A conversation with Sebastian De Martino
Adventures Of A Black Belt Sommelier
A conversation with Sebastian De Martino
So, Sebastian de Martino, welcome to Adventures of a Black Belt so may I, I'm glad to see you again. I think it's two years later and I just asked you a question before we started, officially started, do you consider yourself a winemaker and I thought your response was important. So could you pretend that I'm asking, do you consider yourself a winemaker? Well, well thanks for having me again, well my answer was, we consider ourselves more buying growers here than winemakers, you know, I think we're lucky to farm great vineyards in my pole, in this little place, Islam my pole, Anita town, and hence farming is, I will say it's most important, I don't, my background is not technically making, although I grew up in a winemaking family morning lunch dinners and I've been lucky to, to be able study abroad wine and, you know, taste travelled by wine and different regions but I think most of our work is in the vineyards and we aim to reflect what we do in the vineyards. So henceforth, we focus more on that side, you know, that's, I'll say it's the most important thing. We believe that if you're in a good place, you only can do something good. If you're in the wrong place, it's very difficult that you can do something great. I always, sometimes I, I, I, I compare it a bit with cooking, so if you have a, imagine you go fishing and you have a beautiful soul, like a beautiful fish, so you take this soul, beautiful, clean it, spoon, table, if you have a fish and you start like becoming too creative in this part, you know, like trying to put your hands too much in this part of becoming creative with sauces or, you know, I think the cooking part here, it can be very sometimes go against the place. Sometimes when you, when you have something that is not a good place, you know, and you need to try to bring it a bit up, you can do more cooking, you know, when you have something good, let's cooking, you know, so, so, very good technical team in place, of course. And here that they're very much in line with, with what we believe in the family, you know, but they are themselves are very fine growers as well, but with a technical background because we need that too, you know, it's, it's true that things are, they don't make, but they by themselves, you need to be careful, picking plates are essential, how we, how we, how we process the grapes for each individual parcel, depending on the year and how we highlight that is also very, very important. So without saying like, of course, there's a technical background and we have very good technical team in place, I will say that we consider back to your question more buying growers. Me passionate, me personally, I'm more passionate about the buying growing than anything else. And the drinking part, of course, that's, you know, a South African winemaker named Evan Saudi. Have you ever met him? I make him feel, I think twice because we share the word for you, I love his minds. Yeah. Yeah, he, oh yeah, he's, yeah, of course, I've forgotten that, you know, he said in a conversation, I've had two of these conversations with him and both times he said pretty much exactly what you just said. And in the series of Zoom wine tastings I had during, for two years, when we couldn't have in person wine tasting, this idea that grape wines are made in the vineyard and only mistakes are made in the winery or cellar came up over and over and over again that if you, you know, if you're lucky and you have a nice piece of land and you're lucky and the weather was, the weather cooperated that year, if you just get out of the way the wine will make itself. Yeah, I think it's a, I heard like, once I read a quote from Dominique Laffon, which I love his wines and said, sometimes you have to be brave enough, you know what, not to do anything, you know, because I suppose the human nature as well, we always want to touch control in pose, you know, and, and sometimes, well, it's, you got to be brave to do that and say, okay, you know what, that's very good. And, oh yeah, so again, in order to do that, you need to be standing in a very good vineyard, you know, because it's a, I think in essence, when we talk about food, wine, I consider more food in my family, it's originally from Italy, from abroad, so more and more like we grow our gardens and so we're very linked to it. I think when you have something, a good produce, you don't need much, you know, you don't need much to, to, to play around it, like, so I think all the stuff from the base, but again, you need to be standing in the right place, you need to be, be lucky with having, you know, someone or generations who do that, ideally, that work for you, you know, because you can, you can understand that, you know, finding the right variety for the right place could take generations, generations, generations and, you know, you see burgundy, you see different places around the world, you know, it's generations, generations, generation after and after collaborating in this, you know, everlasting experience of layers of experience, you know, and if you have that, I'd like it to be standing in one of those, you know, like, embrace it, but you know, there's, there's, I think there's a lot of excitement as well, because here, here in the Martina thing we have like, I'll say like three focus when it's really work in Isla de Mipo, that is a small part of the Mipo Valley, try to highlight the Vordeaux in both colors, so here it's a, it's like Mipo means Mipo Island, essentially Mipo River had two branches, so the town is in the middle and it's closer to the sea, so in this part of Mipo, we have a milder climate than Alto Mipo, let's say, so we have very similar effect that you have in San Francisco, so it's very common here, especially in the summer months to have the fog coming into a vineyard that clears by 12, 1, and then comes a breeze, so there's no, never really hot hot, it's like a mild Mediterranean climb, and as opposed to, let's say, other parts of Mipo, like closer to the city, or you have sunlight in the morning, silent in the evening in summer, so the accumulation of hours is less here, and we have also these gravelly soils, remember, we're just to be an island, so lots of infants of the river, so lots of gravel, meaning that a very good drainage, super good drainage, with some sun and calcium carbonate with it, so you know, we're able, we're able to, through that, you know, the red ones in Mipo, especially the cavernous, the commoners, and the border reds, have very nice little tanning, you know, like a very fine tanning, they're not angular, they're not chunky, combined with the climate, we can arrive, we're having 13 alcohol, 13.5, 12.5, so we range like that, and then planted, we have some really old massage selections, and grabbed a bunch of cavernous, so remember, we haven't had filoxera here in Chile, and I touch both here, so we have like pre-filoxera, my massage selections of bordeaux varietals here, that the bunches are like this, and the wines are stunning, so here, when we, where in Mipo, our role is to really highlight that purity and finesse, but without being pretentious about finesse, you know, so these are wines for wine drinkers, you know, for a genuine wine drinker, you know, the apples are moderate, the aging is in oak large casps for a longer period, you know, the extraction is gentle, so these are red wines that you see the other side, you know, of the glass, they have energy, they don't drain your energy, you know, they're wines that use a lunch, you go to a meeting, perfect, half a bottle between two, we go back to work, you know, if you ask that same bottle for 20, 30 years, great, it's going to be nice, but look, it's not going to leave your teeth black, you know, not a black kind of wine, so, so we have all these elements that here, we thank our job, along with my brother and the team, is to highlight the historical part of, of, of all, all massage selections, planted in this moderate, the cooler climate and automypo, and bring this wine, this, uh, bordeaux vaitas with charm, lots of charm, and thin, and our idea of finesse, you know, our idea of finesse are not wines like this, they're ones more about intensity, about length more than width, and, um, and yeah, so we really focus in this vineyard on trying to highlight it, and the whites in this vineyard, we have some old semion that we produce in our very old classic style, let's say, like classic chardonnay, so whole clusters, vertical press, go to a, a rank, the rack to a tank, they can'ts for 30 hours or so, move to neutral oak, you know, ferments, then mallow in food drain, um, chow, and the grape wines are for that last long, you know, ones with the volume and texture, will be not sitting, but at 12.5 alcohol, and they will last really long, so, that's what we see here, our work in this specific vineyard where I'm standing right now, and this is where my family started, this year, we turned 90 years as a family business, that, you know, in Europe, it's nothing, but in Chile, it's something, means, means something, so, what the fourth generation, I'm trying to highlight all of these privilege vines that we're, we're able to farm, but so, one part of what we do is, this specific work here, like the Maipo and Isla Maipo in particular, with this style, there's a second element, that is the work we do, mainly in Itata, that it, that's down south, that probably, very people knew this, I know this, but Itata is the oldest vine growing region in the new world, actually, so, the first vines were planted there by the Spanish in 1551, so, just to give you an idea, so Itata is south of Santiago, as opposed to the states, as we go south, we get wetter climate, more rainfall, so, when the southern areas, so, the southern, we are more rainfall, we have a coastal climate, where we are, this is more little town in Itata, called Wariliwe, that is very difficult to pronounce, Wariliwe, it's like the morgon of Itata, or the Wonder Woman of Itata, it's a little town that has a history of making red wines, and there, we've been lucky to, to really score and go back to our roots, essentially, the challenge is different, you know, these vines were neglected for many years, due to the arrival of the French cuttings, so, the first original vines here were planted with a base, with a Muscat, some Chaselas, then some Tintanera moles, then arriving in the 40s and so, and, and was an area that was neglected, it was a powerhouse at one point, when the Spanish were settling in Latin America, and then we got the arrival of French cuttings went like this, so, so, back in 2011, with the team at the time, we started producing one wine, we got there and find the place to be magical, because, so, when, when the world you find like all vines, goblegrown, bush vines, so, no wires, anything, coastal climate, high rainfall, about 900 millimeters, so, picture like Oregon, something like that, and granite soils, somebody just never been sprayed, because it was not meant money for that, horse blow, beautiful, and still affordable as well, that's the other thing, and so, so, part of our job as well and, and challenge, especially my bar, and my generation, it has been to rediscover this, this area, although the history that it has, we were able to purchase our own vineyard in 2013, and where we do some really honest wines of all vines, and so, all my pais, all my Muscat and Chaselas in Tinajas are on for us, and some hours in, in food, so, the idea is to highlight and bring to life, this part of our, I would say heritage of patchy money, history of patchy money, we're, let's go, we're going back on time, we're trying to risk going on roots where we do this, so, so, it's very, when we start thinking about how we stand is, on one hand, it's a micro-classic finesse, our understanding of finesse, because it's different to understanding of our people of finesse, whereas in itata, we're really highlighting and going back on time, and trying to discover the ancestral techniques of identifying and trying to understand these, these, these super old vineyards. Farming is totally different. In Isla Amipeau, we have, like, trellises, about 5,000 pounds per hectare, you know, on graph device, I'm a selectionist, just but it's more the common, the common farming, whereas in itata, we have small bush vines, horse blow, so, it's, it's such a different, and I think it's very, and it bridges you a lot, because it's like wearing two hats almost, you know, you're wearing, you gotta, you gotta see one thing with one, one sort of focus, and there one with another lens, you know, you can, you can impose one thing to the other, you know, it's like, it's like you really need to understand individually, and we've learned that by mistake, we learned that also by actually sitting down and thinking, because for a reason things have been one for several generations, therefore over 400 years in a way, so we really try to highlight those two aspects of what we do in the Martino, and thirdly, that I think it's, and I think this is probably going to be also like, where my brother and I, it's like, the last part we do, like, in our generation, the rest will have to take it from there is, is the search for unique terwars that you can plant from scratch, you know, because in Chile, we're a long country, you know, if you put Chile in the map, it's, it's actually wider than from San Francisco to New York, just to give you a perspective, but we're this way, so many latitudes, we hope, we have all the climates with exceptional tropical in my country, so the northern part is very dry, central area, more Mediterranean, then you always have the influence of the sea, like in California, so depending how close you are, more more rates, then you have the Andes, as you go south, that's more rainfall becomes lots of water, lots of lakes, lots of rivers, lots of fly fishing, skiing, all that sort of thing, so, so I think the, the third element that we're very excited is that we were always looking to find for a specific spot for, for Pinot and Chardonnay, but then, then we found one in the north part of Patagonia in a place called Pucón, and, and hopefully this coming year, and I thought we had the first commercial harvest of the venue, so, so we really can do those things still in Chile, you know, and it takes more about commitments than anything, and, and I think the future of Chile is also about, based on those three elements, I think, when we talk about flying wine, we say, okay, the history of the more classic cavernous ties, in different styles, let's say, more mature, less mature, more finesse, lessiness, more round, more blush, more hedonistic, less, more frame, that's, that's like one entire category, then is the old wines that we have in the south, in particular in the region of Itato, that it's super exciting, and with this beautiful climate, and lots of heritage and history, and the third element would be this, is pushing the boundaries of climate projects that you struggle to write, avoid in a specific spot, but you start from scratch, so the planting and all that, so I think that's where we are right now, and I think it's a, it's very exciting what's coming, you know, like, I think I really, I really see the future with, despite the fact that the industry, I think we're going through a time that people are drinking in general less wine, you see younger generations drinking less wine, I think that's happening everywhere, so wherever I go, wherever, wherever I talk, you know, last week I was in the Australian States, early, early in the year I was in the UK, and, you know, even in China, it's more or less the same, the same song is playing all around the world, people are drinking less, during a generation of drinking less, but they're drinking better, so that's, I think, that's, that's good because for what I see, for what I heard, and I'm trying to talk to people for them to give me their own feedback on this one, they want to have something that is more real, you know, that it's not just a label with a story, there's needs to be actually something real behind, so from that perspective I think we are well placed, I think it's exciting times ahead of us, I think, yeah, so I think we're in good spirits here, and despite all the challenges that the whole industry is going through, I think it's, you know, one of the, one of the ways that wine has changed in my time as a professional in the wine and hospitality industries is information, you know, when I, when I started as a professional in, in, in the wine and restaurants in the early 70s, 50 years ago, there really wasn't any information, you know, there was a reputation, a first growth board, oh, must be a great wine because it's a first growth board, oh, a, a grandfry burgundy must be a great wine because it's a grandfry burgundy, but not every vintage of Chateau Latour is a great one, well, now more likely it's a great wine because there's not as much vintage variation, but, but in the, when I started buying wine professionally, you know, that you're talking about bordeaux from the 60s, you know, the, the 60s when they're, and 70s, they're, they're really, you know, they weren't great, great wines, but you just assumed it was great before, because it was a first growth bordeaux, but at that time, I would never have heard of your winery, you know, you could be making the greatest wines in the world, and I wouldn't know anything about them, but now because there's so much information, you can, you can discover wineries like yours, and, and, or, or, Evans, you know, when I, when I moved to the Twin Cities six years ago, I'd never heard of Sadie family, now I regard him as one of the greatest winemakers in the world because I've tasted so much of his wines, but that access to information about wine is a, is a tremendous chain, a, to accurate information about wine is a tremendous change in my time. Because it's not just reputation anymore, you can actually discover special, you know, special wines like yours, you mentioned alcohol, that your wines are 12 and a half, 13, 13 and a half percent alcohol, your, your reds, mostly. I was in Napa three weeks ago, and Michael Mondavi opened a 73, 1973, 1974, and 1975 Cabernet for us to taste together. Of course, 74 is one of the greatest vintage ever in the Napa Valley. The wines were just marvellous. They were just, especially the 74. They weren't the least bit tired. They weren't the least bit oxidized. They weren't, they were still just beautiful, beautiful one. And I told, I said, you know, I'm surprised because we were just drinking the cap, the Mondavi, Robert Mondavi Cabernet, not the reserve. This, and the 74 was, I mean, glorious. And I said, I'm really surprised that we're drinking the regular Cabernet, not the reserve. He said, well, the regular wines have aged better than the reserves because they have less alcohol. They're better balanced wines. They have more acidity, and they've aged, they actually age longer than the reserve ones. There, there, there you go. And I think, and I think that's because the other point, your point is very good in terms of the access to information right now. So if you really like a wine region, there's so much there in the internet. And there's also like so much different types of wine bars that you can go right now, or wine shops, and such a good level of also distribution important bringing exciting ones that you can actually go deeper and deeper. If you, if you want to get into something, you know, you have the most, a lot of people in MS and WSO, there's a lot of passion behind if you want to get there. And traveling is easier than 30 years ago. And so I think from, from that perspective, the angle you mentioned, it's, it's really important, you know, how connected in a way the world has become the access to information. So if you like something, you can go and get it, you know, like you go and get it, you know, spend less money in something and put your mind on this. And you can really go in deep, really in detail to think. So that's for sure. And, and I think that the wines before were made, you know, we, we also have wines that are from the 80s here that, you know, we went through a stage, I think, during, you know, in the 80s, early 90s, the country was very poor. So forget about New York, forget about those things, you know, like, period, you know, there's no money for that. So, so basically, you pick the grapes before April, because there's a saying, well, in the past was different than now, but in a saying that it goes, and I have a real Jewish meal, which means in English, in April, it rains a lot, essentially. So people were picking just before April, then will ferment an ancient large, an ancient large old caste and chow. Then mid 90s towards good part of the 2000s, things start to become better, introduction of new, flashy new French baris, styles become to, to be a bit bigger, picking a bit later, you know, be living a lot, shotting a lot. The wines were very impressive in their juice, but did you see now the wines made in the 80s or early 90s versus this late 90s, early 2000s, once how they aged, well, the wines made with no money are way better than these ones, you know, these wines are disjointed, you know, like, it's like they go, you have the old, then you have like, you know, a bit of tetracy in the back that comes here, and then, you know, you have some times that are bugging you, and you know, it's like a bit like this, it's a bit like Frankenstein, you know, like, it's like, putting together some things, and then you integrate into, and it tastes in like, whereas the other ones made with no money, you know, like, they just flow, charming, you know, so sometimes we go back to the, to the point of the cooking part, when you have to, sometimes I think a learning from all that, you know, of that period is that it's about here, what you have inside. It's not about, this is the amount of tools you have, because if you don't know how to use the tools, you will want to end up with something like that, you know, and actually those, those wines don't bring any pleasure, you know, I rarely open those wines because I don't like to drink them. All right, let's go to the, to the other ones that are more charming, you know, you see the flow on the, on the wine, you know, there's no ego in the wine, you know, there's no ego, there's no, like, it's, these wines were not made to impress anyone to be, enjoy and drunk, you know, like, and, and yeah, so I think that's the video of them. And that's why I probably enjoy drinking more than this face that we went through, that we have access to more, more, more things and the wines become like that. And I think, again, I think, you know, I went to the point earlier about turning 90 years this year, so, I think it took us like 80 years actually to defining the Martino, what's our household and who we are, and this part of the, you know, the, the elking, the extracting, the trying to impress, the trying to, wow, you know, was part of a process that we hit the wall in a way, but without hitting the wall, we wouldn't be where we are now. So it's like, okay, we learn, it's like adolescence, you know, when you're a teenager, a teenager, you party too long, you know, you party in seven days in a row, you wake up, you can sleep three hours and you're fine, and you go for everything. It was like that stage. And eventually you become your own self and you know who you are. So I think that happened about 15 years ago now. So it took us about 35, 50 years to find your family, your wife who started in 1934, right? Yeah, yeah, 1934. And so did the, so did the wine store I work at, it opened in 1934. So we're celebrating, we're celebrating together our 90th year in existence. You, you've mentioned the horse plowing. Is your horse named Sheena? Yeah, so we have two now. Oh, you have to. Yeah, so China and the other one is called Rusio. Rusio means blondie because like a blonde. So the first one was China and Rusio joined the team after. But for enough, you know, Rusio got stolen last year. Got stolen. Oh, no. Got stolen. Someone came in the middle of the night and just told the story. So China is by herself. But those those work very hard. Yeah. Yeah, no, she does, but she's, she's like 14 years now. So she's becoming a bit picky as well, you know, like she has her character too, you know, so it's not like it. So, and, and, you know, these are horses that, you know, you don't, it's not easy to train a horse to plow. So the, you know, Rusio came from, from a, from another grower that he plowed with him. So it was this year. So yeah, that's all, all the plowing we do is in the southern part here. We don't blow with horses here. We do a bit of, you know, in some, in some parts, so we do more regenerative viticulture and some others we will blow. Depending parts of here in my pot, you know, we, we work. Whereas in itata, we use horses to, to plow the, to plow the soils. Was it an emotional loss to lose the horse? Or was it just an animal? Did you have, was it kind of like a pet or? Yeah, it's like, it's more like a pet. They become like pets. So like, it's not like, we don't have like, let's say we don't put to these horses, like a microchip here, you know, we're not like, you know, they're not like, no, they're not that kind of, you know, like, you know, they're not going to be running in mascot or something like that, you know, like, you think Patagonia is, what's the potential for Pinot Noir in Patagonia? Well, I think, you know, Patagonia is a very long place. So, and it's a very diverse place. So it starts, let's say, about 700 kilometers south of Santiago, start the northern part, and let's go like 1000 kilometers or 1000, 500 kilometers all the way down south. So it's, it's very long, and also it's Argentina and Chile. So it's like the southern corn, like this. So you got to, just to give you a very broad overview of Patagonia, the rainfall grid, the rainfall comes from the Pacific. Okay, so the continent becomes like narrower as you go down. So comes the rain from the Pacific, Chile is super raining, it's raining in the south, lots of rain, lots of, in some parts, very green, as you go south, you have part like Alaska or Norway, lots of, lots of Fjords, glaciers, lakes, no, ever, super green, super, you know, like in picture Alaska, Norway, and there's a part a bit north in that to that, that it's, I would say, a bit like greener, a bit greener than Oregon, more hills, more lakes, and a bit like sweet celanosia, ish, landscape voice. So remember, the rain comes from the Pacific, then you have the Andes, the Andes acts like a rain shadow, so most of the rain stays in, in the Chilean side, then in the Pimento, Argentina, it's also very green, and then Argentina becomes like a long desert, cool, cool desert, it's a cool desert, you know. So when you start in the northern part of Patagonia, let's say you have an American here in Argentina, that's the Certic, but cool desert, that part of Chile, it's super green, super green, and we have about a thousand millimeter of rain. So what I excited me at this part of Patagonia in the Chilean side is you have water, that it's important, you have a lot of days of rainfall, some snow, then you have, you know, mixed weather, so not a lot of sunlight, as well, that I think is very important. So climatic wise, I think our specific part of where we are, climatic wise is like a bit of a cross between something like Oregon, burgundy and champagne, something like three curves, more or less, if you see the climates and everything, a bit like that. And then the soils we have, specifically where we are, we're planting in the foothills of a volcano, so we have a basalt, like it's really like Edna, like more like the Edna soils, so picture like a cool climatic version of Edna. So when we enter, we have several days of snow, then because we're a bit of height in the volcano, then spring arrives late, summer, summer it's strong but short, then autumn or fall arrives early, so we're trying to get to that hundred days, real hundred days of flowering to harvest, like the old old school, the way. Yeah, right. That's the whole burgundy model. Yeah, yeah, and probably it's going to be a bit longer, I think, but things are hitting up. So there we planted in these soils, in this place, in this climate, like very good material of plants in high density, so it's nine thousand plants per hectare with a single guillaume. So the aim is to have half a kilo per plant, you know, that's the aim to ripe, so very little tiny, everything is small, plants are tiny, everything is small. Have you tested the wines that saucycaya makes in Patagonia, the chakra of wines? Yeah, I'll try that, I'll try that, yeah, they're nice, those are nice. It shows the potential, right? Shows the potential, yes, so there's something, although that part is more desertic, it shows the potential, there's a brightness of fruit, you know, again, the foreign is going some collaborative wines there as well in the south of Argentina, there's some nice, some nice stuff, I think, what we're going to go ahead. It's called this winery chakra, because he thinks that wine is a connection with God, there's a connection between man and God. Do you feel that way? I never thought about it, actually, that way, I'm not, I'm a very spiritually, I haven't thought about it that way, because I need to decan that and probably the next interview gives you my answer, because it's one of another one, we'll have another talk. That's the one that you need to reflect on, I'm still very like, how I put it, I think I'm very connected to places, a place should reflect something that is different to another place, because my mind is very, I'm a very common sense person, you know, like what I see is telling me something, you know, so how connected I'm to, I don't know, I need to, I need to reflect on that one, next, I'd like to think that it's true, because it makes what I've done these last 50 years more meaningful than if all I've been doing is help people get drunk, you know, I drove on that trip to California last week, or at the beginning of September, I drove up to Ridge Montebello, and you know, it's one of the most beautiful places on earth, honestly, it has to be one of the most beautiful vineyards, group of vineyards in the world, I mean, it just takes your breath away, and I spent some time with David Gates, the vineyard manager for Ridge, and I kind of asked him the same question, do you think the magic of this place comes through in the magic of the wines that you make, because, you know, his wine, those wine, Montebello, to me, they're magical wine, and he said, no, you know, I don't even go to church, you know, I just don't believe in stuff like that, but I think he's wrong, because when you harvest the grapes in Montebello, everything that's in the air around them ends up in the bottle, right? I mean, that's what makes wine so special, and that I'm very much, look, if you, if you, I think I have a theory about it, like, if you see generally a nice vineyard in a nice place, makes nice wine. So, also, let's say, let's go to Barolo, beautiful place in the world, hills, the valleys, beautiful wines. So, too burgundy, beautiful, the landscape, you know, the towns, the court, beautiful place, beautiful wines, there's a reason what they call moving the court and everything. Montebello, beautiful place, beautiful wine, you know, like, when the list goes on, I think, beautiful places, beautiful wines, same as, like, people, I think, vines need to struggle a bit, you know, like, if they're, you know, a vigorous soil, it proves a lot, it's too easy, too easy, you need to struggle a bit, so you need to pour your soils, you need, you know, a climate that pushes you to produce very little, you know, a bit of a marginal thing to be something really special. So, like, people, like humans, and then we need to struggle a bit to produce something special. If it's too easy, you know, if it's too easy, you know, it's too much of everything, you know, and so I think, always, like, nice, nice places, there are nice wines, vines need to struggle a bit like people, to show the best side, you need to fight for things, you need to try to, you know, keep your head on top of the water. And through that magic, like, a good place with a struggle, I think comes the beautifulness, you know, in a specific place. And then someone that can highlight or see this, the human aspect of this, without too much the cooking aspect that we talk about. So, like, yes, the technical part, yes, but not, not try to overpower, you know, his, er, empowered, his, his own thing, his own hands onto something. So, that's what I see when I, when I, when I taste something nice, when I go to places, you know, I think it's been like a kind of a common aspect, you know, nice places, nice wines. And there are most of the wine regions are located in nice, nice, nice places, you know, like, go to Kianti, go to Bordeaux, it's nice, you know, it's, it's not very much in fashion now because everyone likes to hate Bordeaux now, but go to Bordeaux, go to that city, beautiful city, never been bombed, go to, it's beautiful, even if it's flat, you know, you don't, you go to a vineyard, it's special, you know, go to, go to a Judah, go to the Lua, the beautiful, the rivers, you know, go to Edna, go to like, so that's why I think that. Have you ever been to the Rhinegale? Have you ever been on a boat going down the Rhine? No, it's like fairy tale land. I mean, you know, so there's two more things. I have two more things I want to ask you about. And I don't want to take up so much your time. You never want to talk to me again. So, may I ask you two more questions? Of course. Because I ask you for half an hour and we're going to go an hour and I don't want to, I don't want you to be upset with me at the end of the conversation. But the Merlot Carmineer thing, did you, you had, you had, you, so you were the first winery in Chile to export wine labor labeled Carmineer. Yes, that's correct. And did you always know it was Carmineer or did you think it was Merlot or how did you come to realize it was Carmineer or? Okay, this is a story. So, in 1992 we planted a vineyard. We purchased the material to a nursery. The nursery told us it was Merlot. That was 1992. In 1994, Chile was selling lots of Merlot especially to the UK. It was the time that Chile was growing in exports on wine and so forth. So, a study was carrying Chile when a French and demographer came over and studied different vineyards. He studied one. He, he went to the vineyard from Bina Carmine in Otto Maipo and he said, "Look, this, they showed them a lot of plantings." He said, "Well, this is not Merlot." This is, I think this is Carmineer. You know, and that was the first place I think he stopped and then he also came to our vineyard and some other vineyards. So, after, you know, a thorough study, he came to the conclusion that much what we thought was Merlot was Carmineer. In our case, in our vineyard here in Isla Maipo, we have Carmineer. So, we planted thinking it was Merlot and we had Carmineer. So, we have a family lunch. At the time, it was, it was 1995, 1996, was the first vintage we commercialized the first Carmineer. So, I remember that I was like 16 at the time. And we said, "What do we do?" And essentially, we said, "Look, Carmineer, we can light to our customers and everyone. Everyone will know eventually and the label carries our name." So, so let's, let's face it. And at the same time, what happened was, my mother was looking at the commercial side of the, of the business at the time. It was like a female winemaker at the time. And then came a British lady, a buyer. They put some different flights of, of wines blind. And he merely takes the wines and she went straight to that that wine. And she said, "What's this? Well, what's this? We don't, it looks like they say it's Carmineer. We don't know how to pronounce it. You know, and I want this. This is really what I'm looking for and so forth. So, she decided to purchase a whole batch of Carmineer, you know. And we said, "Okay, great. Carmineer goes to Britain." Then came a big hassle, a problem, a hurdle. But it's, "Okay, the variety is not produced either in our decree, not in the European Union. Carmineer was not produced as a variety because after Filoxera was never planted, you know, back in Bordeaux." So, it was a lot of lobby, especially for my mother, to add that Carmineer into the, into the variety so that we can actually export it. And so, we did it. So, that is the story of, of Carmineer. So, we planted what's my law. It was actually Carmineer. It was actually like 85% of Carmineer because the rest of the person was covering the front. So, just to give you an idea. So, it was very close to the Merlot. And is, the plot is called Alto de Piedras. It's a five-factor block that we do a single one from it. It's a broad and brings it to the state. So, it's the original lines of Carmineer that is called Alto de Piedras. And it's where still comes our best Carmineer. And when we decided to have this conversation and decided to export, the phone didn't stop ringing to a winery. Well, there was no mobile phones at the time. You know, there were faxes and phone. That's it. Landline. You know, like, so, it was a lot of, don't do this, don't do this because, you know, you're T.D. saying lots of Merlot. So, you're gonna, so you're gonna harm the industry and whatever. And I said, like, you know what, the label kind of is our name. So, ciao. You know, like what we want to do. Like, I'm not gonna lie for this. You know, I know these people for 20 years, you know, like, you know, if you have that problem, it's your problem. It's not my problem, you know, I, Carminaries, Carminaries, Carminaries, we're going in the label. So, so through that as well, we take the challenge to understand the variety because you can understand that back then, you know, pronouncing even the variety was hard. Carmin what? Carmin, like, it's very, you know, it's not easy as like Merlot, Merlot, Merlot, you know, it's not easy to pronounce that. So, the other problem was, okay, what is a good Carminary? Because there were no benchmarks in the world. You know, there was not a single but not a Carminary Medog, nor in Napa, nor in Kunubara, Margarita River, you know, there were dovaritas, let's say, what is a good Carminary? So, it also goes to understand the variety a lot. But we've learned a few things over the course of the year. Well, but it was the same, they were the same vines you'd been, it was just a different name on the bottle, right? You weren't, it was the same vines you'd been farming. So, it was just, it was going to be called Carminary instead of Merlot. Yeah, and that's how the story goes, you know, like, and it's been a journey because we also had to, by mistake, try to understand the variety, you know, because, let's say, Carminary needs a long, it's the last variety we picked here in Maipo, so late in the car, in the convenience, so for a longer cycle. So, remember, I told you, here is more mild and moderate, so we can ride on half Carminaries at 13.5, 13 apple. The people planted in warmer areas because it has a long cycle, but then in some cases they become a bit more dedonistic, a riper, we think here it works well because it's more, a bit more frame. That's what we learned, so long cycle, second day soils, a bit like a Medoc, gravel, ideally, but with a bit of topsoil, not like Cabernet that is, you know, the graveling gravel from top to bottom here, a bit of topsoil. And by nature, I think Carminaries, as opposed to our varieties, needs at least like 15 years to start expressing itself, as opposed to, you can have a vine also in your plant year five, okay, it's decent, you know, and it's going to, of course, it's going to get better, same as Cabernet, but it started to show up with the place, but Carminary needs more type to settle, to settle in. So, yeah, so it's been a journey, it's 30 years, the first model was, the first model of Carminary was the 1986 vintage, so it's approaching like almost 30 years there. So, it's been a journey, and so when you want to go through a like a benchmark style of Carminary, is the Alto de Piedra's label that you find, I'm broadening it to the state, so that's like our old school type of Carminary. One more thing I want to ask you about, whose idea was Vignon? Vignon was several people, so Vignon, we were farming all by Carignon for a long while, and at the time, the white maker team was headed by Marcelo, Marcelo D'Amal, and he was contacted by some other growers that were also farming Carignon, so there were few Carignons in the market. Most of the Carignon, you got to understand that it's in the Maule, and there's, you know, there's cars all over the place, more spot of Carignon, mostly 60, 70 year old vines, bush vines. So, we were all producing individually these wines because we thought like they have a tremendous acidity, they have tremendous complexity, they are old vines, and make special wines. So, there was a journalist that also tried to get all of these people together, and they got together back in 2009, I think, was when they started meeting, they started meeting, and then they declared it to, with the help of these journalists, and all the growers, by little meeting meetings, and decided to create Vignon, with the aim of protecting these old vines of Carignon. This is how now we have like 17 members of Vignon, and the rule to be a Vignon member is that you need to, vines need to be 35 years on above, dry farm, Carignon, or 85 percent Carignon, or if not, is co-planted with our varieties, because, you know, in the past people planted, you know, vines, you know, planted like monocultures, as they do now, and it needs to be released into the market after two years of harvest. So, now we're saying team members, there are about 400 hectares of old vine Carignon into, you know, and only to come from this area of moulding. So, those are the rules, then in the, you know, the different vineyards lie in different spots and pockets, so there's climatic all differences, styles from the fruit, and then also comes, you know, they say the human hand on it, so there's people who like more structured, some hours, there are more frames. So, yes, I think as a break has been successful. First, in order to protect these vines from getting lost in the big, you know, world of nothingness, you know, because a lot of these historical people were not paying much for these grapes, and I try to produce ones of real personality and with heritage, so we're really happy with it, and being part of Vigno, one of the founder members. So, I think at the time, the team was really good on getting. I mean, your Vigno has gotten some very, very high scores from important journalists. Yes. Like 96, 95, 96 points. Yeah. I think the start is a small banger in South Salle that was planted in 1955. It's a field-blend of mainly Korean, with other co-planted varieties, grossing a slope of over granite. We confirm and, yeah, that's basically it, you know, there has a very low pH. So, you have density because the vines produce half a kilowatt plant, and then you have this acid structure come to it. But again, this vigno is in the middle of nowhere. So, it's the place they're speaking more than anything. Yeah. So, I think it's a good example. I think press love the wine, which is good. I think we like the press to be good, but I think we always say, you know, the most important thing is to make wines that we like drinking ourselves, and also that our partners like to sell and feel reflected. They can see themselves through the wines, you know, because generally they're not the classic, you know, classic perception of what people think of Chile. So, they're a bit there, and we're trying to show a different side of Chile. And to that end, we need people who believe on what we do, what we see, what we are trying to produce. And henceforth, it's what we like to drink ourselves, you know, what you get there. So, it's always nice to have a good accolade, but we're not the kind of winery that goes on shouts about the accolades, you know, because we're not the high. Try my 98 bottle of wine. That's not it. You don't put it on the label, but it got it 92 points. That's just like, I feel, it's not us. Well, you obviously have a great champion and Bartholomew brought back. You know, he and I are good friends. I think the world of him, and he is a great, great champion of your wines and your family. Okay, I want to ask one more question. Can I ask one more question? Well, go for me, go for me. The, the, the, the, um, the, the, the, um, for a Muscat. What do you think that's called tinesis? Tina has to be a us. Is that what it's called? Tinesis, Tinesis, Tinesis. Um, yeah. Is there that? I mean, do you think it's the best drive Muscat in the world? I don't know. I think, you know, I think there's, I personally know that great final, a great final Muscat, to be honest, you know, but what happens is, you know, there's different types of Muscat, because if you think about the classic Mediterranean Muscat, you know, that those are aromatic and lack acid is not my, my tap, but if you go to Alsace, they're good stuff, you know, then. Oh, yeah, I forgot about, yeah, it maybe it's not greater than Zinn Humbrecht. Yeah. Yeah. But their ones, that their ones are going dry, you know, they're, they're going dry. Yeah. Yeah. They're going dry. The climate going dry and warmer dry. So, but I think, I think it's a good expression, but you know, the most important thing here is, you know, you have an old vineyard there, half a kilo per plant. Remember that place is closer to the sea, and it's, it's quite marginal to ride Muscat. So, it's 12.5 and a half a kilo per plant. And we're trying to do one how it was made, like 400 years ago, you know, people would make wines in Africa. So, we're trying to do that with a lot of, you know, attention, so you can see the place, you know, so they're macerated in the skins. And then the one will stay there to settle after a few additional months or 14 months in, you know, in the dinner. But, but more than anything, we're trying to show a wine that shows the place, but also how wines were made in a country in the past, you know, because it's always, I said that, that is a wide wine with a sort of a red, because we have a bit of tannins, you know, a bit of grape structure. And actually, last week, we have some 2013 of that. That was the first vintage we did that wine. And it's, they are, they're aging very nice. They're aging very nice. We have one last week in New York. So, so we're still understanding. I still feel that they're nice example of Muscat, you know, in Assas, also the Cebibos and things like that I like. So there are, but it's not the classic Muscat, you know, and a lot of people struggle to understand it because people say, okay, it's gonna be sweet. No, man. So I always say, like, you got to think, I think a bit of a schizophrenic Muscat, you know, like, in this way, I try to explain people, you're gonna expect something, but it's not gonna be that. Let me tell you, if you like the sweet Muscat, this is not your cup of tea, you know, like, you know, don't touch it because it's closing the other direction. But this is, this is how wines were made in the past, you know, and that's essentially it plays tricks on you because not only does it say Muscat on the label, which, you know, the average person is gonna assume it's gonna be sweet. But then when you smell it, what your brain processes is things that are sweet. So your brain tells you it's when you smell it, smell it, your brain tells you it's going to be sweet. And then you taste it, and that's confusing because it's not. So, you know, which is awesome, which is awesome. That's challenging. That's, that's unique. That's, you know, you know, I don't what, you know, you don't want everything to taste like we're on our shower today. Yeah, exactly. You know, you don't want to tell you everything tastes like me, only peeing on them out. You want the wines to challenge you to think and think about the place the grapes were grown and think about what kind of oak might have been used and think about is it, you know, carbonic, maceration or whatever. You want one of the things you want from wine is the wines that challenge you intellectually, not, not all wines, but some wines, you want them to challenge you intellectually. Of course. I mean, sometimes you just want a glass of wine. You know, it's, you're on a patio and it's a hot day. You want a glass of cold rosé. Yeah, but sometimes it's nice. I mean, that's, that's what makes burgundy. So, you know, amazing is because of those wines when you taste a great burgundy. You know, is it New East San George? Is it Morey Sandiné? Is it Von Romainay? You know, that's a, unless, you know, that's, that's what makes it everything's the same except everything's different. Absolutely. And I think there's, yeah, there's places for that wine, wines, you know, that you need to think about them. First, okay, and really enjoying it or not. And then again, really enjoying it. It's where, where is it, you know, where is it from? How is it far more? And you start like, your minds start to travel with it, you know, and they're, you know, to find the answers. And I love that because it's, it's a, it's a beautiful thing about it, you know, you can travel through wine. And then, yes, there are the days that during the, okay, patio, you know, give me a glass of rosé or something simple and there's a cheat chat and you don't want to think too much. So it's all the context, you know, all the context of wine. So, so yeah, so it's a, that's even a natural, you know, the wine. So that's pretty much it. I'm going to put on my calendar that a month from today, I'm going to email you and ask you if you're ready to talk about the question is why a bridge between man and God? Well, let me know. I hope the answer by then. And if you're, when you're, when you're ready to answer that question, I want to have another podcast with you. Okay, let's do that. Let's do that. Hey, so, so nice to talk to you again and hope we got an important and anytime soon as well. Now, you know, I've never been to South, well, I lived in Brazil, I lived in Manasse Brazil for three years. But other than that, I've never been to South America. So I'd, I'd love to, I'd love that would be a great trip. That'd be a great trip. Absolutely. Thank you so much Sebastian. This has been absolutely fabulous. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy your day and rest of the week and keep in touch. And I'll think about that question. Thank you, sir.