Ep. 2133 Sicilia DOC with Antonio Rallo | On The Road With Stevie Kim

Anyway, if you can work sitting in your nice, apartment or villa looking, the maintenance on one side, the the the see on the other side. Why don't you take the chance and and enjoy it easily instead of staying in a big city with a lot of coverage, and a lot of traffic. Welcome to another episode of on the road edition hosted by Stevie Kim each week Steve 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. Hello everybody. My name is Stevie Kim, and welcome to the Italian wine podcast on the road edition. And this week, we are traveling through Sisley to get to know better the territory. And of course, meeting with wine people other people in general. We are naturally going through all the wines also and the cuisine. And today, we are with the president of Sitzia Jack That means we get to ask him anything we want. So we'll be asking him some boring questions and hopefully some fun questions. Are you ready, mister president? Yes. I'm ready. Ready. Okay. In the beginning, it's going to be a little boring. I have to warn the, audience. So give me some general overview of Cecilia Doc, when it was founded, how many members are there, what it represents in terms of, you know, the acreage, you know, those boring kind of stats just so we can contextualize the size of cecilia. So So, establish when eleven, first vintage, twenty twelve, and the consortia was founded, in June. So first, August, August, September two thousand twelve. And then, of course, very important, for us, Italy, is when the consortium become to be Erga Omness. It means. For for foreigners, it's very difficult to understand because we don't have anything similar. Erga Omness. What does that mean? It it means that the consortium got the power to work on all. The wines that, shows the OCilia on the label. And so the rules are not only for the one that are associated to the consortium, but to any producer of the Appalachian. So how many producers are there, which are a part. And all the producers of Sicily part of this consortium. We're, only in a lot. We got more than seven thousand growers. Five hundred and thirty wineries. So this is, really a lot. No. It's just to give you an idea. We are just, in terms of Sichida, DLC, just thirty percent smaller than New Zealand. Oh, wow. That's significant. Is it it's is it bigger than Veneta? No. Well, Seechilia altogether is, same size, of Venezuela in terms of vineyards, of course. CCia DOC is around thirty percent. Okay. So what are the latest trends of sicilian wines at the moment? There's a big trend on white wine right now and and Grillo is performing fantastically well. We we are focusing more on sparkling wine. We are doing a lot of the research on Willow and Colorado sparkling, trying to select the best biotype claims, for the sparkling wines. So we will, have more sure about that. So our Grilio and Katoratto, they're the best, would you say, native grapes for sparkling wine? Right now, for sure. Yes. Guillo and, luchido, you know, luchido, Colorado. You know, I that's enough for me, but I know it's luchida. What about red grape varieties. Can they become sparklers? Some producer, they are starting to produce some very good sparkling wine with Marodabala. Mhmm. Someone with the Fropado, but mostly are concentrating on Nero Dawala and Mirila Moscow. So what are some of the, I would say, the challenges that you face as the president of Cecilia Dog, but also as sicilian winemaker in general? Sigilia is a great brand. A lot of people all over the world knows the the word Cecilia is familiar to Sigilia. So what we are trying to do every day is to get more relation between the the wines from Sicily and, Sichilia itself. As the president of Sichilia Doc, what are the greatest challenges that you've faced today? So we we got a lot of consumer that they know Cecilia. They know all that is, fantastic place. We got fantastic food, but most of the time, they don't know that we got a fantastic wine as well. So we wanna use the awareness of the brand Cecilia to promote our wine and to let all consumer of wine in the States bring our fantastic wine. So, you know, I mean, I guess Cicilian food became very common, if you will, very popular in America above all because of the Italian immigrants. And a lot of them came from also Sicily and they bought us this adaptation of sistine in cuisine. A lot of them very simple street food, for example, became very popular. But actually, there is some very refined dining as well as very elegant. I I wouldn't say upper scale, but, you know, it's not just only about street food. Is that correct? Oh, Sicily, is a melting pot of different culture, but of course, spread through the the this soap opera all around the world, but, we got as well fantastic food, that comes, you know, from the Arab influence, cruise, fish cruise cruise that's typical from Sicily. And then we got, fantastic dessert, canola, Casada, you know, with the Ritotta. We got, pasta Golesale, no pasta with the Soudini. We got a lot of fish fantastic, red tuna fish. We got red snapper, bronzino, no, sea bass, whatever you want from Mediterranean Sea and, and, of course, know, all the best ingredients, for Mediterranean food. We have some serious competition with the birds. Can you eat the birds? In Sicily, we are eating almost everything. Okay. So let's talk about this phenomena of white lotus. Has strictly benefited from this television series, Netflix? It's actually not even Netflix. I think it's HBO Max or something. Has it benefited from the white lotus phenomena? So we've been having, quite a lot of, US tourists in, in the past, but, we've been, having more European tourists. In the last two years, it's been really incredible. I came back from Rome just a couple of days ago. The plane was full, completely full of American tourists. So I it happens to me that I was the only one between maybe sixty seventh US tourists coming. You were the only citizen? So I was the only citizen. And I said, oh, I'm going to New York or I'm flying back from New York to Rome or I'm going to Sicily. I was a little bit confused. So, I mean, so the increase of tourism has been significant after not just white lotus, but in general to Sicily. In general, in Sicily, we've been increasing over twenty percent. But, with the American tourists, we went over one hundred percent. So it's very significant, and, especially some, small towns like, Taormina, or the two big city Alermo and Catania, released today in the middle of the summer, really full of Americans. Question for you. All Americans want to know. What is the testa the moral? Oh, wow. Test an immoral. And you see it everywhere. Right? Yeah. You see it. It's the ceramic head. The head of a moral, and, is related to the story of a young lady that she was, very good in, taking care of, plans, of the terrace. And, luckily, but unluckily, she fell in love with the with the moral with the and out of an old, we we we had two hundred years of our domination in in Sicily in the old times. And, she told her that this guy could be a man, but, unfortunately, he already got a wife, a, and a family just because she wanted to have a hundred percent of this fantastic man. She felt in love she decided to cut the head of demand and, to put it on a a terrace and to put some, basil on it. We have, in Sicily, in our houses, in our terrace, the test of tomorrow. Yeah. Everyone has it. Yeah. It's fantastic. Yeah. Great. A head beheaded Arab. Right? Yeah. This is a Yes. Yeah. It's not really that nice. It's not really that nice, but, no, the ceramic is fantastic. That that's what he's more important for our house. So give me reasons why everyone should come to Sicily. Besides the wine. Besides the wine, anyway, he is, is a continent for for the wine, but it's a continent that as well as for the experience that you can have. We we got nice beaches, nice cliff. And then if you go inland, you got a fantastic yields and mountains, Bolton, city where you can, really feel all the different culture, all the different people that has been, in, in Sicily, though, small little island, even if it's the biggest in the Mediterranean Sea, but small little island in the middle of Mediterranean Sea, with a a lot of influence, from all over Mediterranean Sea. Okay. So before we go, I would like for you to it's not in here. Before we go, I would like you to give us a general guideline as to how to pair sicilian cuisine, sicilian dishes with sicilian wine. Oh, wow. And then also let's say inter continental foods as well. Various ethnics, you know, like ethnicity, Mexican, Korean, you know, Asian, of course, comes to me, but just whatever, like What are the general guidelines? How do you choose the wine? Maybe that's just an easier question. How do you choose a sicilian wine to match your food as a general guideline? Well, as a matter of fact, we got more than seventy native grape varieties. Of course, there are ten that you can easily find in the market. The rest probably will come in the future, and we got as well lots of what we call international goods, variety. Thanks to that. It's easy for us to find the the the right match. If you are sitting in, Tokyo best sushi restaurant, you got a fantastic, blue fin tuna. It's easy now to think about a nice, tripado or going to a zebivo, very aromatic, you know, fresh, crispy. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, with a lot of, seafood, you know, oyster, or, lobster, bread crumbs, something that is very tasty. And he wants something that is refreshing, but as, at the same time, he can compete with the aroma of the fish and of the bebo, I think, is, really perfect. Then, of course, if you move, to Sicily, you know, and, you guys, nice anchovies and, sardinia, just, you know, freshly picked and and and and fry, then using about three speed glass of, reload. You know, that is really refresh. And then, well, of course, you think about our, you know, dessert. You know, the typical city on this earth, Casada, Sicilliana, or, you know, or if you move a little bit north and you go to Campania and you go those fantastic pastilla, and then why not a Greelopasito, you know, and the all the power that that you can have, in a in a really intense, green lot closer to the the epicimento, to the dry grade. No. Okay. Alright. Is there anything else you would like to say before we go. Oh, well, if you are sitting in a nice restaurant, and in front of you, you got a fantastic, steak. Enjoy a little dabola. Big one or or a more balanced one. The gonna both really, match perfectly. Well, the steak, one because it is more fresh, and the other one got very nice, silky, velvet chamois. So you know what I've noticed is that Now there seems to be a trend of in the past, sicilians went abroad to get job opportunities, right, whether they're in the hospitality or in other areas of work, And now a lot of them are with international experiences are coming back. It seems. Is is that is that a correct assumption, or is that just my imagination? Oh, no. No. It's you you're right. You know, there's a lot of, young guys have been studying in Sicily. They're moving, maybe for university, up north, Milano, no, Rob. And they had the chance to have experience, you know, stop working, in the north of Italy or even abroad. Today, they they they got two chance. One, two, of course, come back and work, for, you know, sicilian winery or or sicilian, whatever kind of business or even to work from Sicily. You mean, like, remote working? Yeah. Well, if you do, Don't tell don't tell Andrea. He's always looking to work remotely. No. It's impossible for you, Andrea. No. No. No. No chance. No chance. You have to go around Italy. Anyway, if you can work sitting in your nice, apartment or villa, looking, the mountains on one side, the they see on the other side. Why don't you take the chance and and enjoy it easily instead of saying in a big city with a lot of cow, and a lot of the profit. Yeah. In pollution. So okay. I think this is a good segue to conclude because president Antonio Raulo just has invited everyone to move to Sicily and work remotely from here to the rest of the world. That sounds pretty good to me. Okay. And with that, it's a wrap. Chincheon with Italian Line people signing off from the heart of Sicily. So. Thank you for joining us on another episode of on the road edition hosted by Stevie Kim. Join her again next week for more interesting content on the Italian wine scene. You can also find us at Italian wine podcast dot com or wherever you get your pie. You can check out our YouTube channel, Mama jumbo shrimp to watch these interviews, and the footage captured at each location. Changing.