Ep. 2023 Wayne Young interviews Jakob Zidarich | Clubhouse Ambassadors’ Corner

Who wants to be the next Italian wine ambassador? Join an exclusive network of 400 Italian wine ambassadors across 48 countries. The Italy International Academy is coming to Chicago on October, and WALMATIC, Kazakhstan from November. Don't miss out. Register now at viniti dot com. This podcast is brought to you in association with La taverna Friuli, the definitive podcast on the wines of Frigoli Venezia Giulia. La taverna Friuli is a proud supporter of the Italian Wine Podcast. I'm host, Wayne Young. And if you're a fan of the Italian Wine wine podcast and wanna take a deep dive into this fascinating wine region, visit latavernafriuli.com or wherever you get your pods. Okay. Hello, everybody. My name's Stevie Kim, and welcome to the Italian wine house, it's called now, on Clubhouse. I know nobody's on Clubhouse anymore, but as you know, we are persistent. And this is what we call the ambassador's corner. And today, finally, finally, I am able to host Wayne Young. Ciao, Wayne. I am so excited, Stevie, to finally hear your voice here on ambassador's corner. I'm really sorry. My bad. You know, it gets really hectic, and then sometimes I plan to do it. Most of the time, I'm on the road, so it gets a little bit more difficult. But very excited to be here today to listen to you and Jacob Zydarich? Yes. You said? Yeah. Jakob. Jakob. Jakob Zydarich. Yes. She did. Gotta give it that Slovenian flavor. Yes. And I don't see him, though. No. He's gonna be here with me on my channel. Oh. He's in the Lotte Verne studio with me, but he's coming. He's on his way. He should be here any second. Okay. You know, I was in your neck of the woods recently. Amazing. Where do you live exactly, Wayne? I live in Udine. Oh, you live in Udine. And I'm sad that you were in my neck of the woods and you didn't call me. You know I would go to the ends of the earth for you. I know, honey. But it was just it was, we were out there for, the consortium, and they packed us with an agenda. There was no wiggle room at all. For the Koleo? Yeah. For Koleo. Yeah. They're big. What was it? Their sixtieth anniversary? Fiftieth. Fiftieth. Okay. It would it's amazing. You know, it's really interesting because, you know, I've been to that area a few times, you know, with producers, you know, whether it's a party, whether it's a wine tasting. But until you get to the territory and give it at least two, three days, you don't really get to do the deep dive and fully understand its value. Yeah. Without a doubt. I was very, very happy to do that, and the consortium was very generous in organizing my agenda there. So I was very excited, and hopefully, we'll be dropping a lot of videos and pods very soon Cool. In Colleo. So back to you, Wayne. I know, Wayne, I don't know if you had introduced yourself, but I know when you were also once in the tasting room, a wine spectator. Oh my goodness. Did you know me way back then? No. I didn't know what Bruce told me. Okay. Yes. Yes. That was, like, my very first job in the wine business, to be very honest, which was a very nice way to get involved in, in wine. Okay. Jacob is here. I'm trying to get him set up with his microphone. How are you, Jacob? Fine. Fine. Thank you. There you are. Okay. Hey, Jacob. Hello. Hello. This is Stevie Kim, Yaacob. Mister Zidarish. Zidarish junior. Yes. How are you? Fine. Fine. Thank you. Okay. So, anyway, so getting back to Wayne. So, yeah, I worked I worked under Bruce for almost three years, I think. I am crazy. Way back in the day, like, in the, like, the mid nineteen nineties. Yeah. So you started way, way back. You've been in the wine business for very long time. Long, long time. Yeah. It's it's you're you're dating me. Yeah. Everybody's gonna understand how old I am. Sorry. No. That's okay. Breaking news. Yeah. I, yeah. I started with, I think, Wine Spectator back in '93 or '94, somewhere around there. Yeah. So Allison had wasn't there already. Right? No. Yeah. No. No. Yeah. It was way way back. Way back. And then when I met you, actually, you were working for Bastianich. Yes. Yes. Yes. When I met you, I was working for Joe at his winery, and I'd I'd done that for, I mean, twelve years as as marketing director and then another however many years it was working in the winery or just helping him out with visits in in Italy and things like that. So, yeah, Joe and I go way, way back. I started working for Joe. Twelve years at the YNAB. What have you been doing since other than, you know, the Taverna podcast? Well, I do not just the podcast, but I do some events here in Friuli, one of which is called Autobre Rosso Refosco, which is a whole month dedicated to Refosco events in October, obviously. I also collaborate with, Ronchi DiChalla running their social media and, and their events programs there. Okay. So they're my they're my number one client. And I also, run wine tastings, wine schools, and, different evenings here in Friuli, Valencia, Julia throughout the year. So Fantastic. So you keep yourself busy. Yeah. I try to. I need a lot of stimulation. Otherwise, I get bored. Okay. So Wayne, for today, today's call, you've chosen Jacob Zideresch. I love saying that name. As your favorite producer to be on this call today, who is actually sitting just right next to you. He is. Standing right in front of me. Yes. And why why did you choose Yaacob? Well, obviously, Carso is a big deal for me. You know, I really wanted to have a Carso producer on here. And after I met Diaco at a dinner that I did here at a restaurant, and then I went to visit him at the winery, and he's got, like, the best, most positive energy. I mean, his father's wines are iconic. And when you talk about Carcio, you cannot not talk about Zidorec. So, so I chose him to sort of come along. Obviously, his English is quite good as you will see. So, obviously, I wanted to have him come there. But, you know, I was always a little bit skeptical about Zidoreich wines because they sort of fall into those orange wine categories, macerated wines, and I'm always very skeptical about them. But is it considered a natural wine as well? I don't know. Would you consider your wines natural wines, Jacob? Yeah. For me, yes. Absolutely. Then it depends on you what you consider a natural wine. Yeah. Well, you know, we don't have luckily, professor Artilio Schenza here today with us. So we won't be having that discussion today. But, I mean, if you No problem. If you think the way he makes his wines, obviously, he's he's organic and is his practices in the cellar are extremely sort of minimal intervention. So I would call them natural, But I always get super scared when you talk about natural wines, but his wines are squeaky clean. They are absolutely perfect, and they don't have any of those hallmarks that I I tend to be afraid of when you talk about natural wines. So Carso is I mean, it is you're in the hood already, but when did you discover Zydarich for the first time? Oh, I can't remember. It was a long, long time ago. And, obviously, talking about Carso, you know, I've always been interested in Carso. One of the first places I visited when I came here twenty five years ago was Conte, who was basically Zidaric's neighbor. So Carso has always been on my wine map here. It's a little bit further away since I'm in in Udine. It's about a 45, almost an hour drive to get from one place to another. So I don't spend enough time there. But, yeah, I don't remember the first time that I tasted them, but I do remember I was skeptical, and I do remember being really surprised at how good the wines were. Okay. So, you know, we are here we get a little bit geeky around here, especially with the Via community. Mhmm. So what are some of the learning objectives that we should expect from your call today? So I think what we wanna try and do is is do a bit of a deep dive into CARSO as a region and, understanding what makes CARSO great. CARSO is very, very different from the rest of Friuli, and it's not