How does language about wine impact the way we experience and enjoy wine? How does reporting on alcohol science compare to other scientific topics? Why can yeast be described as a nano-technological machine?

In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Adam Rogers, author of the New York Times bestseller Proof: The Science of Booze.

You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks

Giveaway

One of you is going to win a copy of his terrific new book, Full Spectrum: How the Science of Color Made Us Modern. To qualify, all you have to do is email me at natalie@nataliemaclean.com and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast. I’ll choose one person randomly from those who contact me. Good luck!

Highlights

What was Adam’s experience at a fancy restaurant in Chicago where food critic Jeffrey Steingarten was a fellow patron?

How did a New York restaurant experience expose Adam to the wild science of winemaking?

Why did Adam nearly have an existential moment while writing about the science of grapes?

How does reporting on alcohol science compare to other scientific topics?

Which moments did Adam want to capture in the book?

What were the most surprising insights Adam uncovered while writing Proof and what was the most difficult part of writing it?

Why does Adam describe yeast as a nano-technological machine?

Which facts about yeast did Adam find fascinating?

What have archaeologists discovered about the role of alcohol in early human civilization?

Which cultural approach to alcohol consumption did Adam find most interesting?

How do modern brewers and distillers safeguard their yeast?

Key Takeaways

Adam recounts the story of the couple sitting next to him ordering a dessert wine. The diner asked, “Is that a Vin du Glacier or a noble rot?” The two different ways to make a sweet wine. Just the fact that the diner was informed enough to know that there were these two methods would have a bearing on what he would be tasting. Here was this person operationalizing that interest to make his meal better. He wanted to have more fun.

If you're reporting on science, you have the scientists trying to understand something new or reinterpret understanding and then there are people who that's going to affect. With winemaking, you have practitioners who are often not themselves, scientists. So they are craftspeople in a stakeholder role too.

Louis Pasteur said I think there is an impossibly small, invisible, living creature that eats sugar and poops alcohol, and so the best chemists in the world at that time looked at that as a hypothesis and said, You're nuts. Nobody knew how inert chemicals could be alive. Nobody knew what the connection was. Those things are enzymes and understanding what enzymes do in a living body, that's what gave rise to biochemistry, and ultimately gave rise to biotechnology. That one insight.

About Adam Rogers

Adam Rogers is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, where he writes about technology, culture, and the ways they overlap. Prior to joining BI, Adam was a longtime editor and writer at WIRED, where his article “The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress” was the second-most-read thing on the entire internet in 2015.

Adam’s WIRED feature story on a mysterious fungus that grows on whisky warehouses won a AAAS/Kavli science journalism award — and led to his 2014 New York Times bestseller Proof: The Science of Booze. Adam is also the author of the 2021 book Full Spectrum: How the Science of Color Made Us Modern. He has also written for Alta, the Atlantic, National Geographic, the New York Times, Slate, and Smithsonian, and may be the only journalist to attend both San Diego Comic-Con and the White House Correspondents Dinner.

To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/330.

What makes Sangiovese a difficult wine to grow and make? Why should you pay attention to the white wines of Tuscany? What do you need to know about Tuscany’s Vin Santo?

In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Susan Keevil

You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks

Giveaway

Two of you are going to win a copy of her terrific book, On Tuscany: From Brunello to Bolgheri, Tales from the Heart of Italy. To qualify, all you have to do is email me at natalie@nataliemaclean.com and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast. I’ll choose two people randomly from those who contact me. Good luck!

Highlights

What are some common mistakes people make when comparing Tuscan wines to those from other regions?

What are Super Tuscans and how did they come to be?

Why did these rebel wines capture the imagination of the world in the 70s and 80s?

What’s the new Super Tuscan counter culture about?

Why did Brunello di Montalcino achieve icon status?

What makes Sangiovese difficult to grow and why doesn’t it tend to thrive in North America?

What motivated Susan to include sections on Tuscan white wines and Vin Santo in the book?

How is Vin Santo made and why is there so much variety?

What makes Tuscan olive oil so special?

How can you best pair Tuscan wines with food?

Why would Susan love to be able to share a bottle of wine with Queen Elizabeth II?

Key Takeaways

Susan notes that Sangiovese is like Pinot Noir in that it likes certain terroir, particular soils, the winds of Tuscany, and it is quite a sensitive grape. You can't overproduce it. It responds differently to different sites and it's not good in every vintage. It has so many parallels with Pinot Noir. They don't taste the same, but they behave the same.

Susan likes an underdog story like the white wines of Tuscany, because they're only like 10% of the wines produced, though she believes that the Trebbiano grape is like the evil twin. In the book, Emily O'Hare writes about grapes like Vernaccia, Vermentino and Ansonica that are producing some great wines so we should watch out for them. There's another lovely story about wines of the small island called Giglio. It was raided by the pirate Barbarossa, and he sent all the inhabitants away to be slaves in Constantinople. But he brought back people from a village in Greece, and they bought the grape called Ansonica with them and so those vines are still on the island today. Susan thinks white wines are going to be more important for Tuscany.

If you're going to find a comparison, Susan says that Tokaji is a really good one, because it has that bracing acidity that the Italians love as well. But also, you can't generalize with it. It's a 3,000 year-old-wine, and every farm makes a different version. In the past, they used to collect these grapes because they couldn't handle all the olives and all the grapes all at once. So they would leave some of the grapes in the drying lofts, up in the roofs. They would dry, and concentrate, and the sugars would get sweeter. When everything settled in November or March or February, they would make a wine from these beautiful sweet grapes. And they all have their own natural yeast from the air. And they would seed that yeast into the wine, ferment, and then they would lock it up in its barrel and leave it for seven to eight years. It would shrink, it would ferment. It would stop fermenting. And then at the end of that time, they would open the barrel very carefully, and it was something magnificent, but very, very different. Each producer would have their own.

About Susan Keevil

Susan Keevil is the Editorial Director of Académie du Vin Library, where she has played a pivotal role in establishing and nurturing this esteemed wine publishing house. A former editor of Decanter magazine, she has dedicated her career to the world of wine, from editorial leadership to in-depth exploration of the industry.

To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/329.

How was Brunello discovered? How did the medieval sharecropping system help to shape Tuscany's wine landscape? What's the origin of the iconic black rooster symbol of Chianti Classico?

In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Susan Keevil, editor of the beautiful hardcover On Tuscany: From Brunello to Bolgheri, Tales from the Heart of Italy.

You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks

Giveaway

Two of you are going to win a copy of her terrific book, On Tuscany: From Brunello to Bolgheri, Tales from the Heart of Italy. To qualify, all you have to do is email me at natalie@nataliemaclean.com and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast. I’ll choose two people randomly from those who contact me. Good luck!

Highlights

What inspired Susan to take on the monumental task of compiling and editing On Tuscany?

How is On Tuscany different from other books about the region?

What was the most captivating wine story Susan uncovered while working on the book?

What was the most surprising insight about Tuscany that Susan discovered while putting together On Tuscany?

Why did the timeframe pose the biggest challenge in compiling the book?

How did Susan discover and select literary gems about Tuscany from historic writers?

Why was it important to Susan to write about the Etruscans?

What surprised Susan about the ancient Etruscans’ relationship with wine?

How did the medieval sharecropping system help to shape Tuscany's wine landscape?

What role did the Medici family play in shaping the wine culture in Tuscany?

What was the crisis of Chianti Classico in the 70s and 80s and how did it redefine the future of Tuscan wines?

What's the origin of the iconic black rooster symbol of Chianti Classico?

Why does Tuscany continue to dominate media and culture when it comes to wine?

What’s the history behind the Chianti fiasco?

Key Takeaways

How was Brunello discovered?

Susan says that from 1875 to 1930, the Biondi Santi family hid bottles of brunello bricked up behind a wall. So after the war, they had these wonderful vintages, and they could say, look how it's aged because they didn't know it aged so well at that stage. That was how the discovery of Brunello came about because they brought these cellared wines to feasts and grand occasions with politicians and monarchs.

How did the medieval sharecropping system help to shape Tuscany's wine landscape?

Susan observes that it made it beautiful to start with, because we're talking about small holdings. Small farmers gave 40% of what they produced to the owner, the feudal lord, but they had to eke out a living too. So they had their plot of vines, their plot of olive groves, and they put up their cypress trees to defend them from the winds. That gave the beauty to the countryside, because it makes it a jigsaw, it gives it texture when you look at the hills. That way of farming has set up the beauty of Tuscany that we know today. But of course, there was a lot of poverty that went alongside it.

What's the origin of the iconic black rooster symbol of Chianti Classico?

Susan explains that it came from the 14th century when Siena and Florence were warring as to who was going to be the most powerful of those two towns. They had an agreement that they would send out a horse rider - a knight - early one morning, and wherever those two knights met, would be the boundary between Florence and Siena. The Florentine horse rider set off really early, and they got to within 12 miles of Siena. So the black cockerel is all about strength and having the biggest area.

About Susan Keevil

Susan Keevil is the Editorial Director of Académie du Vin Library, where she has played a pivotal role in establishing and nurturing this esteemed wine publishing house. A former editor of Decanter magazine, she has dedicated her career to the world of wine, from editorial leadership to in-depth exploration of the industry.

To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/328.