VINTERVIEW: Innovation and Technology in the Wine Space with Liz Mendez

From corner bars to Michelin stars, Liz Mendez hails from the Midwest and over the years has developed a portfolio career in wine, tech, and radio, spending three decades immersed in the restaurant industry. She is an award-winning sommelier and a previous owner of a Chicago wine bar, though she hit the reset button when she began working in hospitality technology with American Express and their platform "Resy".

Liz is passionate about the immense opportunities within the zero-proof world and inclusive hospitality, which she writes about in her newsletter, The Luncheonette - which you can find at luncheonette.substack.com (link below in the description of this episode.)

Liz is also the founder of Aldea Hospitality + Productions, an agency that works with businesses, retail, and restaurants to reimagine the power, reach, and impact of hospitality as a community-driven art and craft.

And Liz is here to talk to us today about her ideas involving Innovation and Technology within the Wine space, a subject we bonded on over at Substack, and we have a lot to talk about.

Chapters

• 3:43 Liz Mendez Intro and Background
• 10:19 Two Types of Innovation
• 12:16 Ready-to-Drink / Wine-in-Can
• 24:25 De-Alcoholized Wine / Non-Alc Wine
• 42:38 World's First 20-Year-Old Aged De-Alc Wine
• 45:38 Benefits for Wineries and Vineyards
• 47:53 Technology: Analogue Sandwich
• 53:19 Technology: Death of the Follower

Transcript

0:05

Are you not Ventertained? Yes sir! We'll have a real good time! He's Dave and I'm Dallas and this is Ventertainment. We have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes those opinions are spot on. Sometimes they go down easier with a glass of wine. This is entertainment. The wine and entertainment pairing podcast. Hello, everybody. It's a special episode of Vintertainment. Now, normally in this show, we pair wines with a work of entertainment, deep dive into that piece of pop culture and or art. Hey, they can be both. It's known to happen. And then sprinkle in a little wine education. But today, instead, we have a very special guest interview, a Vinterview. Ha ha. That is now a thing. A Vinterview, I think that's going to be the official title of this Vinterview with ba ba ba. But before we intro our guest, as always, everyone, please be sure to hit that follow or subscribe button if you have not done so already. That sincerely helps this podcast grow by poking the algorithm to find us new listeners. Also, especially if you're already a subscriber and so completely useless to us in that regard, do this instead. Recommend this podcast to a friend or family member. Anyone you think. who will like deep dives into work of pop culture and art matched with wine and wine education. Also, as we're doing today, interviews with professionals from both the wine and entertainment industries. Anyone you think might dig that, tell them about this podcast. Let them, if you've been listening to episodes, hopefully you have all the episodes, you've gone back and listened to every single one, recommend which one they should start with. You know your people better than we do and recommend this podcast. That also helps us grow literally, obviously. So please. That is one of the best things you can do for us if you love us. And don't just follow this podcast. Also, follow us and interact with us on Substack. Just head to entertainmentstudios.com where you'll find all our podcast episodes broken down by subject matter, articles on wine and entertainment, bonus pairings, interactive polls, chats, pairing directories. covering all the wine and entertainment pairings we have ever done. Once again, broken down by subject matter, I worked hard on that shit. He did, he So go find us on entertainmentstudios.com for all of that. Now, some of this is only available to paid subscribers of the Substack, though we have now made this as easy as possible to support us and gain access to everything we do by pricing these subscriptions at only $2 per month or...$19.60 per year. Yeah, 60 cents, don't ask. We know that if you are the kind of person who supports independent voices online, that there are two damn many. So many writers, artists, filmmakers, there are projects on crowdfunding platforms. Now we have to leave a tip for every interaction under the sun. We know it's hard to support everyone you want to support. So if we happen to be one of those people, now you can spread your money a little further with a subscription to entertainment being only two bucks. We hope to see you there, even, believe it or not, if you don't throw money at us like the cheap hookers we are. Okay, on that note, let's introduce our special guest today. So today, from corner bars to Michelin stars, Liz Mendez hails from the Midwest and over the years has developed a portfolio career in wine, tech and radio, spending three decades immersed in the restaurant industry. She's an award winning sommelier. and a previous owner of a Chicago wine bar, though she did hit the reset button when she began working in hospitality technology with American Express and their platform, Rezzy. Liz is passionate about the immense opportunities within the zero proof world and inclusive hospitality, which she writes about in her newsletter, The Luncheonette, which you can find at luncheonette.substack.com. And for those illiterates out there that is lunch e on e t t e lunch e o n e t t e lunch e on at dot sub stack dot com link below in the description of this episode I'm trying to make it phonetic so people can actually go find that but there will be a clickable link down below as Well, Liz is also the founder of all the hospitality and productions an agency that works with businesses retail and restaurants to reimagine the power, reach and impact of hospitality as a community driven art and craft. And Liz is here to talk to us today about her ideas involving innovation and technology within the wine space, a subject we bonded on over at Substack. So go find us on Substack. That's where all the fun stuff happens. And we have a lot to talk about. So welcome to Ventertainment, Liz. How you doing over there in what I expect to be sunny Chicago? Wow, that was quite an introduction. Thanks for having me on the show and definitely want to plug this new awesome name that you all came up with. Thank you. Dallas Dallas all Dallas's credit. My name sucked Dallas is amazing. Dallas BAI every day. Love it. So yeah, thanks for having me. Excited to be on the show and talk about innovation and tech when it comes to wine and hospitality. So what's, real quick, what's in general, what's, what do you got going on right now? You know, right now, what I am really into is having conversations around de-alcoholized wine actually being wine. I think that that's probably where Dave, yeah, I think that's really where Dave and I probably, I think that's where the domino fell for us. Yeah, when we connected on Substack. And, you know, I understand that, you know, there can be a lot of semantics, but you know, we, want to see wine thrive in this world. And we know that the numbers aren't necessarily on our side right now. So what I am really getting into is not only talking about de-alcoholized wine with consumers, but also really like in the hospitality business for the hospitality business, right? Where we're really talking about hybrid drinking and it not being a big deal, right? It's just like, great, know, we're gonna go to a show and maybe you're gonna have a Budweiser and then you're gonna have an athletic brewing because, you know, as we know, athletic just took a very big jump when it comes to entertainment. They're going to be in all live nation venues like, whoa, that's crazy. And I think some of the innovation that we're gonna be talking about here today is definitely a path towards wine actually being in those same concert venues that they aren't in now. yeah, really just, you know, getting into de-alcoholized wine, but not only from a B to C perspective, but really in a B to B kind of conversation as well. That's great. So I was actually curious, what was the on ramp for you into this whole world? Did hospitality come first? Did alcohol come first? What was the on ramp for you? Where have we get here? So, alcohol definitely, definitely was a big part of my career. And wine specifically, you know, I have been, you know, in and around the restaurant industry for three decades. I, you know, started to, know, waiting tables through college, you know, got bit by the food and wine bug. And then all of a sudden it was like, maybe legitimize this work a little bit and kind of go down this wine rabbit hole. so, I guess then hospitality came first, but then wine really became the big focus for me in my career. And it served me well. I'm very fortunate, I owned a wine bar, I got to work with absolutely extraordinary chefs and other hospitality professionals all over the country. I got to work in these fantastic beverage conferences and whatnot. So started hospitality and then wine really took off and then eventually led into me going into this world of how can we make wine and hospitality even more inclusive, especially post pandemic? I think that we had a lot of things to deal with in the pandemic. And I think that there were some opportunities in that time that maybe we didn't jump on, that it's time to sort of, we say in the hospitality world, slow down to speed up. I think that we're really in that time right now for wine where it's like, okay, maybe the way we used to do things isn't necessarily working. You could say the same thing for the entertainment industry and the hospitality. We're gonna get into it. Take a pause and reevaluate everything that's happening. And that's the slowdown part, right? When it's like, OK, not just day to day, not just full speed ahead. Like, what are we doing and why? is the machinery. Yeah. For sure, yeah. So that's kind of like where I have been at and where I'm at now. All right, so let's dive right into the topic of innovation in wine. one of the things before I wrote about non-alcoholic wine myself, like I listened to a podcast recently that had a guest, Gerard Tellis. He's a Neely Chair of American Enterprise at USC, and he was talking about innovation just in general. And he said there are two kinds of innovation. There's incremental and there's radical. Right. so incremental would be like a more fuel efficient gas engine. It's like it's a little something, but it's like you're not reinventing the wheel. You're literally not reinventing the engine. You're just making it better in some incremental way. And radical is like the electric car, a complete reinvention of something and generally a good litmus test as to which is which is how much pushback. do you get from the industry when you come up with the idea? you say, tell your idea to people, how crazy do they think you are? How much do they think like this will never work? It's not possible. Even if you invented it, who would buy it? Blah, blah, blah. Right. It's like instant pushback because and it's a question why the pushback is like, is it because they see they even the industry has to rebuild something from the ground up if you introduce this new product. And so they're like, we don't want to work that hard. No, no, no, no, no. Old versus new world. Right. Now, interestingly, there are two innovations in wine that we want to cover today. And Tellus would define the first as incremental, but the second probably as radical, though the pushback on both in the wine world has been kind of significant either way, which is that could just be part of the wine industry. is an extra specially resistant to change industry that loves to believe it's all traditional and never changing, which is. as I literally posted an article yesterday, which is like, this is kind of not true. We're always changing. We've always been changing. A lot of our traditions aren't even that old. But at the same time, let's talk about what Telus would call the incremental change, ready to drink. Yeah, incremental definitely I see that as ready to drink. And it's interesting that you said like, there's going to be resistance to both. So on incremental change, you know, on the ready to drink side, you know, I have really been bullish on wine and can since about 2015 2016. And what I sort of equate wine and can to is this great episode of Revisionist History about the underhand free throw, where the underhand free throw is scientifically proven to be more effective. It is superior. You will hit more shots. Your percentages will go up. It has been proven. But guess what? It's not No, but it's not cool. looks low quality. Right. Right. So I really sort of equate wine and can to sort of this underhand free throw in basketball. And we get really hung up on how things look in wine. For years, everyone really questioned the quality of cap and screw cap closures. And it's like now if something comes in screw cap, people don't even think twice about it. so in 2015, fact check me on the date, but I think it was like 2015, 2016 when Union Wine Company came out with Underwood with their sparkling and can. I think they came out with the Pinot first. And I think that that was like, you know, like 2011, maybe 2012. And then they came out with Sparkling and Rosé Sparkling and Cannes. And there was literally a time where I would be getting off work with my colleagues, my other friends at wine bars, restaurants, and the chefs are drinking High Life and we're all drinking Underwood wine and Cannes. And it's like. It's not lower quality, it's time, it's place. There's really an opportunity. during the pandemic, there was that watershed moment for ready to drink for a lot of spirits. And I thought maybe that wine and can was gonna take off, but it didn't need to. It didn't need to, right? Because everybody was just. grabbing a bottle from whatever store and just hitting the park with a bottle like they didn't care, right? And so they didn't have to innovate, right? But and are and you know, this is something that we can talk about from incremental to, know, big and resistant, but we have to meet folks where they're at. Right. And with wine. it is seen as snotty, it's seen as elite or elitism. And when we put it in can, first of all, it goes single serving. now or two servings, right? I definitely think there's a big opportunity for wine and can for the D'Alc movement as well. But when you're talking about one and a half to two glasses, you made the investment lower for people to get into wine, you've made it less scary. know, there's a lot of things happening there. So I definitely think the incremental moment, because we don't necessarily have to change what's inside. I think that's why it's incremental, right? If we only have to change the packaging, it's not as scary for an industry that doesn't love change. Right. Right. And it's funny you mentioned the screw cap because to today now I actually have to talk people off a ledge of thinking the screw cap screw cap is so superior to a court where I'm like, very good. They're like the wine, it'll keep forever. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm like, don't don't hold onto that bottle for 50 years. You're you're New Zealand, Sauvignon Blanc and screw cap for 50 years. That might not be the best idea and some screw caps are more superior than others depending on the technology within that screw cap itself and whether it's made to age or made to still be drunk young so on it like and the style of wine matters blah blah blah but that sea change of how people perceive it from it's it's all junk wine if it's in screw cap to if it's in screw cap I can really depend on this wine being ageable and fine and high quality And the truth is always somewhere in between. You always have to know what you're drinking one way or the other. You know what, Liz, you mentioned the canned wine and I had an interesting canned wine experience. I was completely sour on the notion before this. I was on a flight and it was a red eye from LA to New York and the only option they had was canned wine. So of course I scoffed and spat at the flight attendant a bit. But she had an Archer Roos, which is Elizabeth Banks, I guess she... came on board the company as C-C-O-R-C-O, I think. But she had a really good rosé. I was thoroughly, thoroughly impressed. I, in that moment, I was like, all right, I'm a bit of an asshole. chance it is. You know who else? I don't know if they still make it, but during the pandemic, I was really digging on Scribe's wine and can as well. They did a really great wine and can. And listen. wine and can just like the Alcoine just like regular wine is there's going to be some not good stuff out there. Absolutely. Right. But we that doesn't mean that we don't keep innovating and we don't keep trying to do different things to bring new folks into drinking wine and then also meeting folks where they're like at in their consumption. Right. And it's like, you know, they're still open and you know, 750s at the ballpark and putting them into like plastic tumbler. It's like very cumbersome. It's like if you want to have a glass of wine at the ballpark, it's like a whole thing. cup anyway. Like just put it in a can. It's better than a plastic cup. And also, you take away, and here's the other thing too, when you don't have wine and can to take into those different kind of scenarios, you're completely taking away the opportunity for advertisement and getting your brand out there. If I am walking around with this... Plastic vessel like you are just like okay She's drinking white wine or she's drinking red wine She's drinking rosé versus me having that can and then people like raising an eyebrow mean like she's you know that's not a white claw or that's that's not a Budweiser or whatever it is Clearly I'm a Cubs fan because I keep referring to Budweiser But it's true wine, think even over other alcoholic beverages, like it's all about the vibes. It's just all about the the snooty vibes versus the sort of cut loose and have fun vibes, which were a bit more reticent to be perceived as. And we always want to be. And that's why the bottle, right? It's got the reputation. It's got that history behind it and that that vibe of this isn't beer. This isn't. you know, a something that goes in a can, it goes in a bottle with a cork and so on and so forth. Well, that's also, it's also, you know, to have a lot of people when we start to talk about D'Alc wine, a lot of people will talk about, you know, they'll talk about sustainability. And it's like, two things. If the wine world really cared about sustainability, they would be. doing more wine and can, that's A. And B, Bordeaux would be out of business if they really cared about sustainability because, right? It's like you're talking about three pack, really heavy glass, right? Like all of these things. you know, it's definitely something to think about when people start talking about sustainability in the bottle. Now, do you think there is because one of the things that people talk about with canned cans and wine like sustainable packaging, whether it's bag in box, whether it's can, it's all about like some wine might go well in these containers and other wines are still better in the bottle. Where do you think the divide is there a divide there? Do you think still or do you think the technology just needs to get better to have all wine be able to go into alternate containers? Or what's your take on that? think that two things are true at once here. First, I think that there's definitely technology that could probably make a lot of the wines available translate well in can. What we're dealing with now and what I have found is that if it's in stainless steel tank, then why not put it in can? It's kind of a no brainer. And a lot of wines, that people are drinking like, you know, that they're not aging, ready to drink all those kinds of things. They are in stainless steel. So it's like, why not put them in cans? So I think that we probably have some room to grow when it comes to aging in different kinds of oak and having that translate to different types of packaging. Just because it... can potentially taste different, right? And I mean, you could even say that from a 750 to a Magnum, right? The wine is going to taste different. And so it's not necessarily about here are some more affordable or what people think are lower quality types of packaging. It's simply like, if you're drinking a glass of wine from five liters, it's going to taste different than it does in 250 milliliter cans, right? So it's definitely something that we don't talk about. Some of my favorite wines in the 750 are completely different and I wouldn't pair them the same or drink them the same when they're in Magnum. Yeah, same with a half bottle, right? It all changes. And I've been horribly disappointed with a half bottle. to ask. Pro half bottle I'm pro half- You can go either way. exactly. It's occasion specific for me. Yeah, but I've always been surprised where it's like it's something that is dependable to me. But that day I'm like, I don't need a full bottle. Like I'm just buying maybe I'm traveling and I'm just buying something to take back to the hotel room or something. It's all like, my God, let me just spend 20 bucks on a half bottle. I do not need to be buying a whole bottle and I'll take it back and I'll just be like, huh, this hits different. I'm just really, So, but then again, I've been very pleasantly surprised sometimes with a half bottle. my work actually does half bottles and the winery that I work for, we have full bottles, we have half bottles, especially because we're the blending lab, we do blending classes and we do half bottles. That's what people blend with is the half bottles because they're just like individual, like single serve kind of a thing of everything. And yeah, I always have to make sure I'm opening and tasting those half bottles before we do the class. If I haven't tasted them in a while, because I'm like, they're not. quite the same. And I have to know what I'm tasting, what they're tasting to make sure we're on the same page. And that is always something that is a little mind blowing that that can change things as much as it does. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So you know what? From ready to drink, let's jump into the Nolo space, into the de-alcoholized wine space, which this is what I believe would be the radical innovation. And it's funny because there are You see, even in the wine world, like I've watched people do the mental gymnastics of like, they don't want to believe there's any radical, there's an ability to have radical innovation in wine. They're like, it's so traditional, it's so old, there's nothing else that can be done. And I've watched them jump through the hoops in real time of like getting to the conclusion that like, you can't innovate in wine because it's so ancient and so like we've done everything, nothing else is left to be done. And I'm like, dude, Orange wine was rediscovered in the 90s. There is so much. We just had me and Dallas drank a white Cabernet Franc last night, is like white wine with red grapes is something that's just starting to eke back out where people are like, hmm, this is something that I guess we've done before, but not really. And it's never taken off and no one's gotten serious about it. There's always innovation in wine and taking the alcohol out. mean, talk about an innovation. It's so much of an innovation. it changes the product to such a substantial degree that it's like, this is a challenge for winemakers. We have to figure out, okay, you take out the alcohol, that doesn't just change one thing. It changes the full flavor profile to where now you have to figure out what are we doing with this flavor profile? How do we make it tasty? So you made one of the first no alcohol wine lists many years back. Can you tell us, hey, what made you so interested in the space, especially as old school wine folks seem very resistant to this very thing. So I think first, what we have to consider is everyone saying that, know, wine is so old school and there's no innovation to be had is because we're basing it on archaic data of the drinker, right? We aren't really talking about, we aren't thinking about the new data of the drinker. We are only thinking and... I hate to say it, but we're pretty much thinking about old white dudes drinking wine and we're basing our lack of an opportunity to innovate based on that. No offense to old white dudes, right? We welcome your input. Yes, and I have a lot of old white dudes that I love, But like, you know, it's interesting. Vine Pear recently did a podcast on how the wine world still isn't listening to women still isn't even like whites and rosés, not giving it enough attention, not marketing them the way they should win. So much of their sales are coming from women being into these categories. And so I think that's something that we really have to consider. We have a lot of conversations around innovation or the lack of opportunity. And it is anecdotal. We're not basing it on data. So I do think that we have to really go back to the data because it can take our emotions out of it. I will say, in 2015, I first was introducing Spirit-Free, averages to my programs, I was very resistant to dealkwine. And first of all, the quality wasn't where it is today. also the availability, there wasn't a lot of it, right? And, you know, I wrote about this at the luncheonette, which is, you know, my ego was involved as well because all of the success in the world that I had had and opening a wine bar based around alcohol. So there was ego there. And it's like, OK, if we can focus on the data and if we can put our ego aside a little bit and say, what does the drinker want today? It allows us to really kind of open ourselves up and say, we just talked about a the large subset of women making the decision to drink wine. This is a huge part of the buying base for wine. And it's like, you have folks that are getting into older millennials and Gen X, like they just can't process alcohol the same way, right? And it's just like, listen, like they cannot. so it's like, but that doesn't mean that they want to stop drinking wine. Maybe they just don't want to drink alcohol. So I think De-Alcoholized Wine has an opportunity to bring in the new consumer that says alcohol isn't for me. And it has a real opportunity. And this is something that I've written a lot about and talked with people like Rachel Martin, right? That there is this opportunity to get this base back of older millennial Gen X women that absolutely love wine, that just don't want to drink alcohol. And so, and the other thing too is like, if the wine world starts, you know, owning and sort of adopting these D Alk numbers, and they start saying this is wine, guess what, their numbers are gonna look like they're on the upswing. it is going to, it is really going to help a struggling category. You know, we're getting so hung up on the semantics when we start to talk about DIOC wine and wine alternatives that we're completely missing the opportunity and we're alienating folks. And it's like, again, I know that I already referenced them, but it's like, what happened with athletic brewing? Like, if we are not just bringing that over into the wine world, we're missing an opportunity. Yeah, know just a quick sidebar here. Don't want to take too much time, but I'm fascinated What was that initial menu wine list creation process like for you like where did you start? What were your aims? Right? So many missteps. So it really started with it was all it was all cocktails. It was but what we were building, we were building what would be considered today as proxies or wine alternatives. Right. So we were using spices and teas we created. I worked with this great bartender. in Chicago on the wine program at a Michelin star restaurant where we created a riff on an Australian Shiraz, a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and a sparkling Rosé. And it was with, it was with like, again, with teas and herbs and spices. And it very, it definitely helped to, you know, have such a great working relationship with chefs over the years, because we really were sort of pulling on those kind of philosophies when we were making those drinks. Some of the drinks that we were making were to, there's different words that you can use when we're talking about sort of the zero proof in the DEOC world, right? It's like, are you substituting? Are you alternating? Are you pacing? Are you zebra striping, right? And so we would create some substitutes and those were the wine proxies, right? Where somebody's like, I'm not drinking, but I want a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Great. Insert this here. And then on the other side, we were getting creative and really letting people try new cocktails like they would at any bar or any restaurant. So yeah, that's really where it started. And it was a lot of hit and miss, but it definitely, at the end of the day, started to pique my interest in what it would do for revenue. And I think that's something that is really important to talk about as well when we're talking about innovation. If I hear that restaurants are struggling or I hear that wineries are struggling, it's like, okay, well, what are you doing differently? How are you giving people an opportunity to spend more money with you? And a lot of restaurants that only have one or two non-alcoholic options, I'm like, up them. And they're like, well, they're not really selling. I'm like, they're not selling because you're not giving people the opportunity or something that they want to drink. And they'll just go from two to five, and they'll see their sales increase, you know, six, seven percent. And I think psychologically too for a business, like when you have two things on this large menu that's just off in a corner, you're not even pushing them. there's something that it's like, it's there if someone wants them, we don't care. If you increase that to five, suddenly you as a business start to care a little bit more. talking about Vine Pair, not recently, but maybe a few months, this could have been a year ago, I can't remember anymore. I listened to so many podcasts. But a while ago, they were talking about the non-alcoholic wine space. And they were kind of talking about, it as big as they say it is? Can it ever be big? And one of the examples they gave is that one of the original big brand non-alcoholic wines actually dates back to the 70s. And it's been around for a long time. I'm gonna forget the brand name, but they talked to the big brand and they're like, are you seeing your sales rise with this rise in interest? And the big brand was like, no, we haven't seen our sales rise. But I had two things to say about that. One, I was like, I've never heard. of this brand. like, are they even marketing it? Like, here's this rise in non-alcoholic interest, but this big brand that had just kind of like popped this, and if they were making it in the 70s, you know the quality was not that, like they're using old tech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. It's like, know they were using, they're probably still using the version of technology that existed in the 70s, and it's come so much further since then. And it's a brand I've never, in this non-alcoholic, like where it's exploding, I've never heard of this big brand apparently. So I'm like, okay, they don't care about this product. They're not really marketing it. They're not really pushing it. So yeah, they're not seeing any upsell. They're not seeing their sales rise while all these other brands come in. And to your point about people being able to make revenue off of this, one of the things that I also had a thought on is recently we've been ripping out vines from vineyards because they're just not selling enough grapes. And actual de-alcoholized wine uses more grapes because the de-alcohol process even vaporizes some of the juice. So you have to use a little bit more to make the same amount of juice. But you're using fine wine grapes. You're using the same grapes from the same vineyards to make de-alcoholized wine. The few places that have done de-alco or no or low alcohol versions along with their full alcoholized. alcohol versions, alcoholized, their full alcohol version. It works. They it kind of works. They have seen their sales increase in both categories. Right. It's like they started like, talking about Rachel Martin and Oceano, like she's one of she's the big test case right now where she's really jumped in the deep end. And she's like, we do both. And we do it whole hog. And the alcohol, the non alcohol we had to I had to jump at buying the last of her vintage. We have our big non-alcoholic or de-alcoholized wine tasting coming up that we're about to do shortly after we record this podcast. And I needed the vintages of her Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. And man, I had to search. They were It was a hunt. They keep selling out. And then she's also like, and we saw our alcohol, the sales of our fully alcohol. alcoholized, our fully alcoholized wines by 200 % went up when we introduced this no low option. And that's fascinating. I'm like, is proof in the pudding that people because I think a lot of people zebra stripe, like you said, where it's like, they don't want to just drink no alcohol, but they want to pace themselves. And they love the idea. And I even I love the idea of tasting them side by side, right? It's like try a little bit of the one that you, the version you know and love, the style you know and love and see what it's like next to this de-alkalized version and see how it improves over the years, vintage to vintage and so on and so forth. there's so much opportunity here for both vineyard owners and winemakers. Yeah, and you know, one of the things that is interesting about, know, this this winery from the 70s, right, that apparently did, you know, they had to alkalize wine and they didn't see an uptick in their sales. You know, so retail drives business, right, for wineries. But the Psalms and on premise drive culture. And if you don't get that part of it, they need we need that domino, right? And this goes back to why also I think that D'Alc in Cannes is really important during an adoption phase because what I hear from a lot of restaurants is, yeah, somebody came in, they opened the bottle, they had a glass, and then it went bad because nobody ever ordered it again. And the reason that no one ever ordered it again is because the staff is only taking the order. They're not selling it. Right? So it's like, if someone comes in, the staff doesn't know about pacing, the staff doesn't know about zebra striping, the staff doesn't know about bookending, right? Where it's like, if someone comes in and they have a couple of glasses of wine, and you you all live in the world where everyone drives, and it's like, you know, it's like, you're gonna have two glasses and be done. And it's like, okay, did you just now the person just went to sparkling water, or they went to water, they're not drinking at all. And it's like, well, if the server is educated and says, hey, you're drinking the you're drinking the Oceana Chardonnay, guess what? I can also pour you a D Alk version of that. Right. Right. And it's like, now everybody wins. Right. So I, think that's really important that, you know, we're asking this gigantic winery, have you seen your sales go up? And it's like, well, no, because it right now it's very insular. are a very small group of people that are talking about this or advocating for this. And it's like we we need more wine professionals to understand the benefits of it. You know, we used to have this joke that we we sold Malbec so we could drink Burgundy, right? And it's like, it's sort of the same thing, right? It's like, if you get someone to spend another 12 to $15, because people don't care about spending 12 to $15 on a glass of D'Alc wine, it's like, you do that on every single table, like in one turn in a night. We're talking about the difference between you being able to have a cellar, a temperature controlled cellar versus putting everything in the basement. Good point. Very good point. Yeah. You're gonna say something Dallas yeah, so the deal that whole world for me. I think of it like a bridge. My drinking and eating habits are such that you know if we open a full bottle, I'm probably only going to want one glass before I move on to something else. I may come back and the idea of substituting a deal wine for the water that I may have in between. Not that they are synonymous, but it at least sort of you know explores that space a little bit a little bit more and kind of just it's sort of like a it's like a palette teaser. Honestly, that's how I think of it. What? it's interesting that you bring up Pallet because Dry Atlas just did a webinar that Rachel Martin was also on and they were having, it was a whole professional group that was in the DL space and they were actually talking about the fact that alcohol actually diminishes your palate and the experience as you move through dinner, it's like you get more if you get more intoxicated. Are you really having the end dehydration for sure? But are you really having this dish as it was expected? And it's like, OK, well, let's talk about pacing, right? It's like, don't completely take alcohol out of the picture. But it's like, maybe you start with alcohol and then, you know, it's like, again, you're zebra striping through in a tasting menu so that, A, the people aren't completely tanked by the time they get to the cheese course or whatnot, but that there's integrity in them experiencing the dishes as they were intended. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I recently went to a wine bar here in L.A. that had a like even on their tasting flight, you could kind of make your own. They have the things that they would pour you by the glass and they're like, you can have the full glass or you can have like a two ounce pour of anything that we pour by the glass. And they had a non alcoholic Riesling there. I think the Dr. Lowe non alcoholic Riesling with a proper Riesling next to it, which was another brand Riesling. But nevertheless, I was like, you know what? throw that non-alcoholic Riesling on there and I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna make my own tasting flight, but I wanna do that side by side. And of course I was driving. So I'm like, maybe I don't need every one of these sips to be alcohol. It is a little much sometimes when you're, like you want your money's worth when you pay for a tasting like that, but it can be too much. So yeah, I think there's so much opportunity here. One other thing I want, and a couple other things about this. Not only does that other alcoholic brand go all the way back to the 1970s, there's another one. Apparently, there is a group called Herrebert Bayer out of Germany, and they released the first 20-year-aged de-alcoholized wine this year in January. So they'd been sitting on it for 20 years. And it is called the, I have it here, the Zeronimo Century Blend. And so that is it's in Europe. I don't know if they'll ship to the States. It's 50 euros to buy a bottle of it of this 20 year age. But apparently it's their first like every year now they're going to be able to release the next 20 year and the next because they've been sitting on this dash for all this time. And apparently it tastes really good. Like people who are opening it up and they did a whole panel where they tasted it and they were like, OK, so aging potential as well. Like one of the other things that we think something like zero alcohol wine would miss out on. Like you wouldn't be able to age it because it doesn't have the alcohol to help it age, not necessarily. This could, this is the other interesting thing. I think I'm one of the rare people, I don't think I've even found anyone else like me in terms of, I actually have no need for zero alcohol wine right now. Like, I don't have, I'm not suffering from alcohol intake at all. Like I'm just sort of like, I don't actually need to drink this stuff. Like at all. Like I don't need to pace myself. I'm not, I'm so good at moderating my intake and I'm kind of a health nut. So I'm a big exercise freak and I'm a big, it just, I'm very good at like, even when I go to the winery and I'm like, I'm going to work out when I get home. So I don't need this stuff in my system. So I'm being very careful and I only unwind a little bit at night. and I want to be able to roll out of bed and feel good the next morning so I'm like I'm very good at that I'm aging don't get me wrong it's getting different now that it was when I was younger, but I'm not there yet and yet my interest in this space out of just sheer curiosity and who where can we take this is I'm shocked so many people aren't fascinated by it and. the longevity, the opportunity just to your point of ripping up the vines, we're ripping up the, we're cutting our nose off to spider face, right? Like we're ripping up the vines to say, I'm not gonna sell this, right? And it's like, well, did you try something else before you, ripped up the vines? And so, you know, to your point, it's like, we, you know, while I am currently alcohol free, like, I'm not sober. also, it's like I will drink wine if I want to. It's just I choose not to right now. I want to see wine thrive. I want to see those late 90s, early aughts numbers for wine. I think the D'Alc really is part of that equation of longevity. Yeah. And to think that the brands like a lot of the brands that have come into the no no or low out space are new brands, which is such, I mean, good on them, but also a shame. It's the missed opportunity. Right. There's all these wineries that could be benefiting from this that have relationships with these vineyards. And part of the reason why I think some vineyards and some wineries are struggling and seeing no revenue from this is they're just allowing brand new brands to enter the space, pick up this run with it. And like Oceano is one of the rare ones where they were like, we were already making our fully alcohol wines, our full elk wines, and now we're going to try this. And I'm like, this, I wish more people would try. I guess that does more curious. and winemaker in Europe that I do think is crushing it is is Johannes lights Josie lights the light the lights wines he has Einstein zero and he is doing his he's doing his D'Alc Pinot, so it's named Pinot D'Alc. He's doing Riesling, he's doing sparkling blanc de blanc, he's doing sparkling Riesling, he has a sparkling rosé, and then he has this still blanc de blanc that literally is always in my house. Like is like a house wine. And I really do think that he is someone who is doing... doing right by this movement and saying, here's my alcohol version, here's my non-alcohol version. And listen, most of the wineries, most of the people that are making D'Alc wine, whether it be Spain or France, they're sending their juice to Germany to be de-alcoholized because they have the technology. So we have a lot to learn from them. And I know that it definitely, I think, is going to become a prototype for a lot of people. Very cool. The last thing I'll mention also, OnePlus 2D alcoholizer, at least in the States, because it's covered by the FDA rather than the tax and trade bureau. You get nutrition information. That's right. You get to actually see, you get to know the exact sugar levels that are in that wine. You get to see like the calorie count. You're not guesstimating. You get the information on the bottle. And that is also kind of cool, frankly. I think that's a plus. All right, so let's move into technology. within the space and where you where do you think the opportunities lay in the wine space with technology? One of the things you mentioned is the analog sandwich. So please describe for our listeners, what is the analog sandwich and what is this opportunity? Yeah, so the analog sandwich is these analog experiences. That's the meat with the tech being the bread, right? And so really, you know, we are all hearing about it. People are trying to detach from their phones more. They're trying to get off social media more. You know, there's a... a great sub stack called social media escape club. If anybody like what like watches like his sets, he does lives and these whole things, right? So like, I'm always seeing this, you know, opportunity for people to say we want to be plugged in less, right. But we do have to get connected through technology and then really sort of dive into these. analog opportunities and then stay connected through technology afterwards. You know, one of the things that I see wineries just like restaurants struggle with is having a way to really connect with their community. you know, websites can be expensive, whether it's time or resources to build and keep up. Some of my favorite wineries are small businesses and their websites show it. And that's not me coming down on them. is like winery websites are not great. And also like I can't tell you how many winery newsletters I've signed up for and I still have gotten nothing after signing up. what ends up happening I think a lot, if we're lucky, is these wineries then rely on free platforms such as social media and then they sort of either don't know what to do there or they get a little lost, right? And so we're really moving into this internet sort of 3.0, right? Like social media and like the rise of the follower was really sort of, I feel like, know, internet 2.0. And now that's changing. And it's like, there's really an opportunity for the wine world to start doing things a little bit differently and finding ways to connect online and then push those analog experiences. And I think, you know, one of the things that I talk a lot about with potential clients and folks in my circles is if you're going to use free platforms, make sure that you can at least monetize them. Right. I think, you know, I think that's why we're both on Substack. And, you know, it's like, yeah, there are revenue opportunities on social media, right? But it's like, can you actually monetize it for yourself? And if you can't, then you're leaving money on the table. the other thing is, do you own your data and community? And I think a lot of times in the restaurant world and in the wine world, we're still explaining how the internet works to folks. right, in a lot of situations. And so it's, you know, do you have your website sort of, is it your is it truly your hub? Is it working for you? Are you building a community there? And if you're not, if you're doing it on, you know, free platforms, like how are you monetizing and how are you pulling it through to then build these analog experiences and have them be different? Right. And so, you know, sort of on the the using the tech to bring people in and become that community so that they can then become your fans and champions and then stay connected through the other side of that tech sandwich. Beautiful. Yeah, think social media is good, like getting the word out, right? So it's always going to be a big place. I know that with my day job, the winery I work for, because we do those blending classes, like we're very good. The one thing we do do very well is we're very good at making certain we give everyone a photo finish at the end and like we give them our tag on Instagram. And like we get so much repeat business because of the Instagram videos and then someone sees it and I can't tell you how many times I get to a class I'm like what made you want to take a wine blending class and they're like I saw it on Instagram it looked fun so it's a start website has got awful though our website This is fake, right? And it's like, also, social media, it's that's the yellow pages, right? You, you need to be there, you need to have presence. And it's like, what kind of presence are you going to have? Are you going to be the little non bolded name that gets lost on the page? Or are you going to take out the quarter of the page and and and make it pop? Right? Yeah, like you, you need to be there. But that can't be that can't be your end all be all. to then bring people into the meat of those analog experiences. Yeah. And the death of the follower, as you call it, which is like we're moving away from followers as it used to be where it's just sheer numbers, right? Where it's like we want blank K number of followers. This is something when you sent me that sort of in advance to look at, that was a great thing. this is something I've been struggling with in my own head because even on Substack, there are times when our subscription numbers are going up and we get At this point, we get a couple subscribers almost every day right now. And I'm like, that's really exciting. But then, you the actual interaction and the people who are most interactive and and and passionate and engaged and is always a much more smaller group of people. And I actually worried about that rather than saw that as a good thing, where I was like, ooh, am I just do I just have my little you know, entourage here and like this is is what it is, but I'm like, what about the others? How do I engage them more? And I'm sure that is something we should always be thinking about and attempting to make them more passionate, make them I forget the word champions champions, rather than just followers. But at the same time, it made me feel better about the fact that champions are more important. And it is what the true goal, whereas followers is just sort of that launching point where it's like, great, now you've got followers. How do you make them something more engaged, more passionate about you and who will spread the word about you? So because you spreading the word about yourself is never the same as other people do. Like you spreading the word about yourself is advertising, me spreading the word about you is PR. That's how that works. And Death of the Follower sort of came from this philosophy that we cannot be working in subscriptions with a social media mindset. And we're conditioned that way. But what I also said in how you make your subscribers fans and then make your fans champions is so... If, okay, so like, you know, I work with different people and they're like, you know, I've only got 250 subscribers. I'm like, okay, totally fine. But what if you were talking to 250 people in a room? And that's the difference of subscription. Social media is, social media is broadcast, right? Like, and subscription is having this conversation with people in a room. What I have found, And I don't know if y'all do this already, but I send, I email my subscribers directly outside of the posts and I give them nuggets and opportunities where I email them directly. So I'll give you an example. So I have a whole subset of folks in my subscriptions that always ask me for de-alcoholized wine wrecks. And so I built a database. I was like, all right, let me build a database and let me have it here. And so I basically put up the bad signal and said, who's interested in this outside of the handful of people I already had. I have their emails from Substack. I emailed them directly. They have access to the spreadsheet and I update it and send them a direct email once a quarter with seasonal updates. since I've started that, I've gotten huge spikes in my subscriber base because they're sharing this resource with their friends who now want to be a part of that. you know, and like I would say, you know, like you don't necessarily have the same opportunity with that in social media unless you are doing DM campaigns, which you still don't own the data. Right. Right. And so that's why I say death of the follower because It's more so not that followers don't matter and not that you don't get opportunities with followers. I'm not saying that, but death of the followers from a mindset from us, right? Like stop worrying about followers and flip the funnel, right? Like too often in marketing, we like try to cram everything in the top of the funnel. And then we get this little drip that comes out of the bottom, right? It's like, it, like go after. the connection and community opportunity with these few people and it will turn into bigger. Right. Well, it's like you see sometimes like that Instagram account that has, you know, something like 2.2 K followers and yet still like three likes on every post, you know, kind of a thing. you're like, what are these 2.2 K followers? Like they're not. And part of it is, of course, the algorithms shifted. And if they're not verified or paying or doing anything that these social media companies, but that's also part of the problem is social media companies can flip the script themselves at the drop of a hat. decide that now you have to if you're not paying, we're not showing your stuff to your followers that often because didn't if everybody didn't learn from TikTok getting shut down that you need a direct line to the people who are into your stuff like then they never will. Right. And then they're not about building community. They're just about broadcasting. Right. And so that's why I think there's a real opportunity to, you know, find new connection through subscriptions rather than the follower. I mean, I wouldn't be on this podcast if it weren't for subscriptions, right? If it weren't for a subscription-based platform. And so, you know, that is definitely a lesson and an opportunity for anyone listening that it's like, you can actually find a small community that will do so much more than social media through subscriptions. Here you go, Liz. This makes me think of an interesting question here, a little side quest. You are in the lab creating a new vintage, a new wine, and the title of that is Death of the Follower. It's a wine, Death of the Follower. What grapes are in this wine? What's in it? What's the profile? What's the profile? Death of a follower. Well, I would say... Something bloody, something bloody and red and deep. yeah, for sure. Well, I think it would be, I think it would be two. think, I think it would be a portfolio. I think we would definitely have, we'd have a white and a rosé and a red. And the red would definitely be Mencia 110%. It's, it's, it's an underrated grape 100, like, you know, and it's absolutely all of those things. could be meaty and, and, and beautiful. but then I would be remiss as someone who had a wine bar that focused on sherry if I didn't say that the white wine would have to be Palomino, I of the Follower. Still Palomino is, I just got goosebumps, is absolutely glorious and beautiful. So yeah, think those would be my two wines probably, and Death of the Follower if I were making it. I love it. I love it. Yeah. All right. So last question, I think, because we're hitting about the time mark here. I mean, we could do this for another hour, but let's do this for one last question. Let's talk long range. So what is the pie in the sky innovation that may be a long shot or very far off that you'd like to see? Wow. Yeah, I know. if I will say innovation, but I'm going to go back to what I have been saying like since the beginning is that as someone who had, you know, has been playing music my whole life, like, & Can and D'Alc Wine & Can at every single concert I go to. That's what I want to see. That's the dream. That's the dream. That's beautiful. All right. Well, thank you so much. Once again, everybody. This has been Liz Mendez. Liz, tell our listeners, where can they find you? Where can they follow you? Yeah, absolutely. So thanks for having me. It's been absolutely wonderful chatting with you both. And you can find me on Substack at The Luncheonette. You can also find me at Aldea Hospitality, which is aldeahospitality.com. And if you do still want to get on the social medias, you can also find me on Instagram at Mendez Musings. Gorgeous. as always, folks, can find us on entertainment studios.com. We will be back next week with actually a wine and entertainment pairing for your entertainment. That's right. Until then, but we will also be back with more special interviews as we go this year. So catch everybody then. Ciao for now. And thanks once again, Liz. Later, guys. Thanks so much.