Tag Archives: sangiovese

Brunello pres moves to allow emergency irrigation

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Brunello growers and bottlers association president Fabrizio Bindocci (above) is appealing to the Italian agriculture ministry to reinterpret current appellation regulations and allow emergency irrigation without revising legislation.

As I wrote on Friday for the Houston Press, one thing was achingly apparent during our recent two-week trip from northernmost Italy to the tip of the heel of the boot, traveling through ten of Italy’s twenty regions: prolonged heat and drought have seriously impacted growers and winemakers over the last decade and their acceptance of climate change is no longer subject of debate but rather resignation in the face of an unavoidable truth.

Last week, Angelo Gaja issued the following statement:

    Climate change — marked by prolonged summer heat and drought — is the cause for the sharp drop in Italy’s grape production for 2012. It was also the reason behind the light vintages of 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011.

    Now, as a result, another scarce year adds to the lack of wine from previous vintages lying in Italian cellars. In the space of just a few short years, we have shifted from a situation in which Italy perennially produced a surplus of wine to the current shortage.

And on Wednesday, Fabrizio Bindocci, president of the Brunello growers and bottlers association (Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino) wrote that “To make great wines, one needs healthy grapes at the right point of ripening. For this reason, we are passing through the vineyards of Sangiovese harvesting, selecting the bunches that have suffered the heat, and leaving still the whole grape bunches to ripen. [The 2012 vintage] is surely not an easy vintage, with a reduction of production not yet predictable but surely of 20%.”

Off the record, among the score of growers and winemakers I talked to over the last two weeks, many compared 2012 to the disastrous annus horribilis 2003, when unrelenting heat and drought decimated Sangiovese vineyards in Montalcino, the first in a series of warm-hot vintages that have challenged growers and producers of fine wines.

In Montalcino, the situation is aggravated by the fact that emergency irrigation — irrigazione di soccorso — is not prescribed by appellation regulations.

Above: For growers with ideal vineyard sites, like Laura Brunelli (Podernovi-Le Chiuse di Sotto [Montalcino]), the quality of fruit is excellent. The problem is that there will be less of it in 2012 (as for Bindocci’s Il Poggione). Even Laura conceded that she would have irrigated this year in certain spots if the appellation allowed it.

In the light of the warming trend, Fabrizio has been lobbying for many years (since 2003) to change the appellation regulations and allow for emergency irrigation.

When I met with him a week ago Saturday, he told me that he is currently preparing a request for “clarification” from the Italian agriculture ministry.

Apparently, the appellation regulations make no mention of emergency irrigation (or whether it is allowed or not).

“In another time,” he told me, “irrigation wasn’t included in the appellation because it could have been used to inflate yields. That’s not an issue today: our members consistently deliver yields far below the maximum requirements, which are already low. So the question is no longer quantity but rather quality. By allowing irrigation in vintages like this, we could help to raise quality for the entire appellation.”

Bindocci’s move, if successful, would also eliminate potential bureaucratic delays and headaches: now that EU technocrats in Brussels have to rubberstamp any changes to appellation regulations issued by Rome, a whole new layer of red tape has been added to the process.

“If the minister declares that, according to the letter of the law, irrigation is legal because it is not referenced in the regulations, we could potentially begin right away,” although the Italian government summer recess, which just ended, would seem to preclude that possibility at this point.

A deux ex machina from the Italian government would also resolve another set of local and political issues for the growers association (and these are my words, not Fabrizio’s).

“No one wants to be the first,” said one grower, “to irrigate without the government’s authorization. Theoretically, they could try to since the appellation doesn’t state whether it’s allowed or not. But no one wants to be the first.”

Call for emergency irrigation in Brunello by Fabrizio Bindocci @BrunelloMaker

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“Let us debunk the common misconception that irrigation serves solely to increase production,” wrote my friend and Brunello producer Fabrizio Bindocci (above) on his son Alessandro’s blog Montalcino Report this morning. “Today, the appellation rules establish low yields and monitoring is implemented in the vineyard to see if these yields are real. For this reason, we would be opening a practice that can only help to raise the quality when there is need because of climatic capriciousness. But until today, not having this possibility, the growers of Montalcino will use the agronomic techniques that they possess to manage their vineyard the best that they can.”

If you’ve been following their blog (as I have), you know that the weather in Montalcino has been very strange this year and there are already forecasts and fears of drought in the 2012 vintage.

Drought isn’t as great of a threat for Fabrizio, his son, and the estate they manage as it may be for other growers: thanks to the age of their vines, their roots reach deeper and have greater success in finding the water table, even in lean years.

But as one of the members of the technical advisory board of the Brunello growers association, Fabrizio is speaking to and for the more than 250 bottlers in the appellation.

Fabrizio has taken a lot of flak for serving on the advisory board under Ezio Rivella, the maligned septuagenarian who continues to lobby for the inclusion of international grape varieties in Brunello.

The way I see it, Fabrizio — a friend of mine and a winemaker I greatly admire — is serving Montalcino’s best interests by working within the current political framework and climate. I can’t think of a more noble and more Tuscan attitude…

And should Montalcino be stricken with another 2003, emergency irrigation would make the blending of Merlot in Brunello much less appealing…

Click here to read his “open letter” calling for emergency irrigation in Montalcino.

A star is born in Chianti in Porta di Vertine (and a Super Tuscan that I loved)

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These days, we can’t even figure out how so many unsolicited samples make it to our doorstep. Before my days writing for the Houston Press, we’d receive the occasional Italian sample and my winemaker friends would often send me new vintages of their wines for me to taste. But now media relations companies just send wine without letting us know (not a good move in hotter than July Texas!) and without taking a moment to reflect on what kind of wine I’ll review for my “column” for Houston’s weekly rag.

But when Walter Speller, who writes for Jancis Robinson on Italy, sends an email saying, “I think you’d really like these wines… would you like me to send you samples?”, well, how could I refuse?

On the surface, the Porta di Vertine estate in Gaiole might seem like the same old paradigm: retired, rich couple from the east coast buys vacation/tax-shelter property in Chianti; hires top-notch Italian viticulturist and winemaker; replants vineyards with Cabernet and Merlot and Sangiovese (the latter for good measure); vinifies wine as trophy for friends and dinner parties.

But, man, when Tracie P and I tasted these wines over the last few evenings, we were blown away by how good they are and how much we enjoyed them.

I even liked the obligatory “Super Tuscan” (what an irrelevant term, no?), made predominantly from Merlot with a balance of Cabernet Sauvignon. It was bright and deliciously fresh, with zinging acidity holding the earthiness and red fruit in check. And when I retasted the wine a week after I opened it, it was still delicious.

But the wine that really won me over was the Chianti Classico Riserva, 100% Sangiovese.

There are so few Chianti Classico producers making traditional-style wine today with a historical perspective on what came before. The unmitigated success of the Chianti brand in the 1970s, the fall from grace with the sale of some of the big domains to American corporations, and the subsequent refashioning in the image of California… Chianti Classico — in my view – is a “brand” that lost its way and lacks the stalwart models for excellence and tradition that Montalcino has.

Just look at the color in the photo above (taken by Tracie P)… the translucent beauty of real Sangiovese… This wine had it all: the freshness, the bright acidity, the red stone fruit flavor, and just a touch kiss of horse sweat. Very elegant yet earthy, muscular in its tannic structure but with delicate floral notes in the nose and in the mouth.

The classic Chianti Classico (as opposed to the Riserva, above) was meatier thanks to a blend of the classic indigenous grapes, including Pugnitello (I learn from reading the winery’s website). But the Sangiovese remained the wine’s alpha grape and I’m hoping the price on this wine, once it reaches US shores, will be below $30 so that I can drink one bottle per week. It’s that good…

Of all the wines that make their way to our tasting table these days (and I taste EVERYTHING that arrives no matter how unpromising), it was so refreshing to find a project that breaks from the predictable paradigm of contemporary Chianti. We loved all the wines (all of them 2008).

The Saint of Sangiovese Gambelli

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Yesterday, I received yet another round of remembrances of the great Giulio Gambelli (who passed away a few days ago), including one by my good friend Francesco Bonfio, president of Vinarius, the association of Italian wine shops.

    He was an exquisite, deeply humble person whose humility was rivaled only by his extraordinary knowledge of Montalcino and especially Chianti Classico. Every time I saw him at the presentations of new vintages he would whisper to me the names of two or three wines that I should taste. But he didn’t just say the name of the farm: he noted the vintage, category, and often the vineyard, specifying this one, yes and this one, no. And they were all his wines. But at the same time, being the great gentleman that he was, he would also point out wines from wineries that he had just tasted — wines, although not his own, that had piqued his interest. Honestly, I’d have to say that he was more apt to praise these than his own creations.

For all the bitter discord that inhabits Montalcino and Chianti Classic and the continuing acidic debate over the inclusion of international grape varieties in Montalcino and Chianti Classico, the hagiography of Gambelli has united the entire spectrum of Tuscan grape growers, winemakers, wine writers, and lovers.

If, in vita (in life), this man championed Sangiovese in purezza (in purity) as Tuscany’s greatest and ultimate vinous expression, let us hope that in morte (in death) his legacy will continue to inspire all of us to transcend our earthly weakness.

Sit tibi terra [tuscolana] levis Juli.

Poggio di Sotto 2006 Rosso di Montalcino

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Since the arrival of Georgia P three weeks ago today, we’ve been cooking at home every night (no takeout a casa Parzen except for Christmas day, when we just had to have Chinese and Woody Allen) and drinking “everyday” wines that we love — entry-tier Santorini by Sigalas, Verdicchio by Bucci, Produttori del Barbaresco Langhe Nebbiolo, all ideal because they’ll last for a few days once opened).

Meals have been simple and wine hasn’t been a focus at our house lately but I did open a special bottle of wine for Alfonso when he and his SO Kim came to meet their putative granddaughter for the first time.

Together with Brunelli, Poggio di Sotto is one of the “younger” estates that has really carved out a name for itself as an indisputable icon of the appellation. And the bottle that we shared that night — from a good to great vintage, depending on the producer — was a true benchmark for Sangiovese: brilliant nervy acidity, technicolor fruit balanced by layered minerality, and a focus and precision that is uncommon among the sea of Brunello bottlers who came late to the game.

The wine isn’t cheap but it’s one of those wines that I wish every young wine professional in our country could taste: it is the apotheosis of what Sangiovese can and should be (as Alfonso pointed out in his excellent post yesterday). And perhaps more significantly, it’s an expression of what the variety can attain when it’s grown in the best sites and with the proper care.

The Poggio di Sotto farm lies in the southern subzone of the appellation, in the village of Castelnuovo dell’Abate. In the photo above, I’m looking south-southeast toward Mt. Amiata from the village. The Poggio di Sotto farm is about a three-minute drive east, with some of the highest south-and southeast-facing vineyards in the appellation (I’ve actually never visited the farm but I’ve driven by it a thousand times).

Poggio di Sotto was recently sold to pharmaceutical giant, northerner Claudio Tipa, whose Tuscan empire continues to grow. But from what I’ve seen with his other acquisitions of legacy wineries (like Grattamacco), Tipa seems to be committed to maintaining continuity. Let’s hope it’s the case: to lose these wines would be to lose an icon, a benchmark, and a piece of that “cultural patrimony” that some of us continue to hold dear…

The Magic of Brunelli’s Brunello (and tasting notes)

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There are times when my ability as a photographer fails me. My October visit to the Brunelli farmhouse was one of those times.

I simply cannot express how beautiful the family’s farm is.

The Brunelli estate is situated in the center of the appellation, along the road that leads to Barbi: heading north from Sant’Angelo in Colle, you turn right and head east about halfway between Sant’Angelo and Montalcino.

And when they arrive at Laura Brunelli’s home, her visitors are rewarded with what I think is one of the most spectacular views in one of the most photogenic landscapes of Italy.

As your eye scans the horizon, looking south-southeast toward Mt. Amiata, there are few signs of modernity. It is Tuscany as it probably looked 50 years ago.

As Tracie P once wrote on her blog, if I were a grape, I would want to grow here.

The Vigna Olmo is Brunelli’s top growing site: its gentle slope faces south and is ideal for the cultivation of thin-skinned Sangiovese Grosso. Standing atop the vineyard, you can feel a gentle breeze from the valley below. It’s simply magical.

The entire estate is biodynamically farmed and even the Brunelli house was constructed using organic precepts — bioedilizia as it is called in Italian, Baubiologie in German or building biology.

The beloved, visionary Gianni Brunelli left our world just over three years ago (see this beautiful tribute by Avvinare). But he lives through the estate that he and Laura built together. I never met Gianni but I could feel his presence that day.

Laura and I tasted three wines together. Here are my notes.

2009 Rosso di Montalcino

Brunelli’s signature acidity and bright, bright red fruit. More savory in the mouth. Alcohol very well integrated. This wine is sourced from the estate’s Oliva and Chiuse vineyards, said Laura.

2006 Brunello di Montalcino (classic)

Elegantissimo nose! Meaty in the mouth but so bright and elegant! This wine is sourced from Chiuse, Olmo, and Rada.

2004 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva

YES! Acidity! Fruit! Savory and very tannic. Fantastic! One of the best wines I’ve tasted on this trip. Sourced mostly from Olmo with some fruit from Oliva.

Of all the great wine made in Montalcino, Brunelli’s wines are among my all-time favorites. They always have been. They’re pure, they’re focused, they’re clean but meaty and savory. They’re delicious. They’re like a favorite song: they make me feel high…

And the family’s farm is one of the most magical places on earth.

Thank you, Laura, for our visit. And thank you for these exquisite wines.

Italy’s greatest rosé? Biondi Santi’s Rosato di Toscana

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I couldn’t resist translating this post by Italy’s top wine blogger Mr. Franco Ziliani for VinoWire today. And the mimetic desire was so overwhelming that I was compelled to post my translation here as well. I haven’t yet tasted the 2008 Rosato by Biondi Santi but the 2006 was fantastic. Until I get back to Italy, I’ll just to live vicariously through Franco’s post… Buona lettura!

When my fifty-fifth birthday arrived this year, I didn’t reach for a powerful red, nor an elegant Champagne, nor a juicy Franciacorta. No, I drank a stunning rosé on my birthday, perhaps the most important and most celebrated of all the Italian rosés (and probably the most expensive, since more than one online wine store offer it at Euro 33). I’m talking about the Rosato di Toscano, 100% Sangiovese, created by the Gentleman of Brunello, Franco Biondi Santi on his Tenuta del Greppo estate in Montalcino.

On another occasion, I wrote the following about this wine: It is the youngest child of the Greppo estate, a wine obtain by vinifying estate-grown Sangiovese at 16-18° C. without skin contact, aged for 18 months in stainless steel. We could call it a youthful Sangiovese, a quasi Brunello… in pink, obtained from young vines roughly 5 to 10 years in age. The vineyards are located in zones rich with stony subsoil and galestro [schist], with exposition to the North-East, South, and North, and elevation ranging from 250-500 meters.

I drank the 2008 Rosato di Toscana by the great Franco Biondi Santi with a simple however delicious, everyday dish: exquisite beef meatballs braised in tomato sauce and paired with green beans that had been sautéed with bread crumbs. We’re talking about enthusiasm cubed here: a truly extraordinary rosé in every sense.

Light cherry in color, jus of squab with an orange hue. Dry and direct on the nose, very salty and focusedd, dominated by red cherry followed by a gradual evolution of citrus ranging from pink grapefruit to mandarin oranges and citron. Then came notes of multi-colored Mediterranean maquis, tomato leaf, flint, and hints of rose. Together, they created a weave of color and mosaic of aroma.

Ample in the mouth, juicy, overflowing with personality and refined, ample layers of texture. Well structured on the palate, with vertical depth, endowed with focus, an absolute release of magnificent vitality and complexity.

A stony, salty wine, with perfect balance of fruit, acidity, and tannin (the magnificent tannin of Sangiovese from Montalcino). Great harmony, extreme polish, aristocratic elegance, and absolute drinkability despite the 13.5% alcohol and richness of this highly enjoyable Rosato di Toscana.

It would be suited to a wide variety of dishes, from Caciucco alla Livornese to fish soup, to baby octopus cooked in red wine to braised calamari with peas. But it also could be paired with a roast beef, braised beef, or even veal… and even a well-stocked pizza. Why not?

The greatest of Italian rosés and one of the greatest rosés in the world, including France. Chapeau bas!

—Franco Ziliani

Breaking news: Rosso di Montalcino proposed changes (documentation)

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It is with a heavy heart that I share today’s news from Montalcino.

Italy’s top wine blogger Franco Ziliani (my partner in and co-editor and founder of VinoWire) has obtained a document that specifies proposed changes for the Rosso di Montalcino appellation. I haven’t had time to review them carefully but I am very alarmed by the “hypothesis for three typologies [categories] of Rosso di Montalcino”:

1) Rosso di Montalcino Sangiovese Superiore: 100% Sangiovese (with a 1% “tolerance” of other grape varieties).

2) Rosso di Montalcino Sangiovese: 100% Sangiovese (1% tolerance).

3) Rosso di Montalcino: minimum 85% and up to 100% Sangiovese, “authorized” red grape varieties up to 15% (1% tolerance).

Click here to view a full-sized version of the document.

Although it doesn’t appear that the Brunello oligarchy plans to call a vote on the proposal anytime soon, it has called for “ordinary assembly” of producers to put the modifications to the floor (September 7).

Rosso di Montalcino with up to 15% Merlot (see the third category)? Please say it ain’t so…

Anecdotally, Franco reports today on his blog that producers are “optimistic” that only 10% of them would vote to adopt the changes.

At least one producer wondered rhetorically and philosophically, “why isn’t there a proposal to not change the appellation?” It seems that the powers-that-be are hell bent on opening the floodgates of Merlot in Montalcino.

Last week, Montalcino experienced some heat spikes, as warm weather arrived from Africa. I regret that this doesn’t bode well for the 2011 vintage (although at least one producer is reporting cool evening and morning temperatures).

I’m with Franco when he says he hopes that the heatwave will pass quickly and stop “cooking the brains,” as they say in Italian, of the Montalcino establishment.

A Montecucco I LOVED and a Peruvian wine that made me gag

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Anyone who has traveled the road that leads from Sant’Angelo in Colle (Montalcino) to Bolgheri (at the top of the Maremma) has passed through the little-known yet increasingly popular appellation of Montecucco, where wines are raised in the townships of Cinigiano (where the village of Monte Cucco is located; n.b. the town is written as Monte Cucco while the appellation is Montecucco), Civitella Paganico, Campagnatico, Castel del Piano, Roccalbegna, Arcidosso, and Seggiano.

Because of its proximity to Montalcino, a lot of marketers and sales people have been touting its kinship to Brunello di Montalcino, where elevation is key in producing long-lived Sangiovese. In fact, Montecucco is mostly low-lying plains where often delicious however plump and sometimes flabby Sangiovese is grown. I’ve tasted a lot of Montecucco (including a pan-appellation tasting a few years ago in the offices of the Montecucco appellation) and frankly, not many of the wines have wowed me. But that changed when I tasted the Montecucco La Querciolina 2007 by the famous Brunello producer Livio Sassetti, whose flagship wines can be excellent despite their slightly slutty, tarted-up character.

The winery’s Montecucco is 100% Sangiovese (the appellation requires a minimum of 60%) and according to the back label the clone Sangiovese Grosso della Maremma. I’ve never heard of this clone and I imagine its one of the myriad clones of Sangiovese found in Tuscany (numbering in the thousands, some developed through massal selection, some developed in nurseries).

Although its called Sangiovese Grosso or large Sangiovese, the berries of Sangiovese Grosso are actually smaller than for most clones and the resulting ratio of pulp to skin makes for darker and more tannic wines. And that was the thing that struck me about this wine: while it had the awesome zinging acidity of Sangiovese, it also had some tannin and a richness of color and mouthfeel that I’d never found in Montecucco.

This wine is friggin’ delicious on the Do Bianchi scale of deliciousness and at less than $20 a bottle, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s one of those wines that reminded me of the Sangiovese that old man Augusto Marcucci used to grow and vinify at his house in nearby Bagno Vignoni where I used to spend summers in my university days. Just pure, honest, lip-smackingly delicious Sangiovese… Where’s the deep-fried wild boar liver, people???!!!

In other news…

From the department of “critical thinking” here at Do Bianchi…

As I continue to contribute to the Houston Press food and wine blog Eating Our Words, I have been expanding my tasting habits to include New World wines that cost less than $25 (for the record, I buy nearly all the wine that I review for the “Wine of the Week” and nearly all of the wine I review in general; I rarely accept samples but I do taste all of the unsolicited samples that somehow make it to our doorstep).

And as much as I respect the friend and top wine professional who sold me the above Peruvian Petit Verdot he sold me, a wine called Quantum by the Tacama winery, I continue to be nonplussed by wineries who make concentrated, oaky, highly alcohol wines especially for the American market.

According to the winery’s website, “Tacama uses both [sic] French technology and receives advice from French experts.” My question to them is: have the French tasted your wine?

This wine was so overwhelmed with spicy (American?) oak that it literally stung my tongue. And in the mouth, not only did it taste like jam that had been left out on the counter top exposed to air for a week, but it was so viscous that it felt like jamn in my mouth.

My recommended pairing? Well-done porterhouse drizzled with stale truffled-oil (my second-most-dreaded food product after jammy, oaky, spoofed wine).

Hey, it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Thanks for reading and buon weekend yall!

Sangiovese Grosso: Italian grape name pronunciation project

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CLICK HERE FOR ALL EPISODES.

This week’s episode of the Italian Grape Name Pronunciation Project is devoted to Sangiovese Grosso as spoken by my friend Federico Marconi who was born in Castelnuovo dell’Abate (a subzone of Montalcino) and general manager of the small estate Le Presi (click here for my post on Le Presi and a great photo IMHO of the strata of volcanic soil that define the wines raised in Castelnuovo).

Sangiovese is relatively easy to pronounce for Anglophones. But for the record, it is pronounced here by a bona fide toscano and ilcinese (ilcinese or montalcinese is the ethnonym used to denote an inhabitant of Montalcino).

Also, for the record, please see my post on the Origins of the Grape Name Sangiovese, which most probably does not mean the blood of Jove — a folkloric etymology too often repeated by wine writers who don’t do their homework (I cover all of the current theories of its origins in the post).

Above: “Due palle così!” My good friend Federico entertained the nice ladies at the famous food shop Nannetti e Bernardini in Pienza (HIGHLY recommended, especially for its legendary porchetta).

Federico is one of the most colorful and lovely people I know in Montalcino and his Ramones t-shirt is his de rigueur uniform (as you can see above). He’s one of those people, to borrow an observation by the great Montalcino winemaker Fabrizio Bindocci, who makes you smile when he walks into the room.