Ep. 2108 Barbera D'Asti: Scarpa | On The Road With Stevie Kim

I like to say every time to our public and people that Carlo Castino, has worked in Scarpa for over fifty years, you know, being the analogies of the winery, and we are so lucky because Carlo still leaves here in in this carpet. It's in a very good shape, which is a great life. How old is it? It's eighty two. Eighty two. It's still in good form. Absolutely. It's still in good form. I don't know if it's thanks to the barbera or whatever it is, but, you know, some something magic happens. 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. Alrighty. Welcome back. My name is Stevie Kim, and we are today in Scarpa winery in the heart of Nitza Monterato. Scarpa, of course, it means shoes, but that's not we're not here for that today. We are here with, champion, champion, champion, because he is Franco. Okay. So Davide. For the interest of our audience who are less familiar with Scarpa winery, would you like to give us a brief history of Scarpa? Absolutely, with pleasure. I mean, I tried to be, you know, quite briefly to explain this long history of the winery. And, the most interesting information we have to share at the beginning is why the name is CarPA, because a lot of people don't know actually that the founder was Antonio Scarpa, so it explains already a lot of things. So at the founder, Scarpa, when when was the initial winery? Initial winery, and fortunately, we have some bottles traced back on the label. The the the hair foundation is nineteen hundred century. So, actually, we, we still have some bolos, you know, bringing on the label, Casa Fundata, and the initial name was not even Scarpa was, who was not a local person. He he he was coming from Venetia. Scarpa is very familiar. Family name from Venetal, overall, and Venetia precisely. And he came down here and he followed over, needs some of Ferrato in he decided to establish the Scarpa winery here. So everything started there. Okay. So, a venetian coming into Piamonte in nineteen hundreds. Can we fast forward to today? Absolutely. What is salsa today? Very quickly. Very quickly. There is a key passage when Antonio Scarpa decided to sell the winery to Mario Peche. Okay. In this case, Peche was absolutely a real personality, but it was from Nitzamo Ferato. So Nicez as the Aditants of Nitza at home, and this is a key passage and the and the another one that I would like to highlight is that when the nephew of of Mario patient join the uncle Carlo Castino, his name in nineteen sixty two because it changed completely the history of this winery because Carlo really convinced his uncle to purchase the land, the land that we still have today, that means our property, in terms of vineyards, that's from where we basically produce, we produce all our wines in poderebriki in nineteen sixty nine. That was the year of the acquisition. I like to say every time to our public and people that Carlo Castino, has worked in Scarpa for over fifty years, you know, being the analogies of the winery and we are so lucky because Carlo still leaves here in in this carpet. It's in a very good shape, which is a great, like, is eighty two. Eighty two. It's still in good form. Absolutely. Still in good form. I don't know if it's thanks to the barbera or whatever it is, but, you know, something, something magic happens. And then in two thousand and seven, Sylvia Trincero, who is actually the current waymaker, joined Scarpa. It was like a student of Carlo and he took over the, you know, the position of a way making the wines. And with these few passages that we, basically, we consider and we name like smooth soft passages, we explain what is basically our heritage. That means that from Antonio Scarpa, to Mario Peche, to Carlo Castino, and finally to Silvio, there is a kind of consistency and there is a kind of, you know, keeping ahead the style of producing wine because we have a very precise studying our production philosophy, and this is thanks to these passages that were no drastic and indicate. This is very important for us. So, David, you are the general manager of the CEO of this company, but who who is actually the owner There's no family behind it. Right? Yeah. There were different passages in, in, in the ownership of Carpa. This is to highlights also because, you know, it can happen for an historical brand, an historical winery with precise production philosophy could be damaging. You know what I mean? It could be a risk that through different passages of ownership, somebody, the new owner would like to change something, would like to have a different vision. Being just a manager with the team, actually have been working here for a long time. We're definitely haven't changed anything anyway to go straight to the answer. The last ownership dated two thousand fifteen is an investment found with French Okay. So nearly nine years ago. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Alright. So listen, just quickly, how many labels are there of a SkyPA and what is the volume production? We do produce fourteen different wines and we basically count on twenty five hectares in our unified plots. So what I like to say that we have twenty five hectares in one position only, and thanks to Carlo, we really believe as first person to the parcelization of our plots In a very small parcel, we produce many different wines. Which one, whatever is typical of Mufferato because being Mufferato producers, I was up, we like we feel and what I've I've been learning, taking care of the winery, we feel a kind of obligation to really represent whatever is typical. Obviously, the major one is Berbera. We are considered from Maropecia, basically. Maropecia is considered like a pioneer in really believing in the potential of this grade But if we exclude the the master piece, you know, the most important one, we we still cultivate whatever is even rare in some case like Fraser, like timorasso, like Bracchetto in a dry version, which is even more rare than some other, like Dolchetto, aqua denomination, ruke grape, Moscatodasti. All these wines are producing a very limited amount of bottles per year, but we still believe in this production, and we don't wanna stop in producing this this this classic wine. So fourteen different labels, including also some wines coming from Malanga because we own lens over there as well. For a total production, which is one hundred and fifty thousand bottles per year. Yeah. So I kind of always imagined that Scarpa was a much larger winery. I don't know. But listen, so cut to the chase. We're going to be tasting three wines today. I see you prepared for us. Which wines will you we'll be tasting? Why we decided for this wine? So the reason behind these wines because, Scarpa is definitely strongly related to one wine. When you say Carpa, you say bullona. Definitely bullona is our masterpiece. It's our most important wine. It's our our definitely, our signature wines. Okay. And what what what we do wanna share with you today instead of, taste different wines, different varieties. We wanted to focus on the bullion only because we have the possibility here in Scarpa to have a great experience, which is to taste some back vintages of bullion. The message in Scarpa has always been like that. We work and we produce wine for the potential aging of our wine. So longevity is a kind of strong commitment for the wineries. So we decided to do just one white bologna in three different vintages. Seventeen, seven, and ninety seven. Okay. Great. So what I would do, David, in the interest of time, just we'll pour all the three lines. Absolutely. And then you'll kinda tell me the differences of these three vintages. So remind me again, this is the first one was seventeen. The second one is seven. Two thousand seven. Oh, okay. And the last one. And the third one, the last one is nineteen ninety seven. Wow. Okay. So we are taste three different wines, three decades, basically. Okay. So Bolona, one hundred percent Rivera, which is definitely the the masterpiece of the wineries, and Bolona means one of the stream in a positive way expression of the varietal barbera. Volona means we would like to show you thanks to Mario Pecha first, and then the consistency and integrity of Scarpa means I would like to show I we would like to show what the barbera can express in terms of Verizon. So we consider Boliana. First of all, a crew because for us Boliana is a precise parser, a precise vignas. The way we vinify the the bologna is basically the same verification process followed by a borrolo. We normally takes minimum five years to release our bologna. Oh, okay. The feeling we have in Scarpon, what I've been learning, managing the winery is that, okay, one step is achieved, which is the releasing of the wine after five years of the of of the process, but the aim, the goal, the real objective, and the challenges, how long does it last? So the potential of aging of the barbera itself in terms of a writer, that's what Boljona would like to be. The reason why we decided to taste with you today, Stevy, three different vintages, it was to show you what is overall speaking, you know, the potential. And then we decided for seventeen and seven and ninety ninety seven for many different reasons. So seventeen is a quite, young vintage for us. I mean, almost just released because if you consider the current one officially is the following one, two thousand eighteen. So eighteen is the current release. Correct. This is the last year's release. We we're gonna release we're gonna release the nineteen officially in September, you know, after the five years of, of process The seven, two reasons. It's one of the outstanding harvest in the last twenty five years. O seven. O seven. Correct. And the second reason is that because Silio Trinchero, the winemaker joined the winner in two thousand and seven, and he's his first lint touch. So it was very lucky. It's a kind of joke between Carlo and Sylvia because Carlos say, you know, it took me a lot of years. To really achieve the maximum, level of quality I wanted to achieve while you are you are coming here, and the first vintage is considered one of the best. Very, very, very important harvest. In nineteen ninety seven, So if you consider seventeen, seven, and ninety seven, we wanted to show you today the twenty years of Voliana. She's a funny game. If you want, and ninety seven as well, it's considered stream harvest because all of three are re really dry harvest. Difficult challenging, but the over the years they express. So in three glasses, you see what Barbara can express in term evolution from something that is considered quite young to the tertiary aroma that comes up in a very clear way. But the main character is to see what is the acidity. So in all of in all of the tree, in our opinion, you immediately understand what is the potential of the graves. The message is, the potential of the Bardera in terms of the the possibility to express great acidity, combined with the with the temperature and the climate change. So I kind of, climate condition that was a little bit of filling and the thinking behind this distasting, you know, different climate condition, but quite tough that any way Barbara reacts. In a very good way. Well, David, thank you so much for having us today and Chinchin. Chinchin with La Buuliana. Yeah. Gratsa Stevviva long live La bullona. Thank you very much, also. Sharing with us these very, long lasting vintages, and follow us. Keep on following us as we continue our Balbera Dasti and Monferato wine journey. 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 can also check out our YouTube channel. 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