Ep. 81 Monty Waldin interviews Federico Gordini (Lievita Agency) | Italian Wine Coops

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. This podcast has been recorded during Vivite an event organized by the the alliance of Italian corps. Hello. This is the Italian Mind Podcast. My name is Montei Mordin. I am with who owns an advertising agency called the Agenciel Liebita, which is in Milan. And federico created the concept for and organized an event called v v day. What is VIVita is, a new wine festival just based on the cooperative companies producing wine in, every region of Italy. That's a big system. There are four hundred and ninety seven sellers all around Italy, cooperative sellers, with the one hundred and forty thousand farmers bringing their grapes to these big sellers. It's a huge system, considering What percentage of Italian wine is cooperative? The fifty two percent of the DOC wines and the sixty percent of EGT wines. So it means that to give you an idea about the business, the total income of wine industry in Italy is twelve point five billions. And the cooperative system means four point three billions. So it's huge. So it's got a third of the value but half of the production. Yeah. Yeah. More. So the idea was to try and up the value of the conflict. Yes. How do you do that though? Or how do they do that? How do the growers do that? How do they cope easier? They are trying to work better, especially, in in the fields, you know, in the vineyards. They're asking their farmers to cultivate better to have more attention. Okay? Because the success of their wines depends, basically, first of all, on that. On the grapes, on the grapes. Do you think that that message has got lost over time? That it was just a question of producing as many kilos as possible. In the past, yes, in the past, yes, but now the tenants is changing. So what changed, though? Why why is the tendency? Because they understood that they need to produce maybe less, but more valuable wine, but it's a process that we have to do in all our wine system in Italy because basically the problem is that, okay, in general, we produce more wine than France. France, you know, has a totally different income from wine because the value of every single French bottle is totally different, you know, from the Italian ones. So we need to increase the value, and that's the reason why we need to start from the bigger system we have in our country. It isn't the problem if you want to call it in Italy. The fact is that you gotta fantastic climate. I know you've got various climates up and down the country. Yeah. It is a land that is suited to high production and good still good wine at high production. Yeah. You know, you talk about you can about world class wine. Maybe you have to lower yields, but isn't that kinda like a a not not a trap. I kind of a precondition that you've got that you can't you can't almost fight against if if, if nature wants to give you one hundred and twenty quintiles of Trebiano that is actually still quite drinkable Yeah. What's the problem? The problem is that, you know, for I'll give you an example. We work talking before about the pinot grigio. Okay. We are relaunching so much pinot grigio. In Italy, we are trying to do that because the most part of the pinot grigio goes to the States, you know. The funny and different thing is that, the pinot grigio in States grows up really with big numbers, big big numbers, because, you know, they have irrigation system everywhere. Initially, we have no irrigation system practically anywhere. Okay? So we are based on nature. But the thing is that the cooperative system has a great advantage, especially in times and in years, like two thousand and seventeen. That was a very complicated year in Italy as you perfectly know the climate, you know. Very strong. Fine. Yeah. Very dry, but before during the spring. Okay. It was icy. Great. All the flowers. Okay. Some of the flowers died. And so no grapes from that. That very dry. And then the last part was, you know, maybe in some parts, even too much rain, icy rain. So everything went wasted. And we have a medium, medium average of loss that is about thirty, thirty five percent of the entire in its name. If you have two thousand farmers in your cooperative seller, you can choose, you know, the best you have. You can say, okay, I do this selection. I try to find the vineyards. There were less maybe cocked by the bad climate or, you know, and trying to do the best selection of the wine. And this is the reason why they say, okay, we are really strong because we are small, and we have the good affects, let's say, of being small, the good characteristics. So being small means to have a big attention to your vineyard every day, taking a look to everything, you know, but in the same time, time. We have the advantage of being b also. Isn't one of the problems though that with the smaller ones that they are often weekend pine growers. They only are in their vineyards on a Friday and a Saturday. So if something needs doing on a Thursday afternoon. Yeah. And they're in the office, basically paying the mortgage. Isn't that one of the disadvantages of cooperative growth who are only part time? It depends because there are men in in the good comparative system that people can live from agriculture. You can survive. Because survive. The agriculture can be sustainable. Imagine, for example, in, Alto adige. They pay three hundred, three hundred and fifty per one hundred kilos. Okay. So it's Three hundred and fifty euros. Yeah. Three hundred and fifty euros for one hundred kilos upgrade. And in Pullia. And in Pullia, maybe there are some places where they pay, I don't know, sixty, seventy, eighty, fifty. Okay. Yep. So it's brutal economics. Yeah. Yeah. But it depends, of course, on their request on the quality of the system and whatever. But I see that even in regions that are less considering, by the market as Alto Adi Jay is, I see that they're increasing the value of the grades when they buy them. It's a good system because if you think call operation doesn't have the target of, having an income, you know, but just to the partners, let's say. The members of the cooperative. Members have their stainability of life. And I think that that's a good cooperation. And in these two days at Vivite, you will see a demonstration of what is a good cooperation. There are many, many farmers coming here to the event and they're really proud to see their wines. But what is the future of properties? I mean, the numbers of cooperative growers are have gone down partly because of general demographics and also how the wine market has been that I think I think that there are many young people going back to our culture in Italy. And I think that So we live in a we live in a world that's very individualistic. You know, we all have our Facebook and Twitter, but it's all about me me me me me. Why would I wanna be part of a cooperative where my name It depends where you are. It depends where you are. If me and you open a small seller, we've we neared and we have money, and we can open it in Montalcino. It's one thing. If we can open it in Emilia Romania, Marche, or Melissa, or Abruzzo, Coparti System is an idea And you have to consider seriously. Seriously. If you have a good one Because the grapes are worth less, yeah, than Montatrina grapes in San Diego. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, the thing is that it depends on the budget you have. It depends on the choice that you do because there are many people who want to survive by agriculture. Okay? And they want not just having this kind of in individualism and to create their brand. Okay? Cooper of the system is for these people. And I think that it will grow up in the future. In a couple of hours, we will have this celebration of the twenty seven wines from the Cooper system, the wounded this year. Three glasses from Yeah. It's interesting because the number of the bottles of the wines reaching the price every year is increasing core, freezing, freezing from cooperatives is increasing a lot. I think that's In the past, it was very difficult to think about this because maybe there was there were many sellers producing big numbers of wine and maybe famous for cheap wines because they they had the cheap line, and they did many commercials about this so much communication. So they are well known for that. Right now, they reach the traffic area. But isn't that the the, a good cooperative should be doing both. It's got the opportunity to make high quality wine that is value for money, should we say, and also high quality wine that is premium or super premium. If it's if it's run well and we've seen in some properties and I think that really are run extremely well that they can achieve both from successful volume as well as high quality each. I think so. Even because they are they have so much choice they can choose. Okay. And so they can do a strong selection of three rings. Yeah. And so they can create maybe even three, four, five, six different lines, okay, because, of course, you need to start from somewhere, but the possibility to choose is something really important, especially with these big climate changes that we are seeing in the last years. Okay. Thank you very much for the Rico Gordon. In terms of streaming, if this if this podcast was a cooperative podcast, this would be like your bottom bargain basement supermarket brand with a with with now either of our names on it. Okay? It's great to talk to you. I wish you every success for the rest of this event and for cooperative wine growing in Thank you very much. In general. Thank you very much for coming in. Bye. Thanks. Thank you. This episode has been brought to you by Vin Italy twenty eighteen, taking place in verona from April fifteenth to eighteenth. Vinitari is the wine exhibition that helps you discover and get to know Italian wine and features over four thousand two hundred wineries. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.