YouSaid · the spoken record

Richard Betts

lines on the record: 237
first: 2015-10-05
most recent: 2015-10-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Australia is a whole other thing that we could talk about for days, but that wine in particular exhibits so much elegance when Australia maybe as a country is not known for elegance. He's a good cante. Exactly. And where everything is.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm a big fan of Rusden Greenach R-U-S-D-E-N. Resh. And they make a Christine's Vineyard Grenache that's from the Barroso Valley in Australia. I spent a lot of time there. But to me, that...”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, Pinot Noir is all the rage, right? It's for sure an overindulged princess. I am there's so much sweet, expensive, unduly expensive pinotoir that I look elsewhere, but I look for that same set of characteristics, and I call them the S words, wines that are silky, sexy, supple, soft, things that are full of allure. Those are wines that appeal to me. And Pinot Noir doesn't have a proprietary right to those, as I describe them, Pinot characteristics. They happen in things like Grenache. In fact, I'm a huge proponent of Grenache and believe that it's just the warm climate analogy of Pinot Noir. So think about Peanum with just a little extra warmth, a little extra give. But all those same S words, and it's great.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At Q R L E. They're based in Napole. They make Zenfidel from all over. And Christina Turley, who's Larry Turley, who founded, it's his daughter. She's working with Tegan Pasalaqua to make some of the really, really special Zimfendels from California. And then Ridge is a classic paul draper has been making wine at Ridge for north of forty years. And as blue chip as Infidel can get.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then why don't we? You can even go right next door and drink Barbaresco or Barolo, so same region, different grape. So you can identify what that grape is about. Almost, I mean, 99% of the good cases definitely aged in oak. And so you can feel what oak does there. And you'll probably find a tie-in in terms of the earth, right? So as long as they have like one tether to each other, then it makes it really useful to see like, okay, well, what's different? And then grab his infidel from Napa Valley. And there you'll see like, okay, the alcohol is really different. And what does that feel like? And oak will be different because it'll be new oak and maybe it'll be American oak, which will taste like dill, you know. So all these little things where you just start to triangulate, but you got to keep notes and keep it organized in some way. Actually, don't keep notes physically any longer. I just keep it in my head.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. So, but Dolcetto is most frequently, so it's red wine, but it's most frequently made in stainless steel or with the absence of new oak. So you'll taste grape and you'll taste place, earth, but you won't taste any influence of wood.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Red, I would, you know what would be pretty interesting to do would be Well, I'm a big fan of same as we just chatted about same varietal from different continent. That can be pretty interesting. If we want to do different varietals, do something like Dolcetto from Piedmont in Italy. There's lots of great Dolcetto. It's so bad.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To something like maybe French Sylvian Blanc, or even Bordeaux Blanc, which is Soviet Blanc and Semyon together in a blend, but it speaks of the place Bordeaux. And so you will have oak like the California Chardonnay, but you will have earth like the German Riesling. And so you have little bits of each one. And when you can triangulate, that's when you start to get really smart. Like, okay, that's the wood. Okay, that's what Earth smells like, right?”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So let's think about three whites by a German Riesling. There would be no oak, so that's an example of an oak free wine. It will likely have a little residual sugar, depending on what kind you buy, which is really interesting because you say, oh, I don't like sweet wine. Well, this isn't about you right now. This is about your learning, right? Not about your palate. So what you will learn there is that it's about balance. And so the sugar will be balanced by acidity. It's all about balance in any wine. You'll also have earth. So in the German wine, you'll have something earthy. You'll have a great example of balance with residual sugar. And you won't have any oak or woody characteristics. And compare that to California Chardonnay, which won't very likely have any earth. It won't have the same level of sweetness. It will have oak, so you can start to say, oh yeah, there's that caramel, there's that vanilla, there's that butterscotch. That's the oak, right? So then you can put your finger right on that.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, if you want to understand what is Earth, okay, well, let's buy Napa Valley Cabernet and compare it to Cabernet from Bordeaux. They're both the same grade, but the place really makes a huge difference. They're likely made in very similar ways. They're aged in the same oak, but it's that soil that gives the Bordeaux the earthy thing that'll isolate that for you, right? That's pretty cool.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally. Yep. So, I mean, we can talk about all kinds of things we can juxtapose to supercharge that process, but you definitely got to do it.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I like it. Very delicious. Nice. So everything else we think we taste were actually smelling. And so it makes sense to smell the wine. So when I smell the wine, I always think about this acronym Few, which stands for fruit, earth, and wood. And so you want to smell for those things and force yourself, require diligence to answer all three of those questions. Don't just blow by it. So you might pick up a wine and it's just like, oh my God, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, great. All right, cool. Let's taste it. What about the earth and the wood? Because those are two huge pieces that inform the wine that give it that intellectual value and make it complete and make you smart. So always come up with at least three fruits, whatever they are, and use your own language. There is no wine speak.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it depends if you just brush your teeth, you know, you should drink a whole glass. But yeah, first palate impression is not necessarily the right one. So spend some time with it. Before you do that, though, you definitely want to smell it The things we really taste are sweet, sour, salt, bitter, and if we're fortunate this idea of umami, this savory Japanese had.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. So, for everyone that wants to do this, this is your homework. It means you just have to taste a lot of wine. It's great”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then you do the exercise, you look at the legs or the tears, and you start to discern what's the alcohol level. And so that brings us back to the context. We'll take a quick tangent on that. If you don't, I can look at that and say, okay, those are medium plus viscosity based on how those tiers fall. Well, you only know what medium plus viscosity is if you've had all the wines of the world. So that's the context, right? So you got to have a method, got to have a context.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. It turns brown. Same thing with old bananas or whatever it is. And so the same thing happens with wine. It's just grapes, right? And so grape juice goes through the same process. It starts to turn brown. So if you see that sort of brickish brownie at the edge of the glass, you can start to surmise like, oh, okay, so it's showing signs of oxidation. Therefore, it's older.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If it starts to brown, it tells you that potentially is made in an oxidative style. So the wine saw some oxygen while it was being made, or it's older. And that's probably more common. And let me ask you this. So what happens to an avocado if you cut it and leave it on the counter?”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the first thing you want to do is look at that color, and it should give you, if you don't know what the wine is, it'll give you a visual clue. Like if it's light red, don't think about Cabernet, right? Start crossing it off your list. It's about deduction. But if you know it's cabernet and it's light red, well, then you might think something's wrong, right? Because that's not a typical color for it. So the first thing you do is when you look at it and you look for color and you look for sediment. Is there anything solid in there? You look for gas. Is it bubbling? If it's red and it's bubbling, there's kind of maybe two or three possibilities on the planet of what it could be, including things like sparkling shiraz, which is totally gross and I don't drink. But those visual cues tell you a lot. And then if it starts to brown, if we assume our glass of wine is tipped away from us and we look out to the far northern edge,”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whether Exactly. So Cabernet Sauvignon is a thin, or thick, dark-skinned varietal, so it's going to make a dark skinned red wine. In fact, if you bite any grape that you want to make red wine from in half, it's white in the middle. So all the color in a red wine comes from the skins. Be it as cabernet is thick and dark, you're going to have the resultant thick and dark, or perme, dark colored red wine. Whereas Pinot Noir is thinner and lighter in color, and so you're going to have a lighter color wine. It doesn't have any less flavor, isn't worth less your attention or interest. It's just different.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pour yourself a glass. The first thing you do is you turn it over sideways and you don't want to spill it out away from you. So tip the glass away from you and look down through the wine against a white background. And that color tells you a lot. So we don't smell color and we don't taste color. It's very important to know that. But color is an indication of the varietal and potentially also the climate. So Pinot Noir should be the variety.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the reason you want to know that is if you're going to be geeked out wine tasters, it talks about a winemaking style. It talks about an origin. So in Germany, you'll have thick tears by virtue of the sugar, but not by virtue of the ripeness. It's a cold place, right? Or even go through the Loire Valley in France and Soviet Blanc and Cabernet Franc and all these very beautiful varietals, but they don't have much alcohol, which is as it should be because it's not a warm place. You come to California, particularly this year where it's really a warm place, you're going to develop riper fruit, which is riper fruit means more sugar, which means more food for the yeasts and more potential alcohol. And once the yeasts eat it and create the alcohol, there it is.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. Yep, from the high point of the liquid, what drips back down to the glass, those are the legs or the tears. And so it seemed counterintuitive to me when I first learned this, like, well, alcohol is thinner than water or the fruit juice. So if you have more alcohol, why would it run more slowly? But there's actually this capillary action that pushes it back up the side of the glass. And plus is always evaporating, condensing the sides of the glass. So the more alcohol there is, the slower those tears fall.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Within that, it's really a subset of the method that I use to get through the master soulmate exam. And that's looking at three main areas of wine. And that's fruit, earth, and wood. And essentially those three categories populate almost everything that you're going to smell and therefore taste in wine. So make the same observations every single time. What are the fruit elements I smell? What are the elements that could be imparted by wood if the wine was Asian wood that I smell? What are the earthy elements I smell? And that's the place to start, right? You do it with what you smell and then with what you taste. Beyond that, you have to make observations on what you see. You talk about color, you talk about visual clues for alcohol levels and all these things lead you to a place.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I'm a big fan of a friend that articulated this. He's at Winemaker in California and there's all kinds of fun experimentation, but if you don't control the variables, what do you actually learn? And so Terry waxes on about the importance of data, not dogma. And I love that saying. And so when you have this method, it's really about collecting the data in the same way every single time it's objective. It's not subjective. It doesn't start with, do I like this wine or don't I? That happens when you decide what you're going to put on your table. But when you're trying to learn about wine, it's not about you. It's about doing the same thing every single time and collecting the same observations.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep. Oh, Ferris. Yeah, here we go. Definitely not a good way to start your wine tasting. So there are a few rules like that, but for the most part, the thing that you really have to have as a method. And I spoke earlier about a context. That's half of the program. The other half of the program to do this well is you have to have a method. And by that, I mean you do the exact same thing every single time. It's an experiment.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You can definitely overdo it. I think everybody can overdo it no matter how much you practice at it. There are some obvious things like don't eat jalapenos before you're going to go taste wine. Don't mess up your receptors in any strange way. Similarly, walnuts or artichokes, you know, all those things walnuts and artichokes contain tannins, which dry out your palate and make it feel strange. That's a very funny considering.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And part of the tasting is I had healthy education. That's the only place I did have a budget, quote unquote. It was an education budget. Open whatever you want. And you have a certain number of overtures.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Almost all the guests knew more than I did, and that was intense. That's a lot. That's huge. And so what that means, like sleepless nights, read, read, read, read, read, read, taste, taste, taste, taste, taste. Good practice for that.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Unlimited budget. There was no one crossing things out across the desk from you. You just had to count it once a month, which is also a reason not to go crazy. It was outrageous and it very quickly, I mean, I very quickly realized how big the shoes were I had to fill, which is good. I very much respond to pressure. You know, it's like, if you want to get fit, I sign up for an event. I will run. I don't want to suck. What were the”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In terms of way over my head. But I apply for the job and I'm flown to Aspen and we do the whole dance there and I fly and meet the GM. He's in Los Angeles for a day. We meet there and then the food and beverage director comes to Tucson and you saved your best suit all week for when she comes in. And it was great. And I got the job. They probably had no business giving it to me at that time. But I got the job because it's only a slash wine buyer at the little knell where I had no budget and had a ton of storage and everybody drinks everything. And we sold a lot of really great. You said you had no.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And said, Hey, I'm leaving. You should apply for my job. I was like, Of course, I'm going to apply for a job. Great. And, you know, huge shoes to fill. I had no idea what it meant to be an aspen. The caliber of wine drinker at that time is like, it's as big as it can be. It doesn't get any bigger. It's an amazing place.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Any L in Aspen, Colorado right at the base of the mountain ski out. It's an amazing spot. Sounds incredible. It's special. So he had been the Somalier there, and he was leaving to go become the Somier at the French laundry.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly that one. In the meantime, he had gone to Aspen and taken the job at the little knell for sure one of the world's best places to drink wine.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he couldn't have been more gracious with actually the real Leslie, apart from paying attention. It was really about, you know, like, what does it mean to be graceful and thoughtful and so on and so forth. That was an amazing moment. I worked at that restaurant until 2000. And remember the guy who sold me that bottle of wine that changed my life?”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“More than a thousand bucks. Yeah, that's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah, and 99 and young somebody spent $169 on my suit. There's my rent for the next four months. Exactly. The whole thing, the whole thing.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so that's not where the embarrassment came, but that was the first one, and then it was like a week later, I was on a roll and we were selling these things at a real clip, really expensive things. And it was an 85 Barringer Special Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa on the table with an 85 Mouton Ross shield, which is a first growth Bordeaux from France, from the big deal, five big deal chateau in Bordeaux, recognized as one of the great wines of the world. And this guy had a table of six. He ordered both bottles at once. He wanted them served side by side, and they were just going to compare and enjoy these things. And so I decant them both and serve them both as he wishes. Thirty minutes later I go back to refill, and of course I pour the Mouton on top of the Barringer. And I'm going, oh boy, this is going to be horrible. And he just smiles and laughs and he looks at me and probably knows I have no possibility of paying for this whatsoever.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Roman Conte Echizo, which today is fantastically expensive in nineteen ninety nine or could have been fall of eight ninety eight, that was all like four hundred forty eight dollars on the wine list. And I was trembling. I remember going to the table. My hands were trembling and shaking and super nervous. Since then I've served bottles at fifty grand or 100 grand. 50 grand or 100 grand and that all goes away. But it was right. It was not shortly after I sold that very.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of my most humiliating experiences as a somlier, I mean, I remember the first time, even the table, table one hundred ten, walked down the stairs, first one on the left, and someone ordered a bottle of Romane Conte Echizos. So I think that again?”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's exactly it. That's exactly it, you know, but if it's something that's meant to age or will improve and actually appreciate, then it makes some sense to do it.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, 2004 California Sauvignon Blanc. Well, probably most of those are no good any longer because it's not something that from this particular place is known to age well and someone was enthusiastic for it. They bought a bunch, but in reality that restaurant only needed two. Or buy one, sell it out, then buy the next one.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They would age, how they would age. Yeah, there's really no return policy in any real way. And it's funny, I'll go look at lists now and you'll be like, wow, there's a whole bunch of”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally. Yeah. The real obvious ones expensive neon lights on them. Right, right. Yeah. And just watch them close those out. And when you said...”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was the wrong philosophy. I went with this is exactly what we need. And he probably thought I was coming with more knowing I would get cut down to less, which is what I ended up doing over time.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The food, asking for these sorts of things. I was totally armed to the hilt. And I'd go in there and I handed to him, he'd slide it across the desk to him, and he'd sit there and put on his reading glasses and look down and pull at a pen and just start crossing things out without even asking questions. It was brutal.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he says, okay, you cook well, so do you want to be the simulator or do you want to cook? I was like, you've never had a sommelier. He's like, exactly right. We're going to move the restaurant to the foothills and be a bigger space. We're going to have a 10,000 bottle cellar. And someone's got to fill it and sell it. You want to do that? And I was like, I absolutely want to do that. It was incredible for a shop. What a godsend. Yeah, it was amazing. It was really amazing. And you learned so much when you build your own list and you're responsible for budgets and you work for a chef owner who are, I mean, chef owners are notoriously maniacal and friends with a lot of them. It's true. They are. So that was an amazing experience. I'd walk in with my order sheet every week, which is, you know, he had this standardized order sheet. This is what I want to order. This is who it's from. This is how much it costs. This is how many bottles, blah, blah. And it would be so well reasoned. I would have thought out everything and everything would have been researched from a point of view like, how good is the wine? How well is it going to age? What if it doesn't sell? What's its trajectory?”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was. I just got done bagging on myopia when it comes to working in the kitchen, but I definitely had myopia when it came to studying for that test.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that's part two of the advance. That's part two. Part three of the advance is actually service. So you walk into a room filled with Master Sommeliers, ostensibly, it's a restaurant situation, and you go from table to table and perform different tasks that you're asked to do, and they're hard. And it's a real thing. And it's amazing, actually. And then the fourth and final level is exactly that again, but the volume's cranked all the way up. And the theory portion is not written its oral.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right is wine service, left his cigar service. Oh, left his cigar service. And then memorizing ring gauges of cigar sizes and like things that are for me completely worthless. Just like the periodic table. I learned it for a moment and I forgot it the next day to make room for something different. Say the same thing about cigar ring side.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cigars predominantly. And that's actually super deemphasized now. And I'm not even sure that there are test questions that deal with it any longer. But at that time, you know that cigar service is actually done from the left side, whereas everything else you've done in that test to that point, wine service, for example, is done from the right side. And it's things like that and ring gauges, which is which.”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So anyways, I taken the, oh yeah, right. So certified exam is the second step. And that was necessary because people were like, oh, I'm a simile. I passed the first exam. And just from the court's perspective, and I'm not intimately involved with it on day-to-day basis, but people are going to use this as a, this is the standard and I am now this, then we felt like we actually ought to make it a real standard. So we inserted the certified exam where you have to be proficient in certain elements of wine service and champagne service, old decanting wine service, all these sorts of things. So that's level two. Level three is the advanced exam, which is indeed really, really hard. And it's three days of examination. There's a blind tasting exam where you blind taste six wines. And I don't mean blindfold. You just walk into a room and there's six glasses with wine in them and you have no idea what they are until you sit down and get after it. So six wines in 25 minutes, you know, what are they?”
2015-10-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #110: The Tattooed Heretic of Wine and Whiskey, Richard Betts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT