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Energy in every glass
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The Frescobaldi wines have a 700-year-old history. Meet Giuseppe A. Pariani, its brand ambassador
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PHOTO: S. R. RAGHUNATHAN
TASTE OF TUSCANY Giuseppe Pariani
He’s a wine connoisseur. He’s travelled the world. And he’s crouched on the ground, carefully positioning his face between wine bottles for a photograph. Giuseppe A. Pariani might be the influential Export Director for Marchesi de Frescobaldi, a well-respected wine producing family. But he’s also clearly a good sport.
“People say I look like Salman (Rushdie)” he grins adding with a shrug, “That’s not true. He looks like me.” Giuseppe, who recently hosted a wine lunch at Prego to promote Frescobaldi, (the name means fresh. Energetic”), is probably the brand’s best ambassador given his joie de vivre, and attitude, sort of suave, suited businessman meets merry Italian farmer.
“We are farmers,” he states, proudly. “The family is landed gentry. They came from Germany about a thousand years ago, settled in Florence and became successful in trading and banking.” Then, about 700 years ago they started to buy vineyards in Tuscany. “We are probably the oldest wine producers without interruption,” he says. “All the estates together are roughly the size of Singapore. And the employees all wear boots. And maybe some dirt under their fingernails.”
So while this is indeed a house that provided wine to prestigious Papal courts, as well as the English court of Henry VIII, Frescobaldi fiercely maintains its links with the land. Which explains the pigs.
“We make and sell salami,” says Giuseppe, adding, “Also wheat. Chestnuts. Wood...” And olive oil. That’s about 90,000 half litre bottles of olive oil a year. “It’s not much,” he adds. “We make about 10 million bottles of wine.” Which is, apparently, “not enormous” either.
Yet, it’s big enough to make export important, despite the fact that the Italians are enthusiastic wine drinkers. “Everyone in Italy has 52 litres of wine per head per year,” he says. “At the time of Michelangelo — during the Renaissance — it was about 316 litres per head!”
Today they export 60 per cent of their wine. But even 500 years ago, the family had an office in Beijing. “Just after Marco Polo. For banking.”
As we try the first wine, a fragrant Danzante, followed by a sterner Catello di Pomino, served with Chef Giovanna’s creamy broccoli soup, he compares wine consumption patterns. “In India the per capita consumption is one teaspoon per head,” says Giuseppe, “There are about 300,000 alcohol drinkers, who drink mainly a huge volume of spirits and country liquor.” Yet, though he travels next to Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Seoul and Beijing, he maintains that India is going to be one of their biggest markets. “
A full bodied Castiglioni follows, served with lamb slathered in rich mushroom sauce. Then the celebrated Nipozzano, one of the house’ signature wines. “We’ve been making this for 600 years,” says Giuseppe. Besides, Italian wine, he feels, has a personality that is startlingly similar to its people. “Every group of people reflect their personality on the wines they make,” he says quite seriously, “Australian wines are very, very approachable. Just like the people. You open a bottle and it says ‘G’day Mate’” In Tuscany things are different. “If you sit in front of a cab with the driver, he’ll jump. At first he won’t talk. But after four blocks maybe you will discover he’s a nice person.”
SHONALI MUTHALALY
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