. Coke-Duron is all. of the coats, meaning it could be from anywhere within the Rhone, the Southern Rhone. And so Cote de Rhone is all of our favorite grapes, Grenache, Syrah, Mavidra, on the red side. They call them the GSMs in Central Coast of California and all over Australia. Beautiful Rhone blends. And I like to call them the juicy middle because they're not as light as Pina Noir and Game and they're not as massive as Cabernet and Company, right?

They're the juicy middle. The whites are the same way. Marcen, Roussin and Vionnier, blended together. They're gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. gorgeous whites. And you'll find them also in Alsace France under the label of the general category called Jean-T-T-I-L, but it's spelled gentle, G-E-N-T-I-L, but it's Jean-T-T-T-I-L, but it's Jean-T-T from Alsace France are blends of all the great whites, including like Pino Blanc, Pinot, they're all in there, these beautiful, juicy, unctuous, really high-acid whites that are

fabulous in the summer. Oh, that's great. You're actually, this is the first time I've ever talk to you one where I've been excited about white wine. There we go. There we go. Really? I mean, you're very good, Anthony. You're very good in describing this stuff. Thank you. Yeah, it really, it's like, oh, then what's my problem? I like juicy fruit with an all acid to it. Why not? So at the next wedding, you're not getting the pinocree joe. And the cheap chardon. Yeah, and I can be out on the patio and not without a giant hot bottle of Cabernet. Right.

You'll open your cooler and pull out your frozen grapes for everyone and be the star of the party. Yeah. Right. Oh, I know. That's going to be really impressive when I can break those out. The, when you were in Aspen and you were, and you were, what was the center of your talk this year? So they gave me two. One was called Secrets of Spanish Wine.

and then the other one was it was called Italy Off the Beaten Path. So because like, you know, and Tom, I say this every year. It was actually called Italy's Hidden Gems off the beaten path. Every, every classic, it seems to, I don't know, at least the last 10 years, I always get the Italian seminars. I could pitch the greatest groans, you know, the crew beaujolets. And I actually have done them in the past, but it always comes back to Anthony ever wants to hear you speak about Italian wine. So I was like, I have been, I am ethnically profiled as the Italian one. expert, even though I just explained to you all these French and French wines that I love.

So I certainly love a Thai in wine, but I, you know, I, I, I, what's, what's the, what's the, what's the phrase? I, some, I, my teeth, I cut my teeth. I cut my teeth on French wine because I learned from French master sommeliers and they taught us rigorous, rigorous, rigorous, rigorous, uh, curriculum about French wine to learn about how everything is classified and why and the who and the what. And the truth is Most other countries in the world follow the French system of classification, or at least try to. And then I would say that all of us in America speak French grapes. Every grape everybody loves is from France. I mean, that's, that's, nobody makes the connection.

And I say, everyone in this room, name a grape. And I write them on the whiteboard. And then I'm like, pretend we're looking at an airline magazine where all the routes from JFK and LAAX, all grapes in the U.S., all, lead to France except the exception re-sling maybe and if you're a geek and you know like gruno felt or zvigelte from austria but in common parlance we all speak french so their legacy here is so heavy on us why is that because we're the same latitude as those regions not i mean not really i mean not especially here in new york and virginia lines up pretty well with with bordeaux but um no it's because of by fluke of geography, their grapes actually adapt well elsewhere. We Italians are Italian grapes,

Tom, are xenophobes like our Italian guests. They don't like anything but their own. Right. Don't make me pasta because I don't want your pasta. I want my pasta. So Italian grapes don't do well here. I mean, like the Antinori's from Tuscany spent billions trying to grow San Jervais in California and gave up. They make now beautiful carbonite. They make beautiful carbonite. It just didn't work. I did hear a rumor that Spanish Temprenio is doing well in Texas, but I have not gone down to investigate. Interesting. I have to check it out.

But in general, most of the grapes that have done really well around the planet. And Chardonnay, by the way, is the big horror of the world. I mean, it's happy everywhere. Everywhere, Chardonnay, you can plant Chardonnay in your gutters on your roofline, and it will come cascading down and give you fruit. Oh, he's looking for a good time. sure and carbonate is pretty prolific too yeah yeah so what did you find

what did you is there anything you can tell me about off the beaten path in Italy that you yeah so so I poured a suave so I just mentioned to you that I poured I poured a different swagger so for Aspen as you would expect

I have to aim a little higher price wise than my favorite $10 and $15 and $20 wines but so there was there was a beautiful one called Swavia for 30 bucks Swavia Savae Classico from a specific venue called Monte Carbonari. So it's way up in the Veneto, gorgeous, gorgeous wine. From Piedmont, where everyone expects Barolo and Barbarasco,

I poured a white called Timoraso. Timoraso. And you're going to see more and more and more of it. I'm predicting it, and I'm guessing it's true because it was brought back from near extinction. And a lot of the big, big producers up there through their money behind it and are, you know, like so for instance, there were only, I think,

I don't know, 12 or 14 vines alive 20 years ago, and now there's over 275 acres. Like, it's crazy how much it's grown. How is it? It's delicious. And it's my jam. It's got a little bit of that juicy, ripe fruit, but there's a great line of spice, too, like a little bit of a converged trimeter in there, too. It's a really beautiful wine.

And for 65 bucks, it better be. But it was made by Borgoño. So one of the great, great Barolo producers of the ones. world who in little actually a few few years back in aspen i poured a borgonio 82 barolo that they they happily donated to our seminar i gave me a case event and it was spectacular it was like six hundred bucks a bottle this is 65 for the white and i was happy to take it so um so borgonio uh and it's uh it's called d-ter tona d-r-h-h-o-n-a which is the roman name for the region um altuaddi we went up to the Alps part of eastern Italy,

and we tasted from one of the great great winemakers of that area, Martin Hofstadter, his wine is called J. Hofstadter. This is where, you know, this is Austro-Italian Italy. So like they speak German there. It's on the border of the Austrian Alps. And he is known for his Pinot Noir's really famous Hofstadter Pinot Noir. But this is his Givertramener from a specific vineyard called Cobenhoff. And he said, if this were a.

or French white burgundy, it would be Grand Crew. So like you just asked before, they should be a top, top venue. That was $45. Right. We're going to have to, we're going to have to, we're going to have to write some of this stuff down for our listeners. I'd be happy to give you the whole list.

Yeah, that would be great. Do you want to keep going? Just because it's, it's, it's, you're like, oh, I like that. And then two seconds later you're like, but I like that too. And then you're, and then you come away with nothing. I would be happy to send you guys a list of a lot of what we talked about if I could just remember all we talked about. Do you find in summertime that it's mostly the, is it the food that lends itself to white wine or do you think it's just the temperature?

I guess we're eating a lot more fish, right? I think it's absolutely temperature, especially where. you know, where we're from humidity, we crave acid. I mean, that's, you know, there's no secret to lemonade. I mean, like, although not the canned garbage, but like really good lemonade is made with a ton of acid. I mean, you know, hopefully not too sweet, sweet, but that's where, that's the, that's the genesis of, of that idea. Like, the acid is just a thirst quencher. That's why I look for the wine. It's what we always like, it's like the Beal Endel of Great White Wine is how does the acid balance all of that fruitiness? Pinole, not so high in acid. I mean, right?

You're not so satisfied. But it's not going to offend you either, though, Tom. Yeah. You're not going to be mad. You're like, I just drank some wine. Or warm water. It's pretty much the same. Man, I can't get the picture of, and I know because I just had some of the other night.

And there were different shape that I'm used to on the East Coast because I was out here in L.A. But just the picture that you painted of that couple having the oysters. with the bottle of champagne and the bottle of, what was the other bottle? It was a bottle of Brouille, which is one of the crew bouchelais. Oh, just that picture. God, that's going to linger with me all day. Yeah. That is a treat.

Let's do it when you come back to New York, man. Let's do it. Yeah. Oh, my God, it's so good. I had these oysters, like I said, and they were, you know, I'm used to the East Coast, you know, the little bigger flatter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These were kind of almost like little cups.

Exactly right. Yeah, and they're very soft and creamy. The West Coast in general, I'm not an oyster expert, but when given the choice, I like my briny, firmer East Coast oysters from up north. Yeah, they had a little more something to it. It was a little like, yeah, a little. But I was also, and I was drinking red,

and I knew I was like, there's a better wine with these oysters right now. It's going to be tough, yeah. Yeah, yeah, because it was just by the glass. What do you do when you go out and you go out with your wife and you really, you're like, oh, we should get, we should get this bottle. And your wife's like, I'm not really drinking tonight. This could cause wars if we, if we go down.

I know, they never. Yeah. It happens a lot. It happens a lot. And I said, my wife, we're Ubering and I'm drinking more than you. And that's going to just, it's just going to happen. Right. And we're not going to worry about it.

We're not going to judge. We're not going to judge, but we need a bottle. So, Tom, what I say, what I said, and it is a big problem, especially if you're the white wine drinker and she's the red wine drinker or vice versa, you can't even agree on what to buy. But I have said this since, like, I swear, it's one of the first thing that I wrote in the assembly. Like, please stop buying wine by the glass. It's like, it's the best and the worst advice because you're being completely robbed unless you're at a really good restaurant that's not just trying to make a cash cow out of the white. The wines by the glass. Tom, I mean, I look at the, I look at the list.

I'm like, oh, my God, $4, $4.4. That's what they're paying wholesale for those bottles. And then they're selling to you for 12 a glass. So like, let's just. Yeah, anything with, anything from Italy with a B, starting with a B, you're paying $25 a glass. If it ends in AIA, yeah, it's 40. I know. So, yes, like I say that, let's just do some men.

It's fun math. So you and I, Tom, we are lying to ourselves. We're going out for one glass. We're lying. We're completely lying to ourselves. We go out and we're going to have one glass and we spend, let's call it $15 a glass, right? But the bartender is immediately going to put down a bowl of fiddle faddle, salty nuts. If it's a little fancy, maybe some gujarres.

But they're salted us up. They are priming the pump. Now, we're at $30. And we put two glasses of wine from a bottle that probably costs even generously $10. Right. And there are five, five ounce glasses in that. bottle. So they're going to make 15 times five, right? And all we had to do is say, let's just, let's just be honest, because we're going to have a second bottle, a second glass now.

Now we're at $60. We are at $60 for a $10 bottle. And we don't get the fifth glass for free because there's five if we'd bought the bottle for 60. So instead look at the list and just literally like look at the prices and buy the second. The joke is that you buy the second cheapest and it's a favorite, which I don't really know if that's true or not. But you can't go wrong. Is that pretty accurate, you think? Is that pretty accurate? I would like to think the Somalia likes a lot of the wines on the list. Yeah. It depends where you are, I guess. The rule is, yeah, they say pick the second cheapest is often the wink, wink, if you know what you're doing.

But I also say at the bartender, too, like, listen, we're probably going to have two or three glasses, but we'll get a bottle. But, you know, steer us in the right direction over you know, if you don't know what you're doing or whatever. Or ask the way to come over. But if, let's say the time you're on a business trip and you are not going to have the one glass or maybe two, you can't get a bottle. You have every right to ask the bartender, like, hey, can you open a fresh bottle? Can you chill that for me, too? Because the red is going to be warm. The reds are going to be sitting on the bar with the bourbon, literally as warm as the bourbon. Like, for what?

Can you please, warm, me something chilled and fresh, please? I think about that all the time. Because, you know, I'll open a bottle at home and, you know, you don't get to it and quark it up. And you know that next day it's not the experience that you had on that first day. And in a restaurant, it's like you don't know how long that's been sitting up there. It could be two or three days old. Although, Tommy, I'm going to blow your mind on this one. We call it the meatloaf effect that often when you open a bottle and take a glass or two out of it

and then put the cork in and put in the fridge, it will actually develop something like it'll open, but slowly it's not going to completely oxidize. The next day, let it warm back up again. It'll be great. Like one day of an open bottle, but that's it. That's all you get is one chance to try it again. Don't keep opening and closing it. But yeah, we joke that that's like a meatloaf thing.

Like it gets, you know, it's like all those things that get better after a day in the fridge. Oh, so you think it's even better than the first? It'll be more open and it'll probably be a little better. Yeah, I won't be past say. That's for sure. Wow. I've been, I've been doing the, my wife got me that thing with the. The Coravan?

With the Coravan. I have it right here right next to me. Yeah. Because this bottle, I don't know if you could see this what I had last night. Oh, now I can. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, I only took out one big healthy glass out of it.

And this is a really nice bottle. Hold on. That's one glass we'll show me. Yeah. It's half a bottle. It's half a bottle. That was one glass last night. That was one poor because I was with my wife and she was like, she didn't want to drink because

you just traveled. And I was like, well, I'm not just going to keep pounding. So I'm just going to do one big one. And then I'll, I won't, she won't see me going back and forth. You know, you have that, like, the early pandemic, Ina, garden. It was like, I think we all could use a drink and I'm going to start right now. She had like a five gallon wine glass in front of her. It was like half her body. It's so funny. Yeah. So, yeah. But it really does work. I mean, that thing. Yeah, yeah. Those, the vacuum, I'm sorry, not vacuuming.

It's Corvann. Corvann is so, so good. Corvann. By the way, I use vacuum in a lot too, like those little rubber corks you pump. They work really, really well. But Corvatt is that like beyond next level. Yeah. And again, have you been at the restaurants where they, they ask you if you'd like to try tonight's core revenge special. And it's like, we have Chatea Mardot for $300 for an ounce. And if people are like, well, I'm going to get it because I'll never buy Shatomargo for 5,000, so I'll take a shot for 300 or whatever the math is. I used to see that a lot, but pre-pendemic, I would see that in like a nomad.

And they'd be like, tonight we have a lini mom a chafe and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's, you know, $95 for half an ounce. I'm like, who is buying that? It's so stupid. I would need four half ounces just to, taste it, you know? Yeah. I think the big, the best lesson I learned for the summer is, so far is just Uber and tell you if you're getting the bottle. She always says it to me. She's like, I really like drinking. Do you? I'm like, we're bricking. There's no need to even

acknowledge what each of us is drinking. Yeah. Because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. No. And it also, you know, you don't go out all that often. And when you do sneak out, it's like, you know, you should enjoy it and you are going to enjoy it. So why bring the car? Well, I got to say that, really is a game changer for me. Especially where we live, we could Uber. You can get cars coming every three minutes.

It's just crazy. So I just choose not to drink and drive ever, ever, ever, ever. I mean, like, oh, if it's a one glass, like, I don't want to take that risk anymore. Like, I know. When I was young, I was stupid. Yeah. No, I know.

I know. We're both wearing glasses. I know. At night, straight. an arrow. I'm like, this is getting riskier. I can't wait for self-driving cars, Tom. I just want the car to take me everywhere. Oh, my God. Just on the opposite of the guys are the guys who are like, oh, are you kidding me? I love a great drive. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'd like to be in the back, please, reading the New Yorker. I'll talk to you when we get there. Yeah, I'm all for like a nice

stick shift, you know, one race around the block, but every day, you know, I want the experience to be what's going to happen when I get to the restaurant, not the experience from my door to the restaurant. Some friends of mine are headed to Cicely tomorrow, and I said, do you have a driver? And they're like, oh, you know, they were on a, my friend made the, my tour partner that I work with made them an agenda. And they said, no, of course, Gary has a driver taking us everywhere. Like, we're, you know, a little baby veal, like just carefully tended to. And they said, you know, so I said, oh, you're lucky because driving around Cicely is a nightmare. Like, dude, you're on these highways that are like, you know, you're on these, like, like,

bridges that are like two miles off the ground and like you're going around cliffs and through a million galla you know those tunnels they call the galeria it just it's a white knuckle experience that i have no desire to ever repeat that we go every summer practically so wow i need a driver tom i need to drive i need to i need to get to sicily i haven't been to sicily no man come on my tour next summer next june yeah maybe how many people i don't like i don't like we keep it small no we keep it small we're very bougie it's like around 14 16 people yeah maybe we'll be we keep it small we're very bougie it's like around 14 16 people yeah people. No, no. You can't make any money if you'll do less than that. Could I come and just follow the tour? Like, stay for me behind the tour. Sure, sure. It'll be the Fiat behind the van.

I get it. Oh, I have to thank you, by the way. And this is a little bit of a plug, but a plug I'm happy to make because this is legit. And this is what, this is, I love when these things happen. you have a product that we talked about last time super salt which is this great if we can talk a little bit about how you got into it but you created this amazing um what would I say like a spicy salt it's an it's a seasoned to salt like herb salt yeah it has all of the great rosemary fun goodness of that you want when you're cooking plus the salt all in the

this one thing called Super Salt. And you were generous enough to send them my way after we did the pod. And we use it all the time. I put it on everything. And I bake my bread. And yesterday I had, I toasted the bread. I put just a thin thing of cream cheese, sardines, and capers. Oh, my God.

And then sprinkled a little of the super salt on top. Oh, man. Anthony, you really, this thing should be, this thing should be big. Like, this is going to be, this really, like, this is going to be, you should be, like, rich off of Super Salt. It's, well, I hope so. The joke is that the company name is Sidegig, Super Salt. So, like, I call it my side gig and play in my last name, but, like, it's really something that was just born in my kitchen. And I used to bring it to friends.

And they all said, you need to jar this. You need to sell this. And it took years before. I finally pulled it together and had, you know, I'll help from a lot of great friends and conciliary. But yeah, so like I, I, but it is one of those things where people say, what do I do with it? And I say, well, let's start with something simple like fry an egg in the morning and put it over the top and you won't put it in believe what it does or butter or things like that, make a vinaigrette. Every roasted vegetable, every fish, every meat. But just be judicious at

first because it's powerful, but then once you get used to when you keep adding more, people just keep going to jars of it. It's crazy. Well, that's the thing is, like, you said that when you gave it to me, you're like, just, it was almost like you handed me a weapon. You were like, just be, go, be careful. Keep the safety on. Don't go nuts.

I was like a little intimidated at first. But, man, now I just sprinkle it on everything. Because we have like this little section in our kitchen where we keep like the olive oil and the salts and the peppers. and my daughter has like these different Himalayan salts and stuff and it's just part of the roster now. And I am just just a light sprinkle of that on everything. Oh, it's so really, Anthony, I so appreciate this. This is not a paid endorsement.

I'm not doing this just because you're my friend. I really love that. I love that stuff. I am thrilled. I'm thrilled to hear it. It's actually, it's been, you know, it's been doing pretty well this year because it's the first year. I'm really selling it like with gusto and trying to get it into all different markets all over the country and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, I was always afraid that people would use too much of it and then be turned off.

Like, just go gentle with it because it's so potent. It's a ton of garlic and sage or my two. And I say, Tom, it speaks southern Italian. There is garlic. There is a lot of garlic in it. But it dries in the salt. So the process is to chop everything and then cut it into the salt and let it come together. And you get this super, super fragrant salt.

When you open the jar, it's like aromatherap. Yeah, it really is great. I've just sprinkle it everywhere now. It's crazy. Between you and I also had a friend on who has a Simone olive oil. And it's just this great olive oil. And just between the two of you, I'm now just like, it doesn't even factor in like, does this go with this? I just put it on everything. It's like what Americans do with ranch dressing. It's perfect. It's perfect. All right, any last, any last tips to make our listeners seem cool this summer? We've got some great reds. I'm going to put a list up, but we've got some great reds. We've got a good grape twist.

We've got some good whites. Is there anything that we didn't mention that if someone wants to really enjoy themselves? Oh, gosh. Any kind of, I feel like I've... What's your favorite? What I'm going to phrase it this way? you're hanging at home. It's just you, your family,

and maybe a friend who has a podcast happens to roll through town and comes just over for a cocktail hour, which may extend into dinner. What little summer snackies do you put out and what wine do you break out? Oh, gosh. Well, believe it or not, I'm a big champagne fan. I love when friends come over, like, we'd ever see

and to say, like, it makes everyone feel grand You know, pull out some good champagne, you know, pull out the ice bucket. I had like, I have like the, you know, the trophy looking ice bucket that, you know, you see it every wedding. Like, you pulled it on the counter. And we put out as many salty, savory snacks as we can find, including, like you just said, like there's going to be, there might be some anchovies. There's always going to be a hunk of Parmigiano, Regina cheese or other salty, you know,

great cheeses like Manchago or Gouda or something like that. They're going to just be really, really good and rich. Um, good and Mimoulet by the way, you just, those are my two favorite cheeses. Really? See that? I mean, other than the other than, of course, you know, the Parmesan and Regiano. Yeah. But if we're just like snacking on.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Salted, you know, good salted nuts, almonds, things like that. And, uh, a, a mind blow. Here it is. Here it is. Here it is.

I just realized what I want to say. So when I was in, I was in Venice 20 years ago and I was just, no, 30 years ago. when I was getting started in early 90s, I was invited to Francesco Bola of the Bola family, had a cocktail party. And they were passing around these platters with these very ornate, which I don't think you should have to take so seriously. But picture like crumbling Parmigano into nuggets, like into crumbs, right? Like, you know, cut them perfectly.

You just pull them down. You pull with a point of a knife. Break them with a fork. Yeah. And they would stab a toothpick with dried fruits. So like a dried cherry, dried. dried apricot or mango or anything. So for color variety,

and then right into the cheese. And then you would take the whole thing and take a bite and you have salty and super sweet come together. And then a sip of sparkling wine. And it just, all that acid just clears the palate. It's like scrubbing bubbles.

It's amazing. And you could do that, by the way, and Bacola was using a Prosecco for sure. But you could do that with great champagne as well too. It's just mind-blowing. champagne and perecco for you champagne

so i like to say this i have room for both of them in my in my house but they shouldn't be compared even remotely they if they're in the fruit family one's an orange and one's an apple it's not two types of apples because champagne is made in the bottle

second fermentation in the bottle it's very very painstaking you make poseco was invented as a means of giving an alternative to expensive champagne. And it's a bulk produced in tanks and then bottled under pressure. And they're sold immediately. So the big difference is not only like price and production,

Prosecco is all about immediacy, super fruity, super fresh, made probably within the last three months. Champagne, by law, has to age in those bottles, the second fermentation, after the second fermentation, they have to age for at least two years by law before they're put in the market and they taste older. It's so funny time because people want to love the champagne when you put them side by side. But they're not used to, if you're used to drinking Prosecco and fresh sparkling wines like most Americans, you taste the champagne and you're like, it's a little, taste a little old. It's like, right. And that's actually deliberate. They want the age. And in really

good champagne, it's layers of brioche and mushroom and all this crazy stuff. But that's something you have to want. Most of us are, you know, most of us are handed a glass of sparkling wine. That's probably Prosecco, and every waiter in America says, champagne? Right. And I always say to everybody, ask politely, really? Because it's probably not. Yeah, when the flight attendant comes out and they say orange juice, water, champagne, that's probably- Perseco.

It's always Perseco. It happened this week on the plane. I just saw it this week on the plane. I think I was like, who goes, Jesus, nobody wants Prosecco? What's wrong with you? I mean, nobody wants champagne? What's wrong with you people? I'm like, well, it's not champagne.

What's wrong with you? It's Perseco. All right. Final question. Because at a certain point when we had a New Year's Eve and had a little extra money, we got, like back when we were starting out in New York and we got Vuv Clikho in the orange box. And we haven't really explored any champagne past that. We always think, well, it's going to be good champagne. I guess we just get a bottle of Vuv.

Give me another label. I want to give you, I want to give you something easier. By the way, I want to stop and just say, I can give you a name, right? Okay. And then everybody on those spots is going to listen to it and go to their shop. And the shop is going to say, I don't have that because that's 50 states with 50 completely different rules, right? Yeah. I would say use the phrase, grower champagne.

It's a thing. It's a real thing. A grower champagne means something that's super small production from an artisan who's just making beautiful, very limited supply. some of my favorite are Pierre Peters, Vilmar, V-I-L-M-A-R-T, Vilmar at C, E-T, and then the capital C. Like, those are great examples of beautiful grower champagne. But just if you went to a shop and just said,

listen, I want to dial into something super special. Do you have any grower champagne? Of course, if you're used to paying, you know, 40 to 50 for Ville-Cle-Coh, you have to be prepared to spend more than, like, probably 70, 80, 90 bucks for good champagne. Got it. A good grower champagne, if not 150.

If you come to my house, Tom, you spend the $150. Right, of course. That's why it's at your house, not mine. No, I mean, you're bringing it to my house. Oh, I'm sorry. If you're coming over and I say, I would love to, but I travel with a carry-on.

They don't let you bring liquids. That's got to be on you. Anthony, this is the best. You've got to come on more often. No, you're the best, Tom. It's so cool. And I encourage people to, we're going to put the list up.

And this is a great, a great, you've given us so much good stuff to enjoy. the summer and and everybody out there go get some super salt i'm not kidding oh what about super salt on corn are you kidding me of course but the trick would be unsalted butter if you're going to use butter unsalted butter because this would be way too much too much yeah they were getting crazy anthony thank you i'm going to see you i'm going to see you the tomato party oh yeah oh that's going to be fun all right buddy take care of thank you i'll see you soon all right bye bye thanks everybody

for listening that was anthony what are you going to do are you going to go out and do it. Are you going to go pick up some Chablis? Are you going to go get some gamet? Are you going to go get some bojolet, some oysters, sit poolside? Throw some grapes, some frozen grapes into your wine. Why not? Sounds like a good way to celebrate. I think I'm going to do it right now. I really am. I'm going to go right now and spend money on wine. Thank you so much for listening. Again, go to tompapa.com. We're touring all over the place. Thank you all. for being here once again. Like and subscribe and tell all your pals.

Thank you for growing the community. This is really fun to do. And I hope we learned something today. I feel like we did. And we should also... I said I was going to list some of the things that Anthony talked about. I will try and do that.

Me, my producers, we will try to write it down at least a couple things and put it in as part of the description so it'll be a little easier for you to go out and get stuff. All right, you guys are the best. Enjoy your life.