Welcome, everyone, to Barrel to Bottle with Binny's Beverage Depot. I am your host, Kristen Ellis, and here is my lovely co-host, Jeff Carlin. Jeff. Hello, Kristen. Welcome aboard. Thank you. Really happy to be here. Can't say how grateful I am. I know. And this is probably one of the coolest podcasts I've ever heard of. This is the coolest one I've ever done. Exactly. That's for sure. So this is lovely. I mean, we're here basically just to help everybody along in their journey in beer, wine and spirits. We're here just to make it simple. But most of all, we're here to make it fun. Absolutely. Yeah. So we, you know, if you're fantastic enough to give us your 15 minutes of attention, we hope to fill your brain with fantastic bits of knowledge. And make you a better consumer of all the gods' nectars, if you will. That's it. Oh, I love the nectars of the gods. Yes. Just make you more savvy, comfortable and confident with wine, beer and spirits. And Kristen, what's your title over at Binny's? I take care of everything education. So wine education for the internal program, as well as our what I call recreational education. That's our consumer ed program as well. It's a lot of fun. It's a great job. I consider myself very, very lucky. So you're the right person to ask if I've got questions about beer, wine, spirits, you name it. I would like to think so. For me, more wine, obviously, number one is going to be my forte. Spirits a close second and then beer. I bring in the big guns for beer. But you know all the right people. I know all the right people. That's what's more important, I think, right? Yeah, it's not what you drink. It's who you drink it with. Exactly. Precisely. So and you? Well, I'm a producer for WGN Radio and a kind of sewer of all things, drinking, if you will. Yes. I like to consume, but I love learning more than anything. And that's why I'm here to learn all I can from the fine folks at Binny's. We're happy to help. Any questions anybody has, you can reach us on Twitter at Binny's Bev. And if your question gets chosen, you're going to go home with a lovely $20 gift card. That's on Twitter? I know that's on Twitter. Excellent. Fantastic. And no question big or too small? No, we get so many. That's kind of why we're here, is to sort of take on those questions, question by question, dissect them, and make people more knowledgeable. And how else can people become more knowledgeable? Let's say they love this podcast, and they want to know more, or they want to learn more. Great. Well, we've got events happening every single week at Binny's, at all of our locations, tastings, seminars. For seminars, we can get special guests. You'll see winemakers, you'll see master distillers, master blenders, and we just bring in everybody that we can to kind of help us and lead that charge in education. The program is called Continuing Education. It takes place primarily at our flagship location that is in Lincoln Park, but then of course it's a chain-wide program. Thursdays generally from 6 to 8. Come on in, hang out, listen to a seminar, grab a taste and learn something. That sounds awesome. I've been to a couple in my day, mostly beer. Before I grew up, I was mostly just a beer guy. That's kind of where people start. I think I started with light beer. Stoli raspberry and lemonade too when I was 21. Zima and Jolly Ranchers. Oh my gosh, Zima. That's back. I heard. Can we talk about that in one of these podcasts? We don't have time today, but I feel like we should bring back the Zima. Do we really? Yes. Okay. I'm in. And that's what we're here for, to learn what we can. Speaking of questions, what is one question that's on your mind when it comes to wine? I know people always kind of stick to the old adage of red for red meat, white for white. Is that always the case? You always recommend that. Sure. That's a question I get often, what to drink and when. When it comes to the red and red meat and white and white meat are lighter, they're fair like fish. Yeah, that's pretty safe. But now we're finding out that you don't have to do that. The number one rule is really there are no rules. When we talk about pairing, we kind of have these examples of how food and wine work together and what works and what doesn't are generally good for most people. But if we talk about something in this podcast, we say, you know, should have sweet wine with a sweet dish because it makes the wine seem bitter and astringent and takes all the fruit out. But let's say you love that dessert with that dry pino, then God bless you. You just do you. But when it comes to red meat, what we like is matching the intensity of flavor and the weight of the food with the intensity of the wine and the weight of the wine. If you're matching those two things primarily, and you're using a white to do that with your red meat, you're absolutely killing it. And I think you'll be on your way to a good pairing. If you have a super light, very delicate white wine, then this big, chewy, massive steak that's full of flavor, then you're going to find that that steak is going to overpower the wine, and you're not going to give it the light of day to let it shine through. Making sure to match weight and intensity, and then, you know, if you don't like red with your steak, you can find a white that's going to fit in perfectly. Sure. And do you ever recommend certain varietals for certain dishes? Like, I know it's really up to your taste. Say, I'm doing steaks on the grill the night with my family, going over to my brother's house, and I want to impress. So when we're thinking about food wine pairing, we're thinking about those rules. And then within that subset, we've got examples to back it up. So Cabernet Berleau, for sure. Shiraz, Zinfandel, those would all work just fine, for your example. And you'd probably make some new friends with your killer wine selection. Fantastic. I love making friends. Me too. That's the whole point of drinking. Well, yeah. And also another thing is, you know, seasonality, which is something that people might or might not consider. I'm not quite sure. For me, the reason I like Rosé, when, you know, we're coming through the dead of winter and the Rosé set is getting bigger at Binny's, that's how I know, you know, summer is coming. So it makes me very happy to see all that pink on the shelf. So Rosé is probably one of the best examples of a wine that has true seasonality. Although, you know, we're seeing that kind of go away as people are drinking Rosé throughout the year. It's based on your mood, but also on temperature. And we're kind of what we're eating within those seasons. We're blessed to be in Chicago. We do have four distinct seasons here. So you can have, you know, four distinct kinds of wine to kind of take you through those experiences. So when it's hot out, you're going to want wine that's light, crisp and cool. So you're Sauvignon Blancs, you're Gavi, your Italian whites are really good. So seasonality in that regard, if you want to do red when it's really hot, it's kind of hard because alcohol can sort of dry you out. Those high ABV tannic wines, you're just not going to be feeling it when it's 95 degrees outside. So things like bubbles. I want to go back. You said Gavi. I've never heard of that for a while. Well, Gavi actually, yeah. Gavi comes from Piedmont. Yes. And it comes from a grape called Cortese. Oh, yeah. Delicious, nice, crisp, kind of a candied fruit aroma, a little bit of fennel. It's a fantastic wine. So that would be a great summer wine and nice refreshing acidity to pair well with. You know, if you're on a beach, man, what are you eating? Chips, right? Popcorn. That wine would be perfect with that. I'm set. Let me get my towel. Your WGN towel. That's right. I'm sure. Absolutely. I get a lot of people that ask me what to drink if you want to watch your waistline. And heading into the fall, we're talking about seasonality. I think of fall food, getting into winter food is heavier. So people are like, okay, well, what do I do with wine because I like to imbibe, but I also don't want all the empty calories. So there are a few things that you can kind of look for. First and foremost, you want to stick to a relatively lower alcohol wine, so a lower ABV. Yeah. When you're looking at calories in wine comes from two places. Residual sugar, which all wines have, even the driest wines are going to have two or three grams per liter of residual sugar in there. So what does that come from? That comes from the grape juice, right? So ripeness of grapes as fruit ripens, we have a raising of sugar and a dropping of acidity. So the natural sugar in the grape, that's what's fermented into ethyl alcohol. So any sugar that's remaining is residual. So we call that residual sugar or RS for short. Wine geeks love to make things. Yeah, acronyms are our best friend. Hence, you're going to have that in the wine, both then sugar and alcohol. If you are looking at, let's say, a really high octane Shiraz from Australia, that's 14.8%, maybe up into the 15.3% ABV. That alcohol in the wine is twice as dense in that regard than sugar is. So you kind of want to scale it down on the ABV. Look for whites somewhere. Maybe champagne is great, 12.5% or generally reds from the old world. That would mean Europe are going to offer wines that have a lower ABV because they come from a cooler climate. So you definitely want to watch the alcohol, all the carbohydrates are what's going to add to the waistline. That's a great tip because I know most people going into the holidays just assume they're going to be eating richer foods and most people will say, hey, how can I save a few calories here and there and might not realize that at five points in ABV, Exactly. Yeah. So watch the sugar. So drier wines and lower alcohol as well. So I mean, if you're going to drink port, which is 21% with a whole lot of sugar in there, then you're going to have an issue keeping those pounds off and you should probably scale it back to something a bit drier. And with a port, that's a fortified wine, right? Exactly. It's fortified during fermentation, so it leaves a heck of a lot of sugar from the grape, but also then is very high in alcohol. And fortified, I know we use that term, but for those who don't know, what is a fortification of a wine or what's that process? So what it is is fortifying or strengthening the wine with a grape spirit. So that's brandy. All brandy is obviously, it's white coming off the still, all of those brown liquors or spirits get their color from oxidative aging in wood. So before that, we're just going to fortify the must with brandy that kills the yeast during alcoholic conversion. So what you're left with is a sweet wine that's full bodied, very round with a lot of sugar and a lot of alcohol as well. So Kristen, as we move into any festive time of year, people are always looking for wine. I myself go into a Binny's and I'm just overwhelmed by the stock. I mean, California, Old World, New World, you name it, I'm confused when it comes to knowing what I want or where to even look. How do I get over this, for lack of a better word, anxiety? Right. It's a great word. I call it shelf anxiety. It's something that I've been talking about for years now. And that's kind of my mission at Binny's is just to make not only our staff, but all of our customers feel at ease. There are so many wines. Where do you start? So the first place to start really is with what you already like. So if you know that you like Chardonnay, but you're sticking to just maybe one type of Chardonnay from one place, maybe start to learn about that grape, where it grows, what soils it thrives in, what kinds of wines it produces, and then find Chardonnay from another part of the world and kind of focus on that. And you can start with something that you know. You know you're going to like it from where you're drinking already. Go to that next place and you're going to find that your knowledge base will expand just with something that you're already kind of safe with. And then move on and take risks. So come on into Binny's and ask. Say, hey, I like Chardonnay. This is what I like about it. I'm ready to go with something new. So if I go into a Binny's, I should just ask. The easiest way is to ask one of our store associates what the best move is. We work really, really hard to make sure that they're as knowledgeable as possible about making the best choice for you and helping you along in your journey. Besides grape by grape, another way is country by country. Country by country. So let's say this holiday season, I'm going to focus on everything Italian for three months. I mean, think about that. It's great. Like I said, a goal for my fall, that everything I do is going to be Italian or everything before my October is going to be Italian wines. Yep, I've done that plenty. I've said this month, I'm going to just focus on Italian whites and that's what I'm going to do. And you'll notice that you just feel so much more comfortable. Part of it is even pronouncing some of these regions and Italian grapes. They're so known for their indigenous varieties. So just kind of speaking a little Italian with some flair will be fun in itself. Pinot Grigio, Jeff. Yeah, I'm kidding. So that's it. That's the way to do it. Grape by grape, country by country, region by region, chunk it down and take it one piece at a time. All right, Kristen, as we wrap things up for the first edition of Barrel to Bottle with Binny's Beverage Depot, remind me, what did we learn today? We just learned to relax, right? Take on the lovely big enormous world of wine, grape by grape, region by region, and just kind of enjoy the journey. And the holidays, remember, it's low alcohol, low ABV. It's going to help you kind of make that waistline. Maybe not smaller, but just not bigger, right? And come on in and see us anytime to kind of help you along with your journey in wine. That's why we're here. And take a look at binnys.com/events. You can find the events that are happening in the location nearest you. And don't forget to submit your questions on Twitter at Binny's Bev for your chance to win a $20 gift card. If we choose your question and talk about it on this podcast, you're going to get that 20 bucks. Looking forward to hear what you have to say. Am I eligible? I'm sorry. I'm your gift card. Yeah, there you go. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening this week on Barrel to Bottle with Binny's Beverage Depot. We'll catch you next week. Keep tasting. See you next time.