Ep. 1025 Michael Garner | Wine, Food & Travel With Marc Millon

Welcome to this special five star wines and wine without walls series on wine food and travel with me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. For the next weeks, we will be focusing on a dozen trophy winning wineries from the competitions that took place in verona at the start of Vin Italy in early April. The winning wines are without doubt some of the very best that Italy has to offer. What I'm most interested in discovering are the stories behind the bottles, learning about the wines themselves, of course, and also about the people who make them. Where they're from, what they eat, how they live. It's a fascinating journey that will take a all across Italy, and I hope you will join me. Welcome to wine food and travel with me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. I'm delighted to have as my guest today, Michael Garner, wine writer, Judge, Consultant, and importer. Michael is the acclaimed co author of Barolo Tar and roses, which came out in nineteen ninety. And a second book, Amaroni and the fine wines of Rona in two thousand seventeen. Michael is also the co owner of Italian wine specialists, Tria wines, with business partner, Paul Merritt. And actually, like me, Michael lives and works in beautiful Devon, which is something of a surprising coincidence. Good morning, Michael. It's a beautiful day down here on the x estuary. How is it with you today? Tell us where you are. It's just the same. I live in mid Devon, not all that far from dark more. And we have a glorious clear blue sky. I'm sitting with my office door open enjoying the temperatures. And, yeah, it's a great place to be when the weather's good, definite. So, it's so peaceful and so beautiful. Yeah. It is. You know, I've been here for over forty years in Tuftsham. And, you know, when like you, I go away often, and it's just always a nice place to come back to. Or isn't it? Just, I can never another way. I mean, particularly when I go up to London, I just can't wait to get out of the city and back to the peace and quiet of rural Devon because I I live in a tiny little village miles from anywhere really. Only twenty five houses here. And so I'm used to, very tranquil circumstances. Oh, that's nice. That's very nice. Right. A very good environment. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Michael, in addition to writing about line and selling line, you're often a judge in important competitions Mhmm. For, for example, for Decantor magazine, and you've been a judge at five star wines if you need to. Correct. Yeah. I just wanted to ask you, generally, for both wine producers and for we consumers. How important are such wine competitions? That's a really good question. Now people seem to set a great store by them, and I I can understand why that should be the case. Producers want recognition for their wines and that recognition often will come in the form of hopefully some sort of a claim from and circle wine experts and pundits. The consumer also looks to the array of medals that a wine picks up or the scores it may achieve in some magazine as a as an indication of quality and value often. So, I think, yes, these things have their place certainly. And they're also great fun to take part in from a personal point of view. I I really enjoy them, and I often think they're very good, for us for an exchange of views, which is are so important in our trade to know what other people think of wines and to be able to express and exchange your own opinions with other like minded people. So they're they're great. They're they're great venue for for that sort of. Yeah. I I agree. I think particularly when consumers can do more than just go on numerical score, but actually read a description of why a wine or has been, given an, a particular score or accolade I've been interviewing the winners of this year's five star wines and wine without walls competition to try to get the story behind the bottles, you know. Sure. Sure. Sure. So it's more than just, as I say, a score, You've actually judged it five star wines if you need to leave. Why is this an important competition? I've not done it for, a few years. I'm supposed to this year, but unfortunately, I got food poisoning just before the, what is your name? Competition. So I had to cry off at the last moment prior to that, obviously, the pandemic could, prevented me from going over. It's a competition I particularly like. For the the the the one of the main reasons is, the way that panels that can uh-uh are put together for five star wines. Because on one panel, you've got, say, a journalist like Adolf, you've got a winemaker, you've got a sommelier, and someone else. So you've got a really good mix of opinion. On that I think is is great because they are very good. They organize panels in that way. So I I really like tasting for five star ones. Yeah. It's it's a good one. And, of course, you know, you get to meet judges from different countries with different cultures and see how their their reactions to wine can differ from your own. So again, a great place to exchange values. Yes. Actually, I can recall judging myself at the Banco Desagio in Torgiano, many many years ago. And again, it was that same sort of mix. You know, I was an international judge, but the Italian from point of view of what they looked for in wines, And then a winemaker could identify faults or virtues that perhaps I was less aware of. So a technical side. So I think five stars does that same thing. They've really nailed it from that point of view because you get the point of view of a sommelier as well who's of you is rather different from mine. Absolutely. First and foremost at what food is this wine would go with, etcetera, what you can serve it with, whereas I'd be looking for more for other issues. The winemaker as you say would be looking at another aspect of it. So you get a a three sixty view. For wines, for five star wines, which is, I think a good, recommendation for the consumer in particular. Yeah. The one that's been looked at from every angle. Mike, I know you as an author, You were writing your book around the same time I was writing The Wine Rose of Italy. And I remember I remember Barolo Tar and roses, published in nineteen ninety. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, it's it's let's just turn back the clock a bit because such a well known area is Leilangue, the Bureau of Mind Hills, you know, we one of the great areas of Italy now. Thirty years ago, it wasn't yet is recognized as an always. No one near Mark. It was still an area. I've always believed that it's always produced grape lines always. But back then, the British trade press used to slate Barolo something terrible. And I just I I I left to the defense of an underdog in, like, classic sort of English manor, you know, I I needed a cause. And, and there it was. Bairoa Life was a fantastic cause because I I remember the sort of the the the genesis of the idea, if you like, Mark, it was, my first trip to Piamonte, which must have happened close on forty years ago. At the time, Borella was not highly regarded. And I remember one incident in particular being in, the sellers of Giovanni Containers, winery before they moved to where they are now, but the old one back at, San Jackomo. And I tasted man fourteen seventy one straight from the bank. And I just couldn't believe how good it was and that no one else was really recognizing how good it was. I'll pop from a few people, but in in the UK, these wines were not highly regarded as at all. So I thought, I've gotta I've gotta tell the world about these wines, you know? Well, quiet. And and you're right. It was, great wines were being produced, but they weren't fetching the prices. They say the great burgundies, and I I remember meeting producers around that same era as well, Bruno Charetto, for example, who was very eager that, you know, the wines would gain a recognition, and it's partly through books such as yours and through some and and wine importers that have really helped to spread that word. Now it's interesting. You mentioned the Monfortino because there was also that was also a time when there was a transition between tradition and more modern styles, with Contera, of course, fiercely being in the capello, Samerso. He certainly was. Yeah. Yeah. So you were able to sort of give an overview of this exciting moment of transition, which is still you know, in place and they're still traditional. There's still more modern style. That's absolutely the case. So it was a really exciting time, and, it was it was perfect timing. And that was sheer coincidence. You know, I didn't recognize the full implications of it back then. I just wanted to sort of, as I said, get the message out there to the world. Here was a great wine that was not being viewed us as, as such. It was as you rightly saying sort of at the time sort of selling peanuts for in terms of its true worth. So, yeah, that mix of, the old school and then we got quite close to some of the modernist back then, people like Roberta Wett, c o l a a tare. And at the same time, we spent lots of time with Jackamo, Giovanni Conterno, bottle or Muscarello. Even, Becky Rinaldi's father, who was a quite old back then. I remember him as well. I remember spending some time with him. And there were these fascinating differences in the style, the old traditional style and the modern style for me. It's interesting to note that the most prized style these days has gone back towards this very traditional. Yeah. Yeah. If you think of someone like, a producer like Castello di Valdoon or is that right? No. No. Top. Then Monvallero is just made by from foot, trodden grapes. Oh my goodness, my god. That's my only way. Yeah, that's one of the boroughs that fetches the highest price as mom fourteen orders, because Sure. But that's a contender. Thousand as far as footsteps and maintains the Maintain that. Old style production method. So it's interesting to see the taste of, gone back towards that sort of, yes. And to the big birthday aging and Yeah. Yeah. Using indigenous yeast as well. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Actually, the landscape itself, though, in those forty years, Michael has really changed. I remember that, you know, we didn't have such incredibly intensive Viticulture Vorolo, the longuehills were still, you know, mixed farms because people couldn't make a huge living. And so the small growers had to grow a bit of this and a bit of that as well as some vines to sell, grapes to sell. That's very true. I remember talking to who's a guy. Yeah. Enrico Scavino, you know, the guy who makes Bricton Fiasco. So we spent a bit of time with him. And, I remember actually sort of, helping him harvest on the nineteen eighty seven vintage Paul and I were there for that. And he had to sort of fit it in between harvesting peaches and harvesting his other. Sure. Yeah. Other fruits. So, yeah, there was a lot of mixed farming back there and it's almost become a monoculture now in the area. The you've the remains everywhere you look. Whereas at one time, it would have been planted only in the top artist sites. Always there for vines. And the expansion of the vineyards has seen some sites included, which perhaps once upon a time would not be considered as one vineyard area. So There is that. There you have to bear that sort of thing in mind. It's an inevitable consequence of the success. Of course. Of course. No. I'm wondering if one of the attractions to you of being in this beautiful area has been the food as well. Is that a is that a big part of your life? I love the foods of Velangain going to Barolo and being with wine producers and eating foods that are so in tune with the landscape. Absolutely totally. But I think again, I'm sure the green mother, that's changed a lot. When Paul and I first started researching the book back in the sort of mid eighties, you had these huge Greg middles with course after course after course, on the cooking style in, in the language has evolved. Oh, in that period, it's become much lighter. Because people's habits and lifestyle change. I remember talking to people about one of their for breakfast, they'd go down to the local, local village square and they'd have mugs of trike soup and glasses of dog chateau for breakfast because they needed all those calories because they were out there farming all day long and, you know, the the lifestyle governed, was governed by the, but the work that they have to do, hard physical labor. And that has changed now, obviously, because it's, because of monoculture, because the spread of vineyards and and, things that are organized very differently now and there's a much sort of lighter approach to, language cuisine. It's it's done with a lighter hand than it used to. So it's changed, but it still is as interesting as ever. Yeah. I can never separate food and wine. You can't. Yeah. Yeah. It's a mistake to do so. One makes the other taste better and that's as far as it goes. So, yeah, they go hand in hand. So it's great to see local wines on, the and local cuisines and how they blend together. Sure. More fascinating aspects. It is. It is. And as you say, I think it's absolutely essential with Italian wine, perhaps even more than wines from other countries. You know, Italian wines are food wines, and that's how Italians drink them. Yeah. Yeah. They they are a part of the fabric of their everyday lives just as much as food is, and they're inseparable. And I I think You know, it's chat things are changing now. I hope they are, but for a long time, a lot of wine in the UK was drunk outside of mealtimes. I think it still is. And your times have not been able to get their head around this, you know, And in a way, they're right. I mean, I can think of better a pair of teeth than wine, and there are better things that slaking the thirst than wine. Why is in Italy is there to go with the meal? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's seeing wine in its true context. Really. I mean, it lends itself quite well to, you know, consumption as a parity for just as a casual sort of social beverage. But when it does, when it enters that area, that that area, it's competing all sorts of other drinks. Of course. Spirits a lot. So it's got a specific focus in Italy, and I I that's one of the things I love about Italy the way that, you know, these things are are viewed. Yeah. And of course, the regionality of Italy as well, the way how you move from, I mean, the difference between the different dishes in ASTy than in Alba. But when you moved across to Barona for your second book, again, it's, it it was not only a completely different style of wine, Amarrone, and and the great wines of the Balpolicella. But also, whole different landscape, a different world, a different cuisine. Absolutely. Again, very much a time of change, though. You know, if we think of Well, you mentioned Amaroni, a lot of people perhaps don't recognize the fact that Amaroni is, aligned with the history dating back no further than the, end of the second world war. So, you know, some sixty, seventy years ago, really, and it's only recently, I would say in the last couple of decades that it's exploded in the way it has done commercially. And that tends to take away, I think, from, the the the main focus of the vignasa, Valicello, which is Balicello itself. Sure. The wonderful line. It's my one of the it's my probably my I think I've gone on record of saying it's my desert island wine. A really good glass of our polycella. It's an everyday beverage is unbeatable for me. It's so adaptable so versatile. And again, it's it's from a very particular landscape. The way the vineyards of Iran are organized, you know, they're all these north south running valleys from the left mountains down towards the Adi J. The plane of the Adi J. They've all got fairly similar drone to this and it produces a a really interesting style of wine, wines that are very, perfect fruit ones that are quite sort of light and really tasty, really versatile and brilliant everyday drinking. So Yeah. That's one of the aspects I wanted to sort of bring out as much as I could. And then Italian wine podcast brought to you by mama jumbo shrimp. Yeah. Absolutely. The amarone gets a lot of the publicity amarone, of course, being a passito line from from dried, not fresh grapes. A method that goes back to, antiquity Absolutely. Pre Roman times. Pre Roman times. Greek certainly. And yet, as you say, Amarroni itself, as we know it, is relatively recent. Very recently that they, you know, the greatest keeper of things as it's really more than the second World War. It was the there's probably it's history dates back a little longer than that, to the, I would say, end of the nineteenth century when people began to, experiment with a drier style of of Rachelo, because Rato has been around forever. But that was interrupted by a sequence of events. Obviously, the arrival first of all of yeluxra, then two world wars. Sort of, you know, obviously brought them into that experimentation. It was only after the end of the second world where people sort of took up the took up the baton again if you like and and I'm started experimenting around with what you could do with, wine from semi dried grapes that was fermented up to full dryness. Sure. So I mean, we have the ricciardo, the from the the the ear of the bunch. And, as you say, that's the sweeter style with residual sweetness thing. To create a dry style, was that partly a question of a yeast that was strong enough to survive? That that's a very good question because, a lot of yeast will sort of stop working, at certain alcohol levels. But, if you talk to a lot of people, who can remember that far back, they will insist that the, idea of Amaroni developed as an accident more than anything. A by a barrel of red chocolate that had been perhaps neglected and have fermented after dryness as if it will be, obviously. And there are very particular yeast strains that will sort of carry on operating at up to say sixteen six of percent alcohol and the popularity along with the popularity of Amuronic goes on in hand with the fact that these particular yeast strains have been developed in order to completely fermentation of these wines to the sort of alcohol levels we're seeing on our own today. Sure. Yeah. Well, Michael, let's talk a little bit now about Tria, your wine company, your specialist Italian wine company here in the UK, and also about the challenges of selling quality Italian wines in the UK market, you know, the challenges of wines that are primarily wines that are great food wines as we've discussed in a, you know, in a culture that where wine is often drunk in a different way. Yeah. There there certainly are challenges. Trail wines, pull, Paul Mary the guy, I wrote the Barolla book, where there's actually my business partner in Trail Lines. We've been going for twenty years now. And our idea was just to try and sort of offer a streamlined service to people. And that I I idea has sort of evolved over over the last twenty years to what it is today. And today, she advised really we we operate in a very sort of particular way. We say we're an excellent selling company only, so we don't have stock in the UK. We sell to people who are interested and large enough to be able to sort of ship themselves over from Italy. We work with a a small handful of of producers whose wines we know and love and have come to trust over the years. And so our main customers are people like waitrose. We sell quite a lot of wine to waitrose and because they're big enough, and, have systems that are well managing up to be able to sort of look to ship decent quantities out of Italy. Which of which of your wines would be in waitrose. I might be able to find you can finally you can certainly look for them. And, well, from verona, for example, there's the waitress, Repasso, the number one Repasso they do, which I I help that. I help out with that. And also that bothering us from Verona is, from a producer that, I have a an association with, and, funnily enough, waiters are just about to launch a new Amaroni, the new Amaroni, and that again is, something I've had a hand in. So, Oh, wonderful. I'll look out for those. Yeah. It's a new label. It's It's gonna be that kind of, their main amoroni or them on the small parcels. The regular amoroni is a wine that I've developed with them over the past, a couple of years because I've been working with this particular producer and waitress for a number of years now. And, yeah, things are going really well. And the, we're looking forward to the new Amaronis will be launched at the end of this month beginning of August. Oh, wow. That's exciting. Look out. Yeah. Yeah. Do you work with restaurants as well? No. We work with a few distributors to Of course. Yeah. Who who's what? They they buy from us excels and we'll distribute, two restaurants per No. We're too small to be able to work with, individual restaurants, Mark. So, we look to sort of work with distributors who will. So, sure. As I said, we are trying to operate, operate a very streamlined have things become more complicated after the dreaded b word Brexit? Well, I I yes. The dreaded b word, the awful b word. I hate mentioning that. I'm sorry. Yeah. Of course, things have become a lot more complicated created. But everything has been a bit strange recently because of the pandemic and things are in flux. And I think they're beginning to sort of settle down again now, but the aftermath of of the dreaded b word is still to be resolved. It's still making our lives so much more difficult. Yeah. Such an unnecessary totally totally unnecessary. Sorry. It's not. Don't get me started. Yeah. It's more me or me. We'll leave it at that. Yes. Now finally, Michael, I just wanna since we're both here in Devon, I just wanna touch on English wine, and in particular Devon wines, and what do you think of, some of the, you know, there's been an amazing, amount of vineyards planted just here in Devon Sure. With some surprising, results. Yeah. Those, Devon, obviously, as well. It's a lot of money down there in the west country and all along the south coast. And yeah, there've been some, there's some tremendous wines available now, not just the sparkling ones, and we have the reputation for that now. Because there's a bit of a track record there. We've been producing really good. Well, I suppose we should refer to a champagne method wise in the south of England for a number of years that have been getting rave reviews, but there are some really good still whites now, and Yeah. I think good prospects for red. So I think we will probably capable of making some really good pinot noir down here, for example. So, so to look forward to, but it's still, an interesting in its infancy, but, with tremendous prospects as long as the, climate change that is facilitating that doesn't accelerate too rapidly, which, you know, could be a worry a bit further down the line. Sure. I know it's a worry already for many Italian producers. Of course, it's such huge worry. And I'm not yeah. It's it's very serious. It's quite grave in my view. Yeah. It's a bit of a sad note to end on this, Good. Send on a happy note. I mean, I hope it's a it's a real pleasure to meet you in this way, Michael. You know, we're not very far apart. And I think the next time we meet, most definitely be over a glass of wine. I'll hold you to that mark and hope that it happens very soon. Yeah. Let's hope and try to make it happen soon. Okay. Let's do that. Thank you very much, for being my guest today. It's been a real pleasure, and we'll see you soon. I hope the sound of pleasure's online, man. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you for listening to this special five star wines, wine without walls series that highlight the trophy winning wineries and the stories behind their bottles. I hope you will join me again next week for another installment. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. 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