Hello, thank you for pushing play on the a cork in the road podcast. I'm your host Kelly based in Atlanta, Georgia. And this is episode 107. Featuring my live audience in person recording with winemaker Filipa Pato from Portugal who was visiting Atlanta recently as part of her road trip in the United States visiting with clients all over but they made a stop in Atlanta and it was such an honor to have her in town and she already has a lot of fans of her wines in this market thanks to bon vin selections. So we set up this recording at Dom Beijos, a wine shop in Kirkwood that specializes in showcasing a wide variety of Portuguese wines in the heart of Atlanta. We opened some sparkling wine we said cheers to the crowd. And then we talked about her focus on and passion for indigenous Portuguese grapes. One in particular, the Baga grape has become the cornerstone of her work in the region. And you'll hear how she is utilizing biodynamic farming and a minimal intervention approach to winemaking that is truly letting these indigenous grapes shine with strong Portuguese identity. We also have a surprise mic visit from her husband Belgian Sommelier and Chef William the former head chef for the Belgian national soccer team during the World Cup in Brazil. He steps in on the mic to share some insight on what it's like to visit them in Portugal and how he approaches wine pairing in the kitchen with these native grape varieties. Their collaboration and their teamwork is so inspiring and they have a lot of fun together and they bring such a joy to exploring the world of wine. during their travels.Filipa has a background as a chemical engineer, but she then refined her winemaker skills during harvest in Bordeaux, Mendoza, Argentina and even Australia as well as learning alongside her father, who made his first wine in 1980, showcasing pure Baga with exceptional quality that caught the attention and intrigue from a broader wine industry. I hope you enjoy learning about Portugal in this episode, and that you can feel the energy and excitement from the live audience that we had in that room while welcoming Filipa and William to Atlanta for this experience. Coming up for a cork in the road, LLC. We have a national Rose Day party coming up on June 10 here in Atlanta featuring music and a diverse lineup of roses from all over the world. I'm teaming up with Aaron and Jamila of wines for the culture former podcast guests for an afternoon of celebrating all the styles of Rose and cheersing with our Atlanta wine community. I will be sharing the Ross Knoll vineyard Rose from Russian River California for example, but we also get to share the newest not yet released vintage of La Fete from France, along with some other fun surprises in the few bonus bottles from our wine industry friends, so head to acorkintheroad.com for your ticket before we sell out you will also find information on the website about our next event at the Epicurean hotel here in Atlanta, a blind tasting seminar on July 27 that we are hosting with Joe Herrig of Georgia crown. The tickets will be available shortly so you can follow @acorkintheroad for all the latest updates and to be the first to know when new events are announced and tickets become available. I want to say again, a huge thank you to Melissa of Dom Beijos and Steven and Nick of Bon Vin selections for combining forces and making this live audience episode event possible and thank you to everyone in the audience who joined us at the shop to raise glasses to Filipa and William and celebrate the beauty of their Portuguese wines. The next episode of the podcast is scheduled to drop on June 15. And it will feature my conversation with our recent champion of the unusual suspects blind tasting competition that we just hosted with Chelsea young at the oenophile Institute, our champion took home $200 and a kickass trophy and he will tell us all about it. Until then thank you for supporting the show and tuning in. Please take care and I'll talk to you soon. Cheers
Welcome to Atlanta. We're so honored to have you and this live audience. Enjoying your wine and coming to you live from Dom Beijos in Kirkwood Atlanta. So good to see you. Thanks for being here.
It's a pleasure.
Tell me what's in my glass right now because people are filled up with bubbles in their glass. What are we drinking right now?
We are drinking a sparkling wine traditional methods from Bairrada, the region where I live and where we have our vineyards and this is a sparkling wine blend of three indigenous grapes. So we only work with native grape varieties. So the names you probably never heard about but I'm speaking about Bisca, Cercial, and Maria Gomes that is a blend of these three grapes. Biscal gives you more the texture, Cercial the vibrancy and Maria Gomes more the aromatic part. These three grapes complement each other for these sparkling wine
And it's really beautiful on this lovely day for a podcast recording in downtown Atlanta. So thank you so so much. You are on day I think 11 though of your tour of the United States your road trip, is that correct? You've been on the road for a while?
Yes, yeah, we are. Me and my husband doing a tour. We love U.S. And it's always a pleasure to come back. Every year we try to come, we have to cross the Atlantic anyway, so we spent two weeks visiting our clients doing different tours. This time we went to upstate to New York, we went to Chicago went to Colorado for the first time, Denver. And now second time in Atlanta is a pleasure to be here.
Well, welcome back. Yeah, I didn't know if this was your first time. No, you're a pro. You've been here before. But now your wines are on the shelves surrounding us. How does it feel to see your wines on the shelves when you walk into Atlanta?
It's fantastic it's fantastic to see the work being done from Bon Vin Selection and the reaction of the market here. Fantastic to see our wines on the shelf. And it's great to be here.
I'm glad that we got on the schedule because I know you've had a packed 24 hours already in town, including even making a stop at the Mercedes Benz stadium. How was that last night you just you just went and saw American soccer how did that go.
It's fantastic. I mean, it was it was amazing to see the game. Fantastic ambience in the stadium. Great game and very intense and was amazing, great atmosphere
because you're big soccer fans in general.
I mean, I'm in the family of dominated by men because my husband is great football fan. And we have two kids, two boys. So they also play soccer one he's goalkeeper when the other one plays on the on the right side. So they they speak about football every day. And I mean is. You know, in Portugal to play football is the main sport of Portugal. So everybody speaks about the players and teams and it's always a big party. Every weekend, we drive them to the game. And it's also fantastic because you make new friends, you know, as a parent, very good way also to understand better the culture and get into the social atmosphere of the parents understand better the culture of Portugal, because in fact, football is part of our culture.
Now you can tell them all about your Atlanta soccer fandom, though now you've got that energy here. And you were in a stadium full of fellow soccer fans last night. So I'm so glad that you got to see that. And that you're in Atlanta. And we are sitting in a shop that shines a light particularly on the wines of Portugal. So before we dive into more about your wines that I think are just beautiful for people to explore, can you just start off by telling us a little bit about the bigger picture of Portugal wine production for anybody who doesn't really know about what's happening there,
I think is, you know, Portugal, we were isolated until 74. We had a dictator until very late the generation from my parents, my grandparents, they live in the dictator and they didn't have money to change things. I mean, we kept a lot of treasures. So you have ___ vineyards and unique grape varieties. So we have strong identity and now you have the new generation that are very proud of it. Very proud of the own grape varieties own identity. And they traveling and they show the wines all over the world and they can communicate better. They are very proud that they own tradition, and they start to show all this diversity in the wine in the world. Now we see Macanita coming here. She came even to the shop or she came to Atlanta You see friends from Dao, also Antonio Medina. You see, Antonio, Macanita you see colleagues from Douro also _____. So we have a lot of colleagues doing a good job. So is a teamwork. You know, it cannot be Portugal famous with one or two names, you have a big generation going for it.
And now you're leading the way in that though, you are talking about all these people. It's this community effort. And you're leading a charge of education and access to these wines. You just named these and these are on our shelves right here in Atlanta, people can try these wines and experience what's happening there right now because we're lucky enough to get them in the market. So let's talk a little bit about your portfolio in particular because your wines are on the shelves too. So when you are thinking about telling people about experiencing Portugal, how would you describe what's currently in your lineup like what we're tasting tonight? What are the types of grape varieties that you're working with that you like to shine in your portfolio?
Our main grape variety is Baga we are very proud Baga terroir-ist. That's why we are wear this t shirt. Because Bairrada region is exception for the rest of Portugal I mean if you see Dao area that is next Bairrada, the thing the continental part is a blend of grapes. In Dourao is a blend of grapes in Alentejo also, by another is an exception in Portugal. So we are very proud supporters of Baga because Baga is a grape variety that is really well adapted to this location and as a biodynamic producer, we work biodynamic, you even feel more of these neither of having a grape variety adopted there. Because what you want is to avoid treatments is to be close to nature and understand nature. And so what we try to do a part of being focused with Baga is to promote a fantastic ecosystem around the vineyards. So we have bushes around the vineyard, you have trees in the middle of the vineyard around the vineyard, like we have all the trees, we have fig trees, walnut trees, we plant more and more trees, because this helps a lot the vineyards that is very important. Of course, you cannot see this way, if you want to make quantity, you want to make mechanization, we look to the past. And we want to know more about the ecosystem and keep on working manually. So we have also a lot of animals in the farm. Like instead of adopting the big machines, we prefer to have sheep, we have some chickens, we have also some pigs because our region, but Bairrada is very known for the suckling pig. So if you know most of Portuguese, and even Americans going to Portugal, they think, but rather is equal to suckling pig. So we decided to adopt also the pigs in the farm, which was a fantastic improvement for our work because we were working very hard on the field, trying to work the soil around the vines and the pigs. They love to do it. And they work six to eight hours because they eat six to eight hours a day. And they work weekends. They work every day and they feel so happy and we feel even more happy. So it's a very good help for our job.
Happy pigs, happy vineyards, happy people drinking wine. This is a great ecosystem that you're providing for us. So this grape in particular, though, if people haven't had it, how would you describe the resulting wine flavors to someone who doesn't know about this grape at all? What would you say?
This grape is such a fantastic grape because it's a grape who really respects the location. So that's why we call ourselves Baga-Terroiristas because each location gives you a different expression. I mean, my father makes wine we make wine, they are completely different because there was a different the person who works in the vineyard and the magnification is completely different. So is a treasure like you know in Burgundy, you have the same you have Pinot Noir, that different village respects completely the terroir. So, Baga is is very aromatic when it's young, so we like to make a Baga also to be drinkable young. So the advantage of working biodynamic is that the tannins are more succulant tenants. So we try to have the dynamic that is a wine that we can appreciate young and you have this pure fruit reminds a lot like a Morgon, a lot. Gamy style, nice structure, very pure aromas. And then you can also make a Baga with more structure. So we make different kinds of Baga in fact, different cuvees different kinds. So the very old vineyards that we have already converted to biodynamic, we extract more and these wines, you can taste young with a nice food pairing or you can drink it in 10, 20 years 30 years. So is the grape variety Which gives you a fantastic possibilities you can make a wine to drink and you can make a wine to drink young or to drink in 30 years. So is a is a great grape variety. I mean it can make also sparkling wine. So we make also the rose sparkling wine. In fact, we do two harvest manual. Each vine, we harvest end of august for the sparkling wines and we leave only few grapes for the red wine to have a better maturation. So two times by hands like crazy. I mean, but we do it. We love to have people working our farm we think that making wine is about social is about every more people in the farm and on the village because we suffer a lot. In the last 30 years. A lot of people from the village they went to the city. They immigrate and you have a lot of empty small village, and my dream is to have this village back populated, you know, to have again cafes and restaurants and schools back open. And this is a dream. It takes time more than my generation for sure. But I think it's very important when you live in the countryside to have people living there. And not to have the mechanisation taking over the culture there.
The bigger picture you're talking about in the vineyards, you're thinking about keeping it very hands on and keeping that intentional practices and all of that, and then you're taking it out to say, even the village, you want it to be a community aspect and growing and having a vibrant community that expresses the vineyards and the wines. So to me, it's the bigger picture that then you've also worked on a smaller scale. And the way you're talking, it's no surprise to me that you have a background as a chemical engineer, that you've also worked harvest in places like Bordeaux, Argentina, Australia, you've worked with a lot of different lands, different climates, different plots of vineyards, and techniques. So how have those more global experiences in the wine world have those influenced your approach to what you're doing right now in Portugal,
I think after traveling, I was like three years traveling and working abroad, I got more confident about our real treasure of grape varieties. You know, when I came back, first thing I went to look for vineyards and I saw fantastic old vineyards that I was like, I need to take care of it because the old generation were getting, you know, too old to take care of the manual vineyards and I had the opportunity to take over and was by traveling to Bordeaux, to Australia. You see in Australia, they're looking for grapes to adopt they're like in California you're looking for grapes adopting there. And in Portugal is a old world country, you have local grape varieties that give you so much identity and they they're there and you just need to refine them. And that's that's was my education because I could see Portugal from outside, you know, I was we are in the, in the corner of Europe. I mean, we are far away from the center of Europe. And when you travel, you get more aware of your richness and then we come back and they try to refine your richness. It's like polishing as a diamond you know is you have there and you need to do it. And of course the knowledge I could have outside in terms of viticulture enology, I got to refine also year after year because I every year we traveled to the wine region because my husband is also working with us and we met in the in the wine world. So we have the common passion. So every holidays we go to visit other regions. So I mean even in was not in the beginning that I learned everything I'm learning every every year more and traveling to visit other colleagues in in the wine world, you always learn extra things. I mean, you change ideas, and especially because we work biodynamic we like to work with a lot of plants, local plants, so we are also a botanic to help us to identify plants make infusions, we make distillations to make essential oils. So we do kind of Aromatherapy in the vineyards. So it is fabulous. I mean of course my background as a chemical engineer, it tells me now to make the distillations but I avoid completely the chemicals, more biochemical
the knowledge of the sciences there, you're just changing how you apply that. Wow, I'm so intrigued by what you said about traveling has made you just even more passionate about your richness back in Portugal. So it gave you an eye of what is there and what you wanted to work with. Because yes, these indigenous varieties I know you're so passionate about and that's what you're focusing on and really showcasing what Portugal can offer that maybe other places can't but you've seen a lot of other places to know what you have. So what has it been like to share these grape varieties that people may not know of or know how to pronounce or anything here in the US How is it going to share these grapes that you work with? In the United States?
It's been fantastic. I mean you see more and more similes and wine lovers enjoying Baga and Baga was in the past was people thought was so difficult and was needed like 20 years to understand the grape variety and I think if you work really well in viticulture you can make it approachable already young so you can age it very well also it can it can leave it to long time in the bottle but you can understand it already in a young age if you if you do it well so was it was a fascinating to see the reaction more and more of a people liking enjoying the Baga grape, this is fabulous.
And it probably happens quite a bit that that would be the first time they've ever tried that grape. Does that happen to you quite a bit?
Yeah, a lot of times. But I mean, I think people are more much more open minded than in the past, and people travel more to Portugal, which is very good. And so they get more opportunities to taste, Portuguese wines and, and more aware of Portuguese wines. Because, of course, 10 20 years ago, people think Portugal is Port, Madeira, fortified wines, but you have also the table wines. And this is a it's been a big challenge for our generation, because 30 years ago, our wines 40 years ago was mainly exported to the ex colonies. And they were not the most exigent clients. I mean, we have to have good, excellent clients to get better. And this is to win you we export 90% of our wines. And we are in more than 40 countries, almost 50 countries. So we export to countries that we never thought about like Argentina even or countries like Cyprus, and you know, Morocco and you know, crazy countries we never thought that we could export you know, there is also a fantastic network in the sommelier world. Because we since the beginning, I didn't have money in the beginning to come to U.S. So I focused a lot in England -London is a very big window. Not as big as U.S., of course. But you know, as my scale was small, and I had opportunities to show a lot of times the wines to English journalist, the English sommeliers and the wine started to be present in the top restaurants in London. And this was a big window for us for export as well. So now we have like countries that we export that sommeliers what we're working in London, because it's a country that we can find wines from all over the world. So and then we had just to export to other countries where they from, like Australia, and many, many different countries.
And now people are connecting all of those wines back to learning more about Portugal. It's almost like you taste that first wine. And then you say, what is going on in Portugal, I want to know more. And I can say that happened to me. I was in Portugal last summer. And I was delighted to find every single style of wine existed in Portugal, everything I wanted for my food pairings, everything I wanted for the entire day could be found through amazing quality of Portuguese wines. So the variety, the diversity that's happening there is so exciting for a global scale for people to discover it, and then go and learn way, way more and you started your project in 2001. So you are not new to this promoting the Portuguese wines on a global market. What are some of the main questions that you get most often from people about your wines? If they've never had Portuguese wines? What are some things that they're asking about? What are people curious about?
They are curious about the local grape varieties. I mean, they are curious about Baga they are curious about that because we have many different questions. I mean, I think people are very aware also the way you cultivate the vineyards, the way is grown, we try also to be very natural. I mean, not interventionist, we, we work with the indigenous yeast, you know, we don't adapt to the market. I mean, I always say the market is so big, I always find the niche market
you found us in the shop, right? I mean, now we're here
It is great. I think it's important that we don't adapt to the market, because then you you have your own style, you can be a bit stubborn in wine business. I mean, in our scale, we can be stubborn, because you want to be to have a very defined style. And this is part of our identity.
I think I saw two about your wines. And you've said this before, and maybe I need this on a t shirt, but describing your wines as authentic wines. Without makeup. I see this quite a bit. What does that entail to you? Does that entail that natural approach?
Yeah, we try to harvest also on point. So a part of working biodynamic. We try to harest really on point that we don't need to chaptalize or acidify. And also to have the oak as a frame, not as the art - the art comes from the vineyards. We try not to have a dominance part in the vinification. We think the vineyards are the most important parts out of it.
Is that typical for the region where you're making wines in Portugal, or is that a unique way to approach the farming. Community as a whole is that at the core of what's happening in the region
it is changing, it's changing. But you know, when I started to do this change was very difficult because there was no knowledge in the region, how to do it and to have all these old vineyards work This way was a very big challenge for us was a big challenge thanks to the traveling I did with William to France and Italy and South Africa, Cyprus, so many areas that we we could exchange ideas with the producers. And a lot of them we visit also doing biodynamic. So we had a chance to exchange ideas also. So then we have also a good consultant who will help us to make the transition after years, we do a lot of education of our team. So we have same team for a long time. Very nice team a very dedicated to the job and they love what they doing. And we have always every year education of all the team is good for them is good for me. And we think together how to solve the problems. Because every every year has a new thing. And I mean, now we see new people following what we're doing. But it was a big challenge to do these things in Bairrada because you know, we have a blended climate, if you go to Dao or Douro it's drier and is a bit easier to do biodynamic. But in Bairrada, we have a big pressure of fungus, especially in springtime, springtime, we have a lot of rain from April until June, a lot of rain, a lot of pressure of fungus. But since I visit Jura in France, and they have more or less same situation, and they could do it and I thought like it's possible at the end. So my husband was pushing me also and he was a big supporter of this movement for us, we had to learn by practicing and and nowadays, we see the vineyards specially the vineyards that we converted already five or 10 years, they much more resistant to the conditions because they build their own immunity and then you see even years we that we have more pressure they can handle is much better than the vineyards that are under conversion every year we see it. And then because we have now 20 hectares. So we every year we have some more plots. So every year, we are confronted with this reality. So it's very interesting, because we have already 14 hectares already converted and these 14 hectares are easier to carry the six hectares that are in the conversion period. So is it is a very interesting situation. And I think more and more neighbors are doing the same, especially because during COVID The price of pesticides and herbicides went so high also fertilization the price went so high that's they adopting more and more our practice because in fact, when you work biodynmic it is not expensive the products you use because you collect from the nature. But you need more people involved and more people with knowledge and knowing what they doing. And this is a very big challenge for now. And for the future. If producers want to adopt this, they need to hire more people and less mechanization.
it is interesting that you are able to recognize where the resources come from and where you can then apply it to those decision making points. Because the way that you're talking about the involvement, not only from the winemaking side, but you are very hands on in your own vineyards and the side of the growing and knowing what's happening at the ground level. So I'm really interested in some of the key decision points for you each harvest you said every year is a new challenge which thankfully, hey, that's exciting, right? I guess in some way, but every year you approach a new harvest. Can you tell us a little bit about some of those key decision points where you may have to make adjustments depending on the current vintage,
you have always challenges You know, like we had certain periods a problem with a lot of attack of snails when we made the transition in some of the plots because by having limestone soil you have a lot of snails - escargo in Burgundy is one of the typical dishes. I tried to convince my husband to cook them but that was not the solution. And then I thought like okay, what can I do because you know the snails they they try to eat the tender leaves is the very tasty and they and then we started to plant some cover crop or the fava beans and we realized fava beans and fennel. They attacked it first the fennel and the fava beans then the vine so in fact we could live with the snails in the vineyard and they were not attacking the vines anymore. So it was very interesting. We could survive these vineyards because these vineyard was being attacked a lot with snails and the thanks to a small thing we solved the problem. Some years we have the an attack of rabbits in 2020 2020 was a vintage COVID. And was this part of our vineyards, specially the Baga vineyards, is a hunting reserves it is a lot every year is people coming for hunting, because it's a lot of wildlife. So they came to hunt the rabbits and during one year there was no hunting because of COVID. So we have a population of rabbits getting higher and higher and in the 2020 harvest, we suffer a lot with it, because they ate a lot of grapes, it was a disaster for us, because we had like much less grapes because they they ate most of it. And we realized that in fact, they ate the grapes because they were thirsty. So by speaking with the neighbors, because we have, we have a lot of neighbors already 70-80 years old, they told us you know what we do when it happens a year with a lot of rabbits, we put pots of water, and they drink the water. And they they don't eat the grapes so much. And it's true! in 21, the year after we tried to do the same and perfect. We had grapes, and the rabbits drank the water and they didn't attack the grapes. And then you you find these things by speaking with, with experienced people by trying new things. And it's fabulous. That's why a farmer every year is a new reality, you have to understand that you are just part of it, you cannot dominate it.
That is beautiful. I'm smiling over here, because some people would say, oh, that sounds like not worth it. I'm gonna get out of this business tomorrow. But you instead have decided that that yearly challenge is something you run toward that you are willing to adapt that you're willing to listen to your vineyards and make those adjustments. And then you use the tools and resources available to do that. You're letting the vineyard tell you what it needs. And I think that's a really beautiful thing. What gets you up in the morning, that first day of harvest? Is it the challenge, the excitement in the vintage all of the above every year?
It's a new story, you know, it's what is so beautiful in the wine world. I mean, every year is a new story. And you have to be prepared for everything and to think about solutions. And if you have trained minds all together all the team, you can adapt faster, and then you can make the best possible out of it.
And you do have a good team. And I know that you have a direct teammate as well. And all of this we're talking about your portfolio and your projects and what you do. And I know that you have a really good partner in this work, and he's sitting here in this room. Hi, William. Hello. Hello. So he's your big partner here. So how would you describe how you work together? Do you have any definitive roles in the business together? Who does what? How does it work to working with your husband?
It's fantastic. I mean, we do different parts. I'm more focused in viticulture and winemaking and he's telling the stories and he is a super funny guy. So and he receives the clients so he is the chef and sommelier. We don't receive anybody just to come and taste the wine. We always make a menu wine and food combination. So in fact, we only receive by appointments depending on our agenda, and it says we'll receive the people so I showed the the clients the vineyards, the way we manage the vineyards. And we taste the wines we the menu that WIlliam prepares in our chef's table and we stay with with the clients from 11 in the morning until three four o'clock in the afternoon. So we we block a day for receiving our clients normally it's importers or sommeliers or clients of our importer. For the moment, we are a bit more limited because we making a new winery. But we planning in the future to have more facilities to receive our wine lovers and wine friends,
wine friends from all over the world coming now to spend five or six hours with you and eat and drink and learn everything there is to know from both you and William that's a pretty good team situation. And I know his background in the chef world and with the sommelier side and you said you met in wine. So can you give us a little insight of how did you meet through wine for all of us out there who have a common love of wine, you now have your life partner for that. So how did you all meet,
in fact, is a very funny story. We I started to make wine in 2001 And my idea was to export because I wanted also to keep on traveling and of course as a female in Portugal 20 years ago, you know it was still a bit ____, not anymore but with was a bit like But anyway, my focus was to export. First market I had was Belgium, and our importer who was a friend of William, and he became friend as well, because, you know, we started to work together in 2002. Just the first year, I released the wine. And then the year after he asked me, Can you come to Belgium to show your wines because it's been a big success and, and then I went to, to see the market when one of the clients was William so you know he first met the wine, and then the wife I mean,
That's so brilliant, so good
He was one of the big ambassadors of the wine and, and this was why we met and then we became friends and and in 2006, we met again in the wedding of our importer, and we decided to go to Brazil, and then we became as a couple. And now in fact, the name of the wine, Nossa, is because of Brazil, when in Brazil, when you say like :no sir" is like, Oh my God, and nossa means ours. So that's why we call it Nossa. because of this expression in Brazil, and Willieam at that time he didn't speak any Portuguese. So he was observing the reaction of people and their "nossa". That's why we call it Nossa, nossa, that means ours and also oh my god
Oh, that's perfect. And the fact that you just said he didn't even speak Portuguese when he first met you. He really was meeting you through the wine and knew that's a whole language on his own the wine language as a love language, everyone, it's a love language. So that's beautiful. And I think that that just kind of shows to the portfolio as a whole and that you are in this together and you're bringing strengths to the space. And I would be crazy not to ask because we're sitting here with wine here in Atlanta that I can take home and share with my husband at my table. What are some of those food pairings that you're putting out to your guests with your wines? What can we try to pair to have a very similar situation here in Atlanta? If we can't quite visit you in Portugal? What would we put on the table with your wines?
And that's a question for William not for me.
William is actually coming to the mic right now this is actually pretty awesome. William - what are you cooking with your wines? What are you serving to people when they come to visit you in Portugal
To receive I would start with some oysters you know really nice with the bubbles or we are dinamika whites. The big gallery to the very famous British journalist says the certain moments music to my ears and that we did not survive. I was I was I was think burgundy because he got his limestone character, bit of production and it's very white in the mouth. Nice acidity also, I would go for sweetbreads with some cream sauce from white meats rich fishes like turbot Brill tuna fish for micro is nice. And the rest I would think Bucha layer or Youngberg it is and then taking dishes that don't go very well with this old like duck or nice pigeon and with even eventually also nice roasted chicken why not and I was some butter you know very rich then the acidity of the one converts easily and make you break more nice and then with the with the more serious buyer from the Century advisor was go to the next dimension so game would think in there you know that like the suppose for some cases berries and then eventually a little bit of chocolate to finish it off to get more deepness and with the acidity takes it very easily and we'll we'll clean your your palate I'm thinking also of a nicer piece of beef but not not not like ribeye but more the filet because it's it's very velveteen in the mouth the nice elegant touches of the wines and with the cheeses I'm thinking by the way, a nicer all Parmesan because of the the salt crystals inside and especially with again the white wines which is fun and is nicer nicer conversation to the table he should put twice why we cheese pizza with cheese, but he's much better you know, because it's it's a ballad and it's called fresher and you can drink more again, you know?
Your ulterior motive here, you wanting people to drink more wines!
mostly our wines, of course.
At this point, William, most people listening to the podcasts, a lot of a lot of our listeners, they are in the wine industry and they're on the road a lot. So a lot of our listeners are driving in between accounts. You just made them extremely hungry while they were in their cars unable to have exactly what you just said. So sorry, everyone. You're just gonna have to book a flight to Portugal and go visit to have Willieam make this menu for you. Thank you so much.
Filipa made one wine especially for Belgian chocolate - It's a fortified wine of Baga, It's something completely different. It's like port, but then with Baga. Fortified With brandy of Baga. And this with Belgian chocolate works like hell you know, it's fantastic.
Thank you so much, William. You guys, he just made me really hungry. That's okay. Well, I'm like, where am I going to get my deer in Atlanta? You guys, we need to find this. Okay, and my duck does anybody know where to get duck? Okay, well, let's find that. Well, that is why everyone needs to come visit you if that's the menu that we're getting Filipa, I understand. I understand the teamwork here. And you do work together in harmony to bring these wines to the States when you're not drinking your wine or eating Williams menu like that... What other wines are you enjoying at home? What can we find you drinking?
That's a great question. I mean, we drink a lot of other wines also. And Willieam always tries to open bottles for me to try blind. Which is very nice for me to have this, you know, out of comfort zone to try different wines, different grape varieties. We always bring wines when we're traveling, we swap bottles with colleagues. And so William always opens new bottles for me to taste and it's very challenging. While I mean because the wine will be so broad nowadays, so many wines made in different countries that in the past was not. So of course the classics I can find more than I can guess better but but it's been fantastic to learn a taste of wine and you are always interested to know about the story behind the wine, you go to the website, do you understand? You know, it's a learning process. I mean, to taste wine is always a good learning process, because you get very open and when you have the label, you don't have this open mind like when you do a blind tasting, it's fantastic.
Oh, blind tasting is one of my favorite things to do for studying and also to experience a region without any preconceived idea so I just taste the wines. And then I can also I think it's really important for people to have fun with wine tasting, because it will start to help you understand your own reaction to the way a wine is made. So then you can identify certain characteristics or components of wine by blindly tasting them and keep exploring those things. I love that you do that. Good job. William. Way to do blind tasting dates I love that! But you are here on your road trip. So what do you get out of leaving here? When you're done with your excursion and you go back to Portugal? What does it do for you for your for your profession?
We love to come I mean for us. We live in a in the village of 200 people and you know Willieam used to live in a in a city in Belgium. So for us to go out of our little town is very nice. I mean, we came of course to support the importers we've been lucky to have importers work with us for 20 years. I mean it's a long relationship. We see the importers as our ambassador our partner in each area so it's quite important in the beginning to explain the wines to show the wines and that your communication is right. So it is very important to support the new clients. We did it in England we did it in Belgium. So we doing now to the new markets we starting and I think it's very important to support the our partners and at the same time we were having fun you know it's most of our importers they became friends you know it's a network. One of the good things by working in wine is that you you get to know a lot of fantastic people and it's great. I mean we feel less isolated because our daily life is so isolated we live in the small corners and and then by traveling by having zooms with people around the world, this is great. I mean you live in the middle of nature. And one of the big reasons we do biodynamic is also because we have two kids one 11 and one 14 So you want to raise the kids in the best ambience possible so we have a part of the vineyards we have also our own garden with the vegetables and you know a spot for them it's very nice to understand that a tomato comes from a tomato and the Apple comes from Apple tree and you know we have fruit trees we have vegetables and we have fresh herbs we have chickens in the garden we have you know it's great to grown up in this healthy environments and that is the main reason we were working also biodynamic because we want to have a healthy life for them. We travel a lot of times with them we also I mean we know of course they are in school they cannot come with us but during the summer holidays we travel with them to different countries and they start to enjoy also to, to be in this wine world is, you know, to be in the wine world is a possibility for us to meet people from the world,
you're able to meet people, but then also the way that your wine is now out in the market. And people can take those wines home and create memories at their own meals and with their own family with their own friends, you actually are way more connected than you might even realize at this point, because your wine is in people's homes. So you might be somewhere else or you're on the road a lot to actively connecting with people. But your wine is always connecting with people. So we're very lucky to have you swing by here. Thank you, Steven. Thank you, Nick , from Bon Vin for setting this all up. This is amazing. We're so lucky to have you. And thank you for bringing your energy and your knowledge to Atlanta. So if people want to learn more about your wines, or you or what you do, what's the best way to connect with you and learn more about your projects?
You can follow me on Instagram it's always a good connection. Because you know, we are always posting what we're doing in the vineyards in the cellar, and you know, the new wines, all the parties we make and you know, is a good way to follow what we're doing.
Perfect. See, that's how I knew that you went to the Atlanta United game. So thank you for sharing that part of your life too. But I just want to give a shout out to to our live audience. Thank you all for joining us today. Yeah, and a very, very huge thank you to Melissa of Dom Beijos here in Kirkwood. Thank you so much. Yes, I'm so happy that we get to now crack open a lot of bottles of these amazing wines. So cheers to you. And thank you so much for being on the show.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for tuning in to the a cork in the road Podcast coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia, and interviewing people who are changing the wine world in the southeast and beyond. You can find more about a cork in the road at @acorkintheroad on Instagram. And make sure to check us out on www.acorkintheroad.com See you soon guys Cheers.