Hello, hello guys. Welcome back to the Exotic Wine Travel live stream. It's been a couple weeks since we did one of these, but I met somebody that was really inspiring. It's doing a lot of great work in the wine industry and producing distributing wines I think that you need to know about. So, we'll get to her in a second. This week a lot of stuff going on. We actually have just launched our Patreon community, so you might want to check that out. We're going to have a lot of behind the scenes stuff. You get a chance to interact with us in a deeper level and also keeps our YouTube channel, our website, everything alive. So, check that out. I'll put that in the description box. But without further ado, I'm going to introduce somebody that I am very excited to talk to and I'm going to tell you why. First of all, if you follow work, you know that I love Spanish wines. You know, I cut my teeth in terms of some higher quality wine on Spanish wine, but since we've been doing this within the wine industry, we really haven't been back to Spain in a few years. And Spain is kind of a big hole in my professional wine knowledge for Europe. So, luckily we have somebody there to fill that gap. This is Nicola Thornton. Did I pronounce that right? Good welcome. Nicola, the co-founder and the owner of the Spanish palette. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being on. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. I've been following you on your travels around the world and yeah, very envious. Yeah, it's good and it's bad. You know, I have nothing to complain about. But let's get to you. We actually talked before and I immediately, I really, really enjoyed talking to you. You have such an inspiring story. You want to just share what the Spanish palette is all about, your story, how it came to be? Okay. Well, be told by the name and by the accent that I'm originally from the UK. And just by chance, I decided to change my law degree to International Business with Spanish, which took me to Spain. And everybody else that I knew had already been to Spain on holidays. I've never been to Spain. And I came to Valladolid, which is an old university city. And it's in what I call the middle of the four religions, which are wine regions, the Gales Rivera, the Gales Rivera, you know. And my Spanish friends just introduced me to the world of Spanish wine and I completely fell in love with Spain and its wines. And I thought, how can I go back to England to the rain? And no, this is my place. So I just after nine months, I decided to stay. And, you know, Destiny was very kind to me and introduced me to director of the Chamber of Commerce at the time. He said, you come and work for me. I was like 22 or something like that, 22 at the time. He said, I need you to help me bring importers from all over the world to help these wineries in the region of Castilian to export. I was like, great. And so I spent a year travelling around Castilian wine regions with importers and wineries. And it was the best training. And I knew then that wine was my thing and that was my destiny. And Chance took over and I ended up in Toro and somebody said, you need to come work for me. And I'm like, okay, 23, come and be my export director. I was like, yeah, great. So if I went to Toro, I arrived in Toro. It's a beautiful medieval little town in the middle of nowhere basically surrounded by some of the world's oldest vineyards and amazing architecture. And it's real Spain with all the character and some of the world's finest wines. And I was like, this is my destiny. This is what I'm supposed to be doing, helping these farmers to continue to move forward. So I moved to Toro and I was working for an old rundown co-op at the time and they had virtually no sales. And together with a young team, we worked seven days a week. It was like most of us, it was like our first job and it was such a community spirit, the whole village pulling together. And we built up the wine and it was great and it was a co-op and co-ops have their pros and cons. And so after seven years, it was time for me to move on to one of the classic wineries in the region, was there for 10 years. And then when you come up to 40 and you have loads of ideas and you still have lots of things to do, it was like my make or break moment. And I thought, you know, I have all these farmer friends that I live next door to these wonderful farmers. And I thought I have to do something so that these farmers can have a better future. And I had a load of amazing friends that were making small production fine wine, but they weren't exporting it. And I was like, I have to give these guys a hat. So in 2016, I threw caution to the winds and set up Spanish palette. So we do a couple of things. We make our own wine from all these wonderful farmers that I adore. And then we look after the export department and more things as well for some of the finest wine producers in Spain. So lots of fun. Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say 22-23. So that was like three years ago, maybe. So guys, if you want to jump in with your comments, just put them through and we'll answer them as we go along and we'll try to take some at the end. So before I get to Spanish palette, here's one thing that came up right immediately. When people knew that we were going to do this live stream, people ask all the time, they always say, Toro, Toro, think of big, oaky, ripe wines. But that's kind of changing now, right? There is that wine, but it's changing as well, right? It's changing a lot. And I've been here for 23 years. And during that time, it's changed immensely. I mean, Toro in the Middle Ages, it was famous for being the best wine in Spain. Okay, so 14, 15, 1600s. It was the best wine in Spain because it was 16, 17 and 18% alcohol naturally. Because we started the harvest on the 12th of October. And the reason for that is at that time, the only way to preserve wine was with alcohol. So if the higher the alcohol, the longer the wine would last. And at that time, we often was considered sort of the cheap stuff. And so Toro had this glorious past. He was the first wine to leave Europe to get to the Americas, which is incredible. Christopher Columbus took wine with him from Koto. And we still have the original sellers that wine at that time was being shipped from Europe to the Americas. These sellers are still intact in Toro, about 60 meters underground and intact. It's amazing. So Toro has like this all underground system of medieval sellers that are perfectly intact. And so the times have moved on and Toro didn't move on with the time. So it was almost died out almost until sort of 1980s. It was completely on its feet, almost in ruin, the whole region. And then it began to change during the 90s. Late 1990s, some of the top producers from Bordeaux, from Rioja, from Ravel da Duero, everybody came. Bega Sifili, all the top names, they came to Toro. And there was this whole revolution. And the alcohol levels, we were still sort of 14.5, somewhere up there. And now we're in the next stage of Toro. But really, because we're in a high flat plateau, it's really hot. And the sugar levels go really high really quickly. So if you pick at low alcohol levels, then you're not getting full right, the polyphenols are not right. So you can't have Toro without the alcohol, but you can have Toro without the feeling of heavy rustic, heavy-wise. And that's what we kind of did as well. Oh, that's great. Let's taste the first Y and then we'll carry on with more with our conversation. Let's taste the white, because you do also, just to be clear to the audience, you distribute and you manage exports of some personal sellers of small family wineries. But you also have a project with some of the wines we're going to taste together here, where you're working with cooperatives, small farmers and creating like a Spanish palette brand, right? Yeah. But it's basically sort of a one-stop shop for the world for everything that's going on in space. And it's not just Toro. So let's first taste the rueda. You talk about this while I open it, because I haven't opened it yet. So you go ahead and you talk about the wine. This must be Verdeo or is it a blend? Does it have Sauvignon Blanc in it as well? Is it 100% Verdeo? This is both as the battle of 2019. And in 2019, it was a super harvest in rueda. 2018 was a bumper vintage, so the Vedejo lacked a bit of character and power. So in the 2018, we added a little bit of Sauvignon. Okay. But with the Vedejo 2019, no need for the Sauvignon Blanc. So it's 100% Sauvignon Blanc. And here we work with a small co-op in La Seca, which is right in the center. Yeah.  And also the cork, you can turn it round. And if you don't drink the whole bottle, you can put it back in the fridge. Yeah. That is round. And you get it back in the bottle. It's a perfect little stopper. You know what is so funny? The reason that when we first had our conversation, I was drawn by your enthusiasm. Also the fact that you're working with cooperatives, I always push people.  My dad's a grain farmer. We took our grains to the co-op. Obviously not making wine or alcohol, but they're really important in communities. They're extremely important. I think the idea of a cooperative is perfect. You get all of the small farmers all pulling their resources together to defend a dignified way to live and not being exposed to the fluctuations of the price of their crop. Yeah. Numbers in power and all that kind of thing, power in numbers. I can't even speak English anymore. I've been here that long. The only thing is you have to have great management. That's the downfall of a lot of cooperatives, unfortunately. But they have all the best raw material, right? So all you need is just to be able to nurture that raw material to making some fantastic wines and at great prices as well. And it's a whole kind of spirit of the community and things which I really love about the crops. But the management, it's difficult. You can't have too many chiefs and not enough Indians kind of thing. I don't know if that's... No, yeah, yeah. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians. Guys, I push co-ops like crazy. I get some fantastic wines. They really cold communities together. I smell a lot of time in Sardinia where cooperatives are vitally important. Portugal, I mean, a lot. One thing I have to ask about this brand, this cooperative. Do all the growers have to send their best fruit? Or do some of the growers keep some? Or do they are under contract? They have to send the best fruit to the cooperative. Yeah, I mean, the only way that the co-ops can work is if you're like, you can't separate the top stuff from the middle stuff to the entry level grips, right? So it's all about having one place to defend the power in numbers. So if you've got the good stuff, it balances out the mediocre stuff as well. So yeah, they all have to go. And all of the grapes go into the same place. You know, I haven't tasted these wines yet. I have to just because I wanted to get prepared for the call. Last night, Shireen and I, people know Shireen, you haven't met her yet in person. So we opened the Botus Del Vado, Almanza Old Vine, Garnacha. And I didn't know what to expect. And I have to say, and I'm saying this 100% right now, I was really impressed with what you're doing at that price point, that type of wine. It's exactly, it's just a pure Spanish wine in my opinion. It's what I think of when I think of Spanish Garnacha. So I have high hopes for the rueda. My Spanish. In terms of the price points of wine, Spain is still undoubtedly the best value in the world. If you pay $20 for a wine from any other country, you'd pay $10 from Spain. And I think wine should have a place in every day, not just wait for Saturday and Sunday or Friday to drink a nice bowl of wine.  So all of our own brands are all about great value. Oh, giving up on that and character and character and flavor. I mean, for me, the Iberian Peninsula, Spain, Portugal kills it value for money. Germany also with whites, not with reds, because the reds can be so expensive. But let's give this the first, the first, it's got a little bit of flintiness to it, which I like, but Verdejo is a very high quality grape variety used to be made for used to be made into sherry style wines, correct? Is the region, the region of Rwanda just two hours northwestern Madrid, and it's all about white wine. They had a little go at making red wine some time ago, but they're back to 100% white wine. And traditionally, when Toro was the king of red wines, Rwanda was the king of white wines with the palomino fino grape, which is sherry. But they soon figured out that that had a sort of lack of character and it needed to do something about it. So 1979, Marcus de la Scal came in and saw the Verdejo as, you know, the character for grape and everybody sort of followed. And today, you know, it's one of the most, probably one, number one, number two, white variety from Spain. And I always think from Rwanda, it's hard to make mediocre wines. I'm just completely in love with this region. And you have different price points. You have a Monday, Tuesday kind of Verdejo, so you can have a Saturday night Verdejo. What does this, this is, you take, we'll talk about this later, but you send these wines all around the world, right? Canada, US, UK, Europe, everywhere, right? Well, we're working with 43 different countries right now. So we have over 100 wines in the portfolio. So it's about 43 different countries. So, you know, we've been going for four years, so we still have a lot of work to do. That's impressive. But in Spain, how much can I get this wine on the shelf? In Spain, this is about between 758, €50 on the shelf. So what I'm going to say right away from me tasting my, you know, this is, so if anybody, anybody following our work knows, we like these odd grapes, I get so excited about Italian white varieties because I'm sure I talked about, they're so weird. You can vinify them just in stainless steel, simple like this, but they always taste different. That's what this Verdejo, it tastes obviously unique.  It has three months on the lease, just to give it a little bit of structure, a little bit of backbone up there.  It's quite lovely. I could definitely, especially with the Spanish cuisine. If I want, when I'm thinking of going to Spain, the first thing I always want to get is pimentos. Pimentos with a lot of olive oil. I can totally, I can totally see myself drinking this with that. Maybe some costa, some kind of sardine, some small whitefish type of dishes, I think would be also lovely. And I mean, I think at this price point, this is really fun wine. This is something that you're not going to kick out of bed. You can drink it every, like you said, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Friday, Fernanda. Pretty much, it's a crowd pleaser, too. Absolutely. I think this is, you know, you've come home from work. It's summer, or not even summer. And, you know, you want to crack open a bottle, have something nice and crisp and fresh and juicy while you're cooking. You know, have a glass of this and it's wonderful. You'll take it to the patio with tapas and that kind of stuff. And it's wonderful. One thing I know, we'll move on. Okay, so I've tasted two of your wines now, the Lotus Di Bardo Carnaccia and then the Rueda, and I have to say at these price points you're trying, you're not trying to make the greatest wines, the greatest long, most long-lived ones in the world, but these are not simple wines, they have subtle complexities to them. I think a lot of wine drinkers, I'm actually quite impressed, I think a lot of wine drinkers are going to be pretty impressed. Well, we're just trying to deliver over-deliver on the price, so be true to the region, give people something that they think, wow, this is how much I paid for this, this is worth double kind of thing, which is that's what, you know, especially now with all this uncertain times that are coming, you know, it's easy to make $50 retail wine, because you've got all of the resources and you know, you buy the best barrels, you go to the best vineyards. What I think has more merit is making amazing wine at under 10 euros through Spain. You know, I relate to that, because when I'm on press trips or when I'm visiting wineries a lot, obviously wineries, if they know you're in media writing, they want to show you the best, and I want to see a lot, I say, give me a couple of examples at the base level. I want to see what you're giving at the very basic level, even if it's, you know, in South Italy, different places, even if it's tap wine. I want to see what you're doing at the very bottom level. Absolutely. Let's move on to the Mitrector Azul, how is this different than Bottes de Baro? Okay, so here in Toro, we're on a flat, and I've lived in the next bit along to Toro, and when I first arrived, I would go from the winery, we, in the winery we worked from nine till two, and then everybody goes home for two hours for their lunch, and then you go back to work from four to seven or eight, and just before going back to the winery, we'd all nip into the local expresso place, and just for a quick expresso, you know, just to jolly yourself back up again, before going back into the winery, and I was the only female in this whole place, and I was in there, and there were all the farmers, and you know, I'm from the city in England, and in a little tiny village in Spain, it's all these guys with boots and big massive boots, and then I got to know these wonderful people, and I got to know their vineyards, and I thought, wow, how many pairs of muddy boots have these guys gone through, so that I can sit here and enjoy the wines, which is where the Bottes de Baro, the muddy boots comes from, and so in this range we make six wines, all from different regions, and all of these boots I have in my office, just right over there, the original boots, which come from real farmers, and they're just right here, and the idea was I like a little bit of oak, and especially I wanted it to focus on sort of an approachable price, so old vines, touch of oak, but I also love young, fresh, juicy, clean and crisp wines, reds and whites, with no oak whatsoever. We've got some wonderful varietals in Spain, and you know, in general we're all obsessed by oak, you know, let's put some oak in, let's make it more premium, and I'm thinking, well why don't we just leave it as it is, why not let, why do we have to alter it? So I created a sort of baby brand, it's like a mini Bottes de Baro, called Mitractor a Full, so my blue tractor, so I, yeah, my blue tractor, so it's the tractors that I see, the solitary tractors, that I see these farmers with the big boots, and you see them going up and down the vineyards for miles away, all by themselves, nurturing these wonderful, lovely vineyards, so Mitractor a Full Bottes de Baro, it's all for me, it's all about a homage to these farmers. So the Bottes is all their vines, and with a touch of oak, four to six months, depending on the wine, and Mitractor a Full is all about unadulterated, pure tinta de toro o garnacha tinta dera. Okay, well let's check, I forgot, I forgot, I was, I haven't been in Spain in a few years, Mitractor a Full, yes, that's it. You know what, it's so funny that you just had this, before we opened the Almanza, which is garnacha, which is one of my favorite red wine grapes. I'm not, last night, so, I can't believe that you said this, because this is going to justify everything you're doing. Last night we were doing, we were done with our tasting, so Shireen and I were like, we were drinking, we weren't getting, you know, we were drinking and enjoying with food, and we were finishing up a few shettin' of the pops that we had to taste, because we're working on a couple articles, some pretty serious wines, and then Shireen said, you know I want to open something that's, you know, I want to sip on something now that's, you know, fruity, has a little bit of complexity, you know, just fun to drink it on, think much about, and we opened the, the Bottas de Barro Almanza, and it's so funny, when first taste, she's like, oh, this is exactly what I wanted to drink, this is exactly what I wanted to drink. Right, so let's stop. Did you put a little bit of a chill on it? Yes, I did, I did, I chilled, I chilled, and I wrote about, and I wrote in my notes that it tastes really good chilled, it was really nice, I kept it today too, let's, let's taste the Anogue, this is Mitreco Almanza, this is 100% Garnacha, Garnache, but it's Garnacha Tintoreda, Tintoreda, yes. So, not the standard Garnacha that we're used to seeing, all around Spain, and southern France, so it's a, it's a hybrid, and that somebody wanted to create a varietal with thicker skins that give amazing color, so that they could sell it in bulk to be for the color of southern France, right? Yes. So, they created Garnacha Tintoreda, so Tintoreda means that the skin is red, but also the pulp inside is red. Oh, so it's a tentourier, so okay. Oh, you definitely see it, it's got an Alicante Boucher type of color in the glass. That is, that is exactly what it is, that is exactly what it is, and this is grown in Almanza, it's a huge co-op and they have the most, for the volume that they do, they do all kinds of different things, but the Garnacha Tintoreda is just incredible for the money, it's incredible, and when I was putting together botas, we were traveling all around Spain trying to find, you know, these co-ops that needed help and trying to find something that we could add value to, and I turned up in Almanza, and we tasted it, and I was thinking, how can we add Almanza to our range? Nobody knows Almanza, and we tasted it, and this wine kept shouting to us, add me to the botas range, and it's got our best thing, more so than Rioja, because it's just wonderful, it just hits all the right spots in terms of brightness, intensity, but on the palate, because it's on that Mediterranean, it's going towards the Mediterranean coast, so it has these lovely ripe, silky, poverty tannins, but without giving up the power on the nose and the color, but it's just lovely. You know, this reminds me of the nose and on flavor, it reminds me a lot of the alacante buches do very well in Alentejo in Portugal, kind of reminds me of that, there's a subtle violet note to it, kind of cookstrawberries, cherries, a little bit of stemminess, which I like, which I like a lot, smells, again, it's a lower price than Botas de Bado, right? Yeah, this retail is like 650, somewhere like that, so it's still 20 to 40 year old vines, they're all bush vines, all organically grown, and of course you have to pick by hand, but we hear the temperature fermentation, it's just 12 hours on the cold maceration initially, old and stainless steel, and then fermentation temperature is about 23, 24, 25, so a little bit cooler, just to maintain all of the freshness, and then filtering and finding, and if we go, so. I think there's a little bit of minority. It smells much more delicate, it smells a little bit floral, more delicate, but when you taste it, it definitely, you can tell it's Mediterranean wine, it comes at you, there's loads of fruit, this commercially I could see having tons of value, I mean I think this is just a cheerful, and this is also a wine I would serve chill, this is a barbecue wine, this is a barbecue wine. Absolutely, well it goes really nice on a Monday night with a pizza, a little bit of truffle. Yeah, I actually, so I like the Bota Sabato ganache a little bit more, but this, I like this chilled a lot, this is really, this is, oh to me I probably, the best comparison is Alicante Boucher, that's probably the closest thing that I have in my mind. Yeah, that's what it is, yeah, but here it's interesting in Almanza, I think Almanza is like the next big region for Spain, it's up and coming, it's at 900 meters, oh some above 900 meters, and it's between the hot plains of Almanza and so the Mediterranean coast, so it's got this really unique microclimate, so you've got the high altitude and you've also got a really sort of limestone calitha, like a white chalk, chalky soil, which gives this sort of minerality to the wine, but you've got lovely ripeness because you're down there, you've got the heat, but you've still got a nice bit of balance in the acidity because of the higher elevation. And they have, they have, I think the leading monastrel is still the leading grave there, right? There's a lot of monastrel there, like yeah, yeah, there's a whole bunch of regions, there's like four or five different regions all together, so Alicante, Yecla, Xomilla, Almanza, and certainly Xomilla is all about monastrel, and also Almanza, but people in Almanza realise what they have with their Garnacha, is their sort of signature grave and that's perfect. And you know this, I think in Spain you have sort of Madrid up, Madrid north, which is, I consider sort of like cool climate Spain, and you've got Madrid south, which is warm climate Spain. So the texture that you have on southern Spanish wines is much more sort of new world, and that makes it much more approachable for a certain kind of consumer, because you don't have this dry, harsh tanning that needs a lot of food. Well, I already can tell, I mean, I don't know if you're successful, I'm guessing in North America, North Europe as well, like Scandinavia type would probably like this wine. Big round, free, quite lush, I think.  We're selling this in, or we're selling this all over the place, we're just in conversations right now to get this into the United States, because this was a wine that came on board much later, then BOTAS, which is our first project. So we're selling this all over the place. Yeah, a lot of Europe and Canada, and we're in conversations for the US. I think this on the shelf, this would be about $10 or something like that. Once it gets to the US, you're talking about. Yeah, I mean, all of this wine for $10, $12 is a lot of wine for the price. Yeah, it is. Let's move on to your neck of the woods, so to speak, right? This is what you're excited, the toro. You did a toro, which is a phenotype of Tempranillo. Shares the same genetic code. I'm excited about this, this is how long in oak? This is five months in oak, right? Five months, yeah, yeah, five months in oak, and this is tinned to the toro. So Spain has been growing grape since time began, and everybody could plant whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and do whatever they wanted. Then the government started thinking, well, let's check this out. Let's put some order into what we're growing.  They started cataloging grapes, and here it was called tinned to the toro. So they looked in their catalog and they're like, oh, we don't have this grape. The leaf is different, the shape of the grape, the taste of the grape, everything is different. So it must be only found, you know, it's an octopus grape from toro. And then everybody thought the tinned to the toro was unique. All we found in toro. Cecibelle in la mancha, Udilebre in Catalonia, all of these. Oh, sorry, a connection. Sorry, everyone, our connections. Different names. You have about 16 different names, different grapes, and it turns out that the old Tempranillo. So 16 different names. I mean, it happens all like same in Italy for San Giovese. Why do you think the grape is so unique in toro? That's what somebody wants to know. Okay, well, every, you know, the grapes and vines are like people. We adapt to our place, right? We adapt to our environment. So here in toro, it's boiling hot in the summer. It's one of the driest regions in Spain. It's like growing grapes in the desert. We only have like 400, no, 350 milliliters of rain. Like London gets that in an afternoon. We could go for months with zero rain. So we have really harsh conditions in the winter. It's really, really cold. It's like minus five, minus seven degrees centigrade, really hot in the summer and no rain. So we have, you know, extreme conditions for growing grapes. Which leads to extreme adaptation. So we have a much smaller, a much smaller berry. Much thicker skins. So we have more skins pop. So we get more color, more flavor. It's like, it's like, Tempranillo on steroids.  You know, we're looking for less ripeness. We're looking for softer wines. And the opposite that in our cooler climates up in the mouth. I have to say so. I'm just smelling this immediately. So my lip, I don't know, toro professionally have tasted, obviously, biggest of theories. Pintia, you know, Bodega San Roman, so forth and so forth and so forth. I actually find myself, Sherry and I talk about this all the time, enjoying the more inexpensive, laid-back, less-oaked, tortoes. And that's what this reminds me of. It's 14-5, so it's not a monster at 15 or a book. You get the oak, definitely, but you still get plenty of that black cherry note that I like about Tempranillo. We always have this conversation here in the region that should we call it Tinto the toro, should we call it Tempranillo? Let's make it easy for everybody to understand what we're coming from, you know. But what I love about the Tinto the toro Tempranillo is its unique character here in toro. So you have this, you know, really sort of dark berry fruits, it's like a walk in the wild woods. You have the floral character, the violet, blue flower character, and you have a ton of licorice. And then plenty of plenty of black and red licorice for American friends.  I'm enjoying this. One thing that I love about Tempranillo and one thing that impresses me about toro, even if the wines can be a little bit too oaky is Tempranillo still has acidity. You still get this acidic root so the wines never feel too fat.  But I have to say, when you have these big high structured wines, there's a reason in America that Napa cabs go well at steak houses. I think toros go great at steak houses. Big ribera de dueros go great at steak houses. When you have grease, when you have something, when you have grease meat on your palate, olive oil, it really soaks it up and it brings the wood down but Tempranillo fruit still comes out. Yeah, absolutely. I mean toro, everybody thinks like these big massive toros. We have our palate conditioned toro. So for us, this is quite soft and easy but my goal with both of these wines, whether with mi tracto, we always make a toro, we always make a toro version too and then with botas, is make toro approachable because toro can be approachable.  I'm just joking. But it's definitely a more approachable red. It's a red that's appealing to my palate quite a bit. Not super highly structured. You're not going to get tons of tan and astringency. It's just juicy. It's fun to drink. I would love to have this with pizza. I'd love to have this with a pizza. Even, you know, it's like even at times, pastas, pastas, anything with tomato sauce. I think this is going to do wonderful. Absolutely. A little bit of arrabiata or something like that is beautiful. A little bit of Spanish cheese. In our region, toro is in Zamora, the province of Zamora, and we have some of the most amazing cheese called queso famorano. So it's pure unpasteurized used milk. Everybody knows matchego, but the good stuff, the good stuff is right here in toro. I mean, it's so funny when I'm in Spain, because Spain actually, I think actually has more named cheeses than France, if I'm correct. That's something somebody told me once. I don't know. I think getting up there, getting up there. But I remember there was some delicious cheese on my friend from San Sebastian. I said, what is this? She's like, I don't know. It's just queso. It was obviously, it was an artesano cheese. She's like, I don't know. It's just queso. We have some amazing cheeses, and we have amazing hams. Just in Salamanca, just from like an hour, 50 minutes south of toro, we have quejuelo with some of the best hams in the world. And that, with this, is super, perfect. Let's get to some questions here.  Not outside your, outside your brands that you do with cooperatives. How many other producers do you work with? I think we work with about 20. We have a core group of wineries, which are much smaller. And we look after all of the export, which is probably about 10. And then we collaborate with about another 10. But we're constantly getting calls every day. Nicola, come and help us. We want to sell our wine. And I was in last week, I went to Toledo. And this guy threw me up out of the blue in confinement and said, look, I've taken over the family vineyards. And these were planted by my great grandfather. Everybody else in the region has abandoned their grapes. And I want to revive this whole project. And he has Aiden. Aiden, a white varietal in Lamanca that was for the cheap and cheerful stuff. But he has an Aiden vineyard from 1936. And he has two vintages of this. And we went to taste with him. And he was so convinced that he could make some great stuff from this 1960s centipel and this 1936 Aiden. And I went to taste them last week. And I'm like, I have to help these guys. You know, they're making great stuff. So I'm already talking to China about them. You know, so all of those kind of little projects. He has like 15,000 bottles total production. Okay. So we have a lot of those things and new things that are coming on. I have a couple other questions here. How many regions do you actually work with? I think it's 21 right now. 21 regions. Wow. The 79, no, 69 DOs in Spain plus all the vine of the La Tierra and other sort of non-DO regions. Yeah. 69. 21 of those. Okay. We have another question. Do you work with any producers that are doing natural wines? And I had a call actually today. The thing about natural wines is, you know, if we're spending all of the time and effort and money in trying to find a customer an importer in the other side of the world. And when we ship them the wine, we lose control over that. You know, the containers are passing over really hot regions. And I'm a bit, I'm sort of holding off on that a little bit because I think natural wines should be consumed locally. Yeah. Maybe. No, that's a good philosophy. I know a couple producers that feel natural producers. I don't necessarily love that term, but let's just say natural producers say that they feel like to be a true natural wine. It has to be consumed locally as well. I have another question here. So are you doing anything in the more famous regions like any Cherries? I know you do Rebella Duero, Rioja? Yeah, we do. We have Priorette and Rioja and Rebella Duero. I don't have a Cherie. It's one of the things we have to do. I'm looking. I'm looking to see. But it needs to be somebody that I can help. And the thing is in Cherie and a lot of the producers are big, you know, from part of a big group. That's not our thing. We can't add our value to them. And that's my problem really with Cherie that I can't find somebody that I need to help. Well, the second you do, you have to give me a call because I love Cherie. I don't know. I love Cherie. Professionally. I don't know it well. I love the styles of wines. I especially love biological age wines. People that read this, I'm all about them. Sardinia produces brilliant ones. Hungary, some fantastic ones. So I'll be the first one to sign up. Okay. Well, guys. I love the Amantillado. Yes. Lovely stuff. And even the sweet stuff. Give me whatever. Doesn't matter. So guys, it's going to be cool. We're actually doing another call with Nicola coming up soon with a more premium producer in total, Coro Duero. I actually got the wines today. I just got them this morning. So I'm looking forward to that. So thank you. So is there anything you want to kind of share with, share about the Spanish palette before we sign off? Well, I think, you know, doing this confinement, I think the world is obviously changing. Of course it's going to change in all different aspects. And I think, you know, there's a move towards sort of shortening the gap between producer and consumer. And I think that's a, especially in Europe, where it's easy to ship. Of course, you know, it's difficult with the US and Canada, of course. But so we set up, you know, I'm trying to figure this out of how to get wines to consumers because a lot of the time, we have amazing wines and it's difficult to get them into the market because the importers are so saturated and they want the easy to sell stuff. So the more premium, quirky, interesting stuff gets left back in Spain. So I'm trying to work out how we can do sort of direct to consumer kind of stuff for the more quirky, interesting wines. And we're in Toronto and we would so love to receive you and share all of our underground sellers in the world, all these vineyards and we have yoga going on in the vineyard and all of this. So if anybody wants to come and visit us, we would so love to have you here in Toronto. Oh, that's great. I mean, I appreciate what you're doing. I think Spain, we have to understand Spain's the number one in the world in terms of vineyard area. There's so many jumps there. There's only a little, there's only press really about Rioja, Sherry, Priorat. Okay, now a little bit about in Galatheas, some of the regions there are starting to get hot, but there's so much there in Spain. So thank you for your time and sharing so much, sharing some of these interesting wines and grapes. And really, I'm actually really impressed what you're doing at these kind of price points.  So thank you. Drink to that, cheers. Yeah, cheers. Cheers, guys. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. If you're watching on Facebook, leave us some comments about you. Well, Nikola and I, we'll try to answer as many comments as we can. I'm going to upload this to YouTube later. So if you're watching on this news on YouTube, please subscribe to our YouTube channel Excitement Choral. Click the bell so you know when new videos come out. And we will see you. Nikola will be, I will be on another call. I'll announce it soon. And I'll see you at the next episode. Thank you so much. Okay, hold on one sec.


Well, let's close up with the really big one. The changes to the PFA, there's going to be more incentives for scoring outstanding. You have the opportunity to win an award. If you get three consecutive, there's going to be some patches that can go on the track suit, scores are going to be documented, I think in more detail and fit reps and evals so that beyond just pass-fail, you see kind of where that sailor fell on the spectrum and changing the BCA, the way those things are looked at. So what do you hope this brings to the fleet, these changes? What I hope this brings is a culture of fitness instead of trying to get ready for PFA twice a year. And a lot of sailors have been doing some sort of dangerous things to get their weight down, get BCA right for this once every six months sort of thing. So what we're trying to do is get people to stay in shape all the time, all year around. Sort of separating the BCA from the PFT. If you do well, you're going to get patches to go on that workout suit. And if you have three in a row, you're going to get an award for doing that. It'll also go on your fitness report, as you said. So it's not just pass-fail. It's how well you do. And the final thing, we're going to have some spot checks so that it's not just the twice a year. We're going to keep doing it the twice a year, but we're going to have folks roll in and say, time for you to do a physical fitness test at a random date. So it's not get ready for one, pass it and then get out of shape and then get ready again. It's going to be in shape all the time. That's what we need for everybody to do to do their jobs.