Aldo Fiordelli
In Italy, soils are rich in magnesium, which is responsible for the bitterness in wines,’ Lydia Bourguignon told me in Franciacorta, on the sidelines of the presentation by founder Maurizio Zanella of the redisgorged 1980 Annamaria Clementi Franciacorta cuvée at Ca’ del Bosco last October. Lydia is a reliable source and an authoritative and respected figure worldwide, who has been a consultant for Zanella for 10 years.
Her statement, perhaps taken for granted by some experts, struck me and resounded in my ears for days, prompting me to delve deeper. There are no doubts about the truth of the first part of what she said: the best Italian agronomists agree with the highly regarded French consultant. ‘The abundance of magnesium is a consequence of young soils in Italy,’ said Maurizio Castelli, among the most esteemed winemakers of great Italian Sangiovese (involved with Mastrojanni, Bibbiano, Col d’Orcia and many more).
Naturally, there are vineyards, ‘menzioni’ (MGAs: see ‘Ask Decanter’, p96) or crus more or less influenced by this nutrient. ‘In Sorì Tildìn, the bronze colour in the soil is magnesium,’ explained Gaia Gaja during the tasting of the new vintages of Barbaresco early this year. In neighbouring Barolo, one of the MGAs most influenced by this mineral is Brunate. ‘To our mind, it comes from Monviso,’ said Carlotta Rinaldi of producer Giuseppe Rinaldi, referring to the highest peak in the Cottian Alps range, to the west of Piedmont.
Accepting that there can be a high presence of magnesium in some vineyards, then the question becomes: how much ‘bitterness’ due to this nutrient is to be found in Italian wines compared to tasting French, Spanish or New World wines? The bitterness in question goes beyond a defect: grapes that are not perfectly ripe – the result of a cold vintage or harvested too early – end up producing a herbaceous taste or green tannins, both leaning towards an unappealing bitterness that will not evolve or improve.
But the bitterness we are talking about is different; it’s a delicately bitter taste. Master of Wine Jérémy Cukierman, in his book Vignerons Essentiels (Martinière BL, 2019), refers to this bittersweet taste, emphasising how, in the right measure, it can become an element of greater complexity and dimension, adding a new layer of taste to a wine.
In the aforementioned Sorì Tildìn wine by Gaja, for example, it takes on a nuance between savoury and rocky; in the wines of Brunate, it assumes a dark tone in the finish, similar in its savoury, mineral character to Sorì Tildìn. The great wines of Brunello di Montalcino or Barolo, consumed after long bottle ageing, tend to resemble each other in wonderfully bittering notes of rhubarb root or rhubarb candy.
This year, Biondi-Santi releases anothe
