Ep. 1467 Henry-David Pollacco | Slow Wine 2023

Since twenty seventeen, the Italian One podcast has exploded and expects to hit six million listens by the end of July twenty twenty three. We're celebrating this success by recognizing those who have shared the journey with us and giving them the opportunity to contribute to the on the success of the shows. By buying a paper copy of the Italian wine unplugged two point o or making a donation to help the ongoing running costs, members of the international Italian wine community will be given the chance to nominate future guests and even enter a price draw to have lunch with Stevie Kim and Professor Atigioshenza. To find out more, visit us at Italian wine podcast dot com. Welcome to this special series dedicated to slow wine held in Volonia in March twenty twenty three. During the fair, we conducted several interviews with some very exciting producers. We were able to pull out some the more interesting elements of Italian wine within the slow wine movement, tune in each week on Italian wine podcast. Hi. Good morning. I'm at slow wine in Volonia. And today, I have with me Ori David. The co owner of Fattoria Zervino. And today, we're gonna talk about his albana wine because Fattoria Zervino was chosen as a benchmark producer for Albana in our new book Italian wine Unplugged two point o. So good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Let's talk a minute about Albana. So a lot of our listeners know that Albana was the first white docG in Italy, but not many people know a lot about Albana. So Give me a little history of the work that Faktari Azerbin is doing with Albana. Albana is absolutely one of the, I think, mostly interesting variety of Romania. It's an historical variety. If you think about the albana immediately, you think about the history of Romanian and Imperial, the last period of a Romanian period. Part of what we're doing with the book is trying to include history myths, legends, the travel of ancient civilizations and how these grapes got here. So for albana, really important. Yes. The albana has two main characteristics. The first characteristic is the unbelievable capacity to concentrate a lot of polyphenolic components into the skins, the second characteristic is the acidity. I remember when I was studying Albana, someone described it as a red wine in a white dress. Absolutely. Fatina in two thousand and eight decided to to work with the second aspect of the Avana be a series because the Alvana has a good asset. So we started the experiments, sir, in term of period of selection. So after thirteen fourteen years, we know exactly now what we have to do to produce something very drinkable and that the people are discovering. It's accessible. It's not so complicated. Your co owner, Christina, who was interested in the Soteran style wines with Votrides from Bordeaux. She's now doing a project with Albania. Tell me about that. Exactly. Because the modern approach of the Albana for the dry version probably is the last the step, but, the beginning was about the suite version because the Albana is, very famous for the suite wine. Italian wine podcast. If you think you love wine as much as we do, then give us a like and a follow anywhere you get your pods. Of course, the Roman emperor's wives were drinking that to the ancient story, he says. But, Christina, my partner, she started acknowledging in Bordeaux, and she fell in love about the sweet wine. The sultan, of course. And she's trying to work here with this variety with the albana with the same concept of soter. Why? Because the albana has the potentiality to follow the way of the So how many wines are you making with albana? We produce a dry version, semi dry version, and three different steps of sweet wine made with double varieties. In nineteen eighty nine, we produced the first version of Scakomato, the name of The first bottle is Cajamato, but it was, I mean, thirty percent botulizer and seventy percent dry. Dried, Abasimans. In nineteen ninety six, finally, was the first Vintage of one hundred percent botrytas at Albaix. And this is very curious because the area is new for the for the Central Mesa mainly. Exactly. And, if you think that's sweet wine could be a flagship and ambassador of the winery in Romania is not an in. And this is where we're aiming to go with these grapes that are lesser known, historic, important and take them out into the world and make them be more ambassadors. So I'm gonna ask you a question, put you on the spot. When you're drinking albana, which one is your favorite? The dry or this week? I like absolutely the dry version. I like the verticality, the minerality, but at the same time, it's Alvana. So the DNA, you can find on, on the mouth. So it's very the potential is. The texture is very What are you feeding with it? It's very polycentric because, with this acidity, you can put a lot of different type of food pasta with the vegetable sauce. For example, white meat, of course, cheeses, and also fish. Absolutely. Thank you so much for giving us master class on No. It's not a master class. Well, it was great. Thank you for this opportunity. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on Sunk out Apple podcasts, Spotify, email ifm, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italianwine podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time.