314: Master Sommelier Dustin Wilson Shares The Secrets Of The Wine Industry

Dustin Wilson is a Master Sommelier and a co-founder of Verve Wine. He was previously the Wine Director at Eleven Madison Park, a 3 Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City. Dustin was also featured in Somm, a popular documentary about the challenging Master Sommelier exam. In this conversation, we discuss the Master Sommelier process, how he built Verve Wine, the COVID-19 impact on the hospitality industry, the recent cheating scandal in the wine world, an overview of wine as an investment asset, his favorite wines, the most underrated wine region, and biodynamic wines. You can purchase wine and have it shipped to your house at https://vervewine.com/ =============================== Our second sponsor is choice, a new self-directed IRA product that I'm really excited about. If you are listening to this, you are likely part of the 7.1 million bitcoin owners who have retirement accounts with dollars in them, but not bitcoin. I was in that situation too. Now you can actually buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account. I'm talking about owning your private keys and using tax-advantaged dollars to do it too. Absolute game changer. https://www.retirewithchoice.com/pomp =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://www.pompletter.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Dustin Wilson is a Master Sommelier and a co-founder of Verve Wine. He was previously the Wine Director at Eleven Madison Park, a three Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City. Dustin was also featured in SONG, a popular documentary about the challenging Master Sommelier exam. In this conversation, we discuss the Master Sommelier process, how he built Verve Wine, the COVID-19 impact on the hospitality industry, the recent cheating scandal in the wine world, an overview of wine as an investment asset, his favorite wines, the most underrated wine region, and biodynamic wines. I really enjoyed this conversation with Dustin, and I think you

• 0:54Anthony Pompliano?

  guys really liked this one. Before we get into the episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. The first is BlockFi. You know that I'm an investor and a really happy user. They currently have three products. The first is you can deposit crypto and get a US dollar loan against your collateral. The second is you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies on their new crypto exchange. Or the third is my favorite product and the one that I use, where you can deposit crypto or digital dollars into an interest-bearing account and earn up to 8.6% APY. That's right. Just like your bank pays you interest on your deposits, BlockFi will pay you interest on your deposits here as well. There's obviously risk, so do your own research.

• 1:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Go check it out at blockfi.com/pomp. Again, blockfi.com/pomp. Earning up to 8.6% interest in an interest-bearing account is incredibly attractive, given the current macro environment. Blockfi.com/pomp. Our second sponsor is Choice, a new self-directed IRA product that I'm really excited about. Again, I'm a user here as well. If you're listening to this, you are likely part of the 7.1 million Bitcoin owners who have retirement accounts with dollars in them, but not Bitcoin. I was in that situation. Now you can actually buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account. I'm talking about owning your private keys and using tax advantage dollars to do it too. Absolute game changer.

• 2:21Anthony Pompliano?

  An IRA product that allows you to use tax advantage dollars to buy Bitcoin and hold your private keys. Go check them out at retirewithchoice.com/pomp. Again, retirewithchoice.com/pomp, or you can go in the description and click the link there. Lastly, don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. I break down complex topics into easy to understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, pompletter.com. All right, let's get into this episode with Dustin. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:35Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I have a special treat for you today. Dustin is here. Dustin and I somehow have become good friends. He's one of, what, 250 master sommeliers in the world?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  I think it's less than that, actually.

• 3:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Less than that?

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, 200, 200, I don't know, somewhere around 200, 250.

• 3:56Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, so between 200 and 250 of him are running around the world. And obviously, he's number one in our hearts. Thanks for doing this.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  My pleasure. Good to be here.

• 4:08Anthony Pompliano?

  For those that know nothing about the wine world, know nothing about you, let's just start with your background, kind of everything before master sommelier, and then we can get into that process. But just kind of where'd you grow up? And how did you eventually want to become a master sommelier?

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I grew up in Maryland, moved around a lot as a kid. I went to four different elementary schools before we kind of settled into a place that I lived when I was younger.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  You know, going through school, I never really knew what I wanted to do. When I went to college, I actually was a geography major because I just liked the topic and had no idea what I was going to do. When I was a teenager, I started working in restaurants just to pay bills, you know, be able to put gas in my tank in my car and things like that, pay insurance. Started off working at sub shops, like pizza shops, you know, flipping pizzas and making cheese steaks and things like that. And when I turned, I think it was 18 or so, I went to get a job as a waiter at TGI Fridays.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  And that was my first waiter gig. And, you know, I was making a lot more money doing that, you know, getting tips. So that was great and stayed there for quite some time, actually, ended up bartending.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  And, you know, by the time, so I was doing that through college. And by the time I was graduating college, you know, with a geography degree, I was like, all right, I can either go off and try to do something with my degree and make about half of what I'm making now, or just like keep doing this bartender thing. So I stayed doing that for a while because I just didn't know what I wanted to do.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Left TGI Fridays, bounced around to a couple of different restaurants. Eventually landed at this restaurant called Ruth's Crisp, which is another like chain place, steakhouse, down in Baltimore. And it was there that I got exposed to wine. So they didn't have a sommelier on staff, but all the waiters were expected to know a little bit about wine. They had a pretty decent sized wine list, a couple hundred selections. So you're kind of forced to figure it out. And I was in college at the time and I... Started learning about it and just kind of caught the bug really, really quickly. It's found to be really interesting because, you know, it's this kind of mysterious product

• 6:40Speaker 01

  that I didn't really understand and there's so many variations of it and it comes from different places in the world. The prices were like so all over the place. You could sell a glass of wine for eight bucks or something like that at the time. Or there was the most expensive bottle I remember at that, back then was twenty-five-hundred bucks. And I just, you know, I remember thinking, who in the world would spend that kind of money and why? You know, like, why, why would, why do people spend money on, on wine? I don't get it. So I started reading and just caught it like really fast. And, um, you know, found myself in between classes in school, like reading wine books in my car, uh, going to the wine shop quite a bit and just like, you know, walking through and, and looking at bottles and buying things for myself occasionally and just kind of became obsessed.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Um, so when I graduated college, I still didn't really know what I wanted to do. Um, I knew I liked wine. I was making money in restaurants and, uh, I was also a big skier. So I loved to ski. I love the mountains. So, um, when I graduated, I was like, all right, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna head to Colorado. I'm gonna ski for a little while, keep learning about wine and, uh, and then see what happens. And that's exactly what I did. So in, in oh, what was it, oh, five, I moved to Colorado, to Boulder and, um, found this gig at a restaurant called Frosca Food and Wine where it was only open for dinner so I could, you know, escape and go skiing during the day, uh, closed on Sundays, which is awesome.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  And it had a master sommelier running the, uh, the restaurant. He was one of the partners in the restaurant. So it was a great place to learn about wine. So it was awesome. It was like the perfect combination at the time. Um, so I'm learning about wine, skiing, loving life, everything is great. And, uh, my, my goal when I first moved there was I wanted to, uh, I only wanted to stay for about a year or so, maybe two years tops. Uh, and then the plan was to come back to Maryland, go to grad school. I decided I was gonna get an MBA and go get a, you know, real job and, uh, and move on with life. But then, you know, two years kind of came and went really quickly.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Uh, I was kind of moving my way through the ranks at this restaurant and, um, Bobby, who was my, my boss and kind of my mentor at the time. Gave me, uh, gave me my first gig as a sommelier. And, um, so here I was, you know, young guy, like finally working in wine. I could see like a, a, a trajectory with it, you know? I could see like a, a career in this. And so I kind of made the decision, I'm like, you know what? Fuck it, I'm not going home. I'm staying here, I'm going to keep working on wine. And in order to kind of legitimize it in my mind, this is when I decided to start pursuing the quarter master sommeliers diploma.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  As a way to just kind of validate this decision. I'm like, well, if I'm going to stay here and kind of keep working in restaurants and go after this wine thing, I wanted to like, feel like I'm, I'm, you know, doing it the right way. So I started down that path and, and frankly, like when I first started it, I didn't think I was ever going to go all the way with it. My thought was, you know, take like maybe level one, level two, and kind of stop there and, and see what happens. Um, but kind of as it goes, you know, once you've kind of completed one level of it, you're, you're kind of inclined to want to keep going. So I get to level three and, um, you know, by that point, you're like, well, fuck it, I'm already here. I'm at like the finish line, I gotta at least try for the, for the final exam.

• 10:20Anthony Pompliano?

  But, uh, So what exactly is the levels you're talking about, right? There, there's kind of four levels is my understanding. And as I mentioned earlier, there's only about 200, 250 people who get through all four levels. So maybe just talk a little bit about like, what is a sommelier? And then how that process works?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, uh, uh, you know, in the, to generalize, a sommelier is just a person in a restaurant who helps you out with your wine selections. Um, normally that person also is probably running the wine program in the restaurant. So they're, you know, building out the wine list, they're making the selections. They're the ones dealing with the distributors and buying wine. It's kind of like a little business within the business. And, uh, you know, then they're on the floor at night helping guests make selections and selling wine.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  You know, I think the, the, the word sommelier has kind of expanded since when I first started doing it to mean a lot of different things, like a lot of people in distribution or people who are teachers in wine. Or even like certain people who work on the, on the production side will call themselves sommeliers. In my mind, and there's an argument in the industry about like, what is the sommelier? What is exactly that, that term mean? But in my mind, it's always been a position in a restaurant. Where you're helping guests with, with wine selections.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Now, the master sommelier title. Is a, is a distinction and a credit, a credit that's like earned through going this through this series of examinations. So it's a little bit different. It's not, it's a title. It's not a position in a restaurant like the word sommelier is. And to earn that title, you go through these different levels. So level one is basically a very introductory test where you go and for like two days, you're. You know, you, you take like a wine course and at the end of the course, you take a written exam and it's like 80 multiple choice questions. And you either pass or you don't. Pretty straightforward, pass rate's really high. If you know anything about wine going into it, you could probably do pretty well.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  And people from all different industries will go take this test just to learn a little bit more. It's really interesting. Level two, uh, you, once you pass that level one, you're, you're allowed to take level two. Is more to it, there's, it gets broken into three pieces. There's a service piece, there's a tasting piece, and there's a, uh, the theory or kind of like the written examination part.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  It's definitely harder. You probably need a little bit of restaurant experience to be able to get through it. You need to have been blind tasting and like learning how to blind taste a little bit in order to, uh, to get through it. It's still quite basic, but it's definitely much harder than the first exam. So the, the rate of, the pass rate goes from, call it like 90 or 95% at level one, down to about 50% for level two. But let's say you get through it, then you're, uh, entitled to go for level three, which is called the advanced exam. And the advanced exam is the same three parts. There's theory, there's service, there's tasting.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  But, you know, again, a much higher level of difficulty. There's more to the blind tasting. There's a lot more to the service exam. The level of questioning for theory is much deeper. This is kind of like really what separates. This is the biggest jump. It's what separates kind of like the real pros from, you know, maybe an enthusiastic consumer, for instance. The pass rate for that is usually somewhere in the vicinity of, I call it, twenty to thirty percent most years.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  And then, once you've passed that, and you know, a lot of people will take that several times. I took it a couple of times before I got through. Once you're through that, then you have to wait to be invited to take the master's exam. So that's level four. And it's basically the exact same test as the advanced exam in the sense of how it's set up. Same number of wines that you blind taste, the same three sections. But again, the level of difficulty of questioning goes up, the intricacy of service that you need to perform goes up. And the wines that they pour you for the blind tasting get a little bit more difficult. And you have to score, to pass, you have to score at a higher rate.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  So it's quite difficult, and the pass rate drops down to somewhere below ten percent. Some years it's like three percent, some years it's five, some years it's a little bit more than that. But if you get a ten percent pass rate, that's pretty, that's really strong.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  You know, and a lot of people never get through. I know a lot of people in my industry have taken it numerous times and never get through. And the thing is, you can only take it once a year. So there's a lot of people who have been in the program. You know, usually by the time you get to that level, you've put in years of your life to begin with. And then I know some people have taken the master's exam a dozen times, you know, or close to a dozen times. It's just an enormous amount of your time and energy that goes into it. So it's a very difficult test.

• 15:41Anthony Pompliano?

  So I knew nothing about wine in general. I would literally embarrass myself if I tried to pronounce 99% of wines. And I think we were at dinner once and you or somebody else brought up this documentary, Psam, which you were featured in. And so of course, I went home and Plin and I watched it. And I was blown away at one, the fact that you subjected yourself to this, but two, just learning about how intense it is, right? So for those that don't know, you should one, definitely go watch the documentary, but two, it's, it's things like the blind test, right? The, most people hear that and they're like, oh, okay. So what? You just close your eyes and you taste the wine. But

• 16:24Anthony Pompliano?

  it's not just like, hey, is this red or white? It's literally, where is the wine from? What year is it? What type of wine? What are the ingredients? Like, like the level of understanding and really expertise you have to have is pretty compelling. I mean, it blew my mind to the point where my favorite part of the documentary is like, somebody's tasting wine and they're describing it as like, a new can of tennis balls, or it tastes like or smells like cat piss. And like, and you're kind of like, wait a minute, this is such a granular understanding of wine, the different wine regions and periods of time, etc., that the study period, like, how long did you study to actually pass that? Because it's not like you just study for three weeks, show up and like cross your fingers and hope you pass,

• 17:09Anthony Pompliano?

  right?

• 17:10Speaker 01

  No, no. The, so the total amount of time for me from when I took my introductory test at first level until I passed my MS was about five years. Which, you know, there's people who have passed, who've gone through it much, like, not much quicker than that, but a little quicker than that. It's relatively fast, though. There's, I would say the average has got to be somewhere in like, seven to nine year range for, I think, a lot of people. So it's a significant amount of time. And, you know, leading up to the exam, I mean, you're studying.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Probably a year out, if not like, you know, probably call it at least eight months. If you're, if you're not studying by six months out and prepping, you're, you're behind. It's just an enormous amount of information to prepare for and, you know, the blind tasting piece of it is really difficult, like getting to the point where you can identify grape varieties and, you know, where some things coming from and, you know, picking the right vintage and things like that for the wines. It's, it sounds like it's one of these things that you need to be like an innate taster for, but it's not necessarily that, it's just a shit ton of practice and really understanding and doing it over and over and over and over again. So it's a lot.

• 18:32Anthony Pompliano?

  So the most important question I'm going to ask you is as you're doing all that practice, how the hell do you not get drunk every single day? Right? You're just literally tasting and tasting and tasting and tasting. Like, how do you not just get hammered day in and day out for a year?

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, we spit everything. So that's, that's the short answer. You know.

• 18:54Anthony Pompliano?

  What does that mean?

• 18:55Speaker 01

  You, you know, you, you put it in your mouth, you swish it around and then you spit it right out. And you can get enough information from the wine, you know, you're looking for very specific things. You're looking for like acidity and texture and tannins and checking for alcohol level and, you know, specific things on the palate that you don't, you don't need to drink it to, to experience that and to, to analyze it. So, you know, you're spitting pretty much everything you taste until of course, you know, it's like late at night, you saw in the movie, you know, when you're tasting with your buddies, practicing and it's like two in the morning, the last couple of bottles, you're usually consumed. So it's about understanding when to stop spitting and when to start drinking.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  My one little story on that, and it's, it's, it's interesting, just as a person in the industry, I've worked in a lot of these big organized tastings where, you know, you walk into like a, a huge facility and there's like, call it three or four dozen tables with wineries pouring their wines and things like that and hundreds of wines being tasted. And whenever it's like a, an industry only tasting, you know, everybody's really pro. They know what they're doing. They, you know, they taste, they spit. They're taking their notes and they're out the door. And there's usually, a lot of people are usually even working that night if they're in restaurants. You know, they, so they go to these tastings during the day, they do their thing and they head out to their job. Uh, and then I've also worked it when it's, you know, the average consumer going to these tastings.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  And the first thirty, forty-five minutes are completely normal. And then the end of these things are always the disaster. Cause everybody has been, they're like, oh, I'm just taking these little sips, you know? But it, it really adds up and uh, it's a lot, it's, it's interesting.

• 20:40Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I love it. Um, once you get through the four levels, um, in the documentary, it's very obvious. Like, uh, this is a huge moment, right? Because as you said, five, seven, nine years, uh, Pliny used to, was actually making fun of me during it. Cause even though I knew you passed, when you actually got told you passed, I'm like running around the room being like, let's go Dustin. What do people go do once they actually, uh, are awarded the title of Master Sommelier? Like what are some, do they go to a restaurant? Do they go somewhere else? What's the kind of the, the normal path?

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, I wouldn't say there is any normal path necessarily. I mean, I think, you know, the reason that a lot of people go through it though, is it does open a lot of doors for you. It opens a, a world of opportunities because to earn the distinction is, is really rare, right? So there's a lot of companies that are willing to pay for that and want somebody on their team that has earned that. Um, so your, your opportunities that come your way are really broadened, um, and a lot of doors get opened. So, but it can be in all aspects of the industry. So, you know. I personally, when I passed, I wanted to run a really significant wine program in a restaurant

• 21:57Speaker 01

  setting because in my mind, you know, as like I said, being a sommelier is being in a restaurant. There's an element of service to that. So I went off and became, or I shouldn't say I went off and just did it, but I got the opportunity to be the wine director at Eleven Madison Park here in New York. So I ran that program for about four years. You know, and was crazy time to be a part of that restaurant is when they, you know, were being purchased from USHG and the Danny Meyer Group and, you know, elevated to three stars Michelin and making their way up the 50, the top 50 restaurants in the world list and things like that. It was an awesome experience. But, you

• 22:39Speaker 01

  know, there's a lot of people that maybe use the earning the MS as a chance to actually leave restaurants and go into different aspects of the industry. So that could be importing or distribution wholesale. It could be going to work for a specific winery, like in California, for example, like say Napa Valley, you, you go to become the kind of, you know, global wine ambassador for a particular brand, for instance, and travel the world and sell, you know, that wine or be a representative of that winery globally. You know, there's some people that, that use it to become educators and it's great for that, too. So there's a lot of different ways you can

• 23:23Speaker 01

  utilize it. There's not necessarily one path. I think it really depends on what you're passionate about, which part of the industry you're the most interested in and what you really love to do. You know, for me, for a while it was restaurants. Obviously that's changed since then, but you know, there's, there's no single, you know, one thing that a lot of people do.

• 23:44Anthony Pompliano?

  So you've obviously left kind of the restaurant scene and you started Verve Wine. Maybe talk to us a little bit, just like what is that? Where are the current locations and kind of what are you guys building under that brand?

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, I spent, call it, close to 20 years.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Right, in restaurants? Yeah, that's about right. Uh, and I think like eleven or twelve of those were as a sommelier in, in restaurants, you know, culminating with that, that job at Eleven Madison Park. My mind, you know, I wasn't at the time gonna find, it, it was, you know, the best restaurant, the best wine director, best sommelier job probably in the world. Um, you don't really get much better than that. So it was like a, as a som, you don't, you're not gonna leave Eleven Madison Park and go, you know, be a wine director or sommelier somewhere else. It's just, you're at the top at that point. So, you know, and for me, I always kinda wanted to have my own business. Um, I thought for a really long time that was gonna be restaurant.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Um, having, you know, spent twenty years in restaurants, uh, towards the end of it, I kinda realized, you know, what it takes to do that and, and I needed a little change of pace. Um, so what I saw actually was an opportunity to, to get into the retail space in a really interesting way. Uh, and so when I left, um, I started Verve. And, and Verve is, you know, i- if you break it down very simply, it's a wine retail business. Uh, we've got, uh, locations, physical locations here in New York. We've got one in Tribeca. Um, we've got a location out in San Francisco. Uh, we are later this year opening a location in Chicago, uh, that we're super excited about. So it's a growing brand.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Um, for me though, the, the opportunity was always on the, the e-commerce side. Um, cause where I saw that was lacking was, you know, me as a wine person, as a person that like loves to drink wine and know, knows what I like to drink, um, and, you know, has a fairly discerning, uh, you know, palate and, and choice when it comes to drinking things.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  I know where I like to go to buy wine in New York City. It's not just any old random place. There's only like a handful of places I think do the wine curation thing really well. Um, but what was missing from that, I think, was like the e-commerce side of things. You know, you physically had to kind of go there or talk to somebody there, pick up the phone or email somebody. So to me, the, the experience of buying wine was still pretty, uh, still pretty backwards or just outdated or archaic or whatever you want to call it. So I felt like there was an opportunity there to, to get into the e-commerce part of wine. Um, but have it be that curation, have it be a curated piece of it way.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Where, you know, there's the wines, wine.com, for instance, there's like wine library, there's other people that do the e-commerce thing. But they're doing it on like big brand discount wines, they're, uh, you know, large.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Like wineries that you can find and, you know, they're very ubiquitous, you can find them anywhere. Not necessarily the kind of really interesting things that I personally love to drink myself. So where I saw the chance to do something was like, okay, let's have the same level of curation. But let's get it online and just make it easier for people like myself to find these things on the internet. So that's kind of what we did. Uh, so we launched in 2016 with the location here in New York and the e-commerce site. Um, have since grown that, obviously. And, uh, the goal is, I mean, in the long term is to ideally kind of plop some physical locations into really strategic places.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Um, where it makes it a little bit easier for us to do the fulfillment for e-commerce, um, in a, in a meaningful way. And, um, you know, basically to get the kind of cool stuff that I like to drink and that, you know, people that love wine are really into. Just make it easier for, uh, consumers in other markets to get those wines. Because we're really spoiled here in New York, right? Like we, we get access to things that, um, not a lot of other markets get access to. So, you know, wine drinkers that are really passionate, that are really into it. In say, middle of country somewhere, um, don't get access to the same sorts of things that we do here in New York. So how do we build that access? Um, and that's something that like the wine dot coms and,

• 28:17Speaker 01

  you know, the bigger e-commerce brands aren't doing, like they're only working with brands that you can find anywhere and everywhere. They're not working with like the really curated stuff. So that's, that's kind of our, in a nutshell, that's what we're doing.

• 28:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I, I am, uh, we're friends, but I will vouch and say that the whole idea of ordering this stuff online is a thousand times easier than walking to uh, a wine store, trying to figure out what do I want, where is it, you know, do they have it, all, all of those kinds of things. Um, we, we regularly order and, and uh, literally you can get same day delivery, like it, it's kind of like an Amazon like experience almost, right? But the wines are, um, brought right to your door and it's this great thing. Does it feel to you like, uh, the wine industry in general, other than you named kind of one or two outliers? Just technology really hasn't been integrated into the industry in the way that we've seen maybe in other retail type businesses.

• 29:15Anthony Pompliano?

  And some of that has to do with, uh, I, I'll call it like the mystique of wine, like the whole idea of the high price points and, and the stories behind some of the product and all of that. Or is it just literally like, there's not that many people who understand technology and so they're just doing what they've always done?

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's a mix. Um, you know, there is a kind of a romance to the kind of the traditionalism of good wine. Uh, you know, when a lot of people talk about the great wineries of the world, you know, they tend to be like small places that are little farms and, you know, it's like families that have owned these small properties for generations and things like that. And there's like a, a romance behind, um, kind of these old school, small, um, very traditional, like winery businesses, right? So it's not necessarily cool to be really technology forward in wine, because wine in itself, like the fun stuff anyways, is very traditional.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  And there's like this kind of, um, adherence to that. So I think that's that's part of it. I think the other part of it is that, you know, the people that tend to get into the wines that like I like to drink and, you know, other professionals or people in the industry or really enthusiastic wine drinkers like to drink. The people that start those retail businesses are typically, you know, very much all about the wine and all about the curation process. They're not necessarily tech people. And I, you know, I'm certainly one of those people. I'm not a tech person myself. But there's like an element of it's it's all about the wine for them. It's all

• 30:58Speaker 01

  about the the curation. It's all about the one on one, you know, customer interaction and things like that and kind of keeping things small, which I totally respect. And there's nothing, nothing against that by any stretch of the imagination. But where I saw the the opportunity was like, you know, there's a lot of other people out there that are like me that just want to like be able to order stuff and like not have it be a pain in the ass. That, you know, want to have that same, you know, where I know where to go in New York City to go buy a bottle in a store. Like, you kind of want to know where's the cool place to go buy a bottle online. It's the same mentality. And that's that's kind of where we saw a chance to to be a little bit different and do something differently.

• 31:43Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And obviously, you guys have, over the last four years, built an awesome business, both in New York, and you've got the San Francisco location. And then COVID hits. And I remember when first, it was like more of a virus and not yet the government mandated shutdown. And then we had a conversation when actually the mandate went in place, hey, retail businesses, you have to shut down. In New York, I think at one point, it was a little bit gray area, like alcohol businesses, are they essential, are they not? I think you guys ended up shutting down. But thankfully, you had the e commerce business. And so it was kind of this thing where like, it almost feels like the virus has accelerated

• 32:25Anthony Pompliano?

  a lot of trends that were already underway. One of those across all retail verticals being e commerce, obviously. And you guys were really well positioned over the last couple of years to kind of capitalize on the fact that, hey, if people can't leave, and they've got to order things through their computer, Verve is one of the best ways to do that, right?

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's been really interesting because like, um, again, kind of thinking about how people normally think about wine retail is, a lot of people think like, oh, where's the good wine shop in my town? Or, you know, I've got to go find this little place that has like the cool things, you know? So, and that's very much, I think, a lot of the ways that people still shop for wine, um, that are into it. They like to find a little place that's in their town that they can go to, that they trust, or that has an interesting selection or whatever. Um, so when we had this idea to do e-commerce for the same types of wines, and like kind of make that more of a national thing, uh, it was really hard for us to get people to buy into that.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Like, it was still very much a mentality of like, oh, Verve's just a shop down in Tribeca, and that's it. You know, like, that's, it was really difficult to kind of describe and, um, get people to buy into like the bigger vision. Um, but then, you know, to your point, COVID hits. We were having a, not a hard time, we're accelerating that e-commerce business, but it wasn't like, it was taking a lot longer for it to catch on than we were kind of hoping it would. Uh, but then COVID hits, and it just like shot it way up. Um, and you're right, we were really well positioned for that, and I'm really thankful for it. Um, we actually never did shut down. Um, we, we changed the model a little bit,

• 34:12Speaker 01

  um, or I should say we changed our operations and how we, how we operate, but we never actually fully shut down. Um, I frankly, my partner and I were, like, when this first came around, we thought we were gonna have to close. In my mind, I'm like, how is selling booze gonna be, and it's a quote-unquote "essential" business? I just didn't see it. I'm like, no, this is, this is a luxury, like, who needs to drink? You know, booze is basically the last legal drug, you know, like.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  There's no way with like hospitals, grocery stores and liquor stores like I just didn't see it. So we thought we're gonna shut down. I'm like making plans and how we're gonna, you know, deal with furlough and employees and how that's how that's going to go down and all that. And then it comes out that we were actually considered essential, like we fell into that. So, you know, we're obviously really pumped about that and thankful for it. But we also wanted to do what we could to protect our team and uh, kind of change the way we did things a little bit. And we realized that having customers continue to come into the store wasn't wasn't great. Um,

• 35:22Speaker 01

  so we actually shut the stores down uh for public walk-ins and things like that and just went fully e-commerce. And it was a kind of a risky move because we didn't, at the time, it was still made up as a, you know, percentage of the business, but it wasn't a huge percentage of the business. But uh, we kind of leaned all the way into it and um, realized that it was it was a really great thing. So, the stores have effectively become small warehouses uh and fulfillment centers for all of our e-commerce orders. And for the last, call it two and a half months or however long it's been now, we've been like a hundred percent e-commerce company. Um, and the growth of the business has been pretty significant. Like can't,

• 36:08Speaker 01

  I can't complain about it at all. Um, so it's been really interesting to see what's happened. And to your point, it's it's taken what we were pushing for for a long time and just accelerated it really quickly. You know, and our our biggest concern now is how long is that gonna last? When things do fully reopen, are we gonna continue that online business? Uh, and that's yet to be seen. But I think we we've certainly acquired a lot of new customers, which is great. So, you know, if we're doing our job well, we've got good products and continue to get good service. And we're really hoping that we can retain a lot of what we've acquired over this course of time.

• 36:48Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And right now, you guys ship solely in the cities that the physical locations are in? Do you ship nationwide? How does that work?

• 36:56Speaker 01

  No, we ship nationwide, not to every single state. So, you know, alcohol is still a pretty, you know, regulated products. So each state is different. It's a lot of post prohibition laws that every state has its own rules and regulations. So it's a real big pain in the ass, to be honest.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  So we don't ship everywhere, but I think we ship out of the lower 48. I think it's like 40 of those lower 48. So, most of it. You know, we do local delivery in Manhattan and San Francisco, seven by seven. And then we ship to everywhere else that we can ship to.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  So yeah, we definitely get out beyond. We have a lot of customers in other states, too. Like I said, like you don't, if you live in Nebraska, or Kansas, or, you know, Wisconsin, or something, you just don't get access to the same kinds of things that you see in California or New York. So the people that love wine that are out there, they need a place to buy it. And so we ship, we do ship quite amount of wine, a good amount of wine outside of New York and California.

• 38:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then, you're incredibly humble, so you won't say this, but I'll say it. You're my most connected friend when it comes to the New York City hospitality, restaurant, alcohol scene. And I remember at one point, you kind of, a couple of weeks into the shutdown of a lot of these businesses, basically told me like, hey, it does not look good for a lot of these restaurants. It doesn't look very good for most of the hospitality industry. And so maybe kind of just give an update on like, what does that look like in terms of how some of these businesses have been affected? How effective have they been at kind of, if you're a restaurant, maybe transitioning to online type business?

• 38:45Anthony Pompliano?

  And then if you had to put a number on it, like what percentage of, let's say, businesses in Manhattan in the hospitality industry don't come back kind of after this in an unfortunate manner?

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, it's really hard to tell. You know, I think as time continues to go on and, you know, we see things start to come back to normal, particularly here in New York. We'll realize who really had trouble and who didn't, you know, I don't think anybody necessarily wants the press of like, you know, we're folding, we're giving in, we're done, we're, you know, waving the white flag. So I think we're probably hearing a lot less in the media about what's actually going on. I know places like Eater, uh, which is, you know, a pretty good resource for a lot of what's happening in the hospitality restaurant world. Um, they've been trying to

• 39:37Speaker 01

  keep track of who's closing for good here in New York. Uh, but I'm sure they haven't gotten to everybody. They're just working with like, trying to figure out who the biggest players and like the most popular restaurants are that are shutting, fully shutting down. But, you know, restaurants have it really tough, right? Like, because, um, A, they need diners coming through. They've got a lost staff. Those restaurant, the restaurant business model is, it's a very small margin business. Um, they have a ton of expenses. The, I think it's really, it's gonna be really hard for them to bounce back. And I think the longer that this goes

• 40:18Speaker 01

  on and the longer that they stay closed and they're continuing to pay rent, they don't have the huge, you know, piles of money just sitting in, in stores, you know, to be able to continue to pay rent almost indefinitely on their spaces. You know, they need diners in their spaces to be able to continue to operate. So there's a, there's a limitation on how long they can last, um, through this closure. You know, smarter businesses that, you know, have saved up some money or have figured out really creative ways to operate through this, whether it's via meal kits or to go, or, you know, turning their, their, their restaurants into grocery stores or trying to sell wine. Um, you know, they're

• 41:02Speaker 01

  maybe bridging the gap a little bit. Um, but, you know, for a restaurant to actually operate and, and continue to live, they need to be full. They need to, they need diners coming in, they need to be full. So even when we do reopen, whenever that ends up being the 50% capacity thing and the six foot between each table regulations that are going to be put in place for social distancing, which I think if you talk to any restaurateur or anybody in the industry, they agree that these are all good measures in order to keep everybody safe. It makes it really hard for them to continue to survive because particularly in New York where rents are really high, it's to be operating at 50% capacity is a losing battle.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  You're losing money. You're not making money at that point. My best guess is most restaurants in New York needs to be at least at like 65% or maybe 70% capacity to just to break even. So, you know, I think it's gonna be really hard and I think the situation is pretty dire. I think the larger groups, you know, the USHGs of the world or the places that have multiple restaurants and, you know, a lot of good backers or if like it's a small organization but maybe has good capital behind them, some good investors behind them, they'll be able to get by because they have access to that additional funding. But the small, a lot of small mom and pops, you know, the places that are in our neighborhoods

• 42:28Speaker 01

  that we love to go to that are local to us and whatnot that don't have big bank accounts or access to capital, they're gonna have a really hard time. So, I mean, my suggestion is, you know, patron those businesses as much as you can if you love them and you want them to get through this. And, you know, my girlfriend's gonna give me hell for saying this, but buy from, if they're doing stuff to go, buy from them directly. Don't buy through third-party apps like Grubhub and Seamless and things like that, you know, because if you haven't been paying attention, those companies take fees and, you know, it hurts, it's tough for the restaurants to buy them. She's already giving me shit here.

• 43:05Anthony Pompliano?

  We won't say, we won't say why, but there's a specific reason why she's giving you that.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I guess my, my, my whole thing is, I don't know what it's gonna look like. I think the situation really sucks. It's gonna be tough. I don't know, I've heard some people say they think 30% of the restaurants in New York are gonna close. Some people say 50%. Some people are saying 75%. I don't know what the right number is. Um, I think the longer this goes on, that percentage is going to grow. And, um, you know, they're in a really tough spot and, and frankly, it's, there's a lot of uncertainty too. Even if they can open up into 50% capacity. You know, it's really tough to understand who wants to go out to eat in these times, right? Like, I don't know if I want to go out to a restaurant and be around a bunch of other random people that I don't know.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, I think that, so it's uncertain to, there's uncertainty around demand. Um, there's uncertainty around like, you know, what the regulations exactly are going to be. You know, how long certain restaurants are able to survive through this. Uh, so a lot of it's yet to be seen, but, um, you know, there, it's, it's a really, really tough situation. The dining scene in New York is going to be changed significantly for a very long time.

• 44:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. The thing that's interesting to me is, uh, it's almost like forcing a restaurant to only be allowed to be open at 50% capacity. It sounds like you're confirming, you're really telling them, hey, you got to open and run a loss for some period of time. Right? But, but like you either, if you're the restaurant owner, you either say, okay, I'm not going to open at 50%. Even though I could be open at 50%, I'm going to wait until I can open at some higher percentage. So that while I have my staff there and, and customers, I'm not running a loss. Or, hey, it's important to be open, you know, when things come back. So people, you stay top of mind and you drive foot traffic and, you know, all those kinds of things. It's kind of a hard decision, right? There, there's just kind of no playbook. No one's done this before.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  You know, some people will look at it and say, okay, do I, am I losing more money by staying closed? Or would I lose more money by opening up? There's other risk factors of opening up too, like, and I'm seeing this in other states now that have already reopened. And people are going back to these restaurants. What happens if one of your staff members, uh, catches COVID and you've got to shut down for another period of time? You know, that's, that can be a nail in the coffin for a lot of these restaurants. It's not cheap to reopen your restaurant. You have to buy a lot of inventory, get a higher staff back. Chances are if you've changed your menu or you changed your operations around it all to accommodate these new times. You got to retrain. So there's going to be a few days at least of, you know, spending money on labor where you're not me bringing any money in.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  To go through all of that and then potentially have to shut down again is a massive risk. Right? You spend a ton of money reopen and a couple of weeks later, you got to shut down again for a couple of weeks. A huge hit. So, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a huge risk, I think, to reopen into these times. There's no perfect playbook on it yet. I don't think it's going to return to, to normalcy until you probably have the vaccine in place. And, you know, everything's kind of cool to be out and about again. Anytime before that is really tough. And that's why you see people like Danny Meyer making these big pronouncements that he's not going to open any of his restaurants.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Until, you know, maybe there's a vaccine. He doesn't want to operate under these conditions.

• 46:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy. Blaji Srinivasan came on and he also said something that I thought was really interesting, which was basically not only are there all the challenges you described, but you're also then asking these restaurants to essentially be able to operate in like bio defense mode. Right? Because they also are fighting the virus. They have to clean tables much more often. They've got to be able to make sure that their staff isn't sick. And do kind of all of these things that they probably directionally were already doing, it sounds like, but now it's just on hyperdrive because their specific health.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  You know, the last thing in the world you want is to be in the press labeled as a hotspot for COVID, right? Or, you know, what, what happens now too is like, kind of the restaurant that maybe people want to go to is the one that has the best sanitization policies, you know, and intends to be the cleanest and it's the most on display with that. You got to think about how you're doing your marketing, your social media, like you got to tell your customers and your guests, like what is it that you're doing to make sure that all of your preventative measures are in place?

• 47:49Speaker 01

  But then there's these additional costs too, like PPE for your staff, masks, gloves, temperature checks, all this stuff that needs to be put into place. It's a whole nother cost item that just never took place before. If you're doing it the right way, if you're changing out your mask twice a shift, call it, throwing those things away. You know, you're buying masks and gloves and stuff at a huge rate for these, you know, fairly large teams of people. It's a, it's a cost item that just didn't exist before this. So to open into a new landscape with all these risks, where you can only operate at 50% capacity, there's additional cost items. It's, it's like a. It's really difficult.

• 48:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, another thing that seems to be a new cost item specifically for wine, and we've talked about it before is just the tariffs. And so maybe kind of help us understand all of the taxation that's been going on. Some of it sounds like there was threats of it happening. Some of it's already been passed and and just how these additional costs when it comes to the wine industry changes the economics for importers, exporters and various retail type locations.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's funny because once the tariffs was like the big topic within the industry for like two months and then COVID hit and you know now tariffs feel like it's a complete topic in the past. But it's definitely having a significant impact, particularly on French wine.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Because you're seeing, I think it's like a 25%. There was two there were two potential tariffs that were being put in place. I can't remember anymore which one was which, but one was for 25%. And another one was going to be for 100%. And I think that was like the the like Airbus deal that Trump was pissed off about or something.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  But what ended up happening, I think that one got pushed off. And the 25% tariff on French wine was still put into place. And you know, all these things are a little bit on lag time because you know, things are on the water. They take time to get here. But now things are starting to arrive and you know, you're seeing these wines that are certainly more expensive. So how that ends up happening, what the effect is on the consumer. I think kind of depends on what type of consumer you are. So if what I mean by that is if you're a pretty savvy wine consumer and you're you're very particular about the types of wines you buy in the specific wineries, like let's say that you

• 50:30Speaker 01

  really love Burgundy or Rhone wines or you know, certain certain champagnes or something like that. You're really specific about the types of wines that you buy, the specific wineries. You're gonna search them out and they're gonna be more expensive than they were in the past. Like if you're used to buying them before, now they've got a premium on them. And you as a, maybe a collector or wine enthusiast or whoever, you've got to make a decision on, is that extra cost worth it to you or not?

• 51:00Speaker 01

  And we've seen a lot of that. Like, you know, there's certain burgundy wines, for example, that we've always sold the last few years and, you know, you get pushback from, from collectors. They understand the situation, but maybe in the past, they would have taken a couple of cases of something. They might only take one case or six bottles, something like that. So you're seeing a, a downshift in the quantities for sure, based on that. I think on, for, for the average consumer that isn't necessarily paying as close attention or have like the same, um, same restrictions with choice and kind of, you know, really want specific things, you probably aren't gonna notice it all that much. Because, you know, us for like a retailer, for instance,

• 51:45Speaker 01

  you know, we need to make sure that we have certain categories and price points that we're always hitting. So, you know, if we need a Sauvignon Blanc from France, for instance, that comes in and hits the shelf at fifteen bucks, we're gonna find that wine, no matter who's making it. And we're gonna find one that we like, that fits the right price, fits the right category, and put it in that slot. Now, it might be, not be the same ones before, uh, but the average consumer that's come through the door might not realize that it's different and they're not gonna necessarily care. So I think it really depends on where you fall, you know, in the, in the spectrum of, uh, the type of wine consumer that you are. If you're savvy and you're used to buying things, you're gonna notice it because shit's just more expensive now.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't think that, that kind of normal consumer's gonna, are gonna feel it as much.

• 52:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, so most people listening to this are going to be that average retail consumer. But everyone is fascinated with the collectors or kind of the investors in wine. We talked a lot on the podcast in the past about like fine art or the private art market. And to me, the wine investing world seems, you know, somewhat comparable. It's a different product, obviously, but maybe talk a little bit about kind of your understanding of how that world works and what's going on there. As we've kind of, the world has changed a little bit.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, you know, wine investing, I think, is actually a really interesting kind of alternative asset. If you think about it, it's, it does pretty well. If you're the type of person that can spend wisely and then sit on everything and just not consume. You know, it's a little different than art where you're just putting something up on the wall like, you know, you could, it would be like if you could. There was some benefit to taking that piece of art down and like destroying it.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Wine is, it sits in your cellar for a certain amount of time and it can really appreciate value. But then you're also tempted to want to just pop it open and drink it and then it's gone. So if you can buy, buy smartly and keep things around, you could actually make a pretty significant amount of money on wine. Now, the difference is you need access to it. You need to be able to understand like what the good things are and what aren't.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  But, you know, I think it's a really interesting investment and you can certainly do well. Where it still has yet to be seen how this, the tariff situation is going to impact that. I think for the, the really high ends of wine collecting. It's not going to matter too much because I think the same wines are going to be still in just as much demand. Everybody's buying them for the same price anyway. And maybe the acceleration in value is going to slow down a little bit because they're already starting out at a premium. But I still think that. Over time, those wines are going to be worth a lot more. And there, you know, you can still do well.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  What's been interesting in the segment for me is like, there's other people are starting to get into this game and, and one company in particular that I've kind of like talked with who is finds wine collecting to be a fascinating, you know, kind of segment for investing. They're starting to try to democratize this a little bit because I think

• 55:15Speaker 01

  it, it really has been left up to the collectors and the people who really know wine to, um, to make smart decisions when it comes to this. So the average investor isn't actually going to touch it, even though it is a really good investment. You need the access, you need the relationships, you need to know what you're buying.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  There are companies now that are starting to put some algorithmic structure around how to invest in wines and doing basically all the trading for you. So to me, that's pretty interesting. So I think the industry is, is evolving and changing a little bit up to that end. Uh, but it's yet to be seen like how well some of these things work.

• 55:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So this is might be a really stupid question. But let's say that you are one of those wine collectors and you're buying, you know, you, you mentioned earlier $2,500 bottle of wine. How do you actually know whatever's on the label is actually what's in the bottle? So whether it's the type of wine, uh, where it comes from, uh, how old it is, like, like all of these things that kind of make up that story and, and the, uh, kind of romantic element that drives the price it appears, like, how do people actually verify that stuff?

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, sources is a huge part of it. Um, I would imagine it's pretty similar. I don't know much about art collecting, but I would imagine it's pretty similar to that where it could potentially be like a fake or something like that. But the source is hugely important, whether you're buying directly from the winery itself or you're buying through an importer or you're buying through, you know, retailer like us, for instance, that you can guarantee the provenance and where it's coming from. Um, that's a massive part of it. Uh, you know, outside of that, when you start getting into the world of auctions and trading between collectors or

• 57:04Speaker 01

  kind of the more open market on wines, uh, it gets tricky. Now, there, there are a number of people out there that do a lot of work into verification of wines and

• 57:15Speaker 01

  there are ways to kind of check for authenticity, um, without necessarily just popping the wine open and, and checking on it. Uh, but you do run some risk, you know, i- if you watched that movie Sour Grapes, or you've heard of Rudy Carneiruan, who was kind of the, the famous guy who got arrested for a lot of fraudulent wine sales. Um, there's a lot of fake wine out there on the market. Um, and some of it can be very difficult to tell if it's a fake or not, uh, if they've done a good job. So, you know,

• 57:49Speaker 01

  unless you're buying it, the, the best way to know that you're, what you're getting is the real deal is to buy it on release, either from a trusted retailer or from the winery directly. Outside of that, you start to really increase your risk of buying something. Uh, there is a risk, a percentage risk of, of buying something fraudulent.

• 58:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that makes sense. Uh, one more topic before we get to the fun stuff. Uh, there was recently some massive drama, uh, and, and frankly, just a cheating scandal in the, uh, in the sommelier world. Uh, maybe talk us through just kind of like what happened and where things stand now?

• 58:28Speaker 01

  Sure. Um, so this was, uh, about a year, a little over a year and a half ago now. It was towards the end of 2018, I believe. I think it was like September, October 2018. Um, so what happened was at the master sommelier exam, uh, one of the examining, uh, masters sent down an email to a handful of people. Um, and I think it was people that he was close with who were taking the test. And basically gave them a couple of the answers to the blind tasting exam. Like said, hey, you know, here's a couple of wines that are in lineup for your blind tasting.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  And what happened was is that that email was brought to light after the exam was over. So, nobody reported that email during the exam. Everybody went, took their test. Bunch of people passed that year. It was actually a record number of people passing the exam. So it all ready to a lot of us were like, wow, that's a huge number of people. It was like twenty percent or something like that. It's like twenty people or something.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  So it seemed a little weird, but then about a month later, it comes out that this email was sent out ahead of time and a handful of candidates received it. What they did with it was was really up in the air, whether they passed it along or not, even whether they used the information or even if they saw it before they went into their test. But what happened was that the organization decided to do an investigation, which I later found out wasn't wasn't really much of an investigation. It was basically they sat around a table and just decided to, instead of doing an investigation, to just yank everybody's PIN, everybody's diploma that passed, and tell them to retake the test.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  And it turned into a huge thing because, A, there was obviously the breach, which made it public. But then, you know, the big question became, did they handle this the correct way? You know, is it right to just, you know, kind of consider that everybody maybe cheated on this thing or had, you know, access to this information and maybe used it incorrectly and cheated? So it was a huge deal in the organization.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  You know, there's, there's still a lot of people, myself included, who feel it wasn't necessarily handled properly. Other people will argue with me about that. It's it's kind of settled down at this point, but for about a year or so, it was a huge deal in the organization. And some of those people have since gone back and retaken the test and passed. Some people went back and failed, so have not gotten through. Some people hated how it was handled and have decided to just exit the organization altogether and not pursue it anymore. So, you know, I think it was a big learning for the organization of how to maybe

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  protect themselves against this kind of stuff in the future, but then also, you know, if and when these things happen, how to think about it and how to act the next time around.

• 1:01:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, pretty crazy that this all happened, especially after watching the Psalm documentary and understanding the pressure involved in all of this.

• 1:01:57Anthony Pompliano?

  You know, you could see again, just people caving, right?

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's wild, you know, you think about it like, you know, people put years of their lives into this thing. It's one of the biggest achievements they're ever gonna have in their life. You know, I remember how I felt on the day I passed. It's like, you just feel like you're on top of the world, you know, it's crazy. You're like, holy shit, I just became one of these people. And, you know, you're related, you worked for a very long time, you put your blood, sweat and tears into into passing this thing. So I can only imagine what it's like to be called up a month later and say, hey, never mind, you gotta come do this again. You know, you're devastated. So I can I can empathize with the candidates. I can also empathize to a certain extent with the the organization too, like their exam was breached.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  They don't really have a really clear path to figuring out who got that access to that information and who didn't. What's the fairest way to deal with it? You know, their thought was, let's just pull it back from everybody, make them redo it. Let's just can't like void that test. Because for them, you know, the the, you know, making sure that that test and when you earn that diploma, that that's that that integrity is intact is super important, and I don't blame them for that.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  So, you know, I can kind of see both sides of the situation. Uh, but you know, it was a crazy thing. I mean, it's just, it caused a huge rift within the organization. Uh, a lot of people, you know, lost some jobs that they had lined up because the, you know, they were waiting for these people to pass their exam. Some people got kind of caught up in bad press because they were, you know, happened to be part of this graduating class there or the, the, or the diploma got yanked from underneath of them. Uh, when, you know, I know a lot of these people personally and I know that they, there's no way that they cheated, you know, so it's,

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  it's, it's tough to, to understand how to think about it, but, uh, hopefully we won't have to encounter something like that again. Or if we do, that we'll be better prepared next time. Cause it was, it was a cluster. It was a mess.

• 1:04:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, the part I, I think is so interesting too is, uh, it came out that there was cheating and really the debate, it sounds like is not around, hey, was there cheating or was there not? It's what do we do about it? Right? And, and so it's kind of like, when you get in a situation where everyone agrees that like something bad happened that shouldn't have happened.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:30Anthony Pompliano?

  The, the like response to that, uh, I think there's, sounds like there's agreement around like, hey, there should be a response. It's just, who do you respond to? How do you do it? Like, like that's where all the nuance really is.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Totally. Yeah. And we, we looked at it as like, okay, let's say you go, you know, take, take the SAT or maybe the SAT is a bad, bad example.

• 1:04:51Anthony Pompliano?

  They got, they have cheating at the SAT now too. So you gotta be careful. They, they got a-

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  Taking your bar exam or something like that. And it, it, you know, if somebody finds out that there was a leak of information about the bar exam, are you going to just like, take that away from everybody that took it that time? Probably not. You're probably going to dig way more into it, figure out who had access to the information, who didn't, and maybe make them retake it or, you know, figure out some sort of punishment if there needs to be a punishment. Um, but to just kind of void the whole thing for everybody. I think, you know, that was where, you know, personally, I didn't agree with how they handled it. Um, but I don't run the organization. So it's not necessarily my choice. That's my stance.

• 1:05:34Anthony Pompliano?

  All I'll say is maybe you should. Okay, moving on.

• 1:05:39Anthony Pompliano?

  So I asked Twitter for all kinds of questions and as you can imagine, I got everything from the ridiculous, obnoxious ones to super serious. So maybe let's-

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  I don't see much action on my Twitter feed.

• 1:05:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's play a little game of rapid fire. First question is, what's your favorite wine and why?

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Favorite wine, if I had to pick one thing, it's gonna be wines from the Northern Rome region of France. I love Syrah, the Syrah grape. It's actually, as we're talking, that's what I'm drinking some Syrah right now. That's what I drink the most of and that's like the homeland of Syrah. So Northern Rome. And I'm not super specific on the specific winery or region or any of that, but Rome and Syrah is where my heart's at.

• 1:06:29Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. What's the best brand or wine under $20?

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Woof.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Uh, wow. I mean, there's a ton of things. It's really hard to say. Um, who I have right now over here?

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Man, that's a really tough question. It depends on the grape, it depends on the region that you're looking to drink. I mean, I guess if I was gonna drink something for under 20 bucks and think about best bang for the buck, I might actually drink Beaujolais.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Sorry for the sirens here. Beaujolais is probably where you could get a lot of good bang for your buck for under 20 bucks.

• 1:07:12Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Uh, there is a, I think a report that came out that the human palate can't tell the difference when you taste different wines over 20 bucks. I saw somebody tweeting about this. I have no clue what they're talking about, but I figured I'd ask you since you're the expert. What, how is the relationship of the human palate and the ability to taste the difference between wines and price point related?

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, people love to have this, play this game.

• 1:07:43Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm glad that I am surfacing it to play then.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  I do think, you know, in my mind, anyway, as, you know, being in this industry now for a long time and tasting a lot of things, I think that there is a significant increase in perception of quality between, you know, the lower priced wines and call it up to around 50 bucks or so a bottle, maybe even a little bit higher than that. Once you get beyond that, it gets really difficult and it no longer becomes a question of quality anymore, but more so branding, marketing, and oftentimes rarity. You know, rarity and kind of the supply demand thing has a huge

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  impact on pricing and wine. But up to 50, call it 50 bucks, there's actually like a significant increase in quality. Like, you're actually paying for better wine making or better fruit, you know, better grapes from a better site, call it. So there is, there is some, some kind of linear, you know, value to be had from, from increasing the price there. Whether people can tell the difference or not is, is a different thing, right? Like, you know, telling quality and then telling whether you like it or not are two very different things. Like, there's a lot of things that I like that are cheap and things that I like that are expensive. There's a lot of expensive wine out there that I think is sucks, you know? So I think

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  people need to distinguish what is quality and what is personal preference first, I think, before you can have that argument. My feeling, my, and what I've always kind of touted is, if you like it, then it's good and just drink it. So, and it kind of removes that whole, that whole argument.

• 1:09:34Anthony Pompliano?

  So, I know that you could do a blind tasting. If I put five wines in front of you right now, and literally you're blindfolded, you could tell me with a scary amount of accuracy, the type of wine, where it's from, the general year, all of those things. Do you think that you would be accurate if I told you to predict the price it's selling for?

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  I think I could be pretty accurate with that. We actually used to play that game quite a bit and it used to be a way. That's one of the reasons why blind tasting is actually fairly practical. When it comes to being a sommelier or being like in my position with retail where you're buying wines on a regular basis. You kind of want to taste things and understand like where's the quality here and be able to say like, alright, this wine's a good deal or this is way overpriced. Like if I taste something and I'm like, okay, this is really good and it should roughly be, you know, call it 20, 30 bucks on the shelf. And then they want to sell it to me for $50. I'm like, no, not way. This does not taste like a $50 bottle of wine. On the flip side, if I'm like, wow, this is really freaking good.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  This tastes, this drinks like something that's maybe 40, 50 bucks. And they say, oh, it's only $18. I'm gonna buy that. I think it's great. So.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Yes. Long answer, yes.

• 1:10:51Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. And by the way, I don't doubt you.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  But the thing is, you know, the general consumer probably isn't going to do that. So I think, you know, between 20 and 50 dollars for most people that aren't training their palate on a regular basis and drinking wines all the time. And doing this for their job. You know, most people are going to be pretty happy buying stuff in the like 20-ish dollar range. That's like really good. There's a lot of really good wine at that price.

• 1:11:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. What's the most underrated wine region?

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  Most underrated?

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  Man.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that could be argued. Maybe, I think. That's a good, really good question. I can have a lot of arguments. Natalie just put this in my head, so I'm gonna roll with it. And I'm gonna say Australia.

• 1:11:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Why?

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  Australia gets kind of a bad reputation. I would have, if, if this was like five years ago, I would have said Beaujolais again. Cause Beaujolais used to have a really bad reputation, but that's, that reputation has changed and, uh, and now I think everybody knows about it.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  I think Australia, there's a lot of cool, interesting stuff down there. That not a lot of people know about. Everybody knows like Yellowtail and Big Barossa Shiraz and, you know, the big Cabernet's and like the wines with critters on the label and things like that. But there's actually a ton of other stuff in Australia that's really interesting. And really good. That I think still is, is kind of on the upward swing. It's also Australia.

• 1:12:36Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Uh, what is the taste difference between biodynamic wine and regular wine? And the caveat here is I have no clue what the hell biodynamic wine is. So you're gonna have to explain that.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  So biodynamics is, uh, just a, a method of farming. It's kind of like a really geeked out version of organics. If you think about it like, you know, you think of conventional farming as like, you know, the goal is to grow things the most efficiently. And have the least, uh, the least amount of interruptions, the most amount of control. You're probably going to spray a lot of herbicides, pesticides and thing, and chemicals and whatnot in your vineyard to get the, uh, to get the, to the goal that you're looking to accomplish. Uh, organics is very similar to organics with food, right? Like you're gonna not spray as many of these chemicals and things like that. Or you're gonna use other control methods where,

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  you know, it's, it's kind of less harmful to the, uh, to the vineyard environment. Biodynamics is like the really like hippie nerdy version of that. So, it, it follows a lot of really interesting, um, and, and weird philosophies. A lot of stuff that follows like the moon cycle and a lot of these, what they're called preparations where, you put certain things into the soils or onto the, uh, onto the vines themselves. At certain times of the year in order to follow this and biodynamics is like, it's, it's, it definitely creates a very healthy, um, robust.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  Environment for the vines and for the vineyard, like if you see a biodynamically farmed vineyard, it just looks really healthy, right? If you look at a conventionally farmed vineyard, it usually is like dirt with vines and some grapes growing on them and nothing else. Whereas a biodynamically farmed vineyard is like full of life and grasses and like insects flying around and all this stuff. So you can tell it's like a very healthy environment. But what it translates to into the glass is like not really,

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  not really perceivable to, to that much of an extent. Like you definitely get healthier fruit coming off the vine. So at higher quality levels, you're gonna, you know, you're getting better fruit quality here. Uh, but you're not necessarily going to taste a huge difference between a conventionally farmed site and a biodynamically farmed site. It's just not, it doesn't translate in the same way.

• 1:15:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. What's your favorite at-home wine tool?

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Um, my wine key.

• 1:15:24Anthony Pompliano?

  What is that?

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Just the wine opener.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  It's the only thing I need. I don't use, I don't use shit. Uh, here, oh, here. Yeah, I've got my, my, of course, Verve branded wine key. Um, you know, one of these guys, just a little simple, double hinge wine key. There's a lot of gadgets out there. I think 99.9% of them are all a waste of money. So I'll say that.

• 1:15:52Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I will tell people that, uh, one time at dinner, uh, I opened a bottle of wine in front of you and, uh, I literally thought that you were gonna like banish me from the table. I was like, holy shit, I have no clue what I'm doing. This dude's opened like a million bottles in his life and I'm over here hoping I don't pop the, the cork in half as I pull it out of the bottle.

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think if, if anybody's like, uh, the one kind of gadget, if you will, that I think is actually worth the money is called Coravin, C O R A V I N. And that is, I think it's really only applicable if, what it, what it does is basically allows you to access your wines without opening the cork. And you can pour out a single glass of wine and it's, it's a, it preserves the rest of the wine that's left over in the bottle. So it's a way that like, if you only like to drink a glass every now and then and not have to pop open the bottle, it preserves the wine for a longer period of time. So it's really useful only if you are having like a glass of wine a week or something.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Anything beyond that, you might as well just open the bottle. Or if you're a collector that has a lot of wines in your cellar and you don't necessarily want to pop something open, or you want to check in on something to see how it is, Coravin's really useful for that. But otherwise, I think most of the things on the market, the, um, the aerators and all that kind of stuff is just kind of, I don't know, I personally think it's a waste.

• 1:17:22Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the best movie about wine or the best wine movie?

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:17:29Anthony Pompliano?

  And you can't say Psalm.

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  Okay. That was gonna be my answer. Um, you know, I think my, my favorite's Sideways still. I like Sideways. It's a good flick. It's just really funny. Um, it's pretty accurate in, uh, in how they describe wine. They actually did their research and like, talk about it in the right way. So that would be my favorite.

• 1:17:55Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And now the most important part of our conversation, I've saved for, saved for the end, which is, uh, you and I both live with dictators. And, uh, but one of my favorite things, by the way, we're having this conversation and Plin is in the room with me and Natalie's in the room with you, so they can hear this, which makes it even better, uh, that we get to have this conversation. But, uh, one of my favorite things that you and I both do is, uh, use the excuse of, I'm not done with that yet. So I want you to explain the importance for every man to know the trick of, I'm not done with that yet, as a way to get out of jail whenever they need it.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think it's a great move and I think it's uh maybe underutilized. Um, I can probably look around the room right now and find a few things that I'm not quite done with yet. Um, meaning my coffee that's sitting on the counter over here. Um, maybe a, a dish from lunch that's sitting in the sink, something like that. Um, or you know, the, the coffee table right now is cleaned off, so I can't really use a real life example, but you know, if you finished your plate of food and you haven't done anything with it yet, I'm not done with that. I think is a, it's a very solid reason for why you've left it behind.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  My, I always get shit, you know, for, you know, I'll take my food over to the sink and put it in the sink instead of putting it in the dishwasher and I always get shit for that. Um, but you know, I, I saying that you maybe want to come back to it later. I think is a very viable reason to uh, to leave it there.

• 1:19:35Anthony Pompliano?

  It's really hard to argue with that logic. You, you might come back.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  An avocado where the skin is just like, you know, sitting on the counter still, but there's maybe like a smidge, little sliver of the avocado left. You can argue, it's not, you're not done.

• 1:19:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Pretty, pretty reasonable. So.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  I think it's very reasonable.

• 1:19:53Anthony Pompliano?

  What, what makes this all funny is uh, Dustin and I.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  How, how, how like red is Paulino with, with anger right now? Cause Natalie's like losing her mind over here.

• 1:20:05Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I think they're actually texting each other at the moment. So we're gonna be in trouble when this is over. So let's get all of our anger out now. Uh, but we, we obviously met each other uh, because Plina and Natalie knew each other. And uh, I always tell people that um, you Natalie and then our other friends Ali and Kealan are the only people I know that are in a group chat where somehow the group chat is dominated by just photos and text messages about all the things that you, me and Ali do that they're not happy about. And so say something dumb, it ends up in the group chat, you know? Leave something out, a photo's going in the group chat. And I'm like, somehow I'm not ashamed. Like I'm perfectly fine. Cause I know they, those two guys do the same thing I do.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's like you got somebody on your team on the other side of this. It's like, yes, you know?

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  I got away with it. I know the other guys here are gonna like, support me, you know? They've got my back. It's nice to know.

• 1:21:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Dustin wasn't done with it yet. I already know when I see the photo. He wasn't done with it. What are you, what are you, why are you taking that photo?

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah. Paulina sends something into the chat. I can find a very reasonable reason for why, you know, you did what you did.

• 1:21:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Before I end up, ask the same two questions. First is, what is the most important book you've ever read?

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  The most important book I've ever read? Um, wow.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  I mean, from,

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  gosh, from my life, well, this might be, this might actually be stupid, but,

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  it had the biggest impacts on my trajectory, my professional career,

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  is Wine for Dummies.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  That was my first wine book.

• 1:21:56Anthony Pompliano?

  That's an awesome answer.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  It was the, it was the book that like, gave me the introduction into this, uh, this world that I live in now, and, uh, it's the book that changed my life. Not, maybe not the most compelling book in the world, or maybe the most interesting, and certainly not the most sophisticated, but it's had the biggest impact. So I'll say that.

• 1:22:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you ever recommend it for other people to go read it? Like, if people who are interested in wine today, would you recommend that book?

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  Well, you know, when I read that, it was a long time ago, so I don't know. I, I think, yeah, generally speaking, yes, but I also think there are some other really good introductory books that are out there for wine that probably do a little bit of a better job at this point.

• 1:22:39Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And then last question, then you get to ask me one to finish up, is, uh, Aliens, believer or non-believer?

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  Definitely believer.

• 1:22:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Why?

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  A believer. The universe is just too big. Like, we have such a small view into what's out there. I just feel like, out of the trillions of other potential planets, there's gotta be someone out there that's like existing right now. I just, I don't, I think the odds are in our favor that there is other life at some point.

• 1:23:14Anthony Pompliano?

  We're recording this, uh, the day after it came out that these, uh, I'll call them, uh, alien researchers have discovered a second radio signal. So about three or four years ago, they discovered a radio signal, uh, that was every 16 days was being shot from, you know, deep in some other galaxy, you know, millions of years away, or whatever the hell it is. Uh, and so recently they found a second one that is being transmitted every 157 days on a like perfectly frequent basis. And so when I hear things like that, and then they followed up with, "We can't explain it," it just furthers my conviction like, "Hey,

• 1:23:58Anthony Pompliano?

  there's a lot of things we don't understand." And like, you find enough of these radio signals, one of them's gonna be an alien, right?

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I just think it's, uh, there's just, it's too vast, um, that we're the, and for me to think that we're the only, like, life forms out there, I just, to me, that just doesn't make logical sense. It's just too big. There's too much of a likelihood that there's other stuff out there. So I believe.

• 1:24:25Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that's gonna end up being a very, uh, very accurate view of the world. Uh, what's the one question you have for me to finish up?

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  Uh, alright, so, what should I ask? What should I ask?

• 1:24:43Anthony Pompliano?

  You see how he's enlisting help from Natalie so that later she can yell that?

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  Now you want my help?

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  What should I ask you? I will say, where, um...

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  What's the, so I'll ask a restaurant question. I know you're not necessarily a restaurant person, but uh. What is the, when, when things get back to normal? What is the first restaurant that you and Paulina are gonna wanna go to? When you can.

• 1:25:22Anthony Pompliano?

  I'll give you the uh, the actual most honest answer possible, and then I'll give you the answer that you're probably more aiming for. Uh, the first one is uh, McDonald's is always gonna be number one. Um, we've actually gone, so I can't really uh, say that it's gonna be a thing that we're.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  Been open this whole time, right? Like you get to go from McDonald's.

• 1:25:42Anthony Pompliano?

  That's what makes them the best restaurant in the world. Literally, a pandemic can't shut down McDonald's. Like, they're always there. It's always consistent. You know what you're gonna get. Uh, no, so I think that uh, if I had to choose one restaurant in Mc, or uh, in New York. Um, and obviously, this is one that I like, that also Paulina likes, so kind of the, the overlap of interest. Uh, probably Flex Muscles. Like, I feel like Flex Muscles is uh, is probably gonna be uh, the first one. Other ones that uh, that, that we like, um. What is it? A, ABC Kitchen? Is that, that, that's a restaurant, right? Been there, we like that place. Uh, trying to think of what.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  I like the Flex Muscles, and so that's great. Yeah, it's been interesting to ask people because. You know, I think it's, it's, it's kinda shows what people have been missing during all of this. And I find that, um, I think a lot of restaurant culture before COVID happened was everybody always wanted to go to the, the. The new hot restaurant, you know, the new opening that like, everybody wants to try to get into. And now with everything shut down, and we can't go to the places that make us the most happy and the most comfortable. Everybody wants like their standard go-to and like things that they, they miss the most, you know? So I think it's, it's gonna be interesting to see what's busy when things uh, do reopen.

• 1:27:09Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And, and it's also a thing. I think where people now understand that like the restaurant experience, like restaurateurs have done this forever, it's not just the food, right? It's not just the alcohol and the wine. It's also like the social component of it. It's the atmosphere. It's the environment. It's the staff. It's like all of these things that feed into like the actual experience make going to a restaurant. And so when I think of certain places, you know, I don't know, it takes kind of like a New York staple, like Union Square Cafe, right? Like when you walk in there, it has a very specific vibe. It has a very specific type of menu. It has a very specific like expectation you have when

• 1:27:52Anthony Pompliano?

  you walk in. And so I do think that people will have a greater appreciation for a lot of that stuff. Who knows? Does that last forever? Or does it kind of, you know, decay over time again? But it just to me like that part's really interesting because there's some people who will go to a restaurant specifically because of the food. I think a lot of people subconsciously though would also go for those environments. And so you mentioned earlier, like what, you know, it would be weird to go to Union Square Cafe and be the only person eating in there. Right? Like it'd actually be eerie, right? Like you'd kind of be like, like what's going on here? So I do think that there's almost this like self fulfilling prophecy of like, as a society or as a community, everyone has to decide to go back. And then once that happens, like you get those environments and like people want to go more and more and more. I just don't know how long it'll take, right?

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Question.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I think it's gonna be really interesting to see what what happens when things do reopen. And I think there's gonna be an element of nostalgia and like appreciation for the places that like maybe you took for granted before, right? Like you really hope don't go away. You just can't wait to get back to. And I think at least for a period of time, my guess is it won't be, it's not gonna be the cool thing to try to go to the new hotspot anymore. It's gonna be, I want to go support the places that are that have always been my go tos, my favorites, and the places that I'm most comfortable with. We'll see.

• 1:29:15Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Where, um, for people who want to order wine, where can they go? And then people who want to badger you with questions, where can they find you on the internet?

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  So VerveWine.com is where you can order some awesome wines from us. We've got a great team of people, really accessible chats and things like that. But you can, you know, if you're having trouble finding something, or you're just looking for recommendations and things like that, we try to make it really easy for people to get those recommendations and talk to real, live humans while you're navigating the website. So that's a great spot. I can be found on Instagram and Twitter at just @DustinWilsonMS on both of those platforms. So those I check pretty regularly, so.

• 1:30:10Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you use more, Twitter or Instagram?

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  I'm more of an Instagram guy. I get on Twitter quite a bit for to kind of check news and see what's going on out there in the world and what conversations are taking place. But I'm kind of more of a spectator on Twitter than I am like an engager on Twitter.

• 1:30:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Same, same.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, not so much. I love watching Pomp on Twitter. It's great.

• 1:30:37Anthony Pompliano?

  I gotta remember that you're watching sometimes and maybe I won't tweet all the crazy shit.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  No, I love it. It's great. I particularly like outside of John Legend and Chrissy Teigen as my, maybe my favorite couple on Twitter. Well, I think you and Pauline are maybe edging them out a little bit as my favorite couple to watch on Twitter.

• 1:31:01Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm glad that you're.

• 1:31:02Speaker 01

  The two of you on her together is pretty epic. I love it.

• 1:31:06Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm glad that you're buying us back some points after I said that we live with dictators. So maybe we won't get into much trouble. All right, listen, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. I could not recommend Verve Wine more, so go check that out, guys, and we'll do this again, Dustin.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

• 1:31:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright guys, thanks for listening to that episode. I hope you enjoyed it just as much as I did. My goal is to educate as many people with these conversations as possible, so please go subscribe on your favorite podcast channel, leave a 5-star rating and a review. These things really help the podcast get higher up on popularity charts, which ultimately brings more people to learn. Also, don't forget you can go to YouTube to watch each conversation in video format as well. Just search my name, Anthony Pompliano, on YouTube and you'll find our channel with hundreds of awesome and informative videos. Thanks again for listening to this one, and I'll see you for the next one.