Ep. 1968 VIA 2024 - Magna Graecia  Where it all began? pt 1 of 3| Everybody Needs A Bit Of Scienza

The Italian wine podcast is the community driven platform for Italian winegeeks around the world. Support the show by donating at italian wine podcast dot com. Donate five or more Euros, and we'll send you a copy of our latest book, my Italian Great Geek journal. Absolutely free. To get your free copy of my Italian GreatGeek journal, click support us at italian wine podcast dot com, or wherever you get your pods. Warning. Warning. This podcast contains information in Italian language. This podcast contains information in Italian. Chinching. Welcome to this special. Everybody needs a bit of Shenza addition of the Italian wine podcast. Here's the premise. Viniti International Academy Community Members. Send us their questions for Via Chief Scientific Praffe Santa. We record his answers, and Stevie Kim tries to keep him in line. Sometimes it works. Thank you for listening. Hey. Good morning, everybody. Let me just introduce you. Let's give it a while. So I always said that, so, obviously, I hope you have read most of you have read many times, Professor Chances' article and books. We call it a language. So when we translate professor Shienza, it's a two step process. So we translate Shienza into Italian, then from Italian to English. Okay. I've always said that if he spoke English I mean, He does his original sin is that he doesn't speak English. Okay. And we have Cynthia as a translator today. If he spoke English, I'm sure he would be more famous than Johnson Robinson. So it's good in the bad. And he's fairly unknown to the rest of the world because he doesn't speak English. Although he's writing, of course, he's written more than three fifty articles. Every time he comes here, I swim about once a month, comes to me with a book that he's written. So just to give you the, gravitas of it, of this professor. But he's he's exactly that. And I hope some of you have some inkling of Italian so you can appreciate his generosity. When we started the program, I call a professor and I say, can you just send me some slides? Because the first, believe it or not, the first version had no book and no, no slides. Okay. So I said, can you please send me some slides? The very next day, he sent me three thousand slides. Is indeed our, our guide and our professor. And I hope you get a chance to understand his generosity and his absolute expertise and authority. And we are incredibly honored and lucky to have him. So please enjoy. I I will not punish you if you fall asleep from time to time. It might get a little tense, but, you know, please bear with us. And if you have any questions. So The translation is going to be a little different. It's not going to be a literal translation because it's nearly impossible. It's going to be, more of a condensed version of what he says. Professorory welcomes all of you to Vinitally to Vineitally International Academy, and he wishes you all a wonderful week of working and good luck on the exam and the joy of learning the deep, profound world of Italian wine. So the story of Italian wine really initiated in the Mediterranean, primarily in Greece, and it was from the Greek traditions and the Greek methods of Viticulture that we learned how to cultivate vines here in Italy, and not only that, but also how to use the grapes and then also the wine that we produced in ways that were cultural and historical. The territory region area. So we're looking here at a map where we see Greece and the concept of manja Gretchen, the big Greece because in ancient times, Greece occupied far more territory than it does in modern days. But Mung Gretchen wasn't only about the area, Greece trolled, but also the development of economic and, trade routes and other things that they developed as they expanded their territory economic development came far more important than the actual territory itself. Okay. We did in, in, in So we're looking here at how Maha Greta affected also the population of Italy. The boundaries beyond the borders of Greece and looking at how the DNA studies that have been done primarily by the University, Zapienza, in Rome, on the molecular profile of Italian citizens. When we look in south of Italy, On the slide, you can see in yellow. So in Sicily and Calabria and parts of Poullia, that was the area affected most primarily by Greece, the middle of the country where it's more brown That was the area affected more by populations from the caucasus. So Georgia, Armenia, Russia, that area. And then in the north of Italy, where the colors change once again on the slide, the DNA molecular profile of an incidence is completely different. So we're looking at the changes that were caused by different groups of people and different trade routes different socio economic effects on the actual DNA of Italian populations. The the big Okay. In particular, Among these studies was hair color types and red and blonde hair is not found in the south of Italy because that was where the Greek influence was and there wasn't red and blonde hair in the DNA molecular development of the populations. So as we go farther north, if there are natural blonde and red haired people occurring, is because of the influence of other populations that came through the north of Italy, such as the longer bards and and other people that influence that molecular and DNA structure in Italian citizens. So now we're looking at the development of language, through again, these different passages of cultural influences. And again, we're focusing on south where the Greek influence was the strongest we still see today in a lot of the dialects, in Sicily also Calabria, the influence of a lot of Greek based words that are still in use today. Where we look farther north and and farther west where the etruscans, were more visible, more popular. And we're looking at Tuscany, Lancio, Emmira General, those areas. The language changes and the words that are used and are still used in dialect are more based on the etruscan based language words. And then the third category is in Mesapico, in Poria, which had a distinctly eastern adriatic base. So when we look at, dialects and words that are still in use there, they're based on eastern adriatic populations and not Greek interesting. Are you enjoying this podcast? There is so much more high quality wine content available for mama jumbo shrimp. Check out our new wine study maps or books on Italian wine, including Italian wine unplugged. And much much more. Just visit our website, mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Now back to the show. Avanti Khresto. The I don't know. The premium. The crystal. Okay. That's a lot. Bear with me here. We're now we're looking at how the the colonies began, how the populations started to form colonies within the area of Italy. So we're looking at two separate things happening here. The primary thing to understand is this will, all started in the eighth century, BC, so eight hundred years before Christ. Where Greek colonies had to move away from Greece. There was the Medio Gretchel, which was a terrible time of famine disease disaster, and populations had to leave the East and move to the West. They did this primarily in the springtime between May and June when there were really favorable winds. The blue sort of from the orient towards the west, allowing them to travel easily from you know, they're they're stricken countries to the Italian territories. So we're talking primarily about immigration here. This was a big period of immigration from the East, to West, to Italy. And they these people had to choose, how to go about founding their new settlements and their new communities. So the founders, need to be able to give sanctuary They needed to be able to give, the new community a sense of destiny and an ability to actually regrow and and have a rebirth. So they had to provide a fire for the houses that would never go out. They needed to provide grain to restart the agriculture. They needed to provide dried grapes that would be a source of food, but also a source of seeds for replanting vineyards. And there were two sets of colonies that were founded. So there were the agricultural colonies that were founded primarily in the south of Italy where These people stayed in one place. They planted their grains. They planted their dried grape seeds, and they founded permanent settlements based on agriculture versus a second group of colonies that were founded based on commerce. They were markets. They were economic traders. So those were in ischia, in Venice. These were the emporiums where the the primary function of the new populations, the new community was trade and commerce. Cadura. The audio. So we're looking specifically now at modern wines in Sicily versus ancient wines in Sicily. It's one of the only places in the world where there has been a constant continuation of viticulture and vinification without stopping. So it's possible to drink today very similar wines to what we're being made, the same varietals. So, obviously, we use new techniques and refrigeration, things like that, but The varietals remain the same and in the same places. The interesting aspect of this is on the western coast of Sicily where the colonies were primarily primarily founded by Carthaginians The Carthaginians were, much more wheat and grain based than the Greeks were. So they remain on on the western side of Sicily for primarily varietals of grapes that are really different from all the other grapes that are in Sicily that came through from the Greeks. For thirty cigarettes. Okay. So when we look at this slide, the green circle is showing the grapes that are from the south and east part of Sicily, where Syracuse was the primary influence for all the colonies that were founded later. So you can see in the slide beforehand, as the immigrants arrived in Syracuse on the eastern side of Sicily and then progressed through the island. The green circle shows those southeastern grapes that are Greek influenced The black circle shows the grapes that are the Carthaginian grapes that are on the western side of Sicily, the Troppany side. The biggest circle, the red circle shows how there were there was a natural crossing of the Greek and the Carthaginian grape varietals over time. So that larger circle is depicting a natural crossing of the two original strains of grapes. Fundamentally. Yeah. Actually, I'm not interested. The the the the economic wreck. The police in Ela in Eliqua. Looking again at how Viticulture and populations and wines moved from the east to the west. A wonderful way to look at this is through the myth of the Nostoy, which is the return trips of heroes who were involved in the conquest of new lands. And these are based on historic facts that we have as well as this wealth of pathology. And so over time, these journeys, these Nostoy journeys like Ulysses became a metaphor for all the voyages of all the people moving from the east to the west, a lot of which were tragic voyages for many reasons that we can all imagine as we see with immigrants today, it's very dangerous and difficult, to move across the Adriatic, the turanian, through the Mediterranean, but every stage of these mythical and well known quasi historic journeys had an element of vineyards and vines and wines in them. So these stories not only talk about the journey, but also about what was brought with or discovered along the journey. So vineyards and vines begin to play a big part. When we look at the movement, especially from the caucuses where wine originated through Greece and all the way around to the west, we're we're looking also at a story that includes the, concept of gold coming from the rivers, the fleeces coming from the sheep. These were shepherds people in the caucasus were were pastoral raising sheep. And the the concept of the golden fleece being brought on these journeys when we look at Jason, the Iliad, the Odyssey, all of these mythological stories combine to echo facts about the movement of people and products, vines, wines, vineyards, gold, sheep from the east to the west in a way that it lets us become more spiritually involved in this process. So the odyssey is is also an important story because it was a way to unite people who were leaving their countries to form new colonies and to help them overcome fear. If Ulysses and his sailors could make it through this very long and arduous and tragic journey, and arrive and and get overcome their fear. It motivated people, to to overcome their own fears in real life and to move from the east to the west and to be brave in starting new colonies. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. 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