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
 
 
Wine is made by the Vineyard

Ok, nowadays almost everybody brings this quote!

But what does it mean?

I see two clearly different winemaking approaches that I would define as:

  • interventionists
  • non interventionists

Podere Le Ripi belongs definitely to the second group: WE DO NOT INTERVENE

To be “non inteventionist” does not mean that we do not try to do everything is possible to grow the best possible grapes: we do. We are introducing biodynamics, we take the herbs away as far as possible mechanically and the by hand with the hoe. As we use wonderful Vosges Oak to ferment and refine our wines.

What WE DO NOT is adding to the soil, the plants and the wine products of the chemical industry with the exception of the sulfur and copper products that the winemaking uses since centuries.

*There are obviously many different levels of intervention, from hard to gentle, in vineyards and/or cellar, from highly chemical to almost organic or to integrated agriculture.