Simonetta Gedda is the Founder and General Manager of Love to Italy, an importer and distributor of Italian wine and cuisine. She grew up in the countryside of Italy and has a deeply rooted sense of culture — and brings heart and authenticity from Rome, Florence, and Venice to the products selected to import.

Simonetta built extensive expertise in sales and marketing, working for Hiserv Italia Srl, EDISONTEL S.p.A., Tutto Bene Winery, and Tenuta Roletto to achieve profitability and revenue. She volunteered for Stiletto Broadcasting, with a goal to educate, empower, and entertain women in food, wine, and Italian culture talk.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Simonetta Gedda talks about how growing up near a vineyard led to creating the experience of Love to Italy
• How Simonetta combines food and wine with the tradition of the land and people
• Simonetta discusses her shift in marketing tactics due to the pandemic 
• How to bring Americans closer to Italy through hands-on education in crafting culinary pizza
• What is the biggest problem facing Italian cuisine in America?
• Simonetta explains how she selects imports to elevate the quality of her brand
• How the beer and wine industry caters to all palates
• Why Simonetta admires the next generation of wine producers

In this episode with Simonetta Gedda

Is there a way to taste the experience of an Italian culinary masterpiece in your home? How can you bring to life the flavors of Italian food, wine, beer, and spirits without leaving the comfort of home?

For Simonetta Gedda, it is more than wine and culinary delights — it is about bringing the experience of culture and the flavor of Italy to your door. Simonetta creates unique experiences to scale her brand. She combines her passion and expertise in the Italian marketplace to deliver high-quality imported products curated with the heart and soul of Italy.

In this episode of Legends Behind the Craft, Drew Thomas Hendricks has a conversation with Simonetta Gedda, Founder and General Manager of Love to Italy, about bringing authenticity to imported Italian cuisine. Together they discuss specific marketing tools during the pandemic, capturing culture in food, and bridging the gap between America and Italy.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Barrels Ahead
• Drew Thomas Hendricks on LinkedIn  
• Simonetta Gedda on LinkedIn 
• Love to Italy  
• Yuan Ji on Legends Behind the Craft 
• Andrew Means on Legends Behind the Craft

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Barrels Ahead.

Barrels Ahead is a wine and craft marketing agency that propels organic growth by using a powerful combination of content development, Search Engine Optimization, and paid search.

At Barrels Ahead, we know that your business is unique. That’s why we work with you to create a one-of-a-kind marketing strategy that highlights your authenticity, tells your story, and makes your business stand out from your competitors.

Our team at Barrels Ahead helps you leverage your knowledge so you can enjoy the results and revenue your business deserves.

So, what are you waiting for? Unlock your results today!

To learn more, visit barrelsahead.com or email us at hello@barrelsahead.com to schedule a strategy call.

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:03  

Welcome to the Legends Behind the Craft podcast where we feature top leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry, with your host, Drew Thomas Hendricks. Now let’s get started with the show.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  0:19  

Drew Thomas Hendricks here I’m the host of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast where I talk with leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry, from design companies like Transom that helps wineries tell their story through visual design. Today’s guest Simonetta Gedda whose mission is to introduce the world to the wonders of Italy beyond just the cities of Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan. Today’s episode is sponsored by Barrels Ahead. At Barrels Ahead, we work with you to implement a one of a kind marketing strategy. One that highlights your authenticity tells your story and connects you with your ideal customers. In short, if you’re a business looking to retain a winery or craft beverage producers a client, Barrels Ahead will figure out a plan to make it happen. Go to barrelsahead.com today to learn more. Now before I introduce today’s guest, I want to give a big thank you to last week’s guest Yuan Ji, co-founder of Erstwhile Mezcal on last week’s show, you want to know we discussed the incredible diversity within the Mezcal Walker region, and her mission to bring these individual expressions to the United States. Today, I’m super excited. We’re talking with Simonetta Gedda, founder of Love to Italy. Simonetta’s mission is to help people experience the wonders of Italy. And today we’re going to talk with someone about the unique ways that she combines wine, food, travel and education to ignite people’s passions beyond just the big cities of Rome, Florence, Venice in Italy. Welcome to the show, Simonetta.

Simonetta Gedda  1:46  

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  1:48  

Well, thank you so much for being on. So Simonetta, tell tell our listeners a little bit about you and how you kind of got into the wine and food industry.

Simonetta Gedda  1:55  

Absolutely. I’m for sure from Italy, and they come from Piemonte region, that is the land for the most beautiful red wines since the beginning. And I grew up in the countryside. And since when I was a little kid, I was always dealing with the vineyard, the grapes. And the wine. My grandfather was used to produce the wine. And I was used to wait that amazing moment. Because it was the moment we’re old family and friends that were just clicking together, connecting together, having fun having food and working. So it was just something that was growing up inside myself since when I was young. And that’s it sometimes in life. So just things happen. And this is what’s happened to me. And I’m here and I always wanted to run some business with wine. And hopefully in USA.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  2:52  

Oh yeah. So that so that brought on your business Love to Italy.

Simonetta Gedda  2:56  

Exactly. So my first step up years ago was representing an Italian winery based on a very small village, close to mine, and I was selling these special strange wine called Erbaluce di Caluso all around the world. And the next step for me was in 2015, I spent eight months in Houston, Texas, you know, trying to understand better about the market in USA about the wine market on specifically. And then I just came back home, I’ve done other things. But I joined this idea coming from a very good friend of mine of really creating something different and this is something different. It’s our company so Love to Italy we always wanted to have a different approach in the market. And I hope that we can succeed.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  3:57  

Yeah, tell it tell us a little bit now. Love to Italy does have a very different model. And it seems like it stems from the time you know from growing up in Piedmont where it’s just not not just about the wine it’s about the whole experience the food the land. Exactly. It’s about the

Simonetta Gedda  4:13  

exam in Thanks for the question because for us, it’s really important what we do, unless we would be just one of the last importers in this country and probably not effective and not interesting. We always wanted to transfer the real experience overall experience belonging to Italy because since the beginning when I was a teenager and my causing were traveling from USA too easily, or other friends that they were just enjoying what we had in Italy, but then when we when they were just traveling back home in some way they were having just memories, you know what I mean? So they were not able to have the same experience in this country because in some way The food was a little bit different was adjusted to local taste, the wine was not available, and they were just taking a lot of pictures. So talking about when, when the smartphone was not available. But anyway, so we decided and we thought, what we can do to really bring the Italian experience in USA. So actually, what we saw in what we do is to look for what we consider one of the master acts expressive item that we can have in specific region, or some area of regions in terms of food, wine, or beer or spirits. And first of all, importing these goods here in USA. But second, what we do is to work around this product set to create the full experience by combining in educational tasting by combining travel by combining an academy that can just put everything together What I mean is that if I tell you Drew, what are you able to cook a pasta, you probably are gonna tell me Yes, I’m able, because at the end of the story, when I prepare the pasta, and not you, I tell you also the story behind that pasta, the shape, the tomato sauce, that we are using the wine that we can drink together with this pasta, because it’s the tradition of people coming from that place. And it’s a so I’m very deep in the culture that every time I just describe something to my guests, or my customers, immediately, they want to travel with us in Italy, to see the place where items and products are coming from. So the food and the wine is just something that enables us to tell stories, to explain the real tradition behind that food, the land that it comes from, and given the vision of what is possible to feel and to have when they travel for really in Italy. And after this experience that probably after the COVID they are gonna be able to do again, they can travel back here home in this country and they can just keep going buying what they had the opportunity to taste in Italy because of us. I hope it’s clear what I’m saying to you. I mean it’s just putting together many dots to create another old puzzle. Oh, absolutely yes. And not just in one piece of the others. So it’s really much easy to describe than putting in place because just creating all these business use units having all the licenses haul the connections with people it’s really hard but we are just keep going because we want to succeed in the project.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  8:29  

And what I love that angle and a lot a lot of import companies don’t have a why would you do? There’s a book start with why from Simon Sinek in a lot of important companies just there’s the why you do it, what you do and how you do it. And how as you import wines, what you do is the wines but why why you’re doing it all is to just spread this love fernleaf spread the whole experience in the wine and the food are two of the products that you know they help drive revenue, but that’s not why the Why is the whole love for it. And by connecting them all, you’re creating a really powerful kind of a, I want to say a revenue engine because they all build upon each other. But what’s driving that is the that whole desire to experience Italy and to promote that.

Simonetta Gedda  9:12  

Exactly the Why is the experience itself is not just a single element. As I told you since the beginning, if we were just to focus our business in importing and selling, probably, we will close our activities very soon. Because it’s not easy nowadays to deal with the big fish or you know, the medium importers that already are available in these states and in other states. This is not what we do. And that’s why if you take a look to our offer, at least the 90% of the overall offer is made from product coming from very small producer. family run businesses. products that nobody knows in this country or have any clue that what they are. So the effort that we need to put to explain to introduce these items is huge. So I’m spending a lot of time in a running process promotional activities with my customers educational tasting. And this is just another way, you know, thanks to you the opportunity you’re giving to me, without this huge support, probably it will be impossible. So almost all my producers never had the chance to put the feet in this country because US market, it’s amazing. It’s impressing, but probably one of the most difficult, and you need a lot of effort, a lot of money. And at least you need to know the language. I mean, I’m not perfect in my English, but I can express myself, I can understand the my importers, they don’t have any clue of English.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  11:04  

So in too often, like the very, very small producers that are going after the large importers, it’s really almost not worth their work while because they can’t, they can’t import the items at a magnitude that makes it worthwhile for their portfolio. Now, I was really, really excited that you came on the show, we’ve talked a couple times offline. And one of the things pretending COVID didn’t exist, I was so impressed with your business model with based on travel, bringing people there, and then they’d have, I’m not going to get the story correct. Maybe you can help me where you’ve got the flower producer. So you’d send someone to the region. And they’d see the flower that produces the pasta that has the wine, and in this this complete overarching experience. Yeah,

Simonetta Gedda  11:49  

I mean, for sure, COVID was not helping. Okay, but thank God, now I can see that people in this country really want to travel back again. And we already started to create this customized tailor made the travel for the people. So what they would like to do is, let’s take the example of the flower that just okay, I imported this amazing flower coming from one of the most ancient meals in Italy, okay. And what I do here is not only showing the box, and the package of the flower itself, but they tell the story behind the meal behind the family. And then they start to smell. And they start to you know, just pictures in their mind what they can do with this flower. In the meantime, I prepare for them, like pizza, like pasta, so I show them how to really use the flour, combining a very beautiful glass of wine. So in the travel, what they can do is to go in the place where the mail is, and see effectively how the flower is produced. And you know, smell and taste are two sounds that help people to connect everything together. So and they can attend a specific training in the meal itself just to know how is possible to prepare a good pizza and they can eat the pizza, you know. So it’s the experience again, we don’t just sell travel, like don’t sell why in this country, we just create the experience here. And we keep going with the experience in Italy that is gonna grow up. And they can bring back home this experience and remember, hopefully, that was a great experience. Again, and this is what we do.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  14:02  

That’s fantastic. So going as over the last year with COVID. How did you adjust since you couldn’t really send people to Italy?

Simonetta Gedda  14:10  

No, it was crazy. It was crazy. Also for me because last summer I had to stay blocked in Italy for five months because of the lockdown. The US Embassy was closed. So it was really complicated. Actually since September 2019. When I came here for the first time in joining Love to Italy I had to start up again three times and hopefully we can do a great job. But since it was not possible to travel in Italy, I was trying to do a lot of local activities you know, but even here, lockdown gathering restrictions so every time was just Small amount of people vs to all tasting zoom became one of the most important tools that we all use, but they never stop to talk about the real project ever. And from March when a discount to everything was, you know, just released, I pushed the button to just talk to us in the original project. And as I told you, many people are asking me already to design something specifically for bam. So there will be a very beautiful wine club that for June next year, they are going to visit Piemonte, Lombardy and Veneto, so the three regions where I’m bringing in some beautiful wines and they want something very high handed so every day they are going to have a wine tasting in the winery with the owners. And they were having also an amazing food experience because we planned to bring them in high hand restaurants but also a barbecue inside the vineyards. And in between that could be everything and they want to combine together also the history and heart that they can have. So they are going to visit the Egyptian Museum in Torino and many other things you know, so I’m very excited and but this is something just for them and others maybe they want to go in other regions but for me it’s always places connected to what I bring here and what I can in the next future to introduce in the academy because the academy it’s really very important. The Academy that is the last piece we have been filling up it will give the opportunity to do training for professional but also for learners.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  17:08  

Hmm tell me how the academy works. So you’ve got you’re importing the wine, you’re inputting the food, you’ve got the travel, and you’ve got some education, but now you’re formalizing it.

Simonetta Gedda  17:18  

No what we are going to do is really create a Love to Italy Academy like subdivision and we already got the important collaboration with the most important private Culinary Institute. And so you know, something for Italian cooking and other only for the pizza napoletana and other for the coffee and other for the wine so very specific. So and the last news is that now we we have got a location here in Greece, Morocco to start our first real Academy and we are going to plan at least of training that people will be able to attend based on their skill and what they won’t achieve. So a real example. Everybody knows the pizza, but I don’t know how many people knows that that is pizza, what we say regular pizza in Italy. Then we have the pizza napoletana that is something very specific. And then we have the pinsa Romana that is another something. So if someone wants to start a career in the pizza worth and they want to be a master chef for the pizza, we are going to teach them how to do properly all these three kinds of pizzas using the most amazing raw material, the flour, the tomato, the peasant, the olive oil, the mozzarella, but it’s not going to be similar to doing the train for sure I will help but we have one of the most important the master chef for the pizza napoletana another for the pinsa Romana and then other for the regular pizza. You know so

Drew Thomas Hendricks  19:13  

they come over from they’re coming over from Italy to

Simonetta Gedda  19:15  

absolutely

Drew Thomas Hendricks  19:18  

go to Italy but you’re you’re bringing in the the thought leaders from Italy over to Greensburg,

Simonetta Gedda  19:23  

we are going to bring him in the top training the Trump the top leaders in term of trainers. And after the training we already have a local network of partners partners is not delivering the beautiful term to us of people who can collaborate with us that can give support to our students, because it’s not going to be possible every week to you know call the master chef in Italy for coming here and give you the support You want to run your business, but we need someone, at least in USA that can easily take your fly and come one week in your restaurant, in your shop or whatever you want to give you a buys in to see your improvement. On the other hand, we want to run training also for lovers, because they are many normal people that just want to enjoy and try to do something. And this is what

Drew Thomas Hendricks  20:29  

I would love to see, I would love to level up my pizza making skills. Step

Simonetta Gedda  20:33  

number two, probably stem number one would be for professional art. And stem number two would be for lovers. But in the professional section, we are going to cover all the need from the beginner to the high hand training for chef that wants to jump on the next level. And they will be trained by star chef star Michelin chef. And we have a lot of them in Italy. So the most difficult part is done. So having our partnership in place in Italy, and this is done. The second step was finding the place for the first Academy here, and this is done. The third, we need the Biden administration that is going to open up the borders. So people can travel and joking apart. I think that the 2022 we are going to able to do that. That’s

Drew Thomas Hendricks  21:37  

Yeah, it looks like you’re really setting us up for success. And I like the fact that you’ve built everything on this core of education. And it’s not just it’s not just a supplement to what you’re doing it is the core of what you’re offering here. And then your products is the what and how they can experience and benefit from that education.

Simonetta Gedda  21:54  

It absolutely it’s one connected to the other. I want to give you again, a very simple example. Oh, absolutely. One. I’m really a pizza lover. This is what is missing mostly here.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  22:12  

What’s the big mistake we’re making here?

Simonetta Gedda  22:16  

That’s it, the big mistake is using the not qualified raw material. This is the mistake. And the second that technique because creating a good perfect pizza, it’s really difficult. I mean, when I started with the flour, I didn’t have Haneke any clue on how difficult than Why is the word of the flour. So now I understand something and they can deal with someone is baking. So asking the proper questions to give a suggestion on the proper flour to use. But it’s really it took me two years, okay, so I’m not able to eat a good pizza, at least not in North Carolina. Okay? So, but also, when you change from one place to the others, you see that the quality can really you know, jump jump from here to here. And if you go into the same place and they are changing, the chef, again, the quality is just changing. So for me one of the biggest problem in this country is to keep the same level of quality, you know what I mean? And this just training properly, new generation of chefs, the one that they will be the chef of the future, the owner of the business of the future, how to recognize the good raw material and how to eat them, you know, many times I just knock in the door to a place and a pizza place and they the first things they are going to ask me you know which one it is, how much does it cost? So I can understand I mean, if you don’t care about the final product because you’re having a good business, okay, why you need to spend more for having a better quality, but you need to know that there should be in there could be a better quality and up to use it. And for us if we can, using our experience try to introduce and montains at this level for who is interested in it will be a great success.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  24:39  

That sounds great. I like how so we’re talking about pizza now what about that? So you also do import wine, beer and spirits or just wonder?

Simonetta Gedda  24:49  

Yes, no, we import everything actually in North Carolina is one of the most complicated states in USA for how Calling beverages and licenses. So we decided to complicate our life at the very top. So we have the license for importation and distributions of wine, beer and spirits. So we’ve got six different licenses. For the wine, the portfolio is made the 90% of label that nobody knows. So that the most popular is a Prosecco, that it’s popular in USA. But if you taste my Prosecco, it tastes completely different. The other labels are unknown, probably also to a lot of Italians. I really like to go and scout what is small production coming from a small area. And I’m sure that you also know that Italy is one of the most complicated the country in the world for the wine, you know, rules and labels. But what is giving me a huge satisfaction is when I introduce my portfolio, and in front of me has someone that just say, Okay, I don’t have any clue. But let me try. And when they taste, they are just impressed in the quality of these bottles that they didn’t have any clue it was existing.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  26:20  

Yeah. Aside from cotton quality, what do you look for when you’re choosing your producers to import,

Simonetta Gedda  26:26  

um, I look for something that is produced with the heart, you know what I mean? So has to be quality wise, very high. And the the standard, in terms of quality is something that belongs to myself, I mean, maybe it’s not beautiful for you. But for me, it has a lot of quality, not only because of the technology, technicalities of the one itself, so the one has to be technically correct. But I need also to be sure that the people in the winery itself is working properly in the vineyard. So where the small production taking care about not using a lot of chemical, we have a lot of organic wines, we have a couple of vegans, but even the others that are not classified as organic, I’m sure that people are working really well without abusing and using a lot of chemical, okay. And then I want to see, you know, more label belonging to the state to the same winery, like an offer that can be interesting in this market. And that can give me the opportunity to tell story.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  27:54  

So, you know, looking for the heart and the soul, I mean, quality isn’t just the fact that it was technically made correct. It doesn’t have any flaws That’s for you qualities, more of that kind of unknown it factor does the is does it have a heart? Does it have a soul? Does it follow tradition? And is there a true authentic story?

Simonetta Gedda  28:12  

Exactly the family itself. I mean, I personally go to visit all my importers. And I know their names. I know if they have cats or dogs, or kids. And I like to take pictures with them. I like to create videos because when I run my tasting here, not every time but almost for group of people. I use these pictures and these videos to show them where the wine comes from how it is produced. The pictures of the grape but the fact that the vineyards is on top of a hilll facing the sea smelling the minerality of the sea. So it’s, you know, I’m giving them I’m trying to transfer what is inside myself. Yeah. Same story for the beer. Because absolutely you can find a very good amount of wine in this country is very difficult to find good Italian beers. If you don’t think about the industrial beers like beer on your nostrils zero. So the biggest and you want to realize these and our beer, do you know work to go? Probably not. So we have in this moment for different small producers of small breweries. One is coming from north and the other from Tuscany and one from close to Napoles and the other from Sicily. So we cover all Italy.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  29:45  

with beer what’s the beer scene like in Italy because I really only have experienced You know, I’m already Peroni, the big the big ones

Simonetta Gedda  29:52  

is exactly like in this country. In North Carolina, for instance, is a very beautiful states for the production of the beer and Just to switch between one time to the other with very high quality. In Italy, the beer market is exactly the same nowadays. So it became very trendy also to go in beautiful restaurants, and having the wine list, but also the beer list. And the prices of the beers are almost like the prices of the wine. Because there is all the culture connected to the work to the beer itself that is very, very similar to the wine. So how to taste the beer, how it is produced? How to prepare the beer?

Drew Thomas Hendricks  30:38  

how did how did the beers different between the regions,

Simonetta Gedda  30:42  

it depends on the basic material, raw material that they are using. So I can just send to you three of my lager beer, and they taste completely different. So exactly like the wine. But here, if selling unknowing wine is difficult, selling Italian craft beer and seasonal beer, it’s over the moon. It’s really complicated. I mean, everybody just likes to appear that in this moment I’m having. But immediately after they say, okay, it’s too expensive. And people will not buy it. And this is not true. Because in the few pace places, I’m having my beer in this moment. And I’ve done some tasting and educational. People just ask him for that kind of beer is exactly like the wine, but this concept and the culture that has to grow up. I mean, no one recognized eataly as a good beer producer, you know what I mean?

Drew Thomas Hendricks  31:51  

So sure, now how are you going to, um, through education and through experiences? How are you? How are you going about, you know, broadening the market for the beer in the US,

Simonetta Gedda  32:02  

I’m just working step by step locally in North Carolina. And I think it’s gonna take me more time than with the wine. But just because the culture of the Italian beer has to grow up, I can tell you that I already spoke with some distributors in other states. And there is interest in this kind of beer is just lower than in the wine. It’s also true that the COVID was not helping because in our market in our industry, just everybody was a struggling restaurant. So we’re closing. So and now that everything is open up again, I don’t know in California, but I can tell you for sure here that a lot of customers I’m having, they have problem with people that can work inside, they don’t want to work inside so they are having shortage in employee level work. So it’s again,

Drew Thomas Hendricks  33:03  

it is a we are in that second, that second kind of iteration of the COVID effects and now the restaurants are open, but there’s no qualified staff in any of the restaurants. So it’s very hard to kind of bring in a whole new like kind of education level of beer and promote that experience even though I think it would be an incredible opportunity for you know, in a higher end Italian restaurant to have their regional beer selections along with the regional wine. Yeah, hearing with the men with their menu, it would just create like like what you’re doing connecting all the dots and add authenticity to the establishment.

Simonetta Gedda  33:37  

I think that the academy will help either in this respect because in the academy for sure, we are going to introduce a beer training together with the wine but the one is the most easy, you know, but I want to have something specifically for the beer has I want to have something specifically for the coffee and maybe for the Grandpa, you know is oh Drew you need to come in Italy.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  34:05  

I need to grab

Simonetta Gedda  34:09  

one of the most popular spirits Italian spirits that is available here in this country. So everybody knows Grappa it’s a distillate from the grapes so it comes from the wine war in some respects. It was considered that the basic spirits in north of Italy at least where every everybody knows the families they were producing the local wine for the family itself. And they were just having also the Grappa at you know hot has for us popular the whiskey or the barber in popular the grandpa.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  34:50  

That’s right, we need to see more. We need to see more growth. I think with like last week we were I was talking with Yuan Ji about mezcal. And she’s importing all All these artists know mezcal from wahaca but there’s so many artists and all grew up as well that all have just such unique expressions.

Simonetta Gedda  35:08  

Yes, because the Grappa comes from the grape itself. So as I said is a distillate and depending on the grape varietal and the aging itself you can have a completely different grab but one could be dry the other could be a kind of soft and sweet and other could can have the flavoring of the barrel it was used for the aging so it’s really complex. My big problem is that I don’t drink spirits so I don’t drink glass. I’m trying You know, I’m trying just to practice but I think it’s gonna be a long story. I prefer to enjoy a glass of wine or a glass of beer I mean that’s just not me but I can I like this now well it’s really interesting.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  36:00  

Oh yeah. See, you know as we’re kind of wrapping down here I kind of what I always like to ask like who you admire right now in the industry, like especially with you and your knowledge of Italy and whoever you admire right now in Italy right now that’s really kind of moving the wine world in the spirit world forward.

Simonetta Gedda  36:18  

What do you mean who I admire in my

Drew Thomas Hendricks  36:20  

Yeah, in Italy? Who’s you know, is there anybody that’s really I’m kind of moving the industry forward. Um, maybe one of your

Simonetta Gedda  36:32  

more than someone specifically so one entity that is what I can see is that the new generation of people who decided to work like their grandparents in the field, they really believe in what they want to do in what the tradition was and they are they growing up locally in different areas. Like we call it groupie, Divina YALI, it means so like aggregation of younger producers of wine, okay. And they they understood finally that they have to create a team they have to work together to being able to build up the culture that is needed them to sell their product and work what they do so in some way it’s what Love to Italy belong in so the tradition and the experience there was a very long periods of time where all the producers were just you know, working on a separate way they didn’t like the idea of creating a team together. Going for in market together doing activities, promotional activities together, they were just jealous of what they are doing. They weren’t sharing with others I it’s true. Now, young generations, they are acting exactly in the opposite way. And for me, this is amazing. Okay, so I’ve seen groups growing up in specially in the more difficult small areas. Difficulty means that they do something so difficult to sell in the market that they don’t work together they will never succeed. You know, I told you it come from Piemonte and Piemonte is a knowing all around the world for Barolo barbaresco. Barbera saw this, the red big winds, okay. But those winds are belongs to the south part of Piedmont Vermont. I come from the north side. So north of Torino, and in my area is produced an amazing lifeline. Okay, that is called Aaron Bellucci. kaluza, so the name is complicated. And the wine is complicated to drink because it has a lot of freshness, minerality and acidity. But if you are able to work properly with these odd characteristics, what you can have, it’s an amazing white wine. So in the land of reds, there is a small area where you have an amazing white. So malucia de kaluza is almost like no one in the world. The group of young generations of people were started again to work in the field. They are promoting the land itself. That is called Cannabis and they are promoting the wine. And in a very short time, I can say one year. Now they are able to, you know, to have the attention of some blogger, they’ve just done a smaller local activity called re wine, that instead of rewind, rewind, you know, and they are, I think 20 young fellow, that are just growing up. And that’s amazing.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  40:36  

That is fantastic. That kind of returned to tradition, but also just kind of moving everything forward, that is truly admirable,

Simonetta Gedda  40:43  

they are able to open their mind, you know, that this was always been the limit of all generation and all countries. So I traveling around the world, for the wine business, I could see that France was really very good in in the marketing, because they were doing team together, and they were promoting France. In Italy, this was not happening, it was the single, you know, and if this single was having a lot of money, were was able to promote much more because of the money itself. It seems now that there is, you know, a turning point that it goes forward with France was used to do and for me, in the global world, is the only way to just being able to stand up, you know, and give a voice to small producers.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  41:45  

That’s phenomenal. That’s fantastic. That really, that excited me a lot to hear about just how everyone’s galvanizing together. And then how Love to Italy your company is then using helping them with their story to promote it outside the borders of Italy.

Simonetta Gedda  42:00  

This is what I want to do. And I really look forward to travel back home, because I want to go and visit this group of people, at least a couple of them because I know some of the producers, I want to maybe to find an agreement with them and as Love to Italy to be part of this project to promote them in USA. And I hope that in USA I could find other distributor that may be are open to listen up Love to Italy can to try to you know, take a little bit of what we do and Alba’s locally in their distribution states or, or a field whatever.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  42:48  

Sure. Yeah, hopefully if you’re a distributor listening, I mean, this is a incredible chance to expand your network and actually bring in some authenticity to your portfolio. So where can people find out more about you in love to Italy,

Simonetta Gedda  43:01  

we have a website that is called the booboo www.lovetoitaly.com. So they can find basic information, but they can find my phone number, my email address, I’m on LinkedIn, so they can just Google my name. And I will always reply to people both email and telephone, whatever, and they will be very happy to share with others, my business model to create Love to Italy in other states, this is what I want to do. This is my mission, create Love to Italy in other states. That’s fantastic.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  43:41  

Simonetta, thank you so much for joining us today.

Simonetta Gedda  43:46  

It was my pleasure. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to describe what I do. And maybe there could be another time in the future where I can tell you something more or something new.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  43:58  

Oh, absolutely. I definitely we need to circle back when you get your the education the education thing set up in North Carolina.

Simonetta Gedda  44:06  

Absolutely. And remember, you need to travel in Italy with me. Oh, absolutely. I’m

Drew Thomas Hendricks  44:10  

gonna have to convince I’m ready.

Simonetta Gedda  44:15  

Okay, we are ready. Give me five. Okay. Thank you so much. And thank you for all the people that are going to spend some time listening this broadcast.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  44:26  

Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Thank you.

Outro  44:36  

Thanks for listening to the Legends Behind the Craft podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.