Somebody People

Episode 6 features Chef Z, owner of Luchador Taco and More in Denver, and Jane Leadford, who has her WSET Level 3, reps small portfolios at Mondovino wine shop in the Highlands. I framed it on camera as "the wine game show where I say a lot of ums and ahs and I fumble my way through some of these wine descriptions." Self-aware host work.

The wines

Wine one — light yellow with a green glint, sweet lime, peach, lemon, pears, a touch of kerosene. Petrol on the nose. Subtle, but with all the markers. Jane guessed Riesling from Australia, $29. Chef Z called it Chardonnay. Reveal: Egon Müller Riesling, 2023, from the Saar — German Riesling, dry mineral style. Jane wins big with the geographic miss but the grape spot-on. "Inspiring winemaker," Jane said.

Wine two had more body, what Chef Z called a slightly aged feel. The tasters worked it carefully. The wine was a slightly more textured white, harder to place — the kind of bottle Mondovino keeps for the people who already know what they're looking for.

Wine three revealed as the kind of natural-leaning bottle the show has been featuring more often. The funk is intentional. The drinkability is high.

The pairing

The winner went to a Grüner that came out on top of the discussion — that spicy radish-cleansing quality the show has now flagged in three different episodes as a Grüner specialty. "This Grüner from S Tag, 2015 vintage, blew my mind as far as aged Grüner," Sam said.

The lesson: Riesling and Grüner do most of the heavy lifting in pairings the show comes back to. The structural reason is the same one — bone-dry but with enough body and acid to handle whatever the kitchen sends out, including spice.

Chef Z and Jane brought the kind of cross-vertical knowledge — restaurant + wine shop — that makes the format hum. Episode six. The show is starting to know itself.