Why Organic Champagne? David Shares His Passion Pt. 1

Forrest Kelly
00:00:00

Welcome. Welcome to the best five nine in one podcast with Forest Kelly, our guest.

Forrest Kelly
00:00:06

Founder of avidvines.com Avid Vines Organic Champagne.

Forrest Kelly
00:00:12

Standing apart The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast

David Aferiat
00:00:16

David Aferiat, Avid Vines LLC.

We are all about making the rewards merit the routine by specifically importing organic champagne from France, from owner growers to the US for people who appreciate sharing amazing experiences and celebrating this moment and thriving in the next, with no regrets. Yeah.

Forrest Kelly
00:00:38

Okay, David, you have got a rich history here and I have got a question. Question from head to toe. Let's get into your background and where you were raised and kind of the journey that led you to where you are now.

You were born and raised where.

David Aferiat
00:00:53

That's a great question. So I actually separate the two. Where you're born and where you're raised is really defined by where you learned how to drive.

So because you're chauffeured, you're born. You can be born anywhere. You chauffeured around until you learn how to drive. Then you become invested in where you live.

So in my case, I was born in Buffalo, New York, but I am from two places where I learned how to drive. One was in Dallas, Texas, and the other one was in Provence, France, in a town called Toulon, which is bar in the Mediterranean.

Forrest Kelly
00:01:22

Pinch me, that's where you're beginning your introduction to wine and champagne.

David Aferiat
00:01:28

So my introduction to wine and champagne really started early on with a kind of ease and relaxation around the table. Where my mom was an excellent. Is an excellent cook.

Wine was just not something like, you know, keep away, but say, here, try a little taste and use it as an ingredient. Or think of it as like salt and pepper to a meal.

I didn't say, I wouldn't say I was an immediate fan to it, but certainly as I went to, as I learned how to start driving and I went off to college, I was one of the first ones of my group in my fraternity, for instance, to kind of say, hey, look, this is. Everyone would go out, like on a midnight run to Taco Bell, and I would save those marbles. And I would say, look, I'm gonna hold back.

And I actually worked a hotel. I was like a front desk, and I turned into a kind of a concierge for the NBC suites that I worked at.

And I would have like this huge map with pins on it. Well before the Internet, before like Yelp or anything like this. And I would like, I said, save my marbles.

I would take a friend of mine and I'd say, hey, let's go to this nice Place, you know, for saving up for the week and have a nice meal. And then I'd come back and they'd be like, okay, great. If you want some great Italian, you go here.

If you want a great Indian, try this around the corner. And I, from.

So from early on in college, for sure, sure, I was more about what's the experience of, you know, of, of, of food and how can I understand what people are trying to do and present, you know, and appreciate it.

And then I've subsequently become a lot of my friends are chefs, and I have, through osmosis and being around them, learned some, you know, incredible knife skills and elevated my game to, you know, I've never taken formal training, but, but gosh darn it, I'm a pretty good chef. And so you have to appreciate that develops your palate, bringing in, you know, champagne, that. It's a big endeavor to, to, to.

To really get into partnership with the kinds of champagne houses that I find and I meet with, you know, you're making a multi year commitment and, and, and a capital commitment.

And so you've got to be pretty fine tuned about, you know, I, I like to bring in what I like to bring in, and I like to share it with people that I think can appreciate my palette as the filter, as the curator. You know, it's like a museum. So, you know, I better be very on, on point, and I can explain a quick story, you know, about that.

But the point, the larger, you know, point is that I've had champagne and wine in my life for a long time, right up until the point where as I started, you know, getting a little bit older, started getting headaches from champagne. And I'm not talking about kava or prosecco. You know, those things would usually give me a headache, but from champagne, I started getting headaches.

And I was like, this isn't right.

So I was on the search to find something, and it naturally led me to organic production methods where they don't spray anything on the, on the vines and they don't put, you know, nitrates and additional kind of enhancements into the ground to get more yield.

No, these are farmers who treat every intervention if there's a bug or infestation of some sort with just water, vinegar, lemon, as opposed to chemicals. And they're on top of their vineyards all the time to monitor for such kind of conditions.

And you know, the most champagne houses have to buy their grapes in order to meet worldwide demand. The champagne houses and the growers that I meet with say, look, I'M not going to sell my harvest.

I'm going to hold it back, put my name and my family's name on it. And by golly, you know, this is, this is what I want to sell. I'm not just going to make money on selling grapes to the next big house.

Yeah, those are the kinds of people I want to bring, you know, to, to an audience in the US who really appreciate champagne, frankly, unlike any other that's mass produced from grapes and purchased from every corner of champagne. And these are from specific plots, from specific vineyards. And the result is just a heightened experience of enjoyment. And I love it.

I want to share it with others.

Forrest Kelly
00:05:28

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Forrest Kelly
00:05:31

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Forrest Kelly
00:05:34

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