Tag Archives: Brolio

Chianti and Brunello, the brand names

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Inspired by that Prince of Paronamasia, Thor, I was tempted to entitle this post, “Brand on the Run”… But have you ever known me to mince words?

Above: The Castello di Brolio, site of the Ricasoli winery. The “Iron Baron” Ricasoli, winemaker and Italy’s second prime minister, re-branded Chianti in the late 19th century when he replanted his vineyards with Sangiovese. Would he recognize the wine his family makes today?

Reading Eric the Red’s brutally honest column on Chianti Classico yesterday, I couldn’t help but wonder out loud: would the “Iron Baron” Ricasoli, father of pre-industrial Chianti Classico, recognize the wines that his family makes today?

Even more chilling was the thought: in the light of Montalcino’s “vote for modernism,” as Ms. Robinson put it, is Brunello heading down the same path as Chianti Classico?

In other words, will we not recognize the wines that are going to be made there 20 or 30 years from now, leaving us as befuddled as Eric and his colleagues? “Of the 20 glasses before us,” wrote Eric, “many did not look like Chianti Classicos, the designation for Chiantis made in the Chianti region’s heartland in the hills of Tuscany. Or at least they did not look the way I expect a Chianti Classico to look.”

By the time Ricasoli was purchased by behemoth Seagram’s in the 1970s, Chianti had already achieved antonomastic status in the collective consciousness of the American consumer. In other words, it had become synonymous with “Italian wine.”

I cannot tell you how many times I come across the common misconception that Italians pair pizza with Chianti. The other day, a young Sicilian woman here in Austin told me that the traditional pairing for Parmigiano Reggiano was Chianti.

As the apologetic title of the column reveals (“Tasting Report: Chianti Classicos, So Dark and Oaky, but Still Recognizable”), the wines that Eric and colleagues tasted did not resemble the wines that they expected to uncork. In fact, “Many were densely colored and dark, almost impenetrable in their blackness.”

As rumors of corporate take-overs in Montalcino abound (reminiscent of the heady Seagram’s years), I fear I see a (literally) dark cloud in my wine horizon. To borrow a phrase, from Mel Brooks, “Let’s hope for the best…” You already know the next line…

What would the Iron Baron Ricasoli say if he were alive today?

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In a 1989 show entitled Le balene restino sedute (Whales, please stay seated), the Bolognese comedian Alessandro Bergonzoni (left) noted that if Sigmund Freud (center) were alive today, he would say: “Well, I sure have lived for a long time.”

Above: The Sala delle Armi or Armory Hall in the Brolio Castle in the township of Gaiole in the heart of Chianti.

Reading Carlo Macchi’s post about yesterday’s conference on the Ricasoli-Studiati Papers, held at the Ricasoli family’s Castello Brolio in Chianti Classico, I couldn’t help but wonder what would the Iron Baron Bettino Ricasoli (1809-1880, above right) say if he were alive today? Among other significant entries on Italian unification, Italian national identity, and the importance of agriculture and winemaking in the forging of a new Italian nation, the correspondence between Ricasoli — Italy’s second prime minister, one the architects of its independence, and a champion of Sangiovese — and Pisan professor Cesare Studiati contains the famed letter in which the Baron described his experimentation with “every grape variety” in his vineyards and his conclusion that Sangiovese — or Sangioveto, as it was called in Tuscany then — was the ideal grape to grow in Tuscany. (You can read my translation of the letter here.) Many claim erroneously that the Iron Baron wrote a formula or recipe for Chianti. He did not. But when he tore out international grape varieties from this vineyards and replanted with Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and Malvasia, the land holders of Tuscany followed suit. If you read the series of letters between the two men during that period, you will discover that he was trying to create (and he ultimately succeeded in creating) a fine wine that could be shipped abroad. He realized that Italian wine could help to fuel the nascent national economy if and only if it could be shipped abroad. And through his experiments, he discovered that Sangiovese grown on Tuscan soil was ideal for this purpose.

According to Carlo, who attended the event yesterday, the discussion — moderated by megawatt Italian television personality Bruno Vespa — centered around the controversial expansion of the Chianti appellation. Would this have concerned the Iron Baron? Perhaps. But if he were to taste the Chianti produced by the “40 or so winemakers” who attended the celebrity-studded event, what would he say? Would he recognize his beloved Sangiovese in those wines, now dominated by Merlot and Cabernet?

I’ll let you fill in the blank…

Eating tripe with Baron Ricasoli

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Above: From left, Francesco Ricasoli and his father Bettino Ricasoli, the great-great-grandson of Iron Baron Bettino Ricasoli (in the oil on canvas), an architect of Italian unification, Italy’s second prime minister, and winemaker who reshaped the history of Tuscan winemaking by replanting the vineyards of his Castello di Brolio estate with Sangiovese.

As I write this, the world of Italian wine mourns the loss of Baron Bettino Ricasoli, the namesake and steward of one of Italy’s most illustrious winemaking families. He was 87 and his funeral is being held today in the church of the Santa Trinita in Florence (the name of the church is pronounced TREE-nee-tah, btw, with the tonic accent on the first syllable, because the Florentines use Latinate pronunciation in this and similar instances, e.g., Santa Felicita pronounced feh-LEE-chee-tah).

Above: The library at the Castello di Brolio.

Six years ago I went to visit Baron Bettino, who was one of the nicest, most generous, and most gracious hosts who has ever received me. I wanted to browse the library at the Brolio Castle and leaf through the reprinted, bound collection of his great-great-grandfather’s letters and thanks to my connections in the wine trade, I was able to contact him. I visited in January when the castle was closed and he traveled expressly that day from Florence to spend the day with me. He, personally, led me on a tour of his family’s castle and then let me spend the afternoon in the library there. It was an amazing and truly unforgettable experience.

His ancestor and namesake, the Iron Baron Bettino Ricasoli, reshaped the history of Italian winemaking when he replanted his vineyards “exclusively” with native Italian varieties in the second half of the 19th century. Franco and I have published my translation of the famous letter in which he describes his experiments and his decision to replant at VinoWire.

Many uninformed wine writers claim that the Iron Baron composed a “recipe” or “formula” for Chianti with exact percentages. This is simply not true. What he did do was to establish that fine wine could be made in Tuscany using native Italian grape varieties (viz., Sangiovese or Sangioveto, Canaiolo, and Malvasia). He replanted his estate with those varieties (inspiring other winemaking estates to abandon international varieties), and he developed techniques (modeled after what he had seen in Bordeaux) for stabilizing his wines and thus making them suitable for shipping. The culmination of his efforts and achievements was that Tuscany and a newly unified Italy established themselves for the first time as a world-class producer of fine wine that could be shipped beyond its borders.

Here are a few anecdotes from the day I spent with Baron Bettino…

We ate stewed tripe in the Florentine style at a wonderful little trattoria called Carlino d’Oro near the Brolio Castle. I highly recommend it.

He told me a story of how the Iron Baron decided to leave Florence after another man asked his fiancée to dance at a ball. Evidently, the Iron Baron was prone to jealously and so he swept his betrothed away to the Brolio Castle and began his studies on winemaking. In the end, it was a woman behind the first renaissance of Italian winemaking!

I sat at the edge of my seat as he told me about the German occupation of the castle in the last years of the second world war. The German soldiers used its turrets as mounts for their artillery and Baron Bettino was among the Allied soldiers when they liberated his family’s castle. Because he knew the terrain so well, he was able to help mount their attack. How cool is that?

It was thanks to Baron Ricasoli that I met Darrell Corti, who became an unwitting mentor to me. But that’s another story…

To be continued…

In other news…

I’m picking up the pieces after ten days on the road and ten different cities between wine, one fine woman, and song. Starting a week ago last Thursday, I have visited and eaten meals in San Francisco (twice), San Jose, Los Angeles, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Sedona (AZ), Jerome (AZ), Napa Valley, and Sonoma.

It’s good to be home where I belong and I have lots to post about so please stay tuned…