Ep. 5 Monty Waldin interviews Chiara Lungarotti of the Lungarotti Winery | Discover Italian Regions: Umbria

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. My name is Monte Wardin. I'm with Kiara Longorotti from a very famous white producing family inumbria. Cara welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Matthew. Now, or, yeah, Matthew's my real name. Just everybody to know, but Monte's my pen name of that together. So you're inumbria and um, umbria is the what they call the green heart of Italy. Why is that? Because it's it's the really heart of our country. You can see when you come toumbria, our rolling hills with this lush green on that, especially in this season. All these symphonies of different greens from the gray of the olives, to the dark of the woods, to the fresh of the wheat now. And then, of course, during late spring and summer, the wonderful colors of the vineyards that become yellow and red in Notam. So when we talk about, being the green heart of Italy, is that because because it's central. You get lots of rain because of the hills. How does that work? No. It's not just the green heart. It's the green heart because we we have been protecting our lea pristine landscapes through the through the decades. And that's why it's so it's so green today. Umbria has a continental climate to sow hot summers and cold winters. But, in the case of Torgiana, for instance, we are in a very special position because we are right in the center of Umbria between Peru and assisi. So our vineyards are on a hill, the hill of brotha. That's between two valleys. The river Tiber valley and the river Kesho valley. And after these two valleys, there are hills and then the Appenines. And as you know, the weather in is, greatly affected by the altitude of the mountains And therefore is even for that reason that in that very special corner of Bumbria, we have a very, very nice climate for wine making. So you get a little bit of rain and you get lots of sun and a nice cold winter, which is good for ice best, for overwintering pests that kills them all off. Yes. Usually, we have a nice, cold, and also rainy winter that it's very important to create the water resource in the soil. That are so important for a good starting in spring and then for the plants is very important, are very important for phasing a hot summer as usually we have. Can you I mean, when you say it's cold, I mean, you've got the Appenine mountains, which is like the backbone of Italy. I mean, is it is it cold enough for you to go skiing in the hills or not? Not on heels, but sometimes some in some years, we go skiing on the appetites. Yes. We do. Now tell me about your family. Your father was called Georgia. Right? Yes, ma'am. How far how far back does your family go? Is it a young family? Have you been doing this for generations? No. My my father's family has been doing agriculture since generation. But it was my father that afterward, the second, to specialize the family estate into a wine estate. And, it started to replant all the old vineyards, you know, that in Central Italy, the the vineyards were cultivated in Kaltura Prumice, wanted to say one row of vines and then twenty meters of wheat or other intensive cultivation in another row of wine and so on. So it took away these old vineyards and just started to plant specialized vineyards already in the late fifties early sixties. And the first vintage of our most well done wine, Rubescos, was nineteen sixty two. And since nineteen sixty four, we produced the reserve version of our Rubesco coming from a single vineyard called Montecchio. Rubesco is fun because he managed to, he thought to give a proprietary name to a wine. That was rather unusual at that time, but our territory, Tatiano was not known. As, Barolo or Canti or other famous or territories in Italy. And it was not just one variety, but was a blend. And therefore, he thought about this proprietary name, Rubisco. And what was in Rubescrow at that time? And has the blend changed over time? What were the great varieties? At that time, Urbescow was a sangiovese based wine, seventy percent, and canayola, thirty percent. Today, it says San Jose ninety percent and ten percent Colorado. And personally, I find that San Joyce is a fantastic variety that finds so many different expressions all over Central Italy and really reflects the territory it comes from. When you taste a glass of Rubiscan, you close your eyes, you can imagine the rolling hills Bumbria. Okay. That's very perfect. I mean, but in terms of how does your, is you are you saying that your Sanjay Numbria is like a, a sort of a softer version of Sanjuvasi compared to Circanti? What's the, what's the difference between your San Giovanni And the and the Canti Sangevese is it's a little bit smoother. It's more round and it's it's a Sangevese that it's very soft usually in your mouth. And of course, as you know, San Giovanni changes a lot according to the altitude, changes a lot according to the exposure. And we have a nice western exposure, and the altitude is around three hundred meters on the sea level. And this, of course, but we have a soil that brings usually the maturation to the end of September. And this, of course, gives a nice smoothness to our wines, but never the our grapes are never overwarrived that they're always in the balance because what we look for is elegance. So is that one of the reasons why? I mean, you do sell a lot of wine in Italy. A lot of italian producers are really focused on exports, which I think is a very good thing. But you have, around about fifty percent of your wines are sold in Italy. Why is that important for you? Well, actually, I think that, is important to be present in your own country, in your domestic market. Because, when people we we export fifty percent, we that's it's has been since, I think, more more or less since the late seventies, the same percentage between domestic and the export market. I think that, when people come to a tourist destination like Italy and they look for Italian wines, it's important to find your wines there, especially in in your territory. And, It's something that's will is part of the holiday. So once you go back home, you will always look for a wine that brings with him fond memories. So as I as I have sort of become your own almost when they get home, these tourists, they they think of lungurotti and they look for it when when they get back to their domestic market. And at the same time, I think that, we are good ambassadors for our region and for our country. And on that note, we'll close. Thank you very much, Cara longuerati. Very interesting to talk to you. And I look forward to seeing your number. I used to go and buy my chicken food, not a million pass away from your winery, because there's a very good windmill there to add some of the other crops, Cara was talking about like the grain and things like that. It's a fantastic by Zumbria. So next time you will go to buy your chicken food. You will also come to visit our state and our wine museum where we have revealed the five millennials of wine and its links with our Mediterranean civilization. It's considered the best of Italy and one of the ten top in the world. Brilliant. Okay. We'll check that out. We'll have a chicken for lunch as well. The glass of Viral Best. Of course. It's a great pleasure. Thanks, Gary. It's been really nice to talk to you. Take care. That's it. That's the one Thanks. Follow us at Italian wine podcast on Facebook.