Ep. 1484 Valentina Abbona | Wine, Food & Travel With Marc Millon

Since twenty seventeen, the Italian One podcast has exploded and expects to hit six million listens by the end of July twenty twenty three. We're celebrating this success by recognizing those who have shared the journey with us and giving them the opportunity to contribute to the on success of the shows. By buying a paper copy of the Italian wine unplugged two point o or making a donation to help the ongoing running costs, members of the international Italian wine community will be given the chance to nominate future guests and even enter a price draw to have lunch with Stevie Kim and Professor Atigioshenza. To find out more, visit us at Italian wine podcast dot com. Welcome to wine food and travel. With me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. Listen in as we journey to some of Italy's most beautiful places in the company of those who know them best. The families who grow grapes and make fabulous wines. Through their stories, we'll learn not just about their wines, but also about their ways of life. The local and regional foods and specialities that pair naturally with their wines. And the most beautiful places to visit. We have a wonderful journey of discovery ahead of us, and I hope you will join me. Welcome to wine food and travel with me, Mark Millen, on Italian wine podcast. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to continue our special subseries that highlights the winners of the prestigious five star wines and wines without walls competition. That took place earlier this year. Over the course of two long days, and they were very, very long days, more than two thousand two hundred wines were tasted by an international jury of wine professionals journalists, winemakers, sommeliers, and Italian wine ambassadors. Those wines, it scored more than ninety points, were awarded certificates, and will be included in the five star wines and wines without walls book that is coming out very soon. While the very best lines in each category were singled out for special awards. This year, one of the most coveted prizes for best red wine was awarded to the Marquesi de Barolo Family winery for its Barolo Sarmasa, DOCG two thousand and eighteen. My guest today is a very good friend of the Italian wine podcast. Who I am delighted to welcome back, Valentina Abona. Ciao Valentina, thanks so much for being my guest today, and many congratulations to you and your family for this prestigious award. How are you today? Mark, I'm super well. Thank you for having me and, for allowing me to share more about our territory, our vineyards, and, our beautiful Barolo land. Great. I'm really looking forward to hearing your story. And last time we spoke, I think, was in winter. So we're in the middle of summer now, and it's a it's a different world. I'm guessing it's very hot in Barolo. Well, you know, every day is very variable. We just had last week are very crazy. Hills storm that scared us a lot. Luckily, our territory is very much diversified. So even though if a lot of towns were hit, by hill, and, of course, all of the cultivations of this land, not necessarily just the vineyards, but all the other cultures of the area, we are in a safe place now. It was so quite early in the year. Green harvest still had to be carried out. We look at the future with optimism, and then very warm days or following is very unpredictable. Yeah. I can well imagine. And, of course, Hale, which is a risk in your area, is a real destroyer of vineyards. I've seen the the damage that hail can do where it just can strip a vineyard of grapes of foliage even. So I'm very glad to hear that you've escaped the worst of that? Well, you know, we look at our business with optimism. Our family has been in this industry for six generations now, and, of course, many things have a court in these many, many years. So we did face critical situations in terms of, whether, in terms of, health, in terms of, economy or safety, security. So in general, I'd like to think that if we had, passed all of the situations and we're still here, there is hope for the future anyways. We just have to be always on the spot dealing with what we have and trying to make the best out of it. I guess, you know, when you come from a family that has been pursuing the same activity for six generations, you have deep within you that feeling of confidence of knowledge that's part of who you are and and how people have managed to work and survive adversity over many, many years. Your family is actually part of the history of barolo itself, of barolo, the town, and the wine, and you're located in the Castalo, go right back to the beginning of the creation of modern barolo wine, and share with us your story. Well, I like the way you phrase it, you know, there is a sort of confidence giving all the history that distinguishes our family company. Sometimes the risk is to fall too much into this confidence. So we have to keep on finding challenges on a daily basis. So to make sure that we try to avoid big mistakes in this way, as you said, the history of what we consider modern barolo is very much linked to the history of Marquise de barolo. As a matter of fact, Marquise de juliette Colbert, a French noble woman that became Italian basically by marrying the last Marquis of the village of Barallo back in eighteen o six was the one that realized the potential of our winemaking region. Believe it to not prior to her arrival. So let's say in the seventeen hundreds, the wine made in Piedmont was known to be very different from what we consider modern barolo today. In fact, Thomas Jefferson used to describe the juice made from the sweet as a madeira sparkling as a champagne, yet healthier as a burrito. Wow. Fascinating. Very surprising, isn't it? Yeah. It really is. But this basically, led us to the conclusion that there was no knowledge in terms of winemaking process and fermentation process. In fact, the juice from the grapes that were collected in our land was left for a, natural fermentation, a spontaneous fermentation that started immediately after harvest. And then during for late fall and wintertime. Of course, this fermentation stopped. So because of the drop in temperatures that we still experience today, of course, eventually the juice was very stable. So for sugars, and after bottling fermentation started again. So eventually, CO2 stayed in those bottles, and that's why Thomas Jefferson described the wine as sparkling. So every bottle was very different one from the other. There was no ending about how to make this process, optimal and, consistent in time. Things change with the arrival of Juliet Colbert, that soon enough realized that a wine as they used to do in French could be made also from the biolo. So she had a seller built on the ground where finally more stable temperature indoor allowed fermentation to be carried on completely so that the final juice was finally stable. And she aged this juice. She refined it in barrels, which were introduced for the very first time in history. In the, longer region. So she named the swine Barolo, in honor of the village, where her estate was, and, where the winery was started. And this is how basically, Martin Barolo was born. So we should not confused, modern barolo in this sense with, more modern, by making approaches to the barolo wine. Yes. That's an important distinction because there is that modern traditionalist sort of argument as well, but we're really going back in history too around the time of unification. This was actually prior to that. So Prior to that. Prior to that. Became Italian. My bad. Italy did not exist as a country. Of Islam at the moment that happened only later on. So it was actually the king of Savoy that was so interested in this noble juice that Juliet Colbert was making that asked her to be able to taste some. And Juliet Colbert sent three hundred and twenty five barrels all the way to the king's court in Trent, one per day, unless the forty days of length, because she was very Catholic. So only counted the drinking days for the king. And this was prior to eighteen sixty one. Goodness me. That's a lengthy story that really links to the history of Italy itself. Now what about your family then and how did you arrive and when did you arrive? In this wonderful town in Barolo. Well, I believe that we were already there as a family in those times. We, however, starting focusing on wine later on, basically taking inspiration from what happened in the solace of Juliet Cobert, few families in Barolo started dedicating their their attention, to winemaking process. And historic wineries were born around that time in the second half of the 1800s. Around these that we family distinguished herself for the quality of their wine production, the name of the winery at that time was of course in the in Italian. In just with our aunt Casa, that started the legacy in winemaking. And only nineteen twenty nine the opportunity of continuing the legacy of Juliet Colbert, came on. We bought the state in that time because Juliet Colbert unfortunately had no children. So the winery was left to a church organization that she established herself before passing away in eighteen sixty four to manage all of her activities, including the winery. For a number of years, the church organization had a very successful management of the sellers of the Marquisis, And just in nineteen twenty nine was no longer allowed because of an update of Italian Lowe's. You have profitable activities in good transformation. So that is when our family took the opportunity of purchasing the sellers of the Marquisie de Barolo and continuing division, the Juliet Colbert had. So we moved up the road from our family's winery to the winery of the Marquisis. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp for fascinating videos covering stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond. Meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now, back to the show. Okay. So that is such an interesting story, Valentina. And as you say, six generations and very much still a family business today. Absolutely. So, my brother is today our Vivian manager, and he overlooks on all production. Together with my dad who's still very much involved in daily activities, and he's also more, involved in what our administration is. While my mom and I would be more occupies looking at the sales and, communication, marketing, hospitality. We try to keep our roles a little bit distinct. So to not overlap and not fight too much, but as in any family business, I believe, this is quite impossible. At the end, we tend to always speak one on top of the other, but always with the goal of reaching a finer result. Yes. I can imagine that. I've met, other members of your family at Opera wine and at over, different occasions. And I can imagine you have very enjoyable family dinners. We do. We're very good wine, in fact. And Yes. I bet. Well, before we move on to your award winning Barolo, let's just talk about that full range of wines from the classic wines that you are producing. Just a a quick overview, not going into too much about each one. But I'm I think it's important that our listeners know that Marquese de Barolo produces great Barolo, but also a range of wines that are so important to that classic line of Leilangue wines. Well, we do trust that this is one of our strengths. Our territory is so much diversified that they truly offer us opportunity in every corner, basically, to show a different expression of our tour with just few varieties, mostly red ones such as and a few whites, like Arnese or Moscato, we are able to offer a lot of different shades, a lot of different expressions. In fact, our grapes are very much sensitive to the differences in altitude and exposures in soil types to show different personalities according to where you plant them. So our portfolio is quite diversified we don't produce much of each specific SKU just because our land is very much scattered, and it really changes from one place to his neighbor. So we believe it's more important to show the diversity rather than just make a more large number of just one expression. So we would have a few different barbera, a barbera from alba, Barbera from Barolla, which is actually, still a, appalachian, Barbera, in this case, because we work on that vineyard with a little bit more attention, diminuishing, to yield corrector and refining the wine for longer time, we would have a Barbera Dasty. And we just came out with a mix, actually. So our state goes beyond the language. We do have properties in and in the, as well. So, again, we do have the opportunity to diversifying quite a lot. That's interesting too, Valentina, in relation to you mentioned, the storms of hail that you've had. And I guess, rather like in Burgundy, but not Bordeaux, maybe not Chianti Classic, rather than a vineyard being around a single estate, around a single property. The tradition in Barolla really is to have patches of land located in various places, which helps, for example, to diminish the risk of hail, but also gives you expressions of different terroir all around your area. I didn't know you actually had vineyards also in the Astijana and Nitsa. This is one of the news from this year. In fact, our first vintage of Nitsa is two thousand and twenty one which was just launched at the beginning of the month. So two weeks ago, very, very Oh my. I'll look forward to tasting that next time I'm over. We are excited. We are very excited. It's a small territory, the one of Nitsa, but with a lot of attention put on this beautiful variety, Barbera, which we grow locally also in Barolo, as I mentioned before, that, however, shows such a different expression with red, gray, that characterize the source of needs at a different altitude, a different microclimate. So a lot of enthusiasm for this project. Okay. Great. Well, let's turn now to Barolo. Marquesi di Barolo, really. I think we all think of your great Barolo wines. And with the same discourse on terroir, and crew, that's also been very important for you to be able to express different characteristics of particular parcels of vineyard. Now your award winning line, Sarmasa is one of these crew wines. Correct? Absolutely. Absolutely. Sarmasa is a very tiny vineyard in the town of Barolo. However, at the border with the town of La Mara, so it's quite fascinating when we talk about diversification of our territory, of our territory, we ideally picture La Mara, to be the most sandy area of, the baroque population, but this vineyard, which is just bordering, basically, neighbor to the border of, of LaMar, is one of the most compact and stony soils that we have in the town of Barolo. So Samasa offers a very mineral balsamic and, a high-antanic concentrated expression of Barolo, which is very unique and, of course, very personal to the war of Saramasa specifically. Okay. Well, it obviously impressed the judges. I was one of the judges at five star. And, of course, we don't know what wines we taste when we're undergoing this judging, but out of two thousand two hundred wines, and I'm not sure what percentage of those were read, The expert panels of tasters picked out this wine as receiving the highest points of any other red wine. So to win best red wine in this prestigious competition is a huge achievement. We are very, very excited and proud about that. My brother, especially who's, as I said, our Vineyard Manager put a lot of effort on the care, on the management of our land. So I think this award is mostly dedicated to him and to his attention together with our team in the in the venue. But the beauty of Sarmas, as I said, is very unique. We call this specific wine within our all of our offer, our fighter, because it's the vine that has to fight the most because of the conditions of the terroir being so so dry, so stony. The roots have to go a lot into deep so it it suffers, but as any suffering, the result is very much thought through. It's very much concentrated and rich. So it does give us a lot of satisfaction. And I'm glad that it's satisfied also, the palette of the judges. Speaking of suffering and vines, what about, the last few years when you've had the really intense temperatures and, you know, the effects of climate change on your area and on your particular vines? Well, in general, we are seeing a lot of challenges, especially as you said, because of the climate and the conditions, of mother nature. In the last years, we had experienced the great heat waves in big draws. In fact, we were not prepared to the rain that we received in the last months lately, but the I would say the beauty. I know it's a challenge, so don't get me wrong. I don't wanna be superficial in this. But still I think that a part of the beauty of our business is how unpredictable this is. So, you really have to be prompt to react to any situation and, again, try to take the best out of them. In the past years, we've been changing our approach to the vineyards. So to be able to face this situation, we started looking more to sustainable practices. So to deal with the heat, we let greater grassing in the vines, and we were able in those vines where, we let greater grassing to lower the temperature on the vine by ten degrees. So I was surprised as well is, but again, I'm not the technician in the family, but still everything is done in a very full, way so to be able to achieve greater and greater results. We started practicing some years ago, a technical solution, which implies the co seeding of different plans within the within the lines of device so to allow more, oxygenation of the of the soil, and, again, to be able to manage temperatures and to break the ground. So if we have draws, the very little water that comes can still go immediately all the way down and does not stay only on the surface, but it reaches the bottom where the roots can easily access it. So, again, it's all a matter of testing, seeing result, tasting the result, and then implement with more focus. We have been investing in, meteorological stations within our vineyards. So to be able to intervene in a very specific way without wasting time, without wasting treatments or being more specific with the tension that that specific vineyard needs in that specific time. So also to go less in the field. So to be able to not press too much the soil, and again, allow greater oxygenation and, and watering of the bottom of the vine. No. I think I think that's very clear. And and when you do have those big downpours, if you don't do that, then the water just runs off the vineyards, especially the steep vineyards. So I can understand how what you're doing is really helping you need to retain every drop of moisture in these times. Don't you? Absolutely. Because otherwise, very unfortunate situations would occur. As you said, we don't have slow rain anymore, but water bombs it. Yeah. And there is not the opportunity for the soil to to embrace all of that water. Usually, it creates floating. So we don't want that to happen, but rather we prefer the water, of course. To go all the way down to the bottom of the vineyard. So is that little attentions that can make a very big impact? Sure. Sure. And can result in a great range of wines, a range of wines that, I think, above all, are wines that are meant to be at the table, to be meant to be enjoyed with food. Now I'd like to turn to hospitality at Marques de Barola because I know That's an important part of the business. And our listeners like to travel, like to visit, and visit the people that we've been talking to. And I know that they're very welcome at marchesi De Barolo, and you in fact have a very good restaurant. So really, Valentin, I'd like to know last time we were talking about winter foods. It was a season of white truffles, Brazato, and bolito, and and hearty foods for cold temperatures. But now we're in summer. Tell us what you're eating at home in the restaurant. What are some of the classic dishes of Leilenge that pair well with your wines? Well, we could stay other hours speaking about this. Our tradition as in any region in Italy, actually, is very rich, in terms of what possible pairings and, and, traditional recipes are. I will just tell you that when my mom and dad got married, in, four years ago, they had twenty antipastas. Oh my. It's just wonderful. But in general, in a season like this one, our classic totsa, which is very fresh made with our persona, which is a special breed super leaner that it's great to have just with a little olive oil and, pepper salt, and that's it. You don't really have to add too much to it. What wine goes best with Well, here we can play. We can start with Ernest, typical variety from Rio, which lately is having more and more appreciation because of the great structure that Ernest has combined with the great salinity, the deminerality of the soil office, from that region. It's perfect. I would say that a little chilled would be absolutely delicious with them with it, but even Barbara. I mean, it's or, we are very creative in payments. I mean, stainless soil from sandy soils, perhaps the ones of Rioo could be a beautiful match. Okay. And what about the pre mipiatti in the summer? Maybe I would go with a more delicate tierina either just with butter and sage or with some rabbit ragu, which is more delicate than the than the red ragu. Again, lungine biola perfect. Barbara perfect with we're more delicate, Tyrina, and as a main course, I will probably go on, I'm not sure because, of course, we don't wanna have Brazato, but rabbit, is a is a great opportunity. Maybe I would have it with a Barbaresco, Barbaresco, which is a little bit more fresh, compared to Barolo, or with a single vineyard Barolo from very sandy soils, which is right in the town of Barolo, but, however, shows the such lightness and the brightness because of the loose soil that distinguishes it. Okay. Well, that all sounds absolutely fabulous. And I love your descriptions of the pairings. And how they go well with particular dishes. So I look forward to trying some of these dishes with you one day Valentina. That's the best way to do it. It's very, sharing. Yes. I would urge our listeners as well to visit Barolo itself. We know Barolo the name from the wine, but also this small, wonderful town of Barolo itself, wherein you're right in the heart of that. Well, Barolo is only a six hundred people village that yet is known all over the world because of the great wines that we make, because of how Marquis Juliet was able to pin it on a map. So we just look forward for people to come and discover more about our town, about the history. And, of course, about our beautiful, wise and to war expression. Well, Valentina, it's been a really great to hook up with you again here and have a chat and learn more about the history and your family and the great wines that you're producing. Congratulations again for this magnificent award, and I look forward to seeing you again sometime soon. Me too. Hopefully, in front of a nice addition, the beautiful glass the wine. That's wonderful. I look forward to it. Thank you, man. And thank you to everyone. Ciao. We hope you enjoy 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 pods. Likewise, you can visit us at Italianwine podcast dot com. Until next time.