Ep. 349 #iobevoacasa - LOCKDOWN SERIES | Michelle Erland and Laura Felluga

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast lockdown series. Every Monday will 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 colangelo p r dot com. Hello, everybody, and welcome to lockdown series with Italian wine people. I'm Michelle Erland, and I am an Italian wine ambassador, and super excited to be here with Lara Feluga. Laura, how are you doing today? I'm very well. Thank you for hosting me. Very happy to be here on this first day of summer. Oh, of course. Of course. Laura, I have to tell you it's such an honor for me to be here interviewing you today because I am such a fan of your family's wines, and it's very nice to virtually meet you, in person. So tell us, how are you doing? How is the family doing? Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here. I have the chance to speak with you earlier this week. And, I found out we spent some time in Italy. You speak Italian. You we were living nearby in verona. So I'm free. So I train my English and you can train your Italian in the beginning. Perfect, though. Perfect, though. So I'm glad to to feel your love for Italy. I believe already, and I hope you'll be able to travel again soon and visit us soon, here in Cleveland. This little I do as well. I do as well. I can't wait. Yes. I I did live in borough on them, for two years, and it was amazing. And, fell madly in love even more so with with Italian wine. So I'm very happy to be still working with Italian wine. Yeah. And so what can you spend lockdown with? I'm renovating my home currently, so my mom was kind enough to host me. And it's been, like, a dive back in the adolescence days, experience. But I I believe our bond grew. We were even stronger. So she was very loved it. She did because I've been away for such a long time on. That's what she tells me. I'm not quite sure if she actually did. But, we've been away for a long time, so it's nice to get to spend time with Fending in a difficult situation. What did you spend your lockdown days with? So I was actually in my apartment by myself, but thankfully, there's so many virtual opportunities to connect with my family and friends. So feel like I've had people the whole time with me. So Mine is a lot of you. Always. The wines didn't start stop coming. So that was great. So, yeah, let let's talk about some hobbies maybe that you've perfected picked up during a lockdown that you think you are going to continue with after, everything reopens. I heard a rumor actually that you really, really love learning foreign languages, and that recently you started, studying Chinese again. Is that is that correct? That was actually the, the purpose that you saved, intention before lockdown happened. So I finally gained the contact of, of a of a person in my hometown, so I could start doing lessons again. And then lockdown happened. So I didn't go back to Chinese But I've seen there's plenty of very interesting applications and, you know, profiles on, on Instagram that could be helpful in the meanwhile, and it's definitely something I wanna do. There's, any words in Chinese. Of course. Well, I'll start from the basic, which is hello, and it's miho, miho, miho, miho, which means my name is Woah. Wow chow. Woah. Woah. It's like saying chow in in italian. Of the d sound. Woah. Amazing. Well, how about something like where is the wine? Do you know that in Chinese? Yes. But how do a China are? My apologies. I'm with Chinese listeners. It's been a long time since I lived in China. It's been eight years, so my tones are off. That's good. How? We did a it means, grapes. Geo means alcohol. So to define wine, you you say the alcohol made of grapes. Dye means ease and nara means where. So put how to nara? That's incredible. I'm not even gonna try to repeat it because I know I'm going to butcher it. So I trust few. It's it's amazing. I got a lot, but, actually, I really, really can't wait to go back physically to to China and, you know, regain, the consciousness of the land. The remember, because with languages, if you don't use them, then they they evaporate somehow. No. Yes. No. You're absolutely correct. I'm sorry. How's it going with your Italian? Definitely have to keep studying. But, in New York, I'm lucky because there's lots of opportunities to take, language classes, and I do work with a lot of Italians. So they they keep me on my toes. Do you have an savory phrase or sentence or, you know, that, you So, yes, but I don't know if I can say it, on the podcast. But it's not no. I love to say. I just love to ask people. I think it's just so it just flows so nicely to say that phrase. So I do say that a lot in the office. I think that, it's very similar, in the Italian and Chinese culture is the passion for food and the fact that we're very loud. And so when I first moved to China, one of the first things that they taught me is that when you meet somebody in the streets or when you call somebody, the typical way to ask how they are, I mean, how are you is did you eat already? Now. Very relatable in the Italian culture as well. Yes. No. I know that for sure. No matter what time of day it was, my Italian friends would say, are you hungry? Did you eat? So let's talk about any other hobbies that you have. I also know that you are a Yoda and instructor. I mean, I have the certificate. I've never actually had the courage to teach anybody anything. I think that you need a lot of, like, you need to be responsible about these things. So, yeah, potentially. Do you find though that you practice your yoga during the lockdown more? I tried. So the most difficult thing I don't know if you agree with me was to keep a routine within the within this absolutely so what I tried to do, I tried at the beginning, I set too many rules I said to myself, so now you've got the chance. Now you get the chance to do all of those things you've never had time to do. So you wake up at sikhs, and then you drink a litter of water, and then you do yoga, and then you work for two hours, and then you do, I don't know, heats training, and then you take a nap, and then you eat healthy. It only proteins in touch. Then you'd write that book, you always wanted to write. Chinese. And, of course, that lasted a day and a half. You know, this following couple of days, I would just lie in the bed thinking what am I gonna do for this entire time? So the key was training to find some balance, and, of course, yoga is very helpful in this kind of intention. What do you think? I know you love yoga too. I I do I do like yoga, but, I'm not a teacher. So I was hoping you could maybe teach me a good move to do, to keep balance while I'm working from my home office which is also make your chin. Since I, I'm very also very lazy. My favorite pose in yoga is Shalatanna, or anything related to, Panayama and breathing exercises, I think those are the most powerful tools, to really re center one's self and, regain regain, you know, consciousness of your own pace and and breadth and clearness of thoughts, So I lost I lost my my my flow. I could teach you, sir Shavasana, but I think you're not qualified. Or another thing, another thing I could teach you that I think it's kind of interesting and useful to anybody that, is listening to us. And it's one of the, you know, aspects that I brought back to my, actually, daily life. I tried to do it every time when I wake up. So when I went to India, This is a very, millennial thing to to say maybe I don't know. I had different teachers. I have I had one teacher that we teach me in the Asana, which are the excerpts. The physical poses that you actually, go through during your yoga practice And then, there was another teacher who's who'd teach the, you know, the theory of yoga and the breathing techniques and the meditation. And before going there, I had this image of meditation. It's something very is a very, very bizarre, very difficult to understand and conceive. As a matter of fact through him, I understood that it's something very pragmatic and easy to to practice. So it's not easy to achieve, a state where you're in a deep meditation, but it's very easy to try to meditate or to do it for a small time span every day. And what they used to do, they used to bring us some, little, caps with oil and a little flame. And you used to teach us that to meditate, you need to set your intention on one item. The traditional thing they set their intention in the schools is this little flame on the top of the candle. You cannot choose an idol band at, for example, at the beginning, I would meditate on the BTS. I'm very fond of Korean pop, and that would not work. You cannot, you know, you set your intention on, a person you would like to become or, a physical entity. It could be the sea, the fire, light, and you should breathe deeply in and out. Now we we can use we can use the bottle of wine as our flame. Okay. It's gonna work or maybe the wine itself. Okay. You should take five deep breaths. We'll take two. Focus on the object. And then keep the image of the object in your head. And the only thing that should be left in your mind should be the image of that object. And what they say is that when you really achieve the state of, deep meditation. You actually feel like you are, like diving in light. You lose consciousness of all of the sounds in the surrounding and your internal struggles, and that is a state that should be easier and easier to achieve the more you practice. And, through concentration and balance, I really believe that anybody can find, life even more pleasant and better to their goals and, you know, be healthier and happier. And it's something that I hope also because, you know, the New York life is just hustle and bustle, and it's I know as soon as we open phase two, everyone's going, boom, right back. That's why I need those five minutes to go back to their inner peace in your back. Yes. So thank you. I'm gonna definitely, use that. So let's have a glass of wine together. I, picked myself up the two thousand seventeen pinot grigio? Nice. My favorite. It's very hot in New York today. So it's I'm gonna enjoy this throughout the day because it is, breakfast time. So I will enjoy the rest of it later this afternoon. But Lara, thank you so much. What are you drinking? Actually, I'm drinking Cabazzo, two thousand and seventeen, which is the blend that we produce at the ancient Epi. Well, I haven't tried that one yet. Have you? I haven't. It's a blend of the flulano Sabignon and Pino Bianco. And when you'll get it, we'll take you to a very spiritual actually place, which is the Abi. It's very important for the wine history in other region, but also, I think it could be, a good place where to go back to the balance. Oh, thank you so much for your meditation together and to be It's so loud. Thank you so much for joining me today on the Italian wine podcast. Cheers to you and your family, and I really hope to, be able to cheers together in person very soon. Please visit soon and stay healthy and safe and enjoy phase two. Thank you for sticking with the lockdown series each week. This concludes our final episode. We hope you enjoyed getting to know Italian wine people in their homes, and hopefully you got some ideas on new hobbies, foods to prepare, or wants to try. Stay tuned to the Italian wine podcast and plugged in to the Italian wine world.