Ep. 1673 Sicily Teams Up With Stevie Kim | wine2wine Business Forum Series 2023

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 pots. Welcome to another episode of On The Road Edition, hosted by Stevie Kim. Each week, she travels to incredible wine destinations, interview some of the Italian wine scene's most interesting personalities, talking about wines, the foods, as well as the incredible travel destinations. We have a small chat. I have a group chat on what I'm unveiling all of our secrets. So in July, we had a little meeting. I had this idea because I feel like I'm a little bit sicilian. I don't look it. Antonio, what do they call me in Sicily? What's my name in Sicily? Akim. Akim. Okay. I even have a sicilian name, right? So there's a great affinity. I mean, I love these guys. I think I've met them in the very beginning of my Italian wine courier. I'll show you how I met them and why I fell in love with them immediately. So this is how I met them. Can you guys see? What do they have in their hand? I found out when I met them that the Blackberry was still in business because of the sicilians. I was like, it's impossible that the Blackberry was still in business. But they had corner the market of Blackberry. Okay. This is how I met them. I can't remember. Where was this? I think it was in Vildur or something. Right? Yeah. This is the first time I was able to participate in Cecilia On Permer. By the way, if any of you would like to participate, don't contact me. Contact Asovini, mister Planeta, to your right. Okay. The gentleman. Oh, by the way, he's the weinemaker of the year. Have you heard about that? Okay. So right now, I don't have a video. I wanted to show you a video, but what we're going to do is this. The format is the following. First, I have these gentlemen. Of course, the owner of Planeta winery. But also today, I would like him to talk to us a little bit about Asovini. Okay? So you're going to have a little, like, overview of what sicilian promotion looks like through these three representative organization. And then it's going to be mister Alo. He's also a Antonio. It's like the three a's. Alacio Antonio Alberto. So Antonio is going to talk to you a little bit about Cecilia TOC and what they've been up to lately. And then lastly, Alberto will talk to you about his passion which is this new foundation called Sostain, all about Sustainability. So we're going to do a brief overview through these three gentlemen, the three Sichiliani, of these three organizations. And then we're going to do a little Q and A after they do a brief short overview of their organization, and then we're going to do the following. Okay? Each one of them will ask the other two, one question. And I will also ask each of them a question. That means we will have nine questions. And if there's time, then we will open to also the audience. The idea today was to talk about from our point of view what's going on in Sicily in the last years. And a few times ago, there was a meetings, and we said that we c c and we have done bright things every ten years. That could be good results or depending by the point of view. Just to give you an idea what was Sicily before, when our previous generation start to work. So in the in the eighties, Sicily was full of wine. Sicily was one hundred and forty thousand actors of vineyards. We were largest in Australia, and the percentage of cicero wine that was a bottle and sold as a something serious. So cicero was full of wine, full of vineyards with a very difficult time. There were a group of people that started to rethink Sicily in in a new way. One of the start of this was, when, my uncle Diego in the middle of eighties became, president of, Irbos. Irbos was a typical sicilian, public organization that with the Diego president, make something at that time very special. I remember one, for example, Sicily was the first Italian wine region that came here to Vin Italy in a regional stand. They made in a typical in Vin Italy style, a last minute tent at the entrance of the Weinfur, and all she silly was there. This was something that was one of the first things. And then at that time, it's really start to have ideas coming from outside. We have three consultant at that time, Jacob Motakis in winemaking, atillo Shenza in Viticulture, and John Paolo Fabries in marketing. And there was a start of people there that make a company that really started a revolution of Cecil and wine. What was a big group with great masters and with a great energy. And this was the start. When a few years later, the Irros, start to be Alibaba's goes a little bit slowly. A group of people, again, our families, start to think of something new, and these new things was Assovini. Assovini is an association that at the beginning was only done by a few people, few producers. With a very clear idea, the idea was to do something to do something first, very important. That is a word that sometimes we Italian don't use in the right thing, that is lobby. Lobby, in terms of having a common table, a common room, an organization that can talk to the politics because, we in Sicily live in a, you know, Cesar is a a regional autonomous. So it means that we do our own laws, sometimes, right, sometimes wrong. And so to be there, to try to discuss with the with with the politics is to be the people that govern agriculture is very important. The second big project was to go together in the market. To help the cicerone wineries that at that time, CCille was very far from the market. You know, they mentioned that today, we cannot realize, but we were very far from the rest of of the market. And we start, going first together to Vin Italy. Still today, Asovini, organized Vinitally for all the producers and organized an event called Sichile and Primer that was, and still is really, really crucial for the development of CCN1. Sichile and Primer is, one week every year. Every year in a different location of Sichile, every year in allocation, then leave memories to people because we usually choose, thanks to our network of knowing Sicily as our pocket. But how is it organized exactly? How? Magetti, we have a lot of ambassadors involved you. We do. We organize one week. The first four days, journalists do nine different tour of the producers. In the last three days, we stay altogether, and there is, like, typical and premiere testing. And then some seminars, some, the very important meetings where we describe the harvest. And then we also usually usually talk about something new. For example, this year, we talk a lot about the potential of wine tourism in Sicily with all the things that happened in the last And, sovini, as Dolores, today, they are one hundred producers, seventy millions of bottles, something like, twenty thousand hectares with more than thirty percent in, organic. Most of them are deeply involved in wine tourism. And also, there is a something like a common sense of doing wine business. And this is for me the great idea that was behind Azovini. There's an exchange of experience. We got together to many wine events and Asovini was for me very important, especially in a moment where in Sicily, the consortium were or not existing or too slow or too small and not very active. And what I like to say that what's happening in a savini is in some way what we do in our wineries. Just a few slides that show our place. Okay. Let's go on. Palenta is in five different place in Sicily, and we are since, twenty ten certified sustained, but Alberto will say. What about the grande familia cecil. Yeah. Yeah. And we are also certified organic. And every place that we have, we are in five different areas of Ceciline, Memphis that is here. In Victoria, noto, in Aetna, and the last name is in Cabo Mirazo. It's a example of the diversity of CC that pose an inspiration for planet, it's an inspiration for all the producer of Azovini. It's a big challenge of Sicily because when we try to talk about Sicily, we have to describe a very complex place. Okay. Very good. Thank you very much, Alicia. We're going to move right on to Mr. Arlo here, Mr. Sisley Duck. Thank you, Steve. I wanna, first of all, think you and, we need a little international for the invitation. Of course, all the board of the DOC, Cecilia, Isaiah, is happy about that. I I I'll try. I'll try. I I know a lot about task. This is what happens. I know most of the secret of Tasca implaneda, of course. By the way, this is the way we improve every day. So, of course, as sovini was a fantastic project, putting together bunch of sicilian producer was not so easy at the beginning, but thanks, to the first generation of sicilian that stopped pitting all the energy together to go to the next step. So, Diego, Lusho, and, Jacobo, my father. For those of us who don't know who Diego and Jacob and Lucho. Can you explain which father belongs to? Which family? Diego is your uncle. Diego Planeta. And Lucho Tasca, of course, the father of Alberto and, Jago and my father. They got, more or less, I think, they were born more or less the same time. Unfortunately, today, they passed away, but they really give us, you know, the way to go to the next level. So they start, the idea of, protect and promote Sicily more than, we can do with the, sovini. Go to the next step. It was, going to a new project, CCidiochi, protecting and promoting the biggest value that we got in Sicily. That is the name of Avar Island. The strongest, brand that we can have as sicilian, one of the strongest that we got in Italy, the most powerful one in terms of awareness is, of course, italia, and then we got, toscana, and immediately after Sijidya, and then nothing else. So we started working on this project. Of course, it was, not so easy, because Arsovini today is one hundred different wineries, producer, Consocio, DOC, is, something much, much bigger as, I will show you. And so it took, something like, ten years to reach, finally the operation in two thousand and eleven. First vintage, was two thousand twelve. In June, we build up, the, consortium. And then in twenty fourteen, we had the chance to be, as well, a consortium, air governance, so to have the right to promote and, work on the appalachian. So today, we got more than eight thousand families, producing grape, and more than five hundred wineries that are balling the wine. So quite big, more than, almost twenty five thousand actors, so really big. And, just going back to how big is sicily in terms of vineyards, we got about ninety seven thousand actors So three times more than New Zealand, as big as, South Africa and, Germany. And something that is, really important as well, that thanks to a fantastic, climate condition We are growing, over twenty six thousand hectares, organic, plus another sixteen thousand actor. We, you know, herbicide, and chemical fertilizer So, of course, this is an artist for my friend Alberto that is gonna talk later on about sustainability. Well, I think that, of course, putting together one hundred wineries together is not so easy, especially in Italy, putting together eight thousand is even, more difficult. But thanks to all the efforts, that we put together with Alberto, Alicia, first of all, because we are here together. But, with the all the other member of the board, we really start a fantastic, project. That is not only a project that give us the opportunity to promote Sicily DOC, but as well as all the other small, unique, terroir, with unique small DOC operation. As a matter of fact, when we build up, Sichida DOC, we thought, that, of course, we had to share the value of our fantastic Brenda, Sichilia. So we gave the chance to the other operation to put in the label of Cecilia as well. So there are lots of different small appalachians, like, Victoria, Sherracuolo, today, Aetna, to main fee, contestantelina, they can show Sichida and the label. And of course, it's Sichida, it's much more familiar to control over the world than a small appylation, as Contethis Claffani or Contess and Telena, for sure. Okay. But just quickly, besides the sheer size of Cecilia Duck and Asovini. What are the main differences in terms of, you know, the functionality? Yeah. Of course, asovini is a group of mainly family They got vineyards. They are working in the vineyards. They are balling the wine, promoting, their brands. Consostudio Ceichida, of course, it's taking care of the brand, Cecilia, and he's, looking to all the producer of Sicily. Of course, because, DOC, Sichilia, is, including all the vineyards that we got potentially more than ninety seven thousand hectares that we got in Sicily. And, of course, it takes a lot of time. Here it says twenty four thousand. Yeah. Today, we are walking around twenty four ninety seven is total Sicily. Okay. And, of course, it's taking a lot of, my time as, of course, Alberto and Alacio, this project. And, of course, first of all, I got the big support of my wife. That this year. Yes, Barbara, the real boss. And, of course, you know, my family and the people that is in the winery, because only from time to time, and then I got, I I have no question, actually, and anything else that I suppose to do. Do you guys get paid to be, like, the president's or of Cecilia Doc or a Salvini. You guys make a lot of money doing that? Sometimes, we got a chance to have a coffee, a bottle of water, wines. Yes. We share wines. Yeah. That's something that we do. Usually, friendship. Friendship. Okay. That's priceless. Yeah. Okay. No. Of course, not. We are not paid. Okay. So I just want you guys to understand that they do this because they believe in the cause and the the passion for promoting Sicily in general. That is it. Okay. So now you can finally, Okay. Okay. You're the last. Best for last. Good morning to everybody. Thanks to the president's Matarela, to the president of the Vinitally. What do you mean Matarela? Is he still alive? Thank you to everybody. Thank you, Steve. You're inviting us. And, just a few words about, what we are is, even Tasca is a family company, a small family company. We work in wine since the eighteen thirty, and we are going around Sicily in five different states, even us. We love five from East to west from Moza, where the foundation wittaker has the vineyards, beautiful vineyards of Grillo, and is close to Palermo in the Appalachian Marielle is the attitude is for Sierra. Then the state of Regalia was our first state in the middle of nowhere in Sicily, and Taskante, so Aetna and Capof identifying the Olia Highlands. So you will see all the brand and the label without Tasca. So we are really focused on trying to valorize the territory. And we, as with our friends, planeta, we start in twenty twenty to work on sustainability and really hard with a protocol that is called sustained. And in twenty twenty we became also B Corp. B Corp doesn't take care about agriculture in general. It's a little bit against agriculture and thinking that agriculture make a bad impact, and so it's a really tough certification and we achieve it, this year after really hard work. So talking about the modelo Ciciliano, what happened to you. And my idea, the first was this is the original flag of the Separitas in nineteen forty eight. Are you serious? I'm serious. But This is a real flag. It's a real flag in Canada, but this is exactly what we are not. We are not separatists at all. So the model of Sicily is really try to it's really inclusive, and I have to say again thanks to these three guys. So, Diego Planeta, Lucio tasker, and Jacob Morales. That's the picture of them in the vineyard. So I think they teach to us how to stay together how to look and be proud about what we do and try to bring Sicily in a proud way all around the world. And I think, and we have to really thank them for that. So it's, totally against parties, but be part of a great meeting Italy. So this is what we do and what we try to do. In twenty twenty during pandemic, our meeting were like one every day. So there's nothing to do, but we had a lot of meeting And so, and, those two guys are really hard worker, and then, made a lot of virtual remitting. And so we decide to make to create a foundation, a foundation, a foundation from that soonest of sense in Chile, a foundation that who's has to take care about hectic and sustainability and practice and method around Sicily. The first things of the foundation that was thinking about the governance. This is something that I think is really important. The governance has to be really clear without any conflict of interest. Is, no profit company recognized, and all of us work on it as voluntary. So nobody's paying us how we were mentioned before. We keep a strong protocol on sustainability that is really tough and hard and has to be certified by any independent, certification. How many members? Oh, now we are forty wineries. Yes. And twenty four of them are already certificated and three are coming, probably these months. So all the hectares in terms of hectares of vineyards that are associated to the foundation is thirty three thousand hectares. And already five thousand seven hundred is our certification and twenty one million three hundred forty two zero ninety three bottles are certified. I'm so proud about that. The nice things of the foundation is once again, we share and we share the table. So we have some important table that are all our managers that stay together to find a problem, and we have an independent scientific center where we give to them problem. They have to come with a solution. We adapt the solution. So it's a way to share the commonwealth of CCC, and that's really great. So those are hard of point is a lot of research and try to develop problem and to solve issues, but even take care about together about some social issue that we have. We have done three example of project. One is a very, very nice. Thanks to Antonio that pushed the button that we made in CCS. And now with the company. It's called Oi. It's, industry in Marcella. They produce a bottle that is, with lightweight, totally products with recycled glass and density. So now we are keep going on this project. The bottles are high in the market, keep going with trying to put together a three seventy one small town around T City to keep the glass and have all the glass to be recycled. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp. For fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond. Meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now, back to the show. Another project is in accordance with Farmarium trying to recycle all the cork that we use in all our tasting and all our wineries. And there is another super nice project with Halliance, the insurance that we are working with two foundation that take care about. People with mental problem and guys that are on the road that we've problem. So all our staff are dedicating them the way to teach how to do marketing, how to work, you know, wineries, how to cultivate in green garden, and how to sell it, to let them become independent. And so this is something. Just few example of what we are doing altogether, and that's why probably together is better. And this is the united sicilian company, the member of sustain. Alrighty. Thank you very much. How many of you Julia, come here. Okay. How many of you know who Julia is? Just three people. Four people. Okay. That's good. Okay. So first of all, how many of you have seen White Lotus? A few more people? So for those of you who are unfamiliar, White Lotus was one of the most successful HBO series of all time. Okay. Okay. So how many of you who have seen White Lotus realized that this took place in Aetna? Okay. And how many of you knew it was in Okay. And Julia, who is the Psalm. You work for Plenate there. Right? Definitely not. Okay. Who do you work for? That's good. Okay. Alright. Thank you very much. Now you can you can descend. Okay. Now, I wanted to make a point here because this is what I love about Sicily. Okay. This hugely, hugely successful series an HBO, especially for the Americans, but worldwide. First of all, these guys work really, really hard. Okay. But they also have this, what we call, Right? They worked extremely hard, but this hugely successful series was located in Aetna, in Tarmina, and Sicily. I like for you guys to understand this, my rationale of why I'm showing you this. First of all, Julia, he's actually an estate manager for Tasca. And, you know, you can ask, you know, Alicia and, Tasca, how this film came to being That's not as important as what it represents. Because he's a estate manager for Tasca, but he was pouring Planet wine in the Planeta winery. I'm not happy about that. I'm not capable of doing. Okay. But this, I think it happened because it happened because they're friends. Right? Because as you know, my main pre occupation is that Italian wine is like Italian wine people. Right? Incredibly creative, incredibly talented imaginative, but they're also very individualistic. Right? And Sicily, I wanted to bring to you today this modelo Ciciliano, because I think the the success of Sicily, it's kind of emblematic of these three gentlemen. Because they work hard to promote Sicily. And the fact that this movie, I was having an incredible discussion with a professor in Palerma. I don't know if you've heard about that. So what happened was there was a panel with the illustrious professor and myself. I I'm so bad with professors. And I bought this example of White Lotus. It has not only augmented the visibility of Aetna, not only Tarmina, but the entire region of Sicily. For me, it's the same model as the three wineries. They also are the engine for entire group of Sicily. So the professor said, you know, it's really a shame. You haven't heard about this? So he said, it's really a shame. Italian professor from Palerno. Very famous professor. Okay. And he said, you know, it's really a damn shame because white lotus may be commercially. It's been very successful, but more tourism to Sicily, but the main protagonist, Italians were and also, Okay. He said. So my reply to this was that Hollywood until actually White Lotus had portrayed Sicily as basically the godfather. That was Hollywood version of Sicily. Okay. And it's I think White Lotus has bought up in terms of brand positioning of Sicily to a different level, to luxury, to beautiful places, beautiful people. And I said to him, I would much prefer putane and over my fusing anytime. Because I think that kind of brand positioning is much better and has benefited Sicily. So with that well, I'll start with the question. Okay? And then you guys do the questions. Did you wanna say something, Alicia? No. This is when, Steve started to work on their eyes. Okay. So so I have a question. I bought these guys. One thing I wanted to share with you is that when I met them, they were at a phase. They were in a critical moment where there was this famous rites of passage, the passaggio general as they would call it. Between Diego, giacomo, and lucho, I was so impressed because I didn't understand wine business at all, and they transition immediately into the next generation. At the same time. Is that correct? More or less? More or less. Right? And I was so impressed with that The second thing that I was impressed with these three a's is that they have invested. You've seen their personal, estates. Right? But they're all in Sicily. So why did you choose not to invest elsewhere? Because a lot of the producers from Tuscany from Piamonte, from Veneto, they invested in Sicily and elsewhere. Why the three of you have not invested outside of Sicily. Because we don't have money first. No. Because after spending all our life, talking about the beauty of CCD, how can we do the same talking about the beautiful Tuscari, Pemonte, whatever. So we were born in Sicily and born in the island, and, there was a lot of CC to explore when we start. So this is why also we prefer to explore other items, Cecil instead of going, you know, the place. Well, Sicily is, is a continent itself. And in terms of vineyards, it's so big. We got, so many different, that until today, we didn't explore all of it, any of us, even if we got more or less five hundred hectares all around the island, it's task, Planita and Donna Fuglada. Of course, there are some more places to explore So we had no reason, to go abroad because, for us, over the stretch of the Messina is abroad still. We are not using any more passport, but, in the past, we were taking with us. Yes. I think that the we saw the potential of CCR that was re really there. The perception was like us a flat tile and and, everything thinks that Nero Dawala was the same Nero Dawala all around. So there was a really huge potential of place, culture, and things, and I think we got the vision to stay there. Alright. Listen. Let's give it up for this. Wonderful, guys. And sicilian wine. Thank you for joining us on another installment of On The Road Edition, hosted by Stevie Kim. Join her again next week for more interesting content in the Italian wine scene. You can also find us at Italian wine podcast dot com or wherever you get your pods. You can also check out our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp, to watch these interviews and the footage captured of each location.