Ep. 182 Monty Waldin interviews Matteo Lunelli (Cantine Ferrari) | Discover Italian Regions: Trentino-Alto Adige

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian One podcast. My name is Walter Walden. My guest today is Matteo Lunai. Matteo is the president and CEO of Cantine Ferrari in Northern Italy. Hello? Hi. Nice to nice to see you. But the funny thing is you walked in, offered you a glass of water. I know you got lots of wine brands, and, just tell me what you told me. Tell me what the name of the water is and what you told me. You know, that's sojiba, as I said, he's a little bit side of the world of wine to wine. Sorjiva. Sorjiva. Sorjiva. Sorjiva. Sorjiva. Sorjenta is like a a source of water, isn't it? Yes. Sorjenta and Italian would be source, but Sorjiva is a brand, and that's the brand of our mineral water. We acquire wired as a group, this mineral water in nineteen eighty eight. And actually, you know, everybody was surprised that a wine producer would start to make water. But, you know, it's a very special water. We think it's a perfect water to be tasted with wine because it has a very low mineral content and mineral dry residue. So it do not it does not affect the taste of wine and food. Oh, that's interesting. And because what we love is really wine and that's, you know, that's the reason why I think water should be just a compliment and not a protagonist in your in your dining experience. Okay. Well, thanks for the interviews. It'd be really great to talk to you. And, we'll we'll do the wine next time. No. I'm joking. So tell us about the group. How did it how how did how did it start? What was the what was the first winery or brand? And then how was developed over the years. Everything started with a Ferrari winery. And this is, absolutely, you know, the most well known brand. And it started in nineteen o two over a century ago. Ferrari winery was founded by a man called Julia Ferrari. So this is where the Ferrari comes from, and he was founded in Trento, because, Julia Ferari has been the first one to understand the vocation of the Trentino territory, to produce a bottle from Manta sparkling wine. This was a great intuition, but, he studied the first technology in Avila Ladeja, which is a school that still exists and is a great partner of our winery. Then he moved to Montelier in France, where he specialized in analogy. And then again, he even spent some time in guys, and I'm where he's where he's studied in Germany studying, the East fermentation because the University of Geism was very well known for that. And, and then he he went back to to France, doing something like a staj in Champagne because, of his friend in Montelier was a champagne producer, so he had this great opportunity to spend some time in, in France and in the champagne region. And this is where he learned what the French called Meto Champenoise and what we call Metodoclassico in Italy. And there was a key, moment because obviously, going back to Trentino, you know, everything started from the dream of Julia Ferrati to create a great butter for Manta sparkling wine in his own land of Trentino. And this is how not only started, Ferrari winery, but that was also the origin in general of the Trinto doc, which is the denomination of our wines. So what does Trinto doc cover then? Is it just sparkling wine or all wines? Trinto doc is exclusively only sparkling wine. Traditional metal sparkling wine, butter fermented, created with grapes, of chardonnay pinot noir. And eventually, you can use also pinot or pinot blanca and pinot manet cultivated on the mountains of Tarantino. And this is an a very important word for us, mountains. Train to dock is a mountain sparkling wine, and there is a mountain sparkling wine. And because we think that, mountains is the element that gives us the style of our wines. So there's cool nights. It Absolutely. There is a dual note, strong dual note shifting temperature between day and night. This is a key, factor for us. And this was, what, the great intuition of Julia Feradia at the very beginning. Because, during the day, our vine vineyards on the slope of the mountains are kissed by the sun during the night, the cold air comes down from the top of the mountain, and this unit shifting temperature is important because, it allow our grapes to achieve the appropriate aromatic maturation, but maintaining a well balanced acidity, which is very important for a for a sparkling wine to to gain, you know, to have freshness finesse and and elegance. And so I think I tend to to say sometimes that in our variety oriented dog, you can find both the sun of Italy and the snow of the mountains. Know, there is this freshness and and at the same time, you know, this great freshness, but also their, you know, the aromatic profile given by the beautiful son of the Mediterranean and climate of Italy. And this is probably what, makes, you know, train to dark and ferrari, you Nick. Now, Julia Ferrari ran the winery for fifty years and, you know, with the idea of creating an excellent sparkling wine, because he thought that, you know, every bottle to bear his name had to be like a work of art. And, and then he had no chill it. So he he had to find somebody who could continue his vision and his venture. And, between many pretenders, it shows, my grandfather is a successor. So in nineteen fifty two, my grandfather who was a white merchant in Trento, got a lot of debt. They only showed to acquire Ferrati winery from Julia Ferrati. And this is how the history of Farrari starts under the, you know, this this is how it starts the the history, the history of Ferrari under the leadership of my family. So, in nineteen fifty two, you know, my grandfather acquired it. And then, you know, the second generation of my family has been the one who really developed the winery, and the winery grew a lot, but always without compromising equality, remaining loyal to the idea of the founders and the values of the founder. So your third generation then? I'm the third generation. So that's always the tricky generation. Is it the third generation is normally the one that spends all the money? Yeah. This is the one who destroyed but they made our, you know, the the our our work to destroy the winery pretty tough because it's very, very solid winery. But, you know, we are nowadays, and plus, you know, I think we are the third generation. We are forecast since work inside of the of the winery, but we have an amazing team. In over a century, not only we ball we built, you know, a great brand, but, we built a fantastic team of people that have been working with us for a very long time. This is people who share the values of Ferrari and share the passion for for making Ferrari. So one interesting thing you said was this is a mountain wine. So that obviously makes, the cost of production relatively high. So this is a premium sparkling wine we're talking about when we're not talking about chunk sparkling wine. This really is one of the creme de la creme of, Italian sparkling wine. Absolutely. It is. It's correct. I have to say also that, probably, for us, the most awarded Italian sparkling wine is in the high end of Italian sparkling, and it's the leading brand in the in the luxury sparkling wine category in Italy. Mountains, as you said, are difficult to to be cultivated. Our vineyards are sloping vineyards. All our grapes are handpicked. We even have, actually, all our steak vineyards are even, certified organic, which means that we we also cultivate on the in the mountains following the rules of organic, Viticulture. So, you know, that's not an easy kind of Viticulture. It requires a lot of effort, a lot of hours per actor. Why did you have to do that though for the organic. Did it was it was it hard to get everybody on board, like your cousins, or did you all agree that that was where you wanted to go in terms of the farming? This is a value that we share. Susustainability is a very important value for us. We think that, we need we need to balance the objective attaining excellent grapes and objective of, preserving the the territory and the health of the people working in the vineyard. And, and, we thought that, we we started really trying to understand if was possible to do it, in the mountains of Tarantino. And we slowly discovered that it was. It was possible to create, you know, the the appropriate balance in the in the vineyard so that it was possible to do organic agriculture in Tarantino. And we have the largest the state, certified organic in Argentina nowadays. And this enable us also to educate all our grape suppliers, all our grand, all the vine, the grape growers that supply grapes to us, to sustainable agriculture. Because nowadays Terraris created with grapes coming from our state vineyards, but also with grapes coming from this small vine growers. And this has been historically the case because, Therraris is at the center of a network in the territory. Some of these vine growers, vine, vine growers are at been working with us for many years. We have a team of agronomists that just follow them, and, we created a protocol of sustainable mountain viticulture that they all follow. And it's a protocol that basically avoid, pesticide and herbicide, and it's a it's a protocol that really puts sustainability at the center. And we are very proud of it because, we're starting practicing sustainable Viticulture in our own vineyards, and then we share this, with all our wine rolls. So you led by example, you gave him, like, a template. Absolutely. This was, you know, it was a slow process. It required a lot of effort, and we are going more and more into that direction. I think, you know, consumer and the win lovers, we are more and more sense to this topic. It's not something that commercially at the moment probably give us any specific advantage, but I think long term is, is very important. And plus as an entrepreneur, as a family, we believe in it. And so that's important for us. Okay. So when you mentioned rather beginning that you are a group. What do you mean by that? I mentioned that we are a group because, everything started with Ferrari winery and Ferari Trinto doc, which is still in the center of our heart. But, we also slowly created a group of brands that share the same values Ferrari. The first, step was, the acquisition of a distillery. We acquired in nineteen eighty two, Grapaseniana, which is a very old distillery from eighteen sixty. So it was even older than Ferrari winery. It was founded one year before the communication of Italy. And, it was, a very, a great distillery from our region of Trentino. And we started to create grappa with the Pompas of Ferrari, and this gives us a great advantage because we can use Pompas, which is still and full of mustard, which gives amazing aromas. And, and we are specialized in, aging grampa on different kind of woods. We even age grampa in, cherry cask, or whiskey cask. So it's a it's a very interesting, grandpa and quite different and unique. Then we acquired, and then we started to make steel wines. Obviously, we love sparking, but, we challenge ourselves creating steel wines, and we started with the grace that we know better, By the way, is key for us because Julia Ferrari is the first one who brought Chardonnay into Italy. So we are strictly, you know, very strongly related to Chardonnay. We have the longest experience of cultivating Chardonnay in you know, no other has over a century of experiencing cultivating chardonnay in Italy. And so we started to do, you know, a chardonnay, steel wine, which, is still in the market, and it's, very successful. It's a small production. It's called Villa Morgan. And, and then a pinot noir, a red pinot noir, steel. And then we continued to increase our steel wine production, acquiring all also in a state in Tuscany, and then one in Umbre. So where about some time? And today, in Tuscany, we are on the heels of Visa. It's in the in let's say we are on the Costa Tuscana, but, a little bit, in the inside, we are in the middle between the warm of cost of the of the Tuscan coast and the high in the cold, let's say, hills of of county. It's a very unique terroir, and this is where we're going. And then in umbria, we are around the Bevania and Montefalco, where we cultivate sangiovese and Argentina. And all these steel wines share the brand, tenuto unelli. So tenuto unelli is the brand of our steel wines in the in the in the group. And, finally, the last step in two thousand and fourteen was, the the acquisition of, Bizol. Bizol is, a great brand, in a a fantastic winery of the pros producing prossecco superiore of Valdo Biale. We acquired the winery from the Bizol family, but the Bizol family is is still working with us. And, you know, Jaluca Bizol, is still the president of the of the winery. This is the Rizol is still the analog. So we really got together and I think we brought all the energy and skill of Grupolonelli, but but maintaining this strong tradition of Bizol and the link with the territory. That is a premium brand, doesn't it? We want to be the reference of the high end of prossecco. We are bizarre is only prossecco superiority, Valdo Bialdene, which is the OCG. It's a prossecco coming from the, you know, the most located region area of the steep hills of Valdo Bialdene. So the idea is that in Pornelli, we want to represent the excellence of Italian sparkling wine. Ferrari is the leading brand of the high end of Mato del Chascico and a Trento doc, which represents the mountain viticulture of Trent on the other side wants to be the reference of prosseco superiore de val de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de bial de biala. So, you know, I tend to think that, I tend to think that the beauty of wine is the diversity of wine. And that's also happening in sparkling. You know, and, you know, trying to dock and prosaic are two completely different wines. We use two different methods. We use different grape variety. We use, they are coming from different reservoirs. And, you know, but we want to to create excellence in each one of this territory, and we want to express in every territory the identity of, of of the Teruar. You know, I think in wine making respecting the territory, on one side is about sustainability, but then also it's important to respect the uniqueness of that terrar. And this is what we want to represent and express with our wines. Okay. Brilliant. Yeah, you've got lots of aces in your pack, as we say. Doolinetti, it's been really interesting listening to you, explaining your family history without me needing to ask even a single question. You you've you've you've won the gold medal for getting everything out in one one speech. It's brilliant. Thanks very much as well. Explain about your the group itself and about the, the history of the sparkling wines in, particularly the traditional method. I mean, that idea of, well, the history that of, you know, bringing Chardonnay to Italy is is a pretty strong card, that you have in your in your pack. So well done. Well done to your your forebears, and well done to you. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. You know, we have a great tradition, and we are proud of it, and we love what we do. Yeah. Clearly. You got a you got a big smile on your face all the way through the interview. It'll be fascinating fascinating listening to you. I have to say I learned a lot on that interview. Great. It's really kind. Thank you very much. Bye bye. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.