<![CDATA[Forrest Kelly]]>

<![CDATA[Forrest Kelly]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x2We!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9a2a284b-9a22-4b13-863a-e62e8eb89666_4000x4000.pngForrest Kellyhttps://journal.thebestwinepodcast.comSubstackTue, 21 Jul 2026 16:28:21 GMT<![CDATA[The Chef Who Turned Cancer Into a Culinary Calling — Quiz Edition]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-chef-who-turned-cancer-into-a-d18https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-chef-who-turned-cancer-into-a-d18Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTGrab your scorecard, wine lovers — Rusty Cellars is popping the quiz on one of the most fascinating guests in show history. Chef Chuck Hayworth spent 35 years in professional kitchens before a rare stomach cancer diagnosis changed everything, launching a private chef career that began when fellow patients in his therapy group asked him to cook for them. In this two-round, ten-question challenge, Rusty tests your memory on Chuck's go-to Niçoise salad dressed with cold-pressed Georgia olive oil, his resort chef tasting menu based in Boone, North Carolina at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the brilliant pairing of a Yadkin Valley orange wine from Hanover Park with slow-braised short ribs. You'll also revisit his four-cheat-days-a-month philosophy of sustainable healthy eating, his 2014 book The Chef's Recovery, his observations on entire generations opting out of alcohol after Covid, and his last-meal-on-earth answer: a margherita pizza and his finest bottle of French wine, shared with the people he loves. Plus a bonus question about uncrustables that had to be heard to be believed. Score yourself, share your results, and remember — life's too short for bad wine and wrong answers.

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]]><![CDATA[How to Sound Wine Smart — The Author Behind the Book Tells All Pt. 1]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/how-to-sound-wine-smart-the-author-785https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/how-to-sound-wine-smart-the-author-785Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:00:00 GMTMaryse Chevriere's wine story doesn't follow a straight line — and that's exactly what makes it worth hearing. In this first installment, the author of How to Sound Wine Smart (out now from Simon Element) tells Forrest how a food-website waiter with an affinity for drinks talked her way into the wine world.

Maryse opens up about her three months working the harvest at a Domaine in Alsace — no real paycheck, but all the wine she could drink and a hands-on crash course she calls the best "fall camp" of her life. From literally stomping grapes to learning alongside fans, pros, and travelers from around the world, it cemented her identity as a hands-on, visual learner.

Then there's Terroir Wine Bar in New York City, where owner Paul Greco took a chance on her. With around 50 wines by the glass — every white a Riesling — Terroir taught Maryse the art of the confident pivot: you want a Chardonnay? Here's a Riesling that fits the bill. More importantly, it taught her how to talk about wine in a way that's fun, not snobby — the philosophy that now defines her work and her new book.

Also in this episode: surviving life with a 10-month-old until that first evening glass, why there's zero shame in a Trader Joe's bottle, and why getting paid in wine is a very real industry tradition.

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]]><![CDATA[The 1976 Wine Tasting That Humiliated France (And They Tried to Bury It)]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-1976-wine-tasting-that-humiliatedhttps://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-1976-wine-tasting-that-humiliatedMon, 20 Jul 2026 14:03:39 GMTThe Tasting Nobody Was Supposed to Remember

It’s May 1976, and America is throwing itself a birthday party. Two hundred years old and feeling good — fireworks, parades, tall ships in the harbor.

And in a quiet hotel room in Paris, nine of France’s most respected wine experts are settling in around a table. Critics. Sommeliers. Winemakers. The kind of palates that could blind-taste a Burgundy and tell you which side of the hill the grapes grew on.

The man who assembled them was an Englishman named Steven Spurrier. He ran a small wine shop in Paris, along with the first independent wine school in all of France. He was well liked. Well respected.

And on this particular afternoon, he was about to make some very powerful enemies.

A Polite Idea

The idea, on paper, was harmless. A celebration. A friendly comparison of French and American wines in honor of the U.S. bicentennial. His colleague Patricia Gallagher had suggested it — she’d been to Napa, tasted the wines, and believed in them.

But here’s the part the invitations left out.

Spurrier had traveled to California that spring and hand-picked the bottles himself, without ever telling the wineries their wine was headed into a competition. The winemakers back in Napa had no idea what was about to happen to them.

Even getting the wine to Paris took improvisation. Air travel was a little more archaic then, and Gallagher had to talk a TWA official into letting her bring three cases aboard — far past the two-bottle limit. Her solution? She recruited her fellow passengers and tucked bottles into their luggage. California’s shot at wine history flew coach, scattered across strangers’ suitcases.

The Room Goes Quiet

The glasses were poured. The labels were hidden. The judges went to work.

Everyone in that room expected the same outcome. The French wines would dazzle. The Americans would show well enough — a polite result for a polite occasion.

Then something strange started happening. Several French judges, sipping blind, reportedly assumed certain California wines were French. They praised them. Scored them highly. They had no idea what they were holding.

When Spurrier announced the white wine results, the room went silent. A boutique California Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena had just beaten the most prestigious white Burgundies in France.

Then came the reds.

One judge, Odette Kahn, demanded her ballot back. She understood immediately what had happened — and what it meant. It didn’t matter. The scores were the scores. The 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley had just finished ahead of Château Mouton Rothschild and Château Haut-Brion.

Two of the greatest names in Bordeaux, beaten blind by a valley most of the judges couldn’t have found on a map.

Buried on Page 85

You’d think the story exploded. It didn’t.

The French press essentially ignored it. Spurrier, for his trouble, was banned from France’s prestigious wine tasting tour for a year — apparently as punishment for the crime of pouring accurately.

Only one reporter had bothered to show up: a young writer from Time magazine. He filed his story, and it ran buried on page 85, next to an ad for Armstrong Tires. Nobody thought it mattered.

But the French had one card left to play. Fine, they said — the Californians won a single afternoon. But those wines can’t age. Give it time, and time will prove us right.

So thirty years later, in 2006, the same wines were tasted again.

The top five were all from California.

Why It Still Matters

Every bottle from Oregon, Australia, Chile, South Africa, or New Zealand that sits confidently on a shelf next to a Bordeaux owes something to that quiet Paris afternoon. Before 1976, “great wine” had an address, and the address was France. After 1976, great wine had a question mark — and the whole world rushed in to answer it.

The people in the story did fine, too. Warren Winiarski, the winemaker behind that Stag’s Leap Cabernet, eventually sold his property for 185 million dollars. Mike Grgich, who crafted the winning Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, went on to found his own celebrated Napa winery. And the little wine school in Paris that started it all had quietly changed how the entire planet thinks about where great wine can come from.

If you want to see the drama play out on screen, the film Bottle Shock brings this story home beautifully. Put it on your list.

Nine French judges sat down that day to confirm what everyone already knew. They ended up proving exactly the opposite — and the most remarkable part is that they did it honestly, one blind glass at a time. The lesson hiding on this back label isn’t that France lost. It’s that when you strip away the label, the name, and the reputation, all that’s left in the glass is the truth.

🍷 Continue the Story

Enjoyed today’s Back Label?

Listen to the complete episode:

https://thebestwinepodcast.com/episodes/the-wine-tasting-that-broke-france-and-changed-everything

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]]><![CDATA[N. Carolina's Medical Meal Chef Reveals His Last Meal on Earth Pt. 1-6]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/n-carolinas-medical-meal-chef-reveals-369https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/n-carolinas-medical-meal-chef-reveals-369Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTChef Chuck's 26-year journey from kitchen cook to medical meal chef after a rare stomach cancer diagnosis

How cancer treatment forced him to relearn the four basic tastes and rebuild his palate from scratch

The difference between medically-ordered diet clients and "longevity" wellness clients

Why he stocks healthier snacks like date-almond bites instead of processed convenience food

His approach to making healthier "uncrustables" for kids using sourdough, chia, and seasonal fruit

The post-COVID shift away from alcohol and how he adapts with mocktails and fermented non-alcoholic beverages

Inside his Yadkin Valley spring tasting menu at The Resort Chef in Boone, NC

How he found the perfect orange wine from Hanover Park to pair with a 6-hour stewed short rib

His pushback strategy when clients are resistant to wine pairings or stuck on sweet wines only

Upcoming books: the C5 Longevity Cuisine Cookbook and a Hidden Vegetable cookbook

His PhD in progress and what's next for Real Medical Meals, The Resort Chef, and Thankfully Local Private Chefs

The "last meal on Earth" question — margarita pizza, a great French bottle, and a comet

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]]><![CDATA[The Payphone Call That Created Rock's Greatest Anthem]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-payphone-call-that-created-rockshttps://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-payphone-call-that-created-rocksThu, 16 Jul 2026 12:36:42 GMTA broke piano player. A payphone on Sunset Boulevard. Four words from his father that would echo through every stadium on Earth. In this Back Label Story, Forrest Kelly uncorks the untold history of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" — from Jonathan Cain's darkest moment to Steve Perry's sommelier-level songwriting, a rule-breaking chorus that waits until the final 50 seconds, a one-take recording at Fantasy Studios, The Sopranos finale, and its 2022 induction into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Pour a glass and get the full story behind the smell of wine and cheap perfume.

]]><![CDATA[The Comet, the Pizza, the Wine: Chef Chuck's Perfect Last Supper Pt. 6]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-comet-the-pizza-the-wine-chef-6c4https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-comet-the-pizza-the-wine-chef-6c4Tue, 14 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTChef Chuck Hayworth wraps up this conversation by getting personal about why he does what he does — sharing the joy of medical meals and longevity cuisine with people who need it most. He leans into the old Southern saying "you are what you eat," explaining how it shapes every pairing and every plate he creates. He talks about how North Carolina's seasonal diversity, from spring berries to farmers market produce, keeps his menus constantly evolving throughout the year.

Then comes the fun part: the classic last-meal-on-Earth question. Chuck doesn't hesitate, picturing a margarita pizza fresh out of the oven, shared with family and his closest people, paired with the nicest bottle of French wine in his collection, all while watching a comet streak across the sky.

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]]><![CDATA[Boone's Farm at the Drive-In to Château Pétrus — The Wine Coach's Incredible Journey Pt. 1-4]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/boones-farm-at-the-drive-in-to-chateau-0bchttps://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/boones-farm-at-the-drive-in-to-chateau-0bcFri, 10 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTLaurie Forster has always used humor to disarm people — it's a skill she traces all the way back to growing up in New Jersey, where you learn fast that a sharp wit is your best defense. On this episode of The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast, Laurie shares how that instinct, combined with a supply chain degree from Penn State, a high-stakes career in Fortune 100 tech sales, and a terrifying night performing stand-up comedy at the DC Improv, quietly assembled everything she needed to become The Wine Coach.

Her one-woman show, Something to Whine About, is unlike anything else in wine education. Audiences arrive to find a flight of wines waiting at their seats and leave having competed in the Cork Dork Challenge, earned their drinking names, and watched a self-proclaimed wine snob get gently humbled by Laurie's blind smell test. The show has played Caesars Atlantic City, Caroline's on Broadway, and the HBO Women in Comedy Festival, where Laurie took over a Boston theater and ran a live wine tasting during intermission.

Off stage, Laurie hosts The Sipping Point, a weekly podcast featuring chefs, winemakers, and culinary personalities. She leads international wine tours to destinations including Bordeaux and Tuscany, and her free Wine Coach app (available on iPhone and Android) puts her wine picks, podcast, and Q&A access in one place. For upcoming shows, tours, and her newsletter, visit thewinecoach.com. Find her on Instagram and Threads at @thewinecoach and on Facebook as The Wine Coach.

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]]><![CDATA[A Wine Tasting at a Rodeo in S. Dakota — It Was Better Than You'd Think Pt. 4]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/a-wine-tasting-at-a-rodeo-in-s-dakota-504https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/a-wine-tasting-at-a-rodeo-in-s-dakota-504Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:00:00 GMTWine tastings at rodeos. The Hank Williams Museum. A first sip of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill at the drive-in. In the final part of her conversation, Laurie Forster wraps up one of the most entertaining and wide-ranging wine conversations the show has ever hosted — and she saves some of the best material for last.

Laurie's corporate tasting work has brought her to venues she never put on her bucket list and wouldn't trade for anything. Through all of it, her mission has never wavered: help people think different and drink different by trusting their own taste rather than deferring to wine culture's unwritten rulebook. While she's tasted bottles most wine lovers only dream about — Château Pétrus, Barolo, aged Sauternes — what genuinely excites her most is tracking down a killer wine under $25 and sharing it with an audience who didn't know it existed.

Find Laurie on Instagram and Threads at @thewinecoach, on Facebook as The Wine Coach, and download her free Wine Coach app on iPhone or Android for wine picks, podcast access, and direct Q&A. Upcoming shows, tours, and events live at thewinecoach.com. And as Laurie would say — Cheers.

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]]><![CDATA[Dinner Guest Who Got It So Wrong, Chef Chuck Had to Step In Pt. 5]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/dinner-guest-who-got-it-so-wrong-878https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/dinner-guest-who-got-it-so-wrong-878Thu, 09 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTChef Chuck's method for finding out why a client is resistant to wine

Mocktail and kombucha alternatives for clients avoiding alcohol

The cardiovascular benefits of resveratrol in red wine, in moderation

Why his tasting pours are kept small — four ounces or less, down to 2.5 oz for dessert wines

The real purpose of a wine pairing: accenting the food, not overpowering it

A story about a dinner guest who pushed back hard against the chef's fixed wine pairing menu

How 30 years in the industry shaped his approach to expanding guests' palates

Why eastern North Carolina diners tend to prefer sweeter wines like muscadine and moscato

Using blueberry and strawberry wines as a bridge for sweet-wine-only clients

Early signs of success this spring in shifting client palates toward the full tasting experience

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]]><![CDATA[The Wine Coach Who Turned Hecklers Into Stars of the Show Pt. 3]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-wine-coach-who-turned-hecklers-9bahttps://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/the-wine-coach-who-turned-hecklers-9baWed, 08 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTLaurie Forster has performed her wine comedy show Something to Whine About in some of the most iconic entertainment venues in the country — and in Part 3, she walks through exactly what that experience looks like from the stage. Audiences at Carolines on Broadway, Caesars Atlantic City, and the HBO Women in Comedy Festival have all discovered the same thing: wine education is infinitely more effective when everyone is laughing and has four glasses in front of them.

The show is built to disarm. Guests get drinking names and chances to come onstage, competing in games like the Cork Dork Challenge and a blind smell test that has an impressive track record of humbling even the most confident wine snobs in the room. Laurie's secret weapon for dealing with hecklers? She built them into the show before they could cause trouble.

Off stage, Laurie hosts The Sipping Point, a weekly podcast featuring chefs, winemakers, and culinary storytellers, and she leads wine tours to destinations like Bordeaux and Tuscany. You can find her events, tours, podcast, and newsletter at thewinecoach.com.

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]]><![CDATA[Back Label - 1 Take, 1 Payphone, 1 Song That Refused to Die]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/back-label-1-take-1-payphone-1-song-4achttps://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/back-label-1-take-1-payphone-1-song-4acWed, 08 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTIn 1980, Jonathan Cain stood at a payphone on Sunset Boulevard, broke and ready to quit music for good. His father's answer became the seed of the biggest sing-along anthem in rock history. In this Back Label Story, Forrest Kelly traces how that phrase aged in a notebook for a year before Cain joined Journey and the band built "Don't Stop Believin'" around it for the Escape album. Along the way, you'll hear how Steve Perry wrote like a sommelier — capturing a smoky bar room not by how it looked, but by how it smelled, that heavy swirl of wine and cheap perfume — and why he invented South Detroit, a place that doesn't exist, simply because it sang better. Forrest breaks down the song's rule-shattering structure, with a chorus that doesn't arrive until the final 50 seconds, and the legendary session at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley where the band captured the instrumental live in a single take. From the unforgettable cut-to-black of The Sopranos finale to becoming the best-selling digital rock song of the 20th century and its 2022 preservation in the Library of Congress National Recording Registry, this is the full pour behind an anthem that refused to let the glass run dry.

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]]><![CDATA[She Walked Into a Cooking Class to Meet Men, Left With a Chef Husband Pt. 2]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/she-walked-into-a-cooking-class-to-88chttps://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/she-walked-into-a-cooking-class-to-88cTue, 07 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTBefore Laurie Forster became The Wine Coach, she was a Penn State supply chain graduate selling multimillion-dollar inventory planning systems to Fortune 100 executives — and getting quietly humiliated every time a wine list landed on the table. In Part 2 of her conversation, Laurie traces the full arc from corporate boardrooms to Australian vineyards, sharing the chain of decisions that led her to walk away from a six-figure tech career and never look back.

Along the way she reveals how a cooking class became a life-changing moment — not just because it deepened her love of wine and food pairing, but because it introduced her to Chef Michael, now her husband, whose New York-New Jersey wit matched hers from the first sarcastic exchange across a kitchen counter. After a three-month sabbatical in Australia exploring wineries and reimagining her future, Laurie was handed a severance package and given the greatest gift of all: no reason to return.

Today Laurie leads wine tours to Bordeaux, Tuscany, and beyond, and continues to build a community of wine lovers united by curiosity, affordability, and a complete absence of attitude. Learn more at thewinecoach.com.

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]]><![CDATA[N. Carolina Chef Tasted a Dozen Chardonnays So You Don't Have To Pt. 4]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/n-carolina-chef-tasted-a-dozen-chardonnays-b82https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/n-carolina-chef-tasted-a-dozen-chardonnays-b82Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTBuilding a tasting menu isn't a weekend project. For Chef Chuck Hayworth of theresortchef.com, the spring menu alone took nearly a year to develop — tasting over a dozen Chardonnays and half a dozen Sauvignon Blancs from across North Carolina before locking in every pairing. Every wine on the menu comes from within 60 to 75 miles of his home base in Boone, the kind of farm-to-table commitment most restaurants only talk about.

The spring menu features courses like asparagus, lemon seared trout, spring chicken with ancient grains, goat cheese, and a lemon olive oil cake for dessert — each paired with wines from the region, including a Linville dry white. And the summer menu, coming the second or third week of June, brings in heirloom tomatoes, mountain berries, and a whole new slate of North Carolina pairings.

But the episode highlight might be Chef Chuck's search for the perfect wine to accompany a 5-to-7-hour braised short rib. His answer: orange wine from Hanover Park in the Yadkin Valley — one of the first producers of orange wine in North Carolina, crafting French varietals with a spicy back-palate finish that bridges the world between red and white. It's the pairing nobody expected, and it works.

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]]><![CDATA[New Jersey Jug Wine to Certified Sommelier — Laurie Forster's Wild Ride Pt. 1]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/new-jersey-jug-wine-to-certified-174https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/new-jersey-jug-wine-to-certified-174Mon, 06 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTLaurie Forster — The Wine Coach — has built her career on a simple but powerful conviction: wine should be fun, accessible, and completely free of snobbery. In Part 1 of her conversation with Forrest Kelly on The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast, Laurie shares the full arc of her journey, from jug wine in New Jersey to certified sommelier, from corporate software sales to comedy stages, and from formal wine education to creating a one-woman show called Something to Whine About.

What sets Laurie apart isn't just her credentials — it's her philosophy. After years of studying wine the traditional way, she realized audiences don't want a lecture; they want a great time. Armed with that insight and a surprisingly transformative comedy class at the DC Improv, she learned to meet wine lovers exactly where they are, using humor and interaction to make the education stick.

Catch Laurie live as she performs Something to Whine About on July 10th at The Room at Cedar Grove in Lewes, Delaware. You can learn more about Laurie and her work at thewinecoach.com.

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]]><![CDATA[Why Your Kids Are Getting Sicker Younger Pt. 3]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/why-your-kids-are-getting-sicker-8e8https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/why-your-kids-are-getting-sicker-8e8Thu, 02 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTChef Chuck Hayworth has spent 26 years doing battle with the American food supply — and his clients keep getting younger. Chef Chuck opens up about his own cancer survivorship, why a diabetes diagnosis is the beginning of a health journey rather than the end of one, and how he brings entire families along on the medical meals process to make lasting change sustainable for everyone at the table.

He also weighs in on the seismic shift reshaping the restaurant industry: whole generations of adults opting out of alcohol entirely, pushing beverage programs toward craft kombuchas, mocktails, and low-fermentation options. And yes, he still programs in four cheat days a month — because real life deserves a cheat sheet.

Then things get seriously delicious. Chef Chuck walks through his Resort Chef tasting menu, rooted in Boone, North Carolina, where Appalachian and Blue Ridge mountain culinary traditions run hundreds of years deep. The menu pairs hyper-seasonal local ingredients with wines from the Yadkin Valley — one of the most undersung wine regions in the country, growing nearly every domestic grape variety you can name.

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]]><![CDATA[Back Label - One Man's Palate Was Worth Millions — Here's How]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/back-label-one-mans-palate-was-worth-adchttps://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/back-label-one-mans-palate-was-worth-adcWed, 01 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMTIn 1978, Robert Parker launched a free wine newsletter out of Baltimore with no industry connections and no advertising, building his reputation on a simple 50-to-100 point scoring scale borrowed from the American school grading system. That simple idea ended up reshaping how the entire world drinks wine, giving one man's palate enough influence to swing a bottle's price by millions and turn a 100-point score into an instant trophy. As Bordeaux winemakers began adjusting their wines to chase that score, critics coined the term Parkerization to describe a global drift toward riper, higher-alcohol, more fruit-forward styles. British Master of Wine Jancis Robinson saw the danger in that kind of concentrated influence and spoke out as early as the late 1980s, warning that one critic and one scale shouldn't control the international fine wine market. She built her own 20-point system as a quieter, more old-world alternative, setting up a decades-long debate over whether wine should be judged like a science experiment or experienced like a story. Parker retired in 2019 and The Wine Advocate eventually landed with Michelin, but his 100-point system is still stamped on wine shelves across America today, alongside the resistance to it that never fully went away.

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]]><![CDATA[Chef Turns Your Kid's Uncrustable Into Superfood W/O Them Noticing Pt. 2]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/chef-turns-your-kids-uncrustable-877https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/chef-turns-your-kids-uncrustable-877Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:00:00 GMTChef Chuck Hayworth of RealMedicalMeals.com doesn't just cook — he heals. In Part 2 of this conversation, Chef Chuck pulls back the curtain on two upcoming books: the C5 Longevity Cuisine Cookbook and a Hidden Vegetable Cookbook designed to quietly restore nutrition to the American diet. Can't afford personalized medical nutrition services? He's writing these books for you.

Chef Chuck also walks through his personal go-to meal — a simple, protein-packed French Nicoise salad built around cold-pressed Georgia olive oil, polyphenol-rich ingredients, and whatever vegetables happen to be in season. Fast, filling, and genuinely anti-inflammatory.

And then there's the Uncrustable conversation. Chef Chuck breaks down why those freezer-aisle staples concern him — and how he recreates a healthier version for kids using gut-healthy sourdough, seasonal fruit, chia seeds, and local Carolina pecans. Same nostalgia. No thousand-ingredient preservative list.

This is food-meets-medicine storytelling at its most practical — and most delicious.

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]]><![CDATA[Rare Cancer Diagnosis to Private Chef: How Chef Chuck Learned to Taste Wine All Over Again Pt. 1]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/rare-cancer-diagnosis-to-private-197https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/rare-cancer-diagnosis-to-private-197Thu, 25 Jun 2026 13:00:00 GMTWhat would it take to completely relearn how to taste food and wine? For Chef Chuck Hayworth — the Thankfully Local private chef and resort chef based in North Carolina — the answer was a rare stomach cancer diagnosis that changed everything 26 years ago.

In Part 1 of this conversation, Forrest and Chef Chuck dig into the origin story: how a chef already 35 years into kitchen life had to go back to basics — sweet, salty, bitter, umami — and rebuild his relationship with food and beverage entirely. Along the way, he discovered the anti-inflammatory benefits of wine, the power of slow dining, and a philosophy of eating that now shapes everything he does for his clients.

Chef Chuck works with two very different types of clients. The first: people who've been medically ordered to change their diet and don't know where to start. The second: the longevity client — the wellness-minded person who's already doing the work and wants to do it even better, well into their senior years. His approach covers everything from health-focused snack alternatives to intentional food-and-wine pairings for private events.

If you've ever wondered how a serious health crisis can flip into a life-defining purpose — and what it really means to dine instead of just eat — this is the episode to pour a glass for.

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]]><![CDATA[Back Label - He Punched His Brother — Then Built an Empire]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/back-label-he-punched-his-brother-2bahttps://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/back-label-he-punched-his-brother-2baWed, 24 Jun 2026 13:00:00 GMTThe front label said Robert Mondavi, the man who put Napa Valley on the map. The back label said a fistfight over a mink coat, a decade of lawsuits, and two brothers who didn't speak for years. In 1965, Robert and Peter Mondavi came to blows at Charles Krug Winery, the family business their father Cesare had bought in 1943. The fallout sent Robert into a six-month leave and eventually out of the company entirely — but instead of fading away, he founded the Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville in 1966, pioneered cold fermentation, renamed Sauvignon Blanc to Fumé Blanc, and partnered with Baron Philippe de Rothschild to create Opus One. Peter, meanwhile, spent the next fifty years quietly building Charles Krug's legacy without ever chasing the spotlight. The two brothers didn't speak for years. Then, in 2005, nearly thirty years after the fight, they made one barrel of wine together — Ancora Una Volta, "once again" — selling at the Napa Valley Wine Auction for $400,000. This episode of The Back Label tells the full story behind one of Napa's most influential — and most personal — rivalries.

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]]><![CDATA[Pricing Psychology, Tested: How Many Did You Get Right? Claire Wang]]>https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/pricing-psychology-tested-how-many-673https://journal.thebestwinepodcast.com/p/pricing-psychology-tested-how-many-673Tue, 23 Jun 2026 13:00:00 GMTTen questions, two rounds, and a whole lot of uncomfortable truths about why you pay what you pay. Rusty Cellars hosts this Pop the Quiz episode pulled from Claire Wang's appearance on the show, covering everything from MRI brain scans proving price changes the actual experience of taste, to why a $5 wine beat a $45 wine in blind taste tests, to the single sentence a Chateau Pichon Baron director used to explain his entire pricing philosophy. Round two gets sharper with a true/false/both format testing anchoring effects, charm pricing, and whether higher price really does mean higher quality (spoiler: it's complicated). Claire Wang is a pricing strategist with 20 years in the field and author of the upcoming book The Price of Influence, out this September.

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