Join Marco Ciappelli on Audio Signals as he and journalist William Echikson uncover the stories hidden within our food and wine, exploring the rich intertwining of history, geopolitics, economics, and culture.
Guest: Bill Echikson, Senior Fellow at Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) [@cepa]
On Linkedin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/billechikson/
On Twitter | https://twitter.com/bechkson
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Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast & Audio Signals Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
Hey there, listeners! Marco Ciappelli here, welcoming you to another episode of Audio Signals. We're on a mission to explore the vast universe of narratives, focusing on the storytellers themselves. Storytelling, as you know, isn't just about tales; it's a bridge that connects generations, cultures, and souls. As our world becomes increasingly digital, the power of a well-told story is immeasurable. It's the lifeline of our shared experiences and collective consciousness.
Today, we're diving into the captivating world of food, wine, and the intricate tales they tell with our guest, William Echikson. William's illustrious career in journalism and communications has seen him contribute to prestigious outlets like The New Yorker and Wall Street Journal. His tenure at Google, where he oversaw vast regional communications and initiated Google's op-ed program, further solidifies his understanding of narratives in a modern context.
Our conversation promises a wealth of insights:
Bill's experiences and travels offer a unique perspective on this gastronomic journey. From understanding how food choices reflect our histories and geopolitics to the tales hidden in a bottle of wine, we'll traverse a world where every bite and sip holds a story. The bustling markets, the serene vineyards, age-old recipes passed down generations, and the innovative culinary fusions of today - each has a tale to tell, reflecting our collective identities, politics, economies, and more.
If you're intrigued by the crossroads of food, history, and narratives, today's episode is a feast you won't want to miss.
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Resources
https://www.amazon.com/stores/William-Echikson/author/B001IXQDIG
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Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
[00:00:00] Marco Ciappelli: All right, everybody. This is audio signal podcast. I just I have to say that I'm not even gonna make an introduction today This is Bill. He's been on the show with me not on this show on redefining Society we talked about something that still taught storytelling, but it was about a political technological story about the Camp David pact Today we are an audio signal podcast and we were already chatting.
I say hey Hold on a second. Uh, let's just hit record and, uh, and let's keep doing it. This is about him as, uh, a person of travel for work as a journalist all over the world that has a passion for food and good wine. He wrote some books about that. So I said, those are great stories, aren't those Bill? Yeah.
[00:00:50] Bill Echikson: Well, thank you very much for having me, Marco. And, um, yeah, I guess my journey begins, uh, when I was in college, I was lucky enough to, to, uh, uh, have as a professor, John Hersey, who wrote the famous book, Hiroshima, appeared in the New Yorker first man to really discover, uh, the true devastation, uh, that the atomic bomb had brought and to describe it in a, Narrative nonfiction using fictional techniques, but, uh, it was all true stories and, um, we had a very small, uh, seminar with him when I was at Yale and, uh, I, I, I went off really inspired that the stories of, of people could really, um, make a difference if they were told from the bottom up and I was lucky enough to get a fellowship to go to Europe after I graduated and I said, Oh, I'll be a foreign correspondent.
Thank you. And I remember walking around the streets of Paris, uh, going into every American journalist's office and saying, hey, do you have a free desk? I'll do some free research for you. And one man, uh, one journalist said yes. And soon enough, I was writing away. I became a staff correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and spent 10 really happy years with them.
And I was doing serious politics, mostly, but I always loved the sort of underlying stories of real people, people on the ground, that John Hersey had taught me about, I think. And, um, you know, I went from 1980... 1 know how old I am, but I went and covered mostly Western Europe, France, and from 85 to 90, I was lucky enough to cover Central Europe, the Communist Europe, behind the Iron Curtain, and I spent I
[00:02:46] Marco Ciappelli: know you wrote a book about that too, right?
[00:02:48] Bill Echikson: Yeah, that was my first book, and it was really a I was very, uh, I was lucky because no one thought there was a story there. It was, uh, I would go to Poland and there were four or five of us as American journalists, maybe, maybe a couple more, but not many, uh, in, in, in the entire region because it was sort of frozen, people thought.
But I saw these great stories about how, um, environmental activists were getting, uh, uh, signing petitions, how religious, uh, movements were peppering up flourishing and, and how young people were really changing and, and, and calling for freedom. So when everyone thinks that Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union brought all the change, I was really convinced a lot of it was forced from the bottom up and he just opened the door.
And let them go through. That was my first book. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time Telling stories of you, you know upward Uh of individuals who are making a difference Uh from the bottom up . I mean, it was, it was about, um, the, the book was about environmental activists starting, uh, a movement to clean up water that turned political. Uh, and, and. Who could be against?
[00:04:05] Marco Ciappelli: How things started.
[00:04:08] Bill Echikson: It was about religious activists signing a petition for religious freedom. I remember going to a little Czech village and meeting the author of the petition who had been thrown into a psychiatric hospital and so forth and yet had brought real change and really questioned the government all before the revolutions.
And I always wondered whether I would have had the same, uh, same courage to stand up, uh, uh, for, uh, values and freedom. And it was really inspiring to me, to the people I met. I was lucky enough to meet, uh, you know, uh, Václav Havel, Lech Walesa. And all the others, uh, and then say, you know, a few months later, they became president, prime minister and so forth.
So it was really a privileged time. And the first book is called Lighting the Night. It was written very fast after the revolutions. I, I think it was, uh, you know, it was, it was a great book. Um, in my opinion, but, uh, it was, it was really a firsthand account right then and there. I probably should update it 20 years later when the story is both positive.
[00:05:19] Marco Ciappelli: Well, you know, it's funny. I mean, I, I was, uh, I was in Europe at the time. In my, in my twenties. So I remember the excitement of that. And, uh, you know, and I had the opportunity actually to visit Prague, uh, with the soccer team at the time when I was 17, when, uh, the wall was still up. So we had some special permits to, to go there.
And I mean, it was beautiful city, beautiful place. And, uh, you know, uh, actually in Budapest as well. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of culture and talking about that. What, what do you do when you, when you go visit first time a new place, especially in Europe, where I always say that, and I don't know about you, I mean, you also have the both side of experience, like, you know, you're in America more often unless you really go to the extreme part of the country, and you find different kind of traditional food, but you can always find that common, you know.
denominator food. Maybe it's the fast food. Maybe it's the hamburger. I don't know. But when you go in Europe and you cross the border, especially 20, 30 years ago, it was a different world. I mean, different food, a hundred percent. Different experience. Like I don't even know what this is.
[00:06:34] Bill Echikson: It's not uh, I have to admit that Going to central europe communist central europe in the 1980s was not what developed my culinary tastes or You were
[00:06:45] Marco Ciappelli: in paris But but I guess what i'm saying is and we dive more into that is that even if you may not Like it or may not be the best, you know, French cuisine or Italian cuisine or, but you still get a flavor, pun intended, of their culture, the way of living.
I mean, it reflect who they are, their economy, and in that case, unfortunately, their politics
[00:07:13] Bill Echikson: too. You're, you're totally right. I mean, I would go to Poland and say, this is my grandmother's cooking, uh, because it so much resembled, there were no Jews left there, but there was a lot of Ashkenazi Jewish style cooking with the duck and cherries, the stuff that my, my, uh, my grandmom used to make the gefilte fish and so forth.
So, yeah, I always did see food and wine as a sort of. window onto society in an exciting way. I mean, even, uh, I remember going, uh, to the Basque country and, and, uh, when they were doing that, I was doing a story on the politics of nationalism in the Basque, uh, country, but I took time out to do a story on the three star Michelin restaurant there because, uh, he really, you know, the, the Basques are incredibly proud of their, of their cooking and it's part of their cultural identity, like you say.
But I guess what really turned me to food and wine was, you know, after I'd done the positive revolutions in, covered the positive revolutions in Central Europe. The story moved to the Yugoslavia and I covered the beginning of that tragedy, the war. Um, actually my successor at the Christian Science Monitor won Pulitzer Prize for discovering the massacre, uncovering the massacre at Srebrenica.
I had always thought that in Northern, you know, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, it was. positive patriotism and desire for freedom. It was all non violent. In the Balkans, it was violent and negative nationalism. Um, you know, I stayed and did it, but, uh, I wanted to do something different. That wasn't my war correspondency.
Wasn't really what I was. Just started a family and I, I felt like, no, this isn't really how I want to spend the next five years of my life in the Balkans. I spent a lot of time there. And I looked for another project and I found the project in, of all places, I wrote a small article for the Economist about a chef in France who had two Michelin stars and wanted to get his third.
And I went off to, I sold the book project after the article came out. And moved to Burgundy with my young family, young son who lives in Los Angeles now. But, um, so we moved to Burgundy with a baby and, um, basically lived in a village for a year. And, uh, I tried to tell, it was my second book, it was called Burgundy Stars.
And it was, uh, a book that tried to tell the story of, uh, Michelin Guide, of course, and Chef's Quest, but really the life behind a famous restaurant. What do they, what do they do from top to bottom? So there's the story of the American galley slave, stagere, you call them galley slave here, but uh, who comes to France to try to to work in this restaurant and gets fired.
And then there's the story of the sommelier who goes out and gets the wines and the, and, and the, the wife's role, how women have a tough time in, in, in, in a restaurant, uh, haute cuisine in general, and how, you know, you're basically a military operation in this, in this restaurant. So I thought it was the first sort of realistic book about, uh, about haute cuisine, you know, everything wasn't pretty and wonderful, but It was rough and, and tough.
Uh, and it was a book that really tried to talk about how France was modernizing, but keeping some traditions. It was about the history of, of cooking. There was the communist restaurant in the village, which dealt with the workers and then the I was, I was portraying the restaurant that was favored by the right wing.
So it was political. It was about the rise of the automobile because there was the Michelin guide, uh, the Michelin tires and, and the whole history of these great restaurants that, that were basically, uh, put on the road from Paris to Nice as people went on vacation, they would stop and.
[00:11:25] Marco Ciappelli: You know, I want to open a parenthesis here because, uh, a lot of people use Michelin stars. They all know that means excellent, level of cuisine, but not only cuisine, but service and all of that. But very little, I think they, they think about Michelin as the tires and how the, the beginning of the actual book started.
So maybe if you want to throw it, a little bit of background on that, that would be.
[00:11:55] Bill Echikson: Yeah, it was, I mean, the Michelin Guide was created at the same time as the rise of the automobile. And it was created to, to, to encourage people to use their automobile and go get a great meal. Um, and the restaurant that I portrayed was in Burgundy was, uh, one of the first stop out of Paris where you would stop for the night, have a great meal and move on.
So it was a historic restaurant from the 1930s.
[00:12:20] Marco Ciappelli: Was it the first trip advisor? What do you think?
[00:12:23] Bill Echikson: Well that we have it. No, uh, no. The Michelin guide still has, uh, you know, the anonymous, there was the mystery around it.
[00:12:31] Marco Ciappelli: No, no. But, but I mean, it's kind of like, okay, I need a book. I dunno where I'm going. Uh, yeah.
Who's the reviewer in this case? It's, it's not the internet, but it was a, a natural guide and book.
[00:12:44] Bill Echikson: Yeah. I mean, the book tried, I mean, uh, later when Anthony Bordone, uh, uh, wrote, you know, his. His, uh, epic, uh, stories about restaurant, uh, life, uh, you know, my book tried to do the same to a certain, uh, to a large extent to be very realistic about the, the stress and the, uh, and, and the chef itself, uh, it was a very sad story.
He was a wonderful man named Bernard Doisseau. Um, he was a manic depressive. It was pretty clear and I tell about that in the book, but at that time, uh, That type of up and down was something that you didn't, uh, deal with very well in France It wasn't really acknowledged as a real thing and then 10 years after I finished the book he committed suicide, which was really a a real tragedy.
Um, but he was a wonderful man who, uh, you know, was passionate about what he was doing and fun to be with and a bon vivant, but also a performer, uh, uh, a real, um, real star. Uh, and, um, you know, it was the up and down of, uh, it was, he... The time I was looking at this, his, his, um, food was changing in France. It was moving away from heavy sauces and being much more minimalistic.
Nouvelle cuisine was coming in and he was taking it a next step forward. Um, his dishes were very pure. He, he would take out all the extraneous stuff, two to three elements. And he had a great eye, uh, for turning traditional dishes into something more modern and acceptable to our...
[00:14:28] Marco Ciappelli: So, was this something that was reflecting on your opinion?
I mean, you obviously tell the story of one restaurateur, one restaurant. Was it a good example of what's... Was happening all over france?.
[00:14:43] Bill Echikson: Well, at the time, at the time it was, uh, it is, I mean, I was telling the story of, uh, uh, of, uh, Nouvelle Cuisine and the aftermath. And I interviewed Paul Bocuse and all the other, I remember going to Trois Gros because he had, Bernard had started his career at Trois Gros, who was the forerunner of, uh, Of great nouvelle cuisine, which was really to bring the chef out of the out of the background and promote the chef as a As a superstar so you had these working class guys All of a sudden it was no longer the owner of the restaurant.
It was the it was the chef Uh, who was the superstar that was new and what happened after I left was the cooking moved on I remember what we were doing. I did Cooking shows for PBS with a partner in New York and you know, we went to Spain and and they started using It was El Bulli. We were one of the first to do a TV show and write about El Bulli Which is this crazy restaurant in in Catalonia just south of the French border.
They were using Foams and gels and explosions and it was molecular cuisine and Bernard looked at this and he thought it was just weird and he couldn't deal with
[00:15:59] Marco Ciappelli: it and I think you used a nice word there weird he probably said something different
[00:16:03] Bill Echikson: yeah he thought it was just it was just not like he would prefer a roast chicken that was well done uh to to
[00:16:11] Marco Ciappelli: being Italian I can think about a few people that You know, that have restaurant and will think that's not, I've seen special on that.
It's, it's interesting, it's experimenting because that's, that's what cooking is too.
[00:16:25] Bill Echikson: Over, uh, over time. And, and, you know, it used to be that Spanish cuisine was just sort of emulating French and copying it. I remember the three star Michelin restaurant in Basque country. He, he had trained classic French quick cooking, but, uh, you know, I think.
Food is also interesting because it follows money, and it says a lot about the economy of a, of a, of a, of a country. And as Spain got rich, all of a sudden they had a market for new things. They always had great products, great hams, great olives, great vegetables, great fish. I mean, it's amazing. Uh, produce and bounty of, uh, of the land, uh, but, uh, now they had sort of complete freedom to, to invent and, uh, go upscale in a, in a, in a really determined way.
And the French didn't like it. I remember when we did the show where we invited the, uh, El Bulli chef Fernadria to Paris for the first time and he was cooking with Michel Gerard, uh, I think Bocuse was there, uh, but, uh, Bernard. I think Bernard was there too. So, uh, a lot of them and, uh, you know, this Spanish interloper came in and, and sort of, uh, uh, drove all the French crazy, I think, basically.
Then they started copying him. So, uh, it, it, uh, it moves in both directions, I think.
[00:17:51] Marco Ciappelli: So I think you just said something interesting. At least it grabbed my attention. Cause I, I actually, I like to watch, uh, Bourdain or the show. Cause I mean, he, he was really great in telling you. He was talking about food, but he was telling about.
People living in in these places. I mean, episode like Singapore or in Thailand or other places, it wasn't just about the food. It was chatting with people. What are the problem? What are the things that they do? I mean, the culture, what they're trying to achieve. And, but you said something about, the coming out from the kitchen to the front stage.
And I, I, I like that and, and it kind of, there is a story there, in my opinion, when, when you look at TV show now, either it's a, it's a pizzaiolo in Naples or is a, you know, somebody that makes tapas, right? Tapas in, uh, in Catalonia or whatever it is, they, they are representing the restaurant.
You don't even know who owns the restaurant. And, and I, I want you to elaborate more on that. I mean, what what does it mean? Did it become entertainment on top of good food?
[00:19:03] Bill Echikson: Well, it was a change in role, right? I mean the the chef became the identity of the restaurant and often in in the case that I was, uh, Bernard Boiseau, he owned the restaurant.
He owned and part of the book recounts how he goes public with his company and starts Building franchise restaurants in Paris and so forth and, uh, leveraging his name by, uh, producing frozen food with the largest frozen food producer.
[00:19:30] Marco Ciappelli: Do I see a Disney movie here? Excuse me? Do I see a Disney movie here?
Well, there was a movie
[00:19:38] Bill Echikson: that seemed to take a lot of... Actually, there were two movies made off of this book. But, uh, one was an American, uh, French movie called American Chef. With Eddie Mitchell and, uh, I believe It followed the story of the young, uh, American, uh, uh, intern, galley slave, stagereur, if you want to use the French, uh, going to a fancy French restaurant and working there and falling in love.
That part didn't happen in my book, but in the movie it does. And, um... There was another Ratatouille, which people have under heard more so I was listening when I was in the movie theater and watching that I said, sounds familiar.
[00:20:21] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, they all they all they all taking over and making frozen food.
[00:20:27] Bill Echikson: Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I mean, there was definitely Uh, there were a lot of themes that that came out in Hollywood or movies afterwards about about this. So yes,
[00:20:39] Marco Ciappelli: yeah, so it does represent all these cultural changes and and and money. I did at the end. It goes. It goes with that.
[00:20:48] Bill Echikson: I mean, what's interesting in food now in Europe, um, is that, uh, food definitely follows money, but there used to be a great division, I think, between Protestant Northern Europe and, uh, Catholic Southern Europe with, uh, you ate well, I mean, I'm living in Belgium now, so Belgium, Catholic country, you eat really well, uh, French finesse with German sized portions, but you cross the border to Protestant Netherlands and it was pretty, Um, food is fuel and very uninteresting to say the least, in my opinion, and further north, uh, even less interesting, but, uh, all of a sudden after Spain went, uh, you know, molecular cuisine.
New Nordic came in and I, and Noma in, in Copenhagen and the idea of, uh, Nordic berries and, uh, not, not scavenging, but, you know, going into the forest and getting your mushrooms and your herbs and, and so forth, much of the most innovative cooking goes to the Nordic region. So the religious barriers to food following money, uh, uh, have broken down in the last 20 years.
And I think that's part of the story in America. We were, uh, growing up, I was. Pretty, uh, I remember going back to America and seeing 1990 to write my first book on communism and remembering in Boston. I was at Harvard that the, uh, that the supermarkets only had apples at that point. And after coming from a decade in France, it was pretty bare, bare stuff in America.
America's changed a lot too.
[00:22:30] Marco Ciappelli: So, so let's, explain this because there is that. This social cultural correlation and with the religions and the food and again, everything is always connected. So let's put it that way. But so this division and different leaning one side or another of really good food versus food is mostly for sustain yourself.
It's, it's coming from religious That's, I never actually thought of it like that.
[00:23:00] Bill Echikson: Yeah, no, I mean, I think definitely there is that type of,
uh, attitude towards food that is in Protestant countries, that it is fuel. Uh, it's sustenance and,
I know, being around the table, enjoying, even being gluttonous is seen as a virtue in some ways.
[00:23:21] Marco Ciappelli: Right, right, or at least acceptable. I'm talking about religion and it makes me think about wine, of course it's a different kind of wine. The wine you get at church, but I know that you were in Burgundy in the end for people familiar.
One of the best wine in the world come from there. I'm from Tuscany. So we kind of touched on this last time, you know, it's maybe taste, but I gotta be honest. I, I'm not a connoisseur of wine. I'm not a sommelier or anything, and I know good wine when I try it, but I know you actually wrote about that too, but you had it of economical political perspective.
[00:24:02] Bill Echikson: Exactly. I mean, at that, um, so the book on Burgundy, one chapter is about, uh, going with the sommelier. I used to leave at nine in the morning, come back at nine in the evening, my lips all red and everything. Wow. About how they stopped the seller, and it was also, there was a chapter about the, you know, the...
Traditions of Burgundy wine growing, uh, which are very sort of, it's small family owned domains and so forth, uh, and, and how they were reaching now a global market and so, uh, and, and I, I kept on writing about wine, uh, wrote for the Wine Spectator, but also I wrote a cover story for Business Week. I worked as a staff reporter at Business Week during the end of the 1990s and, uh, Bordeaux seemed to be the country, uh, the region that really represented wine and, and, and so forth.
So I, um, spent a year in, in, in Bordeaux, uh, following four stories, uh, about, uh, following a year of, of, of harvesting and vinifying. And then, uh, so you have the cycle of the year, but you have also four stories about, uh, the different, let's say, Pictures of Bordeaux. Uh, one was the book is called Noble Rot and one was about an aristocratic family that was selling out its esteemed estate where they made noble rot wines, you know, Sauternes, the sweet wines and the family fight over whether they should sell out or not sell out.
Another was about, you know, uh, uh, uh, investment bank coming in and buying a big estate and, and, and, and overturning it on the left bank. And another was about the guys producing wines in garages on the right bank that were rivaling the, the prices of the most expensive wines. And the last one was about a cooperative, uh, making, uh, you know, everyday wine.
But the...
[00:26:06] Marco Ciappelli: And again, what year was this?
[00:26:08] Bill Echikson: This, I was there 2001. I remember because it was, uh, yeah, the attacks on the World Trade Center happened during the middle of the harvest.
[00:26:16] Marco Ciappelli: So it was kind of like the beginning of that transition where, I mean, I'm not saying the wine always had a pretty high status. Not always, but, lately, but a certain point It became more, again, of a big investment, where corporations started getting involved.
Yeah. The land, I mean, even here in California, for example, lately, they've been transforming a lot of the landscape. And I think they embrace a lot. The technology too. Yes. So I mean, Traditional, but technology is heavy there. It's a delicate product
[00:26:54] Bill Echikson: to do. Yes, but there was, I mean, uh, so part of the book was also about fast France, modern France, because most of, in this most traditional wine growing regions, you had some of the most innovative.
The guys who were consulting and making wine. And I remember following Michel Roland, who is a famous flying winemaker, on a full day as he went and tasted, tasted in his bag. Because he was making wine in Chile, in Argentina, in South Africa, and California. Oh, and, uh, the criticism was that his wines tasted all the same for me.
They all tasted great because they were all fresh, fruity and juicy. Um, and he was a, you know, superstar reinventing. Uh, sort of how you mixed wines, but also they would make sure that the harvests were, um, you know, they would do green harvesting, reducing the yields because we produce less grapes on the same vineyards.
You produce some more concentrated juice and he would do carbon. Uh, they would sort of, not freeze, but make it, uh, stop fermentation so that they would keep it fresh and none of the sort of bitterness that you can get into, uh, or, or weediness that can get into sort of poor wines. Um, but it was also very criticized by traditionalists as not allowing the, the, the sound and the taste of the terroir, of the land, come through because he masked it.
in these overripe grapes. And there was also an American angle to the, all of this story, which was, um, you know, there was the American critic, Robert Parker, who was invented this hundred point system, which allowed someone who didn't have a 300 year old chateau, some of the guys making wine in their garage.
If they made really great wine and Robert Parker gave you a grade over 90 points, you could sell it at very high price in America. And that was transforming the economics of, of, of Bordeaux. Guys could, didn't need to have the, the ranking from 1855 to, to get high prices for their wines. And that was...
[00:29:15] Marco Ciappelli: How does this innovation of the 100 point ranking came?
[00:29:22] Bill Echikson: So, uh, you know, traditionally there was a classification in Bordeaux and it was set in stone in 1855 and you were a first growth, second growth, fourth growth, and it couldn't really be changed.
[00:29:33] Marco Ciappelli: No, not opening for new generation.
[00:29:36] Bill Echikson: Right. So that was noble rot, right? So you got these guys from 1855 who were making good or bad wines, uh, often different, but they had the.
The class, you know, and they could sell it for whatever they wanted. And, um, you know, uh, the American, uh, came in and he was, uh, he, he lives in, uh, north of Baltimore and not a wine growing region. He just, uh, would taste what he tasted and like what he liked and he invented the 100 point system based on how we grade our, uh, you know, in classroom, right?
Up to 100 points. And the saying soon became that, uh, you know, if you get more than 90 points, you can't find it because it's sold out. If you get less than 90 points, you can't sell it. And that was really revolutionizing, um, French wines because he was, became the arbiter. Uh, in many ways, uh, there were others who came in and do something similar, but, uh, the wine spectator, James...
[00:30:37] Marco Ciappelli: Sounds like a little bit more meritocratic and using standard that you can apply. I, I guess it's involved the taste, it involves the way it's made, it involves a lot of different parameters, I'm assuming, instead of... Here's my brand, here's my name, I've done it for a long time. Well, that doesn't mean it's good.
Not every year is the same year on the, on the wine yard.
[00:30:59] Bill Echikson: Yeah, I mean, uh, that's totally true. He's very controversial in the sense, uh, uh, half of the traditionalists in France say he's ruining French wine and, and he's the, he's a horror and half say, God, I, I'm getting rich because of this guy. I mean, you would walk into, in Cote d'Orone also outside of Bordeaux, you know, he basically took Chateauneuf du Pape, which was considered a sort of.
Okay, but nothing special wine and brought it up into the stratosphere So, uh, you know you go in and there's streets named after him because he really made entire regions and villages and and the trick if french wines are difficult because You know, you have a hundred, or maybe a thousand, lots of wines being made in a village like Saint Emilion.
And, and some are just fantastic, world beating, and many are just horrible. And the label doesn't tell you anything. It just says Saint Emilion. Uh, and, uh, you're, you're lost. I mean, it's not like, uh, uh, Champagne where they're big brands that are sort of assuring the, uh, regular quality of something. Uh, uh, it wasn't how it doesn't happen in France.
You go from the simple to the sublime in the same next door neighbors can be making completely different wines. There's small, relatively small properties by, by global standards. So, um, you know, he walked in and shook that, that world up and that's what I was writing about. Uh, which was, was, you know, it really is a little bit our French American relationship, love and hate, right?
I mean, the French were our first allies, but, uh, we also have a lot of tension often, uh, the, between the two of us and, and, uh, you know, Bordeaux wine. Reflects that.
[00:32:54] Marco Ciappelli: And, you know, and he still does. I mean, I read sometimes the news like, yeah, let's just slap an extra tax on on the wine that come from Europe or this region.
And, and he can change the politics of things because it's such an Big economy. I mean, if you do that, uh, it could be locally perceived as a, as an offense. Again, you're talking about very passionate, uh, population there and, and that could affect export and all of that are high level because here's a question for you.
So you. You cover the, the character that made the story in this case, like the chef, the, the person that makes the wine, the producer. How do you see this reflecting onto the consumer? So not everybody can go to eat at the, you know, three, five star Michelin restaurant. Not everybody can buy the bottle of wine that costs hundreds and hundreds and thousands of dollars.
And, you know, you. You have to say, well, good thing that is open to, maybe a 10 bucks bottle of wine. Not, not everybody can afford that.
[00:34:09] Bill Echikson: No, I totally agree. Now. I mean, uh, the three star Michelin restaurants have become, I really don't go that often because they have become so expensive. Uh, that.
Just doesn't fit well with me. Uh, but I think, you know, and same thing with the first, the most expensive wines. Uh, uh, yeah, I really appreciate them, but I don't drink them regularly. I've had one bottle of, from that book left of Chateau Ozone, which must be. 400 or something outrageous and I haven't been able to find a time where I'm really willing to open that
[00:34:50] Marco Ciappelli: And I hope you you kept it.
Well, because
[00:34:52] Bill Echikson: yeah, I hope It's sitting in my it's sitting in my cellar Uh, I think it's 1998. So from the year I did and I don't know when to use it because it's you know I have one bottle but uh, so expensive but I think I think you're right these um, Uh, you know, the prices and, uh, of the top most exclusive stuff have become, uh, that, uh, unaffordable to most people and, uh, forbidding, even if you could afford it, you're not sure you really want to spend that much money on it.
So, uh,
[00:35:26] Marco Ciappelli: But doesn't it drive the decision that say the trends of. Regular people kind of restaurants and wine. So are they still leading like it's kind of like I'm thinking fashion, right? I mean, not many people can afford the griff, but you know, if they say, and Gucci said this and Armani said that, and everybody follows.
[00:35:51] Bill Echikson: Yeah, I think it's whole cuisine and you know, you have pret a porter. Even when I was doing it, I made that analogy. I remember with Bernard Loiseau, the chef I profiled, that, um, you know, we went to a series, he created a series of bistros, uh, and he was always, uh, thinking about, you know, how could he make his haute couture product more accessible because the money's in pret a porter more than haute couture.
They don't make that much money. He was struggling financially until he was able to leverage his name and his notoriety to, to, to these other, uh, ventures and, and wine is a little bit the same, a lot the same way. It's, uh, you know, there's one Chateau Ozone that's getting 40, 400 a bottle or something, but, uh, the guy's really making the money and there's been consolidation in the wine industry are able to produce the 10 to 20 bottle that, uh, can sell in larger quantities, often using some of the same.
techniques but on less prestigious vineyards or um, uh, I was always searching out for myself and Bordeaux is a, is a large wine region with what makes a lot of ordinary everyday wines and there are guys who are making in these less prestigious places in Bordeaux. Some well priced wines.
[00:37:13] Marco Ciappelli: So, and let's face it.
Not everybody can tell the difference
[00:37:18] Bill Echikson: No, and it can be well made if it's well made. It's well made, right?
[00:37:23] Marco Ciappelli: I mean it takes a sommelier probably to say no, this is the 400. Yeah
[00:37:29] Bill Echikson: It's interesting a lot of the great value wines now come from Spain and I'd always written and written a story about Spanish wine and had an idea.
I could never sell the book But, uh, you know, as Spain is modernized, so has its winemaking. And, uh, there was one family, the Palacio family, who I really thought was interesting because they were a Rijola family. And then they were kicked out of, uh, uh, the, the, the son was kicked out because he wanted to make, he had gone to Bordeaux and studied with Michel Roland and the other famous, uh, modern winemakers and, uh, had been kicked out of the family.
Vinery and went to an unknown place called Prerato in, in Spain, a very rugged region south of Barcelona. And he started producing wines and they soon Robert Parker and others saw them and they became the best wines out of, uh, highly rated wines out of Spain. His family, uh, uh, vineyard went, went broke and they pulled him in and he revived it.
Now he makes wine all over Spain and in places that used to make unknown wines like, uh, Berso, if you've ever heard of it. I just bought some Palacios de, uh, Berso. It makes from a grape that no one rated called Mencia. It's not... It's not that far from Pinot Noir in some ways. It's a little less robust than traditional Spanish wines, but you find great Spanish wines all over the country, great ones in Southern Italy.
So, I mean, these techniques are being exported. And I know there's a lot of, um, nostalgia for sort of the tradition and terroir. And there was even a. The movie made, uh, uh, with some of the main, same characters I portrayed in my book, uh, called Mondovino, which was lamenting how...
[00:39:23] Marco Ciappelli: Ah, I've heard of it, I've never seen of it.
[00:39:26] Bill Echikson: Yeah, it's the exact opposite of my book. He basically thought that Michel Roland and all these, Robert Parker, were ruining French wine, standardizing tastes, and bringing an American, uh, lack of culture to, uh, to the French wine world. And, uh, it's... It's a point of view. It wasn't my point of view, though, but you
[00:39:51] Marco Ciappelli: know, to finish this conversation, which we're already a 40 minutes and I could talk about this forever.
And anytime you want to come back and chill with me and tell more story. I'm happy to have you.
[00:40:01] Bill Echikson: But my other my after this, I wrote a book about golf of ball pooling. So we
[00:40:06] Marco Ciappelli: can have that. I gave it a It was a few try when I was living in Florida so we can talk about golf too. But, but in this case, I want to close with this, every story, if you use the standard storytelling, there is always the antagonist.
You know, there is the good, there is the bad, there is, the one that think one way, the one to think another. And, and in these all. Stories that you told, either the cuisine or the other book, the other movie, even in describing how there are the traditionalist, the one that want to open to different markets and culture, those are what make story.
If there was one way only, it would be pretty boring. We would never evolve, right? So the way I see it, the lesson is, it's okay that some people likes. And see the world that way and others see the other as long as we From that we grow right and I think that's a lesson for a lot of things
[00:41:07] Bill Echikson: yeah, and I as I I I mean in all these stories it was Modern versus tradition and of course both have their values and both have their pleasures Uh, there's not one
single taste, not one monotaste. And what makes France so appealing still is how it manages to bring the modern and traditional together. Um, Spain is great too. Uh, I think that that in Europe is, is, is still a real story. Um, you know, if if the idea is we're going to go back to 1900, uh, or Europe will just become a museum That that's really would be sad in the end, you know in winemaking and in food.
They're still innovators Uh in many other fields often the french just don't Realize or accept that. Hey, they got Europe's most valuable company and it makes Louis Vuitton's handbags, but that's something pretty good, right? And they've created something pretty modern from that And
[00:42:07] Marco Ciappelli: I think that's the that's exactly the the lesson that we're looking now into Into a lot of industry there is this coming back to a tradition, but with the technology that we have So it's I love the fact that we are we're kind of merging both I mean, even, even in the car industry, if you want to look at that right now, uh, you know, they're bringing back an old style, old model, but with the modern technology.
So it's kind of, kind of interesting. Uh, Bill, I really, really appreciated your, uh, conversation, your stories. And again, uh, yeah, sure. Come back with the... With the golf.
[00:42:44] Bill Echikson: I'll be in Los Angeles in mid November. We should get together and do the golf thing with my son.
[00:42:50] Marco Ciappelli: Okay Okay, and that will be great. Bring him in bring him on.
[00:42:54] Bill Echikson: I'll bring him in. He's in long beach So we got
[00:42:57] Marco Ciappelli: sounds good. All right, everybody stay tuned We'll be linked for to the books from bill and the story and uh, His social media if you want to get in touch with him, and of course stay tuned. We'll have more story Maybe about food, about something, other things, and enjoyable, I hope, for everybody.
Subscribe, stay tuned. See you, Bill. Take care.
[00:43:18] Bill Echikson: Yeah, thanks. Bye bye. Thanks so much. Bye.