Interview With Glass of Bubbly Writer – Katarina Andersson

The World of Wine is beautifully showcased by some very passionate people, who love to write and share their knowledge and experience of wine just as much as they love to taste it, in this feature we speak with a wonderful Glass of Bubbly Writer from Italy, Katarina Andersson, you can discover some of her great written features here, and we can’t wait to share her latest feature, let’s find out about her life in the wine industry.

Tell Us About Yourself & What Inspired You To Become Involved In The Wine Industry?

I was already a bit interested in wine at secondary school in Sweden. When my friends brought vodka or tequila to the pre-parties where the objective was to drink as much as possible before going out to the disco, I remember I every now and then would bring a bottle of wine and everyone would look strangely at me. My interest became stronger and stronger when I moved to Italy to do a Ph.D. in history. Still, it was more a curiosity to try different kinds of wine.

However, I first became more involved when I decided to take the sommelier course together with a friend about 12-14 years ago. During the course, my interest was really piqued and I discovered how much history and culture lies behind viticulture and winemaking. It is about so much more than what ends up in the finished bottle. We had a great course group and often visited wineries and organized tastings together which got me more and more hooked. Wine is so much about people, a sense of place, tradition, culture, and history, and I started to draw parallels to the history I had studied for so many years when I was still in academia. I also started seeing the longer underlying social and structural lines and processes.

It was during that period that I opened a free WordPress blog and started to write in English about my wine experiences with my sommelier friends. It then very soon turned into something more as wine lovers from around the world started tweeting me or commenting on my articles. Some of them were high-level marketing and tech thought leaders interested in wine and they advised me to start live streaming when the first live streaming apps came out in 2015 in the US. This turned everything around for me in terms of visibility when I started my weekly livestream – WinesOfItaly LiveStream – on Blab.im in 2015 I interviewed mainly smaller Italian wine producers in an informal way where people could interact with producers live. It was a weekly show up until around 2019 and then I did seasonal episodes up until 2023. In Italy, I was the first livestreamer in the wine sector which gave me an edge in that period. I was lucky to do the right thing at the right moment.

Now, everybody is livestreaming, podcasting, and posting videos every day and are very good at it so I am kind of doing less of it trying to focus on other things. I am working on turning my WinesOfItaly LiveStream into a podcast, but it is taking me some time as it is much more work to prepare it than a livestream.

Now, I am mainly collaborating with some wineries and other wine businesses for content creation, translation, or wine selections, but I am also writing articles for some international magazines time permitting.

Do You Remember Your First Experience With Sparkling Wine? When It Was And What Kind Of Wine It Was?

My first experience with sparkling wine was in Sweden but I am not sure it is a great story to tell as it was Asti Spumante or Lambrusco and I had not much knowledge about what I was drinking.

Many years later, I visited a high school friend back home in southern Sweden who had started making Champenoise method sparkling wines with grapes he got from a friend’s winery in Burgundy. He had also planted grapes at his family farm – Köpingsbergs Vingård – a couple of years earlier to be able to slowly make sparkling wine with his own grapes. It was a fun experience because it was a bit more than 10 years ago when more and more wine producers started to pop up in southern Sweden. I visited Köpingsbergs Vingård with an Italian friend, and she did not entirely believe me until she saw it with her own eyes.

What Sparkling Wine Producing Countries or Regions Hold A Special Place In Your Heart?

I like Franciacorta a lot and it was also one of my first visits to a sparkling wine producing region I went together with the FISAR sommelier delegation in Florence where I saw more about Champenoise method winemaking up close.

When I went to the Portugieser du Monde competition in Hungary some years ago, I discovered that you can make very interesting Champenoise method wine with the Portugieser grape which is often not considered as much of a grape. For example, I tasted Brut Nature Morizz 2014 made with the Portugieser grape from Wassman winery close to Pécs in Hungary, but I am not sure they make it anymore. Griffin Rosé from Griffin Family Winery in Croatia was another very nice sparkling wine I tasted in the competition.

In Italy, less common regions for sparkling wine lie close to my heart, such as Champenoise method sparkling wine made with native grapes by D’Araprì winery in northern Puglia, Champenoise method sparkling wine made with Caprettone by Casa Setaro on Mount Vesuvius in Campania, or with Palagrello Bianco by Masseria Piccirillo close to Caserta in Campania.

Where’s The Most Memorable Place You’ve Enjoyed A Glass of Bubbly?

One of the most memorable places I would say at sunset is Al Trabucco da Mimì in Peschici on the Gargano in Puglia where I was having dinner with Girolamo, Maria Antonietta, and Anna D’Amico, one of the owners of D’Araprì winery. We were sipping on one of their sparkling wines with a beautiful view of the Gargano coast and the sea. The Trabucco (or trabocco) is an old kind of fishing machine that was typical of the Adriatic coast, especially in Abruzzo and in the Gargano area of northern Puglia.

Thank you, Katarina, for sharing your story and experiences with us and we at Glass of Bubbly wish you the very best for the future!

Images belong to Katarina Andersson. Glass of Bubbly was granted permission to use them.