EP 44: All About WINE with Sommelier, Macy Vance | Part 1

Hey, there. Before we start today's episode, I want to let you know that today's interview will be broken up into two parts. Part One will be today and part two will air next week. Enjoy.

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Okay. So enough of that. It is time for today's episode. It is my absolute pleasure to introduce you to Macy, a sommelier, who has an obsession with studying and hasting wine. She has sat through multiple wine exams to become a certified specialist in wine. Literally, so cool, you, guys. To her wine brings together all of the great things in life, food, culture, history and people. She loves to travel and has had the privilege to live in several different countries. Sit Down when you listen to this. She's lived in Italy, Ireland, Mexico, Spain and Germany. I know, my FOMO is really, really real right now. Her time abroad has further inspired her curiosity about other cultures and, of course, wine around the world, and she hopes to share that knowledge and passion with others through wine education in wine writing. Macy, thank you so much for being here.

Yes, thank you for having me in. Hello to the think happy community here. It's a pleasure.

I mean, if people aren't excited for this episode just based off of that little intro… I mean like I'm pumped! We'll be diving into some wine stuff today. Yes, and my caveat here is we have to bring you back when I'm not pregnant so that we can taste wine. Yes, on the show.

Yes, that's important. We'll have to have the glass of wine with us for the next episode.

Yes, Exactly.

We Will!

We will. Okay, so let's just start with the basics. Tell us a little about you.

Yeah, so you beautifully summarized me and in a couple of sentences there. I'm a wine lover. I'm a sommelier. It's it's really just a it's a fancy way to say, hey, I'm a wine nerd. I like to study wine, to drink wine. That's my job, and so I love wine education, wine writing and just chatting about wine and what it means to people and what people like.

That's like a dream job.

Yeah, no one's unhappy to drink wine.

Yeah, so, you know, there's a perk in that, for sure, and another perk is I bet a lot of your clients are like very happy clients because they get to be sitting there drinking wine.

Yeah, yeah, and if you're unhappy, then then that is fully their fault, you know. Yeah, so, and I'm sure it's nothing that a bottle of wine couldn't solve.

Yes, exactly, by the end of a few glasses I have got a full room of happy people with me. If they weren't happy already, they're going to be happy by the end of this.

Yeah, the true magic potion.

It is a magic potion and it's legal. Okay. So when, slash, how did your interest in wine developed to the point where you wanted to become a song like? I feel like I love wine, you know, but I would never even consider taking this professional route and wine like you did. It's so cool to me. So how did you get there?

Yeah, so it's it's not something I ever planned or expected and it definitely yeah, I think it's something that a lot of people stumble upon when they decide they're going to be a somm, I was. I had graduated from from college. I have a degree in international studies and you know, that kind of drew me to wine eventually. There was a connection there. But I was working as an English teacher online, uh, in Germany, and came back, yeah, during the pandemic, of course, and I was searching for my my next move, what I wanted to do, and my parents had vines planted on our family land. So I spent these you know, really hot summer weekends in, you know, the middle of Texas, working on vines and learning how how that went down, and my sort of path brought me into discovering that wine is this really laborious, labor intensive product and it fascinated me that it's this beverage that we can trade back to seven thousand BC and we all enjoy it across all cultures and it's just this really beautiful thing that brings people together. Everyone enjoys and and, like you said earlier, it brings culture together. Food, history, politics, economics, there's nothing that wine doesn't touch. It's very interdisciplinary as a topic. I have never thought about it like that before, but it kind of is just like this common ground. Yeah, yeah, that's like the best way I can think to say and like, but in a really deep, meaningful way. Yeah, you know, it's just something that's almost all encompassing across so many topics and that's part of the reason why I really enjoy wine. Um, you know, there's nothing you can't learn about its chemistry. It's agriculture, so you can take it and niche down into any sort of section that you find interesting and there's no lack of you know, deep dives and wine. You can take a deep dive anywhere you want.

So cool. Yeah, so cool. So what is your favorite part of your job? If you had to decide.

You know, I think that the best part about wine is people. Being around people, chatting with people, getting to hear their preferences or curiosities or questions about wine. Um, it's such a personal thing wine. Everyone has a different preference and they're all right, you know, everyone gets to have an opinion and it's correct for everyone. So it's just this beautiful place to bring people together and have discussions and Um, wine is so memorable. People can, you know, tell me about a bottle they consumed, you know, fifty years ago while they were with their, you know, significant other, this new friend that they met and they were in this location and they can remember the way it smelled and tasted. And it's just such a UM, people oriented industry, wine, and I love people. I love being around people, so that's my favorite part. I feel like wine does hit on so many different senses, if that makes sense. That it is like to your point about people having specific memories. Like I have such clear, vivid memories that revolve around wine and just sitting here listening to you talk about that, it's like I do remember like exactly the like tastes and the smells and like what I was looking at, you know, just like everything that encompassed that whole memory, right you will. Yeah, and you know, being present with your glass of wine can and even be a tool for you know, being present in that moment. What are you doing right now? Who are you with? What are you talking about? And and it all comes together with wine for me, and it's just it's really beautiful and unique thing that we all experience. You know, what were we drinking? Where were we, who were we with, and why was that wine memorable to you?

Exactly! Yeah, I have heard before that people feel more comfortable when they're holding a beverage in their hand. Yeah, so it's just like making me think of like, I don't know what the science behind that is. I don't know if it's actually it just seems like it just kind of goes, pun intended, hand in hand with having your wine there and, um, sipping wine, having your beverage in your hand.

Yeah, having something you're in your in your hand. There's definitely definitely probably science behind that. Making you feel just like loosens the tongue and just like makes you feel less vulnerable.

So walk us through… I have this vision of somms being just like older men who have like lived so much life, you are a younger woman, which is why you're here. Walk us through, the process that you went through becoming a somm and, like, this is not a question that I asked you ahead of time, but I'm thinking it right now as we're talking. Do you have a lot of like women somm friends or are like, what does that really look like in the industry?

Yeah, I mean, like a lot of other industries, it is a male dominated sort of industry. There are predominantly male winemakers, male sommeliers and and so it's growing. Women are growing in the industry. So it's something I have I have noticed and Um, pay attention to. I love trying wine from female sommeliers and, you know, learning from other female uh wine makers and things like that. It's just Um, but it is a very male dominated industry and, historically speaking, there are actually countries and regions and cultures that are known for actually excluding women out of the wine process and in their history up until more recently Um. So it's definitely something that's instilled in in the industry. But you know, becoming a sommelier is it's an ongoing process. So, you know, disclaimer to anyone, you'll never know everything about wine ever, and that's the beauty behind it um and it can make you feel a little more comfortable when you are becoming a sommelier. It's like, okay, there is actually no end. You can you know how sit for your exam, past your exams, pass your tasting exams, but you'll never know everything and and so there's always something new to learn. But in terms of becoming a sommelier, there's different schools, international schools, that offer courses and there's different levels to each one of those courses where you have different aspects of the exam. So there's theory, there's geography, there's chemistry, there's, of course, tasting exams. Some of these Sommelier Exams Require Service based exams where you're actually your judges. Are you sitting there and you're you're serving them and being judged based on how well you can serve that wine. I know there's there's a lot of pressure involved in knowledge, Um, but it's it's studying, it's drinking and it's proving that knowledge and exams just like you would in college, but with wine.

Oh my gosh, have you ever had such a silly question and kind of immature? Have you ever had like a headache the day after an exam from like wine?

You know, I don't know, that's an interesting question once because once you start right, if you're studying for an exam and you're tasting through wine, you're probably gonna drink wine after that, you know, exactly during the day exam is over. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna have to, you know, complete your day with a few glasses of wine on your own, on your own time. So maybe the answer to that yes, Um. But overall, you know, the job, although it involves a lot of drinking wine, it is mostly tasting the wine and I have the choice, at whatever time of day it is that I'm tasting that stuff, to either spit it out or actually swallow the wine. And you know, you've got to have a balance because if you if you drink six glasses of wine and then you you really think you're gonna be able to evaluate glass number seven. So you have to be mindful of your consumption and, you know, not become too intoxicated, because you absolutely cannot taste wine properly after a certain level of intoxication. I've been indulging and yeah, previous all prior glass, right, right, but I'm not going to say I don't get intoxicated.

Sorry, that was like a little silly question.

No, I love it. I mean it's it's it's a fact, right, we we drink wine on the job.

Okay, so that's why it's my dream job.

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Okay, so one of my favorite parts of your intro was all of the different places that you've lived. So like that kind of brings me to this question, and the answer doesn't have to be a place that you've lived, but maybe just the destination that you've been to. So what is the coolest destination that your job or just love for wine has like taken you to?

Yeah, it's I mean it's hard to say because every location is different. There's perks to every place and I have my, you know, favorite wine regions and places to see and then, of course, I have my favorite just hey, this is just for pleasure and traveling and maybe wine doesn't have to do with this Um but in terms of a wine location, Um, when I was living in Germany, I had the pleasure of going to the southern part of Germany and seeing some of their just phenomenal um vineyards where they predominantly grow Riesling, which is kind of their signature grape varietal, and, oh my gosh, getting to taste that wine when you're right there, you're looking at the vines, you're, you know, speaking to the people who have produced it it and watching the locals enjoy what you're enjoying. There is something really beautiful about that. And the south of Germany, in that area, down the Moselle, the main river, is just stunning. It's just stunning. It's what you picture when you're thinking of Germany, these very traditional looking homes and the architecture and the landscape is really, really phenomenal. And you're so close to France as well, so I also was able to drive over and see that northern side of France as well. In combination, it's just really beautiful cuisine and wine and the weather, of course, it's amazing there. So it's one of my all time favorite places.

One of my favorite memories of being in Germany, and this would have been more north than the region that you're talking about, but is all of the vineyards, vines that are on the mountains. Yeah, like what you're you're you're seeing first of all these beautiful mountains and then, like, as you get closer to it, you've realized that there are grapes growing on there and it's just like the rose and rose and rose, and I think that that is just so beautiful. Yeah, so beautiful.

Yeah, I mean talk about beautiful scenery and and it's it's advantageous to grow your grapes on Mountain side. So you can go to almost any country that makes wine and has vineyards and if they've got if they've got some mountain sides, if they've got some some elevation, they're growing grapes on that land because it's really awesome in terms of viticulture, in terms of growing those grapes. It's a combination of a lot of things. So it is the elevation and the temperature swings that you get when you're up there, which is great, great for the grapes. Um you get some extra soil drainage. If you have issues with fog in that region, you're usually sitting above the fog line on these mountains. So there's a lot of things come together to make it advantageous for grape growing. But it's super common to to find that and it's so satisfying to look at.

Yeah, it is beautiful, it's beautiful, it's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, like the the not the type A in me, but the symmetrical side of me just loves seeing the perfect just side by side by side by.

Yeah, I love it. It's so beautiful. So, okay, kind of changing gears here just a little bit. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about wine that you have come across or that you hear frequently during tastings?

So I think number one, and this kind of goes into health and wellness in a way, is, of course, in the United States every single bottle of wine has two words on the back of it: contains sulfites. And without a nutrition chart or an ingredient list on our wine bottles, all we really know is that wine contains soul fights. And I'm sure you've seen it in social media. There's a lot of stuff right now about, Um, well, here's this extra thing you can add to your wine to make it free of sulfites. And you know, we don't go, I don't go a day without hearing about sulfites giving people symptoms, and the misconception there is so that indication is that your bottle has more than ten parts per million of sulfites added into it. All of our food stuff, right, our deli meat, our packaged food, are dried fruit is preserved with sulfites. In fact, dried fruit has on average three thousand five hundred parts per million of sulfites in it. and the majority of people, that all will have this conversation, well, they can eat all the stuff that has sulfites in it. Um, but for for them why? And is different and so , there is a whole, a whole deep dive that can be taken into contain sulfites. It's obviously not a nutritional label, or we would have it on our food stuff as well. So that the history behind that is actually, you know, long story short, of Senator who wanted to have prohibition reinstated and had this legal requirement that we would have contained soul fights written on our wine bottles. And what I've discovered is it's not the sulfites that are giving people symptoms. I meet people all the time who can drink wine that does not have any other additives in it. It's usually the added ingredients that our wines have outside of the sulfites that are not labeled on our bottle that give people, you know, breakout and hives, have a migraine or have especially bad hangovers. Um from dyes and chemicals and powders and things like that that are totally legal to put into wine that are not stated on the back of the bottle label exactly. So of course we attribute bad symptoms to sulfites when, legally, in the US, that's all you have to say is in your line your wine contained sulfites. Um. And so most people can get by drinking wine that is made in a low intervention and small batch way without all these other additives and the sulfites are not a problem for them. Um, it's interesting. Yeah, and and that goes into the you know, we have a monopolized wine industry. So most of our wine that we drink is made in mass and factories by these big corporations that, of course, are not making wine. And the way we think of these little romantic barrels and vineyards, this is a there after a bucket. It's in huge factories really that that we're that we're talking about. So sulfites is definitely the biggest one.

Um, a lot of people will ask me, you know, the whole screw cap vs cork. What am I looking for when I'm shopping for my wine? Should I be concerned one way or the other? And it really comes down to the type of wine that that you're buying. So corks are porous for a reason. They allow very small amounts of air to enter our wine, which is what we're doing when we o gauge our reds. So we actually we need corks on our reds, for sure. So, Um, you know, screw cap. Reds are in general not going to be of the highest quality. Um, and so corks on our red wines. That is a general rule. And then our white wines. They are more delicate, they don't have the same compounds in them. They actually don't need to be exposed to air. They shouldn't be exposed to air. That's why we use stainless steel. When we are fermenting and, uh, doing other things with our white wine, we use that stainless steel. So we want to trap it off from Ayror. We want to maintain that delicacy. So that's a general rule. You don't have to be concerned if your white wine has a cork in it. There's some white wines that are intentionally, through the decision of the winemaker, sieving a little bit of oxidation. So they want to allow a little bit of that air into the bottle. Um, but that's the general thing. You know, look out, you know, your white wines can have screw caps on them, they can have corks, and our reds just stick to the cork. Yeah, stick to the Cork. Your wine is always it's it's always chemically changing. It breathes like us, so it needs that, that tiny amount of exposure to air to actually age in the bottle, which is what we want. We want it to be well aged.

Yeah, yeah, that's a really like simple rule of thumb. I feel like. Yeah, so you want to avoid the screw top with your red wine and if your white wine has it, that's okay.

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Okay, so this one is a very loaded question and so and it's like kind of a selfish question, but I'm sure that many people listening are going to have like similar feelings. So I feel like whenever I walk into the grocery store, or even kind of more so when I opened like a huge wine list at a restaurant like that's just pages upon pages on pages, it overwhelms me so much, like just all of the options, I just almost feel like paralyzed and just don't know how to make a decision. So what are some tips that you have to help us like make those decisions, unless, like you know, sometimes you go to a place because you want this certain bottle of right right. So like excluding situations like that, like how do we overcome that overwhelmed? How can you make that decision?

So you know, first of all, the the labeling of wine bottles, as you as you study wine, as I do. I mean you realize that it's not really labeled well for consumer information. So don't feel bad that it can be kind of confusing because oftentimes we're actually not receiving all the information that is necessary to make those decisions. But there's yeah, stress, no stress. If you're at a restaurant, the easiest, you know, way to go about that is to trust the expert. So, like like anything else, you would ask questions to other experts for their advice. If there's a sommelier that works at that restaurant, don't be scared to call them over and say, Hey, this is what I'm planning on ordering, here's the wine list, here's some of my preferences. And then when you're receiving advice from a sommelier, always say, you know, stay open minded. Uh. We tend to get in a little box where we'll say, okay, well, I I absolutely don't drink this. I don't drink chardonnay or I don't drink merlot and every wine is impacted differently by its environment, where it's grown, the wine maker, and so maintaining a sense of open mindedness with wine is really important. You know, take that, take that suggestion from your your Somalia. Who's telling you, Hey, this is what I think you might enjoy, and so that's that's first of all, stay open minded, because you can always find two things that you want.

I definitely get in the bucket. Like “this is what I like and this is what I don't like”. Even if someone were to recommend or even if a sommelier were to recommend something that is like outside of that, I probably would be like, well, I'm not going to order it, so that's good for people like me to hear.

Yeah, and it's the fun thing about wine and discovering new things and trying stuff that your Palette hasn't ever tasted before. It's like trying new foods, you know, you get to expand your horizons, and so that's that's a general rule. If you're at a restaurant. Now, if you're at a grocery store, wow, I can see how this would be overwhelming. I mean the wine section in grocery stores is bigger than most other sections and you've got just aisles of choices and there's regions and there's grape varietals. So you can use a couple different tools to help you to decide what you were looking for. So you know, depending on whether or not you're you're pairing that with food or maybe you're planning on drinking it's so low that's a good place start. If you're pairing it with food, YOU'RE gonna want to , look into what what's going to pair well with that in terms of the wine. And then on a label, you're looking for a couple of things. If you're drinking new world wine, which is what we produce here in the United States places like Australia, you're looking for the grape varietal on that bottle. You'll have the grape varietal on that bottle, so you'll be receiving that information. You'll you'll get the region as well and from that you can make different assumptions as you try new things about what to expect from that grape in those regions.

You're looking at the vintage. On our reds. You want to know, okay, how long was this age? With our white wines, were generally consuming them younger. So we're looking for years that are closer to where we currently are, closer to the current year. And then when you're searching for wine from abroad, it does get a little more complicated in terms of European wine, because this is all labeled by the region, the appellation in which the wine comes from, and are not usually telling you the grape varietal or what to expect. So that can be a little more daunting in terms of making that decision. But obviously you know about I think about fifty six percent of the global vineyard is in Europe, so a lot of our wine comes from there.

One really great resource, because there is so much information in in wine are is, is Google. First of all, if you're like I want to try some Italian wines, well, you can use your phone if you're looking at a label and Google what that region is known for. Google will tell you the grape varietal. And then one of my favorite books for just the everyday drinker that does have some more depth if you want to learn about wine, is a book called Wine Folly. It's very visual, so you get a lot of visual representations of what to expect from different grape varietals, where they're grown, what the bottle is going to say, uh, and so using resources like that Um and going in with, you know, an open mind and kind of knowing what you're looking for helps a lot. And then learn from every bottle of wine you drink. When you are done, you're recycling or throwing that bottle away. What did you learn about New Zealand Savignon Blanc what did you experience through tasting a Pinot Noir from Burgundy? And your brain will create memories based on that and you'll have an easier time, fifty bottles or however many bottles later, making that decision on your own.

That's a wrap for part one. I'll be back in your ears next week with part two of this interview.