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Vineyard: Costanti

Region: Tuscany

The small town of Montalcino, huddled around its fortressed castle on the Tuscan hillside, is miniature perfection. Montalcino residents are a correspondingly tight-knit community, with a strong sense of identity and deep love for their territory.
Within this community, Andrea Costanti is a well known and highly liked figure. In many ways, he is its ideal representative. The Costanti family has been part of Montalcino history since 1555, yet Andrea is anything but ‘old hat’: young, brilliant and amiable, he very much moves with the times. You will find him perfectly at ease in Tuscany as in New York, in Paris or in Tokyo. Like Montalcino itself, he is both profoundly rooted in local tradition, and receptive to international, contemporary trends.
In 1983, Andrea (at the time, fresh out of Siena University’s geology department) took over from his uncle, Count Emilio – the man who first put Costanti on the wine map. A difficult task, yet this inexperienced youth not only coped with his huge new responsibilities, but actually upgraded and enhanced the family’s reputation for making great Brunello. He achieved this by relying on his own fine instinct for wine and in-depth knowledge of the terrain’s geological components. In time, these natural skills were perfected, so that he eventually styled the range together with Vittorio Fiore.
Total surface under vine today is 25 acres of characteristic Tuscan “galestro” (shaly marls from the Cretaceous Era, formed by a mixture of sand and calcareous rock, with very little clay) at 1,300 to 1,480 feet (400 to 450 meters) above sea level.
Andrea additionally owns a separate estate of 10 acres at Calbello (see the corresponding fact sheet), where the soil is also galestro but with higher clay content, thus also suitable for growing Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Additional Information

Country Italy
Region

Tuscany

Tuscany continues to charm and enchant the world over while books and films are forever trying to capture the beauty and mystic of the region. With its rich history, art, music, food and wine, there is very little to disappoint. Chianti is easily the most well known of Italian wines while Brunello is considered one of the most prestigious. Yet, the wines of Tuscany have not always been recognized for quality and have just recently experienced a renaissance,
after years of being focused on quantity. The initial movement developed in Chianti in the early 1970’s has become a region wide effort that has brought forth serious focus on clonal selection, vineyard management, and winery technologies, allowing a progression in quality unmatched anywhere in the country. The growing success, while focused on the Sangiovese based wines of Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and most recently, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano,
has spread to the entire region incorporating areas not understood even 30 years ago for their potential.
This phenomena of rapidly improving quality spread to incorporate wines that while not DOC were still considered of superior quality. The lack of an official status could not prevent the unofficial designation “Super Tuscan” from becoming part of the vernacular. As awareness increased, many of these wines achieved their own IGT or DOC status. Ironically, it is often misunderstood that Cabernet and Chardonnay have a long history within Tuscany and were
not introduced to satisfy international demand. Cabernet has been grown for over 250 years and while maybe not known by the Romans it certainly isn’t a newcomer to the region!
(Chardonnay dates back easily 150 years).
Roughly 70% of the production is red but one white wine holds its own in quality. The DOCG for Vernaccia di San Gimagnano was the 1st awarded to ANY wine in Italy. A historical grape documented in the 1200’s, the wines today provide the perfect counterpart to the nobile
reds of Tuscany.