S4 E126 | CXR Uncorked: Sharing Chianti with Marcus Thorpe

Welcome to CareerXroads Uncorked. A series of member chats inspired by good drinks and current talent acquisition trends your hosts Chris Hoyt and Gerry Crispin, break down today’s recruiting headlines while reviewing a select beverage of choice with industry leaders and influencers. Join us for a drink in conversation.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:24
Welcome, everybody, this is a CXR special podcast. This segment is called Uncorked two. This is where we grab one of our favorite people in the space and sit down typically with their drink of choice if we can get a hold of it, and talk with them over that bottle or that glass or that mixer about what’s going on in their world. What’s hot in the space, what’s top of mind. And so I’m excited that Gerry and I have a repeat guest I think Marcus, you’ve been on the show before but you’ve not done an uncorked with us, have you?

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 0:53
I have not. And I felt I felt left out last time when I found out that wine could have been involved. So I had to insist that wine was involved the next time.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:02
Yeah, well, it’s a good call. So Marcus, as we jump right in, why don’t you give a little bit of an escalator pitch as to who you are and what you do and where you’re seated.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 1:13
Yeah, so my name is Marcus Thorpe. I am currently the global head of talent acquisition for ThoughtWorks. We are now newly a public software consultancy and building bespoke software for big big companies and clients, airlines and banks and retail companies that don’t typically specialize in building their own software. And I’ve been there four and a half years, I’m based out of my home office, which is what you see behind in the Peak District. So the hills to the south east of Manchester in the UK and living with my three kids, my wife and two dogs at this point. And yeah, my my sort of my shtick is tech recruiting. So I’ve worked for some of the bigger names within the tech space you know, building significant tech products, software engineering teams, etc. kind of fell into it I blame on my dad, my dad was electrical engineer. So I blame my ability to have some rapport with people have a logical bent on my dad. And yeah, I’ve been at it for 25 odd years now. And there are always new challenges to solve for and scale to build and people to develop and grow and within the space so it keeps me busy and interested and paid relatively well to buy this fine wine in front of me.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:44
Well, you you are a little bit of the you are a fan of the grape juice, right like a bit of a wine fan. Is is I think the last time we saw you live was what we were in Napa. Yeah,

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 2:57
that’s right. That’s right.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:58
I’m a Napa. Yeah,

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 3:01
I’ve had to rebuild when moving from the US to here couldn’t really bring my wine out a couple of jobs I had actually persuaded them to break their RELO policy by the system I 200 bottles of wine moved from LA to Seattle and Seattle to the east coast. But getting that transatlantic was probably too much so I had sort of give it away when I left New Jersey and start again there’s lots of countries around here that allow me to do that so it’s

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:28
Look at Gerry’s face

Gerry Crispin, CXR 3:31
Iwas around when you were giving that away I just realized I was not within with that large jest I hope you had some children or find relatives as opposed to professional acquaintances that you you gave that to otherwise I’m gonna be jealous.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 3:53
To be to be completely fair my colleagues didn’t get any most of our things including TVs which don’t ship to the UK because it’s a totally different system and is from in the US and North America. They all went to my brothers in law who live just across the border in Toronto. We get in underneath suitcases and the wine sort of underneath the carpet or two and then just wave nicely at the Canadian border patrol, as I said, basically smuggled into into southern Canada get nothing nothing personal apologies it didn’t it didn’t

Gerry Crispin, CXR 4:34
I never took it personal. I just felt the loss.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 4:40
Missed opportunity. So Marcus, what did what did you pick for your drink of choice today?

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 4:46
Ah, so this is um, you know, I chose this because it’s, I’m a huge advocate of Costco wine, which may not necessarily follow and you know that there are other fine places you can buy wine as well, but Costco is the largest buyer of wine in the world as a company, then there’s a documentary if you care to find it, about the, the lady who was a buyer at Costco with no prior Wine Experience, who has become their lead wine purchaser, and had to go through various training etc. But they do a really, really good job of variety of wine, mixing it out, it’s not always the same ones each time. And also they do a really good job of sharing notes, so you don’t have to guess what stuff is. And you know, they’ll pull the Robert Parker reviews or wherever the reviews are from, to give people an indication of what we’re talking about and some tasting notes etc. So that’s my precursor but I went for something European since I’m now over here and need to start selling for the well when I bought it for a year which we’re now no longer part of. But this is an Italian it’s a Chianti Classico. It’s a Reserva and Castello Volpaia a so it’s it’s big and meaty 2015 It’s probably only just starting to be drinkable. Because it is a it is it is a slightly older, longer lasting wine. But I’ve had one before, it was delicious. And when I thought, that’s fine, something that we can get across the ocean. This seems to be the one.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:25
Very nice.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 6:27
That’s good information about Costco. I am a member of Costco, but I’ve not used it in well over a year. I’m gonna go to Costco and see what they’ve got from a wine point of view. That’s, that’s good. Good information. Thank you, Marcus.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:42
It is. I haven’t renewed my Costco membership since leaving California. I don’t know why I haven’t gotten around to doing it. But I do

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 6:50
It’s Sam’s in TX right.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:54
Sam’s is different than Costco. Right?

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 6:55
Yeah. But I’m saying it’s sort of south of sort of Wyoming, you start picking up more of a Sam’s Club affinity rather than a Costco one.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:04
Yeah, yeah, that’s true. But I do remember them always having like the wine ratings, and there was always a nice variety and then a couple of staples that you would always grab the easy stuff. What I did learn is the liquor store for Costco does not require a Costco membership. You can just roll on up to a Costco liquor store go right on in and and buy whatever you want and roll on out of there without a card.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 7:31
And depending on which state you’re in the liquor store may be part of Costco and and maybe a different building adjunct to the Costco right? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:41
I just remember feeling really dejected they were like I was like, here’s my card like we don’t need your car like shit I bought that card halfway for the liquor.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 7:50
So I I have a couple cases of this by the way. So this is a Chianti Classico. Reserva be Viticcio is the producer. Oh, nice. Wine Spectator puts it at 94

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 8:10
Wow. Okay,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 8:11
At less than 20 bucks. That’s very nice. And so I got you know, I said, huh, as the regular drink that I might want to have during the course of a week or whatever, you know, nothing particularly special but, but good quality and drinkable goes down well. This is a lovely Chianti classico Reserva. And for those who are into the Sangiovese grape, I think it’s a it’s a, it’s a good choice. From my perspective.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 8:50
I’m going to make a note of that, because clearly your midweek drinking is a high quality of mine and I need to up the ante a little bit so I’m gonna make a note.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 9:01
So, Marcus, when you said that the Chianti is just drinkable? That it’s one that ages? How would somebody who doesn’t know any better avoid buying, buying and drinking wine that they should be buying and sort of sitting on for a while?

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 9:15
I’m gonna look that up or Yeah, I mean, that you cheat. You know, I, I am subscribed to Cantor which is a European magazine, online presence, which tends to test out sort of supermarket blends, for example, which we have a lot of in the in the UK and Europe, as well as everything else, you know, you can look up, what’s the best non vintage champagne for Christmas, that sort of thing. And then a couple more online ones, including Wine Spectator, I joined them an so if I ever go have to go through a menu, I cheat and I look up and I want to have somebody else say this is a really good bottle of wine, and it’s okay for drinking between 2020 and 2027. And then now I’m in the middle of some So, there’s always information somewhere, sometimes it’s a bit a little bit for it. But um, wine searcher is a really good place that sort of collates, you won’t get the notes, but you’ll get all the scores. And then there’s a free version of wine search, and that’ll give you the, the aggregated scores, the mean of all of them for anything that you’re looking for. And then even tells you where you can purchase it afterwards. So yeah, I cheat, I read it somewhere else, I don’t have that sort of knowledge. But you do tend to pick up eventually, which years are good ones, you know, so for, for northern Italy, 2015 was a great year, and 2018 was a great year, for example. And so, so those cheat, cheat was a little bit of knowledge on the side,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 9:21
I think we all cheat a little bit as a starting point. And then when we drink the wine, you know, if you don’t need a Tums about 15 minutes after you’ve had the glass, yes, definitely, oh, that it was a little bit more drinkable. There, there is some raw wine that we when we go to conferences, for sure. You know that after the second glass of that red wine,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 11:12
The conference lobby, red wine, right?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 11:16
I know it just doesn’t work. And, and that’s when you know that you’re not drinking the kind of wine that’s going to, you know, give you some kind of experience if you will.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 11:29
I use the Vivino app, because I can take a picture of the label. And I think I think I have the papers, it’s like a buck $.99 or something like that. And you can store your entire Wine Library in there, I think

Gerry Crispin, CXR 11:45
Well, we have, we have on our camera, the lens thing. And when you when you, when you move from camera to this lens app, on our camera, it basically looks at the picture of the bottle of wine that you’re looking at. And then gives you actually links to reviews.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 12:13
You know, I used I tried for Vivino, but it’s an I have to admit this. It’s probably the inherent snob in myself. But if I’m going to have somebody else comment on the food or wine, I was three, somebody that is professional in that area, rather than somebody I don’t know who this person is, what their day job is, etc. They may have a wonderful palette, but I’d rather trust the professional to give me that advice than the well meaning probably quite capable individual that I have no knowledge about.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:48
Well, you you say that and it probably it’s why we anything on a veto, we won’t buy anything under a four. So even a three nine will pass. But over a four is typically where it’s like, oh, this is pretty good. Maybe not our favorite. But yeah, it’s not awful. But yeah, that’s usually how we cheat.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 13:07
Yeah, there’s, there’s a Wine Spectator app, which is pretty good. You have to pay for that. And if you search, you don’t always get every year of every vintage of every wine. But you’ll normally get a picture if it now if all of them with a slightly different choice of vineyards, but the same brand and the same year is a 92 You know, this one’s not going to be at, you know, so that one’s quite a quite another one’s potential one as well. But you have to cheat.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:37
I don’t know how you guys collect 200 bottles, I can’t, I can’t seem to hold on to them that long.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 13:45
You just have to, you know, it’s like Supply Chain Management, you have to make sure that you understand your time to deliver and plow through and your production rates basically of consuming wine. And they have to match it with making sure that there is an inbound supply of of happy van drivers with crates of wine to try.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 14:11
And it’s also your your to your goal in life. If you want to invest in wine, that’s a whole different thing if you’re young and engaged and all and have the money to do that, but I limit to about a little over 100 bottles in part because I figure when I stopped buying I can probably still drink all the rest before the end. And I have no interest in leaving any any bottles to my children. They don’t drink wine. So my daughter likes beer. My son likes liquor. And you know why why leave any of that shit for so if I bought it for myself, I’m gonna I want to be able to drink it before you know before it’s too late. So 100 bottles you is pretty good. It’s a good.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:02
Yeah, there is a my parents called me not long ago and they said, Look, we’re just getting all of our affairs in order should something happen. We want you to know that there’s this and that that’s left you and I, they said, What would you like us I don’t want any of your stuff. I don’t want any of your money. I want I want you to have such an enjoyable life that, that you roll into that coffin hot. Like that, like you are so spent and done. And your last check. I wanted to bounce, I want you to just say

Gerry Crispin, CXR 15:33
That is that is my favorite. My favorite line is that, you know, the day you go, your last check bounces after,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:43
I’d like my coffin to be closed. Because that’s that’s just how hard I went up until the end. It’s like nobody. Because just remember him the other way. But yeah, all us all assets depleted.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 15:58
Make use of it and why wine is I think wine is just an extraordinary way to be able to enjoy or experience breaking bread with your friends, your colleagues, your family, etc. So it just, it’s it’s very enjoyable from that point of view. So,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 16:17
Marcus, when did you when did you get into wine?

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 16:20
Um, I mean, true. I mean, my parents have always loved wine. So it’s probably part of, you know, why I was interested in it, potentially. But I moved to San Francisco in 1998, at the age of 27. And my knowledge of wine, prior to that was effectively zero, you know, I would have been exposed to a couple of nice bottles, and a nice dinner with my parents. But, you know, not much sunk in. But having Napa on the doorstep. snowmen on the doorstep, which I discovered later, sadly, I wish I’d discovered to Nome earlier. And then, you know, even further south, you can go south of San Francisco and also find some great wine. You know, whenever it was a crappy day in San Francisco, which was uncommon, and we had nothing better to do it was hey, should we go to Napa, and you know, drive, basically jump in the car, you’re at the bottom end in about 40-45 minutes. And then you can just spend, you know, as much time as you like going as far up as you like, you can even like break, there’s Silverado trail in the back. And there’s all kinds of, you know, variations on the theme. And oh, this place is it looks interesting, you’ve been here before. And I have to admit, I used to have a bit of an underhand practice, which was, I would join every wine club that we stopped at on the way up and on the way back down. And when you do that, you give them your card details. And you get your tastings for free and your whole group gets toesies for free. And probably three or four times. Having done this, every time I came back to the city, I would destroy my debit card and order a new one hadn’t been stolen or anything I just said you know, just was needed replacing. So a month later, six weeks later, all of the wineries reach out to me saying we’ve been trying to send you your first crate of wine and we’re unable to please fill in this form and send it back to us so we can make sure that you get your wine that you would like and of course eventually got wise to that and they took a chunk of change out rather just a promissory note saying I’d like to buy some wine at some point in the future I think they’ve made a little bit more safe take the size it safe and tight to stop people from doing that so I might have changed the policy for for joining wine clubs

Chris Hoyt, CXR 18:56
I have never joined a wine club until my second time living in California so a couple of years ago and we spent we rented a little place near the beach and Carmel for about four months like biggest year ago yeah and there was a particular on the walk down to the beach we would pass this sort of wine shop for the hot for the Hon winery okay and loved the staff at hot loved it I mean we loved a couple their character Jolie was wonderful but Han had this thing where if you remember anytime you stopped by you got a free tasting I don’t know that the dog has been walked so much as when we get free tastings every time we walk by the Han shop. So yeah, which and they I think they appreciate seeing the dog more than they did us because we’d swing by there I think almost every day and get a free tasting I always still get though we still get the Han wine delivered out here in Texas now it’s great.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 19:58
Yeah, cuz I come back at night. Ta a tasting was sort of five bucks and you get three nice tastings for five bucks. Now, if you don’t go in there not a member of a club, you’re talking 2025 bucks sometimes for a table easy,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 20:12
It’s more than that. Yeah,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 20:14
Yeah, I I belong to only two wine clubs. One is Antica which is Antinori. And the other is nickel and nickel. And so though that’s basically it other than that I, you know, I look for modest price wines that are drinkable. And I’ve learned to drink a lot more white wines in the last couple of years than ever before and enjoying them immensely in relation to that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 20:49
We spent some time in Monterey Marcus. Yeah, there is a winery, inland a little bit in the Monterey area called Odonata. And I think it used to be called DragonFly. But then there were some clients or whatever. So Odonata is like the another name for translation of dragonfly. And I forget, it’s my Gaelic, it’s something anyway, we rolled up on this place. And the guy is sort of introducing us around and one of the guys that works, the land comes over with a shovel, and he’s chatting us up and he leaves. And he says, Well, that’s the, that’s the owner. And he couldn’t have been 30 something and I guess he’s on to the summit, and the wine is fantastic. But and we’ve been four or five times we’ve visited since joining, but you sit out there, it’s just very, it’s not pretentious, it’s very, the sommelier that comes out is incredibly personal. And just chat you up a little bit. And it’s probably my, my second favorite vineyard that I visited the entire time that I was in California. So if you haven’t been to it, the next time you’re in the Bay Area, I would highly recommend Odonata, O D O N A T A. Yeah, I’ll send it to you. And we have another shipment that’s coming out. But they do these really great, they have a really great model for how the how the wine selections work. And you can opt out of this. I mean, but the team there, I’ve never seen a more personal sort of team and conversation. And it’s kind of a funny thing. Gerry and I were talking about this last year, in that every, you’ll have to tell us the same for you. But every wine club we’ve ever joined, was because we felt like we belonged there. When we were visiting. We weren’t you know, somebody wasn’t, you know, put out to help us and it wasn’t a hassle. It felt like we were part of that family or part of that community. And that’s how I ended up at care tle and Han and Scribe and a couple of others. But that was the wasn’t so much that the wind was through the roof, necessarily each time, but that we felt like That was somewhere we were supposed to be. Is that do you? Are you do you have the same discerning sort of selection?

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 23:06
Well, well, I mean, as I said, originally, when I joined wine clubs, it was literally to be able to get the free wine as a, as a as a person living with four other guys in a small house in San Francisco, you know, our rent paid for not very much else afterwards. So that’s why I did originally but no, that’s very much the case. Now it’s we, we don’t have wineries around here. They do grow wine in the UK. And so the wine clubs you can join, you know, it’s based on your affinity with how they deliver a message and the story they have to tell and not selling too much. You know, it’s a fine line between being affable, and, you know, pleasant to talk to, without every third word, turning to the cost of this bottle sort of thing. So, it’s a fine line. But yeah, I mean, there’s definitely a family feeling in somebody, a lot of these places have that sort of family vibe, where, you know, everybody behind the bar is a cousin or a sister of the owner. And that tends to make it better tends to make it a little bit more friendly and welcoming. Rather than feeling you know, they’re just eyeing you up to sort of see what color Amex card you have anyone that basically

Gerry Crispin, CXR 24:22
Well, and and, and the product is sufficient that you don’t you don’t need Tums after the first class.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 24:32
But that’s the other thing we found is when you went to Napa and Sonoma, is that you had to stop buying after the sort of the fourth or fifth winery. Oh, yeah. Because your appreciation for what’s good and not completely disappeared. Oh, this is wonderful. Oh, this is amazing. And yeah, you sort of your your standards definitely dropped a bit. After four or five,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 24:57
Especially in Napa, you need not to be the one Who’s driving because always gonna drive the cost of getting pulled over in Napa is is, I think the highest in the country.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 25:09
I did. One of the first lessons I think I learned working with Gerry directly was when we would do the dinners and the little happy hours after the dinner and we would always order a nice wine. But then around he only had two or three people still hanging out at the end. And so we end up yeah, let’s get one more skin a really nice bottle. And that’s the opposite. You should go because we could have been drinking a bottle of Josh towards the end of the evening. I thought it was Jordan. Well, I don’t have any Sonoma trips planned. Coming up. Although now I kind of feel like I wish I did. Marcus, you’ve got some travel coming up? Are you? Are you hitting any hit any wineries and vineyards?

Unknown Speaker 25:54
Well, TBD, you know, I’m going to be at Talent 42 Assuming it’s in person. And the plan will be to fly in and out of SFO. And then you know, and then make my way up to Seattle for sort of the week in between. But as Vanessa has already put her hand up to to come and join me. So the hope will be that if we have two weekends, two full to full weekends there, that one of them will be wine related sort of either. We have a really good couple of friends who live in Napa sorry, and Myrin. So they’re already that extra sort of 25 minutes closer to Sonoma and Napa. So either staying there and heading up in an Uber for the day, or just spending the weekend up there. So that’s sort of an early plans are being sort of formulated in that in that direction.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 26:47
I haven’t I’ve seen I know Talent 42 is up but I haven’t seen yet if if iari or sourcecon have any live? I don’t think they have any live dates planned yet. Just just the talent. You don’t think but you’re all the ERE family now obviously.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 27:00
When is are we are we looking at talent 42 Chris?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 27:04
We’re always looking at talent 42 Gerry. Yeah, I haven’t seen anything from it. I haven’t gone to look specifically I saw the dates that they were up but I haven’t looked at there’s an agenda or speakers or anything published yet. But I do like that part of the country for sure does make for an awfully nice road trip up the coast.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 27:21
If you go any time apart from June or July, Seattle’s weather as much like it is outside the window right now. But in June and July, it’s their summers are pretty spectacular. It’s about as pleasant and dry and non humid, warm. You can probably find so yeah. Big fan of Seattle in the summer.

Well, Marcus, let us know if you end up pulling the trigger on that. And then I think Jerry and I are going to head out to 42 and and anybody’s up for a fun maybe road trip, maybe that would be an interesting thing to sort of take on

Yeah, I’ll be flying up from from the Bay Area to Seattle. But I’d happily drive that way and stop in certain place in Oregon that we’ve already mentioned this evening and one on one and places like that. Yeah, that will be no,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 28:07
Marcus you would be candidate for this. But one of my fantasies is to is to go back to the laundry. And the French Laundry, the French Laundry. There. Obviously there’s there’s a whole host of issues about how you get into the French Laundry, but there is an exception. And the exception is there is one outdoor table at the French Laundry that’s for 10 people.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 28:35
Okay,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 28:36
And you can you can call to try to find a date for that anytime. You do not have to compete for that table. And so why my fantasy would be to find 10 folks who would be willing on a given date to fly in for that experience.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 29:06
I mean, I think I’d love to put my hand up, I have to admit I have eaten at the French Laundry.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 29:11
I have too

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 29:12
It was the year two, it was either 1999 or 2000. So shortly after I moved to San Francisco, and my parents came to visit and I managed to get I was on the phone as you have to do three months before

Gerry Crispin, CXR 29:27
Three months before, right?

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 29:29
And you call and call and I got through and they got a table and the only table was the last sitting of the day. We didn’t care what sort of European so that wasn’t a major problem. And so I took my parents, you know, this is 2002 French Laundry by way of saying thanks for everything, you know, seven years of boarding school and university and various extra costs. They weren’t expecting on top of that as sort of my way of saying Thanks, and it was extraordinary. And then my parents insisted they pay for the wine. So I paid for the food. And then they bought the wine, you know, as sort of a reciprocate. thank you very much as well. And it was, as you expect, wonderful. And the best thing was, because we were the last table the day, they came out with a second set of desserts for us, because they had a couple extra left.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 30:23
That sounds like a strategy to me.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 30:25
I think it’s it is a strategy we had. I used a concierge service. They, they called and said, No, we could not get you a date, I mean a time. But you’re on the waiting list. And then two days before we actually left for Napa, I got a call. And they said, Hi, this is so and so from the French Laundry, you had you know, you’re on the waiting list. And we’ve had a cancellation of four people, would you be interested? And they said, and I said yes. And they said, but you here’s the conditions, you can only have four people, you can’t have more, and you can’t have less. And I said, Okay, four it is they go? And it would be okay, you’re going to be able to pay half of that now. And there is no no, you don’t get it back.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 31:33
Wait, I want to know what happens if you show up with three, I get five and they say I don’t know, I don’t know, three do they turn the whole party way and keep that

Gerry Crispin, CXR 31:42
I don’t know, they are pretty you’re going to pay for some boxes to take on is what I hear you son. Now I think you’re going to pay for four and you’re going to get three

Chris Hoyt, CXR 31:55
If I’m paying for four I’m getting four,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 31:58
I hear you, then you’re gonna have to sit in two seats. But the but you know, they the date, the timeframe that they asked you to show up is so that they can greet you individually. See, I don’t see the purpose. There’s not, there’s not 20 people showing up at five o’clock, you’re showing up at 5:25 or seven, whatever, or whatever it is. And when you show up, they know who you are, because that you’re the only people showing up at that time is you.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 32:32
And that was the most amazing thing about the French Laundry was the service was in no way pretentious, whatsoever. It was completely sort of laissez faire. Know what you didn’t see someone lingering let you sometimes get. I didn’t resign around me. Exactly. But every time you finish something sort of lost in thought and enjoying the wine or whatever you’re chatting about. Some of these whisked away and somebody new arrives, you’re brilliant amazing.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 33:02
I can’t I can’t overstate this. But you know, you’d have 10 courses. And after each course, the Mater D whatever came to kind of debrief you about the course that you just had, that they had explained in detail how it was going to be delivered. And all of that kind of stuff. So as they’re as he’s debriefing you, you suddenly looked down and everything you had in front of you is disappeared some but somehow some some elves had had gone and take in all the shit off your off the table

Chris Hoyt, CXR 33:39
Food elves, Did you have food elves?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 33:43
And then and then when you looked again, it was all reset for the next stage. And I’m going How the fuck did they do this? Unbelievable. So yes, it was the the ambience was pretty extraordinary, very different than anything I’d experienced before. And so yes, it was well worth the the the kind of show as well as the food itself.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 34:14
I’d love to go again as not quite such an cuneus 28-29 year old and sort of see how it’s changed in my view. I mean, if you if you’re going to the week before turning 42 I’d love to be part of that. That’d be we’ll

Gerry Crispin, CXR 34:32
We’ll make a consideration here. It’s got possibilities if we can, if we can suck 10 people into into doing this and showing up you know at a given time given day, whatever. It would be pretty, pretty interesting. conversation for sure.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 34:54
Well, I’m putting my calendar together. So..

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 34:56
by the way that I know of a couple of other things British talent acquisition leaders who I’ve worked with previously who now live in the Bay Area, yeah, but I’ve been trying to sort of push in the direction that this is something you should be doing now what they once still at Google, which makes it difficult ones left Facebook, Facebook, we’re probably never gonna be part of it. But I’ve been trying to push in that direction. So there are potential future clients now that are sort of moving on from their from their big, monolithic companies. So and they’re both very interesting folks for for an interesting alcoholic. Some discussion.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 35:34
Okay. All right. It sounds like it sounds like as we’re putting the calendar together,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 35:38
It sounds like an opportunity as we as we put our calendar together, for sure.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 35:43
Alright, so look, let’s wrap this way. And I want to give a for anybody who may or may not be listening. It’s OTA Na, ta. So it’s Odon a TA, it occurred to me as we were talking about it. And I think the website is like Odonata, wines.com, or something like that. But it’s Odonata. But my my lazy lips a Odonata. Anyway, but so taking us out of this, give us give us, both of you give us because you’re both big wine aficionados give us give us one line one takeaway for somebody trying to figure out what kind of wine they like, how they should start or where they should look. So Marcus, let’s we’ll start with you. I’m just I’m just figuring out wine. What should I do to figure out what I like?

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 36:29
I’ll be honest, ask, you’re not going to you know, we talked about cheating, because that’s the stage we’re at. When you start, you know, don’t be shy about going into a wine shop. I wouldn’t go into Safeway, but going to go into a nice wine shop care now wines and SF, brilliant wine shop, and if you’ve been there, but it’s outstanding, they deliver all over us. I use them always for sending wines around the place, even today, and go in a place like that. Be honest about what you like and what you don’t like, you know, I hate woody Chardonnay, okay, well stay away from that. Do you like it fruity? Or did you like Apple sort of taste? Okay, they’ll direct you in a different way. I think that’s the best way to learn is to be a little bit modest, and vulnerable, potentially. And, you know, trust the person who, frankly, their job is to get you to like enough of the stuff that they can give you or sell you to the point where you come back and ask for more. So it’s absolutely in their jobs to do it. They’re not tied to one winery, like they would be up in Sonoma or Napa or elsewhere. And they can probably you can probably build a friendship over time with you know, come back and say I like this, but it was a bit too many Italians or about it. That’s that’s honestly how I recommend it. Don’t be I’m not the best example of this, because I do tend to lean heavily, heavily heavily to red. I love a Rosa when it’s a hot day. I don’t drink much white wine, but I still enjoy it when I get it. So I’m definitely biased towards the red. But the other recommendation would be don’t not try something because you think you’ve heard something about it. Take the recommendations, even if it’s something that you think you don’t historically, like you probably had a bad bottle of two buck chuck, and the 20 bucks. Chuck is a lot better than the two buck chuck. So that’d be my recommendation. Nice. I love it. And Jerry, how about you,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 38:32
When I started to get involved in wine, I was over 50 years old. And and it came because of a variety of different kinds of things. But someone had said, you know, stop doing this and start having a glass of wine today and you’re gonna be a lot better off. And I knew very little about wine. And so I did exactly what Marcus reflected on. And it wasn’t so much going to a wine store or a store and saying, Hey, what could you give me to try it? But I had friends who by and large were willing to introduce me people who I knew, like one and folks like masters master for example. He introduced me to some wine that I go, Holy shit. That’s, that’s not that anything I’ve had before. So it’s it’s the opportunity to to tell people who who actually like wine who might be in your, in your network to give you something that they like, so that you can go hmm, I like this or no, you know, it’s not. I can’t I can’t get it. And and quickly you’re gonna you’re gonna start having a exactly what Marcus said, which is, hmm, I’d like something a little sweeter, I’d like something not so sweet. I would like something that I taste the fruit, or I’d like something different than what I what I have now. So when I go to a restaurant, for example, I tell them, I like Italian wines that are blends, that I like, red wines, but I’m happy to try you know, a variety of things. And I like fruit forward. And I like something that is less than this cost. Otherwise, otherwise, they’re going to tell you, Oh, here’s something and you’re willing to go I I’m very clear on the price. And I offer this is a very important thing is you need to tell them what you’re comfortable paying for. If you know I’m comfortable paying $100 for a bottle of wine at a restaurant, that would cost $50 If I went into a store, I’m not comfortable paying $250 for a bottle of wine so so to be honest about that and say look, I’d like a bottle of wine that that you think is the best that you can offer at $70. And they’ll they’ll give you something relative to that. If if you really want to go to a restaurant and buy something it’s 20 bucks you’re still going to get you know two buck chuck because that’s what they that’s what they charge for two Buck Chuck.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 41:43
Yeah, but you can wash it down nicely with your catfish would be great.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 41:46
Hey, yeah. whatever

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 41:51
And you can clean your pennies in it as well.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 41:57
There’s that

Gerry Crispin, CXR 41:58
yah just add a little coke.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 42:01
Cali matcha right. That’s what the Spanish corner crappy red wine Cali matcha

Chris Hoyt, CXR 42:06
Oh, that makes me sick in my stomach just thinking about it. Not great. All right. Well, Marcus, as always, thank you so much for giving us a time we really appreciate your insight fun conversation about why we didn’t talk a whole hell of a lot about anything ta but that’s okay.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 42:20
Okay, we have plenty of time to do that in the future,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 42:22
for sure. And maybe even in a bus ride all the way up the coast.

Marcus Thorpe, ThoughtWorks 42:26
Perfect. And if you feel so inclined, as COVID allows in the coming year, I’m happy to find another by the way to do this again. So just let me know. This.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 42:37
That sounds like a deal.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 42:39
Look forward to it.

Announcer 42:41
Thanks for joining us for another episode of CareerXroads Uncorked. Chris Hoyt and Gerry Crispin look forward to sharing more drinks and conversation with you next time. Until then, cheers.