Ep. 2236 Domenico Veronese of Villa Bogdano 1880 | Wine, Food & Travel with Marc Millon

Does the gastronomy of your area straddle both regions? And can you talk us through some of the most difficult dishes that you would say, parallel with your wines? You are correct. Considering how close we are to the sea. And our tradition, our territories during the last twenty centuries that were equally divided between, you know, the venetian influence and the the friuli influence. So you have some lots of seafood dishes which are coming from the foundation influence, the most famous one is obviously what we call bakala, which is the salted stockfish, which you create this very nice, pace that you serve on crostinis. The typical chiketi that you find a lot across the world. Fascinating people with stories to share, fabulous wines, and the best local foods to accompany them, and beautiful places to discover and visit. All of this and more on wine, food, and travel with me, Mark Millen, on the Italian wine podcast. Join me for a new episode every Tuesday. Welcome to wine, food, and travel with me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. Today, we travel to Northeast, Italy, to Veneto, and to the less well known, but historical wine area of Leison DOCG. On the border with Freuleven Eitzia, Julia, to meet my guests Domenico Veronese, of the wine estate of Vila Bogcano eighteen eighty. Ciao domenico, thanks so much for being with us. How are you today? And is it a beautiful day in Lizong? Oh, it's a very nice day. Good morning, and thanks for for having me. Yeah. It's a very nice sunny day. It'd be cold but, very nice crispy day. Okay. Well, Dominican, our our listeners are located all around the world. So I really wanna give them. I want to understand better myself exactly where you are. I know you're on a very historic estate that, is extremely interesting. Villa Bogdonald is actually a Venetian Palace, but the history goes back much further. Tell us a little bit about where you are. Yes. We are in a very small docG appolation called Leison, which is in the northeast of Italy. It is actually the, the only docG appolation of Italy, which is cross regional because we are exactly on the border between the region's Venetal and friuli. And, quite close both to the Alps and to the to the Sea. It is an area that historically, both under Rome and and Venice, was dedicated to agriculture and viticulture, but, how we know it today, the history, starts in the, in the second half of the, of the nineteenth century. And it starts with a dozen of, farmers that started, uh-uh, growing vines. Some of them like, Merlo and, what used to be tokay were coming from France and others, were, out talk to us. And that's how, winemaking started. In our case, we decided to, to, to pay homage tribute to a, the beginning of winemaking in that area, we called the State Villa Boghodano eighteen eighty because we have a palace, which a marble inscription when the palace was, was erected of eighteen eighty. And it's at the same time the, the period where winemaking started in that estate. Okay. That's really fascinating and interesting, of course. And I think it's important for our listeners to understand this lengthy history of of Viticulture and also the fact that for the Romans, This was a great thoroughfare. This was a great road passing through your area going up into central Europe, Northern Europe, but also around the coast into what is today, Slovakia and Croatia, and the Dalmatian coast connecting Rome with the Eastern Mediterranean as well as Northern Europe. And so Viticulture being carried out here by the Romans and then, of course, the area dominated by the Republic of Venice, who and it was the Venetians who built the palace at, at the villa. So, and lengthy here at period, but the story of Viticulture begins in eighteen eighty. So just, twenty years after the the unification, the creation of of the kingdom of Italy. Dominican, let's let's also, learn your story I know that you've been involved with Philip big don bogdana. Is it since two thousand sixteen? What were you doing beforehand and what made you decide to embark on this project? Well, I was, I was actually, born and raised a nearby Venice, actually only, like, ten minutes away from the, from the estate. Then, after after starting an university, I started traveling the, the the world, and and I ended up spending, a quarter of a century in, in, in London in the UK, but my family was originally from, from nearby Venice, and my brother-in-law, who is a winemaker and anologist was from there, and he kept working there. So, I, I always had a passion for wine, but only as a consumer. So with the interaction with my, my brother-in-law, at some stage, I, we were alerted that, there was this estate that had been in the possession of one, one family from Lombardy for, for a very long time, for a variety of reasons because they were involved in other businesses. They decided slowly to, to, to sell the, the, the, the estate. So my, my brother-in-law knew this state very well. I was raised very close to that estate, and, it it was very peculiar. It was almost a challenge because we it was a completely different, state from the, from from other, states in the, in the, in the area. It had lots of octoctonos, a great varieties, it was a protected conservation site. So there were lots of limitations. It had some very old, vineyards. So it, it was quite a big challenge, but we were fascinated from the, from the beginning, and we We fell in love, with with it and, and three months later, we we shook hands with the with the previous owners. What year was that, Dominican? That was beginning of twenty sixteen. Okay. So that's a fascinating story that you've really gone full circle. From where you were born and raised and traveled around the world as you said and settled in London and then find yourself now. Actually, just a few miles from where you were where you were raised. What a what an interesting story and what an interesting project to have this opportunity to do something so close to home. Oh, definitely, definitely. Yes. Obviously, it's it's, it's fascinating, lots of, lots of hard work. And, and we always consider it a bit of a, of a, of a startup in the sense that, we, we have decided to to take a completely unconventional view, for instance, focusing on, on old vines, when we arrived, lots of people perceived the, having lots of old vine or vineyards almost as a disgrace. Because of the very limited yields because of the presence of some indigenous varieties that maybe were not the, the trendy varieties in the, in the commercial market, etcetera, but we felt it was just fascinating, and we we just took the view that we wanted to save these old vineyards. We're talking about, approximately eighteen hectares. So if, if you consider the number of grapes and that you cannot re really use mechanization when every vine is different from the other. It was very, very challenging, and I think even more than we initially expected, but it's it's a part of the of the fun of it. These, extraordinary collection of old vines, it's one of the largest collections of old vines in Italy. Is that correct? I, I think so. I mean, we had several, several experts coming, coming over. And, four years ago, we decided to to support this, nonprofit organization called the Old Vine Conference because they were doing a lot to, to, to promote, old support Old vines and promote wines produced from, from, from old from all vines. So it's it's it's definitely a quite a large extension. And, yeah, there are a variety. There are several grape varieties. Okay. Well, In fact, I I I first heard about Village Boogdano eighteen eighty through the Old Vines conference. And indeed, I know you I know you've been very involved in that, and it's a very important and significant organization that's promoting old vine vineyards, around the world. So to, it's, it's a fascinating because I think people are beginning to or people have have long and many more people are beginning to realize, how important it is to protect this valuable patrimony of old vines, but also simply that old vines may yield lower quantities, but can produce extraordinary results. Dominican, tell us about some of these native grape varieties. And indeed, some of varieties that perhaps we don't consider native to Northeast Italy, but which have been cultivated in Northeast at least for a couple of hundred years. Definitely, yes. I think the, the the first, by by importance and extension is definitely the grape variety, known as tokai Frulano. Tokai Frulano, dates its origin in, in Italy, around eighteen fifty. We know that, initially, it arrived from France, from a grape variety called sovignon As or sovignon Verde. And, when it arrived, obviously, over almost two hundred years, it, it has slowly evolved into something, which is now quite, quite different from the original from the original, sovignon as it, it, it derives from. We have two different bio types, by bio types, meaning, they they are not clones, clones in Viticulture, started mainly, on a, on an extensive scale from the, from the late sixties. And now we have approximately fourteen clones of of Tokai Frulana, but we have the original, biotypes, because some of these, binds have, have more than than hundred years. So we are talking about an age where, clones were not, were not existing, yet. We have two biotypes, the yellow biotype, and the green, biotype, but the green is slightly more acidic, but the white, the yellow one is definitely more interesting from a winemaking standpoint because it can, produce wines of great intensity and complexity and, with with a great potential for for aging, which I think is quite important nowadays because, wine consumption patterns are are changing. And even if Italy has always been known as a, as a place for as an important place for wine production. I think internationally we're more known for, quality red wines rather than for quality, white wines. Besides tokai Frulano, we have to gather a a variety is. One is, talking about old lines. One is is Merlo. It's not an indigenous grape variety because it came from France, even if a wine expert recently pointed out that we, we were calling it Merlo, both the, the grape variety and the wine more than hundred years ago when other parts of the world were calling it Clare. So in terms of wine production, actually, it's, some people say you, you could well call it an indigenous, indigenous grapes because even the wine, you always call it like that. And last one is Revoscalapiducoloration. So it's very peculiar, indigenous grape variety, which which can make some very interesting red wines. Okay. So that that's really, really interesting. And just to, assist our listeners, Dominic of the name, Tokai Freeulano. This is, This is the grape that is known in Veneto as Thai. Is that correct? That is correct. Yes. We, it used to be, one of the, most planted, great varieties in the north of Italy, in Italy, unfortunately, other parts of Europe hunger in particular, we're growing, another great variety forming which is completely different grape variety, and producing, a wine, which has a similar name. So, illegal dispute started, and, Italy ended up to, losing the, the original appellation. So we used to call it Tokai. You know, it's, as a wine, we cannot call it Tokai anymore. The grape variety can be still cold like that, but the wines, it's called Frulanov in Friuli. And tie or lizon in in Venetal. Okay. That's that's important to clarify. I know Alsas as well lost the right to call. The tokka dialsas at the same must have been around the same time. When that name was protected for the great Hungarian Tokai, the sweet wine. Also, these old vineyards, these old vines, how old are they? Dominican, are they pre philosopher? And I think you have some rare training methods as well. That that is correct. So it's very difficult to date grapes because obviously you cannot just, cut them and and count the rings, so which doesn't work with, with vines. We know that the, the, the first, vineyards were planted around eighteen eighty, but this is more or less when philosopher was devastating, vineyards in the north of, of Italy. We have very high percentages of, of clay in the, in the estate. We know that with percentages above ten percent, you're one hundred percent sure to contract Philoxera, and we we have areas where where clay reaches fifty three percent. So there is no doubt in my mind that, by eighteen eighty, what, whatever started was was immediately wiped out We made several DNA analysis, of, of the roots of the, of the, of the vineyards, and we have, we have estimated that our oldest vineyard is between the end of the, of the nineteenth centuries and the first two decades of the twentieth century. So we were talking about just over a hundred years old. The training method is very peculiar. It's called Casone Patovano, and it's basically the, the vineyard is planted in a v shape. Every every couple of of vines are planted, with an angle of, of about, forty five to sixty degrees, one pointing to the right and one pointing to the, to the left. It's something very similar to, what in other, places of the world, they they call the, the lira with the difference that, we have two, two vines and not one. So this typical V shape is very, well suited to grave varieties that have lots of vigor. So you allow, them to have more, more canopy and more place, in, in, in ratio to it, the overall size of the, of the vine and of the, of the root system. It was initially developed by Benedict Kain monks, and, it, it had, around the beginning of the, of the twentieth century. Some people were still using it in some parts of Northern Italy, and then it completely disappeared, simply because it cannot be mechanized. It requires lots of hard, manual work. So it's pretty much, it's it's very hard to work. So people completely abandoned it. We we still have, like, just over a hundred vines still still left. And, we have, just to, to, to, to pay a tribute to this important heritage. We have decided to recreate, a vineyard, not only with, with the same with vines that have the same genetic material of the mother vine, but, we, we have used the same agronomic and, agronomic and viticulture principles that were used one hundred and fifty years ago, like doing a convex shaped field to allow water drainage because obviously, by by then, you do not have any artificial irrigation. Well, that's a that's a fascinating story. This this method, that had been perfected by the Benedictine monks. Monasteries, of course, were repositories of knowledge and help to to spread, Viticulture and and and produce great wines. This this ancient system is still being used and indeed you're following some of those precepts from the past to make wines for the future. So that is, really fascinating. You're maintaining these low yield old vines, but also, the the old ways as, I guess it it's this is something heritage you're protecting and you wanting to use as regenerative and sustainable methods as you can. Is that the motive? I think it's a combination of motives. I think on on one side, it's very important to, to, know, it's not only just for the sake of of defending and supporting a tradition, but it's, if people were doing things in a certain way, sometimes they they had a reason to, to do so. And, by preserving prototypes and biodiversity is even maybe in a more selfish way, you are preserving some, some, biotypes that have very peculiar or organoleptic characteristics. So you're, you are preserving them because they are, they are different. And if you perceive that the quality is is is quite good, you just wanna wanna have that peculiar biotech because it makes a very peculiar, very peculiar product. And then another thing which we have focused in the last few years is trying to, trying to understand how resilience is, is impacted by, not only having old vines, but just using the same genetic material instead of going to a, to a nursery where millions of, of vine are produced tens of millions, hundreds of millions of vines are produced every year. You are just taking your own genetic material and reproducing from it, from the shoots and canes of your, of your vines, you are, reproducing new, new vineyards. Now in the last few years, there's this part of science called the epigenetics, which, people talk a lot, and we, we would like to, to approach a more scientific way where, instead of changing the sequence of a DNA of a client, you're just allowing evolution to take its course and the plant over the over, over decades and decades is developing, a knowledge and an immune response, and it learns to cope both with with climate, with heat, with the lack of, of precipitation, and we're with diseases. So we have seen that Unfortunately, not for all diseases, but for some diseases, the, some biotypes are much more resistant than modern clones coming from from nursery. One example is our Merlo, which where no single vine is affected by gold flava sand, so where, new vineyards have extremely high percentage, even if you're talking about exactly same varieties, so you cannot blame it on the, on the brain variety. Is different. Okay. That's that's really interesting to Dominican because what you're saying is by preserving the old vines and by, reproducing and keeping that genetic integrity of the old vines. You're actually able to better cope with with the future, better cope with the challenges that climate change, in particular, has been bringing the fungal diseases and the various other, maladies that have been a a a a great problem in in recent years. Dominican, let's pour ourselves a a glass or two of your wines and talk us through your Lizon classical and then perhaps Rifosco and a few other wines. Let's learn about the wines themselves. Well, I think the, the Lizon classical is, is a is a is a white wine And, it, it is definitely, has a, an interesting complexity, which makes it a nice wine to, to drink on its own, but even a very interesting wine suited for for, a gastronomic, pairing. It's typically it has a very nice bouquet with with flowers like wild herbs, elder flower, but has a very nice balsamic note with sash mint. And, in, in our case, the, the, the the lisson classical we produce from the old vines has these interesting, notes of, of, of, cytrues and and and and apricot and peach has lots of freshness which you don't always take for, for granted in this, in this, in this, gray variety. I'm actually, I'm obviously quite biased here, but I think it's is maybe one of the, three or four white grape varieties in, in Italy that can produce some really premium, top premium, wines, which are not only suited for for gastronomy, but they they have a great potential for, for aging as well. And as we're talking about, like, yeah, gastronomy, obviously, it's it's it's a wine that, is is quite versatile from, from from from starter from pasta or resort to main courses, call cuts, fish dishes, etcetera. Just to clarify, Dominic, that, the Lizon classico, this is a hundred percent to Kaa. Is that right? Hundred percent tokai Frulano with, the vast majority of our wines, are are single, single vineyard and single grape varieties. So one hundred percent in purity, tokai Frulano. Or a wonderful name for a great variety. Yeah. It's it's a very long and complicated name to, to, to, to, to, to remember, but it's a very interesting, red wine. I think the some of the traits of this of this gray variety are the, very interesting freshness acidity. And at the same time, important tonnage. Importantnage means that it's a wine that can age quite well. It's a wine that can, a company very important, main courses and even meat, dishes. It is important. However, that the standings that, when you harvest, the the grape, you do it when, when, when the berries are quite ripe because of the one of the, typical notes of the refocus code is that, the the tannins can be by the green and bitter. And so if you harvest it at the wrong time, that bitterness end up, being a fault of the, of the product, and, and some people think it's well. It's it's a nice and pleasure, a nice note, this this turn as a, but, I, in my opinion, it's more it's more at fault. A great refocusco should be nice and smooth and has this fantastic persistence. It's a very, very interesting wine. I've had some of those more rustic refosco's that I think you're mentioning. But, I guess, the challenges of climate change in recent years means that, the grape variety can reach high levels of sugar before it's phenomenically ripe. And and then And then you get those green tannins. Is is that part of the challenge to allow that ripening to to to perhaps assist it in in in going more slowly during these hot seasons? Yeah. And it is clear. I mean, some experts, I mean, lots of people, are of the idea that we will keep moving further north in the, in the production of wine because of, of climate change. And even if I, I, I, I, partially agree in the sense that we are, we are seeing that even countries lie like England, they have started producing some, some fantastic wines, but the fact that we can expand the production for, production further north doesn't mean, that, you cannot keep producing, in, in areas which are becoming warmer. I think, however, you cannot produce with a, with a current methods. We have noticed, for instance, that, old vines tend to, react much better to to warm and and dry seasons. And and two of the main reasons which are quite intuitive is one, they have a very, very big and profound root system. So when you have a few days or week of, of, of heat and, the, the first ten, twenty, thirty centimeters of, of soil become dry and and hot. Obviously, the plant has all the roots a few meters deep down, and it really doesn't care what's what's happening, what's happening up there. And secondly, it has such a big, trunk that where all the reserves are stored. So it can deal much better with with periods of of higher temperature and dryness. Okay. So the old vines are proving to be more resilient in these challenging times. Another reason to value them and and, and and celebrate wines made from them, not least because of the results. Domenica, what about your chardonnay and your Merlo? These are grapes again. I as you say, which have been in the northeast since perhaps the time of Napoleon when he passed through. They have taken root and are very much a part of of, wine growing in northeast today. And available down there? Oh, definitely. Yes. I get a very brief note on the on the on the soil. Our soil is of alluvian, origin. So it's basically the washing down over centuries and and thousands of years, of the of the mountains towards the sea. So it had, they have a high percentage of calcareous substance, calcium carbonate. And on top, we, we have a very thick layer of, of, of, of clay. So it's quite a heavy soil that is well suited to a, a great variety like a chardonnay and and merlot. I think some of the traits of both the chardonnay and then merlot, which are partially consequence of the of the soil we have and of the fact that we are trying to, to, to to limit, to limit yields is, that we have a product typically with, pretty peculiar intensity and flavors. And in the case of red wines from the merlot, the timings are extremely smooth and, and elegant. So they are wines of complexity with pretty lot of, of, of, body and, and, and structure. And at the same time, they are quite, they have this very nice balance of high, high acidity on one side and this nice smoothness, which is given both by, by, the the agronomic, our economic practices, and the, by by the peculiar soil. Okay. That's that's really interesting. And what about the the conditions of, the mountains and the sea in terms of regulating climate? How how high are your vineyards? And is this, part of the factor in keeping the vineyards ventilated and benefiting the the development of the grapes during the growing season? These two influences mountain and see. Well, definitely, yes. There is, the microclimate, we are very close to the, we are very close to the Alps and very close to the seaside. So we have these typical daily breezes, which, create this natural ventilation, that is very good for, for vine growing. And on top of that, we have, our state is, closed by two, two rivers, which help to, to to, create this microclimate. Okay. Now, Dominican, you mentioned that, Leison DOCG is the only DOCG in Italy, which straddles two regions, Veneto, and friuli. I'd like to turn to the gastronomy of your area because these are very gastronomic wines. These are wines, which as you say can be enjoyed on their own, but really are, like most Italian wines or wines, to enjoy with food and probably very well pairing with the local food. Does the gastronomy of your area straddle both regions? And can you talk us through some of the most typical dishes that you would say parallel with your wines. You're correct. Considering how close we are to the sea and our tradition, our territories during the last twenty centuries that were equally divided between a definition influence and the the free rolling influence. So you have some lots of seafood dishes, which are coming from the foundation influence. The most famous one is obviously what we call bakala, which is the salted stock fish, which you create this very nice, pace that you serve on Christine is the typical chiqueti that you find a lot across the world, including in the, in the, in the UK, and, which are some fantastic appetizers, which go very well with with our Lizon classical or even with, with our, with our chardonnay. We have, lots of dishes that are based on pasta or or risotto, these rice, main courses, which combine very well with, for instance, with clamps or scampi, which is, again, from the the the venetian tradition, and which are, fantastic with with all the, with all of our, white wines. At the same time, we have the mainland. And here, the, the, the influence from, from friuli and partially from the mountains is is more important. And we have, dishes with, with vegetables or with mushrooms, like, mushrooms, risotto, again, fantastic with with with white wines, or some, we have a big tradition of, of cold cuts, in in many different, many different types. And here, if you're talking about pork or or or beef, we can move into into red wines and based on on acidity and tannins, etcetera, you can, you can either have a refosco or a Marilaux. Okay. So I'm thinking of prosciutto di San Daniele, which is not far from you over the border in Frioli. The perhaps the sweetest and most delicate of all cured, Hams, I wouldn't imagine that that would be ideal with a glass of your, Nissan class echo. Definitely, yes. I mean, San Danielle, Aparma, they are they're fantastic with the, with a lizone classic coat. Okay. I think it's one of the, pairings made in heaven. Yes. And and then at Bakala, Montecala, that paste on crostini. What would be the wine to have with that? I think the, again, either the liaison classical or the the chardonnay, the chardonnay, we, we have two, two versions. One of them has a longer, maturation and, partially done in, in in Barrick. Okay. Now, Dominican, you've, you've really given us such a good picture of Vida Bugano eighteen eighty. This Venetian Villa surrounded by historic old vines, and I'm sure our listeners would love to visit. Can you tell us about wine hospitality? Can we visit? Can our listeners visit? And what do you offer if so? Oh, definitely yes. We, we are currently organizing on a, on a regular basis or even, even if people show up, we are able to organize visits, which are both visits to the, to the estate, And, we have this this old medieval forest with protected species and nearby, we have the old vines. So just looking at the old vines, it's a very nice, visit around the, the, the estate. And then, obviously, we have the, the wine tastings, in, in different formats, and just wine tastings on the roll, or we can, on on demand organized wine tastings with, with food pairing, and, organized even with, with some local restaurants that produce local dishes. And then on a on a more occasional basis, we, we tend to organize experience, which, try to go a bit beyond, just simply offering the the glass of wine or showing around the the the estate, for instance, we we do organize, visits, with, with, botanists, And the idea of the concept is to try all the different aerobatic herbs to find them to taste them, etcetera, and then go back to the wine tasting and trying to find in the flavor of the wine, and in the taste of the wine, trying to find the herbs that you, that you discovered in the, in the field and in the vineyard in, in the first place. So trying to have an experience which goes a bit beyond the simply, simply tasting the, the the wines. Wow. That sounds that sounds fascinating. So lots of different options for visitors. Definitely. Yes. And, and, hopefully, by by next year, we'll be able to, welcome guests overnight well. Okay. Okay. Well, that's really interesting to you. I think that's the best way for people to really understand a property and its wines is to have that opportunity to stay on an estate, speak to the winemakers, taste the wines with the local foods. So that's great. Domenico, you've taken us into, into the world of Willeburg, Donna eighteen eighty into this beautiful story of your own, journey from your hometown nearby around the world and certainly to your two decades plus in London and then finding yourself working with your brother now back near where you were born on this beautiful and historic wine estate. It's certainly somewhere I would be very eager to visit, and I hope I can meet you there one day. But in the meantime, I want to thank you for being our guest on the Italian wine podcast. I thank you very much, and I hope to see you in twenty twenty five. It was a great great pleasure. Thanks for having me, and I'm really looking forward to welcome you and all the all the listeners to the estate. Thank you, Dominic. Have a great day. Wanna Joronata. Wanna Joronata. Chao. Ciao. Ciao. We hope today's episode of Hawaiian Food and Travel with me, Mark Minon, on the Italian wine podcast. Has transported you to somewhere special. Please remember to like, share, and subscribe, wherever you get your pods. Likewise, you can visit us at Italian wine podcast dot com. Until next time, Chincin.