Message in a bottle, Sting’s Spumante Brut

The brut bubbly from the Il Palagio estate is a sparkling interpretation – made using the Charmat Method – of the Vermentino grape, a varietal that is distinguished by its surprisingly pleasing profile.

It was 1979 when the single Message in a Bottle came out and today, with hindsight, one could say after 30 years that the title was in reality a prevision. The modern fairy tale of a rich and famous singer who retires to private life in a country villa “under a Tuscan sun” can be almost perfectly applied to the Tuscan experience of Sting and his wife Trudie Styler. It came true at the Il Palagio estate in Figline Valdarno, Florence’s historic breadbasket with its rich earth and slew of producers. The villa once belonged to the very rich Martelli family of Florence and then the Countess Carlotta Barbolani di Montauto before it passed to the Velluti Zati di San Clemente family who expanded its gardens and other outbuildings. Then in 1999, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner (aka Sting) fell in love with it and acquired the estate from Simone Velluti Zati, intuitively sensing its hospitality potential.

Today the villa and its biodynamic gardens (cultivated under the supervision of guru Alan York), fields, croplands and forests total some 350 hectares, following further acquisitions in 2003, hosting various buildings that serve as locations for weddings and other events. It is also a working farm producing honey, olive oil, fruit and vegetables that will soon be available for purchase online as well. Needless to say, wine production is one of its primary activities and one that gives the greatest satisfaction. This also thanks to the guiding hand of Paolo Caciorgna, a talented Tuscan enologist who already in 2005 went to Etna and found a half-hectare, pre-phylloxera vineyard with which he created what is still today one of the most personal and impressive expressions of Etna winemaking. Under his supervision, the wines of Tenuta Il Palagio have achieved a high level of quality and the estate was recognized as one of the best producers in Italy during the 2016 Open Wine event, a prologue to Vinitaly, thanks to its red wine Sister Moon (a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon) which was listed among the 101 best wines of Italy.

Message in a Bottle is a relatively new entry in the estate’s line of production and it is an original brut bubbly with pleasing characteristics that set it apart from similar wines. It is no secret, in fact, that many estates in the area and beyond are producing sparkling wines to complete their lines and meet consumer demand but often with disappointing results. One of the reasons for this could be that the desire to move quickly to produce a bubbly has led many producers to attempt making it using the more difficult traditional method. This is not an easy path for the inexperienced also for technical reasons related to the fact the secondary fermentation in the bottle often produces wines with little personality and that are somewhat flat (no matter how long they sit on the lees).

Brut Message in a Bottle benefits from avoiding the temptation of taking itself too seriously, opting not to use the enticing but dangerous traditional method approach in order to produce a sparkling interpretation of the Vermentino grape, a varietal that is distinguished by its surprisingly pleasing profile.

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