Ep. 103 Monty Waldin interviews Tim Banks (Ornellaia Winery) | Discover Italian Regions: Tuscany / Toscana

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian mic podcast. My name is Monte Ward. My guest today is Tim Banks. Tim is sales and marketing director for Orner Lire. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So, Tim, let's start with you, and then we'll go on to online briefly. Your career history briefly. A nutshell. Before I came to On a liar, I was basically living in France. Are you French? No, I'm English, very much English, although I have a French wife. Okay. But, after university, or during university, planned myself falling in love with France, everything French, food, and wine, of course, women as well. And, slowly but surely, it sort of went from cycling holidays to, to working for hernessy cognac during the summers, which was nice? Was that As a salesman or is a No. Just as a tour guide in their in their, sellers. So I got to learn about great French produce, luxury business. Does your wife from Gascony then? No. She's from Toulouse. Okay. So we're not far away, but not in and not from Konyak. That's fine. But we lived in Konyak for a long time where I worked for several, companies, Tennessee, and then got picked up to come over to Tuscany, and, She picked up. Well, a helicopter did they answer or sent a helicopter in just They sent me an email, so saying, do you know anybody that would like to do this job? And I said, do they need to speak Italian? They said, no. Well, I don't have any friends then, and here's my CV. So a couple of months later there I was in, in Tuscany. So you've effectively, by hook or by crook, you've you've worked for what we would call luxury brands. Yeah. Not by design. Just, I needed to work in the summers for my internship at university Stit. I looked at that job, so that would be nice. Applied for it. Didn't get it. Appied for it next year. Got it. Did it for three years. And then, a small stint in London, working for, public relations agency, working on Champagne and Harvey Nichols and other brands. Again, just luxury. By by chance. What were you studying at university in France, I mean, French? European business with French, German marketing. Right. Okay. So you've got the toolbox and languages, numbers Yeah. And the spiel. Business and the spiel. Yeah. And so over the time, we've worked on it a bit, And now I have to I've had to do it all in Italian as well. So, Right. Well, let's give give me some spiel on, I said spiel eggs. You've studied German, and I'm gonna give me some spiel on Ornolier. What is Ornolier? Who owns it? Where is it? What is it? What what a red wine, white wine, sparkling wine. Okay. So on a layer is, a red wine madely from tuscany. And the difference being that it's on the coast in tuscany. So it's just south of Pisa. It's, a wine which many people would know as a super tuscan, because it was one of these wines that arrived in the late seventies, early eighties, and, went against the, sort of, the, the rule book, let's say, and, started having internet National varietals, such as Cabernet sauvignon and Merlo, and other ways of, looking at the wines, which didn't fit into the, the DOC rules, the, the various strict quality rules for the, the wines from Italy, and Tuscany in French that were yet, the populations in front in Italy, the denominator, so it's a bit like a border top quality border chateau adding sera to its red, for example? Well, yes. I mean, the except it's it was, permitted the regulations, but instead of being labeled as a site specific wine, I had to be labeled just as a Tuscan tuscan rare. That's right. It's Vignodetavola, table wine, even. So what was the first official vintage for Warner Lire? It was nineteen eighty five. And it's, who owns it? It is owned by the Frresco Bardi family. Mhmm. And, along with their other estates in Tuscany and one in Fueley, were they the original owners of the press? No. It was, ludovico Antinori who created, the estate in nineteen eighty one. He started planting eighty five, the first vintage. And then towards the end of the nineties, there was a, I would say, an exchange or a, a transfer of ownership from Guduvico through the Mondavi family to the Fresco Valley family, and now it's all owned by the the Fresco Valley family. I would say we act as a a winery in its own right. Everything is done at the estate, all the vineyards are around their stage, the, the bottling, all the all the offices are there. It's very much, an all in one, winery based on the coast in Tuscany. So first Cabardi, for those of you that don't know is a very famous name in Italian wine, and the first Freshcabaldi wine dealer was about thirteen hundred and something. Is that correct? Yeah. I think we're coming over to Zu thirty generations. Okay. So who's the boss now? What's his name? The CEO is, Giovanni Gettycabaldi, but our president is Ferdinandandolfrescabaldi. Okay. Yeah. So is it the same branch as Lamberto Frescobardo or different branch of the family? Exactly. Lambert is the president of the group. This is the same family. Lambert, I believe. I don't want to get this wrong, but I believe it's the twenty ninth generation. I hope I've got that right. I've got his mobile number as well. Okay. We can at that. So what are the pressures? Obviously, you're used to working with luxury top quality, five star, whatever you wanna call it, brands. When you're outselling it or presenting it or promoting it, what are the dos and what are the don'ts? Well, I think that the the most important thing for us starts always in the vineyard with the the territory around Bulgaria and all the wine makers work and the vineyard work and everything has to be perfect. Then when we go out selling the wine, marketing, communicating, I think what we have to do is try to live up to the quality of the wine and not let it down and make sure that we're being coherent with speaking in the right way to the right people. But also, we are defending, I would say, the image of our brand, and, it is once you've worked hard to make such a great product, you don't want people to be, misusing it or mistreating it or taking it for granted. So, there's a bit of, firm but fair in the market. And also you have to, if you say you're going to do something you do it, you back it up. So, such, I won't give an example though. So, for example, example, if, we manage, we were in a luxurious position of of being able to allocate our wines even before the, even produced almost. We know more or less where everything is going to be sold and, distributed around the world. And it it is a, quite a lot of you can wield by making sure that your importers are actually, doing the job that they've also agreed to do. But I think it's important when something's not done correctly and and not to the level that it should be that we sort of bring that up and we talk about it. And we we base we base our relations on long term partnerships. So give me an example of something without real specifics. I mean, I would have thought, you know, if I was in a wine shop or a wine bar in London, for example, you know, I think I've worked in a shop where we did sell all a liar, what would is your eye? What would cause you to knock on the door, those shots? Hey, Monte? Are really gonna just make a suggestion? Please don't do that with you on a liar? I think when, when your customers have paid, let's say it's a hundred and fifty pounds for bottle of wine, you've been working with, your customers, your clients. And sometimes there's a a tendency that people want to make a quick buck. And so they'll buy in a bigger quantity, knock the price down, and give away, what they see as a a great value, a deal. It's to try and sell something else over. If you buy a hundred bottles of Chateau Planc Yeah. We'll give you a bottle of wine and lire at half price or something. Well, that's a pretty simple example, but that kind of thing. That kind of thing, something which destroys the value of the brand and the the this the value of the product, which someone else has has paid full price for. So it'd be unfair for us to leave one person to discount and another person to, to follow and set it at what we believe is the quite correct value. So, it's about protecting that. For example, we also don't want to be, flooding the market. So it's important for us to know that what we've sold into the market is also being bought and sold and and drunk, and we want people to drink our wines. So you have to have a very close relationship with your distributors. Very close indeed. And for example, if you take our Swiss importer, he had agreed to take the first vintage even before it was produced, and we're still working together. We don't have a contract. We have a a gentleman's agreement, and it's been like that for, this is twenty ninety seven. No, next year will be thirty vintages. And we have examples of that all around the world. So, I think in Poland, it's twenty two years and South Korea, it's twenty six years. It's, it's a way of doing business, which is, built on sort of mutual respect, a hard work, but also doing things properly. So if I'm a consumer and I'm just a I'm a nut for wine. Okay? And I my dream is to either buy a bottle of Ornelier or get close to Ornelier or or even another famous brand. How close can I get to the brand itself to to, you know, can I come and visit the winery? Are there any events where you do tastings, tutor tastings where I could maybe say, like, I can't afford maybe say a hundred and fifty pounds or two hundred dollars for a bottle, but I could probably spend fifty pounds or fifty dollars to go to an where I can at least taste it. Certainly. Certainly. This is, I think one of the things that we find important is that we have to remain very approachable and, open and friendly, and we would all people at the estate, and we love what we do. We'd like to share that passion. You'll you'll a tie, for example. No. Well, we're in we're in Italy. So, yeah, it's, don't often wear ties nowadays, which is great. Sometimes they have got to look good, but, no, I think that the the openness is very important. You can visit the the estate is by appointment. So we have, a team of people that looks after everyone, but we're also there again. We want to make sure that those who come to the estate get the experience that they're, that they're expecting. And, in terms of tastings around the world, we try to participate in many different events with either James Suckling or Decantor, wine spectator in your experience, and get the wines actually into the lips on onto the lips of people who who want to taste it. Perhaps people might not have the means to to buy a bottle of one a liar, but then it's the way of discovering a brand. They say discovering the other wines that we have with the second wine or the third wine, the white wines. And it's not just about on a layer, but, everything starts at the top. What's the difference between working in France in the drinks business and working in Italy in the drinks business? Oh gosh. I'm not gonna leave, the door's locked, by the way. So you can't get out until you answer the question. Perhaps in France, there's a little more formality, a little bit more also theater around the wines, a bit of fanfare. It's not brie. Snowbery. I'm not sure if it's snobbery. I think it's a it's an attitude. It's a behavior. Over reverence, perhaps, in certain cases. But at the same time, they've shown in the world how to sell wines at the great value the Italians have got certain things to learn in in respect to sort of bringing the value to the wines and the the great wines that they have, but also they have to bring their own style. And this openness, this pleasure, this joy of life, it's very present when you go to Italy. Go out to dinner and you you enjoy it, you you have fantastic food, which you might not have it in France at the same price, that's for sure. But you have fantastic food, and it's it's not, it's less less formal. It's less formal, and it's more fun. And you spend more time with each other rather than sort of analyzing the the what's in the plate. I mean, it's always good. So how difficult is it for a brand like Ornelire, which has got the fun side, the Italian Mhmm. Background? And then there is that sort of formality of a blue chip brand. How do you get that balance right. You don't wanna be over familiar with a real sort of buffed and tuft and kind of buttoned up consumer. But then again, you don't want to be flippant. Exactly. I think you have to listen to your customers. That's one thing. I think you also have to be true to yourself don't be who you're not. I think people at a certain price range also expect you to act in a certain way. So there are certain rules, you know, if you go around to your grandfather's house, you wouldn't put your feet on the table for dinner. It's the same thing in the wine world. You have to adapt yourself to the the the market you're in, whether it be in China, whether it be in America, whether it be in in England, even in Belgium, for example, Belgium is very different to France, but you have to adapt, and you have to listen, you have to be, I would say, you have to sort of pay attention I think. But at the same time, you've got to make sure that you're doing it right, and you are projecting the right image for your for your wine, and you're you're following up really what everything has been done in in the vineyard. So what does the future sort of, as a generic term, luxury brands when everybody's talking about millennials, I know natural wine, wine with lower alcohol, that kind of thing, and value, and these, you know, auction wines, if you like. Mhmm. We're not interested in them. We're never gonna buy them. We can never find them. We can't afford them. They're totally irrelevant to us, and it's the millennial sort of creating in Vincent. People's view, the buzz about wine at the moment. I think that, the world is so diverse and is going to get more diverse as, as the years go by. The wealth in the world is also going to continue to grow. So there's going to be more consumers at both ends, whether they're super rich or just every day. I think that there going to be, these wines in the same ways that natural wines appeared. Certain people, our wines will appeal appeal to others. There's a lot talking talked about, millennials because I think people have a very difficult time understanding what it is they're really, really interested in. But I think you have to look at it the other way around, and so you have to make yourself interested because of who you are, what you are, and what you do. If you haven't got the quality, that's one thing. But if you look like fake fake news, that's another thing, I think you can only be true to yourself. And and if you're consistent, if you are being yourself, and also you have a great wine, then I think you you have a good chance of succeeding. Some of the white wines from the Tusing Coast are outstanding. Will there ever be a white there is. Okay. Tell me about it. So this is something that, part of our, I would say, brand ethos or DNA is that we've always looked to to challenge even from the beginning being born as a super and puts us on a different path than to most wines in in Italy. We also have kept this, this flexibility in the way we work, and, and we don't want to get stuck down because we can do things. And there's so much we can do, Bolgari is only thirty years old as a as a appylation. Not everything has been tried yet. If you compare to what's been done in in board over the last one hundred and fifty two hundred years, they've got a wealth of experience that we were only just scratching the surface. So immediately, the red wines turned out to be fantastic stick, and as everyone just planted red. But over the last years, with the arrivals, especially of Axle Heinzawa winemaker in two thousand and five at the estate from Bordeaux, even though white varietals, especially sauvignon blanc had always been planted on the estate since eighty two, it had never been a focus wine. And in two thousand, two thousand and two, they they grabbed up the vines and changed everything to Melo, but not everything worked. So some of the of the, the vines had half of it was, where the graph did not work. Half it was still sauvignon blanc and half of it was, Melo. And those would be green harvested or away at the end of the year. But when Axle arrived, he said, no, those look interesting. I'll try that. Made of wine, served it at the the the harvest lunch that year, you know, three weeks, you know, sort of, not Bojali nouveau, but Bogery nouveau blanc. Biancourt. And, that first, fresh white wine was enough to convince everything that everybody that we should, move ahead and look at the white wine again. So he started planting, searching for new sites, looking at things. There was already some sauvignon, which are the varieties? At the beginning was mainly sauvignon, but then he started also planting some of Vermontino, which is, quite normal for the area, some vignonier, which works very well, down in our area, not semillon, as some people would expect, they see a border red blend. They say, oh, well, there'd be a border white. So, semillon, sauvignon blanc, but no. Vignonier is much better like in Southern Rome. We're on the Mediterranean after all. And so we've also been playing with some, verdicchio, which is from the Marche region on the other side of, Italy, and a little touch of Petimosa, which was, left by, the previous winemaker, Tomodiello, who's now at Chateau Palmeir, and he left that as a as a welcome present for Axsel, his beautiful sweet white wine that we make now, harvest. But now we have, after seven years of, trial and error with, the white wine, which we called Poggio Lagazzi, Delonolaya. Just repeat that one? Poggio Allagazzi Delonolaya. So that will just It'd be MagPai Slope. It was an Australian wine. From Onelaya, quite quite nicely. But now in twenty thirteen, we came out with the first vintage of, Onelaya Bianco. So Onelaya, the level of Onelaya, but it's expression in white. And then this has really set us up on a new path to look white seriously to really sort of start growing, more vineyards, either regrafting or planting, looking for new sites. Sites where, for example, in the past, reds didn't work because they had too much cover from the forest, or they were the wrong side of a hill or whatever. We're finding that if we plant those into white, the magic of Bolberry creates some great, great wines. Just final question, what is a typical blend for Honor Lion now when it hasn't changed over the years? There's been a slight change, very, very to overtime, the original Olinaya blend was sixty five percent cabernet sauvignon. So it's always, and still is driven by cabernet sauvignon with twenty five percent Merlo, and the rest was, cabernet tron. In two thousand and four, the denomination added Petiverdo. So we're are now, I would say, about fifty five, sixty percent Cabene sauvignon, big dollop of Merlo, and then a touch of Petiverdo and Cabanifron. And that's I think that will remain. But the Merlo component has grown over the years as we understand that, it's a fantastic region even for Melo. Great. Okay. Tim Bank sales and marketing director for Order liar. Thanks very much for coming in today and telling us about this icon product brand and, developments there with the white wine. That certainly sounds very interesting. The, it's a very exciting. It's a great place to work. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.