Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian

“I am 76 years old and have been at the head of our company for 49 of those years. I bear a  surname that has been in existence for at least 7 centuries. For all of this time it has been a  surname more or less tied to  wine… and even today, while in the vineyards the 27th generation of the family has begun working and in the cellar the 2012 vintage is ready, today I wish that this were the story of a place and a wine  that carry the same name.  And I would like this to be  the history of how each great wine is born and developed”.

With these words, the Marquis Piero Antinori introduces his  book dedicated to Tignanello (“Tignanello, una storia toscana/Tignanello, a Tuscan story”). The prestigious US publication, Wine Spectator, has called Tignanello “the most influential wine in the history of Italy”.

It is a revolutionary wine in both Italy and abroad which still today, after more than 40 years, is one of the most recognized Italian labels in the world. The book recounts the idea, the people, the place and the genesis of a unique wine.

These are impassioned words accompanied by splendid images: “Tignanello: a Tuscan story”, which debuted in bookstores a few months ago, is a voyage into the Marquis of Antinori’s memory.

It is the memory of a wine as well as the memory of a territory positioned on one of the most beautiful ridges of the Chianti region. On one side is the town of Montefiridolfi and the castle of Bibbione, on the other is the Badia a Passignano with its abbey and vineyards. Further on is the Pieve di Campoli leading to the town of Greve in Chianti.

This is a story which begins in 1971 and is told in first person by the Marquis Antinori. 1971 is the year that Tignanello was born, fruit of many audacious and innovative choices.

For the first time the dictates of the region are surpassed and  “malolattica” fermentation and aging in barrique barrels are used. Tignanello is wine from the heart of Tuscany, universally considered the initiator of the Renaissance of Italian wine, a wine that opened a new oenolgical path….the birth of the so-called Supertuscan.