Valdarno di Sopra Day

Amazing attendance for event dedicated to the DOC that aspires to be 100% organic.
The wine of Valdarno di Sopra Doc has ancient history, enshrined in the very famous “Notice above Declaration of the Boundaries of the Four Regions Chianti, Pomino, Carmignano and Val d’Arno di Sopra” of 1716, and yet it is “contemporary,” as Monica Larner, Italian editor of “The Wine Advocate” defined it. Two characters of an appellation that is all in all young, and small (250,000 bottles produced to date, but the number is destined to grow) that links Arezzo and Florence, passing through the Buriano bridge that serves as the backdrop for Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but that has a clear and sharp vision of its future, where 100 percent of producers produce organically.

An “underestimated territory, and it is good that today, after the success of a few individual wineries, we are starting to talk about it as a territory,” said Carlo Ferrini, one of Italy’s most successful winemakers and consulting winemakers, with leading wineries from Trentino to Sicily, who recalled how a territory that in the past was known mainly for whites is historically considered the birthplace of “Sangiovese Piccolo, different from Sangiovese Grosso, which characterizes, for example, Chianti Classico and Montalcino.” A territory in which, emphasized oenologist and producer Maurizio Alongi, “Sangiovese should be valued above all, which here has always been grapes that are not excessively concentrated, with a balanced ph, both for the simpler wines and for the more important ones, and can compete with the great Sangioveses of Tuscany, without detracting from the “minor” native varieties or the international ones.” A territory, the Valdarno di Sopra, that is making a name for itself as Monica Larner, Italian editor of “The Wine Advocate,” tells us. “When I started covering Italy for Robert Parker ten years ago, the tastings were divided between North, Center and South, and we went out six times a year. Tuscany was in one container, but that didn’t work for me. So we divided by territory, Chianti Classico and Montalcino in the lead, of course, but immediately I saw this small territory, Valdarno, and I thought it deserved a separate article. It’s a territory that needs to be told, and so I’ve been publishing Valdarno wines separately for seven years now. And this allows you to talk about your desire to change, as well as respond to consumers who want to look more and more at the detail, more and more at small territories. A contemporary soul emerges in these wines, they are wines that the consumer wants, they are different, and I like to talk about territory more than grape variety, it means talking about a more fluid territory, able to evolve and adapt to the times.”

And, then again, the only constant is change, as Allen J.Grieco, professor of history for the Florence branch of the prestigious “The Harvad University” reminded us. “In the fourteenth/fourteenth century, quality wines were low in alcohol, low in color. Then in the eighteenth century English taste imposed itself, and things changed. But in the nineteenth century, a myth that is still such today, Chateau Lafite, had 7-8% alcohol content. This is to say that evolution over time is like adapting to changing conditions and tastes, not thinking that there is an ‘optimum’ to be reached.” And, all in all, climate change, as also confirmed by winemakers Ferrini, Alongi and Chioccioli is “only” a variable to be managed, “through science, as we have done in the last 20 years, in which we have produced wines as good as ever, through a different management of the vineyard, the plant and beyond,” recalled the president of Italian and world winemakers, Riccardo Cotarella.