It is crazy to think that in a month, I will be in Italy. Already everything is planned (almost down to the hour) with the usual trip to Vinitaly plus a week in Barolo/Barbaresco and also a week down south (Calabria and Sicily). I will be taking my 78 year old uncle Zio Bruno with me for the most of the trip which will be great. The last time I travelled with him he was 65 and we struggled to keep up with him. For a man of 78, he is super fit and still is as sharp as ever.
Whilst it will be all work, we will take the morning off (when we drive from Le Moire to catch the ferry in Reggio) to make a slight detour to visit Ferrazzano. The home town of my uncle and my father. Whilst I visited my mother’s hometown with my wife and kids a couple of years ago, it has been over thirty years since I visited Ferrazzano.
My father was born in the small vallage Ferruzzano (pictured above) which belongs the Province of Reggio Calabria It is 110 km southwest of Catanzaro and about 40 km east of Reggio Calabria. It is by no means a large village. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of just 863 people.
When i visited last, I was too young to remember all the details and today just have images of the road up to the town. This time, whilst we will only spend an hour or so there, it will memorable and I will savour the fact that I visited the town with my Uncle, who like my father, has played a big role in shaping my life and that of the rest of my family.
It has seemed that for the last fifty years, Calabria has been content to live in the shadow of the richer regions to it’s north. Many argue that this has been the result of years of neglect from it’s own people. Why would other regions try and lift Calabria off the canvas when indeed it did not one to help itself?
After the second world war, there was a mass exodus from the region to other parts of the world: all looking for a better future. In Australia, much of the immigration from Italy in the 1950’s and 1960’s were from the poor farmers and unskilled workers from Calabria. They left the south for a better life: where hard work and optimism would enable them to get ahead and thrive in a country like Australia. My grandfather, was one of these people.
The people that left Calabria behind had no real intention of ever returning to their homeland: Australia really was the promised land. The only thing that they kept were the love of Southern Italian cooking and fifty years on, these traditions are still much very alive with many families with a Calabrian heritage in Australia.
My parents, my aunties and uncles, my brothers and sisters all still cook predominately dishes that were being served in the kitchens of Calabria fifty years ago.
However whilst we all know about just how special the food of Calabria, wine on the other hand, was forgotten and even up to just a few years ago, the wines of Calabria were seen in the eyes of most of the world as bulk wine at best.
Well those who think Calabria as just a bulk wine producer today need to retry just how good the wines are and it seems that the sleeping giant has woken and many producers of Calabria are now getting recognition for many years of hard work. The key to this recent success can be narrowed down to two red grape varieties: Galliopo and Magliocco.
Some of the amazing reds of Calabria that I tried at Radici del Sud 2012
At Radici del Sud 2012, a competition that celebrates the native varieties of Southern Italy, it was these two grape varieties that showed for me the most promise. The best examples were complex, had fantastic line and length and had the capacity to age for many years. These characters are for me an indication that the red wines of Calabria ought to be seen as ‘serious and worthy’ native Italian grape varieties.
In Australia this year, via Mondo Imports we starting working with a new and small producer of Magliocco from Calabria. The winery of Le Moire was our first link back to our past, to a region we left more than 50 years ago.
To say that the wines have been well received in Australia would be massive understatement. Even though the majority of wine lovers in Australia have not tried a wine from Calabria or heard of Magliocco as a grape variety has not stopped Le Moire being a big success in both wine shops and restaurants in Melbourne and Sydney. So much so that our second order has just left and we have doubled our initial order just to keep up with demand.
Wineries like Le Moire in Calabria that focus on working with native varieties and promote optimism and hard work as a key to their business shows to me that the Calabria that we knew is changing. And who knows, it time the wines of Calabria around the world might even be as famous as it’s food….
Well you might think that after close to seven hours of trying wines of the south of Italy that you might reach a stage where your palate and brain has had enough, but it has been so amazing how diverse and fantastic the wines from Campania, Sicily, Basilicata, Puglia and Calabria.
There are many great producers here with the best wines showing both elegance and power, and beautiful balance. Today it was two Calabrese producers that really shone through.
The wines of Du Cropio from Calabria.
Two Ciro producers, Du Cropio and Ippolito 1845 are making some fantastic wines from Galliopo in Calabria. They are have fantastic power of fruit and tannins, but are in perfect balance and I can see both wines ageing gracefully for many years to come.
The reputation of Southern Italian wines are positively growing and it was producers like Du Cropio and Ippolito 1845 that are now showing just how good the varieties they grow can be and this benefits not only Calabria but the whole of the south.
Can’t wait to show this wine now in Australia. Indigenous grape variety Magliocco from Calabria that is fragrant, perfumed and a great introduction into Calabria.
Today was one of the reasons why Vinitaly is so important for wine importers from places so far away like Australia: to be able to go from Calabria to Campania and finally Tuscany (Chianti Classico) all in one day was worth the 30 hours on a plane just for that.
In Campania I visited our new producer for Mondo Imports, Salvatore Molettieri and tried through three vintages of each wine.
Salvatore Molettieri stand in Campania Pavilion: Vinitaly 2012
I also had time to visit our Calabrian producer ‘Le Moire’ who makes a small of amount of wine with passion and dedication that I find quite inspiring. His 2011 vintages reds look fantastic and I can’t wait to show these wines in Australia.
From their I moved to Tuscany and tried three a number of different Chianti Classico and Chianti Classico Riserva’s from all the benchmark producers that find their way to Australia. I loved the standard 2009 Chianti Classico and 2007 Chianti Riserva’s. These are stunning vintages for these two wines.
Tonight I am looking forward to a hearty meal and finish (or maybe start) the night with a Spritz in Piazza Erbe which is exactly what I did last night…
Spritz in Piazza Erbe (Verona)
Tomorrow I will do Franciacorta and Brunello di Montalcino.
After delays due to the snow and shocking weather in Italy, our container of Southern Italian reds has finally left for it’s voyage to Australia. I am so excited to showcase Calabrian wines made from native varieties in Australia.
I think the next ten years are going to be fantastic for the wines of the South of Italy. Our climate in Australia is not disimilar to that of the south so hopefully we get some of our local producers planting these varieties in Australia. It will be fascinating to compare the two.
Last night we sent email confirmation for our first order from Calabria. We will start with one producer and one wine. The wine is made from Magliocco Dolce, grown at 400 metres in middle Savuto valley in the Motta Santa Lucia (CZ) commune. Plant density is eight thousand plants per hectare which is almost unheard of in Calabria.
And in their own words: ‘Quality for us means folks, relationships, dutifulness, confidence’.
As an importer of Italian wine into Australia, there is not much more I could ask for and I can’t wait for these wines to arrive in Australia sometime in March and it will retail for around $20 a bottle.
One good things about importing the wines of Calabria into Australia is that there are so many good producers that do not have importers with Australia. This is in contrast to the North where many of the regions best producers secured an Australian importer twenty five years ago.
I have some samples of Greco and Gaglioppo from a producer which champions indigenous varieties and is based only in Calabria. The wines have received frantastic reviews so lets hope I like them!!
Whilst I consider myself Australian, I have a strong urge to embrace Calabria on all fronts. I want to embrace it on a personal and business front. I want my children to know their origins. I want my children to know why I constantly crave pasta. I want my children to know why I speak rough Italian with a slang. The imprint of Calabria is all over myself and family but it seems that whilst we have moved forward, Calabria is still the same old beast my parents knew fifty years ago.
Both my parents were born in Calabria. My mother was born in the village of Sambiase which now belongs to the municipality of Lamezia Terme, in the province of Catanzaro.
My father was born in the small vallage Ferruzzano (pictured above) which belongs the Province of Reggio Calabria It is 110 km southwest of Catanzaro and about 40 km east of Reggio Calabria. It is by no means a large village. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of just 863 people.
Pretty amazing to think that we have traced our roots back 60 years and now a big part of Mondo Imports is importing the wines of the south of Italy back to Australia. We have focused on indeginous grape varieties grown in the regions and import from every region of southern Italy except one.
Can you guess which region that is?
Calabria. The region from which both my parents and their parents and their parents were born. This is something I would like to change in the next couple of years. However, it will not be for the sake of importing from Calabria. It needs to be able to stack up with the rest of the south.
Many argue that this will never happen.
Whilst regions like Basilicata, Puglia and Campania make giant strides forward in regards to quality and awareness in nearly every global market, Calabria sadly lags behinds in all of this. The poor cousin of the south seems destined to remain in the background for the foreseeable future and it will be interesting to see if the region as a whole will be able to get itself ‘front and center’ and gain international attention for the right reasons.
Why Calabria? Why has it been in the background for so long? Many argue that it is Calabria’s own fault. Whilst I do not know enough about the politics of Calabria to have a position on this, I do hope that I will be do my part and increase the exposure of Calabrian wine in Australia.
Next year at Vinitaly, I will not do as I normally do and walk straight past the Calabria building to get to the Piemont, Tuscany, Abruzzo and Puglia buildings, but actually take the time and go through the wines, producer by producer and you never know, we might one day have a fellow Calabrese producer in our portfolio….
Anthony D'Anna: Italian wine importer and merchant in Australia
il vino da tavola 