Ep. 622 Roberto Anesi | Vinitaly International Academy Masterclass Speaker

Italian wine podcast. Chincin with Italian wine people. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. Today, we have Roberto Anesey, named Best Italian Sommeilier of two thousand seventeen by the Associate Cione Liana Sommelier. Yep. Thank you for taking the time to speak to us. Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation. So while you are quite famous in Italy for your achievements as a Sommelier, you are also the owner of the restaurant El Pal. Yeah. In the dolomites in the Val de Fassa in Canada. Correct. And you also spend time speaking at events such as the Vine Italy International Academy Master Class, which was during the Italian wine Ambassador course. Can you tell me a little bit about your story and a little bit about your restaurant before I ask you to go into more detail about the master class I heard you give? Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much for the invitation first, about me. I am am a Sommelier. I started my education about, twenty five years ago with the associate's on Italiana Sommelier. I became an instructor about twelve, thirteen years ago, if I'm wrong. And, This takes me, of course, a lot of time during my spare times when I don't when I'm not working in my restaurant. My restaurant is, of course, the most important part of my life because Of course, it takes me a lot of time and, of, energy because nowadays, you know, running a restaurant is not that easy. And, yeah, I live in the mountains in a very important ski resort. I live in Sanaze. And here, We have been, you know, running this restaurant, me and my, me and my wife, my family, from the ninety four. So this is, yeah, it's, still we are still doing that. Okay. No. That's wonderful. It's ninety four. Wow. That was a young kid. No. You're still young. You're still young. Okay. So my first question then about your restaurant is what kind of food do you do you serve? We, we, we, we serve different food. We, we have a little bit of, food of our tradition, of our origin because we are a lot in language speaking area. So we speak a minority language. And, in this, this area is not an area which has a very important cuisine because it was a very poor area until, I would say forty, fifty years ago. And this, so we haven't built, you know, tradition of very important foods and meals because, surviving was was the first goal at the time. So, our foods are very rich of, calories, a lot of butter. We end most of the dishes, in the past were made for, for example, like the tireless dumplings, knud and, in German, it's a it's a it's a food that is born because, of the, in order not to have waste or to have leftovers. So in the reuse of the leftovers, so this is correct. And, we we we can grow vegetables because we are too high one thousand five hundred meters of elevation. And, so our cuisine at the time was very poor now nowadays. For example, we use wild meats We we have revisited some typical recipes from the, from the area. And then we also have, grilled meats that's now, very, very funds search out in our in our restaurant, and people come expressly for this, selection of grilled meat that we have. The Latin peoples, they have been around, I think, since the Roman Yep. Period. So do you know anything about the influence that that period has had on the foods of because it's such a No. It's almost nothing. We we this valley went through very difficult periods in the past, and it was very, very poor, area. So we we didn't bring a lot of tradition that the Romans left two thousand more years ago. So we they only left the language, which, actually, it's quite fine because it's very sometimes it's very difficult from village to village because the connection between the villages was not that easy at the time. So the language has, was was, you know, very limited the spoken language into the village. So some words, for example, I always use the example of a house, which is which is which is from village to village is very difficult. That is interesting to to go through these, differences. Yeah. No. It it is really interesting. The the other question that I wanted to ask is In terms of the food and the wine as well, do you work closely with your chef to pair the food around the wines that you choose for the wine menu, or do you pair the wines around food? So, it depends. Basically, we have, some foods, some recipes that, the the chef follows. And, of course, I am in charge of finding the good or the better, wine pairings. But when we have special dinner with special menu, which, we, we built for the, the guest, and with the guest sometimes because they say we want this and that. Then Of course, when I when we work together with a chef, we prepare the menu some weeks, a couple of weeks before, and then I try to find the best pairings then, if something for me is, for example, too much or or sometimes too few, I ask to the chef to to change a little bit the intensity of, the the aromas or the flavors of that, dish to match properly with, wines from the area. Okay. So you do more than, you know, run the restaurant because you're here right now in Marona. And I wanted to actually ask you about. I just saw you give a master class, and it was really interesting. It was, the Venutally International Academy Master Class today, which was part of the Italian War Ambassador course. And I wanted to ask you about the presentation you gave, the essence of the dolomites. So do you want to give me a very quick idea of the essence of the dolomites? Obviously, it was a really long master class. So just what is your Well, first of all, I think it was very funny because, the attendees, they were very, all, all very high level skills. So they're very used in drinking wines and, evaluating qualities of wine and, with a wide experience of on the varieties, for example, we have tested eight different samples with eight different varieties, some were very, typical and, indigenous of the territory, Samada's way are more international. And, I think that, we, we had the possibility of discovering, the great character of the Trentino wines through these varieties because Trentino is a very small region which has a great potential. And, it's a very green region. The production of, is very sustainable. And, We have, the altitude and the mountains that, give a print to to the wines that we make. So the the the territory is, standing out in every glass you drink, when you drink wines from Trentino, because freshness, savoriness, minerality, they are always, acting very powerful in, in the in the on the palate. So my next question is that most people have info focusing on native grape varieties in Italy. But this area in the north, has a lot of international varieties as well. So how do they express themselves in Northern Italy, the international varieties? I think they have a an elegant expression. If I should choose one single word, I would choose elegant because, because, as well, as I just finished to, to introduce the, the elements that, characterize the production in Tarantino are this, high acidity. So very often, to, for example, we we have tasted a very nice mellow, and that the people were surprised by the elegance of this wine, and the ripeness, at the same time, connected to the very high acidity that the wine had. So, the international, these we had, they they were very, very impressed by this, balance between, the smoothness, the roundness, the thickness that Merlo has with, the high acidity that Tarantino wines provides. And and I guess my next question is what is your favorite wine to pair with your favorite food? Well, since I live in Tarantino, I am a great fan of the sparkling wines from the of the great sparkling wines that we produce in Trentino. So very often, I like pairing sparkling wines in, in an ordinary way. I mean, I like, for example, very much pairing trying to dot Jose with the grilled meat or with pizza, for example. And, I I always, try to think, you know, out of the box, and, I avoid this classical food pairings, which is beer and and pizza or, white and fish. So very often, I like to drink light body red wines, like pinot noir or some Martiminos with, fish cooked in oven where you get a little bit of, you know, the oiliness from this, cooking in oven. Or I like, for example, to pair white wines with general structure to some, pastas, or some risotto, where you get, people, maybe people automatically think to to pay red wines. So I, like, for example, I like Rosay very much. I find Rosay very versatile, very modern, high acidity, low alcohol, good prices. Why not? Because this is something we always take into consideration when we choose wine, when we pair wine, when you pair a good wine for a good rise than you are, you know, where we? Actually, I'm gonna change the subject slightly because I just thought of something I read about you, recently. You're going to be giving a talk soon about the climate change and its effect on the wine region. Do you have any thoughts on that that you can share with us now on? Yes. No. I I also wrote something last year for for a magazine about the the climate change. And I think that, Trentino is a very, by this point of view, Trentino is a region which is sleeps, you know, safe and and quiet in, in in terms of, global warming because we have these altitude that are crucial and very important for providing very important the exclusion of temperature. Of course, the the the global warming or this climate change has we see the effects, even in Trentino. But, we always have this high altitude we can we can account, and we can, use, I mean, in terms of providing very important exclusion of temperature. So I think that, this territory is, a territory that has a lot to say or will will have will have will have a lot to say in the future because of, this, very important and, special environment that we have in this territory in Trentino. And and so it's changing the the wines, like the the expressions? Yes, but not always in a negative way because, sometimes, in Tarant was very difficult to, or they were struggling to reach, you know, good ripening, for example, for some late harvest varieties. Nowadays, they can do it. And, at the same time, if you if you go higher in the vineyards, you can pick up, or harvest the grapes not too early as, for example, it happens somewhere else in Italy because, because, they don't have this altitude. They can, they can use, and, entrantiro. For example, the vintage twenty twenty one now, maybe we'll be a regular vintage because the flowering started quite late. And, maybe we will, for example, also for the sparkling wine production, we will harvest at the end of August or maybe in the first ten days of September. So very regular by this point of view, even though if everyone speaks about global, global warming, climate change, in Trondino, I think we have a lot of, we are we are very lucky by that point of view. Okay. Well, that's amazing. And I I wanted to just, finish off this, this discussion by asking you about where, you know, where are you going from here? Have you made any plans for the next year? Anything exciting? Okay. I think that one of my plans is to, to grow my, my experience, or my, my possibility of teaching in the wine courses for the Italian Sommelier Association, which is, for me, one of the very important element. I always take, or I always, try to do as best as I can. And then, I teach, for example, in the first, second level courses. I don't have any lecture in the third level. So this is one of my goal for the next years. And then, of course, I have the privilege and, the possibility of speaking very often about, wines from Trintino, sparkling wines from Trintino representing my territory around, not only Italy, but also abroad, in, out of Italy, in Europe or also, away. And, this is something that I like very much because, I I try to visit, of course, a lot of producer and bringing this experience to to the attendees is always, absolutely Great to me. I like it very much, telling the story of my territory, the people living in the territory, the tradition, the gastronomy, that makes me, you know, very happy. So my goal is to in for the next years is this to grow in my family association and to be always able to represent as best as I can the the Tarantino production. Well, on that note, how how can people find you, like your restaurant, or do are you on social media? Absolutely. I am. I I use a lot of, of course, my, my social media on Instagram or on Facebook, I have my my personal page, which is Roberto Anese. And, everyone can find me there. And, I try to have a lot of interaction with the people because I like, you know, to share comments and to to hear others persons, thoughts about what I'm, for example, publishing or tasting. So I like the the interaction through the social media and I think it's very positive for many reasons. After a very long period that we have to stay closed because of the COVID now, we have started finally our summer season because in the mountains, we work four months in the summer, four months in the winter. And, finally, yes, we have started. So I try also to to give to my restaurants page a little bit of visibility, and my restaurant is l pail dot com is the website, so it's easy to find. Wonderful. Okay. I will. I appreciate you taking the time to speak to us, and it's been a pleasure. So you heard it here. Roberto Anese, and he just gave us so much more about his life. So I appreciate it so much, and I hope you have a fantastic day. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the invitation. Listen to the Italian one podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, HimalIFM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. 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