Ep. 113 Monty Waldin interviews Andrea Albagli (wine influencer @cor_vino) | Wine influencers

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast. My name is Monty Walden. My guest today. He's Andrea Balio. Is Andrea Balio Andrea. You are an engineer during the day and a wine lover at night explained. Well, yeah. Somebody calls me Bruce Wayne of wine. Bruce Wayne of Batman. Yeah. So I'm designing the subway of Milan, like, during the day. Like, I'm wearing my suit. Really, that's your job, is it? Yeah. It is. It is. So Copy. Thank you very much. So you're a structural engineer? I'm such an engineer. Where did how did you start that then? Did you study that at university? You mean the the wine blog or No. No. No. The the structural we're not talking about your Y block. Oh, yeah. We wanna hear about the metro system in Milan. Alright. So, yeah, I studied in at polytechnico Milan, and then I I worked one here at UCSD. So in San Diego, I stayed there for one year. Again on engineering, again, studying engineering, engineering. It's like, well, you know perfectly well. There, it's like very advanced for the seismic design. So I had this focus on seismic design. So, obviously, Italy is an earthquake zone as California. So this is important to build a safe safe tunnels, I guess, for the highway system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if there's a tremor, then everything doesn't collapse, it stays. Even if Milan, it's not like a seismic zone, but I also designed like oil platforms like the wine, the the the wine. I got oil rigs. I got wine all the way to my mind. The oil rigs, yes, that they used to extract oil. There, there's a lot of, like, seismic problems. So that's why it is useful to well, it was useful to to to go there in California. So how old are you? Thirty two? Do you know, when you look like about fifteen and you you're clearly I mean, to and you are you regarded Debbie bodice? Are you regarded as a real expert in your field? I mean, what is gonna tell me? I don't I don't know. I mean, you know, tell me. I don't know. I'm just yes. I'm just yes. I'm just yes. I'm expert, but I'm just having a normal career. So I'm not having my company of, engineering. So I just work for a company. So when you when you travel for work, either either getting making sure that people build right rigs and the right subway platforms, etcetera, for metro metro stations and tunnels and all this. Obviously, very busy friendly kind of work, I would imagine. Do you what do you do when you're in a wine regions? You try and make time to go and visit wineries? Because that is your passion, isn't it? Yeah. It is my passion, but unlike there are no oil rigs or subway station in the wine region. So I had to ask for holidays to, you know, to reach my passions. So how did you get into wine though? Was it something that did somebody give you a bottle of wine when a kid? Was it your parents? Where did this ration come from? Well, my uncle. He's from Tuscany, the north part of Tuscany. Or Luca or someone like that? Yeah. Masa. Masa. So On the coast? Yeah. On the coast. Yeah. It is. There he had like some some vineyards, but just like tiny vineyards. But in summer, I used to go there, like, for my holidays. And to, let's say, help him. We'll help it's a big word, but I think that all started from there. So how you then? Fourteen, fifteen. Maybe twelve. Okay. So and now you you've got, how how come you got all these followers on Instagram? How did I do? I did that? I did that. I did that. I mean, this is why why do you have all these followers or Instagram? I don't know, but maybe just because I'm talking about wine in a different way. Go on. Like, I don't talk about technicalities of wine. So, well, first day, day number one when I started, I was trying to give, like, some, like, a score to wines. But then I, I understood that it it wasn't the right way, and I preferred, like, telling stories or explaining my emotion to followers or to to people, the the wine that I was drinking was telling to me in that moment. So that's what I do now. I I tell stories. I can give you an example recently, well, I visited, a show of Leonardo and Leonardo da da da da da da da da da used to buy or get his marble from Massa, which is where your family Good connection. I can spend it on on my Instagram, like tomorrow. I'm gonna read a story about it. It's gonna be five percent. Alright. Alright. Alright. Five percent is is fair. He drew some maps, like aerial maps of the email a city of the email. Oh, so this which is an immediate domain. Yeah. Yes. It is. So, he drew it, like, by walking all around the city and counting the numbers of steps. My story was like, I was I was drinking a pinot noir from, Ultra papavezi and the connection is that, as Bernardo drew a map without having Google cars or satellite, even the pinot noir can be, you know, can grow, and then you can have a one without being in burgundy, for example. So that was the connection. This is a kind of story that I that I tell to to my followers. Maybe they like it, Karapine. When you're watching Italian, yeah? I read in Italian because I when I started now also, I drink like bottles of, mostly bottle of time producers. So I don't know. I thought that maybe Italians were more interested of those bottles just because maybe people from New York. They couldn't even see the bottles of in in the supermarkets or so that's why. Do you get wine producers contacting you? You say, Hey, would you like to come and visit? Cause you have all these people following you, and obviously your what could be called an influencer. Did you get as a bit of a pressure there? Well, if I was making a wine, would I sign you up? Yeah. I got people like contacted me, but it's it's not pressure. If I like that winery, I go there. I taste the the wine and then let's see if the wine talks to me, I'm gonna write about it. Okay. If I call you an influencer, are you happy with that description? I get angry. No. I mean Why why'd you get angry? No. No. No. No. I'm just kidding. Well, as I said before, influencer, it's like when you create, like, the empathy with the with the customer or with the followers and you can, you know, speak about that one with those people. So influencer, is that? I'm really happy to be called that. Do you get any people can contact you? Can't they? Yeah. Yeah. So what is a typical question? Is it related always to one particular wine that you've described? You've told a story about? Do they say do they want more information? Do they want less information? Do they ask you where to buy it? All that sort of boring questions? Or are the questions more interesting? Boring question. It's like, well, you are in Italy. Where should I go? Which one should I visit? Alright. So that's, that's a boring question. Would you get people saying, do you get wineries writing to you saying, please, can you come and visit? Yeah. Yeah. We have a red carpet for you limousine? No. No. In my approach, it's like, I'm always the last one because goes are not like a technician of that. Like, I mean, I told you that I'm an engineer. So in my field, I am a technician. And I can understand what's the difference between someone who knows perfectly the thing that he's talking about. He's an expert in his field. Yeah. So you're you're an expert engineer. Yeah. An expert engineer. I'm a wine aficionado. I'll I won't love it. Yeah. And someone who's got a does anybody ask you to build a winery for them? To build? Yeah. Like, if I'm in a seismic I wanna build a wine and say, hey, there's this, you know, hotshot engineer guy. Wow. What? He studied in California. He's mister seismic, you know, mate. I'm gonna call you up. Right? Alright. Second advice that you gave me, I can open like, a new design, a industry you're in. So I mean, from your perspective, you travel a lot, you have an international view about international markets. Where does Italy fit do you think right now? And where are the opportunities for Italian wine in, say, the American market, which I'm sure we know very well, or even other foreign markets? What could Italian wine do to connect better with foreign markets. I talk about things that I know. What I know here, it's like social media, it's like Instagram. So the whole market, Italian market should give some more opportunities to people working on the social media because it's I think that Instagram, like, with pictures, it it has, like, a big potential because pictures are, you know, they are worth a thousand words. Yeah. And then what I do, it's like, I'm not stopping to that, then I'm writing a story. So I'm giving content to that. But I think that the whole the whole thing and also the thing that I myself, I can write to you to in in Instagram and you're gonna answer me or either way I can write to, California surfer and ask him, alright, how can you do it? How can you ride the wave? So it's, like, very, very simple, like, even contacting. Well, once I said, I like wine contamination. And then they looked at me and said, oh, what? What are you saying? Are you saying that we are contaminating wine like with, I don't know, some kind of chemicals? No, it's not like that. It's like I love being an engineer talking about wine because I can give you my point of views. And you mean contamination, you mean cross fertilization of ideas. Yeah. Yeah. It's like melting blood. I don't know, contamination. Maybe it's not the right word, but Sort of like osmosis or my where where Yeah. Ideas, you put them, you put an idea out there on social media and then other people start talking about it or discussing it or thinking about it. I'm obviously you you you write on Instagram, but obviously it's a it's an image led platform Instagram. And so if I understood what you're trying to say is is the the visual image is a very powerful thing for all of us and obviously it's the, I mean, most wine regions are very photogenic, beautiful places because, you know, you need sun and all the rest of it. Do you think that Italian winery should be focusing more on storytelling and with images? Yeah. It is. And then, like, with this, to get close to, I mean To the people that buy online. To the people I'm a millennium to to the millennials, like, people of twenty or thirty years. I mean, I I can tell you because, like, I always been passionate about wine, but I started studying five, six years ago. So I can give you my perspective on how wine was when I didn't know anything and now. I get it. So you're saying that, you know, because I live in the wine bubble as of all my nestic frenzy. So what you're saying is that because you you used to come in almost nothing, you had a bit of experience with your grandfather or arrested. You can see both sides. So you you're saying that you can communicate. You know how to communicate to people that maybe you're a little bit afraid of why you're intimidated by it, but is that to do with the language of wine, or is it to do with the channel that you communicate through? Or is it both? It is both. Because the language, it's like too technical. I mean, I I was scared about, talking to the sommelier at the restaurant and I was always saying, alright. I was always, like, picking the, I don't know, the cheap, not the cheapest, but the one with one or two euros more than the cheapest. And then, alright, that's the perfect one. Because you were scared of being judged as being, so you're just gonna take the cheap this wine and and and pray that it's okay and hope nobody asks you a question about it. Yeah. So that that fear of looking stupid. So and that's the thing that I hate now. I would like that people talk about wine at the restaurant or, I don't know, with friends, like easily. I mean, because it is funny. I mean, if I if I go to a restaurant or go to the pub with my friends and we talk about football, none of us have played professional football, none of us have football writers or journalists, and we talk we have like hours of conversations about football, about the tactics, although we don't feel intimidated. If you put a football commentator in there immediately, we'd all be terrified of looking completely stupid. And maybe that's the point that you're making is exactly that with wine, isn't it? There's no terror of of of, oh, I confuse shard and they were so vignon blanc? You know, it's it's awful, isn't it? It is. It's a good image. I can hire you for Yeah. I need your yeah. I'm not gonna last too long on the podcast. Yeah. They've tried everything to get rid of me, but there's like contracts and things like that. So we've got a big lawsuit going on. So I will see what you can do. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm quite good at photos. Yeah. Alright. I'm I'm a good painter's a writer. I'm a pretty shitty writer, but I I didn't do some photos. We'll let you do the writing. Alright. Thank you. And, and you can guide me around. I was in Milan recently, all that metro system. I got lost so off. Extractually. I I thought it was fantastic, right, the job you don't, but in terms of the freeing signs, what is going on? Just, you know, if you wanna find. Anyway, so you need you need to speak to your people at the Milan Alright. Metro system. Alright. I will pass the word. Yeah. Okay. So, does island. Do you want a desert island? Alright. And you can have two wines, one white and one red or even one sparkling wine. Not the name of the winery, but just the style of wine that you think would be appropriate on a desert island. What would you like to take with unlimited quantities as well as water and food, but no iPhone. Alright. So on the red side, I would pick, like a vertical one. I don't know crash. No. Like Norello Mascaireza. So something like that, because I am in the desert island. So I cannot take, an Amaroni. I will be dying, like, alright? It's like desert. No one cares if it's like if I die, but anyway, I wanna I think it won't mind. I think you might be a little bit upset about that. Alright. You know, oh, that stupid sort of mind. You're supposed to be like a wine influencer bloody idiot. You took a freaking Roney to the Tizzer Island. What a why why didn't he take a neuromauschaleesi? I've been telling him that for years. Right. Right, answer. Okay. That's the vote. So that's okay. So you got one point on the school board. You need to score another well. White wine. White wine. Would you take a salty one? Like, because you're surrounded by the sea or would you a more exotic one, a seminyonmbore, something like that, Arnais, something a little bit weird. Can we go? And you're probably gonna be eating a lot of fish, right, if you're on a desert island. So I would have gone for an orange wine but Really? Yeah. It's expensive, but my credit card on the dessert item, like, works every day. So I can do that. I have to be, like, in the smart way because it has to be elegant to pair with the with the fish. But, yeah, if we go to through the and it said Julia, they are like, you know, super expert on that. So you you you do a skin contact white one from foodie, and also that has the advantage of, has a bit of tannin in there. Yeah. So So that it's gonna, it's it's not gonna spoil quite so quickly. I scored the right? You did. Yeah. I had a little bit of help for me, and I did the assist. I let you know, an open goal, mate. Alright. Alright. Alright. I I can share the the win. Share the credit. Okay. Alright. Andrea, thank you very much. So what is your Instagram handle? It's like, are underscore Vino, v I n o. And Andrea, his surname is spelled Albaali, which is a l b a g l I, and his address is a little island in the middle of nowhere. Alright. See you there. Yeah, I mean, my, yeah, over ireland. Yeah. That's probably the, you know, the podcast people have been trying to get me out of. Maybe they just quietly fire me. They're giving me a fake mic actually on now on that. So the Think Like I'm podcasting from the desert island. We can talk about the the the the orange wine that we've got. They probably wouldn't give us very much, actually, because budgets here are pretty limited. But, you know, we at least have in work a chat. Andrea. Thank you very much for sharing your tips on influencing certainly by Instagram, and thanks also for telling us about your previous or ongoing career as an engineer. Ongoing. Ongoing. Yeah. We had some earth tremors in Tuscany the other day. The strongest earth tremor I've ever felt. In Montancini, it was, like, I think, two, but it was, it was about two point eight or something. It wasn't very strong, but, you know, oh, yeah. Yeah. It's, in in England, we don't know when you get tremors, but, we know we had one the other day and it's, what I realized is by the time realize what's happening. It's like It's too late. It's too late. That's why we try to build, like, ductile, the tile structures. So you can have time to run away. Yeah. So ductile means it absorbs the energy in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It absorbs the energy, and it doesn't collapse, like, right, the way. It stays there, like, a little bit. And then falls over. So ductile, that's a good we could put that in a tasting note. Yeah. I had a wine today. What was it like? Oh, you know, it was a bit ductile? Doctor. It's a good one. Yeah. I think I'm gonna use it. Pretty, seven and a half. Alright. It was two two syllables in that one. Right. So Andrea Abaliali, thanks very much for coming in. Your Instagram handle is, at c o r underscore vino v I n o. You got fifty eight thousand followers on Instagram, and you're gonna have fifty eight thousand and one before the end of the day. So it'd be me. Okay? Really nice to meet you. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah. And as an engineer, I thought this guy was me so boring, but actually you were fairly entertaining. Alright. Thank you. We're gonna have the entertainment now a little bit now. Space talk to you. Thanks a lot. Follow Italian White Podcast on Facebook and Instagram.