Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Time to Wine about Money

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

After following Nicole’s 3 E’s and putting your spending plan together… are you struggling to figure out how to fit wining and dining into your budget? We gotchu! Today, Nicole talks to sommelier Sarah Tracey (the mind behind the blog @thelushlife). They cover the best wines on a budget… plus, the lingo you need to know to sound like a wine expert. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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money is working as hard as you do. So why overcomplicate your money? Keep it simple with Bank of America, your one-stop shop for everything you need today and the goals you're working toward tomorrow. To get started, visit bofa.com slash newprosmedia. That's b-o-f-a dot com slash n-e-w pros p-r-o-s media. bfa.com slash newprosmedia. Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab? Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player, GameStop. And should I have a 401k? You don't do it? No, I never do. You think the whole world revolves around you and your money.

Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. All you money rehabbers know how much I love to talk about my morning latte.

You know, the latte that other financial experts tell you you can't have. But me, I say hell to the yes. Have your morning latte. Shh. I shout it from the rooftops. I am passionate about you having your small indulgences. For some people, that's a latte. For others, like myself, it's a latte and some wine. But wine does tend to be a little pricier than your average latte, so you do need to be a little bit more thoughtful when you're in the liquor store. That's why I

called up Sarah Tracy, a sommelier who is an expert on how to get the most bang for your bottle and buck. So Sarah, welcome to Money Rehab. Hi, I'm so happy to be here today. So you're a sommelier. Did I say it correctly? Yes. I always coach everyone just to say like, think yay for wine. So sommelier. Yay. And you will always say it right. Perfect. Such a great way to remember. So a somm for short though? Somm works.

That works for me. Love it. So how did you get into this world? Totally by accident. I think most people that work in the wine or spirits industry, like no one grew up saying, I want to be a fireman. I want to be a ballerina. I want to be a sommelier.

A lot of us found our way in very interesting ways. And for me, a lot of us came from the world of the arts because if you're an actor, musician, writer, clearly you're picking up cocktail waitressing gigs, bartending gigs, things like that to pay the rent in between your creative endeavors. So that was definitely my story. I have a degree in music, actually. So I moved to New York to pursue a singing career. And somewhere along the way, I ended up working in a really adorable little wine bar and fell in love with wine. And the rest is history. You don't really look like the other Psalms. You kind of disrupted this space. Oh, yeah. I mean, the first time I went

to like a professional wine luncheon, I got invited to, it was so excited and I was easily 15 years younger than every single other person at the table. And I was the only female. Um, and everyone thought that I worked for the PR company that represented the winery. They would ask me if I was the one that had put together the swag bags. I was just assumed that I couldn't be sitting at that table based on my own merits. I must just be there in the service of PR marketing, like those kind of gender things that we think about. Speaking more of like the young female space, happily that's changed a lot even in the past five, six years

that I've been working in the industry. You're seeing a lot more diverse voices, females, young, old, every gender expression, representation, every color. I do think the wine world is making a lot of progress that way. Get it, girl. So what does a day in the life of a Somme look like, like in pre-COVID times? Definitely not as glamorous as it looks like in the movies. A lot of lugging super heavy cases of wine up and down stairs, a lot of organizing dusty, dingy old wine cellars, a lot of spreadsheets, a lot of inventory, a lot of figuring out the profit margins for a restaurant that you're running the wine program for. It's definitely not just swanning around vineyards and swirling

rosé into the sunset. It's a lot of the gritty, gritty hard work. I think that happens a lot when people turn their hobby into a jobby. They realize it's not just baking cupcakes anymore. It's like sourcing flour and doing accounting and all those not super fun things that you associate with it. So essentially, a sommelier runs a restaurant's wine program. Tell me how that works. Yeah. So you're the person that's in charge of not only building the wine list, doing wine pairings, you're working with the chef to choose wines that match the food.

But you're also responsible for the entire financial aspect of the wine sales. And most restaurants make most of their money on the alcohol, not the food, not anything else. So you have to be really, really on point with all of that. If a wine's performing the way you want it to sales-wise, you have to make some changes there. You're also training the staff, making sure that the waiters and waitresses and bartenders are comfortable selling your wines, and also just offering hospitality to the guests that walk through the door. So sometimes you're bussing tables. Sometimes you are washing dishes. I think my favorite advice about being a sommelier was from one of my mentors that said, when you're working in a restaurant, you might spend more time refilling water glasses than refilling wine

glasses. And you got to be cool with that. It's a very humbling job, actually. Interesting. I didn't even think of it that way. What is the average pay for a sommelier? Oh, gosh, that really, really ranges. I think depending on the restaurant that you work at, it can start pretty low. A lot of restaurant work, as we all know by now, it's been in the news a lot lately. It's not the most high paying role. I would say I make a lot more money consulting for wine brands, helping create educational content for wineries, hosting events, leading seminars, things like that, more than I actually made on the floor of a restaurant. Don't get into it for the money would be my biggest advice. It's a wonderful career. There's

tons of perks. There's free trips to Tuscany. There's fabulous wine luncheons with visiting winemakers all the time. Tons of free wine. It's a fabulous lifestyle with lots of perks, but I would say it's not going to be your ticket to the 1% for most of us, unless you hustle and get some other projects going on the side. So you're paid in a lot of free product, I'm assuming trips and just sort of being in a cool gig where everybody has a thousand questions for you when they find out what you do, which I do as well. And I hope you don't mind me asking because I kind of want a cheat sheet to look really smart at restaurants when I'm looking at a wine list. This would be amazing if you could

help me. Oh my gosh. Yes. So I will tell you the number one thing that almost no one does that everyone should be doing is identify like something about what you might be interested in. Maybe it's red wine. Maybe it's white wine, maybe it's white wine, maybe it's a light red to pair with the duck breast that you're going to order for dinner. So you can say that. But the other thing you need to do is advocate for yourself and be a conscious consumer and actually say what you want to spend. You don't have to say it out loud to the sommelier. You can point at a bottle on the menu and say, hey, we're looking for something in this price point. And I would have table after table after table that I just could not get them to tell me what their budget was. And if you say, I want to spend around $60, I'm getting the duck

breast. I love French wines. What do you recommend? You're taking your options from like hundreds, sometimes down to like five. So you are helping the staff narrow things down for you in a way that, you know, you're going to be happy with what you ended with at the table. So if you hear that somebody likes a buttery Chardonnay or whatever, and they don't tell you how much they want to spend because they're being weird about it, because everybody is weird about money stuff, especially in front

of other people. And you have a couple of options. Do you have to then tell them the price before they go for it? Yeah, I'll usually point to the bed. You'd be like, well, we have this one that's this much. We have this one that looks like that. So I'm not embarrassing anyone in front of a date or in front of a client perhaps. But sometimes I might just default to most of the people that come in the door of the restaurant spend about X amount of money. So I might lead with that. And if I say, oh, we have this bottle, it's $100 because that's what most people in my Michelin star restaurant spend. And you all only want to spend 50. You're going to feel bad about yourself, right? You're going to feel like I'm trying to push you and trying to sell you, but you're the one that wouldn't actually ask for what you want. I'm trying my best to kind of be a

mind reader and figure this out. And I just want you to leave happy. I don't want anyone to leave the restaurant feeling like, God, I just got swindled by that, you know, pushy sum. I spent way more than I wanted. None of us want that. So is it true that the more expensive, the better? Because there have been dates in my life where I see that the guy just picks the most expensive one because he's flexing. He probably doesn't really know. Yeah. The way you should think about value in wine, especially those super, super expensive bottles, is at that point when you're paying over $500, over $1,000 for a single bottle of wine, you're talking more about the experience of drinking it and less about like, well, this is what the juice costs. This is what the bottle costs.

This is what the foil capsule costs. It's more than the sum of its parts. So I would say this is similar to like for somebody paying $5,000 for like a court side ticket to the Knicks is like their dream. They value that. They can't wait for it. They have the money to do it. And it's nothing. And then for someone like me, who's kind of not into sports, I would never pay $5,000 for a Knicks ticket, right? So at that point, it's more about what the experience means

to you and a little less about like, is it actually really better quality wine than the $100 bottle? Hold on to your wallets, boys and girls. Money rehab will be right back. Now for some more money rehab. What factors affect how wine is priced? Well, definitely the production cost. So how much we know what they're putting into the land, the real estate of the vineyard. You know, if you're in Napa and these vineyard sites are like some of the most expensive land in the world, the fruit grown on them can fetch crazy, crazy, crazy prices. The investment that the winery makes in their equipment and maybe in the healthcare for their employees and, you know, all the things they're trying to do towards sustainability.

So there's definitely like how much the wine costs to produce and then maybe how much it costs to import. And then probably the demand that what, what the market will bear right for a certain wine. So a Burgundy Pinot Noir from like a top vineyard and a top sub region of Burgundy could fetch a much higher price than like a bottle of Pinot Noir from Oregon. So that's my best tip for you. Whether you want a good value, also just location, location, location, thinking about wine, like you think about real estate,

because just like a townhouse in the West Village of Manhattan would cost far more than the exact same house in Columbus, Ohio. Same is true for wine. So rather than if you're in a budget, rather than like looking for Napa wines, maybe look for like Lake County, California or Santa Barbara or Paso Robles, California. to Robles, California. Instead of Bordeaux, maybe you should look at the Languedoc region in France. Way, way, way more affordable just because there's not as much prestige around those regions. And again, you can get much better deals. Okay. So for me, actually, the price doesn't give me much anxiety because duh. But what gives me the most anxiety is the tasting part of the whole thing. I don't like it. I don't like anything about it. I'm just like, this makes me feel weird and uncomfortable. I'm sure it's fine. And I usually pass on it just because I feel like I look like a doofus.

Okay. This is the only, your only job when they present the bottle and they pour you the taste. Your only job is to tell them if it tastes like wet cardboard, moldy basement, grandma's attic. What? If it tastes spoiled. That's why they pour you the taste. It's because that way, if the bottle is actually tainted, spoiled, flawed off, you don't have to pay for it. But then why do people start talking about legs and stuff? They're trying to show off, I think. But when a taste at a restaurant is honestly just so you

can approve the bottle before it ends up on the check. So it's not to see if you like it or not. It's not like, this is not my taste. If you don't like it, it's like, you're shit out of luck. We already opened this. It depends on the restaurant. Technically, if you order a bottle of wine off the menu, they pour a taste for you. It's totally technically a sound bottle of wine. Technically, you're paying for it.

If you really don't like it, most good restaurants aren't going to force you to drink it. We'll take it back and we'll say, you know, we'll just serve this by the glass to some of the people at the bar and we can make our money back on it. Why don't we get you something you'll actually like? So, yeah, it's not to see whether you like it.

They're not looking for your sommelier assessment of the notes of the wine. They're just wanting to know if it's spoiled or if it's sound. That's it. Okay, you've made me feel so much better about that process. I generally know I like a buttery Chardonnay and a big cab that you can like cut with a knife. That's typically what I say. And that's truly what I tend to like. What are some of the catchphrases that I can say or that our listeners can say to impress our friends with our wine selection? Well, I was going to say the best trick is in a restaurant or wine store situation,

it's actually just to keep a photo on your phone of the last wine that you really loved. And that way you don't even have to say anything. You can be like, I love this bottle. What do you have that I might also like? And that's like a nice way to kind of not have to get into all the jargon if you don't really feel comfortable. I would say, yeah, explaining the last wine you really enjoyed will be shorthand to lots of wine professionals. Well, we know if you say, I like a big buttery chardonnay, go with the knife. Like, I got her. I know exactly what she's going to like. But yeah, to impress your friends. Like, why does everybody talk about legs? The legs, this is, the legs is a big red herring, I think, of the wine world. The legs are the little tiers of wine that go down the side of the glass.

And they just indicate whether the wine is light, medium, or full-bodied. Whether it's really thick and creamy texturally, or whether it's a little bit more thin and watery. The legs do not denote quality at all. So when someone's like, oh, look at these great legs, like that person actually has no idea what they're talking about. That's like the biggest tell

when someone mentions how great the legs are. That's how I know that they actually don't know anything about wine. And here's a tip from Sarah you can take straight to the bank. Most sommeliers, we usually don't spend a lot of money on wine. So we know how to find amazing wines for $15 at the wine store.

Like I know how to identify those. So I'm going to use the trick I mentioned before, just like about the location factor. So places like a little off the beaten path, maybe wine regions like Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, little tiny places like the countryside of France and Italy that aren't the big famous regions. That's a really good way to do it. Another good secret, honestly, that a lot of sommeliers will use is we actually look on the back of the wine label

and we look at who the importer is. The importer is the guy that's driving around Italy all day, tasting wines, and he's picking which wines he wants to bring into the U.S. and sell. So if you like one wine from an importer, it means you might have a similar palate. You might kind of like their style. You like their vibe. You like their wine. If I find an importer where I'm like, oh yes, like I really like this, I will actually look for other wines imported by that same person because maybe his taste aligns with mine. That's a really good tip too.

Money Rehab is a production of iHeartMedia. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Catherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Mangesh Hatikader and Will Pearson. Huge thanks to the OG Money Rehab supervising producer, Michelle Lanz, for her pre-production and development work. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.