In 2001, a bottle of Clos des Épeneaux 1996 landed on our podcast host's table and changed the course of his wine life forever. It didn't simply introduce him to Burgundy; it changed the way he understood wine, place, patience, and beauty. The man who made it had no idea. While that bottle was beginning its journey around the world, Pascal Marchand was in Burgundy, celebrating the birth of his second son. That bottle and the story behind it, is where Episode 100 of Read Between the Wines begins.

Pascal arrived in Burgundy in 1983 as a young merchant marine from Montreal with no vineyard, no family name, and no wine pedigree. Two years later, at just 22 years old, he became only the second non-Frenchman ever appointed to lead a Burgundian estate, taking the reins at Domaine Comte Armand and its legendary Clos des Épeneaux. Over the next fifteen vintages, he helped shape one of Burgundy's most iconic wines. One of them changed our host's life.

In this special centennial episode, Pascal and host Pierre Ferland travel through four decades of Burgundy: the generation of young vignerons who reshaped the region together, the lessons he learned from Henri Jayer, why he embraced biodynamics long before it became fashionable, and why terroir still matters more than technique. In their intimate conversation, they explore the personalities of Chambertin and Mazis-Chambertin, the quiet brilliance of Burgundy's centuries-old classification system, the realities of climate change, and the challenge of preserving identity in a world where harvests arrive a month earlier than they once did.

But this conversation reaches far beyond Burgundy. They talk about prestige and speculation, about whether great wine is becoming a luxury asset instead of something meant to be shared, and about what happens when younger generations drink differently than those before them. Pascal's answers are thoughtful, deeply human, and ultimately hopeful. His reflections on pleasure, generosity, and the role wine plays in our lives may be the most important part of the entire conversation.

Episode 100 was always going to be personal. For our podcast host, it was always going to be Burgundy.

Featuring: Pascal Marchand, Maison Marchand-Tawse, Clos des Épeneaux, Domaine Comte Armand, Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambertin Grand Cru, Mazis-Chambertin, Pinot Noir, Côte de Beaune, Côte de Nuits, Moray Tawse.

Sixty years before "drink less, but better" became an industry mantra, one man in Tuscany was already living it. His grandson has spent his whole career proving him right.

In this episode, Pierre sits down with Giovanni Folonari, of Ambrogio e Giovanni Folonari Tenute, the family behind four distinct Tuscan estates built on a single conviction: that quality can't be rented, it has to be owned.

The conversation moves through Nozzole, the Chianti Classico estate where clay soil and history run deep; Tenute del Cabreo, the Supertuscan project that dared to plant Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay and even Pinot Noir on Sangiovese ground; Campo al Mare, the family's late but decisive bet on Bolgheri; and Tenuta La Fuga, the smallest estate in the portfolio and home to a Brunello Riserva named for two sisters. Along the way, Giovanni talks candidly about the family decision to walk away from an easier, more recognisable business, what it actually takes to grow Pinot Noir outside Burgundy, and why hospitality became part of the estate's identity long before the rest of the wine world caught on.

Want more? A bonus episode, going deeper into the family's history, the technical side of the cellar, and a side of Giovanni that has nothing to do with wine at all, is available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com.

Featuring: Chianti Classico, Supertuscan, Bolgheri, Brunello di Montalcino, Tuscany, Sangiovese, family winery, Italian fine wine, terroir, wine and hospitality.

In 1985, Ferruccio Ferragamo went looking for game in the hills between Florence and Arezzo. He came home having found a thousand-year-old medieval village instead.

Years later, his son Salvatore rode a bicycle into those same hills and saw something his father hadn't: a valley whose soil told an entirely different story in every direction, sandstone in one corner, clay rich with sea fossils in another, the memory of an ocean that vanished millions of years before anyone planted a vine.

This is the story of Il Borro — a family better known for shoes than soil, who spent three decades turning a ruin into one of Tuscany's most decorated organic estates, and who are now writing a second chapter in Montalcino.

Salvatore Ferragamo, Vice President of Il Borro, sits down with Pierre Ferland to talk about the Valdarno di Sopra, an appellation the estate helped bring back from obscurity, the single vineyard behind Alessandro dal Borro, named for a Medici military commander built on an unusually large scale, the horses that plough Nitrito instead of tractors, and Petruna, a return to ancient amphora winemaking that strips Sangiovese back to something almost nothing else in Tuscany attempts.

And at the very end, Salvatore says something about Pinino, the family's newer estate in Montalcino, that he didn't have to admit. But did anyway.

The bonus episode, where Salvatore goes into the years before certification, the business case behind the vineyard's solar fields, and what actually earns a second bottle of wine, is available exclusively at readbetweenthewines.com.

Featuring: Il Borro, Valdarno di Sopra DOC, Tuscany, Italy, Sangiovese, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Chardonnay, Pinino, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino.