Lee Pai

To many people, the wines from Sancerre are almost synonymous with the word ‘wine’. Sancerre, for all intents and purposes, is the answer: It’s Friday night and you want to relax? Sancerre. Your friend is hosting a dinner party? Sancerre. Your partner is cooking tonight? Sancerre. 

Part of the popularity may be attributable to the easy-to-pronounce name, but it is the generations of families’ and vignerons’ collective experiences that have accumulated to what people enjoy so much from their glasses today. And that is exactly what the Cherrier family are.

Since the 1800s, the Cherrier family has been tending to their land and vines in Sancerre. The entire family, now in its fourth generation, are all involved in wine. Through the knowledge and values learnt from their parents, grandparents, and so forth, they have established a philosophy of applying only the appropriate levels of intervention in the vineyard and cellars. They don’t adhere to any specific regulatory labels, wishing to freely apply techniques that they believe to be in harmony with nature. Even today, they are still growing and changing, adapting to the uncertainties of winemaking. 

Grape Collective talks to Delphine Cherrier about her family’s history, vineyards, and philosophy of winemaking.  

Wine is more than just a beverage for me. Drinking wine, I can often derive introspective thoughts and emotions about myself. And most of the time, wine brings joy. But on a particular occasion not too long ago, some other emotion overtook me. 

One evening, I was opening a bottle of Vintage Port from the legendary 1970 vintage. I was pretty excited, having read and heard so much about the universally acclaimed vintage – many critics consider it perhaps the best vintage for the past 50 years. But, like all things that come with high expectations, I ended up being disappointed, with the wine no longer possessing any fruit characteristic. 

Such an experience usually doesn’t dampen my mood much, because wine is perishable after all. But I was awash in sadness this time with the realization that, no matter how great of a bottle, a wine’s best day eventually passes. And in extension, so do ours.

As someone who still remembers being young, there was a time when I seemingly had unlimited amounts of time, and would go about my weeks and months not focusing on what was most important. Sometimes, important events such as my mother’s birthday or gatherings with the extended family, would be forgotten. But it was ok, because there was always next week, next month, next year. I always had more time.

But now, I realize I may not have as much time to waste as I did before. Schedules get busier and busier, friends move farther and farther away, and most depressingly, there are more and more funerals to attend. 

Wine, in a woeful way, reflects that sort of experience. 

Anselmo is very easy to like. Tall, charismatic, a full head of hair, and always smiling when he talks. He radiates a sense of joy and pride when he presents San Leonardo and its wine. This small winery, located at the southern end of Trentino DOC in Northeast Italy, is surrounded by seemingly inhospitable terrain, endless forestry, and roaming wildlife. But somehow, the 300 hectare estate has managed to maintain a 30 hectare vineyard making some of Italy’s most interesting and unique Bordeaux blends.

San Leonardo’s Bordeaux blend, which consists of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Carmenere, is distinctly different from the powerful and opulent Super Tuscan wines from Bolgheri. Their style leans towards a more restrained cool-climate profile that focuses on elegance, balance, and freshness, and reflects a deep understanding of their soil and vines.  

It was Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, Anselmo’s father, who was responsible for the success and quality of San Leonardo’s wines. Carlo redefined winemaking at San Leonardo in the 1970s, and today, Anselmo is the proprietor that continues to focus on what Carlo has instilled in him and everyone else that works at San Leonardo.

Anselmo will be the first to admit that his primary responsibility “…is to maintain [San Leonardo], and [he has] changed so many things just to try to maintain the identity of the work of [his] father's.”

Grape Collective speaks with Marchese Anselmo Guerrieri Gonzaga about the wines of San Leonardo, and how the vision of one man could transform a small and isolated estate to produce some of the most unique and character-filled Bordeaux blend.

Time, in the right hands, can do remarkable things. 

That magic is especially evident in Port, where extensive aging in barrel or bottle (depending on the type of Port) helps integrate the layers of flavors, tannins, and alcohol. Port is a unique category of wine where the tradition of fortifying the aggressively extracted wine with grape spirits requires the necessary time to rest and develop. Port is also a complicated wine with different labeling indications that reflect the different styles and flavor profiles. But most unfortunately, Port is often misunderstood as merely a dessert wine due to its sweetness and alcohol level (20%). Port should really be seen as a time capsule that has the ability to transport flavors of previous generations in a bottle.

At Kopke, one of the oldest Port houses in Portugal, they continue the legacy of producing traditional Port. They have an extensive inventory of aged Tawny Port (especially White Tawny Port, a very niche category of Port wine) dating back to the 1930s that are still maturing in their cellars, only being bottled and released when specifically requested. These wines are truly from another time, and have been handed down to the following generations to maintain and care for. 

As Carla Tiago, winemaker at Kopke, puts it, “…we are bottling wines that were made several generations ago. Our job is to take care of these wines made by the people that came before us, make sure they are maintained in proper conditions, and make new wines for the next generation.” 

Grape Collective talks to Carla Tiago about Kopke’s tradition, the different categories of Port, and her thoughts on the future of Port.

“Wine, at the heart of it, is agriculture.” That was what Brian Talley told us as we wrapped up our tasting.

He says this with a certain tone of endearment. As proprietor of Talley Vineyards, Brian has been at the helm since 1991, growing it from essentially a side project started by his father to become the benchmark winery of San Luis Obispo (SLO) Coast today. His identity, however, is much simpler - a farmer.

Something we often complain about is the price tags of wine. And it’s totally understandable - wine, on the surface, is just fermented grape juice bottled in a glass container. How hard can it be to consistently grow grapes, make wine, and sell to customers at a low price while still allowing the families who make the wines to earn a decent living? 

Grape Collective talks to Ludovica Lisini about her experience working with her family to continue the legacy of Lisini winery.

In the wine world, a family is considered lucky to have their legacy carried on by descendants, generation after generation, to realize the vision their founding ancestors had for the land they occupy. Other times, uncontrollable events happen, and a family would lose their pride and joy. 

While the journey that eventually brought Monica Raspi into wine was not as dramatic, the crossroad she arrived at almost 17 years ago had some similarities. Trained as a veterinarian, she never thought she would take over her family’s vineyard, Pomona, in Castellina in Chianti Classico. Her parents had, through nostalgia and hard work, finally revived parts of the estate after it was abandoned for over 30 years. But their family was once again at risk of losing Pomona if Monica hadn’t decided to take over from her mother in 2007. 

Fortunately, Monica did. 

The transition was hard and sometimes caused her to doubt herself. But with the guidance of those she worked with, Monica gradually learnt to appreciate the beauty of her work in the vineyard as she transitioned it to become organic, and the satisfaction of producing wines she felt best represented what Pomona’s soils offered.

Grape Collective talks to Monica Raspi about her journey of taking over her family’s legacy and her winemaking approach.

For many, wine can be beautiful and pleasurable, mysterious and complicated. For others, it is downright intimidating at times. When I find myself roaming the aisles staring blankly at a wall of wine, the abundance of options results in an endless self-debate to reach a decision on which bottle of wine to select. Fortunately, with experience, this process for me has gradually been optimized to not require more than an hour of helpless pondering. I can only claim this achievement, however, due to the numerous times rehearsing different wine-selecting scenarios, both physically and mentally. Through this, I noticed there were rarely any consistent selection criteria, and despite the abundant information and resources available at attempting to demystify wine, I never could answer a simple question:

What is the most important thing?

In the wine world, there are a lot of producers that come from multiple generations of grape growing and winemaking. To them, wine isn’t just a way of life, it is THE way of life. For Armando Castagnedi, co-owner of Tenuta Sant’Antonio in Valpolicella, this belief is the driving force behind the establishment of their business.

Armando and his three brothers grew up in a small village in the eastern part of Valpolicella, where their father Antonio was a grape grower for the local wine cooperative. The brothers worked with Antonio and as wine consultants for many years, but they also wanted to make their own wines and not just grow grapes. Their father never agreed. 

So, naturally, the brothers purchased a plot of land on Monti Garbi in 1989, and started Tenuta Sant’Antonio; the first vintage was 1995.