FROM BOLGHERI WINES TO "BOLGHERI STYLE": THE FUTURE OF ONE OF THE TOP ITALIAN WINE TERRITORIES, IN THE WORDS OF ITS "FOUNDERS" PIERO AND LODOVICO ANTINORI, INCISA DELLA ROCCHETTA, MELETTI CAVALLARI AND SATTA. FOCUS: CASTELLO BANFI IN BOLGHERI

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“The Bolgheri territory deserves to be valued as the cream of the crop and achieve international level, beyond the excellence of individual producers”. Passion and objectives in the land of Carducci, by Piero Antinori

The wines are already the top of the top: Sassicaia, Masseto, Ornellaia, Grattamacco, Messorio and Guado al Tesso to name the most famous, while the territory is still a work-in-progress, and must be properly communicated. There’s still much work to be done in order to get from the success of Bolgheri wines in the world to a true “Bolgheri style”. This is what the "founders" of Bolgheri DOC Nicolò Incisa della Rocchetta (San Guido), Piero Antinori (Guado al Tasso), Lodovico Antinori (Biserno Estate), Piermario Meletti Cavallari (founder of Grattamacco, today the Collemassari group) and Michele Satta (Michele Satta) said at the conference "the Confessions of Bolgheri," the day before yesterday.
“Bolgheri is a unique territory”, said Piero Antinori “it started out as the Provence of Italy for its rosé wines, to become the Bordeaux of Italy with its Super Tuscans. Moreover, Bolgheri is a territory where the beauty of its landscapes, history and culture intertwines with the wines, and it is also a territory borne out of the actions of “non-native” entrepreneurs (the Incisa della Rocchetta family is from Piedmont, Piero and Lodovico Antinori are from Florence, Meletti Cavallari is from Lombardy and Satta is from Sardinia) and international grape varieties. Bolgheri is testimony to how the union of cultural contamination and different entrepreneurial experiences can make or break a territory, not so much through indigenous varieties as through the potential of the territory itself. Bolgheri wines are well established in the world but the territory is not yet well known, and there is still a lot of work to do to accomplish this. Entrepreneurial forces must give back to the territory what they have received in creativity and intangible value, making Bolgheri the heart of a broader territory and enhancing the many identities that surround it”.
"I was not happy with the fact that the world associated great wines only with Bordeaux, because I was convinced that “El Dorado” was here. I'm happy when I think of Masseto, for example, which has often exceeded the desires of fans for French wines”, added Lodovico Antinori, founder of the Ornellaia Estate, today at the head of Biserno Estate in the Bibbona terroir, which is following in the steps of Ornellaia that he created in 1981, “but now we need a big international agency to communicate not only the wines - which must be narrated first by the producers - but the entire territory. Up until now Bolgheri is more famous for the love story between Gaddo della Gherardesca and Sarah Ferguson, who made the territory known to the British, than many other initiatives...” It is, therefore, a territory that needs to be built up; with business networks capable of promoting it and that are key to keeping the many small companies on the market (which are important, but they must have an upstanding role on the market, working together and not opposing one another). They were born on the road to success, which was opened by Mario Incisa della Rocchetta’s intuition, who in the Fifties planted the first vineyard of Cabernet: “I just carried on and improved my father’s idea, which allowed us to compete on equal terms with the great French wines”, said “Mr. Sassicaia”, Nicolò Incisa della Rocchetta.
So, everyone is convinced that there is a lot of work to do with wines, as well as packaging an offer that includes tourism, food & wine and cultural heritage, that can live up to the many great wines famous the world over and develop all the possible synergies. “Also because more and more it is the territory that “marks” the wine, more than the vine”, added the architect Marina Tinacci, at the helm of the new company, Mulini di Segalari, “which is why the future lies more in the conservation and enhancement of the territory”. And, also for communication as Michele Satta pointed out: "We must narrate the "Bolgheri Style" because Bolgheri is wine, but not only”. We need to create and communicate a system made up of food and other products of excellence- art, landscape, culture and hospitality, focusing on "beauty", which is increasingly important for the creation of wine & food value-added products”.
Everyone is convinced that there is a lot to do, but we are not starting from zero: " reality is often farther ahead than one would like”, concluded Piermario Meletti Cavallari, “and Bolgheri is already well known all over the world. Just like Sassicaia has been the driving force behind Bolgheri, Bolgheri must become the driving force to promote the entire Tuscan coast, creating intangible value for all its territorial identities.
A King is a King only if he loves and is loved by his subjects...” But, there is the will, “the fact that the five leaders and pioneers of a territory (Nicolò Incisa della Rocchetta, Piero Antinori, Lodovico Antinori, Piermario Meletti Cavallari, Michele Satta),” said the journalist Carlo Cambi, appointed to be the moderator, “will all be together around a table to share their experience and their vision with all the actors of the territory, testifies to the fact that Bolgheri not only wants to confirm the company’s brands but also the brand of the territory”.
And today's numbers of DOC Bolgheri say a lot about what might be the future: “At the end of the nineties”, said the president of the Consortium of DOC Bolgheri, Federico Zileri Dal Verme, “there were 250 hectares. Today, the total vineyard area (DOC and IGT) in the territory of DOC Bolgheri is 1.220 hectares, of which 1.050 are DOC Bolgheri and 170 hectares of IGT Toscana. There are 38 associated companies (out of 50 producers, ndr.) for a total of 1.120 hectares (DOC and IGT)”. To quote the words of Oliviero Toscani, one of the most extravagant and successful communicators in the world, who came to this territory in the early 80’s, "fascinated by the memories of the only poem I ever learned by heart”… "Today, Bolgheri and its surrounding territories need to be reborn,” said Oliviero Toscani at the conference, “new entrepreneurship and new ideas because we should never be so certain of what we have done; in other words, we need a "laboratory of ideas" capable of inventing the future of the territory, "Bolgheri style", even better, opening up to different experiences and cultural influences and energies from other worlds. I do not believe in the Italian proverb "mogli e buoi dei paesi tuoi” (choose wives and cattle from your hometown) or, stick to your own kind.

Focus - Castello Banfi, a leader in the production of Brunello di Montalcino, invests in Bolgheri
Castello Banfi has come to Bolgheri: the label that launched Brunello di Montalcino in the world has acquired 5 acres of vineyard in the terroir, the home of Sassicaia and Masseto adding another symbol of Tuscan wine production to its "carnet" of territories. The transaction was subject to a parcel of vineyard originally owned by Ambrogio and Giovanni Folonari, who are the owners of the Campo al Mare Estate in Bolgheri, for a total extension of 33 hectares. The operation seems to be the beginning of a long-term investment in the territory, since it also talks about including Castello Banfi in the Bolgheri DOC Consortium, a structure that, in the years to come, will work for the overall development of the territory. "Although each company has its own philosophy, collaboration,” said the president of the Consortium, Federico Zileri Dal Verme, “in land management must not falter, rather it must be sought by everyone, including the associated producers and those who want to work towards the future, clearly in shared programs and projects. We of course welcome this with open arms, as the goal is to build a strong territory brand, the Bolgheri style”.