BIONDI-SANTI’S NEW ERA

JAMES BUTTON

Last November, I was lucky enough to preview Biondi-Santi’s upcoming releases over dinner with CEO Giampiero Bertolini and David Gleave MW of UK importer Liberty Wines. Since the France-based EPI group purchased a majority stake in the Tuscan estate from the Biondi Santi family in 2017 (completing the full acquisition mid-2020), Bertolini has made key changes intended to increase quality and, to some extent, quantity. ‘The mission,’ he told me, ‘is to increase quality in the same style.’

To be honest, I had been sceptical about how the new management could possibly reproduce the celebrated wines of old, but I left feeling very positive that the quality will only improve and the estate’s signature delicate, poised style will be respected. Although the majority of the winemaking team remains the same, the vineyards are undergoing a thorough makeover: they have been parcelised following soil analyses by Pedro Parra, and replanting of some sites has begun with select clones from one of the late Franco Biondi Santi’s old vineyards planted in the 1930s (where more than 50 different clones of Sangiovese have been identified by the University of Florence) – including expanding the area under vine from 26ha to 33ha.

New V-shaped wires will enable better canopy management, and the estate has begun working with pioneering pruners Simonit & Sirch. Optical sorters and new Slavonian oak botti [large casks] have also been installed in the cellar. Alongside the new Biondi-Santi, Brunello di Montalcino 2018, two Riservas will be released in limited quantities next month (March 2024): Riserva La Storica 2010 and 1988. One piece of advice from Bertolini? ‘You must never decant Biondi-Santi!’ biondisanti.it