00:00
Welcome, welcome to the Best 5-Minute Wine Podcast with Forrest Kelley.
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If you want to become a Master Sommelier, remember, only 5% pass the exam.
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Let's meet one of those 5%ers.
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The Best 5-Minute Wine Podcast.
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Hello, I'm Ian Cobble, Master Sommelier. You might know me from the movie Somme.
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And I have a business called The Cobblest.
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What I consider to be the best quality wines in the world.
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The web address is?
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The Cobblest. So my last name is spelled S-U-B-L-E-I-S-T.
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Has to do everything with the wine I've learned in the last 25 years.
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I spent a lot of time traveling in Europe, all over the world, discovering great producers.
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And, you know, since the movie Somme, I've come to hundreds of cellars all over the world.
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And people open up great wines, vacations.
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And I have a chance to share that with the world through The Cobblest.
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Stay in touch with my travels.
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We offer small production wines that are usually organic and biodynamically farmed.
01:00
That are kind of, you know, drinking the special art pieces of the world versus the mass production.
01:05
What is the, just off the top of your head, a ballpark figure,
01:08
what is the ratio of American meeting that category that you just said,
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as opposed to, you know, France and Italy and Europe?
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You know, there's some America, I think a lot of the great values are coming from Oregon.
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And there's some great stuff from the coast of California, that 20 to 40 range that are great.
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But for me, most of the great wines of the world come from the classic area.
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I'm talking, you know, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Germany.
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You know, the tariffs have been a slight challenge recently.
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But, you know, a lot of the importers I'm working with, you know,
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some of the distributors from the countries and the countries are offering discounts to keep them in a good sweet spot.
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But in general, I'd say about 60% of the wines that I sell on The Cobblest are from Europe.
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Because I do love the classics.
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But there are a lot of California, Oregon, Washington,
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and a few other small pockets around the country that do make wines in a classic expression,
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without, you know, too much makeup, too much oak, too much sweetener.
02:02
You graduated from what university in 2003?
02:05
I was in Sonoma State University.
02:07
Yeah, so I was, I grew up in Huntington Beach, Southern California.
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Went to Sonoma State University.
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I was going to be, I wanted to be a doctor.
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And then it was just the sciences were just didn't really appeal to me.
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Quickly turned to a Spanish study and international wine business.
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So I spent about five years at Sonoma State Wine and Language.
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And then I had a job offer for $2 an hour in Portugal.
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Worked for the oldest port house in Portugal.
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There's an hour up the Douro River.
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And yeah, ate and drank.
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And, you know, they would, they would pass around these paint thinner containers full of like local red wine.
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And we would drink that with local bean stews and work 15 hours a day for that.
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Time was about $39 U.S.
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And I would have done it for free.
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But I had this incredible experience.
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And then I had some money to save teaching.
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You know, traveled around North Africa, Europe and India for about a year and a half.
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And got back, you know, completely broke and borrowed some money to do it from my dad.
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And I walked into the wine merchant of Beverly Hills and got a job selling some of the great wines in the world.
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And the rest is history.
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You know, not to paint it with a broad stroke that doctors don't take jobs that are $2 an hour.
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I think you made the wrong choice.
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You know, I have a lot of doctors as clients and lawyers.
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And a lot of them want my job.
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But, you know, we need people that help us, you know, help us with our lives.
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And, you know, I provide them with a nice glass of wine at the end.
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Well, was there a moment when you decided to go, you know, lean into the wine thing?
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Because, you know, when everybody starts college, you really don't know what you want to do with the rest of your life.
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And you got to pick a major.
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You know, was there a time?
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You know, there was.
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So I was at Sonoma State University about to go there.
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My sisters were going there.
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I think I was 17 or 18 at the time.
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Of course, shouldn't have been drinking wine.
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But I remember going with my dad and one of his friends to lunch.
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And we went to this place in the Russian River Valley.
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And we had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from, what was it?
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It was Frog's Leap Sauvignon Blanc from Rutherford, Napa Valley.
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Goat cheese and some fresh basil on this local, beautiful, like dark purple tomato, right?
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With a little bit of sea salt.
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And I had a little bit of this Humboldt Fog goat cheese, if I remember correctly.
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A little bit of the basil.
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This tomato and this glass and this little taste and like something just struck my soul.
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It was just like, this is amazing.
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Like, I mean, I grew up in Southern California with that Tex-Mex, you know, your hard shell, you know, ground beef taco with sour cream.
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Like, there's nothing wrong with my mom's tuna casserole that she, you know, brought from Illinois.
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But, you know, we all lived this American melting pot of a childhood, I think.
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And in Orange County, it was great.
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I mean, I surfed a lot and all that.
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Had this incredible, you know, childhood.
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But that whole high end of that effect on my palate hadn't really been struck.
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That cordon hadn't been struck on my palate yet.
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So that bite was just like, wow.
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Like, there's so much pleasure to be had in these intricate flavors and flowers and wines.
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And so, that was at 17.
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I kind of woke up and I was like, I started to watch Food Network.
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And I went to Sonoma State University, played tennis.
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And I was always hungry because I was working out four hours a day.
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And I would just come home and I'd go to Oliver's Market and pick up whatever I could afford.
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And started teaching tennis so I could afford more stuff.
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And I ended up just, you know, eating and drinking every dollar I had.
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And started drinking like Klein's and Zinfandel and Klein, Old Vine, Movedre.
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Because that's all I could afford.
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And then I started drinking other things.
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And I really just, it was right when I was about 20, 21.
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Started hanging out with a lot of friends that had families that were winemakers.
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And, you know, brothers that worked at wineries.
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And so, we'd sit around the fire at their houses up in Glen Ellen and Sonoma Mountain.
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And, you know, pop these bottles on some really great Napa Cabernets.
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And I started just opening my mind up to these great flavor experiences.
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And, you know, Napa Cabernet is just the beginning of it.
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And all these flavors are so approachable for a young palate.
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Where there's these beautiful oak flavors.
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And these nuances of boysenberries and blackberries.
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And a lot of these fruit forward characteristics of different Pinot Noirs from Russian River Valley, for example.
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And it's a great place for people to start.
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You can buy a bottle of good Rioja for $10.
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And a pile of Harmoni Berrico for $6.
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And all of a sudden you're sitting in some hostel somewhere.
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Really appreciating your parents and the fact you were born.
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Looking back at it too, you know, your savant capabilities came out at 17.
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What you know now about wine.
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And at 17, you know basically zero.
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And that you realize that, wow, this stuff that I'm drinking and what's happening in my palate is not by accident.
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I've got to go down this rabbit hole and see where this leads.
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You know, we're born with this incredible palate, right?
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We can taste so many flavors.
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And we have this incredible taste memory.
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And I think that's one thing that I have been able to do.
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It's been a real gift to my life is taste a lot of really beautiful flavors.
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And it really, it's a part of my life that matters the most.
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I mean, it's all of our senses, right?
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Getting a great massage, listening to great music, tasting a great bite of aged ribeye, for example.
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You know, going to that Greek restaurant and having a bite of feta cheese with lamb.
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I mean, what's the perfect glass of white wine from Santorini?
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These are all, our palate is like an instrument.
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And it can be played by different flavors.
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And I think that my life has been just kind of chasing these experiences.
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Because the world is so vast.
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And there's so many pockets of the world I still haven't been to.
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But I've been to many of the major pockets.
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You know, all of the classic European countries.
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I think now that I grow older, I want to go to more Eastern Bloc countries.
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I just went to Croatia.
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Went to Bosnia-Herzegovina last year.
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I just actually got back off a plane from Seoul, South Korea last week.
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And I was in Japan and Taiwan and Hong Kong.
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And these flavors and these dumplings and these noodles and these stocks.
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Like, I swear to God, it's so amazing to be able to experience these flavors.
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And, you know, so wine is just the beginning.
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Obviously, wine is my profession. It's my passion.
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But food is kind of the centerpiece of it all.
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You're just one of 274 people in the world.
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What do you think, how did you make it?
08:07
How did you become a master of some?
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You know, you got to be a little bit crazy and a little bit talented.
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And have a good taste memory and a good memory in general.
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So you really have to love fermented beverages to start.
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You have to love wine. You have to love food.
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You have to love people. You have to love culture.
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You have to love history.
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And you have to be a little bit maniacal to want to learn everything.
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And so I think it's not that many people.
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I mean, most people are fine taking the level one exam.
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And you're like, OK, I passed the intro exam.
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And then a lot of those people want to take the certified.
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The certified is around, depends, 30% to 50% pass rate.
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It used to be a little bit higher.
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And then of those people, there's an advanced exam that has
08:47
close to a 15% or 20% pass rate, even as low as 8% or 10% sometimes.
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So some tests, 1 out of 10 people pass.
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And then of those people that pass that test, people get a taste of it.
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And you want to go to take the master exam.
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And the master exam has about a 3% pass.
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So all of those people that made the advanced exam, which is,
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I think there's less than 1,500 people or 2,000 people in the world
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who have passed the advanced, if I remember correctly.
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It's somewhere close to that.
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And then it's growing every year.
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Because the movie SOM really excited a lot of population to get into wine.
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But the master exam, there's around three to seven people in the world
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that pass every year.
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There's three parts of the exam.
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There's the knowledge portion.
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They sit you down for about an hour, and they ask you questions about water,
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spirits, any sort of region, subdistricts, grape varieties,
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producers, what wines they make, anything around the world of beverage.
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They ask you about an hour of questions.
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You have to get 75% of them correct.
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The next part of the test is a tasting exam.
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The tasting exam is six wines.
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You have to describe the color, the reflection of light,
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viscosity, concentration, the fruits, flowers, herbs, earth, wood,
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non-fruits, oak influence, alcohol levels.
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And then you have to talk about the acid, alcohol, complexity,
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And based on that, you're like, this is from this country,
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from this region, from this grape, from this vintage.
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And you have to get 75% of the points correct to pass.
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You usually have to get five out of six correct to pass the test.
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And then the final portion is the service portion,
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and you basically walk into a room.
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All of the patrons are some of the world's top master sommeliers,
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and they're all playing different guests.
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Some of them are the maitre d'.
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They're like, here's a guest.
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He ordered the 1982 Cheval Blanc.
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Could you please go to the table and tell him about that?
10:26
And then you do that, and they're like, well,
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the next table has a bottle of, let's say, 1987 Dom Perignon.
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And you have to know that 87 Dom Perignon wasn't made.
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And so you have to go tell them, I'm so sorry, sir.
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And you have to basically play this part.
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And then you'll go to another table, and they'll be like, I think,
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did you serve me rum?
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And all of a sudden, there's a blind tasting of different spirits
10:48
that you have to go to another table and smell these glasses
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and not taste them and make sure that they got the right spirit,
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I'm not giving you the exact what they're doing these days,
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because that's all kind of private.
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But they're similar kind of tasks.
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And so you have to be a master communicator, a master of people.
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You have to be a great taster.
11:07
You have to have the knowledge of the world.
11:09
And you have to be able to communicate that to people.
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And I think that's one of the hardest parts of it all,
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because you can know the world, but to be able to share it
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and talk to people and make people feel comfortable,
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that's the art of being a great sommelier,
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is communicating all of this information that's in your brain
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and not making people feel like, you know,
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your job is to make people elevate their experience.
11:31
Your job is to show it up to the table
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and to help them spend money wisely on a great bottle of wine,
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pair it well with food, and to enliven their life
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and to elevate their experience.
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That's really what the goal of a great sommelier is.
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And, you know, the goal of the whole exam is to enrich that culture.
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It's to, you know, motivate people to learn the world of wine
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and to then to go share that experience with people,
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to keep that alive, because I think it's such an art
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to share food and wine with people that don't know it
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and to be able to say, hey, here's this incredible bottle of wine.
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I know you only have $55 to spend tonight,
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but I'm going to find you something special
12:07
and you're going to leave here with a smile on your face.
12:09
So when you're out and about doing all your things,
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whether it's, you know, having dinner with your wife
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at a nice restaurant or wherever,
12:16
when you get ready to bring that glass of wine up to your mouth,
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do you feel everybody's eyes watching you
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to see your reaction on your face?
12:24
No, it depends on where I am.
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I mean, if I'm in a group of people and I'm blind tasting
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and, you know, if I'm doing an event,
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which I do a lot of events, private events for the YPO
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and different sort of, you know, big legal firm,
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you know, they invite 100 of their clients
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and I put on a show and talk about the world.
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But, you know, not really anymore.
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I mean, I think it's calmed down since the movie,
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but, yeah, I don't really feel like I'm on the spot.
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Like I might, if I'm at like a famous restaurant in Europe
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or something like that and the Selma staff might recognize me
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or something and I might feel like, you know, there's eyes on me,
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you know, just because people have never seen me in person before
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and they know my intense character from the movie
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and they're kind of just, I don't know, like, wow, he's here.
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You know, after watching me in film and seeing my whole life, you know,
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unravel, you know, and come back together on the screen.
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I don't know if you've seen the movie, but it's intense
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and I sail in the middle and at the end is me passing the exam.
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But, yeah, it's been an interesting, you know, experience,
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you know, traveling the world and I'll be in like customs line
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and, you know, Hanoi, Vietnam and somebody's like,
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are you that Ian guy from that movie I saw on the plane two days ago?
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I'm like, yeah, they're like, I can't believe I'm sitting next to you.
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And, you know, I've been stopped in the streets of Austria and Mexico
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and, you know, a lot of people have seen it, millions and millions.
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And it's interesting that experience of, you know,
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just like trying to pass this really hard exam and somebody's like,
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hey, can we just kind of interview you and follow you a little bit?
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And the next thing you know, you know, people are stopping in the street
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10 years later. It's just an interesting life experience, that's all I'll say.
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So you don't have to have a poker face.
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You can, when you're tasting, you could just show all the expressions you want
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and then verbalize them.
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Yeah, I mean, if I don't like something, I mean, it depends.
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If somebody made the wine, like, and somebody put their life's work
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into making a wine, I'm not going to be a jerk and I'm going to respect them
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and, you know, have a glass, even if I don't like it.
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I mean, oh, what do you think? Oh, it's nice.
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You know, just be polite.
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And, you know, it's just like if you went to somebody's house
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and they gave you a made chicken for you for dinner
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and it didn't taste that great.
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You're still going to eat it as long as it's cooked.
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Right. And you're going to you're going to you're going to be like,
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oh, how do you like the tuna on the chicken breast with the Velveeta sauce?
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You're like, OK, it's nice.
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Yeah, Velveeta sauce.
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Way to keep it real and not call it cheese.
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Well, it's technically not cheese, but no offense to people that like Velveeta.
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It's like those are not cheese slices.
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They're milk products.
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But anyway, tell us about the website.
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You're the the formation of it.
14:54
Obviously, this seems like a natural transition from everything you've done
15:00
So we launched exactly.
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Yeah, we launched about in early November.
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So, you know, people can go to the Kabbalist dot com.
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It sounds like Kabbalist, but it's actually Kabbalist IST.
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And you can go to the website and sign up for our daily emails for free.
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We have a pretty robust online store as well.
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And we're launching some clubs in Q1 of 2026.
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But the premise is basically you sign up for this email and every day about
15:24
10 a.m. we send an email with about 500 words about a particular bottle of
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wine, the history of the people, you know, why I think it's special,
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Food and wine pairing.
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We have a link to an actual recipe with everything and the type of glass
15:37
where you should drink it with.
15:38
And we have, you know, about the best price of the country that you'll be
15:41
able to find it. Considering that we do pay for shipping.
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If you buy under $200 worth of the wine, it's a $20 flat shipping.
15:48
For example, if you buy a $20 bottle,
15:50
it costs me more than $20 to ship it.
15:53
So we charge $20 flat shipping.
15:55
If you spend over $200, it's free shipping.
15:58
And we just seems to balance that way.
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That way we can stay in business because shipping is so expensive.
16:04
shipping a six pack will cost somewhere between 25 and $55 a bottle,
16:09
depending on where you're shipping it around the country. Yeah.
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So the cobblest is a daily email offer company that we're launching other,
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you know, avenues like a monthly club.
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We're going to do $125 for pack every month with a different theme.
16:21
So people can look for that in the coming month or so it'll should be live
16:26
on the website. And then we have a, yeah, private client division.
16:30
So we're, you know,
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if you need anything you can email info at the cobblest.com and request what
16:34
you're looking for. If you want, you know,
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a cellar to be made to fill in your, in your house,
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wherever you are in the country,
16:40
we can fly in and buy the wines and put it together for you.
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If you want to do any events,
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we have an events division so I can fly in and put on a show and do a blind
16:48
tasting education for anybody who wants to learn about wine for their
16:52
household or a small group of their clients. We've done,
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I've done events up to actually 150 is my max a couple of years ago,
16:59
but since we do around 30 to 80 people,
17:01
sometimes I'll call people that I know great wine and make great wine.
17:05
And I will ask them, do you have any wine available?
17:07
And they'll be like, no, or they say yes. And I taste with them,
17:10
take a photograph of it, write it up.
17:12
And we send an email or some people will call and say, Hey,
17:15
can I come taste with you? And they might bring, you know,
17:17
a case or two of wine and pour it for me.
17:20
And I'll usually pick about one out of every 10 wines I taste,
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you know, at the end of the day, it's, it's a, it's a tough market.
17:26
the reason why people trust me is because I kiss the frogs so you don't have
17:29
to, you know, I, I, I taste nine wines and I might like five out of the 10,
17:34
but there's one out of 10 that really makes sense in terms of price and
17:37
quality and lineage.
17:38
And there's a hundred thousand wines that you can buy in the American market.
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you're going to find a three or 400 a year for me that are worth considering.
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And and they're going to make you happy because they've been scrutinized and
17:50
gone through my filter,
17:51
which is arguably one of the more difficult to get past because I'm very
17:56
And I just want the wine to really make somebody feel like they made a good
18:01
bet with their money.
18:02
If you spent $35 on a bottle of wine, it should bring you a lot of pleasure.
18:05
Cause that, you know, it's a lot of money to spend on something.
18:07
You should go to the cobblest.com to drink better,
18:10
to elevate your wine life and to,
18:12
to know that you're making a good bet with your money.
18:15
you're not going to have to kiss any frogs cause we already did it.
18:19
if you want to spend smart with your money and you want to drink great wines,
18:23
there's no better place.
18:25
the new generations are not drinking alcohol specifically,
18:28
but wine sales are just dropping.
18:31
So what are your thoughts on that?
18:34
I think a lot of the premium price points just need to be corrected.
18:37
I think over the last 15 to 20 years,
18:40
the price points and all of a lot of these wines have gotten really high.
18:43
And I think that it just doesn't make sense for the current economy.
18:47
I think in between much people are making and how much money premium wine
18:52
it's tough to be able to afford to buy a 40 or $50 bottle of wine for some
18:56
people, let alone a 250 to $500 bottle.
18:59
So I think there's going to be a price correction.
19:02
I think economics at the end of the day.
19:04
And I think people,
19:06
are obviously focused on maybe being a little bit healthier,
19:09
but at the end of the day,
19:11
it's a lot easier to make a cocktail in terms of,
19:14
you can make a cocktail at home for $2 versus spending five to $6 on a good
19:19
But I think when people start to learn about wine and learn about the,
19:23
the pleasure and the history and all of these special areas and these great
19:26
varieties that are planted deep into these old, you know,
19:29
places of the world that have been 250 million years of geological history.
19:35
And then you plant this grape that spent a hundred years digging deep into
19:39
the soil and each plant makes one bottle worth of grapes.
19:43
You know, you know,
19:44
these are incredible stories and there's,
19:46
I think when people really open up the experience of life and really start to
19:50
look at the potential of,
19:51
of pleasure through taste,
19:55
There's something I think mentally stimulating about it,
19:58
the history and the people and the stories behind it,
20:01
but is it also with the taste and the taste experience and you can take a
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small sip of wine and this kaleidoscope of information can,
20:10
can come through a glass of wine and it tells a story.
20:14
that's the interesting thing about blind tasting is you can take a smell and a
20:17
taste of wine and it tells you sometimes exactly in the world where it came
20:22
it's incredible to be able to put your nose in a glass and taste something and
20:25
there's enough information that you can actually pinpoint on a map where it
20:30
What's one wine fact,
20:32
that almost nobody believes until you prove it.
20:39
what's one wine fact that nobody believes until I prove it,
20:41
that it's illegal to water the vines in France.
20:44
Especially because you know,
20:47
Irrigation is legal here in the United States.
20:49
And a lot of people in Napa will tell you that you can't make wine in Napa
20:52
without irrigation,
20:53
but that's false as well.
20:54
So there's a lot of great dry farmed vineyards in Napa,
20:56
particularly frogs leap and Dominus.
21:00
but there are certain areas of the mountains that like the vineyards are on
21:04
It's very difficult to grow grapes because there's no groundwater.
21:08
it's illegal to water vines.
21:11
it's illegal to water vines where if you actually took a hose out to your
21:13
vineyard and you got caught,
21:14
you would lose your ability to call that wine,
21:16
that appellation that year.
21:17
So if you were making Bordeaux from St.
21:20
and it was a really hot vintage and you saw your grape struggling and you
21:23
you brought a hose out into the vineyard,
21:26
they would make you call that van de France.
21:28
I'm just picturing the inspector asleep,
21:31
leaning up against the wall of sleep.
21:34
a hundred miles away,
21:35
he hears a hose move and he's on it.
21:37
It's really interesting.
21:40
there's almost 500 AOCs.
21:41
They're called Appalachian,
21:42
the origin control or protege.
21:48
each one of these 480 some odd Appalachians,
21:49
there's rules on the grape.
21:52
how many vines per hectare.
21:53
So how many vines per 10,000 meters?
21:55
and the amount of juice you can squeeze off of that and the aging
22:00
they're very serious about their wine,
22:01
very serious about their cheese.
22:02
And that's a reason why when you buy a bottle of wine,
22:03
it means something.
22:05
there's a kind of an AOC.
22:07
And it's basically tells you that this person followed the rules of this
22:08
area to call it this,
22:09
and you were expecting a certain level of quality.
22:10
Similar is happening with Italy within DOC and DOCG.
22:14
There's different quality metrics within the VDP,
22:18
to produce different wines,
22:19
Riesling in particular,
34:10
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34:13
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34:16
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