In Episode 85 of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland sits down with Cristián Vallejo, the winemaker who helped build Viña VIK in Chile under owner Alexander Vik — starting from absolute zero. No vineyards. No cellar. Just 4,500 hectares of wild land in the Millahue Valley and an ambition that practically screamed, "We are not here to make normal wine."

This is a deep dive into terroir precision and controlled madness: micro valleys, hundreds of parcels, high-density planting, and a pivotal moment Vallejo calls the vineyard's personality. We explore circular winemaking, wild yeast, amphora ageing, and why VIK keeps nearly 90 percent of the estate untouched.

Then, in our bonus coverage — available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com — the conversation goes even deeper into the Stone VIK project, where amphoras age in a forest aligned with solstice, full moons, geology, vibration, and time. Stonehenge meets Grand Cru wine. We also uncover the very human moment Cristián Vallejo learned VIK had scored 100 points — standing alone in the Atlanta airport.

If you like your wine talk equal parts craft, culture, and a touch of spirituality, this episode is for you.

Featuring: Viña VIK, Millahue Valley, Chile, biodynamic, amphora ageing.

Can a wine be both unmistakably Bordeaux and unmistakably not Bordeaux at the same time?

In Episode 84 of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland sits down with Anselmo Guerrieri Gonzaga of San Leonardo Family Estate, one of Trentino's most iconic names, in the shadow of the Dolomites, Italy. It's a lively, story-driven conversation that moves from history to terroir, and from bottle ageing to the future of wine itself.

Critics call San Leonardo "Bordeaux with Alpine poise" — and once you understand why, the contradiction starts to make perfect sense. A narrow valley. Fewer hours of direct sunlight. The Ora wind rolling in off Lake Garda. Together, they shape a freshness, a restraint, an elegance that no amount of classic Bordeaux winemaking alone could produce. We unpack the estate's philosophy, the origins of their flagship San Leonardo wine, and the underrated star of the cellar: Carménère, often mistaken for Cabernet Franc and wildly different here than in Chile.

We also dive into the craft side: concrete vats, restrained oak, extraction choices, and what makes Terre such a joy to drink.

Then, in our bonus episode — available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com — we go deeper into sustainability, Equalitas, biodiversity, pergola versus Guyot, climate change planning, and yes, the famous San Leonardo garden.

Featuring: San Leonardo, Trentino, Italy, Carménère, sustainable viticulture.

A doctor walks into the wine debate — and brings the data with her.

In Episode 83 of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland sits down with Dr. Laura Catena — physician, fourth-generation vintner, and the voice behind In Defense of Wine. She's spent years watching headlines flatten decades of research into a single, terrifying sentence. This episode is her rebuttal.

We go straight at it: the World Health Organization's messaging, the role Movendi International plays in pushing a zero-nuance narrative, and what the actual science says about moderate drinking — the J-curve, why age and drinking pattern matter more than headlines admit. We unpack The Lancet's Global Burden of Disease debate, NASEM versus ICCPUD, and the critical difference between absolute and relative risk, including the breast cancer data everyone cites and almost no one explains correctly.

And we make the case for something the studies can't measure: a glass of wine, a table, people you love, and the simple fact that a molecule was never the whole story.

If you care about wine culture, public health, and data that doesn't get oversimplified for a headline, this is essential listening.

Featuring: Laura Catena, In Defense of Wine, wine and health, moderate drinking research.

For more information about our Podcast, visit us on the web: https://readbetweenthewines.com

In this episode of Read Between the Wines, Pierre sits down with Andrea Kaiser, winemaker and daughter of the late Karl J. Kaiser, co-founder of Inniskillin and one of the two pioneers who built modern Canadian winemaking with vinifera grapes.

Andrea grew up among the vines in Niagara, Canada, watching her father measure sugars with a refractometer, tasting early batches, and debating acidity, sweetness, and oak at the family table. But it wasn't until Inniskillin's 50th anniversary and her father's celebration of life that she truly understood the scale of his impact — and decided to continue the legacy in her own way with Drea's Wine Co.

Pierre and Andrea explore her path from the family's restaurant to Reif Estate Winery, and finally to launching her own small-batch label focused on Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, and Dornfelder. She explains why Niagara-on-the-Lake's microclimate — the lake, the Niagara River, the escarpment — allows her to grow varieties that surprise many cool-climate drinkers.

The conversation also touches on palate evolution, Canadian wine identity, single-vineyard philosophy, and what it felt like to pour her first Sauvignon Blanc for international critics including Jancis Robinson and Tony Aspler.

A warm, insightful episode honouring a Canadian wine legacy — and the next chapter written by Drea herself.

In our bonus episode, available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com, the conversation goes further still.

Featuring: Drea's Wine Co, Inniskillin, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc.

Four years ago, Stone Eagle was a cult label. Today it's a winery, an estate, a restaurant, and a statement.

In this episode of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland catches up with Adam Pearce — the winemaker behind Stone Eagle Winery and the celebrated wines of Two Sisters in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. Four years after their first conversation during the pandemic, Adam returns with a full update: estate vineyards on Highway 55, a focused portfolio built around age-worthy reds, and The Nest restaurant sitting right in the middle of it all.

Together, Pierre and Adam dig into what it actually takes to build wines that reward patience in a small market that often wants instant gratification. They go deep on Cabernet Franc, the Eagle Eye Sauvignon Blanc Semillon, the Blanc de Franc sparkling, and why balance, structure, and time remain the real luxuries in Canadian wine. Adam also speaks candidly about climate change, extreme vintages, replanting difficult vineyards, and the constant tension between consumer demand and winemaker curiosity.

And then the conversation goes somewhere bigger: the war on wine, the rise of low and no alcohol products, and why responsible enjoyment — food, place, and human connection — still sits at the heart of what wine actually is.

Featuring: Stone Eagle Winery, Two Sisters Vineyards, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay.

What if the longest-lived people on earth all drink wine — and that's not the interesting part?

In this episode of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland sits down with Dan Buettner — National Geographic explorer, Emmy Award-winning documentary maker, New York Times bestselling author, and the researcher behind one of the most counterintuitive findings in modern longevity science: that across five regions of the world where people routinely live past 100, moderate wine consumption isn't an indulgence. It's infrastructure.

The Blue Zones — from Okinawa to Sardinia, Ikaria to Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula — don't share a supplement, a fitness routine, or a diet app. They share something harder to bottle: daily movement, plant-forward meals eaten slowly, communities built around purpose, and wine consumed the way it was always meant to be. With food. With people. With time.

Dan and Pierre dig into what longevity actually looks like at ground level, what the science says about red wine specifically, and why the way you drink matters as much as what you drink. They also get into storytelling as a public health tool — and why data alone has never once changed anyone's behaviour.

A conversation that will make you feel considerably better about your next glass of Cannonau.

Featuring: Blue Zones, Dan Buettner, longevity, Sardinia, wine and health, Mediterranean diet.

In 1995, a Burgundy producer did something nobody in the wine world had ever done: he took Robert Parker to court.

His name was François Faiveley. And for a young Pierre Ferland, still finding his way through the world of wine, that act of defiance against the most powerful critic on earth changed everything. Today, Pierre sits down with François's son.

In Episode 79 of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland is joined by Erwan Faiveley — seventh generation, head of Domaine Faiveley since 2005, and steward of one of Burgundy's most singular legacies. Founded in 1825, Faiveley is one of only two estates in Burgundy — alongside Romanée-Conti — whose name is officially part of a Grand Cru appellation. The Clos des Cortons Faiveley monopole. A distinction earned through a legal battle in 1930 that nobody planned for and nobody has replicated since.

This is a deep, wide-ranging conversation: the two faces of Nuits-Saint-Georges and why its terroir is harder to understand than most people admit. The gravity-fed winery overhaul of 2007 and what it did to the tannin structure of Faiveley's reds. Oak used purely for tannin, never for flavour. Climate change, frost risk, and selecting vine material that ripens later. Tariffs, trade wars, and what 200 years of cycles teaches you about patience. Whether critics' scores still matter in Grand Cru Burgundy — and Erwan's answer is three words.

And then there's Rodin. In the middle of the cellar in Nuits-Saint-Georges sits one of 12 original casts of The Kiss. It's there because Faiveley's great-grandmother was the adopted daughter of Maurice Fenaille — Rodin's greatest patron, and the man who bankrolled the Domaine's most important vineyard acquisitions a century ago. Today, every centime of tasting fees at the Domaine goes to two places: the Château de Clos de Vougeot and the Musée Rodin in Paris.

"Winemaking is 90% work and 10% feeling," Erwan says. For a family in its 200th year, that ratio has never changed.

Featuring: Domaine Faiveley, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Burgundy, France, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Clos des Cortons, Grand Cru.

For Episode 78 of Read Between the Wines, we head to the Okanagan Valley to visit Quails' Gate, one of Canada's most iconic wineries. Host Pierre Ferland sits down with Rowan Stewart, who shares the story of his family's four generations of farming and their pioneering role in BC wine. From early Pinot Noir plantings to cutting-edge vineyard technology, Quails' Gate has always been a leader in shaping the region.

But the past two years brought disaster. Back-to-back frost events wiped out almost the entire vineyard, erasing decades of work in just a few freezing nights. Instead of waiting for help, the Stewart family acted fast. They created Field and Flight, a bold project sourcing grapes from across the Pacific Northwest to keep their spirit alive. More than survival, it became a story of resilience and creativity.

Rowan reflects on the land, the challenges of climate change, and the emotional side of winemaking. This episode is about more than vines and clones—it's about family, perseverance, and the future of Canadian wine.

For more information about our Podcast, visit us on the web: https://readbetweenthewines.com Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweenthewinesmedia Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/read-between-the-wines

For most of the last century, English wine was the punchline. Now it's the plot twist.

In this episode of Read Between the Wines, Pierre Ferland sits down with Nicola Bates, CEO of Wine GB — the body representing English and Welsh wine producers — to explore one of the most unlikely transformations in the modern wine world. A country with a winemaking history stretching back to Roman occupation, then largely forgotten, then quietly, stubbornly rebuilt, is now producing sparkling wines that compete on the same stage as Champagne. And the industry is moving faster than almost anyone anticipated.

Nicola and Pierre dig into what's actually driving that momentum: the chalk and clay soils that English and Welsh vineyards share with northern France, the climate shifts that have opened growing windows previously considered impossible, and the three-year strategy Wine GB is executing to turn international curiosity into lasting credibility. They talk sustainability through the SWGB certification, the diversity and education initiatives reshaping who gets to work in British wine, and wine tourism as a genuine economic engine — not an afterthought.

This is a conversation about a wine region still writing its own rules. Which is exactly what makes it worth watching.

Featuring: Wine GB, English wine, Welsh wine, English sparkling wine, sustainable viticulture, Great Britain.

For Episode 76 of Read Between the Wines, we head to Spain with the dynamic Nathalie Bonhomme, the French-Canadian force behind Les Vins Bonhomme. From her early days in Valencia to becoming a global wine brand, Nathalie shares her remarkable journey, blending bold branding with serious winemaking. We explore her partnerships with top Spanish producers, her deep connection to the Canadian market, and her foray into olive oil. It's a story about passion, persistence, and creating wines that truly resonate—across Sweden, Japan, Canada, and beyond. An inspiring and flavour-packed conversation not to be missed.

For more information about our Podcast, visit us on the web: https://readbetweenthewines.com Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweenthewinesmedia Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/read-between-the-wines