Yule Georgieva: Welcome to Chats from the Wine Cellar, the official inventory podcast where we talk to leading figures in the world of wine. Today's guest is not only a brilliant wine mind and palate, but also good friends. I'm very thrilled to welcome Marc Nadeau to the podcast. Marc is the managing director of Academie du Vin, which was originally established in 1973 by Mark's friend and partner, Stephen Spurrier, who will be known to so many of our listeners. Mark and Stephen revived the Académie du Vin, first in Paris and London, and then in Canada in 2018, and he has been instrumental in preserving Stephen's philosophy of wine education, which, as we'll learn, is distinct from so many of the other courses out there. We're also going to talk a little bit about Académie du Vin Library, which is a sister company of sorts that Stephen founded to publish great wine books. And I'm excited to announce that Academie du Vin Library has partnered with us, Inventory, on our new Prestige Benefits Program to offer every Prestige member 15% off book purchases. So if you're not yet on Prestige, now is the time to sign up so you can stock up on great books for your bookshelf. Mark, welcome to Chats from the Wine Cellar.

Marc Nadeau: It's a pleasure to be here with you, Yule.

Yule Georgieva: Well, we're very happy to have you. So let's start right at the beginning and talk about how it is that you actually got into wine and how you got connected with Stephen.

Marc Nadeau: Well, fortunately or unfortunately, I had to work for a living when I was going to school as an adolescent, and I had the opportunity to work in some fine restaurants. I grew up in Montreal and the clientele were the ones who got me very much involved in appreciating wine just by seeing them consume and being someone that they felt that they should share their wines with. So if I wasn't changing their ashtray, I was pouring wines for them or listening to what they were talking about which wines. At the time, it was mostly Italian wines, but the one thing about working in restaurants is that you get a lot of catering jobs. I was always available for those. So I had the opportunity to go see people in their homes, in their cellars, and they would be more than generous to show me what they had and even let me try some of their wine. So that started the whole thing in my teens.

Yule Georgieva: It's good to have good friends with good wine.

Marc Nadeau: Yes, I mean, they were customers, but I was pretty useful and I was invited to many events all over the world in fact, as a young person.

Yule Georgieva: So then how did you get to Paris and to meeting Stephen?

Marc Nadeau: Well, in 1981, I had graduated from McGill and had an opportunity to study business at a pretty good school, Audenachal Zézé, in Paris. So I went there and it was also prompted by the fact that I had worked with a Formula 1 racing car team and they were based out of Paris and they set me up to be able to stay there in their place for a little bit of time and while I started at the school. So while I was at the school I didn't know anything about the judgment of Paris, I didn't know about Steven Spurrier, but I ended up with a job in an area of Paris called La Madeleine and it was a banking job. So the one thing in France is that at lunchtime you cannot stay and have a sandwich at work or do some work. So I had to walk around the area called La Madeleine. And one day, instead of going straight, I turned left into an alleyway and discovered the world of the Cité Bernier, which had many wine-related businesses in there, but the main one was the Cap de la Madeleine. And I met Steven Spurrier because I saw a chalkboard sign offering wine courses in English and French, which made my day and then kind of had a big influence on my life.

Yule Georgieva: And you took the courses, correct? So you actually didn't just meet Stephen and became a customer, you actually took the courses.

Marc Nadeau: Well, I didn't meet Stephen initially, but I took every single course that they had available in French and English. So it was probably about seven or eight courses. And in those days, it wasn't even courses, because being in Paris in the 80s, you'd have many winemakers of owners of vineyards who were having commercial relationship with the Cabernet Medellin. So they would walk in into the middle of a class, and you'd have people that you can't even get an appointment to see anymore, who just walk in and start chatting with us. The teachers would move away and let someone take over. And I got to know some people at the time that I still know who were involved in that. So it was formal courses, but the informal part was the fact that anybody could walk in and not disturb, but add a whole other dimension to the classes that was tremendous.

Yule Georgieva: Can you give us any examples of people we might know?

Marc Nadeau: Well, I mean, the first one I remember was Alessandre Champon, who had just taken over running Vieux Château Sertan from his family. Now he's probably my age, but in those days we were pretty young, and he was a young at his own tempo. I remember meeting Aubert de Villene, I remember meeting Hadoubis Delroi, and you know business wasn't the same in those days. They needed to get around. Everybody was younger also, but they knew that the Chateau de Madeleine was that they call a plateau not where they had the Anglo market in Paris, which was let's say wealthy and it was mostly IBM people, but they were able to mix with a different crowd. And even when you see something like in the movie Bottle Shock, which only has part of what happened at the cabinet, but that was a true situation where people would just hang around the shop with that one central figure who was often there to have any type of conversation with Steven. So I did meet him that way eventually.

Yule Georgieva: Well, you know, it just occurred to me some of our listeners might not know who Stephen was. So can you just give us a quick introduction about him, how he got started? And you mentioned the judgment of Paris, maybe you mentioned that too.

Marc Nadeau: Yes. I mean, Stephen Spurrier was born in Yorkshire. I mean, he's from the Spurrier family. He, his family had some means, let's say, and because of several businesses that were in the family, Stephen was the youngest or the younger of two sons. In the rules in the UK, the older brother is the one who runs things eventually. So Stephen was given a nice amount of funds to be able to go around his favorite country, which was France, and learn about wine. He he ended up working in the wine trade. And then after doing all of that, he set up this shop called the Cabernet Medlin in the 70s. And it was such a different situation. The woman who ran the shop and who owned it didn't want someone like him to be running the shop. So he worked there for months and months and months, stocking shelves and doing all those things. Coming from a background that was quite privileged, let's say. A London School of Economics and going to Rugby, that famous school that Hugh Johnson and Ben Hawkins went to, and he would do every single job. And that woman said, this man is truly a gentleman and he'll be worthy of taking over the cabinet.

Yule Georgieva: That's a great story.

Marc Nadeau: It is a great story, a true story. And Stephen did so many things before that and if you want to lead into the creation of the Académie du vin from the way I understand it was that it was the clientele who were in that case American mostly expats living in Paris who wanted to take wine courses or learn more about wine just because they wanted to know what they were drinking a little bit better. The focus then was on French wines because even then, even now, but in those days in France, you drank French wines mostly. You would shift to rosé and things like that for meals. But Stephen started doing those courses and having all of these young people, and you wouldn't believe some of the people who ended up having entry-level jobs at the Cabaret, went on to become masters of wine, became you know, Mark Williamson, all kinds of people, James Lauder. So he had this abundance of people in English and French to teach courses. The thing that he's most well known for is in 75 he and Patricia, Patricia Gallagher, who was working there at the time, came up together with this idea to bring some California wines to Paris and have them tasted with the whites and the reds in a convivial fashion as usual with some French wines. It turned out to be something a lot more interesting than that. It caused a lot of issues for him, but it was something that's known as the Judgment of Paris of 1976, where many California wines, because they took first place, second place, were some high scores in the whites and the reds, made their careers or made these wineries get well known. But that was because of Steven who only meant to do something for fun. And it turned into something a lot more elaborate than that.

Yule Georgieva: You know, I read his book and that is sort of a theme that emerges is that he really loved what he did. He just loved drinking wine and meeting people and traveled throughout France and frankly throughout the world. And just, you know, enjoyed what he did so much. So it was really a passion project of his, not so much from the business perspective of, I need to bring California wines in, he just seems like he liked them and wanted them to have a bit more of an audience.

Marc Nadeau: Yeah. I think that Steven would often use the word boring for what was formal business or anything legal, I mean, legal as in the legal aspects of doing business. He ended up owning quite a few companies, being involved in quite a few businesses, many, many joint ventures with people. But what he did enjoy was meeting people. And the thing is, is that even when I started to hang around with him, I still had no idea where he came from. I knew that he dressed better than anyone else. I knew that his accent was quite posh or let's say sophisticated. He spoke perfect French as well. So we did speak French with each other and he knew people all over Paris. He actually lived on a houseboat in Paris on the Seine during the first years that I met him and was someone that was approachable and always would like to talk about wine, but also always want to find out who he was dealing with, but not what diplomas they had, who they knew, what their family was, but just their enjoyment and what they were doing. Otherwise, someone like myself, who wasn't, let's say, from the same background, would never have intersected with someone as interesting with him. And he probably said the same thing about me, and that's why I became fast friends without any real big background checks on each other.

Yule Georgieva: You know, that's a great segue into maybe the philosophy behind the Académie du Vin, because it seems to harken to that a bit. So let's talk about the Académie du Vin now and how it kind of came up, what the philosophy is behind it, and if today's Académie du Vin, which you and Stephen brought back to life, is similar to the original, or if there have been some changes in what those have been. Well, I think it's quite similar.

Marc Nadeau: I mean, at the time, there had been a book in French called La Dégustation, which was written by Michel Lovaz, a very well-known Swiss writer. He had a partner whose name is Myria de Potex, who was also a teacher at the Academy of Art. In fact, I remember when I signed up for the advanced course, which was in the advanced course in those days, they had a subject called Introduction to Blind Tasting. So, unlike now, you have to go through several versions of the course before you get to even think of learning about wine tasting. But there was a book called the ABC Wine Course. It was a foundation course, intermediate one, intermediate two, and advanced. And we haven't strayed from that really. But the one thing that it was at the time and still now is wine appreciation in a convivial atmosphere for people who want to learn how to enjoy wine with other people, but not necessarily work in the trade. So it has evolved from that because again, it was very French centric at the time over the years, and especially since the rejuvenation in 2018, everything has been redone to reflect the importance of all of the new areas in the world That have wine including Canada in a big way because Stephen was a big fan of wines from Ontario BC Nova Scotia So that's all included right now in the curriculum

Yule Georgieva: That's such a nice approach because as you mentioned some of the other programs and I myself have done the WSCT program. Yes. They're much more focused on people in the trade, right? I recall learning from the beginning and it kind of starts with some quite technical details and the assumption is you may go work in trade, especially if you do something like CMS, which is designed for sommeliers, whereas ADV is much more for our audience, for collectors, for people who just want to appreciate. Is that fair?

Marc Nadeau: That's it. I mean, sometimes some people who work, I mean, we've employed over the years many people who have a Master of Wine degree, which is one whole level of knowledge. We've also worked with many, many sommeliers, but you're not having a Master of Wine or a sommelier, Master sommelier, try and teach someone in whatever language to become the same. It's just to be able to impart the knowledge that they've learned with an aspect of allowing people to show up at tastings and know and feel more comfortable than they were before they took the course. But the one insistence at that time and now is that the curriculum is rigorous as far as the subject matter, the way it's taught is, I think the word convivial was something that's even used, but it enters a progression. You don't do one thing without having done the other ones first, but it matches anything that is out there, but just in a different way, because there's no way that you can just teach about wine as entertainment without having the basic fundamental concepts at different levels. So that was always rigorous then, and it's the same now.

Yule Georgieva: And it's interesting what you spoke about with blind tasting, right? Because that is a particularly technical skill because you're really just focusing on the technical elements of the wine in order to discern some things about it structurally and on the flavor profile, etc. But that you mentioned that that's only once something you do later on, whereas most other courses, they start to integrate that fairly early. So what's the thinking there? 

Marc Nadeau: Well, I mean, all I know is my own experience and the way we used to watch at the time is that, that was, and don't forget, we're talking about the 80s and, or maybe the 70s before then, there were very few sommeliers as compared to now. That profession was quite unique. I don't remember how many masters of wine there were, but there were, there were handfuls of them around the world. It wasn't something that developed. But I think that because the skills, especially with sommeliers, have so much to do with learning how to taste wine for the job that they do, whether it's choosing wines for restaurants or sorting out through a hundred Cabernets in order to select one for a list or a wine by the glass program, that's something that you need to learn. And I think that what's happened is that with that whole insistence on that type of way of working is that people have been exposed to more and more sommeliers, whether it's on TV, whether it's in shows or whether it's going to restaurants, and they see that. And I think that people have a notion that that's a primary talent or skill that one must learn. Whereas in those days, and even still the way we do things now, it's something more fun, enjoyable, but not the initial skills that you should learn or that frankly, you really need to learn until you've learned quite a few things or tasted quite a few wines before. So that's, that's, yeah.

Yule Georgieva: That's a nice way to put it. So it's not to take away from wine tasting. It's a valuable tool and a skill set for sommeliers and even for consumers like ourselves, maybe as we get more advanced, but it's not the core of wine appreciation and the main things most collectors need to know.

Marc Nadeau: No, and no, I mean, with all due respect for what it is, it's just not something that we focus on initially, even eventually, but more at the end. And just a few anecdotes. Last summer, I spent a whole day with Philippe Higal, and we had a lunch at the end of the morning session. And we talked about the amount of blind tastings that exist right now by people, let's say, who have not studied that much about wine. And he said, you know, tell your friends who do that, that my family did not make wines to be enjoyed and only found out as to what they were at the end of an evening, they were meant to hopefully that you would know two days before and do some research as to the various wines from the Côte d'Autri, or from the Hervé Tage, or the other grapes that grow into those wines. And we would prefer that you spend time on that. So the way that we try and impart knowledge is to make people become curious of the wines that you're going to know about at a tasting. In fact, either the day before or the day of, we always send out the list of wines to students, and that's what I'll call them, so that they can check them out before. We may throw in a blind wine once in a while for fun, but it's not the, and that's an exercise, but our thing is to make people want to study and learn about the wine even before they try it. Not to have preconceived notions by checking out other scores, but just to know who's who, what's that family, where they come from, how long they've been around, and what type of wines they make. So that's probably the biggest difference there.

Yule Georgieva: That's a great point. You know, one thing that we say a lot at Inventory is that most of the enjoyment of a bottle of wine is not from the actual taste, right? It's going to come from your connection to the bottle, which might be to the story and the family and the region and the people, or maybe a trip you took where you got that bottle, something outside, and maybe the people with whom you're enjoying it at that moment. But the story of the wine and everything behind it is half the battle or half the story of what you're actually going to enjoy, right? When you get to drink DRC, I think most people actually are more excited about the legend that they're now participating in this rare experience that so few people get to partake of than it is the flavor itself.

Marc Nadeau: Sure. And I think, I mean, one thing, I think that in many of the things that we enjoy in life, and there's such a list, is anticipation of that enjoyment. and the preparation for that is a big part of it. And we all know that, and no matter if we travel or all types of things, when you know you've got something coming up, the more you've looked into it. And even if you thought about something like DRC, I wouldn't. I learned about DRC first by knowing the geography of the Vaudenham area, and then you start to learn that you don't need to go to the core of, let's say, the Con Rue or the Romani and the Romani Conti. You have to learn what the neighbors are, why they're neighbors, why they became this, why they didn't become an all-queer and things like that. And it's only by studying. But to study, you need to learn something to be able to use some knowledge to study with, which is history and geography in many cases. You can't get around it, whether it's any type of education, I believe. Yeah, that's a great point.

Yule Georgieva: So tell us about the courses you offer right now. How is the Academie Development Program structured? 

Marc Nadeau: So the way it's structured is we still start with the foundation course, which is for anybody, really. I mean, we found that we've had people who are beginners, who there's not too many people anymore who have not been to a tasting, who show up at a course. It used to be that you would have a course first because they were available, but people didn't even think of going to tastings until they'd taken a course. Now there's so many tastings available, especially by the industry. So people might want to reorient their knowledge by taking the foundation course. We've also had quite a few people who asked us if they should wait for the intermediate or intermediate two, and we suggested that they try the foundation. They realized that there's quite a bit of information that you don't know what you don't know. So when you start to learn that, you're quite surprised at that. So we have the foundation, which has been in a five session version, which we may change to four sessions. And then we have an intermediate one, which is mostly on grape varieties. And then we have an intermediate two on regions. And then advanced, it's into blind tasting, food and wine combinations. In fact, we're even working on something now where we have chefs working with us where we pair different ingredients in wines, the wrong wines and the right wines with the right food and the wrong food. But that's something that you really should be doing either when you're just having fun or when you have a certain amount of knowledge to be able to plan that property or appreciate it fully. So it's the four courses right now.

Yule Georgieva: For the wrong pair, you're doing like a spicy beef vindaloo with a really tan of California Cabernet just to tear people's mouth open. Or what would be the pairing? 

Marc Nadeau: Well, I mean, we'll ask first, but I mean, you can show many streams, but you can also surprise people with how well some things go with each other that were not necessarily that easy to think about. But it's only by trying, and it's only by trying the wrong combinations that you learn what the right ones are as well The only thing is that you have to make people understand that if you use a wrong wine or wine That's not the proper one for something. They are paying for these things. So you should be Communicating properly with them so that that knowledge is something that you're building upon, because in real life, that's how it works. You find out what didn't go with blue cheese by having the wrong wine with blue cheese and then having the right wine with blue cheese as an example.

Yule Georgieva: And it's a very helpful thing, I think, for people to learn because most of us do enjoy wine when we go out for dinner. So having a bit of that basis of here are some basics that you could apply when you're at the restaurant next time or having to make the wine choice for the whole table. So it's a great skill to integrate.

Marc Nadeau: Yeah. I mean, it is. And, um, but we just feel as if there's a few things that you need to know first, before you end up doing that. Otherwise, unless you're being directed, but if you're directing someone, you may be trying to influence them or they're trying to feel as if they're being influenced, whereas if you do it in a convivial fashion, people start making their judgments together in a group, which is why even when it was an opportunity during COVID to continue wine education with webinars and all of that, we decided not to do that because we wanted to make people be in the same room and not necessarily on the same Zoom call. It wasn't the best thing financially, but that's what Stephen would have wished. Because just to think of the Toronto opening is that Stephen Spurrier's last voyage was in March, 2020, when we came to open the Académie du Vin in Toronto at the Viennese Reservatoire in Yorksville, where I'm sitting right now. And COVID happened day by day by day that week. So we had to put that off for about 18 months. Wow. It's nice that he was able to make it for that final journey. You bet, you bet. No one can forget that last week with him in the city.

Yule Georgieva: Well, let's talk a little bit about the wines that you pour because I think this is another point of distinction with your program. I know myself, whenever I look at the wines that you've had at one of your courses, then I'm quite jealous that I wasn't there. So talk a bit about that because you're typically pouring nicer wines than what often entry-level courses would offer.

Marc Nadeau: Well, I mean, the courses are not inexpensive. And I think that when we first started doing this in the 80s in Toronto, a foundation course would be entry-level wines. And many times they came from the shelves of the LCBO. There was also a lot less ways to get wines in those days. The way we do things now is that we consider that each evening or each afternoon of a session is a tasting with an educational component around it. So we use wines that are not only a higher quality, but many times an older wine with the younger version of it so that people can feel pretty quickly that it's not just the fact that it's a different year, but that same wine, especially from years that were quite similar to each other and people learn that eventually that there are vintages that behave in a similar way, the wine will taste differently if it's been stored and aged for 10 or 15 years. So we integrate those into that. The thing is, sourcing them is not that simple, although there are ways to do that. And it's also, it adds to the price because it's just something. But if you let people ahead of time that they're going to be able to get tasting level wines, then they'll, they sign up and they enjoy that. Even if they don't know why yet, they just think that that's something. And I think it differentiates us a little bit from some other educational institutions. Yeah, absolutely.

Yule Georgieva: I think that ability to have older wines, that's very rare that people get to enjoy and side by side with the younger vintage crafts. I think that is quite a special point of distinction.

Marc Nadeau: Yes. And I mean, and you know, there's been inflation over the years, but I do remember that 20, 30 years ago, expensive wines were expensive as compared to less expensive wines, but they weren't the same percentage of one's net worth for one's income as they are now. There's been a tremendous amount of inflation on wines, especially finer wines or older wines. And there's also a few billion more people who've learned about wine than even 30 years ago. So there's the same amount of wine going to more people. So prices have gone up. So it's tricky to do that, but it's something that we will never stop doing and searching for wines to fit that bill.

Yule Georgieva: So let's talk about what it is that you hope your students leave with. So if a student goes through any of the courses that you offer at Academie du Vin, what is that you hope they take away?

Marc Nadeau: The main thing from the foundation course, and we've tested this, and I've also seen it happen for almost 40 years now and it happened to myself, but I've seen it happen, is that especially people who've been to tastings and they were a bit lost or what they do is they try and find someone near them or in the room that they think may know more than them, is they try and glean some information by how that person's adapting to the tasting. What we found, or what I really enjoyed most, is when someone who's taken even the foundation course comes and said, I went to a tasting recently, or a tasting there, and I understood a lot. I went in with more confidence, and that confidence was not arrogance or not something where you're now the expert in the room, but they just feel as if they're able to get it more, whether it's from the taking notes, the order of how to dress a glass of wine. You maybe don't drink it first before smelling and maybe don't smell it before you look at it. Whereas these things were confusing sometimes for people because they didn't know. So that's what I like. It's a question of order and in an orderly fashion. And the other thing is I think that people, once they take the foundation and maybe one intermediate, when they organize things themselves, they start to really get what they consider to be not a hierarchy, but an order of wines and how they should be served with each other in a meal or in a tasting and there's not the It's not we're talking about whites and before reds or reds before roses and things like that It's just that the weights of the wines and the types of wines and you could end up with a rosé being served before a certain white and and as you know also in tasting many times you'll end up having a after some reds. But the thing is, is people do that with more confidence. And I think that's the right result of proper teaching and the experience where you show people and they go, aha, I get it now. But we never teach things in a way where we're saying, this is how it's going to be. In fact, Stephen, just to say, never once told me in all the years I knew him what to do in wine tasting, except one time we were at a tasting and if you don't mind I'll just give an anecdote. We had helped George Riedel be introduced at Viennese Expo in 1989, I believe in Bordeaux, and we were at Cheval Blanc and there was the who's who of the wine world for this Riedel tasting and me, who's who and me. I'm sitting with Stephen and George Riedel asked a question to the room about what was a certain wine. And I went to get up to sort of show everyone, I was about 30 years old at the time, what I knew. And Stephen put his hand on my knee and just said like this, he said, you're here to listen, you can speak in 10 years. So the thing is, I thought I knew in those days, but you learn that there are people that know more than you. But again, someone like Stephen, I learned from him by watching what he did. I learned from watching what Michael Broadbent did. I learned that day from watching what LaLoup-Bistro-Loi did, the famous Burgundy woman blind taste for Bordeaux's and guess them all wine and vintage in one time. That's what makes you want to sit down and listen instead of telling people what you know. So the Académie du Vin is always something where you're imparting knowledge with students, but in a way where they're wanting that information and it's not being told to them, it's just being taught and experienced and shared together. 

Yule Georgieva: Humility is always a good lesson. In the company of L'Aluvis L'Oboi. But do you think based on that, what you just said, is there any substitute for experience in learning about wine? Is one of the best pieces of advice you could give is just enjoy lots of wine and taste it? 

Marc Nadeau: Yes. At all levels. I mean, you know, sometimes, when we had the courses, one of the courses, the evening is a bit loaded up on rosés. Some of the people didn't think that that was the right, wasn't suitable for the evening. They learned that the course material meant that rosés would be there. But when they asked me, I was in the room, they said, you drink this stuff? I said, I think I drink one third of the wines or rosés, especially in the summer. So the thing is, people should not be averse to trying anything. And that's how you learn. The other thing that helps, and that's not even a skill, it's just a blessing for some people, some people just have a better memory than others. So it takes them less time to try wines because they remember well. But I think the other thing too is that the way we try and show things is not just tasting, it's learning what you're tasting first with all the information that you have. What's the grape? What's the soil? What's the family? Who's the person making it? Is there a collaboration that they get along and things like that. So when you address the wine, you've got that built-in, not preconception, but some knowledge as to what you're doing. But again, you only learn that because if and that's when you know that it's not necessarily the blind taste because but even blind tasting is an accumulation of a lot of that knowledge in people who have mastered that to be able to pick something out in a glass because it's not just guessing that, you have to know what grapes exist, where these wines come from. So the experience of tasting goes with the educational part or the research like in anything else. Yeah.

Yule Georgieva: So for all of our collectors out there, it is always advisable to learn and to actually apply yourself to getting those basics that you spoke about with respect to understanding, you know, the process and the structure and all of that, but then applying that repeatedly to wine after wine after wine. 

Marc Nadeau: And that knowledge is available in so many ways. I mean, you know, it's available on your phone, it's available. When I used to read, you'd have to get a book, you know, I mean, I learned a lot of things in my use from the World Book or the Encyclopedia Britannica. Now there's so many ways to learn something. You can learn something in an instant about a wine, but it'll sure help that if you know you're going to have that wine in one hour, you check it out first in some ways. And you might have different opinions about the same wine, but at least you're getting something as to what it is. And you might find out that the other vintage of that wine that you're going to have was made by another generation of that family that took over, either because of someone passed away or they just took it over or a business deal. You want to know what are those things because if you're tasting something, why are they different? It's not only because of the vintages and because of the weather, it could be the whole philosophy of what that family or what that company is doing. So I think it's important to do that by researching first.

Yule Georgieva: Yeah, to set that context. That's a good point. Yes. So what is in the future for Academie du Vin?

Marc Nadeau: Well, we're asked now for two things. And it's very hard for people these days to line up five consecutive weeks or five consecutive weekends to do something. So there is a market for that. But what we're going to be coming up with and we're doing that right now is coming up with a one day or a one session version, a two session versions, but they won't be the same. They can be budget conscious or they can be people conscious. So that's something important. And the real other interesting thing is that we're being asked by people around the world. In fact, I'm talking with some people right now and I'm planning a trip to Mexico city where some people want to set up and I said me to that and I can't even have a library, uh, English speaking books and English speaking course initially in a Spanish speaking multicultural city. So these are things that we're exploring right now. And, and that just goes where you get to meet people and all of that. So that's, that's where we're going. We're, we're trying to come up with condensed, precise versions, which can be more topical and suit certain needs, but we'll always have the courses in the way that they were meant to be in the first place. That won't stop and everyone will be around that.

Yule Georgieva: Well, that's exciting. So the expansion continues.

Marc Nadeau: It does without Stephen. There's some other people involved, but his family is still involved. They know what's going on. In fact, Riot Valley this year is going to come up with a special magnum of wine, of their Blanc de Blanc, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Académie Vingt. So that's something that we'll be tasting around the world. So these are things, the Spurrier family is involved and there are other people who all know what Stephen meant and what some of Stephen's mentors meant because Hugh Johnson is involved with us. Michael Broadbent was involved in this. When you read a book by Stephen Spurrier, it says about Michael Broadbent, my hero, my mentor. I might say that about him, but he had someone else a few years older than him about that as well.

Yule Georgieva: And for those who don't know, Bride Valley is Stephen's family's vineyard.

Marc Nadeau: That's right.

Marc Nadeau: They endorse it, yes. So they have Chardonnay, and they have Pinot Noir, and they make sparkling wines and some still wine.

Yule Georgieva: Yeah. Well, let's shift to talk a little bit about the Academie du Vin Library, since this is, as we spoke about, a bit of a sister company, right? So what was the impetus behind the Academie du Vin Library? Because Stephen, he was a busy guy, so it didn't seem like he needed another project, but he took this on. So why did he?

Marc Nadeau: I mean, a lot of these things happen, because don't forget, Stephen Spurrier was the Cantor Man of the Year. They don't call it Man of the Year anymore. In 17, I believe, 2017. So there was a lunch at Le Gavroche and Patricia Gallagher was there, who was the co-founder of the Academy of Art. There were all of the living people who were the Canter Man of the Year. Now, again, they don't call that anymore. And the one thing that happened at that lunch was quite a bit of consumption of beverages. So we started coming up with these ideas about relaunching what Stephen preferred out of all the different ventures that he had. So Patricia and I, she went off to Paris, I stayed in London, and we decided to start the Academie du Vin again. So Stephen started becoming very focused on the Academy of Art, but the other thing is that he would see Michael Broadbent getting on in years. He loved him dearly and my version of the foundation of the library was a publisher of Stephen's book, the original one, Life and Wine, and there was Simon McMurtry, who had been the chief executive of the publishing company that signed Hugh Johnson, Mitchell Beasley, Stephen, and myself, we had a Nova Socha Chardonnay, we had another Rumier Chambord Moussigny that everybody enjoyed. And it led to sticking around and saying, what could we do to carry this on? So at the time we came up to write one book about Michael Broadbent, where we would republish the wine tasting book that had come out in the 60s and that had become the book to show people how to taste wines. That was my part in this. I think from then on, they went to turn in something more serious where they got Hugh Johnson involved and then they set up the Academie du Vin Library as a company in the UK, which I'm not involved in, but I'm involved in in spirit because I think the embryonic meeting that happened that led to another one that turned into a business was from that. And I think that that was something that Stephen felt was the natural emanation of the education side because each book would have its own meaning, its own people involved who are people very close to him. So that's how it developed and there's 19 books now and more coming out in the near future.

Yule Georgieva: Yeah, I think there's a couple coming out this year which will be exciting. But for you personally, are there any highlights of the books that have come out that you particularly liked? 

Marc Nadeau: I still like, I mean, the wine tasting, the initial book is something that, I mean, the one thing which is strange because I didn't think that I would be the one showing these people about Michael Broadbent, but Michael Broadbent was an architect when he was a younger man. So one third of that book is some works by Michael that are drawings of chateaus, vineyards and places at a level that none of them knew about or had thought forgotten about. So it shows the talents of somebody like Michael Broadbent, but that book called Wine Tasting alone, if you read through it, can show you how to host a wine tasting at home, how to address a wine tasting, how to bring friends over, how many glasses you should have, how to decaf, and all those things. So I find the core of that. And the other one, which I wasn't involved in at all, but which I was very proud of, is when they did something with the Oshar family, a book called Shatomizah, where the whole family participated and there's several generations still around, where they told a life story of a magnificent family that was in business in Lebanon many, many generations ago and it's something, you know, they've gone through wars, they've gone through all types of things. Even Lebanon is not the simplest place right now. But that's a fantastic book that is almost a Harvard case study of what a family being together does about why there's so many. There's some written by Fiona Morrison, who was with the Chambal Faminators, on and on and on. But I'd say these are ones that I, if I have a gift to give to someone, I still give wine tasting or Chateauneuf-Mizal to people because I know when they read that, they're going to see something that is not available elsewhere.

Yule Georgieva: Yeah. Well, those are great options. So if anyone's interested in those, they can go to the Academie du Vin Library website and have a look at all the great titles that are there.

Marc Nadeau: Yeah, I mean, just one other thing is that, you know, all of this was launched just before COVID. But if anybody looks at any one of the Academie du Vin Library books, there are chapters and chapters. Each chapter, I would bet in any of the books, let's say on Bordeaux that one chapter. Let's say something where Fiona is discussing 82 versus the 82 vintage or Some other vintage these things can inspire a whole tasting that you can host at home that you may want to check out and buy those lines So it's material For someone to not come up with the idea themselves, but just to adapt the information there and to turn it into something. And then you go on to the other book and there's some other thing in there that talks about another family that maybe you can have access of the wines to and turn it into something else. So they're inspirational, not just for the subject matter, but for creating tastings and dinners like that, which we couldn't do because of COVID, but which we're going to be doing again.

Yule Georgieva: That's a great point that kind of speaks to how the information and the sort of literature out there can really be a nice complement to the education because I always personally find that as I read wine books, and as you say, they kind of inspire you to go find a wine or maybe taste a wine, the connection that you build just by knowing about a different wine, that can really feed that passion and create some stars that you're going to want to add to your cellar. 

Marc Nadeau: I agree. And I mean, and you can read about wines that you would never think of even trying, but when you read the family story or the fact that they're related to somebody else on another continent, you may want to check them out as well. So I find that those books, even if you just open them at a certain page, because I mean people, you say that you should start at page one and go through, but you can open them at any page or any chapter, and I'll bet you people will be inspired to go and find something related to that article. For any budget and any means and any style, and any part of the world, so that's pretty cool.

Yule Georgieva: Yeah, absolutely. Well, good books to look out for in the future. So now we're going to get to your favorite topic. We're going to talk about your own wine collection and your wine life. So tell us about your personal collection and how that's changed over time, because I'm assuming you are drinking different things than you did when you first moved to Paris as a young boy.

Marc Nadeau: I sure do. I mean, number one, it was a question of affordability. I mean, the one thing, again, thing again I was fortunate is that as a young man working, especially when I worked in Formula One, the people who owned the team that I worked with, they had a lot of dinners and events and they invited me to them and they would share with that. And anybody who works in the industry knows that generous people will always let you try not some of the bottom of their glass, but the bottom of their bottle or some of the wines. And if they know you're curious about it. So that's how I started in this. When I moved to France, I am a French citizen. So I had some knowledge and grew up with that. But the tasting wines or just drinking wine and something common, I also had a lot of friends who would invite me and their parents, first thing they would do is they'd ask me my birth year, they'd go to the cellar, grab something and let me try that. So I found that neat because I've never thought of that concept. So I built up wines for a while. I also had an illness at one certain time, so I didn't think I could drink anymore. So basically all the wines now are all from 2010 purchased since then. And the other thing is that they're also a lot older than the wines that I would have kept because I don't drink younger wines. The only young wines that I drink myself are wines from Canada. I love wines from Canada. I like the white wines from Canada, like Rosés. I buy them across the country, Nova Scotia, even Quebec, Ontario and BC. And I have lots of those. And I share them with a lot of people. I've written them around the world. But I enjoy older wines now, especially Bordeaux. And I think I collect, I keep collecting, I tell people, I'm going to have this wine when I grow up. The thing is I am grown up now and I'm growing up, but my tastes have changed quite a bit. And I wish one thing is that when I moved to Toronto, I had the opportunity to be invited to many dinner parties and homes of very big collectors. And at the time, the one thing that you had to know if you wanted to be known as a wine expert, let's say, was your Bordeaux 1855 classification. You had to know the whole hierarchy of the wines. You had to know the families, you had to know your vintages, you had to know Pommard, Saint-Emilion, and all that. So I would, I thought that the world of wine was that, and then the rest. Then I would meet people 20, 30 years older than me, and they said, Mark, you know, you're 30 years old, you're enjoying all this stuff, you should start buying some burgundies." And I didn't listen too much. And now I realized that I should have listened a little bit more because to go back and revisit and try some of the wines that were available then for hardly anything are now harder to find. And one finds, and I read this more and more, and I see that in my friends, is that many people go, forget about whites, because I think the whites stay the same pretty much, but one goes from a more Cabernet Sauvignon-based liking to a Pinot Noir-based liking. Not because you become more sophisticated, it's just because that's how you evolve, let's say over a 20 or 30 year period of time. There's a lot less Burgundy than there is Cabernet Sauvignon based wines. Because even then when I started, the Napa Valley and all that was not what it is now. So I will try and drink anything, but the pleasure in reds of drinking Burgundies or even Gamay now are things that I enjoy very much because they've all changed and global warming is a very unfortunate thing but it's also made a lot of wine regions make better wines or different wines than they did at the time. So I'm still checking things out all the time but my old favorites now are older than when I was a younger person. And I think if one buys wines you should think of if you're going to keep them, what you might want to drink by listening to someone who's a bit older and see what their tastes are. Because there is a generalized, one can generalize a little bit about the evolution of taste without saying that it's a for sure thing. It's just something that happens to many people. White wines and rosés fill in all the rest and they can age well and they can be terrific. But if you want to see what can happen to wine if you store it and keep it properly, it's the evolution of great red wines or even most red wines. Well, you know what they say, all roads lead to Burgundy as you found out.

Yule Georgieva: And all of us are unfortunately finding out even though now, as you mentioned, the price point has really shifted.

Marc Nadeau: Yeah, I mean, the one saving grace with that is that they're making more and more good burgundies than they used to. It's not just the top end things because people have had to go into different regions of burgundy so you can get some very, very good wines and there's nothing really badly made anymore. And sometimes you'll find one family that has a limited amount of production, but they're making the best wines that they can. I prefer to buy that than the fifth-fifth wine that a big negotia is making, just because it's usually not the main one that the family is known for. I don't want to generalize on that, but I mean, sometimes to find something that someone only makes, they'll do a good job of it because that's their name of their family.

Yule Georgieva: Yeah, that's a good piece of advice. So are there any experiences in your wine life that stand out? Because I know you've had many memorable experiences. You've already mentioned a few from here, but can you just give us one or two little stories about your most memorable bodice? memorable letters?

Marc Nadeau: Well, there are many, many stories. I mean, I often think of the people that I was with. I can think of the first time that I went to Pomeroy because I was brought into the Hospitalier de Pomeroy, which is an association around the world that emanates from Pomeroy. And somebody sponsored me for that. And it was in 1990. So I went there with Chantal Charret, the famous collector from Quebec. He was brought in as well. I think it's because of him that I was invited too. But to go and taste all of the 89 and 90 barrel samples of Pommerol in the month of May in 1990 was something that I'll never forget. With the people that were there, I still know many of them. And then the neat thing right after that is that we got on the first Airbus A320 ever flown in France. And we flew from Bordeaux to Lyon and then went and spent two days with the Yigal family, my favorite family in the Rhone, or one of my favorite. I used to like the Gérard Zaboulay quite a bit. And then learn from them what it is for a, at the time it was a two generation family, what excellence can be if you're really paying attention to that. So these are older memories and there are new ones all the time. But the other one that I think of most was in 2016, my wife Elizabeth and I were supposed to go to Turkey for our 30th wedding anniversary. And it wasn't a good time to go to Turkey, so we decided to go to Calgary and then drive from Calgary to the Okanagan. And I went to see a person named Don Traits, who's very well known in the wine business. Jackson Traits was his company amongst many, but then I ran into a person named John Skinner on my wedding anniversary at Painted Rock. We became, I think, lifelong friends since then and I realized how good and how beautiful the Okanagan Valley was and I've been a fan and I've been back many more times with Stephen, by myself and all that. So I realized another part of the world that was wonderful but I can I think of the people that I was with on a specific day and what emanated from those conversations. So something like four years worth of tastings in London at 67 Palmar to piggyback on a Canadian wine event at Tender House was a result of one afternoon with John Skinner where I had a bit too much wine and proposed to do Canadian wine tastings in London every year going forward and it turned out to be something that happened even though when I phoned my friend Steven Spurr to tell him that I'd promised this, he said, good God, are you mad? And then, but he did do it and it turned out to be something good. So people involve regions and the beauty of landscapes. I think that's the important thing. I'm invited to all kinds of tastings and places. It's just, it's a big world. It's hard to get around, but I think that you remember the wines that you had and who you had them with.

Yule Georgieva: I think that's very important. That's a good lesson. And I do notice that a lot of your great business ideas have come over these wine dinners where there seem to be a few bottles open. So maybe that's a good trend for the future. 

Marc Nadeau: Yeah. I mean, sometimes you get a little bit wild because you get a bit creative, but some of them turn into something that worked out well. Like the Academy of Art Library really came from one lunch that turned into another one. And the, I would think that the rejuvenation of the Academy of Art, if you think of the true thing that created it, was the fact that there was this promise to be made in Penticton with some people going to London having Stephen be involved Showing that Stephen I can still work together and do some games that you want to call them and turn them into something nice Was the beginning of how they came back? Reformed itself because we were doing this in large amounts During the 80s and 90s, but thought that we had stopped and wouldn't do it anymore. And now it started again, you know, with him in spirit all the time.

Yule Georgieva: Yeah. Well, just to round out the conversation, can you give us three bottles, producers, regions, wines that you could recommend to our listeners? Cause we do a lot of collectors out there who've given your experience. I'm sure it'd be really keen to know what you would put at the top of your pedestal.

Marc Nadeau: Well, I think if we want to stay local, um, and I didn't ask anybody, I didn't know that you'd ask me this question. I think that if you just go to the Niagara area, I mean there's one person that I think is, there are many special people. Let's say, I'll say two. I think that one should always try and see whatever Fos Fon Moisette and Pro Moisette is doing. And in another way, nearby is what Thomas Batchelder and Mary are doing with their wines. If you want to know about wine, not just Canadian wine, you'll learn from those people also because of where they were trained, which is classically in some of the best places in the world. So if you want to stick with that, that's fantastic, I think. And then I go back to the Gigal family because the Gigal family makes the most white wine in all of the Rhone through their Codiron. They make Codiron Rosé and they make Codiron Red, very affordable, but they also make some of the finest, most rare wines called Namoudine, Nalardin and Natchouk. And they make some great... So they have the whole gamut of the Southern and Northern Rome. There are other families who do that, but I don't think anybody does it better. So, that's something that I think is really important. I'd say with that, you can have a basis of some of the finest grapes that exist. I haven't mentioned anybody who really makes Teberdi. So, we know there. But if you are about winemaking, passionate winemaking and variable prices for wines that can age, I think that those are pretty good as a good start.

Yule Georgieva: Great suggestions. Okay. I said that was going to be my last question, but I do have one more for you. You are an educator at heart. So what is one piece of advice you would offer to our listeners who are mostly wine collectors, but both of the novice stage and those who've been around for a while and have larger sellers. But what is one piece of advice that you wish someone had given you as you were getting started in your wine journey that now you know?

Marc Nadeau: I think it's to try and find out what I'll be drinking soon and to check out what that is, to be able to know more when I approach it by being informed but not biased. So I'm not talking about scores and things like that, I'm just talking about who made it, what was it made, what were they thinking, what else did they make, and what wine am I having. What is it in the context of the gamut that people meet, people make. I think that goes with cigars, it goes with all types of things that one want to consume. It could be truffles, it can be all that, but check out and find out first, if you can, what you're going to drink, or even if you're going to drink something, go on your phone, go on an app or go something and just find out what is going to be in my glass. And I think it to get an objective point of view when you address it. That's, I think, you ask me the question, that's my answer without thinking too hard. Great. It's good to get you on those lightning rounds.

Yule Georgieva: So that's a great piece of advice and I think a great place for us to end. So, Mark, thank you so much for joining us. Really a pleasure. Yeah, this has been a wonderful conversation. And to all of our listeners out there, you can learn more about Academie du Vin or Academie du Vin Library. Just look for it in Google. There's websites for each. And don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss out on any future episodes and please leave us a review and any comments on future episodes or topics you'd love to hear more about. I think there's much more Mark we could discuss since you're just a trove of information. So thank you from all of us here at Inventory for tuning into Chats from the Wine Cellar and we'll see you next week. And thank you again, Mark, for a great chat.

Marc Nadeau: It's been a great pleasure. Thank you.

Yule Georgieva: And we'll see you next week. And thank you again, Mark, for a great chat.