Ep. 1196 Monica Larner | Wine, Food & Travel With Marc Millon

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Listen in as we journey to some of Italy's most beautiful places in the company of those who know them best. The families who grow grapes and make fabulous wines. Through their stories, we'll learn not just about their wines, but also about their ways of life, the local and regional foods and specialities that pair naturally with their wines, and the most beautiful places to visit. We have a wonderful journey of discovery ahead of us, and I hope you will join me. Welcome to wine, food, and travel with me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. Today, we travel to Rome to meet my guest, Monica Larner, who is a multiple prize winning wine critic and writer. Monica is the Italian reviewer for the wine advocate at e robert parker dot com, the bimonthly wine publication and website founded by Robert Parker. She is also the author of a number of books. Good morning, Monica. How are you today? Good morning. I'm fine. Thank you. Is it a beautiful day in Rome? Not today. It's pouring rain, but, we need the rain. So I guess you could call it a beautiful day. Alright. Well, it's a beautiful day here in Southern England. So we got things a bit the wrong way around for a change. We had a lot of sun this summer. So Yeah. You had a hot summer, didn't you? We had a very hot summer. Monica, you've been a wine writer and critic for many years. You live in Rome. I'm sure everybody says to you that it must be the greatest job in the world. Please don't disenchant us and tell us that it's really a hard slog. How do you spend your days? Well, it is the greatest, job in the world, and I'm now entering Mike. One he is year doing this. So it's been two decades of this, delightful job. But you have to be careful what you wish for because as much as I love wine, being a wine critic also involves, mostly logistics getting wines shipped to me, and then, opening boxes. And most importantly, trying to dispose of all of the, cardboard, glass, and, styrofoam that comes in packaging. And since I live in the center of Rome garbage collection is an issue. So it's actually kind of challenging. You know, you have to run around Rome to different garbage bins to try to distribute the large amount of waste So it's a lot of logistics, unfortunately. That's the the negative side. But the obviously, the positive side is that, I spend a good part of the year traveling to vineyards, a tasting on-site with producers, and basically, getting to know in a sense the DNA, fingerprint of a vintage of a country every year of regions, of Italian wine. So it's a fascinating thing because every year it changes every year, there's a new story to tell. And every year, there are new discoveries and adventures and and people to meet. So it it feels like even though I'm entering my twentieth year doing this, it feels like the first year because there's always something to learn. Well, that's really interesting. Interesting to hear that logistical side of simply dealing with so many bottles of wine being sent to your problem many of us would like to have, but also to hear how you also spending your time really getting that intimate knowledge, not just, snapshot of now, but over twenty years. And I guess that's something I'd like to discuss into the later one, because how Italian wine has evolved in two decades. Because it's been some really considerable and exciting new developments. First of all, let me ask you. You've dedicated to your professional life to learning about tasting, enjoying understanding Italian wines. What is their special? What is the magic of Italian wines? It's, multifaceted, but it is definitely a magic. And what it comes down to really is, biodiversity and the fact that Italy offers such a huge range of indigenous grapes and international grapes. So each one of those, grapes becomes, you know, a a calling card for a place or a person or culture or a little town, and all of this connects into regional cuisine and and the diversity that we love about Italy. So having done this now for for so many years, it's that it's that narr it's the the fact that the Italian grape, this biodiversity, this tiny little spherical fruit to this berry can then become a narrator for a country. It tells the story of a country So from the deep south of Italy to the far no north, you can travel throughout the country. Thanks to this to this fruit and its many expressions. And that magic is connected to also what the Romans used to call Janice loach or the spirit of place. The French like to use the word terroir to describe this kind of mystical magic that makes one vineyard different from the next vineyard. But here in Italy, I feel like there is a greater magic that surrounds Italian wine. It's not just terroir, but there's a huge human factor because a lot of Italian wine is also connected to a called dadino culture or a farmer's culture, a rural culture, every little farmer makes has a small plot of vineyards and makes a little wine for domestic consumption. So there's even a greater level of depth and detail in the winemaking that it's not just related to one class or one group of people. It is it is it is throughout the society. And I think that has a lot to do with why people are so attracted to Italian wine because you can find so many different expressions, from so many different parts, from parts of Italy. Yeah. I love that Monica. I love the way you're saying that this biodiversity links not only places, but different periods of time, history, culture, gastronomy. And that within from that grape that you describe that biodiversity of so many different indigenous grapes within a single bottle of vine, we can travel to to so many different places. I guess for me, that's that magic. You can travel in a bottle all around Italy in such a wonderful and genuine way. Absolutely. And it's it's that great that becomes your guide, you know, your your it shows it shows you the way. I like to call it I mean, I have this theory about what I like to call a varietal voice that, every grape speaks of its region, and it's not dissimilar to how we view, Italy, linguistically, that Italy is divided into so many different dialects. And you might have two towns relatively close to one another and the populations have different words for, the same things. In in some cases, they have a hard time even understanding each other. But each one of those languages is so specific to an area, and there is a parallel with the grapes. That Italy offers with this huge patrimony of indigenous grapes. They all speak their own language. They all have their own dialect. So I I like that parallel between Italy linguistically and the, yeah, taste of, of Italian wine. Yeah. So I like that too, Monica. That does think help our listeners to understand what is so special about Italy. And it's also interesting to consider how Italians are can be so fiercely protective of their own tastes, their own grapes, their own wines, their own foods, preferring always their own local. Although maybe that's changing too. Italians are beginning to discover their own country now. Absolutely. And there's a greater awareness of, you know, what makes wine special and that magic that we we just, we just, spoke about, and there's enormous pride, especially because it's so well received in foreign markets. So Italian wine becomes an ambassador of Italian culture. And I think that we're seeing that, you know, we we've noticed at, at Robert Park or wine advocate an incredible interest in Italian wines. I mean, you know, there are practical reasons for that at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, there were, you know, taxes against, French wine and duties and whatnot. So there was a kind of a, a rush to explore new new wines, and people went to Italian wine, but we noticed incredible frenetic activity in terms of what people were searching for. And it was all related to Italian wine, new regions like Heltawadi, gero, Campania, not new regions, but regions that offer a new taste for people, not just, you know, Piedmont and and Tuscany. And we noticed a lot of activity, searching for unknown grapes and for different, smaller populations and smaller territories. So it it feels like, you know, in this post COVID world, there is there is this this idea of finding work expression and these nuances and this vital voice seems to be really clicking with with people in this moment. People internationally as well as in Italy itself. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we saw, you know, in in the past year or so, we've seen this incredible return to tourism and and and, you know, traveling to little parts of little towns in Italy. And that goes hand in hand with exploring the regional dishes and exploring the regional wines. There's been a huge boom. It feels like this, this summer in particular. I guess we're all so happy to be able to move around again. And it's made us appreciate what's accessible and literally on the doorstep sometimes. Absolutely. So Monica, let's talk a little bit about, how you actually go about assessing lines, writing about lines, assigning wines, the all important and vital Parker points. Can you talk to us a little bit about the Sydney, the Parker one hundred point system, the process you go through when assessing ones. How many wines, for example, do you taste in a year? So it is it's a huge number. I taste up to four thousand wines a year. Goodness, man. Mhmm. So if you and those are published notes, so, you know, that means that I've worked considerably on those four thousand wines. Sure. So I, so that comes down to about eleven wines per day. It's quite, it's quite a number. We hopefully might be reducing that because we have been, I mean, again, connected with this general enthusiasm that we're seeing for Italian wine, but also that my colleagues are seeing in their regions in Spain and Germany and France and the United States. We seem to be getting, more samples than we've ever received before. So, hopefully, we'll cut back a little bit because it's really quite, it's quite a job. But what happens is that I I taste in different ways. I taste, I would say about, fourth to a third of my samples. So that's a huge amount. Already, we're talking about maybe a thousand wines directly at the estate. So I spend good part of my year traveling. This year has been pretty intense in terms of the travel. I've been up and down Italy multiple times. It feels like in my little red car driving. And so you go and you try to make, you make about six or five or six appointments per day, usually you have a couple of hours with a producer. You end up always being late by the end of the day. I remember Robert Parker himself, you know, said Monica, listen. What you gotta do is you gotta get a good night's sleep. Don't eat very much the night before. Have a good breakfast and you just hit the wide road. I mean, it's it's it's it's tiring and and it's it's a lot of work, but it's also exhilarating because you get to meet these fantastic people that are so passionate about what they do and that passion rubs off on you, and it becomes really exciting to tell their story. So I love the winery visits. And as I said, I do them quite a bit. So you travel, you go, you visit with them, you taste through their new releases. You if you have time, you go visit the vineyards, and then you're off to the next appointment. And then the other, I would say, probably either the remaining wines. I either taste in my office in Rome. I have a a ground floor office that makes it easier for deliveries to come and howlets of wine are delivered, and I open them and then slowly set up my flights. Italian wine podcast. If you think you love wine as much as we do, then give us a like and a follow anywhere you get your pods. And sometimes I also taste either at a consortiums or a growers associated situation or some kind of an agency that will help me put together the samples. And usually, they have a somebody on hand that'll help pour and open them. And a lot of the, you know, the, the actual setting up of the tasting is is taken care of by by somebody else. But in the end, I think I almost work faster when I'm in my office, even though I have to do all the opening of the of the bottles and, you know, all the the logistics that I described before and getting rid of the of the, you know, trying to recycle cardboard and glass and all of the other difficulties of living in enter the city because in my office, I have my my glasses. I have my temperatures. I have my, you know, my internet. I have my I can work later. I can work on weekends. You can go back to a wine, which is great because you wanna see how it evolves. After you've tasted it, you might wanna go back a couple of hours later, maybe even a day later if you have doubts. So you just wanna see what, you know, what how the wine reacts, a little bit more air. So I really enjoy the home tastings and the and the and the estate visits. So it's pretty much divided up. We do a combination of blind tasting and also open tasting. Obviously, if I'm tasting at a producer, I know what I'm tasting if I'm sitting in front of the producer. But when I'm in my office, I mix it up a bit. Maybe I'll do the why it's blind. And then the wines that I like the best, I'll go back and taste again. I mean, in the end, when you write the notes, we do a lot of work on writing, not just the wine note, so not just the technical review of the wine with the score. We also include a producer note. So we have a bit of history about that producer. Maybe they change something or they bought new vineyard land or they enlarge their winery. But whatever it is, so we try to include as much information as possible because, you know, the I I feel that the modern way of of of writing about wine is not just linked to the score, but you have to offer this color in context because people do want to travel, you know, as we said at the beginning of this interview, use that grape as, you know, a guide. And so they wanna know about the people behind the wines. And it's not just the technical note. And in this sense, I feel like wine criticism has changed a little bit from the time that Bob started because he was quite interested in the technical tasting and the score. But now the storytelling has become so important to communicating wine. And then when you're in front of the glass, you know, you are obviously looking for the classic. You're looking at the wine's appearance. Most of the note in the end, revolves around aromas and how the wine peers to your olfactory. So you're looking at primary fruit, you're looking at, you know, how how intense that fruit is, how how clear it is, how beautiful it is, And then you're looking for the secondary aromas, which are connected to the aging of the wine. So you might get spice from, oak barrel, or maybe you get kind of even earthy notes. It might come from a lot of people are using terracotta now and other, aging vessels. And then you're also looking at the tertiary notes, which are the aromas that come with wine as it ages in time, and those tend to be quite delicate and beautiful and complex and go into licorice and tar and smoke. So as the wine evolves in the bottle, all of these other nuances start to come out, And you have to do it's a lot of guess work, obviously, because you want to look at, at the potential of line. So you even Robert Parker, he he taught us when, you know, when when when I worked with him is that a hundred point wine, so a wine that gets the perfect score is a wine that will taste better in time. It's a wine that will improve with time. So you're giving a score to something that you don't even really see yet because you're so confident because of the tan, it's because of the acidity, because of the brightness and, you know, clarity of aromas that you can bet on that wine to become even more beautiful with aging. And there you have a perfect wine. There you start to feel, okay, this is a wine that I can get behind, and give a perfect score to. And it's a very difficult thing because, again, you know, wine scoring is probably ninety five percent the technique because you're looking for, as I said, those characteristics of the wine, and then there's a small element of five percent or ten percent that's just emotion. And you just know it when you feel it. I mean, it's, you know, I I literally feel when you're in front of a wine that excites you so much. It's as if, you know, those clouds overroam part and the sun beans come down, and the angel starts singing, and you think, oh my god. This is just a wine that blows me away. And I am now, you know, endowed with this strength, this courage, and this confidence to say, I'm gonna say this is a hundred point wine. So it's kind of an emotional process, really. It, you know, it happens quite rarely. And, and when you have that feeling, that this wine has met all of your expectations and given you that emotion and you feel like it it could become even better with time. That's when you think, okay. I'm gonna do it. That's that's such a fascinating insight into this whole process of of of tasting. And I'm just love that that you still have this fairly high proportion of emotion and how a wine feels because wine is such a a sensuous experience. And, it has to be not completely an objective, evaluation. So I I really, love to hear how you sometimes just feel a wine. Absolutely. It also has to it has to stimulate, you know, you intellectually. And and that's where we tie back into the concept of Italian wine, and how much there is to learn, you know, how much more we have in front of us to understand about Italian wine. I mean, one thing that I I like to say is that Italian wine represents a beginning. You know, it's it is all of that genetic material. All of these grapes, we don't even really know yet what we have. We don't even know the potential because many of these grapes have not benefited from the research and the attention that say the noble grapes of France like Merlo and Cabernet sauvignon or chardonnay have had because those grapes have been tested over time and we know what their potential is. We know how great those grapes can be, but with many, many hundreds dozens of Italian grapes, we have no idea. And maybe many of them will not yield great results. A lot of them are very particular, but maybe in that huge, mess of genetic material, we have what we need to go forward in time. And and and and that's why I say a Time wine in a sense is a beginning. We we don't even know yet what what we have in front of us. Well, that's really fascinating because Italy is one of the, of course, one of the oldest and most ancient wine producing countries in the world. But at the same time, it's an exciting. It's almost like a new world country with regions such as Aetna, only in the last two decades, really coming on to the world stage or the Campi Flegre or so many areas that, are ancient, have had vines growing for literally centuries and millennia, but what you're being discovered now. That must be incredibly exciting for you. Oh, absolutely. I mean, those are two regions. The two regions you just mentioned are have been they've given me a lot of passion this year. Aetna is I feel very, proud of the work that, I've been able to do on Aetna because I've been going there for so long. And I've I've watched I mean, I it's really the one region I can say I've watched it grow from the beginning, you know, this kind of, the symbolic, proverbial volcano, right, that's exploding with the popularity of its vines. And and I and I'm even more excited that Aetna is not just the, you know, a discovery or or new wine region. There are new discoveries within Aetna. For example, now there's a lot of work being done on the Carigante grade Yes. Which is showing amazing results. So, you know, you think, alright, maybe I approach Aetna as a red wine region, but now we're beginning to think Hey, wait. We have amazing, beautiful white wines coming from Aetna that are showing the capacity to age and some Rosets that are absolutely delightful. Of course, they all reflect that salinity, that mineral tone that Aetna offers And it just works so beautifully with all the foods and fish and the lighter fare that we want to eat today because, you know, I mean, we we had, this summer, we we experienced five months of extreme heat. So I feel that people didn't really wanna drink red wines as much, you know, for half the year. And we wanna light we wanna eat lighter fare and and, you know, more fresh foods from local farms with more vegetables. And so, there's a pretty exciting new chapter for Italian white wines that we are just beginning to really see that this is gonna be, I think there's a lot of potential potential there. And again, you know, talking about Italy as a beginning, with this, with this genetic patrimony that that is there, it ties into the idea of climate change because within these grapes, there are the grapes that might withstand more humidity or are more drought resistant or, you know, have have the elements, the thicker skins, or the relationship between the pope and the skins and the stems, and all of these little factors that maybe as we go forward, we will find grapes better match the territory in the context of a changing climate. Yeah. I think that's a really important point, especially with these last few summers that have really emphasized again and again. If you're involved in the world of wine, you can't doubt that this is happening and happening very quickly. Yes. This was a this this summer was everybody was talking about it, and it feels like we've had, you know, a couple of years of maybe increased number of hailstorms in But although we've had record heat in Sicily. We've had these frost events in on the coastal Tuscany. We've had, you know, drought and dry soils, and we've had, you know, an increase of certain diseases in the vineyards because the vineyards become more vulnerable when they're stressed by by the climate. So we've definitely this summer was pretty much, a flashing warning sign that we have to be really careful. Yes. Absolutely. Now, Monica, you talked about the joy of traveling around Italy in your red car going to vineyards, mating producers. And I'm imagining, although with six appointments a day, it's rather difficult. I'm imagining long wonderful lunches with lots of wines and conversation and sunshine. Italian wine and Italian food are so linked together, more so perhaps in other wine producing countries. Is that important for you when you're assessing wines, how the wines naturally pair with foods that wines in Italy more than anywhere has to be food for the Italians drink wine with food. Absolutely. And in fact, another part of my style, let's say, of of wine writing, is that as often as possible, I try to put in a food pairing suggestion in the review. So I'll say something like you know, this tuscan red has the volume and the density and the concentration plus the freshness to pair across something like, you know, a with a wild boar sauce or you know, something that kind of gives the idea of the taste of that wine, because because even people that don't know wine as well, they know what, you know, the what those savory flavors and what, you know, how the mouth reacts when it has. Pasta, the softness of it, and you need something with acidity to counter that. Oh, cheese, grade. I mean, all these little elements are all kind of part of how we interpret, you know, our our taste and and how we put it all together. So I I like to talk about wine very much in context with the food, and Italy, of course, is just natural stomping grounds for this because there's an endless supply of amazing dishes to talk about. And on a personal level, of course, I that's one of the things that attracts me most Italy. I love to cook. I love to pair wine. I love to have, you know, big tables set. I'm just crazy about the whole culture that surrounds the table from as I said, from the from the settings to the dishes, to the time spent, to making sure that, you know, the progression of pairings is is equally matched to what the dishes are and ending within, like, a nice dessert wine or whatever. Yes. When I'm but but I will say that when I'm on the road for work, those long proverbial long lunches are few and far between because, Yes. At last. At last. Exactly. You have to really concentrate rate on the work and not get tired in the afternoon if you have another three visits I left. Absolutely. Yes. Now Monica, I, I guess in twenty years ago when you began doing this, work, the main classic quality Italian wine regions were Barolo, Barbara, and Tuscany, that bulgari coming in, with Bernelo and Campi. It into these change, and you've been you've been keen to champion other regions, that we've discussed a few. Can you tell us perhaps where you think the next really exciting. Discovery will be. Yes. So I this is a question I get asked a lot. And I I feel that the best way to answer that is that, the next exciting regions of Italian wine will be inside the regions. And by that, I mean, that Italy is doing an incredible job of mapping out its smaller micro zones and micro territories. So, for example, if you take Chanti Glassico, they have now, they the denominations, the appalachian now works according to village. So you might have wines from Yes. And each one of those villages within the Greater County Casico app Appalachian now is really beginning to show its own special characteristics, and it's our job as wine writers and his consumers to begin to really understand that nuance there. So I think that the the exciting new territories of a time line to to discover are the the micro zones within the larger terrier territories. So if you look at Canti Glass or if you look at Sicily, they've also done a very good job of, you know, of parsing up the the island according to grape and territory and microclimate. So now you don't just talk about a Cillion wine is a big umbrella. You would talk you talk about Aetna. You talk about Noto. You talk about Memphis. You talk about, you know, the areas outside of Pallemo. So, I mean, every region of Italian wine is becoming, you know, there's a micro scope that's we're beginning to focus in on the micro territories. Or, Campania, you mentioned the Campis Lelegre. You have Benavento, you have the Salerno. You have Erpina. In each one of those in Campania is its own unique expression. And you can apply that to basically any Italian territory. And I think that's where the exciting work is now is in trying to bring out the character of each one of those tiny terriers territories within the larger territories choice. Yes. That's absolutely fascinating. And and it adds a whole another tier of enjoyment to the wine lover. Mhmm. And understanding. And again Yeah. It it goes right back to what we were saying at the beginning is that that biodiversity reflects either through the voice, the varietal voice, that that that sense of place, that, you know, that, spirit of plates, the genius logi of, of, of, of Italian wine. Final question, Monica. After a hard day's tasting wines, what do you do to relax in the evening? I imagine that you pour yourself a nice glass of wine. I do, actually. So it's not I mean, sometimes people say, oh, do you drink beer at the end of the day? No. No. Usually, what I do is I take my favorite bottle from the from the days tasting, and I bring it up to my kitchen when I start cooking. And I think, oh, they're gonna go back and take a look at this, you know, and enjoy it. Yeah. So I I have never even after a hard day of of tasting, I still enjoy a glass of wine at the end of the day. It actually is a beautiful way to end the day of tasting. Well, Monica, it's been a real pleasure meeting you talking with you this morning and learning about your life. And you've given us huge amount of insight into how to discover and enjoy Italian wines. You're doing this professionally, but I can tell as well that this is a personal passion and you're enjoying every minute of it. So it's been great to to meet you and speak with you. And I hope we can actually meet over a glass of wine sometime soon. Oh, that would be great. Mark, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to speak with you. Thanks, Monica. Bye for now. Bye. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of wine, food, and travel. With me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. Please remember to like, share, and subscribe right here, or wherever you get your paws. Likewise, you can visit us at italian wine podcast dot com. Until next time.