About this Episode: 

About the Guest (source: https://www.ikavina.com/story.asp)

Along the way of tasting and drinking a number of wines from the Old World and the New World, I came up with the question of how to drink wines for free, and the next step was to build a website and start reviewing wines. And, while doing this as well as still attending wine tastings on a weekly basis, I came to get to know people in the trade; importers, distributors, winemakers, label owners, sales reps, bartenders, restaurateurs, etc. Of course, some of them brush you off at first, but when they start seeing you consistently and other people say you're cool, it starts to open doors.

The next step was to put together some smaller tastings to expose some of the people I know/knew to different wines that were out there and easily found but that they might walk by. I started by holding one at Manayunk Brewery with a bevy of great wines from Nationwide Wine and Spirits. Following this, I did a couple over at Mantra, which was owned by buddy, Chef Al Paris. From this, I realized that a television show would be a great vehicle featuring him with the food and me with the wine. This resulted in a couple of tapings at Mission Grille in Philadelphia and a couple of dinners upstairs at the Manayunk Brewery; I literally have gotten a ton of phone calls over the years where the caller thought my number was that of Mission Grille! In all of this, we got welcome assistance from restaurant owners, managers, other chefs and waiters who all came in and helped us out. And the television show ideas are still there and ready.

The wines mentioned in this episode: 

Romanee Conti 

Franciacorta

Wines of Aleria 

Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio

Motif

Caprice

Bakhita 

Arpeggio - Aglianico

Passito di Pantelleria "Ben Ryé" 2018 donnafugata

Grappa

Pisco

Ikavina Website: https://www.ikavina.com/

How I Became Main Page: https://anchor.fm/howibecame