A Sommelier's Wine Hacks & Mindful Drinking! w/ Matthew Kaner
Welcome to Journey to the Sunnyside, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and, of course, inspire your own mindful drinking journey. This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation And if you could benefit from drinking a bit less, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free 15 day trial. I'm your host, Mike Hardenbrook, published author, neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert. Join us as renowned wine enthusiast, Matthew Kaner, takes us through a journey in the world of wine. Discover the importance of context in wine tasting, the impact of travel on understanding wine cultures, and Matthew's perspective on emerging trends like the orange wine movement.
Mike:Learn about the personal touches in selecting wines, the value of education, and how mindful drinking can deepen our appreciation for each bottle's unique story. Matthew's journey is an invitation to explore wine with curiosity and
Mike:openness. Okay. Today, I'm here with Matthew Kaner, and Matthew is a wine enthusiast. He was named the sommelier by Food and Wine Magazine of the Year. He's a producer and a host of multiple shows, and he's even on the crypto currency scene.
Mike:So first, let me just say thank you for coming here,
Matthew:Matthew. Happy being here, man. It's a pleasure, Michael. Mike. Michael.
Mike:So, actually, to kick things off, I wanna make sure, am I pronouncing Somoyer right?
Matthew:So if a French person heard you say that, they'd correct you. It's I mean, if we're gonna be pretentious about it, which I try not to be, it's. And we speak English in America, but we also our language has been, you know, obviously, for those who aren't aware of this, English does not originate in America. It was a basis of many other languages that happened in parts of Europe and around the country of England, which England at one point had a much bigger influence. But when you're saying things in French, in the American English language, sometimes we don't pronounce them the French way.
Matthew:So, technically, you're not, but I'm not gonna get mad at you for it.
Mike:Okay. So is it quesadilla or quesadilla?
Matthew:I speak Spanish. You were you did not say it correctly. And it's not Amarillo. The
Mike:funny thing is is that, you yeah. I learned Spanish, so I'm real stickler on my own pronunciation, but I don't know French. So I know that I'm slaughtering it, and all I'm thinking is I'm being as cringey as I hear other people do things in Spanish. So
Matthew:It's one of those things where we just get to redefine the terms and help people say it the next time a little more correctly. But, like, the Germans and the French will get mad at you and slap you with a ruler. That's not how I tend to do it. It's more like, hey. Would you like to know how to say that right?
Matthew:It's nice to know. Okay.
Mike:Well, then let's lead into the first question. As things kick to kick things off, can you explain what a sommelier, is and what drew you to become 1?
Matthew:Yeah. For sure. So it's a very simple definition, and those who look it up in the dictionary will see this. It's a wine steward. Straight up.
Matthew:That's what a sommelier is. It's a person who helps you with your wine choices. So my way of applying that is it could be the person in a restaurant who helps you make the wine choice given a wine list or given your desires. It could be someone in the wine store who helps you with a certain goal or a gift you wanna give or a meal you need to get a bottle for. It could be someone who gives you advice on wine.
Matthew:It's changed and completely morphed. The, the quartermaster sommeliers and a very famous documentary called Psalm kind of put a whole new definition in the public's eyes and ears and mind. So we now have to kind of overly define what a sommelier is even though literally what I said is the definition technically. I never wanted to be a sommelier. It wasn't like a goal of mine.
Matthew:My life was all about, I'm a passionate person. I follow things that matter to me, and I grew up in Santa Barbara, wine producing area. I got lucky that wine hit me from a young age. Got a job at a wine store, and I never thought, like, this could be a career. This is something I could do the rest of my days.
Matthew:I was trying to be a singer songwriter music guy, and wine just happened to hit on all the things I love, which is smell, taste, geology, geography, historical significance, telling stories. All those things are wrapped into 1 and art you know, wine is very artful. It's it's a it's an art piece. So it just it kind of explained a lot of my personal it gave me an outlet to talk about things I was passionate about on many different levels, and I'm also anthropological, which wine hits on a lot of marks for. But becoming a sommelier, being a sommelier, whatever that means to everyone out there, like, I've been the person who's helped a lot of people make a lot of wine choices.
Matthew:I'm proud of that. I've never once gone through any sort of accreditation. I don't take classes. Ironically, I teach them, but I don't take them. And, you don't have to have a piece of paper saying you're a sommelier to b one.
Matthew:Just do the work.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, I almost like hearing you say you didn't take classes because real experience, you know, normally supersedes actual, like, classroom time. Not always, but a lot of the time. And if anybody's not watching this on video right now, you certainly wouldn't fit the stereotype of what a sommelier would look like. You got your flat brimmed hat, although it says Riesling on it.
Mike:You got your glasses on and your hoodie, and that it I think you definitely, just by looking at you, bring your own take to what that definition is.
Matthew:Yeah. And I'm being real with everyone out there who's listening or watching whatever, however your medium that you like to soak up content. I have ultimate respect for those who are book smart, need to learn a certain way, like a a syllabus and having a teacher teach you things, and that's how you digest information. Ultimate respect for that. I quit fucking college.
Matthew:That's not who I am. I am not good at someone telling me what to learn and then learning it and pretending like I give a shit to regurgitate the info. That will never be what makes sense in my life. I've always been someone who follows my passions and then obsessively learns everything I can to follow my interests and my needs. So, again, ultimate respect for those who need to learn with the structure, I'm not that human being.
Mike:Yeah. And then not everybody has the access to those things, so it doesn't have to be limiting in that way. And, you know, I'm really curious to learn, like, more on your background because I know that you had you were a wine enthusiast. You liked it. You worked in the industry.
Mike:What were some of the career choices that led you down this path to becoming a wine expert? Like, was there, like, one moment where you're like, holy shit. I think I'm gonna turn this I'm gonna go pro with this thing.
Matthew:You know, it's funny. Like, it was kind of a series of things. I first I first worked in retail. So, my first wine opportunity was working at the Wine Cask wine store in Santa Barbara, which also had a fine dining restaurant. The program had a grand award with a grand award from the wine spectator.
Matthew:So that's a big deal for those who are out there, who know and dine at restaurants of that ilk. Like, getting that award is a big deal. It separates you. You go on a certain list. People a lot of pea it's like, if you're a Michelin star hunter and you wanna go to restaurants with at least 1 Michelin star, the grand award is the same thing for a wine list.
Matthew:People seek them out. And so I all of a sudden, my first wine job was at, like, a world famous place where people would travel from all over the country, the world. Winemakers from all over the world wanted to go there when they were in town. It was a badge of honor to have your wine on that wine list and in the store. So I started there not knowing a goddamn thing, really.
Matthew:I faked it till I made it kinda thing. And then I moved to LA to try to be a singer songwriter, and everything went wrong. Like, all the stuff I thought was gonna happen. I had a tour management gig. It went wrong, and I lost it.
Matthew:I was supposed to open a tour for someone as my solo singer songwriter. That didn't happen. And so I'm sitting there going, shit. I need a job. And I ended up getting a job at a little wine store called Silver Lake Wine.
Matthew:This is back in, August of 2006. So I just moved to Los Angeles. The store was, like, 2 years old, but I didn't even know that. And I became their 2nd employee, which just was luck. I mean, it's dumb luck.
Matthew:And that became a community for me. I learned a lot about how to be part of a wine community, how to care about people who come and become your customers. And at some point within that, I got kind of, thought on the process, and this was through my who became a business partner of mine, my, my good friend, Dustin Lancaster. Lancaster. So he really wanted to stop making money for other people, and he got a bug in him.
Matthew:He's like, I'm gonna open a wine bar. But he's like, I'm only gonna do it if you do it with me. And that was the moment where I was like, I guess this could be a job. Like, this could be a career. Not just something you show up, clock in.
Matthew:You know? I at that point, I had worked, like, 7 days a week for a couple years, and I was used to it. I have a pretty good work ethic, thankfully. But going to that next level of, like, this could be my actual career, I was not prepared. I didn't really know.
Matthew:We just we we weren't looking at the risk. We weren't really thinking too much about it. It was like, fuck it. Let's do it. Fuck around and find out kinda thing.
Matthew:And we opened, the first wine bar that we owned called Covell on July 2, 2010. And that's a line in the sand moment for me, man. It changed everything. That was how I started getting awareness and attention from the likes of food and wine and the wine spectator and wine enthusiast and wine spirits magazine and all these publications were being really kind toward the program, toward the bar, toward me. I got named a food and wine some way of the year in 2013.
Matthew:Like, things like that started to happen. Covell was the the first catalyst for that, and it just changed everything.
Mike:Yeah. That's so cool. And, I mean, it sounds like you started really long young. I'm guessing in your twenties at that time.
Matthew:Yeah. Covell, we opened when I was 27.
Mike:Okay.
Matthew:And I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, man. I had no clue what's it like to have employees, what does it mean to have all this, you know, responsibility and a liquor license on your shoulders. Like, I didn't know. We didn't we had no idea what we were doing. It quickly we saw the gravity of it, and you felt the gravity of it.
Matthew:And at the height of it, I owned 4 wine bars, and I had 70 employees. So things changed and they yeah. That so Covell what was cool about Covell and it Covell's still open. It has a 150 wines by the glass, but no wine list. It's an interaction.
Matthew:It's a conversation. You don't just get handed a piece of paper in 9 languages and say, good luck, which no offense is what every other place does. Sometimes they'll help you. Sometimes they're too busy to help you. At Covell, the whole point was we're gonna teach the vernacular of wine.
Matthew:We're gonna help people get the glass they actually want. And you're not just gonna say, this person who we don't know their background or where they come from or how much wine they've had before, good luck making a good decision with this primary source document in 9 languages that you can't read. You know, we wanted to actually help, And I wouldn't recommend doing that. It's a very hard thing to do. We gave away a lot of money and wine tastes, like, an obscene amount of money was just handed to people, which, you know, it it built loyalty, and it was cool.
Matthew:It got attention. But that was really what what kinda started it. And then we opened Augustine, which is a unfortunately, it's not open now. It'll come back, but it burnt down about a year and a half a year ago, little less, sadly. But I sold my ownership right before the pandemic hit, and it focused on vintage wines.
Matthew:That was one of the first times in American wine culture that you could go get a glass of vintage wine by the glass. Now you can go to Burns and drink their wine cellar back to, you know, that they've over a 100 years old. They have wines. I'm sure that they were still purchased back then, but they're not usually by the glass. Usually, you're buying a bottle of something.
Matthew:The cost of entry is not super high on some of that stuff. Augustine's whole point was to make vintage wine available by the glass for a relatively affordable price, and it got a lot of attention for that.
Mike:Very cool. I'm really curious, especially since you started young, how your approach has maybe evolved through your career. Because I know when I was in my twenties, it really wasn't I mean, yeah, sure. Some things tasted better than others, but I was probably more drawn to, you know, what the effects of the alcohol is versus, you know, how it tastes. And so I'm curious to know if, like, over your over your career, maybe, like, you started, like, maybe a mix of that or it never was a thing.
Mike:I'm really curious of, like, the importance and maybe how it evolved, like, the importance of savoring wine just beyond getting that buzz.
Matthew:From a personal standpoint and from a business standpoint, the answers are a little different. So I'll start with the personal, which is, I grew up in a drinking culture. I grew up in Santa Barbara. For those of you who have spent time in Santa Barbara, if you ever went to a party at in Isla Vista, UCSB, I was that motherfucker. I was there living in on Del Playa with 11 guys, kegs every other night probably at our house.
Matthew:Quality was definitely not the goal. It was quantity. And we drank, and we drank, and we drank. I don't remember a lot of it. Sorry, mom.
Matthew:Sorry, dad. But, when I moved out of the college mentality, there was still a lot of drinking that was going on, especially in Santa Barbara. When I moved to LA, especially in, like, a kind of bar culture, you know, we would shut down Silver Lake Wine. It closed relatively early, but then we'd end up going to the bar, and you'd stay at the bar until it closes. And it's just this vicious cycle.
Matthew:Yeah.
Mike:And I
Matthew:started to have these moments with myself when, when we opened Covell. I'd get home at, like, 2 AM, 3 AM, and it's not sustainable to be drinking from, like, 5 PM when you open until the second you close. And then you get home and you're wired and you can't sleep, but you gotta be back there at 9 AM tomorrow to get ready for the next day. So I had to make real smart decisions within my own life. The first one was no drinking at home alone.
Matthew:I changed my relationship to alcohol entirely through that simply through that. And from there, I just started looking at alcohol like it was no longer I didn't if I was happy, I didn't drink. If I was sad, I didn't drink. It wasn't about an association to mood. It was more like, I wanna share this with people, so enjoy the story, enjoy the flavor.
Matthew:I had to make these little adjustments personally. When you start talking about it from a business standpoint, and this is where things are really crazy. Like, it's technically in your interest as a wine bar owner to get everyone to drink as much wine as possible. Yeah. But that's not healthy.
Matthew:That's not good for life. It's not good for people going to their job of being successful and creative and, you know, valuable human beings the next day, the next week. As Americans, I think we're we're wired to this binge culture. A lot of people have the well, I don't drink during the week, but I just let loose on the weekends, and then they go and drink god knows how much on the weekends. Balance is something that's not easy for us to find as a society, as business owners, as people who go out and just enjoy and imbibe.
Matthew:And, you know, I as the owner of the place, I was responsible for anyone who drank at my places. So I started to see it a little differently. Multiple times, I had to pull people out of cars from driving away drunk, lost friends over it. You you gotta make the right call. Like, it's it's what you have to do.
Matthew:And we're in an interesting time now. I mean, I'm I just turned 41 yesterday. And at my age today, now that I can legally have drank for 20 years, and that said, I had my first drink at 7, so I did not wait till
Mike:21. Mhmm.
Matthew:But, you know, I grew up in Santa Barbara. Like I said, we fucking drank. But, today, my goal is not how much can we drink and, you know, how wasted can we get. It's let's savor the story. Let's talk about this.
Matthew:Let's make it something enjoyable. If I end up drinking a couple bottles, it happens. But, everything has shifted entirely. I would like to be alive a long time, turns out. And so, yeah, I've just I've I've made decisions for me and for the businesses or for whatever I'm doing in my wine career that no longer are about quantity.
Matthew:It's about quality. And for me, it was a really big decision, and I'm still seeing people grapple with it. Some people like, like, if you tell them I'm not drinking for a month, whether that month rhymes and it's on Instagram or not, people all of a sudden get offended, and they're like, you're putting up a mirror to them, and they're seeing the worst side of themselves. I think people just need to stop being so judgy and do what works for them. It's real hard in America, though, because we just we don't like the mirror being put up.
Matthew:It's tough.
Mike:Well, that's really what it is about because a lot of people, like, get self conscious about, you know, how is it gonna be perceived or maybe, like, you know, people are gonna think I have a problem or whatever. But, really, it's a reflection on, like, how they feel about themselves that they're actually judging you. Luckily, it seems that, you know, with this sober, curious movement or whatever you wanna call it, that people are starting to accept that answer. Like, I'm just taking a break, or I'm not drinking, or or even just saying just give me, you know, a nonalcoholic whatever. Mhmm.
Mike:And it it was a really good insight that you that you decided not to drink at home because I actually have background where I spent quite a bit of time in the industry, and I've talked to people in the industry about how acceptable it is and not it's like a whole another level of acceptable. It's expected, to partake, especially after your shift, which ends late. You know, I was a bartender. Yeah. And and I was a barman in London as well, and I, you know, I've seen all sides of those the drinking culture within the the people working within the bar and and also seen it.
Mike:You know? Like, I I worked in a pub just below the BBC. And so, like, peep all the all the people would come in at lunch. They'd slam, like, 4 or 5 beers, and then I they go back to work, and I just think there's no way they're getting to work. You know, they gotta be just, like, sitting there in front of their computers for the until happy hour.
Mike:But, it's it is a really interesting interesting, phenomenon inside of the industry that yeah. Drink as much as you can and stay up late, and, you know, you're too wired to go to sleep. So I think, for you to be able to navigate that in the long term shows a lot of insight and also, like, shows your appreciation less for the alcohol and more for the actual product itself in the process and the history and all of that, which actually leads me into this project that you've been working on called the history of wine. Why don't you tell me about that?
Matthew:Well, the history I I I wanna set some parameters. The history of wine is a podcast that exists, but I did this years ago. It's not current. The history of wine started while I was a host and producer for the Somme TV network, which I haven't been for 2 years now. So it is a past thing that you can go back.
Matthew:I'm pretty sure you have to be, at least have signed up on the SOM TV website to get access to it. I don't know if it's behind. I don't think it's token gated by payment, but I think you do have to
Mike:I was able to get to it. I I was able to get to it. I don't know if it stopped.
Matthew:But in essence, I, I was asked to do a podcast about the history of wine, literally. So So we called it the history of wine. And at the time, they were going through the process of making what has just come out in the last few months, the Psalm 4 documentary, which goes to the history of wine itself, like, where the origins of wine are. And so I chose to try to be respectful not to focus on the actual origin of wine just because I didn't wanna take their shot from them and, like, steal their thunder. So I decided to focus on the Americas.
Matthew:And it became this real deep dive, excuse me, real deep dive into, how important Venice kind of culture and, I mean, America has a wine history that most people don't know. Most people don't realize that wine is made in all I mean, we could say all 50 states. It's probably a little easier to say all 48 contiguous states. Alaska, it's, I still don't really have much data there. And Hawaii, I it's I don't know.
Matthew:It's an interesting thought process. But, basically, all states make wine. The quality level and a lot of them is getting a lot better. But the history and the people, the stories behind it, the, literally, the movements that happen to keep the industries going, and in some cases, like, with the sake of Texas, there was rootstock work being done in Texas that saved Europe after phylloxera. If not for the work being done in Texas, we would not have phylloxera resistant root stocks that are that now where the whole entirety of any place that had been affected by phylloxera is now replanted on these rootstocks.
Matthew:And for those of you who are not familiar with phylloxera, it's a hard word to spell, but, Google it. It'll come up. It's this microscopic louse that completely decimated the vineyards in the late 1800 in Europe. Happened here in America too, but not to the same severity. And, you know, back imagine when you didn't have TikTok or Google or Instagram, and you didn't know why all of a sudden all the vineyards everywhere died, but you just had to deal with it.
Matthew:Imagine what you would have done. It was hard. Took them it took a generation to come back from, but Texas helped. So little fun things like that, talking about the history of wine in Virginia and how that's tied to the founding fathers. California obviously has a great history.
Matthew:I had to do actually 2 episodes on California. Yeah. I just I it was fun for me to do a deep dive and have great guests, and I've kind of started and stopped other podcast ideas since. Media is something that I focus a lot on. I've been trying to sell TV shows.
Matthew:Currently, the wine writer for Men's Journal. I've got a channel on Men's Journal. So the like, there's stuff I'm doing to keep myself part of that whole world. I'm sure another podcast will come around, but the history of wine was really fun to make.
Mike:Alright. So could you share some of your favorite wines or wine regions that hold, like, a special place in your heart and why?
Matthew:So anyone who knows me and those of you who are getting to know me quickly, you'll know I hate the term favorite. I hate it. I fucking hate it. Here's why. And no offense to you.
Matthew:Soon as you answer that question, you didn't answer all the other things that you love. And so for me, context is the most important thing here. Something we're not good at in the media, something we're not, excuse me, we're not good at in America. I just best favorite. It's it's like an innocuous thing that doesn't mean anything.
Matthew:It has no value to it. But when left on a desert island and thinking about, like, what would I what, excuse me, what would I drink? What what makes me happy? What do I go back to? I could drink champagne till the day I die.
Matthew:Every day, every second, I'd be super happy. I could drink high acid Riesling every day. Be super happy. I like to think about things characteristically. So high acid, high tone, high minerality on the white side.
Matthew:I like skin contact wines. I like crisp light rose. I like light reds. I like things of place, things that speak to where they're from. So for me, the wines that have made the biggest imprint in my kind of, think when I when I think back of, like, wines that that speak to where they're from, Nebbiolo from Barolo and Barbaresco, Syrah from the Northern Rhone Valley, Korotis, Cornas, Croz Hermitage, San Josef, Hermitage, whatever.
Matthew:Then there's, like, obviously, the origin of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay being burgundy. Big fan of that. It's so interesting to, like, talk about terroir, talk about origin, because then people write the greatest cover songs of all time, and they take these grapes to other places, and they adapt and become brilliant on their own. So I grew up in Santa Barbara. I love wines from Santa Barbara.
Matthew:I love cool climate Syrah. I love Pinot Noir from there. I love Chardonnay from there. I love Riesling from there. I will drink all the Riesling from the Mosel, all the Riesling from parts of Austria, South Africa, Australia, Central Coast, California.
Matthew:I'm a fan. Bring it. I love Loire. I you get where I'm going? Like, I fuck favorite.
Matthew:Got it. Context. It's all about context. Where in the world are we? What's the weather?
Matthew:Who are we drinking with? What's the food? That's what matters. Context.
Mike:Since you just I think you listed a lot of wines that I know very little, so I'm gonna assume that some people know very little as well. So what are some some beginner things when talking about these wines that would be good selections or go to for people to, like, start to play in this different context of not just picking it off the shelf, because the label looks nice, and, and and not just pouring it and kinda mindlessly drinking it. Maybe we can back it up into, like, more of a beginners, like, way of talking about this.
Matthew:So here's the the thing I want people to to hear and hear me. If you like something, you're gonna like something else. TV, music, art, a car, whatever it is, and the same is true with wine. Most people can name, like, 10 grapes total. 10.
Matthew:There's, like, 6,000 that wine's made from, in some cases, more. So the only way we get to this is with an open mind, with an understanding that we don't know shit, and we're here to learn. So build a relationship with a local wine store owner, shopkeeper, employee, whoever it is. Ask questions. Ask the question you're embarrassed to ask.
Matthew:They're gonna be happy you asked. Now their how they respond is not you. It's on them. So if they're negative in their response, just move on to the next person. But wine is a relationship.
Matthew:It's the most important relationship with people who have a little more information than you have. How else are you gonna learn? You know? You gotta you gotta build these relationships. So an easy way is to say, I like and then instead of saying Pinot Noir, Malbec, Cabernet, think about it characteristically.
Matthew:Separate the grape name and so if you like Pinot Noir, you like lighter bodied, fruit forward, maybe a little spicy. When you start kind of cluing in on those things, it doesn't matter what the grape's called. It matters if it has those characteristics. So that's a real easy kind of basic 101 way of taking what you know. It could be a lot, could be a little, building that relationship, and then being open to where you go next.
Matthew:It's how we it's a community. It's the only way we do this.
Mike:What are some of those characteristics that people should be looking for or that that are the basis for our point too soon?
Matthew:No. It's personal. I mean, I there's not. I never ever ever ever tell people to look for something. I always tell them, tell me or explain what you found.
Matthew:When you start telling people what to look for, that's when I think this game gets like, the plot gets lost and we don't find what we're looking for. Because if some if you tell someone, doesn't it smell like roses? And they're like, no. It smells like pond water. Well, then, okay.
Matthew:That person thinks they're wrong. Or so, yeah, I I I try my best not to tell people what to look for and more encourage them. If you smell it or taste it, it's there. You're you are right. It's an empowerment game.
Matthew:This is an empowerment game. It's one of the reasons why wine has lost in the past as we we try to direct the narrative and tell people what it is, and that's just not the world we live in anymore. That that stuff doesn't work, in my opinion.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I love your philosophy because I'm sure you have really strong opinions on things, but you want to but you you wanna lead people, in a way that they can find it for themselves, what they like. You know, it kinda reminds me of I I have a degree in art history, and I worked with Sotheby's of London. And, you know, I always wondered why everybody would line up to go see the Mona Lisa so much, and it's because they've basically been not that it's not a great work of art, but, really, it's because they've just been told that it's a great work of art.
Mike:You know? And I I kinda get that sense, in this in this direction or your philosophy around, like, how people should determine whether it's good or not.
Matthew:Good is subjective. Straight up. I mean, what I love and what's inspiring to me may not be the same to someone else. I'm not gonna judge them for that. I'm not gonna get mad at them for that.
Matthew:Maybe in the right context, in the right moment, in the right moonlight, with meal. They might see it the way I see it, but also maybe not. And I'm not gonna get mad at them for that. The wine industry has for so long told people, it is this. You must fill in the blank.
Matthew:It's too late for that. That's all gone. Our job now is to empower people to make good decisions and hope that they find their passion. But one of the problems is there's so much wine out there now. I mean, it's like it's it's a interesting game where there's so many brands and so much out there, so much on the market, so many vineyards are I mean, there's there's a glut that the industry is dealing with of too much availability.
Matthew:And I don't really know how we get back to a place of sustainability or balance without, like, ripping vineyards out, and people are gonna lose money. It's unfortunate. But at the end of the day, just telling someone to like something because is not enough anymore. There's lots of wine out there. There's too many stories to tell.
Matthew:There is an incredible amount of delicious things. And by the way, there's only 7 days in a week, so it's it's a lot. Yeah. I don't know. It's an interesting game.
Matthew:We
Mike:And you you have will travel for wine consulting. Mhmm. I'm curious. Is that you will travel for wine, or do you think that there's a connection between wine and travel that maybe enhances that?
Matthew:So Will Travel For Wine came from the fact that I will travel anywhere for wine. It's a philosophy I have. It's an openness that I've created within my wine career. It's brought me all over the world. I'm very lucky that I get to travel often.
Matthew:I'm blessed for all the opportunities and the the people I've met, the stories I've been able to retell. You know, I'm I'm a lucky person that has sent me around the world the last 12 years, and it continues to send me around the world, and it's only gotten like, the escape velocity, this is crazy. I travel a lot. I can tell you the people that I meet in the world who have the smallest world views and know what's right in front of them only, usually are people who have not traveled. And the one thing I wish for anyone, no matter who you vote for, no matter who you wake up next to, no matter if you're upset that people are coming across the border right now, no matter if you hate wine or hate beer or hate liquor, you think that alcohol is the devil, no matter what god you pray to, if you just get out and see the world a little bit and start to put your own thoughts aside and see how other people live, it's the one thing that I think could bring us together in a way that you don't expect.
Matthew:And it's so hard to explain that to someone. I I'm not here to try to prophesize and explain it and say, you should. Like, no. There's no you shoulds anymore. But I wish it for people.
Matthew:I really I've had it happen in my own life where I've become a more open person and a more understanding just in the way that I evaluate life in general. Because I've been to a Muslim country during Ramadan, and I watched how they worship Allah. And it's not because of 911. That's unrelated. Right?
Matthew:Going to places where I don't speak the language and going into a church and having a priest come over to me and want to give me a tour of the church in a language I don't speak. These are eye opening things that'll happen just because I was willing to go do that. And wine brought me there, but it's ironic when you when wine brings you somewhere, wine is often not the thing that keeps you there. It's important. Don't get me wrong.
Matthew:Like, wine is community, like I said, but, like, the food, the history, the culture, the the architecture, all this amazing stuff you find is all related. And it's, though those life experiences are invaluable. And I get it. Like, travel's expensive. I'm not unaware of that fact.
Matthew:I I'm blessed that I get to do this and get to go see things. And I'm very sympathetic that it's not in everyone's budget, and the economy is a little soft right now. But I really do wish that people could get outside their own comfort zone, get on a plane, because when you go see it, it all starts to make more sense. And if nothing else, like, you just see it a different way.
Mike:I couldn't agree more. I mean, most of my adult life is probably aligned to pretty much everything you said. You know, I've I have kids, and we've lived in Central America and Nicaragua and Nicaragua, in Costa Rica. We've lived in Spain. You know, I've I've, ridden the trains across, India for 3 months, and, it just builds character.
Mike:And if anything and, you know, right now, we're kinda rounding out a year of nomadic travel as a family throughout the US this time. We were hoping to go to Spain, but probably not this year. But I still look at it like this is you can have your classrooms great, but I really, like, value the world as my kids' classroom. You know, going to the museums, going to the markets, you know, really seeing and living, how people that do it differently to experience that. So, I mean, I couldn't be more aligned in your outlook on that.
Matthew:That's so awesome to hear, man. That's inspiring to me as, excuse me, as a as a 40 plus year old single person who still gets to travel, like, hearing that you take your family around the world like that, that's the most inspiring thing I've heard in a long time because those kids will come up with a very different outlook on the world. They will they'll see things from a different lens. Is it better? I don't know.
Matthew:Better is not how I look at this. It's just Mhmm. They'll they'll have other things to consider in their decisions versus the, well, I heard from so and so down the street. This is how life is. The amount of people that I've traveled within the United States, I've gone in the last year to a lot of domestic travel.
Matthew:And the amount of people that I've said when they've asked where are you from, and I say LA. And they go, oh, I heard LA is terrible. I hate LA, and they've never been there.
Mike:Mhmm.
Matthew:I don't wish that sort of mindset on anyone just because how do you hate something that you've never experienced? I just don't get it. I for me, I don't hate anything unless it's shown hate toward me. So and I don't really hate a lot of things. I I find compassion in a lot of ways, and I'm I'm a little bit unique like that.
Matthew:Like, you know, obviously, I get upset about things, and I wish certain things were different. But, like, hate is real strong, and I think travel really opens up your mind to just, like, see it another way. You may not have to gel with it. It may not have to be how you decide, may not be the way you live your life every day, but just, like, see why other people maybe make decisions like that. It's not a hate thing.
Matthew:It's more of a just an open mindedness. And so bravo to you and your family for those travels. I think that's really special. I'm about to go back to Spain, here shortly. I'm excited to get back.
Matthew:I haven't been to Madrid in a while. I did not have the best experiences there, and I'm excited to go now with, having as open a mind as I can to go let it show me what it is. So I'm excited to get back there.
Mike:Sorry. Your video is froze right at the end there.
Matthew:Okay. You it happened to me earlier with you too.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. It happens. I think well, I don't know what's going on with my Internet, but, okay. I'm I'm know where you're at.
Matthew:Thankfully, Riverside records great. It just shows us shitty here in the moment. I love Riverside. I used it for my that was the one I used as well.
Mike:Yeah. So one thing that I don't wanna go too long on the travel, but I think people actually love the travel. But I can totally relate to the thing that you just said about LA because, back in 2015, I took a business venture in Chicago in the summer, and I had never really spent any time in Chicago. And, you know, Chicago's got big stereotypes around it. People draw a lot of conclusions about it.
Mike:And we went and spent the summer, and it couldn't have been more incredible. Like, the lakefront's beautiful. The downtown is great for a big city. It's very clean. You walk around one corner.
Mike:There's a festival. You know, there's a taco festival or you walk around. There's a beer festival, great concerts, of course, Lollapalooza. And but, yeah, we we still would so we love it. We go back every summer for 2 or 3 months and
Matthew:city. Yeah.
Mike:Yeah. Great museums and everything. It's, the I think it's the most underrated, and, also, people are extremely friendly there by you know, for the most part, people can be people, of course. But the funny thing was is how, my wife and I got married. So we've been together for 16 years, but, we didn't make it official until, this past, October.
Mike:And so we invited tons of family in for, the wedding who had never been to Chicago, and everybody sorta had their own comments about it. And then they came in. By the time they left, they were, like, the biggest fans of the city ever. You know? And so, like, yeah, you really gotta travel to know something, and and you might be surprised.
Mike:So I'm curious, like, through your extensive career, you've gone a lot of places. You've met a lot of people. You tasted a lot of wines. Were there, like, any unexpected, or weird experiences as far as, like, the wine you tasted or maybe the the way people do things? Is there any, like, kind of
Matthew:You know, it's funny. Like, I try to go into that place with an open mind and allow it to show me what it is versus to have a lot of preconceived understanding or notion or or thought of what it might be. So going into Portugal for the first time, I didn't know what to expect. I thought, you know, the small country that the borders haven't changed in, like, 600 years, a language that no one understands unless you speak Portuguese. Like, it's it's a tough one.
Matthew:And it showed me just unbelievable warmth and hospitality and incredible food and incredible history. Portugal is somewhere I've been back now. Since I went there first in 2014, I think I've been back 10 times, and I plan to go back more. I would live there in a heartbeat. Going to South Africa for the first time was eye opening.
Matthew:I hadn't been somewhere that far away, which took, from Los Angeles, especially, it took in the air 24 hours, and I I changed planes in London. But it's far. That's a long just 24 hours in the air is far. Yes. I didn't I wasn't quite prepared for the level of poverty that I saw there.
Matthew:Look. There's there's poverty everywhere. And a lot of times, it's kinda, like, hidden, swept under the rug, kinda put to the side. In South Africa, you drive in between the big cities, and it's just right there on the highway. And I saw kids who maybe will never have a dollar to their name unless their life's changed significantly, and they were just sitting there playing soccer, having fun.
Matthew:That was eye opening for me. That was that was not what I expected to see. So, yeah, like, I've been really lucky. I haven't really had any bad experiences. Nothing super weird.
Matthew:Thankfully, I've never had any problems and, like, you know, no the the the worst things you hear of, like, don't be stuck in the city after dark. You might get mugged. Like, I've never had that kind of thing happen and Touch wood. I hope it never happens. Like, I'm usually traveling in a group or at least aware of my surroundings and trying my best to you know, just don't put yourself in bad positions, basically.
Matthew:Try try not to. World's a desperate place right now. You gotta be aware at all times. But, yeah, just, like, the luck the kind of how blessed I am to be able to even think about weird or unique experiences I've had traveling. They've they've it's kind of all been incredible, really, being I don't have a favorite place because they're all incredible.
Matthew:I've been to Uruguay once. I get to go back next month, which I'm quite excited to get back. Let's see. I've been to Argentina a few times. That's always fun.
Matthew:The Andes are magic. Love Chile. I mean, I could just name off a bunch of places. It's not valuable. But for the most part, my my experiences are really positive.
Matthew:Seeing all the really cool stuff in the wine side and then getting to live the culture and the the background of people's you know, you you learn history and get to kinda see it in a different way, especially in Europe with the 1,000 and 1,000 of years of of history where, you know, in America, when you think about, like, modern history, you know, we came over the late 1500, and this is all kinda new. And our country's only been established for, you know, what, 250 years, so it's like we're a blip on the radar. It's like nothing. Cosmically speaking, we don't exist. It's kinda funny.
Matthew:Yeah.
Mike:So I'm curious because you've gone all these places. You had all these experiences. You know? And you're really fortunate that you get to do something that you love to do, and you get to travel on top of it. I think, like, that's the envy of a lot of people.
Mike:With your finger on the pulse in the wine industry, are there any emerging trends or innovations that you have that have you most excited?
Matthew:We're in a really interesting place in wine right now where, what's old is becoming new again. Look. An undeniable thing is the natural wine movement. I've been watching it happen in front of my eyes for years years. It's new to a lot of people every day.
Matthew:I have to be very respectful of the fact that this is, like, people's life, and it's their lifeblood, and it's their livelihood. I look at the that wine movement in a a little bit different lens than I think a lot of people do, but there's some really cool things happening in an ethos based consumerism where, yes, we care how the grapes are grown. Yes. We care how they're handled in the winery. Yes.
Matthew:There shouldn't be a bunch of things I can't pronounce added to the wine. One of the things that's interesting about that process, though, is that, like, it kinda negates how a lot of other work is being done and just all of a sudden deems it all bad. So I wish we would just get a little more educated on what we're talking about. I think that's important trending wise. Like, let's not just buy into buzzwords anymore, and let's actually do the work.
Matthew:Let's look into things. Let's stop getting mad at sulfites because it says it on the wine label even though no one knows what it is. If you or someone who's worried about sulfites yet you smoke a pack of cigarettes and do cocaine, what are you really upset about? So, like, personal responsibility or that, that's a trend. The orange wine movement that I've been watching happening is, again, another thing that's in this, inescapable.
Matthew:It's it's what everyone's talking about. It's not new. It's been made for 1000 of years.
Mike:What is it?
Matthew:New. Skin contact wine, orange wine, amber wine, macerated wine is all a category of, how wine is made from white varieties or sometimes pink or with with a little bit of skin pigment varieties, things like, you know, I'm I'm just touching the surface saying this, but, like, Pinot Gris, Pinot Grigio, Gewurtztraminer, Riesling, Chardonnay, a a lot of varieties like that are used now to be made the same way that red wine is made, which if you're not familiar, red wine gets its color and pigment from the skins. They separate juice in the skins. Skins go back on the juice. The color comes from the actual grape skins themselves.
Matthew:That's where the pigment lies. Now if you're not making red wine, but you're using white varieties, you could use and employ the same mentality and same process, and you're getting antioxidants. You're getting flavonoids. You're getting all this other stuff that's being kind of transferred through the skins. That's the concept of, again, amber wine, macerated wine, orange wine.
Matthew:There's a lot of terms for it, so it's better to say them altogether. We in the the world of marketing and hipster land like to take old things and make them new again, and then everyone who's just learning about it for the first time thinks it's this brand new thing. It's like a case in point moment is I'm forgetting the country star's name, but the the guy who just got to sing the song with the with Tracy Tracy Chapman, Fast Car, like, great song. But for those of you who aren't aware, Tracy Chapman wrote that song in 1988, and it was a number one hit in 1989, and now it's a number one hit again years later. Or if you like Otis Redding, but you didn't know that Aretha Franklin and the the Rolling Stones both covered songs of his and made them extremely famous after he died, Otis Redding was the songwriter.
Matthew:And that's okay. Like, we don't all have to know that. But if you love the Rolling Stones and you think that they wrote the song, like, you it's just an incomplete picture. You know? So sometimes we gotta remember that things happen because of antiquity, and it's a cycle of terms and the cycle of what's popular, and wine is not dissimilar for this.
Matthew:Like, things go in and out of fashion. Merlot is coming back. Thank God, because it should never have gone away. Fucking sideways. If you haven't seen the sideways film, great film about friendship, not a great film about wine, but it decimated sales of Merlot because of a famous line that one of the characters says, I'm not drinking any fucking Merlot.
Matthew:It literally decimated the category for 2 decades. Not not kidding. You know, like, this is this is America, to quote Donald Glover.
Mike:So yeah. Yeah. That's wild. Thinking about, you know, in terms of maybe those that are listening and, using Sunnyside to kind of be more mindful what they're drinking. And and I think this this conversation is great because it allows you, when you are drinking, to be more mindful and also appreciate it for maybe more ritual versus the actual and we talked about this already, but the Yeah.
Mike:More ritual than the actual drinking and the effects of the alcohol. What's some advice, that you could do besides talking to, like, the shopkeeper or or whoever is, you know, there to consult you? Like, once you get that bottle and you take it home, is there something that, you would advise that people could do that maybe bring some some more enjoyment and ritual to appreciating wine, than than maybe just corking it and dumping it in a bottle or in
Matthew:a Yeah. I I think that it's a good practice for anyone who's out there buying wine in a, you know, normal consumer environment. Like, when you get home, Google the winery. Go to their website. See what kind of information they like to pass.
Matthew:Check out the about us or the history. Find out if they'll tell you why a vineyard was planted, how the acquisition happened, who the winemaker is, where the winemaker used to work. Maybe you'll find kind of like this this is a great thing. I'm a a big music fan. I've made a lot of music references.
Matthew:When I love an album, especially from, like, when it's not a band that you know all the band members, but, like, a singer songwriter or an artist will often have a bunch of different, guitar players, bass players, drummers, people playing the strings. So I incessantly, as a kid, would go into the liner notes and find out who played what instrument, and then I'd follow where they were. So when you learn about winemakers, use that same mentality of, like, maybe they worked at another winery. This might be another way to learn about another great story. For me, it's all about stories.
Matthew:I I consider myself a rock hunter. I'm a storyteller. If you can emotionally connect through the story, the wine will taste better. It's a goddamn fact. I don't care what anyone says.
Matthew:If the story sucks, the wine will probably not be as good. Fact. So do a little recon. Just dig a little bit. Take that shovel, throw the dirt away, and you'll be surprised what you will uncover.
Mike:Nah. It's great, man. You know, you gave us a lot of tips here, a lot of, like, background and stories and, tons of wine to think about. Looking into the future, you know, to wrap this up, what projects or ventures are you currently most excited about?
Matthew:So the world that I find myself in day to day now, having the opportunity to, unearth stories and write about it for Men's Journal, That world has given me a whole new kind of excitement for this excavation or, like, it's anthropological look at it. So I don't know what comes next being real with you. I'm kind of open to whatever future lies down the road, but I've got a lot more stories to tell. I've got a lot more wines to learn about. I don't drink as much as I used to, but I'm still here trying to tell every story.
Matthew:And, really, what it comes down to is, like, if I can help accomplish the goals of a certain wine project or a marketing campaign or something along those lines, and I can find my passion within it, those are the kind of things that get me excited. So more storytelling, you know, getting more great juice into people's glass, quality over quantity.
Mike:Yes. I like that all. And Yep. You're definitely a good storyteller. You're definitely seeking out some good stories that are ahead of you for sure.
Mike:If anyone's listening to this and wants to connect with you, what's the best way to to do that? We'll we'll link everything up, but, you know, if it's at your website or if it's email or social media, let us know, you know, what's a good way to reach out.
Matthew:So the best place is probably Instagram at Matthew J. Keener with 2 t's. You can go to will travel for wine.com. That's my consulting website. I'm active on x.
Matthew:I'm active on threads. I'm active on LinkedIn. You know? I I respond pretty much a 100% of the time. So if you hit me up, unless if you send me some bullshit, I might not respond.
Matthew:No offense. Like, no spam. But, I genuine stories and real people, if you write something that says, hey, my name, I'm gonna respond to you. And I love connection. So
Mike:please. Thanks, Matthew. Hey. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing all your wealth and knowledge.
Mike:Thanks for being open to people reaching out, and I just wanna give a big thanks.
Matthew:It's been a pleasure, man. Thanks for having me, and drink mindfully. Let's go.
Mike:Let's do it.
Mike:This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform, having helped 100 of thousands of people cut out more than 13,000,000 drinks since 2020. And in fact, an independent study showed that Sunnyside reduced alcohol consumption by an average of 30% in 90 days. And as one of our members shared, Sunnyside helps me stay mindful of my drinking habits. It's not super restrictive. So if I'm craving a glass of wine with dinner, I just track it and I move on with my week.
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