In Lucignano, located in the Valdichiana area in southeastern Tuscany, lies Tenuta Licinia. It is a small farm that the Belgian lawyer Jacques de Liedekerke acquired in the 1970s. His grandson James Marshall who has run the winery since 2020, says that his grandfather was “a wine lover but [in the beginning] he had no intention of creating a wine project.” However, the farm came with a small 1-ha vineyard plot with mainly Sangiovese that the local neighbors said was great and with beautiful subsoil. It would take about 30 years for Jacques de Liedekerke to start realizing that it might be a go ..read more

The night of the Oscars is just over and as always it’s a grand event that celebrates the past year of mainly American cinema. I only watched a small part of it such as Emma Stone’s thank you speech with her partly broken dress in the back. Those little moments that always make the Oscars memorable. In Italy, they have the annoying habit of translating everything by talking right over the original voices. Very annoying!!! When will they start to put subtitles? Just sayin…! Anyway, I decided to pair 3 Oscars 2024 winners with unforgettable Italian wines. Foto di Mirko Fabian su Unsplash Oscar f ..read more

The future of wine, or at least the future of Italian wine, was discussed at an event organized by the Uva Sapiens Consultancy Group in Veneto some months ago. Uva Sapiens is a team of vine and wine consultants founded by Mattia Filippi, Umberto Marchiori, and Roberto Merlo 10 years ago. In December last year, they celebrated their 10th anniversary by organizing a panel discussion event where they invited key figures from different sectors to talk about the future of wine. The speakers were: Stefano Mancuso, Professor of Vegetal Neurobiology, General Arboriculture, and Tree Crops at the Unive ..read more

When I watched the Danish Queen Margrethe II abdicate last Sunday in favor of making her son, Crown Prince Frederik X, become King of Denmark, it truly felt like witnessing history being written. I cannot say I am in favor of a society where royals have their own set of privileges but then, on the other hand, I am born in a country where a constitutional and more symbolic monarchy works. They fill a certain function as ambassadors of the country and somehow – as a historian – I see how they link to a past that to a certain extent fascinates me. I guess that many of you would here say that this ..read more

Exploring Alto Adige: The Relationship Between Mountains and Wines Alto Adige is such a multifaceted wine region at the same time as it has a very strong and united wine identity as a consortium and a region. I was invited to the Wine Summit, organized by the Alto Adige Consortium, earlier this autumn. I was thrilled to get back to Alto Adige and have a look up close at what is happening there. I tasted a lot of wines and brought many new impressions with me back home. Some of the highlights of the Wine Summit were the main wine tasting of the 2022 and 2021 vintages, the visit to Vigna Kofl ..read more

Exploring the World of Wine: Cesanese del Piglio DOCG wines In this video, I talk about a recent press tour to Cesanese del Piglio organized by the Donne del Vino Lazio association, in Lazio. The tour focused on the Cesanese del Piglio area and its DOCG wines. We visited wineries in different areas of the Piglio district, such as Petrucca e Vela, Terenzi, Casale della Ioria, L’Avventura, and Consoli. In the video, I also touch upon the importance of sustainable viticulture, regenerative agriculture, and the unique characteristics of the wines due to the volcanic soil in the region. Furthermor ..read more

Discussion on the future of hybrid grapes in the wine industry In this video, I delve deeper into the situation of hybrid grapes – Piwi – in the Italian wine industry. The discussion ranges from hybrid grapes’ history, their relevance in changing global climate conditions, and the industry’s resistance to integrating them in well-established wine regions. I also share my experiences from a wine dinner in Tuscany featuring Vernaccia di San Gimignano wines. Furthermore, I argue that just as the Italian wine industry evolved to embrace French grapes in the past, the future might be bright for hy ..read more

Hybrid grapes might very well be the future for tackling the growing issues with climate change such as rising temperatures, drought, changing rainfall patterns, hail, wildfires, and more. However, many wine producers in traditional wine areas are still very skeptical and resistant to implementing hybrid grapes, thinking they will entirely modify the historical wines they are producing with native grapes. In “newer” wine regions in colder climates, growing hybrid grapes is the normality and probably the only way to produce wine. Why all this resistance in classic wine regions? Let us delve dee ..read more

“Maximum selection in the vineyard.” is the motto of Achille Della Porta, owner of Masseria della Porta in the Montaperto locality in Irpinia, Campania. Achille believes in giving value to the Irpinia territory and producing wines that give an expression of the local micro terroir, its history, and tradition. Biodiversity and respect for nature lie at the heart of Achille’s philosophy, therefore, it is important for him to grow the grapes organically and have as little intervention as possible in the winery. He still vinifies at a friend’s winery as he does not have his own winery building yet ..read more

Lacrima di Morro d’Alba is a wine with imperial connotations, in the sense that it was enjoyed by Frederick I, i.e. Frederick Barbarossa when he resided in Morro d’Alba in 1167. My own experiences are not as imperial but more familial. My brother and his family used to go to Le Marche for their holiday every summer when their children were small, close to Morro d’Alba, and I often went to visit them for a couple of days. It is very close to Florence. There, in the evenings, we would often drink Lacrima. Now, it was often as a house wine in a local trattoria…but, still. I was in Le Marche earli ..read more