Chianti Classico's Bibbiano: The longest-standing monument to the Sangiogenius of Giulio Gambelli

Vigna del Capannino, the primary Cru vineyard of Chianti Classico’s Bibbiano estate, is planted to Montalcino-origin Sangiovese grosso vines acquired in the 1950s with the assistance of the Sangiovese master Giulio Gambelli. 

The Bibbiano property dates back to 1089 but grape growing only came to the fore with its acquisition by the Marzi brothers in 1865. The Gambelli-Marzi relationship began in 1942 while the former was employed at the Enopolio in Poggibonsi. Gambelli was invited to go hunting at the estate with then owner Pier Tommasi Marzi, beginning a relationship that would redound to the benefit of the estate for many a year thereafter. Nesto and di Savino stipulate that Gambelli considered the Marzi relationship as the most consequential of his career.

Bibbiano has had two significant transformations in the post-war period, the first significantly influenced by Gambelli, the second led by Stefano Porciani.

Post-WWII, Marzi and his son-in-law Alfred Merroccheri embarked on a project to rebuild the vineyards and winery. They joined the Consorzi in 1948 and, between 1950 and 1970:

• Constructued a large wine cellar
• Planted 20 ha of specialized vineyards
• Planted 10 ha of olive groves
• Totally modernized the equipment.

Gambelli provided assistance while still employed at the Enopolio and Bibbiano subsequently became his first client when he left to become a consultant. He contributed to Bibbiano in terms of decisions on new systems, aging methods, and wine style and bouquet (He was also been responsible for procuring the Sangiovese grosso cuttings from Sant'Angelo Scala in Montalcino for the 1950s planting of the Capannino vineyard.). Gambelli's wine style called for traditional Chianti Classicos fermented in glass-lined, non-temperature-controlled cement vats and aged in Slavonian botti.

By 1999 Bibbiano was being managed by Tommaso and Federico Marzi and the vineyards were, according to Nesto and di Savino (Chianti Classico):

• Old and in need of replanting
• Many of the vines had died
• Some were so old that their production was too low from an economic point of view
• Others had been poorly trained and were too old to withstand the stress of retraining
• The remaining vines were so weak that they needed to be green-harvested twice so that the fruit could mature

The brothers called on Stefano Porciani for assistance in revamping the estate. Stefano had been the Technical Director of the Chianti Classico Consorzio from 1992 to 2001 and had managed the operation of the Consorzio's Chianti Classico 2000 project. With his base of knowledge accumulated from that project, he began replanting vineyards, with the Bibbiano Capannino vineyard the first in line.

Capinnino was not dissimilar to many Montalcino vineyards in terms of temperature (14 - 15.3 ℃), average rainfall (60 - 70 cm), exposure (southerly), and soil (clay-dominant), so the previously planted Sangiovese grosso was a good fit for the replantation. In 2009 the vineyard was planted with "the organic genetic material that Gambelli had selected in Montalcino." The rootstocks utilized were the clay-philic 775 and 779 Paulsen. Vine density was updated to 5000 vines/ha, the rest of the estate replanted, and an underground drainage system installed to round out the vineyard modernization. The entire project was completed in 2012. The current-day estate is illustrated in the chart below.

I recently tasted the 2016 vintages of the estate’s Gran Selezione wines made with grapes sourced from its two cru vineyards: Vigne de Montornello and Vigna del Capannino. Both of these wines are fermented over 33  days in cement vats, with délestage, aged for 12 months in French oak barrels, 12 months in Slavonian oak barrels, and 6 months in bottle. These wines still adhere to the Gambelli principles except that the cement vats are now temperature controlled and French oak barrels precede Slavonian oak barrels in the aging schema.

I tasted the two wines with the Orlando BBF tasting group and then at home the following evening.

The 2016 Montornello Gran Selezione showed sweet plum, wax, and a clayey note on the nose. Sour cherry on the palate, along with a balsamic note. Saline with a metallic note. Aggressive tannins. Long, sour, chalky finish.

The 2016 Vigna del Capannino Gran Selezione was elegant on the nose with sweet fruit, prominent hymenaea courbaril, which faded into the background with residence, richness, and neutral shoe polish. A full, round mouthfeel. Balanced. Silkier tannins than encountered in the Montornello. Juicy. Blackpepper-driven finish.

The cuttings for the Capannino vineyards were secured from Sant'Angelo in Montalcino, the subzone which Kerin O'Keefe identifies as the hottest and driest of the Montalcino subzones. In their book Chianti Classico, Nesto and di Savino identifies the west and southwest portions of Chianti Classico as being the warmest in that region and the Bibbiano location in Castellina places it squarely into warmer territory. These wines were good but did not exhibit head-turning complexity.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Il Colle Brunello di Montalcino: Another Giulio Gambelli production

In my most recent post on the life of the famed Sangiovese expert Giulio Gambelli, I tagged Montalcino’s Il Colle as one of the Brunello producers— joining estates such as Case Basse, Cerbaiona, and Poggio di Sotto — fortunate enough to gain access to, and incorporate, his thoughts and practices into their winemaking efforts. 

Il Colle was founded in 1972 with Notary Alberti Carli’s purchase of the medieval house and 11 ha of land that had once been a part of the Conti Costanti Colle al Matrichese property (The property was split back in the 18th century as a result of family inheritance and divisions.). 

Upon purchase, Carli immediately planted 3 ha of Brunello and 2 ha of olive groves, producing the first vintage of Brunello in 1978. The estate has since grown to 8 ha of vines with the purchase of the 5-ha Localita Podernova dei Campi in Castelnuova dell’Abate. The vineyards are farmed organically. 

Alberto died in 2001 and his daughter Caterina has been managing the property ever since. 

The estate produces a Rosso and a Brunello, blends of grapes grown in both locations. The Brunello is a made from a careful selection of the best bunches from both vineyards. The fruit from the original vineyard (480 m elevation) provides elegance, freshness, floral notes, and minerality while the southeastern fruit (230 m) provides structure, power, and color.

Giulio Gambelli has guided the family’s winemaking efforts since 1981. According to Caterina:

Giulio Gambelli has been the guide and inspiration behind the vines I produce. The simplicity and naturalness of his way of living and working have always accompanied me along with the belief that making a good wine requires a few simple rules: hard work in the vineyard, time, passion, and cleanliness.

The “Gambellian” winemaking practices employed by the estate include indigenous yeasts, long maceration on the skins, aging in Slavonian botti, and no filtering. Kerin O’Keefe has described the resulting wine as “... graceful yet structured Brunellos” and a “ pure unfiltered expression of Sangiovese.”

2014 Il Colle Brunello di Montalcino

The 2014 growing season was very rainy across the entire peninsula of Italy and, according to Il Colle, slowed down the ripening until mid-June. Mild temperatures in July and August, and sunny skies in late September and early October, ensured high-quality fruit and "beautiful days of harvest." 

The wine was fermented in stainless steel tanks and aged for 48 months in 30- and 50-hL, fine-grained Slavonian oak barrels.

Popped and poured. Concentrated florality, ripe blackberries, oiliness, and intense spice notes initially. Elegant, sensuous, complex. Interweaving of spice and elegant yet concentrated fruit along with talcum powder and dried herbs.  

Low-intensity dark fruit on palate initially along with bright acidity. Medium weight. Balanced. With time, earthy/woody character and tannins which evolve through structured to chalky coating to a silky state. Fruit gains intensity on the palate as it attains a sour cherry character. Bitter note leads into a spicy finish. A lovely wine.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Giulio Gambelli and Tuscan Sangiovese: The view from Chianti Classico

I have long been beguiled by the life and work of Giulio Gambelli, the noted Sangiovese expert, but have only been able to capture snippets through writings on the websites of the wineries with which he was associated and an abbreviated treatment by Kerin O’Keefe in her Brunello di Montalcino. 

I have now been able to add to that meager knowledge base with information provided in a more robust treatment of Gambelli’s life and work in Nesto and di Savino’s Chianti Classico. Bill Nesto actually met and tasted with Gambelli in the 1990s and wrote an article about him back in 1999. The information on Gambelli provided in this post is drawn largely from the Nesto and di Savino characterization of this Tuscan treasure.

Nesto first met Gambelli in the Lilliano cellar in the fall of 1994. His nickname was Bicchierino, a name that he secretly detested. According to Nesto and di Savino, Bicchierino — little glass — had become associated with the family 150 years prior as a result of  his great-grandfather selling wine in little glasses in a family-owned Trattoria. The name was passed on to Gambelli by his great-grandfather.

Giulio was born in 1925 in Poggibonsi (Siena) where his family owned a tobacco and small-goods store. At 14 years of age, he signed on as a cellar worker at the Poggibonsi facility of the Enopolio of the Siena and Grosetto farm consortium. At that time, and during the subsequent war period, the Enopolio was one of the largest vinification and wine-storage facilities in Italy and its wines were considered the best in Chianti. Giulio’s initial work was confined to “menial jobs” and tasting the wines as they were moved from barrel to barrel.

On the left, a youthful Giulio (source: Screen grab
from i-wine review YouTube video); on the right, a 
more mature Giulio (source: igrandvini.it)

Tancredi Biondi Santi (Yes, that Tancredi Biondi Santi) served two stints as the Enopolio's Consulting Oenologist while Giulio was employed therein. The figure below shows the heft that Tancredi Biondi Santi brought to the Enopolio and what training with him meant for Giulio.

Not only did he learn about Sangiovese from a noteworthy oenologist, he also developed relationships with producers who would become consulting clients during his stint at the Enopolio and after he left in 1965 to go help with the family store. Giulio had become friendly with a number of producers and gave them free consulting advice as a favor. Giulio sold the store in 1972 and turned to freelance consulting to wineries on a full-time basis.

 

At this time Chianto Classico was "shifting from a pale, light, slightly fizzy wine in a fiasco to a more structured wine in a bottle." With the Biondi Santi training, Gambelli knew how to make such a wine and assisted a number of producers who were beginning to bottle their own wines. During the 1970s and 80s he developed as many as 80 clients and worked out of three offices in the Poggibonsi area. A partial list of his clients is provided in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Partial list of Gambelli clients (Source: Nesto and di Savino; author)

Clients from Enopolio Stint	Later Additions	Other Important Chianti Classico Clients	Late-Career Additions	Selected Montalcino Clients	Consorzio Clients
Brandini Marcolini (Rencine)	Lilliano	Ormanni	Rignana	Soldera (Case Basse)	Chianti Classico
Marzi (Bibbiano)	Pagliarese	Rodano	Porta di Vertine	Poggio di Sotto	Brunello di Montalcino
Gaggelli (Santedame)	San Felice	Straccali		Il Colle	San Gimignano
Lucherini (Villarosa)	Cacchiano	Lo Spugnaccio		Cerbaiona
	Fonterutoli	Villa a Sesta
	Manetti (Monvertine)	Colle ai Lecci

Giulio never had a payment structure and never billed a single client for work done. Nesto and di Savino point out that a number of his clients angsted as to how/how much/ when to pay him and his wife was always imploring him to seek payment for his services. 

Giulio would generally begin work in Montalcino, with each visit lasting approximately 30 minutes. After completing his rounds in Montalcino, he would drop in -- unannounced -- on his clients in Chianti Classico.

The below chart illustrates Gambelli's philosophy and techniques for producing high-quality Sangiovese wines. 

As shown, he was partial to oxygen contact during all phases of the production process. As Nesto and di Savino note, "these techniques ... can produce greater amounts of volatile acidity" but this did not much bother him as the resulting volatile smell, in his estimation, "was accompanied by a more supple taste and increased roundness." Fully developed, healthy skins and clean conditions, coupled with a vigorous and long maceration in air, produced the kind of structured wine that he appreciated. And that structure would allow the wine to age even in reduced-acidity conditions.

Giuliano Gambelli passed away on January 3, 2012, at the age of 86.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Giulio Gambelli's important contributions in the formative stages of Brunello di Montalcino DOC

Giulio Gambelli did not have the academic chops or geographic reach of Emile Peynaud, but the love and respect that he commanded in Italian wine circles, and the impact that he had on Tuscan Sangiovese producers, was akin to that of Peynaud in Bordeaux. They were both master tasters and used their tasting abilities to inform the advice that they imparted to their clients.

I have embarked on a journey to identify producers and estates whch have benefited from an association with Giulio and to date I have reported on his relationships with Villa Rosa (Castellina in Chianti), Montevertine (Radda in Chianti), Soldera, Cerbaiona, and Poggio di Sotto (the latter three from Montalcino). I have recently come upon a rather unexpected relationship that is recounted in Kerin O'Keefe's Brunello di Montalcino.

According to Kerin, at the close of the 1950s, there were between 10 and 15 growers in Montalcino, including still existing estates such as Biondi-Santi, Fattoria dei Barbi, and Il Poggione. In 1966 Brunello di Montalcino was awarded DOC status along with other leading regions Barolo, Barbaresco, and (fellow Sangiovese traveller) Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. The Brunello production codes, largely written by Tancredi Biondi Santi, was one of Italy's toughest. It is summarized in the chart below.

One year after being awarded DOC status, the producers formed the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino. A minimum of 25 signatures were required to form the organization but there were not 25 grape growers in the region at the time. The group finally assembled were "for the most part, completely inexperienced in the art and technique of winemaking." According to Kerin, several of those who joined initially only had wheat fields while another group was planting grapevines along with other cash crops. 

The Consorzio realized that they lacked the skills to meet their stated goals so they went out and enlisted the services of guess who?

In the early 1970s, the group enlisted the services of Giulio Gambelli, one of the most respected and well-liked figures in the Italian wine world, who would consult for the Consorzio members until the end of the 1990s.

Kerin goes on to describe Giulio's exalted position in the wine world:

Surprisingly modest given his enormous talent, Gambelli is without a doubt a Sangiovese genius. Known in Italy as the maestro assaggiatore, or master taster, in reference to his extraordinary palate, as of 2011 the eighty-six-year-old Gambelli was still consulting for cult Brunello firms Case Basse, Poggio di Sotto, and Il Colle, as well as the celebrated Montevertine firm in Radda in Chianti. Gambelli is not officially called an enologist, for the simple fact that he never had any academic enological training, but was instead discovered while still a young teenager by the late Tancredi Biondi Santi.

Tancredi had been so impressed with the 14 year-old's skills that he hired him as a cellar assistant, first at the Enopolio Cooperative and then at Greppo, the Bondi Santi winery. It is these conditions under which Gambelli gained his early Sangiovese expertise. Gambelli has always claimed that, in addition to vinification techniques, one of the fundamentals that he learned from Tancredi "was the absolute importance of hygiene in the cellar."

The Consorzio also hired Bruno Ciatti as its agronomy expert and the two, either together or separately, would visit each Montalcino cellar to "offer assistance and advice." Gambelli would try the wines and consult on the winemaking process. He also passed on the lesson he learned from Tancredi re clean cellars. 

Kerin quoted Stefano Campatelli, a former director of the Consorzio, as saying that Gambelli visited each cellar at least once a year. The visits were organized for the spring time and he would visit over 100 wineries in two months. Gambelli has referred to some of those early cellars as being "... mostly transformed stables and stalls, with all the imaginable problems. Above all, there was still the odor of livestock but also of salami and ham because many people back then had the custom of seasoning the meat in their cantine."

According to Kerin:

His advice was very much appreciated even by firms with in-house enologists, but since most wineries at the time did not have an onsite enologist, Giulio's advice was a crucial moment for the producers to review the evolving wines.

Giulio, then had an important and formative influence on a broader spectrum of Brunello di Montalcino than I had imagined.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme