Italiano
The rebirth of the Consortium Suvereto and Val di Cornia Wine
In Tuscany, in mid-December 2021, after several typically Italian vicissitudes, lasting several decades, the "Consorzio Suvereto e Val di Cornia Wine" was presented and came back to life (as we had anticipated in this article).
To retrace the ups and downs would be neither useful nor interesting, but it is nice to be able to say that finally the 27 producers involved, owners of about 850 hectares of vineyards, many of them organic or biodynamic, under the strong impulse of the largest and most important among them, have made it.
Yes, because the great thing about this story is that those who strongly wanted the rebirth of the Consortium were the largest and most important companies in the area, who, having long understood how penalizing it was for all of them and for the entire food and tourism industry, not to have had in the past such a powerful instrument of control and promotion, have taken on the shoulders of the entire territory and led it to port.
But this is the past and now old producers, together with very young producers, very small, but full of enthusiasm, are making their way together and everything is going well.
I personally witnessed this beautiful new start and the spirit that pervades it during the beautiful three days organized to celebrate the occasion and present it to the press.
Having said that, the time has come to place this wine territory geographically within the battleship of Tuscany. We are in the province of Livorno, in the southernmost part, just in front of the Island of Elba, within a frame of rare beauty, made of gentle hills (Suvereto) and the rich Val di Cornia. It is a very bright area, with various subsoils, also rich in water, with a particularly hot and dry climate. We are very close to Bolgheri and honestly it is very strange that an area potentially so lucky, is not well known and not much narrated.
The enological history of this territory begins at the beginning of the 1800's thanks to Napoleon's sister, Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi, princess of Lucca and Piombino, who decided to plant vineyards in the style of Bordeaux. And here we are still today with the ever-present Sangiovese and mainly Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (the latter three vines altogether cover 70% of red berried grapes), with an almost equal presence of Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Syrah. As for white berried grapes, the preponderance of Vermentino is very evident.
During this three days we attended debates, we met with producers, we tasted their wines, we tried to understand the vocations of each sub-zone and also to understand their potentialities. It was a very nice and interesting work but not easy. We are far from understanding and sharing what is the state of the art. Each producer, for too long, has gone by nose and has interpreted the territory following an instinctive or commercial approach.
Understanding the territory, accurately deciphering the potential of each area, guiding its qualitative and commercial growth, will be the heaviest and most important task that the Consortium will have to face. They will have to cover together a long path that in other areas of Tuscany, above all the very close Bolgheri, have already undertaken for years. They will have to run and chase.
As for myself, I can say that I have drunk wines with a good capacity for aging, some of them made in amphora, that I liked the wines made with Cabernet Franc the most and also some Sangiovese made by a couple of very young wines. But, I repeat, there is a long way to go and they have just started. They certainly have a beautiful territory and the fact they belong to the "Tuscany" brand which, in the world of wine lovers, means a lot and it is certainly an excellent starting point. We at DoctorWine have been following them for some time with interest, hoping, with our narration, to contribute to increase the desire to visit, to discover, this corner of Tuscany still unusually hidden.
