Christian Patat
Italy
Christian's Wines
- Italy
- 13Â wines
- 4Â styles
The talent behind the near-mythical Appassimento and other bold, spicy Italian reds
- There are legends, Naked legends, and then there’s Christian Patat. A man who turns everything he touches into liquid gold.
- In his day job as a consultant oenologist, Christian travels all over Italy helping lesser mortals make their wines taste amazing. That means he knows where all the best grapes hide out, and is in the box seat to snaffle them before anyone else can get their cheque book out.
- Having learnt his thang in Burgundy, Priorat and all over Italy, Christian knows exactly how to craft sensational wines, the proof of the pudding in his blockbuster Appassimento, nicknamed the ‘Naked Godfather of Big Reds’. It’s one of our most popular wines of all time and sells out every year!
Vineyard Location
Christian Patat's Story
Christian Patat's Story
"I have been involved in wine business since my youth as my father had a great wine passion for wines and a real talent in discovery hidden wine gems.
I inherited his passion and kept a lot of his contacts in Italy, France and Spain. My initial goal was to be able to select and propose wines to Italian wine customers, choosing small cuvées from all over the world.
That's what I've done for years but my real passion was work in the vineyards and in the cellars and being able to "influence" the final result. So that I gradually moved from being a sales man into a winemaking person, studying as a self-taught winemaker and working for short periods in cellars in Burgundy, Spain and Italy.
Today I'm responsible for the blending and winemaking in various Italian estates but I keep travelling around to find new wines to offer to my customers
I started working as a winemaker because I wanted to know what's behind a good wine and not only sale a bottle without control on its quality. I love crafting wines with real "sense of place". I like the Idea that they taste of their terroir and that they can bring pleasure to people in every corner of the the world without loosing their identity.
My wines are special not because they are the best wines but because they are made with respect: respect of the fruit, of the places, of the Earth and of the people working in the vineyards and in the cellar. My customers should drink my wines if they feel that respect and honesty are as important as a good taste.
I had great pleasure in working and making wines in Priorat, Spain, for three vintages. The chance to work with very old vines of Carinena and Garnacha was a unique opportunity for a winemaker to see how a wine can be so complex just because of a magnificent terroir. Sadly I had to stop going there as I was not getting paid properly and I could not afford to keep going there. It was really a pity for me. I still dream to be able to do it again one day.
One of my proudest moments was during a visit to Madame Leroy in Burgundy some years ago. She is one of the greatest winemakers in the world and her wines have all you may dream to find in a bottle. We tasted together some of my Chardonnay and she was so kind to lie and say that were as good as some of the best white Burgundies. Today I think it was a funny moment but at that time I thought that I was becoming a decent winemaker!
Some years ago I attended the first course of the Master of Wine in UK and the first day of course we had a blind tasting of six wines. Everybody was really scared. I wasn't as I was used to blind tasting so that when the first wine arrived I screamed "Barolo, from Serralunga, 1996". Everybody started to laugh but at the end I was right. I had my two days of glory thanks to this performance, but then I wasn't able to attend the rest of the course as my daily job was keeping me very busy.
I look forward to working with the Angels and am very excited about the wines I will have the opportunity to make. I really hope you enjoy my wines and I look forward to reading the reviews!
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