Ep 280: Happy 3rd birthday, Italian Wine Podcast! In this special episode, Monty is interviewed by none other than his son Arthur

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And if you notice that Italian One podcast is not offered on your preferred podcast player, let us know so we can fix it. So My first question is this. Your real name is Matthew. So why do people call you monkey? So when I went to, my first, I went to a state school, day school, and which where my dad David, taught. And after a few years, my parents sent me to a boarding school where you sleep overnight and stay there all the time, basically called Twiford, which is very close to our house back a couple of miles away. And, we had a history teacher there, a guy called David Barclay, who, was an Oxford graduate in English, and he just taught history for us for maybe a year or two, really nice guy. And he was really into Monte Python, and he had, in those days, he didn't CDs or, ipods and things you had, Gramberphone records. And, Monte Python's flying circus was a sort of comedy team, sort of alternative, almost surreal kind of comedy group. Very, very funny. And they had some sort of fantastic sketches that, I learned virtually all of them off by heart. For example, someone goes into a cheese shop and sort of names every single cheese under the sun, but of course the cheese shop sellers don't have any cheese at all. It sounds a bit cheaper, but if you listen to the sketches, it's it's very, very funny. And, when I went to my next school, which another boarding school called Be Dale, which was also not far from our family home, but half an hour's driveway with boys and girls there, and you could wear your your own clothes. You didn't if you want to wear jeans and stuff, you could. The first prep school was a bit sort of uptight. It was a very nice school, but you had to wear uniform, and it was Chapel twice a day. And anyway, when we get to the second school, BEDales, my because my initial is m m Walden, the only thing that people knew about me was my first name began with an m, and I liked MontePython because I could recite all these, sketches off by heart and make people laugh. And somebody one day just thought I was called Monty and they called me Monty and before I could also say no no no, actually, my name is Matthew. Monteu stuck, and that was it. And so now when I write books and stuff, we'll do TV or radio. Or even this podcast, I call myself Monti, and I'm quite happy about that. Okay. So next question. How many interviews have you recorded for the Italian one podcast and who has and who was your favorite interviewee? We've done about three hundred, I think. And I don't have a favorite interviewee, as you're probably gonna guess. I just enjoy I love chatting to people, and I hope that sort of comes through in the podcast, whether they're wine producers or marketeers, or technologists, whoever, I'm just really curious about people in general. I think that's probably why I became a journalist. I think that's why most people who are journalists become journalists, they were interested in, personal stories and sort of what goes on behind the scenes. And having worked in vineyards and, and wineries and various other places, I kind of feel I have some kind of report and empathy with, winemakers. It's not easy making wine, particularly at the moment, with, with, climate change and things like that. I've studied history, so I'm sort of fascinated about the history of, you know, why is your label designed like this or, what the family history is or the history of the land, you know, maybe somebody bought the land from somebody and he or she than I am from somebody else or it was inherited. I love all that because all that, it's just all part of the jigsaw and, I think really to fully understand why. The more you know, about the people, the place, and the story behind the wine, the more enjoyment, I think you'll get ultimately. It's not a question of just breaking the wine down into its constituent parts, alcohol, pH, all that sort of stuff. I see sort of wine as a social as a social thing, as a social good almost, in terms of particularly, sort of looking after the land, which is obviously part of community. It's it's it's bigger than just the wine is bigger than just the wine if if we can say it like that. And, so when you can actually sit down and talk to people, and find out their their personal stories, you're basically getting paid to have fun and learn, which is, which is not a bad way to earn a living as a freelancer. So how did you get into Italian wine? Why didn't you specialize in wines from some other countries? How did I get into Italian wine? Well, long in the short, I'd, written a few books on, wine, on organic wine. And a publisher who I'd worked with, had been asked to do a couple of travel guides, one of which was gonna be on Bordeaux and one of which was gonna be on Tuscany. So I did the Bordeaux book for them, because obviously I'd lived there for quite a long time. When I was younger learning about winemaking. And, a lady called Hillary Lumberlumston, who was the publisher, and she, she said, do you wanna do one on Tuscany? I said, well, I don't really speak a lot of Italian. She said, well, don't you be alright? You just go over there and learn. You need to speak French. Not too difficult. And she convinced me to go. And, I had a friend in, in Tuscany, a guy called Hans of Inding Deers, who's a Danish chap, and I knew his father from Bordeaux, as far as an expert in yeast, and, I think, made some wonderful wines in the Pestec leonore, region of, of broader, with a graph, and, very underrated wines, I thought. And, long in the short, I bumped into him, but a tasting in in London, and, he said, what are you up to? I said, I've gotta go to Italy quite soon to to write this book. He said, why don't you come and stay with us? And I said, what do you mean? Are you live in France? He said, no, no, I'm living in Italy, his then partner was Italian. And she owned a, a brunello winery. And he said, if you wanna come and stay with us, it's a massive chateau, whatever it was, then, feel free. And, so I said, okay. And I came to Italy for a little bit. To Ciena, studied Italian for a month. I wasn't a particularly good student, as you probably guessed. And I think we had like it was a classic kind of Italian thing. There was a couple of bank holidays. So you missed a couple of days there, and there was a couple of days that the staff were on strike, even if it was a kind of a private school. But it was a great introduction to Italy, and it just prepares you to be prepared for the unexpected. Anyway, and having stayed at, Argiano, the lady who did the bookkeeping there was a lady called Sylvana Carlone. Have you ever heard of her? Yeah. Who's she then? She's my mom. She's your mom. Alright. Well, so a long story short, met Sylvana, and I don't know how many years later it is. Fifteen or so years later, we're still together, and we've got you as our offspring. That's right. Yeah. And the irony, of course, is, Savannah doesn't drink alcohol. She, when she was small, about, I think it was five or six or seven years old, there was some sort of family event, wedding or a christening or something, and, one of her relations gave her half a glass or a glass of beer, a small plastic glass, and, convinced her to drink it, and, she was sick as a dog for about, I know, three or four days. So she doesn't, drink. She's got a very good palette when she smells wine, she's very good. She works for number of wineries locally because she's, like an accountant, a super accountant of what's called a commercialista in Italian, but she audits, wineries, here, to make sure they're paying the right amount of tax and costing all their income and outgowns and all the rest of it. But she doesn't, doesn't drink wine, which is kinda good for me at home. And the only thing she'll do sometimes is stick her finger in and it's the only thing that you do as well, so for us, don't stick stick your finger in the wine, and taste. You're quite good at tasting. I always ask Arthur to give me three flavors, and he's normally spot on. You're very good at, that tasting darling. Okay. What's the next question then? How many wines would you say you've tasted in your life? I have no idea. I I it's probably thousands, tens of thousands of wines. I don't know. I mean, you can be in a, you know, if you're a judge of a, or, I'd share a few wine competitions, you during a week, you're tasting five or six hundred wines sometimes. You have to retaste other wines to make sure that the the wines that were given medals deserved their medals or the wines that were thrown out of the competition would deserve to be thrown out or not thrown out, but got no no medal or you know, not a bronze or a gold or for anything like that. So, but, I like, I love tasting, and, I take it really seriously. I know my colleagues do as well. It's a hell of a lot of work that goes into making a bottle of wine. And, the least I think a wine deserves is a fair shout and, a fair amount of time given to it and even a second chance as well, if you're not quite sure the bottle isn't maybe a great bottle for whatever reason, cork or whatever, you give them a second chance. And I think that's perfectly fair. And, I think absolutism is never a is never a great thing in whatever industry that you're in. So, but I do love tasting wine. I I really see it as I really feel when I do, I have a massive responsibility to the people that employ me because, decanter or in Italy or whoever it is that I'm tasting for five star. We have such responsibility to make sure we get things right, but the most important thing is we gotta be consistent when we taste. It's not fair if we're not consistent. And, and also be open minded to other people's opinions, and don't just think that you should live in your own bubble. I think that's really, really important, but especially when you're like a panel chair as I often am, or a a chairman or whatever they call it. And, But I love doing it. And, you know, someone says, well, and whenever you tell people, what would you do for a living? And you say, I a lot of the time, I'm either writing about or tasting wine. And, you know, that that is not a single person, doesn't say, oh, what a lovely job, what a fantastic job, and it's hard work. But, yeah, it's, it's a wonderful, wonderful way to to earn a living. Okay. Next question. How many Italian wines have we tasted? Oh, I don't know, Arthur. I can't I I just just say my, you know, probably now I taste a bit more Italian, then I do, otherwise, simply because of the work I do with, Stevie Kim, Veniti International with a five star competition also with DeKanta, where I'm, what am I called? Regional chair for the Decantawine Awards there. Yeah. But I do, you know, I taste Austrian wines and German wines, and if I'm lucky, California wines and wines from Chile, etcetera. But, yeah, the main focus for me at the moment is is is Italy. Okay. Tell me this. Go on then. Verdicchio or Verintino. Oh, I'm really prepared for this one. Obviously, two, Verintino sort of a a sort of a family of, varieties with different names. And the other one, Vadicchio is, probably, Italy's finest white wine grape. I mean, I suppose you could say Vermentino is gonna groan on one side of Italy. Vodikia is growing on the other side of Italy, I don't really have favorites. I always say my my my favorite wine is the last good wine I have with friends. You know, I don't, but there's only one great variety I really don't like, and I know you're gonna get a lot of stick for this, but it's, peanutage. I just don't understand peanutage. It's, was a great, a grape crossing created, not an elaboratory, but kind of, in that sense. And, I just that's the only grape I really have an issue with apart from that, I'll drink anything. I drink anything, taste anything. I was reminded, but I do struggle with peanut taj. I'm sure there are some good ones. I haven't found a huge number, maybe one or two, but, anyway, listen, if you did you have South Africa on your holiday list? I didn't have South Africa. Yeah. Well, that's just as well, because we'd have gonna get invited there. I'm afraid. Sorry. Sorry of Pinatage. I will say that South Africa's got in terms of when we're gonna combine a dynamic hat on. Are doing some very, very good work on, on, environmentally and at the social level as well in terms of, helping people who have been disadvantaged and, obviously a little bit more work to do, but, there are some fantastic projects there, so not at all negative about South Africa. I'm very positive about South Africa. It's just that one particular grade by struggle with. Sorry. Next question. When you taste wines at a competition, you then write a tasting note. What do you write in those tasting notes? It depends if, if you some some competitions will publish your tasting notes. So, it's important to write something that's very, very coherent and will make sense to the audience that you know will will will read it for if I'm writing a tasting note for myself, then my tasting note will be slightly different. It'll be less explanatory, I wouldn't have to explain. This is a great example of a Sanjay cost blah blah blah. I would just put down, you know, nice fruit, well handled tenon, whatever. I wouldn't go into too many details, but it would just be an aid memoir for me. I do think writing testing notes are it's important because and you gotta be honest with yourself when you're writing a tasting note. You gotta black out what your people on the table are saying. You gotta have your own opinions and stick to them, but also be flexible. If you go choose a famous personality to interview on the Italian wine podcast, who would it be? A singer, an actor, or a politician? Oh, famous people. I would probably rather meet a historic figure, rather than a sort of celebrity or well, you know, an actor or whatever politician I was born in a house. I wasn't born in hospital in Winchester, and Chester in, signifies a Roman town, Castro. And, the house I was born in was number thirty eight Stanmore Lane, and at the bottom of the lane, there was a road as it became. There was the school I when I'm at the first school I went to, first sort of primary school I went to called Stanmore Lane School. My dad was a teacher there, so that's your granddad. And anyway, in dad's sister, my auntie auntie Jean, she was a very beautiful lady, a very lovely lady. When she was little, she found a Roman coin in the garden. And it was a it was a silver coin called a denarius. And it was a Roman denarius. It dated from two hundred to two zero two AD. So that coin had been lying in the garden of thirty eight Stanmore Lane where I used to sort of play football and have a little tractor and all those sort of things you have when you were a kid. For seventeen centuries. So I'd be very happy to know the person whose pocket that fell out of. Not least because maybe that person having come from Italy or what is now Italy, had some connection with wine, either drinking it possibly as a soldier or as a, I don't know, as a as a professional, maybe an accountant or something. If he was an accountant, he wasn't very good because he's dropping money. It's it's probably not the thing that you want to do. But, I'd like to meet some somebody like that. And then the other person I'd to have spent more time with is my mum's dad who was a small holder and which meant he sort of grew his own food in his very large back garden in Dorset. Which is not far from Hampshire. I was born in Hampshire, Winchester, and also is is the sort of neighboring county in the south coast of England. And, he was basically a subsistence farmer. So what he didn't eat or need for himself, he'd either barter exchange or he'd sell in the local market. And that's how he stayed economically self sufficient. And I don't think it's any coincidence that, he was a very wiry man, a very strong man, thin, very amount of few words, but he lived into his nineties. And, I just it could just be coincidence, but having that really natural lifestyle is spending most of your days outside in the elements, wind, rain, sun. Growing your own food, no airmiles, no pesticides, no fertilizers, nothing like that, very, very natural. Enough to feed yourself, and enough to to sell at the local market to local people. Little bit of pocket money, pay your bills. And he met my, he was very old when I only met him once, so I didn't even speak to him, I think he was in his armchair, and he was forty he was forty four when my mum was born. No. He wasn't he was sixty six or in his mom and and her mom, his wife, Amy was forty four. So mum would had very, oh, she was an accident. She had very old parents, obviously at the time. And Amy, who was my grandmother She worked in service, which meant that she was in a big house in Bournemouth on the coast of, of, you know, cleaning the beds and washing stuff and and cooking and doing that sort of thing. She came from North Yorkshire. Oh, sorry, South Yorkshire. And, she got away from her family by traveling all the way down south and got that job on a Sunday afternoon, she, cycled twelve miles on her bike. There's no distance in those days. Because she loved primroses, and she ended up in Virwood, which is where my grandfather was living in in a in a house there. It's now become a bank, unfortunately, got knocked down, very, very sad. But she was looking for primroses, and she saw this old bloke. Because he was quite old by then. She was forty four, I think, and he was, you know, 40s, and he was in his sixties. And said, excuse me, to know where I can find some primroses. And, anyway, he invited her in, because he had some in his garden. And they had a cup of tea and that was that. And, mom was born. I don't have a not that long after, but, was a was a sort of an accident. But again, you know, she, had to muck in. I mean, it was a very sort of spartan existence, and there's no TV. I don't think there was hot water actually when she was born. You'd have to heat the water up on her. On the fireplace. And, the bath would have been put, a tin bath would have been put on the living room floor, and you had your bath in that way. And, I think I remember when I was small, I think that happened to me when I was don't know how low I was, but quite small. I just kind of like that sort of simplicity in, and it's not that simple, of course. I'm sort of not not trying to over romanticize it, but you know, working close to the land and and eating food that you know has been well grown and healthily grown and there's no artificial to it. I think has such an impact on your your health and there's no coincidence, I don't think. In terms of public health these days, we're all getting a bit more susceptible to. So things, and, you know, we're eating food that isn't necessarily fully natural. That's, you know, fertilizers produced in factories. Are not the same as composted, gal manure in terms of fertility and keeping your vegetables nice and healthy. So, my great grower, my grandfather would be my would be the person I'd like to meet and have spent much more time with because I'm sure he could have taught me a lot more about gardening and looking after the land in the link between that and health and, hopefully what I do in my in my writing about sort of biodynamic wine, etcetera is, trying to, you know, convince other people that we are what we eat. And if you put healthy stuff into the soil and healthy stuff comes out of the soil. Pretty simple. There you go. That's my choice. Well, that's it for me, Arthur, and my dad, Monty. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Arthur, and thanks to all our listeners that have stuck with us for the past few years. We look forward to the coming year and hope to keep providing content. Now if you haven't already, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and remember. 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