Sucking Grapes

THE CONSORZIO OF CHIANTI CLASSICO LAUNCHES THE LATEST VINTAGE

The Consorzio of Chianti Classico, the organisation which represents most of the producers and bottlers of the region, except for a few rebels and the likes of Antinori, who would rather spend the money on its own marketing, has always been one of the most proactive when it comes to promoting Chianti Classico. (more…)

ANGELO GAJA, WHOSE ESTATE HASN’T GOT A WEBSITE, SEIZES THE OPPORTUNITY TO REFLECT HIS THOUGHTS ONLINE WITH THE HELP OF BLOGGERS

While it may seem that the Brunello di Montalcino scandal has lost most of its newsworthiness, especially after the majority of its producers voted with a clear “no” against any adulteration of what by law is supposed to be a 100% Sangiovese wine last year, a very belated aftermath was staged this January way up in North Italy, literally miles away from Montalcino, by Angelo Gaja. Dubbed by his critics as “the Bishop of Barbaresco” due to his openly authoritarian, and by no means subtle, stance on the Brunello affair, Gaja, who also has a winemaking operation in Montalcino, Pieve Santa Restituta, producing Brunello, had offered last year September to stage a “blogger summit” on the Brunello scandal in his winery in Barbaresco. The offer was made public in a thread on the Gambero Rosso website (Italy’s most influential food and wine organisation, and responsible for the annual publication of Vini Italia guide) promising total openness in expression of thought. The date for this summit was set for January 18th 2009, so far in the future that by then the event could well be past its sell-by-date, no longer having any relevance for the wider debate. (more…)

ALESSANDRO AND FILIPO FILIPPI CHALLENGE THE MEANING AND THE VALUE OF THE SOAVE APPELLATION

Soave, the wine at which most wine lovers would turn up their noses, has suffered for years under a self-inflicted inferiority complex, having allowed the production of bland and cheap wines under its appellation. Although the Consorzio, the controlling body of Soave, recently embarked on an ambitious project to describe and map single vineyards in an effort to restore the wine’s ancient, but largely forgotten, reputation (of which more later), it has yet to restore the reputation of Garganega, the white grape responsible for wines that are often described as ‘flowery, elegant and with finesse’, but could easily mean ‘dull’. (more…)

MARGARET RIVER’S FRASER GALLOP ESTATE CHALLENGES THE REGION’S PRODUCERS TO DEFINE WHAT THEIR TERROIR IS ABOUT

The last Saturday of November 2008 saw a most unusual encounter between the so called Old and New Worlds in the company of Domaine de Chevalier’s Olivier Bernard (on the right of the picture) and Nigel Gallop of the Fraser Gallop Estate in Western Australia’s Margaret River. All things being relative, Australia’s soils, probably the oldest in the world, can look back on 500 million years of history, but this particular patch has been planted with vines only since the early 1960s. (more…)

AN AMBITIOUS TASTING SHOWS THAT ITALY NEEDS TO FOCUS ON TERROIR IF IT WANTS TO PICK UP THE GERMAN GAUNTLET

Behind this title hides an annual competition dedicated to Riesling only, which, now in its 4th year, takes place annually in one of South Tyrol’s most remote corners, indeed so remote that it even confused the satnav system on my way up to this very Northern part of Italy. It is organised at the same time as the famous Merano International Wine Festival, but the village of Naturns, the host of the Riesling event, is much less savvy in promoting itself. (more…)

CHIANTI CLASSICO PRODUCER IL BORGHETTO’S FETISH FOR BURGUNDIAN BOTTLES HAS FALLEN FOUL OF THE CONSORZIO

Tim Manning, winemaker of Il Borghetto, an estate in Tuscany’s San Casciano, discovered recently that the regulations regarding bottle shape can change rather quickly and, in doing so, restrict him from continuing to fill the estate’s Chianti Classico in the sloping shouldered Burgundian bottles. (more…)

THE LUNGAROTTI BIOMASS PROJECT GAINS MOMENTUM

This mouthful merely states that Lungarotti, one of the largest producers of Umbria, made famous by the late Giorgio Lungarotti, now can supply all of its hot water as well as 30 per cent of its electricity entirely on its own. (more…)

BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO REMAINS FIRMLY IN THE SPOTLIGHTS - FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS

Friday just past saw a bitter confrontation between some of the principal protagonists in the Brunellogate affair in a Face to Face Debate held in Siena. The ones responsible for the scandal are journalists in general and Italian wine writer Franco Ziliani in particular, according to Ezio Rivella, once consultant enologist to dominant Brunello producer Castello Banfi. He claimed it was the media who were “to blame for the Brunello scandal”. (more…)