Ep. 516 Violante Cinelli Colombini | Voices

Italian wine podcast. Chinchin with Italian wine people. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Rebecca Lawrence, and this is voices. In this set of interviews, I will be focusing on issues of inclusion, diversity, and allyship through intimate conversations with wine industry professionals from all over the globe. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating to Italian wine podcast dot com. Any amount helps us cover equipment, reduction and publication costs, and remember to subscribe and rate our show wherever you tune in. Welcome to the Italian Wine Podcast with me Rebecca Lawrence. I am pleased to be in conversation today with Violante Colombini of Cinelli Colombini winery in Montalcino Tuscany. Welcome to the podcast Violante, and thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. To talk about all the amazing work that you're involved in. Thank you, Rebecca. It's a great opportunity to to be with you and to speak about my life and our stories. So we will have fun. I think so. So you started your studies actually in business and economics, not in inology. I wanted to ask, has this helped you keep a more business approach to wine rather than maybe an emotional one? This is a very funny question because I think that you you need passion to do your job. So I decided to study economics, because this was my passion So I like very much, mathematic, and, I decided to do something general. And after the university, I went to to do a master all around the world with, oybe. And so I think you need to when you speak about emotion, you need to, have a emotion in everything you do. So doesn't matter if you sell or if you produce wine, you need to express, your love for wine if you are happy to do what you are doing. So I can tell you that, the harvest two thousand and twenty was a little bit different. You know, that need COVID. The situation was not very easy. So usually, if you work in the export office, you travel around the world, or you stay inside the office. But this year was different. So we needed to to go to the fields, and all the office went into the vineyard to help teaching the grades. So we take all our grades by hand, and it was, a great opportunity, not because we we didn't know how to be to do it. We it was a great opportunity because we are a group. And, if you can see how your your team, how the family that is the company, can can work together and how they protect the the work and the grapes that, they did for, one one interior, ear, dizzy's emotion. And when you speak about wine describing wine in front of a new client, you need to say what is, your passion. So you need to describe what you you you can do with, with law. You can just hear how passionate you are about it when you speak about it. It's so lovely. And you paint such a beautiful picture of a challenging year, but where everyone in the winery has come together. I think maybe this year is a year where we've needed a little bit more passion and emotion than normal. Yes. I think so. So before I dive into the team you have in the winery and some of the other things you've been doing, Can you tell our listeners a little bit about where you are, where the winery is based and what you are doing? Yes. Of course. My family is in Montalcino from five hundred years ago. And, we are in the heart of Tuscany. So we have two finalists. One in Montecino, where we produce one hundred percent and, the d o c orcha region. So we are speaking about, the same brand that donatella Shenelly Colomini, so the name of my mom, but, the reality is that, everything is together. So when we promote our wines, we promote the wines that we produce in, factory decolle next to the wines that we produce in Montecino in Casa de primadone. And, of course, it's even that when we can welcome our clients, in the wineries. But, of course, now we need to wait a little bit. In any case, in, if you were at to know where we are speaking about the northern part of Montal Chino. So coming from Florence, Sienna, you can arrive before in our winery and Doctor to the village of Modalci. It's one of my very favorite areas of the world. I have to admit I'm I'm quite biased. I love it very much down there. You. Thank you. So I hope you will come soon. I I hope so too. I am I'm desperate to get back down to to Tuscany and and be back in wineries with people. You talked about your mother already. You actually come from a history of very strong women, you yourself are a very passionate, strong woman, very well educated, very worldly, and your mother actually built the first all female run winery in Italy, which is incredibly impressive. What kind of impression did this have on you as you were growing up? Of course, this was something very normal for me. So when we speak about when I speak about my family, I cannot think about competition. It's true that looking to my mom, to my grandmother, of course, I have two very strong and important people, but it's also true that they are always ready to give me suggestions to speak with with me and listen at all my ideas to do something new. To do something that, I would like to do. So, of course, when you born in a place as I am, so I was born in Montalcino, and, I think I'm very lucky because, I'm the only pair son of the family that was born with Alchino. I need to be very honest that now the hospital is closed. But I was one of the lucky people that had this opportunity. And I think I need to appreciate what, my maintenance gave me the opportunity to help. So I think it's an honor to do my best to follow what, they did, what my mother is doing, of course, when we speak about women, we know that we we are strong. We, we have a target and we do all our best to follow our dreams. So I want to do the same, but, of course, I will do something new. So I'm sure that my family will be next to me because I'm very lucky to to have a very strong family next to me, but, of course, I will do something new. I mean, you've already been doing a lot of incredible work with your career. I mean, when you accepted the presidency of AGV, you said and I'm I'm really interested in this, and forgive my Italian pronunciation. So for our English listeners. Oh, stop Provando. The voice of the millennials in Italian wine must bring a message of renewal and sustainability. Why did you choose to focus on this and and how do you hope to work on this in your role as the president of AGV? You know that we are a group of, young people. We are or under forty years old. And we work in winemies or in companies that are close to wine, could be possible that, They sell wine, they produce cork or bottles. And, we decided to to be a network, to be together and to learn together to travel around the world. So usually in a normal moment, we were visiting different wine movies in Europe now. At the moment, we decided to be closer. So we went to Spain, Germany, and also in Italy. And it was, a great opportunity to learn not only because, of course, when, You are coming from a winery and you want to visit another winery. Everyone is ready to welcome you, and they are very open to tell you I don't know if I can tell you secrets, but maybe they are more more ready to tell you something that usually they don't say to clients. With us, they they can be free to to speak, and we learn a lot. And of course, when we are together, we want to have new ideas. So it's normal that, young people, they have big eyes. So they are curious to look around, and and to see how the technology everything that we like, and of course, natural. So we need to take care of environment because this is the future. So if you consider I'm not speaking about sustainability as, not only as a productive way to work, but I'm speaking also about a social message. So if you think about, even the the the possibility to have more young people in, in your team, more women, or maybe to preserve a local tradition. When you when you open a bottle and you want to match, kind of food and you want to show something older, something that, that your family is, cooking for many years ago or something that, is very traditional from a place. So if you respect what is around you. If you respect, the others. If you if you think about sustainability in general, I think you can do better. And the young generation, we we know very well that not only technology can help us. We are lucky because, in the past, they did a lot. So if we can do what we are doing, and usually we we love our job is because something important is around us. So speaking of something important and also sustainability, as you said, is a bigger picture You've also been the president of the regional delegation of, Movement Torres Delvino Italiano in Tuscany. So for those listeners who don't know, this is a non profit organization aimed to promote tourism whilst also aiming to protect the environment. So, obviously, bringing these two things that you're very passionate about together. Obviously, in the last year, wine tourism has changed a lot. Do you have any insight maybe that you could share for the industry about how you think this might change the wine industry for the future? Of course, the people that will come in our wineries, will be more and more often, very close to environment. So we have a big opportunity that is the opportunity to come with them in the vineyards. They are very curious about, where we produce wine. And of course, we use everything that we have in the seller in the winery. But, in our winery, we say that, sixty percent of the work is done when the grades arrive in the winery. So you need to take care of everything you do during the year. So in the in the vineyards. And, people are very happy to know how you preserve the vineyards, how you want to respect the place where you are because I think that Montalcino is a very important, place, because, the San Jose that, we can produce there is unique. And this is the reason why people are coming in Montalcino. So when we welcome the clients that could be experts, but they could also be people that want to have fun. They want to come there and have an experience, and maybe we need to listen at them and ask them why they they decided to come to visit us So it could be that they are there with the family. It could be that they are coming to know more about wine and do sports in our vineyards. They could come for love. So it's important to listen at them and to follow the opportunity to explain them how can be very important, to produce a wine that is coming from, the vineyards. So you exalt what the the nature did before using the burials, but nothing else. So, what you are drinking from a bottle is, the result of, nature. So speaking specifically of Brunoo de Montalchino, This is a denomination that is cemented in the history of Italian wine, and yourself and your family have done so much to advance this historical wine. So what's next for the winery and also what's next for you? Yes. Maybe you know that the the big news of Montalcino is that we will have so we are very happy about it because, all the owners in Montalcino reinvest. We we want to invest a lot. To do our best to show this this territory and the the fabulous, wine that we can produce there. So speaking about my family, my family, was one of the first to produce, Bruno, and my mom started in, nineteen ninety eight with her own project. That is, as you told at the beginning, to build a winery, that is a little bit different because, we are the first winery in Italy with the only women working in our team. And, this is not the only part of this project because, of course, Casato primadone is a winery, but we have also our brunello selection primadone that is Brunello, where four ladies, one from, Sweden, one from Germany, one from Italy, and one from England. They come. They have different samples coming from different vineyards in in in our property, of course, we don't buy nothing from outside. And they decide, they, Bruno, that is a selection that we don't produce every year, and the total production is only six thousand bottles. And we also have an award, primodone award that, we give to a lady or a group of ladies that did something important. So a message that the other women can can listen, can follow, to do what they like to do. So if you have a dream, you need to work hard, you need to do your best, you need to study, but, you need to try to do it. So thinking about our Brunelo, we decided to do an old style brunello. And if I tell you about an old style brunello is because all our vineyards are in the northern part of Montalcino, so it's a more fresh, elegant. And, it's a vertical wine. And, we decided to underline these unique characteristics, working, using an organic method to cultivate the vineyards during the fermentation, using cement as the Romans were doing in the past. So, of course, the technology is not anymore the same, but we are speaking about cement as well. And, about the aging, we are not using the Barik from many years ago. We we are using the big boat. So the traditional method, that, we are using a modal chino from many arts to exact to produce a wine that can be very enjoyable. Of course, it's an important wine that, if you want, you can, store for twenty years. But, if you are working hard and you want to select, a a bottle because you like it and you want to open something that you like because, you think that it will be important to So there's something nice for you and for the nice people that, you have next to you. So you decided to share this bottle with them. This has to be the bottle to enjoy with them. This is our philosophy and what we we, are doing and what I want to do. You're making me absolutely desperate for a glass of wine at quarter past ten in the morning. Leonente. It's been such a pleasure to have you on the Italian wine podcast today and to hear you talk so passionately, not only about the history of what you've been doing, but about the future that is ahead of the winery. So thank you so much. Where can our listeners find you and the winery, online or on social media? If you if you search, you find us, so we have a website shop online. And, on the social media, the name is the same. Donatella Cinella Coronbini or me. So, do you want the Cinella Coronbini Union, but, of course, usually, it's my mom that is taking care of the social media. So you you will find me because she is posting something about me. I mean, I'm not surprised. She must be so proud of everything that you've achieved already so early in your career. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was very, very nice to speak with you, and I hope to welcome you very soon. In, in Casato Primeto and in Montal Chino. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcast. Thank you so much for your help. SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Himalaya FM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe cribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italianline podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time.