Ep. 1703 Romina Leopardi Of Tenute Rubino | wine2wine Business Forum 2023

Welcome to the Italian Great Geek podcast. Join us as we explore personal stories of travel and tasting with Italy's must know grape for idols. Chart your own course with my Italian Great Geek journal, your personal tasting companion to accompany the series, available now on Amazon with thanks to Calangelo and partners for their generous support with this project. Official Media Partner, the Italian One Park is delighted to present a series of interviews and highlights from the twenty twenty three one to one business form, featuring Italian wine producers and bringing together some of the most influential voices in the sector to discuss the hottest topics facing the industry today. Don't forget to tune in every Thursday at three PM or visit the Italian wine podcast dot com for more information. Good morning. This is wine to wine podcast, and we are here at wine to wine business forum. And I'm Cynthia Chaplin. Very happy to welcome today, Romina Leopardi. She is from Tenuta Rubino, where she's the marketing manager. And she's come all the way from Pulia to be with us today. So thank you so much for coming, Romina. Thank you, Cynthia. I'm really so happy to be here. Well, me too. It's exciting. You've brought your signature wine to retest the DOC from BDC. Exactly. So I'm looking at this beautiful bottle with a gorgeous, really modern, lovely artistic label. So tell me a bit about this wine and about this packaging. It's beautiful. It is. Yes. We worked a lot on this packaging, actually. Yes. This is Torres. As you mentioned, this is Paracao. Signature wine because the story of our brand is strongly connected to this wine. So the name is Toreve Testa. Tessa, it's its proper name and, Tore means tower. And it takes its name from one of the Saracin Towers that you can see along the Adriatic coast because we are based in Brindisi. So Brindis is a small town that faces the Adriatic coast. So much history there. So much wine came across the adriatic to enter the grapes into Italy. Exactly. So it has a really long history related to vine production and wine production as well. So this tower is just in front of the twenty three single vineyard of the grapes that we use to make this wine. And let's talk about the varietal. What grapes are you using to make the wine? So it is a major varietal. It is an indigenous one, and the name of the varietal is. One of my absolute favorite grapes. I'm very excited about this interview today just for that. One of my favorite grapes, favorite wines from Twilio. So let's talk about this wine. When you have it in your glass, tell me what it's like. Well, this is our first wine from Sosu Manuel. The first vintage was in two thousand and one. And it's a one hundred percent a lot of the ages in wood for about twelve to fourteen months. And so it's a very complex wine, you know, a very highly structured wine. Starting from the color, when you pour it, you can notice immediately this very intense color with these bluish notes because as you can see from the label, one of the characteristics of this varietal, it's it's bluish skin. So, actually, this varietal was used in the past as a cutting vine because it contributed to other wines. It was always in a blend until just the past ten years or so. I would say people started to experiment with doing single variety. Exactly. Exactly. At the end of the nineteen nineties, a few producers started to vinify it in purity. And amongst these producers was my husband, luigi Rubino, who is the founder of and so actually the first vintage that we released in two thousand and one was an incredible success from the credits. And so we are very grateful to this wine. This is the reason why we started a whole program since nineteen ninety nine ongoing of a study and research of a great variety that actually doesn't have a story. And it's so difficult to talk about Susan Maniello with clients who aren't from Pulia a lot of Italians don't know about it. It's not an easy word to say if you don't speak to them, but also people expect wines from Pollia to be negro amaro or Primitivo. So it's exciting to have this wine, which in some ways is more accessible, the tannins are more accessible. It's a little bit more elegant. So I'm really fascinated about this. I'm excited to taste it. How many hectares of Susan Manuel do you have? We started from just one actor of seventy three years. I won't be in it. And in the years, through the, the lesanema Sally method, we replanted, and now we are up to twenty three actors. So it is actually still a very small production, but, it's very important for us. Absolutely. And I know your vineyard is is doing a lot of other work. You just got your Qualitas, sustainability in twenty twenty two. I know you're producing other wines as well on five different states. So a lot is happening. And are you exporting much? Well, yes. Sixty, towards the seventy percent of our production is exported and in so many markets around the world. So China, Japan, and Europe, North of Europe, Canada, Brazil, and also the United States. Fantastic. I'm gonna ask you if it's possible for our listeners to come and visit you in beautiful Green see and see the Toyota Esta and walk in the vineyards and learn more about Zusu Manuel. Tell us what if they can visit and how do they find you on Instagram or Facebook or website? Tell them everything so they can come. We are really open to business, and so we have so many experiences that you can find on our website, w w w dot tenulte rubino dot com. And so not just a simple wine tasting and tour of the winery, but also so many other experiences. Amino outdoors, especially for instance, just to mention one, you can have a wonderful tasting on a sailing boat. Fantastic. I think that that will draw a lot of interest. Yes. It does. We know that having, you know, wine tourism is gonna be really important in the storytelling that we do about Italian wine and how we get the message out of Italy and into the hands of new buyers and new audiences. So I have an inkling to go on that sailing boat and taste vibes. We will welcome you. Fantastic. It. Well, thank you so very much for coming on today. Thank you. And we hope to see you again very, very soon. And we wish you all the best of luck in Poolia this year. Thank you very much. Listen to the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, 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 caught until next time. Chichi.