 I tried to make a cool video and beans are all over So my story and warning actually starts like a lot of you probably start your morning With a cup of coffee and before you say how does how does coffee have anything to do with wine? I'm gonna tell you My last year of college university was at Michigan State and during that last year I got a job at Starbucks and I know I know I know before you guys start pooping all over Starbucks The thing that I learned while I was there is how to taste different beans from different regions namely Latin America, Africa and Asia see the differences and see how they would pair he hit in Starbucks You actually go through a school you have little notes And I found that fascinating and that's about the same time that my interest in wine started to peak but Well, it's morning here. This is kind of a boring background. Let me go outside for a sec So it's morning time here Not not early early morning because I slept in a little bit. We're saying that this amazing beachfront villa in Croatia Because we're doing that. We're doing a video about some of the wineries in the region and This is a great place to stay. I mean look at the view in the morning so around the time I started working at Starbucks a Huge film when the wine world came on a blockbuster film a little film you might know about called Sideways So after watching that film I just decided wow I really want to learn about why I think it's such a cool thing combines everything that I like, you know a little bit, you know sophistication history Geography since I was a geography and chemistry major, but there there was just a small little problem I was just about to start graduate school chiropractic college So I didn't have a ton of money a and B I was trying to learn off of simply Supermarket wines and that's a problem in itself, but wait before we get started It's a nice day out. Let me get my exercise everything my routine my shower it out of the way before we get into that So one challenge of being in the wine industry is constantly for especially for me Someone like me is worrying about my weight. I've had struggles with my weight Because everyone basketball is leaner taller than me, but I'm not gonna talk about that I made a video about weight to intermittent fasting health. I'll put it in the description box But since we're here, it's sunny I've been running hills then jumping in the sea afterwards I don't think there's any excuse these hills doing little mini hill sprints every single day and let's see if it's gonna pay off Went through the pain. Here's my reward. Look at that crystal clear water Let's get back to the story why why was it so different? Why was it a bad thing for me that I was just studying wines off supermarket wines? Well in America Everything you see in most supermarkets there all the wines you see so many wines on the shelf They're they can be quite intimidating But all those wines are really really come from about three big companies and they're all labeled and bottled differently So you think that you're drinking a diversity of wine I remember as I was starting to get the wine buying all these wines tasting these wines thinking I Don't get where wine appreciation comes from because I think all these wines start they just taste the same You know, I didn't really start to appreciate wine until My first my first trip abroad was in graduate school in carapactic college I was in Luca in Tuscany and I remember ordering a liter of house red wine must have been San Jovesi And it just smelled so good. I remember just sitting there Smelling the carafe it seemed for the five minutes and my friends looked at me like I was complete weird I think that's when the wine bugger really caught on so when I graduated from Cara practice college Actually, I got on a plane and I traveled around the world for about nine months I finally made to New Zealand my friend who was Australian used to work in a wine shop He gave me a Margaret River Shiraz and I remember also after the glass was over. I was so sad The bottle was over. I was just sniffing the glass. I think for about ten minutes And that's another that's like the second bite of the bug I ended up in Singapore Singapore is an immensely modern Develop wealthy city-state country and as I started to build up my car practice practice Obviously income started go up. I started enjoying a lot better wines Here's what you got to understand about Singapore because of the amount of wealth Diversity the diversity of wine is huge especially at the fine wine level. I mean you want a vertical Chateau de Iquem Done some Chateau Margot Penfolds Grange bottle the Eschews out No problem shove red amortage Consider it done and when I met Shareen my appreciation of wine went to another Level because she was drinking a lot of red burgundy a lot of old red Bordeaux You know of just a few months of us knowing each other I brought her a nice bottle of Pinot Noir from Yara Valley in Australia and she looked at me and she said I peed in the water from Australia. No, I'm only drinking burgundy Remember drinking it. Oh, okay. This isn't bad. This isn't bad you pass So after about five and a half five and a half six years in Southeast Asia We we want to take a sabbatical when to travel around the world flew directly to Switzerland and Italy and I took my parents along for their Anniversary present. I think that was there. I can't remember 30th 40th anniversary We traveled drink our way ate our way through Italy, you know Spain Portugal and I noticed looking at our credit card statement. I was like, oh my gosh spending almost all my money on food By the time we got to Turkey, Armenia and Georgia kind of the cradle of wine We found that there wasn't actually a lot of information in English written about those countries yet Georgia had not really hit the spotlight yet Alice Fiering's book about Georgia Wasn't even published yet So Sharon said, you know what? Maybe we should maybe we should Write about wine. Maybe this is what we should do for the next phase of our career So our first wine book we were enthused and you know what surprising it's still selling today and helping people but Wasn't really the most well-received. Here's a little write-up by Tenlin Kudin of Jensis Robinson calm This interesting little travel would probably have been better off as a blog where photographs may have brightened everything up a little As far as uncorking the caucuses, I'm afraid it's probably more about cutting the capsule. This felt a little hurried Amateur lacking research back of coat postcard stuff In other words suck around Christmas of 2015 we launched our YouTube channel exotic wine travel and I have to tell you the first few episodes were Terrible Hello, and welcome to exotic wine travel. I'm your host Matthew Horkie when I launched the YouTube channel I wanted it to just be like just like wine library TV. Hello everybody. Welcome to wine library TV I am your host Gary Vaynerchuk. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to exotic wine travel. I'm your host Matthew Horkie our train of thought is for me. I love Tuscan wines. I love Piedmont Serene loves Burgundy. We're brand new in the industry. We're not gonna have any credibility writing talking about those wines So I thought you know what? There's a lot of Interesting wines being made in some of the more exotic lesser-known countries regions the world Let's talk about them first. Let that propel us into the industry I thought it when I first started that tasting wine giving your critique evaluation. Ah piece of cake It's easy. I'm 4.2 out of 5 on this 90 plus point type of wine. I'm looking at a 91 point rain Don't like that at all. The more and more I got into wine the more I started to really appreciate people Professionals have been doing it for a long long time I haven't been to Bordeaux for the last 30 years and tasted all the brand new Vintage's on premiere for 30 years I don't have that roll of decks of information in my mind as you start to gain more information and knowledge realized Wow, there's a lot going on to the there's a lot more going on that you thought in this glass soon We found ourselves on tons of press trips. It's when organizations wine regions, whatever Take a group of journalists writers into the country show them all around You get to visit some rare sellers taste some rare wines I think that's a little reason that a lot of people in wide writing stick to wine You know some of these experiences are they have no monetary value You could not put a price on them. I was in the Valley de Osta in Italy last year It's a mountainous region on the border of Switzerland fantastic wine fantastic food was judging at a competition And I remember sitting on the rooftop one night You could the stars were out in full force kind of reminded me of the South Island New Zealand There's still some snow on top of the on top of the Alps You could see like the moonlight the stars glimmering off the top of the mountains I was sipping up. I was sipping on a glass of wine a torrette for you wine geeks out there and I thought wow You know, I can't believe that I can't believe that this is where this this is where wine is taking me But then the more I got into wine The more I realized there was something I didn't like wine is wonderful It brings people together. It gives you a happy feeling a wonderful buzz It's just an incredible beverage you put so many things together philosophy culture Science are everything really comes together. It's It's it's you know from a scientific standpoint along with tea It's the one that's the most complex beverage in the world. So you would think Man the people that deal that deal with wine all have to be just wonderful people and that was the rude awakening for me It's got more in the wine won't start tasting with more and more, you know Professionals I started to wonder what Why are these people all talking down to me? What? Why are they? Why are they such nasty people? I'm pretty nice. I'm pretty kind. I just bite my tongue suck it up Okay, whatever But I remember one time one time a few think a year a year ago We were on a trip with some some more professional writers and a well-known Well-known magazine well-known editor was was kind of talking down. I felt it We're sitting at the bar. He was basically trying to talk to me like I'm a kid or a mister or whatever We started talking about burgundy and then I asked I said, you know, how many How how many how many Romani Contis have you had in your life? And he said none none. Yeah, you know, she's had every single one His face his face just lit up like that. I shouldn't let my emotions get to me, but that's what I did I'm not gonna say everybody. There are some wonderful wonderful wine writers people in a wine journalist media out there producers everything fantastic Okay, so we have our books and our website and our YouTube channel and our social media Where are we going from here? So look, I know that I can't be I Can't have a look, you know one of the problems in wine is wines are big the iconic wines are becoming so expensive Ridiculous the expensive. I don't have the Rolodex of all those old vintages I can't taste all my reputations at the point where I can taste all those vintages all those wines all the time I'm not the best writer in the world, but you know what? I Can be the best at making I think that I can be the best at making YouTube videos on wine So starting now we're still gonna be writing on our website But we're gonna be putting a ton of focus into our YouTube channel to pump out the best content possible I believe that if you drink adventurously you expand your palette you expand your mind You become open-minded not only the wine food other things in your life And I think that wine is for everybody wine is not just a luxury product. So stay tuned here I hope you come along for the ride I hope you keep drinking adventurously and I will see you soon Hello, thanks for watching. Hey, you made it to the end Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel click the bell so you know when new videos are out If you like content like this check out our patreon page where you get some behind-the-scenes Exclusive content. Thanks for watching. Cheers