Ep. 38 Monty Waldin interviews Carlo Franchetti of Vini Franchetti | Italian Wine Personalities

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. You're listening to the Italian wine podcast with New Monte Gordon. And today's guest is Carlos Franketti. Carlo, I'm gonna let you explain exactly what you do in wine in Tuscany. Okay. Well, thank you for having me Monte. It's a pleasure to be here. As you know, I wear many hats, but, my main hat is marketing manager of, tenuta Ditrinoro, which is our, our winemaking estate in Tuscany, in Valdorca, not too far south from, Montalcino, just to put the the place in context. I also look after our other winery, which is called, Paso Picaro in Sicily. And, I've recently become a, a winemaker myself with a pinot noir project in Tuscany, we're nearby. Tanuta Ditrinoro. How, you you've beenyard in the About Dolch is the Orchard Valley, made famous in the Gladiator film or the filming done in the Orchard Valley sexy shots of Russell Crow standing in fields of Bali, right? But you're a little bit higher up than that, aren't you? Yes. I'm actually with my pinot noir. I'm I'm not in Valdorca. Tenuto is in Valdorca. I'm up on a hill, basically, on a ridge, on a ridge line that separates the very southern part of Tuscany from Umbria. I almost straddle the border with Umbria. Okay. So it must be quite a cool spot. Right? It is. It is. It's high up. The top of the ridge is eight hundred meters of altitude. The vineyards that I've planted are at six hundred and fifty meters. I'm looking to plant some more at, seven hundred meters and on the on the north side of the hill where I am. At the moment, I'm on the south side. I'm pretty happy with the results I'm getting, but I think I can get even more finesse and elegance by moving further higher up on the north side. What is it about your family that always wants push everything to the extreme. Well, you know, the world is awash with lots of wine. I think, you know, especially if you're a small producer, you wanna make something special. And to make something special, you gotta push the limits. You can't make something that everybody does. Otherwise, your dad from moment one. And also, I mean, we're we're fond of special things, special places, beauty. I mean, we we come from a family, which is, very artistic family. We've been art collectors and art eaters for two centuries and studying in Venice. And, we were attracted to the beauty of Tuscany, and, we wanna get a bit of that beauty in, in the wine that we're making. I think that the magic of a place is very important. And you get that in the wine if you are in a special place and you get a special wine. Okay. So just give me a quick glimpse of what your pinot noir tastes like from these very high sites on the border with Uber, Ombre or tuscany. Well, obviously, they're a bit more robust, a little bit more concentrated than the burgundy pinot noir's, but, without taking it too far. It's not a big fruit, pinot noir, as some of the older Californian pinot noir is tended to to eat. It's a little bit firmer. You mean? It's a little bit firmer. Yeah. A little bit richer than your your average burgundy. I mean, it's like a bit of like a pomar, a pomar in a big year. Okay. So let's go back to the original estate that your family found. It was the tenuta di Trinoro. That's right. Tell me a little bit out of the history and how you got involved with the rest of the family. Tenuto. Let's take a state step back was is the brainchild of my cousin, Andrea franchetti. He really started the wine business, the family wine business back in the early nineties. He started out as a wine importer, an importer of top French Bordeaux wines, his passion, and top Italian wines in New York. This was in the eighties, and it was a very exciting moment because it was a period in which Italian, the Supertuscans were becoming famous and, everybody was talking about them. And, and, in Sasicaya. In Sasicaya, that's right, Masseto, tinianelo. Or Nalia was just starting. So, but, basically, what that meant was that, finally, Pordeaux grapes grown in Italy were gaining as acceptance on the international market. And, that was good news for Andrea because, his big love is for Bordeaux. And so he had this fantastic estate in, Valdorca, Tanuta de Tinaro, which has very similar conditions to Montalcino, where just fifty kilometers south of Montalcino. So very similar microclimate and very similar soil conditions to Montecino. And Andrea figured that, he could, he he would probably make a very interesting border blend in that area. It's a very isolated estate, isn't it to get there requires a bit of love it. Yes. Yes. But, you know, that's that's part of the beauty of it, I guess. But, but, I mean, that's that's really a coincidence. Andrea bought this estate in the seventies. Is it the sheep? It it it was it was not. It was a completely abandoned you gotta keep in mind that in Italy in the in the sixties and seventies, the countryside was abandoned by farmers, and they all went to the cities. And, all these little farms and states abandoned estates fell into disrepair. And Andrea founded and what he loved about this place was its remoteness. The fact that it was so far away in in such pristine natural surroundings. And, you know, it was it was a place to get away from the madness of of the seventies in Rome, and New York and, you know, the big cities, and and he loved just this fact that it was going back to basics. And then it was the ideal place to start this new winemaking adventure when he decided to move on to to that. Okay. And tell me about the family interest in Sicily, Paso What does that mean first to a Pashiro? Pashiro Pashiro is a sicilian term. It means the fisherman's pass because it's a little town high up on Aetna at about eight hundred meters of elevation. And that's as far up the mountain as the fish seller would go. And so it was known as the fish seller's past, the passo del Pishado, the fish seller. Andrea's always been very fond of Sicily. He would go and spend time there in the summer spent holidays there on one of his, trips around exploring the countryside of, Sicily. He ended up, Paso, and discovered an incredible place with incredible wine making potential. And, he saw all these century old vineyards abandoned to themselves, which were just being kept alive by, local farmers for making local wine, and he saw this as an incredible opportunity to start a new wine adventure with century old vineyards. This was in two thousand. So very, very recently. And, to find, those conditions, and, of course, everybody was willing to sell because they thought, only a crazy man would wanna buy these old vineyards, which for them were, right, were ripe to be taken out and replaced because they they couldn't they couldn't sell the wine. Right? You weren't making any money or They were they didn't understand the potential, I think. They didn't know any better, basically. What had happened, that was an area that had a long tradition and history of winemaking that they'd back to several centuries. And in fact, if you go there, you see all the remain you see these wine sellers fantastic. This this, bahia, and it's full of them. And now, obviously, they're all being bought up and restored. But they're the testament of a glorious past. And in fact, And Narelomascales is very interesting because this is the local grape that grows on Antnan that we're making wine with there is, very reminiscent of Pinot noir. And what they were doing before the the great war, the second world war, there was a thriving business for exporting Nenalo Moscalese wine to burgundy to fortify the French wines. I mean, the French, they will never admit to this, but that was, of course, that was That never that's something that would happen to the wine business, sort of, honest people. Exactly. And and but that was, what was happening And then, of course, the second world war interrupted this business, and then it just never recovered. It was a gradual decline all the way to to two thousand when my cousin Andrea chanced upon this area and started buying as many vineyards, old vineyards as as he could get his hands on at ridiculous prices by today's standards and making this wine. And, at the beginning, he had a little difficulty figuring out what to make of this wine because, there wasn't much to anything interesting to taste because the only wine that was being made was local wine by local farmers. So very rough wine. And so in the beginning, he was trying to make, kind of a super sicilian, you know, the the the equivalent of a super tuscan in in in in Sicily, but after couple of years of trying to do that. He figured out that he was going the wrong way and he said, you know, this was not a a grape that was fit for making that super concentrated, super rich, structured wine, and that he he realized that he was barking up the wrong tree and changed directions, went the burgundy way, and the rest is you know, history. So, basically, your family loves isolation. I'm amazed we've got you into the studio today because, you know, all of you are like the far flung reaches of, of, the possibility of growing wine on planet wine. So amazing. You're actually wearing a suit You know, I I thought you'd turn up in some sort of sack cloth with a beard, but you're clean shave and very smart, baying. Well, you know, we're we're not, natural wine producers. In fact, we're all fashioned, the winemaking school. We like our wines to be clean and transparent and polished and shapes. So so, no, I think you you got the wrong the wrong image there. We like our our things, our wines to to taste good and to look good. Carlo, Frankrete, thanks for coming in to explain. You're very complex, but fascinating family history and why. I wish you every success with your opinion and why. And, I look forward to visiting you in Tuscany at some stage. I'll turn up, but I'll be as smart as I can when I turn up. Thank you. I look forward to it. Nice to have you on the show. Thanks. Follow us at Italian wine podcast on Facebook.