Ep. 1066 Jay Di Donato Interviews Marco Zani | Clubhouse Ambassador's Corner

Welcome to this special Italian Wine Podcast broadcast. This episode is a recording of Clubhouse, the popular drop in audio chat. This Clubhouse session was taken from the Wine Business Club and Italian Wine Club. Listen in as wine lovers and experts alike engage in some great conversation on a range of topics in wine. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through italianwinepodcast.com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production and publication costs, and remember to subscribe and rate our show wherever you tune in. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode has been brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year will mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November 2022 in Verona, Italy. This year will be an exclusively in person edition. The main theme of the event will be all round wine communication, and tickets are on sale now. The first early bird discount will be available until August 22. For more information, please visit us at winetowine.net. Okay. Hello, everyone. My name is Stevie Kim, and welcome to the Italian Wine Club on Clubhouse. We had a day with Professura Tyloshenza. Actually, he at his house, he lives in Toribole, right on the lake. So he's kind of, like, on vacation all year round. So we had we did a little bit of work with him, a bit of interview. Actually, yeah. So we did some everybody needs a bit of change, the questions from the via community, etcetera, etcetera. Like I said, would how many episodes have we done so far? It's been a while. We had a small hiatus during the summer couple of weeks. Right? Yeah. That's right. So the one who for today, it's gonna be the fifty third episode we have. Goodness. Mhmm. Okay. Excellent. Okay. And then who's coming up next next week? It's gonna be Julie Farriker. She wants to do another clubhouse. So it's September 1. Julie Farriker will be interviewing Enzo Barbie from Decon Deconanos. I don't know if that sounds crazy. Excellent. I actually went to see him recently when I was in Ravetta. Very good. And he, of course, always donates his wine for the Veneto International Academy. I I think Jay hey, Jay. Ciao. Ciao, Stevie. How are you? I'm doing great. Yeah. Where where are you? Whereabouts are you? I'm in San Diego. Oh, San Diego. Okay. So, like, I don't know if you recall, but we always have, Mare Antico as kind of the benchmark line for do you remember that? The decuniano? No. Not really. I'm gonna have to take back your Yeah. Pen for the Italian ambassador. Okay. So listen. Let me just, ping Joy. Hello, Joy. Joy, are you here? Hi, Em. How's it going? Hi. Yeah. You're right next door, so there's a little bit of an echo. Did you want to say anything to, our audience today before we start the show? No. Just a a great big thank you to everybody who voted for us in the, podcast awards. Cross your fingers. You never know. And if not, you won't hear about it again. To the first explain to them that we kind of the first, batch of, like, I I guess, the first round. Right? Yeah. We did. We actually got into the, first stage or whatever you call it. So then the podcast awards, contacts, I think it's 10% of the people who actually voted and asks them to just make sure they're they're people and not, you know, bots or whatever. And, so we've had people contact us to tell us that that's happened. So that's great. We're going against, you know, quite a few, like, large categories, which I didn't realize. I was first first of all, Joy, I was so excited when I first heard about it. And then, of course, our competition is can you tell them who the competition is? Amazon Amazon, Apple, Overcast, Spotify. So Yeah. So, like, we're in with these big dudes, Italian Italian wine podcast against Apple and Amazon and Spotify. So I'm sure we have a very good chance of winning. But anyway, I Yeah. You know what? I We made it to the first round. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Alright. Well, anyways, thank you all for supporting us. It's, it's been a great ride this year, the past twelve months alone, we had 2,000,000 listens on the podcast, as you know, we record this year, right? There are just a few of you. I know clubhouse is not that cool anymore or popular, but it is an important they have great, great quality, I think, of recording. And then we replay it, of course, on the Tiny Wine podcast, where we get huge, huge, huge listens, especially Ambassador's Corner. Thanks to all of you. So thank you all for participating. Now I would like I'm going to start the show. And, you know, the whole concept of Ambassador's Corner, of course, is that from our, Via community, we asked one of our ambassadors, Italian wine ambassadors to choose their favorite Italian wine producer and kinda do the deep dive. That's why it's called the ambassador's corner. And today with us, we have Jay Di Donato. Ciao, Jay. Ciao, Stevie. So, of course, Jay is, he said he's from San, San Diego. He's, our Italian wine ambassador. But, Jay, you know, I was trying to look for you. I just got here. Mind you, I didn't have very much time to prepare, but, like, I was trying to look for you on social media. Are you on social media? I know you were, like, in the navy. I don't know if you're a spy, so you don't have social media. What what's up with that? No. I'm not a spy. I do have a top secret clearance, but not a spy. No. I'm on social media at j d Donato. That's kind of my normal one. Then I've got, like, a wine Instagram called, wine that I liked. So, yeah, I'm on Instagram. Okay. Great. I was looking for you. I couldn't find you. I wanted to check out your I'm gonna do that during when, you take over. So Jay, of course, is, like I said, our Italian wine ambassador through the VIA program. He's WSET three. He's an Italian wine specialist. But where do you have your base? Are you in Chicago or in San San Diego? Right now, San Diego. Yeah. I was in Chicago for, about, four years, but I'm in San Diego now. And I've been been in San Diego for about a year. And what do you do, what do you do in, San Diego now? So a full time job. I'm a a lawyer for the navy. It's called being a a in the JAG Corps. I'm prosecutor. Oh, it's like the this like in the TV shows. Ex exactly like the TV shows. You should've told me before. Yeah. Like, I would've taken your autograph or something. Right. But also still still in the wine industry working at a a wine bar and shop called Vino Cartha, in Little Italy, the Little Italy part of San Diego. So, still still kinda working in wine and working in Italian wine. Oh, that's fantastic. So Jay was you know, for those of you who are unfamiliar, Jay Donato was commissioned as a get the surface welfare officer in the United States Navy in 2012. He was deployed into many areas, and he and 2000 he's not only, strong and brave and handsome, he's also, smart because he got his law degree from Loyola, University. Is that correct? Or it says here, Loyola University or Chicago School of Law. That's it. The law school. Yeah. Okay. So and, so yeah. You're, like, super smart, and then you got the wine bug. When did you get the wine bug? I think I've had it, for a while, probably even before I joined the navy, but definitely, like, traveling through Europe, with the navy through Italy and other parts of the Mediterranean, definitely kind of spurred that on e even more. Oh, okay. So I love this. I love you like you know, you're like the superhero and then wine as a hobby kind of guy. So tell us, Jay, why you've selected, Marco Zanni as your favorite producer, to be on the call today. Yeah. I wanted to choose somebody, who kinda makes wine from indigenous and traditional Italian varietals. And I I definitely want to choose somebody whose wines I felt at least, had a sense of place. They kind of respected, respect for the environment and nature, and, of course, were were delicious. And I think that there are a lot of young and and new producers in Italy who are doing this. But