Winemakers

Torre dei Beati is a winery in Loreto Aprutino, a charming hilltop town in central Italy's Abruzzo region. In 1999, Fausto Albanesi and his wife Adriana inherited a small parcel of family vineyards, sparking a shared passion that changed their lives. At the time, winemaking offered a creative escape from their day jobs, with Fausto employed as an engineer and Adriana as an accountant.

Their journey towards full-time wine production spanned 17 years, and today, Torre dei Beati produces some of Abruzzo's most noteworthy, terroir-reflective wines. The winery's 52 acres of native, organically-farmed grapes are planted between 800 and 1,000 feet above sea level and about 15 miles from the Adriatic...

Chianti Classico, one of Italy's most prestigious wine regions, announced on July 5th, 2023, that the Italian Ministry of Agriculture has officially approved its Additional Geographical Units (UGA) classification system.

The Chianti Classico appellation now encompasses 11 distinct areas, whose names—San Casciano, Greve, Montefioralle, Lamole, Panzano, Radda, Gaiole, Castelnuovo Berardenga, Vagliagli, Castellina, and San Donato in Poggio—can be included on the bottles' front labels, starting with the 2020 vintage.

In June of 2021, the proposal to subdivide Chianti Classico's territory received unprecedented approval from its wine producers, with an overwhelming 97% casting their votes in its favor. Following a two-year wait for government approval, the region's labels can now aptly convey the remarkable diversity of its land.

Aiding Consumers

The UGA classification is based on various factors, including physical, environmental, and human. It mirrors practices seen in other renowned wine regions like Burgundy, with its AOCs (Appellations d'Origine Contrôlée), and Barolo with its MGAs (Menzione Geografica Aggiuntive). Through these systems, consumers can connect the dots between a wine's intricate nuances—aromas, colors, and flavors—and its delineated territory.

Specific to Chianti Classico, wine buyers can now make informed purchasing decisions by understanding, for instance, that wines from Panzano will exhibit a darker hue and fuller body than those from Lamole. 

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Trentodoc is a sparkling wine produced in northeastern Italy's mountainous Trentino region. Formed in 1993, the appellation has the distinction of being Italy's first classic method sparkling wine. However, its origin can be traced back to the early 20th century to Giulio Ferrari, whose love for Champagne inspired him to try his hand at making bubbly wine in downtown Trento. Little by little, Ferrari built his empire, inspiring local wine producers to move in the same direction, and today, he is the most well-known of the appellation’s 67 wine producers.

Trentodoc vineyards are cultivated at high elevations in the foothills of the Dolomite Alps, between 650 and 2,625 feet above sea level. The area's soil, formed around 250 million years ago, is made of decomposed rock with limestone, contributing to the grapes' strong aromatic and mineral profiles. Furthermore, the region's large diurnal shift, the difference between day and night temperatures, ensures the wines have great acidity and pure fruit aromatics.

Trentodoc wines follow strict production guidelines, including aging requirements that mirror Champagne's. However, most producers exceed the 15 month-minimum, leaving the wines to age for ten years or longer before releasing them to the market. Extended lees aging brings complexity and elegance to the wines and is a signature of the region's quality-focused winemaking.

Grape Collective caught up with Sabrina Schench, Director of Trentodoc’s wine consortium, to talk about the appellation's evolution. 

Lisa Denning: Can you tell me your background and how you became the Trentodoc consortium’s director?

Sabrina Schench: I got my law degree at university, and I have a Master’s degree in Communication as well. I went to Madrid, worked there for two years, then returned to Italy and began working with the Chamber of Commerce for wine promotion and then with the Trentino tourism board. In 2012 the Trentodoc association hired me as director.

Can you tell me a brief history of Trentodoc and how it became an appellation for sparkling wine?

The story started in the 1800s when a few wine producers began trying to make a traditional method sparkling wine in Trentino. Then in 1902, Giulio Ferrari, the most famous oenologist and agronomist of Trentino, learned from his travels that there was a similarity in the climate and the terroir between Trentino and France. He started the production of classic method sparkling wine in the city of Trento, and then other producers followed him. In 1984, the association I represent, Trentodoc Institute, was founded. The recognition of the denomination of the region came in 1993 (It was one of the first DOC for a sparkling classic method worldwide), and then in 2007, the collective trademark ‘Trentodoc’ was born. Now there are 67 producers.

How would you say Trentodoc's sparkling wine distinguishes itself from other Italian sparkling wine?

Trentodoc’s identity comes from the mountain environment and from its very long tradition. The secret of Trentodoc itself is the elegance and freshness: the acidity coming directly from the mountains and the Dolomites. Trentodoc comes from Trentino, a region in northern Italy where 70% of the territory is higher than 1000 meters, 20% over 2.000 meters, and 93 mountains over 3000 meters.

How would you say the appellation has evolved since 2007?

I think the secret was working very closely with the producers, meaning we have a very close relationship with them. They started to believe strongly in the Trentodoc trademark. We work very hard on the promotion, and at the same time, the growing market for sparkling wine, in general, has gone up. I think a lot of circumstances have contributed to Trentodoc’s success.

What is the best way to get the word out about Trentodoc wine in the US? I don’t think the average U.S. consumer knows about the wine.

You're right. In fact, Trentodoc is very popular in Italy, but in the US, we have a lot of work to do. I think that you need to push a lot on communication. We were the region of the year for Wine Enthusiast in 2020. We are partners of both the Master of Wine Association and the Italian Sommelier Association, two ...

Villa Venti was founded in 2002 by Mauro and Davide Giardini, and its vineyards are planted solely with native Romagna varieties. The winery is certified organic and follows biodynamic methods.

Demarie is a small, family-owned winery in Vezza d'Alba in the heart of Piedmont's Roero appellation. The winery...

Joško Gravner is a revered winemaker in the Collio hills of the Friuli region of northeastern Italy, on the border of Slovenia. Considered a pioneer of the modern-day orange wine movement, he follows an ancient, low-intervention winemaking style, producing uniquely characterful wine.

Stu Devine is the proprietor of Devine Wine, a New Zealand marketing company. With a surname that means "of the vine" it's fitting that his specialty is in the wine sector, working in collaboration with two highly regarded New Zealand wineries. Devine’s career began in a vegetable and fruit nursery, tending to plants and eventually selling horticultural products.

“I really enjoyed the grape growers I worked with when I sold products for grapevines,” says Devine. “They were the salt of the earth and some of the most decent, easy-going people I had ever met, so I decided to follow in their footsteps and bought a vineyard of my own in Hawkes Bay.” 

His experience as a grape grower then led to a job in viticulture at a large winery. But, as much as Devine loved tending the vines, his outgoing personality and, as he puts it, “big mouth” took him in another direction, namely wine sales. In 2006, Devine formed his company, a partnership with Rod McDonald of Te Awanga Estate in Hawke’s Bay and Paddy Borthwick of Borthwick Vineyard in Wairarapa where Devine oversees all U.S. sales activity.

“I just tasted their wine,” says Devine when asked his reason for choosing to work with McDonald and Borthwick, “and that’s how simple it really was. The wine showed their honesty, their good looks, and their charm. Just one glass and you will understand why I was captivated. I have created a company where I represent the wine that I have an absolute passion for.”

Devine stopped by Grape Collective to chat about what's happening in New Zealand's wine world today.

Lisa Denning: Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into wine?

Stu Devine: My background goes quite a ways back. I've always been into horticulture. I was a nurseryman, I grew plants and then got a job selling products to apple growers and vineyards. I come from a small region in New Zealand called Hawke's Bay, and I bought a vineyard in '93 with both...

Chris Gaither, 38, is only the fourth Black person in the world to earn the Master Sommelier diploma and his wife of seven years, Rebecca Fineman, 43, in 2017 became the 25^th woman to attain the title of Master Sommelier in the Americas chapter. The couple, who have two young daughters, say they are the only married Master Sommeliers in the world to own a restaurant, Ungrafted, which they opened in San Francisco in 2018.

As a child, Liv Vincendeau loved going with her mother to the first organic shops in the little German village of Wiesbaden where she grew up. The shops, she says, were very hippie-like and not trendy like they are today. Her mother, an organic gardener and cook, was a member of the local green party and she would frequently organize tree planting excursions throughout the local towns. Vincendeau's family also spent a lot of time in the countryside, hiking in the forest and visiting world heritage sites. Unsurprisingly, when Vincendeau moved to France she brought her childhood values with her. In 2014, she founded a small Loire Valley winery, Domäne Vincendeau, and never considered anything but organic farming to manage the property. 

“I always wanted to build something beautiful and nice to live and work in,” says Vincendeau. “There’s no way I would use chemical products that could hurt me or anyone else working in the vineyards. People in the office at conventional wineries often don’t consider the vineyard workers who are the ones exposed to dangerous products. When it’s yourself out there you think about it differently.” 

The desire to avoid chemical exposure is not only affecting wine growers. Consumers, concerned with food and beverage safety, are demanding organic products, those made without the use of synthetic chemicals or genetically-modified components. The organic wine market, while still relatively small, is rapidly growing and according to Grand View Research, is expected to increase 10.2% by 2030.

France is one of the leading countries of organic viticulture, with 17% of its vineyards farmed organically as of 2020 (Beverage Daily), and that number is rising. French wine growers are reacting not only to market demand, but to what they are seeing in conventional vineyards where chemically-treated soils lack a rich diversity of living creatures and vegetation. To the contrary, organic soils are teeming with microbiomes that are vital in maintaining a healthy ecosytem for grapevines to produce high quality grapes.

Sylvain Grosbois, owner of Loire Valley winery Domaine Grosbois in Chinon, began to farm organically in 2007. “As we started to listen to what our vines  were telling us and to respect the soil and the life around them,” says Grosbois, “we noticed a huge difference in regards to the insect life and number and activity of birds. The soil is much more aerated and smells better, and the vine is more...

As Leonardo Beconcini tells it, the story of his winery begins in the early 1950s in the Colline Pisane appellation of Chianti. That’s when his grandfather Giuseppe, a sharecropper at the Marchesi Ridolfi estate, purchased the land he had been renting to start his own company of growing and selling agricultural products—everything from fruits and cereals to livestock. It wasn’t until Leonardo’s father, Pietro, took over the business that the focus turned solely to the making of simple Chianti red wine, typical of that time period, sold in straw-covered bottles called fiascos.

Like many of the next generation who take the reins from their elders, Leonardo wanted to improve the quality of what his father had given him. It was the 1990s and wine consumers were becoming more discerning about what they were drinking. He needed to have a better understanding of his vineyards if he wanted to improve the wines, so he began extensive research studies of the local environment. This undertaking led him to two local Sangiovese clones that he believed would make more exciting wines and which are now planted in his vineyards.

Beconcini's research also led to a fascinating discovery of what was then an unknown variety growing amongst the Sangiovese vines, and which he simply labeled 'X.' He was so impressed by the quality of the wine that these mysterious vines produced that he continued to cultivate them. It took more than eleven years and DNA analysis to identify the grapes as Tempranillo.

Most likely the variety had arrived in Chianti centuries ago, brought by religious pilgrims traveling along the ancient Via Francigena which runs through his wine estate. Today the winery produces the only commercially-produced Tuscan Tempranillo wines, two red and one rosé. The winery's portfolio also includes red and white wines from classic Italian varieties of Sangiovese, Malvasia and Trebbiano.

I caught up with Eva Beconcini, co-owner of the winery with her husband, to learn more about this innovative winery and what it’s like to be a small, organic wine producer making artisanal wine in a region with many big industrial producers.

Lisa Denning: Can you tell me a little bit about your winery?
Eva Beconcini: We are between Pisa and Florence, in San Miniato. It’s a wonderful city; a fantastic place and the town of the white truffle in Tuscany. We are an appellation of Chianti Colline Pisane but we only write Chianti on the label and we are in the new DOC Terra di Pisa. For the entire life of my father-in-law he was producing Chianti in fiasco, the straw bottle, so that is our roots, our tradition that we respect and we love and is a part of our blood. This is the winery of my husband, and we work together, but Leonardo is really the man behind everything because he knows the vineyards and all the vines and everything in the cellar as the winemaker. For three years we have also been working with an enologist who has entered the winery with respect for the work that my husband has been doing for years. He helps us to not have such heavy weight on our shoulders because we produce many wines and we have a lot of things to do and so it’s a good marriage.

We have been certified organic for 6 years and in the vineyards we do everything to maintain the fertility of the soil, like with manure, with planting cover crops, but in the cellar we really do nothing. During the past two years we have done some restyling of the cellar but we don’t really use high-technology; we do everything with our hands. We are creating at this moment a new cellar so we have bought a lot of vineyards, as well as land without vineyards where we have planted vineyards, in order to define our project for our winery. And we are very excited to start this project.

We use only our grapes from our own vineyards and we use only the yeast from the skins. We have started to do some white wines, but red winemaking is at our core. All the studies we do in our vineyards are used to make more types of wines. For example, we have found that Malvasia Nera, an ancient grape variety, can make wonderful wines and so we said, let’s do something interesting with it.

Can you tell me a little more about your location in Chianti; the terroir and how it influences your wines?
Our land used to be on the bottom of the sea 20 million years ago, so the soil is full of fossil shells; it’s white and gray. You walk on shells in the vineyards. We have a lot of white clay too and the shells are crushed and mixed into the clay. We have a lot of water under the soil. Our vines are not in stress, never, even in the summer when it is very warm because the roots are really deep. We really work the soil a lot during the autumn and winter as the clay is very compact and you have to crush it for the roots to go down and down.

As for the climate, we are between three rivers, the River Arno, the main river of Tuscany, the River Elsa, and the River Egola. It’s very important to speak about the rivers because the climate is mild—we are under the Apennines and all the cold winds are stopped by these two mountain chain...