Blend In: Tuscan blends are on the rise

Sep. 2, 2016

Italy is currently the largest wine producer worldwide, with 20 wine regions and nearly 350 official Italian wine varieties. While Tuscany may not be the highest yielding region, it certainly produces some of the country’s most recognized wines such as Chiantis, and more recently, Super Tuscans.

Perhaps one of Italy’s most iconic regions, Tuscany is idealized for its rolling vineyard-covered hills and scenic cypress-lined winding roads. Yet, it’s more than just a picturesque destination. Tuscany is the birth of Italy’s Wine Revolution, which inspired wine makers throughout the country to raise the bar on Italian wines.

With higher-quality wines and trendy red blends arising, it seems Tuscan wines are on track to please customers. Breakthru Beverage sat down with Christopher Rowell, LUX Wines fine wine specialist, to learn more about Tuscany, its history and the wines it’s producing.

Breakthru: Tell us about Tuscany wine and why it’s a unique region.

Christopher Lowell: There’s always an association with Tuscany with Italy in general – it’s a very popular region, a very user-friendly one.  Most people are more familiar with Chianti, and they think of the red checker table cloth meals with Tuscan cuisine and fiascos – the wicker baskets of Chianti from the past, which is a very modest level [of Chianti]. But then there are also higher levels of Chianti – from your Chianti Classicos to your Chianti Riservas.

Breakthru: What are some well-known Tuscan wines other than Chiantis?

Christopher Lowell: As you start to progress down to other regions of Tuscany, you have Montalcino, which includes Brunello di Montalcino, which to me is the Armani suit of wine – doesn’t matter what line of fashion is out there, this is always in style. The Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is another great wine coming from Montepulciano, another village right there inside of Tuscany. You get down to Siena, and you have another set of wines there as well.  As you progress farther south, you get into the west portion, and it’s what is called the “Wild Wild West,” which includes Bolgheri. This is where they’re making the newest wines in a different style – an international style – known as Super Tuscans.

Breakthru: How do you explain what Super Tuscans are?

Christopher Lowell: Super Tuscans are a little bit misunderstood. Some people don’t know exactly what they are, but they tend to use non-traditional Italian varietals, or non-traditional Tuscan varietals to make these really exceptional wines that model themselves after Napa Valley’s greatest, and also Bordeaux. In fact, in many cases I would describe [Super Tuscans] as a bridge between the two regions.

Breakthru: Are there any grapes that come out of Tuscany that are maybe underrated or are standouts?

Christopher Lowell: Tuscany is a red wine region – about 85% of the production of Tuscany is red; only about 15% amounts for the white. The bulk of what’s produced in Tuscany is going to be based on Sangiovese – that’s the principal grape. It’s 70% of what the volume needs to be of Chianti. It goes up higher as you go to Chianti Classico. As you move into those other regions I mentioned, that’s where you’ll see other grape varietals come up. For the most part Tuscany is all about Sangiovese until you get to the Super Tuscans, and that’s where you start seeing cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, petit Bordeaux. There are some other grapes that are used more for blending called Colorino and also Canaiolo, and there’s also Malvasia and a few other grapes that are typically used for blending, but they’re rarely done as their own.

Breakthru: Any noteworthy trends you’ve seen recently from Tuscany?

Christopher Lowell: Absolutely. One of the biggest things that’s taken place over the past three decades is that people have moved up from northern Italy and Central and Northern Europe. They’ve bought land in the region, and when they bought land, the land came with vineyards. Well, they couldn’t just let the vineyards sit there, so they’ve actually had to make wine. Since many of these people didn’t have winemaking experience, they hired professional enologists to consult them. The first thing the enologists said was your winemaking equipment is ancient and you need to replace it. There were crazy old barrels that had wild yeast strains and a lot of things that can actually affect the quality of the finished product. The enologists also looked in the vineyards and said you have very high-yielding, low-quality clones for Chianti Sangiovese, and you need to have better clones. So first of all, there’s been a renovation in the wineries – they’ve got more modern, better quality equipment, which improves the winemaking styles. On top of that, they’ve also replanted many of the vineyards with higher-quality clones of Sangiovese and other grapes so they’ve rejuvenated the landscape. That was the first big critical piece – that’s in the Chianti realm.

Breakthru: And the other realms?

Christopher Rowell: In the other realm of Bolgheri and Maremma, they’re now using those Bordeaux varietals and are finding out that these cultivate and produce really exceptional wine that they weren’t expecting. Bolgheri didn’t really emerge until 1948 – it was a private production someone made that was discovered and became known as the wines of Sassicaia. Since that happened, other producers have started making [blended wines]. So what they’re doing is making wines that are Bordeaux in nature and in terms of varietal content, but they happen to come from the southwest coastal region of Tuscany. That’s one of the bigger trends is blending different grapes, alternative grapes.

Breakthru: What makes Tuscany such a prime region for grape growing?

Christopher Lowell: They have great weather. It’s a Mediterranean climate, so it’s dry during the summer; not a lot of rainfall; the winters are very mild. When they have really hot summers, sometimes heat can be a problem. But, when you move to the coast, you have a little more mitigation from the breezes off of the Tyrrhenian Sea. As you go higher in elevation, you also have cooler temperatures that mitigate the heat as well. In terms of pest control, it’s not really an issue there. Most wineries have been operating with sustainable practices for decades, generations for that matter. So they’re really not into doing a lot of intervention in the vineyard. They try to be sustainable and use a holistic approach.

Breakthru: Any predictions for the future of Tuscan wine?

Christopher Lowell: I think the thing is you’re going to see is continued better wines coming from Tuscany. The wines have always been recognized as being the heart of Italy, but now the quality level is going to continue to rise. And that’s because the new growers and new producers want to use techniques to make the best wines they can. I think all of the regions as they improve, they challenge each other to improve. You see a region improve that has sub regions, and then they all gradually elevate themselves. Overall you’re going to see a lot more higher-quality, stylistic wines coming out of Tuscany as well as the rest of Italy.

Talk to your sales consultant today about Breakthru’s Tuscan wine portfolio

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Sources:

http://www.italy24.ilsole24ore.com/art/business-and-economy/2016-01-14/-italian-wine-gains-ground-the-united-states--131428.php?uuid=ACiZ7w9B*

http://italianwinecentral.com/top-fifteen-wine-producing-countries/

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/its-all-in-the-mix-red-blends-are-stirring-up-uswine-sales.html

http://winefolly.com/review/italian-wine-regions-map/