S2E5: Classical Pairings Gets Collected At Newfields

Nick Johnson:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Classical Pairings. This is the starting as maybe the calmest episode we’ve ever had as we are currently sitting in the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. If you’ve listened before, you know that we tend to be in bars and distilleries and that sort of thing, but now we’re in a far more dignified situation, but we’re going to be having some fantastic wine here in a little bit. We’re going to be talking about collections, both in libraries and in wine and wherever else the conversation may go. So thank you so much for tuning in. I’ll go ahead and let our guests introduce themselves. Phil, you want to go first?

Phil Ponella:

Sure. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me. I’m Phil Ponella. I am the Winterstrum Phillips Music Library director at the Jacobs School of Music. I have to get another title in- it’s the William and Gail Cook Music Library. So I’ve done all the official introductions of all the donors who have made my job possible. So the music library director at the music school at IU, I also have an additional role as being the director of information technology there as well. So I, I wear two hats, but they’re obviously complimentary.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. Very good. Josh?

Josh Ratliff:

And I’m Josh Ratliff. I’m the director of culinary arts here at Newfields, which includes everything from weddings and special events to our cafe and our food galleries and things like the beer garden. Pretty much anything that has to do with food, it’s coming across my desk.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. And you are a certified-

Josh Ratliff:

I am a certified sommelier and a member of the Guild of Master Sommelier.

Nick Johnson:

What does that mean? Certified?

Josh Ratliff:

Certified means that I’ve gone through a pretty rigorous testing. Two-tiered testing that involves the theory, history, biology, chemistry, and taste and service of wine, sake and spirits.

Nick Johnson:

So sake is involved in that?

Josh Ratliff:

Yeah. And it’s not a wine.

Nick Johnson:

It’s not? I’m already learning.

Josh Ratliff:

Thanks, it’s brewed.

Nick Johnson:

It was brewed? Yeah. Okay. Well I’ve already learned something. Usually we just go until I learn something, but I guess we’ll keep going. What did we call it? Rice wine?

Josh Ratliff:

And then I, we didn’t have the word for it.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. Fair enough. So how did you decide that that was your path?

Josh Ratliff:

So I- I had this idea and I don’t know where it came from, but I, I had this idea that I wanted to do something that I could fail at. I’d finished up my chef apprenticeship. And I was then going back to front of house, which is leading dining room services at Cummins, Incorporated in Columbus, Indiana for their corporate hospitality and executive dining teams. And I was like, man, I want to- they have incredible continuing education plans here. Like, I want to do something that’s going to be really hard that I could, that I could fail at. And I started learning about that. And I was like, this is definitely it. If you’ve seen the documentary Song or Into the Bottle. Uh it’s, it’s a pretty crazy test.

Nick Johnson:

I think I’ve only seen that one movie side side wonder sideways, sideways. That’s all know about wine. Yeah. Is that pretty accurate?

Josh Ratliff:

Uh, it’s emotionally accurate.

Nick Johnson:

So you wanted to do something you could fail at? Why?

Josh Ratliff:

I don’t know. I just, I was, I was younger then.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. Yeah. It’s okay.

Josh Ratliff:

It took me about three years and I passed March 30th, 2015.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. So Phil, did you get into libraries because you wanted to do something you could fail at?

Phil Ponella:

No. Um, although there was always that chance. Yeah. Uh, I had actually started in music school world. I had gone to school to, uh, I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in clarinet performance. Speaking of things you could fail at. Um, and, uh, when I completed that degree, um, mom and dad who had seen me through a master’s degree, kind of said, “You’re on your own now, you know, good luck.” And so I needed a job and there happened to be a job in the music library where I’d gone to school.

Nick Johnson:

Was that about IU? Or was that-

Phil Ponella:

No, this was in Hartford, Connecticut at the Hartt School or the University of Hartford. I really took that job with the intention of paying the bills while I took auditions and got a gig playing in a symphony orchestra somewhere. That’s what I wanted to do. And in that first year or two, when I was doing that, there were a handful of auditions, the best of which probably paid 12, $13,000 a year, you know, the fourth and extra bass clarinet player with the Eastern Savannah Symphony, 500 of us all showed up at that audition. And so they got me starting to think it was around that same time that I met the person who would become my wife and ( was starting to think about the future. Andthe person who I worked for there was very supportive and said, you know, you’re kind of good at this and you could have a career if you really wanted to. So that’s one thing led to another and that’s how I got into it. Yeah.

Nick Johnson:

I mean, I started as a saxophone major actually. And then, so I did jazz for a long time and similarly was looking at the actual prospects for me and I ended up going in a different route to the very lucrative world of musicology and failures everywhere.

Phil Ponella:

Trumpet performance.

Nick Johnson:

Oh, really? That’s fun. We, we could have had a jam session. Next time that we’re all hanging out. We’ll do that. It’ll be fun. So then how did you, like, did you have an interest in collection management and that sort of thing or collecting, or?

Phil Ponella:

You know, I collected things like we had you know, then it was records and CDs back in those days. Since I was a kid, I, I still have them in the basement and my wife is, you know, why do we still have these some baseball cards and things? So I always had an interest in collecting things, and I think, you know, the generation that I’m from that was not that uncommon. But really what sparked my interest was the summer that I started working in that library. They were throwing out the card catalog and digit- automating and getting an online catalog for the first time. And I had got involved in that project and that really sparked an interest in how we can make things available in new ways. And, and this thing that I had been involved with for so long in terms of like music school and how we discovered music and how we made it available, the students kind of got me excited. And so that’s really what sparked my interest in libraries was that bringing it to students, and how we can share things in new ways. So, yeah.

Nick Johnson:

So did that lead you, also, Josh, like wanting to be able to share this with your customers and so like, to increase your own knowledge and find new ways to interact with customer bases or with people?

Josh Ratliff:

Well, I think managing and building a collection of wine for a chef and to play off of and use is not too dissimilar from equipping a student with a primary source versions of something that could help them understand what they might want to write or perform. And I think for us, it’s equally global and equally difficult to manage that collection, but it’s also fun to taste lots and lots of wines and learn lots about it. So for me, it was about building my wine program for a chef and becoming a sommelier was a way for me to do that in an organized way to be able to know, am I doing it well? Yeah.

Nick Johnson:

Yeah. That’s interesting. I had never thought of that. So you would sometimes come with wines and then the chef would come up with recipes. Do you know whether you guys would collaborate in that?

Josh Ratliff:

It would go both ways.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. So do you maintain a personal collection of wine?

Josh Ratliff:

I maintain some private collections of people that have a lot more money than I do.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. Like how you get hired out to go do wine collections. So-

Josh Ratliff:

It only pays in wine. No, no.

Nick Johnson:

I mean, I want to be the very rich person who could hire it. That’s what I mean.

Josh Ratliff:

Got it, got it. I’ll give you my card.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. Sounds good.

Josh Ratliff:

But my collections usually, uh, I’ll come across the wine, which we’re going to taste one of them that I really love. It’s under 10 bucks. And I say, tell me when this, if this goes on close out and, you know, buy three or four cases of it. And so my collection is usually for something that I can host with in my house, drink with pizza. I share, I very rarely keep bottles for my own collection. Yeah.

Nick Johnson:

What do you think drives the people who are maintaining the collections? Like what is their motivation in building a large collection?

Josh Ratliff:

Well, I think you have as many motivations as people would have to do anything. Some of them are in it because they practice retail therapy and they just love buying expensive things and having them. Some people do it because they like the social aspect of being able to kind of brag with objects and entertain people with it. Some people are very seriously treating it as a commodity. Um, like if you look at-

Nick Johnson:

Like an investment?

Josh Ratliff:

Yeah. So the Chinese, the way tariffs right now are obviously going to play a big deal in it. But the Chinese, opening up Chinese wine markets in 2009, like all of a sudden wine became an investment. So very little people were drinking it, but they were buying it at $9,000 a bottle because it does appreciate so well.

Nick Johnson:

Wow. How long does wine appreciate?

Josh Ratliff:

It depends on how you make it, but, you know, the longest lasting wines in the world can last a hundred years. But it typically, it’s like 30 years for any very, very well-made wine. Drink it in about 30 years, probably.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. That’s interesting. So I’m thinking about this, because I have a vinyl collection and a music collection, and I have more instruments than I play and people just give them to me. And you said you had a baseball card collection. Do still do collecting of that kind of thing?

Phil Ponella:

Not really. I mean, I have them and every once in a while I’ll pull them out because my wife will say, “We’ve moved these boxes so many times, and I wonder, is there anything of value here?” Yeah. Maybe I should just sell one and, you know, buy a car or something like that, unfortunately. But we still have our recordings. So, you know, our CDs and our, I think we’ve gotten rid of most of the LPs at this point. Yeah. I mean, we don’t actually have an LP player anymore, and most of what we had, we either transferred to digital or own on CD now.

Josh Ratliff:

So that sparks a question for me. So I think to an extent there’s both, maybe not so much wine, but for music, there is a separation between like once it’s digital, but it’s, it’s an idea. And there’s also just the idea of music that’s on the sheet of paper in the LP, but there is this, you know, thing that can fall apart and die in records and tapes. And so like, or even like original primary source, like manuscripts or, you know, those pieces of music. So do you see, like, is there, do you have a problem with the like death of physical permanence?

Phil Ponella:

It’s a huge problem. This is the, one of the big issues facing us right now. And, uh, I’m very fortunate, you know, Indiana University, um, had a big project that we’re just finishing up called the media digitization preservation initiative, MDPI as we refer to it, and it allocated about $15 million to transfer all of the analog audio and video around the university and music library was the largest holder of that. But what we’ve discovered is after several experts have written reports and consultations that this material will degrade and become some of it, especially, um, analog tape, all of that magnetic tape, reel-to-reel tape cassettes, not so much, but still, um, problematic there. And eventually they will just become unplayable, whether it’s handled properly and maintained properly, you know, just being in oxygen will affect like the tape. Um, the other part though, is, uh, the obsolescence of the equipment to play it on. You know, you may have all those records 50 years from now, are you gonna be able to find a working turntable?That’s, you know, that’s another question. So this has really driven a lot of our work, um, and transferring is, you know, there is a, an expertise there that involves a lot of technical expertise, audio engineers who know how to handle the materials and properly maintain equipment. Uh, so it’s built, it’s kind of gone out beyond libraries, but, um, this has been something that libraries have dealt with for a long time. And, but we’re at a critical point in history. I think where the digital age has allowed us to do a lot with preserving things digitally, but nonetheless digital files have their own hair care and feeding that are necessary to, I mean, if you’ve ever had a hard drive go bad, right? Yeah. You don’t want to have your only copy of that thing on some hard disk. There, there are, you know, technical routines that have to happen to make sure that what you put in is still there and you can get it out again. And every so often file formats change. So who knows in 10 or 15 years, if we’re going to have to reformat everything digitally to make sure it’s still playable with contemporary technology. So it’s, but, um, you know, to answer your question simply, yes, this is a huge issue for us.

Nick Johnson:

I think it’s, it’s interesting though, you thinking about these objects and these two things you’ve said, Josh has struck me in this conversation talking about bragging with objects. You know, what we might call like a social capital or, you know, cause I have a record collection as I mentioned. And one of the things I do I freely admit is I like to show off to my friends, Hey, look at my record collection, go pick a record and it’s fun. And I enjoy it. And there are, most of my friends are music people, so they get a kick out of it too, but it’s a little bit nerd flexing. Right. Um, and then, uh, but you know, I do have a turntable right now and vinyls are outselling CDs right now. And most of that’s because CDs aren’t selling anymore, but still vinyl is actually quite popular amongst people around my age and younger. I mean, I almost exclusively listen to vinyl. Now I’m at home, which is again, maybe a little bit nerd flexing, but I just enjoy the ritual of it and the sharing and the art. But I also know that they’re going to fall apart at some point, but I think it almost made me, the fact that it’s going to fall apart and going to die, makes it more fun to collect. And it’s like holding onto this thing for as long as we can. I don’t know if people feel that with a bottle of wine, like you hold it, but then especially a bottle of wine, it might be gone in one, like eventually that wine gets opened and it’s gone tonight, unlike a record, which you can spin maybe not forever, but maybe, you know, 500 times before it really starts to degrade. I don’t know, do people, I’m not asking a question, right. I’m just kind of rambling. Do people sort of think about wine in that way?

Josh Ratliff:

I’ll react to what you’re saying. Yes they do. And so you have these, this like pedantic approach from certain wine collectors that are trying to preserve the youth and hold on to these bottles forever. And it just won’t. And so that’s the nature of, that’s the nature of wine versus other things also is that not only is its end always going, even when it’s in bottle, but once bud breaks every March on a [inaudible] of vine, the life of that wine is started. You can’t pause it. You can’t start, you can’t stop, with beer and spirits, it’s all start starting with malt, which has dried grain. So you can start whenever you want it. You can hit pause and, and that’s interesting, you know, so I think with wine, there’s this kind of arc and this, this phrase that once it begins, you can’t stop. So I think, the collecting part of that is one part of it. And people, often collectors, will collect more than they could drink. Like their liver would collapse if they drank their collection.

Nick Johnson:

I have more records than I will listen to, to be honest. I mean, if I would need to listen to a bunch every single day to get through them all within the next 30 years.

Phil Ponella:

I’ve wondered if I could call upon that though. You know, in dramatize and TV and video, all in film, you know, the 42 Chateau de whatever is the greatest and someone has that bottle and they’re saving it for this special occasion later in their life. And I often wonder, what’s the window there? I mean, you know, I’m going to have it, we’re going to have it on our 50th anniversary. Well, I always wonder, well, what if, you know, make it drink it now, but is there, you know, does it degrade over time? I’ve wondered about that. Like, yeah, maybe it was the had this great reputation in this time window, but if you wait too long, it’s, you’re going to be drinking vinegar. And when you’re 75-

Josh Ratliff:

Yeah. I think that’s determined by the wine maker and how they, take the must, the unfermented grape juice, what they do with it, between, you know, the juice being pressed and the bottle. There are regions, Like we’re going to drink some from Italy, Italy has two or three regions where they make long lived red wines on purpose. Namely Barolo, Barbaresco from the Piedmont region are really painful to drink under 10 years. I mean, they’re just, they’re just not made to be drunk quickly. Bordeaux has a lot of those wines as well, bigger, Napa Cabernets or something like those are all made to last a really long time. And it’s because they put, they deliberately make it that way. But for cashflow reasons, normally people make quick drinking wines on because you can’t just sit on, can’t wait around and make your money. So almost all wineries are making both and collectors hopefully are buying both. Wine collectors are always, eager to like other fashionable things. We’re eager to declare a great vintage, the, you know, the 1929 Margo, uh, 1969 Lafite. By the way, Las Vegas sells more 1929 Margo every year than was ever produced. So fraud is a thing, totally. But it’s also, it’s how the wine maker takes the juice and, and finishes it. It’s not just the weather. So some is made like in, in a long drink in a long lasting fashion, which means they might add a lot. They might be higher alcohol, higher tannin, higher color. All of those things can have antioxidant properties in the wine. They don’t filter it. Those that can also be antioxidant and preserve aging. But it also comes down to like, are you making a pop tune or you writing something that’s contributing logically to the global conversation or to the Canon of this work. And so most of the time your wine makers are trying to make, to contribute it, to contribute to the Canon, but they need money. So they’re also pumping out some pop tunes along the way. And I imagine a lot of composers and a lot of work is like that too. Yeah.

Nick Johnson:

Yeah. How do we know that that wine is so good if people don’t open it to drink it, like somebody had to open it and be like, Hey, this is really good. Stop opening. It. Does that happen?

Josh Ratliff:

Well, I think it’s almost the opposite. It’s like, okay, Oh man, this is terrible. Let’s wait because maybe these problems just go away on their own. But you know, there are markers. So if something is extremely tannic, we’ll, we’ll taste something that has a lot of Oak tannin and a high acid, and unfiltered, we can taste that and you can see like, Oh, this is, this is going to last for a long time. And I think that’s what winemakers are shooting for. Is that special bottle that you’re, you’re kind of landing it on, like in outer space. It’s like, it’s going to be perfect in 30 years. It’s just a, it’s a much more difficult calculus.

Nick Johnson:

When you make decisions for your restaurants or for these collectors, how much do you rely on your personal preference versus your professional training and I guess a follow up, is there even a difference at this point between your professional training and your personal preference with wine?

Josh Ratliff:

Well, I think the curse of being a professional is that you are often training yourself to not be biased and not have a personal preference when you’re dealing with it. And that’s what the third-party standard teaches you in any field is how do I erase some gut feeling I have about this or my own experience that I bring to the table, and be completely objective. So for me, it’s like, if I’m making decisions for wine, that will be impressive. It’s everything from, how does the label look and who’s going to be drinking it? And if, if it happens to be someone that I know a lot of their preferences, I’m really choosing wine to pair with someone else’s preferences, not mine, but I mean, from my own personal preference, I think wine is a daily celebration and should be low alcohol, good with food and inexpensive. Hmm. Okay.

Nick Johnson:

Well that made me thirsty, that little proclamation. So let’s take some wine. Shall we? It’s wine time. I’m ready to try some. We’ve had some serious conversation. Let’s get a little levity and some celebration. Ready here. I’m ready.

Josh Ratliff:

Alright. And the pressure’s on. Drip action. There’s always one. That’s fine. It’s just always one drip. So we’re ready. Okay. So, before we evaluate the glass, I’ll just tell you what we’re drinking here. So this is one of the, kind of, I would say, a high quality pop tune of wine. Uh, So this is Frascati Superiore. Superiore just means that it’s bottled at 1% higher alcohol than it would have to be by law. And Frascati is the grape. Um, this is 2017, so pretty, quick to drink. And, so here we are. I mean, it’s wine from Frascati. So, uh, this is also another tip and trick this DOCG. So Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, I don’t speak Italian, sorry. That just means that not only has it passed all quality standards, but that government officials went there and said, this tastes right. It’s grown right. It’s all the way official there, if you don’t see it.

Nick Johnson:

Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay.

Josh Ratliff:

That’s just telling us it’s all official.

Nick Johnson:

So is that related to, sorry, I keep referencing whiskey just cause I know a little bit more about it. Like the proof system with whiskey where like where the government declares that yes, this is as much alcohol as it says it is.

Josh Ratliff:

Yes.

Nick Johnson:

But this also means it tastes good? Yeah. Okay. So it’s a step further.

Josh Ratliff:

So like, Okay. If you were trying to be certified in anything, this means it’s certified for export to be, to be representative of what it says, it’s going to be. Famously, you know, your super Tuscans, which are, they grow in Cabernet and mix it with like, , Kianta grapes St. GVC and the Italian government said that is illegal and you have to bottle it under like the lowest level of quality standard, because it broke from tradition. I say, okay. They’ve since done all right. Okay. So, all right. Yeah. Let’s just take a, take a smell. Okay. So, youthful, but, it’s got a little bit of complexity or your color on this is, you know, a little bit of gold to it. It’s, you know, closer to your Chardonnay, than your really light and watery color. I mean, just like our skin gets more tan. Like this means saw a lot of sun and the skin set with the juice for a minute on here. Also, this is a fairly cool climate grapes. So some of those fresh aromas are in there. My trigger for cool climate or kind of higher elevation is I smell like envelope adhesive, like licking an envelope. So there’s a little bit of like licking envelopes and they’re stamped back kind of in there.

Nick Johnson:

It’s weird to think of that as a positive thing. No, well, I guess never licked it off. Look for fun.

Phil Ponella:

No, it doesn’t taste that bad. I’m glad. I’m glad you said that though, because from the smell to the taste, I was expecting something a little sweeter and that kind of captures what I got instead. Yeah. Kind of an envelope. Yeah. Oh, sorry. I preliminarily.

Josh Ratliff:

There’s no rules. Sorry. We’re just having fun. So, you know, this is a food wine Italian, so you’re, you’re not gonna make a bottle and in Italy without some acid on it. So our pH levels were salivating right now, which means our digestive system’s waking up. We kind of want some food with it. And so that’s the white wine is the perfect place to start. And in terms of a collection, your, your white wines are almost always going to be less long-lived than your reds. So most of your white wines are for drinking quicker. But that’s not always true. Some white wines don’t ask anymore. Yeah.

Nick Johnson:

I like it when I have to do my pairing and I’ve got my research to do so.

Josh Ratliff:

So what other things do we want to know about it? So you can like…

Nick Johnson:

So if you were, um, giving this to like a customer at a restaurant or something. What are some of the tasting notes or something? You gave us some, you said envelope, maybe what are more pleasant tastes? See what I’m saying?

Josh Ratliff:

Okay. So, um-

Nick Johnson:

Am I swirling this right? By the way? Sorry to interrupt.

Josh Ratliff:

I love how you’re swirling safely.

Nick Johnson:

Oh, I’m just swirling carefully.

Josh Ratliff:

Sometimes people go really nuts. And they’re like doing this thing, trying to look like a Napa Valley. I swirl everything. What it’s doing is it’s just getting those ethers more surface area. So they’re off gassing a little faster. So just like curfew has alcohol in it too. I say, keep it moving off of your body. You know, that’s bringing the smells out.

Nick Johnson:

So sorry. I keep interrupting your tasting notes.

Josh Ratliff:

We’re in the old world. Okay. And in the old world, wine making styles are usually towards food and towards a more earth and fruit balance when we get to the new world. So New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Chile, America, all that, those are usually fruit, more market driven. Like people want to drink it and be like, yum, tasty. I like this. Right. Where this bottle, you have a lot of grass or like hay in here. Hmm. Okay. And that kind of sweet, like round bale, that’s been around a minute kind of sweet, funky smell is, you know, this is not something that you love right away. This isn’t splashy, big, you know, it’s, it’s just kind of, it is what it is. And, it has that more earthy, mineral grassy thing, it’s not big and fruity.

Nick Johnson:

Yeah. I really like it because I, I tend to not like too sweet or fruity of wines. I tend to like, like kind of a dry or white, if you would call this a dry white.

Josh Ratliff:

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. But it does have that little sweet kiss at the end. Just a wink of that roundness that finishes out.

Josh Ratliff:

You got any ideas?

Phil Ponella:

I immediately thought of something like the Well-Tempered Clavier. It’s sort of, okay, it’s not, it’s not sweet. I mean, the Well-Tempered Clavier is kind of, you know, it’s almost an exercise in a way it’s less dramatic and romantic. It’s more of a, you know, it’s kind of a- is this I’m going to get, is this box

Nick Johnson:

Okay. Jazz pocket. He wrote a couple of volumes of works to explore different key areas.

Phil Ponella:

Yeah. So I went there, but

Nick Johnson:

Yeah, no, that’s fine. Let’s, let’s go with that. I mean, and there’s something about that. It’s sort of about like the method and the process, and it’s sort of like the ritual of it. Which I feel, I think Bach was maybe more of a beer drinker, but I think he’d do that. Okay. I know he drank a lot of beer, so probably be fine with us choosing one for this.

Phil Ponella:

Um, dignity and cheerfulness. It’s not pretentious, but it’s not romantic. This is not a romantic glass of wine.

Nick Johnson:

You feeling maybe one of the fugues? Are you feeling one of the fugues? Okay. Should we just go with C minor? I mean, that’s a, that’s a heavy hitter. Sure. It’s a pretty good one. Yeah. So, all right. Well that’s probably the first one. As a trumpet player, I’m sure you’ve played some pieces in C minor, or maybe, maybe that’s what scared you off. All right. So let’s, uh, let’s give a little listen here to Well-Tempered Clavier.

Music:

[Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier”]

Josh Ratliff:

There’s also a little bit of nostalgia. It’s something, the fugue kind of creates that echo type feeling. So like, it makes it more spacious, but it always falls away, you know? Cause this is kind of has a big hit on your mouth, like acid and rising glycerine, but it just keeps falling. It’s kind of ghostly in that way.

Nick Johnson:

You always kind of want more of it. You get into a Bach fugue, you want to like see it to the bottom of the bottle and the end of the meal or something like you don’t want just a little bit of it. Yeah, I think that’s fantastic. What was the name of the wine again?

Josh Ratliff:

So this is Frascati.

Nick Johnson:

Frascati. That’s a region?

Josh Ratliff:

Yeah. So Frascati is the region, bottled at Superiore and this, uh, Castle Marquese is, um, is the Chateau. Okay. Okay. Or, the estate. Yeah.

Nick Johnson:

I don’t think Bach ever made it to Italy.

Phil Ponella:

I don’t think- I hesitated to say Bach, because-

Nick Johnson:

I think if he had, he would have liked this.

Phil Ponella:

Who could prove us wrong?

Nick Johnson:

Yeah. That’s right. Exactly. Yeah. We’re authorities. Bach would have loved this. There, I said it. All right. Oh, we grabbed another bottle. I’m I’m excited now. You ready? All right. Yeah. Let’s go for round two. What do we got here? Okay.

Josh Ratliff:

So next up we’re pouring. This is a Rioja Reserva 2014. So the way that Rioja works is very much like we were talking about with the whiskeys that they age this in barrels and then release it once it’s ready to the public. So this is current release, you know, five years later. It’s been bottled after five years in barrel.

Nick Johnson:

What is the word again that it’s telling you that it’s-

Josh Ratliff:

Reserve?

Nick Johnson:

Reserve means that they, they held it back before they released the bottle. Okay.

Josh Ratliff:

Crianza would be the, would be young. And then, uh, Rio Grand reserve, it would be, uh, would be much longer aged barrels. And that they call it elevage if it’s been kind of elevated by barrel aging over time. Okay. So diving in on this one, you’re going to see, this is a lot, this is a lot more masculine. This is a structure, heavy wine. This wine is about structure, not just fruit.

Nick Johnson:

I don’t know what that means.

Josh Ratliff:

Okay. So, uh, structuring wine. I like I think of it, I use music theory. So like structure of the wine is alcohol, tannin, acid. These are not tastes. These are feelings. So I think of the structure of the wine, like a chord that’s like your one and your five there’s no real. I say, it’s just, it’s there, it’s bigger. It’s smaller. It’s, you know, one five or,

Nick Johnson:

But it’s the three and the seven where you get your flavor.

Josh Ratliff:

Yeah. So this is, this is a very expressive, uh, have like big structure, you know, I’m thinking like octaves and things like are there like it’s okay. And then, um, but then there, there is this just splashy romantic, uh, just softness and, uh, lyrical it’s, it’s maybe the, like going the opposite direction of this tempered, kind of walking tempo. This is kind of just like letting loose.

Nick Johnson:

Where’s this one from?

Josh Ratliff:

So this is to Northern Spain. So, right as green Spain kind of rises up into the mountains, the Ebro rivers there and you’ve got Haro, the capital of the region, Rioja. And so this is a mountain fruit, so it’s grown higher elevation cool climate. So it maintains acidity. It’s not cooked like down in the Valley and this, this grape is temper Neal. Temper Neal is the grape name.

Nick Johnson:

I still can’t say that right.

Josh Ratliff:

And the style is a real harvest. So big, dry red. This is great with all kinds of different food, as long as it has animal fat in it. You’re good.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. Well, I was immediate, when you, when you were describing big pounding octaves and splashy romantic, I immediately thought Rachmaninoff.

Phil Ponella:

I was trying to fit closer to the region, but I should probably-

Nick Johnson:

I mean, obviously that’s Russian, but if you want to talk big splashy octaves, for sure. Maybe his first piano concerto, which, I mean, it’s a Russian piece, but it’s about like the structure of the octave sort of being pounded at you a little bit, like before you then get seduced by the fruit of the harmony. Did you like that?

Josh Ratliff:

Does it work? I think, well, yeah.

Nick Johnson:

I liked the description of it. Um, yeah. Why don’t we we’ll give a little listen, we’ll start at the beginning of the first movement. Yeah.

Music:

[Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No. 1”]

Phil Ponella:

Yeah, I think that works really well.

Nick Johnson:

Because this wine makes it entrance to the room and that piece makes an entrance on the stage. And it’s just so much fun.

Josh Ratliff:

Yeah. If this glass, even this, you know, one ounce of wine was in a glass and we left it in this room, came back later, the entire room there’s the aromas and aromatic presence is really strong, which it that’s what you’re here, this, like powerful masculine thing. That works.

Nick Johnson:

What kind of food would you, you said anything with animal fat?

Josh Ratliff:

Um, yeah.

Nick Johnson:

I’m sure if we were talking to a chef he wouldn’t just say animal fat.

Josh Ratliff:

Right. So I think, and I usually speak in general terms like that so that I can quickly reduce bad wine experiences risk with guests or like, cause they’re like, Oh, I love this wine and we’re going to buy a bottle and take it home. I’m like, just make sure you don’t put it with a salad.

Nick Johnson:

Okay.

Josh Ratliff:

This with, this with sushi. Like yeah. Just, it just wouldn’t work. Yeah. No reason to spend money on fish, this would just destroy it.

Nick Johnson:

So, that makes sense.

Josh Ratliff:

So I think of this as a good, you know, if you’ve got a good chicken guy where the chickens like move around and so there’s more blood vessels working in their bodies that, like a really good chicken with this,

Nick Johnson:

Uh, the good chicken guy?

Josh Ratliff:

If you have a local producer, that’s like, raising chickens in there.

Nick Johnson:

Oh okay. I don’t have a guy that I just call up, brings me a chicken.

Josh Ratliff:

Nightfall farms in Southern India. They’re running around eating bugs and,you know, doing regular chicken stuff just so they can hang out. It’s really like dark, colorful meat. That’s what I would go for. Okay.

Phil Ponella:

Are they listening to Rachmaninoff too?

Josh Ratliff:

I’m going to call-

Nick Johnson:

I be that would affect the way it tastes.

Josh Ratliff:

Yeah, that’s right. Okay. This is, we’re doing our third and final wine. Okay. So this one, I have played a part in kind of how it tastes, because this has been sitting on my desk since last week. Open.

Nick Johnson:

On purpose? Or did you just-

Josh Ratliff:

Well, I just left it out too long [inaudible]

Josh Ratliff:

So like don’t judge me on like producing this perfect wine. So this is, [inaudible], this is a beautiful Classico. So this is Passimento, which is where they dry the grapes on mats for many days, raisinating them slightly till they’re all puckered. Sometimes they get a little bit of like hard raisin-y character to them and then they press the wine. So this is concentrated, but

Nick Johnson:

Does that like make the alcohol content higher or just changes the taste?

Josh Ratliff:

It makes the color and everything else more concentrated because the water’s coming out, alcohol comes from the, the brick. So the sugar measurement of the wine. Okay. So, and then yeast goes in, splits it into two-CO2 and alcohol. Okay. So alcohol contents, always half of your bricks content, which is your Schuster. Okay. Your juice. Okay. But this guy is going to drink-

Nick Johnson:

Oh, that is dark.

Josh Ratliff:

And it’s going to drink really differently. It’s going to be all the way opened up as if it’s very vulnerable, like the new Judy Garland movie, like this is like Judy at the end, you know, this is not, uh, this is not Over the Rainbow Judy.

Phil Ponella:

When you say you left that open, you mean it was, had been opened and you recorked it, or you literally left it open to air it.

Josh Ratliff:

It was recorked, but it’s just been sitting at room temperature with, you know, exposed to oxygen for, but it’s so funky and expressive, and it’s just a house of mirrors in here. So beautiful.

Phil Ponella:

Well, it’s beautiful. You’re using too many descriptive terms. Now my musical examples are being muddled.

Nick Johnson:

Where’s this one from?

Josh Ratliff:

So Valpolicella is the region. It’s usually a blend of different grapes Corvina mainly. Um, and Amarone. Amarone just means that it’s going through that drying process beforehand. So these are very long lived wines. And this is the Classico, so this is the most specific, most high quality.

Nick Johnson:

Okay. How would, you know, if a wine would benefit from sitting open on a desk for a week, most wines would not take well to that.

Josh Ratliff:

Right. Right, right. So most anytime you’ve got a screw cap involved, don’t. My general rule, like if you’re spending around 15 to 25, $30, the reds, I usually try not to drink the whole bottle in one night and drink it down and just put it Uncorked, open in the fridge and then pull it out when I start cooking the next night. And it’s going to keep changing for three, four days. And it’s just fun to see how it falls apart, which is going to tell you how it ages. But the quick way is like, we just tasted this and it’s like, got acid, it’s got tannin, it’s got dark color, it’s got high alcohol. That’s that structure that’s going to last for a long time.

Nick Johnson:

So you could let it sit open for a few days?

Josh Ratliff:

Weeks before it would overlay to vinegar.

Nick Johnson:

That’s crazy. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. But like the white wine, you wouldn’t do that probably.

Josh Ratliff:

Correct. Okay. So you’re immediately getting your full range of fruit, red, blue fruit, like blueberries. And, but there’s also plums in here. This is, and it’s very available. This is like, it’s not quite candy. It’s like pie filling fruit. It’s just luxurious. It’s available to you. It is expressive. And I, you know, when you smell wine, that’s raisinated like this. It has that kind of like pride and dignity in old age. So it’s kind of like, it’s much different where this is like, has a usefulness and brashness confidence. This is like, has that kind of like-

Nick Johnson:

Maturity?

Josh Ratliff:

Maturity? yeah.

Phil Ponella:

Now I had something in mind before you said that, but-

Josh Ratliff:

Let’s hear it.

Phil Ponella:

You’re speaking Pines of Rome.

Nick Johnson:

Oh yeah. Fantastic.

Phil Ponella:

It’s sort of got that-

Josh Ratliff:

There’s even some pine- when you said that I thought that was kind of funny.

Nick Johnson:

Yeah. I think that’s great. Well, why did you think though, that piece, I think that’s a really good choice.

Phil Ponella:

You know, it’s sort of a large, fully flavored piece, you know, lots of large orchestra and lots of rests and, you know, these big, big chords, but then that when you were describing sort of that stateliness of, you know, there’s sort of an old worldy feel to it as well. And it reckons to the old world. But yet it’s very satisfying and that that piece is very satisfying.

Josh Ratliff:

This is less of like, an individual voice and more like a landscape or it’s kind of, you know, it’s, it’s bigger. And so when you, well, that’s what I thought when you said, like that finds a round piece.

Nick Johnson:

So that’s a landscape, not an individual voice.

Josh Ratliff:

I feel like this was someone like [inaudible] or belting their voice through something. This is more-

Nick Johnson:

I’ve never heard wine called a landscape before.

Josh Ratliff:

That’s the first time. This is the first time it’s ever happened, right here, right here.

Nick Johnson:

I’m going to let you listen to a little bit of Respighi’s Pines of Rome.

Music:

[Respighi’s “Pines of Rome”]

Nick Johnson:

I think that’s fantastic.

Phil Ponella:

Did you have a different idea?

Nick Johnson:

No, I was still thinking, and I’m going to say, I wish I had that idea, because it’s better. I don’t know.

Josh Ratliff:

The French horns work with that warmth in here. And it’s not as, yeah. I like, but I also kind of like imagining, like this wine is like remembering all those things that were happening. Great call. Great call. And I will say for anyone who’s never, this is the first time I’ve ever like, actually done this, although I like to drink wine while there’s music on all the time, but this is fascinating, like really fun.

Nick Johnson:

Good, I’m glad. We have a lot of fun with this too. It’s a weird idea that, that we had for this, this show of pairing like delicious beverages and foods with music. And I think like this just makes me this wine or that music, I just wish I was laying on a hill in sunset, like in Northern Italy or in Austria or something, listening to this piece and sipping on this wine. But we can go ahead. This has been a really fun conversation. I’ve really enjoyed talking with both of you about collections, about digital versus analog, about wine collecting building. I’ve learned so much. I’m gonna have to go back and listen to this episode, but I’m not actively sipping on wine. So I can remember all these words that you’ve taught me so that I can go and start building a little bit of my own collection to rival my record collection and show off even more to my friends.

Phil Ponella:

Hey, look, we’ll come by. Cause they’re sipping wine and you can redo this.

Nick Johnson:

That’d be great. So thank you so much, Josh and Phil, this has been a real pleasure. Thank you to the Indianapolis Museum of Art and to Newfields for hosting us for this conversation. And we’re empty here, but, I’ll just do it. I’ll say a quick. Cheers everybody. Thank you so much.

Phil Ponella:

Thank you. Yep.

Josh Ratliff:

Thank you.

Nick Johnson:

Once again. I’m Nick Johnson. I’d like to thank you for joining us on Classical Pairings. If you’re enjoying this podcast, never miss a future episode by subscribing to Classical Pairings on your favorite podcast platform. You can download bonus pairings at classicalmusicindy.org, Just click listen, podcasts, and then Classical Pairings. Classical Pairings is a production of Classical Music Indy, a listener supported producer of classical music, radio syndication, streaming podcasts, and Note Magazine. Learn more at classicalmusicindy.org. Our producer for Classical Pairings is Ezra Baker Tribiano, and our sound engineer is Gabriel Harley. Our theme music was composed by Frank Felice. Cheers and see you next time.