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EP 943 Tasting with Sommelier Rajat Parr Part 2

Gary Vaynerchuk and Rajat Parr conclude their tasting with some grower’s Champagne and talk more about the wine business.

Wines tasted in this episode:

Chartogne Taillet Cuvee St AnneFrench Brut Nonvintage

Links mentioned in todays episode.


Latest Comment:

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luca bercelli

90/100

Really good guest – humble, knowledgeable and able to hold his own with GV – (not many can)

Tags: Champagne, review, sparkling, Video, white, wine, wines

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  • Anonymous

    Yeah 1st!!!!!!!!

    I guess Randi was snoozing today 🙂

  • Anonymous

    top?

  • Anonymous

    No, we just waited for you 😉

  • Anonymous

    OH!!!!!! That’s cold….how did you go in and take my 1st spot?? Yuo must be in tight with the Mottster

  • Looks good

  • Jcha24

    please get some 09 cru beaujolais in the store!!!! pleeease 🙂

  • John__J

    qotd: As a Sommelier myself, I’m not terribly impressed, not to be pretentious. I think there’s still many great places out there where the staff hasn’t been properly trained in the basics of serving temperature, proper glassware, and basic pairings/recommendations, and sometimes even properly opening sparkling wine, and decanting other wines-whether red or white. With that being said, it does seem to be a lot better now than it was a few years ago, and I only see it continuing to go in that direction. I do still always ask the sommelier’s, or staff versed in wine service if they have anything interesting on their list that they would recommend when I’m out. Many times I’ve been turned onto a wine I wasn’t aware of and probably would not have gotten had it not been for them, which is always nice.Rajat was great guest, wonderful that you got him on, an excellent 2 part episode.

  • castello

    top 10!

  • Jcha24

    that was a great episode….loved the previous show as well….both good guests who are knowledgeable and likeable

  • Jcha24

    that was a great episode….loved the previous show as well….both good guests who are knowledgeable and likeable

  • Anonymous

    Mott!!! No celly??!?! who’da thunk it.

    QOTD..guide me to pairing with the food I am ordering

  • Anonymous

    Num 2 baby brb

  • ALLAN

    Can i just say that i’m delighted to be in the awesome top 10?

  • awesome for the awesome. 😉 awwwwww…

  • Anonymous

    Okay, so Gary has found his ‘good twin’. Room temp Champagne, Beaujolais etc 😉

    QOTD: I’m afraid that I’m not a fan however I don’t eat out very much (egotistically, my food is generally better, at least in restaurants that I can afford). I generally have better wine than most restaurants that I can afford and I cellar it until it’s ready to drink. I believe that most restaurants commit wine infanticide almost every day.

    I also believe that, even though I recognize that wine is a major player in the profitability of a restaurant, that a restaurant that would have a ‘cost’ program on corkage fees would have more business than they could handle.

  • Hughes804

    Can’t wait to sip Chartogne Taille…..Naples Kathy aka Champagne Lady

  • qotd: I would love wine service to make suggestions but not push me toward a wine I don’t like. Don’t treat me like a peasant and roll your eyes when I make a selection. That’s always fun.

  • Anonymous

    Loved, loved, loved this two part episode! Wonderful guest! If he is as entertaining in print as he is on your show I am sure his book will be a good read. With regard to the question of the day, I think the wine service depends on the restaurant and the individual sommelier. The one place I can say that I always get good wine service is Bern’s in Tampa which I have been to several times during trips to watch spring training.

  • NY Pete

    thunder.

  • NY Pete

    where’s Timothy?

  • Really finished well! I liked this episode a lot.

    QOTD: The service is inconsistent, I have had some great and informative sessions with sommeliers who go beyond themselves (truly extraordinary), but I have also had a few less memorable occasions.
    Despite the rough patches, it seems the overall direction of wine service via sommeliers is going up exponentially. Without bounds.

  • Anonymous

    BRAVOOOO!!!!!!! BRAVOOOO!!!!!!!! What a wonderful, wonderful two part episode. I will be watching this over a few times. Thanks Gary, this really made my day, or should I say, my two days. This is the type of stuff that keeps me coming back.

  • ALLAN

    AWESOME RAJAT! Good luck with The Wine…….. You were/are one of the Greats!

    Yo, G. You mention every now and again the Gettin Old Factor……

    I picture YOU like dis……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoyfDc4qBb8

    Hope it’s
    OK?

    ;P

  • ALLAN

    Thnx again AWESOMENESS 🙂

  • ALLAN

    QOTD: ?

    I’m not from the US of A

  • Anonymous

    GREAT two part episode! A wonderful guest with lots of knowledge to share! I was lucky enough to get both on one day! I hate Mondays, because I usually have to wait until Tuesday to get my first WLTV fix of the week.

    QOTD: Speaking for Northern Europe, I can’t ever find someone to suggest something interesting. In fact, I can’t ever get a sommelier to make a choice for me, even if I ask (I don’t think the customer is always right in this case).

  • ALLAN

    Let’s all bow down to the awesomenss of the Mottster, The Man rocks it all the time!!!

  • ALLAN

    Yo, man! ?

    🙂

  • Anonymous

    Wine service in America would be great if everyone was like Rajat. It seems however that a lot of places hire people without much knowledge but just enough to sell and serve the limited wines they have. This obviously depends on the place, but usually lower price point establishments have no concern for the wine whatsoever.

  • Anonymous

    qotd: Well, around here it’s fairly pointless (ohio). Wine lists here either suck, or are exorbitantly expensive. Finding a place with a knowledgeable wine guy committed to finding good wines to match the food, and diners’ wallets is all but impossible. Most places have the same grocery store list they buy from their beer guy. There are a few exceptions, but the wine places I like around town all have shitty food.

    I was in a restaurant the other day that was far from expensive. Entrées were all under $20. The server recommended an $90 Montrachet. Why would that restaurant even have a wine that expensive on the menu? I had a beer instead.

  • Anonymous

    another thing that gets my goat. I hate the restaurant wine pour, and the shitty stemware for that matter. Having 6oz of wine filled tip top in a tiny goblet sucks. I’d prefer it in a 20oz pilsner over that nonsense. I don’t need fancy hand blown crystal, just a sizeable glass.

  • Paul Sheridan

    QOTD: Lousy, honestly. But I can’t say that I’ve eaten at the highest end places. But my “lousy” answer comes from eating at a fair number of ~$35 entree type joints in (mostly) the pacific NW. Here are my suggestions:

    1) More information on wine lists. I wish I knew the grapes in every French region, but I don’t. I happen to know that if I order Crozes-Hermitages that I’m getting a Syrah, but I don’t know that for the other 99 regions, not to mention the ones in other European countries. So, grapes, and a description.

    2) More wines by the glass, and flight type opportunities.

    3) I’m okay with 150% of retail, but beyond that, I start to get sick. Find a way to make your business work that doesn’t include charging $45 for $15 supermarket wine.

    4) Bigger glasses. I want to swirl.

    5) More interaction with knowledgeable staff. I feel like a pretty knowledgeable consumer, but most of the time when I try to talk wine with waitstaff, they act like I don’t know what I’m talking about. But I get the impression that they’re making me feel that way because they don’t know what they’re talking about, and can’t admit it. Either admit it, or help me get smarter.

    6) Email me the wine list when I make a reservation, and offer to decant wine for me in the afternoon. I’d give my credit card, and if I don’t show, charge me for the wine.

    I haven’t had so detailed an answer for QOTD in a while. I guess I have strong feelings.

  • Anonymous

    ahhh i need this uploaded to my itouch so i can watch it on my train ride home!

  • Bosco

    Great Show, GV.

    QOTD: I?ve experienced a few great sommeliers at high end restaurants, but overall I?m consistently disappointed with wine service and the level of quality and selection at available at U.S. restaurants, especially at mid-end restaurants. Too often, the wine selections are usually boring, of average quality, and way over priced, especially when you compare the quality of wines available at restaurants in France or Italy.

    Overall, U.S. restaurants need to become more serious in providing customers with quality wines competitive prices.

  • “greens&grapes”

    Scanning @ the sample of the bk–any female sommelier’s to note?- I saw some of the photos of male notables…hmmm…..I look fw’d to trying the bubbles 🙂 and yes- SO MUCH of wine appeal is the when/where/with whom factor- occasional disappointment when another bottle is tried under quieter/diff. events. Q.O.T.D–> the Sommelier @ Friend’s Lake Inn (Adirondack region) several yrs back- did a newsletter that I really miss & hope he is still there. Cheers-greens&grapes 🙂

  • Cudos Mott not having a cellphone. Still making things work. Guys born 1961 is good 🙂

    QOTD: Don’tknow anything about US. Sweden is a good country for wine producers, 75% of the population drink wine, but unfortunaletly 60% of the wine drunk is bag in box s***. Restaurants have usually no sommelier and their winelist is of public demand major sellers to a 3-400% price mark up. I have stopped drinking and ordering wine when eating out. I got more good wine at home then any restaurant in my town (pop 85 0000 and 100 places to eat on on).

  • ALLAN

    1961 was a good year.!

  • QOTD: Overall it’s kind of thin. On one hand, I don’t feel I need much guidance, but there’s still a lot for me to learn so it would be nice if the knowledge level of at least one person on hand in fine dining places was a little higher. It’s usually not.

  • Frisco Grapes

    Great guest! I would die to have a night out drinking and discussing wine with Rajat.

    QOTD: Too many restaurants serving their red wines too warm, even some high end steak houses. I hate that.

  • Anonymous

    Nice finish to the first part.

    qotd; Never had a run in with one yet.

  • Anonymous

    Rajat is tops! I’m going to ask for his book for my upcoming birthday! Thanks for a super two-parter!
    QOTD: In my limited experience, meh.

  • ALLAN

    Thansk L. the best of health to you and your loved ones, yours sincerly Allan. And Cheers! ;P

    YEEEHAAAWWWW!!!

  • ALLAN

    You need to do the wakey-wakeeeyyy!! 😛

  • EME

    I am so crushing on Rajat. what a great guest. QOTD: Red wines a little too warm but most of the time a good exchange of ideas and I like to learn something from each experience.

  • Anonymous

    So coincidentally, I was leafing through my Wine Spectators last night after watching part 1. There, on the cover of the August restaurant issue, was your picture, Raj. I read the whole article about RN74 and it sounds like a fantastic restaurant. Since I?m in my mid-twenties, and am not a baller yet, I RARELY get to go to the restaurants that get those big restaurant awards from Spectator. So even when I take a girl out to a classy dinner, I?m usually disappointed by the wines there. Here are my complaints: there are never enough wines by the glass, and when you get one, they?re often boring. Restaurants never focus on a single region that?s interesting or nerdy. And my biggest complaint is that so many ?fancy? restaurants I?ve been to that I?m hoping will have a decent wine menu have all wines from California. I went to a place last week called ?The Bordeaux Restaurant and Wine Bar.? They did not have a single bottle of Bordeaux there, only one Chianti, one Chateauneuf, and the rest Californias.

    I need to start going to more of your restaurants, Raj!

  • Globex

    Part 2 rocked!! Seinfeld, Lakers, Shaq (my wife’s classmate at LSU)… great interview!

    QOTD: Michael Mina’s boy Johnny at XIV makes the best burger in all of L.A. Not to mention they have fantastic wine service. Todd English’s Olives at the Bellagio in Vegas also has great wine service. We travel abroad often and I’ve found the wine service here in the states at certain restaurants surpasses many outside the U.S. I think the wine service at most restaurants outside the U.S. are good, but many times I get the impression theirs is bent towards more local wines, which at the same time I very much appreciate because “when in Rome”. Whereas a restaurant here in the U.S. that has great wine service I’ve found has more of an unbias to where the wine comes from.

  • oklahomamichael

    QOTD=I work in the business so I’m gonna let everyone else gripe about the high prices. I would like to say that there are far too many that hold the title “wine manager” or “buyer”, that serve in the role of sommelier, that often are not qualified or even trained and more often than not just plugging in whatever wine their distributor is out pushing. I would love to see a wine site that grades the restaurants not just on selections, but on service as well. Those extra dollars need to be spent wisely on the passionate not just the pushy.

  • great guest! and i really enjoy the lightning round of questions.

    qotd: my experience has been poor especially compared to those in europe.

  • Anonymous

    QOTD — at the mid-level places I frequent, I wouldn’t know, as they don’t know much!

  • NY Pete

    serious thunder!
    great show gentlemen.

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