Professor Moio, do you share the idea that Italian landscapes were also shaped by vineyards?

Viticulture has made a very important contribution in shaping the Italian landscape. We have an in­credible variety of climatic conditions, from the Alps to Sicily. With an enormous range of geographical contexts and soils ranging from limestone to vol­canic soils, to those with rocky clay. There is every possible variety and a large number of vines have adapted to these different realities. The French am­pelographic platform, on the other hand, rests on ten to a maximum of twelve vines, which are then to be found all over the world and thus became the so-called “international vines”. We have many more and all are exclusive to our country.

How would you define our country?

I would say that Italy is an open-air museum of vines and farming systems. Man had to adapt to each area. There are areas with “pergola” terrac­es, flatter areas with a sapling system, hills with row systems such as “guyot” and limestone spurs. These days we should use this moment of isola­tion to reflect on how beautiful our Peninsula is. Everyone has always wanted to travel abroad, to take airplanes, thereby often neglecting our own country which, as we all know, is the most beau­tiful in the world.

Does wine therefore represent beauty?

Italy is a country of absolute beauty, of harmo­ny. Just think of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo, Leonar­do, Botticelli, as well as cities, villages, mountains, hills, coasts. The world of wine reflects this beauty, which is sometimes envied abroad. The charm of wine also exists in its variability: there are actually no comparable wines, which are similar to each other. They are related to dif­ferent contexts, but also to the richness of Italian food. Our gastronomy has different and special characteristics throughout the country and wine becomes essential, since there is no doubt that no other alcoholic beverage in the world goes so perfectly with food. Wine is an absolute paradigm of diversity, or rather of biodiversity, and many wine lovers are probably attracted by it being “anti-stand­ard”, in an increasingly uniform and globalized world.

Which are your favourite wine territories?

Italy as a land of wine is all beautiful, from North to South. It is undeniable that some regions, over the years, have become a sort of “visiting card”, such as Piedmont and Tuscany, as well as Veneto, Trentino and Alto Adige. Nev­ertheless, aside from these regions which are already very famous, there is much more worth visiting. I’d like to in­vite you to go to the Centre and South of Italy, starting from Umbria, Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche with its Verdicchio wine, Campania which in recent years has produced very good white wines, with three varieties: Fiano, Greco and Falanghina. Not to mention Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sic­ily and Sardinia. Italy is truly incredible. In France, wine can only be produced in a few areas, while in Italy it can be planted anywhere. And not only grapes. It is a country that offers the perfect climate for high quality agriculture. And all Italian agriculture, once the present crisis is over, should really receive more attention from our national po­litical programmes.

Is there a link between wine and the beauty of the area?

Yes. This is especially true for top quality wine. A great wine is a 360-degree aesthetic project. The emotional as­pects becomes essential in evaluating a wine, in addition to some minimum requirements such as the harmony of its taste; furthermore, there should be no olfactory devi­ation. So a high-quality wine becomes even better in a beautiful landscape. Basically, factors related to neurosci­ence and the emotional world are involved.

So what is beautiful can also become good?

Exactly. I’ll give you a personal example. In recent years, I have traveled a lot by train to present my book, “Il Respiro del vino”. During my trips, while looking out of the win­dow, I usually listen to classical music on headphones, and I have noticed that some territories are quite neglect­ed. However, I found that the vision of a not very pleasant landscape became more tolerable when I had beautiful music in my ears.

Does beauty influence other sensory aspects?

Of course. A beautiful cellar surrounded by a beautiful landscape prepares the mind to make a positive judg­ment. The masters in this respect are the French with their Chateaux de Bordeaux; they pay attention to the smallest details. The Chateau, which is a beautiful representative residence, surrounded by vineyards treated as gardens, creates a context that conveys pleasure and tranquility, becoming a formidable amplifier of the beauty of wine.

Can the memory of a landscape also prepare the mind to a positive judgment?

This is another important aspect and is one of the rea­sons why wine territories should be visited more often. If I taste a wine in a beautiful place, I will remember that wine and that territory. Wine makes us travel virtually, and reminds us of certain places. By uncorking a Napa Valley wine, I immediately think of California. At the same time, those who are in California, taste a wine from Irpinia and have been there, will think about the producers and men who work there. It is therefore essential to see what is behind a bottle: the landscape, the vineyards, the cellar, the men and the emotions left by the people you meet. All this must be shown, described and told to consumers with kindness, extreme simplicity and authenticity.

Stefano Borrelli

ARTICOLO TRATTO DA ” Il Sommelier Magazine“

At the end of April, Edison Foundation, in collaboration with Federvini, released the online movie Artedivino by the German director Alexander Kockerbeck. Over ap­proximately forty minutes, the film portrays the coming together of the nectar of Bacchus and Italy’s territory, art and culture while capturing countless views of wine landscapes from southern to northern Italy.

During the long and dull isolation we had to endure in order to contain the Covid-19 virus, we rediscovered the importance of landscapes. The mere sight of natural spaces by looking at photographs and videos, evokes reassuring and comforting, sometimes nostalgic, feel­ings in those who observe them. The study The Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment by N. Nadkarni of the University of Utah, published in the magazine Nature in 2017, had already highlighted the benefits of nature imagery on people in places of detention.

The time for contemplation, memory and recollection is over. We all desperately long to experience landscapes, to travel through them, regaining the sense of freedom that only wide-open spaces can provide; that special tie that binds man to nature against the denaturation of biological cycles.

Wine landscapes are the focus of this issue of Il Som­melier. Compared to other topics related to the world of wine, this topic remains poorly explored, while the oth­ers have been covered using the approach expressed by the words of Italo Calvino: “I am interested in everything that straddles various disciplines […] I try to base myself on things I see, on objects, on images “(Corsera 1984).

In “wine landscapes”, which are part of rural land­scapes, fixed and mobile, material and immaterial el­ements coexist, such as terroir (OIV 2010) and senso­riality (colours, scents, silence …). Using specialized and artistic knowledge, we have tried to describe wine landscapes from a dual perspective: narration of the landscape and the landscape as its own novelist.

Italy’s varied geography has created several unique wine landscapes that have received international recognition. For example, the wine-growing landscapes of the Lang­he-Roero and Monferrato and the hills of Prosecco di Conegliano and Valdobbiadene are considered “cultural landscapes” and are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The island of Pantelleria, characterized by the cul­tivation of the sapling vine and the art of dry-stone wall­ing, is part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. The traditional vineyards of the Soave are considered a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System by the prestigious GIAHS-FAO project, while the traditional vine­yards of Mandrolisai are listed in the National Register of Historic Rural Landscapes of the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (MiPAAF), with the aim of placing the local landscapes, characterized by agricultural activities, forest and pastoral throughout history, at the centre.

Landscape is perspective; a new vision that changes de­pending on the point of view. It also represents beauty, harmony of colours, shapes, sizes, spaces and densi­ty. It can simultaneously be panorama and geography, environment, anthropic space that maintains values, history, culture, identity and art alive. Landscapes also encompass economy, which the recent pandemic has seriously brought to its knees. Goods to be marketed are produced within these territories, including strategic plans to enhance and protect them.

Currently, economic indicators are far from encourag­ing including for the wine sector. But History has taught us that crises are often epiphanies. They reveal new opportunities that must be seized. As the anthropolo­gist Eugenio Turri once wrote: “Man discovers the world through the landscape”. This is not limited to the physi­cal movement in space. Discovery here is intended in its entirety: a rethinking of values, new meanings, creative undertakings that can connect or reconnect apparently disjointed pieces; the conceiving of new projects and action plans based on new rhythms of interaction and collaboration.

Landscapes are a precious and important kaleidoscope, capable of creating new symmetries, new observations that today, more than ever, we must seize if we want the economy to start over. Perhaps, landscapes could be the point of departure for the wine sector. We propose it.
Alice Lupi
ARTICOLO TRATTO DA ” Il Sommelier Magazine“

In recent years there has been a serious confrontation between the two most well-known containers used for wine-making: on the one hand the wooden bar­rel, on the other the amphora, which has come back into fashion following the outstanding work of several wine-makers and oenologists who, with considera­ble ability, have breathed new life into the use of a container that had – although not completely – disap­peared from the scene.

The challenge, however, was not confined simply to the oenological field, but often took the form of ide­ological ‘shores’, where the use of the amphora was depicted as a sort of return to the ‘origins’, to a past almost irremediably lost to contemporary man. However, the use of the amphora did not disappear by chance or because of a conspiracy inspired by modern industry, but because its use was drastically overtak­en by the potential hidden behind the container that we all know: the wooden barrel.

This “admirable instrument”, as defined by one of the most important French wine historians, Yves Re­nouard, began to be used in the Gallic-Roman regions of the French Alps as early as the second century AD, and by the end of the fourteenth century had become the standard container for the transport of wine and for vinifying grapes throughout Europe. However, the use of terracotta jars did not disappear completely, especially in the Mediterranean area, but the barrel was the best option for large-scale transportation: this wasn’t due to tasting reasons, but to logistical and economic reasons. At the very beginning of XV century the commercial revolution, which had started in the second half of XIII century, had reached its peak and ratified the birth of mass marketing for several goods, especially heavy goods such as wine (the so-called big goods). For the first time, it was finally possible to ship large quantities of wine, through long sea and land routes, from one side to the other of the known world.

In this scenario, the amphora was not regarded as a suitable container: it was fragile, bulky and, since it required at least two people for the loading and unloading operations it should not be too heavy. Be­cause of this, it had a very low capacity.

The barrel, on the other hand, being more manage­able, could be lifted with winches without too many dangers and was able to contain hundreds of liters. In a certain sense, it can be said that thanks to the barrel wines could easily be transported for long dis­tances constantly and efficiently, thus making the use of barrels so well known that they lay the founda­tions of the current world of wine. Today, the choice of terracotta or wood is luckily not based on logistical issues but only – and here is its beauty – on organo­leptic reasons.

How old a procedure is compared to another can’t be the reason for prevarication, but rather a reason for precious diversification, otherwise why stopping at amphorae and not moving backwards?

A pioneering and entertaining article on the history of wineskins was published in a recent publication on the history of leather. The Greek word ἀσκός is perhaps not very familiar to us: it is the sack of skin (wineskin) mentioned in the Gospel of St. Mark, where it is said “Vino nuovo in otri nuovi”. Could this be the solution to go back to the golden age? I don’t know, but it is believed that the more the history of wine is investigated, savouring its complicated heterogeneity, the more we shall be able to understand that diversity enriches and unifies, rather than dividing.
by Daniele Ognibene
www.ilsommeliermagazine.it

“One day, Dionysus was the guest of Eneo (Oineùs) and fell in love with his wife Altea. When Eneo re­alized this, he decided to leave the city on a pre­text. Dionysus slept with Altea, and their union led to the birth of Deianira; then, in exchange for his generous hospitality, Dionysus gave a vine to Eneo and taught him how to plant it, stipulating that his offering be called Oinos, in honor of the name of his host.” (Igino, Myths, 129).

One of the many myths about the origin of wine (this one being of Thessalic origin) was established well before the arrival of Dionysus himself in the Greek Pantheon. The myth dates back, in fact, to the third millennium BC (the Sumerian period) and is the founding poem of western culture: the Gil­gamesh Epic, wherein the figure of Siduri, “the girl who makes wine”, is custodian of the knowledge (of “thought” and “word”, hence lògos), which perhaps allows mortals, by means of a fleeting Montalian “passage”, to achieve a connection with the Beyond.

The “spiritual” drink that Siduri gives to Gilgamesh is by no means “natural”, but absolutely “cultur­al”, a watershed between the wilderness (vitis labrusca and grapes picked from the vine) and civ­ilization (vitis vinifera and the domesticated vine). Wine, therefore, in ancient mysticism, is a vi­tal element “par excellence”, which, over the centuries, became the Blood of Christ and a formidable metaphor for the three monotheis­tic religions of the Mediterranean basin. Even the prohibition of its consumption in the Islam­ic world is an implicit recognition of the ritual power of the nectar of wine.

In fact, the success of a drink that has accompa­nied homo occidentalis since 7,000 BC could not be explained if its origin were not anchored to the Myth: hence the belief in its magical, esoteric or pharmacological properties: Caesar uses wine to fight an epidemic of plague that threatens his ranks (Plutarch, Vita Caesaris). In the ninth cen­tury the Salerno Medical School recommended its use in a “sober diet”: “Inter pastam bibe vinum!”

So much of the vocabulary of our world derives from the Myth: the grape itself (àmpelos) takes its name from the first love of Dionysus, the satyr Ampelo, whence for example, the word ampelog­raphy originated.Many names of vines remind us of archaic stories, of the migration of populations, myths lost in the mists of time: Aglianico, Casavecchia, Malvasia, Teroldego, and so on.Despite the contribution of technology, and de­spite the very modern way of producing it, wine, in some ways, is still a Myth; it is enough to think of champagne and its evocative power.Man will always need the Myth as religio (glue, from “rilegare” (“bind”)), able to “compensate” social inequalities (Barbera and Champagne, G. Gaber), and to create a “cultured” awareness, able to stimulate the action of a community to­wards a goal: wine, a link between archaic ele­ments and allegorical legends, will accompany us in this pleasantly insinuating way, throughout the coming millennia.
di ANTONIO MAZZITELLI
Articolo tratto da“Il Sommelier”

The search for the perfect match, able to enhance the flavor of a dish by eliminating the taste habituation, is perhaps the most difficult but stimulating task for every sommelier. In the choice of the right wine, the variables to be considered are many and often the preparation of the dish winds up to be different than previously im­agined, making the final combination less effective.

The most difficult aspects to evaluate are oil, which strengthens the perception of aromas and greasiness, spices, which increase tactile sensations and olfactory complexity, and cooking, which can affect the consist­ency. These elements have the possible consequence of unhinging the balance in the interaction between the components of food and wine.

However, if we could influence the tasters by amplifying the perception of some characteristics of the wines, we would be able to try to restore the balance thus tending to the ideal pairing. A valuable tool that can help us pursuing this unusual theory (see box) can be…music.
The wine and music combination is certainly not a recent discovery, as it has always been the object of rural tradi­tions, literature and operas.

In some pre-Christian civilizations, in Greek society and in some Roman rites, for example, flutes and harps usu­ally accompanied and favored the consumption of wine.Greek mythology tells of Orpheus, a skilled lyre player, killed by Bacchae because he worshipped the Sun god more than he venerated Dionysus. In lyrical compositions, there are countless references to wine: just think of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”, Verdi’s “Traviata”, Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” or Ross­ini’s “Il barbiere di Siviglia”. Even today, wine is still the leading character in many songs by musicians such as Rolling Stones, Gaber or Ligabue.

Wine and music are in fact, in different forms, two psy­chotropic elements, capable of altering the psycho-phys­ical state of a subject.As a demonstration of this, Professor Adrian North, from the University of Edinburgh, conducted an experiment aimed at evaluating the ways and extent to which music is able to influence taste perceptions and change the evaluation of wine components.

A group of 250 students was divided into five sepa­rate rooms. In each room a different song was played, except for the fifth room that was filled with silence. These songs were Carlo Orff’s “Carmina Burana”, Tchai­kovsky’s “Flower Waltz” from The Nutcracker, Depeche Mode’s “Just can’t get enough” and Michael Brook’s “Slow Breakdown”.

All students were asked to taste and describe a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Chardonnay from the Chilean company “Alpha”. The results published by the British Journal of Psychology showed that the same wines were described differently according to the music listened by the taster.
The study proved the existence of a relationship be­tween the brain areas stimulated by music and those stimulated by tasting. When drinking a glass of wine while listening to a song, the different active areas inter­act and influence the perception of wine’s components.

If this concept was to be applied as a standard, the tasting could be raised to a fifth dimension, thus also involving hearing. This way, it would be possible to cor­rect the perception of the characteristics of the wine in a targeted and selective way, just like a chef who tops off the taste of his dishes by adding spices or condiments at the end of cooking.

When facing a food-wine combo that is not completely satisfying because the different components shows a slight gap, the right background track can restore the balance of taste, thus approaching the full exaltation of the flavors.
di Marco Barbetti
Articolo tratto da “Il Sommelier”

Although spring in Suvereto is slow to come, the vineyards at the Rigoli winery are expressing all their luxuriance, so It’s time to start the green pruning.
After the building of the new winery in 2018, this year our company continues to grow by planting a new Cabernet Franc vineyard that has adapted so well to our climates and is already grown in our company (in ASSIOLO).
The land on which it was planted is located at the foot of a hill with a gentle slope that slopes gently. The composition is mixed clay-stone with mineral and calcareous components.
Cabernet Franc is a vine that in Val di Cornia has been able to express great wines with a great structure and unmistakable aromas.
The aromas of Cabernet Frac could not be more clair than this: pepper, pepper, smoky traces and humus (leaves) that mix with a dark fruit where we find blueberries, currants, raspberries and strawberries. Licorice, laurel, earthy traces and herbaceous background always. Mint, chocolate and violets go hand in hand. Its balsamic charge is unmistakable
On the palate it is round, warm, ample, medium-bodied but endowed with a lively freshness and above all never too heavy. A good Franc can be an addictive wine, it has a balance that encourages drinking and leaves no way out. You could confuse it with Cabernet Sauvignon, but it is not so tannic, dark and intense.
It will take a few years before the vineyard can give the first wines, but we are not in a hurry so we let nature take its time.

Starts the building of new wine cellar of Rigoli’s Farm

The beginning of management of Niccolò and Edoardo (Nelusco’s sons) bring a new investment plan, the construction of the cellar is only a part of this plan. In fact the next steps will be a new vineyard, the making of a new tasting room and the conversion at Organic method.
The project is composed by a roof that will be used for the first processing of grapes during the harvest , an other room of 200 mq for the ageing of wines and a room of barrels for the aged.

Our wines increase the appreciation of the customers and the expert of the guides, for example The Gambero Rosso’s guide of 2018 gives a very good valuation at Assiolo 2013 and Montepitti 2015, in 2017 had evaluated positively N’Etrusco.

The fans of our wines can meet us at The Vinitaly in 16 /17 April in Pad. 10 desk D2, in the Anteprima Vini Lucca on 5 and 6 May and Il Marcato dei Vini FIVI di Roma a Cinecittà on 19 and 20 May.
How wants to buys can find it also in our wine shop on line!

Stay Tuned!

2018 is going to be a year of great news for Rigoli’s business.

In March we will start working for the construction of the new wine cellar, an investment that our company had projected long time ago and that, thank to these years’ efforts, is finally succeeding in realizing. The wine cellar is part of a wider plan of expansion of the company, which, with the entry of Niccolò and Edoardo, will include the realization of a new tasting room and the extension of the wineyard.

March is also going to be the month of Prowein, the world fair of Düsseldorf. An event that will allow an expansion of the company’s market and exports. In this occasion we present the new productios of Stradivino and Assiolo wine.  After Germany, we are back in Italy, where we are going to take part into the awaited Vinitaly project.

In May, we are going to be, once again, at Anteprima Vini Lucca, the important event that gathers the greatest producers of the Tuscan Coast; still in May, our company will participate, together with the association 11 of wine, to the World Football Championship of wine producers, which will take place in Slovenia.

Other news are round the corner, keep following us…

The 2017 grape harvest has yet to end but an early season balances could be made.

A lack of rainfall has particularly affected Italy in 2017. No rainfalls over the winter to increase the natural water reserves and no summer downpours to let the plants breathe. In 2017, Italy had experienced one of its hottest summer, characterized by constant dry temperatures and scarce rainfalls especially in summer months. This had also influenced the growth of grapevines and its ripening process. In Tuscany, most of the vintners forced to harvest crops early due to sultry summer . These particular weather conditions caused an obvious decrease in grape production, which in the Val di Cornia – Suvereto area is about 30%. The grape yield estimation presented by the Union of Italian Wines (UIV) and by the Ismea foresees a loss of 26.1%, with higher peaks in Valle d’Aosta (-32.5%), in the south-central Italy and in the islands: Toscana -32.5%, Umbria -35%, Lazio -32.5%, Abruzzo -30%, Puglia – 30%, Basilicata -32%, Sicilia -35%, and Sardegna -35% . Not only bad news from 2017 grape harvest: low humidity and high temperatures produced robust and high quality grapes. Merlot grape varietal was the first to be harvested, and later Vermentino. After some weeks we hand-picked the Sangiovese, one of the most exciting wines in the last years! We have only a few weeks left to the end of the grape harvest season with our Cabernet.

We therefore suggest you to focus on the 2017 grape harvest season and buy one of our wines because you have certainly to store it.

L’Azienda Rigoli sarà presente alla 51ª edizione del salone internazionale del Vino e dei Distillati di Verona (Vinitaly2017) che si terrà dal 9 al 12 aprile. I visitatori del salone possono trovarci al Padiglione 10 Stand d2.
Per prenotare un appuntamento potete contattarci 3486002441.

Vi aspettiamo!