Cenerentola wine underground cellar
Tuscan party for the inauguration of the winery of the Fattoria del Colle, almost a palace for Cenerentola wine that becomes princess of Doc Orcia
On June 26th, Donatella Cinelli Colombini will inaugurate the expansion and restoration of the Fattoria del Colle winery with the blessing of Bishop Stefano Manetti and a “déjeuner sur l’herbe”, for 150 people. Typical Valdorcian dishes will be served accompanied by Brunello, Orcia Doc, Chianti Superiore and Supertuscans. A country party according to the great Tuscan tradition to celebrate the conclusion of a project that allows to increase the quality of wines and transforms the Fattoria del Colle into a wine destination capable of attracting enthusiasts and offering them unforgettable experiences and tastings.
CENERENTOLA WINE UNDERGROUND CELLAR
The main creation is a large underground area intended for the refinement of bottled wines for which 3,366 mc of earth and rock (231 hours of jackhammer by the Edilpellegrini Company) have been moved. The project by architect Silvia Nucci, from the Studio Luigi Rocchi,included a single large room of 450m2 for the aging of bottled wine.
Here the temperature must remain at constant 16°C while in the area for sparkling wine it drops to 12°C. It is in this area, separated by panels, that the pupitres have been placed for the manual remuage of the brut rosé classic method obtained from Sangiovese grapes.
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A WINTER OAK WOOD TRANSFORMED INTO A CORTEN SILHOUETTE
Outside Donatella Cinelli Colombini asked the designers and artisans who worked at the construction site – all local -, to be inspired by what they saw around them. Donatella is in fact a strong opposer of the “non-places” that take away identity from the territories. From this request and from the long months of lockdown, which have confined everyone around the house, the idea was born to reproduce in metal the oak woods near the Fattoria del Colle.
In winter the noblest trees of the Mediterranean scrub, become a lace of bare branches that rise to the sky. The young architect Elisa Boldi (Coima) designed them as silhouettes and cut them with laser on iron slabs making them then get rusty so that they had the same colour as the trees. Finally, the corten forest has been put, for 50 meters, around the new cellar and delimits the panoramic terrace above.
The silhouettes of the oaks allowed the designer Silvia Nucci to create continuity between the new building and the pre-existing part with the fermentation room, the bottling area and a farmhouse built about a century ago. In this last building the immersive room has been built, with the antique bottle library and a system of images, sounds and lights that teaches wine lovers to “listen to the vineyards”.
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THE IMMERSIVE ROOM THAT TEACHES HOW TO LISTEN TO THE VINEYARDS
It proposes what happens at different times of the day and in the different months of the year with absolute authenticity, without filters, touch-ups or actors. After a small stop visitors review the same images without the authentic sounds but listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. In the end visitors are invited to perceive the nature and work of the winemakers, with all the senses and not turn it into a kind of film, perhaps more exciting, but less true. The climate and the work of man, change nature, landscape and owls, crickets and frogs do not all sing in the same hours and months. To understand nature you have to give it the attention it deserves.
FATTORIA DEL COLLE, A WINE DESTINATION FULL OF POETRY
The cellar at Fattoria del Colle also includes the barrel ageing area, in the basement of the sixteenth-century Villa, where there are French oak barrels and tonneau for the maturation of the Doc Orcia Cenerentola and the Supertuscan Il Drago e Le 8 Colombe. The deepest part of the cellar is a medieval hermitage where Donatella Cinelli Colombini preserves, as if they were sacred, her first vintages of Brunello produced in her cellar in Montalcino, Casato Prime Donne.
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The wine lovers who arrive at Fattoria del Colle find a small hamlet with a chapel, villa, houses of long ago farmers transformed into apartments, rooms and villas for tourists, restaurant, banquet halls, cooking school, area for natural well-being all surrounded by vineyards, olive groves, reserves of white truffles and a boundless landscape that has remained intact for centuries.
The wine experience at Fattoria del Colle does not stop at the winery and guided tours, often with itinerant tastings, but also includes engaging experiences such as becoming a “winemaker for a day” and producing your own Supertuscan. There are cooking classes, lunches with dishes specially created to match the wines and hiking through the vineyards (2.5Km) with educational signs along the way.
THE CENERENTOLA MURALES AND ITS ILLUMINATED WOODS
To complete this experience, varied and engaging, the photographic safari has just been created that includes the mural, painted by Silvia Argilli, with the story of the love between Sangiovese and Foglia Tonda from which Cenerentola Doc Orcia wine is born. A poetic touch that adds to the visit of the vineyards where the two Tuscan vines are grown, of which the Foglia Tonda, still very rare, was saved from extinction right at Fattoria del Colle.
This is the magical world of Cinderella wine that, like the young woman in the fairy tale, eventually becomes a princess and goes to live in her enchanted castle, similar to an oak forest that lights up at night.