Ep. 146 Monty Waldin interviews Roberto Di Filippo (Di Filippo Winery) | Discover Italian Regions: Umbria

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine for Casa doing Montewooden. My guest today is Roberto Difilippo from the diffilippo winery in Canada inumbria in Central Italy. Welcome Roberto. Oh, Thank you. I'm extraordinarily excited to have you here today. Me too. And hopefully, during the interview, we'll find out why I am so excited. So just give me a little bit of family history. You run the winery with your sister? Yeah. It's me and my sister, and we, my family started almost fifty years ago. Yeah. It's me. My sisters are, started later. And her name is Elena. No problem, Alan is my wife. Yes. And my my sister. Sorry. And, anyway, we started in the seventies. Early seventies plant in the first vineyard, and I started to work into the winery in the eighty six. So that was your father, your parents. Was it your dad or your mom who started the winery? Yeah. What was his your your dad called? Italo. Italo. Yeah. Italy man, mama, then Pina, and gisette, Pina. Joseph Pina. Okay. And when did you take over with your sister? I started working in eighty six, and we started the society in Myanmar in the two thousand two. So, obviously, you're you are an organic winery and we're gonna come on to how you actually work today. Father, was he organic or was he conventional? No. He was conventional. I decided to start in the nineteen ninety four. So few years after I started to to run into into the winery. Why why did you get organic then? Oh, we are the time, it was mainly for three reasons. First at all, because we are farmer, and we are mainly in touch with the chemicals. It was because oral health problems. Secondly, because we we are a smooth winery, and so we want to give some special product to the customers to pay more attention to those. So because we are in, in a town, which is strangely a nine percent touch of culture, probably because we have a big color, a firm effect factories and so the circuit. Okay. We have to do something. And, yeah, we have this factory in my in my town, in my village. And what was it making? Making colors for ceramics. Color for with a lot of, you know, So we we have these problems. Anyway, so when you see around a few, a lot of these problems, have problems, you say, okay, we have to do something. This is an active thing to do. You went organic in around about nineteen ninety four. And how was your organic farming changed since then, because you're doing a couple of things that are very different and unusual. Yeah. I will say in the beginning, you you know, the main rule is very easy because you you can just use organic stuffs. I used forbidden chemicals and everything. I've seen in the way in the way even the european rules, they have changed it. They are they have limited the use of copper for instance. And, to copper copper is used to treat a disease called peron hospital or down immunology. Yeah. Mhmm. So it's the only way to fight against the furnace or the pulp to me that's okay. After years, we also started to introduce the biodynamic farming, which it means to use a lot of useful compost on the on the field, on the own leaves. Also, we had a big problem with the soil compacting because this kind of agriculture, we use a lot of the tractors. So, we have a clay cut out of soil. So we decided to use also all the system which avoids the use of the track tors to respect much more of the soil. So we started to use the draft sources into the soil, to the winery, and also to clean the vineyard that we introduced in the, the geys. Just to about the horses first. Mhmm. How many horses do you have at the moment? Oh, actually nine. Nine horses. How many hectares of vineyards do you have? Oh, we have thirty hectares. So that's about seventy acres, roughly. Yes. So it's a lot of horses. Actually, what is a fairly small vineyard. How do you stay financially viable? Oh, let's see. What are the economics of working with a horse? If I so listen, I'm Roberto, I think you're totally crazy. Yeah. Why don't you go back to using attractive for everything? What are the economics? Oh, let's say, you're not the only one thing that we are crazy. You know, normally, we are the freaky guys in this area running organically twenty four years ago and now they with their horses. Anyway, let's say, to work with the horses, it's not just benefit on the soil. But you can also save money if you calculate everything. Just for instance, when you clean the vineyards, by the way, the plow, I've calculated to pay, roughly two hundred euro by the tractor and about less than under fifty with the horses. So how does the cap tube? When you're saying with a tractor, the calculation that you're making is the fuel. Yes. And then the the maintenance of the tractor throughout the year, so oil changes, tires. Even the people are driving the drivers also, I've calculated also the driver. So simply I have everything on my, report, annual report. So I've calculated the cost per hour. So for the collar, to be fair, so for the cost for the horses, you're calculating the food that they need. Yes. The My labor by, looking after them cleaning out stables. Yes. To clean the stable, the insurance. Yeah. That's that's everything. New shoes. They have to be every two months. Every two months, we have to change it till we have to shoot, the horses. Yes. So you were saying that it's still cheaper to work with the horse than it is with a tractor. A nice comfortable tractor with a CD player in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is what I I suppose, okay. We you can save money. By the way, let's say, with the tractor, you switch off the tractor and you can have a glass of wine off beer with your friends and, with a whole you have to take care about the horse of the whole year. So you do that just if you're a passionate about this kind of work. So I don't believe that we will have a lot of follower with the draft horses as we had with the organic farming twenty four years ago. It's a good challenge and, it works. It's a kind of progression just to say sometime the technology and the tractors are not so convenient as we But in terms of your bottom line, in terms of your economics, as far as your and also here by working with the horses, there's less compaction. Yes. Very important. We can talk about that. But still your calculations are that, you're you're actually saving money by working with the horses. What about the ethical side? You talk about ethical farming in terms of the circulation of money, money staying in the community and leaving the community. What are the numbers on that on those parameters? And why is that important to you to calculate those those parameters? Most, multi probably, you are touching the most important point when I say roughly that we pay two hundred euro per hectare to clean with the plow with the tractor and, less than under fifty, it is not just the quantity of money. It's also where this money remained. When I pay two hundred euro with tractors, probably eighty percent, they move away from the territory. When I pay one hundred fifty with the horses, probably more than fifty percent remains in the area. And that's very important because one of the problem is that, with agriculture, agriculture is becoming poorer and poorer just the other business is much more important than agriculture, so tractors, industry, and fuel, and chemicals. And just sometime only five percent remains in a farmer wallet. So we have to change something. You need a ethical political, economical, and social will to bring to leave more money in agriculture. So, basically, you're you're very much of the thing global but at local philosophy. I told you that we have also not only one or here in Italy, also one or in Romania, and our philosophy was in any way to employ the local people, even in Romania, we choose know the, industrial way to plant the vineyard. We employ the people in the area and just to keep in touch with the most population, a lot of population as possible. We do the same here in, you know, in Italy, in, inumbria. We employ local peoples. We train them. We keep the same people for years and years. It's that we have a turnover very low. So we sometimes we can lose maybe one employee on thirty every year. So it's it means that they are in a good condition. I hope they are happy. So But are they but do they do they appreciate your economics when they arrive for work? Obviously, they know they're working in an organic vineyard, which doesn't isn't being sprayed with systemics and neurotoxins, but are they just happy that, oh, listen, we work for this guy, Defhelibah. He's a bit of a crazy guy. He's a classic organic. He's got a beard. He looks a bit scruffy. We don't get we go out in the vineyard. We get paid. Go home, we go to the supermarket, we buy, we buy our dinner, or do they know that you have this philosophy, and do they appreciate that? Yeah. They they appreciate. Probably, let's say, a lot of people are working with us are on the same and crazy mentality. So, we have a crew of a freaky guys No, okay. We are that's not true. We are mainly normal people. And, let's say they they feel to be more involved involved in in agriculture and what we are doing because, we make a lot of for instance, pruning, training, and also agriculture training, and, bad dynamic training. And now we are going to mimic also draft towards training. So we learn how to drive the carriage and the the tools. So you're teaching them skills, basically. Yeah. You're giving them life skills or skills. Yeah. It's very important to make a team building and, also to to make them to feel to be more involved in, in what we are doing. For sure, it is not easy because everybody want to create their own corner. Maybe one, they they do not like the horses. Okay. Well, don't use the tractors. And, because we have a lot of animals, it's very complex. Sometimes the guests, they eat the the grapes and a social take away this about animals and it is not easy, but the or my effort is to make them to understand that we have to change something because if I follow the mainstreaming, I should fire fifty percent of my employees. So it's, but you have a huge risk as well that I mean, I know, you know, if you think about all these employees, my partners in the county does financial accounting for agricultural businesses, and everybody's terrified of having too many employees because they can't get rid of them. So that's why the the the system, obviously, labor protect which is obviously not a bad thing, but one of the reasons why I think all agriculture has become so reliant on machinery, and technology is because we've undervalued the human aspect. Yeah. This is one of the important points, and I'm for sure we are doing against them in streaming because, you know, we are investing in all these technology keys and horses, which which means to save, material resource, so, petrol or, metals not have to invest on a human resource. So it's the countries. But what's, the people are scared to employ more people. So everybody also around my territory are investing on new technology, which I love to save any minutes of labor into the vineyard. And, so this is crazy. We are just two percent of people in Europe working in agriculture in the States. We are like they are like one percent, and the result is low quality agriculture, the certifications fields, chemicals, and blah, and, health problems. I say, let's make one step back not like a hundred years ago to employ sixty percent of people in agriculture, but we can move from two percent to a four, five, six percent in order to have a better quality of food, agriculture, territory, and also safe material resource. Do you think also the physical aspect? I mean, I've worked in vineyards and, it is hard work, but at the end of them, you do feel tired at the end of the day, but you you get an incredible amount of exercise. And actually I find when I when I found when I used to come home from working in a vineyard all day long, my mind was incredibly active. If I come home from working in office, I just, you know, you want to sit flop on the sofa and put the TV on and just switch off. Is that important the physical activity of mental health or link a link between you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a there there is a connection. And, unfortunately, I do not work so much into the fields and will with the horses as a wish. But for sure when you're working physically, you take care also about your body. You're, you feel much better. You can work better. I don't know if I got your answer. That's okay. Yeah. So that's when you say a typical day. So if you wake up and you know that you gotta get the horses ready, you know, they're in the stable. So between getting them from the stable into the vineyard, how long does that take? You have to you have to Oh, it's, the management is okay. When I'm in a lucky day and I can afford to work with the horses, I wake up. I go to the horse and I pick up the horse with a launch. And, just so we're and, firstly, we brush him just to take away some ground or something. We we dress it. And, then we take about fifteen, twenty minutes by selkie because we have the sarkiclo to some time to go into the vineyard. Some other time when it is close to the vineyard, it takes only five minutes. And then we work about two hours to two and a half hours This is the the schedule in the morning and one and a half, two hours in the in the afternoon. So they work a maximum of four, five hours a day. Yeah. Depending on the kind of work. So it's you can see the horses when they are tired, suddenly you stop because when they are really tired, they are not so able to do to go strike ahead. So they start to start to go to swing. So some people would say, oh, you know, a horse would be just happy staying in it stable, you know, turning on the DVD, the TV having a bit of hay to eat and without going out and doing all this work stuff in the vineyard with you. No. No. No. No. They they prefer they prefer to move. When they are in the stable for, weeks and weeks, you can see they are nervous they need to move. And they they appreciate to work with us because we do not touch them too much. Okay? We know when to stop. So then, physically the horses they have to move. The whole worst horse is the one who stays, months and months in the sable or in the battle And, so it's very important to create this link with the horse, with the animals. Don't forget that the old is an extraordinary sensitive animal. And so they pick up your mood immediately, you'll I understand them, you have to be when you are working with the horses, you have to be in a in a good, mental and physical condition because they immediately understand if you are in a bad condition. Okay. Simply with your body language, you your, aspect and your movements. And, so it's a they are a kind of mirror. The mirror is not a mirror. It is not like a tractor. You have the mirrors in the tractor, but in another way. And, so it's, it's very important to it changed completely your mentality, your life, and, I tried to move the other guys working with the tractors in my winery. I want to make them to know the the horse labor, which is different. And, I hope that I will able to move them because now the problem is that we have the double technology, horses, and tractors because you cannot abound immediately. So we have also the double cost. So we we made a research. We have built up the tools and, we are standing boat. And, we didn't get any phones from Italy on. Did you make your own tools for the horses? Yes, we did. I'm, essentially, I'm, a winemaker analogist, but few of the people, they believe it because I'm able to also the world to to make the tools and to project and, okay, we have made them the prototypes. And now we are working with a professional, Artigiano laboratory just to build, professional tools and, but we had our ideas. I traveled it a lot in, also in the States. I was in touch with the Amish people peoples and also with the French people in France. They have a wonderful, tools for the whole system for the vineyards, probably the best. So you're saying they're going going to see the Amish in America because they with horses, around two hundred thousand AMish, I think, in America. So they have still these tools that, are tried and tested, the design of them for, but for plowing the soil for Yeah. But it's not just one plow. You have several different plows for different jobs. So you're saying that they are sort of quite, Abongeli. They're quite ahead in terms of their technology, their cloud technology. They have a wonderful technology. I've seen some amazing tools. Okay, they do not have tools for vineyards. I haven't seen because have not vineyards, so they do not drink alcohol. Okay. They say that. But some some of them, they they drink. Anyway, I've seen some wonderful plows, hybrids with, hydraulic system to to lift and, and it it was completely made by the same and they they have also big advantage because they produce not few units like in France or Italy, but they produce hundreds. So they have a lower cost and probably pay, one third or or a quarter than either your front for a tool for a tool to go with the horse. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Tell me about the geese. You you mentioned geese or permaculture. So explain why would you have geese in your vineyard? And how did that all come about? Okay. The Easter is, it is nice because all these projects was was born almost ten years ago. Okay. Eight nine, talking with a friend of mine, he's a researchers, adults, now his study is researching a lot in a agroforestry. So, chatting, we were thinking about all the system to do not comp on the soil. So to plow into the vineyard, we are using the to kill the vineyards. We are, working with the horse and then we he told me, okay, to clean, to keep clean with the with the weed. Take a look on the internet and look for, weeding with geys. You can find a lot of things about the, American people's cleaning the cotton crops with the geys or in Japan and China, they they use it that the ducks to clean the rice crops. And I started to study also how many geys you have you have to keep on the on the vineyards, which is about forty per acreage. And, forty per acre. Yes. One hundred one hundred per one hundred per one corrector. Yeah. Yes. It is very interesting because in the beginning, was just to keep clean. After that, we have discovered and also Adolfo. We discovered the agro forestry, which is all old term born in the seventies, which means to join together two kinds of crops. In the, former time, it was concerning just one orchard for instance, paired with a barley or legumes, and you have a synergies. The second crop keep clean keep clean the the whole chart or you can you can also add the nitrogen with a legumes, and you have the double production. And you can increase also forty percent total production. So, basically, the orchard is producing fruit by growing nitrogen fixing legumes between the trees. You can harvest them and eat them. Yeah. And they leave not and they suck nitrogen out of the atmosphere, put it in the soil and then the trees, you can use that nitrogen to grow there for the next crop. It's a very efficient, economical way of getting two crops from one piece of land. Yes. It's a old new technology. You have to cover this whole technology and upgrade within, modern knowledge. We have a lot of agroforestry now, nowadays it means also to join not only to crops, but also one crop and one breeding. We are using, the geys into the vineyard, but here, we have a experience also in umbria with the hands and and to the olive trees, olive plants. So what are the geese doing? Are they just running around or they actually don't anywhere? They have the best employees. No payments, you know, no unions, no unions, no pension, no pension, no pension, but okay. And, they clean, they eat the grass, they fertilize, and then we have to double production. We increase a lot, quality of the soil because we have a lot of much more than microorganisms. Yeah. It's very important. So how many how many geys per hectare? We have roughly one hundred geys. That's about forty per acre. Yeah. That's right. This is the impression of animal per hectare per surface. You can afford. If you have too much animals, then you have also the matches on the vineyards. They start eating the the leaves and the grapes. Yeah. They can, yeah, then you you can keep them away in short time periods, when you have the new sprouts, then you keep them away. And, then also when you have to, the grapes and during the moderation, and it means, in August, you have to move away. So there is also technology. It's a way to, keep clean the vineyards instead of to use the chemicals, disturbed or machineries. Yeah. And we, we, you can, we can say, we are moving also from the mechanical and chemical agriculture to the knowledge agriculture. You can keep clean with geese or so with the hands, simply you have to know how to manage it. Also, with the chemical there is a knowledge, but the knowledge is only just a few, okay, industry, which produces the chemical molecules to to clean it. So they they have the patent of, you know, know how the rest of the chemical formula is formulated. Yeah. So they have the you're saying they have the knowledge of small group of people out whereas in your type of farming, anybody that works in your vineyard will have the knowledge of or should gain the knowledge of how to work with the geys, have to work with the horses, have to look after them. You have to co they have to coordinate each other, and they have to understand and also be pensioned because, okay, when you're you have to, the geys and you have to enter with a tractor to supply the treatments, on the, the goose manager, the guest manager have to move away in the day for a couple of days that the geys, so they have to communicate. So it's, that's always a kind of, complex, interaction between the animals and the people taking care about the horses and the animals, and also the the guys using the tractors, they have to use only few rows. Only one row only two because when they new compart the soil with the tractor, it's very difficult. It's very hard to work with their horses. So the rule, the main rule, okay, where do you do you enter with their horses? It does not allow to enter with the tractor. So how do you do that? So if you have, say you have nine rows of vineyard, how many rows would only ever get the tractor and how many rows will only ever get those? It's a three for the tractors and the six for the horses. They always stay the same. So there's always so we would say one driving row. Mhmm. And then and then two non drive, two horse rows, one driving row, two horse rows. Yeah. So this means one we call them, one compacting roof, and two respecting rows. So the compacting row, each on either side of the the tractor row will have, soft soil with the horses. Yeah. Okay. So that won't talk too much. We are using we are, using a special sprayer opening with the with the wings and then a spraying tree rose at a time. So it means we are using those to technology. We do not refuse technology. Absolutely. We try to modulate technology and also new and old technologies because also using horses could be a modern technology. So we can use also the wifi just to walk on the, the gate of the geys in the morning and also to have the camera. So the the guys taking care about the, the geys, they can also control by a smartphone. I don't know what to refuse discounts and technology. We can they can save a mileage with their card instead of to move every moment with with the card into the into the stable of the geys. So we are simply to record this. Sometimes it's very cheap technology to what the the daily life. Yeah. To to minimize environmental impacts. Yeah. So, basically, you'll say you're combining the best of modern technology in terms of saving time and saving fuel and not burning energy. Yeah. And trying to keep as much money in the local community as possible. Yeah. This is the the target I kinda, I told you, this is absolutely against the mainstreaming because, you know, I make also provocation. I say, maybe I'm I'm a farmer, I'm stupid. I do not understand why you're trying to save labor. And, we are investing more and more in the material resource and we are seven billions. Only one billion is working, and maybe we have two or three billions of unemployed people on the planet. Yeah. On the planet. And we we are making wars for the petrol, for the metals, and everything. So, it means maybe we have to make this, freaky stuff back. Okay. So there's an there is definitely an ethical, there's an environmental aspect, and there's an ethical aspect. But it's really based you're saying it's based on logic. It's not based on any weird philosophy or is based absolutely on logic and and a lot of economics as well. Yeah. Actually, we are trying to keep the, how you need to lose it to keep the the feet on the ground and, yeah, to be, it's the same in English, I'm happy to hear that. Anyway, I want to feel on myself a farmer, I am not a philosopher. I said to you before, and I appreciate philosopher, a farmer like, Fukuoka or like, steiner. And, so we have to practically work daily and lose our mind. It's much easier to recover. To collect a lot of information with the internet, with the net. We have to use it also because we are making a rare kind of agriculture. So we have to keep in touch and create this a net for the few crazy farmer doing things like that and, to a change idea and the idea for for instance is to create these new tools and to put all the project on internet. So you're not you're not developing things just for you. You're saying there's no no design this plow or I'm doing this thing with my geese. I want to make an idea a kind of PDF or something like that. So anybody can download the project. Maybe they are in Australia or in South Africa. They can copy it, and the idea is to to make a kind of a Linux of the working, horse working tools. So they can download, operate, and upload with the with the other things just to modify. We are really few people doing that. So you have to we have to keep in touch, and we have a powerful tools tool like the net, and we have to use it. You're saying you're not patenting what you're doing. You're saying, listen, I'm doing this. This works this works for me. I'm sharing my knowledge. I'm giving it away for free. And you're very happy that people say, oh, yeah. The geese thing sounds interesting. I'll try that. Yeah. He says, right. Forty geese per hectare. Fifty is too many per hectare, thirty, maybe not quite enough. So you're giving it, you're giving it away for free. Maybe if you are in an, you know, longer than in a North Italy, you have a bit more rain. So you can have also more gifts. So you say, okay, in Italy, in a in a whole land, you can keep also in a north yard under fifty geese or This is what we we we have to say. And we have also to value the animals we are producing because we have a lot of benefits also in the meat on the eggs, you know, all the feeding is mainly by grass, eighty per sand. So they have much more healthy fat like the omega six. I'm just saying the quality of the goose meat is much better because they've Yeah. They've been eating green plants rather than eating, pellets. Yeah. That that's very important because, you know, you know, the modern disease like cancer, Alzheimer or a heart disease. The main reason seems to be this low quality fat like the omega six. So we have to change the how to breed animals. So aerobic exercise in the vineyard, healthy meat eat from the geese Yeah. In the vineyard. And you can eat them and a free range goose Mhmm. Is that's been eating what it normally would eat in the wild green grass Mhmm. Is gonna be a healthier dinner than goose that has never seen the sunlight. Probably it's, everything we are producing seems to be healthy and organic and biodynamic. I say just my life's looks to to be not really organic because you can imagine the multi that's really with all this project, these things is very complex. I need a good thing we need for we have a good horse trainer like Danielle and also in a passionate that guy like Marco taking care about the goose and one of the four people sold in Romania and otherwise it's impossible to manage a scanned of project. Yeah. Everybody talked about your wines, but this tour, you do make some no added soft like wines. Yeah. Yeah. We we did it. It's a new challenge for me. So I tried your there are a lot of no added soft like wines out there and don't wanna get into too many polemics, but so I won't get into any dynamics, I'd like to. I'll just spend four hours getting into polemics. But ultimately, my view on no added sulfide wines is they're they're delicious when they're made with really top quality grapes and the winemaker knows what he or she is doing. The two best no added sulfide wines I've ever had, and one of them was with you a couple of days ago. Both of them have come from horse plowed vineyards. Yeah. One of them came from the Longolo, a wine grape called Bernard Belazin from Genesia. He grew up with horses when he was a kid, and, he has a horse plow vineyard, and you are the same. I'm sure there's a link there somewhere. How do you make your no added sulfite wine? Because you don't just pick the grapes and ferment them. You'd have a real plan before you make your no added sulfite wine, and that's what tastes clean and fresh. And nobody would ever guess that there was no added sulfite wine. It was delicious. How do you make it? It's, it's very important to have, next grapes. And so they come from the, Nousified, Grequito, and the top of the Grequito wine from the, and and no actors vineyard. So they're both cut. Okay. So it's two great varieties, Trebillonos Porritino. Yeah. And so they're both come from horse, plant vineyards. This move production, it means, so they are only maybe ten thousand bottles. Totally. They they come from four yes, there is a link. It is not easy to prove because they we should make different training, in a different plot. And, so anyway, let's say my feeling is that we have much more complex soil and also wonderful quality of grapes, low production. And so we have a really powerful, grapes, and a grapes leech of aroma and complexity. And so this is very important with a for a no sulfide wine. So you you pick the grapes. So you'll say basically they have very good physiological ripeness and analytical ripeness. So you get the numbers, the sugar levels, and you get the the flavors. So you pick them by hand. You stick them in a press. Yeah. That's what we use. So we try to save any way to keep away the the grapes and the juice from the oxygen. So we use also, a tin of, carbonic gas during the repressing. Okay. And So there there you go again. That's classic. Your old fashioned goose farmed lines. You're in the medieval area, and you get the grapes in, you're using technology. A technology. Yeah. We we do. Okay. No. We do. I told you, we do not refuse technology. We we want to when we need, we use it. Okay. Then we we have the completely bad dynamic also natural cleaning, and then we use the wild yeast for the fermentation. So you press, you get the juice. So the juice goes into the tank for the white wine, and it starts fermenting Yeah. On its own with wild ambient yeast. Yeah. I hope it takes a long period, you know, because that wealthiest and also because the gorghete is very difficult to firm to be fomentated. Anyway, the main mentality for the nose of white wine is because we refused, chemical protection against mainly oxidation. We need a powerful wine. So if you have a good aroma heritage, you can keep the wine longer. And also if you lose a part of the aroma because the oxidation, you still have a pleasant wine. If you have a weak wine and you lose the aroma, you have just water and and wine is unpleasant. Okay. So you pressed it. You got the juice. It goes into tank. It ferments with wild yeast. Mhmm. And then, what do you do? How long do you leave it on its leaves? Do you just leave it on the gross leaves? The thick leaves formed by fermenters? We were used on the we leave on the ticklies as least for six months. This is very important because the the least, the quality leaves are the natural protection against the, oxidation. And also you make the wine much more complex. We use the the leaves for many, many months when we stop to use the lids for the white wine, we used the remove the lids on the on the red wines just because I told you it's another protection against the oxidation. Also, it's a way to make the wine more complex. So you recycle the lids into the red. Yeah. You were saying that for the white one, you leave it on the gross lease, but then you rack it and it will still form summaries. You don't wanna leave it on the gross lease too long. Why not? Because the the gross lease, I think the rough lease, you see, are saying, the gross lease are stinking there, they are you have to move away the those sleeves, because they are not just lilies. They are lilies and also part of skins and a food and everything, and it is really a bad smell. So you have to make your analogical labor. So you have to be in in in all of those. So, again, your technological society, you you decide when the moment is to rack off, where the leaves could start making the wine turn stinky and eggy. You say, right, we'll rack off the the wine, and we can recycle those leaves into a red. Throw them away to give the red a little bit more, food. And then you take the the white wine, and then what happens to it to settle again before you bottle it or not? Yeah. And we we do not feel the right about the gross lease. It's it is not difficult to separate them. Simply we move them away before the fermentation. So you Okay. You have to keep it to rest because if you have the gross leaves during fermentation, you have a bad smell, especially the brewed aroma. Okay. Let's do that again. So, basically, so you press, you put the juice in tank. Okay. You let it settle, then what happens? For normally it's one or two days. Okay. And they will, okay, for the panosophyte wine, because we want to use only the biodynamic protocol, we let to them to to settle down. With the other Cricket two, and we use the flotation system, which is also technology, but in a small quantity needs to keep away also the oxygen from the from the juice. So it's also a natural way to keep the way the wine from the oxygen instead of to use the sulfites. So it's it's a way to, depending on the wine, to use different technologies. But at the end, I'm a web maker. I'm a thirty years, experience with web makers, and it should be my main job. Okay. So for the for the no end itself, I want you, you press the, because you get the juice into a tank. Okay. You let it settle for a couple of days. Yeah. And then you rack it off the gross leaves. Mhmm. That the thick sludge. Why do you rack it off the gross leaves? The thick sludge? No. Because the gross leaves, they they have often a bad smell, so forth, and, also broad and, so you have to move it away. Especially, you have to move it away before the fermentation. Okay. So you ferment with fairly clean juice, a little bit turbid, but not thickly not not really perfectly clean. It would be especially the burrito, which is very tough to clean. It is not a problem if it is a bit cloudy. Okay? Good time. Yeah. Yeah. So then you ferment that in another tank. Yes. And how do you so after fermentation, obviously, there's still carbonate gas around? Are you using that to protect the wine naturally so that you don't have to add sulfites? No. We use also. We keep the wine for some months and, we move, okay, those leaves every every week. So keep cleaning this. It's very important. You'll keep keep making sure the wine is still fairly clean. It's not getting too turbid and stinky. Okay. And then we we also keep under the nitrogen for, some months. It helps. So technology again. So it makes it technology in common sense. It helps. And then you bottle it. Yeah. Even because you you need it on the Grokito because the croquettes is very tough. You have easy oxidation because, you know, the croquettes, there's a lot of catechins, and the catechins, they have an easy oxidation, and also you can have bitter tests after testing and also bitter aroma. So it's very important to keep away the the Greek from the oxidation. It's very important also to have a soft pressing because if you press too much, then you extra too much color and too much cut against and also a lot of but mouth. Okay. So anybody that's listening to this, you have to trust me on this. If you wanna if you wanna have a absolutely textbook example of how to make a white wine with no added sulfites, it's absolutely delicious. It's got texture, it's got it's savory. It's intense. It's balanced. It's got varietal tapisty. It's got terroir tapisty and it's very, very clean and clear. And with an incredibly vibrant mouthfeel, you have to try this wine. Trust me. This is a model of how to make, no other sulfai wines, which tastes absolutely fantastic. That do not taste like like horse stables or goose droppings or whatever. Trust me on this. You just have to believe me. Okay? Yeah. I'm I'm now working as his PR agent. It's a sign of it was just on a really, very important contract. Oh, so probably we we we produce jazz three thousand bottles of Mercators. That's okay. Three thousand and a half, you you know, the, for France. Any sommeliers who have big responsibilities in top restaurants, your job is in a restaurant, the chef has to know what he's doing in terms of science. In terms of in terms of public health, because you can't get away with bad cooking in a restaurant, and poison people, not saying they can do that with wine. Trust me on this. This is this is an absolute example of how to do it properly. So you optimistic about the future when I meet people that you, you know, you you inspire because you are blending the advantages of modern technology and there are labor saving advantages, energy saving advantages with with technology. Plus, you're working with with animals. I think that has an incredible impact, beneficial impact on mental health, human mental health by working with animals. So there's that aspect you're adding to biodiversity, your adding to your rural community via your investment in people, trying to recycle money locally, keep think global app local. You're ticking all the boxes. What else could you do? What else do you think you could do? Is there any other ideas you got in your head better. We think, you know what? I've done I'm doing this with the animals, no plowing, organic biden. I mean, what else? What would be your next step? Is there anything that you're missing? We are doing a lot. We what we are what we have to do also. We have to communicate it also because the I think there are a lot of people. The majority of the peoples are looking for that. I'm also optimistic on the on the peoples and, especially on the young peoples when you train them, and when you show how how we're working. They catch immediately in the the sense and they change their mentality. So I trust a lot of special and all the young peoples on their patients. They I see they have a lot of energy when they put all their passion, I still in some way their positive energies. So it is very important to to work with a a school and a schools and university. So we also often, university, not only from Italy, also from all around the world. We have the university from a whole land. The foreign United States, I guess, from UK in the next time. For me, it means also to, pay some thing to spend my time with the students, but we have to do that because this is the future. Otherwise, if you do not seeds as farmers on the young peoples. We cannot harvest positive things in the next years. The communication and letting people know what you're doing is very important. So that, I agree with you about this being the future. Yeah. And I think you're it's their seems old fashioned, but it's not. There's a logic behind it. And, you're blending the best of modern technology with traditional practices that make sense for environment and for also our personal environment, our our mental health and our physical health. Thanks very much indeed Roberto. For coming in and telling us about the deeper winery and umbera, anybody that's into organic, biodynamic, natural wine, no other top white wine, anybody that likes geese or horses, this is your destination of choice or should be. That's the Italian wine podcast. Thanks worse. Thank you. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.