This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 062 / Winemaking Under The Tuscan Sun (Literally) with Mary Shea

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

I’ve invited my guest to join me today for totally selfish reasons, because she might be one of the only people on the planet that I’d consider trading lives with. After getting her degree in journalism from NYU, Mary Shea landed in Napa CA, where she met her now husband, an Italian vintner. She has spent many years working at the top end of the wine business, while also curating her own custom travel design business. Mary shares with us what she loves about making wine in Tuscany (what’s not to love?!?), as well as the challenges and obstacles of her business. She also shares some helpful tips for great wine and travel! Chase. Your. Dreams. Be open to possibilities, explore, go new places, meet new people, experience differences, and what brings us all together. Find joy in the life you’re living, and take just one step closer to something that lights you up from the inside. This is Woman’s Work. To learn more about Mary Shea please visit: maryshea.co To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Running a business requires an abundant amount of skills that few of us were ever taught, so we're basically left to learn them the hard way. Which is why I'm partnering with Honor Your Ambition to bring you the 12-week mastermind. For women who are running a business, starting a business, or just want to grow their business acumen, this mastermind will be a crash course in all the things we need to know about business. Plus, the added opportunity to exchange ideas, learn from, give to, and network with other women who are up to big things professionally. To learn more about the Honor Your Ambition mastermind, visit honoryourambition.com and then register yourself. Because the best investment you can ever make

is in your own growth and development. So join us now because the space is limited and I cannot wait to see you there. I often ask myself and occasionally ask out loud, why can't it be my job to travel the world and stay in awesome hotels while eating great food, drinking wine, immersing myself in new cultures, while having my home base be on a gorgeous vineyard in Tuscany? One might say that the movie Under the Tuscan Sun may have provided a little bit too much inspiration for me, but we're supposed to follow our passions and use our strengths, talents, and unique abilities, right? And I just know I would excel at the highest levels under that job description. Does that life really exist?

Is it as utopic as it sounds? I am Nicole Khalil, and I think most of us would agree that that definition of woman's work sounds pretty darn attractive. So I've invited Mary Shea to join me today for a totally selfish reason, because she might be one of the only people on the planet that I'd consider trading lives with. Listen to her story. After getting her degree in journalism from NYU, she held a couple positions before landing in Napa, California, where she met her now husband, an Italian vintner. She's lived in New York, Boston, California, Germany, and now lives in Tuscany, where she continues to travel extensively, of course, when not in a global pandemic, but comes home to her husband and her family-owned vineyard in Chianti, or her Florentine home. She has spent many years working at the top end of the wine business, while also curating her own custom travel design business. Jealousy is not an emotion I feel often, but Mary, I have to say

that I do envy you a little. Thank you so much for being here so that I can live vicariously through you for 30-ish minutes while other people listen in. Oh my goodness, well you were very welcome, but you'll laugh. I actually, I think I saw Under the Tuscan Sun after I moved here and did you like look at it go wow I'm kind of living that or was it I mean I don't know I just that movie burned a little bit too much into my brain about what you know my dream life might look like you're certainly not the only one so I funny I get that everybody always kind of asks me I was like oh my god you must be you know feel like you're living that, that movie and kind of that feeling of being under the Tuscan sun.

And it, it is amazing. And I feel incredibly fortunate for the life that I lead and the type of work that I get to do and the experiences. But it is, it's, you know, it's like everything. It's also, it is a lot of, it's a lot of hard work. It's, you know, we're a small family run estate. We tend to wear a lot of different hats around here. So there's a lot of things that I'm doing now that I probably never would have imagined that I would be doing before. I'd say feeding cashmere goats on my Saturday and Sunday morning.

It's definitely not something I imagined doing before. That wasn't on the original bucket list. I'm so glad that you said that, Mary, because that was going to be my first question, because I know things are rarely as perfect as they sound, or they might look on paper. So you've already done this, but tell us a little bit more about what you love, but also some of the challenges and obstacles. And like you just said, some things that come along with the package that people might not know or hear about. I would say it's just the type of experiences that we get to share with everybody. And the amazing thing is it's not just, you know, when people come and visit the winery or stay in our vacation apartment. It's also, I think, just, you know, the experience we give people when they open up a bottle of our wine, when they're sitting at home. You know,

we've started, obviously, I mean, the past year and a half has been very difficult for everybody. We haven't been able to welcome guests back here and meet people in person and kind of maintain those connections in a more personal way, that way at least in person, but you know we started to do live videos to kind of stay connected with people and I have to say that's one of the most satisfying parts of the job is just that kind of sharing Italian culture, sharing our wines, giving people a little bit of a reprieve from their day-to-day life let them escape a little bit um and share our beautiful product and also introduce them to the wonderful world of Italian winemaking which is something that I love but it's also I mean the challenges I'd say the Italian wine world

especially where we are we're in the county class which is actually, it's one of the oldest wine growing regions in the world. There's also a lot of wineries here. So there is a lot of competition. So that, that can be challenging to kind of find your, find your niche in the wine world, which I think we've done, you know, really, I think a very big job of it. We're a certified organic winery. We try to go and produce really elegant, organic, honest wines for people. But it's, it is, you know, it's still challenging. Also, I mean, I have to say one thing that has really impressed me since I've moved here, and it's one thing you have absolutely no control over is mother nature. And I think that's one thing that people don't really, you know, don't really think about necessarily.

But I mean, our I mean, my my husband actually kind of he he jokes around about it. Sometimes he's like our silent partner is mother nature because so much of what we do really depends on that. So that's that's challenging. I would say I'm just trying to be like day to day life. I mean, it's my husband's family's business. So also dealing with kind of family, family dynamics. Sure. Like the normal in-law challenges, plus you mentioned that my background is in marketing and communications. So I worked, you know, mainly for ad agencies and kind of an office environment where things were very, you know, very buttoned up and you, you know, you walked in your day, you had your plan and you had your very, you know, kind of like tight schedule working late hours. I still work really late hours. But it's trying, it's so funny trying to like schedule a meeting with my husband's family is like almost like impossible. They're like, why do we have to put

it on the calendar? I can plan my day around it. Oh my gosh. I love that. Yeah. That there's so many good things in there. And, and, and I would imagine too, especially in the last year, while wine consumption has definitely gone up, the travel side of your business probably has faced some challenges. Is that true? Very much so, very much so. I mean, the wine side, we actually, our online sales,

we did exceptionally well with this year. I have to say our online sales honestly really helped keep us afloat this year so so that was that was really impactful and important for us um but but yeah I mean we we typically like as an example um I think it was probably like 2019 in September like just as an example because that's a busy time of the year here, we could see eight or 900 people in the month. And that's not, I don't think that's not just staying at the AgriTurismo in our vacation apartments. There's also people coming for tours and tastings. And that side of the business over the past year and a half,

it's honestly almost been like completely wiped out because most of the clients who come to us are the people who come to us are the people who come to us for tours and tastings, I have to say are mainly Americans. You know, so we don't really see a lot of Italians coming to do wine tastings. I mean, occasionally maybe some Europeans, but, but it's the majority are Americans. So that side of our, of our business was really impacted over the past year and a half. During the summer, at least last year, they did open things up to European travel. So we did have European guests

and we probably actually had some more and more Italian guesting in our vacation apartments. But it was definitely a slightly different season for us. So that brings me to the question about the winemaking process, because I know it takes me about a couple hours to drink it, depending on the day, it could be half an hour if it's been a really bad one, but, you know, so much more time, energy, risk, all of that goes into making it,

I would assume. Can you just give us a little bit of an overview of all the work that goes into the one bottle of wine we consume and enjoy. And on that note, Jay and I opened a bottle of the Laura Chianti Classico from your vineyard a couple nights ago. And oh my gosh, it was the highlight of my day. But anyways, tell me how I get to enjoy something so lovely based on all the work that you do excellent well first I'm glad you enjoyed the Laura that's actually that's my mother-in-law's name so my husband dedicated that wine to his mom and it was the first wine that my husband began producing in 1998 um so I think uh I think he was under strict um of rules to call it Laura. You weren't part of that vote yet, right?

And I would have fully supported naming it Laura also. But just, you know, as an example, I mean, the Laura County Classico, I mean, it was the first wine produced. You know, usually just general winemaking. And like, let's say you're, you're planting a new vineyard. It usually takes at least, you know, like three or four years for those vines to be able to actually produce wine. It actually takes a few more years to really produce good quality wine. My husband, when he started producing wine in 1998, there were actually some older vines

on the estate and still, still here. So he could leverage those for the first few vintages. But our Laura, typically it's a wine that, you know, we'll harvest in the fall and we handpick everything. All of our wines are what you call estate wines. So they're all produced from vineyards that we have right here on the property. So we'll do the harvest. Then usually we age the wine for at least, I don't know, 12 months. The Laura is 12 months in oak and then usually about two or three months in the bottle. But some of our top wines were aging for, you know, 18 months in oak and maybe a year in the bottle.

Our top, top wine is actually 20 months of aging in oak and then about a year in the bottle. So, I mean, our, our top wine, obviously, I mean, it's, then about a year in the bottle um so i mean our top wine obviously i mean it's it's not just you know kind of a cost it's also the time that you're investing to to produce that wine um so that wine you know if you opened it up in comparison to the laura it's going to be a little it's going to be more full-bodied it's going to be a little bit more elegant and it's also going to be a wine that has more aging potential, so you could actually hold on to it for, you know, 10, if not 15 years, where the Laura, the wine that you had, is kind of more of a, I would say, more of like a medium-bodied style, really kind of more easygoing Chianti

Classico wine. You probably want to drink something like that within the first four to five years, but you could actually, I mean, our Laura, oddly enough, does have some aging potential, but kind of, I would say it's better to drink it within four to five years. But, but there's, yeah, there's a lot of time and effort. And also I would say a lot of care goes into maintaining our vineyards. My husband always says that great wine, I mean, it's a more commonly known saying in the wine world, actually, that great wine starts in the vineyard. So that's really where a lot of our kind of time and effort and care goes. So I have a couple of follow-up

questions. One of them being, and I don't know if other people have experienced this. I just know I did is wine and wine tasting and wine ordering can sometimes feel a little bit unapproachable, a little bit snooty, you know, like, gosh, it's kind of like art for me. Like, I know what I like when I drink it. I know what I like when I see it, but I don't know anything about art and I don't know anything about wine. Do you have any tips or just some things that might be helpful for those of us who want to look a little bit like we know what we're doing or just tips in finding the wine we might really like. Yeah, I would say for me, like even even now, after working in the wine world for, you know, for many, many years now, I still if I go to a restaurant, I'm looking to the sommelier a lot of times for guidance and whatnot. And I think you shouldn't be afraid to kind of say what your preference is. I would say you

actually probably represent most wine drinkers or most of the wine drinkers that I kind of like, you know, come across when I'm doing tastings here is that they have an idea of the type of wine perhaps, or I don't know, like kind of flavors or whatnot um it's really hard to articulate those sometimes um and and a sommelier ideally can kind of pull that out of you in a way to kind of figure out what's going to be the best wine for and also kind of you know like what you're eating um and and my hope is that the sommelier makes it feel more approachable but I do I do think a lot of people, you feel a little intimidated by, by a wine list. But, but I think that, you know, a sommelier ideally

should kind of guide you gently in the right direction. And also like if you're drinking, you know, if you're drinking wine at home or going to a wine shop, I mean, I, I mean, I still rely on the person, you know, in the shop to kind of give me recommendations. And also, I mean, I think, you know, not being afraid to mention what your, what your price point is because that'll also, you know, narrow down things, you know, quite, quite a bit. But, but my goal, honestly, with what I do and the way that I interact with, you know, with people during wine tastings or, you know, like live zoom tastings or even like our live videos is to try to make wine as accessible, you know, as possible. I think that's kind of like, that's actually one of the things I think is the beauty of

the Italian wine world is that I actually think it feels more acceptable because you can actually really drink beautiful wines and you don't have to invest you know like a ton of money um and i don't think that's i don't think that's you know you could say that about all wine growing areas or wine growing countries um i mean france the wines you know tend to be you know pretty pretty expensive i mean i lived in nava for two years and i have to say i struggled a bit with the price points there because the wines are really expensive. Whereas I feel like the beauty of the Italian wine world is that, I mean, you could get, I mean, Arlora as an example,

it probably retails in a shop for anywhere between 20 to $25. It's a certified organic wine produced with a state grown fruit, a lot of car went into it, and it's a beautiful wine. Yeah, so it's funny that you say that because that jives with my experience. When I've been in Italy and you just go to this random tiny little restaurant that you happen to walk by and you order their table wine, I'm like, this is so good. I wouldn't go as far as to say there's no bad Italian wine, but it's pretty close. It feels like you can just get great wine all the time. Whereas, yeah, I mean, I am more familiar or comfortable with Napa wines just because I grew up in California. And so as

soon as I was old enough to afford it, you know, we would do a lot of girls trips or Jay and I would take trips up there. So I just, I feel more comfortable, but some of the wines are just outrageous. You're like, I could buy a purse for that. It's crazy. Buy like a case of beautiful Italian wine for like the same price of, you know, some, some Napa wines. And, and I have to say, I think Napa wines also, and U.S. wines in general, it's also a little different because of the labeling. This is going to say, this is more of like a logistical practical thing. The labeling is different. So you'll notice on Napa wines, it just clearly says if it's a Merlot or if it's a Cabernet Sauvignon,

you're going to see that, you know, really clearly, whereas Italian wine labeling, the system here is completely different. So like our, like, you know, we're in the Chianti Classico, you're going to see, you know, many, like a lot of the producers in this area, you might only see like, you know, Chianti Classico on the wine label. They'll have a brief description on the back. It may not say anywhere what grape variety is actually in that wine. So you need to know that a Chianti Classico has to have at least like 80% Sangiovese grapes in there. And then the remaining 20% can be, you know, a mix of various other grape, red grape varieties, but you kind of had to have done your homework or know that at times. So I think that's why some, you know, that's on the flip side of the

Italian wine world. That's where I think some people might some, you know, that's on the flip side of the Italian wine world. That's where I think some people might feel a little bit intimidated or overwhelmed because they're not quite sure what's in the bottle necessarily, unless they obviously, you know, they've done research ahead of time, or maybe they've asked the sommelier or they've asked the person in the wine shop, whereas in California, it's a heck of a lot easier. Yeah. My last question on this, and then I'm going to ask probably a more important question. I've heard mixed things.

When you go to a wine tasting, is it acceptable to dump your wine if you don't like it? Or is that offensive? I think you should always feel comfortable to dump your wine or not finish what you have in the glass. That's, I mean, that's why they put the little, I mean, they put the little bucket there also for if in case you don't want to, you don't want to drink, you know, drink too much or whatnot. But I think it's totally acceptable. And I also think it's, I mean, everybody's palate is different. So, you know, you're not going to, you're not going to love, you know, like every wine or whatnot. And it's actually, I mean, for

us, I find it helpful when, you know, if somebody maybe has some, you know, some feedback on the wines or if they dump it, I can kind of ask and be like, oh, you know, kind of get their opinion and maybe, you know, why they didn't like the wine or perhaps why it wasn't their style. So I think you should always feel free, feel free to do that because the wine world and it is, it's so, it's so subjective. Everybody's palates are completely different. So never, never hesitate, hesitate to do that. It is, it is surely in my book, not poor form. Great. So you mentioned earlier that you are growing wines in one of the oldest regions on the planet and, and that it's highly competitive in your area. What makes

Quarchetto unique? How do you sort of separate yourself from everybody else? And I think this, I mean, this question is definitely about wines, but I want the listeners to be thinking about, you know, how we begin to separate ourselves from our competition and thinking about what, what makes us different, new, attractive. So back to the wines, what makes Quarchetto unique? I would say it's a combination of things. So it's not just, just one. I mean, we're obviously, I mean, we're a certified organic estate, which means that we go and we try to produce wines with as little intervention as possible. And we also try to produce wines where you're really going to taste the natural flavor of our grape varieties. So we're not, you know, kind of like using a lot of oak on our wines. We're not kind of like over manipulating the wines during, during the winemaking process.

We really want to let mother nature kind of do, do her thing. And we're, we're fortunate because we have a really great position for, for the vine. So we have great sun exposure. We have really high elevation. We have great soil composition. So it actually, you know, in, in a good year or even like average years, we're still producing really beautiful, beautiful quality grapes. And, and our wines are just, I think they're really drinkable. They're really elegant. I always also like to refer to them as being, you know, very honest wines. And they taste, I mean, I think if you tasted a Corchetta di Castellina Chianti Classico versus Chianti Classico, you know, coming from another winery, our wines have a very distinct kind of characteristic to them. But I also do have to say it's really interesting

because we have a wine club and our wine club members, and I have to say they're mainly Americans, but these are people who love wines. They've traveled to a lot of different wine growing areas all over the world. And one of the things that actually one of our wine club members said on one of our Zoom tastings recently was he's like, you know what? He's like, there's so many great producers. I mean, there's great wineries, there's great wines being produced all

over the world. He's like, one of the things are the, you know, the thing that we love about you guys is that you produce great wines, but you also make us feel like family. And it was like that personal relationship and personal connection that we have with our clients that I think actually makes a really, a really significant difference. So, I mean, my, my, our wine club members, when they're coming and traveling to Italy, we're like the first people that they reach out to, whether it's to stay in our vacation apartments or to book a tour and tasting with us. And that's something that I just, I think is, is a big differentiator for us. So you obviously have to, you know, produce, you know, good quality wines, but I

also think it's that personal touch that makes a big difference. I love that because it's true with wines and other, other types of businesses as well. So I want to kind of switch gears away from the winemaking and talk just briefly about your travel business. I know you had shared with me that you are really good at finding some of the off the beaten path, you know, not the most touristy places you can go and helping people find that. Do you have any tips for us if we want to find the off the beaten path, places to stay,

places to go? How do, obviously working with somebody in travel is helpful, but what are some ideas? Having a really knowledgeable resource who has, I think local, has local connections and can give you really kind of like can plan more unique immersive experiences that are highly tailored to you and your tastes and your preferences. Because not everybody likes to travel the same way. So like not every recommendation is going to work for is going to work for everybody. So I think that's, you know, one of the nice things about working with, you know, somebody, a travel planner who does custom trips, which is actually, that's my, my focus for, for my business. And because you're getting recommendations that are, you know, totally

tailored, totally tailored to you, you know, based on that person's, you know, kind of like insider, insider knowledge of that destination. That's such an important point. I remember a friend, a close friend telling me they hated Rome. And so the first time I went to Italy, I sort of like bypassed it, which is crazy other than I went to a couple of touristy things, but I kind of whipped through. And I, you know, now in hindsight, her and I were, are such totally different people. And what she didn't like about Rome are the things that I love. And so it's not just as simple as asking a friend who's been, or somebody, you know, where to go or whatever. It's asking those literal, littler, smaller questions like, you know, how do you like to

travel? Do you like to do the touristy things? Do you not? What kind of food are you looking for? What, what makes a great place to stay for you? Right. And, and all this conversation too, is really giving me the travel bug times 10. So my last question is how can you smuggle me into your country? Oh my goodness. I think I might need to tell you that offline. Yeah, I get it. All right. So if you're listening and want to learn more about Corchetto wines, you can visit the website. It's Corchetto di Castellina, Castellina, right? You say it, you're going to say it better than I do. It's Q-U-E-R-C-E-T-O-D-I-C-A-S-T-E-L-L-I-N-A.com. And you can check out their wines, check out the wine club. And then Mary, will you just tell us quickly about the wine club and a little bit about your travel business if people want to start booking as soon as humanly possible that we can travel. Our wine club, we do, I mean, we do have information up on our, on our website and our wine club. It actually, it functions a little bit more like, I think kind of like a California wine club where you basically,

you get set shipments per year, you get a discount on the wines, you get a discount on stays at the agriturismo, free tastings. We also, with every shipment, we're now doing private wine club Zoom tastings. So there's that. And you can also always email me directly at mary.perchetto.com if you want more information. And with my travel business, I'm actually in the process of launching that. So the website will be up probably within, I'd say about a month or so. So people at the moment can email me at, because I'm actually affiliated with a travel agency based in the US called Departure Lounge.

So people can always just email me at mshay at Departure Lounge to start. And we'll add the website for your travel business into our show notes when we release the podcast. So we'll put that there as well. You can also check out Quarchetto on Instagram. Same as the website. So Quarchetto de Castellina. You can follow them and the pictures are lovely

and you're going to want to get on a plane immediately. Mary, thank you so much for your time and for indulging my love of your life. I so appreciate our time together. Oh, thank you for having me. And when you do, when you can finally come over to Italy, it'll be great to enjoy some glasses of wine out on our terrace together. I cannot wait. We will be there as soon as humanly possible. Okay, I have two thoughts to close us out. First, nobody has a perfect life, not one single person. So when you meet people that are living your dream or see someone on social media,

remember it's not as perfect as it seems. And if you're feeling that big grain monster, it means there's a desire inside of you that's being triggered or activated. Which brings me to my second thought. Chase your dreams. Be open to possibilities. Explore.

Go new places. Meet new people. Experience differences and what brings us all together. Find joy in the life you're living and take just one step closer to something that lights you up from the inside. This is woman's work.