The ladies of Wine Two Five are charmed by govino founder Joseph Perrulli this week. You may remember us fan-girling about the shatterproof genius that is govino. Well, we have a fun and funny inside scoop on the how, the why and the wine that brought this popular wine-lover (and beer-lover!) must-have accessory to the party. And what’s with that thumb notch, anyway? Joseph shares that secret as well. We hope you’ll pour a glass, kick back and enjoy this special episode!
Episode 76: The Genius of Govino With Joseph Perrulli
This episode was recorded in early September so we’ve had it for a couple of weeks and are happy to release it this week! We did have a little sippng going on during the recording our recording with Joseph Perrulli from govino:
Steph: Lustau Palo Cortado Peninsula Sherry – a dry Sherry that falls somewhere between an Amontillado and an Oloroso. I’ve had it on the show before. You can get a Sherry refresher back in episode 65.
Val: Ca’Viola Barbera D’Alba, Brichet, 2011. This is from the Montelupo Albese area in Piemonte, Italy. Barbera is one of my favourite, versatile grapes. This one is super soft, loaded with dark berries and dried red flowers (thinking like hibiscus tea), and probably should be drunk now if you have it. The acids and tannins are gorgeously balanced, but a little on the low side. Still – was snarfing some Cambozola cheese with this bad boy (or girl, the winemaker calls it the “little sister”) before the show, and it was a lovely combo!
Steph: Now let’s sit back and enjoy our time with govino’s founder Joseph, a wine lover, inventor, and all around fun guy!
Govino’s Joseph Perulli
Photo courtesy of Joseph Perrulli
Joseph tells us about the moment he decided to create the best shatterproof wine glass for wine enthusiasts, as well as the biggest challenges bringing the idea to life. It all started back in 1998 while he was selling wine to an on-premise account in New York. He had a legendary Chateuneuf-du-Pape producer with him, and he was absolutely horrified at the “lousy plastic gargling cups” that were often used for sampling wines. “All wines are subject to the glasses they’re served in,” he tells us. Joseph complained to the shop owner about these cups, and was rewarded with some stunning hand-blown crystal French goblets that were stemless. These glasses not only made the wine shine (as if it wasn’t already amazing), but also sparked the govino concept.
It was from this experience the idea of a blown polymer, stemless glass was born. He had several obstacles besides the idea of the stemless vessel; the idea of plastic is a paradigm that is not normally embraced by wine lovers. With Joseph’s background as a wine rep it’s interesting to note that this product was initially designed for the wine trade. It was recyclable, light, and easy to take along when calling on accounts.
Now the product has expanded into dishwasher safe lines for beer, cocktails, and sparkling wine. One of our favorite features is the thumb notch. This offers the advantage of not actually gripping the glass and warming up the beverage. There’s also a decanter which holds a full bottle of wine! Yes it does, and Joseph proved this fact, much to the horror of the winemaker standing next to him, when he grabbed an expensive bottle of Pinot Noir and plunged it into the decanter. You can hear this entire story in the Funny Wine Story segment of the show at about 16 minutes in.
Govino glasses are extremely popular at wine festivals and with consumers who demand more from their wine experience than the everyday plastic picnic ware offers. Val and Steph have loved these products since we got our hot little hands on them back in early 2015.
Here are some of our past govino experiences:
In fact, we love them so much that we designed custom 16-ounce glasses with our Wine Two Five logo! They will be here in about three weeks, and all patrons at the $5 pledge level and above will all be getting one of these.
For more about govino please visit them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and at www.govino.com.
Patreon Love
Because this episode was recorded prior to Patreon we didn’t include a lot of the good juju that you’ll be reading next. However, we most certainly want to lavish some Patreon Props to our diehard supporters:
Jeff E from the hilarious drinking show, We Like Drinking
You may remember this guy from Episode 35: We Like Drinking With a Free Lunch. Also, if you listen the the We Like Drinking podcast you may have heard them poking fun at Val. A lot. In her defense, however, she has never fallen off the treadmill, elliptical, or Swiss ball while listening to their show … although she’s come close. Because these dudes are that funny. Honestly, we couldn’t be happier to have played back and forth between the shows. Jeff and the boys can be found every Friday morning in your downloads if you subscribe to their show. Jeff is a fellow wine lover and a Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) through the Society of Wine Educators, so he’s part of our tribe. We cannot thank him enough for the support, tips and laughs while we got the podcast up and running. He’s also helped us to get our Patreon page going. Much Patreon love to you, Jeff, our “Drinking Podcast Brother From Another Mother!”
“It’s not five o’clock and we don’t care” listeners.
You want your podcast when you want it, and your wine when you want it. Nobody’s going to tell you when it’s time to pull that cork. Thank you:
Thank you Clay from Arizona!
We love you Meg from South Dakota!
Why Patreon
Guys, the show is growing, and we are investing some serious financial and time resources into the show. This helps keep the show fresh with great quality content and helps pay for any new equipment, software, registration fees, samples, shipping and even a reinvestment in some much requested logo gear…coming soon!
Investments in our show are evidence that you get it, you value our content and our mission, just as we value you and the community you are helping to create. We’re seeing friendships form between wine lovers all over the world and couldn’t be more excited about this next step in our podcasting journey! Just go to https://www.patreon.com/winetwofivepodcast and find a level of Patreon love that works for you, even if it’s $1 every month!
Other Good Juju
We were recently featured in Libsyn’s latest episode of The Feed as a “Rockin’ Libsyn Podcast!” Thank you to Elsie and Rob for all the guidance we get from you guys and the feature.
International Podcast Day
This year International Podcast Day falls on Friday, 30 September. We are celebrating our craft with podcasters from around the world and here’s a little taste of why we do what we do:
(Disclaimer: We already know the lighting sucks and Val’s headphones are silver, dorky, and date back to before podcasting even existed. Aren’t you glad we are podcasting and not making more videos? Not to mention we are, quite often, behind the mic wearing no makeup, sports bras & ponytails. But you get the point, and we love that you get us!)
Share
We hope that you’ll share Wine Two Five with your friends and online community, and we certainly appreciate all your involvement and feedback. Leave us a burning wine question or comment and you could hear it on the show! We’d also love it if you’d go out to iTunes and show us some love there in the form of a glowing iTunes review so other wine lovers can discover our fun W25 community.
Connect
Please visit us on our FB page, Twitter, Pinterest & YouTube, Google +. Also, if you want to build your collection of wine books or accessories – like GoVino – please check out the online store also located on our website!
Connect with Val on Twitter @WineGalUnboxed and on the Vino With Val FB page, and on instagram as Vino with Val.
You can find Steph on Twitter @Albarellosoap and on the AlbarelloSoap FB page, and check out the videos on the Albarello YouTube channel!
One more thing… Don’t forget to use the #W25Challenge when you are trying new wines and drinks. Until next week …. Cheers!