July 10, 2024 • 50 mins
Many Americans dream of moving to Europe. Cynthia Chaplin did it in 1990, living in Spain, Belgium and ultimately Italy, her home since 2012, where she has built a career as an Italian wine specialist. She is a Vinitaly International Academy Certified Italian Wine Ambassador, a professional Sommelier with Fondazione Italiana Sommelier and the Worldwide Sommelier Association and a sought-after educator and writer. Chaplin hosts the Italian Wine Podcast's VOICES covering DEI in the industry.
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to theConnected Table Live. We're your hosts,
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Melanie Young and David Ransom. You'reinsatiably curious culinary couple. We love to
bring you the dynamic people who workfront and center and behind the scenes and
wine, food, spirits and hospitalityaround the world through conversation. Because people
are so busy text these days andwriting cryptic notes. What happened to the
(01:03):
art of conversation. Well, we'rehere to really embrace it, right David,
Yes we are, and we're goingto have a wonderful conversation today with
somebody who we actually met last yearin Italy. When you're attending the Wine
to Wine conference which was put onby Viona Fierre and that whole team in
Verona. Well, I've actually knownher longer because she actually interviewed me for
the Italian Wine Podcast. But beforewe officially introducer, we started this series
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kind of called Behind the Bylines,and it's about having words with journalists because
journalists usually are writing in objective waysand it's more about the story and them.
But we decided to flip the mirrorand let them talk and you get
to know the people who are writing. And we do that because we're writers.
It's a tough business to be in. You have to wear many hats,
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which leads me to today's guests,who joins us from Italy. As
you said, we last saw herat Wine to Wine. Shew Me interviewed
me for the Italian Wine Podcast.We're speaking today with Cynthia Chaplain. Cynthia
is the dream of being an Americanliving in Italy pursuing her life there.
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She is a an Italy International Academycertified Italian Wine Ambastador. We're going to
ask her what that means. Sheis a professional somlea. She hosts podcasts
on the Italian Wine Podcast. Sheis a journalist and educator. Like most
writers, she has to wear manyhats as consulting, a lot of hyphens
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to support yourself as a writer,and she's doing it all very well.
She's been in the business for twentyyears. I think she's been in Italy
for about twenty years, from movingfrom the United States, which we're going
to get into. Great that she'sjoining us and you're joining us today,
Cynthia Chaplin, Welcome to the ConnectedTable. Hi Melanie, Hi David.
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Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for such a warm
introduction, very kind words. Well, it's you kind of live in the
dream. A lot of people wantto know how does she do it?
We want to know, which iswhere we're going to start. First of
all, you are an American,are you still? And so where were
you born and raised? I meanyou do you have dual citizenship? I
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was born in Ohio, so notexactly the center of wine production or wine
consumption back when I was a child. But no, I don't have dual
citizenship. I do have a Britishhusband, so I have indefinite right to
remain in the UK, which soundsvery important. I don't think it really
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is. But it's one of thosehot topics at the moment, given the
geopolitics of the world. I've beenin Italy now for a sum total of
over fifteen years, so I amentitled to Italian citizenship and it's on my
radar. So we'll see how itgoes. Wow, you're kind of like
(03:59):
Elizabeth Gabbet who's got US citizenship,born and raised but lives of France,
lived in England, has a Britishaccent. Yeah. Similar, And I
talk about this whenever we meet eachother. What the tangled web we weave?
You could still vote the United States, which helps. So yeah,
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Ohio, you're right. Although they'remaking wine in Ohio. May Mcgawaian never
units and there are a lot ofgrapes grown in Ohio. Yeah yeah,
and some very old grapes as amatter of fact, the grape production regions
in the country. Yeah. Sowhat was family like like in Ohi?
I've never been to Ohio with you, I have, Okay, what was
family life in Ohio? Were youin a big city like Cleveland or were
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you in a little bitty place.I was in a town just outside of
Cleveland, a place called Shaker Heights, so very historic where the Shakers were
back in the day. My mother'sfamily had been there for a couple of
generations. Very nice little town togrow up in, had a very very
nice childhood in a very nice localschool. Unfortunately, it was just one
(05:09):
of those places where my mother usedto stay in front of me. Oh,
the stork brought you to the wrongnest. I used to steal travel
magazines from the dentist office and makescrap books about places where I wanted to
go. So Ohio was not mydestiny. So it was my beginning.
I'm very pleased about that, butit was not my destiny. My children
(05:30):
tend to say that everybody is fromOhio, but nobody lives there anymore.
So well, Paul Newman was fromOhio. He was from Shaker Heights,
Yes, shag Heights. In myhigh school yearbook library. That's how my
friend Wendy Diamond, who does women'sentrepreneurship days from Shagar Heights. We know
(05:53):
two people from Shagar Heights, oneliving, one debt and now you and
now me. Exactly. Yeah,it's like Scars. It's like a nice
something like that, kind of likethe Scars sale of which is near where
I grew with. So was fooda part of your upbring? In a
roundabout way. It's funny because mymother was not what anyone, including herself
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would call a very great cook.So my brother and I were both latchkey
kids and we spent a lot oftime cooking together when we were growing up.
My brother now owns and runs arestaurant in Sarasota. He's a great
chef, and I am in thewine and gastronomy world. So my mother's
lack of cooking skill actually gave usour careers, which is nice. But
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food wasn't a big focus in ourhousehold at all. My favorite food memories
as a child were, you know, my father burning things on the grill.
That's about it. So how didyou get into food? You know,
it's interesting. My mother didn't liketo cook. She liked to make
reservations and baked cake, but notcooked meal. So we had a lot
of sweets and a lot of gooddining trips out. How did you know?
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First of all, where did youend up going to study college and
university? And what were your initialcareer goals? Well, I wanted to
be an architect, so I wentto university in Connecticut. My goal was
to be at least five hundred milesaway from Ohio. So that was that
I wanted a big change and Igot it, and that's where I That's
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where I found out about food.There was so much more food out there
than I knew about in Ohio.I grew up in the sixties and seventies,
so you know, there wasn't alot of culinary expertise taking place in
Ohio in those days, especially notin my house. So when I got
to Connecticut, I did find allsorts of things, you know, different
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cultural foods. I love Mexican food, I love Indian food and Thaie food,
and I had never seen any ofthose things before. So I had
a great time experimenting and experiencing things. And wine. I discovered wine.
I joined a dining club when Iwas at university because the cafeteria food was
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so bad. And once a monthwe would have a formal dinner and there'd
be some speaker and everybody put adress on and they would have wine.
And it was just so fascinating tome to have a red and a white
wine. And I'd play around withwhatever I was eating on my plate and
nobody knew anything about it. No, the chef at the club didn't know
anything about it. No, noneof my friends did either. So I
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started taking classes and I got hooked. I think that's a great kind of
way that some of many people getintroduced to wine when they leave home and
they go into a more sophisticated area. Where were you studying architecture? I
started up at Trinity in Hertford,Connecticut, and unfortunately, back in those
days, architecture wasn't the most inclusiveor welcoming to women. So I was
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one of three women in the basementof the compute lab remember those old computer
labs with a gigantic computer, youknow, a huge mainframe thing. And
it was a room full of guyswith an old male professor. And after
the first semester, I thought,no, I'm not going to spend four
years in a basement. It's nothappening. So I changed to English and
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psychology. I regretted to this day, I have to say, but it
was much more fun. Yeah.I always wanted to marry an architect,
but that didn't happen. But anyway, I didn't I have a great respect
for architects, Okay, but wehave you know, still I still want
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a prize. So so you gotinterested in wine and change career and change
your major. When you went throughthat, what made you decide that you
wanted to be in the wine business? What was that jump that, what
was that first impression that you justneeded to have. It's one of those
weird things. I graduated, Imoved to New York, which was,
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you know, the epitome of successwhen you're a little girl growing up in
Ohio. You go to college andyou get a job in New York.
So I did that, and Iwent to more wine tastings and things like
that and got more and more interested. But I didn't know there was a
career in wine. I didn't wantto be, you know, a palm
on the floor. That was theonly thing I thought you could do.
If somebody had told me back thenthat there were many things you could do
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in wine, I think my lifewould be quite different. But I carried
on doing my job. I wasn'tpublishing. I worked for mcgra hill,
and I moved to Boston, andthen I moved to London, and a
very nice older mentor in London tookme out for dinner one night and ordered
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wine, and it was the mostincredible wine I had ever ever had,
had never had anything like it,And of course it turned out to be
a shabbily and I was shocked becausethe only thing I knew about chardonnay was
big oaki butter California shardony. Youknow, this must have been about,
I don't know, nineteen eighty eight, something like that. So it blew
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my mind that this one grape coulddo all these different things. And that
was it for me. So Igot very very interested, and got married
and had four little girls, andwine was my happy place. Started creating
events for people, started getting certifiedmyself, and just got really you know,
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I hate to use the word addicted, but seduced might be better.
So yeah, a lot of peoplefollow that route and have a wine mentor.
Was your mentor in the wine businessor was he in the publishing business?
Not at all. He was acharming older Englishman, not in the
wine business, but he was awine connoisseur, a wine lover, and
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he was very very old school,you know, there was wonderful. This
is probably why I have English husband, you know, gorgeous old English manners.
And he knew a lot about Frenchwine and it was incredibly helpful.
He was very kind to me,mentored me, you know, sort of
directed me towards what wines I shouldtry, and it changed everything for me.
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You know, everybody should have somebodythat I was blessed. My father
was that well mannered southern gentleman whowas in the wine and that kind of
steered me. But I fell intowine, and I didn't know you could
have a career in either. ButI had a career in public relations and
it started in restaurants and hotels andfood. Gee, wine it's part of
restaurants, and then suddenly it justbigger and bigger. Right, Yeah,
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I was in publishing. I ama writer by nature. I've always been
a writer since I was small,and I started writing about wine and you
know, my friends would ask mefor my tasting notes and it sort of
spiraled on from there. So,yeah, it had no idea there was
there were other careers in wine,but there are infinite ones. Really.
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You know, we're going to talkabout that, but before we because I'm
curious where it's all going, becauseit is hard to make a living as
a wine writer. But you havebut you have a lot of certifications.
Let's talk about that, because you, as we said, are an Italian
wine ambasbassador through in Italy. Let'stalk a little little bit about the process
of that and also your thoughts onthe importance of having certifications, which ones
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really matter because everybody is selling themnow of course. Well, it's it's
interesting because you know my podcast voices, I talk about diversity and equity and
inclusion in wine, and I ama wine educator. I'm an educator for
w SET, I teach Italian winecourses. I'm a professor of Italian wine.
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And it's it's interesting. When Iwas getting certified, you had to
no one would take you seriously unlessyou did. And the fact that I
was a young foreign women in Europemade it even harder. So I had
to have that nouse behind me,and I found it fascinating. I love
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learning, I like studying. I'ma nerd, so I had no problem
with that. But as time wentby, I have a love hate relationship
with wine certification. It's very expensive. As you said, everybody's charging everybody's
charging a lot of money, andthat keeps a lot of people out,
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which is you know, unfortunate tosay the least and really horrible if you
want to talk about it. Honestly, wine certification. Most of them were
started by you know, let's behonest, you know, big old white
guys in London or Paris who neverthought about having women or people of color
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involved and never really wanted to talkabout anything except European wines. And all
of that has changed. Everything haschanged. As you said, there's wine
growing in Ohio who knew. Butback when those classes and those certifications were
started and formed, that wasn't thecase. So a lot of them are
out of date. And despite thebest efforts of people like Michelle Brampton,
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who I have a huge amount ofrespect for at WST, it's slow to
change these things and to incorporate what'shappening around the world, not only with
New World wines and climate change andyou know, pee wee grapes and things
like this, but also with thepeople who are in the wine industry.
People don't speak that wine language.Most people in the world don't speak French
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anymore. A lot of people don'tknow what many of these terms mean.
So yeah, wine certification, it'sinteresting. I'm in the middle of developing
an educational platform about Italian wines.And we're looking to be a lot more
modern to do smaller byte online coursesthat aren't in person, that take you
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know, ten lessons instead of twoyears worth of lessons, that don't cost
the earth, where you don't haveto be in person. So you know,
trying to capture you know, anew audience in the wine education world.
We're using gamification, We're trying touse generationally appropriate learning methods. We're
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changing up language. Not everybody learnsby reading a book, so lots of
videos, podcasts, all sorts ofthings like that, interactive things. It's
changed so much, you know yourself, you know, since I got into
educating others or even myself, gosh, going back, you know, twenty
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five years ago, everything has changed. So if we don't move forward with
that, wine certifications are going tobe meaningless, and I think I think
that's where we are. You needthem if you want to be taken seriously.
How many you need is debatable.Which one carry more weight nowadays is
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also debatable, But nobody can denythat the most important wine certifications are too
expensive and too exclusive, and theyjust take forever, yeah, to become
a master's of wine takes a longtime, and it's six figures HD.
You know, well, I andvery and it's difficult to afford that,
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especially as a wine writer, rightand it is. I do feel I
feel like every company, like alot of the big companies, are paying
for their staff, their salespeople,their brand ambassadors to get certification of some
kind. I mean, one ofthe easiest ones that I did was the
Society of Wine Educators Certified Specials Wine. A. It was affordable, B,
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it was a certain amount of timeI could do. It was online.
J Nichols did a great job.I learned. You know, my
greatest education is in the vineyard,talking to the talking to the producers,
and going on press trips. Butthis was a great educational tool for me.
And I found the flash cards andmaps because I like to learn visually.
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The flash cards and maps would appealto a younger audience, appealed to
me with you know, short attentionspan versus a heavy textbook. And I
just supplemented everything I did by goingout and buying wines for the different region
and country that I was suting atthe time and doing my own tasting because
it was not a tasting element toit that's the next level up. But
I found it very helpful just tohave that. I find that to be
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taken seriously as a writer or asa brand ambassador or a salesperson. And
even I'm noticing a lot of initialsbehind public relations executives. It's becoming something
that is necessary. Although some ofthe great educators that we know don't have
certifications at all, exactly exactly,and it's you know, as you said,
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you know, you did one ofthe courses that is not like prohibitively
expensive, although it still has athought. You supplemented yourself, you know,
with your own learning tools that youhad to buy, including wine.
So if we want to get weall know the numbers. We've all seen
the data. You know, genz are not drinking wine. So if
we want to carry the wine industryforward into the future, we have to
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nab these people's attention. And youknow, they haven't got a lot of
disposable income. We've just come throughthe pandemic. We have to figure out
a way that we can bring thisto them in a way that's attractive first
of all, and affordable and exciting. So yeah, the onus is on
us, for sure. It's achallenge for a couple of reasons. Money
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is tight. It's also tight whenyou get older, so we feel the
pain. And we are with friendsthis past weekend we were talking about winestir
Q and A quality, you know, quality and affordable the Q and A
wines. One of the problems we'reseeing, besides a lot of just mishmash
negative reporting on the gloom, thegloom and doom of the industry and not
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looking at the glass half full.Just the glass half empty is what I
called. Last night. Somebody sentus a sample and I feel like generification
is a bummer and wine to makethese Q and A wines waffable, paffable,
not quality, quaffable and affordable.They're also generic tasting and it's like
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we accept the samples and we wereexcited. We do give it our best
shot, and it's like, there'sno Tarwan with wine. It could be
just made anywhere. And those arethe gateway wines that are being offered to
a lot of younger people because they'recoaffable and affordable supermarket shelves exactly. And
I think, you know again,this is where this is when I love
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wine education again, because you know, we need to be getting a message
out there in a way that attractsyoung people that doesn't involve a classroom for
six years and spending fifty thousand dollars, and we should be training, you
know, are on trade people.There's Berkman Sellers in the UK. They
have a wonderful training program called Barisonand it's in three parts called Roots,
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Shoots and Fruits, which I thinkis fantastic. And their goal is to
train you know, gen z ontrade people and let them see this is
a career. It's not just astopgap job. This is something you can
really get involved in. It's notthat young people don't like wine, it's
just that they they don't they haven'tbeen given any reason to look into it
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really. You know, I havesix children, my four daughters and my
two step sons, and they rangebetween the age of twenty four and thirty
two. So there's all different littlegens in there. And they love to
come to my house because you know, the wine at mama's house is free
and good quality. But they allsay that when they're not home, you
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know, a cocktail will appeal morebecause what's behind the bar by the glass
is boring. So we need todo a better job. Well, I
think I think you can hit thenail on the head there. There's hey,
there's also a lot. There area lot more choices now, I
think, a lot more quality choicesthan there used to be with cocktails and
spirits and beer and sea drinks herein the US. You know, things
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like that. Packaging is playing apart too. There's a lot of stuff
in cans and portable and all thosethings. And I live in Italy and
if you say canned wine, peopleslap you. I mean, it is
just not useful. So it's justvery short sighted. It's very short sighted.
We need to understand what this newmarket is looking for. If we
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get them hooked on wine now,they will eventually like finer wines. But
if we miss them now we're done. You know, I love that about
the fact that they'll slap you withabout if you bring up canned wine.
Yet they're happy to go take theirjug to the local co op and fill
it up with cooking one. Oh. Now that's binos fuzo, completely different,
very traditional, exactly. We loveit. We love Italy and we
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love Italian wines, and you knowit's Europe is one of the greatest places
to really understand terrooin, which I'mfeel like we're losing here in the United
States. Sorry, but we're justgetting such bad samples to us. It's
depressing. Something going on to Italy. I was trying to come up with
the term for it. I createmy own terms. But it's like over
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segmentation. You know, we sawa frontier court. Everybody's trying to create
the model like Burgundy, and suddenlythey're you know, the Uggas, They're
all initials, whether it's in Tuscanywhat not. But does it really matter
to the consumer. I know it'sit's it's all to sell wine and maybe
wake up Italy and what we callI consider resuscitate regions and give them a
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new, fresh, new look.But does that really matter? It's interesting.
I think what we see is,as you said, the Uggas,
the Muggas, the contradas on ETNA, and they are looking to that Burgundy
model in some ways, I think, specifically to combat what you were bemoaning
a minute ago. They're trying toreally attach their wines to their terrawir.
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So I'm a fan of this.I think it's important for Italy because otherwise
you end up with a lot ofas David said, the Venospoozo where you
take your glass jug and fill itup to be fair. There's a lot
of places where you can do thatand it's fairly decent quality. So that
is a that is a tradition inItaly. But I think this segmentation,
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particularly in places like Etna, whichare sort of emerging, is going to
lend itself to premium I know,premiumization of some of these wines that are
emerging, whereas at the moment there'snot enough regulation. There's just at the
DOC. So there will be,there will be more, but for now
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to be able to pinpoint. Youknow, my contrata is on the north
side of the volcano, mine ison the southeast side. Suddenly you do
start to get this tearwar. Thesame thing's happening in Barolo, the same
things happening in Chianti. And Italyis a place full of so many different
soils and geologies that I do thinkthis segment you know, what you're calling
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segmentation is based on a desire forconnecting a wine with its tear war,
and that I think is useful.We are terrible in Italy terrible at labeling.
You know. We everybody says,oh, I love I love Barolo.
I love Barolo, and I say, well you should drink maybe a
(25:52):
lot, you know from Lynge.I don't know what that is. Well,
it's the same thing. So youknow, we need to be a
lot more transparent on our labels fora global market, you know, explaining
what the grapes are and where they'refrom. And I think this segmentation will
help with that. So I'm afan of it. To be fair,
well, we think it's interesting.It just needs to be executed better because
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it is, you know, identifyingthat important sense of place, and especially
like Etna was a great example ofit. The North South Eave. It's
different and the contrattos were great,but it has to be explained better because
I know Blake Gray who's been onthe show, he just really you know,
Razzed Franchi Corda, like do youreally need over one hundred little and
it's it's almost similar to in California. You've got all the ava's, this
(26:37):
is the Alexander Valley, this isthe Russian River Valley, and they it's
very well explained out there in California, even though we and they thrive on
it. Yeah, and that's theway they do it in California. We
get and it could be done better. It's a communications thing and also the
same it's not just Italy Spain,the same thing. Really explaining the Reoja
(27:00):
ala Vesa and Rea Alta and reallygetting it more in depth. Well,
it is important. I'm laughing becausehello Italy, this is we're looking at
people who are trying to do avery serious scientific mapping. Thank god for
Alessandro Masnaghetti with his very scientific map. But this is still a country that
(27:23):
is run by committee, usually dysfunctionalcommittees. Recently it's been in the news.
There's been you know, six majorplayers in the Consortium of Ultrapo Pavesi
all resigned because they don't like what'sgoing on. So this is Italy.
Italy is smaller in size than California. Don't forget that. So we've got
(27:47):
people who've been making wine for youknow, seven thousand years, and they're
still duking it out over you know, what the rules should be and what
the rules shouldn't be in all ofthese sorts of things. I personally think
we are seeing I mean I amseeing a change from the old guard to
the new guard. There are alot of young family members taking over old
(28:10):
family businesses. There's a lot ofinnovation, particularly in places like ETNA that
have notoriously never had any money andnow have some investment. Angela Guaya's doing
a project there with with Alberto Bracci. You know, things aren't happening and
changing. So yeah, it's isit? Is it clear? Is it
(28:32):
explained? I mean if you lookat the little pyramid of DOCG and Doc
and you know Vino di Tavola,that's not clear to most people. And
we've had that for almost one hundredyears. So it'll be very interesting to
see where they go. And Isuspect the new players, the younger players,
are going to have a big voicein making this process much clearer.
(28:59):
Well, especially to Americans, becauseyou know the American who's maybe group having
more California wine, maybe they're luckyin New York wine, et cetera.
Then they get terms like classical superiorityand they're like, well, what does
that mean? It's better grand reserve. These are terms that are just confusing
to many Americans. That's the funnything. This is the one thing I
(29:21):
do like about being a wine educatorbecause I do get to explain these things.
But yeah, it is it's completelyconfusing. I always say in Italy
you're not allowed to put classico orsuperior area on your label just because it
sounds fancy. There's a legal definitionto that, but people don't understand that.
So it's there are levels and levelsof information, and it's I think
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everyone decides for themselves how much informationthey want. You know, if I
decide that I like gree Low fromSicily, I'm probably not going to care
all that much about whether it's superiorityor classico or where it's from. I
know I like Relow, I knowit's from Sicily. I'm good here.
So other people like me, thenerdy people want to know this stuff.
So we have to find a goodbalance, right, because we don't want
(30:11):
wine to be nerdy to the commonconsumer who just we just really want them
to try that for you, right, We want them to try the wine
and not you know, we wereat a wine tasting here in New Orleans.
It was for a German and Austrianproducers who are actually in New Orleans.
Yeah, I would like to seemore Italian producers come here, and
it was an interesting audience. Theywere all in their six seesson older.
It was like their Friday night thingto do. That was interesting. And
(30:36):
once again I don't like sheardon.There was a chardenay. I don't like
most chardinay. It's just so oaky. And here we go again with the
chardonnay saga. And of course thiswas simply not that, but it's it's
just you got to start with stoppingthe misperceptions out there, Yeah, and
then changing that it's just right ona bottle of chardonnay unoaped. How hard
(31:00):
is that? That would be reallyeasy. Yeah, yeah, that would
be one way to do it.You know, I want to switch gears
a little bit and talk about youknow, you're a wine writer, you're
an educator. There's a lot ofwine writers in this industry now, and
a lot of them are finding atough to make a living at it and
are forced to do other things.What advice do you have for people?
(31:26):
Younger people? I mean, becausewe've been doing it for a long time
and we've kind of found our nicheright who are striking out and thinking that
they can do this for a living. Yeah, that's a tough one.
That's a really tough one. Iwould say anybody who wants to be a
wine writer, don't give up yourday job. Most of the writing that
(31:47):
I do in the world of wineis because of my passions. That is
the thing I get paid the leastfor and probably thing that I like the
most. So. But as yousaid, you know, we are older
and experienced and have worn many hats. As Melanie said, I and I
do. You know. I havea lot of young students who say what
(32:07):
should I do? And I alwayssay, if you really want to write
about wine, do that, youknow, start a blog, do something,
but don't expect that to pay yourbills anytime in the near future.
If ever, And as you weresaying before, you know, tasting wine
is incredibly important. Can't be youknow, it cannot be diminished at all.
(32:30):
So young people who come to me, I say, taste whatever you
can. You know, if youyou know, get a part time job
and bottle shop and whatever is open, taste it. You know, whether
you like that country or that grapeor that wine or whatever. Taste as
much as you can, get asmuch under your belt as you can.
Talk to people, travel if youcan, and not everyone can. You
(32:54):
know, just remember that there arelots of things you can do in wine
to get yourself out there. Theone thing that is very troubling for me
and I know for a lot ofother people too, and we sort of
talked about it before we started recordingis wine influencers and AI. So we've
(33:15):
all seen all of us seasoned winewriters who spent years, you know,
sharpening our pencils. You know.Now you go on Instagram and there's a
person in an itty bitty swimsuit holdingup a glass of wine and they are
a wine expert and they are awine influencer and they don't know anything really
(33:37):
at all. And I find thatterrifying because people will follow those people drink
with Those people are drinking often it'snot very good and won't learn anything.
The other side of this coin isnow with things like chat GBT, anyone
can say, write me an articleabout you know, verdicio, and within
(33:58):
seconds you have a three page articleabout Verdicio and you know, you sign
your name to and you publish it. You don't know if it was correct
or not. And that's dangerous too. It's dangerous for our industry. So
yeah, being a wine writer isn'tgoing to pay your bills, my friends,
But that's not the reason to giveup it. If it's something you
love doing, keep doing it andpeople will get accustomed to your style.
(34:23):
And I have a lot of peoplewho've been following my writing for fifteen years.
As I said, I'm not gettingrich and famous off of this,
but I've come to know very verynice people, and I've been able to
educate people because they like what Iwrite. So yeah, it's more of
a passion project. It's not amoney maker. My advice would be,
(34:46):
just as you said, get aday job, get get a solid My
advice to everybody right now is geta job that everybody needs you to do,
like become a CPA or account dosomething that everybody needs you to do,
no matter what. Because I'm readinga book now by a CPA who
writes about wine and food on theside, and he just wrote a great
book. Okay, but he's aCPA. Uh. Get a part time
(35:07):
job in a bottle shop or arestaurant if you have the stamina. A
bottle shop is a great one.If you really want to work full time,
go into public relations because they'll hireanybody as long as you can,
as long as you're fearless, andyou could write a little bit. These
days, you can get a jobin public relations because everybody needs somebody right
(35:29):
now, or sales. I telleveryone to become a cooper, become a
bear because it's a dying art andwe need barrel makers and they're they're always
going to have a job. Yeah, or get into the science of it.
To address chat gpt as before thewe started speaking, I was telling
(35:50):
Cynthia that, you know, Iwas inspired by the Wine to Wine conference
that we attended last year. Therewas a standing room only seven are but
I think we're genally on AI andI was I was like, my eyeballs
are out. Everybody else's in whatAI was doing, and I understand that
the Wine to Wine conference this yearwill be all AI in twenty twenty four,
(36:13):
and I'm hoping we can go.It is very important and it is
actually an industry to look into.But beware but with with ethics, because
I actually did an assignment on AIin the industry and it was really hard
to pinpoint something that made me happyto write about. And just for fun,
I actually asked chat Gpt to writethe article for me just to see
(36:35):
what it came out as, andit was scary how good it was.
I also asked chat gpt to doa wine marketing plan for a startup brand.
It was really really good. Ireceived a press. I received an
article in my inbox this week byan AI company in wine that I actually
interviewed. And that article was almostentical to the one I asked chat gp
(37:01):
chat gpt to write me about AIin the industry. It was like,
clearly AI written. It was reallyscary. There was AI written and I
could tell exactly and I think,well, Wine to Wine Business Forum is
one of my favorite events of theyear. As you said in Verona,
I'm biased because I've worked with themfor three years, but I went to
(37:23):
it before I worked for them,so I can clearly say that I loved
it anyway, And this year itwill be interesting, a lot of interesting
people and Felicity Carter is going tospeak, probably Robert Joseph, I'm not
sure who else. But there willbe a lot of breakout rooms. There
are going to be less big sessionsand a lot of breakout rooms for smaller
(37:43):
conversations because I think this is atopic where people really have a lot of
input their own experiences, Like youjust said, Melanie, and I've done
similar things just to see if whatchat GBT wrote was as you know,
quote unquote good as what I hadwritten, sometimes scarily and certainly a lot
faster. But I think having theforum the way it will be this year,
(38:07):
with a lot of small discussion groupsand a few big sessions, is
going to be very interesting. AndI know we'll be looking at AI from
all different points of view, howit works in a vineyard, how it
works in a cellar, how itdoes or doesn't work in the world of
wine writing, wine education. It'svery important in wine education. The one
thing that AI can't do is tastewine. So I don't think we have
(38:30):
to worry about, you know,wine notes being pushed to one side,
although there's already been a lot ofyou know, problems with with people stealing
other people's wine notes before we evenhad AI. So it's it's a topic
that has to be looked into,and you know, there need to be
some rules. It's the wild Westright now, it's and for that reason,
(38:52):
it's a good startup business to getinto to be part of harnessing the
wild West, whether you're doing itin wine or whatever, because it's where
a lot of investor money is going. And actually, if I were starting
in the wine business right now,I would go to venture capitalists companies that
are investing in wine because that seemsto be where there's I think an opportunity
(39:15):
for someone who has wine knowledge togo in and help the money people figure
out what they're doing, because they'reall buying up wineries right now. And
in this market where people are nowcreating and implementing their great exit plans,
which many wine individual wineries are,and they're getting bought up, bought up,
bought up, somebody has to bethere to advise the moneymen. Yeah,
(39:37):
And I think sustainability plays into thisas well, because we all know
that this is a this is acrucial topic. And I'm not just talking
about sustainability in vineyards, but alsoin the sellers, you know, with
the people who are in the industry, keeping people in the industry, helping
our vineyard stewards, improving you know, obviously our carbon footprint and and our
(40:00):
logistical problems and weight of packaging andall those sorts of things. But sustainability
and venture capitalists and AI. Allof this is really hand in hand right
now, and it's going to bevery interesting to see how this goes forward.
That's a really great point taking,Cynthia. I think sustainability for career
(40:20):
goals and for business consultancy is avery big dimension to tackle and important,
and unlike AI, which is goingto streamline and make efficiencies and do very
cool things and then take over people'sjobs, sustainability people are going to need
people. People will need people forthat, but they're going to all intermingle.
(40:44):
All three of those topics are goingto intermingle. I interviewed somebody who
was using AI to create virtual seasons, to create worst case scenarios for different
climate change things so that they couldbe better prepared, which is a great
example of using AI. Uh youmentioned tasting notes. You know, sensorial
AI is kind of doing that.Now they're really doing the whole tasting note
(41:07):
thing. I don't know how.I still can't figure how it works.
And from where I from the interviewsthat we conducted, you've got to have
a lot of real people to helpcreate those tasting notes and sensorial AI well,
fortunately or unfortunately depending on how youlook at it, there is enough
material online, tasting notes online,that's where AI draws its material from.
(41:29):
So if we write me a tastingnote for you know, an okie Shardona
from Napa, they can an AIchatbock can can pull that information off of
the internet. Now, if yousay, you know, to the chatbot,
write me a tasting note about paraconefrom the southwest of Sicily not not
going to work out. So it'syeah, it's touch and go with that.
(41:52):
I think, hmm, wow,that makes us uh if that's a
very to be continued converse. Butagain, what what preceded is is where
can you actually have a career inthe in the business and makes some money.
And for anyone listening, these areareas that are important, uh get
(42:13):
and only getting bigger. So thinkabout it. And then right on the
side, have your podcast. Youdo a podcast as well, and you
cover DEI, which I think isanother important topic that is going to grow
because it's still any way you sliceit, it's still a white man's world
out there, and it's it's gettingbetter. I'm happy to say it's getting
(42:37):
better. You know. I've noticeda sort of round swell of a shift
not so much in Italy but inother places. You know, in the
past five years, I think marketingand communications are going to be very,
very big part of this. So, you know, if you want to
get into something in the wine world, you know, integrity in social media,
(42:58):
the time management with your communications,what sort of channels are we using,
you know, press releases, dothey work anymore? You know,
these sorts of things are interesting foryoung people entering the business who are already
well versed in social media. Ifthey want to be writers, this is
a good way to go learning howto speak properly about wine in a in
(43:20):
a marketing and communications format. Butyeah, it's it's it's very interesting to
see how DEEI is working in thistoo. As I said, a lot
of cost of things keeps people outand even things like training, you know,
just doing a harvest, things thatyou know are are crucial to sort
(43:43):
of getting your boots on the groundin a vineyard and just really meeting people
and getting your hands dirty and workingin a cellar and all of this stuff.
It's not as easy as it usedto be, so you know,
people can't get paid cash anymore.It's it's not easy. It's not easy.
It's not easy, but we alllove it, you know, and
(44:05):
somehow we make it happen. Sotwo last questions before we wrap up.
The first one is, because youare in Italy and you have been all
over, is there a region thatyou still still could potentially be relatively undiscovered
and briefly wine. Yeah, letme think of one that I particularly love.
(44:28):
Well. First of all, there'sMolisee, and Molysee is a tiny
little region on the southeast side ofItaly, so I'm the Adriatic, not
known for quality wine, although it'snative grape. There is tintilia and that's
up and coming now producers are workingwith it better than they used to.
(44:51):
I can't say that there's a winein Molyse that I think should be recognized
yet, but I do think thatthat is an emerging area. It's also
emerging for wine to There are alot of very interesting ancient settlements there,
Armenian settlements and all kinds of thingswith ruins and some beautiful vineyard sites.
It's not someplace people go, soI do think that's an area that is
(45:15):
worth exploring. It takes a littleeffort to get there, but the food
is amazing, and I do thinkTelia has a future. It's red.
So that's one I would certainly pointto. Basilicata is another one. You
know, Vulture is a wonderful place. It's an extinct volcano in Basilicata in
(45:37):
the sort of instep of the boot, as you will. And Materra has
become this amazingly popular tourist city nowyou know, a lot of movies have
been filmed there, and Materra becamea UNESCO World Heritage Site and a Culture
City of the World a couple ofyears ago, so people are sort of
starting to go to Materra and discoverit. Fascinating place, all built into
(46:01):
the caves, really amazing. Butright near there is Montevoultre, this extinct
volcano where they are making amazing Alanicothat is very very different from Tauasi Alanico
in tau Rasi, you know,in Campagna. So yeah, I would
say both of those, Molise andMonte voul Well, we're looking at pictures
(46:24):
as you're talking, going okay,and considering how overcrowded certain areas of Italy
are now, and they're actually creatingbarriers and prices to get into Benitzia and
whatnot. These are places that maybeare more off the beaten track and you
won't find the hordes and crowds,which is always nice when you're traveling in
Italy. One last question and thenwe got to hop out, and before
(46:47):
we do, we just want everybodyto know that you can follow Cynthia Chaplin
at kiss my Glass. There's alot of underscores in that kiss Yeah,
kiss my Glass x on Instagram andlearn more about it Cynthia Chaplin dot com.
We love to ask our wine friends. You know, how would you
describe yourself as a wine grape?What is your wine grete personality? Oh
(47:07):
gosh, that's a hard one.Actually, I think I would describe myself
as Vermontino nera because it's it.It has a lot to do with what
I love. It's got a whitename, Vermontina, but it's also got
a black name, Neera. Itmakes the most wonderful rose. This is
(47:31):
a grape in Ligoria was basically singlehandedly saved by the Bossoni family. They
own Lunai. It is not awell known grape, but as you know,
I have a big interest in Italianrose, and it makes you know,
Vermontino white nera black, so theblack Vermontino but it makes this rose.
(47:53):
So it's what I would call sortof a rainbow grape. And the
rose is unbelieve probably succulent and saalineand briny and a lot of sort of
pink grapefruit notes and dried cranberry andvery gastronomic. You know, can go
on a fun dining table. AndI think, yeah, I think Vermontina
(48:15):
Nira pretty much sort of sums meup in terms of how I like to
see myself in the wine world.I include everyone, and this grape sort
of encompasses that. Versatile and inclusive, yeah, I'll take it, and
diverse. So we have it solike your podcasts, So we want to
also encourage everyone to tune into yourpodcast. How can they find that under
(48:38):
Italian Wine Podcast or you get togo more segmented. Italian Wine Podcast is
our umbrella company, which is StevieKim's brainchild, and we have a show
every single day, and my showis on Wednesdays. It's called Voices.
So giving a voice to people whohaven't necessarily they've been heard, or who
(49:00):
have interesting perspectives or opinions or aredoing interesting things. I'm very privileged.
I get to choose whoever I wanton this show. So there's a lot
of interesting, wild and wacky thingson there. Well. Like us,
it's about a great conversation with interestingpeople, and with that we want to
(49:21):
tell you how we find you fascinating. It's great to finally sit down and
have a quality conversation with you andnot just be in passing at events.
Cynthia Chaplin, thank you for joiningus on the Connected Table. Thank you
Melanie and David. It was apleasure and I hope to see you again
soon in Verona. I hope so. And for everyone, get out there
and try some wines. Try someof these Italian wines we've been talking about.
(49:45):
Really expand your palette and your knowledgeand always stay insatiably and curious.
Thank you. No, no,no,
The topics and opinions expressed and thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
and their guests, and not thoseof W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are
affiliates. We make no recommendations orendorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or onour web. No liability, explicit or
implied shall be extended to W FOURCYRadio or its employees are affiliates. Any
questions or comments should be directed tothose show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:20):
W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to theConnected Table Live. We're your hosts,
(00:43):
Melanie Young and David Ransom. You'reinsatiably curious culinary couple. We love to
bring you the dynamic people who workfront and center and behind the scenes and
wine, food, spirits and hospitalityaround the world through conversation. Because people
are so busy text these days andwriting cryptic notes. What happened to the
(01:03):
art of conversation. Well, we'rehere to really embrace it, right David,
Yes we are, and we're goingto have a wonderful conversation today with
somebody who we actually met last yearin Italy. When you're attending the Wine
to Wine conference which was put onby Viona Fierre and that whole team in
Verona. Well, I've actually knownher longer because she actually interviewed me for
the Italian Wine Podcast. But beforewe officially introducer, we started this series
(01:27):
kind of called Behind the Bylines,and it's about having words with journalists because
journalists usually are writing in objective waysand it's more about the story and them.
But we decided to flip the mirrorand let them talk and you get
to know the people who are writing. And we do that because we're writers.
It's a tough business to be in. You have to wear many hats,
(01:49):
which leads me to today's guests,who joins us from Italy. As
you said, we last saw herat Wine to Wine. Shew Me interviewed
me for the Italian Wine Podcast.We're speaking today with Cynthia Chaplain. Cynthia
is the dream of being an Americanliving in Italy pursuing her life there.
(02:12):
She is a an Italy International Academycertified Italian Wine Ambastador. We're going to
ask her what that means. Sheis a professional somlea. She hosts podcasts
on the Italian Wine Podcast. Sheis a journalist and educator. Like most
writers, she has to wear manyhats as consulting, a lot of hyphens
(02:32):
to support yourself as a writer,and she's doing it all very well.
She's been in the business for twentyyears. I think she's been in Italy
for about twenty years, from movingfrom the United States, which we're going
to get into. Great that she'sjoining us and you're joining us today,
Cynthia Chaplin, Welcome to the ConnectedTable. Hi Melanie, Hi David.
(02:53):
Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for such a warm
introduction, very kind words. Well, it's you kind of live in the
dream. A lot of people wantto know how does she do it?
We want to know, which iswhere we're going to start. First of
all, you are an American,are you still? And so where were
you born and raised? I meanyou do you have dual citizenship? I
(03:15):
was born in Ohio, so notexactly the center of wine production or wine
consumption back when I was a child. But no, I don't have dual
citizenship. I do have a Britishhusband, so I have indefinite right to
remain in the UK, which soundsvery important. I don't think it really
(03:37):
is. But it's one of thosehot topics at the moment, given the
geopolitics of the world. I've beenin Italy now for a sum total of
over fifteen years, so I amentitled to Italian citizenship and it's on my
radar. So we'll see how itgoes. Wow, you're kind of like
(03:59):
Elizabeth Gabbet who's got US citizenship,born and raised but lives of France,
lived in England, has a Britishaccent. Yeah. Similar, And I
talk about this whenever we meet eachother. What the tangled web we weave?
You could still vote the United States, which helps. So yeah,
(04:21):
Ohio, you're right. Although they'remaking wine in Ohio. May Mcgawaian never
units and there are a lot ofgrapes grown in Ohio. Yeah yeah,
and some very old grapes as amatter of fact, the grape production regions
in the country. Yeah. Sowhat was family like like in Ohi?
I've never been to Ohio with you, I have, Okay, what was
family life in Ohio? Were youin a big city like Cleveland or were
(04:44):
you in a little bitty place.I was in a town just outside of
Cleveland, a place called Shaker Heights, so very historic where the Shakers were
back in the day. My mother'sfamily had been there for a couple of
generations. Very nice little town togrow up in, had a very very
nice childhood in a very nice localschool. Unfortunately, it was just one
(05:09):
of those places where my mother usedto stay in front of me. Oh,
the stork brought you to the wrongnest. I used to steal travel
magazines from the dentist office and makescrap books about places where I wanted to
go. So Ohio was not mydestiny. So it was my beginning.
I'm very pleased about that, butit was not my destiny. My children
(05:30):
tend to say that everybody is fromOhio, but nobody lives there anymore.
So well, Paul Newman was fromOhio. He was from Shaker Heights,
Yes, shag Heights. In myhigh school yearbook library. That's how my
friend Wendy Diamond, who does women'sentrepreneurship days from Shagar Heights. We know
(05:53):
two people from Shagar Heights, oneliving, one debt and now you and
now me. Exactly. Yeah,it's like Scars. It's like a nice
something like that, kind of likethe Scars sale of which is near where
I grew with. So was fooda part of your upbring? In a
roundabout way. It's funny because mymother was not what anyone, including herself
(06:15):
would call a very great cook.So my brother and I were both latchkey
kids and we spent a lot oftime cooking together when we were growing up.
My brother now owns and runs arestaurant in Sarasota. He's a great
chef, and I am in thewine and gastronomy world. So my mother's
lack of cooking skill actually gave usour careers, which is nice. But
(06:40):
food wasn't a big focus in ourhousehold at all. My favorite food memories
as a child were, you know, my father burning things on the grill.
That's about it. So how didyou get into food? You know,
it's interesting. My mother didn't liketo cook. She liked to make
reservations and baked cake, but notcooked meal. So we had a lot
of sweets and a lot of gooddining trips out. How did you know?
(07:01):
First of all, where did youend up going to study college and
university? And what were your initialcareer goals? Well, I wanted to
be an architect, so I wentto university in Connecticut. My goal was
to be at least five hundred milesaway from Ohio. So that was that
I wanted a big change and Igot it, and that's where I That's
(07:26):
where I found out about food.There was so much more food out there
than I knew about in Ohio.I grew up in the sixties and seventies,
so you know, there wasn't alot of culinary expertise taking place in
Ohio in those days, especially notin my house. So when I got
to Connecticut, I did find allsorts of things, you know, different
(07:46):
cultural foods. I love Mexican food, I love Indian food and Thaie food,
and I had never seen any ofthose things before. So I had
a great time experimenting and experiencing things. And wine. I discovered wine.
I joined a dining club when Iwas at university because the cafeteria food was
(08:07):
so bad. And once a monthwe would have a formal dinner and there'd
be some speaker and everybody put adress on and they would have wine.
And it was just so fascinating tome to have a red and a white
wine. And I'd play around withwhatever I was eating on my plate and
nobody knew anything about it. No, the chef at the club didn't know
anything about it. No, noneof my friends did either. So I
(08:30):
started taking classes and I got hooked. I think that's a great kind of
way that some of many people getintroduced to wine when they leave home and
they go into a more sophisticated area. Where were you studying architecture? I
started up at Trinity in Hertford,Connecticut, and unfortunately, back in those
days, architecture wasn't the most inclusiveor welcoming to women. So I was
(08:56):
one of three women in the basementof the compute lab remember those old computer
labs with a gigantic computer, youknow, a huge mainframe thing. And
it was a room full of guyswith an old male professor. And after
the first semester, I thought,no, I'm not going to spend four
years in a basement. It's nothappening. So I changed to English and
(09:18):
psychology. I regretted to this day, I have to say, but it
was much more fun. Yeah.I always wanted to marry an architect,
but that didn't happen. But anyway, I didn't I have a great respect
for architects, Okay, but wehave you know, still I still want
(09:41):
a prize. So so you gotinterested in wine and change career and change
your major. When you went throughthat, what made you decide that you
wanted to be in the wine business? What was that jump that, what
was that first impression that you justneeded to have. It's one of those
weird things. I graduated, Imoved to New York, which was,
(10:03):
you know, the epitome of successwhen you're a little girl growing up in
Ohio. You go to college andyou get a job in New York.
So I did that, and Iwent to more wine tastings and things like
that and got more and more interested. But I didn't know there was a
career in wine. I didn't wantto be, you know, a palm
on the floor. That was theonly thing I thought you could do.
If somebody had told me back thenthat there were many things you could do
(10:26):
in wine, I think my lifewould be quite different. But I carried
on doing my job. I wasn'tpublishing. I worked for mcgra hill,
and I moved to Boston, andthen I moved to London, and a
very nice older mentor in London tookme out for dinner one night and ordered
(10:46):
wine, and it was the mostincredible wine I had ever ever had,
had never had anything like it,And of course it turned out to be
a shabbily and I was shocked becausethe only thing I knew about chardonnay was
big oaki butter California shardony. Youknow, this must have been about,
I don't know, nineteen eighty eight, something like that. So it blew
(11:07):
my mind that this one grape coulddo all these different things. And that
was it for me. So Igot very very interested, and got married
and had four little girls, andwine was my happy place. Started creating
events for people, started getting certifiedmyself, and just got really you know,
(11:31):
I hate to use the word addicted, but seduced might be better.
So yeah, a lot of peoplefollow that route and have a wine mentor.
Was your mentor in the wine businessor was he in the publishing business?
Not at all. He was acharming older Englishman, not in the
wine business, but he was awine connoisseur, a wine lover, and
(11:54):
he was very very old school,you know, there was wonderful. This
is probably why I have English husband, you know, gorgeous old English manners.
And he knew a lot about Frenchwine and it was incredibly helpful.
He was very kind to me,mentored me, you know, sort of
directed me towards what wines I shouldtry, and it changed everything for me.
(12:18):
You know, everybody should have somebodythat I was blessed. My father
was that well mannered southern gentleman whowas in the wine and that kind of
steered me. But I fell intowine, and I didn't know you could
have a career in either. ButI had a career in public relations and
it started in restaurants and hotels andfood. Gee, wine it's part of
restaurants, and then suddenly it justbigger and bigger. Right, Yeah,
(12:41):
I was in publishing. I ama writer by nature. I've always been
a writer since I was small,and I started writing about wine and you
know, my friends would ask mefor my tasting notes and it sort of
spiraled on from there. So,yeah, it had no idea there was
there were other careers in wine,but there are infinite ones. Really.
(13:03):
You know, we're going to talkabout that, but before we because I'm
curious where it's all going, becauseit is hard to make a living as
a wine writer. But you havebut you have a lot of certifications.
Let's talk about that, because you, as we said, are an Italian
wine ambasbassador through in Italy. Let'stalk a little little bit about the process
of that and also your thoughts onthe importance of having certifications, which ones
(13:26):
really matter because everybody is selling themnow of course. Well, it's it's
interesting because you know my podcast voices, I talk about diversity and equity and
inclusion in wine, and I ama wine educator. I'm an educator for
w SET, I teach Italian winecourses. I'm a professor of Italian wine.
(13:48):
And it's it's interesting. When Iwas getting certified, you had to
no one would take you seriously unlessyou did. And the fact that I
was a young foreign women in Europemade it even harder. So I had
to have that nouse behind me,and I found it fascinating. I love
(14:09):
learning, I like studying. I'ma nerd, so I had no problem
with that. But as time wentby, I have a love hate relationship
with wine certification. It's very expensive. As you said, everybody's charging everybody's
charging a lot of money, andthat keeps a lot of people out,
(14:30):
which is you know, unfortunate tosay the least and really horrible if you
want to talk about it. Honestly, wine certification. Most of them were
started by you know, let's behonest, you know, big old white
guys in London or Paris who neverthought about having women or people of color
(14:52):
involved and never really wanted to talkabout anything except European wines. And all
of that has changed. Everything haschanged. As you said, there's wine
growing in Ohio who knew. Butback when those classes and those certifications were
started and formed, that wasn't thecase. So a lot of them are
out of date. And despite thebest efforts of people like Michelle Brampton,
(15:13):
who I have a huge amount ofrespect for at WST, it's slow to
change these things and to incorporate what'shappening around the world, not only with
New World wines and climate change andyou know, pee wee grapes and things
like this, but also with thepeople who are in the wine industry.
People don't speak that wine language.Most people in the world don't speak French
(15:35):
anymore. A lot of people don'tknow what many of these terms mean.
So yeah, wine certification, it'sinteresting. I'm in the middle of developing
an educational platform about Italian wines.And we're looking to be a lot more
modern to do smaller byte online coursesthat aren't in person, that take you
(15:58):
know, ten lessons instead of twoyears worth of lessons, that don't cost
the earth, where you don't haveto be in person. So you know,
trying to capture you know, anew audience in the wine education world.
We're using gamification, We're trying touse generationally appropriate learning methods. We're
(16:21):
changing up language. Not everybody learnsby reading a book, so lots of
videos, podcasts, all sorts ofthings like that, interactive things. It's
changed so much, you know yourself, you know, since I got into
educating others or even myself, gosh, going back, you know, twenty
(16:41):
five years ago, everything has changed. So if we don't move forward with
that, wine certifications are going tobe meaningless, and I think I think
that's where we are. You needthem if you want to be taken seriously.
How many you need is debatable.Which one carry more weight nowadays is
(17:02):
also debatable, But nobody can denythat the most important wine certifications are too
expensive and too exclusive, and theyjust take forever, yeah, to become
a master's of wine takes a longtime, and it's six figures HD.
You know, well, I andvery and it's difficult to afford that,
(17:23):
especially as a wine writer, rightand it is. I do feel I
feel like every company, like alot of the big companies, are paying
for their staff, their salespeople,their brand ambassadors to get certification of some
kind. I mean, one ofthe easiest ones that I did was the
Society of Wine Educators Certified Specials Wine. A. It was affordable, B,
(17:45):
it was a certain amount of timeI could do. It was online.
J Nichols did a great job.I learned. You know, my
greatest education is in the vineyard,talking to the talking to the producers,
and going on press trips. Butthis was a great educational tool for me.
And I found the flash cards andmaps because I like to learn visually.
(18:06):
The flash cards and maps would appealto a younger audience, appealed to
me with you know, short attentionspan versus a heavy textbook. And I
just supplemented everything I did by goingout and buying wines for the different region
and country that I was suting atthe time and doing my own tasting because
it was not a tasting element toit that's the next level up. But
I found it very helpful just tohave that. I find that to be
(18:30):
taken seriously as a writer or asa brand ambassador or a salesperson. And
even I'm noticing a lot of initialsbehind public relations executives. It's becoming something
that is necessary. Although some ofthe great educators that we know don't have
certifications at all, exactly exactly,and it's you know, as you said,
(18:52):
you know, you did one ofthe courses that is not like prohibitively
expensive, although it still has athought. You supplemented yourself, you know,
with your own learning tools that youhad to buy, including wine.
So if we want to get weall know the numbers. We've all seen
the data. You know, genz are not drinking wine. So if
we want to carry the wine industryforward into the future, we have to
(19:17):
nab these people's attention. And youknow, they haven't got a lot of
disposable income. We've just come throughthe pandemic. We have to figure out
a way that we can bring thisto them in a way that's attractive first
of all, and affordable and exciting. So yeah, the onus is on
us, for sure. It's achallenge for a couple of reasons. Money
(19:42):
is tight. It's also tight whenyou get older, so we feel the
pain. And we are with friendsthis past weekend we were talking about winestir
Q and A quality, you know, quality and affordable the Q and A
wines. One of the problems we'reseeing, besides a lot of just mishmash
negative reporting on the gloom, thegloom and doom of the industry and not
(20:03):
looking at the glass half full.Just the glass half empty is what I
called. Last night. Somebody sentus a sample and I feel like generification
is a bummer and wine to makethese Q and A wines waffable, paffable,
not quality, quaffable and affordable.They're also generic tasting and it's like
(20:25):
we accept the samples and we wereexcited. We do give it our best
shot, and it's like, there'sno Tarwan with wine. It could be
just made anywhere. And those arethe gateway wines that are being offered to
a lot of younger people because they'recoaffable and affordable supermarket shelves exactly. And
I think, you know again,this is where this is when I love
(20:48):
wine education again, because you know, we need to be getting a message
out there in a way that attractsyoung people that doesn't involve a classroom for
six years and spending fifty thousand dollars, and we should be training, you
know, are on trade people.There's Berkman Sellers in the UK. They
have a wonderful training program called Barisonand it's in three parts called Roots,
(21:14):
Shoots and Fruits, which I thinkis fantastic. And their goal is to
train you know, gen z ontrade people and let them see this is
a career. It's not just astopgap job. This is something you can
really get involved in. It's notthat young people don't like wine, it's
just that they they don't they haven'tbeen given any reason to look into it
(21:38):
really. You know, I havesix children, my four daughters and my
two step sons, and they rangebetween the age of twenty four and thirty
two. So there's all different littlegens in there. And they love to
come to my house because you know, the wine at mama's house is free
and good quality. But they allsay that when they're not home, you
(22:03):
know, a cocktail will appeal morebecause what's behind the bar by the glass
is boring. So we need todo a better job. Well, I
think I think you can hit thenail on the head there. There's hey,
there's also a lot. There area lot more choices now, I
think, a lot more quality choicesthan there used to be with cocktails and
spirits and beer and sea drinks herein the US. You know, things
(22:29):
like that. Packaging is playing apart too. There's a lot of stuff
in cans and portable and all thosethings. And I live in Italy and
if you say canned wine, peopleslap you. I mean, it is
just not useful. So it's justvery short sighted. It's very short sighted.
We need to understand what this newmarket is looking for. If we
(22:51):
get them hooked on wine now,they will eventually like finer wines. But
if we miss them now we're done. You know, I love that about
the fact that they'll slap you withabout if you bring up canned wine.
Yet they're happy to go take theirjug to the local co op and fill
it up with cooking one. Oh. Now that's binos fuzo, completely different,
very traditional, exactly. We loveit. We love Italy and we
(23:15):
love Italian wines, and you knowit's Europe is one of the greatest places
to really understand terrooin, which I'mfeel like we're losing here in the United
States. Sorry, but we're justgetting such bad samples to us. It's
depressing. Something going on to Italy. I was trying to come up with
the term for it. I createmy own terms. But it's like over
(23:36):
segmentation. You know, we sawa frontier court. Everybody's trying to create
the model like Burgundy, and suddenlythey're you know, the Uggas, They're
all initials, whether it's in Tuscanywhat not. But does it really matter
to the consumer. I know it'sit's it's all to sell wine and maybe
wake up Italy and what we callI consider resuscitate regions and give them a
(23:59):
new, fresh, new look.But does that really matter? It's interesting.
I think what we see is,as you said, the Uggas,
the Muggas, the contradas on ETNA, and they are looking to that Burgundy
model in some ways, I think, specifically to combat what you were bemoaning
a minute ago. They're trying toreally attach their wines to their terrawir.
(24:25):
So I'm a fan of this.I think it's important for Italy because otherwise
you end up with a lot ofas David said, the Venospoozo where you
take your glass jug and fill itup to be fair. There's a lot
of places where you can do thatand it's fairly decent quality. So that
is a that is a tradition inItaly. But I think this segmentation,
(24:47):
particularly in places like Etna, whichare sort of emerging, is going to
lend itself to premium I know,premiumization of some of these wines that are
emerging, whereas at the moment there'snot enough regulation. There's just at the
DOC. So there will be,there will be more, but for now
(25:08):
to be able to pinpoint. Youknow, my contrata is on the north
side of the volcano, mine ison the southeast side. Suddenly you do
start to get this tearwar. Thesame thing's happening in Barolo, the same
things happening in Chianti. And Italyis a place full of so many different
soils and geologies that I do thinkthis segment you know, what you're calling
(25:32):
segmentation is based on a desire forconnecting a wine with its tear war,
and that I think is useful.We are terrible in Italy terrible at labeling.
You know. We everybody says,oh, I love I love Barolo.
I love Barolo, and I say, well you should drink maybe a
(25:52):
lot, you know from Lynge.I don't know what that is. Well,
it's the same thing. So youknow, we need to be a
lot more transparent on our labels fora global market, you know, explaining
what the grapes are and where they'refrom. And I think this segmentation will
help with that. So I'm afan of it. To be fair,
well, we think it's interesting.It just needs to be executed better because
(26:15):
it is, you know, identifyingthat important sense of place, and especially
like Etna was a great example ofit. The North South Eave. It's
different and the contrattos were great,but it has to be explained better because
I know Blake Gray who's been onthe show, he just really you know,
Razzed Franchi Corda, like do youreally need over one hundred little and
it's it's almost similar to in California. You've got all the ava's, this
(26:37):
is the Alexander Valley, this isthe Russian River Valley, and they it's
very well explained out there in California, even though we and they thrive on
it. Yeah, and that's theway they do it in California. We
get and it could be done better. It's a communications thing and also the
same it's not just Italy Spain,the same thing. Really explaining the Reoja
(27:00):
ala Vesa and Rea Alta and reallygetting it more in depth. Well,
it is important. I'm laughing becausehello Italy, this is we're looking at
people who are trying to do avery serious scientific mapping. Thank god for
Alessandro Masnaghetti with his very scientific map. But this is still a country that
(27:23):
is run by committee, usually dysfunctionalcommittees. Recently it's been in the news.
There's been you know, six majorplayers in the Consortium of Ultrapo Pavesi
all resigned because they don't like what'sgoing on. So this is Italy.
Italy is smaller in size than California. Don't forget that. So we've got
(27:47):
people who've been making wine for youknow, seven thousand years, and they're
still duking it out over you know, what the rules should be and what
the rules shouldn't be in all ofthese sorts of things. I personally think
we are seeing I mean I amseeing a change from the old guard to
the new guard. There are alot of young family members taking over old
(28:10):
family businesses. There's a lot ofinnovation, particularly in places like ETNA that
have notoriously never had any money andnow have some investment. Angela Guaya's doing
a project there with with Alberto Bracci. You know, things aren't happening and
changing. So yeah, it's isit? Is it clear? Is it
(28:32):
explained? I mean if you lookat the little pyramid of DOCG and Doc
and you know Vino di Tavola,that's not clear to most people. And
we've had that for almost one hundredyears. So it'll be very interesting to
see where they go. And Isuspect the new players, the younger players,
are going to have a big voicein making this process much clearer.
(28:59):
Well, especially to Americans, becauseyou know the American who's maybe group having
more California wine, maybe they're luckyin New York wine, et cetera.
Then they get terms like classical superiorityand they're like, well, what does
that mean? It's better grand reserve. These are terms that are just confusing
to many Americans. That's the funnything. This is the one thing I
(29:21):
do like about being a wine educatorbecause I do get to explain these things.
But yeah, it is it's completelyconfusing. I always say in Italy
you're not allowed to put classico orsuperior area on your label just because it
sounds fancy. There's a legal definitionto that, but people don't understand that.
So it's there are levels and levelsof information, and it's I think
(29:48):
everyone decides for themselves how much informationthey want. You know, if I
decide that I like gree Low fromSicily, I'm probably not going to care
all that much about whether it's superiorityor classico or where it's from. I
know I like Relow, I knowit's from Sicily. I'm good here.
So other people like me, thenerdy people want to know this stuff.
So we have to find a goodbalance, right, because we don't want
(30:11):
wine to be nerdy to the commonconsumer who just we just really want them
to try that for you, right, We want them to try the wine
and not you know, we wereat a wine tasting here in New Orleans.
It was for a German and Austrianproducers who are actually in New Orleans.
Yeah, I would like to seemore Italian producers come here, and
it was an interesting audience. Theywere all in their six seesson older.
It was like their Friday night thingto do. That was interesting. And
(30:36):
once again I don't like sheardon.There was a chardenay. I don't like
most chardinay. It's just so oaky. And here we go again with the
chardonnay saga. And of course thiswas simply not that, but it's it's
just you got to start with stoppingthe misperceptions out there, Yeah, and
then changing that it's just right ona bottle of chardonnay unoaped. How hard
(31:00):
is that? That would be reallyeasy. Yeah, yeah, that would
be one way to do it.You know, I want to switch gears
a little bit and talk about youknow, you're a wine writer, you're
an educator. There's a lot ofwine writers in this industry now, and
a lot of them are finding atough to make a living at it and
are forced to do other things.What advice do you have for people?
(31:26):
Younger people? I mean, becausewe've been doing it for a long time
and we've kind of found our nicheright who are striking out and thinking that
they can do this for a living. Yeah, that's a tough one.
That's a really tough one. Iwould say anybody who wants to be a
wine writer, don't give up yourday job. Most of the writing that
(31:47):
I do in the world of wineis because of my passions. That is
the thing I get paid the leastfor and probably thing that I like the
most. So. But as yousaid, you know, we are older
and experienced and have worn many hats. As Melanie said, I and I
do. You know. I havea lot of young students who say what
(32:07):
should I do? And I alwayssay, if you really want to write
about wine, do that, youknow, start a blog, do something,
but don't expect that to pay yourbills anytime in the near future.
If ever, And as you weresaying before, you know, tasting wine
is incredibly important. Can't be youknow, it cannot be diminished at all.
(32:30):
So young people who come to me, I say, taste whatever you
can. You know, if youyou know, get a part time job
and bottle shop and whatever is open, taste it. You know, whether
you like that country or that grapeor that wine or whatever. Taste as
much as you can, get asmuch under your belt as you can.
Talk to people, travel if youcan, and not everyone can. You
(32:54):
know, just remember that there arelots of things you can do in wine
to get yourself out there. Theone thing that is very troubling for me
and I know for a lot ofother people too, and we sort of
talked about it before we started recordingis wine influencers and AI. So we've
(33:15):
all seen all of us seasoned winewriters who spent years, you know,
sharpening our pencils. You know.Now you go on Instagram and there's a
person in an itty bitty swimsuit holdingup a glass of wine and they are
a wine expert and they are awine influencer and they don't know anything really
(33:37):
at all. And I find thatterrifying because people will follow those people drink
with Those people are drinking often it'snot very good and won't learn anything.
The other side of this coin isnow with things like chat GBT, anyone
can say, write me an articleabout you know, verdicio, and within
(33:58):
seconds you have a three page articleabout Verdicio and you know, you sign
your name to and you publish it. You don't know if it was correct
or not. And that's dangerous too. It's dangerous for our industry. So
yeah, being a wine writer isn'tgoing to pay your bills, my friends,
But that's not the reason to giveup it. If it's something you
love doing, keep doing it andpeople will get accustomed to your style.
(34:23):
And I have a lot of peoplewho've been following my writing for fifteen years.
As I said, I'm not gettingrich and famous off of this,
but I've come to know very verynice people, and I've been able to
educate people because they like what Iwrite. So yeah, it's more of
a passion project. It's not amoney maker. My advice would be,
(34:46):
just as you said, get aday job, get get a solid My
advice to everybody right now is geta job that everybody needs you to do,
like become a CPA or account dosomething that everybody needs you to do,
no matter what. Because I'm readinga book now by a CPA who
writes about wine and food on theside, and he just wrote a great
book. Okay, but he's aCPA. Uh. Get a part time
(35:07):
job in a bottle shop or arestaurant if you have the stamina. A
bottle shop is a great one.If you really want to work full time,
go into public relations because they'll hireanybody as long as you can,
as long as you're fearless, andyou could write a little bit. These
days, you can get a jobin public relations because everybody needs somebody right
(35:29):
now, or sales. I telleveryone to become a cooper, become a
bear because it's a dying art andwe need barrel makers and they're they're always
going to have a job. Yeah, or get into the science of it.
To address chat gpt as before thewe started speaking, I was telling
(35:50):
Cynthia that, you know, Iwas inspired by the Wine to Wine conference
that we attended last year. Therewas a standing room only seven are but
I think we're genally on AI andI was I was like, my eyeballs
are out. Everybody else's in whatAI was doing, and I understand that
the Wine to Wine conference this yearwill be all AI in twenty twenty four,
(36:13):
and I'm hoping we can go.It is very important and it is
actually an industry to look into.But beware but with with ethics, because
I actually did an assignment on AIin the industry and it was really hard
to pinpoint something that made me happyto write about. And just for fun,
I actually asked chat Gpt to writethe article for me just to see
(36:35):
what it came out as, andit was scary how good it was.
I also asked chat gpt to doa wine marketing plan for a startup brand.
It was really really good. Ireceived a press. I received an
article in my inbox this week byan AI company in wine that I actually
interviewed. And that article was almostentical to the one I asked chat gp
(37:01):
chat gpt to write me about AIin the industry. It was like,
clearly AI written. It was reallyscary. There was AI written and I
could tell exactly and I think,well, Wine to Wine Business Forum is
one of my favorite events of theyear. As you said in Verona,
I'm biased because I've worked with themfor three years, but I went to
(37:23):
it before I worked for them,so I can clearly say that I loved
it anyway, And this year itwill be interesting, a lot of interesting
people and Felicity Carter is going tospeak, probably Robert Joseph, I'm not
sure who else. But there willbe a lot of breakout rooms. There
are going to be less big sessionsand a lot of breakout rooms for smaller
(37:43):
conversations because I think this is atopic where people really have a lot of
input their own experiences, Like youjust said, Melanie, and I've done
similar things just to see if whatchat GBT wrote was as you know,
quote unquote good as what I hadwritten, sometimes scarily and certainly a lot
faster. But I think having theforum the way it will be this year,
(38:07):
with a lot of small discussion groupsand a few big sessions, is
going to be very interesting. AndI know we'll be looking at AI from
all different points of view, howit works in a vineyard, how it
works in a cellar, how itdoes or doesn't work in the world of
wine writing, wine education. It'svery important in wine education. The one
thing that AI can't do is tastewine. So I don't think we have
(38:30):
to worry about, you know,wine notes being pushed to one side,
although there's already been a lot ofyou know, problems with with people stealing
other people's wine notes before we evenhad AI. So it's it's a topic
that has to be looked into,and you know, there need to be
some rules. It's the wild Westright now, it's and for that reason,
(38:52):
it's a good startup business to getinto to be part of harnessing the
wild West, whether you're doing itin wine or whatever, because it's where
a lot of investor money is going. And actually, if I were starting
in the wine business right now,I would go to venture capitalists companies that
are investing in wine because that seemsto be where there's I think an opportunity
(39:15):
for someone who has wine knowledge togo in and help the money people figure
out what they're doing, because they'reall buying up wineries right now. And
in this market where people are nowcreating and implementing their great exit plans,
which many wine individual wineries are,and they're getting bought up, bought up,
bought up, somebody has to bethere to advise the moneymen. Yeah,
(39:37):
And I think sustainability plays into thisas well, because we all know
that this is a this is acrucial topic. And I'm not just talking
about sustainability in vineyards, but alsoin the sellers, you know, with
the people who are in the industry, keeping people in the industry, helping
our vineyard stewards, improving you know, obviously our carbon footprint and and our
(40:00):
logistical problems and weight of packaging andall those sorts of things. But sustainability
and venture capitalists and AI. Allof this is really hand in hand right
now, and it's going to bevery interesting to see how this goes forward.
That's a really great point taking,Cynthia. I think sustainability for career
(40:20):
goals and for business consultancy is avery big dimension to tackle and important,
and unlike AI, which is goingto streamline and make efficiencies and do very
cool things and then take over people'sjobs, sustainability people are going to need
people. People will need people forthat, but they're going to all intermingle.
(40:44):
All three of those topics are goingto intermingle. I interviewed somebody who
was using AI to create virtual seasons, to create worst case scenarios for different
climate change things so that they couldbe better prepared, which is a great
example of using AI. Uh youmentioned tasting notes. You know, sensorial
AI is kind of doing that.Now they're really doing the whole tasting note
(41:07):
thing. I don't know how.I still can't figure how it works.
And from where I from the interviewsthat we conducted, you've got to have
a lot of real people to helpcreate those tasting notes and sensorial AI well,
fortunately or unfortunately depending on how youlook at it, there is enough
material online, tasting notes online,that's where AI draws its material from.
(41:29):
So if we write me a tastingnote for you know, an okie Shardona
from Napa, they can an AIchatbock can can pull that information off of
the internet. Now, if yousay, you know, to the chatbot,
write me a tasting note about paraconefrom the southwest of Sicily not not
going to work out. So it'syeah, it's touch and go with that.
(41:52):
I think, hmm, wow,that makes us uh if that's a
very to be continued converse. Butagain, what what preceded is is where
can you actually have a career inthe in the business and makes some money.
And for anyone listening, these areareas that are important, uh get
(42:13):
and only getting bigger. So thinkabout it. And then right on the
side, have your podcast. Youdo a podcast as well, and you
cover DEI, which I think isanother important topic that is going to grow
because it's still any way you sliceit, it's still a white man's world
out there, and it's it's gettingbetter. I'm happy to say it's getting
(42:37):
better. You know. I've noticeda sort of round swell of a shift
not so much in Italy but inother places. You know, in the
past five years, I think marketingand communications are going to be very,
very big part of this. So, you know, if you want to
get into something in the wine world, you know, integrity in social media,
(42:58):
the time management with your communications,what sort of channels are we using,
you know, press releases, dothey work anymore? You know,
these sorts of things are interesting foryoung people entering the business who are already
well versed in social media. Ifthey want to be writers, this is
a good way to go learning howto speak properly about wine in a in
(43:20):
a marketing and communications format. Butyeah, it's it's it's very interesting to
see how DEEI is working in thistoo. As I said, a lot
of cost of things keeps people outand even things like training, you know,
just doing a harvest, things thatyou know are are crucial to sort
(43:43):
of getting your boots on the groundin a vineyard and just really meeting people
and getting your hands dirty and workingin a cellar and all of this stuff.
It's not as easy as it usedto be, so you know,
people can't get paid cash anymore.It's it's not easy. It's not easy.
It's not easy, but we alllove it, you know, and
(44:05):
somehow we make it happen. Sotwo last questions before we wrap up.
The first one is, because youare in Italy and you have been all
over, is there a region thatyou still still could potentially be relatively undiscovered
and briefly wine. Yeah, letme think of one that I particularly love.
(44:28):
Well. First of all, there'sMolisee, and Molysee is a tiny
little region on the southeast side ofItaly, so I'm the Adriatic, not
known for quality wine, although it'snative grape. There is tintilia and that's
up and coming now producers are workingwith it better than they used to.
(44:51):
I can't say that there's a winein Molyse that I think should be recognized
yet, but I do think thatthat is an emerging area. It's also
emerging for wine to There are alot of very interesting ancient settlements there,
Armenian settlements and all kinds of thingswith ruins and some beautiful vineyard sites.
It's not someplace people go, soI do think that's an area that is
(45:15):
worth exploring. It takes a littleeffort to get there, but the food
is amazing, and I do thinkTelia has a future. It's red.
So that's one I would certainly pointto. Basilicata is another one. You
know, Vulture is a wonderful place. It's an extinct volcano in Basilicata in
(45:37):
the sort of instep of the boot, as you will. And Materra has
become this amazingly popular tourist city nowyou know, a lot of movies have
been filmed there, and Materra becamea UNESCO World Heritage Site and a Culture
City of the World a couple ofyears ago, so people are sort of
starting to go to Materra and discoverit. Fascinating place, all built into
(46:01):
the caves, really amazing. Butright near there is Montevoultre, this extinct
volcano where they are making amazing Alanicothat is very very different from Tauasi Alanico
in tau Rasi, you know,in Campagna. So yeah, I would
say both of those, Molise andMonte voul Well, we're looking at pictures
(46:24):
as you're talking, going okay,and considering how overcrowded certain areas of Italy
are now, and they're actually creatingbarriers and prices to get into Benitzia and
whatnot. These are places that maybeare more off the beaten track and you
won't find the hordes and crowds,which is always nice when you're traveling in
Italy. One last question and thenwe got to hop out, and before
(46:47):
we do, we just want everybodyto know that you can follow Cynthia Chaplin
at kiss my Glass. There's alot of underscores in that kiss Yeah,
kiss my Glass x on Instagram andlearn more about it Cynthia Chaplin dot com.
We love to ask our wine friends. You know, how would you
describe yourself as a wine grape?What is your wine grete personality? Oh
(47:07):
gosh, that's a hard one.Actually, I think I would describe myself
as Vermontino nera because it's it.It has a lot to do with what
I love. It's got a whitename, Vermontina, but it's also got
a black name, Neera. Itmakes the most wonderful rose. This is
(47:31):
a grape in Ligoria was basically singlehandedly saved by the Bossoni family. They
own Lunai. It is not awell known grape, but as you know,
I have a big interest in Italianrose, and it makes you know,
Vermontino white nera black, so theblack Vermontino but it makes this rose.
(47:53):
So it's what I would call sortof a rainbow grape. And the
rose is unbelieve probably succulent and saalineand briny and a lot of sort of
pink grapefruit notes and dried cranberry andvery gastronomic. You know, can go
on a fun dining table. AndI think, yeah, I think Vermontina
(48:15):
Nira pretty much sort of sums meup in terms of how I like to
see myself in the wine world.I include everyone, and this grape sort
of encompasses that. Versatile and inclusive, yeah, I'll take it, and
diverse. So we have it solike your podcasts, So we want to
also encourage everyone to tune into yourpodcast. How can they find that under
(48:38):
Italian Wine Podcast or you get togo more segmented. Italian Wine Podcast is
our umbrella company, which is StevieKim's brainchild, and we have a show
every single day, and my showis on Wednesdays. It's called Voices.
So giving a voice to people whohaven't necessarily they've been heard, or who
(49:00):
have interesting perspectives or opinions or aredoing interesting things. I'm very privileged.
I get to choose whoever I wanton this show. So there's a lot
of interesting, wild and wacky thingson there. Well. Like us,
it's about a great conversation with interestingpeople, and with that we want to
(49:21):
tell you how we find you fascinating. It's great to finally sit down and
have a quality conversation with you andnot just be in passing at events.
Cynthia Chaplin, thank you for joiningus on the Connected Table. Thank you
Melanie and David. It was apleasure and I hope to see you again
soon in Verona. I hope so. And for everyone, get out there
and try some wines. Try someof these Italian wines we've been talking about.
(49:45):
Really expand your palette and your knowledgeand always stay insatiably and curious.
Thank you. No, no,no,
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