Lindsay Marie Morris

Wine has always been a part of Ottavio Angelico's life. He grew up amid generations of winemakers in Grammichele within the Province of Catania, Sicily. While he chose to embark on a different path, studying robotics engineering in Canada and finding work in the packaging industry in the United States, those roots drew him back. 

Three years ago, he and his wife, Lily, opened Angelico Winery in Lambertville, New Jersey, near the banks of the Delaware River. Visitors can pull up a chair at the 50-person tasting room and sip wines from familiar grapes, such as Barbera, Sangiovese, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and Riesling, as well as more unique varieties, like Baco Noir and Traminette. All are picked by hand from the couple's vineyard. The wines are produced using low-intervention, natural winemaking techniques that embrace the unique microbial environment of the Angelico vineyard, in contrast to the more technical, controlled winemaking approaches common in the United States. 

Lily and the two Angelico sons oversee most operations for the team of 10, while Ottavio continues to work as a full-time packaging manager for L'Oréal. Thus, the winery is truly a family business.  

Ottavio and I discussed his journey, unique winemaking process, challenges, rewards, and what he hopes to share along the way.

 

 

How did Angelico Winery get its start?

I'm an engineer in L'Oreal's packaging department. I would buy grapes from a local supplier and make wine at home. It was, for me, a passion, a hobby, something that expressed my culture.

 

I was buying equipment to the point where I had a mini lab in my basement. I read books, and my winemaking improved. One day, I just said to myself, "The wine here, in the United States, honestly is just waking up." I felt like it was missing somebody who could share some background or maybe share what the culture means for wine.

 

So it started from that, and I told my wife one thing we could do: stay working for a corporation for the next 20 years and retire or spend the next 20 years doing it on our own.

 

My wife is from China; it's a different culture, and she was born in the city. She told me, I see that you have the passion you spend every weekend or during your hobby time. She knew what I had in the basement. We had a cellar with over 2,000 bottles of wine, something crazy, all kinds from 2002 when I started until now.

 

She said, "This is your passion, so why not work for another winery instead of spending money on a winery?"

 

And I said, "Let me try to work for somebody and see if it's just a temporary fever that I got."

So I went to work for a local winery, went straight to the owner, and said, "I'm here just because I want to open my own winery."

 

He told me, "You know what? I see you have a passion. I see you want to open a winery, and I need somebody who works a little bit everywhere."

So I ended up working for 11 years, making wine with his staff members. I spent my vacations and my weekends working with them.

 

Six years ago, my wife and I said we were ready. We sold our house, and with all our savings from selling the house, we purchased this 10-acre land that we have here today with all the things you see here when you come to visit us: vineyards, the winery, and all the landscaping. And it was done by my family. 

 

Sons Antonio and Giulio started helping at a young age. 

 

Tell us about your unique winemaking process.

I started simply with Old-World tradition. I planted Italian grapes. When I purchased the vines, I selected Italian grapes that would adapt here in New Jersey. If they die because they're not comfortable in the environment, I try to replant different ones.

 

Our wines are, firstly, grown with New Jersey soil, on the original vine, so they're Italian. The second thing is what we call a low-intervention winemaking style. We try not to overkill the wines using sulfites. And my wine does not travel. I am not bringing my wine out of the state. I'm not bringing the wine across the world, so I don't have any necessity to buffer the wine with any preservative. Years from now, I don't know where we will be with my winery, but so far, I'm just embracing all the European techniques we used to do.

I met someone who makes wine here. They have a lot of equipment. They spend a lot of time making impeccable wine, trying to control the process. I agree with that. But if you look at the Europeans, they start from a basic winemaker style. The most important thing is to have the cleanest and healthiest fruit. Yes, we do sanitize. But when we splash the wine on the floor or when we splash the wine on the walls of the winery, we like to have the flavor left there.

 

When you ferment the wine from your own grapes, from your own wine in itself, it builds that kind of microbial step with the environment inside. Those microorganisms that might stay around the winery add a unique flavor or identity to our wine. We embrace what we call the natural fermentation of the wine, the natural yeast.

When you are a local producer, if you're making 5,000 bottles and you want to represent your local place, you better find out what kind of yeast your grapes catch from the environment where you live and if it is a good one. You want to embrace that yeast. 

 

Lily has roots in China. How have your combined cultures influenced the winemaking process and winery experience?

The culture of wine in China is not as well-known as in Italy, of course. My wife, Lily, has spent the last 20 years learning to enjoy wines, recognizing the quality of the product, and pairing it with food. She offers huge support to the family business today since her culture is really wired for running an effective and profitable business. She is a perfect combination that adds value to our winery.

 

She runs marketing and sales. I take care of the quality of the product, bringing my background and experience. She provides unbelievable hospitality and service to our guests, boosting the sales of our products.

 

I can make all the great wines in the world, but Lily can connect with people and deliver the product to their minds and hearts. She is an awesome hospitality guru!

 

Angelico wines: Grown, produced, and bottled in New Jersey.

What were your biggest challenges along the way?

The first and possibly the only major challenge is the "People Mindset." New Jersey has a reputation for having no wine at all or fruit wines. A lot of people need to be educated about what wine truly is, and that's one core value of our winery.

 

Great vines grow in any region of the world, producing unique grapes that represent the territory/area (terroir) where they are grown, so great wines can be produced with such grapes. It will take another five to 10 years to recognize New Jersey as a great AVA (American Viticultural Area) with great wines—a lot of tasting, a marketing campaign, and education. 

 

What are your goals for the future of Angelico Winery?

Based on our core values, we have determined our goals. Our core values are education, quality of the product, and outstanding hospitality for our guests.

 

One of our sons is studying and will soon graduate as a winemaker and viticulture expert. He is studying for an associate's degree at the Finger Lakes Community College and, hopefully, for a bachelor's Degree at Cornell University next year.

 

I've personally been taking classes as a winemaker, winery designer, wine connoisseur, etc., at Texas University and UC Davis.

 

Our team, led by our tasting room manager and Lily, focuses on wine education for the whole staff so they can relay their knowledge to our guests.

 

Lily is continuing to network and take classes/lectures about hospitality.

 

We keep investing in more sophisticated equipment, machines, and buildings to improve the quality of our wines and hospitality.

 

Overall, we still want to remain a small winery; we prefer small but unique with our own identity. We believe that once a winery becomes big, it starts losing contact with its guests and fails to deliver excellent hospitality.

 

The Angelico sons have first-hand experience in viticulture.

What do you hope to share?

Italians, especially Southern Italians, are all about hospitality and connecting to people. I am already doing it. When people come to see us, it's more about what we express in our wine, who we are, and how the wine can embrace in that little cup who we are, what I have, and what I'm trying to do here: talking about wine and sharing how it was made and what it's about.

 

This is what I know, and this is what I make for you, and you can be proud of it because I put in part of who I am and part of who you are, because this is coming from your own soil. This is coming from New Jersey; this is coming from the United States.

 

I also want to teach people and eliminate skepticism about making wine in New Jersey. I want to tell them that grapes, wines, and human beings adapt wherever they go. For every region in the world, there is always a wine grape that is the most suitable for the soil and microclimate.

 

My wife and I are really, really into hospitality. Hospitality is not just a service for us. Hospitality is more about embracing culture between people. That's what I'm trying to do.

 

Everyone who comes to our place does not leave until they have met us and the team. We don't just shovel a cup of wine and walk away. We don't want that. We want people to come, experience the place, and experience the wine as a good time, while somebody pays attention to them and educates them, telling them about what we're trying to do with the wine.

 

Wine is more like a chain of connection between our culture and the world and their culture. So that's what I'm doing. This is not a rich business. It's more of a passion and labor of love.  

 

 

 

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Mike Elgan has a secret. He and his wife/business partner, Amira Elgan, are hosting their first Gastronomad Experience in Sicily. He can tell you that you'll spend a week "living as a Sicilian aristocrat." You'll enjoy authentic cuisine and wine enriched by Mount Etna's volcanic soil. But the rest is largely under wraps. 

It's part of the fun—and the highly exclusive experience. Drawing from their own gastronomist lifestyles, the pair offers behind-the-scenes access to local food, wine, and cultural experts that typical tourists cannot access in Italy's Venice and Prosecco Hills, France's Provence, Spain's Barcelona and nearby cava wine country, Tuscany, Morocco, Mexico's Oaxaca, Mexico City, El Salvador, and now Sicily.

Amira has worked as food and beverage director for hotels in Los Angeles and New York City, including Mondrian, the Bonaventure, the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel, and the Doral Hotels in Manhattan. A board-certified holistic health counselor, she is also the creator of The Spartan Diet and has written about food, nutrition, and health for decades. Meanwhile, Mike is a technology and culture journalist and the author of Gastronomad: The Art of Living Everywhere and Eating Everything.

Mike shared more about the Gastronomad Experience, why they chose to include Sicily, what makes their offerings unique, and what he hopes participants will take away.

 

 

What inspired the creation of the Sicily Gastronomad Experience?

Around 2006, Amira and I took a vacation with our kids, and I'd been reading all the stuff about digital nomad people, and this idea that you could travel while working was really great. I decided to do an experiment for a column I was working on for Computerworld.

The experiment was that I would be in remote areas of Central America, looking at ancient Mayan ruins with my family. I wasn't going to tell my editors or anyone else that I was doing this.

I went to meetings and did all this stuff. Nobody noticed that I was not in my home office. And so there was this revelation: "We're going to travel full time."

 

My wife was working for AT&T at the time, so we decided to take a vacation. We went to Greece and loved the life so much that my wife called and quit. We just stayed in Greece, traveling on islands for six months, and we're like, "OK, we're doing this. That's it."

 

Over time, we got rid of our house and put all the stuff in storage. With the exception of two years when we lived in Petaluma, Sonoma County, we've been traveling full time.

 

Fast-forward to 2014. I was always posting on Google Plus. My wife's a food person. She's headed food and beverage departments for high-end hotels like Mondrian. She always connects with chefs and winemakers. She goes to the farmers market, makes friends with farmers, and is fascinated by organic farming. 

 

We're tasting wine in winter in Provence and chilling the rosé in the snow—beautiful stuff. People were constantly saying, "Gosh, I wish I could do that. I wish I could join you and do what you guys do."

 

At some point, my wife said, "What if we took six months of really fun stuff that we did and did it all day in one week?"

 

We had all these friends in these specific places. So, in 2017, we did the Barcelona experience, which was the first one. And it was amazing. We had this really beautiful apartment in Barcelona. Nowadays, we stay in the wine country and drive into Barcelona, but back then, we stayed in the city, and it was just a cool group of people: self-selecting super foodies who love traveling and wine.

 

We offered the most amazing peak-life experiences three or four times a day for a week. It's an incredible concept, and it works great. So we've been doing that since then, and we do between five and 10 of these a year in a bunch of locations.

 

An exclusive dining experience near Oaxaca, Mexico

 

How do your experiences differ from other culinary travel offerings?

We are so obsessed with exclusivity that on many of these experiences, participants don't even see a tourist. For example, we do Prosecco Hills and Venice. Typically, you'd go wine tasting at a tasting room. We go to the home of the winemaker. We have very close friends there who are winemakers, and one of them is an absolutely brilliant winemaker whose home is on the top of a hill, and the whole hill is her vineyards. We spend four or five hours with her talking about wine, the history of the region, and drinking and tasting wine.

 

We have friends in the same area who live in a beautifully restored 400-year-old farmhouse way up in the forest. The husband in this couple happens to be a brilliant chef.

 

The people we bring are treated like family; they're just incredible experiences you can't buy as a tourist. We often find ourselves in situations where if you do see tourists, they're like, "Why do they get to do that thing?"

 

It's very common for a chef to open their restaurant just for us when the staff has the day off, and he'll serve the food himself. These are famous restaurants.

 

One key and interesting differentiator is that everything's a secret. So when people sign up, they don't know what we're going to do, except in the vaguest of terms: We will do food stuff.

 

When they get up in the morning, we tell them, "Make sure you bring your sunscreen, sunglasses, and swimwear." They don't know what we're going to do until we're there doing it.

 

We find that people love this aspect of it. There are no decisions to be made. It's like all the good things with travel without a single bad thing. If people have an allergy or dietary restriction, there's no fuss about it. Everything that they are exposed to is within the realm of their dietary restrictions. It's just easy, super fun, and beautiful.

 

We do this in the most beautiful places imaginable. I'm a professional photographer, taking pictures the whole time. And then they end up with this incredible album. They can put their phones away, forget about the world, forget about politics, forget all stuff, and just live the way they would live if everything were exactly how they wanted it.  

 

Gastronomad Experience takes guests to Mount Etna's wine country.

 

You offer experiences in several places. Why Sicily?

We selected Sicily for the same reason we selected all the other places: It's a place we love and where we know some really wonderful people. We've been going to Sicily once, twice, or three times a year for years, and the experience kind of formed itself.

 

We are great friends with this biodynamic winery on Etna; they love us, and we love them. We realized there were enough things that we could do there that we should have an experience.

 

The first one is in May. It was so popular that it just sold out instantly. Then we added another one, and that's selling out.

 

We travel around a bit, but the star of the show is the Etna wine country and that half arc on the eastern side. We don't go to Palermo. There are a whole bunch of places in Sicily we're not doing, and there are a whole bunch of beautiful things in Sicily that we're not doing for various reasons.

 

Luxurious accommodations are important for us. In the case of Sicily, they're both in vineyards. You can't find that kind of thing in Palermo or many other places. There are many beautiful places with amazing little villages, and you can find good food, but there is really not enough there to do four or five peak-life experiences a day. So we don't do that. My wife and I enjoy those places, and we will linger there. We love them, but we need a combination of incredible scenery, incredible luxury accommodations, and high-end restaurants.

 

For example, there are Michelin ratings in Mexico City, so we'll do the best restaurant in the Americas, the highest-end, most luxurious, highest-rated restaurant. And we'll have high-quality street food. So we do the range. We want the very top, but it amounts to home cooking.

 

I won't go into any details, but we do super high-end and super-real stuff. For example, in Oaxaca, Mexico, where half the population is Indigenous, there's no phony anything. We are in an Indigenous community with people who speak Zapotec in their homes. And so we do that, but then we do super high-end stuff as well.

 

Guests of the Sicily Gastronomad Experience enjoy haute cuisine.

 

What do you hope participants take away?

About 90-plus percent of our guests are Americans. We live in an industrial food system, and this is what we know very well. So, the degree to which we really understand what makes good olive oil or natural wine good and all the details not really known even to foodie-oriented people, by the end of it, they've gone through a very pleasurable but detailed masterclass in these details. When they go home, they're just throwing stuff away and starting over. And now, with the newfound knowledge and appreciation for the best things, they become snobs about that—not in a bad way, but they just have much higher standards because they have the knowledge.

 

Another thing is just peak-life experiences. We are on this planet for a very short period of time. If you want to experience Sicily and have one week, we want you to see the most magnificent landscapes, try the most incredible food, and get to know local Sicilians who are not in the tourism industry.

 

Travel is on the rise. Most people who go on vacation never speak to somebody who hasn't been paid to speak to them. The conversations they have with the people they meet are products. A tourist is a consumer who consumes the products and services of people who cater to tourists and travelers.

 

We live predominantly outside of that. So people spend a lot of time talking to locals who are just our friends, not in the tourist industry, and they get to know them really well.

 

How many Americans, for example, have had extensive conversations with Mexicans? The country's right there. We know Mexicans as migrant workers and immigrants or their children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren of immigrants, and we really should know them much better.

 

When our guests go to Sicily, they'll meet our friends. Sometimes, the friends are cheesemakers or chefs or people like that. But we often know people we just invite to dinner. So our group is there plus one or two or three of our local friends. We just have a dinner where there's lots of conversation, and they get to know people.

 

You've really been Sicilian for a week. You've lived as a Sicilian aristocrat for one week. And that's quite an experience. That's not tourism; it's very different. You're not just buying goods and services from people. You go straight into the inside of the culture. It's really a life-changing experience.

 

 

Raise a glass of biodynamic wine from an Etna winery.

 

 

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