After finishing her PhD in Florence, Katarina decided to move from her native Sweden and start her own translation services business. She is the creator of the Wines of Italy Blab on Twitter and the Grapevine Adventures Blog. You can often find her quite actively engaged in the wine scene in Florence as a FISAR sommelier as well as in social media tasting, chatting and writing about Italian wines. Lots to learn in this episode from favorite wine bars in Florence, to cocktails to a little factoid about Swiss wine.
Val: “It is Wine Two Five time and you know it! Welcome listeners, hello Steph, and Ciao Katarina!”
Katarina: “Hey, thank you for having me here!”
Steph: “So great to have you on the show Katarina for Episode 62, but before we get into the good-stuff… let’s find out what everybody’s drinking…”
Drinking:
Val: I’m keeping it light with G&T, since I’m going to work out after this, with Uncle Val’s Botanical Gin, and Fever Tree “Naturally Light” Tonic Water.
Katarina was going to a tasting later on in the evening (since it is aperitivo hour in Florence), so she’d be imbibing later.
Steph: “Creative cocktail alert! Cynar and Cocomazing blood orange coconut sparkling water that I picked up at CostCo? – what!?- yeah baby! It’s like a health drink.”
Val: “So before the show it was pretty much Two Girls in Sports Bras Drinking Cocktails which should be the new name of our podcast …”
Discussion: Interview with Katarina Andersson:
A bit more than 15 years ago, Katarina came to Florence from Sweden to do a Ph.D in history at the research institute of the European Union. After receiving her Ph.D. and teaching Modern History at the university for a couple of years, she decided to stay in Florence, changing her career path by using her second degree in languages and becoming a freelance translator. Katarina’s interest in wine has been running as a connective thought all through these years, leading her to become a sommelier a couple of years ago. Her wine blogging started more for fun, and now it has turned into a blog called Grapevine Adventures where she writes about wine tastings, visits to wineries and other wine adventures. Every Tuesday at 3pmEST, Katarina also host a #WinesOfItaly blab with local wine producers as guests.
In this interview, Katarina talked to us about how she ended up living in Florence and starting her own business. People thought she was crazy and would never survive the Italian bureaucracy, but this only fueled her to prove “them” wrong. Her love of wine of course led her to work toward the different levels of the FISAR sommelier certifications. (FISAR stands for Federazione Italiana Sommelier Albergatori Ristoratori which means the Federation of Italian Sommeliers Hoteliers & Restaurateurs.) From this she started meeting wine producers around Italy and wanted to introduce them to other wine lovers.
Two of her online mentors in the social media realm introduced Katarina to the Blab as a way of holding a communications session. It’s much more media rich than a twitter chat using hashtags. Think of it as the lovechild of live streaming and a hangout platform. The idea took off and is becoming a popular place for Italian wine lovers to ask questions and learn about different wine producers each Tuesday at 3 p.m. EDT.
We hope you enjoy the interview with Katarina in this week’s episode!
Factoid:
Val: “Did you know…Switzerland actually has six wine regions? The Valais, Vaud, Ticino (which is 80% planted with Merlot) are three of the major ones. Their main signature grape is called Chasselas (you may see it also as Fendant). Other grapes include Cornalin (red), Amigne (white).”
Winoradar:
Steph: “The latest GuildSomm podcast is great for learning more about white wine making, and I think it is helpful for our listeners. It was a good refresher for me. And our listeners might not know that the podcast is free, so you can listen without a membership to guildsomm.com. PLUS, and I did not know this, there’s a tab on their website that reads “Public Content” and in addition to the podcast episodes, there’s a ton of wine education videos. For example, to tie in with today’s topic, there’s a short 10 minute video on Tuscany. These are useful tools to expand your wine knowledge, and if that’s your prerogative, go for it!”
Val: “Taste Vacations, one of our affiliate partners, is going to Tuscany next week and we at Wine Two Five wanted to tease you with the description of their extraordinary trip. This is how Taste Vacations helps you create food & wine memories… “We start our tour in Florence, capital of the Medici, and hit major areas including Chianti, Arezzo, Assisi (wait, that’s not in Tuscany!), and Montepulciano, with a side trip into Umbria (which is where Assisi actually is). Our days are filled with wine tastings, visits to local food producers and sellers, and even truffle hunting in the forests visited by few tourists. Tuscany is a spectacular region for a vacation and there is no better way to visit than to focus on the local food and wine.
“Of course as of this release the Tuscany tour has already happened, however, we invite our listeners to check out the link to Taste Vacations so you won’t miss the other trips currently offered.”
Shoutouts:
Val: “Thank you, Katarina, for carving the time out of your evening to be with us today. After all, it is an eight-hour difference and took some coordinating to make this interview possible.”
Steph: “My gratitude goes out to my Justin for cooking a multi-course dinner paired with wine for a few friends of ours over the weekend. I was pampered, and loved every minute and every hour. Thank you! It is nice every once and a while to take the backseat to the wine “responsibility” and just BE.
“Annnnd that’s all we have for this week. Connect with Val on Twitter @WineGalUnboxed and on the Vino With Val FB page, and on instagram as Vino with Val. You can find Steph on Twitter @Albarellosoap and on the AlbarelloSoap FB page, and check out the videos on the Albarello YouTube channel!
“Katarina can be found at her wine blog, Grapevine Adventures, on her Facebook pages, Twitter and Instagram.”
Val: you can visit us on the WineTwoFive website, FB page, Twitter, Pinterest & YouTube or check out our contact page. Also, if you want to build your collection of wine books – particularly the ones we’ve mentioned on this show, you can check out our store on our website for more information on how to get them! We chose some of our favorite items and linked them up through our website, although there are so many Trending items we can’t keep up! So if you’re going to order these things anyway, then it also helps W25.
“We hope that you’ll share Wine Two Five with your friends and online community and truly appreciate all your involvement and feedback and especially iTunes reviews. One more thing… Don’t forget to use the #W25Challenge when you are trying new wines and drinks & thank you to those who have been posting like crazy! So until next week – Cheers!”