In this episode of the “VinePair Podcast,” hosts Adam Teeter, Joanna Sciarrino, and Zach Geballe attempt to define what classifies a wine as “luxury.” Is it a matter of price point, quality, or both? And can expensive wines sold in grocery stores also be classified as luxury? Tune in to learn more
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Adam Teeter: From VinePair’s New York City headquarters, I’m Adam Teeter.
Joanna Sciarrino: And I’m Joanna Sciarrino.
Zach Geballe: In Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.
A: And this is the “VinePair Podcast.” Joanna, welcome back from vacation.
J: Thank you so much. I was listening to the last episode that you recorded. I was only gone for two days. You made it seem like I was gone for a few weeks.
A: Because you missed two episodes.
J: OK, it happens.
A: We were trying to basically have the illusion to the people that we don’t record both episodes on the same day, Joanna. But you just blew that spot up.
J: I said I was gone two days.
Z: Where were you, Joanna? Tell us about it.
J: I was in New Orleans for a wedding.
Z: Very nice.
J: The wedding was lovely. I did a lot of eating and drinking while I was there. It was not my first time going. I had been there once before, a decade ago. It was so long ago, I didn’t even realize it until I was there and I was like, “Whoa.” But it was Evan’s first time in New Orleans. So while we didn’t get to do as much drinking at newer bars as I had hoped we would do, we did go to a lot of the classic places and got a lot of the classic New Orleans cocktails.
A: I feel like you have to do the classics if it’s your first time.
J: Yes, exactly. We did the Ramos Gin Fizz, a Sazerac, French 75, Grasshopper, Hurricane.
A: A Hand Grenade?
J: No, there was no time. There was just no time for Hand Grenades. Nor would it have been a good idea.
A: Not from the hotel to the wedding, a cheeky Hand Grenade?
J: Yeah, a cheeky Grenade.
A: That’s amazing.
Z: Which of those was your favorite, Joanna?
J: There’s just something about a Ramos Gin Fizz that feels very special because you don’t get them often. Oh, I also had a Vieux Carré at the Carousel Bar in Hotel Monteleone, which is where it was created. That was good. But I think that the Gin Fizz was my favorite.
Z: Well, you definitely have to appreciate the amount of work that goes into making it. That’s not something that you’re going to find everywhere.
J: Yeah, and I don’t often order it if I do see it.
Z: Fair enough. Well, when in New Orleans. It’s easy to forget just how many classic and great cocktails have their point of origin in New Orleans.
J: Yes.
A: A ton. What about you, Zach?
Z: Well, I didn’t take any trips.
A: For only two days.
Z: That’s right, only two days. I’m going to say something incredibly embarrassing right now, which is that I’ve never been to New Orleans.
A: What?
Z: I know, right?
J: That’s shocking.
Z: It’s a black mark. I’m well aware it’s been on the list for a while, but for a variety of reasons hasn’t happened, and I hope to change that sometime soon. In any case, we’re back here in Seattle. I would say the thing that I had in the last week that was most exciting was a bottle of Barolo. We did have a weekend without the son — not the one in the sky, that’s a frequent occurrence here — but the one that I’m related to. So, Caitlin, Lila, and I went out for dinner on Saturday night, which is a thing that we don’t get to do all that often. We had a beautiful bottle of Barolo from Burlotto, one of the great producers in Barolo. It’s interesting, I’ve had those wines a couple of times before, and they’ve often been framed as one of the producers in Barolo who remains the most traditionally minded in their methodology. They don’t use new oak, they age in these really large casks, etc. This was 2011, so it’s not a brand-new wine or anything like that. It reminded me how even the really traditional producers in Barolo and in Piedmont more generally have, through a combination of slightly evolving techniques and, of course, a little bit of climate change, been able to produce wines that are much more approachable when they’re still fairly young. Ten or 11 years is still on the younger side for Barolo, and it was just beautifully expressive almost right from when we opened it. We got it decanted, but it wasn’t even all that necessary and that was really cool. It had a lot of bright, red cherry and cranberry and lots of aromatics. It was just a delicious wine. Adam, I know you and I share a deep love for Barolo so figured you would at least appreciate it. Not that you don’t, Joanna.
J: I appreciate it, too.
A: I wish I would have had some of that bottle. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Z: Well, I have one more bottle. All you have to do is get here.
A: I mean, eventually.
Z: All right. How about you, what did you have?
A: So I went to Karasu this weekend, which finally reopened post-pandemic. Karasu is this really cool Japanese izakaya and cocktail bar that’s actually inside Walter’s in Fort Greene. You go through Walter’s, and then they’re in the backspace.
J: Speakeasy vibes.
A: It’s kind of speakeasy vibes, but they don’t take it as seriously as a speakeasy. But it is a really beautiful space, and the food is amazing. They do classic Japanese-influenced cocktails. So I had a cherry blossom Old Fashioned that was really delicious. It was interesting because obviously the cocktail menu was very pared down from what it used to be. They used to do highballs on draft and stuff pre-pandemic, but I think they only had six cocktails on the list. Right now, they’re sort of just getting back up to speed. But we wanted to go to support them because we really enjoyed it pre-Covid. So it was cool to see that they’re actually reopening. There was a while when we were wondering whether it was ever going to reopen. Walter’s was just crushing it in the pandemic with all the outdoor seating and stuff. And then I was like, “Oh, I wonder if they’ll just expand Walter’s into the back space.” Because it’s so packed every weekend, why wouldn’t they? But I was really happy to see that they still decided not to do that and kept Karasu. So that was my most exciting drink occasion of the last week.
J: That sounds nice.
A: Yeah. So this week I thought we could have a really fun conversation about wine and luxury. There’s no denying that wine is somewhat of a luxury product. There are certain wines that are definitely luxury products, right? Any time that there’s at least a category of something that is also sold at auction at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, you can pretty clearly say that there’s a luxury component to it. But obviously, wine runs the gamut of pricing from very, very, very cheap — you can get wines for under $3 — to very, very, very, very, very expensive. On the heels of the conversation we had about cult wines on Friday, I thought it’d be interesting to have a conversation about what makes a wine luxury. I wanted to look at this from a few angles. One of the things that is really interesting is for me to talk to producers who say, “Well, this is our luxury wine in our portfolio,” and try to understand what causes them to say that besides price. If we’re just going to say it’s price, then some people might say over $25 is luxury wine or $50 is a luxury wine. But I believe that if you’re a wine brand that is also sold in grocery stores or is very easily attainable, then I don’t believe that you can have a luxury wine under that brand. It’s the same way with fashion houses, right? If you could buy Gucci at Target, then Gucci is no longer a luxury brand.
Z: Yeah, no matter the price point.
A: Yeah, even if there are other Gucci labels or other pieces of Gucci that you can only buy at the store, if the Gucci “G” is the same, then it’s no longer luxury. But I’m curious what you guys think because wine has struggled for a very long time with trying to understand what is and isn’t luxury in this space. Obviously, marketers claim all the time that their wines are luxury products because of course you would want to. That’s what will garner you the highest dollar. But what does it actually take to make a luxury wine?
J: I think what you’re saying, Adam, is that beyond price, availability has something to do with it.
A: I think, prestige.
J: Prestige, yes. I think you’re saying that if you can readily get a wine, even if it is a $100 bottle of wine, if you can get it easily, then it’s not luxury.
A: I think so.
J: I don’t know if I agree with that, though, because then I think of cars and luxury cars. I think that availability doesn’t really play into it. Of course, there are cars where there are fewer of them made, and they’re harder to get. But I do think that a luxury vehicle has to do with the price point.
A: Right. I guess my argument is that you would never see a Mercedes that is affordable. Even their entry-level is more expensive than Hyundai and Ford.
J: So it’s not just a matter of getting the Gucci at Target if it’s cheap.
A: This is just one part of luxury. But if you have any part of your brand that can be bought somewhere cheaply, you are no longer a luxury brand. So if Mercedes licensed their name to Toyota RAV4 cars, Mercedes is no longer a luxury brand. That’s why you see, especially, so many of the Japanese manufacturers and Korean manufacturers create separate luxury car brands, to be able to have a luxury brand. Genesis exists because there can be no luxury Kia. There can be high-end Kias and there can be smart consumers who know they’re getting a luxury vehicle for a cheaper price. But that Kia is not a luxury car.
J: Yeah.
Z: I think it would be important here to define one additional element of luxury. This is something that, to some extent, carries over from fashion, cars, and other categories that we define as luxury. In addition to exclusivity and in addition to absolute price point, with wine, you need an element of quality, but also the kind of quality that is readily comprehensible to anyone who might encounter it.
A: I like that, yeah.
Z: Think about how a luxury automobile is going to have a leather interior, right? It’s going to have a certain design aesthetic. You’re probably not going to get a neon orange luxury car; they’re going to come in classic colors. Well, you probably can, if you go out and get it repainted, you can do whatever you want. But for the most part with wine, this is an important thing to note, because exclusivity and price point alone can’t really define luxury wines. I certainly could find examples of wines that are only available in very small quantities and are very expensive but I would not consider them to be luxury wines. I would not really consider Burgundy — especially red Burgundy — to be a luxury category because it doesn’t come across to the average consumer as luxurious. California Cabernet: luxurious. Bordeaux, perhaps luxurious. Maybe white Burgundy, which tends to be a little more round and rich: luxurious. Things can be expensive, very expensive, but I don’t think that necessarily in and of itself conveys luxury. Luxury is a very specific kind of thing.
A: I was with you until you said Burgundy. So I totally agree with you. I do think Burgundy is the epitome of luxury based on the kinds of people that you see who do buy it and drink it and how hard it is to get. I’m going to say something really crazy. One of the biggest things is, yes, how much have you invested in the brand being about what the brand says and how hard the brand is to attain? There are two different ideas here. There’s the luxury that is an accessible luxury, and then there’s the luxury that is a true luxury. If it’s really easy to get, then the exclusivity factor is gone. That’s where we go back to the premium mediocre episode we talked about. The second you’re starting to do collaborations with other brands and you’re available at Target, you’re a premium mediocre brand. I would argue that the majority of wines that are sold in the grocery store, which then have higher-end bottlings that you can’t get anywhere else, are premium mediocre brands. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think they stop calling themselves luxury wines. I’m going to say something really blasphemous. I think that Veuve is a premium mediocre brand because Veuve is available at every single grocery store. It is the easiest entry point into Champagne to say that you’ve made it, but LVMH is smart with this because they know that that’s the entry point. They hope that if you really enjoy the Champagne, then they trade you up to a Dom Perignon or a Krug and other Champagnes in their portfolio. If Veuve was the epitome of luxury, then LVMH wouldn’t need to own some of the other Champagne houses. I think that they actually play that really well in the way that they’ve created that brand. Also, you’ve noticed that they don’t create any cheaper levels of that brand. There’s the orange label or yellow label, whatever we’re going to say color-wise. That’s the entry point. And that’s sitting at $60 or $70. There’s nothing less than that. What you see in a lot of wines is that they’ll create a $20 bottle of something, but then they’ll have $150 bottles. Well, that really then cheapens the product. If your end goal is to convince consumers to buy the $150 bottles, then if I can get the $20 bottle pretty easily in the grocery store or at the regular wine shop, that makes a harder case.
Z: A really important part of this to understand, too, is that when you are trying to sell that $150 bottle of wine, you’re competing against a lot of other wines that might be in that price point in your category. We have such a hard time, in general, defining what is luxury in all these categories. If you are wine company X and you’re trying to say, “OK, here’s our $150 version of our $25 wine,” a lot of people will be like, “Well, wait a second. Is it really that different than the $25 bottle of wine? Why should I even buy this?” As you were pointing out with Veuve, Adam, if the lowest point of entry for a given brand is at a $150 price point, people can be like, “Oh, well, if I want this, this is what I have to spend. Maybe it’s a good deal compared to their $500 bottle of wine.” You’re right about the prevalence of a brand and its lowest-position offering that it is going to maybe restrain and restrict how many people go after the higher end. It’s why you see a lot of these companies do either the acquisition of or creation of new brands, to encompass some of these higher-end bottlings if they want to do them.
A: I almost think you have to, right?
J: Yeah, I think so. I think what we’re talking about is a brand being luxury, because if the brand wants to be luxury, then it can’t have those lower-price-point offerings. So if they launch a new brand where they can have that, it’s not a luxury brand. But I think a big part of this is also the consumer perception of luxury. Obviously, that’s like the premium mediocre conversation that we’ve had before. But I do think that for a lot of people, Veuve is luxury.
A: I agree. I would compare Veuve to Rolex. Veuve is an accessible luxury. For example, if you really want to know a lot about wine and spirits, you’re going to come and read VinePair. The site that we get compared to a lot is Hodinkee, which is the site for watch connoisseurs and actually has very similar readership numbers, oddly. People who love watches and are into watches and luxury products are going to go and do research and learn. If you don’t want to do that research and learn, and you finally get your first big promotion, you can go buy a Rolex pretty easily. It’s very easy to get Rolexes. They’re sold everywhere. Almost every jeweler around America probably has a few. Yes, it’s harder-to-find Rolex models, and watch geeks will tell you what those harder-to-find Rolex models are. But Rolex is pretty easy to understand for a novice consumer that wants to own one luxury timepiece. Arguably, Veuve is very easy to understand, and I do not think this is a bad thing. I want to be clear. But it is very easy to understand for consumers who want to feel like they’re buying a high-end Champagne. They’ve done a very good job at that. Because they have not cheapened the brand with lower-priced offerings, I think they are still a luxury product, but an accessible luxury product. The reason they are an accessible luxury product is that you can’t put them on the same playing field as a Krug or a Dom and things like that. You can walk into Publix, and they will have Veuve. You can walk into the corner jewelry store and they will have a Rolex. There’s nothing wrong with that. Whereas it’s going to be much harder to find a Breitling or some other styles of watches that are even more insane. I’m not a watch person, so I don’t know what those are. But in the same way, yes, you can get Krug. But you have to go to a specialty wine store to get the bottle, etc. And you’re going to pay a lot more for it.
Z: What’s also interesting about this in wine, in particular, is that you have this weird confluence in what we would consider a kind of the luxury category of some of these things you’re describing. Like the big Champagne houses and California producers, where there is a lot of intentional, thoughtful, purposeful branding and marketing intermingling with wines that are similarly priced because they are either made in very small quantities or historically have great resonance or have become beloved by sommeliers or wine reviewers or whatever. But they’re not doing any real branding. They may be positioned as luxury brands. Again, I come back to Burgundy. The big négociant producers probably have full-on marketing departments and stuff, but a lot of the other ones that command extremely high prices don’t. They’re still kind of lumped in there. And it makes it all the more complicated because, in some ways, I think it’s actually harder. There’s no equivalent in cars, right? I could be wrong about this, I’m not a car person 100 percent. But there isn’t the equivalent of a small grower and producer. There’s no boutique car manufacturer. I mean, maybe there is. But for the most part, any luxury car is still made by a sizable car manufacturer of scale. Whereas in wine, you have people playing in the same arena who are very, very small and do no or very little marketing, which I think is interesting but also confusing to consumers. And it’s why I come back to this notion about the flavor profile of the wine being a part of understanding luxury. To be truly a luxury good, like I said, the quality has to be readily apparent to almost anyone who has a chance to try it, drink it, sit in it, or whatever the thing is that we’re talking about. I’d be curious about your thoughts, too. I feel like luxury goods, in general, are equal parts for the owner and for everyone that they want to show off to.
A: 100 percent.
J: Yeah, definitely.
A: Right, luxury goods are signals to the market. You want people to know that you’re wearing Armani or that you have Dior on. With Hermés or Birkin bags, you want people to know that you have these things in the same way that you’re driving a specific car. People are wired differently. There is the consumer that we talked about earlier that loves to be thought of as the smart consumer who knows they’re getting a good value and goes and buys the fully loaded Hyundai and is like, “I’m just a smart person. I know that I got a really high-quality car with all the same bells and whistles.” The other person is like, “I don’t give a f*ck. I want a Genesis,” or “I want a Mercedes E-Class.” Those are different kinds of people. And with the kind of people who are the latter, I do think you’re right, Zach. You need to have a product that’s able to immediately signal that. That this is luxury.
J: I don’t know. I keep thinking about this quality idea, though. The more I think about it, the less I think it’s actually necessary for this conversation because of this reason: You want to be told that this is a luxury product, and that’s why you’re buying it. And maybe that’s very pessimistic of me to say, but you’re spending the money on this product. I get the whole leather seats and all the bells and whistles in the car. Maybe with clothing, it’s a specific fabric or something and there’s craftsmanship there. But I feel like with the wine, being able to drink it and know that it’s a quality wine is really more about the price in that instance.
A: You’re onto something in that. It’s about that accessible flavor profile that Zach’s talking about. It’s then also about the fact that it’s a little bit more exclusive, so it doesn’t have offshoots of itself that you can get easily. It is expensive, right? And then I’m going to say something I think is going to piss a lot of people off. I think it can only be made in France, Italy, and California. I don’t think there are other regions that are really known for creating true luxury products, and I think Italy drives off of its connection to fashion as well. So does France, and its cuisine. And I think California has just done a very good job of marketing itself and its wines as luxury. If we’re going to get super hyper-specific, we have to say Napa. It’s a true luxury wine region in the way that it was built from the beginning. In other places around the world, you can have high-end wines that some people consider to be “luxury,” but they’re not well established and highly accepted luxury products. What do you guys think? Does anyone disagree with me?
Z: Place of origin makes a lot of sense. If we do get some feedback on this and some disagreement, I think there’s going to be that point of contention about whether we’re talking about a luxury wine or just a very high-end wine, highly regarded wine. With luxury, there’s that element of connection to, if not actual tradition, then an established framework for people to understand the product. In that vein, I want to bring up one other brand that occurred to me during this conversation because I think it’s a really interesting example. I’d be curious about both of your thoughts on it. It’s a brand that has maybe done sort of a different thing than what Veuve has done, and that’s The Prisoner. When The Prisoner came out, it was a luxury brand. Dave Phinney did an incredible job of capturing what it was that people were looking for in a specific kind of wine from Napa, which was both a flavor profile, which has been imitated to death, but also an aesthetic and a way that it signaled to everyone who you were as a person and what you were after. It was at a price point that felt premium, but not so untouchable. To come back to our last conversation. It wasn’t a cult wine by any stretch of the imagination. But it still had this air. It’s a red-blend equivalent of Veuve, and it’s readily available. Even in the earlier days, it became pretty readily available. But they’ve decided that what we’re going to try and do is take The Prisoner and expand it and even introduce lower price point versions. It almost de-luxurifies it, which I find really fascinating.
A: I think that’s a fascinating point. That’s probably an example of a company that sees more money on the table just for the brand’s name than for what it stands for. I think that could be proof that when the research was done, it was probably realized that it actually never was a luxury wine. It was the wine that people knew, because they felt smart when they ordered it. Veuve invested tons of money in luxury experiences as well, like polo and skiing. The Prisoner never did that. What The Prisoner did really well is that they engineered and built a wine that tasted the way you expected a $40 to $50 wine to taste if you were new to wine but had money. I really think that’s what The Prisoner did very well. That’s what The Prisoner continues to do very well.
Z: I mean, it tastes like the leather interior of a car. That’s what they’re going for. It doesn’t literally taste like it, but the sensation is equivalent to sitting in a nice leather seat.
A: It’s the 3-Series, right? I got some money. I’m not going to go all the way up in BMW, but I’m going to get that entry-level. I’m getting that leather. I think you’re right. People are going to say we’re such assholes for this episode. It is interesting that it was what The Prisoner did really well. I think it’s a great achievement. But now it is interesting, as you’ve said, that it’s been converted from a wine upon its sale to now a brand. So as a brand, I don’t necessarily think of The Prisoner as a luxury wine. And I don’t think many people would. Maybe initially, it could have been seen that way to serve certain people when it was still being made by Dave Phinney, and it was very small production and things like that. You could make the argument, which is probably why it sold for so much money. But this is what people do. You can’t blame some of the big fashion houses that do these collaborations with Target. I’m sure it’s very, very, very worthwhile in terms of brand exposure. But you would have arguments from marketers around the country that would say that you are making the brand less premium. You’re de-premiumizing the brand. But they might say, “We don’t care.” It’s better to have more people wearing our logo. I think that’s a conversation you always have to have. But that’s why we have to find a new term in wine for these wines that are above a certain price that’s not “This is our luxury portfolio.” Because if we’re being really honest, most of these wines *people are discussing in that regard — it’s wrong, they’re not. The way that they’re even looking at the market is from a position of luxury. But these wines aren’t actually luxury products in the same way that you could argue that Château Margaux or Montelena are.
J: What is a better word for it, then?
A: These are premium wines. These are our high snobiety wines? Society offerings? I don’t know. These are our boomer wines. But that’s just me…
Z: Adam’s bringing the heat today.
A: I don’t know what we could call them. I know I just fired shots, and I’m going to now get my cannon out. Luxury brands have staying power. Every generation wants them. These are boomer wines because the next generation is interested in these wines. I don’t know a single millennial who doesn’t want to try Dom and Krug. Everyone knows they’re luxury products. Everyone wants to say they’ve had them. I would say that that’s very true for a lot of the high-end Bordeaux out there, etc. There are a lot of these wines that millennials do not care about, which I would say is a very clear indication that they have not established themselves as being more than just the wine.
J: What about a Screaming Eagle? Would you ever spend money to get a bottle of Screaming Eagle?
Z: You can get it on wine.com, we found out.
A: I stand corrected. That’s not how I would like to spend my money. But I think that there are people that would.
J: Young people?
A: I think of a certain class. But that’s a luxury, right? If you’re at a hedge fund and you’re doing really well and you’ve now learned about this wine it really means you made it. It’s in the same way that Pappy Van Winkle is that. Pappy is a luxury bourbon. That’s why everyone’s chasing it. It says that you’re really, really successful. Yes, for Screaming Eagle. But then I wonder about some of the others, like Opus One. The one we didn’t talk about, that’s sort of like the elephant in the room from Napa that thinks of itself as luxury, but I think of it more in the way that you’re talking about with The Prisoner, is Caymus.
Z: Oh gosh, we’re going to really get fired up.
A: That wine is everywhere.
Z: It really just inherited The Prisoner’s position.
A: I think so, you’re 100 percent correct. That’s exactly what it did.
Z: The kind of people who used to order The Prisoner may now order Caymus, which I think is a stylistic overlap. What does that say? One last point on this that I want to mention is that, even within luxury, we can see in all these categories that there are different slices of the luxury market for people who want a different kind of experience. To take it back to cars, some people want a luxurious SUV. Some people want a sports car. In watches, some people want something analog and very stripped down. Some people want something a little gaudier. And wine, too, it’s the same thing. These luxury wine brands, or whatever we’re going to decide to call them across the spectrum, do serve different kinds of luxury clientele. Caymus might appeal to one slice of that market and the grand cru Burgundies might appeal to another slice of that luxury market that doesn’t perhaps overlap a whole lot.
J: I do think that luxury is a big part of a marketing strategy for any brand. They can use it however they need to use it, at that moment.
A: I do, too. I just think if you’re going to use it as your marketing strategy, you really have to invest in it. It can’t be just like, “Oh, we’re luxury, but we also are for everyday and whatever.” I think if you’re going to invest in positioning the brand as a luxury, you have to do everything that that entails. What do you surround yourselves with? What’s the look and feel of the brand? What is the price for the brand? What is the experience when you go to visit the brand if you have a tasting room? Things like that, I think, are really important if you’re going to truly say it’s a luxury wine. You can just be a really great expensive wine that costs that much because that’s what it has to cost for it to be so good or because it’s limited or whatever. But as you’re pointing out, Zach, that is something to be aware of. The luxury we are talking about is the luxury that is basically widely accepted by the full population as a luxury product. Whereas there are a lot of products out there that you or I might consider luxury because we know the artisan that makes them and they are still very expensive. Maybe it’s this small indie fashion label or whatever, but everything’s made at this really special factory in Italy with the finest fabrics and things like that. That can still very much be a luxury product, especially among small groups of people, but that’s not a mass luxury product.
Z: Exactly.
J: Right.
A: Very interesting. The one thing I would like to hear from the listeners about, besides what you think of our debate, is what you think we should be calling this category of wine for the wines that aren’t truly luxury. What is that name that we should all be saying? That’s the thing I always find myself puzzled by. For these wines that are $25 and over, or $50 and over, what do we call them? Are they just expensive wines? Is there something else? Let us know at [email protected]. See you Friday, Zach and Joanna.
J: See you then.
Z: Sounds great.
Thanks so much for listening to the “VinePair Podcast.” If you love this show as much as we love making it, please leave us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.
Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and Seattle, Washington, by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit. Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all of this possible, and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team, who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.
Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.
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