Brunello di Montalcino

At first there was the Brunello di Montalcino. I found in the best restaurants the Brunello di Montalcino Mastrojanni and consumed often. In 1983 I came to Montalcino for the first time and I bought the Brunello di Montalcino wine in different place. In 1987 I visited Sandro Chia: he also producer of Brunello di Montalcino. And I met Carlo Vittori made into wine, Brunello di Montalcino by Sandro. So I'm in love with Charles Montalcino and began to look for me on a farm with the rights of Brunello di Montalcino to make me as producer of Brunello di Montalcino. It took ten years because we found Podere Le Ripi, 54 hectares of land with only one recorded in the Brunello di Montalcino. Wolf & Sirens was born in 2003, my first Brunello di Montalcino produced at Podere Le Ripi. And in 2008, confining Podere Le Ripi with Mastrojanni, after a long friendship with Andrea Machetti, former producer of Brunello di Montalcino and responsible Mastrojanni, we purchased with the Illy Group SpA (the holding company of us brothers Illy) the Mastrojanni which is now one of the best known brands of Brunello di Montalcino.

Brunello di Montalcino

Today, the Brunello di Montalcino Back of Donkey Mastrojanni often gets 94 points WAS and Parker and Brunello di Montalcino Wolves & Sirens Podere Le Ripi obtained with 2004 Weinwisser of 19,5 / 20, an exceptional result for an exceptional wine as Brunello di Montalcino. This ten-year adventure in Montalcino and in particular with the Brunello di Montalcino was the most beautiful of my life and continues: we are building a new cellar for Brunello di Montalcino, Podere Le Ripi that would become the cathedral of wine, with lots of pulpit to preach to Brunello di Montalcino and refined in our oak barrels. But we are also pursuing the project of Bonsai wine or the vineyard Brunello di Montalcino densest in the world. With 62,500 plants per hectare this Brunello di Montalcino comes from vines with deep roots that produce more than 2 meters per plant on average, a cluster: a new innovation in the world of fine wine that was born right here at Podere Le Ripi, in the town of Montalcino under the specification of Brunello di Montalcino. Today, the Brunello di Montalcino wine, Podere Le Ripi is a very rare because they produce very little and with the concept Bonsai wine become, I hope, the Brunello di Montalcino's most wanted in the world. Francesco Illy Winemaker in Montalcino Producer of Brunello di Montalcino At Podere Le Ripi, Montalcino
 
Biodynamics

To me, Biodynamics, is nothing else as the old fashioned way our ancestors grew plants and made wines for thousands of years, before the modern methods took place. For this reason the soil treated biodynamically is very similar to the soil of a woodland and very different from a conventional agricultural soil. It is less compact, contains a great amount of humus and shows an incredibly strong and complex inner life, from worms to bacteria as to any vegetal and animal biological activity.

The idea is to use the whole biological expressions of a farm in order to exploit all the possible synergies between these expressions of the soil and of the animals.

The definition says that the farm becomes a living entity inscribed in the larger context of the whole universe: for this reason in Biodynamics the calendar of the planets is very important and the moon phases determine the particular days in which some activities, like bottling or planting, or like preparing and dispensing the 500 and 501 mixtures and the tisanes, have to be done.

 


At Podere Le Ripi we are new for Biodynamics and for this reason we work with a consultant that is teaching the method: we think it will take at least ten years before we learn the whole method, because it is very complex and need a lot of sensitivity.

When I look to a wild forest I can feel an incredible healthiness, I can smell marvelous aromas, I can walk on a soft soil, I can realize that the absence of human intervention is the best way for this plants to express their character. Biodynamics brings this kind of wild life to our vines, this kind of healthy strength.

What is wonderful in Biodynamics is that the studies made with this techniques have developed procedures, like the 500 or 501 compound or the use of certain insects or hormones, that permit us to control diseases and parasites on one side and to ameliorate the health of soil and plants in a very fast way.