Ep. 570 Tommaso Bojola | Monty Waldin

Italian wine podcast. Chincin with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast of me Monte Walden. My guest today is Tomasso Biola from the Fattoria Alakastelina. Welcome. So just to get our bearings, whereabouts are you, in Cantelasco? Where is Castelina in Canti? Yes. And this is my son at Cosimo on my left. So Castelina is, one of a free old town with, Radangayola, but we're part of a historical, Canti area. In fact, long time ago Kianti was much smaller, and the territory was, of this free town, free village, Castilini Kianti, Radha, and Gallola. And Castelina is between, Florence and Siena, back in the middle. And before, it was part of Florence, and was on the border between, Florence and Siena, And so, Florida and people and Senate people, they were always, fighting. And that's why Castelina has a walls all around the village to defend also in medieval period, anyway, the the town. And, now we are, inside of the palazzo Scachalupi, the Guachalupi Palace in the aging cellar of the farm because, And this was, for a certain period, the headquarters of, the Scratchalupi family, they were, very powerful for one thousand two hundred until very nice middle period. But is, about the period of a palace is from the fifteenth, century. And they were a friend with Medici family, sometime friend, sometime enemy. Because, sometime they were staying with Florence and sometime with Sienna. So that happens, again, they have been destroyed because, they choose Sienna when Florence win over Sienna. So anyway, all our pharma is, in the Palace and, in the territory, which is around the village of Castelina. We have about one hundred forty hectares of land And, vineyard are about forty hectares, especially in the Southwest slope, which is, from bordering with a village of Castelina looking to Valdel Savali. You can see when it's very clear, sometime, Sanjay Muniano effect. And, our area is, right, up on here. Mhmm. Castelina is five hundred eighty meters over the sea level. And, we have, the land that, goes from the five hundred fifty meters going down until three fifty meters. This means that we have, so many difference of, so it's, and, climate because, on the top, we have, wines that are, really, really characterized from intensive flavor. And, going down, then, we have, wines, depends also from the soil. But has, some time very high structure. And, soil in, this area is changing so often because, we have, some time at ox, but are, from Galestro, but it's a sedimentary rocks. And sometime from Alberse, which is another sedimentary rock, but it's different. It's, wheatstones, which are much stronger. So we have many different situation of soil and, milk requirement. That's if you just tell us a little bit about some of the wines that you make, you make a tremendous number of, of wine. Can you start off with you make a white wine called Gala. You mentioned about the high altitude. That seems to come from quite a high, a high site at five hundred meters. Tell us a little bit about the Gala. Yes. Okay. California is, our white wine, which is produced from Malvasia, and, some Trebiano too. So the area where we produce it is at five hundred meters over busy level. So it's, really quite up in a area which is, very rocky. And, the characteristic of this wine, is, to be a wine to to drink quite soon because it's not the wine, but, can each can, keep long. And, the characteristic of the Masvasia gives, some kind of flavor, flower flavor, like, a ketchup, and, in the taste, you can find notes but, is, confusing you to apple, like yellow apple, like white. And, now we are, using also this Malvasia for the Vincent because, you know, that, Vincent is produced from, Trebiano and, Malvasia. Part of the grape is used for Viggle Averna and the in our part, for, Vincent. I want to introduce you another wine, but, it's producing, with, another white wine produced still from Malvasia. But I'd like that causing my son that start to do this production will tell you. Okay. This is, macerated white wine. You can see the label. And, it's called, dhamma Dambra. It's similar to an, orange wine. And, we age, after the fermentation, with the skins for, nine months inside this big, amphora in in, terracotta jars. During the aging, the minerals of the clay go beside the wine. We have a special micro oxygenation of the wine. So it's, enhanced the floral aromas with these white flowers, ripe yellow headwater, but, also, special aromas of, Marzipan, vanilla without wood on the wine. So it's a very interesting the the oldest method if you want to do the one. If you're drinking that, and for a wine, is there a particular dish that you like eating with it? A food match? With with this white one that is quite similar to a light red wine. You can eat fish soups, but also pasta and some dish of white meat, for example, not strong, not red meat. And, this is, better for the San Jose in Amfra. That brings my name. It's the first experimentation for my experimental test is, the degree course of, in two thousand seventeen. Then we started the production of, for, Malazianam, for, and, we are looking for our other varieties because, the terracotta for us, express in the best way, the flavors of, each variety. Should we talk about some of the red wines that you made? Let's start with the canti classico, the, this is, the main production that, we do because it's the canti classical over the year. And, we could use about fifty thousand bottles for the year. And, big grape that we use is, San Giovanni, ninety five percent. And, Colorado, five percent. And, the production of the grape, for this is about, six thousand kilo for Hector. And this because, you cannot produce, the maximum of a candy glass for the is allowed to produce if you want to get a good quality, really. And, Ben, we we take a particular care to the grape, to the skin of a grape, especially because, from the harvest, we do by hand, not using big container for the grip, but, basket, but are quite small. And, so, also in the crashing down the grip, we use a machine which has a winery, which was a very different size of grape. So it's separate the best one from all the green part. And, also, we start at about the temperature of a fourteen degree. So to save all the primary aroma. And, we do in, in a container of, about fifty, one hundred kilometers. And, prefermentation when, it's going on for the fifteen, twenty, twenty five days. It depends from the quality of the skin of the grape. Because we we try to do a better instruction. And then we also do some a period of machination, which can be ten, fifteen days. And so we look for, a characteristic of, original of a territory because, really, SanJovese can now give, really nice nice, expression. And be aging, of a candy classical, our, basic candy classical is in big barrel, and the the most is aging this, Wednesday, a lot of that you see here. And, is, in Castelina, you get wise, but, are not ready quickly. Takes time, the wine, It's a wine that can be aged, longer. I can see that, now we are, outselling with, two thousand and seventeen, because we will start, in a while, with, thousand eighteen because our wine, you can appreciate, after some years at the best. And, you can keep reward problems, for ten years. Maybe more when you have, good, good, hard west. I've got a little, question for you about the the the vineyard. A lot of your vineyards are Southwest facing. How do you make jaw you don't get sunburn in the afternoon for those, vines that are out southwest facing. You mean in which direction, which is this position of our vineyard. And, the most we have the slope, which is looking west Southwest. And, especially in the part, coming down from Castelina where the slope is more deep, we use to do terrace. So we recreate big terrace larger than it was before. And in this way, we we found in this position, South southwest. Which is really the best position. And, also, in this way, you can keep the fertility of a soil because, you have not so deep line of a vineyard, but you have almost, like, flat. You can also work better. It's also beautiful to see, and, is very important because you have to you can't do a reformation of the water pertaining, water. So this, especially where you have look quite deep is, an important way. Also, we have a part where it's more high in castaneda, which is, you can say East indirection, from Castellina Village, but this position is all south. So, our disposition is, sometimes south, sometimes southwest, and the part is west. I can see that, not always you get this best wine, our best wine from the same vineyard because, you know, now climate is changing, and, sometime the limitation, point, the critical part is, to have an offering before when I arrived here because, I started in, nineteen eighty nine, the managing of a farm. And at the beginning, it was very hard to have a enough, high school degree and enough sun. And the program was redeemed. Now it depends. Sometimes you have, perfect, Saturday, like, in, two thousand fifteen, two thousand sixteen. Two thousand seventeen was, so dry here, but we get the best wine, not south, properly south, but west. What about, international grape varieties? I mean, you spoke a little bit earlier about San Giovanni. How do how does Sara and and Merlo fare in, castellino in Kiente. So we have a little of, Sierra and, carbonate, and, a little more of Merlo in Castellino in Kiente. And, this was connected also to the period when I started where I was planting quite a good quantity of Merlo also because having beginners so up on busy level, I was looking for something but could have, enough, good motivation. And, for example, Merloeb has a shorter period in front of, Sanjuviso was doing well. Right now, from several years, we are planting, Sanjuviso, especially San Juuviso, and, now the glonos, the variety are, much different, and we get, very, sometimes wonderful motivation. For example, for, producing Afra wine, we use a clone of Santa Fese, which is, CV ten Cimodietje, which is wonderful on, we fit on a liter. And, together with SanJovese, we start producing some different variety, but that's still original from Castelina, which is and, Canada. And, we have a variety that are the original from Castelina in White Creek, but You were talking about the colorino. Is it the colorino de Valdano that you have? No. I think it is a colorino as the grape a little bigger. Our colorino, but is, also here in Canti long, long, long time ago, as very, very small grape is, like, all the chlorine in a way is, red also inside. We planted a really long time ago, and, I I can see we could be a precise clone of chlorine or really. I'll ask you a little bit about other activities of the estate. You have a very it seems like a very active restaurant and accommodation. How important is it for you to have both the vineyard and also the agri tourism and, the other elements that you bring to your to your business. Is an integration is, it's good. It's beautiful. I mean, I I hope to have a possibility to have you here once when, it's possible. But, anyway, we have, agriturismo. We have about ten apartments, and, we have a hotel, which is in the up floor of the palazzo, Guadalupe. And, better restaurant, which is at, first Florida, but is also is giving a lot of work really, but is, something, beautiful because, it's also a way some time also when, people is coming here and, it's possible to meet first in the winery, and then, heavities, in our restaurant of food and wine. In bit of Aetna's quite looking restaurant, we do research for, any way to scan a plate, but anyway, how you say visiting, the game, the plate, so we try to put something original, by ourselves, And, for example, we planted, older kind of grano, which is grano Verna or Sanator Capelli's special kind of grano that were cultivated grains. So but were cultivated before goods in Italy. And, from there, you get, particular flower different, but we use, producing by ourselves pasta and bread. And, it tastes different. So we we do a search for the original plates that are coming from our tradition. I I don't I don't manage everything. I mean, hospitality is my wife, Monica, but helped me. And, and now, who got graduated just a few years ago and is an artist. And, he's, also trying to do something different in wine. He's, an example is we I'm for a wine, but it's doing very well. It's, very interesting. It's a kind, easy, really easy drinking. Ben, we we have them be very low. And so we start to do some, drying of the merlot. So we've been merlot, our super tuscant, which is this is produced from summer low that has been dried before and is giving something very powerful and different from the normal low that you can taste in in also very white, but Kusimo was presenting you before is, really something that is different in our area. We are, now organic. We were producing organic grape from thousand eight, but from two thousand twenty, we are organic or closing pay when server. And so, in two thousand twenty, we produce our first wine without adding sulfites. Rubisco is a very first, organic wine without sulfites at all. But just a question about your, sales. What are your what are your key markets in outside of Italy? And how are how important are sales direct from the winery? For you. In Italy, the most of the sale is what we do directly in Castelina, not in Castelina, but it's a lot of curious, man. And, we have a direct sale on the and, we have a direct sale. It's in the Palace in the center of the region. And so, I can say forty, fifty percent of the production. We succeed to sell, here in Castelina in, the direct sale in the restaurant, we've, been guest of the hotel of every three years. And then, while the winery was starting in nineteen eighty nine from eleven hectares, and now we have, a little more than forty hectares. So we are looking anyway to find the new importers. Our main market right now is the US. The US and, then we have several still small importers, around the world. Not so much in Europe, still For example, England is missing because there's not an easy market. We said something in Germany, not March, something in Farista, something in east Europe. So several, more market and, be quite big for this for us in the US right now. Let's just finish with a couple of words about, your Vincanto. You make a a normal Vincanto, and, you make also an Ocio di Pernice. What is the difference between the two? Yes. Vivinto, the classic one is produced, from white grapes, which is a Trebiano Malazilla. We're proceeding, it's the same like occupied niche, but occupied niche is produced from, Sanju basic grape. And, this makes, more difficult, also the period when you dry the grape, because anyway, sangiovese has a skin, which is more weak. And so, you have, a reduction of a quantity from, related that you pick and great, but you go to squeeze after about two months. And so you have no more than, thirty percent, of a product at the end. Anyway, we we pick up, the grape or Trebiano Malazia for the normal Vincent or Sanju geyser from the occupied niche. And then we have, covered big room where, we keep in a small basket, and, we do ventilation. So when, we succeed the the right, sugar concentration, then, squeeze it. And, what you get from the occupied niche is, and also because you have more concentration of all the elements. So it's, It has a more, structure and more intensity at the end. Anyway, what we squeeze after the condition in, container with, low temperature, we fill up the small barrel, like, like in the tradition is, we keep the same method. And, we don't fill up. We fill for about three quarter, and then we close with cement and the fermentation is going on in this container. For several years because, you have to do where, the barrel can, can, feel the low temperature in wintertime and higher temperature in summer. Time because there is a cycle of, fermentation and calcification. Naturally, we've high temperature fermentation, and, we've low temperature through clarification. So after about four years of this cycle, Ben, Vivinto is is ready. And then we we both. But we do a small production, consider that we produce, about, three thousand bottles, for the Okeydipa initiative. The bottle is half liter and, a little more of the other pizza. Not every year because, you have to have a really healthy experience. So in the good year. I just wanna say thanks, to my guest today, Tomazo and Cozimo Bojola. Of the Fattoria La Castelina in Castelina in Cantelasico. It's been a real pleasure listening to you, this morning. And I'm so glad you sent the one of you sent an email to me saying hello, can we come on the podcast? And I'm very glad you sent me that email because you've spoken so well about what you're doing in a very traditional way it feels. And, lots of lovely little stories that you've given us, and we wish you every success father and son and also with your amphora wines, which also see it sound very, very interesting and very, very well thought out more importantly. So thank you very much to you. Okay. Thank you. I'll come and visit you. I'm in Montalcino. I'll come and have a visit to you. Okay? A promise. Okay. But I will, I will be very happy to to know you face to face. So I I hope, yes, to see you soon, really. Perfect. Thank you to you, and thank you very much for your attention. Bye. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, HimalIFM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italian wine podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time.