Pinot Grigio Explained: Italian Wine Regions and Labels | Giovanni Barone

This is a Vintage episode from 2010

Why This Episode Matters

• Why most Pinot Grigio on the market tastes the same—and how to spot the real thing
• The difference between DOC vs IGT wines (and why it actually matters in your glass)
• How geography—especially Trentino-Alto Adige—shapes flavor more than marketing ever will
• A candid look at wine pricing: what’s quality vs what’s branding

The Banter

Mark Pascal and Francis Schott open with stories from interviewing restaurant staff highlighting a simple truth: honesty matters more than experience, especially in hospitality.

The Conversation

Giovanni Barone of Barone Fini joins the show to break down the misunderstood world of Pinot Grigio. He explains how Italy’s regional identity, not the country itself, defines wine, and why Trentino-Alto Adige produces fresher, more food-friendly expressions due to extreme temperature swings and alpine conditions.

The discussion pulls back the curtain on the wine business: from bulk wine labeled as premium bottles to the outsized role of branding in pricing. Giovanni makes the case for purity and restraint in winemaking, contrasting it with more manipulated styles found elsewhere.

Along the way, the conversation becomes a broader philosophy of food and drink: great wine isn’t about flash—it’s about flavor, place, and how it works at the table.

Timestamps

• 00:00 – Interview horror stories & hiring philosophy
• 08:45 – Introducing Giovanni Barone & Barone Fini
• 10:30 – What “DOC” actually means (and why you should care)
• 14:00 – The realities of the wine business in Italy
• 20:30 – Italian wine rules, climate, geography, and flavor
• 27:00 – Why Pinot Grigio works with food (even rich dishes)
• 32:00 – Pricing, branding, and the truth about expensive Pinot Grigio
• 37:00 – DOC vs IGT explained simply
• 41:00 – Purity in wine vs mass-market production

Bio

Giovanni Barone is part of the Barone Fini family, a historic winemaking estate in Italy’s Trentino-Alto Adige region. His family’s winemaking roots date back to the late 15th century, and he has helped bring their Pinot Grigio to international markets while advocating for traditional, terroir-driven wines.

Info

• Barone Fini Wines https://www.baronefiniwines.com/
• The Restaurant Guys at La Petraia https://www.restaurantguyspodcast.com/2390435/episodes/16144212-la-petraia-the-guys-go-to-italy

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https://www.stageleft.com/

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Transcript

Francis 0:41

Morning, mark.

Mark 0:42

Hey Francis.

Francis 0:42

How are you this morning?

Mark 0:43

I'm very well. How are you?

Francis 0:44

I'm, I'm, I'm well. And I know that you today want to talk a little bit about, uh, interviews because we've been doing, we've been doing a bunch of interviews, um, for, for the restaurants and, uh, they're always interesting, aren't they?

Mark 0:56

Francis and I have a, a great little system where, uh, you go through an interview process and you finish with one of us

Francis 1:03

before

Mark 1:03

you're hired. So

Francis 1:04

you interview with the staff. You don't really, you even interview with management. You interview with various members of the staff, and then you do a trail in the restaurant. And then if you make it through and the rest of the staff who admittedly has to work with you, the full house,

Mark 1:14

give us recommendations.

Francis 1:15

Uh, we, we'll meet with you. If you make it through them, you get to talk to us.

Mark 1:18

Okay. So the final stage of the interview is, is meeting with us.

Francis 1:21

Usually. Usually they, they don't let through wackadoos. Um,

Mark 1:25

but sometimes, but what I will tell you is there has been a, a magnificent group of interesting folks coming through the door anyway. I had one woman come in the door the other day and. You just know someone's BSing and Francis and I have been giving interviews for a long time, and anybody out there, uh, I'm sure a lot of you give interviews and you just know when someone's BSing. And, uh, I guess one of my character flaws is when I, when I know someone's BSing. I always dig a little deeper. I always keep going. I always ask for a little bit more information. Well,

Francis 2:02

it's a way to make sure that they're BSing and a way to amuse yourself a little

Mark 2:05

bit. I, I, you know, just a small example, I had a guy the other day and I'm asking him, what he wants to do with his life, you know, as far as a career goes, and he says, I'd like to open my own restaurant. 10 minutes later in the interview, this is a college student, what are you doing after graduation? Oh, I'm gonna get an internship and, uh, go work on Wall Street. Hmm. You realize that doesn't agree with your earlier answer, right? So I, so I, I, I love catching people in those kinds of things and, and I'm always surprised how much people will be Yes. In their interview, oh God,

Francis 2:36

people will just lie.

Mark 2:37

And I had a woman sitting in that, that dreaded chair the other day. I began talking to her and she really spoke a lot about how the restaurant business is my life. I love food, I love cooking, I love, you know, all these things. Well, if I, and, and one of my favorite questions asked is, okay, well if I'm paying for dinner, where would you like to eat? Anywhere in the world? Her answer, my dad's kitchen. Okay. You get to eat in your dad's kitchen all the time for free, right?

Francis 3:07

Right.

Mark 3:07

Okay, that answer doesn't count. Next answer. Here

Francis 3:12

also not allowed, also not sucking up, uh, minus your plus two points, whatever it is, but it, new answer. Need a new answer. So, you know,

Mark 3:20

this woman just keeps going on and on and on with bad information. So, uh, I know all about food. You won't have to teach me anything about food if you hire me. Really. That's great. Okay. So yeah, I go to all the best restaurants. I go to Ruth Adams, you know, I go there all the time. You know, Ruth's Chris is, I'm pretty sure the restaurant she was talking about. Yeah,

Francis 3:43

probably. Yeah.

Mark 3:44

and the other she said, and I love caviar. Oh, really? Well, what kind of Cary do you like? Her response? Beautiful. Beautiful response. I like black and red.

Francis 3:55

Yeah, that's awful.

Mark 3:57

I was like, again, it's okay if you don't know about caviar. I'm gonna be honest with you. 80% of the people I hire when I hire them, dude, don't know that much about caviar. Dude,

Francis 4:05

front of house, 90% of who we hire.

Mark 4:07

Okay? 90% don't know about caviar. That's fine,

Francis 4:09

right? That's the thing. We'll hire people without experience. Well, I don't need you to have restaurant experience. I don't need you to have. Time going out for restaurant experience. But what I do need is you, to be honest, and that's the funny thing, is, you know, people fake experience all the time that frankly I don't give a, I don't care about, I don't give a rat's butt. Mm-hmm. Whether you worked here or there, because mark and I view the philosophy, especially in front of house, especially if we're hiring for an entry level position. I don't care where else you worked because I'm gonna teach you a different way to do things anyway. I can teach any. Hardworking, nice, dedicated, loyal, honest person. How to be a good waiter. I can't teach someone who knows how to be a good waiter to be any of those other things, you know? But when you lie about it in the interview, man, it's, I, you're lying about food. Mm-hmm. And that's the thing that always you have

Mark 4:50

food to the guy who has a restaurant for 18 years.

Francis 4:52

Right? Right. You only the food to me, you wanna lie about like rocket science to me, I'm not gonna figure it out. You don't have to know much to know more than I do. But you're lying to me about food and restaurants. What you think you're gonna get away with it. It's crazy.

Mark 5:03

So anyway, one of the things we do at the beginning of shift is we have family meal where we all sit and have dinner together and you know, the first bit of it is week of bits and talk about the things that have, that have happened to us over the course of the last 24 hours. Then we do some sort of training anyway in that first little bit of family meal. Now how Family Meal Works is you basically sit wherever you want. But what I'll tell you is generally those people who have only been working for a week or two for us, they kind of self-segregate. Right? Right. They sit kind of at their own table away from anybody who might be intimidating.

Francis 5:35

Right? Right.

Mark 5:36

Okay. Anyway, this girl sits right across from the chef. Okay. No problems. That's, that's totally fine. No, Francis just remembered the story. Okay.

Francis 5:44

And Chef Jr. Belt, by the way, is the most even keeled. He is intelligent.

Mark 5:49

I'm gonna tell you,

Francis 5:49

even keeled chef I've ever encountered,

Mark 5:50

easily the nicest chef I've ever encountered

Francis 5:52

as Oh, nice. One of the nicest guys in the world.

Mark 5:54

So she's sitting there and she says something dumb and he lets it go. And then finally she goes, uh, and she goes, you, oh, you're the cook. And he goes, I'm the chef. He goes, oh, the chef. Okay. So if somebody has a bad meal and really hates it, you're the guy I blame. Right? And he just turns to her and he goes. I need you to shut up and go to sit at the other table,

Francis 6:16

get up, get up, get up. Let's go sit up at the other

Mark 6:18

table. Go sit with the new guys. It was was one of those moments that, you know, again, it's a very even keeled guy. He lets a lot of stuff roll off his back and it was one of those moments that you just didn't expect.

Francis 6:29

And I thought to myself, haven't you even watched the Food Network? He said, he's the chef. I, you know, I don't, oh my goodness. I thought you're not gonna make it.

Mark 6:38

That's

Francis 6:39

what

Mark 6:39

I thought. I need you to leave the table. those types of things, they're priceless. I'm sorry. I, I realize that, that maybe I'm laughing at someone else's expense a little bit, but it's somebody who was totally trying to BS me, and if you totally try and BS me, I'm gonna make fun of you.

Francis 6:54

You know, I wanna ask a slightly different, topic because of this system where we have the staff interview new staff before they get to us, we, we weed it out, Tre, we don't waste a lot of our time on people who make mistakes like that. when we interview back of the house people though, we, if we're, it's a senior person in the back of the house and we haven't hired anybody senior in the back of the house in a long time. We have very stable staff. but we were interviewing chefs or sous chefs, and I remember this a long time ago, but I'll always remember this story and but. I'm gonna tell you about somebody who came, who was offensive to us. I remember there was a guy and I, I can't believe they're out there and we hear the stories from our staff when they get people in. The people who get weed out, they'll tell us the story of something crazy they did. But this guy was interviewing for a senior position. It was either sous chef or chef, and he had cooked us some decent food and. But what he, what he did during the interview process, I, I couldn't even believe it. I'm talking to this guy. I, you remember this? Oh, I remember

Mark 7:47

the story going

Francis 7:48

So tell us about his last place he worked. He's like, yeah, he was pretty good. You know, we, we brought things up. It got boring after a while and, uh, the owners weren't really, and they're saying bad things about his former employers, which was always a bad idea in an interview. And he said, but you know, we did a really good job there. Oh, I remember the two things this guy said. The one thing he said, he said, well, why did the restaurant, you know, go down? He's. Customers.

Mark 8:06

Customers.

Francis 8:07

The customer. What do you mean? The customers?

Mark 8:08

I thought you were gonna miss this one.

Francis 8:10

They, they didn't get what we were doing. I'm like, oh, but they, they did get what you were doing. You're going outta business. They got it. They got it. Exactly. I

Mark 8:17

was doing some really good stuff and they didn't understand

Francis 8:20

it. Uh,

Mark 8:20

and that's exactly what he said.

Francis 8:22

All right. Well, that was our depressing interview. Sorry. But they, but we, we just like, when we find great wines, we plow through all that shaft to find the glorious wheat. we do have a great staff. I will tell you. Really amazing.

Mark 8:31

Yep.

Francis 8:32

Very happy. Well, we'll be back in just a moment. Uh, we're gonna talk to, an Italian wine producer who you may not have heard of, but who has some great wines that are really reasonable and available. And, uh, we'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys

Speaker 4 8:43

Hello everybody and welcome back. It's Mark and Francis, the restaurant guys, and our guest today is Giovanni Bon Martini Feeny.

Francis 8:49

Giovanni's Family Winery is, uh, the Baroni Fini Winery and Trentino Alto Adi region in northern Italy. well, he's visiting America right now and joins us today on the show.

Giovanni 8:58

Jovan Bonno.

Mark 8:59

Giovanni,

Giovanni 8:59

welcome to

9:00

the

Mark 9:00

show.

Giovanni 9:01

Bonno Marco. Bonno Francis. Francesco Francis would be Francesco.

Francis 9:06

I know it could be Francesco for today. In Irish. In Irish should be pontious, you know. But it says we don't. We don't.

Giovanni 9:11

My Irish is terrible.

Francis 9:12

Yeah. And Irish wine is worse. Lemme tell

Giovanni 9:14

you before going forward, I wanted to tell you that I coined the name of your show. I listened to a bunch of your broadcast off of over, obviously, from Italy. I can't listen to it live, but I can, uh, download those podcasts and I love doing that. So I've coined your show now that Azi.

Francis 9:33

Azi. Very nice. I like that very much. We're gonna have to get restaurant guides at ie, right? Or is it, is it it, is it like restaurant guides at it?

Giovanni 9:40

And I'd like a percentage of that business because I'm very entrepreneurial.

Francis 9:44

Certainly we will talk about the capital investment after the show. It'll be, it'll be something you could, not too painful, I assure you.

Mark 9:50

Giovanni, besides, you know how easy it is to make a lot of money in, in the wine business.

Giovanni 9:54

Uh, I know how difficult it is.

Mark 9:56

It's the same, it's the same in the restaurant, slash radio show podcast business.

Francis 10:02

I

Giovanni 10:02

believe it.

Francis 10:03

Well, we, we called you on the show because we wanted to talk about your, your winery, and I think one of the things that struck us about your message that you get out all the time. We should let the people in the listening audience know that you make, Pinot Grigio and, Merlo in, in the Trentino Alto Adi region, right?

Giovanni 10:20

Yes.

Francis 10:20

and something that you really harp on and, and really point out is that you say, I'll quote you who you say, America is a wash. in cheap IGT, Pinot Grigio. And you point out that your family's Pinot Grigio is a DOC Pinot Grigio. And for geeks like us in the wine business, we know exactly what that means. And of course it's very important, but I think, um, this is an opportunity to. To talk a little bit more about what exactly that means, sort of the, the, um, the, the complex, what can be seemingly complex lexicon of, of Italian wine regions and, and how we judge, you know, different levels of quality of Italian wine.

Giovanni 11:00

Well, uh, you just, uh. Got me going on about 10 different things. How much time do we have on this program?

Francis 11:08

Well, the listeners are gonna turn us off in about, we're can turn it full bit. You can keep talking. We can keep talking. But the show is only, is only half an hour,

Giovanni 11:14

uh, half, only a half hour. That's, that's a lot of time. Well, the first thing I can do is, uh, just in case if people like what they hear and um. I'll give them a good vehicle to remember the name of my wine. That was, uh, that is literally probably one of the first Pinot Gritos to come to this country about 35 years ago. My uncle. Started, uh, exporting wine outside of Italy. He was producing Pinot Grigio for the Italian market and then started selling it to the us. He loved the United States. I love the us You can tell I have an American accent.

Francis 11:50

Yeah, you do.

Giovanni 11:51

And there's a good reason for that. My mother is from New York.

Francis 11:54

Oh.

Giovanni 11:56

And, and I actually went to college. In New Jersey

Francis 11:59

where

Giovanni 12:00

I went to Princeton.

Francis 12:02

Oh, just

Giovanni 12:02

Southwest. And one of, one of the reasons I'm actually sitting in a hotel in Chicago, um, I'm doing the thing that I love to do most sell and taste people on our wines. Mm. And, uh, one of the reasons that I'm here in Chicago is this weekend I have my 25th reunion at Princeton.

Mark 12:19

Wow.

Giovanni 12:19

And so, uh, I'll be drinking a lot of beer, unfortunately, but that's what they have. And, uh, having a great time. But I just going back to remembering the name of our wine, uh, they used to call me teeny weenie, although totally uncorrect Bon Martini. So if anybody has problems remembering the name of our Barini wine, just remember Tini Weenie Barini.

Francis 12:44

Really, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to disagree you guys. I'm gonna have to disagree with you here and, uh, encourage the listeners not to do that. Okay? If you came out, if you came out with airplane bottles, however, we would, you know, the little teeny bottles, nevermind. That's terrible. All right. This was,

Giovanni 13:00

there's, that's going back to the entrepreneurial side. That's a tough business and it's tough enough selling. Actually, I have to say that my, the main business that pays the bills is actually a toner cartridge. I have a chain of 600 stores in Europe selling consumables for printers.

Francis 13:18

but the much more exciting thing to talk about is the wine business.

Mark 13:20

Yes. You know, but, but Francis and I, we find this a lot, a lot of times that. People in the wine world basically have to subsidize the, the passion of making great wine. Oh, absolutely. With some other kind of business.

Giovanni 13:32

Absolutely. I am so passionate about the wine call, just call it about wine in, in general. I do drink a half a bottle and I have to hold myself back every evening.

Mark 13:43

Mm-hmm.

Giovanni 13:43

going from there, just that I love the taste. I love to drink it with, with food. For me it is food. In fact, wine in Italy is considered. Food it, uh, when it gets delivered, unlike the United States, that it's regulated by the A TF, alcohol, tobacco, and Firearms. So alcohol in the US is practically like explosives,

Francis 14:04

uhhuh.

Giovanni 14:05

Instead in Italy, it gets delivered with a fresh produce.

Francis 14:08

Right, right.

Giovanni 14:08

And, and, and I'll hit upon a little bit what's, uh, conceptually the concept of Pinot Grigio, which should be fresh and crisp and clean and natural. Which, which are all, uh, basic concepts. And, and you'll see when we get there. Um. Why they're so natural that the pin egregious from our area because of the, their heritage. Um, but just closing to close off on the toner business, that's what pays the bills. And, uh, to run a business, a growing business, we we're growing about 30% a year to grow a business in Italy and in Europe is about twice the energy or maybe three times the energy it is to grow a business in the United States.

Mark 14:52

Why is that?

Giovanni 14:52

Why is that? Yeah. Uh, I can write a book about it. Uh, we could do probably three hours on this radio show, but I can give you a couple fun examples.

Mark 15:03

Great.

Giovanni 15:04

Um, for instance, banks don't give us any money. Why you asked, well, they don't give you money in the United States either, but let's say that Greece is a good example of how difficult it, it is for us. Banks just don't wanna risk their money on businesses. So what do we have? We, we have to, if we wanna grow. And when you're growing, you need to get money from your own pocket to in, in order for it to grow. But then on the flip side, the government wants to get their taxes paid first. And that is regardless of whether a customer pays you, and here's the, here's the toughest part. Customers don't pay in Italy. Um, some do, but most of them don't. Or they pay very slowly. So what happens is we have to pay the profit and the sales tax, which is 20% VAT in Italy, well before a customer pays us.

Mark 15:56

So you're paying on your accounts receivable even though you don't have the money yet

Giovanni 16:00

Correct.

Mark 16:00

To pay through taxes. Wow.

Giovanni 16:02

So that's that. That's like a financial difficulty. Then there's a million bureaucratic difficulties and I guess just go on for hours and hours. So for me to go back to wine is like the passion of my life. Mm-hmm. I married, I have two kids. Unfortunately, the passion of women, I had to leave that behind. So I, A good replacement is wine.

Mark 16:23

Well, I, I'll tell you, Giovanni, maybe the only advantage that the restaurant business has over any other business in the world is when somebody gets whatever you're selling, they pay you immediately. That is

Giovanni 16:34

an amazing

Mark 16:35

advantage. it is the one advantage in it, in a world of, of

Francis 16:39

dis

Mark 16:39

perishability. Exactly.

Francis 16:40

But literally when you walk out the door, you don't owe me any money in, but, but the other thing is, you know, from the emotional standpoint, obviously we feel similarly about restaurants. And, uh, you know, I, a good friend of mine is a guy named George Henry, who's a winemaker out in California. And he said to me once something I thought was very, was really wise. George is a, is an older fellow. George is in his seventies and he's been farming the same farm, uh, since he was in his thirties or twenties. And, um, and he's also a nuclear physicist by training, you know, that's what he does to pay the bills. you know, he said he's one of the most intelligent, uh, and knowledgeable farmers in all of California and. He said something about his, you know, lifetime of experience. He said, Francis, agricultural experiments take a minimum of one year. You get one shot a year to try something different. You get one growing season to see what comes out. And sometimes you wait five years for the results. one of the great things about the restaurant business is we're on the end of it where. We are right there when we open the bottle of wine and pour it for the customer and look at them, and they either smile or frown. You know, when we present our food to someone, they're right there. When we pour your wine to someone, you're in Italy. I get to get all the credit for all the hard work that you did. You know, and it's, it's really, really gratifying.

Mark 17:50

And please know that we're not afraid to take all the credit.

Francis 17:52

Oh,

Mark 17:52

yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. We picked this beautiful wine right off the shelf and brought it

Giovanni 17:56

to you. I'm gonna tell you guys another secret. You make all the profit on it too.

Francis 18:00

Yeah. Well, talk to me about last year. I don't know that you'd, uh, I think we're

Giovanni 18:03

gonna sell the boat. Well, you have the costs. You have the costs. But let me tell you, the, the, the FOB price of my wine when it comes out of, uh, Italy is very low compared to what you guys sell it by the glass.

Francis 18:14

Yeah, no, it's true. But, you know, it's funny, when we were, we were recently at a conference where I know you go over you, we were over in, at, uh, VE Italy in, in Verona.

Giovanni 18:22

Mm-hmm.

Francis 18:22

you know, we helped, uh, friends of ours who have import businesses to, you know, select wines and, and, and bring them over. the cost of the bottle of wine is really not related to what you wind up paying in the end, because by the time you add on taxes and shipping and storage and marketing and shipping samples and registering it in the United States and then registering it in the state of New Jersey, the state of New York or wherever you are, and then holding the inventory and paying me in and out on the, it's like. You know, the cost of producing a bottle of wine, you know that that money's not going to the wine maker. Absolutely not. You know, it's, there are a little mar there are a lot of people involved in getting that bottle of wine to you. Mm-hmm.

Mark 18:59

There, there may be as many as four layers from the time you sell your wine to the time I sell your wine to the, to the last yeah. Person.

Giovanni 19:08

Well, I know one thing. I mean, all those layers, the people that do the, the most work. Mm-hmm. Okay. Are is the producer, I believe. Mm-hmm. And. the sales point, whether it be a restaurant or a store. Mm-hmm. I mean, you, you have more labor per unit sold. Then let's say a distributor that has vast quantities of wine and, and they can load them up in, on pallets into trucks and stuff, so, right.

Mark 19:33

We sell'em one bottle at a time. Right. They sell

Giovanni 19:35

50

Mark 19:35

cases at a time. We sell one bottle at

Giovanni 19:37

a time. And you have people to pay and ma, you know, families to, to maintain and, health care to pay and all those things.

Francis 19:43

Yeah. It's a crazy situation. But let's get back to talking about,

Giovanni 19:46

okay. I'll get you going then.

Francis 19:47

Okay.

Giovanni 19:48

How old is Italy as a country? That's a trick question. I always love to ask people.

Francis 19:52

I'm gonna say Italy as a country is

Giovanni 19:56

Francesco.

Francis 19:57

I'm gonna, I'm gonna say, uh, a hundred years old.

Giovanni 20:00

That is very good. That's amazing. Most people fall in the trap, thousands of years old and so forth. People that are mostly people, uh, that are in the wine industry or in the restaurant business, do know, how old Italy is the, the concept is Italy is a very old country. It's not an old country. It's a very young country. The regions are very old and the origins are very old. Um, but Italy was only united about 120 years ago.

Francis 20:29

Right. Well, and, and, and to look at those different regions. It's funny because we teach wine classes all the time, and one of the things that people say to us is they say, why is this so confusing? And I, and I always explain to them that, you know, the, the rules of, of, of, of making wine in Chianti, the origin of those rules in Tuscany began before Italy was even a country. And they developed their own rules and the veto developed its own rules. And Alto Aji developed its own rules.

Giovanni 20:55

Absolutely.

Francis 20:56

And, and what we are doing is we are seeing the international market now, but those were rules that made sense when you were, when you were talking about regional economies.

Giovanni 21:03

Yep.

Francis 21:04

So,

Giovanni 21:04

well, one of the, guiding rules of wine making in Italy because the origins do go back to the Roman times, is the Romans just threw the grapes into big pho us and let them ferment naturally. Okay.

Francis 21:19

Mm-hmm.

Giovanni 21:20

Um, still today, the concept of Italian wine making is do not touch, you're not allowed to add anything. Nothing. They just recently, about a year ago, passed wood chips.

Francis 21:32

Mm-hmm.

Giovanni 21:33

So the Italians now can cheat a little bit on the wood flavor, but nothing else. I mean, I'm not even gonna tell you what they can do in other countries.

Francis 21:40

Right.

Giovanni 21:40

Okay. And, but you can imagine, and uh, in France they can even play around with the sugars and things like that. All we do is we pick our grapes. Crush them lightly because they're red grapes. Pinot Grigio is actually a red grape.

Mark 21:54

Mm-hmm.

Giovanni 21:55

And, uh, going back to Trentino Alto Adige, that region in, before World War I, the area of, of Trentino Alto Adige was part of Austria. Now Italy was on the right side of the war the first time around.

Francis 22:09

Right, right.

Giovanni 22:09

And he won the war. And so we got a chunk of Austria.

Francis 22:12

Right.

Giovanni 22:12

So the people that work at my winery, the, the, the people that work for me, they speak Italian Visa, German accent, poncho

Francis 22:20

Choi.

Giovanni 22:22

And uh, it's, it's quite funny, you know, the all, if you look at all the Alto Winery names, you know, some of the, the biggest names, they're all German names. And my German is pretty bad, but anyway, they, they don't, they do all speak Italian

Francis 22:38

Uhhuh.

Giovanni 22:38

World War I, the region becomes, before that it was Austria and our wine heritage is Austrian, which is very different from let's say Oli, that also makes Pinot Grigios

Francis 22:49

right.

Giovanni 22:50

And has a slightly different. Heritage more. I, I'm not exactly sure of the heritage of the Ian, but you know, if we go back to the Romans, then we go, the Austrian have a huge influence. And also our, our region Trentino Alto Adige with, again, with the Austrian heritage is a very, very. Special geographic area of Italy. It's known for the be probably the best skiing in Italy. our vineyards are on the sides of beautiful mountains. I wish I could show you. I wish I could, but, but at least I'll try and let everybody imagine how beautiful it is. Imagine sheer walls of red granite. Jetting up with a kind of a tabletop on top coming down and then all this gravel, with a not so steep slope coming down into the valley. And that gravel is where is terraced with our vineyards on them.

Francis 23:48

Wow. And you know, it's funny when you talk about vineyards on terrorist gravel or difficult soils when, when vines have to work a little bit to survive. And when vines are subject to an alpine environment like that, they have very warm days and cool nights. That's called a big diurnal swing in the temperature. Mm-hmm. Um, it, you know, the, the grapes get all the benefit of all that photosynthesis during the day and that cooling down at night really makes some of the best, is characteristic of some of the best wine regions all over the world.

Giovanni 24:14

Marco, I have a question about this Francesco guy. You said he's Irish. How come he knows so much about wine?

Mark 24:20

Uh, he's just been paying attention for a long time.

Francis 24:23

We, we Irish know our drink. That's it Anyway, so, talk about what this unique, geography imparts to. Um, specifically Trentino Alto Adi Pinot Grigio, that is different from other Pinot Grigio.

Giovanni 24:38

Well, I'll get more into that more at right now. Um, that Adi, do you know what the Adi J is? it. It's a river,

Francis 24:46

right?

Giovanni 24:47

Uh, not people. People think of the region, they, they look at the DOC. Now our wine is DOC. That means that our wine comes from a region. You can actually say it comes from this specific part and actually our winery is. One set of vineyards on one mountain and very specific, whereas most Pinot Grigios, and we're going back to that flood issue, you, it's mostly bulk. You have no idea where the wine comes from. It just comes from basic general areas of Italy. Uh, but our, our winery is in this, on the, on those terraces on the side of these beautiful mountains. In the wintertime, it's probably the coldest part of Italy. they get the, the coldest days. And in the summertime, believe it or not, they get the hottest days because as the sun goes over, the heat gets trapped in the valley and you have the temperatures going well over 110 degrees. So you have these tremendous, uh. Uh, heat and cold in the seasons, and then during the daytime, in the summertime, uh, in, at nighttime because the sun basically stops shining in at about 5:00 PM although there's lots of sun that the, the tops of the mountains block it and the the vineyards are then in the shade. What happens is at about 9:00 PM 10:00 PM the cold air from the glaciers comes into the valley and cools the vineyards and the, and the air. Down, maybe to the sixties.

Francis 26:15

Wow, that's a big swing.

Giovanni 26:16

So you've got tremendous tempera, temperature swings.

Francis 26:18

Mm-hmm. And so let's, but let's talk about, actually, you know, we need to take a quick break. But when we come back on the other side, I wanna talk about what this means. what you see in the glass as a result of all, of, all this difference. And we'll be back in just a moment. We're gonna talk more with Giovanni Bon Martini Feeney of, uh, Baroni, Feeney, Pinot Grigio, and Merlot in just a moment. You are listening to the restaurant guys

26:37

Hey everybody. Welcome back. It's the restaurant guys, mark and Francis. And our guest is Giovanni Van Martini. Feeney from the winery of Veroni. Feeney in, Trentino Alto Adi.

Francis 26:46

We were talking about Pinot Grigio, which is one of which is maybe is that the, you produce more Pinot Grigio than anything else. Well

Giovanni 26:52

for the US market. Absolutely.

Francis 26:54

So we were talking about Pinot Grigio and we're talking about it coming, yours coming specifically from the DOC or the region gra um, region of, of nCino Alta compared with. Wines that come from elsewhere. And we were talking about the specifics of the place. Um, how does that express itself in the glass? How does the, how is the wine? How is the wine from Trent, the Pinot Grigio from Trentino Alto Adi, different from FLI and Pinot Grigio or, or Pinot Grigio from other, other regions of Italy.

Giovanni 27:27

I'm gonna say it in the quick response and then a little bit longer response. The best way to describe the Pinot Gritos from R Valley are they can. They're fresh, crisp, and basically can go with any food you can imagine. My favorite tastings are I actually do some cooking myself, and I make this, uh, sugo a bologna, A true bolognese sauce, has no tomato in it. I just put a little bit of onions, a little bit of carrots with so olive oil, fry them a little bit, and then I throw in three meats pork. Uh, ground meats, pork, veal and, and,

Francis 28:06

beef.

Giovanni 28:07

Beef, exactly. I was thinking, cow.

Francis 28:09

I got it.

Giovanni 28:10

And, uh, although I sound very American, sometimes I wanna say the word in Italian, but anyway, um, and I cook this for about 10 hours. I am getting hungry. It's like 6:00 PM for me right now, so I cook this, this very, very heavy sauce, very heavy sauce, and then I, I take it to a tasting, everybody gets a little cup of it. And, uh, it smells great and it, it's, it's very dark. It's almost black colored. And, uh, and I ask everybody, what, what do you want to, what would you taste this with? And I have a, a nice Cabernet Sauvignon Heavy Cabernet Sauvignon right there. So they, I give them a glass of that and then I give'em a glass of Arp, Pinot Grigio. I say, okay, who votes what's gonna go better? The Pinot Grigio or the, uh, Cabernet Sauvignon, which is wood aged and everything. I get a nice California. You know, meaty cab. Well, what happens is everybody votes for the cab, but then when I get feedback, 85, 90 5% is the Pinot Grigio went better because it cleans the pallet.

Francis 29:13

Right.

Giovanni 29:14

Right. That freshness, it's actually an effect of taric acid, which is a pleasing acid to the palate.

Francis 29:20

Mm-hmm.

Giovanni 29:21

Cleans the palate. Something like, um, you know, when you're eating sushi and you have the ginger cleans the palate for. From one kind of fish to another. And that's what our, that's the, like the Italian's way of cleaning their palate. They like these fresh. Crisp whites that, that are food wines.

Francis 29:41

Okay. I got a question for you now.

Giovanni 29:43

Yes.

Francis 29:43

Are you willing to part with that bolognese recipe?

Giovanni 29:47

Absolutely.

Francis 29:48

Okay. Giovanni Bon Martini Feeney's recipe for a bologna sauce. Without tomatoes. Uh, and we can try this at home ourselves. I know. I certainly am. So,

Giovanni 29:58

okay. Well, you, you, well actually I add water, but you can put some tomatoes. You cook it so long that the tomatoes disappear.

Francis 30:06

Well,

Giovanni 30:06

but, but you know, whatever recipe I sent to America, people fool around with it.

Francis 30:12

Well, that's the nature of a recipe, right? Right. Know whole

Giovanni 30:14

idea. It's the nature of Americans. Yeah. If you, if you come to Rome when you two, and I heard before we started this program that, uh, one of you, and I won't say which one of you has never been to Rome, which is a cultural sin.

Francis 30:27

An actual crime.

Giovanni 30:28

Anyway, um, hopefully when one, when you two come to Rome, I'm gonna take you to three to three Roman RIAs where they make the famous spaghetti la carbonara. Hmm. Carbon is scrambled eggs with bacon on pasta. That is all. Okay. Now, if you tell an American cook with scrambled eggs and bacon, what? What are they gonna do? That's not enough. We need to put something else. We need to put some onions, we need to put some garlic. We need to put some cream. We need to do this. We need to do well.

Francis 31:02

Yeah. You Italians don't know anything. Of course.

Giovanni 31:04

We don't do anything. We do not, we do nothing.

Francis 31:08

That's funny.

Giovanni 31:09

Anyway, uh, that's, that's similar to our Pinot Grigio. We put, we, uh, I was getting back to this. We crushed the grapes and especially us. Mm-hmm. Our history. Uh, we've, my family's been making wine since 1497.

Francis 31:23

Wow.

Giovanni 31:24

Right after they discovered America, um, not my family, but the,

Francis 31:28

let's say they were busy,

Mark 31:30

they

Francis 31:30

rushed

Mark 31:30

right back and planted a vineyard.

Francis 31:32

Well, they were, that was a busy couple of years For them.

Giovanni 31:34

It was, well, we had to, that was once we discovered America and we sold it off to the, you know,

Francis 31:39

in Spanish,

Giovanni 31:40

Christopher Columbus, the idea

Francis 31:42

uhhuh,

Giovanni 31:42

um, we, we, we had to celebrate. So we started making wine. But we actually do have Venetian documents. My family is from Venice. I'm, uh, Giovanni Bonini the 26th.

Francis 31:54

Really?

Giovanni 31:54

So,

Mark 31:54

wow.

Giovanni 31:55

Yes. But I don't, I don't want to, I don't wanna brag about that or anything.

Mark 31:59

Well, I'm Mark Pascal, the first.

Francis 32:01

I'm Francis Biad Jr. I got two. I got two. Anyway, so

Mark 32:07

Giovanni, I wanna, I want to ask you a question. Yes. And you may not want to answer this question.

Giovanni 32:11

Not

Mark 32:11

sure,

Giovanni 32:11

but.

Mark 32:13

Here's your Pinot Grigio on the shelf for anywhere from 12 to$15. Okay? There are Pinot Grigios that frankly I don't like as well as yours.

Francis 32:22

There are Pin, there are Pinot Grigios that you despise. Mark,

Mark 32:24

let's, let's be honest, that are on the shelves at 30 and$35.

Francis 32:28

Mm-hmm. And I think are ridiculous.

Mark 32:30

Why? Why such a disparate pricing for, Well, I'll say wines of lesser quality.'cause I can say that'cause it's my job to say that. for. Two Pinot Grigios on the, in the marketplace. Why? Why are the prices so different?

Giovanni 32:45

That's somatica.

Francis 32:48

So you have we been snookered into those more expensive Pinot Grigios?

Giovanni 32:51

I'll tell you why ours is not expensive, and I'll tell you why. The most expensive is the most expensive, and then we can go, we can, you can figure out everything else in between.

Mark 33:01

Mm-hmm.

Giovanni 33:02

Ours is not as expensive. It was probably, if not the first Bino Grigio to hit American soil one of the first, but it stayed on the island of Manhattan because we had a distributor that was not aggressive. And my uncle was not aggressive.

Francis 33:17

Mm-hmm.

Giovanni 33:18

So, uh, you know, when these families, when you have lots of old family businesses, generations, you know, tend to live different ways. Mm-hmm. And there was no energy put behind the growth of our brand. So it sat, it sat on Manhattan and, and it was great. I mean, it grew very well in Manhattan and we have a tremendous market in Manhattan. today I'm running the winery and. As you can tell from one, uh, the passion in my voice, the energy, I think I have quite a bit of energy. I, uh, I definitely have am driving our, our wine a lot more. I'm, I'm trying to make more quantities, sell it more, but this is the, our wine has stayed the same in the last 35 years. It's the same label. It's a very traditional label. It's the biggest pinot label you will see in any. Store.

Francis 34:14

Mm-hmm.

Giovanni 34:15

I dare any other, any other pinot Grigio to put that much paper on a bottle.

Francis 34:19

Oh, okay.

Giovanni 34:20

And it's got, and most of the, the label has is a huge coat of arms,

Francis 34:24

Uhhuh.

Giovanni 34:26

And my uncle made that label 35 years ago.

Francis 34:28

Right.

Giovanni 34:29

Now, what does that have to do with all the Pinot Grigios? Well, every year there's a new label out there. And because the market is huge,

Francis 34:37

right?

Giovanni 34:37

It's gigantic. Pinot Grigio is the number one most imported varietal, and I think it's the most, uh, imported. It's between Chardonnay and, and Pinot Grigio, the most drunk and volume, varietal in the United States.

Francis 34:52

So why are the expensive ones expensive?

Giovanni 34:54

Well, the expensive ones are expensive because they can, they've won or they've built a brand that commands. That price, just like you know, why is a Louis Vuitton bag. More expensive than, you know, some other brand that's not well known or, or why is this champagne so bloody expensive? And then the Spanish cava is, is one third.

Francis 35:18

Well, I think, I think though that with a lot of wines, some are more expensive because the cost of production is much more expensive and the cost of land is much more expensive. Whereas what I know of these other Pinot Grigios, it strikes me just from what I know about the wine business, that their cost of producing these big brand name Pinot Grigios are, are certainly no greater than your, and even lower than your cost of producing on a smaller scale, uh, at Barini, so that it's not in the bottle, not in the cost of the wine. What is all marketing and profit?

Giovanni 35:45

Uh, well, it's profits that I don't know now that the dollar is going up, the profits are going up too for the lucky Italians that are importing into the United States. It's been austerity for the few last few years because of the dollar being so low. But, um, I think when you say profits, everybody's got a different business plan and, and, uh. It's difficult to say, but marketing is the huge, the huge difference

Francis 36:10

I think I'm, I'm, we're also, I also see in the United States, people who spend a lot of money on marketing, who literally mar we were talking about a, a producer that, you know, shall remain nameless, but they're a big, big name in Pinot Grigio That came into the American market in a big way in the eighties. And when the wine came into the American market, it was cheap and it was, it was really pretty good for the price and, um. Now it's a very expensive Pinot Grigio, very expensive Pinot Grigio, what? Three times? The price of Three times. Three times. And Mark, I haven't had it in a few years. And Mark just had it at a party, at a friend's house the other day. And he's like, oh, what is this? It's, I mean, if it were, literally what he said was, if it were two bucks, I, I'll go and the only wine available, I'd rather drink a soda. Right. You know, and there's, there's no, yet they get a, a tremendous markup on, on their Pinot Grigio.

Giovanni 36:55

Well, they get a tremendous markup because their importer did a tremendously incredible job.

Francis 37:00

Yeah. At marketing, not at

Giovanni 37:01

making wine. And, you know, they are doing, we're not allowed to say names by, but uh, they're doing actually a fantastic job of maintaining the quality standard in a certain extent because they're still DOC.

Francis 37:13

Right. Okay. Right.

Giovanni 37:14

I've got some other wineries. Mm-hmm. Other wineries that have, that are incredibly well known, that are using IGT bulk wines

Francis 37:23

and that Explain, explain the difference

Giovanni 37:23

that gets me angry.

Francis 37:24

Explain the difference between IDOC and IGT.

Giovanni 37:26

Well, DOC simply means that it comes from that area. It means that you, the wine is guaranteed to be controlled by the government to be from that area and therefore will be characteristic of that terroir. Okay.

Francis 37:40

Or that place? Yes.

Giovanni 37:41

IGT means it's indicated from this large territory. So let's say IGT Venito, that means like basically one quarter of Italy. That would be the

Francis 37:53

right, right,

Giovanni 37:54

the right hand, upper corner of,

Francis 37:56

from around to here is where

Giovanni 37:58

it comes. Yeah. Right around here. and also DOC means that every container that comes out of my, my winery, one bottle has to go to the local government lab and has to have a tasting analysis and a chemical analysis. So it's a government guarantee. And let me tell you the difference between IGT and DOC. It's the same as DOCG and DOC. Now, what is the difference between Brunel, dino and AC canti Classical? The varietals can be identical, okay?

Mark 38:29

Mm-hmm.

Giovanni 38:30

It's a government guarantee that you can call that bru. Even though it's the same grape, it's a government guarantee that the yields are gonna be lower, that it's gonna be from that designated area, and it's gonna have a certain amount of aging in wood barrels.

Francis 38:48

Uh, just to bring everybody up to speed, we're, we're, we're really kind of splitting hairs and getting a little bit technical, but if you wanna look at a wine standards, there's IGT, uh, which, is the entry level, and then there's the DOC. And as I mentioned before, that's. And DOCG is an even higher level because that means with the guarantee. Yeah. Yeah. Which the guarantee, which, which is, is the highest level of, of government quality control you have in Italy.

Giovanni 39:16

But we can't have that level, level with, with, uh, Pinot. Otherwise we would've, I would've invested to get that level long ago. But this is just to say IGT means in. Geographic so indication of that typical geographic region, whereas DOC means denominated and controlled to be from that, from an exact region. Mm-hmm. And, and so, going back to the French standards and terroir and everything, it means that our wine being DOC has to have certain characteristics that are guaranteed by the government when the, by the time it comes here.

Mark 39:54

So, so let's talk about, and one of the things that you, you alluded to before is there, there are producers basically buying bulk wine, putting their label on it and putting it out there. But can you just discuss that for a second?

Giovanni 40:06

well, I'm not gonna say names, but you

Mark 40:07

don't, you don't need

Giovanni 40:08

to Some of, some of the best wine maker names in Italy. Okay. To some very big, let's say Tuscan, uh, producers. That put their, put their, you know, buy bulk Pinot Grigio, put it in a bottle and sell it because it makes big numbers.

Francis 40:28

Right? Sure.

Giovanni 40:29

And, you know, that's okay. That's okay. I don't have a problem with that. I mean, obviously Pinot Grigio is now coming from Australia, from California, from all over the world. And, uh, that's, that's going to happen. It's just, I think that it's important that. This my favorite way of describing the Pinot Grigio that comes from our area. If you wanna invest in something healthy, something that's pure, something that nature produced, okay? The taste is subtle. Okay. In some, some instances, but so is the taste subtle between a drinking, the purified drinking water that comes in a plastic bottle and a mountain collected spring source water that's put in a glass bottle. Now when you put those two and you taste one against the other, you're gonna say the difference is not big, but your body knows the difference.

Francis 41:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

Giovanni 41:24

and that's the same with our Pinot Grigio. Our pinot Grigios in the mountains, there's the rain is pure, the air is pure. It's beautiful. I mean, just go to that region and you, you wanna drink the wine there'cause you know it's pure. And when you taste our wine, if you drink an entire bottle, you will feel amazing.

Francis 41:44

And if you drink three entire bottles, you'll forget the, no, that's just never mind. It's terrible joke. You

Giovanni 41:48

gonna go nuts?

Francis 41:48

Hey Giovanni, I'm afraid we're gonna have to leave it there. We're out of time. It's been a fascinating conversation with you about, about your wine and about the DOC wines and about, uh, Trentino Alto Adi, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks,

Mark 41:58

Giovanni.

Giovanni 41:59

Thank you, Marco gra, Marco and gra to all New Jersey listeners. I'm coming to New Jersey tomorrow.

Francis 42:07

He's coming, he's coming. Everyone.

Giovanni 42:09

try our Barini Pinot Grigio with chocolate.

Francis 42:12

That's a plug we're gonna have. Oh, that's right. With chocolate,

Giovanni 42:15

It goes like a dream.

Francis 42:17

We're gonna find out more about that when we come back. You're listening to the restaurant guys

Speaker 5 42:19

Hey there everybody. Welcome back. It's Mark Press. This is, uh, the restaurant guys. Boy, that guy can talk a lot about Peg you, huh? He's, he's, I, I, I'm surprised at how much fun we had with, not that I wasn't expecting him to be fun, but he was great.

Mark 42:32

He is

Francis 42:33

full of life, no doubt about it. Can I tell you something for a wine maker, he's, he's above average fund. For a toner cartridge salesman. He is a blast.

Mark 42:42

You know, one of the things he talked about at the, at the end of that last segment was he was talking about, you know, the subtle difference of, a plastic bottle of supermarket water. Oh, I know where you're going

Francis 42:51

with this. Yeah.

Mark 42:51

Versus, you know, a beautiful mountain spring water.

Francis 42:54

Yeah.

Mark 42:55

In, in a glass bottle. Francis and I just had the, the great good fortune of being at La Peta

Francis 42:59

in Italy.

Mark 43:00

In Italy at the top of, uh, Kee Classico,

Francis 43:03

top of the tallest mountain in the Kee Classico district. We stayed a little in.

Mark 43:07

One of the, one of the rivers actually begins on the property and the water at this property all served in, in glass pitchers all throughout the property all through the day. One of my favorite things to have during the day was just a glass of water

Francis 43:22

from this. The water

Mark 43:22

was spectacular. What I, what I said to Francis while I was there is, this water is so good. It feels good to take a shower in it.

Francis 43:29

No, it does. It's really, it was, and it was this spring, like Giovanni was saying. The spring at the top of the mountain And by the way, look up La Petra on our website. Mm-hmm. Do a search for La Peta. It's an amazing inn at the top of this mountain, but you're absolutely right that, Water out of a glass pitcher. So different than your, water out of a plastic ju

Mark 43:48

and again, subtle difference. You need to pay attention.

Francis 43:50

Mm-hmm.

Mark 43:50

But that's why Francis and I are here to, to get you to pay attention

Francis 43:53

to

Mark 43:53

these

Francis 43:53

things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I, and I want to put one more thing on the, on the market there. I knew the AJ was a river. I knew it. No, we stay, but don't you, I just, I didn't because we stayed

Mark 44:02

in

Francis 44:02

a

Mark 44:02

hotel that was, that overlooked. The adage river,

Francis 44:04

actually it was called. Style IDJ wasn't, it wasn't, wasn't that the name of the, of the place? I don't remember what it was. It's, and it's funny and I really knew the river because when we were at this Van Italy wine conference, we were, um, we were supposed to meet for dinner in the, in the, and the Keystone cops of an evening, we're supposed to meet for dinner and we're staying in Verona and the IDJ River goes through Verona and it kind of winds around and loops around.

Mark 44:26

Mm-hmm.

Francis 44:26

Well, my girlfriend and I were leaving the conference and we're taking the bus back to the hotel. We got on the wrong bus and we cri and then we

Mark 44:33

shocking.

Francis 44:34

We were talking, we're like, this doesn't look familiar.

Mark 44:37

Okay. First of all, realized Francis was leaving the wine conference.

Francis 44:41

Yeah.

Mark 44:41

When he got on the wrong bus.

Francis 44:42

It was professional. I was still, I was trying to get home so I could change and go get drunk. I was totally sober, but so we're on the bus and we're, and we're looking and I'm like. This doesn't look familiar to us. So we get, we talk to the driver. Fortunately Christie speaks a little bit of Italian, and, uh, we got, we talk to the driver, we get off the bus, we wait for the other bus back into town. We get off in the middle of town. We think we know where we're going. We're talking to you on cell phones. We crossed the IJ River going the wrong way'cause the IJ loops around this little, oh my God, I was back and forth across that river so many times late to dinner.

Speaker 2 45:12

So I know the Adages River. I almost jumped in it. Anyway, I hope that you've enjoyed this last hour as much as we have. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys. I'm Francis Sch.

Speaker 3 45:22

And I'm Mark Pascal.

Speaker 2 45:23

We are the restaurant guys