00:00 Introduction Hey, the wine team is out in force today. I'm feeling like this is all wine. Oops, all wine episode. What's going on? Oops, all wine. Yeah, that's a mistake. We're... I got no other banter. It's not a mistake. We could just fortify all of these. A speechless Greg. When does that happen? Hello, you're listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg. I do communications at Binny's. Hey, I'm Chris. I do wine stuff in the office. I'm Jon. I also do wine stuff, but in Oakbrook. And I'm Gabe. I do wine stuff in Lincolnwood. Everybody's doing wine stuff. So I guess this is a wine stuff episode. So much wine stuff. It's spring, so we start boozing on wine. When did we stop, Gabe? I mean, look at the room. Christmas. All right. We were breaking this down earlier. You guys brought five samples to try, which represents one sixth of our 30 under 30 list. Yeah. Binny's got in the list business. Yes. We'll list it. And it's booming. It's a list of 30 values under $30 to enjoy in the springtime. Yeah. Selected by our stores. Did you guys have a process in your store that's particular? Because we ask you guys to pick things and then submit them, and then we all, as wine managers and wine staff, taste them and pick the top 30. Vote on the top 30. Everybody votes. Yeah, we vote. It's a secret ballot. Nobody knows. Before you submit, how do you narrow it down? Jon, what do you guys do? We ask everyone on the wine crew to... Are you sure you want to do that, Chris? Chris is preparing to pour the first sample wine, as Jon talks, and it is somewhere between really watered down orange juice or really orange juiced up motor oil. What do we got here? I am pouring with great trepidation. Well, I was going to defer to... You're going to be quite surprised. I know you know your stuff, but Gabe's history and Logan's square, maybe I was going to defer to him to be like, where in the progression should the orange wine be? I was wondering that. I thought you had probably lined this up where you wanted it. But it's like voting early and often. I just don't do orange. Can we do the orange wine last? I don't expect this to have a lot of phenolic or tannin like some orange wines do. I would start here and move to the Chardonnay, and then with the skin contact, maybe we finish that. Plus, it's made with an aromatic grape variety, muscat. Okay. They call that a teaser. Stick around to the end of this episode because Jon has to try the orange wine. I've had so much bad experience. I've had some good ones. I'm not going to hate on it completely, but I can't say that I've ever spent my own money on orange. All right. Back to the process. Anyways, you bring everyone in the staff, they bring their own selection of 30 and over. We ask everyone for three to five recommendations. We put the list together to see which ones could actually work for the overall program, and then we blind-taste. We end up with about 10 to 15 wines from the whole staff. We blind-taste five of them, whichever one gets the most votes, is the one we send to the office, whoever is the lucky soul to receive that email. Do all the vetting. Yeah. We say, hey, this is our number one pick. You would think that that would be like the data analyst, but it is a very high-ranking wine expert at Binny's who is terrible at Excel. God bless him. God bless him. Oh, no. Well, I would call that the ideal, Jon. That is. Yeah. Except this year, the Oakbrook Pick submission was the Annamie Pinot Gris, and it didn't make the final cut. A Dern tootin good wine. Yeah, yeah. For a Dern tootin good time. Okay. Well, I think one of the interesting things about this is you shop at a certain Binny's, and you get that store's perspective on things, and they have certain proclivities, right? Everybody likes different things. But then even people who shop in your store now get to see a broader opinion that comes from across Binny's Nation. Exactly. Yeah. Our pick, imagine all stores, Gabe, you guys pretty much did the same thing. We did. Yeah, something very similar. Staff were asked to drop their picks. We all blind tasted, voted to what we enjoyed the most, and that was our submission. What was the Lincolnwood pick? He doesn't remember. The white burgundy, that was very nice. Oh, was it the Maison Champy? It was the Maison Champy. Oh, well, that made the list. His team's better. Yeah, clearly. But I do know some others. This is how we measure all things now. Your raise will be based on this. All of these submissions were sent to the Excel typer guy. When we look at, we're looking for 30 wines, we have over 40 stores plus other staff, office staff that also gave submissions. So we had 48 wines in the final tasting competition. The people that attended those tasting sessions voted, and the top 30s, or the most votes, more Excel trouble. 5:36 Anselmi Sauvignon Blend All right, so our first of five that we're tasting today, 2024 Anselmi San Vincenzo Sauvignon Blanc. Where in the world is from? San Vincenzo? Is that Italy? Where's San Vincenzo? Texas? Yes, it is Italian. It is. No, Italians will, the tourists will put too many words on their bottle. But it says Sauvignon Blanc right on it. Oh, it says Sauvignon Blend, sorry. Yeah, I was like, what are you talking about? Well, I don't know, look at this chintzy. Hey, don't hate on this. This is actually from the big tasting where we all got together. This was my favorite. I liked it better than the Oakbrook pick. As good as much as I- Maybe that's why. Yeah, there's better wine. Yeah, maybe your pick didn't make it in because you voted against yourself. Don't tell my team. Well, that's a possibility. I mean, you get there, you may have nominated something, but if the other wines are better. It's also like a month and a half apart. That's the cool part of the program is like, I've seen this wine on our shelf for years, and just look past it because I don't know, is Italy really where I want to go for my $15 Sauvignon Blanc? Right. But this one does have a little bit of extra to make it different. There is some Chardonnay and Garganica blended in, which is why it's a Sauvignon Blend, Greg. Sorry. It's a blend. It's a tricky font. This comes from... Reading's hard. It's a tricky font. It's a tricky reflective gold foil font on a transparent label. I'd have no excuse. No, it's bad. I have no excuse. Style capital of the world cannot get a wine label right. God bless them. So yeah, this comes from the part of Italy where you'll find Suave, which is where Garganica reigns supreme. But yeah, this is a blend and it's very inexpensive. It smells super interesting. It smells like Sauvignon Blanc. Can we just do Suave? It's a very nice little wine. I think it's deserving of the list. Absolutely, because this is like springtime. This is when I get done not mowing my lawn, but sitting on a mowed lawn on my hill and just drinking wine out of the bottle. This is what I think of. Yeah, it's got that grassy Sauvignon character that I pick up in a lot of, like the Jean-Max Roger Sancerre has that a lot. But here, because of the other varieties being blended in, flavors get a little bit more tropical and weightier mid-palate. Indeed. It's a little flushier for sure. Yeah, texture is a little more rounded than you'd expect from straight Sauvignon. It's so good. We've already knocked out half a case in my hanging out with the neighbors. Yeah. Acidity is very much like in that dry Shannon category. It's present, it's cleaning, but it never jettisons, it's not too sharp by any means. Yeah, a lot more peach fruit. Yeah, it's definitely peachy in that stone fruit vein. And yeah, I think the balance is really nice here. It's not the kind of white wine or Sauvignon Blanc that has screechingly high acidity. It's pretty in line. It's really nice. Yeah. But it's also it's not neutral by any means. There's a lot of flavor in a lot of different directions. There's a fair amount of fruit to this wine. This has one of my favorite non-fruit fruit flavors, the clear gummy bears, bears, the clear ones, the clear ones, pineapple. And I don't like pineapple, but this has that kind of pineapple gummy bear. Yeah. I love that. That is my favorite party boba. So not sugary, just that flavor. Yeah. I can dig that. More, please. More, please. That's delicious. By the way, it's $12.99 during this promotion. Great. That's crazy for $12.99. It's like spring in a bottle. But yeah, it's very reasonably priced. It's very refreshing. I'm a little surprised you never had this before, Jon. We carry this on. I'm just being real. He just said he drank half a case this year. No, no. But he said- I'm making up for lost time. He said he'd seen it on the shelf, and we have carried it a long time. I think it's kind of a perennial favorite among some. It's like a hidden joke. Chris, I've known you for 15 years. It's hidden because you can't see it. Why have you been letting me sleep on this? Be a friend, pal. The 8,000 wines we have on the shelf, I'm never very good at that. Recommending wine? Who recommended the Sauvignon blend? That was Peoria. Good game, Peoria. Hi, Mark's Peoria. Little downstate action. Excellent. Yeah. I think we should maybe go Breaking Bread next, because I feel there's going to be a lot of similarities, texturally, but also fruit-wise. 10:02 Breaking Bread Orange Wine Yeah, maybe the aromatics will play. But we'll get new glasses from a different room after. So from having worked in multiple stores, all having some impact on natural wine or orange wine, I found the best way to talk about it is there has to be a spectrum. No orange wine is created equal. There are ones that live in just highly aromatic, almost Alsatian feel blend kind of world. There are some that are so far from center that it's just weird for the sake of weird, and then everything in between. Well, I think there's been a movement to make really easy, friendly ones that appeal to people who like natural wines. Like, you know, look at the hazy color of this, clearly not fine or filtered. And, you know, orange wine historically had a fair amount of phenols and tannins. And a lot of the modern ones are really just kind of orangeish white wines in a lot of ways with some of these skin contact aromas and flavors. But I think they've made the bar a lot lower for people. But this is the same nonsense that people come into with rosé. They'll look at, you know, too red of a rosé or too dark of a rosé. That's not for me. That doesn't look like Provence. Like, they ask, like, you know what Provence rosé is. This is, you got to stop looking at the color of wine. This is 2026, damn it. By the way, this is Breaking Bread Winery, Marmalade, 2024, Skin Contact White Wine. So you were saying where this orange wine fits on this spectrum of aromatic to fleshy to hard edged. Yeah, there's, I mean, aromatically, I think this is not too far off from where we started with wine number one. Well, there's a high proportion of muscat blanc in here, I do believe, along with some, I don't know, chardonnay and something. Jon, I don't hate this. Yeah? You have to try to like not enjoy this. I don't hate it either. I didn't wince, I didn't grimace, which is high praise in orange wine for me. Did you mare McCheese though? It's- Mare McCheese? Not yet. It's very quaffable. This is brunch wine. Yeah. I don't eat brunch. He's not a bruncher. No, no. This is- There's the appropriate level of citrus fruit. There's a little bit of a tropical thing. The aromatics are constant, but it doesn't get soapy. Something to be worried about when you have muscat. It follows minimal intervention practices. They did whatever they had to, so it doesn't blow up on our shelves, but it'll hold. But it doesn't taste weird. It doesn't smell weird. No, the texture, I think, helps out with anything. I think the acidity is clever and it's present. It never hits a super high pitch, but it finishes quickly and with just almost a tannin. Like there's a drying effect on the finish that makes it even more quaffable. Yeah, very, very subtle, which, you know, that'll help with food pairing in some cases, but this is exactly the style of wine I'm talking about. This is what I would call orange wine on training wheels. You know, it's not long skin contact, certainly. It's there's not a lot of tannin extraction or, you know, some of the old school orange wines, you know, you could drink those with meat, you know? Yeah, I could not stand those. I remember having some where they were so acidic. Yeah, I mean, this practice is ancient. I mean, this goes way back to like Georgia centuries and centuries ago. Amphora aged and, you know, the whole all the grapes just went in there. Well, that's another thing to it. It's not oxidated, right? I mean, nothing against the Jorredio Gravano's of the world. People do have there's a place for oxidated wine, but it's not everywhere. People, we just got a new vintage of those in. Yeah. And they're going to sell out immediately. I mean, they're amazing. Yeah, they're probably gone by the time you hear this. Orange looking hazy wine. The nose is pure orange fruit, tangerines and orange peel. And then all kinds of fleshy fruit across the palate finishes sharply. There's a metallic quality to it, like a streak of metallic minerality that I can't not think about. I don't hate it. I don't hate it. Is that you or is that the back of the label? That's me. No, that was good. Well, you guys are all yapping over here thinking about wine. You're actually thinking about this wine. Yeah. They appreciate that, I'm sure. Yeah. I don't hate it. The listeners. And by the way, it's $22.99 regularly, $19.99 right now during this promo. That's an interesting wine people should try. Yeah, I think it's very agreeable in the style, no doubt. And I think your notes are spot on. I would just add that kind of very, very fine, chalky tannin texture at the end. It's very subtle. It's like scrapes it clean. Yeah. Yeah. Good with deviled eggs. Honestly, yeah. Like we're talking about brunch. This does kind of like the idea of like the salt and fat from like bacon or something like that or sausage with eggs. You're the deviled egg advocate today, I can tell. Vernon Hills recommended this? Yes, Vernon Hills. Good call, Vernon Hills. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Jon says okay call, but he does it silently because he doesn't want anyone to know. No, this, we all saw the list, okay? This fits the assignment perfectly. It does, it does. Yeah. Many bottles will be crushed before noon. Next up, California classic, Patz & Hall Chardonnay. 15:37 Patz Hall Chardonnay Yeah, that is indeed. And the next one. They do a bunch of single vineyards, right? This is their Broad Sonoma Coast Bottle. Okay. Patz & Hall, nominated by McHenry. Hey, McHenry. Yeah, solid buy. I think spring is a good time for Chardonnay. I think breakfast is a good time for Chardonnay, but I think spring particularly is a good time for Chardonnay. Spring breakfast and second breakfast. This is easy on the fruit. Yeah. Yeah, this is a pretty soft, lush style of Chardonnay. It's not, there's not that much acidity. Yeah. And it's broad. The other bottle says marmalade, but this tastes like marmalade and pineapple, baked pineapple. Yeah. Yeah. That's a goer. Yeah. I think if there was like a broad stroke of what Chardonnay from the US kind of should taste like, you use the phrase textbook. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty classic. It's a NOMACO shard. As a Chardonnay lover, I'm all about it. Yeah. We got oak. A little. Just enough acidity. It's not overblown oak. Yeah. Once again, they understood the assignment. Just so in case we didn't make it clear, these are the wines we want to drink during the spring that are values. Right. I might not reach for this wine past May, and I think I would hold off through December, through February, but everywhere in between, there's four months out of the year that this is a banger from my mouth. You cannot drink these wines outside of the spring. No, I can't have this in August. Once the vernal equinox fits, you're ready to go. This would be great in August. And everything after. It's delicious. It's not challenging. It's $29.99, and it's down to $25.99 right now. It's so well built. They know what they're doing. Well, they've been in the game for a long time. I was going to say, explore this, but also buy other Patz & Hall wines, too. Buy all Patz & Hall wines. Pinot Noir Chardonnay Specialists. The only thing about putting Sauvignon Blanc in their Chardonnay, rounding it out with some Muscat, maybe a little bit of skin contact. Yeah, some Garganica. Some Garganica in that mix, too. Could be on to something. I mean, we could make this blend right now. Go get a bottle of Suave and a Sancerre. Good call, McHenry. Thank you. We're fans. How many votes did you get to pick the 30? One, five, 10? So we tried, what was it, 48 wines. Everyone placed 10 votes. That makes sense. Yeah. What are your top 10? One time it was pick all 30, which was a lot, and then you got a handful of beans. Remember that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We don't do it that way anymore. Shout out to Alicia for making use of all those beans she had laying around the house. Does this mean that it was harder to count beans than it was to learn Excel? Someone literally was a bean counter. Yeah. No, that was a bad system only because we started trading beans. Yeah, I just bought some beans for a cow. I just started dumping beans into one jar because nobody got a set amount of beans. It was just like, here's two fistfuls, have had. 18:53 Ponzi Tavola Pinot Noir All right, into the red wines. This is what, a Pinot Noir? This is Ponzi's Tovolepolline. This is the starting point for Ponzi's little project out there. They've been around for a minute, too. Ponzi's scheme. Louisa and her sister make this wine. Good call. They're at the top of the pyramid. So if we're also celebrating Women's Month, we were. We are, always. Always. Celebrate Women, always. Women in Wine, Women in Viticulture, Women in Business. Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2023, Tavola. The label is new. Yeah, I don't think I'm familiar with this one. Have they had this always? Yeah, for quite a long time. Actually, they have another Willamette Valley bottling, right? The Tavola was introduced as kind of their value play, even below their basic Willamette bottling, I believe. I think they rebranded it. Now it's this. And then the Laurelwood District has taken over that on the bottling. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're right. And this used to be called a Tavola. Oh, really? And now it's just Tavola. The refining. It's classy. It's kind of racy. It is, right? That acidity is... Yeah. Maybe just because it's the morning, but... And the fruit's there, but it doesn't wear it. It's not a puffy coat fruit. It's a nice felt jacket. Yeah. Oregon, I think, has developed its own kind of identity for Pinot Noir. People have leaned away from, you know, saying that they want to be Burgundian or saying they want to be modern, anything like that. Yeah. I like that this has all the right little cherry cola elements, but it doesn't get too fat. It's not too black cherry. It still has good acidity, good presence. Yeah. I actually find the acidity to be rather moderate for Pinot Noir in this bottling. It's easy. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It's easy and it's sleek. I don't know. I think this is a nice wine for the table. If you need to, if you- Well, it's called Tavola. A nice wine for the Tavola. Is that table in Italian? Gabe's learning. Wow. Hey. Maybe even with some food on that table. Speak the fourth most Italian in this room. Yes. Arrivederci. The most Polish though. Yeah. Thank you. What's a table in Polish? Stew. Stew? Put some stew on there, stew. You know we do. 26.99 regularly. Right now, 23.99. Is that a good value? Oh, wow. I thought 26.99 was the sale price. Yeah. Yeah, 23.99's really sharp for a- That's even better. For a Pinot. Yeah. So much better. That's lower. Come on down while the supplies last. What else is there to say about this? That was flabbier than any Chardonnay we have in the store. Go on down. And it comes in a small cap and closure bottle. My delivery or just me? My delivery or just me? That finish is so fresh. 2023. 2023. No need to wait, although you could hold this for a few years for sure. I wouldn't. I think it's ready to go. Exactly. No need to wait. The fruit's like just in perfect balance right now. It's under screw cap and it does have enough structure to go a few years. Chris, who picked this? This was Bowling Brook. Oh, all right. Jon's old stomping grounds. Old, old stomping grounds. I definitely stomped a lot of ground there. Who's out there? Martin? Now it's Martin. Cool. 22:31 Stolpman La Cuadrilla Blend All right, number five in this small selection of our 30 Under 30 is Dude on a Horse. Dude on a Horse. I'm sorry. Stolpman, La Cudria. Oh, Stolpman. It looks like he's riding like a bucking bronco on the moon, but I guess those are tumbleweeds. And he's whipping it with grape frinches. Yeah. It's just weird that they changed this label a little bit. They did. I think they might change it yearly. Yeah, that sounds about right. So if you ever want to find it again, you won't. He's got a firm whip hand with a vine. You can place your bets on Kelshe to see what next year's label will be. Sorry, Surah Grenache Sangiovese? Yeah, it's an unconventional blend. From Santa Barbara. Yeah, Stolpman Vineyards. I mean, they do a lot of Miron style stuff. Yeah, their wheelhouse is Surah for sure. They own quite a good swath of vineyards. It's the Sangiovese that's a weird choice here. There's not that much Sangiovese in California. No, and you rarely see it bottled as a single varietal, but it could definitely lend some acidity and lift. I think that red fruit plays along with the blue of Surah, to kind of like perpetuate that bramble quality you anticipate from Rome style blends. Well, Surah can already be pretty herbal, and Sangiovese can bring that to the mix too. Oh, yeah. That's a good idea. Did you say there's Mouved? I'm getting kind of this leathery vibe. Yeah, there is Mouved in there. Yeah. Yeah. Surah, Grenache, Mouved, Sangiovese. This is nice. I think you can get the Sangiovese in the nose, that bright lifted red fruit. But then I think that's a vine with the Surah in particular, but the other two are definitely lending some support. You get that cherry from the Grenache and the deeper earthier notes from the Mouved. I was not expecting this. Is there some carbonic on that? Yeah, it seems like it's slightly fizzy. Yeah. It's like weighty fruit, but it's also bright and fresh at the same time. So it's like heavy fruit, but it's not like jam. Damn it, the chins of the lady. Bringing it into the spring wine category. Yeah. You think it's carbonic maceration? I mean, it does have that frizzante kind of thing. Well, that doesn't necessarily follow. I mean, carbonic maceration. Well, it also has that fruit. Well, yeah. I'm just saying you might want to divorce your idea of spritz from the use of carbonic maceration in the winemaking process. Yeah, that's fair. I wonder if they're doing what field recordings does, where they leave just a little bit of barely perceivable CO2 in the wine, just to make it have that kind of tingle field. Right. This is not uncommon. I mean, you'll see, quote unquote, still wines with a little carbonic spritz and it's quite normal, particularly like young Riesling often has little spritz to it. I'm blown away by this one. It's not a thinking wine at all. I could chug this wine. Yeah, go, go, go, go, great. Cannonball. Wow, it's so fun and it's so plush. It is plush. That's what I was going to say, that the fruit is pretty fleshy. I mean, there's some roundness to the palate and it's a refreshing and not too serious wine in the regime. We're talking about like the spring wine regime. I think it fits really well. But if you want to find that like herbal thing in there, you will. You'll find a little spice, you'll find a little pepper, you'll find a little bit of that. But it's a real easy drinker. It is not a ton of tannins. The tannins are there but they're hidden underneath all this plushness. Regularly $22.99 on sale, set you back $19.99. Nice. Does anybody ever like do, you should do a gambit, pull something that's like $35 and everybody votes on it, and then it forces us to put it on sale for $29.99. Requirement for admission, it has to be $29.99. Regularly, yeah. The sale prices are just bonus. Okay. Take care of the customer. This is I think the third vintage we've worked with this. Kudos to the buyers for finding, picking, and giving it the go. I think we latched on to the end of the 2021 and I saw it's a new Stolpman wine. I'm going to buy this. Killer. 22 was okay. This 23 is slamming. 22 was a bit of a difficult vintage in California. I don't know. It has a reputation for being very even, but there is a lot of heat in 22. It could be problematic. Who picked this? Joliet. Good call, Joliet. Joliet, yeah. Good call, Joliet, and good call to everyone who chose stuff for our 30 under 30 list. Yeah, I think all of these fit the bill pretty appropriately. How long does the sale go? Until the 4th of May, the end of our current. May 4th or? May 4th. The 4th of May. May the 4th go with you. Yes, indeed. Get out and grab some of these. They're excellent values, all of it. I'm surprised that I liked orange wine so much today. I like all these wines. I would drink all these wines outside of spring. I'm happy that they're all on sale. I'll take advantage of that. Empire approved. Peep the whole list at binnys.com. Yeah. Or stop at any store. I mean, you don't have to peep. That just sounds creepy. Quit coming into our stores and peeping. Sometimes I just watch the list from afar. Yes. It doesn't know I'm there. Get out of that tree, Gabe. Why does he always have those binoculars around his neck? All right. We've got the QR codes for this all around the store, on the shelf sets. If you see one of the QR codes, just scan it. You'll get the whole list right up. On binnys.com. Take it to the webpage. binnys.com. Yeah. Let that camera peep that old QR code. One of the challenges will have displays. Yeah, true. One of the challenges, Hastings, is that we picked these wines a month and a half ago, two months ago, and then the process takes a little while. Inevitably, when you have 30 wines on a list, some of them run out. So shop earlier than later if you're looking for these specifically, these great values. Yeah, for sure. Some are in great supply, but already things are running out, and that's a testament to how popular this program actually is. Yeah, and staying true to the choices. We don't remove stuff or fudge. Yeah, we don't manipulate and we don't roll into the next vintage and claim it's the same wine or anything like that. That would be cheating. Cool. Good call. Thanks, guys. Thanks for coming. I feel like this was a short one. It was a short one. That's fine. It can be a short one. Sometimes people only want to listen to us on their commute and then get back to Chad Abumrod. They're going to listen to this one on two times speed. Greg, do you just have a stroke? I think so. They want to get back to Freakonomics. 29:16 Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519 artwork representing URL Guys, thanks for coming and helping us taste these wines. Good stuff. Good luck on the next one getting yours in. I think we're going to try to do this quarterly now. So there will be spring, summer, fall, winter, or the 50 under 50, which is very popular. That's a big one. Yeah. So look for seasonal lists. Are we going to do 20 under 20 or 40 under 40? We don't. How many under how much? 27 under 33. 200 under 200 is next. 200 under 200. 10,000 under 10,000. Whatever it is, we're just going to start doing ABV, like 14 wines above 14 percent. Here are our favorite 18 percent wines. Wines for your nap. All portons in for now. Thank you for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, back in your feed real soon with something great. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Chris. I'm Jon. And I'm Gabe. Keep tasting. Do you want to do Keep Tasting together? Do we do our names and then keep tasting? No, just- Can we do it in three-part harmony? We can try it again. Tasting. Oh, God. That just proves I can't sing. Wow, keep that in. A little pitch.