Ep. 1119 Miguel De Leon | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode has been brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November seventh and eighth of twenty twenty two in Verona Italy. This year will be an exclusively in person edition. The main theme of the event will be all around wine communication. Tickets are on sale now. So for more information, please visit us at wine to wine dot net. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences, working in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Hello, and welcome to voices. Today, I am so happy to welcome Miguel De Leon to voices. Miguel was born in the Philippines, and he moved to California when he was ten, and graduated from Yucal, Berkeley with degrees in linguistics and urban planning. But it was his job at a neighborhood restaurant that changed his path forever and sent him on to New York where he has created a restaurant and a wine career. That is nothing short of amazing. And he's worked at the likes of momofuku and Casamono, And he is currently the extremely award winning wine director at Chinese, which I have never eaten at yet, and I can't wait to one of these days. And he he gets described as having solo full comfort food and wine pairing menu. And has he's earned the restaurant a really great place on the New York star's wine list. So these days, Miguel needs a wheelbarrow to card around all of his own accolades that he's won in recent months, including imbibe Magazine, seventy five people working for a better drinks world, and Michelin Guide Sameli Award in New York, and the James Beard award for his essay on intersecting identities and decolonization. And best of all, most recently, he was named one of wine enthusiasts, future forty Tazemakers and innovators. So I am really glad that he has even half a minute to spare for our podcast today because I've been wanting to talk to Miguel for ages. So thank you so much for coming on. Oh, thanks for having me. Oh, it's a huge pleasure. And I have to say that is the longest intro I have ever had to give on voices You've been wine director at Pinch Chinese now for almost six years, and you're doing so many cool things there, championing email winemakers and New York state wines and natural wines, among a lot of other things. So I'm just wondering where you get your inspiration for your award winning wine list. And what lights you on fire about a new wine? What makes you think I have to have this? It has to be at the restaurant. There there's a few things really, in terms of inspiration, I I find it Literally everywhere. Sometimes it'll be from a museum visit. Sometimes it's from reading a book. Sometimes it's the conversations with friends. Sometimes it's just challenging the notion of, like, what what what can exist in this category. So For me, it it can really come from anywhere. One of my favorite, kind of, like, recent things that I started really kind of focusing in on. And I think, you know, if you're writing a wine list, you have to be mildly obsessive about something anyway. Absolutely. Was fortunate enough to travel to Austria this past March, and it was just an eye opening experience, obviously, considering, you know, how none of us were able to travel for the past few years. And then to kind of experience falling in love with wine all over again. In a really kind of visceral agricultural and through a farming perspective. So I thought that that was really magical, especially going through, you know, some of the more Vanguard, Austrian winemakers who were, you know, doing biodynamic preparations and doing a little bit more kind of, like, interesting things with farming and minimal practice. So, you know, thinking about how that can that can read on a wine list. Ultimately, if the stories that I wanna tell all have a similar theme, then I think that that's that's a a a really wonderful goal for a wireless to have. And I know that a lot of people don't really put that much thought into a lot of that kind of stuff, but, you know, that's the artist not hard kind of speaking. No. Absolutely. And it does I I think all of us in the wine sector or even just, you know, wine enthusiasts, you know, the difference when you're reading a wine list and you wanna take it home and snuggle up in bed and read it as if it were a book or just, you know, a list of, well, I could have this or I could have that. So Yeah. Exactly. You know, that effort really makes a huge, huge difference in in the experience of reading one of those lists. Yeah. I I mean, I think it's also just a lot of fun to I like breaking form clearly. I mean, I was clearly, very inspired in writing my first line list by Paul Grico of of terroir and how he kind of formatted, you know, this change of how people talked to a riesling, for example. And Paul would put, like, encyclopedic things on his wine list. And I was like, this is crazy. I've never seen a wine list like this before, and then even looking at, say, like, traditionalist wine lists, and and seeing that there wasn't really information. You know, there's it those those lists to me, I don't like a didactic wine list where there's only one way to take it in. Exactly. Oh, I want you to have a little bit of involvement feel like wine is always a conversation. There's a reason why bottles are shaped at the way that they are. And it's because we need to be able to share them. And I think the same way about, you know, curating a list of four hundred of them. And that's four hundred plus conversations, at least, that we can maybe have And that's just on on what's available, not to mention, like, the the greater world of wine. So, that's that's a that's a really big impetus for me. What likes my fire about neck, Newwine specifically is if it's especially delicious. And I know that what's going on behind it coming into the restaurant is something that I can, you know, fully appreciate and defend. I'm I'm really excited about this conversation because I think people can get too wrapped up in in talking about wine in particular ways. And and some of those ways are quite exclusive, but I like that some of your criterion has to do with being especially delicious and having a good story to tell. Those are the things that make wine, you know, relationship builders and community builders. You know, wine was invented in the first place, so everyone could sit around a table and and drink it. So especially delicious, I think, has to be a a wine list criteria or in my book anyway. So but you you said something interesting about wines, in an article that I read for wines on your list, the wines that you choose for Pinch Chinese have to be defensible at every turn before you'll put it on your list. And I really like this concept, so I'm dying to hear you explain it you know, sort of spin out this philosophy in your own words for for our listeners. Sure. So, obviously, it starts with that deliciousness thing. Right? But that's that's that that's us meeting halfway. Right? That's the halfway point of me interacting with that line. It's had a life before. And once once it meets up with me, then it'll have a life actor. But to consider that part beforehand, right, and so In terms of being defensible at every turn, I mean, well, was the land treated fairly when this grape was being grown? Were the people who were tending that land treated fairly when this was being grown? We forget sometimes that wine is the sum of a multitude of thousands of human decisions. Right? It's a human consequence. Like, there's no there's no such thing as grapes being turned into wine just because, like, you don't you don't pick right? You don't you don't pick a bunch of grapes and then all of a sudden it just turns into wine. It never happens. That's the mistake that a lot of people make. Right? No. People forget. Yeah. Exactly. And and and and not just that, there's also that notion that, like, as soon as it's pressed, it's just gonna make itself. Maybe for some people, that's their philosophy, but you also end up making very flawed wine at the end that day. But to me, that's that's where the defensible things come in. And I mean, okay. Well, if you've if you've treated the land right, that's a great step. And then if you've treated your people right, that's another great step. And then maybe if you're thinking about If there's a lot of bigger picture things that align, then I think I can absolutely tell your story a way better because those are also things that I firmly believe in. And so it just it just so happens now that now we're talking about things like social equity and justice and and diversity and the spaces, and that's an even better story to tell. Right? We get we get much more color. And for us to be so obsessed with how a grape grows, how a vine grows. I think we can also be as obsessive with, say, how your vineyard workers are being treated or how recyclable your items are in in that cardboard box. So all of those things come together as part of that defensible route, you know, if if am I am I teaching my staff all the right things. I might teach my my staff historically contextual things about, you know, agriculture in California, for example, if I don't include, you know, the Chinese exclusion acts or how we were denied Filipino rights in San Francisco. There we don't those things get glossed over. And, and, yes, they're part of our history. But and some people don't wanna talk about that in line, but I think it it paints a much better and much more complete picture when we do that. And that's what I mean by defensible. I I'm so happy about this. You're you're completely singing my song, and I do I agree with you entirely that there are a lot of conversations in line right now that are pretty uncomfortable. You know, clearly you're you're talking about some specific ones in California that a lot of Europeans definitely are not familiar with. And it's it's important to have that backstory. It doesn't have to be the fulcrum on on on which, you know, the bottle is gonna tip up or down, but having that backstory, I think gives people more did interest in what went before and what could come after in the right hands. So I I completely agree with that. It's it's an it's an interesting concept and also how how how wineries are are engaging with their vineyard stewards is is equally important. So, I like I like defensible. I'm gonna steal that term from you, I think. Please. Please. I think I think I think the more people think about what goes on their wine list. Right? I I think a little bit of thoughtfulness goes a really long way. Well, and there's, yeah, there's a difference between sustainable and defensible. I I like that term. One is one is a very passive way at it. And defensibility is you taking a very active route and making sure that your stakes are just as high whenever you're putting something on the line. That's true. I like that. It is it's more active. Yeah. It is much more active than passive. That's that's Really, yeah, that's very insightful. You have got so much going on besides, doing that. And I love the fact that you're educating your staff about this, by the way, but we'll touch on that later. But outside the rest the restaurant, you are also, you know, terrifically busy with a ton of projects, and I know our listeners are gonna wanna hear about this. I I wanna start with the article that you wrote for the James Beard and other writing that you've been doing lately because you describe yourself as a wine professional of color and you joined a white dominated industry at a really young age and you became very successful. And now a lot of your writing, and it sounds like a lot of the talking that you're doing and educating that you're doing as well focuses on those issues of social justice and equity and, you know, the sort of systematic inequalities in our own sector. So I'm just I I'm curious as to, you know, what sort of spurred you on to take up these topics as we were just saying, you know, they're not comfortable. They can be awkward. They can make people, be very divided in their opinions and in what they are willing and not willing to say. So were your owns or personal early experiences in the industry something that pushed you on to do this writing and to achieve and aspire in the wine world? Or You know, how did you get to that point where you thought I'm going to write about this, and I'm gonna put myself out there? Because it's a brave thing to do. I just wanted to be honest with my wine experience, really. Obviously, a lot of my early formative wine experiences were kind of coated within that white space. I was fortunate enough to be in a really kind environment when I was learning about wine for the very first time. You know, the very first person who took me into wine was Jonathan Waters, a cheap niece who's a wonderful man. And I I miss him dearly, but the the idea of a very kind of, like, a very open armed look at at how people come into wine. Right? I knew nothing coming into that space. I knew that, like, wine was a very rarefied thing, and it it it was expensive for me at the time. And for him to just be like, you know, we have all of these wines open. It's for everybody here to kind of understand what they're trying to sell, but also kind of make you have a connection with what we're trying to do here at the restaurant. So that I've I've really taken that kind of experience. And at the same time, moving to New York, kind of realizing that, you know, it's an industry first, really. And then to to make it even more lonely is that, I tended to be the only person who looked like me in wine class and certification programs in places where bodies were legitimized in this space. And I've I've worked in New York wine now for about, gosh, sixteen years. And it's it's just now that we're kind of starting to talk about, you know, the old Miguel's getting all these accolades. Like, I never I mean, thank you for the recognition. But, you know, when you just put your head down in work and do the things that that make you happier because you get to be your yourself fully in this space, then imagine the possibilities if we just allowed that from the very beginning. So, you know, a lot of a lot of my experiences that we wrote about were they're painful. I mean, they they still continue to I mean, I I I have a wonderful therapist that I talk to him about this every, you know, every so often, but it's it's it's been a long time to and it took a long time for me to kind of be to get out of that mentality of, like, wasn't worth it or that that there there wasn't there wasn't a group of people who were around me. And so just just by kind of being a little bit more active in in finding my own community and and trying to see what it meant to just be myself in a space where I didn't have to, you know, take my earrings off or get a haircut or lose lose myself, in a in a personal identity kind of fashion when I was engaging with wine in a professional setting. I think that that that's all I wanted to speak about. That got fast forwarded when, obviously, when Julia Coney started speaking about, you know, her experience, her black wine experience after George Floyd was murdered. And, really, that that that kicked my ass into saying, well, I know that I can do more. And very quickly, I was like, well, what's what what are the things that we're that we're not talking about? What are the things that I've experienced personally that I have a little bit of beef with? What are the things that my friends and I always talk about after we come away from a wine tasting and say, well, that didn't feel right, or like that felt off. But we always had these little debriefs ourselves, and then I was I just aired a I just aired them out. And, you know, if if that kind of honesty is the thing that's gonna get people to pay attention or something like that, then let's all get louder. Let's all talk a little bit more shit. Let's let's get a little bit more angry because then it could be better. Yeah. I mean, it it's completely in agreement with just if you're willing and and, obviously, we all understand that it is painful, and these things are challenging because they are real. And they, you know, they don't just happen once in our careers. They happen over and over. But, you know, one of just one example of one of the things that you and your colleagues and your friends would find that was off because I think it's important to to talk about these so that other people can say, yeah, hey, I thought that was off. And if Miguel says it was, then then I can trust my instincts. Yeah. So, I mean, there's there's a couple ways of going about it. It's you know, if you're if we're going to a wine tasting every once in a while, if you if we were traveling as a group, for example, we'd notice that we would get much shorter pours than people. And so that was that was key. And we were we were all buyers at that point too. And we were like, okay. Well, I guess we're only gonna taste a little bit of this wine as as as to how everyone else is getting treated here. The second was, like, a very clear, like, denial of our, like, just existence. Like, until we got to the front of the line, no one would acknowledge us, or unless someone who was very clearly, a person of influence would come up to us. No one would pay attention. And so we just started to say, you know what? Well, if if if that's if that's how it's gonna be, then we're just gonna go organize our own thing. We'll taste these wines with our reps, and maybe that's the only way that we'll experience these. We've stopped I mean, there there were a few of us who just absolutely stopped going to wine tastings because of that kind of mentality. And for those of us who do continue to go to wine tastings, that's a very clear kind of protocol. You know, like, we'll check-in with each other. We'll see each other at the door. We'll walk together as a group and then kind of lead together also. So there, you'll you'll notice. You'll notice when the people when the people who look like me in in that room are all kind of gathering around and and talk amongst ourselves about what's going on. It's because it's it's the same idea of of why you wouldn't maybe wanna talk to a certain producer because they were doing something skiier. It's it's it's a similar kind of whisper network that we're developing. It's just that, you know, there's It's much less coated because it's much more explicit. We can't turn off being brown and black on a on a selling floor. Of course not. And, yeah, but I I like the way that you're you've developed a strategy to push back you know, in a way that is is clear and intentional, but it's not confrontational. It's so important. It's, you know, there's there's using our voices is really important and using it in a way that gets our message out firmly and loudly, you know, without becoming part of the problem. I mean, I will I will ask more of my white colleagues if if this is what if that's anything to to take away from this. Is that, you know, where your your your your brand of black colleagues are tired. Though we're very tired. The last two years have been harrowing for us. And if there's any way that you could use your body or your position to make sure that we get a little bit of ease, that's that's something that is absolutely something. Well, I'm I am a white cis woman, and I can tell you this is this is why I do what I do because I think well, it's our job to shine lights on this. It really is all of us. You know, I I will never have your experiences. But I can shine light on it where I think it's sitting in the darkness and it shouldn't be. So and I think more people need to do it. And, you know, as a woman, of course, as I said, you know, I'm a white woman, so that made life easier. But as a woman, you know, I've been passed over ignored you know, I have made myself be quiet when I probably shouldn't have felt that I needed to. So it's I think it's my it's my job. It's my honor and my privilege to be able to shine light on on things that, you know, my colleagues need help with. So and like you're writing, as I said, it's brave. There are always gonna be haters and judgers out there, but, people need to hear it. It's encouraging. You're it's, you know, getting back to your staff. Educating your staff and being a role model and and, you know, using your voice is gonna be hugely, hugely helpful. I mean, I'm I'm sure you have a very diverse staff. Mhmm. Absolutely. And and, I mean, that that's just a consequence of us trying to find, you know, people who are maybe didn't have any habits about how to talk about wine. I think it was very conscious decisions to to bring people up, you know, a couple of our psalms that that we've had come through pinch were, you know, they were our bussers, they were runners. We want we've we've really wanna invest in this idea that, like, that you can learn about wine through any channel and you don't need a pin. You don't need a certificate. It might help you in the long run because that system probably won't change for a while. But at the end of the day, your education personally is is way more meaningful, because of the relationships that you make and how you speak about it. And and for us, it's just really finding a way to empower people with the kind of vocabulary that they already have. You don't have to learn wine speak in order to to love wine. And that that and consumers can do the same thing. You know? I feel like, every time you present a guest with a wine list, it is intimidating to receive a document that's three hundred wines long for you to choose one for the night. And all we wanna ask is that there's a reason why there's somebody who's job it is to guide you through this. And if you trust us enough, we'll find the bottle for you. Pronas, and we don't ever have to say it's dry or it's funky or I want something that's red that's that tastes like that there's a, obviously, we we talk about education as a as a platform for people to understand why through a much more kind of, like, academic way or a much more standardized way. But when we standardize something, we also flatten that human experience of something. Right? You have to sacrifice a little bit of that individualistic artistic expression if you're gonna standardize something. But but there's a reason why a McDonald stays the same way in Italy as it does in the United States. But at the same time, if I were making San Jose say in California or in Texas, it wouldn't taste the same as the SanJerveza that you're having in Latzio. Right? There's those are two those are completely different places that have their own vocabularies about something that's that's there. And and in the same way, you know, I just wanna make sure that it's not about demystifying wine. Either I hate that. I hate that term. Like, wine should be romantic and mystic and magical. It it should be. It it's pleasurable. It's hedonistic at the end of the day. Right? But there's an allure to it that that we need to keep. We are at, like, SMLEAs, we're storytellers and magicians at the end of the day. Right? I need to make sure that when it pops in thing open, you're not just gonna fall in love with it. You're gonna figure out how did I find that for you. And it's it's it's And it's part of that defensibility strategy that I was speaking about earlier. Well, it's because I've done my due diligence and my my you know, I've hidden the rabbit in the right portion of the hat for you to not see it well. Or everything feels like a surprise. Right? And that surprise might come from Hungary, from or or from, you know, or from Georgia or from or from a a a region in Germany that isn't all that celebrated. So that that, to me, that that's the idea of of giving people this kind of power of of speaking about validity and emotion, and why should have elicit things in us? It it is a powerful thing. There's a reason why people write about it in poetry because it is artful, but it's ultimately, it's a personal human connection. Right? Your tongue and your brain exist in your head, and I the only thing that I can do is maybe suss out the closest thing of how you approximate what I'm tasting. And in that, there's poetry, in that, there's magic. And that's that's the education bit that I wanna that I wanna do because it's not it it's not helpful for me if I tell my students that Bordeaux's a place in France that they'll never visit. You know, you can just tell them, hey, you know, Barto's a place, and it gave us this. But now we have to react to, like, the very modern consequence of what that means. So, you know, well, here's Barto. Here's a it's a place that gave us this kind of wine, but now it's also going through these kinds of things, say, like, a drought or, say, like, a lack of migrant labor, which also affects, say, like, the price point. It's it's perception the very clear kind of class divide within the Chateau system. So all of those things together make for a richer story, obviously, but also have a really deep impact on how someone perceives about Bordeaux. It's not a rarefied thing. It's not it's not something that's stuck in time Wine has to be evolutionary, and education can be too. Italian wine podcast, part of the Mamau jumbo shrimp family. Yeah. That is that is such a great message. I I love just the simple power of that message that wine should elicit some things and it should have some magic, and we don't need to strip that away to, you know, to educate people. I I think that's a very, very good starting point for any wine conversation. I think I think whenever Camilla is deem themselves experts. Like, that's the red flag. Right? Like, I like I like absolutely not knowing everything about this this this journey. I like that there's still a big left turn that we can make and not know where we're headed. That's my favorite part of being in this sector. I know you're working with the huge society as well, as part of their resource council. And I I'm a big fan. I love the core values of the society, you know, creating equitable spaces and redistributing power, and sort of developing a toolkit for, you know, advancing people who have been unrepresented, you know, by black people, lgbtq people, getting them involved. So I just wanna know, you know, what's your role on the council? What are you doing to, to help out? I can tell you're a great educator. You know, I love educating too. So when I heard about you getting involved with you and starting a curriculum I thought this is gonna be awesome. So I wanna hear what you're doing there. Yeah. So kind of a little bit of what we've been speaking about already. My role specifically is to kind of help develop curriculum and national development for the chapters that are opening. How many chapters are there now? I mean, there's more than a few. We're opening up Today's been today's September ninth. Tomorrow, September tenth will be opening Nashville. Wow. So, you know, already existing. There's New York City. There's Philly. There's Atlanta. Yeah. Atlanta. There's, Texas. There's Northern California. There's South Africa. There's DC, and we're looking to open in Chicago very soon. So there there's a lot there's a lot of places where there's a lot of folk who just wanna have community and wine. That is fantastic. And And all I wanna do is make sure that whenever whenever someone starts this talk about, I wanna learn more that they're learning through a lens that they know that they don't ever have to change how they think or they speak about wine, how they don't lose themselves, but back to that idea of that. Completely agree. People's memories and experiences play a huge part of how they learn about wine. Trying to wipe those out is a big mistake. Exactly. There's a there's a wonderful movie coming out called wine admission that features for Zimbabwean. I don't know. You know, so so these cars have been Semeli as who, you know, for their, what, three, four years coming into wine, and now they're kind of going into the world wine tasting championships. Right? There's a there's a few scenes in there. Specifically, there's a smelly named Tanashi Namodaka. He's based out of South Africa from Zimbabwe. And and and a few key scenes in that movie, It seems as if he and I wrote the same article. Right? He he describes, you know, going through his grandfather's, Forest Trail as they're foraging for things. And he says, well, this is a fruit that only grows here in this part of Zimbabwe, and that is a kind of tree bark that only I can understand. But whenever I go into a space and they say blueberries, raspberries, like, he had to go buy that at a grocery store, and I I Yeah. I mean, I went through the same thing. I was like, the I grew up in a very tropical place where blueberries didn't exist. I didn't know what a current was. And and I still I kinda still don't know what gooseberry is. I kinda have an idea now. Does anybody know what a gooseberry is? I lived in England for seventeen years. Is anyone sure? Yeah. I kinda have an idea now. I think they look like mini tomatillos Exactly. But but but it does it comes back to that. Right? It's it's that, let let's use your kind of vocabulary of of growing up into wine. I tell my students a lot that, like, specificity is a good thing up until it's not. Right? And the same in the same way that, like, there's there's no wrong answer in line up until there is a very wrong answer in line. Right? So when we talk about the things like, you know, well, what are you tasting here? It's not helpful for me to kind of hear about, you know, how you how your aunt perfume closet or whatever is that thing that you're smelling. It is helpful for me though when you say, oh, I it reminds me of this brand of perfume. Then then we can kind of come to some sort of, like, middle point there. And that even just that level of understanding of me needing to know, right, or wanting to know, really. If you're if the thing that makes your hair curly is the thing that you're smelling in that wine, what is that? Like, why why is that why is that the thing that that gets you there? And how is that sense memory then tied to what you're experiencing? Because then that could be really joyful. And and inclusive. It makes people feel vested. Absolutely. The because then then we don't we don't have this idea of, oh, I don't know what that is. You've just told me what your reference is, and now it's my responsibility as the person educating you to meet you there. And and a lot of teachers, I think, look at this top down philosophy and say, well, that's that's not how you should be teaching. You should be teaching about France and the AO system. It's like, why? I live in America. Most of these kids and and honestly, most of the people that I'm gonna gonna be teaching, maybe they're maybe travel isn't part of their vocabulary. Maybe travel is something that's, like, really exclusive for them. It's it's hard for them to kinda think about spending money to go to a wine place. So what does your new curriculum look like? How are you driving this into it? I'm so curious. The first thing that we're doing is re centering this space. Right? So kinda making sure that whenever whenever we step into the space before we even talk about anything, it's kind of having an understanding that what you're gonna say here isn't dumb. The only quest the only dumb question is the one that isn't answered. And that there's a vested interest in both of our that that I expect you to do the work because I'm you're expecting me to teach you. Right? So it's a it's a very mutual understanding of, like, what education looks like. The second is kind of how we speak about wine. Right? And so this idea of decolonization is that for a lot of folks, it's it sounds like very, like, hokey race theory, but at the same time, it's like, how is it that the market of wine can adjust very quickly? Versus the education of wine. So we can't it it seems to me that we're obsessed with this idea of of Napoleon splitting up burgundy, and that's why we talk about it that way. Book. Which is so tragic. Exactly. But but when we talk about American wine, in the normal wine context, right, we spend one day as opposed to the six weeks of France that we that we usually study in. And I I I mean, like I said, I teach mostly Americans, and I'd rather have them understand, like, what's in their backyards first and how we talk about that and and say, okay. Well, you're in America. If you wanna be a wine person, let's find wine that's around you, because then that also creates a a a more interesting economy of what's available. I think people pay attention now, at least here in New York, to wines that are domestic, but not your, not your, like, Bluechip domestic places. Right? So, yes, there's always gonna be Navicab and Oregon Peno, but now we can also include that, you know, New York recently in that conversation. We we can include wines from Texas in that conversation. We can include hybrids from Wisconsin. In that conversation. We can talk to people in Missouri in Ohio and Virginia, who are making exceptional wines, world class wines. Yeah. The only time we ever can say thank you, climate change. Yeah. Oh, but also at the same time, thinking that climate change is part of the curriculum. Do you see? So that it's it's understanding that all of these things have have intricate parts. Wine is a big freeway. It's a big freeway with a lot of potholes. We just have to choose the lanes that we're gonna go on. And we wanna make sure that every Oh, I love that metaphor. And we wanna make sure that everybody doesn't feel those potholes in the same way. Right? It it to me, if you're a white person, you have a really wonderful giant rig that can smooth over those potholes really well. You're not gonna you're not gonna feel them so much. But most of the time, if you're a brown person in line and you feel lonely, you feel like you need to spend the money to get a certification, you're already on the furthest right lane trying to cut in. Your car doesn't work all that great. Maybe it even that has a bumper missing. You can't pay for the insurance and your steering wheel is only like third, a third there. So how can we get to that place where we're in that fast lane to get there? And this is one of the ways that we can think about it is that if education can reframe just by location, for example. If I'm teaching you wine in Texas, why won't I teach you wine from Texas? First. Quite quite right. And it's so it seems so obvious, but it It has never been obvious until now in wine education. I it's a really modern approach. It's yeah. And it's and it's because it's and it's because there's there's still this kind of, like, really fantastical hierarchy of of wine being a Eurocentric cultural thing. And, you know, for for Americans to be very quickly consuming more and more wine every year, it's it's also kind of wonderful because then there's the demands that that a consumer has can also be placed on education. It's not just the academic part of it. It's not just this very cut and dry. This is the AOC kind of chat. It's also well, this is the EOC. And maybe part of the AOC can demand that their migrant workers be paid fairly. Isn't wouldn't that what like, wouldn't that be wonderful? Like, I think that that's there's there's an education evolution that we have to consider because education is consequential. And I think if you're educating somebody correctly, even if they don't go into wine, maybe they go into something like public policy, that affects winemaking too. Right? That is so true. And and we need that to happen more and more often. I think, you know, people's view of wine education is so narrow. And I think what you're doing is really, as you said, widening the highway. It's that's that is incredible. And I I like that. And the evolution, I think, really, has to happen. I mean, it's it's very easy to get stuck, and we were, and to a certain extent still are in most of the world stuck in a very old fashioned traditional, traditional, style of wine education, and it just doesn't work for everyone anymore. Mhmm. Absolutely. It's it's it's it's kind of understanding that even education within education, right, that, you know, finding that people learn differently and people need to need a little bit more time, you know, if you have if you have dyslexia, then there's a there's a way for you to kinda get the information to you. And it's very similar with line. You know, maybe maybe it's not the traditional route that we need to understand first. Maybe We're teaching people about dynamics from the very beginning and then kind of seeing what the consequences of the land looked like when you're not treating it that way. So there's there's it's it's a it's a much bigger conversation, but at the same time, it's it's it's wonderful and engaging when students ask about sustainability first, saying, and and not the particulars of a place because of variety. Grapes are grapes. Sorry. Like, at the end of the day, grapes are grapes. And we can be obsessive about, like, that that macintosh versus Fuji versus Scala analogy. Right? But but if it it's not worth it to me to put that in my body if I know that it's being, you know, rounded up with pesticides and and covered in in all sorts of gunk. I can talk to that about my I can talk about that with my students very clearly from the beginning and say, you know, wine looked like this when it was first being made, There's some wine that kinda looks like that now, and how do we get to the messy middle? And that that's an important thing about education also. Well, you've you've walked right into my trap because I wanted to hit you up on what you see as some of the biggest issues facing the industry right now in terms of climate change and sustainability. We just started to touch on it, but I know you've been writing a lot about it for New York times and food and wine and bon appetit and things. And I really wanna hit you up on what you think aside from the fact that we do have this education problem, which we're all working on, but what do you think the biggest issues are facing the industry in those areas? Climate change and sustainability? And as you said, the consumers consumers are becoming much more aware and rigorous in in their demands and and what they're willing to pay money for. I think it's it's just being savvy about where you put your dollar. We keep saying that food is political, and it it sounds a little hokey sometimes, but it is. And where where you put your dollar really goes a long way in terms of what it is that you buy in into. So it's things like, for me, the biggest questions, obviously, right climate change in the in the bigger scale. Within your local economy, just talking about what kind of labor goes into making the wine that you like, and maybe demanding more of that, having a fair, transparent. Do you see that in your, in, like, consumer behavior? Are you actually seeing that? I mean, for one of the first questions that we've started asking as a group of Psalms here in New York is do your vineyard workers get access to health care? That's never been asked before as a tasting note, mind you. And, like, it's not really on technical information. Right? But, again, if we can be obsessive about how people treat Vides, we can be absolutely obsessive about how people treat each other. And that's one of the first things that we can do is say, how human is this wine. Right? Like, how at all the decision making that we've asked before, how human is a swine? And then how human is is is it? There's a really wonderful quote that Ariana Akapinci says, and it's that we're not we're not inheriting the land from our ancestors. We're borrowing from our children. And that's something that we need to kind of recontextualize here too. Right? Yes, it's climate, but also it yes, it's how we're responsible about this thing. And it's it's agriculture. It's all those sicilians. I think she stole that from Alberto Tasca. I mean, probably. They do feel the same. And I think I think it's a, again, in Italy, and particularly in places like Sicily where, you know, Viticulture is pretty hard to do. It's it's true. It's this tradition of of understanding that, you know, we the earth the earth that we have is the only earth we're gonna get. And taking care of it is is crucial. And that's and that's a very, decolonized way of thinking about it. Right? Indigenous peoples before us came and and have proper relationships with the land. Right? You know, if you look at if you look through some texts, you know, a lot of first peoples here in America, for example, consider, you know, geographical features as like family members. They're they're the they're they're the brothers of the river. They're the they're they're the kin they're the sisters of of the canyon. So and there's there's ways that we can think about that as well, is that if you're if you place environment in this kind of familial notion, wine becomes a really interesting things on how you communicate with one another. But Sorry. To get back to that question of about, you know, say, climate change sustainability, there's a lot there's a lot of things that kind of tie in into that also. Climate change, climate justice, environmental justice, as labor justice, as migrant justice, and all of that stuff as well. Right? Like, In in order for wine regions, for example, to compete with migrant labor, if your if your harvests are all getting earlier and earlier and earlier, who picks that stuff? Who who ends up bearing the brunt of that work? That's something that we we always have to remember. And not just that, what kind of danger are we putting these people? If if it's earlier, which means that it's a drier and there's wildfires, what does it mean for, what does it mean for Terwater to kind of accept that? And so those are those are big questions that that I think are are challenging because I think the question of terroir, it's not just time in place, it's time in place in people in consequential, in kind of like this consequential, like, domino effect. Right? And so and terroir we we we can't think of terroir as a fixed thing. I think we had to understand that, like, terroir also just we're just seeing this kind of very slow, but very true change within, like, this geologic time as opposed to, like, the way that we experience it, which is a very short human time. You know, maybe it's just maybe it's just now that we're experiencing the consequence of terroir ten thousand years before. Well, I I work with Professor Atilio Chienza, who is one of the living legends of of geology in wine. And he would like to give you a big hug right now. I I think you've you've hit on the topic that, you know, is is too deep for us for today. I mean, no pun intended too deep, but it's true. Terroir is is not as superficial as we've been led to believe in the past. So it's it's important to keep our eye on on so many conceptual aspects, you know, like a multifaceted gemstone kind of a thing. Before I let you go today, I was just gonna ask you, you know, if you were gonna give a piece of advice to a young brown or black person, you know, and I'm sure you give pieces of advice all the time. If they, you know, somebody who wants to enter the industry in any way, shape, or form, you know, as a producer, as a Psalm, as an influencer, a TikToker, or, you know, a writer, whatever, into hospitality, What would you tell them to do to get their feet on the path? What would you suggest advise? Put put both of your feet on the ground and think about inte intent is something that you can taste. Intent is something that you can feel, intent is something that you can receive as a person. And so when we talk about this intentionality of making delicious wine, it's we're also talking about the intentionality of how you make that delicious wine. Right? And so If you're gonna come into this, think about why you wanna come into this. Is it because you think that this is exciting and this is something that you're gonna be for me, it's the reason why, I wanted to get into this is because I could learn forever. And I, like, I like being an eternal student. The best teachers are eternal students. I really think that's true. I I love being an eternal student because if you're never narrowing your scope, right, you're always expanding your vision, but that also means that you get to include as many people in that vision with you. Well, I don't think we're gonna get anywhere better than that. I am so grateful for this conversation, Miguel. Truly, you've added a lot of learning objectives to topics that, you know, are being covered now and need more attention, but you've added some you know, some new lanes to the highway for sure, about the conversation that I will take forward with me. So I'm really grateful. And thank you so much for your time. Oh, absolutely. Thank you for having me. This was wonderful. We hope you enjoy today's episode brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November seventh and eighth twenty twenty two in verona Italy. Remember tickets are on sale now. So for more information, please visit us at wine to wine dot net. Hi, guys. I'm Joy livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. This is a labor of love and we are committed to bringing you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment, production, and editing. We would be grateful for your donations, suggestions, requests, and ideas. For more information on how to get in touch, go to Italian wine podcast dot com.