We started out on November 22nd by proposing a toast to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of #WinesOfItaly #LiveStream and then Valerie Caruso and Stephanie Davis, who are into wine education and podcasting, presented themselves. They both have Italian ancestry; Valerie from Abruzzo and Stephanie from Sicily. Val and Steph got to know each other being in a study group for becoming certified wine educators (CWS) in Colorado in the US. From the friendship that they formed via the study group, they then ended up talking about starting a wine podcast, which resulted in Wine Two Five.
Wine Two Five – Learning about Wine with a Smile
Wine Two Five is a podcast show talking about wine in a humorous way combining wine education and entertainment, making it into so-called wine-edutainment. They are talking about wine in a fun way for everyday people, as they specify on their website. During the last two years, they have had an impressive series of guests who are linked to the wine world in some way. Me included! 😉 Anyway, more prominent guests than me include Karen McNeil who is the author of the Wine Bible, Erik Asimov who is a wine writer for The New York Times, Violet Grgich from Grgich Hill Estate, Jeremy Parzen who has the blog Do Bianchi, and Suzanne Hoffman who is the author of Labor of Love: Wine Family Women of Piemonte. Go and have a look at their website, to check out all the other fabulous guests.
Stand out in the Wine Community
They told us in the #WinesOfItaly #LiveStream that they wanted to be different and stand out and not do a show where they only interviewed different wine producers. They felt that the market was saturated with that kind of content. They instead decided they wanted to differentiate themselves and their content as much as possible. They wanted to cover everything from the latest trends and innovative things to more historical topics.
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Furthermore, they wanted to add each of their own personal touch and backgrounds in order to show that wine can be subjective. Here we can refer to the human to human touch again, as I discussed with Valentino Ciarla when he was a guest at my live stream. (See the article Valentino Ciarla – The Vision of an Oenologist at WinesOfItaly.) Wine Two Five is thus yet another proof of the fact that the human side behind a brand is very important in order to better relate to your fans.
Val and Steph are very good at interacting with their listeners and fans too by always asking for their feedback and what they want to learn more about. On the website, you can actually send a voice message directly to them with a comment or a question.
From Daring Wine Pairings to Wine Tourism at Smaller Wineries
With Val & Steph from Wine Two Five, we further discussed the role of a sommelier in the US versus Italy and the idea of more daring wine pairings or how it is all about the personal taste in wine. Another topic, relating to their podcast where they also talk about wine travel and tourism (wine is indeed a journey in itself), was more intimate wine visits at smaller wineries. Together we agreed on that it nowadays is more interesting to organize visits for small groups at smaller wineries where you get to see directly how and where they work. Then, you can enjoy a wine tasting with the wine producer him/herself.
To learn more about what we discussed at this #WinesOfItaly #LiveStream, you can listen to the entire episode below.
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Written by Katarina Andersson.
Fun podcast Katarina.Val and Steph look like a lot of fun and it’s great they offer humour and the personal touch to let people know about wine.I agree, learning about wine should be fun.
This truly comforted me with “Wine is subjective!” I needed to hear that today, as I’ve been concerned with all that I don’t know about tasting. Lol And great interview! Thanks, Katrina!
Wow.. has it been a year already? You are moving on up sister. Congrats on all that you have done with your wine and translations… you surely get around and I am sure the podcast is amazing!
Love this article, Katarina! Thank you for sharing all this. So glad to be part of your wine orbit! Looking forward to tasting, learning, & chatting about wine for years to come with all of you!
Thank you Valerie, you’re welcome. I feel very fortunate to have gotten to know you on Twitter…I hope to meet you in person too very soon. 🙂
Thank you, Katarina! You are a talented wine professional, and I feel so blessed to call you my friend. I look forward to more wine adventures (and aquavit) in the future!
Thank you Stephanie, you are too nice. I am very happy too that we met last year and hope to share a glass with both you and Val soon. 🙂
Love the “Wine to Five” moniker and how wonderful it is to bring some humour and entertainment into the conversation, while also educating the listeners. Although I don’t drink, I do know that wine is subjective. So often I want to buy wine as a gift for someone who I knows loves wine and yet, I don’t know their taste. As my daughter is server, I defer to her and ask her about wines that are popular where she works. So far my choices have gone over well with the recipients, which is always a good thing. Congrats on all the adventures you’ve had this year and for sharing them with us all, Katarina!
Thanks Beverley, it is great that you enjoy my articles even if you o not drink wine. 🙂 And it is true that wine is subjective and a mix of history, tradition, culture, heritage etc…So even if a person is not very much into wine they can enjoy the stories anyway.
. Interesting the way you. Continue to market your wine so gracefully. I love your site and the articles are special
Great Post!
Lori
Thanks Lori, I am happy you like my wine articles. 🙂
Thanks Lori 🙂
I love that these guys are being authentic and creative to stand out in their space. I love wine. Thank you for all that you have shared over this past year. I have so enjoyed your grapevine adventures and I look forward to more in 2017.
Thanks Christy, and Val and Steph are a lot of fun. Thank you also for following and reading my blog, 2016 was a year when a lot of things moved forward with my blog.
Love traveling the wine country vicariously through your articles! So glad to learn more about the sommelier. So much to learn about wine – it seems endless.
Thanks Robin, I am happy you like the articles. 🙂
What a fun podcast on wine, Katarina! Very informative as well 🙂
I like the idea of #WinesOfItaly #LiveStream to show many facets of the wine world and industry – quite like what you do with your blog as well!
Adding some humor and fun to the winery interviews makes a lot of sense. There is nothing more heartwarming than sharing wine with good friends. This personal touch would entice me to try wine from those wineries that ate featured
Wine is subjective — for sure! Thanks for giving me permission to like sweet wines! 🙂 There are so many wine snobs out there who believe their preferences are the only ones worth having.
Love the idea of a wine edutainment podcast for the everyday person. I’m definitely not a wine expert. And what a clever name, Wine Two Five! 🙂 Visiting wineries and attending wine tastings are two things I enjoy but rarely get to do. I’ll have to check out the podcast!
This sharing about wine parings is valuable. I am sure my husband would be happy to do this tours you are talking about here. I also like how you spread your information through podcasting.
Thanks Lorii, nice you like my articles. Would you come over here let me know, to bring you to some cool places. 🙂
I love how they talk about the different ways to learn about wine. I love wine and would love to learn more about it.
Thanks Mindy, there are indeed many different ways to learn about wine, and all of them can be fun.
At some level I always knew that wine was subjective but just had never heard anyone else say it. Good point.
I’ll happily work “wine to five!” Isn’t it always? I’ve always felt wine was a very personal thing, so to hear it articulated as such really resonates with me.
Aaha, yes…Val’s and Steph’s motto, that it’s always five o’clock somewhere is fun.
I love the comment, Women is subjective -lol. I love how you make wine fun. You are a great example of taking your passion and running (or drinking) with it.
Thanks Tandy, nice that you liked this article here.