VIP in the vineyards in Montalcino and Tuscany
From the singers Gianna Nannini and Sting, to fashion stylists such as Ferragamo, bankers, and porn stars … a bit of everything among the VIP’s in the wine world
Seen for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
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In a way the Tuscan Vineyard resembles a stage for successful women and men who have everything and who are maybe on the lookout for new emotions such as having their name on the label of a small wine treasure. Famous people with exceptional abilities who have availabilities of great capitals and great contacts. People who can increase the prestige and the myth of Tuscan wines as if the vineyard were the red carpet at the Oscars.
Tuscany has plenty but Montalcino is really full of super VIPS.
Starting from Brunello and the most recent arrivals: the newest is Soleya International Corporation from Panama although there is no face behind this society at the moment.
Andrè Santos Esteves, 45 years old, banker from Brazil, 329th richest man in the world and 14th in Brazil according to the Forbes list. He adores great wines and has seen in the splendid Argiano estate in Montalcino a type of Italian chateaux.
Alejandro Bulgheroni richest man in Argentina according to Forbes, his business is in gas and petrol but he spends lots of time in Italy where his wife lives. Maybe for this reason he has bought Dievole in Chianti Classico, Poggio Landi (just in front of my Casato Prime Donne) and Podere Brizio in Montalcino adding it to his vineyards in Mendoza in Argentina, Garzòn in Uruguay, California …
In Montalcino we also have Ernesto Bertarelli, richest man in Switzerland and twice winner of the America’s Cup with the Alinghi sailboat. His family produces Brunello at Poggio di Sotto, a small but prestigious estate which has been united with Colle Massari and Grattamacco sotto under the impassioned and wise
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direction of the uncle Claudio Tipa.
Natalie Oliveros, better known as Savanna Samson, porn star from the US, partner of the Philip Morris AD Louis Camilleri – practically the king of cigarettes-, is owner together with the wine maker Roberto Cipresso, of the tenuta La Fiorita.
It is now several years that Richard Parsons, ex AD of Time Warner and Citigroup and councillor for the US President, Barak Obama, owns an estate in Il Palazzone, the coffee brothers Francesco and Riccardo Illy with their estates Le Ripi and Matroianni. And finally the king of luxury shoes Massimo Ferragamo in the resort Castiglion del Bosco, a medieval castle hidden in the woods where one can relax in a refined atmosphere with haute cuisine, great wines, golf, wellness …… and meet guests such as Paul McCartney.
The list of front page personalities continues around Tuscany, where in Chianti Classico we meet “Baccano” belonging to Gianna Nannini, the name says it all (din). Sting, the ex leader of Police also produces wine; he has 350 hectares in the “Il Palagio” estate in Chianti.
To conclude I would like to introduce you to a person I like very much: Virginie Saverys, a very courageous woman in her private life and in her work. She is from Belgium, 53 years old, she comes from a family of ship-owners, and she herself has directed the Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB) and then the Euronav. She arrived in Tuscany looking for a “buen retiro” together with her very nice Basque husband, he too a ship-owner, in 2009 she bought Avignonesi and in a very brief time she has given back to the estate its old splendour. This year their Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is in the 58th position in the TOP 100 list by Wine Spectator. That really is being on the Mount Olympus!