Summer Reading (and Wines) 2026 with Tall Mike

I had the privilege of joining Mike Stone for the 100th episode of The TallMikeWine Podcast. We chatted about summer reading and wine, and I even learned a thing or two about the German metal band Scorpions. Mike also taught me how rosé is made. Pour yourself a glass and sip along!

Books discussed:

Land by Maggie O’Farrell
Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer
London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
Salt, Sweat & Steam by Bridgid Washington
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Whistler by Ann Patchett

Wines Discussed This Episode:

2023 Gerard Bertrand Cote Des Roses, Languedoc

2023 Rivera Pungirosa Bombino Nero, Castel Del Monte

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Website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1435309
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tallmikewine/

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Newsletter: https://www.redfernbookreview.com/newsletter

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

This is episode 100.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Oh wow! That's a big achievement.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

German metal band is how most people describe the scorpions. Their big song was called Rocky Like a Hurricane. And then they put out this ballad called Wind of Change, and that became their ultra smash for their whole career.

SPEAKER_04 0:26

I don't like drinking rose that isn't super pale. If I see a rose and it's like a deep pink, I immediately don't want it. And I can tell that you're drinking one that's a little pink for me. And is that just in my head? Why is that? I would say unripe fruit.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Now that is actually a pretty good descriptor.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now the Tall Mike Wine Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

The cell phones have been silenced. The wine is poured, and it's weather appropriate. And just like that, the podcast begins. The Tall Mike Wine Podcast. The wine podcast that's not all about wine. The wine podcast, like no other. And here I am, Tall Mike Wine, your host, known to most of the world as Mike Stone. But I am tall, and I do love wine. Wine is the soundtrack to my life. That's a paraphrasing of a Dick Clark line. But it's true. The wine podcast, heard in 123 countries, on six continents, and in 49 of these United States, coast to coast, from Des Moines, Iowa to Ann Arbor, Michigan. From Moreno Valley, California to Federal Way, Washington, the birthplace of Cinnabon. Wherever you are, thanks for finding the podcast. If you'd like to help me keep it commercial free, click the Support the Show link in the show notes and pony up three or five or even ten bucks a month. It helps a lot. I cannot imagine having to read all those ads for mattresses. Now let's dig in for a new conversation. I'm at my dining room table in Nevado, California. No, my neighbors don't know what's happening in Unit 26. My guest is joining us via Zoom from Vancouver, BC. And she is now a four-time guest on the podcast. She hosts her own podcast, the Red Fern Book Review Podcast. And she's here with some summer book recommendations, a nice glass of wine, and a good book, What's Not to Love. Amy, welcome back.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

It's my pleasure to have you. Give me the latest news from Vancouver, BC, one of the great cities on the West Coast.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Well, currently we have FIFA here. Oh, yes. You have a buzz.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

World Cup.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

And the Canadians played their first game.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

They did. It was 1-1.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

That's right. There have been a lot of ties.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Apparently, it's a super big deal because Canada has never gotten even one point in World Cup. Everyone's very excited.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 3:09

No, I was also told that they tied, and I can't remember who they played, but apparently when you tie, it's not a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

That's one of those things soccer people say. Oh, it's a tie, it's fine, it's fine. As somebody who's not really all that into soccer, I'm like, that's dumb. This, of course, will be airing after many of the matches have happened. So at this point, when people are listening to this podcast, the Canadians could be out. The United States could be out. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02 3:34

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

I'm not paying too close of attention. I mean, I do like to know what's happening in the world of sports, because I'm a guy, but I don't go out of my way to watch the games. What's your favorite sport? Baseball. And the Mariners, I can tell you right now, are in first place. Just down the street from you, to the south, the Mariners from Seattle. I'm so glad to have you here on this episode. I've had dozens of people on the podcast, and you're now in a very select group that have joined me more than one time.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

And you want to know something really cool in addition to that?

SPEAKER_03 4:06

What?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

This is episode 100.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Oh, wow. Okay. That's cool. And that's a big that's a big achievement.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

That's a big number, 100. After five years of doing these things and drinking wine and talking to people and laughing a lot. This episode is episode 100. This means we can do whatever we want under the guise of the 100th episode. So something weird happens, we can just say, Oh, it's episode 100. But of course, the reason we are here is for books, summer reads, things to take on vacation, stories to lose yourself in while you take a break from the rat race. Are you taking a vacation soon?

SPEAKER_04 4:46

You know, I'm not. Vancouver is such a spectacular town in the summer. I'm gonna stay here, but I'm gonna go away in the fall. I'm gonna go to Italy in September.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Oh, sweet. Yeah. Sweet. Yeah. Vancouver, a lot like my hometown, Seattle, in the summertime, it's just it's just a vibe. Because you have to live through a winter that is quite gray and wet and not super cold, but once in a while it's super cold. So yeah, I think people in Seattle get a little goofy when the sun comes out.

SPEAKER_04 5:14

Same.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Same in Vancouver.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

What about you? Do you have any plans?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Uh no vacation. This is busy season at the winery. So I will be working and I will also go on vacation in the fall. Uh I'll be up in the Pacific Northwest tasting wine and visiting family all over the state of Washington. All right, on with the books. This is the summer reading list. Amy has been tirelessly compiling a list of books that she can recommend for book lovers for the summer. What's first on the list? What's your or do you want to sum up the list before we start it? What do you want to do?

SPEAKER_04 5:48

Um well, okay. I'll give a little overview. So two of the books I'm just gonna preview, give a teaser because I'm actually doing a bigger podcast on them, but they I will mention them because they're kind of two books that are quite big. But I would say one of the trends that we're seeing is a lot of people are wanting books that are gentle. Some of the books that I'm gonna talk about, nothing particular happens. And I think people kind of want that, like a safe place with the world so different. And then another thing, I think there's a lot. Well, I happen to pick a lot of nonfiction. I think nonfiction is always good, but I also think people are looking for perspective. So it'll be kind of two things I might say.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

That's an interesting way too. We look at the current state of people's uh likes about books, people's wants, needs, desires. All right, let's kick it off. Let's kick it off with book number one.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

Okay, book number one is Land by Maggie O'Farrell. And um, people will know Wait a minute, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

I read this list that you emailed me to my wife last night. And as soon as I said Maggie O'Farrell, she said, Oh, Hamnet.

SPEAKER_04 7:02

Yes, yes, so you you know, and it's quite smart to release this book just after Hamnet has been in the zeitgeist. Yeah. Super well regarded. And I saw both the movie and read that book. The movie does the book justice, they're both excellent. And you know, when a book is really good, often you don't want to go see the movie because you're it's kind of rare for the for the movie to live up to the book for sure. And then we're both extraordinary. Most of the books that I'm mentioning, it seems if you really think about it, like I just went to a publishing conference and there's so many books out there, but the books that get marketed tend to be by repeat authors because people want to it sells and people feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

I think it's similar to the music business. You know, it's it's either going to be the same artists over and over and over again, or people who the record labels think are similar to the artists that are popular. That's right. So it's kind of the same thing, and things kind of evolve very, very, very slowly when it comes to music. That was my impression when I spent 15 years on the radio.

SPEAKER_04 8:05

So this book, Land, it incorporates some of the themes that we saw in Hamnet. If you were living under a rock, Hamnet is historical fiction about William Shakespeare, and he had a son who died, and the son's name was Hamnet. And so it's sort of about that time and his life with his family. And it's very, very sad, but very, very beautiful and super well written and incorporates a lot around nature, which we really saw in the movie. The movie really kind of exploited that theme, and it's just this beautiful, lush, very woodsy. Woodsy. That's kind of being repeated here. And what land is about is it's set in Ireland in the years before and after the Great Famine, so around like 1850s. And it follows a guy, his name is Tomas, and he's a map, he's a like a map surveyor. So he's his project is to kind of map Ireland, and he does it with his son. Obviously, I have not read this book, but it's talking about the trauma of the land, it's a little bit of history, but where it gets kind of interesting to me is apparently this guy goes and drinks from a well, like a kind of a hidden spring, and sort of magical realism things start happening. Oh, I don't know if there was something trippy in the water, but I think animals start talking and he starts it's so there's a little magical realism element, which is kind of fun. And we see that a lot in um, it's very popular in uh Latin American books, magical realism.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

But her books tend to be a bit dark. Maggie herself has had a lot of health issues in her past, and she wrote a book called I Am, I Am I Am. And it she had apparently 17 near-death experiences. So she's kind of got a dark way about her, and that shows up in her writing.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Wait, she's had 17 near-death experiences. How does that happen?

SPEAKER_04 10:11

I haven't read the book. Like I think one's like a near drowning, and then there's been medical things, stuff like that. Anyway, I think this book, why would you read it? You're gonna read it because you liked Hamnet, you like her as an author. She's a very good writer. It's gonna be on the serious side, and it's a long book that appeals to you. And and she's a trusted author, like excellent writer, right? But a bit on the serious side.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Okay. Land by Maggie O'Farrell.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

You know what I might just mention now, because I'm not gonna get into them, but that book is like Land is one of like the book books that people are talking about for summer. And the other two books that I just read, and I'll talk about at length longer. One is called Yesteryear. I don't know if you've heard about it, but it's by Carol Claire Burke, and it's a send up on the whole trad wife trend. I don't know if you've seen about or read about that or seen. I know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

I know what that is, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

Yeah, so it's a book about behind the scenes of a trad wife family and all the crazy stuff that goes on. That everyone's talking about that book. So and it's quite long and it's an easy read. And then the other book, I'm holding this up and showing you, is called Whistler, not to be confused with the Whistler Mountain that's near me.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

No, not Whistler, the ski area.

SPEAKER_04 11:34

This is referring to a horse, okay, but it's by Anne Patchett, who's considered one of our most popular living novelists. She's somebody. Yeah, anyone, she's a household name, and people kind of pretty much pick up anything that she writes.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

So then she owns a bookstore, right?

SPEAKER_04 11:52

She does very good. It's called Parnassus, and it's in Nashville. You know, people, some people really want to read what's hot, and those three books are hot for summer.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Okay. So those books you've read and they're already out, but they're not necessarily on your list.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

I decided not to do them because I'm gonna talk about them more at length and at another time. But I would say both of them on your podcast? Yeah, my podcast. Whistler, I would go get it yesteryear. I felt it was more kind of more about the trend. And everyone's reading it, but if you're really gonna spend your money, I would probably spend it more on Whistler.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

All right, we'll get to the next book in a second. But right now, I think we should do the thing where we bemoan our shrinking attention spans. Okay, leading to our ability to read a book, a whole book, basically in tatters. Who can we blame? Steve Jobs. I hate to do that. He was he's dead. Uh he was considered a genius, and the smartphone's an incredible tool, but look what's happened to all of us. I don't think I've read a full book since we did this episode last year, and I read one of the books.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

I know that's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Don't scold me.

unknown 13:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:05

I won't be judgy, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

But yes, if it maybe people can relate to this. Uh, maybe they used to read a lot of books, but not as many books.

SPEAKER_04 13:12

Oh, I think everyone, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

We can all relate because these things right here, they're dopamine machines. I'm gonna pick one of the books after we're finished here and I'm going to read it.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

What's the next book on the list?

SPEAKER_04 13:25

Okay, maybe I'm gonna pick the book that I think that maybe you'll pick.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:29

Can I do that?

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 13:31

Okay. In fact, and if you don't want to read it, I know there's an amazing podcast which I'm gonna talk about that you're gonna have to I'm gonna make you listen to because you like music. This book is called London Falling. Oh, Patrick Radden Keith.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

I actually know quite a bit about this book because he writes for The New Yorker, and when I'm not staring at my phone, I'm reading The New Yorker, and he the the book, London Falling, is the uh extended version of a long New Yorker article. Did you read the article? Oh, yeah, I did uh uh several months ago. And then I heard him on a podcast, I think he was on the New Yorker radio hour, and he was talking about the book because of course now it's out and you can fill in details, but just a little bit about him.

SPEAKER_04 14:13

He is a great writer, and as you just said, he has like a journalist background, he has a law degree. He is very well known for a book he came out with that came out in 2021 called Empire of Pain, about the Sackler family and the opioid crisis. And I didn't read it, but it's basically saying they knew what they were doing when they were marketing it and how it how they contributed to the opioid crisis in the US. But he went on my radar because of an incredible podcast. So, those of you who don't want to read, it's called Wind of Change.

unknown 14:51

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:52

And do you did you listen to that?

SPEAKER_01 14:54

I didn't listen to it, but I've heard about it. This is about the song Wind of Change by the German band, the Scorpions.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

Yes. For those of you who are old enough to remember, I felt it was a cheesy song, but it was a song, I guess, from like would you call them a hair band? Were they like a hairband?

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Uh metal band. You can just say a metal band, German metal band is how most people describe the scorpions. The big song was called Rock You Like a Hurricane. And then they put out this ballad called Wind of Change, and that became their ultra smash for their whole career. Because a lot of times these metal bands do a ballad and they get play on more mainstream radio, and it makes them like household names for a nanosecond. So Scorpions, that was that was their biggest hit ever was Wind of Change. Talk about the podcast because it's kind of fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

He heard a rumor somewhere that right after the falling of the Berlin Wall, this song came out, and that he heard a rumor that in fact it was written by the CIA. So the Scorpions agreed, did this covert operation with the CIA and agreed to it, and then they turned it into a hit, and it was a way to control people and make them pro-democratic, pro-democracy. And so I found that really interesting. And apparently the CIA has done this before. What's so great about it, besides it's a great concept, is he just does a deep dive and talks about history, but it it kind of reads or listens like a thriller. You don't know until the very end what is true and what isn't, but you learn a lot and you're just super entertained, which is some of the books I'm going to talk about. We're seeing a trend now towards nonfiction. Like my dad, the only thing he ever read was history, and he'd they would just these large volumes would sit on his you know bedside table. He'd never read them. But now you'll see history that's just done in such an entertaining way, and it's true. He does this investigative deep dive into that. So that got me on his radar, and that's why I picked this book. And the book is called London Falling. And what it's about is it's about a young boy or young man, he's 19, who gets caught up in the underworld in London, and he fakes his identity and somehow gets in with all these. He's he's got a middle comes from a middle class family. They sound like decent parents, although the parents gave access to Patrick for this, and he lies and gets involved with these really bad people and says that his parents are Russian oligarchs and that he's worth billions of dollars. Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

It's uh it's a case where he's from a middle class family and they sent him off to a fairly uh fairly expensive private school. Some flip was switched in his brain, and he decided to uh become one of these kids of the very, very wealthy uh Russian uh oligarchs and put on put on a show. And uh nobody knows why, but he fell in with some gangsters and fell in with some very, very, very bad people. Yeah, and so eventually he died. They say it was a suicide. They say he jumped from a building in one of the most posh areas of London. Everything's still sort of up in the air, right?

SPEAKER_04 18:13

It's up in the air, and I I think they do have a video of him actually jumping, but I think there's a whole bunch of things around it. Did he get forced? Was he like drugged? I don't even know. Like, so he just the family felt that the case was dropped. I think that the police dropped it. They agreed to have talked to Patrick and talk about all the different aspects. And really what it's also doing is using this one person or young man as a lens to look at what's going on in London and some of these big cities where wealthy oligarchs are taking over, or there's this crime syndicate, and also I think the fact that the police aren't even really equipped to deal with it, but you'd have to read the book to find out. The reason why I think this would be interesting is he's just such a great storyteller, and it will read. I have no doubt that it will read like a thriller.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

It's very research heavy, but then he puts it in a narrative way that makes it easy to read and just keeps you going. It's it's one of those uh like page turners.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

He talks to everybody, lots of people, even talks to some of the gangsters.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

He's really good. Whoever doesn't read this book, go get wind of change. It would be such a good podcast. Yes, you should when you're like going on a I don't know, long drive, long walk. I could have put it down.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Cue it up and check it out. Yeah, yeah. All right, we're gonna uh get to another book in a second. That's that's London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe. Before we get to the next book, we are gonna find out what's in Amy's glass. Please tell us what you're sipping.

SPEAKER_04 19:51

Well, I am sipping one of my favorite roses. I'm a little hesitant to tell you that because I I want to I I purposely am doing this because I want to hear your review on it. But isn't this cute? I have a little mini bottle.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Oh, yeah, I've seen that one. I've seen that one before. You got the the half bottle?

SPEAKER_04 20:09

I have a half bottle.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Yeah, hang on a second. Hang on a second.

SPEAKER_04 20:12

Is that called a split? Because I know champagne, you have a split.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Is this a split? A lot of times a split is a half of a half, so it's like one glass of wine.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

Oh, okay. I did not know that. I thought a split was a half bottle.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

So you could call it a split because the 375, which is what you have, there is a half bottle and it's basically a split bottle. So there's you could call a split a half bottle or a a quarter of a bottle, a half of a half. Not sure what the technical thing is. Hold up that bottle again. I need to take a picture of you. Now make a big smile. I took your picture.

SPEAKER_04 20:45

The first time I had this wine.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Can you do it again?

SPEAKER_04 20:48

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

My my phone was doing something very strange. Okay, there we go. I have it now.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

So the first time I had this wine, one of the fun things about this wine, I have a question for you in addition, but it's just got a fun little it's a glass bottle with a fun little shape of a rose on the bottom. And so the bottom is rough and shaped like an unfurled rose. And I think that's quite sweet. And then the top is actually I was a couple minutes late getting on the podcast because I was trying to open it. It's a glass stopper.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:22

So you have to kind of pop it out. And it I've never seen that before. Anyway, I like the thing I like about it, it's nice for those of you that don't drink a bottle in one sitting. You can put it back and it's nice to keep it, but it's it can be a bit tricky to open. The question I wanted to ask you, I don't like drinking rose that isn't super pale. If I see a rose or a rose like wine and it's like a deep pink, I immediately don't want it. And I can tell that you're drinking one that's a little pink for me. And is that just in my head? Why is that?

SPEAKER_01 21:56

I mean, so the way they make rose is they make rose from red wine. Grapes.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

We talked before we started recording is from the south of France. I think you said it's from Languedoc, which means it's probably made from Grenache or Syrah. And they throw the red grapes in the tank like they're going to make a red wine. When the grapes go into the fermentation tank, the juice is kind of expelled from the grapes, some of them, and some of the juice comes in contact with some of the skin. The juice of those red wine grapes actually starts out fairly clear. And it's during the process of fermentation in the tank where the juice comes in contact with the skin, and the skin does, this is one of my favorite wine-making words, the juice is extracting from the skin all the red color that goes into the red wine. So if you start out with some Syrah grapes and dump them into a fermentation tank, by the time you get into full fermentation, the juice is extracting all the color from the skins. Well, if you don't go into that part, if you just dump all the grapes into the tank and then maybe six hours later fish everything out and run it through the press like you would if you were just making a white wine, you get this pink juice. And then you ferment it like you ferment a white wine, typically in a big stainless steel tank or something like that. So what you're talking about, what you prefer, rose wines that have had minimal skin contact, which means they're not getting a lot of the flavors, the richer red wine flavors that you would get from the skin. They're getting just a little waft of that. And if you drink a rose that's a little more pink, a little darker color, that means there's been a little more time, a little more skin contact, and you're gonna get a little more of that red wineness in the rose. So you you prefer a lighter rose, is all you're saying, really. Okay, but there is validity to that, yes. Good stuff. Do you like something a little more like salmon colored, like a lighter salmon-y color, or maybe like a peach color?

SPEAKER_04 23:50

Like a spring salmon. I know a lot about salmon living here, and there's lots of different colors of salmon sales.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yes, there are. Yes, there are.

SPEAKER_04 23:57

I'm gonna say a spring salmon.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

All right, so what's the name of the wine and the vintage? And you told me the name of the producer.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

It's Cote de Roses, okay, and then it has the name, has someone's name above it. Gerard Bertrand.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 24:12

And then it says Languedoc 2024, a sous de France.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

So that guy, Gerard Bertrand, he's what's known as a negotiant. He doesn't own vineyards, the grapes. He finds grapes and he buys them and he has wine made. And you like it? Tell me, tell me about it. Give me some tasting notes.

SPEAKER_04 24:29

God, that's intimidating. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Oh, stop. You've been on the show four times now. You should be used to this. Just tell me what you taste. Pretend it's a book you're reading and describe it to me.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Okay, if I'm really, really honest, this it doesn't taste like much. It just I don't know. It tastes like summer, but I can't.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

I associate it with summer.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Does it taste fruity? Can you name any of the fruits? Can you get a color on the fruit for me? Like, does it taste like yellow fruit, green fruit?

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Okay. I would say unripe fruit.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Now that is actually a pretty good descriptor.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Is it?

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're saying that it's a little bit puckery. It's tart.

SPEAKER_04 25:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Right? So it's got a high acid content.

SPEAKER_04 25:12

I don't love sweet wine. I don't like sweet wine.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Notice after you swallow it that your mouth really starts to water, right?

SPEAKER_04 25:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

High acid. That's what people love about roses. Typically, they're higher in acid, makes your mouth water. Gets you ready for the next bite of whatever you're eating, whatever's in the fickenic basket. Notice now you've got saliva building up in your mouth, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Oh no, now you told me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

That's the acidic effect. That's what makes a summer wine a summer wine, something like that. It's crisp. Unripe fruit. That's a great way to describe it. You don't have to go any further than that if you don't want to.

SPEAKER_04 25:44

Okay. It's almost like the reverse is happening to me. Like I have no problem talking about books. And sometimes people are like, oh, I don't want to say what how I feel, but I feel that way about wine.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Well, I just like that. People are intimidated. They don't want to.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

I'm intimidated. I don't want to say what I actually think because I'm like, what if it's wrong?

SPEAKER_01 25:59

You did fine. You did fine. All right. We took some pictures for the Instagram. Hey, do you still have your coasters? Your Tall Mike Wine Podcast coasters?

unknown 26:06

I don't.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Maybe they're around some. Oh, I'll mail them to you.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

Who maybe mail me some link?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Email you email me your address.

SPEAKER_04 26:12

Okay. I I did move.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

I send them all over the world. In fact, anybody listening to this podcast right now, if they would like the official Tallmike Wine Podcast coasters for their home, for their wine drinking pleasure, and this will make your wine taste better. I guarantee it. Just having one of these coasters under your glass. Send me an email to tallmikewine at gmail.com. Request a coaster. Ask a question, make a suggestion, whatever you want to do. The next book, please.

SPEAKER_04 26:42

Okay, I'm gonna do a fun one.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

This is gonna be a fun one?

SPEAKER_04 26:46

Yes. So my fun one is called Villa Coco by Sh Andrew Sean Greer. So he wrote a book called Less.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Which I read. Oh, you did. I I read a book once in a while, and I did read Less.

SPEAKER_04 27:05

I can't say enough about that book.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

It's a funny book. It's a funny, funny book and very clever.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

So it won the Pulitzer Prize. But what's so unique about that book? It's a sweet spot that a lot of people are looking for. A lot of people want to have a good time, but they don't they want it to be intelligent. So it is intelligent, it's hilarious, and it's not very long. Those three things. It's like a trifecta, it's sort of that perfect book. It's very hard to find something like that. Just a little brief review. Less is about a C-list author named Arthur Less. He lives in San Francisco. He's a gay man, and he has a boyfriend, an ex-boyfriend who's getting married. And he is very upset. He gets an invitation in the mail, and he's like, I am not going to that. So instead, what he does is he decides to go to all the C list publishing and writers' conferences that he's been invited to around the United States. And he always gets them. I mean, I'm just making this up because I can't remember, but say Canton, Ohio or something, just like a place that you're not dying to go to. He's like, I'm just gonna say yes. So he says yes, and it's basically a bit of a travel log and it's heartwarming, and I won't tell you the ending, but it wins a pulsar. And then he did a follow-up called Less Is Lost, which is basically the same thing again, kind of.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

I think I bought that and actually didn't pick it up. It might be in the house here somewhere.

SPEAKER_04 28:37

He's just a funny writer. He's like a funny to the point that he'll burst out laughing. Yeah. Um, and very, very intelligent. And the other thing I like about him is he doesn't talk down to the reader, like he'll make literary references. But if you don't get them, it doesn't matter. It's just fun. So he's written this book just from reading about it. It sounds very similar. A young guy who's an archivist and he doesn't know what he's gonna do with his life. So he ends up taking a job as an assistant and an archivist to a baroness who lives in Italy. And so he goes to her villa and it's a gong show. And he finds out that he's actually not really archiving much. He's like involved in like just crazy stuff with an eccentric, wealthy woman.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Who's in her 90s?

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Oh, she in her 90s, okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

She's in her 90s, yeah. I I actually just heard an interview with the author on NPR over the weekend.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 29:44

And was happy to hear there was a new book coming because I've read at least one of them. Maybe that maybe I read the second one. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_04 29:50

Anyway, I think this is just really a vehicle for weird people coming to the house and he has interactions with them. Sounds like there's a little bit of a mystery and just sounds like fun times. He's also lives part of the year in Italy. What else did you learn from the interview?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Uh, that he lives part time of the year in Italy. He lives in Venice. Yeah. We talked about how different it is living in Venice because you think about anything you do coming and going, you're now doing on a canal. So you go buy furniture, and then you have to figure out how you're gonna get the furniture to your house on the canal, which means you got to find a guy with a boat that will put your couch on his boat.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

So the interview is quite amusing. He's kind of seems to me like maybe a younger version of David Sederis, who sort of writes about his life and has a very interesting way of writing about his life to make it funny for everything, turning everything into a story that's gonna be amusing. Kind of reminds me of David Sidaris.

SPEAKER_04 30:48

It's funny. I almost included his new book in my list, and I actually just went to see him.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

David Sederis?

SPEAKER_04 30:55

Yeah, but you know what was interesting? I've seen him three times.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

And one thing happened the last time. I think a lot of people listening will know David Sederis, but he's super, super funny. And his his whole shtick is, I'm not really that nice of a person.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

He's just so funny, and he just observes life. Anyway, he was mean to audience members like that ask questions. I don't like him as much anymore.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Was it in a shticky kind of way, or was it like real, genuine? Like he was annoyed and he was not happy to be there. I mean, that might be hard to judge.

SPEAKER_04 31:27

It was sort of both. Okay. But I was kind of like, oh, I actually kind of see he would. I just think he probably isn't that nice. Anyway, he is very, very, very, very funny.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Yeah, he's a very talented writer.

SPEAKER_04 31:40

And such a good writer.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

But the name of the book is Villa Coco.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Okay. And what's the name of the author again?

SPEAKER_04 31:47

Andrew Sean Greer.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Okay. And it it's set in Italy.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

That's where Villa Coco outside, it's in it sounds like Tuscany adjacent or near Tuscany.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

All right. Well, that's a good lead-in to the next segment on the podcast where we find out what's in my glass. Because my glass is also a rose from Italy. But now you have to go all the way down to the heel of the boot to the area in and around Puglia.

SPEAKER_04 32:17

Oh, that's a hot region right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

It's hot down there. It's hot. In fact, uh, they're growing a grape that I had never heard of. A Bambino Nero. It almost sounds like they're talking about a baby, but it's not Bambino, it's Bombino.

SPEAKER_04 32:30

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Bambino Nero would be very strange, like the baby Nero. So this is a producer called Rivera in the Puglia region. And the property that the winery sits on, the vineyards was purchased by the Di Corato family four generations ago, about a hundred years ago, and they started making wine with the local grapes. Bombino Nero is one of them. And nowadays the youngest members of the family, Sebastiano and Marco, are running the winery and they make a bunch of different wines. And like I said, they're using the native grapes. Bombino Nero is one of them. The name Bombino means small bomb in Italian. Probably comes from a description of the globular shape that the clusters of Bombino Nero fruit can take. So they start with a red wine, and bombino nero is considered to be a black grape. So it's a very, very dark red wine. But again, if you just throw them in the press, you're going to get juice that's fairly clear. And if you throw them in a tank for a couple hours and then squeeze everything, you're going to get this kind of bright pink juice. So this is what I have. This is the Rivera, and they call the rose Pungirosa. The subregion within Puglia is called Castel del Monte. This is their rose of Bombino from 2023. And it is, I have to say, I've I've had a lot of roses in my life. I don't necessarily drink a lot of roses, I don't seek them out. But the ones that I've had that I've liked the most have all been from Italy. And this kind of has that crispness to it, that kind of zippiness, like strawberries and watermelon.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

And then there's kind of a hint of something dusty but herbaceous, like fresh. Like say you take a bunch of sage leaves and you uh chop them up with your chef's knife, you know, you get this almost like you turn them into almost like a powder. It kind of has a smell of that. So it's very, very fresh. It does have some nice acidity at the end.

SPEAKER_04 34:30

So when you first were describing it, I was not interested in the strawberries and the watermelon. But then when you talked about the is that finishing notes or whatever, I think that intrigued me.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

It almost gives you a little hint of lemon on the end.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

Really?

SPEAKER_01 34:44

And to me, the best roses I've ever had sort of hit your mouth like a cocktail. You know how cocktails are very comp well-made cocktails are very complex. When you finish sipping them, they sort of leave your mouth watering. These Italian roses tend to have that effect on me. So I'm really driven on this wine right here. Pungi Rosa.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

It's pretty delicious. And I'll have uh a picture of it on Instagram and and I'll mention the wine in the show notes if you want to see exactly what it is I'm sipping, but it's very tasty, very summery. We've had some hot weather here. Amy, how's your tennis game? When we spoke last year, you had just returned from tennis camp.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

Well, I'm part of a tennis league.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Okay, wow.

SPEAKER_04 35:28

And we just completed our season. I have a bad shoulder from playing too much tennis.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 35:34

I can still play, but do you ice it?

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Do you get massages?

SPEAKER_04 35:38

I do all the things.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

I go take some Advil.

SPEAKER_04 35:41

Yeah, I go to physiotherapy and I lift weights a little bit. Let's be honest, I don't do as much as I should, but it's good. And it's summertime, so it's a good time to get out and play. Although I do play quite a bit of pickleball, which I have to say under my breath, because if you play tennis, it's sort of not looked upon as I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Well, I think that it's very percussive on your body.

SPEAKER_04 36:07

It is.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

You know, the ball comes in at a pretty quick rate of speed. When that ball hits that racket, you've got to grip it pretty tight. And it it does something to your body if you're very strong. I think tennis is a younger person's game. And as we get older, I think something like pickleball is actually great.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

Well, and pickleball is also it's a great I play both. Oh, you play both. So would you agree? The thing that I like about pickleball, it's just everyone's pretty good at it. And it's just fun times right away.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Right. Well, you know, pickleball was actually invented by some this big family that was vacationing on Bainbridge Island in Washington, not far from Seattle. And they invented this game. This is back in like the late 60s, that everybody could play regardless of age or or ability level or strength level. Because you had, you know, you had this big family, so you had a bunch of little kids and you had some grandmas. They came up with this game. I guess over the course of a few weeks, the family was at this cabin and they had some space, so they came up with this game, and that is pickleball.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

I heard there was their dog named Pickles. Is that true?

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Well, I haven't heard that part of the story.

SPEAKER_04 37:11

I heard their dog might be pickles, but I Let's just go with it.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Let's just go with that.

SPEAKER_04 37:15

It's a great name.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Dog's name was Pickles. That's why we call it Pickleball.

SPEAKER_04 37:20

I don't know. I'm gonna look that up while we're talking.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

What's the next book on the list?

SPEAKER_04 37:24

It's another nonfiction.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

And it's called Salt, Sweat, and Steam by Bridget Washington. This really caught my eye. And when I was researching for this podcast, it was on a lot of people's lists. What's fun about it is it's always fun. This is a debut author, so that's always good. What it is is this woman is from Trinidad, and she'd had some, she'd had a breakup and some hard things happen, and she decided she had cooked with her mother or her grandmother, grown-up cooking, and decided she wanted to push herself and go to CIA, which is the most prestigious cooking school in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

The Culinary Institute of America.

SPEAKER_04 38:12

Yeah, and one of them, the biggest ones in the world. And so the synopsis that I read talked about how it's high pressure, hot kitchens, a memoir of ambition, belonging, and coming of age in America's premier culinary school. And this really appealed to me because it's about behind the scenes at one of these schools. I thought it would be kind of fascinating. And I think she talks about her own history with cooking. I have a my younger son worked briefly as a line cook at a restaurant, and it's a very intense, crazy life.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

It's a wacky thing in a restaurant kitchen. It just really is. I know people watch these shows about cooking, you know, top chef and all those things. And what's the one set in Chicago at the sandwich place?

SPEAKER_04 38:58

That's the other reason why it's interesting because of that trend. Like everybody's watching. So tell me about the one at the sandwich shop. What's that about?

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Isn't it called The Bear or something like that?

SPEAKER_04 39:07

Oh, the bear, the show. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Totally TV show. I've never seen it.

SPEAKER_04 39:12

I have. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Yeah. And there's all these things about cooking, you know, Stanley Tucci, but being a line cook or anybody associated with the back of the house in a restaurant, it's pretty surreal how hard that job is when the shit hits the fan. It's really, there's so much going on. I I spent 20 years as a front of house manager, you know, managing the servers, managing the hosts, making sure the guests were okay, and sort of trying to bridge the gap between the front of the house and the back of the house. And those are two very different worlds, all being inhabited in the same building and all with the same goal, which is to feed people and show them a good time. But anytime you're in the kitchen, it's a little crazy how fast-paced and just kind of how always under the gun it seems to me that those people working in the kitchen are.

SPEAKER_04 40:04

I think it's really interesting. And then I have a friend that just completed a cooking course and just the level and the stress, just as you're saying, and she also talks about she was editor for the school paper, which was called La Papillotte.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Probably said it wrong, but no papillot, that's paper for French.

SPEAKER_04 40:24

Um and I know in papillot is like a way, if you've been to a nice restaurant, sometimes they'll cook fish inside um like parchment paper.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

A little paper pouch.

SPEAKER_04 40:35

Yeah, paper pouch. Anyway, she had a chance because she's at the school and she's the editor of the paper of interviewing some of the top chefs in the world. That's also talked about in the book. And I just thought, oh, what a fun thing to read over the summer. And you know, I sometimes watch those cooking shows. I used to watch one, I forget what it's called with my kids, where they would have like a secret ingredient and it would be really weird. And I just think a lot of it, it's almost like the Martha Stewart thing, like you're not necessarily going to cook things yourself, but it's fun to watch.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Yeah. What's the name of the book again?

SPEAKER_04 41:09

It's called it's got a good name. It's called Salt, Sweat, and Steam by Bridget Washington.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

It's interesting because that's so close to another big book about cooking from a few years ago, which was uh salt, fat, acid, and heat.

SPEAKER_04 41:24

You're right about that.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

By a Bay Area chef named uh Samine Nosrat, who was a protege who came out of Shepanice and then wrote a book about her experience in cooking, and now she's now she's a well-known cookbook author. So when I saw the title, I thought, is that is she what's going on here?

SPEAKER_04 41:44

I don't know, but I'm sure that's not an accident.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

It's similar, but different.

SPEAKER_04 41:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Are we gonna be able to meet up this fall when I make my trip to Seattle?

SPEAKER_04 41:57

We might, as long as I'm not in Italy.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Okay. We we could go tasting or just meet for dinner. Maybe somewhere, maybe somewhere halfway between Vancouver and Seattle. Where does that put us? Let me look at the map here. Uh Bellingham. Uh Bellingham. Now you gotta go to the house.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Oh no, Bellingham, that's too close for me. That benefits me.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

It puts us at uh Cedro Woolley. I hear that's a great place to visit in the fall.

SPEAKER_04 42:18

Never heard that. What's that?

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Cedro Woolley is a town not too far from Interstate 5, north of Seattle, about halfway between Vancouver and Seattle. Look it up, Cedro Woolly. People in Seattle are probably laughing right now.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

I'm gonna check that out.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

That I'm saying we should meet in Cedro Woolley.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

Okay, I'll check that out.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

I think it's I think it's out there in the woods or something. I don't know. Well, thanks for sharing your books, Amy.

SPEAKER_04 42:44

Well, thank you. Thanks for having me on. And I learned a lot today, actually. I love that when I come on because I I feel like, yeah, I learned a lot of things about wine. I learned about some of the books that I was talking about.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Which book should I read?

SPEAKER_04 42:57

I think you should read Lungeon Falling.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Okay. But I've already read the long articles.

SPEAKER_04 43:02

Oh, well, then I would read maybe the cooking one. I seem I feel like you kind of were into that.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Alright, I'll track it down. I'll track it down and check it out.

SPEAKER_04 43:09

Check it out. Let me know.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

I will let you know.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Thanks for hanging out.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

The Talmike Wine Podcast was conceived and is written, produced, edited, and maintained by yours truly. Give me a follow on Instagram to see what I'm up to when I'm not podcasting. Mainly drinking wine, eating lavish meals, and of course, celebrating Catterday. You want to sponsor the podcast? It's really a great bang for the buck proposition. You give me a few dollars a month, and I keep the podcast commercial free. No rushing to the fast forward button during commercial breaks, no endless chatter about mattresses. Oh my god. Episode 100 is on the books. Thanks, Amy, for chillaxing and being my guest on the hundredth episode and drinking pink wine. And happy reading all summer long. Episode one oh one will be around soon, but for now I'm Mike Stone. Keep swirling, keep sniffing, keep sipping.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Cheers.