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"Il Chianti" indicates a geographical area (hilly) of central Tuscany between the provinces of Florence and Siena.
The Badia di Passignano (The Abbey of Passignano), located in the Chianti Classico region, is an ancient monastery dating back to 395, when it was established by the archbishop of Florence. Even today it is still inhabited by monks of the Vallombrosian Order, who remain the guardians of their cultural and historical treasures. The Vallombrosian Order, a reformed branch of the Benedictines specializing in grape growing and forestry, was founded by Saint Giovanni Gualberto, whose relics have been located in the church of the abbey since his death in 1073.
Since the Middle Ages, the Vallombrosian monks and the Badia di Passignano are known for their attention to classical and musical texts, for having promoted scientific research (Galileo Galilei taught there in 1587), and for looking after the surrounding land by means of cultivation, especially grapevines, and reforestation.
Bolgheri The origins of Bolgheri Castle date back to 1200. Since then, it has been the property of the Counts of Gherardesca family. In the second half of the 1700s, restoration work and improvements were made to the building, and the cellars were built. In 1895, the castle’s facade was modified, with the construction of the tower and merlons as we still see them today. The ancient village of Bolgheri is located in the town of Castagneto Carducci (Livorno). It stretches between the hills and strip of sea delimited by San Vincenzo and Cecina, on that part of the Tuscan coast which was dominated by the Etruscans in ancient times, and has a very old winemaking tradition.
Starting in the 1600s, the Gherardesca Counts, who had founded the small town which rose on the site of the ancient village and castle which had been destroyed in 1393, gave new impetus to the economic development of the area, to the point of making it one of the most fertile and productive areas on the coast. At the end of the 1600s, there were already two large vineyards, one in San Guido and the other in Belvedere. At the time, the decision to plant wine in the middle of the plain may have been dictated by the need for high productivity of the soil, and the vicinity to the Emilia road, which at the time passed nearby San Guido. The foreign workers, the "Lombards" accepted low wages, but wanted a lot of wine to be available, and weren't too fussy about its quality. In the middle of the 1700s, Count Cammillo Pandolfo, a well-known wine expert, gave impetus to the wine production in Bolgheri. In fact, he called on Clemente Moratti to hold the position of land agent, a "land agent" par excellence, who succeeded in bringing great fortune to his "masters," the Counts. In Bolgheri, Moratti built the new tinaione (a large vat room), and planted vineyards around the town of Castagneto. Starting right after the Second World War, and until the beginning of the 1980s, there were no significant changes in wine growing in Castagneto, as the area limited itself to following the course of the Italian economic recovery, and thus the increase in consumption, with the consequence that more attention was paid to the quantity rather than the quality of the product. On the one hand, there were the small vineyards, resulting from the sharecropping culture linked to self-sufficiency, even when the grower reached the target set by the owners, in which a large part of the production was used for one's own consumption or the sale of a few demijohns. The winemaking process was rudimentary, and carried out in areas that were often not fit for the purpose; and with ready-to-drink wines that rarely lasted beyond the year of production.
On the other hand, there was a small number of great vineyards, which were part of the "historic" farms in the territory, or belonged to some wealthy property owner. These were managed directly, with a certain degree of mechanization and more rational cellars, but produced a product with similar characteristics that was destined for large cooperatives, in addition to sale in demijohns. In the 1960s, this type of wine growing developed further, thanks to the introduction of financial incentives. The new systems favored the ubiquitous Sangiovese and Trebbiano, with a notable erosion of the genetic variability existing in the traditional vineyards, and an increasing attention to the ability of the vines and rootstocks to produce considerable quantities of grapes. We should recall three producers who began to bottle their own wines in this period. The Marquis Mario Incisa della Rocchetta began to bottle and distribute his "Sassicaia" with the 1968 vintage. This wine represents the true innovative phenomenon of wine growing in Castagneto. The history of Sassicaia has followed a particular path, which at the beginning was completely separate from the rest of the situation in Bolgheri. Sassicaia was born as the result of a personal research project of the Marquis Mario Incisa, who wanted to recreate the Bordeaux model which he loved so much, in an area where only rough and rustic wines were produced. In 1983, the first Specifications for the protection of Bolgheri DOC wines were approved.
The Public Hearing, despite some doubts and conflicting views, approved a specifications text which was fairly traditional and had significant omissions. Protection was granted to Sangiovese and Canaiolo, for the red grapes, but only those used for Rosé production, and Trebbiano and Vermentino for white grapes. The most obvious omission was the lack of any protection for the red wine. In addition, out-of-area wine making and bottling were permitted. Apparently, the novelty of a Certificate of Controlled Origin (DOC) and the resulting prestige seemed to compensate for the technical limits of the text of the Specifications. The great reds, on the other hand, were forced to continue their path under the classification of "Table Wine." On the international market, the appearance of Table Wines with high prices and quality caused considerable perplexity among foreign consumers and commentators, in particular in the Anglo-Saxon world. Their practical mentality wasn't able to admit the possibility that high value wines would not be covered by a DOC certification; the occurrence was classified as "a typical Italian mess," and a specific category was created, that of the "Super Tuscans," including wines of the level of Sassicaia, Tignanello, Vigorello and friends, generally based on grape blends using Cabernet and Merlot, sometimes blended with Sangiovese, and aged in barrique. This is how the "Bolgheri" phenomenon began. The area showed itself to have a vocation for the production of great wines, especially those based on French varieties, but also the autochthonous Sangiovese and Vermentino.
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