I. Distractions In 1987, when I was 18 and a dollar was worth more than twice as much as it is today, I started reading magazines: M, Esquire, GQ. Nearby, in our somewhat cultured Texas town, a new bookstore opened in a cavernous space that had formerly housed the shag-carpeted roller skating rink of our childhood. Through the front windows, which had before been darkly tinted to give the place an alluring den-of-prepubescent-iniquity vibe, now streamed bright, clean light, showcasing a look and layout that would become the interior design gestalt of today’s national-chain, big-box book superstore. The rows upon rows of open, dustless shelving bearing a veritable warehouse of volumes; the ceiling hung with its industrial innards on display; the enfilade of check-out cubicles; and the wall – the great wall – that displayed a preposterous-to-behold assortment of glossies, quarterlies, journals, newsweeklies, fanzines, tabloids, almanacs, and all other flora and fauna of magazines arrayed upon a rack perhaps 50 feet long.  I went in there to look for a book. I liked books, and, one day, I was sure I wanted to write one. But I got distracted and bought a magazine instead – that August’s issue of GQ, which still stands out in my mind as a thing of formative significance. At that time, the zeitgeist was defined by a Walkman-wearing version of the American Renaissance Man – the highly-ambitious, status-obsessed, money-motivated, health-nut known as a Yuppie. No magazine positioned itself more authoritatively in defining this new sociological creature’s lifestyle than GQ, and it did it with whiter teeth, snappier suspenders, better accessories, bigger polka dots and more caffeine in the ink of its display copy.  I remember that issue less for the photos by Richard Avedon or Steven Meisel, the words of Martin Amis or Frederick Exley, than for this: Erzeugerabfüllung. It was one of the longest, strangest strings of letters from the Roman alphabet I had ever seen. Neither did it seem designed to come out of someone’s mouth. But there it was in Alan Richman’s Wine & Spirits column, accompanied by a lovely still-life photograph of his topic: two bottles of Riesling Kabinetts on a white, sun-dappled tablecloth. Richman’s main point – made almost 35 years ago – still holds true: estate-bottled, table-quality German wines remain some of the least expensive, most delicious wines in the world, chiefly because – then as now – the labels, as he wrote, “cannot be understood by anyone who is not a part-time oenophile, linguist and cartographer”. One US dollar in Richman’s pocket, as I have already said, bought what roughly two-dollars-and-fifty-cents does today; what he was on the hunt for was a good dry white in a range that would now cost somewhere between 12 and 30 bucks, and he easily accomplished that by finding a dealer in New York City who carried a good selection of wines from the Mosel and Rheingau. At the time, I didn’t know the meaning or significance of any of this, but it staked a claim in my brain. The only wine I had ever tasted was the one served at our Episcopal church during Eucharist on Sundays. The flavour it had was of a strange, super-concentrated jam that somehow warmed your upper body. Even as a young kid, I liked it. But the adjectives these German bottles were squeezing out of Richman – “citrus-like”, “honeyed”, “tart-sweet” – weren’t close to describing what was in that chalice, even if you believed in transubstantiation. Was it because Richman’s wine was white, and the parish’s was red? Perhaps, but both colours of grape juice bottled by Welch’s tasted pretty much the same to me. No, I sensed there was something – a lot – I had to learn, and, along with the romance and beauty of the labels, and the contextual air of well-bred taste and cultural with-it-ness featured on the other pages, this, I feel sure, was the decisive moment, the true origin point, when I came to believe that among the many extraordinary things that make life worth living, not just words but wine reigns at the top.  I warned you about distractions, didn’t I? Because that would be my excuse for now informing you, as a quite apropos footnote, that, yes, there was something unusual about our church’s Communion wine. It was, as I have confirmed with the church, actually port (Taylor’s Tawny, to be more accurate), cut, according to tradition, with water. There is a good and fascinating reason for this. In 1701, when the War of the Spanish Succession kicked off, France also became an enemy of England, and its wines, as a result, were no longer made available for import. The Anglican Church searched for and found a replacement, the fortified wines of its new ally, Portugal, and port continues to be an acceptable option to pair with the Host.  II. Distillations A satisfying story, not unlike a satisfying life, is one that surprises you with the mystery of its unfolding. A thing pulls in a certain direction long enough to reach the proximity of something else which then turns toward a new destination. I had actually gone into that bookstore, as I said, to look at books. But I came out, even though I didn’t yet know it, with a different compass point. Within a few years, shortly after graduating from college, in 1992, I got hired by The New Yorker, where I stayed for almost nine years. I then met my future wife, who wisely laughed at the thought we might be able to survive in New York City on my meagre salary, so I went to Vogue, and soon after became the founding editor of Men’s Vogue. After 23 issues, and four years, the financial crisis laid an axe to many magazines, including that one. Eventually, I took on the editorship of Town & Country. Then, finally, in 2016, I moved up to Esquire, the magazine, as it happens, that didn’t offer me a job when The New Yorker did, and became that storied magazine’s editor in chief, until – well, you best read about that in The New York Times.  As far as distractions go, magazines were a good one. They made me who I am, gave me a tremendously worldly education, honed my taste, introduced me to all manner of accomplished people, required me to build quite a wardrobe, and paid me pretty well to do all of this, often with a glass of wine not far out of the picture. There was really no other way I would have ever got to taste all the bottles I have (a lot of the big names people whisper about from Burgundy and Bordeaux, Champagne and also Piedmont, Tuscany and Napa). I built a modest cave à vin of my own by buying the Smith Haut Lafittes of the world way before hedge-fund hoi polloi ran up the prices, and by having access to rare offerings, like 12 bottles of Fiorano, the legendary white wine Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, prince of Venosa, made before ripping out all his vines. I smelled the musty perfume of Margaux in the cellar as I watched the workers rack the wine by candlelight. I lured Jay McInerney away from the Wall Street Journal to become my wine columnist; and I once stood in Bordeaux’s town square, tight on 2002 Pétrus, trying with great focus to commune with the statue of Michel de Montaigne while my French friend, a true oenophile, extolled the majesty of the Big Mac’s special sauce.  As the editor of a magazine, curiosity is your profession, even to the point of distraction. Editors – writers, too – are prone to it. It’s a hazard of the gift, and having a jumble of ideas, if you’re any good, is key to making a magazine of any real intellectual or creative daring. Now as a husband and father of three, working from home and trying to be ‘present’, and a still youngish former editor and occasional micro-influencer trying to stave off the solitude to fathom and plot the next phase of a fruitful future, this skill of mine, the strength of which became even more magnified over two decades, is something of a family project.  The way I most often hear the word ‘distraction’ now, for instance, is when it’s being hurled at me in verb form by my wife or daughters accusing me of being more of a phone-enslaved screen vegetable than they are. (I respectfully disagree.) But it’s a sore point for two reasons. One, what I did as an editor is, in a nutshell, now what a smartphone essentially does. Not very imaginatively, of course, and not with taste or charm or originality, but with a bloody, money-grubbing ruthlessness that stalks every step of our digital peregrinations and doesn’t give a twist if the algorithms that are its brain make us its slave by retrofitting our attention spans for kindergarten.  The smartphone – not the former me or any of my fellow kind still in the media biz – is now the true croupier of culture, dealing out a targeted shuffle of Pavlovian temptations to the point of daily mental exhaustion. And, though this thing is in many ways my personal nemesis, I am, against every fibre of my being, too often its obedient servant. Aiming not to live according to the famous line by T.S. Eliot – “distracted from distraction by distraction” – I recently decided to at least take a serious inventory of my favourite ones, both those of the pre-digital sort (tennis, The Walking Dead, checking the mailbox, my sock collection) and those of the post-digital sort (the any and everything I do because my phone wants me to). Then I caught myself watching tennis on my phone and realised this might be harder than I thought. It’s enough to drive a person to drink, thank god! With that in mind, I like to keep a special something for the occasion around, in this case – what else? – two bottles of Riesling Kabinett, for it had struck me as more than a little weird that I’ve probably tasted fewer than a handful of German wines in my entire life. Part of the reason is that those I had were bad, and, like a lot of other simpletons about this great wine region of the world, I’d come to think of Riesling as a cloying elixir equal parts green Jolly Rancher, apple cider vinegar, and hairspray. This, I knew, was wrong, not true and, in terms of wine equity and inclusion, on the wrong side of history. But, if you happen to live in a place like I do – a bourgie swathe of Connecticut bordering New York City where the shops cater heavily to Cali-Fran-Taly banker’s tastes – it might take you a few stops to find what Richman recommended, an erzeugerabfüllung (estate-bottled) Kabinett (wine made from grapes with a minimum must weight/sugar content) Riesling, and when you do it will probably be coated in a fine sift of years-old dust. I bought a green (Mosel) bottle for US$16 and a brown (Rhine) bottle for US$20, both handsomely labelled. I opened them a few minutes ago and took several investigative swigs. The words bright, invigorating and snappy came to mind. One is indeed sweeter, and, though not my usual jam, it is tamped by a pleasing peachy tartness, and the classic overtone of honey isn’t making my palate feel doused with syrup. The other example is, as Richman said so long ago, a very finely layered creature with mineral clarity and an echo of baked bread, something a gluten-free person like me finds particularly appealing. A rather obvious thought: why haven’t I been buying this instead of throwing a ton of endless money at affordably bad white Burgundy, which is mostly a product aimed at fulfilling a desired outcome, like White Claw hard seltzer? III. Words But don’t let me get distracted, again. A writer really has to be careful about such things. Just think about it. Unlike, say, a painter or musician or actor or photographer, the process of writing requires zero physical exertion, no chance to score an endorphin release while sitting staring anxiously at a blank page. Of the many things in life that vie against the counter intuitive impulse to be glued to a desk, Cyril Connolly, in Enemies of Promise, his classic study of the things that distracted him (and others) from becoming a great writer, names the temptations but does not say much about why they’re so deeply tempting to someone who would otherwise be sitting alone in an empty room. Praise, money, fame, social prominence, affairs and journalism are the most common boltholes, according to Connolly, who, as a famously late sleeper that married three times, might have also added the bliss of unconsciousness and excessive alimony. In 1938, the year the book was published, he would never have imagined how hard the task might get without a cigarette. Smoking is a death wish, I know, but when you want to off yourself for still having a hundred pages to go, being able to snap open a nice lighter, flick some ash, stub a butt and inhale some lungfuls of focus-enhancing nicotine must have been kind of helpful. Connolly also doesn’t have much to say about drink except that artists who drink to excess do so “out of the consciousness of wasted ability”. According to that, the 20th century’s most famous literary alcoholics – Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Styron, Elizabeth Bishop, James Joyce, Raymond Chandler, William Faulkner – might have left behind even greater treasures than they did. Because Ernest Hemingway did almost everything with more gusto than any of his peers, including running up his bar tab, as a drinker he belongs in his own sentence. He is the novelist who most romanced a good drink or nice bottle of wine as one of life’s great pleasures. Who didn’t want to have a vermouth with Jake when reading The Sun Also Rises? (Don’t, it’s gross, at least if you order it at one of those kiosks in Montmartre where the bottles are hung upside down with spring-loaded dispensers.) Or, track down a bottle of Valdepeñas, Hemingway’s favourite variety of Spanish wine. Or, get a drink at the bar named after him at the Ritz, in Paris, and then go somewhere on the Left Bank to order “a dozen portugaises and a half-carafe of the dry white wine”.  In the early work, he is not boastful about drinking so much as he is the possessor of an unusual appetite for a good buzz. He is also, like Connolly, aware of the need to keep writing separate from drinking, and drinking within his control. It is hard to read the first paragraph of A Moveable Feast, in which he describes an “evilly run café where the drunkards of the quarter crowded together and I kept away from it because of the smell of dirty bodies and the sour smell of drunkenness”, except as a kind of terrifying admonition to himself. It is tragic that he didn’t heed his own advice. Late in his life, Hemingway became fond of rum daiquiris at the Floridita, his favourite bar in Havana, which might explain his taste for a prose style that soon became too often cloying self-parody. In one of the most extraordinary drinking sessions ever committed to words, in the roman à clef Across the River and Into the Trees, a 50-year-old Hemingway, who was smitten with a teenage Italian countess from Venice, fictionalises his infatuation with a last muse. In one stretch (that covers an evening-to-dawn crawl from Harry’s Bar, the grill at the Gritti Palace, a gondola and a hotel room), one half or another of the couple imbibes: one scotch whisky and soda; six Montgomery Martinis (15 parts gin; 1 part vermouth), two of which are described in size as ‘super’; a bottle of Capri Bianco; two bottles of Valpolicella; two bottles of Roederer Brut ’42; and two bottles of Perrier-Jouët. That is, I suppose, one extreme, and, clearly, not one to be tried at home.  The other might have been espoused by Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great critic and lexicographer. As a young man, he’d drained “many a bottle of wine” but loved port especially. (Perhaps Johnson, a devout Anglican who was born in 1709, in the midst of England’s 14-year war with Spain, also first encountered port as a boy at the Communion altar.) He describes himself to friend and biographer James Boswell as having been “apt to go to excess in it”, adding that, “therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it”.  Boswell, who worried about his own dependence on alcohol, even keeping a journal of his intake in an attempt to enforce moderation, argued for a third way, which some of the Romantics later adopted. Wine, he claimed, “produces truth; in vino veritas”. Hoping to persuade Johnson of his point, Boswell once convinced the critic to come down off the wagon for just one glass of claret, so Johnson “might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation”. Boswell reports what happened after the glass was emptied: “Johnson shook his head, and said, ‘Poor stuff! No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men,’” adding, “‘A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk.’”  That actually reminds me of something I think I forgot to mention about Riesling Kabinetts – they’re also highly admired for their low percentage of alcohol. On that note, I think I’ll have another glass.  This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue Two.

Jay Fielden, former editor of Men’s Vogue, Town & Country and Esquire, recalls how a magazine column on wine, read in a Texas bookstore, shifted his ambitions beyond journalism and set him on the path to becoming a writer of books.

Former Esquire editor-in-chief Jay Fielden reflects on magazines, writing, Riesling Kabinett and the distractions that shaped a life in words and wine.

Jay Fielden on Wine, Words and Distraction

How one became another  

Sitting opposite us, the dark-suited, dark-haired figure waved an elegant hand at the bottle of white Burgundy which he’d just fished out of a carrier bag and planted on the table with the air of a conjuror at a party. “You’ll like this,” he said; it was a statement, not a suggestion, delivered in a faint accent with American overtones and a hint of gutturality. In this totally unremarkable West London pub, a bottle of Meursault looked as out of place as a KGB officer. Which he was. We did like it, of course, who wouldn’t? It made the greasy steak and chips almost bearable, and was one of the best wines I’d ever tasted at that point in my life. I was 33 that year, 1978, and as a newish BBC foreign correspondent I wasn’t particularly well paid. He’d brought the Meursault with him to show us how sophisticated he was, and to counter the blandness of the food. But why had he suggested The Mitre as a place for lunch? It was handy for the Soviet embassy up the road, certainly; but I realised that the real attraction for him was the high-backed seats that enclosed our table and kept our conversation private. Sergei was a major in the KGB, masquerading as a press attaché. The habit of secrecy was deeply ingrained in him. The Meursault started to work on my companion, a gossipy, amusing, slightly naïve BBC executive. It worked on me, too, but under the influence of alcohol I tend to go quiet and introverted. Not so Harry. He delivered the brief lecture about Soviet harassment of our Moscow correspondent which he’d been planning. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t make Sergei burst into tears. On the contrary. “Ah, yes, the famous Declan.” Sergei managed to put the accent on the second syllable. “Such good Russian. A pity he wastes his time hanging around those drop-outs and wastrels.” I was particularly impressed by ‘wastrels’. “I suppose you mean dissidents,” I said, pushing my glass across for more Meursault. The label read ‘1968’; the Soviet embassy must have had a superb cellar. Sergei laughed scornfully and poured. “I hear Declan’s marriage isn’t going so good now,” he said. “Ah, no, his wife left him for an airline pilot,” Harry replied, giggling. I kicked him sharply: you didn’t feed personal details about your colleagues to KGB officers. “What?” Harry said, looking at me. We saw the bottle out. Sometimes I think I can still taste that rich, green-gold collection of butter, almond, citrus and, could it have been, or is it just my imagination after more than 40 years, hints of bracken and mayflower. At the end, we stood up and shook hands. “So you’ll go easy on Declan from now on?” Harry said. “Well, Declan must stop creating bad propaganda against the Soviet Union.” He had a good ear: this time the accent was on the first syllable. Sergei turned in the direction of the embassy, and we headed back to Television Centre. “Bloody good wine those Russkies can afford,” Harry said, and gave his high-pitched laugh.For journalists and spies, booze is a famous lubricant, a fuel, even. I came from a teetotal background, yet when I started as a foreign correspondent I soon found myself ordering a glass of single malt as a means of self-protection, while someone I was trying to pump for information opened up and talked in a way he or she never would if I’d ordered a Britvic orange. Yet there were exceptions. In Belfast and Derry, where I started my reporting career, the leaders of the Provisional IRA were mostly ultra-Catholic and never drank a drop; and as I branched out and began reporting on the Middle East, I found that organisations like Hezbollah and the followers of the Ayatollah were as teetotal as I had once been. There were no bars to meet them in, either. Fortunately, though, cities like Cairo and Beirut were more sophisticated. I soon found that anywhere with a sizeable Christian population, Egypt and Lebanon, of course, but also Syria, Iraq and westernised countries like Turkey and Pakistan, made allowances for thirsty westerners and permitted them to drink, even if in cities like Peshawar you had to sign a big leather volume and register yourself as an alcoholic. The bar in the old Commodore Hotel in Beirut was a wonderful centre for professional alcoholics of this kind. I first went there in June 1982, when West Beirut was under hourly attack from Israeli planes and tanks, and there were no shelters to protect us. The presiding spirit of the place was a correspondent called Chris Drake, a hospitable soul who dispensed booze and information even-handedly. When the barrage was going on, it would have been suicidal to leave the Commodore, and the building shuddered to every nearby explosion. Chris Drake had a parrot, and when the bar was packed in the evening with journalists glad to still be alive, it would imitate the sound of a shell in flight with startling accuracy. Most of the people there, not me, thank God, had walked into the bar on their first night, heard the parrot’s hugely convincing whistle, and thrown themselves on the floor shouting “Incoming!”. There would be a roar of laughter, and someone would help them up and offer them a glass of arak, an infusion of grapes and the seeds of the anise plant. I acquired a real taste for arak at that time, and I still think of that slightly oily, metallic, liquorice-tasting liquid hitting the back of my throat and burning its way down. A few years later, during another upsurge of fighting, the Commodore was heavily shelled by the Syrian army. The building was destroyed, and no trace of the parrot was ever found. When peace was restored and there was money around, the Commodore was rebuilt, much bigger and more glitzy, but the architect designed a new bar precisely where the old one had once been. You can still see the space on the floor where many a famous journalist measured his length when the parrot did its party trick. I took my wife and 13-year-old son there a couple of years ago, and one afternoon, when the bar was empty, my son insisted on re-enacting the whole thing. In China, things were different. Meetings with underground figures usually took place at their homes or outdoors, given the fear of surveillance. I often chose Ritan Park in Beijing, where teahouses served pu-erh tea and offered a discreet place to talk. By contrast, official meetings required alcohol, specifically Maotai, a fierce baijiu distilled from sorghum at over 50% ABV. At one banquet, after being insulted by a local Party official, I tried to outdrink him. The plan failed, he had help, but we still ended the night collapsed together, singing in two languages. The next day, I was told this had enhanced British prestige. Countries where alcohol is banned present different challenges. In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, I smuggled in a 27-year-old bottle of Laphroaig disguised as Fanta, only to pour it down the toilet when soldiers began searching rooms for alcohol. They never entered mine. After the fall of the Soviet Union, I tried to track Sergei down but never found him. Before that, though, I had taken my revenge by signing him up to every unwanted mailing list I could find, encyclopaedias, dubious magazines, and more inventive subscriptions besides. It made me feel very good.And yet, if I imagine meeting him again, I always picture the same thing: Sergei standing in the doorway, holding a superb bottle of Meursault. For that, at least, I’ve always been grateful. This article was written by John Simpson, who reflects on his experiences reporting across the world, and the role alcohol has played in the art of face-to-face reconnaissance. Illustrations by Natsko Seki. Originally published in FONDATA, Issue Two.

BBC world affairs editor John Simpson reflects on reporting from conflict zones, recalling memorable bars, encounters and the role alcohol plays in the subtle art of face-to-face reconnaissance.

BBC world affairs editor John Simpson on bars, encounters and how alcohol shapes reporting, trust and intelligence gathering worldwide.

John Simpson on bars, spies and the art of reporting

Refuge,  refreshment & reconnaissance

Every now and then, the word ‘singularity’ is used to describe a particular wine that stands apart, for whatever reason, from other wines of its type. But just what is singularity, and how can wine express it? Wine writer Tamlyn Currin investigates.

What makes a wine truly singular? Tamlyn Currin explores the rare bottles that defy convention and challenge the rules of the wine world.

Searching for Singularity in wine

Searching for Singularity

America’s native spirit has never been in greater demand. After years in the doldrums with production at record lows of 500,000 barrels per year, Bourbon is experiencing one of the greatest Cinderella stories in the modern spirits industry era. At last count, the number of barrels maturing in the United States had swelled to 10.3 million per year, which is a whopping 436% increase since 1999.   The reasons for the pendulum swinging back in Bourbon’s favour are multiple. The introduction of the first single-barrel Bourbon from the mid-1980s, coupled with the classic cocktail revival in the late ’90s to early ’00s, started to pique interest. Within a few short years, the Old Fashioned cocktail and brands like Blanton’s and Pappy Van Winkle were appearing front and centre in some of the biggest TV shows and films in America. Drinkers and the wider whiskey world were starting to wake up to the fact that Bourbon was a seriously good spirit. Producers couldn’t fill barrels fast enough. There was new dawn for high-priced, collectable American whiskey – and bottlings were soon like gold dust.   “Right now, in Kentucky, if I go to a liquor store, I can’t find our products on the shelves,” Drew Mayville tells me. “They are all gone. People have bought them or they don’t even make it to the shelf.”  Mayville has worked in the alcohol industry for over four decades, for the first 23 years at Seagram’s (before “it was put up for sale and my bubble burst”) and for the past 18 years at Sazerac, which produces some of the most coveted Bourbons on the market (think Pappy’s, Blanton’s, E H Taylor and Eagle Rare) at its Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky.   “People think [the Bourbon boom] happened overnight but it didn’t,” the Master Blender and Director of Quality says.   “I would say about 10 or 15 years ago it started to make its cycle back to favour,” he adds. “Even Pappy Van Winkle, which is one of the most sought-after Bourbons that we make, didn’t happen overnight.”   Mayville has witnessed the cyclical nature of drinking trends throughout his career and seen the various booms and busts in the United States as tastes moved from dark spirits to white spirits and back again. He believes one of the reasons Bourbon is so popular right now is largely down to its approachability.   “American whiskey tends to be very palatable,” Mayville explains in his Canadian drawl. “Scotch is more of a learned taste; lots of people drink Scotch around the world because they are so used to it.  “Part of the reason that Bourbon is very palatable is the corn. It provides a lot of that sweet fruitiness,” Mayville adds.   In order to be called Bourbon, the spirit needs to be made from at least 51% corn. The second grain in 95% of Bourbon produced is rye, which gives it a spiciness. The other 5% of Bourbon has wheat in place of rye – these wheated Bourbons are softer, as the fruit notes from the corn are accentuated by the addition of wheat. (Straight rye whiskey is also made from corn and rye, but with the rye dominating, meaning it can’t be classed as Bourbon.)   Contrary to popular belief, Bourbon can be made anywhere in the United States but 95% of Bourbon is produced in Kentucky. Bourbon must be distilled no higher than 160 proof (80% alcohol) and matured in newly charred oak barrels.   Despite its current popularity, Bourbon does have a long distilling tradition; it was first produced in Kentucky in the 1780s when distillers discovered charring barrels mellowed corn whiskey. After a strong start, Bourbon struggled during the two World Wars and was heavily affected by the temperance movement and Prohibition in the United States. Sales recovered by the middle of the century and American whiskey entered something of a golden age in the 1950s.  Unfortunately, this prosperous period was short-lived when drinkers once again turned their backs on brown spirits in favour of white spirits in the 1960s and early ’70s, kickstarting the vodka revolution that has only recently started to wane. This about-turn resulted in the first American whiskey surplus – known as a lake in world whiskey and loch in Scotland. Producers were left with gallons upon gallons of surplus whiskey and inevitable closures followed.   “We kinda skipped a generation and now we’re going back that way,” Mayville says stoically.  Now, with sales more buoyant than ever, there is a rush to ramp up production – fast. Sazerac is in the process of spending an eye-watering $1.2 billion on the Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. A new column still, cookers and boilers are all being installed to double capacity. New, 60,000-barrel warehouses – the largest in Kentucky – are also being built every four or five months, at a cost of circa $30 million. This is scale on an unprecedented level.   Buffalo Trace is not alone in this endeavour. Producers of Old Forester and Woodford Reserve Brown-Forman are increasing their distillery space, and the makers of Four Roses have spent more than $50 million on expansion. Global spirits behemoth Diageo has also invested a reported $115 million on a new distillery and four warehouses with a total capacity of 330,000 barrels for its Bulleit Bourbon and other, as yet unannounced American whiskey brands.  “We’ve been making more and more every single year but it’s just never enough,” Mayville tells me.   “It’s a lot of money and it’s a big risk because if people don’t buy the product in 10 years from now, you’re going to have a lake of whiskey,” Mayville adds with knowing caution.   It’s hard to imagine the current Bourbon boom going bust when producers are showing such confidence in the category and bottlings such as Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve can sell on the secondary market for upwards $20,000, but there are no guarantees.   For Mayville, this change in fortunes is a real boon but his real focus is on the quality of the liquid and innovation at the stills – the sales figures are somebody else’s concern.    “The part that really excites someone who has been around as long as I have is doing new things and innovation,” he says with glee. Much to this industry veteran’s delight, this creativity is championed at the very top of his organisation.   “We can go away, do experimentations, spend money, and not even tell anyone – and it’s actually encouraged,” he says, still clearly unable to believe his good fortune.  Mayville says the American drinks market is great at keeping him honest, always expecting something that wows and excites them.  “We’re always, always trying to innovate, embrace that change, and try and make better products,” he adds.“ We run so many different experiments, trying to make better whiskeys. It’s hard to list them because there are so many. There are thousands of barrels ageing right now that are experiments.”   One of his most recent experiments was the Colonel EH Taylor 4 Grain, which was named one of the best whiskeys in the world in 2017 by Jim Murray in his Whisky Bible.    “You can’t predict exactly what’s going to happen,” the Master Blender says humbly. “We’re doing so many experiments – another one could well be one of the best whiskeys in the world.”   With creative genius like Mayville at the helm of some of these distilleries, continually striving for quality, it’s hard to see the Bourbon gold rush ending any time soon. One thing that is for sure, though, is whiskey lovers and collectors will continue to scramble for what little Bourbon there is on the market until distillers can mine their liquid gold. Browse all American whiskey or read more Editorial 

After some very challenging years, American whiskey producers feel like they’ve struck gold. Demand for Bourbon is at an all-time high and distillers can’t pump out enough liquid to meet a seemingly unquenchable thirst. Holly Motion investigates the Bourbon boom 

Exploring the reasons for the current Bourbon boom in the United States with Buffalo Trace’s Drew Mayville, who produces Pappy Van Winkle, Blanton’s and more

Exploring the Bourbon whiskey boom

Gold rush: the Bourbon boom

Historically peat was used as a fuel source. In recent history, it has been a source of great fervour and one-upmanship as whisky producers clambered to create the peatiest whisky on the market.  For the most part, this narrative and competition has played out on the remote and beguiling Hebridean isle of Islay and its nine malt distilleries. One even deciding the prefix “super” was required on the label because “heavily-peated” was no longer sufficient. But this could all be about to change as Seattle-based Westland Distillery finetunes an industry first: locally-peated American single malt whiskey.   “We are not trying to make it taste like Islay,” Co-Founder and Managing Director Matthew Hofmann says. “We want Solum to exhibit its own terroir and its own flavour influence so long as it tastes good.”   In the 10 years since it was founded, Westland has sought to challenge every stage of whisk(e)y-making convention from barley, casks and now peat. For the past five years the team has been encountering setbacks while they navigated the uncharted territory of producing peated malt in the United States. The first was the discovery that a peat malting company didn’t exist in America, despite Washington State boasting 50,000 acres of peat.   While Hofmann worked on options closer to home, Westland turned to the historic Glasgow-based malt producer Baird’s. But he knew he had struck on something and eventually started working with a start-up malting company, Skagit Valley Malting, to produce what the company believes is the first commercially produced batch of peated malts in America.   Pioneering a locally-peated whiskey created all sorts of headaches – or as Hofmann calls them “interesting challenges” – for the team. In one of the first blind tastings, peat flavour notes were entirely absent.   “When you are trying something new like this, there is an inherent amount of risk,” Hofmann says. “It’s very much an ongoing process and we are far from being finished. It’s more accurate to say we have barely begun on this project.”   Westland uses approximately two cubic yards of peat from a local 30-acre bog which equates to a month’s production and roughly 100 casks of whiskey a year. Whereas others typically cut and drain peat – which has a negative impact on carbon dioxide and methane release, and damages the ecology of the area – Westland uses a different process with a backhoe which keeps the bog intact apart from the small amount of peat they use.   “The stuff we have got out here is wild,” Hofmann says with unfettered excitement. “There’s 11 different species of stagnant mosses. There’s wild cranberries. There’s wild crab-apples. There’s a lot more woody materials – cedar – that end up making it into the bog itself because the area is still heavily wooded as well. So, the result on the peat and aroma is very different.”   Hofmann said Westland will release Solum – Latin for “soil” – in winter 2023 but admits he doesn’t know what the product will taste like yet. He says there is a Mezcal profile at this stage, with vegetal smokiness and spice, but cask impact factors are currently unknown.   “This has been one of the most difficult things we have worked on here at Westland,” he says. “Which is saying something because we have a habit of diving headfirst into things we know very little about.”  One of the main challenges, Hofmann says, is the lack of industry and by extension experts in the country. “Nobody understands the impact of peat and how to use it,” he explains. “That can be quite interesting because when you’re learning it from scratch and you have zero base line knowledge, you tend to approach things in a different way.”   This has led to further innovation in production with engineers at the helm of the project and meant sustainability has been high on the agenda in the notoriously eco-cognisant region.   “We don’t quite know yet what the path is with Solum,” he adds. “Is it going to be about the different areas of the bog and peat flavours you might get from that – kind of like Colere is with barley? Or is it going to be about a general Washington State peat flavour?”  The exact destination may be unknown, but it’s guaranteed to be an entirely new take on a very old tradition.   Browse all current whisky listings or read more Editorial 

It’s one of the oldest styles of whisky in the world and has been known to unite as much as it divides. So why is a Pacific Northwest distillery moving heaven and earth to produce the first batch of American peated malts? Holly Motion digs into it 

Digging into why Pacific Northwest distillery Westland is moving heaven and earth to produce the first batch of American peated malts. 

Digging into American peated malts

Breaking new ground

The Pacific Northwest is the birthplace of some of the greatest innovations of the past 40 years. Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks are just some of the multi-billion-dollar enterprises to come from the region with its spectacular mountainous ranges and lush forested land.

When it comes to drinks of the alcoholic kind, craft brewing has been the area’s most notable export. In California alone there are more than 900 breweries. Unsurprisingly, craft distilleries have followed a similar trajectory – swelling from 35 to over 2,000 in the past 17 years. What may come as a surprise is that single malt whiskey, rather than Rye or Bourbon, is growing apace and pioneering a truly exciting new flavour frontier with traceability and transparency at its heart. 
“We shouldn’t be growing corn,” Seattle-based Westland Distillery Commercial Director Chris Riesbeck says. “We shouldn’t be making Bourbon. We shouldn’t be making Rye. Making single malt makes an enormous amount of sense when you think about the Pacific Northwest climate and agriculture.”

The Pacific maritime influence, warm, dry summers and cool damp winters in Washington, Oregon and California are optimum two-row malting barley growing conditions. “The conversation you hear from almost every distillery on the planet is that barrels and time make whisk(e)y,” Riesbeck continues. “That is true in the most basic, basic way. But the reality is that it gives no real respect to the raw ingredients. “We would argue that whisk(e)y starts in a field – and if you don’t have an appreciation for the grain that you are using and an interest in how you can develop and embrace that flavour, then you’re perhaps not getting the full experience of what whiskey
could be.” It sounds simple enough but, as Riesbeck explains, a seismic shift in global whisk(e)y-making convention needs to occur to produce a varietal-specific single malt that is truly a product of the Pacific Northwest. In Westland’s case, it has been almost a decades’ worth of work. The distillery has partnered with Washington State University’s Bread Lab to find a barley that puts flavour rather than yield first.

“If your goal is to make things cheap, then it’s a race to the bottom and nobody wants to win that race,” Riesbeck says. “But if your goal is to make something that’s lasting and impactful, you have to be willing to support the science.” Westland’s funding of a PhD student is a sign of their long-term investment and it’s the company’s hope that the research produced should benefit the entire industry. But this is just the beginning of the process and many more stages are required to get from grain to glass. Once the barley is chosen, it can take years of testing to balance out things like stripe rust and other diseases before it can be planted in a Skagit Valley field. All this time, money and patience is in the name of one thing: flavour.

Travel 174 miles south and you’ll find Westward on Distillery Row, Portland. Founder and Master Distiller Christian Krogstad has been at the forefront of the craft brewing movement for the best part of 30 years. His role in the spirits sector is not to be sniffed at either – perhaps his biggest achievement is a certain Aviation Gin which was sold to Diageo for $610m in 2020 after actor Ryan Reynolds took on the brand. Brewing informs everything Krogstad does at Westward. “We see ourselves coming out of the beer world,” he says with an enormous smile. “We are much more informed by that than we are by Scottish single malts or traditions.”  In a refreshing juxtaposition to the sometimes-cloak-and-dagger world of whiskey-making, Krogstad is an open book. “We don’t have a lot of secrets and I think that’s something that has gone back to when I was brewing,” he says. “If somebody wanted a recipe for one of the beers I was making, I would give it to them. There’s nothing about the product or the process that is secret.” For the former brewer, imitation is most certainly the sincerest form of flattery. “If somebody wants to try and do what we’re doing then they are welcome to try,” he says. “But just like we’re not trying to copy Scotland, it’s not very interesting for somebody to try and copy us.”    Whether he’s producing a beer, gin or whiskey, Krogstad says his guiding principle is to create a flavourful and balanced liquid that isn’t palate-fatiguing. “My ultimate goal is to produce something that when you finish a glass of it, you immediately want another. I don’t ever want something that I make to be referred to as an acquired taste.” Approaching single malt whiskey with a brewers’ mentality means fermentation is king. A nice, cool temperature and long fermentation produces a beer that Krogstad calls delicious and defect-free. This means there is little reflux at distillation and the spirit is very rich and textural. “Our philosophy is not that the stills clean up the beer,” he says. “It’s that they concentrate it.” The largely defect-free, rich spirit is perfect for maturation in new charred oak because it can stand up to the flavours. “Because we’re not distilling it to a high proof, we have a lot of these great fruity esters from the fermentation that really come through,” Krogstad says. “If we aged it differently, we would want to distil it differently.” Perhaps another hangover of the brewing world is innovation with raw materials. The team frequently experiments with different malts and yeasts to develop more flavours and characteristics. One of the more interesting experiments, according to Krogstad, has been a sourdough levain for the fermentation. “It was almost on a lark and it turned out fabulous, so we are making more of that,” he says. Barrel trading is another inexhaustible playground for flavour development. When the team empties their barrels, they give them to neighbouring breweries for maturing their “big, 10%” imperial stouts for a year to 18 months. The will then return them to Westward 
where whiskies will get a final finish for a year. The process is then repeated ad infinitum. Rather than bringing in barrels from Spain or Portugal, Westward opts to work with local wineries, breweries, and tea and coffee companies. When we speak, Krogstad is wandering around a “buddy’s vineyard” for a photoshoot. The indefatigable founder created a Tempranillo-finished whiskey after he was given a warped butt a few years ago that “turned out fantastic” with red fruit, dried cherry and redcurrant flavours. Every experiment is another learning opportunity for the Portland distillery and its founder and Krogstad speaks about all of them with equal excitement. “I didn’t start this because I created some Business School brief. I started the distillery because I was brewing and I loved brewing. And I loved whisk(e)y and I wanted to do something interesting and bring something new to the conversation.” The whiskey conversation has certainly changed since Krogstad founded the distillery in 2004. When he and seven others created the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission five years ago, there were a handful of members. Today, there are 160 – approximately 60 have products on the market and the remaining 100 are all ageing their liquid. A huge number considering the Federal Government has yet to recognise the category. “It is all about transparency and authenticity now,” Westland’s Chris Riesbeck says. “Brands like Westland will win that war because we were designed with that in mind. "From day one, we really wanted to be authentic [and] we wanted to be transparent. People should know what’s in a bottle of whiskey, they should be able to say without any sort of hesitation – when I buy a bottle of Westland, what am I getting? Well, you’re getting 100% malted barley, distilled in a single distillery, bottled no less than 40% ABV and aged in oak casks with no specificity to an age statement.”

When it comes to the future and the 160-plus American single malt producers, Krogstad says saturation in spirits is a long way off. “In brewing, every six or seven years you get a plateau in the market and everyone confuses a plateau with a collapse. This is the fourth or fifth time I have seen people worrying that the brewing industry is saturated, and I don’t know if it is or isn’t, but what I do know is that comparing the spirits industry to the beer industry, spirits is not saturated.”

Westland is days away from launching the realisation of its 10-year varietal-specific project with the latest addition to its Outpost Range – Colere Edition 1. “It is a really important thing for this distillery philosophically and frankly emotionally,” Riesbeck says. “It’s hard not to get a little misty-eyed about it. The idea was that we should create this not simply because we can but we should create something genuine because this region deserves it.” Browse American whiskey or read more Editorial 

For many, the words “American whiskey” conjure up images of Kentucky, Bourbon and Rye. Two equally innovative and candid producers tell Holly Motion why the Pacific Northwest is perfectly primed to create sensational American single malts

Two key Pacific Northwest whisky producers, Westland and Westward, explain how the region is primed to create remarkable American single malts.

Exploring the potential of American single malts

A new flavour frontier

Albiera Antinori è la prima donna a prendere il timone dell'impero Antinori. E "impero" non è un'esagerazione per una dinastia che raggiunse la fama alla fine del XIII secolo, facendo fortuna nel commercio della seta e in seguito nel settore bancario. La famiglia produce vino almeno dal 1385, quando Giovanni di Pietro Antinori si iscrisse all'arte dei viticoltori di Firenze. Per fare un paragone, questo avvenne prima della stampa della Bibbia di Gutenberg, prima della caduta di Costantinopoli, prima che Cristoforo Colombo salpasse per le Americhe. 
Oggi, oltre sei secoli dopo, i Marchesi Antinori possiedono quasi 3.000 ettari di vigneti in 21 tenute (oltre a terreni dedicati a boschi, uliveti ecc.) sparse in tutto il mondo, ed è tra le aziende familiari più antiche al mondo (al decimo posto a livello mondiale). Un tempo parte dell'élite aristocratica italiana, la famiglia Medici potrebbe essersi estinta, ma gli Antinori – come i Ricasoli – esercitano ancora un'influenza significativa. 
Guardando Albiera Antinori sullo schermo, tuttavia, è difficile collegare questo pedigree alla donna di fronte a me. Ora 58enne, lei – insieme alle sue due sorelle – rappresenta la 26a generazione della famiglia. Pelle olivastra, rilassata e con un sorriso gentile, si rimette gli occhiali in testa una volta risolti gli inevitabili problemi tecnici, accomodandosi sulla sedia per la nostra videochiamata Zoom. Potrebbe essere una delle figure più influenti del vino italiano, ma non si direbbe. La vendemmia è appena iniziata mentre ci sediamo a parlare della sua famiglia e della sua eredità – un periodo che ricorda con affetto da bambina. È cresciuta a Firenze, ma ha trascorso weekend e vacanze a Bolgheri o alla Tenuta Tignanello nel Chianti, e il vino era semplicemente parte della vita. Alcuni dei suoi primi ricordi sono della vendemmia e del sorseggiare vino (diluito con un goccio d'acqua) durante la cena a Tignanello, riunita attorno al tavolo con il nonno, Niccolò Antinori, e il resto della famiglia. 
Fu quando Albiera finì la scuola che il vino passò in primo piano. Non sapeva ancora cosa volesse fare e – con la vendemmia al Castello della Sala che sarebbe iniziata di lì a poche settimane – suo padre, Piero Antinori, le suggerì di lavorare lì, in modo da guadagnare almeno un po' di soldi mentre cercava di capire come funzionasse la situazione. "Da quel momento in poi, è stata una specie di valanga", dice sorridendo. Una volta che l'uva era matura, i vini dovevano essere prodotti, c'erano vigneti da curare e piantare, e presto si ritrovò a viaggiare, raccontando al mondo i vini prodotti dalla sua famiglia. Era caduta nella tana del Bianconiglio. 
Si è mai interrogata sulla strada non intrapresa? No, è la risposta breve, mi dice, e ha potuto conciliare le sue altre passioni con il lavoro per Antinori. Prendiamo l'architettura: ha supervisionato la costruzione di 12 cantine durante il suo mandato, lavorando a stretto contatto con il team per sviluppare l'edificio perfetto per ciascuna. Ha preso ufficialmente le redini dell'azienda nel 2017, ma, essendo la primogenita, è quasi caduta nel ruolo di CEO. Potrà anche essere al vertice dell'albero genealogico, ma è un'azienda di famiglia in tutto e per tutto. Lavora a stretto contatto con le sue sorelle, entrambe vicepresidenti (Alessia supervisiona la vinificazione e Allegra gestisce i vari ristoranti dell'azienda). Anche il padre Piero, che ora si avvicina ai 90 anni, è ancora in ufficio tutti i giorni. 
Il nome Antinori è da tempo associato all'innovazione. Il nonno di Albiera, Niccolò, è stato uno dei primi a rivoluzionare il Chianti. Nel 1924, introdusse varietà bordolesi nel Chianti Villa Antinori di famiglia, un atto scandaloso all'epoca. Il cognato di Niccolò era Mario Incisa della Rocchetta, che piantò Cabernet Sauvignon nella Tenuta San Guido di sua moglie nel 1944. Inizialmente il vino veniva prodotto per la famiglia e gli amici, ma quando Piero Antinori (figlio di Niccolò e padre di Albiera) assunse la gestione dell'azienda di famiglia nel 1966, ne intuì il potenziale. Giacomo Tachis, l'enologo Antinori, iniziò a vinificare il vino e ad affinarlo in rovere francese nuovo. Nel 1971, Piero convinse lo zio a commercializzare l'annata 1968: nacque il Sassicaia, e il movimento dei Super Tuscan. Non passò molto tempo prima che Piero proponesse la sua proposta, lanciando la prima annata (1971) di Tignanello – un blend di Sangiovese e Cabernet della loro omonima tenuta nel Chianti Classico – nel 1978. A breve seguì Solaia (prodotto per la prima volta nel 1978). "L'equilibrio tra innovazione e tradizione è sempre qualcosa di molto delicato", afferma Albiera. Lo spirito rivoluzionario della famiglia sopravvive, ma è consapevole che la loro storia, la loro eredità e la loro tradizione rappresentano "una vera risorsa", da non trascurare nell'attuale mercato vinicolo globale. Mentre un tempo dovevano imporre al mondo il riconoscimento della qualità del vino italiano, ora la loro attenzione si concentra sulla celebrazione coltivare varietà locali e creare vini fedeli al loro terroir. Questo vale per tutte le loro tenute, non più solo in Toscana, ma dalla Puglia al Piemonte, e anche oltre, con proprietà in Cile e California (tra cui Stag's Leap Wine Cellars). In sostanza, tuttavia, la loro filosofia può essere riassunta in una parola, dice: qualità. 
La generazione successiva è già a bordo, con i figli di Albiera, Vittorio e Verdiana, che lavorano al suo fianco. Il loro percorso è stato completamente diverso: università, master e esperienza in cantine di tutto il mondo, un passo più consapevole nell'azienda di famiglia. Non c'era, tuttavia, modo di negare il loro destino. 
Essere un Antinori, dice Albiera, "significa una responsabilità verso le persone che lavorano con noi, verso la storia che abbiamo e verso la terra che coltiviamo... un impegno solido e costante nel fare le cose bene, nel fare le cose con intelligenza, nel fare cose che durino nel tempo". Dopo sei secoli di attività e un portfolio di tenute in tutto il mondo, questa responsabilità continua a crescere, ma è un dovere che gli Antinori sembrano particolarmente adatti a gestire. 
La nuova annata di Solaia (2022) è ora disponibile 
Esplora tutti gli attuali prodotti Antinori o leggi di più. Editoriale

Gli Antinori sono una delle famiglie più famose d'Italia. In occasione dell'uscita della nuova annata di Solaia, abbiamo incontrato Albiera Antinori, CEO e Presidente dell'azienda di famiglia, rappresentante di 26a generazione.

Sitting down with Albiera Antinori – CEO of Marchesi Antinori, company that created Super Tuscan Tignanello to find out more about their wine dynasty 

Talking to Albiera Antinori about the family’s wine empire 

L'impero Antinori

Matthew Fioretti non è esattamente il tipo che piace a tutti. L’uomo al timone di Cerbaiona non usa mezzi termini – e ha opinioni ben definite su, beh, praticamente tutto, sospetto. Ma è anche incrollabilmente onesto, con un approccio schietto che risulta piacevolmente rinfrescante – e piuttosto insolito nel mondo del vino di pregio. Ha una visione e una storia da raccontare, ma non è una narrazione costruita da un’agenzia di PR; è la sua. 
 Fioretti è da tempo coinvolto nel mondo del vino, avendo gestito un’attività d’importazione negli Stati Uniti (Summa Vitis), focalizzata principalmente sui vini italiani. Si è trasferito in Italia nel 2004 e ha chiuso l’operazione Summa Vitis nel 2009, puntando a produrre vino in prima persona. Dopo alcuni tentativi infruttuosi, ha saputo che Diego Molinari – storico proprietario di Cerbaiona – stava cercando di ritirarsi. Insieme a un gruppo di investitori (il più importante dei quali è il collezionista americano Gary Rieschel), Fioretti ha acquistato la proprietà nel 2015, per una cifra che si dice si aggiri intorno ai 5,8 milioni di euro. 
 Molinari era ormai negli ottant’anni e, sebbene il sito fosse eccezionale, la proprietà era in cattive condizioni e necessitava di interventi. Come riportato qualche anno fa, Fioretti ha intrapreso subito un progetto radicale di restauro della tenuta e ha inaspettatamente deciso di declassare le annate 2014 e 2015 a Rosso di Montalcino, rilasciando solo nel 2021 il primo Brunello dell’era Fioretti, con l’annata 2016 – la prima interamente realizzata dal nuovo team. Ora, quasi un decennio dopo, Fioretti sta iniziando a realizzare la sua visione per la tenuta – come abbiamo scoperto durante una visita all’inizio di quest’anno, affrontando problemi che “non sono facili da risolvere”. La sfida, spiega, è stata quella di evolversi da “artigiano” a “atelier”. Sotto Molinari, la proprietà aveva acquisito una reputazione leggendaria, ma l’operazione era rudimentale – una tradizionale impresa familiare che faceva le cose come si erano sempre fatte. Fioretti vuole portare la tenuta nell’era moderna, elevando il terroir con precisione tecnica per creare vini che continuino l’eredità di Cerbaiona. È, dice, “una transizione che non mi aspettavo di fare”, ma che considera essenziale per salvaguardare il futuro di Cerbaiona. 
 La distinzione tra artigiano e atelier è sottile – ma si riduce a un’enfasi sull’artigianato più che sull’arte, con un impegno verso la coerenza, per cui precisione e igiene in cantina sono fondamentali, così come un elevato livello di conoscenza tecnica. Ammette di aver immaginato un approccio più “hands-off” in cantina, dopo aver importato molti vini naturali nella sua precedente carriera, ma ha rapidamente capito che la vinificazione di alto livello è piena di “compromessi necessari” (scendendo in dettagli come il problema della quercetina). Come mestiere, la vinificazione non può essere soggetta ai “capricci del produttore”, come suggerisce sia tipico dell’approccio artigianale. “Preferisco lavorare in modo più meticoloso,” spiega. 
 L’americano parla a ritmo serrato, passando da TS Eliot e il concetto di “critico puro” ad Albertolli e al neoclassicismo, in mezzo a dettagli tecnici su chiarifiche e filtrazioni. La tenuta è chiusa ai visitatori, deliberatamente, per evitare distrazioni da ciò su cui Fioretti vuole concentrarsi – fare vino. Mentre ci guida rapidamente attraverso la cantina, con la testa che ci gira cercando di assorbire ogni dettaglio, ci illustra esattamente come sta portando una nuova esattezza all’operazione. I vigneti sono stati tutti ripiantati e un oliveto in forte pendenza è stato sostituito da viti, con portinnesti e cloni selezionati provenienti dal vivaio Guillaume in Francia, per garantire la migliore materia prima possibile. Un tempo considerato troppo impegnativo da coltivare, Fioretti è convinto che l’ex oliveto possa essere il miglior sito della proprietà. Le vecchie stalle e il granaio che fungevano da cantina e deposito sono stati accuratamente ristrutturati, con l’installazione di impianti idrici e di drenaggio in tutto l’edificio, e l’aggiornamento di tutte le attrezzature. Elemento importante, Fioretti ha aggiunto un laboratorio interno completo – qualcosa di estremamente raro per una tenuta di queste dimensioni, tanto più in Italia, dove l’approccio high-tech non è affatto la norma. 
 L’uva ora viene tutta raffreddata dopo la vendemmia, diraspata e sottoposta a macerazione a freddo, utilizzando gas inerte per proteggere il mosto. Sebbene per le sue prime cinque annate Fioretti avesse utilizzato tini di legno verticali per la fermentazione, è passato all’acciaio inox per una migliore igiene e controllo della temperatura (preferendo un massimo di 26°C), oltre a poter programmare automaticamente rimontaggi e follature. Ha iniziato a co-inoculare per la fermentazione primaria e malolattica, così che i vini vadano in botte molto puliti – e possano essere solforati immediatamente. 
 Si tratta di aggiustamenti, modernizzazioni minori, ma uno dei cambiamenti più significativi che Fioretti sta apportando riguarda il tempo che il vino trascorre nel legno. Mentre Molinari prediligeva oltre quattro anni in tonneaux da 500 litri, Fioretti ha iniziato gradualmente a imbottigliare prima e utilizza una combinazione di barrique da 350 litri e botti da 15 ettolitri. “Anche due anni [il minimo imposto dal disciplinare] nel legno sono troppi,” afferma – prima di riconoscere subito che questa opinione è tutt’altro che accettata, e che legalmente non può ridurla ulteriormente. I vari consorzi forse non la apprezzano, ma è una visione sempre più comune tra i giovani produttori in Italia, frustrati dai requisiti minimi di affinamento in rovere e dal loro contrasto con i vini che i consumatori di oggi vogliono bere. Come dice Fioretti, tuttavia, “La nozione di legno è molto delicata.” E anche se preferirebbe poter affinare il vino in altri contenitori durante i primi due anni di vita, riconosce che l’élevage in rovere ha un impatto benefico sulla chimica del vino – aiutando la stabilità. Con un vino così amato, potrebbe sembrare controverso cambiare qualsiasi cosa – specialmente il modo in cui viene prodotto, ma questo non ha fermato Fioretti. Guardando alle vecchie annate della tenuta, persino alla leggendaria 2010 da 100 punti, talvolta rimane deluso, ritenendo che il potenziale sia molto più alto. Parte del suo piano per riflettere quel potenziale è imbottigliare prima, permettendo al frutto di emergere e dare al vino un miglior equilibrio – qualcosa che ritiene fondamentale per il potenziale di invecchiamento. È anche attento a mantenere il grado alcolico moderato, con un massimo di 14 o 14,2%, anche negli anni più caldi. E, cosa più importante, dice, un buon vino deve essere delizioso. Dopo aver assaggiato le annate 2019 e 2021 con Fioretti – i risultati, finora, lo sono davvero. C’è una vivacità e una purezza che li rendono irresistibili, senza sacrificare la struttura che permetterà a questi vini di durare nel tempo. 
 Accanto a Cerbaiona, Fioretti ha anche creato l’etichetta M.L. Fioretti, che descrive come “parte garagiste, parte petit château”. Era desideroso di esplorare vitigni autoctoni, che “fanno parte della famiglia – ma non sono tutti purosangue”, così come parcelle di varietà bordolesi (uve di pedigree indiscutibile) – purché piantate nel posto giusto. Il Casaglia Colorino è brillante e speziato, mentre il San Vito (purtroppo l’ultima annata è la 2021) è un Merlot meravigliosamente ricco e vibrante. Sono vini affascinanti che permettono a Fioretti di sperimentare di più – al di fuori dei vincoli della denominazione Brunello di Montalcino. 
 In modo controverso, Fioretti ha dichiarato Cerbaiona una “No Scores Zone”, riecheggiando il sentimento di Teobaldo Cappellano secondo cui i punteggi numerici sono divisivi, nella migliore delle ipotesi – e non rendono giustizia all’arte della vinificazione. Nelle sue note sull’annata 2018, Fioretti ha scritto: “Questa è un’altra annata per il conoscitore, il vero amante del vino e della vite. Pazienza se il ‘collezionista’ ne resterà privo.” Parole che potrebbero far storcere il naso a qualcuno, ma la motivazione è chiara: una passione sincera per il vino. È qualcosa che traspare chiaramente nella nostra conversazione – e nei vini che sta producendo. Non troverete valutazioni online per le nuove annate di Cerbaiona, ma una cosa è certa: li vorrete nella vostra cantina. 
 Esplora tutte le attuali offerte di Cerbaiona e M.L. Fioretti, o leggi di più sull’Italia

Finora non avete visto recensioni di Cerbaiona sotto la guida di Matthew Fioretti. Con l’arrivo dei primi punteggi delle ultime uscite, è utile considerarli nel giusto contesto: il focus resta su artigianalità e precisione tecnica. Nel 2024 abbiamo parlato con l’enologo alla guida del cambiamento.

It’s all change at the cult Brunello di Montalcino winery Cerbaiona since Matthew Fioretti took over in 2015. We sat down with him to find out more.

Change at Cerbaiona – Matthew Fioretti

Cambio a Cerbaiona: Matteo Fioretti

American Recordings

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