The Inside Story from Italian Wine Merchants

The Serendipity of Brunello di Montalcino

From its sporadic start to today’s boom

Brunello di Montalcino has recently received a bevy of media attention, in addition to some unprecedented recognition from the wine world. In part, this media frenzy has circulated around the scandal known as “Brunellogate,” the use of unauthorized grapes by some unscrupulous producers. But it also stems from the reviews that the ’04, ’05 and ’06 Brunellos have received, which are stellar.

Given Brunello’s recent spate of press, I thought it might be a good time to look at this wine a little more closely. Sangiovese Grosso, a superior clone of Sangiovese, produces Brunello di Montalcino, one of Italy’s most lovely and prestigious red wines. The towns of Montalcino enjoy warmer, drier air than other regions of Chianti, and the open, surrounding countryside offers both ideal ventilation and cool nights. And these characteristics allow Brunello, or in English the “little dark one” because of the grape’s brown hue, to fully ripen and produce the wine’s fuller, richer taste.

Brunello has a serendipitous, even scattershot history. Though Ferruccio Biondi-Santi produced the first Brunello vintage in 1888, the wine really had a halting, sporadic start. There were only four vintages—1888, 1891, 1925, and 1945—declared in the first 57 years of production, and by 1960, there were only eleven total producers. So by the time the region had its boom of vineyard restoration in the 1970s and 1980s, the wine’s rarity had led to both higher prices and a veil of mystery and prestige.

But Brunello’s more recent history is what might spark slightly heated discussions around a wine lover’s table. As production has increased over the last few decades, Brunello’s traditional winemaking process has changed quite a bit. Traditionally, and as late as 1989, Brunello had a minimum cask ageing of 42 months, in addition to bottle ageing. But the cask ageing regulations have been almost halved in the last decade and now stand at 24 months. This lower ageing minimum mixed with Brunello’s popularity has fed an increase in the use of barriques (small oak barrels), which results in the more standardized, uniform taste that traditionalists frown upon.

So where does this leave all of us, in terms of selecting a bottle of Brunello? A wine, we should remember, can be modern in its ageing process and still retain its traditional sense of place, or the characteristics it draws from its particular soil and climate. You can take the wine out of Montalcino, but you can’t take the Montalcino out of the wine.

With over 230 Brunello producers today, the region requires that you need to know not only the region, but also the producer. Whatever your preferred style may be, without question you have options, and they’re worth exploring. However, I tend to the traditionalists, so some of my favorite producers still remain unchanged. I’ll try other Brunellos, but my heart will always belong to Biondi-Santi and Soldera.

Diving into Passion, Part 4

The perplexing Prince and his haunting wines

This blog post is the fourth and final entry in my blogging of Passion on the Vine, the memoir of IWM founder Sergio Esposito. You can find the first three parts here: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

After an entertaining tour of Italian wine producers, Sergio continues his adventure of the Italian countryside and brings us to Chianciano Terme, a mineral water oasis where Italians go to relax and rejuvenate.  He shares with us secret days with his son Sal—chasing frogs, hunting for wild berries and stumbling across tiny self-sustaining farms and vineyards, as well as sharing Easter Monday fish feasts on the seashore filled with boisterous family and conversation.  Sergio never fails to enchant his readers and make them salivate with lengthy, descriptive paragraphs of his everyday cuisine.  But the most inspiring and unusual experience he shares with us is his encounter with the madman, the myth and the legend: the winemaking Prince.

Sergio was enjoying his last free week in Italy on the Amalfi Coast, in Positano to be exact.  All ready to take it easy and enjoy his free time, Sergio gets a call from his friend Andrea Carelli.  Andrea tells him that the legendary Luigi “Gino” Veronelli requests his presence at a very important lunch in Umbria where they would taste vintage Malvasia made by an eccentric, introverted Italian prince.  Umbria, being a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Positano, was certainly out of the question, Sergio objects, yet he lets Carelli’s argument prevail. Sergio agrees to take the day to visit and taste the wines (which he was almost 100% sure would taste like overly sour white-wine vinegar).

Prince Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, Prince of Venosa, was a descendant of a 1000 year old line of Italian royalty, same bloodline as Popes Gregory XIII and Gregory XV.  He inherited his family estate, Fiorano, as a young man.  He was introverted when it came to his political duties as prince, but he was quite interested in his land and agriculture.  He would help harvest wheat and vegetables, and he made simple country wine that he would sell to his locals.

In time, he became quite the wine connoisseur and began collecting and amassing a plethora of vintage wines.  The one wine that changed the course of his life was a 1946 Biondi Santi Brunello di Montalcino.  He became great friends with Tancredi of Biondi Santi, due to his interest and sheer enthusiasm for his brilliant wines.  Tancredi became a colleague and ally, helping the Prince plant French varietals and guiding him during the beginning of his wine journey.  In years to come, they continued to collaborate and schooled each other in very intricate and complex wine-making techniques.  For his own enjoyment, the Prince ultimately produced a red Bordeaux blend, a Semillion, and wines made from Malvasia di Candia, which was indigenous to his land.

By chance many years before, renowned wine critic Luigi Veronelli was perusing the countryside of Lazio and literally stumbled across the Fiorano estate.  He bonded with the Prince, and as he was facing his own mortality, Prince Ludovisi gave Veronelli the grand task of finding his precious wines a home with people who would fully appreciate them.  The Prince very rarely sold his wines and was very protective of them—protective to the point that most of his bottled wines had rarely been touched.  When Veronelli explored Prince Ludovisi’s stone cellar, he found not a couple hundred bottles as expected, but over 10,000 bottles, all covered in a thick, white mold.  Before his death, Prince Ludovisi destroyed his vineyards so that no one else could produce wines from his noble plantings.  These 11,000 bottles were all that remained of the Prince’s passion. Veronelli took seriously the Prince’s trust of his wines, and he hunted down Sergio knowing that he was one of the few people on the planet who would grasp the strange beauty of the Prince’s unusual white wines.

Sergio expresses his first taste of the Prince’s Malvasia: “I inhaled and felt it: a twitch in my arm, a tightness in my throat.  The wine was alive.  Everything faded from the room—the background noise, the glasses clinking, the tones of conversation, all color and movement.”  The rest of the Prince’s wines continued with the Malvasia, and each wine made a very distinct impression on Sergio that day. Like Fiorano’s whites that strangely get brighter in color as they age, so too does this anecdote gleam in brightness; it almost puts the rest of the book in high relief, as if all of Sergio’s experiences built to this one moment when he discovered something new, something strange and something gorgeous.

Sergio purchased 11,000 bottles of Fiorano, which are currently on sale here at IWM, purchasable by anyone truly interested and can appreciate the essence of these magnificent wines.

And with this story, I have reached the end of both the book and the writing about it! As someone who is intensely intrigued by the subject of wine, I’ve found that learning about all these producers has been an exceptional one.  Many people talk of the fact that traditional wines might someday fall out of interest due to the wine-market being so much geared for immediate consumption, but after reading this book and realizing how intimate and artistic the practice of winemaking can really be, I realize that nothing can replace a wine made by a master of his trade.  Everything has its place, whether it’s mainstream industrial winemaking that churns out reliable and consistent product or true artisans who express themselves through their lives’ work.  There is so much more to think of now when looking at a bottle of wine because I realize how much time and effort go into bottling this wonderful, ineffable thing that is alive and continues to grow over time.

I urge you to pick up your copy of Passion on the Vine and enjoy your own encounters with these fascinating characters and the unique happenings of a man devoted to life, love and wine, pretty much in that order.

Diving into Passion: Part 3

Eccentric and exciting masters of wine

The story of Passion on the Vine continues when Sergio decides to leave the restaurant business and begins to fully cultivate his vision and passion for Italian wine (please see part 1 and part 2 and of this series).  In his vision, the store would be a high-end boutique of wine with each bottle displayed with its own placard, like its own work of art.  The company would educate clients on Italian wine and culture as well as provide security for those who wanted to invest and make collecting high-end Italian wines a reality. By a twist of fate, Sergio runs into an acquaintance, Joseph Bastianich, who then owned a wine bar/restaurant called Becco and a high-end Italian restaurant called Babbo with Mario Batali.  Sergio makes the quick decision to become partners with these two men who had a much better understanding of his goals and ambitions, and in October of 1999, Italian Wine Merchants opened its doors to the public.

Of course, opening a wine store in New York City is no easy feat, and this task was made especially difficult due to Sergio’s commitment to stocking the store full of wines that weren’t the mainstream.  It was a very stressful period marked by Sergio’s flying back and forth to Italy fifteen times a year to continue scoping out the best possible producers to showcase in his store.  The narrative of the memoir now takes the opportunity to highlight some of the greatest producers of Italian wine that Sergio knows as friends, compatriots and, occasionally, adversaries.   In reading this portion of his journey, we are all able to experience and begin to understand some very eccentric and exciting masters of wine. I’m going to showcase a few of my favorite moments and producers below:

Paolo Scavino, whose estate is currently run by his son Enrico Scavino, is a pioneer in Piemonte for going against the grain and making Barolo into a modern, technological masterpiece.  He was one the first in the region to institute temperature-controlled winemaking and storage facilities, and has led the way with the use of new rotary fermenters and small barrels.  He made the biggest leap in 1993, when he decided to switch from Slovenian oak aging to 100% barrique.  He is a prime example of what a modern producer has done to make Barolo more accessible and attractive to our current market and shows that Barolo is capable of expressing itself with vigorous vineyard care and less age.

Josko Gravner, however, shows an opposite side of the wine story.  He was one of the first producers to experiment with technological advancements and became a mentor to producers who wanted to be skilled in modern winemaking techniques.  He rigorously taught himself each new machine and method until one day he realized he was losing something in his wine.  He began exploring ancient wine-making techniques and in time transformed his entire philosophy.  He is currently a pioneer in the biodynamic movement and produces wine in 4,000-year-old clay amphorae, dug into the ground for natural temperature control.  Gravner’s philosophy is expressed in a nutshell: “Wine and food have to be natural products.  In flying a plane, one needs technology, but it’s absurd to think that man can ever improve what is natural.  Wine and food we put in our stomachs.  How could I continue to do my work if I have the knowledge that what I make was slowly poisoning my children?”When asked to describe his wines he said, “I don’t have the words for that, how can you describe a soul? I can tell you only that these wines have real spirit.” These quotes are enough to make anyone want to drink Gravner’s wine; the man is as spectacular as his products.

Movia’s Ales Kristancic is another top biodynamic wine producer from Friuli, though his vineyards border Friuli and Slovenia.  He is quite a character, and Kristancic has talents that seem to burst at the seams; he’s a whirlwind of energy who can’t help but inspire the people he encounters.  He has very strong ideas about wine and life, showcased in how he describes his vineyard and wines.  Sergio recalls a moment where Ales metaphorically compares a newly planted vine with a growing young woman.  He also describes the vine as our closest counterpart in the plant kingdom:  “You must understand this—if any plant in the entire plant world were to rise up into the animal kingdom and become a human being, it would be the vine.”

Kristancic continues, “It is the plant closest in character to man.  If it has this comfortable life and this undemanding land, it is never challenged.  It’s like a spoiled socialite: healthy, beautiful and vapid. It’s a machine, not a thing of natural beauty- just eating and producing fruits. And yes, absolutely, you can make something from this fruit. You can mix it up in a barrel and get drunk from it — but this thing you make is not wine.” Kristancic is close to his land and what he creates—his energy is infections and you can’t help but catch his enthusiasm.

Sergio then brings us back to Barolo to the estate of Maurizio Anselma, a young man who leads Famiglia Anselma, an estate that has the goal to produce traditional Barolo reminiscent of his history.  Maurizio first met Sergio at IWM as an inexperienced, but eager young, producer.  His family had an advantage, having been purchasing vineyards since the late seventies. Established in 1993, the Anselmas went forward to produce some of the best traditional Barolo of today.  Maurizio avers, “We will only make Barolo because this is the history of our land.” Reading this section, I felt I grew to understand the connection between Barolo and history even better, and to understand Barolo’s history seems tantamount to understanding Barolo.

“No barriques, no Berlusconi, no California,” is the motto of Bartolo Mascarello, a humble, yet iconic Barolo producer.  Considered by many to be the master of the trade, Mascarello embodies his values and belief in his work in everything that he does.  Sergio claims that Mascarello belongs to “a rare sub-species of human, the members of which are entirely uninfluenced by external sources of energy.  His emotional state persisted despite those around him, as though he were surrounded by a force field of resolution that insulated him from all external anxiety, desire and chaos.”  This could very likely be the reason why his wines are so revered.  He sticks to his guns, making Barolo the way he believes he should make it, in the time it takes to make it.  Nothing seems to be able to penetrate his stability and sense of tradition.  He is the supreme example of what a Barolo can express.

Currently run by Franco Santi, Biondi Santi represents the discovery and creation of Brunello di Montalcino.   Tancredi  Santi, Franco’s father, discovered a replanted clone of Sangiovese during the phylloxera epidemic, a serendipitous moment that lead to the creation of Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino.  Tancredi and Franco showed themselves to be expert entrepreneurs as well as wonderful winemakers, transforming a lonely, dusty spot in the road to one of the most important winemaking regions.  And the beauty that Sergio describes is trance-inducing.

If Biondi Santi founded Brunello di Montalcino, then Gianfranco Soldera mastered it.  Soldera was an industrial insurance broker from Milan before trying his hand at wine.  He appeared to be quite prescient; Sergio recalls that Soldera told his colleagues, “If I find a great piece of land in the next year, I’m making the best wine in the world.” Quite a statement for a former insurance broker! He bought the Case Basse estate in1972 and went on to fulfill his prophecy of becoming one of, if not the best, Brunello producers of today.

If  I had read Passion on the Vine a year ago, I would have been quite entertained by these unusual characters, but I might not have taken them very seriously.  For example, biodynamics in itself is a controversial idea, with many wine cognoscenti thinking it’s mystical and useless, and before my days at IWM, I probably would have agreed with these naysayers.  Now with my experience at IWM and the ability to taste wine every day, I think differently. I’ve enhanced my knowledge and palate, and I notice major differences between various styles and methods.  It’s like every single bottle has its own personality and character, with its own story to tell—and reading Passion on the Vine illustrates how that feeling came to be.  Each of these producers is a unique individual who makes his or her wines with private convictions and idiosyncratic philosophies. These bottles are like their children.

It’s what makes the wines of IWM so beautiful, and it’s what makes the book so good. We only have one more blog to finish this book club. I’m eager to know what you’ve been thinking. Who is your favorite producer? And why?