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23 APR 2016 · *Interview with Tia Bernard-Smith, Assistant Manager of Eataly Vino in New York* Hello everybody! Welcome to La Foodist, your guide to food and beverages. Have you ever walked into a wine store and when you look at the wines you feel like you are reading another language when you look at their labels? Well, today we have Tia Barnard-Smith. She is Assistant Manager for Eataly Vino and she’s going to guide us through buying Italian wine. So Tia, can you explain us what sets Italian wine apart? Well, there are several things that make Italian wine special. The first thing is the variety of grapes that Italy has. People put it between 1,000 and 3,000 different types of grapes, which can make a huge amount of wine. So there’s always a big selection. The second thing is Italian wines tend to be dry, easy drinking and really great with food. That’s amazing. That convinces me I am going to spending a lot of money here after this interview. So, can you guide us to how to read Italian wine labels? They’re so different than the New World labels right? Right. New World labels tend to have single varietal titles. So, will say just Merlot or just Shiraz. In Italy, typically winemakers will write the name of the wine, which is often the name of a place in Italy. So it can be confusing. But my best advice is to ask one of the employees who know the Italian wines very well. There are also things you can look out for. For example, a very famous Italian wine, Brunello di Montalcino if you see the ‘di ‘ that means of. So that translates to Brunello (which is the wine) of Montalcino (which is the wine of the region). Awesome. Thank you for that translation. Can you also translate what rosso, bianco and rosato mean? Because I see that in all the bottles. That is one of the easiest things to learn. Rosso means red, bianco means white and rosato means rosé. So if you see that on a label don’t be confused by it. It just means the color of the wine. Also, what about DOC, DOCG and IGT? I see that in almost all the labels as well. A lot of wines will carry that. They basically refer to the rules that the winemakers had to follow when they are producing the wine. So an IGT is the first level. It basically guarantees that what is in the bottle is what you can expect from that region. DOC is the next level they have more stringent rules. And the highest level is DOCG. Barolo is an example of a DOCG. And there are a lot of rules from how the grapes are harvested, what types of grapes, what specific area the grapes are grown in and how the winery produces the wine. Nice. So can you explain to us or just give us a guide on famous wine producing regions? Sure. There are a few. Piedmonte is one of the most famous regions. It produces Barolo and Barbaresco, which are two of the three big B’s in red wines. These are very big, very full-bodied, rich wines that are aged for a long time. You can still drink beautiful Barolo’s from the 1950’s. So that’s a region to look out for. They produce amazing wines. Another one is Tuscany. Chianti is one of the most famous wines from that region. Again, a red. And Brunello also comes from there, which is the third of the big B’s in Italian red wines. Now that you’ve explained the good B’s, can you explain the good V’s? What is a good value red or white that you sell? That’s a good question. There are actually lots of good values. Not every Italian wine has to cost 100 bucks. A region I would look out for is actually Sicily. A few years ago, 10-20 years ago, they were producing mass produced wines that honestly weren’t that great. Now a lot of investment from the EU has gone into the production of these wines and you can get some really great values. Nero d’Avola is a grape to look out for; a red grape from Sicily that’s earthy, spicy, red fruit notes, really fun and really delicious. And then for whites, I would say you can get some great values in the south of Italy, around Puglia and Campania. Nice. So now I will go broke in a few minutes. Well everybody, don't forget to come visit Tia at Eataly Vino. There’s free wine tastings Monday through Friday from 6 to 8 pm. Just if you want to tell your friends drinks are on you that night. Thank you Tia! Thank you so much!