00:00 Introduction Pop that, pop and pass, let's start with that. Right in front of the microphone. Alrighty. Do we want to actually have some of the pop, or do we want to open it the way I'm supposed to open it? Make a little bit, yeah. Don't do it, don't do it pro. Okay, yeah. Do it amateur. Hey. Hello. That's what we get for popping. Really enthusiastically popped it all over the table. Well, we're starting off this episode with paper towels. Oh, pop. It's a wine episode. You're listening to Barrel the Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, and I am Greg, and I'm excited to be here to try some of our staff's favorite wines of the year, easiest to recommend. It's the 50 under 50 list. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. I'm Ray, I'm part of the wine team up here at Lincolnwood. I'm Lexi, I'm on socials. And first time on the show. I am Drew, I am the wine manager at Bucktown. You gotta carry a heavy load with this episode. You realize that, right? I got you. All right, thank you. All right, we popped the champagne and we are passing it around. And as we do, 50 under 50. I'm gonna tease him. Drew, did you make any of your picks make the list? No. No, sadly no. Welcome to the show. Yep, thank you. Thank you. I'll try not to talk too much. How many wines did your team pop to get to your final selections? We had everyone on the team pick one, so we tasted seven and picked two from that to recommend. We were trying to do the math and I think we definitely lowballed it. But we have 46 locations at Binny's Beverage Depot. Every store has a wine department. We have a buying team also. So we put over 100 wine pros, voted and weighed in. But I think it's more than that. I think it's several hundred people participated in this. Everybody brought their pick and you tasted blind among. That's correct. So yeah, everybody nominated a bottle. We opened them up on a Wednesday when everyone was in, tasted through and let democracy prevail. The two top vote getters. Everyone voted for their top three at our store at least. So top pick got three points, second two and third one. At 46 stores among hundreds of bottles, we've honed it down to Binny's Beverage Depot 2025, 50 wines under $50. And we're going to taste some of our highlights and give props to the people who chose them and we're going to make our recommendations what we like. 2:37 Grower Champagne And we're starting off with this champagne. What is this? So the champagne we have here is a Grower Champagne. This is the Pertois Moriset, the La Semblage. So this is a blend of different sites from the Coteau Cézannet where we find some really high quality Chardonnay in the region. And this is going to be a 50-50 blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The words on the label scramble my brain and I can't even comprehend what it's trying to tell me. Le Semblage I get, but what is that? Ray, what is that? For those of you that can't see on the podcast, I'm pointing to the bottom of the label. Coteau? It's the part of champagne that this bottle is from. All right. And it smells great. You said a phrase, Grower's Champagne. What does that mean? So there are kind of, there's a lot of different ways that you can make champagne. The bigger houses that we are really used to, you know, your Vouvclicots, your Moët de Chandon, those are what we call houses of champagne. So those are going to be Negotion Manipulante, or NM as you'll see on the label. We also have some smaller producers who kind of maintain the production from growing the grapes to what gets out in the bottle all on their own. And so these people are growing the fruit, harvesting themselves, vinifying the wines themselves, bottling it and sending it on their own. So we call these Grower Champagnes. And if you ever see the two tiny letters on a bottle RM, that stands for Recoltant Manipulant, which is going to be kind of harvester maker. Kind of the difference being all done in one house and all from fruit that you're growing yourself or for those bigger houses, again, those Negociants, buying fruit from a lot of different growers in the region to make their blend consistent every Ray, were you pointing at the RM on the label? Yeah, so every bottle of champagne will have these initials on the label somewhere, usually on the back label and usually very tiny type. This one is even, this one is not only tiny, but it's almost invisible. They used the lightest gray ink on beige. This is gray and it's in one point font. Yeah, it's not only a fantastic wine, it's a vision test. On the bottom there? Kind of, yeah. It's like they camouflaged it. You know the thing about the sulfites is... Yeah, right, right? Right. It is strange that the grower champagne category has exploded in, not just popularity, but at least people being aware of what it is now. It's still a niche product. But yeah, you would think they would do a better job of promoting it than just having these super tiny letters on the back labels. Seriously. This guy clocks in at $45.99 regular price. It's gonna be on sale. $44.99 as we run this over the holiday season. But this is freaking awesome. And if this came from a big house, I think that it would have some like tacky gold foil print on the label and it would cost $80. Am I wrong? Yeah, I think the value here is incredible. If you're used to drinking your Vuv Clicquot and your Moet, I think this is a really impressive bottle for the price here. There's a lot of kind of crisp, clean freshness to this. Get that kind of classic green apple here from the Chardonnay and a little depth and body from the Pinot Noir. It's like an all rounder champagne. It has toast too. It has the fruit. It has just a tiny hint of sweetness and it has like reasonable acidity. Pair it with anything. The bubbles are, they come and go. It's not overwhelming. And then the toastiness and the fruit, the balance of it, I know that word salad, but it's really good. Yeah. It's not super bready, which is kind of nice. Yeah. This doesn't see extended lees aging. So aging on the yeast cells during fermentation or after the fermentation to kind of give it that toasty brioche notes. This spends about 20 months on the lees, whereas a lot of champagnes, especially your vintage champagnes, are going to see significantly more time in picking up more of those autolytic notes. Ray, word in edgewise. Yeah. I would just say that also helps keep the price down. And these days, even with this not being on sale, to have champagne under 50 bucks is becoming rarer, rarer in these days, especially one of this quality. It's not too serious too. Yeah. I think this is a great option for, you know, if you've got some serious wine drinkers and then some people who aren't as into it, they just want something sparkly. This is a crowd-pleaser. This is going to be something that everybody can enjoy, but it's still high quality. This one was picked by Tom at our Portage Park location. Excellent call, Tom. I will note as well, this producer makes another bottle that is just over $50, which I think is spectacular and possibly the best value we have in champagne in the stores right now. And that is the Cat's Terroir, the Four Terroirs from Peituan Morite. Yeah, that's fantastic. And I don't know if you remember this, Lexi, but you actually have had that bottle. Oh, there we go. Do you remember the NASCAR party that... Yes. Yes, so I brought that. I had never had that wine before, and I actually brought that. Dang, okay. I remember there being good wines there. Nothing says NASCAR party like affordable champagne. That's correct. Of course. In a luxury apartment high above the sea like that. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so you got a rave option for it without even knowing. That's good stuff. Awesome. 7:54 White Wine Picks What's next? What is next? We got the Alsace. This clocking in at the most affordable of the seven that we're going to taste today. And what price is that? 13.99. So this is a classic white blend from Alsace. So we're in the northeast part of France that has changed hands between France and Germany over time many times throughout history. So there's a pretty big influence from both of those cultures, great gastronomy and food in the region as well. But kind of a blend here, we've got 30% Sylvanner, 30 Pinot Blanc, 20 Riesling, 10 Muscat, and then five each of Pinot Gris and Gewürztrami. Domaine Kuntz-Bass? I was editing Chris's copy that we put in the insert. I took out the word Edelsweiker, because I don't know that like your newspaper reader needs the word Edelsweiker. Yeah. So your Edelsweiker and your Genteel are going to be kind of two names that the folks in the region give for their white blends that use a lot of the approved grapes. OK. This is maybe going to be like Nails on a Chalkboard to my wine people, but this tastes like delicious green grapes. Which I know. But when you get grocery store grapes, this is like, I don't know. I will say. But like a fun version. Extra peels and seeds. Yeah. Muscat, one of the grape varieties in this, is one of the few grape varieties we use in wine that to me always tastes like grapes. It's the grape-iest grapes. Yeah. It's the very grapey grapes. OK. But it's not just that. It's melons and pears, too. Yeah. And a lick of lime peel. This is unusual in that, especially for this blend in 2024, that has 30 percent sylvaner in it. And it gives it kind of this crunchiness to it. Is that like the acidity? Yeah, kind of. It's kind of like a hard minerality. It just gives it kind of like some texture. It's like something you can feel more than you can taste. Yeah. Sylvaner grape variety. We don't see too much in Alsatian blends, although we've been seeing a little more recently. It was allowed to be in one of the Grand Cru wines over there. Historically, that's been Riesling, Pinot Gris, Gewurzterminer and Muscat, but now there is one Appalachian section within Alsace that is able to make a Grand Cru from Sylvaner. We also see this grape variety in Eastern Germany in Franken. Can I just say the obvious thing here? Thanksgiving wine. Oh, yeah. This is your turkey wine. The aromatics here, there's like an herbal note as well. This is checking a lot of boxes. Sometimes when I have these wines with Gewurzterminer and kind of these huge aromatics can almost come across as unfortunately soapy. This is really clean, really bright still. I think this is fantastic. I need like six bottles of this. How much was it again? And at the low, low price. The low, low price of, right now it's regularly $15.99. That's outrageous, right? Like your drinker of sweet Riesling's is going to love it. But you know, Drew's going to love it too. Yeah, it's a good kitchen sink wine that will provide something for everyone. And the tricky thing about Thanksgiving dinner is you always have so many different foods at the table that to find a wine that can go with almost anything. I don't know if you have prime rib. This this might not work as well. But who has prime rib on Thanksgiving, aside from me? Prime rib on Thanksgiving? Yeah, I stopped doing turkey for Thanksgiving. I like that idea. As a vegetarian, I still like that. Do you? Yeah. Okay. That one comes in from Emily in Montgomery. Excellent pick, Emily. Way to go, Em. Cool. Yeah, fantastic choice there, Emily. Next up, we have the most conventional wine of the day. We needed something that people could pronounce. So here's Chardonnay. Chardonnay. It's a Stag Leap Chardonnay. We have our- Is that Silver's or Winery? So this is Stags' Apostrophe Leap. Yes. As opposed to Stag Apostrophe's Leap. Yeah. And the 2023 here out of Napa Valley. It's two different wineries with the same name and also their name from the place. So good game, California. Trying to be as confusing as you ever were. And they were in litigation against each other for literally decades fighting over the name. And the resolution eventually was to put the S, the apostrophe after the S or before the S. And really nothing is more wine culture than, oh, confusing names. Confusing names, yeah. And something that seems to pop up everywhere. Okay. I like the style of Chardonnay. I do too. So this isn't usually my go-to style. Usually I'm looking for like really cool climate, bright, high-acid Chardonnay. But I think this is really walking a nice line between the richness that you can find in Napa and that freshness from some of those cooler sites. Doug teases me about how I used to be a wine person when I stopped being a wine person is when I just like came to accept the fact that I like this kind of blown out Chardonnay. It smells toasty. It smells vanilla. Yeah, certainly some of that oak influence coming in here. That's not over the top, though. It's not something that I find off putting. I don't typically love a ton of oak, but this, I would agree, walks the line of acceptability in my world, at least. There's plenty of fruit on the palate. Yeah, it's like lemon curd. It's like really kind of like custardy. Yeah. Peach pie. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should get a pie. All right. Who's on pie duty? This is good. Spice ball. You can trash it too if you don't like it. No, it's spicy, but it's not those butter bombs that I think a lot of people associate a Chardonnay, especially Chardonnay from Napa. This is balanced. This is restrained. What's the ABV on this? What are we looking at, Ray? I'm guessing 14.5%. Very close. 14.3. Nice. There's probably a 0.2 margin of error. Yeah, legally you can be within, I think, one and a half percent off in your labeling, but usually if they're throwing a 0.3 in there, they're meaning 0.3. Regularly $28.99. And right now, this holiday season at Binny's, $24.99. Nice. And this one came from Tim at Ehrlichton Heights. 14:29 Italian Reds No one's get back into esoteric stuff, huh? Yes, please. I pulled rank on this one. It wasn't going to be in the show, and then I wanted it in the show, the Tua Rita. Tua Rita Rosso dei Notri. What does that mean? The red of the- The north? I don't know. Or our red, I think. Is this from Maremma? Am I remembering that correctly? Yes, you are correct, Maremma. Southern Coast of Tuscany. Are they calling that on the label? Well, the winery is, the grapes might be a little farther from- Which is probably helping us keep this at a very nice price point. So that's part of what's unbelievable here. Yeah, it's Tuscana IGT, so they're probably pulling grapes in from around. Also, I'm reading off the sheet here. No, I mean, I know this right off the top of my head. 40% Merlot, 40% Cabernet, 10% Syrah, and 10% Cabernet Franc. And let me tell you something. That varietal breakdown does not taste like this in my mind. This is fresh purity of fruit. Pick up a little of those Barrel aging notes as well, just a touch of that vanilla. Definitely. Yeah. Like I would guess this is Beaujolais. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. I get like the leather and spice from the Syrah kind of towards the back end of it. I find it really stands out to, it's a counterpoint to all that lush fruit. I'm just going off in the nose. But yeah, I get a little bit of that kind of red fruit and herbal lift from the Cabernet Franc as well. You know what I would like someday? I would like to have a bunch of different grapes, just plain grapes, and you just try them individually, like made into wine, so you can kind of know. Oh, single varietal things? Yeah. So you can just do a big thing. You guys have done that, right? Like a blending seminar, that kind of thing? Yeah. We've done that. You should get in on it. Yeah, someone should let me know. Yeah, you just want like 100% mono-varietal. Yeah, I would like to know, like, I tend to like Pinot Noirs, but do I really? Or do I just like the five bottles that I like to buy? Well, the thing about Pinot Noir is it's almost always bottled by itself. It's very rarely blended. There's a couple of exceptions out there. They're purple. But yeah, when you buy Pinot Noir, typically, it's going to be 100% Pinot Noir, although there are some famous California examples that loves to add other. I'm sure it's sitting a little right at 75%. Add other varietals. I had this wildly eye-opening experience. It was hosted by Napa Valley Bintners on a trip out there. We went to a winery and they had different stations. And the stations were variables, right? So there was like one was four different, it was all Chardonnay. Four different clones of Chardonnay and from the same place. And then the next one was the same clone, but from different vineyard sites, one facing west and one facing east. And then one was various barrel finishing times. And I can't remember the others. And it's just like so many sliders, so many different individual sliders, this whole crazy mixing board or tool kit that wineries can use. And even just the subtle differences across a single varietal, it's so easy to get way too far up in your head, especially as you're like blind tasting or something like that, and you're over considering all of these things. And at the end of the day, it's grape juice, man. It's good. But yeah, there are so many choices. You know, it's obviously terroir is coming into play here, and you know, what is the fruit telling you? But then all the decisions you can make in the winery and in the finishing process, that aging process, to make so many unique wines, it's really a science and an art. We got to get you in one of those classes when the opportunity comes up so that you can educate. Yeah. That'd be lovely. Oh, and that's a reminder for everybody listening to go to binnys.com/events and check out all the amazing tastings we have going on all the time. So Tua Rita's pretty good, huh? Yeah, the tannin on this is perfectly dialed in. It's just enough to have that grippiness, but it's really kind of fine grained. It's not that coarse texture that you can sometimes get from some Tuscan reds. Yeah. So this is a great buy for someone that's looking to kick the tires on the category known as Super Tuscan. Super Tuscan. Big air quotes over the word super. What does that mean? It doesn't have a red cape. It basically means that they are making wine outside of the rules of the appellation that they're in. That's where the super comes from. So they have to like downgrade the rating or the labeling? Yeah, so this started out when they were making Sassicaia for the first time at Guadalajara. Guadalajara, yeah, Sassicaia was the progenitor, and then he had Ornelia come in. But they figured out that by planting and making wine from these Bordeaux varietals in Tuscany, they could make these really fantastic wines, but according to the laws of the DOCGs and DOCs in Italy, they weren't allowed to label it as anything other than Vino di Tabela, table wine. And so they needed another way to kind of get recognition for this, and the quality of the wine spoke for itself, and it opened up kind of a new bag, and eventually they actually got their own DOCG for one wine, Sassicaia DOCG. Sassicaia. That's one of my favorite things in the wine industry, is them bucking the rules of the region in order to create something new. And so I was talking to Barb about that once, and she's like, you know, those rules are there for a reason. They've been making wine there for thousands of years. Yeah, yeah. Regularly $20.99 on sale right now for a shockingly low $18.99. And that came from Taylor in Plainfield. Nice job, Taylor. All right, Taylor. Good call. 20:24 Australian Cabernet Next is the Felix. Ooh. I know, although I do sell a lot of this. I love this wine. I'm really a big proponent of the quality wines from Australia that we've been seeing in recent years. This wine coming from Margaret River in southwest Australia, fantastic region for both Cabernet and Chardonnay. We also do see some Riesling down there. But it's this area surrounded on three sides, is essentially by really cold ocean, which is going to kind of help us keep that freshness and acidity in the wine while still getting plenty of ripeness. I think the value here is outrageous. When people come to me asking for Cab under 25 bucks, oftentimes I'm going to Australia, sometimes South Africa rather than what we can find in California. Tricky conversation. You're like, well, we're standing here in the Cabernet Isle, but let's go on a hike. You can get them excited though. I mean, these are good wines with great value. And in fact, our Australian buyer who brought this in, he said that he's already bought a couple of cases of this, just his own personal use. Good scams. Well, and to be fair, they are six-pack, so it's not like they're six-pack cases. He's not taking too much work home with them. This smells very rich. Yeah. The intensity here, the ripeness of the fruit, the integration of the oak, kind of classic blackcurrant that we expect from Cabernet Sauvignon with that vanilla note. Also a touch of Malbec in here, which is interesting. So I think a little over 9% of Malbec, the Raspbian Cab. Raspberry confit and a slight reduction. I bet if we shook this, some bubbles would come out. You know what I'm saying? Not that that's a bad thing. Yeah, really nice tan in here too. There's only one way to find out. Shake it up. Cap it up, shake it up. This like many other, even some quality wines now from both Australia and New Zealand gonna be under screw cap here as well. So convenient. Yeah. So what's the point of doing this thing that we're doing? Check out how frothy it got. I think that there's a little bit too much sulfur trapped in the wine. Just letting it aerate a little bit. So you aerate it, yeah, yeah. So in the old days when everything was just under cork, you just have to pour it and say, oh, that'll blow off. It'll blow off. Just give it time. But fortunately with the invention of the Stelvin Closure, the screw cap, we can now just shake it up. Yeah, manhandle these wines. I remember having that conversation with a really rank bottle of Turley's in where everybody wanted it to be good, but it was so corked and it was like, everybody just put on blinders and pretended like it was going to blow off and be fine. And it's like, no, it's getting more worse. Yeah, well cork taint will not blow off. There's only one. It'll get worse. There's only one solution for cork taint and that is to take Saran Wrap and put it in the bottle and the THC molecules will bind to the plastic of the wrap and. TCA. You said THC. Oh. I was gonna say wait a minute. We are doing a lot of blind testings, but yeah. Sorry, the TCA, yes, I'm sorry. It's so wonderfully broad, too, this richness breadth. And it's only 20 bucks. It's only 20 bucks regularly? Yeah. That's outrageous. Yeah, I'm not always one for press, but this got 96 points for $19.99 on the shelves all day. We're gonna see, I'm sure, pricing at? $17.99. Coming into the holidays. Right. George, Downers Grove. Nice. Excellent. Absolute screaming value and really what this whole exercise is about is to suss out these gems that, you know, drink as well, if not better than wines that are two and three, maybe four times the price point. Yeah. I had no idea. This is a discovery for me. Yeah. And this wine, again, an example of not all wines under screw cap are bad. We still have to fight against this prejudice against these screw cap wines. Do you still find a lot of that? I do. Even in Bucktown? A little bit. Yeah. Some people, you know, if they're looking for that premium bottle, they're like, oh, but it's a screw cap. I'm like, yeah, it's great. And it's meant to drink young. You don't need to age this forever. Don't need to stand on ceremony. No. Crack it open, pour it down the hatch. Barolo, you like this one? I'm nervous about this. Yeah, Drew and I were talking a bit before we started. And yeah, we both said how much we this was one of our favorite lines. Yeah, this was in this whole line up. So this is the Damilano 2022 Barolo Lecinquevigne. So the five vineyards all southeast facing. So getting plenty of ripeness, but kind of a blend of different sites within Barolo. Again, 100% Nebbiolo here. Aged for a minimum of three years before release. So that's why we're seeing the 2020 vintage here. The deliciously generic label is tempered by the embossed glass of the bottle. Such a different color. Oh yeah. We're looking at brick with a edge of tan. Yeah, it's definitely got that garnet color that we would associate with a little bit of aged Nebbiolo here. So Nebbiolo kind of fun, a thinner skinned grape that tends to give these pale colored wines, but also incredible tannic structure. And especially Barolo kind of known as the King of Wines, the Wine of Kings. This is a big boy. So if you're looking for something to pair with your red meat over the holidays, something a little more substantial, this should be right up your alley. I thought it was more expensive. Isn't most Barolo like 60 or 80 bucks? A lot of them are these days, but there's some great value as well. Huh. It's good to know. Yeah. And yeah, when you get into the specific crew, specific vineyard sites within Barolo, that's where it really starts to jump. We've got some fantastic examples of Canoobi and some other sites in the cellars around the chain. Okay, this is rad. This is like dusty cherry. Yeah. And then the acidity is new, and it's on the sides of the palate, and it just makes everything uplifted and refreshing. What a lively wine. I like the dryness. Yeah, very dry. So yeah, fermented dry, but then also that drying, but not a stringent tannin, but just really mouth coating. Really calling for some food with you. Cheese. Oh, I know I want fat when I drink this. And a lot of other times too. Yeah, and they did a really great job of maintaining the varietal characteristics of this. This is what a Barolo should taste like. This is what Nebiolo should taste like. But this was from a very warm vintage, and not all of the Barolo you will get from 2020 will taste like this. Light on its feet like this? Yeah, I mean, it's super streamlined, but the tannins there, the ascenities there, it's just beautiful. Yeah, and some of those Tertiary aging notes coming in as well, like a little touch of that leather. Yeah. What do the whiskey guys call that? Roncio? Roncio, yeah. Yeah, a little bit of that. It's not like almonds yet, but you can see that it's got that in the future. Well, the two classic descriptors for Nebiolo are tar and rose petals. It's a little lighter on the florality. Yeah, I think that's warmer vintage. You're not going to get as much aromatically as you would, I'll say, in a cooler vintage where that rose petal characteristic can really pop. Yeah. But yeah, that really kind of dusty red cherry, I think, really drives this one. This one comes from Lene at Leakinwood. Nice. Yeah. Hi, Lene. I'll see you later when I'm buying bitters. A lot of bitters. Yeah. And a burr. Regularly $39.99, which is already a dynamite price for this. Yeah, for any Barolo, frankly. Seriously. And for the quality you're getting here, that's outrageous. But right now, it's on promo for $36.99. You don't say. 28:45 Sauternes Dessert Wine Okay, we have just one left. And as you prep and pass around, here's my little story on this one. Tuesday, wine meeting, all the managers trying all of the 50 under 50, getting a chance. Staff photographer Maddie comes up to me. She's like, you gotta try this one. So I'm glad you picked this one to be on the podcast episode. This is an excellent wine, but also a little controversial, because, well, we'll get into it. Yeah. So what we have is from Bordeaux, from kind of the southern part of the left bank, we're going to be down in an area called Sauternes. This is going to be our first dessert wine of the day. One of the few dessert wines on our list here. So this is the 2015 Chateau Sudiraut Sauternes. Comes in a half bottle, as it should, because it's like, you know, frosting squared. I don't know. This seems to be a characteristic across all of Sauternes. Do you guys smell the nail polish remover? I mean, it's like, kind of folded in on this one. Yeah, I think there is just a touch of that. And as we were talking a little before the show, what do we usually call the? So that would be Volatile Acidity, better known as VA. VA. What does that mean? How is that better known as VA? It's like where the soldiers go to get healthcare. It's not VVA, just VA. Okay, Volatile Acidity. So yeah, this is something that can happen in a wine. When it's overdone, it can be seen as a flaw, but oftentimes in wines, it's just one note in the symphony that really kind of adds to the complexity of the wine. I think it works really well here. Sauternes, very, very difficult wine to make. Traditionally made from a blend of Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc from the south of Bordeaux, right along the riverbanks where something called noble rot is allowed to set in. It is rot, but it's good. So this is a fungus that attacks the skins of the grapes and pricks a little hole in there, which allows for some of the water content to leave the grapes, which is concentrating the sugar content. So then when we ferment that, we're left over with a sweeter wine. So yeah, this doesn't fully rot. It rots just enough to evaporate some of that water content. But it also imparts the flavor that you probably find controversial, the botrytis flavor. You can actually taste it. And the cooler and wetter the vintage, the more you can taste it. This isn't over the top on it. This is 15, right? Yeah, so warmer vintage. But it's definitely there. And it is that... It's kind of like a weird candy flavor, almost. Kind of like... I don't know. I always get like a funky orange marmalade going on. Other than that one note, and it does kind of fold into everything else here, you have like peach gummy rings with the cream and the lime peel, all of that. And it's all real sweet, and it's this wonderful little complex. But it has cleansing acidity. It's not cloying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's something we find with the best dessert wines in the world, that has that natural sweetness to it, but it also has the acidity to kind of lift it and clean off the palate after tasting. Yeah, and this is a terrific example at the terrific price of... Regularly $35.99. That's for a 375 bottle. And right now it's on sale for $31.99. Wow. Great price, really. Man, it's so easy to like this. It's so easy to like this wine. And if you like mold that attacks your cheese, it goes really well with blue cheese. Oh my God, it goes so well with blue cheese. Yeah, it's one of those heavenly combinations that you just can't go wrong with. You'll go through that half bottle and some Roquefort in a blink of an eye. I haven't been to a UGC in a few years, but I would always like... I'm gonna try all of these serious red wines. And then I would end up just like a butterfly like floating around the sauternes and then the cheese. Just... That's how I would finish it. Often right next to each other in that room as well. Oh my God, right? Yeah, strategically placed. Well, it's gonna be at Morgan Manufacturing this year, which is a super cool venue. And we of course have a consumer tasting. The UGC? Yeah. Yeah, you know, the tickets are gonna go on sale for that soon if they haven't already. Check out binnys.com. It's an opportunity to try an upcoming unbottled Bordeaux vintage, which is always very cool. Very, very cool. What's it? 23? Yeah, it's gonna be a 23 vintage, so it'll be super fun. Oh, well, let's not sell it too hard. You don't need to go. Yeah, why would you taste some of the best Bordeaux in the world? Including this. This is great. There's not a stinker in this bunch here. No, I think all the stores around the chain and everybody involved did a really nice job of picking quality. Oh, I should say good job, Michelle, from River Grove. Good job, Michelle. Oh, yeah. My former colleague. Very good job, yes. I forgot this was her wine. Like all the time? Like every year? No, no, no. I saw her last weekend. I was like, oh, what was your wine? And she's like, oh, I did this a turn. I was like, oh, awesome. Yeah, good call. I want salty almonds and blue cheese right now. That another classic pairing if you're trying to be real fancy, foie gras. Kind of great if we had a deli next door. Yeah. Yeah. 33:58 Wine Wisdom Drew, thank you for coming. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Thank you for sharing your expertise on these. And it's great to know that you're out there selling stuff like this, making friends, selling wine. Wine's fun. Right. It is. Yeah. Doesn't have to be this unattainable thing. You can find excellent, excellent value under 50. We're always happy. Wine isn't hard. You just have to drink it and like it. Just be open to trying stuff. And ask. I just feel like ask more questions. I think that that's people get scared to ask questions about wine. But when you've got wine managers like we have, I don't think that you should be scared. Just ask. Yeah. Our wine managers and wine consultants, most fun part of our day is talking to you guys about what you're looking to buy, what you're going to be having for dinner, how we can help you pair. We are wine nerds and we are happy to talk about it. Yeah. Geeked on it. And we're happy to break rules too. We don't. No, we're not going to stand on ceremony. You know, like, hey, half the time I drink wine at home, I'm not drinking it out of a stem glass. I drink it out of a jelly jar. The best wine is the wine you like to drink. Absolutely. Awesome. I like that. Cool. That's why we say keep tasting. Thank you for listening to this episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Get out there, try some of these, ask your local wine consultant what their favorites are from the list. And they're going to come up with seven different ones that we didn't pick because everything's great. Back in your feed real soon. Until then, I'm Greg. I'm Rae. I'm Lexi. And I'm Drew. Keep tasting.