Conan.

O'brien needs a fan.

Want to talk to Conan?

Visit teamcoco.

Com/call-conan. Okay, let's.

Get started.

Oh, my God.

Oh.

I hear someone. I hear someone, but I...

Hi, Yvon. Welcome to Conan O'Brien.

Needs a fan. Hi.

Hi, Yvon. How are you?

I'm well.

How are you? I'm doing very well. Tell us where you're coming from.

I'm coming from Hastings City in Hawks Bay, New Zealand.

Oh, you're in New Zealand. Okay. I love your very colorful background. I love with the flowers in your hair. You're very colorful. I'm just loving it. Very cheerful. What time is it where you are?

So it's 11:00 AM on Wednesday morning and it's a beautiful spring day here in Hawks Bay. But the weather has been quite poxy lately, so I thought I should just put some color on.

What is poxy? Poxy means, in my mind it means that there's a disease spreading. Is that what you're saying? The weather has been spreading a medieval disease?

Yes, Conan, it has. Sounds lovely. Yeah, glumbness and doon.

Well, the New Zealand Tourist Bureau must love you. Come to New Zealand for the pops.

It's just been one of those seasons. The start of spring, you just never know from day to day what you're going to get.

You never know.

Everyone thinks it's... You think it's going to be sunshine and flowers and blossom all the time. Then you get a couple of days of murkiness and rain and it's like, oh. I was thinking that might be happening today, so I thought I'd put some stuff on that was bright and low.

Well, guess what? You look fantastic. You look beautiful. Everything is popping. Thank you. And tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do for a living?

I do lots of things, but my core business, as I'm supposed to say, is I'm a wine writer. I taste wine for a living.

You taste wine for a living? This sounds like a fantastic job. How does that work? Do you taste wines at night? How does it work? When does your day start?

My day usually starts quite early, so the best time for me to start is as early as I can. Sometimes it's 7:00, 8:00 in the morning, and I'll get up and quietly pad out to my desk, which is actually my kitchen table where I'm sitting now, and I'll start tasting wines because-.

Wait, at 7:00 in the morning?

Yeah, well, because my brain's fresh and my taste buds are fresh. There hasn't been stuff happening to them during the day. I haven't had a zillion cups of coffee. The only thing that's not fresh is my teeth, because you don't clean your teeth before you start tasting wine.

Right. You can't brush your teeth before you taste wine because you're just going to be tasting the Crest toothpaste. I'm getting money for.

Them to taste Crest.

I know.

Specifically they're a brand. We don't have Crest over here. What's great about Crest? Why should.

I be using this? Oh, I don't know. I just said that. But now with extra whitening powders.

Have you ever considered brushing your teeth with wine?

Yeah. Would you ever brush your teeth with wine?

Well, yes, you can brush your teeth with wine, but the outcome won't be that great. So particularly if it's red wine, after a day of tasting red wine, your teeth can go this really attractive bluey, purple, gray, and it sticks and everyone wants you to.

Smile and it's like... Yvonne, you say that you get up at seven in the morning and you start drinking and you drink.

Throughout the day. Tasting, Conan.

Tasting. Tasting.

You're not drinking it. No, no, no. Tasting and tasting and tasting. And then you- Do you actually write about it later on or are you just an alcoholic?

I write about it later on. So the thing is I've got special equipment. My most treasured possession is my spit bucket, which I carry with me everywhere. It's got its own handle, see?

That's nice. So you walk.

Around carrying a bucket. I can.

Take it around town. -carrying a bucket. That's nice. Well, this regurgitated wine. Yeah.

How lovely. Yeah, you don't want to look inside it. It's not pretty. But the thing is, you look at the wine, you sniff the wine, you swish it around in your mouth, you think, Okay, what am I smelling? What am I tasting? And you're writing notes the whole time, and then you.

Spit it out. You must get some alcohol, though. Some alcohol must get passed through various capillaries in your mouth, right?

Yes. Yeah, a.

Little bit, for sure. Do you ever get a little... I mean, after a long day of just even wine tasting, do you ever get a little tipsy? Yes.

I mean, you can't help it. Well, not tipsy, but it's exhausting after a big day. If you're judging at a competition and it's over 100 wines a day, but by the end of it, for start, you do not want to drive. You don't want to operate any heavy machinery or anything involving a lot of technology. You probably just want a cup of tea and a beer at the end.

Of it. And then some more wine.

Yeah.

But it's a.

Lot of fun.

Yvon, this is fascinating to me because I've always thought that even the guy who tastes ice cream at the ice cream factory, at the end of the day, he must have some days where he's like, Oh, my God. If I have to have another taste of ice cream, I'll go crazy. Can you enjoy a glass of wine when you go out to a restaurant? Or is that the last thing you want when it's your job?

Well, like I said before, if it's been a really big day of tasting, if I've tasted a lot of wine, then yeah, I want a Negroni or a nice cleansing ale or whatever.

Or something like that. Or just like some pills or something. Pills definitely. Something that gives you a high, but it's like a clean high. A clean.

High, yeah. A clean high that can't be smelled on your breath.

That's fascinating.

Yeah. Well, I guess sometimes if you go out to a restaurant, everyone goes, they hand you the wine list. They go, Oh, you choose. You choose what we all drink. Come on. It's like, Sometimes I don't want to do that. Other times you'll have friends that go, Oh, let's go out for a girls' night. Let's go have wines. I'm like, Yeah.

It's your profession. There's no way that you can just chill and enjoy a glass of wine because all your friends are going to like the wine. But you're going to be thinking, A little bit too many citrus notes for a cab. I'm tasting cinnamon when I feel I should be tasting basalt.

Yeah, possibly not salt.

Well, maybe a little bit of salt. I said basalt. I meant the rock.

Basalt.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, like a mineral. Oh, we're trying to think. Yeah, basalt or granite or graphite characters. You're good. You're good at this.

Oh, I just say things. I don't think that I actually have a good palette. How would we know if I have a good palette?

Well, we're actually prepared to test this. Oh, good. Where you said that maybe we could give him some food, he could describe them, and you could tell if he really has a.

Knack for this or not. Yeah. Do I have a palette or not? Do you think you could tell?

Yeah, because everyone does. Everyone has a pallette. But some people can actually verbalize what they're smelling and tasting better than others. Everyone can taste. It just takes practice. I don't know, what have we got to throw in front of you? We've got a biscuit or a cracker or.

Some toaster. I've just rated our teen cocoa snack cabinet. From the fruity side of things, we've got Welsh's fruit snacks, if that's for your fruitier wines. For your more autumnal, we've got Bear, baked, crunchy, Fuji and Reds, apple chips. And then finally, if we want to go something just a little bit more baseline, we've got Barnum's, Animal Crackers. What do you guys think is best?

Well, I'm going to defer to the expert, Yvonne. Yvonne, what do you think I should be tasting?

Oh, my goodness. So hold the options up again for me to have a look at...

-animal crackers, apple chips, fruit snacks.

-animal crackers, apple chips.

Fruit snacks.

I think apple chips. Let's go the apple chips.

-okay, all right. I'm looking forward to this. I don't understand what. If I know what it is ahead of time, isn't that cheating? I'm just going to say it tastes like apple. No. It's got a chicken.

No, no, no. I want you to tell me what apple. Because you have different apple varieties, right? Yeah, but I don't know.

What does.

It.

Smell like? I don't know about apple varieties. I don't get out much. Okay, is it-.

I was raised. -do you think it smells like a red apple or a green apple?

All right, right now I'm smelling. I'm getting red apple. I think it's a red apple.

It's also.

On the package. Yeah, it says, Fuji and Reds. Well, I didn't see that. I actually didn't see that. And there's a red apple. And you're really.

Good at BSing too. You're doing a blind testing.

I didn't see that. I honestly didn't see that. But I feel like you could make it up. All right, well, deconstruct away. I'm trying to do something legitimate here. Oh, you're trying to take this here. I didn't know that. All right, so I'm looking just at you. I'm not looking at the package, but I did sense it was a red apple. Should I taste it?

Yes, taste it. Think about it. Does it taste really sweet or is it dry or is it creamy? Does it have a crunchy texture or does it have a rubbery texture?

It has a tang.

A sharpness to it. Okay. Would you say it's refreshing or soothing?

I would say no, it's not refreshing. It's because I know my brain is saying, Oh, it's an apple. But then it's all dry and crunchy. So my brain is saying, Red alert, red alert. This is a dried-up old apple that you found. It's from the Civil War or something.

And then that's what you write?

That's what you write down? And that's your note. I would say this is an upsetting wine. Makes me think of a desiccated old fruit. Yeah, I think this is a terrible way to test my ability to check out wine. I think that Matt gave no thought to this. He just went to the snack cabinet, grabbed some shit.

I did pick out the three things that I.

Wanted to eat at that moment. I know. Now we're snacking.

Here's the thing.

Think about this. It's quite citrusy.

Okay, that's cool. But apple is not a citrus. It's a tree fruit. I know.

I'm telling you that it has a citrusy tang to it. I do think that it has-.

Here's a trip though, Conan. Here's something you can do. This is what I do when I'm tasting wine. I've got one right here. This is chardonnay.

Oh, good. I have a wine right here. Oh, good. This is turning out to be a good day. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, cool. Because we've got a big Chardonnay symposium happening in my town at the moment. So there's just Chardonnay everywhere. But what I do when I'm tasting wine is I sometimes think if this wine was a person, what person would it be? So I think about the wine with personality traits as well as aromas and flavors. So is this person fun? This is.

Turning more into a test of can I open a bottle of wine?

Oh, wait, it's got a cork. Yeah, it's got a cork. We don't see corks very often. Wait, why not?

Are you guys all screw tops now?

Well, a lot of the wine is under screw top because screw tops are amazing for wine. They are the greatest things ever, in my opinion.

Okay, I've poured myself just a little bit.

Great. Okay, now your glass... Actually, your glass is quite good. I like the shape because the shape is really important when assessing wine because you don't want one of those small, stumpy, short little glasses.

No, this is - You want an elegant one. This is aerating the wine. This is aerating the wine right now. I'm swirling the wine around as I've seen people do in movies. Yes.

But also you could go on Cirque du Soleil on it and hold it from the foot and swirl. See? Very good. Hold it from the foot. You're holding it from the.

Stem coming. Can I say one thing? This class is really dirty.

Yeah, dishbots all over.

These days. I mean, you know what the problem is? We have a podcast studio and Aaron Blay, who works for us- You could take that one. -is a bachelor. I think he lives... He's a hoarder.

He's not that good with the dishbots.

No, I think he wouldn't know a clean glass if it was shoved or the sun don't shine. So no, anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm sure some detritus is getting in there.

What do you think?

How am I doing?

You're doing very well. But the way you're holding it has given me anxiety. Okay. See how I'm holding the foot of the glass? Yeah, okay. Then you can do it like lots of swirling it. -put a bit of.

Rest action in it. -oh, look at Sona. I'm crushing it.

-oh, you guys got it too.

Sona is a professional drinker. Sona has been drinking- She's a professional. Thanks, Yvon.

You're doing exceptionally well, my darling. Right, okay, so now we're going to do a sniff.

Of it. This is going to be my new job. So I was drinking in the womb.

Oh, come on. There you were.

I had a nice wine glass in the womb. Okay, so I've swirled this about as much as I can swirl it.

Yeah, you've swirled it loads. So enough of the swirling. Now we're going to sniff it and we're not going to do any of this stuff, bullshit.

You just get your nose.

Right in there. You see people, you just get your nose right in there.

Are we trying the same wine right now? Oh, we are.

As her?

Yeah. Oh, well, what a great experiment. Let's have someone in New Zealand with a glass of wine and someone in Los Angeles with some cookies and put them on Zoom and see if they have the same notes.

It's Rayburn, Russian River Valley Chardonnay 2020.

Rayburn? Okay, great. So it is a Chardonnay. Brilliant. All right.

All right. And you have a Chardonnay. Let me tell you what.

I'm getting. I have a Chardonnay. I have the Tony Bish- Nice label. -poolstay Chardonnay. This is called the… What's that called? Toney Bush? Is that called?

Bish. Tony Bish? I'm sorry. I went a different way.

What? Can you see that?

Yeah.

So Tony Bush. Now he is the absolute guru. He's like the Gandalf of Chardonay making here in New Zealand. He is Mr. Chardonnay. That's all he does. He just makes Chardonnay the whole time. So this is his heartwood, and it's beautiful. Anyway, enough. I love him. We're going to smell it, and we want to smell interesting things. I'm in my New Zealand, Chardonnay.

I'm.

Getting aromas of toasty oak, like rising dough, biscuits and roast peaches, toasted stone fruit, and like toasted stone fruit and spice. Just a little.

Bit of spice. I'm getting hints of microphone. Oh, no. Wait, my microphone is closer to my nose than the wine. Hold on a second. Well, that'll do it. I'm getting essence. We're waiting. Yeah. I don't know. I don't have good words. Use your words.

Okay. Does it smell fruity? Does it smell fruity? Yes, it smells fruity.

Okay. What fruit does it smell like? It smells fruity, but it also.

Smells- What fruit does it smell like?

I'm getting a grapefruit. Oh. Okay. Good. That's great. I'm also getting-.

What if he's wrong, though? Because I'm reading the label.

No, he's not wrong because grapefruit is in the shardinay. You definitely get grape fruity characters in good chardonnay.

So well done. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay.

And it is have a little bit of a mineral. It doesn't-I'm going to say it feels a little drier than a normal Chardonay.

Let's taste it. Let's taste it.

Well, I think Sona already did. I swallowed it. Is it okay to swallow? You can swallow. It's all right. You don't need the bucket. Oh, come on. Easy.

What are you guys getting up to down there?

What? That's how you do it. You haven't had anyone spit on microphone before?

I'm not judging you. This is very nice. I'm going to say for podcast wine, this is pretty good.

This cool marine-influenced region is perfectly suited to exceptionally flavored Chardonnay. Fresh layers of green, apple, and pear are accented by a creamy richness due to Sir Lee aging.

Okay. Okay, so do you know what Sir Lee aging means? And this is a tip for anyone that's listening, watching. If someone goes Sir Lee, it doesn't mean moody and angry, which is what Sir Lee, S-U-R-L-Y means. Sir Lee means on lese. So the Lies, when the yeast is finished doing its ferment and it's basically dyed, they drop to the bottom of the barrel or the tank, and they form like a really attractive grey-green paste in the bottom of the vessel. Some winemakers will leave the wine on the Lies for an extended period of time, or they'll stir the leaves through the wine, which gives a creamy textural character through the wine. So if you see Sir Lee on the back label of a wine bottle or on a tasty note, you can go, Ah, right. So it's been aged on its leaves, and everyone will think you're a guru. Okay. Yeah, but that's a really great descriptor. It's really good. The mineral thing is interesting, Conan, because when you have grapes by the seaside, you're going to get that saline character in the soil. You're going to get on the leaves of the vines, and that's all going to end up in the berries, and what's in the berries ends up in the wine.

So you did really well. That's great.

This isn't my podcast anymore. This is not Conan O'Brien Needs a fan.

This is now- Then here's.

Another thing. This is Wine Talk.

Can you please be quiet?

She's trying to have a host. Our host is Yvonne. Go take it, Yvonne. We're pairing it with animal crackers.

Is that good? Perfect. Okay. Yeah, pair it with anything. But one thing I want you to think about, guys, so Sona, this could be for you. One thing that I think about when I'm trying to figure out is this a great wine? Is it a really good value wine? Is it deliciously made? Think about the length of flavor. So have a sip, swallow it, and then just count how long you can still taste that wine for. Because so many wines, you pour it in the glass and it looks pretty and you sniff and you go, That smells delicious. And then you taste it, you're like, Yeah, that's really nice. Then it just disappears and you're like, Well, I'm going to have to keep sipping to keep the thrill alive. And before you know it, you're wrapped around the clothes line.

Outside going, Oh, yeah. I think we all know what it's like to chase that thrill. When you chase that thrill down a bottle, the bottle always wins. The bottle always wins.

The bottle.

Will always win. I find the animal crackers are overpowering the wine. The animal crackers. And maybe just because these are powerful animals.

But all I'm getting - But does your wine have good persistence.

And flavor? -it can't fight the animal crackers. I don't know what I would have to be drinking, and probably vinegar to fight this animal cracker taste. But this is a very good white. I like this white. I think my issue is what I don't like is I don't like a heavy wine. I don't like a heavy cab, unless it's paired, of course, with a thick steak, say. But I'm just- Well, speaking- Yes?

Well, speaking of Cabinay, you know how before I said that sometimes I like to think of wines as people or the personalities that they have? I thought about you, Conan, about what I would... If you were a wine, what tasting note would I write about you? It just came to me just while I was waiting because we had some technical issues. I thought about maybe Chateau, Conan Christopher Cabinac, 1963, because I Googled you, going rate $11.99 at most supermarkets. $11.99? Wow. It's a good price. It's a cost of a.

Living crisis. That's a good price for a wine that's 60 years old with.

Episodes of Desperate Housewives.

So here's what I wrote. Correct me and I'm probably wrong here, but I'm figuring-.

No, go for it. Go for it, Yvonne, I trust you.

A long, leaky red that despite hitting its peak drinking window in 2009, is still clinging to layers of seasoned, saddle leather, aromas of roast, beachroot, freshly plowed earth, and Keith Richards. Flavor wise, it has complex nuances of old swamp sandals and wet dog and blueberryries and new money.

Finishing.

With a sinewy, gum tingling, skeletally dry tannins and delicious textures to finish.

You're going to hear from my lawyer. You've consulted me roundly. No, that's very nice. I like that. I would taste that wine based on that description. Yeah. Well, Yvonne, this is nice, and you gave us, Wow, Sona, why don't you pour yourself a little more? Glad you're not breastfeeding right now. Funny. Your kids would crash their little tricycles.

Good. I also remembered that you like, speaking of tricycles, you like bikes, right?

Bicycles? Yes, I do.

Yeah. So I bought my- She's a bike tester. -my... Yes.

I'm.

Getting notes of ass. From one of my recent tastings, I took out the inner tubes of the bike tires and made these earrings. Oh, cool.

Those are fantastic.

I thought those were feathers. I thought those were feathers too. I thought those were feather, too. From bicycle tire rubber. That's terrific. And as won by our ex-prime minister, just under our doing all these earrings.

Very nice. You're clearly insane. And what we're going to do is have you arrested. I'm contacting the authorities in your town. They're coming in through the window. You have bicycles hanging from your ears. You're trashed on your 90th wine of the day. No, this is very nice. I don't know that I have the capability to be a great connoisseur of wine. I don't think I have that ability, but I sure like that numbness that comes after the third glass.

The numbness. Well, I don't know about that, but this is why we're.

Tasting - Oh, I do know about that. It's good. -i spit. All the pain goes away.

To give you some idea as well of how seriously I do take my job, and there are lots of people like me that do this for a living and seriously, my business card, I don't know if you can see that there, has a chief tasting officer. Very good.

You do take yourself very seriously. That's good. It's good to take your... What's it like to take your profession seriously?

I take what I do seriously.

But everyone else takes it as a total joke. I have no idea. I have no idea. Well, it was very nice talking to you, Yvonne. I think I've learned a lot. I will not be eating. First of all, what I've learned is that these animal crackers are stale. They're very they're stale. And I think they've been in our- I didn't notice. I didn't think you would. They're not crispy at all. They're just, yeah. They're nice when they're soft. Sure. Okay. Okay. I said no lady ever.

Yeah, like I am. But you did very well on-.

Sorry, dick joke.

Anyway, a cockroo.

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Yvonne, it was really nice talking to you. You are a bright spot in our day. You're bursting with color. And it's nice to think of you down there in New Zealand drinking all this incredible wine and being a force of positivity in the world, I say. That's what I say.

Thank you, Conan. We do try.

Thank you. The depression that comes after drinking is settling in. I'm returning to my native Ireland in my mind.

This has been so fun.

It's been really nice talking to you, Yvonne, on. Thank you so much for making time for us. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

This is great. The whole of New Zealand is.

Very nice. Well, thank you very much. You have a great day. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Enjoy that proxy weather.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Cessian, and Matt Gordley. Produced by me, Matt Gordley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, nick Leau, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Year Wolf. Themed song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it.

Away, Jimmy.

Our supervising producer is Aaron Blaert, and our Associate Talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Eduardo Perez, additional production support by Mars Mellnik. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Bautista, and Rick Kohn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco Hotline at 6695872847 and leave a message. It, too, could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Cocoa production in Association with Airwall.