Ep. 111 Monty Waldin interviews Pinta Kauce (Oliviero Toscani Winery) | Discover Italian Regions: Tuscany / Toscana

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast. My name is Monte Ward. Today's guest is Pinta Calce. Pinta manages the Olivier de toscani winery near Bolgari in Tuscany. Pinta is also an Italian wine ambassador of the Vin Italy Academy. Welcome, Pinta. Thank you. Now, first of all, where is the Olivier Tuscany winery, and who owns it? And what do you do that? Well, Olivia Tuscany winery is owned by Olivier Tuscany. That's quite easy. And it's, located north of Bulgaria. So it's basically, like, fifteen minutes drive. Which town? It's Casarimaritimo, and it's ten minutes from seaside as well. So it's a coastal area. And the particularity of it is that is basically on the same hillside where the old one yard of Sasekayoa was. So we're the one of the rare to be on the hillside Which village? Front of the city. Sorry. Are you in the village of Boston name of the village again? Casale Maritimo. Okay. Now who is Oliviero toscani? What was he? What was his profession? So Oliviero toscani is a photographer, and he is probably the most famous for for people who are not from the art world with his United College of Benetton campaign. He's actually now after seventeen years started to collaborate with them again and, launching the new Benetton campaigns now. He's photographer. He's father was photographer, and his son who's managing the winery together with me is photographer as well. So Right. Talent, talented family. It's all about the art. Right. So, I mean, if you got like art all over the winery as well, like their photos on the walls or Yeah. I think you can see that they are photographers in every step of the winery. The winery is is just a small part of what they have created there. Olivia lives there and he moves there in seventies. And it's actually a big estate, which is now, like, hundred and sixty actors. We have horses and pigs and homing pigeons. Homing pigeons. That's the first. Never heard of that before. Yeah. That's a great passion for Olivier Sandrocco. That's absolutely beautiful story of homing pigeons. And because they always turn back home, and the home is the place where they learn how to fly. So it's quite also like a romantic story. And they are monogamous for life. Monogamous, that doesn't sound very exciting. I don't wanna be a pigeon. Okay. Let's talk about the pigeon. So Where are you from? I'm from Latvia from riga, riga, which is capital city. So where is Latvia? Latvia is now officially a northern European country. Is it itself is considered Eastern European, but, like, since two thousand seventeen, we are northern country. No. So is it one of the ball tics? Yeah. It's one of the ball tics. It's the one in the middle. The one in the end. With either side, who are your neighbors? So we have Estonia, Russia, Yellow, Russia, and Lithuania, as a neighbors. And, we are two million people. One million basically is living in the capital city. So once you go out there, you see just forests and lakes in nature. What crops do people grow there in Latvia? Well, oh, we don't have a lot of industry because it's been it's obviously after the soviet era and the we suffered a lot. The main thing we're doing is food. Foreistry. Okay. So that's what for furniture? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we send the word to Sweden when they make and then they send their furniture back to us. So next time I go to IKEA, it's I know that it's gonna be Latvia, this is Latvia wood rather than Swedish wood. Exactly. So what about exporting wine to Latvia in general, not just your winery in particular, but in general, what's the wine market like in Latvia? Well, the wine market is quite interesting, quite weird because obviously it's all we don't have a wine culture. So the wine import started early in early nineties. Wine is still a luxury good. It's not like every day consuming, and it's still like, like, a status symbol. So you people are really following what the trend setters are doing and drinking. Oh, their taxes, if I if I export, I'm an exporter to to Latvia. Is my wine gonna be taxed heavily it when it gets over the border? Well, it's not heavily. It's about euro per bottle. So that's independent of the price. If I send a hundred euro bottle or a two euro bottle. No. It's based on alcohol in the wine or in any other alcohol. So one euro doesn't sound lot, but you're saying that the Latin economy is not hugely wealthy. So that's quite a big, quite a big tax. Well, it wasn't so healthy, but actually after the crisis in two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine, we actually had some growth immediately after crisis. The other one was Poland who actually never suffered so much. So the, like, level of economies is is okay. It's like living in and out of any other western world country. What about we read a little bit about, young people emigrating from Latvia. Well, that was a that is still quite a problem because people, especially non educated, and the people from countryside couldn't they can't find a job or they can't invite invent anything. So they would go to, yeah, UK, mostly Germany. And during their crisis, I think, three hundred thousand people went away more or less. That actually didn't help it. A lot of them are now coming back and opening new places and more restaurants. And the scene is quite interesting now. So what's the total population of that? Yes, sorry. So it's about two million people. So three hundred thousand people leaving is a pretty large percentage, isn't it? Yeah. It does. So you attempted to move back there? Nope. So what what's the attraction of top what was the attraction of Tuscany for you? Was it a love story? Was it just purely work? You love photography. You went to the beach and found this winery and said, we're gonna hire you. So it's quite a weird story for being a Latin. We don't make any wine, and, we don't have any wine cultures. I said before, but my father started to import Italian wine in early nineties. So I grew up in his his company. So when I was thirteen, I would come to Italy and go to in Italy and meet all the producers. And Tuscany was always the place where I felt the most happiest. Then in twenty ten, I came to study in Florence, and never left. So what did you study employers? Is language or or marketing? And that was a how long was the course? No. It's a it was a master level, so it was not just one year. So you already had a you already had a business background. Yes. And that was in Latvia. Yeah. They, yeah, have a great degree in business administration. So how would you describe doing your job if you're in Latvia compared to doing it in Italy? Italy. Italy's always seems a bit sort of chaotic and everything gets sorted out in the end, but, you know, sort of pay work in documents is, like, not really a strong point. So they say. I'm not saying that's the case, but I'm just saying so they say. Well, I kinda suffer that because I'm definitely more organized and more precise than most of Italian in Tuscany. So starting from the wine yard where they when we do the harvest, they all call me, like, Latmy and Policeman because I would just go and control that every grape is big until, yeah, till the accounting that is like, oh my god. You Italians, but I think if you from everything country in the world, if you choose Italy, you must love that part of Italians as well. It works sort of slightly chaotic, but creative care chaos. Creative. Yeah. The last time solutions. Yeah. Last minute solutions. Yeah. In terms of the owner, was he, obviously, we can also think, like, artistic people are kinda slightly not chaotic, but, you know, they have they're living their own little world. Is he quite involved in the winery? Or was he? Yeah. He's involved in me all the decisions or what what to do and where to where to go. That's him on the phone right now. Actually, he's just checking it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Alright. What does she say? So he he's involved even if he doesn't have any wine making background. He's the one who actually wants to participate to know how the wine will be made, what is going on, and what is going to be the style. How do you see the Italian market for wine from your perspective? Where you are in Tuscities is almost like a luxurious area got a lot of wealthy, seemingly wealthy domains, like, you know, obviously, is a Bulri, SASica, a very historic border style wines as well, a lot of sort of cabinet merlot around there, the Supertuscan area. Is that Supertuscan thing still strong, viable? Well, I think Tuscany has suffered a lot during last years. And if you talk with any important market, including Lafayette, like, they are overloaded with Italian wines, they're like, probably people, my parents age, which would be between fifty, sixty, are still appreciating these wines, but the young people are not like they are not eager to spend that money just just to buy a label without, like, actually explaining what's the quality what the quality is. So probably they are going more on some some lighter side, more interesting wines, not the classical oak wine made by people. They have nothing to come and come in with. How do young people in Latin be to find out about wine? Is it is it social media? Are there wine magazines? Are there wine courses people can do? There are wine courses. They are now, like, there are people coming over to do the also wine speech education courses. There are quite like, a lot of local wine bars where they do lectures. There's a Latin wine summary association as well, but still it exists and do courses. And people are, as it, as I said before, it's an extra good and it's like status symbol. People are following those twenty people who are going around doing stuff and drinking the same things they are seeing in social media. Yeah. So what's it if I go to riga, and I turned out with a bottle of one of your wines what is a good dish? Typical latvian dish that you would suggest. That's a headache because, like, typical latvian dishes would include all five of the flavors. Okay. Let's go. All the, like, classical typical latvian dishes would be they must the sweet, sour, savory, bitter, and salty. Those five, flavors. Yeah. So it's quite difficult to, to pair wine with it. Obviously, like beer would go always good. Do you make a Vermentino? Or you just read wine? We do just red wine. It's all syrup blend blends. Do you have, you have sangiovese as well, though, I guess? Nope. So you what so your main grapes are? What merlot company? No. No. No. We're like artist also in this. We have the enteraldigo. Oh, really. Terrolu. Interesting. So what would that go? In terms of a latvian dish, what would what would that is that blended away? Or is that made as a variety that you're winery? No. We blended with Sara. So it's six, sour base, like entry level wine is fifty Sierra fifty. And what's that called? It does Ganni. Itosko. Okay. And so what would that go with? Is it in a latvian dish? I think you could do it with, like, black pudding. Black pudding? Black patting because it's quite famous, very, like, all the bread with garlic and the black bread the ripe bread. Is it spicy though or not? The the black pudding in, in Latvia? No. It's not spicy. So it's nice and nice and round and soft. So I think Sierra Interautical blend would suit it really well. As well as all the properly wild needs use would go well. Tope wings. What what this is like animals in the forest? Yeah. So what do you do? Yeah. Any other animals that you shoot or go? All of them. Yeah. What other ones have you got there there? Podium. We have a wild boar. We don't have any beers. We had one few years ago, but it was killed. There is, elk. Elk, wild boar. Deer. Deer. Any others? Wild ducks and stuff. I'm not really into hunting, so I can't say any species, but Okay. So where do you see yourself in ten years? Are you gonna stay in Tuscany? Will you move back to that view in the future? Well, I don't think I will move back tonight to you because when once you went away and tried to work in winery, I think it's kind limited. To be there. I can't imagine something that could stimulate myself there. In ten years, I will be Navigirotta's gaining winery. Really? That's a brave, prediction. I don't even know what I'm doing tomorrow. Ten years ahead, that's pretty. Yeah, me neither. About tomorrow, I can't answer you, but in ten years, I'm quite sure. Okay. Pinta Kauci. Thanks very much for telling us a little about the Olivier de toscani winery in Tuscany and also a little bit about Latvia and its cuisine. Thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.