Siena – For a great white wine from inland Tuscany

“For a Great White Wine of Inland Tuscany.” A day of study, starting at 10:30 a.m. July 18, with an ambitious goal: to identify grape varieties and production processes capable of creating a great white wine in central Tuscany, a land of great reds

The event is promoted by the Italian Academy of Vine and Wine, Enoteca Italiana Siena, Donne del Vino della Toscana and Ais Toscana

July 18 at the Medici Fortress in Siena a study day

On July 18 at the Fortezza Medicea in Siena a study day “For a great white wine of inland Tuscany.” The title also represents the objective of this initiative promoted by the Italian Academy of Vine and Wine, Donne del Vino of Tuscany and Enoteca Italiana Siena involving the main players in the supply chain not only in the region.

An area rich in great and emblazoned reds, that of central Tuscany, but which must look to the consumers of tomorrow by also focusing on a white wine of great character and quality, starting with sharing between the scientific world and producers.

An ambitious project that finds substance on an important day for wine Tuscany. “Our region has a prevalence of red grape vines dominated by Sangiovese (65 percent), while the Italian and international market is turning to white wines,” says Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Delegate of the Donne del Vino of Tuscany, “this criticality is among the reasons for the drop in sales of Tuscan wineries that has continued since 2022. The Tuscan coast successfully produces Vermentino and Ansonica while the historic white grape variety of the inland area, Trebbiano Toscano (6.5 percent of the regional vineyard) is the only Italian white grape variety to lose hectares (-5 percent between 2005 and 2021). An abandonment perhaps linked to the lack of clonal selection and the use of production methods incapable of bringing out its quality potential.

Siena’s central role

The appointment solemnizes the reopening of the Enoteca Italiana after more than a decade since its closure and is also intended to highlight the scientific potential of the Italian Academy of Vine and Wine, which was founded in Siena on July 30, 1949 and remained with its secretariat in this city until the end of the twentieth century. In short, it is a reaffirmation of Siena’s role as the capital and engine of a great wine district. Working on the project are the Mayor of the city of Siena, Nicoletta Fabio and the President of the Chamber of Commerce Massimo Guasconi in this case also represented by the Women’s Entrepreneurship Committee with Elisa Marcheselli.
>”The presence in our premises of the Academy of Vine and Wine, which was born in Siena itself 75 years ago, and the Women of Wine Association is a moment of the highest symbolic value, says Enoteca Italiana Siena President Elena D’Aquanno. It is a return to the origins of an oenological thought that has always combined science, passion and vision. After years of silence, with this event we return to being a living place of culture, research and discussion. It is a strong signal: the culture of wine that thinks and innovates starts again from Siena.”

“As an Academy we must support initiatives like this with the scientific input that characterizes us”-explains the President of the Italian Academy of Vine and Wine, Rosario Di Lorenzo. “Doing so in this rediscovered venue and in this city that saw the birth of our project decades ago takes on an even more symbolic value that, I hope, does not end with just this initiative.”

The rich program of the initiative.

The study day at the Enoteca Italiana will begin at 10:30 a.m. with a tasting led by Cristiano Cini president of AIS Toscana. The tasting will feature 11 white wines produced by Donne del Vino in the inland part of the region using indigenous grape varieties (also blended with international grapes) and different winemaking techniques (registration required subject to availability). Widespread and spontaneous experimentation done by Miriam Caporali of Tenuta Valdipiatta, Beatrice Contini Buonacossi of Tenuta di Capezzana, Caterina Dei of Cantine Dei, Cristiana Grati of Azienda Agricola Borgo Prunatelli, Antonella Manuli of Fattoria La Maliosa, Clara Monaci of Corte Dei Venti, Lucia Mori of Podere Casaccia, Annabella Pascale of Tenuta Di Artimino, Veronica Passerin D’Entrèves of Dianella, Mina Samouti of Fattoria Sardi, Aurora Visentin of Cantina Del Testimone.
The presentation of the wines will be followed by a scientific conference, at 2:30 p.m., led by Giovanni Pellicci, editor of “I Grandi Vini” magazine. It is the starting point for research by Tuscan viticulture and oenology universities and Crea. And it is also the key point for looking to the future. Scholars from the Italian Academy of Vine and Wine, Claudio D’Onofrio University of Pisa, Giovan Battista Mattii University of Florence, Paolo Storchi Crea, Angela Zinnai oenologist University of Pisa, will bring their contributions on current knowledge.

The goal of the day

The goal of this day will be, as mentioned, ambitious: to endow central Tuscany with a great white wine with distinctive characters. The Region of Tuscany, which will be represented by the apex executives of the Department of Agriculture – Roberto Scalacci and Gennaro Giliberti – intends to support it and aim very high. It will be up to the Tuscan Wine Consortium with its President Cesare Cecchi to hold the reins of a path of research and experimentation in the footsteps of the “Chianti Classico 2000” project that in the second half of the 20th century gave Tuscany the Sangiovese clones for its great current red wines.

To attend the study day, make reservations by sending an email to accademiaitalianavitevino@gmail.com