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On this episode I’m joined by Jeremy Parzen. Jeremy is a very well known and respected Italian wine journalist and consultant. He has been writing and consulting on Italian wine and food for more than 20 years. He has a website, www.dobianchi.com, where he shares his blog and other content about the wine and food industry. Today, Jeremy and I have a casual conversation covering many wine regions in Italy.
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welcome to food wine and whiskey a podcast about having fun conversations on tasty dishes venos and Spirits from around the world Rob is your host he is an avid home Chef W set level two award and wine and a whiskey Drinker and collector time to set the table here’s [Music] Rob hey everyone welcome back to another episode and uh on this episode I am giving you a little quick intro because uh unbeknownst to me I accidentally when recording this with Jeremy hit the uh mute button on my microphone and so the uh intro and welcoming Jeremy to the show was uh muted and not caught on audio I apologize for that uh we caught it very quickly we were able to jump right into the conversation so let’s uh do that right now here we are with Jeremy Parson fun conversation hope you enjoy the listen that would be me thanks so much for having me Rob I’m I’m excited to be here and I’m so excited to be at Vin Santo I wanted to say that I wanted to give a big shout out to them we we’re uh on site at their location and I think it’s a beautiful great little wine bar wine shop uh I think it’s your first time here you it’s my it’s my maiden voyage and I’m a huge fan of Ricardo I’m a huge fan of georgo um you know um Georgio is in a VIN Italy Italian wine Ambassador I mean they these guys know yeah I’m into Italian wine and these guys know Italian wine really well they’re both Italian and I just it’s just not in my neighborhood so I just and we’re busy with our kids and travel and all that stuff for work so I just hadn’t been over here it’s a great space and uh uh very warm and uh I got to say I mean I’ve only been here for a couple minutes but the pricing is very aggressive which I really I I I it’s I think that’s wonderful because there’s a lot of I’m looking at a we happen to be seated in the by the Italian section yeah and you and I just kind of did a quick run through to pick a bottle for tonight we got a lovely bottle of our I just I know the pricing really well on almost everyone and I think Ricardo does a great job of yeah striking a balance where he’s making you know he needs to make money it’s a it’s a business sure keep the doors open but uh uh my only you know only regret is I live too far away from here yeah and and one of the things I enjoy is you know I’m a big fan of Italian wines as well wines around the world but specifically Italian wines and uh you know he carries or brings in wines that are somewhat unique somewhat you know you don’t find in The Big Box store at the grocery store or other places so if you’re into exploring and seeing what else is out there from the different regions uh in Italy this a great place to shop um they you know uh I think they from what I’ve and of course even though I haven’t been here I’m very friendly with Ricardo and Georgio klees again U who’s I think one of the partners here uh you know they’ve really struck a balance this is a part of Houston where people are probably more in tune with California wines they’re probably more big red drinkers it’s just you know nothing you know and there’s nothing wrong with that and there’s no but it is that part of the city where you’re not going to have someone walk in and say oh my gosh a rero arnes for 30 bucks great perfect for tonight um and I think they they did it I mean from what Ricardo showed me they’ve got uh uh New World wine on one side Italian wine you know so there’s kind of the best of both Realms I’ll say not to make a bad pun and and you know to the point that they’re both Italian uh great you know as far as the quantity that they carry of of great quality Italian wines is there but on the other side they they still represent you know France and Germany and uh Spanish wines and yeah so there a great variety that you can go through but you know I would say Italian is the star here um it’s it’s a neat collection of wine I just browse it really quickly but immediately I mean I think we were all looking I said well we could drink that we could drink that I mean it really came down to what was cold yeah Absol and we were thirsty so we just that was what but there were this was like one of three wines I think I was ready to get yeah AB well I quickly said your name and introduced you and some folks listening might know who you are and be tuning in because you’re on the show and I appreciate that but there may be other really sweet of you all let’s not get carried away D that’s very sweet of you to say and uh I love our community and he you know I love our wine Community absolutely I love that we live in a community where I mean you reached out and we’re like hey let’s do this and I knew a couple of other people had been on your show and uh Houston has an amazing wine Community we’ve kind of been the the closures during the pandemic shifted things but it’s really lovely I mean it’s lovely that you do the show that we’re here and I always say we’re a little bit spoiled because as my wife and I travel around we recently were in Phoenix and other towns in Missouri and things like that when we travel uh we’re a little bit spoiled here with just the selection of wines that we get in this market we have available to us uh dude I you know I travel all over the country for work I I’m in so many different markets and Houston I mean and look Texas wasn’t what it is when I Texas didn’t change cuz I moved here I moved here cuz I fell in love with the Texan yeah but over the arc I came here in 2008 we lived in Austin for almost eight years or six years before we moved to Houston and over the Arc of my time nothing to do with me being here obviously but Houston has become it’s the place I mean Austin as well but not with some of the not with the breath of you know you can spend $1,000 on a meal you can spend $10 on a meal and you’re part of one of the hottest culinary scenes not just in the United States in in the world in my opinion in the world I agree and I and I think it still is a little bit under the radar yeah and I think I told you I’ve been here since I’m a Midwest guy from from Missouri uh but been here my wife also a Texan and that’s how I got here but she’s from El Paso so uh I I recently went to El Paso L it I loved it we’ll be back over there in a couple weeks but I love it out there oh it’s it’s a really nice little Community out there and I say little it’s nearing a million people in that community so it’s not a small town but uh there’s a burgeoning we did A Taste of Italy um and uh I’m sure you know that on uh February 26th we’re doing the 10th Annual Taste of Italy want you to mention that here in Houston it’s a great event I hope you’ll be there we already my wife and I will be there the Italy America Chamber of Commerce which is a really wonderful organization that I’ve work with for a long time but um we will be doing Taste of Italy on February Monday February 26th there are a couple spots left for the Texas uh Texas barbecue and Italian wine thing but it’s a great which Dale Robertson and I are presenting but what I was going to say was that the chamber we did our first Taste of Italy in El Paso and it was remarkable the the community it came out really and met all kinds of cool very excited wine people people who are excited and um it kind of reminded me of being in Austin 15 years ago when people were like oh my gosh Fang oh my gosh Fano yeah you know oh my gosh ruk what’s ruk I need to um I I I got that excitement that exhilaration uh that made me high at least I love I love El Paso yeah we we we are uh we have a very fond spot in our our heart for it my wife’s mom still lives over there and some of her other extended family but we go over a few times I went to a great dive bar like what was the name of it you know I’m in bar it’s a f it’s the most famous Kik is it it wasn’t it it had a more American sounding name uh uh anglophone name I it was right we stayed in that big fancy hotel right the one they just redid a few years ago it’s like a couple of blocks from the border I mean we literally walked down and like eight tacos I wanted to go I grew up in a Border Town yeah so I know there’s going to be good tacos for people who are coming through so we walked down to the we walked the two it was great we met the general console of Mexico in uh W in El Paso and he I think it’s in the works that we are going to do an event in warus oh that would be great I’m I’m really looking forward to I think I think that will be fantastic yeah I’m G to have to hit you up when we’re done for I’ve been looking for a few wine bars in El Paso and if you did a few things and you have some uh when we get I know that we didn’t get a chance I mean uh we did our event and you know I headed to the D afterwards uh we didn’t we didn’t get to dine out at all except for kind of breakfast and tacos and stuff like that but I I met and I know they do a really robust Wine Festival there um I we met the organizers there um um the you know I right before the pandemic uh my buddy Paulo cona and I went up and did an event in Tulsa Oklahoma oh wow and we both wanted to see Tulsa and we’re and it just blew me El Paso reminded me of that in these markets that aren’t saturated people are just so excited uh it’s one of the things I’ve been you know talking about when I’m in front of a group of Italian wine professionals is go to El Paso yeah go to go to uh Tulsa go to you know go to the Austin’s of 15 years ago yeah where that where people were oh my gosh you brought Fang you brought ruk we’ve never we want to take you know we’d like to know more about that or I’ve never heard of it or or have never heard of it and uh um uh El Pasa is definitely in I I can’t wait to get back there well that’s great I I didn’t realize You’ done an invent there that’s awesome well let’s uh I want to give you an opportunity because again we we’ve been chatting a little bit and I mentioned who you are but we haven’t got into exactly what you do where people can find you where they can you know subscribe to your newsletter your blog and things like that well thank I really appreciate you having me on the show and um gosh I’ve been writing about and talking about Italian wine for more than 20 years I’m a classic failed PhD I know I I had a I know I’ve actually in recent years especially I’ve renewed my academic interest but um I realized medieval poetry didn’t pay as well as writing about wine I was living in New York in the late ’90s in a magazine called La cuchina Italiana which is a very important magazine in Italy it’s like the National Geographic of Italian cuisine they launched an English language Edition in New York and I got it I got I had the the I was about to say shittiest but I know you can’t say yeah you can say uh you know I literally was the lowest person in the office I I got a job translating the recipes PhD translating and was actually turned out to be this really interesting experience I ultimately got to write a little bit about wine wrote more about wine became the wine riter and that was just I was just in the right place at the right time I was the wine writer for Laina Italiana when babo opened when he truly opened when all these Italian wine focused restaurants in New York all of a sudden Italian wine was the thing uh uh Italian wine Merchants Veno was another was the retailer where I actually worked at both I just was in the right place at the right time and got not only to write about a lot of Italian wine but taste a lot of Italian wine it was a time when it was you know uh I I I am became a copywriter pretty early on anyway fast forward uh uh I uh in 2007 really I launched a Blog with the Advent of the anob blogosphere it’s called do bianki Doan means two white wines I can tell you the story about that if you want later yeah do bean.com and that’s really like the Diary of my life from everything from the wines that Tracy and I are my wife Tracy and I are excited about to what I’m curious about or even our activism yeah we just put it all it’s we our kids we don’t put our kids so much now that they’re now that they want to charge us to be on our me social media they don’t to charge you that’s no and and all you know when they were little you know we talked about becoming parents and all that good stuff um and I make a living Consulting with Italian wineries helping them find re re relevance in the U you know helping them navigate the US market um I write for anybody you know anybody I uh a lot of people say it’s a terrible time to be a writer it’s actually a great time to be a writer there’s more people today that will pay you to write um and wine is going to be one of the you know AI is going to we’re the last people AI is coming for yeah so uh there’s quite a bit of and what I actually have just ended my I I I’m also a teacher for last that’s what I wanted to mention in Italy right I actually have decided to end my relationship with the university no I mean not in I’m not I’m not going this year okay gotcha but for eight for yeah eight years I’ve been a professor or instructor of uh uh Wine and Food Communications uh in the graduate program at the slow food University which has been a great I’m just too busy this year I got and the the dates didn’t line up and and it was been a very interesting experience I my biggest lesson to my my students has always been write start a blog whether you know Instagram’s a Blog write express yourself not just to find your voice but to to be your voice in a way that’s out there and the most rewarding thing about those eight years that I taught there is that I I mean even today I interacted with one of my ex- students who works as a communicator at the prco cons at part of uh Taste of Italy on February 26 I I’m giving a I’m giving a pinoo talk I’m giving a prco talk um and the prco talk is from the prco doc Consortium and the woman who reached out to me to share uh you know after it was agreed that I would do it to share the materials they want me to present was my ex- student and that’s just lovely that’s that’s uh uh uh and she in a capacity where writing you know she writes social media she writes so I it’s a great time to be a writer how did this love for Italy for the the wines the food where where did this are we going to do a three-part show should this be three parts for that you know the um I grew up in San Diego California I by the time I was 13 years old I had fallen in with a bunch of Mexican kids and I learned how to speak Spanish okay um really early on and uh then by a fluke I happened to meet a very famous scholar who is then the director of the Victorian Albert Museum sir Roy strong he’s a very famous italianist art historian in his kind of latter part of his career he’s really more famous for uh uh uh Italian Renaissance Garden he’s one of the greatest experts on Italian Renaissance Gardens also he also got into into Gastronomy later in his career but back then he was the director of the Victorian Albert Museum in England and he wanted to go to Tijuana talking about crossing the border and my mom had worked on organizing this talk he gave it was a big deal at UCSD where my mom worked in continuing education and Sir Roy told my mom they said what do you want to do and he said I want to go to Tijuana I want to go shopping I want to have lobster I want to and my mom told me you’re not going to school today you need to drive us down to Tijuana I took me out of high school and I KN knew Tijuana really well because these Mexican kids that I’d fallen in with yeah and uh was I was spoke Spanish and I was I had kind of you know dove into this culture and Sir Roy said to me he said he he said you know I’m very impressed that you speak Spanish and you know you’re how you present yourself young man you should go to Italy and study Italian and to me that was that was my that was some motivation you know here was this person he’s a fraking knight okay that’s how smart he is that they made him a KN no he is a knight yeah and no it was very I I was looking for direction in my troubled Teenage life and so by the time I was a junior in college I was I went on my year AB uh junior year abroad in Italy and excelled in Italian came back to UCLA was offered a fellowship in Italian went back to ital you know and essentially lived uh and it really was in Italy that I you know I went to UCLA I got go grades graduated with honors by my ba but in Italy it academics kick my ass really and I I it excited me I mean it wasall it was in Italian I I it I was I went from being that kid that streams through to being like having existential crisis like I’ve never read KO you know I’ve never read plenty like I’ve I’ve never read Virgil and I I I had a crisis and it just I dove even deeper into it and uh just to skip ahead after I finished my doctorate uh and I realized what I I wasn’t going to get the job I wanted with what I studied I continued my academic interest and I translated a Renaissance era cookery book for University of California press in 2005 they published my mro Martino annotated critical apparatus and it was this great moment you know where my interest in Gastronomy and my academic skills produce this thing that I’m very very proud of and abut it’s uh you can it’s a wonderful wonderful book and that’s when luchana set up shop and so they asked uh the uh my professor do you know anybody who can translate a recipe and he said do I I know a guy um I and actually the book I worked on that got me the cuchina Tana gig was Uzi not Martino but uh regardless that was how it kind of and that you know it paid better than than academic publishing and uh uh then I started getting copyrighting gigs fairet brona my first copyrighting gig was fairet brona really and you know I was like wow you can I I was making a decent living for a 35-year-old guy living in New York you know living in Brooklyn and where does wine finally come in and you go okay W Wine’s kind of my thing the the the the I guess your listeners really wanted this like intimate look at the life of Jeremy um uh one day the editors of the you know the magazine was written by two people me and this woman very talented later mle Negrin a very talented cookbook author you know Italian and food expert uh instru you know teacher very talented woman but you know it was like the Sho string budget and she and I wrote that’s why we had pseudonyms um and one day they said we need I was writing well by that point I was writing well I I don’t even remember I I was translating recipes they said we need 300 words about prco yeah well I went to the University of Padua my in my junior year and is one of that’s my Italian identity is my pseudo Italian identity is very tied to to Veno and with my good friends that I worked with in in in Veno we would go on Sundays up to the hills of prco and buy wine and put it in their trunk and take it home and eat roast chicken you know the whole thing up in the hills um so the one wine I knew any those the only wine I knew anything about with any substance was prco because I’d literally been there and walked through those Vineyards and talk to people yeah and I called Primo Franco the uh Legacy owner of Nino Franco prco back then you may be old enough to remember when in print media you used slides photographs were they there were drum slot I won’t go into all that but Primo who I I knew I called him and he said I’m going to and two day to back then it took two days for FedEx to get from Italy to New York and uh the next second this huge package with all these beautiful slides yeah and the slides are huge they’re like 8 in by 8 in they’re you can’t just it’s not I I’ll send you a JPEG you know this this is the only way you could create print media we it’s I it’s that’s the I worked at the end of print media commercial print media for the digital era that’s how old I am and they were like my goodness I wrote an article of 3,000 words instead of 300 words for the front of the book and they immediately went cha-ching we could be selling wine advertising we could be selling restaurant advertising and these folks said do you want to be the wine writer and I said yeah sure uh I like to party you know and I enjoyed wine and what’s it pay um well I they didn’t pay me anymore but it did give me the thing that was neat about it was that and I and listen I uh uh uh graft and access uh in the wine business is something that I have a lot of issues with and in my younger in my beginning it’s very exciting and people want to buy you dinner at their restaurant and uh uh I tried to be as judicious I I it took me not too long to figure out that this could be a sticky issue but I did get invited to some great parties and later it was really through working as a SoMo that I got to taste W you know that was such an invaluable it wasn’t the graft as much as it was when I finally really worked as a professional so that it was a schooling you couldn’t you know I remember when we when I first got to Texas running into these guys from the court saying oh we’re off to San Francisco you know uh to taste a bunch of burgundy because they couldn’t find the wine in Texas today that wouldn’t be a problem but 15 years ago it was a problem I happen to be in New York when everybody was opening Aldo contero you know mosolino and I got to taste it all you know were you ready to start talking about Italian wies Oh you mean we weren’t I’m sorry you got me going and uh no no no these are things I wanted to ask cuz I was very curious and I think people when we have guests on it’s always nice to get a a little bit of pulling the veil backbody nobody’s ever asked me you know why ity everybody is always uh the Italians ask me that a lot they’re like why have you CU to them and I think Ricardo would agree with this you know it’s unusual that and I’ve met other people like me but I’ve devoted my life and care I mean Tracy my wife and I met because of our shared interest in Italy you know so um it goes back to siroy yeah and if if you start to get into you know what you produce and and your blog and things like that you can see how much you’re into Italy and so it it just kind of triggered me to ask the question because even on your your website I mean if you need things translated you have a whole list of different common sayings and things that are translated there for one of the projects that I really love about the blog is um I partnered with a a very uh well-known and respected Vineyard manager who just recently just retired Mauricio xilei um and he he excuse me he and I I had already developed this Italian English glossery I mean to me it came down to seeing Cordon spon translated improperly what is the how would an an American wine maker say cordon and the answer to that question is Cordon okay uh uh but Italians would translate it slavishly Americans would translate it slavishly uh they would say spurred cordin which is not incorrect but it doesn’t it’s not natural technical jargon that an you know an American would use a California wine grower an Oregon Wine grower would use so uh that’s been something that’s been very rewarding we do it it’s all free that we don’t I don’t there’s no ads or we just I and honestly I use it myself all the time I use it great great resource um uh we tried to it really has you know uh uh some very technical stuff that I kind of started to develop because a lot of my clients would have me translate fact sheets okay so yeah well let’s start with uh wines and and I think it only makes sense to start with what we have in the glass you know you picked this out what we’re drinking what what caught your eye and um you kind of mentioned early on what we were pouring but kind of a little bit more about it um well this is a rera Ares so the grape variety is arnes it’s a white grape uh some people would say you know I hope Ian D is not listening but who cares about him anyway um uh a semi aromatic white grape I mean it does have an a little aromatic character to it not like a malvia or a or a Tokai or you know a Savon Blan or something like that but it I call it a semi aromatic grape it’s a grape that um should have nice fruit um this is a rero Ares now what does roero mean roero is it’s very easy to remember uh uh long which is where Baro and barbaresco are are divided they’re to the on the east side of the Tano River okay which doesn’t run quite north to south but essentially follows it’s almost parallel to the road from Alba to barolo I won’t go into the geography of it but the Tano River divide longa on the east side is where Bol and barbarasa are on the west side is rero that’s the section um if we went farther east from Longo we’d get to moner anyway rero tends to have sandier soils which is not entirely true because there’s parts of roero that have white uh Limestone soils just like Baro okay I was just on a property last year uh of some friends of mine who are technically Ro you know so never judge a book those boundaries don’t they’re not sharp they there’s but rero is generally known for its sandier looser soils on the the West Bank of the Tano River you get uh arnes that’s very like fruit and bright yeah um the pones historically don’t even drink this wine this is a wine that’s really uh pones are red wine people okay you know the generation of certainly my grand of our grand you know the the current generation’s grandparents they drink only red wine I mean the to them white white wine if anything they might drink a little Moscato dasy at breakfast you know to sweeten their steamed milk and the alcohol blows off it’s delicious with a little cookie I mean thing is perfect you know and you know it doesn’t have alcohol in it because you put it in the steamed milk and with an instant the very you know 6 7% alcohol in the Moscato dasy evaporates anyway back to Ares um uh this grape uh you know there’s a lot of people who claim that they start growing in the 80s it and they they did it really was revived in the 2000s as more Americans were drinking white Italian wine Americans love white wine and uh you know it this is a more fruity and uh this called Terra Del Ro I’m not familiar with this producer I bet it’s a small Cooperative which in pedmont is a you know don’t disdain Cooperative wine especially in Italy I we could do a show just that um and I think it’s delicious uh uh it’s bright fresh delicious uh it’s imported looks by Elite Vines here um okay so Cora so this is made by actually a very famous in it looks like this must be like a type of special label that they’ve made for a Houston based importer but it’s a aenda agria Cora which is like one of the greats of uh of uh of rero rnes I would say this one isn’t as mineral like their their Flagship wine is going to be a little more austere than this this is more on the like summertime let’s have fun kind of wine delicious fresh clean uh uh we drink you know my blog is named two white wines so is this a difficult grape to find um we’re seeing a lot more I mean I think we looked at four again the one the one we picked was just cuz he said this is the one I have on Ice um uh you’re you know there’s people are drinking more white wine in Italy as well but you really can find in a market like ours even here we just saw four I’m sure if we went to Specs we’d find three or four um and the wines serve a really great one of the things I love about arise is that it’s a great wine to pour for people who don’t drink a lot of wine you know if someone comes over to our house for dinner and it’s not not everybody’s a wine person uh it’s bright it’s fresh it’s just so approachable um I I would this is more of like summertime by the pool easy drinking I love that I think and I don’t hate to talk about price on your show but I think it was 30 bucks and that’s it’s like great that’s exactly what that should be yeah uh my wife and I like it’s 5:00 let’s go have a bottle of the T row rower and you know before we deal with our nasty children I doubt they’re nasty um I do want to ask you they’re good kids talking about you know just the world of wine and uh you know climate change and how we’re seeing this you know affect different regions and of these regions being you know some very high-end or well thought of you know producing fabulous wines for for a long period of time talking about peont with baros and barbaresco or ber berel from Tuscany um and maybe some other regions that you would touch on in Italy how do you see the next 5 years 10 years these types of regions are they are they going to be affected group you know I mean I know you’re just kind of guessing but how controversial do you want me to be I mean just speak from the heart is what I would say whatever you think one of the I uh I believe that climate change is happening I believe we’ve got to do something about it uh when I do a wine talk in Houston I always say because I know I’m going to have a lot of oil and gas people in our group I say we don’t need to talk about the cause of climate change we can I’m probably don’t agree with you yeah you probably don’t agree with me but that’s not what we’re talking about what we’re talking about is it’s changing sure and whatever the cause is whether it’s cyclical whether it’s human-made it doesn’t matter yeah it’s we’ve got to do something about it because it’s a problem and there’s you know most people would concede that Human Action has something to do with it but regard so we don’t need to talk about that at all if you’re a wine maker if you’re a grape grower and wine makers are not a liberal bunch of people they’re they’re terorists Farm they’re Farmers they’re conservative they’re they’re I mean if people only knew the politics of all the Hipster groovy wnes that they you know I that’s where I shut my mouth cuz that’s not my place to talk about um you got to you know get really drunk for that uh but uh um you know you want me get another bottle we’re we’re doing pretty good on this one still uh no the you know these are not a liberal bunch of people but they will tell you I picked the grapes much earlier than my grandparents did they will tell you I’m having a much higher occurrence of paranos P mildo Bruto lost the official story from the Consortium even though a lot of people have tamped that down a little bit is that they lost 90% of their crop to Paran ospra last year last vintage3 and that’s because they had never experienced so many consecutive days of rain because what’s happening and this is kind of in general for uh Italy and Southern France is that the amount of rain is generally the same but it’s in a more concentrated time period and and it’s more intense yeah and that’s exactly what happened in a Brut and they were caught with their pants down um the irony is that here’s the controversial part that people will surp you know cuz I’m very Progressive in my view of the world is that despite climate change and the Havoc it’s causing on Italian wine there’s so much Surplus wine that’s I mean lomco lamberto Fresco Baldi Fresco Baldi is a name that’s I’m sure not unknown to some of your listeners presco Baldi Castell jonda you know how many iconic wineries he said you know maybe CL I mean and I I he and I don’t align on much but he made a really good point he said maybe climate change is kind of also telling us we need to make less wine yeah you know I mean and there’s a point there because even with this part of the crisis of Italian wine is the wine Lake of of wine that’s going to be distilled and wineries that can’t substain themselves that are flooding the market with cheap with with wine and that’s that’s something that I’ve read a few articles on is that consumption of wine uh is going down but the quality of wine that you’re drinking is actually going up so people are paying more for a better product but just not drinking as much of it and the the industry in terms of achieving its sustainability for everyone has to make less sure sure and how do you see you know cuz you hear some some people talk about you know the effects of what’s happening with climate change that you know in some areas it’s bad and they really have to you know to your point about a Brut so learn to adjust and make these kind of adjustments and changes so they don’t have a 90% loss but then you hear the other side of that where some other regions are going to possibly benefit from getting a little warmer or getting a little you know cooler maybe a little more rain no one of one of the things that a lot of people don’t realize about uh climate change and organic farming is that or organic farming you know by the way organic farming allows the use of spraying of copper and sulfur on on the vines on the fruit that is going to go into your wine and the not so much the sulfur isn’t such a problem as the copper yeah and people don’t realize that organic gra farming causes the land around the Vineyard to become fall to become unable to become UNG grazable pasturable uh dead well you can’t let cows eat the grass there you can’t grow food for human consumption there because there’s so much copper in the water table it’s a toxic uh uh it’s cancer I mean it’s a metal yeah okay and it’s a huge problem the European Union has come down extremely hard on Italy and France it’s the the problem is in southern France and in Northern Italy where these weather events are causing them the organic farmers are are to deal with the uh preemptive you spray copper preemptively you know it’s going to rain you spray copper yeah you know it has rained you spray sulfur to stop the spread of bacteria and yeast yeah right um and what’s happening is they’re dumping so much copper that the European Union said you guys have to stop because Farmers can’t graze cattle ranchers can’t graze their cattle uh Farmers can’t you you know uh W uh drinking you know I mean prco is one of the you know if you only knew how many activist groups there are one of the things that people don’t know about prco is that that in prco the people live in the vines they liter like there’s schools where the vines are and so the people who are doing chemical farming are just dumping all their crap right into that water table and sorry I you said I could be controversial yeah absolutely um and just touching on that when you think about you know you hear in France you hear I think in Italy that it may be multiple people whose Vines are up against each other so if one person’s doing it but somebody else isn’t the effect could still roll over to that person’s the other thing I would ask you is I think a lot of the smaller producers of wine they’re not just Vines they usually have multiple crops or livestock you know olive trees things like that that might also be on property so that’s got to be something that they think about as well um well you know I mean a a a lot of the wine that we drink I mean what’s so I think uh uh inspirational and compelling about Italian wine is that we actually do when we drink Italian wine it’s more likely than not that we’re drinking something that comes from an individual Farm yeah I mean this probably comes from a group of farms but my guesses about this wine it’s probably maybe it’s like 20 little family run Farms that make their wine in this the same place and it’s pretty groovy yeah you know and uh certainly integrated farming where you’ve got uh uh livestock different crops has become uh you know in a lot of ways organic farming which I’m against for a number of reasons has done more to hurt that world of integrated farming and there are more and more at least in Italy I can’t speak for France although I imagine from my you know from from my perception from afar but in Italy I’m very much on the ground uh uh this idea of integrated farming creating terar through Olive Groves fruit orchards livestock W and more than anything else I mean Wildlife creating more biodiversity has become as the the precepts of biodynamics have kind of been distilled into you know everybody’s you know oh I’m not biodynamic but I have a cover crops I plant legumes between my and I’m letting the you know uh Li wild animals graze in my and I’m I have my chickens here and my um and certainly that’s uh had a made a there’s been a lot of talk about natural wine and all the problems natural wine is created in the wine world but a lot of people have also taken a step back at least in Italy and said wow natural wine also got a lot of people to take a step back and say hey maybe we should try doing a some biodynamic farming practices like I don’t know if I want to do the whole you know I I still need to yeast my w inoculate my wines cuz I can’t afford to risk losing my crop sure so I’m going to still inoculate which is the big thing for you know supposedly for natural wine folks uh but I’m going to still follow these kind of cool and groovy things you know yeah and there’s a lot to be said for that let let me ask you um a question we we were talking about this before we started recording or maybe it was when we were recording about you know most folks in in Houston in this part of Houston where we’re at and I think just in America in general when you start getting into wine you get that wine bug the first place you’re going to go is Nappa and that makes sense beautiful area lovely wines uh my wife and I enjoy going but as you want to get out of there I I have a lot of friends who it is hard to get them out of Napa I’ve got friends who have you know $1,000 wine collection and it’s all Nappa and it’s like diversify a little bit you know and uh how do you get how would you recommend or how do you steer somebody into Italy to explore without you know my my thought is I don’t I want to send your right to Super tuskin I want to how do you get somebody to explore without uh you know keeping them in that kind of that lane well that’s easy okay good you know uh I mean uh you know it all comes to the Italians it all comes down to uh high acidity low alcohol uh I mean America was built on wine America was built on a model of low acidity high alcohol and we are afraid of acid and wines there’s the whole stigma it’s it’s you know uh you know the whole thing oh you can’t have Italian wine on its own because it’s too acidic you have to have it with food the Italians would answer that by saying what are you going to have with your food and what are you going to have wine without food I mean that’s part part of like a foundation of Italian enogastronomy is no food without wine no wine without food partly even for the Met abolism and I mean there’s a whole culture of why you serve wine with food I know Italians of a certain generation who will not eat if they can’t have a glass of wine I I’ve been inal I’ve been sent out as like the graduate student you know uh fo totem to go get a bottle of wine because a professor would not eat a Chinese meal in in La without a glass of wine wow and I brought the shittiest wine at the liquor store in Chinatown in Downtown LA and the guy was happy that was all it bit um and I think that as a people Americans have moved Mediterranean Life diet lifestyle sure uh T you know when when I was a kid Italy was still ethnic food yeah uh you should have seen my air quotes for people just listening uh uh to Italian food is you know that’s the highest cuisine in many ways uh blah blah blah so I think it that that’s you know food is kind of the answer you know we’ve adopted a much more holistic approach to food and wine is part of that yeah I I agree with you I I will tell you my wife and I absolutely love Old World Wines and you know Italy is one of our favorite places to have wine um and it does I mean people who think it’s just kind of a a thing that people talk about with food and wine they absolutely compliment each other but I do want to ask you are you a whiskey guy at all do you drink bourbon orke you know I enjoy that stuff I I mean as much of a lush as I am uh does he go with food that’s my question um I have this conversation with some whiskey guys and my answer is no food and whiskey don’t peir you can have it before a meal after a meal but gosh have you ever been to uh Keen Steakhouse in Midtown right off of time at the on 34th Street uh on 36th Street man it’s on 36th Street um it’s an old Scottish pipe house okay that today is like a commercial like Black Card business uh steakhouse it’s very it’s a neat room it’s the the ceiling is covered in Old Scottish Pipes and it’s a great old new it’s one of the few uh we used to my band used to practice in a rehearsal space and I knew this place and we used to drink so much iie Pon Noir there was ridiculous what what is iy p Noir iie is wiam Valley okay okay you know o OG wamit but um uh they of course have like incredible Scotch uh list and so you can do and I’ve done a more than once it’s a great thing to take a when I was living in New York like you know my buddy Charlie comes in from the coast or an Italian you know from Tuscany who wants have steak and they love it it’s a great place to take people and you do the scotch flight and I got to say with a little water uh I really appreciated you know we’re not doing shots but we had a you know it we had a flight of waters and a flight of scotch I think we did six scotches yeah and you could kind of blend and I loved it and I enjoy bourbon uh uh don’t know that much about it I love the beverage love the drink and I just have the conversation the the uh disagreement with friends who are big bourbon guys that uh because I’ll just say it uh you see these whiskey dinners where they’re having a five course meal and pairing it with different bourbons and I just go it’s not a thing you know Wine and Food absolutely bourbon as I’m prepping and cooking but uh bourbon after a meal with the are maybe I I I think that uh uh I if you and I were in New York and our W you know our wives would actually Tracy would like I bet our wives would like it too but if we were all in New York and said hey let’s go to Keen let’s but that’s probably the only time I would that’s what I mean yeah yeah it can be you can find exceptions to every rule but that’s not I enjoy uh bourbon uh uh I it’s the one at our house I pair bourbon with sweets kind like the end of my and I just little warm and that’s when I will go for a sweet thing I’m with you absolutely let let me do this I always think it’s fun as you know I I call myself a wine nerd or a geek I don’t know you know as nearly as much as you and other folks do about wine but I’ve enjoyed the last 10 years exploring wines and finding unique and fun things to drink and I always talk about that you can go into a region and what brings you to that region let’s just say the L Valley it might be S it might be C Fran things like that that get you there but once there you should explore and find all these other great wines that are also in this region so if I go through and talk about fire off some of the wine regions in Italy that I enjoy maybe you could talk about some of the other things that aren’t so so to speak the star I think quite a bit about that actually so if we start in a in a region I think you love uh peont we obviously know about Barbara and uh barbaresco and bolo uh but if you had to name a few other wines that you think if people are listening should should try out of that region what would they be um well there’s pedmont makes killer wine I mean uh I think alal longa is going to be very very exciting I I’ve tasted some incredible it’s classic method uh and it’s you know whereas franch cor chardonay focus and I love I can tell you I can whip off my five favorite francha gorta I mean there’s great wine there too but I think the pinoir that’s coming out of alal longa really and that people are you know they’ve started to release some wines and they’re going to I think we’re going to see a lot more of that and I think the wines are very good um I think a lot of people are interested in alal longa um nit I’m working with a nit producer that I love that uh Luca atoma Tuscan wine maker is making wines uh uh NS is historically has always been the greatest Sub Zone for Barbara okay Barbara from moner Barba uh and there’s a lot of people investing uh I I I am hooked up with a winery that has invested a lot of money in doing kind a biodynamic project uh and the wines are very very compelling uh uh uh uh me is something really interesting coming out of out of pedmont uh um you know taso continues to you know it’s funny I reading Ian dag on Tim maraso and I just the old folks just don’t get it I’m sorry but we’re over it we’re over it um no you know Ian’s coming to Houston but I’m going to be I’ll I won’t I’ll be in New York then uh what about white wines in that region well taraso moras I’m sorry T maraso is a white grade that a lot of folks don’t like that they find too uh maybe too high acidity among the kind of hipster uh crowd of Italian wi L timorasso is super exciting and then the thing that’s really exciting is vermouth oh really um vermouth aromatized Wine Not fortified one aromatized one uh is what is I know fortified what is aromatized well vermuth is not a for people get confused and think vermouth is fortified it’s not fortified the infusion for vermouth is often made in a spirit but Spirit alone is not added to the okay wine to adjust the alcohol content a very little spirit this infusion is added so it’s got all this other stuff in it besides at the end of the day not that much alcohol okay um uh and a lot of people confuse that stuff and think it’s a a a fortified wine which is not um uh the company I’m working with Amisa and N they’re making incredible red wine vermouth but like Scarpa has a new vermouth well it’s only a couple years vermuth the Torino uh Elena from Luca and Elena formerly ATI uh kurat they have a verou that’s made from nebiolo and arnes which uh which I’ve seen a lot of people are really excited about um and and I’m hearing a lot of a lot of people in the entian wine industry are talking about vermouth as something they’re excited about and we could that’d be a whole another conversation but uh uh what I think we’re going to see a lot more verutti Torino coming what is that well Torino is the capital of Pont okay um it’s a beautiful uh uh 19th century was the original capital of Italy industrial city Fiat the automo as they would say automative industry the automobile industry Rich City really interesting City I’ve been spending a lot of time there because of amista um and uh vermouth Torino is an appalachi that was created gosh how many couple three or four years ago maybe a little probably I’m sure a little longer than that but started we started to see the early ones and the thing that sets vermuth dorino apart is that a it has to be made with pedmont fruit most vermouth is not made with grapes from pedmont it’s made from grapes at least Italian vermouth um there’s also some other stylistic things to make it of because Torino is where vermouth was born yeah so that’s an interesting it’s an interesting marketing idea but it’s also it’s it’s made this new interest in getting high high quality uh uh the vermo that I work with is about to be like it’s the next vintage of it as it were will be a is it’ll be upgraded to a verti Torino oh wow I mean it’s it’s interesting there’s it’s there’s that’s pretty cool the stuff is good like it the one I work with is fantastic I’ve tasted Elena’s it’s called I think it’s called Elena uh it’s it’s delicious I mean there these are compelling you know historically vermuth was made from shitty wine because you aromatized it so you didn’t care about today people are saying let’s start you know kind of like bolo kinato like they B kinato is no longer the only aromatized red wine in Italy made from Top fruit you know yeah that’s those are my pedmont okay T maraso is a Little P but I still believe in taso’s having a lot of potential vetto obviously you talked already about your experience and knowledge of prco I think a lot of people who hear prco just think inexpensive Mimosa uh are there some you know midlevel high level worth buying and drinking on their own PCOS you know there are uh to me the most interesting wines that come out of prco and man I shouldn’t be saying this because I’m about to get paid to do a prco event but the kondo movement where with these dirty wi they’re dirt Italians call those wines the venos sporco because undiscouraged wines that’s called The V still in there um well not live yeast but the sediment that’s created which isn’t just ye but all these by products of fermentation and uh uh um I you know the one that everybody knows is Kad Zago but there’s that kind of style of of prco coo that’s very clean and very done with a a deaft hand it’s hard to make that wine when you talk to wine makers you know a classic method wine maker has a lot more tools at his his or her disposal uh with a kondo style of wine you get one shot you yeah you put a handful of sugar into a wine and then you you’re done you’re done then it’s the rest is what happens yeah let it go you don’t get to get to cheat at the end and say okay we can adjust this to make it or we can blend or we can you know that’s what the beauty of champagne is you can blend multiple vintage you know this whole idea of like you have all this whole palette with Pro kofo wine you just boom so so wine maker has some skill I you know and I was really I people I’ve tasted a lot of people are starting to pay not pay attention to Commercial Way but I’ve been around some cool wine makers who are like yeah I like you know it’s it’s 11:00 and we’re having a slice of pruto while we take a break from this you know technical tasting we’re doing yeah and they broke out a pry kondo and I was like this is great it’s salty it’s fresh it’s low alcohol that those are the wines that I think are the most greti Verio uh uh veriso uh kondo is which is not even made from glara it’s not even a prco but it’s yeah glare being the grape it’s made from what he makes a Vero kondo that I think is like brilliant and I think that’s that’s probably like you know that’s a wine that you can even find through a major distributor you know very cool okay what else in the vetto because we think about armaron well veto I mean I think that Vella is one of the most underrated I mean uh you know Suave to me one of our favorit we drink a lot of suave would uh I I would say you know if you like Suave galara there are so many galara is the roer what rero to you know and but galara has some incredible properties in it I’ve been to many of them some sure and I when I can find galara I’m so excited to drink galara vichella I mean my goodness like I love vichella I love it I don’t understand why there’s such a prejudice against it it American should love it it’s got a ton of alcohol in it it’s got it the wines are always pretty hot and the really good ones are really balanced but alcohol is part of the focus there um uh what about a dessert wine in that region cuz it’s one of my favorites um man when I’m in Veno um last time I had a real uh a meal a wine meal in Veno we were actually at like a tourist restaurant in Verona cuz my brother and his wife wanted to eat at 6:30 I’m like dude you can’t we went to a tourist restaurant and it was fine I me it was it was a good solution for me too but I knew they would have some uh uh uh richo diave yes and those wines to me are are that’s like my jam like and even into sweet I’m not into sweet wine but when you can find Roto D Suave even nobody there is no commercial R like only it’s kind of like pite in fi where you know only like a very impassion wine maker is going to deal with a wine like that yeah and they’re they’re extraordinary yeah absolutely I’ve had the quintelli Roto D Suave it’s it’s a reclassified rot it’s incredible I’ve had old old vages but I that day with my brother and his wife and their one son of their two sons we just got I don’t even remember the producer it was Del I mean if they have it it’s going to be delicious yeah and there’s no white wine made from a it’s a dried grape white wine sweet white wine very very gooda I mean uh it’s one of my favorites so we’ll jump to the region that everybody you know I think besides Pont thinks of when they think Italian wine which is Tuscany and I think what draws you there is obviously Kean classicos and reservas brunell’s super tuskin but the region has a lot of other really good wines yeah I mean uh Tuscany makes really great wine I mean I the the thing that’s new about Tuscany is old I mean uh Kean Classico is having this and keti in general is having this major Renaissance um Eric aov just did a piece about young women who are taking over family legacies he could have just been I know there were a couple of County producers in there but there’s all you know one thing that’s happened in Italy that a lot of people don’t know about is that the financial crisis then Co a lot of kids that went it’s not a great time to be a young person in Italy it’s not yeah and a lot of people have come back and said you know I have a degree from the bo con I worked in finance in London I hated it and my parents are dying or fading and if I don’t take over the family farm we can’t really make money from selling it because of the taxes which is part of living in Europe and that that whole distribution of wealth which is another story uh uh so they come back and take over the family farm and Eric did this great piece about women um I’m about to write a piece Kiara Pepe oh wow uh who is a really interest I was I just met with there’s a lot of young people taking over kti Classico seeing a lot of these kind of really smart people coming back who said you know what I’m going to take over the family farm you know um ricaz who is you know the great institution of County Classico who is a man uh is such a heroic story and Franchesco ricaz is people don’t even know how what a hero what an Italian I’ve never even written the story because he is so Noble in his heart not just his coat of arms yeah and I really Franchesco I know you’re listening uh uh but he’s done so much to protect uh the legacy of keti with with his own work and the wine the wine he’s making now are ridiculously good his single Vineyard uh there everything’s all 100% Sano VES the wines are so his K DEA um so in a lot of ways what’s interesting to me about Tuscany is old yeah the other thing that’s interesting again I’m going to it’s Tuscany that’s really interesting to me uh KY that’s really interesting County Beyond County Classico has also had this you know uh county rufina is my favorite County I mean as much as I love certain you know it’s there’s greatness to me the best do you know that one of a Nori’s most famous Vineyards is planted to Chardon and pinoir in rufina did not know and they make very little it’s they actually have a doc it’s probably a docg but they have a uh because it’s historic Vineyard I forgot what it there’s I’m I’m that I don’t remember the name but rufina is one of the top Villages for and uh uh that’s another wine I’m I’m I’m glad to see people pay there’s more County rufina um all you had to do was sell me was ke rufina not rufino like the the bottler not grower but bottler um rofina know with one F it’s a village it’s the high elevation keti but I’ve also been tasting like pansano do you know that pansano uh County CL back now we’re jumping back down to county Classico you know that uh I don’t know if it’s the only it’s certainly not the only one it may be the first one pansano is a b what the Italians have deemed a called a bio District it’s where everybody in the municipality of pansano which also includes part of GRA but that’s another story is organic oh at least practices maybe not certified and it’s I’m it’s not a perfect project and it’s not a but it’s an interesting idea yeah of and by the way pansano is a great place for organic farming they don’t need to spray copper there and that’s the whole problem with organic farming is like just do it where it’s yeah where it’s the right pansano is built to do it yeah it’s it’s got Woods all around it it’s highest elevation in County Classico it’s the soils are limestone and Clay so you got this drain you you get this evenness to the distribution of the water which is what a lot of people don’t realize about soil types that make also help the sustainability of the farm I mean it’s a yes organic farming that’s another place I’m interested in ki I’m I Brunello I don’t I I have nothing yeah I want to interject just real quick that people should also realize that the quality to price ratio that you get in in Kean Classico or keti Reserva I mean to me what and that’s what I tell a lot of friends in Napa that are drinking Napa get into Italy uh specifically but also you know old world and general Spanish wines as well the the price that you pay for the quality that you get to me just blows me away I mean I can buy Fantastic wines uh Kean classicos for 25 30 bucks you know look out for uh uh Kean Beyond I mean I’ve been I did a couple of keti tastings for the Kean Consortium last year keti Ki fantini there’s like great people yeah again it’s this younger generation that’s come back it’s taken over the parents’ Farm because they don’t know what to do with their lives and they’re like let’s inject uh Progressive ideas let’s let’s do go kind of organic and yeah let’s make 100% Sano vesa let’s rip out the Mero and you know let’s be Italian and it’s great it’s fantastic so let me ask you getting into Brello is there a ceiling as far as cost for keanes that you go look if you’re going to spend 55 plus or is this just all subjective to the person who’s drinking and what you want to spend the produc say about Brunello is the only Winery that I want to drink is redoli no that’s not true redoli is the one I would look out for uh uh they they’re making the Costco Brunello I think which we finally got in he I’ve heard I heard somebody maybe you told me that um that wine is I it’s Johnny marari uh uh I have a commercial interest and only as much as I’m a copywriter for his importer uh but Johnny marari you know full disclosure but the wines Johnny mcari made he made uh poo doo in the 9s wow he he was I mean Johnny is the last disciple of Julio gambell I mean he’s he is there you know I’m not a fan of soldera the person or the wine but uh uh soldera was part of School of Sano I thought that really was shaped by a guy named Julio gambelli okay and Johnny was who is the wine maker you know uh essentially has been given the keys to the Lamborghini by a pharmaceutical magnet who loves having a Brunell property it’s like his vanity project probably so he’s just like giving him carpan and the really interesting I mean the guy’s a great wi maker when you hang out the one time I got hang out with him he’s all about wood types he’s all about he’s really in a Hungarian wood but he’s he he’ll and selero was famous for doing this too and this was like Julio gelly’s whole thing of blending casks yeah and and and it’s more Nuance than I’ll ever I don’t make wine uh uh but it’s very interesting I I think redoli and look uh I you know I I’ve done a lot of work for Barbie I think Barbie is one of the best values in Brunello I really do yeah uh people don’t give them uh and then there’s you know what have I tasted s Polo recently but the wines are so expensive but they’re very good um what is a wiy I want to say uh what is it uh is it salvini is one of the old school producers foret is one of the old school producers that I think’s really really good um uh K matoni is just is kind of more on the Cher biona modern side but I like the wines a lot and the properties are really really great I there’s not I’m not excited about Brunello the only guy I’m really excited about is roli cuz Johnny marari made I happen to work at a place place where I got to taste all the Poo Doo Wines in the 9s and like the ’92 reap where they didn’t make a Brunello and all the fruit went into their roasted mcino at the time I paid $48 a bottle for it wow we’re talking about 200 five yeah and what a w i mean I I’ve just tasted so many wines that Johnny made and when I when I when when I got to taste with him and it was very special I was like I know this wine he’s like yeah I made those wi I’m like this reminds me of Po Doo and this reminds me of soldera and this reminds me he’s like well there’s a reason for that yeah and he was super cool um interesting why maker another region that we’ve been enjoying in Tuscany and I want wonder what your thoughts are is vino no uh no as we say now right is uh uh uh they’ve you know man they had Antonio galone do their uh uh I mean I thought I got top dollar but I can’t compete with Antonio uh um uh you know what is the what’s the winery that it’s actually owned by an Israeli guy what is it saletto the one that I like so much I haven’t tasted a lot of you no recently there are a you know there’s every same kind of thing go back to Sano go back to uh old school large Cask just heard with the with the you know make analog wine with digital ears there that’s the what a recording and audio guy would say we make audio you know analog sounding records with digital ears which is the neat thing about the wine industry right now the thing I’ve heard from a few people recently was just the quality uh out of En Noble a you know seems like people are paying the wine makers are paying more attention and really elevating what they’re trying to produce U more than they had I take the I haven’t paid a lot of attention to it in recent years um there’s a lot of great stuff I mean uh uh and why not well let’s go to another region that uh my wife and I have been really enjoying which is a Bruto which I think you’re I I I just came back from Italy where we agree you know I signed a contract to be the official Ambassador for ab Bruto in the United States this year which I’m really excited about I got to say I’ve had you know it’s been an incredible experience and and I and asked David Day from the Consortium I haven’t been I’ve gone on some uh Consortium sponsor trips and those have been great and I’ve been a guide and I’ve been an interpreter and this year we’re going to do more stuff like that but uh I’ve just been going and renting a car and driving around AB Bruto and it blows my mind the food I’ve eaten the people I’ve talked to I mean I it’s just i’ right now I just posted today on my blog about mashari yeah and I think that when people I think that with everyone of I’ve just on this last trip I just did I literally was there a week ago or two weeks ago I went to melli I went to Pepe and I went to Illuminati and I think I I think that’s I think there’s a lot of the misconceptions about a Bruto I think that we focus on one or two places without what’s around that place and that’s kind of my mission is and the other mission is like AB Bruto needs us right now um they had a really shitty year last year is part of it tourism you know getting there you know where they’re located getting people to come visit um we we’ve had a lot of conversations about uh uh tourists you know about accommodations about the the stres the Italians would say you know there aren’t a lot of hotels there yeah but there are you know the Kosta de troki is one of the most extraordinary places I’ve ever been in in my life not just in Italy or whatever there are um there’s some hidden gems there yeah absolutely and we’re going to be talking about those a white wine that I absolutely love comes from there the peino PE a lot of people are doing uh different I’ve tasted some Afro a lot of people are doing Afra peino but to me what’s exciting about peino from abuto is and I don’t know and this is a little controversial probably get in trouble for the thousands of people are going to hear this is that people are starting to see peino as a blending grape really and I’ve tasted some wines from like younger uh people who you know like every uh uh important wine region all the young people that work for the iconic people ultimately go make their own wine sure and I’ve had a couple people taste me on wines just like you know this is a blend of tabano Pino Kola like they’re they’re I have this this palette this palette I’m going to mix all these things together and I’ve tasted some very compelling wines wow okay that’s interesting um and I’ve also seen you know like uh uh chaval and by the way it’s pronounced chaval uh uh they’re making a pearo in arra if I’m not mistaken you know wow could be poured at Lighty years you know I mean really compelling wine very very compelling wine let’s go to uh two more regions and then I’ll we’ll close up and then I got to get back to my kid yes you do yes you do um Pula what do you what do you like in this region do you there some things you like or is it still kind of you know I think go ahead well no Pua I mean obviously white wine is kind of like the new thing in puya and and I think I mean one thing that people don’t realize about puya is that puya is all Limestone yeah I mean it’s literally all Limestone if you look in the Ian Wikipedia if you look for the entry for calcario calcarius which is the one of the ways it’s one of the ways Italians say Limestone if you look at that there’s a picture of a beach near leche where you can see the substr of the soil and pul and it’s like this is textbook Limestone wow and Tracy and I chardonay from Pula uh why I we drink it all the time it’s a great place to grow not I mean there are a couple people that grow long lived Chardonnay there too but for fresh Chardonnay that’s got nice tropical fruit which is what I look for in young I just I want tropical fruit I want it to taste like soda not soda pop but like I want that fruit to go with my you know we we drink Chardonnay with steak at our house nothing wrong with that we we we we do um we love that especially young we drink a lot of Santa Barbara charday and so that kind of that style of Like You Know Rich fruit chardet is exciting to me um I I wish people would get more excited I mean uh uh uh about Primitivo from mandura that’s what I was going to mention which is is that’s a it’s the traditional wine AA really but it also kind of like amaron kind of like you know uh vichella in general high alcohol Rich fruity and the wines are very alcoholic but they’re Bal they’ve got this acidity like they’re they’re so good yeah it’s I and I I would say the same things about a great amaron and they make wines like that and they’re a lot more affordable than the amaron that I want to you know I drink at my house you know I we drink a lot of up holy cell I’m a ven you know ven love that one yeah uh uh and I drink amaron when I can and I’ve been lucky to work with the amaroni the famili sto group and you know that’s my they love me I speak Veno my Italian is very Veno inflected um uh and I think that puya especially mandura and sa Sava the Appalachian sa on the western coast which also I mean you know that’s when the Greeks said Asperia uh that’s what they were thinking the VES you know if you if you read uh uh DH Lawrence and he talks about the going to Europe The Vespers that’s the western coast this beautiful the the sunset yeah from from pulia and they grow these incredible wines that are that a they’re also very aworthy and but nobody’s excited about that except for me I’m I’m excited about it so Jeremy finishing up with Sicily um you know I feel like this is a region that’s kind of starting to gain some traction amongst the I’ll call them the average wine drinkers you know I think the the Geeks so to speak have been enjoying it for a little while but it’s starting to gain some traction I think that I think that uh um Sicily you know continuing on from the 9s and as chard sarra I think like the value of those wines I think the quality of the wines they’re great they they fill uh they they fulfill a purpose of great value with extremely high quality plan chard planeta sarra kumano kind of took the planeta model and like you know let’s we can make great sarra here we can make great Chardon here we can make it clean we can make it well we can make it value a value um to me the most exciting I mean I’m sorry to be a one trick pony but fodo Monon which is actually in the center of almost in the center it’s in the mountains and I think that’s where the most interesting wine is in Sly I think F Monon which is now with uh Wilson Daniels yeah uh uh and so it’s like getting a little more play in the United States the wines are extraordinary we did I already love the wines during the pandemic closures when I was doing a bunch of virtual wine dinners we did a couple of wine dinners with them and it was like watch ing a fraking Merchant Ivory movie like it it was so romantic she’s American she’s a chef from New York I mean they saw fraking double rainbow on the day they met at the I mean it’s like this whole thing but the wines are extraordinary the couple is really opopo uh you know integrated farming their whole concept is and you know and I’m sorry I got to go it is kind of time for me to go no absolutely we’re going to close it out but but the most interesting thing that I’m like from in general from Europe is monocl you know poly culture versus monoculture I think that and this guy uh Fabio C I think his name is if I’m not mistaken Melissa is his wife um it’s this whole concept of returning to polyculture where you plant this goes back to what you brought up earlier sure integrated farming you have have to have honey you have you have to have other crops you have to have cover crops you have to have you have to make the farm they help each other Kara Pepe said a similar I asked Kara and this is a preview like and not if anybody cares uh you know I said do you think your Wine’s natural she said no natural wine isn’t about the wine it’s about the people living the farm I like that answer and and I was like that was a political answer was it diplomatic technically bureaucratic answer but I I I’m with you it that is really natural wine it’s like it’s not really the wine the wine is a product of these folks people living in commune in a way blah blah blah yeah and yes then then it’s natural wine okay let’s close out the show with the uh the question everybody’s been waiting for if you’re having a neapolitan pizza what wine is Jeremy drinking well the historic wine used to drink is Grano or which are two uh Alano Pi Roso based wines that are slightly sparkling Vivace okay they’re kind of like the Lambrusco and historically uh and kind of like lambusa you would drink it in a tumbler not in a wine you know uh balloon glass um well let’s say thin crust cheese pizza your favorite pizza wine uh do you have a favorite after having children in Houston I probably will never eat pizza again I I I I really ended my relationship with P did you really uh I did okay I mean I will only eat pizza it’s true we ate the Summers of the pandemic we had the pool our Comm you know Municipal actually a private pool but like it’s like a community pool neighborhood pool that we were part of and it’s a very the Maplewood pool it’s a great we ate so much pizza like I just I in Italy we’re going to Italy on our summer vacation and we are going to go to Naples and I will eat pza like that’s kind of like that’s it’s got to be that for me to eat it no um man there’s so much Barbara is one of my favorite uh uh uh you know I Barbara is a wine that’s so great because you can chill it because you can it’s a it’s even though it’s got a lot of acidity it’s one of my favorite wine to pour for people who aren’t wine people because there’s something about Barbara that the fruit and especially you get it and yes Pizza uh uh I mean dude Italians drink beer with pizza yeah and that when I am in Italy and I love you know I will get that great pizza in Italy I’m going to have a beer not going to drink one tall one uh uh I like lamb Brusco I like Grano and L as like if I’m at caste in New York or and my Tracy and I are taking the girls to uh isia to off of the coast of Naples where Tracy lived and worked when she lived in Italy so there’s going to be a lot of Pizza in my that’s the kind of pizza I’m coming soon so maybe I’ll get back to you on that okay perfect perfect well Jeremy thanks so much for coming on tonight really appreciate pleasure thank you for having enjoyed the conversation thanks everybody for listening to this episode of food wine and whiskey and until our next episode enjoy your next pour [Music] [Music]