Ep. 202 Monty Waldin interviews Vincenzo Ippolito (Ippolito 1845) | Discover Italian regions: Calabria

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. This podcast is brought to you by Native Grape Odyssey. Native Grape Odyssey is an educational project financed by the European Union to promote European wine in Canada, Japan, and Russia. Enjoy It's from Europe. Happy, this is the Italian wine podcast. My name is Monte Walden. My guest today is Vincenzo Ippolito. Vincento's family winery is called Ippolito eighteen forty five. It's in Chiro, region of Calabrio in the far southwest of Italy. Welcome. Hello. Good morning. Why is your winery called eighteen forty five? I've got it to eighteen forty five. Eighteen forty five is the foundation year. Actually, it's a stone that my uncle and my father found in an old building, in our property. And since then, they put the year on our brand. Just to identify one of the oldest winery in Calabrio. So when did these first they were bottling in eighteen forty five or just growing grapes? No. Yeah. At that time, we are talking about five generations ago. It was the grandfather or my grandfather to start the, I would say, the grape business rather than wine business. At that time, the economy was, only based on the agriculture. They were not producing only grapes, but all kind of vegetable fruits in the area. And, the production was, foxtrot on grapes and wine in bulk. Then to see the first bottle of wine with the regular label, we have to wait until the fifties. The nineteen fifties? Yes. It was, my grandfather, Vinchen, so he was a very boy old, ambitious, and, revolutionary person because he was the first one in Calabrio to put to the wine into the bottle. It was a very curious start he'll he loved the traveling around the around the italy more than the world, of course, because at that time, it was pretty difficult to go to go internationally. So he had a small topolino field, and he used to travel around, in the north of Italy. And then he saw our things were, quickly changing, especially in the barolo area and, in Tuscany in general. So when he came back to Calabrio said, okay, to do the same, I want my, my last name on the label two, and they started to bottle his wine in a regular zero point seven five liter bottle. So was he was he selling to like Milan restaurants and things like that? He was, he was selling to restaurants, to private people, and, actually, he did the one of the first, contract with the first chain of supermarkets in Italy too. They were mainly focused in the area of, Latio, which is where Rome is. Latio is the roma region. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then there was also other other way of selling selling the wine in the sixties and seventies. We still, have in our winery some, kind of, poster cards where the wine was, sold by males. By mail, by mail order. But really? Yeah. In the in the six, sixties and seventies, my father, my uncle, they did a deal with the American, express, credit card. So to the owner of, American Express credit card, they would get a paper with the least of our our wine on it, they could, fill the paper, send by regular mail to our winery, and then we would, send the wine to them by train because train from south to north will the fastest way to do that. Yeah. Quicker than a little fiat, bubble car. Yes. That's amazing that you've got that in your history that you were doing mail order. People who don't live in Italy or have a lot of experience with italy. The south is often seen as a, as a, as a, in some ways, backward. And this is a great great example of of why people who think like that really don't always know what they're talking about. The fact that you were doing this. I mean, the mail order now is such a Amazon. Yes. It's like everybody uses Amazon, and you were kinda like the Amazon. It was a primitive Amazon way of of of selling wine. I love the idea that you fill it out by hand and you take it to the post office and you lick a stamp and stick it on the Yes. On the thing and you send it off. And then, and then when the wine arrives, you're incredibly excited. Yes. It's like Christmas comes. Yes. Yes. For sure. Okay. So, obviously, now in the modern era, what are your sales strategies now to to convince people that Calabrio is a worthy region in Italy? What makes it special? What is its USB? Great varieties to tell with you? Well, yeah, I think there are many, many good things about, our area. First of all, Calabrio is one of the great the heritage of indigenous varieties. We have a great, biodiversity in our area. So our wines are very unique, very exclusive, and very rated entity. If you think about grapes like, Gallioppa, pecorrelo, Gregonero, Montonico, they are all grapes that people never heard about, but they are very fine grapes from which you can do very unique wines. So on the side, it's very challenging because people are not familiar with these grapes. But, for sure, you can catch the curiosity of people, the curious your winovers. And then you have a highway ahead because there are only a few producers in Calabrio. There are less than a hundred fifty wineries. So, actually, it's a small a, it's more production. It's, a niche production. Yeah. But it's very isolated Calabrio. It's it's, you know, right at the the bottom of Italy. It's it's got, it's hilly. Yeah. And then, what is extraordinary in our area is also so the the terroir and the the the geography of our area because it's a very narrow region wet from two different sea. We have a onion sea on the East cost and terranean sea on the on the west coast. And it's crossed from a big mountain in the middle. We have a sila chain and the Aspramante chain. So the vineyards go from an altitude of one thousand two hundred meters above the sea level until the coast side where the level is a zero. We have the most of the vineyards on the sea level. So there's a very extraordinary biodiversity. And then we have a different expressions of wines. You have different expression of the same grapes in different in different parts. So so so Calabrio bases, that's the tow of Italy. It's the tow video. You will say that we keep consistently. Okay. So, we just give me an example of of ripening times for, I don't know, Gallioppa. If it it's at, say, three hundred meters or one thousand meters. Exactly. So, people think, people think Calabia is, very south. So for sure the weather is very hot. So they believe that our harvest, is very early. Instead, it is not because, Gallioppa is a very, it's very ancient. If we, yeah, I talk about Galioppa because it's the most important grape variety in our region. But Gallioppa gets survive very slowly. Galiapo has a lot of tendons, high acidity. So it needs time in order to make the tendons softer, more crispy. And usually, we start to we start to the harvest in September. We pick up gallopo for rossell wine in the first second week of September. And then we end up picking up gallopo in October for our reserve of wines where we have a more sugar content. So we get wines with more structure with the higher edging potential. So if I if I have a gallopo from you, what what are the main flavors in that wine? What are the main flavors? Okay. First of all, what is, very identity in Galiapo is the color because the color Galiapo is very unique. Galiapo grape is not, it's not full of annotations. So, there's no, the violet color inside the skin. So a good Gallioppa usually, goes to goes from, deep and intense ruby red color when it's young, going to, more garnet color when get older. And usually the the color is, kind of a transparent. So it looks like a soft wine, but it is not because, the structure is there. The the alcohol is there. So it's, a window with, medium full body. What do you drink it with? What is a classic Calabrian dish with that? The Galliapo? With the Galliapo, I would say we have a which is, goat. Baby goat. Baby goat. It's typical from our area. Capreto with potatoes to bake it in the oven. It's a very, very nice dish. Or we have another, primo piato first core which is, pastagina, pastagina means, fill it pasta stuffed pasta. Stuffed pasta. Stuffed pasta. Yeah. So it's kind of a rigatoni pasta. We do tomato sauce, but then we add the boiled eggs, which is a soft a soft cheese, plus sopressata. Sopressata is a typical calabrian sausage from pork. Is it spicy, the sausage? The sausage. We have two two different sausage, salsiccia, which is with the red pepper, pretty spicy, and sopressata with the black so a little bit softer. Okay. So that was Galapo. So another great variety that you have is the Pequariello. Is that red or white? Pequariello is a white variety. Pequariello is a very funny name, and because, anytime it's a little chic, actually for us is, a new red discovery because it's a an ancient an ancient grapes, but was a kind of, neglect than the abandoned in the area because of the loyal by the full also for our company, there is the target of, giving high value to our indigenous variety. And Peccarello is great because it's, a grape with the high acidity, nice, tropical, fruit, herbs. So it's a very, refreshing white wine that you can easily drink, and pair with the many kind of dish from spring to autumn. We started the the production of Pequariello six years ago with a a very little production. And after six year six years, we we do a production of, almost ten times greater than, what we started with. So if I drink a Pecarello, what would I be looking for? Is it a wine that's quite heavy? Is it very light? No. No. It's a pretty light, but with a nice, salt to finish because the vineyards are very close to the beach. So the the soil is a sandy limestone, and the nose is very fresh fruity. So it's a kind of wine that you can easily per with the raw fish or even with the spaghetti Tidimare or with our wonderful tuna fish. So it's a really spring summer wine, to enjoy with your friends. Is another beautiful reper variety. Usually Greconero is used to be blended with the Gallopo because it's less structured than Gallopo, less tannins, but good acidity and good color. So many producers usually put a little percentage of Greconero with the Galliojo or with the Malioque or just to make the wine a little bit softer. But in my winery, three years ago with the the pioneer idea to do, roce one with the Greconero. Our classic rossella is made with the Gallioppa grapes. But we see that the market is looking more and more for, Rosier wines. And there is such demand for a second rosette. So our idea was, why not trying to produce a rosette wine from Grereconer, which could be very good grapes because the tannins are very, very fine. The color is a nice, violet, ruby color, and the acid is pretty high. So there are all the good condition to make a very elegant rosette wine. And that's what we did to your by producing our pez canera perrosa. Pescanera, we played with the words, Nera, because it's from Greconera, Pesca, because, the color and the aroma reminds to the beach fruit. Okay. So so you're saying that the the Rosay from Gallioapo is maybe a one that you could drink on its own. Yes. And, Greconero Rosay would be more suited to food. Yes. I think, Galliopo it depends on the on the vintage, actually, because sometimes, you have a gallop or more elegant. Sometimes it's, more intense and full. Both rosette are more food friendly because, they are southern, you know, say wine. So there's, always a part of a structure, little body, little tangents, which makes the wine, perfect, with food. Perfect. Tell me about Gracobianco. Greco bianco is our second, the most important grape variety, and it's at the base of, Chiro bianco doc. It's a very ancient grapes, as the name says, it's, very old grape because the name was given by the Greek domination with two thousand five hundred years ago. Grego Bianco gives a a white wine with nice, nice acidity, with, a nice, fruity fresh aroma. It's pretty easy to drink. Not to age for a long time, but to enjoy within, one year and a half two years. How do you see the future for your winery in particular and for Calabrio in general? I see, I don't know if we're in English you have this expression. I see a pink future. In in Italian, we have a a a futturo or Rosil, which means, that the perspective is, is gonna be better and better because, right now, in, especially for talk about the chito area. There are more and more producers. My winery is an historic winery, but besides, the historic wineries, there are many new wineries managed by young people with, small estates, but they they moved from grape production to grape production and wine production. So now state bottling. Yeah. Yeah. The the yeah. Exactly. So the the group is, tied in a consortium, and we are doing very nice activity during discipline Italy. We have a great wine testing to celebrate our fifty years of the DOC wines. And we will have, a great testing from nineteen sixty nine to two thousand thirteen. So it's, a great opportunity to test the old history of a churro where the historic old producer are mixed with the new young producers. I wanna say thanks to my guest today on the Italian wine podcast, vincenzo ipolito from the eighteen forty five wiring in Calabrio. Thanks for explaining all those native grapes. We we gotta have to do a lot of food podcast because you let you like your food. Okay. Good. And, we could we could we could really dig deep into the cuisine of Calabrio. Let's do that next time. Yep. Yeah. The best way is, if you enjoy the listening, the stories, coming to Calabrio and enjoy our beautiful territory together with our wines and food. Yes. I mean, it really is an, it is rugged, mountainous. Yes. A totally different part of Italy. It's like it really is its own place. For sure, it's a wild place with, lots of things to say. Thanks, Vincent. It's a really nice to meet you. Look forward to seeing you down in the deep south. Thank you, mister Montin. Thanks. This podcast has been brought to you by Native Grape Odyssey, discovering the true essence of high quality wine from Europe. Find out more on Native Grape Odyssey dot e u. Enjoy. It's from Europe. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.