Speaker 0:11

Hello, everybody, and welcome. You are listening to The Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal and he's Francis Schott. Together we own Stage Left Restaurant and Catherine Lombardi Restaurant in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life.

Speaker 2 0:26

Hey, Mark.

Speaker 0:26

Hey, buddy. How you doing?

Speaker 2 0:27

I'm doing great. We got Ray Isle coming on the show later.

Speaker 0:30

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 0:30

He's the head wine guy at Food and Wine Magazine. We're gonna see him this weekend at Aspen Food Wine- Yeah in Aspen.

Speaker 0:37

In

Speaker 2 0:37

Aspen. Which is where they have the Aspen Food Wine.

Speaker 0:39

And they have food.

Speaker 2 0:40

And then wine.

Speaker 0:41

And wine. That's absolutely correct.

Speaker 2 0:43

Oh, my.

Speaker 0:44

We are gonna talk about food and wine with Ray Isle in just a minute, but since this is gonna be kind of a wine-centric show, I wanna disabuse people of something that people are saying on the internets, but

Speaker 2 0:59

I- I, I- I was in love with your vocabulary when you said disabuse and then you said the internets, but I know you did that on purpose, so I st- I'm still in love with your, your vocabulary today. But

Speaker 1:09

I, but there's something that is a rumor out there and it's wrong, and I, and I want to make people realize how wrong it is.

Speaker 2 1:18

I'm so curious.

Speaker 1:19

Okay. People are saying never buy the second cheapest bottle of wine on a wine list because restaurateurs know that that's the wine that, that most people are going to buy and you shouldn't buy that wine. And I think that that particular factoid is stupid.

Speaker 2 1:42

Why?

Speaker 1:43

Well, I'm gonna tell you how a lot of us write our wine list.

Speaker 2 1:46

Okay.

Speaker 1:47

Okay? So you have a floor, okay? Your, your wine list has a floor, and whether it's 30 bucks or 40 bucks or 50 bucks or 100 bucks, okay? You're like- You go to Bernard Denn, you're not gonna find a wine under 89 or 99 bucks.

Speaker 2 1:59

And where that floor comes from and why that floor has gone up recently is the restaurateur says, "I..." Say I get four, or some restaurants get five glasses out of a bottle.

Speaker 2:09

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 2:09

I can't be charging less than $15 a drink.

Speaker 2:13

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 2:13

Right? So that's where the $60 floor comes from.

Speaker 2:16

Yep. Okay. So restaurants have a floor. So if I pay $8 for a bottle or $20 for a bottle, and my markup is three times, let's say, just to, just to l- let's use round numbers.

Speaker 2 2:31

You're not going under your floor.

Speaker 2:32

Okay. So if the $8 bottle and the $20 bottle are all gonna cost $60 if my floor is $60.

Speaker 2 2:38

Right, right.

Speaker 2:39

Right? The $21 bottle, if, if my markup is three times, is gonna cost $63.

Speaker 2 2:46

Yep.

Speaker 2:46

It's going to be my second- Yep least expensive wine. So if my least expensive wine may be from 8 to $20, and my second least expensive wine might be a wine that costs me $21, well, that doesn't make my second least expensive wine a terrible choice. It actually makes it a pretty good choice, and they're telling people to avoid what might be a really, really good choice on the wine list as far as value goes.

Speaker 2 3:16

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:17

Mm-hmm. And I, uh, I wanna stop telling people that. It's stupid. I- Stop telling people that.

Speaker 2 3:22

Okay, I will. I, I will.

Speaker 3:26

So I've seen at least three different pundits talk about that.

Speaker 2 3:31

Bad advice.

Speaker 3:31

It's bad advice. Bad advice. It's bad advice, and the best advice is always ask the sommelier in the room what you wanna drink. That

Speaker 2 3:37

is always

Speaker 3:38

the best advice. With what you wanna drink, how much you wanna spend, and say, "Help me pick a wine."

Speaker 2 3:42

your vocabulary today is all I'm talking about. Both of you used the word sommelier, and I think that that puts a lot of people off, and I think most restaurants don't have sommeliers anymore. Mm-hmm. So you won't- Ask the

Speaker 3:52

manager. Ask

Speaker 2 3:53

the floor manager. Yeah. Sa- Say, and you know what? I think to say, and we do have sommeliers on the floor- Mm-hmm and we, we don't use the word sommelier 'cause we don't wanna scare people away. What we say, what we train our staff to say is if, if, say it's a good waiter but they don't know a lot about wine and you're asking some questions that the waiter's thinking, "I don't have the answers to these questions." Uh,

Speaker 4:08

outside their knowledge base.

Speaker 2 4:10

They don't say, "Oh, let me send the sommelier right over," because that- Mm a lot of people find that off-putting. What they say is, "You know, Julie knows a lot about Italian wine." Mm-hmm. "Let me get her," you know? Or, "Let me get Mark," or, "Let me get Francis." Yep. And I think that wherever you go, asking in the same way, say, "You know, we're really interested in wine. Y- You, is there somebody here who, who likes, who's, you know,

Speaker 4:29

who's jazzed about wine?" I, I mean, to

Speaker 2 4:29

be honest with

Speaker 4:30

you, occasionally there'll be a wine on the list that I haven't tasted that you have. Yeah. And I'll be like, "Let me grab Francis."

Speaker 2 4:35

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:35

He had this wine last week. He just brought it in. Let, let me go grab him."

Speaker 2 4:39

But what I'm talking about is if you're a consumer- Mm-hmm just say, "Hey, I have some questions about these wines or this wine-" Mm-hmm "or I'm looking for... Is there somebody on the floor?" And very often in a restaurant you'll ask a question and you'll get an answer from somebody who you just know they're making it up. Yep. You know it's just bullshit. And you just, you say, "You know, is there somebody who's, like, jazzed about wine, who's like a wine guy or a wine person here?" And, uh, I think asking for that is a, is the best way to go, and that's if you're in a wine shop or a restaurant- Mm-hmm or wherever you are. But you know what we're gonna do in just a few minutes? We're gonna ask our wine guy, Ray Isle, who is the top wine guy at Food and Wine Magazine, and you get to listen. So stick with us. We are The Restaurant Guys. You can always find out more about us at restaurantguyspodcast.com, and we'll be back in just a minute.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 5:19

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back. Our guest today, as promised, is Ray Isle. He is the executive wine editor of Food Wine Magazine. He's one of the most respected wine journalists in America. Uh, and he's helped wine lovers discover great bottles, great regions, and great stories, and the people who make them. His book is The World in a Wine Glass. That just came out in 2022. It's fabulous. Uh, we are actually headed to the Food Wine Classic in Aspen, where we will hook up with our old friend, Ray Isle. So, drop us a line at the guys, uh, if you're gonna be there, and say hello. And we'll be there h- hooking up with our old friend Ray to, uh, take stock of where wine is today, where it's headed tomorrow, and why, despite some doom and gloom reports, it remains one of life's great pleasures and most interesting and fulfilling hobbies. Ray, welcome back to the show

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 6:09

It's so good to be back. It's been a while.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 6:11

It's been 20 years,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 6:12

It's been a long time.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 6:14

It's been 19 years. That's a long, long time. But- Again, to be fair, we took 12 years off in the middle- Yeah, yeah so that's...

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 6:19

that, that, that's fair. Yeah. I mean, you need... It's, it's a very stressful show, so you gotta take time off and recharge,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 6:24

yeah, a good decade here and there. So I will tell you though, that we, as you know because we're friends, I always read your stuff. I do... Everything I said in the intro, Mark and I think is very true. Um, you're a really insightful guy and, you help us keep our, finger on the pulse of the wine world and see what's going on through all this time. Ray, way back in 2007 when you were on our show, we had a discussion about biodynamic wines. it was a great discussion about how people spending more time in their vineyards made a difference. People being really in tune with what was happening in their vineyards really could make a difference in what happened in the wines.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 7:02

Mm-hmm.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 7:02

Now we have a new flow in the wine business of this natural wine, Natural wine's come out, a lot of people are really into natural wine, and it's a much more laissez-faire approach. I would say almost the opposite approach of biodynamic wines except for the natural, you know, the part of just kinda letting nature do its thing. so those things are parallel, but they're really also very different at the same time. you just talk to us a little bit about the, the, the two different movements?

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 7:32

Yeah. So I think, like you said, They overlap, but they're not... They're two very different things in that biodynamics is an approach to agriculture, and natural wine is, somewhere in between philosophy and practice of, of wine making, though does include the wine being farmed at least organically, if not biodynamically. Um, the biodynamics, you know, was, comes out of Rudolf Steiner, who was a, um, philosopher, guru, oddball um, in Austria in the sort of turn of the, you know, around the 1900s. And he had one really great idea, which was to look at the vineyard as a whole. not just the, the plants stuck in the ground, but as a, the entire vineyard or farm being one ecological whole, so that the, the life in the soil, the, the plants that are planted in the soil, the birds, the bees, the, you know, including and up to like the cosmic influences and so on. And natural wines is a bit more a response to, what you would call sort of, you know, industrial wine making, I guess, which is, you know, using enzymes and using sulfur. I mean, though I'm actually pro use of sulfur, um, but using manufactured yeast as opposed to natural yeast. And so it's-- Natural wines is really a being as non-interventionist as possible in your wine making, um, and using fruit that's been grown organically. So they are-- There's a lot of overlap between biodynamic and natural, but there are wines that are farmed biodynamically that don't somehow qualify as natural, and there are wines that are natural that are not farmed biodynamically. And that's part of what I get into in my book, because I think that there's this weird division. It's almost like a club being in the natural wine sphere where someone like Zind-Humbrecht, which is farming biodynamically, which is making fairly low intervention wines, is, is yet considered, not considered natural, um, go figure, um, when there are winemakers who are working fairly similarly that are. And so

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 9:34

a lot of winemakers out there that, that don't profess to being natural

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 9:40

Yes

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 9:41

certainly applying those practices. I

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 9:43

Yeah. And natural, you know, does that classic thing where they kind of, whether they intend it or not, it take, kind of takes the moral high ground by just the term natural, 'cause it implies that any wines that aren't natural wines are somehow unnatural, which is, I think, ridiculous. Um, there are great wines out there that don't fall into the natural camp that are made in a very low intervention way and made without the use of systemic chemicals in the vineyard, and so on. So, you know, I, I find that that kind of division into camps is not great for the wine business as a whole, and certainly not great in that it kind of pits people who have similar views of things against each other. Um, you know, and it d- and it doesn't make sense really to me. Um, I think that there's a spectrum of, of kind of treating... Let's say, let's put it this way: I'm in favor of wineries and winemakers who, and, and vineyard and growers and everybody who treat the earth as something that can be helped and, and as something precious as opposed to something that is, you know, meant to be modified as much as possible by human intervention. nature gives you something and you should value what it gives you, um, and not try and control it too extremely. As humans, we tend to think we're in charge of nature, but, um, in the end, nature kind of wins.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 10:58

one of the things that I find interesting is let me poke holes in both natural

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 11:04

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 11:05

and, and we'll, maybe that'll help us. I, I, I, I'm not against either category, and I'm certainly the people who have the best motives for, who are adopting those labels, I, I that, and I think it makes great wine. if biodynamic, if I can poke a hole in biodynamic, it's stuff like, you know, using crystals and burying a cow horn full of dung on the first light of the third moon, and a lot of stuff that, could seem like hokum or seems more religion than agriculture, right?

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 11:35

woo, the woo-woo part. Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 11:37

The woo-woo part. Exactly. But,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 11:39

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 11:39

what we talked about when we first, when biodynamic wine was emerging in America, and we talked about it so many years ago, o- of the things we came to is that makes you, because it, it follows written principles by Rudolf Steiner and others, you pay more attention in the vineyard to your vines, and you're looking at things every day 'cause you're trying to deal with diseases before they happen, and you're... So it may cause people to pay more attention than if they were using chemicals and pesticides and chemical fertilizers and just spray it in the field and I'll see you in a week, right? It strikes me that while some people who are embracing the natural wine label doing that because they wanna take it even a further step through the wine making,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 12:21

Mm-hmm.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 12:23

there seems to be a, a demand for quote unquote natural wine which has no Rudolf Steiner, which has no definition. So, and it, it, and n- people who sell wine under a natural label will forgive a cloudy wine. I don't, I don't know why y- you would forgive a cloudy wine. You can just find that there's nothing unnatural about egg whites or bentonites to find a wine. just you gotta be more careful. And I see a lot of, well, how do I say this delicately? Shit wine being sold- uh, and it has the word natural on it, and people are, are drinking it and saying, "Oh, it's natural." It's, uh, but it's an... There's a lot of emperor has no clothes wines being sold under natural wines. I think- A lot of great stuff, but- I think the point that Francis is, is pointing to here is in, when we have biodynamic wines, I think we tend to find the average biodynamic wine is a, maybe a little better than the average, you know, normal wine you would see on the shelf. Mm-hmm. And I find that the average natural wine may be a little worse than the average- Cloudy and bitter m- than the average wine I see on the shelf. And not to say a natural wine can't be great or a biodynamic wine can't be crappy. Uh, well put,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 13:31

Yeah. I mean, I think, again, it's-- I, I do separate the two. So let, let's talk about biodynamics first. I think, yeah, there's, there is this woo-woo component to it, there's no question. I thought one of the best quotes I heard about it, um, uh, that I used in my book was, was from Olivier Zuntun- Zuntunberg, who's a master of wine, uh, has a master's in, uh, in, in viticulture. I mean, he's scientifically trained. He's a very, very smart guy, and what he did when he started thinking about biodynamics was he, he created basically three separate compost piles, one of which was using compost ingredients all had been farmed conventionally, you know, with, with... You take your pick of, of systemic chemicals and so on. And then one compost pile all with ingredients that had been, you know, farmed organically, and then one that with everything in it had been farmed biodynamically. And he said, "When I measured the microbial activity in the three piles, the biodynamics one was off the charts." And as-- And he said, "As a scientist, what that tells me is, even if I don't know why, there's something going on here with this practice that, that affects, you know, this, this level of microbial activity, which in turn affects the microbial activity in the soil." Um, and so what he said was, "You know, I-- Part of science is figuring out why, why something is. You, you make observations, you see a difference, and you make up, and you act on it." You know, is it because you buried cow horns in, you know, in the soil for six months and then unearthed them in the light by the light of full moon or whatever? I don't know. Uh, probably not, but it-- There's no question that the attention it makes you pay in the vineyard is important. But that doesn't necessarily count, account for why the, the microbial activity would be different in the biodynamic compost than in the purely organic one. And so there's something very interesting about that, but I-- That goes-- It's ca- quite counter to what I... I mean, I'm a rationalist and I'm pro-science, so I, I find it-- I find my own interest in biodynamics fascinating to me 'cause I should dis-- I should, by nature, dismiss it completely, and instead I find that there is stuff going on. Regarding the spiritual, another quote from a winemaker I love also in the book is Louis Barrell at, um, Château Saint-Cosme in France, and he said he borrows a lot of biodynamic practices, but he leaves out all the spiritual stuff. You know, classic sort of Louis way. He said, you know, "I, I grew up Catholic. I already have one God. I don't need a second one."

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 15:53

Well, you know, I think, I think you, you point to a really great intersection though. Like, if we know by experimentation and, and keeping track of things that this set of practices results in better wine, and we know that l- by buying bottles of wine, if it says biodynamic on the label, it's probably gonna be a pretty good bottle of wine. You know what I

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 16:14

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 16:15

So

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 16:15

the, uh

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 16:16

if you know that it works, even if you don't know why it works, science doesn't say I can't use it until I know why it works, right?

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 16:24

It

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 16:24

So

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 16:24

it is, and it is-- I mean, all these practices like organics and biodynamics are much easier if you're in a warm, dry environment for grapes than if you're in a cold, wet one. You know? There's less disease pressure, there's all that kind of thing. But, you know, it is that basic idea that you're, by treating the farm as a, as a whole, you're, you're making it somewhat immune to disease pressures by strengthening the natural protections that you've got going. Natural wine, flipping to the other side, um, that's very different. Uh, uh, there are a couple things. I, I do think there are some great natural wines and there are some garbage natural wines. On the other hand, I think there's a lot of... There's some great conventional wines and some garbage conventional wines. The, the difference tends to be that within the natural sphere, the wines I don't like tend to my mind to be just flat out flawed. They're, you know, they, they have winemaking flaws. They're wildly, you know, way too much VA, so much Brett that it smells like you, you know, like tried to lick a horse. You know, it's, it's, it's, it just doesn't work. The, the flaw on the conventional side is not usually one of the wine tasting bad, 'cause that was kind of conquered in the l- the '70s. You know, you, you can buy a bottle of, you know, completely commercial nine buck wine that was made by the millions of gallons, and it will not be flawed. But it will be uninteresting and somewhat soulless, and just a manufactured product that's really no different than Coca-Cola. W- and I think that's what the natural wine movement was kind of responding to, is this proliferation. And if you look, go by volume, it's most of the wine out there that is just an industrial product, and it happens to be made from grapes. It's not an agricultural product in the same way that a wine from a person who works in a place and wor- takes care of their own vines, you know, makes. So, the other thing you know, I keep going back to these quotes 'cause I did so many interviews for the book, and it k- kind of codified a lot of what I thought. And I had a, great quote from the woman who owns, um, Della Stoppa in, Italy, um, Emilia-Romagna. And she said-- She's interesting 'cause she came out of a literary background, and she said, Yes, there are flaws, but on the other hand, flaws are to some degree what we decide they are." So, if my daughter spends $300 on a pair of jeans with rips in them, my mother, my daughter's grandmother would say, "Those jeans are flawed. They are,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 18:45

Right

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 18:45

are actually damaged jeans." On the other hand, if you're 20, they're cool jeans that were made by a designer and are worth $300. And so, going back to wine, a certain amount of Brett may be a positive thing if you're in the certain sensibility that allows for that. what I like about natural wine, you know, it's still a super tiny percentage of the wine that's in the market. What I like about it is this raised this whole conversation about, you know, what is wine supposed to be like? I, I still think I pref- I mean, personally, I prefer wines that are not-- don't have massive amounts of VA and massive amounts of Brett. But it does make you kind of recognize that some of this is aesthetic decisions about w- that we culturally have decided are the way things are supposed to be, and that's kind of fascinating.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 19:28

I don't even know, though, that it's cultural. I think that sometimes, and you know, Francis used the expression emperor's new clothes,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 19:34

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 19:35

sometimes a wine tastes bad and people are like, "Oh, did you taste that?" I

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 19:40

Yeah. Appreciate it

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 19:40

It was bad. It made me go, "Ew."

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 19:42

Yeah. It's, I, I know. It's, and also everybody's palate's different, you know? I mean, I, I've certainly had some natural wines where I was like, "What the hell am I drinking?" Um, but I've also had, you know, I've had commercial wines where I'm like, "Why am I drinking this? This is just..." I mean, you know, it's,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 19:57

just

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 19:57

it's like Bud Light only in a wine bottle.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 20:00

I, I think, I think that y-y, uh, that you make a great point, that in commercial wines you're never gonna get something, that you're rarely gonna get something

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 20:06

Not anymore. Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 20:08

and, you know, you take a chance on natural wines, but i- every time I see a cloudy wine, I think you're making a statement here. It's

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 20:17

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 20:18

you, you could make that wine... Like, any decent wine student can very naturally clear up that wine, and it will be less bitter, and it will be more attractive. actually, this is a great segue onto the last time we saw each other. So this is the 50th anniversary year of the Judgment of Paris tasting,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 20:35

Yes

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 20:36

changed the wine world 50 years ago, and Kevin Zraly moderated a panel on which you sat with Andrea Robinson, and of all things, Louis Black, who has agreed to come on the show in the future. I don't know how we wound up with that,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 20:47

Yeah, a very different, not your usual wine panelist guy.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 20:50

he was great. He was

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 20:51

He's very funny

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 20:52

in line. But let's talk about the Judgment of Paris. So the Judgment of Paris, for those of you who don't know, was 1976.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 20:59

Mm-hmm.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 20:59

they put up a, in front of all French judges in Paris, uh, there was a wine merchant, there was a journalist, there were winemakers, they put American wines into the tasting, and all the judges thought, "Ah, these American wines," were gonna crap on their heads. It's, you know, they can never make wines as well as the French. and there were some Americans there, but their votes didn't count. It was all French judges, and wines won both red and white, sh- sending shock waves through the restaurant world, which we'll talk about. It's not... People are like, "Oh, tempest in a teapot," but it wasn't. It actually changed the way wine was made in both countries in ways that have lasted for 50 years. Um, did you have fun at that commemoration? And, and

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 21:42

That was

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 21:43

what can we learn from the, the Judgment of Paris?

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 21:45

a I--

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 21:45

do you... Let's,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 21:46

It wa-

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 21:46

about that.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 21:46

a, it was a blast. I mean, it was, you know, par- partly... It, it's interesting. I did two events that week, one of which was that event, which was 300 people at City Winery, um, with Lewis Black, who is, who is an irreverent guy, to say the least. Um, and I... And then I did a s- a tasting the next night with some collectors, which was all 1975 vintage wines, many of which were-- Which wasn't quite the vintage that was in the Judgment of Paris, but close, and many of them were wines that were in the Judgment of Paris. And the City Winery one was great because it was fun. It was a blast to see 300 people buy tickets to this semi-recreation. It wasn't even really a recreation. We just, we just did some French versus American wines, current vintage. Kevin's a funny guy. I have long disliked, very much disliked, the, uh, pretension that can be associated with wine. I didn't get into wine to deal with that. Um, I got involved... No, I love Kevin. Kevin's great, you know, and Andrea's great, and Pascaline Lepeltier was there and, you know, it was, it was a blast. And so it was just, you know, going back to that question of how wine's doing right now, which you kind of mentioned briefly in the intro, it's like there's a lot of headwinds against wine at the moment. So it was a, it was a joy to see all these people together having a great time drinking wine, you know, kind of, kind of to commemorate the Judgment of Paris, which was a big deal and did, like, an enormous amount to convince the world that American wines were on par with the great classic European wines. Um, but it was also fun and, and casual and low-key. And then the next day was a tasting that was much more a high-end consu- uh, collector tasting and blind with major top-level wines from, from both countries, and the Americans swept it again. Um, and it was 1975, which was a little... It's not a great vintage for Bordeaux, but it's not even the best vintage for Napa Valley. And the three top wines of the tasting, which was only reds, were, um, were Mayacamas 1975, Cabernet Ridge 1975, Monte Bello, and, um, Heitz 1975 Martha's Vineyard. And this is a lot of people who really knew wine doing it blind again, and those wines were absolutely spectacular. So the two of those together were a great way for me to kind of look at, uh, at what the Judgment of Paris meant. I mean, when Spurrier, the, the, the wine dealer who put the j- original tasting together, did it, it wasn't meant to change the world. He, he mostly just thought it would be an interesting thing to do. It happened that there was a journalist from Time Magazine there who wrote about it in Time, which at the time, Time Magazine was the, the voice of reality, and it just completely changed things,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 24:25

just wanted to interject. As opposed to now, when Food Wine Magazine is- Yes the magazine that everybody looks to

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 24:31

Thank you very much. Yes.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 24:32

Yes. So

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 24:34

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 24:34

how did the Judgment of Paris... I have my own views. I wanna see what you think of how, how the Judgment of Paris, what were the- I'm so surprised. Francis has his own views. Yeah. Usually he's a wallflower. What, so what do you, what do you say about what, what were the downstream effects of the Judgment of Paris?

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 24:49

You know, I think that one downstream effect was legitimizing the quality of, of California, specifically Napa Valley wines. Um, you know, it, it... I think people who were making wine in Napa knew that they had, were making wines as good as the great European wines, but I, but the world did not believe that, you know? It was, they were very much underdogs. And if you have to look back, there were only, like, 70 wineries in Napa at the time, 77 wineries. It was a, it was the very start of, of, of the kind of renaissance of Napa Valley. Um, I mean, one of the funny things, of course, is that the, the wa- the white wine that won, the Montelena Chardonnay, was, was primarily sourced from Bacigalupi Vineyard in Sonoma, so it was actually a Sonoma wine, but, um, details. Um, you know, I think that it, I think it did a couple of things. It, you know, it, it, it gave some legitimacy to this ambition that American winemakers had. You know, Robert Mondavi was already there promoting Napa Valley at that time. Um, it's honestly kind of surprising that, that a Mondavi wine wasn't in the mix. there was other stuff going on, and I think the kind of rise of California wine would've happened anyway, but it accelerated it. And I think it was confidence building, you know, too. Um, you know, I, anybody who's...

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 26:03

definitely allowed people to invest, right? Uh,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 26:05

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 26:06

a little less afraid to invest in their property, to invest in Napa Valley- Well- to invest in Sonoma and not just people investing in their property. It opened up, just 'cause I've done a bunch of reading on this, and actually it, it wound up being more influential than I had realized. going to attend the thing, and one of the reasons I went was 'cause you were there and Kevin was there, um, it, it opened up literal investment, not from existing wineries, but from banks and investors, and all sort of people who were willing to invest money in the California wine industry, and it was a hu- it had a huge effect on that. But the other thing that I found fascinating French wine, th- w- demand for wine worldwide and throughout Western Europe and the United States, uh, and the Anglosphere, had been declining. And the French were resting on their laurels a little bit, and they were like the king of a declining empire, and it, it caused them to in- invest into their technology and their wineries and their vineyards because they're like, "Oh, we better step up our game." And kind of that Judgment of Paris caused attention t- to come to the wine world overall, and it w- I j- I think it was, that was much more important than most people give it credit for

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 27:20

I agree. And it's, and it's true about, I mean, French wine at the time, uh, particularly in Bordeaux, there was a lot of resting on laurels. And if you go back, I mean, it, it's, you know, it's... It became fashionable to kind of bash Robert Parker, later on down the line. But when he got started, you know, his, his kind of agenda was to be a kind of Ralph Nader of wine and, a consumer advocate for wine. That's why it's called the Wine Advocate. And a big part of the reason he did that was because as a person who loved wine, he thought that there were all these wines, you know... He, he was very critical. There were a lot of wines in Bordeaux that weren't, that were not investing in their infrastructure, that weren't investing in their vineyards, and that were third growth or fourth growth or whatever, but weren't producing that great, the wines that were that great. And he was, you know, he called them to task for it, and that's, you know, that starts happening. You know, his big moment was the 1982 vintage, um, which is not that long after Judgment of Paris, and you see this kind of cascade of things. It's, in, in a more modern era, it's exactly what you see happen weirdly with the cork industry, which is when screw caps suddenly came in and winemakers started switching to screw caps. The cork industry sudden- suddenly was like, "Oh, good Lord, we gotta clean things up here and start making corks that aren't jammed full of TCA." And, and,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 28:31

Right.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 28:32

and

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 28:32

are definitely better for it. Oh, yeah. I mean,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 28:34

much

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 28:35

no

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 28:35

better. Much, much, much better, you

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 28:36

the last five to 10 years, the difference I've seen in the amount of corked wines we get

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 28:41

Absolutely. From when I tasted-- when I was tasting wines way back for Wine Spirits, where I started before Food Wine, you know, and we were tasting 40 wines in the morning and 40 in the afternoon, scoring wines and all that, the incidence of, of TCA was high-- was alarmingly high, and it's, it's dropped dramatically. They really did clean up their industry tremendously

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 29:00

we started in the restaurant, when we opened the restaurant, we used to open wines, you know, in the air, table-side bistro style. And then we were getting so many corked wines that we began formal... So our sommeliers and, and captains now taste the wine, a little taste of wine before- Yeah, we started that in 2000, 2002, right around there that was just when, you know, so many corked wine. And we'd pour a bottle of wine out, and half, it would be half not drunk, and the per- the customer would not have rejected it, they'd leave half. And like, "Why is there half a bottle of Harlan left on the table?" And then you'd smell it, you'd be like, "Oh." And they don't think, "Oh, the wine was corked," they think, "Oh, the wine at Stage Left sucks," right?

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 29:38

Yeah, exactly.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 29:39

that's why

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 29:40

So

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 29:40

tasting it ourselves, to make sure that it didn't get through and, and now that's cleaner. another thing that happened at the Judgment of Paris that Kevin Zraly was doing at the same time that he opened Windows on the World, uh, the wine cellar there, and that you just alluded to again that was recreated at the, at the 50th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris. Kevin said to me, 'cause he taught me, he was, my mentor and, and helped me learn about wine all around the world. And when we opened up, it was a few years after, and I had called him and asked him for some advice. And he said, "Listen, Francis, when y- you're teaching wine classes and doing wine events, you have to decide, are you, do you wanna be an entry level for people who are going to go on to be Masters of Wine and Master Sommeliers and furrowed brows and taking notes and blind tastings? do you wanna be bringing wine to consumers and getting people excited and be in the business?" And I thought, "Oh, shit, I wanna be in the

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 30:34

Y- yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 30:35

winetertainment business." That's way more fun. That's way

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 30:37

Yes.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 30:37

I think that the Judgment of Paris took it off that you have to be British or French to really understand wine, and I think we did that again, and we jo-... And Lewis Black was there as a comedian. was great, and I think that we need to do that again. Because if you look at, I'll take this all the w- I'll beat this analogy to d- if you look at the Judgment of Paris was 50 years ago, that was '76. It seems like in our lived memory, right?

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 31:05

Mm-hmm.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 31:05

Whereas 50 years before that was 1926. S-

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 31:08

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 31:09

100 years back. So we are, it, the headw- there are some headwinds now in the world of wine. Wine goes back thousands of years. This hundred years is not, I mean, this 50 years is a, it's a, a blip in the geologic time of wine. But what do we need to do to make sure that wine stays fun, engages younger people, and remains the part of our culture that it was for us, and that it remains that way? What do we need to do?

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 31:35

Well, I think, I mean, it, there's a number of things going on that are, that are sort of anti-wine. I mean, just that you've got the World Health Organization on down saying that the, like literally any alcohol will kill you. It's

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 31:47

Yeah.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 31:48

like,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 31:48

It's a little extreme

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 31:49

drink one sip, you're gonna get cancer, and it's kinda like, I don't know about this. Um, and in fact, it's, it, if you look at the, the science...

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 31:56

you do know about it. I

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 31:57

I do know about it, yeah. And, and I think that, you know, the, the thing that wine particularly promotes, you know, and it, I mean, wine, wine really... Most people don't drink wine to get wasted. They drink wine because it's fun to drink with other people. There's a reason the 750 milliliter bottle is standard is 'cause you share it. It's, I mean, I mean, I have drunk an entire bottle, bottle by myself, but la- largely I like to share it with other people

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 32:20

is I wanna share four bottles with four people.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 32:23

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 32:23

that's, that's my plan

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 32:24

and it's one of the crucial things. It's like if you... I, I really think that it's like an antidote to having a phone at the table is to have a glass of wine in your hand instead. It's, you know, there's so much, so much disconnection and so little connection going on right now that it's, it's, it's very disheartening, and I think wine is one way to do that. I think, I think it's tricky, and I'll... You guys can answer this as restaurateurs. My daughter lives in Rome at the moment, and, you know, she and her friends will go out and they'll have a glass of wine, some aperitivo, you know, a couple glasses of wine and some food, and they'll come back and it's, you know, for two of them it'll be, like, you know, 50 euros or something. And she went out in New York and she had two glasses of wine with a friend and, and a couple appetizers, and it was like 140 bucks, and she was like, "Oh my God, well, how, how am I supposed to do this?" And I think that there's... The pricing on wine has gotten really complicated for young people 'cause it's, you know, when a, when a glass is 20 or 25 bucks, for one thing, it's more than a cocktail a lot of the time now, which is... It used to be that wine was usually less than a cocktail, and it's still, if you go to Europe, if you go to, let's say Rome, you know, a cocktail's gonna be 22 euros, a glass of wine's gonna be eight. Um, that helps a lot for wine when it's more affordable to buy a glass of wine than to get a cocktail. Um, People say that, like, there's competition from cannabis and so on. I'm not 100% convinced I believe that. Um, I do think the wellness thing is that people are just trying to drink less, and, and that, you know, that's a little bit, I think, like recover- I mean, we dr- everybody drank a lot during the pandemic. We all, we all thought we were gonna die, and there was nothing else to do.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 33:57

And we were bored

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 33:58

So we were bored. And so it's like, you know, it was tough for restaurants obviously, but, um, retail, wine retail people were like, "Yeah, that was pretty good." Um, I think that getting back to the fact that wine is fun. I mean, it's fun to sit around with some friends and have a glass of wine, and it doesn't have to be a pretentious thing at, at, at all.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 34:15

it is all about, and you've said this, and you've said this, and it, it's all about bringing the fun back to it. And I, you know, one of the things that I think gets in the way, it's the same thing that gets in the way of your television viewing, right? There are 300 channels,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 34:32

Yes.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 34:33

Uh, I'm sorry, there are 3,000

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 34:35

Channels.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 34:35

it's not 300 anymore, right? And you can watch any show from any time, and, I think that sometimes there are 300 for, to, for wine, and everybody just wants to say, "I'll have Sancerre."

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 34:50

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 34:51

it, it, maybe there's, maybe there's something to that. Maybe there's something to making it easier for people to just get a glass of wine or buy a bottle of wine and, and we're, maybe we're making it too hard. Hmm.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 35:04

Yeah. I mean, there's this, I mean, paralysis of choice is, you know, it's a term and it's, it's, it's true. And I, I've said this in seminars when I do wine, wine 101 seminars or intro to wine seminars. I mean, the way wine is sold, the w- the nature of wine right now is that there, there are tremendous amounts of different wines out there. And so, for instance, if you go into Total Wine and you go, you know, to the Chardonnay aisle, um, and you look at that Chardonnay aisle, and then you think like, what if I went to a grocery store and I went to the soup, the chicken soup aisle, and there were, there were 300 different brands of chicken soup, and they were s- a- a-

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 35:42

different kinds of

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 35:42

and 300 different kinds of chicken soup w- that ranged in price from like 50 cents a can to 27 bucks a can, and some of them were organic and some were biodynamic and some were like single chicken chicken soups from a specific breed of chicken, and some were chicken soups from Germany and some were chicken soups from Italy and some were chicken soups from California. You would... And some of them had like little tags saying 92 point chicken soup or 89 point chicken soup. You would walk out of the grocery store saying, "These people are out of their minds. They're completely nuts. This-- No one should sell anything like this." But you go into the Chardonnay aisle, and that's what you get. And so it's no wonder that people are daunted by it. Um, it is, it is one reason why I always tell, the, the first thing I tell people is, you know, if you're gonna go to a store, go to a store where people who care about the wines they've got will actually talk to you. You know, it's so much better than a, than a grocery store situation.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 36:28

uh, well, that's what we, we have a little wine shop and, and we

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 36:31

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 36:31

I think, you know, use your... If you're in a restaurant, if there's a sommelier or the waiter or the manager or somebody, like, I think that's, that, that's something that we do, and, and look, this is self-serving because it's, it's w- how we do it, but, you know, we have a dozen Chardonnays in,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 36:46

No

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 36:47

in 10 price points or nine price points, right? So we have two Chardonnays at 30 bucks. You know what I mean? And we ha- and diff- one's big and oaky, and one is no oak, you know? And if you ask us, we'll tell you, you know? And- I, I will say one of the things we've also done is we've started putting little hearts next to some- That's true some wines- Sommelier selections on the list to say,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 37:07

Yep

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 37:07

"You know what? You don't wanna, you don't wanna search. You don't wanna go on a quest." Yeah. "You don't have to go on a quest. Take the little heart wine. Go, go get that. Enjoy it. It'll be great.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 37:16

Yeah. But, but I mean, two Chardon- two Chardonnays that are quite different from one another is perfectly reasonable. That's, you know... When you get 27 Chardonnays that are not that different from one another, you start to wonder like, "What the hell is going on?" I, and I do, you know, uh, we are in a tough ti- I totally agree wine's been around for 8,000 years, it's not gonna vanish. But it, we're gonna see some... I- if the current economic situation with wine goes on, we're definitely gonna see some sort of herd thinning when it comes to brands and, and, and all, which, you know, will be rough for those who are thin, but it, you know, maybe it's, maybe there are too many wines out there on the shelf. Th- but it's, at the same time, if you, if you wanna dive into wine, there's so much you can find right now

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 37:57

100%. It's, well, you know, I think that what we need to do is becau- uh, so, uh, Masters of Wine and Master Sommeliers, and there are more and more consumers going for those professional degrees 'cause it's like if you really love 17th century Spanish art, maybe you go for an art history degree 'cause you love art, not, not because you want to be a professor. Mm-hmm. Which is great, but I think most people want to go to the museum and know a little bit, just enough to make it more interesting than it's more than a pretty picture on the wall. And I think the c- And ha- and have their artwork be delicious. And

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 38:25

Yes, and then, then you can eat it.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 38:27

you can eat it. I, I think that o- one of the things that, well, we've done this our whole career, and you do this at Food Wine Magazine and in your writing, is I want to give you a hook into a, a couple of different wines to talk about, to have enough to make it fun to over the dinner table say, "Ah, you know, George Hendry makes this wine. We've known George forever." One of the things that we do all the time is winemaker dinners we've done for 30 years. Um, and so it's okay to say, "I don't need to know about the whole world of wine. I have four or five different white wine producers from California that I like. I, they're my go-to, and if I go to a restaurant and those aren't on the list, I say to the sommelier, "You know, I usually drink Paul Hobbs Chardonnay. What do you have that's like that?"

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 39:04

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 39:05

ta-da. Um, but I think that one of the things that we do that, 34 years of doing it now, 10 times a year, is we bring in the winemaker, and when we do a wine dinner or a, spirits dinner, it's the distiller, or the viticulturalist, the winemaker, or the owner. And you write about this a lot, and you live it, is to have a personal connection and say, "I know George Hendry. I know Paul Hobbs. I know Cathy Corison." And, 'cause I met them at Francis' or I was at Food Wine in Aspen. Right. The- Are you, are you getting my, are you getting my,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 39:39

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 39:40

where I'm going? You get

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 39:40

yeah, I get it.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 39:41

wine's never gonna taste better than it does on the vineyard. Right. And the second best place it's gonna taste is when you're sitting next to the winemaker. Yeah. So i- uh, in the vineyard, then sitting next to the winemaker, those are the two best experiences you're gonna have with wine. Well, and also when you meet a winemaker, you say, "Well, you know, why does this Cabernet, you know, is always k- is kind of minty?" He's like, "Oh, well, we have eucalyptus trees- Mm-hmm all around the vineyard." And you know that, and you can... And part of it is contextualizing the whole thing. It's just not on a blind bottle of juice. It's like, "You know, I met this winemaker and they told me this about this wine, and I'm gonna share this with my friend, and that makes it more fun for us to drink this thing." in a few days, we're gonna be meeting up again, Ray, at the Aspen

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 40:23

Yes, we are

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 40:23

Classic, the premier, classic, wine festival or food festival in America. why are these things important? What are you doing there? Talk to us about the Food Wine Festival.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 40:34

Yeah, so the Food and Wine Festival, um, w- which has been going on for 40-plus years in Aspen, um, I like going 'cause it's really beautiful in June. But, you know, it's about 5,000 people descending on this mountain town to, to kind of revel in, in wine and in food. Um, we bring in a, you know, a bunch of chefs, many of whom are very well-known names, some of whom are up-and-coming names. We bring in...

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 40:58

podcasters will also be there Yeah.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 40:59

Some great podcasters will be there. Yes, we, That was actually the first decision we made this time, was restaurant guys, and then we kind

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 41:05

Of

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 41:05

it together after that. and it's, it's a celebration of, I mean, food and wine. Well, I mean, it's the name of the magazine, but it really is a celebration of, of kind of the, the, the great things that, that wine and food bring to us. And there are wine seminars, there are cooking demos, there are dinners, there's a grand tasting, of course, 'cause every event has a grand tasting. But it's, it really is 5,000 people, and we, we cloned it pretty recently and, and we now do a version of it in Charleston, South Carolina, in November as well, um, because it's, it's sold out for years. Like, it sells out quickly, and so, um, it's, it's obviously demand. And people, you know, it... People want that direct connection. They want that. They want even more and more with, with travel and with, when with things that we love, we want that something to remember them by. We want that, that, that experiential aspect, and festivals like this provide that, you know. Um, even if it may just be me on stage talking about the wine, but it does give you something to take away where you tasted it in context and you had, you know, someone talking about it, and you're also with someone you theoretically like, 'cause most people come in either pa- pairs or a group. Um, and it, it changes your experience. It really does

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 42:23

You know, uh, it's a very human scale of things. We were at the Charleston Festival as well, and, and in Aspen, it's not inexpensive, but it is a very human scale. You never let things get too crowded. You get to have face time with chefs and cooks and, you know, people who are in the wine industry and people who are studying for degrees in wine, and people from around the country. Uh, it's a very civilized experience. Yeah, if you've been to these events where there's huge lines and- Oh and you don't get to talk to anybody, and you just, you know, y- you go from line to line to line, it's a very different experience than that.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 42:56

Yeah. It's, it-- Those, those mass events, you know, like sort of like the South Beach event and so on are, uh, I mean, they are what they are. Uh, I find them a little overwhelming. Aspen, you know, has stayed the same size, uh, partly 'cause we're capped by the town as to how many tickets we can sell, 'cause there's only so many hotel rooms,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 43:12

Mm-hmm.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 43:13

um, which has kept it manageable. I think we would've done that anyway because it would change the experience to have too many people, to have a giant fest. And it is expensive, but then, you know, I don't know, going for four days to ski in the winter in Aspen costs a lot of money, too. The Charleston situation is more affordable just 'cause Charleston's a more affordable town.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 43:32

Yep

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 43:33

I sometimes wonder about the elitism of wine and whether, that's one of its problems that, you know, the, the great wines of the world at this point, I'm putting air quotes which no one can see 'cause this is audio, but you know, great, um, all cost a fortune now. Um, you know, and noth- n- in no way could I have afforded them when I was getting into wine. That said, there are a lot of truly great wines that aren't the, quote-unquote, "great wines of the world" that are affordable. Um

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 43:59

know, we've always considered that part of our job, right? That's, uh, uh, Francis and me at least, and I know you consider it part of your job, too. If I can find you a 15 or $20 wine that is fantastic and delicious, well, that's doing my job. Yeah. And whether it's from South Africa or, or some other place in the world or Canary Islands, wherever else it, it might be from, that's still some of the joy and some of the excitement that, that this job brings to me every day, is finding stuff like that for people. 100%. It's, I love... Listen, I love drinking a, a, you know, $300 first growth Bordeaux as- Especially if you're paying. I said $300, that's

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 44:36

Yeah. It's like,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 44:36

and first growth Bordeaux in the

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 44:38

it's

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 44:38

that,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 44:38

gonna be more than 300.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 44:39

funny. Yeah, yeah. Um, but, you know, that's fun and I enjoy those wines and it's great and, and, and I'm never gonna say no if somebody opens a bottle and, and says, "Would you like some?" But I, I find almost as much fun in grabbing that $20 bottle and being wowed by it and saying, "Look at this

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 44:56

Absolutely.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 44:57

I just found."

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 44:58

And it's-- I, I did a column that's coming up. It's, it's not out yet, it'll be in September, but I did a, you know, because Sancerre has, as you know, you run a restaurant, Sancerre is massively popular right now, but prices have gone up as a result of that 'cause the production is limited. It's, it's a demarcated region. You

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 45:11

is double what it was five years

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 45:13

can only... Yeah, it's double what it was. But there are all these regions right outside Sancerre that the, you know, Quincy and Reuilly and, and, and Coteaux du Giennois, um, that make great Sauvignon Blanc from literally 10 miles away that cost a, you know, a third of what Sancerre does. So I did a column. It's like, you know, if you love Sancerre but you don't feel like paying for Sancerre, there are some really good Loire Sauvignon Blancs out there right next door. And part of the

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 45:38

and gentlemen, we suggest you subscribe to Food and Wine Magazine if only so that you

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 45:42

Yeah. Yeah,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 45:42

Ra- Look at, look at the money you would save on Sancerre

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 45:45

that's right.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 45:45

s- a regular subscriber

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 45:47

you've covered the subscription right there. But it's, but that's part of what Aspen's about too, is, is, you know, when we do these wine seminars, part of it's discovery for everybody. It's a bunch of wines they haven't had before, and so you, you come away from the festival, um, one, you come away probably very full and very tired, but you but, but, but you also come away with knowledge of, of like cool things to go find and, and whether that's food or wine. I agree that I'm, I still-- If I find a 20 buck wine that, that blows me away, that takes me right back to when I was first getting into wine and how exciting it was to, to, to find that. You know, it's, and it's still exciting. It's

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 46:22

And

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 46:22

it's much harder. It's much more of a quest than finding a $400 wine which tastes great, 'cause yeah, sure, it does, of course.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 46:29

Yeah. They're still out there. Tell us what we're gonna taste at your Burgers and Bangers seminar

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 46:34

Well, that one I actually did get a bunch of expensive wine for, 'cause I wanted to prove that, you know, you don't need to have fancy food to go with expensive wine. And, and a lot of people I know have cellars and are holding on to wines, and it's kind of like, you know, just open them. Open them and drink them. Have a burger, open a bottle of Bordeaux. So I'm doing, um, I'm doing, uh, Trélon Mondot, uh, from, from Bordeaux. I'm doing some Premier Cru Chablis with that one. I'm doing some Billecart Salmon, um, Blanc de Blancs. Uh, th- that's with the salmon burger. I, I'm not completely crazy, you know? Um, we're doing four little mini sliders and, and, um, and two wines to go with each. Um, what else am I doing? L'Aperita from Castello di Ama. Um, it's a, it's a cool... I mean, I'm excited by the list of wines, and so, you know, and I'm jaded and, you know, been in this business forever. So, so that's pretty cool. And it's, you know, we'll, we'll have the little Nell, um, up there do the burgers for us. And, it's,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 47:29

great

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 47:29

again, it's meant to, to... You know, these are all wines that are pretty significant producers with a great track record, and, you know, they're not cheap. But who says you have to have truffles with them? You can have a, have a burger, have a slider with them, you know. Whatever, whatever makes you happy.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 47:44

You know, we have a, a, a kind of a, I don't wanna say gourmet bur- burger, but a really delicious wood-grilled burger with three-year aged cheddar on on top that people come here for. It won best burger in, in Manhattan before we were banned from that particular, award.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 48:01

With a jersey people are not allowed.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 48:03

And we were not allowed. That's ex- that's exactly right, we were cut out.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 48:06

No

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 48:07

And I, I love when people have a great bottle of wine with our burger. It's, it's, it's a wonderful combination

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 48:13

it's super, yeah. And it's, I mean, I clearly have to come to the restaurant and have the burger 'cause I'm missing out. that, that's pretty funny. But it's, you know, it's same thing. You want, you want a drink first before, before we're doing with tacos, go for it. Um, you know, absolutely. Or vice versa, if you want to have, a 12 buck bottle of, of Coteron with your, super expensive filet, if it makes you happy, you should do it. And so like this

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 48:34

You know, I, I think one of the things that I want to leave folks with is, you know, we look back at when we started teaching wine classes before we opened our restaurant, we started teaching a wine class at the restaurant we worked at before we opened Stage Left in '92, and I look back on the wines we poured in that restaurant. I mean, like two different grand cru different premier cru Burgundies from the same producer, one from a different producer in the same village. And I look back at those wines, and the wine class used to cost, you know, it was 35 years ago, but it was, it was basically 100 bucks a class more or less, and I l- it'd be like $10,000 a class-

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 49:09

I know. To-

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 49:09

that bottle of wine now.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 49:10

totally impossible to do,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 49:12

I, I will tell you, one of the wines Francis poured for that class out of double magnum was a '76 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche,

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 49:21

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 49:21

that was the wine that made me l- fall in love with wine. what I

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 49:25

that's pretty cool

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 49:26

it was the best bottle of wine

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 49:27

Yeah. But w- and that bottle would now cost you $10,000 minimum,

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 49:30

was unbelievable. Easy. And he's poured it for, whatever, the 30 people or 40 people in the class. Well, it was one of 15 wines in the class- Mm-hmm too, you know? But here's, here's the thing, though. I think that, and I think your writing does this, and I think we need to do this, for a long time, a lot of the wine press was about the first growth Bordeaux and the se- and the premier- Mm-hmm cru and grand cru Burgundies. And 100-point wine. And, you know, if all the press is about the three $500 bottles, $700 bottles, $1,500 bottles that are allocated and you're lucky if you get them, I think that is one of the things that soured the milk for a lot of people. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because all of our attention is paid on these unaffordable wines f- that you should have on a yacht because you have to be able to afford a yacht to have the wines. And look, I think y- yeah, you can't get the best wines in the world anymore, but y- you know what? S- screw those guys.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 50:22

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 50:22

I, just, I think that that is one, one-millionth of 1% of, of the wine drunk in the world. Yep And, and one one-millionth of 1% of the joy that can, people can have. And I think, I, I don't, I don't care that much about the thousand dollar... I mean, I do. We s- we sell some of them. I mean, we

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 50:38

Yeah. You're always happy when someone buys them, but you know.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 50:41

yeah. But, a- and especially if they buy them from me and give them to me as a present, I'm

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 50:45

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 50:45

to drink

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 50:46

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 50:47

you know, if, if, if you were starting in the wine world today, if we started in the wine world years ago, you drank a lot of village wine Burgundy, and then occasionally got some premier cru, and occasionally you'd spring for a bottle of grand cru Burgundy. If you're 22 and starting in the wine business today, unless you're very wealthy- Mm-hmm that's not how you find wine today. So I guess my final line of questioning to you, or just questioning you on the way out, is if, if you're a young person who's getting into wine today, is your advice as to where they should be looking for i- kind of a way to get your teeth into it, a way to find fun things, and, and take part in the conversation? H- how d- how does a 22-year-old do that today?

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 51:25

Yeah. I mean, I think-- I mean, I, I don't think it's any harder today than it was when those wines were affordable to find exciting wines to taste that don't cost a fortune. They don't-- maybe aren't the famous names that they used to be. instead you're looking at, you know, Southern Italy. You're looking at, um, Chianti Classico, which is like, it's--

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 51:45

Amazing

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 51:46

a amazing right now, and still super affordable. You're looking at... I mean, if you want cool climate reds, look at southern Chile. There's some amazing things down in Biobio and places like that. So if, if what you're after is learning wine, you can do it without spending a fortune. You just have to leave out some of those ultra-famous benchmarks. And honestly, I, I don't write about those wines for the most part either. I, uh, that's not my audience at Food Wine, and I don't want to write about wines that people can't afford and can't get. It's

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 52:13

I

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 52:14

nice. I want to write, write about wines that people can buy and can afford. But I think as someone getting into wine, you know, I, I, I would say the main thing is to don't, like... Don't get too obsessed with the sort of high spots of the wine world because, yeah, I mean, Domaine Romanée-Conti, Romanée-Conti makes gorgeous wines. There are other people who make gorgeous wines too, and you're unquestionably paying a super upcharge for those wines because it's DRC. Um, same thing with the first growth Bordés. Yeah, first growth Bordé costs a lot. On the other hand, there's a lot of 50 buck Bordeaux out there from non-classified producers that's really good wine and worth tasting 'cause it will give you a sense of what Bordeaux is. And, and really that's what you're looking for when you're learning. it's not what does Château Mouton Rothschild taste like. What you're learning is what does Bordeaux taste like? And, the Château Biac, which is a winery that I love that's in the, Côtes de, Cadillac, region, so sort of Entre-Deux-Mers. You know, they're making wonderful wines. They make beautiful wines. It's really 45 bucks a bottle. they aren't Petrus. They're never gonna be Petrus 'cause they don't, haven't been around for 400 years. so it's out there. You just have to re- uh, reset your kind of idea of what you're, are, what you're looking for. Are you looking, are you looking really to taste the most expensive wines in the world? No, you're looking to learn about wine. Um, and you can do it, on a budget

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 53:36

there are some wineries out there that you can kinda walk up their ladder. Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. You know, the one I'm thinking of, and I, and I've mentioned a couple times, you know, Mullineaux, in South Africa

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 53:49

Yeah

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 53:49

the Kloof Street that they make is $18 a bottle in a wine shop. The current vintage of chenin blanc is delicious. Right. It's e- if anybody gave me that glass of wine, I would say, "Thank you. That was really great." And you can walk your way up because you can go to their- And you can walk your way up

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 54:06

Yep

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 54:06

a, you know, $100 bottle- vineyard specific in a, in a liquor store, a single vineyard chenin blanc that's really special and outstanding. you don't have to. You don- you, you can, you can go up the line if you wanna go up the line, or you can just drink that $18 bottle of Kloof Street every day

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 54:23

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 54:23

enjoy yourself

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 54:25

I think that wine's a steal, and it is true. I mean, they're, they're making good wines up and down. I mean, it's, it is, you know, that classic advice of follow the winery, not the vintage. You know, it's like the, the Molinos are really talented, and they're making lovely wines. Um, at a larger scale, a Guigal. You know, the

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 54:40

Mm-hmm.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 54:40

Guigal Cotes du Rhone is a really good bottle of wine for 70 bucks or whatever. You know, if you move up to the Gigondas or the Saint-Joseph, it's about a 35 buck bottle of wine. It's still very good. Um, you know, you can move up to some of their La De wines, pay 125, 150, and then you can move up to the La La's if you want and, and pay 600, 800 bucks a bottle. But across the board you've got, Philippe Guigal overseeing things and making really good wine. And yeah, they make a lot of the Cotes du Rhone. It's not the, you know, it's not gonna be the same as a, as a single vineyard Cote Rotie, Yeah, you can stop along the way at any level you want to be at and, and still enjoy it.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 55:18

and my advice to people learning about wine, wherever you are in your journey, is to pick a winery or pick a region and like, be like, "You know what? I'm gonna drink all Tuscan wines for the next three months, and I'm gonna compare them and learn about them," or, "I'm gonna drink all from this producer and learn about one thing, and then go learn about something else." And have a conversation about wine because that's what's it about, it's about. And we're gonna be having some conversations about wine at Aspen Food Wine. Follow the restaurant guys. We'll put the notes up. If you're gonna be there, say hello to us, say hello to Ray, thank you so much for being on the show.

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 55:49

Thank you.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 55:50

to see you on Thursday

ray-isle_1_06-15-2026_121326 55:51

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me back. It's been way too long.

the-restaurant-guys_2_06-15-2026_121410 55:55

It's always a great time to talk to you. Talk to you in person soon. Stick with us, we'll be back in just a moment. You can find out more about us and Ray Isle and the food and wine empire at restaurantguyspodcast.com.

the-restaurant-guys_3_06-15-2026_131137 56:24

I love doing a show with Ray Isle. You know, it's, he's one of those guys, he gets it on the macro level, and he also gets it on the micro level, right? We live very blessed lives. Mm-hmm. I mean, we get to do this stuff and we get to see our friends- Mm and, uh, people that you, you like and you share a common interest with, and we're gonna go see him this weekend. I was talking to somebody earlier, yesterday actually, at the Shillelagh club- Oh, golly who said to me- Everybody drink he said- Francis said Shillelagh he said, "Well, you know, you, you don't need a retirement plan. You just, you know, sit in your office and then walk around the floor and say hello to everybody." And I'm like, "No, actually it's a little more, it's a little more complicated than that, you know? If I-" Well, maybe one day it won't be. Uh, well- You know? he's like, "No, no, no, you just..." I'm like, "No, you don't understand, there's a lot that goes on." He's like, Nah, you just train your guys, and then you sit in the office and let it go." I was like, Okay, I can't win this one." But, but what is, what is true is, like, we do get to walk around the dining room- Mm and say hello to our friends, and we do get to go to Aspen and hang out with Ray Isle and have dinner with Paul Hobbs in California, and we get a lot of cool stuff. There's a lot of cool stuff- It's, we're very blessed that comes from this. It's very blessed. You know, one of the things Ray spoke about in the show that I, just hit a memory for me- Yeah was, you know, find a, winery that you really like- Mm-hmm and explore that winery. And I couldn't stop thinking about my parents always had a bottle of Mouton Cadet in the house. Interesting. And so, you know, we think of the first growth Bordeaux, and- And that's kind of the last growth Bordeaux and that's kind of the la- Right. That's- So, but Mouton Cadet in the, in the '70s- Yeah. It was the wine for, it was the wine. You could find it- Yeah in most liquor stores. Yeah. And it wasn't bad. No. No, it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad. It was a great, great old entry level wine to, you know, that you, whatever it was back then, I'm sure it was three bucks, right? Yeah, yeah. Uh, you know, today would be a, a, is a 15- 12 or $20 wine, right? 12 dollar, yeah. but it was a wine that you could depend on it. Yeah. Right? We didn't do, uh, we had, we didn't have wine at house. We were under. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I, I know. I'm sorry. You didn't have food at your house either. We had food. My mom made a great pot roast. It was great. All right. Well, that was a fun time, uh, and I can't wait. Let's get on a g- let's go get on an airplane. Yeah. All right. Uh, hopefully we'll see some of you do- a- in Aspen. If you see us, please say hello. We'd love to say hello back. Yeah. And definitely do email us if you're gonna be there, the guys at restaurantguyspodcast.com, and we can try and o- organize a way to meet and say hello and, and hang out with the Restaurant Guys fans. You can become a fan. You can become a regular. You could subscribe. You can find out about all this stuff at restaurantguyspodcast.com. I'm Francis Shaw. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the Restaurant Guys. See you next week.