Introduction
What is a heroic wine? Which emerging trends will shape the taste of Italian wine in the next decade? How has Italian art and architecture directly influenced its wines?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with author Marc Millon.
You can find the wines we discussed here.
Giveaway
Three of you will win a copy of Marc Millon’s terrific new book Italy in a Wineglass: The Story of Italy Through Its Wines..
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Highlights
- What made Marchesi Antinori the wine producer who’s made the biggest impact on wine today?
- How did a wine of the lowest classification revolutionize Italian winemaking in the 1970s?
- How did Venetian merchants influence wine production standards in Italy?
- What impact did the royal fascination with Barolo have on its global perception?
- What defines a heroic wine?
- How did World War II reshape Italian vineyard landscapes?
- Why do the cultural practices surrounding wine in Italy enhance wine tourism more than in neighbouring countries?
- What is the link between art and wine?
- What might surprise you about the mafia’s influence on the Italian wine industry?
- Which emerging trends in Italian wine will shape the next decade?
- How has climate change affected the English wine industry?
- What does Marc love about Lympstone Manor Estate Isabeau Rosé 2023?
- What makes San Felice Poggio Rosso Chianti Classico Gran Selezione a great example of Chianti’s evolution?
- Why would Marc choose Pliny the Elder to share a bottle of wine with?
- What’s Marc’s top wine tip to make us more wine-savvy?
Key Takeaways
- What is a heroic wine?
Marc defines them as wines made with immense effort from difficult terrains like sea cliffs or high mountain vineyards so they require heroic effort to make them and yet they’re not often well known. They also don’t fetch huge prices, but winemakers make them because they’ve always made them – and their fathers and their grandfathers made them before them. It’s wonderful that Italy still has these wonderful heroic wines we can enjoy. - Which emerging trends will shape the taste of Italian wine in the next decade?
Marc sees a greater focus on organic and sustainable viticulture due to climate change. This is one way that vines are more able to cope with these unpredictable climate variations. He also believes that more wines will be produced in a more natural style, with lower levels of added sulfites and with skin contact. So in a way, the future of Italian wines goes back to thousands of years ago. - How has Italian art and architecture directly influenced its wines?
Marc observes that Italians are very aware of their cultural links with art, going back to Roman times. There are styles of wine that reflect architectural styles. Even the bottles and labels that producers create reflect architecture. For example, the Dolce and Gabbana Donnafugata labels are gorgeous and exhibit the exuberance of Sicilian wines.
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About Marc Millon
Marc Millon is a food, wine and travel writer and communicator and the author of numerous books as well as magazine articles published on both sides of the Atlantic. Marc has been travelling, eating, drinking, learning and writing about food, wine and travel for more than 40 years. Born in Mexico, with a mother from Hawaii via Korea and an anthropologist father from New York via Paris, he was weaned on exotic and delicious foods. Marc studied English literature at Kenyon College, and came to England to study at the University of Exeter for his junior year abroad. There, he met Kim, then a first-year fine art student, and the rest is history. Marc and Kim have lived in Topsham, Devon ever since.
From an early age, Marc and Kim’s interest – both personal as well as professional – in food, wine and travel became more obsessive. Their first book combined these three topics, The Wine & Food of Europe: An Illustrated Guide, published in 1982 by Webb & Bower. They have since gone on to write some 14 books on these topics, and Marc is currently at work on the next.
Resources
- Connect with Marc Millon
- Wines We Tasted:
- Agriturismo.it – Authentic Italian Agritourism
- Diary of a Book Launch: An Insider Peek from Idea to Publication
- Wine Witch on Fire Free Companion Guide for Book Clubs
- My Books:
- Unreserved Wine Talk | Episode 164: Southern Italy’s Wine, Food & Flavour in Robert Camuto’s South of Somewhere Book
- My new class The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner And How To Fix Them Forever
Tag Me on Social
Tag me on social media if you enjoyed the episode:
- @nataliemaclean and @natdecants on Facebook
- @nataliemaclean on Twitter
- @nataliemacleanwine on Instagram
- @nataliemaclean on LinkedIn
- Email Me at [email protected]
Thirsty for more?
- Sign up for my free online wine video class where I’ll walk you through The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner (and how to fix them forever!)
- You’ll find my books here, including Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines and Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.
- The new audio edition of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass is now available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and other country-specific Amazon sites; iTunes.ca, iTunes.com and other country-specific iTunes sites; Audible.ca and Audible.com.
Transcript
Marc Millon (00:00:00) – My wine tip, Natalie, and I’m sure you would agree with this is to be adventurous, particularly in Italy, where we have this wealth of names of grapes that people you know may not have heard of before. When you look at an Italian wine list when you’re traveling in Italy, don’t pick the familiar. Pick a wine you’ve never heard of. Ask about it. Enjoy it, get out of your comfort zone and discover new things. And Italy has such a wealth of wines to discover that you’ll just have surprise after surprise. And I think you’ll have very few disappointments.
Natalie MacLean (00:00:38) – Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places, and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here.
Natalie MacLean (00:01:13) – Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started. Welcome to episode 288. What is a heroic wine? Which emerging trends will shape the taste of Italian wine in the next decade? And how has Italian art and architecture directly influenced its wines? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in part two of our chat with Mark Millan, author of Italy in a Wine Glass The Story of Italy through Its Wines. You don’t need to have listened to part one from last week first, but if you missed it, go back and have a listen after you finish this one. Three of you are going to win a copy of Mark’s terrific new book, Italy in a wineglass. All you have to do is email me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com and let me know you’d like to win a copy. I’ll choose three people randomly from those who contact me. If you haven’t won a book yet, now’s your chance and keep listening, as my goal is to offer lots more books and other prizes.
Natalie MacLean (00:02:23) – With every episode, you can qualify no matter where you live. Recently, I’ve started speaking about wildfires and wine on CTV news. Wildfire season has already begun and it’s hit Alberta and British Columbia hard. Last year, wildfires were also really hard on B.C. wine country. So what do the wildfires mean for Canada’s wine industry this year and going forward? That’s ultimately the issue we address in our interview. I’ll share the questions and answers with you now so that your current on this issue. And then we’ll get to our discussion with Mark. Where are the current wildfires in relation to wine country? Although there were several small wildfires in April near Oliver in the Okanagan Valley, the heart of B.C. wine country, they’ve since been contained. The current wildfires as of early June 2024 near Fort Nelson are about 1400 kilometres away. However, given the current dry conditions, those in wine country are bracing for wildfires that could be worse than last year. Why have the wildfires started so early this year, and how is the weather in general affecting the vineyards? The wildfires started earlier than usual due to an unusually dry winter, which is also the warmest on record in Canada, with significantly less snowpack and underlying drought conditions.
Natalie MacLean (00:03:52) – These warm conditions encouraged an early bud break on the vines. Then the region experienced a severe frost in January, which killed the buds and 97% of the crop this year. What kind of things are wineries doing to prepare for the wildfires? Wineries are removing dried debris around the vineyards and property and securing any combustible materials such as wood piles, propane tanks and barbecue grills. They’re also cutting back branches of trees and shrubbery within two meters of the vineyards, and keeping grass cut to below ten centimetres. And they’re investing in firefighting equipment and technologies to monitor air quality and smoke levels. Beyond the actual fires themselves. How do wildfires affect wine? The primary issue with wildfires affecting wine is smoke taint, which gives them an ashtray aroma. Not pleasant. But not only is this unpleasant, it’s also completely different from the attractive, smoky aromas that can come from oak aging. Smoke taint affects grapes while they’re ripening on the vine, leaving a chemical signature in them. Once inside the grape, enzymes convert this smoke into compounds that can’t be detected by smell or taste.
Natalie MacLean (00:05:15) – However, when the wine is fermented, the yeast resurrects those acrid, smoky aromas. This makes smoke taint more costly because it’s only after wineries invest time and money into harvesting the grapes and making the wine that they discover their bottles are unsellable. Why does the smoke taint affect wine so strongly and what can be done about it? Smoke taint is part of a family of volatile phenols, compounds that evaporate at low temperatures, so it’s easy to smell them in low concentrations. In fact, some of them are so strong they can be detected by the equivalent of just one teaspoon in an Olympic sized swimming pool. Some studies show that smoke taint is also metabolized by the bacteria in our mouth. So we start to sense that acrid odor at the back of our throats, and it steadily intensifies with every sip. If these wildfires are going to be an annual event, what will this mean for Canada’s wine industry as a whole? If wildfires continue to be an annual occurrence, the Canadian wine industry will face reduced grape yields, increased costs for smoke mitigation, and potential changes in grape varieties to more resilient ones.
Natalie MacLean (00:06:33) – The industry needs to invest more heavily in research and technology to combat the effects of smoking, and ensure the long term viability of wine production in affected regions. And I would argue so too does the Canadian federal government and provincial governments. On a personal note, I was in the Okanagan in March and spoke with a number of winemakers. Despite the wildfires last year and the frost at the beginning of this one. They remain optimistic and I’d say as resilient as the vines themselves. I’ll be interviewing Doctor Wes Zandberg from the University of British Columbia on the podcast in a month or so, and we’ll take a deeper dive into this fascinating topic and not only how it relates to the Canadian wine scene, but also to Australia and California. Speaking of, well, fire. but the good kind have you red wine. Which on fire, rising from the ashes of divorce, defamation and drinking too much? If yes, have you bought a copy for a friend or family member? Please consider doing that. If you’d like to support this podcast that I do for you on a volunteer basis to ensure it continues.
Natalie MacLean (00:07:45) – You can order it for yourself or someone else from any online book retailer now, no matter where you live. It usually arrives in a day or two. And of course the e-book is instant. It’s a fast read. Every little bit helps spread the message. In this book of hope, justice, and resilience. You can send a copy directly to a friend or family member via the online retailers, and make their day when a gift arrives in the mail, rather than a notice about a new dog grooming company, especially when they don’t own a dog. I’ll put a link in the show notes to all retailers worldwide at Natalie MacLean dot com. Forward slash 288. I also offer a free companion guide that has book club and wine group discussion questions. It can also spark a conversation between two friends or a partner and spouse. It asks questions such as how you feel about your own relationship with wine, especially post-pandemic marketing tactics toward women and men, and whether social media is still a good place to connect with others.
Natalie MacLean (00:08:44) – The guide has wine recommendations, pairings and tips for organizing your own informal wine tasting. You can get that at wine, which on Viacom. If you’ve read the book or are reading it, I’d love to hear from you. If your book club or wine group plans to read it, let me know if you’d like me to join you via zoom. I also have a summary sheet you can send to book club members who are deciding on upcoming books. Email me at Nathalie at Natalie MacLean. Com. Okey dokey, on with the show. Can you talk about a specific historical figure in Italy whose wine legacy impacts us today?
Marc Millon (00:09:26) – Well, I think I would talk about much more recent. I would say that the wine producer, who’s had perhaps the most biggest impact on wine today would be Marchesi, Pietro Antinori. You’ll be very familiar with the wines of Antinori. But he was a revolutionary. He was a revolutionary when he decided in the 60s that to make great wine, he had to make great changes.
Marc Millon (00:09:52) – And I think that the renaissance of Italian wine, in large measure, goes back to great individuals with vision, like Pietro Antinori, like Angelo Goya. And so, although that’s much more recent, I think what’s exciting about Italian wine today is, yes, there’s this great link to the past. the Antinori family goes back 800 years as wine producers. They weren’t just resting on that history as wine producers. They’re still innovating, still producing, making exciting new discoveries. And it was that determination that Italian wine should not just be good. Italian wine should be great again, as it once was that Marchesi Pietro brought to Italian wine. And I think that really went across the board in every single region. That influence has been felt, and that sense that great wines can be produced wherever you are in Italy, and great wines are being produced in every single one of Italy’s 20 regions.
Natalie MacLean (00:10:58) – And what specific changes did Antinori make?
Marc Millon (00:11:02) – Well, for example, Chianti was a wine that was a wine we all knew in the 70s and the 80s.
Marc Millon (00:11:11) – The Chianti, the old style Chianti in that beautiful bottle that had straw in it, that beautiful fiasco, the flask. But it was a wine that was never meant for aging. You couldn’t even lay that bottle down. But the reason was because a recipe had been defined in the 19th century by Baron Bettino righteously, the second prime Minister of Italy, incidentally, who wanted to define Chianti wine. And he said that Chianti needed to have a cocktail of grapes. Sangiovese? Certainly. Can I also call a Rino, but also white grape varieties such as Triano and Malvasia to make the wine more supple. But of course that did make an easy to drink wine. The wine that we all loved that brought happiness to Italian restaurants around the world. But Marchesi Anthony really believed that the county region, the county classico in particular, and this great grape Sangiovese had the potential to produce world class wines. And so he actually decided to eschew using the recipe for Chianti using those white grape varieties, and instead he planted some Cabernet Sauvignon in his team.
Marc Millon (00:12:23) – Janella vineyard made a wine that was astonishing, vilified in the French manner and aged for the first time, really using new French oak burek. So this Super Tuscan, this incredible wine emerged that astonished the world. But it could only be sold as a vino de la, the most lowly classification of Italian wine, because it was outside of the regulations of the definition of what Chianti was. And of course, it was not just recognized as one of the best wines, it was a very expensive wine. So we had this anomaly of a vino tavola, the lowliest wine can being able to command some of the highest prices. So this was a revolution in wine making in the 1970s, and it really made people rethink their whole attitude to wine across the country, and to the potential for Italy to produce world class wines that would not only be great, wonderful wines, but importantly, could command prices matching, you know, the greatest wines in the world, the Burgundies and the Bordeaux’s that we’ve mentioned already.
Natalie MacLean (00:13:40) – And was that wine called Nello?
Marc Millon (00:13:42) – Yes, that’s right in yellow.
Marc Millon (00:13:44) – That’s right.
Natalie MacLean (00:13:45) – Okay. Because I know there’s another Super Tuscan called Saskia that got its own denomination doc later and also bucked the system. Perhaps in Antinous wake.
Marc Millon (00:13:55) – Actually not in Antinous way. The Saskia comes from the San Guido, which was his uncle. And so. And that’s a Cabernet based primarily Cabernet wine that was grown on the Tuscan seaboard. And it was Marchesi Piero who encouraged his uncle to produce this Cabernet based Super Tuscan, which you’re right. Absolutely. I think it’s the only wine in Italy that has its own dock. Bulgari. Sasha.
Natalie MacLean (00:14:28) – That is amazing. And it reminds me of designers in Italy, France and so on who lead with perhaps these beautiful outfits you see on the runways during fashion week that few people could afford or even would wear because they’re so outrageous, but they’re gorgeous. But then they set the price for everything else, all of the next tier fashions, or the purses or the perfumes that people actually buy. But you’ve got that benchmark leading the way. The I don’t know, for lack of a better metaphor, the snowplow in front that’s saying, okay, here’s the top tier and then everything can file in thereafter that sort of new greatness.
Marc Millon (00:15:12) – I think that that’s exactly what happened. I think you’re right. And it did really lead the way. And it raised all of the wines, not just the wine selling for really top prices, but it raised the quality standard as well. This sense that, you know, Italian wine, the determination of small growers to strive for quality, to reduce yields, to plant on, the more difficult to cultivate hillsides, for example. So you’re absolutely right. I love that analogy.
Natalie MacLean (00:15:42) – Great. It’s yours. You discussed the influence of Venetian merchants on the wine trade. How did this influence ultra wine production standards in Italy during that period?
Marc Millon (00:15:54) – Well, that’s interesting question as well. Of course, Venice was a maritime republic, so it didn’t really initially look inland. It had colonies all across the eastern Mediterranean. And these colonies were areas where wines were being produced. In particular, one area, one port called Monemvasia, and the wines from Monemvasia were brought back to Venice and they were particularly favored. They were made in the pasta style by drying the grapes to make a raisin wine, so not from fresh grapes to make this rich dessert raisin wine, which was not only a luscious sweet wine that people came to love, but also very, very importantly, it was a navigable wine.
Marc Millon (00:16:42) – It was robust enough to be able to withstand transport by sea. The Monemvasia eventually came to it had a number of different names by the time it got to Venice, but it eventually came to be called Malvasia and so the production moved. Monemvasia wasn’t large enough and it moved to Crete, the Malvasia de Candia, so this was a source of wines. But once the Ottoman Turks took the eastern Mediterranean colonies from Venice, Venice had to turn in and it developed its own Venice Terrafirma the inland Veneto region that we now know, and these wines began to be produced on the mainland, same style, but not always the same grape, which is why Malvasia. Today there are a number of Malvasia is produced all around Italy, but also in other countries as far away as the Portuguese island of Madeira. Mumsy, for example, would be from Malvasia, but you can kind of think of it Natalie as a brand. Malvasia became a brand, a style of wine and it was the Venetians that really made that brand so in demand.
Natalie MacLean (00:17:57) – Now, is this the same grape that I think of as Malvasia and I just mispronouncing it?
Marc Millon (00:18:03) – Yes, that’s right, I think it can have different pronunciations. I don’t think you’re wrong, but it depends on where you are.
Natalie MacLean (00:18:10) – That’s very gracious of you. Okay, I’m okay to be corrected, but just, you know, for those listening who may have heard of Malvasia as well, but we’re talking about the same grape in Melville, I’ll let you say that. And in your chapter about Barolo, how do you think the royal fascination with this wine shaped its global perception? Of course it’s up in Piedmont. It tends to be very expensive. It has a lot of tannin. It ages long time. But what was the royal influence?
Marc Millon (00:18:37) – Well, that’s interesting too. That’s an interesting story. Piedmont was part of what was called the Kingdom of Sardinia. Now we think the Kingdom of Sardinia might refer to the island of Sardinia. Not much else. In fact, the Kingdom of Sardinia was all of the northwest of Italy.
Marc Millon (00:18:54) – So where Piedmont is valid, Aosta, but also over the Alps into what is now France, what is now the French Savoie. And the family was the Savoia and the father of Italys first king, Carlo Alberto. The first loved the wines from Barolo and bought a castle that Castello di Verdugo in order to produce this wine. So the royal influence was certainly a strong selling point for the wine. But it’s also interesting that the actual style of Barolo, the wine that we could recognize and enjoy now, developed and evolved during this period. And that was in part through the efforts of Count Camilo Bensouda cava, who was to become Italy’s first prime minister. He had another castle of Castello di San, again in the heart of the Barolo wine area. Number was made from the Nebbiolo grape, which is a difficult grape. The word Nemea means fog and is often late harvested in this season of mists, and as a result the wine, if not carefully handled, could have some residual sugar, so it wasn’t a serious wine in that same sense that it is now.
Marc Millon (00:20:17) – But Cavour brought in a French ethnologist French wine making techniques and found that through long maceration on the skins, we would get the extract, the tannins and the power that we associate with Barolo today. So modern Barolo really began in the 19th century with the royal family and with the first prime minister. So it’s really directly linked to the story of Italy.
Natalie MacLean (00:20:49) – Well that’s great. And of course, back then there were no social media influencers. It was the. To set the fashion. So if they were fans, I’m sure that sort of spread out then through the rest of the country. And of course, maceration for those who are listening may not be familiar with that term is how long you leave the grape skins in contact with the actual juice of the wine. And as you said, mark that the longer the more it’s going to extract, you know, the color, the tannin, the flavor and so on. What makes a wine heroic.
Marc Millon (00:21:20) – Are heroic wines. And there are many, many heroic wines in Italy.
Marc Millon (00:21:25) – Heroic wines. To me, what defines a heroic wine is a wine that is made at immense effort, much more effort than it would take to make wine from grapes grown on a nice, easy to cultivate or plain area. But for example, the grapes vines cultivated directly on the sea cliffs incredibly steep, the cliffs held together by dry stone walls, immense effort even to make wines to harvest wines. The wines are heroic. They’re not necessarily able to command the prices that the effort required. You know, really, really would, should reward those producers. Or another example, the highest vineyards in Europe, in the valley. Doster again, immense effort required to tend these mountain vineyards to that produce such gorgeous and unique light, ethereal mountain wines. And again, the prices that they can sell these wines for aren’t reflected in the immense amount of hours. Just a statistic. These heroic vineyards might take 800 man hours per hectare during the course of a year, compared to 100 or 150 for easier to cultivate vineyards in other areas.
Marc Millon (00:22:50) – So it’s heroic because of the heroic effort that these wine growers do to make wines that aren’t world known. They don’t make fetch huge prices, but they make them because they’ve always made them, because their fathers and their grandfathers made them before them, because they like drinking them, because they’ve always been done. And it’s wonderful that Italy still has these wonderful heroic wines that we can enjoy.
Natalie MacLean (00:23:19) – Absolutely. Again, what you’re talking about just makes me think of so many parallels inside and outside the wine industry. But for those of us who are in Ontario, wines are definitely our ice wines picked at -eight degrees Celsius or colder, and pellets, little grapes that have been frozen have been known to break the presses. But yeah, definitely heroic. We should thank them for their service. So how did World War Two reshape vineyard landscapes in Italy?
Marc Millon (00:23:48) – Well, World War II was devastating for the wine country. It was devastating for the whole country. World War II was a disaster in Italy. You know, there were battlefields across the country.
Marc Millon (00:24:00) – You know, we’re talking about down in Sicily, up to the northeast and northwest. So the wine country was destroyed. The men were away fighting or serving as partisans later, after Mussolini fell. So aftermath of the war, not just the wine country, but, you know, the whole economies had to be rebuilt. And wine being such an important element of the economy was part of that story of reconstruction. And some areas, for example, really took that opportunity to almost to reinvent themselves, an area like Friuli throughly, Venezia Giulia. So we’re talking about right up in the northeast of the country with the borders now today, previously with Yugoslavia, but now with Slovenia, with Austria, and a source of magnificent varietal, mainly whites, 80% whites, as well as outstanding reds. And, you know, the winegrowers took collective decisions to concentrate on quality, to replant with native as well as some international grape varieties, and to sell these wines variety as an easier way for consumers to understand. And that’s an example of how one area rebuilt.
Marc Millon (00:25:19) – But it happened across the country. The vineyards of Gibraltar that we were just talking about were scenes of terrible fighting between. It really was a civil war between, you know, the partisans and the Italians that were still loyal to Mussolini. So it was a tragic time to have civil war on Italian soil. But afterwards, again, hard, hard times after the war. But belief in the quality of the wine that could be produced was one way that these areas were able to rebuild. And. Recover, and it’s just wonderful now that the wines are so well recognized and of such high quality and people, you know, these winegrowers now can benefit from the toil and the effort and the hardship and the tragic times that their grandparents and great parents had to live through.
Natalie MacLean (00:26:14) – Well, yeah, I’m just thinking people who are history buffs and wine buffs are just going to love your book, Mark. And that story itself reminds me of, I don’t know who said it, but they talked about French, especially the champagne vineyards being watered with the blood of the French, especially during the war, because these pictures were out in the midst of bombing and all kinds of things.
Natalie MacLean (00:26:39) – It’s just amazing what people did to keep the vines going. How did the cultural practices surrounding wine in Italy enhance wine tourism, say, as compared to France and Spain?
Marc Millon (00:26:52) – Well, that’s an interesting question too. You know, we wrote a series of books on the wine roads of France, the wine roads of Italy, and the wine roads of Spain. These books came out in the early 90s. So we’re going back more than 30 years. And, you know, wine tourism in Italy didn’t exist 30 years ago. We were knocking on doors. And, you know, if somebody was free in there and you were in Italy, they would be very glad to show you around the vineyard and probably just as likely to ask you to stay for lunch. And this would be famous wine producers or small growers alike. Wine tourism is more recent than it has been in France. The French have always been pretty good at promoting themselves and selling their wines, and is realizing the importance of people turning up in the farm gate, sales of selling wine direct to people driving by.
Marc Millon (00:27:47) – And that’s the way a lot of the French have always bought their wines. So in Italy, this tradition of wine tourism is much more recent, but the Italians have really taken to it with both hands now. And wine tourism is a wonderful experience through agritourism, through places with farmhouse restaurants. And I think it’s important to mention as well that Italian wine is above all almost in exclusively design, which may conceived to be enjoyed with food. So, you know, eating and drinking is it’s not uniquely Italian, but I think with the Italians you can’t separate the two. And so even if you’re just turning up without even making an appointment, you’ll be offered some delicious nugget of salami by made by somebody just down the road. Or you may be going somewhere that has a wonderful restaurant serving local foods, or even indeed a michelin star restaurant within that winery. So there are any number of possibilities for wine tourism in Italy, and it’s hugely enjoyable, hugely welcoming. And my advice would be for people to really embrace that when you’re in Italy and to enjoy this because it isn’t just about single mindedly learning about wine.
Marc Millon (00:29:11) – You can’t divorce yourself from wine and culture and food when you’re in Italy. It’s a much more holistic experience. You know, sometimes we can be a little bit too precious about wine, talking about it, analyzing it, dissecting it. In Italy, it’s there to be drunk, it’s there to be enjoyed. It’s there to be shared.
Natalie MacLean (00:29:32) – Wow. I love that holistic approach to life. And especially when you’re there in Italy, just soak it all in everything, including, as you said, the culture. And speaking of that, you relate wine to Italian art and architecture. Can you share maybe an example of how a specific architectural style or art movement directly influenced a wine, either their branding or their production methods?
Marc Millon (00:29:58) – Well, I think Italians again, are very aware of links with art, you know, going back to the Roman times. And so there are links in branding. Also, I think you could almost say they’re styles of wine that that reflect on architectural styles. And I’m thinking of a wine called Spoleto.
Marc Millon (00:30:18) – Politano from Spoleto, which is a town that was part of the Duchy of Spoleto, which was the Lombards, the Germanic tribe that came down through Italy and almost unified the entire peninsula in the sixth and seventh and eighth centuries. And they had a particular style of architecture that I think almost is reflected in this style of this mass of white wine from a great very few people have had a chance to experience this piano Latino, very rich. Very solid. And even the bottles that producers used to bottle this Politano reflect that lumbered architecture with deep ponds and heavy bottles. And that to me is an example of the link between architecture and wine.
Natalie MacLean (00:31:12) – Yes. Well, and I’ve seen that. I’m sure you’re aware of this, but Dolce and Gabbana, the famous fashion designer of Italy, partners with Donna Fujita, and their labels are works of art. I just. Absolutely. Fortunately, the wine is good, too. It’s not just about marketing, but I love that partnership and those cross influences.
Marc Millon (00:31:33) – Actually, Donna Fujita have always had strong links with art.
Marc Millon (00:31:37) – You’re absolutely right. The labels are just gorgeous. I love them in those labels give the exuberance of Sicilian wines. They’re such wonderful wines, and I think that’s an example of art reflecting the style and the spirit of the winemaker as well. Jose Rollo has a deep love of art and this beautiful, exuberant approach to wines.
Natalie MacLean (00:32:03) – And there’s always, usually, maybe not always, but usually a picture of a woman and her hair is always blowing in the wind. And I love Donna Fogarty. I will probably butcher this, but fugitive woman or woman on the run? I put her in my own book, wine which on fire because I just love the back story as well, so it just has such resonance all around. Speaking of Sicily, you touch on the Mafia’s influence on the Italian wine industry. What can you tell us about that without having to go into hiding? What are the surprising things that may have happened as a result of the Mafia’s involvement?
Marc Millon (00:32:37) – Well, you know, the Mafia has been involved in just about any form of nefarious activity, not just Sicily around the world, but in recent years and decades, they have concentrated, infiltrating Italy’s great patrimony of not just wine, but these wonderful, you know, protected food products, making counterfeit products and counterfeit wines.
Marc Millon (00:33:03) – And, you know, wine has been something that’s been subject to counterfeit since the earliest days. I’m sure in the Roman era, they were counterfeit for Latino wines is for learning this famous Grand Cru of the Roman Empire. And, you know, you can call a wine anything you want. And when you put it in a bottle, if you fake the label. So there have been huge, you know, examples of that and examples of extortion on vineyards and of ways to get money from the EU subsidies. But the positive story here is that convicted mafiosi have their lands confiscated, and laws have been passed that allow cooperatives or social enterprise cooperatives that bring good to society to use and make use of those lands. And so vineyards are planted on lands confiscated from convicted mafiosi, criminals and a wonderful range of good, honest wines are being produced, showing that, you know, good can come from the horrors that have plagued not just Sicilian society but to Italian society.
Natalie MacLean (00:34:16) – That’s great. Oh my God, time is flying here.
Natalie MacLean (00:34:19) – So what kind of emerging trends do you see in Italian wine that will shape the next decade?
Marc Millon (00:34:25) – Well, we’ve already mentioned climate change, and I don’t think that we can, you know, deny the, you know, the impact that is having on Italian wines, the challenging its presenting. But I think one of the trends as a result is that we’re seeing that organic and sustainable and biodynamic viticulture is one way that vines are more able to cope with these unpredictable climate variations, these great swings in temperature, the droughts that vineyards are experiencing, the huge mass of rain bombs that fall rather than the normal rain we used to get. But vines are resilient and especially when cultivated organically and biodynamic, so that’s a very positive development. I think we’re going to see more wines produced in a more natural style, natural wines being this all inclusive term that I know you’ve discussed at times, you know, when we’re talking about wines with lower levels of sulfites, of added sulfites, and with skin contact style of wines as well.
Marc Millon (00:35:38) – So we’re in a way, you know, the future of Italian wines goes back in some sense to the past to how white wines were made even thousands of years ago.
Natalie MacLean (00:35:49) – Yeah, back to the future. Absolutely. Well, it’s like getting off all the drugs and living more naturally. You are more resilient as a person and a vine. So you have two wines there. Mark, I want to make sure we highlight those. Can you tell us a little bit about them maybe hold it up to I don’t know if you have the bottle or just the glasses. Okay.
Marc Millon (00:36:06) – Well the first one I want to show you here, it’s from Limestone Manor Estate. It’s called Isabella Rosé and it’s a vine I’m very proud of because I planted some of the vines in this vineyard in 2018. It’s from three miles from where I live. And, you know, we’re talking about the damage that climate change is doing. But climate change also provides opportunities. And I’m sure that winegrowers in Canada may be finding this as well, that global warming means that it’s possible to make wines in areas that were it was a struggle before, and the English wine industry is a good example of that, you know, and it’s not just the sparkling wines that are being made, but good still wines, red, white.
Marc Millon (00:36:54) – And in this case, this is a beautiful rosé made from Pinot noir grown on the pebble bed vineyards. It’s quite a pale, a Provence style of Pinot noir. It has a gorgeous soft strawberry fruit to it. There’s a really nice crispness to the nose, minerality coming through in a little bit of salinity.
Natalie MacLean (00:37:17) – that sounds great. And for those listing, we will post links to both wines that you have there in the show notes so that people can look for them. That sounds lovely. What is the other wine that you have?
Marc Millon (00:37:28) – The other one is we discussed how Chianti evolved that move from the Chianti of old in the fiasco to Chianti, now being one of Italy’s greatest, greatest wines. And so I’ve brought a county Classico. It’s Podger Rosso, it’s a grand selection from the San Felice estate, an estate that also has wonderful wine hospitality. The Borgo San Felipe is a rally chateau with a michelin star restaurant. So it’s wine hospitality at the highest level and the wines are of the highest level.
Marc Millon (00:38:04) – This is a absolutely beautiful 100% Sangiovese from a single vineyard, the Poggio Rosso vineyard. Immense selection in the vineyard, low yields to make a really beautiful concentrated county Classico with elegance and depth.
Natalie MacLean (00:38:23) – That sounds like it would pair well with Italian cuisine, like it’s especially the heartier meat dishes. Yes.
Marc Millon (00:38:31) – Yes. What I love about the San Felipe Giants is the freshness. It’s 400m above sea level, so quite a high vineyard. And even with these heat wave summers, we’ve been having these beautiful, elegant wines with a freshness and acidity are produced. They’re not big blockbusters. They’re really beautiful and well balanced.
Natalie MacLean (00:38:53) – That sounds marvellous. And again, we’ll put a link in the show notes. So we’re going to have to go into the lightning round to wrap this up because the time has flown a great conversation. If you could share a bottle of wine with any person outside the wine world, living or dead, who would that be and which wine would you open?
Marc Millon (00:39:11) – It would be Pliny the Elder, that great historian that I mentioned, the Roman historian who was standing in his villa and Misano in A.D. 79, watching in horror when Vesuvius erupted and buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Marc Millon (00:39:28) – I would love to share a wine with him, probably from the Campi Flegrei, the flat green fields.
Natalie MacLean (00:39:35) – Fields of fire. And if you could put up a billboard in downtown London or Rome, what would it say?
Marc Millon (00:39:41) – Well, in London it would definitely. And I’m going to be political here. It would say remain, because I think Brexit has been the biggest mistake that’s been made in this country.
Natalie MacLean (00:39:52) – All right. Okay. I’ll drink to that. And do you have one last wine tip to share with us that can make us more wine savvy?
Marc Millon (00:40:00) – Yeah, my wine tip, Natalie, and I’m sure you would agree with this is to be adventurous, particularly in Italy, where we have this wealth of names of grapes that people you know may not have heard of before. So my tip would be when you look at an Italian wine list, when you’re traveling in Italy, don’t pick the familiar, pick a wine you’ve never heard of, ask about it, enjoy it, and really, you know, discover new things.
Marc Millon (00:40:24) – So get out of your comfort zone and discover new things. And Italy has such a wealth of wines to discover that you’ll just have surprise after surprise. And I think you’ll have very few disappointments.
Natalie MacLean (00:40:37) – I love that as we wrap up, is there anything we haven’t mentioned, Mark, that you’d like to say now?
Marc Millon (00:40:44) – You know, and actually, I’ve really loved talking to you. You’ve asked me some questions that have made me think. And I just know your own love of wine and your own curiosity in discovering. So I’ve really loved our conversation, and I think we’ve covered a lot of ground. So thank you.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:00) – I have to Mark, and if you have your book there, please hold it up. Remind us of the title Italy and a Wine Glass and the subtitle.
Marc Millon (00:41:10) – Italy and a Wine Glass The Story of Italy through its wines. This is the US and Canada cover, and it’s coming out on May 28th.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:20) – Your book is available wherever you get books, whether it’s online or in bookstores.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:25) – As I said, I think if you love wine or you love history or both, you’re just going to love Mark’s new book. So congratulations on this new effort, Mark. It’s a wonderful, wonderful, remarkable achievement.
Marc Millon (00:41:38) – Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed this.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:42) – All right. I will say goodbye for now, but I look forward to sharing a glass with you in person next time.
Marc Millon (00:41:48) – Me too. I really look forward to that.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:50) – Okay, bye for now, Mark, I. Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Mark. Here are my takeaways. Number one, what is a heroic wine? Mark defines them as wines made with immense effort from difficult terrains like sea cliffs and high mountain vineyards. So they require heroic effort to make them. And yet they’re often not well known. They don’t also fetch huge prices, but winemakers make them because they’ve always made them, and their fathers and grandfathers made them before they did. It’s wonderful.
Natalie MacLean (00:42:30) – He notes, that Italy still has these wonderful, heroic wines that we can enjoy. Number two, which emerging trends will shape the taste of Italian wine in the next decade? Mark sees a greater focus on organic and sustainable viticulture due to climate change. This is one way that the vines are better able to cope with these unpredictable climate variations. He also believes that more wines will be produced in a more natural style, with lower levels of added sulfites and with skin contact. So in a way, the future of Italian wines goes back to thousands of years ago. And number three. How has Italian art and architecture directly influenced its wines? Mark notes that Italians are very aware of their cultural links with art and architecture going back to Roman times. There are styles of wine that reflect architectural styles. Even the bottles and labels that producers create reflect the architecture and art. For example, the Dolce and Gabbana Donna Fogarty labels are gorgeous and exhibit the exuberance of Sicilian wines. Art and architecture. In the show notes.
Natalie MacLean (00:43:44) – You’ll find the full transcript of my conversation with Mark, links to his website and books the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now, no matter where you live. You can also find a link to take a free online food and wine pairing class with me, called the Five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner. Oh no, and how to fix them forever. Yay at Natalie MacLean dot com forward slash class. That’s all in show notes at Natalie MacLean dot com forward slash 288. Email me if you have a SIP tip question, or would like to win one of three copies of Marc’s terrific book Italy and Wine Glass. I’d also love to hear from you if you’ve read my book or are in the process of reading it at Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com. If you missed episode 164. Go back and take a listen. I chat about Southern Italy’s wine, food and flavors with Robert Camuto, author of South of Somewhere.
Natalie MacLean (00:44:44) – I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.
Robert Camuto (00:44:48) – Wine back in the day wasn’t something that it is now. It was an accompaniment. It wasn’t the star of the table. When you look at southern Italy, there’s so many darn flavors there and so much delicious spicy food. And fresh tomatoes, peppers, greens, artichokes. Maybe it’s a little more difficult for wine to be the standout star of that.
Natalie MacLean (00:45:14) – Because the flavors are so intense.
Robert Camuto (00:45:16) – There’s so much else going on at the table, so much other intensity. Everybody loves Burgundy, but what does one eat in Burgundy? There’s some nice beef bourguignon, there’s some nice snails. But it’s not the same thing as having pasta with sea urchins and clams and peppers and all the different sources. They drank it as a food, as a very simple pairing, and did not savor wine to the extent that we do today.
Natalie MacLean (00:45:49) – You won’t want to miss next week, when we chat with Jennifer Wilhelm, author of Sharing a Glass Inspirational Memoirs and memories of the Women who Shaped Ontario’s Grape and Wine Industry.
Natalie MacLean (00:46:01) – She joins us from her home in Niagara. If you liked this episode or learned even one thing from it, please email or tell one friend about the podcast this week, especially someone you know who’d be interested in learning more about Italy and its wines. It’s easy to find my podcast. Just tell them to search for Natalie MacLean wine on their favorite podcast app, or they can listen to the show on my website. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week. Perhaps a heroic wine that’s captured your heart and tastebuds. Chin, chin. You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at Natalie MacLean. Com forward slash subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.
