Ep. 1271 Peter Vinding Diers | Wine, Food & Travel With Marc Millon

By now, you've all heard of Italian wine Unplugged two point o. The latest book published by Mamma jumbo shrimp. It's more than just another wine book. The fully updated second edition was inspired by students of the Vineitelli International Academy and painstakingly reviewed and revised by an expert panel of certified Italian wine ambassadors from across the globe. The book also includes an addition by professor Atilio Shenza. Italy's leading vine geneticist. The benchmark producers feature is a particularly important aspect of this revised edition. This selection makes it easier for our readers to get their hands on a bottle of wine that truly represents a particular grape or region to pick up a copy, just head to Amazon dot com, or visit us at mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Welcome to wine, food, and travel with me Mark Minute on Italian Mind podcast. I'm delighted to announce an important collaboration with Academy Duvan Linerer, one of the world's most important wine book publishers, whose authors are amongst the most influential, dental painting in the world of wine writing today, These are writers who I've long admired, so it'll be fascinating to chat with them and hear their stories. I hope you will join. Welcome to wine, food, and travel with me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. Today, it is my great pleasure to continue our special subseries in collaboration with Academy Duvan Library, one of the world's leading wine book publishers. My guest today is Peter Vending, one of the world's leading winemakers who has brought his talents and vision all around the world, and who today joins us from his home in Sicily. Peter is the author of Viking In the Vineyard, Stories from a revolutionary winemaker, published by Academy De Van Library. It's a fascinating and rich book that is part memoir, full of keenly observed personal stories telling not only Peter's own journey through wine, but also something of how wine itself has evolved over the past fifty years or so. Peter, thanks so much for being my guest today. I'm enjoying your book immensely. How are you today? Thank you very much. We are pruning, actually. And, it's growing very well. You know, we have bush lines here, so we pruned to two eyes. We don't leave very much wood on the vines. We prune quite out. It's quite backbreaking pruning bush vines. Yeah. It is. But, now we actually use sort of break pruning shares, and so you stand up and do it. Oh, okay. Great file. Yes. Now, Peter, your book, you say at one point, is a story about the joy of growing vines and making wines. Let's start at the beginning of your wine journey. What brought you into wine in the first place? You're right that you were studying French literature at the sorbonne. But a journey to the south of France changed all that. Yes. It did. When we were passing burgundy, I saw these bush vines, and I fell in love with them immediately. I was rather young, I suppose, but, I suddenly felt that it was the future for me, and it was quite, emotionally. I really wanted to be a forester, but my family told me I was too stupid. I'm sure they were right. And, And that, so seeing those small trees combined with the idea that you could actually drink the produce of them and enjoy it, something we did at home very much, I think, made me feel that that perhaps should be my future. I'm I'm very glad to say I never regretted it. Oh, well, I think, you know, world of wine would be very disappointed if you had gone in a different direction, which you may well have done, I suppose. What was it? Most of all, that that made you have that that was it the romance, the beauty of the countryside, the taste of the wines themselves, or all of this? I don't know. You know? Yes. Well, we were brought up. I was brought up with in a house that Well, wine was part of every day, and my my stepfather bought a hogshead of of Dan's barge every year. And then at special occasions, we drank lots of other wines. And of course, that installed, and interesting. Right? Because it was, part of one's upbringing and culture, I suppose. And my grandfather liked burgundy's. And so, so, really, I had a a taste of both worlds. In in those days, I don't think anybody considered drinking wines from anywhere else. Maybe maybe German wines. Yes. Absolutely. But, apart from that, it it was not really come in full. And and you were growing up in Denmark? Yes. Part of part of my my use was spent in Denmark. Yeah. On an on another trip, you described traveling by boat from Europe down the west coast of Africa, drinking wine on the on the sea journey, and eventually arriving in South Africa, where you had family. You say that you had the opportunity to visit the cape and vineyards, including Gruta Constantha, which, of course, produced one of the legendary sweet dessert wines. And that sparked, the first opportunity to really consider making wine. Yeah. That that was or it was very beautiful. I don't know. I read when when I was in Paris, I, I read a book by Evelyn Wogue called when the going is good or was good, and it's all about his travels in Africa. And I got bitten by it. And so somehow, I didn't hear it to that Chinese room from my art, which was very, very beautiful things, and I really loved it. But I was told by my mother if I wanted to go around Africa, maybe I should sell some of them. And even in those days when there were scams interested in in oriental things, they bought in quite a lot of money. And so I was able to take, a owner's cabin on a freighter and sail around the west of Africa down to down to the cape. And my stepfather's family, part of them, they'd immigrated to the cape, I suppose, couple of generations before. And so they took me out and showed me group Constantia, which is This beautiful, beautiful area, and b beautiful, beautiful house, which incidentally, when I worked for the experimental institute years later, they offered me the post, running it. And so it it it it it was something Just the memory of that beauty and that beautiful place made me decide that, yes, this it had to be mine somehow. And you carried on that journey, but then eventually decided to return to South Africa without actually a job but with the intention to find a job and begin learning about making wine. Yes. Everybody told me I wouldn't get a job. That alone isn't up to spur somebody like me on because I like challenge. And, And in fact, when when we got out there, Susie, my wife had a job at Grodscrewed, she was very highly qualified, operation sister, and had, in fact, assisted at the first kidney transplants at Cambridge. We'll with where I come. So she was very, very much, in demand, I would say. And she got a job immediately at Grootzkuh. And so for a couple of weeks, she was there while I was trying to look for a job. And, Funny enough, the man who refused me a job put me on on the track of, Sydney Back who earned a a vineyard out in Powell, and also and I also had a piggery. And I I I got the job because, part of my education was agriculture in Denmark. And, in fact, I hope I would never again after ten pigs, but there, there you were. It's a very strange, very strange way of starting a life in wine. But, in the weekends, I I looked out through the pics at Baxburg, because The the manager, had the weekend off, and and that was fine. It it was it was really very interesting. I spent six months there, and and only left the place because they got a German winemaker who needed my house. Or the house that I've been put into. And, and so after that, I actually got something much more interesting in a way that, I got a job with the experimental research institute in Stellenbosch. And and here, I think I was extremely lucky and happy to work for people like Pengrads who I became his assistant, and he was and is one of the great, great figures in Viticulture. And so I I had an enormous grounding by that. And then later, I worked at, what is now known as Rustenburg, And I became assistant manager there, and both vineyards and and, seller. And, and worked with a man called, reg Nagelson, who used to earn Scholomberg, part of Rosenberg. And, he was a wonderful mentor. So I I've been very lucky. I had some extremely interesting, intelligent, and inspiring people to work for. What would you say some of the, most important lessons you learned, from your experiences in South Africa were that you were able to then bring to other places? Well, as a matter of fact, in seventy three, I I went to Bordeaux, and I saw how they pruned. They pruned very severely. And I bought that habit back with me to Rustenburg. And so people accused me of being brutal to the virus. In fact, we made the seventy four, which which was a beautiful wine, very concentrated and and subsequently fetched enormous prices at those auctions they had. But, it told me to be more precise in the vineyard. And, and in seventy four, incidentally, I got an offer from, from, Martin Bamford, IDV or Gilbert's, who earned Chatur Luden in Medock. And, and having spoken to Rich Nicholson, I accepted the offer. And in fact, I was very happy to. And so the whole family departed for France. I'm I must say I'm very franklophile. France means a lot to me, the culture, and everything else. So I was very happy to go there. So that was the start of another very important chapter in in your life. And you stayed there for a quarter of a century, I think. I think in some point in the book, you say, Bordeaux is the mecca of wine. Why do you say that? And was that always your hope and intention to end up there? No. But, When I told Rich Nagelson, he said, you know, if you are and you love wine, if you're if you are in wine, you have to go through Bordeaux at some stage, than your life. And I think Bordeaux is the place that one always comes back to. There's no doubt about it. So It was a wonderful challenge, and it was it was really great. I loved our years there. Yes. You write about chapter, Ludin, which must have been very exciting. This is in the is that sent to staff in the Medock. No. It's follow-up. It's it's actually at, Lespa. It's close to Lespa. It's it's the first chateau in the Medock, not Old Medock. Medock. But it's it's quite close to center step. In fact, we lived in center step. And you write about, challenging times, but also wonderful times and and experiences and meals and meeting some of the great characters of the world of wine. Yes. I was very lucky, actually. Ludin was a meeting place, of course, for the English wine trade. And, some of the most interesting people in the trade was the English wine trade. There's no doubt about it. The the whole, culture, wine, and so on is is in London, I think. Or in England. It comes to its best there. It's funny funny, the other day, we run Paris and we spoke to a sommelier, who was Italian, who'd worked in London, who now was a sommelier at a great, great, great restaurant in, in Paris. And he told me that the London time was for him as a wine man, the most interesting because people understood everything. All the registrar wine from Sherry's reports, material, and so on. They understood. Whereas in France, they're gonna only talk about the French wines. And I think there's something about that. Yes. That's true. Now, Peter, you moved from Chacoludin into the grave, first at at Chateau Raul. And you were making both great white wines as well as red. Is that right? Yeah. Different challenges. Yes. Well, it's two disciplines that are completely different. There's some plans. And, my great luck was that the Raul was being bought by Peter Fox and Len Evans. Len Evans was quite a character in the Australian in the Australian mine world. And he, in fact, he he told the Australians to drink mine. He he was most amusing person. But we didn't always see eye to eye. That's true. In any case, he got me to Australia, and Brian Crozer taught me to make white wine. And he made me see a lot of things which were sheer logic And, I bought them back to Bordeaux and and changed the winemaking, white winemaking of Bordeaux. I think I can say that quite clearly. In what in what way? Fresh clean, fruity wines. Very clean. That had not been the case before. And bringing more semillon into the into the blend? Well, semillon happened to be the variety, which everybody hated. But it was a variety that was grown at Iowa, so I had to make do with it. And I found that if you protected the must and and and looked after it, it it would make absolutely beautiful wines. Another thing you're, you talk about is, championing the use of indigenous yeasts and demonstrating that The same grapes fermented with different yeast result in completely different wine. Yes. This was this was something that had started already at the experimenters Institute in Stellenbosch. And I, and of course, in in fact, it started at dinner table at home. When my parents got, two of the leer wheels out, leer wheel, Lesgasendi will prefer. They lived in the same porch out, and the wines were made in the outbuildings opposite each other. And the wines were very different. And that made me believe that every vineyard has its own yeast, and and this was something I proved organoleptically by by fermenting three chateau in the same must in two or in barrels, I think it was. And, and everybody could immediately put the finger on which chateau it was. And this interested a friend of mine, Denise Boggio, and so he started a yeast laboratory in Bordeaux, and he proved my theory was right scientifically. So now now there's no discussion. It is so that every vineyard has its own signature via the yeast, the indigenous yeast. Well, that's fascinating. Would you say that that yeast is something of the soul of of each vineyard? Oh, yeah. Definitely. It's it's a very, very important part. It's it's a very important part of our lives too, I think. And after Raul, where did you go then? Then Raul was sold when Peter when Peter Fox died. And so I went on and we bought with, a few friends, Shaturd Landyars in Lagabe. I already earned myself a small property called Domen Lagabe, which I had a lot of fun with. And we sold all the wine to Sunday Times wine club. And and had some lovely times with it. Yes. And so in in Landiasa, I continued the work, but, Landiasa was a very cold part, so I realized it would be a good place for white wine. And and indeed, we became known for our whites. I remember Corney and Barrah selling thirty thousand bottles of Hawaii every year, and and it was it was such fun. Wow. No. The wine trade was really different. Now, an interesting chapter as well, relates to how after the fall of the iron curtain, you turned your attention to one of Europe's greatest dessert wines, tokay, a wine that at once graced the tables of Europe's royalty and even the czars of Russia. But under communism, of course, this historic vineyard, this great wine zone had fallen into disrepair and decline. After the fall of the iron curtain, you drove out there to visit some of the state sellers. Tell us about, your, your adventure in Tokai and your involvement with your great friend, Hugh Johnson. Italian wine podcast. If you think you love wine as much as we do, then give us a like and a follow anywhere you get your pods. Yes. It was it was, another challenge, I would say, and quite a big one. But imagine if somebody asked you to come and see if you were interested in buying some some of the parts of burgundy. Because it's more or less what happened. Takai was incredibly famous before the war. And, and made some beautiful wines and all that disappeared during the communism. And during the Soviet occupation. And so they forgot everything. They forgot where the country were. They were. They were forgot the Lima. They forgot absolutely everything, and they made really boring minds They moved them from the hills down into the valley of of Valley, and they they, they used to have up to twenty thousand wines of Hector. They then degraded themselves down to three thousand. Vines a Hikta and made something that was practically undrinkable. But we went up there, and I managed to persuade you that this was a cause worth taking. And so we, We had to dig very far in order to understand what was happening. Very luckily, I found a book in a book shop in in Buddha, one afternoon. He was in Latin, and he was, a description of of, actually, it was the seventeen hundred classification. Every single vineyard was noted for its good or bad qualities and, It made it much easier for us than to go on selecting the right pieces of of Vineyard land up on the hills and replant and so on. In order to understand how to make How to make it, and so on, I have to speak to a lot of the old owners who were living in Vienna, who were living outside of of, in Germany or wherever they were living. And, they they remembered, very well how to make the wine and so on. And, With the quaternions and using the Azoo grapes, sir? Yes. And the base wine from previous years, which was such a joy. Because when you have the asshole berries, you can then, you can then see. You can feel the taste of the asshole and say, this will go very well with that and that baseline. And in the northern parts, of of tokay. They didn't make very good asshole, but they made lovely, light, elegant baselines. You can imagine it was such a joy to do that until some, some modernist, I suppose. Decided that he would ferment the two together. That was not at all the case in the old two guys, and it was and the results in my mind is not half as good. The they had a tendency of shooting themselves in the foot all the time. Which is great shape. Well, what a what an amazing project and the Royal Tokai company was the result. A company that's still going now. Oh, it's doing very well. And Hugh said it will take forty years or thirty or forty years before it would do well, but he was absolutely right. And that's where we are now. Oh, how wonderful. I I have nothing to do with it anymore, unfortunately, but but I still have some shares. There there was one very amusing moment when We went my wife and I went to Madira. I I will I will say that I couldn't have done any of my wincing without my wife. And that is a very important part. But we went to Madira and, to study the, which means the the breaking of the protein chain in the wine by heat, because you could not you could not find these wines. There were two they they were too sick to fatty. It was impossible to find them. So you had to break this chain, which will either, otherwise, turn the white wine cloudy, by some other means. And that used to be in the old days, the heat of the summer. And, and that explains a lot of small sellers above ground, so people will move the wines up during the summer. Also something they had forgotten when we were there. And then the protein chain will be broken, and they'll move them down for the winter again. And they had to keep them for several years. So at the end, they succeeded. But while we were, in Madira, because incidentally Madira, of course, made some beautiful wines. We were offered, a wonderful, bodega. And, I bought back the suggestion we should make the Royal Tokai and Madira company. It was very well received, but, unfortunately, unfortunately, it didn't happen. It would have been a marvelous thing to do. Yes. And madeiras are some of the greatest wines. I I love them. Yes. Exactly. No. Absolutely. Be very underrated. And an unknown. Yes. Absolutely. But Peter, instead of going to Madara, you want to sicily instead. I know, a man called Georgio Franchetti. Andrea Franketti's, uncle Andrea from who who had was a sort of student of mine when he was young. And, and we discussed, and he'd bought this vineyard in in Tuscany. And, And so he he very often came to Bordeaux, and we had some great conversations and lots of fun. And then I met his uncle. We we moved first to to a northern part of Italy. And, And, really, it was I I didn't like it at all. And so, we moved to Rome because I did a lot of consultancies all over the world. And in Rome, we met Georgia, Frank, did the uncle of Andrea who was a fantastic personality and who loved Sicily, and he said to me, you you'll be so happy if you move to Sicily. I thought that's the end of the world, but why not give it a try? And so Andrea and I and and, Peter Csec, we decided between us it would be fun to make a little experiment on the Aetna. I mean, the Aetna was totally unknown that this is about what, twenty years ago. It was ninety nine to be exact. And so we went to the Edna, and the idea was to find some of these small vineyards that are sort of built in an amphitheatre where with old vines and and just make a wine there. But, as as time progressed, andrea bought a huge estate and planted it up very beautiful. And, it it was a lovely piece of work, but it was quite clear that we could not go on the way we wanted to do it. So Peter went back to Spain, and I went down the Black Mountain as I call it. And I had lunch with a friend, and he said, would you consider making some wines with me? And I said, no, not another Italian. It's impossible. I can't And he was an extraordinary kind and wonderful person. And, and we did make, a cooperation. He was the moneybags. I was the winemaker, and the Danish friend was a distributor. Sorry. It really worked extremely well. And, we had some very happy years together. And, unfortunately, now he's no longer, but he was a real gentleman, and it was a pleasure to work with him. Was that the start of Monte Carubo? Yeah. It was because one day he called me, and he said, Peter, I'm standing on the land you will buy. And and I flew out, the next day, and it wasn't that place, but it was one a few kilometers down the road. And and then started all the fun, getting it. It was a completely wild abandoned piece of land with a few with a few almond trees and, a and a very, very old, totally neglected olive grow. But, full of cliffs and things, but I thought my god, it had a view over the I onion see the Bay of of, Augusta, and a beautiful cold breeze, and and I fell in love with it. The next thing was a little more difficult, I suppose, I I feared. And so I took Susie, my wife out to show show her. And lo and behold, she loved it as well. And so that was our future. My goodness. And what year was that, Peter? We hope you've enjoyed this special sub series in collaboration with Academy Duvan Library. If you visit their website academy duvan Library dot com, we are offering a discount of five pounds on the purchase of books by the authors we've interviewed, including Oz Clark, Hugh Johnson, Fiona Morrison, Peter Vending Deers, and Andrew Jafford. Just use the AD VL coupon code upon checkout with the code Italian Wine. That's all caps. That was in, two thousand and five. We actually bought the place. And we started then I borrowed the money from a Danish friend. I didn't have a penny. I borrowed the money from a Danish friend, and then when I paid him back in two thousand and ten, took me five years to pay him. Then, Then we planted the vineyard, and, we built a house. Okay. And this is, the the Monte Carubo, winery where you actually, as you say, you're right that you were starting from completely virgin soil that had never had vines on it before. So you could really put all of the things you had learned the, over a life and wine and really plant the vineyard exactly as you wanted. Why did you choose Sierra? Yes. Everybody says why, we had already tried with Nirodallah that everybody was talking about, but here, Nirodallah will never ripen in this place. They were down as very good down south and pacquino on those places, but but here, it doesn't fully ripe. Also, it doesn't really make the kind of wines I like, I like elegant wines. And, the Sierra could do that for me. Not any old CR. As we were about to plant and so on, we might as well go the whole hog I saw. So I got some, Massal selections of CRara from Ermitage. From some friends there. And, and they worked out extremely well. In fact, they make beautiful minds. The problem here in Sicily is that, nobody really has a scientifically done Viticulture And so a lot of the there's been no, selection, no careful taking care of of vines. They're very good, vine growers, but they don't they didn't really they were only interested in big yields because big yields, something they could sell the bulk wine, which was then exported out of the island. So very few people until twenty, twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, made any any extraordinary wines. I will say there were a few who made some wonderful wines, of course, but they were found few between Now, now everybody has moved up to the Aetna, and they're very happy there. And I wish them all the luck possible. But, and and they're beginning to make good wines. There there are some that are making really, really, really good wines up there. And that's a try. Yes. Indeed. Now, Peter, you're hailed as a revolutionary winemaker yet in a sense. I feel that at Monte Carubo, you've returned to wine in pretty much its purest form with bush training, biodynamic cultivation, your use, of course, of indigenous use. Is that something that's fair to say? Yeah. I think respect for what you're doing is is the word really. I was never interested in unfortunately, I'm not very good at money, you know. So but I'm very interested in quality. It's not all the two hang together. But the the wines we made here really were remarkable. And so we we, we were able to get the right price from them from the very start. And and that has helped that's helped us building this place. It's helped us building the seller. Everything else has been paid for by the people who've been drinking our wines and who somehow have got become faithful clients. I'm very happy about that. I haven't had a chance to sample your wines or taste them myself, but I've read rave reviews, and, they are so highly regarded. So I hope I can pay a visit to you Yes. Sometime in the near future. Now, Peter, you you say We began at two hundred miles an hour that tripped down to the south of France, and our lives seem to have continued at the same pace ever since. But after that lifetime of travel and wine, it seems youth found your home in Sicily, and I'd just like to finish with a, quote from the book. Sicily is all about humanity, faithfulness, good friendships, and honor. It can be tough and raw, and it is not for the faint hearted. But if you take on the challenge you were given here, the island opens its arms and envelops you in its spirit. I think you have enveloped Sicily with your extraordinary spirit. Peter, it's been a really fascinating Worldwind overview of some of the many and exciting wine journeys you have enjoyed during a life in the wine in South Africa, Bordeaux, Hungary, and now Sicily. Viking in the vineyard is a fabulously rich, beautifully written book that gives insight into your richly lived life and your incredible achievements. It's published by the Academy Duvan Library And for our listeners to our program, publishers offering a discount details of which are found in the notes attached to wherever you get your pods. Peter, thank you so much for being my guest today. It's been a real pleasure speaking with you. I hope we meet sometime in the future, and I wish you all the best. Thank you, Mark. And I looking forward to seeing you here. I'm looking forward to it too. Thank you, Peter. All the best, and have a great day. Same to you. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of wine, food, and travel. With me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. Please remember to like, share, and subscribe right here, or wherever you get your paws. Likewise, you can visit us at Italianwine podcast dot com. Until next time.