A Year in Burgundy, Drops Of God and Alexander The Guest
Adventures Of A Black Belt Sommelier
Three streaming shows I highly recommend you watch!
Well, welcome back to Adventures of a Black Belt summary. I have three things to recommend you watch today that I think you will really enjoy and maybe even learn something from. The first is a Netflix documentary called A Year in Burgundy. It follows four Burgundy producers of various different price points. Nicholas Rosignol, Lulu-Bislawah, Christoph Perilmino, and one other producer, it follows them through their life for a year, their lives for a year. And it kind of, it illustrates a lot of things. It illustrates the challenges of being a winemaker in Burgundy. It illustrates their personal, a little bit, their personal lives. It illustrates a little bit the concept of terroir in Burgundy, but to a great extent, it involves watching them stare at the sky, hoping the wrong thing doesn't happen at the wrong time, which is a big challenge in Burgundy. But it also kind of illustrates why, you know, one producer's wine cell for $75 a bottle, another producer's wine cell for $200 a bottle, and another producer's wine cell for $600 a bottle, and the Loire wine cell for $1,000 a bottle. It also clearly illustrates that and explains why that is the case. It's really fantastic. Especially if you like the wines of Burgundy, this is something, if you haven't watched, you should watch. It's on Netflix. It's called a year in Burgundy. It's fantastic. I watch it every now and then because I've probably watched it 10 times and I still speak time see something I didn't notice before or learn something I hadn't known before. It's a great glimpse into the reality of what it's like to be a wine maker in Burgundy. It's fantastic. A year in Burgundy on Netflix. The second is on Apple TV. It's called Drops of God. When I first started watching this, I was really put off by it. I thought this is going to be ridiculous because the concept is that this in very, very influential wine writer, he's the amount of influence that Robert Parker had for a while, dies. He stages a competition between his protege and his daughter, a blind tasting competition to determine which one of them will inherit his business and run his business after he passes away. I was initially really put off by this idea because I thought it was just a blind tasting competition which would be ridiculous because the daughter had no experience, blind tasting wine and she was going to be competing with this guy who had been doing it his whole life and so there was no way she could win. But that's not what it is at all. It was really the blind tasting part of it is the search for clues and a kind of mystery story who done it kind of thing and it's really, really fascinating and it's really interesting and the ending is a surprise and it's really, really, really well done and as I said kind of fascinating and mentally stimulating to watch the show. And as is unfortunately unusual with things like that, the wine part of it is actually really well done and accurate is not inaccurate as is often the case with blind related things on TV or in the movies. Like for instance, the movie sideways which was unbelievably influential but everything, almost everything wine related in the movie is wrong. And then the third thing I'd suggest you watch is a YouTube channel. It's called Alexander the Guest. It's a Hungarian guy named Alexander, don't know his last name, Alexander, who owns a Michelin one-star restaurant in Budapest. But he travels the world dieting at Michelin three-star restaurants and he makes videos of his dinners. Now I don't know exactly how he convinces the restaurants to let him film the dinners and take pictures of the dinners and share them on YouTube. But he does. He's really knowledgeable about food and wine and restaurants. He tells the truth. He doesn't gloss over things. If he doesn't think things are as good as they should be, he says so. And if he thinks things are really special, he says so. And he is, again, is not the case in this streaming. The wine part of it is well done and accurate. He's very knowledgeable about wine, especially loves champagne and especially loves crude champagne and I admire him for both of those things. But it's just fascinating to see behind the curtain these experiences at the best restaurants in the world. Some of which he thinks deserve their reputation among the best restaurants in the world. And when he thinks they don't deserve it, he says so. And he points out the reason why if the service is mechanical or not personal, if the food is not intense enough in his flavors or creative enough in his presentation or beautiful enough in his presentation. If the wine service is not well done, if the glassware is not appropriate. I mean, he really points out and he falls. But he also points out the successes and I love that. And by the way, his best restaurant in the world is called his restaurant periscope, Plinitude that is owned by Louis Vuitton and Louis Hennessy. And based on his video of his dinner at Plinitude, I can't imagine there could be a better restaurant in the world than this restaurant. And actually, in my conversation for this podcast with Francois Odus, who's one of the most incredible wine collectors in the world, he said that Plinitude was easily his favorite restaurant in the world. So those are three things I recommend. I really recommend it highly that you would enjoy and learn from all three drops of God on Apple TV, a year in Burgundy on Netflix, and Alexander the Guest on YouTube. Check them out. I think you really enjoy them. And as always, thank you for joining us here on Adventures of the Black Belt Soling. You