Bolgheri: land of freedom, pioneers, records. The record dinner celebrated along Viale dei Cipressi

Bolgheri is a land of wine freedom, records and pioneers. The land has inspired poets, such as Giosué Carducci, the first Italian, in 1906, to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The author immortalized Bolgheri in his poem, “Davanti a San Guido” which celebrates the “tall and straight cypresses” of its famous boulevard, which today is 4.962 meters long and hosts 2.540 cypresses. Guidalberto della Gherardesca, the first agriculture and viticulture pioneer in Bolgheri created the “boulevard”. The Bolgheri wine territory was “invented” by wine pioneers and poets, such as the Incisa della Rocchetta family, creators (together with the genius of the noble father of Italian enology, Giacomo Tachis), and still today, custodians of Tenuta San Guido and Sassicaia, which, merit of its 1985 harvest, will be the first Italian wine ever to receive 100/100 from “The Wine Advocate” by Robert Parker. There are also other pioneers, such as the Antinori family, with Guado al Tasso by Piero Antinori, and Ornellaia, by Lodovico Antinori (now owned by the Frescobaldi Group, and also their other great wine, Masseto), as well as the Meletti Cavallari family’s Satta, and Eugenio Campolmi, one of the fathers of the territory, founder of Le Macchiole, now led by Cinzia Merli. Today, she is vice president of the Consorzio dei Vini di Bolgheri and Bolgheri Sassicaia (a territory first, as it is the only “company” denomination in Italy), together with Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta, and president Albiera Antinori, creating an all-female “triumvirate”, another Italian first, at the helm of a Wine Consortium. It is also the land of record wines in market positioning (63 euros per bottle on the shelf on average for Bolgheri Rosso DOC, and 124 euros for Bolgheri Superiore DOC, according to the recent LT Wine & Food Advisory by Lorenzo Tersi). Today, Bolgheri, which made its fortune because it bet immediately on combining the territory and great Bordeaux vines, is the first of the Tuscan appellation higher value and more famous wines, to include the reference “Toscana” as mandatory on the label (starting on September 18th, ed.).
Just recently, the Bolgheri Consortium staged the first edition of “DiVino Bolgheri”, presenting the preview of the Bolgheri Rosso Superiore 2019 vintage and the Bolgheri Rosso 2020 of all the producers in the Consortium (65, representing 99% of the Bolgheri vineyards). The highlight was the "record gala dinner", of unparalleled beauty, due to the quality of the wines and the charm of the location. The table was over 1 kilometer long (1.070 meters, to be precise) along the Viale dei Cipressi, hosting 999 guests for a total of 3.500 glasses: a world record.
The beauty of the event has flooded social networks (and we have included the photos). It was a “two-day” event - among cypresses wines, wineries and Italian wine personalities ready to wait for opinion leaders, buyers, customers - which, as the president of the Consortium of Bolgheri and Bolgheri Sassicaia wines, Albiera Antinori said, “summarizes, in addition to the quality of our wines, the solidarity and unity of purpose of the producers. All the companies in the Consortium were present at the event, in a team spirit that has led this small area to excel globally, together with the most important areas in the world”.