Italian Treasures

Barone Ricasoli

Ricasoli is the epitome of the quintessential Chianti Classico wine estate. With its gentle hills, velvety valleys and thick woodlands of oaks and chestnuts, this 1,200 hectare estate has almost 240 hectares of vineyards and 26 of olive groves. This landsacpe creates a continuous succession of colours and hues around the Brolio Castle, which is located near the beautiful town of Gaiole in Chianti. Since 1993, Baron Francesco Ricasoli has encouraged his company to embrace innovation and change whilst maintaining a deep respect for his renowned ancestors who have made this territory great – particularly, Bettino Ricasoli ’the Iron Baron’.

Francesco Ricasoli, current owner and President of the company, has generated a series of new ideas and concepts to make his vineyards more sustainable. Among his greatest passions are the study of the vineyards soil types and the clonal selection of the Brolio Sangiovese. He has also restored the estates vineyards, whilst comprehensively mapping them at the same time. Today Ricasoli’s wines are an expression of research carried out with the same scientific rigor of his illustrious ancestor but with a contemporary spirit – rather like a runner receiving the baton and carrying it forward with renewed energy.

Renato Ratti

In 1965, when Renato Ratti began his meticulous study of the Barolo zones, he
created a map of the region which the defined each sub-zone according to its
distictive chartacter. When he wrote about the “uniqueness of a determined subzone”,
or of the “classification of the various vintages” and of “refinement through bottle
aging to bestow and maintain smoothness, elegance and longevity to the wine,” he
was setting the foundation of an approach thas has lasted for more than 50 years.
Renato Ratti’s ‘Barolo Marcenasco’ has ancient origins. History bears witness to
the existence of documents at the “Rigestum Comunis Albae” that mention the cultivation of Nebbiolo in the demarcated “Marcenascum” area as far back as the XII Century.

Barolo Marcenasco is smooth, balanced, and elegant, reflecting the typical traits of the zone of La Morra. It is the wine that right from its inception represents Renato Ratti’s history and identity. Created in 1965 by Renato Ratti, the label pays homage to the history of Marcenasco, by carrying the coat of arms of the local noble family, showing a black hawk against a gilt backdrop. The Latin inscription “Probasti me et cogniusti me” means “You tried me, you knew me.”

Tedeschi

The Tedeschi winery is located in the centre of Pedemonte in the heart of the Valpolicella Classica. Over the years, they have restored and extended their
vinification facilities to make optimum use of the fermentation process during the
harvest period. This process also relies on their knowledge of which grape varieties to
select from the various plots. They have also enlarged their aging cellar to ensure the optimum maturation time for the wines. The wines age in Slavonian oak barrels with a capacity of between 1000 and 5000 litres. After the appropriate length of time in the barrels, the wines undergo a further period of aging period before they are released.

The family’s falgship vineyard, located at Pedemonte di Valpolicella in the heart of
Valpolicella Classica is called Monte Olmi. It has a south-western exposure and covers
2.5 hectares . The vineyard is terraced so that it drains effectively during periods of
heavy rainfall. However, the depth and the clay structure of the terrain also serve to
retain water during dry periods. During the early 60s, Renzo Tedeschi came up with the idea of vinifying the grapes from the Monte Olmi vineyard separately, thus creating one of the very first single-vineyard wines in Valpolicella. Today Monte Olmi is the symbol of the estate and its terroir.