Summary:

As Hugh Johnson first grasped in the late 1960s, there is no greater tool to wine understanding than fine cartography: the chance to read a landscape from a single sheet of paper. More and more wine regions around the world, moreover, are now refining the manner in which both growers and producers are able to express terroir via geological and topographical surveys, and high-quality mapping is an essential adjunct to this. No contemporary cartographer has had more impact on today's wine world than Alessandro Masnaghetti: the guest on our third edition of WSG Live.

Guest:  Alessandro Masnaghetti

Alessandro began his career in wine as a taster -- for the influential Luigi Veronelli, and then later for Vinum and l'Espresso, as well as for La Revue des Vins de France. He is the only Italian founder member of the Grand Jury Européen. Since 2007, though, he has gone back to a former passion of his, cartography, on the basis that "the true essence of journalism lies not in purveying opinions but in carrying out research and in-depth analysis". His magnificent maps of the Langhe and of Chianti Classico have led to new ways of thinking about these classic regions, and he has also mapped both Valpolicella and Bordeaux. He is currently engaged on a major, long-term project to map California's wine regions for Antonio Galloni's Vinous.