Ep. 87 Monty Waldin interviews Antonio Michael Zaccheo (Carpineto 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. Today's guest is Antonio Mikael Zakeo, and Antonio's family owns the carpinetta winery in ago. There were two families in fact. That's right. So back in nineteen sixty seven, there were two families that started the carpineto in Duke, a little hamlet, just on the other side of the hill of, grave and Canty. And these families are the second family, and the original founder was Jankalo Sakat. So Sakat is s a c c h e t. Exactly. And it's a name from, the province of, Beluno. So it's a a Vanitor origin. And, and then the other family is Zakeo, which is my family, and my father was actually born in body. Empulia. Inpulia. So it's interesting that, wine brought together two guys from the two extremities of Italy met in the middle to make a ago. So what made, so why did they decide to move to Kianti classical to create this business in Kianti classical? Well, probably a good, a good deal of insanity because, back then, you know, Kianti as a category was a good category. But it was, you know, not far from a a table wine, back then. So just look at basic, you made a basic wine. A basic wine and everyday wine produced also in large quantities and often produced in the was, you know, straw covered the bottles called Fiasco. Mhmm. And the two young whippersnappers at that time, they were in their early twenties, they said, ah, Fiasco. Is that the description of, the bottle? It's elf? Or is it that's a description of the content? Because, certainly, the wine was, not an exciting wine back then. And so, you know, my father comes from, a winemaking background, the same with John Carlos. And so they said, hey, I think we can do better than candle holder wine here. We can do a good job. Cancel holder one. Yeah. That's a good one. That's a good one. Because, you know, the fiasco, and all the Italian restaurants around the world, you would this beautiful straw covered bottle with a nice candle in it. And that was, that was the the second life of the bottle. So what did they do to change? Was it about branding? Was it about vineyard work and wine making? It was both. It was winemaking certainly, but, also, also, you know, hard work in the vineyards because, back then, you know, those, I remember as a kid walking around the vineyards and seeing huge basketballs of fruit hanging from the wire. You know, kilos and kilos and kilos of fruit per plant. And of course, you know, we were harvesting much later than, too, also because, well, climate has changed somewhat, but, certainly, also because, you know, the the vine just struggled to to ripen you know, five, seven kilos of fruit per vine. Now, you know, we are, in in some of our vineyards in Binon Abbey, for example, we are balancing down to one kilo of fruit per vine. We're one bottle per vine. We're in tuscany to the Copinato business now have vineyards apart from Canticlassico. We actually have grown to run about five hundred hectares of sustainably farmed land. And, of course, from Canticlassico, we assume thereafter acquired another state on the other side of the hill in Gabille, which is just in the Alta Valdarno appalachian. That's just north of the canticle, north east, isn't it? Yeah. It would be, yeah, it would be state basically, state east, yeah, state east just on the other side of the hill. And, also, very good area. That's where we, have an olive grove, like, you know, every winery has several olive groves, woods, and then that's where we started experimenting with super tuscans in, in the seventies. So for us, that was a very important piece of land. So outside of tuscany, Sorry. You got other vineyards in Tuscany. So you mentioned, is it Bruno and Vignonorbi? Yeah. That's exactly right. Then we have one in Bernelo. We have one in Vironobile and one in Marima. Right. Okay. So, Marema is on the Tuscan coast. So, in Bruno, where are your vines? So our our vines in Montocino are if you look directly west towards the towards the sea coast, we are as the crow flies at the same height as, montalcino at about two kilometers. So one and a half miles. Fine. Okay. And, at the same height, so five hundred meters in elevation surrounded by woods. We have these ten hectares of, brunello, which are actually north facing. So we are in a very cool microclimate making essentially a mountain brunello, which is a new category. So how are how high are you in, Cantiglassico? In Cantiglassico, we are in, in DOTA, and that's a little over three hundred meters. Okay. We are lower, there. Although we are towards the bottom of Valley. And so, actually, we have a very good temperature excursions there. Okay. Day night temperature. What about in the Marima? Where are you in the Marima? In Marima, we are near the little town of Gavoran. Okay. I'm in Gavoran. That's quite a hot spot, isn't it for It's a good spot. Entreprene or investment winery building. Yeah. It's a good spot. I mean, it's very fertile soil. It is, it has a very long growing season, and the influence of the of the ocean makes it for a very nice ripe, beautiful, reds and beautiful, you know, Verintino. That's another great up and coming, I think, variety though. So where are you? How far are you from the coast there in Gabaranga? We are ten kilometers as the crow flies. Right. So not too but not too far away. Right. And we're right behind the right behind the m a little ridge, you know. So, you know, we are basically at sea level, and this ridge is maybe a hundred and fifty meters. So we're a little bit protected, but we still feel the influence, without getting the humidity. Okay. From the So that's, the Tuscon vineyard. What about outside Tuscony? Do you own any vineyards? No. We are and that's not even in the plan because we are although where our DNA is not Tuscon, we have, certainly fallen in love with Sandra. That's our passion. It ranges it. It's it moves towards obsession. What about it? What about being a not billy as well? Do you have any vineyards there? Yeah. So I'm doing not billy. Actually, it's our largest vineyard holding. So the state is one hundred and eighty six hectares, of which, about a hundred are planted, two vineyards. What's it called? The state? It's called the carpineto. So all of our the one thing about carpineto is that every one of our states, so every one of our thirty wines that we make and olive oil are called carpineto. Keep keeps it simple. Keeps it simple. Because, you know, brand building is such a complex exercise now nowadays, and and we know that there are so many, wine brands today. So we just keep one brand for everything. It makes it a little difficult for the guides sometimes because they don't know where to put us. They're put us in a different category. Just tuscany. Okay. That's our special. Okay. In in, you know, not really wanted to say. On that estate, we have eighty hectares, dry farmed, hillside vineyards, slanted to very high density, up to eight thousand six hundred and thirty vines per hectare. And the contiguous. It is the, biggest contiguous high density vineyard in Italy, eighty hectares. So that must have cost an awful lot of money to plant, eight thousand vines per hectare. It's, it's taken us twenty years towards a and we're still not done. We, you know, we we would have had more, but we don't have, we don't have the planting rights. You know, in Europe, we have these kind of headaches nowadays planting rights. So what's the difference in terms of terroir and ripening between, say, Classico, Vina Noble, which is a little bit further inland, and then Montalcino, which is always said to be a little bit warmer. Yes. So, for us, actually, twenty Glasgow is we are at three hundred meters. It's at Galesto soil. So, you know, we're or low cropping vines. We will ripen, you know, the central vessel there actually ripens, almost about at the same time as win or not bill. Even though it is warmer, but it is deeper so soil all, clay. And so, you know, fresher soil has got a little more power in in in in in in. And so, actually, we are harvesting more or less at the same time because Montalchino, our state is a mountain state. Well, you know, we harvest that one last. It is, on average, Montalcino is, warmer, perhaps if you're on the lower edges of, the operation, but us being probably the highest vineyard in the in the area. Well, we are, one of the last ones, plus, being, a northerly facing Yeah. We're harvesting that one last. So that will be what, a couple of weeks later than the Vina Noble in Canti Vines. Yeah. Yeah. I would say I would say on average. Yeah. And the Marima is the first area to ride. With the Valentino, yeah, it comes first then we'll have a little merlot there, then that also is a precocious, variety that comes, that comes first. But in Miranabe, we also have other whites like Chardonnay and sovignon that also come relatively quickly. And then we have cricket and that's the last white wine that we harvest. Also known as Polchinkulo. Yeah. Exactly. Do you want to explain the name? Just for anybody that isn't there? Yeah. Polchinkulo is, well, I don't know if you can say that often. Yes. It's okay. We have a very grown up audience here. Well, it's actually fleas. You know, you know. Where though? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In your back end. In your art, flee in your ass. Okay. That's the name. Is it and why why is it called? Why is it called? Why is it called that? I'm like having a flee in your ass because? Well, because it has little dots Right? And, A little black dot on the bottom of the area. Exactly. But, it's not a very inspiring, name if you translate it like that. The the grape is actually quite wonderful. Yeah. For sure. Yes. Now I'll ask you one last question about, globe markets. What are the trends that you see given you've got a large palette of wines to sell, particularly red wines? How do you see things moving in the future for Italian wine? In general, you're red wines in particular? Well, for us, we're seeing, actually, after much experimentation and that the education of, say, the the world consumer in improving, we're seeing a return to the classics. So, you know, for us, anti classic we don't know if there is a demand coming back to that because, you know, it's been fun experimenting with all the wines with all the creative labels and creative closures and everything so one and blends and this and that and the other. So you're talking about super tuscans? This is a border tuscan hybrid. There's a demand for that still, but I'm talking about, you know, the original tuscan wines, like Yantiglasio I don't know. Those wines are coming back into demand because as the consumer experiments around the world, you know, eventually they wanna taste what, a classic wine tastes like. So they wanna try a good bordeaux. They wanna try a good burgundy. They wanna try. They don't wanna drink just sparkling wine. They wanna have a champagne. They don't wanna drink riesling. They want something, you know, from, the, or, you know, the original. They wanna try the original. And so we're seeing that and strengthening. And that, of course, plays to our hand because, you know, in Tuscany, we are very traditional, sometimes even too much. But if you restyle the wines a bit to make them a little bit softer, that has been a trend recently, hasn't it in red wines. Some of the, you know, Tuscan reds were often seen as being a little bit austere, taking taking their time to come round, and people often showed less patience for the county wines they did for say Bordeaux, maybe because of the more famous name, if you know, but now we use what about wine styling? No. The success of Carpeneto has always been, you know, having already from the get go. So sort of walking the line between classic and modern, you know, without being too modern to ripe too okay. So always walking that fine line. So and how do you do that? You do that by having really good fruit. If you deliver good fruit, good ripe fruit to the winery well, then you're making good wine, you know, in a ripe, you know, you're not gonna having the austere edges. You're not having the bitter tendons. You're not having the acidity that, you know, the big basketball of fruit that we talked about earlier. That's a great one. Pete basketballs are free. I've known that one before. Well, that's that's how it was back then, you know. And, and, you know, as now, now we're living one philosopher's showed. We're doing, you know, wild stuff compared to how things were fifty years ago. Okay. Antonio Mikhail. Thanks very much. I've just seen the junior on the bottom of your business card. Yeah. I guess that is right. So let me just I'm not gonna do the junior because we didn't do that at the beginning. So the junior anyways. That's only the that's not on my passport. Okay. It's just a different shade from my father who's also Antonio Zakeo. Okay. But what what was his middle name then? Mario. Right. Okay. And my son guess what his name is. It's gonna be called Antonio Matteo. Is that right? No. Antonio. Oh, close Antonio Robert. It's okay. Okay. We got rid of the ms. Okay. My real name is Matthew, actually. So Mato. Oh, very good. Yeah. So I just wanna say thanks to Antonio Merco Junior from the carpinito win your second generation. Yeah? Second generation. Yes. I wish you and your family every success. Well, both families, I should say, I can't pin it every success in the future. And I hope, we can touch base again in the future. You and me, and talk a bit more about Tus and wine. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.