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In 1910, a farmer from Abruzzo travelled to Naples to see an ear specialist and came home with twenty hectares and a fifteenth century lookout tower, bought from Baron Zambra in instalments, with no guarantee. More than a century later, Gambero Rosso's Vini d'Italia 2026 named the family winery, bottling since 1961, its Emerging Winery. For episode 105 of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland sits down with Federico De Cerchio, CEO of Famiglia De Cerchio and fourth generation behind Torre Zambra, in Villamagna, Abruzzo, Italy, to find out how a winery founded in 1961 becomes an emerging one. Federico did not drink wine until his early twenties and preferred motorbikes to Montepulciano. He built an online wine business in Rome, sold it in 2018 and came home to change the family estate: shorter ageing, tonneaux in place of barriques, and a fresher, more drinkable Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, while the concrete vats his grandfather Laurentino used in 1961 stay untouched. Today, 95% of the wine is sold outside Italy, and the tower destroyed during the Second World War stands again as the Torre Zambra Resort. We talk about Villamagna DOC, a tiny appellation created in 2011 in a town of 2,000 people with seven wineries, why Federico believes terroir includes the people who work it, and why the wine industry needs to listen more to the people who drink wine. We also settle the eternal confusion between Montepulciano the grape and Montepulciano the Tuscan town. A bonus episode, available exclusively on our website, goes further into certification, the brutal 2023 season and where the wine industry is heading.   Featuring: Torre Zambra, Famiglia De Cerchio, Federico De Cerchio, Villamagna DOC, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Abruzzo, Italy, Gambero Rosso, organic wine, Italian wine.

A valley once dismissed as too dry and too stony for anything worth drinking, now home to some of the most decorated wine in New Zealand, named after an actual spy base down the road, on purpose. For episode 104 of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland sits down with Amanda Johnson, Managing Director of Spy Valley, to find out what happens when a family vineyard built on land everyone else had written off decides its branding should be just as bold as its wine. Amanda is the second generation steward of Spy Valley, in Marlborough, New Zealand. Her father planted vines on ground considered too infertile for grapes, and Amanda later pitched the winery's name herself, pairing the GCSB listening post next door with her father's lifelong James Bond fandom. The result is a winery with decommissioned radar domes on its lawn, Morse code on its labels, and a trophy case that takes the joke far less seriously than the wine inside it. We talk about how Marlborough became the region that Sauvignon Blanc built, why Pinot Noir may be its best kept secret, and how Chief Winemaker Emily Gaspard-Clark, New Zealand's Young Winemaker of the Year in 2019, is carrying the estate forward since Wendy Stuckey's retirement. We also get into the pressures facing the wider Marlborough industry, from pricing competition abroad to a very local warning about what happens when a region puts too many grapes in one basket. A bonus episode, available exclusively on our website, goes further into the Pinot Noir question every producer dreads, and the spy theme nobody at Spy Valley is willing to drop.   Featuring: Spy Valley, Amanda Johnson, Marlborough, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Gewürztraminer, Emily Gaspard-Clark, Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand, New Zealand wine, Appellation Marlborough Wine.

In 1980, a Swiss couple on a Christmas visit to Tuscany noticed one hillside in Chianti sitting in full sun while the whole valley around it disappeared into fog. They bought that hill the following year. They liked the light, nothing more. In this episode of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland sits down with Barbara Widmer, Winemaker and CEO of Brancaia, in Castellina in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy, to ask what it means to inherit a vision and decide what to protect and what to tear up. Barbara was studying architecture in Zurich when the 1994 harvest pulled her back to her parents' estate. She went on to study oenology, and her thesis on a newly acquired coastal property in Maremma started a one label strategy now stretched across three estates with distinct characters: Castellina, Radda in Chianti and Maremma. Where other Tuscan families split their holdings into separate brands, Brancaia chose the opposite path. We talk about Il Blu, the wine so far outside Chianti Classico's own rules it had to be sold as a table wine and became one of the first Super Tuscans. We talk about how a wine earns its name at Brancaia, the shift to controlled fermentation as harvests grow warmer, and replanting with massal selection instead of nursery clones. And we end on a harder question: does wine, does Tuscany, still have something worth protecting. A short bonus episode on sustainability and climate change at Brancaia is available exclusively on our website.   Featuring: Brancaia, Barbara Widmer, Il Blu, Chianti Classico, Castellina in Chianti, Radda in Chianti, Maremma Toscana, Super Tuscan, organic farming, sustainability, Tuscany, Italy.

What does it take to fix a problem an entire industry had quietly decided was unfixable? Greg Lambrecht, inventor, founder, and chairman of Coravin, joins Pierre Ferland for a conversation that starts in a wine shop at sixteen and ends up rewriting how the world drinks by the glass. An MIT-trained engineer who spent his career designing chemotherapy needles and spinal implants, Lambrecht looked at the oldest rule in wine — open it, and the clock starts — and treated it like a design flaw instead of a tradition. We go deep into the early prototypes tested on friends, including a neurosurgeon who tried to pay him in wine, the decision to step back as CEO once he realized he was a medical device guy, not a consumer products guy, and the eight years it took to crack Coravin Sparkling after a Guardian critic's one blunt question wrecked his London launch. We talk about walking into hostile Bordeaux chateaux where producers threatened to break his needle, the retailer who changed everything in one Paris sidewalk demo, and Veronique Sanders, the Bordeaux producer who opened the door Coravin needed. We also get into the QVC lesson that reshaped how Coravin sells, his dream of great wine sold by the glass at retail, and the newly launched Coravin Guide, now live in Madrid, New York, and Miami. Greg put it best: "Our biggest competitor is that sentence, I finished the bottle." This one comes with a bonus. We asked Greg the question we couldn't let go of: ten years from now, is this still a Coravin device — or has it become a platform, a media brand, a whole new category? His answer, plus his real philosophy on leadership, ego, and why the Coravin Guide spends its spotlight on everyone but Coravin, is in an exclusive bonus episode, available only at readbetweenthewines.com. It doesn't stream anywhere else — this one's for the website only. Featuring: Coravin, Greg Lambrecht, wine preservation technology, wine by the glass, Coravin Guide, Timeless, Pivot, Sparkling, Bordeaux, Veronique Sanders, QVC, wine industry innovation, medical device invention, wine storytelling.

Why does a 155-year-old empire keep reinventing itself — when coasting was always an option? Mireia Torres Maczassek, Director of Knowledge and Innovation at Familia Torres, joins Pierre Ferland for a conversation recorded live in Montreal at a Primum Familiae Vini gathering — and it is exactly as good as that setting sounds. Fifth generation of one of the most recognised wine dynasties on the planet, chemical engineer turned oenologist, director of both Torres Priorat and Bodegas Jean Leon, and the scientist quietly running one of the most ambitious research programmes in the history of wine. We go deep into the 40-year project to recover pre-phylloxera Catalan grape varieties — found in forests, climbing trees, surviving near creek beds — and what it means to give a lost vine a name. We talk about the Torres & Earth climate programme, regenerative viticulture at scale across more than 1,100 organic hectares, and the very honest question of whether doing enough and feeling like you are doing enough are actually the same thing. We discuss Mas La Plana, Grans Muralles, the Waltraud Riesling — a love letter planted at 500 metres in the Penèdes mountains — and the brandy that almost nobody talks about despite nearly a century of production. And we travel to Chile, where the family has been making wine since 1979 and where the ancestral varieties project takes on an entirely different cultural weight. Mireia put it best: we are going backwards in the sense that we are recovering what was lost. But we are going forward, because we have to find what survives. Featuring: Familia Torres, Mireia Torres Maczassek, Spanish wine, Penèdes, Priorat, Catalonia, ancestral grape varieties, regenerative viticulture, Mas La Plana, Grans Muralles, Waltraud Riesling, Jaime I brandy, Torres Chile, Primum Familiae Vini, fine wine, terroir.

In 2001, a bottle of Clos des Épeneaux 1996 landed on our podcast host's table and changed the course of his wine life forever. It didn't simply introduce him to Burgundy; it changed the way he understood wine, place, patience, and beauty. The man who made it had no idea. While that bottle was beginning its journey around the world, Pascal Marchand was in Burgundy, celebrating the birth of his second son. That bottle and the story behind it, is where Episode 100 of Read Between the Wines begins. Pascal arrived in Burgundy in 1983 as a young merchant marine from Montreal with no vineyard, no family name, and no wine pedigree. Two years later, at just 22 years old, he became only the second non-Frenchman ever appointed to lead a Burgundian estate, taking the reins at Domaine Comte Armand and its legendary Clos des Épeneaux. Over the next fifteen vintages, he helped shape one of Burgundy's most iconic wines. One of them changed our host's life. In this special centennial episode, Pascal and host Pierre Ferland travel through four decades of Burgundy: the generation of young vignerons who reshaped the region together, the lessons he learned from Henri Jayer, why he embraced biodynamics long before it became fashionable, and why terroir still matters more than technique. In their intimate conversation, they explore the personalities of Chambertin and Mazis-Chambertin, the quiet brilliance of Burgundy's centuries-old classification system, the realities of climate change, and the challenge of preserving identity in a world where harvests arrive a month earlier than they once did. But this conversation reaches far beyond Burgundy. They talk about prestige and speculation, about whether great wine is becoming a luxury asset instead of something meant to be shared, and about what happens when younger generations drink differently than those before them. Pascal's answers are thoughtful, deeply human, and ultimately hopeful. His reflections on pleasure, generosity, and the role wine plays in our lives may be the most important part of the entire conversation. Episode 100 was always going to be personal. For our podcast host, it was always going to be Burgundy. Featuring: Pascal Marchand, Maison Marchand-Tawse, Clos des Épeneaux, Domaine Comte Armand, Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambertin Grand Cru, Mazis-Chambertin, Pinot Noir, Côte de Beaune, Côte de Nuits, Moray Tawse.

Sixty years before "drink less, but better" became an industry mantra, one man in Tuscany was already living it. His grandson has spent his whole career proving him right. In this episode, Pierre sits down with Giovanni Folonari, of Ambrogio e Giovanni Folonari Tenute, the family behind four distinct Tuscan estates built on a single conviction: that quality can't be rented, it has to be owned. The conversation moves through Nozzole, the Chianti Classico estate where clay soil and history run deep; Tenute del Cabreo, the Supertuscan project that dared to plant Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay and even Pinot Noir on Sangiovese ground; Campo al Mare, the family's late but decisive bet on Bolgheri; and Tenuta La Fuga, the smallest estate in the portfolio and home to a Brunello Riserva named for two sisters. Along the way, Giovanni talks candidly about the family decision to walk away from an easier, more recognisable business, what it actually takes to grow Pinot Noir outside Burgundy, and why hospitality became part of the estate's identity long before the rest of the wine world caught on. Want more? A bonus episode, going deeper into the family's history, the technical side of the cellar, and a side of Giovanni that has nothing to do with wine at all, is available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com. Featuring: Chianti Classico, Supertuscan, Bolgheri, Brunello di Montalcino, Tuscany, Sangiovese, family winery, Italian fine wine, terroir, wine and hospitality.

In 1985, Ferruccio Ferragamo went looking for game in the hills between Florence and Arezzo. He came home having found a thousand-year-old medieval village instead. Years later, his son Salvatore rode a bicycle into those same hills and saw something his father hadn't: a valley whose soil told an entirely different story in every direction, sandstone in one corner, clay rich with sea fossils in another, the memory of an ocean that vanished millions of years before anyone planted a vine. This is the story of Il Borro — a family better known for shoes than soil, who spent three decades turning a ruin into one of Tuscany's most decorated organic estates, and who are now writing a second chapter in Montalcino. Salvatore Ferragamo, Vice President of Il Borro, sits down with Pierre Ferland to talk about the Valdarno di Sopra, an appellation the estate helped bring back from obscurity, the single vineyard behind Alessandro dal Borro, named for a Medici military commander built on an unusually large scale, the horses that plough Nitrito instead of tractors, and Petruna, a return to ancient amphora winemaking that strips Sangiovese back to something almost nothing else in Tuscany attempts. And at the very end, Salvatore says something about Pinino, the family's newer estate in Montalcino, that he didn't have to admit. But did anyway. The bonus episode, where Salvatore goes into the years before certification, the business case behind the vineyard's solar fields, and what actually earns a second bottle of wine, is available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com.   Featuring: Il Borro, Valdarno di Sopra DOC, Tuscany, Italy, Sangiovese, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Chardonnay, Pinino, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino.

Sara Lecompte Cuvelier swore she would never work in wine. Then in 2018, she became Managing Director of one of the five Second Grand Cru Classé estates in Saint-Julien. Her sister Anne had already been there for thirteen years, building something from nothing. That is the story of Château Léoville Poyferré — and neither of them planned any of it. In this episode of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland sits down with Sara and Anne Cuvelier at Château Léoville Poyferré in Saint-Julien, Bordeaux, France, for the first of a two-part conversation. The Cuvelier family has been in wine since 1804, beginning as négociants near Lille in the north of France, acquiring Léoville Poyferré in 1920, and extending the family story all the way to the foot of the Andes in Mendoza with Cuvelier Los Andes in 2003. The conversation covers what it means to inherit something you did not build. The demi-wolf on the label that belonged to the Lawton family and was kept without question. The family motto borrowed from Le Petit Prince: the essential is invisible to the eye. Anne building wine tourism at a classified growth estate before Bordeaux believed that was possible. Sara arriving with a background in human resources and discovering it was exactly what the job required. And the word Sara says you need to remember about this estate. Not prestige. Not history. Precision. Part two, where Sara and Anne go deep into the vineyard, the wines, and what Bordeaux still needs to say out loud, is available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com. Featuring: Château Léoville Poyferré, Saint-Julien, Médoc, Bordeaux, France, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Second Grand Cru Classé.

In 1935, a viceroy ordered a vineyard planted in the hills between Florence and Arezzo. Not to make wine. To mark a military conquest. Ninety years later, that same vineyard is producing one of the most celebrated Sangiovese in all of Tuscany. This is the story of Tenuta Sette Ponti — an estate that began as a hunting retreat, became a family obsession, and is now home to Oreno, a wine that has gone toe to toe with the great Bordeaux blends of France. Blind. And won. Alberto Moretti Cuseri, third generation of the Moretti Cuseri family and Export Director of the estate, sits down with Pierre Ferland to talk about the Valdarno di Sopra, one of Italy's oldest wine zones, certified fully organic and still largely unknown outside serious wine circles. The conversation covers the Vigna dell'Impero and its 90-year-old vines, the portfolio from Crognolo to Oreno, a pure Merlot called Sette, and a Trebbiano that makes a quiet argument for one of Italy's most underrated white grapes. And at the very end, Alberto says something about wine and identity that lands differently than anything else in this conversation. Featuring: Tenuta Sette Ponti, Valdarno di Sopra, Oreno, Crognolo, Vigna dell'Impero, Tuscany wine, Super Tuscan, Sangiovese, Italian wine podcast, Alberto Moretti Cuseri

In 2015, a Champagne house gathered the UK wine press at a Westminster Abbey tomb — before a single vine had been planted. That is how Domaine Évremond announced itself to the world. And it tells you everything about what kind of project this is. In this episode, Pierre sits down with India McGrath, daughter of co-founder Patrick McGrath MW and the person now carrying the Domaine Évremond story forward. Together they explore the founding friendship between Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger and Patrick McGrath, the 18-month search for the perfect site in Kent, and what it actually means to build a Champagne-calibre operation from scratch on English soil. We talk about why chalk in Kent makes Pinot Noir behave differently than it does in Champagne. About defending wine as culture — not just product — in a world where that conversation has never been more urgent. About the patience required to launch a company in 2015 and sell your first bottle in 2025. And about why a 17th-century Frenchman buried in Poets' Corner is the soul of a very English sparkling wine. A bonus episode — going deeper into the commercial story, the edition system, the cellar door, and what Paris and Berlin still think of English wine — is available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com. Featuring: English sparkling wine. Kent. Domaine Évremond. Champagne Taittinger. Classic Cuvée. Chilham. Pinot Noir. Wine GB. Anglo-French friendship. Terroir-driven sparkling wine.

Château Latour-Martillac has been a Grand Cru Classé de Graves since 1953. The Kressmann family has been here since 1930. And somewhere in their vineyard, there is a parcel of vines planted in 1884 that should not still exist — but does, and has become one of the most compelling white wines in all of Bordeaux. In this episode, Pierre sits down with Edouard Kressmann, Technical Director and fifth generation of the Kressmann family, and Wilfrid Groizard, Deputy General Manager — at one of only six estates in the Graves classification to hold that status for both red and white wine. We talk about two completely different soils separated by just a few metres of earth that produce two completely different wines under one label. About the Grapecap 1884 parcel — a living conservatory of varieties that have no business being in Bordeaux — and the moment Edouard decided it was a cuvée, not a museum piece. About what it actually means to make white wine in a region the world still associates almost entirely with red. And about whether Bordeaux, in 2025, needs more restraint or more courage. Want more? A bonus episode — covering the winemaking room, the full portfolio, the Graves classification, and one last question that stops Edouard cold — is available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com. Featuring: Pessac-Léognan. Graves. Bordeaux white wine. Sémillon. Sauvignon Blanc. Grand Cru Classé. Château Latour-Martillac. Edouard Kressmann. Wilfrid Groizard. Terroir-driven wine. Family estate. French wine. Bordeaux wine.

She was a veterinarian. Then one phone call from her mother changed everything. In this episode of Read Between the Wines, Pierre sits down with Monica Raspi, owner of Fattoria Pomona — a small, family-run organic winery in Chianti Classico, Tuscany, on the border of Castellina in Chianti and Vagliagli. Six hectares. Organic since 2009. Minimal intervention in the cellar. And a point of view that is entirely her own. We talk about the exact moment Monica sold her veterinary clinic and got on a tractor. About learning winemaking by instinct rather than textbook. About the difference between a small Tuscan producer and a large one — and why that difference matters more than ever right now. We get into indigenous yeasts, large Slavonian oak, cover crops, and why she has never once wanted to make a wine that tastes like everyone else's. And we ask what it actually takes to make a Chianti Classico that tastes like somewhere, not something. Featuring: Fattoria Pomona, Chianti Classico, Tuscany, Italy. Full transcript, and more information are available at readbetweenthewines.com

Austria has been making world-class wine for centuries. The world is just now catching up. In this episode of Read Between the Wines, host Pierre Ferland sits down with Wolfgang Hewarth, Winery Director at Esterházy Wein in Burgenland, Austria — one of Central Europe's most historic estates, with winemaking records going back to 1612 and a cellar master hired from Burgundy in 1758. The name alone carries three centuries of imperial history. What Wolfgang is building on top of it is something else entirely. We talk about what it means to arrive as an outsider and take the long view. We dig into the Leithaberg DAC — one of Austria's most distinctive appellations — and why limestone, mica schist, and a cool Pannonian microclimate produce wines built on tension and precision rather than weight. We get into acidity as a philosophy, not a technical detail. We explore what it takes to use oak purely for ageing, never for flavour. And we ask the question that sits underneath everything Wolfgang does: how do you carry 300 years of history without letting it slow you down? A bonus episode with Wolfgang is available exclusively on readbetweenthewines.com — deeper into the portfolio, the label story, climate challenges, and what it actually takes to protect freshness when the weather stops cooperating. Featuring: Esterházy Wein, Burgenland, Austria, Leithaberg DAC, Blaufränkisch. For more information about our Podcast, visit us on the web: https://readbetweenthewines.com

What does it take to keep a family name alive for nearly four centuries in the same valley, on the same hills, with the same grapes — and still have something new to say? Welcome to Tedeschi Wines, one of the oldest family estates in Valpolicella, Veneto, Italy — with roots stretching back to the 17th century and a philosophy that has never confused age with complacency. In this episode of Read Between the Wines, Pierre sits down with Riccardo Tedeschi — the winemaker who inherited not just a name, but a restlessness. His father used to say a bad vintage is when you have no new idea. Together, we explore one of Italy's most quietly compelling wine stories. We talk terroir, elegance, and why Valpolicella is so much more than Amarone. We unpack the white wine nobody saw coming, the single vineyards competing with the best of Chianti, and the house philosophy that puts finesse and freshness at the centre of a region famous for power. We talk about a family that owns its land, builds its own walls, and refuses to stop asking questions. Want more? A bonus episode with Riccardo — covering blending philosophy, climate change, and the uncomfortable truth about the distance between a wine people admire and a wine people actually pour — is available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com. Featuring: Tedeschi Wines, Valpolicella, Veneto, Italy, Amarone, Corvina. For more information about our Podcast, visit us on the web: https://readbetweenthewines.com