Ep. 122 Monty Waldin interviews Paolo Bartoloni (Le Cimate) | Discover Italian Regions: Umbria

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast at Me Moti Walden. My guest today is Paulo Bartoloni, who is the owner of Lechimate and Lechimate is a winery in the Montefalc region of umbria in central Italyie Powder. Welcome. Thank you. I'm pretty happy to stay here with you and to describe my winery and my job. You gotta give you three words. Just give us good in three words and we can finish the interview. Yeah. No. No. No. We start about the name, the name of Lichimante because it's very strange for the foreign people because it can mean the climate. Some people confuse with the the climate, while it's not. Lichimati mean the top of the hill because we are situated on the top as in this beautiful hill near Montefalco. The property come from the Vatican and City. Really? Yeah. My grandfather bought Land in nineteen ninety two. Twenty eight hectares come from church. And then, become private property in ninety two, of course. And, in this period, my grandfather, start to planted the the vineyard, eleven hectares, and we grow up, grow up a little bit per year, and now we, we have twenty three hectares in seventeen production and six very new, just planted in March. And what was your what was your grandfather called? Paulo. Mhmm. Bartolone. And your dad? Janney. Janney Paulo. Okay. Okay. Alright. We could talk about how You could talk about the church. So really, it was church land, your your your vineyard. Yeah. Yeah. Was it well maintained? A little piece of of land, it was called the Santa Clara. Santa Clara is the saint of the Monte Okay. So we have the separation in our land. We are very happy. If you got one of the highest vineyards here then. How high is that? Four hundred meters. Montefalco, four forty meters. Montefalco town. So I am one of a of a top hill around here because in our land, we have also the mountain. My soil is clay, clay, and, so we can preserve the water, water because we cannot irrigation. We cannot help in our area for the legislation, mister Quintino grape. So, if we have the clay soil, we can, more water during the the summer. How easy is Sacramento to grow? Is it easy in the vineyard? Is it very vigorous? Is it not too much? Much. Not too much because we have a seven tons per hectare normally. Would you reduce the yield of pruning, or is it just natural? In some vintages? Yes. Not vseer because vseer and made by nature. We were frost and the dry summer, we lose forty, forty five percent of our product. Sanrentino, normally seven tons per hectare, VCR four. When we say this year, we're talking about two thousand and seventeen. Seventeen, was imaging about, the power, the sweetie of ten in. So it's quite right. The ten is quite right. Yes. Absolutely. With the fifteen, with the twelve is one of the most rounded ten in. So it's all hot vinciers, twelve fifty eighteen and seventeen. While the other sweet veggies is quite a bit different with a more difficult amount, too much water. So what about wine making? When you get your Segrentino grapes into the winery, obviously it's a very tenic or can be very tenic. Great variety. What are you doing in the winery to soften those tenants? I build my winery in two thousand eleven. So we start with the grape in nineteen ninety two. But we build the new winery in two thousand eleven. So we are one of the most modern. So we can help more of a white wine with the technology, with the cold system, touch screen, white for the red, we must use a best best oak in the market. We need to respect the soil, the plant, the harvest. We use, twenty ploys and pick, everything, and pick white and red. So which white grape variety are you talking about? Criquetteos, Palatino. No. Treviano's Palatino. Uh-huh. Not Grquetteo because I I was born in two thousand eleven with a new brand new winery. So I considered that inumbria, there are two hundred and and thirty five producers of Grequito. So Why? Why? Why? Exactly. So I start to produce immediately one Verintino in the first producer Verintino in Montefalco. Then, I choose to put two different grape, like, vioneres chardonnay, to produce a more drinkable wine. I consider is, an entry level wine, and then, try to be honest with you. I believe a lot in in this grape. My grandfather believe a lot. I I would like to suspend another words about my grandfather, but he has been, the president of the cooperative, he's for twenty four years. And my grandfather has been the president of this cooperative, and, he know very well about this Trentino, Trebiano Spolitino. And so we invest, the time and money in this new grape, Trebiano Spolitino. I produce two different, kind of product, one in a classic, so ninety percent in a steel and just a little ten percent, by wood, by hook. The new one, the reserve, the Provianosporietino superior reserve, the cavalier Bartoloni, my grandfather, two thousand fifteen, after three years, we impute on the market, twelve months in a earlier hook and twelve months in a bottle. And now is available from the market. Few few products, few bottles. Did you come for us to drive? No. Unfortunately, no. Ninety five years, how old in twenty fifteen. And you're dead? And that is a like button. My dad, I'm another company. Is he happy with what you're doing? Yes. Does he like drinking your wines? Hey, he might not do. He made it off. Oh, no. I'm trying, to drink some bottle, when I am at home, to drink some sicilies, some veneto, my grandfather. No. I want mine product, my wine. So what about the market? I mean, obviously, you you actually, your family connections with the SPolitino, for example, great. You know, obviously for you, that's such a big thing. How receptive are people in the market when you travel around the world as you do, presenting this white wine that probably many people have never ever heard of. It's a very local it's a local Raven number. It's a particular part of Umbri, and you're turning it up in Spolitina, like, what on earth are you trying to sell us? I am, agree with you. The problem is the name. Trebiano in Italy is famous for a bad wine. It's a dirty word. Yeah. So you go into the market with Espolitino. I think that's a great name. Anyway, you go into the market and how easy is it for you to sell? Now, after four or five years that I produced Treviano's Pollitino, honestly, now now in the six in in seventeen, and now in the New Years. I have a beholder from, Hong Kong, from Miami, from, Holland, and before zero. Is that just just to be cynical? Is that just because they want, you know, everybody knows Chardon. Everyone's bored of Chardonnay, so when you're all like, we have a white wine with a name. Nobody's ever heard of. Even if it tastes like shit, we're gonna oh, spot it, Dino. It's their new Chardonnay. Always or they're saying, actually, no, this is really good. When they'd be or one band porter, taste the Trebiano's Palatino, change immediately the thinking about this wine. Now, what are the aromas? What do we smell a glass of spaghetti at Trebiano's Palatino? Beach, little bit of apricot, So yellow fruit. Yellow fruit with, in a biminerality. The acidity is very high at seven point, per liter. The final, you can smell the helmod. And now today, tomorrow, today, evening, we taste with another journalist, the thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, thirteen, it's amazing. When the wine age is a little bit in bottle, how do the flavors change? Do you see how these peachy flavors when it's a very fresh young wine. After a few years in bottles, how does the peach what does the pea does the peach still there? Or does it change to something? More battery. More battery like for riesling the other carburets. Very thing. It's very famous, you know, for the, for the hinging. Trevula's got is got more body than reasoning there, doesn't it? More body. It's got more. Yes. More more flesh. No. No. Thirteen point five fourteen alcohol. Standard the percentage of a, of alcohol. So I have more shoulder, more structure, yellow, or each. Fruite. What's a good food for the tourbillon's quality, you know? Depends to be vintage, but we prefer in umbria to pay it with no seafood, but mushroom truffles pasta and truffles. So do you have, like, when you say mushrooms, just mushrooms in, in a pan or mushrooms with pasta? Both, both mushroom or mushrooms with meat and pasta? Absolutely. But also mushroom really it. So now the young people speak about twenty, twenty five years would like to drink the white wine, before the dinner. So, he's good also for aperitif. And what about your what about your reds? What about your Sacramento? Now, it's available of the twelve. The twelve, is very round approachable. Well, because it was a warm vintage. A warm vintage. It was turned into a riot. Yes. Absolutely. Today, during the vertical testing, the nine is still young. That's another whole of interest. The ten, the ten, it's same. Like the twelve, more young, it's ready. When you're studying Sacramento, is it a difficult wine to sell, or have you spent years, you know, cultivating a a market where people understand what when they buy a bottle of Seguarantino, whether whether sending one on, say, in a restaurant, they know exactly what Seguarantino is, and what food it should go with. It was, and it is quite difficult to sell Miss Argentina, because somebody, believe but this is a undrinkable wine, too much standing. No. Now we are able together with the know how, with the timing, timing of the harvest. So when you talk about with the knowhow, what sort of technology or data are you working to to decide when to pick Sacramento at the time when it will give you the softest tannins and the smoothest wine. What are you doing? But we must wait, not three or four years before to sail, like the legislation, say it does, but more. Five or six is necessary. I built in the market now, the twelve. So after six years. And then, they know how, mean, the timing, the timing of everything. The chemical analysis, of the grape, and, in the winery. So we check and control each day, phenolic, CD, everything. We have it called fermentation. We follow fermentation every day. So then, they we need to use the good hook, not the, third for the uses. So we need to invest this scraper. Do you think you should use more new oak rather than older wood? Is that because the new oak has more air in it, more that there's more chance that the tenant, it will soften the tenants. That older oak is gonna have less of effect and effect softening the tenants, polymerizing the tenants, and the new oak, you know, making those jagged, the tenants join up and make smoother chains that taste smoother in the mouth. I use four different barrels. Mhmm. Austria, French, American, and Italy with four different sides. Two hundred twenty five liters, seven hundred liters, one thousand liters, and two thousand five hundred liters. So I have not four, but eight deep product from one vintages. So now in my one area, you can find a fifteen in four different barrels and four different sizes. I have, eight different tasting. And the the beauty for our job is that to produce every year, different wines. We can help with the hook. Okay. But which ones are working best for you? Is it the largest size ones or the smaller size ones? Is it the the the origin of the oak, the French versus the American? The American give a bit more of a rough? Yes. More vanilla, more chocolate. But for this reason, I have only a few few barons, but from America, maybe ten. And so with this more varietal of, hook, we can produce a different, style. The style is the same during the year, but we can follow the the vintages and the weather. I'm trying to do something different from the other's producer. We are young. Still young. We need to have some new idea, concept of style, new business of marketing. What would your marketing idea for Sacramento V? The world's most time press? I'm very I'm very poor because I'm not famous in the world. You will be if you come up with an idea on the cars and it works. I hope that you can buy some bottles. We invest in the marketing, like, first of all, in the fair. So we need to go in the Italy, provide, and then we need to move. So the next Tuesday, I I will go in a New York City and in Florida. And then, in Washington, DC to promote our wine with a wine dinner, with a in the wine shop or in the restaurant. So when you're doing like wine dinners, you're dinner's array. But you must do lots of these dinners. When you go for these dinners, what food do you think is gonna work best with your Sacramento, if you're in America, for example? Is it just a classic huge steak? Can be good. But, Balamba. Balamba. Why why is lamb? Because it's sweet to tasting? You like lamb, don't you use mine? And when you said lamb, you didn't say that it's a beef. Are you able to cook Balamba? It's not easy? Not easy. Yeah. Machure it with, vanegardo the meat. Depends somebody like the the wild boar stew wild boar is perfect with the Valentino. But in, it's not common in New York. New York. In Tokyo. The lamba is more common. What about what about for vegetarians? I mean, everyone or most people that I've spoken to when we talk about Sacramento, they're always talk about dishes that go with it in the main, will have some meat component. Which dish would match second Athena that is vegetarian. I mean, not a good chef, but, improvise. The most simple vegetables that we eat is the spinach garlic and the pepper. Chilipepper, garlic, and spinach. And, this bitter final that can be good with the Valentino. That sounds interesting. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. A lot of client in, in restaurant, order beef and spinach or wild herbs can be absolutely good with, red wine, like the seventeen. It's, bitter vegetable. What about just a a bowl of pasta that isn't with a meat sauce on it? Just a bowl of pasta, either with lalie olio, pepperonians. With a bit of garlic and oil and, and chili pepper. With the seventy no? Yeah. Matriciana is better. Okay. That's not quite vegetarian. That's got, pancetta, pancetta, and, tomato. Also, the carbon Carbonara for the bacon. So we can use the saffrona and the zucchini. Over about eggplant, aubergine, like aubergine, but with smaller oil on top with maybe with a garlic, some herbs. Yeah. You need to use real olive oil. Your olive oil. Yeah. I have twenty six hectares of olive trees. Is is the olive oil from where where in Humbre is it is it more spicy than other areas? What's the what's the difference between an olive oil from Bumbre compared to from, say, Legurya, which is famous to sort of all and one from Tuscany or Sesame. One of the differences in Pullia. Pullia maybe is the the stronger. Yeah. I see. In Umbria is quite a bit because we have the the our indigenous varietal morayolo morayolo in the umbria, Coratina in Poria, and this is the two most polyphenols, Alex grape, in the world. So does that make them that quote's the healthiest because they have these polyphenols? Yeah. The producers of olive oil produce a little niche of a mona yolo, but the most common product is the blend. Mona yolo, lechino, in front of you. What does the buriolo give? Is it very spicy or? Yes. Picy, but can be good with the vegetable with the salad, with the, steak morayola and tour is better. So what about just Bruce? If you just had a glass of Sacramento, I don't have a glass of red wine sunda just without a blue skechers, a bit of toasted bread with some olive oil on possibly a tiny bit of garlic. Is Sacramento good for that? You add the You just say yes. Just say You'll say all these yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's good. Okay. There's anything but, you know, the Sagrantina with a huge great steak. You know, that's what everyone says is that our stamina's steak, steak, steak, steak, No. No. Only steak. Oh, no. I tell you, with a stew lamb, well, what? That's too that's too vegetarian. That was it. Yes. Absolutely. Don't know. Without garlic. Yeah. Okay. Just oil. Yeah. Just oil. Oil. Oil and salt. Bumbrian oil and a bit of salt. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? For simple. Go to taste. Why not, grill it vegetables on the fire? Not zucchini. But, mushroom mushrooms. Yeah. What kind of what are the mushrooms you get? Obviously, umbras is quite the green heart of Italy. So it's it's got wonderful forests. So it does get rainfall. What are the mushrooms like that come from the forest? What kind of mushrooms do you get? Do you get? Do you get? Do you get? Do you get? Do you get? Do you get very small ones? Right. They're the classic porcini? But also the nice, mani, manini, like, the hand, like the hand on the fire, become black, black with olive oil and salt. It's fantastic. With this bitter, final bitter, smell. It's fantastic with the Sanantino. Yeah. Okay. So you're at, Le Chimato, what is your overall production? Eighty thousand bottle. In everything Yes. To be with the Sanarantino. Yeah. To you as a pledge, a star. Yeah. You make a white segment. We produce Vierosier, Sanrentino, from seventeen hundred percent. And we harvest one month before the classic harvest, in October. So we started fifteen September, and we put in the chiller tube to decrease the temperature and the two hours in the press machine. So it's very, very lightly pink. Light pink. Yes. And, And do you ferment that dry? Is it dry? It's dry, but depend, depend on the, the six in now is available in the market. It's fantastic for aperitivo. It's very drinkable. Thirteen alcohol. So no fifteen, like for bread. It's very approachable for, to stop the dishes. Does it does it taste tannic I know that's a stupid question, but but you obviously got a very tannic grape and the sensation is that anything that has the word Sacramento anywhere near it will taste tannic and and and and tough. Is the what is the rosé? Is it very refreshing? A easy fruit. With two harvests on the skin. Yes. Yes. It's very, very simple. We have a less than enough. You can drink, with the ingredient fish or to start, appetizer. It's very nice. Sixteen. What is what does it smell of, though, the rose? It often rotates don't have a lot of smell. Strawberry, cherry, red fluid, absolutely, but, more strawberry and cherry. Yeah. Okay. So, basically, late Chilmatte, so you've, there was a religious site. Yeah. Church side. And now we're talking about Jose. We don't have the church. Unfortunately, in the winery. That's okay. That's good. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the passito. How do you make your passito? My passito, I believe is very versatile. You can start with, some cheese, and you can, drink at the hand of the meal. So how sweet is the the the spasito? My pacito have a fourteen point five alcohol. One hundred and five grams per liter sugar, nice acidity. So the the combination between acidity, alcohol, and ten in, I believe it's good. Is that very popular in Florida that one? Not very popular, but prefer maybe the white version, like Pasito in our one r. It's very few. We produce my one r. We produce one thousand three hundred bottles. Maybe altogether, forty thousand bottles altogether. What would you drink the passita with you personally? At the end of the meal. I prefer at the end, like, in French with cheese. So at the end of the meal, at the end of the meal with the cheese or with the seventy percent, dark chocolate. Really? From Puduja. My not necessary. Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course, the perugina seventy, seventy five percent of the chocolate. Okay. Okay. Thanks very much for sending us today about Leccimate, a winery in Humbre with a very long history, a religious history. And now you are an evangelist for Argentina of Ohio and all over the world. Nice to see you. Thank you very much, Monte. Thank you. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.