By Gabe Saglie
(Published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on Nov. 7, 2013)
Monica
Larner always schedules return visits to her family’s wine estate north of
Santa Barbara around the end of summer.
That’s when her work as a Rome-based wine reviewer slows down. But her trip in October was an especially
joyful one: she got to witness the birth of her niece, Sienna.
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| Monica Larner |
“I even got
to be in the delivery room,” she boasts.
The healthy little girl is the second child for Larner’s brother,
Michael, and his wife, Christina. The
Ballard Canyon-based couple runs the family’s respected Larner Vineyard, which
provides Rhone fruit, mainly – grapes like syrah and grenache – to producers
throughout the county, as well as for the family’s own Larner Winery label.
It wasn’t
entirely a pleasure trip, though.
Speaking with me from Ballard the day before her flight back to Italy, Monica
Larner told me, “I had to finish up a huge report on amarone, the wine of
northeast Italy, and so I’ve been writing that here.”
A weighty
task, to be sure. Because that report – she
predicts it’ll average about 60,000 words – will be devoured voraciously by
tens of thousands of wine aficionados, collectors and critics. Monica Larner, you see, has just become one
of the most influential reviewers of Italian wines in the world, having been
hand-picked to join the small editorial staff of The Wine Advocate.
“Some people
tell me that since I was hired by Robert Parker, I must have Parker’s palate,”
she tells me, quickly adding in defense, “But why, just because I work for
him? I hope that thinking eventually
changes as the Wine Advocate becomes known for a group of tasters rather than
just one man.”
Don’t
underestimate the power of that comparison, though. Robert Parker’s palate, after all, has long
been credited – blamed, by some? – for single-handedly driving the way wines
around the world are made, priced and marketed.
His Wine Advocate, a publication he launched in 1978 and which is now
supported online by erobertparker.com,
has more than 50,000 global subscribers, a vast majority of them in the
U.S. And the scores it awards, based on
a now-famous 100-point scale, can make or break individual wines, if not entire
vintages.
None of that
is lost on Larner, who admits Parker is “a monumental figure.” But she explains that Parker “was a product
of his time. His palate started growing
when American’s hunger for European tastes and gastronomy was growing – when
Julia Child was getting known – and that’s what brought his importance to such
a high level.”
Larner, who started
with Wine Advocate in late April, is now part of an eight-member international team
of editorial tasters and reviewers.
Parker is one of them, and his focus remains on wines from Napa and Bordeaux. “I’m responsible for reviewing all the wines
of Italy,” says Larner. “Current
releases, past vintages, up and coming news, you name it.”
Typically, she’s
on a rotating two-month schedule. She
spends one entire month traveling the country, visiting wine growing regions
and meeting with producers. “I spend a
lot of time in the car driving,” she says (and admits she actually finds negotiating
the highways of Southern California a lot more daunting). The month that follows is spent tasting and
writing at her Rome office, just outside the Coliseum. There’s no word limit on her reports for the
bimonthly publication. “It can go up to
150,000 words,” she says. “And it takes
a long time to write, because I want to be careful.”
Careful. Because Larner is keenly aware of the
influence that those words are bound to have, especially since the weakened
domestic economy in Italy has made winemakers there extra keen on luring
American consumers. “I’m in a position
of greater power, and that’s given me a lot to worry about,” admits Larner,
humbly. “When I publish a score, I can
see more of an anxiousness from producers for me to taste their samples.”
These days,
Larner’s interest is most piqued by what’s going on in Southern Italy, a region
she feels traditional media have ignored.
“So many of those wine in areas like Aetna, Puglia, Campagna – they’re
based on grapes so mysterious and weird and unknown,” she says. “It’s very rustic, but in time, and with more
research, I suspect they’re gems. People
just don’t know about them yet.”
Her new job
is enhanced, no doubt, by her love for wine.
But more so, perhaps, by her love for Italy. Larner was 11 when she first traveled there,
as the family accompanied her father, Stevan Larner, on his job as Director of
Photography for a TV miniseries titled The
Winds of War. (Mr. Larner, who died
in a tragic accident on the family’s Ballard ranch in 2005, also had high-profile
Hollywood titles like Roots and Caddyshack to his name).
“Italy had a
humungous effect on me,” recalls Larner.
“I was a young teen, my aesthetics were beginning to form, and it left a
mark on me that continued through my career.”
 |
| Larner Vineyard, Ballard Canyon (Photo by Bob Dickey) |
In 1997,
when her family founded Larner Vineyard in Santa Barbara County – an endeavor
driven by her father’s own passion for wine – Monica Larner was there,
selecting clones, planting roots and pruning vines. But after she finished grad school on the
East Coast, she would, in fact, go on to become a journalist based in Italy, writing
for daily newspapers and compiling three tourist guide books – and an archive
of more than 50,000 photographs – on Italy. She dabbled in wine writing during this
time. But it wasn’t until 2003, when
professional connections led Wine Enthusiast Magazine to offer her a job, that
her pen’s focus turned to wine in earnest.
“Those were
10 wonderful years,” says Larner, who helped the American publication build a
substantial presence in Italy with 3,000 wine reviews a year and who, in turn,
received detailed training on “everything that made the Italian wine scene
tick” and on that all-important 100-point scale.
She’d even
go on to win the “Best International Journalist” Silver Grape Leaf, an honor
bestowed by Italy’s top wine producers, three times, more than anyone
else.
Her
influence, expertise and appreciation for Italian wines now well rooted, Robert
Parker came calling earlier this year.
And the rest, at least for now, is history.
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| The Larners: Michael, mom Christine, Monica and Michael's wife, Christina |
Larner looks forward to more return visits to her family’s Ballard Canyon vineyard, where her mother, Christine, also
lives. She'll sip more of her brother’s wines, of course, although she isn’t
allowed to review them, or anything out of California, for that matter. She is aware of the burgeoning Italian wine
movement in Santa Barbara – producers working with grapes like nebbiolo and
sangiovese – but it’s still all about Italy for her. “Every grape is a biological creature and
will start to reflect the nuances of its surroundings,” she says. “These varietals perform so beautifully in
Italy and are just completely different here.”
But in
bigger picture terms, there are parallels in the nuances, and her outlook for
Santa Barbara County wine as an industry is enthusiastic. “Enormous variation – syrah in Ballard Canyon,
Happy Canyon with Bordeaux grapes, pinot noir in the Sta. Rita Hills – that makes
Santa Barbara similar to Italy,” she says.
“Having huge diversity in one little area is something that’s been a
competitive advantage for Italians in the market, and I hope Santa Barbara can
follow a similar story.”
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