Ep. 597 Is There More To Italian Sparkling Wine Than Prosecco? | Clubhouse Wine Business Club

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. Okay. Hello, everybody. My name is Stevie Kim, and welcome to Italian wine club. Hi, you guys. Ciao, Gabriela. Hi. Good evening. Pietro. Ciao, Andrea. Buenasera. Okay. Alright. So we're back with Gabriela Gorelli, the new MW, Pietro Russo, the winemaker, and Andrea Donaldi, the commercial savvy executive special known as the three Musketeers. You know the story by now. Gabriela, Pietro, and Andrea have been studying together for the MW exams and have become besties ever since. They've also curated the Italy section of the new Sotheby's wine encyclopedia together, so I think it's safe to say that they are indeed Italian wine experts. We've recorded several sessions with the Three Musketeers, which included Old Vines, Natural Wines, Verdicchio, to name a few. Check them out on Italian Wine Podcast to replay if you've missed them. I usually run a weekly room on Thursdays, 8PM Central European Time. Today we will be talking about an overarching area of sparkling wines of Italy. I must confess that when I suggested this topic, it wasn't completely altruistic as I'd signed up for my D4 exam, so I really, I'm really hoping that these dudes will give me some pointers because I've yet to finish reading the book. Speaking of Italian Wine Podcasts, I just wanted to thank everyone for following us. We've hit 1,000,000 listen mark on Tuesday, so we are absolutely thrilled. So if you can give a follow and leave a thumbs up on Apple Podcast or Spotify, SoundCloud, or wherever you listen to your podcast, we'd really appreciate that. As usual, I like to remind the speakers that this room will indeed be recorded and replayed on the Italian wine podcast. We do this for all those who cannot participate on this call and as a study tool for those doing the deeper dive into Italian wines. Thank you for joining us here on Clubhouse and listening to us, also an Italian wine podcast, because it is really a labor of love. So let's get to this. Let's start with Gabriela. Hey. I'm good. I'm good. I feel like this is the last day of school and Oh, you you guys you guys are such wimps. I can't believe it. You're tired already. Welcome to my life. Hello. Yeah. You know, I'm I'm going to miss the jingle because it's really miss Morag. I think I'll I'll send it to you. I'll make a copy and send it to you. Okay. So, you know, we start we're going to talk about sparkling wines of Italy. What can you just give us kind of an overview of what are Italian sparkling wines? Of course, everybody knows Prosecco, and maybe some of them know Franciacorta, but give us kind of the the the the the entire list of the the sparkling wines. Okay. The the list won't be exhaustive, of course, but, it would be, you know, what's it is more relevant volume wise. And, yeah, of course, you mentioned Prosecco, so I'd start with the Sharma method or the method Italian wine wine wines. And, that represents more than the 95% of the sparkling wine produced in, in Italy, of which Prosecco represents a half. Apart from Prosecco and the Charmat method, we do have, Raqueto. So it's, it's red, right, identified as Sharma with relevant, residual sugar too. We do have Asti, of which I see among the people following us, there is Giacomo Pondini who is the director of the consortium. So maybe we can we can have him up at later. Yep. Yep. I think we will have him up for new, you know, challenges of the of the region since he's there since a few months. And, of course, Asti is made by, Moscato. Moscato Blanca Petitgrain. And then we have, Lambrusco, which can be which can be also ancestral method. But, it can be many varieties, and and many varieties are, ascribable to Lambrusco, and there are many types of Lambrusco. And this is the other very big, you know, player. It was once exported, like, in the mid sixties, nineteen sixties, in massive, amounts to The US. And it it was probably the most well known wines, sparkling speaking, and before long before Prosecco. Now, you know, the switching starts and and so on. Now on Briscoe, it's it's a bit more steady while Prosecco has been doubling the, volumes in the last eight years or so. And so this could be, you know, the the first, you know, relevant players on the method, but then we do have the the ones that produce less, but they produce the method. So the the bottle fermented method. You mentioned Franciacorta, which is Lombardy, an area that is, with classic grape varieties. Grape varieties. Of course, there is also their their identity grape varieties, which is Erbamat, which is an, an a new thing to the to the region. Then coming back to Quiamonte, we do have Altalanga, which is possibly the most historically, allowed, you know, appellation, among the bottle fermented throughout Italy. And Trento DOC, of course, which accounts for, half of the bottles produced by Francia Corta, but same varieties. So Champenoise varieties, and it is a region which is severely impacted by the mountains. So it is, as they like to say, a, so mountain sparkles. So, I mean, it's really Prosecco. The Prosecco is king right now, and it's it's still growing. Is that correct? It is. It is still growing. Yes. Steadily. And it is also thanks to the new category that they had been able to launch in, 09/09 2019, which is the Prosecco Rose, a DOC Rose, which I've been, told, a few weeks ago that we should have been inside the original production regulation of, the DLC of 2009 when the actual Prosecco phenomenon started. But it is only there in, you know, since since one year, but it's been a hit. And it's it is a very intelligent operation in on my opinion because it it's going in a direction of premiumization of Prosecco, which is what the appellation needs. So we'll talk a little bit more about, Prosecco Rose in a in a bit. But what what are the, notable benchmark wines that you can recommend for us to try, in I guess, well, maybe you can just, for the two categories of your choice, because that, it's quite a few, right? Like, we we were talking about Prosecco, Barqueta, you didn't mention Asta, you've mentioned Lambrus, Cartelanga, Franciscorta, Trento DOC, it goes on and on. What what can you make some suggestions for our audience and for our students? What are the benchmark wines, for example, for, Lambrusco? Lambrusco, it's it's one of my wines, which I think that has a high latitude of food pairing. So it's very I think it's very indicated for Asian markets, because of its style. And, it it might appear in different forms, less color, more color, more bubbles, less bubbles, and more assertive and more, soft. But I'd like to to drink the the Lambrusco as the the people from, the media, do. So it it to me, it's the is the more assertive bubbles. And I like the one that is producing, in the school of agronomy, near, Rubiera, which is called Milleolungo, which is, all made with, several varieties. I think more than 25 old Lambrusco varieties that had been recovered by the the school itself, and it's actually done by by the students on the on the vineyards. And, it it is a style of Lambrusco, which which is a bit lighter and might be a bit more hard edged, but can actually be drunk, at several temperatures and as a very, very long persistence on the aftertaste, which which is something that I like a lot. Or the the very deep new wave of Ambrosco that came into the markets, especially internationally in by the last six, seven years. There there are some very, you know, wit