The End of the Cru as we know it - Marone Cinzano's Lot.1

When I heard that Santiago Marone Cinzano, scion of the family that once owned Cinzano and son of Francesco Marone Cinzano, owner of Col d’Orcia in Montalcino, has come up with a wine that does away altogether with the concept of crus or single vineyards, I was at first sceptical.

The wine, called Lot.1, which will from a different plot each vintage, looked like a vanity project of the 30-years old, not least due to the super-confident marketing material, claiming that Marone Cinzano ‘is pioneering a revolutionary viticultural philosophy.’

The concept of Lot.1 is to select a single plot or vineyard that produces the best Sangiovese in a particular vintage. It is diametrically opposed to the idea of the cru: a single plot or vineyard that excels every year regardless of the vintage.

Climate change and global warming is playing havoc with the consistency of crus, but regardless, Marone Cinzano is not interested in showing the excellence of a particular cru.  Rather, Lot.1 is a magnifying glass held over the vintage by selecting only the very best grapes. Having more than 100ha of Sangiovese vineyards at biodynamically managed Col d’Orcia at his disposal, there is plenty to play with.

‘My first memory of Montalcino as a child is being in the vineyard with my father and our agronomist Giuliano Dragoni. Dragoni said to my father: “we won’t produce Poggio al Vento [Col d’Orcia’s most important single vineyard wine] this year.” I asked my father why not. My father didn’t tell me that it was due to a bad vintage, but that the grapes were not of Poggio al Vento’s quality and I tried to wrap my head around that.’

‘At that time I did know little of the system of cru and I asked my dad “why don’t we make the best Poggio al Vento with the best grapes we have.” The concept of Cru is not a fraud, obviously, but I wanted to explore the opportunity of selecting the best quality that expresses the vintage.’ It didn’t take him long to expand on that idea and putting it into action.

‘I had a deep desire to narrate every vintage’s climate and selecting the plot that clearly expresses this.’ Marrone Cinsano pointed out. ‘There is no right or wrong, but crus give you an expression of how that plot was influenced by the climate and with the current [climate] unpredictability it is highly likely you won’t produce that cru every vintage.’

Col d’Orcia is itself extremely selective with releasing its single vineyard Riserva Poggio al Vento, and Vigna Nastagio, which are only produced in what it considers exceptional years. Both have different soil types, Poggio al Vento’s are more sandy and hence excels in humid years, while Nastagio is on clay-rich soils and hence has a better water capacity in dryer vintages. This plays a major role in the decision to produce them - or not. It also suggests that at Col d’Orcia, a cru is not automatically a cru in any given year and Lot. 1 seems an extension, if a more extreme one, of that philosophy.

Last February, Marone Cinzano explained the ‘essence’ of why the project was born, when I visited him and his father at Col d’Orcia, where they have been working with Piemontese consultant oenologist Donato Lanati. Lanati works with a raft of clients, but at the same time seems to prefer to stay under the radar. I suspect that one of the reasons is that his way of working is driven by analysis and extensive use of technology. Lanati’s philosophy is as far from ’natural wine’ as imaginable, but there is a catch: Lanati himself once said that technology can only be meaningful if it goes hand in hand with tradition and local practices.

Before Marone Cinzano entered in Col d’Orcia in 2017, his father had already started with a project of micro-parcellation of the 110ha of Sangiovese (75ha of those have Brunello rights), but none of them delivered the criteria for excellence Marone Cinzano was after. ‘Lanati’s approach is based on a lot of analysis and technicality. Before him we worked with Maurizio Castelli and he was part of my youth, but he had a very different approach. He was more emotional, very sensible and not keen on analysis, Marone Cinzano told me.

Lanati came as a shock. ‘He does lots of analysis on aromatic compounds, especially norisoprenoids. It is an aromatic precursor which you cannot taste in grapes, only after fermentation, but you can see them in grape analysis, ‘Marone Cinzano explained. ‘I saw the unique approach of the analysis of grapes right after veraison and the continuation of that analysis.’

But it is not all about aroma compounds. “For us the phenolic maturity is a priority because we want to bottle with 50% of polymerisation. This means very mature tannins, and the riper the tannins the less oxidation you need to reach a very high level of polymerisation [that helps making tannins feel softer in wine].’

I asked Cinzano Marone if this approach doesn’t lead to a very technical wine. ‘Yes, but I don’t think it is less “natural” or less sustainable,’ his answer came. ‘”Natural” is associated with little involvement of technology and more with tradition, while the way we manage the vineyards [biodynamically], we think we are as sustainable as we can be. The next step would be working with horse and plough, but from an economic view, it makes no sense.’ But, as it turns out, the 2ha of bush vines they planted in 2020 are in actual fact worked by the estate’s horse.

Although Marone Cinzano agreed that there is a big trend in sustainability and ‘natural’ wines, for him Lot. 1 is not a contradiction. ‘The type of wine I want to make is a very precise and clean wine, so the technical approach in making my wine is an advantage.’

But the underlying motive and the real trigger for creating Lot. 1 turns out to be a much more personal one. ‘It is an emotional thing, so it is hard to get across. And it goes back to my family’s name Marone Cinzano explained. My father grew up in Torino when Cinzano as a family business already existed in the 1600s. He was the 9^th generation to head the company.’

In 1973 through Cinzano, Francesco’s father, Alberto, acquired Argiano and Col d’Orcia in Montalcino.

‘In 1974 when my father was 15 years old, it was a Fortune 500 company, with production facilities in Asia, Australia and South America. His natural expectation was he would be the company’s next president.’ But things turned out differently. In 1989, in a car accident, Alberto Marone Cinzano dies. Before that, Agnelli, through its holding Lfint, had sold a 25% stake in Cinzano International to International Distillers & vintners, which was part of Grand Metropolitan. After Alberto’s death in 1992, Grand Metropolitan raised its stake in Cinzano to 75%.

By 1993 the family was no longer owner of Cinzano while in an acquisition in 1999 the brand Cinzano went to Gruppo Campari. Believing in the potential of Montalcino, Francesco manages to buy out both Argiano and Col d’Orcia from Diageo (the new name after the merger of International Distillers & Vintnera and Guinness), which at the time was not interested in the production of wine.

At the beginning of 2000 the family settled in Chile where Santiago spent most of his childhood, his father, is looking to reconnect with the land (from the 19^th century on, Cinzano, based in Turin also produced vast quantities of sparkling wine, especially Asti). ‘My father bought land and planted vines and while working with local farmers he discovers the principles of biodynamics. When telling them to prune, the farmers refused, explaining that the moon wasn’t in the right phase for doing that. They also had an advanced knowledge of composting.’

‘The thing is, these local farmers obviously never read a book on biodynamics, but generation after generation had been working in this thisway My father had found a place that had not been scarred by modern agriculture, or the industrial revolution. For him, it was like a was like a light bulb went on.’

When Santiago is eight and joining his father on a shopping trip to Santiago di Chile he sees a bottle of Cinzano on the shelf in a supermarket. ‘For as long as I can remember there wasn’t a bottle of Cinzano in the house, but there was a lot of advertising artwork my father had collected. I put the bottle into the cart and see my father’s face turning white. He demanded I put the bottle back on the shelf. His behaviour was so out of character, I realised there must be a painful story.’

Once Santiago had understood the family’s history, he put it in his mind to get the family’s name back on a label. ‘I wanted to produce something that carries our name and the family history in a wider sense. After five, six years the concept of the wine was sound and I knew what I wanted to bottle.’ But putting the Marone Cinzano name on the label would have immediately triggered a cease & desist order. ‘Violation of category 33 [the patent category for wines and spirits brand names] is a big no-no.’

After having consulted three lawyers, who all strongly advised against putting the family name on any label, Marone Cinsano lost it. Without telling his father he contacted Luca Caraboglia, the current president of Gruppo Campari, which owns the Cinzano name after having bought it previously. Caraboglia agreed to a meeting and after Santiago pledged his case, gave the green light to use the family name on the label, and even expressed interest in taking a stake in Santiago’s project.

It was thus that CMC Conti Marone Cinzano was created and, after decades of forced anonymity, the family’s name is now prominently printed on Lot. 1’s label. ‘Using the name is a testament of a family that has been in the industry for over 400 years,’ Santiago told me. ‘I have this desire to express who my family and my father is.’

Credit Stefano Casati

While tasting Lot.1’s first vintage, Santiago pointed out that 2019 was a ‘picture perfect vintage.’ ‘I would have preferred a more challenging vintage, because it would have explained the philosophy behind Lot.1 much easier.’ I suspect he will get plenty opportunities for that.

Before we end our long conversation, Santiago confesses that ‘Brunello is not cool to my generation. Most young people with spending power do not drink Brunello because they feel it is an obsolete style. They want to drink Trousseau, Beaujolais, Etna. Their taste profile is freshness, linearity, crisp fruit. My generation doesn’t like harsh tannins and they do not have the propensity to wait. My generation is used to immediate gratification. My father’s generation is interested in bottles that would be great in two decades’ time. My generation’s reaction to that is: ‘Well, can you sell me the 2006, then?’

Conti Marone Cinzano, Lot. 1 2019 Brunello di Montalcino 17.5 Drink 2024-34

Bottle number 231 from 9944.  Certified organic Suolo & Salute. 55hl Allier oak.

Lustrous deep ruby. A stunning deep focused nose of pure cherry and raspberry and with hints of cardamon pod and garden herbs. Keeps on developing in the glass. Vibrant acidity and great purity of red fruit on the palate and firm but perfectly matching tannins. Col d’Orcia 2.0 so to speak. A truly impressive effort. (WS) 14.5%