The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast

Forrest Kelly

The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast delivers quick wine education for busy wine lovers. Host Forrest Kelly interviews sommeliers, winemakers, chefs, and wine experts sharing practical wine tips, wine pairing advice, wine tasting notes, and insider secrets from Napa Valley to Bordeaux.
Voted one of The Best Wine, Food and Travel Podcasts!

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356 episodes
Updated Thursday

Episodes356

Newest first

July 1 · 4 min
Back Label - One Man's Palate Was Worth Millions — Here's How
This episode of Back Label Story uncovers how Robert Parker, a Baltimore lawyer with zero formal wine training, built a 100-point scoring system in 1978 that ended up reshaping the global wine industry. We dig into how his ratings could move a wine's price by millions, why winemakers in Bordeaux started chasing his palate instead of their own terroir, and how the term "Parkerization" became shorthand for a worldwide shift toward big, ripe, high-alcohol wines.
June 30 · 5 min
Chef Turns Your Kid's Uncrustable Into Superfood W/O Them Noticing Pt. 2
Chef Chuck Hayworth is back, and this time he's going deep — from his upcoming longevity cookbook and hidden vegetable nutrition guide, to his go-to anti-inflammatory Nicoise salad, to the hard truth about what's really inside your kid's Uncrustable. If food is medicine, Chef Chuck is writing the prescription.
June 25 · 5 min
Rare Cancer Diagnosis to Private Chef: How Chef Chuck Learned to Taste Wine All Over Again Pt. 1
A stomach cancer diagnosis 26 years ago didn't end Chef Chuck's kitchen career — it transformed it. Now a private chef specializing in health, wellness, and food-and-wine pairing.
June 24 · 5 min
Back Label - He Punched His Brother — Then Built an Empire
In 1965, brothers Robert and Peter Mondavi came to blows over a mink coat, fracturing their family's winery and sending Robert into exile from the business he helped build. Instead of folding, Robert started over — founding the Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville and going on to help put Napa Valley on the world wine map, while Peter quietly built Charles Krug into a lasting legacy of his own. This episode of The Back Label traces the fistfight, the decade-long lawsuit, and the surprising reconcil
June 23 · 7 min
Pricing Psychology, Tested: How Many Did You Get Right? Claire Wang
Pop the Quiz returns with ten questions pulled straight from the Claire Wang vault — the pricing strategist who turned a wine show upside down. Round one dives into the brain science behind pricing: the Stanford/Caltech MRI study that proved price changes how pleasure actually registers in the brain, why premium producers avoid $18.99 price tags, and the blind tasting study that exposed what people really prefer when nobody's telling them what to think.
June 18 · 17 min
Pricing Strategist Walks Into a Wine Show-Blows Everything Up Pt. 1-4
Claire Wang spent 20 years pricing your phone plan, your insurance, and your foreign exchange rates. Now she's applying that same psychology to wine — and what she reveals will change the way you look at every price tag on every bottle you've ever picked up. From Stanford MRI experiments to a candid conversation with the managing director of one of Bordeaux's most prestigious estates, this episode is a masterclass hiding inside a wine show.
June 18 · 5 min
Back Label - The $250 Trick That Fooled Wine Spectator
In 2008, researcher Robin Goldstein set out to test how rigorous Wine Spectator really was when handing out its prestigious Award of Excellence. So he built a restaurant that didn't exist — a fictional Italian trattoria in Milan called Osteria L'Intrepido — stocked its wine list almost entirely with bottles Wine Spectator itself had rated poorly, paid the $250 application fee, and waited.
June 16 · 3 min
Why $9.99 Tricks Your Brain — Wine Pricing Psychology Pt. 4
We close out our run with pricing strategist Claire Wang in the best possible way — a rapid-fire True or False game on the psychology of pricing, starting where we always do: wine. Can a higher price tag actually make wine taste better?
June 11 · 5 min
Your Brain Lying to You About Wine — The Stanford MRI Experiment Pt. 3
Ever wonder why wine tastes better when someone tells you it's expensive? Pricing strategist Claire Wang breaks down the science — and it goes deeper than you think.
June 10 · 3 min
Back Label - Why "Mighty Fine Wine" Is the Only Tasting Note That Matters
A 1971 guitar, a bullfrog named Jeremiah, and a chart-topping anthem walk into a wine podcast — and somehow, everything makes perfect sense. In this Back Label Story, Forrest traces the accidental genius of Hoyt Axton's "Joy to the World" and the creed buried in its most famous line: mighty fine wine. No velvet boxes, no micro-slope lectures. Just the radical idea that joy is accessible, Tuesday-night real, and poured into whatever glass is closest.
June 9 · 4 min
Why Your $30 Bottle of Wine Is Actually a Bargain — Pricing Strategist Explains Pt. 2
Claire was standing in Château Pichon Baron in Bordeaux when the managing director handed her the entire philosophy of wine pricing in one sentence. In Part 2, she shares that moment — and breaks down why the most successful wineries aren't just selling wine anymore.
June 4 · 5 min
Pricing Strategist Walks Into a Wine Show — Blows Your Mind Pt. 1
What does a pricing strategist have to do with wine? Everything, it turns out. Claire has spent 20 years pricing the products you use every day — insurance, mobile plans, foreign exchange rates — and now she's pulling back the curtain on what really determines the price of a bottle of wine. Hint: it starts long before anyone slaps a number on a label.
June 2 · 4 min
True/False: Can You Send a Drink From Your Phone Right Now? Quiz Show
Rusty Cellars takes over as quiz master for a two-round, ten-question game show deep dive into Shared Spirits — the app Sherman Mohr calls "Venmo for cocktails." From restaurant integration to promotional sampling events to the Over 50 Pros story, this Pop The Quiz episode puts your knowledge to the test. Multiple choice, true or false, no excuses. Keep score and see if you've been paying attention.
May 29 · 5 min
Truffle Hunting, Mt. Etna Wines, and a Bed That Gives You a Hug
Former Bad Company bass player Paul Cullen returns to talk about his upcoming hosted wine cruise aboard Oceana's Alora — and if you've been on one of his cruises before, you already know this one is going to sell out. Paul and Bonnie Cullen are hosting an April departure out of Rome (Civitavecchia), with stops in Salerno, Messina (Sicily), Trani, Bari, and Montenegro. The standout excursion: a private visit to Gambino Vineyard on the slopes of Mount Etna, a fan favorite from past cruises.
May 28 · 27 min
The App That Lets You Buy Someone a Drink - Shared Spirits Pt. 1-6
Sherman Mohr is a serial entrepreneur who turned a pandemic pivot into a nationwide spirits and wine marketing operation — and he's just getting started. As co-founder of Shared Spirits, a mobile platform that lets restaurants and suppliers deliver digital drink credits to customers.
May 27 · 4 min
From a Library Pamphlet to $5.3 Billion: The Ernest Gallo Story
In 1933 — the same year Prohibition ended and their parents died in a murder-suicide — Ernest and Julio Gallo started a winery with less than $6,000 and a how-to pamphlet from the public library. What followed was one of the most relentless, controversial, and consequential stories in American food history. Ernest didn't just build a winery. He built the distribution infrastructure for an entire industry, created brands that became household names, survived a nationwide boycott led by Cesar Chav
May 26 · 5 min
Pop The Quiz: Flying Whale Edition — No Mercy, Just a Wine Quiz
Rusty Sellers is back and he's not playing — well, actually he is. The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast's resident quizmaster puts your Flying Whale Wine knowledge to the test with two rounds, ten questions, and zero sympathy
May 21 · 4 min
Spirits to Second Acts: Sherman Reinventing Your Income After 50 Pt. 6
Sherman Mohr wraps up his conversation with Forrest by sharing a passion project born directly from his work running a spirits and wine promotions agency — Over 50 Pros. After noticing that his best brand ambassadors were consistently in their 60s and 70s, Sherman began developing resources and inspiration for over-50 professionals navigating career transitions.
May 20 · 2 min
Back Label - 1 Station Wagon, 1 Crazy Bet, The Birth of Oregon Wine
David Lett loaded a station wagon with grape cuttings in 1965 and headed to a place nobody in the wine world took seriously — Oregon's Willamette Valley. Too cold, too wet, too far from Napa. He planted the world's most fragile grape in iron-rich Jory soil, lived in a trailer, and ignored everyone who said it couldn't work. Then in 1979, his 1975 Pinot Noir entered the Wine Olympiad in Paris — not to win, just to see where it stood. It stood next to the best wines in the world. This is the Back
May 19 · 24 min
Senegal to Napa: How a Filmmaker Built a Wine Brand Worth Talking About Pt. 1-5
Maba Ba is a serial entrepreneur, filmmaker, and WNBA superfan who stumbled into wine over a lunch meeting in Miami — and hasn't looked back since. In this conversation, he unpacks everything.

The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast

Back Label - One Man's Palate Was Worth Millions — Here's How

Chef Turns Your Kid's Uncrustable Into Superfood W/O Them Noticing Pt. 2

Rare Cancer Diagnosis to Private Chef: How Chef Chuck Learned to Taste Wine All Over Again Pt. 1

Back Label - He Punched His Brother — Then Built an Empire

Pricing Psychology, Tested: How Many Did You Get Right? Claire Wang

Pricing Strategist Walks Into a Wine Show-Blows Everything Up Pt. 1-4

Back Label - The $250 Trick That Fooled Wine Spectator

Why $9.99 Tricks Your Brain — Wine Pricing Psychology Pt. 4

Your Brain Lying to You About Wine — The Stanford MRI Experiment Pt. 3

Back Label - Why "Mighty Fine Wine" Is the Only Tasting Note That Matters

Why Your $30 Bottle of Wine Is Actually a Bargain — Pricing Strategist Explains Pt. 2

Pricing Strategist Walks Into a Wine Show — Blows Your Mind Pt. 1

True/False: Can You Send a Drink From Your Phone Right Now? Quiz Show

Truffle Hunting, Mt. Etna Wines, and a Bed That Gives You a Hug

The App That Lets You Buy Someone a Drink - Shared Spirits Pt. 1-6

From a Library Pamphlet to $5.3 Billion: The Ernest Gallo Story

Pop The Quiz: Flying Whale Edition — No Mercy, Just a Wine Quiz

Spirits to Second Acts: Sherman Reinventing Your Income After 50 Pt. 6

Back Label - 1 Station Wagon, 1 Crazy Bet, The Birth of Oregon Wine

Senegal to Napa: How a Filmmaker Built a Wine Brand Worth Talking About Pt. 1-5