The Cinzano family has a long history in Brunello di Montalcino in Tuscany. Some 50 years ago, Francesco Marone Cinzano acquired the Col d’Orcia, one of the region’s leading estates with a solid international reputation. Francesco’s son, Santiago Cinzano, who has for many years been involved in running the estate, has recently launched a new project that is, in some ways, a move back to the roots of the family and, in other ways, points to a different future: the launch of “CMC Conti Marone Cinzano Lot 1, 2019”. This is still a Brunello di Montalcino, but a very different one, perhaps a more modern one. At the same time, it brings back, after 50 years, the name Marone Cinzano on the label.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Santiago about his new venture.
It is easy to understand why this would feel like a momentous step. Cinzano is almost a “household” name in the drinks business; it’s the name of one of the world’s most famous vermouths. The vermouth house, including the rights to the Cinzano brand and name, was owned by the family but was sold in the late 1980s, early 1990s. As a result, the Brunello di Montalcino has not used the family name since. The wine that Francesco Marrone Cinzano makes at the family estate in Tuscany has always gone under the name Col d’Orcia.
The sale of the company was not an easy thing for the young Francesco Marone Cinzano, Santiago told me. For Santiago, launching this brand is obviously a very emotional step, as he told me about his personal history of it: “When I was a young kid growing up in Chile, I didn’t really know what had happened with Cinzano. But I knew it was us, because in the house I saw paintings of Cinzano’s old logos, ashtrays… And in the supermarket, I remember maybe seven, eight years old, the first time I see a Cinzano bottle — I grab it and I put it in the cart. I’m with my father, and I see my father’s face go white, and he says, ‘No, I don’t want to see that. Please take it away.’ And then I started thinking, there’s something there that was probably a sad story, something that was very difficult for him.” So, maybe, Santiago says, that moving the family to Chile was perhaps a way to get away from the memory of having to sell the company: “Ultimately, I believe that’s part of why he moved to Chile, kind of to get away from a whole situation that was very hurtful for him, and when I noticed how much it hurt him, I knew I wanted one day as a dedication to my father, to reclaim the name.”
But how?
The vermouth and the brand, the name, are now owned by Campari. The lawyers that Santiago spoke to said that it is quite impossible to use the Cinzano name in any connection with wines and spirits. What was there to do?
Santiago talked to his lawyer and said, “What if I go speak to Luca Garavoglia, the owner of Campari? Tell him about my desire, my dream, my project, and see how he reacts.” Santiago decided to go to Milan and arrange a meeting with Garavoglia. “We went to lunch. I spoke about the project, and he told me, ‘As long as Cinzano is mine, I will not complicate your life in any way. So please feel free.’ We shook our hands. He asked me to send him a bottle for Christmas, and that’s how I got the chance to use what I ultimately decided to stylise at CMC, to make it short and memorable. So Conti Marone Cinzano, the family brand.”
Earlier this year, Santiago Marone Cinzano released the very first vintage of Conti Marone Cinzano CMC Lot 1, 2019, called, of course, “Lot 1”, released in 9944 bottles. To understand what this wine is, we need to get back to the range of wines that Col d’Orcia produces today. Starting with the “basic” regional wines called IGT, for example, IGT Toscana, they move up to Rosso di Montalcino DOC and then the most prestigious DOCG Brunello di Montalcino. On top of the pyramid, they have the single vineyard Poggio al Vento DOCG Brunello di Montalcino Riserva, which they don’t make every year (depending on the quality of the grapes), but always comes from the same plot.
The CMC is different. It is, in a way, a parallel to the Poggio al Vento, also being a prestige cuvée at the top of the quality pyramid, but with a very different logic. It does not come from the same plot every year, so it does not have a vineyard name on the label. The family owns some 100 hectares of sangiovese vineyards in Brunello di Montalcino. Every year, they sample and analyse every different patch of vineyard to see what it gives “this year”. The performance of each patch varies from year to year due to exposure, weather, and numerous other factors. “We know very well that every vintage has a specific plot that is the best,” says Santiago. One year, it might be a plot high up on a hill with rich, clay soil. Another year, it can be one with more sand, with a different sun exposure. This “best” plot of the year is what makes Conti Marone Cinzano CMC.
It is also different from the Poggio al Vento in that the CMC will be released every year. There is always a “best” plot every year. The Poggio, on the other hand, is not made in very difficult years, for example, 2017 and 2018, when the grape material is not quite up to what Marone Cinzano wants Poggio al Vento to be. Instead, it then goes into the “regular” Brunello.
So, is then CMC better than Poggio al Vento? Well, that depends on what you mean by “better” and on what your personal preferences are. The two wines are certainly different.
Poggio al Vento is more “traditional” and CMC is more “modern”. Santiago explains that this is intentional, “I wanted to produce a Brunello that had two main aspects that are important for me: very silky tannin, very velvety tannin, because I see that my generation doesn’t love very tannic wines when they’re not mature enough, so, very high phenolic maturation and 50% of polymerisation of tannins before going in the bottle, AND very fruit forward. If I tell the story that this is a selection of the best fruit of the season, then I want the fruit to be the protagonist. And on the nose, red fruit is very much the protagonist.”
And yes, it is a very different wine. It is made in a different way than the Col d’Orcia wines. Santiago is actually making the SMC wines as a separate business. And it will be distributed and sold in a different manner.
But even so, if you want to experience the subtleties and variations of Brunello di Montalcino wines, I’d suggest that you try them both and compare. They are not only excellent wines but they also give you an illustration of the importance of the hand of the winemaker and a glimpse into the trends of a changing wine market.
Read more on Col d’Orcia in this Forbes article: Brunello Di Montalcino From Col D’Orcia: Elegant Wines And Important Research On Climate Change.
—Per Karlsson