Ep. 1706 Christmas Special Edition With IWP Team | On The Road With Stevie Kim Throwback

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 pots. Welcome to another episode of On The Road Edition, hosted by Stevie Kim. Each week, she travels to incredible wine destinations interviewing some of the Italian wine scene's most interesting personalities, talking about wines, the foods, as well as the incredible travel destinations. Okay. I feel like we need a little bit of Christmas. Hello, everyone. My name's Stevie Kim, and I am not alone today. It is a Christmas special with Italian wine podcast. Mods. This is the Mod squad special for Christmas. And we have everybody here. We have Juliana. Chowiana. Call's TV. I have to show notes of your very long bios, but we won't be doing that because everybody knows who you are. Give it to me in one sentence who you are Julianna Colangelo from California. I am. Yes. Wine Communications in California, New York and Van Italy, a Italian wine ambassador. Excellent. And Juliana Colangelo is the mod full Monday series, which is called Masterclass with US wine market. And then on Tuesday, we have our buddy, Mark Millen, wine food and travel. And we've been doing this for about a couple of years now already. Shoot. I can't believe that. I discovered Mark on Clubhouse. Mark, tell us about yourself. By the way, is your book ready? What's going on with your book? My book is in production. It's in page proof stage now, so I'm working on that, and it's going to be published on April eighteenth. So that's been a big project. Oh, sick, exciting. You'll just miss the Vineetrius launch. Well, I hope to bring out copies. So I'll have some copies to bring out. Yeah. And you'll have to launch it at wine to wine then. Yeah. That would be great. But, Mark, tell us a little bit about yourself in one sentence. Okay. I'm a wine food and travel writer. I've been doing this for a very long time. As you know, Stevie, my first book came out in nineteen eighty two. It's more than forty years that I've been writing about Italian wine and and food and enjoying it. And it's great to be part of the Italian wine podcast team because so many exciting things are happening in the world of Italian wine and Italian wine podcast really helps us all to keep on top of all the exciting things that are happening. Ma'am, you forgot to say you were Korean? Well, I was I I I'm, I've gotta I'm a mixed, I'm a I'm a very mixed background. I was born in Mexico, Stevy, And I know. That's crazy. I actually didn't know that. You were born in Mexico. Yeah. I spent my childhood running up and down the pyramids of Tayatua Con where my father was an archaeologist. And my mother came from Hawaii via Korea through her mother and my father's French. So I gotta and I live in England. Yes. Okay. I think that's more than one sentence, by the way. I don't think I've started Joanna. Joanna, do you want to add anything? Sure. I will add that, you know, my background as a communications has been predominantly in California in the last seven years, but my love for wine started with Italy working at Italy in New York over a decade ago. That's when I met you. You were little. Literally. Yeah. I was still in college. It was a long time ago, but that's where, you know, I got initially immersed in the world of Italian wine, and all things Italian. So I am just very happy to be back in the world of Italian wine with the Italian wine podcast and with the Via community as well. Okay. And then on to Wednesday, we have, of course, our in house podcast, Cynthia Chaplin, She actually took over from Rebecca Lawrence. I don't know if you guys remember that we had started the series called voices way back in Jan twenty one, and then Cynthia took over. When did you take over, Cynthia? I can't remember. I took over in November twenty twenty one. Okay. Great. And, of course, Cynthia is a our Italian wine Ambassador. They most of them are. Would you like to tell us a little bit about your series? Sure. So I host voices on Wednesday, and voices focuses on DEA diversity, equity, and inclusion in the wine industry. So I get talk to all kinds of interesting people with very unique perspectives who often don't have space to speak out about their challenges or their achievements. So it gives me a really, really great opportunity to have some conversation that are utterly fascinating. Thank you. Listen, is Lika with you or she's on a separate line? Lika? I'm here. I'm with Julia. Okay. So, Lika, how do you say your last name? Yeah. Like I was from Philippines, and she has taken over as Italian wine podcast producer. So so do you tell us about Thursday and Friday. Okay. And Saturday. Okay. So for Thursday, we have Club House Investors Corner. It's our matchmaking. It's actually something that we started from the pandemic because Clubhouse has been one of the apps that was normally used during that period. And then we just kept going. And I think we are around, I don't know, more than a hundred. Yeah. We've way past that. Yes. Even past that. And then so we are doing that on Thursdays. Also another show in Thursdays is a wine to wine business forum. So, basically, it's the recordings of what we had in the wine to wines. Sessions. We're now starting with twenty twenty three recordings and also a couple of interviews that Cynthia did during the wine to wine last month. On to Friday. Oh, one more. One more for Thursday. So we also did a stint on slow wine, twenty twenty three in Bolonia. That's what I enjoy in Cynthia, and you also, Stevie, you interviewed a couple of benchmark producers from the unplugged book two point o, and so we are publishing them on Thursday as well. Those are too many months ago. I can barely remember that. Seriously. I can barely remember yesterday. So much. Yes. Exactly. But that was just two days with so many interviews. Then, we also have Fridays. With Professor Adelia Sienza. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp. For fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond, meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now back to the show. Why didn't we invite Jengsa? That's what I was gonna say. And also because he doesn't speak English, Stevie. Yes. That's a good point, but, you know, we could have had him say something. I don't know. Maybe he's very busy. You never thought about that, but he's really, really amazing because, we send him a lot of questions from our ambassadors and he answers them all in one day, the entire day with DB. Yeah. He's ready to kill me by the end of the day, but that's not my time. Yeah. But it is actually, you know, we used to not have a Italian wine audience, like Italian wine followers, but since Shanesa and the segment is called everybody needs a bit of Shanesa, like his last name science. And we've had a significant increase in Italian wine audience. So we're very grateful, and of course he's terribly interesting, super geeky. And as Cynthia and Richard, we call them the Shenza whisperer's in house because Shenza speaks to complete their different language. We have to translate Shenza into Italian and then Italian into English. It's a two step process. Somebody recently said you don't do translations for Shienza. You do interpretation. Yes. Absolutely. And Cynthia certainly does that well. So that's Friday. And then Saturday? Saturday, it's your show on the road. Oh, yeah. I forgot about it. That's where you travel a lot, and now you are traveling somewhere. Then after that, in the afternoon, we have readings from Mark Holgandini, and he's reading the unplugged book. Right. So we're reading the entire book for those who are too cheap or too lazy to buy the book. Of course, the Under Road series is a video podcast in a skinnier version on mama jumbo shrimp, which is our sister channel. So it's a we have a lot of things going on. And then finally, tada, the next generation with Victoria Cheche, Julia Stoketi Mckenna, Cassidy, the three mosquitoes, it all started with Victoria. Victoria, otherwise known as, of course, Latit spaghetti, Victoria, tell us about yourself. Can you introduce yourself to our audience? Who may not follow you already? Hi. I am slutty spaghetti, and we're formally known as Victoria Chacha, or these at the opposite. I am a Italian American gal originally from New Jersey. How do I describe myself? I was hoping we just stick with slutty spaghetti and keep some mystery. It says here food and beverage storyteller whose curiosity somewhere deep in a bowl of pasta. That sounds good to me. Yes. So yeah. No. That's me. I mean, I am a food and beverage writer. I like to explore everything in and beyond the bowl of pasta. And make you laugh at the same time. So Yeah. She has a very quirky sense of humor. So go check out her profile. It's slutty spaghetti. If you haven't done that already. And then we've recruited Julieto. She's our in house W Set diploma holder. Chow Julia. Hello. It's so nice to be here with you today. I'm so excited about that. You're new, fairly new to the group. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Very short. So very short, on this earth to spread the love of wine to pour the wine to other people because often they are thirsty. So god told me, please, Julia, give all the people something to drink. But it must be good wines. You didn't say that when I interviewed. You sound like a cult freak. No. I'm just a woman on emissions, Stevie, pouring good wines and enjoying wines. Okay. Excellent and Julia. She pitches in for the next generation series as well, interviewing younger people in the wine world. And then we have Makenna, who's not with us. Is that correct, Leica? She's not here. She's not risk funding. Okay. It's okay. So Mckenna is also Italian wine ambassador. Victoria, I don't know if you met Mckenna. She is from New Jersey too. She's not from New Jersey actually. I know her. I interviewed her back in during the Italy. Yes. That's so exciting. She's now working with the group Gallo. She just got acclimated as the Italian wine Ambassador this year during Van Italy, and she's slowly inching herself into the group. So We're going to do this folks. What I wanted to do was to kinda do an overview of the segments that you are conducting, you're moderating. If it's possible for each one of you, I I don't know how long the session is going to last. Maybe we can do it in two pots, but I would like to maybe go over the highlights. Maybe give us, like, three top highlights of the year from your segments. We did the book By the way, the book that we did last year, it got reviewed on Johnson's Robinson. Did you see that, Mark? No. I didn't see that. Oh, Leica, you have to send him the review. Besides we misspelled forward, but that's, you know, that's kinda embarrassing. But besides that, she's so kind and she gave us a lot of love for our wine democracy book. So you see someone's reading it? Well, that's fabulous. Yeah. So in lieu of a book this year, I thought it would be a good idea just for us to share with our audience kind of the highlights of the each series. So why don't we start with Juliana? Tell us also, like, you know, the format. Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. So I took over for Steve Ray back in March to bring a business style. Yeah. Chow. Yeah. Thank you, Steve for passing on the reins. We missed you. To take over a segment that was to focus on the more B2B topics as well as a focus in the US market. So I came up with the title Master class US wide market. Because we know there's a lot of intricacies to working the market in the US with the fifty states and time house and three tier and all these legal and technical things that wine marketers and anyone selling one in the US need to know about. So I really wanted to give people a lot of knowledge and information that was tangible in each of the episodes. So I borrowed Stevie from you with the format in terms of starting with what the three key learning objectives or takeaways for the episode are. And then those kind of frame the questions as well. And then, you know, I tried to really reiterate throughout the episode, the key takeaways and questions that we focused on. One of my first interviews with Jermaine Stone. He's the creator of wine and hip hop at the wine and hip hop festival. And the topic there was how can Italian wine reach more multicultural audiences in the US market. So, you know, our three key takeaways for something like, you know, what Italian wine categories are trending with black drinkers in the US. What are some ways in which wine brands and companies can reach new audiences? So those are the types of questions I asked Jermaine. And then, you know, again, at the end of the episode, we reiterate what the key takeaways and learnings for. So I think that the format for me has been working well, at least, in terms of how I structured the questions No. I love it. I I absolutely love it. I mean, if you were to just do the episodes for me, I'm happy because I learned so much. It's very informative. It's very punctual. And it summarizes the current state of the art. I love it. So I think it's a great series. Congratulations, Julian. Thanks so much. Who are the other two kind of favorites of this year that come to mind. Yeah. A great question. You know, Dan Petrostrophy was definitely a standout for me. So much show that Stevie, we brought him in a to wine to wine just last month and had him. Yeah. He's amazing. It's so enthralling. Just to listen to him? It is. Yeah. He has a different background than a lot of winemakers. He started his current advertising and publishing in New York City with Time Inc. When it comes to branding and marketing, add it with a a different lens, and I'd say a different lens than much of the wine industry, and he's not afraid to push buttons. He's not afraid to make bold brass statements and take a position, and that's what I really admire about Dan. And I think also he's done something very intentional with his Brand Massacre in emulating the Italian lifestyle and it was just purchased by Galloway in August. So I guess he did something right. So Dan's episode was great. He talked to us about the history of Italian grape varieties in California, which I thought was super interesting. To learn about that history and kind of hear that there were actually a lot more Italian grapes planted, you know, earlier in the twentieth century and a lot of them have largely gone away today in favor of Cabernet and Chardonnay. My takeaway from that is we're letting the Italians make the Italian wine, which I'm in favor of. So I think just a couple of things. First of all, I think we will put on the show notes like, all of the episodes that the mods are talking about. If that's possible when you when you publish the episode so that they can go back and listen to some of these episodes. And the other thing I wanted to shout out for Rebecca Lawrence, who was the previous moderator for voices, and she's now currently working with, of course, Germaine Stone, the wine hip hop tree that you were talking about? Yes. She is. Yep. Exactly. That's right. Another favorite episode for me, I really like talking to Amanda McCrossett and Kristen Rightssel, actually, at wine to wine because they did a presentation on influencer marketing, and I think, you know, influencer marketing is still a space that a lot of wineries have questions about the value of it and how it works and what the real ROI is on it. And I think Amanda being an influencer herself at Sam Vivant is her handle and Kristen being a senior level marketer for Jackson Family wines. I think gave really tangible advice about influencer marketing and about how it works, why you should be doing it. And I thought they were great because they were very specific about how much it costs, how to do it, how to set up contracts, what the ROI is with influencer marketing. So I thought they also did a a great job there. Okay. So that's fantastic. Juliana, how do you pick your, I suppose, your interviewees? Yeah. That's a great question. Now that the podcast is going, you know, it's ninth month or so. I am getting inbound requests. From some people from LinkedIn and different, you know, by email as well with guests and suggestions for people. Sometimes I'm getting suggestions as well from this group and the Time White podcast team of people who'd be better suited for a business style interviewer segment. I'm also sometimes going to friends of mine and colleagues in the industry, you know, I find that the dynamic when I talk to somebody that I have a personal relationship with is just a little more more friendly and engaged just because there's already that familiarity with them. So I am going to people that, you know, I admire in the industry that I've worked with in some capacity. But really I'm I'm looking for people that can give different perspectives on this topic of the US wide market from marketers and communicators, but also I've talked to importers, salespeople, some will yay's educators, you know, I had a great interview with Karen McNeil who's a legend and and her interview is fascinating as well. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. She was really fascinating. Yeah. That's how I'm looking at at the guests. And I think the great advantage of having a podcast is like Karen McNeil, for example. She's almost unapproachable in terms of our speaker speak, etcetera, because she's so big. But I think, you know, with the podcast, they can spare half an hour. Right? They're incredibly generous, like even Dan Petrovsky, incredibly generous with their expertise and their knowledge. So I think those are great, great episodes. And it is a great value add for our audience. Okay. Alright. So let's go on to Tuesday, our friend mock. Well, hi, Stevy again. My show is wine food and travel, which is such an enjoyable topic. I mean, who wouldn't like just meeting people and talking to them about where they are. And I really want each episode to take our listeners to the precise spot where my interviewee is. Mainly Italian wine producers, but I've also had some wonderful conversations with authors, some world famous wine writers with people in the food world. But primarily, I'm I'm meeting wine producers, and they're taking me into their world. They're taking our listeners there and telling us about the wines, about their philosophies, but also about the foods of their area, the foods of their locality, their favorite foods that pair well with their wines. And also, it's important to find out about wine hospitality and what our listeners can expect if they visit them. So it's a fun fun conversations. Yeah. And I think it's I mean, I, you know, every time I listen to your episode, you get what you call anytime, Aquolina. Right? Like, I'm just dying to eat the food that you're describing. You know? But other than that, Some of your episodes have, of course, great, great listens and, like Marilena Cochi Grifone, for example, by the way, for our listeners, we are changing our platform because there are some kinks with SoundCloud. So Our primary aggregator with SoundCloud, we are now going on to Spotify. Our entire team is working tirelessly to do this. So just be a little patient. I mean, you will get everything wherever you get your pods, but our main aggregator is going to be going through some changes. So tell us who are your kind of the favorites this year that come to mind. Oh, so many. I've had such great conversations. And as I say, it's a real joy to to meet people, some of whom I've known for many, many years, and some of whom I've, you know, I've only met through the podcast. I have to say one of my favorite conversations wasn't with a wine producer. It was with a wine writer who I've long admired and who I think is perhaps the greatest wine writer in the English language Hugh Johnson. And that came about through this wonderful collaboration with the Academy Duvan Library, which gave me the opportunity to speak to some really, really great wine writers Oh my goodness. Yes. You had a stab at some of the greatest wine personalities of all time. Absolutely. And you, you know, somebody I've admired for so long. I remember first reading his world encyclopedia of wine, and the nineteen seventies. And, you know, he was somebody. He is somebody that that takes his readers places that puts wine in a cultural context. And so it was really interesting to just have a a nice conversation with him going back to how he started in wine, how he became interested in wine, and, how his approaches and how wine and wine drinking and wine drinkers have evolved over the fifty years that he's been working in wine because It has been such an evolution and a continuing evolution. I have to say I'm gonna jump in here because I had the great privilege of sort of moderating that call between Mark and Hugh, and everybody really should listen to that episode. It's like listening to two longtime friends, talk over sort of their experiences in wine. It's it's quite personal, and there's a lot of information. You're both really knowledgeable, and it was just a really delightful conversation between two people who know what they're talking about really well. Thanks, Cynthia. It was a real joy to speak to him. I only wish we'd had a glass of wine to share while we were talking. How old is he now? Oh, he's in his eighties. He's in his eighties, but still very lively and such a, so well spoken, so articulate. And he's always been a writer that's he's a writer who happens to write about wine. He writes beautifully. And he speaks beautifully too. Well, there are many bunch of authors that you interviewed for the academic Duvan library series. By the way, our books are also distributed by academic Duvan now. So that that was a great, great thing that happened. You can find it everywhere. Yeah. That's a great collaboration because they produce some great books. Yeah. This is what I love about, you know, the wine community. Right? Because it's very you know, niche in a way, but also very community driven. Very supportive. Right. So and it'll happen, actually. I must add. It all happened because Leica was the social media manager for Academy Duvan. Yes. That's me. Yeah. I was working with Hermione and Gyeonggi. And then, so they started attending to podcast and, you know, having their authors interviewed in podcast. So I was thinking, maybe it's good to connect the two of them. So it was really nice that, so I was just proposing, like, I'm just having one as, as a guest. And then Stevie thought about the bigger project. Yeah. I'm a bulldoze as you know. Linkbag. Yes. You did. Anyway, yes. Yeah. But that was great. You see? I mean, Leica. And, Leica, you met Hermione for the first time when she came to, Vin Italy. You hadn't even met her before. Yes. Yes. We were just always remotely working together. So it was really nice because you gave her the opportunity to be part of the five star as judge, and it was really nice to see her in person. And she came back for wine two wine with Adam It was great. Were there any other episodes that struck you as very special or fun or In the course of the year or in Academy Duvan Library. No. No. In course of the year. Oh, yes. So many. I have to mention Pietro Betardino from, of course, the famous master Betardino winery. I actually traveled to Urapina to interview him because I wanted to learn more about the, you know, the generations old story of the Master Bearardino family. What was interesting going around the family museum with with Piero was how master Barardino family were so early in being entrepreneurs and taking Italian wine around the world. We're going back to the years just after Italian unification, and the family was already beginning to export to America and to further afield. But Pier also talked about the postwar years when the winery had been destroyed completely and his father Antonio had to rebuild everything and decided to firmly base the future of the company on the great native great varieties of Campania such as Alianico Greco and Fiano and how the company built from there. And that led us to a discussion about a really interesting project which was the Villa Misterdi project whereby a vineyard was actually planted. In fact, a number of vineyards over the years were planted within Pompei following the actual training systems that were used by the Romans The grapes were harvested and, magnificent wine was made. So, that was wonderful to learn that story and, actually, to taste that wine with Piero. Okay. Is there anybody on your radar, like, you know, for twenty four I really, really, really would love to interview this person. There are a lot of people that I would love to interview, and I've I've got a list of them. Some of them are will be in my book, which is called Italy and a wine glass. So it tells a story of Italy through wine. And I I that's what, you know, really interests me, Steve, is how Italian wine and Italian wine podcast is such a great vehicle for this. It allows Italian wine producers to tell their story, but it's a story that's so rich. It's a story that Riddy goes back. It can go back two thousand years, or it can be a story that is about the future. So, you know, there's so many fascinating stories that link directly to events, to history to people. I love exploring that side of Italian wine. Tell us a little bit, just a small preview of your book, what that's all about, what is it called, When is it coming out? You said April? How long is it? How many produces? It's a long book, actually. It's taken me three years to write. It's called Italy in a wine glass, the taste of history. And basically, I tell the story of Italy from the Greeks to lock down and beyond through wine with chapters that have wines directly linked to historical periods to personalities such as federico secundo or Pelegrino Artuzzi, who was the father of Italian home cooking, who helped nation build through the stomach because this was right after unification, and there wasn't yet a sense of an Italian nation. And, he did that through food, and also he was a lover of wine. And so there's so many stories, that go right through, you know, to lying in crime, which are links to stories about, you know, the Chinto Passi win a wine project where grapes are grown on lands confiscated from organized crime, cooperative, a social enterprise, about ninety wines in the book, one ninety wines that help to tell the story of Italy from antiquity to even to beyond to the future, looking to the future. Fantastic. Thank you so much. We are looking forward to, of course, your Tuesday series, your travel. I recruited you in the beginning because also you add that food element besides slutty spaghetti. To the show, which we really, really love. So thank you for doing that. It is definitely a labor of love. And since clubhouse, it would come a long way. Yeah. It's been a long way, but I do love it. So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for your commitment and passion. So we hope to also help promote your book coming in two thousand twenty four. That would be great. Thank you for joining us on another installment of On The Road Edition, hosted by Stev Kim. Join her again next week for more interesting content in the Italian wine scene. You can also find us at Italian wine podcast dot com or wherever you get your pods. You can also check out our YouTube channel. Mama jumbo shrimp to watch these interviews and the footage captured of each location.