Latest / Bonita Bay Club's Podcast / Uncorking the World of Wine with Melissa Hemmingway, Director of Wine at BBC

Transcript

Uncorking the World of Wine with Melissa Hemmingway, Director of Wine at BBC · Bonita Bay Club's Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello Benita Bay Club.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another edition of our podcast.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Today we're visiting with Joseph Owell, our assistant general manager, and Melissa Hemingway, our wine director here at Benita Bay Club.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: This is a great topic that I really wanted to bring on to the table because I love the work that Melissa is doing.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I think she's done such a fabulous job here at Benita Bay Club.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: But I'm going to kind of turn it over a little bit here to Joseph so he can ask all the educated questions about wine.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Since I'm just a little bit of a novice, I know that I love to drink it.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So here, Joseph, why don't you start asking some of the questions, and then I'll hone in on other parts.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: First thanks for having us and thanks for letting us wine a little bit today.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: So, mel, I was just kind of reflecting that it's been five years now that you're celebrating with us here at the club and it's amazing the immediate and continued contributions that you continue to make to the program here, to overall member satisfaction.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: And, gosh, I can't think of as many people that have made so many friends among the membership so quickly here at the club, quickly becoming one of the favorite people here.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: So kind of take us back in.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about kind of how you came to be a sommelier.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: And first off, am I, am I pronouncing that right, is it?
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, you say it beautifully, and Becky does too.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: A lot of people struggle with that.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: I always say it's just some all and then yay oh some all yay, some all yay.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Remember the yay part, because it is a really fun position and it's been a great position for me for the past five years.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: I've enjoyed it so much.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I was really embraced and supported.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: I think the biggest, the biggest contribution to my success was all the support that I got from the management.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: When I got here I was trying some things that were kind of different.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: New thirsty Thursday, our first Thursday Thursday I think we had five or six people and I had about 15 wines to show and I was fully supported despite that and we grew from there and learn.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Now we do five wines every Thursday Thursday and we have a lot of people.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: We have a lot of support for it.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: But if it weren't for the management when I initially got here, who were willing to back me up on some of the decisions I made, whether they thought it was going to work or not, they gave me a lot of support and it made all the difference and I think it's brought us to where we are now.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of Thursday, thursdays I've seen it grow because I've gone in there and taken pictures.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: When it first started and you were right, there was not that many people.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: But now, every Thursday, thursday when I pass by and I want to take some you know snapshots on my phone, it's like packed.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: It's just incredible how much you've made it grow.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Especially from its humble beginnings and those first couple we posted at the fire pit outside of the city for the whole, and I think what was it?
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Only maybe four or five weeks until we outgrew that venue.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Yes, we outgrew it and I think the important thing about Thursday Thursday as much fun as it is and people can buy wine that they can enjoy later with their company or have for dinners and whatnot the focus of Thursday Thursday is really about getting people there.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: It's about another way for members to meet other members who aren't maybe in their current group, Maybe they're not a golfer, Maybe they don't play pickleball, Maybe they don't play bridge All of these other ways to get people together and meet each other, and it's worked really well.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: We've had new members who have come to Thursday Thursday just to meet people, and at one point that was six different people and now they just all went on a cruise together.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: They all met each other to Thursday Thursday three years ago.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really what it's about.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: It's a great time to learn a little bit about wine and have fun, but it's really all about just meeting more people and having more connections.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: That beneath it Socializing yeah.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: So, now, Mel, getting back to your background, when and how did you kind of decide to go into this kind of niche of wooden beverage and focus on wine?
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Well, I worked.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: My major was history and when you get into my new show of wine, it's all about history, geography, folklore.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: It's got a lot of things that really measured up with what I really enjoyed learning about, and I always worked in restaurants during school and I remember working in a restaurant and meeting my first master of sommelier and my.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: The first thing I said when he was giving his presentation was oh my gosh, I cannot believe this can be a job.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: I didn't even know that that could be a job in wine and I was so interested in wine and I was always learning the most about the wine list and getting really into it and boring everybody around me because nobody else really cared, but that was Michael McNeill and he was at the time I think he still is the only master sommelier in Atlanta, Georgia, and I remember just being blown away that it could be a career and I knew then that I was going to make it my career and that's kind of what I did.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, he took me under his wing for a little while and taught me a lot.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: And here I am and I love it so well.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: He's really taught you well, I mean, I mean, I just know from my first.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: He's a wonderful.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Back to, I said I was a novice.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: But you know, sometimes in the summers you did one class or a couple of classes for the employees and the information that I learned just in that small class just kind of blows my mind about wine that I would just never knew.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's great, yeah.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: So I learned a lot and I know those.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: You have those educational classes for the members.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: We do.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: We have them every two weeks.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: We have one coming up this Friday.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: That is on sparkling wine from all around the world.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: We always think of champagne.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Sparkling wine is made all over the world and some really great wines, including Germany, other parts of France, certainly USA, South Africa.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: So we introduce all of those different methods and those places where these wines come from.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: That's an example of one of our classes.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: We have another class coming up on Shebley and Grand Cru from Burgundy.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: So that's a really special class.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: So always look to see what those classes are there about every two weeks Great.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: So now, mel, part of your ability to really bring and elevate the wine program to where it is now is that that's your sole focus.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, and that's often a luxury in the hospitality industry because it's usually kind of thrown in as one of the ancillary tasks for other food and beverage managers.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about you know how you're able to do what you're doing now with having that be your sole focus.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: That's a great point you make.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: This is a luxury position and and it really is because before I had this position I was a food and beverage director and I was doing what I'm doing now, kind of on the side.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I was doing wine education, I was doing Thursday, thursday and I was writing a schedule for 50 servers.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: So I really, to be honest, I wasn't doing any of them really that well because it was so much.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: I understand that and that's in a lot of that's in a lot of food and beverage positions where they say you know, we want you to do this great thing with the wine program because it's a great enhancement to the members, but we also need you to do X, y, z.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: And that goes back to what I was originally saying about the support from the management here at Benita Bay.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: It's been a singular focus for them and for me to be in the wine program and completely focus on that and again, that's one of the reasons it's been able to be successful and well received by the members.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: I'm not distracted by, you know, hiring or doing any of the other things that the food and beverage managers have to do, and it's necessary for them to help us make this work.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: So it's been a really, really it's a great enhancement.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: It's great.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: I try to consider it as it's an amenity to the club, so there we need that focus.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I know I'm constantly out in the hallway and members have you seen Melissa?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Have you seen Melissa?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: They're always looking for you.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's good she's hustling around here somewhere.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: There's definitely bottles clinking somewhere, so if you just listen for the bottles, you'll find me.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it is.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Again.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Though that goes back to all of these guys who have said hey, you know, we're going to help you be successful over here, just worry about this and we'll worry about everything else.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: So and now you've got some other key staff that are a little bit more behind the scenes that help out in the wine program.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit about who?
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Who helps?
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Kind of support what you do day in and day out?
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Yes, anybody who's been to any of our wine events knows Raphael is the backbone, literally, of the wine program.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: He sets every event up, he breaks every event down, he moves the wine when you come to pick up your wine.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Seventy five percent of the time it's him taking it out to your car.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Raphael checks in the orders, he makes sure that the coolers are stocked.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: He is doing a lot of work and a lot of it's like backbreaking work.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: So I always try to remember to tell people that thank God for Raphael.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: We also have one of our H2B employees who's back again this year, anil, who is a really big help to the wine program.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: We really look forward to him working with us whenever he can so, but he's got other responsibilities in the club.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: But he's done a great job with us.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: We love to see the team work on that.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: It's such a great showcase of that.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: With your wine team Now you've got some pretty impressive certifications behind your name, between that being a certified sommelier as well as a certified wine educator.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit about those certifications and what that process was like from those accrediting bodies?
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: The certification of certified sommelier is.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: It's a great one.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's one that helped me grow a lot in my career because I had to learn so much, and it's an ongoing process.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Wine is always changing.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, I just read an article the other day that came out about what's really giving people headaches in wine, and it's different than any of the other theories that we've heard in the past.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: You know, you're always learning about new wine regions, new grapes that are being used in wine regions that haven't been used in the past because of the warming of certain wine regions.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: So the point I'm trying to make is that all of these certifications are important, but once you get them, it's not over.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: You're always learning more and more about wine.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: Wine is always changing.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Methods are changing, grapes are different.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: So what is something that you think the members out there who are listening, who are not familiar with a lot of the wines they like their wines, like I do, but are not familiar with.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: You know where they come from, where's the most popular, what's like the top wines now that are selling.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: You know because every good we go through stages.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: You know Chardonnay was really big, and then Pinot Noir and sometimes Cabernet to me I like them all.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: That's very good of you, becky.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, be flexible.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: But I never used to drink 70-Yong Blanc, and I find myself drinking that more now than before.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: So what do you think?
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: What's the country that most of the popular wines are coming from?
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: We?
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: are a really USA heavy wine club.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: We love our Napa Cabs.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Paso Robles is an area that's getting more and more attention and members are asking for more and more wine from that region.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Paso Robles, being also in California, washington State unfortunately has a soft spot in my heart.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I love Washington State wines.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: They just never really seemed to take off.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: They don't make a lot of wine at individual wineries there.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Most wineries there make about 5,000 cases or less, so they really never get the marketability that they need to really take off here on this coast.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: They just never really make it quite this far over.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Italian wine at the club is very popular.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Sicily a lot of our members.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: It really goes in trends of how our members travel.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: We have had a lot of members traveling the past couple years and they have trips planned for the next couple years to Sicily.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: So we've seen more and more requests for Sicilian wine and more Interesting.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is very interesting.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Sicily has a lot of indigenous varietals that are really confusing.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: We've never heard of them before Like narrow.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: No, I won't use that one, but narrow de Vola is a really popular grape in Sicily.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: It's the most planted red grape there, but it's not something that just rolls off the tongue, as I just demonstrated.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: But a lot of members are learning about those grapes because they're excited.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Either they just had them when they were there or they want to try them before they go there and kind of figure out what they want.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: So what kinds of wines are narrow Bola grapes, the narrow de Bola?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Are there a de Bola?
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: It's.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: It's really a rich red grape, very, very good, but definitely specific to the cuisine in Sicily.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Rio is another grape that is a white grape.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: That's very good from there.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: That people who like Savignon Blanc I think will really like that grape.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: They have a lot of vermin Tino.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: They have some really interesting grapes.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: So I think one of the things you want to do is figure out what you like.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: If you like Savignon Blanc, say Mel, I love a Savignon Blanc.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: I'm going to Sicily.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: What should I try that I'm going to have there and I can compare some wines that will.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: If you like Savignon Blanc, you'll love vermin Tino, that kind of thing.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: And Mel, you're so good at picking up on those preferences of members and of even a fellow staff because, thank you, you know my love for esoteric Italian wines and you've always got me on the radar for kind of funky, funky wines that come in, so you're always so good at identifying those.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Any other kind of emerging trends in production regions that you're seeing in the wine world I know Sicily being one that's kind of getting hot right now Anything kind of coming down the pike that that you're seeing?
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: more and more wines from the Longduck region in France, which is a southern region in France.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: They produce the most wine in France.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Actually, people are somehow I don't know if they're traveling there or if they've heard about it but more people are familiar with that region than have been in the past, which has been really Refreshing.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: We do have a couple of wines from that region, but it's a very specific region.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: They have a very broad type of grapes that they have there, anything from Chardonnay to Peek pool, which is a great wine.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: If you like Savignon Blanc, it's a fun one.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, peek will do Pinae.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: We have a couple of bottles of that here, but if you like Savignon Blanc, it's a great wine to try those Langduck wines.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: They tend to be a little bit more budget friendly as well.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: They're very budget friendly, which is great.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: I'll have to keep great wine.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Go checks all the boxes, yeah.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, those are always good.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, the the Langduck region, sicily, certainly Sardinia, because Sardinia gets a lot of attention because of the blue zone, so people do ask for Sardinium wine sometimes.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: But, like I said earlier, paso Robles and Santa Barbara in California are two regions that are getting bigger and bigger.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: You mentioned travel and that being kind of what has popularized some passions for these wines.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: You had a pretty busy summer yourself from a travel perspective.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: I did, I was so lucky.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit about some of the kind of educational trips that you took this year?
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I was really lucky to go to Chile, in Argentina, this year, and Everybody always asked me oh my gosh, was it fun, was it fun?
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: And it really was fun.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: It was unbelievable, it was an incredible experience, but it was a nine to five education experience the entire time I was down there.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: The people who hosted me from country Toro have a really big focus For their wine company on education.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: They actually have the largest wine education program in South America, in Chile, and my entire trip was about going all over the country of Chile learning about different regions, learning about different terroirs and what grapes work in certain places.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: I learned a lot about Carmen year, which is their signature grape from From, originally from Bordeaux, but really calls Chile home.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Certainly, I learned a lot about Malbec when I went to Argentina, which again, was originally a Bordeaux grape and now really claims Argentina as its home.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: So I had a lot of great education.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: And then I went to Italy and Got to go to the Campania region, where they have lots of fantastic esoteric white wines that I'm really crazy about.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: They also have some really nice red wines.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: And then I went to Sicily and learned a lot about that island producing not only the indigenous grapes that are a little unusual to us, but very good.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: But they're also doing a lot of what they call European varietals, which would be the French varietals.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: They have a lot of Sera, they have a lot of Cabernet, a lot of Merlot, and it's always interesting to hear and see how people are Growing and making those wines in kind of unlikely regions Such as Sicily.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: So that was really good.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: And then I went to Napa, and Napa Valley was another great trip, but it was really more about meeting some of our partners who we work with a lot out there.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: I got to go to Cade, I went to Spotswood.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: These are two wineries that we've worked with a lot here at the club and I enjoy both of them very much, in addition to probably nine other wineries I went to.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: So Farniente was a highlight of that trip, so a white egg far yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Farniente was a great, beautiful, beautiful place.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Every they're the ones who make en route.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, they make en route.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: They make post and beam, they make Dolce.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: They just make great wine across the board stops along the way.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: I know I was very lucky.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: So, yes, thank you for asking.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: I had a lot of great education opportunities, as well as as really great, great Experiences, and and South America can't be overstated what, what an experience that was.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: So thank you now here's a question I think I would like to know is what does Melissa Hemingway drink?
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: What are your favorites right now?
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: You know I people ask me that a lot.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: It's such a good question.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: People always ask me that and I know there it's kind of a disappointing answer because it changes just like all of our tastes.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: I will tell you that I always seem to go back to Pinot Noir I as being my favorite.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: I'll go away from it for a little while.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: I'll get really into some Italian varietals.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I love, love, love Brunello.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: I love San Giovese, but I always seem to come back to Pinot Noir.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I love Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: I love Pinot Noir from Burgundy.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Of course it's home, but I always come back to Pinot Noir.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: And of course Willamette Valley can't be forgotten in that discussion.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: So that's what I always end up with Good choice, I love.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Pinot Noir.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you, I do too.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: You know that I do.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: It's so versatile and it's just a great food wine.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: It's just really nice, I agree.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Now, when it comes to selecting wine, I always kind of joke with members and I tell them how much bad wine that Mel has to drink to produce and select great wines for the club.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little about that process and what goes into you selecting wines for the club specifically?
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: There are opportunities for me to try wine, probably four or five days a week, and time really doesn't allow me to do that and we don't really need that many labels.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: What I aim for is to have the best of what we can on the list, so I have to kind of narrow it down.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: It means a lot to me where it's from.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: I like to have a broad list.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: I don't think that having a list with only Napa Valley Cabernet although those are my biggest sellers really represent the world of Cabernet.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: They make beautiful Cabernet in South Africa.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: They make fantastic Cabernet in Washington State.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: They make great Cabernet in Australia, by the way.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: So I kind of try to have representations of those different regions on the list.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: So when I'm looking for wines for the club, I'll do research on where the best producers are from those other regions and kind of narrow it down that way, because there's thousands of producers where I can always try.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: That's why I think that your classes, your educational classes, and even your thirsty Thursday is a great way for the member to expand their tastes.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they go to the Napa's because that's what they're familiar with.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: It's not that they really have tasted that many wines, but what a great opportunity, when you're attending those classes or the thirsty Thursday or your wine week or your grand wine tasting, to try all these different wines.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: So you might veer off a little bit from that Napa and say, okay, let's try a new, different kind of wine.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Definitely One of the regions that I think is going to get back to one of your original questions, joseph is going to get more attention in the future is South America.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Malbec is a fantastic wine that I am included in this we kind of forget about.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: We forget about how great it is and we get really into the Napa cabs and everything and then you're seeing the prices of Napa cab just rise every season.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: They go up, sometimes twice a year.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: These prices go up and then I go back to a Malbec from Mendoza, argentina, and it's got so many of the qualities that I love in a cabernet, really really well made but really fairly priced.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: So that's a region that I'm focusing more on for the wine list because I'm finding so much quality in South America that is very competitive in price and really high quality.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: How often do you change your wine list?
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Very often.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't put too many servers.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: The servers will tell you.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Very often I feel it it's a bit.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: It's an evolving wine list.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: If I have something that's been on the list for a long time and really hasn't moved, I'll look forward to moving it and then putting something else in its place.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: If something is moving really quickly, I also look to put something in its place because I think, oh, people will want to have something new to try.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: So it's an evolving wine list.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: So if you come in one week and you see a couple of great wines that you love from Australia and they're not there in three months, chances are it will come back around.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Maybe we're trying some new things.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: Maybe we're trying new Pinot Noirs from New Zealand, which is a great region for Pinot Noir, and we've just actually put a new Pinot Noir on our list from New Zealand because it was missing and it is so important to me to have the entire world represented, as long as it's a good region.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: So Now we're a uniquely large club, given the membership size.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: That also plays into how you curate your wine list.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: How many unique labels do you have and how do you manage them all?
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: I manage them all well some days, but not always well.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: But there's about 430 labels total and that includes our Buy the Glass and our house wines.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: So there is a very, very broad selection.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: A little something for everybody.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: A little something for everybody, and that's really what we aim for.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Our goal is never to say no, we don't have that in a way that it's not good enough for us because we have.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: We really do.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: We have every wine for every taste.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Not all of them are necessarily on the wine list, but people know that if their aunt is coming to town for Thanksgiving and they absolutely love white Zinfandel, even though they can't find it on the wine list, we have it on the list.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: We have it here at the club because we are here for the membership and, of course, we want the members to have what they enjoy.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Can you?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Let let's say, a member went to a country, whether it be Australia or Italy or somewhere, and they tasted this fabulous wine and they can't find it here.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Can they go to you and say, hey, mel, can you find this wine for me?
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: I have members do that a lot.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: A lot of members have been going to Croatia in the past couple years and they always come back to me and say, wow, we had this great wine in Croatia.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: We had this great wine.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: If it's distributed in Florida, we can find it.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Of course, we will get it for the member.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: If it's not which is often the case with wines from Croatia smaller wineries from Italy, france, spain, as great as they are when you're there, doesn't mean that they're distributing here in the United States.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: You have to make a lot of wine to distribute on a worldwide basis.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: A lot of the wineries that we tend to go to are smaller.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: That's what makes it so charming and wonderful, and we, of course, we want to hear, but they don't necessarily make enough to get it here.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Of course we'll always look, though we have the resources to look for it.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: If it's being distributed here, we'll find it for you.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: It's great, yes, so thank you.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: So we're coming down to now.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: If members want to know more about you and about everything that you have to offer as far as the wines and the wine programs, where can they look?
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: I have a Facebook page it's BBC Wine Lovers, and you just have to log on and ask to be approved.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: It is a closed Facebook page because we don't want a lot of people on it.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: We just want our membership on it, but it's a great resource to see what's coming up.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: We always put what's happening on for Thursday, thursday wine education.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: We have wine dinners coming up that will be posted on there, so it's always a good resource.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And I think we've discussed this and I'm definitely going to, in the next couple of weeks, going to be putting up a page just for you oh, that would be great when we'll put some information on there, whether it be, you know, some of the wines that you want to discount, or anything that the members would want to know about the wine program, trying to push for them to get to know you better.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: That would be great.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Not everybody has Facebook, so that would be another great way for them to, at their convenience, go on and kind of see what's happening in the world of wine, and we'll probably put a current wine list on that page so you can kind of see what we have to offer and what's new on the wine list.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: A lot of people ask me about the wine list.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: Why are certain things in bold?
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Usually what's in bold is what's new or what I'm really excited about, so that's why you'll find certain things on the wine list that are bold, and now we've had some great events already in our rearview mirror for the season already, what do we have coming up that you'd like members to know about for upcoming wine events, whether there be wine educations, wine dinners or otherwise?
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: We have a wonderful wine dinner coming up with Heitz cellars December 19th and we're starting to see some really good traction and people signing up for that event.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: We will be featuring the Heitz Martha's Vineyard, which is an iconic wine here in the USA and people who love Napa Valley Cabernet love that wine.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: That's featured at that dinner and those wine dinners.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: You specifically work with the chef right with the menu and all the wines that go with it.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, and actually the chef is getting those wines today.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: So that's great, coming up for our wine tastings we've got.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: This week we're doing the wines of the prisoner.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Next week we're doing a fantastic pop up wine tasting with the corn wines, followed by a Roombauer tasting.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: One of our favorite wine tastings of the year is our end of the year.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: We call it the best of greatest hits of 2023.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: We usually feature six wines, starting with the sparkling wine for that event and it's our most popular wines of 2023.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: It's a really fun event.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: And when is that?
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: That will be the last Thursday of the year, december 28th.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: That will be the greatest hits of 2023.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: We've had some really great wines get very popular this year.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: And the hits just keep on coming.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Yes, they sure do, and that's always a really fun event.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: It's between Christmas and New Year's.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Everybody's kind of had fun with their family and they're ready to get out and have fun at Thursday Thursday with all of their club friends.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: So that's always a popular event.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: So, as we're wrapping this up, I hope that we're able to do more podcasts with you, because I know this is going to be a very educational conversation that the members will love to hear, and it's nice to keep it up and keep them refreshed of all the different wines that are coming up, and we'll have more conversations with Joseph and yourself, and thank you for sharing some of your background with us and we hope to learn more and more.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, and thank you to all of the members and the Anita Bay staff who's been so supportive and patient.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Cheers, cheers, thank you.