Biondi Santi

The mother ship! Ferrucio Biondi Santi is widely regarded as the "inventor" of modern Brunello. In the late 1800s, he planted a particular clone of the sangiovese grape (sangiovese grosso*) and planted it at his family's estate in Montalcino, Il Greppo. The 1888 brunello is the very first bottle of brunello. His grandson Franco now runs the estate and oversees the production of Brunello.

(Two bottles remain of the 1888 Brunello)

We met our tour guide Laura and we proceeded to the cellar. She explained the history of Biondi Santi and the wines they produced. Biondi Santi produces a Rosso (made from vines 10 years old and younger), a Brunello (made from vines between 10 and 25 years old) and a Brunello Riserva (made from vines older than 25 years old). There were no riservas produced for a big span in the twentieth century due to the two world wars. There was wine produced however! Biondi Santi invited other winemakers to bring their grapes to their cellar and they produced brunellos during the war years in a co-op fashion. After some year that I forget, there was a big gap in riserva production, and the next riserva that was produced was the 1945. They don't produce a riserva every year - only in good vintages. In 2002, for example, they only produced a rosso. Because it had to be made with whatever quality grapes they could salvage from the estate (2002 was a bad year in Montalcino - too much rain in August), the 2002 rosso has a special grey label with a red banner - indicating that it is not made purely of the vines that are 10 years or younger.

Biondi Santi ages its wines entirely in large oak barrels. They are one of the few producers to do not let the wine spend anytime in smaller french barriques. Some of their barrels are over 100 years old. All of the brunello spends some time in barrels of different ages, spending its last months in the oldest barrels.

In similar old school fashion, they are the only estate we visited where the initial fermentation takes place in concrete! Laura explained that it was historically done in concrete, but switched to wood or steel because of the porous nature of concrete. Now they coat the concrete with a protective layer.

After our tour of the facility, she called our "guest" and asked him to come down to our tasting. It turned out to be Franco Biondi Santi himself!! We tasted a 1997 riserva, a 1971 riserva and a 2003 annta. FBS said that the 97 vintage is the greatest in his lifetime and will certainly last for 100 years. How long for the 71 we asked? He said 80 years or so, and that we should come back and visit in 40 years and taste it again. We spoke with him (through Laura - he doesn't speak much English) for about an hour and a half. It was pretty amazing. His daughter and grandson came in at some point too.

(the boy and I with FBS and his grandson)

One of the things I also found really interesting about Biondi Santi is that they "re-top" bottles of the riservas. Given that they are supposed to last many decades, the level of wine in the bottle, as it ages, goes down over time. Thus if someone really wants to wait 100 years to drink it, they need to re-fill their bottles to preserve the wine in the bottle and make sure it isn't exposed to too much oxygen the during its aging (the surface area at the neck is obviously much smaller than in the main part of the bottle). Each year, people can bring their wines to Il Greppo to be topped. FBS opens each one and tests it too make sure its properly preserved. If he deems it ok, he weighs it, opens a bottle of the same riserva from his storage and drops in grams at a time to bring it back up to the good level. It's recorked and sealed. You get a certificate from the estate that has the date on which it was topped up. Woe be to the poor person who brings his bottle and FBS determines it hasn't been properly stored or there's something else wrong with the bottle! He puts a generic cork in the bottle, and he no longer claims the bottle as his own :( We have the certificate from when the bottle of 71 that we tasted was re-topped (back in June of 2001). I asked what happens when they need to retop the 1888 (only two bottles left) and the 1891 (only 6 bottles). FBS said that they've designated the 55 riserva to re-top those, and it will be the first time in history that they've topped off a bottle with wine from a different vintage. The 55 Biondi Santi Riserva was on a Wine Spectator list of "the case of the century."

After the tasting, FBS lead us into the "high security" cellar where he keeps bottles of the riservas from different years. Only he has the key!

After our visit to the treasure trove, we said our goodbyes and were sent away with a parting gift - a bottle of Biondi Santi Rosato!! This is a real treat as it is not a big production and is not exported at all to the U.S. He decided to make it a couple years back to show all of the different things that can be made out of the sangiovese grape. It's not exposed to the skins at all like other roses, it gets its color from the juice of the grape.

(the house)

* One of the things I learned this day was that although everyone recognizes that the sangiovese grown in Montalcino and the sangiovese grown in Chianti are different (amongst other things the Montalcino sangiovese has thicker skinds), "sangiovese grosso" is not a scientifically recognized clone of the sangiovese grape. There is a Il Greppo 11 clone however, which is named after grapes grown on vine 11 at Biondi Santi.