Writer Joanne Harris and sailor Giovanni Soldini are “The Voice of Biondi-Santi” 2024

“Respect”, for a great wine, means heritage, land, identity. A value that to Joanne Harris, an internationally acclaimed writer, screenwriter and librettist who was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, inspired the unpublished novel “The Crown”, a succession of stories told in different voices in a fantastic, fairy-tale atmosphere in which there are traces of her best-known book, “Chocolat” (the bestseller from which the famous film was made), although the most explicit reference is to “One Thousand and One Nights Tales”: a king who inherits the crown from his late father, for more than half a century a ruler loved and respected by all, feels inadequate and asks courtiers, notables, and subjects how his father earned the deep respect of the people. The answers give a broad, varied, entertaining and colorful definition of the concept of respect and the realities in which it manifests itself that will make him discover that the only way to understand what it is, is to constantly go in search of it. It speaks of “Respect”, “La Voce di Biondi-Santi” 2024, the project that accompanies the release on the market, which as every year takes place on March 1, of the new vintage, this year 2018, of the griffe’s Brunello di Montalcino, together with two vintages of La Storica, the Riserva proposed by the winery at least ten years after its first release. These are the 2010 and the 1988, two real wine monuments that come, as the name itself indicates, from the cellar in the Greppo Estate, where the famous red wine was born in the nineteenth century - now owned by the French group Epi, of the Descours family - and where all the bottles of the 42 Reserves produced so far over the years, from 1888 to the present, are kept, and which together make up a priceless library).
At edition No. 3, “The Voice of Biondi-Santi” consists of an audiobook and a podcast with the voices of the artist Neri Marcorè, for the Italian edition, and that of Tomas Arana, for the English version, listenable through the Qr code present on the neck of the bottles of Brunello di Montalcino 2018, and, from this year, also through a new app, which allows viewing them divided by topic, from stories to wine descriptions and the interventions of the “Affine Spirits” on the year’s theme. Sailor Giovanni Soldini is the “kindred spirit” chosen this year by Biondi-Santi and who explains how “We cannot control nature”, alongside Joanne Harris who, in “Respect is a mutual value”, also talks about her personal encounter with Biondi-Santi, Giampiero Bertolini, CEO Biondi-Santi, who emphasizes how to “Respect history by telling the future”, and Federico Radi, technical director, who tells about “Historic vineyards, our safe”. The result is a “library” to listen to, to immerse oneself in the world of one of the wineries that have made the history of world enology.
“Everything we do at Greppo comes from a value for respect”, explains Biondi-Santi CEO Giampiero Bertolini, “respect for the history of Biondi-Santi and the heritage it carries. But also for the territory, of which we are custodians, and for the peculiarities of our terroir. Respect for people, of course, whether they are part of the working team or our partners around the world. And for our consumers, who can count on wines that have never failed to live up to expectations, thanks to the character of our Brunello di Montalcino forged over nearly 150 years of attention to detail. As we prepare for the future and meet the challenges of today, respect guides us in doing the best for our winery, for Montalcino and for all fans of our wine, who know they can count on a product of extraordinary longevity”.