Ep. 2169 Jessica Dupuy interviews Shelley Lindgren | TexSom 2024

Focusing on the South Italy has really helped us to dive a little deeper into, categories that otherwise, you sometimes you see on this. Maybe there's one or two, but this is like, oh, I wanna try wine from Mount Aetna and for when we first opened, I had three, and now we have can have a hundred plus, you know. So Which, I mean, it says a lot about how many people have also gotten into the Aetna game. Right? Like, I mean, that's yeah. That's part of it. It's incredible. It is. Yeah. Who wouldn't know. Call y'all. I'm Jessica Dupui, guest host for a special Texom series covering the twenty twenty four Texom wine Conference from Dallas, Texas. Join me in the heart of the Lone Star State as we delve into the experiences and insights key speakers and attendees, exploring career paths, challenges, and the latest trends in the wine industry. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your podcasts. Well, Shelley Lindgren, I'm so grateful to have you on the show. Thank you for taking some time to sit down with me in the middle of TexOM. This is awesome. I'm so happy. I'm like, this is it's great to see everyone and be around professionals is very inspiring to remind ourselves how we got into this industry, what we're doing, and where things are going. It's so funny because everyone I've talked to so far has has said something similar to the extent of it's just like a homecoming. It feels like we're having a reunion and reminding ourselves of why we do what we do. Well, I wonder if you could kind of give us a little bit of background on who you are. You're definitely no stranger to the Italian wine world. Give us your bio, like where you're from and what how you're involved in the wine industry. Okay. So my name is Shelley Lindgren, and I am from the San Francisco Bay Area born and raised. I worked in originally in French fine dining, and I was in the nineties. So we've had a sixteen restaurant open in two thousand four. Okay. And we ended up focusing on the South Italy, which really was just starting to come alive in its future of what we see today in terms of regionality and the grave set are making these incredible quality of of wines because there's just so much talent. There's just so many grapes and things. So I really spent, you know, well over two decades just going to Italy tasting pairing wines with food, and now we just had our third book called Italian wine. Okay. And we launched it last year at TexOM was our very first event. I was one of your first purchasers. No. Thank you. I think we are, you know, always learning and evolving, but there is some ways where Italian wine can be simplified for the consumers, especially in terms of selecting and what's available. And, there's just so much to choose from, which is a good problem to have. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I wanna touch back on the book in just a second, but let's just make sure that we're clear, like, sixteen is your restaurant. Right? Like, you I mean, obviously, you've been with partners, but, like, this is something that you have been a part of from the very beginning, and it's kind of your baby. But there's been some expansion or some Yeah. Some extra things that have come off. Talking about your kind of more recent projects. Yep. And this is San Francisco area, San Francisco area. Okay. No, especially we're working on a couple new things this year, especially during COVID. We didn't have to go, for example, at a sixteen. And now we have a co takeout counter in our San Francisco ferry building. Yeah. And now we started as a pop up of an Italian holiday basket shops. And then we started actually, like, growing, working on a project that was Italian grapes in California. And That was a a COVID project with some friends of mine. We're all woman, all organic single vineyard, and we just opened a place in Napa. It's a small quaint place called at Parrow. So with our wines from Tansy, and our friend Samantha who's from Napa, and she, started an app or TV label called mom and pop. Also organic, and she makes it from different citruses and mixes that she puts together from you know, just how's aperitiv's and it's registered tomorrow is, but they're very refreshing and light. And then a sixteen provides a little bit of snacks because you need to have a little bites to go there. With your with, of course, with Apero, you have to have a little snack too. Yeah. I love it. So it's something a little different and fun and unique and just friends coming together really. Well, and you you mentioned the name quickly, but that's Tansy. Tell me what Tansy is. So Tansy started in twenty twenty one with my friend Kitty and I, and Meghan Glab who makes wines with her husband at Rhyme, which is Ryan and Megan, also has a a focus of Italian grapes in California. So there's a growing trend of Italian grapes being grown in California, which is, mostly in a Mediterranean climate. Like Italy. And so now we have eight different selections. Okay. So Tansy, the label has has yeah. So Really? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Just tell me some of the grades that you work with. Vermentino from Lasrisas has the actual Tansy label on it. Okay. And so, like, Tansy on the flowers, each label has a different flower on the label. So Megan also was a sommelier turn winemaker. And so we've been friends just for our sheer love of Italian wine in general. And I think what's really exciting is the future of Italian groups in California, but also wines that are, you know, not too high in alcohol. They really showcase the Touara, but they taste like the grape we know in love in Italy, even if they're grown in California. And so that's been a real change in Italian grapes being grown in California. I mean, there's people like Marquesa Antinori who've been growing San Giovanni in different grapes in California as the late sixties. In Napa. Well, and if you think about pre prohibition United States and pre prohibition, California, most of the grapes that were planted in that area were Italian at the time. Right? There's a lot of old vine Italian still. Yeah. So it's kinda retro. Yeah. It's going back cycling fast through. Yeah. I know. And it's also just this idea of that there is so many different micro climates and that we have some different characteristics that maybe aren't in Italy, so those grapes that might love that volcanic soil of Vasubias or, orville tour a will have a different flavor, but they still there's something similar you can you can taste and think that this wine is made to represent the grape and not trying to force it to be something it's not. Right. Right. So I'm kind of like putting all of this together because I want it to be clear to the people that are listening that you're a restaurant owner. You've been a floor sommelier in your career, you're making wine, and you are a book author of three books, right, with I mean, along with Kate Lehey, and Mhmm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Yes. I'm always worried about her relationship. She works in the kitchen at Eighty two when we open. And then she's written dozens of QuickBooks since. Yeah. And we a sixteen was her first book or last book. So we've been friends and going to Italy together for a long time, really long time. And I have to say so. I have a sixteen in the book And I was talking with a mutual friend of ours Craig Collins a while ago, and he was saying, you know, like, when I go to Italy, I don't just wanna get, like, a wine book to tell me about the grapes and the wines. He's like, the first thing I do if I'm gonna go to Southern Italy is look at Shelley Lundgren's book about about about what foods I'm supposed to eat and everything else. So I love that you've got this culinary slash wine foundation that you've been able to share with people in a lot of different ways. That's the the whole fun. I mean, people have shared it with us. We've experienced certain things that we that really, like, makes sense to how we approach food and, you know, certain things that should go together or not. I'm feel really fortunate to be able to focus on the part or the world that, you know, I love so much. Yeah. So aside from May sixteen, what was the the second book? For twelve years, I had started and own a restaurant called SPQR. Mhmm. And then in late two thousand nineteen, I divested. Yeah. It was just a short time and so we've just been focusing on a sixteen, and we've been working on some new projects with a sixteen. We just opened in the Oakland airport too, which was kind of an ongoing project as well. But, SPQR, it was really fun. It was tiny, only fifteen seat restaurant that had Mission Star for, like, seven out of the twelve. I was there, and it still exists today. I'm just not involved anymore, but the wine list had the Roman roads because it was so small that I SP car food wine followed the Roman roads based on that. Yeah. Yeah. So both the wine and the food went regionally according to the the roads. And that really just helped us to instead of putting twenty regions in the book, we just said, okay. Via Salaria via Avia. Or, you know, we just and then we could we could follow the regions that went through those roads. Love yeah. I love it. It's just a different way to kind of think about Italy and gives you more context for the history, etcetera. So we're obviously we're in Dallas. We're sitting in there at the TexON wine conference. And tell me a little bit about your history with TexOM. This is where we met years ago. Yeah. And so I'm just wondering if you could kind of share, like, what TexON has been for you in terms of your career and your community like how you've been apart. You I mean, you've spoken on many different sites. Yeah. I always try to make sure that there is time to come. In some years, we do, an event in in San Francisco that sometimes competes, but, you know, I I was very few I've missed, actually. And so I always feel inspired. I ran into friends in, sommeliers and wine professionals that actually live in San Francisco that I rent you here. Yeah. Because we all work in in our fields and we don't always get a chance to see each other. Yeah. It's like you're seeing yeah. I I totally know what you mean where it's like people I haven't seen in in my city. Yeah. Exactly. Where I'm like, I haven't seen you since, oh, the last text but we literally live a few miles from each other. Yeah. And it's a great community we have. And actually, it's like so much support, but also being able to share knowledge. And touching on to important areas about how our community is evolving and what kind of outreach is needed. And because in hospitality, we're always putting energy and everything out. And then sometimes just days like this will remind us, are we doing the right things? Like, did we change? Or I'm like, how do I share this with our team? And also be a part of it. It's really I really love it. Yeah. And it's interesting. I was speaking with Vincent Marrow earlier about who's at Press Napa. So he runs the wine program there, which is all focused on primarily Napa Valley wines, but then also some little offshoots based on that, but definitely part of the Napa story. And that's great. He's a master Smolier, which is fantastic. Yeah. He is Such a pro. He is such a pro. But as a master of Smolier, you know, he's had to study the world of wine and be tested on the world of wine, but his job is all about Napa and that part of California. So, you know, I was asking him kinda how that feels. And of course, he's young and there's the sky's the limit on where he can go. But he said, you know, things like Texom keep you fresh in the things that you're not saturated in every day. Right? Like, I just sat in on an Australian wine classics class or you know, there's gonna be a really great sparkling wine class with Francis Percival and Peter Lee. So not only are you able to kind of see people that you love and know from across the country and across the world, but you you do get to stay fresh. It helps you stay fresh. He reminded me of that that that's kind of like We spend so much time studying to get into these places we are, has professionals. And then when you're there, you all you don't always have the time to carve out and and study and because we're we're in it so much. But, So it is a nice refresh. And, and, like, time flies by. And just like, how how have I been coming here for this long? Or, like, it's like, we had our twenty year anniversary this year at, you know, with a sixteen. So Gradually. Figure. That's a big deal. So you were a speaker this year. You were on a panel. There were a couple people. Yeah. What was the topic and and kind of what are the things that you guys went over? Yeah. So we have a couple panels this year. This morning's panel was basically about speaking with consumers and how to not, do, like, it it was called, like, info dumping on them, whereas, like, when is it too much information, and it was interesting really because we're coming from different parts of the country, but also there was a retail's perspective, and it was a restaurant perspective. So Christy Frank of Copake, Nating Brown. Nating Brown, in San Francisco, is Christie's and New York and then you. Yeah. And then Sam from, Oh, yes. From the current justice Robinson was moderating. Okay. Wonderful. And she was amazing. She was so fun. And it was, you know, really helpful. It was fun to discuss because there's things that we go through every day and we, you know, talk within, you know, what we do, but, you know, just a reminder about why we're here, I guess, experiences, and how do we, you know, approach different styles of service and and sharing and yeah. And keep a subject that's otherwise intimidating to a lot of people approachable. Like, how do you make sure you're not just, you know, getting the deer in the headlights look from your guests Yeah. By like giving them too much? No. Yeah. And sitting in that obviously you're speaking as the expert, but do you feel like you learned something completely? And I think that and it but it's also reminders of things that we know, but we like, like, for instance, maybe you could have, some of our coworkers. We work together for twenty years and some are newer. And you can't just be like, they should just know. Yeah. You need to realize that, like, everybody's learning and help them build their confidence. And there's more and more people around that. Have knowledge about Italian wines. And so it should be, you know, a good conversation of finding a wine that they like Right. And that they will enjoy and how to get them there. Right. Right. Like, not with, you know, all the right intentions and And so So with a sixteen, I mean, especially celebrating twenty years, do you feel like that's been an integral part of training your staff, like, giving them opportunity for education? Like, do y'all have tastings at the restaurant? Like, how do you go about doing that? Yeah. Our wines are constantly changing on the list. We have wine and beer, but we serve about forty wines by the glass, half bottle carafe, and bottle. And then we have bottles of wine, but those are constantly changing because that's about half of our wine sales. And so like, for instance, if it's fiona, Diamilino, which is a very important category for us in, you know, south of Italy. Yeah. Neapolitan pizza, you know, style restaurant that has, you know, lots of appetizers and things too. But we have, like, a a short list of Fiano Devalino that we wanna pour by the glass mainly because we want customers who have never had a fiano Devalino to try certain styles so that they understand really like benchmarks for these grapes. Right. And that, you know, of course, we have lots of others by the bottle, but, you know, focusing on the South Italy has really helped us to dive a little deeper into categories that otherwise, you sometimes you see on this. Maybe there's one or two, but this is like, I wanna try wine from Mount Aetna. And for when we first opened, I had three, and now we have can have a hundred plus, you know. So Which, I mean, it says a lot about how many people have also gotten into the Aetna game. Right? Like, I mean, that's, yeah, that's part of it. It's incredible. It is. Yeah. Who would've known? Yeah. But I think I remember you telling me too that, you know, when you opened a sixteen, there wasn't a lot of availability of a lot of these wines, and it was your chance to kind of try to get, you know, push the door open and get them to at least, you know, customers in San Francisco. And that's changed, right, over the over the past couple of decades. I I feel like if we now when you see across the country or internationally, when you see Wites of Italy, you'll find plenty of southern Italian options from Compania or Sicily or Sardinia's more like an island, but yeah, but even lots of different areas. So I think the world of understanding Italian wine is has grown all the time. Yeah. Do you feel like now instead of trying to say yes to more, you're having to say no. It's more because there because of the availability of what's out there. I mean, you can't put every Southern Italian wine on your list. I feel like the importing and sales channels have also shifted dramatically. So, and there's a couple importers that are just them. But even their wines have changed who imports them. Okay. Who doesn't or, like, the bigger companies, some of their names change, and some of their reps change, and it's it's really difficult. Yeah. I'm looking for them. Yeah. So it's hard for me. It's probably pretty hard for a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Okay. So my final question is let's get back to the Italian wine book. So I know that was your third book to come out, but it's different because your first two were were cookbooks. Obviously, wine being a big component of them, but this flipped the switch a little bit, and it's it's completely about the wines of Italy. So kind of what made you and Kate wanna do this and how is it different? What were you able to kind of tackle? So the first book, we did the South Italy. So half of the regions. And then the next book, we did the other half And then ten speed at the time, there really hadn't been an Italian wine, but for a long time. Yeah. So they actually approached us and said, we we could do it. And we said, yes. And it took us a while to get that that going, but we were supposed to have it done. We were a few years behind the deadline, but then things just slowed down with COVID, and it gave us more time. Even you only have so many words you can put in a book. Yeah. But we wanted to be a reference book as well as kinda give you an introduction into Italy, Italian wines, the history, the culture, the soil, the grapes, you know, not in an encyclopedic way, but more of a regional overview. Mhmm. And it's funny because this year for IACP finalists. That's the category we're in as reference. Yeah. And I was in technical. And so that made us so happy because it at least was sort of like that. I remember some of the first books I started reading about Italian wine. We're like the touring club of Italy and things, and they really took you on a journey to different parts. And because there's wine made in every region of Italy, you really wanna give every region a voice and, like, kinda wanna identify it as you know, the place it is and, you know, what they've gone through in their histories and what grows there, what they eat, we put a little section on, like, classic dishes of each region. And, you know, it's just a fun way to live and be. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Big project, but Alright. So people can find out on, like, Amazon or or Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. Yeah. Or any of the books, actually. Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me for a little while and talking about will all things that are going on in your life. I'm really excited for the projects you have upcoming, and I hope you'll join us again sometime. I would love to. Thank you. Alright. Bye. Bye. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. 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