I'm going to visit, but it's a very interesting journey for her to get to the position she's in and as well for black african american vintners. Also, I had an episode with Marinella Ardeline and she is a PhD, but a specialist in romanian wine. And I had an incredible conversation with her because I pulled out my father's newsletter from 1981 and we started talking about the romanian wines of the soviet era. I think you'll find it fascinating, but
not why we'll hear today. Here to hear talk to Rodolfo Jean Frere Taytanger. Welcome to the show. Hey, Paul. Glad to be here with you today. Thank you. So we were talking about your status in life. You're the CEO of French Bloom, which is a non alcoholic sparkling wine. We're going to talk about that. Maybe it's champagne, actually. And you're the co founder of Frere. Jean Frere Champagne. Yes, sir. Did I say that right? You say it properly and I know it's not that easy to say. Being
brother and Jean Frere being your surname. And so brothers, I suppose then you started this with your brothers. Yeah, yeah, the name. So for my mother, I'm from Detangler family, from my father. We from Burgundy. So, you know, we carry a lot of wine in our blood. And so my own sisters were making cannons for Napoleon and the name on the cannons were Freijn
Ferre. So, you know, in 2005, we decided with my two brothers to create our own artisanal boutique of champagne focus when Aviz, which is a grand cru terroir nearby, cellos and a few very nice growers. And so we decided to create our own champagne house in 2005. Now, it's been almost like 19 years that we are doing our champagne. So we are, you know, it's a very interesting project. So Burgundy, this is some french wine pedigree here. We have a burgundian. And was he in the wine trade? When,
when you lived in, did you live in Burgundy or just your father was. Was born there? Yeah, yeah, my father is born there. We're in south of Burgundy. So I always grow up nearby vineyards in Bogueny, nearby vineyards in Champagne also. So, you know, and it's very interesting because the way we actually make our champagne at Frere Jean Fried, we take a lot of burgundy visions. We age our wine in Burgundy barriers. We use Pinot noir and Chardonnay
almost only. We do very long aging. We try to speak about the land, the terroir. So we make champagne. Champagne is a remarkable wine of celebrations, but we believe it's first a beautiful wine. So the way we make our champagne at Fragon Ferry is definitely to go back to release a wine aspect and, you know, season. Right. I made, you know, I made a huge mistake, and I'm a huge fan of champagne as a
beverage, not just for celebration, as you mentioned. In fact, I kind of learned that from your cousin Clovis when he brought it up, when I brought up the champagne celebration thing. But I taught my daughter, my oldest daughter and her husband about champagne, and now it's costing me a fortune. So, you know, for the listeners, I'd like to lay out for the listeners the lay of the land when it comes to Paris champagne, because we're going to be in Paris in the end of May. We're going to take
it probably a day trip out to champagne. You can, it's almost due east of Paris. Right. And, yeah, it's only 2 hours. We would love to have you actually, when you come to champagne. Well, I appreciate that. Take a train drive there either way. Yeah. So we usually take a train on the way back because we are too. I guess that's good policy. Yeah, but I mean, like, if you took a train, you know, it's a two hour ride, you're saying. Yeah. Is it land in, where is it, Laurence? So my cousins
Clovis with champagne detergents, they are in Rheims. We are in Aviz with my two brothers. So Aviz is 10 epernay. It's a village, Grand Cru, where we're in the kingdom of the Chardonnay Grand Cru. So it's very beautiful. It's more like a terroir approach, but it's really worth to come also to see that. Let's talk about that for a second, because Napa, California, most of my listeners have been, or,
you know, want to go. They'll, they'll see these different regions like Oakville, and they'll see Mayakamas mountains and they'll see Rutherford and, and the Appalachians in Napa are sort of less defined. Terroir wise, it's a little more difficult there, though. There are differences. But, you know, France is all about terroir, and particularly that part of France, the epernay, you know, Reims, you know, you said reams, and I used to say reams, and I was correct that it
was ronce, and now I'm saying reams again. So maybe, but my wife is american, you know, so I say Reims to her. So I start to say also reams. So then, and then, of course, you drive down to Burgundy, which is quite a drive, I think. And, of course, terroir. And then la pation is tres import temper. The van de Burgon cC. I started speaking French, but is it harder, which sparkling wine, in this case champagne, to express terroir because of the bubbles and because of the
acid, you. Know, the big maison of champagne compare themselves to orchestra. They really see themselves as an orchestra because they're going to mix 100, sometimes 200, different town, different wine, different type of sepach. At Fergen Faire, we see ourselves more like a small jazz band. So our visions, which is closer to terroir, is we don't try to mix everything. We just, our grapes just come from, like, seven villages where 80% of them
are in Grand Cru. So Grand Cru is really one person of the best grapes in champagne. So avise, camonte, roget, chouy, ambonet, those beautiful terroir. And so the idea is to, to really, you know, in the jazz. I love jazz. And so, like in the jazz band, you need to have a Saxo, you need to have, you know, the. The bass, you need to have, like, all those instruments who play together. So we don't try to have too many instruments, you know, and sometimes we just going to play
the saxophone. For example, with our. We have a cuvette named Vivi 26, which is a beautiful blond de blanc. I would love to show you next time I see you, perhaps next week, because I'm going to California. But we have the Vivi 26, which is a blanc de blanc from one single person in Cremont. And the oldest vine is from 1926. So you have this 1. Age of those old vineyards is from 100 years, and we just takes the wine from just this
parcel. So this is really the concept of terroir, which is very much normally what Burgundy is made from, not necessarily what champagne is made for, you know, and so, because. Sorry, I just go back to that because I think it's an interesting point. It is.
Burgundy has been making wines for thousands of years, but in Burgundy, it used to be like, mostly like farmers, mostly like family would just have a small plot, you know, on the other side, in Borgen, in champagne, you know, champagne has been made. And you were showing me the book of Clicquot. Champagne has been made by, by talented entrepreneur, by business people, by business women, like vertical, by businessman, like moed. And those businessmen were really
making big brand, you know. And. But since 30, I say, 20 years in champagne, there is a little revolutions we call the quiet revolutions with my brothers, which is kind of like the rise of like smaller growers, like celos, like agra pas or maison, or smaller maison with a character, with personality. Uh, we are making wine of champagne, which is a different approach
than just making champagne. But we are making wine of champagne with personality, with steroid base, with character, with, uh, this idea of speaking about the land more than just creating a house style. Um, the big mezzo, they create a house style. Uh, when you're drinking bolanger, you're drinking the style of Boulanger is a style of. But when you're going to drink a small grass, you are going to drink the seasonality, you are going to drink the taste
of these small parcel, the components of this. And almost like the interior ecosystem inside the terroir and the parcel, you know what I mean? You know, that is a fascinating description, and thank you for that, because the champagne industry is huge. The champagne, the French in general, but the champagne industry has done a great job of making one feel connected to their brand. And I showed you the Vuv clicot book. You know, there's a reason for that. She's, you know, she was an
entrepreneur herself as well. You said that as business. Absolutely. Your cousin's brand, Tanger, Bolanger, Paul Roget, Charles Heidsig, Piper Heidsig, all these big brands, brands that consume so much of this shelf at the supermarche, are they competition? Because they are house styles. Like you're going to buy a bottle of Boulanger because you know that Boulanger tastes. I mean, let's talk about vous Clicquot for a second. They buy vous clicquot because that gold
label sticks out of everybody's mind. And I don't think they necessarily are looking for the house brand. They're just looking at that label. And here you have this very unique, terroir driven wine. Do you consider the competition, besides the sheer volume of business they do as a beverage, do you consider them competition? I mean, you know, I'm not here to criticize no, I don't want you to. The big Maison are necessary because they drive very much.
Also the champagne appellations. When I'm going to Japan, when I'm going to the US, when I'm going to China, when I'm going everywhere. It's true that the power of those big films like LVMH beyond, or even my microsine at ETA or Boulanger, they are so powerful and they bring the champagne appellations to become so famous, which is a good thing. What we are doing with my brothers, it's kind of more like a grower type of maison with
terroir visions. It's a different vision, it's not the same type of competitions or war. The big maisons, they create a style which is a little bit more standardized. So people are buying a bottle of earth, click. Because they want, I believe in my point of view, they want to also feel the same type of expressions and the same feeling, which is something like also interesting, because, you know, they're looking for
having stability in a standardized way. You know, we believe a bit the opposite with my brother, since perhaps burgundy side inside our blood who's talking where we believe that every year are very different. And we are very interested to see that the 2012 for us is super different from 2008. Or when you speak about certain type of terroir, you're going to get something very different. And it's true that when you mix all the terroir and when you make millions of bottles, you create
more something standardized. And sometimes it can be very good. Also, I'm so impressed by the quality sometimes of some great house champagne because they have been able, even making millions of bottles, but still able to keep like a very high quality of a standardized type of product. We really want to be the voice of the terroir. We want to be the voice of the seasonality. 2012, for us, for example, we had a very cold winter, under 20
degree. We had a very warm early spring, so we had a flowering way too early. Then we lost 70% of the grade because we got frost. So the style of our 2012 is full of pensions, precisions, because of this very hard struggling year, you know. But this is what we like to put in front, the typical and the diversity of the expressions
of the terroir and the seasonality. It's so interesting because I think I brought it up a little bit before, but the idea of the clicquots and the boulangers and the Paul Rogers, they still feel pretty unique. Like, if I go to the market, and they're in the locked cabinet. But when it comes to the market, the market, they are much like the regular brands of Cabernet Sauvignon that we have on the shelf in LA. And so
that's what fascinates me about the industry of champagne. It's able to elevate its position in the consumer's perception. And justifiably, I'm not saying it shouldn't be because it's such a wonderful beverage, but it's just interesting that the mainstream, huge houses still feel like something unique and private when you are really are unique and private. And I can't wait to taste the wines. Who's a supplier in, in southern California, but. Oh, you said Boisson. No, also French
du Mar, which is. A supplier of Frere Jean Frere. So Frere Jean Frere. We have an importer based in Texas named BCI, and he's doing a really good job. We work after with Winebow. I don't know if you know wine bow. We worked with wine bow. He's kind of like a, one of our main distributor also in us. They're doing a great job.
And this kind of leads into this next question, which is really fascinating to me, because you sent me your schedule, and I'm, like, looking at, oh, my gosh, this is a whirlwind to get the name out. And there's something unique in the industry right now, and because I'm retired, to the extent that I don't sell wine every day anymore, I'm on a lot of consulting jobs to help people understand the landscape of wine and distilled spirits in America and alone
California. And, you know, it's tough right now all over, and it seems like what you're going to do on this next trip is critical to the marketing of your brand, that you are in front of the people and pouring the glasses and having this conversation. Yes, yes. You know, it's super important. You have to meet the client. It's a people industry, you know, the wine world. So
it's all about meeting the people. And we get so disconnected, I feel with, like, the COVID and all of that, it's super important to really, like, reconnect, to meet the clients, to tell the story, you know, because, and especially because we also have this new story, which is pretty fascinating with french bloom, where we try to make kind of like the first complex alcohol free wine, which is a very difficult quest, but also very challenging, but very interesting. So, you know, I want to
discuss. I want to go back a little bit. We're going to talk about fresh Enfre, and then we want to talk french bloom because is a very important segment of our industry and I want people to hear the story. But, you know, you talked about Napoleon's army and I love stories of Napoleon. I've, I've studied him and I've read some of the books and here I haven't seen the movie. Well, movie is not that bad. I think, I think it's pretty good. I like Joaquin Phoenix. I like the
scots. I was pretty impressed. I know I'm a big Napoleon fan, so of course I watch the movie. But did it jive with what you learned in history class in school? Yeah, kind of. I mean, it's, it's a little bit more like a big american productions, but it's not that bad on the scene. It's, the scene of the battles are pretty amazing. I
think Joaquin Phoenix is amazing. So I'll watch, I'm going to watch it because I, I just got done with a video of how he became to, it was a small, it was part of my french lessons. You know, it was cool about learning a language and I learned the language because my father spoke. But you must immerse yourself in the culture to understand the language. Absolutely. I mean, that's why these books like Louve
Clicquot. And I'm going to ask you a question later on. A french french doctor that came up with wine as a cure for most maladies. But it's so important to learn the culture of where you're trying to speak, so you have the feeling of it. So that's why Napoleon has risen to. I learned english thanks to my wife, you know, because before, I don't say my English perfect today, but I have been able to learn by going to Chicago and to be with my nose. So the Frere, Jean Frere,
how many generations ago? And is there any relationship to military accoutrements today? I mean, it's just that was your great great grandfather or great great great grandfather. Yeah. So long story short, there were two brothers named Louis and Georges Vergent. They used to come from a family of blacksmiths. In 1780, Louis went to spy the British. They were like entrepreneur, you know, they were, no, they were not noble or anything. They were just entrepreneur.
And Louis went to England to spy the British for three years to learn about the technique to make good cannons. Because the problem is the french cannons at this time, they were kind of exploding on the battlefield. And the British were quite advanced in terms of fact, uh, technique to make good cannons. So. And he learned from the British to, to, uh, to make good cannons. And he came back with a lot of know how. And then they create the two
brothers. They create, like, the, the cannons company, and they became one of the biggest supplier of cannons for Napoleon. Uh, so, you know, this is pretty interesting stories. And because we are two bosses, you know, when we started on Maison in 2005, we took back the name and we took back also the cannons that we put now on our champagne. What a great story. And I have this theory, anyway, about terroir and
wine. These stories contribute to what's in the bottle, whether it's with cannon making or like, my last name is Calam Carian, and it means it's armenian, one who etches silver and tradition. It's part of my family's history. And so I think knowing those stories and that history, you know, it's a philosophical approach to what you're doing. I mean, how can that, how can those, how can that history and your background not be in the bottle? I mean, how can that
not happen? It's impossible because it makes who you are. And so, um, why then, in 2005, did you decide with your brothers that you would get into making champagne? And I understand the name source, but, you know, this is, this is a tough racket. Yeah, it is. Cheese, my friend, he's very tough. To create a new. Everybody always agrees on that, especially when you decide to make, like, champagne with all the, the long discipline we put in place, which is we age our champagne
from five to eight years minimum. So that's even more complicated. Doing mostly grand cru, Premier Cru, that's a little bit more evil. So we start in 2005, because at this time we met chef de car. We met a guy named DJ Pierson, which is a wine grower from Aviz. He's a fifth generation wine grower from Aviz and very talented grower, good guy also. And like most of those wine growers, he was like sending patio his grapes to some of the, of other big champagne house, like
Boulanger, like, and all of that. And we really convinced him to join us. We also had some beautiful vineyards from our family. And so we decided to get us to go together and start at the beginning, like a small artisanal productions for family and friends. That was really the idea to create like, a boutique specialized mostly for us at the beginning to say, okay, we're going to make beautiful champagne more in like, in like, in a
confidential way. And we, from that, you know, we start our first bottle in 2012, and we went from like 20,000 bottles in 2012 that we sold, and now we make and, and sell about 180,000 bottles per year. So it's still, wow, pretty confidential. But it's a good size. You know, we don't want to go to too fast or too big. We want to kind of like stay artisanal boutique true to what we like to do. And that was kind of like this idea of. You know, you brought up the champagne
houses. You know, it's business, right? I mean, this, I have this weird romantic thing that wine shouldn't have a profit built into it so that we can only get and produce the best stuff that could the earth will give us. And I think it's really impressive that you guys are going after that. Going after what? The terroir, that if it's a bad vintage, as far as weather and terroir is concerned, that's what it is. And so you're creating, you're expressing that
point. It's certainly palatable wine. It's good wine. I tasted some chateau Lagrange the other day, and it was a couple of bad, not very good vintages for them. But, boy, you get to taste what that means. And I think that's really fascinating about, about wine and now champagne. But, you know, champagne, the region of champagne has been sort of an entrepreneurial, business driven arm of the french wine business.
Yes, yes, of course. I mean, sometimes my father told us, like, it's, it is financially wrong what we're doing, you know, because we, we, we aging so much. He says, sometimes you should do like everyone in champagne, you just age two years. Your, your, your wine, or sometimes 15 months uses minimum requirement. Why are you aging five to eight years? Why? You just do golf club, what you do? And we say, daddy, we do that for the long run. We do that for our kids, actually, you
know. Yeah. Because it takes a lot of time to build a champagne house. It takes a lot of time to create, you know, all the reputations and all of that. But, yes, it is. It could be a good business when it's, of course, the big house. I'm making a lot of profits. And it's not necessarily easy because you always have also this kind of, like, gambling aspect of sometimes you can do really bad vintage and sometimes you can have, like,
difficulties. So, you know, but we, we've been able to pass all those difficulties. We've been able to also grow. And we really received some great rating. We received some 97 from decanter, some 18 from Genesis Robinson, which is really great. But you know, it's a. It's a really long, long fighting, long struggling or so because you. You have to build the house. You have to make sure that. But it is my, my life story actually is definitely making this sompan house with my
two brothers. So there's a lot of fashions. We are also creating a small hotel with like ten rooms now in Aviz. So we slowly and surely build the house. Will the rooms be ready by May? Yes, sir. If, you know, honestly, if you come in May, we love to welcome you. The hotel. The first part of the hotel will be ready and so we will have our first type of room. So please be our guest. That's very nice. We're going to Piemonte,
we're going to. And then we're going to drop into Monaco, the grand Prix, and then we're going to head to Bordeaux, and then we're going to head to Paris and then we're going to do day trips. But that's not brought it up. I was just teasing. I love Piemonte. Also not been. I'm looking forward to that amazing place. I read there's a book you probably heard of. It's called Wine and War. The clad strip. I read that really good. Okay. And Mister misses cladstrup,
by the way, live in Paris in the 16th district. We had dinner with them not too long ago. And you know, there was this one. Not wonderful. That's a bad term. There's this crazy story of the requirements of the Nazis during the war, which was a standing order of 1 million bottles of champagne a month for the Third Reich. I mean, crazy stuff, right? And there's stories of. And I brought this up because I'm leading you into this conversation. There's stories of. I guess they're entrepreneurs,
you know, providing the Nazis the crap. Unless you honestly told you this story. No, no, I just read it in the book and they don't talk about any people. And then I read in your website because. Because the brother of my grandfather, Francois Tetraj, during the second world war, he was really giving like really bad champagne to the Nazis. And he went to jail because of that. No, he went to jail like get
arrested. It's my grandfather who saved him because he was a. He was really trying to imprison such that. Which is almost. It's a great story. And I read it on your side, I think. But I knew. But they didn't. The classrooms don't mention. Maybe they do, Francois Tanger. Maybe they do mention him. But anyway, I thought, okay, this is kind of like being part of the french resistance, right? Like, well, I'm not going to fight them and I'm not going to turn anybody in, but I can send them
the lousy wine. I mean, you know, they were kind of flagged. Yeah, they were. They were. I mean, my. My grandfather lost his brothers fighting the Germans. He was, like the most brilliant guy of the family named Michel Detergent. And he just graduated from polytechnic at 80 years old. He was. He was. He was supposed to be kind of like the big boss of the family, and
he graduates from this in the wrong time. And so he had to defend, because he became an officer immediately, and so he had to defend the bridge of Paris with regiments of soldiers from Senegal, and they all get killed by the Germans, you know? And so that was last CEO of the family. And so I think this is why that his brothers were really trying to fight against the Germans by giving them a really bad champagne to get their revenge, you know? I
think it's great. It's like a hero. He's like a hero, you know, champagne hero. Is this history been written down? Have you? Did anybody sit with your grandparents or your great grandparents and say, look, tell me the stories? Yeah, they just handed them this generation since almost all gone now, but we still have book. And I would love to give you a book that has been written by my great, the brother of my grandfather, Claude Tetager, which I really love. He was an amazing guy. He was like the
kinty suit of the family. And he was always drinking his glass of champagne until he's 95 years old. Perfect. And he writes a very good book to explain this story called the pleasure by. I really invite you to read this. It was really interesting. It's all about the story. I would love to read it. I've even been reading some french books. It takes me a little longer, but I do get them done. It's a very important part of the
history. And I think it goes back to what I was saying earlier as well, that those stories and those histories handed down have to provide part of the philosophy of the wines that you're making today. I had Mae Elian Lancassange on the show, and she was 15 when the Nazis came into her parents chateau, Chateau Comtesse de Lalande and watched them shoot it up. Her uncle was in the resistance. They housed three jewish families for three months and then got them
in Argentina through the resistance. I mean, these things, I think, are. It's actually part of what makes the french wine world different than the rest? You know, American has great wines. Argentina make great wine. Chile makes great wines. I mean, Australia, they make great wines. But man, the history behind these stories, I think are what set France apart. I have a romantic view of France as well because it protects its butters and protects its cheeses and protects its
wines. And of course there are people that think the new world is more fun and exciting, but whatever, that's not our argument today. You are. One of the things that bothers me, it irks me is the microscopic trends in the wine world. Wine has been around for thousands of years. As you mentioned, we already know in Armenia there's a 6000 year old winery, the dukes bourbon were making wines, you know, who knows when, 2000 years ago. But there's always this sort of
contemporary things that go on. But non alcoholic wines have been around a long time. I mean, I've tasted them probably 25 years ago. Oh really? Oh, yeah. And they were not good. And I'm fascinated to see online socially as well as in Google, the french bloom brand, which I is now your brand or your wife's brand. And sure, how you're the, wait a minute, you are the CEO of French Bloom. What does she call herself? She's a co founder. With the co founder. Okay. She's also CMO, so she's taking care
of like marketing and all of that. But yeah, tell me how that brand. Came about in your brain. So the brand french boom came when my wife was pregnant. My wife was working for the mission guide, actually. So it's funny, an american, she was working for the mission guy for almost ten years in Paris, you know. And so when she was pregnant in 2019, she kind of find like herself a little bit rejected from the party. And she actually married like a champagne guy. So she loves
champagne. And, you know, and so that was kind of the start of the thinking. And then from that we got kind of locked down because of the COVID So from this time I've been able to think also and we've been thinking about trying to do the challenge of experiencing and trying to use all the know how we have in champagne and trying to mix up with innovations and try to make like a good alcohol free wine.
The problem, as you say, very well, is most of those alcohol free wine are pretty bad and disappointing for one main reasons. Most of the time, it's always the same trap people were taking. Just like a normal wine, wine which is made to make wine and not a wine to create an alcohol free wine. And so all the entire visions we're developing with french bloom is to really to rethink totally about the way you make an alcohol free wine. And so you have to really rethink totally the
vinifications from the beginning to the end. And this is perhaps, I think we are one of the only company doing releases, which is we don't just dealize any random wine trying to see what's happening. We're really making from the harvest. So, for example, we do the harvest two weeks before everyone, we go to Languedoc to make french do, because champagne is not made at all to make avocado free wine. But we find our own land in Languedoc, which is kind of like rebuilding your own
AOC or own cahills. I don't know how you say AOC in English. Appalachian appellation. And so we're building our own appellations currently in long dock, which is not a long dock wine, which is different. And so we rediscover after four years of R and D, and we are constantly doing research and development, trying to perfect, to improve. You know, we are the v eight right now on the blanc, on the rose, we starting our first alcohol free vintage.
But we realize that we have to exaggerate all the components of the vinifications, because when you do the d alkalizations, you lose almost 60% of the aroma. So the entire game we are playing is to exaggerate. We age the wine in oak. We try to re acidify them using some technique we have in burgundy or in champagne with acid tactic. And the challenge is to do that with a wine totally organic, without sulfites. And so in a natural way, super important for us.
We do the RS, for example, two weeks before. Why? Because we can get more acidity. And the good thing is, in long dock you can still do this and still have a high level of falcon. We give more shoulder to be able to handle and support the alkalizations when we lose about 60% of the hour. Again, I suppose from the early days of non alcoholic wine, which were really just, you know, there was a, I'm
trying to think of when it was. There was a, there was a diet that swept the United States called the Scarsdale diet, I'm thinking seventies, late seventies. And he purported, look, you can go to a party and have non alcoholic wine. You can go to a party and have a soda water with a lime instead of a, you know, a cocktail. And this how you're going to lose weight. And I think it's about that time that these things were being sort of thought through.
But I have to imagine the technologies are completely different today, and that you are testing ideas, because I guess, I suppose the idea is you want the wine to taste as bonafide as possible, as regular as possible, as not something that you have to sort of swallow and make sure you drink because you need to, but you actually want to. Yeah. You want to enjoy it, you want to taste it, you want to feel it. You know, it's kind of like a blasphemer, what we're doing.
And there is, when we start that in France, at the beginning, I saw, I was, we were really afraid to be lepidate, you know, because in such a wine culture world, and actually it's all our number one market, and then it's us, our number two market, and us is becoming our number one market this year, but which is super interesting to realize that there is a big market need. And this market need didn't really exist before, but now alcohol free beer are
becoming almost 20% of the beer sold. You have this really big shift in terms of consumption also with Genc, who consumes 30% alcohol and all that. But the most important part of it is we are not against alcohol. You know, I make wine, and the way we make french bloom. The idea is to say we want to address propositions for plexi drinkers in order for them to be able to go from sometimes some wine, champagne, but sometimes they don't
necessarily want to drink, so they drink french bloom. And so our visions, 80% of our customers are actually flexi drinkers. And that's what the biggest learning, you know, we realize people want to moderate. Sometimes when you have a copyright event, when you. When you. Even when you go to a fancy or gastronomic restaurant, you cannot always drink alcohol. I wish, you know, but unfortunately, you cannot just always drink alcohol. And the older you get,
you have to also be careful sometimes. So one of our main quest is to say that if you get the pleasures and the complexity, is alcohol is the main reasons why you are going to drink a fine wine? Not necessarily, you know what I mean? So I had these discussions with some of my friends, and some of them are not happy about that. And I like to be challenged because I understand
also. So it's quite a very innovative point of view, because some of my friends are coming from the wine world say, and I say, I said, perhaps one day we'd be able to recreate the equivalent of chassis moir and no chassis moishe require alcohol, and they're right. Yes. Chassis marche require alcohol to a food. Right. Yeah. And so it is a complex quest, but it's very interesting. I think that you're right on. I think
that I love this term flexi drinker. I think it's important. We were in a trip last week in the east coast, and my wife, for the first time in our relationship in 37 years, she ordered a mock cocktail. And I'm like, hey, whatever. She didn't feel like having a drink. She wanted to feel like she was socializing, and so she ordered a mock cocktail, and I'm like, okay, I get it. I totally get it. And I think you're on to that. I think you're onto the idea that the complexity, the experience.
It's champagne. It's sparkling. I get to experience a glass, a tulip glass, or whatever vessel they're using. And the next time I'll have a glass of frere. Jean Frere. Yes. We love to. We should have a glass of frozen fr together. So and so now, how, when you come to America, like, you got this trip in LA, and you're going to see people and your sisters doing it all the time. I see her all the time on
Facebook and Instagram, everything. Are there initial objections to this idea from these people, or is everybody pretty much saying, yeah, you know what? I want to check this out, see what it's about
for french bloom? Yes. Yeah. I think, you know, of course, you always have, when you have an innovation, that what we're doing with a vintage blond de blanc alcohol, the first vintage alcohol free, when we age the wine in barrels, when we do all this work, and then we de alkalize the wine, of course, you know, every innovation would disrupt, like, a conservative industry, and wine is extremely conservative in this thing. So,
of course, we can get denigrates. Denigrates. Of course, we are going to be kind of criticized, and this is normal, and we find with that because this is part of the process. And when I did one of my events in ronching in Paris, there was a lot of journalists, and some really love it. I had one. I couldn't say from which journal, because I don't say anything, but he was very old school, you know, and he arrived at the testing with a big t shirt, say, I love Beaujolais, you know, and I know that
he was. At the second I saw him, you know, he was not happy about the concept, and. And I was fine with that because, you know, I was actually pretty happy about that because I appreciate criticize, and I find that we are in a quest. We're trying to. It is like almost like an alchemist quest, you know, we have to. But it is very, very interesting because there is a huge
demand for that. People want now, when they don't necessarily drink alcohol, they want so to have nice mocktails, which is a high level of quality. They want to have an alcohol free beer with a high level of quality. And the alcohol free beers are getting to pretty serious point. I don't know if you tried some of them, but I must say it's not bad. We had them at my dad's liquor store in 1975. I mean, there was no problem because we're close to
being done here, which is unbelievable. So the other thing that happens around here that I interview people and that is packaging options and canned wines, tetra packs, bag in the box, blah, blah, blah. And I see the convenience factor that. But the question is, one woman who was in here, I said, do you think, you know, the feet, you know, Petrus is going to be in a can one day? And she goes, oh, absolutely. And I'm like, yeah, I don't think so. I'm not
sure. So the interesting part, the interesting question is, is this a, is a non alcoholic segment growing to the point where it's going to be its own thing? There's just be makers like you, a french bloom I know of an italian prosecco that's like this. There's a whole bunch of other ones around, but you're making, you know, brand headwinds here or headlines. Do, do other, do the big houses across all industries, all wine Appalachians, was Napa or Bordeaux or Burgundy start to do this?
Or does it stay with boutique ideas like you? Or do you think that they're going to go, hey, wait a minute, we got it. We got to jump in on this. I think they're all going to jump on it because they realize there's a bigger El Dorado on this. So, of course, as you said at the beginning, like business bring like an attract people and they're going to, they are seeing this, of course. But the biggest difficulties again, is to rethink an appellations, to rethink like Bordeaux, make
Bordeaux wine, you know what I mean? Champagne makes champagne wine. And champagne wine is made with alcohol, you know, and with a very strict scene, it's with fermentations. And you have three, sometimes three fermentations happening in the one in the barrel, sometimes in the bottle, of course. And so the big problem is again, if you take a wine from Bordeaux, which
is made to. To make a Bordeaux and you try to dealize it, or a wine from Napa Venet, which is made to be normally a wine from Napa Venet, if you de alkalizing, usually it's very bad. So. That's right. The biggest issue is to really think about the vimifications about the process to make the wine. It's not like beer, you know, beer, you can. You can go from trying to make the same name with 0%. With wine, it's much more difficult because you have, of course, a terroir. You have
the method of the appellations and all of that. So the way we're doing at french boom is we are not trying to make, like a champagne, 0%. You know, we trying to make our own appellations with our own vinifications. So I believe that the best way to do it for the big group is to also rethink about pure brands. Focus especially on this. There is few brands in Bordeaux who start to dealize their wine and start that. Dad. I try a few things, actually, from Saint
Emilion Grand Cru. I was pretty impressed that they've been able to do that. I don't know if they're going to be in trouble. I don't know, man. That's a. Well, I had a conversation, and with a third growth, I think, and owned by corporate Japan, so not a boutique, you know, but left to his own devices to do what he wants with the
brand. And that, you know, that. That conversation is about brand value and creating a wine that people know when they buy it, it tastes like what it is, rather than trying to put on the shelf a wine that people are going to like every time. And so this is totally different concept, but I'm thinking here, this is. This is brand building. People are going to expect a certain level of quality from french bloom every time they open it. And they're going to want to gravitate towards french
bloom because. Because of that. And so you have to be very cognizant, like a winemaker of premium wine, of what you're putting in the bottle. Yeah, well, we're at. We're at 50 minutes, which is unbelievable. And so I have to ask you a question. Very nice podcast with you. Thank you. I got a. I've got a book the other day from my french teacher, actually. She told me about it. A little video. Doctor Murray Soignet. I can't remember the name of the book, but it's the health benefits of wine.
And the book I have, which I found in my father's library, is called wine is the best medicine. It's the same doctor. This is the english translation from 1974. So he goes through human maladies and he comes up with a cure. I suppose maybe it's just to make you feel better. We used to do, in France, you know, we used to give, like, cognac when you were sick in the early 20th century. We used to give, like, actually some red wine to the kids when they were going to pour boutique in the
sixties. And we have this. I did a podcast with Pauline Vicar, and she runs the Adeni Global, which is a think tank for wineries. And I sent her a picture of an official de Bezier from 1932, and it was defending the consumption of alcohol in the form of wine. And then it says in French, you can give wine to your four year old as long as you put a little water in it, you know, it's okay. Anyway, so I'm going to read you. I'm going to read you a malady, and I'm going to give you three choices as
to what Doctor Murray considers a cure. And then I'll read you the explanation. So. And there's two questions to. One of them is going to be which wine? And then the dosage. How much did you drink to make sure you feel better? So we're going to use fever. So if you have a fever, would you have a grav. Would you have a dry champagne or would you have a sancerre? This is the question. For fever, I will say champagne now. Wow, you got that right. That's, you know, most of the
time it's 33%. Get it right because, you know, you got one in three chances. That's accurate. And so why, what do you think the reason is? I think because the champagne go to the brain. And so I guess, like they were like, kind of like thinking that there is a link between the brain and the fever or something. I don't know. This is my kind of supposition. Okay, so that's not bad. That's not bad. You know, you're pretty. Doctor Murray would be proud of you. I'm going to send you the link,
by the way, to this video that I have, and you can watch it. I tried to kill myself pretty well, my friend. So the answer was this, because he says, because these contain, among other things, two important elements for a feverish person. Phosphorus, which is eminently stimulating in sulfur, in its sulfate of potassium form, whose detoxifying action on the body has been established. So now this is my best part. What is the dosage? How much should I drink?
Two glass. I learned this from your. I learned this from your, by the way, this answer I learned from your cousin without the question, which was one bottle per day. I won't put it so. So Clovis was all about the bottle a day. So that's good. He's right. He's right. Exactly. Good man. I mean, worst cases, you may not get rid of your favor, but you'll feel better anyway, right? Absolute pleasure, Rodolfo, to have you on the show. And so glad we got a chance to
connect today. I know it's late for you and you have a. You have kids there. So thank you again for being on the show and look forward to seeing you in town. I hope you're so busy when you get here. I don't know how that's even possible. But thank you very much, Paul. Looking forward to see you. Perhaps next week in Los Angeles. I'm going to contact you and I hope to see you soon. Champagne in Aviz. But really appreciate it was a great talk.
My pleasure. Thank you very much. Cheers. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to wine talks with Paul Callum, Cary. And don't forget to subscribe because there's more great interviews on their way. Folks, have a great time out there in the wine world. Cheers.