Visionaries

Lorenzo Ruggeri

Vision, thought and knowledge. These are the main gifts of a craftsman, think of a winemaker like Gravner or an unconventional confectioner like Assenza. From the rows of Ribolla at Oslavia, in the Gorizia Collio that feels Slovenia, we trace a red thread that leads us to the Baroque of Noto, in Sicily, amidst scents of almonds and mulberries. In a delicate phase for the world of wine, which is questioning its identity, the strength of Josko’s thinking, his consistency, his clear-cutness, are precious models. Gravner showed a way, for years he was called a madman, or worse. Today from Sydney and New York he is universally recognised as the spiritual father of orange wines: the amphora whisperer. For him, wine is the tea of the earth, a slow and patient infusion between skins and must to bring back to the glass the flavour of the earth, its essence. He gave us the cue to think about the meaning of maceration on white wines, we retraced the steps of pioneers such as Primosic, questioning the current movement created by emulation. We chase the market without a clear direction, with clay and months on the skins used mostly as marketing tools. So let us go back to talking about the vocation of the place - over the years it has been planted everywhere and now we are running for cover - the DNA of the vine, specific agricultural knowledge. Human intuition is central, Josko’s decision to switch to the Georgian amphora back in 1997, like the vision of Giacomo Tachis and Piero Antinori, who exactly 50 years ago baptised Tignanello as a table wine. They grasped the change in advance, hurling themselves against the rules of time and gradually introduced international varieties and barriques, opening the glorious season of Supertuscans: the renaissance of Italian wine worldwide. Sometimes the intuition comes from a reinterpretation of the past, as in the case of the Pre-British movement that we tell you about in Sicily, where a small group of winemakers in order to save Marsala reintroduce the perpetual method: a dry, unfortified, table version. They rip out a page of history - the experience of the English merchant Woodhouse - and build another direction. Just like Maestro Assenza who, tired of searching for ingredients for his coffee, puts on the shoes of a farmer; between a cannolo and a granita he reminds us that tradition can also be a negation of cultural background. Before closing, a word of thanks to Marco Mensurati: who has led Gambero Rosso over the past year with tenacity and critical spirit. We take it from here.

His macerations in the Gorizia Collio have influenced half the wine world