Vines and wines

Donatella’s 5 star Chianti Superiore 2012

 An incredible harvest where Donatella Cinelli Colombini’s emotions went  from despair to enthusiasm and the vines proved their intelligence

2012, three torrid months without any rain and a great thinning out of the grapes to help the thirsty vines……….. and then a miracle: the showers arrive the first few days of September and that’s how we got a 5 star vintage.

Not many clusters, but exceptional grapes, and sound. The clusters were loose and small, absolutely ripe and with the seeds perfectly lignified. These small grapes coloured your fingers as soon as you touched them, so the must consequently was very intense red, typical in great wines.

The vines for producing the Chianti Superiore are at Fattoria del Colle in the southern part of the Chianti region, on hills at about 400 metres above sea level, with soil very rich in sea sands. An old territory which is uncontaminated and is cultivated with great attention of the environment. 

Type: dry red

Production area: Toscana, Trequanda, Fattoria del Colle.

Vintage characteristics: the grape harvest was preceded by 12 dry months and a torrid summer with very high temperatures even at night. The leaves and the green shoots were used to shade the grapes. The grapes were thinned out twice.

Grape types: 90% Sangiovese, 10% Canaiolo.

Grape harvest:  From September 10^th to 15th^.  The grapes were handpicked and brought to the winery in20 Kg crates in less than 30 minutes. The cool temperatures and sometimes even quite cold ones allowed us to bring in grapes at 20°C. After being de-stemmed the best grapes were selected on a sorting table, mechanically and manually.

More and more vines in the Unesco world heritage area

Zibibbo in Pantelleria just like the vineyards in the Langhe and the same as the Val d’Orcia with its Brunello and Doc Orcia wine areas are all cultural heritage of mankind

Written by Donatella Cinelli Colombini 

Great steps forward have been made in the appreciation of the value of material culture and a sort of return for those of us who live in the countryside. Believe me, with my degree in history of medieval art who has always looked upon the classification from Unesco as a means of protecting the most important expressions of human civilizations. For this reason I had always been surprised by some strange choices: in Crespi d’Adda is accepted among the world heritage sites, while Assisi, with the San Francesco convent with frescoes by Cimabue, Simone Martini and Giotto … is accepted only 5 years later. Better late than never, which is what has happened on the other hand to Naples, Palermo and Bologna.

The Leone Rosso 2011 by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Few small clusters of Merlot and Sangiovese for an Orcia Doc Leone Rosso wine, in the 2011 vintage, the earliest and quickest one can remember

On September 26^th all of the grapes had been picked and the cellar master Barbara Magnani was involved in a very delicate fermentation process. The grapes had ripened very quickly compressing into less than two month the colouring of the grapes and the harvest. This quickening of the process was induced by the African heat wave that began halfway through August and that had dried the grapes and reduced when more the already scant amount of grapes.

The rampant lion with a sphere in his right paw is the blazon belonging to Claudio Socini who, in 1592 built Fattoria del Colle. The emblem of this Sienese family can be seen on the entrance portal and also in the hall of coat of arms  in the villa, in the Chapel and in the Trequanda parish church above the Ascension painted by Antonio Bazzi called Sodoma.

In truth the Socini family lost Fattoria dl Colle just after having built it because of the “free thinker” ideas of 5 of its members, closer to the protestants rather than to the Pope. It was mostly the writings by Lelio (1525-1562) and Fausto (1539-1604) against the trinity that caused the excommunication and the confiscation of their properties. Fattoria del Colle was then, by chance, bought back by their descendent Livio Socini in 1919.

To these ancestor Donatella Cinelli Colombini has dedicated the wine Leone Rosso which is produced with the grapes from Fattoria del Colle.

Type: dry red.

Production area: Toscana, Trequanda, Fattoria del Colle

Vintage characteristics: very rainy winter and spring. From mid August a torrid period with day and night temperatures between 35-40°C. Ripening very accelerated and harvest time anticipated and rapid because of the reduced amount of grapes.

Grape type: Sangiovese 60%, Merlot 40%.

The fiasco modified becomes a Dame-Janine

Dame Janine is a female fiasco, designed by a French artist called Clet Abraham, the Street art artist, and Ruffino will make 6000 of them

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
The Tuscan fiasco, the first protagonist of the success and most of all, o f the exporting of Chianti, has a second youth.  Other than the Museum created by the Bartolozzi family, now there is an artistic restyling commissioned by Ruffino for its Chianti Superiore 2012. A great 5 star vintage for the most prestigious denomination of the Chianti appellations and a striking packaging . The fiasco gets its female version, it turns up-side-down and resembles a human face. The name Dame Janine recalls the French for Lady Jane but is a clear reference to the  damigiana, demijohn, the straw covered container similar and larger than a fiasco. It was greatly used inTuscany to transport and preserve wine up until 50 years ago.

So a game in a game where the protagonist is Clet Abraham the  famous Street art artist, the most transgressive and suprising of them all. Born in  Rennes  he now lives in Florence and he got into the newspapers by hacking street signs all over Europe, injecting a little humour into the mundane commute, being provocative such as the Christ on a Cross on a “Dead end “ sign, that created a revolt among Catholics (me included) . His most

extraordinary action was carried out on the night of January 19^th2011 where on the  Ponte alle Grazie inFlorence, he positioned a sculpture of a “Piccolo uomo nero” small black man, committing suicide in theArno river. This action wanted to be a polemic warning to the ex position in Palazzo Vecchio, in the  Studiolo di Francesco I,heart of the Florentine government, of a skull covered in diamonds –value of  100 million – rcreated by Damien Hirst. As if to say … in fro of such contempt for death and poverty, an orinary man con do nothign else but jump off a brige. In the end I suppose Clet is right.

The renewal of the fiasco by such an artist it is an act of bravery,  but also an important contribution. The glass container with straw all around was used in Tuscany since the Middle Age. You can find references in Boccaccio’s Decameron and in paintings by Botticelli and Ghirlandaio. In the second half of the 18^th century it eased Chianti wine exportation thanks to its distinctive character and the straw  that protected the glass from breaking. Its image has long remained tied to that of low price Italian wine which was the first to be exported from our country.

Will the future sommelier be a robot?

This machine comes from the Aarhus University in Denmark, it tastes wine as if it were a human mouth, but however requests for sommeliers increase

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Please do not laugh, the AarhusUniversityis among the 100 top universities in the world (our first one is Bologna 150^th position), it has 32.000 students and is the second university inDenmark. So lets consider the thing with the upmost respect.  It seems that the SPR technology – surface plasmon resonance – that uses optical sensors to calculate the level of tannins in wine and simulate even the effect of saliva. In fact according to the Danes their sensors are better than the human palate because more objective.

This research has been published by the scientific magazine ACS Nano creating a turmoil in the world of wine tasters. This artificial tongue does not really substitute the real sommelier because  2/3 of the

perception of the quality of a wine is found in its symbolic values: the 1000 years of the  Romanée Conti vineyard, the Petrus served at Queen Elizabeth’s wedding banquet and at the White House by Kennedy, the Mouton labels autographed by some of the greatest contemporary artists, or the female Brunello from Casato Prime Donne  …. The Sommelier knows the vintages, the great stories, and the little bits of gossip … in other words he can transform a wine tasting into an unforgettable experience made to measure for each consumer, things that the robot cannot do. Not to mention the uncorking rite! However the new method will have useful applications in  medical diagnosis and this is good news.

Recent wine travels for Violante, a woman with a suitcase

She seems fragile but she has real stamina. In the past month she has visited New York, Philadelphia, Denver, Minneapolis, 4 days home and then Hong Kong  and Shanghai

 

Violante Gardini the Cinellicolombini Jr, always has trips that begin with an adventure: to go to the US  they cancelled her flight but she was able nevertheless to get to the wine tasting in Washington on time going via Brussels . To go to China her car’s clutch broke on the way to Rome.  A journey with mechanical noises and lots of frights. When she got to Fiumicino she was so upset that the check in staff was so sorry for her that they gave her a super comfy seat on the plane

Her texts from abroad are hilarious, here’s one of them <<how much do you have to walk to sell wine? My feet are exhausted!…. This first week on work, running after planes, taxis and

most of all time, has finally finished >> . Violante describes a different New York than what she has seen the last few years, more beautiful and with more positive energy. People have more faith in the future and want to spend more.
<<Lots of overweight people, but less than usual. Maybe  Michelle Obama’s campaign regarding exercise and eating vegetables has worked. There are less McDonald’s, where have they disappeared to?>> <<It is said that there are BIO stores everywhere, but I didn’t see any, however all that is organic is liked>>.
<<The Rosso di Montalcino was fantastically successful, everyone loves it and we placed it in 2/3restaurants to be served also by the glass. Someone is surprised by its freshness, how delicate it is and sweet and pleasant, others just fall in love with it straight away. >>
Violante finds time also for friends and shopping  <<Tomorrow Maria will come to the city, she is a young wine producer from Puglia who is doing work experience for a few month with an importer just out of the city. She will come to NY for the weekend so we can spend some time together, fantastic!>> The result of this shopping is a pair of really funny pink shoes. For someone always dressed in black, brown and blue this has been a really revolutionary choice!

In Montalcino we had a fermentation phase full of wonderful surprises

There are some excellencies in the 2014 wine, even though less than in 2012 and 2013 which, for us, have both been exceptional

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini
This year has been the BIO  year as quite rightly stated by Loredana Sottine in Trebicchieri, the Gambero Rosso weekly  <<never before has the  sector been  able to get its own back on  conventional productions>>. The only possible way to bring good grapes into the cellar has in fact been  using more attention to nature. For those of us who cultivate our vine organically this is excellent news!
First surprise, with respect to the rest of Italy where the vintage looks like being inferior in quantity to the previous ones ( 41 million ), we have had an abundant one. No decrease.
Second surprise, were expecting a late harvest but on the contrary the picking took place exactly 40 days after the veraison, practically a textbook routine. The younger vineyards and the ones that tend to be ready sooner and have a lesser root ramification, those facing south and with good inclination have given good and excellent grapes. Grapes for Brunello without doubt.

Perfect wine glasses: no go for the ballon and the ISO types

The perfect wine goblet for red wines is shaped like a truncated cone, not to be considered the small glasses or with a round shape

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

The ISO glass was what was once given to aspiring sommeliers in the welcome kit; I like many others had my first experiences in wine tasting with just those glasses.. On the contrary now Dr. Francesca Venturi and Dr. Angela Zinnai  from the Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari e Agro-ambientali in the Università di Pisa,   absolutely advise against. Even the grand ballon similar to a ball, which for years all the Toscana andPiedmont wineries, have bought hundreds of, seems to now be considered not apt for wine tasting.

Stupendous wines at affordable prices, here is the list

Among the best buys in wine many bottles are Italian: Feudi di San Gregorio, Argiano, Venica e Venica, La Spinetta, Rocca di Frassinello

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini
Those who believe that it is necessary to spend real fortunes to drink excellent wines, are wrong! Except for the real status symbols, the exclusive and legendary  wines, which unite extraordinary quality to a series of symbolic values so that the price  reach the sky … apart from those, for those who like to drink well, there are opportunities even among bottles that cost  10, 20 and 30 Dollars. And many of these are Italian.
Obviously it is not easy to find your way along the maze of thousands of brands but we get help from Wine Searcher, the British portal where the offer of  46,925 wine stores from all over the world merge. An unlimited archive from which you go and fish the bottles with the best rapport quality price for all pockets!

In the list of the best buys under 10$ the first is Pascal Toso Cabernet Sauvignon. You may say <<Gosh, And where can we get it? We can’t go to Argentina to get it, can we?>>. That is true,

but in second position there is a lovely Italian bottle, Feudi di San Gregorio Ros’Aura Rosato 2012 , with a rating of 91/100 from the main  Wine Critics (Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator, Decanter and others) on sale for the  public between  9 and 14$  so well under 10 euro. So is this not a good buy?
In the list of the best wines under 20$ shines a nice name from Montalcino, the splendid winery Argiano who is in first position with a Supertuscan with an intriguing name “Non Confunditur” Toscana IGT. The ratings given by the great experts are very high 93/100 but the price is really convenient, between 15 and 24$.

Rosa di tetto 2013, for your summer nights

Rosé wine is definitely trendy, to be served cool, with friends, together with some finger food. The Rosa di Tetto IGT 2013 was created for this

 

Rosé wines are in: all wineries insert a rosé wine in their portfolio. There is an increase in exportation, events, articles and competitions….. For Fattoria del Colle rosé is not a novelty as we have a long tradition in its production, the first bottles were made more than 20 years ago by Donatella Cinelli Colombini’s father, it was called with a different name and had a different label.

This year for the first time the rosé “Rosa di Tetto” is in a colouring called “rosa antico” which is similar to tea rose. A very rainy and cool summer allowed us to produce a rosé with rich perfumes (green apple but also flowers, particularly violets) and a great freshness in the mouth. A rosé which recalls the most refined types of French rosé wines.

The US Wine Consumers’ Identikit

There are 6 types: guided by price, indifferent, habitual, image searcher, curious and there are only 10% of enthusiasts, really interested in wine

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

The six profiles of the US consumers arrive from Constellation Brand, one name that is a guarantee because in the beverage wine marketing has nothing to learn. Constellation is world leader in the premium wine business, and produces and more importantly sells beer, wine and spirits in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, New Zealandand Italywhere they own Ruffino and produce Brunello and Chianti. They are 4^th in the world list of who has the most vineyards and, its most famous winery, Mondavi, is the 4th largest in the world for volume of wine produced and sixth among the strongest brands. Only that Constellation has a portfolio with more than 40 brands. What is most extraordinary is the stock exchange result: the value of its actions has practically doubled in one year.

The most expensive Italian wine is a Brunello Biondi Santi 52.646$

No Italian wine among the 50 most expensive in the world but lots of new entries in the top priced bottles where Masseto is in second position

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Again from Wine Searcher, the web site that groups the prices from 46.450 stores around the world and that reveals, live, the quotations for all wines. An immense database which contains a smaller section dedicated to the 50 most expensive wines. Here the French have the largest share. The first in the list Henri Jayer (who passed away in 2006) with his Richebourg Grand Cru, Cote de Nuits that is priced on average around 16.513$ after which is followed by Romanée Conti Grand Cru which however beats it with it maximum quote of 40. 155$.

As you may well understand these bottles are for all pockets affordable by all. The section in Wine searcher dedicated to the “Most expensive” has a menu reserved for Italian wines where the list seems well changed since last year with Masseto from the Tenuta di Ornellaia which has jumped up to second position and the Brunello Riserva Biondi Santi which records the highest price: 52464 $ an exceptional price and able to make our cousins on the other side of the alps quite jealous.

The leading wine brand in the world comes from Chile

Concha Y Toro, the Chilean winery has beaten all the USA and Australian brand opponents who dominate the ratings by The Drinks Business

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

 

The list of the top 10 brands in the wine world has been laid out by the British magazine The Drinks Business, which, every week pleases us with a variety of lists: from wine makers to women of International fame. Every time the lists regard the whole world, and in this case the brands taken into consideration are the 200 brands with an “authentically” global distribution. With respect to last year there are two brands by Gallo while the USA giant Blossom Hill is out of the list because positioned 11th. The evaluation criteria are basically three: share of the market owned, growth in the last few years and the future tendencies, the positioning/price especially based on the number of markets where the brand has an important presence in the premium segment. Minor importance is given to longevity, coherence of the brand and how it is eradicated among the consumers.

Obama’s cellar? Top Secret

The cellar at the White House is small and thrifty. But the dimensions do not matter it is the wine that peaks

read for you by Elena Mazzuoli

Each of us would think it obvious that the most powerful man in the world, always busy with state engagements and diplomatic rapports, able to make decisions which regards the whole world, might have a collection of wines that is never ending, one of those dreams that us common people can only imagine.
In fact the White House in Obama’s era has a very small cellar which seem so sort out the wines in a Just In Time logic. This secret is unveiled not be the official Sommelier of the White House but Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan, Master of Wine, who has visited the cellar several times, she describes it as being similar to a “walk-in-closet” because of its reduced dimensions. The mundane events at the White House have always been excellent occasions to promote American vineyards. But after the complaints received from President Obama regarding to the wines considered too expensive for a dinner with the Chinese President Hu Jintao, a veil of silence has descended , protected by all the officials.