Ep. 344 #iobevoacasa - LOCKDOWN SERIES | Michelle Erland and Lawrence Cronin

I think this should be the, theme song for the lockdown series. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast lockdown series. Every Monday, we'll be connecting with Italian wine people. Join us to find out what they're doing and drinking today. This podcast is brought to you by Colangelo and Partners, the leading fine wine and spirits agency in the US. Visit Colangelo and Partners on w w w dot calangelo p r dot com. Alright. Hello, everybody. Wanna Sarah Chow, while welcome to the lockdown series with Italian Wine People. I am Michelle Erland, and I'm very excited to be here with our special guest today, Lawrence Cronin, Lawrence. Thank you so much for joining us. Hi. Cheers. Nice to be here. Cheers. It's nice to meet you. So Lawrence, you are the winemaker at Tunuto, d r chain o. Is that correct? Yes. Correct. Wise detector test. And, where are you located right now? We're right now, I'm in Casa Malvigaradanga. So we're in the Captty Closuka region in the southern part, which is Caso, which is, Casanova, Danga. So in the southernmost region, Sangu's May is the closest town to the winery. Okay. So how's everything going? Where you are? Are you guys still in lockdown or are things opening up? Yeah. We're coming out the lockdown now. Restaurants are starting to open this weekend. Restaurants were open for takeout not so long ago. Like, last week, but this week, restaurants are opening. Things are getting a lot of people out on bicycles, a lot of people out walking. There's a lot more strict here probably in the States, you know, in the first couple of months. But now, you know, everybody's People are getting a lot of exercise now. I think the Italian government has given you a five hundred euro credit to buy a bicycle if you want. Wow. Well, I'm in New York right now, so we are still on pause. So we are still in our homes, and not a lot is open. But one thing we do have is wine. So it's been an amazing, opportunity to connect with so many people virtually over wine and to talk about wine. So can you tell us what you're drinking right now? So, it's about three o'clock here. So I had to think ahead for dinner. Okay? So I opened up a hundred percent Sanderes, It's a straddle Sasso, if you can see it. It's our grand selection on a two thousand seventeen. I'm drinking. One hundred percent sangiovese from one vineyard. We make about eight hundred cases. Really super high acid. Bright, very bright wine. Very nice. So, yeah, even though, you know, we we spoke about every all the humans being on lockdown, I mean, nature still continued. So How do you think this year's vintage is doing right now? I mean, I guess for this lockdown, I I'm I'm the luck one of the lucky ones because being in agriculture, it never really I was never really in lockdown. I wasn't locked down, but socially, but, you know, the vineyards keep growing, and the wine keeps aging. And for agriculture, you you were allowed to go to work because if you don't tend to vines, you anything, you know, take care of the wine, you lose everything as well. So I've been going to work every day, almost every day, limited people, but the vines are growing beautifully. Two thousand nineteen looks like a super year. We just had flowering start on Monday, and a little earlier than usual, maybe a week earlier than last year. But it's so hard to tell. A lot of people always ask me in spring. So how is the two thousand twenty gonna be? You know, it's a long way to go. For that. Exactly. We still have another two seasons, right, before harvest ultimately. Yeah. Right. If anything could happen. I mean, look at now. I mean, January till now, who would have it expected this is what twenty twenty would have looked like. But that's amazing. So, yeah, I heard a rumor. You are originally from New York. I was born in Staten Island, New York. And grew up in Staten Island, in New Jersey, classic stereotypical Uncle Toni cousin Vinny, uncle Rocky, with my grandmother living in Sicily. The winemaker at this winery since two thousand and two. So that's coming up on twenty years quite soon. Wow. So you have sicilian roots used to visit your your family in Sicily, but what made you want to get into wine? I mean, I made some moonshong with my grandmother once, but, you know, it turned turned to vinegar. We made white wine one summer. So I had my first experience with that. I went to school for chemical engineering in Syracuse, upstate, New York. Wow. And didn't really want me to do that. And so when I moved to California, I went to school, another school in Humboldt State up north in California, very happy, happy land, peace, and love. And my first job was near the wine country. Nothing to do with wine. And I was working as a chemist in wine country. And I all of a sudden, I said, why don't I just, be a chemist in a winery? And I got a a job as a harvest intern in a in Anderson Valley, in Mendo. In nineteen ninety five, and it was, east, you know, the guy, the wine maker at the time said, you know, you, you could do the lab work. Sure. I mean, it was really rustic. There was elk elkorns on top of the lab. So don't think of, like, a white lab coat and a laboratory, there was elkorns on top of the lab. And I started working there in nineteen ninety five, and I never looked back. Wow. I mean, it really is the best industry to be in the wine industry. Just the people connecting with one another. I mean, you can have so many people with diverse backgrounds, and I'll passionate about this one thing. It's really an incredible, industry to be in. So if you seen, some other podcasts that, episodes that I've done. I love to ask producers this question because if Sandra Vasier were to be a person or a child, what kind of personality would it have? It makes its own rules. You don't know for harvest, for example. You don't if it it really depends on what type of harvest what kind of sangiovese you get. If it's a warm harvest, you get a completely different sangiovese than a cold harvest. So it's very fickle. It's very independent. You can't really control it. You just have to steer it in the direction you want and hope it goes where you like like kids. Do do you have kids? I have an eight year old soon to play to turn a nine year old June seventh. Oh, wow. Well, happy early birthday to him. So does he have a San Jose type personality? He's stubborn and competitive. Okay. Very competitive. During this lockdown, I've been playing a lot of one on one soccer or couch over football, whatever you wanna call it in the barn. Because he's home from school. So very competitive every day. We're playing one on one, and I can't win anymore. You know, I try to win, but he actually gets into my head now, and it says, Bobby, you you're over fifteen. You have three bad knees. You know? So he's not I mean, it's not like he's more narrow than Sanjay, say, I would say, but very stubborn like Sanjay. So you've been you've been playing soccer or football with him every single day since this began, do you find that, you know, there's more time to spend and do hobbies that you enjoy? Yeah. I mean, before the lockdown, he was playing football, you know, Italy's crazy for football. You guys don't know. A seven year old is three coaches for his team. Three or four coaches, you know, a goalie coach, you know, it's quite intense here. And he was playing three times a week for his team, Castanova Veradanga. And now that he can't play, there's a lot of pent up energy in there So, you know, I get home at four thirty. He's literally waiting at the door with my shoes in in my hand. I just changed my workloads, put on my shoes, and I'm out in the barn playing football until six thirty. The only thing that saves me, his television shows on at six thirty. So sometimes I'm looking at my watch just to show on yet because, you know, it gets pretty tiring. What show? What show does he like? Well, in my house, we speak we're speaking free languages. We're speaking English German, and Italian because my wife's from, Austria from Vienna. Oh, wow. So the satellite's facing towards Germany. So he's watching this show. I don't know. It's Guisel Guzman. It's his, blue hair character. Who does the news. It's quite an intelligent show. He learns a lot. It's, at the television show, I don't mind him watching. He comes back with things like talking about nuclear disarmament, you know, for an eight year old. So he actually learns stuff, but it's called Muzouzouz. I'm sure you guys never heard of it. But, you know, it's quite, quite a funny show. Oh, so lawyers, what other what other hobbies have you been, working on during this, lockdown? So there's not much time for to go after my hobbies because, you know, with eight year old, but I get home every moment is, you know, willingly, happily, I I'm spending with him playing games or playing sports or bike riding or something like that. So, I mean, for me, what I'm doing now is I ride my motorcycle a lot. I mean, I ride a motorcycle to work every day. And that gives me a sense of freedom, you know, at the even if it's locked down, I'm out, like, you know, you feel the air, you know, feel the away from this lockdown a little bit. So ride my motorcycle, bicycle, no really other hobbies on drinking wine, cooking, like everybody else, you know. Who who's the best cook in your family? You or your wife? She she's out and she can't hear me now. So I would say me. We won't tell her. I mean, we we've cooked a little different, you know. I I use a lot more olive oil, a lot more garlic, and she's more refined, you know, cut the vegetables perfect is she's austrians, and I'll cut things a little more robust and, you know, so two different styles, but she makes some great Austrian dishes that I can never try to make. But in March, you know, a lot of recipe, looking at recipes, cooking and apple pies and things like that. So you said that restaurants are opening this weekend in your area. Is there a place that you can't wait to go to or food you can't wait to have that you haven't had in a while? Yeah. I mean, there's a place in town that makes, like, a Chingali wild boar stew, and they put that over pasta. So I'm looking forward to that. I think, you know, things I can't make, you know, If I can't make it, that's what I wanna go to the restaurant for. Exactly. So I actually did hear another rumor, Lawrence. Is it true that you have some, skills on the guitar? You know, this this is the urban legend that's going around. About a month ago, I did a virtual tasting in my cantina, and why I was doing the tasting? There's just a guitar sitting in the background. So all the people in the company saw this guitar. So now they think, you know, I can play guitar. I have a guitar. I don't know if that means I can play it. I can try. Do you have a first? Well, let's see. We can we can try. Yeah. Go take a drink first. Cheers. So I really can't play any songs and things like that. So, basically, you said one of my hobbies, maybe, I just go in, some makeup stuff, you know, just we'll play anything to just I don't play songs. I just make things up. So I'll try to make things up I'll think about the coronavirus in March, and then I'll think about it now opening up. Okay? There you go. Okay. That's enough. You you say you can't play guitar. That was amazing. You just made that up now. Yeah. I tried to be a little dark. The March was a little dark here in cold, and now it's starting to lighten up. So I tried to think about March. But it was a little bit. Also, it's quite, you know, scarier in March. You know, now it really is this, you know, those curves going way down and you feel a little more happy to go out? I think this should be the, theme song for the lockdown series Italian wine podcast, for sure. Let's talk about as the world's opening, where do you want to travel as soon as we can start traveling again? Sicily, because we still have my my grandmother's family house in Sicily. And every summer, I go there at least two, three trips. One usually by myself, because I have to, you know, fix things in the house. Once with just me and my son, and that's the boys trip, and we don't really have to clean the house so much. And once with my mother comes from from she lives in California now, she comes here and stays here for a month and we go to Sicily altogether. So my me, my mother, my son. My wife doesn't go because we have a bed and breakfast. Yeah. I'm in the bed and breakfast now. So it's summer. She's busy. But at least three times a year, I go to Sicily and And this year, I don't know. Right? At this moment, you can't leave your regions. Like, I can't leave Tuscany. So we'll see what happens in July if I can get the Sisley, but the first chance I'll get is an hour and a fifteen minute flight for Pilera. I'll go to Sicily because I need calamari Beach and some moonshine white wine. When I when I used to go with my grandma, they used to go to the restaurants. She wouldn't she wouldn't go to a restaurant unless they had, the wine by the carafe. Well, your grandmother sounds like a a wise a wise woman. Well, listen. She's a huge one. Lawrence, thank you so much for joy. Joining us, on a lockdown series. It was great to get to know you. I would like to toast you for this amazing experience. And, here's to your family, here's to to nurture Chano, and hopefully we'll all be together having a glass of a chianti classical soon. Cheers. Cheers and thinking about you in New York. Thank you. Cheers. Cheers. See you next Monday for another virtual wine journey Italian wine podcast lockdown series.