Ep. 1413 Jemma Styer | The Next Generation

Hey, guys. Check out Italian wine unplugged two point o brought to you by Mama jumbo shrimp, a fully updated second edition, reviewed and revised by an expert panel of certified Italian wine ambassadors from across the globe. The book also includes an addition by professoria Atilio Shenza. Italy's leading vine geneticist. To pick up a copy today, just head to Amazon dot com or visit us at mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Welcome to the next generation. I'm Victoria Chacha, join me as we chat with young Italian wine people shaking up the wine scene. We're going to geek out on a grape or grape fam and hear about all the wild wine things are gusting up to. From vineyard experiments to their favorite wine bars. Hello. Hello. It is time for the next generation, and that's why you're here. Hello. Let's get into our great party. I'm diving ready into it today. Hopefully, you have a glass in hand. If it is actually morning where you are, shouldn't advise you to do that. But you do as you please. It is time for another round next generation with some great talent, great talk, then a really cool groovy human being coming on named Gemma from South Africa. Really excited for today. We are going to talk about a great group that I absolutely adore. Now let's be real. We don't always adore all the grapes. Okay? It's like parents always have a favorite. They never wanna say it. I'm not a parent. I shouldn't even say that. There are a lot of grapes to learn, explore, and love in Italy. But this great group is some of my favorites. One of the ones I adore, just historically speaking, and wine speaking, and also because the grapes in this group always get confused, and it's so good to dive into it. And can you guess what it is? The good echo group. So today, I'm just going to talk about the group. And then in the next episodes, I will dive into the specific varietal, so you can know the difference, and you can be a smarter Italian great person. And then wine person. Ready? Let's get going with Greco. So the Greco group, now you're probably thinking graco di Tufo because, it's the most famous, I would say, wine with graco in it. But that is Greco. That is a white variety in the Greco group. And then there's also Greco Bianco. Okay. They're two different grape varieties. It's kinda hard because one has a short Panchi, Greco. And the other one's Greco Bianco. So it's like, oh, you gotta keep it. And obviously, both of them are white, great varieties. So you also have to keep that in mind. And then there are other group members. So you have Gracomoro, both white, then there's Greconero, which is very rare because I've heard of it before. I've never seen it as a wine, and we actually don't have a tremendous amount of information on it in book. I don't believe. It might be in the really rare varieties. I'm gonna dive in and find out. But moving on, so although it possesses a short and sweet name, understanding the Greco group can be somewhat challenging, as I was saying, straight from the book. While some of the similar sounding varieties that bear the Greco prefix were, in fact, imported from Greece, many were not. Oh, yes. So I love when things just turn. You know, you're like Greco gotta be Greek. Out all the time, honey. You'd never judge a book by its cover. We know this. Going back to it. So the Greco reference in a grape name was popular, almost as a brand. And some invented spellings were thrown into the mix. To maintain the original Greco's distinct from each other. So to know how they were different, their color, Jalo Bianco, or an associated town of origin, Dituh Fodisca, was added to their names. The brand type of popularity led to quite a collection of Greco named varieties. Almost all though are not related. That's why it's a Greco group, not a family. And so before well, you're gonna have to wait till next episode to go into each variety. But as you can now speculate, you know, Gracoditufo very, very well known. And then ishka is own thing. So that's what you need to know about Greco. It is very much a bit confusing. But to give the lowdown right now really quick before we dive in, but JAMA who's here in the studio is it's own grape? Is it's own grape? Is it's own grape? Grako Nero, own grape, Cracanto, own grape, Cracánico, own grape. Okay? Got it. Cool. Let's get to the interview. Taljema. Welcome to the Italian Wine podcast. How are you feeling today? I am okay. I mean, we've just finished writing now of an Italy exam, Italian wine investors exam, so nerves are still all over the place, but, yeah, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling really bad actually that I made you do an interview right after. It wasn't It was a collective decision. It wasn't just my choice. You know, we're we're slim on hours with the Italy. Just that tsunami wave heading for us. So where are you traveling from? Sir, I am from Johannesburgs, South Africa. Cool. Which is in those who don't know, the northern part of South Africa, so very far away from any wine regions. Yeah, that's where I'm from. Cool. And so how did you find out about Via? I actually found out about it through, Pedro. Who did it last year and he's back with us this year again to redo the exam. And, he imports Italian wine, so we worked together quite closely when I ran an Italian wine bar in Joburg. Johannesburg. Sorry. Joburg. Joburg. That's that's usually what we refer to Johannesburg as that everyone's been giving me funny looks. I have to keep correcting myself, but Joburg or Josie is what we refer to at that Oh, don't correct it. If that's what you call it there and own it. I love it. And so how did, more importantly, how did you fall in love with Italian wine? Sure. Okay. That's the story. So, I mean, I've always been very, for my local wines, my South African wines. That's been my specialty. I think, obviously, just being in South Africa being so insulated there. That's naturally where you fall into. And, the the restaurant that I was working for a few years ago was an Italian pizza place, new apolitan pizza. And during COVID, we had to adapt strategies a little bit. So we had all of this empty floor space because no one was sitting down. Everyone was doing the whole takeaway thing. And we were like, how can we utilize this floor space? And then at the same time, they had brought me in to improve their wine program. So I think the most obvious answer was always going to be a wine solution. And the result was a very tiny Italian wine bar, specialize in a purely Italian wines, which was a first in Joburg. I mean, there's other, there's other Italian restaurants that sell Italian wines, but there's no there's very little wine bars. Let alone one purely dedicated to Italian wine. So there's no South African wines in there. And, yeah, I had to naturally start picking up on it a lot more. I've learned about Italian wines through w set and all of those other things. And I had to do a deep dive very quickly so that I could actually tell people what they were drinking because the internet, the South African market has very, very little knowledge about international wines. And most of them are like, you know, your classic photos, burgundies, all of those stereotypical ones. So, yeah, that's that's kind of where it developed. I started falling in love with Italian wines, the more I into them, the more I research them, the more I sold them to people, and then obviously, the more I tasted them as well. I'm just realizing that there was a whole different wine spectrum out there, which I know Sara talks a lot about in our in our tastings. And things that were a lot more relatable as well. I find a lot of the Italian wines especially the ones for the South are a lot more relatable to our South African palates than those for the north and all of the French and the Germans and it developed from there, I'd say. Just kind of snowballed and, yeah, went with it. Super. Yeah. And so, like, well, I've heard. I've never been to South Africa, but I've heard that at least I think, I know Cape Town's very different than Johannesburg or Joburg. But, I heard they have a really awesome, like, wine bar, like, wine scene in general. Cape Town is. So Cape Town's got quite an extensive wine bar scene just because it is the wine capital. So, I mean, right in the middle of the wine lands. And then Joburg, we struggled with it for a very long time. So there were some wine bars a few years back, but they weren't very well run. They weren't run by wine people or, you know, people interested in wine and didn't actually have a formal background. And, Yeah. A lot of them just weren't geared towards the wine education and approachability that we need there because there's so little education amongst the consumer. So they didn't last very long, and then obviously the whole pandemic situation killed them. I know we still talking about that, but Oh, yeah. You guys have the alcohol band. Yeah. So we had a full alcohol band in South Africa during COVID. Yeah. So that was obviously very tough on just the wine bars in general because if you got nothing else going what are you gonna do? Which is kind of ironic that our Italian wine bar came from it, but it was post all of those bands. So, yeah, they after COVID, there was nothing. There was literally nothing. And then myself and my boss at the time opened a separate wine bar called mister Pantz. Well, he does a he does quite a few Italian things as well. A lot of international stuff, and then I opened up the Italian wine bar. So we were the only two in droberg for a little bit. Now there's another one and in mine that I've just opened up as well. Oh, you opened up a wine bar. Yeah. So I subsequently left the Italian wine bar, which was very sad and very heartbreaking. That was very difficult for me to do, but I did it so that I could open up my own space. So I now have my own food and wine bar, which is one of for official wine bars in Joburg. There's a couple of others that are in the works. I can't really talk about them because they're still in the planning phases, but they are more opening up soon, and I'm very excited to see because there's a lot of the Joburg wine seems growing very fast, and it's a very exciting time to be there and see how people are growing with it. So And what's the name of your wine bar? Assid. Acid. As in like the acid in wine and food and all of that. The drugs. Yeah. That's that's that's the automatic assumption. When I first pitched this idea to people and investors, they were like, why is it acid? And I had to be like, no, it's about, you know, acid in food, acid in wine, tying everything together, creating balance amongst them, which is very much a concept that we wanna do in our business. And then, yeah, there's always a question about where the hidden menu is with the secret stash of drug somewhere. But No. I think it's fantastic. It's short and punchy, like acid. Which is what we're trying to do. We're trying to be a little bit more in your face and just kind of disrupt the industry a little that side. So Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp for fascinating videos covering Stevy Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond. Meeting winemakers, eating local food, and taking in the scenery. Now, back to the show. Yeah. So I feel I feel like your entry into Italian wine world officially with the previous wine bar was, like, kind of, blessing in disguise because since you had like an alcohol band, people probably were more open to trying different things because it's like if you're not allowed to buy things, so you know, regularly. It's like, what do you have? You know? Exactly. So, it definitely opened up people's minds and palettes in in the consumer industry. A lot of people couldn't travel. So they've instead of spending their money traveling abroad to go to different places and restaurants, they would spend that money internally within South Africa and look for different experiences. It was also, I mean, a lot of the the famous brands that we would normally get because you don't always get the big name brands when it's international stuff they were snatched up really quickly, but also we couldn't get new containers in very easily. I mean, there was like eight to ten month delays on all the shipping containers coming in. So people had to drink what was there. Yeah. And a lot of that was these little known Italian brands and varietals that been been drinking before, and now they were like, cool. They just let's try something different. Let's see what's going on there. So that that really was a blessing in disguise there through that. That's and that it's also like a really fortunate thing because when you start with the more obscure wines, it almost it it makes you more open minded just from the start. And and, of course, it's great to have the classics. And it's, of course, it's great to know them. And I say this from experience because of my entry into Italian wine world was not from, like, the classic formal. Like, there's certain things I should know better still that I don't it it's just the way I entered into the wine world. And but I think it's great because you just kinda your palette is is obituated, but it can handle diversity it can kind of be like, oh, it's more explorative. Explorative. Yeah. Exactly adventurous. And you're Yeah. And in, yeah, you're less you're not comparing it to, like, I hate to say this, but some kind of antiquated benchmark, you know what I mean? Yeah. Which is fantastic. Is there a wine or a couple wines that you are serving at your wine bar that you're really digging? Are are we talking South Africa or Italian? No. Oh, I mean, would you wait? Let's go back. Can you pick between the two, or do you have a love for both of them. That's so tough here because, I mean, I love Italian wine. There's a reason why I'm here. There's a reason why I'm doing this, and I do thoroughly enjoy Italian wines and the culture and the history behind it. And also I think just the the gusto behind it, like the, Just people are so excited about it, yeah. Passion. Exactly. The passion. There we go. You know, I love the passion behind it and the willingness to invest in it, you know, as a capsule commodity, you know, that people see so much value in it. And I think that energy around it, I absolutely love. Mahat is always in South Africa there. I'm absolutely loyal to South Africa and our wines. And like I said, it's a very exciting time not just within the consumer market, but within the winemaking industry as well. There's a lot of young up and coming winemakers that are coming into the scene and doing really cool things and shaking things up and it's it's about time. So, yeah, it's it's a twofold situation. Yeah. I mean, I and you see the same in Italy with the kind of the young generation of winemakers coming from all different angles, doing really cool things, and very, very different terroirs and, wine regions. It's actually funny. I very briefly sold wine in New York. Yeah. And I we used to have, strong South African portfolio. Awesome. Yeah. Well, it was, like, small but mighty, and we had, like, the hip, like, at that time, which they're still popular now. Like, you know, like, Kraven and Gage Meijer. And there's The natural guys. The natural guys. And they were so cool. Like, it was like, when they would come to to town, I was like, you guys are so cool. Like, I wanna go to South Africa and see what's what's in the soil that's birthing all of you. No. That's that's that's this Watlin soil. Yes. There's there's a couple of crazy guys that side. Love them all. Nick and Nickray the stomping. We call stomping. Your hand may have called them stomping. Stomping. Yep. Yeah. And there's a bunch of other guys outside that are also doing, like, really, cool stuff, the Swatlands, Swatling revolution that happened a few years ago is all about pushing the boundaries in terms of, like, natural winemaking and just, you know, doing some really cool stuff there. And, you know, Swatlands very dry. And lot of old vines there and stuff as well. So Oh, yeah. A lot of, like, dry farming happening in that area because it's very conducive. And Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's exactly that. And I'm I'm sure you know, the history of South Africa very briefly, but we were very inhibited in what could do in terms of winemaking for a very long time. So we've only been really experimental in terms of our winemaking in the last twenty, thirty years. And, obviously, it takes time for people to come up into that, and I think now is when a lot of it is Yeah. So Well, I mean, and it it's only natural that you're looking into Italian wines because to an extent, that's kinda how the a lot of wine regions that people love today in Italy are the same in the sense of the last twenty years. Yeah. There were major changes and investments and people going back and saying, hey, like Sicily. Yeah. You know, like a lot of the wines everyone drinks from Sicily. Again, there are more, like, historical, like, the date back to the seventies and eighties, especially like Aetna, you know. Yeah. But even Aetna, like, in the sense of popularity and the way it was marketed. That's the last fifteen years, you know. Yeah. And I think that's something that's interesting. At least I find very interesting about Italian wine and food. Yeah. Is a lot of the and it wouldn't say things that are new. But like the reason that they're popular or they're eaten or they're drink or whatever it is is because of things that happen it within a lifetime. Yes. It's very innovative. Yes. You know, which is something that I was very surprised by because whenever we talk about Italian wines, we talk about native grape varieties. So when you look at this, Italian Ambassador course, and we talk about the history dating back, like, hundreds thousands of years, and it's it's the idea of it before you get into it is very much that it's old school and, you know, traditional and all of those things. And then the more you get into it in you learn about it, do you see how much innovation is happening while still holding on to those traditions, you know, taking what works and expanding on it and doing new things? And that's also something that's quite inspiring, I think, and something that we can look at applying back home. So absolutely. Yeah. That balance of new and old and understanding the his the history and the evolution and how that affects, what you're drinking today and how it is and how, you know, the different communities have affected the wines and and, yeah. And it, again, it goes back to our topic earlier about, about the classics and the new stuff. Right? And then also a lot of them using similar or the same varietals that are, you know, thousand years old or what have you. It keeps you in this rabbit hole that is a town of wine because you're always learning something new about something. And then, you know, I love being wrong. Yeah. Maybe not on the moment, but Yeah. It's in hindsight. In hindsight. Yeah. The wrong is great. And it's always with the tabby mind where someone will say something and I'm like, what? Or, like, you you drink something. I remember, a friend of mine, blind tasted me on a wine. And, again, this is not Italian varietal, but it was a Pino noir from Piamonte. Yeah. And I couldn't guess it because I, like, had that, like, kind of, company Lismo, like, kind of, like, you know, how, like, Italian's a very regional pride in a lot of things. So when I heard his Piamonte, I was like, there's no word at this I know it's close to friends, but I also, like, you know, I didn't know the history of it at the time because I didn't really study it. And so when it was, it, like, opened me up to another, you know, side where I was in mind. I never really studied this, and I really didn't even know about this. So, like, I was, like, wrong. Obviously. Yeah. No. It's exactly that. I mean, I think that's been a massive thing about doing this course as well. It's just seeing how much more there is to it and to these varieties because that is something to think where I was like, no, I'm not gonna be putting pin on and oils and all of those on my list when I was still running the Italian wine bar because I wanna be, you know, accurate to what is Italian wine and coming into this and realizing that there is so much more to it and what we consider native and what we don't. And Yeah. We'll get you on that. Yeah. And then you sit there for a minute and you're like Okay. What do I know anymore? Do I know anything about mine? No. I'm gonna come back next year and do the same thing and be like, I know not. Thing. I know. Absolutely nothing. The there's gonna be like a million new things that I'm gonna learn, which I suppose is also what's great about the wine industry. You never stop learning about wine. I think that's what fascinates me a lot about it is the fact that there's always something new to learn or there's always something new to do or ways to expand on it and, yeah, it never ends. Nope. It never never does. But as we are coming to the ending of our little chat on the podcast, I want to ask you a very important question. Especially now that you have a new wine bar, which is your the education is all in your hands. Yeah. How do you see yourself going about making wine more open Italian wine, obviously, more open and interesting to the younger generations? Sure. Yeah. That's that's kind of been my mission for a while now. And that was exactly why I opened by wine bar in the first place was to make wines in general more accessible. Specifically wines that you wouldn't normally come across. So that's all premise of it. So my wine list is purely everything's available by the glass. My staff are very well trained. I've organized my wine list non tradition me, so it's not the usual organized according to region and this vintages and all those things that actually confuse a lot of consumers when they don't know what's going on. So I've restructured it in a way that is a lot more accessible and a lot easier to read. That's just on my mind list. Like I said, I do training with my staff every week, we do these wine Wednesdays where every Wednesday we get a new wine maker or wine grape or someone who represents an aerial portfolio and they come in and they take over the bar and they hand out samples and they chat to people about it and we do a cool food menu. So that's that's just kind of what we've done there specifically in terms of making it more accessible. And the idea is currently it's all local. And the idea is to bring in more Italian, which is a very big reason why I wanted to be here as well. So just just figuring out the way that the consumer brain works and making them more approachable for them in that manner. And also just supporting the guys that don't always get represented. So, yeah, like I said, that's that's what I've done with my local market there. So I've taken independent producers, those young guys, we don't always see in the big list. They're not commercial wineries. A lot of female and black and brown producers as well, because, you know, we need more of that leverage there in South Africa. And the idea is to do the same thing in terms of Italian wines within bar. So bring in all of the smaller producers that you don't normally come across when you do come across Italian wines. So not as many of the big names, make them more accessible, do more wine tastings, do more master classes, a very big part of, long term plan is to introduce more of those educational aspects, so do more master classes that are accessible to the consumer. It's not a full on WAC team. Not everyone has to kind of do a whole business recourse to understand Italian one, but just enough to say, okay, this is what's in my glass, and I can appreciate it for what it is and not because of the name on the label or the region that it comes from. I mean, obviously, those are important, but it should be about just having a good time at the end of the day. Exactly. Sorry. I went on a bit there. I don't know if I actually answered your question. Oh, no. You did. No. It's a very great detail. You told us your whole plan. Hopefully, no one steals it, but This is amazing. You can steal it. You know, if it means we get more wine bars out the age between people, then great. You know, take time to work with it. Yeah. Exactly. And I I think no. That's fantastic. Education's a tricky one. But once you find the balance of making like you said, making people feel that it's approachable, and it's fun, but also absorbing information. It when you find that balance for yourself, it's just an amazing thing. There's nothing better than seeing someone be really excited about learning. Hundred percent. Yeah. It's like the only thing that makes me wanna be around children. I'm not kidding. I love I mean, that's another I love kids. I do. But, like, for another day, we need a whole time pass for that, which is yes. But the best moment is, like, teaching, you know, your god child how to cook something and they're like, wow. I always talk about the light bulb moment. Yes. So when we when we teach people, so I teach a lot of the hotel school kids, I do the WST level one and two courses in Joburg there. And, I most of them are there because they have to be part of their course. You know, they have to pass it to pass their exams. They don't actually want to be there. And then we get in and we start teaching and we start going into the theory of wine and expanding all of it to them and we get that little light bulb moment where I see a click behind the eyes and they're like, actually, this is really cool. You know, there's a lot more going on here than I thought. And I get that a lot at the bar as well when I start chatting to people because I mean, at my bar, I'm physically behind the bar every night, chatting to people and talking to them about the wines and trying to get them to try something a little bit different. And, yeah, it's the it's that light bulb moment where you see them click and just be like, this is great. This is a new experience for me. This is something I enjoy. So, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, yes. We need more light bulb moments, especially in our for, outside of Italy for the Italian wine community. I wanna say thank you so much, Dema, for coming on the podcast. I wish you safe travels. Thank you. And best of luck on your results to your exam, which you'll find out in t minus. Three hours. Yes. Four hours. Oh, we'll find out if we pass on that. Yeah. So when this is released, you will reflect on it. You'll be right. Remember this feeling when I'm sitting back home after twelve hour plane ride and oh my gosh. Yeah. And, remember all of these feelings that we were thinking. All the feelings are feeling. Yeah. Alright. Well, Taljemma and chao guys, we'll see you next time on the pod. As always, a big Roxy for hanging out with me today, remember you can catch me every Sunday on the Italian wine podcast. Available anywhere, you can get your pots.