Ep. 201 Monty Waldin interviews Alojz Felix Jermann (Jermann Winery) Pt. 1 | LUX Wines Producers

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. This podcast is brought to you by Lux wines, importer of fine wines, bringing you exceptional wines from esteemed winemaking families, Alegini Arjanno Yerman, Pieropan, for Joalto Zorro Renato Rati and tornatorre. Find out more at lox wines dot com. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast with me in Montewood. My guest today is Felix Yerman hello hello. It's, a pleasure to be here. So for your family winery is the young man and winery? Yes, exactly. Whereabouts are you and why? The family history. We are, like, quite in a unique place. In Italy, not a lot of people recognize it as Italy. It's, right on the northeast, side of, of Italy, right on the border with Slovenia and just below Austria, which is which region of Frulli. Frulli. Exactly. Yeah. And basically, the reason, like, we find each other now in Italy, but, it wasn't always Italy. We were used to be underneath the Austria Hungarian Empire. And, actually, my kind of the, the starter of our family, Anton Yerman, he migrated down from Bergland into Slovenia. So, Bergland is in Austria. Exactly. Exactly. And, into Sabrina, Bylianna, and then move down to Villanowa de Farah where we have our historic estate now. Was your land originally part of the Austrian empire? Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So that after the first World War in nineteen nineteen, the Treaty of Trianon, I think I'm correct in saying, as a reward, to Italy, Italy, basically gained some land from Austria. Exactly. They kind of conquered it. Yeah. So that was where your family's from. That's alright. But you feel more Austrian or Italian or how you're quite you with the way just to you can't see him at the waistcoat, you know, you look like you're very open minded guy, multicultural, yeah, just the way you dress. You know, you're not like a formal, you know, you don't like to turn up on a suit and a tie. Do you feel more Italian or more hostile or or just your you? I'm definitely me. I was That's that's an understatement. I, you know, my family has always been, like, very, like, attached to the culture of Austria and our Austro Hungarian empire traditions, and that reflects also in our wines. So we are Italians, but we're definitely very different than the normal ones. I mean, I'm also blonde headed and, like, it's, it's people I travel the world and nobody recognizing as an Italian. Okay. So you have an Italian passport with Austrian Austrian blood. Exactly. Perfect. Okay. So you mentioned that has an influence on on, the grape varieties you work with and also the wines that you make. So that's just go through the the wines one by one. Are you working with native grape varieties or just, you know, chardonnay cabinet? We we don't make any carbonate. We we basically mainly work with native grape varieties because those are the grape varieties that can really sell in our area. And then of course, we have some international grape varieties like a chardonnay, like a sauvignon and, Pinogrijo, which is from Italy, but, it's, basically produced in a lot of areas. Of course, in our area, it's very unique and has a sense of place. But, the most important IT that represents the area, the friuli, in my opinion, is the Ribolo Jala. So that's Ribolo Jale, the yellow Ribolo? Yellow Ribolo. Yes. Exactly. So and how how many different stars of Ribolo Jala do you make? We currently only make one. Basically, clear vinification. You press the grapes, you collect the juice you ferment. You're not doing a skin contact. No skin contact rubella. No. Why don't you do a skin contact rubella? Cause it has been so trendy to do that in in your region. You know, these orange wines or yellow wines or whatever whatever you wanna call them. You know, this is not really been part of our, of our tradition. You know, like, the skin contact was how, like, the ancient Romans used to make the wines. And, at the time, it made sense. To make it like this, now they kind of brought it back, to kind of have like a distinct, kind of taste, a distinct style, but we don't identify with the style. We our style, you know, it's, very precise, clean wines that represents the character we of each variety. So you think the skin contact is actually that kind of wine is is nullifying the verifiable characteristic. It gives it gives it other characteristics that's, are not characteristic we're looking into a wine. So it's, So what are those character that you're not looking for? The kind of, Well, you know, Bola jolla already has a very thick skin. And hence when you actually saturate it, it has, a lot of tannins when you feel it. And, we wanna have more of, like, a round mouthfeel, kind of more smooth with greater CD, but a good structure as well. For us, it's very important that a consumer that, just like, that I myself and you could drink a whole bottle by ourselves and actually finish another one with no not even thinking twice. Should we try? We show good. But, and we are really, like, focused on, like, the enjoyment of the drink, the drinkiness and also the ease of drinking our wines. And you're saying that you can't have that ease or you you find it. Well, it's it's it's for different parts, definitely, but with the tannins. It has more structure, they're more bold, a little bit heavier wines. And, it's as well also with, with the aging, it's also different. We believe that in our way, our wine can age much better as well and for longer. Like, we, right now, Iboilajala twenty fourteen, which is like, four years old. It actually shows beautiful right now. We've actually opened some older vintages of Iboilajala, from the first ones, like eighty five, eighty six, eighty five was a great vintage. And it's with, you know, with a great acidity, it still shows freshness and vibrance, eighty five. Whereas eighty six was a little bit warmer, warmer vintage, so it was a little bit maybe a little more oxidized, more children was actually was, but we really have this long term view on on our wines. You look like you're about fifteen as well. I mean, are you born? You're right. These ones eighty five, like, you're sub to old. Where did it? Reminiscing about I remember when my use? No. I just I'm twenty two. I'm twenty two. Twenty two. Twenty two. Yeah. I'm twenty two. Yeah. Right. So you weren't you were just about born then? No. No. I was like, it was like ten years after that. Oh, ninety nine tickle my life. That's a very bad. Nineteen ninety ninety six. Yeah. Ninety six. But, you know, we are fortunate enough to have, like, you know, these wines in our cellar. So even though I wasn't born then, I can understand the the vintage and everything through drinking these wines and having the revolution, which is fascinating. Come on. If I if I met you on the street, and I look, you know, you know, you're kind of dressing quite a funky alternative way, and you can see you're from Freeuly. Mhmm. Yeah. And I said, this guy's gonna make, like, three skin contact white wines or orange wines, whatever you wanna call awines, all that goes in. And you're just saying that it's just not my cup of tea. That's not our cup of tea. No. You're right. Yeah. Alrighty. So that's the Rubolajala. Do you make you make a field blend as well? What's that all about? Yeah. So we we make actually two symbolic and like signature wines, which is one is the vintage Tunina, and one is the capo Martinez. They are both field blends in the sense that, they come from one single vineyard. It's a delimited single vineyard. So that's the name of the vineyard. Is it Tunina? Vintageina is the name of the wine, and actually Tonina was the so to say the first owner, Antonia, actually, the first owner of this one hectare of land, which, my father and my grandfather acquired in the late sixties. And in nineteen seventy five, my father then decided to vinify it together, so collect all of the grapes together all at the same time, all one harvest, press them together and have all of the reunification process until the bottling together. So it's, these five grapes are born together. They live in the same place, the same vineyard. And in the winery, they also have the same, the same treat ment, they are together. So it's co it's a co fermentation when you ferment everything together. Yes. It's, everything is it's basically pressed together. Fermentation comes together. It's, it's a whole big family. And what what is in terms of style, is this like a very rich wine? Is it a buttery wine? Is it a really zingy fruity wine? What is it? It's a very vibrant wine that, represents has a lot of characteristics from all these five grape varieties, which is the chardonnay, the sauvignon, the Lagile La Malazi and Piccolith. So all of these five grape varieties add a unique note to it, you know, the sauvignon add some like elderberry, touch of white flour with some greenness to it, the chardonnay as well, brings us more vanilla notes, a little bit more roundness to it as well. Malvasia brings aromatic whereas the Ribolajala brings great acidity and also some citrus notes on the nose, whereas the Picollet, which is, kind of the cutest grape because it's, it's really small, To be high pickle or small, small berries. Small berries. Exactly. Normally, we make sweet wine out of it, but in this case, we blend it together with, with the other four wave varieties. And this one here adds some honey nodes, some nectar, also some great roundness in the structure in the wine. So you you call it Piccollet? Picollet. Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's it's like a lilt at the end. A lilt. Yeah. Something today. That's good. So when you so, but is that a dry white bone dry or is it a little bit residual? It's a dry wine. It's a dry wine. Of course, it has a little bit of residual. You know, we've been iffy together. So it's seventy five percent that's stainless steel, twenty five percent that's in big eighty hectoliters handmade. And it's that gives it a little bit more of a character, a little bit more of, of an elegance, a little bit more of a bold character, whereas the stainless steel really brings out all of the characteristics from five quavers. Okay. More okay. So let's talk a little bit about soil types, terroir, microclimate, that kind of thing. Yeah. For sure. We are very fortunate where we are in Fioli in, in the corridor specifically because we have the in the north that are protecting us from the cold weather from the from Austria, from the north, North Europe, but we also have the, Adriatic sea so that we have a continental kind of climate, but the Adriatic sea also brings some Mediterranean vibes to it. And we have have this special wind, which is called Bora. Bora wind. Bora wind. I don't know if you heard about it, but, Is that a dry wind or a mountain wind or a? It's actually a wind coming from the east and actually blows away a lot of the humidity, a lot of the clouds. So the east week at how far east, are we going like Poland, Russia? Like, is it a very cold wind? It's, it's it's a very strong wind, very strong wind, and it's dry, definitely. And it's great during, actually, when we harvest thing because thanks to this wind our fruits, our grapes can stay very healthy. They are dry. And, we can actually leave the fruit sometimes longer on the vine to mature if needed. So you don't like the pickle it, so it can, if you pick it late and then let it shrivel a little bit. Well, normally the pickle is one of the latest, grapes that it's picked. It's actually we normally finish the harvest with, with piccolith, but in the style of interest to Nina, it's picked all together. So it's, kind of late later on to on the harvest, but it's one day harvest. What about soil types? So if type I'm freelance or it's very difficult to get to grips with if I'm being honest. Just get you to help me understand them. So the name of it is called ponca. Ponca. It's like a pokmon. I funny because, like, I've been taking around my ponca with me. I'll usually be taking around your ponca pump here, though. I guess. I was I was taking my ponca around with me, during my last trip, in the US. And Okay. As in a bit of soil. Yes. So they let you in with that. It's a bit they bro. They can't they that kind of thing they get really grumpy about. You know, it's, they I don't know. They close the knife for me, I guess. But, Should you take a bit of the ponkle with you? I took the phone game, they call me ponk them on for the longest time, but that's just a little joke apart. Regarding the soil type, exactly, it's a milestone and sandstone. So it's a sedimentary sands that are compressed together. Becoming layers. So the first layer on the surface is very friable. It's been consumed by the weather conditions and worked by the by us, you know. When you go underneath though, you find harder layers. And, the characteristic of the Ponka is it traps the humidity with doing the layer. So you have a harder layer and a little bit of a soft layer and a hard layer again. And, you know, on the hillside, we normally don't irrigate, so that the vine has to be a little bit more under stress. It concentrates its energy on fewer grapes. So the grapes itself at the income, more juicy, more rich more flavorful. So the the root finds the the water between between these these layers. If not, we will have to irrigate or would be a whole different whole different experience. So I may be wrong, but what I imagine with this kind of soil and it happens with other ones as well is rather than going straight down, the roots will have to go down a little bit and then say horizontally to find a gap and then go down again, and then horizontally again. They basically they they find they find their their ways in the earth. Yeah. To make to to say, if they need to go say one meter down, they're actually gonna make a route that's maybe two meters long. Is that right? They definitely have very long routes. And actually, we, we make it that way as well because the the further deeper they can go, they're more, they're more efficient they can be, so the more energy they can have from the Earth and the more water they can actually have as well. And there's less heat stress. Exactly. So, basically, what you say, if if I have one of your wines, and I and I and you say, Monty, what do you think about it? I said, I was a little bit baked a bit overripe. You're not gonna be very happy. Are you? No. It's it doesn't happen with us. Okay. Oh, yeah. Well, that's good also in terms of fifty. Like, vintage, maybe two thousand and three and two thousand and seven, which were, like, extremely, like, hot vintages for our area. Then, right now, the wines, like, a vintage tornado would as I was telling you, eighty six as well would show more than it's been it's supposed to be. Whereas a vintage fourteen, which was very wet, very humid. Right now, it's actually showing, showing brilliantly because of the high acidity. It gives it a long life. So just give us a few food matches with, your wines. Vitation is, like, one of my favorite, and it's definitely most representative of the of our winery. My favorite pairing is actually pasta with truffle. So when the truffle season is out, I definitely recommend that. And that starts one in late October. Late over. Yeah. I don't know. I think she's like How much did you have white truffles or dark truffles up there? We actually, we don't really have truffles in our area. There's some truffles that come from Croatia and so yeah. So the white ones. Yeah. I would tell you wrong now. Yeah. I love truffles. I love truffles. I don't have them too much, goes beautiful with the Tunina. And whereas the ribo Lajala, we were talking before, that one actually goes beautifully within the periative. It's a periative kind of style. It's just on it on its own. On its own because it's, you know, it's, like, it also has less a whole of all of them, twelve and a half, but the high high acidity really works well on a hot summer day. And if you are with pear with something, the acidity also works very well with crudo, so with prosciutto or also like raw fish, and some sushi would go beautifully with that, or just like some, lo ceviche as well. The acidity really cuts through that kind of the oiliness of the of the crude fish. Okay. I've got a letter in my hand, which is unfortunately the German family has to move again, which has to move. Sorry. I don't think it's gonna happen. No. Okay. But I said, right. Where would you if you had to be parachuted into another wine region somewhere, because you're quite a crazy kid, right? You'd look like you're an adaptable guy, and you could, where would I, where would I parachute you? You would you would throw me into the Vajau? At the back yeah. Okay. So that's a region in Austria. The region in Austria, yeah. We're gonna make beautiful, beautiful rieslings. Actually, you know, my father made a wine for each of their sons, family members, we have a winey memory of our grandparents, and So my father actually made me taste when I was just a couple months old, a riesling from, did you remember it? From our riesling? I actually don't remember at all. That's what my father told me, but, hence, he dedicated the, I Riesling to me, and we make an Afix riesling, which is the combination of my two names, Alloys, and Felix Afix. And, since then, I always I always really enjoy the rieslings, like, the Afix speechler, ethics speech or the canola are just fabulous wines, you know, especially their top of the range, the Smara selection. It's, you know, they're very rich. Have a great character, great acidity, but also some interesting, kind of like textures. Tixtures and also So almost these highly notes with the minerality and some petroleum going on because they're also a little bit pick later. They have a little bit more of the sugar in it. So it's a little bit more of a full reasoning. Okay. I didn't say you have that. You you work glasses. I I'm I'm not aware of mine, but I do wear glasses because I'm getting old and, forgetful. And, so you do a thing called virtual reality, don't you? Yes. Yes. You just set that up. We're gonna do another podcast on that. We are. It's, actually, was a really, really cool experience. We did, with, with our whole family, actually, and we actually captured some great moments. It's it's crazy. Like, we actually captured, like, some of the last moments of my grandfather in the winery with us and it was very special. So, aft actually after like a month or two, he passed away after that. So it's it's definitely showing you. It's capturing some great moments of our family, of our vineyards. You can see our winery even though if you really wanna see a winery and understand who you are, you should come and visit us in friuli. So with just the virtual, what does it actually mean you got some glasses on it? So you basically, what are we doing right now? It's a trailer of the full experience. And this will be basically, you basically, you're full load, you have a journey into our vineyard, into our family history, into our cellar, and into our wines. And after that, you'll be able to taste after the virtual reality. It's like, tastes like six minutes, you'll be able to taste the vintage tuna and the dreams, which is a a chardonnay based crew wine of hours. But, that's just the intro. The full experience can last twenty minutes, and you'll be able to choose from the winery, to the vineyards, to the family, to our hospitality, to our kitchen, that we have like all local ingredients, with my grandmother's recipes. So it's definitely a full experience of our winery if you're not be if you're not able to come to it. So you basically put these glasses on. It's not like a video, though, is it? No. No. Because literally if you turn around, everywhere you turn around, you are you're basically there and there's some drone footages where you're like flying over our vineyards. And like if you look down, you see the vineyards and like literally feel like you're flying. So you're flying over our vineyards. And when you when you're in the winery, you can see all three sixty around you up down left, right, you see us talking, you see your family, you see, you can, like, you can almost touch the barrels. It's, it's fascinating. Cool. Okay. So we'll do should we do another podcast on that? We should. I I would love to. Okay. So I'm gonna say thanks to my guest, the annoy's FedEx Yirman. Mhmm. Thank you, podcast. Let's talk a little bit about virtual reality in his estate. Beautiful. Thank you, Monty. Cool. Gotcha. Look forward to doing the next one. Ciao. This podcast has been brought to you by lux wines, importer of fine wines, bringing you exceptional wines from esteemed winemaking families. Aleagini, Argiano, Yerman, Pieropan, for Joaltesoro, Renato Rati, and tornatorre. Find out more at deluxe wines dot com. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.