I was at a dinner last night, the like of which has never happened before and probably will never happen again.

It was an evening dedicated to three natural winemakers: Josko Gravner, who showed the light to Angiolino Maule, who, in turn, taught all he could to Daniele Piccinin. Three generations, if you will, of natural winemaking in the north-eastern corner (not the trendiest part) of Italy. I didn’t learn anything new: I’ve been part of the Maule family for long enough I suppose, I’ve seen all the family photo albums, but now that all this has been said aloud in public, I feel I can relate them to a wider audience without feeling like I’m airing dirty laundry.

Angiolino Maule starts. He talks of a time in the 1970s and 80s when his pizzeria restaurant was booming, when money was literally burning a hole in his backpocket, when he was able to pay the construction company for the restauration of the house that I now live in all in advance. He recounted all that because a decade later, in the 1990s, he was in the middle of an existential crisis. What kind of wine should he make? What did the market want? What did his values say he should make? What was he capable of making?

Many times during his speech, he refers to his wife Rosamaria who is sitting in the audience, as a linchpin even when times got very rough and he wanted to chuck in the towel.

Had he not – by chance – tasted a wine in the Bere Alto wine bar in Vicenza and then gone to meet its maker, a certain Josko Gravner and had the circle of friends (with Stanko Radikon, La Castellada, Dario Princic, Edi Kante…) which formed shortly afterwards, we would not be sitting here today.

I knew too that Angiolino had regular crises – pruning by yourself in the foggy winter really doesn’t help anyone’s mental health – but I hadn’t connected the dots that when this was happening he was 35 years old with two young children. I’m 36 with two young children.

The connection with Josko Gravner, and with that group of friends, was his lifeline and gave him the strength to continue. Next to speak is Mateja Gravner. Always composed and delicately referential, she draws on memories of her father with Angiolino. Josko is such an interesting, multi-faceted person whose professional journey shaped the course of Italian wine… but she couldn’t go into all the details or the food would have gone cold; so I’ll save that for another blog post too.

Last but certainly not least is Daniele Piccinin, a magician working with pinot noir, durella and chardonnay in the Monti Lessini, above Soave. He had been inspired drinking a wine of Angiolino’s, which, at the time, was the only wine running agaist the mainstream in this area. Daniele came to meet Angiolino in a similar way to how Angiolino went to meet Josko. Deciding he wanted to switch from working in restaurants to making wine, Daniele used the La Biancara cellar for his first vintages and learnt all he could from Angiolino. He also recounts how he was there at the founding of the Arke distribution company (originally destined to import French wines into the Italian restaurant channel, which is now run by Francesco Maule, my brother-in-law…) and how he was the link-piece in connecting the natural wine association which was looking for a home for its flagship event with the Villa Favorita venue twenty years ago. It was the perfect way to understand how these three figures intertwined in this complex viticultural tapestry.

Finally, a big thank you to Alberto Mori, chef and owner of Al Callianino for hosting the event. Bringing together these three protagonists had been in the works for close to five years, pushed back time and time again by the pandemic but finally, on what should have been his day-off, Alberto donned his chef attire and crafted a most thoughtful menu to accompany the liquid offering. Alberto takes local and seasonal ingredients, combines them in sometimes rather untraditional ways, and offers balanced, precise dishes, often with a contemporary twist. The parmesan risotto with snails, salsa verde and pestled lard, paired with the Gravner Ribolla 2007 was simply inspired.

I enjoyed the Maule Pico 2013 with the corn-base pizza and baccala mantecato from I Tigli (Angiolino’s brother-in-law and a discreet nod of the hat both to the Maule pizzeria heritage and to Alberto Mori’s formative years working at I Tigli.)

But the surprise wine of the evening was an intruder bottle. A magnum of Bianco dei Muni 2008 which a restaurant industry veteran called Paolo Pozza had brought unannounced: chardonnay and durella, one year in barrel (in Angiolino’s cellar), evolved but elegant, with a little CO2 on the palate keeping the taste fresh – it was exquisite!