Ep. 2499 Wine and Branding | The Art of Wine Storytelling with Ryan Robinson

This chapter transports us to Venice, the Great Maritime Republic. Malvasia was more than a wine. It was a narrative carried in barrels across the Adriatic, ionian, and AGNCs. So Venetian merchants didn't just sell wine, they sold the story of an exotic origins, luxurious indulgence, and social status. Here in this case, we see the birth of what we might call wine branding. So Malvasia wasn't valuable only because of taste, it became valuable because of the stories woven around it. It's association with nobility, with the excitement of far off lands and with the prestige at the time of the Venetian trade. Welcome to a special series on the Italian wine podcast. In this series Italian wine Ambassador, Ryan Robinson, reads and reflects on the art of wine storytelling. The latest book by Renown Scholar Professor, Professor Atilio Shenza. From the myths of ancient Greece, to the language of modern wine communication, the book explores how storytelling shapes our understanding of wine. And why these stories matter more now than ever. Let's begin the journey. Welcome back to the art of wine storytelling. I'm your host, Ryan Robinson. In today's episode, we continue our journey through Professor Atelios' book, the art of wine storytelling. We'll be exploring three fascinating chapters. Chapter ten through twelve. These chapters help us understand how the ways we tell stories about wine have evolved across cultures and across a period of centuries. We'll begin with the structure of organized storytelling. In this chapter, we look at how narrative framework shaped the way that we communicate meaning and memory. Then we'll sell to Venice where Malthazia Wine became a vehicle for trade, Prestige, and what we might call the birth of modern storytelling. And finally, we'll dive into synaesthesia and Prouse syndrome. Where we'll explore the sensory layers of wine and how memory aroma, and case connect us with our own past. Each chapter connects us to today's wine world. How sommeliers, producers, and educators use these very principles to share the story of wine with authenticity and emotion. So let's get started. The structure of organized storytelling. The main elements of storytelling are represented by the story, which focuses on the what, and the plot which focuses on the how. In the story, together with the actions and events the characters move in a defined environment. The discourse is instead articulated on the structures chosen for transmission and in the manifestation in the media. Normally, the narrative is organized on two models. The so called all encompassing one, which develops on sagas, epics and legends, and stories, short stories, podcasts, and novels. And the fragmentary one used mainly by the media, gossip news, and rumors. They are two different ways of communicating. In the second case, it is a very rapid and non exhaustive form of storytelling. Which serves to create curiosity, while with short stories or novels, the narration offers stimuli in arguments that can be developed with other technique, such as cinematography or theater. The performance of wine storytelling must bring together four key elements. The story it's setting, the subliminal effect of vocabulary and metaphors. And fundamental in a novel, a stimulus or narrative tension that invites the reader to turn the next page. On the internet and social media, narrative, contingent is increasingly important. In the case of the narrative related to wine, an interdisciplinary approach is necessary to involve all the elements that are the basis of its production. The narrative macro areas include humanistic attempts historical, literary, archaeological, anthropological content, and scientific skills, such as those related to, pay to climate and great variety. This is a challenge because it is difficult to find all these skills in the people who write about and communicate wine through storytelling. As in all self respecting stories, a narrator is also needed. What is the role of the narrator? Two aspects are fundamental. The allocation of the story to a literary genre, thriller mystery, romantic, non fiction, scientific fantasy. And the choice of the plot, epic tragedy, melodrama, comedy. These bringing together the rhythm of the story with the unfolding events. Chapter, Venice Malazia, and the birth of modern storytelling. Venice and the trading of Malbasa wine is a good example of storytelling because it uses an anticipatory communication strategy that goes beyond the canons of the classic narrative, previously employed by the Mediterranean wine trade. Relying on a very simple strategy that was based on two tools that are still current. The brand, so the name Alvasia, and the notoriety, an exclusive wine for the European courts. Venice sensed that it was necessary to transform wine from a food item into a cult object. An icon. If the Greeks had linked wine to dionysus or ritual use in the Symposium, Venice loaded the wines of the Eastern Mediterranean with secular values, transforming them into fashion. A remedy for the body and spirit in a Europe afflicted by the anime of Black Death and followed by the little ice age. Venice did not use the Greek symbolism of death and resurrection from grapes to wine. Nor that of the mystical blood of the Christian rite, but instead relied on the more modern phenomenon of the status symbol, closer to the models of imperial Rome, of the place of origin and of rarity. Adopting Ontelliterum, the most effective methods of contemporary communications, linking those wines to an elitist consumption, giving them to the rulers of time, offering them during official banquets, where they would be tasted by diplomatic cores from all over Europe. Bennett supplied high custom tariffs to these wines to limit their consumption only to the wealthy classes. While valuing the sense of origin and the allure of distant territories, old mystery, such as those under byzantine control. Using the name of a place to market it, an absolutely novel tea in the era in which wines were designated with very generic indications. Diplano de Monte, or grape variety. It offered consumers a type of wine, sweet and aromatic, yet unknown in the West. Cynesthesia and Proust syndrome. Synesthesia in the strict sense is a neurological phenomenon in which the stimulation of one sense automatically causes a response in another. Normally, in sensory perception, be it visual, auditory, olfactory, or tactile, one model to prebels over the others. In the case of synesthesia, on the other hand, seeing or leading, or a number of spontaneously leads to recognizing a certain color, listening to a certain piece of music, or the sound of a word simultaneously leads you to perceive a specific flavor. It is not an association of ideas, but rather a real sensory experience. By extension, the concept of synesthesia is also borrowed to describe multi sensory and evocative experience in which different sensations intertwine, evoking memories and emotions. In wine tasting, this multi sensory dimension plays a fundamental role. The characteristics of the wine can develop deep connections with memory and individual experience, evoking images, sounds, or emotions, linked to the moments lived. Two significant literary testimonies can help us better understand this phenomenon. Hassan Blashard, in his, ledois Desir, writes. This glass of clear, fresh, Dry wine sums up my whole country life. People think I drink, but I remember. Marcel prowse, in, in search of lost time, intertwine's personal memories, historical facts, taste sensations, and emotions through a di chronic and didactic approach to events. The episode in which passing in front of the swan house, prowse smells the mad lines. This is iconic, and this reawakens him in childhood memories, and the bond with his mother who made those sweets. The olfactory sensation becomes a key to open the trunk of memory. When tasting wine and presenting it to an atten