Redefining Wine Culture with Tyler Balliet of Rebel School of Wine (Part 1)

Ep 102

How does someone from a beer-loving Wisconsin family end up creating a massive Rosé-themed wine playground in New York City? As well as writing a wine-themed book that is challenging the wine status quo?

Today’s guest, author Tyler Balliet, is sharing her journey on how she’s helping to reshape the wine industry with events like Rosé Mansion and Wine Riot, as well as her inspiration behind her book, Rebel School of Wine. We also dig into the heart of what’s wrong with how wine is traditionally taught - think too pretentious, too focused on technical details, and not nearly welcoming (or fun) enough!

Tyler Balliet is an entrepreneur and journalist who’s been reshaping how people experience wine since 2006. She co-founded Rosé Mansion, a massive rosé-themed wine playground in NYC, and Wine Riot, a touring wine festival, and named Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 and Wine Enthusiast’s 40 Under 40. Her new book, Rebel School of Wine, is a bold, visually-driven manifesto for a new generation of wine drinkers.

So, if you are ready to break free from stuffy wine stereotypes and lean into Tyler’s take on why wine education should be about fun, stories, and people, then this episode is for you!

This is part 1 of my interview with Tyler so make sure you check out part 2 in episode 103!

Connect with Tyler

Website: https://rebelschoolofwine.com/

Instagram: @tylerballiet

Instagram: @rebelschoolofwine 

Resources

Go to rebelschoolofwine.com and use the promo code CORKANDFIZZ to get a signed copy of Tyler’s book and a free pack of wine stickers for only $30. That's $15 off!

Codeword: Listen to the episode to discover the code word and DM me on Instagram or email me at hailey@corkandfizz.com for your chance to win a copy of Rebel School of Wine!

Episode Highlights:

• Tyler Balliet’s wine journey
• Inspiration behind Tyler’s Rebel School of Wine book
• Tyler’s focus on the “why” and “who” behind wine and not just the “what”
• Exploring wine through people and culture
• Tyler’s frustration with technical, flavor/aroma-focused language
• The disconnect between how wine professi

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Transcript

0:09

Interested in learning about wine, but not sure where to start? You're in the right place. Welcome to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. I'm your host, Haley Bullman, and I'm so glad you're here. I'm a wine enthusiast turned wine educator and founder of the Seattle based wine tasting business Cork and Fizz. It is my goal to build your confidence in wine by making it approachable and lots of fun. You can expect to learn everything from how to describe your favorite wine to what to pair with dinner tonight and so much more. Whether you're a casual wine sipper or a total cork dork like myself, this podcast is for you. So, grab yourself a glass and let's dive in. Hello, and welcome back to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. I have a crazy exciting interview to share with you today. I have no idea how I managed to swing this, but I am beyond honored to be introducing you on the show today to Tyler Balliet. Tyler is an entrepreneur and journalist who's been reshaping how people experience wine since 02/2006. She co founded Rose Mansion, a massive Rose themed wine playground. Like how amazing does that sound? In New York City, it drew over 225,000 visitors. She's also, co founded Wine Riot, which was a touring wine festival with 150,000 attendees. And don't worry, I will definitely be asking her about these crazy cool experiences so we can learn more about them during the interview. She was named to Inc. Magazine's thirty under thirty and wine enthusiasts forty under forty. Kyler has judged international wine competitions, explored wine regions around the world, and has been featured on Good Morning America, CNN, and The New York Times. And now we get to add the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast on that list. Like, how cool is that? Her new book, Rebel School of Wine, is a bold, visually driven manifesto for a new generation of wine drinkers. In this episode, you'll discover how Tyler went from a beer drinking family in Wisconsin. Sounds familiar. I know another Wisconsin wine lover. I'm currently pointing to myself if you can't see through the podcast. How Tyler went from her beer drinking family in Wisconsin to creating a massive rose themed wine playground in New York. What inspired her to write the rebel school of wine, and what makes it different from other wine books out there? She's also going to give us an inside look at the wine industry from her point of view along with thoughts on what changes need to happen in the coming years for it to continue to thrive. And be sure to listen carefully to the whole episode for a chance to win a copy of Tyler's new book, The Rebel School of Wine. This will run from the day this is released, so April 30 until May seventh of twenty twenty five. So be sure to do it before 05/07/2025, but I will be sharing a code word sometime during this interview. Don't worry. I'm gonna make it very obvious. I'm gonna say, hey, here's the code word. I'm not gonna like make you try to find it. I'm I'm gonna tell you. And so simply DM me on Instagram at corkin fizz, or you can email me haleykork and fizz dot com. Send me that code word and you'll be entered into the giveaway for the book. And like I said, the giveaway ends 05/07/2025. Okay. Without further ado, let's get into the interview. Well, thank you so much for joining me. This is so great to get to talk to you and for the book. I've been having so fun. Oh, good. Good. Good. Good. I love the questions. The questions were really great. Yes. Yes. I think we're gonna have a lot of fun with these. But, of course, let's start off. I always like start off with a little intro. I'll kinda do your little intro before this, but it's always fun for you to introduce yourself and, you know, tell us how you first got into wine. Yeah. How I got started in wine. So, like, I don't come from a family that drinks wine. I grew up in Wisconsin, and, I mean, their drink of choice was the champagne of beers. Right? Like, Miller High Life. And so in college, I started drinking some cheaper wines, but nothing nothing that was, like, really mattered. And after college, I ended up moving to France for a year. And it wasn't it wasn't like the everybody has this idea of, like, oh, you live in Paris. It's wonderful. No. I lived in the middle of nowhere. Like, it was like the Nebraska of France, like, more cows than people. But we were really close to the Loire Valley, and so I got to drink a lot of wine. I didn't know anything about it, but I I drank a lot of it. And then after college, I or after, like, I lived in France, I moved to Boston kind of randomly. And I got a day job in an office, and then across the street from my apartment was a wine shop. And so I got a job working there. It's two nights a week mostly to get a discount and hang out. And I just kind of fell in love with, you know, wine, but I also just saw a giant opportunity there. There, you know, there are so many young people like me trying to learn about wine, and there wasn't a good resource. So that's how I ended up working in wine. Yeah. I love it. It's so funny. You are not the first person that I've met, like, who is, like, very much in the wine world and also, like, kind of in the wine education space who is from Wisconsin. So I'm also from Wisconsin. I grew up in a super small town in, Southwest Wisconsin. And then Oh, really? What is her name? Slick of Slick Wines? Have you have you met that before? Yeah. Yeah. No. We've talked about I because I know her too. And, like, we Yes. She is also from Wisconsin. Oh, and also the French wine tutor. She also grew up in Wisconsin. Yeah. I'm friends with her too. We've been talking about that. Yeah. Isn't that, like, wild? We're like, yeah. The place where you mostly drink beer and we're all like, nah, nah, nah. We're gonna go the wine route. Yeah. I mean, I feel like when you leave, you're like, okay. Well, can I upgrade the situation at all? Right. No. That is too funny. Okay. So I know, like, the main plan of this interview is to talk about your book. There are so many fun things about it. But in going through your intro and even in reading, like, the very beginning of the book where you talk about how you got to, you know, writing it, you are a very cool person. And also looking at your apartment now, I'm like, this all I just need everyone listening to understand, like, how cool you are. Can you tell us a little bit more about your previous wine adventures and especially the wine riot and Rose Mansion? Yeah. So in 02/2009, I started a wine festival called wine riot. And basically I, I started going to all these wine events, like these big wine festivals and they sucked. Like, they were bad. And I was like, how do you take an entire room full of people and alcohol and make this suck? Like, you have to be really bad at what you do. I'm like, I can do a better job than this. So I was in my mid twenties and decided to throw this 3,000 person wine event. And it was called wine riot and it worked. And we sold out the Saturday night, sold like, you know, like, 1,800 tickets over the weekend. I was hooked. I was addicted, and I was like, let's do it again. And then let's do it again. Let's do it again. And what it turned into was this traveling wine festival where we would sell between 9,000 tickets every weekend, like, to different weekends. And we did it in six cities across the country. So the main cities were Boston, Chicago, New York, DC, LA, San Francisco. I think that's six. And you could come and you could taste two fifty different wines from every major region in the world. And I made sure that there was booths that were like, this is the French booth. This is the, you know, California booth. And then we had grape booths. So you had the Cabernet. You could taste eight Cabernets from different regions all side by side. And, you know, we'd train the staff and we hire people, and it was really, really, really fun. It was also really exhausting. And so I ended up basically selling that company. And a couple years later in 2018, I started this company called Rose Mansion. And so the idea was to kind of take that same wine education meets fun and give it a home in Manhattan, which is kind of a wild thing. And at the at the time in 2018, like, rose was really peaking. Right? It was like the peak like, rose trendiness and culture, and pop ups were peaking. And my partner and I decided to just kind of YOLO and open the space, and we convinced this landlord to lease us this 14,000 square foot retail space in the middle of Manhattan. And we convinced a bunch of vendors to front us the money to build it, and we built this 14,000 square foot giant wine, like, pink wine amusement park. And you could jump out of a giant cake and throw confetti and drink sparkling wine. You could swing from a giant chandelier. You could blend your own custom glass of wine. And the whole thing was totally nuts because we didn't really have the money to start this thing. We just, like, maxed out all my credit cards and kind of hoped. And we went from the night before we opened, I was pouring pink epoxy flooring

until 05: 9:22

00 in the morning. Five hours later at 10AM, I was on Good Morning America. It was nuts. And then it the whole thing just took off, and we opened a second one because that one closed after, like, sixteen weeks. We opened a second one that was bigger. It was 32,000 square feet. And, yeah, in twelve months, we had 225,000 people buy tickets and come. Like, every weekend, Friday night, 2,000 people, Saturday, 2,000 people, Sunday, 2,000 people. It was really crazy. And so, yeah, if you sum up my career as a whole, like, I basically a lot of people run away to the circus. I own them. I've I own circuses. I love that. I'm like, all of that. I'm just like, okay. When is the wine riot coming to Seattle? Like, I need that. Like, the fact that it was, like, not it it had every region, I was, like, thinking about that. Because, like, the biggest kind of, like, event I've been to is, like, Taste Washington up here in Seattle, which is wonderful. You get to meet some, like, amazing, you know, winemakers in Washington and try a lot of the wines, but it's all Washington wine. Like, how amazing would it be to, like, walk into a space and see wine from all over and not even just, like, by region. You're like, no. No. Let's think about it also. Like, you wanna try a grape from eight different like, that's how you learn. Like, that's how you get to do that. Yeah. Right? We actually tried to bring it to Seattle. Their the liquor laws were a little weird, so I had some troubles. And I went to college in Washington. I went to college in Olympia. Oh, nice. Cool. Yeah. No. I mean, yeah, the liquor laws are very difficult here. I think they've changed a bit. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, that sounds really fun. And also Rose Mansion. Is that still a thing? No. Sadly, the pandemic wiped us out. That's fair. That would be good. We just gotten to the point where we raised a bunch of money and we were gonna expand it, and I had, like, two leases on my desk I was ready to sign, and then March 2020 came around. So Yeah. Oof. Yeah. Well, we'll keep an eye on. I'll have a question later on in the interview about what's coming next. Because, like, if that's in your past, there's definitely amazing things that are coming in the future as well. Even if you you don't know what they are, we're all gonna be keeping an eye out for what they are. Just a quick reminder, you are not on my mailing list yet. What are you waiting for? I would love for you to join. When you do, you'll get a free shopping guide that has 15 of my favorite wines under$15. Head to corkandfizz.com, scroll down to the bottom, and there'll be a little section where you can join the mailing list. I send out a weekly newsletter filled with wine tips, recommendations, special offers, and so much more. Now let's get back to the show. Okay. Now that people know, like, how cool you are, like, what we're setting the stage here, let's talk about your book, The Rebel School of Wine. And Mhmm. Folks who are listening, they cannot see it. I don't have a video version of this, but folks look it up. Even the cover of it shows you, like, how fun this book is going to be about wine. But can you start to tell us what inspired you to write this book? Yeah. So I actually wrote the outline for this book about fifteen years ago. So in 2010, I wrote this outline because I knew that this needed to exist. Right? And I had to sit down with a major publisher, I think, in 2010 or 2011, and they asked me to write a sample chapter. And halfway through writing the sample chapter, I was basically like, I don't have time for this. Like, I cannot do this. This is gonna take way too long. No. And just left it in a Google Drive folder. You know? And when the pandemic hit and we lost our companies I've had this Morgan is my my business partner for eighteen years. We were in wine art together. We owned a wine store together. We created Rosie Mansion together. And so when we lost Rosie Mansion, it was super traumatic. And when the dust settled, she was basically, like, poke, poke, poke, poke. Remember, we have an outline for a book. This would be a perfect time. And I was like, it's a lot of work. And she went to Emerson College, which and she went to school for publishing. And so she called some of her publishing friends who are book agents, and they before I knew it, I had a book deal with Harper Collins, and then I had to sit down and write it. But, ultimately, like why, like, what I wanted to do is I wanted to, I wanted to write the book that I wish I had when I was getting started. There were so many questions that I wish I had known the answer to. And some of them that took an embarrassingly long amount of time to find out. But then also, like, I still had a lot of questions about wine, and I'm just, like, really lucky that I got the opportunity to sit and research some of these and really, like, dig into it, but then I get to share them with everybody, which is super cool. Yeah. No. I love it. I love it. Also, it, like, hit me when you were like, fifteen years ago, I wrote this in 2010. I was like, no. That wasn't years ago. I know. I know. But I was like, oh, crap. Nope. That's true. That is what had happened. Well, okay. So this book, who did you write this for, and what can folks expect to learn from reading it? Yeah. I wrote this book for smart people. Right? Like, I think what drives me so crazy about wine a lot is that, oh, we have to dumb it down. No. You don't. You don't have to dumb anything down. You need to connect the dots. Right? You need to explain to smart people why this matters and how it fits in. And part of that is because I cut my teeth doing wine events and wine courses. Like, I used before we had wine or even when we after when we were running that, I was living in Boston for a lot of that time, and I was doing events for 30 or 50 people in the basement of wine stores. In Boston, you do an event in the basement of a wine store, and you're like, okay. How they got two PhDs. We got six people with master's degrees. I got three scientists. You need you're talking to really smart people. Right? You're not babying them with these, well, let me tell you how wine works. No. No. No. They want how the dots are connected. And so, ultimately, like, that's what I wanted to do is I wanna make it a book for smart people that are curious about the world and tell them how wine fits in. You know? Yeah. No. I like that. It's like it's not like you're not writing a, you know, a school book, a textbook, right, on, like, all the definitions of everything. And most people know some things about wine. They hear things about wine. More often than not, I you know, in in terms of what I'm teaching folks, they're, like, oh, I've heard that before, but what does that mean? You know? Or, like, what does Yeah. How does that connect to, like, what I'm actually tasting right now or, you know, diving into those? So I think that's a a great thing to to call out. And, yeah, a lot of us are smart in many ways, and we just haven't learned about wine yet. Yeah. And it's about, again, connecting the dots, you know, like, starting with an anchor point, starting with something people know. Like, we all went to elementary school, and we looked at maps. Great. Maps are a great place to start. Right? You can start with historical pieces that everybody is aware of. Like, well, there's this thing called the Great Depression. Let's start there. Right? And so and then you use those as anchor points to move forward and then explain how wine fits into that. And when you do that, it just clicks. You can watch the light bulb go off, you know, and make it practical, make it romantic, make it curious, you know, and then I added up some skeptical to it too. Which Is that okay? Really fun. Yeah. I did. I really appreciated that. I am also very skeptical, and I question everything. So I really enjoyed in reading your book that, like, a lot of times a question would pop up, and you would, like, answer it later on. I'd be like, ah, yeah. This is my person. Like, you just, like, kinda knew you were almost in my head for some of it. It was a little weird, but it was good. So, okay. Before we get to the next question, you are giving away well, you're giving away three of the books, which is really exciting through Cork and Fizz. One of them is through the podcast. And so to do that, folks who are listening right now, you just need to DM me on Instagram at corkandfizz or email me if you don't have Instagram, it's hayleycorkandfizz. And just tell me the code word, which is going to be rebel yell. Technically it's two words. You can combine them if you want. I just felt rebel yell felt really good for this. So code word is rebel yell. Send it to me and I will do a giveaway. We will pick the winner in a week after this podcast goes out, which I believe will be May 7 is when it ends. So apologies if you're listening to this after 05/07/2025, you can still go get Tyler's book and we'll let you know a discount code to do that later. But, okay. Just wanted to share that insight in there. But now let's talk about the book. So we've also mentioned there are a lot of wine books out there, and I would know I have quite a collection. It is like how I got into wine was reading wine books. I feel like you can learn so much before you even go to, like, a a training session or a a class, and those are still great too, but there's so many great books out there. How would you say yours is different from a lot of the wine books out there? Hey, wine lover. Interested in trying new wines, but not sure where to start? Or maybe you've been thinking, I'd love to taste wine live with Haley. I mean, who isn't thinking that? Well, say hello to the Court Crew, my virtual tasting club where wine meets fun, learning, and the best happy hour you've ever had, all from the comfort of your couch. Every month, we explore a new wine theme together. You'll get expert tips, delicious food pairings, and stories that bring each bottle to life. You can order the feature wines from my partner shop, grab something similar locally, or just sip whatever you've already got. No pressure and no wine purchase required in this club. In 2025, I've made this club even better. You get to choose between two tasting dates each month and everything is recorded so you can catch up any time. We've also just launched our exclusive Court Crew app, where you'll find all of your event info, wine recommendations, community connection, all in one place. It is accessible via your phone or your computer. As a member, you'll also get six free guest passes so you can invite friends, quarterly wine trivia nights, winemaker q and a's, a private online community, discounts on private tastings, and so much more. And when I say everyone is welcome, I mean everyone. Whether you're brand new to wine or a total cork dork like me, you'll fit right in. Loud or quiet, wine curious, or wine obsessed, this space is for you. Join today and get your first two months for just $8 a month. I mean, heck, that's like a drink at Starbucks. Use code wine special, no spaces, or you can save$80 on the yearly membership. When you sign up for the annual subscription, use code wine special dash year. Head to the courtcrew.com, that's the courtcrew.com, to sign up, and I'll see you at our next tasting. Cheers. I wanted to write a comprehensive guide. Right? I wanted it to have, like, a re region, every style, every grape, and, like, an overview. And those obviously exist. Right? A lot of people have written those. But what I wanted to do different was, one, was like the way that you read my book. I have pretty intense ADHD. Right? And so I can't read a book cover to cover or front to back and especially the wine books. A lot of times I wanna look up some information or I just wanna flip through it. So I really created this like a magazine. There's 450 different illustrations, so you can just flip through it and open up any page and start reading. You don't have to have read the page before. Right? And I also wanted to so you could look, you know, look things up. But again, getting back, like, I I wanted to connect the dots for people. I wanted to, you know, this happened. Therefore, this is the wine you're drinking now. You know? And I wanted to almost every single wine book I've ever gotten, that's one of these comprehensive books. There's a lot of great textbooks out there, and there's a lot of great, like, reference books, but they're super dense. And so what I wanted to do was answer the questions of how did we get here? Why do we do this? Why do we make this wine? Who makes it? And so my book isn't about flavors and aromas. It's in there. You can find, you know, what things taste like generally. But I think the trick to really truly understanding wine is you have to understand the people. Who makes it? Why do they make it? Who drinks it? Like, when and why do they drink it? And if you can start answering those questions, then you can understand wine. Then after nothing else is that difficult after that. When you realize that Italians make Italian wine, you're like, oh, that's why it doesn't make any sense, but it's really cool. Right? And the French make the French wine. You're like, oh, that's why their system hasn't really changed, and they're really, you know, picky. You know, when you like, Germans make German wine, you're like, okay. That's why the labels are so logical, but the system is so complicated. And those are just, like, some generalizations, but, you know, like, you get into the nitty gritty of it, and I think that's really what separates mine is it's about people, you know, using it to understand wine. Yeah. Well and I like too that you're like, what I'm hearing too is, like, you're you're answering the questions of why and who and where and not necessarily only the question of what. Like, I think so many are just, like, this is what you're tasting and this is what you can expect. And you're like, yeah, I'll tell you that, but, like, here's why. And here's who's, you know, who's involved in that, and who would like to drink this. And I think Yeah. Also made I really loved I saw I was stalking your Instagram. Sorry. But I saw a post that you did about, like, how we advertise wine. Mhmm. And this will get into the next question, but I love that you called out that, like, right now, again, we're focusing on the what so much on wine versus the what does it allow you to do, why would you want this? And related it to the, like, the computer world. Like, the reason why, you know, Apple has done so well is they tell you they don't say, oh, the iPod, you know, Nano is like, you know, it contains this many songs, and you can get it in these colors. And that's they're like, no. You can put a whole library of songs in your pocket. How cool is that? And you're like, wait. Oh, that's cool. And I feel like that kinda hits in like you're talking about with the book where it's like, it's not just the what of the wine. It's everything around it. Yeah. And Apple doesn't market or tell you on billboards how fast their processor speed is. And if they do, it's just like it's dust. You know? Like, nobody knows how fast the processor in their iPhone is. Like, nobody even knows what that metric means, but that's how the wine industry talks about wine is they give you this technical jargon, this technical specs that winemakers use to speak with one another, and they may use it as marketing copy. And frankly, it just doesn't it doesn't work. Yeah. No. Okay. So I think this really flows in well with the next question, which is I wanna talk about I feel like a lot of the work you do in the wine world as we're we're talking about all this is to kinda challenge the status quo. I mean, the book is literally called the rebel school of wine. Right? So we're definitely in that area. So what is I mean, I'm only I'm gonna say one thing. I'm sure there's, like, a million off the top of your head. What is one thing that frustrates you the most about the wine world, at least currently? Yeah. It's the thing that's been frustrating me for twenty years and really keeps me going. The way we talk about wine, it's completely wrong. It is not useful. Right? Like talking about flavors and aromas and using that to describe wine. Look, like you're not wrong. Right. But you're missing the point. Like, have you ever watched a movie with a filmmaker? You know? Or, like, have you ever listened to music with a musician? It's not fun at all. There's, like, oh, you oh, they really blew the whatever. Like Yeah. Like, oh, oh, that's just so this part of the scene in the movie, they you can't do it, you know, and you're ruining this enjoyable experience. Nothing kills me. Then you're down you're sitting down to a fancy nice meal. Right? And you're at a restaurant, and then somebody's talking to you about flavors and aromas and, like, oh, you really get the honeysuckle. I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about. You know? And so wine inherently has all of this romance. It has all of this amazing story around it that we could talk about, and this is what we choose to talk about. And so that really drives me nuts. Like, it really drives me nuts because it just feels lazy. Yeah. You know? It feels really lazy to take the technical sheets and just use it as marketing copy. There's no creativity. There's no inventiveness. Like, bring this to the average person. It's our job as wine professionals to do that, you know, and it's just we're failing. You know? Yeah. I mean, I don't think I'm failing, but generally as a whole. Yes. No. It's so interesting listening to that because there's, like, so many thoughts going in my head because I'm like, oh, well, like, I know I like to, like, dive into a wine and, like, try to figure out what aromas are happening and learning that, but I have to, like, stop myself and be like, but is that why you fell in love with wine? Like, you might like doing that. And that's fine because you're in, like, a certain like, talking about myself, I'm I'm in this different stage of of wine where I'm like, I can't get enough of it. I wanna learn this. I do care what the soil is and what the soil what the soil, you know, has an effect on the wine and, like, go deeper into this. But it's like, did you start there by any means? And is that what actually got you into wine? And it was like, no. It was this cool idea that, you know, I got to taste something from another part of the world that I've never visited before, and I could even taste something that was made when I was, you know, the grapes were growing when I was three years old. Like Yeah. How cool is that? And, like, that is the thing. Like you said, it's and I think that's what at least to me, and and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm hearing that, like, it's not that you don't you can't talk about the aromas and dive into all that technical jargon, but it's not where we should be starting. And it's not what's, like, going to, like, interest people. Time and place. You know? Like, being an entrepreneur, I spend a lot of time in and around, like, the tech startup world and those people. And you ever sit around and listen to, like, six engineers talk about, like, their iPhones? It's it's tough. Right? And so how I've always looked at it is imagine you're on a date. Right? Would you talk about this on a date, like a first date? Would you use this like, if I was gonna explain if I was gonna tell a story about wine, they were like, oh, tell a story about wine. Would I be like, okay. Well, you know, this one time I had this really expensive bottle and it really got gave me honeysuckle and, like, boysenberry or whatever. Like, you're not having a second date. You know? Like, come on. Like, it's time and place. Like, there's a time and place to get nerdy, and there's a with the right people, and there's a time and place to not. And Wyand has just decided that it's all nerd it's either nerds or nothing. Right? Yes. I love that. I also have to laugh a little bit. I my corporate job, as I call it, is actually in the tech world, so I've spent a lot of time sitting in a room with a lot of Uh-huh. Years. And they do really like the details and talking about things. And I'm like, alright. Let's pull let's pull it back a little bit. Let's talk about the the why. Let's make it a little more interesting. And that's awesome, but you wouldn't let them write your marketing copy. Right. You know? Right. Exactly. They're, like, that is good that they are in the details, but we need to pull it out. So in that like, I feel like this also ties into, like, we've been hearing a lot, I think, in the wine world about, you know, younger generations, millennial, gen z as they're getting to be drinking age, aren't buying as much wine, aren't as interested in the well, I shouldn't say it's interested. They're just not buying as much wine, and they're also interacting with it differently, I would say. Mhmm. What changes do you think the wine industry needs to make in order to kinda I mean, keep the wine industry alive and not let it die out with, you know, the the folks who used to drink wine in a different way? Yeah. First of all, I don't think the wine industry is going to die. Right? It's a 9,000 year old business. It's been around for 9,000 years. It's gonna be around for 9,000 more. But it is in danger. Like, the culture is in danger, and how it plays a role in our daily life is really in danger. Right? And I think when you look at the stats for, you know, millennials or gen Z, a lot they're they're being read really the wrong way. You know, the volume of wine sales is going down. But one, there was a giant surplus. Right? A lot of people bought too much wine. But two, as the volume is going down, the amount of money spent is actually going up. Last year, America spent a hundred and $7,000,000,000 on wine, and millennials spent 30,000,000,000 and Gen z spent 6. But, like, what, 67% of them aren't even 21 yet. Right? And so the culture needs to change. And what the boomers did, and they told me over and over and over and over again because I was running these festivals saying, hey. This is a perfect place for you to come and talk with millennials. Millennials are gonna be your biggest customers one day. Start that relationship now. And they said, nah. We don't need to do that. We'll just wait until they come to us. How has that worked for anybody ever? That's never worked for any industry in the history of anything. You know? And so the culture is shifting and changing, and the biggest problem right now is that nobody's steering the ship. You know? The wineries in California aren't steering it. They're 6,000 small businesses. The importers don't care. They're b to b companies. The restaurants, they can't do this. There's there's, like, 10,000, 20 thousand restaurants, you know, like, that sell wine. So, like, what do we do? You know? How do we save it? There's not a silver bullet here, but we can start by just looking at it differently and talking about it differently and being, this might be earth shattering, nice to people. Right? Like, we could start being nice to people. Like, the amount of times I have seen some kid that took three wine classes talk down to a woman with a master's degree in biology will blow my that's another one. That's another reason why I wrote this book because I got sick of seeing that, you know? And so, yeah, I get really fired up over this, but we let the pretentious geeks start, like, take over. You know? Yeah. Couple months ago, I went to dinner with a friend of mine. He's a food writer for the Washington Post. And, we went to a one star Michelin restaurant here in New York, and it was awesome. Everything was so wonderful. We sat down and the service was so amazing. And then the somm came over and she was so mean and rude. And so, like, we didn't introduce ourselves. We didn't say who we are. Right. And I ended up just, you know, it's a one star Michelin restaurant. The cheapest bottle on the list is gonna be good. They're not gonna have bad bottles. So I just got that one, and then she hated me more. Everybody else was so wonderful. And I'm like, how is this how you treat customers? And and, oh, now you're shocked that they don't wanna buy your products. You know? So Yes. We need a giant cultural shift. You know? And right now, it's happening. And it would be nice if the wine industry could steer it in some way, you know, and embrace this idea of change, which I get it. It's a slow moving industry. It's a product that takes a long time to make, but they still won't embrace it. They won't. You know? Like, nothing like, Rose Mansion, we were, you know, 225,000 tickets in one year. The amount of people that came, the sales reps knew who I was because I bought a crap ton of wine. Nobody else even knew we existed. They didn't even know what was going on. And we added a cultural piece. And so Yeah. There's I think there's an opportunity here. You know? Will the wine industry change? Will all the wineries that currently exist exist in fifteen years? No. You know? But it's gonna change, and it's not going it's not going away. Yeah. No. I totally agree. I really love the point. I never even thought about it. Like, that wine sales had gone down, but the like, how much we spend is continuing to go up. And so this thought and and you're not the first person. I know there's somebody else too that was, like, we keep saying that, like, millennials and gen z aren't into wine. And it's, like, no. They're just not into wine in the same way that other generations were because things change. And At one point, wine was a status symbol. I mean, you know, you can talk look in the history, like you talk about in your book, like it was a status symbol. Certain people could drink certain wines, and that's how you knew where you were in the hierarchy, but, like, that doesn't have to be that way now. We don't need to, like, have it at least to me, like, I think that's something that I would love to do away with, and I think that's connected to what you said of just, like, yeah. It you don't have to talk down to anyone whether they know about wine or not. Just find out Yeah. Where they are, introduce them to something like that's how I see it all the time. It's like introducing someone to something I think is really freaking cool. And the way to get somebody interested in what you think is cool is to make them think it's cool, not to make them feel dumb or silly or like, and again, I totally stalked your Instagram. When you talked about, like, when it's, like, not serving Chardonnay is, like, not putting on Taylor Swift in the playlist or, like, making people feel bad for it. And it's, like, that's such a good point. Like, some people do poo poo on Taylor, and it's just, like, because what? Because a lot of women like her? Is that a bad thing? Is that why we're saying it's no good? Generally, they don't hate the product. They hate the customer. Right? And so, you know, it's kinda crazy too that the wine industry treats, you know, like, women the way that they do. Because, like, I've all my events have always been driven by women. Like, Rose Mansion, ninety eight percent women. And, you know, like, that they've all gotten hit with the same stick of, like, oh, like, it's unserious. Like, the New York Times wrote about us saying we are unserious. And yeah. You're like, yes. That that is kind of the point is that not like can be unserious and still learn things. You know? It doesn't have to be. So you can have smart people learning things in an unserious way. Like, that's possible. Shocking. I know. Like, you can have fun and learn something at the same time. I know. Right. It's like, do you not remember when you were, like, a kid and science became like doing experiments and you got to, like, make a volcano blow up? Like, are you telling me you didn't learn about reactions during that and, like, it was unserious? It was fun? You learn something. It can happen. And look at all the other industries that do it too. You know? Like, fashion does a really good job. Beauty products does a really good job. I'm not saying don't educate your customers. I'm just saying maybe don't be mean to them and hope that they show up, you know? Oh, that's so true. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine Podcast. If you'd like to purchase your own copy of Tyler's book, Rebel School of Wine, go to rebelschoolofwine.com and use the promo code corkandfizz. That is corkandfizz, the and is spelled out a n d, and it's all one word, no spaces. So it's c o r k a n d f I c z. So go to Rebel School of Wine, use code corkandfizz to get a signed copy of her book and a free pack of wine stickers for only$30 That is a $15 discount. And for this book alone, it's a steal. You get a signed copy, plus the wine stickers are so much fun. I already have them on my laptop right now. And be sure to follow Rebels Full of Wine on Instagram and TikTok to learn more from Tyler. If you love this episode as much as I did, I'd love it if you could take a quick second to rate it and leave a review. And if you know a wine lover in your life that would enjoy this episode, please share it with them. It would mean the world to me. In next week's episode, you'll hear part two of my interview with Tyler, where we talk about why it's important to talk about the whole story of each wine region and not just a wine's traits. We'll also talk about a fairly, a few fairly unknown wine regions that you should keep an eye out for, how to build your wine team to drink amazing wine forever, and so much more. Thanks again for listening. And if you wanna learn more about wine come follow me at cork and fizz on Instagram. And if you're interested in exploring new wines and joining an incredible community of wine lovers be sure to sign up for my virtual tasting club the court crew. Head to thecourtcrew.com to learn more and use code WINE SPECIAL to get your first two months for just $8 a month. Cheers.