Ep 2352 Robert Joseph| Book Club with Richard Hough

There's something in me that probably comes, if anywhere from the fact that my father was a surrealist artist, and he just didn't see things necessarily the way they were immediately presented, and that, you know, that goes with surrealism. And to me, I struggle to see a rule without seeing the questions behind, you know, why why does that rule exist? What would happen if it didn't exist? Hello, and welcome to Good Club. The Italian wine podcast. I'm your host, Richard Hoff, and I'm delighted that you're joining us as we get between the vines with some of the best wine writing out there. So sit back, pour yourself a glass, and enjoy the show with the Italian White Podcast. This one you join us behind the scenes at five star wines in verona, where our guest today is Robert Joseph Robert is a leading figure in the international wine community, and I am delighted that he found some time in his incredibly busy day to chat to us about his prolific career as a wine writer. Consultant producer and industry analyst. Robert, your Wikipedia entry describes you as a wine connoisseur. Is that something that you always aspired to be? No. And it's a word that I think Wikipedia comes up with and I don't particularly like, but it does, differentiate me from one or two other Robert Josephs. There might be out there, including an American politician. Conosphere is one of those words that kind of separates people who know about wine from everybody else, and I didn't like it. Don't actually like wine eggs, but very much either. But I guess if you've been doing it for long enough and you get invited to come along and and judge at events like this, five star wines tasting, you know, I guess you probably are more of an expert than the average, person out there drinking wine, but I think wine is is full of, barriers that set. The the people who know about wine on the one side from the people who drink wine on the other, and I've never really felt very comfortable with that. But having said that, I've always wanted to be one of those people who who who knew a bit about wine. How would you describe yourself? How would you describe your job? That's the problem. You know, basically, you know, how do you, you know, you don't actually at a dinner party. Somebody says, hey, what are you doing? You say, I'm a wine expert. There's no way you're gonna do that. So you kind of say, you know, I work in wine. And in my case, it's a little bit more tricky than it is for for a lot of people because I I'm a jack of several trades, if you like. So I produce wine. I write about, the business of wine, and I do consulting and, I write books and so on, but I I used to be a wine critic. I'm no fortunately, I'm no longer a wine critic because when having started to make wine, I didn't think that was, appropriate, but I still have a great deal of feeling for some of my my colleagues and friends who who still are wine writers, and it's not an easy job to do. And so where did this interest in in Windfirst originate that I've heard stories about stamp collecting, and an Italian Metroji called Mario and a six year stint in the university of life. I've done your research very well. So very simply, I was an only child and grew up. My parents at a hotel and restaurant, And I got interested in all the bottles of wine, which had labels that reminded me of the of the stamps that I was then collecting. So that was the peril and I wondered, you know, every stamp has a story, you know, where does it come from? What is it? What what is where is Sri Lanka or where is Ghana or whatever these stamps were. And then, you know, why was this label gold and this one black? And this one had a a tower or a castle or whatever on it. So that was the that was the the background, to wine, And I was very lucky because we had a a Matridee. We didn't have a sommelier in those days. Not everybody. A lot of restaurants, smart restaurants that you might have thought would have had sommeliers and wood today didn't, and those hit. But we had a a Matridee called Mario, who saw that I had a bit of an interest, and he kept giving me samples of, what people had left in the bottom of the bottles. And he was he was genuinely, one of those people who was genuinely passionate about wine, and and I've been thinking about this recently for a for a book I've been writing. And he was one of the people who when he was tasting wine, you could actually see that he was going somewhere else. And I reminded when I thought about it, it was like, actually talking to your grandmother or grandfather about something, you realize that they're no longer actually here in the room with you there. They're actually somewhere twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, however many years ago, some, you know, in in their in their minds, and he For him, that would happen sometimes with a glass of wine, and I didn't understand that at the time. But today, I do understand it, and it's something that some wines can do. Not very many, but some can do that. Yeah. That's that's very interesting. I've had that kind of conversation with with a few people recently where the sense that wine is stimulating something beyond just what you're for you're drinking, it it triggers in the way that a smell can or I think you yeah. Look. I mean, Bruce and the Madeline is is the is the obvious line and, you know, and and and and melodies and and as you say smells and whatever. You know, the brain is is is responds to all sorts of senses. And, you know, I think that that we're ready to be, you know, you'll see someone in a crowd who reminds you of someone. New York, your, you know, you'll you'll hear just a few bars or of a melody and you and something will do it. And wine will do that. Yeah. Can you imagine your life or your career without wine as an alternative to asking the question, how did you get into wine? What would you have done if you haven't discovered the world of why do you think? That, again, it's a very good question. And, you know, I'm I'm one of those people who, when I'm I travel a lot too much, probably. And I I have the kind of, I guess, maybe promiscuous, I don't know what to say, but you know, when I'm in Shanghai or Vienna or wherever, there is part of me that goes, could I live here? You know, in a alternative universe? You know, could I just stop living where I do and start living here? And there's part of me that goes, could or I couldn't or whatever. So there's part of me that says, yeah. You could have been I could have been a lawyer or journalist or in advertising or whatever. So, yes, I could. I think I'm not sure that wine was the right thing for me to have chosen to be really blunt. But then I'm not sure that if any of those other things would have been the right thing either. That there's something in me that probably comes if anywhere from the fact that my father was a surrealist artist And he just didn't see things necessarily the way they were immediately presented, and that, you know, that goes with surrealism. And to me, I struggle to see a rule without seeing the questions behind, you know, why why does that rule exist? What would happen if it didn't exist? And that would apply in all sorts of things. So if you're a lawyer, if you're a lawyer, I guess that's what you do every day, in advertising, you know, you were saying, you know, what how can we sell this bar of soap or this car or whatever? How do we play on the emotions of the people who see the advertisement or whatever? And that, has always fascinated me. And I think, in wine one of the dangers in wine is that we get very, very bogged down in the terroir and the soil and all the rest. And the the thing about why it's fascinating is that it's an emotional, convivial product, you know, that people actually sit around and enjoy together and get drunk and argue and fall in love. And all sorts of things happen through wine, and they're emotionally driven things. And yet, when we talk about wine, you know, we we end up talking about chalk and gravel and barrels from from allier or wherever, and, you know, all that sort of stuff. And to me, there's there's a bit of a disconnect, if you like, feeling these two sides. And, the the bit that affects why people buy the wine they do and how they drink it when they drink it, That has increasingly fascinated me. Over and above the, you know, how why it tastes the way it does. We're we're supposed to believe that and, you know, I'm sorry. You probably interview winemakers for this in this booths all the time, but I'm not sure that winemakers are any more interesting than than, bakers, or fishermen, or butchers, or gardeners, or whatever. And specifically, you know, they're taking grapes and throw them into wine. Some of them are absolutely fascinating people. Some of them are really boring. Yeah. But it's what happens to the product they make that really and the sense of artists, there are some really boring artists. But, you know, the the effect that the canvas or the sculpture they make has on people Yeah. That's is what's a very raw mid point. And, we we'd reset week after we can interview people who produce Key, for example, or produce coffee, I I perhaps one day, but I I can't see why coffee should be less interesting than wine. And one of these that fascinates me about about the wine industry is the obsession that wine people have with terroir and where wine comes from and so on. And then they will go out and have have a cup of coffee from from a machine or from wherever that comes from an espresso pod, and you say to them which country was it from, which region, and they've got no idea. And if she say, actually, I'm gonna make a wound blending grapes from Spain and France, they look at you as if you Yeah. Were were were proposing something completely of errand. But, you know, they told they'll do that with tea or coffee. Yeah. So so you you do see these kind of idiosyncrasies or hippocrates if you like in the wine industry, but you've you spent an an an entire career at a lifetime almost observing and writing about the wine industry you began, I think, is, the wine correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph for sixteen years from the mid nineteen eighties to the early two thousands, which is a a pretty seismic period in world affairs were perhaps not by today's standards. And I think, again, we went we I was very lucky. I was in the UK, and I've always said between two thou so between nineteen eighty five and two thousand that sort of appears sort of kind of overlap with an ox and wine writer for the the son each other up was what I call, the summer of love of wine. And it was an extraordinary time, and it was you can actually go back and say, This is a time when we started to see Australian wines and Chilean wines and New Zealand wines. And, South Africa because of apartheid came a bit later, but, but, yeah, and, obviously, California coming into the UK, we had a number of very, very dynamic retailers and importers in the UK, and the UK was the center. And only the the fact was it that the London International Wine Trade Fair, which is what it was called. You know, go around there and you do American accents and Swedish accents, and people come all over from all over the world to London to find out what was happening in the wine world. And so that was just we were just lucky for about fifteen years for to be in the heart of the storm. You know, there are moments like that. I'm sure that that that, you know, people say that London is is that for the the the video gaming world. I don't know how true that is, but, you know, there are certain places of the the Hamilton song, you know, to be in the room where something's happening. Where London and the UK, but London specifically was the room in which wine was happening. And to what extent were you an observer of that process and to what extent were you a shaper, or a influencer, use that word as that correspondent long standing coral owner on a on a broadsheet. Very tough. Question to ask. I think the relationship I think what wind critics do, and their role is very, very complicated in the sense that I I I wrote for a newspaper that came out every Sunday and had, I think, two hundred and fifty thousand or whatever it was. Re copies and then he multiplied it up and said, every copy is read by x number of people. And if you did it right, you said, we've got a million people or whatever. It could be reading, whatever. Actually, you knew that actually a tiny proportion of people actually read what you wrote in the newspaper. However, what you did know that of that number of people, that would have included all of the importers and the retailers and and other critics and so on and the same thing applied to everyone else who's writing. So if if I went and I was with Oz Clark, one of the first people to go to Australia in those days. What we wrote didn't drive an awful lot of people to go out and buy Australian wines, but it did help to prompt I guess, a number of retailers to think, oh, we should look at Australia. Then the next time the people like us wrote about it, we were writing, hey, there's Australian wine in this store and that store. And so it became self propagate if you like. So I think we were part of it. I think in you, in the case of any, movement, and, you know, with social media, you really see that where you start the ball rolling, other people pick it up, and then you pick up what the other people are picked up. So very hard to say, but I think what was true then and probably isn't true today, was that, the people you could think about as being UK wine writers of those days and chats Robinson, team at Ken Ozkla, myself, and few others. We knocked around quite a lot with the buyers and the some of the the key importers and so on. And so, you know, we were we were backed up to my my Hamilton reference. We were in the route. I don't think that's true now. I think that the the the the the way wine is bought by the big retailers is very different today. And I don't think the the wine writers such a day have that kind of asset. Yeah. The rumors got bigger and there are more people in the room. Yeah. Thanks. During that same period, you launched the Magazine Wine International and the London International Wine Challenge. So talking about these wine competitions, what in your view is the purpose or the value of these kind of events? What do we offer the consumer and or the producer? I think the competitions, again, we started the international one challenge with IWC in a nineteen eighty four by accident. It was an article in a magazine in the see what we were doing, which set English wines against wines in other countries, and English wines did surprisingly well way before there were English parking wines and the wave that we know today. And that then led to what became a competition that grew from fifty odd wines in the first, iteration up to, I think, ten thousand, twelve thousand when it was at its peak. I think Again, back to what I was saying earlier in terms of what critics do, it is a it's it's hard to quantify whether you're giving the wine go a gold medal, in that competition is what matters or or what people then do with the gold medal they've pad. So if they enter the wine and they get a gold medal and they tell people who had a gold medal and they put the gold medal on the label, people buy that wine, and maybe they've never bought a wine from that country before, and they buy another wine from that country. So, look, you know, the snowball effect is very, very, hard to quantify, but I think it certainly happens. And, today, you see, I'm doing some consultants. So I've done some results here for for, for moldova, for example, moldova believes they enter quite a few competitions and they're they're they're every year they're saying, we've got more medals. What does that mean? Well, it does mean the average quality of moldovan one has gone up. Yeah. There's no question. And when they're going to see retailers, you know, they say, hey, that could give us a give us a break because look, and that probably hasn't had does have a value. But, you know, some competitions are definitely more influential than others. We are here at the five star wines, which is not technically a competition, but effectively. Behaves this one if you like. And there's a book that comes out, which is called first of all, why is the book. And then people, who want to buy good examples of Italian wine will buy that book or get that book and see, examples that are that offer, yeah, this is what a Masamino should taste like or this is what a anetna, a white should taste like. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned the bird because this is the bird club after all. And is that something a unique offering of this one competition that it has that tangible book at the end of it rather than simply just that list or a catalog or a website. When we had one international magazine, the the the results of the international wine challenge went into that magazine, Decanter certainly publishes the decanter award. So magazines do it in terms of books. I think this is unusual in having a book. And I think what's nice about the book is it will potentially remain on somebody's shelf for a long time where magazines end up in the bottom of a cage somewhere with a hamster and a wheel above. And, I mean, just to go back to this idea that perhaps Wayne is different to to coffee or tea or beer or whiskey, do we judge beer or or whisky in the same way, or is this something that's unique to wine? I think beer tastes is definitely drudge beer in the same way, and I think the beer beer tastes just take beer championships and awards very, very seriously. But I don't think I would base my decision to buy a beer on a point awarded by someone or on a prize from a a competition today? Not necessarily, but I'm not sure how many people in going out to buy a bottle of wine in Italy or or Germany or France necessarily are doing so today in terms of wine. So, I think in the states definitely point scores have worked very highly. We we we take scores highly when it comes to, TripAdvisor, to Amazon, you know, in other spheres. And I think, you know, even in terms of theater plays and books and and music. We tend to think that wine isn't a special two other people than maybe those people think it is. Okay. And you mentioned again five star wines and the book that comes out of that. One of the things about five star wines, they they is it gives you this snapshot of the vast diversity of Italian wine. Can you tell us, are are you seeing any emerging trends? I noticed that you stay one. I mean, I think that we're seeing here on here, there's there's definitely less newer being used is definitely a lighter touch in various ways being that you can see. But I don't think you need to be very careful because you'll hear people tell you that that that your young people today want lighter, fresher wines, and then you go out and find that a wine called X XL in the US has just sold forty million bottles of wine from zero in two years. And it has sixteen percent alcohol, so it's fortified effectively, and it's fruit flavored, and it's sweet. It doesn't conform to any of the the rules. Look, people have told you that young people want, and it's very targeted at young people. So I think, you know, there's not there isn't one trend in why. I think we need to be very careful about that. And there are lots of different. It's it's a river. I won't say necessarily the stream is going in two directions at once, but it's certainly not all going in the same direction, the same speed. But, yeah, we definitely see and I think what's interesting is we're seeing regions and styles and graves. I've just tasted a a vignonier from from Latzio, which is probably not a conjunction of words, and I might have put together ten years ago. And it was very good. Okay. So we're seeing if not new products and new ways of Yeah. And new products and new ways. Yeah. Okay. Great. And still three days to go, so so everything to play for. Yeah. Okay. Switching gear, slightly, I wanna talk about your involvement in the production of wine. Yeah. And so in two thousand and five, he moved into wine production and co created Le Grand Moore, an innovative French brand which now sells nearly four million bottles a year. And twenty twenty four, you launched the Georgian wine called Cabau. You did it. Very good. How she did it? Okay. It means coming together in in Georgia. Okay. As a producer, and feel free just to to give us a bit of background and a bit of context from both of these projects that you're involved in. What I'd really want to ask is as a producer, what are your biggest challenges that you're facing at the moment? There are two challenges. One is climate change makes wine production more difficult than than it has been in the past, but it's never been that easy, but, you know, now each year is is even more different in some ways. And then on the other hand, you have to sell the stuff. And in this world, people are drinking less wine every year than they were the year before. So, you know, to be blunt, if I sell a bottle of wine, that's probably a bottle of wine that somebody else isn't selling. Yeah, I'm not necessarily turning people onto wine from whatever else they were drinking before. So that, you know, those are two challenges. And, because I, you know, I write a column every week called the devil's advocate in, mining is international in which my role there is to question the status quo. And in my winemaking, my winemaking is literally when I say the winemaking my maker, look at my hands, until I'm not oppression the winemaker, but wine production working with very skilled winemakers. I what I'm trying to do is turn some of the things, the ideas that I've expressed in newspaper and magazine, articles into three dimensions in the shape of of tanks and bottles of of wine. So in one sense, what I'm doing in France, what we started doing in France, as you said, twenty years ago, was to produce new world style brands branded wines in Longergog. So We had all these wines, we had these chardonnays, and cabernets, and pinot noiras, and so many old ones that came from all those New World countries. And we didn't see them from France or anywhere else near it very much. And I said, why couldn't we? Why shouldn't we? And so we went out and found a set of cooperatives down in in Longerot who had one thou, that's right, six thousand hectares of vines. And we put up a cabernet sit up, and Cabernet Sherah has been at school in time and a and a chardonnay vionnier out to the market, that did well. And then, you know, other, as I said, PNR and Wiles and so on followed. And these have been why instead of had whatever success you've had is is not dissimilar to the success of some of those Californian and Australian, New Zealand's Tillion wise have had. And, basically, they're incredibly easy to see on a shelf and understand. And I hope they're incredibly easy to, enjoy because you don't have to keep them for a long time and have them with this food or that food or whatever. And because of the name and the and there's a black sheep on the label, they're incredibly easy to recognize them by again if you can see them on the same shelf on another day. And that, you know, if you get that right, then you've got a a regular customer, which is exactly the same as you'd have with with a beer or jam or anything else. And and a lot of wine people don't like to see themselves as being compared to beer or jam, but, yeah, we are. We're If you're on sale in the supermarket, then that's what happens. My georgian line, which is, as you've just said, literally, we really started doing it. We released stuff as mine last year after effectively five years of of experimentation. Is totally, opposite because, a, it's got a name Kavshiri that nobody's gonna be able to, understand. They can just about pronounce it, I guess. And then they turn the labeled to the, around, and they can see the back label's a whole list of grapes they can't recognize. And, you know, it's got what a lot of traditional wines have got, which has got go away written all over it. Most Italian wines have got go away, you've written it. The only difference in terms of my Georgian go away wine, and all the Italian go away wines is that I know it's got go away on it. You know, basically, part of what we're doing is factoring, factoring in the fact that sommeliers and other, people, specialists, wine retailers, and so on are going to have to present it to people and get them to try it because they're not gonna pick it up and try it. So whereas a number of Italian producers think that having created a new DOC or DOCD last week, that that's gonna work. The people are suddenly is gonna pick up their wine from wherever that region is. You know, actually, I don't think my Georgia Wine is necessarily that much more handicapped than a a new DOC from Southern Italy. Yeah. And Kafshiri, it it's it's one of those words you look at and you think my god. How am I gonna tackle this? But actually, it's not that bad. Georgia language is very, very difficult. Yeah. And we spend a long time choosing words, looking at words that worked. But it actually has a reason for existing, which is that Captuary means it's come together in Georgia. And there's an awful lot of coming together involved in it. So firstly, there is a very cool young Georgian superstar winemaker and there's a fat aging former wine critic, which is me from Britain. So it's two different countries, two different, you know, everything there. We're making wine with, ten different grape varieties from two different regions for the white, four different regions for the red, the rose, and people say, oh, oh, you're making, obviously, your Georgia, you must be making a a favorite and floral wine. No. Well, yes and no. Basically, nine or ten percent of it is made in a preferably ground. Another five percent is made with skin contact in stainless steel. Yeah. But why are you doing that? A machine is saying old georgian technique, but in a modern way, and then we've got some stainless steel fabrication and some barrels, none of which is interesting to the average person, but it means that it's got a a a georgian character, but it isn't the full on, georgian straight out of the ground and for a model. And then we're blending vintages. And, you know, we believe four different vintages in the case of the white. And people say, why are you doing that? And my answer is why, why not? Champagne does it? Why shouldn't we do it? So this year at, financially, we're doing a tasting, for, I think, only twenty five people, but, we'll have, Vecosicilia from, Rebecca Aldura in in in Spain, Cade, vineyards in California, Napa, a Cabayoloko from Vald de vieso in Chile, and, rotor collection and the entry and and and Passquers are hay French. And all of these are multi vintage wines. The thing is there aren't very many multi vintage wine vintage wines in the world. And you say, why? You know, there's lots of champagne. So why aren't there many saloons? And by Syntech and our red wine, you've got a red wine where we co ferment black grapes and white grapes. And you ask people, say, well, where does that happen? They saw what happens in Cobrow tea in Rome. Okay. Where else has happened? Australia, where the copying, cockberry, in the row. But why would you not actually put black and white grapes into the same vat and ferment them together? We we've proven it works. A cockberry proves it works. So I think, you know, I think now is the time what's exciting about living in wine in right now in twenty twenties. It's the it's the time where I think a lot of experimentation is beginning to happen. Yeah. And, yes, we these are certainly exciting times to be involved in the production of wine, but the debate I was leaving out for you when I was asking about the biggest challenges currently facing the industry which you you very carefully, I think, avoided was this question of tariffs, which is a very topical issue at the moment, but we're recording this at the beginning of April where we're currently under the shadow of a potential two hundred percent tariff on European. Why? What's your take on that? It's fascinating because no one had my my, French, wine business could we we sell a lot of wine in America, and actually having a two hundred percent tariff, which is still possible, would be pretty horrendous. We had a twenty five percent tariff from Trump when he was last in, so we we know what it feels like. But it will be whatever it is eight times worse than that. On the other hand, you know, does that mean that lots of people are gonna buy my Georgian line if if there aren't any tariffs on Georgia and there are on Europe. And, you know, the thing we don't know is is where is in favor and where is not in favor at any given moment. So South Africa could feel in favor, if it went for the fact that US administration doesn't like South Africa at the moment. Australia could definitely be in favor. Who knows? I just think that it's just not very comfortable to be in a world where we just don't know from one week to the next. And even even From one day to the next, even Yeah. And even if the the tariffs don't come in or do come in or come in in part or whatever. We just don't earn six six weeks time or six months or whatever that they're not gonna be changed in somewhat. So, I think that it's a very, very, you know, these are febrile times, I think, it's the expression I need. Yeah. Absolutely. And on the subject of this sebrileity, if that's the correct word, I I wanted also to ask you about the febrile word of social media, you mentioned devil's advocate and your role as questioning the the status quo, and I think it's fair to say that you are active and sometimes outspoken on social media. I I think what's scary is is there are two separate things. I mean, I think cults like, you have never been a joiner. I had to join a I had to join a a a journalist union at one time because I was kind of obliged to do so, but, I really, you know, unions do an awful lot of good. Don't get me wrong, but very often they run by the wrong people in the and and do maybe the right thing, but in the wrong ways. And I've I've never really, I've certainly never seen much appeal in most political party parties or religious organizations or whatever. Wine is a cult. There are an awful lot of people who've joined the cult of wine, and, you know, you say, you know, wine isn't very healthy. Oh, yes, it is, whatever, whatever. And, I have to say that that MAGA and Trump, you know, it's a cult. And the moment you have cults, it means you just cannot have a rational conversation. You cannot say, you know, you might be fifty five percent right, and the other guys have forty five a forty five percent right or whatever or vice versa. And that's I think the the biggest problem at the moment. I I get why a law full of people did not want to vote for Biden or then Harris and then did vote for for Trump, but then I don't get why they then are treating Trump as the he were, the messiah. And I get why people prefer wine to spirits or beer or I but I don't get why they then refuse to acknowledge some of the, undeniable downsides to wine that that we have to put on the balance sheet against the positives. So social media, which I've, you know, I used to be in Twitter, I have thirty four thousand in theory, I think. I don't know if I've got them still, but it did have thirty four thousand followers on Twitter. But, you know, Twitter is not a very nice place to be now. I'm not sure that Facebook. I've I've given up more of some business. I use LinkedIn. A lot. I I find it very useful in terms of if anyone wants to find out what I've written, they'll find it through on LinkedIn. The nature of the discourse seems to be passive aggressive rather than simply aggressive. I think there's a, you know, there's basically black versus white and not a little gray. And that's really and my my world is not pushing gray, but it's also saying, you know, is that really white or is it really black, and just have another look at it. And but what I really want people to do is to read my pieces and think about something. And then if they still think what they thought before, but have actually dis considered why they thought that, then I've achieved something. And if they've changed their view, then I've achieved something. Yeah. How effective it is I cannot say. But, you know, basically, why do we put all our wine in seventy five centiliter bottles? Why shouldn't we have smaller bottles? And, you know, this week, I'm looking at there's a thing about whether ai bots can recommend wine as successfully as human beings. You stop and like, I so hold on a second. Firstly, how many people ever get a real recommendation for a real human being? Who knows what they're doing? Oh, you're getting restaurants? The most then go to those sort of restaurants? Number one. But secondly, the thing about wine is it's a convivial beverage that usually is consumed by two or three or four people, and actually having somebody say, oh, Robert, here. I know I understand you deeply, and I know that the wine you are really on a drug, it's not gonna be of much help to the other people around the table. And, you know, the whole recommendation thing is very much a one on one. It's I, Robert, we're gonna decide what you Stewart we're gonna like to drink, but you you aren't gonna drink this by yourself. And I think those are the questions that we need to ask ourselves. That's the kind of questions that you're asking in your weekly devills and and and in essentially the two books that that that are coming out this year. Yep. So I I I want to move the conversation on to those two books, Robert, wine thinking, and when people have I got that, I get up. And the the first one thinking is this collection, am I right of articles from in many groups? It's two years from mining goods international where the where the devil's advocate pieces appear, with little introductory pieces by me in which I then say, this is what I said ten years ago. Look how wrong I was, or indeed, like, I was I was right about this, but maybe not in quite it didn't turn out quite the way I saw or whatever. I think it's quite interesting. It's a way of looking back at the last twenty years because I think that, you know, history is very useful when you're looking at where we're going in the future. And I really enjoyed doing that on the range of topics that it that it covers. And you can dip in and out. And has that been released yet? I mean, not yet. And they're both gonna come out more or less in tandem. I wasn't the original plan, but they're they're both coming out really sort of after the summary. Okay. Okay. And the the second has a of the wine people or an AI twist? It's completely different idea. And that is based on a concept, and I'm really, really no idea. You know, it's just because against everything I I think in terms of wine, we should think about who's something's for. And I'm not entirely sure. Actually, I'm not entirely sure if either book is for, if I'm really honest about it, but I and I hope I've got some ideas on that. But this is just a a me waking up one day, looking at the, the wine world and thinking about all of the the players. I was thinking about a movie, you know, you go and see the Oscars, and you see all these awards that have been given to the the the person of the costume, the person who did the make out, the person who did the music, the perfect, the casting, you know, stuff it. We pay no attention to, the editor, and so on. And that fascinates me because that, you know, making a movie is not just, a few actors and a director on a cameraman. There's there's a lot that gets behind it. And in wine, the same thing applies. You know, the the the label that inspired you to buy that wine was not designed by the winemaker, usually. The winemaker may decide it what we're trying to, like, to use. There was a label designer. The website looks the way it does because somebody made it look that way. The communication that happens, the style of wine, the the way the grapes are grown, and that there's so many different elements in there. And so I thought it'd be re let's let's bring all these people together, and there's just two hundred people. They've all got names. They're personas. None of them exist. None of them are flesh or blood. But they they're they're they are literary characteristics, if you like, in in in a in a scenario. You and there are thirty odd of them are wine drinkers, but different people drink wine in different ways for different reasons and different circumstances. And again, I think the wine industry doesn't necessarily appreciate appreciate that. And we kind of imagine that everybody wants to know what the terroir or everybody wants to know at this all, like, you know, they're all different. They're all buying wine for different reasons. And the people selling it, the people making, they're all different So there's two hundred of them. And in fact, the book starts with a with a I would say it's a short story, but it's basically a a twenty four hour scenario, which a number of these two hundred people meet each other, but they don't meet each other, but they interrupt. And you hopefully get an idea from that. Of how what a web it is and how they the the the each or you could predict your puzzle or whatever the how all these pieces fit with each other. Yeah. It sounds absolutely fascinating. And I'm looking forward to seeing the end result in in the autumn and that's published. You are a prolific wine writer, and you have been for for many years now with more than twenty five books, I think, to your credit, an incredible back catalog. So I'm gonna ask you about your writing habits. How do you get in the mood to write? Where do you write? How often do you write when you're writing a book or a column? How do you how do you get into that? What advice would you give to aspiring wine writers who might be listening? Well, there's two different kinds of wine writers. There's a wine writer who is a wine, what they call wine critic who just won. Yeah. They're in the business of recommending wines, and the answer is you write a a note on every wine you taste them. So, and then listen and go and meet as many people. It's possible to listen to them. Don't don't talk at them. Listen to them. That's what what I as a wine writer did, but I was trying then what interested me was the stories behind the wines. How did this man or will then come to making this wine rather than that wine for us? I think as a as a general, more general wine writer, which is what I am now as a an analyst. Ask why? I think, you know, I started to I I a switch should be a wine critic to a wine writer twenty years ago, my son was born. And for many years, I used to say that he was my greatest sim to him because as a small kid, he would say why and he'd answer, he'd say, and then why. And then why? And why? Why? Why? And I think we don't do that enough. We don't ask often that ask enough questions. And I think what journalism is about is doing the who, what, when, where, why, how, and wine there's a lot of wine writing but not a lot of wine journalists. And I think that we need more wine journalism. We need more people. I think the wine industry would benefit a lot more. From more good wine journalism and less quote unquote wine writing. And the difference is if you read what you've written and it and you then ask yourself if this were an advertorial for a region or a wine, you know, how happy would the regional producer be? If they've seen if if if they would be really happy with it, you're gonna say, well, what have you just done? Have you could you just done a bit of PR for that region or that producer? Yeah. Okay. Interesting. What you say, but the impact of becoming a father or or your son, I know from my own experience, my background is in history, and I I would be always writing about war and conflict and partisans and And my kids would always ask me, what are you writing about? That way, why are you always learning about war? So at a certain point, I decided, well, I have to write about something different because these my kids are always asking, why am I always writing about war? Yep. So I decided to write about football, and that's what my my next book's about, which is almost as, divisive as war, but not quite. Yeah. But I think what's interesting there is you've you've you've alluded to it One of the handicaps of the wine industry is we've got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of appalachians, most of which have gotten very little reason to exist. Other than the fact, the people in that village wanted to have a, but exactly in terms of football team, and there's some ludicrous number of football teams in Italy. I can't remember how many it is. And, you know, to Tetza say to any village, you can't have that team or the town you No. You can't you can't take away. You need to save the people you can't your wine you can't have that wine appolation or d o c or d o c g. They'd be very upset. But, you know, the number of people who turn out to watch some of those village teams is very small. Yeah. And the same thing applies to a lot of those wine docs. Yeah. That's very interesting because I I know from my own experience being involved in my my kids' village football team, it's almost unsustainable because there are so few kids, but the prospect of merging with the next Village team is absolutely on and thinkable even though it would make, much more sense from, a logical point of view. Okay. That's writing. What about reading? What are you reading for pleasure? What kind of books are on your bed say? All the sorts of, I yeah, a low all sorts of books. And I try to read about three books at the same time, which is which is a a bit of a a bit of a problem. And then I can't even remember what they are. There are, I think, in a sense, the the the latest, easiest thing was the make one of a Mc Heron, British spy book. And I love the the the the the rye humor that that that lies behind that. But I think that in terms of writing, whatever it is and where whatever it's about, it just has to and that's what all writing is about. And, oh, Henry, the short story writer. Gave the best advice for any writer fiction on fiction, which was, there are only two read of read of sentence or read a paragraph, and then there's only two questions. There's and then you know, what happened because that sentence or that paragraph was so interesting. You wanted to know what followed or so what. And if ever you've written a line or a paragraph that says, you know, people in Belgium actually light wearing beige. Yeah. Okay. I'm not very interested now. You've gotta find a way of making me the reader saying, you know, basically, across Europe, everybody likes red, but the Belgian's light beige. Okay. The next paragraph is gonna tell me why the Belgian slide beige. Yeah. And then I'm gonna carry on. And that's what writing to me is about. It's actually it is a form of seduction. It is a form of a flirting. With the reader. The only problem is in flirting, you can, see the effect that the words that you've used are having and in writing, you you can't. But you're you're imagining that somebody's read that and gone. Okay. I wanna know about the the page ness. Yeah. Okay. And you your your bedside table sounds a little bit like mine and there's got far too many books and far too many that are in progress. One that has just been added to my Pyle I haven't started getting it yet is the last American road trip by Sarah Kenzie, the New York Times best selling author of the new hiding in plain sight and the view from Flyover Country. So that's one that I'm really looking fine, Hannah. I'd be I'd be very up for that, particularly in the context of of what's happening in America at The people I like best to talk to too about, but some people who who actually have a broad range of reading and will, you know, they'll read history and they'll read fiction, sound fiction, biographies, whatever. Without necessary. And indent emptied in wine, there are people who I know who love wine are very, expert in wine, but have no interest in spirits and beer and other things, which is fine, and they're terrific in wine. But, actually, I I love people who can also switch and talk to me about. I don't know something else. Voca and yeah. Absolutely. The variety is the space of life. Okay. So you get these two books in the pipeline. You're heavily involved in production, consultancy, and judging. What's next? Is there anything new or exciting? Probably a different mind, Nick, this year. We we did a road say for the first time in Georgia last year, we we're gonna do, I think, and I can try and do an ambitious pattern out this year. We'll see if it works. We're starting to a zero alcohol in France, and I'm gonna look at doing it as an eight percent in France. You know, keep doing different things. And I haven't got the next book in view, but I think there is one slightly bubbling in the background. But I think, you know, essentially, I have huge respect for people who go on doing the same thing over and over again and better and better and better. And I, but, yeah, my own the why my wiring, if you're blank, it attracts me to people who are looking at doing different things and and exploring and experimenting and Yeah. Creating. And where can our listeners follow you, reckon me get all of your big squares. The easy thing to do is I'm wine thinker in one word dot com on on on, that's my website, and then look me up Robert Joseph on LinkedIn. And if you look me up on Wikipedia, It'll say Robert Resative wine connoisseur, which is where we came in. Otherwise, you'll find the politician. And, I mean, the great thing about social media is, if you're looking, you no one's very hard to find. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Robert, that was a very brisk canter through what has been, I think, incredible, career and and life and wine writing and, and, the broader world in Hawaii. Yeah. We're not quite at the, obit you to stage yet. I'm sure there's plenty more to come, but really, really fascinating to speak to you. And I I think we could have continued the conversation much longer, but I'm conscious that you have got other I've got so much. And, you know, a great chat. And thank you for the the research he put into it. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Until next time, guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks. Thanks for joining us on book club with the Italian podcast. Tuneing again next month when we'll get between the vines with another great wind boot. Remember, as shownotes, including full details of all the books we've discussed today, are available at Italian wine podcast dot com or wherever you get