EPISODE 43 | MARIA LIOTTA

Find Your Way Home: Maria Liotta on the Wines and Places of Origin of Southern Italy

“Wine is not just wine. Wine is not just what is in your glass. Wine is about the land and the people.”

What happens when you can’t find the information you’re looking for, so you decide to go find it—and write it yourself? Tune in to hear how listening to your heart and following your authentic self can lead you home.

Maria Liotta, an Italian Wine Scholar and Certified Specialist of Wine, is the author of Places of Origin: Wines of Southern Italy, a book that brings to life the wines, history, and traditions of Campania, Calabria, Basilicata, and Puglia. Maria shares how growing up with a family history in wine sparked a lifelong passion and, while working on Wall Street, she became curious about why she couldn’t find more information about the wines of Southern Italy. From studying wine at night during her Wall Street career to traveling throughout Southern Italy’s DOP regions, Maria shares how not finding the stories and information she was looking for in New York led her to go find them herself, spending years traveling throughout the region and uncovering the stories behind the wines.

Together, Christina and Maria explore the traditions of Southern Italy and why traveling beyond the major cities and into its villages can reveal the stories of the food, people, land, and wine that make each place unique. They talk about the winemakers preserving generations-old traditions, how wine can help us connect more deeply to the places we travel, and how following a passion can ultimately reconnect us to our ancestry and places of origin.

If you've ever felt called to something without knowing exactly where it would lead, this conversation is a reminder to follow your curiosity, listen to your heart, and trust that the path may lead you somewhere unexpected—perhaps even home.

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