April 26, 2023 • 51 mins
Montefalco DOC is a leading wine region of Umbria, known as "the green heart of Italy." The Sagrantino Wine Road offers many wineries to discover by car. The walkable hilltop village of Montefalco is an ideal base for exploring. Melanie & David recommend restaurants in Montefalco and wineries to visit. They discuss the appellation's signature wines and what distinguishes each, including Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG, Montefalco Rosso DOC, Trebbiano Spoletino DOC and Montefalco Grechetto DOC.
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We make no recommendations or endorsements forradio show, program, services,
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W FORCY Radio. Hello and welcometo the Connected Table Live where your hosts
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Melanie Young and David Ransom. You'reinsatiably curious culinary couple. We bring youth,
thy, dynamic people who are frontand center and behind the scenes in
wine, food, spirts and hospitalityaround the world. We enjoy visiting everybody
and traveling and sharing the world Wediscover with you so you can eat and
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drink better. And we're going todo that with you today because we just
came back from where. Give ahint first, don't say where, just
they give a hint, Green Italy, landlocked right right in the middle.
Yeah, landlocked, Green Italy.That doesn't sound let's make it more beautiful,
landlocked, very verdant, green Italyknown for a very famous Franciscan monk,
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Yeah, St Francis, Saint Francis, that's a Saint Franciscan monk.
Yeah, the Francis like the fatherof all Franciscan monks, and as in
Saint Francis of ASSISI. We're takingyou to Umbria. We're taking you to
the Montefalco wine region. That's rightright, yea, and a beautiful not
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very large, small wine production regionright in the middle, kind of in
the north the central part of Umbria, in the hilltop village of Montefalco.
And we actually first went there lastSeptember, remember Melanie, Yeah, and
had a wonderful initiation trip to thatregion, so much so that we wanted
to go back and explore a littlebit more and learn more about the fabulous
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wines and the cuisine of the region. So Montefalco is a wine region.
Technically, it's located in the provinceof Perugia in Umbria, and there's different
sub zones and then there's Montefalco,the hilltop village that dates back to medieval
times, which is where we basedourselves and I mean there was a lot
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going. It was April, itwas pretty hot and with tourists, right,
yeah, it was pretty it wasgetting busy. Yeah, it was
getting quite busy. It is alsoa unique style of wine, which we're
going to discuss the purpose of ourfirst trip. It was just you and
I. It was awesome and wegot to know the wines. Meat producers
had a fuel of the show andtried all the restaurants. This time it
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was for unto Prima Sagrantino, whichis a signature wine Montefalco. Ag Well,
it's you know, it's funny stationincorporates more than just segment it is,
although it's it's been interchanged in allmy materials I've learned. But anyway,
uh yeah, we basically were thereto taste the newest releases from Montefalco,
right And in the past it wasSagrentino's Entuprema, and this year they
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rebranded it returned to Antiprema Montefacco becausethey produce a lot more than just Sagrenttino,
the wine in Montefelco. You know, that was a real discovery for
me as well, because Sagrantino isMontefalco is the signature grape, and it's
a docg in Montefalco. But Ifell in love with Montefalco Rosso, which
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is Sangiovese driven minimum sixty percent,with Sagrantino, and some had Marilo in
it, and I thought those werelike my favorites, right, I agree,
Yeah, you know, Sagrentino hasplanted really literally in Montefalco, that's
it in the surrounding area, soit's within that one region. But San
gia Vesi is planted all over centralItaly, so there's many manifestations of it
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as you drive around the central partof Italy, Tuscany, Romagna, Lumbrio,
they all make a version of SanGavsi, so it's pretty widely planted
in. I always like to thinkof San gia Vesi as as Central Italy's
red grape. That's where it's home, yea, And but Sagrantino is a
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little bit of a different animal.For a long time, it was made
as a sweet wine or posito asthey like to call it, for hundreds
of years actually, and it wassacramental to begin with a Saint Francis of
Assisi. Right down the road there'sa beautiful monastery in Spoletto, which is
right across the valley from Assistance.Right in the middle of that is Montefalco.
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So there's a lot of history ofwinemaking and sacramental winemaking, and that's
really where Sagrantino's history began. Welearned, um sa Frantino is almost a
little double and tender because we learnedmonta falcon means falcon mountain. Uh,
there's a whole history there of avery famous nobleman who had falcons, and
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one of the falcons became ill anduh they created a promise from the grape,
the red grape, and uh falconbecame well and became a sacred grape
Sa Sagarentino. But there's also areference to we learn in Arabic where this
famous I think it was a prince. He lived in Arabia, and sacra
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there means faltain, so it's falconmountain because falcons apparently everywhere. Did you
see a falcon? Yes, Ididn't see any parrots land on your head.
There's a parrot sanctuary. Then that'sa different story altogether. So Monta
Falco falcon mountains, sagran Tino sacredand also potentially dating back to Arabic term
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for falcon. It is a thickskin, late ripening grape. It pruces
very intense tannic wines, leather tar, tons of fruit, tons of fruit,
really tons of fruit. We tastedthe Anata, which means the new
Amazing vinage, and it was givenfive stars. It was twenty nineteen,
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so still a little young to drink. Well, a lot of them actually
weren't released yet. Yeah, alot of them were still barrels. We
were tasting out of the bottle,mostly twenty sixteen, twenty and eighteen,
which are in release, but twentynineteen is really just coming to market.
Yeah, it's a little young.Sagrantino tends to um want to be drinkable
at a at a five to tenyear range, so of course they released
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this at about four years and andthen then you do with it what you
will, Yeah, what you will, but it is yes, Sagrantino.
And then so that's you know,one red grape. And then we referenced
the Montefalco rolsos or Reservo, whereit's a minimum of sixty percent Sano Sangiovese
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sangiovesey but it also has a littlebit of sagrentino, right, I like,
those wines are are very different.Yeah, glens throughout. And then
let's don't neglect the white wines,which for me was an introduction to the
white wines of the area that Trebianospolletino was very verily recently introduced to Monte
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Falco. It comes over from theSpiletto area. I think I was reading
two thousand and seven, early twotwo thousands. I think that's when back
in two thousand and seven there weremaybe five or six producers that were playing
with Trebiano spoletino as as a varietyto make white wine out of. But
it has been around for longer thanthat in the area. I know that
Giampallo Taberini has a cellar with alibrary in his cellar, and he has
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spoletino dating back to the early twothousands. Pretty good. Some of the
stills them are really terrific wines,and there's also some Biancie wines. We
had some griquetto wines and Tribiano SpillettinoGriqueto blends all good, very refreshing,
very or. I found them allto be very aromatic because Trevis. Spilletine
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is very aromatic great. I likedthem a lot and tasted many and of
course we visited about how many wineriesten I think I've visited about fifteen or
so on this particular trip on myself. You and I actually split up,
which was nice. Yeah, wesplit up. Not always, you know,
nice to be away from you.However, it was nice to be
able to divide and conquer, whichis what we like to do when we're
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on trips that allow us to doso. And so I went to a
bunch of wineries on my own thatyou didn't go to, and vice versa.
So it was it was a lotof fun. So we're going to
talk about some of the places we'vewent because I know a lot of people
have said to us, we wantto go, we want to plan a
trip. First of all, Iwant to let you know that it's important
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to get to Montefalco. The bestway to get there is to fly into
Rome Bumchino. It's about a twoand a half hour drive from there.
Once you're there, if you stayin the village of Montefalco, it's very
walkable, but you will want acar or car service or tour to take
you to other places like Assisi orif you want to go over to Spoleto
and explore the region. Highly recommended. And also the wineries. The good
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thing is most of the winderies werefairly close to each other. Yes,
yeah, very close, with afew exceptions. Now, what I thought
was really great about Montefalco is therewere so many wonderful restaurants. It's it's
a pretty quiet town. It's likea wonderful museum, the museum to San
Francisco and some churches of course inthe Tiatro. But the restaurants were really
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great. And what was nice aboutthe trip, both trips, is that
they the organizers, thank you,Consortiovini del Tutula Montefalco. They gave us
a restaurant reservations or wheal tickets sowe could go and explore. Why don't
we start by talking about some ofthe places we ate and then we'll talk
about where we visit it. Ihave a list, here are the restaurants
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we recommend, and we'll put theseup on our website that connects the table
as well. First and foremost Restaurantde Tartuo, which we went to twice,
specializes in tartufo truffles the spring truffleseason, which is different from winter
truffle season. And if you goyou want to get the strangozzi, I'll
tartufo, or if they have astretchya tell, I'll tartufo, which is
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the pasta with black truffles, whichis kind of a signature dish wherever you
go in Montefoca. Well, Umbriais known for its black truffles, exactly,
so you've got to have a trufle. One of the world's foremost purveyors
of black truffles is based in Umbria. Actually, the other dishes that are
notable in Umbria or the meats.One of the great meat restaurants of all
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time, there is Ristaurati il Cocrone, very classic. Um. This is
actually a catering company, family owned. They have a restaurant and it people
flock there to get these giant grilledmeats and the tag we out of the
type stakes and it's it's a beautifulrestaurant inside and it's and it's lovely food.
But also Cocarrone was actually the originalname of Montefalco before it got changed
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by the Duke exactly so that's importantto note. And wonderful restaurant and I
highly recommend. Yeah, I thinkit's number one in trip Advisor. Lacanda
del Tiatro. We went both trips. Fabulous restaurant, gracious host, wonderful
wine list and seller well the hosts. The manager is Paulo, wonderful guy
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and recognized us, remembered us whenwe came in. We hadn't been there
in six months. He completely rememberedour trip. And then the Sammie and
the wine director is mckayley, andhe has a fabulous wine list and he's
always happy to take anybody back intothe wine cellar to help to pick out
a bottle if they'd like too.But it's very expansive and it's got great
depth of the list and there's outdoorseating, which is nice. I have
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to say, you know, I'mnot a meat eater, as you know,
but you had meat dishes and ravedabout them. But I love their
stuffed the stuffed zucchini flowers stuff withricotta. That was a wonderful dish.
And we had specials that night andmine was a rote It sounds weird,
but roast chicken buttons. They werelike egg rolls stuff with chicken roll a
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tena. Yeah, they were sogood, really really really good. This
is a very elegant restaurant, butyou don't have to get dressed up to
go anywhere in Montefalco. So thatone again a Lucanda del Tiatre. Then
you and I discovered a tiny littleplace this trip, like twelve seats called
Mordecai. The chef also is anartist and his wife. His wife is
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the chef and she's also an artist. Yes, yes, so he and
he runs the restaurant. That it'sa great couple, very tiny, but
we were very happy to go thereand kind of find it as we were
walking around to this place looks good, and they had a couple of seats
left. It was lunchtime, andwe sat down and had a wonderful meal
and drank a bottle of Montefalco Rosso, just to kind of wet our appetites
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for the week because it was ourfirst day there. And so there's no
website for Mordecai, but it's locatedright across the little street and it's a
little street from Lucana del Tiatro,so you can't miss it. And just
two more before we head to thewine. The last trip we went to,
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Oh, I can't pronounce this oL e V M olivium olium Okay,
so that's just as the Latin.Yeah, this is all about the
olive oil. They have a hugeselection of olive oils and um there I
had the traditional streganzi al tartufo drizzledwith this amazing olivel This is I think
a restaurant where you would to gosimple and have the olive ols be the
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Starnels star. And last, butnot least, we went at the Bread.
This trip was an anoteca laal Camista, which is woman run. It's
a mother daughter chef team. AndI went for lunch one day and raped
about it so much that we wentback. We did you went for lunch
on there on your own, andthen we went back the last day we
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were there, last Friday, andwe enjoyed a wonderful lunch out on the
piazza umbrella and they actually came outand asked us what we wanted, even
though there was a menu for us, and they basically prepared the menu for
us. It was and they justsaid, well, let's just do this,
and they just sent out dishes thatweren't even on the menu. It
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was a lot of fun and wonderfulfood. Yeah, you know. The
stand out because I'm always leave ourvegetables is the artichokes who flay with a
poached egg inside with parmesan cram.And they had a really wonderful guinea fowl
is another signature of this area,and this one was like a roll of
teeny stuff with a wild chicory dustedwith bacon bits if you wanted it really
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delicious. And that's in one tiny, tiny village. And that's not all
the restaurants. There's probably like halfa dozen more we never got to visit.
So that's the eating part. Nowlet's talk about the drinking part.
We both went to some wineries togetherand not together, and then a few
separate. I tried. It waskind of neat. We picked different tours,
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as David said, and then Itried to go back and check out
the wineries that you went to sowe could cross references. What were some
of the highlights for you, David, Well, I think I want to
start with saying before we get intoeach of the wineries, let's start by
talking about the four types of wine. That good point being made there.
So there's Sagrantino ranches from the Sagrantinogrape and it's their premier wine, and
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a DOCG and a DOOCG, whichis the highest level of quality and Italian
wine. And then there is MontefalcoRosso, which is a sixty percent sanjivas,
and then whatever percentage you want ofeither Sagrantino or other grapes, a
lot of its. Most of thetime it's Sagrentino and Merlo, which I
thought it was very interesting because Merlohas a very long history in Umbria as
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well, dating by hundreds of yearsso and then so that's the Monte Bacco
Rosso. Then there is the whitegrapes. There's two of them that are
prevalent in Monte Faco, Tribano Spolletino, which we've talked about a little while
ago, and then also Griqueto,which is another beautiful white crape that they
grow in the region. And thenthe last wine of note is their Sagrentino
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posito, which is a sweet redwine usually had with dessert, but we
found it was also meant to bedrunk with festive occasions like lamb at Easter,
Sunday lunch, yeah, and Sundaylunch things like that. Yeah.
In Umbria and in Montefalco, theyactually drink the posito with fattier savory meats
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and it's not I was really surprised. I really love the posito. It
is not overly sweet. It reallydidn't even feel like a dessert wine as
much as I want to have withsavory cheeses. And I totally got where
they're coming home with the roast andit was as you said that, and
they told us they started making theposito before they made the Sagarantino secco.
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The dry version, yes, becausethe posito they've been making for hundreds of
years and the Sagarantino posito, butthe first real history of dry sagrantino being
made is really in the mid twentiethcentury. One winery have visited you actually
visited them as well, has abottle of dry pocito dating back to the
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nineteen fifties and that's the oldest bottlethat we found, although there may have
been a few that were older,but most of the but before that it
was really sweet one. But Ilove the Sagarantino posito as well because it's
a very different type of posito thanthe white wine positos that you get in
other parts of Italy, especially inTuscany, which is right next door the
Vin Santos, because very pretty muchthey're much different, and it's I think
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the red grape and the tannins inthe in the Segentino really create a wonderful
juxtaposition in the balance of the wine. I agree, And there's a little
bit of coco and it's just atotal different flavor profile. Yeah, and
definitely work there in small production though, like with Ben Santo posito or always
you made for the family. Souh, I wish I had taken the
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one that was offered to me becauseI would love to brought it home anyway,
great overview, David, thank you, And let's start with since we
have been to some of the wineriesbefore, we'll start with some of the
ones that we went to separately buttechnically together because we went different times,
and I think one that we bothreally enjoy this very tiny we'll start with
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the smaller ones. Is Tera SanFelicci really a mom and pop operation,
most pop, yeah, mostly popKatia and it's Carlo Mancini is his name,
and and his wife I didn't meet, and then the winemaker and um,
yeah, Ducheca and Carlos who wemet with tiny eight thousand bottles maybe
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nine. Now they make about twelthousand bottles. So I founded in the
Actually his families are on the farmwhich is um not too far from town.
In fact, he said he usedto he and his brother used to
walk to town to get a drink. But it was it was about six
kilometers outside of town, so fourmiles and I said that's a long walk
as we were driving back to town. Um. But I love that winery.
It was a lot of fun.We basically they make twelve thousand bottles
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a year Carlo, and it's avery interesting place that the wines are very
nice. He does a lot withum amphora ad we have a lot of
wittners in the region. Um areusing amphoras in concrete and things like that.
So so his winery is outside ofCastel Ritaldi, which is one of
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the villages around Montefalco. And Ireally enjoyed sitting there and chatting with him.
We sat outside, it was asunny day, we overlooked the vineyards
and it was a very relaxing visitwith him. He is a doctor from
Rome and he his family's owned theproperty in Montes outside of Montefalco for about
one hundred and forty years, sothey've been around for a long time and
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loves making wine, loves wine itself. Very nice guy lives on the property
and it was interesting. Yeah,nice wines. And did you have they
had a sparkling wine. You don'tget a lot of sparkling wines there.
I had a Bolleccini sparkling wine,the Trepionispolletino sparkling wine, which is a
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interesting um. I like their TrepianoSpolletino castel with tali. I loved it
a lot and lovely people. Idon't remember if they have an importer here,
but I did like also the Posito. Yeah, there were a couple
of wines that also stood out forme. The Boloccini, which is a
sparkling wine, did as well.The Rosso the Rosso Reservo. We're both
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good. Yeah, a little bitdifferent range in the Sanjivasi versus Sagarenttino in
those wines that but both good,both really nice wines. He makes us
two sagrenttinos. The Sagrenttino that stoodout for me was the Sagrantino venom Day
which is in tone which is inTono for a while and phora for a
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year before he puts it to restand bottles it. It's a really nice
wine, a lot of structure toa nice firm tannins to it. Very
nice wine. For me, Iwas interested in how many of the vitnors
do use emphora, A lot ofthem, a lot more. But you
know, I think it's a trendall over the world now people are starting
to think of different ways to makewine. And why is that? Because
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he has to do with the oxygenand for a impacts how the oxygen flows
through the wines. It's very interesting. I'd like to do a tasting of
one type of wine aged in differentto know and flora, just the whole
range. You see what it wouldbe like. Um So that was Tera
uh Di san Felice. Then anotherwinery we both went to separately, and
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we're actually gonna be doing a show, so we'll just talk briefly is Scotchia
Diaboli. Another winery that has marvelous, very nice sparkling wines using Sacrantino.
There's a brute and a rose Ilike the brute better. Also Metodo Classica
and one of the one of thehistoric wineries in the region, started in
the eighteen eighties and really great ambassadorsfor the region of Montebelco. I love
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the name. We're gonna we're gonnado a show with the owners, so
we're not going to talk about aboutShaka Diavoli Scotchia Diavoli. I'm so sorry.
I keep thinking, keep confusing Scotchawith Chaka, which is a city
on the south coast of Sicily,and they're spelt the same way and they're
different. Well, here's what Ilove. Is the name means chase the
devil away. It's actually the nameScotti Daveli is named after a local exorcist
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who used to um clear demons outof the area. I thought that was
kind of a fun fact to noand tell. We also both went separately
to a woman known Winery Newer Cocolike Cocco, not Chanel Cocolari. Alaria
Coco was the owner. She isa former marketing executive who just said one
day I want to move on andstart a new life, which inspired me.
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And her family had some land inMontefalco, and she, uh,
you know, started working on planningvines. Uh small, she um let
us taste. The range is verysmall, a tripianus. Everybody had a
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Tribriantos, Bollentino, a Montefalco,Rossoco, camarada and Fossano pho s a
n o one hundred percent sagrantino anda terrific past I brought back the monte
Faco, Rozovo, the camarade forus to drink at night. I wish
I brought back at Psito as well. She's literally like a one woman.
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Jame. I asked her how manypeople she had working on her staff,
but she looked at me as likeme, yeah, it's actually really We
had a great time when I visitedher, As you mentioned, we visited
separately, you one day, evennext and it was a lot of really
a nice time chatting with her anddocument. She decided to leave marketing and
she spent ten years teaching herself howto make wine before she released her first
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vintage in twenty sixteen. And thewines are just delicious. They're very well
made there, they're very well structured, They've got a lot of elegance to
them. Just fabulous fabulous early effortsby somebody who I think is going to
be one of the great winemakers inthe region. Yeah, I would definitely
put this winery on your list.We also went separately to another family one
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winery. Is it Fongali, Yeah, Fongali, not to be confused with
Wongali Wongli, which is a clamFongli fo Ngoli family run. This property
is literally located inside a larger winerythat we visited another day together. Antonelli.
Yes, that's like kind of interesting. They produced two types of Sagrantino
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Montefalco as well. You know,it's funny when we asked on that note,
when we talked to Antonelli and wesaid, so, how did it
come to be that this this wineryis located within the limits of your of
your of your land, And hegoes, well, apparently there was an
uncle that liked to play cards.You interpret that? So, I what
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did you think? So we tastedthe Fungali wines are wonderful. Yeah,
they've been bottling wine since the nineteentwenties. Again, so one of the
older wineries in the region. Ithink it was nineteen twenty maps to the
daughter Ludovica took us around. Ludovicais an artist there. They do a
lot with natural fermentation. They're kindof like they're kind of the they're kind
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of the forward thinking and historically thinkingwinemakers in the region to a certain extent.
They're not very big. It's familyowned. They're small. They like
to do things their way. They'renot always the first to get on board
when the Consortia tries to change therules and tell them that they have to
make wine a certain way so thatall the wines from the region come in
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at a certain quality level, etc. They love making their wine naturally.
As I said, they are veryinteresting folks. They do a lot with
organics. They have biodynamics involved aswell. And you know, a small
family were in winery and I fellin love with the wines. Yeah,
I like this winery lie again,a beautiful places to sit and sip.
We taste it outside. It's abeautiful day. They like we reference.
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They also experiment with them, forthey have a Montefago Sagratine who found this
permitted and stainless and these clay tankand then they also have one in Amphora.
Yeah, they have two different labels. That they make. There's the
white label, as I called it, in the brown label, which is
the more modern style. The whitelabels are they actually can't call them Montefalco
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wines or and Montefalco Sagrantino DCG eventhough it even though technically it is,
they're because they make it in longmastration and aged in emphora for a period
of time, and the regulations don'tlike that, so they so they actually
and those wines are wonderful. Sothose are basically natural style segmentinos and they're
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really lovely, wonderful expressive wines.Yea with a beautiful lifted the city to
them. I really like them alot. I like them. I like
the family who met the mom dadthat's called fraconton Frario rosso. That's the
name of those wine for the whitelabels, because they can't call them sagrentino.
Yeah, as just everyone knows,you know, there's a very strict
gundlining. So but they were niceenough also to poor me. I don't
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know if they did for you,but I gotta I gotta vertical of their
sagrantino from twenty eleven through two thousandand seven, and it was and just
the way those wines age and showthemselves as they get older, just what
beautiful structure they've got. It wasa very thoughtful presentation of the vertical because
it just shows how the Sagartino evolvesover time. And you know, I
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think if you pick up a Sagartinoand you feel it too tight tanic for
you today, put it down andsee what happens. Because it is a
beautiful wine, really is. It'sa wine that goes with very meats.
Obviously, this is a wine formeat of our roasted chicken. It's it's
a beautiful and sharp cheeses. Yeah. As a lovely winery to go to,
(28:41):
I really want to go back andspend a little bit more time there
and kind of hang out with them. Beautiful vineyards as well, again biodynamic.
They also had some very old vineyardsthat they had that they had that
were planted back in the day whenyou could basically grow vineyards the way you
wanted to. And so they've gotthe palmetto style vineyards of Sagrantino, which
(29:03):
is which is three trellises to growsix sheets of grapes off of one vine,
which they really just don't do anything. What is the benefit of that.
I think the benefit was more grapesat one time, but now they
don't want you to do that,so they're not allowed to plant that anymore.
So these historic vineyards are a partof that winery, speaking of and
they also had bees and cows andhorses. They had a horse named David,
(29:26):
horses named David. We had amoment together speaking of vineyard management.
I learned about that reference I didn'tknow, but I also learned about the
tree vining system where the vines basicallyare grown up on trees, and we
went to I went to two wineriesthat utilize that system. One was Cantina
(29:48):
Nini like Ni Nni, which Idid not go to. Yeah, this
winery specializes in whites, but Ialso had rats and it's natural, totally
natural wine focused u the tree vining. You could see the vines going up
on the trees, very old vineshere, very experimental. I mean,
if you're really into natural wines,you're going to be really into this place.
(30:14):
And the owner was very fu jenLuca pier Pierre Neara. We tasted
a lot of different styles here,in different types of nification. I think
that my favorite and kind of itwas a bit aunctious, but unusual,
was not the normal wine. Herewas an orange wine called Miss Louis Miss
(30:37):
Louis, and it was in aburgundy bottle, so very distinctive. And
it was a blend of Tribiano,Poconica, Malvasia lunga, which were very
specific varieties, and it was acopper colored, very unctious. And I
thought that one was very good.And you know, there was another one
(30:57):
that tasted like rose paddles. Therewas one that tasted like pickle. Had
to pickle. Natural wine's going togo all over the bloodies, they really
do. He was a wonderful hostand enjoyed learning about this style of wine.
And then and another one that hasthat same tree trellising system that they
(31:18):
utilized to a certain extent, wasone that we did both visit called Lift
that day yep. And it's aSwiss Italian ownership and their winemakers Massimo Jockey,
and they are pretty small and they'realso pretty new, yet they do
some interesting wines. They make aTribona Spoletino, which I thought was interesting.
They have a couple of versions ofit. One was a normal style
(31:44):
where they do stainless steel tank fermentation. Another was a maceration in emphora right,
which was called fijoa yes tribuona Spoleto, and that was an interesting They
did oak fermentation and then did andit went into the barrel, etc.
So this regular spilettino was the onethat was macerated on the skins and put
(32:05):
it to empora. So there aretwo different versions, one in oak one
and empora um. They also dida IGT which is indication geographical tipica,
which is i GT wines which isthe kind of the lower rung of of
wines in Italy, yet not lessin quality. So it just means that
they're making them outside the confines ofthe DC. And so this was a
(32:30):
Costa secca which was a Sanja vseMerlo Sagrantino blend their roso. I thought
it was pretty good. I hada lot of ripe fruit to it,
um, good structure to it.And and then there was another one that
they made called Giulio two, whichis the same blend as the coast A
secca, but a little bit differentflavors to it. Also it was a
(32:52):
different fermentation process. Uh. Andthen the Carlo which is their Montefoco Sacrantino
Monte Faco. Sacrtino is a fairlyhigh ABV. Like you're you're looking fifteen
days, well you're looking, yeah, yeah, anywhere from fourteen five up
to sixteen percent of all. Sothey're pretty big, tannic and big one.
(33:15):
So they need they need good,good food and hearty food to go
with them a lot of the time. I like their posito as well.
Yea makes a really interesting posito calledpo High Pio the ninth must have been
a pope, it was, andhis posito was a twenty nineteen. It
just had it was so interesting andtotally great flavors to a little bit of
(33:36):
a spice and a wonderful tannic structurewithin it too, really delicious one the
winery it was located, there isanother location, but the actual cantina one
who was in a warehouse. Isn'tthis where you had your parrot moment?
Yeah? It's also where I hadmy parents. So we're traveling with Michael.
I'm with Michael Pinkosum, the grapeguy who would get a get on
the show Saint Catherine's Ontario. Andhe goes there's a pair and I'm like
(34:00):
where And we're all like looking,and I thought it was because this is
this is Montefalco, not the Amazonrain forest, and I didn't see it.
But we leave the tasting, andI agree that Posito was very nice.
We leave this tasting and there's theparrot again, and there was like
four parrots in the trees, Imean like in the wild, but not
(34:22):
in the while, because it turnsout that their pets, and one of
them landed on Michael's shoulder and Igot some photos because we're you know,
we're all stopping stop everything to justtake pictures parrot. And then one lane
on my shoulder and started picking atmy hair. Maybe I want to lunch,
as I kind of had a hitchcockyin a moment with the birds.
But I was told that there's theysaid, a parrot school nearby. I
(34:44):
bet that means parrot sanctuary could bebecause I can't imagine what the parrots are
learning to speak. We found outI found out that John Paula Taberini,
who is the head of the consortioand has its own winder, and we
talked about a little while ago,has parrots and he was taking them to
the parrot school that night. Oneof the nights that were learning to speak
it to I don't know, youknow, is there a to make wine?
(35:05):
So let's talk about Tabberini. Weactually went and did a show with
John Polo Tabberini. We spent sometime with him last year when we were
there. We were both here thistime when you had a meal there and
I had a meal there. Separatetimes, Yeah, separate times, separate
times. You had dinner, Ihad lunch. Yeah. Yeah. He
is a energet. He's the wordfor Jampolo is kinetic. Yeah, he's
(35:25):
kinetic. He never stops. Ilove his wines um I particularly like the
tripionist fillotina he does. He's asbeautiful as you mentioned aged version of them.
It is a modern, very almostmuseum like winery, very state of
the art. And what's need isif you get to have a seller tour
(35:47):
built, there's a light show insideof the seller and they push a button
and then the light start going.It's it's it's still in it's still in
construction the winery. It's like thefamilia of beautiful winery, very modern.
Right. We like Taburini. We'vehad Jumpolo on on the shows. He's
(36:07):
really one of the great ambassadors forthe region, makes fabulous wines. Has
a deep cellar as well, anddeep lots of vintage and deep knowledge of
the wines. And he's encyclopedic abouthis wines and the vintages of vintages that
he has produced, which is alwaysa joy to listen to, and he
really is. And he's a generoushost, always willing to pull out older
(36:28):
vintages um and we're grateful for that, Thank you, Jem Paulo. And
he's a very energetic head of theconsortio. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.
So another one that we went totogether was a small new winery called Luca
de Tomaso and it was just veryit was very small. His first vintage
(36:52):
was in twenty sixteen and it wasa really it's some level wines. I
thought It's twenty nineteen Montefalco Rosso wasone of the best that I had in
the entire words. That was areal I think that's when Michael said,
don't quit, just quit your day, Joe, because you know Luca,
he's thirty, Okay, So hestarted in his twenties. He studied engineering.
(37:15):
His mom and dad his family ownsa restaurant in Milan. He worked
the restaurant and he said, Iwant to go to Montefalco and make one.
Yeah, and he did. Eve, I don't know that she meet
she has Yeah, So um,he leases the land, he owns the
place. He leases land, helives over the he lives in the place
(37:35):
where he grows. The Montefalco RossoReservo was fabulous, fabulous, really very
talented and Luca die Toomassi and Massosorry and definitely a young producer to watch.
That was a real discovery. Icouldn't agree with you more. Yeah,
it knew nothing. You know,sometimes when we go on these trips,
(37:55):
we do a lot of homework inadvance, and sometimes we're not given
enough time to do the homework andwe just sign up and try to find
wineries that we have never heard of, just because it's all about the joy
of discovering wineries. And definitely thisone was a perfect example about that.
Really fantastic. Let's see what else, So what do you have next on
(38:20):
your agenda? Well, I wentback to Mungarotti and did an updated tasting
there and that is always a terrificvisit. Georgio Mungarotti was a pioneer of
them, in Umbria. They alsohave a beautiful estate which we have not
visited in Toorgiano, which is aDCG focused on Sangio Vasi. There are
(38:45):
also a couple of northerly wine producersas I and I mean in the northern
reaches of Montefalco, the region ofthe wine making area that I touched base
with and you went to one ofthem, I went to I went to
one myself and we both went toone. Did I say that correctly?
(39:07):
Does it matter? One was,and we're going to have them on our
show next week, So we're notgoing to talk to them too much because
we're going to talk to them alot next week. But one was too
new to do. Saraghano, whichis one of the historic wineries in the
region and really one of the historicfamilies in the region and Italy as well.
Um great folks and so Saraghana hasbeen around for hundreds of years.
(39:31):
They are they've been bottling since nineteentwenty one and have a wonderful winery and
we're going to do a deep divewith them next Wednesday at two pm.
So, uh so we're not goingto touch much on that, but we
both really loved the winery and thefolks as well. Just a great spot.
And then the other one that Iactually went to, and I didn't
(39:52):
go to the winery, but actuallythey actually came to Montefalco to meet with
me was the Goretti family and theirwinery is near Perugia, so it's in
the northern part of the one Monthof Lco winemaking region Appalachian and they're a
fourth generation winery. They've got abeautiful property up near Perugia and they've been
(40:15):
making wine for about one hundred years. I met with Sarah Goretti, who
kind of works on the marketing side. But it's really family run. The
mother makes the labels, the unclemakes the wine, the sister helps with
the marketing, etc. So youknow, all family run, really nice
family, very driven to get theirwines out there into the world, and
(40:37):
they make some really nice wines.I tasted one at the final party,
because at the very end of thiswonderful week there's an a gala. There's
always a fun party. I wantto make sure I mentioned Bocali, which
is another producer. Well we'll dothat next. I just want to finish
up with Goretti, so I'm sorry. So they have they make about one
(41:00):
hundred and eighty thousand bottles a year, so they're not small compared to you
know, compared to some of theones that we visited. Um, and
they have you know, they makerick Ghetto, they make Montefalco, Sagrentino,
they make a beautiful roso that Ithought was just delicious. Um.
Look forward to learning more about theirwines. I think we might actually go
to visit them at some point inthe further hold next year. So yeah,
(41:21):
closer to Perugia, so we cankind of kill a lot of birds
with one stone if we go upto their to that area. Already,
prey, nice, wonderful person.It was actually your birthday the final night.
So she was pouring, she wasshe was very jannerous with her pores.
Yeah. And so that was anotherone. And then you said you
went to Buccali. Yeah, bocallie. It's owned by the Valentini family.
(41:43):
Valentino Valentini has to be one ofthem. Like like Jumpaulo is kinetic.
This guy is, you know,like you're the major d of life.
People call you. That's that's alsoValentino Valentini. He is just so
he just wants to hug you whenyou meet. He's so enthusiast a stick
and they have been involved in Montifacofor over a century. Boucolie actually is
(42:06):
a dialect for wine jug It's onlysix hectors, so it's not a huge
winery, about thirty, but ithas produced about thirty thousand bottles. And
yeah, and they are all organicand also a vegan for anyone who's interested,
and also terrific wines. I thoughtthese were really well made. Um
(42:30):
you know, we tasted a differentvintages of the Montefaco, Sacrantino and the
Rosos. Also some very good oliveoil. I think several of the producers
we met with offered us wonderful olive. Ol Umbria is probably more known for
its olive us than it is forits wine. That's good point. It's
(42:50):
a huge olive producing an olive oilproducing area, so rightly so that a
lot of people have good olive oil. So Boucoli, like Racquetto is near
Perugia, didn't feel like a longdrive when we're everything just seemed so close
together. It was really wonderful.Um So Bocali I definitely recommend. I
believe they are also available in theUnited States. Most of these wineries are
(43:15):
with a few exceptions, but ingeneral, wines from Montefalco are widely available
United States. Um our. Lastday we went to a very large producer,
uh and to Nellie right now.This is the one we referentment.
Fongoli is located inside Antoni and UH, very large estate. I'm just trying
(43:40):
to pull up my notes on itbecause I did this eighty thousand production nones
Fungali. Sorry, I think it'sso. They're pretty big winery. Yeah,
beautiful estate. But you know they'redoing the same thing that all the
even the small small producers are doing. They're using a lot of them for
they do a lot of in concretetanks. They're playing with their wines to
kind of come up with the bestsolution at this point, because you know,
(44:04):
climate change is affecting every is affectingeverything right now, and people are
starting to have to learn to makelearn new ways to make wine. So
they're right on top of it.We're hearing that everywhere we go. Absolutely,
it's it's uh that and I wouldlike to learn more. He said
that the use of emphor is moreporous and increases the flow of oxygen.
Me, not being a scientist,wants to learn more about that because you
(44:25):
know what was interesting, David iswe didn't empor. We saw different types
of emphora and sizes empor, muchlike you see different barrels and sizes,
and they all do different ways ofimpacting the wine. It's the same with
emp and they're made of different Yeah, they're made of different substances as well.
There were terra cotta, there was, there was concrete emphora as well.
(44:46):
There were there was there was porcelain, clay, white clay, all
very different, all very different andmore different porosities within them. So that
so it's interesting to be able totaste the wines out the different ones and
see if you can compare them.I'd like to do more tastings like that,
just to kind of I like d'antinelli. The wines were wonderful. Yeah,
(45:06):
they were one of the first producersto experiment with tripianos Bolletino exactly.
And they had sparkling wine as well, which was nice because you didn't We
didn't have a lot of sparkling wineson this trip, but they had one
with it was one hundred percent TripianosBolletino and it was say so it was
(45:27):
bone dry, yes, yes,yes, spent twenty four months on the
leaves. I really liked it.I liked it a lot too. They're
they're great. How can I notsay this word? They're Grikeeto is also
very nice. They do trivionas Bolletino. Of course, as you mentioned again,
Montefelco rosso Sagrantinos. We actually tastedthree vintages of Sagrantino while we were
(45:49):
there. It was really nice.And then there was a really very interesting
one that they only make a thousandbottles of, which was the Cusa di
Penone Retino ducg and this was atwenty eighteen. It's a single vineyard on
their estate and just made a fabulous, fabulous wine. I love that one.
I also love the Momina de Latona, another Crew wine. UM thousand
(46:15):
bottles, so probably not available inthe United States, but we were very
grateful to have the opportunity to tastethem, and it was It's a beautiful,
beautiful winery. It is a beautifulwinner and there's again a lot of
history in that. I think scotchA Diavoli. These guys um the saragonas
the Gorettis. They all are reallythe history and of course Taburini is in
(46:38):
that mix as well, and Arnoldthe Kaprie who we didn't go to we
went last time. Yeah, alsothey're really they're really the ones that are
making that are the historic wineries inthat region. And a lot of these
wineries, like Antonelli, the statewas formerly owned by the Bishop of Spiletto
(46:59):
in the eighteen hundreds, and youhad to think back in history. And
I'm not an Italian history expert,but everywhere I went I asked because a
lot of these wineries were owned bythe church and in a different time when
there was a different there was akingdom, and then things changed and there
(47:19):
were wars and there was a lotof movement of turning over, much like
France estates and some of the winerieshad to buy back their land. Saragna
did. They had the land,they had to get it back. At
another time they lost it and theygot it back. And I heard that
story a couple of times. AndI think in the case of Scott TiO
Diapoli, which we'll talk about ina future show, her the ancestor that
(47:44):
bought the land was actually one ofthe workers. Yes, her grandfather,
her grandfather one of the farm workers. So you're talking about a fairly large
historic upheaval when the land went backto the workers from the church. I
mean that one happened throughout it,but also in France and look at look
at you know Burgundy. We havea We have a couple of minutes left,
(48:05):
and I want to touch on twoplaces that I should think are a
note. One was look Keimte,which was a new winery that I went
to and you did not, butI tasted the wine. You got to
taste the wines, and the winesare very good, terrific wines, beautiful
winery, great olive oil. Andso they're a new winery on the I
think the east side of town.I can't remember. They make about one
(48:25):
hundred thousand bottles. They sat.I think it's Keimote, okay Um Tribano
Spoletino. They make a nice rosatto. They make a great sparkling wine.
They have a beautiful reserve Montefalco Sagrantinothat they call the Donna Julia. Very
modern wines, expressive wines, goodextraction in the wines. I think they'll
(48:49):
do well and then then really Ithink the last one we want to talk
about is one of the more historicalproducers in the region, Tarra to TRINCHI.
Oh yeah. Really spent some timewith them last year when we were
there, but not this year,but we tasted the wines again, and
I think what's most important is thatthere they were originally a co op,
so they're a huge producer, butthey make some of the high qualities Sagarantinos
(49:12):
and Montefalco rosos in the region aswell, and they were responsible in nineteen
seventy one for reintroducing sagrantino as adry wine to the market, and so
there the historical significance of that wineryis probably one of the most historically significant
pieces of history in that region.It's so interesting and a great great way
(49:32):
to round out the rest of theshow. So these are all wineries that
are open for visits with distribute tothe United States. Umbria is a wonderful
place to visit, and Montefalco,obviously we've been twice now we would recommend
to anyone we'd like to go backand explore other regions, and obviously will
because we feel that Umbria is agreat discovery, not terribly crowded. If
(49:57):
you do want more information on thewines themselves, we're going to share the
consortios of Montefalco Consortio with you.It's Consortio Montefalco dot it. They also
have a Strata Sagarantino wine route thatthey recommend, so they have a lot
of information so you can plan yourtrip. And there's hiking available as well.
(50:22):
Biking, and we haven't even hadthe chance to do that because we've
been so busy just visiting wineries.But there's a lot to do in this
area, so make plans and putthis particular one region on your itinerary.
Absolutely well, this has been afun time. We had a good time.
It's a well organized trip. We'dlike to thank the Consertio and also
(50:44):
myriad partners who invited us and we'reso on top of everything. It makes
the experience so pleasurable when you havethe chance to meet the people firsthand and
get to know them, like wehave many friends there now. I feel
like we've met a whole new groupof friends. Falco. Well, it's
(51:04):
a rap, it's a rap,but we have more shows coming on this
topic. You'll do deep dive meetingwith the producers. But in the meanwhile,
as always, you've been listening tothe Connected table life, and our
messages always stay insatiably curious. Thankyou.
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(00:21):
W FORCY Radio. Hello and welcometo the Connected Table Live where your hosts
(00:43):
Melanie Young and David Ransom. You'reinsatiably curious culinary couple. We bring youth,
thy, dynamic people who are frontand center and behind the scenes in
wine, food, spirts and hospitalityaround the world. We enjoy visiting everybody
and traveling and sharing the world Wediscover with you so you can eat and
(01:04):
drink better. And we're going todo that with you today because we just
came back from where. Give ahint first, don't say where, just
they give a hint, Green Italy, landlocked right right in the middle.
Yeah, landlocked, Green Italy.That doesn't sound let's make it more beautiful,
landlocked, very verdant, green Italyknown for a very famous Franciscan monk,
(01:33):
Yeah, St Francis, Saint Francis, that's a Saint Franciscan monk.
Yeah, the Francis like the fatherof all Franciscan monks, and as in
Saint Francis of ASSISI. We're takingyou to Umbria. We're taking you to
the Montefalco wine region. That's rightright, yea, and a beautiful not
(01:56):
very large, small wine production regionright in the middle, kind of in
the north the central part of Umbria, in the hilltop village of Montefalco.
And we actually first went there lastSeptember, remember Melanie, Yeah, and
had a wonderful initiation trip to thatregion, so much so that we wanted
to go back and explore a littlebit more and learn more about the fabulous
(02:17):
wines and the cuisine of the region. So Montefalco is a wine region.
Technically, it's located in the provinceof Perugia in Umbria, and there's different
sub zones and then there's Montefalco,the hilltop village that dates back to medieval
times, which is where we basedourselves and I mean there was a lot
(02:38):
going. It was April, itwas pretty hot and with tourists, right,
yeah, it was pretty it wasgetting busy. Yeah, it was
getting quite busy. It is alsoa unique style of wine, which we're
going to discuss the purpose of ourfirst trip. It was just you and
I. It was awesome and wegot to know the wines. Meat producers
had a fuel of the show andtried all the restaurants. This time it
(02:59):
was for unto Prima Sagrantino, whichis a signature wine Montefalco. Ag Well,
it's you know, it's funny stationincorporates more than just segment it is,
although it's it's been interchanged in allmy materials I've learned. But anyway,
uh yeah, we basically were thereto taste the newest releases from Montefalco,
right And in the past it wasSagrentino's Entuprema, and this year they
(03:21):
rebranded it returned to Antiprema Montefacco becausethey produce a lot more than just Sagrenttino,
the wine in Montefelco. You know, that was a real discovery for
me as well, because Sagrantino isMontefalco is the signature grape, and it's
a docg in Montefalco. But Ifell in love with Montefalco Rosso, which
(03:44):
is Sangiovese driven minimum sixty percent,with Sagrantino, and some had Marilo in
it, and I thought those werelike my favorites, right, I agree,
Yeah, you know, Sagrentino hasplanted really literally in Montefalco, that's
it in the surrounding area, soit's within that one region. But San
gia Vesi is planted all over centralItaly, so there's many manifestations of it
(04:05):
as you drive around the central partof Italy, Tuscany, Romagna, Lumbrio,
they all make a version of SanGavsi, so it's pretty widely planted
in. I always like to thinkof San gia Vesi as as Central Italy's
red grape. That's where it's home, yea, And but Sagrantino is a
(04:27):
little bit of a different animal.For a long time, it was made
as a sweet wine or posito asthey like to call it, for hundreds
of years actually, and it wassacramental to begin with a Saint Francis of
Assisi. Right down the road there'sa beautiful monastery in Spoletto, which is
right across the valley from Assistance.Right in the middle of that is Montefalco.
(04:51):
So there's a lot of history ofwinemaking and sacramental winemaking, and that's
really where Sagrantino's history began. Welearned, um sa Frantino is almost a
little double and tender because we learnedmonta falcon means falcon mountain. Uh,
there's a whole history there of avery famous nobleman who had falcons, and
(05:13):
one of the falcons became ill anduh they created a promise from the grape,
the red grape, and uh falconbecame well and became a sacred grape
Sa Sagarentino. But there's also areference to we learn in Arabic where this
famous I think it was a prince. He lived in Arabia, and sacra
(05:38):
there means faltain, so it's falconmountain because falcons apparently everywhere. Did you
see a falcon? Yes, Ididn't see any parrots land on your head.
There's a parrot sanctuary. Then that'sa different story altogether. So Monta
Falco falcon mountains, sagran Tino sacredand also potentially dating back to Arabic term
(06:02):
for falcon. It is a thickskin, late ripening grape. It pruces
very intense tannic wines, leather tar, tons of fruit, tons of fruit,
really tons of fruit. We tastedthe Anata, which means the new
Amazing vinage, and it was givenfive stars. It was twenty nineteen,
(06:24):
so still a little young to drink. Well, a lot of them actually
weren't released yet. Yeah, alot of them were still barrels. We
were tasting out of the bottle,mostly twenty sixteen, twenty and eighteen,
which are in release, but twentynineteen is really just coming to market.
Yeah, it's a little young.Sagrantino tends to um want to be drinkable
at a at a five to tenyear range, so of course they released
(06:46):
this at about four years and andthen then you do with it what you
will, Yeah, what you will, but it is yes, Sagrantino.
And then so that's you know,one red grape. And then we referenced
the Montefalco rolsos or Reservo, whereit's a minimum of sixty percent Sano Sangiovese
(07:08):
sangiovesey but it also has a littlebit of sagrentino, right, I like,
those wines are are very different.Yeah, glens throughout. And then
let's don't neglect the white wines,which for me was an introduction to the
white wines of the area that Trebianospolletino was very verily recently introduced to Monte
(07:28):
Falco. It comes over from theSpiletto area. I think I was reading
two thousand and seven, early twotwo thousands. I think that's when back
in two thousand and seven there weremaybe five or six producers that were playing
with Trebiano spoletino as as a varietyto make white wine out of. But
it has been around for longer thanthat in the area. I know that
Giampallo Taberini has a cellar with alibrary in his cellar, and he has
(07:55):
spoletino dating back to the early twothousands. Pretty good. Some of the
stills them are really terrific wines,and there's also some Biancie wines. We
had some griquetto wines and Tribiano SpillettinoGriqueto blends all good, very refreshing,
very or. I found them allto be very aromatic because Trevis. Spilletine
(08:18):
is very aromatic great. I likedthem a lot and tasted many and of
course we visited about how many wineriesten I think I've visited about fifteen or
so on this particular trip on myself. You and I actually split up,
which was nice. Yeah, wesplit up. Not always, you know,
nice to be away from you.However, it was nice to be
able to divide and conquer, whichis what we like to do when we're
(08:41):
on trips that allow us to doso. And so I went to a
bunch of wineries on my own thatyou didn't go to, and vice versa.
So it was it was a lotof fun. So we're going to
talk about some of the places we'vewent because I know a lot of people
have said to us, we wantto go, we want to plan a
trip. First of all, Iwant to let you know that it's important
(09:03):
to get to Montefalco. The bestway to get there is to fly into
Rome Bumchino. It's about a twoand a half hour drive from there.
Once you're there, if you stayin the village of Montefalco, it's very
walkable, but you will want acar or car service or tour to take
you to other places like Assisi orif you want to go over to Spoleto
and explore the region. Highly recommended. And also the wineries. The good
(09:28):
thing is most of the winderies werefairly close to each other. Yes,
yeah, very close, with afew exceptions. Now, what I thought
was really great about Montefalco is therewere so many wonderful restaurants. It's it's
a pretty quiet town. It's likea wonderful museum, the museum to San
Francisco and some churches of course inthe Tiatro. But the restaurants were really
(09:50):
great. And what was nice aboutthe trip, both trips, is that
they the organizers, thank you,Consortiovini del Tutula Montefalco. They gave us
a restaurant reservations or wheal tickets sowe could go and explore. Why don't
we start by talking about some ofthe places we ate and then we'll talk
about where we visit it. Ihave a list, here are the restaurants
(10:16):
we recommend, and we'll put theseup on our website that connects the table
as well. First and foremost Restaurantde Tartuo, which we went to twice,
specializes in tartufo truffles the spring truffleseason, which is different from winter
truffle season. And if you goyou want to get the strangozzi, I'll
tartufo, or if they have astretchya tell, I'll tartufo, which is
(10:39):
the pasta with black truffles, whichis kind of a signature dish wherever you
go in Montefoca. Well, Umbriais known for its black truffles, exactly,
so you've got to have a trufle. One of the world's foremost purveyors
of black truffles is based in Umbria. Actually, the other dishes that are
notable in Umbria or the meats.One of the great meat restaurants of all
(11:01):
time, there is Ristaurati il Cocrone, very classic. Um. This is
actually a catering company, family owned. They have a restaurant and it people
flock there to get these giant grilledmeats and the tag we out of the
type stakes and it's it's a beautifulrestaurant inside and it's and it's lovely food.
But also Cocarrone was actually the originalname of Montefalco before it got changed
(11:22):
by the Duke exactly so that's importantto note. And wonderful restaurant and I
highly recommend. Yeah, I thinkit's number one in trip Advisor. Lacanda
del Tiatro. We went both trips. Fabulous restaurant, gracious host, wonderful
wine list and seller well the hosts. The manager is Paulo, wonderful guy
(11:43):
and recognized us, remembered us whenwe came in. We hadn't been there
in six months. He completely rememberedour trip. And then the Sammie and
the wine director is mckayley, andhe has a fabulous wine list and he's
always happy to take anybody back intothe wine cellar to help to pick out
a bottle if they'd like too.But it's very expansive and it's got great
depth of the list and there's outdoorseating, which is nice. I have
(12:05):
to say, you know, I'mnot a meat eater, as you know,
but you had meat dishes and ravedabout them. But I love their
stuffed the stuffed zucchini flowers stuff withricotta. That was a wonderful dish.
And we had specials that night andmine was a rote It sounds weird,
but roast chicken buttons. They werelike egg rolls stuff with chicken roll a
(12:26):
tena. Yeah, they were sogood, really really really good. This
is a very elegant restaurant, butyou don't have to get dressed up to
go anywhere in Montefalco. So thatone again a Lucanda del Tiatre. Then
you and I discovered a tiny littleplace this trip, like twelve seats called
Mordecai. The chef also is anartist and his wife. His wife is
(12:50):
the chef and she's also an artist. Yes, yes, so he and
he runs the restaurant. That it'sa great couple, very tiny, but
we were very happy to go thereand kind of find it as we were
walking around to this place looks good, and they had a couple of seats
left. It was lunchtime, andwe sat down and had a wonderful meal
and drank a bottle of Montefalco Rosso, just to kind of wet our appetites
(13:11):
for the week because it was ourfirst day there. And so there's no
website for Mordecai, but it's locatedright across the little street and it's a
little street from Lucana del Tiatro,so you can't miss it. And just
two more before we head to thewine. The last trip we went to,
(13:31):
Oh, I can't pronounce this oL e V M olivium olium Okay,
so that's just as the Latin.Yeah, this is all about the
olive oil. They have a hugeselection of olive oils and um there I
had the traditional streganzi al tartufo drizzledwith this amazing olivel This is I think
a restaurant where you would to gosimple and have the olive ols be the
(13:54):
Starnels star. And last, butnot least, we went at the Bread.
This trip was an anoteca laal Camista, which is woman run. It's
a mother daughter chef team. AndI went for lunch one day and raped
about it so much that we wentback. We did you went for lunch
on there on your own, andthen we went back the last day we
(14:16):
were there, last Friday, andwe enjoyed a wonderful lunch out on the
piazza umbrella and they actually came outand asked us what we wanted, even
though there was a menu for us, and they basically prepared the menu for
us. It was and they justsaid, well, let's just do this,
and they just sent out dishes thatweren't even on the menu. It
(14:37):
was a lot of fun and wonderfulfood. Yeah, you know. The
stand out because I'm always leave ourvegetables is the artichokes who flay with a
poached egg inside with parmesan cram.And they had a really wonderful guinea fowl
is another signature of this area,and this one was like a roll of
teeny stuff with a wild chicory dustedwith bacon bits if you wanted it really
(15:00):
delicious. And that's in one tiny, tiny village. And that's not all
the restaurants. There's probably like halfa dozen more we never got to visit.
So that's the eating part. Nowlet's talk about the drinking part.
We both went to some wineries togetherand not together, and then a few
separate. I tried. It waskind of neat. We picked different tours,
(15:20):
as David said, and then Itried to go back and check out
the wineries that you went to sowe could cross references. What were some
of the highlights for you, David, Well, I think I want to
start with saying before we get intoeach of the wineries, let's start by
talking about the four types of wine. That good point being made there.
So there's Sagrantino ranches from the Sagrantinogrape and it's their premier wine, and
(15:43):
a DOCG and a DOOCG, whichis the highest level of quality and Italian
wine. And then there is MontefalcoRosso, which is a sixty percent sanjivas,
and then whatever percentage you want ofeither Sagrantino or other grapes, a
lot of its. Most of thetime it's Sagrentino and Merlo, which I
thought it was very interesting because Merlohas a very long history in Umbria as
(16:07):
well, dating by hundreds of yearsso and then so that's the Monte Bacco
Rosso. Then there is the whitegrapes. There's two of them that are
prevalent in Monte Faco, Tribano Spolletino, which we've talked about a little while
ago, and then also Griqueto,which is another beautiful white crape that they
grow in the region. And thenthe last wine of note is their Sagrentino
(16:30):
posito, which is a sweet redwine usually had with dessert, but we
found it was also meant to bedrunk with festive occasions like lamb at Easter,
Sunday lunch, yeah, and Sundaylunch things like that. Yeah.
In Umbria and in Montefalco, theyactually drink the posito with fattier savory meats
(16:51):
and it's not I was really surprised. I really love the posito. It
is not overly sweet. It reallydidn't even feel like a dessert wine as
much as I want to have withsavory cheeses. And I totally got where
they're coming home with the roast andit was as you said that, and
they told us they started making theposito before they made the Sagarantino secco.
(17:12):
The dry version, yes, becausethe posito they've been making for hundreds of
years and the Sagarantino posito, butthe first real history of dry sagrantino being
made is really in the mid twentiethcentury. One winery have visited you actually
visited them as well, has abottle of dry pocito dating back to the
(17:36):
nineteen fifties and that's the oldest bottlethat we found, although there may have
been a few that were older,but most of the but before that it
was really sweet one. But Ilove the Sagarantino posito as well because it's
a very different type of posito thanthe white wine positos that you get in
other parts of Italy, especially inTuscany, which is right next door the
Vin Santos, because very pretty muchthey're much different, and it's I think
(18:00):
the red grape and the tannins inthe in the Segentino really create a wonderful
juxtaposition in the balance of the wine. I agree, And there's a little
bit of coco and it's just atotal different flavor profile. Yeah, and
definitely work there in small production though, like with Ben Santo posito or always
you made for the family. Souh, I wish I had taken the
(18:22):
one that was offered to me becauseI would love to brought it home anyway,
great overview, David, thank you, And let's start with since we
have been to some of the wineriesbefore, we'll start with some of the
ones that we went to separately buttechnically together because we went different times,
and I think one that we bothreally enjoy this very tiny we'll start with
(18:47):
the smaller ones. Is Tera SanFelicci really a mom and pop operation,
most pop, yeah, mostly popKatia and it's Carlo Mancini is his name,
and and his wife I didn't meet, and then the winemaker and um,
yeah, Ducheca and Carlos who wemet with tiny eight thousand bottles maybe
(19:08):
nine. Now they make about twelthousand bottles. So I founded in the
Actually his families are on the farmwhich is um not too far from town.
In fact, he said he usedto he and his brother used to
walk to town to get a drink. But it was it was about six
kilometers outside of town, so fourmiles and I said that's a long walk
as we were driving back to town. Um. But I love that winery.
It was a lot of fun.We basically they make twelve thousand bottles
(19:33):
a year Carlo, and it's avery interesting place that the wines are very
nice. He does a lot withum amphora ad we have a lot of
wittners in the region. Um areusing amphoras in concrete and things like that.
So so his winery is outside ofCastel Ritaldi, which is one of
(19:55):
the villages around Montefalco. And Ireally enjoyed sitting there and chatting with him.
We sat outside, it was asunny day, we overlooked the vineyards
and it was a very relaxing visitwith him. He is a doctor from
Rome and he his family's owned theproperty in Montes outside of Montefalco for about
one hundred and forty years, sothey've been around for a long time and
(20:15):
loves making wine, loves wine itself. Very nice guy lives on the property
and it was interesting. Yeah,nice wines. And did you have they
had a sparkling wine. You don'tget a lot of sparkling wines there.
I had a Bolleccini sparkling wine,the Trepionispolletino sparkling wine, which is a
(20:37):
interesting um. I like their TrepianoSpolletino castel with tali. I loved it
a lot and lovely people. Idon't remember if they have an importer here,
but I did like also the Posito. Yeah, there were a couple
of wines that also stood out forme. The Boloccini, which is a
sparkling wine, did as well.The Rosso the Rosso Reservo. We're both
(20:59):
good. Yeah, a little bitdifferent range in the Sanjivasi versus Sagarenttino in
those wines that but both good,both really nice wines. He makes us
two sagrenttinos. The Sagrenttino that stoodout for me was the Sagrantino venom Day
which is in tone which is inTono for a while and phora for a
(21:25):
year before he puts it to restand bottles it. It's a really nice
wine, a lot of structure toa nice firm tannins to it. Very
nice wine. For me, Iwas interested in how many of the vitnors
do use emphora, A lot ofthem, a lot more. But you
know, I think it's a trendall over the world now people are starting
to think of different ways to makewine. And why is that? Because
(21:48):
he has to do with the oxygenand for a impacts how the oxygen flows
through the wines. It's very interesting. I'd like to do a tasting of
one type of wine aged in differentto know and flora, just the whole
range. You see what it wouldbe like. Um So that was Tera
uh Di san Felice. Then anotherwinery we both went to separately, and
(22:15):
we're actually gonna be doing a show, so we'll just talk briefly is Scotchia
Diaboli. Another winery that has marvelous, very nice sparkling wines using Sacrantino.
There's a brute and a rose Ilike the brute better. Also Metodo Classica
and one of the one of thehistoric wineries in the region, started in
the eighteen eighties and really great ambassadorsfor the region of Montebelco. I love
(22:37):
the name. We're gonna we're gonnado a show with the owners, so
we're not going to talk about aboutShaka Diavoli Scotchia Diavoli. I'm so sorry.
I keep thinking, keep confusing Scotchawith Chaka, which is a city
on the south coast of Sicily,and they're spelt the same way and they're
different. Well, here's what Ilove. Is the name means chase the
devil away. It's actually the nameScotti Daveli is named after a local exorcist
(23:03):
who used to um clear demons outof the area. I thought that was
kind of a fun fact to noand tell. We also both went separately
to a woman known Winery Newer Cocolike Cocco, not Chanel Cocolari. Alaria
Coco was the owner. She isa former marketing executive who just said one
day I want to move on andstart a new life, which inspired me.
(23:27):
And her family had some land inMontefalco, and she, uh,
you know, started working on planningvines. Uh small, she um let
us taste. The range is verysmall, a tripianus. Everybody had a
(23:48):
Tribriantos, Bollentino, a Montefalco,Rossoco, camarada and Fossano pho s a
n o one hundred percent sagrantino anda terrific past I brought back the monte
Faco, Rozovo, the camarade forus to drink at night. I wish
I brought back at Psito as well. She's literally like a one woman.
(24:11):
Jame. I asked her how manypeople she had working on her staff,
but she looked at me as likeme, yeah, it's actually really We
had a great time when I visitedher, As you mentioned, we visited
separately, you one day, evennext and it was a lot of really
a nice time chatting with her anddocument. She decided to leave marketing and
she spent ten years teaching herself howto make wine before she released her first
(24:33):
vintage in twenty sixteen. And thewines are just delicious. They're very well
made there, they're very well structured, They've got a lot of elegance to
them. Just fabulous fabulous early effortsby somebody who I think is going to
be one of the great winemakers inthe region. Yeah, I would definitely
put this winery on your list.We also went separately to another family one
(24:56):
winery. Is it Fongali, Yeah, Fongali, not to be confused with
Wongali Wongli, which is a clamFongli fo Ngoli family run. This property
is literally located inside a larger winerythat we visited another day together. Antonelli.
Yes, that's like kind of interesting. They produced two types of Sagrantino
(25:19):
Montefalco as well. You know,it's funny when we asked on that note,
when we talked to Antonelli and wesaid, so, how did it
come to be that this this wineryis located within the limits of your of
your of your land, And hegoes, well, apparently there was an
uncle that liked to play cards.You interpret that? So, I what
(25:44):
did you think? So we tastedthe Fungali wines are wonderful. Yeah,
they've been bottling wine since the nineteentwenties. Again, so one of the
older wineries in the region. Ithink it was nineteen twenty maps to the
daughter Ludovica took us around. Ludovicais an artist there. They do a
lot with natural fermentation. They're kindof like they're kind of the they're kind
(26:06):
of the forward thinking and historically thinkingwinemakers in the region to a certain extent.
They're not very big. It's familyowned. They're small. They like
to do things their way. They'renot always the first to get on board
when the Consortia tries to change therules and tell them that they have to
make wine a certain way so thatall the wines from the region come in
(26:26):
at a certain quality level, etc. They love making their wine naturally.
As I said, they are veryinteresting folks. They do a lot with
organics. They have biodynamics involved aswell. And you know, a small
family were in winery and I fellin love with the wines. Yeah,
I like this winery lie again,a beautiful places to sit and sip.
We taste it outside. It's abeautiful day. They like we reference.
(26:51):
They also experiment with them, forthey have a Montefago Sagratine who found this
permitted and stainless and these clay tankand then they also have one in Amphora.
Yeah, they have two different labels. That they make. There's the
white label, as I called it, in the brown label, which is
the more modern style. The whitelabels are they actually can't call them Montefalco
(27:12):
wines or and Montefalco Sagrantino DCG eventhough it even though technically it is,
they're because they make it in longmastration and aged in emphora for a period
of time, and the regulations don'tlike that, so they so they actually
and those wines are wonderful. Sothose are basically natural style segmentinos and they're
(27:36):
really lovely, wonderful expressive wines.Yea with a beautiful lifted the city to
them. I really like them alot. I like them. I like
the family who met the mom dadthat's called fraconton Frario rosso. That's the
name of those wine for the whitelabels, because they can't call them sagrentino.
Yeah, as just everyone knows,you know, there's a very strict
gundlining. So but they were niceenough also to poor me. I don't
(27:56):
know if they did for you,but I gotta I gotta vertical of their
sagrantino from twenty eleven through two thousandand seven, and it was and just
the way those wines age and showthemselves as they get older, just what
beautiful structure they've got. It wasa very thoughtful presentation of the vertical because
it just shows how the Sagartino evolvesover time. And you know, I
(28:19):
think if you pick up a Sagartinoand you feel it too tight tanic for
you today, put it down andsee what happens. Because it is a
beautiful wine, really is. It'sa wine that goes with very meats.
Obviously, this is a wine formeat of our roasted chicken. It's it's
a beautiful and sharp cheeses. Yeah. As a lovely winery to go to,
(28:41):
I really want to go back andspend a little bit more time there
and kind of hang out with them. Beautiful vineyards as well, again biodynamic.
They also had some very old vineyardsthat they had that they had that
were planted back in the day whenyou could basically grow vineyards the way you
wanted to. And so they've gotthe palmetto style vineyards of Sagrantino, which
(29:03):
is which is three trellises to growsix sheets of grapes off of one vine,
which they really just don't do anything. What is the benefit of that.
I think the benefit was more grapesat one time, but now they
don't want you to do that,so they're not allowed to plant that anymore.
So these historic vineyards are a partof that winery, speaking of and
they also had bees and cows andhorses. They had a horse named David,
(29:26):
horses named David. We had amoment together speaking of vineyard management.
I learned about that reference I didn'tknow, but I also learned about the
tree vining system where the vines basicallyare grown up on trees, and we
went to I went to two wineriesthat utilize that system. One was Cantina
(29:48):
Nini like Ni Nni, which Idid not go to. Yeah, this
winery specializes in whites, but Ialso had rats and it's natural, totally
natural wine focused u the tree vining. You could see the vines going up
on the trees, very old vineshere, very experimental. I mean,
if you're really into natural wines,you're going to be really into this place.
(30:14):
And the owner was very fu jenLuca pier Pierre Neara. We tasted
a lot of different styles here,in different types of nification. I think
that my favorite and kind of itwas a bit aunctious, but unusual,
was not the normal wine. Herewas an orange wine called Miss Louis Miss
(30:37):
Louis, and it was in aburgundy bottle, so very distinctive. And
it was a blend of Tribiano,Poconica, Malvasia lunga, which were very
specific varieties, and it was acopper colored, very unctious. And I
thought that one was very good.And you know, there was another one
(30:57):
that tasted like rose paddles. Therewas one that tasted like pickle. Had
to pickle. Natural wine's going togo all over the bloodies, they really
do. He was a wonderful hostand enjoyed learning about this style of wine.
And then and another one that hasthat same tree trellising system that they
(31:18):
utilized to a certain extent, wasone that we did both visit called Lift
that day yep. And it's aSwiss Italian ownership and their winemakers Massimo Jockey,
and they are pretty small and they'realso pretty new, yet they do
some interesting wines. They make aTribona Spoletino, which I thought was interesting.
They have a couple of versions ofit. One was a normal style
(31:44):
where they do stainless steel tank fermentation. Another was a maceration in emphora right,
which was called fijoa yes tribuona Spoleto, and that was an interesting They
did oak fermentation and then did andit went into the barrel, etc.
So this regular spilettino was the onethat was macerated on the skins and put
(32:05):
it to empora. So there aretwo different versions, one in oak one
and empora um. They also dida IGT which is indication geographical tipica,
which is i GT wines which isthe kind of the lower rung of of
wines in Italy, yet not lessin quality. So it just means that
they're making them outside the confines ofthe DC. And so this was a
(32:30):
Costa secca which was a Sanja vseMerlo Sagrantino blend their roso. I thought
it was pretty good. I hada lot of ripe fruit to it,
um, good structure to it.And and then there was another one that
they made called Giulio two, whichis the same blend as the coast A
secca, but a little bit differentflavors to it. Also it was a
(32:52):
different fermentation process. Uh. Andthen the Carlo which is their Montefoco Sacrantino
Monte Faco. Sacrtino is a fairlyhigh ABV. Like you're you're looking fifteen
days, well you're looking, yeah, yeah, anywhere from fourteen five up
to sixteen percent of all. Sothey're pretty big, tannic and big one.
(33:15):
So they need they need good,good food and hearty food to go
with them a lot of the time. I like their posito as well.
Yea makes a really interesting posito calledpo High Pio the ninth must have been
a pope, it was, andhis posito was a twenty nineteen. It
just had it was so interesting andtotally great flavors to a little bit of
(33:36):
a spice and a wonderful tannic structurewithin it too, really delicious one the
winery it was located, there isanother location, but the actual cantina one
who was in a warehouse. Isn'tthis where you had your parrot moment?
Yeah? It's also where I hadmy parents. So we're traveling with Michael.
I'm with Michael Pinkosum, the grapeguy who would get a get on
the show Saint Catherine's Ontario. Andhe goes there's a pair and I'm like
(34:00):
where And we're all like looking,and I thought it was because this is
this is Montefalco, not the Amazonrain forest, and I didn't see it.
But we leave the tasting, andI agree that Posito was very nice.
We leave this tasting and there's theparrot again, and there was like
four parrots in the trees, Imean like in the wild, but not
(34:22):
in the while, because it turnsout that their pets, and one of
them landed on Michael's shoulder and Igot some photos because we're you know,
we're all stopping stop everything to justtake pictures parrot. And then one lane
on my shoulder and started picking atmy hair. Maybe I want to lunch,
as I kind of had a hitchcockyin a moment with the birds.
But I was told that there's theysaid, a parrot school nearby. I
(34:44):
bet that means parrot sanctuary could bebecause I can't imagine what the parrots are
learning to speak. We found outI found out that John Paula Taberini,
who is the head of the consortioand has its own winder, and we
talked about a little while ago,has parrots and he was taking them to
the parrot school that night. Oneof the nights that were learning to speak
it to I don't know, youknow, is there a to make wine?
(35:05):
So let's talk about Tabberini. Weactually went and did a show with
John Polo Tabberini. We spent sometime with him last year when we were
there. We were both here thistime when you had a meal there and
I had a meal there. Separatetimes, Yeah, separate times, separate
times. You had dinner, Ihad lunch. Yeah. Yeah. He
is a energet. He's the wordfor Jampolo is kinetic. Yeah, he's
(35:25):
kinetic. He never stops. Ilove his wines um I particularly like the
tripionist fillotina he does. He's asbeautiful as you mentioned aged version of them.
It is a modern, very almostmuseum like winery, very state of
the art. And what's need isif you get to have a seller tour
(35:47):
built, there's a light show insideof the seller and they push a button
and then the light start going.It's it's it's still in it's still in
construction the winery. It's like thefamilia of beautiful winery, very modern.
Right. We like Taburini. We'vehad Jumpolo on on the shows. He's
(36:07):
really one of the great ambassadors forthe region, makes fabulous wines. Has
a deep cellar as well, anddeep lots of vintage and deep knowledge of
the wines. And he's encyclopedic abouthis wines and the vintages of vintages that
he has produced, which is alwaysa joy to listen to, and he
really is. And he's a generoushost, always willing to pull out older
(36:28):
vintages um and we're grateful for that, Thank you, Jem Paulo. And
he's a very energetic head of theconsortio. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.
So another one that we went totogether was a small new winery called Luca
de Tomaso and it was just veryit was very small. His first vintage
(36:52):
was in twenty sixteen and it wasa really it's some level wines. I
thought It's twenty nineteen Montefalco Rosso wasone of the best that I had in
the entire words. That was areal I think that's when Michael said,
don't quit, just quit your day, Joe, because you know Luca,
he's thirty, Okay, So hestarted in his twenties. He studied engineering.
(37:15):
His mom and dad his family ownsa restaurant in Milan. He worked
the restaurant and he said, Iwant to go to Montefalco and make one.
Yeah, and he did. Eve, I don't know that she meet
she has Yeah, So um,he leases the land, he owns the
place. He leases land, helives over the he lives in the place
(37:35):
where he grows. The Montefalco RossoReservo was fabulous, fabulous, really very
talented and Luca die Toomassi and Massosorry and definitely a young producer to watch.
That was a real discovery. Icouldn't agree with you more. Yeah,
it knew nothing. You know,sometimes when we go on these trips,
(37:55):
we do a lot of homework inadvance, and sometimes we're not given
enough time to do the homework andwe just sign up and try to find
wineries that we have never heard of, just because it's all about the joy
of discovering wineries. And definitely thisone was a perfect example about that.
Really fantastic. Let's see what else, So what do you have next on
(38:20):
your agenda? Well, I wentback to Mungarotti and did an updated tasting
there and that is always a terrificvisit. Georgio Mungarotti was a pioneer of
them, in Umbria. They alsohave a beautiful estate which we have not
visited in Toorgiano, which is aDCG focused on Sangio Vasi. There are
(38:45):
also a couple of northerly wine producersas I and I mean in the northern
reaches of Montefalco, the region ofthe wine making area that I touched base
with and you went to one ofthem, I went to I went to
one myself and we both went toone. Did I say that correctly?
(39:07):
Does it matter? One was,and we're going to have them on our
show next week, So we're notgoing to talk to them too much because
we're going to talk to them alot next week. But one was too
new to do. Saraghano, whichis one of the historic wineries in the
region and really one of the historicfamilies in the region and Italy as well.
Um great folks and so Saraghana hasbeen around for hundreds of years.
(39:31):
They are they've been bottling since nineteentwenty one and have a wonderful winery and
we're going to do a deep divewith them next Wednesday at two pm.
So, uh so we're not goingto touch much on that, but we
both really loved the winery and thefolks as well. Just a great spot.
And then the other one that Iactually went to, and I didn't
(39:52):
go to the winery, but actuallythey actually came to Montefalco to meet with
me was the Goretti family and theirwinery is near Perugia, so it's in
the northern part of the one Monthof Lco winemaking region Appalachian and they're a
fourth generation winery. They've got abeautiful property up near Perugia and they've been
(40:15):
making wine for about one hundred years. I met with Sarah Goretti, who
kind of works on the marketing side. But it's really family run. The
mother makes the labels, the unclemakes the wine, the sister helps with
the marketing, etc. So youknow, all family run, really nice
family, very driven to get theirwines out there into the world, and
(40:37):
they make some really nice wines.I tasted one at the final party,
because at the very end of thiswonderful week there's an a gala. There's
always a fun party. I wantto make sure I mentioned Bocali, which
is another producer. Well we'll dothat next. I just want to finish
up with Goretti, so I'm sorry. So they have they make about one
(41:00):
hundred and eighty thousand bottles a year, so they're not small compared to you
know, compared to some of theones that we visited. Um, and
they have you know, they makerick Ghetto, they make Montefalco, Sagrentino,
they make a beautiful roso that Ithought was just delicious. Um.
Look forward to learning more about theirwines. I think we might actually go
to visit them at some point inthe further hold next year. So yeah,
(41:21):
closer to Perugia, so we cankind of kill a lot of birds
with one stone if we go upto their to that area. Already,
prey, nice, wonderful person.It was actually your birthday the final night.
So she was pouring, she wasshe was very jannerous with her pores.
Yeah. And so that was anotherone. And then you said you
went to Buccali. Yeah, bocallie. It's owned by the Valentini family.
(41:43):
Valentino Valentini has to be one ofthem. Like like Jumpaulo is kinetic.
This guy is, you know,like you're the major d of life.
People call you. That's that's alsoValentino Valentini. He is just so
he just wants to hug you whenyou meet. He's so enthusiast a stick
and they have been involved in Montifacofor over a century. Boucolie actually is
(42:06):
a dialect for wine jug It's onlysix hectors, so it's not a huge
winery, about thirty, but ithas produced about thirty thousand bottles. And
yeah, and they are all organicand also a vegan for anyone who's interested,
and also terrific wines. I thoughtthese were really well made. Um
(42:30):
you know, we tasted a differentvintages of the Montefaco, Sacrantino and the
Rosos. Also some very good oliveoil. I think several of the producers
we met with offered us wonderful olive. Ol Umbria is probably more known for
its olive us than it is forits wine. That's good point. It's
(42:50):
a huge olive producing an olive oilproducing area, so rightly so that a
lot of people have good olive oil. So Boucoli, like Racquetto is near
Perugia, didn't feel like a longdrive when we're everything just seemed so close
together. It was really wonderful.Um So Bocali I definitely recommend. I
believe they are also available in theUnited States. Most of these wineries are
(43:15):
with a few exceptions, but ingeneral, wines from Montefalco are widely available
United States. Um our. Lastday we went to a very large producer,
uh and to Nellie right now.This is the one we referentment.
Fongoli is located inside Antoni and UH, very large estate. I'm just trying
(43:40):
to pull up my notes on itbecause I did this eighty thousand production nones
Fungali. Sorry, I think it'sso. They're pretty big winery. Yeah,
beautiful estate. But you know they'redoing the same thing that all the
even the small small producers are doing. They're using a lot of them for
they do a lot of in concretetanks. They're playing with their wines to
kind of come up with the bestsolution at this point, because you know,
(44:04):
climate change is affecting every is affectingeverything right now, and people are
starting to have to learn to makelearn new ways to make wine. So
they're right on top of it.We're hearing that everywhere we go. Absolutely,
it's it's uh that and I wouldlike to learn more. He said
that the use of emphor is moreporous and increases the flow of oxygen.
Me, not being a scientist,wants to learn more about that because you
(44:25):
know what was interesting, David iswe didn't empor. We saw different types
of emphora and sizes empor, muchlike you see different barrels and sizes,
and they all do different ways ofimpacting the wine. It's the same with
emp and they're made of different Yeah, they're made of different substances as well.
There were terra cotta, there was, there was concrete emphora as well.
(44:46):
There were there was there was porcelain, clay, white clay, all
very different, all very different andmore different porosities within them. So that
so it's interesting to be able totaste the wines out the different ones and
see if you can compare them.I'd like to do more tastings like that,
just to kind of I like d'antinelli. The wines were wonderful. Yeah,
(45:06):
they were one of the first producersto experiment with tripianos Bolletino exactly.
And they had sparkling wine as well, which was nice because you didn't We
didn't have a lot of sparkling wineson this trip, but they had one
with it was one hundred percent TripianosBolletino and it was say so it was
(45:27):
bone dry, yes, yes,yes, spent twenty four months on the
leaves. I really liked it.I liked it a lot too. They're
they're great. How can I notsay this word? They're Grikeeto is also
very nice. They do trivionas Bolletino. Of course, as you mentioned again,
Montefelco rosso Sagrantinos. We actually tastedthree vintages of Sagrantino while we were
(45:49):
there. It was really nice.And then there was a really very interesting
one that they only make a thousandbottles of, which was the Cusa di
Penone Retino ducg and this was atwenty eighteen. It's a single vineyard on
their estate and just made a fabulous, fabulous wine. I love that one.
I also love the Momina de Latona, another Crew wine. UM thousand
(46:15):
bottles, so probably not available inthe United States, but we were very
grateful to have the opportunity to tastethem, and it was It's a beautiful,
beautiful winery. It is a beautifulwinner and there's again a lot of
history in that. I think scotchA Diavoli. These guys um the saragonas
the Gorettis. They all are reallythe history and of course Taburini is in
(46:38):
that mix as well, and Arnoldthe Kaprie who we didn't go to we
went last time. Yeah, alsothey're really they're really the ones that are
making that are the historic wineries inthat region. And a lot of these
wineries, like Antonelli, the statewas formerly owned by the Bishop of Spiletto
(46:59):
in the eighteen hundreds, and youhad to think back in history. And
I'm not an Italian history expert,but everywhere I went I asked because a
lot of these wineries were owned bythe church and in a different time when
there was a different there was akingdom, and then things changed and there
(47:19):
were wars and there was a lotof movement of turning over, much like
France estates and some of the winerieshad to buy back their land. Saragna
did. They had the land,they had to get it back. At
another time they lost it and theygot it back. And I heard that
story a couple of times. AndI think in the case of Scott TiO
Diapoli, which we'll talk about ina future show, her the ancestor that
(47:44):
bought the land was actually one ofthe workers. Yes, her grandfather,
her grandfather one of the farm workers. So you're talking about a fairly large
historic upheaval when the land went backto the workers from the church. I
mean that one happened throughout it,but also in France and look at look
at you know Burgundy. We havea We have a couple of minutes left,
(48:05):
and I want to touch on twoplaces that I should think are a
note. One was look Keimte,which was a new winery that I went
to and you did not, butI tasted the wine. You got to
taste the wines, and the winesare very good, terrific wines, beautiful
winery, great olive oil. Andso they're a new winery on the I
think the east side of town.I can't remember. They make about one
(48:25):
hundred thousand bottles. They sat.I think it's Keimote, okay Um Tribano
Spoletino. They make a nice rosatto. They make a great sparkling wine.
They have a beautiful reserve Montefalco Sagrantinothat they call the Donna Julia. Very
modern wines, expressive wines, goodextraction in the wines. I think they'll
(48:49):
do well and then then really Ithink the last one we want to talk
about is one of the more historicalproducers in the region, Tarra to TRINCHI.
Oh yeah. Really spent some timewith them last year when we were
there, but not this year,but we tasted the wines again, and
I think what's most important is thatthere they were originally a co op,
so they're a huge producer, butthey make some of the high qualities Sagarantinos
(49:12):
and Montefalco rosos in the region aswell, and they were responsible in nineteen
seventy one for reintroducing sagrantino as adry wine to the market, and so
there the historical significance of that wineryis probably one of the most historically significant
pieces of history in that region.It's so interesting and a great great way
(49:32):
to round out the rest of theshow. So these are all wineries that
are open for visits with distribute tothe United States. Umbria is a wonderful
place to visit, and Montefalco,obviously we've been twice now we would recommend
to anyone we'd like to go backand explore other regions, and obviously will
because we feel that Umbria is agreat discovery, not terribly crowded. If
(49:57):
you do want more information on thewines themselves, we're going to share the
consortios of Montefalco Consortio with you.It's Consortio Montefalco dot it. They also
have a Strata Sagarantino wine route thatthey recommend, so they have a lot
of information so you can plan yourtrip. And there's hiking available as well.
(50:22):
Biking, and we haven't even hadthe chance to do that because we've
been so busy just visiting wineries.But there's a lot to do in this
area, so make plans and putthis particular one region on your itinerary.
Absolutely well, this has been afun time. We had a good time.
It's a well organized trip. We'dlike to thank the Consertio and also
(50:44):
myriad partners who invited us and we'reso on top of everything. It makes
the experience so pleasurable when you havethe chance to meet the people firsthand and
get to know them, like wehave many friends there now. I feel
like we've met a whole new groupof friends. Falco. Well, it's
(51:04):
a rap, it's a rap,but we have more shows coming on this
topic. You'll do deep dive meetingwith the producers. But in the meanwhile,
as always, you've been listening tothe Connected table life, and our
messages always stay insatiably curious. Thankyou.
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