Sustainability, hospitality, exports and Sangiovese: the four “cardinal points” of Montecucco

Sustainability as a polar star, hospitality in the cellar as a universal practice, the propensity to export as a main road to the markets, Sangiovese as a pillar of the ampelographic base of the denomination. And with the hypothesis of expanding the territory to include mountain areas, to raise the altitude of the vineyards potentially. It is the profile traced by the Consorzio Tutela Vini Montecucco, “guardian” of a denomination that borders Montalcino and the Maremma, and which overlooks the Tyrrhenian Sea and Mount Amiata. Which investigated the state of the art of various companies distributed among the six municipalities of Cinigiano, Castel del Piano, Seggiano, Civitella Paganico, Campagnatico and Roccalbegna, which, alone, cover a total vineyard area of around 300 hectares, of which approximately 276 potentially claimable in Montecucco Doc (between Rosso and Vermentino), while there are 197.42 hectares potentially suitable for the production of Montecucco Docg. “The results collected are able to provide an extremely faithful general picture of the state of health and trends of the denomination considering that the sample examined represents respectively 76% and 79% of the total production of Doc and Docg Montecucco, between companies members and non-members, and includes the largest companies in the area which hold the majority of production and bottled shares and, therefore, sales and presence in the markets”, explains the Consortium led by Giovan Battista Basile. From the results, the focus of the denomination remains sustainability: the share of certified organic production among the sample companies stands at 95% for the Doc and 91.5% for the Docg. “Very high percentages which testify to the progress made since the 2021 survey, from which some companies were still in conversion, as well as the desire of the denomination to continue to support its green DNA and to be synonymous with innovative agronomic practices and in harmony with nature, to protect an intact territory naturally suited to the cultivation and protection of biodiversity”.
The ampelographic basis of the area remains Sangiovese, which covers 61% of the vineyards in the sample, while 11% is Vermentino, and the remaining percentage from international vines - mainly Merlot which holds 7% - and native vines from some year returned to the fore like Ciliegiolo with 5%. It is no coincidence that the type of denomination that is currently experiencing the most success, explains the Consortium, is Montecucco Rosso, which requires a minimum of 60% of Sangiovese accompanied by other red grape varieties, while Montecucco Docg has recorded a slight decline in light of the adversity of the last three years and the forced or strategic choices that they have sometimes forced producers to make.
“A fact which, however, meets the new market trends favorably: thanks to the short aging, often even only in steel, and the good levels of acidity, Montecucco Rosso enjoys, in fact, a fresh and young connotation which goes well with the needs of the new generation of consumers, looking for increasingly easy and non-demanding drinking not only for the palate, but also for the wallet”.
Looking at the market, Italy absorbs around 35% of consumption, especially the Center and North, where 95% and 63% of the member companies are present respectively and where greater supervision is requested by the Consortium, in particular in “Target” regions Emilia Romagna, Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto. Abroad, the first four countries to drive exports in terms of volumes, and where companies will want to continue investing in promotion, are Switzerland (30%), Germany (12%), USA (8.5%) and Benelux (8%), while there is an ever-growing interest in the product from Eastern Europe, Central America and eastern and south-eastern Asia. Speaking of the near future, the first three countries of interest to which companies would like to increase exports are Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan.
Hospitality is another important theme for the denomination that the investigation aimed to investigate further. Here the data highlights that 100% of companies are equipped to welcome visitors. The wine tourism formulas range from visits to the cellar and/or vineyard to tastings and tours of the area, and more or less half of the companies have accommodation facilities capable of offering visitors the possibility of staying overnight (83.3%) and/or catering service (75%). A further confirmation, therefore, of the denomination’s thirty-year investment in quality wine tourism aimed at promoting the originality of this “wild face” of Tuscany, leveraging the authentic nature and uncontaminated landscapes of the area, as well as history, culture and food and wine.
“Finally, it is worth highlighting the proposal, which emerged from the survey and is already being discussed in the Consortium, especially in light of the conditions linked to climate change, of a possible extension of the production territory to the entire administrative area of the mountain municipalities, to increase the altitude of the lands of the denomination”.