Our Monday's
Although Monday is a closing day for Giabar, we still work and think of new ideas despite the place being closed.
For example, on Monday 5 June, I arranged for Giacomo and I to go and visit Eva and Leonardo, 2 wonderful and helpful people, the owners of Beconcini winery. At Giabar we have some of their labels, including their 2 whites: Malvasia macerated for 12 hours on the skins and Trebbiano macerated for much longer; the Tempranillo IXE; Tempranillo prephylloxera vineyard Nicchie; and their 2 vin santi, one of which is occhio di Pernice.
Beconcini and Tempranillo
In addition to the typical Tuscan grapes such as Sangiovese, Trebbiano and Malvasia, Beconicini also cultivates Tempranillo, a black grape variety, which is thought to have arrived in our area around the mid-1700s during pilgrimages on the Via Francigena. The Vigna delle Nicchie are Franco-footed, i.e. both the roots and the plant are both of European origin. Beconicini winery from this vineyard has chosen 2 very specific plants to clone the vines from which they obtain 100 plants in total every year. They chose these plants based on the beauty of the bunches and the constant production of grapes. Today they have an hectare of Tempranillo vineyard of clonal clones.
Leonardo showed us some old but grafted Tempranillo vines; he also explained to us how to recognise when the vines are grafted. The grafted vines have an American root and a European plant. The Tempranillo produces beautiful deep green leaves, with a hairy back of a white colour. The root, on the other hand, generates vegetation with very different leaves.
In this way it is possible to understand if a plant is grafted or not.
Who knows why phylloxera never attacked those Tempranillo plants. Leonardo assumes that it might be due to a high pH in the soil. But that’s a guess. From my years of study I knew that sandy and volcanic soils were hostile places due to lack of oxygen and therefore this makes it difficult for phylloxera to spread, but I still have a lot to learn.
Tasting
After a beautiful walk in the vineyard, graced by the weather at that point, we headed towards the tasting room, excited to taste their wines; in fact Leonardo made us taste their 100% Sangiovese: the Reciso, a splendid red wine that carries a truly interesting story behind it. I would like to write everything but then you would have too much to read. So if you want to know more, come and visit us at GiaBar and we will tell you, as always, with a lot of passion, everything else. Here you will find some photos taken of the bottles tasted in the company of Leonardo and Eva.
What else can we add? Behind every bottle of wine there is a lot of passion, a lot of work and many sacrifices of beautiful people. Each bottle has a story to tell you just need to dedicate some time to understand it. The bottles whisper to you with every sip. You must use your senses as you use your imagination when reading a book to fully understand its story.
A story
Today I told you part of the story of Leonardo and Eva who are in San Miniato who have a grape that fascinates me a lot. But they have other amazing wines to discover. Malvasia excellent for aperitifs, Trebbiano and Vin Santo excellent with cheeses, Tempranillo excellent with some of our crostoni and cheese lasagna.
The wines you see on the shelves at GiaBar are not only and exclusively for serving at the tables but you can also buy them to take home.
Happy tasting everyone
