- That's crazy.
I always drank wine 'cause I'm like,
"Oh I'm sad tonight.
"Let's drink a lot of wine."
This is real. - That's why you called me.
- It is, hey man?
- I got you.
- Hi I'm Harley.
And this is "Wine and Cheeseburger."
A show where I, a man who is part beef jerky
team up with a sommelier.
I just learned that word.
We take your favorite fast food staples
and we're gonna pair them with the perfect glass of wine.
Each episode, I'm gonna be picking iconic menu items
and having my wine whisperer, Lara,
choose the best wine to wash it all down.
Maybe even teach me something along the way.
I don't know, I don't know.
Today on the menu, we're coming out buns blazing.
I'm talking about the McDonald's Big Mac!
Two beef patties dripping with grease,
the infamous special sauce, crisp lettuce for crunch.
Gooey American cheese, onions, pickles on a soft and steamy,
sexy sesame seed bun.
Of course, a layer of bread peeking out there
in the middle to give it that little extra.
Isn't it gorgeous?
Wow, amazing.
Who is that?
Who are you?
- Harley, It's me, Lara.
You literally asked me to be here.
- I know, I'm just playing around.
You know, 'cause it's the show?
You ready to get pairing?
- I'm ready.
- All right.
Thank you.
OK, you got the fries?
- Yeah.
- We both did.
No fries in the bag.
How annoying is that? - It's a miracle?
- This is my favorite part.
Just like inspecting the product.
You know what I mean?
You spend money on this.
Like was it made with love and care?
Or was it made by a stoned 17 year old this time?
Who knows?
Looking really good.
You know, I rate the beef a little bit.
With the aromas, enter your nasal passage.
- Are we doing this?
- Yeah, we're doing it.
Go on, we're doing it.
We're like little Big Mac squirrels.
You know what I mean?
- Cheers.
- Come on.
- You look-- Someone, I know.
So don't look at me.
Don't look at me.
- Wine rule number one Harley.
Pair your wine to your sauce.
- Wine rule number one, pair it to your sauce.
I knew that already, cause I know so much.
But for those watching at home...
- But there's that beef, cheese, pickles.
- You're pairing it to the sauce or to the beef.
Like I've never once analyzed
individual aspects of a Big Mac.
It's all collectively been, the Big Mac to me.
- I think when you're pairing wine to food,
you need to pull out certain components of that food
to pick the right wine.
- So you got an idea of how to pair wine to this right now?
- Yeah, I do.
- Yeah, you're good at that.
- That's why you call me,
Harley. - Yeah.
She's good at it.
- I'm not gonna take another bite
'cause meaning I've got the wine.
- OK.
Now that she's gone,
I think it's time for Harley's Hacks.
- Harley's Hacks.
- Yeah, it's where I teach you something new every episode.
This episode, I'm teaching you how to open a bottle
If you don't have a corkscrew.
Take your bottle, put it in a boot.
Take that boot and just smash it against the floor
until the cork comes out.
Watch this.
It's a (beep) boot.
The cork's nice and loose.
Now you can just pull it out.
Look at that.
You didn't think it was gonna work, aye?
Come on man, of course it's gonna work.
It's Harley's Hacks.
- OK. Harley.
I found three wines.
Wine number one, Malbec.
So, Malbec is from Argentina.
And some would argue that it is the most classic pairing
for a beef burger.
Do you know how to swirl your wine?
- Why is the glass so big?
It's supposed to be big?
- Yeah. - It's a big boy glass.
It's the big boy wine for the Big Mac.
That's what you did.
Big glass, Big Mac.
I'm a sommelier now.
- OK.
First you're gonna smell the wine.
There's a lot of dark fruit plum, blueberry, blackberry.
With Malbec, all those beautiful dark fruits
are gonna pair really really well with that beef burger.
Take a bite and then take a sip.
Swish it around your mouth, so it hits all four corners
- Four corners, I feel like I have way more.
- Top bottom side, side.
- Oh that, I was not thinking that.
I was thinking like front two corners, back two corners,
top two corners, top back corners.
- Do you see how it brings out the natural flavors
of the beef?
So you're tasting more of the beef than anything else?
- I'm not gonna lie.
What's actually really crazy is,
everything has now tasted differently.
- That's why you pair wine with food.
A lot of wine is meant to be drunk with food
because it will either enhance the flavor of the food
or the food will enhance the flavor of the wine.
- It really does, that's so crazy.
I didn't expect to do that.
I'm not even, it's not even because it's a show.
It's not even scripted.
Like it actually tastes different.
That's a wild thing.
- OK, wine number two, is a white wine.
But we made a major faux pas.
We drank red before white.
So you need to cleanse your palette.
- You say you played me?
So I have to eat this piece of (beep) cracker.
- Yeah, pick it up.
- I wish I knew that beforehand.
'Cause I don't even want it.
- You can't drink the next wine
with all of these flavors going on.
- We can, but we're not-- So we cleanse our palette
- OK. - in between, Harley,
so that it's fresh for the next wine.
- We're gonna have the freshest palette after this.
- Wine number two.
We are drinking an Oaked Chardonnay from California.
Some people would say, pairing white wine with a Big Mac
kind of crazy because it's red meat.
- I'm so sick of some people though.
- A lot of people would consider
red meat always goes with red wine.
But in this case, we're going back to
Lara's rule number one, where you pair to the sauce.
Now take a bite of you burger.
- This burger is looking broke up now.
- Now take a sip.
- I was going to.
- Totally different experience than the red wine.
- It was a very different experience from the red wine.
When we were over here, what are we doing back here now?
That's interesting. - Can you see
how it brings out a lot more of that pickle flavor?
- I have more taste - Cheese.
- in the back.
There's a lot more, more in the back at the top.
- That's because there's a lot of acidity in this wine.
And acidity in wine will make your mouth water.
- Yeah, my mouth very moist right now.
Why'd you laugh at that?
- Like who likes the word moist?
- Yeah. - Ready for my third wine?
- I've been ready.
- Because I have a secret weapon.
It's one of my favorite wines.
- Yeah.
- It's a Rose Champagne.
- Shut up, Rose all day.
You say that ever?
- No. - OK, me neither.
But I feel like it's the thing that
I thought maybe you would've said.
OK, let me, I've learned.
- So this champagne is made from pinot noir grapes.
Have you ever seen a prettier drink in your entire life?
- Yes. - It's pink--
- Carnival cruise lines, 2002.
Anyways, continue.
- It's pink, it's bubbly.
- You smell this also. - It's just perfect.
Of course I smell it. - You don't swish this one
around though.
- No, do not ever swish champagne around.
- Yeah - You'll lose the bubbles
and you don't wanna do that.
- 'Cause even this glass is
like bro, try and swish it around, I dare you.
You know?
- Ready?
- Yeah, you're ready?
- Getting to the middle of this burger.
OK, cheers.
Don't you just feel like...
a little bit classier?
- I feel like a bad bitch.
- Right?
Get all those little bubbles all over.
like a little bit sweet.
- There's a lot of action now, in my mouth.
- See how the burger kinda tones
the sweetness down of the
champagne too. - It does.
- They met each other in the middle.
- OK, between the three?
- Rose.
- Me too.
- Right?
I don't know.
It's the bubbles go a long way for me too though.
It felt like there was action in my mouth.
Big Mac already brings a lot of action,
like the pickles and the sauce and everything.
- And I feel like this is the perfect in-between
between the two of these.
The red wine paired really well with the beef,
the white wine paired really well with the sauce.
This champagne is in between the two
and it's just an elegant wine
with an elegant meal.
- Where'd you get that?
- You don't carry extras.
- All right, I will now.
- Should we open it?
- Yeah man.
- You wanna do it? - You.
- Oh
No, I'm fooling around.
You see that?
when you, how you opened it,
how there's like a mist coming out?
- Yeah.
- If you inhale that enough, you think you could get high?
- No, Harley.
- How do you know that?
- Because I've tried.
- OK, good.