Rosso di Montalcino doubles its potential, adding 364 hectares to the 519 of DOC

Rosso di Montalcino is doubling its potential, from an average of 3.6 million bottles over the past five years, to more than 6, with a DOC vineyard that will grow by 364 hectares, up from 519.7 hectares today. “The assembly of members of the Consorzio del vino Brunello di Montalcino today approved the expansion of the area that can be claimed for the Rosso di Montalcino Doc. The subsequent Board of Directors of the Consortium then ratified the decision. An increase of 350 hectares was defined for the DOC vineyard, currently 519.7 hectares, with an additional allowance of 4%, bringing the total to 364 hectares. The additional production potential of Rosso di Montalcino will, therefore, be a little more than 3 million bottles (0.75 liters) to be added to the current average of 3.6 million pieces per year found over the last five years. A figure, the latter, considered by the Consortium to be too small in the face of an international demand increasingly interested in the denomination’s wines”, explains a note from the Consortium.
The proposal document approved today in the assembly indicates the digressive method behind the expansion: for wineries up to 10 hectares of registered claimable area, the increase will go up to 15%; scaled down percentages granted for larger vineyards, covered in 2 other categories (up to 20 hectares and over). The result will also be to encourage the growth of small businesses; there are in fact 258 wineries included in the first cluster (up to 10 hectares), compared to 52 in the remaining larger categories.
“We thought”, said the president of the Consorzio del vino Brunello di Montalcino, Fabrizio Bindocci, “of a sustainable model for the competitiveness of a wine in excellent health, whose congenital weakness lies precisely in the scarcity of product. At the same time, we felt it was important to implement the expansion without planting an inch of additional vines: the additional 350 hectares are already on the maps of the territory as shares of vineyards planted with Sangiovese, but free from quota rolls. With this choice, members and other businesses in the territory will have the opportunity to re-establish an optimal productive condition and at the same time not to “stress” the production of grapes from the vineyards claimed to Brunello, protecting product quality. Now, for formal ratification, the proposal will have to go through the Tuscany Region, which actively collaborated in the definition of the plan”.