Wine Situation Final Five (Now With Drunk Dialing!)

The Wine Situation hosts everyone from winemakers to writers to find out what a person’s situation is…with wine. At the end of each episode host, Ellen Clifford phones a friend to ask them The Final Five. This week Ellen talks to Andrea Jaramillo, creator of Más Vino Please! Check out the full episode here QUESTION ONE Ellen: Question one, whatcha drinking? Andrea: I’m definitely excited to start exploring ciders . I had one last week, it was called Bardos. It’s from northern California, Sebastopol area, and it was made with five heirloom apples; I don’t think there were any grapes. It wasn’t a co-ferment. It was amazing—delicious and crisp. I picked up a couple others that are apple-pear or pear-grape. I’m excited to dive into those a bit more. QUESTION TWO Ellen: Do you have a favorite pairing? Andrea: I’m Columbian, and we eat a lot of arepas. Arepas are basically cornmeal cakes, a very simple corn patty or corn cake. They’re very common in Columbia and Venezuela and each region eats them their own way but they’re always around. In Venezuela, they make them really thick and then cut them open and fill them with chicken and avocado and delicious stuff inside it; whereas in Columbia, they actually pile everything on top of it. It’s an iconic staple in every household in Columbia, and for me, I love pairing them with orange wine . I feel like white wines and corn tend to work well together, and white wine and chicken, but I feel like it needs something with a little more backbone to it, and so that’s why I like a skin contact . QUESTION THREE Ellen: Question number three is kinda a two-parter, which is: was there a wine that made you get into wine, and because natural wines are your domain now, was there a natural wine that made you go “oh this is where I want my focus to be”? Andrea: Yes! The first part of the question: I don’t know that there was one specific one. However, there was one natural wine that gave me the “aha” moment. It is by Broc Cellars ; it’s called Got Grapes. It’s a Valdiguie. It was SO good. I was already drinking wine, and I’d already been diving into natural wines because I live next door to a natural wine shop. So, I grabbed a bottle of Broc Cellars Got Grapes and I fell in love. QUESTION FOUR Ellen: Question number four is a bit of a cheat because I know you’ve done this, but I like to ask guests: were you to make a wine yourself, what would you make and what would you call it, but you did that, did you not? Andrea: I collaborated on a wine with producers here in LA called Wonderwerk . We released the wine in October, and it sold out. It’s called Como La Flor. It is an aromatized wine that was made from carbonic old-vine Carignan and Montepulciano, 50/50 blend, and then we infused it with rose geranium. So it has this beautiful bouquet of fresh roses, and then you start drinking it, and it’s this really sultry plum and spice and a little bit of currants and—it’s just beautiful. But it’s sold out. QUESTION FIVE Ellen: The last question is just what is giving you joy these days? Andrea: I recently came back from Monterey Bay area, and I was just enamored by the beauty of the sea and the forest, and the way it just kind of collides up there in that part of the state. That brought me a lot of joy. Californian is really, really beautiful. The air was so fresh, and it was cold but very sunny. *** You can find Andrea everywhere from Instagram to TikTok as Mas Vino Please, which is also the name of her podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and newsletter on Substack! Check out the previous Wine Situation podcast with Cara Patricia here .