Looking Into Wine

The historical area between Conegliano and Valdobbiadene in Veneto, has been promoted to Prosecco Superiore Conegliano Valdobbiadene to DOCG in 2010.
After a decade on the making, Valdobbiadene is setting itself apart from the wider Prosecco Doc produced in Both Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia.
The Conegliano Valdobbiadene has many factors that are unique to the region for one there is increasing interest in the Valdobbiadene terroir and landscape, awarded Unesco World Heritage status in 2019.
In this episode with Sarah Abbot Master of Wine, we define what they are, with a great interest on the soils and hills.
In another innovation, for Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG, changes to the regulations in 2019 now allow for a new style of extra brut
Also, we talked about the innovations, such as Classic Method and Prosecco col Fondo and the ban of Glyphosate pesticide usage in the region and Sarah thoroughly explains the rather convoluted labelling system - Lastly, I asked to Sarah what else is she seeing happening in the region?
Some other useful links on the topic
https://www.valdobbiadene.com/?lang=en
https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/prosecco-consorzio-launches-superiore-afternoon-campaign-411420/
https://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-conegliano+valdobbiadene+prosecco
Swirl Wine Group: https://swirlwinegroup.com/



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At the foothills of Biblical Mount Ararat, at altitudes between 1400 and 1600 meters above sea level and just a stone through from the world’s oldest winemaking facility Areni 1 cave.
The vineyards of ZORAH can be found in the rural village of Rind in the heart of Vayots Dzor, Armenia’s classic winemaking region.
Zorah aims to re-establish the long history of Armenia for wines and to bring the nation to the global market. It's not an easy task but thanks to some very clever choices the success is coming to their way.
Armenia much like other countries has a few hundred varieties that are believed to the of local origin and Yeraz Gharibian, knew that working with those varieties would have been essential to the success of his wines.

With today’s guests Yeraz Gharibian. we talked about why he decided to open his winery in Armenia, what are the difficulties that he encountered along the way.

We spotlighted the wines Yeraz Wines produced at Zorah,
Yeraz (dream in Armenian) is the dream for the revival of ancient wine culture and the rediscovery of forgotten places and lost native grapes. It is the dream for a passionate wine future and the creation of great wines from Armenia which will tell the story of this age-old land and it is the dream to trust in the potential of this incredible terroir with a sense of responsibility for future generations.

High altitude viticulture the grapes for Yeraz come from ultra-centennial semi-abandoned bush vineyards ‘older than time’ at altitudes of 1600 meters (5250 feet) above sea level. Raw and remote, pure and authentic, these vines reflect the difficult history that has defined this land and the spirit of its people; resilient yet with great inner tenacity, they have somehow survived against all odds

Karas the ageing vessel of choice, the local Armenian Amphorae that typically are ¾ buried compared to those found in other countries, Zorik, explains why in the interview.
Also explore the unique region of Vayots Dzor with its high altitude, and the Karas the Armenian Amphorae used for ageing and how he uses them. We also spotlighted, what other regions are producing wines in Armenia.

Some other useful links on the topic
https://www.zorahwines.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_wine

The following are affiliate links, it costs you nothing to use them but I get a small percentage when you buy something, so thanks!
What I use to make the podcast:
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The Adriatic Sea, is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto to the northwest and the Po Valley.

The sea affects many wine regions in Europe but is in the northernmost part where it’s most visible, winds coming from the south channels through the whole sea into Friuli, Slovenia and Istria.

For Paul Balke author of the Book North Adriatic, those regions are now separate only politically but are connected by their climate and could be considered are a wide over different states wine region.

We centred our attention on Friuli Venezia Giulia as it represents well the climatic condition of the North Adriatic and the incredible diversity of grape varieties.

We have talked about the interesting story of how producers after the 2nd World had vineyards in both Italy and Slovenia and were the only ones allowed to cross the border on daily basis.

We talked about the historical importance of those regions both locally and internationally, we discussed why in Friuli we should not consider the plains are A and B sites, what grapes are grown in those regions.

Use the code to receive a 10% discount on North Adriatic Book on Paul Website
https://paulbalke.com/north-adriatic/
If you are enjoying the podcast consider leaving a review!
Some other useful links on the topic
https://italianwine.guide/regions-en-gb/friuli-venezia-giulia-en-GB/
https://www.shelvedwine.com/all-about-wines-of-friuli-venezia-giulia/

The following are affiliate links, it costs you nothing to use them but I get a small percentage when you buy something, so thanks!
What I use to make the podcast:
Audio Interface: Zoom H6 https://amzn.to/3qnz7Ht
Microphone: Shure SM58 https://amzn.to/3bcfbAC
Boom Arm Mic Stand with Pop Filter: ShureSM7B https://amzn.to/3tWlMYR
Online Recording on studio-level: SquadCast https://squadcast.fm/?ref=mattiascarpazza

In this episode, we explore Furmint a noble grape of Hungary, with Caroline Gilby Master of Wine.

Furmint is undoubtedly one of Hungary most valuable white grape variety. Is unique, distinctive with a flavour profile quite unlike any other grape variety I have ever tasted.
With Caroline Gilby MW, who has been visiting Hungary since the 90s, we discussed one of favourite variety.

Gouais Blanc is the parent of Furmint, making it half-sibling to Chardonnay and Riesling and it is no surprise when one start to look at the styles that are produced today one can see the similitudes with those varieties.

Until relatively recently, the traditional style of Hungarian Furmint has been sweet, more often than not blended with Hárslevelű, most notably in the blend for tokay.

Furmint ripens late, is prone to botrytis, retains high acidity and builds lots of sugars – everything that one needs to produce sweet wines.

But around the turn of this century, dry, varietal Furmints started appearing and gaining traction, the hot and dry 2003 vintage is the pivotal vintage for dry wines says Caroline in the podcast.
Producers quickly saw the potential. Caroline explains what styles are can be found today, Furmint is a grape that not only makes a high-quality wine at all sweetness levels but can be used to make good sparkling wine too. It responds to Chardonnay-like winemaking techniques such as lees ageing, bâtonnage, malolactic conversion and ageing in barrel.

We also talked about viticulture used to train Furmint and where in-country is grown successfully aside Tokaji.

I commented how Furmint is one of the few grape varieties in the world that can produce such an array of style, a tasting idea is to have a journey through the styles produced by Furmint. I’ll definitely try it at some point soon. Since the dry styles of Furmint are becoming more common among producers, so is the growing interest in the grape around the world and is definitely now a good time to learn everything that you need to know about it Furmint!

I would like to thank Wines of Hungary UK for helping to organise this episode.

Some other useful links on the topic
https://winehungary.co.uk/
https://www.thewinesociety.com/explore-furmint-wine-grape-hungary

What I use to make the podcast:
Audio Interface: Zoom H6 https://amzn.to/3qnz7Ht
Microphone: Shure SM58 https://amzn.to/3bcfbAC
Boom Arm Mic Stand with Pop Filter: ShureSM7B https://amzn.to/3tWlMYR
Online Recording on studio-level: SquadCast https://squadcast.fm/?ref=mattiascarpazza

Randall Grahm, one of California's most innovative vintners, founder of Bonny Doon Vineyard and Popelouchum is the guest of Looking Into wine.

We started by talking about his early days. After three years studying philosophy at Santa Cruz University, and completing a winemaking degree at UC Davis, Grahm acquired a vineyard site at Bonny Doon in the Santa Cruz mountains. His first dream was to make Pinot Noir, but he soon realised that it was too warm on the mountain. He then moved to Syrah with a great deal of success. Grahm recalls how it was to work with the grape in the 70s, and how difficult it was to find good cuttings.

Continuing with Rhône varieties Grahm started to grow Grenache and Mourvedre. ‘I thought that if I blended those grapes maybe something good would be produced’, his beliefs were well-founded.

In 1984 he produced the first vintage of the wine with which he will forever be associated, Le Cigare Volant (the story of the name features in the interview). Cigare, a blend of Grenache, Mourvedre (Since 2017 changed to Cinsault), Syrah, and other classic Châteauneuf grapes.

During his high time, Randall produced more than 30 wines on any given vintage. I ask which wine he was most proud of and impressed by the quality. His writings constantly return to the concept that has dominated his life: the search for a true vin de terroir, not a vin d’effort.

Randall's accolades are as numerous as the risks that he took over the years, including producing one of the first dry roses of California in the 90s, staging the "funeral" of Mr Bouchon aka Cork, using Demijohns (all the reasons are discussed in the interview) and he even managed to be interviewed by Oprah.

We then discussed his latest project Popelouchum (Poh-puh-loo-shoom), a "New World grand cru" experimental vineyard in which Grahm hopes to breed 10,000 new grape varieties. He explains how he's using natural cross-breeding to find a variety that is 100% suited to the growing condition of the site.

The project will take generations and so the restless experimentation continues. We will have to wait a long time to see the results of the San Juan Bautista project but whatever sort of wine it produces it will be nothing less than interesting. And Grahm will be that much closer to his goal of creating a true vin de terroir.

Randall Grahm is truly a maverick winemaker that has inspired many others in California.

The Rhône Rangers began as an informal band of like-minded renegades who were convinced that the grapes traditional to France’s Rhône Valley would thrive in the Mediterranean climate of California. As recently as the late 1980s, there were only a few dozen such producers on the entire West Coast.

The ideas of those pioneers caught on rapidly in the 1990s and 2000s, and the 31 wineries that gathered for the Rhône Rangers’ first grand tasting, held in 1998 in San Francisco, grew to 90 by 2000. During the organization’s nearly two-decade history, more than 450 wineries have counted themselves as members, and tens of thousands of Rhône-loving tradespeople and consumers have attended Rhône Rangers tastings in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., thus changing deeply the way of American drinkers.

Over the years the Rhone Movement has lost its influences but is still very much there, it’s evolving and moving to other varieties and there still passioned producers.

In this episode, I spoke to author Journalist Patrick Comiskey. He, however, never lost his passion for either the true Rhone wines produced in the Rhone Valley in the south of France or the American Rhones being made primarily in California and Washington. Comiskey, a writer and critic for Wine & Spirits magazine, has penned the definitive work on the Rhone movement, "American Rhone, How Maverick Winemakers Changed the Way Americans Drink."

Comiskey, a gifted writer and storyteller, spent the better part of six years by his estimation researching the topic, conducting interviews, tasting the wines and eventually writing the book.
We have also talked about the difference between Syrah and Petite Syrah and the new styles that contemporary Rhone Ranges are exploring.

Randal Grahm and the white horse –
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/357543657887272599/


The following are affiliate links, it costs you nothing to use them but I get a small percentage when you buy something, so thanks!

AMERICAN RHONE, HOW MAVERICK WINEMAKERS CHANGED THE WAY AMERICANS DRINK https://amzn.to/3r4X0mJ

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Online Recording on studio-level: SquadCast https://squadcast.fm/?ref=mattiascarpazza

In 1924, Rudolf Steiner presented his Agriculture Course to a group of 111, farmers in Poland.
Steiner spoke of agriculture to ‘heal the earth’ and he laid the philosophical and practical foundations for such differentiated agriculture. Biodynamic agriculture is now practised internationally as a specialist form of organic agriculture.
Steiner’s Agriculture Course comprised just eight lectures presented over a ten-day period. The path from proposal to experimentation, to formalization, to implementation and promulgation played out over a decade and a half following the Course.

It needs to be understood that in the 1920s chemicals usage in agriculture was growing exponentially and concern started to grow in the agriculture circles.

Biodynamic agriculture is now practised in 47 countries (Demeter, 2011) and, while it is nested within the broader organic agriculture movement, it has been at the forefront of organic farming developments, including, for example, the participation in founding the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) (Paull, 2010), and taking one of the earliest stances against synthetic nanomaterials by excluding them from Demeter’s biodynamic food and agriculture standards (Paull, 2011a).

In this episode, I spoke with Douglas Wregg director of Les Caves de Pyrene,
on what are the principles of Biodynamic farming and how are the famous composts are created and what’s their indented usage, How important it is Demeter and why? Lastly, I asked where some producers may use Bio for a second reason as for Marketing.
A deep dive into the topic of how and what are the practices

Some other useful links on the topic
http://lescaves.co.uk/lescaves-home
https://www.biodynamic.org.uk/the-spray-preparations/
https://vinepair.com/articles/biodynamic-wine-explained/

The following are affiliate links, it costs you nothing to use them but I get a small percentage when you buy something, so thanks!

If you are Looking to Lear more about the procedures used in Biodynamic I would suggest
Biodynamic Wine by Monty Waldin - https://amzn.to/3qeZXQT

What I use to make the podcast:
Audio Interface: Zoom H6 https://amzn.to/3qnz7Ht
Microphone: Shure SM58 https://amzn.to/3bcfbAC
Boom Arm Mic Stand with Pop Filter: ShureSM7B https://amzn.to/3tWlMYR
Online Recording on studio-level: SquadCast https://squadcast.fm/?ref=mattiascarpazza

In this episode, I spoke to Jane Lopes.
Jane is the author of Vignette, in her book jane opens up about many great moments of her life and she put a great deal of effort in explain how stress and anxiety have dictated many part of her life. And outside the book, she has been recently been part of an expose article about sexual harassment from senior members of the then heads of the Court of Sommelier. It transpires while talking to Jane that the problem extends to other parts of the business.
(find the link for the expose below).

This episode differs from others that have been released so far, in that it is focused on the life story of the author in and out of the book but nonetheless, I wanted to shine a light on it and I invite everyone to listen to this inspiring story. I believe that in her book, many people can relate to her stories, and while Jane tells her story she connects that specific moment in time to a style of wine and explains it.

In the first part, I spoke with Jane live, about some of the events and emotions that she had gone through. From the beginning, when she first became interested in wine, through to the stress of her examinations to become one of the few Master Sommeliers in the world, only to see it taken away. She shows amazing resilience and devotion and through her story, there is something that many people can relate to.

In the second part, we spoke about the recent sexual harassment exposé article in The New York Times, that Jane and other 20 women were part of, regarding the malpractice of senior members of The Court of Sommeliers in the USA.
Jane shares with me how the long-planned and researched article came together, how she had felt about it all and what she hopes for the future.

I can only thank her for sharing her story here.

Expose article from Julia Moskin of The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/dining/drinks/court-of-master-sommeliers-sexual-harassment-wine.html

These following are affiliate links, it costs you nothing to use them but I get a small percentage when you buy something, so thanks!

Vignette: Stories of Life and Wine in 100 Bottles https://amzn.to/37pZMMl

What I use to make the podcast:
Audio Interface: Zoom H6 https://amzn.to/3qnz7Ht
Microphone: Shure SM58 https://amzn.to/3bcfbAC
Boom Arm Mic Stand with Pop Filter: ShureSM7B https://amzn.to/3tWlMYR
Online Recording at studio-level quality:SquadCast https://squadcast.fm/?ref=mattiascarpazza

Modern and traditional are words that many wine aficionados, students or professionals have heard off but what about postmodernism?

In this podcast, Clark Smith the author of Postmodern Winemaking touches upon how modern winemaking changed the wine industry. For modern winemaking is generally referred to as wines that have developed after the second world war when electricity had become widely available in every winery in the world.

We have talked about how winemaking is becoming a dogma, and it is believed that winemakers do nothing, but as the saying goes it’s hard to do nothing.

Clark has a deep knowledge of winemaking and its Science. His book explores what modern techniques can add to the tools of a winemaker and how to best utilise them, and Clark explains that most of those tools need mastering and may or may not be utilised.

Who are postmodern winemakers? For Clark, postmodern winemakers are those who make wine in their own vision and he is not a single filed line but is goes in many directions.
We talk about the changes in modern wines in particular for white wine production, the influence of oxygen winemaking and the principles of micro-oxygenation. Clark challenges consumers to speak to winemaker and get to know them.

On a personal level I know there are many winemaking techniques and instruments that may be used in winemaking, regardless of their controversy, that are worth exploring and understanding as they play a part in the final product that we much enjoy. Also for those who are pursuing higher levels of wine-education winemaking covers a big part of the examinations.


Read More about this topic here:
https://whoisclarksmith.com/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

These following are affiliate links, it costs you nothing to use them but I get a small percentage when you buy something, so thanks!

Postmodern Winemaking https://amzn.to/2ZkpfCk


What I use to make the podcast:
Audio Interface: Zoom H6 https://amzn.to/3qnz7Ht
Microphone: Shure SM58 https://amzn.to/3bcfbAC
Boom Arm Mic Stand with Pop Filter: ShureSM7B https://amzn.to/3tWlMYR
Online Recording on studio-level: SquadCast https://squadcast.fm/?ref=mattiascarpazza

Welcome to the second producer profile this time we are in southern France, Languedoc specifically in Fitou with Owner/Winemaker, Katie Jones of Domaine Jones.

Katie moved to southern France from England to work for the local Co-operative, as the years passed she decided to open her own winery in 2008, starting off with a mere two hectares of old vine Carignan, something unheard of in her village of Touchon.

Katie looks for vineyards no-one else wants would only be a slight exaggeration. Most other growers in the area wouldn’t be interested in her modest twelve hectares of vines spread across vineyards in Maury and Tuchan.. she looks for low yields with high quality, and the rather poor, sloping ground that the very old, traditional vines cling to gives her just that.

Katie's tell us how she managed to acquire those many micro old vines vineyards in her villages it was a bit of luck that they weren’t uprooted in the early 2000s when the local regulatory body ripped up many hectares of vineyards. Katies has now a collection of rare varieties that she uses for her wines.

Wine cooperatives in France started in the late 1800s, mostly out of economic necessity, and continue to flourish today particularly in southern France, and that’s why it is more difficult to find independent grower, winemakers in the region.

We also talked about why the Fitou viticultural area is, unusually, got split into two separate zones for historical reason.

They are both finger-like enclaves stretching northwards into the larger Corbieres viticultural area. Each measure around 13 kilometres (8 miles) from north to south and less than half that from east to west. The two areas have a combined vineyard area of around 2650 hectares (6500 acres).
The inland 'finger' is known unofficially as Fitou Montagneux ('mountainous Fitou'). This area is relatively hilly – vineyards here lie anywhere between 100m and 400m (330ft to 1310ft).
The low-yielding vines here can produce fruits of great quality. In recent years this is being more reliably achieved.

Its coastal counterpart, Fitou Maritime, is situated on slightly flatter land at the transition point between the Pyrenean foothills and the coastal plain. Vineyards here rarely sit above 150m in altitude.

To read more about D Jones and Fitou:
https://domainejones.com/
https://www.languedoc-wines.com/en