Ep. 21 Monty Waldin interviews Ian D'Agata (Vinitaly International Academy 2014-2018) on Glera | Introduction to Aglianico, Glera, and Sangiovese

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. My name is Monte Walden. I'm with Reuter Iain Dagata, the world's greatest specialist on Italian wine grapes. We're gonna talk about prossecco, which everybody knows, is a very famous sparkling wine, but it's made from a grape with a strange name called Galera. Can you explain what the difference between Galera and prosecco is, please, Ian? Oh, yeah. Sure. It's very much like Barolo. Barolo is a wine, and the grape is Neobolo. It's the same thing with in fact, if you think of burgundy, everybody talks about red burgundy, but it's made with a pinot noir grape, or bordeaux is made with a blend of the cabernetes and merlot. Same thing with prosecco. It's a wine made with a grape called Galera, that has historically always grown in this part of Veneto that's located mainly around the town of Treviso, which is a beautiful town. If anybody's ever been Italy, it hasn't been to Treviso yet. I hardly recommend the vacation there because it's it's a very much a little Venice. It's on canals, and it's absolutely beautiful. What about the link with the region of friuli, where there is a town called Prosecco? Is that is that gonna further add to the confusion? Or can you sort that one out for us? Yeah. No, it does. There's no doubt. I think that, the problem that Italy was facing years ago was that Prosecco had been comes such a brand name that people were making prosecco wines everywhere in Germany and Slovenia and Australia. And I got to the point where the Italians felt they needed to protect this wine in which they had invested in so much money over the years And so they decided the best thing to do was to revert to one of the original names of the grapes, which was glera, and to use prosecco as a wine of denomination. And of course, by European law, you have a denomination, and other people aren't allowed to use that name anymore. So in so doing, which some people have criticized as being sort of a too clever act on the part of the Italians and the Italians have made it hard for anybody else to use the word prosecco. And so prosecco is now the name of an Italian wine made with a grape called Galera, which can, in fact, grow elsewhere, but it's a grape. The wine is prosecco, and prosecco is Italian. Yeah. But it's fair enough that Italy wants protect it's, prossecco baby. Right? Well, I don't think that's a bad thing to do. Yeah. No. I think it's fair. I mean, the champagne producer done the same thing. You're gonna do make champagne and champagne, right? Totally. People forget that, champagne even got, a company like Stian Dior to change the name of his perfume. Dior came out with, well, twenty years ago with a perfume called, Champagne, and champagne people were able to get that repealed. So it's only fair. I mean, Italy has invested money and time and energy in creating a world famous wine, like prosecco. And of course, everybody and their sister now wanna bank on that. I wanna cash in on that. And you can make a case that it would be unfair for them to do that. So I'm totally okay with this. Okay. The next question, obviously, most white wine is sort of still. How does prosecco get its fizz. Prasek was one of these sparkling wines made with what it's called a Charmin at that Charmin is a French man who actually copyrighted a method invented by Natalia called Martinati. And what they do is they just put huge amounts of of wine into pressure cookers, what they call autoclaves, and, they add a certain amount of sugar and yeast to the wine. The yeasts, all they do is the sugar. When they eat sugar, they produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. I always say that they, is a bit rude if I can say this when the yeast eat the sugar, they shit alcohol and fat carbon dioxide. Is that is that technically correct? It's very well put it. Yeah. I think Is there any way I can think of explaining it? Sorry, folks. No. I'm gonna steal that from you. I think it's a cool way of putting it. People understand. Don't play this track to your mom. Yeah. No. No. It's true. And so it's an easy way to make bubbly wines, which is completely different from making champagne by wines, where this process occurs within the bottle. But it's still like a silk one as a champagne gets its fizzwas. It's in a closed bottle, and right, and prosecco gets its fizzwas. It's closed in in a bigger tank. It's the same exact process. The process is called fermentation, and fermentation by definition is the transformation of sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. You can have fermentation occur in a bottle, and that would be in the champagne or traditional or classic method of bubbly making, or you can have it in, in autoclave. I just wanna make one, one thing. I just wanna say one thing, which is very important. When I explain this in this manner, it becomes almost automatic to think, wow, these people are making a gazillion liters of wine and pressure cookers. It's got to be cheaper than the stuff made in in the bottle. Sheaper in the sense that it's less expensive because clearly you have less manpower hours required, and you've got bigger volumes made. But in fact, it is not and this is key. It is not that one method is better than the other, because what we've seen, even from scientific studies and just tasting away, that there are some grape varieties that for some reason, this is not clear, perform better with a different method. And Galera, for whatever reason, is a grape that really exudes the charms when it's treated with a Sharma dash Martinati method. And there are people who try to make Galera wines by re fermentation on the bottle. They're becoming actually very popular, but I'm not totally sure that really serves Galera best. The wines are, of course, very interesting and good, but they're less charming and less fun. What is the difference between, glera fermented like a champagne? Is it does it taste more yeasty, more bread y, more buttery, whereas a glera fermentages in the tank? They serve sort of green fruit flavor? That's totally true. I mean, the main thing is that when you ferment it in the bottle, you lose what I think is the greatest thing about Glera wines, and that is this amazing peachy, aptly vanilla sort of note. A really good prosecco is an explosion of white peach tangerine and white flowers. It's really unforgettable, but it's got a very nice, creamy mouthfeel. A bad prosecco is easy to recognize because it's thin and dark, and that is really the the opposite of what a great prosecco should be. When you treat prosecco with and you turn it into a more serious wine, shall we say, by re fermentation of the bottle, it becomes more austere, it becomes tighter, it becomes leaner, and it just is not as much fun. You said that, Prosecco is, a grape, that historically was always highly regarded. Yet, we often think of Prosecco now as, as, quote, cheap and cheerful. Mhmm. Are we getting wrong? No. I mean, I think it's just, you know, times change. Society changes. Historically, Persecco wines were actually always a blend of different grapes in the Venatou area. They used glare of course, but they actually use other varieties called, and verdido, and verdido, and each one of these varieties added a little something. For example, verdido adds perfume, and the Pereira ad's body. Over the centuries, we've gotten rid of some of these varieties because they are maybe protective, but they're not so qualitative. And so now we make prosecco mainly from the glare grape variety. But the fact is It is still today a great, great wine, and that is why centuries ago, they thought it was a great, great wine. It's just that nowadays we live in a society whereby if something doesn't cost eighty four dollars a bottle, it's not great, and it's not serious. And instead, a wine that costs five or dollars. It's gonna be fantastic. And people who know me will know that I'm a champion of things like Grignolino and Mavazieri Casamoto, and Bosco. Why aren't they absolutely fantastic? And they cost six or seven dollars a bottle. I'm a huge fan of Sylvana. Everybody wants reasoning, and I love reasoning. But a great Sylvana is a thing of beauty. A great mutator third guy was a great of beauty, is a thing of beauty, and I don't see why Presecco can't be a thing of beauty. In fact, when it's a Cartice, it's even more than a thing of beauty. So what does that mean Cartice? What is it a place, a style or what? Well, Cartice is a hundred and sectors right around Treviso. It's a special grand crew. It is the grand crew of Cartice. And believe it or not folks, it is the single most expensive piece of vineyard land in Italy. One hectare of Cartice sick will cost you more than one hectare of Brrenlione Choccino, and more than one hectare of Barolo. And it's impossible to buy. So it's all virtual because you might have the money to buy a nectar, if anybody will sell it to you. So it's really a unique, unique area, one hundred and six vectors, very small. The wine that comes from that site is richer, deeper, longer than all the other prosseccos. It's also sweeter because the Cortesa hill, very well exposed, lots of sun, the grapes ripen. So there's always a bit of residual sugar. Most of those prosseccos are gonna be labeled dry, which that's just confusing because they're semi sweet wines. And Cartice is the best prosecco out there. You said in your book that the Galera grape, which makes prosecco, is not very pest resistant in the vineyard. Is that the reason why we don't see many organic or biodynamic prosecco wise? Yeah. I I I think that's certainly part of it, part of it is true, but it's just gonna make things more difficult for everybody. And because I think some producers not all want to make huge volumes with with glera grapes, and therefore aren't too interested in in applying biodynamic or organic principles to large swath of land. But in truth, if truth be told, it's also true that this sort of, eco friendly agriculture has only really reached Italy in the last fifteen years or so. And now people are becoming much more interested, and you see that some of the very best brunellos are made in this manner. And I that's still not actually true of barolo because you really talk about barolo in these terms, but it's inevitable that it will happen, and I think it's inevitable that it will happen with Brasetco as well. A lot of people will have heard of the Balini cocktail. What role does Prosecco play in that? And what is a Balini cocktail? The main player, I always tell people, if you have a bellini cocktail anywhere in the world and they serve you something that looks orange, then you're not drinking a real bellini. Because bellini is basically a mix of peach juice, freshly squeezed peach juice and prosecco. It's not made with champagne. It's not made with, a Alanga. It's not made with, any other sparkling wine. But Prosecco has this amazing note of white peach. And therefore, a true building cocktail is invented by Arrigo Cipriani, the owner of Harry's bar in Venice, is parts of white peach juice white peach juice and, of prosecco, because the two mesh very well together. So a great, a great bellini is actually pale, a creamy white, creamy off yellow in color. It's not orange at all. Great. Well, let's wrap this interview up because I think we can have a bellini cocktail, and you can make it. I'll have two. Thanks Ian for coming in for telling us about, the Galera grape, which makes the prossecco sparkling wine. It'd be a pleasure to talk to. Thank you much. Follow Italian wine podcast or Facebook.