Navigating the choppy media waters w/ Jason Wise, SOMM TV

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Today we're gonna dive into how wine engages with the media sitting here in April, 2026. And back with us on the show is Jason Wise, Chief Creative Officer of Psalm TV and Director of the Psalm Movie Series, as well as our guest on episode 89 of X-Shadow. Jason, welcome back to the show. Hey, it's an honor to be back. I appreciate it, Peter. And listeners can refer back to episode 89 from 2022 to learn more about your background, but could you please give us an update on what you've been up to the last four years? Oh, boy. Let's see, we have four cats. No, honestly, we have been hitting the world as hard as we can with wine content, food content, all of this stuff. We've been working really hard, traveling all over the place, filming. It's a tough question to answer. We've had a couple films, go to theaters, won some James Spear Awards, got ourselves into some trouble, you know, all that stuff. But we've been working hard with Psalm TV. I hope some people listening are aware of Psalm TV, but yeah. Yeah, we'll hopefully more RFA aren't, but Psalm TV was just getting underway, I think, and in sort of the growth phase back in 2022. How has it evolved since then? You know, it's interesting. That's a big question. We are, I just finished a chaos moment with a partnership in a foreign country of Georgia, which is on the other side of the planet. So to answer that question of how it's evolved is, we are a video streaming service that also partners with wine regions and different wineries and all of this stuff has a podcast. We release films and theaters. And so it's evolved to be a little bit bigger of what it already was, which was a media company that is pretty grounded in the drinks and food business, which is sounds pretty straightforward, but is 27 jobs. It's a very weird thing. So it's evolved to be what we hoped it was going to be and it's still going. You know, I know back then you wanted to release a lot of content and it's in your channel, Psalm TV, but is there cross-pollination of your, some of your content going into theater, other streaming platforms and things like that? Yeah, well, so here's the thing. We originally started with obviously, Psalm went to theaters, then went to Netflix, went to iTunes movies, and at this time, rental and all that stuff was a massive thing. And so we were always on the Netflix, the Who Lose, all of that stuff. And we started Psalm TV just briefly really quick, was because we were tired of them sort of figuring out what we were worth. So we're like, we have an audience, we want a caterer directly to them, and we don't want to be beholden to like, if I want to tell a story about a war photographer working in a wine region that is dealing with war, I want to do that. If I want to tell a story of a woman who is third generation wine maker trying to save their wine or even for their family, I want to do that. I don't want to ask for permission, I guess what I'm saying. And so we started Psalm TV, and so the cross-pollination, first we were like, how do we build the platform? And of course, we've had to go back to the original roots and work with things like Amazon Prime, work with Toobie, a lot of ad supported stuff, all of these. So some of our content, our bigger movies, we window them so that they go theaters first, if we can, events, then Psalm TV is the preference. And then of course, it would go to things like those other platforms as well. I mean, YouTube is a very far off, distant thing, and we have a YouTube channel that does well. We don't quite know how to structure YouTube at the moment, but we're working through it, and it's where a lot of people find us, which is a scary thing. And so, scary and good at the same time. And so yeah, cross-pollination, I mean, there's no other way to do it. Originally, with all of this stuff, when you window content, you didn't want to share it in other places, you kind of wanted to hold them in an opley. And now it's strange because people are pretty tribal with how they watch stuff. You know, if you watch stuff on YouTube, that's where you watch it. If you listen to stuff on Apple podcasts, that's where you listen to your podcast. People are not often going, what's a better app for podcasts? What's a different place to watch ad supported content? So if you're watching something on YouTube, you're not going to to be. So we have found that in the concern that any of these platforms might hurt all their platforms, we find that that's not the case. It's sort of, so the cross-pollination is a really big, important question for us. - Yeah, you need it. And I think it will play into the bulk of our conversation, which is kind of talking about wine in the media and media's role in shaping the wine industry. - Sure. Since you launched the original song movie, which was groundbreaking, and I think changed the wine industry, created a whole generation of some way, is right, people interested in wine, or in wine service in particular, that was back in 2012, right? So four or 15 years ago, I looked at, or at least that's what Google says. (laughing) - Yeah, I think that's right. That's when it went to theaters, I think, yeah. - How have you seen the wine industry change in that time? I guess when you recorded it, it was probably 2010, maybe you're a little earlier, so, last 15 years or so. - Yeah, well, I think some of it's good, some of it's bad. I mean, the wine regions around the United States are very different from the rest of the world, and I think the first thing is that people planted a hell of a lot more grapes. And I don't think that's because of some, I think that's just because of a giant culmination of interest in wine. And so, I think this was maybe not the best thing that ever happened, is that people were like, we need volume, and it's an interesting thing to look at the wine business, where when I walked into some, it was clear there was a feeling of vibration, where everything felt, everything felt, you could just, you could put your ear to the railroad tracks and you could feel that wine was the most important thing in San Francisco, the most important thing in New York City, the most important, it was like, it was teetering on the like, if you were meeting with somebody from any different class or group or anything, wine could come up at any minute. The same, and the same conversation is the New York Mets or the Dodgers or whatever. It was baseball, basketball, wine, travel. If you were like, where are you going? It's like, I'd be going to this place, oh, if you had this wine. And so, there was this really interesting time period when I made some that it was sort of right place, right time. Now, what happened is vines take four to seven years before you actually have a vintage that you're like, really proud of. And around that time, and I think maybe 10 years before some, people started planting a lot of grapes. And what I have seen in the negative is that, there's just too much damn wine. And this, I think anybody as a slight outside or like I was, you know, a documentary and coming and looking at the wine industry from different perspectives, and I've done that now for God for a long time, I think would notice that there's just too much of that happening. And I have to say, many of us have been talking about it for a long time. The good is that I've seen the wine industry completely change from like, everything was, you're afraid of wine. Here's where to start, which is when I made some, everybody was like, here's, you're afraid of wine. What's a tan in? What's a this? What's a that? And now it's like that kind of stuff is pretty, I'm happy to see it go to be frank, because it was really just such repetitive content. It was all over the place. And I mean, it's kind of one of the things I made some successful as people had not heard this jargon. But it was also one of these things that, from a tail end of, let's just teach you the basics of wine for 10 years. I'm glad to see that that's moving on to say the least. And so I think I've seen it change in a ton of ways, but now the cream is starting to rise to the top. I guess as far as like wine quality, but also that wine doesn't have to cost much money. And so I think wine is kind of really, really getting a taste of capitalism, I guess, is how I've really seen it change. It's interesting though, because I think that's true in California and some degree domestically. In Europe, it's been like that for a long time. It's been oversupplied. They're the wine lakes that get distilled into biofuels or hand sanitizer or whatever. And they have a lot of subsidies from the government that you to pull out vines. I feel like every five years, they're like pulling out more of lines and then subsidizing them to bite more, right? Just like backing back and I think it's more painful in the US, because we don't have those subsidies. And so it is more true capitalism, right? Like, you made this mistake, you got to deal with it and go bankrupt or whatever or whatnot. But-- Which is a constant thing that is happening. But I think it's a supply side, but then also-- Which is the planting, but also the demand side has really changed as well. From my vantage point, and part of that might be related to how wine has changed in the media. During that time period, we have all this negative health messaging related to alcohol in general, which impacts wine. My hypothesis is that wine kind of rode the tail up of positive media health messaging after the French paradox, right? Where you say a little bit of alcohol and particularly red wine is sort of good for your heart and that's for a thing and leads the longer health outcomes, which is still people are still proving so far as true. But the negative message around like, no alcohol is good for you, raises your risk of cancer or whatnot now. They're not putting in the context of like, Thanks for watching. still better maybe than getting in a car, like doing a bunch of other things, right? That's our higher risk in terms of the context of, you know, your life and things like that. But do you think that all the, there's been a bunch of negative messaging more recently just around how the industry's falling apart from slower demand and whatnot, but like presumably feeding that was, you know, a lot of the negative health messaging from wine from neo-provision. And my point was like, I think wine outperformed all total devalque, which was expanding for the 30 years, basically after, you know, the French paradox, I think in '92. And then so you would expect the reverse to happen as it goes. And wine has been taking faster. If you think about the average wine drinker, probably someone who listens to the World Health Organization of the search in general more than, you know, your average beer or experience drinker, maybe. I don't know. - Sure. And that's a lot to think about there. Oh boy, well, where do I start with that? I think that the whole French wine situation is, it's gonna haunt Americans because the French walk a lot more, they move a lot more. They may not be at planet fitness working out, but they do a different kind of working out, same as Italy and all these places. I think that it's just not apples to apples in the way that you look at that. I will also say that wine is alcohol, right? Wine is something that is something that needs to be respected for that fact. But it's also something that, you know, you metabolize. And so I think when it comes to talking about wine as a health item, I've always been concerned about that. To me, I think talking about wine as a health item is the same as talking about adrenaline as a positive thing for the brain. You know, it's like, it's a lot of fun to go skydiving or it's a lot of fun to almost have something bad happen. And when it comes to wine, part of my favorite thing about wine is you have an extra glass and you have a conversation you never would have had at dinner. But that's the alcohol, okay? That is not the tannins or the fruit or the whatever. The must-weight that's in there or any of that crap. So I'm reticent to talk about the health, but I will also say health is more than just what's your body weight, what's your, I mean, look, health is also some of the things you allow yourself to do that you might know or not, particularly perfect for you. (laughs) - I do think the wine, it is the alcohol gives you a little bit more relaxed, talk to people more openly, more freely. Part of the wine is kind of like water with a lot of acid and then you have a little bit of tannins and other stuff that make it different from other alcoholic beverages, right? And that forces you to drink it slower. You have things like a shambong, right? I don't know if you know this. It's like a glass beer bong, whatever. - That's right, yeah. - I have and it is not pleasant. Not that a beer bong is pleasant, but it's much easier than like taking wine down that quickly, that way because of the high concentration of acid and tan in for red wine and other things, right? And the higher, slightly higher amount of alcohol, but less in spirits. But that kind of makes you slow down and not drink it as quickly, which I think it's very hard to chug wine, especially fine wine that might have tannins and whatnot and better acid profile. And that like creates more connection with people or the opportunity for more interesting conversations that I think, 'cause if you're getting drunk really fast by taking shots or downing beers, like it doesn't create that opportunity for a connection quite as much as it just still does, but to your point in the alcohol, but not as much as wine in general, I think. - Yeah, I think that's a really valid point. And I'm also not talking about, there are levels of wine, okay? And honestly, you can find in my personal opinion, there are $8 bottles of wine that are fantastic. I mean, truly good. We're talking about, I'm on the record many times saying that wine should not cost over a certain amount of money. I keep raising it, what that price is, but I think like if you spend over $170 on a bottle of wine, you're not buying wine. It's something different. - It's the brand. - Yeah, it's something different. I mean, it could, or it could be, you know, something rare or something collectible, or whatever it is, but it's just not what wine is, and I think wine is supposed to be in all regards, something that serves some form of a purpose and you can actually access it. And so that's just my opinion. I think that when it comes to the negative alcohol stuff, I don't actually think, I think it stems from what I said earlier. There's just too much goddamn wine. There's too much grapes. The monoculture has killed this. And, you know, I've spoken to, this is my profession. I literally speak to wine makers five times a week about every topic imaginable. I just had a conversation with a Ukrainian wine maker who has barely survived this war and is not in control of their vineyards and all of these things. I just had this this morning. I mean, so the myriad of topics that I talk to about wine makers, I will say in America, it's mostly, what are we gonna do? And when I talk to the smart ones who have been through things, say what happened after 9/11 is 10 times worse than right now. Like this is, for the people living this right now, that think that they are in deep trouble with why people are not drinking alcohol, people are drinking different things. Don't understand what it was like when people stopped going to restaurants completely. I mean, there was a complete pull-in when the recession happened after 9/11, where people just did not go to restaurants and they were concerned about X and Y, and their finances and other things. And so I'll call Kathy Coruscino. I just had a conversation with a very famed wine maker in Napa who is one of the great listeners in wine. She does not speak loudly. She listens and then she talks only when, and something about the way she communicated to me about how we're fine right now. You just don't see it because how do you define when you're in a recession? Well, later. And she's like, everyone's calling this a recession before it's over. And what you need to understand is, it's actually, I don't wanna get into politics here, but it's kinda like when Reagan in the '80s refused to stop allowing cars from the Asian market to come in because he wanted American cars to compete. You know, it's kind of a thing where it's like, "Look, yes, we are competing with a subsidized market from Europe, all of these things, but there still is a quality factor." And we have got to figure this out. And I hate to say this. I think that the market itself needs to sort out a few things, not everything, but a few things. And it's, this is a very complicated conversation. And so I wanna be careful how I do this because I don't wanna see my friends go bankrupt, but there's a lot of fat in the American wine industry. And the tariffs and all of this stuff, if we're gonna go deep on this, have not helped. I mean, this is a stabbing the wine industry in the neck with losing, you know, some wineries are 20% of their revenue is the Canadian market. There's zero now. Zero. We've lost projects that we were filming from American companies, from the pure and simple fact that they do not have Canadian dollars coming in. And so this is a massive thing that is self-inflicted, but it's also a little bit of look in the mirror. There's too much wine right now. There's too much wine. And. - Well, I think the industry is starting to correct for that. Like, we're pulling up a lot of vines everywhere. Right, you see it driving down the five in California or for us at 20, we get a lot of complaints. We live more of neighbors, right, 'cause we have to pull out vines, 'cause there's less demand and, you know, everything else, but. - This topic is a big one, but I think you asked about the media. And I think there's a big difference between marketing and PR. PR is awareness, right? You know it exists. And then there's marketing. And then sometimes that Venn diagram is one single circle. And I do know that when we release some, I realize when you do a deal for a film, that deal's done before the film does anything for the most part. You might get some percentage of it does really well, but you also don't get to peek into your distributors books. So you don't know. So I just, you know, not to get into the film business is nightmare, but when it comes to that film, a lot of wineries made a lot of money because they were in that film. And same goes for the second film. But we didn't, you know, they didn't pass to make the film. We had no investment from them. It's not like it just is the way it works. And so one thing about the media and sideways is a similar thing. Sideways is really important. These are projects that made it based on a story, asked the places they paid the places that they were in to film at. And then guess what, those places they filmed at got to reap the benefits. Now for us, we asked favors. I don't think we had any budget to pay places to film, but we didn't charge anybody to film at those places. There is a huge difference from things like, I don't wanna call names, but I'll say drops of God or Uncorked or any of these big projects that exist. I mean, Uncorked is a Psalm clone. For better or worse, that is a film that could not have existed without Psalm. And that project had to pay for location fees. That is a giant. So the question is like, does that or the Girls Weekend Tina Fey project that happened in Napa, I forgot what it's called on the same country. - Wine country, yeah. Did those move the needle? And the question is almost impossible to quantify. You can see a million people watched on Netflix. It's probably way higher. Did that make people go to Napa? I mean, I would say probably not on the overall, but it's also that's PR. You're aware of Napa, it makes Napa a thing and the question is, is that the way Napa wants to be portrayed? I don't know. It was not a good movie. I could say that. (laughing) But the question really should have been by God. They had some of the greatest talents that ever existed in that film. So I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. And wrong. Sideways ways worked because it was unexpected and it was on its own terms. They were not on the terms of the places they filmed. A lot of these other projects, drops of God is very good, by the way. I actually think it's quite good. It's based on a manga, so it is what it is. Well, in the manga, we have huge impact. Which I normally impact. I mean, huge fan. I think you could argue we say Japan, it's one of the pillars of why Japan loves wine, appreciates wine, and probably one of the main reasons there's so many vineyards being planted in Japan right now is because of that. Which is so important to say. I mean, not even Japan in Asia. All throughout, why is Korea a big, why am I? market now, I think drops of God probably had an impact on that. And I think the show has had way less impact than the manga did in Japan. And I don't really understand why. Like, what is it about that's different or is having more of those beneficial for the wine industry or not? I mean, I guess it can't hurt. It's probably not negative, but it didn't have the cultural impact that the manga did or sideways or something. I just want to just take a second to say how much it means to who you say that. I mean, in the same sentence, a film I made, you know, it's really amazing to hear. I mean, it has nothing to do with budget or the thing also too, there was a bit of, oh, I think like a straight line people walked with what they watched. I mean, if you something was on Netflix, you'd give it a try. You know, we've kind of lost that and everything's become a little more tribal now where it's like, I have HBO Max, I check it maybe, but for the most part, you know, I heard about a thing. It's on HBO Max. Do I subscribe? I do. Okay, I'll check it out. And now it's just the streaming wars have not helped media in the way that influence. You might watch something, but I think that there are very few shows that are actually making people go, I want to go and visit this place because it was there and this is in it. It's really rare. I mean, there's just very few shows in regard in any shape or form. I mean, Game of Thrones might be the last true phenomenon where people are like, I want to go to Northern Ireland or Spain and I want to see these places that they filmed. My wife watches Outlander and I know that Outlander has that effect. What's the one at the big white lotus that I like this would be that would be my other one. Yeah. If they film there, people want to stay at that resort. Yeah. Or that made Edna wines actually, and they were already popular, but made that really take off to another level. Right? So some of them do have this big cultural impact that have a positive impact. And even if it's not white lotus isn't about wine, right? But they happen to be there when they're in Sicily and Edna and that makes a difference. Well, and if you're making a show like white lotus back to the alcohol, you kind of need people to take a few extra drinks and do something over the edge. It does help. It's a good, as somebody who has, I'm known for documentaries, but I've done some narrative writing too. I mean, you kind of need excuses for things to happen. Yeah. It's a good one. Just to say. Do you think documentaries are nonfiction? Because all the ones we've talked about that have even have had big impact or a mix. Sideways is fiction, right? Som is nonfiction. How do you think the difference is play out? Well, I think the one problem with the way media has been bifurcated right now is that people have taken a look at what can make you the most money. And so documentaries themselves have sort of been pushed to the side. And it's back to where it used to be. So documentaries prior to some, and I really mean like there was this revolution with Errol Morris in the late 80s, mid 90s into the 2000s. He started making documentaries that were not about social issues only. It was about someone who had a cap naked mole rats as pets or something like that. And he's, he started making, which is called fast sheep and out of control, great film. But he made documentaries that were kind of slices of life, which go back to like Nanook of the North and the 20s and stuff. But for the most part, documentaries have survived on social issues and journalism. And what I call a documentary and what other people call a documentary might be a little different. I call what most people call documentaries. I call that journalism. My opinion of a documentary is it's supposed to give you access to a world you would never have gotten access to. And a story that you'd be like, I just didn't know this existed. And for a while around the time Assam for give or take five years in front and back, you were seeing documentaries win the Oscar that were about a football team in Texas or about searching for sugar man was about a musician that people and Sam fell into that category. And here's why wine was so, why that film was so successful. People wanted stories. They were thirsty and hungry for things that were like, I just had not. I didn't know this existed. And they could look at these people and go, these people are jerks or these people are what I want to be or these people are really, really talented or can people really do this and that that crosses whether they would be race car drivers or wine drinkers or anything. And there was this time period. It's a very golden age for nonfiction where people were interested in topics that they didn't know about. And now it's weird because now we're back to if it's not about the story of a murder or the Kardashians and blah blah and this and that, which by the way is great. I'm not saying it's bad. It's just what it led to was so much content that it's really hard to break through. So even if I was to make a film about wine, that is the most groundbreaking thing in the world, it's not going to be platformed the way Sam was when it came out. It doesn't mean it can't be done again. It just means it's got to be thought of differently. And so now, Nietzsche's king, if you have a niche which we do, we're known for wine, but do tons of food stuff, lots of alcohol stuff, I also do tons of stuff about history and war and all these other things. But it's a really challenging environment for media to break through and get to the next stage because I remember this time when blogs started happening and everybody was a writer. And so what it did to books was it made it so it's like it gives this perception for at least 15 or 20 years that why would I, you know, I can be this person, which is not just aspirational. It's like I deserve to be this person. And right now when it comes to content, like making content, everybody thinks they are a documentarian. Everybody's going to teach you, everyone's a teacher. And I don't think the great documentarians ever thought as teachers. I think they always thought we're going to hear to entertain you. I mean, the job here is to make you go, you have to spend some money, you got to buy some popcorn or you got to, whether it's at home or wherever. And so I just think that the times have changed very weirdly. And so for wine media, this is a weird time because now we are talking in circles. We're talking into a tin can to the rest of the wine audience, which is also great because we have a niche, but we're not getting past that niche. And that's the challenge. And the niche is shrinking a little bit with the boomers, aging out and whatnot. But you mentioned race car drivers. And you know, that's the Netflix is called Need for Speed or yeah, that's right for the F1. That's what's yours. And then blue up. I just started listening to the acquired podcast. So many people recommended and been listening to that episode. And that was a major catalyst of F1 really taking off. And that's, you know, so that's finding a new audience, right? And through media, and maybe that's part of the platform of Netflix, but somehow working with their algorithm. Or I don't know exactly what happened, but well, it's and that's tough because the Netflix algorithm now, the other thing that happened to, and this is going to be it's so much more important than than I'm going to be able to give a credence Netflix and HBO and stuff from a wine media standpoint from a media standpoint in general used to license stuff. They would license it. It rent the content, show it to people, and then that license would expire and it would get licensed elsewhere. Now they want to own everything. They want a library. And so the change in that is that it goes to the development process. And so instead of somebody going, Hey, that's weird. Phil and Bartosemali is taking a test. We'll, we'll see if our audience likes that. They're not doing that anymore. They're saying what worked on our platform before let's make that or let's own that. And so the amount of stuff that's getting feeder system into Netflix is less to say the least. And so you get less originality. That's why you know, enough to get out of soapbox here. Everything on Netflix looks the same in some ways. If you have kids, you know, everything is the same. And if you are an adult and you're like, what's new, I don't know. It's a landscape that I'm not a huge fan of, but I understand the business choice and I understand the creative direction because you go, well, what worked before? Let's do that. And that's what they're doing. It really is with the small amount of changes. But it does affect things like niche stuff like ours, like what we're talking about in a big way because you're not going to find a film about a winemaker, you know, on the eve of Nazi Germany's going into France or or Crimea or something like that as a story because it's not fitting what worked before. Whereas if you had made a film about a winemaker in one of these places that on the eve of World War II, it'd be great. So in this case, it's got to be a World War II film because that's worked and wine sort of in there. It's tricky, if you know what I mean. But then if one gets successful in some other pathway, then they might replicate that or do something similar, right? For sure, but that other pathway is now YouTube. And so you find like Craig or director who's a really talented guy. I mean, like one of the best of the best of the horror genre. I mean, a lot of the YouTube theater system right now is like people who are who are making films on YouTube are ending up with such a large following that these platforms are going, well, not only can we turn this person and give them a chance to make a film, but they have a following on YouTube that can also help promote the film. So the marketing is coming in the pill package, you know, when it comes to what it is. Yeah, I do have little kids and so I think I think like Ms. Rachel started in YouTube right and now is now probably half the streaming on Netflix for us as a Ms. Rachel for our 18 month year old. But so yeah, I was going to say you have a little little kid. I have a nine and a 13 year old. Now we'll say that this is it's so much bigger to look at this. It's important to look at this the way we are sort of evolving in the way that everything is turning back to linear television, except the differences. It's not something's out at 2 p.m. It's just always on, but we still have the ads. And so I think a lot of us called this coming. The one problem with wine is wine is something that takes a fair amount of time. In most cases, it takes generations if we're talking about wine with any meaningful providence. And it doesn't really match with the speed and pace of the way things are happening. And so I think the problem is scale. Should we be tearing out these vines and subsidizing tearing out 5,000 hectares in one little part? No, we shouldn't because the truth of the matter is the wine should go up and down in price based on the market, but instead what we do is we plant more. That takes six years, seven years, in some case if you push it really hard, three years to mature, and then you're making some cheap rosé. And what that does is it creates something like rosé is supposed to be inexpensive. Instead of there are good rosé's and there are accessible rosé's and rosé goes up and down with the market. So the problem I find with all of this is the exact same with content. Instead of a movie takes three years to develop and make, now it's like let's get as many things out as we possibly can and they're forcing both industries into the same pipeline. And now when you combine wine movies, which is my, I don't want to say bread and butter, I don't know if we make any money off this stuff, we try, but it becomes this very interesting challenge where thank God we have a loyal audience who does care what we make, but it's, you know, it makes you wonder if the people who are making these films at the top level, the Netflix is, the Warner Brothers, the Paramount Pluses, if they actually want the industry to survive and it makes me say the same thing about the large distributors, the big ones, the ones you, you and I both know that acquire, you know, these huge wineries and then they scale them big. If they actually care about what wine actually is, I don't think they do. And I feel the same way they don't at all. Most of them, I mean, they're a business, it does remind me a little bit your message of the history of like the German wine industry, where a hundred years ago, Germany was known for the best wines of the world, right? Like the white wines, the sweet wines were considered some of the best that were also more in vogue. Then you go through this process with like Leap Fromage and Blu Nahn and whatever were like it scales up dramatically in terms of volume and quality goes down and you could say the same thing about Merlot and the US or other things, right? And then like it tanks the entire industry, right? And in Germany and you know, we talked to Ernie Luson on the podcast and I've had him on mine as well. I love he's a great guest to mad scientists. Exactly. But he's a whole deal with like partnerships everywhere and all that was trying to like bring re-sling and therefore Germany back to like a world class thing again. But it's never really achieved that back to where it was before. It might be doing better, right? Like I think there's a much more demand for like GG lines and stuff like that before than there was in the past and say the same thing maybe about Sherry or others. It's almost like a normal economic cycle for a lot of products. So like the CBG side of the business is probably kind of like. But what people don't understand is what Blue Nund, the damage Blue Nund did to Germany is something that they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars still to this moment to fix. And you know, when it comes to these quick pivots for the market, let's talk about sideways really quick. What that did for Merlot. Look, there was so much garbage Merlot in America, which is fine. But the market wanted that garbage Merlot. When sideways happened, people will just went, Oh, it's bad. And they just turned around and went, well, what's good? Now guess what? There is so much garbage, peanut oil in the United States. It is there is nothing in the world like how bad the majority of peanut oil are is that exists in the US. And it's going to take us a little bit to wake up from that. Especially sub 20 bucks. Oh, it's so bad. And the profit margins are huge on some of this stuff. And they are, they're just, they're god awful plonk. Now, can you get good wine for under seven bucks a bottle? 100% just go to Costco. You wouldn't believe what you can get. Now, is there a profit on that for the wine makers? I highly doubt it. They're trying to just stay alive and move their product and all this stuff. So that's not sustainable either. But I don't know. I just think that this is the trade off. This is the big trade off with capitalism, which I inherently believe is a good thing. But also the trade off is people jump, people put money in big ways in certain places and they try to adjust to things and you lose the sense of I've got a patience of 25 years. I've got a generational patience to make this work. And I know myself with some TV and having investors, some of these investors that I have were like, this is a tech company and should turn around and sell really quick. And they were, I mean, they were wrong when they started. They're wrong now. And the truth is any business that you treat that way is doomed to just be a pump and dump. That's fine if that's what you want, but you're not trying to actually make something that is lasting. And so the problem is it's like, we really have to look each other in the eye, who are buying, drinking, selling, consuming wine. And I think on people's deathbeds, they're going to go, should I have made four billion cases of New Zealand, solving on block? Probably not. Because to be honest, New Zealand was onto something with solving on block. It really was. But it's like, did you just want it to only last 25 years? You could have, you could have had this as an ever-lasting forever identity. And now, you know, people go, oh, well, you know, I don't want grapefruit juice. And it's unfortunate because it takes that lightning and a bottle is so rare for a place to have Malbec and Argentina, the solving on block in New Zealand. And red, certain reds in Australia, all this stuff. I really do think that people will look back. And I think it's America is a new place. And then the rest of the world has pivoted to be like, well, we have to react the way they are reacting. So you see all this cheap wine coming out of the Languadoc and the South of France and all this stuff, which some of it's actually pretty decent. But it is damaging to what wine actually is. I know I'm ranting here, but I mean, does this make sense? I would say yes and no, because like to me, the wine industry is two markets. You have commercial wine, which tends to be more CPG. And that's where the belong and the other stuff lives. And you have fine wine, which is more long-lasting. And I'd give you the example of Bordeaux, which has gone through ups and downs. But Bordeaux is at once a fine wine and has reputation for fine wine. But one of the ginormous producers of the world, right on the block end, on the low end side. And so they make all this wine for two to five euros each and some granted those ones that are having issues now. But there's also the image of it as the high end. And they're able to sustain that image through their history and everything else. And you know, someone was plaking on who right now, but was talking about when you go out and export and you show the world like what you're about, what do you bring? Do you bring like the cheap stuff that you're trying to sell? Or do you bring the high end stuff that you're trying to show people what this place is about? Right? And I wonder like maybe Bordeaux has did that in the sense that it's marketed the high end and then was able to sell the rest based on that. Well, I mean, I'm going to take it another direction. I really think Bordeaux is the ultimate place to discuss of like why small yeas or people who are obsessive researchers about wine are needed. AI cannot find a $10 bottle of incredible red wine in Lelonda, Palmerall. But you know who can? The people who are on the ground will land a Palmerall tasting all the wines. And I will tell you right now, the right bank and the left bank, but especially the right bank, have some of the greatest wines I've ever had in my entire life that I've found out were 12 euros. And I just can't, it's it's under 30 here. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, and yeah, that may be true. But but the truth is like if you're looking at Bordeaux a region that is known to be pricey and you find wines that are, I mean, in some of these cases they're made, they make, you know, 50 barrels. That's all they make. And these wines are stupendous and they don't want to charge anymore because they don't have any more vineyards and they can't grow. And so this is what they're going to do. And this is where they're going to die. And you know, whatever. And so the other alternative about why wine is so incredible. And I guess media, if we're going to talk about this is if you're willing to spend a few minutes looking or asking somebody who has looked if you can get past their personality, which I know some of us geeks who are really into certain niches can be a really odd people. But if you can get past that stuff, you can find incredible stuff. And then that's where kind of what keeps me in this profession is that there are so many little alleys and little pathways and little interesting places to go that transcend the market. And so as mad as I can get about people aren't drinking wine or any of this stuff, it's like truthfully the places that have these little we make only a certain amount of this, we make a film for $250,000 and we're only trying to make twice our budget and it's going to take a year to do that, they're not going to get hurt by this because they have figured out how to exist for 20 years and they will continue. So it's a really tricky conversation because we're either talking about baringer and their distribution market or we're talking about Steve Matthias and his wife who are grinding it out and doing this thing and scaling appropriately or we're talking about somebody who makes five barrels. And I really think that these are not the same industry that just makes it exactly that was my point. They're like two different things that yeah, the hard part is even the Steve Matthias and does get hit to some degree because people are even as current customers are drinking a little less or other things. Well, not just the consultant but even just with his own brand like people are drinking a little bit less so he may need to acquire more customers and there's less people out there so it's more expensive to acquire and the cost of everything is going up and the oversupply issue means the pricing power is not there and then you have other people going out of business and then fire sailing their wine and their supply and they're like oh well, I just bought two cases for 75% off here and I'm going to cut back a little on what I buy from Matthias and then like it's a gimme challenging in that way. So we talked a lot about the media and its impact on the wine industry. What do you think is the wine industry's role and what should it be in media? Well, I think that there's an inherent problem with trying to push media one direction because the problem is, commercials, nobody wants to watch commercials on their off time. And so this has been a challenge. And I think like one thing we wrestle with all the time is we want to work with brands, how the hell do you do that, especially on a wine focused thing. So like we're a hyper example of what you're talking about. If you're talking about top-gun Maverick or something like that, it's even more complicated, I think, because it's like that's not necessarily a wine audience, but how should they, I mean, from a PR standpoint, I think wine should be the drink people are trying to push. If somebody is drinking something and James Bond has done a great job of this, Shatto Angelus has pretty much taken the whole thing. And I've spoken to everybody at that company over and over and over. And there's a lot of claiming that no money changes hands. I do not believe it whatsoever. And I've told them this to their face, that's impossible. But they do a good job in that. Daniel Craig is drinking Shatto Angelus on a train with a woman. And the reason that the wine matters is not because he's drinking wine. It's because there's a lot of sexual tension in that scene and they're drinking wine. So there's a little bit of an elixir there that is hard to define. I mean, I can speak about it that they should be pushing hard to have their wine in places. I mean, we do something on something to be podcast. We do wine cameos. We talk about wine in movies. And often we're criticizing the way wine is used in movies. Like in forgetting Sarah Marshall, they're in Hawaii. And they're drinking tons and tons of clodovol Cabernet. It's the only thing in the cellar. It's the only thing on the trash cans. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Remember that now. Yeah, it's ridiculous though, that that's what you drink. 'Cause you're drinking what? Some kind of probably fish or something. You're eating fish and you're drinking some California Cabernet. What you're doing that? It's not a single drink with a flower in it or anything on any table. It just makes no sense. So I don't know. I'm going to happen to love that because it's hilarious, but it also doesn't make a lot of sense. So how should they use wine media? How should wine use media? It's a necessary evil for both. Well, there's so many different types of media now too. You said people don't want to watch a commercial, but what a commercial is is even changing, especially with social media. And you have the influencers and now it's surfacing either algorithmically or paid ads, user-generated content, which kind of doesn't feel and look like a commercial anymore. And I don't know how many times I've been sold on stuff like that too, or really gotten a brand in my head from seeing that ad all the time in social media, especially. Yeah, I mean, think about how wonderful it was that time when we both got started in this where somebody would tell you about a wine and you believed them and you wanted to try it. And it became part of your lexicon. And I think this is the most important thing in the world is that when somebody touches you with something, whether it's wine or a piece of music or something, it sort of becomes part of you moving forward. And you inherently then recommend that. And I have tons of wines like this that I am deeply in love with. I mean, I went through, here's a perfect example. When you look at Psalm 2, I, that earthquake scene with Stephen Thia, saying and all this stuff, Matthews and wines is deeply part of my thing. Whenever I make a film, I put Stephen as wife Jill in the movie if I can because I love them. And I think their wines are amazing, but I had this first initial touch, which is so traumatic and interesting and all of this stuff. And that's why I think like when people watch Psalm or sideways, that's why the Merlot thing stuck so well is that the movie itself is not about wine. And so, you know, the trickiest part about how to deal with this is, you've got three levels of the influencers are maintenance. You just got to keep touching people with that stuff. And you're paying them to talk about German wine or Austrian wine or whatever it is. But then you also have this middle thing that is, we're actually paying or trying to use connections to get our product in television shows. There are very famous movies that have wines in them that the wineries didn't even know. And so, that's the third part is the magic in the bottle. It's like how do you actually get to be known for something that you didn't know about? And now we're at this stage where it used to be like, do you have permission to use this wine label? And people would be like, the lawyers would come after you and be like, I had to go when Psalm came out, they scrutinized the whole film and said, this label's here, this label's here, I didn't even know. And they were like, you know, you have to get permission from Berenger and they've got a right of thing. Those days were gone. Nobody even cares if you're in something they're so excited by it. But that time when you and I first got excited about wine is gone. I mean, like where it felt like the leverage was on the other side. And so I'm trying to think of how I would recommend wineries. I would say that wineries need to be plugged in. Wineries have no money though. Nobody has any money. So, let me ask you, what's the last thing you watched where you noticed a brand in something you watch on your own? You're like, with your wife, you're sitting down and you're like, I'm gonna watch a show. And you're like, oh shit, there's a wine and you actually were like, I wanna try that. When's the last time? Can you remember that? - For wine specifically? - Sure, or beer or rum or a car you bought. I don't care. When's the last time that happened? - Well, definitely, like, well, just like I said, on like social media, Instagram, I've seen things bought. It started me to buy gifts for my wife, throw whatever, have bought some of them or, especially food, it'll be like some new ramen thing or whatever, right? I'll watch it a bunch of times and maybe I'll try it some of it, like the mobile fuku. - The noodles, yeah. - Sure, sure, sure. - No, at least have me try it. And then of course, what's in the package will, in the value prop and the price will maybe continue. On actual like, filmed media, I can't remember, I mean, outside of me knowing later, like I can't remember watching anything and actually like thinking, oh, you know, like, that's made anything, made me think about anything different or something new. - So I recall Taylor Swift drinking a Sanser and people unmasked what her wine was. She was drinking, I think, a combination of in chiefs games in her, you know, a number of times where she's been seen drinking this white wine, they unmasked the Sanser and everybody freaked out. And that is a really hyper, you know, version of what we're talking about right now where that probably sold, I can't even imagine for that. - The whole category took off, right? Sanser was always like kind of big, but it became ginormous. I don't even know what people know what Sanser is, right? That it's having a block and everything else, but like, Sanser is a category blew up because of that. - Yeah, I just, I look at that and I think you can't really predict this kind of stuff 'cause I can tell you something right now. The reason she was drinking that wine is not because it was a sponsor. Somebody touched her with that and she was like, this is cool, this is just be my thing now. - Or just what she likes. - It's just what she likes, right? It was like LeBron James put, is it Sasakiya? Sasakiya, I think her normal life, right? Like on his Instagram or whatnot 'cause he-- - Yeah, so it was Sasakiya and she's like, but Sasakiya is, I mean, very expensive wine. - Yeah, yeah. - I also have this thing that I hate to admit. I don't think these influencers matter and I'm talking all the way up to LeBron James. I think that they're the aspirational thing with what people are drinking is not the same as it was when you and I were kids. I think the needle is not the same. I really do because now everybody like we talked about earlier, everybody can make content now. So everybody's a director, everybody's a filming. I think it's the same way everyone's an influencer. When I think that they look at it and they don't go, I want to drink LeBron James's drinking. They think I want to come up with what I want people to drink. And so I really do think it's become really complicated in the way that like, who can drink Sasakiya? - But there has been this huge rise of celebrity backed alcohol brands, right? You have Treasury Wine States, Callie Red by Snoop, which was 19 crimes. You have Kendall Jenner's 1818 Tequila. I think a lot of that spurred from George Clooney's Casa Migos, which got sold for a billion dollars to Diagio in 2017 and every other celebrity wants in on it, right? And wants to cash in. But so like, and then we just talk about Taylor Swift, like doesn't celebrity endorsement as the macro big influencer still have some impact or maybe it's not nearly as much as it was, I don't know. - I think it's not as much as it was. I mean, I think about like the clean wine thing. - Avaline and Cameron Diaz. That's actually one of the, you know, as much as the wine industry hates them, right? In a lot of ways. They've pushed the wine industry in kind of a good direction. I've always said we should be more transparent, right? Have like nutritional labeling and, you know, ingredient labeling on all the packaging. Now they actually, I don't think they originally did, but now they actually do that 'cause they're quote unquote like clean wines. And they are one of the more successful fast growing brands in the industry. They've gone from like zero to I think a quarter million cases in, you know, a few years. Let me ask you, this is why I brought this up. Do you think that that's successful because Cameron Diaz was behind it? Or do you think it's because people are crazy about this? You know, I don't want to get political here, but the whole thing. - I think they're related. They're not, it's not just because it's Cameron Diaz, right? But I think Cameron Diaz creates the platform, brings in the new people from other audiences, paired with some product that people aren't doing. It's a, it went to you doing a little bit of like cross-marketing with cloud popcorn, cloud snacks, which is Chloe Kardashian, right? And like, that it's, I don't know that Chloe Carter in herself, she created a popcorn, it makes a difference, but it's like protein popcorn. - I can tell how much she did not. - Yeah, it makes, I mean, yeah, and the people created the brand and everything to fit that, but it fits this trend that is working really well. And so that trend, I don't know if it's own could have been good, and then I think the celebrity just like amplifies and creates the openness to have the introduction, get the audience, try it first, and then I talked about one of the brands, I think that I probably learned on social media, Mela Dumplings, it's like a soup dumpling frozen thing, right? And then like, Simu Liu, the actor, started becoming their chief content officer. So I follow him on Instagram and I started seeing his stuff, and then with the dumpling somebody, oh, maybe I should actually try it, and I saw it at Costco and bought some. Like, try it and like, I think that-- - So it worked. - Yeah, it worked. - Right, yeah. So I don't know that it's the beehive end all, and I think if it's not, as people say, like authentic and fully connected and everything else, but it certainly creates the entry point, and then, but the product still has to fit the market, right? And be something interesting to people and try. - Yeah, it brings up a lot of questions as far as can a brand that's not going this path ever get out there, but the answer is I don't know, I have a 13 year old daughter, not wine related, but I mean, for the most part, I would imagine she's not discovering stuff that is coming organically. She's discovering stuff that is just beamed right into her brain through YouTube ads and everything else. And so the truth is, like, I think the one thing that I would say for the wine business is that all of this stuff goes in circles. And so everything that is working now that did not work five years ago, that five year ago thing is about start working in one year. And that's the problem of how media is also screwed itself. You don't look at the way it kind of turns in circles. And I really think the influencer thing is waxing and waning and this and that. You're always going to have super influencers. I mean, that goes back to the beginning of time. If somebody is doing something, you're going to be interested in what they're doing. But when it comes to like, your neighbor has 400,000 TikTok followers and they're making tacos, so you're going to go to Trader Joe's and buy those ingredients. I honestly don't know that that's going to stay around forever. And then it will also come back. Yeah. I mean, anybody who's into fashion understands what I'm talking about. But I mean, the wine business really, really, really, truly does need. I think these regions, the region's marketing. So like, wines of Burgundy, Napa Valley ventiners, wines of Portugal, all of these individuals are so necessary. I cannot express how important it is that these wineries are working together for a greater good. Because the one problem is you don't want them in Ophley. You don't want to be the only one in a space. Ask Kodak Phil about that. You do not want to be the only person, only company, only entity. And Napa, look, the consolidation happening in Napa is a scary thing. Really, truly, for business and also for innovation. And I really do think that when it comes to how it works with media, these giant organizations are presenting a lot of different brands. And that is-- it's one of the places that I really do see that it does work. It's a strange thing because look at the conundrum. You have all of these different levels of businesses. Some are huge, some are tiny. But they all have to figure out-- I can't see a space where if you allow only the big guys to work, that it does not collapse the whole entire region later. And honestly, you're kind of seeing it in Napa. When you were seeing these five years ago, the larger companies were buying up all these smaller, prestigious, historic wineries. And they're in deep shit right now, to be frank. Why doesn't move quick? It just does not. And when you try to force it to move quick, you run into problems is my thing. So social media moves quick. Influencing moves quick. Media moves somewhat quick. And so business up, it does not. Business of media moves very slow. But the actual awareness of it moves very quick. And so we're talking about some really rare examples for getting Sarah Marshall, this kind of stuff. All right, we remember that. But most of this doesn't work. And you've got to try it 10 times for the one to work. And to your point, earlier on, wineries have no budget. There's not a lot of money flowing around. So it's hard for them to even participate in that way. Unless as you pointed out with Taylor Swift, and others, it's very organic. People just love it and they love to be part of that. And some people are very good at it because they have good product or whatever, getting into that conversation with people. I mean, the truth is somebody like Taylor Swift, if she was to tell you by Justin Cabernet tomorrow, Justin Cabernet is gone. I mean, that's how influential she is in a rare, there's nobody like this person. And I mean, maybe very few. I will say if well, Ron James came out and said, here's a $40 wine that I'm going to drink after every game. It's fueling me being a good NBA player. Look, it's going to disappear. That's a fact. He's drinking Cessacaya. I mean, he's drinking, that's the problem. I mean, he's drinking these wines that are-- The problem is he's not drinking anymore drinking. That's true. I read the article about that. Well, yeah, alcohol is alcohol. I mean, you know, and people in their 40s, you know, it is what it is. When you're-- I couldn't imagine what the toll of playing in the NBA is like on your body. Oh, no joke. But I can tell you, if I get on the exercise bike in the morning after I have drank a bunch, it's not easy. So it's a very different-- it's different pillar. So we're recording a podcast. We both have podcasts. How do you think audio media works with wine? Like, you know, video you kind of have some level of like site, at least you have site. You have sound. Here, we just have sound mostly with audio. And both of those are missing the taste, which is why the tasting room became so popular for so long. But what do you think audio is role is for wine? Well, I mean, I think podcasts are going nowhere. And there's this big push to try to get rid of-- not get rid of, but make it all video. I mean, like right now everybody's trying to make it video. It's going to kill the talk show is in deep trouble, because every podcast is now a talk show. But I will say, for anybody who has to do the dishes or drive or get on the exercise bike, or just, you know, you need something to occupy you. And audio has a thing. Podcasts are going nowhere. That's why radio, which was, you know-- - No, we're in a positive way, right? - I know, and they're going nowhere. - And they're going nowhere and they're staying around, exactly. The one issue with podcasts is there's so many of them, but that's the issue with everything right now. And so I think it's probably the most important medium in wine. I really mean this. I would say movies and then podcasts. So like, a lot of people think-- - Movies over TV. - Yes, absolutely. 100%. This is my-- I mean, maybe I am-- No, not maybe, I am biased, but I will tell you, movies are the thing that stay eternal in your brain. TV shows are similar to podcasts in that you're, what's the next show I'm watching? What's the next show? And there are totally breakout examples, you know, the office and sign felled in whatever. But that's stick with you and they become generational. But for the most part, movies have, because they are so expensive to market, they end up in theaters, they're hard to watch sometimes. They are a truly believe that movies are an eternal aspect that will stick with you forever. And so when you ask people about like, what's your favorite shows, people will be like, you know, it's pretty recent, even like for adults. You know, you don't find people that are like, mash, you know? - Yeah, for most part they're like, oh, the office. Or I really like Game of Thrones. Or, you know, I see this thing on Apple TV Plus and it stars Nicole Kidman and it's great. But you don't find people who are saying like, when you say movies, people go, oh, ghostbusters. Or, you know, the thin red line. Or I love the shining. Or they say stuff that's like, and you're like, wow, I mean, people have a connection that's generational with movies. They remember what they watch with their grandparents. And guess what, there were TV shows then too. I promise you, nobody says Gilligan's Island is their favorite thing. That was on it. Or, you know, lost in space. And I really do think this is very important to remember. Right now, in the media business, movies are this thing that people are like, oh, no, it's only TV shows. And that's the only thing. I will tell you, TV shows are the bulk wine of the media world because it is a thing that everybody's trying to make and everybody's trying to do. It gets back to podcasts. Podcasts are like very ephemeral. You know, you listen to that episode in the morning when you do your workout or whatever it is you, whatever you do when you listen to podcasts. And they go away. But podcasts are part of your everyday routine, which is a totally different thing. So I look at movies being eternal, podcasts being routine. I always tune in and you spoke about acquired, which I love, by the way. I think it's a wonderful podcast. I'm not alone in that one. And they do the long-form pods. So for me, their pods are a movie. And I remember their episode on Rolex, in particular, I loved. And so just to call that out, I remember that episode. They are the movies of podcasts. And so I remember the way they did that, it made me think. It made me think about ideas. It made me think about how much like I appreciate and also I'm like frustrated with that world of luxury. And so you don't get that a lot of times where it stays in your memory. I listened to The New York Times daily because it's a daily part of my routine. I don't listen to that. And I think the sound TV podcast is very similar. It's we do it once, twice a week. And it's part of the routine. And so I think that it's so incredibly important because what do people do when they get on the work? If it was a stressful day or maybe it's just part of like dinner, you open a bottle of wine. And a winery is trying very hard to go, I want, if you're gonna have one glass of wine a night, I wanted to be my something on block. I wanted to be my whatever. And if you go to Trader Joe's, I don't care how much you spend, I don't care whatever. You still remember this labels my wine. This is my brand of cigarettes. This is my thing. This is my whatever I do. And so I think podcasts, podcasts and movies, I cannot put into words how important those two things are because they stick with you. One sticks with your short term, but for the long term as routine. And the other one sticks with you because you took your own time, you sat on your couch or you went to a movie theater and you literally said, I am going to make you my priority. Instead of working out or instead of going to dinner or instead of doing, I'm gonna do this. And so TV shows are different. TV shows are routine. They're important, but they're not like, I've had this conversation so many times about drops of God. How come nobody is talking about the wines that are in drops of God? You know why? Because there's tons of wines and on top of it, wine is really not, I don't know, it's just not, I think about the film, The Menu. And I could name the wines out of that film way easier than I can in drops of God. Yeah, I can't even remember any of them that have drops of God. I know it's like a fake wine or they're at. So like, yeah, that said, the book, the manga drops of God. People are constantly remembering and, you know, buying, buying that. So yeah, it's interesting. I truly, a lot of these wineries, their marketing teams are on very short term leashes. They're trying so hard to go. We've got a budget of this amount of money. We have to spend it, this amount of time, it's got to have this amount of impressions. But the problem really comes down to people will not see a movie until it's third round of release, your general public, your general people. And that even goes for like drops of God. It premieres. Your normal audience are people that are not, they're tuned into Apple TV pluses, new releases. These are not people who are like into the wine business. It's going to take five months before the wine people actually are like, oh, there's a show. Oh, I guess there's two seasons. Okay, I'll start with season one. And then, so it's such a long tale that by the time anybody's seen the benefit of what they did, it's gone. You know, they're gone. That marketing team's gone. They have hired a new marketing team and they're trying a new approach. So that's why this is so complicated, your question. I'm not trying to complicate my answer. There's such a long lead time too, right? If I time it to produce and then release and then, as you pointed out, scene, and you kind of just answered this question, but like, what would be your advice for individual wineries to participate in and generate interest for their brands with the media? You know, obviously there's, you said movies and podcasts. How do they even think about being part of that? I mean, first of all, I was like put budget towards it for real. I mean, I can't tell you the conversations I have on a weekly basis where people are like, we want to work with you. And I'm like, well, that's fine. What's your budget? And they say, no, what does it cost? And I said, no, no, we're not doing it that way because the problem is I know you have no money. So if you have no money, then tell me what you have and we'll figure out what we're going to do. And I also am like, but the flip side is, I'm not going to tell you how we're going to use your wine because if I do that, I'm making a commercial and I'm doing a disservice to what you actually want me to do. And so I would say, I'm a very unique person. And I would say that I would say trust the people that you are going, but don't spend a lot of money. You know, carpet bomb at all over the place. I mean, if you really want it to work, take your money and spread it around. Are we talking about treasury wine estates? Or are we talking about like, Matthias and vineyards? It could be either, right? Or like more, more, more likely, Matthias and type thing, right? All right. So if I'm Matthias and, you know, Matthias and being in one of my films is a huge tailwind. But if your treasury wine estates, you know, carpet bomb everywhere, I mean, we don't work with treasury. I mean, honestly, it's been very hard to work with these brands because there's 50 people making decisions and they have 25 grand and it's like 25 grand is not worth this. It is a complete, you know, impossible. Well, interesting because they do have bigger budgets. I mean, I think, you know, they've probably spent 100 million more on marketing a year across the company, but it is all these different people and layers and. Yeah, but most of that's not in media. And it's not in media the way you think. I mean, they're, they have a, I mean, there's partnerships that taste made. This is all public that they're, you know, very pay for play on that kind of stuff. But when it comes to like putting their wines in a film, it's so, how do you define how to do this? You know, in a podcast too, it's like podcast reads or easy. This podcast is brought to you by blah, blah, blah. Great. You know, how do you have a meaningful podcast with somebody who's paying you to do it? I've tried to crack this code. It's really hard. And I, that's why I mean, I guess it's sort of like the advertorial, right? Where you someone can sponsor an episode, right? And then, you know, like in a magazine, you know, I haven't, it looks to it and feels like an article, except there's a thing on the top that says sponsor buy or whatever. Yeah. I know there's something about it now that people are too aware. And you can always just swipe up or swipe left or swipe right or get away from a, I don't know. I would definitely say though, the problem is a lot of these wineries have exited doing sponsorships and all of this stuff. And it's been the reverberations are bad for both parties. Really bad. Really, really bad. A lot of these wineries you've never heard of for a reason they do no PR. You just, there's no awareness. And so I would recommend that people actually start getting back to the grindstone and putting money into being known that they exist. And that's not like being in print media already. This stuff, it's like you need to be part of the vernacular. You know, wineries, wine is a whole needs to be part of like everyday life. And so it's really not a great answer to your question because it's so fluid at the moment, but it is important that these wineries are known that they exist. And it's region by region too. I mean, it's like burgundy. I would have totally different advice for burgundy than I would for Napa versus it ever once in a while. You get a crazy win. I think, you know, Napa is in a really, they've got some films coming out about them. There's a reality show coming. I think all of these are very bad for Napa. I really do. I look at these. It's like not all press is good press. When Napa is coming off looking like a complete luxury region and it's honestly not good, frankly, because right now wine is expensive and people are or wine is not necessarily expensive. Expensive wine is not in vogue. And Napa is getting correlated with really expensive wine. And that's not a good thing. It's going to hurt the brand. And so I'm like, I wish I could give them some advice and say, you know, there's a lot of wine that's affordable in this region and you really should be pushing the fact that, you know, you can drink great wine for a good price right now. I mean, at this moment, it's interesting because the data would show that these for directing the super Napa and the high end, the super high end $100 plus is actually doing okay, stable to slash growing ever so slightly versus all the lower end stuff is like tanking. That's actually interesting. Yeah. And it's because the K-shaped economy, right? Like the people who are super rich are getting richer. And then the other people are struggling under the buckles of inflation and everything else. So even if they're making the same amount of money or slightly more, their cost to live has gone up more than that. So first, discretionary spend, which alcohol is discretionary is like collapsed. Yeah, but think about the damage you could do over the next 100 years if it moves towards wine is only expensive. You know what I mean? Like, totally agree. I totally agree. It's but it's in the near term at least that's sort of just what's happening. Yeah, it's fascinating to think about. I mean, wine is a long game always has been and I think media is too. But I also think wine especially takes a long time to make a good glass of wine. It takes, you know, many, many years for every vine you see that took six years to be able to produce grapes that are good enough to make good wine. It took 10 years to make that plan figured out, find the land, plan it, and maybe more. And then, so you're talking about something that's like 20 years to put grapes in a glass. I think like anything else, you just don't want it to be, I don't know, when I walked into some there was this whole wine pretension thing that really, really, that was the biggest wave against the film in the first place is like, this is pretentious. And I'm like, no, no, no, if you watch the movie, it's supposed to be just a bunch of idiots who are trying to do something really smart. It's like, this is a sports movie. And then people watched it and they found it second wave and then it. got backlash the other way and then back and forth. But I really do think wine does not benefit being only a luxury product. It needs to be food as well, you know, grocery or whatever. But I don't know, I hope I answered your question. What's a lot of-- Yeah. No, definitely. So what should people expect next from Psalm TV and from you? Well, we have the judgment of Paris film coming. We've decided-- 50th anniversary. Yep. We've decided to release that with in conjunction with the 250th anniversary of the United States. I will say this film has some interesting stuff. The anniversary of the event in May, but we're going to come out in July. And there's a reason for that. When you see the film, you'll understand why. We also have a film called Life of Wine, which we've been filming for a long time, a film in the Vatican and all over Venice, Italy, and filming a bit in Georgia, coming up here in a couple weeks. It's a really wild film of how wine has been maybe tricked humans into doing its bidding. The grape has tricked us for a long time. Invented a few religions, invented some commerce stuff, the luxury market. It's a film that's certainly going to get me in a lot of trouble. Disguised as a dad movie, and yet it's a much different movie. We have that coming. We also have a film about Georgia, the country, and the history of it. It's amazing. I can't wait to do it. So there's a lot coming. We have quite a bit. Three feature films in a year is a real task. So that is a lot. Though people listening are going to go, you promised us the judgment of Paris film three years ago, and you're right. We decided to push it for the anniversary. So we have that in a lot more. So yeah. It works. So we like to wrap up each episode on a personal note. You've obviously been to many different wineries. What's been your most memorable winery visit and why? Of all time. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. God, this is a real tough question to answer. I've got a lot of floods of ideas here. Trimbock was interesting. Let me just-- when we opened up the Close-A-Hoon, in 1962, a Close-A-Hoon, we watched a father hand a bottle of wine to his son. And we thought there was going to be a lot of reticence of opening a priceless bottle of wine. This is one of the craziest, most impressive white wines that's ever been made. And we watched a father talk to his son in a way I had never seen on camera about how he's going to die. And it was so German and so French and so interesting. I would say that Trimbock-- that Close-A-Hoon bottle is one of the most incredible situations and one of the most amazing visits ever. I mean, recently, though-- I mean, Jesus, I was just at Cosmodero. I don't know if you've heard of this winery. So we have a documentary that's live on Psalm TV about Cosmodero. It's the oldest winery in the New World. So 1597 is when they opened. And I've been wanting to film there for a very long time. Two brothers, the Milo brothers. And it is a place that-- Where is it? So it is in Cojuela, Mexico via de Paras, where it is. It is one of the most astounding properties you can possibly imagine. It is the entire history of the Americas. There have been wars fought there, conquisitors. It has no business still surviving. It is one of the most historic properties. And you walk around there and you hear the voices of 1,000 ghosts. I mean, it is wild. And so Cosmodero is just beyond belief. And the wines are fantastic. And truly, really, really, really good. An incredible hidden gem. And so I would have to say, like, that one live what? Month ago on Psalm TV, we filmed it after the first of the year. And so that would be my recent answer. Trimbock, I guess. But, man, could I go on and on not about this stuff? Well, those are two great experiences. Jason, thank you so much for sharing with us all your insight and thoughts around media and how wine can engage in it and how it has been really appreciated. I appreciate it. Listen to me, Randall. Thank you. Hey, listeners. If you love the show, support it by buying a show notes book. They not only compile two years of episodes, but also organizes them into themes for better learning. They can be an inspiration to listen to or relist into an episode or provide a quick reference of the key learnings from a show. Go to xchatto.com and click on the store page for easy links to buy. Thanks for listening. [BLANK_AUDIO]