Ep. 948 Adam Lechmere | Uncorked

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode is brought to you by Vinitally International Academy, announcing the twenty fourth of our Italian wine Ambassador courses to be held in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, from the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Are you up for the challenge of this demanding force? Do you wanna be the next Italian wine Ambassador? Learn more and apply now at viniti international dot com. Hello, everybody. My name is Holly Hammond, and you are listening to Unquarked. The Italian wine pod cast series about all things marketing and communication. Join me each week for candid conversations with experts from within and beyond the wine world as we explore what it takes to build a profitable business in today's constantly shifting environment. Today, we welcome Adam Lishmere, veteran wine writer, consultant editor of Club Inner Lacheek, and all around lovely bloke. Adam is bringing the skinny on this week's London Wine Fair, and he's letting me ask him all sorts of questions about regenerative agriculture, the world's most expensive wine, and how the hell are we supposed to communicate a complex topic to different audiences across fractured markets? Let's get into it. Good morning, Adam. How are you? Good morning, Polly. I'm very well. Thank you. It's nice to see your face. I know that nobody else gets to see the video, but I do. I haven't seen you in person for years. I mean, years. None of assisting anybody in person for years, haven't we? When was it? Was it was it Portugal, Barcelona? Yeah. It was Portugal. Portugal for the conference. Yeah. Yeah. For the must conference, which I have to say, I loved that conference. I'm so sad that they don't still do that. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. I thought it was brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. This is a good time for me to put in a plug. You know, actually this year's wine to wine is all focused on communication. So nudge nudge might be might be a good opportunity. So you are saving my bacon. I was not able to get to the London Wine Fair because I had tickets to a rock concert, but you were. And I want to hear all about it because we've had I mean, We're just starting to go back to events. You know, I I noticed there are huge shifts in what's being presented and how we're communicating. So let's start with that, Adam. How was your how was your visit to the London wine fair? It was it was very, very nice, Polly. What can I say? I mean, it was, it's it's a really interesting, event that I think that the British wine trade certainly has a lot of affection for. And I don't think you'd use the word affection or NICE for, an operation like Provine, for example. You know? People, they love Especially not after this year. Well, exactly. They love it. They're I didn't go by the way, but, you know, I heard all about it. People people respect it and like it, but they regard it as as a sort of, you know, like, like you might regard going, you know, a military campaign or something like that. It's something that you kind of feel. It's hard work. The other trade fair, has the feeling of a sort of rather nice kind of village fate. You know, with, I went on the Tuesday. I arrived. I went for the first day I arrived at about, so I'm close to ten. People were queuing up. The queue wasn't too big. And it was really quite quite mellow all day. It's quite a mellow little event, with, you know, lots of the English trade. A few of the big stands in knotria there, the bend them are there, Hatch Mansfield, a few of the big hitters but also, you know, and and a lot of of the the English wine wine producers as well. So my timber there with their great big bus, etcetera. And then lots of rather sort of smaller esoteric so for example, you had wines in Uzbekistan. You had wines of Ukraine. People trying to get, obviously, you know, trying to get a toehold in the in the UK market. And yeah, I mean, it was Bekis, it was Bekistan's stand that kind of hung around there for a bit, but it seems to be mostly fruit wines. And I couldn't quite sort of see where the grape wines were, and so so I so I moved on, you know. But but yes, I mean, it's it's it's a very enjoyable event, and it's something that I I think I think the trade, would have absolutely loved it this year because, they will see it as something that has has been sort of pulled off against the odds. You know? I mean, at the start, the Behemoths, Provi, yeah, organized it to that date. It's actually exactly at the same time as English wine first. So that might have completely started it. Hat hats off to, Hannah Tuvey who, I've known for twenty years, an old colleague of mine from Buchanan. Now, I've been the CEO of the London Fair for the last, back the last ten years, I think now, for pulling off a really good, useful, interesting event. And, you you can't say fair as well. So it was useful. I mean, I guess, I I I think one of the things I noticed, so I did VIN Expo in Paris, and that was, like, the first big event back. I mean, that was, like, going from doing nothing to, oh my god, gigantic event. Right? And, and I I almost felt like now I don't come at it from a buyer side of it. I come at it from the marketing and comm side, but I almost felt like the community and the togetherness of it was even more important than necessarily for, you know, someone like me, the business side of it, because it was just delightful to be reminded why we put in what is really hard work to sell wine, you know, that we do get to go to these spaces, and there's congeniality congeniality to it, that we've all missed out on. So I I imagine that that's a lot of what you're talking about with the London wine fair that there was a sense of community and togetherness. Yes. And I think I think, you know, the the the key business of any wine fair, any trade fair in in any business is to get the right mix of congeniality and and and useful hard work, you know. And Summerline Provine perhaps goes the other way. In the end of trade fair, perhaps the the the the pendulum swab a bit more in the in the way of congenianity. So for example, I was just leading on Friday, on on Tuesday. And I saw, you know, Dante Cecchini who's an old Italian, Italian wine communicator. He used to work at Banthy, an old friend of mine. So great to chat to him. Great to taste the wines he was presenting. I wasn't particularly interested in the wines, but that was the congenenniality side. But only useful this side, what what the wide fare, what anybody will tell you, that's, you know, upstairs in that that sort of balcony, the Mexican area at London, Olymp, they have this section called, called, wild earth. And all the untried wines, all the and all the new wines. So I had a very, very interesting session at the canned wine stand. And, you know, I I hope to tell us about that. Well, I mean, you know, canned canned wines, I I think these guys are at the I think they're on the crest of the wave. I don't think I think they're slightly ahead of their time because I don't know if the world is ready for Calabrio. So was this like copper crew? Was was this like copper crew who's done a really good job out of the UK, but they're handwines? Copple brew, Wenninrobe, and, couple of others. There's a there's a couple nice, and I forget the name of it. Was this the first time that they'd had canned wines at the London Wine Fair? I think so. Yes. I don't think these guys were around three years ago, the last edition of the Fed. Was that section busy? Was there a lot of interest in it from trade and buyers? No. It wasn't high half the interest in the section just further down the way, which was, you know, the the, you know, the new wines, the unusual wines, the natural wines, the undiscovered. But yes, there there was certain buzz around it, but that's why I say I think they're slightly ahead of their time. I think in five years time, there's gonna be more of a buzz when canned wine gets to the same level as as as as can beer has the same level of interest, the same level of uptake. At the moment, it's nowhere near bass. But the key thing for me is that these are very, very good wines they're putting in the cans. You know, there's no way that the uncanned wine always used to be didn't it always used to be some, you know, you'd expect something sort of mildly spritsy and lights and totally takes this. Exactly carbonated slab blank or something like that. Exactly. Yeah. You take on a picnic and glug on a boat or something, but you wouldn't take near your dinner table. But these wines, I would be very, very happy to serve these at dinner, you know, albeit it would be slightly weird. And all my guests would think, my god, what are you doing with a can of wine here? It still is a very weird thing to put a ring pull on a can of wine. But, that sort of thing. I guess at some point, someone has to do it, though, right? Like, one of us has to rock up to the dinner table with our canned wine in in order to start making that happen, that it has to go from sort of presentation to to utility. I have a question about those stands. So, you're kinda my my proxy on this one. Were those, booths manned by representatives who are internal to the brand, or were they manned by distributors? Well, we're talking what are we talking about? The so so so why The canned wines? Oh, the canned wines. They were manned by the the the the the the the people who run the business. The producers. Example, I was speaking to entrepreneurial, who is the CEO of, the CEO of, copper group. Copper group. But these guys are they're all, like, twenty five years old. They're with the same age as my children. You know? And they're they're very, very sharp young guys, you know, and and I I would say they're probably more than a single person over over probably over thirty five there. Yeah. That's why I was asking because I really wonder I think that it's easy in the wine trade for us to rely on our distributors to go out and message for it. But I've been so interested. So if we're gonna talk about copper crew, I'd love to actually have them on the podcast sometime. They are very dynamic online and how they talk. They represent well of the brand. And I sort of wonder if because they're in that those early phases where they are out literally hawking the wares and giving the messaging themselves, and this is not just them. This is a lot of people in sort of the up and coming, the natural lines, the can wines, whatever. They're doing the hard yards themselves, are they just so much more dynamic and better able to to get that, you know, to to business language, to catalyze movement? To actually get us interested in what they're doing. Because I'm sorry to say there are a lot of trade fairs where when it's distro behind the stand, it's just boring as fuck. Like, you know, I couldn't agree more, Paulie. I mean, yeah, because with these guys, the the the palpable enthusiasm of people who feel that they are doing something that they love and doing something valuable and doing something new they're doing something that they they they're pretty confident will take off. I mean, I would I would invest in these guys. If I was an agent investor, I would invest in these guys for certain. So then we move from the canned wines to the natural funky, organic, and I use funky in a cultural context, not a a wine tasting context, just the natural wines. This is not something that is necessarily new, but you saw big growth in that category represented at the fair. Absolutely. I mean, I'll take one example. I stopped off at graft, which as you you know, used to be red squirrel. Go ahead. Nick Darling. He used to be red squirrel. He came up with, with, David Knott, a blotted line. And I always I mean, they won, as I think rather sweetly, they won eighth best producer in the eighth best distributor in the UK and they were tweeting about that, which I think is rather rather sweet in English. It's not like you might sort of come third in the egg and spoon race or something that the village favor we're talking about. But, joking aside these guys have got a superb range of wines. And and I always love going to their table and tasting because as I was saying, you know, about the canned wine guys, you're talking to people who are absolutely there with their fingers in the dirt, you know, you know, they're they're they're they're not making the wine, but they're they're as good as, you know, they're and they're they're just they're just presenting stuff that's very, very interesting, but there's quite an interesting sort of development there I saw with with a reoccur, that's, I forget the name of it, but it was a reoccur that struck me as exceedingly well made, exceedingly modern, incredibly as I've Geisty. And, you know, delicious in its way. But I also noted, you know, if I tasted that blind, I would have no idea where that wine came from. I might probably prompt the temporary, you know, because there are a few pointers there, but but whether it had any reoccur, tepicity or not. I really couldn't say. And it struck me as slightly like the, the the way the in pursuit of balance movement went in in in Sonoma. You remember in pursuit of balance where towards the end, you know, some of these wines that that became sort of slightly sort of culty, you know, and and some of these wines you felt, you know, California should not be producing, you know, chardonnay, this lean and this, you know, you know, this tight this I mean, it's still a huge argument. I am I I talked to one of my clients, and then then I actually have a a graph, Nick Darlington story. I talked to one of my clients about Natural Wine, and what they said was we get into this space where we still talk about natural wine as it was ten years ago. You know, we're natural wine, we're accidents that were happening. We were trying to figure out how to get things out the door, but that actually you have to remember the natural wine makers themselves are progressing. It's just getting so much better year on year on year. And I I think that that's probably a really interesting thing for us as communicators to not fall into our own trappings of, oh, you know, natural wine. These are the this is what we expect from natural wines, which, you know, I'm gonna step on my crack and get into trouble with all the natural wine producers if I go any further than that. But that's the thing. And so if you kind of reflect back upon natural wine tasting over the years, as you were going through those wines, were they reflecting a a growth and an awareness and improved production? Absolutely. I mean, that that's why I brought up the example of the re the re the reoccur because so much. We we we we spend so much time tasting wines that we we we we say this wine is obviously well made. It's obviously an accomplished wine. It's obviously got no floors whatsoever. But it's just kind of a bit sort of a bit too perfect, you know, and that's the way you know, if if you go to the raw wine fair or go to real wine, now the the the percentage of excellent wines you're tasting is massively higher than it was ten years ago or eight years ago. Now, you know, seven out of ten wines are absolutely excellent. Five or six years ago, three out of ten wines were excellent. The other the other seven might have been undrinkable right, cider, you know. So the wines are getting better and better, but I think they're losing some of their sort of joy, you know, the joy of finding an interesting discovery. And at that time, talking about mix, I'm talking about graft here because that was just one of their wines, and I was talking about it at the time. But, you know, I I tasted some really, really good, some really fine wines on that just minds that strike me as being so essentially modern in their sensibility, you know, and so tuned. I think that's the other thing. These guys are clever, and they they they present wines that are tuned to what the world that, you know, that the savvy wine audience is wanting to drink at the moment. Well, we've grown up too. You know, like, one of the things that we see, I don't want us to get too hung up on natural wines, but one of the things that we see is that oftentimes it's embraced by younger drinkers who don't wanna drink the wines or their parents have been drinking. They wanna, you know, experiment. They wanna try new things, except that is a a doorway to discovering all the different wines that that are out there, all the different profiles that we love, you know, the the wines suit us in our palette, and then we ourselves grow as wine drinkers. And I I find it interesting when I I kind of see some of the derision or the gatekeeping around natural wine and younger drinkers that the, the traditional wine industry feels so threatened by it instead of being like, yeah. Get them in the door because if they identify as wine drinkers, we get them. You know, they're not like, I'm the beer drinker. I'm the sour beer drinker. A great story about Nick that that applies to this, and I I'd be curious with what you were seeing. So I had a client who, I think that they sold the winery, but they were one of Nick's, wineries years ago. And the big thing that they were doing were key cakes that because they were French producer, British, marketplace, lots and lots of kegs. And this was before we were all talking about alternative packaging and climate change and all of that. Are we seeing more of the, you know, what I would describe as trade facing alternative packaging? Yeah. I mean, Was that anywhere in it? Yeah. Definitely. Well, there is the the w t a f. You know, the amusingly named w two t a f movement, Wind Trade, for alternative Patrick. Wine trade for terms of formats. And they they have a weird and wonderful selection of of formats there. I mean, they have the case. Those are the bag in box. Those are the BIB, right? They have the BIVs, bag in box. They have cardboard bottles. They also have things that look like sort of glorified fire extinguishers, that, I forget what they're called, but they're infinitely recyclable, infinitely re refillable and therefore, they're absolutely for the for the trade. So we're seeing a lot more of that as well. Was trade interested? You know, were people lining up to learn about that? I wouldn't say people were lining up. No. But, you know, I went to I went to this this grouping. I went to their first tasting at the Institute of Masters of wine about, about, eight to nine months ago, and certainly the trade was interested. There was a flurry of interest. You know, Jansis was there and Justin Howard's need was there. And you know, all the sort of key sort of London crew were there. London journalist, grouping were there. The interest at the moment is with the is is, you know, on the on the press side, people want to write about this stuff. Edises want to write about it. And, I I imagine that the interest from the trade is around the corner. Other than kind of the natural wines and the real, were there any big standouts from within the, you know, what I'm gonna describe as the traditional, the the people who are always there something that you looked at and you're like, wow. This has really changed how they're marketing presenting or what they're offering since pre pandemic. Yeah. That's a really good question, Polly. And, I've thought about it. And I You know, I was only there for a day, you know, and and and that day goes really, really fast. I was there with, with my daughter as it happens, who's now in the business. It was it was an extraordinary experience because It was the end of the day. It was the end of the day obviously, but the person behind the stand, was just going through the motions, you know, just pulling out those bottles, pouring us a sample, give me giving the spiel. This is what it says, like, this is how it's made. This is a and the next one and the next one and the next one. I didn't get any engagement whatsoever. And, so I I I'd say that it's it's still is it's still, you know, getting back. I keep saying it was a bit like a village phase. It still is that sort of presentation is is, I didn't see anything radical, I have to say. God, that's painful. Don't you just kinda wanna jump across the counter and be like, come on. Good storytelling. Good communicating. You know, like, be excited about it. Oh, painful. I'm going to touch on one thing that I saw on Twitter this morning, and then I I have a whole bunch of questions I wanna ask you while we're here. So I I noticed on Twitter, you know, where all valuable wine conversations happen. That there was a discussion around London Wine Fair, and how do you feel when someone who's not a part of the trade or not a buyer rocks up to your stand and and they wanna taste and they wanna drink the the wine. And, you know, people are going back and forth about Well, are they just bludgers, you know, are they boozing it up, which is not something that I tend to see a lot when I'm at trade events, especially with the amount that you have to get through. And I guess what I remarked upon in seeing this discussion going on is that I would have thought right now coming from the perspective as a marketer that we want everybody who has any interest in our wine at that table so that we have an opportunity to share the wine and talk to them about it. But it sounds like we're still kind of like, no. We really wanna only spend our time talking to the people who turn into money. What are your thoughts on that? Like, do you do you feel like we're still sort of closed gating that? Well, I I funny, I saw that question on Twitter. I saw that tweet. Mhmm. And I think her must have seen it when it just gone up. I forget who who said who asked the question. I think I must have seen it when it just went up because I clocked it and thought, oh, that's interesting. I'm gonna look forward to seeing the answers, but I haven't seen any of the answers. And so you're saying the answers are actually, no, we are already interested in people who are actually gonna, you know, give us some hard cash. It's both. Well, when I saw it, I mean, there aren't a ton of answers, and it started everyone who's not seeing the tweet, and I'm not naming who who put the tweet up. There was a back and forth, you know, anyone who's at the table, but then there is the discussion of, are they people who are just there for the drinking, which I guess, in in my head, I could have understood three years ago being like, oh, really, you know, like, this is the same thing as having bachelorette come into your tasting room. It's not really what you want. Right? But right now, I guess it would have felt like, man, you know, people endure butts in seeds. If people wanna try our wine and drink it, we need that right now. I mean, it's not like it's it's it's not over Italy where you have where where where where the the the the the public come in, you know, And if you ever man, you know, a frequently be behind the standard, initially, especially the I WSC stand and the public come in, and it's a total nightmare, you know. And, yeah, because you get, you know, they get pretty boost up by the end of the day as well. And so you you don't want those people. But, no, I absolutely agree with you. I think you you really want the people who are, you know, but just by very nature of the fact they've rocked up to your stand and they wanna try your wine. I mean, you know, that that's that's interesting. Right. And who's who's to marry, where the interest is is gonna come? You know, but we will see. Or, you know, like, I I think about it all the time with my husband. My husband who's got a a great palette, and I intentionally choose not to, like, I can't be judgmental about what's in the glass and and and be a good marketer. So if I need someone to go and actually do proper drinking, research for brands, I need to send my husband to do it. Well, he's not gonna walk in the room and be all shady about everything, but I guarantee he's coming back to me with the stories that how did they present the wine? You know, what did it taste like? What am I get what should I consider with it as a marketer? So I think it's really easy to forget that we all have the the people who messaged back to us as well. Or even just the messaging saying, as a good wine, but it, you know, wasn't very dynamic. It just seemed to be, like, super interested in it. And like with everything, you know, wine is now a very, very broad church, you know, and it's a much, much broader church than when I joined trade in nineteen ninety nine. I mean, you know, everybody, I mean, everybody is is a everybody is a white consumer. You know, everybody is interested. So, yeah. That's such a lovely segue, Adam. Because the next thing I wanna talk to you about, you wrote the article for a club in Elijic about Patagonia provisions. I am fascinated by this. I have so many questions about what this and this movement means for the wine industry. So first, just for anyone who doesn't know what Patagonia provisions is, can you kick down what it is that patio Patagonia is doing for wine cider and sake? Yeah. Well, very, very, very shortly. And in a couple of sentences, Patagonia, as we know, one of the one of the greatest trendiest hippest and most forward looking mountain clothing brands in the world. They, ten years ago, they decided to get into food. And, the that they hired Bergate Cameron, who's a very dynamic, American woman based resource of Lito to start the Patagonia brand, youths, start Patagonia provisions using the three point ethos of Patagonia, which is, the core values are build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, protect nature and be bound by no convention. That's four, isn't it? And from that they that they only, use the most sustainable products. And five or three or four years ago they decided to get into wine and the wine thing has taken off now. And, they so they started, for example, with, I think, dried sockeye salmon, smoked sockeye salmon. It was their very, very first food products. So their first food products were aimed very much at the outdoors person. You know, you'd put on your patagonia, fleece, and then you put the patagonia sockeye salmon in your backpack as well. You need to eat back by your campfire. Mhmm. And it seemed to be a natural progression to get into wine. And they've only just started. They've literally just started, but they're talking, you know, when I spoke to Bergy County. Yeah. October. Yeah. Exactly. And they're now talking. I mean, she became slightly coy where I asked her about, you know, what the next step. She said, yeah, we might we might start a winery. I can see them starting a winery, you know, and using the most modern you know, regenerative farming techniques at that, you know, in those vineyards. And I also talked about whiskey. So, watch this space? I I mean, I guess I looked at that and I thought, awesome for them. Like, so great. Anything that opens the door, I'm not down on on them doing it, but they control their routes to market in a way that is not offered to are not available to many line producers. Right? They have the you know, they have such, historical audience that really crosses personas. Like, one of the jokes around tech events and and and tech hiring is that you're gonna get your patagonia vest as part of your new hire pack. You know, like, they've they've done so well at establishing purpose, which I think is something that wine kind of dabbles in, but but a lot of brands don't really understand or interested in in that, like, purpose driven business. So they've already got the purpose. They've already got the impact. They've already got the voice. Already got the roots to market. How in the world do does a a new wine brand or even a pretty established wine brand compete with that? And that I don't know. I I don't have an answer. I mean, what what strikes me about Patagonia? What strikes me is really, really interesting about this is is, you know, I've been people have been pitching you over I was editor of Decanta dot com in twenty twenty, people were pitching me stories about sustainability. And I always made the joke that, you know, sustainability, you have to sort of, you know, prop your eyelids open because it was always an extraordinarily boring subject to to talk about. What's been so fascinating is that the issue of sustainability and now regenerative farming and regenerative agriculture has has now become, has now become interesting. It's it's finally become sexy if I can use that word. Which is, you know, a way of describing it. And, and, and, you know, in Jamie Good's phrase, in in his book, regenerative Viticulture. I I don't know if he said that if he if he was quoting somebody. The vine has cease to be the organism of interest. The organism of interest now is the soil. And, who'd have thought that soil would become such an absolutely fascinating subject? I did the two days at the soil conference. And, It was fascinating because it was super geeky. It was all scientist. You know? And and I thought that was fascinating. It wasn't business, marketing, comps, it wasn't about selling. It was literally about nematodes and carbon sequestration. Yeah. And, and the fact that you could get that many people in a very uncomfortable room, to to dig into farming soil water practices says a lot about I would say, our industry's commitment to change. I don't know if that's translating into consumer awareness or understanding. Well, this this is where I think it gets really interesting because, You know, the the the the regenerative farming, you know, it has become. It's his mouth tipping over into the mainstream. You've got, you know, you've got that documentary, called, kissing the ground that Winnie Harrison, Yep. Will be Harrison narrated. You've got James Reebanks in this country who's a regenerative farmer in the Lake District, who's a very, very savvy brilliant communicator, and absolutely a man with an almost kind of, you know, hobbit like one this with the soil, you know, And, then you have Patagonia coming in. And I thought, what James Rebank said, and I didn't quote him in the piece, but I thought it would have been interesting. He was saying the thing is it still is what he's doing is incredibly exciting and fun. And wonderful to be able to see barn owls coming back into your land, etcetera, etcetera, leaving meadows to, you know, rule this. But he said he's still not making any money. And it is unbelievably hard work for very little profit. And so he's convinced himself, and he's convinced his family, and he's convinced some Guardian readers. But has he convinced his neighbors? Oh, he doesn't think so. You know? And I think that's where Patagonia comes in because if Patagonia can show that this this sort of this sort of approach to Viticulture and agriculture can also be profitable. It can only be a good thing because that's it always comes down to to to profit and yield, doesn't it, basically? Because the moment you go organic, the Always, it always comes down to money. Yeah. Yield goes down You know? And and, you know, and money goes as we as we always see. So One of the things that I thought was interesting about the Patagonia lineup is that it's not private label wines. You know, they are sourcing from known producers. And so, again, going back to the idea of money, if we suddenly see a marketplace that is really leaning into embracing regenerative agriculture brands, brands who are doing things right, purpose driven brands, whatever it may be, then that says to us, okay, doors are opening, you know, places where maybe one time we would have struggled to get representation. I actually go all the way back to early organic wines. So we had clients who didn't wanna put on their bottles that they were organic because there was a time when you know, the feeling of being organic actually meant that we were producing a lesser quality wine and relying on that organic label to sell it. I was talking to Liz Kramer, who is, director of a winery in Argentina. This was last week's episode, And she said on the record that they actually would get paid less for their grapes, when their grapes were organic. And and so they had to go through a whole process of not communicating that they were organic in order to correct some pricing issues and then now being able to go back to say that they're organic. So, I mean, we'll see how that works having having big names. Given us mad props for it. But the on the other side of it, so we've got Patagonia, which is, you know, I'm gonna describe it as campers wine. I think that's probably not right, but it is very much for the down to earth, you know, return to the earth kind of audience in a sense. But then we also have the whole thing that's going on where we've just had a thirty thousand dollar, thirty thousand pound. I'm gonna get that wrong. You know, bottle opened at Annabelle's. How do we, you know, so and and I it's funny. I actually can get behind some of what the producer is saying about it. You know, like, what the ethos of the it's Libra Potter. Is that right? Libra Potter, Yeah. Line is, I mean, have you have you tasted that? Do you know much about that? You've tasted it? Yeah. No. No. I've tasted the o seven from the fifteen. I think the fifteen is the one that went Damn, you're fancy, Adam. For well, this was, this was just before lockdown, actually, just for the pandemic hit in, as a company, new, start start up, but then, called Oeno, o e n o. Run by, Justin Knock and various others, and they're specializing in these very, very high end wines. And it's fascinating. My I wrote back. She's my I I I was saying this, and and when it they have this annabelle's tasting, I re I looked it up, but I'd sort of said about it. And, I was deeply unimpressed by the two thousand and seven, which I thought was way evolved. And, and I was so sort of concerned by this. I was sitting next to Tim Trip tree of, of Sotheby's in, in New York in, Hong Kong. And, we sort of exchanged glasses. And I actually emailed him afterwards and asked if I could quote him, and and he he was saying the same thing. I wanted a second opinion on this. You know, It was evolved. It was, you know, the tannins were way too dry for it for for for a wine at that age, and that price. I saw the twenty fifteen was lovely, but it was one of these classic things. It was obviously a very, very nice wine, very good wine, you know. And we can't disappear down that rabbit hole or is it worth thirty thousand quid or not? Because, I mean, you know No. I mean, look, we all know that's a decision. Right? That's a mindful decision. I I I'm not even gonna concerned so much about that on the trade and production side. But what I wonder is, you know, in wine communication, I noticed that there's this tendency to lump all wine together. And so we've got natural wines, and we've got can wines, and we've got patagonia provisions, and we've got liver pots here. And, you know, like, how do we actually using communicators like yourself, but also using, you know, so You are you are a veteran wine journalist pre internet days, but now we've got bloggers, we've got prosumer bloggers, we've got influencers. Like, how do we actually simplify the language that will allow us to talk about, Condelli, natural wine via Patagonia, and a copper crew, canned wine, and a lever potter, And then just what I would describe as our, like, everyday drinking wines. How do you do that when you're writing? I think well, it comes back to that broad church thing, doesn't it? I mean, is this not, you know, very, very similar to to to to to, you know, the motoring industry, for example, the car industry where you have, you know, you have your maseratis at the very, very top. And then you have, you know, then you go down through every single level of the pyramid, don't you two, to the Yeah. But nobody sits around and says we have to educate them about why they need to buy a Maserati. We're just, like, you either have the money and the interest, and you're in the right, you know, you're in the right socioeconomic group, or you're not. We're not sitting around being like, we need to tell them why the Maserati is worth the extra money. Which is what would you mind? Well, but with the Libapata and with with all the kind of luxury wines of the world, that basket off, you know, very, very, very expensive wines that do get up in very quickly to the twenty thousand, thirty thousand pound of bottle level. You know, that is the bona fide luxury end, isn't it? So you're not having to educate anybody to buy that wine because that's the classic theme. That that's the Maserati end where, you know, if you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it. And, and then you get that whole raft of different wine buyers who are aspirational and, you know, many of them will aspire to having, you know, that board of first breath or that, you know, that burgundy Grandford classic or whatever. And the education is really just actually in the middle, isn't it? It's it's it's really in that sort of very, very, very central kind of mid mid range of people who you want to get to, you know, you want to move them on from seven ninety nine to ten ninety nine to fifteen ninety nine up to twenty pounds. And that's that's the most difficult part, isn't it? That that, you you don't need to convince people to spend thirty grand. You need to convince them to spend twenty five quid. And I I find that incredibly hard. I'd always tell them that, you know, this bottle of wine is twenty five pounds. Twenty five pounds is what you pay for a cinema ticket in Central London. And, you know, if you go out to the cinema and if you also buy yeah. Fifty, you can easily pay twenty five pounds. I think the average is about fifteen. But if you buy popcorn as well, that's another five. Or if you get a babysitter, that's another thirty, forty quid. You can easily spend a hundred pounds on a cinematrade. And the amount of work that goes into making that bottle of wine is just the same as the amount of work, you know, the the skill levels and the, you know, are exactly the same. So so that that's that's where the trick comes, I think. And then all the rest is just sort of noise. Around Libapata is just kind of noise, I think. But can I say one other thing about Libapata and Lowic Pascal who makes it? Is that, his methods, you know, he's he's he's I don't I don't think he's a charlatan. I think he knows he's onto a good thing, but I don't think he's a charlatan because he has, you know, he he has the respect of very, very serious winemakers all around the world for his methods. You know, for, you know, the idea of using ungrafted. Right? I don't think he's a charlatan at all. Just so you know, I I actually think that that that it's it's not just, it's not just luxury. So I tell this story in the context of parenting, My kids went to a a very purest steiner school when they were growing up. And, you know, there's always in any space where, you know, forget what you think of Rudolphstein or anything else. But if you're just looking at the pedagogy, you always have those, like, died in the wool purest. You know, you were going to have it the way that they believe it was meant to be. A lot of times, you might look at it and be like, no. That's ridiculous, but it's so important that they exist. Because without that that level of real belief in the purity of something, it's easy for us to lose touch with the heritage and the foundation, whatever. So I actually think that what he's doing is some amazing messaging. It's great press. You know, I think that it it does open a door for, like, interesting education and storytelling. So I'm not dismissing it at all. I just think that I know as I know from my own client experience, that even producers have a hard time understanding that it's not a broad church. You know, you have your people and your people are based on a set of decisions you made. And if you want to have his people, you have to have different decisions. You know? So so it's it's it's quite challenging. Last question, you came before you went into wine, you wrote about film and music. Isn't that true? Was that, like, a thousand thousand years ago? No. It's, yeah. No. No. I was certainly, I I but but I was very much, I mean, communication wise, this is interesting. You know, I was I was working in a in a press agency, basically. This was pre paparazzi. So this was, you know, in the mid nineties, before digital. And we it was a press agency, that specialized in gossip. And this was like the big this was at the in the Brick Pop here, which is when we would spend, you know, four or five hours, outside Noel Gallagher's house. Super overhyped since John's word, you know, waiting for Noel to come home. And when you saw him coming down the street, you know, the press pack would be onto him, you know. And so I was not in any way, a, a sort of serious film or music journalists, but we were But what was interesting from a from a from a journalism point of view is that you were taught, the the hard way that you had to produce, and we had to produce seven stories a day. And if you didn't produce seven stories a day, you were given a major bollocking in the press conference the next morning. So that the press conference every morning in ten o'clock with the whole team, with the editor, and about seven or eight journalists. And at the Adam, you know, you only produced five stories yesterday. What happened? And you say, at the no excuse that there's never an excuse. So you would learn to create a story literally out of nothing and, almost literally out of nothing. And that's the daily mail. I would I would recommend to anybody wanting to get to Germans. I'd recommend that because it kind of beats out of you this idea that you're producing kind of gorgeous, gorgeous, purple prose that's kind of last forever. You know, you're producing, you know, as they always say tomorrow's chip papers. So, Yeah. Yeah. It's a I'd say, you know, very creative training, but don't dignify it with the, with a serious film of, or, or music journalism. I I guess what struck me about it, although that's a great story is I'm like, oh, film and music. That sounds like so much fun. And and we do struggle with storytelling in wine. And and, you know, I just I was wondering when I saw that in your bio, if there were moments that you sat looking, you know, you go from film and and music into wine, and you sat there thinking, oh, we need a little bit of storytelling, we need a little bit of messaging, Absolutely. Always. Always. Always. Always. But on the on, you know, the film side, I spent so many, many hours sitting in, you know, don't, you know, on a donut is, you know, where you you sit there and you have the, you've got the, you've got from the sake of argument, Greg Wiseman, you know, presenting his life, not Greg Wiseman, Gregwise, you know, and if he's sitting in the middle there and he's got a ring about thirty journalists around him, you know. And all he wants to talk about is the film. All the journalists want to talk about is his relationship with Judy with, with, Emma, Emma Thompson, you know, he just started going out with her at the time. And I'd been together mad for about twenty five years. And so, you know, the story I wanted was, you know, what do you do with Emma Thompson, what's happening, what's the state of your marriage, etcetera, etcetera. And he's just batting away those questions. He wants to talk about his, you know, his presentation, his his characterization, you know, how he's dealing with this, you know, how he sort of, you know, method acting, etcetera. But but so so the stories don't come any easier when even when you've got a you know, hundred percent a list celebrity in front of you. And in wine, it's it's it is really, really hard because wine is essentially a very boring subject if you're not actually drinking it. You know, talking about wine? I mean, who was it said that? Oh, but it shouldn't be. Yeah. We we have great wine stories. We have great producer stories. Like, that's I I think that that's the thing that just sort of breaks my heart. I you get into a room. I'm certain you do this. You get into a room and you talk to the people. We go to something like the London wine fair, which is, you know, going back to the copper crew team being there behind the the booth, you know, giving their own message. You talk to the people who are doing it, and there is a love affair. Otherwise, we would never do this for a living. It's too damn hard and there's not enough money in it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And just getting that expression of what we love about our industry transmitting that is so hard. Yeah. And and maybe that's the space where if we could get the trade, if we could get the other people, we could get all those distributors just loving what we are doing as much as we do, then Can we be more joyful and dynamic? It's it's it's yeah. It's it's but it's the eternal it's the eternal question, isn't it? It's it's the because the the wine producer, it it's the eternal standoff between really very, very basic elemental level between journalist and wine producer. The wine producer has his or her story to tell. They probably wanna talk about malolactic fermentation and wastewater treatment, and you have to tease out of them that story, and that's what's so interesting. Talking about the stories though, Polly, just the last stable stories is that you just, you know, it's it's it's the absolute it's it's not the wine. It's not the wine trade's fault that they're not getting their stories out. It's always gonna be the journalist's fault and the communicator's fault. We've got to pull the stories out of them. You know, it's pull not push. Well, see, I I sit on the marketing side of it where I say it's also and I don't like to say any it's anybody's fault, but everyone needs to have their hands, I think, in that pie. Like, I can't make wine. You know, that that's what I say to my clients. I can't make wine, but I can tell stories of how you make wine. And so together, that's a good team. I mean, I don't know if you can make wine or not, but you can certainly transmit and convey those stories in a way that I can't, in a way that they can't. And, and, I guess, just more working together, unless fatigue and frustration with each other, even though I'm as guilty of it as anyone. Yes. More working together. I like I like that. Yes. Alright. Well, Adam, I know that you have more things to do with your day. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming and giving me the Goss on London Wind Fair. I I hope that I can get there next year. No. Great. Talk to it, Keith. And that's a wrap. Thank you for listening, and a great big thank you to Adam for joining us today. The Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world, and the only one with daily episodes. Tune in each day and discover all our different shows. Be sure to join us next Sunday for another look at the world of wine marketing. Thanks for listening to this episode of Italian Wine Podcast. Brought to you by Vineetli Academy, home of the gold standard of Italian wine education. Do you want to be the next ambassador? 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