Ep. 2462 Nicoletta Gargiulo of AIS Campania | Wine, Food & Travel with Marc Millon

What are some of the decisions you go into when you're looking at a beautiful plate of food and trying to find that perfect wine match, that match that will really make enhance the food, and the food will also enhance the wine. I love to study the plate and taste the plate and think about match and pairing because I think that okay. You serve a good food. You serve a good wine. It's also both good, you know. But when you discover the right and correct wine for a match, It's a good marriage, you know. It's, look like, and big emotions. 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 Minen, on Italian wine podcast. Today, we travel to Campania to continue my special sub series that focuses on this beautiful southern Italian region. It's wines, gastronomy, and things to see and do. Today, we're in the province of Naples, about thirty kilometers to the south, just inland from the stunningly beautiful Amalfi coast in Graniano. A town famous both for pasta as well as for wine. To meet my guest, Nikolletta Garjulo, who is the vice president of Ice Campania, and the restaurant manager of Omei Oin Marre, which she opened with her husband, chef Luigi Tramontano in two thousand twenty four, and which is already earned a Michelin Star. Many, many thanks for being our guest this morning, Nicolatta. How are you? Good morning. I'm very well. Thank you. Is it a beautiful day, Nicholas? I'm imagining the sun shining. Yeah. Yeah. We are in like summer now, so it's splendid. It's fantastic. So lovely. Now, Nicolaata, we're in the province of Naples, which is a big province encompassing not only Italy's most. Vibrant, exciting, and historic city, Naples, but also important areas to the north and west, as well as to the south where you are. Can you tell us a little bit about the province of Naples and also about Graniano? France of Naples is fantastic, because it's totally on the sea. In front, we have a Prochida, iska, and Capri Island, you know, all jet set or people all around the world come here because Naples's golf is fantastic. We have also the Zuvio that is a big attraction. You know, the Zuvio is very dangerous. He's sleeping for a long time, but all the land all around is so beautiful because, you know, if you never take a look at pictures of a neighbor with Vazuvio on a back, so it's incredible in front of the sea. In the north of the province, we have also Monte Latari Montimes. That is all around. So we have also a wonderful climber. The climber is good, just a little bit sometimes humid, but, we have a lot of breeze. So it's good weather usually. It's fantastic. Like, we have also a lot of trees, the green around the the area. So we have also a lovely attractions, in the city, look like Suranta, for example, that is also very tourist sectaria, and we have also a lovely wine and lovely food. Yes. It's, it is something of a paradise you're describing and making me want to return to the Gulf of Naples. To your beautiful area. Now where you are, it's a town that's famous for its pasta and also for a particular wine. Can you just tell us about the pasta de graniano? What makes it so special? Pasta de graniano. It's very special because it's, made up in a small factory. So it's traditional pasta. So the texture or pasta is totally different by the industrial and the the taste is so lovely as well. There are a lot of, traditional recipes about pasta. It is a pasta that is cooked in tomato's water and, with in Brazil with different kind of tomatoes. Look like, tartar of tomatoes, tomatoes comfy, of tomatoes that is so so So, lovely with the lovely taste. The sense of basil is fantastic. All refresh products that we have. Sometimes we have also baked pasta with more for example, because on a Latari mountain that are, you know, surrounding of Graniano, there are a lot of, mozzarella factory or fuel del active. Fuel del active, it look like mozzarella as well. For example, sometimes we have also a nyaki with a nyapolitan ragu with mozzarella that is baked. That is fantastic. And also a big history about pasta and till, the seventeenth century. Nearby, we have a valet de Mulini that is, nearby a river where there was Molini, for, make floor of pasta. Okay. So the wheat would have been grown in Campania, milled into the flour, and then the artisan pasta makers in Granano make this pasta that's famous all around the world. Nicolletto, word about a special wine, the grana wine. Graniano wine is a sparkly red wine. It is prepared with a sharp method. So the re fermentations of wine in a bigger high nocs machine. Blanyana wine is, pretty and flowery. It's a medium, medium body, and sometimes we try to have a good, lovely pairing, a good match with pizza, for example. With the margarita pizza, with the Sherry tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. It's fantastic. Plania wine is also a good match with, you know, with the food of the day, daily food, as ragu, as genovese pasta, you know, that is light and, refreshing. Okay. So it's a very typical one. And I've I had heard that many people think it's the best wine for pizza. I think it was a favorite wine of toteau. Yeah. Toteau of Graniano, toteauce. It means if it's not graniano, you no drink. At the time. Okay. They always did. So so nice. Yeah. Okay. Now, Nikoletta, tell us your own background as an ice sommelier. Did you always have filled yourself drawn into the world of wine. What made you study to get this very high qualification as an ice sommelier? I start to study a sommelier on two thousand who I am so late for a long time. Before that, I had the catering school and I started to work in sorrento in a lovely hotel, then I'm moving, Donal Fonso restaurant. It is a restaurant two mission star. In that time, gone off on restaurants and two thousand and five hundred different label and with a a lovely and bigger wine cellar. So I study at the same time, I work in a restaurant. So a lot of days experience. If you open a lot of wine, if you have a nice palette, a sensitive palette. I had three d, hard exum to become, and I never stop it, to study because, you know, wine becomes also questions. So you travel around vineyards, then you move in France to vineyards, you move, in, to sunny, you move in payment all around and visit a lot of vineyards, a lot of wine cellar, and you met a wine per user. This is our life. This is our life. On two thousand seven, on two thousand seven, I won, the company regional, competitions in May. And in November, I won the best Italian comedy on two thousand seven. On amazing. Yeah. Just two ladies in Italy won the best Italian competition. The first one was on nineteen eighty seven. And twenty years later, I won as well the best accommodation. But but we are the only one. We are the only one. Actually, I wanted to ask you about that, Nicola. Is the profession of Sommelier in Italy generally welcoming and open to women, or was that something that was a bit of a struggle for you to be accepted in a world that I think we would have thought more dominated by men At the moment, we have a lot of ladies. There are a lot of somebody back twenty five years ago, we was few ladies. So when I I started, it was a little bit different and I was very young, and I was a little girl. So sometimes, m men looks me, with, strange eyes, you know, what she say? What she she's doing for, you know, that for me was very exciting. For me was very exciting. So, it's hard life. It's not easy because, if you work in a restaurant as well, you work for a long time, And if your mother is also a little bit different, you have to combine the house, the sun, with, a lot of work. And in my case, I was also president of so many regional associations. So I w