Ep. 292 Michele Bernetti (Umani Ronchi)

Italian wine podcast. Chincin with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast with me Monte Walden. My guest today is Mikeli Bernetti Bernetti from Umani Ronchi in La Marche, which is on the Adriatic coast of Italy welcome. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for calling. Just give us a very brief history of Omani Roki and then explain to us that first wine that you have, next year. Yes. Okay. Maniroki is my family wondering. Moniroki actually was founded in the fifties and was founded by Gentleman whose name was, Jiro Manirooki. And, my family to cover the company in the, in the mid sixties, basically, and decided to keep to maintain the name that was already established. When Eloki was born in the market region, and, this little region, located by the central Italy on the eastern side. So by the triadic. And, and we were born mostly producing verdicchio, which is probably the most traditional variety grown, in my region. And, and then years after years, we developed, the production also other red wines, some important red wines, some other population like, Urso Conaro, which is a a smaller population by the Dreatic, by the sea, literally by the sea. And, more recently, we also developed the the production in Abruzzo region, which is, just south of the market. Where we produce, multiple Chamba, Luca, and, pickering. So, basically, we work in three major, three major, I can say, district producing list. One is the Castelierse. For Lernicchio. Another one is, the corner for, and then, the third one is, in a with, multiple channels of Blueza breakaway. In total, we own, an important estate, which is about two hundred hectares. Okay. Which is can you just show us the bottle of wine that you have with you? Yes. I have, today, the bottle that has been chosen by Upper wine. By one spectator is, probably our top end, Vernicchio, which is called Vecke ring, Old Vines. And, the vintage two thousand fifteen. So it was, We choose some Porkers, an older vintage to show also the the capacity for, this grade is what I throw at this one in particular to be aged for some time. Okay. So, where are the where are the grapes coming from? So the group are coming from, from Evinia, which is, more than fifty years old. It was planted at the end of the sixties. And, is located in Montecarota, which is a small village, right in the center of the Verdeque classical producing area. We're talking about three hundred and fifty meters above the sea level. And, it's a beautiful place. It's a place where, when we talk about biodiversity is something that we can really find in that place. In fact, the, since five years now, the, the, the one is, organic certified. And, the grapes are, hundred percent verdicchio. That's where we source from the spinner. And, it's very interesting because it's, it's, it's, it's, we did a job in the vineyard of, basically, restructuring, not restoring the old Adjanssen vineyard, and, and that's where we source the grape for, from two white. So it's quite unusual that you're putting, you know, normally people think that, oh, it's a big, wine merchant. They don't care about detail. They just wanna have mass production that you're making this particular Vadigio you know, rescuing an old vineyard doing a lot of manual labor I would imagine. How is it just explained a little bit, the fermentation and the aging of that one? Yes, fermentation is, conducted in, stainless steel tanks. One hundred percent. And then, once the fermentation is finished configured, we rack the one in concrete tanks. It's not the modern, eggs or whatever, adjusting the very traditional concrete tanks that we have in our one or in the Verdeque area. We keep the ones to leave on the lease, for about a year, and then, you wreck off the concrete one year later, and we go usually, we we keep the wine. We store the wine in, still still for a few months, and then we go, both of the wine. Normally, we don't go through monolithic fermentation. So we prefer to keep the wine a bit more, with more acid, a bit more freshness, also wind up that can, I think, very be enjoyable through the years through the time? Okay. So when you say in Jugal, if you and I go and have dinner this evening, and you bring that bottle that you have in hand, What would you, eat with, a dinner? What's a good match? This is, yes, it's a good question because I think we can have, you can have, okay, I think a fish is quite obvious, quite natural. Maybe I wouldn't go with the, like, shellfish. I will go with something more, structure type of, dish of recipe. But it's one that complement, like many other verdique as well. Even some white meat, or maybe pasta with, with, meat sauce, the bolognese for instance salsa, which is very typical in my region, not the handmade pasta, fresh pasta with, some some richer sauce. I think it could work. It works very well. But when you say white meat, are we talking about chicken or are we talking about, for example, rabbit? No. No. We're talking about mostly chicken or turkey or what is the yeah, more more of this type of meat. Okay. And, in terms of, international markets very briefly, and the local market, how strong is the local market and what are your key export markets? Okay. The the money is based, basically, with the thirty percent, in, domestic and seventy percent export. Maybe it's about thirty thirty five domestic and, consequently, seventy, sixty five percent export. Some of the major market in, I mean, the top five markets could be considered, in Asia, as Japan, in Europe, in between, Germany and, and Sweden in, in, of course, in America, United States in Canada are are quite important for us. Okay. Have we missed anything? Chip, what goes on through the dairy? Oh, no. Maybe we could talk about, the aging capacity. It's one that is a, fantastic, few years after the bottling. We recently did, the vertical testing on, going back to, vintage. It's actually the first vintage we produced back here in this particular wine was two thousand and one. And it's still showing beautiful. I mean, the wine usually gets the decoderic age, gets, a little bit like a riesling with some, a bit of, kind of fennel, a bit of, nut gasoline because, but then at least, you know, develops the the tertiary aromas, and, without losing, freshness in the wine. And, but even with, some other vedicure, we went back to ninety five, ninety six, and the wines are still, still beautiful. Not all the meat dishes, of course. We're talking about the good feed dishes, and this is, I think, the the quality of the of the white wine. Do you think I mean, Vodicchio is Italy's finest white wine variety? Do you think it's a little bit still under underestimated? In the market? I think, Veronica's definitely underestimated. It's one of the it's a bit a little bit like market region. No. Market was a New York Times to find the market as a, one of the, most interest, interesting, unknown place in Italy. And I think it's, also for Verdiculous, because with understanding, people thinking about Verdicure that was produced in the seventy is a bit more commercial style. A very light pale, necessity, but no more than that. And now the modern verdict is completely different as, can be correctly defined as one of the, like, you say, finest white wines in either. And it's very fruitfully, isn't it? It's got a lovely salty taste to it. Doesn't it? It is very appetizing. I don't like to use the word minerality because, I know it's not quite it's quite common, quite obvious. They But I think if we need to define minerality in some of the Italian wines, I think Vedicure is definitely in that potato. I would say. Perfect. Mikhail, I wanna say it's really nice to see you again. And, I wanna say thanks for coming in to tell us a little bit about Romani, Ronki. Thank you very much. And, next time I see you, we'll talk hopefully, we'll talk about an award winning red wine that you've made. Okay? Thank you very much. Good. Thank you. You live you live in a very beautiful region, by the way. Listen to all of our pods on SoundCloud iTunes, Spotify, Himalaya FM, and on Italianline podcast dot com. Don't forget to send your tweets to at itaewine Podcast.