Avignonesi’s special interpretation of kalòs: wine, biodynamics and art

Our appointment today is with the Avignonesi Wine Group, and the historic annual moment when the company presents its new wines, which are produced directly by Avignonesi and by selected partners. This year, the celebration was organised over two days, 17 and 18 March, that were peppered with activities designed to create a dialogue for the benefit of the wine industry.

The drying room at Le Capezzine is one of Avignonesi’s most characteristic locations, and it was elegantly decorated for the candlelit gala dinner, which began with sparkling wine - the Clarabella 180 and the alcohol-free French Bloom Rosé. They were followed by wines produced on the estate, starting with a 2022 Da-Di Rosso, which leaves steel and oak on one side in favour of Tuscan clay. The name Da-Di,? which means earth-soil in Chinese, was chosen precisely to underline this particular aspect. The nose opens with the sweet spiciness of cinnamon and star anise, accompanied by a note of red fruits such as raspberries and currents. The aromas are well balanced, and the wine is welcoming and harmonious in the mouth. The silky tannins give way to a medium, persistent body.

Next up was the 2010 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, one of the iconic wines of the group and the denomination, and the evening ended with the 2010 Vin Santo Occhio di Pernice, a pearl as precious as it is rare. Vin Santo is a sweet wine with deep roots in the Tuscan tradition. The first references to it go back to the Renaissance, which was also the time when the Avignonesi family first came on the scene. Occhio di Pernice is the result of an exceptionally lengthy ageing process during which more than half of this prized liquid evaporates. To translate this into bottles, it takes the same amount of grapes to produce one 375 millilitre bottle of Occhio di Pernice as it would to produce twenty-four 750 millilitre bottles of wine.

This is a dense, mysterious Vin Santo with a complex, captivating bouquet of dried plums and dates, propolis, panpepato, malaga and tobacco. In the mouth, it is sweet and spicy, and when it is sipped, the olfactory notes return, intensified with dried apricot and smoked hazelnut notes. Its concentration and depth surprise us, and it has an incredibly long finish.

18 March began with an art masterclass inspired by the 2017 and 2018 Desiderio, a moment of creative expression guided exquisitely by the fashion illustrator Aldo Sacchetti who got the guests to free their imaginations with pallets, brushes and acrylics, between sips of merlot. Desiderio was a bull that lived on Le Capezzine farm over a hundred years ago. He was the largest bull in Tuscany at the time, a majestic animal that contributed to the classification of the Chianina breed, which is specifically used for Florentine steaks. This wine was dedicated to him.

A stroll through the Classica Day stands was an event not to be missed. The day is dedicated to industry workers and experts, and this year it had a new look, with 450 guests, the cellars with their wine pressing rooms, terracotta jars that were once used for oil and barrels. This was followed by a lunch, which was served with the 2022 Da-Di Bianco and the 2019 Nobile Poggetto di Sopra. The Da-Di has an intense yellow colour. It is a harmonious wine with a distinctive, fresh personality and an elegant nose, with notes of pineapple, white peach and elderflower. Notes of lime and wildflower honey emerge on the palate, o with a marked acidity that makes the wine long and elegant. The Poggetto di Sopra is a 100% Sangiovese Nobile. It has a scarlet colour, and reveals the characteristics of its environment, recalling the clay soil in which it grows. The nose is full of red fruit and violets, with balsamic notes. It is vibrant in the mouth, and has a medium body accompanied by ripe, seductive tannins.

The Avignonesi Group is made up of numerous companies, and it has as many facets. It started 50 years ago as a farm producing oil, saffron, balsamic vinegar and honey, among other things, and acts as the custodian of its land, Montepulciano, to protect its 170 hectares of vines, with the stated mission of conducting itself as a future good ancestor.

Attention to environmental impacts has become a fundamental element of the construction of the Group’s corporate culture, embodied by a long journey that began in 2009 and was formalised in 2021, when it was recognised as a società benefit [B-Corp] that seeks to generate value, act consistently, mitigate its impact and safeguard a biological, biodynamic approach. The Avignonesi philosophy is a return to what was expressed in Ancient Greece as kalòs kagathòs - literally the beautiful and the good - the representation of an idea of indivisible beauty and goodness, virtues that tell of an inside that is inseparable from the outside, uniting two qualities that would not be able to exist were they to be divided.

Published on Claudia Chiari's Blog