Wine Taxes & Their Impact on the American Wine Industry w/ Erik Segelbaum (Part 2)

Ep 111

Why are wine tariffs making your favorite bottles of wine more expensive? Do these wine tariffs hurt American businesses and consumers more than our foreign counterparts?

Do the words “wine tariffs” make your eyes glaze over or do you low-key panic because you’re not even sure what a wine tariff is? 

In today’s episode, I have Erik Segelbaum back on the podcast and we are discussing all things wine tariffs! Erik is laying out, in an easy-to-understand way, what wine tariffs are, where they came from and most importantly, why they might hit your wallet way harder than you think. 

Erik shares why these tariffs, especially with the US’s unique three-tier alcohol distribution system, end up hurting American small businesses and wine lovers more than they do those of our foreign counterparts.

So, if you are curious about how wine tariffs really affect your wallet, your choices at the store, and the entire American wine industry, then this episode is for you!

Thank you to VoChill for sponsoring this episode. Go to Vochill.com and use code CORKANDFIZZ for 15% off your order!

Don’t miss part 1 of my interview with Erik where we talk about the generational wine differences in wine consumption and drinking habits  of millennials, Gen Z and boomers.

Connect with Erik

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erik4wine

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodsomm/

Website: https://www.thesomlyay.com

Website: https://goodsomm.com/

Skip the waitlist and join GoodSomm: https://goodsomm.com/secret/

Discover Beaujolais in 5 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkfGzptxBk8&ab_channel=DiscoverBeaujolais

Episode Highlights:

• What wine tariffs are and their origins
• Retaliatory vs blanket wine tariffs
• The three-tier alcohol distribution system
• Economic effects on tariffs
• Domestic economic damage from tariffs
• Why foreign produ

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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, Hayley Bolman and I'm so glad you're here. I'm a wine enthusiast turned wine educator and 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. So excited to have you here today. You'll be listening to part two of my interview with Eric Siegelbaum. Of course, if this is your very first episode that you're hearing from me, you might want to listen to part one of this interview with Eric back in episode 110 and then you can come back to listen to this one or I don't, I don't care what you do, you listen to him. Out of order. Have fun with it. As a reminder, Eric is an advanced sommelier with the Court of Master Sommeliers, Food and Wine Magazine 2019 Sommelier of the Year and 2020 Wine Enthusiast, 40 under 40 tastemaker who has over 30 years of experience in the fine dining industry. He's the founder of GoodSomm, a luxury lifestyle wine club and co owner of Amalfi Beverage Company, a luxury canned cocktail brand. He's also editor and journalist for most major consumer and trade publications including Food and Wine magazine, among many other job titles and accolades. In this episode we are going to be focusing on wine tariffs. What are they? Why are they hurting the American wine industry? And specifically because of our three tier system. How is it affecting us and not the countries that we're putting the tariffs on? Beyond the tariffs, we're also going to be talking about some wine trends that Eric is excited to see becoming more popular and his top recommendation for a bottle to bring to your next party or get together with friends amongst many more things. All right, let's get into it. So I wanna bring us to the next question and I'm like, how can I tie this in? I think this is actually a good tie in of so we're talking about things that people don't understand in the wine world, which is so many things. And I feel like wine is one of those things that like, for some reason you feel like you need to know about it despite the fact you've never done anything with it. The example I always love to give is like, if you threw me on a basketball court and we're like, here, play a game of basketball, I'd be like, the hell I don't know what I'm doing. Like I've never, I can't dribble a ball. Like we don't expect that, but for some reason we expect with wine. A lot of times when things come up in popular culture that have to do with wine, I think a lot of people pretend they know what they're talking about because they don't want to feel dumb. I mean, we've all done it. And so one of the things lately that has come up is wine tariffs. And so I wanted to have you explain, first of all, what are wine tariffs and why are they coming up in conversation right now? Why should we be concerned about them as a consumer? And then why is the industry concerned about them? Oh boy, I'm going to try to distill a two hour lecture now. Yeah, yeah, Again, sorry, Cliff Notes version, please. Yeah, yeah, no, okay, so I'm going to skip why we're in these various trade disputes. You know, it started in 2019 with Airbus and the Airbus Boeing dispute and then also the DST or Digital services tax, which is otherwise known as gafa, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple. I'm going to skip that and I just going to ask everyone listening to trust the fact that the US is absolutely involved in some legitimate trade disputes, specifically with the eu where the EU is unfairly subsidizing and or unfairly taxing us. Unfairly subsidizing EU businesses to give them unfair competitive advantage over American businesses and or unfairly taxing American companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple. By the way, side note, I got no problem with those companies paying all the tax in the world because they don't pay much tax. So like, I don't have a problem with that conceptually. But. But at the end of the day, there are absolutely problematic and unfair tariff and taxation problems. And the EU is one of the more problematic trading blocs with the US in some facets. China is another one. So trust me when I tell you that tariffs can be a legitimate tool to resolve discriminatory trade practices. With that in mind, what is happening now has nothing to do with any of that. So there are two major types of tariffs, retaliatory tariffs and Blanket tariffs, retaliatory tariffs are what America does to when, when Airbus is being unfairly subsidized over Boeing and America puts a retaliatory tariff in. The problem is the current and former administration, same, same person, doesn't understand how to use tariffs as an effective economic tool. So when we were in a dispute in 2019 and early 2020 with aircraft manufacturing company and digital services companies, the threat was, okay, we're going to go after wine because that's an emotional attack. What the government did not understand. And I can tell you this because I have sat not only with Congress people and senators on both sides of the aisle. I mean I spent weeks, I used to live on Capitol Hill, I spent weeks talking to left and right, you know. You know, no matter their political affiliation, most people didn't understand this. And what's worse is the U.S. trade Representative, that is the agency responsible for trade and tariffs, did not know about the 21st Amendment and the federally mandated three tier system. By that I mean they did not know that by federal law all foreign alcohol must be imported, sold through a distributor, then sold to on or off premise channels. They did not know that by federal law it is illegal for a foreign entity to own an importer distributor in this country. They did not know that by federal law. Those tariffs that they imposed on European in Tor 2020, it was on certain types of European wine and whiskey and stuff like that. They did not know that by federal law American companies, largely small businesses, were paying those tariffs. By the way the 21st Amendment of the Constitution is written, those original tariffs did $250 million of economic damage domestically. Multiple distributors and importers closed, multiple restaurants and retailers couldn't make margins because of the tariffs. But ultimately that got passed along to consumers. For every dollar of European alcohol, every dollar spent on European alcohol alcohol, it generates about four and a half dollars through the three tier system into the American economy only made by American businesses. Just a quick reminder, if 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. So that's the Tariff Foundation. So those are retaliatory tariffs. So what's on, what was on the table recently and it changes like every freaking day is somewhat retaliatory tariffs. The other tariffs. And this is what, like the liberation day. And when was that? Last month where the Trump administration basically just blanket tariffed 200 different countries and trading blocks. So before that when the tariffs went through on, and let's call them what they are, they're taxes on Canada and Mexico. The reason that Trump cited border security and fentanyl were because that allows him to invoke an act from passing Congress in, I want to say 1973 or 1977 that gives the President the option to impose blanket tariffs on a trading block because of a threat to national security without Congress having to approve. That's why he strategically said that those were the reasons. And do you know what the result of. So the tariffs on. On Mexico got punted. The tariffs on Canada did not. I think they are now. But the response from Canada, because every province is provincially owned liquor, was to remove all American alcohol from their shelves. That has already done possibly. I don't have the stats, but I can tell you if that lasts for a year, that is billions of dollars of economic damage to America, like the Kentucky Distillers Association. By the way, bourbon isn't just from Kentucky, it's from anywhere in the US but majority of the bourbons from Kentucky, they estimated that one year of that does $9 billion of economic damage just in Kentucky to forklift operators, truck drivers, warehouse workers, corn farmers, farm equipment salespeople, warehouse workers, the distilleries, their employees. Right? All of that $9 billion a year of economic damage if Canada does not put American whiskey back on its shelves. So these are really big problems. The Liberation Day situation was so. So the foundation of all this is tariffs on alcohol by law hurt Americans and pretty much exclusively Americans also based on relationship. First of all, a farmer in Languedoc or bad in Germany doesn't have any influence in EU Parliament. So if they're losing business in America, they don't really have any ability to influence what the EU is doing with Airbus or steel or corn or any of that other stuff. Right? But also because of the relationships that America has had, these importers have these long standing relationships a lot. And because of the three tier system, in order to stay competitive, a lot of these European companies are selling to American importers at a way lower cost than if they were selling to other nations like our biggest trading competitors like China, the number one consumer of wine in the world. When a French Winery is an example. And I can tell you this from fact, from speaking to winemakers, when a French winery has been selling their wine to an American importer at, let's say €3 a bottle, because once it gets imported, lighted and you go through the three tiered system, that becomes 1599 retail on the shelf and their wine is €12 a bottle in France. So they're trying to stay competitive. The moment that tariffs make it impossible and they lose that business, guess what? They get to turn to China and sell it to China for €7 a bottle. Because China is champing it a bit to get these wines. Like Provence rose is a perfect category for that. And now it's like, sorry, America. The only reason I was taking a loss on this was because of our relationship. But now that our relationship has been forcibly crumbled, I'm going to make more money by selling it to China. This is business. So those tariffs hurt American consumers the most. They hurt American small businesses the most. So the Liberation Day tariffs were meant to correct trading deficits? Well, the problem there was that should have been a 10 month process of USTR investigating country by country what specific products there were and imposing like reciprocal tariffs on those products. What those tariffs did were not that. For one, we tariff nations with which we have a trade surplus, which means they have a trading deficit with us, like Australia, like Hong Kong. Right. We have a trade surplus with them, yet we tariff them, claiming a trade deficit. South Africa, we basically destroyed the poor South African wine economy. They've been struck by the Rand collapsing. Then in Covid, the South African government made it illegal to buy, sell or consume alcohol, which meant that during COVID South African wineries couldn't legally export their wines to the us. It was illegal for them to sell even to an exporter that was going to bring it into the us. Wait, why? How, how have I never heard of that? During COVID they just made alcohol illegal about two years. It was illegal because the idea was if people drank, they might make bad decisions which might cause the spread of COVID So for many wineries, they couldn't even like legally get their wine truck, like to a dock loaded onto a container and export it. Right. And now we have like 35% tariffs on South Africa, which is just poor South Africa. But the point is these tariffs were meant to correct trade deficits. They're blanket tariffs that don't address the specific trade issues. And it's basically bullying and strong arming and it's economically destructive. And I don't have statistics Yet. But I can tell you that the long term economic damage of these current tariffs that could change any day are insane. But these tariffs, absent a few countries like South Africa that are really just being totally screwed by this, they really hurt American small businesses, importers, distributors, restaurants and retailers. And like, the numbers are staggering. We're talking about 350,000 restaurants and retailers. We're talking about over 4,500 importers and distributors, like, and then their thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands of employees across the board, aggregated millions of employees. But the last thing to say. It's not the last thing. The last thing I'm going to say is that, so this idea that, okay, that's just great, people will, will enjoy domestic wines more, it's better for the domestic economy. It's not for multiple reasons. First of all, let me talk about, like, the economic reasons. First, American wineries require the three tier distribution system by law to go to market. They're required to be sold. Now, they don't need an importer, but they're still required to use a distributor. Distributors make most of their margins on the imported wines. Not only that, when distributors are also carrying, they either have to pay the tariffs or reduce their margin. So either way they're covering the cost. Because if I'm a restaurant buyer, which I was, and I've been pouring this American Sauvignon Blanc that I'm buying for 999 a bottle, and I'm pouring for $10 a glass, and now suddenly it's $14 a bottle because of margin issues, you're going to lose that placement. So what do you have to do? You have to absorb cost, right? So these distributors and importers, they either have to lose money, absorb the tariffs or pass it along. Either way, their cash flow is reduced. And if a business is not healthy, they're not buying as much. So if I'm a distributor, that now not only is my cash flow reduced, but because the tariffs change based on whatever Trump's mood is from day to day, there's no certainty there. Therefore, I have to hold even more cash in reserves so that I can afford to buy product to sell it. That means I'm buying much less domestic wine because I have less cash flow to do that and my margins are shot on imported wine, so I have much less cash flow to do that. I can name dozens of wineries that lost multiple states of distribution during the last round of tariff because domestic wineries, because their distributors either collapsed or didn't have the cash flow to buy them. The Other thing is, wine is non fungible. That means that, oh, first of all, when he met, said American champagne, Mr. President, there is no such thing as American. But we won't even go down that road. Let's look at, you know, any American wine versus a foreign wine. They're not fungible in the fact that a Chablis. You cannot replicate the flavors of Chablis with American Chardonnay, no matter how, no matter how hard you try. Now, that doesn't mean that American Chardonnay can't be and isn't great. But if I'm a Chablis drinker and I want Chablis, that's what I'm drinking. If I love Portuguese wines from the Douro Valley, there is no substitution from that period. Also, American wineries, based on our labor costs, our law, our health laws, our consumer, our employee protection laws, our cost of land, just categorically cost more to make and are generally more expensive. There is no domestic sparkling wine that competes with the domestic, with the sparkling wines of Portugal or of southern France or of Spain at the price point in the quality. So the best way I can describe non fungibility, because some people that are not in the wine industry, like, oh, you poor wine snob, you can't have your Burgundy. You're going to have to support America, like, screw the French. Support America, like, well, that's all well and good, but let me ask you this. If you went to an Italian restaurant and you ordered a tomato and red sauce, and they made that red sauce with strawberries, not tomato or tomato spaghetti and red sauce with strawberries, not tomatoes. Because strawberries are also tomatoes, and strawberries are both fruits. They both have high acid and they're both red. So it's the same thing. Is it though? Right? So it hurts consumer choice. It causes wines to be more expensive. It hurts domestic American economy. And let's think about this. You're a consumer. Your $10 bottle wine, foreign wine with a 20% tariff, does not become a $12 bottle. No. Let me show you how the math model is out. Let's say for easy math, it's $10 a bottle from the winery in Europe by the time it's landed. Let's not even talk about the ocean freight and landing costs and all that. Let's just talk about the layers. Actually, no, let's talk about that. By the time that bottle is landed, it's $11.50, let's call it$12 a bottle landed. Then an importer has to take their margin, not markup, but margin usually about 30%. So that works out to being about a 48% markup. So that $12 bottle is now, let's call it 18. I'm using like broad numbers here just for easy. That gets sold to a distributor. Distributor is going to take a 40% ish margin. So now that bottle becomes 26 ish. That wine store is going to take a 50% margin. That bottle now is$39 on the shelf to you as a consumer. It left Europe at$10. It's $39 to you now. That's no tariffs. Now let's look at that same $39 bottle. We won't even talk about restaurants, right? That $26 bottle in our restaurants can be 75 on the list, right? So 39 on the shelf, 76 in a restaurant. But the, the winery in Europe only made $10 on it. And that's not profit, that's what they sold it to. Okay, that same 10 bottle lands at $12. But now you have a 20% tariff. So now it's $15. Then you take the layer of the importer's markup, right? That, that 40, 35, 30 to 35% margin. So which is close to 50% markup. Now it's 22. Call it $23. Now the distributor has to take their layer. Now it's $34. Now the wholesale or the retailer has to take their 50%. And now that bottle that was $32 is now what is that?$54. And now at a restaurant, that bottle that was $75 is $108. The tariffs are not a 20% tax on the end user. They're a massive tax on the end user. So across the board, I promise you, tariffs on alcohol because of the three tier system are bad for consumers, bad for your wallet, bad for consumer choice, bad for American small businesses, period. Tariffs on other things, have at it. You want to settle a trade dispute with Airbus, put a hundred percent tariff on Airbus planes. I promise you that dispute will be over in five minutes. You want to settle a dispute on digital services, tax the French digital services agencies to the same degree and then boom, that trade dispute is over. Tariffs are an appropriate economic lever if used properly. But alcohol, because of the three tier system of distribution, are not effective. Do you want to hurt the French? A French fashion company can own a store in the United States, can bring their purses and clothes in, sell them, and take 100% of that revenue and profit back to France. A French winery can't do that, right? They take a couple dollars of profit back and the rest of those layers of profit are through the three tier distribution system. Yeah. Oh, thank you for that. That was super, super informative to understand. And I never even thought about how much it is tied to that three tier system of like. That's why, I mean it's not just, oh, we're bringing wine over here like you're bringing any other imported thing, you know, over here. Like it's not. You don't just get to buy it from the importer directly when it hits the US Right. You have to go through so many different people and there's so many things that add onto that. Okay, well, I'm gonna bring us to a little bit more of a, I don't know, I don't want to say like chiller topic, but I suppose a chiller topic. I am curious. So we already talked about kind of one trend that you're like, eh, don't love natural wine in the sense of like it being called, just being called a natural wine in that. Are there any trends that you see coming up within the last couple years that you are a fan of in the wine world? I love producing this podcast for you every week, but here's the truth. It's not free. That's why I'm so grateful for sponsors like Vochill, a brand I truly love and use myself. Nothing ruins the perfect afternoon out on the sunny patio like a glass of wine. Warm wine. And while ice might seem like the only option, it just waters your wine down. That's where Vochil comes in. VO Chill is one of my favorite wine gadgets and I'm super picky when it comes to gadgets. It keeps your wine perfectly chilled in your own glass. No clunky metal tumblers, no ice cubes, just beautifully chilled wine sip after sip. I don't drink wine in the summer without mine and I've gotten all of my family and friends hooked as well. My mom used her so much last year that one of her friends ended up getting one of her own as a Christmas gift. Vochill comes in stemmed and stemless styles and tons of colors. Perfect for gifting or treating yourself. Head to vocill.com that's V O C-H-I-L-L.com and use code corkandfizz for 15% off your order. Yes, the general move to easier drinking brighter and brighter doesn't necessarily mean higher acid, but also more food friendly wines. I like that a lot. They're like, we joke about Two type of types of wines. There's cocktail wines and gastronomic wines. A cocktail is a standalone thing. You drink your cocktail, you drink your cocktail. That's a very high process wine. And by high process, I don't mean processed. I don't mean chemical. I mean a high process wine means a lot of oak, a lot of alcohol, a lot of extract, a lot of concentration. Right. Versus the gastronomic wines, which are higher acid, less tannin, less alcohol, less extract, more food friendly. I love this movement into the more gastronomic wines, also chillable reds. I'm going to say something bold. I am not claiming the trend, but when I opened St. Ansom in D.C. that was the last restaurant I was opening for Star. It was my love letter to the wine drinking world. And I opened that wine list with about 850 wines, of which about 120 of them were in my chilled red section. They were stored in the same fridge as Champagne, Chardonnay, Riesling, and Sau Blanc. And they were served fully cold. I had them in their own section of chillable reds and then within their relative, like, regional sections with a little snowflake next to them to indicate that they were being served fully chilled. All of my Gamay, so all of my Beaujolais, but also domestic Gamay, Frappato from Sicily, Valdigue, any of the lighter, brighter, some unoaked Pinot Noirs, a bunch of Italian red varieties, Tiraldigo and Schiava and all that stuff. Anything that, like, light, bright and fresh. I had never seen a chilled red wine section on a wine list at all. When I did that, this was 2017, 18, and now I see them all over the place. I'm like, yes, I love that I was able to be a part of the early stage of that. Again, I'm not claiming it. I didn't invent the idea. But the fact that in 2018, that was something that felt risky. And now you could open a chillable red section and it would be like, ooh, super. Yes. I mean, that would probably sell out faster than your regular red section. I feel like at this point. Well, I guess it depends on who your consumer is. I'm thinking of other people around my age, like the, you know, the. The old millennials. Yeah, yeah, they. No, they flew. They flew. Another thing that I'm seeing as a general trend, and we sort of talked about this with Millennials and Gen Z, is the willingness to explore means it's never been easier to bring on more exciting wines that aren't the sort of conventional categories, so not the Napa and Sonoma Cabs charts, Pinot River. No disrespect to those. Love them. Not Bordeaux, not Tuscany, not Piedmont. The other stuff, I mean on that same wine list, I had a Bolivian wine section, I had a Mexican wine section. My Israeli wine section, like flew off the shelves, which makes me happy because I'm also the ambassador of wines of Israel for the United States. Baga from like Bayrata in Portugal was flying. Obscure stuff from like regions in Australia people never heard of were flying. Romanian wines, Moldovan wines, Turkish wines, Cypriot wines. So I love that there is, thanks largely to millennials and Gen C, there's this willingness to explore Texas wines, Arizona wines, the unusual stuff. But for the psalms and people who run wine stores or beverage programs, I want to caution you, bring all these great wines in. Do not let them die in a catch all section. If you're listening and you're a sommelier, if you have any of these words on your list, I promise you, no insult intended, you are being lazy and bad at your job. If you have the words on your list, other, assorted, various or interesting, those are the categories where the catchalls that are not only lazy, but where your best wines go to die. I promise there is a way to list that must have the Brock Cellars Valdigue from California. There is a way to list that exciting wines should be your most. These are what I'm most excited about. You know what a great category for those wines is what we're most excited about. Seriously. Sommelier selections. Yes. You know what my favorite one, I bet you didn't know. Yes. Put them in the front of your list, not in the back. All those weird American wines that are made naturally, that are uncommon stuff, put them up front before your Napa cows, before your snow Macaus. Who says that in France it goes Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone, everything else. Put your rousy on and your Southwest and your Juro wines up front. Like so I'm loving this trend of like being open to what's less familiar, but as som and also same in retailers. Put those things front center, loud and proud. You brought them, you bought them, you brought them in. Make those an exciting thing, not an afterthought. Yeah, well. And I think consumers would respond. I mean, I know at least for myself and a lot of other like, you know, wine cork dorks like myself, like, I flip to the section that goes other or you know, because like that is something I'm interested in and the advice I give to other people is often, like, if you do get the chance to talk to a sommelier, like, ask them what's. Like, what's interesting right now? Like, when you walk into a wine shop, like, what's something that's exciting? What's. What's a bottle that's exciting to you right now? And, like, I guarantee that, like, people are looking for that. And so if you can just title it and like you said, millennials, Gen Z, we're looking for excitement. We're looking for different. We're looking for something with a story or something, you know, that we haven't had before. Title your thing like that, and bam, we're going to know exactly where to look and what to try. Exactly. I mean, it's our job as wine professionals, whether you're retail or restaurant, to stay on trend with everything that's happening, to find the next, the newest, the most interesting or the oldest or the lesser known or whatever, and bring that forward to consumers. I mean, as soon as we're done this podcast, I'm going to a Spanish wine tasting. Not because I don't understand Spanish wine, but because there's going to be 30 producers there. And I promise I haven't heard of at least half of them. I haven't looked at the list. I'm sure I haven't heard of at least half of them. And for me, that, as sommelier, even though I'm not running restaurant programs, it is important for me to taste these wines to understand. Like, oh, hey, I just tried this wine from Penadez. It's cool to know what they're doing in Penadez beyond Cava. Like, oh, hey, here's a grape I've never heard of. Or, like, this is only the third time I've ever tried Ruffet. Super cool. Now I'm starting to build a database of what Ruffet, as a variety, tastes like. So, like, yeah, like, it is our job to translate wine to our guests, for sure. To make it approachable, to make it exciting, to give you the exposition. Yeah, no, I love it. Okay, so I know we're kind of. We're getting more past time, actually, but I have one last question and then a speed round. Do you have time for that? Let's do it. Okay. All right, so my last question. And I'm like, almost like, a little scared to ask you this, just with everything you're already doing, but what's next on the horizon for you? So Certo, my canned cocktail brand, is next on the horizon. We are not yet on Sale. We'll be on sale. If all goes well, late July, early August, we will have a direct to consumer site. So if you're listening, that will happen at some point. Oh, that will actually probably be released by the time this goes out. This is going out the end of June, beginning of July. We're looking more end of July, early August. Okay. Okay. So it'll be close. It'll be close. By the time you're listening to this, we should be on sale with factors that we can control. Will be on sale. There's a hurricane in the Atlantic or pumpkin spice. Palpatine puts 10,000% tariffs on everything from Europe or, or there's a war or an Italian truck driver strike or any of that stuff, like, who knows? But in theory, Certo will. Will be on sale and we will have direct to consumer channels. That being said, if you're a buyer, we already have distribution in every single state. Reach out to me. I would love to put this liquid in front of you. I'm going to flex for a minute. Andrea Robinson, she's a master sommelier. She is the global buyer for Delta. She tried these two cocktails and she said, and I quote, eric, these are the two best versions of these cocktails I've ever had in my life. Forget the fact that they're in a can. I've never had a better Negroni or espresso martini. And I'm not gonna lie, that is the common theme from everyone who's taste them. Also, the packaging is so sexy. But these were designed, these are luxury products at approachable price points. If you're buying them retail, I don't know exactly what they'll cost. It depends on the three tier layers in your specific state and taxes. But Roughly they'll be $7 to $8 a can on the shelf. So absolutely approachable for a high quality cocktail. But these are the kind of cocktails that myself as an advanced sommelier would pay a lot of money to drink on a plane, at a concert, at the symphony, on the golf course. Even though I don't golf because I'm terrible at golfing. At a beach club, at a club club, at a, whatever. We might be on retail shelves. We have a lot of major national retailers talking to us about it, but we are not intending to be a retail brand. So if you are a consumer, you might be available on stores, but that is not our push. But you will definitely have a direct to consumer website. If you are sommelier or a buyer, retail or restaurant, please reach out because I Would love to send you samples. I assume you're gonna put my contact information. Yeah, absolutely. We'll put all the contact info in the show notes so folks can reach out to you. So that's part of what's next. There are some other next things happening. For years I've been lecturing on finance and beverage operation. I am now working on making a national tour for buyers. And by now working, I mean I'm not going to start thinking about that till Q1 of next year. So at its earliest, maybe Q3 of next year, I'll pick a half a dozen cities where I'll do an all day like financial fluency training seminar in various cities where we have a lot of sommeliers designed for people who have never run a program or have never been trained how to properly run a program. Teaching all about profitability, about cost of goods, about blended contribution margins, about everything about menu psychology, menu engineering, everything you you ever need to know about running a successful beverage program that serves your constituents, your guests and is also profitable in the right kind of way. So that's probably the next. But tomorrow I could get a call to do a thing and I'll be like, yeah, you know what, why not? I'm gonna do that. Who knows? Do you have a way social media, Instagram, Facebook for folks to kind of follow along so they can see what's, what's coming next for you? Yes. So a couple things. So my, my main Instagram is eric4wine e r I k the number 4 and then if you can't spell wine, we're not friends. But I also my wine club is Goodson at GoodSomm G O O D S O M M Hayley, I'm gonna do something for your listeners that I don't normally do. So we're a wait list only because one of the aspects of goods on that's hyper important to me is an engaged community. Right now there's about 600 people and a year and a half long wait list. I will give any of your listeners a secret link where they can skip the waitlist and join Goodsom immediately. I'll send you this information you can put in the show notes. Okay. But yeah, the idea behind a good SAHM is this is the place to go when you want, you want to continue on your journey. I won't pretend for a minute we're not at a luxury price point. We are, but it's like where do you go next? And most wine clubs like Good SOMM is not good because of what other Wine clubs aren't. But some of the impetus behind starting it was most subscription wine clubs were don't let a wine snob, I'm pointing to myself now fool you into spending more than 50 bucks on 12 bottles of wine. Because all wine is cheap and the, the stuff that they put out is garbage. Good Psalm is where do you go to continue your wine journey with somebody who's been doing this for the better part of three decades where you get the experience, the discovery, the community and the lifestyle. When you go to the Goodson website, there's a whole video that explains all this. But yeah, as a gift to your listeners, anybody who wants to join Goodson, I will give you a secret. Skip the waitlist link. There are some states we can't ship to. So for those of you that are listening in Texas, I'm really sorry, can't do that. Illinois, can't do that Yet. Yet. We're working on it. But from now you honestly, by the time this podcast comes out, maybe we will have that solved. But yeah, but really, really happy to, to do that. So awesome. Yeah, thank you so much and that's very exciting. I definitely recommend for folks and yeah, I think it, I like, I think it's a good way to put it of like yes, you are going to pay more for the wine. It's at a higher price point. But when you're in that point in your wine journey where you're like, I do want to pay more for quality, interesting but still good wine and basically getting to like drink as a sommelier is drinking essentially is to think of it. Yeah. And I'm, I'm not intending to turn this into a pitch for Good Song, but the value proposition of Good Song is the curation discovery. But it's also like most wine clubs are like thanks for your money. Here's a box of alcohol goodsum starts when you get your box. I have professionally produced videos, like 20 minute videos on the theme and the wines little 90 second videos on each wine. So if you're just like I'm opening this tonight and I want to drink it, what do I need to know about it that you get to watch on your times? We do a live ask me anything and tasting every month. But the real the layers in are like if you're a member of Goodsom, I unlock the wine world. Like I get. So I have, I have some members that are going to Tuscany this week and I have opened the doors to wineries that aren't open to the public, like Sassakaya Ornolia Masetto. Like major wineries not open to the public, major waitlist stuff. They're getting VIP experiences and treatment. As a member of Goodsom, I kind of give you access to like you get to live the world the way I do. But the other cool thing about Goodsom is it's. It's five bottles on the theme, but you get a sixth thing and the five bottles will always aggregate to being pretty much what your subscription costs. The sixth thing is a sample of something I love in my life. Not necessarily even alcohol or alcohol adjacent. And if I can organize a discount for my members for you to buy it directly from them, then by all means, then I put, I give you those codes as well. So right now Goods, some members have about 30 different discount codes or all sorts of products from wine suitcases to vanilla beans to coffee to olive oil to L to Fernet, like whatever. But also I randomly put in the golden ticket bottle. It's some like super high value bottle that goes into multiple people's boxes every month. So as an example, I generally don't publish the themes of Goodson, but I'll give you an example. Last year I did a theme called Drink like the Medici. It was a bunch of super rare high end Italian wines. Every box had about$590 of wine in it. The cost of the box is only $315. Everyone got about almost $600 worth of wine. But for the six people that got golden tickets, they got an $850 bottle of it. So those people alone got $1,500 of wine that month. So yes, good Somm is expensive. There's no way around it, but it's supposed to be. But you get so much more than just the wine. But even the wine itself is usually way more than what you paid for your subscription. So that is my quick pitch on Goodsalm. Even though I was not coming on your pod to sell my. Yeah, no, I mean that's what we're here for too. We want to hear what you're doing. And everybody who's listening to this is like, hey, how can I drink wine that Eric recommends? Like that is exactly what people want. So I love it. All right. I should probably mention that my members also get a standing 10% off@cellar.com everything they sell, wine, spirits, beer, bitters, whatever. So that's another benefit for my win clubs. And then seller.com ships nationally, so. Awesome. Cool. Well, yeah, for anybody listening, we will put all the information in the show notes so you can go check that out. Okay, we are at the very end of this. And this is what I call my speed round. It doesn't mean you have to, like, answer as fast as possible. It's more like these questions probably have multiple answers and I'm just wanting like the first thing that comes to your brain is kind of what we're going for. So the first question, what is your favorite wine at the moment? Riesling. Everything happens for a Riesling. Riesling in all its forms. Sweet, dry, everything in between. Favorite place for Riesling. This is kind of a bonus question because I'm curious, like, where, where's your favorite Riesling or some of your favorite Rieslings from? Why do you have to make me have favorites? Germany and Washington State, top of list. But I'm a fan of great wine. Made. Made well. So really, anywhere. So, yeah, Germany, Washington, Austria, Australia. Alsace. Yeah, no, it works. Made well. Okay, how about a go to bottle of wine to bring to a dinner party or to share with friends? You can't go wrong with Beaujolais. Beaujolais is the most popular wine consumed in the brasserie and bistros of France. Not Champagne, not Bordeaux, not Burgundy. Well, Beaujolais is technically Burgundy, not Rhone. It's Beaujolais. Go for one of the Crus, one of the ten sub regions. But yeah, absolutely. A Cru of Beaujolais at its most expensive retail will cost you 25 to 50 bucks. And I promise you it's the most food friendly wine, meat, fish, seafood, what have you. It goes. And also when you're buying wine retailer, restaurant. I'm sorry, I'm diverting from your speedrun for a minute. Five by five. Always. There's five standard glasses in a bottle of wine, which means a 50, $50 bottle is only $10 a glass. A $28 or $25 bottle is only $5 a glass, $100 bottle is only $20 a glass. So let that be your guide when you're buying wine. Yes, I love it. And for the Beaujolais, just for folks, the cru for a Beaujolais, it won't often say Beaujolais on it. If it is a Cru wine, it says the name of the crew. So if you want to look for those, one of the top recommendations is go to the wine shop and ask them for a Beaujolais Cru. And we're saying crew is online. What are the name of the crews? And then start looking for that. Name of the crew will be on the bottle. Just for folks looking Looking for that. So one of the things I developed because I'm also an educator for Beaujolais is the ten crews. Every song has. Like, oh, what are the ten crews of Beaujolais? But what I did is an alliterative. So one word to describe each crew in its most basic form. For those of you that don't understand Beaujolais, if you want it, I can do it real quick. Yeah, go for it. I love this. So Morgan is massive. Mulan Avant is monstrous. Saint Amour is savory. Fleury is floral, low hanging fruit because fleury means flowers. Bruis and cote. A Bruy is bouncy. Cherub is chewy. Chaina is crunchy. Regnier is regal. That's eight. Who am I forgetting? Well, brewing and cote Bruy count as two. That's nine. I'm missing one. Shoot. Who did I mention? Well, there's one more. That's all right. I think that's great. You weren't going to say there was going to be a pop quiz at the end of this, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Digging deep into the annals of psalm knowledge. No, I love it. 9 of 10 ain't bad, but it's gonna drive me nuts if I don't remember the last one. But. Yeah, let's go on. I don't wanna. I wanna hold you up. No worries. Juliana. Juliana. How can I forget Juliana? Juliana is juicy. Ah, okay. I love it. And I'm also gonna now re. Listen to that part and write all that down for my next time going wine shopping, because that is such a great way to think about all these different types of wine or types of Beaujolais. I'll give you a link to a video I filmed about that that includes those. It's kind of done in the style of an aircraft safety video. And you can put that in your show notes as well. And it's all about Beaujolais in like three minutes. And it's got the alliteration. I love it. Cool. Okay. All right. So now we're going to go to, like, favorite wine region or most memorable wine region that you've visited. Israel, hands down. No question. Israel is the origin of wine. We have, I'm sorry, Georgia. The country. For a long time it was thought to be Georgia. We now have archeological records and evidence that it's about 11,000 years ago as the first evidence of purposeful viticulture. And the origins of vitis vinifera are in what is now known as Israel. It was known as Judea back then. And the Levant So by extension up into Lebanon. But there also is evidence that Georgia also had a little bit of that going on further back than the 8,000 years that they. They have records of. But, yeah, Israel is geopolitically the Middle east, but is climatically the Eastern Mediterranean. And it's such an incredible place with the most amazing Mediterranean varieties and what makes it really special. You know, we talked about millennials and Gen Z caring about the story more than the wine sometimes. There are now nine varieties that have been identified as biblical era varieties, so you can drink, and many of them are exported to the US you can drink wines made from the same grapes that made the wine that Jesus drank, that Moses drank, that Noah drank. Pick a biblical figure. Those same grapes. Marwi, Bhituni, Hamdani, Jabali. Those same grapes. You can actually drink wines from the time of the Old Testament. And the rest of the world can say that. Okay, that's cool. All right, so now we're gonna do the flip side. What's a wine region you haven't been to yet that you'd like to visit? That is a great question, because I. Was just gonna say that one might be even harder. You know what? I haven't been to Texas wine country. I've been to Texas. That would be something that's really, really interesting. I also, I haven't really been to the southwest of France. I mean, I've been through it. That would be a region I'd. I'd love to explore a little bit more. I'm, like, racking my brains for wine regions I really haven't explored. I'll be honest. I mean, I've been to Burgundy once, so I'd love to go back or twice. Yeah, love to go back and do a deeper dive. Oh, I've never been to the left bank of Bordeaux, except for driving through it. So I've done the right bank, but not the left bank. Yeah, I mean, I'm an equal opportunity consumer of wine regions. You're, like, pretty much anywhere that gives me an opportunity. I'm. I'm down. I love it. Okay, last question. If you were given a thousand dollars to spend on wine, you had to spend it on wine. You couldn't save it, you couldn't do anything else with it. What would you buy? So kind of thinking about, like, a lot of people have answered this as either, like, they'll go for the big ones, you know, and just get a bottle or two or other folks who just go to the wine shop and, you know, fill a case. What are you doing with a thousand dollars? If you have to buy wine, that's easy. I'd buy a half case of Corbojile, a half case of Vino Verde, a half case of some incredible Washington State Riesling, a half case of Etna Bianco or Grillo or Catarado or something from Sicily, a half case of something delicious from Friuli like a Malvasia based blend or Friulano and then I'd still have like 150 bucks left to take you to dinner. I love it. Perfect answer. Awesome. Well, that is the end. We definitely went over on time. Thanks for sticking around with me, but thank you so much for joining. This has been such a fascinating conversation and I I've learned so much. Oh, you're most welcome. I really enjoyed too. Sorry I don't give short answers but we covered a lot of ground. I'll give you all the information for the show notes for anyone who wants to join Goodson or watch the Bosley video or any of that stuff. And really, really thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for being here. Cheers. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. Be sure to go follow Eric on Instagram. His handle is Ricker I K for the number four wine at Eric4wine. And check out his wine club, Goodson, which you have exclusive access to. Skip the wait list of by going to goodsomm. And of course, be on the lookout for his new delicious canned cocktails with Amalfi Beverage Company. If you loved this episode as much as I did, you know what to do. Share it with another wine lover. Send me a message, let me know what you think about the wine tariffs and did we have the right idea? Do you have more questions? And of course rate this and leave a review. In next week's episode, we're going to be talking about wine additives, like what can be added to your wine and should you be concerned and how can you tell if anything's been added? We'll cover all of those in the next episode. Thanks again for listening. And if you want to learn more about wine, come follow me at corkandfizz 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 that is is the corkcrew.com to learn more and use code Wine Special no spaces, just two words combined wine special to get your first two months for just $8 a month. Cheers.