Series AA no. 000001, is not the receipt for a millionaire winnings in a fortune lottery, it is much more, and in fact it is kept in a frame like a relic, exposed to all visitors who go to the consortium offices. Because that band bears witness, over time, to the beginning of the identity path of one of the most important Italian wines. It is the very first band with which in 1980 the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry identified a "guaranteed" wine denomination (DOCG). And this honor went to Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Thus a new era was opened for Italian wine.
A great result for which it took about 11 years of meetings, meetings, requests since, back in 1969, the Consortium, first of all, had requested the Docg.
That band will be re-proposed everywhere as a just and deserved honor in the context of all the events and initiatives planned to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the DOCG of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano which today can also boast the fact of the obligation to include the geographical term on the label "Tuscany".
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is undoubtedly one of the oldest wines in Italy.
The "quarters" of nobility of its denomination derive from a document dated September 1787 in which we read that the Governor of the San Girolamo Conservatory, on a trip to Florence, gave the Florentine Conservatory known as Il Conventino, 28 flasks of " Noble Wine".
Denomination that is found in the nineteenth century in a label written by the first hand by a producer, Adamo Fanetti on the occasion of the participation in the Mostra Mercato dei vini held in Siena, a denomination later taken up by other wineries. Until 1930 and beyond, the wine was officially called "Selected red wine of Montepulciano" but the tenacious Adamo had the penchant for naming what he produced with the appellation of Nobile.
In 1925, Adamo Fanetti produced around 30 quintals of Vino Nobile, almost all of which was bottled and sold at two lire a bottle and was widely acclaimed. Success increased on the occasion of the first market exhibition of typical wines held in Siena in 1931, organized by the National Exhibition-Market of Typical and Precious Wines, so much so that Tancredi Biondi-Santi, friend and admirer of Adamo Fanetti, pronounced this prophetic phrase : “this wine will have a future”.
Fanetti must be considered, to all intents and purposes, the first producer of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano of the 1937th century. The launch, promotion and distribution of Vino Nobile in the years following the First World War, and in the years of the Italian "economic miracle" after the Second World War, are owed to the Fanetti Cellars. The example was followed by other companies - which until then mostly produced Chianti - and in XNUMX a social winery was founded (Vecchia Cantina di Montepulciano) with the intention of creating a structure for the marketing of the wine also produced by small farmers.
In reality, the origins of wine are much older. In a document dated 789, cited by Emanuele Repetti in the Historical Physical Geographic Dictionary of Tuscany, the cleric Arnipert offers the Church of San Silvestro in Lanciniano sull'Amiata a land cultivated with vines and located in the castle of Policiano; in another document dated 17 October 1350, again quoted by Repetti, the clauses for the trade and export of a wine produced in the district of Montepulciano are established.
Finally, in 1685 the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano was also mentioned by the poet Francesco Redi who, in addition to praising it in his work Bacchus in Tuscany (Montepulciano is the King of every wine!), wrote an ode to Count Federico Veterani dedicated exclusively to praise of the great qualities of this wine.
Strengthened by this history and the value of its wine, the Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is in the process of creating a new image with a new graphic project. A project to recover past history and identity, starting from the investigations into the very name of the oldest DOCG in Italy.
The Consortium of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano was born in 1965 with the aim of protecting and promoting the image of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano in Italy and in the world and, subsequently, also that of Rosso and Vin Santo. There are currently 230 winegrowers members of the Consortium and they represent over 90% of the vineyard area, or almost all of it. There are 72 partner bottlers out of a total of 89.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano can only be obtained from grapes grown in the production area envisaged by the specification, using the following vines: Sangiovese, called in Montepulciano Prugnolo gentile: minimum 70% and other vines suitable for cultivation in the Tuscany region, for a maximum 30%, provided that the white grape varieties do not exceed 5%.
Aromatic vines are excluded with the exception of Malvasia Bianca Lunga.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano must undergo a maturation period of at least two years, starting from 1 January following the harvest. This maturation can take place, at the choice of the producer: for 24 months in wood, for a minimum of 18 months in wood plus the remaining months in another container, for a minimum of 12 months in wood plus a minimum of 6 months in the bottle plus the remaining months in another container.
The production area includes the hilly terrain between 250 and 600 meters above sea level in the municipality of Montepulciano in the Province of Siena.
Climatic factors in the April-September period affect the quality of each single vintage and, sometimes, microclimate conditions can arise at the local level which can even considerably differentiate the characteristics of wines produced in the same year in areas very close to each other.
Among the excellent vintages are those of 1958, 1970, 1975, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1995, 1997, 1999 (one of the best ever in history), 2006 and 2012.
