Meet the Young Aristocrat That's Making Brunello Cool Again
Thirty-year-old vintner Santiago Cinzano has just launched a new estate called Conti Marone Cinzano, where he is pioneering an unorthodox viticultural philosophy: selecting the best plot in any given vintage to create his wine, Lot.1 Brunello di Montalcino. Due to increasing climatic unpredictability, the plot changes every year and is selected during the ripening season based on the year's conditions and their influence on the vines. After realizing that members of his age group prefer other styles of wine to age-worthy Brunello with potentially hefty tannins, Cinzano launched his project with an eye toward making Brunello cool again.
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The 10th generation of a winemaking dynasty whose surname is more closely associated with Vermouth and Asti Spumante than red wine, Cinzano notes that his friends prefer to drink styles such as Beaujolais, Trousseau from Jura, and crisp, fresh reds from the slopes of Mount Etna rather than what they consider an overly tannic red that may not be ready to drink for another 10 years. 'Don't get me wrong—I know that today Brunello's reputation is at an all-time high,' Cinzano says. 'But people my age want to drink cool wines. Montalcino, Brunello, today, they are not cool. They're prestigious. They're high end. They're historical. They're classic. But Brunello is not considered cool by 25- to 30-year-olds.'
Ten years ago, Cinzano's father, Count Francesco Marone Cinzano, ceded 10 percent of the land owned by his Montalcino wine estate Col d'Orcia to Santiago and his brother to begin a project of their own. At that time, this portion of the estate had been planted with fields of grain, olive groves, and forests, which Santiago replaced with Sangiovese planted in bush-vine style. The elder Cinzano had sold the remaining 50 percent of his family's eponymous Vermouth and sparkling-wine brand when his own father died in a car accident in 1989, and his son's first line item in starting a new project was to use his family name on the bottle, which was easier said than done. The sale of Cinzano was a painful end to an illustrious family legacy dating back to 1757, and while Santiago wanted to reclaim the name, multiple legal consultants and attorneys told him it would be impossible.
Unbeknown to Francesco, Santiago set up a meeting in Milan with Luca Garavoglia, chairman of Campari Group, the current owner of Cinzano. 'I presented this project, and he told me, 'As long as Campari owns Cinzano, I will never make your life difficult. Send me a bottle for Christmas. Please, use your family name, feel free,'' he says. And thus Conti Marone Cinzano was born, for which Santiago often uses the shorthand CMC. With his family name back in play, it was important to him to take a personal, intimate approach to every aspect of winemaking from vineyard to bottle, including his and Francesco's signature on the label and hand-numbering each bottle. Because his 10-year-old vineyard is not producing grapes of the quality necessary for such a special project, CMC Lot.1 is currently reliant on the vines of Col d'Orcia, where 272 acres are planted at 500 to almost 1,500 feet above sea level with many different expositions and multiple soil types. The vineyard has been broken down into micro-parcels so that the team can understand each and every plot as deeply as possible.
Working closely with enologist Dr. Donato Lanati of Giacomo Conterno and Giuseppe Mascarello fame, Cinzano's Lot.1 is a single-vineyard wine, but it will not be from the same plot each vintage. 'In the past eight years we've seen the warmest year on record, the driest year on record, and the rainiest autumn on record,' Santiago says. 'We are seeing such a level of climatic variability and unpredictability that the concept of having to rely on a single plot is becoming less and less reliable.'
With that in mind, Lanati analyzes grapes samples just after veraison, which indicates the onset of ripening. He is looking for aromatic precursors that at that point cannot be smelled or tasted in the grape; they are released only during fermentation. Lanati examines the grapes prior to full ripening and can predict the evolution of aromas, thereby choosing the best plots weeks before harvest and then narrowing it down to just one. 'When we are harvesting that parcel, we go even further, and it's a selection of the best bunches from that already selected parcel,' he says. 'The parameters allow me to do very short maceration and very delicate pump overs to have a fresh, approachable wine, but at the same time I can extract a lot of aromas.'
Seeking to release a wine that's age-worthy yet still approachable, Santiago and Lanati's goal is a 'Brunello that even in its first year of release has tannins that are extremely integrated, extremely silky, and extremely round,' Lanati says. Cinzano's 2019 Lot.1 is derived from what he calls a 'textbook vintage.' Sourced from the estate's almost 40-year-old Canneto vineyard, the wine benefited from 'near perfect equilibrium' in its soil composition. 'The limestone, clay, and sandy components have great balance, which in a vintage like 2019, where you didn't need the most draining soil or the most retentive soil, you go for a very balanced soil,' he says. The plot's southern exposure and ample sunlight brought on perfect phenolic ripeness, which is necessary to make great wine. The entire lot was aged in a single large wooden tank called a botte and was transferred to bottle in August 2023.
Conti Marone Cinzano 2019 Lot.1 Brunello di Montalcino is deep garnet in the glass and has a bouquet of cranberry, pomegranate, cherry, and vanilla with touches of saddle leather and tobacco leaf. Flavors of ripe summer cherry and dried cranberry are wrapped in brilliant acidity and polished tannins shot through with a bold vein of minerality. Shimmering acidity lingers into the drawn-out finish. If this wine doesn't make Brunello cool again, we wonder if anything will.
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