Wine Investment Has a Promising Future With Technology Pushing it Forth

Like a lot of us traditionally think of when it comes to wine collectors. Right? Everyone's got the same kind of picture in their mind of, you know, the the ultra rich, tycoon, billionaire that has the big giant cellar full of everything. And it's in a from in a lot of reading and and listening to people, a lot of people both wine you know, fine wine, art are truly looked at as an alternative asset class where people look to diversify their portfolio into these segments that generally will appreciate over time. Have you seen any over the last couple years, either people focusing more on wine and and collecting long term as an asset class? Are you seeing people back out of that now that cash is yielding a lot more than it was? Welcome to another episode of the Kronos podcast. I'm joined by Anthony Zhang, cofounder and CEO of Vinovest wine and spirits trading platform. Anthony, how are you? Doing great, AJ. Thanks for having me on. Awesome. I'm excited to talk to you. I'll start out off the top. I have, I've invested in, at least my money on Vinovest's platform and have been super, super interested in the platform overall and and have wanted to talk to you for a while. And so I was really excited we were able to to make this work. But give, we're gonna talk a lot. We're gonna talk about wine. We're gonna talk about the technology you guys have built built out, wine as an investment, all that kind of stuff later on. But just wanted to start off with, for those that aren't familiar with you, give a little bit of your background and how you got to the point where you thought, hey. We've got a a company here, and this is something I wanna pursue. Absolutely. So hey, everybody. I'm Anthony. I'm the cofounders and CEO of Vinovest. Twenty nine years old at the time of recording, and I'm based out of Southern California. It's pretty much done my whole life as an entrepreneur. So I started my first company freshman year of college, was able to drop out, raise some venture funding, sell it, and did the same thing again. So Vinovus is my third company. Always been fascinated with alternative assets. Love a good bottle or two of wine and whiskey. So, that's kind of a I'd say the stage was set. It was kinda meant to be for me to start this company. It's an incredible story and and not a surprise that you've already done this a couple times as it's a for anyone that's used it, a really sophisticated slick platform, and, and I love it. But I wanna talk about wine, the state of the wine industry right now. The theme that of of everyone I've talked to, leaders in, whether it's travel, hospitality, food and bed, things like that, We're obviously coming off of a really, really interesting and unique situation from twenty twenty to really twenty twenty two. But now we're that's in the rear view mirror. And so I like to do a little reset on where these industries are now compared to pre and then during COVID and everything that went along with that. And so where would you see primarily, it seems like the main issues when it comes to wine and spirits, FNB, is a lot of it is is in supply chain. What are you seeing within the industry right now, specifically for wine and spirits, from a supply chain perspective that's maybe different than it was pre or during COVID pandemic times? Yeah. It's hard to believe that we're still having supply chain issues from COVID four years later. It is, it's definitely something that's gotten better, but, given the cycles that the wine industry and the whiskey industry operate in, right, there's only one harvest for wine. Right? There's only a couple of release dates for whiskey. Right? So, the cycles are already very prolonged. And if you miss a date, right, especially when you're shipping internationally, it can lead to months long delays. And especially for wine, it's very temperature sensitive. So pretty much the entire late spring to late summer is off limits for shipping. So there's also a dead zone for wine that there, you know, typically is for fragile goods. So that's another thing is, like, if you miss your cutoff for late spring, you're gonna have to wait till things get cooler in in the fall. What about a lot of different industries? You know, housing is always a good one too, looking at, you know, the crazy run up in pricing of lumber, for instance. And then that's now back down to pre, you know, down to twenty nineteen levels. Did you guys say that see the same thing in wine, champagne, spirits, where there were these big spikes? And then if did see those, have prices gone down at all, or are you still seeing them elevated to where they were pre COVID? We saw the same run up as most commodities did. Right? Because wine is made of grapes. Right? You need labor. You need energy to be able to make the whole harvest happen. So we did see a run up from pretty much late twenty nineteen all the way through about the end of twenty twenty two. We have seen sort of, like, hangover of prices happen where those prices have started to slip back down to earth, but still not quite at pre COVID levels. They'd say, you know, the the prices are still at a level where I'd say they're around, like, mid mid COVID. So we're kind of in the middle of what I think is, you know, honestly, a healthy market correction. Yeah. Still doesn't seem like it's trickled down to the restaurants yet. Still, Still a little bit pricey to buy wine at at restaurants. Having a hard time finding those good bottles for less than, less than a hundred bucks here in Dallas. One One thing that I feel like I heard a lot about and and in reading a lot of the literature that you guys put out was saw a lot of consumer preferences change or maybe geographies and and cultures in different countries started focusing on certain wines more or because we were reduced on on what output was able to get to certain countries. That affected the market. What are you guys seeing from a consumer perspective consumer preference perspective? Have there been any wild swings there? Have those changed, or is there starting to be some new normals developed? If we're talking since COVID, I think what we've seen a lot of is completely unrelated to the pandemic, climate change becoming a bigger and bigger factor. Right? Take Napa Valley. Last year was the first year in the last six years that that didn't have some sort of catastrophic fire that impacted the quality of the grapes or the yield of the grapes. So we've seen these sort of climate factors be really big in terms of consumers being able to get the wines that they used to know and love, you know, even in France. Right? You have hails. You have drought. Some much more inconsistent yields and lower supplies overall. What about the volatility? So you you mentioned, you know, why is it a lot of what we're gonna talk about is this wine and spirits as an asset class. And so what do you see from a volatility standpoint? Is there and I'm gonna ask this two ways. One, broad spectrum. Right? Are are are wine and spirits a volatile asset class, you know, on its own? And then is there anything individually that sticks out that, hey. There's been these wild swings in this particular type of wine or spirit? Yeah. From an asset class level, historically, if you look in past two decades, it's about a third of the volatility of the S and P. I think it's because people are not day trading wine. Right? I don't think a lot of it got to that point. People buy in cycles. So usually on a monthly or quarterly basis, the bulk buyers, right, the volume buyers are buying, you their supply of wine for the quarter for the restaurant group or wine for the month, right? So because of the lower buying frequency, you have lower volatility. When we're talking about more specific sectors or wines, we have seen a lot of volatility, especially in that sort of ultra rare segment where the supply is already very, very limited. Say, winery makes ten thousand bottles. Right? Someone you know, some distributors, some ultra rich billionaire could wake up and decide they need all of it. Right? They could very easily corner the market, artificially inflate or tank prices because of it. And when that same person, say, like, wants to sell it all, right, that's another big market impact. So when you see the when you see the availability drop lower and lower, especially for rarer bottles, older vintages, the volatility goes up as well because there's less trading activity. So in a lot of those buyers and part of what you guys have done is help democratize that, in a lot of ways. But, like, a lot of us traditionally think of when it comes to wine collectors. Right? Everyone's got the same kind of picture in their mind of, you know, the the ultra rich, tycoon, billionaire that has the big giant cellar full of everything. And it's even from in a lot of reading and and listening to people, a lot of people both wine you know, fine wine, art are truly looked at as an alternative asset class where people look to diversify their portfolio into these segments that generally will appreciate over time. Have you seen any over the last couple years, either people focusing more on wine and and collecting long term as an asset class? Are you seeing people back out of that now that cash is yielding a lot more than it was? What have you guys seen from that perspective? Yeah. I think another big impact of COVID was just the rise of alternative assets and digital investing. You know, I read a recent report, I think, by JPMorgan that was stating, you know, over two thirds of wealth managers are now looking at wine as an alternative asset for their clients for the long term. So because of platforms like us and others that have done a better job of increasing accessibility, transparency, and digitizing something that would otherwise be pretty hard to invest in unless you had a lot of deep subject matter expertise. We've seen more and more entrance into the market as well. Because it's always been a good asset, but, you know, like you said, unless you had a deep seller, a lot of money, a lot of connections, the average Joe couldn't invest in wine. Now they can without any sort of physical infrastructure. Seemed like you mentioned a couple of those roadblocks and then also storage usually being a big roadblock. Right? If you're going to sell it down the road, but you can't show that you've had a real tight you know, whether you got it in a Eurocop seller or a true seller that's that's been outfitted, That's a big struggle. And so and it's a it is red, white, you know, champagne. The big ones that that people, a lot of times, I think, are misinformed in the way that they should be storing. You know? And what kind of roadblocks do you hear about from people that maybe would like to get into the collecting, whether it be through your platform or just on their own? Like, what do you see are some other roadblocks that people struggle with? One of the big ones is definitely the provenance. Right? So where did it come from? Buying it from a retail store, who did that retailer buy it from? Did they buy it from an importer? Did they buy it from a private collector who sold it to them? Who did the importer get it from? Right? All of these questions, and there's really no way to know unless you're in the industry. So with Vinovest, right, we're buying wines direct. We know that it came from the winery to a professional store warehouse to our professional warehouse. That means that from a resale value, we're able to say, you know, hey. We know all the owners before us. It's only been kept in these conditions. That's why why it commands a premium over this random bottle you see on a shelf somewhere, and you kinda just need to hope for the best. It's such an interesting piece because you hear a lot you know, like I said, a a lot you everyone has the picture of the the wine collector in their head. There's also a lot of I I mean, I've I've seen there's one some of the most interesting stories that you can read are the the almost the Ponzi scheme, you know, wine collectors and things like that where you hear that, you know, they allegedly had the words, all that kind of stuff. And so I'm sure that can be a roadblock for people. And so having an authenticity is really, really important and which is something I know that you were just mentioned about what you guys do. And so I wanna pivot into to your story and the Vinovest story because I think it's so interesting. Talk to us about how this went from an idea you had to actually alright. We're doing this. And and talk to me about those early stages. So it started with a trip to Bordeaux about ten years ago. My now wife and I spent two weeks there and really just fell in love with the region. So on our way back, suitcases full of a lot of wine, started collecting, and realized immediately, wow. The one I bought for a hundred dollars in Europe is now, like, already a hundred fifty dollars in the US. At two years, oh, it's already hundred eighty. And it's like, okay. This is pretty cool. I could maybe sell some of these bottles, flip them, use them to fund new bottle acquisitions, right, and kinda make you a self sustaining thing. Realizing then I don't have enough space. How do I add this onto my home insurance policy? Who do I sell it to? How do I accurately determine the value? All these questions and no centralized resource for all of this. Coming from a tech background, I was working in also in alternative assets in the crypto space. All of that was being built out at the same time in the crypto industry. Right? And I thought to myself, if we could design, you know, a beautiful digital experience where we can solve all of those problems, I think a lot of other people would wanna join. They don't need to be obsessed with wine like I am. They just needed to have the general know how and financial knowledge and the curiosity to learn to get into this asset. So that's really how the the beginnings of Venus happened. It's bit you mentioned it has developed alongside pretty much crypto as an alternative asset class and a lot of positives that people are open to that, you know, to more ideas now than they were. I would also have to assume that it's made it a little bit difficult for you. And I could be wrong here, but you just when people start hearing about platforms and some of these other, you know, the the crypto related platforms that they've heard, you know, FDX and some of those other situations that have been real negatives. Like, how how have you guys navigated? And and, you know, I guess, is that even an issue that you guys have had to navigate? I think when FTX and, you know, those other companies collapsed, it shook everyone's confidence in general into investments. Right? Stock market was impacted. Pretty much every other alternative asset was impacted. And I think for us, right, we've always prided ourselves on transparency. I think the good thing is we deal with the physical asset. Right? We can actually show you, hey. It's don't believe a computer screen that all of your stuff is digitally there. You can actually come and visit. Right? We have a digital ownership certificate that is linked to an actual warehouse, and they can verify from a third party standpoint that what we say is there is actually there. Right? And that's been something we've been doing since day one. So we didn't really see a big impact on questions toward our platform specifically, but it definitely damaged consumer confidence. Right? People are like, I don't wanna invest right now. I just, you know, a huge loss in my other crypto position. Right? I'm just gonna for a little bit. Talk to me about scaling. Right? You've got this great opportunity that I think a lot of people it's you know, some people may think it's a niche. You know? How many people really are are wanting to, you know, to view wine as an asset class? You've got to you've gotta educate an entire group of consumers that don't think that they're able to afford to do this kind of thing or it's not, you know, it's not a fit for them. How did you guys approach scaling this business from when you started to what it is today? Education one by one. Right? To your point, most people don't even know that wine investing exists. Much less the returns, much less that you know, invest is a good place to do it. So since day one and still today, we're just educating more and more people through webinars, through, you know, referrals, through opportunities like these today. I want people to first feel comfortable knowing the asset before knowing the company. What's been the biggest pushback that you've gotten after you know, so someone that that logs in for a webinar and watches it or is signed up and read everything but hasn't actually taken the leap to deposit funds in there. What do you see as the biggest roadblocks that prevents people from moving forward in an asset class that let's face it. I mean, there's not many assets older than wine. Right? I mean, everybody knows. I mean, it's been around forever. People have been drinking it forever. No one's confused about what a bottle of wine is. But still, in terms of investing it in it as an asset class, what do you see as the biggest roadblock? I think the biggest thing is having the asset align with their invest in time horizons. Right? For better or for worse, wine takes time to age, to get better, to get more expensive. Same with whiskey. Right? Nobody can speed up a brand new cask of Macallan to turn into an eighteen year old scotch. Right? And a lot of people are just not willing to wait that amount of time to realize their return. Right? So we we actually do turn away people who are expecting, oh, it's it's a crypto flip. Right? I can get in. A year later, I get out. It's it just doesn't work that way. And so I think a lot of people would be maybe a little even confused here, and you talk about it that way in terms of, you know, what is the time horizon of the appreciation of the bottle and that there's different you know, there there's some bottles that maybe can as they're approaching their drink window. But so, Todd, the to for the listeners that aren't in tune with how wine actually trades, Can you give us a a thirty thousand foot view on how you guys evaluate the different types of portfolios, the the managed portfolios that you'll put together for clients? Yeah. Absolutely. I think at the high level, it's it's supply and demand. Right? Every year, a winery makes x amount of bottles. So say, you know, we we have a winery make a thousand bottles, twenty twenty four vintage. We release it in twenty twenty five and say by twenty twenty six, ten percent of that supply is consumed. Right? So economic theory would dictate that the price goes up, right, for those remaining nine thousand bottles. And every single year that goes by, there's less and less bottles in circulation, which means the demand for those remaining bottles goes up and up. And then to compound that, the asset is different. Right? A a one year old wine from twenty twenty four is gonna taste different now versus five years later, versus ten years later. And people have developed a preference for older older wines that are more mellowed out, right? They're more enjoyable to consume and they're willing to pay a premium to consume that aged wine now versus having to wait another ten years. So those are the two main factors that dictate the wine market and why it's appreciated so steadily. And for better or for worse, those are things that nobody can control, right? The time just moves as slow or as fast as we want it to or or it does. And then the, the aging process, as long as you store it properly, just you just gotta let that baby sit and and and mature. Yeah. And there's from what it seems like, I think, like, of a lot of asset class, you almost view it as a company, but there's the certain regions that just generally are more valuable. They're accepted to be more valuable. You mentioned, you know, this was spawned out of a trip to Bordeaux. And so usually they get those those deep reds that are from a couple of those areas, European wines that just generally are more favored aging. Is that something you guys continue to see holding up that those Bordeaux, the Burgundies, the traditionally, you know, really strong aging wines that people can hold a while? Are those still viewed as the bedrock of, you know, what someone would call a balanced portfolio or a good long term term portfolio? Absolutely. I think these regions, right, they have that historical track record of producing great wine. Yeah. The French have been producing amazing wine for hundreds of years versus Napa, which is still makes amazing wine, but the wine making culture there really only started in the late sixties. There's just less of a global recognition there. And, we'd still think that Burgundy and Bordeaux and Champagne are really the top regions for, the backbone of your portfolio. And then so how do you guys and someone comes to you and I I would guess that a lot of people are coming to you guys and, hey. You're the experts. You know, here's x dollars that I'm gonna invest. This is my, you know, my risk tolerance, things like that. But do people they still wanna feel some sense of comfort. And so do you get a lot of people that still want a specific like, hey. If they're Napa Cab drinkers, they like the idea of their portfolio skewed towards Napa cabs or if they're, you know, they're burgundy people. Do you see a lot of that, or are people really that are coming to you guys more open of just, hey. You know, you guys are the experts. You know, I'm willing to go with something from Argentina or or something like that. Or are people are people more open than you expected they would be? Yeah. It's definitely the latter because, you know, when people come to us and say, like, I only like Napa cabs. Right? I don't like Bordeaux. I asked them, like, you know, if you only wear Nike, are you only gonna invest in Nike stock? Separate your personal preferences away from your investment preferences, or else we can't do our jobs. Are there any wines or regions that are performing particularly well that have surprised you guys? I think the good thing about wine being such a long standing asset class is that there's really not many surprises. Right? We know from decades worth of vintage data, from all of the, the intel that we have on the ground too, really what's about to happen before it happens. And for us, right, we're still sticking with those major regions, those major producers. The the thing that we're most conscious about is price sensitivity. Right? The the price that we buy the wine at dictates what your overall return will be. So, you know, right now we're recording in the beginning of May. This is when Bordeaux was releasing all their futures. Right? And we're really price sensitive. Even though it's a great winery, we may not choose to buy the future if we don't that there's enough appreciation potential between when we're buying the futures today and two and a half years later when it actually gets released physically into the market. So you make money on the buy, not necessarily the sell. And so it's it's gotta be a good buy. You guys added, we added whiskey to the platform as well. Talk to us about what went into that decision and and ultimately leading to you guys saying, okay. This is something that we can fit in that works well with what we do. Yeah. It was it was a ten thousand person wait list. That was It's a good sign. Yeah. We, ever since day one, they're like, hey, I'd love to invest in whiskey too. Right? We didn't have that capability yet. So we just put up a landing page that says, hey, if you're interested in whiskey, put your name and email down. And that list within our first three years climbed to over ten thousand people. And at the same time, we were developing relationships with some of the top scotch distillers, with some of the top American bourbon and rye and different Nashville contract distillers. And we were, you know, able to leverage a lot of what we learned from an infrastructure standpoint on the wine side to launch whiskey. And, you know, in in the first year of launching whiskey, we had over thirteen million dollars invested in whiskey barrels, which which was, you know, greatly surpassed our expectations for a new product launch. So it and we've also started to become more holistic when looking at somebody's portfolio. How does whiskey compliment a wine portfolio and vice versa? Because even though they're both alcohol, they they operate very differently. They have different aging windows, different consumer preferences. So you can actually gain diversity by investing in both. What's been the biggest challenge that you've seen for you guys? And and specifically for the company, was it scaling? Was it managing the tech stack? Was it you know, what what was it in terms of your growth for still a pretty young company? You know, at at this stage, What's what was been the biggest, the biggest challenge that you guys saw? I really think it was scaling. Right? The first two years fueled by COVID were absolutely nuts, right? We were just hanging on to our coattails being pulled by the market and we're not able to develop a lot of the infrastructure that we wanted to if we were operating in normal times. Right? Last year, year and a half, we're in more normal times. So we've had to really catch up, rebuild a lot of things that we just built for the sake of speed, not for the sake of scalability. So, really, the last year, we spent a ton of time making sure that things would scale for the next ten years, next twenty years, right, and be able to make it so that if we're gonna double the amount of customers that come in tomorrow, we don't need to double our headcount. Yeah. It it's an interesting time because there's there's certain companies, industries that really benefited from the big spike in pricing that happened with COVID. Right? If you're an investor in almost any asset class, overall, you did really well. So how do you guys juggle that? Because it's now you know, you know, there's a possibility of, hey, almost becoming a victim of our own success when we saw these great returns in a relatively short amount of time that really wasn't you know, it probably wasn't normal. Like you said, this is a long term thing, but a lot of people, depending on when they got in, and they saw some pretty good appreciation a lot quicker than you might have expected in a normal time. So how are you guys thinking about that? And and is it more customer education? How are you guys approaching that for, hey. You know, we can't expect to see, you know, twenty to twenty five percent returns every single year, which I know is something that's a challenge for any asset advisor. So how are you guys thinking about that and and approaching that? Yeah. That's a fantastic question because we've definitely gotten that a lot, especially from the folks who did come in earlier, saw those explosive twenty percent years the first two years, and that had their first down year last year. Right? And I think it to your point, it is on on the, on the educational standpoint. Right? The factors that impact wine in the short term, you know, we still believe in the fundamentals long term. Even though people are buying less wine than they did in the last four years, they're still gonna be consuming wine every single year. There's still gonna be less and less of that wine bottle available. So just the simple principles of supply and demand are gonna hold true over the long run. So that's really what we preach and, you know, what we believe in. It's interesting because, you know, a lot of the other thing I was thinking about is when you're holding these wines that have these, you know, real long drink windows that it's Brunello's and and Bordeaux's that are they've got a drink window through to twenty sixty. What is how do you guys or, you know, how are you planning for that now that, you know, juggling, hey. We wanna continue to grow and show good returns, but also we've gotta be planning for what happens when, you know, what we bought over the last few years starts to phase out of that drink window or or out of that maximum value? Like, how do you how do you juggle those two time horizons? You're like a like a a TV show runner trying to figure out how to handle the multiverse. Like, how do you guys juggle that? Yeah. So the good thing is we know generally when these prices are peaking because we can see from past historical data. Right? Bordeaux is when they're twenty, twenty five years old, that's probably when you should sell them even if they can still be consumed and enjoyed for another ten, fifteen years. So that gives us and our team the ability to plan ahead. Right? So if we know that there's, say, a thousand investors on our platform that all have this one line, they all have this drinking window of, you know, twenty twenty seven. Right? We can even start to prep the market, right, be able to do a bulk order with a large wine retailer, look at big deals rather than having a a thousand individual requests of people saying, I wanna sell my one model now. Right? So it gives us that that horizon to be able to plan ahead and get the best exit. And the good thing is it's it's not milk. Right? It doesn't expire the day after. We think the trick bundle ends. So we have also some flexibility, to to work with in case, you know, the market's extra strong earlier. Right? We may decide to sell it before or vice versa. Yeah. It's it's really, really, really interesting. There's a lot of optionality there. How do I know you when when you started, it was, you know, a trip to Bordeaux that really started this idea. But how did your personal journey with wine start? Was it something that grew up in the family or were just always going to, or just, hey. Started celebrating when you sold company number one, and you just got hooked. How did that go? Yeah. I gotta give credit to my wife, McKenna, because, she came from a family that grew up with wine. And when we were dating, me wanting to impress her, I would go out to nice restaurants, look the wine list, and I'm like, I don't speak French. I don't know what half what have these things say. It really forced me to wanna learn, and learning, you know, in wine kind of means you have to taste a lot. So, I started tasting, started figuring out what I liked and didn't like, and, really, that that trip to Bordeaux really helped to cement a lot of the things that we were learning and liking. We're gonna get in I'm not gonna officially get into Mount Rushmore segment where I I look for the the top four of a certain thing that that my guest and I are talking about. For you. I'm gonna tease it a little bit for the four, your four favorite bottles of wine or the four best bottles of wine either that you've had or you think are out there. It's an intentionally vague question. But what are you drinking right now? What's what's in, you know, for Friday night or something or celebrating after we get done here and and we crushed it here? What, what would I go and find in, I'm not gonna say in your deep seller, your collectibles, but what's your you know, what are you guys looking at for every day right now? Yeah. So I've I've been, been definitely drinking a lot more burgundy lately. So, both white and red burgundy. It's getting warm here in California, so I'd probably reach for, you know, a nice crisp white burgundy, from Meursault. So, it's usually like a richer style, but still has, really great versatility for food pairing or just drinking on its own and probably fairly something fairly recent, like twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen. That's funny you say that. My wife is, nine months pregnant, and we've already got that one ready to go for her first bottle. That exact one. It's funny you mentioned that. How have, on a similar note, then we'll get to Mount Rushmore. But have your how has your personal journey with wine evolved as you're doing this? Right? I'm sure you started out, you know, pretty geared towards something. But over these, you know, ten plus years that you guys have been doing this, has your you know, have you been opened up in the to new things, or is there other regions that, like, you've never probably would have tried? Or, like, how have you how has it impacted your preferences? Yeah. I think the the benefit is that I've really just been able to learn about almost every single region. Right? The the access that working at Vinovest gives me, puts me in a really lucky position to try wine from Armenia, China, right, South Most people, you know, maybe maybe they'll try wine. It's it's the current release, right, or maybe a couple years old. But at Innovest, we've been able to taste a lot of the back vintages. And I think that's when you really start to learn about a winery is if you can taste side by side their last ten years of production and be able to taste the differences, see the evolution right then and there. And I think that gives you a whole deeper level of appreciation to wine that maybe you drink a lot already. It's that'd be that was the most interesting thing to me is, like, when you're when you're working and you're in it, like, how you get exposed to different things is always the coolest way. Is there anybody at Vinovest that within the wine or whiskey side that doesn't actually like wine or whiskey and never drinks it? I won't say it's a prerequisite, but I think you have to love the industry and not work here. Right? You could love the tech and finance aspect of it. You could be, you know, not knowledgeable about wine or whiskey, but I think, and pretty lucky that everyone has a curiosity about it. So they're willing to learn more. They're willing to try new things. And some people come from that industry and that background. Some people don't. Right? Since we're kind of a a tech and finance and wine and spirits business, we have people who are experts at all three, but no one's no one's, sorry, experts in each of the three, but no one is expert at all three. Let's go to Mount Rush more time now. And so like I said, intentionally vague. But when I say the four four best bottles that would go on your Mount Rushmore, it could be your four favorite. It could be if you were starting your cellar and money was no object, what four bottles would go in there, or four bottles that you would recommend. I'll let you go with it whichever way you want. Wow. That's dangerous if you say money was no object because these bottles get That's what hey. That's what people are are interested in is the the the super crazy high bottles. Alright. Number one is a nineteen ninety three, Domaine Henri Jayer crow parent two. So this is red burgundy. It's from a tiny little vineyard, in Mon Romanee, and I had the pleasure of opening that bottle just last week, and it was incredible. This this winemaker has since passed, but this is, you know, one of his one of his sort of crowning crowning jewel years where, you know, he was highly influential when he was alive. Number two is going to be nineteen ninety five Latoche. So I think I have that bottle in my background, but nineteen ninety five is my birth year, Always a special year, and, McKenna and I had it for our two year wedding anniversary last year. Number three would be nineteen ninety six Domaine Le Roi, Romani Saint Vivant. So another burgundy producer. This winemaker is widely regarded as, like, the kind of the queen of winemaking in France. So in a very male dominated industry, you know, she's eighty six years old, still producing incredible wines, was really a pioneer in the whole sort of, like, biodynamic wine movement as well. And those wines are just, like, in intoxicating. Like, when you open the bottle, like, the whole room just fills up with just a amazing bouquet and smell, and it's a it's an amazing wine. And then lastly, I would say it's gonna be a nineteen seventy six Myakamas. So that is from Napa. It's hundred percent Cabernet Sauvignon, and I really love the style of older Napa Valley cabs. They're lower in alcohol, a lot more balanced, and seeing something that's now nearly fifty years of age, they'll be able to be amazing throughout an entire night and not kind of just die out on you, just shows, like, you know, it's it's amazing that these wines that are really pieces of history at that point can still be enjoyed. And you always think about what, you know, who are the other people who had it. Right? And what was life like in nineteen seventy six? I have no clue. Right? But it's kinda cool to just ponder and talk about it with friends while you're opening the bottle. Before we go, that just remind me, would love if you could give some tips for the listeners because a lot of people, I think, become very self conscious about wine and, you know, am I doing it right? Am I serving it at the right temperature? You know, things like that. Is there anything you know, any tips that you have that you hear from a lot of people or, like, a a lot of questions that you get from people that are asking, you know, that that feel self conscious in some way, like temperature, like I said, or or anything else, any of those questions that you get a lot that would be some helpful tips for listeners that, either are new at wine or just haven't taken it quite as seriously and wanna, you know, wanna look like they know what they're doing. Yeah. I think a lot of people don't really know what they like, and they're worried about, like, how to describe something that they like. And I think the best way to advance your knowledge is to, like, drink multiple wines at the same time. Like, it doesn't give you multiple bottles, but doing a tasting. Right? Being able to go back and forth between two or even three glasses of wine and be able to compare the differences as the dinner goes on or as the night goes on. And I think only then will you be able to start knowing what you like. Right? It's like it's like doing homework. Right? If if you're studying multiple subjects at once or multiple chapters at once, I feel like you can be able to get a better sense of a book. But if you're gonna, like, pick up a book and then not read it for three months and pick up another book, like, I feel like you just retain that information. You know, it's much harder to do that. So So are you using instead? Because I think a lot of people think about a wine tasting or if they're even if they're having multiple wines, it's taste one, finish it, you know, then move on to the next. You're saying probably a better idea to have a couple different bottles poured at the same time and go back and forth? Yeah. Go back and forth. Right? Or even if you're, like, at a restaurant, you're getting wine by the glass, usually the Psalm or, you know, whoever's there will let you have a taste. And you can say like, hey, could I, you know, have a taste of two? I'm deciding between these two. Right? And usually, they're more than happy to oblige as long as you actually buy one of those glasses. So just do that. Right? And then at least you'll have, like, a mini tasting, your own and and be able to at least know, do I like option a or option b? Yeah. Last question. Are there any cities that you've seen in the US that either have an up and coming wine scene or have gotten a lot stronger or anything like that that you've noticed? Or is it still pretty much, hey. The, you know, the tried and true bigger cities tend to do a better job with it. What does that look like? Yeah. I can't say I'm too experienced in that regard because stuck in COVID for a while, and it's drinking a lot. And I still consider myself relatively new to, like, the wine scene. But I think, like, just given that wine is such a broad thing, like, you could probably find somebody wherever you are that shares the same interest. Like, I from LA to Orange County, a few months ago, and I knew no one here. And through wine, I was able to start making friends, people who had the same taste preference as me, started hosting regular wine dinners of just group of great people get together on regular basis. So, you know, the great thing is it's a social thing. Right? You're you're you're meant to share with other people, not not alone by yourself. Wise words. Well, Anthony, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time to come on here and and talk about the state of the industry, talk about Vinovest, and and give some helpful tips. We'll also make sure and, and get those four bottles that you recommended out for people to be able to check out as well. But, where can everybody go if they wanna learn more about Vinovest and and get in touch? So we're at Vinovest dot c o, and then my personal email is anthony at vino vest dot c o. Awesome. There you have it, folks. This is gonna be very popular when everybody loves loves wine, loves learning more about it. And so I appreciate you taking the time, not only to come on here and talk about it, but also for what you guys do at Vinovest that gives people like me and, and I'm sure a lot of our listeners an opportunity to have a little piece of this in, in a, you know, more controlled and more, more sophisticated way. So appreciate you coming on, Anthony. Thanks so much for having me, AJ. Alright.