Ep. 192 Sarah Heller MW (Vinitaly International Academy Faculty) on tasting | Education meets Business

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. This podcast is brought to you by Native Grape Odyssey. Native Grape Odyssey is an educational project financed by the European Union to promote European wine in Canada, Japan, and Russia. Enjoy. It's from Europe. Hello. This is the Italian White podcast with me Monty Walden. My guest today is Sarah Hello, master of wine. Welcome. Thank you very much. Really excited to be here. So you have, another title to your Yeah. So in the context of what we're doing here, I'm here being Here being verona on the final day of the Vine Italy International Academy forona twenty nineteen. So I am one of the two faculty members of the Via Ambassador Program, which is sort of the pinnacle of the Vine Italy International Academy. And myself and Henry Duvard have been working for approximately a year now to reformulate the Vineil International Academy Ambassador Program. Okay. So what does that mean? You've been Italy international ambassador program. It sounds like an air miles clouds or not. Say that to Stevie Kim's face. No. So Vindiddly International is Stevie Kim's organization that she uses to, create amazing programming to really increase understanding an appreciation for in Italian wine all around the world. And this is really the educational prom of Stevie's work. So it's it's a program that's been around for a couple of years, but over the past year, as I explained, Henry and I have been working obviously with some strong guidance from Stevie and the advisory of Atiyushansa, our chief scientist. To try and create a program that's ultimately a little bit more market friendly than what we had before, it's really focused on ensuring that our students, particularly those who have passed past the ambassador or even the expert level. So the ambassador level is is that is that the is that the entry level qualification? So you become an ambassador and if you really score highly, on the exam and then pass another round of blind testing. You have the privilege of calling yourself an Italian wine expert. Okay. So this is so there's theory and the practical side. Yes. Absolutely. So the exam used to be almost entirely for particularly for the ambassadors based on a hundred question multiple choice exam. And when the two of us Henry and I came on board, I had especially strong feelings about how we could make the exam a little bit more multidimensional. It was definitely Stevie's feeling that we should be, that we should be incorporating tasting in a more rigorous way, and and I couldn't agree with her more. Tasting has always been a part of the program, obviously, particularly when the focus was more on unusual grape varieties that people might not have had the opportunity to taste, but it was never quite so structured as a lot of formal wine education programs. My I mean, do do you see the tasting as a, you know, we just we there's so much theory in wine, isn't there, and there's so much complication in it, anyone. You think that the actual tasting of, quote, everyday varieties exposure to the key in like San Giovanni, for example, Nebiano, that's your building block, isn't it? For someone then to get deeper into those obscure Italian great varieties of which there are maybe three hexes or something like that. They're really kind of deep down stuff. Absolutely. So a major adjustment, our focus has been to ensure that people have, as you say, really deep knowledge of the grape varieties and regions that are a really important in the market and b really well known. So the the ones we're starting out with really here Arnavia loan, Santrevezay, in all their different geographies, but obviously focusing on Pionta and Duscany. So tasting wise, we've really made an effort to try and find wines that express more site specificity in order to hopefully support the the material that we're teaching in the theory portion. So what is it when you say site specificity so you don't wanna say, we're talking about Nabiiello. We're talking about the difference between Barolo and Babresco, or we t teaching the difference between single vineyard? Not by a single vineyard because I think there's still a little bit too much, producer variation to get really granular as far as MGAs, and so on and but, it's certainly trying to look for Village based styles, both in Betel One by Menes So that's been something we've tried to emphasize. And of course, with Sanjay, there's a bit more controversy. I think the the Nebula producers have really embraced site specificity. You would know better than anybody, I think. The possible reluctance by some producers in, in Montalcino, and in Kianta classical to really, tie their carts to the, to the, sub zoning horse. Yeah. I mean, it's gonna happen, I think. I think so, or I I hope so, certainly. But I mean, do you have fun teaching this? I mean, you're quite, you know, you're very precise and you've got a fantastic communicator. You make everybody very relaxed. Thank you very much. When you're when you're when you're teaching? And would you feel like you're making headway already with your students? Or was it still a learning curve for you as well? Oh, I absolutely love teaching this course. I don't I don't teach that much. To be honest, I I think this is this is improved since I've become a parent, but I'm not enormously patient. So so dealing with people who are, especially people who don't want to be in a room, right? If you're teaching a course that somebody has to attend for work and you're really having to do a kind of a song and dance to get them interested in the subject at all is just not something I'm really equipped to do. But most of your students imagine, I mean, I've I think very few of them would have been sort of frogmarched here in handcuffs and talking about you are gonna learn about the seventy clones of San Giovanni. No. Exactly. The people who are here are really excited to be here. They really want this and that enthusiasm, I thrive on it. And also But you have to temper that sometimes. It's gotta be. We have to stick to facts and Particularly when I'm talking about things like his history, absolutely, because you can go down so many rabbit holes, particularly talking about somewhere like Sicily, that literally every population group, it seems like has passed through at some point or other. Yeah. I think I think there were a couple of people yesterday who might have liked me to go through that. A little bit more quickly, but yeah. So I try to bear in mind the things that I'm interested in are not always the things that everybody else is interested in. And so trying to make sure that they're equipped with, stories and facts that really are useful for for their activity, whether they be Sommelier or distributors, journalists, even. What kind of feedback do you get? Do you have a feedback mechanism where you ask your students? Am I being too geeky or am I not giving you enough information? Of it is looking at the faces in the room, there's there's quite there's quite a lot you can learn from that. Fortunately, I've never seen more than one or two people asleep at any given time. So I feel like that's a good rate out of sixty, sixty two, sixty three people. Nevermind we have. But then also fortunately, the the student group this time were pretty clear about letting us know in the breaks or at the end of class. This has been really helpful. This was really unclear. Take us an example. So so somebody somebody said to me, you know, I think the the tasting could be improved if we had, say, more one on one time with the tutors that would allow us to practice practice blind tasting individually. It's like as much as I would love that. We, you know, we are two people. So I I think there there's something to be done about whether we could have designated tasting tutors. We started that a little bit with some of some of Stevie's team who are more experienced tasters. But, you know, we get all kinds of great ideas from what the students feel like they need. So if we're tasting a wine Mhmm. Or you're teaching us about tasting a particular wine, what what are what are you gonna tell me to look at? You just say, smell think about the smell, the texture, the tan in, the sweetness. What are what are we gonna be looking for? Yeah. Well, so unfortunately, we don't get to go into every single wine running through the the grid systematically, but we try to at minimum do two wines in every session where we go some would say identically through every line of our grid. So do you wanna try and take a look at that one? No? Sure. So you've devised this yourself, right? Entirely from scratch. What we've done is to try and adapt standardized tasting formats, to really be able to distinguish important differences that are, I wouldn't say, unique to Italian wine, are particularly appropriate for Italian wines. This little booklet, just describe what we're looking at here. So it's divided up into, a number section. So the first being appearance, then aromas and flavors. Aromas being what you pick on your nose, flavors being the same organ, the, olfactory bulb, but what you pick up from your mouth, structure, quality, winemaking, and then your conclusion. Right? So the grape and the region is what we will ultimately expect them to conclude. But, really what we're more concerned with is that they're making accurate observations. Okay. So just if we look at the color, for example, appearance is the is the first one. So you've got three little sort of boxes, one with a sort of black color, one with a yellowy color, one with a reddish, and one with a sort of palish orange, and underneath. Just tell us what we see for the first box. Yeah. See, this first box The words that we see underneath. Right. So the first box is intensity, and we go from pale to medium to deep. And then hue. Hue, underneath that, we have straw, which was a little bit of a fight. That will come back to you maybe. This is for white wine. For white wine. So straw we're saying is the palest hue for white wine, then lemon, then gold. And then for reds, we've got three coming up for reds. Indeed. For reds, we have purple ruby and garnet. And finally for rose wines. For rose, we go from pink to salmon to orange. Okay. And then we go down to the structure. I know you have six categories there. So sweetness, acidity, tenons, body, alcohol, and texture. So just talk us through those one by one. Yeah. And we actually have rubbers and flavors right before structure. Okay. But you leave the but that's sort of blank area though, isn't it? Yes. So what we do is we allow them to list six aromas and flavors. Six. Yes. Oh, I struggle to find two sometimes in a while. Exactly. But we we only give them four points. So they effectively have two discards. So they have six opportunities to get something that aligns with what we have also found. I think we're being reasonably generous. Already, I think I would have failed this if you give me a a layer I'm terrible. If, you know, if some of my ryan white colleagues are brilliant, they're coming out with eighty five different adjectives. Wow. Yeah. And I just can't anyway, so that's that. So now we then we get on to structure. This is really pretty standard for for most wine tastings. So we have things like sweetness, admittedly most of the wines that we try are dry. So that's kind of a giveaway point. We really just expect them to say dry, off dry or sweet. We're not particularly specific about levels of residual sugar. Acidity, we give them a five point sales, so low, medium, minus, medium, plus, high, similarly, body, tannins, alcohol, we expect them to write down a number, but we'll accept the actual number, plus or minus half a percent. Well, that's quite type. It is tight. Certainly tighter than a lot of the, regulations around labeling in different countries. But Do people normally get that right then? Is that one of the ones where they find easier or they first to find that difficult? It really depends how much tasting experience they have. It's something that you actually, I think can teach virtually anybody if they focus just on alcohol. My, my very good friend and former boss Deborah Maiburg. When she was a wine professor, one of the things that she would do that she would try to hammer home was helping people find these alcohol levels. It it has to do with a two things. One, the body will give you a hint, right? The fuller body, the more likely there is to be high high levels of alcohol. But then also there's a sense of heat, particularly if there's not enough acid to balance it out. Alright. You get the sense literally of warming on your mouth after ideally spitting out and not swallowing. But sometimes when it's a little bit confusing, I've I I instruct people to something a little bit tricky to do without accidentally killing yourself, but hold the wine in your mouth and inhale. And if you're really getting a sense of warmth from that, you don't get confused as much by the acidity. And so you can often detect high levels of alcohol even when there are lots of other factors balancing it out. If you do that and don't show up on the wine. So what about texture? You know, to Texture. Exactly. That's a word that's coming into fashion now, I think, for tasting those. Is. Yeah. Now particularly in some in some areas of the world like in New Zealand, they're really talking about texture that it's more to do with winemaking. So Lee's agitation or Batonanage, you will, for the most part. Whereas, what we're we're talking about here really for texture with white wine is phenolic texture, the kind of white wine equivalent to a tannin. So what we've done here, we've tried to ask them instead of giving us a level because I think that's a little bit tricky with a lot of white wines is not necessarily that big a range of texture levels. So we've tried to get them to say that it's either clean texture. So meaning there's no notable phenolic character. It's a very fluid. Fluid. Exactly. So we have those words clean, fluid light, I think. Then there's this sort of slippery type phenolic character. So either oily, creamy, or waxy, we're saying, where you you understand that there is a phenolic texture, but it's not causing friction so much. It's almost lubricating the palate, so an additional degree. It's a great way describing really. So, I've learned something there, teddy. Oh, yeah. No. Honestly, that's that's cracking. Yes. Well, then we have more tenant like phenolic texture, that we describe as either chalky powdery or if it's it's quite notable, then grainy. So we're we're getting sort of orange wine territory here. Exactly. Yeah. Either wines and have seen a long cold maceration for fermentation, although that really doesn't draw out a huge amount of phenolix or some that had gone through a bit of fermentation on the skins, which is definitely a style we explore in this course fairly extensively. Oh, can you sign me up? How do I join? I would, I would, I'd be more than welcome to join anytime. I won't ask any questions Raju. Okay. So now we're on quality, which is I would say, is very subjective. It is, but we try and put it in as objective a framework as possible. We do still ask the students after they've done this supposedly, or a stents objective quality assessment, whether they like the wine. It's still an important part of this program, more so than I think other formal wine education because we are ultimately looking for ambassadors. Alright. Partisans, people who love the wines and are going to drive love for these wines in other people. So that's still an important part, but we try to separate out objective assessment of quality here. The first two points our intensity and concentration, which again, we assess on a five point scale from low, medium minus, medium, medium, medium, fast, high. So you could have a wine that is very intense, but isn't concentrate it and vice. In fact, yes. So something we've we've kind of harped on in some of these tasting sessions is that there are particularly wines for early consumption whites, especially tend to be quite intense on the nose, but not that concentrate. Rated on the palate. Right. So it's it's like the difference again between aromas and flavors. Right. Intensity is how much aroma are you getting and concentration is how much flavor are you getting. Something I've been very clear out is that intensity is not past the medium level is not a more as better style thing. Right? So just because a white wine is not immensely intense doesn't mean that it's not high quality. It probably just means that it's not an aromatic grape variety. Right. Gewehrl's Tamina is one of the most intense grapes that we have, but whether it's, you know, are the are the greatest wines of the world exclusively made of Gewehrl's Tamina, I think fairly clearly not. But Oliviae Humberbatch, if you wanna Just just take a little time out, buddy. He really lost my opportunity to work with all his ass there. Good thing I've I've, thrown my trough with Italy. But I gotta get what you're saying. The that you're you're digging down into the the linguistic niceties, but in a scientific way. And that's why I think it's quite far. I I'm I'm we haven't finished yet. I'm taking I'm totally I'm totally sold on this, by the way. You know, if you were selling like a software that I'd have to sign out or just cool. Okay. I don't even know how to use it or where we download it from. Okay. So that was For your opportunities. Okay. So next. Yeah. So next, balance. So that's really to do with the structural elements we just talked about. It's the balance of the soft element. So sugar, if there is any sweetness. Body and alcohol, which of course are also interrelated, versus acidity and tannin or acidity and texture in the case of white wine. That's really logical, though. Isn't it? You've got the the building blocks of the wine. Mhmm. And then you're getting it right. Does it all Yeah. Completely. So I I hope that, the sequence that we've put this in has made it easy for the students to sort of make these assessments. Right? Everything that they're finding in quality should be something that they're getting from the previous two sections. Mhmm. Pretty much. So with balance, as I say, there needs to be there need to be enough soft elements and enough hard elements. I don't really think of it in terms of like a scale or a, you know, what are those called? Sea salt so much as I think of the the analogy that I I've used a couple of times is like a mattress. Like, you want hard springs, right, firm springs that are your hard structural elements, but you also want enough padding. Right? So that you have, the structure that is both firm and resilient. Robust. Exactly. But comfortable. But comfortable. Exactly. Exactly. So that balance is really just about structure. We don't bring fruit concentration into it, which some people do. I know in other systems, really just looking at structure here. Then complexity. So that's really about how many different types of aromas and flavors do you have. It's not enough to have a lot of the same kind of flavor. So like five different kinds of cherries. Still just smells of cherries. Alright. That's not a complex wine. So we're looking for, primary fruit along with other primary elements coming from the grape, things like herbal notes, really fresh herbal notes, floral notes, that are avily specific. So if a great variety, for instance, has high levels of, rotundone, like Vespolina, we want to see that pepper coming through. Then we're looking for perhaps someone making notes where appropriate. So if it's a style that often has a little bit of oak, new oak for complexity, so say it's not necessarily very, typical of our course, but if we were looking at a super tuscan, I would expect to have some kind of cedar spice or baking spice from the oak. It's just sort of what we expect. And then the our highest level of complexity though would be reserved for wines that are showing particularly if they're older. Some notes of evolution, right, tertiary type notes like in red wines, things like leather, tobacco, earth, dried leaves, in white wines, perhaps mineral notes really don't like that term. But until we found a better one, we're stuck with it. So things like a hint of petrol. It's just really been considered a derogatory term in other parts of the world, but we don't mind a touch of petrol as long as it's balanced off by sufficient fruit. And then a a kind of not eat savory development as long as it's not aggressively oxidative. And that's what we're looking for with mature notes. So that kind of covers complexity. Next is concentration. It's a hot topic, and it has been over the last twenty years in wine. Yeah. I mean, so we touched on a very brief sleep when we talked about intensity versus concentration. Concentration really being about flavor rather than aroma. But we did get a question inevitably from our one French student in the group, you know, I think high concentration is not what I'm looking for in one. You know, when when I'm looking for high quality, I'm looking for elegance, for finesse. I think he's a he's a burgundy lover. And absolutely, I wanted to emphasize that by concentration, we don't mean Wait. Wait. It's not so much to do with body as depth of flavor. It sort of links in with the next thing that's actually length. Right? So so the two are are related. Concentration is like how much, how much flavor substance is there to the wine. And then length is how long can you continue to taste that? We really emphasize for the students that length is about flavor and particularly fruit flavor. Alright. So if you can continue to taste oak five minutes later, that's not it's not the kind of length that we want. Similarly, we don't wanna still be only getting the sensation of tannin or only tasting acidity five minutes later. It's interesting about you're quite firm on that aren't you about the the fruit the definition of concentration is that fruit flavor continues rather than extraneous flavors that have been, quote, added or built into the wine. Absolutely. I think something that I know I forgot when I was, a young wine professional working with Italian wine, and particularly, it was the the trendy era for Italian natural wine in New York and I I had this very sort of youthful polemical view that wine doesn't need to have fruit. Right. In fact, fruity wine is not what it's about and it it's taken me a long time to come around to the view, but wine is made of fruit. Right? It should still remind us of the grapes that it was made from. This is not to say that wine should be fruit balmy, right, fruit jam or that sort of thing. But there should still be a purity to the fruit that's not completely overwhelmed by secondary and tertiary remus. Yeah. So, basically, a great wine could be saline. It could be savory. It could be mineral to be all this, but it's gotta have that fruit component to it whether it's Shaudnay or a sangiovese or whatever. Yeah. I mean, the the one exception I'm thinking of at the moment is probably some of these deliberately oxidative. So there are age styles where it's really, you know, getting into a different getting into a different goal. But for table wines, and not oxygenatedly aged wines. I think fruit fruit is really important. Okay. Then the final one is age worthiness. Age worthiness. Indeed. So in that, we're looking at a combination of the balance. Right? So the structure, our match trist. We have a nice comfortable, but sturdy structure, and also concentration. Right? Do we have enough fruit? And we have enough fruit sleeping in our on our mattress that it's all sort of worthwhile. I mean, if we have a great mattress, but no fruit to rest on it, then we're gonna wake up ten years from now and find that all we have, is a structure that that no, but nothing that made it worthwhile. Okay. So how would I'm coming to your tasting class. Kind of my last two wines of the day are gonna be one of them is gonna be a prossecco, and one them as a brunello, and I'm your student. Yep. How do I pass? What am I gonna be putting down to pass your test for those two wines age worthy? You know, what do I have to write? Of age worthiness. Yeah. But I think Presecco, there's broad consensus that despite the fact that it has some structural elements or certainly some has structural elements that might permit for for aging, say, you know, some of them have reasonable levels pardon me of residual sugar. So the one we and glass at twenty eight grams per liter, and also fresh acidity. And also the the CO2. There's another preservative. The fruit, because it's primarily driven byasters, perhaps even beans. Those are the types of fruit aromas that don't necessarily have resilience over time, and that's something we've been very clear about in the tasting sessions that wines that are driven mainly by aromatic intensity and not by fruit concentration or flavor concentration primarily. Despite potentially having age worthy structures are not designed for long aging. So we put them in what we call category one. Drink now or can be held but won't improve. Our medium category something that will improve over a five year time horizon in our estimation based on the structure and concentration and the nature of the aromas and flavors. Bernello, is clearly as a whole, one of the wines styles that is designed to improve considerably every time. It's it's one of the world's finest wine styles as a whole. So we would definitely be expecting unless we have a seriously flawed brunella our lineup or something that's already aged for twenty, thirty years, unlikely I'm afraid in this course, but we would expect it to be in category three of age worthiness, which is can show improvement, over ten years or more. And the reason Which is ten years or more. It's not like thirty years or No. Because they're they're at this round of numbers, aren't they at the end? Indeed. I mean, ten years, I think, is something that we can reliably predict. After that, it's it's down to any number of factors, the quality of the vintage, and particularly things like the storage. Right? At that point, it's sort of out of our control. So we just we just set ten years as our sort of out of boundary for age worthiness with the understanding. Obviously, with something like, you know, brunello, Barrozco, great super tuscans, a morone. We we really do have a longer time horizon than them. And with brunello, so it's it's down to the fruit concentration. The the fact that it's more concentrated that early, aromatically intense, and that we have structure from acidity and tenants, so permit long aging. So you enjoy giving this course. Very much so. Very much so, especially the tasting part because I think we we end up having students who come in with all different types of tasting background. Some of them are are so they're used to thinking on their feet and really presenting everything orally. Some people don't have any formal tasting experience, but they've been working with Italian wine for decades. And I told I told him this in class, it's like we're creating an Italian wine tasting army, right, who've applied these really rigorous structures to all kinds of Italian wines that formal one education programs like the VSTT, like the course, even the instituted master's of wine, are not necessarily applying their methodology to. Right? They're they're, I think, tintelia, for instance, right? Which is a great variety. Yep. Yes. Here. The one I'm going to think, Melissa has pinned its hopes there. I think we we we really wouldn't see many organizations applying a really rigorous standardized tasting format to that particular wine. Other than maybe the wine maker themselves. But a thing about Italian one, a, it's extremely romantic and people get, you know, sort of caught up in the the food, the history, the, all of the stories around the wine. And also that everybody is is very individualistic, right? So they're not necessarily comparing their wine even to other wines within Italy. So, I said to our students we're doing something really revolutionary here. Not only are we the communication from Italy to the rest of the world, but we're the rest of the world back to Italy. Right? And hopefully, we can even start to see, some impact on on the styles of wine that are coming out of these regions that are really genuinely focused on quality, what's in the bottle rather than convincing us through the the beauty of the story is that wines that potentially could be faulty are in fact totally fine. I mean, do you see this ultimately is is influencing how wine to written, you know, for students. That's amazing, wouldn't it? Yeah. Well, I guess that's kinda like one of your goals, isn't it? Yeah. Completely. We want to make sure that two things that we're we're tasting in such a way that we are applying rigor to to the styles of wine that we're encountering, but also that we're opening up international mindsets to the way that Italian wines are. Right? Tell everybody when they come in. You will read that such such grape is low in acidity. They mean low in acidity in an Italian context. Right? There really aren't very many low acid or low tannin grapes in Italy. It's just you have to recalibrate your palate to this additional level, a structure. And another sort of idiosyncratic factor with Italian wine and Italian cuisine, I think, is an acceptance of bitterness. I mean, bitterness is seen particularly, I think, in French wine and international sort of New World wine making as a flaw and I don't think it has to be. I think it's another flavor, sorry, not flavored taste, that is an important element to balance. Not something we address directly here, but maybe at some point in the future, you will. That's interesting. You said that. I mean, one of the popular after dinner drinks is Amaro. Exactly. No. Exactly. And Italian cuisine is one of the few cuisines globally that has really embraced bitterness in vegetables and things like radicchio, particularly in the area where we are. La passione. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Where I think a lot of cuisines just avoid it. It's it's a bitterness is an acquired taste that we were not naturally drawn to as children, but I think as we become older is our palettes to about a lot of the things that have some bitterness are are really attractive to us because they provide a kind of plansing contrast to extreme fattiness or richness. What's the what's the hardest question you get asked when you're giving your cause? Well, the the challenging things for me are when people try to ask questions that are effectively trying to get out of me what is in the exam? Good luck. Yeah. They gotta try. Yeah. Or or what specifically to study. I think because the the course is vast. Right? And we're also dealing with a bit of the legacy of what the course used to be, which was heavily focused on grape varieties, particularly, lesser known grape varieties. And so we're trying to trying to move to a place where we still respect that heritage. We I don't wanna reject the notion that Native Great Fridays are a really important part of Italy's USB, but we have as usP, not USB like the Drive. But we also recognize that Italy is so much more it's native grapes or it's native grapes are just a part of the history and culture that generated these amazing wine styles. So we've tried to really fill out the other, you know, call it two hundred and seventy degrees of information about Italian wine. So So when people ask where to focus their attention, it's a lot. A lot of different faces. Yeah. A lot to cram in. I think the schema that you've come up with is, I'm really impressed. I mean, when I when I saw the booklet, I thought, how am I gonna questions about this, and for some reason, because I haven't done I haven't done the course. Yeah. And I thought, well, this is gonna be like the longest half an hour of my life. But obviously, with you in the room, I think you've you've created something really. I I only need to come to sit the course. Yes. I really, I wanna I see her. I'm not joking. I'm not just saying that for the for the, audio. I wanna I wanna sit down and do it. I would love that. Yeah. Yeah. Told you don't give me bad marks. Oh, okay. I see. It comes with contingency. No. But you're a great communicator, and you you you've got all always have a smile on your face. You if if you were teaching me, just listening to you now, I'd say, I I would just implicitly trust you, and you make complicated things sound manageable. You know, wine can be incredibly complicated even for fashion even for me. I mean, I've been in business for a long time. So I still find things really, really difficult, basic stuff that I should know, and I still can't get my head around them. So well done, no. I think it's, obviously, your background, you know, working as you have, for such a long time with some great people is obviously informed your your view. Yeah. And I've been extremely lucky in who I've worked with. Yeah. But you got the you got the gift of communication, so you're very lucky. Thank you. That's what's what I'm you're students. I was like, I'm I'm really impressed, honestly. So I love interviewing you. I learn a lot and, I get paid to interview you, I think. Oh, wow. And I'm, like, god, I'm getting paid to learn stuff that I I should have learned twenty years ago. When I my one of my first jobs in Wyme was working in Bordeaux, with a guy who I used to work with the first gross under the radar, and he taught me about about barrelage reds and what to look for and what not to look for. And I've always really struggled with wine wine competitions and and wine tastings because I kinda look at it through that parameter. And so often when I'm giving my notes to people that they think I'm a bit crazy, a little bit kind of off the scale, but what you've done here absolutely would fit with what this guy was telling me in, it was a long, a long, long time ago about the quality of the tenants and the position of the tenant and the wine and how the tenant affects the fruit, and the tannum from the wood, and the tannum from the grape. And, it seems so easy then. And then, of course, the more you dig it, it's actually really complicated, but really really complicated. Yeah. I would never imply the the tasting or blind tasting certainly is easy. It isn't, but it's When you say that and we look at you like, you literally walked into the mastermind exam, sat down for three minutes scribbled a bit and then walked out and you've got flying colors. Clearly, that's gonna happen. No. No. No. No. Not remotely the case unfortunately. But they must try you when they have to. I mean, not only because you've come up with this this, scheme that they call into this, matrix, but you you, if I met you in the pub Yeah. And we would just having a glass of wine, I would never kind of know you're a master of wine because you don't like flaunt your knowledge Oh. If you don't, you don't, I mean, you're but at the end I was like, this lady seems to know a lot about wine, but wasn't the snob, you know, it was actually quite entertaining. Well, thank you. Yeah. It's it's not I mean, I think looking the way that I do, given given that most still most masters of wine are older English gentlemen. I don't really fit the, the profile, but, you know, I would never want to come across as somebody who thinks that they know everything, especially in the case of Italian wine, there's just they're just endless avenues to pursue. So not something I ever feel like I have a thorough grip on. Yeah. I mean, your I'm sure your students relate to that as well. Cool. Yeah. Well, I think the fact that you've designed it, the way you've designed it is is someone that wants to make it simple for themself. Like, almost like you design it for yourself to make, how can I remember and and categorize in a not in a negative way, but put wines in certain boxes? Yeah. For easy, like, in a hard drive, easy reference Yeah. Completely. That's something that over time we want to apply more and more to the theory part of the course, because there are so many grape varieties. For instance, in, Validosta, we have five or six different red grape varieties that we cover. And I'm really keen, we go on to put those into more of a comparative context so that we're thinking about, okay, that this one has the highest level of tannins. Generally, this one has the lower level of tannins. But then also comparing because remember with tannins, it's not just about the level but also the texture. We don't make them in our course identify the texture of tenants. We just ask for a level, but I think for your own identification purposes, red wine grapes are really distinguished. By the texture of their tenants. We give them a few different analogies. One being the texture of, dirt, right? So go ahead from really fine powdery tenants, to sandy gritty heavily grass travely, right, in in a Sunday order, or, something like fabrics, which is really something. I remember Deborah again, my former boss. Deborah Mimi. Most of wine. Sorry. I should be clear. Yes. Deborah Miber, talking about a lot is fabric textures. And as somebody at one point, was studying fashion design that, that resonates with me very well. Unfortunately, in Italy, a lot of the a lot of the men, even not Italian men who joined our course seem to have a heightened awareness of fabrics as well. So it's not quite like talking to my dad about fabric, apparently, would just have not the faintest clue what I was talking about. Right. So we're gonna do a a podcast on fashion next on clothing. Yes. You're very elegantly dressed and quite quirkily dressed, I have to say. And you have a you're you're with child, as we say. So you've your bump has grown since last I saw you. So I hope everything is going well. Yes. Absolutely. Amazing lady, you've been on your feet for the last hour teaching your students. Now you're coming here to answer questions from me, and you've done so with great aplomb and great in an entertaining way as well. Thank you. You know, I I looked at your matrix for your taste. Oh, this is gonna be like the longest half hour of my life, you know. But as ever with you, it wasn't. So, Sarah Hola, thanks very much for coming in today. Alright. Thank you let's see. Yeah. For explaining your, your tasting, what's that, tasting matrix, I guess? Or methods. Yeah. Yeah. So any any anybody that wants to learn, if you're in the trade, you wanna learn about Italian wine, sign up to Sarah's course with the Vin Italy National Academy. And you will learn something. I'm I'm gonna have to book my ticket. Yes. Please do. Book comedian. Thanks, sir. This podcast has been brought to you by Native Grape Odyssey, discovering the true essence of high quality wine from Europe. Find out more on native grape Odyssey dot e u. Enjoy. It's from Europe. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.