The Grape Nation Heritage Radio Network

For over two decades, Alice Feiring has been the original and honest voice of Natural Wine. She cut her teeth on Manischewitz and mastered her way to Morgon…and Barolo! Alice is an award-winning wine writer, prolific author, publishes her natural wine newsletter, “The Feiring Line”, and just released her sixth book, To Fall in Love, Drink This: A Wine Writer’s Memoir, a journey of love and wine from her childhood to the Pandemic.

Wolffer Estate was the vision of German-born businessman Christian Wolffer. He purchased property in Sagaponack in the late ‘70’s and developed it into one of the great vineyards on Long Island and in the world. Marc and Joey Wolffer, Christian’s son and daughter, along with winemaker/partner Roman Roth, now run the Estate. Joey started a successful career in fashion and design before shifting her time to the winery. She is a restless Mom, designer, horse lover and the Chief Branding Officer. German-born Roman Roth earned his wine degree at home before traveling to the US and Australia to broaden his wine knowledge. Roman Roth joined Wolffer Estate in the early ‘90’s as their first winemaker and continues to oversee all winemaking.

Brooklyn’s own Kilolo Strobert is a true Crown Heights Affair. After attending high school on the Upper West Side, culinary school at Johnson and Wales, her love of wine, hospitality, helping friends with wine pairings and recos solidly pushed her into wine. She has worked all aspects of the business including retail at Morrell and Le Du’s and Fresh Direct, the Hotel Parker Meridien, Zagat and more. 18 years ago, she took a job at a wine store in Prospect Park, today she is now the owner of that same store, Fermented Grapes. Kilolo is committed to wines that are natural, highlights diversification, globalization, women and the BIPOC winemaking community.

Hailing out of Los Angeles, Randall Grahm attended college in Santa Cruz. A stint at a wine shop in Beverly Hills woke Randall to the allure and magic of wine, sending him to UC Davis to study Plant Science, and an itching obsession with Pinot Noir. Randall made his way back to Santa Cruz and, as they say, the rest is history. He started Bonny Doon Vineyard in the early ‘80’s and made a sharp turn from Pinot Noir to becoming a California pioneer of Rhone varietals with his iconic Le Cigare Volant. Randall recently sold Bonny Doon and launched a new project called the Language of Yes with none other than the Gallo Family. Randall’s other obsession is his interest and work in the expansion and expression of new varietals in California. Randall approaches the whole wine thing with a bit of wit, as a bad boy sometimes, a dreamer and a true genius.

This episode was recorded live at this spring's RAW Wine NYC - a celebration of artisan and natural wines.

My guests were Kreso Petrekovic from Vinas Mora and Marko Kovac representing Bibich Winery. Together we explore the region of Dalmatia, a historic wine region in the south of Croatia on the Adriatic Sea in Eastern Europe. Wine has been produced there for thousands of years, and Dalmatia has some of the oldest continually cultivated vineyards. It is one of the four main wine regions of Croatia. We sampled the region by tasting and discussing 6 wines.

Hailing from California with time spent in Vermont, Max Mackinnon found a love for cooking and attended the French Culinary Institute after college in Vermont. He crisscrossed the country working in San Francisco, Washington DC, Hudson NY, his own restaurant Pistou in Vermont, and even worked in Copenhagen. Max always had a love for wine and morphed over to wine sales eventually leaving to hit the floor as Wine Director at Roberta’s Pizza in Bushwick, also home of the Heritage Radio studios.