Tour of Italy with John Maggi – Vias Imports

“From the top of the boot to the tip of the toe”

Italy is divided into 20 different regions with each region having its own range of local grape varietals and winemaking traditions. Join us as we travel through some of these lesser-known regions and learn more about their signature styles of wine. This class will offer a wonderful selection of wines and will be a fun and educational evening for all. Ciao and Buon Viaggio!

Hold your applause you’ve tasted all the wine uh how’s it going guys it’s great to see a lot of you again we have a lot of very familiar faces a couple new faces in so as Patrick said I’m John Magie I represent a company called Vos Imports um we’re actually celebrating

Our 41st year in operation um we are Italian owned Italian operated based out of the city of trentino in Northern Italy um and since we were founded we’ve only imported Italian wines um from small mediumsized family-owned producers and you know when vs got started in 1983 there was two companies bringing Italian

Wines into the US uh today there’s almost 200 companies bring Italian wine in so we really have been there since uh since the absolute start um and we’ve kind of kept our Focus since then on the native Rials of Italy which for us is always the most important thing um

Because Italy if you may not know has more native varieties of grapes than any other country on Earth combines you know approaching the 600 number kind of always go back and forth every year as new ones get discovered and other ones turn out to be something that someone’s

Grandfather named it you know gave another name to something else that they already knew existed um but when you compare it to a lot of the other countries around Europe and the rest of the world it really does you know it’s it’s well well over triple or quadruple

The amount um so how do we think about the first wine you guys have tonight beautiful so we’re starting on one of my absolute favorites one of the ones I’m personally very very biased towards um this is otella lugana um so is anyone here hadal lugana before so it’s it’s

One that we’re starting to try to get a little bit of recognition in the world of uh you know the world of wine right now um it’s a little flip-flopped on your page it’s the only mistake I’ll make tonight I promise for now um and that is actually number two on your

Sheet but number one wine that you’re drinking right now lugana is really unique within uh two oh with oh no it’s on the map on the map sheet it’s number two there we go see I have a method to my idiocy um so lugana is a really unique one

Region in the fact that it shattles two different regions of Italy as you know Italy has 20 different regions and each one really has its own culture its own language its own uh Styles its own wines and its own native grapes um lugana is the only wine you’ll find tonight that

Covers two different regions and it covers the regions of Lombardi and the Veno um because lugana is really not so much about regions so much as it’s about the lake Lake Garda is Italy’s largest lake it straddles those two regions um it’s kind of shaped like a giant

Teardrop it’s starts way up in the dolomites very very narrow with the mountains Heming in on either side and then it goes to the south of the lake where lugana is located it’s this broad flat plane that kind of continues until you get towards Central Italy um and

That really you know the lake is the entire story with lugana because basically when you had glaciers carving out this Lake millions and millions of years ago all the rock all the mineral that it deposited that these glaciers dropped off all ended up at the base of

The lake where these Vineyards are today so that’s why you get this really really brilliant beautiful minerality coming out of this wine and is for me it’s my favorite kind of wine to start off a tasting with because that little edge of bitterness minerality you get right at

The back of your pallet kind of starts your pallet watering a little makes you want to have a little bite of something makes you want to have another sip you know it’s really kind of the perfect thing to Prime our pallets as we go into all these wines that we have tonight um

Otella is run by the manur family and I apologize tonight we have a little technical difficulty otherwise you’d be seeing how beautiful the lake is but just use your imagination it’s Italy talking about you all know it’s beautiful you got it uh you know the mantur family who’s behind otella uh was

One of the first six families to create lugana um back in the 1960s the grandfather of the current owner of the winery started it and you know you’ll see tonight as we go along we talk about a lot of these properties you know Italy’s not like France or not like

Spain uh where you’ve had Estates that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years and have been famous for hundreds and hundreds of years sure there’s always been wine making happening for thousands of years in Italy but the families who’ve been making these really never hit the kind

Of world stage if we want to call it that they were never doing this as a profession um really until you got to about the middle of the 20th century really till you got to the second half of World War II prior to that wine always remained a really really

Agricultural um idea in Italy and it still is to this day I mean Italy is the number one wine producing region in the world um we always take that over the French even though they go back and forth year after year but you know we’re biased towards the Italians tonight um

And it’s really remains at the center of the Italian culture you know something that’s really it’s an agricultural item it’s a food item more so than it’s any kind of um big economic cultural tour to force it is all those things as well but

At the end of the day you know the wine is something to be on the table um so we think we like the first one very good very good so we’ll enjoy that one and then yeah yeah we’ll go go over the stats for it so it’s 23.99 and

12.5 and guys you’ll see on your sheet tonight we do have eight different regions represented I mean that is really kind of the the Crux of the class that we’re going over tonight um is highlighting all these regions everyone knows pedmont everyone knows Tuscany we’ll run into some really great wines

From those regions later on but I want to highlight some of these other regions and even going past that I want to highlight wine categories from those other regions that you may not be as familiar with so even went for this first one when we talked the Veno sure

We can have an amaron it’s only about 45 minutes by car away from where lugana is but let’s talk a little bit about lugana talk about something about a little less known a little bit less familiar to you all right yeah yeah ready to go for our next we’re all light

Down yeah we’re very cozy towards one end so guys does anyone have any questions about the lugana as we go through that one and we go on to the next one I like it wasn’t very cold the way you want to Ser it you know so this is

This is a a major uh uh it’s a very good question especially yeah and especially as we talk about uh you know as we talk about white wines you know there’s a there’s there’s this idea that you always want the whites to be really really cold um and that’s of course it’s

The most refreshing way to have them there’s no argument with that if it was you know 85 degrees out and we’re all sitting outside I definitely want these things as Co as you can get um but as the wine starts to warm up it starts to

Release Aromas it starts to uh show a lot more the body starts to get a little bit richer you know having a wine ice cold you’re really limiting it down to its crispness and its freshness uh and that’s really you know just about it it’s a great bone of contention with

William Miller because he likes his wines absolutely ice cold and if you’re a Salesman trying to sell wine to him and you show up in the middle of July with a wine that’s not an ice cube makes life a little bit difficult and then uh

But you know that’s one of the joys of the business so I do like having things a little bit to me you know you should have it a little cold and then yeah then let it start to warm up a little bit in your glass then you’ll start to see

Things come out of it and see things start to see the wine start to open up and expand this is really I mean the classical pairing with this is is fish especially freshwater fish because you’re in Northern Italy so this is a lot of um rice dishes a lot of risoto a

Lot of spring vegetables potatoes things like that I think all those things is wine Works absolutely beautifully with um salads white Meats um you know even just a lot of mixed cheeses and mixed salumi I think it actually does a really nice job it holds up well too um also

But to me this is kind of the classic like a Paro wine it’s the perfect thing to kind of get things started and go from there so all right so now we have our second wine in the glass so now we’re going over to the region of Sardinia um to a

Winery called nuraga crabon um for those of you guys who were with us last year when we did our class um we actually featured the red from this Winery it’s a winery we’ve been working with now for about seven years and we’ve been really happy with the results of how they’ve

Come out um Sardinia is a totally wild Concept in Italy right it’s in terms of language it’s the closest living language to Latin it’s got more in common with Latin than any other language the people are just like the Basque people they’re genetic isolate they’re not related to they’re more

Related to themselves than they are to any other uh population of Italians all across Italy um and it’s the you know it shares lot of this really really ancient pre-indo-european culture culture that was around since well before the Greeks well before the Romans um and part of

That is in the name of this Winery nag so nagas in Sardinia are these dry Stone towers that almost look more like you’d see them in like Macho picu um than in the Mediterranean um and they really you know everyone looks at them and you see these amazing old Towers you’re like

What did they use them for what could these have possibly held are these temples to some odd Sun God no no no they’re you put sheep in them and they still put sheep in them so you know that part’s never really changed they’re a practical thing at the end of the day um

But sardinia’s got a very uh powerful reputation in Italy for being a really rustic um region today it’s becoming incredibly popular for a lot of kind of the Mediterranean uh jet setting Community if you want to call it that um for vacations especially along the coast

But once you go about 20 miles Inland in Sardinia you’re back 250 years in time nothing’s really changed fortunately for this Winery we’re staying very close to the water Naga cabon All The Vineyards here are less than 300 meters away from the sea um and that for me is really the

Highlight of this wine vermentino is a very Mediterranean grae you have it planted in Sardinia you have it planted all over the western coast of of Italy you have it planted in southern France and in all of those areas it takes on its own kind of personality it takes on

Its own style in southern France it’s very rich it’s very kind of blousy you’ll find it blended into all your favorite provans Sol roses um in TUS SK it gets very kind of melony and a little bit kind of fatter and rounder but in Sardinia my favorite style it gets salty

Gets Briny you know and for me when we talk about pairings especially this is your oyster wine this is your little necks on the half shell you know Clams Casino you know Linguini clams whatever you want to call it anything shellfish involved that’s this wine that’s the

Idea you should be getting hungry as we go you know yeah we’re going to start linking up with local restaurants to just have you go there afterwards use my promo code um but you know there’s this idea for me especially because Naga kbon only makes two wines they make the vermentino and

They make a red called Canal the red is very gy it’s very kind of wild and Herby vermentino is very salty for me those two wines and for naraga crabon as well they represent the island of Sardinia you have the sea and you have the Inland you have kind of the scrubby hilly

Inland um but I hope you guys enjoy this one I think this is really one of my yeah how do you get there I know you fly are there fairies from Italy there are fairies you can take some fairies from uh Tusk I think most people

Fly um now it tends to be easier it’s like depending on where you’re flying from it’s only about an hour flight fly from Pisa to like Alo um which is one of the bigger cities there and that’s about 45 minutes it’s not nuts if anyone does

Want to go to Sardinia I highly highly recommend it also highly recommend going in the on season uh as someone who’s been there in February accidentally it’s uh it’s a beautiful island and you’ll have the whole thing to yourself um yeah like do we find olives on this island

Yeah you you find it you find a good amount of olives on this I mean it’s it’s Italy you find olives everywhere you know it’s not as heavily Olive producing olive oil producing as regions when you get further down south right when you start talking Sicily or

Calabria or Pula those tend to be a little bit more so but you do have quite a bit of uh it does it does get hot I mean especially when you go into the the hinterland in Sardinia I mean it it is it’s we’re not talking sic hot we’re not

Talking kind of Calabria hot but it still gets pretty warm over there um sardin is also famous along with a lot of other islands around the world for being one of the major blue zones in fact Sardinia was the original Blue Zone everyone’s familiar with that concept

Those are zones where they’ found more people to live above the age of 100 and above the age of 110 than any other place on Earth and Sardinia was actually where the idea was first kind of based and today a lot of the common places that share it in common Sardinia

Okinawa um they they’re for a lot of reasons they all tend to be Islands they all tend to be places where people are doing a lot of physical labor plus you and eating a lot of fish and eating a lot of olive oil um and well fish at

Least in okowa’s case um does anyone know why they call it a Blue Zone it’s my favorite fun fact it’s because they had a blue pen when they were zoning them out yeah so yeah there’s but a Red Zone also a Red Zone doesn’t roll off

The tongue quite as well Red Zone kind of doesn’t give you a good idea but so their um their food is quite different from yes yes very different it can be very rustic um you know you’ll see a lot of uh goat a lot of sheep a

Lot of goats milk cheeses sheep milk cheeses as well um obviously you’re getting a lot of fish around the coastline um but the food itself once you get especially a little bit more Inland tends to be a little bit more wild a little bit uh different and they

Also have some of the most unique pasta shapes of anywhere else in Italy they have these shapes that you don’t really find anywhere else and they all sound very difficult to pronounce kasaru and Kar things like these they’re really fascinating it’s actually um when you

Look into a lot of them if you really want to go down this great pasta Rabbit Hole um there’s a couple accounts on Instagram that’ll go into one of them’s pasta grannies and they find all these old women all across Italy and all these tiny little towns you know making these

Types of pasta that they’re in a lot of way in a lot of them towns they one of the you know they’re kind of the last generation to make them as kids have gone to the big cities and stuff like this and every episode with Sardinia is always fascinating because they have

Some that you know they have this one kind of pasta that looks almost like a piece of uh like a woven uh cloth you know where you it’s you know it’s squares of pasta of all tiny tiny little threads of pasta woven back and forth

Together it looks like it was on a uh on a loom it’s really really amazing you know there’s if anyone ever wants to try and not have to go too far to try Sardinian Cuisine there’s actually a fantastic restaurant up in torington of all places um and the owner actually

Just relocated out of Brooklyn a few years back and he opened up a restaurant called jepetto and he’s a Sardinian who was raised in Rome and he’s got this great blend of Sardinian and Roman Cuisine um if you ever find yourself it’s about an hour drive away from here

50 minutes and the food is absolutely fantastic so that was my plug for the day yeah go guys any further questions on the vermentino before we go into the stats what’s the hint of floral getting licorice but I’m usually wrong so to I’m usually wrong too that’s why we’re such

Good friends to um no this one gets a lot of these really kind of delicate flowers these really kind of delicate white flowers starting to come in it doesn’t get super herbal in ways that I think the lugana can sometimes pick up or in ways that the other one does for

Me that brininess is always such a big part of this that any of that little you know kind of floral tone it’s just very very delicate kind of white flowers coming in on the back come up with a white flower whichever one you like is

Is good here you go I like that see you know it’s white clover not red clover that’s where we start to that’s where we take it part you know but and we have the stats on this guy so it’s $1 19.99 and 133% go this good one this is a great

One for this summer um and what you guys are actually drinking this is actually interesting as we talk about Italian wine the Vintage you guys are drinking on this wine is 2021 you know there’s this idea that for white wines you want them as fresh as physically possible you

Want them to just be kind of like pressed in sent over um especially with Italian wines this has always been the opinion with Italian white wines um but this is a wine that’s now got you know two almost three years on it um in terms

Of from when it was released um and it’s showing beautifully and this is a wine that really by all accounts you would think is something you want very fresh because it’s very light and very crisp and you got all that kind of saline uh character to it but this is something

With a few years on it and it’s still showing it’s still powering through it’s still going great um so keep that in mind for white wines you know but they really do you know if they if they’re Built Well they can get through those first few years really really well and

The really great ones can get through the next few years really great that’s kind of the New Frontier of what our Italian producers are trying to put forward to us and having us uh put forward to all of you um is that white wines can’t age well um especially when

We talk about white wines from the north um because in Italy you know sometimes you’ll see it sometimes you won’t but especially among the wine drinkers and the wine efficient AOS um that’s something that they’re starting to do quite a bit of and it’s all about kind

Of as Italy’s progressed into more and more and more of a serious Wine Country because there’s always an idea for a lot of French whites that the AG in the last and you can have French whites with 10 years on them and they’re fantastic um but that was never the case for Italian

Whites Italian whites really had the longest journey to get to the um really being taken very very seriously in the world of wine uh so it’s I to me I find it really interesting that we’re just starting to get there so this one it really is a very good place you know

One of those moments six or eight months ago I’m trying to think of who was doing class for but started talking about the age ability of some there and I sort of scoffed and they pulled out one and it show and it works yeah and it works fantastic we that’s part of work

Well well exactly he he likes his wines white and fresh and that’s once again he likes them really cold and he likes them really uh fresh and I show you guys wines that are a little bit warmer and a little bit older so see it’s this is how

We do it that’s why he’s not here in terms of production that’s a tough one um I would say I would say in I’ll say in terms of exported wine because I could speak to that part a little bit better I would say in terms of exported wine I’d say

It’s maybe a 6040 yep in in favor of red and the white by far is Pia white is only as as large of a percentage as that is because of pinio you know wants the best recipe for oysters Rockefeller on God’s green earth assault this man in

The parking lot and steal it from him because he has yes yeah really all right so you guys pick at that we’ll start to get the third wine out in front of you now now go from there this will be our next white of the evening so guys obviously cheese and

Salumi any kind of cured meat that’s always a very uh Hot Topic always very contentious topic with Italians especially because everyone’s going to always prioritize the cheese and the meat from their own region and their own sub region and their own Province and their own town and the worst the worst

Possible product that exists is the one made in the the next town over you know because those people are savages not like us um but really every Italian wine and this is something I I I end up telling people at nauseum you know more so in any other country on Earth Italian

Wines doesn’t matter if you have a $5 bottle or $250 bottle they always show better with food and to me that’s not something that holds true with any other country you know you can have an amazing gr crew burgundy is it is it going to be

Great with food yes it’s going to be great but it’s also going to be amazing on its own going to have all the bones for it on its own um Italian wines to me they almost are almost made with a missing piece right where you want to

Have that food with them you want to have it it just takes that last that last 2% into Perfection um with every great Italian wine is having that little bit of food to go alongside it all right so now we’re g get into our next wine our next white um this is a

Wine that got a really bad reputation throughout the 70s and 80s and 90s and really started to come back a little bit and we have orvietto um so has anyone here had an orvietto before in a large bottle and you know it was okay and it

Was fine went when you know right along with your you know fish bottle Verdo and your bow of bardolino um yeah yeah so orvietto kind of fell into this really mass production time for Italian white wines uh and carried that way through a lot of the 20th century um and what you

Have now is a lot of producers who have really changed up their tune on how to make it and really work to make uh significantly better white wines and really more serious white wines um and especially when we talk about orvietto um but it’s actually true for a lot of

Different areas it’s actually true for lugana as well um the biggest problem came for because a long time they were producing these wines with a grape called uh tabano so chabos there’s nothing wrong with it as a grape it’s you know highly productive makes very pleasant very easy wines um but its

Biggest problem was that it was highly productive so if you were a farmer you know 60 years ago 50 years ago and you wanted to make a lot of wine you could plant a lot of trebbiano and get a lot of grapes it was not a lot of work to

Result um ratio the problem with trano is that it can really easy just really easily just make these very flabby wines make these very basic wines that don’t really have a lot of great Nuance to them you know they’re just great easy table whites but they don’t do all that

Much else really ironically chabo actually found its really best showing in France where it goes by a different name called uni Blanc it’s actually used to make conac and armanac so the French used it the same way they said we got a ton of this growing makes solid wine

What can we do with it let’s make let’s make brandy with it that’s perfect um so in central Italy in Umbria especially where we are next for this wine um tabano was always King that was really always the king varidol um but you had wineries like arile with the dooso

Family um when Julia dooso who’s quite young took over the Helm of this Winery she really started to switch it up um the orvietto doc permits a lot of different grapes to be grown doesn’t have to be trano just no one really ever put the work in for it um and she was

One of the producers who really decided to work with a lot of these other varietals that maybe they’re a little bit more difficult to work with but they yield much better results so now this wi’s a little bit of a kitchen sink you have grapes called gretto Dupo brano

Some very very foreign grape called Savon Blanc and another grape that you definitely never heard of called chardonay um because those are actually permitted in very small quantities but they are permitted and they do bring these really nice little hints to the table for the wine but the majority in

This wine is those first three that I said grao andano which I hope you’ve never had before if you have you can come up and deliver the rest of the class yourself um and it’s really about you know this is really where it kind of hearkens back to our company and our

Kind of ethos of working with varials that are a little bit less known and uh a little bit more uh rare in promoting these indigenous Italian varietal um and it really goes to show that producers who do put in this little bit of extra work uh and work with things that maybe

Their great-grandfathers used to work with before their grandfather and their father said let’s do a little bit less effort we need to make some money um you know kind of bring these things back yields a much much better result um so arila is Latin for clay these Vineyards

Are really really deeply rooted in white clay that you’ll find around orvietto um that’s what gets this wine these really great Aromas gets a lot of fleshiness and richness to this wine is that clay soil um arile also takes that a step further what I one of the coolest

Projects that I know of um they do what a lot of wineries are doing now and they’re aging some of their Wines in aora the big clay uh jugs look like they came out of Roman ruins um they’re great vessel for wine making the Romans used

To use them for wine making now they’re getting a secondary Revival because they’re more porous than stainless steel but they’re not as porous as Oak um aril takes it one step further they’ve got all this clay in their Vineyards they actually use the clay from their Vineyards to make the M4 themselves that

They age their Wines in um so you’ve got a full full circle process going on over there so guys what do we think of this wine I think hopefully what you’ll find with it is it starts to occupy a field you don’t see as much in Italian whites

Is that this is a little bit fleshier a little bit Fuller bodied a little bit richer um and for me especially as we talk pairings this is something you know we start to get away from the seafood and just kind of the picky foods and imperativo style that we have with the

First two wines and get into things like white meat like roasted chicken you know roast chicken with a lot of Rosemary and potatoes things like that root vegetables this is a white as we’re still in kind of you know late winter early spring weather I think it’s a

White that actually works really well in that category it’s got a little bit more bones in it to kind of hold up grait rabbit would be I mean yeah that would be that would be in the area oh you find yeah got a lot in fact I mean rabbit is in the area

Yeah it does you know I mean and R rabbit is I mean rabbit’s perfect rabbit would be the absolute perfect thing to have with this so also when Jan and I were there they when we were in the town of go back to the cheese plate cheese

And salami and that kind of thing bread olive oil on the table in the afternoon Sunday after back yeah yeah it’s it’s still remains even though they’ve tried to get these more kind of complicated varietals in it and really give this wine a lot more complexity than it used

To have it Still Remains a very easy wine still very easy very drinkable wine which I think is the biggest part of its appeal I do oh fantastic perfect so I just drink um so so guys what do we think of the F the white wines now we we Blitz through

Those we’ll get on to the Reds the famous wines you know the the the ones we are all really here for after this but I mean my heart’s always in Italian white wines and it’s one of my favorite things to introduce to people so we like

Them yeah what was sort of the favorite of the three everyone shout out at once so we have a confusion perfect oh good that’s great perfect listen I I the lugana is fantastic and if you guys like that one best that makes me really happy a

Because we’re one of the only states in the country that still have that have the contract to sell this right now so we got to make a really good show so we can get it in the rest of the country and my family’s from like 15 minutes

Away from this Winery so it’s very very rooted in uh very rooted in there and if anyone ever gets the chance to go to Lake Garda up north everyone goes to Lake Como because that’s what’s really famous and that’s what’s really well known guard is fantastic and you won’t

See any other Americans you’ll see a ton of Germans and Dutch and the Italians will be way more happy to see you because the Germans and Dutch don’t spend any money yeah I will say this coming to coming off the winter right now coming into spring no we’re coming into the warmer

Weather Spring and Summer those three wines that you just show right on time yeah we’re planning for our uping yeah I think so and you’re you’re right I think yeah I think we planned it out pretty well yeah all right guys so we’ll get the stats up for this that’s 1999 and

12% yeah this is a one I always find very interesting to have the fact that it’s actually a little bit less alcohol than the one before it even though it shows a little bit richer on the pallet is actually less alcohol which is just a fun fact right great yeah and that that’s

The Hallmark of I mean it’s a Hallmark of Italian wines in general Italian whites especially but Italian wines in general is that acidity has to have that acidity if Italian wine doesn’t have a city it’s not you know it’s no good you’re not gonna find it all right and

Now we’ll get to our very first red so guys this red that you have coming around right now this is actually you guys are the first people the first Harry’s customers be tasting this we actually brought it in fresh for the store today took a a little bit of you

Know showing and telling William come on you like this this will work for the class this will be perfect it does so you have all to tell me you like it so I’m valid um this is one of my this is one of my absolute favorite wines to show um

Especially coming into the spring especially as Patrick and I were just talking coming into the working the warmer weather right now and we talk about red wines this is it 100% this is frato so we’re going all the way down to Sicily now and not just to Sicily but

We’re going to the south of Sicily down to the southern coast of the town of Victoria um because when we talk about Sicilian wine usually one grape and one grape only comes to mind and that’s n that’s the ubiquitous red varietal of sic if you go anywhere in sicy and you

Have a red wine nine out of 10 times you’re having narava but when you go down south when you go along the southern coast you run into a little bit of frato um it’s very light yeah guys hold it up against your paper take a

Look you know this is as dark as this wine really should ever get it’s a and for me it’s a red wine that you almost want to treat more like a white wine where you want it released as fresh as you can have it you guys are drinking

2022 vintage on this you don’t want to give it a lot of time in Oak or anything like that you want it just to be in either stainless steel or concrete fresh pressed vinified and sent out to the consumer thank you um would you put a

Little Chill on this oh yeah oh yeah this is I mean that’s a very trendy Topic in wines right now is is light Reds that you can put a little bit of a chill on um and I fully buy into that Trend because it’s the best um you know

Get a wine like this take it out you know leave it in for half as much time as you left your white wines in you know maybe take it out 20 minutes before you start drinking it or so um but especially when we get into the summer

We get into the warmer weather I don’t care what you have on the grill I don’t care what you have on the table this wine will go with it you know for people who want to do red wine fish you know salmon on the grill with a decent amount

Of seasoning on it with a wine like this with a chill you’re fine that’ll work no problems there so with any kind of cheese any kind of salumi it’s great um you know white Meats red meats it’s all over the place you can go really Sicilian and do like a really fat tuna

Steak on the grill that’s yeah a lot of Capers and black olives and stuff come on now you’re working that works so um a lot of you guys may be familiar you may have seen I know these guys next door and she’s really done a lot for the area

Or if you’ve watched St Luchi uh there’s a woman Ariana okin um who really became famous in this part of Italy uh for producing wines especially producing fratos her fratos really are the ones that kind of brought this uh grape to the US brought it to kind of the

Forefront um of ideas of if anyone watches the Stanley Tui Sicily episode he does a great featurette and she does quite a bit of talking about fat we don’t work with Ariana okines winse but we do enjoy them ourselves in our personal time um but what’s great about

That to get my Edge in is this is about a third of the cost of Ariana okup penties wine so if you like one of those buy that you know buy one of those to have on your special occasion but this is the frato that you can have seven

Days a week you know all day you can have multiple bottles you can have a bunch of family and friends over and you don’t feel guilty that they’re drinking all your good stuff you know they’re still drinking your good stuff it’s just not costing you all that much there we

Go they don’t need to know it yeah so but what I love is that these are two completely different style fratos these are she is one of the best producers in the world um especially in Sicily of of frat she does an amazing job but these are Big structured fatos that age

Beautifully um they’ve got a lot of this really uh deep complex really serious tones to them they’re amazing wines they’re fantastic but you know really like going back to what I said before at the end of the day in Italy Wine’s all about you know it’s all about the

Drinkability it’s all about being able to have something that you have on the table with all different kinds of food and it doesn’t have to be a big event every time you’re drinking it right and that’s what I think Santa tresa accomplishes really really well um in terms of production these guys are

Completely organic completely vegan certified um carbon neutral using recycled glass cardboard paper um basically going the whole shebang here uh you know organic farming because this is something we get a million questions about I know these guys get a million questions about um that’s becoming a

Really hot topic in wine right now um all across the old world France Italy Spain a lot of producers are practicing organic organic certified within the EU um when you make the jump into the us a lot of them don’t end up paying it because that’s something we see as

Importers you know the price which actually just went up yesterday um of having a wine certified organic in in the US um is is really really uh it’s incredibly expensive now um so you know this is why it’s a great thing to really ask your producers we’re lucky enough to

Have some producers who do go the full Mile and do say you know what we’re going to spend the extra money we’re going to put it on our labels and say you know completely organic certified good to go in the US but there’s a lot of producers who are guys who are maybe

You know smaller families you know couples who own their own little piece property who say look we don’t have the money to pay the FDA we’re good enough we’re certified in Italy organic which is actually more strict than the FDA you know why are we going to spend a whole

Lot of extra money um on every single bottle that we send to the US because at the end of the day that usually means that the bottle leaving the winery costs about two to three Euro more than it did if it didn’t have the US certification

And two to three Euro leaving the winery by the time it gets here that’s that’s that’s a decent chunk of change that you’re adding onto your bottle are you able to state that it’s certified no come here nope no there’s yeah that’s that’s so there’s certain is it has to be certified here

There’s certain things it’s starting to get very um they’re starting to put a whole different kind of process in there and you’re finding a lot especially in Italy a lot of these other categories are starting to come in where they’re going sustainable or they’re going um Bo

Bio bio um with a little B on the back of it um but really at the end of the day what it ends up turning into is the work is on our part educating these guys and it’s on their part educating you guys um and that’s where it comes in so

That’s why I mean obviously Harry’s has always done this really well of being great at talking to you guys and educating you on the wine and the story behind the wine um and that’s because we’re in there also talking to them you know and bringing everything down so it

Really comes word mouth down from the producers through us to them um and hopefully to you guys at the end of the day um so you know obviously if it’s on the label we love it if the extra work’s gone in there makes our lives more

Simple but for most of them it really isn’t you know you said what would you serve this this is very whoa this is just whatever you want to serve this with um yeah this is I mean if you want to do fish you know especially heavier fish like s like

Don’t go you know super light like you know any kind of you know don’t do any do soul with this I don’t think that would work but um flot my favorite fish is is Arctic char Arctic char would work yeah yeah yeah Arctic CH especially on

The grill so it’s got a little bit of char for the Arctic char that would um that would actually go really really nicely especially if this Wine’s got a little bit of a chill on it but otherwise you would stay with white meat white meat red red meat pasta I mean

Siis Sicily so we’re talking a lot of olives and capers things like that this goes great I mean I really have I’ve had a very difficult time finding something that this wine does not go with um I also you know and I’ll talk about it

Even more as we go through to the to the bigger wines that we have um I lay very much on the side of when you’re like a big cut of red meat or something there’s the idea that you can have a big Napa cab or you know some big Californian

Wine that’s full of Oak full of fruit full of booze um but for me I go on the leaner side and I want something that’s a little bit lighter a little bit leaner a little bit higher in acid because that cuts through the fat it cuts through the

Richness of a dish I don’t want rich and Rich I want rich and lean you know something that kind of cleanses your pette really really well as you go I also say this this reminds me a lot of oh yeah so something that I would uh taste I take last night’s dinner that

I’m bringing with me chicken or something like that it’s in the refrigerator this would be in the refrigerator right next to it pack up the basket head out for the day by the time you’re ready to sit down and and have your meal it’s an hour later

Temperatures come up a bit it’s help to keep the the chicken or the meat uh that you have in your basket the olives the cheeses is that kind of it’s helped to keep it cold and then you spread it out on the on the picnic table and you’re

Sort of ready to go it will fit across a very broad SP I think it really will you know guys give it a shot grab a bottle play you know find I dare you to find something it doesn’t work you know go for it exactly uh so what do we think

Any final questions on this before we go on to the next red really what this a dumb question but what American red would most closely sound it’s actually it’s a very good question um because that is actually a direction that you’re seeing a lot of American

Reds start to go you know it used to be the only thing you could touch from America that would get close to this would be like a pan Noir out of Oregon um which does share a lot of the same components to it um but now you’re

Getting a lot of these uh younger producers a lot this new generation of producers in California um working with a lot of these grapes that were planted since prohibition that no one did a lot with things like Val um old plantings of ganache or even barbar um and they’re making these really

Really light bodied Reds these really great chillable Reds um these guys have a few over on the red blend section on the organic section as well they have a few interesting ones um there’s actually one over there called got grapes which has a fun little cartoon on the uh front

Label it’s kind of a kitchen sink blend out of California it’s awesome it’s great it’s you drink it and you do not think you’re drinking a Californian wine and I mean that in the best possible way so yeah um all right so we’ll get into the stats for this one so it’s

$6.99 and 133% so I would compare that to the oen two different different one but the oapen that he was just talking about that’s $45 yeah compared to7 that has good to do with exactly what you were talking about that is that certification y you know adds dollars and dollars and

Dollars without doing much much else although these guys do have the certification as well but it’s on that both Sid these do have the certification as well on the other side of the on the other side of Cl yeah yeah yeah I have bottles of both in my seller I’ll put it that

Way all right so now guys take a lot of basically everything I was talking about just now in terms of chillable Reds light body Reds um things that are great for the summer for picnics and now transfer that again to the next wine you’re about to have

Um this is a wine from Calabria has anyone had a wine from Calabria before perfect perfect I’m waiting for the day I ask that question someone says yes and I I have to shut my mouth um cabia is a really funny no no no you don’t count

You don’t count and you’ve had this one so that doesn’t [Laughter] count um so cabia is a really funny story in Italy because it’s a region that’s given a lot to the US it’s given a lot of uh culture it’s given a lot of food influences um a lot anything spice

Driven especially anything especially heat driven um it’s also given a lot of yep calabrian chilies that’s that’s I mean that’s one of the most famous things from this area indu indya that really kind of soft spreadable spicy salami um that’s native to this region as well um and it’s given a lot of

People it’s a lot of Cali Americans especially in you know especially in the Northeast um you know in kind of few different parts of Connecticut Westerly Rhode Island’s got a ton of them it’s gotten an ungodly amount as my boss would say um but uh it’s you know it’s a

Really really funny region because what we’ve never found from it has been wine it’s always been one of the toughest regions to find wine from in the US um even for us this is the only uh C Cabra producer that we actually work with um and the reason being for the long time

Is that this has always been one of Italy’s poorest regions and poverty and difficulty of making exportable wines is always something that gone really hand inand um you know we’re very fortunate that cantin statti that you guys are drinking right now um we really able to put this together but the staties have

Always been a little bit different um bless you um the statis are an old um Noble family they’re Barons actually the baronti um they were barrons in the Kingdom of two Sicily and the kingdom of Spain before that um they have about you know five centuries in this particular

Place under their belt right now um they’re in a town called lsme lsme is a really really beautiful Seaside old Roman bath Town that’s where the tme part comes into the name tme is Italian for baths um it’s a gorgeous spot you look you you look at a picture of it and

You say why haven’t I vacation there before um and really the reason is that this has always been a part that has never really been on people’s radar as much as a lot of other parts of Italy um the grape that you have right here is called gallopo um gallopo is a

Native Naish calabra grape it’s been planted in Calabria for about 2 200 years before that it actually came to from Greece which a lot of Southern Italian grapes did and a lot of grapes from Calabria came from because Calabria was part of back when you go in the pre

Roman era it was part of what the Greeks called magaga what the Romans called magaga and this was basically all the Greek colonies all the eastern coast of Sicily all throughout cabria pulia um you had a lot of Greek cities a lot of Greek settlements here um and the Greeks

Got a lot of wine making done here they brought a lot of grapes over themselves they brought a lot of techniques over with them and then they used this area as really there this was the Napa Valley you know 3,000 years ago um for the ancient Greeks the culture stayed the

Grapes stayed today there’s actually a lot of greeking populations in cabia they’re called the greo communities um today the most common last name in cabia is Greco which literally just means Greek um so it’s it’s certainly a culture that’s left a lot of influence on cab

Um and the grape that you’ll see before you uh to me is one of the best examples of it um this is really kind of one of the main red grapes of Caba you’re not going to run into it that much as I said if you do run into it before really the

Main famous CRA red wine is called Cheeto C if you see any wine from Calabria you see a chiro on the Shelf that’s also made from gallopo but that usually has things like cab Merlo cap Fran Blended in and it typically sees a lot of Oak this is a whole another game

This doesn’t see y Oak it’s just 100% gallopo with just a lot of time and stainless steel and once again you guys are drinking 2022 vintage so all the same things I said about the frato apply here you want this wine fresh you want

It juicy you want it easy um what I love about this you know especially as we were talking about will Amit Pino this has always been for me as cliche as it is to say this is Southern Italy’s example of a Pino Noir because it shares

A lot of those same components to it it’s got that really great kind of Bing Cherry note to it that really kind of fresh strawberry almost kind of that little kind cranberry Edge to it with the acidity but then there’s some herbs behind it you get these kind of sieg

Rosemary tones coming in behind it the kind of to me let you know it’s Italian um this is a fun one to do if you have foods that have a little bit more heat to them especially not just because we’re talking about Calabria with calabrian chilies um but because it has

The fruit and it has low enough alcohol that’ll Gel really really well with things that have a little bit of heat um this is same rules apply as the frato throw a chill on it bring it out for a picnic throw it up against basically anything that you take off the grill I

Think the wine shows really really fun and it’s got a little bit more oomph to it it’s got a little more power if you do find something that maybe the frata was a little bit light for the gallopo is what you downshift into from there what do we think about

This it’s a fun why well this is and L you know in the same way that we had with the vermentino The Vineyards here right on the water so and especially because they’re on the terranean sea so you’re having the breeze coming from the W from the West the Bree is

Coming in that all that influence is being left right on the grapes you’re getting that constant Breeze blowing in from the sea keeps the acidity bright keeps that little mineral mineral Edge that little kind of saline Edge on the wine really really bright um and it just makes it so much

Fun so guys this is the only Winery we’re showing tonight where their main job is not making wine it’s really their side project um the stati family for the past Century and even before that what their biggest project has always been has been olive oil these guys are the

Largest owners of olive Groves in Calabria one of the most organized crime ridden countries so I’m not asking I’m not explaining I’m not doing anything involving that but when I say that they’re a very powerful old baronial family that’s that’s it right there they have trees going back 800 years they’re

Really amazing amazing to see the olive oil they make is outstanding they do the first press olive oil which just happen um which we just got some bottles to the office not that long ago it’s like emerald green you can’t see through the bottle it’s amazing it’s outstanding our

Company typically they typically send our company about like 60 bottles or so because we have about 60 employees we have 20 people in the office and they each go home with three bottles so you know yeah I keep sending them my home address and they won’t do anything about

It but so if you do ever get the chance to try it or really just any really high high quality olive oil of which these guys have quite a bit on their Shelf over here um I highly encourage it and I highly encourage checking it out

So all right so we can go on to the stats for this wine so it’s 19.99 and 13% perfect so once again we’re trying to keep the percentages really low in terms of ALC 13 yep so if you look at it that way this is the exact this and the

Frato were the same alcohol percentage is the vermentino so it’s really all about keeping it very light and fresh we’re not talking big 15% alcohol which is becoming a more and more difficult thing as we get you know along every year because it is only getting hotter and hotter and heat ties into

Alcohol so all right so guys anyone have any questions about this one before we start to move on to the next one no feeling good all right Perfect all right yeah yeah it’s interesting you say that about cab it’s hard to find tours or companies

That promote it it’s it’s hard to find a lot with Calabria um it really hasn’t been kind of hasn’t been marked down in a place what send the rest oh okay you got it so um yeah so which is now well and and that’s exactly it and

There’s a lot of thought that maybe that’s gonna happen with um with Calabria as well maybe in the next 10 years um you know the thing that the thing that Pula doesn’t have that collabria did historically have was cab pulia didn’t have the history of of

Organized CRI with a Netta in there so that kind of put people’s minds a little bit more away from going to Calabria kind of turned people off a little bit um and Pula kind of it’s almost like the way you watch it is it’s where the Italians go to vacation and then it’s

Where the Europeans go to vacation and then it’s where the Americans go to Vacation you know it’s like a third it’s like a a three-wave colonization of um of all the best beach spots um because pulia is now pulia is you know hot that’s where everyone’s

Going um um if you have the chance but this is what what that means that’s great is that calabri is kind of still untouched so go check it out be the first to see it and look up lsia tme Google Images take a look it is absolutely gorgeous it’s it’s amazing

Amazing amazing our CFO is from very very close to this uh Winery and to hear him talk about it is just you know he you’ve got the plane ticket already purchased when you’re there and he’s a CFO so that makes it even worse um so all right so we started to talk

About some of our lesser known regions get a little bit off the beaten path now we’re going to wind our way back to one of the most famous regions of Italy and we’re going to go up to Ponte um and we’re going to get away from you know

Some of our lesser known Wineries and get to what is for us probably our most well-known Winery probably our most uh famous Winery our most awarded Winery and probably without picking any favorites here probably our most important Winery um this is a winery that’s been with us since day one um so

We’re over 40 years together with these guys sorry um and this is the proor Del barbaresco um if you guys are longtime customers of Harry’s or even part-time customers of Harry’s um there’s a very very solid chance you’ve had wines from this winery before because Harry’s is

Probably the number one customer um of the prator I learned about them for the first time when I was working here and now I get to represent them on the the the Quasi National stage um this is really the winery that built the village of barbaresco so when you look at it on

The map you have the V Village of Alba city of Alba um in pimonte and right kind of actually I actually managed to get the six right on where it is on this one um Alba is a really old city it’s home to a few different things one of

Them you know one of the most notable of which is the Ferrar rochet Factory um so the whole city smells like chocolate and hazelnuts which is amazing um this is where Nutella comes from it’s where J it is true it it actually is you open up your hotel Windows the whole thing

Smells like chocolate it’s awesome um and Alba is kind of the central location for the PED Mones wine industry because you go 15 minutes to the south of Alba you have Baro you go 15 minutes to the north of Alba you have barbaresco so this is the epicenter for the grape

Nebiolo which is becoming already was one of Italy’s most famous grapes it’s becoming even more so this is probably the fastest growing category in Italian red wine right now um is the langolo category langolo refers to basically any Bas level made within what we call the Lang what

The pon is called the langa um which is this great stretch of basically River Valley that encompasses both bolo barbaresco and the whole area around the city of Alba um as I said the pror really founded barbaresco themselves as region and even though we look at them

Now you go into a liquor store you see bro here you see barbaresco there it’s like you know column a column B potato and potato Baro has always been the more famous of the two it really wasn’t like that there’s a lot of difference and a lot of history between the two because

Bol was famous since the late 1800s when Italy unified in 1871 for the basically the final most complete time BR was already working its way up to be famous it was already seen in the courts of France it was already seen in London it was already seen abroad um barbaresco at

That time didn’t exist now there’s a lot of reasons for it and they’re all Italian um the first Prime Minister of Italy Camilo kavur the guy who really kind of worked to make the king of pedma in C the king of Italy um he was from

Bara that always does a big part you got to represent your hometown like I said the worst person in the world is the village next to you and barbaresco is the village next to you um his mistress owned a castle in bolo um that is the winery of Fontana Freda which still

Exists um it’s no longer anyone’s mistress there um this is this is the end of the 19th century so this is 1870s into the 1880s so in 1894 um a bunch of producers along with the village priest of barbaresco got together they assembled like five eight families together and said you know I

Think we make really great wine here I think we can do this we can really get on the stage and they went to a lot of the big wine making families in bolo and they said hey we want it we want in you know because at this point B had about

You know five or six different Villages places like songa monforte famous villages even now in bolo and they said we want to be another Village so you can go buy a bottle of Bara and you know this bottle’s from songa this bottle from barbaresco and all the producers in

BR said nah I think we’re good if you guys want to sell us any of your old grapes we’ll take those we’ll make some wine with that sure sure sure we’ll give you Pennies on the dollar for it scooty on the lar or whatever they had at the

Time um so barbaresco said no well we’ll just we’ll do it ourselves then um a few things got in the way basically I don’t know if you know anything about Continental Europe in the first half of the 20th century but there was a few different things happening um first

World war rise of fascism second world war um all these things really kind of put a halt on the processes these guys were working on they just ended up being farmers and Growers making kind of local Vino Dava for a long time and then in 1958 the sons of the same Sons grandsons

Of the same guys who got together in 1894 all came together a second time and he said you know what let’s really do this let’s really get together let’s do this let’s put some families together what we’ll all do we’ll all turn in our own grapes we’ll make one wine we’ll

Split the proceeds this is postwar Europe This is postwar Italy they did not have any money to do this this was also a cost-saving um Venture it turned out really well today they’re the most Cantina is the word in Italian social Cantina if you want to call it social seller um they’re

The most successful one of those in Europe um they built themselves up from being 50 very very poor families to those same 50 families being among the most wealthy of ponte’s uh grape Growers because at the end of the day they are grape Growers they’re not wine makers

They hire a wine maker they have one guy they came they were very very smart in 1958 and they said instead of 50 50 different people saying well I think we should make the wine this way they hired one guy one of them had a University

Degree one out of 50 this guy chelo vakka he had a University degree so they all went him and they went I just you know you have the degree you’re GNA do the wine making he said okay so like and today his son Aldo vaka these guys know

Very very well anytime he comes into Connecticut this is the first stop we make um is still today the directing manager of the winery um and you know to hear him say he goes I you know I’m not the boss of 50 families I have 50 bosses

It’s a very different game um but what’s really great is they did they really built up barbaresco outside of this you know they were kind of growing alongside another famous name if you’ve heard it Angelo Gaia of the Gaia Winery you know we he was a big figure in barbaresco but

He always kind of did his own thing he kind of the the Gaia family was doing their own thing we hesitate to say that they built barbaresco because they really Gia built Gia and they did a great job they did a fantastic job those wines are absolutely amazing but

Barbaresco always focused on the Village um so the the long you guys have in front of you is really unique in that it’s a category that most producers use their lesser quality grapes to make because this doesn’t have to be aged as long doesn’t cost as much um so you can

Use if you have grapes from a Vineyard that’s a little bit younger it’s a little bit lesser quality didn’t get the best sun exposure this year yada y y you say you know what we’ll throw those into the longa nebiolo charge half the price only age it for six eight months and you

Know what we’ll sell it we’ll make we’ll make some of our money that way the predatory are very different every single bunch of grapes that goes goes into the bottle of wine you’re drinking now is one less bunch of grapes that goes into the barbaresco that they make

So as they as as alaka will put it for every bottle of the nebiolo that you’re drinking that’s one less bottle of barbaresco that he can make so that’s one less bottle of a wine that’s twice the price twice the value um and that’s because for the patory it’s not about

Having your lesser quality stuff your higher quality stuff you know it’s not about making do with what you have it’s about making two different expressions of why so so this is uh one of the most fascinating things this is this is one of those Vineyards that

That sort of starts in in your heart and then you work out to the sort of quity when you know the back story the idea that this was an idea that came about um in a very poor and desolate area on before World War I in a church in

Barbaresco up on the hill that got they got sort of put on hold because of World War I and then world war came and all the sons went out to fight and when those things when those eras ended the new um the new priest at the uh

Church up on the hill was in the basement going through the catacombs and found the the history of this idea this we all went together he was talking about John was talking about Calabria and trying to find wines from Calabria which you cannot do the reason that you

Can’t do that is because everybody’s poor there’s no marketing there’s nobody coming in and looking for this stuff these guys did it the opposite way the vaka family uh who was hired to be the wine makers remembered when they got this opportunity after World War II and

Said we’re always going to do this we are always going to do this from the village I can tell you Jan and I were there a couple of years ago during Harvest Time came up into the village and Al the was very very kind just took us out to

Lunch when he decided it was lunchtime it was lunchtime and all of the tractors that were lined up literally all the way down the road um with the grapes on the back getting ready to be weighed and and have their uh grapes tested um for Quality um went to lunch because that’s

What you were doing it’s about the village you can’t it’s hard to describe if you haven’t been there if you haven’t actually you know there’s a million stories in the wi World I’ll tell you something that is that’s happening right now 25 years ago um to say that you were organic was

Like the kiss of death it just meant cheek crack Happy Wine and not well handled it was probably going to be effervescent in your glass just because it was turning and that kind of well now to be certified organic is like the Holy Grail so guess what everybody’s organic

Or is usually the organic practices or are trying to pick up on this kind of stuff and this idea is sort of similar to that these guys had this it’s more than 100 years yeah yeah I mean that’s basically almost 100 30 years ago they’ve had this idea yeah so you’re you

Know you’re when this idea came about it got put on hold it got put on hold but since they’ve done this since they’ve um they brought it together and they said this protator this Village is going to create these wi I mean every thing that they’ve done has been for the betterment

Of The Growers around them we bring everybody at want and for the betterment of the history of the grapes that they um uh that they work with that they produce but in this case it’s Neola uh these guys if you’re in barbaresco the protator is what it’s about G is also a

Very important figure but they needed each other guy needed that they needed well Al deaka the guy we’re talking about now the managing director these guys he spent the first 25 years of his career working for Angelo Gaia so so there’s no it’s not a uh it’s it’s not one of these

The buildings are literally right next to each other so there’s no you know there’s no uh competition it’s it’s it’s a great kind of symbiotic relationship in the way that the very very best Italian wineries have with each other in the church I mean the church is one door

Over two doors yeah it’s right there it is right there everything in barbaresco is right there there’s no this is like you know it’s the the entire Central Patza that they fill up with all the crushing uh and everything during Harvest is basically the size of like

The Harry’s Plaza it’s not big um no grap is theing same grape this is 100% nebiolo every grower who works for the proor works with the protator is’s a part member of the protator they only grow Neola that’s by if you’re that’s a contractual agreement if you’re a member

Of the prator you can only work with Neola um you know it’s also because it’s the most valuable grape and that’s actually what we’re seeing now it’s something I’ve been talking to these guys about is that longa nebiolo is the biggest category in wine now it’s

Growing and to he talk to some of the producers in pedmont they have guys in places that never used to grow nebiolo ripping up the vines they had there if they were white grapes like arnes or doletto or Barbara they’re ripping up those and planting nebiolo because it’s

A cash crop and you can make this wine right here long nebiolo you make it anywhere it’s the long the long appalation is very very big so that’s really as you start looking at something that’s becoming more and more available on the shelf and more and more different

Kinds on the shelf um that’s when it’s a really great time to start being uh particular you know with your shopping being particular with these guys and really trying to find out the details because Nebo is not an easy grape to work with it’s like Pino Noir you can’t

Just go and plant it and make a good one it takes a lot of work takes a lot of effort and when you get to something like this along longola that’s been made the same way since the 1950s still from the village of barbaresco not from you know the

Backside of a village that used to make you know something else that used to make vermouth um you know it’s it’s really where the difference starts to be and that’s where it kind of gets fun for us because in this kind of evolutionary change of Italian Wineries and the

Italian wine market um seeing something that holds on if you want to know how barbaresco tasted 60 years ago almost 70 years ago taste any wine from the patory because they have not changed anything about it the only thing that’s changed is the climate it’s the only thing so

The wines are a little bit richer than they used to be a little bit Fuller you can drink them now without waiting 10 years but that’s entirely because the climate there’s no other reasoning behind it um while we’re on the proor is the last thing um you guys have seen I’m

Sure you’ve seen the straight barbaresco next door it’s got a big yellow label with the castle of barbaresco on it the toor on it right there um in the very very best years they produce nine single Vineyards the crews um the reservas which are all white labels um they will

Only make those in the very best years from nine Vineyards within the village of barbaresco there we go perfect I knew he was going to grab that um they will only do all nine Vineyards but they won’t do any of them and it has to be a

Good enough year to not only make the single Vineyard wines but only make the single Vineyard wines if there’s enough good quality grapes to still make the yellow label one still make the basic one for the same reason that they’re making a bottle of nebiolo even at the

Cost of a bottle of barbaresco they’re making the single Vineyards at the co at not they’re not making the single Vineyards at the cost of a bottle of barbaresco they’re only making it they can still make the flagship wine great because once again for these guys it’s

Not about just kind of squeezing it for every last drop of money they can do it’s about what’s doing well that somebody referred to as a baby Bara yes would that be this so this that’s the longano category that’s the you know we kind of did it to ourselves where we all

Started so this is the this is the main barbaresco this is the main wine the everything nothing about this label has changed since the 50s basically um and then this is the single Vineyard Z is one of them um this is they really only make them in the best years 2017 was the

Last one and 2019 which is actually coming out the next couple weeks part of the reason that these guys like having someone working for the suppliers that used to work for them is they get a very healthy uh very healthy portion of a very allocated wine um but we like to

Take care of them um you’ll notice every bottle is numbered and every bottle on the back which is one of my favorite Parts tells you which families supplied the grapes to make that wine which is fine up the village and in this case

We’ve got one 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 different family contribute some have like one or two families ovll is actually one of the biggest Vineyard so it has almost 12 families um but yeah so the baby b category and you’ll actually see it for

The next wine we have as well baby Bros and baby Brunell this was kind of something we did to ourselves because we used it as like a great marketing tool and you know we used it we used it salesman used it stores used it and they

Said oh this is a baby bro then we talked to the producers the producers are like oh we hate that term that’s a terrible term why why would you ever say that you know because they don’t because idea is once again that this should be there should be two different wines it’s

Not you know kind of it’s its own it’s its own wine you know it’s not that one’s better than the other it’s ones to have now ones to put down the line and wait to age ones to have when you’re having this ones to have when you’re

Having that so it’s a difference in in style there uh as we get to that as we get to pairings I mean nebiolo this is classic I mean this is this is one of the most kind of classic pairings in Italian cuisine is this in Truffles neol

And truffles is you do not get better this is Alba’s wear the white truffles come from all basically all the same Vineyards as this at the base of the hills you’ll find the Groves where the white truffles grow um anything mushroom related is great any cows milk cheeses

Really richer higher in fat cheeses I’m sure Sasha will agre those work very very well um rice heavier pastas things with a lot of cream a lot of cheese a lot of butter we’re in Northern Italy we’re very close to the Alps here this is not tomato country this is you know

This is kind of heartier more actually Cuisine for a night like tonight actually works really really well so what do we think about this folks perfect perfect perfect oh so there’s the there’s the hard to get wines there’s the harder to get wines and there’s the very very very

Hard to get wines so D ferino um was the priest who came back in there was the first priest in in 1894 Don fiorino was his successor at the church in barbaresco back in 1958 when it was reformed um he was really one of the major guys to get the whole process

Started to get all these Growers together and get them working together um Don furino is a limited edition wine they’ve made basically I think about four times since the 60s um and what this is in especially great vintages like 2016 was 2016 was one of the best Italian vintages ever doesn’t matter

What kind of wine it is from where from who made it doesn’t matter what it was if it was from 2016 it was great um this is a select blend even on top of the uh Vineyards here for the selected Crews here took basically four of The

Vineyards they thought did the best in 2016 they did a selection from that and made this wine they made very very very little of this wine I don’t even know if they said how little but they made very little um to give you an idea of how

Little they made we got I think eight three packs into the state of Connecticut and Harry’s got five of them so they you know we he can’t say we don’t take care of them you know um this is really for us in you know we’re not

Not a a company that talks about like cty wines and our musthave wines and our big you know our our big like Golden Crown Jewel Blue Chip type wines that being said that is for us one of probably the most important wines that we’ve sold in the past 10 years and how

Much are those wines up there Patrick how much are those wines up there that’s very good I think this one is uh this one is about 50 you’re $49.99 on that $79.99 on oh we’ve got a very good price you do have a very good price you’re the

Only you are literally the only game in town with it so is it 100 H I think it’s about 120 120 yeah so um you know it’s for the you know for the people who are really serious about and really want to collect these are the wines but this I just

Challenge you to find a better $50 bottle of wine $50 bottle of baresco so one of the really cool things is the vintages that they make these Wines in pay attention to those vintages because those vintages it doesn’t end up in their normal any other vintage it ends up here

So if they haven’t done these um single Vineyard uh wi it all ends up in this mod so John’s Point there’s not enough nebbiolo out there right now we we are regularly finding this problem yeah for us it’s a problem and that is there’s just not enough out

There I’m going to give you can I see the that we just so this is a 2022 John came in tonight to let me know that there are seven cases left seven so listen we’ve already taken a position on it we’ve got some wine over next door

But there are only seven cases left for now there might be one more small drop before fall time yeah um so if you like this one um we just bring bring it home they yeah something like but this is I can tell you I stand by this one I

Really like this one um but between now and September there are about 20 cases to be had yeah not period they’re not bottling the next vintage until September and we asked them to bottle it early and they don’t want to so yeah for for me for me I get to find

Something else to sell you in between now and then great moment for your fona if you have Aline Italian Aline Chee there so you got that going together great option with this yeah this isant oh and now the specs on this guy $24.99 sorry 249 and 14% all right it

Go what you have it with [Laughter] just this is for food and in fact one of the things that we did we’ve done this with on a pretty regular basis mushroom butter is like a go to for us Lydia’s be chop is an amazing Choice even my mushroom meat

Love mushroom meat yes it’s true all of those things we we’ve experienced Rel all right so we went we had our we had our uh we we had our uh ped Mones interlude now so we’ll get back to the world we’ll go down to the next most famous of

Italian wine regions possibly even more famous than pedmont and we’ll go tuskany we’ll go to Wine number seven um oh lyd’s V chop I I don’t don’t ask him any more questions about Lydia’s V chop because he w’t he’ll he’ll keep talking about it and it is very good um

So you know kind of riffing off what we were saying about kind of the the idea of baby bolo um you know this is the next category into that this is what you know up until recently we used to sell as baby brunella um this is a Roso de Montalcino

From the village of Montalcino and this is uh I’m so so this is bar so bichi is the newest Winery for us um from Montalcino um if you guys haven’t had I mean I think most people here have had a Brunello before most people are familiar with that concept it’s actually the

First docg in Italy it was the first wine in Italy to hit the top uh legal classification for wine back in 1961 or 62 don’t quote me on that um and that’s the other thing once again the Italian wine history the wine law history in

Italy is not old you know um my parents were born 62 so I have to say it’s not old um it’s not very it’s very it’s very young it’s very recent it’s very recent it’s it’s very very young it’s it’s it’s very it’s very fresh said your parents

Were born in this I I don’t recall saying that um so anyway so monal Chino is this really cool area because monal Chino is situated right in between the village of Sienna and further down towards the Tuscan Coast it’s one of what you find a lot of in Tuscany these tiny little

Tuscan Hill towns you have ones like San jimano hortona all of these you know they each have their own little kind of claim to fame their own little Fame uh their own little thing they’re known for montal Chino montal Chino was a really interesting one because up until really

Kind of the you know the middle of the 20th century or so basically up until Brunell became a wine- making category became something people knew mcino was one of the poorest parts of it this was one of the and this is Franchesco Buffy who’s the third generation owner of bichi the wine we’re

Drinking now will say this was an area where no one had any money you go in World War II just after this was dirt poor and it’s funny to think now that these are probably some of the most expensive wines in Italy come from this Village mtal Chino itself is only about

10 square miles in those 10 square miles you have almost let’s see I think about 300 producers or so in here got my little map so every Red Dot that you see here is a producer of Brunell de Montalcino so the wine we’re talking about tonight and I can actually pass

This around if you guys want to take a look at that um you’re more than welcome the wine we’re talking about tonight bichi is Winery number one so franchesco’s grandfather nello bichi back in 1961 when the docg was created he was the first guy in line to sign up for the

Consortio sign up for the basically farmers collection who made this wine category they are Winery number one in the first docg created in Italy nello did something really really smart in the 1950s you know when land was still really poor here he told he basically took all his family Holdings the bichis

Are an old family from Montalcino they were basically Old Farmers from Montalcino for years and years and years he took all his family land he sold it all and he bought four hectares which is about eight Acres or so um in the hilltop of montosi so montos is a hill

Basically just to the north of the village of monino when you see that coming around when you see monino on the map monos is a tiny little Hill just above that now that was really preent at the time because today monos is the only crew in Montalcino it is the grand crew

Of the Brunell Montalcino appalation and it’s not that big it’s only about seven hectares in size and N berichi bought four of those he’s actually today the only person to have a winery on there as well to put it in perspective most producers have maybe you know a couple

Rows maybe they have half a Hector maybe they have an acre or so of Vineyard here and these are Big wineries big famous wineries with big names and that’s they use that for their top wine their Vineyard selection whatever you want to call it every single bottle of wine that

Bichi makes is 100% fruit from montos and that includes the only roast of De Montalcino made made from crew fruit in the Brunell de monino and the Ros de monino Appalachian um what’s amazing for us about this is that this is a wine that I have to introduce to almost every buyer

That I show it to for being a winery that capitalized you know on taking the basically most sought-after spot B being the first person to sign up to be a producer Ral de Montalcino when we started working with them for the 2013 vintage they were basically unknown in

The US they never exported to the US before um Nell bici got raised alongside Beyond Santi I don’t remember which Beyond Santi I think it was Tanki um but they were actually um they basically they were so close that they shared the same weter so put it that way that when

N bic’s mother gave birth to him and beond santi’s mother gave birth to him one didn’t have enough milk so they they spend a lot of time next to each other um to hear the Italians telling on a zoom they giggle a lot more um but you know it’s a it’s it’s really

Almost this kind of like Tale of Two Cities with producers right because you had beond Santi which was a little famous before then because they were kind of like the big guys the big figures they produced a wine that today Bondi Santi when you think like top end

Brunell Bondi Santi is it Bondi Santi is that’s that’s the wine 250 bucks a bottle whatever it is now you know and it’s well worth the money it’s an outstanding bottle of wine bichi was a lot more kind of close to the vest a lot more low to the ground

It’s stayed a tiny family production Nell bichi ran every single vintage of wine made up until 2012 vintage when he passed away today his two grandsons Run the game his one grandson federo works as the wine maker one grandson Franchesco um is actually here in the US

Right now uh kind of learning how to be an export manager um and they’re one of my favorite wines to show because it’s two brothers basically carrying on their grandfather’s Legacy which I find really really cool um making absolutely outstanding outstanding wines so what do you guys think of this it’s awesome

Isn’t it I would say uh and we set it that this lot table if you still got it in your glass get it moving in your glass get oxygen down into this this thing doesn’t stop opening one of my favorite things about it is the quality

Of the wine that you get out of here know it’s sort of locked down when you first open up the bottle we’re getting some oxygen we’re getting some air in here the no changes and fre SI seems to develop a little bit more a little bit

More exactly at the at both the price and the designation which is Roso rather than rello yeah that’s got an offw well and that’s where we really try to try to show this guys because this is going back to that when we were talking about you know the baby brunella term wines

Like this are why we really stopped using that term right because you’re using a you know you’re saying you know baby Rell and kind of you know it’s almost pejorative in a way it’s a it’s a in in a lovingly pejorative way right um

But you had a lot of wines that you know it’s the same it’s the same story as longin niola you had a lot of producers with a lot of lesser quality fruit wasn’t up from up on the hillside and mcino from closer to the valley floor

Wasn’t as good quality and they said you know what once again we only have to age it for maybe you know a few months to a year we can sell it off you know we’ll sell it for 15 20 bucks we’ll make some money we’ll be okay and then you have

Producers like bichi who once again do not need to make this wine it’s just like the longola with protor they could just make granella they only have four hectar there not enough you know it’s not like they’ve got a million grapes lying around to spare it’s a conscious

Decision on their part to make two different kinds of wine um and to me that makes the wine all the more special it makes wine all the more better because it’s showing that it’s two different iterations of what this grape can do you have your version that has

Much more tanin much more acidity that needs its time to come into itself that can last for years and years and then you have this one that you could enjoy now and you can go into and it doesn’t lack in complexity it doesn’t lack in sophistication it doesn’t lack in

Anything um it’s just a different expression distributor or we’re a national importer yep 50 cents in Puerto Rico so how do you decide such a small production who gets what who gets what in terms of who gets what wine yeah no who gets how much that’s a fun

Game listen you know this is a for all for for for everything that it is for as Tiny a state as we are you would not believe the business Connecticut does we we like our wine in Connecticut we you know we out drink I’m on I’m on I’m

Miked up so I have to be careful what I say um about my company but um I will put it this way we sell more wine than the entire Midwest including Chicago we drink more wine than the entire there’s only a couple states that do more wine than us and there’s more

There’s also more culture for wine buying here it’s listen we got the money we’re in fairf count we got the money we’re not you know we’re not lacking on that on that half of it but we also have the interest we also have the you know

We also have the the the there’s people who want to buy this one here um so in terms of who gets what we we do okay in Connecticut we do okay and for whatever reason this is a fun fact that that to my my uh my Superior who operates out of

Massachusetts um will say Connecticut for I don’t know what reason loves Brunello and Ros de moncino we do way they buy more Bola than us they buy a lot more Bara than us in Massachusetts and lot more barbaresco too but from Brunello Connecticut is I think other

Than New York we probably do more with Brunell than any other state in the country so and we were one of the first to work with bichi and we’ve done really really well um we’re very lucky that that we uh I don’t know if anyone here

Was able to attend maybe we did a dinner U Back In December with Franchesco bofy um so the grandson of N bichi and the current owner of the winery along with his brother we did a small dinner down Norwalk um and we drank this we drank his Brunello and William actually

Brought the last two or three bottles they had of the nello barich which is their Reserva that they only make in very very good years that they named as an homage to their grandfather um and the wines are just outstanding um and it’s very it’s it’s a very cool

Property and it’s fun to be able to introduce some something to people that are actually even as famous as it should be and as as big as it should be it is actually still a little bit of an unknown quantity so and I would say John you can correct me this has

Ageility oh yeah oh yeah I mean you know when we open this model earlier tonight it wasn’t showing as as no beautifully as it is it comes into itself really really really well one of my favorite things about this wine is that when you open the wine um and your journey through the

Bottle is it doesn’t it doesn’t stop doesn’t get to a point and then you say well that you know that was it opened up and a change and it’s got two different I mean it just doesn’t stop changing the whole yeah just keeps going it really does there’s a story that Franchesco buy

Likes to tell of his grandfather submitting this because to you know every year when they produce a Brunell you have to submit it to the consortio you have to basically you know have your first bottle sent over to the committee and have them approve it and everything

And his grandfather sent a bottle of Roso instead of a bottle of brunella and they said it was wow this was in the top 10 of all the wines we tasted that’s super illegal by the way they do not like it when you do that but you got away with it so

Yeah not a lot um um I should know this you know what actually you have I’ll tell you right now because sometimes we actually have so total production for the entire Winery is about 30,000 bottles so it’s not huge it’s not minuscule but it’s small for a company

Like us that we we we run a national operation yeah yeah yeah so it’s it’s really yeah not yeah about yeah about not so it’s really it’s it’s a it’s a pretty minuscule operation in the grand scheme of things you know usually this is something that when we talk about

What states are getting in terms of allocations you know we’re doing well with bichi now we’ve really done they’ve they’ve liked us a lot more in the past few years uh we’ve kind of proved ourselves to them so they give us a lot more but at the beginning we were

Getting in a state like Connecticut we’re getting like 10 cases those are six packs by the way 10 10 cases so 60 bottles for a whole state for something like the uh Reserva the Nell Reserva once again if you’re sensing a theme Here Harry’s got the Lion Share of it um

But that’s because they did really well with the Roso and the and the Brunello and that was only I think that was only like five three packs once again it was really really minuscule production so I did a tour of the granella region a few years ago I went to six different

Vineyards and I was amazed they all produce olive oil too yes they do so do they do they do too these guys don’t they they don’t have enough land they don’t have any olive trees where they are monos is so valuable now that no one has any olive trees planted there um

Other producers that we represent we represent a couple different um one called Camano Which is far to the Southwest in mosle and like the bottom leftand corner of that they make fantastic olive oil it’s all certified organic and it’s outstanding we actually have another producer called fosle who’s

Very very close friends with the bichis um he’s another one with only about three four hectares of land um he actually does all organic saff because he has two fields that he can’t by law he can’t grow grapes in because you can only expand your production so

Much every year um so him and two friends planted saffron uh those lilies saffron tulips I don’t know what crocus crocuses saffron crocuses thank you um he planted those and he said it was like a 13,000 EUR investment and he recouped it all in the first year

He’s like oh yeah we he’s like it’s ridiculous how much I spent the last time he came to Connecticut we spent one day working and we spent the second day trying to find someone who would import his uh his saffron we didn’t find anyone but he still owes me some interesting

Saffron crocuses right now crocus are hopping up a lot of our yards doesn’t happen with saffron crocuses those come out they plant them um when they harvest their grapes they plant the um the crocuses the crocuses come up have these uh I think it’s three

Yeah Stam that are the uh that are the uh uh saffron itself um and then after they die off you then have to go back out there dig those cus back up take care of them in your seller again till next year so when do they blw in we

Saw the bloom me when we were do you remember when we stopped when we left pamino and we drove we were coming down off the hill and I pulled over next to that remember they were the two people filling their pockets yeah yeah yeah it it was very tempting but I did

Not I wanted to take the pictures because it’s sort of it’s the antithesis of what you expect you have to put these in in the beginning of um the beginning of the fall at the Harvest Time and and you get them around the Thanksgiving time I it’s

A little bit before that probably end end of October yeah per Stephano the guy who grows him he said it’s the worst work in the world he said I wouldn’t wish that work on anyone to pluck the stems but I did Get so as we as we wrap up the the the saffron discussion we’ll give you the stats for this wine and then we’ll move on to so it’s 9.99 and 14.5 and when we talk about pairings with this wine guys it’s 100% sanes which means anything tomato related is

Going to be really really friendly with it wild boar if you can get it pork or beef or ve if you can’t anything like that steaks this is a steak wine I mean you get a fantina steak a big T-Bone about the size of like four of your

Fingers put together those are all really really really great things yes these are the white cows these are the Kina Kina beef the the best all right uh yes back there to the come back in have awkward time so guys the next wine we have up you can

You can try to hold it if you want as it comes around or after we finish pouring uh I think this is about the same weight of glass as every single other bottle put together um this is like a mallet made into a bottle of wine

Um cover my mic no it’s I I have no idea and I’ve asked and I’ve asked this Winery why because glass is not cheap this is like five euros worth of glass which most bottles are like a Euro worth of glass um the reason is because it’s

Nice because we like it exactly which is when you when you work with Italian producers you’d be surprised how many answers are because we like it when you ask think it’s Morey it heav and and that is well and that’s 100% true especially for these guys because this is only their

Two most top end wines go into these bottles so they really identify very um see it as a quality yeah they see it as a quality thing they see it as you know the Wine’s a lot fancier because it’s in a heavy glass bottle true I’m not sure

If it’s true and quite frankly I’d rather spend the the I’d rather take that price of glass off the final cost of the wine but you know that’s an American perspective versus an Italian perspective so um you know we just had two very very common Italian wine or two

Very popular Italian regions I should say um two very well-known Italian regions and we’re gonna end back off where we started on something a little bit less well known with yes please um and we’re gonna end up with a wine from uh lar so lar you’ll see it as that

Little orange region right over there if you look at it this is a region that touches I think almost more regions than any other region in Italy CU you’re connected to you’re sharing borders with abuto latio Umbria um Tuscany Amilia Romania and you’re encompassing within that you’re sharing borders with San

Marino the tiniest one of the tiniest countries in the world um the marqu has always been surrounded by really really famous Italian wine making regions and it’s never been as famous as any of those now a lot of that is that all these other regions had really grapes

That they identified with and they were famous for to the South had mpano Tuscany to the West had San jaes Amilia ranana had lusco um but the Marque also makes a lot less wine the marquet makes less wine than any other region in Italy and it’s not a small region you guys see

It on the map there’s certainly regions that are tinier the marqu makes less than a million liters of wine every year it makes only about 800,000 liters that’s the part that’s good for you um so it’s a really kind of it’s a region that’s never really had a lot uh

Attached to it and going for it really for the most time the only thing it ever had that it was really known for um was veriko was the wine with the fish bottle the old white wine in the fish bottle that used okay a couple people good I

When I say that and no one knows what I’m talking about it’s really bad um exactly EXA exactly exactly so so what you had as a result of this when you go back to the 1980s this is a time when a lot of people are leaving the agricultureal leaving the countryside

Moving into cities kind of setting up their own operations um the marn regional government was doing was kind of set setting up a little bit of a was setting up a little bit of a program where if there was young people students recently graduated students who wanted to move back into

The countryside start restart in the agricultural field um you’d get subsidies um so Angela vosi was one of these people she was in 84 she was I think 21 um and her and her uh husband fiance at the time um moved back to their hometown of aseno which is all the way

At the very bottom of that little orange region right where the is located um and it sits right on the border of a Bruto um and they start up a winery named for her husband’s family called velenosi um velenosi is a really fun one when we start showing this wine to

Italians because velenosi does not is probably the least uh uh sellable name in terms of wine vosi in Italian translates to poison poisonous exactly yeah is poison vosi is poisonous so it’s a vino vosi it’s a poisonous wine um but it’s the last name so what are you gonna

Do um so they started back in when they started back in 84 they started making one type of wine a type of wine called Roso piceno Roso red from the town of as piceno um the wine is always made from a blend of two grapes that you might have

Heard of before sanes and Cabernet because where you look at it on the map you have a Bruto Stones Throw to the South some fantastic multiple Gio in fact in Marque they’ll actually argue that their multiple chanos a little bit better than the ones from abuto once

Again worst person in the world is the person right next to you um and then to the West they have sanes so they’ve got this perfect historical Crossroads of these two grapes always coming together and they’re two grapes that work really really well together you know multiple

Chano gives you your fruit gives you your depth gives you your richness your intensity sanes gives you your leanness your polish your your elegance so they were making these this wine for a few years they did very very well with it it’s really the wine that kind of built

Their Winery they started adding other wines as they went along the line in 1993 they produced the first vintage of Roo Del filare kind of very very roughly translates to kind of rays of sunlight um kind of meant to evoke the rays of sunlight coming through the vineyard uh

It’s a little bit more in kind of Flowery poetic language here um this is basically their Ros Pano suot it’s the exact same in terms of classification it’s the exact same as their main everyday $13 bottle of wine with the sole exception being this is only from the oldest oldest Vineyards that they

Have um these are at least 50 years old ideally more um and the bunches here I went to these guys last September I visited their Winery I visited this Vineyard Bunches of multiple Chana you have here are massive they’re like bigger than my head big huge Bunches of

Really I mean if you I don’t know any about what’s a good grape or what’s a bad grape by looking at it they all look like grapes to me but these were like you see those and you’re like oh those are probably really good grapes um it’s really indepth concentrated I mean look

At the color on this wine it’s just ink it’s really really rich and really intense it spends about a year and a half in brand new French Bak barrels that go on to be used the second and third times for other wines of the winery so this is only really the best

Of the best this is for you know for a country like Italy that usually makes about medium bodied wines this is about as full and Rich and as close to California as we’re going to get right you know it’s got a lot of it’s got a decent amount of Oak a decent

Amount of alcohol a decent amount of fruit those are all things that you’ll find with your favorite wine out of California you know and but the tannins the acidity they’re there they’re present it’s still an Italian wine it’s still a central Italian wine you’ve still got those little threads running

Through it they unite it with hopefully a lot of the other wines you guys have had tonight um this is a wine that you know we don’t really stand on a lot of the kind of awards or anything like that because you know you look at Italian wines

Everyone’s got their own award there’s like 50 different critics that no one’s ever heard of all coming up with you know coming up with their little gold sticker to put on a thing but the one we do you know the one we do trust in the

One we do go by um is really the top Italian award for wine and that’s from the gambra Roso um which is KRA Roso is kind of the wine SL you know it’s kind the wine critic uh restaurant critic food critic it’s like the Michin guide

And the wine guy W wrapped up into one but it only concerns itself with Italy um and every year the gambro Roso picks a list of wines that classifies Tre three glasses um those are really considered the top Italian those are if any Italian producer any Italian wine

Maker anyone respects any award given out that’s the that’s the one they respect um roil has won every single vintage since 19 93 that’s been made there was a couple years in there where they didn’t make the wines because the you know was rainy it was cloudy wasn’t

Good weather every other vintage in that this wine is one and for a region like the Marque where there’s not a lot of wines anyone’s really heard of coming out of it there’s not a lot of production you know significantly less than almost any other region in Italy um

For this one to really take that every every year is something that we do uh respect it’s just not another kind of 92 points from who knows what um what do you guys think of this one I mean it’s a lot of fun and not just because

You can Club people with the bottle if you want no yes this is in Mar so it’s number eight the orange region right over there right in the center yep yeah it’s too much glass they should not be making a bottle wine this heavy yeah how much is it a bottle

Uh well we can go into those right change we get into the 59.99 and 14.5 just for you I got it in the in the trunk there you go uh 14 J 145 145 so uh the vosi winery is today it was started by Angela vosi she still

Runs the Winery um her daughter Mariana who was born the first in 1993 first vintage of this wine made so they grew up together um she is running the winery as well they are both very very involved in not only wine making but also being very prominent women wine makers female

Wine makers in Italy um which is a category you a significant amount of wine makers in Italy are female that is a thing that they are bet the sense of smell when it comes to wine is better um I don’t get into the science of that but

It’s true and Mariana’s part of a very very cool uh group that started that includes about six different producers that we work with um and it’s called spat which is Italian for basically the new vines that you plant in the ground and that’s all uh female wine makers uh

Used to be 25 and under but now they all got a little bit older so now it’s 30 and under um and yeah we’re [Laughter] we’re but it’s yeah these are the original Vines when they purchased Winery uh some of them were still in the family I think

The youngest Vines they have are about 50 years old yeah very low production on this I think this you’re in the thousands in terms of bottles produced the winery itself vosi makes they make a decent amount of wine um because they make basically every appalachi in the marquet

They make um but this is this this is the smallest production of anything that they do yes yeah always any Old Vine is going to be lower production um because and that’s why old Vines are so valuable because the fewer bunches coming the more uh concentration in each bunch and

Even past that you’ll even still have even with old Vines like this you’ll even have guys going through the vineyard and still cutting maybe half of the bunches off to get more and more concentration into those remaining bunches so it’s about getting as much concentration as you can unless you’re

Trying to make money in which case it’s about as getting many a bunches as possible you know so all right and that’s what I got does anybody have any last questions 82 not bad