Food and Drink mini-series: demystifying wine with André Mack

This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Food and Drink mini-series — demystifying wine with André Mack’

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
Hi, listeners. Welcome to the second episode of our special mini-series on food and drink. Today, I’m bringing you a conversation with the sommelier and winemaker André Hueston Mack. André is a pioneer in the wine world. He was a sommelier for the famous restaurants French Laundry in Napa Valley and Per Se in New York City. And then he went on to launch his own wine label, Maison Noir. These days, André hosts a very popular YouTube show on Bon Appétit that explains wine. He’s also opened six little beloved spots on One Street in central Brooklyn. They’re all within walking distance. There’s a wine store, a ham bar, there’s a seafood restaurant. I live nearby, and the restaurant is where I went to visit him for this conversation. I went to André because wine has gotten a lot more accessible over the past decade. And I just wanted to know why and how. André is one of the few black sommeliers in a historically very homogenous industry. And he approaches wine in a very open, kind of non-pretentious way. I really think he’s part of the reason that its reputation is changing. It was also an opportunity to open a few bottles of wine to learn from him how to taste. OK, this is FT Weekend the podcast, special edition. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos. Enjoy the show.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
André. Hi. It’s such a pleasure to be with you. Welcome to the show.

André Mack
Pleasure to meet you. I’m super stoked to be here.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So I am excited to talk to you about wine, how certain wines get cool, what the mechanism is behind that. I’m hoping you can talk us through how we can build our own knowledge of wine.

André Mack
Absolutely.

Lilah Raptopoulos
But to start, I would love for you to just tell us where we are.

André Mack
We are in the Prospect Lefferts Garden neighbourhood of Brooklyn. We’re in one of my restaurants called Kingfisher, which is our seafood-forward restaurant (chuckles).

Lilah Raptopoulos
It’s very beautiful, and it’s new. You opened it . . . 

André Mack
Last October.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Last October?

André Mack
Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So if I have this right, you started your career, and you were working at a bank?

André Mack
Part of my career. I started my career working in fast food restaurants.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
So I’ve always worked in restaurants.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
You know, I was a licensed stockbroker, but I didn’t, couldn’t give any type of advice, anything like that. And then Travellers Group and Citibank merged together, and then they were doing away with my division so I could reapply or I could take severance, which I had never heard of that word before in my life.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And I chose severance, and I started to pack my desk, and she’s like, “Hold on, hold on a sec.” (laughter) This is in about six weeks, but not right now . . . (laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
I feel like I’m thinking I’m done.

André Mack
I’m like trying to leave right now. And that was that. You know, I left and I took my severance, and I spent a lot of time on my sofa. So at a certain point in the day, they would play back to back to back episodes of the show called Frasier.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes.

André Mack
And it was through that show that gave me the courage for the first time to ever walk into a wine store. You know, from the outside looking in, the wine world is pretty pretentious. And definitely when you don’t see anybody who looks like you, you’re not real sure if it, you know, means it’s for you.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And that show gave me, you know, protected me in some way, you know, armed me with comedic antidote or something that I could walk into that store.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And then much like everything else, you know, you got along with everybody. You realise that it wasn’t that scary. And, you know, and then you stand too close to somebody, and you catch the wine bug.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Before we go on, can I ask you if you can explain to anyone who hasn’t seen Frasier (chuckles) . . . 

André Mack
Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
What, what their relationship with wine is?

André Mack
Yeah. You know, Frasier, you know, so him and his brother, they had this relationship around alcohol.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
They were spot on when they talked about wine. You know, they had an argument about, you know, 61 Haut Brion.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
Right. Where, you know, I didn’t even know what that was. But I did know at some point that 61 was a great vintage because it was mentioned several times in the show . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Interesting.

André Mack
. . . regarding Bordeaux. I didn’t know what Sancerre was. I was introduced to all of these things on the show, and they were pompous, which made them funny. And, you know, they really cherish wine. And that was a really a big part of their life. But it was all done in humour. And I think that was the reason that it allowed me to walk into the store.

Lilah Raptopoulos
It opened it up. Yeah. Yeah.

André Mack
But I never thought that it would evolve into a career. And so, you know, that one thing led to another. I had to go back to work. I ended up going back to work in restaurants, and I started to work at better restaurants with better wine list. And that was it. And that got me deeper into wine. That was it. I was, I was in deep, and I spent every waking moment studying about wine, studying regions and all of this stuff. And then all of that led me to, you know, at the time the best restaurant in the world, which was the French Laundry. I think that was 18 months. So after 18 months of being self-taught and studying wine on my own, I found my way to the French Laundry and was a sommelier there. As the hype started to build, you know, this was Thomas Keller’s homecoming of sorts, and one of the most anticipated restaurant openings in New York history. And I was like, I want to be a part of that. And so I moved to New York sight unseen.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And that was Per Se

André Mack
Yup in 2004.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. So after Per Se you were, you started your own wine label in Oregon, is that right? Can . . .

André Mack
Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
You tell me about that?

André Mack
Yeah. I left Per Se, you know, I think just wanting more.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And for me, it was like, you know what, like, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to continue to learn about wine, and I want to have a little bit more creativity in my life. And I felt like the best way to do that was to start making my own. I had no money. I had nothing. And I’ve always put it out in the universe and let the, you know, the universe co-conspire with you to make shit happen. And in this instance, I wrote an email to everybody I had worked with over the last five years, and lo and behold, people started to . . .

Lilah Raptopoulos
Think of you . . .

André Mack
Opening up.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
They were like, hey, we normally sell this merlot grapes to the bulk market, but we much rather sell them to you. I was like, Oh, my God, this is so amazing.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Incredible.

André Mack
Oh, but I don’t have any money (Lilah laughs). And she’s just and she’s like, she’s like, OK. She’s like, don’t worry about it. Pay us when you sell it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Amazing. And then you focused in on Brooklyn.

André Mack
Yeah, well, you know, I had moved to, we were living here in Brooklyn and I never, you know, I didn’t know my neighbours.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And we were like, we’re going to open a restaurant, we’re going to open a bar. And I want to be a part of an extended family of all my neighbours. What better way to get to know them than to feed them?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And it was only supposed to be one place. Just the bar. And then Covid happened, and I was stuck in one place, and I don’t do well. And so I open up six or seven other businesses . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right (laughs)

André Mack
During that time.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Casually. Yeah (laughs)

André Mack
Yes, very casually.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So I’m curious, André, like, what excites you most when it comes to wine? I mean, you make all of this, entrepreneurship is very creative, but you make it seem especially creative in your excitement and in learning about wine and building this business and these businesses is pretty palpable. So what is it about wine specifically that excites you?

André Mack
I think what I’m most excited about is like is that it’s a whole new frontier, and it always has been, right? People don’t expect me to be the person that knows the most about wine in any given room. And I like that. Like they don’t see you coming.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
And for me, all I ever wanted was like, hey, this, this can all be much more fun than it is, right? And we don’t have to be as formal or as serious, but we can be professional, and we can be knowledgeable, right? But it doesn’t have to look like tuxedos and ascots and tastevins and stuff like that.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I mean, André, that’s why we’re here. Is that like, it’s very, the wine world used to be a very serious, I don’t want to say uptight, upright, like a very . . . 

André Mack
That’s about right.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah . . . 

André Mack
That’s about right.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Kind of an inaccessible world. And it got cool over the past 10 years, 20 years.

André Mack
Really cool.

Lilah Raptopoulos
It got really cool, and it got kind of countercultural and suddenly people started getting into types of wine that, like everyone was into Georgian wine . . . 

André Mack
(Laughs)

Lilah Raptopoulos
Made in amphora, like, what? Or was in to Pinot Noirs from Portland, Oregon or was into . . .

André Mack
Well it’s so funny the Georgian wine from amphora.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
The de facto book written about it is my neighbour, Lisa Granik, who lives on my block.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Amazing. (André laughs) Yeah. Amazing.

André Mack
And it’s, like it’s around us and everywhere. I think that’s what’s cool and like such specific niches.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So how did that happen? As someone who is at the forefront . . .

André Mack
I think a lot of ways. I think, I think technology. Well, I have to say, like a lot of the things that have changed, right? Like so education, like education, cool wine region, so like wine regions actually putting money to market and stuff like that. So you look at like wines of New Zealand, wines of Australia, which are I guess groups that spend money to help promote. So you have that, you have . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
So countries, marketing their wines . . .

André Mack
Yeah, countries marketing like their wines to different people. Technology, thinking of things like Vivino and apps for people to take pictures, sharing information.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And then I have to say, social media, a lot of that social media, I think, really kind of like passed off the gatekeepers. Before you had three or four men who decided which wines were cool, and those, those, that was through a number system . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
Which was based off of tasting. But what happened is when you had social media, you had photos and you had people that you liked, that they posted a wine and that you could decide for yourself if it was something that you wanted to drink.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
We weren’t allowed to even have a phone on the floor in the restaurant, let alone take photographs of bottles that were sold in the restaurant that night.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So what is it like now? Is the sommeliers are kind of influencers in there?

André Mack
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Your favourite sommelier is taking not only wines that, you know, that guests might be enjoying that evening or that they selected for guests that they’re enjoying. They might be taking photos when they go and travel to regions and stuff like that. You know, I have people who talk to me and say they don’t even drink any alcohol.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
But they follow me to, to see (Lilah laughs) what I’m drinking and to learn more. And I think that’s a really interesting thing. I’d have to say another thing is natural wine and organic wine.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
And I would say the natural wine movement that brought a lot of young people to drinking wine.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
But that had different values, like they weren’t reading scores or anything like that. And they were open to different things. And there’s different ways and gateways that bring new drinkers in. And I think with that came a lot of diversity in age, background, race and how they enjoy those things. And I couldn’t be more happy about it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, that segues us into my next question in the next section really, which is making wine accessible, like there are so many people who drink a lot of wine because they drink it because they live in the world, but they’re not really building knowledge, and they’re not really tasting it. And I’m curious if how you would teach us how to start. Like if there were three things that people could learn that you think would make them like 60 per cent smarter . . .

André Mack
Well, I think it’s just one thing. You are an expert in your own taste. In the wine world, people give it up too easy. They’re like, I don’t know anything. But you do know what you like.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
Right? And I think if you start there, right, that’s the easiest part. It’s like, I know that I like this, but also understanding that wine isn’t, it’s not a race to the end to find out what you like and then you drink it for the rest of your life.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
That would seem pretty boring.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
The whole idea, and when I tell people, you know, wine is not about monogamy, right? It’s about trying every, every different wine that you can. What we can all start off is like knowing what you like and understanding that it’s that you’re an expert in your own taste. Me as a sommelier, I’m just a tour guide . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
I put the list together, I curated it, and I can walk you through it, especially if you can tell me what you like.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. But how do you tell, how would I if I didn’t know anything about what you liked?

André Mack
But, like, you know, if you like Diet Coke or regular Coke, right?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
Or none of it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
It’s that simple.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
I think the hardest part in wine is how to explain it. So people say, Oh, well, you know, you know, I don’t, I like a dry wine, and the dry wine and you’re like, OK . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
What does that mean?

André Mack
So yeah, so, so 90 per cent of the people, when they say, I like a dry wine, they mean it gives the drying sensation in their mouth.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
Right. But when you say dry wine in wine speak, that means the wine is not sweet.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
 . . . right, which is 90 per cent of the wines that most people drink.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And so there’s a little bit of translation I think, as a sommelier, that you have to do in understanding people’s taste. But I think first and foremost, you have to understand that you’re an expert in your own taste.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. The other thing that I think was kind of a relief to realise, as I’ve learned about wine, is just that like you don’t have to use the words that everybody . . . 

André Mack
No.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Uses when it comes to wine.

André Mack
No.

Lilah Raptopoulos
You can be like, I like that, I can taste it in the front of my mouth, but then not at the . . . 

André Mack
Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Back of my mouth. They’re like, I like that it tastes like a rainy day, like right after the rain is gone then you’re like wet and, and tired. But it feels nice. I don’t know. You kinda say anything you want . . . 

André Mack
You know, it’s like walking down aisle 6 in Home Depot.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And I think, you know, wine can be, you know, described as an emotion. You know we talk about is like just blurt it out. What does it remind you of?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
You know we had a young lady who’s like, this reminds me my grandpa. I go, what do you mean? He’s like, yeah, he would pick me up and, you know, pick me up and he would hug me. And in his breast pocket he would have cigarillos. And I was like, Oh, so you smelling cedar and tobacco.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
Right. And so I think you can decipher and get to that.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
You know, but also like what is in a tasting note? You know, recently, you know, I was just like, to hell with it. And so I just started describing wines with emojis.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, I like that.

André Mack
And I felt like that took a lot of the pretence out. And like, you can, they have pictures of fruits and stuff like that so you can kind of get your point across. A wine that has like the squirrelly eyes . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. Exactly.

André Mack
Yeah. Yeah. And like all of those, I think there’s ways to be able to do it. And I think all of that is changing, you know?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. OK, André, I would love if we could try some wine . . . 

André Mack
Yes.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And you can kind of walk me through . . . 

André Mack
OK.

Lilah Raptopoulos
How to taste.

André Mack
All right, that sounds great. I’m gonna grab some glasses and bottle.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Sounds great.

(Cork opening)

André Mack
Yeah. So I thought it would be interesting to, to some classic, you know, thinking about summer Sancerre. So both of these selections are from France, Sancerre and the Loire Valley. So this is really a Sauvignon blanc. All wines are really named after a place. So you have to know a little bit of something about wine to know what grapes are in it. But I do like the old world adage, it’s like, it’s about a sense of place.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK.

André Mack
All right. So I’m going to pour you a little bit.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So Sancerre is a Sauvignon blanc.

André Mack
Just made from the Sauvignon blanc grape from the region of Sancerre in France. Generally, the first thing I do is like, put my nose in, I smell.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK.

André Mack
Right. So you want to inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK.

André Mack
So you want to open up your olfactory senses. Eighty per cent of taste is actually smell.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
Right. And so then at this point, I probably want to just want to get a quick whiff and then I just want to swirl.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK.

André Mack
So you just like swirling the wine and this is like really aerating the wine. So then I’d go back to smelling. And exhaling. So to me, this smells like wet rock. Definitely (chuckles) after it’s rained.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, it’s a post-rain. It’s a definite post-rain.

André Mack
Smells a little flinty. So I would say like a little like a little bit of gun smoke. Lemon custard.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Lemon custard.

André Mack
What are you smelling?

Lilah Raptopoulos
It smells to me like, I mean, I know it’s made in Sancerre in France, so it’s not like by the coast, but there’s something that smells a little like . . .

André Mack
This is by, this is by a river.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, it’s by a river. It smells kind of like you’re fishing, and it’s like, uh . . .

André Mack
Yeah. Mm hmm.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I don’t know. Like an oyster (laughs)?

André Mack
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Oyster. Briny.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
Yup. Sea seawater. Kind of like the wind blowing off of seawater.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Yeah.

André Mack
I think you can always have fun with it. I think, like, it

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
I think, like, it should just like, in that way, it should be organic, like . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
Like trying, you see how it’s like trying to find the word.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
Right. But, like, and so in wine speak there’s words for all of that. But like, what’s great is like, oh, it reminds me of, like, when I went to the Rockaway Park.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right, exactly. OK cool.

André Mack
All right, so now you can taste.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

(Slurping-like sound)

André Mack
You hear all that noise I’m making?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
Sounds like I’m kind of gargling, but I’m just pushing the wine in my mouth, pushing it through my teeth, bringing air over it. But to me, it has like a tinge of an attic (Lilah laughs).

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
You know what I mean? It’s like you’re in the attic. You know, I wouldn’t, I would not say mouldy, but it’s like . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
A combination of some of those things. So it just smells like, you know, like being up in a grandma’s attic in a way.

Lilah Raptopoulos
No, it tastes a little musty. Yeah. Yeah. It also doesn’t dry your mouth though.

André Mack
So it’s not drying. But see, like, for me, it’s got acid. That doesn’t mean a sign that the wine is high in acid, which is a good thing, I think, acid is an amplifier, right? The reason why you put salt on food, lemon on seafood or anything like that is to really kind of crank up the flavours of a dish, you know, like at the barbecue and you’re like, who made this potato salad? Right? You’re putting salt on it because it tastes bland. And when you think about wines made in the old world, they tend to lead with acid. They come from cooler climates, which I think which makes them better food wine.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. When you said gunpowder, what did you mean by that?

André Mack
Yeah. So as a kid growing up, we used to have cap guns, and I’m sure it’s totally not cool. Now there’s like, candy cigarettes (Lilah laughs). I think we had them both at the same time.

Lilah Raptopoulos
That was of the time, yeah.

André Mack
That’s like candy cigarette hanging out of mouth. And I got a cap gun, but the kind that we had were on a roll. And you put them in the gun and you would hit them and you would get this, you would get this gunpowder kind of flint smell from when you cap them, when you expose them.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
It reminds me a lot of that.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh that’s so interesting.

André Mack
You get that on the nose.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And I think, like, this is the thing, that you can get specific about those things because personally I’ve been drinking wine a lot, but those are it. And I think those are always safe to say.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. It makes wine so much more fun.

André Mack
It does (laughs).

Lilah Raptopoulos
This is. Yeah . . . 

André Mack
That’s what’s fun. You know, it’s, like . . . You want to move on to the red.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, let’s try the red.

André Mack
And so for red I thought, like, you know, things I like to drink in the summer. This is from Beaujolais. So I think we all know some form of Beaujolais. It’s called Beaujolais Nouveau. That’s the first pressing. It’s meant to be consumed as a celebration of the harvest. It’s meant to be consumed right away. Maybe within the first three months.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right.

André Mack
Most people don’t drink Beaujolais from the previous year, but there’s a whole region in Burgundy, Beaujolais that’s amazing. And some of the best made wines in France at this point.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. Beaujolais has become more popular over the past couple of years. Why?

André Mack
Absolutely. Why? Why? I mean, prices of Burgundy. So Burgundy prices are astronomical. You know, so rising prices in Burgundy is one of those reason. And cool kids looking for wines that are similar. This is made from Gamay, which is a grape that I think people like say is very similar to Pinot Noir, but not necessarily. To me, you know, a lot of people get, they say they get banana. So you can . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, let’s try it

André Mack
So a lot of people say they smell bananas.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I will smell it first.

André Mack
So to me, I always get like . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Interesting. Yeah, I get like a banana bread.

André Mack
Yeah. OK. So. Yeah. So I can see banana bread. It smells like, um, like a savoury, like bubblegum.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh . . . 

André Mack
Like um . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Interesting.

André Mack
Think about bubblegum and then, like, if you like chopped them like rosemary or thyme or some type of (Lilah laughs) like herb de provance or something to sprinkle it with it like that. Like it always tastes like, like chewing bubblegum to me.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
It tastes like that, has a little bit. A little bit of that.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Interesting. Yeah.

André Mack
And there’s a little bit of, like, pepper raspberry.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Wow. It doesn’t taste like it smelled at all.

André Mack
Mm hmm. And it feels like it has more fruit than it smelled on the nose.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes. It’s very soft.

André Mack
It is.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I don’t know what that means (laughs).

André Mack
No. No. Well, I mean, it’s not, it’s not abrasive. It’s not harsh. It doesn’t feel like big. It’s like, you know, it feels pretty elegant, you know? And I think that’s what we talk about. Like, you know, those are generally descriptors that you would use with something like Burgundy, where it was like silky and seductive.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. I don’t know. I’m like very distracted by how it feels like fuzzy, like a warm blanket or something. Like it just, it’s just very . . .

André Mack
That’s the alcohol (laughs)?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Yeah, I know. That’s true. I know. But it’s not like there’s nothing harsh about it. I feel it in the top of my mouth a little bit and like, towards the back in the top of my mouth, but it just kind of like coats and . . .

André Mack
Yeah. So this is a grape that doesn’t have a lot of tannin.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
Tannin is like think of sucks all the moisture out of your mouth, which is that dry feeling which you don’t really have.

Lilah Raptopoulos
No.

André Mack
And I think the kind of way if you ever had black tea. Right. That gives you that feeling. It’s very astringent. You don’t have that. Yeah. So this is like, and you don’t really have that in like a Pinot Noir which is a thin-skinned grape that doesn’t have a lot of tannin — Cabernet, Shiraz, Malbec — those kind of grapes are very tannic.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
And I don’t think this wine spends a lot of time in oak, so you can get wood tannin as well. So part of wine ageing in a new oak barrel will give some type of wood tannin that make it extended as well.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
But you don’t have that here, and I don’t think this is any type of whole cluster. So I might get picking up any like a whole bunch of that if there’s any at all.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Wow. I guess if you had like, this is kind of my last question, but if you had one sort of hope for the wine industry and the wine world in the next five years or so, what would it be?

André Mack
Oh, man. I think just wine should be more and more about food. I think if we treat it that way, then all would be better. You know, it’s like just, as Americans do, it’s so funny, we romanticise about other countries. So you think every Frenchman knows something about wine, and they don’t.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right? Yeah.

André Mack
But they do not, at all. And that’s really funny and interesting to me, where it’s like, no, this should just be part of food and like, I don’t care what it is, actually.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. Right. (André laughs) Right. Right. So what is important to you?

André Mack
What’s important is like that you’re enjoying wine, and the wine, wine is meant to make your life better, right? It’s a condiment to life, right? It’s supposed to make that book you’re reading better, the conversation with your friends, you know, like the movie that you’re watching, the podcast that you’re on . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

André Mack
All of that. Like, it’s, it’s there to make our lives better.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. André, this is such a delight. Thank you so much for being here.

André Mack
Thanks for having me.

Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show. Thank you for listening to FT Weekend, the Life and Arts podcast of the Financial Times. This was the second episode of our special mini-series about food and drink. I have dropped links to André’s YouTube show and everything else mentioned today in our show notes, as well as a special discount to a subscription to the FT. That’s also at FT.com/weekendpodcast.

We always love to hear from you. You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. You can say hi on social media or on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and I am on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. I spend most of my social media time talking to all of you on Instagram. Next week we have an excellent conversation with the chef Dan Barber on the seed to table Revolution that was recorded live just recently at the US FT Weekend Festival. This episode was produced by Zach St Louis, executive produced by Topher Forhecz and sound engineered by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco, with original music by Metaphor Music. Have a great week, and we will find each other again this weekend.

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