Ep. 2196 Jessica Dupuy interviews Christopher Tanghe MS | TexSom 2024

For me, anyway, Gilt sum has been such an important resource, and I know for many other Sommeliers who have kind of been through whether it's studying for the Court of Master Smolliers or for WSTT studies or MW studies, it's such a great reference for so many different things. And as you mentioned, people learn in different ways, right, whether it's visually or audioli or just breathing or that kind of thing. And I feel like you guys have so many different opportunities for people to jump into wine Tally y'all. I'm Jessica Duppuis, guest host for a special Texom series covering the twenty twenty four Texom wine Conference from Dallas, Texas. Join me in the heart of the Lone Star State, as we delve into the experiences and insights of key speakers and attendees, exploring career paths, challenges, and the latest trends in the wine industry. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your podcasts. Alright. So, Chris Tange. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm so glad you could be here. We are obviously sitting in Dallas, Texas at TexOM Wine Conference, which is probably the first place we ever met each other. Tell us about you and what you do, which will then lead us into Guild Tom's. Well, I do a lot of things. I work with Guild Tom as the director of education, So if anyone's not familiar, it's an online resource from beverage professionals and aficionados that creates content in the form of podcasts, videos, articles. One of our biggest strengths is that we have a compendium of wine law that is updated on the daily. So if you are studying a given region, we comb through all those legal documents and translate everything and, and then put it in a bite size, easily digestible piece of information to make it easy for you. So a lot of people use it for reference for studying and getting their head around the foundations of a given area. Mhmm. But there's other elements to e learning, etcetera, etcetera. We make for these videos on a given region from time to time. So it's a lot of fun. And guilt song being I mean, it's short for essentially, like, Guild of sommeliers. Right? The name is evolved. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, it's Kinda like Duxom has. Yeah. Yeah. It started as Guild of sommeliers. Which was actually, organization that did a few more things with sponsorships and scholarships, things like that. In twenty sixteen, the organization split to two. At that point forward, it was called Gilled Psalm Mhmm. Short for Gail of Summer Gates, and then there was another organization that was birthed out of that called some foundation Right. Which handles a lot of scholarships and things. So it's just mainly due to tax purposes. It's a really boring story, but, but, but yeah, that that was the most effective way to kind of handle the two different prongs of what we did was to actually separate Okay. You're a master Sommelier? Yeah. When did you earn that title? Two thousand thirteen. Okay. Yeah. Which is crazy to think about. It's been that long. So much. I know. Right? Like, we were babies one time, but no. Yeah. Not so much. Well, the reason I ask is just because, you know, feel like for me anyway, Giltong has been such a important resource, and I know for many other sommeliers who have kind of been through whether it's studying for the Court of Master sommeliers or for WSET studies or MW studies, it's such a great reference for so many different things. And as you mentioned, people learn in different ways, right, whether it's visually or audioli or just breathing or that kind of thing. And I feel like you guys have so many different opportunities for people to jump into wine. And sometimes other things. Like, you'll talk about spirits every once in a while or things like that, but sake. Sake. Exactly. Beer. Beer. Yeah. Yeah. We've we've tried to cover all the bases in terms of types of beverages, but also, like you said, with with mediums of content, because I'm a huge believer that we all have a different ways of learning. And, like, part of the challenge of getting through any of the certifications you mentioned is the first step is learning how you learn. You know? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So if you have more content to choose from, more more types of different forms of content Mhmm. They can often make it easier. So, yeah, that is definitely a super rewarding part of that Right. That gig for sure. So your director of education, if you were to read that job title, I mean, what does that mean? You're doing a lot, but how do you contain it all? You know? Yeah. I mean, I do have lots of help first and foremost. The team's greats. I create more of the audio and visual and or in person content myself. I do have lots of help in the editorial department. So I'll contribute to the ideas around that, but in terms of execution, that actually goes to Stacey Landberger, who oversees a lot of that editorial content. So pretty much outside of that, that's the content that I oversee. So the podcasts, videos, in person classes that we teach across the country, and actually a little bit internationally as well. So I'll deliver that content or work with folks to deliver that content as well. So I mentor and bring up these other, you know, teachers, not necessarily MS's. We, if you or other certified folks who are not certified. I I believe in certifications, but I don't think it's a necessity to be an expert in a field or a good teacher. I think teaching is its own separate skill. My and totally independent of being in MS or MW or whatever else. Right. It's not an easy skill. I think that to me is actually more important as having the knowledge than this being able to speak to people and to make them feel at ease and make them feel like they can ask you questions and make them kind of like break down the barriers of that often surround wine, you know, which is something that our generation has been trying to do for years and years and years, is to dispel that snootyness around somebody a dumb or wine knowledge because it is such a massive subject that it often, in the past, was lorded over, you know, those that had it, lorded over those that didn't. And Right. That destroyed me nuts. And so that is the most important thing for me and also the most rewarding thing for me in in this job is that I get to I get to bring people in and, like Right. Make it more accessible. Yeah. It's it should it just won me, man. Like, we're not saving lives here. I mean, I can see we could be a little more you know, strict about knowledge and and testing knowledge if we were, like, saving lives, you know, if it were medical doctors or whatever. But, like, at the end of the day, we're just making people happy with delicious beverages, whether it be wine or whatever else. So you know, we have to sometimes take a step back and realize that perspective. Remember that. Exactly. Yeah. You know, it's an interesting point, and it's funny because I have spoken to a number of different people, whether speakers, or people involved with techsom over the past couple of days, like for instance, Vincent Marrow. Right? He's with Press Napa, and obviously focuses a great deal on Napa Valley wines. Right? But he's an MS and was able to study and kinda work his way through that whole process and become knowledgeable about the world of wine, you actually have the luxury of, like, staying fresh on a regular basis because it's kind of your job. I mean, like, if if you kinda have to stay in it, which I think is fascinating. I mean, how are y'all you're about to have a webinar, wine, and AI. And I'm actually really curious, like, how are y'all keeping up with the compendium and stuff like that with the laws changing and stuff? Is it a team of people or how are y'all kind of, you know, sticking and can you integrate AI in that way or trust it? Or Yeah. We might be able to in the future. At the moment, we we don't. I think that there are some ways to save time. But all the AI experts, I have talked to say that there still is no substitute for the human touch in this way because we need to double check the AI's work, basically, and what the AI is drawing from is the intranence. And we all hopefully realize at this stage and everything that we read on the internet is true. So I I don't foresee it replacing anyone, to, to speak to your earlier question, it is just really a team of one that does that. We, we generally have someone that's their sole job or the majority of their job. And they're usually a contractor, to be honest, because I do too many things to have the bandwidth to focus on that. It also takes a very specialized personality to comb through that stuff. And, I will say today because, in part, because of AI, it is easier translate. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So right now, it's Jonathan Eicholz, who is a master Sommelier out of New York, and he's been great at that. In the past, we've had Jonathan Ross, MS. We've had Vincent. We've had Vincent. We've had Vincent. We we've had a lot of really talented individuals doing it, and it's imperative that we keep up on it. It's one of those things that, like, once you let it slip, it becomes like a crazy big project. Right? So we prioritize that really, honestly, above anything else. It's all that all that work that sometimes seems that no one sees, you know, but they know they can go to the Guildsom site and the compendium and say, this is accurate. Or, you know, sometimes we miss things here and there for sure, but it is a community at as well. We do have people chime in and say, hey, this changed or this is a typo or whatever, and we really value that because it is a massive piece of data. Of course. It's a big world. It's a bit yeah. Exactly. So I'm glad you mentioned Jonathan because I do keep up with the podcasts that you guys put out. They keep me interested while I'm driving kids to school and things like that. So I appreciate the one that you and Jonathan just released on tasting. And you guys in the past have done stuff where you'll do a blind tasting, between two different sommeliers or wine professionals across the country. But I like that the two of you kind of rehashed, like, what are some of the tips and tricks and what do we need to do to stay fresh and how do we do that for those listening, let's promote cross podcast here because I think it's worth just going to that one podcast and listening yourself. But if you don't mind maybe just kinda sharing a couple of those tips, like, how do you stay fresh or how do you encourage people who are really in the in the process of trying not nail for testing, but really understand blind testing. Yeah. I mean, the first thing that I always tell people I'm mentoring them and the first thing I would love to remind your listeners of is that it's on an exam whether CMS or WSET or IMW whenever exam. It's on there for a reason. We often, when I say the collective we, I mean, people that are going through certifications often start blind tasting and owning the practice because of the exam, which I understand. However, if we take a step back again and realize why it's on the exam in the first place, it actually becomes much less daunting, much more applicable, and tells you that you have to take the long game with your approach to blind tasting. This is not I'm gonna practice blind tasting so I get over this exam. If you're doing that, you're mucking it up. Okay? You're moving you're missing the point. And I think it's easy. And I understand I am guilty of this myself. It's easy to get in that mode, that myopic mode of being like, I gotta pass this exam, I gotta do this thing. It takes a lot of time and effort and money, la la la la la, but it actually helps if you step back say, I'm doing this exam because I want to better myself because I want to deliver a better experience to my guests, and I want to potentially see some doors open. Let's be honest, that is part of it too. Right. However, that is a bonus, really, and that is not guaranteed these days either. It is not a golden ticket, okay, at any level of certification for any certifying body. So If we go back to the original pursuit, which is to be better at your everyday job to understand and cause and effect what's going on in the wine, develop a more accurate lexicon to talk to your guests and create better experiences, you will have a much better success rate and also a lot more fun blind paced thing than just putting the pressure of the exam. That to me is the most important thing is to take a step back and realize that. Right. Number two is get beyond instinctual tasting, which is totally natural in what we all do at the beginning. But if you continually rely on your instincts to learn to pissity and and going on with the wine, you're never gonna truly understand it because you have to dive into the chemistry and to the winemaking and to the cause and effects of what is creating the certain conditions that make that variety from that place express itself in that way. That is the only way you can truly understand it. If you are one of those individuals that has like a smellographic memory, right? Where you, as soon as you smell something, you can recall it, like a Roleodex, like a photographic memory, been good on you. That's that's a great skill to have. That will help you. However, there is a glass ceiling to that because once you come across something that either has gone through a pretty quick evolution because of climate change or whatever else, or a new producer you've never had before, or a variety you've never had before, you're going to be totally at a loss because you have no reference point. But if you have done the Navy gritty hard work diving in, say, the winemaking and the climate and the chemistry AM, la la la la, you have some touchstones now to be like, okay, I don't know what this point is, but this is what's going on with it because the acid is this. The phenolic character is that the oxidative nature is showing me this. Right? Like, there's so many other ways to approach it other than just instinctual recall. Okay. So, and it's okay if you're doing that for now. I don't wanna come down on anyone doing that. It's natural. That's just part of it. That's where we all start. But we have to push further and deeper in order to really get good at the skill and to really get more out of it in terms of its applicability in real life and its fulfillment in terms of your feeling of accomplishment in really understanding your craft. Right. It's a very concise way that you're saying that. I very much appreciate it. And I feel like some of the things that you and Jonathan nailed are the idea that, like, theory is just as important through the tasting process that it can't just be the magic trick you know, and like you said, it's fun to do. But if you're really trying to push yourself forward, the understanding of the whys and the hows and the whares and all of that really, really come into play especially like you said, because things are changing so quickly. Even, I mean, if you go back to the original grid, whether it's CMS or WST, I MW, we shouldn't be talking about Old World versus New World anymore. Like, they're that we kinda have to change that Lex a con too, either because, you know, as you mentioned earlier today, which we'll talk about in a second, the fact that new world regions have producing been producing wines in some ways just as long, if not longer than some European regions. Right? Like, so how do we really say new versus old or whatever. You actually learn more when you get it wrong because you should not just be upset that you got it wrong and move move on to the next day, but you should take what happened and really break that down and think about it, you know, like, what do I know about this wine now that I have seen it seen the actual label? Okay. Where did I go wrong? And that's gonna make you a stronger taster. Yeah. And I think to reinforce the fact that it's perfectly okay to be wrong. Again, we're not saving lives here. We're talking about more. And so, actually, you you tend to learn more when you are wrong. Like you said, you dive into it because we're all competitive creatures at heart, right, or at least most of us. So when you get it wrong, it's it's frustrating. And you're like, no, I wanna be right. We always want to be right, whether it's wine or something else unless we've finally learned that lesson that it's okay to be wrong with maybe, you know, experience and age. Yeah. But I will assure you that once you let go, the bigger part is the anxiety that goes with it. Yeah. So once you let go of this need to be right, not only when you learn more because you will dive into it. When we're right, we tend to just be like, I'm the best. I want to get the day. Let's move on. You don't actually go back and reevaluate and say, okay, I got that right, but what did I miss? Right? You only do that when you're wrong. So that's a one benefit being wrong. But the other one is just to let go of that anxiety of, like, having to be right when it comes around blind tasting. And I think the culture around this has gotten a lot better in the last few, you know, years. But when I was coming up, it was like, man, if you were wrong, like, it was really stressful. You know? Yeah. You can loosely view it. Yeah. I'm like the stupidest person. Why am I doing this? Yeah. You question life. Yeah. I mean, you do all these insane things. It's like, wait a minute, because I didn't understand what was going on with the wine. And we have to go back to the point of, like, it's not about being right and wrong. It's about understanding the line. Right? And so you can, you can appreciate it more so you can apply it better. Those are the real goals. The false goal is that you have to be right to be right. Right. Right? Exactly. Let's shift just a little bit because we are at Texom, which is a place that, you know, has this conference has really pushed education and growth and development within the wine industry for wine professionals at all levels. And you were giving a presentation today. Do you wanna recap what that was? Yeah. It was called Australian Clastics, perspective on Chardonay and Kumar. I love this topic because it is one that isn't considered very often Right. When you hear the words, pinot noir, and chardonnay, and classic, maybe. But I assure you that the country has been producing amazing examples of those varieties for decades and decades and decades working on in earnest since the late seventies into the eighties, nineteen eighties. Right? And so that's a long time. Yeah. Right? I mean, that's almost fifty years of work that's been put in. And, yes, it's not thousands of years that Burgundy has, for instance, however, it's much different landscape these days to pursue excellence in a variety in a given place because we have so much more know how and technology and everything at our fingertips. And so real work can be done and real accomplishment can be made in a period of, of even half of that, to be honest, in twenty five years. And so, you know, Australia has always fought the stigma of being really ripe, loopy, Sharaz, and, you know, bulk wine, to some degree. And I think that's a not super fair because to go back to your old world New World thing, they've been they've had, you know, vine serious vine plantings there since the early nineteenth century Yeah. Pursuing wine at a very high level, even then. And because of the image of a few brands, like, that somehow tarnished, like, an entire, you know, a couple hundred years worth of effort, is kind of insane to me. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that's one one aspect. The other one is that they think it's all hot all the time when it's a really big country with lots of different climates and a lot of areas that are along, like, a really cool cold ocean, right? And it's not, it's not all, like, the hot dry desert type scenario that you'd find in a couple areas. Really, a lot of it actually is pretty temperate. And it's a big country roughly the size of the US. So just kind of opening people's eyes to to the fact that these varieties can really thrive there, really classic examples. And I I even went a step further to say that there is, like, such a remarkable kind of chapicity and almost unique character to those wines, which is a little bit crazy to say with a couple varieties that grow around the world, but I think honestly they achieve it more succinctly than a lot of other areas that are making the same efforts. And not to belittle anyone's efforts towards those varieties, but I think that really Australia has nailed it with these varieties made in specific styles because they have this mentality that they're like, we're gonna really have a go at this as I would say. Right? Like, they are extremely humble about a lot of different wines that they make when they really do bring to the table some unique expressions Mhmm. You know? Like, I brought up in the seminar, Hunter, Valle semillon. Crazy, chopakes and all of that amazingly unique, expressions, parts of the Burasa doing not only Sharaz that would really surprise you, but Gernache, that is coming from some of the oldest finds on the planet and some of the best examples of Bernache. Right. So there's no reason why they can't do it with pinot noir chardonnay. My argument is that they are doing it Mhmm. With with those wines. And I think it showed in the tasting with eight wines for a chardonnay, four pinot. Were there a couple outliers? I think there's one really, real outlier. And that wasn't because it didn't it wasn't a good wine. It just a different approach. Different approach. Exactly. And I think that It was a Chardonnay that Yeah. It was a Chardonnay from Gibson, from, Patrick Sullivan. And, you know, that's cool. I love seeing. And I think that there are other outside expression. I mean, you go to Burgundy. There are lots of different expressions. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But I think as a whole, there's there's a current running through those wines, whether they were from Western Australia or Victoria, which is not a, you know, short distance between to show that there is, like, an Australian approach to these varieties and there is tepicity to a degree. And I think once you taste more of them, you definitely see topicity within those more specific areas. But I think even as a whole, like, there's a lot to unpack there that you will not see elsewhere. Yeah. It's an interesting point. You're exactly right. So especially if you're thinking theory, like, when you're thinking about chardonnays, you hit, you know, the regions, burgundy, maybe Oregon, California, obviously, you know, you're thinking of the places where am I gonna get classic or Benchmark chardonnay. Right? So for Puna noir, similar thing, burgundy, Oregon, maybe even New Zealand, for Central Latago, things like that. But I'm curious. And as you learn to taste and you learn to kind of build your own personal lexicon in your own grid, those different places and terroirs start to fill out in your brain with different characteristics or different, you know, structural components or things like that. How or what are some things that you know, you would say help or or helping to define what we're seeing in Australia from Chardonnay and Piedonoir. Yeah. I think it's very clear with Chardonnay in that if you do a little in the deep dive, we mentioned earlier about tasting, and look at the chemistry. The chemistry is wild Yeah. With aussie chardonnay. Yeah. They have the incredible ability to get real high phenolic greatness along with pretty low sugar accumulation and insanely low pHs and high TAs. And you would read those stats on paper and be like, this wine is gonna be terrible. Right? Right. It sounds like it's gonna be lean and mean and, like, basically vulnerable. Aggressive. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. For, meaning the the first round of fermentation for a sparkling wine in a mar you know, marginal climate. But in fact, there are super generous in terms of fruit and complete and really just delicious. It just doesn't compute when you look at a lot of other regions, you know, like if you look at Chablis, you can get similar numbers, but you're not going to get quite the same expressions. Mhmm. And I'm not talking Chablis. I love Chablis. Yeah. But you, you know, you look at California, you're gonna see way higher PHs, lower TAs. Yes. Even in some cases utilizing the same variety or or clone of, you know, what in areas they call gingin in Australia, which is loosely related to Wente, which is what we see throughout a lot of heritage plantings in California. So, yeah, I think that's the most unique factor for me is, like, gaining this amazing phenolic. And when I say phenolic, people aren't just saying, like, all the flavors. Right? Like, all the is developing. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Not just the structural elements of, of sugar and things like that, but but actually, like, the chemical compounds in the skins and elsewhere that are developing and becoming more complex and more numerous, through the ripening of the grape berry itself. So that to me is, like, the most remarkable thing. Mhmm. He's that amazing, right, miss, but with such focus and drive and, like, complete development. Complete, yeah, complete development without losing the sharp edge. Right. You know, that chardonnay, I think should have. Yes. And too often we see it just kind of go Yeah. You know. And then even the fruit's not that interesting. It's just like, you know, it's a really interesting variety because it's like a wacky variety, I should say, because it's it's so wildly different. From place to place, even within a relatively small geographical zone, and then also you add the complexities of the handling with the winemaking and all that stuff. And it can just be so crazy different. You know, and that's why that whole ABC thing is so funny to me, you know, anything but Chardon a Club that was ubiquitous, like yours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's and I think we've all realized this now, especially as professionals, maybe not as consumers. And that's, like, is that chardonnay, like, you can find a chardonnay for someone that someone will love. That someone will love. Right? Like, because they are just so wildly different. So Pino is a little bit harder to say that this is the thing. But I feel like there is a current through a lot of them that express themselves in this kind of purity of fruit. And I think also part of it is because a lot of makers aren't taking an extreme position in their approach, meaning that we often see dogmatic approaches to pinot noir production. Oh, I only do a whole cluster. Right? Or I only use whatever, this particular clone, this and this and that. And I feel like also that ripening ability that we talk about, Charnee only helps them to gain some more consistency because there's definitely folks I like, and I love Sonoma. And West Sonomacos, but there have definitely been examples from there, especially in early days, where it's like, wow, this thing is thin and meaty and really STEMy, it's because it's like, well, we're gonna pick at, you know, eleven and a half percent, and we're gonna do a whole cluster, and we're gonna do this. And it's just like, they're not actually positioning to the wine or vineyard, I should say, not the wine, but the vineyard. Yeah. They're just following kind of a recipe that, you know, at that time, was pretty trendy. Yeah. Right? Like, whole cluster die type thing and lower alcohol. Now some of this was misconstrued because of the misunderstood messages from IPOB and other things like that, So I I understand why it happened, but I feel like Australia has kind of always done their own thing. As I mentioned in the seminar, they haven't been chasing the dragon, which means, like, to me, they're not trying to be someone else. They're just trying to figure out how to make the best line they can. In their place. And I, you know, of course, there are there are exceptions. People are following a dark matter approach, but not like we saw wholesale in a lot of places in the US and elsewhere. Which we won't mention? Yeah. I mean, no, I mean, it's fine. It's I'm not dogging those places. I just think that We do silly things sometimes in the pursuit of trying to gain credibility on a global market. On a global market or with a certain demographic or with a certain publication. Sure. Right. I think those things matter less now, but ten years ago, they mattered a lot. For sure. And I think people are more comfortable doing their own thing these days, whether it be from a production standpoint or a consumer standpoint. Mhmm. And so I think that's pretty awesome. Yeah. I I I feel like Australia, well, a lot of people would say, oh, no. They, you know, they leaned into the super ripe blah blah, this and this and that. Okay. For a certain category, some of them did. But if you remember, not all of them did, and what we see here is a fraction of what is actually made over there. Right? Exactly. Yeah. So but I feel like with the pinot noir and chardonnay topic, they actually didn't do that because it wasn't the main thing. It wasn't the easy sell. It's kinda skated under their radar in that sense. Right? For for that particular conversation anyway. Yeah. Because those varieties grow everywhere. Yeah. Right? Like, and and a lot of people have seen success with them. For various reasons or at various stages. It's like, why would they wanna compete with that? People are doing it there because they wanted to do it. Yeah. They love the varieties. They were inspired by other things they tasted. And so they did it. It wasn't because it was a cash cow or anything like, how can you compete with you know, KJ sharp or the crema. Like Right. Again, not not I was thinking against that. What I'm just saying, like, they kinda corner the market on that and, like, did a very particular we're super smart about it and did a very particular thing at a particular moment. Like, why would roughly at that same time? And I'm when I'm saying at the same time, I mean, like, the nineties, why would Australia try to compete with that? And it it just doesn't make any sense. Exactly. They're doing because I love I I really respect that. Well, I took a lot out of that seminar. I didn't actually expect to. I was like, where's he gonna go with this? Which is sometimes why I sign up for the different seminars when the whole list comes out. So I'm grateful for that. Thank you. The wines were delicious. And so I would definitely encourage others to to check out more Australian, Charney, and Puna noir. And thank you so much for joining us for the podcast, and thank you for coming to Texome again. I know it's been a little while. It's, yeah, it's nice. It, like, you know, I've talked to other people. It feels like this, reunion, you know, this sort of homecoming. So Yeah. It's a nice time of year. But thank you for your time, and enjoy the rest of the conference. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, email ifm, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italianwine podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time. Chichi.