In this episode, Ian Cauble discusses the art of being a sommelier and the importance of enriching people's wine experiences. He shares anecdotes from his travels, highlighting how his journey has transformed since the release of the film about his life. Ian emphasizes the responsibility of a sommelier to elevate the dining experience, ensuring customers leave with a smile, regardless of their budget.
Furthermore, Ian introduces his new venture, The Cobble List, a daily email service that provides wine recommendations, food pairings, and exclusive offers. He details the logistics of shipping wine and the exciting upcoming clubs and events designed to bring wine enthusiasts together. Tune in for a delightful conversation that blends passion and expertise in the world of wine!
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♪ Welcome, welcome to the Best 5-Minute Wine Podcast with Forrest Kelly. ♪
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It's communicating all of this information that's in your brain and not making people feel like,
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you know, your job is to make people elevate their experience. Your job is to show up to the table
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and to help them spend money wisely on a great bottle of wine, pair it well with food, and to
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enliven their life and to elevate their experience. That's really what the goal of a great
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sommelier is. And, you know, the goal of the whole exam is to enrich that culture. It's to,
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you know, motivate people to learn the world of wine and to then to go share that experience
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with people to keep that alive. Because I think that's, it's such an art to share food and wine
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with people that don't know it 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, but I'm going to find you something special
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and you're going to leave here with a smile on your face. So when you're out and about doing
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all your things, whether it's, you know, having dinner with your wife at a nice restaurant or
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wherever, when you get ready to bring that, you know, glass of wine up to your mouth,
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do you feel everybody's eyes watching you to see your reaction on your face?
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No, it depends on where I am. I mean, if I'm in a group of people and I'm blind tasting and,
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you know, or if I'm, if I'm doing an event, which I do a lot of events,
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private events for the YPO and different sort of, you know, big legal firm, you know,
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they invite a hundred of their clients and I put on a show and talk about the world. But,
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you know, not really anymore. I mean, I think, I think it's, it's, it's calmed down since the
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movie, but, uh, yeah, I don't really feel like I'm on the spot. Like I might, if I met like a
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famous restaurant in Europe or something like that, and the subway staff might recognize me
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or something and they, I might feel like, you know, there's eyes on me, you know, just because
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people have never seen me in person before. And they, they know, they know my intense character
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from the movie and they're kind of just, I don't know, like, wow, he's here, you know, after,
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after watching me in film and seeing my whole life, you know, unravel, you know,
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and come back together on the, on, on the screen. I don't know if you've seen the movie,
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but it's intense and I fail in the middle and the pet, the end is, is me passing the exam.
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But yeah, it's been an interesting, you know, experience, you know, traveling the world and
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being, I'll be in like customs line 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? I'm like, yeah,
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I can't believe I'm sitting next to you. And, uh, you know, I've been stopped in the streets
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of Austria and Mexico and, you know, a lot of people have seen it millions and millions.
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And it's interesting that, that experience of, uh, you know, just like trying to pass this really
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hard exam and somebody's like, Hey, can we just kind of interview you and follow you a little bit?
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And next thing you know, you know, people are stopping in the street 10 years later. It's,
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it's just a, it's a, it's an interesting life experience. That's all I'll say.
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So you don't have to have a poker face. You can, when you're tasting,
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you could just show all the expressions you want and then verbalize them.
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Yeah. I mean, if I don't like something, I mean, it depends if, if somebody made the wine,
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like in somebody put their life's work into making a wine, I'm, I'm not going to be a jerk
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and I'm going to respect them and, you know, have a glass, even if I don't like it. I mean,
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you know, Oh, what do you think? Oh, it's, it's, it's nice. You know, just be polite. And, uh,
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you know, it's just like, if you went to somebody's house and they gave you a,
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you made chicken for you for dinner and it didn't taste that great,
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you're still going to eat it as long as it's cooked. Right. And you're going to, you're going
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to, you're going to be like, Oh, how do you like the tuna on the chicken breast with the Velveeta
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sauce? You're like, okay, it's nice. Yeah. Velveeta sauce. Way to keep it real and not
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call it cheese. No offense. Well, it's technically not cheese, but no offense to people that like
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Velveeta. It's, it's just a joke. Yeah, exactly. It's like, those are not cheese slices that are
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milk products, but anyway, tell us about the websites. You're the, the formation of it.
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Obviously this seems like a natural transition from everything you've done beforehand into.
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Yes. Yes. So we launched exactly. Yeah. We launched, um, about in early November. So,
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you know, people can go to the cobble list.com. It sounds like cobble list, but it's actually
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cobble IST and you can go to the website and sign up for our daily emails for free. We have a pretty
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robust online store as well. And we're launching some clubs, uh, in Q1 of 2026, but the premise
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is basically you sign up for this email and every day about 10 AM, we send an email with about 500
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words about a particular bottle of wine, the history of the people, you know, why I think
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it's special, how I found it, food and wine pairing. We have a link to an actual recipe
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with everything and the type of glass where you should drink it with. And we have, you know,
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about the best price of the country that you'll be able to find it considering that we do pay
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for shipping. Um, if you buy under $200 worth of the wine, it's a $20 flat shipping. For example,
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if you buy a $20 bottle, it costs me more than $20 to ship it. So we charge $20 flat shipping.
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If you spend over $200, it's free shipping. And we, it just seems to balance that way.
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Um, that way we can stay in business because shipping is so expensive. You know, shipping
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a six pack will cost somewhere between 25 and $55 a bottle, depending on where you're shipping it
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around the country. Yeah. So the cobblest is a daily email offer company that we're launching
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other, you know, avenues, uh, like a monthly club. We're going to do $125 four pack every
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month with a different theme. So people can look for that, uh, in the coming month or so it'll,
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should be live on the website. And then we have, uh, yeah, private client division. So we're,
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you know, if you need anything, you can email info at the cobblest.com and request what you're
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looking for. If you want, you know, a cellar to be made to fill in your, in your house,
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wherever you are in the country, 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, we have an events division, so I can fly in and put on a show,
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um, and do a blind tasting education for anybody who wants to learn about wine for their household
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or a small group of their clients. Um, we've done, uh, I've done events up to actually 150 is my max
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a couple of years ago, but as we do around 30 to 80 people, don't forget my favorite part.
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