Baudains: Five up-and-coming Italian talents to look out for in 2025
New year, new start? Follow Italy wine expert Richard Baudains' five recommendations for up-and-coming wineries to seek out in 2025.
Saranno Famosi nel Vino is a walk-around wine tasting held in Florence which takes its name from a popular Italian TV talent show called ‘Saranno Famosi’ which, literally translated, means: ‘They will be famous’.
Now in its third year, the event aims to offer visibility to lesser-known wine producers from all over Italy, and is open to any winery which has bottled a new product in the last 10 years – but in practice, the majority of the participants have a much more recent history.
A total of 70 took part this year, some completely new, others family wineries making a fresh start as a new generation comes into the business. Many escape the limelight due to limited production, because they come from lesser-known regions, or because they work with more obscure grape varieties.
The vast majority of these wines have not been reviewed before, which highlights what an enormous wealth of resources is still waiting to be discovered in Italy, despite all the media attention that Italian wine receives today.
Below are five of my top discoveries, from the massive sheaf of notes I took away with me from the show!
See Richard’s five Italian producer recommendations below
Five up-and-coming talents to look out for in 2025
Cantina Mertzeoro, Mamoiada
Sardinia
Sardinia is one of Italy’s least explored wine regions, but it is one with enormous potential. Some of the most exciting wines to emerge from the island in the last five to six years have been Cannonau-based reds from Mamoiada, a village in the Province of Nuoro in the mountainous central part of the region.
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The Paddeu family have grown grapes there for generations, but they only started to bottle wine in 2019. They have a total of five hectares of organic vineyards, stretching up to 800 metres above sea level on soils of granite origin.
The family make three selections of Cannonau under the Barbagia IGT label, two from single plots (locally called ‘ghirarde’), and one which blends the two cru.
All the wines ferment with indigenous yeasts and age in medium-sized barrels. The Barbagia Ghirarda Badourano 2022 has delicate strawberry fruit on the nose and a juicy palate with soft tannins.
Its twin, Barbagia Ghirarda Mulini 2022, has a more earthy quality, darker fruit and more structure. My favourite was the complex, multi-layered cuvée Barbagia Rosso 2022, which combined the freshness of one cru with the energy of the other.
Yields are low and production limited, but the wines will repay the effort of seeking them out.
Vini Tramonti, Sassari
Sardinia
The Marogna family has grown grapes for three generations, but the current estate only took shape in 2010 with the acquisition of 4ha overlooking the Golfo d’Asinara, in the northwest corner of Sardinia, and the first wines were released in 2019.
The current production of around 7,000 bottles is divided between Vermentino, Moscato, Cannonau and Cagnulari. On the low calcareous hills near the coast, Cannonau has a denser, more powerful character than the wines of the mountainous areas in the centre of the island.
Tramonti’s mulberry-scented Cannonau di Sardegna 2022 has a full 16% alcohol, but also the acidity to see it off.
Cagnulari is a rarity. Like many of Sardinia’s traditional varieties, it was almost certainly brought to the island from Spain and although at one time it was widely planted, today it is found almost exclusively in a small enclave in the province of Sassari.
In the past it was blended with Cannonau, and only recently have producers begun to bottle it separately. Tramonti’s Cagnulari Isola dei Nuraghi IGT 2022 makes a great case for the variety.
It has intense dark fruit and spice aromas that make you sit up and take notice, and although it is not a shy wine either, with its 15.5% alcohol, it all fits.
Cantina Bulzaga, Brisighella
Emilia-Romagna
The Bulzaga estate is located in the hills on the eastern flank of the Romagna DOC, in sight of the Adriatic. This 50ha organic farm produces (excellent) olive oil and cereals, as well as wines from 6ha of vineyards.
The family grows a more or less complete catalogue of Romagna’s local varieties, including rarities such as the red Uva Longanesi and Centesimino, and the almost extinct white Famoso, alongside the region’s staples, Sangiovese and Albana.
The latter – when over-cropped – makes fairly neutral and uninspiring wines, but keeping yields in check and picking at full ripeness, Bulzaga made a very characterful Romagna Albana Coronilla DOCG 2023 with candied peel and dandelion on the nose and a textured palate with a slightly tannic finish.
If, according to official figures, there are nearly 240ha of Albana grown in the region, the area planted to Famoso probably only just gets into double figures. Bulzaga estimates they are only one of five producers to bottle the variety, which is a shame because it makes an intriguing, aromatic wine.
Their Ravenna Famoso IGT Doronico 2023 is light and zippy with a fruit,floral and spice nose that combines delicacy and complexity. Despite the name, its miniscule production means it is unlikely to ever achieve fame, but perhaps that is a part of its fascination.
Giacomo Grassi, Dudda
Tuscany
Giacomo Grassi is an agronomist whose curriculum includes studies in Italy and Bordeaux, and numerous consultancies in Tuscany and elsewhere. He makes a range of oils from 80ha of olive groves, which are among the most highly sought after in the region.
Grassi also has 8ha of vineyards, planted to the traditional local varieties in the heart of the Chianti Classico. Until 2020, he sold all his grapes, but he explains that ‘Covid lockdown happened and, with time on my hands, I decided to start making my own wine.’
He still only vinifies a part of the crop, making a series of limited production wines from super-selected fruit.
His Canto delle Sabbie IGT 2022 is a 100% Malvasia di Chianti with aromas of ripe pear and sultana, and a moreish bittersweet finish. Vigole di Dudda IGT 2020 is a unique cuvée of Colorino and Caniaolo, with aromatic herbs on the nose and a dry, racy palate.
Grassi’s first Chianti Classico vintage is a terse, dry Riserva from 2020, made from a traditional blend which includes a small percentage of white grapes.
The only wine among all this which his family has always made is a Vin Santo, rigorously traditional in its vinification and ageing and never seriously commercialised until now.
The exquisite 2011 reaches heights of elegance achieved by only the very best producers of this true Tuscan classic.
Widum Baumann, Bolzano
Trentino-Alto Adige
The majority of the wine made in the Alto Adige/Sudtirol comes from the region’s high quality cooperatives, but there are also innumerable small-scale, artisan producers, many of whom farm organically, with exceptional terroirs and highly evolved winemaking techniques.
Thomas Widmann is one of these. He grows apples and makes a range of wines from vineyards at an altitude of 1,000 metres on the typical porphyritic soils of the Dolomites.
His vineyards benefit from the features of a mountain climate: great light and extreme day/night temperature variations. In the cellar, he ferments with indigenous yeasts and ages in used, large oak barrels.
Alcohol levels are decimal points below 13.0% and acidity averages around 6g/l, giving his wines vibrancy and finish-the-bottle drinkability.
His Weissburgunder Bio IGT 2023 sings like Julie Andrews on the high mountain pastures; crystalline and bursting with vitality. The Offweiss Bio IGT 2023 takes the tradition of picking various white varieties together and co-fermenting them, and updates it by fermenting a part of the fruit in amphora and then blending and ageing in wood to make a wine with complex ripe fruit and wild herb aromas and a tangy, grapey palate.
As testimony to his versatility as a winemaker, Thomas makes his invitingly floral, bone-dry Blauburgunder Bio IGT 2023 by fermenting whole bunches in amphora for six months before ageing for another six months in oak.
Total production of 3,000 bottles makes these wines scarce, but if you are quick off the mark they can be ordered directly online.
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Richard Baudains was born and bred in Jersey in the Channel Islands and trained to be a teacher of English as a foreign language. After several years in various foreign climes, Baudains settled down in beautiful Friuli-Venezia Giulia, having had the good fortune to reside previously in the winemaking regions of Piemonte, Tuscany, Liguria and Trentino-Alto Adige. Baudains wrote his first article for Decanter in 1989 and has been a regular contributor on Italian wines ever since. His day job as director of a language school conveniently leaves time for a range of wine-related activities including writing for the Slow wine guide, leading tastings and lecturing in wine journalism at L’Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche and for the web-based Wine Scholars’ Guild.