Ep. 1541 Maria Jose Lopez De Heredia | On The Road With Stevie Kim Throwback Instalive

Since two thousand and seventeen, the Italian wine podcast has exploded. Recently hitting six million listens support us by buying a copy of Italian wine unplugged two point o or making a small donation. In return, we'll give you the chance to nominate a guest and even win lunch with Steve Kim and Professor Atilio Shenza. Find out more at Italian One podcast dot com. Welcome to another episode of On the Road Edition, hosted by Stevie Kim. Each week, she travels to incredible wine destinations interviewing some of the Italian wine scene's most interesting personalities, talking about wines, the foods, as well as the incredible travel destinations. Okay. I am now live. Today we'll be looking for Maria Jose. Let me ping Maria. I'll say hi, you guys. How are you? Can you guys hear me? I'll just say hello to people. And let me see if she's typing. Yes. Should I call you on the phone? No. No. Open. No. We're going live now, so you should open your Instagram. And have the girl help you then tap on my profile on the avatar for it to go live. Okay? Okay. We can do this. Oh, Lopez joined. Okay. Hold on. Oh my god. Okay. We can do this. We can do this. Let me see. I don't see you. Hey. Oh my gosh. I can't believe it's happening. It's happening. It's happening. Finally. Finally. I know. How are you? How have you been? I'm fine. And you will we follow you. So I know more of what do you mean? You follow me. You don't follow anybody. I'm sure you don't follow anybody. You said you have social media phobia. You have somebody doing it. Right? But you know the people who are helping me, I think are worse as myself. So No. That's good. That's like I think this is the spirit of Lopez Redia, you know. No one is an expert in social media. No, Mike. So, listen, Maria Jose, is this is this your first or your second instant live? This is my first time, and you don't know how about that sounds. I know. I'm so so honored. You're doing your first first insta live with me. So far so good. Right? Estevi, you are the queen. You are the queen. Listen, I missed you so much. And why are you so damn busy? You're busier than the pope. Like, it's so like, what is going on with you? Why have you been so busy? It's very funny because I'm as busy as ever. And I think is that, you know, whoever has a family business, and I always say that our business is very all in age, but it's not big in a structure. So at the end, family members, we have a lot of work to do. Only just facing a difficult situation like this one is, it's a very busy target, you know. It's like, now at the moment, following the pinions, or the wine is one of the easiest, things. It's it's a lot of the worst knowing what is going to happen. Tell me about your family a bit, you know, for those of you who are unfamiliar. You're the fourth generation. Is that correct? Yes. Who's the winemaker in the family? Is it your sister? Is it yourself? Is it your father? Give me kind of a skinny version. Not like Gabriela Marquez. Okay. Not the hundred years of solitude. I just want the skinny version. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. You are right because you it's impossible to tell to talk about a hundred and forty four years of family history and also because we have a big amount of documents and it's a beautiful and romantic story. But it was my great grandfather. Rafael, he was born in Chile. And parents, but his parents were immigrants from the basque country. They were for children, and they were studying in ages where it says school in Chile, but the father died So they had an uncle who was a priest that left money to pay the studies to the children. So in eighteen seventy, when my great grandfather was fourteen, He crossed from Chile to Spain to study in a school of Gesweets in a Spain near by Bilbao. But he studied in eighteen seventy one, and in nineteen seventy two, he escaped the school to fight in a war. Spain was divided by the monarchic war, but it was the complex. It was a war of religion of economy like all wars, and he decided to fight in what it was called the the the the the the the the the catalyst war. And it lasted very little. A few months, they lost it. So he was taking prisoners and sent to France. And in France, They were young men as long as they wouldn't enter Spain, they let them go. So he studied international commands. And when he finished his studies, he wanted to go back to Chile or go to England to learn English, but his mother told him no no no no no. You have to work. So he has started to work in the south of France in a company who was dealing with quit, but What year was this? Because, you know, this instant lag lasts only half an hour. Right? That was in eighteen seventy seventy five. Seventy five. Okay. So we're in eighteen seventy five. Okay. Okay. And then what happened is that, he started working that company that broke and two of the creditors of this company in France were the owners of a building in our hometown where now the winery is based. How do you say, Tara Hado? I don't. H. I don't. I don't I don't. And it comes from it comes from fun. There was a light from the yellow river from the times on which the yellow river was was a navigated river. So he came to Iowa with two white negotiations, two negotiations from, France. They were originally from Alsas, from both, but they were based in Verdon. And many of the people who know the history of Riojanos that we were born Rioja because of the disease of the Phil of Sarah that Ruin, and is how Rioja was officially born is a longer story. But for making the story short, My great grandfather married the woman from her. The woman from her, we are called Harris, from a from a jar that was found in the village of our in the twelfth century, and he never went back to Chile. Was living between Arrow and Madrid, and he had fifteen children. And he had the project. Fifteen children. One five. One five. And my great grandmother has blame power to manage the business. But neither my great grandfather nor my grandfather second generation nor my father third generation study winemaking. In so many years of family business, the only ones who have a study winemaking is me and then my sister. Officially, the one who is in charge of the everyday one maker is my sister. I am a one maker. And What's your sister's name? Marcelles. The girl has the name of a woman. Yes. Something that not many people knows, you know. So you're both winemakers. You are Mercedes. Who's older? You are Mercedes. I'm older. Okay. We are a year and a half difference in age. So there is not much. And by the way, this year, my sister has been named by Tim Abkin, the winemaker of the year, by him. Well, congratulations. I know you won bunch of awards from Tim this year. Right? Like, like hundred points or something. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. One of our wines, a Grandres Cereba White, Vigna Tordonia has been record by him with one hundred points for that first time bill. Right? Yeah. It's been crazy and it's been fantastic in the middle of so many sad news, receiving so many recognitions have been fantastic. I must admit that we are happy about the wines, but we are happy about our sister because She is having a lot of responsibility, and she's doing a great job. And I'm always, fighting with her to make sure that she doesn't change a bit the style and the character of the wines that were made by our great grandfather. After so many years, after a hundred and forty four years, it's still the winery that our great grandfather design isn't finished. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp. For fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond. Meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now, back to the show. It's not so interesting. Is not finished. So we have a lot of work to do, you know. So do you feel like your winery is, like, it's not the oldest, right? But it just it's the most traditional in a way. We are the oldest dinner in our hometown And, we have considered the oldest in RioHA. And I'm saying this because now we are reading about many companies in RioHA that are celebrating lots of, aniversaries, and, I think we should study in Riohan all over the world very well how to dictate when a company has started officially when a winery. But nevertheless, being one year older than other, It's not important for us. What it is important for us is that it's true that we are one of the few wineries, not only in Rioheim, Spain, and in the world that are hundred percent family owned. Because you can find many old companies. And the fact that we're family owned is that, is that I met, I met my grandfather. My grandfather died ninety five years old, and I was seventeen So our grandfather taught us many things and transmit, as a will of of, please please do not change anything. You know, do not change So, yes, we are known in the wine industry. More than traditional, we are known as crazy people because maybe they're very crazy, because many of the things we do, the way we work, Now our extremely trendy, but for many years, we're absolutely unique. We are still harvest like a hundred years ago with the same wooden baskets. The way we ferment the wines is very extraordinary, but also the way we grow the vines, which many people think that we do the Viticulture of the eighteenth century, but our vine growing is the nineteenth century And, but, yes, we are. Are you are you reading any of the messages? Because this is I don't know. No. No. He's like a you gave yourself a hundred points for everything. This is tradition. This is legacy. Saludas. I'm very happy that I managed to talk to you and look at your face. I really can't help you at anywhere else. Listen. Talking a live faces. I am not the only one here. I forgot completely forgot to introduce the art tasting panel. There is a panel. Okay. I'm going to just show you who they are. This is Lan. Hello, Lance? Yeah. From China. And he's our, you know, Vineito International Academy Coordinator coordinator. She's doing the diploma course with me. She'll be finishing no time. I'll it'll take me ten years. This is our wine educator. She's English. Very miss English. She's our w set also educator in house. No. She keeps us everybody in mind. Franco is the WSED School coordinator. Franco in the back. Christina, she's our analogist. Your colleague analogist. And this is Yacopo. Hi. Hello? So listen, we will also be doing one line. This one right here. Yeah. Great. Bye. And, we do have some questions also for my colleagues. Okay. Let's start with Yacupov here, Yacup. Hi. Hi. I have a technical question. In Yacup, usually for a one aging is used, barrels made with American Oak Now in the last years, a lot of producer are changing to more European battery or batteries. So what do you use and what do you prefer and why? Well, we use American oak hundred percent in the in the, two hundred and twenty five, barrels. I don't know if you know that we have our own pupry. We buy the trees We dry the oak ourselves more than three years. You know, that dry the oak is not only losing humidity. It's losing impurities. So we do the natural dryness a year and a half outdoor with the rain, with the rain, with the sun, and then a year and a half in an opening door. Normally, it's more than that. And then we have at the moment three Cooper. And, and we not only make a hundred percent all our barrels. But we also do a lot of restoration of old barrels. If you read the Bible, if you read the old testament, it says new wine in new barrels, an old wine, and in old barrels. We also make our wooden baskets, comportons that we use. They are made of popular tree. We make them new, but we also restore the old one. So we make everything ourselves. And we also maintain the big vats that we use for storing wine and for fermenting wines. The big vats were made of American French, Spanish, and yugoslavian oak, and we have records that our great grandfather historically used to love number one Jewishoslovian Oak. And, there is a very beautiful document that I unload from the national library in Spain from a journalist that came in eighteen ninety two or something like that, eighteen ninety eight to visit the winery with our great grandfather. And he mentioned that the majority was yugoslavian Oak, and I asked my father. And my father told us that the yugoslavian Oak had a very gentle character and with gentle means that our grandfather was very obsessed and our father as well with the fact that For us, the battery is a container with wineskets, very gentle, micro oxygenation, but not in excess of oak flavor. The maker oak has leeks, tannins, more aggressive than other type of Oak. However, because it was very difficult to find that you was having an oak already many years ago, I'm becoming fifty years old. And, I've always known more than and from all our records more than sixty or seventy years, that the American Oak was a majority in Rioa was used because it was more available. Not because it was considered the best. It's because the wineries in Rioa knew how to use it and how to use it very little time with a very young wine in order to kill somehow all that strong character of the tannins and the leggings and then age the barons. So personally, I do not have a favorite because we know that physically every oak is different. And also because we haven't had experience in other type of folks based on one thing is that as I mentioned before, we are very keen in not changing the todonia character, the character that has made our wines for good or for bad known for its distinctive style. So one of the reasons why many winemakers knew wineries in Pioja are using another type of wood is because they start from zero. There are many type of oaks available, and they want to look for a different character. Also because of the inspiration from France because at the end, France is still whether we like it or not. It's the country of inspiration for everybody, in the wine wall. Everyone looks at work for its people. I love Italian wine, say? I buzzed the phone to show. Thank you very much. Hi, Maria. So I have a quite similar question also about aging. Okay. Like, for example, Rio has always, aging requirements, which is longer than other parts of Spain, for reserva, down reservea. Also, you have specified, you have to age in this two hundred and twenty five liter oak. So I think it will be interesting to hear from one maker what's the benefits of this two hundred and twenty five liter barracks. It's a beautiful question because really we follow today. The same rules that Rio has established a hundred years ago at the beginning of the origin of the RioHA Appalachian in nineteen twenty seven. Nowadays, the technology has advanced. The knowledge of how to stabilize the wines faster has advanced, but we use as a technology paving. And historically, Kenrioha, They knew that you needed six, winters in order to have the what they call the perfect aging, the perfect stabilization of the wines, three winters in order to stabilize or the crystals, the dark traps that precipitates with potassium, and three extra winters in order to stabilize all the color components with lower molecular weight. That's why all of Virginia and Tondonia wines for us, our age a minimum of six years in borrowing into two to five hundred liters barrels. In in addition, sometimes they can have one or two or even more years, of a storage in a bigger Tina in a big container of wood on which there is also a stabilization. But, our experience has proved that, in order to have a wines capable to age many years in barrel, you need to have quality grapes. You need to do a very good selection of the grapes. And then once the wines have been gently stable, they really can bottle eight obtaining the final rowness and balance that give finesse and capability of aging, which is one of the character of Rioha, is part of the aging in the Beverly is part of the secrets of why Rio Hans can age in addition of the acidity, the character of a work climate, the soil, and many others, experience. Yeah. Thank you so much. So we've started tasting the wines. Land has a question about the wine, particularly. I learned the Spanish this morning. I want to, sure. Yeah. Go ahead. Can I do your Spanish? I'm very I feel very embarrassed. I cannot reply in Chinese. Okay. I I've got a question not related to the one we are testing, but in general, so I noticed that you actually have also attorney production of the white wines from Leo. And the price is not lower than the red wines. I wonder, like, the reasons behind of that. Well, is that our white wines Still nowadays, we don't know. I believe that there was a time on which, our great grandfather made almost fifty percent of white, and, fifty percent of rent. The important part of the question is that both of them come from the same venue. I don't know if you can see I know very quick with this. If you can see this very beautiful picture, That is this is the original drawing from nineteen, twenty four or twenty one. We are not a hundred percent sure of the vigna Vigna Tondonia. You that are based in Italy, you know, that the reason why the name is called Tondonia. It's Tondon round. It's a it's almost like a peninsula border by the yellow river. And the character of Vineyard is that has all the type of orientations and have capability of making both wide and red wines with finesse with Nerevio with a lot of nerves, which means with acidity. The white wines historically in Rioja were made with Vura grape, which is, a grape that we are still used to give certain amount of acidity to our eggs, with Malvasia. Also, there was a time with calagranio, and also with white grenache. And, after the history, the volume of the white wines that we have been made has been reduced for market reasons in the sixties in Rioca, there was a revolution of technology and white wines that started to be made younger, fresher, focus more in the fruit, and Bureau is a great variety that cannot be because lack of that fruit or cannot be compared with an albarrino, a lvedo, a verdejo, the grape varieties that are beautifully a flower or fruit focus they cannot be compared. Vura is a grape that age very well because it is very resistant to oxidation, and Vura gets complexity after the years because we produce less volume and because it's a rarity. In the latest years, the our whites have become, like, a cult wines, and that's why many people sadly don't have access to taste them, but, hopefully, in the future, it's not that we are going to increase immensely the production, but we have gone through some years from which The vineyards are very old. The yields are very low. And the volume that we produce for the demand has increased, probably due to the to this Instagram or Facebook and the whole wall, So it's a bad thing for us. Okay. Okay. Thank you. You. Okay. So that was the Spanish inquisition. We are we're out of time, but if you can just give us kind of a short version because we do dedicate these lives to also our students. And of course, your wine is one of the benchmark wines for the WSet students. And this is the current vintage two thousand eight. So would you mind giving us just a small, skinny, guided tasting and contextualizing as kind of the benchmark wine for your area and, of course, for your company? Okay. So when I was mentioning about the vineyard Vigna Todonia and that there was a village called Todon in that area, it's because we own four vineyards and our great grandfather name to his own name, Rafael. He introduced the name of this most important venue into the name of the company. Sabigna Tondonia is the name of our company, but it's the name of five wines we make every year. Tondonia red and white, the majority is red. And then occasionally, certain years, we make white red and roseng. The Tondonia red and the white, we make them every year. Very exceptional. It's very difficult that we lose hundred percent of the production because of the spring frost. For instance, that is what we suffer the most in RioHA, Alto. What is the altitude. It doesn't get to five hundred meters. It's around four hundred and eighty meters, but it's the latitude which which gives the character. We are in the middle of a Spain. So the latitude is what makes that we get very few hours of insulation. That is why Rioalta is joined to the certain areas of Rivera del Guero. Some of the latest harvest in Spain. Otherwise, the the perennial, which is the majority in this wine that's not mature enough. This was the fabric vineyard of our great grandfather because the type of soil is clay and limestone, the roots can go deep many meters to realize that Spain in general and Rio, in particular, are very dry countries. So we can be more organic than many other countries because it doesn't rain. The main problem is surviving year after year. The lack of what So this vineyard is the more versatile of all the wine. What is the soil? What is the soil structure in this area for this wine? That goes on. Yeah. The soil is from the criteria, air. Is clay and limestone, and it has a lot of gravel, which a lot of the roots go deep, especially when the vines have a certain age, obviously, and how old are your vines? Well, because we have many vines that were replanted by our great grandfather after the Phillips sale from nineteen o one to nineteen o seven, some of them became a hundred years in two thousand and one and on and on. But at that time, they didn't know enough which was the right graft that could fight against the Philocera. So in nineteen twenty, and in the thirties, they suffered Philocera again. They have to repland So at the end, we have an average of age of fifty, fifty five years. We leave the land dressed for many, many years. Thirteen, fourteen, we grow wheat in general, barley, You mean follow? Like, you Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thirteen years because we are slow. But that's not I mean, how can you afford that? That's so expensive. Right? You leave a land follow for so many years. Yes. But we believe that this is why we are here after a hundred and forty four years because whoever is in the wine industry knows that there is no, life or long life without sacrifice. And, within that sacrifice, there is an economic and sacrifice. One has to believe we are lucky that somebody has started and that we have always worked on a way that we always save money for difficult moments, but we believe in the way to fight against Nemaatodes, especially to fight against Nemaatodes. Mhmm. It's just to leave the land rest. So then we replant, some of our we replant in the same percentage because another of the character of this wine is that has the blending that may Rioha known seventy percent in Virginia, twenty percent garnacho grenache that was used historically in Luka to increase the alcohol content. Is it this one? Or garnacha. What is garnacha? You could use feminine masculine. Oh, okay. That's the confusion. We were fighting with my colleagues where I'm like, But in general, carnacho is more known, carnacha is known in Aragon, where it's, originally because had an specific wine called carnacha who had a particular character very well known over there. And especially when they make Beenor, the nose, a specific wine from the garnacha grape. Garnachai is a grape that has acidity and also help us historically to have equal content because one of the problems that Rio especially Rio Hallta had before the Phillips era arrived is that the wines could not travel because they became vinegar because the alcohol content was very low. And also in order to give color to these wines, we used a little bit of Grafiano and Matuel. Matuelo is carina. It's the same as the car. Right. And, Matuelo is very sensitive to o idiom, poultry, mildew. And that's why not many people wanted to grow it. Matuelo has high yields, and this is the reason why it's used to give acidity to the wines because normally with our climate, it never matures enough. Gallatiano is used to give acidity, but because the maturation cycle is very, very long. And this blending, when was it that's why you were asking me about the master wine, yeah, about why this wine probably is used is because After Luke's and Lioja, they were worried the same way that in France of losing character. At that time, they thought that Lioja wines were already well known. So they didn't want you to lose the character. So all the investigators at that time from the Enerological station in Arrow, which is the oldest in Spain, all the people who fought against the Philocera, dictated and and and enrolled how a classical rioja wine should be, and it was a blending of seventy percent, tempranillo, twenty percent, five five. And my Greek grandfather followed that recipe because my great grandfather was a wine maker, was not a wine maker, was not a a wine man. He was a man who, took the example and learned from the best. And, was in contact with firms, was in contact with the most important investigators, and the experience with wine, and still nowadays, we are faithful, to that blending because it's a blending that gives the more finesse of all our wines, fine wines, which was known for makinginos. Fine. This is one last question before we go. Let you say, out of these four grape varieties, are they any of these more favorable for climate change? Any of these grapes? Yes. That's a very good question. The Cartiano. Nowadays nowadays, we believe that, if we reduce a small amount of, of garnacho because This this one has already thirteen percent alcohol content, which for us is a drama. It's a drama because we make wines of twelve twelve and a half. We don't want to increase the alcohol content. But of course, It's not only icon content. We need balance once year after year. We believe that the creatiano because it's more optimus for, maintaining the the acidity levels This is the one who will help us to survive, in relation to the climate change also in Matuelo. But Estebi, only one thing that is very important also part of the history of Rioha that gives character to these wines. If you notice in the label says two thousand and eight, and I did not mention the Vantage. Rioha, until nineteen eighty one, released the wines without Vantage. Because they were blending wines. It's exactly like Bigacithelia Orico. It's one that everybody knows as a wine that it was a blending wine. Why? Because not only they blend these four red grape varieties, but also they blend vintage, different a small percentage of other year in order to balance color, alcohol, acidity, and to make. But this is the vintage of two thousand eight. Is that correct? This is vintage two thousand and eight, but the advantage only guarantees that is eighty five percent still not today. Oh, okay. We can plan a fifteen percent in order to balance the wines and we do. We are faithful to that way of winemaking. So that's why for us, the character of the year, of course, as winemakers, when you have a great vintage, you have to blend a lot of lists because you have, in general, well balanced wines in difficult years is when you have to blend more. And it's when you have you have to prove more your experience, your knowledge, your beliefs, and many other things, you know. But, in order to explain the spirit and the real essence of this Tondonia, I will need three hours. Two days. We're just going to have to come to you. That's the only solution. Please do. Okay. Listen, thank you so much. We want a little overtime, but, you know, it's your debut, Instalite debut. Think it's, you know, this is history happening right in front of us. And what do you think? And said a role model for Rihoyi? And I agree. We'd love you. Everybody loves you. Let's say Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on another installment of On The Road Edition, hosted by Stevie Kim. Join her again next week for more interesting content in the Italian wine scene. You can also find us at Italian wine podcast dot com or wherever you get your pods. You also check out our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp to watch these interviews and the footage captured of each location.