Posts Tagged ‘chianti’
Not your average wine stop in the Tuscan Maremma
Hunting new wine experiences for the 2010/11 revamp of our award-winning Tuscany guidebook, I struck lucky yesterday at the London International Wine Fair (#LIWF). I met Franco Batzella.
Franco’s small, family-run estate lies on the sand-clay coastal plain, just inland from the holiday area known as the Costa degli Etruschi. Between May and October, the weather is uniformly warm and usually rainless. Great for sunbathers; tricky for a vine.
DOC Bolgheri rules insist that local red wine be Cabernet Sauvignon based. Ever since the success enjoyed by Sassicaia and Ornellaia (and other Super Tuscans), international varietals have been Bolgheri winemakers’ mainstay. Tuscany’s staple red grape, Sangiovese, needs 300m or so of height to perform, and that kind of altitude just isn’t available round here.
Batzella’s inspiration are the similarly gentle coastal slopes of Bordeaux. Peàn and Tâm are blends of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, in an approximate 2:1 ratio. Tâm uses grapes from lower-yielding vines, more new oak barriques and spends longer aging in both barrel and bottle. The resulting ruby-coloured wine has a firm tannic structure that will stand up perfectly to rustic Tuscan mains. Wild boar (cinghiale) comes to mind as a pairing.
Even more radical, and still less typically Tuscan, are Batzella’s other offerings. Bliss 2007, a new addition made in limited quantities with 100% Syrah, is so radical it has to be sold under an IGT classification rather DOC Bolgheri. His Rhone-inspired 70:30 Viognier-Sauvignon Blanc blend, Mezzodì, one-third fermented on its lees in oak with the rest in steel, is modern, fresh and predictably perfumed. In a region whose whites can verge on the bland, it’s un-Tuscan in a very pleasing way.
Franco speaks good English and is happy to see visitors; just call or email ahead. His estate also produces small quantities of olive oil, for which the slopes around the nearby village of Castagneto Carducci are famous.
Elewhere at LIWF ‘09 I discovered a Tuscan grape I’d never come across before: Fogliatonda (’round leaf’). Produced in Tuscany’s Val d’Orcia by Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Cenerentola (that’s ‘Cinderella’) Orcia 2004 is surprisingly light and savoury, and would be a great match for a lunchtime bowl of al fresco pasta.
Back on the Chianti trail, Campomaggio’s Chianti Classico Riserva 2003, aged 24 months in oak, is ripe and hearty. Badia a Coltibuono Chianti Classico Riserva 2005 is as refined as ever. That’s why it’s one of the tried-and-tested Chianti tasting stops recommended in my new Tuscany guidebook, out next month.
If you’re heading to Tuscany for a spot of wine tourism, don’t forget to read my review of two new Wine Travel Guides first. Buon viaggio!
Wine Travel Guides comes to Tuscany: a review
If you’re an enthusiastic wine-tourist, or would like to be, you need to meet Wine Travel Guides. The venture was launched in 2007 to offer wine lovers the essential information for planning a private wine tour. There are now 50 regularly updated micro-region guides to download or view online, including 2 new ones on Tuscany. It’s a well-timed expansion: the region was recognised this month for excellence in wine tourism.
An annual subscription offering unlimited access to all 50 guides is £49, or download a single guide for £7.50.
The two Tuscany mini-guides are packed with just the sort of detailed wine tourism information likely to be missing from a mainstream guidebook. Author Michèle Shah has an impressive pedigree in Italian wine, and shows it off with plenty of winemaking and DOC(G) knowledge. There’s just the right portion of technical nuggets for a proper enthusiast. Read the rest of this entry »
A year in Tuscan festivals
February’s here, which means it’s almost time for Viareggio’s Carnevale. The Tuscan seaside town hosts the second-most important Mardi Gras event in Italy after Venice—and it all starts tomorrow, with costumed float parades every Sunday until March 1st. If you haven’t booked your accommodation yet, you’ve probably left it too late (but try the Viareggio tourist office). There’s a smaller Carnevale, aimed more squarely at children, in Arezzo, the Carnevale Aretino Orciolaia.
Corpus Domini parade, Orvieto, Umbria
Far from peaking here, February marks the first month in a busy Tuscan festival calendar. If I was planning to attend one a month, my year might look something like this.
March
Head down to Pitigliano, in the Maremma, for the Torciata di San Giuseppe, on the 19th. A torchlit parade along ancient Etruscan tufa paths concludes with the burning of a wicker man in the town square to welcome spring. More information from the Pitigliano tourist office.
April
Aside from the obvious Holy Week and Pasqua celebrations all over Tuscany, I’d pop over the border to Umbria for Coloriamo I Cieli, a balloon and kite festival held around Castiglione del Lago on the western shore of Lago Trasimeno.
May
Ascension Day in Florence sees the annual Festa del Grillo (the Cricket Festival) in the Parco del Cascine, alongside the Arno. Though it’s not quite the same since the city banned the use of real crickets in 1999, it remains one of the city’s traditional family days out.
June
Tuscany goes festa-mad in June, and among plenty of choice I’d probably make for Pisa for San Ranieri. On the evening of the 16th, a whole stretch of the Arno is lit up with 70,000 candles, the luminara, followed by fireworks before midnight. More information from Pisa’s tourist office.
July
There’s only one place to head in July: to Siena, for the Palio. The day itself can be unpleasantly packed, so I’d adopt one of two strategies. Either go for the costumed practice days in the run-up to the main event on the 2nd (they usually begin on June 29th). Or head into Siena on the day after and book yourselves a hotel inside the winning contrada (Siena’s tourist office will help on that one). You’re guaranteed dress-suit parades, traditional songs, impromptu celebrations and all the rest of it, as the winners rub everyone else’s noses in it—all night, every night.
August
Instead of Siena’s second (and marginally more important) Palio, on the 16th, high summer would probably take me to Montepulciano. The Bravio delle Botti, an uphill giant-barrel-pushing race between the town’s quarters, takes place on the penultimate Sunday. Which doesn’t sound like much, unless you’ve ever tried to walk up that hill in August.
September
As summer comes to an end, it’s time to toast the harvest at the Rassegna del Chianti Classico, in Greve-in-Chianti. Buy a glass in the square and wander the stalls sloshing sipping away. A number of wine-themed excursions and events cluster round the Rassegna in early September.
October
It’s back to southern Tuscany in late October for Montalcino’s Sagra del Tordo. If you’ve even wondered what spit-roast songbirds taste like, washed down with Tuscany’s finest red wine (Brunello), now’s your chance to find out.
Things (thankfully) start to slow down from November. By now, I’m thinking I’ve probably earned the rest.
Chianti’s Sculpture Park
Here’s another family attraction we just came across, close to the heart of Chianti. It’s an outdoor contemporary sculpture park, with permanent exhibits and installations set in woodland north of Siena: the Chianti Sculpture Park.
There’s also a contemporary art and sculpture shop on-site. Curator Dr. Piero Giadrossi explains:
Your readers might also be interested to know that in front of the entrance to the Park there is a sculpture gallery, located in an ancient renovated pottery, a fine example of industrial archeology. It is probably the largest in Italy and displays sculptures not to be found elsewhere in Europe.
We haven’t inspected the park yet ourselves, but will be heading there as and when a new edition enters production.
It’s open 10am until sunset April to October; entrance is €7.50, €5 for under 16s. Local tel. 0577 357151.
Driving directions are here.
