Modo di Bere: Wine & Language

Note: The contest between Texas and Calabria has already concluded--Calabria won! Listen to learn more about Texas wine and Texas German, baking biscuits and grilling steaks by the fire on the High Plains, eating explodingly-ripe persimmons in Calabria, documenting the oral history of Arbëreshë and Calabrese, drinking Zibbibo and Cirò, Calabria's red wine that elevated to DOCG status in 2025, and hanging out with fishermen who stil...

Support Modo di Bere TV! 🍷🎥 Announcing a special season of the Modo di Bere podcast with cohost Emilia Aghamirzai. The two friends have been traveling the world for the last three years in search of local drinks and local sayings for their travel show, Modo di Bere TV.

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Crowdfund launches Feb 7 at mododibere.com

Fabio is one of eight producers making wine from Tazzelenghe. Thanks to Fabio and his friends, this ultra-rare Friulian red wine grape is the rise. The name means "The Tongue-Cutter" in the local dialect. The grape has an enormous personality, packed with complexity, acid, and tannin.

Before modern improvements in winemaking and wine growing, the only way to tame Tazzelenghe's exuberance was time. Listen to the full interview with ...

Wayne Young's show La Taverna is more than just a podcast; it's an oral history of the wines of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Through interviews with the winemakers of this beautiful region in northeast Italy, some in English, some in Italian, Wayne is bottling the story of the region he loves so much he moved there from the US after working one harvest in 1998.

This episode references strong language as well as strong drink! Note from R...

When she's not playing the baritone sax, Cheryl Kingan sells wine in New York City. She previously worked in specialty coffee for many years. Cheryl's interest in drinks is not only culinary: this passion has naturally led her to advocate for sustainable agriculture and community development. She loves educating her clients and the public about indigenous grape varieties from Greece, Eastern Europe, Italy and Slovenia.  Cheryl and...

Late-year American holidays are all about fat: gravy, casserole, cheese stretching between the utensil and the mac and cheese. Bygone traditional foodways, virtually extinct, land on the holiday table and gleam with gravitas. These moments scream for wines high in acid, tannin, and flavor, to clean your mouth and prepare it for the next loaded, herby, spicy bite.  Please enjoy the audio version of Modo di Bere Magazine's Fall &...

NYC bartender and brand ambassador Felipe Muñoz illuminates mezcal’s sense of place. Unlike crops that mature in a single growing season, agave plants grow for years or decades before being harvested for mezcal. Felipe shares what it’s like to work as a brand ambassador for the community-centered, woman-forward mezcal brand Yola, and teaches us some juicy drinking sayings from his native Colombia.

Rose Thomas and Feli...

The Hagiographer is a historical fiction novel about the 9th century philosopher who invented the Glagolitic alphabet and his rogue biographer. I was riding the New York City subway when I ran into my friend Vlada Tomova, who runs a Bulgarian woman's choir. She was with the Bulgarian writer Stefan Kisyov and his family, on the way back from an event at the Bulgarian embassy that celebrated the publication of his book The Hagiogra...

Visionary cellist and composer Serena Jost grew up between Switzerland and Michigan, speaking the Swiss German language with her family and climbing up on the roof with a homemade radio antennae to take in the sounds of languages she didn't know. Serena writes lyrics that are poetic rather than narrative, takes inspiration from literature, and composes some songs in wordless or invented tongues.  Serena describes the mind-opening,...

The sheer exuberance of Paul Balke's devotion to Italian wine regions bubbles up like a glass of prosecco—which, we learn in this episode, did not originate in Veneto, but rather in the village of Prosek, near Trieste.

This special, double-size installment of The Boot in 20 is a true deep dive. Even diehard fans of Friulian wines will learn indigenous grapes they've never heard of before. Those who listen to the end will get the sk...

Rose Thomas Bannister's husband, Bob, has a 2100 day Duolingo streak. For a while, he was doing 14 languages a day. But is he "conversational"? Is he fluent? Does that matter? Access the exclusive full interview by becoming a paid supporter at patreon.com/mododibere. 

When he's not collecting records and linguistic knowledge, Bob Bannister is an influential guitar player whose solo albums helped inspire the "freak folk" genre. He p...

Ineza Karalashvili has been making wine in the Kakheti region of Georgia for over sixty years, together with her brother Tamaz. Their family has been making and selling wine for generations before that, with forebears among the influential "Merchants of the First Guild" in the nineteenth century. Ineza, who recently turned 85, is the wine chemist responsible for quality control at Georgian Royal Wine, and Tamaz is the head winemak...

David Kong loved drinking wine out of expensive handblown glasses but hated the sinking feeling every time one got broken. He wanted a handblown wine glass at a more accessible price, so started his own company to make it exist! David is a lifelong foodie and classical music fan who always wanted to start his own business. Now he sells his Glasvin wine glass line to restaurants and wine lovers all over the world.  Rose Thomas iden...

William Cisilino is the director of ARLeF, an organization that promotes the Friulian language. He is a leading expert and advocate for linguistic diversity. Dr Cisilino and Rose Thomas discuss the health of the Friulano language today, both in northeastern Italy and around the world. He teaches Rose Thomas a Friulian saying and poem. They discuss intergenerational transmission, the connection between biodiversity and linguistic va...

When Tatjana Devetak's grandfather said he wanted to carve a world-class wine cellar out of the solid rock of the Karst plateau, everyone said he was crazy. "Who will come to see it?" people said, as he carved each stone by hand. Then the excavation uncovered a trench from World War I, buried below this family's extraordinary restaurant and inn, where travelers and locals alike have enjoyed the hospitality of the Devetak family sin...

Rose Thomas Bannister, who was just honored as one of Wine Enthusiast Magazine's 2025 Future Forty tastemakers, reads "Raw Shrimp in Venice," the second part of her travel story about her first trip to Venice. A pretty but lonely afternoon gives way to a seafood adventure and a midnight boat ride around the lagoon with new friends made through the magic of local slang and Select spritz.  Read the profile about Rose Thomas in Wine ...

Ou has a new album, Uranio! Amy Denio translates for composer Ersilia Prosperi, and speaks for herself as Ersilia's producer and bandmate in the dynamic, multilingual band Ou. The theme music of the Modo di Bere podcast comes from Ou's album Pisces Crisis. You can purchase Ou's first two albums at oumusic.bandcamp.com, and grab the new album at folderolrecords.bandcamp.com.

Uranio is the perfect album to investigate the connections...

For the Boot in 20 series, an expert brings an Italian wine region to life, talking grapes, wines, climate and tradition–and advice for planning a visit! For the Marche, Rose Thomas interviews Tiziana Forni, a native of Ancona and a wine professional who specializes in Italian wines.

Tiziana explains the etymology of the plural region name "Le Marche." She shares sayings about and from Marche, and goes over the major and minor grap...