IL DRAGO E LE 8 COLOMBE IGT TOSCANA 2022
WE WILL REMEMBER THE 2022 GRAPES FOR THE VERY SMALL BERRIES, WHICH FORCED DONATELLA CINELLI COLOMBINI'S WINEMAKERS TO CHANGE THEIR USUAL WORKPLAN....
WE WILL REMEMBER THE 2022 GRAPES FOR THE VERY SMALL BERRIES, WHICH FORCED DONATELLA CINELLI COLOMBINI'S WINEMAKERS TO CHANGE THEIR USUAL WORKPLAN....
Donatella Cinelli Colombini presents her Supertuscan Il Drago e le 8 Colombe, for the first time in organic version
2019 the harvest of the super Sangiovese, the year in which the bunches and berries of the king of Tuscany grape variety looked like Cabernet, the king of the Bordeaux vineyard.A dream of a harvest, with abundant, perfect grapes that were harvested by hand and then vinified in small vats where the must quickly took on a very intense colour.
Sangiovese 2019 grape harvest after 4 days
The bunches of Sagrantino and Merlot, which also make up the blend of Il Drago e le 8 Colombe were also of the highest quality. Each grape variety was vinified separately but, to make the most of the richness of the 2019 grapes, all made a very long post fermentation maceration. For this reason the racking was postponed for a week – ten days for all types: Sangiovese, Merlot and Sagrantino.
There was also a small variation in the aging in cask compared to usual. When the wine was ready to be moved from the vats to the barrels, the Covid epidemic caused the first lockdown, forcing the cellar work to be slowed down. Too bad because precisely because of the superior quality of the vintage, the quantity of barrels purchased was greater than usual.
The cellars belonging to Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Casato Prime Donne in Montalcino and Fattoria del Colle, in Trequanda, where this wine is born, are the first in Italy with an entirely female staff. Il Drago e le 8 Colombe is dedicated to the only male present: Carlo Gardini, husband to Donatella and creator of small, highly awarded series of Passito and Vin Santo. He is the dragon mentioned in the name of the wine and surrounded by 8 doves: the consultant Valérie Lavigne, the oenologists Barbara, Sabrina, Giada and the cellar staff, the incoming and sales staff. An oenological gynoecium that is constantly growing in number.
Il Drago e le 8 Colombe is an “author’s wine” and does not belong to any denomination. This category arises from the need to express the creativity of wine makers without subjecting them to the rules of the Doc-Docg regulations. The name Supertuscan highlights the qualitative ambitions of the wines of this type which enjoy a great international prestige. Il Drago e le 8 Colombe contains three different grape varieties: Sangiovese, which gives the wine its elegance, Merlot (20%) which adds pleasantness and Sagrantino (20%) which increases the structure. All the grapes are grown, vinified, aged in cask, bottled and refined at Fattoria del Colle in compliance with the BIO (organic) rules.
Leone Rosso 2019 Doc Orcia 5 stars with Sangiovese and Merlot in a small and exclusive production born in the vineyards, vinified and aged at Fattoria del Colle
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Leone Rosso Doc Orcia wine is dedicated Donatella Cinelli Colombini’s ancestors who built Fattoria del Colle in 1592 and had a rampant lion in their coat of arms. The grapes for the Leone Rosso Doc Orcia are born right in the vineyards of the farm.
This is the Socini or Sozzini family composed of jurists and philosophers. Two of them – Lelio (1525-1562) and Fausto (1539-1604) – went down in history for having played an important role among the European free thinkers who gave birth to Protestantism.
It was precisely their opposition to the Church that led the family to ruin and the Colle farm to be confiscated. The property was bought back by Donatella’s great-grandfather, the engineer Livio Socini around 1919 who almost by chance, gained it from a bankruptcy. When he visited it he realized that in the chapel and in the villa there were his identical coats of arms and understood that fate had put back in his hands, after 400 years, the farm founded by his ancestor Claudio Socini.
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A mysterious thread with the past that Donatella Cinelli Colombini also felt when her father Fausto gave her the Fattoria del Colle in 1998.
2019 is a memorable harvest. Classified 5 stars for the perfect quality of the grapes: small bunches small, ripe and healthy berries. An impressive amount of noble substances that, from the skins of the grapes, went into the must colouring it in a few hours and which were then extracted through a longer maceration than usual.
The Orcia denomination was born on February 14, 2000 in the hills that are located in the middle of the Brunello and Vino Nobile territories. A beautiful area of southern Tuscany, inscribed since 2004, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site thanks to the agricultural landscape preserved over the centuries.
This is why the Doc Orcia is defined as “the most beautiful wine in the world”.
It is also the proximity to two great DOCG wine – Nobile and Brunello – that has pushed Orcia producers to grow qualitatively very quickly and create a distinctive identity towards the millions of tourists and hikers, especially foreigners, who arrive in the area attracted by the beauty of the places and the goodness of the wines.