Ep. 1496 Bev Bourdin Interviews Fabio Sireci | Clubhouse Ambassadors' Corner

Since twenty seventeen, the Italian wine podcast has exploded and expects to hit six million listens by the end of July twenty twenty three. We're celebrating this success by recognizing those who have shared the journey with us. And giving them the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing success of the shows. By buying a paper copy of the Italian wine unplugged two point o or making a donation to help the ongoing running costs, members of the international Italian wine community will be given the chance to nominate future guests and even enter a prize draw to have lunch with Stevie Kim and Professor Atigio Shenza. To find out more, visit us at Italian wine podcast dot com. Welcome to this special Italian wine podcast broadcast. This episode is a recording of Clubhouse, the popular drop in audio chat. This clubhouse session was taken from the wine business club and Italian wine club. Listen in as wine lovers and experts alike engage in some great conversation on a range of topics in wine. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italian wine podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. And remember to subscribe and rate our show wherever you tune in. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Italian wine club on Clubhouse. It's now called a house. As you know, today's guest is Fabio. I see Fabio. Please, Charles. How are you? I'm very fine. Very happy to stay with you. Yeah. You know, I have some exciting news for all of us. We've just received the OIV book award. Like, it's like the book of the year award for Italian one unplugged. It's very exciting. Oh, fantastic. But I know. I know you're also a book lover because you had sent me the lovely book, the recipe book with beautiful photographs of Sicily from your wife, Melissa. Right? She's here with me. Yes. I'm Elisa. Hey. Thank you. How are you? How are you? Good. Good. We have a tiny problem here because we don't have Beverly. I see that. I see that. Oh, you're serious. Hello, Bev. Hi there, Stevv. How are you? Good morning. Where you're sleeping? I saw that you had sent through the chat what you're going to drink afterwards. Parricone. Yes. Yep. Perricone. So very excited. So we're going to start. I just jumped in to say quickly, say hello. And like I sitting here with me, because I have another, but I will, of course, listen to this conversation on replay on Italian wine podcast. By the way, we have reached six million listens on SoundCloud. So amazing. And one of the more popular shows is absolutely Clubhouse. So I'm sitting right here next to Leica. She's going to take over. She has been our clubhouse manager. We've been through hundred episodes. Just on clubhouse alone. We've reached fifteen hundred episodes. Right? Yeah. Okay. And so, actually, Joy, our Italian White podcast. She's quitting on me, so like is going to take over from now onwards. So Very exciting. Joy is we're so grateful. She's lasted about five years already. I can't believe it. So it was about time. I think she's completely burnt out. I've erased every single brain cells. So we're going on are actually team building Jitha tomorrow, so we'll all be together. So looking forward to that. And so, like, over to you, Chatea Gatsy, have fun. Joe show and and congratulations on the recognition Thank you. You know what that's like? So much hard work, you know, they say, you know, good things happen to those who wait, but, you know, better if you to those who work really, really hard. Well, this book deserves it. It's definitely a benchmark book of about Italian wine and the genetics. Yeah. It's kinda leaky, but, you know, you just No. We love it. We love it. We talk about it all the time. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa. So Bev, she's a wine enthusiast and lifelong learner, retired as a registered nurse, international Somier Guild level two through wine scholar Guild, French wine scholar, Rowan Masters, and Italian wine scholar. Italian Y Maestro taught by Marsha Ham, Italian Wine expert, and she's actually here in the room, I think. Yeah. Marsha is here. Tell Marsha. Okay. And Bev is our Italian wine Ambassador twenty twenty two in Verona. So her intention is to return to Verona to achieve the expert level. So before I begin turning over to Bev, I would like to ask you, Bev. Hi, Bev. Hello? Hello, Leica. So Tell us why you selected Fabio Sierraci as your favorite producer. Quite simply, I enjoy his wines for taste and food pairing, and more importantly for the story that's in the bottle. And I really respect the effort, the patience, and the minimal intervention he puts into his grape growing and making the wine. And there's such a uniqueness about sicilian wines that you just can't duplicate. Right. And what are the learning objectives that we should expect from this interview? To learn more about Fabio and how he developed his wines, his approach, what he grows in the history of Fudu Montoni because it's a very ancient history. And just to and develop some appreciation of what comes out of Sicily and the people behind it. I'm really looking forward to this. And last question is, how did you discover the wines of Fudo Montoni? Well, it was a virtual tasting during the dark days of pandemic lockdown. So Grevinder Bada, who's one of the three Italian wine experts in our province of Alberta, organize this. So your vendor is an importer of wine, and I've referred to him as the wine unicorn because allegedly he lives here, but there's really rare, rare sightings of him. But he does travel extensively to promote small producers of unique and exceptional wines. So during the lockdown, we went out, had to wait outside the store. They brought it to the car, you know, everybody's mask up. So we purchased a lot of Fudu Montoni wines. And with that, We had a list of authentic sicilian recipes that we could cook to pair with the wine just to get a more local flavor of the experience. And coincidentally, during lockdown, I turned to using a lot of cookbooks because we couldn't eat out. So I searched out cookbooks that had used a lot of eggplant because I love eggplant. And it was cookbook called Sicily by Fabio's wife, Melissa Mueller. So we were able to cook the recipes and drink the wine and connect over the internet half a world away. So it was a lovely connection when we couldn't go out anywhere because of COVID. It's really a connection because of a common passion. So that's really amazing. Thing. So I'm going to mute myself, and I will turn over the floor to you, Bav. So Thank you, Leika. I'd like to introduce you to Fabio Soreci, who is a third generation winemaker in Central Italy for Fudu Montoni wines, and he's originally educated as a mechanical engineer. The land has been producing grapes since about fourteen sixty nine, and Melissa Mueller is his wife and a former chef and restaurant owner in New York. And she cooks a lot of beautiful food that complements the land that also grows the grapes. Fabio not only produces grapes, but derm wheat and legumes and olives as well. Hello, Fabio. Hello. Hello, Bev. Fabio, what did you do today? Oh, it's a it was a very busy day. Like, always, now today, the day is focused on the harvest and, for the two to weeks. And today is the time in which we are making the Durham We collection. We have a vineyard. We have grape, but we have two other production like, as you said, before, honeysuckle, like, lentils, like chickpeas, and, and Durham width. Cisle is very famous for the Turum wheat for pasta. Yes. Even in, like, Roman times, Sicily was the bread basket for the rest of Italy and growing. Fabio, Who convinced you to make your own wine? You were growing grapes, but which of your neighbors thought that your wine could stand on its own? I can say that no one convinced me. No. No. It's something that was born in my heart. That, of course, it was like a seeds that was put from my family, my father, mama, my grandfather. I live it always in, Montoni. So, from ever, I was in the wine world, in the grape world. And we must consider that Maia, where Montoni, where Ferta Montoni, he is, completely isolated. In the sense that we have no harder, a winery close of us, except of a task at Almerita La Galliali. That is the only one close of a montoni, twenty kilometers to house. So I can say that is something that came from, the soul. It must it's your DNA. Fabio, when I tried to figure out where Fudam Antonio is, I looked at the map on your website, and it was a map from eleven fifty four under King Roger the second who was at that time king of Sicily and Africa. So Futo Montoni looks like it's at the junction of three important valleys. Can you tell me a little bit about the history of the land? The history of the land is very huge because, take, take the history from, Spanish domination. First of all, and the the owner was a aristocratic family from Spanish during, of course, the Spanish domination. Later, there was the domination of the church that, from the north Cheaffalou, Cefalou is a famous village, a touristic now village of, of Sicily. The church has a big and huge land that, was honored and that, was, managed by the church. City of Vatican on the room, and the Montoni was included in this area. Later in the eighteenth century, was, the owner was the cardinal of Catania. It was a very beautiful period because this cardinal of Catania that was to a a noble man, a noble family, increase strongly the vineyard, the grape cultivation, and the wines. And in the eighteenth century, after the hand of the eighteenth, sent to the my family. My grandfather bought the land from the cap, you know, Catania, and then, my grandfather, my father, now me, and I hop now my two beautiful boy that we have. Italian wine podcast brought to you by mama jumbo shrimp. I understand your boys help you out, do they? Yeah. They they are very small. Elio, he's a three years old. He has a small bag in which he has, the scissors to cut. The scissor to cut. He is a small pickle at Zapa. A little, hope. He full deploy every day. He doesn't want to do take the food to heat with us. He wants to stay with him, and I am very happy. Because this is starting to have the to grow the the roots in there on the ground of Montoni. Well, that sounds much more enriching than watching an iPad or something for a child. So what do you refer to as feudal Montoni as an island within an island. The history, help to be forever isolated in different sense. First of all, geological, we are pulling the top of a mountain at eight hundred meter above sea level. We are like an airmitage completely isolated from all, from everyone from any other cultivation from every other farmer. As I said before, the vineyard that is completely isolated from other vineyard. That's very important for the pureness of the genetic code that Uh-huh. That are in the vines. It was the so called the granary of the Roman Empire because it was first grown here the Durham wheat and from ever here, it's like a part of Sicily that is, in my opinion, for explorator, not for touristic. That's why very important writer, like a Perandello Ocasio, the Shasha road. About Sicily. Uh-huh. Field maker, like tornado, with the with the star maker, the two, they filmed the move here. Because this, I think that Sicily is we can divide in the too big area. The tourist area, amazing area like Tormina, palermo, Regento, and so on. And then the heart that is, if you want to know the soul of the sicilian people, And if you want to understand the soul of the land, you should come here. And as I said, you before, we are in the middle, in the perfect middle of Sicily, where starts the three big valley, Valle, Valle, Valle, that was the three valley that divided sizzly. We could remember the Arabian flag that has the three legs The valley, it comes from the Arabic, and the valley means governance, not valley as in the geographical. Yeah. And the governance because the island was strategically divided into these three areas of Ferul during the Arabic period. But that stayed very prevalent throughout the centuries even after the period of Islamic rule finished. Well, Sicily is so deep in history and many, many layers of culture, isn't it? Fabio, that was a wonderful comparison to the hill of hermitage because Aetna gets a lot of attention because of its elevation, but the inside of Sicily has very high altitude vineyards as well. Right. Ester, of course, is a an amazing, Vulcan is a three thousand three hundred meter. Uh-huh. But in this easily, we are, for example, Montoni, that is a eight hundred meter, mostly level. We are between two big moon train. It's a Madonia moon trains. It's a two thousand millimeter and the Montecamerata. That's, one thousand five hundred meter above sea level. Montecamerata is the highest moon train of the west side of Sicily. Aetna is the highest mountain of the east side of Italy. So we are in the top of the The rooftop of Sisi. The rooftop of Sisi. That's their pass very, very much for everything that we do. Sicily is Twenty four percent mountain. That is amazing. It is. And sixty percent hill and the plain lands are about nearly about fifteen percent. Wow. Fabio. What crops do you harvest first and what do you harvest last in the season? Starting from when, Bev? No. Okay. No. We are harvesting the dune wheat, the lentils, the chickpeas, and then the grapes for the wines, then the olive for the olive oil. Okay. Which grapes are first to ripen usually? Depending of the vintages, but, more or less is the the first one that Hopen, the shows is the grillo. Okay. And the last? It's the Perricorn. Sometime with Perricorn grape, we arrived at the beginning of November. That is late. Wow. So on the island of Sicily, you get the cold winds from the north and there's hot winds off of Africa. Do both those winds come to your vineyards or is one stronger than the other? Yes. Through the valleys that we talked before, cross easily, as you said before, the cold wind from the north, that is a tramontana or Maestraala, And, from the south is the Morocco winds that is more hot. And, of course, sometime, this wind from Africa, more in the last years could be a bit to take, in very observation and very, I would say, the attention because, it could be very hot. We had last two days in Sicily of the temperature of the last three years, except for two thousand twenty one that in Syracuse, there was forty eight. It's a well remembered. That is the highest temperature of ever of Europe. Oh my. How did you survive? Right. Right. We are here in Montoni. So we are in the mountain. So we are during the daylight, of course, we have not forty seven, but we have, I can say, thirty eight. But in the heating, we have always a chilly temperature. We have always very strong difference between the night and day of the temperature. And this is for us, the help that give the possibility to the vines to brief. The diurnal temperature fluctuation. Wow. Fabio, you don't buy new vines from nurseries. You do your own muscle selection. How do you do that to keep the DNA pure in your vineyards? I can say that I am lucky in the sense that everything that I have now, of course, came from the past, and everything is something that was to use it to grow from my father. Everything here is very natural. It's very, I can say, like, a serenity, approach to the wine world. But what I found in Montoni for me at the beginning of my wine job thirty years ago was not so happy how I can be now. In the sense that, for example, Nero Dawwala. Okay. In Muntoni, we have a very old vines of Nero Dawwala. Previlosera vines because my grandfather bought the land and there was already these binds. Huge binds, old binds. So we can say that the cardinal of Catania had, so that means that these binds came from the middle of the eighteenth century. So when I started to make my wine, Fabio wine, my generation, that is different of my father generation, because my father generation was, the generation that made the wine for high degree to sell to the north of Italy to sell to other country and so on. Uh-huh. But my generation was a generation more curious to make not wine for other country, not wine for other wine or you. Okay. For for us, but the problem was when I started to travel with my bottle under the wing Okay. To present in the in the wine testing, to present to the wine importer at the beginning in the Europe with my whole car, with the car of my father. And everyone say, for example, about Nero Dawala that I prefer to call Calabresa anyways. No. This is not Nero Dawala. And they say to me twenty years ago, thirty years ago, oh, Oh, no. No. No. No. No. This is not narrow double of it easily. And that's all stated. Fabio, what did it taste like to them? The problem was, what day the buyer, the wine, opinion leader, no about Sicily. Thirty years ago, was not communicated the island in the different there are in the different wine style that we can produce. So the world weight from sizzling, our wines over the south dot. That means that it was, and they must be a wine heavy, jammy, structured, black in the color. And when I present my wine, the glass that is completely the opposite, it's no black. It's not structured. It's a no heavy. It's not jammy. They thought that it was not narrow dawla. So I came back in Sicily, very frustrated, and it was for me very difficult to to take for the next harvest. But all my raw material here were what I have, of course, and, I continues to make my wine, filled the montoni wine. The wine that is not, not, not, not, not, not colored, not jamming, not structured, and so on. Not sicilian, then the Mylaki was, in the two thousand to met Jago Motakis. The famous winemaker of Sascicaya of, in audience, home. He was the director of the Espituto Reginalo, that he was called here from the lovely Diego Planeta that was the, the director of the Institute of Italy and Diego Planeta, the Barun Diego Planeta, very amazing brain, understood that we should communicate the other c c l e wines. And if he call Jaganostakis here to study the gray to study the larvae, to study the different wine. And when I say the study, it means the genetic code, it means the history and, of course, to present, to the world. With the power of the Jacob Motakis, brain without be being afraid to say something that could be different over what the world was looking for and Jacob Motagis and Diego Planeta, and of course other people, take this way and choose the difference, Haria, and the start to communicate to the world that Sicily has no one, no one catarato. Sicily is the largest highland of Europe largest island of a Mediterranean. So CECil is a continent. And when the Jago Motag is tested the power wines, Lucara, for example, the Nero Dabola Previlocera, He said that it was completely surprised of the wine that he tested. The completely different of the wine that he tested here before. And the Jago Motagis and the Diego Planeta was for me the people demands that give to me the courage to say to the world what is for me, and that not not not not appalachian, not black, not structured, not Jamie, were not a negative communication, but it was something to say here we have a different area. For example, Montoni has a big wines with a very high freshness Uh-huh. High acidity. Low pH, and the for the narrow double. That is the more famous in the world, the grape. It's completely different than than the other Harry. It's, if we can give a color to the wines. Well known, narrow double cc is more in the direction of that red color. It's more in the direction of the, sherry, of the red fruits in Montoni. No. He has a very minimal part that the expression is of the fruits, of the red fruits of the cherry, but is more expression of mental el calyptus means it's a world that is in the in the land of Montangi. That was the key that the switch on in my mind to fall over what the past gave to me. You followed your instincts and you had good encouragement from your colleagues. Yep. Wow. How those pre phylloxera vines is very, very special. But what is that plant that mint plant that grows wild that it's named after? I can't review because, ma'am, you know, every particular of Montoni. So Thank you for that. You have a wild mint plant that grows out here. Right. Right. It's called a veruca. Veruca. I couldn't pronounce it. Veruca. Okay. And that's what you name. Your preflox ravines after. Yeah. It's a hold and a very sicilian typical wild grass that is in the brucara crew. That's a resonance. If you crush, it's mental, it's, like a peppermint, and it's a deer in the Brocara lands from ever from Century and Century. And probably there could be a genetic marriage I don't know. It's something that I say, but could be. Okay. Well, you know, last November, I had the good fortune to attend a Cheetas Galastica through in Italy to, Cecilia DOC. And we were based on the west coast in the little town of Trappany. So one morning, we had master class that was held by the incomparable Felipo Bartelata. On near Davala. And Felipo guided us through eight different near Davala, grown at six different altitudes, starting at fifty meters above sea level and then one fifty and then two hundred and all the way up to about to six hundred meters above sea level. So it was really impactful to see that transformation from the dark tannic rustic narrow to ave. And as we moved up the wines to the high elevations, they got slightly paler just a little bit. And the alcohol dipped a little bit. And there was more floral bit more mineral. There was this ping of saline. And you could really taste and see the evolution of the wine growing from near sea level up to a higher altitude. So it was probably the most worthwhile tasting that I have done just to have those wines in front of me guided by Felipo. So when you say that your neurodiavala is unique, in this set apart from the others. I I truly understand that. For me, it's very exciting to be with my home history. That's very long, but it's very interesting how much Caledoscopic is sizzling. I would like to communicate to the world. Like you said before that here, there are more or less, I can say eight, ten different narrow double a completely different one by the other, and the amazing one for different reason by the other. This could be for me the narrow double communication two point zero because I am a bit tired to be, when I for example, when I received a phone call from a buyer, and he said, okay. I would like to buy. I said, I have not. Because it's a very stupid question. It's a very stupid approach if you if the world, if the buyers say, I want one, we are not making the boulogne screws. We are not making a screws. We there is not one narrow dabbana. Sisi is not one narrow dabbana. It's usually something that, has a stake on the level to approach with the should be very considered like, an amazing laboratory. That's it's another thing very important that that is at the beginning of the rediscovering of the past, and it's at the beginning of the communication for the next future. That's amazing. That's amazing. Yes. You know, in it, in Italy, we focus a lot on the distinction between biotypes and where the grapes are from. Fabio, in front of me on my kitchen table, I do have one of your near to avolas. It's the lag Nousa. Two thousand eighteen. So that means lazy in Italian. Will I be lazy after I drink it or what? Yep. When you say the land use, for me, it's my big brother. It's Nero Dabalala land use. Brucada is Nero davela, that for me is my queen. La Nousa, Nero Dabbola, is a vineyard that was grafted from us. As you said before, in Montoni, we have no one biotype that came from the nursery garden. I don't love, the nursery garden in the sense that, the word nursery garden is too much claustrophobic for me because the nature is so free and open that. It shouldn't exist a room where one decides. So what I want to say is that different approach different wines of the same grade book, but we must to remember that now is helping us, for example, for Merodabo and other and the other grape, but is helping us the genetic history. In the beautiful book of, Stevy with the atelios Chanza, there is the genetic history of, that is the Montónica. And this is starting to show that, something cannot be more, disgusted about the origin of the genetic code, but The different, expression of the narrow dabbana came from the evolution of the biotype in this easily because, montana came from Calabria, of course, basically, that's saved there, atelier Shenza and and the Stev in the Italian wine unplugged the two point zero say that everything came from the yeast, but the new approach is that, what is now the work, Nero Dawala. What means our doctor knows? Because, I'm sorry if I am a bit going out of the of the question, but my patient about Nero Dawala, keep me in some very important discussion genetically, we have, discovered the origin. Now, we should say that, where there is the best expression, and where come from the different expression of the wines. For example, Alanyousa, your questions? Yes. My wife. Is another is another narrow dabala of Montoni. And in through, we have other crew with the other narrow dabbalah. Until today, I divide the Montoni in the more or less twenty vineyards about the narrow dabbalah in Montoni. So I could make a twenty different bottle of course, for the different exposition, for the different altitude, for the different cultivation that are close of them. But the mother is always the but that is in the hill called the land use, like you said in sicilian language. That is different trouble. I use an Italian language. I use an Italian. It means, Casilania, Casilament. Someone who someone who laments. Here. Okay. In Italian. In Italian. In Sicily, everyone, and the older the employee from ever call it the this hill lazy heel because it can produce a very small Very low yields. Because this healed is, of course, for, high level of, of quality, but eighty years ago, the wine and the grape was not considered at the, like, now today, but was considered at, like, foot, like something that should be generous to give energy for the life for for all the years. So they call it the lazy hill, like you said, that in Sicily language, it means, late starter. Okay. And it became my big brother in the sense that is the main focus at the in terms of communication of the, Nero Dabbala after the, previlosarabytes. Well, I will probably open it tomorrow night for dinner when my friend Marcia comes over. We'll we'll think about you and toast to your health with it tomorrow night. God, sir. Don't commit the chills. Two seventy two. Just a little bit chills. Okay. And speaking of, genetics, I have two of your other wines in front of me. And we've learned through Professor Chienza that and Norello Mascaise are actually offspring of San Giovanni. Right. Right. So tell me about your paracone. You call the wine Corre or heart? Yeah. Why? The heart is the is the name of the crew where it come from with the patricorn of Montoni. Because it has the the form of a heart. And from average, what's cooler than the hurt hill, and the Perricorn of Montoni is a very old to, and the it has a very old history. It's called here Wernacha. Okay. It's a more cultivated grape after the and the in this center of Sicily. And the is the grade cultivated by the farm because the the Perricorn of here, Wernacha, that is different of the Perricorn of the West Coast that is called the pignatello that was to the basis for the marsala ruby. Uh-huh. This perricorn is very, for me, fantastic because it it's a as a very strong berry. It's a very blue color, and, it's a strong in the the tanning, and, very, very resistant. Of the disease, of the hot temperature. It's a bit wild. The first time I tasted paracone was at that virtual wine tasting a few years ago. And in the glass, when I was swirling it, and I loved Sarat. I loved French Sarat. But when I was swirling the paracone, I got pepper and black licorice, and it was very aromatic, and it reminded me so much of a syrah until I tasted it, and then it was very sicilian. But I've never seen periconey on the vine, but in my textbooks, it's supposed to be one of the longest bunches of grapes. How long are your bunches of paracorny? They're very long clusters in very large, huge clusters, and that's also why there's so many green parts to them because the berry itself is quite green. And the pit itself is also quite large and remains green. And the work that Fabio does in the vine to soften those tannins. If we come back to the TV book with the Rosores Chance up, we can see that Perricorna came from San Jose, but then there is, genetic, the river in direction of the alicante. Yes. That's very interesting. Something that, it's in-depth for different, study. But there is something that's going the direction of the I am talking about, Wernacha, Pernacha, Wernacha, our Percona. That's very old. It's very important one for me because it's a bit wild in the sense that if you make wine with a normal, vindication process, it's a bit scratchy dante, like a horse, like a crazy horse. It's it needs to be tamed. Okay. Alright. But Let's talk about one of Paracone's brothers or sisters. It's the Norello Mascaise. You have two. And one the rose is actually a love story and a bottle. Can you tell me about it? The history is that, my grandfather bought the land from the cardinal of Catania, Francicana, Barona Francicanaava. And, he had, vineyard in the Aetna area. And, my grandfather told that he had, like, a secretary a priest. That was called the priest fog. The cardinal hat. Yes. That the bring and brought this vise from Montoni to Hethana, to Siragusa, to Montoni, Aetna to Montale, and he brought this Narello Masca in Montane. And, it found here a very perfect combination of, climate. First of all, for the temperature, for the altitude. It's a mountain. We have the snowy winter time and so on. So this is wines for the roses wines that take the name from my mama Rose of Adela. My mama is Adile. And, my father dedicated our rose garden, and, it's a forty years old plants handcrafted from the mother plants that came from the cardinal of Catania, Flancheganaro. And then, now, from, two years, we have, Nerello Masales red that is called a terre di elio. Eliu is the name of my father, and this is the name of my son. And, it's Terre dellie because, Nerello Masalesa red is was the wine loved and preferred from my father, Elio. Because he didn't like the wines that was heavy and the he would say that he didn't like the wines that stain the glass. Okay. It was the wine that he he prefer and he drank. After here And he made. And he made. Of course. After here, I I didn't produce then at the beginning when there was the Aetna beautiful, such as, I said, oh, no. I I prefer to not make it. That could be something, compared with Aetna. And then Melissa, my wife say to me, but why talk about comparison? Why you talk about competition? You are going in opposite situation of what is your history. You make your Narello Masalese. You'll make your wine. And it's a very interesting, in my opinion, challenge to test how the Narello Masalese has the expression, howt or the vulcan. That is a uh-huh. The perfect, of course, Aria, where it could be. That's why Narellumás Calenci is a wine that has not it stay only in the in the culprit because I would like to transfer to the consumer, the soul of the grape and of the wine. Fabio, what type of soil does your Norello musculos it grow in? The soil is a mixture between Sandy and clay. Okay. We have the highest part. It's more sandy for the white wines, Katarato brillo, and solia. And then the medium and the lower harrier is a mixture clay and sandy. Okay. So you grow, Grillo, Colorado, and Inzolia as your white wines. The Grillo, it is a lot like me. It's sunburns easy. So Do you trim a lot of the leaves back? Green pruning? Yes. Of course. We make the green pruning in April because, we must consider that here everything that we do is one month later than the area of wine cultivation is easily lower in the term of altitude. So we make a very hell, green pruning because Grillo has two day altitude to make a strong vegetation. That is good, but, in in July, we would like to have a equilibrium between the The area around the the leaves. Then on the vegetables. I don't like the It's the excess of vegetation. Okay. And it's on one of your steeper hills, isn't it? Because that's the name. Timpa. Yes. Yes. So you're in Zolia. It's named after a vineyard, like, with furnaces or stoves. Can you tell me about that? Yeah. Here in Montoni, where we lived, there is a building that is called the Bayio. Bayio is the typical sicilian c building that was built on fourteen sixty nine. And three kilometers from, the bayou, from the house where we are. There is a area full of clay where, six century ago there was a hole to make the bricks that was used to make the building where we live, the bayou. So the name of this, here is, for now, for now, is, it means where there was the whole one. So where they baked the clay to make things? Interesting. All of your wines have a name that is associated with history or geography. It's it's really quite a descriptor of that. Yeah. Everything here, take the name without a marketing research, without a marketing operation. It's a it is what it is. It is what it was. Okay. I really enjoy Your white wines because they spend about six months on lees in concrete. So they get quite a beautiful creamy texture to them, and they lose they still have nice juicy acidity. But they have such a gorgeous mouthfeel from staying on the leaves for six months. Yes. Here, the white wines has the maximum expression of the location where we are in terms of freshness. Sometimes, people say that the wine that we produce, cataract, first of all, that is a more expression, term of acidity and the green loyudaroma and then soliad two said that our white wines, doesn't seems to be wines of the South because a very high acidity and the low pH And, this balance is perfect to have a beautiful combinations very long in the final and perfect for the pairing with the food because food needs the acidity. Okay. Fabio. I have one last question for you, and it is a very difficult one. Are you ready? Okay. Perfect. What is the favorite meal that Melissa prepares for you? And and what wine would you drink with it? I can give the word to Melissa, but I can say that this meal is the reason and the key that, where come from started our love history and how our marriage. The recipes of Ma Madelle, I think that Melissa can explain better than me. Well, well, Fabio and I, met while I was researching for my cookbook. And I asked him for one recipe from his family, and he told me the most important recipe is what we eat on Christmas and on Easter, which is the roasted goat of his mother. I made that. Yeah. And you made that when we did the virtual tasting. What's so beautiful about it is that it's not only the dish that's so delicious and the and the aroma that fills fills the home, during the holiday. It's interesting. It's it's the animal's grace on the land from our local, organic shepherds. And it's a symbol of love. And and so that dish became how we started communicating so often, and our love story started. And my mother-in-law said, I would ask for specifics about the recipe, and she would say, well, the dish is ready when it's ready. And then I would say, what temperature does the oven need to be at? All of these questions asked through Fabio, and she would say when the oven is hot. And and for Fabio and I had to keep speaking about this dish because I would constantly ask for more details about how to make it. And The answer in the whole model probably was the anthropological touch of the season, mama cuisine. Exactly. Okay. I'm looking at the recipe right now in your book. Mama Adele's braised goat. And, yes, while you won him over with love and your cooking Melissa. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. That is all my questions. Thank you to dedicate, this beautiful conversation and, prestigious podcast where we are. And to have chosen Montoni, And it's interesting that we, met during a bad time in sense of pandemic time. That was a time in which everyone was isolated by by the other people in the world, but through the wines, we met, and through the wine, we started a beautiful friendship. And now, we are with all our friend, like us, TV, and all the friend of, a clubhouse. So thank you. Thank you for You're welcome. You were our benchmark producer for and grillo on our Italian wine envelope two point zero. Thank you. I read a lot of time Italian wine and plug it. Amazing booth. Amazing. Everybody does because it's really a good reference for Italian wine. Of course, with the advice of Professor Atero Cienza. And so we've got two questions from Hugh Prees. He's also our Italian One Ambassador. So two questions. Do you produce a And then the second question is, what is your favorite variety to work with? I don't produce trapato. I never production of trapato in, in Montoni. And, now what I am going to do is to work in term of grape, in term of wine and verification with the old and heritage grape that I have in Montoni, someone over them, I don't know the name, because they are bush in the hill. They are, unprompted. Domsunno Potata. They are like They're prunes. They're they look like wild fries. It's something that came from very from the past, of course, from the beginning of the history. And now we are starting the unification and the study in term of the genetic, provenance. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, Beth. Thank you, Fabio, and thank you, Melissa, for this wonderful conversation. Before I end this conversation, I wanted to say that next week, we're going to have a clubhouse summer marathon before the summer starts. So we're going to have on August two, Vineishu's Mirago Santiago. He will be interviewing Flavio from Villa Sandy, and we also have an August three McKenna Cassidy. She will be interviewing Georgio and Robert Bava. And, also, last for August four, Yosier Van Usrom will be interviewing. Hi. Alright. So thank you guys. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. I don't like it. No, ma'am. So but I'm good. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, spotify email IFM and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italianline podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production and publication costs. Until next time.