The best food and wine pairings have something called "muscle." Modo di Bere host Rose Thomas Bannister illuminates the Italian gems that will take your holiday wine pairings from the usual suspects to the sweet spot amid the tannin, acid, fruit and fat. Please enjoy the audio version of Modo di Bere Magazine's Fall & Winter Holiday Wine Pairing Guide. To read and refer to the written guide, visit mododibere.com/magazine, and don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter.

For a review of the basic principles of food and wine pairing, revisit RT's interview with pairing expert Joyce Lin from Season 2, Episode 5.

If you love this show and want it to continue, support Modo di Bere on Patreon. www.patreon.com/MododiBere

Modo di Bere is a multiplatform publication by Rose Thomas Bannister. In addition to this podcast, Rose Thomas also makes:

A newsletter! Sign up for Modo di Bere Magazine at www.mododibere.com A travel show! Subscribe to Modo di Bere TV youtube.com/@mododibere Many friends! Meet them when you follow @mododibere on Instagram and TikTok Music composed by Ersilia Prosperi for the band Ou: www.oumusic.bandcamp.com Buy their latest album at https://folderol.it/ou/

This episode was produced, recorded and edited by Rose Thomas Bannister.

NYC bartender and brand ambassador Felipe Muñoz illuminates mezcal’s sense of place. Unlike crops that mature in a single growing season, agave plants grow for years or decades before being harvested for mezcal. Felipe shares what it’s like to work as a brand ambassador for the community-centered, woman-forward mezcal brand Yola, and teaches us some juicy drinking sayings from his native Colombia.

Rose Thomas and Felipe do an in-depth tasting of Yola mezcal. They sip on a mezcal cocktail and share advice for beginning bartenders and anyone learning to make cocktails at home.

Find a bottle of Yola Mezcal near you: yolamezcal.com/ Follow Felipe on Instagram: instagram.com/anfemu Follow Yola on Instagram: instagram.com/yolamezcal

If you love this show and want it to continue, support Modo di Bere on Patreon. www.patreon.com/MododiBere

Modo di Bere is a multiplatform publication by Rose Thomas Bannister. In addition to this podcast, Rose Thomas also makes:

A newsletter! Sign up for Modo di Bere Magazine at www.mododibere.com A travel show! Subscribe to Modo di Bere TV youtube.com/@mododibere Many friends! Meet them when you follow @mododibere on Instagram and TikTok Music composed by Ersilia Prosperi for the band Ou: www.oumusic.bandcamp.com Buy their latest album at https://folderol.it/ou/

This episode was produced and recorded by Rose Thomas Bannister Edited by Giulia Àlvarez-Katz Audio assistance by Steve Silverstein

The Hagiographer is a historical fiction novel about the 9th century philosopher who invented the Glagolitic alphabet and his rogue biographer. I was riding the New York City subway when I ran into my friend Vlada Tomova, who runs a Bulgarian woman's choir. She was with the Bulgarian writer Stefan Kisyov and his family, on the way back from an event at the Bulgarian embassy that celebrated the publication of his book The Hagiographer.

To give family a little taste of New York, Vlada was taking them to Caffe Reggio in the West Village. I ended up tagging along so that I could hear more about Stefan's novel, a historical fiction story, set partly in Rome, about the person who created the Glagolitic alphabet, the first Slavonic alphabet.

Even though The Hagiographer is not yet available in English, I encouraged Stefan to sit down for an interview so that I could learn more about what drew him to write a book about the birth of an alphabet. He graciously agreed to give his first ever interview in English.

I also went shopping for at a mall in Brooklyn with Stefan and his daughter Maria so she could buy some Converse sneakers. Maria taught me a Bulgarian saying that will be available on Modo di Bere's social media pages.

Stefan Kisyov was born in 1963 in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, where he completed his secondary education at the local French high school. He worked as an electrician, administrator in a hotel on the Black Sea coast, stage worker at the Stara Zagora Opera. He studied at the Plovdiv and Sofia Universities and the Sorbonne in Paris, and was a freelance journalist in several capital newspapers. He is the author of 50-60 stories, the novels "Jukebox", "Nothing Anywhere", "Don't Be a Somnambulist". For "The Executioner", in 2004, he received the grand prize of the "VIK" Foundation for Bulgarian Novel of the Year.

Order the English translation of Stefan’s book The Executioner directly from the author: kissiov@abv.bg

Stefan Kisyov's facebook page: facebook.com/stefan.kisyov Stefan's publisher: erabooks.net (use your browser's translate function as needed) Hear some Bulgarian folk music from Vlada Tomova's Yasna Voices Women's Choir: instagram.com/yasnavoices

If you love this show and want it to continue, support Modo di Bere on Patreon. www.patreon.com/MododiBere

Modo di Bere is a multiplatform publication by Rose Thomas Bannister. In addition to this podcast, Rose Thomas also makes:

A newsletter! Sign up for Modo di Bere Magazine at www.mododibere.com A travel show! Subscribe to Modo di Bere TV youtube.com/@mododibere Many friends! Meet them when you follow @mododibere on Instagram and TikTok Music composed by Ersilia Prosperi for the band Ou: www.oumusic.bandcamp.com Buy their latest album at https://folderol.it/ou/

This episode was produced and recorded by Rose Thomas Bannister Edited by Giulia Àlvarez-Katz Audio assistance by Steve Silverstein