Decanter World Wine AwardsOne third of Italian vines should be grubbed up: Antinori
- Friday 10 September 2010
Despite Italy’s success in global markets, the leading producer and former Decanter Man of the Year reckons 30% of vines are making wines unacceptable to today’s markets.
According to Antinori, the problem is particularly acute in central Italy, where there are thousands of hectares planted to Trebbiano, ‘a not very interesting grape’, and in southern Italy – particularly Sicily and Puglia – where many vineyards are producing huge yields of 250hl/ha (hectolitres per hectare).
‘For centuries, viticulture in Italy was geared to quantity rather than quality, and a large part of its plantings still reflect that old approach,’ said Antinori, who was speaking at a seminar in London organised by the Institute of Masters of Wine, in his capacity as president of the Institute of Italian Fine Wines (Premium Brands), a grouping of 17 of Italy’s fine wine producers.
‘In the past the wines were either blended and exported, largely to France, as very cheap “vin ordinaire” style wine, or used as a base for vermouth. Now vermouth doesn’t sell and these producers are having to find new markets.’
Antinori said that thousands of hectares are owned by small producers who have neither the resources nor the desire to change.
‘Transforming these thousands of inefficient acres that aren’t geared to the market is a big challenge, and more difficult than you might think. The only solution is to incentivise them to grub up the vines or replant.’
Such incentives were introduced in Italy by the EU two years ago, and should bring about big changes within the next four to five years.
Have your say!
Kieron Galliard
September 16 09:58
I was at this seminar and the snapshot above does give quite the same impression as I had at the time of what Antinori was saying, and I think it's easy to get bogged down by the fact that it was him saying it. My understanding was that he thinks the glut of really low quality wine is damaging Italy's reputation and therefore its ability to really compete on the world stage. For sure there are decent wines made from Trebbiano, but there's also lakes of terrible and bland wine made from it. Antinori reminded the room of the irony that Italy's current export success is dependent entirely on Pinot Grigio, a non-native variety, and also explained why Cabernet Sauvignon and other varieties were planted in the first place: when they wanted to improve quality in Tuscany, high quality clones of Sangiovese etc were simply not available from the nurseries, so they bought in high quality clones from elsewhere. I agree it's a shame that the indigenous varieties are sometimes sidelined by these international grapes, but I was interested to hear the rationale.
Daniel Monte Rosa
September 13 19:28
Pot calling the kettle black
Antinori is a mass producer of wine and had to take Classico of the lable of his Villa Antinori and likes to blend his brunello, His Puglia wine is average from high yield vines and his basic tuscan Rosso may as well say Gallo on the front
Jay
September 13 15:26
I agree with Gregory above, Italy's regional varietals have better flavor than the ones brought in from elsewhere and I disagree with Mr. Antinori - I've had tasty Trebbianos as recently as last week! I'm surprised by his commments as my opinion of Italian wine has gone up in the last decade, not down, though my opinion of the Antinori product line has not. Odd...
J Mackay
September 12 14:24
this ties in with his ambition for his brands (Bari airport and all that) there was a time when Santa Cristina was a Chianti of repute and more recently Villa Antinori stopped being one too. More Eurobland vino to follow I'm sure.