I'll drink to that where we get behind the scenes of the beverage business.

I'm Levy Dalton. I'm Erin Scala and here's our show today. Oh, Michael Schmelzer on the show of Monte Benardi in Tuscany. Hello Sir, how are you?

I'm very well, thank you, Levy. Thank you.

You make wine in Panzano now.

How did you get there?

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Italy in Evreia, Piedmont area.

Then as a family we moved to France and I had a brother born there. I should say my oldest sister was born in the states before that.

And about age of three or four we moved to Michigan and settled there for my formative years, so up until about age 12, 13.

What was that like?

It was not necessarily memorable as a place to live but I remember it being very

important to me in the sense of my passion for food started there.

Okay.

And how did that start to manifest?

Honestly, I can remember being like seven,

eight years old and building up a fireplace on the driveway and building wood fire

wood fire and cooking bacon for my neighbors.

The who are apparently not Jewish.

Well, they were actually largely Jewish. I don't know if their

family would have their parents would have approved or not but I also remember my

brother probably he's two years younger than me probably around when I was nine my mother asked him if he

wanted eggs and he said yes but can Michael cook them so I guess it kind of

...