Ep. 2449 Antonio Capaldo from Feudi di San Gregorio winery | Wine, Food & Travel with Marc Millon

Spoke about soils. We spoke about climate. We spoke about, diversity. The first thing is that we should talk about indigenous varieties. Now you mentioned the fact that there were we were making wines to millennials. We've indigenous varieties. That some of them grow in other areas such as Alyanico, you find it in California, in Australia, even Fiano. But actually, they don't grow with the same characteristics as here. And you have Fiano, Greco, and Falangina in terms of white wines, and then you have Aljanico in terms of red grapes. If these varietals, they they even don't overlap. So within a smaller area, the farmers plant fiano in an area, Gregory, and other area, and then Janikrin another area. So each varietal. It's not just indigenous and historic, but it's strictly connected to a terroir. 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 Campania for a special subseries that focuses on this beautiful southern Italian region. It's wines gastronomy and things to see and do. Today, we traveled to inland Campania, to the province of Avilino, and to the beautiful wineland of Erpigna to meet my guest Antonio Capaldo, of the acclaimed Fio de San Gregorio winery. Antonio, thank you so much for being our guest this morning. It's a real pleasure to meet you here as I've drunk and enjoyed your wonderful wines for many years. And indeed, I have one of your wines, Pianna de monte Verginae, in my book Italiana wine glass. So, it's a real delight to have this conversation. How are you today? Well, join, and thanks for the kind words, and thanks for having me with you today. I'm good. I'm good. And, and I'm looking forward to have this conversation and speak about my region and my winery. Okay. Great. And I'm assuming it's pretty warm where you are today. Is that right? It is. It is even if we are very lucky in EFPia, you were saying it's inland Campania because actually we are enclosed by hills and mountains. The average elevation of all the vineyards here is five hundred meters. So overall, it's cooler than you can expect from the south of Italy. And, actually, you are not far from the sea, like, thirty kilometers, but the microclimate is a continental microclimate within the Mediterranean Sea. So it's this is what makes European pretty special. And so we don't suffer the heat, like, in the big cities of Italy and the rest of the south. Okay. So irpina, this beautiful, and I think for many wine lovers, still undiscovered region of in inland Compania region where wine has been produced for at least two thousand years. Can you tell us a little bit about irpinia, something in the history, but also describe this beautiful countryside? Yes. Let's hope I mean, I agree with you. It's not particularly well known, yet. Also, it's something we I hope we can help we can help today. First of all, the name comes from the word, the earps, which means wolf. Because actually the and the symbol and the icon of Espina is actually the wolf. Because it's an area that as I was saying before, it's hills, mountains, food. So, actually, you have a lot of world that's be be living here. It's a surprising south, and it's a surprising context now because, it's very green and it combines, as we were saying before, it combines the characteristics of an area of mountain with over one hundred and fifty days of rain per year. Fifteen hundred millimeters of rainfall per year. The six five, six times, there's snow every year. Together with the beauty of the Mediterranean of the Mediterranean context. When you visit your pena, the first things that strikes you is that that actually you are in an area of, that you can expect actually in the north of Italy for all the reasons I said before. But the second thing once you dig a little bit into it is that you find yourself in an area that is still very classic. It's very similar to what it would have looked like one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago because in in terms of Viticulture in terms of farming, in terms of structure of the land, because actually there are a lot of, still a lot of small farmers, a lot of small people taking care of their own small plot where they source the grapes they source also, olive oil, they source fruits, etcetera. And it's still an area that is very strictly connected to agriculture and agriculture in general. Why is that? Because we are very, very I mean, we are actually blessed to have together with the client, I spoke about a quality of soil that is unparalleled in Italy. When I say quality of soils, I'm not just saying mineral soils. Everybody's talking about mineral soils at the moment. It's the complexity of this minerality is the source where this minerality comes from, and it's also the variety of mineral components in the soil. Okay. So this is, a really, really good picture, I think, you're giving to our listeners who are located all around the world. And I think it's very important as you've emphasized that, you know, it's easy for us to think of Southern Italy as always sunny and, you know, the same. We have our own stereotypes of the south. But this mountainous area with looking across to Vesuvius and also the epenines behind you. This this very, very special land with, this rich fertile soil. But the other thing Antonia, that I think is important is although this is one of Italy's, greatest wine lands, wine regions. It's not an area totally devoted to monoculture. As you say, their forest, the the wolves still and, you know, a mixed farm still part of the feature of the land. Would you say that's a very important uniqueness to Irpina? Yes. It is. It is when I hear about big speeches about biodiversity, then I look around and we're very, very lucky it here. Because of the structure of the land that, we didn't have the big, noble families of Tuscany, so having big, big estates. So on average, here there was the church owning the land in the past, and it's also the reason why failed this allegory or my winery is called like that because it literally means a state of Gregory the great was a pope in the sixth century. Very important for the history of the church. But so, historically, there was the church owning the land and then giving the land to the small farmers that we're actually working on the land. So the average plot here is less than an actor. Even Saudi de San Diego, we have seven hundred parcels compassing a total of three hundred hectares. So the parcels are very small. Within each parcel, you have the grape, but you have also other form of cultivation because each farmer needed to sustain himself and his family from the production of this plot. So this diversity from Aselnut to chestnut to the the grape to olive oil, this diversity is strictly, strictly, really embedded in our in our culture and in the structure of our land. So when you travel here, you don't find, you know, monoculture, but you actually enjoy a very diverse ecosystem that I think is one of the reason why this area is very charming. And then, of course, we like the stereotype of Southern Italy being, you know, Aalphy Coast capital because this helps putting a an image on, you know, on an area. But at the same time, this is very important to stress that the area is pretty different from a production and agriculture and a physical standpoint. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now let's just go a little bit deeper into your story into the store of Fio de de Sanari Gordio. You mentioned this historical link going back to the sixth century, but, Tell us how the winery began and your family story. Yeah. With with pleasure. But before that, I wanna mention only one last thing about the terroir because I