On Tuscany: From Brunello to Bolgheri, Tales from the Heart of Italy with Susan Keevil

Natalie MacLean
Mar12th

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Introduction

How was Brunello discovered? How did the medieval sharecropping system help to shape Tuscany’s wine landscape? What’s the origin of the iconic black rooster symbol of Chianti Classico?

In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with Susan Keevil, editor of the beautiful hardcover On Tuscany: From Brunello to Bolgheri, Tales from the Heart of Italy.

You can find the wines we discussed here.

 

Giveaway

Two of you are going to win a copy of her terrific book, On Tuscany: From Brunello to Bolgheri, Tales from the Heart of Italy.

 

How to Win

To qualify, all you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast.

It takes less than 30 seconds: On your phone, scroll to the bottom here, where the reviews are, and click on “Tap to Rate.”

After that, scroll down a tiny bit more and click on “Write a Review.” That’s it!

I’ll choose two people randomly from those who contact me.

Good luck!

 

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Join the live-stream video of this conversation on Wednesday at 7 pm eastern on Instagram Live Video, Facebook Live Video or YouTube Live Video.

I’ll be jumping into the comments as we watch it together so that I can answer your questions in real-time.

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Highlights

  • What inspired Susan to take on the monumental task of compiling and editing On Tuscany?
  • How is On Tuscany different from other books about the region?
  • What was the most captivating wine story Susan uncovered while working on the book?
  • What was the most surprising insight about Tuscany that Susan discovered while putting together On Tuscany?
  • Why did the timeframe pose the biggest challenge in compiling the book?
  • How did Susan discover and select literary gems about Tuscany from historic writers?
  • Why was it important to Susan to write about the Etruscans?
  • What surprised Susan about the ancient Etruscans’ relationship with wine?
  • How did the medieval sharecropping system help to shape Tuscany’s wine landscape?
  • What role did the Medici family play in shaping the wine culture in Tuscany?
  • What was the crisis of Chianti Classico in the 70s and 80s and how did it redefine the future of Tuscan wines?
  • What’s the origin of the iconic black rooster symbol of Chianti Classico?
  • Why does Tuscany continue to dominate media and culture when it comes to wine?
  • What’s the history behind the Chianti fiasco?

 

Key Takeaways

  • How was Brunello discovered?
    • Susan says that from 1875 to 1930, the Biondi Santi family hid bottles of brunello bricked up behind a wall. So after the war, they had these wonderful vintages, and they could say, look how it’s aged because they didn’t know it aged so well at that stage. That was how the discovery of Brunello came about because they brought these cellared wines to feasts and grand occasions with politicians and monarchs.
  • How did the medieval sharecropping system help to shape Tuscany’s wine landscape?
    • Susan observes that it made it beautiful to start with, because we’re talking about small holdings. Small farmers gave 40% of what they produced to the owner, the feudal lord, but they had to eke out a living too. So they had their plot of vines, their plot of olive groves, and they put up their cypress trees to defend them from the winds. That gave the beauty to the countryside, because it makes it a jigsaw, it gives it texture when you look at the hills. That way of farming has set up the beauty of Tuscany that we know today. But of course, there was a lot of poverty that went alongside it.
  • What’s the origin of the iconic black rooster symbol of Chianti Classico?
    • Susan explains that it came from the 14th century when Siena and Florence were warring as to who was going to be the most powerful of those two towns. They had an agreement that they would send out a horse rider – a knight – early one morning, and wherever those two knights met, would be the boundary between Florence and Siena. And so the Sienese, they fed their white cockerel well, and they said, right, you’re going to crow nicely tomorrow morning, wake us up, and then we’ll set our horseman off going. And then the Florentines had a black cockerel, and they starved theirs. I think some people say they drowned him. So he was so nervous that he woke up early and crowed really early. And so their horse rider set off really super early, and they got to within 12 miles of Siena. So the black cockerel is all about strength and having the biggest area.

 

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Although Tuscan wine history goes back to the Etruscans and before, the last 70 years have been exciting; that’s when it really started to change. - Susan Keevil Susan Keevil Click to tweet

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The Chianti Classico black rooster is all about strength and dominance. - Susan Keevil Susan Keevil Click to tweet

 

About Susan Keevil

Susan Keevil is the Editorial Director of Académie du Vin Library, where she has played a pivotal role in establishing and nurturing this esteemed wine publishing house. A former editor of Decanter magazine, she has dedicated her career to the world of wine, from editorial leadership to in-depth exploration of the industry.

A former Master of Wine student, Susan successfully completed the theory papers, and while she didn’t pursue the final stage, her deep knowledge and enthusiasm for wine remain central to her work. She has a particular love for curating wine anthologies, bringing together the works of her favourite wine writers into beautifully crafted books that celebrate the culture and stories behind fine wine.

 

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Transcript

Natalie MacLean 00:00:00 How was Brunello discovered? How did the medieval sharecropping system help shape Tuscany’s wine landscape? What’s the origin of the iconic black rooster symbol for Chianti Classico? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in our chat with Susan Keevil, editor of the beautiful book On Tuscany: From Brunello to Bolgheri, Tales from the Heart of Italy. By the end of our conversation, you’ll also discover what inspired Susan to take on the monumental task of compiling and editing on Tuscany. How on Tuscany is different from other books about the region. Most captivating wine story Susan uncovered while working on the book. The most surprising insight that she discovered about the region. How Susan discovered and selected literary gems about Tuscany from historic writers. Why it was important to Susan to write about the ancient Etruscans. What surprised Susan about the Etruscans relationship with wine. The Medici family’s role in shaping wine culture in Tuscany. The crisis of Chianti Classico in the 1970s and 80s and how that redefined the future of their wines. How Tuscany continues to dominate media and culture when it comes to wine and the history behind the Chianti fiasco, the flask bottle that often became a candle holder in the 1970s.

Natalie MacLean 00:01:542 Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places, and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean. And each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started. Welcome to episode 328. So recently I was on Global’s morning show to chat about boxed wines. Yes, you heard that correctly. Did you know that boxed wines are having a moment? But really, can they compete with bottled wines? Well, you’re about to find out. I’m here to help you think outside the box and drink inside it. Yep. Cannot resist.

Natalie MacLean 00:02:56

So what’s changed about boxed wines that we may remember not so fondly from college days? Everything. So don’t think of these as Château Cardboard-eaux. They’re actually one of the fastest-growing categories in the liquor store, with premium boxed wines driving the growth. In fact, there’s even an international competition for boxed wines held in France every year – the spiritual home of wine tradition. Mon dieu! Sacrilege. N’est-ce pas? The quality has improved dramatically, and I brought some excellent examples for the hosts to try to prove my point.

I also had the morning show hosts Carolyn and Jeff taste these wines without knowing which was the boxed wine and which was the bottled, as I had shuffled them around in prepared, unlabelled glasses. So they had to guess which was which while they tasted the wines.

I shared some background on them, starting with La Vieille Ferme (or The Old Farm) from France, which was recently declared the It Wine du Vin by Bon Appétit magazine. It’s been getting a lot of attention from influencers on social media, calling it the “chicken wine” (referring to the illustration on the box) – and obviously that’s easier to say than La Vieille Ferme.

And you may notice right now I have a bit of a cold, so bear with me as I scrape through with what’s left of my voice for the rest of this episode. So La Vieille Ferme is a fresh, crisp white wine that offers aromas of green apple, lemon zest and white flowers. The palate is vibrant with notes of pear and mineral freshness. I pair it with a light-as-air, citrus-kissed poached salmon salad with tender little baby greens, crisp cucumber ribbons and a warm quinoa salad tossed in a lemony vinaigrette.

We also had a bottled white wine blend of Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay from XOXO from Canada that’s in a similar price point on a per-litre basis, so we are comparing apples to apples – or I guess in this case, grapes. This bottle brings together the best of both varietals with bright citrus notes, golden apple and tropical fruit. The finish is clean and refreshing, and I’d pair that one with a delicate herb-roasted sea bass served with steamed asparagus tips and a light lemon-caper sauce that perfectly complements the wine’s brightness.

Natalie MacLean 00:05:23 The packaging is quite different for boxed wines versus traditional bottles, so what are the advantages? One four-litre box equals more than five regular bottles (which are of course 750 ml). They have half the carbon footprint of bottled wines because they’re lighter to transport and use just one box versus five bottles, caps, labels, capsules, etc. They’re also easier to recycle, more biodegradable, and create less waste. Reduced packaging also translates into savings for you – plus, there’s no bottle deposit.

Okay, voting time hosts – with your paddles! Do you think wine number one is the boxed or the bottled wine? They guessed, and our winner (chicken dinner!) – Carolyn was correct in her guess, while Jeff held up the blank side of the voting paddle. He was such a good sport about it though, and made fun of himself, but he also guessed incorrectly when he managed to turn around the paddle, proving my point that the quality of boxed wines makes it hard to tell them from bottled wines these days.

So then we moved on to two Rosés that tasted like summer in a glass with their fresh field strawberries and watermelon notes and crisp, mouthwatering finishes.

Natalie MacLean 00:06:49 The boxed rosé was from Peller Family Vineyards and the bottled was Honest Lot Rosé, both Canadian. I’d pair them with a Mediterranean-inspired grilled shrimp skewer with charred lemon, fresh herbs and a light drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, served on a bed of warm couscous or pan-seared sesame seed-crusted tuna, served rare with a light wasabi-ginger vinaigrette and microgreens. So boxed wine is also perfect for entertaining because it’s convenient, there’s no risk of accidentally breaking a bottle. You don’t need a corkscrew to get into it, and you don’t need to cellar it. They’re best consumed young, of course, I’m referring to the wine, not the drinker. Plus, there’s no pressure to finish an open bottle, which can encourage moderation. But if you are really tied up in knots about presentation, here’s an insider tip. Just decant the wine into a crystal carafe and no one will know. Still having trouble with that? Go see a therapist. You’re overthinking it. Okay. Voting time with your paddles. Do you think wine number one is boxed or bottled? Once again, Carolyn was correct and Jeff would have got the oh-oh noise if I had one. Poor man.

Natalie MacLean 00:08:07 We continued on to the red wines as I explained that the genius is in the bag-in-box technology. The wine stays fresh for up to six weeks after opening because the bag collapses, creating an airtight seal that prevents oxidation. Compare that to a bottle at the same price point, which is best consumed within a day or two of opening. Of course, boxed wines aren’t meant to be aged, so you should consume them – even an unopened boxed wine – within six months of purchase. So we tasted the Peller Family Vineyards Cabernet Merlot boxed wine, which was a smooth, medium-bodied red that delivers rich black cherry and plum flavours with some hints of vanilla and spice. I’d pair it with an herb-crusted honey-roasted chicken breast, served with roasted rainbow carrots and a light mushroom jus. Then I told the host that the wine they were trying we had poured this morning, but the box itself had been opened a week ago with a glass of wine already drawn off and discarded. Then I invited them to try, or at least sniff a different glass of red wine from a bottled wine that had been opened a week ago. The wine was, well, it was oxidized and it smelled like swamp water. Jeff didn’t hold back in his reaction of disgust, and you can just imagine the compounded impact that would have had over six weeks. My advice? Life is too short to drink bad wine, but long enough to enjoy good wine from any container.

Natalie MacLean 00:09:46 Next up, I’ll be doing segments about drinks for Spring, Easter, Earth Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and barbecue. So if you have wines, spirits, beer, cocktails or mixed drinks to suggest that I feature whether they’re alcoholic or not, please let me know. Meanwhile, I’m still reviewing my favourite wines and other drinks on Instagram at Natalie MacLean Wine. Connect with me there. Back to today’s guest. Two of you will win copies of Susan’s beautiful new hardcover book On Tuscany: From Brunello to Bolgheri, Tales from the Heart of Italy.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:26 I also still have two copies of Fiona Morrison’s 10 Great Wine Families: A tour through Europe, and two of Rosemary George’s book The Wines of Languedoc. These are gorgeous books. All of them have full color photos and maps. All you have to do is email me and let me know that you like to win. I’ll choose six winners randomly from those who contact me at [email protected]. In other bookish news, if you’re reading the paperback or e-book or listening to the audiobook of my memoir Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much, a national bestseller and one of Amazon’s best books of the year, I’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. I would be happy, thrilled over the moon to send you beautifully designed, personally signed book plates for the copies you buy or give us gifts. I’ll put a link in the show notes to all retailers worldwide at nataliemaclean.com/328. The paperback usually arrives within a day or two of ordering. The e-book and audiobook are instantly available. Okay, on with the show.

Natalie MacLean 00:11:28 Susan Keevil is the editorial director of Académie du Vin Library. She also helped set it up and nurture this wine publishing company. And that project has been both a passion and a career highlight, I should say so. They’re so successful in the books they publish. She loves creating wine anthologies and gathering the work of her favourite wine writers into beautiful books. She also enjoys wine, food, and travel, and is the past editor of Decanter magazine. She lives on a mini form in Norfolk, along with two badly behaved labrador dogs, where she raises sheep and chickens now that her three adult children have flown the coop. Now she joins us from her home in Norfolk. Welcome, Susan. I’m so glad you’re here with us.

Susan Keevil 00:12:26 Oh, thank you very much for a lovely introduction. I’m glad I’m here, too.

Natalie MacLean 00:12:30 So, Susan, what made you want to take on this monumental task of compiling and editing this really comprehensive anthology of Tuscan wine? It spans from the ancient Etruscan times to the modern day Super Tuscans.

Susan Keevil 00:12:46 It’s part of a series that we’ve created at the Académie du Vin Library, and we started with Bordeaux and then Champagne and California. And largely at Burgundy and now Tuscany. And because I want to know everything about that region, I don’t want to know. Basically I’ve compiled these books for my younger self. I was a busy person. I never thought I had time to read a whole book. So I just thought what better to do than just pick some excerpts from the very best writers and authors, journalists and commentators, and just pull them all in one volume and then piece together a story like a jigsaw and use their wonderful words. And that way we can use words from authors that are no longer with us, but we could also combine those with a sort of on the ground right now. And I just thought it was a really exciting way of bringing a region to life for today’s audience really.

Natalie MacLean 00:13:37 Absolutely. It’s a wonderful approach and I share that with you, Susan. I write sometimes to scratch my own itch. It’s a way of learning more actively than if you were just reading a book. So I get that. And I’m getting how this book might be different from other books about Tuscany, from what you’ve just said. But is there anything else you want to add that would make this book different from… Well, there have been tomes quite large on Tuscany that would differentiate it.

Susan Keevil 00:14:05 I think it’s the different voices that make it so different, telling not just one person’s opinion, it’s a host of them. And I just don’t think there are any other books quite like it. Tuscany was one of the obvious regions to choose in terms of picking one to start with, because so much has been said about it and so many people wanting to talk about it. The wines of Chianti and the Maremma, the Super Tuscans, they’re a real trigger for all this though. It’s a good melting pot to pick.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:29 Yeah, absolutely. There’s something almost mythical, too, about Tuscany. The villas sitting atop rolling hills, the golden light filtering through the cypress trees and centuries of history in a bottle. What was the most romantic wine stories or captivating wine story that you uncovered while working on this book?

Susan Keevil 00:14:48 You’re right. It really is a dreamy region. And I thought, well it is romantic. But it is first of all, Hugh Johnson and Carla Capalbo, they write about what you’ve just said. They write about the hilltops and the cypress trees and the way it looks, and their writing really evokes that adventuring, venturing into that part of the country. There’s also Monte Walden’s story of the Biondi Santi family and the rise of Brunello di Montalcino. I mean, that’s got some real romance to it. The struggle through the wars and through hardship and becoming magnificent in the end.

Natalie MacLean 00:15:19 Were they fighting in the war? Their winery was attacked during the war. What kind of struggles were they dealing?

Susan Keevil 00:15:24 I mean, they had to hide some Brunello bottles. I think it was from 1875 to 1930s something. They bricked up behind a wall and hid away so that nobody could discover them. And that meant that, after the war, they had these wonderful vintages and they could say, look, we have this beautiful wine. Look how it’s aged, because they didn’t know it aged so well at that stage. And so that was really after the war. That’s how the discovery of Brunello came about, because they brought these cellared wines to be locked away. They brought them to feasts and grand occasions with politicians and monarchs so that they could be discovered.  Later on in the book, we have an author whose writing in 1784 she’s called Hester Lynch. She didn’t run away to Tuscany, but she was married and she had 12 children.

Natalie MacLean 00:16:12 Oh my goodness. How on earth did she have time to write?

Susan Keevil 00:16:14 Don’t know.

Natalie MacLean 00:16:15 let alone no sleep?

Susan Keevil 00:16:17 I’m missing information. But she then, when her husband unfortunately died, she remarried the music teacher, and he was Italian. And so they went off and explored. And so her version of Tuscany, I think, is quite romantic.

Natalie MacLean 00:16:29 Oh yeah, quite a different take.

Susan Keevil 00:16:32 Yes, there’s lots of romance in the book world, but that’s not what I’ve really thought about before.

Natalie MacLean 00:16:36 No, no. Yeah. It could be an ideal story, but those are. You’ve just named three different, very different takes. So what was the most surprising insight about Tuscany itself that you discovered while putting together the anthology? One sort of thing that stood out?

Susan Keevil 00:16:51 So I like white wine as well as red, and obviously Tuscany is 90% red, but I just this wonderful story. So there’s merchant of Prato. Francesco Daphne was his name. He was a merchant. And all of his volumes, all of his diaries, his account books, the records of all of his transactions, his wines, everything he bought and sold were found bricked up behind a chimney in the village where he lived in 1870. So they’d been there for 500 years.

Natalie MacLean 00:17:24 Oh my goodness.

Susan Keevil 00:17:24 In those books, they found that actually the wines of the Chianti at the time that he was trading in were white. Who would believe it? I think it’s those diaries that were a revelation to me. It was just like, that’s amazing. Something been buried for 500 years. I mean, something that’s diaries buried that long or hidden that long in this country would be squirrels’ bedding. You know, they’d be gone. So it was really wonderful. That was the most surprising thing.

Natalie MacLean 00:17:47 And so back then, the majority of the wines were white, or the majority of what he wrote about were white or the both.

Susan Keevil 00:17:53 I think it was that white wine in those days was the thing. It was what people wanted to drink. And who knew?

Natalie MacLean 00:17:59 Yeah, who knew? Well, now we do. But that would be surprising. What was the most difficult part of writing the book?

Susan Keevil 00:18:06 I guess the time frame. It’s quite a lot to do to pull together the work of authors from the past. I mean, that means discovering them and going down rabbit holes and finding that what another alludes to, and then researching and finding that book. But also then finding out what the gaps are, and finding a journalist to write a new piece and wait for them to finish it and edit it and just merging everything together and then finding beautiful pictures to illustrate everything. I think it’s time frame, really. That’s the hardest.

Natalie MacLean 00:18:36 Managing all those disparate pieces. It’s not like you’re writing it yourself, so you’re depending on many pieces as the jigsaw puzzle you mentioned. So are the photos in the book colour full colour or are they…

Susan Keevil 00:18:48 All beautiful colour photographs and it’s designed by my colleague Tim Foster, who is absolutely brilliant,. He’s a very experienced book designer, so the whole package is really beautiful and really I’m proud of it.

Natalie MacLean 00:18:57 Wonderful. For those listening, you can watch the video, but yes beautiful. So it’s hardcover and then maybe just flip open to maybe a few pictures. Yeah, I can see it when you hold it to the camera. Okay, double page spreads. Oh my gosh those rolling hills bathed in golden sunlight. That is stunning. That would be a lovely coffee table book. Although you should also read it. Beautiful grapes picture. Awesome. The other thing that I noticed about this beautiful book is that there are a lot of literary influences, which thrills me. D.H. Lawrence, the writer, described the Etruscans as having a profound connection to touch, texture, and life itself. So you’ve included fascinating excerpts from historic writers like him and Hester Lynch Thrale. What was the process for discovering and selecting these literary gems about Tuscany? How’d you go about that?

Susan Keevil 00:19:56 I was desperate for somebody to write about the the Etruscans. And because they were actually obliterated by the Romans, nobody knows anything about them. And so to discover that D.H. Lawrence had actually been in, investigated and was a passion of his and made diaries of his visits and his journey there.  I was just, I have to have this writing. And so I was really lucky. And then getting permission to use his words was another sort of big issue, even though it was nearly 100 years ago since he wrote them. They’re very sort of preciously guarded by Cambridge University here. So I was very lucky to be able to use those. So there’s a lot of process in using these pieces. And how did I find them? Well, I just wanted to illustrate the Etruscans.

Natalie MacLean 00:20:37 Absolutely. And I’m going to reveal my ignorance of history. So the Etruscans, I can see the connection. Tuscany, Etruscans. They were the civilization there before the Romans invaded or…

Susan Keevil 00:20:46 They were. They were pre-Roman. So for as long as we can know, pre-Roman. And you see these beautiful statues of them in museums, but we don’t know anything. None of their words have survived, because the Romans didn’t get on with them, and they obliterated virtually all trace of them. They were there.We don’t know for how long, but we know they love wine. And that’s why I’ve included them in this book, because they gave Tuscany its name.

Natalie MacLean 00:21:10 Fascinating. And the book opens with, I’m probably butchering most of these names and their pronunciations, but Cozumel Malaparte’s poetic description of the Tuscan winds. I’ll just say it quickly. His description of the Tuscan winds. How does he describe the Tuscan winds? And why did you choose this sort of atmospheric piece to begin the book?

Susan Keevil 00:21:34 Because of the atmosphere it creates. I wanted to know why Tuscany is the way it is and why the people are where they are. And then I discovered… I can’t pronounce it. I know why. Why are we Tuscans this way? Why are we bitter at heart? Why are we shaped? And one of his chapters is about the winds that shape the land. And I just thought it was beautiful. He’s s strange character, but he just has some lovely words. Every land he says is distinguished by the way it breathes. That to me is just gorgeous. And if it’s distinguished by the winds and the vines are surely influenced by these things, too. And the winds that come from the land and from the people. They are all part of the wind and that the geography of the place and it’s all part of terroir. And I thought a great way to start the book because it gets you a feel of the place.

Natalie MacLean 00:22:23 Yeah. The way the land breathes, the winds, that is beautiful and evocative because most wine books have an intro that’s mostly about the writers in the book or whatever or summary of the book. But that’s very evocative. And of course, we know that winds are great for – up to a point for grapes – because they keep them dry and from rotting. And so that makes grapes healthier and wine better. So cool. What surprised you most about the ancient Etruscans relationship with wine while you were researching the book? The culture seems remarkably sophisticated for existing 2500 years ago?

Susan Keevil 00:22:59 Yes. I mean, I was just glad that they were there. Wine was part of their lives and so it seemed to be a ceremonial thing. We know from the tomb paintings that D.H. Lawrence visited that they had bottles that they drank from during their festivals and their lovely dinners. And, I think it was an important part of their culture. We don’t know much more than that. We don’t know the vines, and we don’t know how they made wine, but they must have been surrounded by vines, whether they were climbing up trees or on pergolas, I don’t know. But you know that they celebrated wine.

Natalie MacLean 00:23:35 Well, got us off to a good start then. What role do you think the medieval sharecropping system, I guess it’s known as Mezzadria, played in shaping Tuscany’s landscape.

Susan Keevil 00:23:47 It made it beautiful to start with because we’re talking about smallholdings. We’re talking about small farmers that gave 40% of what they produced to the owner, the feudal lord. They had to kind of eke out a living, too. So they had a lot of vines there, a lot of olive groves there. And they put up their cypress trees to defend them from the winds. And I think that gave the beauty to the Tuscan countryside, because it makes it sort of much of a hotchpotch, a jigsaw. It gives it texture when you look at the hills. And I think that way of farming has set up the beauty of Tuscany that we know today. But there was a lot of poverty that sort of went alongside it. But I mean, as Hugh Johnson says that if good wine ever came of this primitive way of living, it was by accident, not design. It might have made the countryside look beautiful, but the wines weren’t necessarily beautiful to drink always.

Natalie MacLean 00:24:41 Right. They came a long way. And how about the Medici family? They were patron to the arts during the Renaissance. But how did they shape Tuscany’s wine culture?

Susan Keevil 00:24:51 The feudal lords to whom people gave a lot of their production to they did shape the way wine was developed. And Medici was responsible for dividing up Tuscany into different regions and into Chianti and Carmigiano.

Natalie MacLean 00:25:05 And so all the appellations.

Susan Keevil 00:25:08 Yes, it’s a little sort of in a broad sense. In the Arno Valley, they divided up into the main areas. Carmignano, when the hills where their hunting lodges and their holiday homes were. And they had a sort of experimental grape ground there, and they introduce Cabernet Sauvignon. Would you believe in the 15th century, when I think it was Catherine de Medici, she married Henry the second of France. And so that connection bought Cabernet Sauvignon…

Natalie MacLean 00:25:34 Cross-pollination with vines and people.

Susan Keevil 00:25:37 Yes, and we know what happened then because Cabernet Sauvignon was there in the background. And then, of course, it came to the fore much later. But the Medici did. They had an influence in terms of they have their big dinners and the big wines that they would drink, they would influence the way they developed, I think.

Natalie MacLean 00:25:53 And then came the crisis of Chianti Classico in the 70s and 80s, which largely was due to the planting I guess of the wrong clones of Sangiovese. Prioritizing quantity over quality. So how did that redefine the future of Tuscan wines?

Susan Keevil 00:26:10 It really did. And I think the bad clones also stemmed from phylloxera at the end of their 19th century and replanting had to take place with vines that could naturally work with the American rootstocks that enabled vines to survive at all. You couldn’t have any viticulture without American rootstocks. That was the big triumph. But not all of the many, many Italian clone and vines actually worked. And so they became very restricted as to the Sangiovese that they managed. But some of the other vines weren’t so healthy. And so that was the start of the kind of dilution, the kind of the loss of character, I suppose. Perhaps people chose the wrong clones and they chose the clones that produced more grapes and they could make more wine. And therefore,  they have their 40% to hand over to their lords. But it didn’t mean the quality was good. And I think the war didn’t help at all, because obviously a lot of damage to the vineyards and the properties were damaged. And also they lost a lot of their workforce. And so it came to a  stage where Chianti was so desperate that they were even looking at finding out how many herds of sheep, flocks of sheep would fill Chianti in order to sort of keep the region buoyant and productive. But fortunately it didn’t come to that. And,  after the war, things were still tough, but they began to take shape again sort of in the 1960s and 70s. At the same time as the world was waking up to the fact that Chianti was really not that that great, it was also sort of turning a corner in terms of DOC regime was stepping in, and they were…

Natalie MacLean 00:27:50 The denominazione di origine or something like that.

Susan Keevil 00:27:54 Controllata  I think. So you’re guaranteeing. The DOCG is actually guaranteeing the higher level of quality. That came a long later. But yeah, it was a tough time. And I think although Tuscan Wine has a history back to the Etruscans and before maybe, it’s really the last 70 years since the war that that’s exciting. But that’s what it really started to change.

Natalie MacLean 00:28:20 The black rooster, which is the iconic symbol of Chianti Classico. What’s the origin of that emblem, and do you think it still holds any sort of brand equity symbolic significance today?

Susan Keevil 00:28:32 I’m not so sure. I think it does. It’s good to have a quality symbol, but I think it came from the 14th century. I think when the Siena and Florence were warring it out as to who was going to be the most powerful of those two towns, and they had a had an agreement that they would send out a horse rider a night, early one morning. And where ever  those two knights met would be the boundary between Florence and Siena. And so the Senese, they fed their white cockerel well and they said you are going to crow really nice tomorrow morning, wake us up, and then we’ll set our horsemen off going. And then the Florentines had a black cockerel, and they starved theirs. And I think some people say they drowned him. So he was so nervous that he woke up early and crowed really early. So their horse riders set off really super early and they got to within 12 miles of Siena. Therefore the boundary is. So the black cockerel is all about strength. It’s all about we have the biggest area. We are the dominant Florentines.

Natalie MacLean 00:29:31 Strutting about the pen or whatever. That’s an interesting story. I mean, those poor roosters, but still, that’s a really interesting story, the way they divided it up that way. Why do you think Tuscany continues to maintain such a grip on our imaginations? I mean, we’ve talked about the beauty of the landscape and the wines are spectacular. The food, of course. Is there anything else that why Tuscany seems to rise to the top in movies and culture and so on when we think of wine.

Susan Keevil 00:30:00 I think it can be a first wine and it can be our favourite wine. It goes it spans all of that a nice Chianti from the flask in a lovely restaurant with gingham tablecloths. Of course the 70’s sort of cliche. It can be that wine, which can be really nice and just go with your pasta or it can be magnificent. You can span it right away up to the Super Tuscans and the beautiful Chiantis that we can have now. So maybe that it’s just always interesting that also its history is quite short. As I say, in 70 years a lot has happened. And so within people sort of lifetime they can see the kind of development of it. Maybe that inspires people as well.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:37 Absolutely. It is a region that meets you where you at as a wine lover. Let’s go back to those Chianti flasks. I guess they’re called fiascos. I don’t know if that’s because they were disasters in design, but people used to stick candles in them. But they were like a tubby shape. I don’t know even how to describe it. So what about the history of those?

Susan Keevil 00:30:57 Well, Burton Anderson writes a beautiful piece. He’s the guy that wrote that Wine Atlas of Italy all those years ago. He’s such a lovely writer. He wrote about the Floss, and he says the fiasco comes from that. There’s a number of reasons, but one of them is when the glassblowers are blowing those kind of quite difficult, I would say, shaped bottles that they used to break or they get it wrong. And so that was the fiasco.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:22 That’s a fiasco, right.

Susan Keevil 00:31:24 That’s so lovely. They just captured the imagination. And no other region has such a shape for its wines, does it. And store around to help them stand up. And then, of course, they were useful too. I mean, a two litre flask they’d hold the wine, but they’d also be useful for baking your beans and you could put them on the fire. And so the people used to cook them as well as store that olive oil. And so I think the massive part of. They wouldn’t have been just seen in the restaurants, they’d been seen everywhere.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:53 So not such a fiasco. Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Susan. Here are my takeaways. How was Brunello discovered? Susan says that from 1875 to 1930, the Biondi Santi family hid bottles of Brunello bricked up behind a wall. So after the war they had these wonderful vintages and they could say, look how it’s aged, because they didn’t know at that point that it aged so well. And that was how the discovery of Brunello came, because they often brought these cellared wines to feasts and grand occasions with politicians and monarchs.

Natalie MacLean 00:32:40  Number two, how did the medieval sharecropping system help to shape Tuscany’s wine landscape? Susan observes that it made it beautiful to start with because we’re talking about very small holdings. Small farmers gave 40% of what they produced to the owner, the feudal lord, but they also had to eke out a living. So they had their plot of vines, their plot of olive groves. They put up their citrus trees to defend them from the winds that gave the beauty to this countryside. And it also made it a sort of a jigsaw tapestry that gave it texture when you look at the hills. That way of farming also set up the beauty of Tuscany as we know it today. And of course, there was still a lot of poverty that went alongside it.

Natalie MacLean 00:33:023 And number three, what is the origin of the iconic black rooster symbol of Chianti Classico? Susan explains that it came from the 14th century, when Siena and Florence were warring. So as to who was going to be the most powerful of the two towns, they had an agreement that they would send out a horse rider a night early one morning. And wherever those two nights met would be the boundary between the two cities. And so the Senese fed their white cockerel very well, they said, because you’re going to crow nicely tomorrow for us to wake us up and we’ll set our horsemen off.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:02 And the Florentines, they had a black cockerel and they starved theirs. I think some people say they drowned him. Well, that can’t be true, though. So he was so nervous that he woke up early and crowed early, and so their horse rider set off super early and got within 12 miles of Siena. So the black cockerel is all about strength and having the biggest area. In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of my conversation with Susan, links to her website and books the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now, no matter where you live. If you missed episode 165, go back and take a listen. I chat about volcanic soils, old vines and Italian wine diversity with Wine Spectator columnist Robert Camuto. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.

Robert Camuto 00:34:59 This idea of volcanic soils has been overstated. There’s something really fantastic as far as the imagery in our minds.

Natalie MacLean 00:35:08 Powerful. It comes deep from the Earth.

Robert Camuto 00:35:09 Exactly. You mentioned drainage. That’s probably the most important thing of the primary effects of volcanic soils. They drain easily and the soils are friable, too, so they can go down. They don’t just hit a boulder. Stop. If you look at Mount Etna. It is pretty incredible not just because it has volcanic soils, but because it’s an active volcano. The whole landscape changes every time there’s an eruption. Where you’ve had these big lava flows that can completely change the terroir for the next couple of hundred years, you have this cycle of lava breaking down again, plants regrowing, volcanic dust, stones that fall from the sky and add nutrients and different things.

Natalie MacLean 00:36:00 You won’t want to miss next week when we continue our chat with Susan. If you liked this episode or learned even one thing from it, please email or tell a friend about the podcast this week, especially someone you know who’d be interested in learning more about the wines of Tuscany. It’s easy to find my podcast. Just tell them to search on Natalie MacLean Wine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, their favourite podcast app, or they can listen to the show on my site at nataliemaclean. com/podcast.

Natalie MacLean 00:36:32 Email me if you have a sip, tip, question, or if you’d like to win one of six copies of books by Susan, Fiona or Rosemary, or if you’ve read my book or listening to it, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Were you surprised about the origin story of Brunello? Have you visited Tuscany or do you dream of doing so? Email me at natalie@ nataliemaclean.com. In the show notes, you’ll find a link to take a free online food and wine pairing class with me The Five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes that can Ruin Your Dinner and How to Fix Them Forever at nataliemaclean.com/class. And that’s all in the show notes at nataliemaclean.com/328. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week, perhaps a robust long live Brunello.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:32 You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at nataliemaclean.com/subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers!

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