Welcome to the Wine Geek of the Week
Where I ask my favorite wine geeks shitty questions!
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Where I ask my favorite wine geeks shitty questions!
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This week's guest is Rhys Williams @rhys_ling
Why are you a wine geek?
I'm a wine geek because I get excited to hear more about anything in wine/alcohol/even non alcohol I previously was ignorant to. I love learning the history, the stories, and the passion of people in the industry!
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Extraterrestrials just landed on earth. What wine do you pour them?
Teutonic!! Barnaby's red blend of mostly gewurztraminer and pinot noir. It's beautiful, accessible, and made by some pretty rad people. They're gonna want something crushable and price friendly made by some cool humans if they're gonna be forced to socialize right after all that intergalactic travel.
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What's your favorite scent you have ever smelled in a wine?
This is probably gonna sound strange to everyone else, but fresh ripe apricots! I'm allergic to apricots, so I've never had them unless they were totally cooked down. It was really fun when I picked that scent up for the first time.
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Any favorite music or podcasts you like to listen to while you drink wine?
Lore by Aaron Mahnke, or The Dollop with Gareth Reynolds and Dave Anthony, for podcasts! But I highly suggest checking out bigger bottle podcast, disgorgeous, and b is for bacchus, as well!
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If you could visit any wine region in the world right now what would it be any why?
I want to go to Armenia! I've always loved Eastern European wines, but being educated on the Areni-1 cave... That's just full of history.
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What do you think is the most exciting thing going in the world of wine right now?
I think the wines coming out of the Fingerlakes are really exciting. I'm loving seeing some vitis labrusca grapes showing up in blends with vitis vinifera (currently thinking of Fossil and Fawns "Sorta Summer"). I also am super excited about Saperavi being made in both Fingerlakes and Oregon.
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What would you like to see in the future of wine?
I would like the "Boys Club" that the wine world has in the past fostered to be thrown out and for us all to remember the reason we all fell in love with wine is because of the stories and how it brings people together, all over the world. It's party juice, I wanna party w y'all.
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What advice would you give yourself looking back to when you first started working in the wine industry?
Be kinder to yourself! Take better notes, your photos you take of bottles are shitty and you'll forget about them, or why you even wanted to take photos of them.
(You= me, I'm sure everyone else's photos are beautiful)
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Who are some people that inspire you in the world of wine?
Oh boy, so many people! Mark, Tiffany and all the Party Crew in Eugene OR, they're in my hometown and continue to inspire me! Luk Wylde (of statera and Lares!) has also always made me think of wine and beverages in a different light, as well as being an incredibly wonderful friend.
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Anything in the works you'd like to mention or promote?
@faccia_brutto_spirits! I know it's not wine, but! Patrick Miller is rad, and he makes yummy amari and the business is almost a year old! I stan faccia hard.
@bespokesocialclub is another amazing project being done by some amazing humans that helped get $$ into furloughed bev employees by having them teach wine, cocktail, sake and more classes. They also almost always donate to some charity.