Ep. 660 Marc Millon | Italian Wine People

Italian wine podcast. Chinchin with Italian wine people. Hi, everybody. Italian wine podcast celebrates its fourth anniversary this year. And we all love the great content they put out every day. Chinching with Italian wine people has become a big part of our day, and the team in verona needs to feel our love. Producing the show is not easy folks, hurting all those hosts, getting the interviews, dropping the House recordings, not to mention editing all the material. Let's give them a tangible fan hug with a contribution to all their costs. Head to Italian wine podcast dot com and click donate to show your love. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. My name is Joy Livingston, and today I am introducing Mark Millen. He is going to be our new host for our Tuesday's show that will be called wine food and travel with Mark Millen. He is a new host because Monte Walden, who has been on the Italian wine podcast since the beginning, the last four years, he has decided to move on to bigger and better things, and we wish him a ton of luck. I think I heard that he was starting a day spa using his biodynamic preparations. I'm just kidding. Honestly, I have no idea what he's doing, but I'm sure that he will excel and we wish him the best of luck. So, he's passing the baton to Mark Millen, who we actually met during the giro d'italia this year, he did a wonderful series for us and he has such a captivating voice. We just had to have him back. And, so I am going to spend the next twenty minutes or so just getting to know Mark and introducing him to our listeners. He is going to be bringing in a brand new component to our podcast, and he's gonna be really introducing the food and the travel to the wines. And I'm really excited to introduce him. So let's see here. Mark, are you there? I am here, Joy. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. But first of all, I want to say, I'm a huge fan of Monty. I've really enjoyed his podcasts listening to the huge range of subjects that he has covered and it's an incredible knowledge and easy affable manner. So I'm sure he's going to be greatly missed by many listeners I wish Monty well because I'm sure he has exciting plans, and we'll be doing some new things. Awesome. So, Mark, I I know very little about you. I know that you live in Devon in Jolly Old England. And, you are also a Vineetally international academy Italian wine Ambassador as of twenty twenty one this year. I know that you are the author of fourteen books, including a series of illustrated wine and food travel books, and that you will soon begin on our podcast. So so why don't you go ahead and tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into food and wine, because I think you've been doing it for about forty years now. It's a long time. Well, it is, it is a long time. It's I'd like to say, that it seems like it was just yesterday when we started, but it actually does seem a long time. My wife and I were just nineteen years old when we met at Exeter University, and Kim then was studying photography, and I was studying English literature. We wanted to work together in a writing photography, combination, and we began to write and photograph any number of topics, but increasingly our attentions and our interest turned to food and wine. When we were actually quite young, we came up with an idea to write a book about the foods of the great wine regions of Europe, an illustrated guide. And that that actually was our first book. It was published in nineteen eighty two. And we were very, very lucky. We had a wonderful publisher, and the book sold more than eighty thousand copies. And it set us off on a career, that, you know, we're still doing much the same things now forty years later than still enjoying it every bit as much. That sounds very romantic. I have to say. Italy, of course, has been, a country that we, especially love and which I spend, I spend a great deal of time in every year not only researching food and wine, but I also bring I bring people over on gastronomic cultural tours with a wonderful English company called Martin Randall Travel. So that's also a way to share my love of wine, food, and places. With, with the people that come with me. Great. And you know what? My next question would be, since you're going to be talking about food and wine and travel here in Italy, what places in Italy would you enjoy exploring in today's Italy? I know you're you're a bit of a history buff. So, I mean, in today's Italy, what region do you think is is going to be most exciting to you? Well, the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful thing about Italy, Joy, as you know, is that wine is produced in every single one of its twenty regions. And of course, in every single one of its twenty regions, there's a unique and delicious regional cuisine, not just regional but local foods that really differ almost from town to town and city to city. And it's learning about the foods and wines directly from wine producers that we visit that's most exciting to me. So I'm looking forward to exploring every single one of Italy's twenty region and learning about new flavors, tastes, experiences directly from the wine producers. My next question is, you know, about your books. You've written so many and and your latest one. Can you give me some some info information on, on the latest, project that you're, you're working on. Well, you mentioned history, and yes, history is, is, a massive interest of mine. But I really feel that to understand Italy, to enjoy Italy, to appreciate its culture, its foods and its wines, it is important to know something about Italian history. And so I set out to write a book about the book is called Italy in a wine glass, the taste of history. And really, my aim here is to be able to tell the story of Italy linking it directly to wines that relate to a particular period, whether it's the Greeks or the Renaissance or Resordimento or the economic miracle of the sixties. In in every era, there are movements, such as the Metsudrilla, or a time when pilgrims were walking down the Via Frincijuna, and every era, and every moment is linked to specific wines. So, that's the way I'm exploring history. And I think it's a, an accessible way to gain an understanding because all along the way, you can lubricate your history by enjoying a nice glass of wine while you are discovering learning about Italian history. It's certainly the way I like to learn about history with a glass of wine in hand. So the Jiro D'italia, you had done a series for us this year. I just mentioned that earlier, you seemed to be enjoying food and wine from all over Italy And I'm not sure if it was a virtual experience or if you were really there, but it seems so real because you went into so much detail about the wines and the cheeses and the meats and the pastas and the breads. And I was hungry every time I finished listening to your podcast. So I want to ask you what your favorite stop was or your favorite area from that Jiro trip this year. What region was really exciting to you, the wine combination with the food? Well, this is the same, question really about exploring the various regions of Italy through through the wines and foods we encounter along the way. And there's so many exciting places, and I enjoyed every single stage of the Jiro this year, which, by the way, was one of the most exciting additions of the Jiro. I'm a massive cycling fan. I cycle a lot myself, but the Jiro Italian to me is an important moment every year because of the this great historic race, it's been going for more than a hundred years, I think. This great race, was conceived as a way of really showcasing Italy and all its magnificence, and all its grandeur from the landscape of tough arduous, savagely steep mountain stages to rides along the coast or into the islands, and all along the way of course, there are there are wonderful wines and foods to discover and enjoy. I don't think the cyclists themselves have that much time or the chance to really make as much use of of this opportunity as you or I would but that's the, beauty of being an armchair cyclist in this case. And so I I enjoy the foods and the wines in in all the regions. But if you'd ask me to pick one tapa, one stage that was particularly special this year, every year, the Giro has a designated wine stage. Now, as I said, wine has produced in every single region. And there's so many wine stages that this year, it was, it was the wine stage was the tapa that ended in Montalcino. In Tuscany after a really, really difficult hard day cycling on the, the unpaved lanes that that run through the hills of the crete Semese and into the Montalcino wine country. And it was a really, really significant stage this year. And I think that every cyclist that took part and myself included as a as a virtual cyclist would have really enjoyed best of all that day, a big plate of peachy noodles, these these hand rolled noodles that are specialty of the provincia, Indiana, and bathed in a rich sauce made from chingale, wild boar. Perfect sort of food to fortify you. For the next days, top pan, washed down, of course, with a glass or two of probably a rosso di montal chino, not Bruno. Maybe if you're cycling the next day, that might be a little hard on the legs, but I think that rosso di montal that would be a wine that would just be perfect to set you up for the next day. When then, since I wasn't actually cycling, I would have finished with a glass or two of Bruno is one of my favorite wines. That sounds really good, Mark. So you are about to start a new series here on the podcast of Food wine and travel with Mark Millen, and we already have a couple producers lined up. So we're super excited for that to start in September. So tell us a bit about how you you want to add the food component. You've already sort of touched on it, and I think listeners can get an idea of of the way you express yourself, which is it's it's awesome. You make things just come alive And, you know, I just wanted to get your take on how do you think your style, the way that you talk about food and your knowledge, how can you compliment the guest wine producers? And, you know, how can you sort of bring that together to showcase the fantastic colors and the flavors and the wines of Italy. Well, the exciting thing about the new series we're starting and why I'm so excited about a Joy is because the the wine producers themselves are the ones that that know their area best and that are most proud of sharing the wonderful riches that they have in their in their own area. So I'm really excited to be able to have these conversations and and really get an in-depth and very personal flavor of what, of what the food and wines are like in each region. It's the producers themselves that will really be the stars of the show because they're going to be sharing with us. Their wines, the beauty of their countryside, and also the flavors of these wonderful foods that they eat day in and day out because I, in my experience, I found that in Italy more so than anywhere else in the world, wine producers, Italians as a whole, not just wine producers are most proud and most enjoy best, the foods from their own regions. And that's what we're going to be able to discover. And really, I hope, you know, get, below the surface and really begin to get an in-depth flavor of of a particular locality as well as a particular region, learning about these special products that are unique to an area, and perhaps also learning about some of the favorite restaurants in these areas. So I'm very excited to to begin this, this series with you. Awesome. And I think I have come to my last question, and it is a bit of a goofy one. I have to admit, but I also love history, especially the history in this country. So my question is if you could step into a time machine and go back to any time in this country's history and explore the food and the wine, what time would it be and why? What food and wine would you be drinking? Oh my goodness. What an opportunity? How I wish that could happen? Make make history sound sexy. Let's go. Tell me. Well, maybe we'll be able to make that happen one day. I I gosh. I would love to. I would love to travel to Venice in the thirteenth century and see that great maritime republic in its in its prime and to to smell the spices being unloaded on the docks. And to to be able to taste the wines brought from the Eastern Mediterranean from Moninvasia, the special sweet dessert wine that, was surprised by the Venetians, not least because they could trade it profitably across Europe. But if there was one place I could travel to, it would have to be to Pompeii. It would have to be to be able to see the city that we all feel we're getting in a sense of how the past Rudy was, who would I would just want to walk those streets that are rutted from the chariots that rode across the stones or perhaps pause at one of the fast food outlets that line the streets selling wine and and foods out of the out of the hot dispensers. And what wine would I drink? What food would I drink? Well, we know the Romans ate some unusual things such as roasted dormice and and various various other delicacies. I think I would wanna just have the the flavors of the ordinary people. I I would wanna taste the garum. This this seasoning of the ancient world made from fermented fish rather like a Thai fish sauce, I imagine it. In Calabrio today, there's actually a product called Kolaturdi alicii that is something like the Roman garum. And I would want to season, perhaps, just some some cecchi, some chickpeas. And some and some lentils and and simple food washed down with the simple wines that the ordinary people were drinking, not the hundred year old wines, such as filaratum, this famous historic wine, just the wines of the ordinary people. And that's what I'm looking forward to discovering in our podcast as well. I really want to discover the foods and the wines that that the everyday diet, that every day, foods that everybody is enjoying in Italy today because that's what really interests me. Awesome, Mark. And it's it's gonna be good. Listeners can tune in every Tuesday to hear Mark talk to some awesome producers. We're trying to book producers that are, you know, a little bit more unheard of, the smaller producers. I mean, we we love the big ones too, of course, but there's so much opportunity because there's there's thousands of producers in this country that are really quite unheard of outside of Italy. It'd be really great to to showcase to highlight these people that the specific wines and the flavors of of their area, you know, because they're they're gonna be experts. It's gonna great to to listen to you talking to them and sort of bringing all these components, you know, food, wine, travel to life here in Italy. So, yeah, the only thing I can say is, welcome. It is an absolute pleasure. It was lovely to talk to you, and I appreciate you taking the time to give me some some insight into you and your journey, everybody, catch the series that is coming out in September, here on SoundCloud, or directly off w w w dot italian wine podcast dot com. And the details, of course, are going to be in the description of this pod. Mark, I wish you well, and we will be talking to you soon. Thank you, Joy. So much. I'm really looking forward to it. Looking forward to seeing you soon. Great. Take care. Bye bye. Bye. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcast. 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