Ep. 1585 Ben Little | Wine, Food & Travel With Marc Millon

Since two thousand and seventeen, the Italian wine podcast has exploded. Recently hitting six million listens support us by buying a copy of Italian wine unplugged two point o or making a small donation. In return, we'll give you the chance to nominate a guest and even win lunch with Steven Kim and Professor Atilio Shenza. Find out more at Italian One podcast dot com. Welcome to wine food and travel. With me, Mark Billen, 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 will 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. I'm delighted to travel to frijou Levina, Julia this morning, to meet my guest, Ben Little. Originally from Dublin, author, blogger, multimedia artist and poet who has written an extraordinary book, unlike any wine book I've ever encountered, Pignolo cultivating the invisible. Ben, thanks so much for being my guest this morning. Where are you and how are you? Good morning, Mark. And, many thanks for the for the invite. Pleasure to be here. I'm in, the Caliore in Talli del friuli, as we speak, just in the northernmost part, in a town called Tarcento. And that's your home, Ben, is it? Yes. Currently, it is. Okay. And is it a nice day there today? Well, you know, it's a little bit, a little bit overcast. The weather is, is quite changeable at the moment. We did have we did have a good week, at the beginning of September, and it augured well for the, the white grape harvest. But, you know, again, the reds won't probably start to come in for another week or so, but, but, yeah, it's it's okay. It's It's a very critical time. Yeah. Yep. Ben, before we dive into the world, the extraordinary world of Pignolò, tell me a bit about yourself, how you came to live in Frulivenezia, Julia, and how how you came to be involved obsessed maybe is a better word with, the world of wine and with, in particular, world of Pignola, which we'll, of course, talk more about. Well, you know, the there there's one word that basically links everything links all those questions and it's love. So, I met my now wife in Dublin, in nineteen ninety seven, and, made a first trip to to friuli. She her her father is, a Freolana, her mother's Irish, and, and she happened to be working in Dublin at the time. And we met in a in a wine bar, Dublin's only wine bar at that time. Lakav. And in nineteen ninety eight, I I came to Frioli Venezia, Julia, for the first time. And, it was quite a I I would say a spiritual encounter, fell in love as much with her, Lucia, as, as I did with the with the feeling that I discovered that I, you know, dove into in the the region. Quite, quite a remarkable experience. Well, that's amazing. Actually, it's not entirely unlike my story. I live in in Devon, in the UK, but I met my wife when I was nineteen years old when I came over to study for a year. Yeah. And I'm still here now. We're still here now. So. Good for you. Long time ago. Yeah. So so love is a very powerful motive, and I know love is part of the story of Pinyolo. Well, it's the motive. It's the motivation for so many things that go so deep that have such rich value. And that's why it features so heavily in in Pignolo's story. Yes. So how did you begin? What what were you doing in Dublin? And how did you what did you begin doing when you moved to Frioli? It's a big change, culturally. It's an area I can see well why you fell in love with the area as much as with Lucia. I was in for yearly myself in June, and it's an area I always love traveling to. Yeah. You know, work has always continued. So my links with Ireland are are still very strong, obviously, with, quite a large family and, friends and so on, and work also. So I found myself, let's say commuting between friuli and and Dublin, maintaining all things alive. My my connection with wine, you know, developed as a kind of a a pastime, a passion is is a great word to use because that's what it became. And it's funny it all started when I was working for a mineral water company in Ireland. So the irony, if you call it, that is that somehow I I managed to change water into wine Because I was equally passionate about water for about five years. And and it was water that introduced me to wine, and and ever since then. So arriving in friuli in nineteen ninety eight, I remember the first dinner that I had with my then sort of unknown to be new in laws. And my father-in-law Romano during that that very first meal on a on a July evening placed a number of bottles of wine on the table that we drank. And and I thought I knew something about wine from that previous working experience with wine merchants in Dublin. And, but I didn't recognize any of these names, and I found myself asking, well, you know, this is these are wonderfully structured wines. I mean, is this a blend of Cabernet sauvignon and, Merlo, and, and he looked at me aghast and, you know, telling me that the wine that you're drinking is Rifolsco. And it's an it's a native grape to hear. And then the wine that you're drinking now is Escio Petino, and that's a native, and I was and I was just flabbergasted. I had no idea of the existence of the this other world, almost like a parallel universe. So I I literally fell in love with the whole idea of native grapes. When I came here, it was it was like a magnet. I was just drawn to them, drawn to the the the culture that surrounded them and, and started working, you know, on my own bat, just just to learn more to understand what it was all about. Sure. And I can well understand that infatuation and excitement that comes from discovering it Italy's wealth of Native grapes, not just in Frullia, but in every single one of Italy's twenty regions. It's one of the most richly appealing parts of why why Italian mine is is is what it is. Yeah. In fact, infatuation is such a beautiful word to use because it it, in fact, became that. And people had started to say to me friends back home, said, you know, why don't you you I mean, you should be writing about this. You should be you know, doing something, you're you're putting so much time into it. And from that then was born, what was my blog, what is my blog, the native grapes, the native grapes dot com. So I just started writing and started, you know, publishing my finds. By discoveries. And then at at some point, you decided that this is this is, actually more than a blog. This is a book that is revealing a whole universe let me first say to our listeners that Pignolo cultivating the invisible is quite unlike any wine book I've ever encountered. Perhaps unlike any book at all that I've I've ever encountered, it's striking verbally as it is visually, and it centers around a single grape variety, and, Ben, I wanna just give our listeners a teaser from act one to gain a sense of your voice, which is so strong throughout throughout this, remarkable book. This is from act one. The part of life entitled what happens next is the elusive mystery that holds us in perpetual suspense. Though we might feel in control of everything, are we really? Far from my wildest imaginations, an encounter with Pignolu sprang to life morphing into a fantastically bizarre undertaking. A madness such as this usually affects other people. It never happens to us until it does. In the depths of my ignorance, Pignolo fished close to my emotional seabed, it got me trawling for meaning. It got me digging for me. So I think this this small snippet from act one then really shows clearly how This word infatuation is completely apt to this extraordinary word that you've created. It is an infatuation about an obscure grape variety that many will never have heard of let alone taste. You've produced a book of more than four hundred pages about Pignolo. So I have to ask you. I have to ask you. There are other native grape varieties the whites for Yulana. Wonderful in their own right. But is different. Piola captured you. Why? Yeah. Well, in fact, that was it was beautiful to hear your voice, and hear you reading it, actually, I was feeling quite emotional, as I was hearing it back to me because it very much was the voice that the voice in my head. I could have technically picked anything of about twenty different native grape varieties from the the, let's say, the, the, the river, the wealth that is, native grapes in three, Julie. And people have asked me, you know, why Pignola, and I would have given in those first sort of two years or so of my research because I started in the spring of twenty sixteen. And, you know, my background, my my study background from university was I studied economics in Trinity College. And I and, obviously, and I'd worked in in the commercial world for nigh on thirty years. So it was a question of, I guess economics absurdly told me, you know, what I should do. And I did consider the others I mean, skip a tino, they and and they had an association, and I was thinking, you know, well, they're they're, you know, they've got something going from them. Rifolsco, there's loads of producers doing that, and that's got something going for it. And in the end, you know, it was it was almost like in the in a in a room, in the shadow, in the corner of the room, you know, stood the, the presence of, Pignolo, and it just was looking at me. And it's a looming presence, isn't it Ben? It's a It's a it is. Yeah. It's an extraordinary line. And and the the other, you know, word that she that that was contained in that little a passage that, you you read and it and it features in the book is fishing, and actually fished because I I realized, I guess, after about three years of constant, study that, I didn't choose pinolo pinolo chose me and to become this, let's say, this body of of empowerment, not for me, but for, Pignola's custodians, the winemakers, those who are, following us, those who have been fished. So there's a point in the book where where I describe Pignola as the fisher of women and men. And it's it's an amazing thing, and it's something that all lovers of Pignola have in common is, that sense that they were fished from, you know, from this pool of humanity. And, all two Pignola lovers have this amazing, let's say sense and spirituality, that connects them. Yes. I think I can understand what you mean. It's a it's a wine that is difficult, that is challenging. And yet for those who love it and I do love it, it's a wine you feel very glad to be in love with. Now you mentioned love in this story as well. You say that for producers of Pignolo, it's often a choice. It's a choice in life at a lot of levels, but for for Pignolo, it's a choice between love and money. Pignolo people choose love. So in essence, this entire book, you said you're you're relation with free or leave an eight day duty and came through love. And your love affair is displayed in this book. It's a love story of a grape, but it's also a love story of the entire region. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, and there may be, let's say cynical views that might suggest, I'm being overly sentimental, but when it comes down to it, as I contend with with humanity, we we left the evolutionary path two hundred. Let's say two hundred and sixty, two hundred sixty three years ago when the industrial revolution brought us down what I call the developmental path And so that today, we as humans, we make choices. We don't people speak about human nature, but in fact, we've we abandoned our our nature as humans, many, many, many years ago. So we we we make choices and to to help the reader, you know, and the curious wine adventurer, find, the way to the pineal path I I felt it was important to, you know, not simplify because it's it's not a simplification, but it's to it it makes it a clear there's a delineation between what we do and why we do it and the choices that we make And there is no commercial reason, no economic reason to produce Pignolow. Therefore, by default, those producers who do produce it are producing it for love Yes. Yes. I can certainly understand that. And and I think then that's the case with a lot of Italy's wealth and plethora of wonderful, wonderful native grape varieties. A few have heard of, and which makes them very difficult to sell certainly beyond the locality, even within Italy, but people continue to cultivate and grow these magnificent grape varieties because they have done them because they love it. They love that those wines. Yeah. And and that's and this is what's very important, with this discussion because, you know, Pignola's story is, as you say, replicated, all over the peninsula. Mean, it's incredible. Italy's wealth. Genetics wealth is is incredible when one one speaks about Venus Finifera. But when we when we speak about economics, and and the economy of wine, clearly pinola doesn't fit in that world. So it's very much, in a parallel world, a parallel universe where the the values that are held are entirely different. And Unfortunately, one could say that today, we are we are so governed by numbers, and numbers that are pushed at high velocity that we tend to overlook you know, the wealth that we the the evolutionary wealth that has been bestowed, upon the planet. And, us as the humans who are, you know, let's say amongst the the most evolved species, and it's our role to, to protect that, and to ensure that, you know, the evolutionary path continues. The developmental world has a tarmac over, what they call in in Italy or certainly in Frioli, the Strada Bianca, which is the this is the unbeaten path, the unbeaten evolutionary path. And what what we have to do and what Pignolo is is teaching us as our teacher are are these evolutionary lessons, and that we should not, you know, discard what it is the the the wealth that we have been bestowed with just for a quick fix, a quick book. Yes. And it's important out of that, Ben, to, you tell the story of how I love the way you begin first of all with the with the historic overview of the region itself. But when you were looking at the story of Pignol itself, it's a grape that was very, very close to, extinction. And you tell the story of, girolamo Dorrigo and the noninos, John Olin Benito, and how they helped to actually safeguard a a magnificent grape that would otherwise have been lost. Yeah. I mean, that's a beautiful part of the story and and even more beautiful when I think that that earlier this year in May, we lost Gerolamo, but the work that he did, the pioneering work that he did, means that we have this, not only a story allegend to share, but, we actually have a wealth, of amazing wines. And and, yeah, it's it's amazing to think. And I and I wrote about that, in terms of nineteen sixty nine, and you know, man landing on the moon in July, while at that very moment, Gerolamo was put putting up the up the hill to the Abi in Rosatso to speak with moncignon Adelouti because that's where, let's say, the the modern story, the modern history of of, Pignolo resides is in that area. I love the way you liken it to, equally giant step for mankind, those steps up to the Abbey. Yeah. No. It I mean, well, it was. You know, you know, it's kind of a parable in a way. It's almost like a parable of our times. And and I love this sense of Pignolo being one amongst many. You could say even amongst a thousand teachers and that and that we now as the taught because this, you know, that that together with the teacher, the we are we have become the teaching, and it is for us to to share this. It's kind of it's it's almost biblical in a way. I didn't I didn't realize exactly where I was going because even to go back a couple of steps, I had no intention to to write a book. I had no intention for this to get anywhere close to what it has since become. But in fact, the the wonderful thing about it is is that, yeah, following Pignolo, along that evolutionary path. This this whole thing evolved into, this massive project. I had no idea. The whole thing of visibility was that in, in twenty sixteen, Google could only see fifteen producers. And I so I did all my research in the in the in the beginning, you know, in the English language. I wanted to see what, you know, the world could see of Pignola. So I found fifteen names, and I started with that. And little did I know when I asked those fifteen producers, well, how many of you are there? They said, well, you know, maximum twenty, twenty five. When my own, I so I I so I had I had these fifteen names. Okay. So that means I only have to find another ten. This was going to be just a couple of posts on the blog. Maybe I would do a tasting. You know, I wanted to do something for my new home region, my new home on planet earth, and, and I couldn't. There was just no idea of what was going to happen next, and it just It just took over took over my life. Yes. I can see that. Ben, Ben, give us in a few words for those of our listeners who have never tasted pinolos, describe the wine to us what makes it such a singular wine. Describe Pignola. I know there are many different styles, there are sub zones, but what is Pignola the wine to you? Well, I I'll tell you that there is there is actually a short answer, for this which then can become a very long answer. But it was actually a question that I received from Laura Feluga, who's the daughter of Andrea niece of Felipa, when I I was surprised in the summer of twenty nineteen at Tasting. And at the end, she had I I believe she had just come back from America. She speaks wonderful English, and, we did this wonderful barrel tasting from the vintages fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and eighteen. And no one else on the planet has tasted them apart from me and the falluga family. And, she said to me, Ben, in three words, what is Pignola? What does it mean to you? And at that point, I'd written over a hundred thousand words, on this book, and I thought, god, you want three. And so the book actually contains my reply to her. And to sum up Pignolo in three words, I would call it, instinct empathy and flow. And when you taste pinolo, they're the intrinsic characteristics that you're looking for. It's it is a very instinctive wine that bears the instinctive creative hallmarks of of each of its producers. And as you say, there are, different, stylized varieties because there there was no book. There was no recipe on how to make a pinola, and it has this wealth of this polyphenolic wealth, that so many would initially feel themselves, wanting to to, let's say, to dominate, gotta gotta get these tannins particularly because I think together with Sanrentino, I know Ian daggett would say that, you know, these are the two most tannic grapes. Great, red, great varieties in, in Italy, and that it's it's a case of domination, and how do you get those under control? The amazing thing about pinolos, actually, you don't need to. I referred to this that it is not a panic bomb in need of disarming and dismantling. It needs to be understood. And it needs time. It needs time and and patience, and a and a and a and a balanced approach And these things, if we go back to Jiralamo, I remember my first meeting with him, and, we were talking about the magic of Pignola and how he discovered it, in the fifteenth season the fifteenth vintage after he had planted. He he noted first and foremost, change of behavior of the vines in the vineyard. And when he tasted the wine, he realized, hang on a second. This is just that it it has found its own own balance. It it hasn't reached a point of maturity. And so as as I say, the the Pinenovine is is almost human like, in terms of its behavior and just like us, you know, we do need to go through and get to the other side of our teenage years before, we reach a a kind of point of maturity whereby we we we discover a balance within ourselves. Which has always been there. And so patience is something that that's hugely important. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, as a as a wine and you find this in the wines also, So the, you know, the keys, for for Penolo, both in the vineyard and in the cellar, are patience, and balance and having that maturity. And it's something that you know, really comes across in the wines. When I started in twenty sixteen, that vintage twenty sixteen is slowly but surely, arriving in the the marketplace. Depending on the each winery's path to release. Some will will are are on a kind of three to five year, salary practice, and others are between five and ten years. And then others again are beyond ten years. Some an an amazing discovery in in a white wine, predominantly white wine making region to discover, a cluster of, more than a cluster of, producers, releasing their pinola after ten to fifteen years, which is a very rare thing. Yes. That is incredible. Absolutely. Yeah. Because there's no return on on your efforts until those ten years. Exactly. So it's, but this is so this is something that Pignol is doing all along the way instinctively. Those producers that that that discover that empathy, between themselves, and the vine, and between themselves and the wine, the fruit that then turns into a creative flow. And they are demonstrating these custodians demonstrating incredible creativity. And so did that as you as you referred in your in your question, at the beginning, you know, there are many styles and that are in some way related to the areas where the wines are produced. So around chivotala del friuli where you find Mikale Mosquioni, you will you will find also the likes of Paulo Rodaro. The Zorzetik family, and where a little bit of Surma Torazione air drying the grapes? On the vine or on the on after harvest. Here's the funny thing. Because of because of the nature of Frioli's climate and or historical climate. You know, it has been considered that, difficult to mature black grapes for making red wines. And so one thing that michele Mosquione, pioneered was this, from his time when he worked with the couple stashes with, Quintarelli and, Delforno, in Veneto to amazing amorone producers. This this idea of, drying the grapes off the vine, and he started that in order to, reach maturity and phenolic maturity for, Pignola, as Mikaela says, it is, it it is the universe, for Pignola. You, you have to reach that. That's really interesting because, Amarone, of course, has that gentleness that is quite the opposite to a very, very panic, panic wine. And perhaps, Arapasimento helps to give that slightly rounder, rounding of of of of the angular edges. Yeah. Well, I mean, the the the let's say the potency of the tannins are found in the seeds. So if the seeds are not mature and depending on how the the winemaker will craft, his pinolos. You've gotta be very careful with punch downs and pumpovers, you know, how you work the wines because if you extract those very green potent talons, it will be almost impossible for them, to knit even with a lengthy evolution. Yes. I guess that's the problem with climate change when the sugar levels reach such a high degree before phenomic whiteness is. Has been achieved. Absolutely. A wonderful thing happened in twenty eighteen, when, I visited Mikele, Mosquione in the vineyard and a couple of days later, when he harvested and it was the first time that he picked and fermented his pinolos straight away because twenty eighteen was a wonderful vintage, beautifully balanced. It was like an escalator. You know, working its way, up to harvest time. It was dry. It was it was just perfect in every way. And I think it it will be seen in in years to come as one of the let's say, one of the first modern, great red vintages of Freele Venezia, Julia. Twenty sixteen twenty sixteen being for me the first, but in twenty eighteen, Mosquione picked and fermented straight away. That's the pinolos that I want to taste. He didn't dry those grapes. Everything happened in the vineyard, and that's what it was. Made us all want to taste that pinolos and many others. I I I love the way you're talking about the creativity of the producers, the growers, and then in the winemaking process. But I'd like to return to finish up on the book because we're running out of time here. Yeah. And and you you've been given us in this short, conversation such a insight into a universe of Pignolò, and I think that comes through in this four hundred page book, which is not simply, a book of text, but as I said, it contains, your own photographs, illustrations, artwork, and it's really is a work of art in itself, an object in itself. I've only seen an electronic copy, and I'm eager to get my hands on a physical copy. Oh, wait. Did you get that? Did did you did you, were you involved in all the aspects, the design, the layout, the choice of illustrations because as I say, it's unlike any wine book I've ever seen myself, and I and I loved it for the short time I've been able to look at it. Yeah. Everything. Absolutely. Everything. So if you look at the, producer profiles at the end, so there's sixty five, profiles of each of the wineries, each of the producers. And there you will see there's a, there's a, an artistic presentation, a portrait, which I painted. You know, each of those portraits is a meter by seventy centimeters. So it's rather large, canvas. And, I painted sixty five of them. So in in fact, it it is a Guinness World record even though they don't they don't they don't know about it yet. But each of the because they're strangely painted, I chopped people's heads in half to allow me create this kind of puzzle whereby if I place each one of those paintings on the ground and place another one beside it, the the one half of one person's head joining it, the half of another. It becomes it becomes a new face, an identity. And, and it it it brings into discussion the whole topic of face value and how we recognize, things and how all of a sudden you can go from invisibility to visibility. So it's actually it's a single portrait made of sixty five at separate pieces, which measures sixty five meters by seventy centimeters. Wow. That's incredible. Ben, How can our listeners get a hold of a copy of your book? Well, there is, being such a limited edition, there is there is one, and one only, outlet online but it can be, sourced online through the website of Simon Wolf, the morningclaret dot com, and he is the exclusive, seller of the book, online. And, yeah, it we we can we can ship it all around the world. It has already reached every single continent. How many copies did you produce? Produced one thousand five hundred copies. And in fact, we're almost sold out. It has been it's been an an incredible success. As you say, born out of not just the, the creative content, so in terms of the literary content and the, the illustrative content, but in terms of the actual structure of the book itself, the book was, I developed it as a as a homage to books, everything down to, the kettle stitching. And I was extremely fortunate at that time to have the services of a wonderful graphic designer, Karen Mazzaro, and also Simon Simon Wolf, well known to many in the world of natural wines. Simon was my editor of text He suffered through the four hundred and thirty two pages. And and as I say, with these with these and and with so many other people, you know, the book was a hundred percent made in in Freulevenetia, Julia. I you know, I had options in terms of printing, but, I printed it, with the, the printing company, Grafmann, which a stone's throw almost from the Abbey in Rosazzo in Monsanto because it because it was important that it it, reflected that. And I, and I think when people, have the book in hand and they opened it up, you know, I would say that it has the the the the It has that, the smell of a book and, in in in instead of this, you know, the Saditapo, which would be the court. It has it is this it has the Saudi Libro. So the the touch of the paper, the turning of the pages, it it's created a wonderful experience in itself. And so Yes. As I say, amazingly fortunate to have been the pinolo put me on the path with with so many wonderfully outstanding people. So the from the winemakers themselves, their creative input, yeah. I I was truly blessed. Well, it's an absolutely fascinating project. It's fascinating homage to a fascinating grape. Ben, I've so much and enjoyed speaking to you today. Thanks for being my guest. It's been a fascinating conversation about Pignola, but about what life means to you through that wine. So I'm really hope that our listeners will both find a way to sample and also find a way to order your book. I'm gonna be placing my order as soon as we finish this conversation. So good luck with the second edition, and all the best for now. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark. It's been a wonderful, pleasure to share the morning with you and and chat like this. Hopefully, we'll have another chance soon. Yeah. So hopefully in person, then. 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 pods. Likewise, you can visit us at Italian wine podcast dot com. Until next time.