Ep. 772 Renee Sferrazza | Voices

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaaplin, 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, everybody, and welcome to voices. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and today I have Renee Baraza with me. Renee is from Canada, and she is a Court of Master sommelier certified sommelier. She's a wine communicator, a curator of virtual experiences, a brand consultant, an educator, a wine writer. She has her own consulting business and a monthly wine column. Basically, she's pretty cool person. So welcome to the show Renee. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I always find it funny to listen to the intros that, people like yourself give me, and I'm like, oh, I'm very humbled by that at the moment. Good. Good. I like to big people up, then they're in a good mood before they have to talk. I'm definitely smiling. We can't see it, but I'm definitely smiling. Good. So Renee and I'm in Verona year, and we hit it off right away. And so now we sort of follow each other's wine lives as you do in the weird social media world, but I never asked you when we were sort of hanging around and drinking and eating and doing things together. How you actually got into the wine biz? Yeah. I you know what? We got distracted by all the good wine and all the good food, which is totally fair. So I don't blame you for it. Yeah. We were having too much fun. So I got into the wine business. Honestly, the way that I got into wine was in is sounds incredibly benign. To where I've ended up in it. I have a degree in environmental policy and urban development, which is not a wine degree. And, at the time when I graduated, Canada was still in the Harper government. And, I know that means absolutely nothing to people outside of Canada, but I will just do a tad bit of explaining. This guy cut all funding from any environmental projects that were happening across Canada. So I was working for different NGOss And, I wasn't able to get any payment unless I applied for a grant, which was very hard. So I was still working in restaurants. And when I was working in restaurants, I'd asked for more shifts and all these nice restaurants I was working at, We're like, you need to learn the wine list. We'll give you more shifts if you can learn the wine list. And I was like, great. A task. Perfect. I can do this. I will learn about the wine list, and you will give me more shifts. Amazing. I ended up doing that, and I ended up working at a different restaurant at the same time where they had these wine classes. And I just started to really get into it. At the same time, with wine, I was starting to notice a lot of similarities with just the topics of study that I really enjoyed, with my environmental policy degree, looked a lot at world spaces, how agriculture works in that, how, for vanity works in it at the same time. And then I also really liked history and art. So wine had a lot of aspects that I just cared about. And then I started going to the trade tastings that are in Toronto, and I would bring resumes with me because I was young at the time. It was like, If anybody can give me a job anywhere paying me anything for something that I want to do, I will take it. So I brought some resumes with me and I got hired to work at a winery for an internship. They originally weren't going to pay me anything except for just working in, room and board. And this was in the Veneto region right near Traviso, which is really lovely town. So I was working in Perseco region, and they ended up really liking my work. I was working more with the sales team, and they ended up paying me at the end. So when I came back to Canada, they had started asking me more about being imported, and I ended up starting an importing agency, which I then sold off my shares of a couple years ago. And I went right away to getting my sommelier certification And usually, how I run is if I like something, then I will just dive into it head first. What I've realized about the wine industry is I was always a person that was doing a bunch of different things while I had the degree and was working at restaurants. I had a light fixture making business at the time, whereas making custom light artwork. And wine kind of seemed to sum up this wonderful umbrella topic where I could do everything that I liked, travel, take pictures, talk about wine, read all of this stuff that I really enjoyed doing, under this one umbrella. So it really kinda seemed to sum up my life and the accomplishments that I wanted to have in it very, very well. I love that. It's it's funny how people don't often realize to have creative wine is and working in wine, even if you're not actually making the wine. It's a really creative sector. So you definitely got all the creativity and piled it into one spot. It's a really good choice. Yeah. I was like, perfect. And I get to talk about what I'm drinking, which is very itchy sick to me because I got into why when I was in my twenties. So I was like, this is this is very nice. Yeah. I I was the same. I was nineteen. So, yep, exactly. No. I gotta ask because it's Italian wine podcast. Your surname is, of course, dead Giveray, Sverazza is Italian, but you're from Canada. So what's the backstory? Your your parents Italian or your family? Yeah. So both my parents are from Italy, both my mom and my dad. They met here in Canada because my last name is actually a sicilian last name. Fedats, actually translates into an old version of sicilian, which means Blacksmith off of the word Fero, which is fire. So it's a if you imagine it, it kinda makes sense. But I, with my dad's last name, my kind of one, because there's only two last names in the town that he's from, Raquel Muto, which is in the center of Sicily, one of which, the other one of which is Mule, which means donkey. So I did pretty well getting Ferata. And, my You'd rather be the blacksmith than the donkey for sure. I really would actually. And, my mom is from Treviso. So I got to visit her family when, I was working up near Treviso a couple, well, years ago. And, her last name is Bonafe, so good faith. And, they met here in high school. They had me and my sister. And honestly, my parents were not super into wine. My grandfather, my no no on my dad's side used to make his own wine, but it was not very good. He would make it and then bottle it in used, like, one liter sprite and coke bottles. And obviously Oh, fantastic storage. Yeah. Great. Yeah. It really oxidized and it was honestly stronger than Ameroni had more canons than Barolo. You had to mix it with Sprite for it to be something at least potable. And, my whole thought process with wine was that it's something that my family makes and we do not do a good job at it until I got into wine. That's so nice though that you have that, like, a really tangible memory of of that creation that your grandfather made that must have played a big part know, in your family get togethers and stuff, we're all gonna drink. Nano's terrible wine yay. Yes. And we're gonna tell him that it tastes delicious. Absolutely. I'm I'm wondering then. So were your parents really supportive of you giving up this whole government career and moving into wine? Or what happened? I think it's it's really quite interesting because they really wanted me to to succeed with my degree, but and I I think my parents my parents are really, like, level headed people. And, they saw me try so hard to work in environment, the the environmental field, and it just wasn't happening. It was, like, I was living pretty much from paycheck to paycheck, and, they were kind of watching me do that and being like, this is her goal. This is what she wants to accomplish. This is where she wants to go in life. And it just things were just not clicking. So when I was just working in restaurants, they were kind of pushing me to find like, a career that I wanted to do. Neither one of my parents is very much about telling me what to accomplish, but they've always been like food and shelter is super great. And living a little bit comfortably, is good too. So, like, maybe you should figure out something that gets you there. Very wise parents. I like it. And a and a parental philosophy that doesn't sort of hit you in the face. So that's a good one as well. Yeah. Yeah. I think when I started working for myself, everyone, but my dad was super nervous about it because I've been working for myself for the last seven years. And, that's probably when they were the most nervous, but as it started to take off and, as immigrant parents do, they're like, okay, it's working now. It's fine. She's gonna be okay. I love that. Well, I hope they're proud of you because you have completely had sort of all the pinnacles of the wine world, you know, the restaurant scene, the sommelier scene, sales, education, wine writing, all the good stuff, And now you've started your own consulting company, as you said, a few years ago. So what are you up to these days in in that business? What's an average week for you like? The consulting company also is kind of like a really big catch all name, like, I I find that a lot of people in business that don't know what to call their businesses that have so many different parts, then they're like, it's a consulting business. We consult on a lot of different things. So I'm gonna plug it now because it's called wine by Renee. Yes. It's wine by Renee, for sure. And, the business does a lot of different things. So essentially, the main part of the business is I talk about wine. The business is essentially me. I have a sole proprietorship. A lot of the work that I do is working with wines of regions, agencies that are selling wine here in Ontario. I've worked with the LCBO as well, and focuses a lot on, like, campaigns for social media work. I appear on TV a lot here in Ontario. There are also consumer facing events, I've run my own events where I sell wine to people. And at the same time do virtual tastings for clients, and there's a wine wine writing component in there too. So it's a it's a large catch all business for all of my interests and wine centered around the talking about wine. And once again, a great outlet for your creativity. It's it's nice to be your own boss and then also be able to, you know, do not have two days be the same, which is which is really cool when you're working in this business. Yes. And to answer your question, my days essentially, when I was starting this business, I was like, my email will tell me what to do every single day. Someone will email me a task, and I will do it. So now my days essentially look like completing the different, contracts that I work out with my clients some days. I am writing contracts, doing invoicing, doing my own accounting, other days. I am narcissistically taking pictures of myself around my house, Other days, I'm driving to different wine stores to pick up different, different wines that clients want to gift each other. And everything is just kind of, moving on a day to day basis. But the best part about working for myself is that I can stop working when I feel like there is a time in the day to stop working, and that could be anywhere from three pm in the afternoon to nine pm at night. I think that when you start your own business, a lot of people feel like, oh, I'm gonna have so much freedom to do what I want. And that's very true. But at the same time, you're probably gonna be working more often, although I can take my weekends on not the weekend and plan my life a little easier. Absolutely. That's so true. During COVID, I think we all learned a bit about being our own boss to certain extent and, and really learning how to organize time in a way that makes sense to you, that is the way somebody else wants you to organize it. So I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a a question that I'm really curious about. You're you're certified with the Court of Master Smeliers. And we all know about the scandals or the misogyny and the sexual harassment that has been exposed, and people are are paying the price for their, you know, their bad decisions. Did you encounter that during your studies? Are are you gonna stay engaged with the court? You know, there are people who are talking about leaving. What would you like to see happen there now that this has been exposed and and, you know, and there have been I hate the word punishment, but sort of repercussions have been meted out and continue to be meted out. So my I'll talk about my issues with the with the court first and then give a little bit of background with how I kind of went through it. So My issue with the court of the master sommeliers is that they are not an education system. They are a testing facility. And for the longest time, if this scandal does anything, it should at least bring forward the idea that you do not have to rely on a single person who knows what the test is going to be to be able to study for that. If we take what the lsats are doing in law, people can prepare for that test. If it is a testing facility, which is what I believe that it is, you pretty much know what you're going to be tested on. Yes. You might get yourself a mentor to help you go through that process, but there's also lots of classes once you get up into the higher levels that can really get you to the finish line. With the court of the master sommeliers, when you're seeing it in the introductory and the just a certified Psalm category, which is where I've stopped my education with them at, my testing with them at. After that, once you get into the advanced and the master's level, That's when you really start to get to see the court for how the court functions where it's literally a court of people that know things that you don't and you're trying to learn as much as them, but it's like this mild illuminati aspect, at least in my perspective. Oh, interesting. Interesting. I haven't heard it compared to a secret society, but I I quite like that image in my mind now. But it kinda does feel like that in some ways where you hear people trying to study for this test and then they're you kinda get clues about it right before the test and you're like, geez. I don't know if I've studied that much, or you're trying to work with these people to figure out how much you need to study to pass this test or to be prepared enough for the test because the jump from intro to sommelier to advance sommelier to master sommelier is massive. It's like saying at the at the master sommelier level, you're gonna climb the dawn wall, which is probably the hardest, rock climbing thing in existence. And to get there, to get to the advanced level, you're gonna also have to hike up Mount at Bristol. So, like, there's a big there's a big jump. And, my my viewpoint of the court was don't think what everybody had. When I decided to get my sommelier certification, I literally had enough money to take the test and to buy a bit of wine. So I have my wonderful mentor who is Emily Pierce. She has been one of Canada's best sommelier's. I think her last title, she won in twenty eighteen, and I went and did study with her. I did a lot of self study. I didn't go to any classes. I just bought as many books or borrowed as many books as I could. I made all my flashcards. I worked with Emily Pierce a lot on this. I spent maybe a thousand dollars on wines I wasn't tasting at trade tastings, but I was studying by going to trade tastings. And then I had just kind of hunkered down and ran my life like I was in school. To prepare for the Sommelier exam. That's what I did. I didn't do any classes or actually interact with any other students because they didn't live at my house. Good point. Good point. That's a really that's a really interesting approach because as you said, you know, everybody is is in it supposedly as a group, but also as an individual and and finding your own approach that works for you is really crucial to success. Exactly. So my my feelings about the court had never been up and up until I actually got certified had never been that there was anything wrong with it. It always seemed like a testing facility to me because I can study for this thing and then go take a test. So that stayed the same. If anything, it's only grown how different people can feel with the quote unquote power they can feel as a certified sommelier and what they want to do with that information following and how they feel in their own lives and, run their actions accordingly. If you could give the the new board some input. What would you like to see happen? I would like to see them fully release, fully release what is going to be, what level of study has to be on every single test. I think that for the advanced sommelier, they should be able to be putting out some sort of virtual classes that people can pay into and to look at so that they can see what level of study they have to do with examples. Because and examples examples in different ways of learning as well. So how to focus on this? It can't just be about you have to visit this vineyard to know. That's silly. Not everybody can go to a vineyard. I pass my sommelier certification without going to any vineyards because I didn't have the money to do so. And a lot of people actually go to higher education without having to travel to a lot of different places without having the money to do so and just having the money to go and take that degree. Now if they were able to release these types of videos or in these types of learning situations and actually call themselves a school based on that, then that would be a lot better, especially once we get to the master's level, where it's essentially a they're call it's comparable to a PhD. At least at that time, you have a long working of what how of what other people have done and you can base what you wanna do on what other people have done. If they should be able to release tests, see how people answered questions, see how people are looking into every single aspect with the masters of wine program. They have to do a massive essay and essentially write a thesis paper. But they can read other people's thesis papers. You can go and interview people and talk to people, and it just doesn't feel the same openness that it has at the master of sommelier level as as compared to other areas in wine. That's a really good point. And it it is always interesting to compare the two because they are quite different in their approach. So that's that's really, yeah, a very, very good point. So thanks for sharing that with us. It's lots of room for improvement. Well, yeah. I mean, no one's perfect. And and having one's imperfections, you know, put in the spotlight can be a really good opportunity to improve. So we're gonna hope that they that they do. So I'm gonna take you back to some other stuff that you're doing as if you don't do enough for your career. You're the director of digital at FOUND Yvant, a nonprofit women's organization. So tell me about FOUND Yvant. What's their mission? What are you doing in your role there? So I will say that my tender at FEMT just ended. It was a two year tender. So that I've I'm off the board. At this point, somebody else will be taking over my, digital role. And, but my role with that was to communicate what is happening at femme de VIN in a way that was global and focused on as many different aspects that women can engage with the wine industry as possible. So I focused a lot on bringing up our social media, working with different people, trying to bring different people into doing work on multiple different platforms. We had released a lot of a lot of virtual seminars with really amazing people on various different topics. And, the goal I had was to promote those, make sure that people signed up for them, make sure that people felt like they understood what the organization was about, and that it was an open space for women to join and be part of the conversation in a way that had absolutely no judgments or preconceived notions to where you are in your journey and why? Well, I I knew it would be something along those lines because your own personal social media is incredible. Really clear. It's great. I love to watch it always brings me a smile, but it's always informative as well. And It's your your mission is really clear. Every photograph, every sort of tasting note you have is very clear that you wanna share your passion for wine, but also your knowledge about wine with your broader audience. I'm I'm kinda wondering what what happened during the pandemic with with that. I mean, how did the pandemic affect your career and your social media and stuff? We all went on to Zoom, of course, which is not the easiest medium for wine classes and wine tasting events. I know because I have to do it myself all the time. And and you became a huge advocate for clubhouse sort of emerging social media platform. Your Instagram is super active all the time. Thank goodness. So what What changed for you during lockdown positive and minus? I think, so I started focusing on social media as, an aspect of my business in, two thousand and nineteen, like, at the end of two thousand and nineteen. I was in a relationship at the time with someone who was traveling more for work, and I was just getting frustrated that I couldn't leave my wine director position to go wherever I wanted and work somewhere else. So it's like I should just focus, this side business I had on being able to work from anywhere in the world. So I started looking into into social media. I, like, any millennial, I thought that that was an easy, and accomplishable way of, focusing on it. At the same time, I was also self proclaimed not good at social media, so I wanted to become better at him. So what's the pandemic hit? I was supposed to be going to South Africa, and I was like, oh, if I go to South Africa, I'm gonna get all these amazing pictures, and it'll do great for my followership. But being at home and just producing content actually did better, which was really interesting. Everybody was online and focusing on things, and I really started to figure out what my voice would be online. I always had a way of talking about wine in an aspect that sewed in the fact that I think that this is a beverage that gets you drunk and that people like with the information that I learned and continue to learn as a sommelier. I also think that information can be really dry for people, and this isn't a topic like history or accounting or something where it's just all information. This is paired with a beverage that can literally make you feel happy or However, happy in terms of drunk happy, but, that kind of aspect. So why make it so boring? There that made no sense to me. So focusing on that. I completely agree. I completely agree. Wine. Wine education should never be dry. No pun intended. But, yeah, I I I think it does you're right. It tends to have a voice sometimes that's a little exclusive, a little snobby. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's grape juice people. You know, it really as you said, it's you know, it's been getting people drunk for thousands of years. We can't take it all that seriously all the time. So I'm I'm totally on board with that approach. There's a lot to learn. There's a lot to know, but it should be fun while you get there. So you you are a huge, huge content creator for the wine sector. What advice? What would you give to anybody who wants to get into that arena? I mean, we we know there are, you know, there's been an explosion of sort of influencers and things out there. What would you advise somebody who's new to social media, who's new to the wine sector and wants to get on the wine train of being an influencer or just being an informer on on that media? I would say, I think I think the biggest thing is when you are starting in, in content creation, I call myself a content creator. I would also look at what you wanna be. Do you wanna be an influencer or a content creator? I think we use these words interchangeably, in the world of social media, one is different than the other. Influencers are people that are literally growing their following as much as possible to create influence. They're not might not always be talking about every detail of wine, but these people could be, like, celebrities or people that are just really high up in social media, and they might showcase a picture of a wine and their followers will be like, oh, wow. They like it. I'm gonna go buy it. So content creators really benefit from influencers because we can build off a that. Once people are already in the wine sphere and they're drinking wine, then they might have an interest to keep drinking it, and maybe learn more about why they like their favorite thing. So I would say for anyone that's starting in this, a, look at the social media platform that you are on, and what makes good content on that social media platform. So if you're on Instagram, where are you creating reals? Are you making, interesting posts? Are your photos edited? Are they do they look sharp and interesting? How does your content grab people with their caption? If you're on TikTok, are you there's lots of dances on TikTok. Will you be incorporating those dance moves or anything and do these little challenges that have that happen to showcase up on the platform? If you're on Twitter, you have a small amount of time to say something, so it better be interesting. And then YouTube and Clubhouse, so YouTube really focusing on video content. There is just certain videos that work better on YouTube than others, especially not, long, long, long format boring ones. And then if you're looking at clubhouse, it's really all about connections and what people can understand from, like, almost a podcast perspective. Also, for people to keep in mind, this is the second point is that once you start creating content, you're gonna be making content well before you start getting into contracts with people. And to keep your your expectations managed in whatever you're able to produce, And at the same time, to me, the last point I would say is make sure that you're able to pivot and, to make changes to what you want to do. You shouldn't be married to anything a hundred percent fully. There has to be some aspect of change that you can make. All really, really good, like, actionable advice. I think that's that's really useful to people who are just starting out. And even people who've been, you know, working in social media for a while, the understanding that you wanna sort of clean up and clarify and sharpen what you're doing so that you're really getting your message across. I think that's really, really sound advice for people. Yeah. And I I mean, I social media is such an, you know, an interesting thing. I too have been a self proclaimed, you know, bad at social media person. I'm still nowhere near in your league, but at least I have somebody who inspires me to look up to. But I've I've found a lot in social media in the past couple of years, especially during COVID, but how how much this kind of method of communication can really change what's going on in the wine sector. How do you see social media reaching a wider audience or or making the wine sector more inclusive or more diverse for people who are new to wine or who wanna get into wine and don't have I think it kinda goes back to that influencer versus content creator thing that I was saying. So when we are looking at people that are new into wine, half of that has to deal with people that are younger. So we're looking at younger age demographics and age groups. People that are new wine drinkers. And let's face it. Whenever when did you start drinking wine more seriously, probably once you got to university. It's probably when you were like, oh, I enjoyed wine before But now I'm just not looking at it as a sixteen year old who's going to their friend's house and I brought this bottle of wine that my parents happen to have in in their cellar. I'm actually interested in drinking just wine instead of these vodkas and spirits and all these other things that people that young kids can get drunk on. Now I formed an interest in just drinking this one thing. Okay. So let's take that. Most young people are on social media more on often. Millennials and Zenials do glean a lot of information about what kind of purchases they're gonna be making based on seeing it on social media. So that being said, they are looking at people that might be influential in their lives. If somebody starts posting about something that's like a celebrity that they really like, that's posting about wine, we have to keep and stick with the fact that they are online. So if somebody does that, we can create more content to pull them into the wine industry and grow this interest of theirs even more. As we get older, our brains are naturally cleaning out the things that we don't use. So if somebody has a mild interest in something and would benefit from learning more about it, we should only be nurturing that in the wine industry their brain will just delete the fact that they like it later on in life. Now when we're looking at That's an amazing concept. I I I I really like, again, a great image in my mind. That's that's great. Thank you. And so I think the wine industry has been stuck in its own little ways for a while of like, we are here. Come find us if you want to, and also you have to learn all this information before we really fully talk to you. It's like the cool kids click at high school and they are annoying, and eventually you just give up. And realize that that over there is not something that you want to do. It has to be more open. And then you secretly hate them for for many years as well. Mhmm. Exactly. Why do we want people to hate wine? It's delicious. So we need to. Right. We need to be more open. We need to meet people where they are. And the wine industry needs to get over the fact that social media is not breaking down anything that's going on in wine. If anything, it's supporting it. That is that's a really, really interesting way of looking at it. It's it's pretty inspiring too. I mean, it I think a lot of people, as I said, you know, and and you agreed in the past two years for lack of any other way to have a creative outlet or or even to work jumped on to the social media and, finding a way to make sure that you're being effective and positive and supportive and encouraging is, you know, it's not easy to do, but keeping that in the forefront of what you're doing is is really important. So That's yeah. I like that. That's an inspiring way of looking at your social media instead of just how many clicks can I get for this? So Yeah. The clicks will come. If people like what you're doing, the clicks will come. Exactly. So so what's twenty twenty two got in store for you? For me, it's expanding across more different platforms. I've been strongly on Instagram for a while, but I need to expand across to different platforms as well. I'm trying to come up with, these wine courses I've been building for a little while for people that want to understand a bit more, as consumers, not as people that want to go into the wine industry. I think that's a massive part of the market that the wine industry doesn't really engage with enough. Consumers can go to tastings, but they don't have a place where they can learn as learn the education that they want, and then it stops at a degree. And if they want to continue, they can go to a larger schooling. Or take a class at, a course that would be offered near them. But there is not enough that, kind of bridges the gap between that in an affordable way. And then working more on, my wine writing, better wine writer, I always think that I can improve in that because I'm I'm dyslexic and I have ADHD. So writing for me was always about, just being able to write something that people read. And since I accomplished that last year, I'm trying to just become better in my writing voice? Well, I hope it goes really well for you because I love your tasting notes. I I love your tone of voice. You're so open and honest. I I suspect greatness is coming your way. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to to watching it. How tap in too. But, we had such a blast in verona together during white wine in October, and now is my chance to give you the killer question that we all hate, but I'm gonna do it for your parents. What's your favorite Italian wine? And you can't say no, no. It's not. No. No. It's like he I bless his soul, but it's, unfortunately, no. No. It's not your wine club. My favorite Italian wine. I'm I'm honestly, when we were in wine to wine, and, I got the chance to go to Sicily. I was really happy because I love sicilian wines, I am a big fan of Aetna Rosos, and I'm also a big fan of Bernellos, which I love so so much. I Italy is always the place that I find myself drinking from the most, like, even if it's sparkling wine, I'll happily open a bottle of prosseco or Francacorta. Actually, I have some magnums here that my, partner is always like, are you sure you wanna open that tonight? It's a lot of wine. Definitely. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's always the answer, but Italy is is is fun because it's a summation of city states. And, there are a lot of different wine, perspectives there, and they all communicate this wonderful form of culture that Italy has. So there's so much to love in Italy, but Aetna Rosos are probably my favorite. Okay. Well, perfect. I've I'm gonna end on that very happy note. Norello Masca lazy all the way. And, of course, you can get Blonde noir sparkling from from that Neroza too. So that's kind of a two in one win for you. It's spark That's pretty much my dream. Everything if it may if a region makes red wine and sparkling wine, I'm there. I'm like, yes, I will never leave. I'm with you on that. We're gonna have to take some trips. Look, Renee, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been really such a pleasure to talk to you. And every time I do talk to you or get together with you, I learn so much more about how to make my social media better. So I hope our listeners did too. And it's always just a good good opportunity to, get some real honest open wine talk out there. So thank you very, very much for joining me. Thank you for having me. This has been so much fun, and it's always a joy to talk to you as well. And, I hope we can have more conversations in the future and hope everybody enjoyed my thoughts. Absolutely. Thank you for listening and remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world, and the only one with a daily show. Tune in every day and discover all our different shows. You can find us at Italian wine podcast dot com, SoundCloud, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your pods. 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 for 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.