Tasting Vin Santo

Every
year, in the first week of June, Tuscany’s Carmignano
Consorzio presents its newly released vintages to
journalists. By far the most interest is lavished on the
prestigious local red wines, the Carmignano and Carmignano
Riserva DOCGs, but Carmignano for its size (some 2O
producers working some 5OO acres of vineyards) also has some
very good producers of Vin Santo. Consistently two estates
outshine the others with respect to quality. One is Villa da
Capezzana, a large estate with an excellent international
reputation and is widely distributed in the United States.
It makes a refined, elegant nutty style of Vin Santo. The
other star performer, Il Poggiolo, is less well known and
less present in the US market, but it is an older estate, in
existence some 15O years compared to the 😯 years of age of
Capezzana. The Poggiolo Vin Santos are typically rounder and
sweeter than those of Villa da Capezzana. True to past
experience, these two wines showed both their superiority
and their unique identities when I tasted them blind in a
group of five Vin Santos last June.

On the way out of the
cavernous Renaissance de’ Medici villa, Villa Ferdinanda, I
spied Giuseppe Cianchi, who manages Il Poggiolo, his
family’s estate. I sang my praise for the Il Poggiolo Vin
Santo. Cianchi invited me to his family farm to taste some
old Vin Santo. There is so little Vin Santo made, that the
opportunity to taste well-stored relics can’t be passed up.
Cianchi, who is 37-years-old, has a degree in enology. In an
article, I wrote over three years ago about Vin Santo
(consult the archive section of beveragebusiness.com), I
claimed that Vin Santo is a wine that defies modern enology.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to experience Vin Santo with
someone who has been trained to be a technician?

We arrived at the winery.
He sat me down in the tasting room, then he disappeared for
a few minutes and came back with two bottles of Vin Santo.
The script on one label read 1937; the other, 1916. These
were by far the oldest Vin Santos that I had ever tasted.
The two labels had been glued on by hand. The 1916 bottle
was hand made. I could see that some light sediment had
settled in both bottles.

“I must open them now
because they must breath for an hour or so. Meanwhile I will
tell you about how they are made and how here at Poggiolo we
make Vin Santo today.”

He carefully removed the
corks with a waiter’s friend corkscrew.

“Today the wine blend is
about 9O% Trebbiano, 5% Malvasia and 5% San Colombano. There
is also a small percentage of Canaiolo Bianco. The use of
Trebbiano and Malvasia is standard for Tuscan Vin Santos.
San Colombano has a thick skin, which helps it resist
degradation and also has a pleasant muscat scent. It is a
good eating grape. Canaiolo Bianco is difficult to raisin.
Back then vine varieties were planted together in a chaotic
fashion. Today, the vines varieties are separated out in the
vineyards. We pick the grapes when they turn yellow-gold, a
sign of complete ripeness. Then we harvest them in plastic
drying racks. This eliminates handling the grapes and
damaging the skins. We put the drying racks in a
well-ventilated room because the moisture coming from the
grapes needs to rapidly disperse and evaporate so that
fungus disease is kept in check. I have screens on the
windows, which keep small flies out. You have to watch out
for acid rot. One scents the vinegar in the air when it
happens. The cleaner the grapes are, the better the drying.
A little noble rot improves the flavor of the Vin Santo, but
it reduces volume somewhat. The drying of the grapes occurs
from the harvest (usually early October) to February, a
period of about 5 months. If it remains too humid, the
drying period could be longer. I do not use air conditioning
to regularize and speed up the drying process. I dry them in
a well-aerated room, one that has windows that face the
north. During the winter that is where the dry winds come
from. The traditional way to dry the grapes was either to
hang them by their stems from the rafters or to dry them in
a system called “I Castelli di Graticci”, which consists of
lattice shelves supported by four poles. Many producers
finish the drying by early December, which is too soon. The
Vin Santo ends up tasting too much like dried fruits,
particularly figs, almonds and hazelnuts.

I put the dried bunches in
the press. The must I extract I put in a container. I leave
it there for 15 days so that it will drop sediments. Some
estates however put the must directly in the caratelli,
which makes the fermentation more difficult and more risky.
I prefer to work with clear must. In some years, however, it
is too hot to sediment properly and the fermentation begins
before separation occurs. I put this must into separate
containers and watch each fermentation as it develops. If
the fermentation is a good one, I will use the wine. I douse
empty caratelli with fermenting juice and then pour the
clean press juice into it. This kick starts the
fermentation. The yeasts I use are therefore the ambient
ones.

The caratelli range from 5O
to 1OO liter capacity to as high as 12O liters. I have both
old and new barrels. I have two caratelli that have been in
use since the 16OOs. I got them from a famous, historic –
but now non-existent – fattoria in Carmignano. Back in the
days of the 1916 Vin Santo, most if not all the barrels were
made of chestnut. Now the larger percentage is of oak. In
the old days, other woods were used too, such as
cherry.

In the 1916 and the 1937,
the freshly pressed juice, probably in a turbid condition,
went into barrels containing the “madre” (mother). Use of
the madre is very traditional. Its use is still common
today. It is the lees that came from barrels whose wine had
just been bottled. The sediment you see in the 1916 and the
1937 is madre. Believe it or not, that white sludge still
contains active yeast even after all these years. Today I
don’t use madre because it can easily become infected with
spoilage yeasts and bacteria and then the spoilage can
spread to other caratelli. Some producers go one step
further and use selected yeasts. This gives more predictable
results.

I put the caratelli in a
room under the roof because it is necessary for the wine to
feel the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter. The
heat increases the evaporation, thus concentrating the wine.
It also increases oxidation. The cold of winter increases
natural sedimentation.

I rack all the caratelli
once year. Because of evaporation, at every racking the
number of barrels I use diminishes. I don’t care much about
how much air comes in contact with the Vin Santo. I feel it
benefits from the air. I have had to diminish the maturation
period recently from 8 years to 6 years because of the
increased demand. Until now, we have made 2OOO five
centiliter bottles per year. Starting with the 2OOO vintage,
we will make 3OOO to 35OO bottles per year. The 1937 and
1916 probably spent about 3 to 4 years in
caratelli.

When I assemble the Vin
Santo today, if there is a caratello that I don’t like I do
not include it in the blend. Before putting the assembled
Vin Santo in bottle, I filter it. I do two filtrations. The
first is a gross one and the second is almost a sterile
filtration. This reduces the possibility that there will be
a deposit in the bottle. Our customers do not like to see
sediment. Concerning fining agents, sometimes I use
bentonite and casein during the racking. If the oxidation is
too accentuated, giving a prickly smell and taste, I use
them. Oxidation also turns the color too brown. Bentonite
and casein can bring it back to yellow-gold. In the days
when the 1916 and 1937 were made, they bottled the wine
caratello by caratello. As the sediment in the bottles
indicates there was no filtration or fining.

Carmignano wine laws allow
a maximum of 1.6 grams per liter of volatile acidity. I
usually arrive from 1.1O to 1.3. The potential alcohol level
of Il Poggiolo Vin Santos is usually between 15 and 16
degrees. They can be higher, 17 degrees. I bet these older
Vin Santos have a high potential alcohol, perhaps around 17.
The total acidity of Il Poggiolo Vin Santos is probably
between 7 and 7.5 grams per liter. When the grapes are
drying, the sugar and acid in the grapes rise. It is
necessary that the acidity be a little high, but not out of
balance.

We have to charge a lot of
money for our Vin Santo (18 euro per 5O centiliter bottle,
retail at the winery). It takes 6 years to make. Out of one
quintal (1OO kilograms) of grapes, we make only about 25
liters of Vin Santo. We have not been able to make money on
the 2OOO bottles that we have produced annually. We have
done it because it is what we have always done. Plus we take
pride in making great Vin Santo. There are many ways to make
Vin Santo. For 4 euro here in Tuscany, you can buy wine
labeled Vin Santo – but what is in that bottle is not
something that I would call Vin Santo!”

We turned now to taste the
1937. It had light amber color with a yellow rim. On the
nose it showed leather, spices, cloves, nutmeg, and burnt
smells. In the mouth, it was gently sweet, with strong tangy
acidity and a long finish. The 1916 showed similar wine
color but had more green in the rim. The nose had stronger
burnt smells, particularly burnt brown sugar. On the palate
it was less sweet, more acidic and bitterer. The finish had
strong leather smells. Both wines had evident volatile
acidity, which was appropriate to their wine style, the way
they were produced and their age. I preferred the 1937. The
burnt, bitter flavor of the 1916 indicated to me a wine past
its prime. I suggested that some of the sugar had turned
bitter with age. Cianchi agreed with me. I had experienced
this phenomenon tasting old Vendage Tardive wines in Alsace.
We then sampled a younger Vin Santo, a 1995, for comparison.
It had stronger gold-amber colors with a yellow tinted rim.
The nose was filled with the smell of raisins and dried
figs. It was softer and sweeter and less piquant than the
two older wines. The volatile acidity was much
less.

Reflecting on the
experience, I could see where and why Giuseppe Cianchi had
moved away from traditional practice. He has eschewed madre
in an effort to assure quality consistency. He fines and
filters to adjust wine color, reduce oxidative smells and
assure wine stability. I believe that overall the impact of
shortening the maturation period will be an increase of
fruit and freshness in the finished wine. This would answer
a market more interested in lively fruit smells than unusual
maturation ones. Cianchi feels that the shortened maturation
period will not diminish complexity. The change will reduce
the cost of holding unsold wine at the winery. The added
volume of production will give Cianchi more ability to
satisfy an international demand, niche-oriented though it
may be. Cianchi is moving in a pragmatic direction. So far
it has not diminished the quality of the excellent Il
Poggiolo Vin Santos.