I was on a hillside in Napa, twenty minutes into geeking out about a vineyard, when my friend Chandler — whocould not care less about the Harlan family tree — started beaming. I asked her why. "I’m just excited to see YOU so excited."
That’s this whole episode. She caught the feeling, not the facts. Matt Horkey’s mentor said it better than I can: wine needs less educators and more seducers. This week I make the casethat the industry has the sequence backwards — we hand people the textbook before we’ve played them the song. There’s the woman who quit wine after one question in a tasting room, the difference between performing expertise andsharing discovery, the winemaker with eighty perfect scores who describes his wine like a car crash into a chocolate shop, and why I hire for enthusiasm over credentials. Teaching creates students. Sharing creates friends.
New episodes Tuesday mornings.
Jon FrutkinHost