Episode 23
· 51:02
You've mentioned to me that you prefer Bordeaux over Burgundy. What do you think many other Psalms are missing there?
Matt Landry:I like Burgundy before I get destroyed in the comment section and they take away my small a pins. But Bordeaux is these days better value for money. There's more consistency in the bottles. There's better value for customers. And I think now because Bordeaux has waned in popularity, you can get Bordeaux with a bit of age for a reasonable amount of money.
Matt Landry:So I just think it helps add some depth to your wine list. I think most places, Burgundy, it's almost always 2023 right now, 2022, 2024, depending on the the producer. So it's really hard to find older burgundy. So for a restaurant perspective, Porto offers a lot of advantages.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay.
Matt Landry:Yeah. Is that a stylistic preference too? I guess it is maybe somewhat stylistic. I just think there's more depth and more oomph. And maybe I'm not as a nuanced taster as some people, but I think sometimes burgundy can be quite insipid and quite it's a lot of money for tomato water sometimes.
Alex Abbott Boyd:On this point, I don't get the chance to taste nearly as many burgundies as you do, but seven or eight out of 10, when someone opens a red burgundy from a top producer Goodyear, I'm just kind of disappointed. The whites have a better hit rate, but it just seems like you're spending all of this money for the 20% chance you get that bottle that hits and then it's something special.
Matt Landry:Yeah. And I think maybe if you've a lot of money to spend, it's worth it. But I work in the hospitality industry. I'm not floating in it. I like something a little more consistent.
Matt Landry:I think burgundy, especially with age, can be quite elegant and quite beautiful. But again, those opportunities to drink those wines are fewer and fewer and far between. Whereas Bordeaux, I think, offers immediate pleasure and also a deeper pleasure with age.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Would you go so far as to say the reputation of Burgundy today is really exceeding the reality?
Matt Landry:I think so. I think the irony is that Burgundy is now where Bordeaux was in the nineties. It's a luxury product. People approach it the way they approach flipping houses, which is unfortunate. And, yeah, I think there are great wines, and there's a lot of okay stuff.
Matt Landry:And you're and unfortunately, you're paying for the name of the plot or the name of the village. There's great producers of Meursault, and there's very less interesting producers in Meursault, but you're always paying for that Meursault name. Yeah. So I think a lot of middling wine kinda gets is it the rising tide lifts all mediocre wine producers?
Alex Abbott Boyd:A 100%. But there's also one counterargument that I think would be very common is just that there's oceans of Bordeaux made. Yeah. Does that cheapen it? I guess like I've heard people describe, because you mentioned flipping houses, Bordeaux as a liquid asset class because you can justyou name a Bordeaux wine, you can go buy 500 of them today if you have the money, and then you can sell that in that one big lot pretty easily.
Matt Landry:Yeah. And I think the good thing is I think that era of Bordeaux is coming to an end. I think the on premiere is dying if not dead. Because the sort of 1% have turned away from Bordeaux, you're getting a much more realistic price. And I think that yeah.
Matt Landry:I think sometimes with because Bordeaux is such a mercantile has such a mercantile history and it's so the making of wine is so intertwined with the selling of wine that it is maybe less romantic for someone getting into wine with that sort of Burgundy is the essence of terroir. The idea starts there and has colonized every other region in the rest of the world with that sort of aguntification of the wine regions. And I think it's very easy to romanticize Burgundy. But I think they are heading into that sort of becoming a luxury product rather than something interesting.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Would you I sometimes feel that a psalms get so enamored with it because, the people that run the Court of Master Psalms were so enamored with it because when they were working in their twenties and thirties, they were wines that you could drink that were more available and more excessively priced. Yeah. So they made them this benchmark, and then we're all stuck studying things that for 99% of people don't even really exist.
Matt Landry:Yeah. And I have yeah. I have so many flashcards on wines I've never tried before. Yeah. And it's just an unfortunate reality of capitalism, I think, and wine.
Matt Landry:I also think that there's a knock against Bordeaux in terms of being somewhat homogenous and generic. I think, again, we think of Burgundy. It's the piece of land that's classified Grand Cru. And when you're in and you're in Bordeaux, it's the estate. It's Grand Cru class a.
Matt Landry:And I think sometimes one Bordeaux is the same as another Bordeaux. And I think that is an oversimplification. Just off the top of my head, something like L'Engle Barton versus Smith Haute Lafitte, 13% alcohol versus fourteen five. Austerity versus a rich, luscious, very powerful, almost California style of wine. I think there's a lot more diversity in Bordeaux than people assume.
Matt Landry:And I think this generation, the one that I kind of came up in, had a bit of a Bordeaux as boomer wine or it's it's dad wine. And I think that bias is unfortunately still there. And I'm hopefully, I'll be one of the people to help break it. The nineties are back in every other way, so why shouldn't the big one of the nineties come back too?
Alex Abbott Boyd:I love that. Bordeaux was actually the wine that got me into wine. It was the first time I drank a bottle of wine and was like, Oh, if I actually stop and pay attention, there's a lot going on. This is exciting. Let me learn why.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And then that was exciting, and then I just continued the journey and I haven't come But I think you're getting me thinking that maybe I should.
Matt Landry:Yeah. And especially also, again, wines with age, it's so easy to drink everything on release. And now it's like you can get second growth, third growth with 10 years of age for a $150. Right? And it's easier to justify that and it's ready to drink now and you don't have to sell it forever.
Matt Landry:And I think it's there's a lot of opportunity and I've really increased the amount of Bordeaux at my restaurant as a result of that.
Alex Abbott Boyd:If you were to recommend three bottles of Bordeaux to a somme that was maybe slightly skeptical or just a wine lover who started there and moved on, loves Burgundy, what would those three bottles be?
Matt Landry:I think again, I think L'Engo Barton is a really good example of freshness and tension and restraint in Bordeaux winemaking. That's a really nice option. If I could recommend a white Bordeaux, because I think that's the forgotten child of the appellation. There's so much value. Malartic Liqueur Viere, like, those are really beautiful wines that you can get at a steal of a price, like, 100, and those are great.
Matt Landry:And, yeah, if someone else is paying for it, Chateau Lafitte. Alright. I think yeah. And those wines, the times I've had them, and I'm not gonna pretend like I've had a lot of it in my life, but I've had it a few times. There's so much complexity, so much restraint, so much linearity to them, which I don't think people assume there's going to be because it is this mythic like wine.
Matt Landry:What do you mean by linearity? There's structure. There's tannin. There's acidity. They're not overwhelming it with oak.
Matt Landry:They're not weighing it down. And again, I think they also even in warmer vintages, like '22 or '18, they have the money and the resources to deal with that. Adjust their picking times, make those types of decisions to really put out a great Grom Van. And, yeah, I think again, I think linearity is something I really look for in wine and along with sort of broad shoulders. Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Mentioned warmer vintages just then. Do you think climate change might be related to the conversation we're having in the sense that the plots in Burgundy that were identified as the best for hundreds of years were identified during a very different climactic time. And I know there's other things like there's different soil compositions, mid slope or zali and all those things. But how much do you think maybe the best sites are shifting?
Matt Landry:They're they are shifting. I think they're going to shift.
Alex Abbott Boyd:You're enjoying the episode, I have a quick ask. Ratings and reviews actually matter a lot more than most people think. It's how the show grows and how I can keep getting great guests like this. You can do it right now while you're listening. Leaving a rating takes about ten seconds, and I'd really appreciate it.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And if you already have, thank you so much. Alright. Back to the show.
Matt Landry:Again, Burgundy is benefiting from the fact that those top producers can charge astronomical amounts of money for their wine. So they can they have the resources to offset the worst sort of vagaries of the weather. But, yeah, I'm not gonna go so far as to say La Montrachet is getting too warm. I think the opposite of Appalachians, like, say, like Saint Romain, which is the, I think, the highest village in the Cote D'Or thirty years ago would have been quite a stretch to make a really nice sort of complex full bodied wine. And I think now it's in that kind of perfect place.
Matt Landry:So it's getting into that window. So there's all these other appellations and a lot of sort of lesser known villages that offer a lot more value for money. It's Burgundy, so it's never value for money.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Any other villages you wanna give a shout out to?
Matt Landry:Yeah. Saint Auburn. Again, Saint Romain. Yeah. Those are all
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. Are there any other regions that you just wish more Saum's and wine lovers in general were paying attention to?
Matt Landry:I think regular consumers and Saum's too. I think they have definitely a bias in terms of that's fancy wine and everything from everywhere else is either a simple cheap wine or overly, I don't know, fruit driven. And I think regions, New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa, they tend to get overlooked as like the bee areas. And I think I just got back from Mendoza a couple months ago, and Catena Sepada brought they do a Melbach camp every year, and they brought Psalms from across the country.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And
Matt Landry:those wines, I got to try so much old, fifteen, twenty year old Melbach, and they're spectacular. They're so good. They're so balanced. There's still so much life ahead of them while also showing those sort of developed characters characteristics. And I think those things get slept on.
Matt Landry:And it's interesting from a selling perspective with the sort of ban on American wine. When you get that sort of buyer who normally drinks, say, Napa, he realizes you you can't have Napa or you don't have Napa right now. And his first idea is to go to Bordeaux. And I'm have you tried Senha? Have you tried Catena Sapada?
Matt Landry:Have you tried these types of producers? Because I think they're probably gonna offer a better bridge wine than maybe Bordeaux. Though even again, Bordeaux, there's some pretty glossy full throttle wines these days. But I think the new world gets sort of there's almost like a price cap outside of a Penfolds or a Henchke or something like that. I think there's sometimes there's a mental barrier just to considering that this wine is worth this price.
Alex Abbott Boyd:A 100%. Which is there also a supply barrier? Like, how easy is it for you to access those kind of wines that you were tasting down there for Impossible.
Matt Landry:Yeah. Yeah. I think auctions are pretty much the only way to get them now. And I think in Zapata's case, I'm not sure they're holding back a lot of wine for that purpose. I think they're more for almost like clinical studies and for hosting people at the pyramid.
Matt Landry:But I had dinner with even Sadi. Not me. A group of us had dinner with even Sadi. And Who who is that? So out of Sadie family wines out of South Africa, makes like Palladius and Colomela, like, probably the the hippest or most culty producer out of South Africa right now.
Matt Landry:And his wines are highly allocated, quite expensive. And he was hold he's launching a program to hold back his wines ten years and release them after ten years and actually set price maximum. So if you wanna get your allocation, you can only sell this wine for x amount of dollars. Just keep it approachable to the average consumer, which I thought was a really great idea and who knows how much that money that's costing him. But I thought it's a really interesting approach into getting people to think about New World.
Matt Landry:We don't use the term New World anymore, but New World wines with the same degree of reverence as they do with European wines.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I think Australia is the other place that gets so slept on. You can see Sure. I've got greats of Australia right And every time I've put the Victorian Pinots and Chardonnays in the lineup with Premier Cru Burgundy, they always
Matt Landry:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:They always do incredible.
Matt Landry:For sure. And I think, yeah, sometimes countries like that are almost like Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, they're victims of their own success with that sort of certain grape kind of breaks them into the sort of zeitgeist. And so people associate they pigeonhole that country as that thing. And I think Australia had a lot of success in the nineties. And I think with Psalms, I think Psalms really enjoy these wines.
Matt Landry:I think the regular consumer maybe hasn't gotten around to the idea of $60 gamete from Yarra Valley. But I think it's coming. I think it's a it's a yeah. And Australia is a really interesting example too.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How are people responding to the Mornington Pinot that you have you're
Matt Landry:pouring Yeah. By the glass.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. It's great. Do some people wish it was French or Californian or?
Matt Landry:No, actually funny last night, he goes to someone I had someone last night actually said, I'm looking for wine. I like French wine. I like Pinot. And I said, I have a French wine and I have a Pinot. And so I brought him too.
Matt Landry:And he went with the Mornington Peninsula. So I think people appreciate getting a I think once they get it in their mouth, they can appreciate, yeah, this wine is worth that that money. And still even it's still the most expensive class I think I have right now. But it's still gonna be $20 less than the Premier Cru Burgundy I'm pouring by. I try to pour by the glass.
Alex Abbott Boyd:So Yeah. It's much more applicable. Yeah. Just taking a quick step back, how did you first get into wine? Yeah.
Matt Landry:It's not like, I don't have a great romantic story about it. I think it was more of a a lot of my friends drank a bottle and then it like blew their mind and they changed their whole lives. They're gonna be lawyers. They're gonna do this. And I think I worked in restaurants my whole life up until about 26.
Matt Landry:But usually a lot of people just paying the bills and focused on other things. And I kinda came to that sort of inflection point. Maybe Mercury was in retrograde or something. And I was like, I wanted to change things up. And I said, either go back to school or I take hospitality seriously as a career.
Matt Landry:And I just happened to find the right sort of mentor who showed me the the way of hospitality and the meaning you can get from it. And wine became the my lane. Originally, I actually wanted to be a bartender. It was kinda how I first fell in love with it. And but the person who did the wine list left and there was a dollar an hour raise to take the wine list over.
Matt Landry:And I had no business running it. I didn't know anything about wine, but they wanted to keep me and I wanted more responsibility. I and that was my first buying job in twenty thirteen, fourteen, around there. What was the restaurant? Yours Truly.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay.
Matt Landry:It's a now defunct, but it's right by where Lebanon is now.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. And who is the mentor there that kinda
Matt Landry:guided through the process? His name is John Bonner, who is the operations manager now for Aloe. Yeah. And he was a sort of like a philosophy PhD sort of flunky. He's brought this sort of monk like humility to to cocktail making.
Matt Landry:And I just really, it really appealed to my personality in terms of very studious. He'd give me homework. I'd go on my days off and I'd work for free and he'd show me to make drinks and he would send me home with, hey, tell me study these five drinks, come back and tell me how you make them, and then we'll make them. Just like really generous person and very thoughtful. And that was kind of my first example of, oh, there's a career in this rather than just a job, I'd Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Do you think if there wasn't a dollar an hour raise, you'd be like a world class bartender now?
Matt Landry:I don't know. I'd probably gone back to school and I'd be a I don't know, a bank teller or something. Insurance.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I don't know. What was it about wine that made you feel like this could be my lane? You could have also gone into the kitchen. You could have Yeah.
Matt Landry:I knew the kitchen wasn't the way to go. I'm a terrible cook and I take no pleasure in it. I think wine, it's just it was just it took me a couple months to figure it out. But it is such a it's almost like World of Warcraft for people with social skills. It's like, there's no there's no end to it.
Matt Landry:Right? And you can always learn something. And and it's also this interesting lens. And I'd be lying if I said I knew it right away, but when I reflect on it, this interesting lens to to look at the world through wine. And I've learned so much about history, geography, geology, religion through wine, which is a really fun way to learn about those things rather than reading scientific reports or the Bible.
Matt Landry:And so it's really broadened my life and my curiosities and sparks. So the more you learn, the more you wanna learn Yeah. You quickly realize how much there is out there as soon as you start to feel like, oh, I know it. And then you're like, oh, no, I don't. And so it like naturally lights a fire and you almost if that's maybe your personality type, which is
Alex Abbott Boyd:mine. I'm intensely curious and that's what I love about wine too. The other big one for me is travel. Right? Everyone says they wanna travel and not be a tourist and interact with locals while you're driving through the countryside
Matt Landry:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:To visit wineries, that's literally what you're doing.
Matt Landry:And it's great. Yeah. Yeah. And wine never tastes as good as when you're having it there, like sun setting. The vineyard is beautiful.
Matt Landry:Yeah, you're gonna take that bottle home and probably be disappointed with it, but in the moment, it's pretty great.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. So when I go to regions specifically to get new producers, what I have to do is, because it tastes phenomenal there, is I bring back all the wines, I then serve it, have a dinner party with me and my friends and we taste them blind. Because I will know the romance so much more than anyone I try to sell Yeah, the wine
Matt Landry:that's good tactic.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah, no one objects to coming over and drinking 10 So bottles of when did the CMS, the Court of Master Somme, start to come in for you and become a focus?
Matt Landry:Pretty early on. I think a lot of people that was right when that sort of Somme movie had come out, I think 2013 was maybe when that first documentary came out. And and I got certified in 2015. I think April 2015, the Certified Sommelier. And yeah, I think it appealed to me for a lot of reasons.
Matt Landry:I think initially, probably if I'm honest, I think there was maybe an ego thing. I was always I was a scholarship athlete, and I always had these big grand ambitions for myself. And so when I was looking towards hospitality, especially in North America, it's not always looked upon as this, oh, what happened to you? How'd you end up here? Yeah.
Matt Landry:And I definitely had maybe that that voice in my head. And so wine became this pursuit of this sort of mythical abstract goal became a way to quiet that or maybe just make my mother understand what I was doing. And then I as it went on, I really I enjoyed the structure of it. So it's almost like it it plans out your whole year in terms of the test happen once a year or twice a year, depending what stage you're at. And it gives this sort of natural rhythm to it's almost like for for farmers, it's harvest just kinda sets the year.
Matt Landry:Right? Everything's anchored around it. And the lead up and the study for that has a sort of rhythm to it. And I think that's really what kind of kept me going. It's been I'll take the final test in September and it'd be eleven years now, twelve years.
Matt Landry:So it's really become like the through line of the last decade of my life and more. And I think now at this point, even more than structure, it's the community. I think it's it brings a certain type of person to the table. We're usually a very nerdy person, and you can kinda geek out with strangers from all over the world and Zoom study groups with people in Europe and America and South America. And I'm I'm going to New York in a couple weeks, and I'll be in different tasting groups there and having dinner with people I see once a year.
Matt Landry:And it's I think that's maybe how it's changed. It's gone from maybe not the best intentions or justifications to much more kind of wholesome and healthy reasons. That's beautiful.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Where are you in the process now?
Matt Landry:Yeah. So I'm I'm an advanced sommelier and the master's sommelier exam has three parts. So I've passed theory and service, and I will have tasting in September. Yeah. Which is always my worst part.
Matt Landry:So knock on wood.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Knock on wood. How are feeling about it? Good.
Matt Landry:And I never feel good, but I think that's fine. I think I'd be very suspicious if I was like, yeah, I got this. That feeling never goes away. Even when I pass, I don't walk out of there being like, yeah, I nailed that. But I think I wanna keep that sort of unease because then it's when it's a choice between practicing or ordering a pizza, it's okay.
Matt Landry:I'm gonna practice.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Yeah. Is your process for tasting? Have you developed one and kind of evolved it over the years for the tasting practice?
Matt Landry:For me, I have to involve other people. Like I know some people, friends of mine, they organize all these wines into vial, like little one ounce vials and their whole fridge is this gives me anxiety to look at it, but it's this whole
Alex Abbott Boyd:system. Is that on Instagram?
Matt Landry:Yes. It's like Jurassic Park when they're all the DNA and stuff. That's what it looks like. And it works for them. I find that I can't blind taste by myself, I at least need a person there to listen to me talk and to give me feedback.
Matt Landry:So it's just about finding a few people who want to taste regularly and kind of getting into the rhythm. And actually what I've learned after enough times failing at this is not to taste with too many different people. I think it's really easy because everyone has their own opinions. Yeah. And the court is notorious for being pretty opaque about what wines there are and why they are and what's what is Barolo and what should it taste like.
Matt Landry:Example like that. So I think if you taste with too many different people, you get too many chefs in the kitchen, and sometimes you get differing advice. So I try to find people I like tasting with who I actually like as people and doing it regularly with them.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. How do you achieve the access to the kinds of wines you need to be
Matt Landry:Yeah. You can get a lot of it here. And I think America when you go to New York or last year I was in New York, I was in Aspen, I was somewhere else, Boston. And I try to bring back suitcases full of wine for sure. Right now, it's harder with the alcohol ban in terms of I can't remember the last time I tasted Zinfandel, which isn't normally a bad thing, but I guess I need to know what it tastes like before this test.
Matt Landry:So that is a problem. But for the most part, you can get reasonable examples at the LCBO. Reasonable. Reasonable. Yeah.
Matt Landry:That's the only nice thing I'll ever say about the LCBO. How
Alex Abbott Boyd:have you enjoyed doing competitions? I mean, like, it's two years ago now, but I saw you compete in the Best Ontario SOM contest.
Matt Landry:Yeah. Yeah. I love competitions, actually. I probably love them more than most people. They're great.
Matt Landry:I grew up, again, playing competitive sports, so there's always that edge to me. But when we talk about community, I think it's such a fun day to bring people together. And I spent most of my sohom life in Vancouver. And when I moved out there, I'd just gotten certified and they're having the best somm of BC. And I just entered and I was working at a small little wine bar that no one knew about and no one knew who I was.
Matt Landry:And I I managed to make the finals, which was so surprising to me and to everyone else in that community because they didn't know who I was. They didn't know my restaurant, really. And in fact, when they I got called on stage, the MC was like, and this next person, I have no idea who he is. And within twenty four hours, I was invited to the best tasting groups in the city, and the people are making reservations at my restaurant. It was just like it's almost like a coming out party, like a debutante ball or something.
Matt Landry:And I learned so much, I'd say, in that one competition in terms of how big the world of wine is. I remember there was a question, name three OakForests in France. And I laughed out loud. Was like, I didn't know I didn't know that. I didn't even know it's not that you didn't know the answer.
Matt Landry:You didn't even know you're supposed to know. Yeah. And I thought that was such amazing, humbling experience. And when I wrote that test, I got my ass kicked and I walked out being like, there's no way I made the finals. And then I made the finals.
Matt Landry:So I looked around all these people who are like running a grand award wineless, and they didn't make the finals. And so, like, it it humbles everyone and also makes you realize how many blind spots people have and how hard it is to know it all, quote unquote, and how exciting it is. And I just fell in love with it. Yeah. And I think, yeah, it's such a healthy there are people who oppose it for various reasons, but I think it's such a healthy community event.
Matt Landry:We're living through the World Cup right now. It's the same idea of bringing people together. And again, we were talking before we started, I don't really get out to restaurants that much. And I'm usually so tired of my days off. And so I don't always see what other psalms are doing or pouring and I don't get to talk to them about wine.
Matt Landry:And there's just at least one day of year where we all get to hang out and test each other and test ourselves. And you do it the next year. Did you get better? Did you get worse? It's a really fun day.
Matt Landry:It's a really fun activity. Okay.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. So you'd recommend any somm?
Matt Landry:Yeah. The next one's coming up in November, mid November. Best Somm Ontario. I'll be there. Yeah.
Matt Landry:I hope as many people as want to can come. I think some people avoid it because they're like, oh, I wouldn't win, which I think is a who cares? Who cares if you win? It's the winning is the least important part. You learn so much.
Matt Landry:You meet cool people. And if you do happen to make the finals or something, it's so good for your career, like the prizes. I've been at least a dozen times around the world solely as a result of how I finished in one of those competitions as like a so it's if you want to get to Argentina, it's like compete. And so if you do well enough, you'll probably get a free trip.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. And Which is great. Worst case scenario, you'll be better at your job.
Matt Landry:Yeah. Absolutely. For sure. Yeah. And who knows?
Matt Landry:You'll meet people in the green room or the waiting room and maybe you hit it off and maybe they'll not be in they'll hire you or you'll hire them. And there's just there's so many both tangible and intangible benefits to competing. And I so I really do hope that a lot of people can beat and come and beat me. It's great.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Is there any competitions you're signed up for now that you're working towards or you've purely focused on the MS tasting for
Matt Landry:Bosque is November. And then I guess Besson Canada will be after it'll be the new year. I have a weird thing. I I do both because I won on so I'm entitled to Canada even if I don't win Ontario. I live here now, so I won't do Ontario.
Matt Landry:So it's confusing. Bureaucracy stuff. And then beyond that, I think that's yeah. It's just the MS.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. Yeah. So you're currently head sommelier at Prime What Seafood led you to that role?
Matt Landry:Yeah. I moved back from Vancouver and I was living in Niagara from 2023. That's where I'm from, Saint Gatherings. And I was working at Pearl, Morissette, great restaurant and winery. And when my mother passed away and so I was just like, do I live in the suburbs now?
Matt Landry:Am I old? And I decided not to. So I decided to move to Toronto and actually Keegan Ferguson, who's the head of Our House Hospitality, which PSP is part of, He's a regular at Pearl, so I knew him from there. And I just happened to see at the right time he was supposed to looking for a somm. And I was like, oh, I think I'll be in Toronto at that time.
Matt Landry:So we just talked and it just worked out. It was just serendipitous, as they say.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. For anyone who maybe hasn't been, could you share just very briefly what is Prime Seafood Palace all about? And then
Matt Landry:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:A little bit about the beverage program you're running there.
Matt Landry:Despite its name, Prime Seafood Palace is actually a steakhouse, which confuses a lot of people. It is a Matti Matheson restaurant. And within his empire of restaurants, it is the sort of fancy one. And it's been around for four years now. And it's like a it's a different take on a steakhouse.
Matt Landry:Just like architecturally, light wise, it's very warm. It's very bright. It skews that sort of classic dark wood, the dark manly coated steakhouse vibe. Great food. A little bit more chef driven than necessarily here's a Caesar salad.
Matt Landry:I love a Caesar salad. But it's got more ambitions than your classic steakhouse, which is more interesting for me because then we can do wine pairings and chef menus and a little bit more. It's got like almost like one foot towards something like a pearl while still being very situated in very classic, very easy to love, very full force food flavors, I would say. Cook everything's cooked on open flame. It's it's great.
Matt Landry:And the wine program is a work in progress as always. It was historically very burgundy focused. And again, because of my biases, it is broadening that. Burgundy will always have a good spot on my list, but I think we are in the process of making the wine list more accessible, both from a flavor profile and also a price profile, offering a wider array of wines from around the world at a greater variety of price points, would say. You can still come in and buy DRC, but you can also get a really nice wine for a $120.
Matt Landry:And I think that's somewhat of a new era of the restaurant and something I pushed for and so far so good. Why is that accessibility important? It's important because it's a Maddie Madison restaurant and Maddie has such a global now appeal. And such a so because of our price point, we definitely get a more conservative wine drinker, richer, well heeled, North Toronto type. But because of Maddie, we also get a much more alternative, lots of artists, metal bands, people who are more open to different types of wine and maybe less comfortable spending 4 or $5,600 on a bottle of wine.
Matt Landry:And so it's for me, it's an interesting opportunity and almost like an obligation to carry different wines for different people. Yeah. And as much as I love Bordeaux, it's yeah. I should have some Pella Verga and I should have some SkinContact Neuberger. And I should have these more alternative wines because we get asked about it.
Matt Landry:And it's important to have that sort of connection. We're also if it just geographically, like, we're not in the financial District. Right? We're Queen West heading very quickly to Parkdale. So we have that type of clientele too.
Matt Landry:So I think it's important to keep in mind the diversity of person coming into our restaurant. And remember, it's not just a it's not just a steakhouse.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. What what does a metal band order?
Matt Landry:Usually, a fernet. Yeah. It depends. Depends if their manager's ordering or if it's them.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. Yeah. Is this one time or
Matt Landry:No. It happens a lot. Yeah. Yeah. We get yeah.
Matt Landry:We get very famous it's the first place of our work, we get very famous people in. And actually, I don't know if I'm I had I don't know if I'm allowed to actually say who comes in. I I should check my contract. But we get very famous people, which is really fun. And then, yeah, we get touring artists and musicians and painters and architects.
Matt Landry:It's a very eclectic group of people. And so it's always something different every night, which is really keeps me on my toes.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Do you prefer that than I love Restaurant Pearl Morissant.
Matt Landry:Oh, yeah. It's a great ride.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But I imagine you didn't get every touring metal band.
Matt Landry:No, you don't. It's definitely unless they're playing at Saint in Saint Catharines. Pearl was a different beast. It was a different again, I also wasn't buying the wine at Pearl, so I wasn't really making those decisions. But I find that Pearl was almost food first, and it was almost exclusively wine pairings.
Matt Landry:I would say 80% wine pairings. And so it's interesting from a sommes perspective because it allows you a lot of freedom to sell a wine. You don't have to sell it. It's already sold. So it's we get to talk about a wine and get to work with things you're passionate about.
Matt Landry:And but it's about everything is about like how does this amplify or frame the dish. And that's the number one concern at Pearl. Whereas Prime, it's it's a much easier pairing option. It's easier that way. And also, it's almost always by the bottle.
Matt Landry:That's that's the most surprising thing about working at Prime. How little by the glass there is at Prime. I would say by the bottle is probably accounts for 70 to 80% of our wine sales. Wow. Which is its own interesting aspect.
Matt Landry:A challenge sometimes in terms of often by the glass is driving cogs. And if no one's ordering by the glass, sometimes it can be hard to pad pad your list somehow. But but it's also ultimately more interesting for me and my team in terms of selling bottles. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Landry:What regions are you highlighting now? You mentioned there was a big Burgundy focus. You're bringing some Bordeaux in. Southern Hemisphere, I think is it was almost nonexistent almost before I started. And so, again, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, I think are really there's great classic producers in all those regions, and I wanna highlight them as much as possible.
Matt Landry:And a little bit more Ontario wine. I think we because we do get a good amount of tourists. Yeah. I find that locals don't really wanna drink Ontario wine at a steak house. But when people visit Toronto, they're usually pretty open to trying things.
Matt Landry:And so a little bit more Ontario wine, and then, yeah, and then the hits. Yeah. A lot of Rhone as well, I think. But yeah. Our food again is sometimes so bombastic and so full flavored that you kind of want wine that's gonna stand up to it.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Was wondering how good is red Burgundy with steakhouse food?
Matt Landry:It can be good. It can be good. Nice palmar from a warmer vintage, but it can also be lacking. And yeah. It's almost the opposite.
Matt Landry:The food at Pearl is so delicate oftentimes. And so they change one, they take off the lovage, they're putting on something else. And so you gotta open six bottles to retry them with the dish. And that's not the case at Prime. And so I think there's less of a overt pair this with this.
Matt Landry:It's more like that slaps. Give me something that also slaps. Yeah. But in a glass, in a liquid form. That's super fun.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. How much is Matty involved? How often do you see him?
Matt Landry:Yeah. He's actually coming tonight. So Matt Matty is definitely the final word in all things food and really all things I would say. Except for wine, I should say. He's never told me I can't do something, but knock on wood.
Matt Landry:But chef Colson, who actually are is like the executive chef of the restaurant, he just won Top Chef Canada. So he's becoming his own celebrity chef in his own right. And he he's there more of the day to day guy. And I think everything gets run by Maddie. Sure.
Matt Landry:There's lots of conversations happening without me involved. But if Maddie likes a dish, it'll stay. If he doesn't, it'll change. That's pretty simple. That's how I understand it to be.
Matt Landry:Okay.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. So you mentioned something before, which was that, like, the wine program is almost doing better than before, which I am interested in because of what I'm hearing from so many places, whether it's literally my customers or it's the media, it's that wine consumption is down.
Matt Landry:I have heard that. Yeah. I haven't experienced it yet. It's yeah. It does seem to be, and nonalcoholic is rising for sure.
Matt Landry:But if you just look at the data, our numbers, and per guest spend on wine is up a lot. It's up double digits period after period. And I hope that has to do with me. I don't know for sure. You never know.
Matt Landry:But I guess I would be blamed if it went down, so I'm gonna take the credit because it's going up.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Are are cocktails flat? Are cocktails up too?
Matt Landry:Cocktail everything's gone up. Yeah. Our cocktail program, we just got a new bar manager and he's great. Much more classic focused, I would say. And yeah, everything's yeah.
Matt Landry:Everything's trending in the right direction, which is great. Knock on wood. And I hope that what I'm trying to build there is more I like to think of it as almost we talk in a restaurant about layers of hospitality. And often we're talking about in service in terms of the people and the steps of service and what we're doing and customer research and outreach and all that stuff. But I think there's a level of layering hospitality into your wine list itself in terms of making things approachable.
Matt Landry:Both approach from a price point and approachable from a customer gets it. Customer knows, I know what that grape is. I know what that wine is. And and also making it a place where people who are really into wine, when they think, I wanna open this nice bottle, because I love Corkage. I want them to associate Prime Seafood Palace with it's the wine place.
Matt Landry:And I think you do that by layering in these this level of respect in terms of how you price your wine, how you offer corkage, when you offer corkage. I think all these all these things get talked about the restaurant, and it's always about like, how do we attract that big time wine drinker? The guy eats out five nights a week. We want him to come here. And so we offer really steep, really generous cogs on really expensive wine.
Matt Landry:Upwards of less than 60% cogs for wines that are these big thousand dollar wines. And we waive corkage for our regulars quite often. We wage waive corkage for industry because we want to attract more industry. And if you wanna bring in three bottles and you buy three bottles, we'll waive the cork. You know, if you bring in three bottles and you buy two, we'll charge you one corkage.
Matt Landry:Just these little things that I think just we want people to leave really feeling like they got value and they and they wanna come back. You can only harpoon a whale once. You just wanna you wanna keep them coming back.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Are there any other examples that come to mind of things that you've done to really put hospitality into the wine list?
Matt Landry:I think we have a much more almost like a progressive COGS system in terms of how I price things out. And I think DRC, for example, we had five bottles of DRC when I started, and they're all marked up a lot, like a lot because it's DRC. And I would rather have someone who really loves wine and maybe that's out of the price range come in and splurge on a bottle. So to me, it's like I would rather do 60% cogs on a bottle of DRC and sell it than hold onto it forever, like come building some sort of wine monument. I'm not building a library.
Matt Landry:I'm trying to sell wine. And I want people to be like, do you see the prices on this wine? Yeah. Let's go there. Because that's how I talk about with my friends.
Matt Landry:If someone's my son went to Canoe and she's they're almost giving the wine away. And I'm like, oh, that's great. That's what I wanna hear. That's that makes me wanna go to Canoe. I've been to Canoe fifteen years.
Matt Landry:I should go to Canoe. Look at these prices. And I think it's a long play. It's more of an investment in your future. It's like, you can say, are you leaving money on the table?
Matt Landry:May maybe. But maybe they weren't gonna buy it anyway, so you're just gonna sit on this inventory forever as this sort of, like, bow on your list. Look, they have DRC. I'm like, I'd rather we bought that wine for $700. I'd rather sell it for $1,500 than hold on to it forever and sell it for $3,500.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. We also don't take margin to the bank. You take dollars to
Matt Landry:Yeah. Absolutely. For sure. And that's and luckily, I think the my higher ups agree with that. And so I I get free rein in terms of as long as the end numbers work out.
Matt Landry:We also we work with Krug. And I say we work with Krug. We offer Krug an incredible value. Krug isn't offering it to us at incredible value. They're offering it the same price they offer everyone else.
Matt Landry:But for us, the benefit is like when you walk in, if you came in, I'm pouring you krug when you come in. Welcome to the palace. The effect of that is so much more important than holding on to six bottles of krug that I can sell at $1,500 a bottle. What's the point? Like, why not the people who know are going to be like, wow.
Matt Landry:Like, when you pour a celebrity chef from England who has a temper comes in and you're like, welcome to the restaurant chef. You're some kroog. He will remember that. Yeah. Which is exciting.
Matt Landry:And it's just I was saying I'm in my Krug everyday era. It's such a fun it's something I used to drink once a year when I'd go to my SOM competitions or my SOM certifications. And now it's it's just a daily thing that we have. And we just want to kinda confer that level of hospitality and that association with our guests. That that's the Krug place.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I love that. And when you first told me about your Krug program
Matt Landry:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:The WhatsApp group that I have, which is not industry people, just my friends who love to drink wine
Matt Landry:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I immediately told them. Yeah. This is the place to go get some Krug.
Matt Landry:Yeah. For sure.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Which I'm sure I'm not the only one who's done that. So I think it probably is bringing in people to your point.
Matt Landry:Yeah. I don't know for sure, but we have to be selling the most kroog in the city, I would say. Maybe we go through quite a bit of it. And it's and it's just great. And it's just it feels so magnanimous almost.
Matt Landry:It's like beyond, oh, I feel like a baller because I'm pouring kroog for everyone, it feels like you're really giving someone something great at a really good value. And when you see that appreciation on their face, you're like, it's worth it.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. The topic of it feeling worth it
Matt Landry:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How do you find meaning and purpose in hospitality? Like you mentioned, so often in North America it's viewed as, oh, how did you end up there? Yeah. But it can also be deeply meaningful and rewarding.
Matt Landry:I think with hospitality, and I think fine dining maybe even more so as a subcategory of hospitality, it's almost you enter into an agreement with your colleagues of a certain standard, and you have to hold yourself to that. And I think it's really refreshing. And it's also really motivating to be like, I have to show up and be at this level because because everyone else is going to, and I can't let them down. I think that's that sort of discipline is great. Whole point of fine dining when you're at these sort of Michelin type places or Michelin ambitious places, is you're always looking for ways to say yes, to make someone's night, to remember someone's birthday, to send someone home with signed Maddie cookbook.
Matt Landry:So it constantly makes you think of other people, which I think is healthy. Just a healthy way to be as a human being to get out of your own head and become less focused on you and your narrative and your let me show you what's great. This is the wine you should be drinking. What wine do you wanna drink? How can I make your night?
Matt Landry:Which I think is a really it's a way it's something I wish I saw more in the world. I sometimes joke that it's something I've ruined my when I go out, not to restaurants, but when you're at the bank. It's like, bank doesn't care about moving you along or whatever. There's a lack of hospitality in other aspects of life. And sometimes I think because I spend so much time thinking about it and living in it, I can almost be a bit resentful when I'm I'm trying to get some chips at the grocery store and the person who works there won't get out of my way to to get them.
Matt Landry:Yeah. It's just like they're just working. It's just a job. It's inspiring, I think.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Is magical. It's both an industry where many people get into it because it's a job. Yeah. But then there's this extra layer where if you care, suddenly it could become deeply meaningful.
Matt Landry:You probably said about almost any job is just care. Even if you're working a job that you don't love or in hospitality, if you're having a bad night, caring actually makes it easier. There's nothing worse than working a job where you do not care. Yeah. I'm 19 years old working at a convenience store, and you're just like, every minute is thirty minutes.
Matt Landry:That's what it feels like. But if you care, if you actually try to do a good job, time flies and and opportunities arise. And I think caring is the most important. Just give give a shit, and I think it's your life will be better if you just whatever you're doing, care deeply about it. And then it'll benefit you in multiple ways.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Is that what's keeping you engaged? What are you just as excited as you were ten years ago when you're just learning everything about wine for the first time?
Matt Landry:That would be a lie. Yeah. It's maybe it's different things now. It's actually less, I'd say, about the wine because I think the things at this level you're learning about are so minute and really so maybe devoid of what's important at the table. It's more I'm more excited about learning other aspects of hospitality, either front of house or even back end learning, having a better idea of the finances of a restaurant and cash flow and just learning those things.
Matt Landry:I think I've it seems like more of a challenge at this point, so it's more exciting. And then I think it's the whole holistic approach to hospitality rather than just the wine aspect. And I think before maybe I was more focused on just the wine. And now it's like, how does my role as the wine director fit into a larger deliverable, which is give a give the customer the best possible experience. Right?
Matt Landry:And I think that's where I really get excited about now and more so than learning about wine, learning about a wine or a wine region.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Well, that makes sense. Do you think the role of the somm might be changing a little bit more towards what you're saying? I'm just seeing fewer and fewer people who do have that 100% dedicated somm role. They're a GM as well or they're managing all beverages. Do you think you can get away with not knowing about finances and back of house and cocktails anymore?
Matt Landry:No, probably not. I don't think. Maybe some very large programmes or more corporate programmes you could, but even I'm just trying to think off the top of my head of those purely som jobs are so few and far between these days. And so I think you have to be good at everything. And especially if you want to rise in the ranks.
Matt Landry:I know a lot of people who know a lot about wine, but don't know how to cost it, which is a very important thing to do. It's probably more important. And I again, I think how to teach wine, how to talk about wine, how to talk about wine at a table. Are you at a table? Are you start talking about malolactic fermentation?
Matt Landry:Are you doing because you're just alienating your guests? Are you really trying to engage with them and try to distill what a wine is about rather than regurgitating a text sheet at someone who doesn't know anything about wine or just wants a nice glass of Chardonnay.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Alright. To finish off, just some more rapid fire questions.
Matt Landry:Okay.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What would you say are the three best bottles of wine you've ever had?
Matt Landry:Preface this by saying, I think what I like about wine is the ephemeral nature of it. I used to one of my old epochs, I was really into improv for years. I loved comedy, and I loved getting on stage and making stuff up. And in the best nights, they were it was so electric and amazing. But a week later, you wouldn't remember what you what the actual scenes were about.
Matt Landry:You just remembered how good it felt. And I often find with wine, it's like, oh, a great wine night. And we'll open up so many bottles and I walk away with this sort of, it's a blurry memory for multiple reasons. But I just know I was really good. And so I often don't have a set answer.
Matt Landry:But since you gave me this as a preamble, 1998 Vue Telegraph, Chateau De Pape, I think was one one of my early examples of like wine with age, wine at a perfect kind of point in its trajectory. My first ever Krug, someone poured me a 1990 vintage Krug. Just a legendary vintage. And I was having this maybe 2015, so fully evolved. And I kind of saw what champagne can be with age, and it's a whole different beast.
Matt Landry:And I think that was quite illuminating. So I'd say those maybe those two stick out in my head. But yeah. Yeah. It's like this you
Alex Abbott Boyd:can open up the same bottle on a different day. I just feel like it's your day that day, who you were with, what happened is almost as important as the wine for creating that
Matt Landry:magic. And again, like we talk about, I love Bordeaux. It's 40 degrees outside. I'm not drinking Bordeaux right now. So I I'd much rather have New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc today.
Matt Landry:Yeah. But most days, I'm gonna choose Bordeaux. So it's really about the environment and the people and the time and Yeah. And that I think that's why a lot of people who really love wine kinda get and maybe people who don't really know that much about wine or don't understand wine, they don't they don't see it that way. That it's like this living thing.
Matt Landry:And it's like a guess. I think that wine's gonna be good right now. I'm gonna give it a try. I didn't get it. Oh, it was great.
Matt Landry:And you're gonna hold on to this next bottle. We'll try it next year. I think that's that's the probably the most enjoyable part of wine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:A 100%. I also find I have much better success rate on a Tuesday or Wednesday. On a day when there's no pressure for it to be amazing, that's when you can get hit with.
Matt Landry:Or even if you have time for a little story. When I got certified as a sommelier, I had to you do your champagne service, and they give you a dummy bottle. So they asked for a really nice wine, but it's a fake bottle, you gotta pretend. And so they asked for 2,002 Cuvier Winston Churchill. So I repeat it and I go and I get the dummy bottle and I bring it back and I 2,002 Cuvee Winston Churchill.
Matt Landry:And he says, who makes that? And I was so nervous. I looked down and said, Zenato? And he goes, what? And I was like, I'm sorry.
Matt Landry:Don't know who made it. And I was so embarrassed. I still passed somehow, but I still I was so embarrassed. The first thing I did when I went home was I bought a bottle of 2,002 Kufay Winston Churchill. Fast forward a couple years, and I've been holding on to it for this really special occasion.
Matt Landry:And me and a person had just moved in together and we're I was gonna we're going for dinner the next night, and I was gonna open it for this dinner. And the night before, after fourteen hours of moving, we had a ball of just ruin our blanc de blanc. And I remember after fourteen hours of moving, I thought that was maybe the best champagne I've ever had in my life. And the next day, we went for dinner and I was disappointed. A strong word, but I was still like, oh, I don't like this as much the one I had last night.
Matt Landry:And it's three times the cost and this thing that I fetishized. And I still encourage people to look out for that wine and that vintage. It's great. But I I remember thinking that you kinda hyped it up. Yeah.
Matt Landry:Because it was gonna be like, this is the great wine. I'm gonna have this great night. And you're kinda like, oh, it's good. And you're gonna shrug. But the wine before was just like because of the environment, because of the time, and because you weren't really expecting much of it, it was great.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. My favorite wine I think I've had is a Domre and Arblanc de Blanc 2013. But it was also at their estate on Valentine's Day,
Matt Landry:so I don't know how Yeah. That's pretty ideal.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How to separate that. What is the most underrated wine region for you?
Matt Landry:I think it goes back to, again, the New World. If I had to pick one, again, I'll say Argentinian, Malbec, Mendoza, high elevation. If you're pouring that blind, it is very easy to mistake that for Northern Rhone Syrah. And I and that is a great compliment I can give something. And I think, again, there are the people sleep on it, or they're like, oh, whatever.
Matt Landry:Or it's it's reputation is maligned by a bunch of $20 juice that you find in the LCBO. But man, the heights of those wines, Catana, Sapada and Zacardi, those ones are great and criminally undervalued. And I recommend them quite highly. So so I'm now the least cool somm in the world who's telling everyone to drink Bordeaux and Argentinian Malbec. But that's okay.
Matt Landry:I turned 40, so I'm keeping up on being cool.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Nice. Anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up?
Matt Landry:No. It's great. Thank you so much for having me.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Thank you for your
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