Ep. 488 Scienza Seminar Part 1 (ENG) | wine2wine Business Forum 2020

Italian wine podcast. Chinchin with Italian wine people. Italian wine podcast as wine to wine twenty twenty media partner is proud to present a series of sessions chosen to highlight key themes and ideas and recorded during the two day event held on November twenty third and twenty fourth twenty twenty. Wine to Wine twenty twenty represented the first ever fully digital edition of a business to business forum. Visit wine to wine dot net and make sure to attend future editions of wine to wine business forum. Before we begin our segment today, we want to remind our listeners that our podcast is always open to receiving donations to help keep our creative project going. To make a contribution to the Italian wine podcast, please visit Italian wine podcast dot com or check out our social media channels. Now on to our segment. Hi. This is Rebecca Lawrence, and I'll be playing the role of Atilio Shenza once again. Hello. Sorry. Hold on a sec. Did everything stop? Welcome to this session with Professor Atidochenza. Oh, for the translator. Don't freak out trying to keep up with his part because he's just a quick aside in English. So, as you know, this is our traditional segment for the Vineital International Academy, and I'm sitting here with professor Tido Shenza. And the moderator for this session will be Alasti Planeta. Who you'll no doubt know as one of the principles of Planeta winery. By the way, where is Elacio? I can't see him yet. Can we get him on? Oh, there he is. Here he is. Can you hear me, Elacio? Yes, Stevvie. I can hear you. Okay. So anyway, Alyssa is one hundred percent Cecillion, DOCG. And by the way, congratulations. You are one of the historic wineries of opera wine. So they have been in every single edition of opera wine, and we'll meet with all of the opera wine producers in person next year. It will be actually a big party. Like, it's almost going to be a sicilian wedding. Yeah. So, we're ready, Stevy. You ready? Okay. Great. So, you know, Alecio has generously offered, actually, I've told him again to moderate this session because when professor Shenza starts, it's very difficult to, stop him. Number one. Okay? But I think Alesto is my best spot. So I just want I would like to remind you both. Okay? Both of you, go slow for the translator. And if you guys have any questions, send them our way, and we will try to interrupt you know, his monologue in some way. Alastio, that's your job. Okay? Okay. So let's try it. I know it's not easy. Once he starts, he's a machine and nobody can stop him. We know it. Not that you mess around either, Stevie. Let's get to work because Atidio surely has lots to say. Okay. I'm leaving you. They don't want me anymore. Okay. Goodbye. Have a great time. Bye. And thank you. I would just like to mention that this session will be released online a few minutes after it's done recording, and it can be viewed until November thirtieth twenty twenty. Okay? Everybody enjoy. I'm leaving as you request. Thank you, Artilio, and thank you all. As DB Kim said, Professor has a lot of things to say. So my task is easy. In introducing him, however, I would like to take a moment to reflect and tell a quick story from the perspective of a sicilian that will set the stage for professor Chienza's lecture. First, we live in an age when talking about international varieties in Italy, almost a sacrilege with a few small exceptions such as Bulgaria, Francacorta, Arto Adige, and Menphi. We are all focused on native varieties, but there are some very interesting and funny stories on this topic in Sicily. For example, not many people know that the first bordeaux blends made in Italy that is the first ones recorded were not or or some other as you might fact, they were, in fact, the wines made at Castello Solichata by Barron Spittallera. In eighteen fifty eight, and therefore, in a prephiloceric era, parents, Pitalleri conducted experiments between one hundred meters and one thousand two hundred meters elevation, finding an impressive number of varieties, both autochthonous and non autochthonous. Actually, this might be a scoop for those who have not read Barron Spitalileri's book. Here, you can find the first Edna rosso recipe. So the first Edna rosso blend was described in the same period as baron rikasoli cientes recipe, and it included five to seven parts, pinonero, three to three point five parts One point two parts, Cabernet von, and zero point five parts. Verin Spitaleneri suggested this recipe in eighteen sixty six. Another interesting sicilian anecdote that I heard many years ago in the story of a sicilian who went to Bordeaux France. He was amazed by the beauty of the vineyards of such a profitable and important viticulture compared to what existed in Sicily at the time. So he collected, let's say, under the cover of darkness, some vine specimens that traveled with him back to Sicily. Of course, in the dark, he didn't recognize all the varieties that he had collected. So he decided to call them all from And on one final subject that professor Shenza will surely touch on concerns the movement of grape varieties from one place to another. And this is another beautiful sicilian story. I'm referring to the one about the sicilian who had to transplant fines from one place to another. And this was obviously forbidden because the producers were very jealous of the varieties they owned. The sicilian hatches an extraordinary plan to weave the vine shoots into bird cages and in this way transport the living material from one place to another outside Europe in this case. So take us back in time a bit so we can explore when and why these so called international grape varieties arrived in Italy. Thank you, Artila. Go ahead. Thank you, Alicia. And thank you for the introduction. That has really set the stage to talk openly about international grape varieties again, following a period of Italian Viticulture that has really valued native grape varieties above all else. I'd say the most important role played by International Vines has been to bring Italy out of the nineteenth century and out of provincialism from this self celebration of a viticulture that has very widespread roots. Certainly from the Greek and Latin worlds, but that has absolutely failed to emerge from the geography in which it's embedded, while France has, in a certain sense, shared its viticulture and gastronomy with the world, along with the exercises of military and economic power, first with Napoleon, then with Napoleon the third, Italy has not necessarily followed suit. Perhaps Italy has begun to make contributions, but once again, in international markets, it has historically been difficult talk about autochtenous vines and wines, with the exception of some important varieties like Corolla or, I don't know, San Gervais, the majority of native Italian vines have remained in the dark, however, relatively unknown. Now that we've produced wines from international grape varieties and exported these wines, the world is again interested in Italy because at this point, we are compared with our French neighbors, but also with the Americans of California, or the Australians, and so on. So it was a real challenge because the international vine put Italy in an international context that was not previously possible with Italian native grapes alone because we did not have common reference points from which to begin the undertaking. I've tried to develop from a strictly historical and cultural point of view, the role of international great varieties without delving into their qualities or compositional characteristics. I've only tried to summarize their path in Italy and to understand how they have also recently contributed to the production of great wines in our country. Well, the first question we have to ask ourselves is how do we define autochtenous vines and international vines? Let's take, for example, four bunches of grapes. Moscato, zippido, Greco, and Primitivo. They are considered Italian as they are used in the production of many important wines, Maskat in Piamonte Zebivo in Panta La Ria, Goreco in many southern regions, Prumetivo in Pulia. Now if we want to analyze the origin and history of these grapes, we are confronted with the reality that there is nothing Italian about them. They are absolutely not an expression of our history or culture, but they are the result of this great migration that crossed Europe and ended up in Italy for many populations. These migrations played a role in bringing these great varieties along with them. Recently, we've begun to talk about what we can call the fourth migration, one of the driving factors responsible for modifying the gene pool of Southern Italy and for modifying the genetic structure of the great varieties of Southern Italian regions. This migration occurred around the time when the Black Sea flooded due to the melting ice in Northern Europe, forcing many people from the Caucasus and Turkey to come to Italy, and they were the first wave in this migration, bringing with them foreign vines. Many great varieties, even ancient ones, are essentially the result of this migration. We may wish to make a quick phenomenological classification of how great varieties in Italy may be distinguished. Let's start with the two large categories. On the one hand, we have the native grapes, the result of the domestication of wild Italian grapes. Here, the grand total is no more than five or six types. The true autochthonous varieties are really very few if we rely on the lexical meaning of the word alone. Or talk to us comes from Greek and literally means of the land. So we can consider Lambrisco de sovada, Espino, Lambrisco a foliar Frascaliata, or maybe some vines with a hint of Ucellina origin. Therefore, all other vines are the result of a series of cross breeds, what we'd call introgression or introgressive hybridization between the parademestic germoplasm of ancient Italian vines and the contribution of all this genetic material that has arrived in Italy since the bronze age. Here then, we have two groups of grapes. One obtained from the ancient inexorable introduction of varieties such as Marvasir, Greco, Oscar, we date them back to the period of manja Gretche in the fourth to the fifth centuries, BC. But these contributions also continued into the middle ages, and they have never been interrupted The Malaziras, for example, are the result of this great expansion of wine throughout Europe spurred on by Venice. Perhaps more importantly, in relatively recent history, we have the introduction of cabinet, chardonnay, sovignon, Sierra, Pino, on and on. There are many more. And I've only listed a few of the most prominent, but there have to be at least forty recent arrivals. By recent, I mean, between sixteen hundred and eighteen hundred or so. Well, I believe that among the international autochtinous finds, we can benefit from examining a couple of paradoxes. Paradoxical ideas that serve to clear up the roots these varieties have moved along in addition to their roles. For example, we can define a vine as autochtenous if we don't know its origin. So in this case, the paradox lies in the vine's origin. Next, we have the temporal paradox. How long must a vine be cultivated in a particular place before we can call it an ancient vine? If you go to the Venator region of Italy, they'll tell you Melo is an autochtinous variety, even though the vine has been cultivated here for around a hundred and fifty years, But for those of the region, by now, the vine has been accepted as an autochtenous variety. And that brings us to the paradox of tradition. If a vine has been cultivated in a place for only a relatively short period of time, can we consider it traditional? Or is this just a case of nostalgia? What about the discovery of hundreds of great varieties over the past twenty five or thirty years? Vines long since forgotten in various phases of disappearing, maybe just a few plants in random small vineyards. Are these still considered traditional vines that we should dedicate time and labor to, or is it just a form of longing for the past that leads us to make these considerations? Of course, then there's the paradox of globalization. And enough for today. Tune in next Friday for part two of professor Artillo Shenza session recorded during wine to wine business forum twenty twenty. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Himalaya FM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italian wine podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time,