Ep. 61 Monty Waldin interviews Chiara Lungarotti (Lungarotti Winery) | Discover Italian Regions: Umbria

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of the Italian wine podcast. My name is Monte Walden, and today we're off to Umbria in Central Italy to talk with Kiara Longorotti of the Longorothi winery. The winery that really put Umbri and wine on the map. Kiara, welcome. Hi, Monte. Kara, tell me a little bit about your father, Georgia, and the wine that he created, the wine that put umbrian wine on the map, which is a red one called Rubescos. Well, actually my father was a a pioneer and also a visionary man. He had, a big dream to have Umbria region known as well as the rest of Italy to be a great wine region and to make Italy to be a great wine country until it was one of those pioneers that started already in the sixties to travel around the world to show the a group of friends, and they show people how Italian wines could be fantastic. He was, an agronomist with a great passion for Viticulture. I started to replant soon after the World War II. He started to replant all the dinners in our state and started to and started to select a varietal, a special population for indigenous varietal or new varietals and introduce them to umbria, but his cell was always for our indigenous varietal that is SanJovese. And therefore, in, sixty two, we started to commercialize a wine whose name was Rubescos. So what does Rubescos mean? Rubescos comes from a Latin word Rubescos, and that means always for a nice glass of wine. And, my father had this idea of give a proprietary name to this wine because at that time the wines were known for the varietals or were known for the denomination, like parolo or Taurazi or Canti, but nobody knew about umbria and Tjajan in those days. And that, and it was not just one varietal, but was a blend of Sanjay and Canayolo. And therefore, my father started to create a proprietary name after it was invented, created by my mother, Maria Gracia. And, she's an art historian, so they were black and white, the very perfect ball between two characters. And, they started to have Rubisco known and worked to be known on other markets. First, not just in Italy. First in UK, then USA in Canada, and Germany's Visland and many others to come. So that's the story of, Rubesca. In the initial, you said, initially Rubesca was a Kanayolo and Sanjavecio. It was seventy percent Kanayolo and the thirty percent. Sorry. It was seventy percent and thirty percent canayolo. Today, Rubisco is ninety percent Sanjay, and ten percent Colorino. Because when we replanted our old vineyards of canayolo, we realized that, they were colorino. Light more of my much more similar to the chlorine in Tuscany than to the kind of yellow Tuscany. And this is because, after the flexera epidemi that arrived to Inumbria at the beginning of the twentieth century, all the new plants were coming from Tuscany, and there was a big mess in the confusion. So, basically, you're saying that what you thought you had in the vineyard, or what historically was in the vineyard, when you actually checked the the the grapes, the leaves, is that you realized that you actually had several varieties there rather than just one or two? In the old vineyards, the old vineyards were always planted with several ourselves. Why did why did the old farmers do that there? It was a mishmash of many things, but my father, when he started to replant the vineyards in a modern way already in the sixties, started to use varietal single varietals already at that time. So once, do you know that even in some in many regions of Italy, every X once on a time, there was one vine every ten or twenty vines. There was one wine that was for the harvester to eat that and not to eat in order to avoid to eat the the grapes that had to be used for the wine. Uh-huh. That's right. I didn't know that. That's very clever. To the the the sort of quotes lesser grapes and leave them all quotes more expensive ones that would actually end up in the wine. The the better quality had to be for the wine. So when you were small, were you made to work on the vineyard? Did your father make you work with? I was always going with my father in the vineyard. Actually, each time, we were seeing a little weed growing over over a little vine. I had to get off the car and had to eradicate it because, the bind has to live in the best condition. And if you have a parasite just beside your feet, you can't. He was always telling me to explain why I had to or the same thing was to take away the bigger stones. The stones are among on the line. I was always, going around with him to see and to check, and that has been a great school of life. What was family life like for you when you were growing up as a as a young girl. What were you eating? Would you was it was it a happy household? What kind of food were you eating? Oh, we are we are always eating as we do today, our products, and we are very seasonal. Tell me something about local ambrian seasonal food. In this season, for instance, we are eating, artichokes, we eating asparagus. We start to find a lot of, wild asparagus in the in the gardens as well. And, we eat, pasta with different kinds of, of condiments. And of course, we it, both. What can you do to? I mean, umbrion is perennially in the shadow of its bigger neighbor, perhaps more famous neighbor Tuscany. What can you Umbrian producers do to to get your name out there a little bit more? We have always considered the green heart of Italy. Compared to Tuscany, we have been over always a kind of minor cousins because they have been having the Grand Duke, Tuscany, and we were just part of this pope state. Of course, there is a very deep difference in terms of background. But what we can do is to do our best to know our land to be known and to promote them because the first thing I do when I'm traveling is to talk about my beloved and wonderful region ofumbria. And today, we are always there working, you know, that to have people come to visit us, to visit the beautiful medieval town, to stop in the different little restaurants or in the vineyards to visit. The tresence because the wine is part of the history of the tradition of a territory, and coming to our vineyards, and coming to our states, a Vumbrian winemakers is a fantastic way to be known that were wonderful regions. So you weigh weigh in in central Italy, it gets a little bit more rainfall than either of its neighbors on either side, which means that you have a lot of forests. What food comes out of the forest and the and the acorns that fall on the ground for certain areas? Well, of course, it's more than on the on the forest. We have now the forest or more on the apennines, from the apennines, and not just from them. We have our fantastic truffle, the black truffle from North Shady Projato, but also the summer black truffle as well as the white from the northern part of Umbre and the Guubbio Herreham. That's fantastic. And then we have, especially on the Appenines. They cultivate a lot in the area of Castelluto, and of Nazi, they cultivate a lot of land that are fantastic protein. So before you were asking, what are you eating? We are eating a lot of meat and cold cuts, especially poor cold cuts, but also eat great amount of vegetal protein with lentils or chickpeas, or beans because they are part of our everyday dishes on the table. There you go everybody. Next time when you're inumbria, you're gonna be eating pulses and drinking Rubescos. A wonderful lentil soup with a glass of Rubiscus. Perfect. Tiara Longurokti, thank you very much for sharing your your passion and, your family history with us and for talking about Rubescu. And I hope to see you soon in India. Looking forward, and you will be very, very welcome to Torgiano and Montefeico. Thank you very much. You're very welcome. Bye. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.