Ep. 385 Elio Pisoni

Italian wine podcast. Chinchin with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast with me, Monte Walden. My guest today is Elio Pizzone of the Pizzone for Atelli Wiry, who's Trento, DOCG's Pumante extra brute reserva, Ermina Segala, two thousand and ten vintage, scored ninety six points at five star wines the book twenty twenty, which, of course, also includes wine without walls. The Trento, DOCG, Umanti extra brute reserva, Armenia Segalet, two thousand and ten, was awarded the best sparkling wine or the milior vino Scomante. Many congratulations. Here's how the judges describe the wine. Bright, greenish golden yellow in color, very fine and continuous per large, complex and articulated olfactory profile, encompassing fresh ormond, cedar, wild flowers, yellow plum, and struck flint. Wonderful acidity to support an excellent structure. It has body, elegance, and a very long aftertaste. And you are in Clento, I think. Is that correct? Yeah. Trent is the main city. We are fifteen minutes from Trenta, actually. We are between Clinton and Lake Gara in the middle in Tarantino. Our region is Tarantino. Yes. Northern of Italy. Can you tell us about the history of a it's obviously a family winery did everything start and where are you now? Yeah. It's a long history actually. We like to say that we began in the middle of eighteen, eighteen fifty, more or less, but probably it's even older because we have, notices from the Council of TriNet. So dating back to fifteen forty, so many, many years ago. But officially, we could say we began in the middle of eighteen hundred. So I'm representing the fourth generation. And, during the time we develop So in the past, we used to produce not only wine or Grafta, but also through it, and we have the cattles as well. And now we are focusing on the Grafta market and the Trento doc, the classical wine, the the Trento doc is a typical classical sparkling wine from our region. So in terms of the the size of the the estate, how how large is it in total and how much is vineyard? We have more or less twelve hectares of vineyards, And, we work our grapes, and, we produce biodynamics wine, steel wines. But for the sparkling wine, since we had a huge increase in the last years, we are now also using, other grapes and wine from the local producer in our area. So we also buy some grapes from the local, wineries. Okay. And and this sparkling wine, the one, just the Trento Docs pomente extra boot, reserva, Erminia Segala. Tell us a little bit about that particular wine. What what goes into the blend and, and, how are you making it and, how does it work? Well, this is, our best, I I would say top, sparkling wine. And we named this wine, I think, two years ago, before it was just a Trento brew Trento vodka reserve, artisani. We decided to dedicate this wine to Ermina Segala, who is our grandmother. So it's my father, father's mother. Because in our company, we are only men, only boys. So we decided to dedicate this to a woman for our from our family. We've been producing these wines, I think, since three years, more or less, not a big quantity. So not a large quantity. I think we produce around four thousand bottles per year. It's a blended blank, which means it's only produced with chardonnay grapes, hundred percent. The feature of this wine is that, the wine remains on the lease for more than hundred months, almost nine years, sleeping on the on the yeast for this long time in a in a special winery, which is, carved in a in a mountain. This was a refugee, a shelter, bomb shelter, that was used between the the wars. It was built before the second world war, and the peculiarity of this place is the temperature. It's always the same. So we are we always have between five and fourteen degrees Celsius. So this is perfect for the tirach, what is called tirach, or, spumamoto tortilla. So the wine remains for a very long, long time. So we have a very round, very, particular wine, very creamy. And it's really, a great wine, I would say, still very, very interesting freshness of this wine. Even if it is quite old, I mean, ten years, we are now selling the vintage to yeah, two thousand ten, which is almost finished, actually. We are going to sell the two thousand eleven in few weeks. Yeah. I mean, what the judges liked about this particular one was it really had a fantastic, structure. To it. And it has, you know, quite a it's quite a it's quite a food sparkling wine. It's quite it's quite quite a lot of body to it, but it's very elegant as well. And everything was very well integrated, you know, the fruit, the acidity, and just texture here was really, really I mean, I remember this wine from tasting it. I taste it twice, obviously. And you've tried. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, we had to get the charger. So you try you you obviously tasted once, then it has to get retasted to make sure. Okay. Whenever wines get high scores like this one day, they're just like, are they sure about that? And, And, we're absolutely absolutely worship, but that's a fantastic, really, really fantastic wine. Yeah. Actually, we think it's really, it's really has a good price because it doesn't go so much compared to the quality or compared to other competitors, other similar wines, with more famous name maybe. So we think we have a very nice product in terms of quality and price as well. So in terms of, obviously, in terms of selling it, where where can we find this wine? Is it mainly sold in lit in Italy and do you export it? And, or do you sell direct to consumers online? Yeah. Both. Mainly sold in Italy. I would say Northern and Central Italy, but we also do export this wine to Switzerland and to Germany. Since we got this prize from Feistyle wines, the the sales on internet have increased actually. So we are selling on our e commerce website. So it's solely in the best wine shops and also in our e commerce section on our website. Yes. Oh, that's good to hear. In the local area, obviously, it's a stunning area where you live. Just just give us a little bit of a description of, what it's like living in this valley mountainous Yeah. Area. Yeah. This is the Valle de Laage, which means, lakes valley because there are many lakes. At the biggest one, which is in the southern part of the valley, it's La Guada, LaGada, which is the biggest lake in Italy, actually. We are in a very particular position because during the night, the winds from the dolomites come down to the valley And during the day, there is this aura, which is a typical, like a tropical breeze morning from Lagara from southern. Every day during the year, in the afternoon, we have this, like, a gentle breeze. And this, makes our climate, very sub Mediterranean, we say, because our region is a mountain, rocky mountain, rocky region. But this valley, particularly, it's you can find the palms, the banana trees, the olive trees, the typical Mediterranean vegetation, because of the climate. And this is due mainly to the lake garda. So also the wine, we have a very nice acidity, very nice, very well balanced. Thanks to this, excursion different between night and day temperature. So we have very cool nights and very warm days, especially this time of the year. So July, August, and September. This is very important for the grapes for Espumante for Trento Doc. We're going to pick up the grapes, middle of August when it's not too ripen. It doesn't have to be mature too too too much mature too mature. So we have a nice acidity and, perfect for the, for the fermentation in the bottle. What I what I love about your regions is very I love taking photos. You get wonderful light. Yeah. Yeah. Some people call it the value of the light because the walls of the mountain reflect the light very well. Yeah. It's really Yeah. Your your eyes, very shiny, man. Yeah. Very we say, I'd say luminous and, Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. This is the right word. Yeah. Okay. Final question. Can you name a traditional food dish from your region that would pair especially well, with your sparkling wine. Well, we, we have here the Especially with a a fairly full bodied sparkling wine that spent all that time resting on its, lease deposit. Yeah. The first food I would think about would be we we call it. I don't know if you know that. It's a strangled a parete, which is, a sort of gnocchi with made with spinach and a melted butter and grana trentino parmesan only I think this is a nice combination with this, this wine, and it's a typical local food from our region from this area. So the name it in English is priest strangler. Can you just give us a story on why it's called, Strozzapreta was a priest a priest strangler? Well. I imagine because the priest liked them so much. It's a it's a legend. It's a story I have no idea actually. Yeah. They call it strozapreta, but we say strangolapreta. We the the meaning is the same, obviously. I have I have no idea. Probably in the past, the priest, appreciate this very much. It's a fancy name. Yeah. I'll ask you another question about, in terms of, how easy is it to be, organic and biodynamic in your area? Well, I would say nowadays it's it's quite easy, but we began, I think, twelve or thirteen years ago, and we were the first, and many people were quite, I just say suspicious because they say, it's it was very difficult, actually. Because when you start, even the plants are not used because, by the name means that you don't use any chemical products in the field in in the one in the vineyards, but until that point, the the plants are used to be helped with this chemical products. So suddenly, they have to survive by themselves without any external aid, chemical aid. So it takes time. But after, I would say, three, four years, the the plans, the the Venus become very strong and very resistant. So you spare the chemical treatments, which is expensive, but mainly you spare your health because you don't put any chemical products in the in the field. So we are very, very satisfy about this choice. We would never turn back. I mean, it's and I've seen that many producers are now copying and doing the same. So I think this is the the the right road, the the right way. And people are more and more careful about the quality and the the the bio, the organic food, even the young generation, they are very careful. So I think this is the right way. Good to hear, and it's good to, really good to talk to you. Great what your family are doing. Well, really, many congratulations again for having such a success with your sparkling wine. And I just wanna say thanks very much, to Elio. I found it today for, sharing with us, the success that his family winery had. With, five star wines this year with a fantastic sparkling wine that, spent a lot of time aging very quietly, in the north of Italy. And now it's on the market and, I urge you to try. Thank you very much. Thank you. I thank you. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, HimalIFM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italian wine podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time, Chimchi.