Latest news with #Brunello
South China Morning Post
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Carolina Cucinelli, vice-president of Brunello Cucinelli, talks about the understated brand that dresses celebs such as Kristen Stewart and Kim Kardashian and was featured in Emily in Paris
Carolina Cucinelli is the scion of one of Italy's most illustrious luxury dynasties, but she couldn't be more different from the entitled nepo baby that description suggests. Born, raised and still based in the hamlet of Solomeo – the village in Umbria that her father Brunello has restored – Carolina acts as vice-president and co-creative director of the company her father founded in 1978. She shares her duties with sister Camilla, and the two are widely expected to one day take the reins of the label that has become synonymous with modern-day Italian luxury In recent years the brand has experienced a surge in growth and visibility, thanks in no small part to the 'quiet luxury' trend that it embodied long before it became a trending hashtag. Earlier this year, the company reported that profits had risen 12.9 per cent in 2024, not a small feat amid an industry-wide slowdown both in the West and in China. From left, Carolina Cucinelli, Brunello Cucinelli, Oprah Winfrey and Camilla Cucinelli. Photo: Advertisement Last year in particular was a pivotal one for the label in terms of exposure, from a big event in Shanghai, to dressing celebrities such as Kristen Stewart and Kim Kardashian, and a dinner in Los Angeles attended by the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Kevin Costner, both clients of the label. Another moment that catapulted the brand to the centre of pop culture was a storyline in Netflix hit show Emily in Paris that paid homage to Brunello and what he has built in Umbria. As a result of all this buzz, Carolina's duties have increased, as the young mother explained in an interview the day before the label's autumn/winter 2025 presentation at Casa Cucinelli, the brand's Milan headquarters. How has your role evolved over the years? When I was a teenager, I had many artistic phases like painting and dancing, and I didn't expect I was going to join the company. But then I went to fashion school and my dad asked me to join even just for a few months, to see and then decide. So I started with the idea of becoming a designer and then I started doing other things like marketing and communication. As someone who dabbled in art, I can easily detach myself from certain situations and strict rules and escape into fantasy. My mission has always been to combine my two souls: my artistic passions and the part connected to the company. Tell me about Solomeo and what your family has built in that village. Carolina Cucinelli with her husband Alessio Piastrelli, who sits on the company's board. Photo: I am very connected to art, and I want to bring that to Solomeo because it's important for the new generation to be motivated to stay there, a village of 800 people. Instead of them going to Milan or Rome, they can stay and work for a company that is based there and also trains them in savoir faire and in disciplines like gardening, music, the arts, theatre, dance. That makes the place more lively and fun to live in, especially in the summer, when we have film showings and festivals and it's all free. I could never live anywhere else, and on weekends I love tending to my vegetable garden and being in the countryside with my husband and child. Brunello Cucinelli is not a fashion brand but is really about style. Do you agree?
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
Meet the Young Aristocrat That's Making Brunello Cool Again
This story is from an installment of The Oeno Files, our weekly insider newsletter to the world of fine wine. Sign up here. 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. More from Robb Report $2.2 Million Worth of Ancient Artifacts Trafficked Through New York Are Returning to Greece and Italy Spring-Break Travel Prices Have Hit a Record High This Year How to Sell a Bottle of Wine From Your Collection 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. Do you want access to rare and outstanding reds from Napa Valley? Join the Robb Report 672 Wine Club today. Best of Robb Report Why a Heritage Turkey Is the Best Thanksgiving Bird—and How to Get One 9 Stellar West Coast Pinot Noirs to Drink Right Now The 10 Best Wines to Pair With Steak, From Cabernet to Malbec Click here to read the full article.
