Monica Larner is a wine critic and author based in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. She is the Italian Reviewer for ''

The Wine Advocate ''The Wine Advocate'', fully known as ''Robert Parker's Wine Advocate'' and informally abbreviated ''TWA'' or ''WA ''or more recently as ''RP'', is a bimonthly wine publication based in the United States featuring the consumer advice of wine criti ...

'' and eRobertParker.com, the bimonthly wine publication and website founded by wine critic, Robert Parker. She was selected in 2013 by Parker to replace the departing

Antonio Galloni Antonio Galloni is an American wine critic. He is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Vinous for which he is also the lead critic covering the wines of Bordeaux, California, Italy, and Champagne. From 2006 to 2013, Galloni was a wine ...

.Lucy Shaw '
Parker appoints three new critics
'' The Drinks Business, April 25, 2013. In 2003, Larner was selected to be the very first dedicated

Italian wine Italian wine is produced in every region of Italy. Italy is the world's largest producer of wine, with an area of under vineyard cultivation, and contributing a 2013–2017 annual average of 48.3 million hl of wine. In 2018 Italy accounted for ...

editor for ''

Wine Enthusiast ''Wine Enthusiast'' magazine is an American wine magazine published by Wine Enthusiast Companies in Valhalla, New York. Founded in 1979 by Adam and Sybil Strum, Wine Enthusiast Companies engages in the wine accessories, storage, information, educat ...

''. She is also a two-time winner of the ''Best Young Journalist of the Year'' (2008, 2010), one of the top honors given out yearly at the

VinItaly Vinitaly is an international wine competition and exposition that is held annually in April in Verona city, region of Veneto, in northeast Italy. The event is exclusively for wine professionals featuring an average of 3000 wines from several dozen ...

exposition. In 2012, Larner won ''Best International Journalist'' also presented by the Comitato Grandi Cru d'Italia panel at VinItaly.Claudia Ricci '
Monica Larner Named Best International Journalist
'' ''Wine Enthusiast Magazine'', Web 2012. Accessed: December 19th, 2013 As of 2013, Larner is the only wine journalist to have won one of these top prizes in wine journalism three times.Marketwired '

'' ''The Wall Street Journal'', April 23, 2013. Accessed: December 19, 2013 Through her work at ''The Wine Advocate'', Larner's opinion on Italian wines is often cited by mainstream media publications like ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' and ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

''. She has been described by Robert Parker as "...one of the most comprehensive writers of Italian wines out there."

Early life

A Los Angeles native, Larner's family moved to Rome when she was 11 years old for filming of the 1983

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

television mini-series ''

The Winds of War ''The Winds of War'' is Herman Wouk's second book about World War II (the first being ''The Caine Mutiny''). Published in 1971, ''The Winds of War'' was followed up seven years later by ''War and Remembrance''; originally conceived as one volume, ...

'' on which her father, Stevan Larner, worked as the

director of photography The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...

. After high school in both Italy and California, Larner earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism (an MA with a minor in Italian studies) from

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

respectively.

Career

Larner began her career working for the Italian daily ''

La Repubblica ''la Repubblica'' (; the Republic) is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and led by Eugenio Scalfari, Carlo Caracciolo and Arnoldo ...

'', followed by four years as a reporter in the Rome bureau of ''

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' (her bylines include an in-depth look at the

Antinori Marchesi Antinori Srl is an Italian wine company that can trace its history back to 1385. They are one of the biggest wine companies in Italy, and their innovations played a large part in the " Super-Tuscan" revolution of the 1970s. Antinori is ...

wine dynasty). She spent two years as a staff writer covering news and Italian wine for Italy Daily, a joint venture with the ''

International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...

'' and ''

Corriere della Sera The ''Corriere della Sera'' (; en, "Evening Courier") is an Italian daily newspaper published in Milan with an average daily circulation of 410,242 copies in December 2015. First published on 5 March 1876, ''Corriere della Sera'' is one of It ...

'' that has since folded. The next phase of her career was characterized by intense travel for four guidebooks she authored including ''Living, Studying and Working in Italy'' and ''In Love in Italy''. In 1997, Larner's father retired and her parents purchased a 134-acre ranch in Ballard Canyon,

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

. Monica helped to establish the

vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineyards ...

; selecting

clones Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to: Places * Clones, County Fermanagh * Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland Biology * Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...

, setting cordons and pruning vines. Stevan Larner died in a vineyard accident in 2005. Today, Monica's enologist brother Michael manages the family wine venture. In 2003, Larner was approached by ''

'' to be the magazine's first Italy-based correspondent and was formally trained to use the 100-point scoring system by Managing Editor Joe Czerwinski. She was among the first American wine writers to bring attention to Italian indigenous grapes and up-and-coming wine regions such as

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Mount Etna Mount Etna, or simply Etna ( it, Etna or ; scn, Muncibbeḍḍu or ; la, Aetna; grc, Αἴτνα and ), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina a ...

. Over the course of the next ten years, her tasting responsibilities grew to 3,000 wines per year (totaling 16,000 published reviews overall) and she was named the magazine's Italian Editor. Before leaving Wine Enthusiast, she published a 185-page special collector's edition dedicated to the wines of Italy. In 2013, she joined The Wine Advocate team as the Italian reviewer. One of Larner's first changes at the publication was the addition of new regions to The Wine Advocate's "Vintage Chart" that lists the world's most cellar-worthy wines. In addition to

Barbaresco Barbaresco is an Italian wine made with the Nebbiolo grape. Barbaresco is produced in the Piedmont region in an area of the Langhe immediately to the east of Alba and specifically in the ''comune''s of Barbaresco, Treiso and Neive plus that area ...

Barolo Barolo ( , , ; pms, bareul ) is a red (DOCG) wine produced in the northern Italian region of Piedmont. It is made from the nebbiolo grape and is often described as one of Italy's greatest wines. The zone of production extends into the commu ...

Bolgheri Bolgheri () is a central Italian village and hamlet (''frazione'') of Castagneto Carducci, a municipality (''comune'') in the province of Livorno, Tuscany. in 2011 it had a population of 131. History First mentioned in 1075, in a papal bull by ...

Brunello di Montalcino Brunello di Montalcino is a red DOCG Italian wine produced in the vineyards surrounding the town of Montalcino, in the province of Siena, located about 80 km south of Florence in the Tuscany wine region. Brunello, a diminutive of Bruno (" ...

and

Chianti Classico A Chianti wine (, also , ) is any wine produced in the Chianti region of central Tuscany. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a ''fiasco'' ("flask"; ''pl. fiaschi''). However, the ''fiasco'' is ...

, Larner added Etna,

Friuli Friuli ( fur, Friûl, sl, Furlanija, german: Friaul) is an area of Northeast Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity containing 1,000,000 Friulians. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli Venezia Giulia ...

Taurasi Taurasi is a town and municipality in the province of Avellino, Campania, southern Italy. In antiquity it was a town in Samnium. The town's name probably derives from the Latin ''Taurus''. Over time it changed from ''Taurasos'' to ''Taurasia ...

, Trentino-Alto Adige and

Valpolicella Valpolicella (, , ) is a viticulture (wine), viticultural zone of the province of Verona, Italy (wine), Italy, east of Lake Garda. The hilly agricultural and marble-quarrying region of small holdings north of the Adige is famous for wine producti ...

to the chart. In August 2013, Larner sparked controversy for refusing to taste the wines of an Italian producer who had used racial slurs against Italy's first African-Italian Minister

Cécile Kyenge Cécile Kashetu Kyenge (; born Kashetu Kyenge, 28 August 1964) is an Italian politician and ophthalmologist. She was the Minister for Integration in the 2013–14 Letta Cabinet. From 2014 until 2019, she was a Member of the European Parliament (M ...

. Larner is an active member of the Ordine dei Giornalisti and of Italy's Foreign Press Association community. She is a certified sommelier with the Italian Sommelier Association.

Awards

*Awarded the "Best International Journalist" Silver Grape Leaf three times by the Comitato Grandi Cru d'Italia, an association of 130 top producers. *

Gambero Rosso ''Gambero Rosso'' is an Italian food and wine magazine and publishing group founded in 1986. Its name literally translates as "red prawn" and comes from a tavern in ''Pinocchio'' where the Fox and the Cat dine. History and profile ''Gambero Ros ...

recognized her as a "Leader of Italian Excellence," a rare achievement for a non-Italian.

Works

*''Living, Studying and Working in Italy'' *''Working & Living France, 2nd (Working & Living – Cadogan)'' *''Buying a Property: Italy (Buying a Property - Cadogan)'' *''In Love in Italy: A Traveller's Guide to the Most Romantic Destinations in the Country of Amore'' *''Wine Enthusiast'' magazine's Wines of Italy (Special Collector's Edition).

References

External links