Ep. 62 Monty Waldin interviews Gianluca Garofoli (Garofoli Winery) Pt. 1 | Discover Italian Regions: Marche

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast hosted by me Monty Walden. Today, we're in the Marquay region on Northeast Italy's Adriatic coast. My guest is Janluca Goroffoli of the Goroffoli winery and as Janluca has a lot to say, will divide this Italian wine podcast into two parts. Janluca, welcome. Okay. Now tell us a little about your family winery because it is one of the most historic in the in the market. Yeah. Actually, I'm in the fifth generation of Garafuri winery. Our winery is a, for sure, is a family winery with, my uncle, my father's sister, cousin mother. So it's, it's totally unlike an Italian winery. Yeah. It's a DOCG, family winery. Our beginning starts in nineteen oh one. So it's, more than a century ago in market region. So we are one hundred percent market region with the family. So what did your family use to go out crops historically? Yes. Absolutely. All leaves with, a lot of, different things coming from the countryside, like it was more than a century ago. So in terms of the modern history of the winery, what is what has been going on? What what is your role? Role, actually, I'm, officially the the sales manager. Okay. But every every year I see that my responsibilities, grow a lot. So I see that during the day, I try to do something about sales, but then I with bankers and speak about strategies or something that happens in the at the winery. Okay. So tell us about the the vineyards. How many hectares do you have and where are the vines? So we have, fifty hectares, owned, and then we have a fifteen actors, rented. We have two wineries. One is, in, in in Loreto, next to the to the seaside in the corner area. And the second one is in, Saturday County in the vertical area. Okay. So tell us today, let's start with the Vedica. It's a white wine. Yep. Absolutely. So, Verdicchio, Decastadio, Dacastadio, so tell us about your wines from Verdicchio, made from Verdicchio. Actually, Verdicchio, for us, it's, most important to what grape varietal, if not the only one. We make many different wines using a hundred percent verdice. Because, the family never tried any other different varietals to blend with verdice. So we are a hundred percent verdice. So you never went international? Never. Never and never. And, was that the fam was that just the family philosophy? Was it equality. You think, listen, we have a great we have it at least greatest white grape for Vedicchio. Why do we need to add, say, chardonnay or sauvignon? Absolutely. Absolutely. This is the idea in fact when Vedicchio in the seventies, was considered just a cheaper white wine from Italy. My uncle, the white maker and my father never thought for a single, minute to add the chardonnay or to add anything else to Verdicchio. But the job, they did is just to improve the quality of Verdicchio. And that's it. And to focus on on this grape variety. Okay. One of your one of your best known wines is the podium. Yeah. Yes. Why do you call it podium? Because when my uncle tasted the the the final blend of this, wine, he said that this wine will be always on the podium. This is the, our podium. So the, are your top top performer? Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely because, this is a result of twenty years of, studies, studies on the vineyard and, at the cellar. What about the what about the terroir, the soil types? What is what what makes the soil so well adapted in the in the local microclimate to the Vitakiya grape in the market? In Yeezy, where we are in a is an ancient seabed. So it was fully covered by the idiotic sea. We still find, a lot of, you know, particular rocks, with some shells in, under the ground, seashells. Yeah. Seashells and fossils and things like that. And fossils. Yes. It's, it's basically a vineyard that is, four hundred meter elevation, even though the average of, it's two hundred meters. So it's quite high. We have a good concentration of, of clay. And, probably this effect of, an ancient seabed that gives a lot of minerality to to the grape, to the grape variety of verdice. So what about in terms of the winemaking? I mean, the idea of of not oaking the podium. Yeah. Why do you why do you not add a little bit of oak to the verdice you. But because, you know, I think that the final result of, of my uncle, the white maker, was to make a pure verdicchio without any other influences. Even though I love the baric version of Dicchio after twenty years. I think that, podium, it's, it's just fantastic because, you know, it's just vericchio. It's a pure vericchio. Okay. Tell us a little bit about your single vineyard of vericchio. It's a beautiful state where as I said, you have a very good elevation. So you have a very nice, different temperature during the night and during the day. From there, you see literally the adriatic sea. So it's, very nice piece of land. The clay is very important, especially during a very warm entages because it keeps the humidity and, it results in having good bunches, even very difficult, vintages. And, in this single vineyard, from what my uncle said, because it doesn't it doesn't really say all the things you know. He said the secret of, this vineyard is the diversity of the clones because when we selected the clones many, many years ago in the seventies, he decided on purpose to even, have in the same single vineyard, even the wrong the clones that they they develop, like, viruses. This, population that is, that is quite high, that we basically replant every year when we need to replant it. And so this is, this is a secret of, podium. So what are the, what are the virus do. They they lower the yield. The virus is, why do you keep the virus wines? Do they produce slightly smaller grapes? Because because yes, they they make a different grape. They make a different wine. And, and, we we select, we do the macro knowing where these crones are. Okay. Some people would think you're very crazy. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Very crazy. It happened for a purpose and for, a kind of a mistake at the beginning because, apparently, my uncle lost track of this, ninety different so he recognized later which were the viruses and he said, okay, now they are part of this great, parcel. So we keep, we keep all of them. So what, if I'm having a bottle of your Vadicchio, an out to the podium, what am I going to be eating? A podium, I think an important fish preparation and some spices too because, even, you know, even Asian spices, I think this is a great white wine to be matched with, you know, imposing fish preparations and particular spices two. Okay. Let's talk about the red and talk about, Roso Picchino, and, Roso Conero. Yes. What is the difference between the two? But for sure, is, in our case, is that, for morosa Conroe, we use one hundred percent multiple channel instead of with, Rosupiciano, we blend with the thirty percent of sangiovese. So it results in a totally different body because, the sangiovese here in market region has less body and gives fruitiness to the wine. Instead of the multiple channel has a lot of ton and says a lot of structure, especially when you work it with a hundred percent. So we have a two different style of wines. Even though the multiple channel base is very strong, it's very important. What is Conoro and where is it? And why is it such a special terroir for the multiple China grape? Conero is a Greek name. In fact, the Encona is, was, one of the two cities founded by the Greeks in the mania Gretchen on the GRatic Sea. And, when they, the Greeks went to this mountain, they saw a lot of little berries, red berries called, Coneros, Conero is the actual name. So this is the origin of the name of Conero. Again, the berries are small because it's a very dry tail one. It's very hard to divide. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It's a it's an incredible terrarium because it's a mountain that slopes into the sea. It's basically a piece of chalk that slopes into the sea. In our single vineyards, that the fifty percent of the soil is chalk. With one producer, we were joking because, oh, you have the vineyards on cement because it's basically this is the national park of corner. You have the elevation. You have the exposure to the south, east, southwest, to the over the adriatic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a and this is, this is a, I think, the most peculiar thing of the multiple channel from corner area. And another peculiar thing is that, northern bound of honor, it ends the sub continental weather from the south slopes of the corner, it starts the Mediterranean weather. So it's the northern boundary where it's the Mediterranean weather in Italy. So you're saying it's less hot there then? Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's it's fresh. It's very normal that there is wind and during the night, it's it's cooler. Absolutely cooler comparing to the to the beaches. Maybe thank kilometers south or or north. So it's, it's really a microclimate, very, very important. In the corner, there is a national park where you have a lot of chalk, and then there is a little bit wider area that is more clay. And we have different states. From the dead one in the national park with chalkiness, we have an incredible amount of tannins that we don't see when we work in the corner area in the clay, the clay is park. So when you say how steep is it? Is it very difficult to work there? Is it dangerous working there? Actually, it's not so steep. It's not so steep. The difficult part is the chalkiness that you basically break all your tractors and whatever because it's it's very complicated. And then it's a national park. So you have a lot of, wild boars and you have a lot of people of eating the banches during the season and then, tourists. Yeah. Tourists, and you have ephesians. It's, it's quite complicated. It's quite complicated. Do you have to put netting around the vineyards for the boar and the pheasants? Yes. Yes. We try, but then, you know, some people cut, those, and, they're not gonna Just wanted to shoot the tourists. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. They start the arbor. They start the arbor. They leave the world. Yeah. Okay. What is your top conoro bottling called? What does Groosso Agontano mean? Rosa Guantanamo is the ancient name of Ancona. So when it was Greek, you know, the Greek name. Yeah. And, when it was Greek, the actual name was Ancon. That means elbow. If you see the shape of, of the the map is Yankon is literally an elbow. Yeah. You do so. When you look at the map of Italy, you can just see that little. Yeah. And Ancon means in Greek language, Elbo. But Agontana was probably in between Ancon and Ancona. And Grosso was the coin because Kona was one of the small republic of the sea, like January, when you were a republic from the sea, you could print your own currency money. And the was, the most important currency of and Kona. So we wanted to to give this name to our most important red wine, the gross second hand. Fantastic. Okay. What about age ability of the Kona O reds? It's absolutely important. We now we are in twenty seventeen and we started from nineteen ninety three. So we're talking about more than twenty years. And it depends on the on the vintages a lot, though. It's, it's not like verdicated. It's more constant to to have more consistent. More consistent. They're going there. Also corner is very inconsistent during the vintages because the proximity to the scene that being brings a lot of humidity. And because, you have to harvest in in the late of of October. So you're taking multiple genres of late ripening gray? Absolutely. Absolutely. Comparing to Sanjuveza, for example, there are three weeks at least a difference in between the harvesting of the two. So, but this fact that we have to wait in the end of October. So you may be able to have a lot of rain. You know, we have maybe great winters or autumns and sometimes it starts raining. What's the hard part about selling, vericchio wine? I mean, it's it's very well known. The name is well known. Obviously, in the seventies, it was a very famous wine. You know, how easy is it? I mean, it is, it's at least fine. It's white wine grape. Understand your your point and, there is not a real, a real, answer for that because the verdict is well known, but it's well known to be a very young white wine. Is it a problem with the fact that it's on the seaside and and where the market is it's like kind of almost like where Italians take their holidays. The idea that they just it's a hot day. You're on the beach. You have a bottle of white wine for lunch, and you have a Vadica, even though it can age for ten, fifteen, twenty years quite easily. Absolutely, Riberdic. You can be a very young white wine and can be a thirty years old white wine. So it's very confusing for a consumer because, people of a certain age sixties, fifties, they think of it as just a young white wine, like a pea could be a pinot grisio, for example. The new generations, they know that did your can age incredibly well. But they won't they won't have the time. They don't have the patience to see it age. They do. Yes. We we want everything now. Yes. It's like a text message. Exactly. Exactly. How do you get around that with your winemaking? What do you do? Or do you not have to do anything? Is it that versatile are great. But we think, we think, when we make the wines, since we make a lot of different wines with the same grape variety, we have a wine for everybody. Don't give us the names of those, go on. Do you make a sparkling wine? Absolutely. Absolutely. For us, we are very proud because we started in fifties to make Sherman method with the Verdicchio. And in the seventies, classical method with Verdicchio. So that's Charmin method that's gonna be made in the same way as prosecco and the classic method is made in the same way of champagne. Absolutely. And in those years, when we started, we didn't have the the the machineries to make a metal of classical. So during the night, we went, actually not myself. I'm too young, but my grandfather and my uncle the winemakers. They went with the bottles of, brutally, lukasica upside down. They went to a fish distributor because they they put the bottles in the ice among fishes, and that they made it in the gourmand. That was nineteen seventy two, the very beginning. I wish we had, like, a little of that. Absolutely. Yes. Amazing. Yeah. That's and I love the way that you got that link with the fish as well because it's obviously like a seafood area as well. Oh, yes. Yes. Market region, a lot of seafood there. Classic. Okay. Well, we can do, maybe create a sketch about that, like a little comedy show with the two guys going at the middle of the night with their little bottles of, sparkling wines. Yeah. Well, that was part one of this Italian wine podcast with Janluca Corofoli from the Marquis, don't forget to tune in to part two with Januka and me, Monte Walden. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.