Ep. 17 Monty Waldin interviews Norbert Reinisch of Braida Winery | Discover Italian Regions: Piedmont / Piemonte

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of the Italian wine podcast. My name is Monte Walden, and today I'm talking to Norbert Reinish of the Breider winery in Piamonte. Welcome, Norbert. Hello. Tell me a little bit about the history of the the Breardo winery. Breardo winery started in nineteen sixty one when my father-in-law, Jachemo Bologna started to select vineyards, for Babera because he was a really big fan of Babera in a time where Babera was considered to be an easy drinking everyday wine without, quality, actually. Just a really quantity was the the the aim in that time. So, Barbara is a a red wine variety. It's a red grape variety. And, actually, it's, the mostly planted indigenous grape variety from Piedmont, and it's one of the mostly planted in Italy generally after Sandroveza in Montego Chano. Barbara is, mostly planted grape variety in Italy. So it's funny how Barbaro is a lesser known grape in Piamonte than say Nebula which isn't, which is planted much less. In Piamonte, it's definitely better known than Nebula, but of course, worldwide to people, if they're thinking of, Piamonte, they are thinking of Barolo Babresco, So in that case, of of course, of, the Nebula grape variety. But, more and more today, I see around the globe, actually, that people especially drinking wine together with food. Most of the people prefer, actually, Barbara because it's a perfect food wine. What makes it so special with food then, Barbara? I think it's, the fruitiness of the wine, and especially it's the acidity, which maybe if you taste the wine in a tasting, especially you started tasting in early morning, the acidity may be a little bit too much, just for tasting, but it's soon as you start to have food with it. And only if you have a salami or something like this, the barbera is the best. In one, we often talk about acidity. What we're just talking about there is a sort of the freshness of the one. Right? Yes. But, like San Giovanni has a huge acidity and we can also consider this as a lock for us, but, since we see the global warming, coming up, the acidity actually helps, that the wine, remain fresher even even if you are very high in alcohol. So if you go up to sixteen degrees of alcohol, you drink it like, a spritz. It's easy to drink. Okay. So let's just go through the the barbera wines that, the brider winemme makes, one by one. La Monela. Lamona, this was actually really the first wine Jacquemore produced, back to the sixties. And Lamonella is, internationally maybe less, known because it's a Frisante Babbera. Frisante Babbera. So lightly sparkling. It's lightly sparkling. Actually, it was petient for many years, also on the label, then the little law changed, and we had to write Fritsante. This is actually the way people still today drink this style of wine as an imperative before they go to lunch or dinner or having it with, this quite heavy PM on these foods. So, you know, it's to such as? Like salami or prosciutto or gorgonzola. And especially if you go in the in the wine bus in in Piedmont, you find a lots of, anchovies actually. And, La Monela, this it's a red wine. It's a red sparkling wine works perfectly with entries. And Lamonella, what does that mean? Lamonella means the cheeky or the naughty girl was dedicated to my wife and she was a a little girl. She was a naughty girl like our son today actually. It's his tenth birthday. He's a Moniello. It's Also, his favorite wine, although it doesn't drink wine yet. He will. He will for sure. And, the cheeky or a naughty girl, a naughty wine because it's, still fizzy. And if you open the bottle, sometimes even some foam is coming out of the bottle and, on the pallet, it's, it's a beautiful Monela. Okay. The next one, the montebruna. Another but that's that's a barbera dusty. What's special about the barbera called montebruna? Montebruna. This is actually the first project, of the last generation, the idea of Giuseppe Bologna, my my brother-in-law, he tried to make an expression of Barbara without using Barrick. And he No. No barrels. No barrels. So he started to plant this vineyard in the late nineties. Ten years after Jacquamo Bernone passed away, VISTA focused on the fruitiness and on the, really, on the character of the wine. And Montebrona, which was the given name of the area. Already there. We were also using new techniques, new rootstocks, especially, and new combinations, sign and rootstock, because also in this year's, the global warming started and, the problem of Barbara there's not enough water, we are not allowed to to irrigate in Piedmont yet. We need to have rootstocks, which are very resistant on draft. Okay. So Montebruna means the Brown Hill. Right? It's a Brown Hill Hill. It was a given name. So it was not the the name given by us, but it's indeed especially in some of them. It's very dry. Quite a brown. It's a light brown mountain because it's rich in clay. So it's eighty percent clay and the rest is sand and a little of of, cut cara's mouth. Does that clay give a really quite full bodied heavy wine? Indeed. Especially we are between the Monfarat and the Langue area. So the river Tannoro divides these both geological areas and we are in between. So we have really the influence a little bit of this Mon Ferat style, we have lots of iron, manganese, magnesium, and so on. And then we have this fatty soil, which is perfect for Grignolino and Parbera. Is the montebellum a little bit spicy then? Especially we see this in the last years, like, two thousand eleven, two thousand and fifteen in these hot vintages, you get a white pepper spices and, in a blind tasting, you would really, really go to a northern rhone, serum. Next up is another is another barbera dynasty called was actually the second crew after Brico de luchalones. So Brico de la Bigata is a very small vineyard in Rorqueta Tanner, so in the village where the winery was founded and still is. The Bigata, it's it's dedicated to the former owner. Of this vineyard, the lady working for the church and in the church being praying at least twice a day in the church, but being quite a nasty lady outside. Jacob always said, you are quite a big And, when she when he was able to buy this vineyard, finally, he said to the lady, and you be good name. Will give me the name for, be a good lady. We'll give you the name for this, for this wine. So she knew about it. Right? She knew it. Actually, she won't she actually also to get some money for the for the name. Did you give her any? No. She didn't. Okay. Next one. Abrico dello cialone. That's another barbera dasti. Yes. But it could look cialone actually is maybe you can say the flagship wine internationally seen. This was, the first Belaged Babara. We are going back to nineteen eighty five. Wow. Nineteen eighty five. So for more than thirty years, and this was also a period where Babara was definitely known, or rather forced candles and and low profile, low quality. And Jacumo was able to select and and vineyard, which today have wines older than fifty five years and started, after Malaki fermentation to age this wine in partly used, partly new French I mean, at that time, Barbara would have been seen as, really high yield, crank out as much one as you possibly can, so that as cheap as you can. Don't worry about quality. No way you're going to spend money aging it in barrel, right? Absolutely. It's just totally against the norm. All people. A part of the, Anjulagaya, he he he said, leave it another month, leave it another month in the in the barrels. But, but the other side, you are really crazy. Because beside of the low yields, sorry. It was definitely the lowest yield in that time, the low yield. And then also the time of harvest. Usually, people in Piedmont, they started to harvest in August because sugar level was already quite high, but the acidity of the barbarian August is not really ripe enough because acidity must ripen to a certain point. And so he started to harvest in October. Today, we are back to September, but this is due to the global warming. But so he waited another two months and so the sugar concentration therefore, the alcohol concentration was much higher. The wine was much more complex. And this wine actually can age for decades. Which normally you would never say about a barbera. Right? Absolutely. To today, yes, but, let's say, in that time, people wouldn't think about till age barbera. He basically made a Grand Crew wine from a grape that was considered almost worthless. Exactly. So he he was a crazy guy and did crazy things but with good success. Okay. And finally, I Suma I assume that this is a beautiful PMontese expression meaning, Chisiano, there we are. I've got it. It's a wine which is not produced every single year because it's really it needs another another couple of days, sometimes weeks for more ripening, more maturation. And so it's a kind of late harvest, which for natural reasons cannot be produced every single year. But let's say make it five or six times out of a decade. We produce this late harvest, Barbara, and this wine is aged in new bricks only for approximately eleven, twelve months. So this is really a super concentration, nearly jammy, sometimes of Barbara. So what would what's the best food to pair with that particular wine? This requires meat. So if you're going in our restaurants, in Piedmont, you have this beautiful fasona beef and this is actually the perfect, or, grilled, or as as we do it in winter time, braced, for a long long time. Okay. Brace. Thanks very much for sharing your knowledge and love of all things Barbara from the Breider winery in Piamonte. I hope you can show me around some of their single vineyards, in the future, and we can talk a little bit more about that religious lady who had Absolutely. Any old behavior. Thanks a lot for coming in. Thank you. Take care. Follow us at Italian wine podcast on Facebook.