So we go into the row in different times, maybe also into the same row, to pick different bunches at different stage of ripeness.This is also, we can say also, our secrets.Please don't say to anyone.
For each kind of label, Alcantara pick its own bunches to develop characteristic labels that are definitely unique.
Welcome to this special Clubhouse session of the Italian Wine Podcast.Listen in as members of the Italian Wine community engage in fascinating conversations about contemporary wine topics.
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Ambassador's Corner.
My name is Carla Ravagnolo, and today I'm pleased to welcome a dearest colleague of mine, Cynthia Chaplin, and her guests, Salvatore Rizzuto and Alessandro Priccolo from Alcantara Winery.Welcome, everybody.
Hi, Alessandro, here we are, and Salvo Rizzuto, nice to meet you.
So Cynthia is going to be the host later on in the interview, and she is a certified Italian wine ambassador, a sommelier with Fondazione Italiana Sommelier, and a professor of Italian wine and culture.
She is a freelance consultant and the host of Voices for Italian Wine podcast and the Old Vine podcast.She has spent 15 years specializing in Italian wine.
So my first question for you, Cynthia, is why did you decide to invite Salvatore and Alessandro here with us today?
Well, I fell in love with Alcantara Winery a few years ago, and Salvatore is the analogist.So in the past few years, I've had the chance to meet him on several occasions and even visit the winery with him.
and he is the perfect voice to talk about Alcantara.And Alessandro is the marketing and export manager, so he is very, very knowledgeable about how Alcantara is taken out into the world. And how did you discover the wines of Alcantara?
Well, happily enough, it was at Vignitali a few years ago when Alcantara was named Winery of the Year by Five Star Wine and Wine Without Walls. And several members of Alcantara, including the owner, Pucci Giofrida, were there to accept the prize.
And the owner stood up, and he read a poem and sang a song, and everyone cried.The wines were wonderful, but it was a very emotional experience for everyone in the room.So, it was a wonderful way to discover their winery.
It's so funny to hear that many Italian wine ambassadors actually have discovered some gems and have started building special relationships with wineries that discovered here in Italy.So I'm very, very much glad to hear that.One last question.
What are the learning objectives that we should expect from this interview?
Well, everyone who's listening to this interview should learn a little bit about how to market to new consumers and younger consumers, also about sustainability in Sicily and innovation and experimentation in Sicily.
Well, so enough with my questions.I'll leave the room up to you.And I'm curious to hear your story.Thank you, Carla.
Well, I'm really happy to have Salvatore and Alessandro here with me today.So Salvatore Rizzuto is a very accomplished oenologist with huge experience in the wine sector.He has his degree from Viticulture and Oenology from the University of Turin.
and he began working in Piemonte with very well-known wineries such as Fontana Freda and Dezzani, and in 2008 he dedicated his experience to Etna-based wineries.He's doing a lot of interesting work there as well as being a technical wine consultant
He also serves as an examiner for specialization projects in viticulture, and he's involved with industry training.He sits on many association boards, including Italian Association of Enologist and Enotechnicians.
So he is an amazing person to talk to about Sicilian wine and particularly etno wine. And Alessandro is the Export and Marketing Director for the company.He has huge experience in commercial management and international sales.
He's worked with very famous luxury products such as white truffle in international markets like New York and London, with brands such as Dean & DeLuca and Harrods.So lots of hospitality and sales management skills.
So now he is also channeling all of his energy and all of his experience into the wine sector to help Alcantara develop marketing strategies to enhance the global presence of wine products.So welcome to both of you.
Thank you.Thank you so much.Thank you.It's nice to be with you.
It would be a lot more fun if we were together in Sicily, but I'm happy to talk to you both today.So I will kick off the questions.I know Alcantara began in 2005 and it was the brainchild of Pucci Giuffrida.
So Mr. Giuffrida was an accountant beforehand, So what made him decide to start a winery and why did he decide to base the winery on poetry and art and literature?
Well, you will see this because it will be a long story.I'm joking.But let me say you that Mr. Giuffrida is still an accountant.
But what made him a professional in that field, it was for passing the days, like the responsibilities to have a stable job.
But you know, like many other people, you develop in something that will be good for your life, but sometimes not listening till the end your internal voice.Well, Mr. Giuffrida, in his inspirational, personal inspiration.
He had literature, poems, arts and wine as a treasure for his soul.And he was, after long times and years in working with money and accountants, to start to develop something that was
wearing the other side of his life, the personal one, the inspirational one, the very full of life one.So, passing the days, he was inspired in the simplicity of the things.He was inspired by beautiful vineyards
that a friend of him had in his villas on the Etna.And during the years, he was really fascinated for the care that these beautiful wineries had, means flowers in between the row.I mean, you know, they like the heaven garden that you can imagine.
And so, slowly, slowly, it was pushing him to develop something like that, but on his own.
Well, after some time of research, he found this beautiful estate of 20 hectares, and he decided, thanks also the location of the estate that is very close to the river of Alcantara, that is important, we know that
in translating into Arabic, Alcantara means bridge.So he decided to develop a concept as a bridge connecting wine, poetry, literature, and arts.So in that way began the Alcantara concept.
And you know that Cinzia was saying something important because during the exhibition in Italy, there were some people, there was everybody also crying close to Alcantara stands.
Let me tell you that at the beginning, Alcantara was born in 2005, you said, but in 2008 it was the first exhibition for Alcantara with just two labels. It was one, Oscuro Oscuro, and it was one, Two Reds, and the other one was L'Ouviro Piacere.
Well, they took the first nomination, and the only one on the Aetna.They were able to keep the first two nominations of the Chester labels for the first time.
And it was used to say that it was expecting, thanks to the nomination, that many people was coming to the stand to ask about the wine, and to discover the brand that was in a way nominated by the fair.But no one is coming.
So he spent the first two days of the exhibition without no one coming on the stands.So he starts to struggling for that and start to say, hey, I'm here, so I have to do something.Then he start to stop people.And stopping, he met a woman.
and explaining her the wine, explaining her the poem in the back of the label, with a vision of the beautiful label.This woman, after some minutes, started to cry, cry and cry.And imagine, it happened for maybe 20 minutes.
He was a bit embarrassed, Mr. Giuffrida, and he started to hug the lady.But this one, was the sign that he was doing and going in the right direction.
When you are able to touch the emotion of the people, it seems that you are doing something very important.So he was, for sure, after that occasion, after the experience, to develop and to continue in the experience of the winery.
It's such an amazing story that he got that reaction before the winery was even well known.He only had two labels, but his ability to evoke an emotional response from people is really huge.
We know that we face so many challenges in the global wine market these days, not the least of which is trying to attract new and young consumers.
So the labels you mentioned just now that were created for Alcantara wines are really different and really eye-catching.And the names of each wine are very interesting.So you mentioned Scuro Scuro, the dark wine, the red wine.
There's also the white wine, Lucci, which is light.So who chooses the label art for Alcantara and the names for each wine?Do you think it's useful in marketing and positioning these wines, not only in Italy, but also in foreign markets?
What kind of feedback do you get about the labels and the names and the artwork?
Well, Cinzia, let me say thank you for this question.And this is a very important question.Let me tell you why.
When you start a business, anyway, you have to decide the way the people will see your products in between many other bottles of wine, many other products like yours.So there was the need of trying to
elevate and putting out his production in consideration of the other, many other bottles of wine.But considering the soul, the concept of Alcantara, it was easy to receive an answer about, and he was using the art.
So, get deeply into the culture of Sicily.Anyway, imagine that Sicily is a culture that was inspired and contaminated by very many different kind of people like Greece, Arabic people, north of Europe.So, we are definitely melting pots.
Thanks to this, and this is a nice tricky way of, he decided to first give a name of each label by a poem.A poem that is coming from the Sicilian poetry like Verga, Nino Martoglio.
So he keeps inspiration by the poems and each label has nominated by a cultural deep into Sicilian poem literature. So thanks to the poem in the back of each label, an artist, a Sicilian artist, would get inspired to paint the label.
And imagine that what was making born this idea was an idea very personal, very important for Miss Giustina.It was very full of life and full of the joyful and young
powerful life of like a young people, a young man, because this is still the power of Mr. Giuffrida.So he was touching his childhood emotional way of approaching.
And that's why the label of Alcantara are very full of color and with beautiful draw that every young and poor children can make it.Inspiring by us.
They really are so unique and so different.The labels really stand out on the shelf.You can see them from far away.They're very attractive and make people curious, I think.So I like the story behind that.
And I know you've got a lot of new projects going on since you won the five star wines and Wine Without Walls winery of the year.So I want to ask you about some of the innovations and the experiments going on.
I know when I was there with Salvatore in the spring, he showed me, first of all, the creation of a wastewater collection and cleaning ponds.So where did this idea come from and what's the aim of the project?
How will it help sustainability at Alcantara?
Well, you touch a very important issue.So nowadays, I think you can't avoid to have an environmental responsibility.
and imagine that the wineyards and the winery is in a beautiful countryside landscape and the main resources used in each winery is a lot of water and water is a very important resource nowadays for everyone in our world.
And imagine that in the wine fields For each bottle of wine products, you use four liters of water.So it was not anymore able to be blind of this issue.
And we start partnership with the University of Catania to develop a fetal depuration three steps lake water process.
So thanks to the natural process of water flowing from one lake to the other lake in different levels, thanks also by the use of some bacteria, We are cleaning this water and using again this water for irrigating the olive trees in our estate.
So we don't waste water and we use the same water to nourish our olive oil cultivation.
And I think this is so important because, of course, we know Sicily has had a lot of drought issues in the past few years, which I expect will probably continue to have.
So the understanding how important it is to conserve the water, to reuse it, to clean it, and to put it back into the vineyard and into the olive grove is something that I think other wineries should be looking at doing too.
I know that the vineyard is just over about 20 hectares now and you've also got an experimental vineyard.So which varietals are you growing in the experimental vineyard and what are the plans?What wines are you hoping to make with those experiments?
We are, first of all, with the same University of Catania.We also working with a very ancient race of grapes that are still a very raised race in Vietnam and
is four years now that we are collaborating with, in partnership with the university, to develop and to grow up hundreds of plants for each race of four old and ancient races of grape on the Etna, called Barbarossa, called Moschatella Nera, called Madama White and Virdisi.
The first two in red wine and the second two in white wine.This year, for the first year, we were able to gather around 50 kilos of bunches to then start the beneficiation that is made in the University of Trapani.
and understanding how this race of grapes are good to making wine.And maybe, guys, in the future, we can discover another of the more than 200 kind of race of grapes that Italy has.Also something new, maybe it will be an amazing new flavor of wine.
But it's also important that we know that Alcantara has its own particular environment characteristic that anyway helps to play with the main Sicilian Etna grapes like Nerello Mascrese, Nerello Cappuccio and Caricante.
Well, that's true.And you use the grapes that are only grown in your own vineyard for your Etna DOC wines and your Terre Siciliane EGP wines.So tell us about this.What makes the terroir so special in your vineyards?
You're very close to the Cantara River and the Nebrodi Mountains, obviously being on volcanic soils at Mount Etna.But what makes your location so crucial to the quality of your wine compared to other vineyards on the volcano?
Well, imagine that the volcano is a mountain.And of course, you have from one side, for example, the north side to the south, a very different microclimate environment.
Talking about Alcantara, we are in an estate of 14, as we're, anyway, 14, cultivated in guineas, where there are three main terroir presence.And one is the closer to the river of Alcantara is
a terroir that with an amount of nutrients much more higher than the main and the classic volcanic one is a terroir that has a higher percentage of calcareous.
Then we have the main volcanic one made with stone and made with dust that is coming from the volcano.And the last one is that it has mainly an amount of 15% of other estates
is made with a strong skeleton and is made with a higher percentage of big stone.So this, for the first time, characterizes the terroir of Alcantara.
But then the position of the Estates is a position where we are also close to a chain of mountains of Nebrodi. and also the mountain of Etna.
So in this like we can call corridor is floating winds that help all the states to have a very healthy hair that taking out some risky bacteria or fungus that can be a risk for the winers and for the cultivation of the wine.
It's so interesting when we think of Mount Etna, we normally just think of the Lapiti stones and the ash from the volcano, but it's very interesting to hear that the soil nearer to the river has that calcareous soil and those nutrients.
So thank you for explaining that to us.I know that you're using one vineyard in particular to grow grapes for sparkling and still red and rosé. So I got to see this vineyard with you, Salvatore, when I was there.
Can you explain why this particular piece of the vineyard is so nurturing for the Nerello Mascalesi and so helpful to make wines in so many different styles in just this one place?How do you harvest that vineyard different from other vineyards?
Thank you, Cindy, for your question.Well, this one could be considered in a way the key the case zone of Alcantara.But let me start and tell you why.
First, we are cultivating this beautiful and amazing Nerello Mascalese that, thanks for his own characteristics, is very athletic, if we can start to say, because thanks to his own acidity, thanks for his own strength and elegance,
This grape will be used for making different wine, because if you do the spumante, the classic Champagne method, the spumante, like we produce, and use Nerello Mascherese, you get crazy.
If you use it to make Blanc de Noir, Nerello Mascherese is amazing. If you want to make the rosato, still this beautiful freshness is important.We can say with this word, freshness is a combination of minerality and acidity together.
So this freshness in the rosato, in the white wine, and in the spumante is an amazing, powerful treat, a great profile to make this kind of wine.But when we consider also the power
of this grape, and the elegance that this grape is characterized, help to develop a beautiful, elegant, and very long, passing the years, so it's a wine that can stand very long in the years, red wine.But let me tell you that this is the grape
We were also talking about terroir.Also, terroir is an important key factor to develop different bunches.But all of this information are gathered by methods of harvesting.
Because considering the characteristics of the Nerello mascarese to be good for different kinds of wines, considering the different terroir we have, Thanks to Salvo, we discovered and we developed the methods, we can say, of the one yard listener.
Let me tell you what does it mean.I'm not crazy, we are not crazy, but thanks Salvo, thanks for his knowledge and sensibilities, help to manage the harvesting, keeping and picking
in the same row, different kind of grapes at different stage of bunches in different times.So we go into the row in different times, maybe also into the same row in different times to pick different bunches at different stage of ripeness.
This is the key point.This is also, we can say also our secrets. please don't say to anyone, that help us to have a great verification of the wine, considering together the same kind of sage of bounties.Cinzia had the chance
when he was visiting us, to discover how in the same vineyards, so in the same maybe 50 square meters, there were maybe four different kinds of sage or ripeness or characteristics of bunches by the same kind of plants, from the same winders.
Because imagine that one of the particularities that is in our estate, that is the same winders, you can have the inflowation of some water
for example, that is in some parts with a higher amount because maybe Etna is full of water and there is probably a vein of water that is running through some vineyards and made these plants much stronger, much powerful.
And anyway, in the same vineyards where maybe two meters far, there are different bunches
So, we can't keep all the wineries, all the bounties to harvest all the wineries at the same time, because we will have bounties that are different in characteristics, in amount of water, in amount of sugar, in how big are the bounties.
So, for each kind of label, Alcantara picked his own bunches to develop characteristic labels that are definitely unique.
Thank you for such a good explanation.It's an amazing piece of vineyard to see, as you said, just in one small square few meters, all of these different things can happen with the Nerello Mascalese.
So, it's really a magical vineyard and you explain it so well.So, I have a question for you and this is something I've wondered about since I got to know Alcantara.
You make almost every style of wine, red, rosé, white, still, sparkling, passito, even grappa, you know, not made at the vineyard, obviously, but you have grappa made.
So you have this big portfolio with lots of work to maintain so many different labels.Why is it important to Alcantara to continue to make this big number of wines?
Well, Xinxia, thanks again for this question, because considering what I'm saying you before, and adding with the will of a young profile and powerful, lively owner, like Mr. Giuffrida, to research and to experiment.
And thanks to the characteristic that was, till now, I'm saying to you, that Nerello Mascarese is very eclectic, that the wineries give you different kind of bunches.
Thanks to all of this information, we are in a way in the possibilities to develop just three reds and two whites or keep all the characteristics that this land, this
environment this kind of grape and the knowledge of Salvo can do for the production.
So thanks to this characteristic we were needed to produce a different and spectacular side of the same grapes because this is an opportunity for us to discover also the strength of this land.
Well, I hope Salvo always stays there because I love all of the wines of Alcantara, and there are many.So it's a lot of work to make so many different styles of wine, but it's worth the effort because they really are special.
So I also wanted to ask you, we know that artificial intelligence in vineyards is a very hot topic right now, and I wondered
How does Alcantara make use of technology like artificial intelligence and how do you see it being used in the future at your winery?
Artificial intelligence nowadays should be an ally for every business.I think it's because we can develop and manage better our work.In the wineries, in the wine environments, artificial intelligence is important
regarding the weather, because the study, thanks to the algorithm and thanks to how strong is the processing of the information of the artificial intelligence, to develop in the weather forecast, in the weather examination of the winders, we can understand the curve of the ripeness of the winders.
and we can understand if there would be any risk of areas of the wine that would be more fragile, able to be attacked by some pathogenous bacteria.So AI will help us to use in case we should, some very local treatments in case the winemakers need.
But what does it mean, everything?That we avoid as much as we can to use chemical things.And as you probably know, Alcantara is cultivating winemakers in organic method.Also, like giving fertilization using other plants
to then mix into the ground to give the right nutrients to the plants.
So going straight on this philosophy, we use also artificial intelligence also to manage the healthy status of the wineries and to work in case we have in a very local area when it's needed.
Thank you for that.I know that the harvest goes very late in Etna as well, so probably still some harvesting going on now.And last year was a particularly difficult vintage.So what has the 2024 vintage been like at Alcantara?
What was the most successful grapes this year and the least successful grapes this year?
Well, geez, yeah, imagine 2023 is a definitely forgotten vintage.Every one of us definitely knows about.But 2024 is an amazing vintage.But let me tell you why.
At the beginning, at the winter, then all the winter, then spring, there was a really low amount of rain.And this helps to avoid peronospora effects.
So, to have a dry winter giving us a healthy wind, yes, because there was not enough humidity to let it grow some fungus.But then, when it started July and August, it was really hot. but really hot with definitely a few amounts of rain.
But in the end of August, after Ferragosso and September, they were coming after lunch and for sometimes during the afternoon, for every day, we call it summer rain.They are very intense and short, okay?
that from the end of August, middle end of August and September, start to give the right water to the vineyards.
what gives this rain in the afternoon was giving first to develop again after the very dry environment that was July and August to start the biological power of the plants.So new leaves, the plants start to grow up again.Then give a very
beautiful and perfect ripeness of the bunches and imagine with an amount of sugar and of course then alcohol very high, one of the highest.Salvo was saying to me today that for the red wine we reached 15.5 for the red wine of Oscuro Oscuro.
So we have in this year a beautiful wine made with very healthy bounties and with a beautiful perfume made by the ripeness of the grape.So we made some red, beautiful, intense to be usable with this amazing freshness.
And thanks to the excursion of temperature that are very typical on the Etna and during July and August was very hot during the day and very cold during the night.But this is the environments, the climate conditions that are common here on the Etna.
But anyway, for the white wine, this wine was very helpful. because it stopped the maturation for the white decaricante rays of grape.
It stopped the maturation and developed some white wine with this beautiful freshness, but not as much as the red Hinaiger percentage of alcohol.
Well, I'm very excited to hear that because that means I will have some very good wines to look forward to tasting in the spring and next year when 2024 gets bottled.
So that's very good news for all of us who are listening and who like the wines from Aetna. Before I let you go, I wanted to ask you what new projects are coming for Alcantara?Do you have plans to expand or make new wines?
Or what fluctuations in the global market and this threat from the European Union of ripping up vines, how are these things affecting the decisions being made at Alcantara?
Well, new projects definitely are made.Alcantara decide, first of all, to develop a very performing tasting experience and developing new areas of the wineries.Definitely, we want to continue to taking a strong care of the wineries, so working hard
still working very hard in the agriculture because having the first raw material you can develop a beautiful product then.So definitely we still be of the old school of work hard to have very healthy plants that produce a very healthy
bounces, then also to continue with the process that the salvo established in the vinification, like still working with a noble gas like a nitrogen or carbon-dioxygen to avoid every starting process of oxygenation of the wine, and still working with
temperature to manage the fermentation of the wine and the process of maturation.
So, using as less as possible to use chemical helps and to manage with temperature, avoiding the oxygenation, so having care of the wine to still produce a very quality wine.But Salvo, there is firstly want to say something.
Salvo, do you want to say something to them? I want to talk about the EU law to change the race of winegrowers.
Currently in Etna we don't have any problem, in fact we have difficulties because we have many more requests and consequently we are contingent.
And it's important to know that considering this European new law, Etna area, it works in the opposite.It means that we have too much, an amount of wine that is very high and so this European law is not working for us because we are blocked.
in changing the wine years.Nowadays, by the Etna consortium, you can't implant and develop more than 50 hectares in total per year. So on the Etna, we're trying to reach new fields to put more of this wine, yes?
So we don't need to take out, but we need to plant more wine.Thank you.
Thank you both so much.Thank you, Salvo, for that contribution.
I think these new laws are going to be very controversial in many places, but I liked what you had to say that the market demand for etna wine is contrary to other places in Europe where the demand has gone down.So
It's interesting to see how these laws will affect what happens next on Aetna.And I'm very grateful to both of you for giving us your time today and speaking to us all the way from Sicily.
It's a pleasure to hear from you and to learn so much about what you're doing at Alcantara.Thank you.
Thank you to you.And we want to say thanks for the chance to talk about our reality. and so we are sending a warm hug from the Etna volcano and we are now around 850 meters up to the sea level with an amazing view of the of the sea.
So from this beautiful environment we send you our hi.
I think that's a wrap.So thank you everybody for joining us today and being here with us.Arrivederci to both of you.
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