Ep. 1563 Lorenzo Piccin Grifalco | The Next Generation

Since two thousand and seventeen, the Italian wine podcast has exploded. Recently hitting six million listens support us by buying a copy of Italian wine unplugged two point o or making a small donation. In return, we'll give you the chance to nominate a guest and even win lunch with Steven Kim and professor Atilio Shenza. Find out more at Italian One podcast dot com. Welcome to the next generation. I'm Victoria Chache, 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 destined up to. From vineyard experiments to their favorite wine bars. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the next generation. Hope you're having a splendid day. Today, I have an exciting interview to share with you with Lorenzo Grifalco of Grifalco winery in Vasily Carta, particularly in Potenza. It's a beautiful family winery, producing the area's most famous grape amongst others, Alianico, and diving into the Italian wine Unplug two point o book. We're gonna give you a few hot details about this a great baby. It's one of my favorite, red wine grapes. It produces some of the most beautiful wines, and it produces a wide variety of different wines really depending on where it's grown. And we'll definitely dive a bit into that with But here's a few facts from the book that has all the great facts that you need Italian great facts, particularly the Italian wine unplugged two point o book. So Adianiko is the primary red grape of the Campania and Vasili copper regions. It has a genetic relationship with Sarat, Turo deigo, La Grane, and Pinaldua. And as the area was ruled by the king to Spain, that area being Pania and the city path amongst other regions in Italy, Southern Italy, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Adianico's name likely derives from the Spanish, llano, translating to planes. Interesting. I didn't know that. Known for its robust flavor profile, high tangent tenants, and long aging potential. Aliamico has a few biotypes. So we have Tabarazzi, taberno, and voltura. And these are all very different wines from specific areas, getting into a bit of their characteristics here. We have, taberno and Tabrazi must contain eighty five percent Alianico while Bulture must be a hundred percent. Talrazi Adianikos are producing higher elevations and are more floral and aromatic. The soil is calcareous and presents a finer more delicate linear style. Tarrazi is in the Ethiopia region in Campania, highly recommend visiting there. It is a gorgeous, gorgeous place. You can drive there from the famous amount of coast, you know, diversify your trip and get some fresh air because it can get hot in the summer when you're going to those parts of Italy. Moving on, the aging requirements for Tarazi wines are a minimum of three years, including one year of barrel, and reserve a must age for four years, including eighteen months in barrel. Now moving to Taburino, Taburino is an area on a limestone massive, so a little different than Tabarazzi. It's an extension of the apennine range with no volcanic influence. It is rainier and cooler, and these wines have pronounced acidity. Asian requirements are three years in barrel while while reserva is three years, including twelve months in bottle. Finally, moving to the Voktude region, which is located on a an extinct volcano. That's pretty pretty wild, which has been inactive for a hundred and seventy thousand years. Wow. It's ridges and peaks resemble a vol a vulture explaining the name. Almost want to say Vulture and Valtura in the in the Italian pronunciation, but, caught myself there. Valtura is a strata volcano and the soil is a mix of clay and volcanic tough. Its flavor profile is most intense of all the Alianico with more fruit, more acid, and higher tannins. So there you have it. Alianico can stand alone and bottle or mostly alone, but it also can be a great blending partner with multiple chano and a fruit, and and also back to Campania. So a little bit about, Alianico wines there. So let's dive into our interview with the wonderful, wonderful Lorenzo Alright. We are at Phoenixaly, and we are here with Lorenzo of Rifalco, Chow. Ciao. It's wonderful. We're very good. We're very happy. So I'm very busy. Lots of people. Proudly, so it's fun. And, I prefer to be in the cellar. Of course, but you have to sell the wine, so you have to be here. Gotta pick and choose your battles. We all do. So you were just telling me that so you're based in Busiligata. But you are not from Desiligata. No. So tell us a little bit about your story. I grew up in Montipulciano, Nobida, which is, really nice place to grow up when you're young. And my family had a winery there, and they sold the winery back in two thousand and two. And my father decided he wanted to keep making wine because it was his love with his life. And he decided to start again in Vasiliqata. It was in the a place that reminded him of Tuscany Bank when he got there got there in the beginning of the eighteenth. So he moved to Vasiliqata at the beginning of two thousand. And, actually, the first pin check was two thousand and four, and he was in love with Ayanika since, the beginning, and he decided that he wanted to make just a Yani. He went there many times looking for places to see and looking for good vineyards in good places, and they found, Penosa, a city where the one is is right now, and bought many different vineyards around many different blocks. Four of them. And I study anology school at university in, Piedmont, and follow the roof of my father, making the wines, and I have my brother on the house, the one in charge of the market. So it's the one traveling around. Showing what we are doing and telling the story of our little family. And, you know, we've done pretty well since the beginning, so we're quite happy. Super. So when did you know that you wanted to go in the wine direction? I grew up in a winery. So, of course, I've been first venyard I planted was when I was six years old. So I was carrying my box with sand to fill up the little vineyards and the hole, and my father was in front of me. And so I have this in my mind stuck here. My mom was one of the most beautiful thing in the app, and since then, it's been part of my life since the beginning. But, you know, you you feel like it was something that it was inside you, but you didn't choose to follow, like, something that was going to be your war. And then when I was seventeen, I spent a year in high school, in, Christchurch in New Zealand, very far away from everything that was family, something that I mean, very far away from everything I knew. Wind to wine business forum. Everything you need to get ahead in the world of wine, supersize your business network. Share business ideas with the biggest voices in the industry. Join us in Verona on November thirteen to fourteen twenty twenty three. Tickets available now at point blind dot net. And then when I came back, I saw, okay. I think I I missed I missed a lot of this, and I wanna I wanna make a part of my life, my job. So That's so cool. Yeah. So oh, and in New Zealand, I mean, that's another wine producing country, wine region, whatever you wanna call it. Wine is there. Solvignon Blanc, everyone. If you didn't know, how you know, and sheep, lots sheep. More than fifty million sheep. Do you I know this is totally off the wine talk, but, like, do you have any, like, fun story to share about, like, the culture shock being in New Zealand? New Zealand? Well, that's sports. I'm a sport guy, and New Zealand is sports and nature. That's that's the main thing. I mean, it's, it's like my second choice. If everything goes wrong here, there's still New Zealand. You can still go there. Lorenzo disappears. He will be in New Zealand. Sorry. Your secret is up. It's like, you have a back door, a second door, you can use it even if, you know, it's still something. It it helps you having this in your mind because it helps you keep chasing dreams, keep, keep making more steps than you were maybe doing if you didn't have any other backdoor to use it. So you're more brave. Yes. In embrace life. Absolutely. I know I feel that way because I, obviously, I'm not Italian from America. And I totally Italy was that place. And I went and my dad, like, whenever we talk, he's like, he's always joking. He's like, ah, my long lost daughter that ran away to the other side of the world. How are you doing today? I'm like, I warned you I would leave. I I warned you, but, no, I totally get it because he opens. It keeps that, like, inspiration going. Like, it makes you, like, I always say the, kind of, like, that rose tinted lenses. What is the rose colored lenses? Like, when you look at life, and it's more shiny when you have that place in your mind, you're like, okay. Everything's a little shinier. Yes. You can do it. Super cool. So for the wine safe, yes. We could talk about New Zealand too. We'll get back to that. Talk about Vasini Gopta. Because now there's definitely some attention around the city hotdog over the years we've seen, but it's still, again, a region that's very much It's there. Getting getting. We're always there. We're trying to move and get bigger. I think basilicata, especially Guultre, everybody that is in the wine business know about a Yani von Bulte. You need to get to the next step. So to go to the crowd, to all the peep the public. Guultre is an amazing place. It's, pure, It's a known, a good culture right here. What's amazing about water is that there is amazing this incredible terrace blended with this amazing wine, which is a yankee, amazing grape, which is the best red grape you can find in South Africa. Alright. It's probably the same. It's comparable to what it is, Sanjay, for the center of Italy and the Biola for the non. Boulder is one of the best place where you can grow a yaniko. It's volcano, an ancient volcano has been, it's working and erupting for more than hundred thousand years. And it has been working the technological way, all the soil in many different ways. So you have, for example, we own different parcel in different village, and we harvest and fermenting and aging for the first year all separately because we know that they will give us something different. And my work is to express this different in the best way and then blend it with all the parcel to make my wines. We produce four labels, And two, plan of all the Venus we own, one, the first one, which is a Greek course, which is the brand for an gentle, an easier yaniko. It's an interpretation to show what it can be yaniko for the people. And then the Grifaku, which is the flag name of the wineries, which is the classic of a yankee. It was really is a yankee, more open, more long in the mouth. And then we work with the single vineyards, the oldest we own, one in the village of Mosquito, one in the village ginette. So that's what we call it. Dajness and Demasquito. And this is more like a piedmont style of what I learned in piedmont and what I have. I learned in university from many friends I made there. And it's a long maceration more than sixty, ninety days in skin contact. And then twenty, twenty two month in Beadauk, and a year in Voto. Same works in for the seller for Mosquito. Same work for the seller in the seller for JoGenestra. Exactly the same the same vintage, and we show it always together because we want to show different a rock. Absolutely. I I love I love the versatility of the wines. And I I wanna go back to the one, the a aaliyaniko for the people. Yes. Because a big part of wine as we know, it's it's the community and the culture that's around it. Something that I find. Like, that's still of course, we have, like, matera was named as, like, you know, the capital and whatever, but, like, basilicata's region and then going into Vultura, taking this wine as an example. What is, like, that that wine culture, that food culture in your area? It's, for the people there, Ayanyiko, it's the only thing. There's nothing else. All the old people owns little piece of vineyards. They make their own wine and they drink it. On the table, lunch and dinner. Always, they bring it with them in this, in the vineyards. To work and then have a drink under a peach tree or apple tree or, you know, it's it's still it's an old agriculture. That's what it is. And Ayanyika has been there since the beginning since ever. And for them, it's the flag the only wine that can drink, and it's something that's part of their culture. They use it for everything. It's something that I learned when I came there. For example, they never planted anything else like Merrill Caber, which is everywhere in Italy. Many places. No. No way. Only they stuck the stick with a yanukon. That's it. It's amazing the military because it's an yanukon that can be so elegant that it doesn't have any comparison to other places neither. No. Exactly. And it's so reminiscent of the area. Right? It's like the it's these time capsules in Vasili Rata. And it's what makes it so special and so much. And I wanna talk about this because, you know, young people in the wine world, they they like to travel, but sometimes they feel like they don't know certain areas. And Vasili papa has always been that kind of place it's right by a lot of famous places. Doesn't take long to get to. Delete. Yes. I know I know where it's split because I went to well, I was still in Compania, but it was I was in, like, in it's the profits of Salarunov, but, like, in the mountains. I was, I think, like, I don't know, twenty kilometers from, potenza. Yes. So I was like, wait. And then they were like, no. No. No. We're still in the money. I'm like, but this is so beautiful and crazy. I was like, where am I But, yeah, no. I I wanna take that opportunity to talk about that. To encourage people, but I to to put a fun little spin on it, though. How do we do this? If someone was to come visit you, Can, like, let's say, like, a weekend or something. Yeah. Can you give a little itinerary? For historical people, you have to go to accept Mattel, of course, but you have to go to see MELFI and, archaeological museum, which is amazing, really amazing, the city, and all the castle around. I mean, castle of MELFI, Venosa, and you need to know, federico Cicondo was the owner, the ruler of the south, and loves, sir, and love this place. And he spent many times looking around hunting and he wrote a book about Fort Connery, which actually is one of the first botanic example in all the world history. He draw every single plant flower that you could find in the area, and you can still find it working around. So it's an amazing example of, pure nature that's been stuck since the beginning. Oh my gosh. It's amazing. And so That's see, that's the beauty is, like, being able to actually, like, explore and have oh, god. I've been in the city too long. I'm, like, now just seeing, it just smells. I know. It's one of the most famous poem in in this history for my history. Yes. You can't you go there and it's every Did you feel like reborn again when you were in the city of Hawth a little bit? I'm happy because it's like, I rest there. I mean, it's like my it's a peaceful place. I work. I get outside, evening. Like, one of the most beautiful things about Vasgata is the light. It's one of the most beautiful light you can ever found. So sunset, even for photographers, it's really important, famous. And so you just you just watch there and say, okay, I'm I'm happy. It's fun. I'm happy. Vasiligata equals happiness. Yes. With allianico and mano. Always. Amazing. Well, congrats so much Lorenzo. Is there anything else you'd like to share? I don't know. Drink food trip, of course. Drink I'm with you. It's delicious, and you should try the beefalo wines if you haven't already, and more importantly go to the city, hotdog. Skip the mouthficos. Bye. Take the other highway. As always, a big good option 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.