Forum: News and lifestyle

Six wines over 90/100 points on Wine Advocate/Robert Parker

Donatella Cinelli Colombini celebrates the ratings obtained by Brunello, Doc Orcia, Igt Toscana, Passito and Vin Santo from Robert Parker – Wine Advocate

Positive reviews are always welcome but when they come from Robert Parker they are even more pleasing because the assessments in cents of the magazine created in 1978 by the lawyer of Baltimore, are accepted as authoritative worldwide and influence Canadian monopolies as well as major buyers. For this reason having a rating above 90/100 from Wine Advcate Robert Parker for six wines in a single vintage is an exciting and very important thing. Donatella Cinelli Colombini jumps with joy!
Among the wines with stellar scores are the two Brunello di Montalcino issued this year (vintage 2014 and reserve 2013), the Vin Santo and the Passito that score the highest marks with great joy of Donatella’s husband, Carlo Gardini, true maker of these wines together with the cellar master Barbara Magnani. But there are also the two main labels of Fattoria del Colle: Doc Orcia Cenerentola and l’IGT Toscana Il Drago and the 8 doves.

A result that rewards the great work done in the vineyards, grown in an organic and very manual way, but also the choice to aim at medium and large oak barrels made in small workshops. They are chosen each year in 5 tonnelleries according to the characteristics of the harvest with a tailor made criterion–almost nineteenth century style.

4 November 2019

Tourism for lovers in Tuscany.

Road of the kiss, the tree of love, truffle, panforte, Granduca apartment: many little ingredients of tourism for lovers in the most beautiful countryside in Tuscany. South of Tuscany is the ideal [caption id="attachment_55121" align="alignleft" width="300"] Turismo-da-innamorati-Via-del-Bacio[/caption] place for a couple’s trip. There are the most romantic places to take selfies, aphrodisiac food that has been used for centuries to rekindle passion and old rituals to swear eternal love. Below you’ll find places and dates for tourism in love in Tuscany. TOURISM FOR LOVERS : SELFIE SPOTS The top places for romantic selfies are in Pienza (30km from Fattoria del Colle) in Via del Bacio...

1 November 2019

Paola Gorelli’s pottery to put history on your table.

At Toscana Lovers the artist Paola Gorelli proposes pottery inspired by the typical sienese ones from twelve and thirteen century, just like a gothic dream that never ended.

Ceramiche-gotiche-senesi-Siena-santa-Maria-Della-Scala

di Donatella Cinelli Colombini

The gothic pottery that are preserved in the museums of Siena and Montalcino tell about a rich and elegant past. In the thirteen and fourteen century the city of the Palio was the financial centre of the part of Europe that was connected by the Via Francigena.

THE SIENESE GOTHIC POTTERY BY PAOLA GORELLI

The reproductions of Sienese medieval pottery made by Paola Gorelli are true to the original also in the technique of execution because they are turned and painted by hand by an artist that studied the technique thoroughly, like in the artisan shops of eight hundred years ago. Every piece is slightly different from the other so each one is unique, a fragment of a real tradition.
The Toscana lovers shops in Siena, Bagno Vignoni and Cortona offer the new collection of pottery by Paola Gorelli that painted gothic motives on daily use objects like penholders, tiles and coasters.

30 October 2019

Heroic Vineyards: very high or very old

Finally we have a law that protects heroic vine growing , those historical vineyards attached to the sides of the mountains.

Di Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Wich are the vineyards that can be considered heroic? Those that give more work than grapes, those that have great landscape, social and historical value but are not very profitable.

This vineyards will probably be abandoned when the old people that cultivate them out of passion will die. For this reason a decree that recognises the value of heroic vine growing and economically supports it’s essential for its own survival.

HEROIC VINEYARDS IN SWIZERLAND ARE STRONGLY SUPPORTED BY THE GOVERNMENT

In Switzerland I saw vineyards so steep and so tiny that they don’t even allow any sort of mechanization . When they told me that the treatments need to be done with an helicopter and so all the producers have to decide together for organic or conventional cultivation I realized what this meant economically and socially. Then they told me that the government helps heroic vine growing with financial incentives . A strategy that avoided the abandonment of the vineyards, protected the landscape and increased the quality of swiss wines .

29 October 2019

Mantovana with pine nuts from Montalcino between tradition and innovation

At Fattoria del Colle the pastry chef Patrizia Cenni and the Chef Giovanni Rallo created a cake that tells the story of the tradition of mantovana from Montalcino.

Mantovana-antica-e-moderna-di-Giovanni-Rallo-e-Patrizia-Cenni-della-Fattoria-del-Colle

Di Donatella Cinelli Colombini

In Montalcino Mantovana is a typical cake and is made only with pine nuts without almonds. It is my daughter Violante Gardini favorite cake and it was hard to make here accept this new version since she has childhood memories linked to this recipe.

Patrizia and Giovanni created a dessert that is completely new but able to show that Tuscan food culture is capable of renovating itself respecting the tradition.

Mantovana-antica-e-moderna-di-Giovanni-Rallo-e-Patrizia-Cenni-della-Fattoria-del-Colle

Giovanni Rallo invented a semifreddo with mantovana ingredients. On top of it are putted traditional mantovana bits garnished with a sprig of thyme. The result is awesome from a gastronomic point of view, because the balance of flavors is perfect and and also from cultural point of view since it respects the tradition.

Below you will find the recipe for the traditional mantovana just like the one made by Patrizia Cenni. For Giovanni Rallo’s semifreddo, recently created, you’l have to come to Fattoria del Colle and try it since it is still a secret.

The best wine to pair with this wonderful dessert is our Passito 2017 di Donatella Cinelli Colombini that lately received 94/100 points from the prestigious Wine Advocate-Robert Parker.

Mantovana-antica-e-moderna-di-Giovanni-Rallo-e-Patrizia-Cenni-della-Fattoria-del-Colle

24 October 2019

Di Donatella Cinelli Colombini

October 9th the super harvest 2019 is over

Chronicle of a marvellous harvest at Casato Prime Donne in Montalcino and Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda. How the Super Brunello 2019 was born.

This will be remembered as the harvest of the perfect and indestructible Sangiovese because the grapes arrived in the cellar in perfect conditions, without mould, in spite of the two storms that arrived at the end of September and on October the 2^nd when it almost hailed.

Vendemmia-2019-Sangiovese-Fattoria-del-Colle

“It looks like Cabernet” said the enologist Valerie Lavigne observing the tiny berries, when she came to decide the harvest’s schedule. And she was right because Sangiovese behaved just like the famous French grape. The colour extraction was immediate and intense, the bunches had no mould despite the rain. Perfection! Never seen an harvest like this!

Vendemmia-2019-Sangiovese -con-due-giorni-di-vinificazione

The vines remained green and luxuriant until the day of the harvest, just like the famous vintage 2010, there were a lot of very high quality grapes.

Now we know that great harvest come from rainy winters or springs that allow the soil to accumulate water and very hot summers interrupted by brief storms. The milder climate of the last years increased the quality potential of Sangiovese and Brunello.

This harvest lasted a month, to pick each vineyard at the perfect moment, with no rush, with extreme selections that required to harvest the same vineyard three times. The choice of separating all the best grapes without mixing bunches with different ripeness levels required a lot of extra work.

18 October 2019

November, white truffle in Tuscany, gourmet tourism.

Do you like white truffle? Come at Fattoria del Colle to discover more about the Crete senesi kind: how to find them, how to cook them and mostly how to eat them.

White truffle and fine Tuscan red wines, a full immersion in culinary pleasures surrounded by the most beautiful and intact countryside in the world.

3 WEEKENDS WITH TRUFFLE IN TUSCANY

Three different appointment: the weekends of the 1st-3rd November and the following 8th-10th and 15th-17th during which at San Giovanni d’Asso castle in the municipality of Montalcino( 10km away from our farm) you will find food stands and artistic craftsmanship.

TRUFFLE HUNTING AND COOKING LESSONS

The schedule is dense, captivating and it goes from romantic dinners truffle based to wine tasting in our Brunello and Orcia cellars.

Your home for this delicious weekends will be Fattoria del Colle: an authentic Tuscan farm composed by a 16^th c Tartufo-bianco-delle-Crete-Senesi entury Villa and chapel and nice farm houses transformed in agriturism.

2 September 2019

6 wines rated more than 90/100 by Wine Advocate-Robert Parker

Donatella Cinelli Colombini celebrates the ratings obtained with her Brunello, Doc Orcia, Igt Toscana, Passito and Vin Santo through Robert Parker – Wine Advocate

The positive ratings are always a pleasure but when they come from Robert Parker they are even more appreciated, because these evaluations out of one hundred from the wine magazine created in 1978 by the lawyer from Baltimora, are accepted as influential all over the world and have an effect on the Canadian monopolies and the large buyers

For this reason receiving from Wine Advocate Robert Parker a rating over 90/100 on 6 wines during the same year is something that brings great enthusiasm and joy. Donatella Cinelli Colombini is ecstatic!

Among these wines with stellar ratings are two Brunello di Montalcino just out this year (2014 and Riserva 2013), the Vin Santo and the Passito , that get the highest points, with great satisfaction of Donatella’s husband, Carlo Gardini, true creator of these wines together with the cellar master Barbara Magnani. But there are also two of the main labels of Fattoria del Colle: the Doc Orcia Cenerentola and the IGT Toscana Il Drago e le 8 Colombe.

A result that is a reward for the great work done in the vineyards, cultivated manually and according to the organic regime, but also thanks to the choice of medium and large oak barrels created by small workshops. Every year 5 tonnellerie are chosen according to the characteristics of the harvest with a tailor made approach, like in the 19^th century.

26 April 2019

Let me introduce you to Eric Kohler, winemaker at Château Lafite

Let’s learn about the man who creates the wines at Château Lafite Rothschild, his name is Eric Kohler, he is a wine maker that creates masterpieces in a bottle and is no show off...

18 April 2019

Luxury wines: more and more success stories

Shopping for more than 253 billion euro per year for wines that cost more than 100 euro and for 12 billion for dream bottles with prices above 1000 euro

luxury-wines-Screaming-eagle-cabernet-sauvignon

During the past few years the high end wine market has increased. It has gone from 77 billion euro in 1995 to 253 billion euro in 2015 (study by Bain & Company in 2016). At the same time, the index of WS auctions showed an increase of 300% in value.

This sort of increase is worthy of the best bonds on stock exchanges and an evident preference of the richer consumers for finer wines.

Luxury Wine Marketing by Liz Thach and Peter Yeung

<<The luxury wine category contains all that is rare and with beautiful aesthetics >> explained Liz Thach, Master of Wine and professor at the Wine Business Institute di Sonoma, to Wine Searcher <<it supplies a sense of privilege and elegance>> in other words those who can buy exclusive and expensive bottles feels privileged and this is something that become quite irresistible.

Luxury-wines-La Tache – Romanée Conti

The book Luxury Wine Marketing by Liz Thach and Peter Yeung studies in fact the desirability of a luxury wine and the elements that make it stand out. In fact, while the market proposes a growing number of extremely expensive bottles, the estate information is quite scarce. This report starts from a database of 8500 wines with a price over $ 100 per bottle, divided per grape variety, region, type and price, and considering the vintages from 2010 to 2016. The main sources used by the authors were Wine Spectator (WS), Wine-Searcher, The Encyclopaedia of Champagne and interviews.

15 April 2019

Alcohol, why women must drink less than men

Gender, age, diet, all these affect the quantity of wine one can drink but there is a rigid rule for all: drink small amounts and often to stay healthy

Alcohol-the-after-effect-for women-and-men

Sometimes in the wine world you meet some very unexpected interesting and surprising people, more than one would imagine. This has happened to me this year during the Preview Tuscan tastings when I met the journalist Michael Apstein . He asked me to arrange a visit to the DOC Orcia wineries so that he could write an article for the British wine magazine “Decanter”, only two days beforehand. My husband and I went to pick him up in San Gimignano and in the car I pointed out <you don’t have a British accent> <no> he says <I am from Boston I am a doctor, I thought gastroenterology>. Well, I thought, Boston is where Harvard is and it’s the city of the Nobel prizes , this must be some guy! And in fact when he sent me his article about alcohol consumption I finally understood why doctors say “it depends” when asked what the advised amount is.

The whole article can be found here :https://bit.ly/2SQKqGd

At last, even though of scientific content, it is written so as to be understood by all of us.

MEN, WOMEN, AND ALCOHOL

Women-and-wine-Violante -in -a wine-tasting

A 80kg male who drinks wine regularly and has just consumed two glasses of wine during a proper meal eaten leisurely over two hours will have a BAC level that is dramatically lower than that of a 60kg woman who drinks only occasionally and has polished off those two glasses quickly without eating.

Scientists have not understood yet why but women break down less alcohol in the stomach, which means that more passes into the small intestine where it is absorbed. The end result is that a woman, despite drinking an equal quantity of alcohol at the same rate as a man, will have a higher BAC

2 April 2019

Who are the Brunello lovers?

Why do French wines have higher prices and a higher prestige than ours? How wide is the range? Who are the Brunello lovers in Italy and in the USA?

Benvenuto-Brunello-2019–Nomisma-survey -on-Brunello-lovers

During Benvenuto Brunello, Luciano Ferraro the journalist, presented a survey by Nomisma-WineMonitor regarding prices, markets, and sentiments with respect to French and Italian wines. They used as a comparison method bottles of red wine. To understand the motive for the gap is difficult because the range between the prices is big, and seems to get even bigger, even though in the opinion of the specialized press, and of the best wine critics in the world, it is the other way round.

COST OF RED WINES IN ITALY AND FRANCE

As I said the Nomisma-WineMonitor study concentrates on bottled red wines, those for which Tuscany is famous all over the world. Let’s start from something already known: at a national level 40% of our expert, equal to 2,5 billion Euros, regards bottles of red and of this number more than half is made up of DOP wines. The problem is that their journey towards success gets slower and slower.

In the last 5 years the increase in exporting of Italian bottled red wine has grown in value by 7% while that of the French counterparts jumped up by 56%. In China they export wine for 686 million Euro and us only 61. If we then look at Hong Kong it’s time to cry: they export 371 million and us 16.

Prices

Benvenuto-Brunello-2019–Nomisma-survey -on-Brunello-lovers

Looking at average prices for export of bottled red wines the situation is less dramatic: France 6,09 € per litre, Italy 4,64€. But it is at the high end that this range widens: Burgundy 25,54€ Bordeaux 12,05€ Tuscany 6,89€. It seems that Piedmont is better off with an average price per litre of 9,12€.

This situation is not good for the Tuscan reds, and looking at exports from 2015 to 2017 business has decreased from 552 billion of euro to 427. Veneto and Piedmont have slowed down but they have bubbles like Prosecco and those from the Langhe, while in Tuscany we are not strong on sparkling so we have had a bigger drawback.

Fortunately Switzerland buys the most expensive wines, with respect to any other market and has in fact an average price for importation of 12€ per litre which is very low compared to what it pays for Bordeaux (29,49€) and Burgundies (54,5€) but it is however much more than in the UK where our bottles arrive at 4,5€.

12 March 2019

Sassicaia’s unstoppable success

After the 1st position in the TOP 100 by Wine Spectator then the 100 /100 from Robert Parker. The San Guido star shines brighter and brighter

Sassicaia

As well as clever they are very kind, they are humble, they speak and act with extreme simplicity and reserved, as true aristocrats are.

It is in fact the very austerity, elegant in many ways, but where there is no trace of ostentation, that makes the competitors mad, <<how can they have all that success without doing anything at all>>is the surprised comment from all the rest. Hence, a little bit of jealousy , and the word nothing that includes many things: no “shoving” to get to the limelight, no pharaonic events, no self celebrating books, and above all no media overexposure of the bottles or the people …. The only great thing , it seems like, is the increase in value of the bottles and this has been emphasized by Liv-ex the luxury wine portal. A growth, in recent years, that has beaten some of the great French chateaux.

Sassicaia-Priscilla-Incisa-della-Rocchetta-Académie-internationale-du-vin

TENUTA SAN GUIDO IN BOLGHERI

Sassicaia is born in a winery called Tenuta San Guido and it is a legendary place for many reasons. There is the row of cypresses told of by Nobel Prize winner for literature Giosuè Carducci “ che a Bólgheri alti e schietti van da San Guido in duplice filar, quasi in corsa giganti giovinetti”.

Here one finds the stables Razza Dormello Olgiata, where the super horse Ribot, one of the most prestigious champions of all times.

Also here is the first nature oasis in Italy, created by Mario Incisa della Rocchetta who was also the first president of the WWF.

In this sequence of excellencies one also finds the first wine able to beat French bottles challenging them with their king of varieties Cabernet Sauvignon. It was in 1978, in London, that the wine critic Hugh Johnson, at that time without rivals for fame and authoritativeness. He organizes for the first time for the Decanter magazine a blind tasting of the best 33 Cabernet Sauvignon in the world. And surprisingly the Sassicaia 1975 won.

11 January 2019

Revolutionary millennial sommeliers

More women, more social media, more multiethnic, more managers, more difficult in pairings more able to discover and entertain … these are the millennial sommeliers

Revolutionary millennial sommeliers Cha McCoy