Ep. 2476 Giampaolo Tabarrini of Tabarrini winery in Montefalco | Wine, Food & Travel with Marc Millon

This episode is powered by dialect import, taste the language of Italian Tarar. Seventeen is a grape. It's a grape that is, very beautiful and is a grape that is very rich. So we're talking of a fluid that have a lot of complexity. When you have a fluid that have a richness that have a complexity, handle this fluid is much harder. Because you have to be more careful because the more it's not the better. The more it's just a lot of things hold together. 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's show takes us to to the small and prestigious wine zone of Montefalco. To meet my guest, John Paulo Tabarini, of the Asienda Agricola Tabarini. John Paulo and I have met many times at Oprah wine over the past three years, and at Vien Italy. And we also recorded a podcast, I think, a year or two ago. But John Paulo, it's always a pleasure to hear your thoughts about wine, to hear what is happening in your cellar and have a catch up discussing some of the challenges that Italian one producers are facing these days. So thank you, John Paulo. I know it's approaching the busiest time of the year for you. So once again, thanks for being my guest today. How are you? Graty Mark, for hosting me. I'm fine. Hello, everybody. It's always a pleasure, make it talk to with you. So let's go. Okay. Well, jump. Jump, I'd like us today mainly to continue our conversation about an extraordinary great variety. You need Montefalco. Of course, that's the mighty. And shall we say sometimes cantankerous, Sanrentino. Your various expressions of it in and your methods, the Tabarini method to well, to tame this grape. But first of all, take us to Montefalco. Our listeners are located all around the world and may not have yet discovered this very special, but very small corner of Umbria. Tell us about Montefalco. Well, we are in a very lucky, lucky zone. First of all, it's a territory that is very strange. When I say strange, I mean, it's the only territory in Italy where you do have two climatic condition together. We are on the Central South part of Italy. So our climatic condition is Mediterranean, climatic condition. But on our Zoom, the happenings drop down on the peninsula and make a cycle. And then the happenings go ahead and drop down in the end of the peninsula. So we're technically living inside the shire call into the middle of the happenings. That's is so unusual because when you're roughly by the mountain, you do have a continental climatic condition. So here you have a huge difference between the temperature of the day and the temperature of the night. And this huge difference in temperature allowed to the greeks to develop kind of smell, kind of taste, that differently was impossible to develop. We are in a very green area. You have to know that Montefalco, Umbria, is the greenest region of the entire peninsula. And Montefalco is the balcony of this green land because it's this area in the center of this gate because the mountain is technically a gate, and it was a gate also along the century because people from India always been self sufficient because here, you can grow everything here. You have everything in terms of raw materials. So there's no need to go abroad to look for else. And the mountains build this gate where people live inside and doesn't grow a lot in terms of population, things that we totally in the region, seven hundred thousand. It's a ridiculous number for a very large huge territory, but this allowed us to be different. Okay. Well, that's really placing this green heart of Italy, this greenest region, a landlocked region, not many regions in Italy don't face the sea, but underneath the mountains. And along historic byways, John Paulo, is Montefalco along the Salaria, one of the great Roman roads. You are perfectly right. We are close to the border of Salaria. So the main street, they used to go to Rome. And you have to think that close by us, there is, Clituno Fountain. Clituno Fountain was a kind of, spot at the Roman empire. So being built and technically created for the health, the beauty, the wellness of the rich Roman, Roman people at that time. And it's just close by us. But why I say this? Because, umbria is also a region that have a huge amount of water. Recently, we're talking a lot of, heidrick troubles. So many, many region doesn't have enough water. Humbria is not in this condition. We have plenty of water. How are mountains inside its water? And this water drop out from the mountain and arrive to the valley where Romans centuries ago built, the fountains and this kind of, of spot. Okay. Well, this really does place, yeah, it's a really privileged region, and especially in these days of extreme climate change. The mountains, the water, and the greenness shows that this is not an area that is suffering like other areas are from the excessive heat. Is that correct? I have to say the truth. There's trouble for everybody, but let me say that because we have to be kinda grover, so I'm always respectful of all the other grover. Let me say that we are a little bit more lucky than many other situation where the trouble of the water and trouble of the imperators, make them super much more than us. So but anyways, a general condition, we are a just a little bit more lucky than somebody else, but doesn't mean that it's nice. Sure. No. These are I I know challenging times for wine growers. Now, John Palmer, can you just, give us a you know, you're in an area where wine has been produced since the Roman days, but and your family has been been in the Montefalco area for a long time too. Can you just give us a very brief family history of the Tabarini winery? My great grandpa and my grandpa used to be grower, and they always, always did, wine, oil, and they also had, cows, but cows, it was our tractor. Because at the time there wasn't the tractor, and and the cows were the tractor. So then my father keeps the company, but that was the time of the scandal of the wine, if you remember, no, and so at that time, a scandal that, of course, was done by big, huge companies, not by the grower, but anyway affect the word of the wine. We are talking about, the methanol or scanned, you know, you know. Which happened in the north of Italy, but affect did wine producers all around Italy. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So in, seventy eighties, was very tough and hard to sell the wine because people doesn't trust a lot. So we had to reduce the production, find, a new way to trade the wine, and most of the wine was holding back, abroad. To merchants. And and, of course, all the efforts he was doing was going somewhere else. And they used to pay to my grandpa and to my father that those huge amounts of wines used to be consumed inside Victor Verna on the border of Italy, but who knows? It was a very huge quantity. So since in, end of nineties, I told to my father that there wasn't any more the condition to go ahead in such way. So we we had to stop produce the wine or was the time to work with our legs. So in nineties, we started to bottle the wine. At that time, bottle the wine was craziness because people used to take the wine in bulk. We're talking only thirty five years ago and seems yesterday. But we really believe me, Mark, thirty, thirty five years ago was totally another situation, totally another condition. People come with the own cans. The damage on the fifty four leaders at the cellar, and they take the wine under the tanks. And the wine have to be cheap because people have to drink at lunch, at dinner. Look also, which was the annual conceptional wine per person. So at that time, they used to consume something like haiti, ninety liters per perso