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Planet-Based food? You heard right. Find out more from Chris Langwallner and WhatIf Foods

By Contributor — 1 year ago

Planet-Based food? You heard right. Find out more from Chris Langwallner and WhatIf Foods.

WhatIF Foods believes in a better better.

Tasty, delicious foods that are better for our bodies, better for our taste buds and farmer buds alike. Better for degraded lands, our eco-systems and naturally… better for cows.

Today I had the chance to have a conversation (via zoom) with WhatIF Food’s Chris Langwallner to talk about inspiration, their foods, their flavors and the science and technology making it all happen.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation visit our YouTube channel.

Today we are here with Chris Langwallner from What If Foods. Thanks for joining us today.

Absolute pleasure. I cannot thank you enough. It’s fantastic to be here and letting our story get out a little bit. So thank you very much. I’m excited because it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

We’re talking about plant-based foods, we’re talking about planet based foods and for a “better-better” world. I’m hoping you’ll clarify that for us.

I look forward to it. Yes, it’s all about a planet based food company. It’s all about regenerating. It’s all about reconnecting to communities, restoring the greater land, and making sure that we are replenishing the nutrients we need on a day-to-day basis.

What inspired you to get into plant-based food?

To be honest with you, as a planet based company I think what really inspired me to get into a better way of doing things is actually a call out of my grandfather.

He has been always saying, leave this planet a better world than how you found it. When I was a young boy, I couldn’t understand. It was too abstract. I couldn’t really get my head around. But as I was then working in the industry for 20, 25 years you look behind the scenes, and you see how food is being manufactured on large scale and how profitability over shadows a lot of decision making.

And on the other flip side of the coin, there is a community out there, about 2.6 billion people. This planet makes a direct income or an indirect income from farming activities. And the vast majority, more than two thirds of these people are the poorest of the poor. And we are leaving them behind. And that’s not fair to them because what we have on the plates has been harvested by them.

They take care of their land. And if we leave them behind in the current state of affairs We’ll see many tears in their eyes. And it doesn’t have to be that way. It can be totally different. And hence my strife was really to look at the planetary health and its affairs as well as humanity overall.

And thinking about that must be a better way of doing things and how can we improve it, not incrementally, but really make a system change. And here we are basically inspired by my grandfather.

On your website, you take some very science-based heavy content and you make it fun and easy. Talk about that process.

It’s a team effort. Honestly, there’s a huge team behind the scenes that works tirelessly on improving our communication and our style and our tone. But the essence of it all is that we understand that Gen Zs and today’s youth are essentially those consumer groups that are on this planet.

Probably the first sort of generation that is fully educated in sustainability. And they have their ability today by one click of a button to really look behind the scenes and understand whether or not there is BS or whether or not there’s transparency, there’s honesty, and there is a different approach to things.

So that is one aspect of things. So we wanted to really make sure we are speaking to the youth on this planet. The second aspect of it all is that, You open your social media feeds today, or you open a media channel, you switch on your television and you are bombarded with bad news, after bad news.

And quite frankly, I have worked in universities and with students and I have been shocked by the fact that people, young guys, talk to me, ‘Hey, I don’t care about sustainability. I don’t care about our planet because it’s so crappy. Everything is so bad. I might as well just enjoy the time span I have on this planet.’

And I was shocked in contrast to what my grandfather told me. Today’s youth, some of them, not all, a fraction of them think like that. Or in other words I met this young girl and she says, I don’t know if I want to have children. Because I don’t know whether or not I would like to give birth to people that then inherit a planet that is so hot.

And all of that together was just making me restless and I wanted to really change things and and take this finite time span that I have on this planet to try as hard as I possibly can to leave it better than I found it. And that’s what I strive for. Hence we’re speaking with a fun and engaging voice.

We are speaking with colors and we are speaking with cartoons so that we basically get this heavy message across in an uplifting way and saying, Hey, you can be part of something. That actually does the opposite. It’s not grim. Yes. If we change, we can make this. We’re a better place and here we are.

Thanks for the call out. The credit goes to my team.

As we segue into the products themselves, what I wanna highlight is this BamNut Is that the nickname for the Bambara Groundnut?

Yeah, so we came up with Bamnut as a short version, as an acronym for the Bambara Ground Nut, which in reality is a legume, a legume that helps us fix nitrogen organically in soils that are essentially degraded and left behind by intensive agriculture.

The Bamnut word came about in Singapore. We actually did not quite know when we started using it. We didn’t quite know how the Americans would pronounce it. And then we found out, alright, it’s the Bamnut. So it all turned out to be so witty and entertaining and just perfect fit for a “better, better” to be honest.

Because that’s a main ingredient in all of your food. Let’s talk about what is a BamNut. Why is it magical and unique?

I was walking through the world of agro food over the past 20 years, and I’ve always been hugely concerned about the massive speed of land degradation, particularly on arid land.

And that’s getting accelerated because of climate change; and the weather is changing; and the rains and the monsoons are not hitting regularly anymore. So it becomes increasingly more difficult to plant, the planting season to make sure that you are having the seeds in the ground before the rains hit them and so on and so forth.

So it becomes really challenging for folks. So land turpitation has always been a huge concern of mine because another, on the flip side of that, we are losing about 25 soccer fields worth of arid land every minute, while at the very same minute, the same amount of primary forests have been cut down.

So if you compare and contrast these two figures, what it tells me is that in order to make way for the old food industry, we actually cut primary forest and we leave land behind. And that is the wrong thing to do. That is one aspect of things.

The other aspect of things is I had once the fantastic opportunity to have an interview with Dr. Roy Steiner of the Rockefeller Foundation. And he gave a casual shoutout and he said, nowhere in the world do we produce and consume enough legumes. And I was thinking, why does he say that? But then it’s quite obvious if you think it through, because we are depending so much on crops that the land that basically holds the crops is deprived from organic nitrogen fixing crops like the legumes, and in the absence of nitrogen being fixed through the legumes, we throw endless amounts of synthetic fertilizers on the ground in order to make up for it.

That’s an aspect of things that also worried me. But today the input costs have gone through the roof is it unravels all over the world and it has gotten more and more expensive to do so the degrading of land in one pocket, I was basically going through my work with that sort of lens.

Then there’s this whole water issue. We are big time irrigating crops, but what does that do? It just slows down the loss of water tables because the moment we take water out of the ground, the water tables are collapsing. I have numbers for that. I had a business in India a long time ago, and it used to be 30 meters, and today it’s probably 90 to 120 meters.

So water is basically a huge issue. There was another lens through which I looked at, and then I was at a conference in Jakarta, and I happened to run into a scientist. He said to me that he works on the Bambara groundnut. It’s a complete crop. I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting. So what does that mean?”

And I started to really explore that much more deeper. And a complete crop turns out to be essentially a crop that has all micronutrients in the sort of right balance that we need. On top of it, it has all nine essential amino acids that we need. It has rich fatty acids, quality fatty acids, as well as car complex carbohydrates. So fiber.

You remember the forgotten macronutrient fibers for our microbiomes? So I got really inspired. So I looked up the amino acid profile and I saw it is rich in plutonic acid or spartic acid. So these are very cool amino acids in terms of generating nice flavors. And off I was; I organized the first couple of five kilos and the trial started, and that’s years and years ago.

In the meantime, the Bambara groundnut actually taught us a few lessons because it’s a very hearty nut and it really takes an effort to make cool products outta it.

It’s called a complete product, is that correct?

A complete food. A complete crop or complete food crop.

Right now all of the products on your website are based from BamNut. I see Bam Nut milk. I see noodles with seasonings, and then there’s bundles and swag and all kinds of delicious things.

In the future, are we expanding that beyond or what’s the scope?

We would love to explore new categories as we build our business. There are so many occasions throughout the day where we can actually incorporate the bambara ground in exciting products, and we look forward to doing that.

Our focus right now is definitely our milk portfolio. It’s a wonderful product. I encourage everybody to have a little taste and Judge for yourself. We have a client in Los Angeles, a coffee roaster, who said ‘This is the closest thing to cow milk that I’ve ever seen in plant-based milk.’

We call it planet based milk. I have to say again, shout out to my team in the R&D side of things because they have established a wonderful product essentially with just three ingredients: that’s water, the bambara groundnut, not coconut oil. The rest is essentially technology behind the scenes that actually makes it foam nicely, very stable foam, small bubbles. So you can do latte art.

Our Airy [flavor] is essentially the one that I would use for a nice drink, like a shake.

In between there is the Every Day [flavor] that goes essentially into my cereal in the morning.

What are the flavors?

Today we are in the market with three different products.

The first one in a slightly black sort of packaging is the Barista. It has the richest mouthfeel. It is the creamiest. We have designed it to perform fantastic or be able to perform fantastic latte art. So it really goes into the cappuccino sort of an experience rather nicely.

I personally take it also for Boba tea. I might as well use the bambara groundnut and foam it up.

I have my little trick with the barista. I actually froth it in the frother and I put my espresso shot into the frother with the barista together. So I froth it together. But that is just me. I just like it that way.

Then we have the purple package, which is our Everyday. My wife uses it in baking. We do make cakes, like traditional Austria style, and we totally use only the Everyday [flavor] for that.

Friends of mine [pour] it into their cereals in the morning. It’s a little bit richer, earthy, nutty in character because we do tend to roast the nuts a little bit stronger in the process of making it.

Last but not least, we have our Airy [flavor], which is the lightest one of it all. It is the mint colored package. It is the one that people take into milkshakes and protein shakes.

Let’s move on to Noodles

We wanted to create technologies that help us regenerate what’s broken. And today a large portion of all ramen that is being consumed on a day-to-day basis globally is deep fried in palm oil. Palm oil leaves huge banks of land degraded behind, particularly after the third cycle of palm plantations being grown.

We see the aftermath of the palm plantation industry essentially now in Southeast Asia. Therefore we were alerted when we started this project to basically say no to frying and no to deep frying and no, to essentially dehydrating instant noodles or ramen using that sort of process.

So we invented a technology that actually took that sort of challenge away. We invented an industrial scale air frying technology. Once you actually don’t fry anymore, you save about 20% of the space because 20% of palm oil is [based] in the noodle product of classic ramen. That’s what it absorbs in the frying process.

So if you don’t deep fry, you save 20%. Now nutrients will survive. Now colors may survive. Then we replaced all the palm oil with the Bambara.

We started to actually say, how can we bring color and different flavors and textures on the plates of consumers? And we created these four different products with the four different colors, which is essentially the black one, which is charcoal driven, moringa is green, pumpkin is orange and the original is yellow.

So four different options, all the same philosophy.

The backbone of making it is the same, but then we add different nutrients to it to have fun, and then we add fancy seasonings to it, which makes just a nice flavor experience as well.

Our audience is passionate, hungry, curious, foodies. What does it actually taste like?

I’m extremely proud of our Noodles because even without the seasonings, you can cook them up and eat them and you will have a wonderful experience.

Try and contrast that with other ramen that you find in the market, and you will come back to our offering immediately because they’re just tasting nice.

So our starting point of then adding the seasonings to it, like hot and spicy, or the mushrooms is an easy undertaking. It is actually an easy sort of concept to work with because if you have a neutral and nice taste to start with from the noodle base, you can build interesting flavor profiles on top.

Rather than having to use heavy flavors to mask off-flavor from a product base, or not so nice processes or even crappy raw materials. We don’t have that challenge.

We also decided very early on to keep the salt at a minimum to stay away from any flavor enhancers. No MSG, we’ve tried to keep it as clean as we possibly can.

We’ve tried to use as much spice as we can access. No flavoring and stuff like that. I’ve been in that industry for over 20 years. We thought let’s stay honest, to the product as well, to the noodles as well. And that has been a fantastic journey.

Our “Original, is a hot and sweet, hot and spicy pairing. In Southeast Asia, it’s based on wok cooking. That’s my personal favorite. I eat it on salads with a little bit of a balsamico dressing

We have with Sesame Garlic, many kids who go for a green one.

Pumpkin with the traditional Indian curry offer a great pairing. Watch out, it comes hot and spicy. Typical Indian flavors.

Last but not least is our charcoal with mushrooms. It’s fantastic for, if you go out to have a beer and come home and wanna have a bite, go for it. It’s a good one.

How did you decide which flavors to choose? Was it a lot of trial and error?

There’s a lot of trial and error. There’s a lot of pairing up with our noodles.

What we have tried to do is really look into what are the best pairings for these sort of flavors.

From that point of view, we also wanted to stay with our seasonings. We wanted to stay essentially planet based. None of our ingredients have any animal derived products in it.

You look at the charcoal, you cook it up, you eat it, you give it to a chef, let him experiment around.

We had a Spanish chef take our charcoal and put it into a paella. All of a sudden there was a totally different sort of recipe.

The way we actually derived the final products has also a lot to do with people that actually use it day-to-day in the kitchen and learn from them.

What’s the future of WhatIf foods?

We are going to enter new categories of food and we are gonna expand our existing categories with new products.

But I probably would love to use the opportunity to take you along on a more philosophical sort of journey for WhatIf foods and what comes hopefully in the next couple of years to come, because I think we have a better opportunity that needs doubling down now.

What I’m talking about is really the cost of the way we are making everything right from originating bambara groundnut, with partnering farming communities in all parts of Ghana. Encouraging them, making the ingredients ourselves, and then making the food applications, making the food, and then basically taking it to retail all the way through to Manhattan and other parts of the US.

So it’s that entire regenerative value chain that we have created and what that actually represents to us is an opportunity to really explore the intersection between soil health and restoring the soil that has been once degraded from intensive agriculture.

It is that intersection of renewable energy because the Bambara groundnut now grows in a shell and hence the shell has energy in there and can be used in order to fire up essentially for power.

If you do that smartly, you generate biochar. With biochar, you then actually sequester carbon from the atmosphere into the soils permanently for hundreds, if not a thousand years to come.

And last but not least, another intersection is wellbeing for consumers. We call them “Better Believers” as well as farming communities because we work with them directly.

We are proud of the fact that we have increased profit, not income; profit of farmers who work with us by 300%.

At 2.5 acres, these farmers are permanently uplifted above the poverty line. That’s the intersection we really wanna double down to. Again, soil health, renewable energy, carbon sequestration.

Well-being for both the better believers as consumers, as well as the farming communities. Its possible and we’re looking forward to doing that on a large scale. If we wanna fulfill the demand that we hopefully can create, then we will probably need about 20,000 farmers to do that in the next five to ten years to come.

And then generate all the energy that we need internally to be there for carbon zero. Even further carbon or maybe even participate in the carbon market through certificates. That’s our next challenge. That’s where we wanna go.

Find more about What If Foods on their website

Follow WhatIf Foods on Tik Tok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

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Moscato d’Asti Winemakers Launch #AstiVibe Summer at NYC Lunch

By Joe Winger — 1 year ago

Moscato d’Asti Brings Perfect Summer Flavors to Midtown Manhattan Lunch

A perfect welcome to the season as Summer truly begins.

On June 19, Consorzio Asti DOCG and Marina Nedic from I.E.E.M. hosted a masterclass and Moscato d’Asti DOCG tasting at Midtown Manhattan’s Il Gattopardo Ristorante

Cha McCoy Giacomo Pondini, Director of the Consorzio Asti DOCG and representatives from the wineries: Luigi Coppa of Coppa, Stefano Chiarlo of Michele Chiarlo, Marco Dogliotti of La Caudrina, Gianpiero Scavino of Vignaioli Santo, Stefano Ceretto of Ceretto and Andrea Costa of Marenco.

Cha McCoy led the discussion with: Giacomo Pondini, Director of the Consorzio Asti DOCG and representatives from the wineries: Luigi Coppa of Coppa, Stefano Chiarlo of Michele Chiarlo, Marco Dogliotti of La Caudrina, Gianpiero Scavino of Vignaioli Santo, Stefano Ceretto of Ceretto and Andrea Costa of Marenco.

Sommelier, Public Speaker, and Beverage Programmer Cha McCoy led the discussion with a panel of experts, including: Giacomo Pondini, Director of the Consorzio Asti DOCG and representatives from the wineries: Luigi Coppa of Coppa, Stefano Chiarlo of Michele Chiarlo, Marco Dogliotti of La Caudrina, Gianpiero Scavino of Vignaioli Santo, Stefano Ceretto of Ceretto and Andrea Costa of Marenco.

Consorzio Asti DOCG History and Importance

The Consorzio Asti DOCG was founded in 1932 for the protection, enhancement and promotion of their wines. Based on their efforts, Asti received the DOC in 1967 and the DOCG in 1993.

There are 6,800 producers with over 9,900 hectares of vineyards. Production reached 60 million bottles of Asti Spumante and 42 million of Moscato d’Asti, under the leadership of the Consorzio. Over 90% of the production is exported. Moscato D’Asti and Asti Spumante share the same DOCG.

Moscato d’Asti DOCG comes from Moscato Bianco (Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains) strain of grapes. One of the oldest known varieties of wine grapes and grows in the Piedmont regions of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato, a zone located between Italy’d Ligurian Coast and the Alps.

Moscato d’Asti is only slightly sparkling (called frizzante) and low in alcohol (5% ABV). It is vintage dated and suggested to be drank by the vintage date.

How Moscato d’Asti is produced

The technique for Moscato d’Asti has become known as the “Asti Method”. The fermentation of the grape juice is stopped earlier so that sweet wines do not lose their character and retain high sugar content. The method does not include secondary fermentation.

Moscato d’Asti is a wine that is can be enjoyed on its own or paired with desserts and appetizers from seafood to nuts and cheeses.

Tasting Incredible Moscato D’Asti

Today we were fortunate to taste through several examples of incredible Moscato D’Asti. With each on, aroma, tastes, and food pairing inspire your palette.

Moscato D’Asti “Moncalvina” 2022 Coppo

Moscato D’Asti “Moncalvina” 2022 Coppo. The vineyards are in Canelli. The wine is made from 100% Moscato Bianco di Canelli. The soil is calcareous marl and the vineyard is at 250 meters above sea level.

Straw colored with subtle green reflections. On the nose, floral notes along with peach and pear. Fresh, elegant and aromatic on the palate with a light fizziness. A great pairing for cakes, cookies, fruit based desserts.

Moscato D’ Asti “Nivole” DOCG 2022 Michele Chiarlo

Moscato D’ Asti “Nivole” DOCG 2022 Michele Chiarlo The vineyards are in the historical area most suited for Moscato Bianco. The soil is of sedimentary marine origin, white and sandy.

Brilliant straw yellow in the glass. Elegant, tropical fruit aromas with peach and apricot. Fine bubbles and a crisp finish. Excellent pairing with fresh pastries, add some strawberries and peaches.

Moscato D’Asti “La Caudrina” 2022

Moscato D’Asti “La Caudrina” 2022 Azienda Agricola Caudrina The vineyards are located in Castiglione Tinella at 280 meters. The soil is marl-limestone and the exposure is south/southwest. Harvest is by hand.

The nose reveals notes of lemon, candied mandarin and subtle white fruit. The palate has a supple almost velvety mouthfeel. But a slight acidity provides balance with minerality. Candied white peach, white flower, orange blossom. Pair it with flaky desserts like tarts and strudels.

Moscato d”Asti “Vignaioli” Di Santo Stefano” 2022

Moscato d”Asti “Vignaioli” Di Santo Stefano” 2022 Ceretto The vineyards are in Santo Stefano, Belbo, and Calosso at 300 – 350 meters above sea level. The soil is whitish loose marl composed of clay, sand and silt.

Straw-yellow. Vibrantly fruity nose which is aromatic and persistent as though it’s playfully tapping you on your chest to pay attention to it.. Beautifully balanced mouth with jasmine and honeysuckle, low alcohol, acidity, crisp freshness. Pair it with a flaky crusted pie or tart.

Moscato D’Asti “Scrapona” 2022

Moscato D’Asti “Scrapona” 2022 Marenco Vini. The vineyards are in Bagnari Valley and Strevi at 320 meters above sea level and the soil is calcareous marl. Grapes are manually selected and harvested at the beginning of September.

Intense straw yellow color. Delicate stone fruit nose with subtle balsamic hints on your second approach. The sweet, slightly viscous. Touches of almond on the finish. Pair it with nuts and soft cheeses like brie.

An incredibly afternoon of discovery and tastes thanks to: Consorzio Asti DOCG, Marina Nedic from I.E.E.M., Cha McCoy, Giacomo Pondini, Il Gattopardo.

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DC is celebrating this summer, Give Champagne Jeepers a Taste

By Joe Wehinger — 1 year ago

DC is celebrating this summer, Give Champagne Jeepers a Taste.

It’s easy to fall in love with champagne. Life celebrations. Work success. Life’s best memories (hello weddings, anniversaries, babies, birthdays). If you’re ready to try a new champagne, this is for you.

Today we had the amazing opportunity to talk (via zoom) with Jeeper Champagne’s Camille Cox. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, visit our YouTube channel.

Can you share a favorite memory where you celebrated with champagne?

Oh, there’s, God, there’s so many. I can’t even begin to tell you. But the one thing I can say is that you always should carry champagne because in victory you deserve champagne and in defeat you need it. That was Napoleon Bonaparte, if I’m not mistaken?

I think my most memorable toast with champagne are personal victories And, of course, business victories as you can imagine. I’ve been selling champagne for a very long time, and I can name a couple that come to mind. One of them a few years back was getting business at the Delta Airlines lounges. Putting another maison there. At the time, the house that I was working for at the time that was a big victory in itself. And just little victories in life each and every day. Every day is a celebration.

It’s all relative in how you look at it and how you live your life, but I think every day calls for champagne, to be completely honest with you.

I love that, ‘Everyday calls for champagne’. Jeeper has an interesting story behind it based on the end of World War II.

Can you give us just a very brief history lesson of Jeeper that brings us up to present day?

So, as you know, many champagne houses have great stories, and that’s the great thing about Champagne. Every Maison has their story and the fact that you get to go back and find out how it became is super fascinating to me.

When I had the chance to join Jeeper, I went back to look at the story. A family started making champagne in the 1800s. It had its heyday and then it floundered. It changed hands for quite some time. Then a gentleman by the name of Armand Goutorbe, who was working his family vineyards, had to be called to war and ended up in a house in an undisclosed location because everybody was fighting against the resistance at that time.

He happened to be holed up in a place with some American soldiers and they were being bombed and consequently they were all trying to help save each other’s lives. History tells us that Armand was a gentleman who took it upon himself to risk his own life, to pull some American GIs away from the building that was going to be bombed, possibly losing their lives.

In doing so, he impeded his leg and went back to looking over his vineyards in Champagne. The hills aren’t high, but they’re steep. His leg impeded his day-to-day operations. The US army got ahold of the story and some of the soldiers that he saved wanted to pay tribute to him and in all humbleness to thank him for saving their lives. So the US military gave him a Willie’s Jeep, and he rode around in the villages and he became known as “Mr. Jeeper Man”. Two years later, he said, I think I’m just gonna name my vineyards Jeeper. So there it was born Jeeper in 1949 because of a wonderful gift that the US Army bequeathed to him.

We still have the Jeep today on property.

Can we talk about the terroir of the region?

We are located in Faverolles et Coëmy, a commune near Reims in the north-west of the Champagne region. In the Montagne de Reims, the Côte des Blancs and the Marne Valley.

We are mostly a chardonnay house and we use Chardonnay as our primary grape.

We make eight different wines under the Jeeper label. We have two great certifications for being biodynamic and organic. Our flagship for the winery is our Blanc de Blanc. Our bottles are color coded in terms of the labels so that they stand out significantly to consumers.

That area has cool nights. A little bit of frost, but beautiful, pristine, crisp grapes from those regions, from the sub regions in Champagne. We own about 80 hectares. We don’t buy any grapes. We use our own grapes. We have the capacity to make 3.5 million bottles, but we hope to make more with some partnerships that we’ve kind of acquired.

Having Michel Reybier as a new partner with Nicholas, the current owner of and partner, who makes the wines too. Nicholas Dubois makes us stand apart from that we’re not right in the middle of Reims. We’re out there, believe it or not.

So when you come to Reims, you’re not gonna see us. You’re gonna have to get on the train or take a little cab and make it to Jeeper.

I love talking about process. Our audience is a mix of very basic drinkers up to connoisseurs.

So can you share a little bit of the process and how, how, what, what makes your champagne so unique?

What makes us a little bit more unique is a lot of champagne houses only use steel vats. We’re still kind of old school. We do use some Burgundy barrels. We have one of the biggest barrel rooms behind Krug and Bollinger. We have about 1200 barrels that we use. So for instance, our Grande Assemblage, which happens to be our brut non vintage, we age 20% of the chardonnay that we use in that blend for two years in used burgundy oak barrels and then we do the aging of the lees. We lay it down for about four years. So that’s two years for the 20% Chardonnay laying down for two years. Then the four years makes it a total of six years. So you get a totally different taste. There’s a little bit of maturity there with the oak barrels.

It’s something completely different. I’ve worked for houses that were stainless steel, so this is something new for me as well too. The aging process, there is some lactic, it just depends on which cuvee we’re speaking about.

Withholding our wines a little bit longer. We’re not big production, we’re not a grower champagne house by any means. We’re just over the hump as a boutique champagne house. We’re just getting started here in the United States. Our biggest production and where we sell the most champagne is in France.

But opening up the United States, it’s tough to build a champagne brand in the US, believe it or not. It’s super tough.

You have to find a way to differentiate yourself, what makes you stand out. I think that’s Jeeper having the name and the story and the total difference of not having stainless steel aging, and that we’re malolactic and that we do use oak barrels in some of our cuvee’s.

One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is a few weeks ago when I had the chance to actually taste through the bottles, they did have such a unique taste.

So let’s talk about the actual bottles.

I’ve mentioned the Grande Assemblage, which is our brut non-vintage. It’s a green label, and I just told you a little bit about that. But the one that is our flagship is our Blanc De Blanc.

I think our bottles are beautiful. We have a patent on the bottle. People notice how easy it was to take off the foil.

So there’s still a little label underneath the foil that says Jeeper, which is kind of neat for us and it speaks volumes because it doesn’t leave you a mess or end up getting paper cuts from the foil cuts.

The Blanc de Blanc is big, full-bodied, rich. Also super elegant. It’s clean. It’s crisp, even though it has a big mouthful.

Our champagnes are the categories in the last 7 to 10 years that have really ended up getting some traction. I think people are walking away from the norm. They’re walking away from big commercial houses because they wanna see what else is out there.

Their curious is curiosity’s sake and I think it’s really helped the champagne business. I think the champagne business has always been cyclical, but in the last 7 to 10 years, it’s really gotten a hold and people are really embracing champagne to great success

Because there’s so many beautiful wines out there, so many different styles and so many cool things that you can learn. I think the more the people, because of the terroir, I always say that champagne is a reflection of the mood of the terroir.

Champagne, the terroir from where we are, its chalky soil limestone. It lends itself to so many different characteristics in the wine. We’re not a big vintage champagne house. 2008 was probably one of the best vintages of the century. It was gone in a flash. With our 2008, we age it for 12 years on the lees. It’s 88% Chardonnay and 12% Pinot Noir. So there’s that wonderful characteristic and it has a little maturity on it, a little oxidation.

I’m a vintage champagne girl and a no dousage champagne girl so this one fits the bill for me, but it may not be for everyone’s taste profile.

I can always tell at the beginning when I’m doing a tasting with the two lead wines that you start off with in Champagne, what someone is gonna like in the rest of the range. It never fails me. It’s always about 95% full proof.

It’s so subjective. The 2008 for me is interesting. We’re getting ready to release a new release of Blanc de Blanc coming in May, which I’m super excited about. It’ll be no dousage.

We also now have a partnership, as I mentioned, one of our owners, Michel Repier. There’s a gentleman by the name of Tony Parker, who’s a former four-time NBA champion. A hall of famer. I was just with him a couple weeks ago. Super, super person. He told us his story about where he came from and how much he loves gastronomy. He’s French. A lot of people don’t realize that. He’s from Lyon, and I’m sure the Parisians would beg to differ, but Lyon is supposedly now the gastronomy capital of Paris. So we have him as an ambassador; a gentleman who really loves wine and is very enamored with it, wants to roll his sleeves up.

He’s helped us with our Rose project that we have in Provence, but helping me with Jeeper as well. It’s a great collaboration. It’s been great for me, for the brand, for helping us build the brand here in the US because we’re building our distribution network.

Which is not an easy thing to do, as I can tell you having done it for many years. So we’re looking for new partners that want to build a brand with us who we want to be on the ground floor with. I feel like the people that bring you to the party are the people you need to stick to.

It’s easy to be a fair weather friend, but I am all about loyalty and building a brand with someone. And making it happen. The wine business is exploding, so there’s a lot of opportunities out there. It’s just finding our niche and letting people know the story and taste the wines.

I don’t know that champagne gets enough love when it comes to food. Let’s talk about food pairings.

A previous maison I worked for didn’t want us to suggest pairing champagne with chocolate or strawberries. I think that fallacy of Pretty Woman when she’s having her “floor picnic” as she called it in the movie. She’s drinking champagne and having strawberries – they are very acidic. But I think it’s really what you want to do.

Do I think it’s the best pairing? Absolutely not.

I’ve gone through this with many chefs in the past where I’ve asked them not to use chocolate or strawberries, and [while they weren’t happy with that] luckily they did talk to me at the very end of it, but they weren’t very happy. But there’s so many great things out there that you can pair champagne with and the new thing is, Champagne and chicken fried chicken.

As a southerner, I’m a fried chicken lover. It’s an incredible pairing.

I also think sea salt potato chips with a non-dosage champagne are absolutely fabulous. But let’s look at the classics. What about ratatouille from France? You know, something that you don’t really ever think about. It’s always the ones that are there that you can think about.

Gratin potatoes are an amazing pairing if you’re a big potato lover as I am. It’s just great. So I think the sky’s the limit depending on what it is you’re drinking. Of course, no dosage champagnes aren’t gonna be great with everything. I also love Dim Sum and champagne, to be completely honest with you.

So all the pairings that are non-traditional, if you will, kind of thinking outside the box. Really making it an opportunity to see: where you can take it? Are you gonna push the limit? I’m all about pushing the limits on a lot of things. Nobody should be chastised for that on any level.

So if somebody likes what they like, they like what they like. I think the traditional [concept] many years ago: Are you having chicken for dinner? You can only have white [wine]. I love the fact that that’s out the door now.

People learn more and more about wine every day. They’re so enamored with it. I think the pandemic gave us all an opportunity to stop, take a minute, take a breath, slow down, maybe enjoy things or get into things that we didn’t have the time to do. I think gastronomy is one of them.

People now love to make food at home. People love to drink wine at home. We saw that with the pandemic. There’s a lot of opportunity, everywhere you look. I like the classics. I’m a foodie.

But I love food and I think drinking it the way you want to drink it and the way you want to enjoy is paramount. Paramount. I don’t think there should be any rules put around that on any level.

As everyone’s hearing the Jeeper story and getting to know your bottles, what can our audience do for Jeeper Champagne?

Helping Jeeper is to buy some [bottles] where we’re distributed. Give something new a chance. Wherever you buy wine, take an opportunity to just treat yourself to something completely different because you never know what’s gonna happen.

It could end up being your favorite wine and you just don’t realize it. Expand your opportunity and your horizons, and that’s what life is all about.

Think outside the box. Live a little, okay. You, you bought a bottle, but there’s some great champagnes out there that are really economical. We know we’ve taken a little bit of a price increase, but treat yourself, you’ll be glad that you did. I think it, it expands your horizons and makes you see so many other things you didn’t see

Where can we find Jeeper Champagne on social media to follow?

Jeeper is on most major social media channels. Please give us a follow and visit our website at: https://www.champagne-jeeper.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ChampagneJeeper/

https://www.instagram.com/champagnejeeper/

https://twitter.com/ChampagneJeeper

Camille, thank you so much for your time. I loved hearing the stories.

Thank you so much!

Post Views: 225

DC Deserves Amazing Summertime wine! Trivento launches #TheFirstWhiteMalbec with Winemaker Maxi Ortiz

By Joe Winger — 1 year ago

DC Deserves Amazing Summertime wine! Trivento launches #TheFirstWhiteMalbec with Winemaker Maxi Ortiz

There’s plenty of “other” product launches and then there’s Trivento’s Sunset Cruise launch for The First White Malbec. Clearly, Trivento is very excited.

NYC wine and food experts board the luxury yacht, from 1919, at Manhattan’s North Cove Premier Mega-Yacht Club & Marina.

A handful of NYC and East Coast wine and food experts board a luxury yacht, built in 1919, at Manhattan’s North Cove Premier Mega-Yacht Club & Marina. On-board, best-selling wine authors, top wine media, and NYC’s food and wine critics.

As we set sail, our wine glasses are filled with The First White Malbec in the world, produced by Argentina’s Trivento and Winemaker Maxi Ortiz.

It’s easy to be taken by the moment. You look up and see the majestic NYC coastline. Look around the yacht, even the most local New York cynics have their jaws agape. It’s just breath-taking to see.

Moments later, the crew aboard the Ventura Sailing Team are passing out delicious seafood and chicken-based appetizers to pair with Trivento’s White Malbec.

Ventura Sailing Team at NYC for Trivento what malbec launch

Ventura Sailing Team are passing out delicious seafood and chicken-based appetizers

We sail through the bay, passing the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance, coming up on Governor’s Island and of course, The Statue of Liberty.

Passing along the Brooklyn Bridge

Why Trivento’s White Malbec is a world-class Innovation

For over 150 years, Malbec has been grown widely throughout Argentina. Its deep purple color, rich aromas of plums and red berries. It’s perfect for smooth, supple red wines.

The fact that Winemaker Maxi Ortiz dares to take an incredible red wine and turn it into a white wine, shows world-class innovation, confidence and vinification prowess. But as we’ll learn further below, it wasn’t an easy process.

Ortiz later explains in detail, it took 4 years of trial and error. Getting closer and closer, but not perfect enough for him. What we taste today is a culmination of his efforts and lessons.

What does Trivento’s White Malbec taste like?

By now most of us on the yacht have had a second taste of the wine. It’s opening up and blossoming beautifully.

The color is surprisingly clear, crystalline.

The nose has aromas of white peach, grapefruit, subtle hint of red fruit.

It’s a very easy-drinking wine. Especially in the summer. The mouth has a refreshing acidity, light body. Notes of green apple. Pairs beautifully well with the seafood and light chicken dishes served here. I could also see it with a garden salad, caprese or sushi. Be daring and try it with BBQ as the acid will cut into the fatty meat.

Hearing from Trivento’s Team, Juan Jose Gil

Juan Jose Gil directs the Trivento brand in the United States.

He explains that Trivento was founded in 1996 by the group Concha y Toro. It was the first time they left Chile to make an investment outside of their origin when they chose Mendoza, Argentina.

They started with a very small vineyard of 154 hectares. Today these Malbec experts have 12 vineyards in four different valleys and over 1,764 hectares of vines. They offer Malbec at every price point and every value tier.

The company has three pillars: Innovation. Sustainability. Excellence.

From Juan Jose Gil’s explanation, all 3 pillars are thriving together as we sip their most innovative wine, from grapes farmed on their sustainable vineyards, enjoying its excellent quality.

Winemaker Maxi Ortiz playfully posing with the Statue of Liberty

Winemaker Maxi Ortiz Reveals His White Malbec Process

Ortiz has been working at Trivento since 2006, helping to build it into the fourth biggest winery in Mendoza.

2019 was their first vintage of Trivento White Malbec. But it’s come a long way from what the world is tasting today.

However, for him, it’s a very special wine for more that just the innovation it represents, but also a positive impact on society:

“Sales from this wine

go to a scholarship program that helps students

with low economic resources and high academic performance to finish schooling.”

How did he create the white Malbec?

He revealed parts of his 4-year process. He picked the grapes the last week of January, 40 days earlier than regular. Then they quickly pressed the grapes in order to separate the skin from the pulp. However it’s not “white” yet. Then it was more of a rose.

Then he revealed the biggest secret of the process. A winemaking method that is common with red wines, but not whites. Ortiz got creative, invented and daring – and it worked. And unfortunately, we’re not going to share it here today. As competition is already growing!

“We were the first winery [back in 2019] to make a white wine with a red grape, which is the Malbec.

And it’s fantastic because nowadays you can see at least 10 different wineries making White Malbec.

So this is the first White Malbec and

in a way Trivento creates a new category of wine in Argentina.”

The quality is clearly there, As Ortiz explains further:

“The grapes came from the same region, from the same vineyard,

from the same places that we use for our [traditional Malbec] Reserve.”

For those who follow NYC weather, it was supposed to be thunderstorms the day of the Sunset Cruise. Bravely and happily, the launch decided to move forward anyway!

The weather was dramatic and cloudy (but dry) all throughout the cruise. Then, as if anointed by a higher power, just as Ortiz finished speaking, the rain started.

A slow, steady rinse that grew stronger. By the time we returned to dock, it was a heavy downpour. But no one was complaining. Wet smiles all around.

If Trivento White Malbec has a way of brightening your day even amidst a heavy thunderstorm, imagine what it can do for your backyard barbecue?

Find more on the Trivento website

Follow Trivento on Facebook and Instagram.

Post Views: 342

Taste Award-Winning Olive Oil from Heraclea – Discover flavor, health and heritage, reveals Berk Bahceci

By Joe Wehinger — 1 year ago

Heraclea Olive Oil delivers flavor, health and heritage, reveals Berk Bahceci

We are here with Berk Bahceci from Heraclea Olive Oil.

Berk joined me for a conversation (via zoom). Below has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full conversation on our YouTube Channel.

I’m excited because I’ve tasted your olive oils and they’re subtle, they’re flavorful, and there’s a great story behind them. And today I wanna touch on all of that and a little bit more.

Tell me a bit about your background and how you got into olive oil

Berk: Sure. I moved to the United States approximately 10 years ago for college. Actually. That’s how my story here started. I studied economics at UCLA and then I went to law school at UC Berkeley.

But the day I started law school, I realized something was off. I started questioning whether I was the material to be an attorney. Three years passed by. I took the bar exam and started working. In my first year I realized, I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore.

I started looking for an exit plan. So I reflected back on myself, my life, my childhood. What is one thing that would make me wanna wake up every day with excitement?

I realized olive oil is out there. My family owned some olive groves before, but we were never doing this with a business mindset. It was just produced and consumed within family and friends. I came up with the idea to tell my family, why don’t we turn this into a business, create a brand around it, and sell it here exclusively in the United States.

The market itself is very dominated by a couple big players from certain countries.

I did more research and realized that Turkey is the fifth largest importer of olive oil into the United States, but you are not seeing any Turkish brands on shelves.

What’s the reason for that? It’s probably because producers in Turkey don’t have the means to come here, establish a distribution center like channels, and move product. Selling in bulk is the easiest and most convenient way for those people.

But I wanted to bring a new way for the Turkish olive oil in the United States with Heraclea that’s how we found it.

We’re definitely gonna get into Turkey in a second. A lot of the people watching this are wine lovers. Region is very important. So tell us about the region that you’re farming

Berk: Region has an impact on olive oil as well. That’s the reason why the European Union has a scheme called Protected Designation of Origin. I’m sure wine lovers and cheese lovers will know, when I say PDO, the red and yellow emblem that you see on certain products sold in specialty food stores.

PDO is basically a stamp given by the European Union, to distinct products. What do I mean by that? So the variety of olive that we work with is called Memecik. There are over 2000 olive varieties in the world.

Do me a favor, say that variety again and spell it for us.

Berk: It’s called Memecik. It is very unknown, very rare because it is specific to the region that we produce.

And that’s why the European Union has given a couple years ago to this region and this olive variety, A P D O certification. For example, in California most growers are bequia, right? If they were to plant Memecik, which they can, in California, they won’t be able to have this PDO certification.

So PDO only comes if Memecik is grown in Milas. That’s a very special thing for us and we are very proud to be working with a very rare variety. So when you buy olive oil, it is for certain that you won’t taste it with any other brand because it’s distinct to Milas.

Just the same way that champagne only comes from the Champagne of France.

Berk: That’s exactly what I was going to say.

When did you realize the magic and the power of the Memecik varietal?

Berk: This PDO certification is so new that we did not found this business upon that, that certification. It was just an added value with the PDO, but we always knew that our olive oil was distinct in its quality.

It has actually recently been approved by International judges in New York International Olive Oil competition, Japan Olive Oil Competition, Istanbul Olive Oil Competition. We got gold and silver medals from all of these. And this is the first year that we are actively participating in these competitions.

It’s a really good moment for us because usually these things don’t happen in the first or second year. [Usually] you’re a producer for multiple years or maybe generations. So we’re really proud about that.

Congratulations. And just to give someone listening or watching an idea, the scale of these competitions.

Can you estimate how many different olive oils are in that competition?

Berk: I would say in the thousands, 2000. Maybe a hundred companies are winning these awards. You’re in the select field of the top 5-10% in the entire world.

The panel is composed of people from all around the world, from all producing regions, Italy, Tunisia, Greece, Turkey, Chile, Argentina. Experts. So it’s a good indication that the product is at a certain level of quality.

So let’s talk about the behind the scenes and the process of making this award-winning olive oil.

Berk: We have around a hundred acres of land with over 10,000 trees that we take care of with a team of seven full-time on the field every day. We don’t use any fertilizers, we don’t use any pesticides. We don’t use any chemicals. One reason is our grows are literally on the on mountains. They’re not plantations.

Many olive oil brands have what people call “olive farms” where the companies do intensive and super, super high density farming, which means that where maybe 10 trees would go. They plant a hundred trees. So it’s very compact, producing very high yield olives, but lacking taste because they’re fed with irrigation all the time.

So the olives get really big when they’re given water every day, whereas our olives don’t have irrigation because it’s on the mountains. Our olives, in comparison, are relatively smaller, which keeps the aroma very vibrant. That’s actually the secret behind it.

A lot of people who taste our early harvest olive oil say that it’s a little bit bitter, especially right after the harvest. That comes from the antioxidants that are loaded in it. Because our olives are very small. The density of antioxidants is higher, so that’s why the bitterness comes in.

We just prune the trees, cutting the excessive branches because we’re working in a very scarce, nutrient environment. Like I said, no fertilizers, so you have to keep the trees very optimal by cutting the unnecessary trees and branches so that whatever there is in the soil goes to the fruit.

That’s why our team of seven constantly does these kind of things. These kind of physical touches, no like chemical alteration or anything. Around October we start walking around the grow to determine the day of the harvest. That is the most exciting time of the year

Due to not using fertilizers, we really have to optimize the day of the harvest to maximize our production. So when we determine that day, which is mid-October, usually we start harvesting.

We hire local men and women who are living in nearby villages. We go in with a team of 20 to 30.

We keep it for 90 days until January. We don’t want to go into January. Because fruit flies, conditions and a lot of other things impact the quality.

So we try to finish everything from mid-October until January. We work with a local mill to process our olives. We take two batches every day, one in the afternoon and one at night because we don’t wanna wait in between.

If you start harvest at 8:00 AM and harvest until 4:00 PM the olives that you have harvested at 8:00 AM will have waited nine hours before going into the processing machine. We don’t wanna do that because as the olive waits, fermentation starts and the quality decreases.

So we do two deliveries every day to the local mills, one in the afternoon, and one later in the day. This way we ensure that our olives go right into production within two to four hours of harvest. Believe me, we’re working really hard to maintain that.

Then we store our olive oil in stainless steel tanks in temperature and humidity controlled rooms with nitrogen gas used as a buffer between the olive oil and the rim.

Think of a five ton tank. You fill it out, but there’s always some portion of the tank that is left empty and there’s oxygen in that empty part. When olive oil touches with oxygen in the stainless steel tank as it is stored, oxidation starts, which leads to rancidity, which decreases the quality of the olive oil. So we take that oxygen out by pumping in another gas – of course, food grade safety, no worries there.

That’s the level of attention and care we give to our olive oil.

Let’s switch to the the tasty part. Let’s talk about the flavor of your two bottles. Flavor profiles, aroma, anything you’d like.

Berk: So we have two products right now. We’re bringing in a third one soon.

Olive oil is the white bottle which is made from olives that we harvest starting from October until mid-November.

And the moment that we switch from early to mature harvest is when the olives start turning into this purplish color. As months pass the green olives start to ripen and then change in color. When we see that change into purple, that’s the moment we say, okay, early harvest is done.

Now we’re doing mature harvest and then everything else that we harvest mid-November, till January, is considered mature harvest. That’s the distinction between the two.

The mature harvest is the black bottle. And when it comes to flavor profile, there’s one disclaimer that I wanna make, uh, in general about, uh, these, uh, like.

Flavor profiles. I think to really understand and feel and get this smell. In any olive oil, you have to have a sensory memory, have that experience in your mind, I still remember it.

Here’s an example from my sensory memory:

We had a walnut tree right across the street by our house, and there was a fine paper-like cover, outside of the walnut. Right before they mature, we would take from the tree and taste it and it’s bitter. So that [bitter] taste is in my sensory memory right now.

Same as tomato stems. Like if you touch a tomato plant with your hands and play around and then smell your hands, you’re going to get a very unique tomato stem smell, and that’s like embedded in your mind now. So from now on, every time you taste an olive oil, if there is that distinct smell or taste in it, that’s how you recognize it.

So in our olive oil, early harvest, for example, I get the notes of freshly cut grass, tomato stems, walnuts, banana.

What I was told in this olive oil school that I went to in Spain is, get your hands out there. Touch everything, smell everything. Taste everything. That’s how you develop your sensory memory.

And that’s how you become, as people say, familiar. But you know, like you don’t have to have a certificate to be one. You know, you just go out there and taste stuff and try to. Memorize and remember those smells and tastes.

I was talking to somebody earlier this week about food pairings and he had a similar answer, which was be curious.

Exactly. Taste things, touch things, smell things, and be curious.

I know your website has a cookbook, let’s talk about some of your favorite food pairings with your olive oil

Berk: I love drizzling our early harvest on cheese plates. That’s my favorite thing. Early harvest is more for finishing dishes because it has a bitter aroma to it.

If you cook with it, you may have a bitter taste in the food. Actually, I know people who cook with our early harvest. I know people who drizzle with our mature harvest, so it’s not set in stone.

It really depends on what you like, but generally, early harvest is better for drizzling over salads. Hummus, cheese. Sometimes I dip my bread in it.

That’s a tradition we have in Turkey sometimes, find a piece of bread and dip that into your olive oil, and that’s a good breakfast.

Mature harvest is for everything else. Cooking, baking, marinating. A lot of people are saying that they use it for marinating.

Anything else you want us to discover about olive oil?

Berk: Our goals are twofold. One is, olive oil is a very healthy product for human consumption, There is research showing that the positive effects on health of olive oil, daily consumption of olive oil. We believe that a product that is so healthy for humans should do no harm to the environment.

It’s production should not cause any more trouble to our Mother Nature. That’s why we’re not using fertilizers. That’s why we’re not using pesticides. We think there’s a solution in nature to resolve any problem that these things claim to be curing. That’s number one, producing as environmentally friendly as possible.

Number two is to introduce to the world the intricacies of Turkish cuisine. It is beyond just kebab. It is just one meal in thousands of distinct and unique recipes. And the way that we treat these recipes are not just a list of ingredients.

To us, these are stories from past generations and that Turkish cookbook has 550 very distinct recipes. Each recipe is associated with a specific region or maybe sometimes even a village.

It almost sounds Farm To Table.

Berk: Exactly. That’s the goal. We’re small batch and we have really certain values and principles.

Are there any specific health benefits that you wanna cover?

Berk: There are a lot. There are a lot of research. I’m not a scientist. I’m not a doctor. But consuming olive oil daily helps with chronic diseases. Cardiovascular diseases. Type 2 diabetes, and many more.

We have lab reports showing the amount of antioxidants in our olive oil, which is around 500 milligrams per liter, which is a high amount. Consuming antioxidants is healthy. Olive oil has anti-inflammatory effects as well.

When you consider all of these things and if you consume fats, why don’t you switch to a healthy alternative where research shows that its consumption helps you.

That’s why as a layman I recommend consuming olive oil on a daily basis.

Berk, you’ve given us a lot of good information. You’ve given us a lot of tasty ideas.

Let’s talk about how to buy and how to, how to where we can buy your olive oil.

Berk: We’re available online at heraclea.co. There is no “m” at the end.

We will very soon be available on Amazon.

If you are in New York, we will soon be available in NoHo. Manhattan. Then if you are in Seattle, very soon we will be available in a grocery chains in Seattle.

Hopefully by end of this year we will be in over a hundred physical locations

Post Views: 298

Oregon Wine’s Incredible new vintage Re-Invents the Rules with Winemaker Aaron Lieberman from Iris Vineyards

By Joe Wehinger — 1 year ago

Oregon Wine shares incredible new vintage with Winemaker Aaron Lieberman from Iris Vineyards

Sure, Oregon Wine is world-famous for its Pinot Noir. And rightly so, as the area produces incredible expressions of the varietal. But that’s not all they can do.

Award-winning winemaker Aaron Lieberman wants the world to taste and discover all of the incredible wines from the area including Iris Vineyards’s new Pinot Gris which has won acclaim several years in a row.

Oregon Wine

Today, Winemaker Aaron Lieberman from Iris Vineyards sits down over zoom to talk about his inspirations, his favorite wines, food pairings and what’s next for Oregon Wine.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the whole conversation on our YouTube channel.

There’s so much to go over with you because you’re in a great area of Oregon.

Last year we had the privilege of covering the 2022 McMinnville Wine Classic, your Pinot Gris won Best in Show and Best White varietal.

According to press announcements it’s the first time ever for a Pinot Gris. What was it about that bottle and that year that brought you so much acclaim?

The vintage we won that on was the 2020, and I think our Pinot Gris is fairly consistent. So I actually personally felt that the 2021 vintage was better than the 2020. What I think is going on there is that in our growing area Southwest of Eugene we have our vineyard in what’s called the Lorane Valley. We’re a relatively high elevation vineyard compared to the rest of the Willamette Valley. We get a lot more hang time on our Pinot Gris, which allows more flavor development and preservation of acidity, as well as slower and lower accumulation of sugar.

So we ended up with a higher acid, lower alcohol wine that’s very expressive in terms of fruit flavors.

I wanna let our audience know a little bit about your background and what brought you to where you are today. Your education in soil and winemaking, but I hope you’ll touch on your Peace Corps time, and your work in Guatemala with soil education.

As I was finishing up my Bachelor’s Degree at Oregon State University, I became involved with a couple of different grad students, helping them with their research projects, basically. At the beginning of my junior year [I had already] switched my major from Pre-Vet to Crop and Soil Science.

So the projects I was working on with these grad students involved soil research. One of these grad students had been in the Peace Corps and talked about it frequently and also had a professor who had been in the Peace Corps. They both inspired me to look into it and do it.

I ended up going to Guatemala. The project I worked on was called Corn and Bean Seed Improvement and Post Harvest Management. We were trying to counteract the invasion of commercial corn seed into Guatemala and Latin America. It’s replacing the land raise varietals or the traditional varietals of corn. We were working with those traditional varietals to improve their performance in the field by selecting the plants that were growing well and were the most disease resistant.

The program started four years before I got to Guatemala, so I was the third volunteer and we were really showing some really good results.

Something I love about winemaking is such a mix of science and magic, or science and artistry. And it sounds like science is very strong with your background and the magic that you bring to the bottle.

Yes, I would agree with that.

So let’s switch back from Guatemala. You’ve got some great soil types. Let’s talk about how you use the soils in your region to bring such delicious flavor, characteristics and aromas.

In our vineyard, we do have some Jory soils, and I think most people who know about the Willamette Valley know that Jory is the preferred soil in the region particularly for Pinot Noir.

Our vineyard is dominated by Bellpine soil. Bellpine is kind of an analog of Jory, but it’s formed in sedimentary rock rather than basaltic rock or volcanic rock. So there’s some significant differences in the chemical makeup of the soil that contributes to the flavor difference in our Pinot Gris compared to some others.

The last time I visited, what I heard overwhelmingly from the winemakers is you have to be okay with inconsistency year after year.

I want my wines to represent the area that they’re from and the varietal from which they’re made and different weather during each growing season as part of that representation.

So based on the weather and the level of ripeness of the fruit and what we’re tasting in the grapes before we bring them in, we will make some adjustments to how we do the vinification to try to push it in one direction or another, to be at least somewhat consistent.

Let’s talk about the wines themselves.

Let’s start with the Pinot Gris. The comment I hear the most is white peach. That’s new. I usually hear pear, red apple peel, quite a bit of citrus.

iris vineyards

Commonly I get stone fruit comments on our Chardonnay. Whether it’s our still Chardonnay or our Blanc de Blanc.

Then there’s the Brut Rose, the Pinot Noir 2021, the House Red Blend. A lot of people will remember 2020 and how that vintage went for us. I refer to that year as the worst year of my life.

Let’s talk a little bit about what made it such a bad year.

We had beautiful weather during bloom. I started to feel like it was going to be a really great vintage. We’re seeing a really modest crop load and smallish berries, which leads to more fruit forward. Right around Labor Day, the major fires started. Smoke came into the valley for about two weeks which was extremely disheartening.

In the Willamette Valley that was really our first experience with that level of damage to the fruit. So a lot of people were scrambling, worried, and ultimately didn’t produce Pinot Noir in 2020.

We made less than we had planned. We applied some techniques to mitigate the smoke effect.

Can we talk about what you did to mitigate?

Well, there are two things that helped the most. One, we sent some grapes to California to go through a process called flash. It’s a kind of thermovinification method where the must is heated to 80 degrees celsius and then pumped into a vacuum chamber that boils at a much lower temperature. The water and the skins of the grapes “flashes” to steam in the the vacuum chamber. That steam carries away a lot of bad things. Those things are responsible for the bulk of the smoke effect that you might find in a wine.

Then following vintage and some aging, we did some reverse osmosis to remove the smoke effect from the rest of our wine.

At the tail end of vintage, I had surgery for appendicitis. As I was about recovered from that, I got covid right at the end of 2020.

Fortunately ’21 and ’22 were very similar to 2020 and how the vintage started and ended up, we had some really beautiful fruit and beautiful wines. I’m really excited about ’22 based on what we have in barrel right now.

Some people approach wine from a food and wine pairing point of view. I’m not sure if you are a chef or a home cook, but do you have any suggestions for great food pairings for some of your bottles?

I think with our Pinot Gris, I really enjoy seafood.

It’s really good with salad. Brut Rose, I always say if you’re making a dinner and you’re not quite sure what wine to serve with your dinners sparkling wine is always a a crowd pleaser. It’ll go with dishes from salad to steak or pizza. The acidity of sparkling wines makes them really versatile in any kind of food. Fatty foods in particular pair well with more acidic wines, kind of a palette cleansing.

For our Pinot Noir, traditional pairings like salmon and chicken.

When you’re going through a year, from growth to harvest, what are the traits or elements that get you excited saying it’s gonna be a good year?

Last spring we had a couple of fairly severe frosts after bud break and it was an interesting year because of that. We ended up, to everyone’s surprise, with a vintage that was quite nice and yields that were not really affected by the frost. The vines bounced back with their secondary and tertiary buds set fruit, set a really good crop. We got a nice batch of wine out of it.

If we get into harvest in the rainy season, sometimes your hand is forced and the grapes start to get ripe, the skin softens an they become more susceptible to botrytis and other bad things that you don’t want.

But ’22 was nice. We weren’t really forced right up until the end. Around October 20, we had the first big rainstorm come in. 20% of our fruit still hanging. We brought most of it in before that big rain.

But I think we had really good ripeness even at that point.

You’ve been doing in-person and zoom wine tastings, do you have a favorite part of that wine tasting process?

My favorite part, without a doubt, is just when I see somebody tasting my wine and the look on their face shows me that they’re really enjoying it. That’s a big reason why I’m in this industry, what we do makes people happy.

Do you have a certain memory of including either your wine or someone else’s wine in a great celebration?

Several memories. My father and I had a wine business of our own from 2002 to 2015. [A few years in] we had a celebration at a steakhouse in Portland. I ordered a Puligny Montrachet off the menu. I still remember that wine quite vividly and how impressive it was. That changed my mind about chardonnay in some ways.

In Oregon, there’s a lot more chardonnay coming out of the Willamette Valley now is a good thing, but it’s still been an uphill battle for producers to get that chardonnay wine passed the gatekeepers, the distributors.

You go to a distributor and they’re like, “Everybody drinks California Chardonnay or white burgundy. They don’t know about Oregon Chardonnay. And when you say Willamette Valley, everybody thinks Pinot Noir, which is great. But we’ve kind of pigeonholed ourselves with that. There are a lot of other nice things that can come out of this valley like Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. So we have some work to do on the marketing and publicity to let people know.

Any lessons your winemaking team has learned this past vintage that you can share?

I think that happens every year. Let’s not assume that I know everything because I learn stuff every year as well.

One of the things that I really stress with people who are working for me during harvest, is the importance of fermentation temperature.

It’s with white wine, with aromatic whites in particular. You really have to keep the temperature under control. Yeast likes to get hot and ferment fast, so you have to keep those ferments cool, whatever the method is if you’re in stainless with jacketed tanks or if you’re in barrel and you’re taking the barrels outside at night or wetting them down to keep the temperature down. It’s super, super important.

With the white wines, you get a temperature or a fermentation that’s too hot and you end up with a wine that’s like generic white wine. It doesn’t have varietal character left in it, that’s something I stress a lot.

Then when you talk about red wines, the style of red wine that you’re making is so dependent on a lot of things, but temperature is a big thing. So if you do a cool ferment on a red wine, you’re going to have a red wine that’s fruit forward and aromatic, but it’s not going to be very extracted. It’s not gonna have a big tannic backbone to it. In that way it would be out of balance.

Like with our Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, we do a couple of different fermentation methods that end up having different peak fermentation temperatures and then we blend them together to get a wine that is crowd pleasing, easy balanced. So one of my big things is temperature.

Are there any topics in winemaking that you wish got more attention?

The fact that I don’t do this alone. If I didn’t have a team behind me doing the right thing and supporting production in the winery, starting with our vineyard and our vineyard manager, who is amazing, grows amazing fruit, all the way through to the marketing team selling the wine or promoting the wine and the sales team selling the wine. I think it’s really important for people to understand that it’s really a team effort. I’m the winemaker, I get the publicity, I get the recognition but there’s no way I could do it by myself.

I’m sure you talk to young winemakers all the time. Is there one huge piece of advice you would give a young winemaker from all your experience?

A big thing would be, and I’ve made this mistake when I was a young winemaker, if you’re about to do something to a wine and you think you know what you’re doing, but you’ve never done it before, make a phone call.

Ask another winemaker that maybe has had the experience and has done that. You’ve got a 5,000 gallon tank of wine and you’re gonna do some kind of adjustment that you’ve never done before. Get some information first.

Building network, building community, reaching out to those with either more experience or more diverse experience.

Yes. And in most wine regions, it is a community and people are happy to share their information to help the next guy out. Because ultimately, if we’re all making really good wine in the Willamette Valley, that enhances our reputation as a region. So I think it would be a big mistake for us not to share information.

Let’s talk about where people can find more information.

On Iris Vineyards website and social media. Our website is IrisVineyards.com and our handle on every social site is @IrisVineyards.

So thank you again for your time, and it was, it was great to have this conversation.

Thank you, Joe. I really appreciate your time.

Post Views: 240

1000s of Great White Wines to taste, Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen’s new book White Wine Book, available on Amazon now.

By Joe Winger — 1 year ago

1000s of Great White Wines to taste, Wine Pro’s Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen’s new book White Wine Book, available on Amazon now.

Summertime is hot weather, light meals and adventures outside. All of which pair incredibly well with white wines.

That’s why Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen decided to write a book featuring 1000s of white wine grapes that wine lovers should try. Some are very common, some are very obscure. But they’re all worth a taste – seriously.

Mike DeSimone, Jeff Jenssen’s new book White Wine Book

Today Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen sat down (over zoom) for a conversation about wine, travel, food and more!

Note: the below interview has been edited for length and clarity. The full interview is available on YouTube, with clips in this article.

We’re talking about your new book “White Wine” today, available now on Amazon and we have a lot of questions. But first, welcome to the conversation and thank you both for being here.

Thank you. Thank you. We’re thrilled to be here.

For anyone who’s new to wine, these two are absolute wine GOATs. They’re the experts. They’ve written some great books in the past, and their new book is absolutely amazing. Over the past week I’ve had the chance to show it to a lot of people in my life and what I’ve loved about it is everybody from the wine geek all the way down to people who are barely wine drinkers, have all found really interesting reasons to love the book.

In the book you mention the word “invitation” several times. You include casual tasting instructions, the food pairing index, the white wine checklist. You do such a good job of making the wine approachable.

How important was it when you were building this book, the idea of making it approachable?

Wine always is very mysterious to people. And it doesn’t have to be. We really believe it. It’s kind of like our mantra. Open up a bottle of wine, sit around a table together, and there’s some conviviality and communal, you know, and, and communality in that bottle. So when you sit down in a circle and you’re having a glass of wine together, all of a sudden, we’re not so different.

So one of the things that we really wanted to speak to is to make wine approachable. One of things I really appreciate what you just said, is that people from all levels, from wine geeks to wine novices, we specifically set out to write this book with enough information that the geek will be really happy and enough information to intrigue the novice to wanna learn more.

We’ve always said this is the kind of book that you would buy for your Dad who happens to like wine, or you would buy it for yourself or buy it for a girlfriend or a buddy that wants to learn more about wine.

But I will tell you that we’ve been honored; our last book, Red Wine (amazon.com), was actually suggested reading list for people who were studying to become Masters of Wine. So we wrote this book with that idea in mind because we’d like this book to be a reference for Master of Wine students.

I think a lot of people may not realize just how much wine you might taste in an average year.

When we are tasting wine, whether it’s for a book like this and we’re trying to decide what gets include, or when we’re writing our articles, it’s very easy for us to open up 30 bottles in a day.

But there’s also traveling, going to wine regions, and walking into a winery and visiting four wineries a day where people can pour you anywhere between 3 or 4, up to 20 glasses.

One of the things that we have to make a distinction is how much wine do we taste and how much wine do we drink.

Because when we taste wine, we may open 30 bottles, but you just have a sip, you swirl it around your mouth, you get your impression, and then you spit it out. So you can actually taste 30 or 40 wines in one sitting. The alcohol that you actually absorb in your mouth is probably equal to one glass of wine.

We really have to maintain our wits about us when we’re writing books and tasting notes. And then out of those 30 wines, we’ll choose one or two to put in the fridge and drink with dinner.

So the difference between drinking the wine and tasting the wine is a big difference. Our neighbors absolutely love us because we have these bottles with [2 inches] out of it and put the cork back in and give it to them. So they’re very, very happy. But I think one of the things that we had to do for this book is taste.

There’s about 2,000 recommended wines. I’m gonna say we we tasted close to 5,000 [wines]. Not everything made the cut.

That’s incredible. So speaking of those 5,000, how do we prevent palette fatigue?

One thing for both of us is we both drink sparkling water.

Also, we eat very simple things just to clear the palette, wipe some of the tannins from it. We’ll eat sliced baguette or plain water crackers. That kind of thing. Also, try to break it up. Don’t drink the same style of wine over and over, because you’ll stop noticing the subtleties between them.

It’s training too. I can’t run a marathon tomorrow because I haven’t trained for a marathon, but I can taste 30 wines or 40 wines tomorrow because I’ve trained my palette to discern the differences. So it’s kind of like an athlete, it has to do with training to prevent fatigue.

So staying on the idea of tasting for a second, how do we talk to a winemaker? Any tips for a less-experienced wine drinker?

One of the first, and an easy question to ask, is how much did you make of this wine? Because that actually gives you an indication of how special the wine is, right? If somebody says, ‘Oh, we make a million bottles of this every year.’ Maybe it’s not so special.

If they say, ‘Oh, we only made 2,000 bottles of this and it comes from one special vineyard, that sometimes opens up the question of how special it is.

Another question is, if it’s a blend, if it doesn’t say on the bottle that it’s Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio, and you just know that it’s a white wine, you can ask what grapes are in this.

But people who visit wineries should ask questions. Take that as an opportunity to learn. Read the book White Wine, get some knowledge, and then you go to a winery, go out to California, go to New York State, go wherever you go, and visit a winery and talk to the winemaker and talk to the people who are responsible for making the wine. They’re very generous with their time. They want you to be informed and they want you to enjoy their wine. So do your homework and then learn some more in person, and then go back and read our book again, because you’ll learn a little bit more.

Your White Wine book is a mammoth undertaking. There’s a lot of information in there. How did you create all of this?

I think actually we were lucky in that we’d already written Red Wine. We worked with our publisher. We actually walked in, knowing that some of our prior books were a little bit text heavy, and said, ‘Hey, we want to do some graphics. For the flavor profile, there might be a picture of a peach and a rose and a lemon. For the food pairing, you’ll see a little plate of pasta and a pig and a steak.’

We worked with the same editor again. We had the structure already so that was a blessing.

When our editor came to us and said we want to publish this book, we were so excited. But then we looked at each other and said, we don’t have a lot of time to write this book. Let’s let, how, how are we gonna do this? You know? So we divided and conquered.

If you love wine, you’re gonna love this book, whether you’re a novice or above.

My old boss used to tease me because back then I enjoyed white more than red. Why doesn’t white get the respect that red does?

You know, you’re very right. We had to fight for this book.

I’m an equal opportunity white wine and red wine drinker and rose, because there are wines for different occasions. Sometimes when you’re having a big heavy steak, you want a red wine, but a lot of times we’re trying to eat lighter, more vegetables, lighter cuisine. It’s summertime now. Lighter white wines really go with those foods.

There’s so many grapes in this book. Is there one lesser-known grape that you want the world to know about because it’s an amazing discovery?

We have a holiday coming up this weekend. By the time this is posted, it will just have passed. This coming Sunday is International Pošip Day, and Pošip is a wine from coastal Croatia. It grows in Dalmatia and on some of the islands. It’s this wonderful, delightful, fresh, crisp, citrusy white grape from Croatia that we don’t see a lot of in the US. It’s in more major urban markets. It’d really worthy of attention.

Were there any unexpected surprises as you created this book?

When we did Red Wine, we did single varieties and regional blend styles, like Rioja which can have three or four different grapes in a bottle and Bordeaux can be up to six different grapes. That actually includes sparkling wine we covered in Red wine.

We covered only nine regional blend styles and 41 single varieties in White Wine. I just did account. I believe we have 14 regional right grape styles. So things like White Bordeaux, White Rioja fall under a style that’s not necessarily one grape.

Is there a message that you haven’t been asked that you would love to share with a wine loving audience?

You can always learn something. Keep learning, keep asking questions.

Sometimes there are some really interesting questions that people come up with.

We are wine experts, we’re authors of six wine books now. We write for different publications. We’re mast head at two different magazines, so we really kind of know what we’re talking about, but we don’t know everything.

So, being able to understand that and admit that, wine is a continuous, ongoing journey and learning about wine is what makes it very exciting. So I’m really happy to have been on the journey so far and I hope have a lot more years on this journey to learn more about wines I’ve never tried.

So thank you so much for your time. Tell us where to find you, where to follow you, your social media websites.

We are on Facebook and on Instagram as World Wine Guys. We have a website, www.WorldWineGuys.com for a lot of our articles and videos we’ve done over the last 13 -14 years.

Go to www amazon.com and put in three words, white wine book, it’ll pop up.

And then as you scroll down under, ‘Usually bought together.’ It’s our white wine book and our Red Wine book.

We have some friends that have written some great books, Wine Folly, Jancis Robinson.

We’re not the beginning and the end of wine knowledge. There are so many of our colleagues that we respect deeply. So there’s a lot to learn from everybody.

All I can say is that’s what we’d like for people to learn more, enjoy wine, open a bottle of wine with your family and friends and you know, we kind of drop all of our guards, we drop all of our pretenses and the world will be a lot better place.

Post Views: 296

Tasting Italy’s Trentodoc Sparkling Wine, Giacomo Malfer reveals their Secret

By Joe Winger — 1 year ago

Italy’s Trentodoc has a history of producing incredible sparkling wine, Giacomo Malfer reveals their tasty secret.

We had the chance to sit down with Revi Trentodoc’s Giacomo Malfer to talk about the Italian Trentino region, their multi-generational family business, favorite foods, and of course their legendary sparking wines.

Listen to the podcast here:

Giacomo, Can you share some of your favorite memories that include a wonderful sparkling wine celebration?

I’m very happy to talk about Revi and my family and my world. One of the best memories that I remember with sparkling wine Trentodoc was my 30th party. I invited a lot of friends. The bottles, one by one [were poured and put] on the floor [lined up] around the house. But, the most important thing was the joy, the happiness, to enjoy that party.

In history, Trentodoc sparkling wine is the best product for celebrations. So celebrating my birthday or other important things in life is one of the best things that we produce of that kind of product can make because We work our life to produce something people enjoy the best highlights of the life. So what’s better? And one of my best memories is my 30th birthday party.

You mentioned celebrating with your family. Tell me what it’s like growing up in a winemaking family.

Paolo, my father, for me is a common star because when I was young, I never wanted to go on with the winery. It’s funny to know because today it’s my life. Sometimes [I feel like] it is my girlfriend. Francesca is my real girlfriend. So it’s matches perfectly now with my life and with my private life.

Courtesy of http://www.revispumanti.com/

Someone said that if you love your work, you’ll never work a day in your life. I think that idea is very important. As I said earlier, there is something very beautiful about making something that people used to celebrate.

I remember when my father Paolo would talk about wine and producing wine, his eyes would shine. That shine was one of the first things that was useful for me to start and work in the wine industry. I remember that Paolo said to us to do what we wanna do, not follow the winery. Because it was his passion, not his first job. He said, ‘this is my passion. I want to work with Revi as a passion.’ In fact for 30 years that was not his job. He started when he was 13 years old.

He was in a classroom with only females. He found a book with an article on Dom Perignon. He came home and asked my grandfather [for] some white wines because we were an agriculture family. And he said, I wanna make champagne now. And my grandfather laughed, because my Dad was just a young boy. But you know what? He said, okay, you can try a very small batch.

My grandmother made bread each week, so Paulo asked my grandmother for some yeast, and put it inside with the sugar.

And on Christmas of 1963, my family enjoyed the holiday with methodic champagne noir. Because in Italy at that time we could name the methodic champagne, the classic method with the second fermentation in the bottle. And so after that, he studied at school, and then he started with Revi in 1982. And for 30 years it was his hobby.

I believe it was one of the most important things, to grow up with passion, in my father, in my brother Stefano and in me, because he’s never forced us to follow that.

We both studied economics. But I remember many memories about when my grandmother would take the broth to the people who helped my father in the winery. I have some memories that is between the brain and the heart. I believe that premise was the first seed to grow the passion. After that, my brother Stefano, the producer and manager; we followed because we were tasting all the time with my family together. We are looking for a very clean, very fresh identity wine of our region.

The best thing that I believe our father gave us is a way to read the wine world. This is the identity. We always want to find in Revi our territory. He was one of the first to produce the zero dosage. We have been producing zero dosage or pas dose, you know, that is the same since 1983. The first harvest of the first vintage of pas dose Revi was 1981. It was very, very uncommon for that period, even just five years ago it was uncommon. But 40 years ago.

I believe inside that particular label is the philosophy of our winery, and we want go on with that. So the second generation, me and my brother Stefano, for sure, we wanna follow that.

There’s a lot less magic in economics than there is in sparkling wine. Was there a moment when you realized, ‘I need more magic?’

Yes, I remember. When I was 13 or 14 years old, and I was helping my father in the vineyard, I didn’t like it because it was very warm and some activities were very slow. My friends would go to the swimming pool, and I was with my father. So I said, I want my office, with my shirt and air conditioning and not be here.

But at the end, I really love the people and finding magic. Because it all starts from a piece of wood and arrives at the end in a bubble, in the most beautiful moment that you put that wine in a glass and enjoy with your friends and your family.

There was not a very clear moment when I changed my mind and said no economics, but wine making for sure.

I made the commercial part of the winery. So economics is important and now it’s the economics of a winery. I found a very good way to have a little bit economics and stay in the best [wine] world.

I always tell my friends and my girlfriend, we are working for something that others work for the Saturday night or the Friday night. That is super beautiful, because celebrating is the best thing. To enjoy life is to celebrate the big things and the small things. The small things could be simpler, pizza with friends.

I think the theme that I’m learning is the magic of celebration. Let’s seque to the magic of your region.

Yes, for sure. The [Dolomite] mountains area is one of the important things. And thanks to the mountain region, we can have the freshness, the aromas that come up from the difference in temperature between day and night.

At the same time, we have a region that goes from 200 meters in altitude over to 700 meters. More than 70% is over 1,000 meters in altitude. So it’s a very mountain region. And the valley also is a mountain valley, because the fresh air comes down from the mountains and goes through our vineyards. That’s increases the performance and the structure we find in our glass of trentodoc.

Wine Enthusiast awarded us as one of the best wine areas for Trentodoc because we can have the maturity of the grapes, and at the same time we defend the freshness. So we have a balance between the complexity, the perfumes, the aromas thanks to the mature grapes. We don’t forget and lose the freshness, the acidity freshness, very important to enjoy, because at the end, one bottle, one glass, you have to drink to enjoy it.
Another thing that is important here is the soil, limestone, there are different soils. And that gives us some different shades about Trentodoc. This is one of the most important things not only here in Trentodoc, but in the wine world.

Drinking is a way to take a trip in your life. It’s very nice to drink the same wine, the same grapes in the same area, but at the same time, find something different. Not only because its comes from different wine growers, but because the soil, the terroir.

For example, Albano, the small village where I come from, where Revi was born.
Re Vino [translates to] “king wine”, because it was one of the best areas in Albano, my village, to produce grapes for wine. Albano was named from Veronelli, one of the best and most important, wine journalists in Italy.

Why? Because many private people in the area made their own classic method, sparkling wine. It was an agricultural village, but they didn’t make only still wine. They made sparkling wine. So that is the terroir. That is the the know-how, the idea of one place, not only the type of soil or the wind.

Here in Trentino, in our vineyard we have some of the best soil, Cavaliere Nero.
Cavaliere Nero is 100% Pinot Noir, it’s clay and red marble. Now red marble was the motherstone. And we have clay. It is a very important Pinot Noir. It is a very important red pinot noir dressed by the bubbles.

Sticking with the region for a moment, tell us about what’s it like living in that area today?

It’s a mountain region so we have ski slopes we can enjoy in the winter season. But the mountains are really magic during the summer. On my summer holidays, I want to go to the sea. We have one of the best lakes in Italy, Llago di Garda.

A few weeks ago there was the Gambero Rosso event, where I tasted your sparklers for the first time. Let’s talk about the bottles.

You tasted the classic one, Revi Brut Trentodoc, the Revi Reserve 2012.
Revi Brut Trentodoc has 40 months on lees. Both are Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
The Chardonnay grown here in Trentodoc gives very good aromas, good acidity, good freshness. Pinot Noir in more in altitude, gives us the body.

Courtesy of http://www.revispumanti.com/

In the Pinot Noir of the brut, it’s only for the body. Not for the structure.

With aging, the wine comes out with notes of Pinot Noir. In fact, in the Reserva 2012 or other Revi, when it stays many months on the yeast, you find the perfumes of the Pinot Noir, we have the classic line: Revi Brut, Revi Rose, Revi Dosaggio Fero. They are all made with a cuvee of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. 20% white and more in the rose, because we have 70%, helps us to give a lot of structure and body.

Chardonnay is a major part of it and that is very important for the Brut as for the Reserva, because it gives us the freshness in the Reserva.

People always ask me which is my favorite, the Brut or the Reserva?

It really depends. It depends on the time of day and my mood. In the summer when it is warm, I like really a glass of fresh Brut classic, because it’s simple. I want to chill out a little.

Then on the same day at dinner we drink a glass or a bottle of Reserva tasting and pairing with some foods.

With the Brut, the tasting notes are apples. One of the classic notes. Toasted nuts. All very light and delicate.

If you ask me what to expect if you taste a glass of Revi Brut, you have to expect some fresh apples, some flowers, a little toast, and freshness and joy on the palate.
For the food pairing, some salami or fromage, very simple aperitivo that you can have in your house.

One of the best pairings that I really love is with pappardelle or a pasta with white ragu and parmesano, because it’s delicate and a little bit salty. Parmesano’s taste is not so aggressive, it’s also delicate. And with the Brut I love a lot.

I love pappardelle, I love pasta for sure. I’m Italian, you know, so… I’m a pasta lover.
Thinking about Reserva, you can really go all over the world with the taste. You can also pair with fusion cuisine, you can have some more taste.

In our Reserva, we have the structure, the body, the complexity at the same time, the very freshness. So you can enjoy that glass with some fatty foods, because it’ll clean up your mouth and have structure. Carpaccio, branzino, fresh fish.

Is there a unique or surprising food that you wouldn’t traditionally think pairs well with your wines and yet it did?

I love surprising myself with pairing foods. As you were talking, I was thinking of risotto with porcini, with gouda.

During the [pandemic] lockdown I stayed with my family and during our Sunday meals, we had a violet rosemary [herb sprig] inside a glass was amazing.

I believe, one of the best important things, if you are in a winery, in a restaurant, you have to taste and try. Be curious.

Something we really aim for with our audience is helping someone who’s curious and eager, helping them understand what they’re trying so they can have more appreciation for the taste and the flavor.

Can you walk us through the process of the classic method?

The first part, it’s common, like still wine. You grow the grapes. It’s very important to have high quality raw materials at the start. Then you have harvest after one year. Then you press, you have the first fermentation, that is the vinification.

The very important different thing about sparkling wine and a classic method, for example, in 100% Chardonnay is when you want to have a chardonnay for a base of sparkling wine, you have to have more acidity. So your harvest is a couple of weeks [earlier]. It depends on the velocity of the maturation.

But we can say between one and two weeks before, because you have to preserve the freshness, the acidity.

Then after harvest, you have a different vinification. It depends if you want to, to make a rose or a white wine. In that case, you have a maceration on the skin of the grapes of Pinot Noir. If you want a Blanc de Noir, a white wine from Pinot Noir, you have to separate the skin of the grapes, from the juice.

After the first fermentation we make the cuvee. We sit with my family and taste, and discuss which kind of chardonnay goes inside with some percentage of Pinot Noir.
For example, we talked about the Revi Brut and 80% of Chardonnay, and 20% Pinot Noir. So [a blend of] Chardonnay 1-2, and 7 with 20% of Pinot Noir or a [blend of a] couple of Pinot Noirs, it depends on the vintage of the year.

After that, we put inside the Liqueur de tirage, so yeast and sugar, like [if you] make bread. You put all inside a bottle and you cork. So, the yeast starts eating the sugar and give us the bubbles.

That activity let’s the yeast work.

One important thing for Trentodoc it it’s made with only grapes of the Trento area: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Blanc.

First of all, we use Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. In Revi we use only Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

To be Trentodoc, it has to stay on the lees, for a minimum 15 months. To be Vintage Trentodoc, it has to stay for two years, 24 months. We have two years on the grapes of just one harvest.

For example, the 2018, to be Reserva Trentodoc has to stay minimum three years on lees, so 36 months with just one harvest.

After that, we have the bubbles inside the bottle, also the yeast. So we have to make the. [Years ago] we made it all by hand, today is automatic. It’s useful to clean up the wine from the yeast to have at the end of this activity a brilliant sparkling wine. Then we have the disgorgement. The isgorgement is made with glass, so we freeze that part of the yeast.
And with the pressure between six and seven bar with the disgorge. So we open the bottle, the pressure pulls out that cork freeze of yeast, and we have a very brilliant, sparkling wine.

If we don’t add [anything] because, sparkling wine is special wine, because we can add sugar, and with the sugar, we can define the type of Trentodoc sparkling wines who had, for example, de Natura, de Dossagio Ferro, after we have the extra Brut Brut, and go on with more sugar wine.

We can add something to create a very secret recipe of each winery. At the end, a couple of month minimum to recalibrate the sparkling wine, with this liquor disposition. We have the magic done. From some grapes to a glass full of emotional, nice moments and full of bubbles.

Outstanding. The magic and the science involved,.

Our payoff is when magic and technique meet, because that is sparkling wine.

As we wrap up, where can we find Revi, browse and shop?

I wanna ask your audience to be our ambassador. You have to go and ask [restaurants and shops] about Revi. When you find Revi, you have to try Revi.

When you don’t find Revi, you have to ask for it.

You can find us on Instagram and on our website Revi.com.

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DC Father’s Day: Le Portteus Wine Decanter offers Flavor and Class for Dad [Gift Guide]

By Contributor — 1 year ago

This Fathers Day, Le Portteus Wine Decanter, pours flavor and class for your foodie, wine-drinking Dad (and the whole family).

Father’s Day is around the corner, and what better way to celebrate than with a unique and elegant gift for the wine-loving dads in your life?

Father’s Day: Le Portteus Wine Decanter offers Flavor and Class for Dad

Le Portteus Red Wine Decanter is a perfect choice that rethinks the wine sipping experience.

Its thoughtfully designed hand-blown glass piece increases oxygen exposure, releasing natural aromas and deep flavors, which improves the taste by softening astringent tannins and releasing fruit and floral notes.

“I’d been envying a friend’s decanter for ages, so finally broke down and got one. It comes with cleaning beads, a cork stopper, and a cleaning wand.

Decanting really does make a huge difference

with medium-to-heavy reds.”

Debbie Adams, Amazon buyer

According to the experts at Portteus, wine enthusiasts have long known the importance of decanting wine to enhance the drinking experience, and Le Portteus takes it to the next level with its high-quality crystal, slanted spout, and wide-bottom design that makes pouring effortless without wine drips and stains.

Le Portteus Wine Decanter offers Flavor and Class for Dad

With a capacity of a full 750 ml wine bottle, it also doubles as a chic decoration on kitchen counters, bookshelves, bars, libraries or serving areas, and is sure to be a conversation starter.

“Beautiful design. Made a very good statement at our dinner table!

Also looks great sitting at the counter as decoration.”

MJ, amazon buyer

Moreover, what sets Le Portteus apart is its convenient cleaning beads that come with a cork and stopper ball for efficiency, making it easy to clean without worrying about scratches or grime.

Plus, high-grade steel pellets are an easy cleaning solution that can be used repeatedly, giving peace of mind to the dad who loves wine but doesn’t like the hassle of cleaning his decanter.

Father’s Day: Le Portteus Wine Decanter

“Le Portteus Red Wine Decanter is the perfect gift for the wine-loving dad who will appreciate the enhanced wine-drinking experience and its chic design.”

Browse the Le Portteus Red Wine Decanter here and find out more for this perfect Father’s Day gift.

A Must for Wine Lovers

This wine decanter is an essential edition to your wine accessories.

Decanting wines will increase the oxygen exposure thereby releasing its natural aromas and deep flavors. As a result, improving the taste by softening the astringent tannins and letting the fruit and floral aromas come out.

Superior Quality

The lead-free crystal wine decanter is handcrafted with highly durable crystal, and guaranteed to withstand the test of time!

With the capacity of a full 750 ml wine bottle. In addition to our high quality crystal vase, our decanter set also includes a fine cork ball stopper.

Spill and Stain Proof

The slanted spout and wide bottom of this wine aerator decanter makes it an effortless and elegant pour, eliminating the frustration of wine drips and stains. Making this the perfect wine gift set for aerating red wines, releasing satisfying flavors and aromas, and indulging your taste buds with peace of mind!

Clean Easily

These cleaning beads are uniquely designed to be gentle on delicate decanters for alcohol and tough on dirt and grime, removing any buildup without leaving a scratch. These high-grade steel pellets are an easy cleaning solution that you can reuse repeatedly.

Gifts with Class

Every Le Portteus crystal vase wine aerator goes through a quality assurance product inspection and comes with a lifetime warranty.

Le Portteus Decanters and Carafes make great gifts for friends or wine lovers, and you can be sure they will love them!

An excellent idea for birthdays, housewarmings, anniversaries, wedding registries, and more!

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The Future of Coffee has More Flavor, reveals Maurice Contreras at Volcanica Coffee

By Charlotte Billingsley — 1 year ago

The Future of Coffee has More Flavor, reveals Maurice Contreras at Volcanica Coffee

Just about everyone has their coffee preferences. But the truth is, most of us aren’t enjoying coffee the best it can be and we don’t even know it. The beans, the grinding, the flavor (or lack thereof).

And before you ask, nope, good coffee doesn’t need to be expensive. Actually most great coffee is more affordable than the bad stuff you’re currently drinking. True story.

But I wanted to get answers and advice from a coffee expert, so I had a conversation with Maurice Contreras from Volcanica Coffee.

Maurice Contreras, Volcanica Coffee

Native Costa Rican Maurice Contreras started Volcanica Coffee to import excellent-tasting coffee from volcanic regions, such as his homeland, to consumers. He started the company in his garage and now operates a coffee plant near Atlanta with 20 employees, including his wife and two adult children.

What is your favorite thing about coffee?

My favorite thing I like about coffee is really the flavor. That actually was how I got started. I’m from Costa Rica and for a long time I would do annual trips with the family. It was a family vacation. One of our trips we did a coffee farm tour. And just got to learn about coffee. And this is back in 2004. One of the things that dawned on me is how coffee in Costa Rica was so much better than coffee in the United States. I just didn’t understand why a 3rd world country had better coffee. The quality of coffee in the United States has really come down over several decades. So that’s when I thought that there was an opportunity to bring better tasting coffee or specialty coffee as it’s known today to the United States. That was really how it got started. It really was more about the flavor and just enjoying the richness of a Costa Rican coffee.

Is there a simple reason why first world coffee just isn’t as good?

Yeah, the general sense was because it became more of a highly produced, big production, big coffee house; and I’ll tell you a quick story. A lot of people don’t know this, the word Maxwell House, it actually is a chain of hotels. Some of them are still in existence. And so Maxwell House started from the Maxwell House Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. They served breakfast and they had really good coffee and it became really popular. It became very famous, and then eventually it became its own brand Maxwell House, and then it ended up getting acquired by corporate conglomerates. And that really good tasting coffee just turned into [not-great] coffee.

So that’s really what happened to coffee in the United States. At one time, back in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, people would really appreciate good coffee and then just kind of lost sight of what good coffee was.

From a coffee lover’s point of view, what would you say to convince them to give your coffee a try?

That coffee really is an enjoyable drink to be appreciated and enjoyed for the flavor of what it is. It’s not just something to wake you up. But really coffee and all the different varieties, there’s a lot of flavor notes, a lot of different flavors to be enjoyed. A lot of it depends upon the different regions. My recommendation is try it out and get some good coffee with some flavor notes that you enjoy. Like, for example, Ethiopian coffees, they have a lot of berry notes, a lot of fruit tones, even red wine notes. Some of those things can really open up people’s perspective on coffee.

Before we jump more into coffee, I wanted to ask you about your background as far as the work you did before Volcanica Coffee

My career was in marketing specifically I was in the wireless telephone industry. It really was just about creating a brand. I was part of the startup team at TracFone Wireless which is now a part of Verizon. I was the National Director, I created the brand. In fact, there’s still a lot of things in the brand that I created. I had a passion for marketing.

It was kinda like, “Hey, gee whiz, what if I created my own brand and just created a business?”

And so I actually was on a hunt for a couple of years thinking what would be a good business? And then I just kind of stumbled on coffee because it was staring me in the face.

There’s such a message in there. The success you’re currently riding is because you took industry knowledge of marketing, a personal passion for coffee, and took the risk of putting them together in a business start-up.

Yep, that’s true. It was a risk because I was making a good living, I had a young family, I didn’t wanna affect any of that. It was something part-time, working nights and weekends, that’s how it all started out. I

How did your family feel about that? Was there anxiety?

It was definitely a struggle and I loved spending time with them and being with them. But part of how I resolved that was I would just wake up early in the morning and spend 1-2 hours before I had to go to work doing this. I didn’t want to neglect my family and I didn’t.

There’s so many people out there who aspire to take those steps and they always find reasons not to, but you found a way. When people are drinking your coffee, they’re not just drinking delicious coffee, they’re supporting someone who took a huge chance, who followed his passions.

So segueing to the actual coffee part now.

Your website mentions coffee regions and how the region’s soil contributes to the taste. A lot of our audience who’s into food and wine will realize the terroir aspect is very familiar to that.

Can you pick two or three regions and explain their soil and how it contributes to the taste?

I’ll start with African coffees. Their soil is very unique. Coffees from Africa tend to have a lot of berry notes, a lot more flavor of fruit which is very unique and very different compared to coffees from Indonesia.

Indonesian coffees tend to be lower in acidity. Acidity provides flavor but they’re still very good tasting coffees, even though they’re lower in acidity.

Also the coffee in Indonesia, Sumatra, for example, Papua New Guinea, and even Hawaiian Kona coffees, those tend to have a lot of boldness. When you taste the cup, your mouth just tends to [recognize] that bold flavor, which you don’t get in African coffees. So those are a couple examples.

So really it is like old world wine versus new world wine. A noticeable difference in mouth feel depending on what region you’re going after.

When people ask, Hey, what kind of coffee should I buy? I always ask, what kind of flavors do you like? Start there. Then for people that are experimenting, try different coffees from different regions.

You mentioned that you’re from Costa Rica. So tell us more about the Costa Rican volcanic regions.

It’s the most popular coffee growing region in Costa Rica, the Tarrazu area, which is very mountainous, goes up to 5,000 feet above sea level south of San Jose. Very steep.

The coffee beans, because of the volcanic soil, have a lot of flavor. It’s a very mild flavor, but very flavorful as well. And because of the elevations, the beans are also very dense. They’re a harder bean. In fact, there’s a designation strictly hard bean that is used in the industry because of that.

Being from Costa Rica I came here [to the U.S.] when I was a baby. My mom would tell stories about how she would assist with her father, which is my grandfather, in the harvest. Because my grandfather was a teacher, he would work out in the rural areas of Costa Rica where the coffee bean farmers worked. They would assist during harvest time with picking coffee beans off the tree. There was the connection going back a couple generations in our family.

There has been a coffee influence throughout generations of your family.

Yes. For decades, maybe even a century, coffee was the number one product for Costa Rica. Today it’s tourism.

I’m glad you brought up tourism. We cover a lot of travel. If somebody wanted to visit Costa Rica, maybe even a specific coffee lover, is there a place you can recommend to come visit?

One of the farms that we work with actually has an Airbnb right on their plantation. We’ve had several customers that have made trips there and have gone and stayed at the house. It’s gorgeous.

More people are working from home and making coffee at home. A lot of us making coffee wrong. Can you just walk us through step by step the best way to grind and brew your coffee?

The single largest improvement in the freshness of your coffee is by grinding your beans at home. A lot of people don’t know this: buying ground coffee, because it’s in smaller particles, tends to deteriorate very quickly. So you’re not enjoying the best of what coffee can be.

So first of all, grind at home and it’s the type of grinder.

We recommend a burr grinder. The other type of grinder is a blade grinder, which is a cheap type grinder, which does not do as well as a burr grinder.

Second thing is you wanna match your grind type to how you’re brewing. So there’s different levels, how fine or how course you want the coffee. If you’re doing a French press, you want to have a coarse grind. The opposite spectrum is an espresso grind. It’s almost like very fine sand. So if you had coarse coffee and an espresso maker, you’d have a bad cup of coffee. And the opposite too. If you had a French press where you’re using espresso ground coffee, you would not have a good tasting coffee. A lot of it has to do with the extraction and this is the chemistry behind coffee.

Then in the middle of that would be like a traditional drip grind, which most people have which is a medium coarseness of a grind type. That works best to pour over or a drip grind.

Once you buy the equipment, you’re saving quite a bit of money by doing this all at home. More value and quality out of doing it at home?

Oh yeah. A cup of coffee outside can cost $3-6. At home, 50 cents per cup. Plus you’re controlling the flavor, how hot it is and how fresh it is.

How many cups do you think the average coffee person drinks per day?

The average is between one to two cups per day. Wall Street Journal says 66% of Americans have had coffee within the last day.

So with volcanic, you’ve mentioned low acid. Tell us more.

Low acid coffee is actually a natural occurrence. There’s no additives that need to be added, at least we don’t add anything to our coffee. It’s just how it’s sourced. How it’s brewed also affects acidity.

So for example, the cold brew method tends to lower the acidity of coffee. Even more than if you brewed it traditionally in a drip grinder. It benefits people who suffer from acid reflux; and different types of indigestion abnormalities can benefit from low acidic coffee just because the pH is a higher number.

We have a lot of customers thanking us because they could not drink coffee before they heard about our low acid coffee, so now they can drink coffee again.

We have a blend of different coffees called the low acid coffee, plus 12 or 15 other coffees that are also rated as low acid. We rated them, we’ve done the pH levels on all of them, and all of them fall into that category of being lower in acidity.

Volcanica has built up a really strong community on your social media avenues. What have the results been like?

We’re on all the major socials: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok. It’s very easy to find us. We take customer feedback really seriously. We’re always looking for input and ideas.

We’ll get a request [to] carry a type of coffee or coffee from a region and we’ll always look into it.

We offer 100% customer satisfaction. We take returns, even when the customer just didn’t like a coffee, which is no fault of ours.

When someone does suggest a new bean, a new region, is that an easy outreach to investigate, or is that a whole process?

It is a whole process.

What’s a great online shopping strategy for finding the right coffee beans?

Align yourself with a brand that has a quality product. Look at customer reviews, their roasting technique. Then it’s a matter of what type of coffee do you like? What flavor notes? Something mild? Berry notes? Lower in acidity?

So I go onto your website to buy some beans. What’s a safe way to pick a bean that I’ll probably enjoy?

We carry over 150 different coffees, which is a lot. Visiting our website you have to know your preferences. Having some [filtering/search ] tools out there would be beneficial to people helping the selection process, that’s actually on our roadmap for the future.

Part of the reason why we have 150 coffees is because we’ve been listening to our customers over the years.

Tell us something about Volcanico Coffee that not everyone knows.

We love to give back. We’ve been blessed, we’ve been very successful, so we donate 1% of our website sales to an organization called Charity Water. They build water projects in impoverished communities around the world. This year we’re actually sponsoring a well in Ethiopia for a particular town. We know that we buy a lot of coffee from Ethiopia and we’d love to give back to them.

What is the future of coffee?

The future of coffee is specially curated lots. We call them our “Private Collection”. Farmers that are actually fermenting their coffee with mango, peach, different types of fruits. We have a few of them right now. We’re hoping to be carrying more in the near future.

Our audience is listening right now. What would you like them to do?

If you’re interested in finding out more about coffee and experiencing coffee, start exploring. We offer a great cup of coffee. Great different flavors and varieties. We even offer decafs, flavored coffees, something for everybody.

Website: https://volcanicacoffee.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gourmet.coffee.beans

Twitter: https://twitter.com/VolcanicaCoffee

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/volcanicacoffee