Episode 3
Transcript – Episode 3: Old vines from vineyard to glass: Villa Bogdano 1880
The Old Vine Conference Podcast.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Welcome to the Old Vine Conference podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and today I am delighted to welcome Domenico Veronese to the show. Domenico is the owner of Villa Bodano 1880 in Lison di Portogruaro on the border between Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia in the far northeast of Italy. There are 106 vines on the property, with some dating back to the beginning of the 1900 and 18 ha defined as historic. Villa Bogdano also uses the Casone Parovano training system developed by benedictine monks hundreds of years ago. Organically certified since 1993, Villa Bogdano is now working on a micro vinification project that I'm really interested to hear about today.
Cynthia Chaplin:
So, Domenico, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been a very busy April for all of us here in Italy with Vinitaly and all the surrounding events. So thank you for giving us time today.
Domenico Veronese
Good afternoon and thanks a lot for having me.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Well, you are in such an interesting location. The only cross regional DOCG in Italy between Veneto and Friuli, Venezia Giulia. What are the main characteristics of the area where Villa Bodano is located?
Domenico Veronese
Well, as you mentioned, we are in the extreme part of the northern east of Italy, where the sea is the closest to the Alps, which creates a very favorable microclimate for viticulture. The soil in this area is of alluvial origin. It just means that it was formed over hundreds of years from the Alps washing into the sea. And it has mineral traits with lots of calcium carbonate and some superficial layers of clay, of dark clay, which in our estate reaches in some points over 50%. So it's a very interesting mineral rich, complex soil, which is favorable for viticulture.
Cynthia Chaplin:
You have a really interesting climate there as well, because, of course, you've got the Adriatic and the Alps and the Dolomites. How is that affecting your vineyards?
Domenico Veronese
It's very helpful because we are in a part of Europe and of Italy where precipitations are relatively high. So it does help to have this vicinity, proximity to the Alps to the sea, because it creates daily breezes which are very beneficial for the vineyards Well, as we know, Villa Bogdano is the custodian of many very, very old vines.
Cynthia Chaplin:
So what challenges have you been facing with the effects of climate change in your area?
Domenico Veronese
We've had a couple of really hard summers here in Veneto, where I am in Valpolicello. We had terrible perinospora this past summer. We've had drought, we've had too much rain.
Cynthia Chaplin:
How is your area in terms of the changing challenges from the climate differences that we're seeing?
Domenico Veronese
Well, it's clearly becoming more and more challenging. We are having not only an increase of average temperatures, but what we are witnessing is, even if the precipitation per year are not changing that much in total amount, what's changing is their variability. So we're having more and more sudden downpours. And sometimes they have a stormy Nature. And this is very problematic for viticulture. And we had, as you mentioned, some difficult summers. 2022 was extremely warm, and we had a very prolonged period of drought. And having old vines definitely helped because they are showing a much greater resilience, which is given on one side by the depth of their root. They have a very deep, radical system which allows them to source water deeper down and not be subject to periods of weeks where the soil dries and young vines suffer to the point of sometimes dying. And on top of that, they have a very large mass of wood, which helps because it's a store of reserves, that helps a lot at times of drought. So there are definitely more resilience at times of unpredictable and volatile weather.
Cynthia Chaplin:
It's interesting, I do a lot of work with Professor Attilio Scienza, and he talks a lot about the memory stored in the wood mass of old vines, so they know when to store water and when they don't need to do that. So it's such a fascinating area of viticulture when we look at old vines and their importance. So I know you're doing a lot of massal selection in all your historic vineyards now, too. So what's the purpose behind this kind of work? How does it affect the quality of the grapes when you do a massal selection? Explain to our listeners, who may not all know what a massal selection is, please.
Domenico Veronese
Well, in very simplistic terms, instead of just going to a nursery and buying off the shelf, standardized vine shoots and cuttings, what we are doing is we make them from the mother plants. So we are simply preserving the genetic material, which is very important, because not only we are ultimately preserving biodiversity, but over decades and centuries, we are allowing nature to follow its course, which is a very slow course. We are talking a lot now in winemaking about typicity. We keep hearing typically, but at the end of the day, all we are doing is going to a nursery and taking off the shelf some vines which are produced in millions or tens of millions of units. Then we cannot just simply complain that all wines taste the same. It's a shame, because in Italy and in Europe, we have thousands of different grape varieties, and it's very important that we preserve them. Otherwise we just end up drinking two types of wine. And that's it.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Absolutely. And I know WSET education still teaches that the northeast of Italy is famous for very average Pinot Grigio, which is a tragedy when I have to teach that, because we know that we do have many more native grapes, and grapes that are particularly adapted to that particular region. So your vineyards are already recognized, as you said, as a source of biodiversity. You're a conservation site. So what are you doing to protect and promote the biodiversity and the health of the vineyards and the surrounding areas?
Domenico Veronese
We all know that making our natural forces work together is going to help us with climate change. What's happening at Villa Bogdano in terms of biodiversity protection? Well, to start with, we have to stick to sound economic practices, which basically means not be too commercial and too industrial driven. And it simply means, even if you have a large estate, as we are, we do not have one grape variety and we do not produce it on an industrial scale. But what we are having is we are trying to have many different grape varieties. And on top of that, we have about 30 acres of a woodland, which dates back to the Middle Ages, and it is protected, both by Italy and the European Union, with lots of protected species, both of plants and of animals. It means, on our side, trying to limit the amount of vineyards and to have other crops, like cereals, which we cultivate, following organic protocols, which simply means that every certain number of years, we need to have a certain type of different crops and to keep rotating year after year. It means as well, avoiding chemicals, avoiding all the things that could harm both the animal species, but the plant as well, as I was saying at the beginning, following some agronomic practices, which means, for instance, when you have old vineyards, you do not have to use artificial irrigation, you do not have to use artificial fertilizers. So you are forcing the vine to make a special effort. But that effort is rewarded over time by the resilience and the strength that the plant builds, beside the fact that if you consider now vineyards in Europe, they are shortening more and more their average life. And the modern clones we have, which are aimed at maximizing productivity, they are very pushed, and they rarely last more than 15 or 20 years, which means that you have to keep explanting and replanting vines. And every time you do that for three, four, five years, you have to do lots of artificial irrigation and fertilization, and artificial irrigation. We know over 70% of freshwater worldwide are taken by agriculture. Instead of focusing on the resilience of old vines, we keep just focusing more and more on higher productivity for what? To produce more wine? We know that wine is a saturated market. We produce too much wine worldwide, and I think we have to focus on different priorities.
Cynthia Chaplin:
I completely agree with that. I think it's very interesting in terms of sustainability, what you said, about 70% of freshwater around the world is already going to agriculture. And in viticulture, we have to look at ways to lower that significantly, especially as we see the temperatures rise. We know that our ability to get more freshwater rainwater is dropping. In the summers, we're not having as much rain. I think what you're saying about irrigation is incredibly important to the future of what we're doing. Let's talk about your wines for a minute. So, first of all, what grapes are you growing and what wines are you making? As you know, I'm a big fan, so I'm excited to talk to you about these. I was introduced by your CEO, Raffaele Voglia, a year or so ago to Villa Bodana wines. And this is what started my passion. So let's talk about these wines. First of all, what grapes are you using and what are the unique traits that the old vines give your wines? How are you vinifying them and what are the results? I can say right now, as a spoiler, they're award winning results. These are excellent wines.
Domenico Veronese:
Thank you. Well, we are focusing mainly on autochthonous grape varieties, which have been there for decades or centuries. And on top of that, it's mainly Tocai Friulano and Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, which are very, very typical of that part of Italy. And on top of that, we have a few other grape varieties which are well suited for our type of microclimate and soil. For instance, Chardonnay or Merlot. Old vines, they tend to have some common traits which are typically described as minerality, complexity, vibrancy. And if you think of how complex and important and deep their root system is, you understand that instead of just feeding off the very superficial part of the soil, they go deep down and have access to the more noble nutrients of the soil. Besides the fact that there is lots of science behind how the reserved store in the wooden part of the vine is helping the bunches to develop a particular balance and ultimately to produce higher quality wines, our philosophy is very simply respecting the grape variety and respecting the terroir, making wines. Which basically means we are, with only one exception, we are producing and making wines from a single grape variety. And we want the wine to be an expression of the terroir and of the specific grape variety that has produced it. Which means, even for wines where we have longer periods of aging, we never see that as an invasive procedure. But we want just to give the wine time to age and express particular tertiary aromas. But we don't want to accelerate that process. And that's the reason why we typically, when we use wood, we use large, like 45 hectolitre containers. And typically of low to medium toasting. We use as well lots of other materials. Vitrified concrete is our favorite because it combines the thermal stability of concrete. In recent years and decades, there has been a rediscovery of concrete because it's thermal stabilities and many other properties. And it's vitrified because the glass is purity.
Cynthia Chaplin:
By definition. You're absolutely right with the vitrified concrete, which has glass lining, of course, it's neutral, so it's not adding or taking away anything from the wine. So you do get a very pure expression of the grape as well as the terroir. So, looking at that for a minute, let's talk about the Tocai Friulano, your white wines. How old are the vineyards that you're using? And are you vinifying them as cru's or what are you doing? I know that you have a new micro vinification project coming up, so tell us about the process and the wines that you're creating. When they arrive in my glass from your old vine vineyard, I want to know what it's going to taste like as well.
Domenico Veronese
We adore Tocai Friulano because the vast majority of the old vines in the estate are of Tocai Friulano. And since the old vineyards, they were planted before the sixties. We are not talking about clones here. The first clone of Tocai was introduced in 1969. We have now approximately 13 different clones. What we have are biotypes. Before the clones were introduced, we were basically having two types of Tocai Friulano biotypes, the yellow one and the green one. The yellow has, as the name says, has a yellow berry, and it has a much more complex aromatic profile. And it's the one where we tend to make single vineyard vinifications. The oldest two vineyards that we have in the estate one is 3 ha that was planted in 1943. And it's the one where we have been producing year after year, our Lisson classical DOCG and we do have an older vineyard, but unfortunately, we are only talking about 117 vines. So given the size of the vineyard, it's very difficult, even from a technical standpoint to do a micro vinification. The first time we did it, and the first and only time we did it was in 2020. After this micro vinification, we have done a longer period of aging, which was approximately 50% in bariques and 50% in a ceramic egg. The result is 300 bottles that have been bottled recently. We are just waiting to put a label on them and present them to the market. Tocai Friulano in general, is a very interesting grape variety because we know that Italy worldwide is very famous for wines. But if you look at the popularity of italian brands, you will see that the vast majority of Italian wines known abroad are red wines. Italy is the big missing name on the international scene when it comes to premium quality white wine. And that is the shame, because we have at least four or five grape varieties in Italy, and among which is the Tocai Friulano, which are extremely well suited, not only for producing high quality wines, but for producing wines that have an aging potential.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Yeah, I completely agree with that. It's something we talk about a lot. Italy has premium white wines. We have white wines that are suitable for aging. Tocai Friulano, Fiano, Greco, things like this that have a phenolic compound. I find when I have had your Tocai Friulano from the 1943 vineyard, the wines are beautifully concentrated. They've had enough time in the bottle to evolve. So I'm looking forward to hearing about the new micro vinification of the 300 bottles. Shockingly small amount. I don't think anyone's going to get to taste them. What are the plans for those bottles after the vinification? And I know you're waiting for your labels. How long are you letting them age in bottles? How long are you letting them evolve before you release them?
Domenico Veronese:
Usually. And it's something we do for all of our wines. We have a minimum of three to six months after bottling, because regardless of how scrupulous and attentive you are in the bottling phase, it is always a stressful event for the wine. So the wine needs to rest. And it's the reason that, on purpose, we usually wait three to six months after every bottling before releasing the wines to the market. In the case of the special microvinification, the period has been slightly longer. And the ultimate decision is up to the winemaker, who, in the style of the perfect Vigneron, is quite sensitive to the matter. So he has the final say and he thinks now that the wines are ready.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Perfect. And how do you anticipate them presenting? What style is he aiming for? Obviously, they're going to be fairly neutral. Maybe just a tiny touch of oaky toastiness to them. What are you expecting from these wines? Greatness, I hope.
Domenico Veronese:
Definitely, yes. I think we are trying to have the best expression of that great variety, which in itself is very complex. Yes, there are lots of tertiary aromas, but eventually what we want is just to allow all the flavors of that specific variety to emerge in its complexity and, yeah.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Yeah, well, this is an amazing project. I'm going to be following this. I'm so interested to hear about it. And, of course, how to make the number of bottles grow. I don't know what you're going to do if you only have 117 vines, but potentially with the massal selection, that's something that can be worked on later. But let me just ask you, while we're sort of talking about this, in your opinion, what's the significance of old vines in the agricultural aspect of vineyards?
Domenico Veronese:
And we talked about the fact that they carry memory in their wood mass. They have an immense root system, especially vines as old as yours are. But old vines is a difficult term. We still have yet to really define it. Some countries say they have to be 100 years or older, some countries say 40 years or older. We in Italy tend to fall somewhere in the middle of that. So, in your opinion, what's the significance of these vines? How should we be looking after them? And what about old vines in the international market? How do we market this and promote and protect old vines? As you said, so many of our agronomists now are explanting and replanting on a very short cycle, sort of 25 years at the max. How can we promote and market and educate not only the agronomists and the producers, but also the consumers who are going to buy these wines?
Domenico Veronese:
Well, it's a very important point you're raising. We mentioned before, the preservation of biodiversity and the superior sustainability of wines from old vines. And that's clearly very important.At the same time, and as a private producer, as an independent producer, I'm fully aware that you cannot expect a single winemaker to be a hero, because at the end of the day, sustainability is even the economic and financial sustainability of people producing wine. So that's why it's very important to raise the awareness and to make everyone understand that even the wine in itself is a wine of superior quality. And there are countries and appellations worldwide that have understood this, or even independent producers. If we look, for instance, one of the most expensive champagnes on the planet is produced from old vines, and we're talking about a four digit price for the bottle, and same for.. without mentioning names, for Bordeaux. So there are lots of very important examples of wines which are not only produced from old vines,but are marketed as such, and where the consumer understands that this is very important. So we need to raise the awareness, and this is a joint effort that has to be made by producers, has to be made by authorities and by people like you, because you're playing a role of paramount importance. And you're giving a terrific contribution to the movement. And one last thing that I would add on the economic sustainability is sometimes in wine, you have very long, decade long trends. And one of the trends we are witnessing now is simply the declining demand, in quantitative terms, for wine. People, for a variety of reasons, including health, are drinking less and less in quantity, but not necessarily in value terms. People want to drink less, they want to drink better, and they want to make sure that what they drink does not harm their health and does not harm the environment.So again, we are talking about, A). Producing top quality wines, and B). Making sure that those wines are produced not harming the health of the consumer and not harming the environment. And if you look at that, then maybe even authorities and policymakers, they should be focused more and more in understanding these long term trends, and understanding that there's no point in giving incentive to producing more and more grapes and more and more wine when the market is already fully saturated.
Cynthia Chaplin:
No, I agree. And I think viticulture needs to be separated from agriculture, because particularly as we're talking about old vines, there's no such thing as an old wheat field or an old cornfield, where we're looking at plants that are sustainable because of their heritage. They don't need water, they don't need treatment. They are helping us develop better, stronger, more resistant plants through the massal selection and other work in that area for the future. So I think separating viticulture from agriculture would be useful. I'm so happy to hear that you feel old vine conference is a positive in the world of viticulture.I talk a lot to small producers who don't have nearly the hectorage that you do. What would you recommend to them in terms of getting involved with old vine heritage? How has it benefited Villa Bogdano to become part of our Old Vine family?
Domenico Veronese:
Well, I think it's very positive to share the views of fellow producers who have gone through a similar process. Sharing the experience, understanding what is critical, where we can improve, how we can help, and at the same time is about raising the awareness on the consumer side as well. And I think the Old Vine Conference has done three or four years, really of tremendous work. And I think the results are arriving now. I think compared to a few years ago, there is more awareness on that. Before, we always had this connotation of old means, well, something is wrong is old. I really dislike it. Now people start to understand that old is actually an important qualitative connotation of the wines and the vines. So we are slowly seeing the results. Obviously, we cannot expect things to change overnight, but I think it's a very important movement that will keep giving more and more fruit. I'm glad to hear that.
Cynthia Chaplin:
I do think there's power and positivity in numbers. And I do think that given the state of our
climate, of some of our governments and geopolitics around the world, the sooner that we're able to bring more Old Vines under the umbrella of producers who can share their knowledge and really help to promote as well as one another, keep their old vines healthy, the better, I think, the better for the industry.
Cynthia Chaplin:
So I want to thank you so very much for coming on today. Domenico, it's been great to talk to you. And I'm going to come out to Portogruaro as soon as I can and hopefully have a tiny little sip of one of the 300 bottles from the micro vinification project. Thank you for telling us everything that you're doing. And I know that you'll be inspiring other producers and hopefully inspiring marketers to take a closer look and get a better understanding about what old vine heritage and old vines mean to us in the world.
Domenico Veronese:
So thank you very much. Has been a great pleasure. Thanks for having me, and thanks for all the work you're doing.