The Nba champions and the passion for wine: “The King” Lebron James among the vineyards of Maremma

We have often written about the passion of NBA players for wine, including online tastings, collecting and basketball players-producers. But now the No. 1 of our time, “The King” Lebron James, has chosen to cross the ocean to come and touch the Italy of wine and not only, traveling by sea with the yacht of his friend Bono Vox, lead singer of U2. And as told by his stories on his social profiles, followed by millions of fans all over the world, he stopped by Monteverro, a winery located in Capalbio, in the Tuscan Maremma.
It is not the first post related to Italian wine, for Lebron, as we have already told here, and which, over time, has seen such protagonists as Sassicaia 1997, Speri’s Amarone della Valpolicella 2013, but also Uccelliera’s Brunello di Montalcino, Quintarelli’s Amarone della Valpolicella and Emidio Pepe’s Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. And now “the honor” was given to the Capalbio winery, which Lebron visited accompanied by the oenologist Matthieu Taunay, in full harvest.
“The champion did not step back - explains a note - not even when the oenologist invited him to make a pumping over by gravity (for laymen, pumping over takes out the fermenting must from the vat, it is poured in a stainless steel container and it is sent back to the upper part of the vat, in order to keep pomace and grape seeds always wet, an operation that, at Monteverro, is done without the use of pumps) and to try a manual “punching down” (i.e. reimmerse the pomace in the fermenting must)”. There was a customary photo in front of the sculpture of the Verro, a wild boar, which gives its name to the estate. With Lebron thanking for the hospitality, before setting sail again, perhaps to some other Italian wine territory ...