Ep. 154 Monty Waldin interviews Michele Manelli (Salcheto Winery) | Discover Italian Regions: Tuscany / Toscana

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast. My name is Monty Walden. My guest today is Mikaeli Manelli from the Salceto winery, which is in the Nobile or Vino Nobile region of Tuscany. Welcome, Mikaeli. Hello. Thank you for having me here. Now listen. Tell me a little bit first of all, about the region, Vino Nobile, Vino Nobile di montepulciano. Obviously, the town of Montepulciano, where is it in Tuscany exactly? And what makes it special? Well, we are in the southeast of, Sienna province, quite internal. So get less influence, first of all, from from the sea. So how far were you were you from the Mediterranean in kilometers or fifty kilometers? Actually, bird fly, probably something like this, fifty, sixty kilometers. So you get nice cool winters? Yeah. We have We get, especially, you know, at the end, we notice that we have bigger, excursions. Big at day night temperature differences. At the end, we can get a little, warmer during summer, but even colder during winter. But what really makes the difference is this change. Because actually, we can define ourselves, compare, for example, from our cousins of Montecino, which are the closest, probably the closer, population from from us more continental. We definitely are a little bit more continental. And this, exchanges help, by the way, a lot. It's one of the factors that is helping a lot to this this great maturations and and and and capacity for extracting. It's a multiple channel seems to be really a a a good damn area for, for San Jose, which is sometime mainframe also known as Pluniolo in your area. So this idea of you get much colder winter than Montecino. Is that good for dormancy letting the vines really get a good sleep? That's the point that we see even though let let's be clear, the stress has been very high in the last decade for everyone around, let's say, Italy, Europe, the world. The universe. The universe, baby. We for climatic, because I'm sure they plant vine even in the universe, and it sure it's everywhere. And it's, so we we do have, stress coming from this, variability of the weather, which is, which is, a phenomenon as we know. So the main grape is Sanjay, Avina nobody can be made. It can be a blend. It doesn't have to be a hundred percent Sanjay. Does it? It can be a blend of the fifty percent. It can actually. There's always been. It was born as a blend. It, and, and, the up to one hundred percent, Sangevese came in the, in the nineties. It was quite late, but it started with a sixty percent, in the sixties when one of the first populations are down. And then, and then the the recent and stable, I would say, regulation, in this interpretation of the percentage of San Luis is minimum seventeen. So what do we expect in general terms from a Vina Nobili wine in in general? And also from a South Kaptor wine in particular, what do you look for as a winemaker and as a as a version? Well, what I look for is, to express sangiovese. It's bright, red fruit. It's, the fact that he has no so no dominating aroma is something that they appreciate in a sense of a variety of fruit. So when you say terpenes to apparently, what do you mean? You want you're avoiding what stalky flavors or No. Generally, no. Japanic is when you have a molecular that is going to provide a taste very profiling ever, a grape. For example, the, cut piece of the sauvignon, lawn, or the, herbashes, wet herbashes of Caberna, Suvignon. Exactly. These are these are elements that are giving a a a predominant, the character or, you know, well, when Sanjavez is not. So Sanjavez has, the variety coming out from his, from the fruit, of of small red fruit, for example. And then, the second aspect is, I will look more for elegance than power. If we can, let's say today, we can give this, this kind of, so a medium body experience. Then I will try to look for length in the so give it complexity more in the length than in the largeness. So length. Yeah. So give it a nice long after ten. Exactly. And then I would like to close. I would like a dream of my Sanjay's closing soft, the tanning giving a soft experience because then this is today, the I think the ABC of, of winemaking we have to create one that are clean, and balanced, stable, or manual, and and softer. And and drinkability, you know? And exact, which which helps you out drink a Then on the territory, because, yes, myself, on the territory, I think that we are finally moving in a similar common direction. Of course, you can't have everybody doing the same stuff. It's impossible. It will be annoying probably too. But, but we we we definitely see Montepulciano looking for, for for for these two to come to take out from this, terroir, which which has the opportunity to give you all all that I say. So elegance, because of, of, you know, the medium body also because we have a nice acidities, you know, multiple channel with its clays and it's more continental gets mature with a with a better acidity than others, for example. So in general, and I see winemakers are looking in this direction. But also what like about the region as a whole is you've been very open to having, experts come and analyze your soil and do soil maps and help wine growers really understand what is underground so that they can then make better choices in terms of pruning or plowing and picking and that kind of thing. Well, you you're a good squad, a good group, good team? I think that, well, particularly we talk a lot between each other too, which, we, not only the group that we made, they alliance is is, of course, even further, very tight, a group of, of fellows, but, winemakers. But, also, in general, I see our technician between each other. We see our, you know, the farming guy that, get together every two, three months with the other farming guys of If you winery is a group of talks, you know, really. This is this is good. I I I I try to promote this a lot. But in general, what I what I would say is that multiple channel is, even though as the greatest wine history, you can imagine in Toskin together with some, few wineries. Yeah. So if you're stating, you can't classify it. Four five hundred years of history. Yeah. And being the wine appellation in the in the renaissance, late renaissance. So among the Italian wine scene, so the first to start making real quality, but we have two remember that we disappeared after the war we were to poor, to we were not. We didn't have this, investment yet in the in the early times that had some some other areas that. So, basically, since we are today, the last are trying to reborn in some way, with this great. But you said a lot, you mean a lot sort of less well known than Cantitasko and less well known than Bruno, though. So we have to move more. Yeah. But in a way you've gotta live on this more, you can see the mistakes the other guys have made, and other teams have made. Nice sense. In terms of making life too complicated for consumers to understand. So I wanna ask you about your winery. I know you're organic in your vineyards, how big is the estate roughly in terms of, you know, vineyard area? Today, we were we went over the fifty hectares. So we are close to to the sixty almost, with some new vineyards that are coming along. Okay. And everything hand picked? Yes. Of course. I tried. I must be honest. I tried some, very, in the in the previous years, to rent a machine for a day or two just to to see what was this thing that and I and I can say that, there is, certainly a great, opportunity to make, to make a mask large, large, let's say medium quality become better, or it's in terms of productivity. I do believe this. It's it's complicated to to you, but I I say that there is no it's not possible for the high quality to to do anything else than handpicking. Okay. Tell me about the winery. You've got the first, as far as I know, the only off grid winery in Italy. And I'm not gonna whack to lyrical about it. I want you to tell me, but I you got the most exciting winery in the whole of the country. Wow. Thank you. No, seriously. Every time I go there, it's just this natural light, just give us a rough idea of how it works, what the idea, what the key the key drivers were behind it in in your mind, and why did you design it the way you did Well, the the answer is because, when I wanted to grow the winery, I wanted to make the most responsible choice of development I could. So I needed, first of all, to energy because it has always been in the last decade. It's a great challenge because energy is a scarce resource and a strategic one, but also because of this, climate changing, effect. So we need to, to be responsible in this sense. So I designed the wine to be energy independent with a lot of solution that are savings, you know, conveyor of light instead of electrical lights or just the mirrors or, free cooling with, by collecting air from outside or, a heavy having, designed inside of the project already since the beginnings, rooms and spaces to to work my own, biomass, with biomass to make them become energy, etcetera, etcetera, a lot of things. And this was the idea. Then, this responsibility first of all, we came at the point. We say, we need to enlarge the vision. It it it it cannot be only energy. We have to see what are the main impact of of, winemaking. Well, we we have to talk about all So biodiversity management, water management, but also what was really important is we got inside an approach to to measuring our standards of of sustainability because then it became an even broader picture. Being responsible of all my value chain, from the supply, up top, upstream until the distribution downstream. So interacting with my value chain to measure all the impacts, the major impacts and try to monitor and get the matter. For example, the packaging. Packaging is not something I produce, but I use it. So I need to to find for example, as we do the best lighter bottle or produce locally because it's better for the upstream process and downstream process, and it decreases my carbon footprint of myself because I am responsible of it. And to conclude, by the way, I'm very that I've been one of those who has promoted the the the born, the birth of of a great sustainability center. We have today, and by the way, tomorrow at Vin Italy, we will be, having the first certificate with ten other this is great. It's named equality. And it's really something that all the world now is inviting Italy for this standard because the the Californians have done great things in the past, but now they need to catch up and they are already, for example, looking at our standard. They page, the French, not to I say it because not with vanity, but with pride because, Italy has done great investments in the last decade in terms of sustainability. We are not the only one. There are a lot of people that that have been on the on all sides, production, research of university associations of growers. So I'm really happy. So when I go into the winery, these lovely lights come on. Are you just having, it's like low energy light bulbs and a low and electric source for those? How does that work? Well, it works that, first of all, we have to work when there is sun, which is a good thing. When there is no sun, we have to go home, doing better activities. Why? Because there is no electricity. It's a So no electricity at all. At all. No. No. So hang about, what with the light is from the sun, when I walk around the light is reflected by, by mirrors. There is there are pipes that are collecting really the the lack of say physically, you know, these these, these, these, these, these, these, that these this, sun rays that bounce in these mirrors and get, to even twenty meters distance, making car, making turns, and doing and going into the room where where we need it. By the way, when you are inside, you you've been at the one. Remember? You can see the the the the cloud outside that, that, that, you know, creates a shallow, even inside a, an underground, the cellar. If anybody hasn't been there, it's like being outside, but you're completely inside. And as you say, you're underground. So you really you're talking to somebody who's in light, and then it just gets a little bit cloudy and a bit shady. And then the sun comes out again, and you are I don't have any meters underground, ten, fifteen meters. Yeah. You're eighteen meters. Right. There you go. And it's absolutely and if if I had to work in that winery without these horrible buzzing, electrically charged light, bites, which really give you a headache. It's such an you just feel so natural in there. It's a good word to use. Right. I'm gonna ask you another one. So, basically, in terms of energy, what about water reclamation? Because obviously, we use a lot of water. Yeah. We use a lot of water even though we have to remember that this lot of water mainly is the rainwater falling over our vineyards. So you collect it? When we measure water impact, we also consider the responsibility of the piece of land that we that we manage or the rain that falls on top of it in some way because it's we are using it partially to cultivate grapes. And by the way, it's typically a rational way to use this rainwater. We collect it. Of course, we have a lake because, we don't we we we collect even rain rainwater, but mainly our our care is, and this is what is the really strategic impact in winemaking is treating the water you touch, let's say. So the water that goes through the cellar, the office, the rest around in the wine or whatever. And so we needed to really be, be sure to clean it and not to to give it back to the environmental worse than we than we than we than we than we took it. Because otherwise, there is a big impact from biodiversity. So when you're making red wine, you need to use pumps to pump the juice over the skins. You just have like, you just plug into the electricity socket like everybody else or would you do something? Not really. Go on. Spell it out. Let's let's hear about it. Come on. No, we have. Okay. For electricity, TPU, we have so photovoltaic. We needed, we needed, because of So that's solar energy that you're capturing. Solar energy. Exactly. Because But also you've got another system where you use the carbon dioxide. Is that correct? Actually, this is the, oh, this is sorry. I'm I'm sorry. This is during the winemaking. Yeah. It's even more fun. On. You you know it better than me. No. No. You can just call it. No. But but, the the the the the the refurbators, by the way, this system was born because we met. I met with these guys that make, manufacturer, Steve Vets in up in Venice, the Lasi brothers. People that wanted to create a fermenter playing with pressure. And, so it's kind of, you know, the German project that then gave birth to Ganymede. But it's much more interesting because I would say because it's complete because you're playing with this person and you're doing all the movement. So the pump over, no more pump over because you you play with pressure by creating it and and depressurizing the fat. You can, you can get, a movement of the juice, which, which will be not only a renewable energy because we have created the renewable energy. Thanks to to this, playing with the pressure of generative by the fermentation, but we are also doing it in an extremely delicate way. So, basically, we created at the same time a super efficient, tool in term of, energy management, but we also created a fantastic, tool to make better, better wires because the extractions are softer. So you can extract more and have wines which, which, feel more around, and this is great. So, basically, when the when the yeast are eating the sugar and shitting carbon dioxide, they piss alcohol and they shit carbon dioxide farting, you're collecting their farts and you're using that energy, that gas to drive what pistons or or paddles that that allow you to mix them. Actually, it's a matter of, you know, imagine when you fill up your vet and you close it, you have the skins which are floating on top. You know, it's our problem. We need to continuously wet the skins. It's normally doing with the pump. That euro rates on top. No. There we are just, when it pressurizes the little bulbs of of of of c o two, they're farther in the middle of the wine because they're kept there. When you open on the top, like a Coca Cola can. What the bulbs will go? We go up top and we'll we'll bring the line with it. So this is the first big effect. Then the second is that we have a double layer vet. We collect some of the fart in the in the in the in the lower in the lower vet. And we by with with again pipes and valves, we can get the pressure going from the from the down vent up. From the accelerator. And again, it will completely reverse the cap of skins. And so again, it will create, for example, the same function as a punch down or a delistage. So textually, your red wines are very, very interesting, and I'm convinced that it's because of the way you vinify. And I'm also convinced that a lot of critics, but not a lot, but some people don't obviously don't always get your wines and always understand your wines because they have a very different shape in the mouth and a very different texture, in the mouth to say, a lot of be ruben, a conventional wine made in a conventional wine, I don't mean that in a majority of sense. Would you would you say that? Would you do think that's the case? Well, I think that, in the soup, I I recognize some of the ingredients of, of, of the soup, which, for example, let's add the sulfite because we, okay, we are, strongly still believing and and fighting to make research around sulfite with the obvious line to make completely sulfate free wine. And this is a story, but in general, we don't use sulfites in fermentation for all wines. Then, of course, so even the nobility, the sarko, the crew, the reserve. No no sulfur in fermentation means a start which is very. There is a buzz. Very large in the fruit and very, you know, the east work, very initially. Yeah. But but create, in some way. Mouth, is it more richness? Exactly. Think that there is dimension in the in the mouth. Are they allowed to produce extra glycerol to get that kind of slightly wider mouth feel because they're they're not being stressed all the time. They're really working according to their own pace. Would you get on with that? I think that, the no. They're not stressed. It's a good point, even though they are bothered sometimes with, by some bacteria that are not going to be completely taken away from, from the sulfide. But we have to combine this with the fact that they work very well under pressure, with the fermenters, they work very well because we cultivate the east of each vet. Every every vet, we we we we we cultivate easy on east. So to try to help the best, the better is to to predominate. So what you mean by that is each each tank has its own. You you let the Usually, in the in the forty eight hours, while I I I make some cold maceration. I take off five percent of the of the juice and cultivate its own is there with just heat, eat it, and and make it ferment, more in a better condition. You take it you take a little salt. So this five percent becomes a booster for the for the bet. But every single batch has his own, not not something that we use for everybody. It's a it's it's this I think is a is very interesting. So if I was a natural wine Taliban, which I'm not, I was, oh, you can't. I just happened to me. I had someone and most of my natural wines into a wine friend, they they didn't like that kind of behavior, justify why you're using grown up clever science to make better wine and why should people who criticize you for doing that except what you're doing. Cause all you're doing is you're using the vineyard yeast right. You're just making sure that the vineyard yeast in that particular about our healthy, and they're not gonna give you a a really vinegary wine. You're just analyzing it and helping them grow in the early stages and then putting them back in the tank. Yeah? Is that right? Exactly. How do what would you say if I said you shouldn't do that? I would say, did grape want it to become wine? Exactly. Did grapes wanna become wine? Alright. Okay. Tell me about the no added sulfite wines as well. Because again, you'll no added sulfite wines. I'm, you know, as category. I think everyone agrees that when they're good, they're fantastic, they're brilliant, they're amazing. And when they're not, they're absolutely undrinkable, they can be. And then, of course, you have wines in the middle that, have tolerable faults, should we say, which is still a very enjoyable wines. Where do you stand on the, what is your driving rationale for making a no added sulfite. Why why make life hard for yourself? Why make life hard for yourself in the market and in the winery? Why just just slings some sulfites in and sleep easy at night? First of all, I stand in the I I started this, project with the idea. I want to do something different. I want to do a different taste. I want to look if there is a different taste because otherwise the effort is is useless because if it's just a matter of taking away this dust of of sulfur, it it's not either problem, an environmental problem, an healthy problem if you use them correctly. But of course, taking off is always also nice for for a guy which is so rationalizing as as as as I am. But first of all, the second point is they wanted to make it become as much as possible, a convention approach. In the sense of reliability of the one, if it needs to travel, if it needs to be stored, etcetera. But also in general, to be reliable as a as a taste, you know, conventional means for us today means, clean, fruity. You know, etcetera, and and so on. Well, I can say that, I partially, have, reached both of these, targets because, because the wine is mostly reliable, even though it's not yet completely, how can I say, don't you cannot completely dominate the surface? There is a freedom. And, maybe we will, by continuing this, research and these attempts, we will find ways to make it become more controllable and more addressable in some way in minimize the risks. To minimize the risk of what of a little volatile that goes up, of some kind of small oxidation, of a reduction sometimes, of, etcetera, etcetera. So aspects which, I must be honest, as as as the winemaker, as the winemaking, I have always expressed, I should call these defaults. Today, I'm calling them nuances of, of, new tasties that combined with the great vibration that suit for free wines because they have this buzz. What I was telling at the beginning from, what happens is that there is there is a bacterial logical buzz happening in the sulfur free wine. So for the other wines, that was a is is what I wanted to mention. At the end of it at the beginning, then I have to control it because I put them in wood because I also don't want to I want to address them more. On the sulfur free, you have this, this buzz which continues even in the bottle and you feel it, you know, I like to to call this, new dimension of sulfur free wines is the, not the back taste, the back sound when it's when when you are, when you have it on your pallet. You know, typically you have the back taste coming up. Well, you have some noise coming to your ears and you feel this damn bacteriological like, which is also giving sometimes thickness. Sometimes it's it's it's in some way also ticking your palette and also it's creating aromatics, which are new. Especially, let's underline these two in difficult vintage. Because in the top vintages, for example, I started in two thousand twelve bottling such wines. In two thousand twelve, thirteen, fifteen, the wines are much closer to conventional taste than End of the quote's natural. Exactly. Exactly. In fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, I would say it's also because we where there are problems, even if they are minimal, you have much less instruments to defend from this problem. It is it is undeniable. But I'm I'm seeing an evolution also in the market. There are still a lot of people who who make a face on these wines. But, they don't like them. They don't like them, especially in on the trade, but more and more and more we see people understanding that they have a character, they have a personality, and and and and that maybe there is something in these in these nuances of that I mentioned before that is even even attractive. And and it's coming along. Well, first of all, consumers are ready. They love it. Consumers mostly love it. So in general, especially because they love the store. The story is exciting. Then when they get to the one, they even feel there is something, and so it even better. I mean, textually, these wines are very different. In respect to even a flavor, textually, they're very different. Yeah. This is the But what about the what about the boring old curmudgeon journalist, people that are really kind of divided on the taste? I think everyone applaud your or people like you, the sort of environmental aspect, but, you know, it was a dynamic guy, you know, you've gotta the results count. We can talk and talk and talk and play around with the moon, lunar cycles, all that kind of crap, but you gotta deliver, haven't you? How do you get how do you sort of convince or educate maybe more people in the wine trade and and the media of the merits of what you are doing? Well, it's tough. In the last years, I got to the point, in which I abandoned almost trying to convince anyone. And I I even often don't send them out for tastings just to be clear. And because, because, very rarely, people stopped and really thought that there has been exam. There has been cases in which, some even very mainstream, let's say, magazines or or guides have stopped, thought about it, and gave a very frank and interesting, critic on them and, sometimes positive, sometimes but very, very constructive. Yeah. Exact construct. And and I when we had also some positive ones, but at some point, I stopped. Today, I think that we can re we can try again because I think that, that, the media is also understanding that the the there is an opportunity of, of, of, culture there too. Yeah. There's a chance to change. Isn't there? There's chance to look at wine, to make it live up to its spending. Well, at least to add something. And, you know, we we work for for, for these, for the curiosity of a new information, of a new, a new aspect, a new story, and so I think it's, I think it's a it's a new time. And by the way, I was surprised about the interest internationally. Also, in in the last months, I've been traveling a bit and and, and it's really coming along, coming along every where now this, this expectation on these wines. So I just wanna say thanks to McKini Maletti for coming in today and talking about Salqueto. Anybody who's listening and who, wants to know more about Tuscany and who wants to know more about cutting edge winemaking. This winery, sarketo should be your first stop. You will never see a winery anywhere in the world that is like this, and the approach that McKelian and his team are doing is absolutely, you know, whether you like the wines or not, whether you think they're consistent in every vintage or interested. I mean, they're not always consistent in every vintage. But in terms of texture and you you look at what's going on in the vineyard, you look at what's going on in the winery and how it's actually done. You won't understand it till you actually go there. I have insist that you do. And you get in that winery and you feel the light change on your head when you're either in ten meters below out. That is when you're finally gonna understand why light is important in outside, why light is important inside, and why if you've, the wine that you're drinking shows an inner brightness in terms of its its light, it's inner light, then you will finally understand what's going on. It's a it's a big learning curve. Must visit this one. You can have a really nice lunch. Very light as well, which is because it goes with your friends. Small garden. Thank you, Monty. It's flattered. Yeah. So let's discuss the contract when I become your PR manager we'll do that on Monday, shall we? Exactly. Yeah. Alright. Correct. Okay. It's our customer's bank account. Yeah. Thanks a lot. It's it's it's already there. Great. Thanks a lot. That's good. Thanks for getting us a great one. Thanks. 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