Ep. 994 Alice Feiring | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

Italian wine podcast. This episode is brought to you by Vinitally International Academy, announcing the twenty fourth of our Italian wine Ambassador courses to be held in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, from the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Are you up for the challenge of this demanding force? Do you want to be the next Italian wine ambassador? Learn more and apply now at vunitly International dot com. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences, work in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Hello, and welcome to voices. This is Cynthia Chaplin. And today, I have the enormous pleasure of having Alice firing with me. She's joining me from New York today. And we are going to have a lot of fun talking about all of the wonderful writing that Alice has done over the years, her awards from James Beard and Louis Rodier and Vormand, and her title of imbibe Magazine's wine person of the year. There's a lot happening, and Alice has a particularly interesting perspective on natural wine that I want to explore as well. So welcome to the show, Alice. Thank you so much for coming today. Thanks for having me. Pleasure. No. It's it's the pleasure's all mine. I assure you. I I am very happy to say that I have been a fan of Alice's writing for quite a long time, and I was really excited when she introduced the firing line the world's first independent natural wine newsletter during hurricane sandy of all things, in two thousand and thirteen. So what what got you to that point, Alice? Why did you decide to launch a newsletter at that point. Well, it was, purely economics. I started blogging in two thousand and four, one of their early wine bloggers, I guess. And after, like, nine years and at that point, three books, I really didn't want to do all this work for free. I mean, like, a lot of people who are blogging, you know, there's, like, I needed to monetize. I had become too controversial you know, I sacrificed quite a bit of freelancing assignments when I became a controversial wine writer. Obviously, I had to work. So, basically, it was just economics. So, that's what happened. And I launched a Kickstarter. First of all, it's like, is anybody gonna read this thing? And after the Kickstarter, where I reached my goal in less than a day, I said, I guess people want me to do this. So that's what happened. Well, let's let's just backtrack there for a second. You have described yourself as a controversial wine writer. Tell me why. I mean, I I think some of our listeners will be very interesting to hear about some of the topics you've addressed. You know, you you looked into the whole sort of fraud for want of a better word, the the practice of putting additives in winemaking. That was way back in two thousand one, a big expose article for New York Times. Uh-huh. And you've carried on with with those sorts of topics saving the world from parkerization in two thousand and eight, which is also a controversial thing. So you've you've described yourself as controversial. People have called you that as well. What encouraged you, Alice, to be this feisty controversial person, you know, many many wine writers take a more beautiful and luxurious approach to writing about wine, but you really went for the tough topics. How come? Well, back in the days of two thousand two thousand one, I was doing a lot more journalism. And it may seem a little bit naive, but when I wrote that story, I was like, wow. Did you know this was happening? You know, this is something that needs to be reported on. And I had no I, dear, that it was going to, make me persona non grata in California. And it was really just a reported piece. I had no idea it was going to land with such an explosion. So Let's just tell our listeners a little bit about about the article because it was really a seminal article, and it really did, smash open some some fairly egregious practices. So Tell us where you got the idea. What happened? And it it is true that those people coming into wine now with so much natural wine available that the idea that even twenty years ago, this could at all be controversial, would seem strange. So what happened was that now I'm always a very difficult person for and always had been for a publicist to pitch because, you know, I have a a journalist, you know, inborn cynicism. Oh, really, why do you want me to write about this? No. I'm gonna not write off piece about your client. What is the news here? But a publicist who knew me quite well said, Alice, I got a really good story for you, and it was not one of his clients. It was just something that he had learned, which is there is a company here called Inologics California that if you sign up for their goods, they will they claim they can help you get a ninety five plus score from Robert Parker. Robert Parker being at the time the world's most famous wine critic was very well known for his hundred point system. And if you got ninety five points or over, it was guaranteed financial success for the winery. So I just thought, wow, that is probably one of the most cynical things that I ever heard of, and I need to know what is the recipe that this guy is helping wineries, you know, like, to to follow to in order to get those high scores. So I went and researched Tim interviewed, Liam McCloski, and I couple of other people who were involved with reverse osmosis and all sorts of other kinds of technologies. And I talked to people doing micro optimization and people who are just really very innocent about using these techniques, like, what is the problem? You know, so you use microox, or use your versus osmosis. So you're getting wind down to where you need it to be, or you're using I talked to Scott Labs, and I talked about the various yeast that can be to employed. And that in doing this, I learned about however you're gonna count them seventy two plus whatever additives that one can use during the winemaking process that are perfectly legal. And and don't have to be listed on the label it should be pointed out. And do not have to be listed on the label at all. I mean, basically, at the time, since we were in print advertising, which is really no different than today, the bromance of wine being made in the vineyard was what was sold to people. When the reality was it was grown. Grapes were grown in the vineyard, but it was made in the winery with a whole slew of, machines and ingredients. So I learned what these devices and ingredients could do and how they affected the taste. And there were a lot of people who are quite proud about being in the article and even allowed themselves to be photographed. And honestly, at the time, I was still wow. I was not oh, my god. Do you know what they're doing? I was like, wow. There are some people who choose to make wine this way. Well, who are the people making wine the other way? So it was I I was not as bombastic because people actively thought I was being in that piece, but yet what I did was that I let the secrets out of the bag in the New York Times. I'll be it in the business section because that's really the only place the story could have run. Well, it it was the original whistleblower story, really, in the wine industry, wasn't it? It was. It was the original whistleblower story. And afterwards, I was treated pretty much like a whistleblower. And as a freelance writer, you know, you're not making a lot money, Anyway, but then I was, you know, people were afraid of losing advertising because big especially in the food and wine magazines because all the big wineries did add advertise, you know, the gallows and the broncos or, you know, the Mandabis, etcetera, etcetera. So that was basically the reaction how people were not, you know, very naively. I was like, wow, people are gonna be really happy to hear the story. Well, yeah. Some people were, but most people were pretty horrified. And that that reaction of horror made me realize I was on to something. And so I just started digging deeper and deeper and deeper and finding out what was behind it and why the fear and why and who who were the people making wine differently? And I embraced it because when you as a journalist, if you're on the if you're on the sense of truth, you don't let it go. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And I think a lot of your work in those days, went a long way towards defining what, you know, quote unquote natural wine means. And, you know, you've done a lot of work with, discussing terms that are thrown around pretty casually. Even now, organic and and things like that. So what was the next step after this article? And you're being, I think, very generous to some of your critics. You know, you were pretty lambasted for for letting these secrets out of the bag. I actually got desperate Really? Oh my goodness. For wine. For wine. That's just I know. You know, you got a shocking. I I won't ask who, but oh my goodness. That's just shocking. I mean, I I remember it happening, and I remember the, you know, the public lamb basting, but wine is supposed to be something that that is good for humanity. Death threats should not be in the same sentence. So I know. I I apologize for humanity. So so what happened so what happened next? So you you embraced the people who are making wines the other way. I like putting it that way, the other way, without these additives and machines and sort of technical tweaking. Well, it after that, you might say at that point, even though I had been writing about wine for ten years beforehand, that was the moment that I felt that I became a wine writer. That is the point that I started spending a lot of time in vineyards where before I actually wasn't. And I asking questions, walking, learning about physical are the choices that can be made and really following the people that were themselves tending the vines and making the wines with, you know, like, no additives. It was really it is what I realized I had been self selecting drink, but not understanding why. Right. So, these people were and it was back in those days. It was a much smaller world. It was very easy to know everything and everybody. And it was very exciting because it felt like a secret, a secret little world, even though I was doing what journalists do, is tell everybody about the secret little world, because people should know. These ones needed to be available. These wines needed to be understood. And that's what I did. I started so that was two thousand one, two thousand three, two thousand four, two thousand. I started I knew that I wanted to write a book. And up until then, I was really very much. Really, my freelance career took a real, real setback. Can't remember whether I'm still doing freelance hospital work. I was a dance therapist. A dance therapist. Hang on a minute. I did not know that. You were a dance therapist. That's so interesting. In hospitals. In hospitals, a movement dance therapist. So I worked with substance abusers oddly enough and, on psychiatric units and in rehab and with the elderly. And how did that inform I mean, I'm I'm imagining that that goes really hand in hand with this you know, sort of attraction to more natural winemaking? Well, I don't know. That's kind of interesting. Sometimes when I was working with substance abusers, I would think silently, why can I do this when you can't? Because there were a lot of alcoholics along with the heroin addicts and the cocaine addicts. But it does help your I mean, basically as a journalist, you're using your observational skills. You're reading the room. But I would teach or I would use nonverbal techniques in therapy with people who do not necessarily have words available to them for various reasons. So it could be strict medical reasons, like, aphasure stroke patients, or it could be people who are just so defended in their words, they're not using it. So and if you're dealing with somebody who's extremely psychotic, they're coming out with word salad. So they're really only using movement as a way of communication. So that's really where it's really is movement therapy, not Dan's therapy. So there are a bunch of exercises where you use movement as communication. It's that's the simplest way to put it. That is absolutely fascinating. So you actually were helping people to find Yes. Their own voice when they had lost it. That's that's that is a fascinating aspect of your career that I was completely unaware of. So slightly off the track, but I I really do like how it is so parallel to other things that were going on in your life at that time. But it was, you know, I was eager to become a full time writer. And I didn't know if that was ever going to happen. So I started the blog thinking I'm gonna take notes on the blog. And out of taking notes on my blog came my idea for the battle for wine and love or how I saved the world from prioritization. It was, it's it's an interesting story. I was just going to write a book about natural wine, or we didn't call it natural wine about these real wines. And an agent turned me down saying, you know, this isn't the book that you wanna write. And I got very, very and so, you know, I can't do anything with this book, and she was very nasty to me. And I got very angry. And I got angry at myself and at her. And I remember going home, saying, to hell with that. You know, she's right, though. This is not the book that I wanna write. I'm gonna write the book that I want to write. So it basically gave me the license and the the drive to write a book in my own voice. I didn't think that anybody wanted my voice. Like, who was I to write a book in first person about my journey? Like, I felt I hadn't earned it, but I formed this idea of how the wines that I loved were being robbed from the world, how they were becoming extinct, and so who was behind it and what is being done about it. And so I did a deep dive into the regions that I felt were most at risk and how Robert Parker's fame was responsible for the extinction of wines like authentic Barolo and authentic authentic counties and authentic burgundies and and so on Rioja and so, Champagne, all that stuff. Yeah. I think you were really one of the first people to call out the the power of parkerization as something that Right. Was negative. And and that really turned the wine world on its head, not least of which for the fact that you were a woman and and, you know, having had this expose article a couple of years earlier that kind of put you in the dog house, so to speak. Right. And so it just went back in again. Exactly. So what where were the territories that you thought were being really marginalized and at risk being lost forever during the whole Parker period. Why did I I threw in Champagne there because of the way LVMH was just taking over Champagne, which was and and the vineyards, which was how Actually, it was a very interesting chapter that I felt didn't get enough attention, but certainly Burgundy and the Northern Brone, I basically went to my favorite areas, champagne burgundy, let's say, real and barolo, of course, as you said. Well, yeah. That was because, basically, it I've set it up memoir like, and the first wine that made me love wine was a barolo. Which one? And so what? It was a Giovanni Scanovino, and it was a nineteen six d eight bottle that I had in nineteen eighty. Amazing. And so searching for Scanavino was about what happened to Barillo, the whole, you know, Barillo story. And how the love of new barrels and technology moved in, and there were very few people making you, basically, it was they were partisans. So that was I only really chose a few few areas, but by doing that, it was able to take on the death of certain techniques. You know, it was the celebration of de stemming where previously, you know, Burlo I mean, Burlo intellectually going back to Burgundy had been made whole cluster. Basically, wines everywhere have been made whole cluster. Absolutely. Was really a modern thing. And basically, how it's like kind of, and those stems are kind of like an aspirin for wine, many ways. It's good in hot years, it's good in cold years, and how they just make it ageable But, so I didn't take on the world. I took on certain regions where I saw his influence really powerful. And what was the reaction? The it was such a famous, a a famous piece of of your work. What was the reaction? What happened as you said back in the dog house? But in some ways, it was worse. Well, people were scared. Yeah. Yeah. It was worse. It it in some ways, well, in one way, it was good because it, you know, it I wrote a book. I had a book. It's always great to have a book with that. And it was odd. You know, when I think about I got a New York Times book review that was so exciting to land a book review that my first book But, you know, they why did they choose a male reviewer who's in a pissing contest with me? You know, he's only looking back that I realized That wasn't an accident, Alice. Absolutely not. That was not. But, you know, it's It took this long for me to realize how people really try to silence me my whole life. And certainly since that book, I have people have been, you know, there are certainly I've got my gut, my fans, I've got my readership, I've got my public, but I have been I have been silenced. It's, it was kind of I don't like thinking about it this way, but I think looking back, I realize the truth in that. There's definitely some truth in that. I I think there is. Yeah. If a if a man had written this book, I think they would have been celebrated. Thank you for listening to Italian wine podcast. We know there are many of you listening out there, so we just want to interrupt for a small ask. Italian wine podcast is in the running for an award, the best podcast listening platform through the podcast awards, the people's choice. Lister nominations is from July first to the thirty first, and we would really appreciate your vote. We are hoping our listeners will come through for us. So if you have a second and could do this small thing for us, just head to Italian wine podcast dot com from July first to the thirty first and click the link. We thank you and back to the show. That's an interesting that's a very interesting sort of theory to pause it. If a man had written that book, what would have happened? I suspect you're absolutely right. The reaction would have been completely different. Right. And you you weren't sort of really you weren't really in the wine world other than as a wine journalist. So I suspect that had something to do with it as well. You weren't a sommelier or a master of wine. So they went after you with all those nuns. We were in two thousand and eight when the book came out, we were in the pre celebrity sommelier zone. You know, so Thank god. The good old days. I know the good old days, you know, when I and I could see it coming. I said, oh, some of these aren't chefs, but now some of these are chefs. So But it was, like, most of my work, it has a oddly enough. It has a big impact, but it the book didn't sell very much. And possibly, I think it's because unless you're writing a beginning wine book, people don't wanna read about wine. That's interesting as well. That's do you think that's still true today? It's very much true. That's very interesting as well. You know, I I work for for an organization that, of course, publishes wine books. And the the fact is they are writing wine books is not a money making proposition. At all. Right. But you kept on. I mean, you'd you brought up naked wine just a few years later. Great. And just a few years later, and when you look at it, it seems like I've had a book every two to three years, every three years, I guess. I'm a writer. And what are you gonna do? I keep on thinking about what else I can do, but I don't think there's Well, I think you're very good at what you do. I don't think you should change track at this point. But let's talk about naked wine for a minute because that was really a seminal work and still is viewed that way by a lot of people in the industry. Thanks. It was really quite remarkable that it came out for a second time. They just put out a different version of it recently. I was like, wow. Okay. I wrote naked wine. Came out in two thousand eleven. And the reason that I wrote it is that I could see all the controversy around the new natural wine and how big companies were going to co opt it. And make watered down natural wine or industrial natural wine, and I felt the origin story needed to be out there. Absolutely. So true. Oh, I mean, you're thinking, okay, this book is gonna sell You know, this one can be a textbook, which I think it should be a textbook in UC Davis. I don't know why it's not. I know both, the battle for wine and love and Nick and wine is taught at slow food university, but so that's it. It's the origin story. I think a lot of wine students who are doing, you know, self study refer to your works a lot more than you'll ever know. I certainly did. That is good to know. Thanks. Yeah. I felt like it was a moral obligation to put it out there. So when they start messing up the other wines, when the industrial wines come for us, there will be a book that people could reference about what it meant, what it was, and why, and why it was threatening. Exactly. So why why was it so threatening? What what's your opinion? Why, you know, what was the underlying problem that people felt so scared of this concept about? Well, I think it's, you know, basic business. If something is being called natural, that means the alternative is not natural. So I think that's wrong. I think there's natural enough. So but everything in this world is black and white. And the big companies who are then going to be, oh my god, if they if we have to go to an ingredient list, we're gonna have to we're gonna be out of who's gonna wanna buy a wine. Well, you could say who wants to buy a food with a long ingredient list and, you know, there's still a lot of fast food being sold. I think there's always a market for that. But, that's basically it. If something is natural, that means something is not natural. And, you know, like, authentic beauty is always, anything authentic is always always challenging someone who is making a living off of fabrication. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. And I think people are frightened by by someone who is willing to stand up and and challenge that. Because they generally do tend to be wealthy successful large corporations, and and that's, you know, that is a big lion to face down. Yeah. So, basically, I wanted a document that hopefully, like, when the greenwashing started which it happened immediately, deception. I mean, marketing is all about deception. So, of course, if somebody is blowing the cover on marketing, people are threatened. Also, there are people threatened by way. I've I have All of these wines in my wine cellar. I spend thousands of dollars on all of these ninety eight point wines in my wine cellar. Are you telling me that I wasted my money? Yeah. That's actually a very good point. Not only individual you know, private buyers, but restaurants and Michelin Star places that have gigantic wine sellers filled with these, you know, award winning wines. You don't want those devalued. Absolutely. Right. And so they're on a personal level, and there there was that as well. And So you have people on wine bulletin boards and stuff. I mean, they love to, you know, chew on my body and rip it to shreds. Sometimes I go in and see what they say about me, and it's pretty horrific. Bad side of, internet and everything is available whenever it's two in the morning and you want to, chastise yourself. Well, I'm I'm gonna go for one of the higher points. So in two thousand and thirteen, after naked wine, you were named imbibe Magazine's wine person of the year. That had to be a really good moment, like, of validation, considering it was sort of everything that had happened in the past, you know, just few years from you know, from two thousand and one with the, you know, with the expose article up to, you know, two thousand eleven, that's that's only a few years. And then to win one person of the year, how did that change your perspective or did it? Well, it made me realize that the tide definitely was changing that there were people out there. A lot of people who wanted something different. They get a lot of validation. You take what you can get, and that was lovely. I was a wine of the year. How lovely? I nothing changed. I think that I was still I was speaking to the trouble, and I think my whole life, my wine writing was I've been wanting to reach an audience outside of wine. I've been trying to show people that they they should take wine seriously. If you're not drinking wine, you just, like, take a look at this this world. It's fascinating. You want part of this. And I've been always trying to get a readership that wasn't just in the wine world. I'm a wine educator. So I do love the aspect that wine has something for everyone. My husband doesn't drink, but he loves the story of wine and the, you know, the the long thread through all the cultures around the world and all the way back to, you know, very beginning of humanity. And I think that's something that does get lost in most wine writing. You're you're absolutely right there. People get very caught up in the aromas and the characteristics, and they forget the storytelling. Yeah. So so next to that came came dirty wine guide. We went from naked wine to dirty wine guide. What was what was the what was the movement there? What was the progress? Well, after naked one, I'm gonna tell you the real story about that. Tell me the real story. That's what we wanna hear. So I, I didn't wanna write about I didn't wanna write write line books anymore. I mean, I couldn't afford to. I mean, people weren't reading them. People weren't buying them. And I wanted to go back to writing. I had, I want I was trying to sell a memoir about escaping a serial killer. And my then agents try to shop it around. He wasn't wild about it. He shopped it to somebody. I forgot which publishing house. And this guy said, we don't want this kind of what writing from Alice. We want another wine book. And I got really pissed off, and I was like, okay. One other wine book, I'm gonna I'm gonna write a proposal for wine book that's so geeky, you will never be able to sell it. Backlash. Right. And this is the wine book that I didn't want to write. And I thought I'm only gonna write this for a big advance because it was gonna be a pain in the ass to write. And very technical. But there are a lot of not a lot, but there's some books on unwind geology, but they're geology books. They're not about how it affects the vineyards or the wines that we drink. And as wine drinkers who love soil conversations, this is the book that we wanted. So that's the book that I proposed. And, it was a hard sell, and it probably was a hard sell because naked wine didn't sell very much. And, actually, I was offered Oh, ridiculous amounts. Absolutely. Insulting ridiculous amounts. And I remember, I said, forget it. I'm not writing it. And you can, you know, like, go to hell. Peter tells me, agent. I said, I'm not doing it. And we're I'm screaming at him because he's, like, convincing me that I'll make it back on royalties. This is a guy who had a a ten room apartment on Madison Avenue, and I'm, like, I'm in a five floor walk up on Elizabeth Street, and I'm screaming him. You wanna give me the money to live on live for a year? Yeah. Then I'll do it. And I'm screaming him. You do it. You take the money. You write the book. It was only then that he went back and he demanded more money. It's like, you know, like, quickly, like, he got more money enough that I thought, okay, fine. That's when Pasclyn said, I'll help you with the book, you know, you know, I'll be your research assistant. We can I'll be there with you and, possibly in the PTA to just, you know, give me some book credit. And, and so that's the way I did it. Well, and it's it's a great book. Again, your humility is, is is shrouding the fact that dirty wine guide, as you said, is is about subsoils and and geology and vineyards and things. And Pascaline, the paltier is a master Psalm. So it was a it was a great combination, but I think that book was probably the first, if not, potentially still the only comprehensive sort of geology book relating to wine that's in English. But here, we work with Professor Atidio Shienza who does a lot of wine writing about geology, but it's all in Italian. So luckily, I speak Italian and read Italian, but even I find it very hard to plow through that. And dirty wine guy, was, was very different from that. I mean, how what what approach did you take towards this book that you didn't wanna write in the first place? Well, that I I wanted it to be readable. I wanted to be a good read. I wanted to give people enough science that scientists wouldn't be pissed off at me. Yep. Yep. You know, and enough accurate science. But just enough to give a drink or some tools to have fun and to look at Oh, you know what? I think I like wines from granitic soil. Let's go and figure out. And it's not it really there's and to actually say, you can't draw the linear wines from granitic soils are going to have that salty edge. You can't do that. However, there are some generalities that you can. You can say it could mostly. It depends on how the soil is farmed, and it depends on climate winemaking techniques, and that's why there's so many variables. However, if you drink enough, all of a sudden, you go, because personally, I love granite. Love, love love granite. Yeah. Well, and I think that book gave a lot of people who weren't, you know, sort of intense wine students gave them a tool to understand. I like wines from this type of soil. So I'm now gonna look around the world and see where that soil is. And I will try some new wines from different places because I suspect I will like them. That was a connection that no one had made before. Well, that's a connection that we lost. That's another kind of thing that I've been beating the drum about when the and I think this is in my forward when the whole used to call them fighting varietals came out, basically, we're selling a wine by Merlo and Pino. And when people started ordering by grape, we lost the sense of place. And, basically, we set up this thing where one can come from anywhere and just drink a grape. Well, that's not the way I started drinking. That's no fun. No. And that's that's not the way that, you know, that I like to drink either. I love wines that speak of of their home. Well, I like this because what is kind of coming full circle. So you you gave the voice back to the to the grapes and to the places they were from rather than, you know, as as you said, people were just blanket ordering. I like Mirillo. I'll just have that. Mhmm. And and not not really listening to that backstory. So that's I I like the fact that that that that happened in that book. I'm just gonna before I let you go, I just wanna ask you what you think now about natural wine. You know, you you've said it's a process and a philosophy, and it it nowadays, it comes in all shapes and sizes, and it's not all cloudy and fizzy and tastes like, you know, cider vinegar. What do you think the future of natural wine is now? Because it is it is a thing. I'd say, you know, it's a trendy thing. People have jumped on that band wagon. I like the word you used before sort of the the greenization of of wine. What do you think the actual future of actual true honest natural wine is? Well, we are in transition right now as we have been in the period of transition for a few years with the popularity with a new generation of wine drinkers coming into this wine for the first time, and this is probably their only experience with wine. So we're at a point where natural wine is still being reduced to style, seeing a lot of clear bottles, not the best thing for natural wines that people could show off the color and entice the drinker. Also, a lot of sloppy wine making. A lot of sloppy win making, not making me very happy. The future, I think, is that we're gonna get through this phase. Wine education is not going by the wayside. People will grow up. They will start experimenting with different wine. They're going to go and find wines that are still natural, but made traditionally with structure, with ageability, maybe not just a party drink. And I don't know. I'm not that much of a crystal ball reader right now, but I think or shall I say I hope we get to a point where it's just we're returning one that that basically fine wine or great wine will be not wine. It'll just be made traditionally. And natural wine will be maybe it'll just be referred as zero zero instead, you know, just no sulfur at all. Maybe it'll be just low sulfur. I'm not quite sure. But where we are now with rampant faults, I think mouse out of control that to me makes wine undrinkable. I think we're gonna go into a golden era of beautiful wines. Well, I really hope so. I I I really, really hope you're right. I would love to see that happen particularly in Europe where the the history behind these wines is is, you know, something that people know more about now than perhaps they did in the past. Yeah. I Tope. So in the book that comes out in August, you know, it's kind of funny. And I I'm hoping that's where I see one going. I don't to make a point that, you know, all the books are in the all the wines that are mentioned in the book are are natural just because that's what I drink, but Not all of them are hardcore natural. It's not really a natural wine book. So what is this book coming out in in August? Everybody will be on the edge of their seat right now. Okay. So it's called to fall in love, drink this. And it is it it's going back to my let me get people to read about wine. So it is a memoir in thirty essays. Oh, well. And, so when I talked about writing a memoir about the serial killer, we have two two essays about the serial killer in that, but every essay has a wine essay attached to it. So the first one is about my grandfather teaching me how to smell as a little girl, but also about the loss of unconditional love. And the wine essay attached to that is about aromatic wines. Right. Right. So, basically, you read all about smelling and, like, how How evocative that can be. It is, yeah, so evocative. It's just it's it's sort of the a celebration of wines made from Muscat. Who does that? Who is the nerve to celebrate Moscow. Honestly, no one. So, hopefully, I'm hoping that it gets reviewed as a memoir and as well as in the wine world and just a general memoir that can entice some people to, explore a wine in a different way. Well, I am looking forward to that. I can't wait to read it, and I'm so grateful you took time out of your day to talk to me today, Alice. Thank you so so much. Thank you. Hope to meet you. Me too. I'm looking forward to that. I haven't been here for a long time. We'll get you back here soon. We will get you back here. K. Great. So thanks a lot. Alrighty. Bye. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Italian wine podcast brought to you by Vineethalia Academy. Home of the gold standard of Italian wine education. Do you want to be the next ambassador? 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