Good Food Guide editor Myffy Rigby, Chat Thai and Boon Cafe co-director Palisa Anderson and an actual legit winemaker, Trisha Nelson who runs Ajola in Lazio, Italy, joined me for a chat recorded live at the most recent Rootstock food and wine festival at Sydney’s Carriageworks.

So, we talk about memorable experiences with booze, totally nerd out about agriculture (given that Trisha produces organic wine via a vineyard in Italy and Palisa runs the Boon Luck Farm in Byron Bay), how to deal with people who freak out when they encounter “natural wine”, the best places to drink in Sydney (and beyond) and also the incredible stories that Myffy’s written about for the Good Food print section in The Sydney Morning Herald (she recounts some of Lennox Hastie‘s near-death experiences in Europe, which are as flat-out dramatic as something out of a movie).

We also cover Trisha’s surprising career path to becoming a winemaker, and how working alongside Rootstock co-founder Giorgio de Maria at Berta played a part in her making wine in Lazio.

You can read Myffy’s writing at goodfood.com.au and the Good Food Guide, check out some of the wines we talked about at Chat Thai (in particular the Circular Quay branch) and find Trisha’s wine at 10 William Street and via Giorgio de Maria’s online wine store, http://www.giorgiodemaria.com.

You can listen to this episode on iTunes or download it via RSS or directly. You can even find it on Stitcher nowadays. And thanks to everyone who has left some nice words in the iTunes Store (aka Apple Podcasts) or cheerleaded for this podcast – it’s been so encouraging to get such a positive response.

PS The wine we try during the podcast is Ajola’s lovely Bianco Trilli 2016: it is a direct pressing of moscato left on the skins of procanico. Procanico is the local strain of trebbiano in that part of Lazio and it turns a lovely pink colour when it ripens.

PPS Thanks to the Rootstock crew for inviting us and to Emma Hutton at The Cru Media for her help with making this podcast possible.

Photography courtesy of Chat Thai (Brett Stevens) and Rootstock.