Ep. 1775 Lacrima By Gianluca Queiroli | Italian Grape Geek

The Italian wine podcast is the community driven platform for Italian winegeeks around the world. Support the show by donating at italian wine podcast dot com. Donate five or more Euros, and we'll send you a copy of our latest book, my Italian Great Geek journal. Absolutely free. To get your free copy of my Italian GreatGeek journal, click support us at italian wine podcast dot com, or wherever you get your pods. Welcome to the Italian GreatGeek Podcast. Join us as we explore personal stories of travel and tasting with Italy's must know grape varietals. Chart your own course with my Italian GreatGeek Journal. Your personal tasting companion to accompany the series. Available now on Amazon with thanks to Calangelo and partners for their generous support with this project. Hello. My name is Kjung luka Guadali. I'm an Italian wine ambassador with Benizli international academy. I am originally familiar, raised and born and been living and working in the United States, in the Boston area for almost twenty five years. And I got to open a fine wine store about ten years ago in this area with thousands of wines and predominantly with Italian wines trying to promote as much as possible, not just the widely known great varieties of Italy, but also a lot of indigenous great varieties that we organize by regions and by style. I'm also highly involved into educations. I tend to organize a lot of classes. I launched the first Italian Wine Estro back three years ago here in the US with the help of the Italy International Academy. Like I said, a lot of education classes wine events, wine dinners, and so forth. So I'm gonna talk about one of my favorite Italian red grape varieties first, which is, Lacrima. Lacrima, for those that know Italians really means tears. And the reason why this grape variety is called as such is because the actual shape of the bunch, you really resemble the shape of actually a tier. Coming down. The bunch and issues of other great vines. I always heard about the great variety before I opened my shop ten years ago, but I actually never, you know, try it until I someone brought it to me. And first thing, first, the aromatics, they were very, very intense. It came to mind. I remember distinctively, you know, that day, I thought I was going actually to, taste something like Muscato or something, aromatically very intense, which it kinda makes sense because DNA, genetically, is actually enough spraying of, Muscato Bianco. There is also a lot of right behind, which I'm getting to, in a minute. But the first thing that we probably want to clarify is that it's not the same as many people. It's La Creama Christie from Visuri from Campania, which is actually an appellation that has Pedro as a main component as a grape variety. So La Grina is, natively from the market region, and, of course, it did like many other grape varieties. Widespread in adjacent regions such as, and a little bit of, toscana, and the south of Italy like a Calabria, Empulia. It's a great varieties that has history, leaded back at to the eleven hundred with federico Barbarosa, the holy Roman imperme, which used to drink the wines made from, Latina, during the siege of Ancona, as a matter of fact. It's a great that is never been widely cultivated specifically because the potential challenges and issues that he has into the vineyard. The actual berries tend to split and once it's split, it does really attract a lot of pests and possibly diseases. So not only you have a reduced yields and crop from that, but you have a lot of vineyard issues as well. It's typically cultivated in an area called Morodalba, from which he takes the name of the appylation, Lacrima, Morodalba, that is also considered his natural birthplace. So the way Lacrima as a great variety looks It's quite dark. It's a medium spherical berry. He has a very black and blue color in a skin. The cluster is usually a medium inside in size with five loaves. So it's fairly recognizable for those that study that subject. It's a great variety that doesn't really tend to adapt or really enjoys the extreme weather. So whether it's rain and frost, but also a lot of heat. Is very sensitive to, botrytis. So the interesting fact is that it's very thin skin as a great variety. However, the thin skin, which is counter intuitive, still do process and ferment wines with good amount of tenings that tend to be a little softer than other type of tenings. The wines usually are light body, but they also are very deeply, you know, colored. So once you look at the glass, you think you're gonna be drinking a very big and bold wine, probably with high tenings and full body. It's actually one of the most tricky, you know, wine to detect between the visual and the palate and the sensory information. What does it taste like? What does he smells like? So as we said, it's very aromatic. A lot of black cherries, blackberries is very, you know, perfuming. It's a highly aromatic. It's floral. So you have, he has the tendency of really give out dark rose lavender, you know, violet with some, undertones of aromatic and real herbs, even baking spices. If you will. Because of these connotations, especially it comes to tenant structure, typically in the market and for a producer is, almost never, age, you know, so you have a, you know, vessel fermentation. And, possibly just a few short period of time of maturations in the bottle between, before release. Coming back to America, Van Italy International Academy, the ultimate Italian wine qualification will be held in New York City from four to six March twenty twenty four. Have you got what it takes to become the next Italian wine ambassador? Find out at ben Italy dot com. They tend to have a a early drinking ability as opposed to the structure and the factors to go for a long age, but the acidity is good, which make this wines a lot of fun, easy drinking, in fairly easy pairing with wines. The norm is to have dry, still breads. Although there are some, small producers that actually make, aceto from these grapes. Typically, it's at least eighty five percent. Component in most producer use a hundred percent in the Motorola as an appylation, but it is also found in other appylation, like, Coli Macharatesi, and is, often blended with this partner, Monte Pucan, as we said, it's fairly easy to pair. Although he has this very high aromatic intensity, but it's typically used in in combination with maybe some aged cheeses. With some dill a tuna sauce, local cuisine like a dinchis grassi in the original typical market lasagna sort of, but also the samyaki bolognese as well as, some pulled pork that we actually did in some of our classes matching this wine with. Some of the producers that you can find on the, general market, you find it here in the US and another you know, countries outside of Italy, probably Miami Ronki as well as, Villanosi in Stefano Machinelli Evicari. I do encourage everyone to, try this amazing grape variety, which is very, very different from most of Italian grape varieties and is actually a lot of fun to blind taste somebody, you know, with as well as is, probably a crowd pleaser for most of, wine drinkers whether Italian or not. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud Apple Podcast spotify, HimalIFM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. 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