Ep. 1438 Alberto Zenato | Italian Trade Agency Masterclasses In Germany

Hey, guys. Check out Italian wine unplugged two point o brought to you by Mama jumbo shrimp, a fully updated second edition, reviewed and revised by an expert panel of certified Italian wine ambassadors from across the globe. The book also includes an addition by professoria Atilushienza. Italy's leading vine geneticist. To pick up a copy today, just head to Amazon dot com or visit us at mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Welcome to this new mini series on Italian wine podcast. Join Stevie and her just do the work team as they travel to Dusseldorf, Germany, to interview some great Italian wine print. Each producer had submitted one of their wines towards the special Italian trade agency's master classes. Each were run by master Sommelier, Eroz Theboni, join us to get the inside scoop on these fantastic wineries. I am here today with a mother, fantastic producer. And, we are here at the Eche area, the Italian trade age area here in Germany. There's master classes going on. And, this gentleman here, his name is Alberto Zenato from the Zenato winery, when one of his wines has been featured in the mineralogy of great white wine from Italy master class, being held, run by eros Deponi. And, yeah, fantastic. Tell me who you are. Tell me about you. Tell me about the history of your wine. Yes. Winds up and your your your winery. First of all, thank you for inviting me, to this, master class, first of all, and now to this podcast. I'm Alberto Zenato. I represent the second generation of a Zenato family owned winery. We are, located in the Venator region in the northeast of Italy. And the winery is in the southern shore of Lake Garda in the right place where lugana production takes place. My father founded the winery in nineteen sixty. Nowadays, I run the winery with my sister. I look after the production side, and also the operation behind it. My sister looked after the marketing and the sales. And, my mother, still alive, look after us by but stay behind. She she has, a good age, luckily, and, she looked after some aspect of the production, but of course, she's not involved the everyday in the in the the work. Okay. No. That's nice though. And, So tell me a little bit about so how long is the winery been? Nineteen sixty was the year of the foundation. Wow. Okay. Okay. And, what is your flagship why? Well, we are born in lugana area. So, lugana represent one of our most important population. In particular, the wine we have tasted this morning at the master class represent our most high end iconic lugana production. It's our Lughana Reserva Sergio Zenato. It has also the senior tour of my father on the label to represent the commitment of my other in this area of production where he has, invested and believed in the quality and in the potential of this, area and the, gray variety that is, typical of this area by Trebiano D lugana, locally known as Turbiana. So he has spent most of his life to to develop this area into a more considerate ratio point of view. Because at the beginning, the area was very small, and the wine was, considered a table wine. The consumption was mostly locally local. And And nowadays, Lugana has been brought, thanks to our effort and other producer of the area around the world. And in particular, here in Germany, Lugana is, is, a very important white, this, has happened because we are both on the quality of the wine, but also because, Lake garden is a place for, German people to come to spend the day holiday. So when they came, in Italy and spent some days in our area, they went around, in the restaurant or in the wine shop to taste our wines, to taste our food. And when they, decided to go back to Germany, they wanted to bring home a piece of memory of what they tasted during the holiday. So after years of this, process, lugana has become a very, very well known in in Germany, in particular. Italian wine podcast brought to you by mama jumbo shrimp Okay. So you export here. Tell me where else do you export or everywhere? We export in, about sixty different countries. Wow. Most important countries are for the United European countries and the the North American countries, Canada, US, but, we are also well known, not only for, white wines, lugana, but also for Balpulicella and Amarone wines. We have, the soul in Lupulicella, to to express, a better this concept of being born in a lugana area, but developed also the red wine production in Valpurcell as a second place where we have, believed in that potential and, invest to to grow our production in our advance. Okay. Okay. That's great. And, I I is there somewhere where you wish you could export more or open into who they'll get into? Well, we could grow more in, Asia, in China, in particular, because this is a market that was up and down. It's not very table at the moment for, Italian wise, I would say, but also the, African market or some parts of Africa are still, not yet well covered by our, distribution and, states. So I would say that these are two areas where we can grow in the future. Okay. Fantastic. And and just another question, just totally different. Your wines. Do you have a favorite food that you eat with your wine? Well, if I'm, drinking a a lugana, I usually like to have a seafood or fish, from the lake. That is, the most popular food you can find in, the restaurant, around the lake of garda. Sometimes I cook, but, most of the time, seafood is difficult. To to make a tomb. So I go out in a restaurant, and I enjoy a different version of Lugana because I want to underline the versatility of this, grape variety that is good to pick very early when, there's a lot of acidity, and so we can make a sparkling lugana, but methodoclassical. Zenato want to make only the methodoclassical for, the best quality. Then we can wait when the grapes are more ripened to make the traditional lugana, the lugana, fresh fruity, fermented in, in stainless steel tank. And if we wait another couple of weeks, and we make a sort of late harvest. We pick the grapes very ripened to produce a vellulcanary syrup. That is vellulgana that we want to keep for long aging. We want to open a bottle of the five ten years and demonstrate the great quality of this grape variety, cultivate it in the right way with our passion, with our tradition that is transmitted to us by my father. Fantastic. Oh my gosh. Well, I I wish you the very best with, with with, you know, meeting contacts here. It's like such a there's so many people. And so I hope that it's very, very useful to you. And it's it's been really a pleasure to talk to you. It was my pleasure. Thanks again for the invitation. We are here to develop a new contact to meet a new potential customer. So we cross our fingers to finish tomorrow the the the wine fair in the best way as possible. I yes. That's wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, HimalIFM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and break the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italian wine podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time, teaching.