Ep. 1656 Jacopo Maniaci | Wine, Food & Travel With Marc Millon

The Italian wine podcast is the community driven platform for Italian winegeeks around the world. Support the show by donating at italian wine podcast dot com. Donate five or more Euros, and we'll send you a copy of our latest book, my Italian Great Geek journal. Absolutely free. To get your free copy of my Italian GreatGeek journal, click support us at italian wine podcast dot com, or wherever you get your pods. 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 Mine, podcast. Today, it's my great pleasure to travel to Mount Aetna in Sicily to meet Yacobo Manayachi, the CEO of Tanuta difficina. Welcome Yacobo. Thank you so much for being my guest today. How are you? A very good. Thanks. It's a pleasure to being hosted by you to the Italian wine podcast. So, but, yeah, be very glad. Good. Well, you're on Mount Aetna right now. Most active volcano. Is manjibelo quiet today, or is it erupting? It's it's a I'm gonna say that it's, not as noisy as usual. Yesterday night, actually, I was walking around Randatsu, which is a beautiful medieval town, not so far from, where I live here at the winery, and, it was cranky and noisy. It sounded a little bit like fireworks during the night, but this morning is very, very quiet. This is a quiet year compared to, like, twenty one or twenty where we had, like, I don't know, seventy plus set options. This is a quiet tier for us, I would say. I was on Mount Aetna actually in twenty twenty one during those eruptions, and it was quite incredible. We were actually in Tarmina after we came off Aetna, and Aetna was erupting, and we were getting the rain of the black grit even in Tarmina, which is quite a distance away. I think there was an inch or two on the ground. So it was a very active year, that year. But it also, I think, you know, for anybody that visits Mount Aetna, it really shows the unique challenge of growing grapes on a volcano and making wine under these conditions because it's a constant. Something that's always can happen at any moment, isn't it? Absolutely. And then you know what? I have the opportunity and it's a gift actually to make wines all around the three different slopes of Mount Aetna because you have to imagine that the DOC appylation nowadays goes around the volcano like in horseshoe. So it's going north, east and southwest. Like almost an half moon shape. And, depending on the wind, you can get ash rain more or less everywhere. So usually, the most dramatic area, it's the east because it's the middle area, which is a beautiful place to make wine because you are hidden below the southern East crater, but you are also facing the Yonic sea. So it's a land full of contrast and beauty where the wines are influenced both by the sea and the volcanic conditions. And the volcanic soils, but it's actually so close to the volcano. Then then we have an and a major eruption. Everything gets completely covered. So talking about, like, memories probably my biggest loss was on the East in two thousand and twenty and twenty one. You know, when you have a major adoption, it's not just hash. You can have, like, small stones and lapidly flying in the air, and they are, like, you know, they can damage cars and windows and, of course, bunches of grapes. So I'm gonna say that probably my worst memories are on the eastern side, even though I witnessed major ashtrains even on the north, it's very annoying at the winery because we have to clean everything, you know. I can imagine. I can imagine. Besides Vineier, the old, you know, the whole structure was few times completely covered by hash. So, you know, it's it's, We wouldn't be here without the volcano. So it's part of the job. Well, that is very interesting because as you say, it is a fact of life on on Aetna, but yet Aetna is one of Italy's most ancient winelands in Homer's Odyssey, the cyclops polyphemus speaks about his vines growing on the slopes of Aetna. And it's quite probable that grapes have been grown on these volcanic slopes for maybe three thousand years. Yet the story of modern Aetna wines is much more recent. The renaissance of wines made from grapes grown on the volcano. Antinuto difficina's part of that. Story. So tell us about the tenuta de Fesina project. First of all, it's very interesting what you said before because you have to imagine that the renaissance of Mount Aetna, it's literally on its probably first or second generation. Everything started around two thousand and to two thousand and three, and we were born in two thousand and seven. But besides that, the story of making wines in Sicily and specifically among ethnmates incredibly old, you have to imagine that the real technologically skilled winemaking started around the sixth century before Christ. When Greeks came to the island for the first time, they introduced pruning, like, you know, I'm not gonna say modern, but the advanced way of making wine with bush wines and that kind of agronomical system and manageings and, it's from the Greeks, and they also created the first winemaking area, which is called Palmento, today, and it has been introduced by Greeks as well. And it's a beautiful press, fermenting, area, all made, and carbon, lava stone. It's fantastic. But even before Greeks, probably, we have four sides dating back to the fourth or fifth century before Christ. So it's one of the most ancient territories all around Europe besides Lebanon, you know, the cradle of VITis Winifera, which is modern Middle East. And it's very important to talk about this kind of connection because the project of tender Difecina was born back in two thousand and seven from a Tuscan winemaker, Sylvia, Australia. I joined the company in two thousand and fourteen before as winery manager, and today as a associate and CEO, but she started in two thousand and seven. And, I'm gonna say that probably the beginning of this company was a nightmare because Sylvia by herself with his husband, Roberto, both the estate, which at the time was five actors. Today, it's in between renting and and properties around sixteen actors, but, she bought five actors from fourteen different owners, and they were all sicilian, all relatives. And altogether. So as you can imagine the deal was unbelievable. Really, forty days at the lawyer office, it was it was horrible. Would that have been then very, very small growers that were continuing to make wine in their palmetto's themselves or on a small scale? Absolutely. The estate itself, it's a beautiful palmetto from the seventeenth century, mainly made in lava on and basalt and concrete, and the winery was actually born in the seventeenth century in order to gather on all those different small, tiny producers and farmers and make mainly bulk wine. You have to imagine that at the time, probably the expansion of Aetna was Aetna. Vines was immense compared to what Aetna is today. We have books. Like, I can suggest you actually a beautiful book by domenico Sestini he wrote it in seventeen sixty. It's called memories about cesarean wines or memories within in Siceriana and Italian. And the the extension of vines was almost toward Catania. So you have to imagine that probably the dimension was hundred thousand actors compared to the thousand actors of nowadays. So the whole economy was making bulk wine. Wow. And that's why, actually, you have been on the volcano. So you saw the railroads of the Cheerco matinee, which is still today, but they build it up in eighteen ninety four was a small small train that was circuit still, circuit navigating the volcano, and it's passing through all the ancient wineries And in fact, it's literally in front of the estate still today because the train was build up in order to being filled with wine bottles, and it was here navigating the volcano and going down to the coast. To repost to Herbert just in order to, you know, commercialize the bottles. And people will never admit it, probably remember the or remember all over. I don't know, you know, in the in the excellent service, but probably there is some mixed up in all vintages of all those wines, but not just wine, wines from the south side of Italy, because the south side of Italy was like a lung, you know, a sort of, core for bulk wine production at that time, but both lead wine is recent, even here, as I was saying before, two thousand and two, two thousand and three, it's the first moment where we can start to talk about high quality and fine wines amount there. Now those small growers that sold the vineyards to Fasina, presumably, the vines themselves were very ancient which is another reason why the wines being made on Aetna can be such high quality. Absolutely. So you have to imagine that, we almost lost or spanned, I don't know how to say it, but seven years in order to date back and track back all the different DNAs and ages of our binds here at the estate, they gave us when we made the deal just a single document, and it was dating back nineteen thirty two, but even walking into the vineyard, it was very clear since the beginning that the vineyard was not all from nineteen thirty two, and of course was not all because they just planted and grafted and propagated vines for years and years without any document or registration. So we spent many, many years with many collaborators, including the agronomical Office of Montetran. I have have rocotere filletis. Several people helped us. All professionals just in order to date back this vineyard, which is a gift. It's like a museum for us. You have to imagine that we have vines in between. Of course, I do replant and graft every year new vines, but talking about the original vineyard, we have vines from, let's say, sixty to hundred and thirty, hundred and forty years old. I try to do not make samples for ages, for dating back the age because you have to imagine that it's very invasive. You have take samples out of the roots. I don't really want to disturb the environment or the vines, but we do have really, really old vines and at least, three, four percent of the vines at the estate, which, which is all bush wines and all manual labor. You have to imagine that because of the the composition of the vineyard, which is very narrow and very dense. We have like nine thousand bush wines per hectare, which is quite crazy. We do have a thousand and a hundred hour of manual labor per hectare per year, and we have seventeen actors right now. So average more than seventeen thousand hours of manual activity per actor per year. All the managements are made by hand. I don't have any machinery in the vineyard. And I was saying that two or three percent is pre Filoxera here at the state because Mount Atton is one of the few places in Europe that completely avoided Filoxera disease, and this is mainly because of altitude and soil composition. The past is not really able to survive in this kind of environment. Actually, all the places that avoided Filoxera are not so far from active volcanoes, active or extinct at volcanoes. 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. That's incredible. Now, Yakaboy, you described as well how Fessina has vineyards on the north, on the east, and on the southwest. And so I want our listeners to imagine this broad volcano and the different faces of it. Now those different slopes, those different contrade produce or are better for certain types of wine than the others. Can you explain, for example, what are the wines that come from each of these areas? So the contrada concept, it's something really ancient, which has been created by farmers. But today is a major thing here on Mount Atrada. It's usually a specific area. And historically, it was enclosed in between, dry level of quals with a specific vineyard on it that it's special because of the altitude, the soil, the human heritage, the location, and the soil composition, and many, many things. So when you read contrada on a label. It's more or less reading claw on a French wine, more or less very similar concept. So it's a single vineyard. Mount detonates hyper hyper fragmented in soil composition and rations. You know, probably the biggest challenge for all of us as a producer, the biggest challenge for me is to deal and understand with the soil composition, even before thinking about winemaking, I collaborated again with a friend of mine, which is also a geologist pallop and easy for many, many different things, but, I actually discovered a doubt to produce different wines just recently around two thousand and sixteen or seventeen. Or, actually, no. I wasn't already aware, but I just understood better the idea of making difference winds in the same place because it really cleared up to me how was the soil composition here at this state. And just imagine if in a single state is nine hectares. We have two or three different soils. Just imagine how many different soils and variations of texture and lava flows and eruptions we do have around the whole volcano. So I have the chance to producing wines east, north and southwest, and you have to think that the east, again, it's the only place, first of all, the commune, the municipality of Milo, where you can produce which must be at least eighty percent of caricante grapes, which is the indigenous, and most imports, like the first or all act or white grape variety here on the bouquet. This is incredible because you are hidden below the southern East crater, which is Foggy and cloudy and misty and it's erupting and it's a mystic somehow. And in front of you, you are like walking into this beautiful vineyard that, like, nine hundred meters of altitude And just in front of you, you have the Yonic C, which is infinite and immense. So it's land full of contrast and beauty, but at the same time it's very rigid, climatically talking, and then cold and super rainy because it's the rainiest place all around the Sicily, not just all around Monter. And it's because of this contrast, you know, you have hot winds from Africa, like Morocco, raising up from the southwest and the cold conditions of the volcano. And we have this crushing moment, and suddenly we have rainfalls. And hailstorms and frosts and and so on and so on. So making wine in milo to me it's unbelievable. It's beautiful. At the same time, I have the gift of making a caricante again on the southwest probably the most important and iconic wine of the estate. It's called Apudara. It's produced on the Southwest, which is, again, unique place because you are facing the inner part of the island, the piano at the end, So we are not facing the sea anymore, much more protection and, you know, mild climatic conditions, but we are raising up in altitude to to at least a thousand meters, which is the end of the DUC appylation. The border. It's over there. So we are growing up in verticality and then freshness and sharpness, also in texture and body because you have to imagine that the Biancaville, Santa Maria Delico de area, which are the last two municipalities of the DUC operation. Are actually laying on the most ancient so it's of Montetras. You have to know that the Moonji Bell or the new Montetras, it's six hundred thousand years old, but the soil of Biancavilla and Santa Maria goes back to Kretasius or premium c in era. So we are dating back to millions of years, and the soil is a little bit mixed up. That there is not just volcanic sand and basalt and iron oxide and silicates on it. So volcanic elements You have also a little bit of limestone and clay. So the white wines are always a little bit more textury and with more muscles and body and richness and brightness. And third of all, you will also have to think about the sun exposure because the East it's, again, in Milo, you are hidden below the crater, and it's pure east where the sun rise up. So at four or five PM, it's completely in shadow, but the southwest it's on the other side. So the sun goes there at least until eight or nine PM. So much more ripening to the white wine. So that's the incredible. If you think that you are making the same grapes, in the same area, in the same operation, but in two areas, which are maybe forty minutes away, one from the other one, but they are able to produce wines, which are completely different. And the last one, it's the north, which is the homeland for Nerel lomascaleza. We don't really grow so much Nerel lomascaleza on the east, actually almost none because it doesn't get ripe. It's too cold and too rain. A little bit on the southwest, but they are always more, like, richer and riper. The north, it it's crossway because you are in between the northern crater, which is, you know, you have the volcano just behind you, and it's, again, cold and rigid, but on the other side, you have, like, the nebro the natural park, which is a huge mountainous area. It's like the backbone of the Italian Appenine. And, it's huge and high, and it's so you have two huge mountainous areas. One left and right. And and this area, it's like a a tiny scar that goes from lingwa gloss that were random. And it's like the cut door, allow me the term for. It's fantastic, and it's unique because and year of the soils are hyper fragmented, and here we have the highest concentration of contrade. So you can taste really, really many, many shades and expression of nerilomascaleza here on the north. But fasten it in control, the Moscomento for instance, which is a cold and rigid and sandy area enclosed around the nineteen eleven lava flows. So the the very sandy and light soils because of the lava flow that surrounds the estate. So you have to imagine that the rain falls broke down to the century sand to the estate, which accumulated and accumulated. So I have a cold rigid nest around the estate and the style of our wines is very elegant, fresh, and material. And if you move five kilometers away, it could be the opposite. Absolutely fascinating, Yacobo. You've given a great overview for our listeners. And also, I think it's really important to emphasize that Aetna is a source of certainly some of Italy and the world's greatest red wines. I think people don't know Aetna Bianca. So, well, there's less of it for a start, but you've really described well the importance of exposure, the soil altitude as well to have these wines from Karicante, wonderful, wonderful grape that have that piercing acidity that allows it to age incredibly well. The whites of Aetna, I think, are so wonderful because they have that capacity to age and evolve. Absolutely. Let me give you a quote, but I do believe, nowadays, after sixteen years of making one zero at this state that probably caricante, it's able to age better than. Of course, this is very personal and related to my experience, but, my oldest bottles of Carricante, both Apudar and Musmeshi Bianco are, in a fantastic I mean, I don't have any problem of opening an old vintage starting from two thousand and nine, which is the first release of Caricante in front of anyone because I think that our wines since the beginning are still outstanding nowadays. Still in a good shape. I'm not talking about any fault like oxidation or these or that the wines are standing beautifully and in a proper shape even today. On the other end with Narello Mascalese, I think that we are still learning here at the estate because in the beginning, it's also a matter of, you know, experience and studying about things. And I'm thirty three years old, so I'm very, very young, and, at my age talking about wine with, you know, it's very risky. I think that you need at least ten or twelve generations in order to talk about wine. You need, like, a license in my opinion to talk about certain things in the wine world because at my age, you should stay as humble as possible. At my age, making one, is making mistakes and trying to solve it the the year after and learning and learning and learning. So it's very risky to to talk about certain things with sincerity. But at the same time, I think that, the way of making Narello in the beginning here was different compared to the way that we are making Narello on our way. I think the Narello doesn't really need a long extraction and, a long fermentation as well. We are trying with Bernadette, to extract less and give to the wines more freshness and sharpness and elegance and elegance. And, in the beginning, it's also influenced by the wine word, you know, when I was studying, I did my studies, about wine in PMont, the University of gastronomic Sciences in Poland, and at the time wine was more, I'm trying to find out a polite way in order to say it, but the way of making wine was different was more extractive in bulk because we were all influenced by certain critics and certain awards and rates and all the most famous wines of the world at the time that were awarded were wines, bulky and jammy and reach with high alcohol. And I think that nowadays, the way of making and also drinking wine, because the most important thing is not our way of drinking wine. I mean, it is because it's personal, but at the same time we have to face the wine every today makes around, you know, eighty thousand bottles per year. So we have to face also the consumers at the end. And I think that nowadays, the consumer is completely different to a consumer from ten years ago. I think that nine consumers out of ten today They select a wine on a shelf because they are thinking about pairing that wine with a meal with friends. So wine, today, it's more gastronomic and more conviviality object than ever. So I think that the wines shouldn't be any more jammy and and reach an alcoholic, but the wines must be romic and food friendly. So the way of making Narello for me today is not extractive anymore. I want to make Narello's, which are lean and elegant and fresh and sharp and clean. So I'm decreasing the extraction. I'm decreasing the fermentation in time. And I'm controlling more temperature and certain things even during the harvest because I want to make a product, which is modern for the actual times. I think that's extremely interesting, Yacobhan. I think, this discourse about making wines that one can enjoy at the table, rather than making wines to win awards or please certain critics is fundamental. Now I'd like to actually turn then to gastronomy, and two gastronomy in the wines of Tinoutiti Fessina, in particular, the local foods of Catania, of Eastern Sicily that go well with the wines. I understand that you and your family are from the mountains. You are describing the Nibrodi, which is famous for its special black pig and for its salumi produced from the pig. Can you tell us a little bit about this? I can tell you a lot because you have to know that me and my father, we both own together a low food presydia company, that breeds swing on everyday nebulates. So black ports from nebulid. It's called Fattoria San Pio. It's a tiny, tiny company that we founded together back in two thousand eighteen. And, the story, it's crazy, and it's very funny because You have to know that my father retired a few years ago. He was an engineer. He build up at that time. I'm avoiding I'm sicilian. So I'm avoiding to say names of real person in real places right now and real companies. But you have to imagine that he was an engineer And, at the time, it was building up a certain building for a certain they are similar to police, those people. They are a at a a corp that takes care of the mountain here in Sicily. In a specific era. So he was building up. I don't know the word in English, actually, but the facility itself for those officials. And he was building the facility, and he built it up here, actually, and it was two thousand and sixteen. And, he really wanted to retire at that time, but, this client, those officers, they weren't really able to pay him off. So we waited one year and two years, and he really wanted to retire, but, they were waiting. They were waiting, and they weren't really able to pay him. So after a certain point, we received the phone call of the chief of the officers of those people. And, he told us, please come up to the mountains because we have a proposal for you. We want to make a deal with you. And we went there. It's a true story, a hundred percent. And he told to my father, Antonio, we cannot really pay you because we are broke. We don't have money, but we can propose you, forty seven black parks from the Hebrew as a payment. And, I don't know, even today, I don't know how, but we accepted. And today, we own more or less two hundred and four black pigs from never in in this small company, which is in contrada, bravo, close to Broadway. That's an amazing story. So tell us about the pork itself. It's a strange story because it's probably an hybridation between a wild boar or a wild pig from the nebrony and a Spanish pork. You have to know that in between the many, many, many donations that we had in the history of Sicily. Of course, we have the Aragonesi, which is like the mother, catalunya, where Barcelona is, and they they dominated Sicily for many, many years. And, in the meanwhile, they brought, to Sicily, the Samsung, which is similar to the modern, photography, which is a black pig as well. So they hybridated and they created that's a effect, but it's not a hundred percent, proven. But this animal has been created. And, of course, it's much more similar to a a wild boar rather than European pig. It's black with the fur. You got the fungus, and it's really small compared to an European pig, like a Durok or an English one. The maximum, it's hundred and fifty, hundred and sixty kilos. And it's a labor animal, which means that it's always moving up. The company, if atreas and Pio, it's a enplanaire, which means that we are working in natural environment, we don't have cages. They are living free in between a beautiful citrus forest in Contrada Drago, but I'm gonna say that even the fat of this animal, it's Of course, we are talking about pork. So if you are on diet, I don't really suggest to eat any kind of pig, but generally talking the fat of the black pork of never gets very, very lean because of natural conversion to insaturated fat, which is called test our osmosis. It happens because they eat a lot of acorns in the in the forest. So it's also healthy. Let me allow the healthy term why we are talking about porchetta or prosciutto. But, in this case, I'm gonna say that it's healthier, maybe than other kind of porks. Besides that, I'm gonna say that the environment where they live is, is outstanding because the nebrity have three different sets of wild vegetables depend or veggies or trees and generally talking of a green environment depending on altitude. So we are growing the pigs in the middle one, which is citrus, but also white Fagio and Chipresi and Quercio as well, which is fantastic environment. Yankable, we're running out of time here. I would love to have another podcast just about the black pigs, the neborodi. Perhaps we can arrange that on another time. But I'm just imagining this both fresh, wonderful pork from the black pigs of the neborodi, but also the salumi going beautifully with your Musmette Aetna Rosa or indeed perhaps with the Yetna Bianco as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. The we have several kind of pairings to do, as you can imagine. I it's a big sacrifice for me to make wine and bring parks together, someone has to do it. Wonderful. Now in terms of, visitors who, perhaps, find themselves on Aetna and would like to visit Tennu to Defascina, Would they be able to both sample lines and these wonderful pork products? Absolutely. Yes. We are open all year long. We have a huge accommodation office, more than four hundred guests per month, you can book a line on the website, move over to notaryfestina dot com. There is a booking engine, or you can send us an email to the contact page. We are open all year long. We make lunch every day. And we are open for events all year long. So easy to find us. Well, fabulous. I look forward to visiting on my next trip to Aetna. Yakapo, you've taken us onto the lava slopes of Aetna. You've described it beautifully and poetically. And really, I think, our listeners, myself, who've been there, but you've given facets of the mountain that are new to me. And, really, we can understand how you're working in such a unique, challenging, but also very exciting environment to make some really, really great wines. So thank you so much for being my guest today. It's been a real, real pleasure meeting you here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. 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 Italianwine podcast dot com. Until next time.