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Supertuscan: internationally Tuscan wines

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The origin of Supertuscan goes back to the last forty years: these wines were originated from the strong wish of their producers to express a renewal and an international character.
At the end of the Sixties the Marquis Incisa della Rocchetta, with the help of the ingenious enologist Giacomo Tachis, decided to experiment new methods by producing the Sassicaia, a red wine obtained from Cabernet, Sauvignon and Franc grapes, which were cultivated only in the Castagneto Carducci area (now area of the DOC Bolgheri Sassicaia) and refined in French barrique

supertuscan colli senesi

They had analysed the soil and cleared up that its feautures were very similar to those of the Graves area, near Bordeaux, so they knew that it was not very suitable for Sangiovese, but perfect to cultivate international grapes of a very high quality.
In this way, a new concept of Tuscan wine was born, that is to say a great red wine, longlived and structured, that keeps in itself the Tuscan terroir:

a distinctive and influential wine, able to graft into the souls of the most obstinately French Cabernet, Franc, Syrah and Merlot, making them powerful and strongly able to express the Tuscan soil, by enriching them in their bouquets with scents of underbrush and balsamic herbs and refining them with violet and white flowers fragrances.
These new and more modern wines, received a lukewarm welcome in Italy, while they received great appreciation on the foreign markets from the very beginning, in particular in the USA, where the market was guided by skilful wine influencers and wine tasters such as Robert Parker, who first called them “Supertuscan” and James Suckling, well known for his publications on Wine Spectator.

Nowadays the wines that use Cabernet, Merlot or Syrah grapes, or even only Sangiovese grapes, are included into the Supertuscan category: they have some definite feautures in common, as the full-bodied taste, the longevity and the strong structure, but each one has got its own soul, history and a territory to narrate. In fact, these wines distinguish themselves by being expressions of a creative enology, (not so limited by the disciplinary rules anymore) and also the “children” of a new generation of enologists; they are able to interpret the perfect interaction between the features of a territory and the philosophy of a winery and make us meet it again in our glass.
Exactly as our I Campacci, obtained only with the grapes coming from our small Merlot vineyard.

supertuscan campacci

A crù with great appeal and sensuality, that expresses the international feautures of these varieties (the spiced and jam elements, potential and structure) and the philosophy of our Estate (freshness, richness and strong in tannin because of its aging). It is produced every year in about 6000 bottles, it is a great meditation wine and suitable for a long aging.

Ornellaia, interpreter par excellence of Italian wines,wins Vinitaly’s 2019 International Prize

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Another award of notable prestige joins the myriad honours won in recent years by Ornellaia, the Bolgheri-based producer whose stunning, world-class wines have kept the international spotlight focused on the immense quality possible on the Tuscan coast. The award cites “this Made in Italy sector leader, with its rich portfolio of universally-coveted wines that are the envy of the entire wine world,” a tribute that was officially made in the presence of a prestigious audience composed of wine producers, opinion-leaders, journalists, and wine sector professionals.

 

This tribute is simply the latest milestone in the impressive record that Ornellaia has steadily created for itself from its beginnings, gaining an international reputation that has brought it to the very pinnacle of world-wide success. Its position is further strengthened this year by the distribution of the iconic Ornellaia Bolgheri Superiore through the Place de Bordeaux network in order to ensure more consistent distribution in markets it has more recently entered–Asia, Africa, South America–, while the long-established markets of Europe and North America will continue to be addressed by the winery’s traditional distribution channels.

 

The fruit of the unique and uncompromising quality of Ornellaia’s production has been its astounding evolution and current world ranking, a position that has been strengthened over its history by the far-sighted strategic decisions of CEO Giovanni Geddes de Filicaja, whose goal has always been to further raise its intrinsic value and image. He has pursued that goal from the very start, as he stated in his speech of acceptance: “Would you like to know how we grew? My goal was clear from the beginning: increase value by investing in the highest quality—the absolute finest team, wines, and communications.

 

Our corner of Tuscany has also become an open-air museum, thanks to the art installations of our Vendemmia d’Artista initiative, which for ten years now has attracted internationally-famed artists who have personally interpreted the distinctive characteristic of each individual going year. The latest vintage to be so recognised was the inimitable 2016, named‚ La Tensione‘ (Tension).

TENUTA MASSELINA WRITES A NEW STORY

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Recovered an ancient barn: made a barrel room, a refining room for classic method sparkling wine and new spaces for tastings. A project that talks about high quality wine and wine tourism for the entire territory of Romagna. Organic vineyards and structure with Casaclima standard.

Tenuta Masselina is the winery owned by Terre Cevico. It rises on the hills of Castelbolognese in the heart of the Serra su terroir sub-area among the most vocated of Romagna in the production of Sangiovese. In its 16 hectares of organic vineyard, there are native vines such as Albana, Sangiovese, Trebbiano and Grechetto Gentile (Pignoletto).

Masselina is an estate with a strong territorial identity that becomes a story and experience through visits to the winery and paths in the vineyard, tastings and events. Here you can breathe the work of the fields, the beauty of nature, being well and, of course, the aroma of great wines. Tenuta Masselina is a symbol and paradigm of sustainability, the real one told through facts and not by proclamations.

In these days the Mipaaft has formalized the guidelines for the enotourist activity and from this point of view the proposal of Masselina is in perfect harmony with the provision. The investment made, in fact, is placed in the wake of a strategy that tends to enhance wine also through experiential and tourist routes.

The new structure is entirely built with the standards of Casaclima and is surrounded by 16 hectares of entirely organic vineyards and 6 of woods. For hot water and heating, the heat captured by 14 geothermal wells is used and a large part of the electricity is generated by photovoltaic panels.

The bottaia was also built, a room for the production of the classic method sparkling wine and a space dedicated to wines in the amphorae. An important investment, which saw the architectural recovery of a classic Romagna hay barn.

“High quality wine, with important positions, also needs to be told, tasted and lived at the place of production – says Marco Nannetti, President of Terre Cevico – A project that therefore aims to develop strong and structured synergies and connections in Romagna with the sectors of tourism, culture and gastronomy. We want to further contribute to the recognition of the added value it deserves in Italy and in the world of wine. ”

So the wine tourist can go to the estate to taste the wines, visit the vineyards and the cellar. It will also be possible to use the services by booking using the special link from the website http://www.masselina.it.

At Vinitaly, this project was launched in great style, which is added as a fundamental piece to the mosaic of Romagna oenology.

Tenuta di Trinoro interprets the 2016 vintage and translates it into a masterpiece

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The 2016 growing season, quite well-balanced, with mild and sometimes cool weather, is difficult to describe, much less to embody in the bottle, but at Tenuta di Trinoro it is precisely in seasons like this that knowing how to wait “results in incredible wines.”

For over 20 years now, this wine estate, located in the Val d’Orcia, an enchanted and utterly unique corner of earth, has been harvesting “à la carte”–picking the grapes from its 16 vineyards just at the moment when each is optimally ripe. All the vineyards, a mosaic of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot, are planted at very high densities in the estate’s clay soils. 

The 2016 harvest started on 24 September, and the memory is still vivid: “Exciting-quality Merlot is still coming into the cellar, on 27 and 29, and we did the last load on a very long 30 September (…) On the first days of October it rained lightly on the Cabernet Franc, but the vineyards dried out, and then the moon rose, bright and clear.” “By 12 October, the valley was a sea of dark grapes, and the moon advanced majestically like a banner leading the wine styles into the world of luxury.”

Later, benchmark producer Andrea Franchetti took this complex of grape varieties and characters and fashioned this res nova, the perduring estate wine in its latest edition. “In the 2016 vintage, I wanted to express the season’s delicate character; putting aside all the other vats, I chose two of Merlot and two of Cabernet Franc, in equal parts.” 

Right now, the 2016 vintage Tenuta di Trinoro, produced in 6,000 bottles, is setting off on its journey throughout the world. Its favoured market is England, where for avid collectors it conjures up the dream and experience of Tuscany, but it is sought-after in the German-speaking world as well, in America, and obviously in Italy too, where it is found in the finest wine-shops and restaurants. The price is not at an every-day level, but sublime emotions are not always within easy reach.

 

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Tenuta di Trinoro is located at Sarteano, at the beginning of the Val d’Orcia, in southeast Tuscany. The vineyards, divided into 16 separate parcels lying between 450-600 metres’ elevation. Tenuta di Trinoro has always been the winery’s iconic wine. The portfolio also includes Palazzi, a powerful Merlot-interpretation and Le Cupole, a younger, more accessible version, from the estate’s younger vineyards; recently also three crus from three separate vineyard parcels of Cabernet Franc have become part of the Tenuta di Trinoro’s wine collection, i.e. Campo di Tenaglia, Campo di Magnacosta and Campo di Camagi.

The Maremma yields a jewel called Le Pupille

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Elisabetta Geppetti’s trail-blazing idea of producing a great Syrah in Tuscany’s coastal Maremma area began to take shape as early as the year 2000, when she planted two vineyards to that noble variety at Fattoria Le Pupille. Years of quality selection in the vineyards followed, then vinifications from 2012 on, all of which amply confirmed that the path she had chosen was correct. The final fruit was Le Pupille, a wine that embodied a yet-unexplored aspect of the Maremma’s winemaking potential and expressed at the same time the elegance and fascination of two women intimately linked to each other. Elisabetta Geppetti has been joined, since 2011, by her daughter Clara Gentili, who displays the very same level of passion and, it would seem, far-sightedness as her mother.

A four-handed accomplishment_Le Pupille was also the result of innovative winemaking practices. “My mother and I decided, together with winemaking consultant Luca D’Attoma,” explains Clara, “to vinify each of the two vineyards differently, the grapes from one in large oak tonneaux, the others in large terracotta jars hand-made in Tuscany.” 

“It was all quite an emotional project,” added Elizabeth, “and one that our entire family embraced, since, as we love to tell, we all personally destemmed the grapes by hand after the harvest.” And that 2015 harvest yielded wonderful fruit in the two vineyards that unite to produce Le Pupille.    

The Vigna del Palo and fermentation in tonneaux_Planted in 2000, this 1.5-hectare vineyard faces east, which allows the grapes to benefit from the less-intense morning light and to avoid the impact of the hotter hours of the day. Thanks to a rather light leaf-thinning during the 2015 season, cluster development was gradual and consistent, and at harvest-time, in the last week of August, the grapes were sweet and aroma-rich, with fairly refined tannins. A 25-day fermentation followed, in open-topped 500-litre oak tonneaux, with careful punch-downs twice a day to maximise aroma extraction, then the wine macerated on the skins an additional 25 days.       

The Vigna di Pian di Fiora and fermentation in jars_This small vineyard, barely half a hectare, was planted in 2002. Its particularly cool, dry climate was further accentuated in 2015 by breezes along the valley floor, and the result was a pronounced florality and dense tannins in the grapes. Fermentation in 500-litre terracotta jars preserved varietal fidelity and heightened the grapes’ floral notes. Fermentation began spontaneously, but it was carefully controlled, and the subsequent maceration continued for some eight months, until May 2016, when the wine was finally drawn off and racked at low temperature.     

 

The final blend of the separately-fermented lots matured in new 300-litre French oak barrels for some 10 months, was bottled in March 2017, then received a further 22 months’ bottle-ageing.  

The result of this refined process is a Le Pupille of pronounced crispness and elegance, with an intriguing stylistic link to its trans-Alpine cousin. Its complex bouquet boasts wild black berryfruit, spice, and a subtle toastiness. Le Pupille 2015 was produced in a limited edition of 3,000 750ml bottles.    

FIRST MICHELIN STAR FOR RISTORANTE ORNELLAIA IN ZURICH

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Just ten months after its official opening, Ornellaia’s new restaurant in Zurich has received one of the world’s most prestigious awards, it first star from the Michelin Guide, the “Bible” of the international restaurant universe. 

“These ten months have been intense ones for us,” remarked Ristorante Ornellaia Chef Giuseppe D’Errico, “The Ornellaia estate has supported us 100%, and I personally have poured into our creation all my Italianità and the professional expertise I gained at Alma and in France. Great credit goes my team here, who have exhibited immense passion and commitment to the work we all love”.

 

Ristorante Ornellaia opened its doors on 9 April 2018 at Sankt Annagasse 2, near Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse, one of the world’s most luxurious and exclusive streets.

 

The world-famed Bolgheri wine producer, founded in 1981, instantly gained cult status for the quality of its wines with its first vintage, in 1985. It decided to take this important step in the restaurant world thanks to its collaboration with Bindella, which, in addition to being Ornellaia’s importer and brand ambassador in Switzerland from the very beginning, is widely respected for its expertise in gastronomy. 

The design of the restaurant was entrusted to celebrated Swiss architect Tilla Theus, who created an inventive “taste of Ornellaia” within an unmistakably Tuscan ambience, fashioning an alluring mosaic of landscape, people, food, and wine. Such an imposing project required an Italian chef of the same stature, in this case Giuseppe D’Errico. D’Errico specialised with Maestro Gualtiero Marchesi at Alma, then came into his own alongside Chef Michel Troisgros, at Maison Troisgros in Roanne, working five years with the chef D’Errico calls his second Maestro.

HARVEST VAL D’OCA, NEVER SO GENEROUS

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The absence of hail and diseases has allowed the growth of abundant and healthy clusters, with which the Cellar will produce a soft and aromatic wine

Never vintage was more fruitful for the 600 farmers who were members of the Cantina Produttori di Valdobbiadene: the 2018 harvest of Prosecco Docg of Val D’Oca, opened on 20 August and ended on 30 September, recorded the largest quantity ever collected by the company, with 165.175,89 quintals of wine obtained from the 959 hectares pertaining to it.

Begun in summer with the precocious pinot nero and chardonnay grapes, it continued in mid-September with the manual harvest of Prosecco Superiore DOCG in the banks of Colbertaldo, to continue on the banks of Santo Stefano and San Pietro di Barbozza. A complex harvest in this particular area of ​​the Denomination, entrusted only to expert hands because it was carried out on very steep slopes (the Rive, in fact), whose inpatied rows are difficult to access to machinery. It is estimated that, on average, Glera grapes serve from 600 to 700 hours per hectare per year of manual labor compared to 100/150 hours in the flat areas.

A fruitful vintage, therefore, favored by particularly good conditions: no vineyard was hit by downy mildew or botrytis, diseases caused respectively by the Plasmopara fungus and Botrytis mold. Even the weather was mild: there were only a few hectares where hail fell, with limited losses in production.

All this has contributed to producing particular quality bunches, which will allow us to create excellent aromatic and soft wines this year too. The grapes harvested, among other things, have a slightly lower gradation than last year, more than adequate for the production of Sparkling Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG and Asolo Prosecco Superiore DOCG.

A result that supports the data recently released by Coldiretti on the basis of the Ismea data for the first nine months of the year, which reveal that sparkling wine rose by 7.8% due to growth in Italian purchases. it has become a product of daily consumption, no longer limited only to recurrences.

Le Colture among the best 103 italian wineries selected by Wine Spectator

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2019 will mark a relevant debut for Le Colture. The wine company based in Santo Stefano di Valdobbiadene (Treviso), run by Cesare Ruggeri and family, has been selected for the first time by Wine Spectator and is among the 15 new entries of the 103 best italian wineries which will attend Opera Wine 2019.

The eighth edition of the only event organized by the magazine outside the US, is scheduled for April 6th 2019 in Verona as usual before Vinitaly’s official opening.

“All of us have heard with great joy the news of this selection! – comment Alberto and Veronica Ruggeri – Being listed among other top wine producers for Opera Wine has a great value for all our family, as well as a source of sincere satisfaction and strong motivation. considering that this event has now become a consolidated annual appointment to introduce the best Italians wines to the professionals all over the world. “

The selected wine is the Valdobbiadene DOCG Rive di Santo Stefano brut “Gerardo” 2016.

A sparkling wine that is the purest and most sincere expression of the Valdobbiadene territory identity, to which the Ruggeri family is strongly linked. The brut “Gerardo” originates in the village of Santo Stefano from a single vineyard of old vines planted at 400 meters above sea level; its name is a tribute to Gerardo, the grandfather and founder of the company, and to his beloved ‘Rive’, term referring to the steepest vineyards very difficult to work, but giving extraordinary grapes. It is an austere and complex wine, dry and fresh, which goes well with sea crudités or pasta dishes, even with vegetables. Le Colture produce only 6,000 bottles a year destinated to the best restaurants in Italy and in the world.

The Valdobbiadene DOCG Rive di Santo Stefano brut “Gerardo” 2016 has collected considerable scores on the international scene this year such as; 90 points from Wine Spectator, 94 points from Decanter and 90 points to the ‘Prosecco Trophy’ organized by the German magazine Falstaff.

Soave Winery “Italian Wine Producer of the Year” IWSC 2018

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On November 14th, at the sparkling Guildhall in London, during the Gala Dinner of the IWSC – International Wine & Spirits Competition, Cantina di Soave won the title of “Best Italian producer of the year”.
At the award ceremony, which took place in a context of great solemnity and prestige, the General Manager of Cantina di Soave Bruno Trentini, the Deputy Director Wolfgang Raifer and the Export Manager Luca Sabatini participated.
The recognition was attributed by the IWSC to the historic Soavese winery with the following motivation: “Cantina di Soave, a company with a highly innovative profile, was able to make the best use of technological knowledge to deepen the expertise in the vineyard and obtain wines of very high quality “.
The IWSC – International Wine & Spirits Competition, the historical and authoritative international wine competition based in London, founded in 1969 by the oenologist Anton Massel, is one of the most important awards, recognized worldwide and extremely influential especially as regards the European markets. Cantina di Soave was nominated for the title along with five other major Italian wineries (Fattoria La Vialla by Gianni Antonio and Bandino Lo Franco Società Agricola Semplice, Sartirano Figli Wineries E Vigneti SRL, Terre del Barolo Soc. Coop. Agr., Ferrari F.lli Lunelli SpA and Martini).
“Our wines often get important recognition at IWSC – commented Bruno Trentini, General Manager of Cantina di Soave – to receive the title of” Italian Producer of the Year “is a great honor that attests the efforts made in all these years to make grow the company from every point of view, with a view to producing wines that are always better, respecting the environment which for us is the most precious asset. An immense gratification also for all those who work every day with passion and commitment, making everything possible: from our winemakers, to employees, to collaborators, because without them Cantina di Soave would not be what it is ».

Ornellaia 2015 and Château Mouton Rothschild 2016: William Kentridge creates art labels for iconic wines

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William Kentridge, considered by critics South Africa’s finest contemporary artist, created the unique labels for the 10th edition of Bolgheri-based Ornellaia’s Vendemmia d’Artista project. Specifically designed to convey the character classic to the 2015 vintage—expressed as Il Carisma, Charisma—, the labels for this Tuscan wine estate have encountered impressive success and are now coveted by collectors across the globe.      

Kentridge designed the label for Château Mouton Rothschild 2016 as well, which features a vibrant parade of festive, primal bacchantes. The prestigious French maison has scheduled the wine’s official launch for this week.   Kentridge is the first artist from the African continent commissioned to design the dress for these top-ranking Italian and French wines. 

Liv-Ex, London’s authoritative wine-market performance index, ranks Ornellaia as one of the ten most sought-after wines in the world. With its value increasing each year, Ornellaia represents a superb investment, as well as a nonpareil gift for Christmas. And ne plus ultra for art-lovers!

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