Veneto producer Serego Alighieri has bought a significant amount of land in Tuscany from the ‘father’ of modern Brunello, Ezio Rivella.
In a move that Alighieri calls ‘a reconquest of the homeland’, he and his northern Italian partner, the Masi group, have bought land on the 115ha Podere Pian di Rota estate. The exact hectarage has not been disclosed.
The recent purchase, which will also see the construction of a new winery and additional vine planting, will allow Alighieri to make wines bearing the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG stamp.
This latest acquisition pairs Count Alighieri with the father of the modern Brunello renaissance, Ezio Rivella – ‘a dream combination’, said Masi in a statement.
The Alighieri family’s move into Tuscany started in 1991 with the purchase of the 80ha Podere del Bell’Ovile estate in the Montecucco DOC. Alighieri is seeing this new purchase, in the heart of the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG, as a completion of a triumphal return for the ancient family.
His ancestor, Dante Alighieri, poet and author of the Divine Comedy, was banished from Tuscany in 1302 for offending the church. He never returned.
Algiheiri’s first Tuscan acquisition is named after a passage in Dante. Poderi del Bell’Ovile refers to the section in the Divine Comedy where the exiled poet dreams of returning to his homeland.
The family is ‘Tuscan by origin but Venetian by adoption,’ Masi said, adding that the construction of a 30m tower as a direct reference to the Alighieri tower in Florence was a ‘symbolic “reconquest of the homeland”’.
Written by Oliver Styles
