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Vines and wines

19 February 2020
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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USA duties to which wines do they do most harm?

How much and on which Italian wines could US duties do us most harm? In percentage terms on white wines but the absolute terms on red Tuscan PDOs

 

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Are the great Tuscan reds, Brunello, Bolgheri and Chianti Classico the ones that would come out with broken bones if Trump put import duties? Probably they are.

USA DUTIES ON WINE

An analysis made by Corriere Vinicolo draws the geography of the possible disaster, keeping in mind that after October 2019, that is after the application of the duties, it seems French wines lost 36% of their business to the USA, although Champagne and great reds were exempt from the tax. Such a backlash  in  purchases that perhaps the income of the American treasury has been negative even with respect to the past. Apparently the real effect of the duties was not the recovery of the money paid to the Airbus Consortium, which according to Trump brought Boeing to its knees (as if the 737 Boeing did not fall) but to terrorize European governments and create a veritable chaos in the US distribution system of importers, distributors and retailers.

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10 February 2020
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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The Italian wine seen by Wine Spectator

During Wine2Wine 2019 the senior editor of Wine Spectator Bruce Sanderson tasted with young people and showed how his readers perceive our wines

 

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

wine2wine-sonia-franco-violante-gardini-cinellicolombini

wine2wine-sonia-franco-violante-gardini-cinellicolombini

The tasting with 9 exponents of the new generations of Italian wine– among them my daughter Violante Gardini, Bernardino Sani and Dominga Cotarella- took place in the most multi-ethnic and social area of Veronafiere, the reign of Stevie Kim and VinitalyInternational. This is an environment that inspires creativity, with its painted ceilings, trendy interior design… But young people were very much “in the role” with little lightness and much determination. In front of them, Bruce Sanderson, one of the world’s most popular wine gurus, tastes Burgundy, Piedmont and Tuscany for Wine Spectator and, in my opinion, tastes the best!

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7 February 2020
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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The land of Sangiovese: Chianti Classico and Montalcino

The nature of the soil gives a specific sensory character to the wine, so understanding the soil is crucial to understand the most variable vine: Sangiovese. Today we talk about the land of Sangiovese: Chianti Classico and Montalcino

by Donatella Cinelli Colombini


It is well known that Sangiovese has the highest number of clones (108) and the greatest variability. In short, it is a mutant grape variety which is best expressed in two areas: Chianti Classico and Montalcino.

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5 February 2020
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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Very small selection of extraordinary Vin Santo

A very small selection of extraordinary Vin Santo

Just 350 small bottles of Vin Santo del Chianti 2007 produced by Fattoria del Colle with artisan care. A very very small selection of extraordinary Vin Santo

 

Jewels for true enthusiasts who, with the previous vintage, have obtained prestigious international awards such as 95/100 by Robert Parker/ Wine advocate.
The Vin Santo DOC Chianti is the most prestigious and successful result of the project on dessert wines wanted by Donatella Cinelli Colombini’s husband, Carlo Gardini. Donatella does not drink sweet wines and had strongly reduced their production at Fattoria del Colle although this winery, located in the south of Chianti, had a centuries-old tradition of Vin Santo. Carlo is instead a fan of sweet whites and has dedicated time and energy to create small selections of signature wine handcrafted in detail. It includes the Passito, the Vin Santo and the prestigious Vin Santo selection we are talking about.

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3 February 2020
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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Maturation of wine in cask, “Italian style”

With the rise in temperatures and the consequences in the vineyard and cellar, it becomes urgent to rethink the barrels and the Maturation of wine in cask, “Italian style”

botti-tonneau-montalcino-brunello-_CasatoPrimeDonne

barrels tonneaux Montalcino CasatoPrimeDonne

by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

For what regards the maturation of wine in cask, “Italian style”, we go from one exaggeration to another. After  years of wines with too much wood we went to the fashion of no oak at all.

To understand which is the right way the Italian Union of Wines through the Wine Corriere has organized a survey and then a conference during the exhibition in Milan.

WOODEN TASTE: MANY SAY THEY HATE IT BUT IN REALITY IT IS NOT TRUE

The results were intriguing, stimulating and even a little embarrassing.

In fact there is a fundamental contradiction: the consumer says he appreciates one type of wine but then he buys another. He thinks he prefers dry wines but then he is more happy to put in the glass those with residual sugar. He claims to hate barriques and “Parker style” wine but then chooses the one with an oak imprint to which he is accustomed.
Contradiction that, from my experience, also affects many tasters formed in the era of late 20th century style wines.
This is not a small problem especially for wines with long aging in cask like Brunello.

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29 January 2020
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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Vin Santo del Chianti 2008 Fattoria del Colle

Donatella Cinelli Colombini presents her Vin Santo del Chianti 2008 Fattoria del Colle aged in caratelli for eleven years .

A small selection of very few bottles for lovers of sweet wines

First of all Vin Santo is part of the history of Tuscany. In ancient times all the noble families had caratelli (small barrels) in which the Vin Santo aged in the attic of their Villas. Vin Santo was always served at important banquets .
We do not know when the production of this sweet golden and refined wine was born, it surely existed already in Siena in the fourteenth century. But it was precisely during a banquet that the Vin Santo ceased to be called “vino pretto” that means pure and took on its present name.

The legend

According to legend, this happened in 1439 after the Council of Florence. That meeting was attended by the Greek Cardinal Giovanni Bessarione who, tasting it, exclaimed “this is the wine of Xantos! ” in reference to the island where sweet wines were produced at the time particularly appreciated. Hence, since then xantos wine became  Vin Santo and the name  remained to indicate the delicious Tuscan nectar.

Fattoria del Colle too, has its vinsantaia, it is  in the attic of the sixteenth-century villa. So, crossing the winery and climbing a staircase you can reach the attic where in winter it is very cold and in summer it is very hot. Here are the small barrels  in which the golden liquid, squeezed from the dried grapes, remains to ripen for over ten years.
Last year the Vin Santo del Chianti of Fattoria del Colle received 93/100 from Robert Parker/Wine advocate. A success that we hope will be repeated in the future.
We recommend not to dip cookies in Vin Santo. It is a popular practice very widespread in Tuscany but absolutely harmful because it alters the aroma and taste of the wine.

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22 January 2020
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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The future of luxury wine is female

They are oriented to organic wines, sustainable and fair but affordable, they have a spending potential that increases, also in wine, along with their income and social role. Hence the future of luxury wine is female
By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Wine intelligence, the mega agency of analysis on wine market, based in London, highlighted how women are growing among consumers also in the segment of premium wine, consequently those over 15€ per bottle.

 

MEN CONSUME 64% OF PREMIUM WINES IN USA.

THE FUTURE OF LUXURY WINE IS FEMALE

So, to turn this trend into business, producers and retailers need to believe and increase the female segment with the same commitment as for the Chinese market and towards  young people because it seems the opportunities for growth are similar.
In the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, China and in Australia likewise, women buy less expensive bottles than men. Only 35% spend more than 20 Dollars while for males this share rises to half of those who usually consume wine.

Furthermore the report “US Premium Wine drinkers 2019”, tells us that almost 64% of wines over $15 per bottle are purchased by men. Out of 22 million US premium wines consumers only 8 are women.
Women have lower incomes as well highlighted by the gender gap, but also less confidence in their choices for which they are cautious, even in spending.
Finally there is also the component of the habit whereby sommeliers and maitre’s give to male customers the list of wines at the restaurant.

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20 January 2020
in Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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Brunello Prime Donne: story of a challenge

Donatella Cinelli Colombini had just started designing the company that bears her name when she realized that women managers and consumers counted for nothing. Brunello Prime Donne: story of a challenge

Brunello-Prime-Donne-2015-storia-di-una-sfida

Brunello-Prime-Donne-2015-storia-di-una-sfida

Brunello di Montalcino Prime Donne is very traditional in style, produced in a small exclusive selection.
It owes its exceptionality to the grapes of Sangiovese from which it is born. The small size of the bunches and grapes allow it to combine longevity, an extraordinary elegance and a surprising pleasure. The solid acidic and tannic structure is in fact barely perceptible thanks to a perfect harmony.

 

HISTORY OF A CHALLENGE: BRUNELLO PRIME DONNE

Brunello Prime Donne selection was produced for the first time with the 1993 vintage.
Donatella Cinelli Colombini had just begun to design the company that bears her name and that is characterized by the two wineries– Casato Prime Donne in Montalcino and Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda – with an entirely female staff. The attention to the role of women in wine led Donatella to observe that  wine critics and curators of the Italian wine guides were, in 1998, all men.

She decided to reaffirm the importance of women’s taste in the choice of wine by creating the first Brunello selected from a feminine and international panel. The first group consisted of 4 tasters, the English Master of Wine Maureen Ashley, the German wine maker Astrid Schwarz, one of the best Italian sommeliers Daniela Scrobogna and the Italian-american Pr Marina Thompson.

Over the years, the group has changed to become the current one composed of two Masters of Wine, the English Rosemary George and the Swedish Madeleine Stenwreth, as well as Astrid Schwarz and Daniela Scrobogna.

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17 January 2020
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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Cabernet is the most cultivated but not the most loved

Cabernet is the most cultivated grape in the world but is it also the most loved? A research on Wine searcher shows that wines of Bordeaux blend are the favorites ones

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Cabernet is the most cultivated but not the most loved

 

The big data on wine, the computer analysis on one of the most boundless existing portals in the world, Wine searcher, allows you to understand which grape is really liked by wine lovers – Cabernet or Bordeaux blend?

 

CABERNET IS THE MOST CULTIVATED GRAPE, BUT THE BORDEAUX BLEND IS THE MOST LOVED.

An exercise that Don Kavanagh enjoyed doing with his typical irony starting from a question: “Cabernet is the most cultivated grape in the world, but is it the favorite?” Is it more liked single vines or Bordeaux blend?
In the end the victory of the Bordeaux blend is overwhelming but with many distinctions Country by Country.
In the USA, Cabernet (14%) is particularly popular, but the Bordeaux blend is second in consumers’ interest with only half a percentage point of distance. In the United Kingdom, however, the Bordeaux blend wins, followed by Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Champagne and Rhône Valley with Cabernet only seventh.

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15 January 2020
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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Chianti Superiore DOCG 2017

2017 the lowest yield vintage ever brought to the winery gives us a Chianti Superiore, really superior, at Fattoria del Colle in the south of Tuscany

2017 will remain in the history of European viticulture as the year of the great frost. At the end of April, for three consecutive nights an arctic cold wave crossed the continent reaching as far as Spain and Sicily and destroying the buds that, that year, had sprouted 20 days in advance. The photos of Burgundy and Collio with the fires in the vineyards were on the front pages of the newspapers to show the heroism of the winemakers who fought, unfortunately, unnecessarily.
Who, like us, was saved from the frost, then had to fight with the drought and the summer heat that reached 43°C for ten days in a row. The rains of late August and September literally saved the vines and the harvest.
The last scourge was the wild boar which, driven by thirst, also ate the unripe grapes.

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6 December 2019
in Forum: News and lifestyle, Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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The best wine shops in the world

Wine searcher has selected the world’s top 2826 wine shops and 1224 top merchands in its immense international database of wine and alcohol retailers

Di Donatella Cinelli Colombini

WHERE THE WINE STORES ARE SITUATED

Vino Nostro wine store in San Francisco

They are located in 167 cities and 32 countries and have been selected among the 20,454 re-sales listed by Wine searcher. The stores have been chosen according to the richness of the assortment and the high quality of services offered to customers such as the presence of competent staff and multilingual, or the offer of samples.
Gold, silver and bronze medals have been awarded to the most talented of the 21 categories relating to the best portfolio of  Burbon, Bordeaux or Burgundy wines, Chilean or Portuguese wines, bubbles and côtes du Rhône, Whisky of malt …. and of course Italian wines and even Tuscan wines.

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29 November 2019
in Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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Brunello Prime Donne 2015 a wine to marry.

Great vintage of Brunello 5 stars suitable for long aging and important anniversaries. Who had a child in 2015 can keep it for his wedding

Brunello di Montalcino Prime Donne is produced only in the best vintages. It’s a small selection of 6,000 bottles intended for high-level restaurants and wine bars around the world.

It’s the first Brunello produced and thought from a female perspective. In fact, the winery that produces it, Casato Prime Donne in Montalcino, is the first in Italy with an only female staff, including the enologist. In addition, it is the first long-aging red wine that is followed, from birth to bottling, by a pannel of 4 expert international tasters: a wine shop owner, a sommelier and two Master of Wine: Astrid Schwarz, Daniela Scrobogna, Rosemary George MW to which is about to be added the Swedish Madeleine Stenwreth MW. They choose the wine among the different vineyards of Sangiovese Brunello, decide the type of oak barrel and finally the blend among the oak barrels .

Obviously Brunello Prime Donne is also popular with men and has excellent ratings in the main international press, but it is also a flag for female wine. In fact, in 1998 when Donatella

 

Cinelli Colombini inaugurated the project “Prime Donne” and the role of the fair sex in enology was very small, this wine was the first to celebrate the importance of female taste.
Brunello Prime Donne is very traditional, with an excellent structure with velvety tannins and great harmony.
In the last ten years the tasters have always chosen wines obtained from the grapes of the Ardita vineyard on the top of the hill of Casato Prime Donne. A plot planted in 2001  250 m above sea level, with splendid exposure and soil with prevalence of clay and limestone.

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11 July 2019
in Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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Rosso di Montalcino 2017 by Donatella

A powerful Sangiovese , extremely pleasant , that in the  Rosso di Montalcino expresses at its best the characters of a hot years such as 2017 and the extraordinary Brunello terroir

 

2017 in the vineyards is explained in the words of the Divina Commedia by Dante << guarda il calor del sol che si fa vino>> (Canto 25 of Purgatory). Poetic words that describe a very hot summer where the vines suffered for the draught for month and the grape growers tilled the land to impede that the soil hardened.

A vintage, 2017, that expresses itself at its best in young wines, such as the Rosso di Montalcino, and has among its strong points the Mediterranean vigour and pleasantness. It is in other words a raring, hot, powerful and velvety Sangiovese.

MONTALCINO, TERROIR WHERE SANGIOVESE EXPRESSES ITSELF BEST

Montalcino is, in the world, the territory where Sangiovese expresses itself at its best. An extraordinary territory that makes something extremely difficult happen, in fact it makes it even seem easy: to produce with the same grapes and from the same vines, young wines that are extremely pleasant and elegant, like Rosso di Montalcino, and super premium wines apt for long ageing such as Brunello.

Rosso -di- Montalcino- 2017- Sangiovese -harvest

VINTAGE 2017 IN MONTALCINO AND IN EUROPE

In Europe, the 2017 vintage will be remembered as the scarcest and most troublesome of the last 50 years because of a frost at the end of April, and because of a dry and torrid summer, and finally because of the hailstorm in September. A wild climatic situation that miraculously missed Montalcino where the only difference with other vintages was the beginning of the harvest within the first 15 days of September.

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20 May 2019
in Vines and wines
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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Cantine aperte remembering Leonardo da Vinci

Cantine Aperte 2019, Wine day at Casato Prime Donne proposes a candlelit itinerary with music, food from the times of Leonardo and great Brunello and Chianti wines

 

Cantine- Aperte- 2019 Casato- Prime- Donne

In the Casato Prime Donne winery lit with chandeliers, listening to music from the late 15th century with a glass of Brunello in hand and some food from renaissance times. Donatella Cinelli Colombini wishes to dedicate Cantine Aperte 2019, in her winery in Montalcino to the Tuscan genius Leonardo da Vinci this year, 500 years since his death.

Leonardo had a vineyard in Milan not far from Santa Maria delle Grazie where he painted the Cenacle. In 1515 he wrote the rules for the correct way to produce wine and gave wine practically a spiritual role  “Il vino, il divino licore dell’uva” . To Leonardo have been attributed the idea of the decanter and of the air lock to stop wine and air meeting in the barrels.

 

CANTINE APERTE PROGRAMME

<<This itinerary is through the cellar, candlelit, and with tastings of great wines, music, and simple food that recall Renaissance times and will be fun even though it is based on solid cultural basis >> says Violante Gardini,  Cinellicolombini Jr who guides the Movimento del turismo del vino della Toscana and organizes the day dedicated to wine tourism in the whole region.

Cantine-aperte-2019-Casato-Prime Donne -Montalcino

Guided tastings at 11 am, 1pm, 3pm and 5 pm must be booked previously at the following number 0577 849421 (18€ per person for the 4 guided tastings at fixed times and then some informal tours with quick tastings from 11 am to 6 pm).

At the Entrance guests receive a glass and a candle with the request to turn down the volume of their phones so as to enjoy fully the audio, visual and flavour sensations that recall the Renaissance. First stop in the fermentation area in the medieval atmosphere with the screening of images – Chianti Superiore will be served with home baked bread dressed with 2018 extra virgin olive oil.

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Cinelli Colombini
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