Meet the wolf of wine street. 🍷

Turns out, there's no "right" way to pair wine. [View this email in your browser]( In Partnership with The Prisoner Wine Company. For 21+ Breaking news: Wine doesn’t have to be intimidating. [Jermaine Stone]( is on a mission to prove that when it comes to modern wine pairings, conventions are meant to be broken. Stone, who has over a decade of experience working in fine wine, is also a hip-hop connoisseur. He explores his love of both mediums on his podcast, and now takes his passion to different cities around the U.S. in Tastemade’s new series “[Street Somm]( We caught up with Jermaine to learn more about his background, his best wine tips, and why Drake is “the Riesling of hip-hop.” *This interview has been edited slightly for clarity & brevity. How did you first become interested in wine? I became interested in wine through a job at Zachys in Westchester County that I took to help pay for college. At the time, I needed help paying the bills and wanted a job that had set hours and an opportunity to work in an office. Without any experience, I took a job that was the lowest ranking, which happened to be a shipping clerk. So I spent some time in the warehouse shipping wine and also learning about wine. As a result, it was only natural to become interested in wine. After I really began to understand the world of wine, it wasn't necessarily the experience from the beverage, it was more so how I was able to learn about different cultures, meet different people and how we all connected over a glass. Whether it was others teaching me about wine, or me teaching them about myself and my culture. That’s where my interest in wine began. Can you tell us about a memorable wine-tasting experience that had a significant impact on you? The moment I fell in love with wine was when I had a bottle of 1998 Domaine Leflaive Montrachet. [At this point], I’d moved over from the warehouse to working in the wine auction [side of the] business. I was the office administrator, meaning I answered the phone, took customer service orders and processed orders as they came in. From there, my role transitioned to being a part of the bid department. As someone in the bid department, I would have to work in the office until 1 a.m. the night before a sale. Since I was the person also handling logistics, I had to be at the U.S. auction venue to set up at 6 a.m., so I was doing double duty. Before every auction they would have a BYOB tasting — meaning they invite a bunch of collectors and they let them bring their own bottles. The very first BYOB tasting I went to was when I had that bottle [of Domaine Leflaive Montrachet] and it changed me. I felt like I had always heard people talk about wine, but I finally tasted it at that moment. I never was really in the mind space to receive what it was until then. How does your love for hip-hop intersect with your interest in wine? The cultures of wine and hip-hop are very, very similar. In the wine business, everybody has to hustle. It has deep roots in entrepreneurial vibes and that's just like hip-hop. In hip-hop, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and thriving. Everybody in wine has a side hustle. [Be they] a buyer or a consultant, or [working] at a restaurant, it's a business where people have their arms in multiple pots. Just like hip-hop, but just fundamentally as an art and a product, both are extremely territorial. The sense of place is very important. Both wine and hip-hop are products of their environment, and from region to region, there is a style. I can listen to an artist and tell that he's a Southern artist because I've listened to enough hip-hop. My ear is trained. I can tell if that artist is from Memphis, if they're from Texas, just from style slang. “Both wine and hip-hop are products of their environment.” It's the same way a wine connoisseur can taste a Cabernet Sauvignon and tell from the different attributes where in California it's from. So just in that sense, as an art, both wine and hip-hop are products of their environment. So those two should play along. Can you recommend a wine and hip-hop pairing? A pairing that I mention often that absolutely helps people understand the concept of pairing wine and hip-hop is pairing Drake with wine. Drake is the Riesling of hip-hop because Riesling comes in many different levels of sweetness, and each can be great. The dope thing about Riesling is that some varietals thrive in certain areas. You can have world-class Reisling in Canada, upstate New York, and Germany especially is the home of Riesling. Riesling comes in so many different levels of sweetness. You can get one with a lot more residual sugar — and I wouldn't say super sweet — but you can find styles on the sweeter side and also on the driest side. Many people don't think about the dry style, but I mean, dry Riesling is an art and there are many fans of it. So I compare that to Drake because Drake can be great in so many different styles. Hip hop has sub-genres — you can get trap Drake, you can get R&B crooner Drake, you can get mumble rap Drake, you can get U.K. rapper Drake, you can get U.K. trapper Drake. The guy can do Spanish music. I've heard him on Brazilian songs and on a reggae record and he's amazing at every single one of them. Looking at an artist like Drake and how dynamic he is, from something approachable that’s gonna be a hit single, or his lyrical work on certain projects, he can give you so many different styles. So I think Drake is the Riesling of hip-hop. The world of wine can be seen as traditional and exclusive. What are some ways you try to make wine culture more approachable? I try to make wine culture more approachable by putting wine in places that we approach every day. Really, it's just putting wine in a real world, every day setting. I go to fancy restaurants, I hang out with my peeps, and I hang out in the studio. I'm not always eating escargot with my white Burgundy. Sometimes I'm eating grilled cheese sandwiches, so I try to put my wine in everyday settings. Know that it can feel more approachable. People need to see themselves with wine and if the only place they see wine is at snooty wine tastings, why would they approach it? And finally, what’s one of your favorite moments from filming Street Somm that you’re excited for people to see? There's a moment in Savannah where we're in a haunted restaurant… and I'm using air quotes here, because at one point out of nowhere a light began to flicker in the dining room. The production guys claim that it was just an electrical issue with a light bulb, but we didn't have any issues with any light bulbs in our other shoots. So, I'm gonna lean back on my childhood and say that we did in fact encounter ghosts. That was an interesting moment that was actually caught in the episode, where you can kind of see that I was legitimately surprised. When I was in Houston, we filmed a wine pairing in the studio with Bun B, and then went into the next room with a multi-platinum producer that produces music for Megan Thee Stallion and Lil Wayne, where I rapped and recorded a song with him. That was just one of the coolest moments of my life. B changed my idea of what Southern hip-hop music was. That moment specifically was huge, and I'm glad that it was caught on the show. Catch up with Jermaine at [@realwolfofwine]( and watch “Street Somm” [only on Tastemade]( [Facebook icon]( [Instagram icon]( [Pinterest icon]( [TikTok icon]( [YouTube icon]( [Twitter icon]( Was this email forwarded to you? [Sign up!]( Copyright (C) 2023 Tastemade. All rights reserved. You're receiving this because you opted into our email list. Our mailing address is: Tastemade 3019 Olympic Blvd Stage CSanta Monica, CA 90404 [Add us to your address book]( [Unsubscribe]( from this list. If you have a Tastemade account, transactional emails are managed separately in your [account preferences](.