Ep 608: The Grape Miniseries -- The Barbera Refresh
Wine for Normal People
Wine for Normal People
4.6 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Barbera is one of Italy's most widely planted red grapes and an essential part of Piemontese wine culture. It is native to the Monferrato hills, where it has been grown for centuries and important to the overall wine landscape of the region. Adaptable, drought-resistant, and capable of producing everything from bright, food-friendly, everyday wines to serious oak-aged bottles, Barbera has spread beyond its homeland — to California, Argentina, Australia and more.
A grower's and winemaker's favorite grape for its easygoing nature in the vineyard and the winery, in the glass, Barbera takes many forms. From acidic and fruity to oaked with darker fruit and spice, it is food-friendly, pairing with everything from braised meat to pizza.
As in all the grape miniseries, I cover the DNA of the grape (a fairly recent discovery and kind of a funny story), its history, its behavior in the vineyard and winery, aromas and flavors of the grape and regions in Italy and abroad that make Barbera.
Much has happened with Barbera since I last discussed it in 2018 -- take a listen and hear the latest!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it. |
| 0:15.8 | I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and Certified Wine Dork. |
| 0:21.2 | This episode is brought to you by Wine Access. |
| 0:24.4 | This one's a little bittersweet. |
| 0:25.9 | It's one of my last episodes with Wine Access as my exclusive sponsor, and they are going |
| 0:30.3 | out in style after an incredible run together, and they wanted to say thank you to you |
| 0:34.5 | with something special. |
| 0:35.7 | New customers get 10% off their first order using |
| 0:38.4 | code WFNP 26 at wine access.com slash WFNP. Listen in the middle of the show for more details. |
| 0:49.0 | As pretty much all the time, I have Italy on the brain. But as I'm thinking of things to refresh, the great |
| 0:54.8 | miniseries is definitely ripe for that. And I am so excited about the one today on Barbera. And the |
| 1:02.9 | reason is because there has been a lot of new information since the last time I covered Barbera, |
| 1:08.7 | which was in 2018. That was a really long time ago, |
| 1:12.1 | and there have been new developments with the grape, new things that people have learned about it. |
| 1:16.8 | So I'm excited to share that with you. I am going to save up some of the patron shoutouts and do |
| 1:22.3 | them next time. This time we are just going to get to the show because there is a lot of material |
| 1:27.1 | to cover. So if you have |
| 1:28.4 | become a new patron, thank you so much. If you were thinking about it, I think I mentioned last time the Patreon signups have definitely slowed down. And if you want the show to keep going, please think about joining. The commitment starts at $34 a year. It's really not that much. And if you enjoy the show, I would really appreciate your support. |
| 1:44.0 | Patreon.com slash wine for normal people. |
| 1:46.6 | And don't forget the classes. Also, there's one on Veneto coming up |
| 1:49.9 | this week. Great to Bordeaux is also on the roster. So check that out. I'm coming out with all the new |
| 1:55.8 | summer classes very soon. So winefornormal people.com slash classes. And if your patron, remember, I just did a |
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