Monica Larner – Wiki, Bio, Age, Husband, Net Worth

Monica Larner is a wine critic and author based in Rome. She is the Italian Reviewer for The Wine Advocate 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.

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, Barolo, Bolgheri, Brunello di Montalcino and Chianti Classico, Larner added Etna, Friuli, Taurasi, Trentino-Alto Adige and Valpolicella 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.

In 2003, Larner was selected to be the very first dedicated Italian wine editor for Wine Enthusiast. 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 exposition. In 2012, Larner won Best International Journalist also presented by the Comitato Grandi Cru d’Italia panel at VinItaly. As of 2013, Larner is the only wine journalist to have won one of these top prizes in wine journalism three times.

In 2003, Larner was approached by Wine Enthusiast 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 Sicily’s Mount Etna. 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 1997, Larner’s father retired and her parents purchased a 134-acre ranch in Ballard Canyon, Santa Barbara, California. Monica helped to establish the vineyard; selecting clones, 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.

A Los Angeles native, Larner’s family moved to Rome when she was 11 years old for filming of the 1983 World War II television mini-series The Winds of War on which her father, Stevan Larner, worked as the director of photography.