July 16, 2025 • 46 mins
Sicily is ablaze with a new generation of dynamic winemakers who aspire to respect the biodiversity in a region and produce wines that uniquely express their local terroir. An example is Arianna Occhipinti who started her namesake winery at age 22 in 2004 in Fossa di Lupo (Vittoria). She calls it "a magical place." Occhipinti has become a leading voice for biodiversity and a top producer of biodynamic wines in Italy. She describes herself and her wines as “wild, original, brave and rebellious.”
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-connected-table-live--1277037/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you
(00:20):
for choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
travel the world to bring you the amazing people we
meet and the places we visit in wine, food, spirits
and hospitality, hoping to take you to step outside your
(01:01):
tasting comfort zone and explore your palette and your life
with these amazing people in places. Today, we're taking you
to Sicily. I'm wearing lemons for the occasion to meet
with a very dynamic young winemaker. Sicily is a blaze
with a new generation of dynamic winemakers who are making
(01:24):
their impact to respect the biodiversity of the region and
produce wines are truly authentic and expressing their local terrooi.
And a really great example as our guest today Arianna Ocapinti,
who started her namesake winery at the tender age of
twenty two, so she's really one of the young guns
the winery actually celebrating his twentieth anniversary. She started her
(01:47):
windery in two thousand and four and very quickly achieved
critical acclaim including raves by Eric Asimov. I call it
the Asimov effect for her biodynamic and certified organic clue wines.
Now more than twenty years later, she is a leading
voice for biodiversity and a top producer of biodynamic wines
in Italy. She's described herself and her wines as wild, original,
(02:11):
brave and rebellious and she's taking the time to step
up aside with us to join us on the connected table.
So welcome Adiana.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Hello, thank you for mighty me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I love the wild, original, brave and rebellious and I
have to tell you when I had the opportunity to
visit the winery doing Cecilia, I'm premier. Thank you a Savini.
Cecilia I got that energy from you as you stood
outside and showed us the land. It was a wild
energy and I think it's very exciting, and we're going
to get into that right now. But we always start
(02:46):
our show with family. We understand your mother's from Marsala
and you dad is from Victoria. Tell us about your
family and what your life was like as a young
girl and where you grew up.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
It's a good question. The original was very important.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So my.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Mum, Rosaura, come from a family of Marsala and Palermo.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
My father from Vittoria.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
So they mets at the university in Palermo where my
mother was studying gym gymnastics and my father architecture, and
they mets and they fall in love and after some
year try to think where to live and to start
to work for my father. They decided to to stay
(03:38):
more in Vittoria. So I was born in Marsala, So
the beginning, the idea was to stay there, but at
the end they preferred to arrive to Vittoria.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
So I grew up in Vittoria. But this connection of two.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Sides of Sicily, for me, they were very very important
for my origin, for my knowledge of Sicily. For my
filming of Sicily. So my mother the supports in my
life was and is always of a person that was
stimulating me a lot. Sometimes when I want to, uh,
(04:15):
you know, I fund I say. I was projected by my.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Mother to be to be a person always on the
right time, to arrive to the to the.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
To the goal. So my mother was a professor. I
was teaching sports. So for forever, the the training, all
these the life were very important, you know. So I
was also a sportive girl at the beginning. My father,
architect arrived to me with the with the with the
(04:52):
knowledge of the nature, with the with the knowledge of
the old architecture, with the tradition, and also with a
little competition.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
That's always pushed me more head than.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I was thinking before, always a little bit competing with me,
but in our right way. So to be sure that
it was not able to tell me anymore something. I
grew a lot, I studied a lot, so with and
I was able now to reach different kind of things.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
In my life. So they were.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Super important for me for this, but of course as parents,
because I love them.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And they were in a way close to me.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
So your mother was a teacher, your father was an architecture.
How did wine come into the picture? What got you
interested in wine and how did that part of your
life start.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
The wine arrived when I was sixteen seventeen years old
my uncle Usa from Coswana.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
That is the the O of course means occuping the
So the.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
O is.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Was was was the man that was very linked with
the knees and special to me. So when one day
I remember invited me to go to Italy with him to.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
The fair and I was sixteen.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
So we are here arrival, Tommy is asked, Osawa, can I.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Bring karana with me to Verona?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
And I'm saying no, why because they said Mom yes,
because for sure for me represent to jump for days
of school, not not selling other things. But when I
arrived there, I discovered a word of the one world
with a lot of people that were happy and in
the meantime they were working. So my my, the beginning
(06:54):
for me was just to put the wine into the
glasses of the people, but was looking in these people
in a very nice I was appreciating a lot, so
the feeling of the wine people and I decide to
go sometimes with my uncle to join the seller to
support him and to know when he wanted to wrack
(07:17):
the wine, a little bits of the vineyards. And after
this I decided to study when making a technologist and
they moved to Milano. So in that period of life
at the university, of course, I appreciate a lot, so
the world of the production. So for me it was
important to visit the winery, to fill in love with
(07:37):
the wine, to start to test the wine, and blind testing,
to visit artisan not so only big industry, something that
was doing with the university, of course, but always with
some people, some friends visiting during the weekend. Wonderful producer
that transmitting me the sense of the real life.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, I had the chance to meet Julia Acupani because
I visited coasts and you have both had the same
energy and and and I can I sense the familial
connection also with the wines and the and the expression energy.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
My father was the same.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And we also learned Acapente meets like dark eyes and
beloved eyes, and there's an intensity even in the name.
So you worked with him for a while and I
were curious and I was talking to David all this.
You went to study traditional and knowalogy and meticulture and
university which is great. But then you went and worked
with your uncle at court, which was, you know, innovative.
(08:43):
How did you blend the traditional and what is really
where you're going with your expression of wines, which is
natural wine making and biodynamic. How did you make that
transition and what did you learn from Julia Occupentine to
help you move toward that as you opened your own
as you basically invested in your first hector of vineyards.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yeah, sorry, Melania, the right pronounce is just but yeah,
it's just so that's a mean right right in English?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Right, it's a it's the real the translation.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
When I started making my own wine on two thousand
and four, of course, my idea, my philosophy was already
fixed because in the last three years between the university,
my uncle, other producer that was meeting during my university,
(09:42):
arrived to meet the sense of the tradition, connection with
that there are and the respect of the wine, of
the nature and of the life of the wine. So
my uncle was already fermenting spontaneously, and there was already
a producer that was not doing an impact wine in
(10:09):
terms of but it wasn't respecting a lot of the viticulture,
the soil, the sense of the biodiversity.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
So this was the beginning for me. The first knowledge.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Arrive of course from me from a good said book
and then thanks to some other meetings like Elen Apantalioni
of Lastova, Elizabetha Ferradori or Johanna Borganti of Lebone and
many other producers Areadi Giuseppe in all the producer. That's
during my university period I was visiting and learning and
(10:44):
considering mentors for me. I arrived on two thousand and
four when I decided to start my wine with this mentality.
The wine is something that you don't have to modify.
The wine is something that you have to you have
to feel and wait, but of course control this process
(11:08):
as an impact point, that's as an observat or good father.
That's are following something in the developing, representing the sense
of the place where the one is made.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
You know, you talk about authentic right, how do you
and we talked about this also how do you identify?
Two words came up because recently we also talked about
modern wines. How do you define an authentic wine? And
also a modern wine for today because we've been talking
throughout our trips Italy about how the wine world is
(11:45):
going through an evolution and then also a revolution. How
would you define those two very important terms.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
In general in this are very.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
How I can say very precise when I have to
understand the wine, okay, And sometimes I say, there are
wine that give me energy, there are wine that's taken
away me energy, or there are wine that I feel
they are deep energetic.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They are wine that.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Are so built, so constructed to not be free, to
not give a good energy to you.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
So when for me a contemporary wine, a modern wine
is a wine that must.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Be connected with the wine. So even.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
A concept of modernity or contemporarity sometimes means that.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Or belong to a bigger one or something.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I don't know, but it's important for me to understand
this difference. So all the time I taste a wine
is made by a very good vitical culture that you
respect the place, respect the soil and the variety the climates,
and in the cellar you don't modify because when we
(13:11):
say what is the tere when you modify with the additives,
the things, the level of the acid, the level of pH,
the level of the structure, the color. Where is the
one when you modify the wine. So and when you
modify the wine, you feel in the testing. So I
(13:31):
don't feel that wine is.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Is deep.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I don't feel the one that wine is as free but.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Sometimes represent distinctive.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Knows that I can find in other thousands and thousands
of wines.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So don't represent means nothing that I need and.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
I prefer to do to make a wine that is
more spontaneous, more connected with the place.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Of course, to do this.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
The natural methods when you have you you follow the
process very well with the wine cleaner to respect as
not the defect. I don't feel. I don't feel the
name natural wine as a as a wine with defect.
Natural wine for me, is one of the best expressions
of the teroi. With a good, very good attention by
(14:37):
the winemaker.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
It does take a lot of attention.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
It does.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Yeah, you do a wine text a lot of attention.
Wine the true present, good, a good battle or made
by a wonderful producer that everybody knows. And that's wine
is popular is because that's wine is made with the
respect from Avignarona didn't understand very well and what it
(15:03):
is doing.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Now you make two different type, you make a clue wine.
You decided to go into clue wines in twenty sixteen,
So you have two categories of wine. Why don't you
talk to us about those? And also I think you
started with for pato was a was a predominant grape.
What's interesting is you only work with native varieties and
(15:30):
one of them was alb I want to make I
want to make sure I pronounce her ab Albarello, Albanello.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
Excuse me, Albanello. The albanello which interesting? Looking it up?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
If you say Albanela, it's the market and Albanelo is Sicily,
and many people in particularly in the United States, don't
know that grape. So it's interesting that you were harvesting
in that as well. So why don't you take us
through how you approach your wines and some of the
differences between the Contrado wines and your other wines.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
From the beginning, I was feeling more interesting to work
with indigenous grape. We were coming from the nineties two
thousands period, that's in Sicily. We were blending a lot,
maybe some indigenous with international grapes or sometimes we were
(16:28):
producing cap from Sicily. So finally that moment was important
because we were turning a.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Little bit more versus the indigenous, you know, and.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Sicilian producers were exalting more the indigenous. And I understand
that's in Victoria. We had a wonderful grape, special grape
that was of course then because in Viitaria is very elegance,
very very nice thanks to the altitude to the limestone,
but also the Pao Victoria, the two, the two grape
(17:05):
where and are blended to make the Vitoria that is
the unique deiocege of Sicily.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
But also discovering Fra Pato a.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Very good potential grape. And sometimes I say with Pato,
we we we took my hand, you know, we were
close because maybe Fra Pato needed a person that was
were believing a lot in this grape with love, with.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
The emotion, with passion, to.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Support the grape around the world, as maybe I was
doing and I'm still doing. And myself I was I
needed of for Patos grape because Ariana is the person
of today maybe thanks to our wonderful grape that is
for Pato. So the the join the couple worked very
(17:57):
well and and after some years of love or from
part of course, I start to look also some white
varieties as the Albanelo so Albarello is an old varieties
of the place that was completely abandoned. And I found
these the bats to graft in my vineyards from an
(18:18):
old vineyards between Victoria and Monte Blay, the black mountains
in front of Victoria Caramonte golf especially and I decided
to graft and to blend with the Muscato alessandrite, so
we called Zibibo to make my first white after years.
I added some grilla also from the mountains, from a
(18:39):
wonderful vineyards in Cara Mounte.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Goodfit.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
So my of course, my focus was more in red,
and then now I can say also, of course in white.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
That's a really love.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
You know, we've had grail from all over Sicily, but
it's very distinctively expressed in Victoria. Why is that? Obviously
it's student to Taiwan. Why don't you talk about the
land itself? And we know you work in different contrata,
which are districts for those of you who may not
be familiar with the name, and the soils are unique
in each of these, So why is the glile here
(19:15):
so unique?
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Victoria stayed in the Altipiano at two hundred and fifty
meters above the sea in front of the Blade mountains.
So Cincily was covered by the sea millions of years ago,
and every time the sea was retiring was leaving a
lowyer of soil shells, the trities from the sea, and
(19:42):
this create our cratification, our rock mother rock.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Okay, this mother rock that.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Seas limestone hundred percent is super important. And this covered
by twenty five thirty centimeters of red sand or white
sand or brown on said, that depends on the contrata
you are, and also the quality of the limestone depends
also in the contrata.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
In the crew you are. Sometimes we have.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
As a contrada like Forsadilupo and Bobol we have a
white compact limestone. Other historical contradas Santa Teresa petin Bastonaca
have a kind of limestone more porous, more orange. And
then we have these Blame mountains just in front of
(20:32):
Victoria with a lot of limestone, because there were rock
of the sea with.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
A lot of shets.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
So when I decide to plant the grillad, I planted
in the mountains at five hundred meters above the sea,
in a place where I have a lot of chalk
and a lot of limestone.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Because Grilla, for me, is very familiar with the sense
of the sea.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Grillaw looks and lime very much the sea, the shells
and the salinity. And my way to interpretrate this grape
was to show the connection with the salinity, soeva Grillo
with the personality Saltea, but also very elegance in the
nose thanks to the limestone and thanks to the altitude.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
The improving of course, so.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I think in this place grill Law is a big
potential to express.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
You know, we went into the caves and we saw
the limestone. You really thought you were going in and
seeing the limestone and the fossils which are everywhere, and
it's really remarkable. Every time we got lily and we
are told, oh, this area was covered by sea. We
were just in Orvieto and they were like, this area
was covered by c and we were inland.
Speaker 7 (21:46):
I mean, sicily makes sense.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
It's amazing how many fossils are all over the place.
In my notes and maybe hopefully they were correct, I
have here that the red soils, the orange red, make
more drinkable agele wines and the wie more austereer. Is
that true?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Okay, you're a bit sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Red soils, how do the red soils and the white
soils are impressed upon in the style and the drinkability
of the wine, agibility of the wines.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Victoria, red sand rich in iron, rich in iron makes wine.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
There is woods and floral.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
And even we are in the Mediterranean area, so sometimes
people think very warm.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
It's thanks to the soil, thanks to the wind that
we have.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Usually the red variety are very elegant and also doesn't
produce a lot of tobaccle so they are twelve and
haf thirteen maximum. The red sand. While the limestone gives
acidity and nostidity and salinity, the red sand gives elegance.
(22:56):
Florial strawberry are almost making wine, red wine and very
nice or.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Never darker, never dark fruit. That's very elegant fruit.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
That's interesting because you know, I tasted a few wines
from the Petineo Contrata, yours and others, and it was
very distinct. And you have a how what is the
range of your vines? I mean you started in so history,
you started in two thousand and four, and then you
built your you decided to go with single contrata in
(23:33):
twenty sixteen, when did you build your new winery and
are you old vines and young vines or what.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
At the moment you have a different kind of age
of wine vines because the oldest is a seven years
older in contrada, So that's just completely in the red
sand uh or at minimum seventy centimeter. And then limestone
(24:04):
twofa limestone is a kind we call the vineyards mother
vineyards because it's also the vineyards where we took the bats.
We grafted on a new fields and we are creating
a kind of a patrimonial of old clones of Rapato
di Victory. Well, this is the oldest vineyards of Rapato
(24:24):
of the area, but I have also some vineyards of
ten years old that I planted, passing through vineyards of
thirty years old. So different because some viniards I planted,
some other villiards I was able to buy. And so
now we work in nine different district, nine different contrada.
(24:49):
That's at the beginning was a needs to find a
small parcel because I didn't I haven't said the opportunities
taking some helping.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Some vineyards to not be abandoned.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
And then all these became a treasure because this for me,
a treasury is to work in different kinds of soil,
and my work is to express all these kinds of
different soils in the world.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And again you work by all your wines are biodynamic
as well. That's important to you as well, which is
a very involved process as well. So are your wines
available in the United States.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
If I was just able to find available my importer
from my beginning is a dressed and.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I was very.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Lucky to find a company that is a kind of
family and they were selecting in always from France. Italy
I think a very good vigneur own. So that's feel
the sense of the truth. So yeah, of course I'm
there in the United States. And also I can say
that the United States for me.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
And is a good market.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
But when people in Italy we say America is the
place where you have the opportunities, not so you arrive
in America. For Italily, many Italians arrive in America. They
arrive and they change the life and they were supporting
the family in Europe and in a different way. It's
happened to me also thanks to American marketing, because I
(26:34):
like American people that's they If you are good, they
appreciate you, they buy you, and they support you. It's
not necessarily you have a long story in your life,
a family or something, but there is always this kind
(26:54):
of chance that arrived when you stay or work with
the Americans. And it's happened to me. So I'm very
linked to this market for the people that I met
in my last twenty years.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, you know, we have a friend Mary Taylor who
Eric Asimov discovered her and her business is taken off
and she's a hot shot like you. She's kind of
like you teased me, very similar. What was that like
for you when you were embraced by Eric Asimov, who
is the New York Times wine critic, and there's very
few newspaper wine critics left. How did that impact you
(27:34):
and your business?
Speaker 4 (27:37):
This was an important moment of my life because you
you feel that something is changing. Of course, I appreciate
Erica in as as critic is very It's a person
(27:59):
very you know, it's a journalist that you really appreciate
because it is integrate, is a is integer as we
can say no, So it's a person that's really right.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
What he likes and uh, and this I appreciate very much.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
So when it's happened, that's uh, it's arrived. Then the
route for the first time about me and my project,
I really appreciate. And this of course made me arrive
to me more popularity. So this was an important passage
of my life. And it's always important also because the
(28:43):
demand the group of the wines, and I was able
to arrive to be more popular and not so only
to you know, some some small things or Italian market
or European market.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
So this was very important for me.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
And step by step all these things supported me my project.
That was able to buy vineyards in Victoria and to
buy mineyards in Victoria was important because otherwise there was
the abandonment.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
So I was a person always ready.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
To buy land, to plant vineyards, to buy lemon to
all the time I was buying a vineyards and I
found olive trees, lemon bush, Mediterranean vegetation every time I
was maintaining this. So my project supported also a biodiversity
around me. Now we have fifty percent vineyards and fifty
(29:43):
percent of other culture, and this culture.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Helps wine to be better.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
But wine helped the biodiversity to be maintained because of
course the wine economically.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Speaking, is stronger than other culture, other part of agriculture.
And this also teach me a lot of.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Things when I start to be grower and to work
in general with agriculture and not sold only white because sometimes.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
I say, when one producer, we are.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
A kind of elit sometimes lucky, you know, lucky to
have a grape transform to be ready to sell. There
is a nice demand in the world, except in this
last period that's a little bits more complicated.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
But in general people like the wine. They want to
by so with the other when you have when you
plant the wat, for example, you don't have this demand.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
It's very difficult to be grower of wheat, of lemon,
of orange.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
And this teach me a lot to to appreciate.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
What I do, and I decide to improve the biodiversity
in the in our project always thanks to the to
the market that's was working well, you.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Know important points, yeah, and the farming you know you
produce olive oil right and follows and the Durham I
learned in traveling in this area both of US and
throughout Sicily, particularly in southern Sicily. This this huge agricultural economy.
And you're right, that it all feeds upon itself and
(31:19):
nurtures the each other by doing that. And biodiversity is
really key identity to everything you're doing, you know.
Speaker 7 (31:28):
And I visited you.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
We went to taste, sit and taste the wines, and
we walked into a room and the walls were filled
with yellow post it notes because you've been doing strategic
planning and a lot of it. Because the walls are
just papered with post it notes. And you work with
people who you respect in the industry to help you,
as you said, get to the next phase of ocapin tea,
(31:54):
talk to us about who you're working with and who
are some of the people who are guiding you and
mentoring you, and where you're seeing your eyes on the future.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
The future is a big question because we know because
we are in a moment of passage. Sometimes I say
we are like not able to say in English, but
when an epoch is changing, you know, it is more
than a change of the century, is a change of
(32:29):
it's a social change, cultural change. We feel in Europe.
That's something is happening.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
For the future, you know, and is of course, uh,
what's filming.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Mosheur is the fact that I'm a winemaker, I'm a grower.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
I'm working with agriculture.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
When you're working with agricultural in the COVID period, for example,
you were feeling yourself more sure to have a piece
of lens, to grow a piece of lens, and to
have a view for the future with this piece of land,
to maintain people, to support things. So my approach that
(33:17):
sometimes I was still supporting is always to have mentors
that have an idea of where they were coming, an
idea of what's happening now, a sense of uncertain of
(33:38):
the future as all the human being, because we are
human and we have a problem with the limits, with
the future, with the sense we don't know. Sometimes this
struggle as sometimes But of.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Course I like to be close to people that live
their life in a real way.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
So when I feel people real real sometimes not necessarily
something that I share completely, but they are real and
I like because they transmit me a point of view. Okay,
and this for me is important to be inspired for
my future, for my present. Maybe the goal for the
(34:26):
future is to live a little bit more the present.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
For me, We'll be going at a fast speed. You've
been going at a pretty fast pee for twenty years.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
For me that I was running, running and you know, creating,
planting my project that was flowerishing in a very beautiful place.
Way is yeah, to live a little bits smaller present
and feel me more linked to what's happening.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Now.
Speaker 6 (34:55):
Now that you have the infrastructure in place, it's time
to take a step back and focus on what you've
created and how you can make it better.
Speaker 7 (35:04):
So how is Alessio Planeta helping you?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Because we know he is one of your advisors or
people that you've flean on, and.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
So Alessi is a is a wonderful person unless you
belong to a wonderful wine family of Sicily able to
to transform parts as you know, to transform Sicily as
a as a region that was producing wine and back
(35:37):
to region that was producing wine and bodles able to
make a very good wine and sport in.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
In all the worlds.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
So the tradition of the Planetta family I think is
very important for it was very important for whole wine
wine system, wine Sicilian system especially a less Oh, we
have a nice relation because unless you is a very
smart man, it's in terms of people that do something
(36:08):
to you know, to to use the occasion is a
very spirit spirital man, love the history, the tradition. You
know perfectly that I represent an important project of the
family and sometimes must be in line with his project.
But it's also a man that's like to experiment, to
(36:31):
to look over the tradition. So in a I'm very
you know, many times when I see less and that's poor,
some some wine that's at the beginning, also some more
extreme wine to see the expression of a less face
and and not also sometimes the wine after wine I like,
(36:56):
of course, is point of view.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
And it's also a person that's.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Is able to give a lot of good ideas and
things so.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And also is a very funny person. So this this
friendship arrived a little.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Bit from my uncle, So that was very close friend
of Diego Planeta as mentor. My my uncle led two
big mentors in his life and many friends, but two
mentors where they were Marco de Bartley and Diego Planeta
for different things, but very too, very important person for him.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
So from his every time my uncle.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Was telling me something, there were these two persons in
in all his experiens. So I'm all, it's arrived.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
So when I start making wine to me arrived.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
The sense of the tradition of Sicily, a project like
the Oscarl media planet, the tradition that the feeling of
the change, looking in the contemporary looking that come back
into the sense of the true. So I was a
kind of mix of all of these, you know, that's
(38:17):
for me to fix my philosophy, my idea.
Speaker 7 (38:22):
Yeah, those are great mentors.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And you know, as you're talking, Arianna, I just kept
thinking about how supportive uh Sicilian producers are whenever we
go there. Everybody is very supportive and there's a lot
of camarade because you're all in this together, as that
they say. And it's nice to see, how you know,
(38:44):
Juiceo Occupante influenced you, Alessio and and Diego Planeto influenced him,
and Alessio Planeto is helping you, and and curious now
that you're the ripe your occupantity one here is now
the ripe age of twenty plus years, are you going
to be mentoring anyone? Are you seeing that role for
(39:07):
you in the future as Cecily hopefully even as younger,
newer wine makers moving up the ranks.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Of course, I feel from my beginning my philosophy was
enough strong in the sense of respectful and the ideas.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Of doctor Ward.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
That's some so many year people arrived always here to
do a period, to do astagia, to make an experience
in occupying the project, to understand the sense of the life,
the way to make the wine.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
For spontaneous fermentation by a dynamic approach, to repeat this.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Also to the fact we were not doing this in
only three actors, but doing this in a bigger sides
because Victoria.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
In that moment, the soil, the land was not costing
a lot.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
And when now I'm supporting people to learn, especially in
the last three or four years, some new two three
webmakers were born.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I don't want to say of.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Course thanks to my experience they were doing here, because
they did the experience also.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
In other parts of the worlds.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
But of course the last experience was around me or
another guy in my uncle place.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
That's now they started their own project in Victoria. So
the good things they.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Were not at the beginning, I was supporting a lot
of the people to start a project in another place
because they were coming back, coming back in their place
and making wine and France, making wine in Italy, making
wine in America.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
The good things. Now it is happending. That's h I
like when they decide to make one in Victoria.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Some they are people from this area, but a couple
of friends Calma Wines, for example, they are not. They
are one from New Zealand the one from German Germany
that they decide to to to improve, to learn and
violent here and make one ear.
Speaker 3 (41:30):
So this makes me very happy for my territory.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
For maybe to be mentor for some someone, of course,
is something that's give me satisfaction. But is the I
think the only things that as human being we have
to do. Transmit to your pression, Transmit to your philosophy,
transmits for the future to the person that are able
(41:55):
to assob assorb all of this.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
So, yes, it's happening and I'm very happy of this.
That's exciting.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
To paying it forward, Yeah, that's what we call it,
paying it forward, that's the term. So you mentioned that
someone as have come over and worked with intense stages
or what kind of hospitality programs does the Occupanting Project
offer for people who want to visit and visit the
winery and taste your wines and whatnot. Tell us about
that before we wrap up.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yeah, Oh, we are open for the visit.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
This was something that's at the beginning, of course arrive
to me. But then step by step, I was very
happy to trusmit to the project, to transmit to the
experience to the people, and we organize all of these
and when you arrive here, what they want to trustmit
(42:48):
is not totally the tasting, but it's a fullest fit
into of agriculture. When people arrive to visit Okipinia and
don't like they it's a normal visit, but it is
as a visy that's us to transmit tradition sicily agriculture, biodiversity,
the methods we use. So we spend a little bit
(43:09):
of the time in the vineyards to to explain what
we do.
Speaker 8 (43:14):
In a in a in a good in a good way,
and then we we go around our vegetable garden, we
show our other projects around biodiversity, and then we arrive
to the seller explaining all the processes.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
And at the end that we of course we test
the wines. But to arrive to.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
The wine and understand better the wine, we have to
understand the agriculture project.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
That's for me, it's very important.
Speaker 4 (43:42):
And this is the kind of hospitality that so we
every day organize in the winery. I'm also opening in
the vineyards a couple of houses uh to rents to
have a full experience of hospitality in the vineyards. But
(44:03):
we are renting the full houses to be also free
to leave the place as in a in a freely
way as everybody likes with this family in the minyards
of Santa Margarita and gal Monte golf in the mountains
because there is a wonderful legscape there, a less kept
(44:24):
of ills, a leeds Kepe Mediterranean, but a little bit
fresh shirt than Victoria, where we are more in Mediterranean.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Uh less cap more close to Africa we are in Victorian.
Also it's a warmer place.
Speaker 7 (44:39):
Close to Africa.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Were only close to Africa, more close than Italy.
Speaker 7 (44:44):
For sure, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
And your products, Dave, it's actually on the screen. There's
a coloring book.
Speaker 6 (44:51):
Fascinating because you actually sell a coloring book on your website.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Yeah, yeah, there's a whole one of interesting. I I
had a wonderful experience and I really want David to
hopefully he'll.
Speaker 6 (45:03):
Well, hopefully next next time, because.
Speaker 7 (45:06):
We always divide and car he was in Noto.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
But I had an amazing Meal, a wonderful woman from
England to this incredible dinner with the wines. The hospitality
was amazing. Ariana Okapini, We're so glad you could take
the time. I know it's it's going to be a
busy time soon as harvest is approaching and it's been
very hot in Sicily and the rest of Italy, so
I hope it's We hope it's a good harvest for you.
We wish you all the success in the next many
(45:32):
more decades to come for Ocapinte and the Ocapiny project.
So thank you for joining us. And just to remember,
the wines are available in the United States and you
can learn more at going to Agricola ocapine it and
you can also read up on Ariana and the wines
at the connected table dot com. So thank you for
(45:52):
joining us.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Thank you very much. A big kiss from Sicily, A big.
Speaker 7 (45:58):
Kiss to Sicily. Sicily.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
We hope everybody's been inspired. A great show and always
we leave you with this step out of your comfort zone,
try and discover many things and always stay instage.
Speaker 7 (46:13):
You'll be curious. Thank you
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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CY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or
comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you
(00:20):
for choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
travel the world to bring you the amazing people we
meet and the places we visit in wine, food, spirits
and hospitality, hoping to take you to step outside your
(01:01):
tasting comfort zone and explore your palette and your life
with these amazing people in places. Today, we're taking you
to Sicily. I'm wearing lemons for the occasion to meet
with a very dynamic young winemaker. Sicily is a blaze
with a new generation of dynamic winemakers who are making
(01:24):
their impact to respect the biodiversity of the region and
produce wines are truly authentic and expressing their local terrooi.
And a really great example as our guest today Arianna Ocapinti,
who started her namesake winery at the tender age of
twenty two, so she's really one of the young guns
the winery actually celebrating his twentieth anniversary. She started her
(01:47):
windery in two thousand and four and very quickly achieved
critical acclaim including raves by Eric Asimov. I call it
the Asimov effect for her biodynamic and certified organic clue wines.
Now more than twenty years later, she is a leading
voice for biodiversity and a top producer of biodynamic wines
in Italy. She's described herself and her wines as wild, original,
(02:11):
brave and rebellious and she's taking the time to step
up aside with us to join us on the connected table.
So welcome Adiana.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Hello, thank you for mighty me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I love the wild, original, brave and rebellious and I
have to tell you when I had the opportunity to
visit the winery doing Cecilia, I'm premier. Thank you a Savini.
Cecilia I got that energy from you as you stood
outside and showed us the land. It was a wild
energy and I think it's very exciting, and we're going
to get into that right now. But we always start
(02:46):
our show with family. We understand your mother's from Marsala
and you dad is from Victoria. Tell us about your
family and what your life was like as a young
girl and where you grew up.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
It's a good question. The original was very important.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So my.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Mum, Rosaura, come from a family of Marsala and Palermo.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
My father from Vittoria.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
So they mets at the university in Palermo where my
mother was studying gym gymnastics and my father architecture, and
they mets and they fall in love and after some
year try to think where to live and to start
to work for my father. They decided to to stay
(03:38):
more in Vittoria. So I was born in Marsala, So
the beginning, the idea was to stay there, but at
the end they preferred to arrive to Vittoria.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
So I grew up in Vittoria. But this connection of two.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Sides of Sicily, for me, they were very very important
for my origin, for my knowledge of Sicily. For my
filming of Sicily. So my mother the supports in my
life was and is always of a person that was
stimulating me a lot. Sometimes when I want to, uh,
(04:15):
you know, I fund I say. I was projected by my.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Mother to be to be a person always on the
right time, to arrive to the to the.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
To the goal. So my mother was a professor. I
was teaching sports. So for forever, the the training, all
these the life were very important, you know. So I
was also a sportive girl at the beginning. My father,
architect arrived to me with the with the with the
(04:52):
knowledge of the nature, with the with the knowledge of
the old architecture, with the tradition, and also with a
little competition.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
That's always pushed me more head than.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I was thinking before, always a little bit competing with me,
but in our right way. So to be sure that
it was not able to tell me anymore something. I
grew a lot, I studied a lot, so with and
I was able now to reach different kind of things.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
In my life. So they were.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Super important for me for this, but of course as parents,
because I love them.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And they were in a way close to me.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
So your mother was a teacher, your father was an architecture.
How did wine come into the picture? What got you
interested in wine and how did that part of your
life start.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
The wine arrived when I was sixteen seventeen years old
my uncle Usa from Coswana.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
That is the the O of course means occuping the
So the.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
O is.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Was was was the man that was very linked with
the knees and special to me. So when one day
I remember invited me to go to Italy with him to.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
The fair and I was sixteen.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
So we are here arrival, Tommy is asked, Osawa, can I.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Bring karana with me to Verona?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
And I'm saying no, why because they said Mom yes,
because for sure for me represent to jump for days
of school, not not selling other things. But when I
arrived there, I discovered a word of the one world
with a lot of people that were happy and in
the meantime they were working. So my my, the beginning
(06:54):
for me was just to put the wine into the
glasses of the people, but was looking in these people
in a very nice I was appreciating a lot, so
the feeling of the wine people and I decide to
go sometimes with my uncle to join the seller to
support him and to know when he wanted to wrack
(07:17):
the wine, a little bits of the vineyards. And after
this I decided to study when making a technologist and
they moved to Milano. So in that period of life
at the university, of course, I appreciate a lot, so
the world of the production. So for me it was
important to visit the winery, to fill in love with
(07:37):
the wine, to start to test the wine, and blind testing,
to visit artisan not so only big industry, something that
was doing with the university, of course, but always with
some people, some friends visiting during the weekend. Wonderful producer
that transmitting me the sense of the real life.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, I had the chance to meet Julia Acupani because
I visited coasts and you have both had the same
energy and and and I can I sense the familial
connection also with the wines and the and the expression energy.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
My father was the same.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And we also learned Acapente meets like dark eyes and
beloved eyes, and there's an intensity even in the name.
So you worked with him for a while and I
were curious and I was talking to David all this.
You went to study traditional and knowalogy and meticulture and
university which is great. But then you went and worked
with your uncle at court, which was, you know, innovative.
(08:43):
How did you blend the traditional and what is really
where you're going with your expression of wines, which is
natural wine making and biodynamic. How did you make that
transition and what did you learn from Julia Occupentine to
help you move toward that as you opened your own
as you basically invested in your first hector of vineyards.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yeah, sorry, Melania, the right pronounce is just but yeah,
it's just so that's a mean right right in English?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Right, it's a it's the real the translation.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
When I started making my own wine on two thousand
and four, of course, my idea, my philosophy was already
fixed because in the last three years between the university,
my uncle, other producer that was meeting during my university,
(09:42):
arrived to meet the sense of the tradition, connection with
that there are and the respect of the wine, of
the nature and of the life of the wine. So
my uncle was already fermenting spontaneously, and there was already
a producer that was not doing an impact wine in
(10:09):
terms of but it wasn't respecting a lot of the viticulture,
the soil, the sense of the biodiversity.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
So this was the beginning for me. The first knowledge.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Arrive of course from me from a good said book
and then thanks to some other meetings like Elen Apantalioni
of Lastova, Elizabetha Ferradori or Johanna Borganti of Lebone and
many other producers Areadi Giuseppe in all the producer. That's
during my university period I was visiting and learning and
(10:44):
considering mentors for me. I arrived on two thousand and
four when I decided to start my wine with this mentality.
The wine is something that you don't have to modify.
The wine is something that you have to you have
to feel and wait, but of course control this process
(11:08):
as an impact point, that's as an observat or good father.
That's are following something in the developing, representing the sense
of the place where the one is made.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
You know, you talk about authentic right, how do you
and we talked about this also how do you identify?
Two words came up because recently we also talked about
modern wines. How do you define an authentic wine? And
also a modern wine for today because we've been talking
throughout our trips Italy about how the wine world is
(11:45):
going through an evolution and then also a revolution. How
would you define those two very important terms.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
In general in this are very.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
How I can say very precise when I have to
understand the wine, okay, And sometimes I say, there are
wine that give me energy, there are wine that's taken
away me energy, or there are wine that I feel
they are deep energetic.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They are wine that.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Are so built, so constructed to not be free, to
not give a good energy to you.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
So when for me a contemporary wine, a modern wine
is a wine that must.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Be connected with the wine. So even.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
A concept of modernity or contemporarity sometimes means that.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Or belong to a bigger one or something.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I don't know, but it's important for me to understand
this difference. So all the time I taste a wine
is made by a very good vitical culture that you
respect the place, respect the soil and the variety the climates,
and in the cellar you don't modify because when we
(13:11):
say what is the tere when you modify with the additives,
the things, the level of the acid, the level of pH,
the level of the structure, the color. Where is the
one when you modify the wine. So and when you
modify the wine, you feel in the testing. So I
(13:31):
don't feel that wine is.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Is deep.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I don't feel the one that wine is as free but.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Sometimes represent distinctive.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Knows that I can find in other thousands and thousands
of wines.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So don't represent means nothing that I need and.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
I prefer to do to make a wine that is
more spontaneous, more connected with the place.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Of course, to do this.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
The natural methods when you have you you follow the
process very well with the wine cleaner to respect as
not the defect. I don't feel. I don't feel the
name natural wine as a as a wine with defect.
Natural wine for me, is one of the best expressions
of the teroi. With a good, very good attention by
(14:37):
the winemaker.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
It does take a lot of attention.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
It does.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Yeah, you do a wine text a lot of attention.
Wine the true present, good, a good battle or made
by a wonderful producer that everybody knows. And that's wine
is popular is because that's wine is made with the
respect from Avignarona didn't understand very well and what it
(15:03):
is doing.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Now you make two different type, you make a clue wine.
You decided to go into clue wines in twenty sixteen,
So you have two categories of wine. Why don't you
talk to us about those? And also I think you
started with for pato was a was a predominant grape.
What's interesting is you only work with native varieties and
(15:30):
one of them was alb I want to make I
want to make sure I pronounce her ab Albarello, Albanello.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
Excuse me, Albanello. The albanello which interesting? Looking it up?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
If you say Albanela, it's the market and Albanelo is Sicily,
and many people in particularly in the United States, don't
know that grape. So it's interesting that you were harvesting
in that as well. So why don't you take us
through how you approach your wines and some of the
differences between the Contrado wines and your other wines.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
From the beginning, I was feeling more interesting to work
with indigenous grape. We were coming from the nineties two
thousands period, that's in Sicily. We were blending a lot,
maybe some indigenous with international grapes or sometimes we were
(16:28):
producing cap from Sicily. So finally that moment was important
because we were turning a.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Little bit more versus the indigenous, you know, and.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Sicilian producers were exalting more the indigenous. And I understand
that's in Victoria. We had a wonderful grape, special grape
that was of course then because in Viitaria is very elegance,
very very nice thanks to the altitude to the limestone,
but also the Pao Victoria, the two, the two grape
(17:05):
where and are blended to make the Vitoria that is
the unique deiocege of Sicily.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
But also discovering Fra Pato a.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Very good potential grape. And sometimes I say with Pato,
we we we took my hand, you know, we were
close because maybe Fra Pato needed a person that was
were believing a lot in this grape with love, with.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
The emotion, with passion, to.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Support the grape around the world, as maybe I was
doing and I'm still doing. And myself I was I
needed of for Patos grape because Ariana is the person
of today maybe thanks to our wonderful grape that is
for Pato. So the the join the couple worked very
(17:57):
well and and after some years of love or from
part of course, I start to look also some white
varieties as the Albanelo so Albarello is an old varieties
of the place that was completely abandoned. And I found
these the bats to graft in my vineyards from an
(18:18):
old vineyards between Victoria and Monte Blay, the black mountains
in front of Victoria Caramonte golf especially and I decided
to graft and to blend with the Muscato alessandrite, so
we called Zibibo to make my first white after years.
I added some grilla also from the mountains, from a
(18:39):
wonderful vineyards in Cara Mounte.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Goodfit.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
So my of course, my focus was more in red,
and then now I can say also, of course in white.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
That's a really love.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
You know, we've had grail from all over Sicily, but
it's very distinctively expressed in Victoria. Why is that? Obviously
it's student to Taiwan. Why don't you talk about the
land itself? And we know you work in different contrata,
which are districts for those of you who may not
be familiar with the name, and the soils are unique
in each of these, So why is the glile here
(19:15):
so unique?
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Victoria stayed in the Altipiano at two hundred and fifty
meters above the sea in front of the Blade mountains.
So Cincily was covered by the sea millions of years ago,
and every time the sea was retiring was leaving a
lowyer of soil shells, the trities from the sea, and
(19:42):
this create our cratification, our rock mother rock.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Okay, this mother rock that.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Seas limestone hundred percent is super important. And this covered
by twenty five thirty centimeters of red sand or white
sand or brown on said, that depends on the contrata
you are, and also the quality of the limestone depends
also in the contrata.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
In the crew you are. Sometimes we have.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
As a contrada like Forsadilupo and Bobol we have a
white compact limestone. Other historical contradas Santa Teresa petin Bastonaca
have a kind of limestone more porous, more orange. And
then we have these Blame mountains just in front of
(20:32):
Victoria with a lot of limestone, because there were rock
of the sea with.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
A lot of shets.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
So when I decide to plant the grillad, I planted
in the mountains at five hundred meters above the sea,
in a place where I have a lot of chalk
and a lot of limestone.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Because Grilla, for me, is very familiar with the sense
of the sea.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Grillaw looks and lime very much the sea, the shells
and the salinity. And my way to interpretrate this grape
was to show the connection with the salinity, soeva Grillo
with the personality Saltea, but also very elegance in the
nose thanks to the limestone and thanks to the altitude.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
The improving of course, so.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I think in this place grill Law is a big
potential to express.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
You know, we went into the caves and we saw
the limestone. You really thought you were going in and
seeing the limestone and the fossils which are everywhere, and
it's really remarkable. Every time we got lily and we
are told, oh, this area was covered by sea. We
were just in Orvieto and they were like, this area
was covered by c and we were inland.
Speaker 7 (21:46):
I mean, sicily makes sense.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
It's amazing how many fossils are all over the place.
In my notes and maybe hopefully they were correct, I
have here that the red soils, the orange red, make
more drinkable agele wines and the wie more austereer. Is
that true?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Okay, you're a bit sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Red soils, how do the red soils and the white
soils are impressed upon in the style and the drinkability
of the wine, agibility of the wines.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Victoria, red sand rich in iron, rich in iron makes wine.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
There is woods and floral.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
And even we are in the Mediterranean area, so sometimes
people think very warm.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
It's thanks to the soil, thanks to the wind that
we have.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Usually the red variety are very elegant and also doesn't
produce a lot of tobaccle so they are twelve and
haf thirteen maximum. The red sand. While the limestone gives
acidity and nostidity and salinity, the red sand gives elegance.
(22:56):
Florial strawberry are almost making wine, red wine and very
nice or.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Never darker, never dark fruit. That's very elegant fruit.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
That's interesting because you know, I tasted a few wines
from the Petineo Contrata, yours and others, and it was
very distinct. And you have a how what is the
range of your vines? I mean you started in so history,
you started in two thousand and four, and then you
built your you decided to go with single contrata in
(23:33):
twenty sixteen, when did you build your new winery and
are you old vines and young vines or what.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
At the moment you have a different kind of age
of wine vines because the oldest is a seven years
older in contrada, So that's just completely in the red
sand uh or at minimum seventy centimeter. And then limestone
(24:04):
twofa limestone is a kind we call the vineyards mother
vineyards because it's also the vineyards where we took the bats.
We grafted on a new fields and we are creating
a kind of a patrimonial of old clones of Rapato
di Victory. Well, this is the oldest vineyards of Rapato
(24:24):
of the area, but I have also some vineyards of
ten years old that I planted, passing through vineyards of
thirty years old. So different because some viniards I planted,
some other villiards I was able to buy. And so
now we work in nine different district, nine different contrada.
(24:49):
That's at the beginning was a needs to find a
small parcel because I didn't I haven't said the opportunities
taking some helping.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Some vineyards to not be abandoned.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
And then all these became a treasure because this for me,
a treasury is to work in different kinds of soil,
and my work is to express all these kinds of
different soils in the world.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And again you work by all your wines are biodynamic
as well. That's important to you as well, which is
a very involved process as well. So are your wines
available in the United States.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
If I was just able to find available my importer
from my beginning is a dressed and.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I was very.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Lucky to find a company that is a kind of
family and they were selecting in always from France. Italy
I think a very good vigneur own. So that's feel
the sense of the truth. So yeah, of course I'm
there in the United States. And also I can say
that the United States for me.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
And is a good market.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
But when people in Italy we say America is the
place where you have the opportunities, not so you arrive
in America. For Italily, many Italians arrive in America. They
arrive and they change the life and they were supporting
the family in Europe and in a different way. It's
happened to me also thanks to American marketing, because I
(26:34):
like American people that's they If you are good, they
appreciate you, they buy you, and they support you. It's
not necessarily you have a long story in your life,
a family or something, but there is always this kind
(26:54):
of chance that arrived when you stay or work with
the Americans. And it's happened to me. So I'm very
linked to this market for the people that I met
in my last twenty years.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, you know, we have a friend Mary Taylor who
Eric Asimov discovered her and her business is taken off
and she's a hot shot like you. She's kind of
like you teased me, very similar. What was that like
for you when you were embraced by Eric Asimov, who
is the New York Times wine critic, and there's very
few newspaper wine critics left. How did that impact you
(27:34):
and your business?
Speaker 4 (27:37):
This was an important moment of my life because you
you feel that something is changing. Of course, I appreciate
Erica in as as critic is very It's a person
(27:59):
very you know, it's a journalist that you really appreciate
because it is integrate, is a is integer as we
can say no, So it's a person that's really right.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
What he likes and uh, and this I appreciate very much.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
So when it's happened, that's uh, it's arrived. Then the
route for the first time about me and my project,
I really appreciate. And this of course made me arrive
to me more popularity. So this was an important passage
of my life. And it's always important also because the
(28:43):
demand the group of the wines, and I was able
to arrive to be more popular and not so only
to you know, some some small things or Italian market
or European market.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
So this was very important for me.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
And step by step all these things supported me my project.
That was able to buy vineyards in Victoria and to
buy mineyards in Victoria was important because otherwise there was
the abandonment.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
So I was a person always ready.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
To buy land, to plant vineyards, to buy lemon to
all the time I was buying a vineyards and I
found olive trees, lemon bush, Mediterranean vegetation every time I
was maintaining this. So my project supported also a biodiversity
around me. Now we have fifty percent vineyards and fifty
(29:43):
percent of other culture, and this culture.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Helps wine to be better.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
But wine helped the biodiversity to be maintained because of
course the wine economically.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Speaking, is stronger than other culture, other part of agriculture.
And this also teach me a lot of.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Things when I start to be grower and to work
in general with agriculture and not sold only white because sometimes.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
I say, when one producer, we are.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
A kind of elit sometimes lucky, you know, lucky to
have a grape transform to be ready to sell. There
is a nice demand in the world, except in this
last period that's a little bits more complicated.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
But in general people like the wine. They want to
by so with the other when you have when you
plant the wat, for example, you don't have this demand.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
It's very difficult to be grower of wheat, of lemon,
of orange.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
And this teach me a lot to to appreciate.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
What I do, and I decide to improve the biodiversity
in the in our project always thanks to the to
the market that's was working well, you.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Know important points, yeah, and the farming you know you
produce olive oil right and follows and the Durham I
learned in traveling in this area both of US and
throughout Sicily, particularly in southern Sicily. This this huge agricultural economy.
And you're right, that it all feeds upon itself and
(31:19):
nurtures the each other by doing that. And biodiversity is
really key identity to everything you're doing, you know.
Speaker 7 (31:28):
And I visited you.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
We went to taste, sit and taste the wines, and
we walked into a room and the walls were filled
with yellow post it notes because you've been doing strategic
planning and a lot of it. Because the walls are
just papered with post it notes. And you work with
people who you respect in the industry to help you,
as you said, get to the next phase of ocapin tea,
(31:54):
talk to us about who you're working with and who
are some of the people who are guiding you and
mentoring you, and where you're seeing your eyes on the future.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
The future is a big question because we know because
we are in a moment of passage. Sometimes I say
we are like not able to say in English, but
when an epoch is changing, you know, it is more
than a change of the century, is a change of
(32:29):
it's a social change, cultural change. We feel in Europe.
That's something is happening.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
For the future, you know, and is of course, uh,
what's filming.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Mosheur is the fact that I'm a winemaker, I'm a grower.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
I'm working with agriculture.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
When you're working with agricultural in the COVID period, for example,
you were feeling yourself more sure to have a piece
of lens, to grow a piece of lens, and to
have a view for the future with this piece of land,
to maintain people, to support things. So my approach that
(33:17):
sometimes I was still supporting is always to have mentors
that have an idea of where they were coming, an
idea of what's happening now, a sense of uncertain of
(33:38):
the future as all the human being, because we are
human and we have a problem with the limits, with
the future, with the sense we don't know. Sometimes this
struggle as sometimes But of.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Course I like to be close to people that live
their life in a real way.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
So when I feel people real real sometimes not necessarily
something that I share completely, but they are real and
I like because they transmit me a point of view. Okay,
and this for me is important to be inspired for
my future, for my present. Maybe the goal for the
(34:26):
future is to live a little bit more the present.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
For me, We'll be going at a fast speed. You've
been going at a pretty fast pee for twenty years.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
For me that I was running, running and you know, creating,
planting my project that was flowerishing in a very beautiful place.
Way is yeah, to live a little bits smaller present
and feel me more linked to what's happening.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Now.
Speaker 6 (34:55):
Now that you have the infrastructure in place, it's time
to take a step back and focus on what you've
created and how you can make it better.
Speaker 7 (35:04):
So how is Alessio Planeta helping you?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Because we know he is one of your advisors or
people that you've flean on, and.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
So Alessi is a is a wonderful person unless you
belong to a wonderful wine family of Sicily able to
to transform parts as you know, to transform Sicily as
a as a region that was producing wine and back
(35:37):
to region that was producing wine and bodles able to
make a very good wine and sport in.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
In all the worlds.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
So the tradition of the Planetta family I think is
very important for it was very important for whole wine
wine system, wine Sicilian system especially a less Oh, we
have a nice relation because unless you is a very
smart man, it's in terms of people that do something
(36:08):
to you know, to to use the occasion is a
very spirit spirital man, love the history, the tradition. You
know perfectly that I represent an important project of the
family and sometimes must be in line with his project.
But it's also a man that's like to experiment, to
(36:31):
to look over the tradition. So in a I'm very
you know, many times when I see less and that's poor,
some some wine that's at the beginning, also some more
extreme wine to see the expression of a less face
and and not also sometimes the wine after wine I like,
(36:56):
of course, is point of view.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
And it's also a person that's.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Is able to give a lot of good ideas and
things so.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And also is a very funny person. So this this
friendship arrived a little.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Bit from my uncle, So that was very close friend
of Diego Planeta as mentor. My my uncle led two
big mentors in his life and many friends, but two
mentors where they were Marco de Bartley and Diego Planeta
for different things, but very too, very important person for him.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
So from his every time my uncle.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Was telling me something, there were these two persons in
in all his experiens. So I'm all, it's arrived.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
So when I start making wine to me arrived.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
The sense of the tradition of Sicily, a project like
the Oscarl media planet, the tradition that the feeling of
the change, looking in the contemporary looking that come back
into the sense of the true. So I was a
kind of mix of all of these, you know, that's
(38:17):
for me to fix my philosophy, my idea.
Speaker 7 (38:22):
Yeah, those are great mentors.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And you know, as you're talking, Arianna, I just kept
thinking about how supportive uh Sicilian producers are whenever we
go there. Everybody is very supportive and there's a lot
of camarade because you're all in this together, as that
they say. And it's nice to see, how you know,
(38:44):
Juiceo Occupante influenced you, Alessio and and Diego Planeto influenced him,
and Alessio Planeto is helping you, and and curious now
that you're the ripe your occupantity one here is now
the ripe age of twenty plus years, are you going
to be mentoring anyone? Are you seeing that role for
(39:07):
you in the future as Cecily hopefully even as younger,
newer wine makers moving up the ranks.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Of course, I feel from my beginning my philosophy was
enough strong in the sense of respectful and the ideas.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Of doctor Ward.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
That's some so many year people arrived always here to
do a period, to do astagia, to make an experience
in occupying the project, to understand the sense of the life,
the way to make the wine.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
For spontaneous fermentation by a dynamic approach, to repeat this.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Also to the fact we were not doing this in
only three actors, but doing this in a bigger sides
because Victoria.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
In that moment, the soil, the land was not costing
a lot.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
And when now I'm supporting people to learn, especially in
the last three or four years, some new two three
webmakers were born.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I don't want to say of.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Course thanks to my experience they were doing here, because
they did the experience also.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
In other parts of the worlds.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
But of course the last experience was around me or
another guy in my uncle place.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
That's now they started their own project in Victoria. So
the good things they.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Were not at the beginning, I was supporting a lot
of the people to start a project in another place
because they were coming back, coming back in their place
and making wine and France, making wine in Italy, making
wine in America.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
The good things. Now it is happending. That's h I
like when they decide to make one in Victoria.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Some they are people from this area, but a couple
of friends Calma Wines, for example, they are not. They
are one from New Zealand the one from German Germany
that they decide to to to improve, to learn and
violent here and make one ear.
Speaker 3 (41:30):
So this makes me very happy for my territory.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
For maybe to be mentor for some someone, of course,
is something that's give me satisfaction. But is the I
think the only things that as human being we have
to do. Transmit to your pression, Transmit to your philosophy,
transmits for the future to the person that are able
(41:55):
to assob assorb all of this.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
So, yes, it's happening and I'm very happy of this.
That's exciting.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
To paying it forward, Yeah, that's what we call it,
paying it forward, that's the term. So you mentioned that
someone as have come over and worked with intense stages
or what kind of hospitality programs does the Occupanting Project
offer for people who want to visit and visit the
winery and taste your wines and whatnot. Tell us about
that before we wrap up.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yeah, Oh, we are open for the visit.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
This was something that's at the beginning, of course arrive
to me. But then step by step, I was very
happy to trusmit to the project, to transmit to the
experience to the people, and we organize all of these
and when you arrive here, what they want to trustmit
(42:48):
is not totally the tasting, but it's a fullest fit
into of agriculture. When people arrive to visit Okipinia and
don't like they it's a normal visit, but it is
as a visy that's us to transmit tradition sicily agriculture, biodiversity,
the methods we use. So we spend a little bit
(43:09):
of the time in the vineyards to to explain what
we do.
Speaker 8 (43:14):
In a in a in a good in a good way,
and then we we go around our vegetable garden, we
show our other projects around biodiversity, and then we arrive
to the seller explaining all the processes.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
And at the end that we of course we test
the wines. But to arrive to.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
The wine and understand better the wine, we have to
understand the agriculture project.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
That's for me, it's very important.
Speaker 4 (43:42):
And this is the kind of hospitality that so we
every day organize in the winery. I'm also opening in
the vineyards a couple of houses uh to rents to
have a full experience of hospitality in the vineyards. But
(44:03):
we are renting the full houses to be also free
to leave the place as in a in a freely
way as everybody likes with this family in the minyards
of Santa Margarita and gal Monte golf in the mountains
because there is a wonderful legscape there, a less kept
(44:24):
of ills, a leeds Kepe Mediterranean, but a little bit
fresh shirt than Victoria, where we are more in Mediterranean.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Uh less cap more close to Africa we are in Victorian.
Also it's a warmer place.
Speaker 7 (44:39):
Close to Africa.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Were only close to Africa, more close than Italy.
Speaker 7 (44:44):
For sure, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
And your products, Dave, it's actually on the screen. There's
a coloring book.
Speaker 6 (44:51):
Fascinating because you actually sell a coloring book on your website.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Yeah, yeah, there's a whole one of interesting. I I
had a wonderful experience and I really want David to
hopefully he'll.
Speaker 6 (45:03):
Well, hopefully next next time, because.
Speaker 7 (45:06):
We always divide and car he was in Noto.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
But I had an amazing Meal, a wonderful woman from
England to this incredible dinner with the wines. The hospitality
was amazing. Ariana Okapini, We're so glad you could take
the time. I know it's it's going to be a
busy time soon as harvest is approaching and it's been
very hot in Sicily and the rest of Italy, so
I hope it's We hope it's a good harvest for you.
We wish you all the success in the next many
(45:32):
more decades to come for Ocapinte and the Ocapiny project.
So thank you for joining us. And just to remember,
the wines are available in the United States and you
can learn more at going to Agricola ocapine it and
you can also read up on Ariana and the wines
at the connected table dot com. So thank you for
(45:52):
joining us.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Thank you very much. A big kiss from Sicily, A big.
Speaker 7 (45:58):
Kiss to Sicily. Sicily.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
We hope everybody's been inspired. A great show and always
we leave you with this step out of your comfort zone,
try and discover many things and always stay instage.
Speaker 7 (46:13):
You'll be curious. Thank you
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