Hey, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Really short introduction, because we have a bunch of buyers picks, right Pat? Yeah, tons of buyers picks, because we have a lot of buyers. And have we recorded it yet? Are we doing this before? Are we doing this in the middle? Do we know what people picked already? I don't know. Maybe we recorded them last year. Yeah, really trying to spin them into some kind of Tarantino like narrative crisis. Anyway, here is, I think Pat and me with somebody. Here we go. Liquor buyer, Jeff. Welcome back, Jeff. Thank you. We love having you once a year and once a year only. I just go to the basement after this. So, Jeff, you buy all kinds of liquor for us from, honestly, big distilleries to small. You do a lot of cocktails, you do a lot of both white and brown liquors, all kinds of stuff. Do you even have a singular pick of the year this year? Yeah, yes, I do. My pick of the year, because Brett picked an entire category. Yeah, I like booze. Yeah, my pick of the year, liquor. In the ad. My pick of the year isn't something that was new this year. It's actually, we've been selling it since 2019. Okay. But it's new to the shelf this year. It's something that has been available, but highly allocated. And now they've decided or we've been able to get enough. All of a sudden, there's lots? Yeah. Well, it's something that we'd like to see, supplies start to catch up with demand on a lot of these sought after products. It's a win for our customers, right? Yeah, it's a win for our customers, good for our shelves. Shelves means money. Is that what it means? Yeah. All right. Enough with the banter. What is the pick? It is. Heaven Hill Seven Year Bottled & Bond. Oh, nice. So this was a three times a year release, I would think. I think they were on three times a year, maybe only twice some years. Seven year bottled and bond, Heaven Hill Juice was kind of expensive. We're not selling it at 60 or $70 anymore though, are we? No. Now that it's readily available, we'll be $49.99 every day and $42.99 through the end of the year. Wow, nice. It's a hell of a whiskey for under $50. It really is. Yeah, at $70 or $60. Well, now I want some. Having not tried it, why don't you pass it around? You've never had this? I don't think. Jeff, have I had this? It is booze. All right. So this is an awesome bottle. Heaven Hill Bottled in Bond Whiskey was always available down just in Kentucky. It was really cheap and it was a real cheap packaging with screw cap top and it was six-year-old liquid. And they caught some flack when this went from six-years-old to seven-years-old and the price went up. But really, the old bottle was just a relic of the past. And it was sold in one market as bottom shelf stuff. It started to get real popular. They were running out of, they wanted to get the age statement up. Obviously, every liquor company wants a more premium kind of portfolio nowadays. So they put in a lot better packaging, aged it for an extra year. The price did go up a bit, but it's still like an unbelievable value, especially when we have it on sale for $43. That's crazy. Most bourbon that's 40 bucks is, you know, four or five year old stuff tops. This smells textbook, like grains and mint and cherry and bananas. I'm glad you got the mint there. That's a real calling card of Heaven Hill's house yeast. Is it? Yeah, their yeast has had a little tiny tickle of mint in it forever. Yeah, you'll see that in Elijah as well. Yeah, it's one of those things. At the sixth year, we would go to we go to Kentucky a lot. Yeah. We would pick up a case when we were down. Yeah, but it's been years since it was available there. Even before they came out with this seven year, the six year was pretty much unobtainable. You really had to go hunting. You had to go to all kinds of different liquor stores, just find a bottle or two. This is really good. I want to keep talking about the juice. And it's really available. On the nose, it seems like it's going to be really spicy like a rye, but it's like melted butterscotch. It's so easy. And then like a little bit of Christmas spice. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful whiskey. It's so awesome that we have this on the shelf, because when they announced that this was coming, it was replacing that old bottling, they were rolling it out just to a few states at a time, and only a couple of times a year. Oh, Illinois getting some love. Nice. I know, Jeff, you have a great relationship with Heaven Hill, and you've worked on pretty hard getting us better allocations on some of their limited-release stuff. I'm really excited to see the fruits of this relationship coming. I mean, to have this on the shelf every day is a total win for all our customers. Yeah, I would love to see other distilleries follow suit on some of these harder-to-find bourbons. As bourbon progresses through its cycle, more liquid has been laid down, and hopefully this is just what we come to expect. Yeah. I mean, how much can you really care about the Dakotas too? Just give us their allocation. It doesn't matter. They're not drinking any whiskey? Two senators, four senators, what's going on here? The Dakotas. They're really sucking up the nation's allocation of Heaven Hill. Oh, this is great. Thanks, Jeff. This is really good. You're welcome. Appreciate it. Well, we'll see you in a year. Yeah, I'll go back to- Back to your basement. This is our special yearly roundup, right? Alicia, Chris? Yeah. This is very exciting. Are you excited? Well, I mean, it is rare that we get Bill and Barbara joining us, two of our buyers on the podcast, to share their favorite wines of the year. Luminaries, industry luminaries, geniuses. The good thing is, Bill, no one can see you, so they're imagining someone like really handsome and with dark features. It's a good thing. They don't have to imagine. Wow. Okay, Bill, Barb. Hello. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for inviting me. Bill. Good to see you again, Greg. So, yeah, like you don't see me every day. It's been a while. It's nice to see the reading. So, you try a lot of good stuff this year or what? Well, we try a whole mix of things. Everything from major tastings of non-alcoholic wines and good for you wines up to, yeah, we've had some really great things in Bordeaux and Italy. I like the spectrum that you just painted there where non-alcoholic and good for you is one end and then there's good things. Yeah. It's been the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yeah. That's always the honest answer from you guys. You taste a lot of bad, overpriced wines so that we don't have to. Underpriced wines too, but we go the whole gamut. Okay. So, good stuff though? What's, somebody else do this? So, I mean, thousands of wines you've had this year, and you were asked to pick your top wine of the year. So, I'm dying to know what you selected. Maybe let's kick it off with Barb. Okay. I'm looking at it on the table and we actually, did we have this exact wine together in Paris or a different vintage? I think we had an older vintage in Paris. But this is the new release. It's Domaine Tempier 2020 Bandol to Loulou and Lucienne. And let me just give you a little bit of kind of a background about Bandol to get so, because there's a lot of things you kind of have to know before I say some things to put everything in context. But Bandol is a small appellation in southern France, right along the Mediterranean and it's east of Marseille. And like a lot of areas and wine growing areas in France was pretty decimated after the phylloxera, the disease that affected the root stock in France in the late 1800s. And it was in pretty bad shape. This property started in the 1930s when Lucienne Perrault married a little tiny lady named Lulu. I can call her little because I'm not quite five feet tall and she is shorter than me. This property was in her family and so that was kind of like the family's gift to them for their wedding. And he was a real dynamo for the area. He got Bottle their own appellation in the 1940s and he really resurrected a lot of the vineyards. And he was a big proponent of the variety Morved, which is like the main grape of that area. And he became very famous and he passed away some years ago. I don't know exactly when. But Lulu passed away two years ago at the age of 102 and in 2020. And so this wine carries on its label the names Lulu and Lucienne. And it's really kind of in honor of both of them and then in honor of her passing away in 2020. And so I wanted to bring it because of that. And then it made me really kind of weepy because in 2018, in January, I was on a trip with the importer for Tempier in France. And we went down to the property and she came on out, like I said, I'm five feet tall. She's like a lot smaller than me. And one of her daughters, she walked pretty well for being a hundred, and may have actually been 99 when we saw her. And she brought her out, sat her down at a table, she greeted everyone. She told a dirty joke about Beaujolais producers. I mean, she's sharp as a tack. She sat there drinking red wine. I was standing next to her wine maker and he said, you know, I make white wine and rosé too, but all what she likes to drink is champagne and red. Now, that's all what I like to drink is champagne and red. And I thought, this is fabulous, you know. So that's really, that's why this is my wine of the year. But I think it's, you know, it's just a wonderful tribute to, you know, her husband was a great man for the Appalachian. She was really quite a remarkable lady. Some of you I know, you know, Chris is very much into, you know, the food side of everything. And she became very, very, very famous for being a big proponent and a great, great chef, great cook of, you know, Provence cooking and was probably a very big influence with Alice Waters. Yeah, indeed. From Chez Panisse. Yeah, we were talking a little bit about this the other day. And yeah, I don't think Chez Panisse has existed without Tempia on the list. Their importer is Kermit Lynch and they're really right down the street in Berkeley from each other. It's a very famous restaurant in case you don't know. Kind of instrumental in the beginnings of California cuisine. Is Cilantro their fault? Hmm, I don't think so. You just go further south down to Mexico and you can blame them or across to China. Fair enough. It's all their fault. Yeah, Lulu was a big proponent of cooking what was fresh that day and what's very local and stuff. And that is the prime tenet of California cuisine and everything Alice Waters did and does. Can we taste the wine? Sure. I was going to keep the bottle for myself. Barb actually has a straw over there and she's just going to go at it. Yeah, there are reports of legendary lunches and dinners at this estate that she cooks. So, I mean, really cool. And this is just a great wine on top of it all. I know Bandol does a lot of rosé too. Is that primarily what they're known for? Are they known for red, white and rosé? That's a good question. Probably depends on what wine drinker you ask, because they've made rosé for a long time. I don't know when they started making rosé, but it wasn't something that they just did in the past three or four years because it became fashionable and hot. And it was, I mean, I know 20, 30 years ago, it was still, it was a pretty coveted rosé. We'd always get, and we still do, we get an allocation of, well, we get an allocation of the red, but we also get an allocation of the rosé once a year. And that goes out and that usually sells very, very, very quickly. It's very sought after. And people that buy it often sell-er it for a couple of years or quite a long time. I totally agree with that approach. I think Bandol makes some of the most serious rosés on the planet, and they are age-worthy and drink like fine white wines after they've been sell-ered due to their great acidity. But you still get those layers of red fruits. And Tempies, of course, is iconic at this point. So this seems deep and rich, but it also seems really pretty at the same time. I think the nose is really pretty. A lot of the fruits and spices that you get kind of remind me of the holidays of Christmas. And there's a lot of cranberry and kind of this mulberry and plum, but all with this underlying kind of spice. And then on the palate, to your point, Greg, I think the acid really, really jumps. And it's a pretty bright wine that will, I think, just come together really well in the next... Yeah, I think it's very, very, very smooth and very silky and extremely clean. But there's, yeah, some like tree barky things going in the mouth and some mushroomy stuff going on there, too. I mean, years ago, like when I first started, you know, earlier in my career when I was in the business, you know, if you drink a Tempierre Bandol, I used to joke about it, but it was also serious. Sometimes you'd open one and they could walk off the table. They could be... Yeah, pretty feral. Right, quite wild. And you were never quite sure what you were going to get. I mean, you were definitely going to get, like you said, a very anima-ly kind of wine, kind of rustic and whatever. This winemaker, Daniel Revere, has been with them since 2000. And I don't know if it's just because of him and whatever, you know, changes and that, but the wines are... This is a very clean made wine. You're not going to have to worry about it walking off the table. Yeah, absolutely. There's no breath here at all. And it's such a refined expression of Mouvedre. It does have some of those earthy elements, but it is not real animaely or feral tasting like a lot of them can be. Yeah, and sometimes that animal like meaty quality can just really overtake the fruit, but, you know, not the case here. Yeah, fresh and elegant. Yeah, beautiful. And these wines are incredibly age worthy too. Okay, so let's all raise our glass. Lulu, Lulu, Lulu. Carol, yeah, she's kind of the sister Jean of Bandle. Oh, man. Well, we're still reading for her even though she's past. Yeah. What a great lady. Yeah. An ambassador for the area, right? Oh, absolutely. And like I said, I mean, you know, and brilliant and still really alive. How much is this? Like 40 bucks? $49.99. Cool. Awesome. Thank you, Barb. $50 for like basically one of the top wines of the Appalachian. What a piece of history. Yeah. That's a good point. And unfortunately, a set that is not, I think, shopped as much as it should. Yeah, it's real pretty good. And you'll find it in the French Red Isle, but sometimes tends to be kind of overlooked by those, and you kind of go to the Rhone and miss out. So. Yeah. I mean, to your earlier point, Greg, I think in the States, maybe the Rose is the best known thing. And White is quite marginal out of Bendel. Yeah, the Reds are sadly overlooked, I think. That's phenomenally complex wine. Yes. Yes, it is. And it's gorgeous and it's perfumed, and it's also brutal at the same time. Yeah. Drinkable now, but like Bill said. Yeah. Bill, you got something to stand up to that? Well, I do. It's in a very different style, but also just as age worthy. So my pick is Penfolds 389, which is a blend of Cabernet and Shiraz, Vintage 2020. It's about $65. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you telling me the continent of Australia still exists? It does, surprisingly enough. It was threatened to be burned down now for a while. Yeah. Yeah. But that's one of the reasons I picked this wine is because just sort of as a reminder to everybody that Australia makes some incredibly great wines. Penfolds is probably the leader, but there's other very, very good wineries in Australia, and it's just something that has been overlooked lately. They had their problems after their huge boom in the 1990s and early 2000s. Everything just sort of went downhill after that for them. So they came out with a lot of very inexpensive, very sticky sweet wines, and they got a bad reputation. And it's not a reputation they necessarily deserve because they make a lot of incredible wines. Penfolds has been around since 1844. They've been making the Bin 389 since 1960. So over 60 years, they've been making this wine. It ages incredibly well. Since I first started drinking it, it has gone up considerably because I remember back in the good old days, it was like $20 a bottle, but that was a long time ago. That was when you had dark features and were really handsome. Yes, exactly. How? Really? Digging into Mr. Newton's visage here. I was just going full circle in my earlier joke. Back when I could have been on television instead of just podcasts. Speaking of dark features, this wine. Yeah. I totally agree, Bill. Penfolds has been an iconic winery of Australia and has really always fought for high-quality wines. We actually had lunch with Peter Gago a few weeks ago. Always name dropping. Well, it's important because he was incredibly captivating and I really got a better understanding of their approach in terms of stylistic winemaking. And Penfolds is notorious for they're not making this single vineyard expression of a wine. They're after a style. And so they have properties and then they have long-term contracts with growers and they all submit fruit to them. And they kind of score each of those lots and decide based on the quality of that year, what wine this is going to go into and the profile that they're going to make. So they have consistency. And also because some lots just perform better in certain vintages than others. So I think, you know, you could articulate that to me before. But hearing from him directly, I think, I don't know, I'm bought in a little bit more to that style choice, if you will. Well, it shows in this bottle. Again, Penfold's Bin 389, Cabernet Shiraz 2020. This is a powerhouse. This is a big one. Yeah. And just real quick for people that that may not know. So Penfold's makes an incredibly large number of wines. They make it all up and down the price category from $1,215 all the way up to Grange, which is like $700 a bottle. So no matter who you are or what you're looking for, they have something for you. They've been incredibly creative with a lot of the blends they make, and they're just an iconic winery that anyone who loves wine needs to try some of their wines. Yeah, absolutely. I learned that when I was dining at the Adelaide Estate, many years ago, Alisha, I mean- It's a bigger drop than mine. He out-dropped your name drop. That's just, I mean, that's true, but it's a joke. Okay. Fantastic dinner though. Yeah. I mean, the wine is dense, the fruit is concentrated. I actually think that the tannic structures, they manage the tannins really well on the wine. Yeah, incredible. Super fine, but very present. Indeed. Firm and fine here, and this is an excellent wine for those that do like kind of those more like meal in a glass style. And the first thing you smell is that classic Australian eucalyptus. Yes, yes. Not overpowering, but you get that hint of mint, you know, and it's a great textbook. You have some red fruits too, and it's really funny because it's different as these two wines are that we've tasted today. I would love to be able to try both of them in 20 years. I mean, they're both just going to age like champs. Well, they're both kind of spiritually linked too. I mean, the ones, Movedra, and this one has Shiraz, and it's kind of like this, both of them have a foot in Bordeaux and a foot in Rome, stylistically. You know, here's where Alicia says, no, Greg, you're insane. I don't know what you're talking about either. Your band all has like a gaminess and an herbaceous quality that I wouldn't, I mean, like you get that from Rome, but it definitely, like a Bordeaux drinker is still going to love it. And it has that structure. And that's just kind of like stylistically, the way that they've constructed that wine. And this one's literally a blend of cabin Shiraz. It is. And I might point out that that's kind of an Australian thing. This might be the wine that set the tone for that. I think it probably was. Well, even I mean, even domestically, I can't think of a producer off the top of my head that's blending cabin Shiraz. I mean, people do it now, but it's mostly Australia. It's some garage in Passo. Yeah, it's true. They do it domestically, but it doesn't work as well as it works in Australia. I really think one of the reasons is that Shiraz can be a little bit shrill and a little bit overdone. Not always. It doesn't have to be, but it can be a little shrill and a little overdone, especially in South Australia where this is mainly coming from. But when you add the Cabernet with it, it really solidifies the wine. It brings great balance and it brings that herbal note that Barbara was talking about earlier, the mint and the eucalyptus. That's really coming from the Cabernet and the Shiraz, adding the dark fruits as well, but that meatiness, that smoked meat that we tend to find with the Shiraz, great variety. You have the best of both here. Do we know the vineyard sources? It's really interesting. I looked this up, and as Alicia hinted at, Penfolds owns a lot of vineyards, and so it doesn't really say specifically where each vintage comes from because they have so many different places that they can pick and choose from. But I think most of this wine came from Barossa and McLaren Vale. Yeah. Those are the two. But I mean, they have- I was just wondering if any of the cab was Cunawari. I mean, they have vineyards in those areas. Exactly. Those tend to be really eucalyptus-y. And minty, I don't think that, depending on the blend though, it could be a component, but it doesn't seem to be that intense. And again, if you like the style, there's all sorts of different bit. There's a 407 that's Cabernet that's about the same price as this, but there's less expensive ones. There's a Max series that we also have a Schraz Cabernet in that's about $20. So that would be a nice, maybe a good one to try if you just want to see if you like the style. But they're great wines. Yeah, it is. It's stunning. And to your earlier point, Bill, there's some excellent stuff coming out of Australia. So please revisit it. Yeah, it's really amazing the transformation. Australia has gone through so much more exploitation of cooler climates and looking for more finesse, more style, less jammy fruit. And there are some really, really great stuff happening there. Even in Barossa, where the biggest concentration of overly concentrated wines were coming from Barossa, and even those wines now have really have toned it down. And they're much more drinkable, they're more approachable, and they're fresher. So it's really interesting when you see that happen, because it points out like you have a terroir that's great for Shiraz, right, and Barossa, but you can dial it up or dial it back. And those huge wines were in fashion for a long time. And it's the reason maybe Barossa became famous, because they were just big and over the top. But you can make choices in the vineyard to change that a little bit, but still convey the sense of place and have great, great wines. And I think they're doing exactly that, as you say. Right. And there are certain grape varietals, whether it's Shiraz in Barossa or Grenache in the Southern Rhone or whatever, where the wines are going to be big. They're going to be big wines because that's just how they ripen. But they don't have to be over ripen. And that's what both of those regions have really pulled back. Awesome picks, you guys. Yeah, really incredible. All right, cool. Hey, stick around. We'll be back after the music break with somebody else. And we're back. That music break for you was like eight seconds, but for us, it's been 14 and a half weeks. And we have beer buyer Kyle on the line, Colin Show. How are you doing, Kyle? I'm good. How are you guys? Okay. Good. Yeah. Getting ready for the big holiday push. Oh, yeah. That's all. I did my part. Yeah. We've been working our way through all the buyer's picks here, and it's time to talk beer. Lots of good options in beer as always. The trends in beer have been all over the map. It's been kind of interesting to see one of my faves, Loggers are finally getting a little bit of a show. It's like he's trying to make fetch a thing. But now we're curious, Kyle, what stood out for you this year? What do you think you would like to feature for your pick this year? Well, I picked something that stands out every year, and I picked Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. I was thinking about it, I think, well, I don't know, it might be the oldest domestically produced Christmas or holiday beer. No, that anchor is not going to be there. Yeah, tough year. You're only picking at an open wound there. Yeah. This is going to be the first year without anchor Christmas. I'm sure there's a couple that have been brewed for longer, but as far as like, you know, bigger breweries and, you know, widespread distribution, I can't think of one that's... No, I'd say this is... you're probably right. I mean... I looked up Great Lakes and this is like 12 years older than Great Lakes. Christmas sale. And of course, a standout in the Christmas category in that it's not spiced or anything. It is an IPA. One of the first, really. One of the first IPAs. Yeah. Speaking of Anchor, I mean, it's pretty well established that Anchor Liberty Ale was essentially the first IPA. So this very much kind of in the same vein, why not celebrate with an IPA since it was the hot new style back in 1981. Wait, how old am I? Yeah, this was... Yeah, this beer is older than me. Crazy. Came out in the year of my birth. Great year. I know, I talked over Roger a lot and, you know, when people ask me what my favorite beer, what my favorite brewery is, I always go with something from Sierra Nevada, which obviously, Celebration Alley is from, or Great Lakes. Just these, you know, breweries that have been doing it for a long time and they're super consistent. I mean, this beer has been brewed for 42 years and it's great and we saw a ton of it and people love it. Yeah, and there's really something to be said for that. I mean, we get to try a lot. We're lucky in that we get to try a lot of great beers, but it may not be as kind of, you know, the thing that a lot of consumers think about. But something we always look at is that consistency, you know, to be able to have a great IPA and to have it taste the same every year. Being able to replicate that is no short task. And it's especially a big deal for celebration because this is actually a fresh hop beer. So they're heading out to Yakima to hand select the Centennial and the Cascade that goes into this. So they need to be able to pick these lots of those two hops and make sure that they're producing the same kind of aromas and flavors as they did in the past years. Yeah, it's very interesting. I was reading a little bit about the whole process earlier. And obviously, you know, white hopping like Roger said, they're using whole cone fresh hops. They get them in the kettle as fast as they can. But Sierra actually has a team of guys that go out to the Yakima Valley. And they're, you know, hand selecting the hops of this team. And it was interesting. They tried a batch of hops and some of the guys were like, these need to be on the vine for 12 more hours. So they came back the next morning. And, you know, I guess centennial hops are really finicky. When they're perfect, they have like a floral rose flavor and aroma. And, you know, if they're unripe, they're not good. And if they're on the vine for too long, they get oniony and garlicy, which I know, Roger, we've definitely experienced that. Oh, yeah. Big time flavor and beer. Simcoe is the exact same way. For years, I would pretty much avoid Simcoe. And you talk to the brewers that love it and they're like, oh, no, it's like the best hop ever. But again, it really depends on when it was picked, how fresh it is. And that's crazy that these they're so they're so fine tuned into this. I mean, they've literally been doing this for decades that they can try it and know, no, this needs one more day. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, most breweries, I would guess, are, you know, having hops overnighted from, you know, the Yakima Valley or wherever they're getting them from and not actually sending a team of people out to handpick and buy them and bring them back. Yeah, for the Chico batch, it's literally same day. That's pretty awesome. And then to get to the East Coast, it's still only like two days. So again, if you've never tried a wet hop or fresh hop beer, you're missing out. You know, most hops need to be dried right away to prevent them from going moldy. So there's this little window in the brewing world each year when they harvest hops, where breweries like to, especially ones in proximity of where they're grown, which is mainly in the Pacific Northwest, have a chance to pick these and then put them right into the beer without drying them first. So again, a fun thing that we always looked forward to each year and kind of an interesting late fall type thing, but again, really neat that celebration is thought of as this Christmassy beer. But again, a major standout. Don't let the poinsettias fool you. There's no ginger, orange peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, so many of the Christmas beers go that route. So if you're looking for something that's a little different. Yeah. Yeah, Kyle picked a great one. All right. Cool. Great pick, Kyle. I would demand to have one of these open right now, except we just had it a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, it's pretty fantastic beer. What's fun to see lately is that I think people are maybe getting a little tired of hazy IPAs and there's people that have never really tried West Coast IPAs. That term means a lot of different things is what makes it a little confusing, especially for us industry veterans that have been drinking these for a long time. What people talk about when they say West Coast IPA now is sometimes a beer that has very little malt character and kind of the differentiating factor is just that it's not hazy and it doesn't have wheat or oats in it. That's not a West Coast IPA. That's just an IPA. Right. Yeah. Celebration has this beautiful red color and you don't see a lot of IPAs that have that color nowadays. And it's 65 IBUs. So, I mean, that's double what a lot of pale ales and IPAs are. So, it needs that malt character to balance that out. So, this is if you're curious about West Coast style IPAs, and we've often laughed that sometimes people want to try a West Coast, and then they want it from a local brewery. Like, we get it. You want really fresh beer. But trust us, companies like Sierra Nevada, their process is so good that you crack open a celebration, and it's still going to taste great even after two-and-a-half months. That's how great their process is. It's still going to be a phenomenal beer. So, if you want a West Coast from the West Coast, that's another great reason to try Celebration. Sweet. All right. Thanks, Kyle. Thanks, Kyle. Good choice. Yeah, Roger. I have the sausage wreaths here on authors there. Yeah. I might actually make one of those this year, and if I'm going to bother to make one, I will probably won't be that hard to make too. If you go to the Sierra Nevada website, they have a recipe for a sausage wreath with Sierra Nevada Celebration cheese sauce. It looks pretty awesome. Okay. All right. That explains that. Greg, you can make it with that alternative Beyond Meat thing. Probably. Probably could. Sausage wreaths, beer cheese. You like cheese. You like Celebration. I like all of these things. All right. Bye, guys. Thank you. Bye. Hey, so those have been some pretty damn good picks so far from our buying team, our crack buying team. Actually, that came out wrong. Our alcohol buying team. It all depends on where the punctuation is. So Brett's in the room with us now. Welcome back to Barrel to Bottle. Brett, always a pleasure. Thank you. Glad to be here. As usual, we are bothering you this time of the year for what your buyer's pick of the year is. Brett Pontani, is it now 29 years at Binny's Beverage Depot, 30 years? 30 years and about a month. That's awesome. So Brett's been our specialty spirits buyer for many years now. Brett, what is your pick of the year for 2023? My pick of the year for 2023 is New Scotch. New Scotch? We've got a lot of those. You're going to have to be more specific. Well, I hesitate to pick a favorite because I happen to like them all very much. We are being brought about New Scotch. I like this. This is a sneaky way to have 12 things instead of one. This is exactly 12 things. But it is because New Scotch, there's a lot of excitement because for a long time, the Scotch business expansion, the Scotch business was traditional distilleries reopening. If distilleries were opened in Scotland, they were usually built as malt factories just to provide extra weight for Johnny Walker and Dewar's and J&B and all the- Things like Dow Munich. Dow Munich, exactly. All the big. Dow Munich, Rizal, all those places were open. Elsa Bay, within. There was always expansion going on in the Scotch business, but it was always purpose built to provide malt for large blends. Then all of a sudden, you started having facilities being built like Lock Lee, like Arden American, like Torvig on Sky, which are a long time. Lindores Abbey and- Clydeside. Clydeside. We've seen so many new ones. King's Barns in Fife. Glasgow. Aberargie in Fife. So all of the Glasgow distillery close to Clydeside. And now, Nakhneen, the borders. Even Tay, it's a single malt distillery, The Lakes in Northern England, just over the Scottish border. So all these things were being built. And our experience for other, it seemed to be there was one distillery in particular, which now is making incredible whiskey. But when they first started releasing whiskey about 15 years ago, it was quite honestly not very good. Brett's talking about it. And there's always some worry there that these guys are going to get product out. And because it's not going to be what we would think of a traditional age statement of 10 or 12 years old, that it wasn't going to be good. And then all of a sudden, Ardnamurkin gets released and Torvegg gets released and Locklee gets released and Stopcross, which is Clydeside, gets released. And then we get the Lakes Whiskey get released. We get a chance to try some new make from the Borders Distillery, which isn't quite legal yet. Lindores is here now. Lindores Abbey starts to get released. Kingsbarns, Nochnene, we just had Annabella in there a couple of weeks ago. Arbeeky is here, right? Arbeeky is just here. And Inch Derny is going to be coming in the next year. Inch Derny is on the way, yep. So, and they are all really good. And they are all very distinctive. They are not following a certain model. You know, we just, we recently spoke to John Campbell, the master, long time master distiller and distillery manager LaFroy, who has moved from the most intense forward whiskey in existence to a delicate, fruity, complex, beautiful whiskey grown on the Air Peninsula called Lockley, you know, and doing seasonal. And then Lockley is just, it's stunning. You know, we have a single Barrel of Ardnamerk incoming. You know, we've had the same discussion with Tor Vag. It just, New Scotch in general is exciting. And the benefit, I think, to that, we hope to have TTB rules around American single malt very soon. And I think this is a great marker to remind our American single malt producers that you can make excellent malt whisky, aged correctly, very complex, at relatively young ages, if you're very careful about your craft. Some of these whiskeys you've named are in the four to five and a half year old range. And none of them would I guess, if I tasted any of those blind, would I guess is that young. They are all drinking, correct. They are all drinking on their years and I think I attribute a big part of that to how they manage marrying different styles of casks and the maturation and it's been huge for them. It's not just making a new make, putting it in a used bourbon barrel and hoping for the best four years later. Right. They do, they're doing, they're very thoughtful. I think Jim Swan of course, as we all know, had a lot to do with that. We're sort of pushing forward and championing the idea that you make your distillate as you're going to make your distillate and you match your wood to your distillate. You don't decide what kind of wood you're going to do and then put whatever in it. Yeah. You have to be very thoughtful about combining the two because so much work goes into the production process just to get the liquid to be in the exact right state that you really don't want to mess it up by mismatching it with the wood. And that's the great fear amongst the other things amongst American single malt. One of the great fears is there are rumors that at the last minute a couple of large bourbon production companies who have quite frankly failed attempts at releasing single malt into the market have decided to intervene in the with TTB and ASM and push and cajole and maybe even demand that the rules of American single malt follow that of bourbon and rye in that forcing and making it making it the law that you have to use new cooperage. That would be a brand new chart oak tragedy. Which is basically for all intents and purposes would just destroy the category. There would be no point in having American single malt if those were the rules because malt distillate just doesn't like new wood that much. So all it would be is soft benign bourbon. That's not the purpose of creating that category. We have so many talented distillers, craft distillers in the United States that have been making in some level a defiance of current rules about putting malt on the label, have been using used cooperage, and the results have been stunning. I mean, it is good as what you'd expect to try from a mature distillery in Scotland or Ireland or now India or Japan or France. Taiwan. You know, Taiwan, Australia. So we've got all these countries that are following these traditions extremely well, making excellent liquid, and you got, you know, the TTB and Big Bourbon companies mucking it up in the United States. I wholeheartedly agree. We're still holding out hope for the American Single Malt Coalition Society, whatever they're calling themselves. Yeah, committee. Committee to get the right set of rules placed. But Young Scotch, Brett's pick of the year in the meantime, I wholeheartedly agree that we've had some real stunners this year. We didn't even mention the Isle of Harris whiskey. Right. Another great one. Just brand new. Just the Isle of Harris just hit the shelf. As I said, I apologize. It's sort of like thanking friends and family when you win an award, and apologizing ahead of time for forgetting one. But it's- Because there's a good possibility there might be somebody that just for this- But you're right though. In my time in this business, I don't remember a time when we've had so many new exciting distilleries come out with such high quality product in such a short period of time. So we'll take the liberty of picking a few of them to put on the graphic on the podcast for you. But listeners, talk to the people at your local Binny's, talk to the spirit specialists in the aisles. They're excited about these because we're excited about these. Check them out. They're awesome and they're reasonably priced too overall. You're not paying more than $100 for these things. Whereas there are bourbon companies out there asking you for $200 for four-year-old juice now, which is just outrageous. But it was finished in Amparana. Oh, yeah. All right, Brett, thanks for your time. Thank you very much for having me. All right, on to the next one. All right, carrying on with buyer picks. We've got cigar buyer Jack in the room. Jack, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for having me back. Yeah, we love cigar podcasts, and that's why we only do them once every three years. It's out of respect for my time. Yeah, really. We understand that you have a job to do. So all these other schlubs, you know. So typical is every other year. We want to know what your picks of the year are. Sometimes you've had accessories of them, too. Do you have a value pick? Was there maybe something that you could only get at Binny's in Illinois or something? What's your pick of the year, Jack? So this year, unlike other years, it was really difficult with the amount of stuff that was brought to the market, the amount of things that were coming back. But I thought I'd be in poor taste to pick something I developed myself as my main pick. That's an Alicia pick. That's what we refer to those as here. There may be an honorable mention for that. But no, the cigar that I'm going with this year is from a company called Lost & Found, and the cigar is called Cream Machine. Cream Machine. Cream Machine. Nice. Tell me about this cigar. So Lost & Found was a side project from a guy named Robert Caldwell, and his main company down and back does Blind Man's Bluff, Long Live the King. It had kind of core sets of lines. And with the Lost & Found project, what he would do is he would go into aging rooms all over the Dominican, Nicaragua, and he'd find cigars that were wrapped ready to go, but didn't have a home. And he would buy up those cigars and put some branding on them and put them out in unique packages. What ended up happening is a lot of those unique cigars that people fell in love with were limited editions. So he decided to go ahead and start making them full time production. And Lost & Found is now taking on a life of its own with regular production. And once he was able to do that, we were able to dip our toe in and kind of start bringing in some of those Lost & Found cigars. Cream Machine, huh? Cream Machine. Originally it came in an orange package and it looked like a popsicle. The best popsicle. Big dreamsicle guy. Big dreamsicle. Yeah. Cream Machine here. Tell me about the cigars. Is this available in one size or multiple sizes? So we're going to have two sizes on the cigar. There's the Corona Extra and the Toro size. You're going to find them at most Binny's. I think we put them out just about every walk in humidor at this point. The preferred size for me is the Corona Extra. I think it doesn't get enough love. That smaller ring gauge really lets you taste the Brazilian wrapper on it. Yeah, you're tasting more wrapper with a smaller ring gauge. And that's kind of gotten, we've seen these ludicrously stupid ring gauge cigars come around and yeah, they're a fun novelty. But if you actually want to taste what you're smoking, you want to go for a smaller ring gauge. Yeah, most cigar smokers who have been smoking for a very long time will tell you the smaller the ring gauge, the more that wrapper that really is key. And you know, I've always been a big fan of Brazilian tobacco. It's got kind of an inherent sweetness, which really adds to the cream machine. I mean, the main notes that I kind of get out of it while smoking were, you know, like a black pepper spice with a hint of orange zest. So it started out really black pepper forward, and then the creaminess comes in. And about middle of the stick, you start to really get that cream with that orange zest. It really does give you that dreamsicle kind of vibe. So available at Most Binny's. What's our price on these sticks? So the Corona Extra is going to set you back $13.75 a stick and the Toro $15.95, but they're 10 count boxes. So you're looking at a box price of like $123.75 for the Corona Extra, and then $143.55 for the Toro. Kind of makes a great gift as a 10 count. The 10 count box is a lot more digestible. Yeah, yeah. You don't feel like you're getting bored after a couple of weeks. Exactly. It allows you to change it up a little bit. All right, cool. Then I have to throw in the honorable mention for the cigar that- Yeah, let's hear it. The cigar that took me forever to bring to market, and that's our exclusive Lakeshore Drive. Okay. We started working on this project. Is this part of Four Star Society or this is an offshoot? This is not at all. This is a wholly unique project, and the conversations about the cigar started about two and a half years ago. I sat down with Alec Rubin from Alec Bradley at the time, and I believe I brought him by to sample some stuff. I definitely. He's tasted a lot of whisky in my office. Yeah. He's got a good palate. No, he's a good guy. So Alec was really the blending hand of the brothers. So Bradley did a lot of the marketing side, Alec did a lot of the blending side. I talked to Alec about wanting to do something that honored Lakeshore Drive, because it's an iconic road. It's perfect for us being a Chicago-based company to just do something unique. And the only licensed piece of music we ever use on this podcast. So having said that, it all kind of tied in together. But really, I wanted to kind of evoke emotions with the cigar. Like what it's like to drive down Lakeshore on just like a nice fall evening, or even in the summertime when it's nice. And there's nothing like summertime Chicago. So I sent Alec out and told him this is what I want and gave him a couple ideas for blending. And then we bounced back and forth with different blends for probably about a year. And yeah, we're taking this seriously. We're not just taking the first thing they throw. No, absolutely not. If I told you how many first things I've just gone, you know, I mean, you know what it's like when the first offers like, you don't really believe in that problem. So so we worked on it together and we got Bradley involved with the marketing. So the box is actually really attractive, really unique for the bands. We used a street sign that you would see off of the highway exit on Lakeshore Drive with Alec Bradley's logo. But I want to make it approachable. A lot of the cigars and things that we work on internally, I don't want to go over the top to the point where only a certain type of customer would like. I want to make the cigars from the masses. So we really targeted that medium strength profile with notes of dark brewed coffee, dark roasted coffee, some roasted nuts in there too. And listen to that hint of black pepper. Probably goes great with bourbon. Goes phenomenal with bourbon. It definitely does. And this is probably just one size then I would assume. We actually did two sizes. Really? Oh, cool. We did a Toro size and then we also did a Gordo for that slightly larger ring gauge. The blend that Alec had developed, it just lended itself to both sizes. What kind of wrappers on these? So this is a Honduran wrapper from a specific place in Honduras that he dug up and will not share with me. He is trying to keep a little bit close to the vest, but yeah, it's a great medium body approachable stick for everybody, especially if you're a huge bourbon fan and you want to try smoking with it. I mean, yeah, those guys are big bourbon fans themselves and Scotch fans, et cetera. Like they're they are the guys who run that company are whiskey nerds. And so I could definitely see a lot of the stuff they do having a purpose like that. You know, we worked on the scar. We got to a certain point. And then out of the blue earlier this year, they got bought out and they got bought out by a company called STG Swedish Match. So it kind of set back our private label a little bit to when we could bring it to market. We really wanted it for the summer. But unfortunately, we just got it in October. OK. But having said that. Hey, it's here now. It's here now. It's once again, approachable price point. We don't want anybody to feel like they can't purchase a cigar for a good price. So you're getting a high quality stick at $9.95 for the Toro, $10.75 for the Gordo. Under $10 for a Toro from Alec Bradley is pretty good. Pretty damn good price. These days, being able to be under $10 and just about anything is difficult. Yeah. The price of tobacco. I was just discussing this with people earlier this morning, that the price of raw goods have jumped so high from Ecuador. I mean, they had a horrible crop this year, so. OK, so that's more of an agronomical thing. I know there's been some political instability in. Nicaragua. Yeah, Nicaragua. I know that's hurt a few cigar manufacturers. It's definitely a combination of political instability and then just a bad crop. And a bad crop, I think it was a year ago, maybe two years ago when we saw that hurricane through Honduras. Once a crop gets wiped out, you tend to see those effects, especially with cigars, two, three, four years down the line. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's an agricultural product, but it does take a couple of years to get to market. Absolutely. But yeah, killer price point for a single. And then these are actually the opposite of those 10 count boxes. These are 24 count boxes. So Alec Bradley shifted everything into 24 count boxes. And we went along with them. Toro Box will set you back $214.95 and a Gordo Box $231.95. But you'll have plenty for all the neighbors. Yeah, yeah. I like the effort to sell cigars by the box here. I don't see a lot of that personally, but I don't spend a lot of time in our humidor. So a beautiful thing for us is, you know, if you're buying a single stick, it's the mark price on the shelf. And if you go to buy a box, I'm not saying it's 10% off for the box price. You're actually saving money if there is a single cigar that you want to continually smoke. Yeah. So, you know, outside of our five or 15% off months, it's a it's a good way to to fill up your humidor with, you know, whether it be bundles or whether it be boxes. We're for sure that so nice. All right. Thanks, Jack. Yeah. Thank you. Got anything else you want to talk about? Last thing I got is the Calibri Four Star Collection set. A couple of years back, we made a four star cutter that was just a straight cut. And at that time, I really, really wanted to do the Calibri V cut for our our four star line. So we have a new set that's available. It's an EVO lighter that's got the Chicago flag printed on it, as well as a V cut. I do love a V cut. Our Calibri V cut has been one of our top selling cutters for three or four years now. The action's great, everything. And this set, normal MSRP, if you were to buy it from anywhere else, anywhere else with just a regular finish, we'd probably run you around $120. We were able to beat Calibri up a little bit with our purchasing. So our price on the shelf is $69.95. Nice for a high quality lighter and a cutter that's going to stay sharp for a long time. It's going to give you the best fee cut you've ever seen. Costs from Chicago flag branding on it. That's pretty cool. Yeah. 70 bucks. Well worth it. And then, you know, December holiday times come around. You never know if it might be a little bit cheaper. Good quality cigar cutter, kind of the underrepresented MVP of a quality cigar smoke, in my opinion. It's just once you start using a good cutter versus just the cheap throw away two, three, four dollar ones, the plastic ones, it really is a game changer. What it actually what a difference a good cutter make. It'll it'll change your entire experience. You're going to spend X amount of dollars on a cigar. Why not treat that cigar with respect and get yourself a really good cutter? And a lot of times customers will tell me, hey, if I get a cheap cutter, I lose it. I don't worry about it. I go, but if you get one nice cutter, you're not going to lose. Yeah. Right. Obviously, I on this podcast, I have a history of defending five and six dollar vermouth, but I'm not just going to throw five and six dollar vermouth into hundred dollar bourbon if I'm making a cocktail with it. Right. Exactly. You know, match your level of quality there. All right, Jack. Thanks a lot, man. We appreciate your time. Hopefully, we get another cigar episode in before we have to do this again next year. I'm game. So let's have some fun. All right. We'll see you next time, Jack. Thanks. Thank you. Hey, we're back. We are back, our top buyer's picks of 2023. I don't know why I'm introducing it, because you've been listening this whole time, but we just got back in the room. And in the room with us today, half of our wine buying team, what percentage of our wine buying team are you guys? 40%? Yeah, probably about right. In terms of bodies, but not in terms of brain power. We have a tremendous amount of the wine buying team right in this room with us right now. Thank you, Greg. Very nice. Mike, Mark. Wait, 40% of the bodies and 30% of the brain power? You're doing the math, not me, Chris. All right. We once again tasked you with the very difficult process of finding your favorite product of the year. This has been a huge year. Mike, you do a lot of Binny's Vineyard Direct stuff. I do. Which I think is a stunning program. I am proud of basically every bottle that you've put out, except for the one. You know which one I'm talking about? Yes. Yes, I do. So big year for you. What do you got for us? Well, there was a lot of new entries this year. The one that we're going to talk about today was really a find, a really good find. It came to us about the middle of summer. One area we were lacking in as far as our Vineyard Direct program was France. One of the targets we really wanted to get into was Côte d'Ironde. We tried a few of them, a few came our way sample-wise, and none of them really fit the bill or met the requirements we were looking for. But the one today we're going to talk about just checked all the boxes. To our surprise, it not only delivered, it over-delivered, way over-delivered for the value. I didn't know the price of these until well after I tried them, and I was shocked at how cheap they are. It was amazing. I had to keep asking the importer, are you sure? And he said, yes, absolutely. We want to do business with you guys. We love you. And we feel this product is going to do very well in Binny's, and we can get you at this price. All right. That's what we do. We bring the savings. What is it? So today we have the Val de Garrigues Cote de Rhone Rouge. There's actually a white that we also got as well, but we'll talk about that later. That one did very well, but we did unfortunately sell out. But today we're talking about the Val de Garrigues Cote de Rhone Rouge. This comes way of the winery Guillaume Gonnet, who is- Wait a minute, Chris, you know that winery? Guillaume Gonnet, everyone knows that winery. It's a household name in France. Okay. Really? I'm just making that up. No, okay. Well, in case you don't know, he is a third generation winemaker that he and his current wife, or he is currently taken over from his family with his wife, who's from Australia, named Kelly. As a matter of fact, this year they landed their Chateauneuf de Pop in the top 100 of the Wine Spectator. Nice. So these guys- When are we going to get a Chateauneuf de Pop? That's- Seriously? On the table. All right. Next year though. Very exciting. Next year though. It is exciting because this is absolutely at the top of my value list this year. I was blown away by both of these wines. So Val de Garrigues, Côte d'Irène, like red and white, you brought the red. This is like prototypical Côte d'Irène. Absolutely. It's like a little gamey. It's also very easy to drink at the same time. It's loaded with spice and herbs. Yes. It's 80 percent Grenache and 20 percent Syrah. It was vinified in concrete. So you get, it's just a very easy drink. It's clean. I think it's just a great expression of Côte d'Irène. Again, at $7.99, you're just not going to find any better value than that anywhere. Yeah. This is literally a buy it buy the case kind of wine. Oh, no question. Especially with our buy six save $10 promotion. It's not an invitation for you to shill. Yes, you are correct. At $7.99, you buy a case. Please buy lots. You get an additional 20 bucks off if you buy 12 bottles. You're assuming it needs an invitation. No invitation required. But this is so good. So it would be good with dinner, but also I think anything that you need, like an unpretentious bottle of red for. Yeah. This is a great party wine, and Sangria wine. Yeah. In the summer, I would think burgers for sure. But this could easily transition into something much, much classier, duck. You could add mulling spices. I think that the flavors of mulling spice are already here. Yeah. So it would accentuate. It would make a really good Christmas-y kind of. I get a lot of clove out of it today. Personally, I would have it with pizza, but that's me. The pizza gets here after you leave. But I think it's an easy drink. It's going to pair well with just about anything or just serve it at your party. It's going to be a crowd-pleasing red wine. We're sipping the red white now. I took a bottle of the red and white home, and Mrs. Versch was delighted by them and shocked at the price. And I really love the white. We were shocked, too, at how well it did. Not that it wasn't a good wine. We all knew it was a good wine. But as we've talked about, round whites versus reds, it's a smaller piece of the overall business. We brought in about, of the full container we brought in, it was about 20% of the container, and it just blew out the doors. Because it's no idea. Awesome. I think it transcends French wine. I think people are looking for a great, easy, inexpensive white wine. Absolutely. So it's coming back next year, please. It is coming back next year. It'll be here early part of next year, just in time for spring, and we will have plenty this time around. We're going to shout it from the rooftops when it hits, because you can't sleep on this. Yeah, I agree. That wine blew my mind. At $7.99, it's just ridiculous. It has everything you want from O'Grone White. I mean, you can't touch it, price-wise. Like I said, I had to ask the importer a number of times, are you sure? This is our price, our final cost. You know there's 12 bottles in there, right? Good point. It's all three packs. All right. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Enjoy. Keep bringing us the good stuff. Mark. How you doing, buddy? I'm good. Enjoying the Côte d'Irène over here. My bottle is currently chilling. As the champagne buyer, I get to try a lot of really cool stuff. You do have a cool job. It's a pretty cool category, no doubt. This year, there has been more wine available, which is nice. So, I went with the Rouenart Rosé this year. So, it's not an everyday wine for everyone. It's, you know, special events. Yeah, but this is your wine of the year. Right. Exactly. And we are approaching Christmas and New Year's. Right. Okay, Jim, just go for the bottle in here. All right. Fabulous champagne house. Very, very old champagne house. Rouenart. Isn't it the oldest? The oldest. The oldest champagne house? I believe so. 1729. Yep. Good call, Chris. Now, this is one of my, this has always been one of my top, one of my go-tos and top favorite champagne houses. Not go-tos anymore, it's a little pricier, but worth the price. Yeah. The Rosé is fantastic, but the Blanc de Blanc is also an amazing product. And if you ever are lucky enough to drink a bottle of Dom Rouenart, Dom Perignon is not the only Dom in town. Dom Rouenart is phenomenal. Yeah, and there is a bit of that in stores. So it's not in every store, but, you know, beyond the lookout. We've got 750s in large formats of that as well. Quite literally worth hunting down. All right. So we're passing around the Rouenart Champagne Rosé. This is non-vintage, right? Yep. Correct. Is Dom Rouenart vintage or is that also an vintage? Yeah. We should have some 2007 and 2006 in the chain. But getting back to this, this is Blend 55% Pinot, 45 Chard. It's a blend of 30 to 40 Cruz, Asian sellers, two to three years and eight grams per liter dosage. So it falls right into the brute category. They're like, no way, Mounier. No way, Mounier. That's a nerdy joke. And probably, Mark, right, about maybe 10 to 15 percent is still red wine. Correct. That is added to make this beautiful rosé. Is that a standard practice? It is a standard practice indeed. Yeah. Blending of red wine to make rosé is the classic way to do it in champagne, although you can use the Sainte method where you bleed, have some skin contact and bleed off. I was waiting for one of us to say Sainte. Sainte. Yeah. This is really elegant. It smells perfumed. It smells alive. It smells really classy. I think it's rich. It's voluptuous. I get lots and lots of fruit on this. Really nice. Toast too. Completely reloaded with red berry fruit. It's all over the place. It's delicious. Yeah. But I mean, it also has this bready lift too. If you like, I don't know, some of my favorites are the really robust, almost caramely sometimes. This has some of that along with the fruit. It's really a crowd pleaser. This is a brute, but it doesn't strike me as absolutely bone dry. No. It would be fantastic if you were to make a strawberry shortcake and very judiciously use sugar on your strawberries, this pairing would blow minds, guaranteed. Chris, your mission is to bring in a strawberry shortcake. Yeah. Where do we get some strawberry shortcakes this time of year? Let's wait until strawberry season. This is really nice. I really like that it's, to Mark's point, it is rich but it's very bright and fruity and just has everything going on, very easy to drink and delicious. The other thing I'd say is, champagne is such a great food wine and people miss the opportunity to pair champagne because they think of it as a celebratory toasting drink. I mean, you put this with ducal or orange or even a filet, a beef filet, it'd be fantastic. Rosé is a great way if you're doing surf and turf, you can bridge the gap between these two completely disparate dishes, buttery sweet lobster and rich nutty beefy filet or whatever with champagne. And no better way than Rosé and certainly a robust one like this. My lunch was way too small for this. Also, if Alicia was here, she would be asking if we could get fried chicken. Yes, she would. In fact, I just saw an email asking for a fried chicken. She always wants fried chicken. Did you see that? Yeah. Of course. This is awesome. Duck too. Yeah, excellent. I mean, we're just by itself. I mean, this is stand alone. It's delicious on its own. You could enjoy a bottle of Ruin Art Rosé with a bottle of Ruin Art Rosé. Yeah. Where's friend Blanc to Blanc? All right. That's usually the trio I'm hanging out with. I don't want to have friends. All right. You guys, these are both excellent picks, kind of from opposite ends of the spectrum. You want a $7 world class red wine, we got it. You want a great price on a phenomenal rosé champagne, we got it. Thank you, gentlemen. You're welcome. Really good picks. Thank you, Mark, Mike. You're welcome. So, hey, thanks for sticking around for this episode of Barrel to Bottle, running through the buyer's picks for 2023. I had a blast. Did you guys have a good time? Yeah, I think our picks are gonna be better, though. We'll have to wait and see. Did you guys know that Roger was on this one? What? He was, he was on this one. Shut up. No. And we didn't take a minute to say it for Roger. Maybe because we didn't have figs and cheeses on this one. It's true. So we really had no reason to talk to Roger. We're back next week with the Barrel to Bottle Crew's picks. You guys ready? You got your stuff picked out? No. I am very excited for mine. Yeah, she won't stop talking about it. And I'm going to get to hear about it in like 10 minutes, but listener, you're going to have to wait a week. So tune in next week. Back with our picks. See you then. Lock Lee, Gardner Merkin, Torvay, Lindores Abbey, Blythe Side, King's Barns, Aberargy, Nockneen, The Lakes, Stop Cross, Arbiki, Inch Derny. Podcasts Shows barrel-to-bottle-the-binnys-podcast Binny's Buyers' Picks 2023 Copyright © 2025 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of ServicePrivacy PolicyContact UsResources and Help