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. It’s the solo season, as host Ellen Clifford is in quarantine, but listen in with a glass, and nobody is drinking alone! In lieu of guests, at the end of every action packed episode Ellen is phoning a friend with her Final Five questions. This week Ellen talks to Julia Coney, wine journalist and founder of the Black Wine Professionals organization. Check here for the full episode. THE FINAL FIVE (Ever so slightly edited for length!): QUESTION ONE Ellen: Whatcha drinking these days? Or you can tell me what’s in your glass right now! Julia: I’m always into bubbles. I love bubbly. I am a believer that bubbles bring the party. So I am currently drinking a wine producer called Corollary out of the Willamette Valley and this is the 2017 Momtazi Vineyard Sparkling Brut Rosé. One of the things I love about this is they have a URL on the back of the label, so you can find out all about the wine. QUESTION TWO Ellen: Question number two is what is the best or most interesting pairing you’ve had? Julia: Oh you’re going to love this. So this pairing happened over the past couple of weeks. I work in wine retail, and one of the things we do is support community and we have something called One Wine One Dish, and I love it because it forces me to cook things I wouldn’t normally cook, and I had dry rosé from Early Mountain Mountain in Virginia paired with a grilled cheese sandwich with apples, cheddar, and apple butter. Ellen: Omigod that sounds so good. Julia: It’s so delicious. Like if you don’t want to do bread I’d just tell you to slice a beautiful apple and sharp cheddar cheese, or one of the things I do with mine is—Trader Joe’s makes this smoked cheddar. I slice it with a vegetable peeler to make it really thin and then I slice the apple thin and I just grill cheesed it and it was divine with this rosé. It felt like it was decadent, but I wasn’t really cooking. QUESTION THREE Ellen: Well I’m always here for bread. Question three is when you’re not drinking wine—and this can be alcoholic or not—what do you like to drink? Julia: Topo Chico . I am originally from the south, we love our Topo Chico. Ellen: It’s like a Texas thing, right? Julia: It’s a Texas thing, yes. And I like Topo Chico only in glass bottles. Not the plastic bottles because I think the carbonation is very different. The thing about the Topo Chico is you can leave the glass out on your desk on the counter overnight and the concentration of the bubbles stays til the next day. No refrigeration needed, cause I drink it room temperature anyway. Plus, it’s mineral water and so it actually helps your skin, your nails, your hair. But I’m in DC and it’s an exorbitant amount of money compared to Texas. I still buy it by the case when I can find it on sale so if I get down to one case of twelve I’m like, this is a little low. QUESTION FOUR Ellen: Okay, well you were talking about it being good for the skin and stuff, so this segues well into my next question, which is kind of in homage to your beauty blogging that you’ve done. So, for instance, I know that when I drink Tavel —maybe it’s the color, maybe it’s the taste—I don’t know what it is about that type of wine, but it makes me feel beautiful, so, what wine makes you feel beautiful? Sorry if that’s an esoteric question. Julia: I would say red wine. I like a lot of different styles of red wine so it’s almost a mood thing. There are some times I want a Pinot Noir , sometimes I want a Cabernet from California, sometimes I want a Merlot . I look at wine as fragrance so for me it’s kind of the same when—you know when you are a wine professional you don’t wear fragrance—but my background is beauty and the concentration of my beauty background is fragrance, so for me I look at what wine I want to have that day and look at it like fragrance—like who do I want to be that day. I want to know who do I want to be through the glass. Where do I want to travel with my nose? If I want to feel zesty and vibrant and fun I’m going to like Willamette Valley and I’m drinking a Pinot Noir. If I want to feel bold and like I own the world, I’m drinking a Napa Valley Cabernet . QUESTION FIVE Ellen: That is so cool, I love that answer. Question number five is the classic we’ve been asking since the dawn of the show and that is what’s bringing you joy these days? Julia: What is bringing me joy is the breadth of people in the wine industry who are coming together to affect change right now. We’re in a global pandemic, we’re in a racial pandemic, it’s a time of civil unrest, it’s a time of civil understanding, it is conversations that are difficult to have and how they are willing to have them. The ones that are willing to have conversations—I think it’s beautiful. I think what groups are forming, what foundations are forming—people are really uniting to change what we know needs to change, but they are actually doing the work to make these changes, not just saying, “oh yeah I know we need to change”. That, to me is beautiful. Check out http://blackwineprofessionals.com and follow Julia on the interwebs @juliaconey. Check out the previous Wine Situation podcast with Kara Newman here .