Ep. 31 Monty Waldin interviews Bibi Graetz of Bibi Graetz Winery | Discover Italian Regions: Tuscany / Toscana

This episode is brought to you by Wine To Digital, the home of Italian wine podcast. Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast. My name is Monty Walden, and my guest today is Tuscon winemaker BB Gretz Welcome. Hi. So the first question is, how does somebody who only started making wine in two thousand and has no formal wine making training make such a name for himself in such a short time? Well, I believe I mean, the You don't have to be modest? No. I mean, I I have been very much in love from the first moment with the work in the vineyard. So I've been really fascinating from day one and trying to look at the plants, and I'll try to understand what they need, how to express themselves in the best way. And this has been the the the run that has been following me from the first moment and really trying to do something special out of the of the vineyard. I think it made a difference because there is a general, you know, saying around the KIA nowadays, everybody, you know, can do a good one. Minds. It's a I don't believe at all in this thing here. If you wanna do something really special, you need to put the heart in it, and you can do anything good. I mean, whatever can be kitchen, it can be furniture, but you need to put the real heart in it, heart. And then you can do always something more than an updated, you know. Tell me a little bit about your family. You were born on a, an estate near Florence in Fierge Olain Yep. With a huge chateau and a small vineyard. Is that right? I was born in this, beautiful place, and my family has been always has been an artist families, family. So my father's a sculptor has been sculpting their own life, and my mother was the wife of a sculptor, and we were a bit quite a bohemian life and, but quality oriented. Sabano could catch good things. I mean, attention for values more than for things, you know, so we had a fantastic mother that always, like, was a she's Norwegian, but she became, like, an Italian mama or a big yocha, you say, you know, with the chicken under her arms, you know, doing fantastic food, open door, open table. And, I mean, so I've been brought up with this kind of values, and we try to, you know, bring it in our wide, you know, quality and and good things. So it was wine an important part of the family family dining experience? It was important in the sense that we had the two actors of vines, and the wine was there. I mean, the center was full of wine, but, I mean, we didn't bottle it. We were just I mean, it was just really beautiful candy wine. The gardener was doing the wine and everything. So it was more a cultural thing than, and, business. So when I started, I started from completely scratched. I didn't even know what Susicaiah was waiting until two thousand. I didn't know anything about the wine business. So, and has that been an advantage to you that you when you did start making your own wine, you weren't sort of following fashion or or trends for maybe these really big wines that were in fashion and these okie wines, and you've gone in completely the other direction haven't you? It's hard to see. Maybe it may be easier to dare when you don't know when you don't really know what you have in front yourself. In fact, I have been having a lot of doors in my face by doing my crazy projects. Looking very obitiously, to other big, big, fantastic names and wines and just alright. I wanna do that, move this. I wanna go there. So you're very, you're very much your own man doing your own thing, and your focus has been indigenous Italian graves rather than say board varieties or Roan varieties or chardonnay, things like that. Why was that? Was that about flavor? Was it because you wanted to be a revolutionary or because you valued these interims at qualities of these indigenous Italian graves? Well, I was just very fascinated by old vineyards. I I I when I came to Vine Italy the first time, it was that two, three years before I actually started the project. I found some producer that were doing their wines only for thirty years old vineyard to get into Zara. It was really fascinating this thing here of the old vineyard. So I and I naturally I mean, our vineyard was an old vineyard, and when you start working with an old vineyard, do you naturally go down to indigenous varieties? Because, you know, fine in in our era in Tuscany, MRlo, and Cabonese from the old times. And, it's all coming back back from the late nineties. So it was natural thing to go for, you know, and I felt that there was something interesting there also by, you know, slowly getting near to the wine business. I felt that it was very important to this kind of thing instead of. I mean, when I started, it was it was really the the the peak of the Merlo and and the Cabernet story, you know, in Tuscany, for me, it was not what people wanted to hear, also something that was if you spoke about old vineyards and old sangivazis, and people was giving it out of attention. So you you said you had some doors slammed in your faces. So on the one hand, you're saying that people are were getting a little bit bored with merlot and cabinet but on the other hand, people will be a bit resistant to indigenous varieties. How did you bridge that gap? Well, it's more, though, when you do something, like, extreme, like I did, looking at, you know, pricings and really going, sky high. I mean, you always find people that are or the love you or they hate you. So it's more, you know, a personal thing with me than rather than the San Jose or Marlure or whatever it is. It's kind of the attitude, but then I'm also very sensible. So when I started, I mean, the whole day was always like, oh, hey, I spoke fantastic wine. I don't know, but this is the wine. We said, why are we hated the wine? I mean, in one day, you could go, your mood could go up and down ten times, you know, by people loving you or hating you. But isn't that a little bit the Bohemian way though? Some some people either like you are or they hate your art, and it's the same with wine as such a personal thing. Yeah. Probably not. You said you were sensible. You I think what you meant is you're you're very sensitive. But being sensitive, does that not help you get in tune with your vineyard in tune with your vines and tune with your plants and natural cycles? Does that that the great benefit that you think that you have in terms of the quality you're achieving your wine that you are so in touch with nature? I mean, it's definitely. I mean, if you if you have, in a, in an idea, you know, and it's, I mean, you need to you need to see it first, and then when you see it, you try to perceive it. So, definitely, it's important. I mean, it's a crucial thing in my whole thing because otherwise, I mean, cannot just say, okay, I'm, I mean, I'm doing an expensive one. I mean, people that's not interesting, but you need to do something special, and then people are gonna think that that's interesting. I mean So what you've been doing is searching out native grape varieties like, and Sonica and Vermantino, Trebiano Moscata for white, canaiolo Cororino Sanjayvezi for red. What makes those grapes special and what makes them special when they're grown and made by you. Is it just about old vines or is it about where the where the grapes are? No. It's a combination. I mean, the first of all, I mean, you need to as I told you, you need to see what you have in front of yourself. So, I mean, Vineyard is large, though, and there are, I mean, if you if you really look at the vineyard in a in a careful way, you see that there are many different things happening within your vineyard. And if you manage to capture this difference as you can actually bring, I mean, within one hectare of vines, we can do ten different wines. Because you are looking at your vineyards and you know exactly what your grades can give you and which kind of wines are actually benefiting from this kind of characters. So it is the grape variety. Obviously, it is fantastic I mean, I think it's very much about how you how you actually act and how you work because it's, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a man work. It's a transformation of something of the of the nature. It's fantastic, but you need to you need to see it. I like to make a great Sanjay, but, I mean, it's not the only hands I mean, you couldn't breed merlot's, great, California. As long as you're doing your own fantastic job, it's good. So when you say a vineyard, you can make six different ones from one vineyard, are you, are you saying there that you sort of break the vineyard up? Maybe the lower slope is gonna give you different quality to grapes, plant higher up the slope or facing a different aspect to the sun. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Especially the soil different. The soil in Tuscany is always very there is a lot of variation in the soil. In the same vineyard, you have different kind of soils and different kinds of plants that give you with different fruits. So with one wine, you would think maybe this is could be potentially wine that can go in Pestamat. This one could go in this sparkling wine. I mean, everything can get the best out of it. So tell me a little bit about the names of your wines. As you you mentioned a couple there, you got some very idiosyncratic names for your wines like Tester Matt. That means a crazy head. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Is that was that did you name that after your yourself? Well, I I when I started the project, I mean, I believed a lot in quality all around. You know, so it means the, everything must be done in the right way. And it took me, like, nearly two years to find the name. I mean, I had I had already made the wine and I already sold the wine and then still find the name it was really hard because, I mean, when you start with something like this, it's not I mean, you can't this is, it's something that is really important. It's you, it's yourself, it's your life choice, it's everything. So you need to find something that is really representing something for you somehow. And it took me nearly two years to find the name of the wine. And then suddenly, I was in the wine bar, and I was writing I've been writing millions of names, but I mean, suddenly, I wrote it. Wow. That's it. Estemata. Estemata. And it's a very strong name. You know, it's a very statement kind of thing. I've always been fascinated by these kind of things. And before I was doing winemaking, I opened a a flower decoration company. It was called crazy flowers. So it's following, you know, this kind of theme, you know, and, one of the one they were really fascinating me when I started, as a name was they have this, Cadelpata, which is a brunel at all somewhere in, Muta Chiro. So it's, kind of fascinating about this kind of would you describe yourself as a perfectionist or as a pragmatist or a mix of both? Well, I would describe myself more as an impressionist. Yeah. When I when I get into the detail, oh, I go really down. No. I I I really deep. Deep. But then when I let I move myself somewhere, it's not, you know, move myself around. Do you, do you work to lunar cycles? Are you you someone that's sort of influenced by the moon or not a bit? But not so much. I mean, so much in the direction. I mean, we do everything organic because we work to do our part of doing it clean. Now, a word, trying to be nice. So we do everything organic, but, I mean, I'm not so I mean, especially when you do the ball thing, we try to be careful with this kind of thing, but we are not one hundred percent fanatic about it. Think your way of working is catching on now in Tuscany? There are a lot of, smaller winemakers now doing working sort of naturally organic new bio dynamically creating some fantastic wines. Do you see yourself as not saying leading a revolution, but as playing a part in that revolution or evolution? Well, I keep myself a lot in some way, by myself in this thing here. I mean, I don't do it as a I don't do it as a marketing idea. I don't want my norm. I mean, I just do it for doing my part, you know, in being clean. I mean, this is kind of the goal. Then I think quality, you achieve it in the I mean, the wine the quality of the wines was there also before I became organic. I mean, it's more the quality. You would do it by, again, by looking at the grapes, you know, and we do very little green harvest. I mean, practically three zero green harvest or we tend to do five percent, you know, just a sanitary green harvest. We don't use cultivated yeast. We don't use temperature control during fermentation. We don't use bleed practically zero new oak. That's a very natural style of winemaking. Well, more than natural is to preserve as much as I can, the value that I have in the vineyard. So everything that you do interacts put sulfides, it put down the flavors. You do New York, you cut down the power fields. You do cultivated needs, it changes things. It makes it more, you know, structure, but less, mineral, and everything that you do interacts, I mean, you do green harvests, you do more muscular wines, but you kind of uniform yourself, you know. So everything you do, it's done for quality. It's not for health. It's for quality, which then becomes health, you know, because it's quality of me. A smile is is housed, you know. So that's your pragmatic side, with your, artistic side. Maybe this is great to talk to you. Fascinating, to hear your views on how to sort of grow wine naturally within a very pragmatic way. And I hope see you in Tuscany. Thank you. You're welcome to catch your time here. This episode has been brought to you by Wine To Digital, the home of Italian wine podcast. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.