Ep. 13 Monty Waldin interviews Francesco Zonin of the Zonin Family Winery | Discover Italian Regions: Veneto

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. My name is Monty Walden. I'm with Franchesco Zonin of, the Zonin family winery, which is the biggest privately owned winery in Italy. Is that correct if I just go? Yeah. My could be. It could be. You're being too modest. So, you've got wineries in various regions? Where are your wineries? And, where we're based in, by the missionary in a small village called Gambelarez between Barona and Miceenfa. That's in the Northeast of Italy. About forty minutes from West of Venice. And then we have a winer in Frulli, one in Liberty, one in Pittman, three in Tuscany, Sicily, and one in the US. Okay. So how do you when you obviously you've got a really sort of global vision of what's going on in Italian wine. What are the trends that you're seeing at the moment? You know, I wouldn't call Perseca trends, so I wouldn't even talk about it because it's it's a it's a phenomenon on it on its own. I think Italian wine is doing well overall I think even, I mean, on an international, if you look at what people are drinking more and more, I think it's, you can see two trends. One is a little bit bolder and sweeter wine. The other one is more I would say let's call it elegant wine. And and so you mean when you say, sir, when you say elegant, you mean like a little bit with less oak? Yeah. Exactly. What you don't you can you cannot feel the oak. I mean, you know, it's it's there, but you cannot feel it, meaning that white wines would be with a higher acidity, fresher, crispier, something that goes well with food, and something that goes well in the direction. We have a scene in Italy at least in runs in the family that the best bottle of wine is be empty one. So I think Italian style wines are going I I I as all as always been in in vet style, I mean, we never think of a bottle of wine or having some wine if there's nothing crunchy or or, you know, something to eat. Yeah. So I think people are in are are are are getting more our, our way up leaving wine. Because Ben, we do live wine because if you if you go to Italy, I mean, you walk into a bar at ten o'clock in the morning, there's always gonna be someone drinking, which is not, you know, it could be like a bad thing, but to tell, but it's it's it's part of our culture because Ben, probably, it's a light white wine. You know, it's ten thirty in the morning. Maybe he woke up at six where he had you'd breakfast, so it's like in the middle of the day for him. And the imperative is another good example of how we're trying to export not only the bottle of wine, but but what is what goes around that bottle of wine. So sitting down before lunch, before dinner, popping up a bottle of wine and tasting it with friends because of them, the ever good part of Italian one is bad. When you pop a bottle, you're never alone. Yeah. Essentially what you said about the wine people wanting to finish it. And I think that's also the fact that there's a recession and people don't want to spend lots of money on a wine that they can't they they have halfway have to throw away because they could literally can't finish it. So I think as you say italy's pretty well placed. Yeah. Or they're getting smarter, and they understanding that you don't have to spend a huge amount of money to get a good bottle of wine. I think Italy on on that side is pretty strong. I mean, you can walk into any wine store in Italy with ten euros and get out with I'm gonna say an amazing bottle of wine, but a very good one. And and you can pick from four hundred and twenty Appalachian and six hundred varieties, and that to me is unique. You can walk into any other place in the water. You never get out with fifteen dollars does that? I mean, obviously, you're saying that Italy's strong point is the the the very savory wines that go well with food, they're very drinkable, refreshing. But as you've just said, all these different grave varieties and regions, isn't it also a little bit terrifyingly complex for for normal consumers? It is complex. It's how do we deal with that? The biggest task we face Italian producer is how to communicate a uniqueness. And it's a uniqueness not only wine, but, you know, we have more biodiversity, Italy has more biodiversity than the whole of Europe put together. And how do you promote that? How do you promote four twenty, operation? We're already, you know, walk into some market where Italian wine, it's already a question mark sometimes. So I think we have you can see it on two ways. Either it's a huge potential or a a huge problem. We like to see it as u huge potential because if you look at Italy thirty years ago, we had a huge potential, and we, I think we did a pretty good job. I think we can do more and more There's new technology. People are are are traveling more. So I think Pulia, for example, Vasalinto Peninsula, ten years ago, you would think a primitivo ne Romaro, very, very little people would know about that. But now Pulia is, it's a, a touristic destination. Pull is what Selena was twenty years ago. So now you, you're talking to any of my friends. I mean, ten years ago, would know what negromaro is. Now you ask them. And everybody knows because somehow they went there, they read about it, So people get curious and sometime, I think wine industry, wine should move more with food and and the travel. I mean, how influential have Sommelier's been? Because obviously, they've got the time in front of a customer to explain the complexity of the Italian wine off, whether it's great varieties or regions or soil types or whatever. How important have they been do you think for Italian wine? Very, and I think they're gonna play a major role also in the future as we're saying, four twenty is, Appalachian. Unless you have someone who tells the story every day, it's it's hard. I mean, it it's hard for a consumer to walk into a in front of a shelf and pick a wine but doesn't know. Now it's changing because millennials are more curious when my generation was in the in the past. So I think that itself might be a good opportunity for Italian wines. But Sommelier, you know, it was like the, thirty years ago. We'd open any Italian restaurant somewhere in the world and talk about pasta and tomato and wine. And now, Samilier are doing it in a specific way. I think we need to do more with Samilier. We need more to do more incoming. We need Samilier not only to learn about our wines on the book and taste it, but need to learn who makes that wine, what it means, the culture behind because when you talk to Italian wine, you know, it's it's Tiktoskany. I mean, when you're two or three hundred year old, you're a newly. So Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And it's, something that we can, we can bring out something we can bring outside of our own, region and other consumer to to understand it. So you've just I think you've got nine wineries, is it in seven regions? So when you get a phone call from a member of your family said, hey listen, you you franchisee, you gotta go down to X winery, which is the one that you think, oh, so I love going there every day. I just love it. Which is the one? Is it the one in Pulia? Pulia? Oh, that was there last week and it's, fresh in the memory. Yeah. It's, I mean, all of them because, still, I haven't seen a a bad part of Italy. And, bam, when you when you think of a wine growing region in Italy, I have never seen a a bad one. But, you know Okay. So, Give me, I'm gonna ask you a question. So when you go to Pulia, so, and it's all, you you you let's do several regions. When you go to Pulia, what's your favorite dish when you go? I love having act? What is it? Okay. I'm a pasta lover. Okay. I don't look like. No. Your skin is a Yeah. And I keep pasta twice a day and every day. And I when I have pizza, usually I have two pizzas. So don't ask me where I put it, but somehow I manage to do it. So fresh pastas all over in my favor. So Orecchiette would be, you know, consumer de wrap or something very classic. Orecchiette which is, like, a little air shaped, a little air shaped, pasta with, turnip greens. Yeah. A little bit of garlic and, an an anchovy. Yeah. Okay. So that's what I know about this dish. So I was sorry. I just said my father. Very lucky. So that's what I know about this dish. So it's very regiment invented, raw fish in Italy, and this started like a hundred here you go. Give me another one, and that was pugilien next one. So that's obviously in Tuscany classical because it's then I do the opposite because one of my a good friend is Dario Chikini, so I I don't eat much meat. But when I'm there, it's, bistecal of Argentina, for sure. So hang on. That's that's that's, for everyone, that's TBo mistake, grown in the in a valley, the Keana valley in the towns are called Kienina, and it's, and it's a stake about the size of a shoe, right? That's a that's a classic tuscond dish. It's It's a tebow. Yeah. Four or five finger. Yeah. Yeah. And you cook it like twenty minutes on the bone and then usually seven and seven depending on the depending on the on on the steak. So pasta twice a day. Several pizzas in sitting and and and you are as thin as opposed. Okay. Which is a breadstick. Right? So right. Give me another region. That's Tuscany. All the way across the Atlantic, and I would say Barbara's little vineyards. Okay. Which is in which state in the USA? Virginia. Mhmm. Charlotteville. Okay. It's a unbelievable place. Okay. Maybe too romantic to go there alone, but it's it's really worth it. And it's a small corner of Italy also there because The, general manager and winemaker is from Piedmont. We have an Italian restaurant called, Paladio, the master of these Italian. So you go there. The, agronomist is, from a Salvador, but he speaks fluent, Italian. So it's, like, a small corner of, of Italy there. And there you eat everything, but venison, because it comes from, the woods. And then usually, it's, it's all homemade. So we have small suppliers from around. We grow our own vegetables, and we try to do all in, at home. Okay. And it's the same thing for every winery. So when I go to Kaburani, for example, in Frioli, we go fish in our own trouts that we raise or you can find some fresh fruit vegetables. We do eggplants in, in, Sicily or wheat bro potatoes and fennels and celery in, in Tuscany. We do, honey in, in through Lee. Pemonte, we just drink. Fantastic. And what were you like at school? I mean, you, you know, your English is better than mine. Are you good in school? I was good at school. I was lucky at school because I had studied in Italy, in Vicenza, but I'm, graduated, I went to New University in Milan. I graduated in, June ninety eight. And then September ninety eight, I moved to the US. For three months, both three months turned into four years. And then I got a phone call. Listen. So what what is your plan? Because I think the three months were passed by for a for a long time now. So and then, you know, the US is our biggest market. Second would be, UK. So I'm I'm very often in the US plus I don't mind English language. So what are the future plans for Zernon and where do you see Italian wine in say ten or fifteen years. What do you hope to see it? Our plans, we can sum up two hundred years, almost all by our history in, one minute, which is eighteen twenty one. We were, my family bought the first vineyard. For exactly a hundred years, it was a self consumption. Then my great uncle in nineteen twenty one, he created, the company, and was Gambelara, eight hundred people after World War One. So he verified his first, his vintage, and then he asked a friend of my health on him to land him a bicycle because he couldn't afford it. And he went on a bicycle for twenty kilometers to sell the first three bottles of wine. We studied there. The wineer expanded. My my great uncle was a very smart, very smart person. He was born in eighteen ninety nine. So he fought world war one when he was sixteen. He died in two thousand and one. So he lived across three centuries and two millenniums, pretty interesting person. And and and And then couldn't have in children. My father was the first step nine. So was, adopted by him, and he joined the company in fifty seven. Then in the nineteen seventy, my father started to expand the winer in a very unusual way for a bad time. So he started to buy outside its own region. So we bought Cabolani in Frioli we bought in, Castello Dábora in in in in Tuscany and so on. So from nineteen seventy to two thousand for thirty years, we put up put up what is now the largest family owned vineyard. And then I joined in two thousand and two thousand and four, two thousand and three. My brother in two thousand and one, domenico. And then from there, we started to, you know, restructure the whole distribution network we had because we had such a, you know, impressive portfolio in Italy, but not we're doing that well. So I studied, you know, plane, a frequent flyer, pretty much living on airports. And the company grew at a time in two thousand and four. We're doing probably sixty million euros, and now we're close to two hundred. So in Lesman, ten years. And we started to, open new new companies, but in terms of import and distribution, because sometimes it's not easy to find the right solution in terms of the the house of an importer in their portfolio. And so we created the new USA, which is our importer in the US. Doing UK is our importer distributing UK and and lately done in China. So I think distribution now is as important as quality used to be in the 70s and 80s. So if you were a good producer in the 70s with a great bottle of wine, I think you were able to go anywhere. Right now, I think quality is a given by the market. So it has to be a good wine. If it's not good, don't even start, I mean, it's you're never gonna be successful, but quality is not enough. So has to be a great wine, then you need to know how to sell it and how to distribute it. We focus on on on that. I think it's the right path. So in the future, we're gonna we need to be better at this. At the same time, as we're saying, it's four twenty, operation in Italy. We cover nine of them, so we still have some room to expand. We're looking at Italy. We're looking to, some more international areas as well outside of Italy. Barbaraville is a good example of how interesting community culture outside of Italy. Plus, we're a family company. We don't need big numbers. We like to do things on slowly understand what it means because it takes time to set up a new winery in Italy. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of paperwork, huge amount of paperwork, So, when you go outside of Italy, it might be easier, but, you know, the problem right now, what is lacking is time. So we need to structure ourselves to find some time to solve some new project yeah, less less time meeting those beginning mistakes and more time, behind your laptop and, yeah, best, meeting the room, ever. Franchesca has been a real pleasure talking to you. Your company is, incredibly well joined up. It all makes sense. Your vineyards, your your your marketing, the way you talk about your wines, and you know what you're doing. And, and that's the reason why you've been so successful. So, listen, thanks for coming in today. Thank you very much. And, you know, probably it's easier because we're in the best business and award. As you were saying, you know, when I'm in county classic, eating a steak and talking to a guy, I'm basically working, and I cannot think of a better job. Yeah. I'll I'll come down to pull you with you. We can have some primitivo nagramada with some Chimenirapa. And, we can stare at the sea, the adriatic. Will be a pleasure. Thanks for coming in. Thank you. Follow us at Italian wine podcast on Facebook.