2019, 2020 and 2021 are three very different vintages but of great quality. They show how global warming favours the vineyards of southern Tuscany despite the excessive heat and cold, drought and monsoon storms that characterize the new climate.

In fact, 2021 had started badly with a spring frost that, fortunately, only grazed the Fattoria del Colle but caused a drastic drop in temperatures preventing the birth of new shoots. There were therefore about 20 days of distance between the first leaves born at the beginning of April and those at the end of the month. The frost and the three summer months without rain produced a drastic decline in the bunches and the size of the grapes that, at harvest, resembled Pinot Noir more than Sangiovese. A cool September that became cold at night, offered the ideal conditions for a slow and regular ripening of the grapes. The result is a wine that combines power, freshness and longevity.

CENERENTOLA’S HOUSE AT FATTORIA DEL COLLE

The grapes for the Cenerentola wine come from the organic vineyards at Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda, in southern Tuscany. 404 meters above sea level with a soil mainly composed of marine sands of Pliocene origin. The wine is a blend of two native vines, Sangiovese (65%), king of the Tuscan vineyard and Foglia Tonda (35%), an ancient variety, from the same region, that was abandoned until Donatella Cinelli Colombini fell in love with it.…

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Virtual wine tourism to travel with imagination waiting to be able to really do it. This is what the 900 Donne del Vino (Women of Wine) from all the Italian regions who are flooding the internet with images of their wineries and vineyards propose. Many videos of less than a minute, connected by the hashtag ledonnedelvinoconvoi who want to encourage those who are locked in their homes during the coronavirus epidemic.
Videos that convey passion for their work but especially the courage of women with a fighting spirit who are not willing to bend to the difficulties created by the epidemic. Testimonies, real, direct, of everyday life, made in a craft way by the same protagonists who speak in first person and perhaps, for this, emotional.

#LEDONNEDELVINOCONVOI VIDEOS TO MAKE VIRTUAL WINE TOURISM WHILE YOU ARE LOCKED IN THE HOUSE

Propose a virtual “escape” in the world of wine to winelovers who normally, with spring, arrived in the cellars, wine bars, restaurants with the intention of discovering great wines … And instead this year they have to stay home. A postponed appointment say the Women of Wine with confident look towards the future:”Do not give up and stay at home, we are with you and we are waiting for you soon!”

PROJECT GANBEI THE SOLIDARITY OF WINE WITHOUT BORDERS

Project Ganbei is raising funds to purchase medical supplies in China under the supervision of a medical team. …

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L'articolo Rosso di Montalcino DOC 2018 Bio directly on your doorstep sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Leone Zot wrote a wonderful post for Intravino on minerality in wine. The beginning is very technical with the explanation of how the brain processes what the senses perceive.

HOW THE BRAIN DECODES ODORS AND FLAVORS BASED ON PLEASURE AND MEMORIES

This translates into practice what Vincenzo Russo, the Italian guru of neuro-marketing, has been saying for years. Russo says that what the nose and mouth feel goes through the cerebral filters of pleasure and memory .It then returns emotions and memories not objective but becomes subjective, intimate, no longer exchangeable. This opinion is based on scientific evidence that is very solid and recognised worldwide. A theory that overturns the concept of organoleptic objective tasting, supported for years by sommeliers and wine critics.

Therefore, in practice no taster is an objective judge , just as is not an art critic or a music critic. Everybody filters the judgment based on their own previous experiences and the best are those with greater competence and greater openness to the new.

MINERALITY IN THE BRAIN AND IN THE GLASS

Through tasting, the human brain sums ancestral experiences, in the millions of years in which man has decided what to eat and what to drink. Using nose and mouth, and personal experiences. The minerality in wine is difficult to place in this scenario but…..…

L'articolo Minerality in wine: between terroir and marketing abuse sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

Story of the 2018 Rosso di Montalcino vintage

The 2018 harvest has given wines rich in aromas thanks to the strong difference in temperature between night and the day, in September, consequently during the last stage of maturation.
That of 2018 was a harvest with few grapes and required real courage to wait to harvest after the grape skins had softened and so becoming able to yield to the must the noble substances: the polyphenols.

In fact, in 2018 the weather forecast promised rain and hail. If the storms had really arrived, they would have ruined the bunches. Donatella and her winemakers have bet on the sun and thus faced the challenge by taking into the cellar only wonderful grapes.

Novelty in 2018

For the first time, in 2018, we have resumed an ancient habit of the Montalcino winemakers, the grapes have been selected in the vineyard by harvesting only those with the same level of ripening. This allowed to vinify in each vat grapes with homogeneous characters. Obviously the work of the winemakers has become slower and they have returned more than once in the same vineyards always choosing the grapes.
Above all the advantage of this type of selective harvesting is to have the perfect grapes for both Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino.

TYPE: dry red.…

L'articolo Donatella Cinelli Colombini’s Rosso di Montalcino 2018 sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

HOW BENVENUTO BRUNELLO WAS BORN

It is said that the idea of the previews was born during a trip to the USA of the Consortium of Brunello when the president Sante Turone announced to his deputy Andrea Constanti and to the director Stefano Campatelli we will make an event to present Brunello who is about to enter trade and give evaluation (from one to 5 stars) of the last harvest. His name will be Benvenuto Brunello.

Despite the astonishing reaction of the two interlocutors the project went on and the first edition was organized in 1992 in the multipurpose halls under the Municipality of Montalcino while the tile with the two stars of the harvest was painted by Roberto Turchi.
A year later, at the event, it grew up moving under a tent set up in the fourteenth-century fortress of Montalcino and then (with my personal contribution), in the present location of the Sant’Agostino complex. As the influx of specialized journalists from all over the world grew, so did the buyers, who have traditionally reserved the last two days of the tastings. In the success of Benvenuto Brunello has played a determining role the  Montalcino agency WineNews of Irene and Alessandro Regoli that grew of reputation and importance almost at the same speed.…

L'articolo Benvenuto Brunello a 28 year old success sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

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.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN THE ITALIAN CELLARS WITH THE ARRIVAL OF USA DUTIES?

But let’s see what would happen in Italy if the import taxes from the USA were to arrive on our bottles as well. The United States absorb 26% of the value of the export of Italian wine.…

L'articolo USA duties to which wines do they do most harm? sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

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.

THE SOILS OF SANGIOVESE IN CHIANTI CLASSICO AND MONTALCINO

Understanding the soils of these two areas helps to identify the specificities of wines in their most exceptional versions. We are led by Professor Edoardo Costantini and his lectures at the Scuola di alta formazione “sanguis jovis” of the Banfi Foundation published in the book“Il Sangiovese del futuro” (2019).

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY SOIL

The general concept of soil should be stressed: it is the superficial part of the earth’s crust, which varies according to climate and man’s intervention. Italian soils represent 51% of the world’s geological variability. In our country there is therefore an enormous concentration of eras: from the oldest (Gallura) to the secondary, tertiary and quaternary ones.

EFFECT OF THE SOIL ON THE VINE AND WINE

It must be said that in warm and dry vintages the effect of the soil on wine is greater, when the distinctive characteristics of the terroir are more evident.
The vine, like any plant, reacts according to the quantity of air and water of the soil in which it is planted.…

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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.

WHERE THE VIN SANTO OF FATTORIA DEL COLLE IS BORN

People who visit Fattoria del Colle can enter the vinsantaia climbing in the attic. Here the wine remains for over ten years in the caratelli (small barrels from 50 to 200 liters) while the summer heat and the winter cold implement the maturation as per the Tuscan tradition.
Finally the Vin Santo that comes out of the caratelli is very little, much less than the 35%  limit of the Chianti specification. This is why the bottles in this selection are so small and so few. …

L'articolo Very small selection of extraordinary Vin Santo sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

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.

VINE – FRUIT AND ORIGIN THE TWO CURRENT MACRO TRENDS

We start from the survey conducted by Master of Wine Justin Knock with interviews with winemakers, producers and distributors from all over the world. …

L'articolo Maturation of wine in cask, “Italian style” sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

10,700 threats to the Chianti brand identified in the first six months of 2019 by fraud hunters of Griffeshield, a company specialized in new technologies.

The President of the Consorzio del Chianti (Chianti Consortium) Giovanni Busi points out that in the overwhelming majority these are violations of the brand of the denomination but also the sale of counterfeit Chianti wines and counterfeit Chianti labels.

CHIANTI: THE SCALE OF THE FRAUD

The main fraud is represented by the so-called wine kits, that are the packages containing chemical preparations for making wine at home. Unfortunately the wine “DIY” achieves a remarkable success thanks to the imagination of the fraudsters who also propose the blueberry Chianti. In fact, around 6,000 such proposals have been identified and removed. Another 3,000 offences concern cases of false Chianti sold for real and 2,000 counterfeit labels.

THE MARKETING OF COUNTERFEIT WINES TAKES PLACE ONLINE

Chianti powder and blueberry Chianti. The marketing of this rubbish is done online through sites like Italian Chianti Style or Original Chianti and Vintners Reserve Chianti or World Vineyard Italian Chianti followed by the main e-commerce channels e-bay and Amazon.
In a jungle-like business scenario with wild beasts and threats everywhere. For this reason the Chianti Consortium has decided to continue monitoring and in the third quarter 2019 Griffeshield has identified other 4,852 new violations. …

L'articolo Chianti powder and blueberry Chianti sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

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.…

L'articolo Vin Santo del Chianti 2008 Fattoria del Colle sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

The experiment was carried out on mice forced to live with another mouse, a bully and very aggressive, so this is only a preliminary phase of the study, but it confirms what everyone suspected: there is a connection between the tonic effect of a daily small amount of wine and the “better life” in society, in the family and even at work. There is a proverb in Italy that  says that wine is the milk for the elderly, well it actually indicated the beneficial effect of a couple of glasses of wine, maybe had at the bar with friends, for those who have to put up with aches and pains and the loss of a social role, feelings common in the elderly.

Susan Wood’s studies, professor at the  University of South Carolina School of Medicine and published in the college magazine, regards the antidepressant and anti-inflammatory effects of resveratrol, and seem to confirm the ironic quote by Denis Saverot editor of the “La Revue du Vin de France << The village bars are gone, replaced by a pharmacy>>.

The phenomenon of substituting a glass of wine at dinner or at the bar with friends, with a packet of antidepressant is not only a French case but also an Italian one.…

L'articolo Enough antidepressants, drink a drop of wine! sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

I was born in Chiusi, a small village located on the border between Tuscany and Umbria, south of Siena. It is an old town with Etruscan origins surrounded by countryside and small lakes.

I have always wished to leave the countryside, and sometimes I did, to look for different spaces, different ways of living and views. Always very nice!

At Fattoria del Colle, located between Crete Senesi and Val d’Orcia and not far from Chiusi, I have found a place projected into the future but with strong ties with the past and its traditions. It is a place that makes its key feature the old customs, the old tales, the old winter games and folk evenings, nature and contact with it.
All this is a precious cultural richness which it is worth to transmit to all the guests who come for a visit  or for a holiday  in Tuscany.
And the interest that all this inspires in them is evident..
I remember once, I was carrying out a guided tour of the estate trying to catch the attention of a group who’s wish was to visit a real old farm, beside their interest in wine .
I had the impression that at the beginning they where thinking I was telling something I had only heard about, but when I specified that at home I had the same old jars for the extra virgin olive oil that I was showing them, their interest immediately changed.…

L'articolo A tour in a winery in Tuscany to discover traditions sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.