Montalcino Report

"Zero Carbon Footprint" Meals at the Tenuta Il Poggione

Beyond our raising Limousine cows and Large White and Cinta Sense pigs on our estate, we also try to make our workday meals taste better with better quality by raising our own chickens and eggs and growing our own "nearly organic" vegetables. This way, our meals have a "zero carbon foot print".

Happy as the pigs in...

An American friend of mine once told me about an English saying in his country, "to be happier than the pigs in..." I cannot write the last word! 

Perhaps you remember the post I did earlier this year on integrated farming and our "Large White" pigs. This is the first post of a series of posts with videos about our farm. 

When my father and I made this video, it made me think of that English saying!

Il Poggione pork

These are the "large white" pigs that we started to have few months ago. We chose Large White instead of Cinta Senese as the Cinta Senese meat is really fat, while this has just a little bit of fat. The pork is also part of our concept of integrated farming so that animals are raised together with our vineyards and olive trees. The tradition of our terroir is that animals have always been raised on land near to the vineyards. We believe very strongly that this is a big part of the terroir of Brunello di Montalcino and Sant'Angelo in Colle where we grow our grapes on our estate and make the wine.

We are also Tuscany cowboys and our Limousine cows

You may remember the posts I did on integrated farming earlier this year and last year. Part of our belief in integrated farming is that livestock should also be raised on our estate. We believe that this integrated farming or "agricoltura promiscua" is an important element of the Brunello di Montalcino terroir.

These are Limousine cows and they are kept in a very large fence in the lower part of the farm. We chose Limousine as they're more rustic than Chianina and they're suitable to live outside. Plus, these are from the Appennini, so they're used to cold weather, too

No stable, just open air.

Organic Market today in Montalcino

If you happen to be in Montalcino today, please visit the "Organic Market" mercatino that highlights biologic and organic foods and products of the Val d'Orcia. The market is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. today in the Piazza del Popolo in the centre of Montalcino. 

You can see a calendar for the itinerary for the "mercantini" here. Throughout the year, the markets are held in different villages.

The Organic Market features all kinds of the wonderful agriculture products of the Orcia river valley or the "Val d'Orcia". It is a great way to experience the foods of our lands and I highly recommend it.

100% Sangiovese certification for our Brunello di Montalcino

The wines produced by Tenuta Il Poggione have been certified as 100% Sangiovese by an outside, independent Norwegian risk management company since the 2003 vintage. The company is called DNV and it is one of the most respected risk management and auditing firms in the world. This is a link to a page the company did on its website about the certification of our wines.

Beginning with the 2004 vintage of our wines, we have started to add this golden seal with the DNV emblem which states "certified product from 100% Sangiovese grown using integrated farming."

Here's a link to a post I did last year on the concept of "integrated farming".

We are very proud of our products and how they express the terroir of Sant'Angelo and Montalcino. We believe that Brunello di Montalcino should be made from 100% Sangiovese grapes and our DNV independent certification is an example of how we above and beyond the requirements of the "disciplinare" or appellation to ensure the consumer that our wines are made from 100% Sangiovese.

Eco-Sustainability

At Il Poggione, where my father and I make wine, we are very concerned about the environment. And it is for this very reason that we implement different practices, especially on the land.

You probably know, or you have probably seen on our website, that Tenuta Il Poggione doesn't have just vineyards but also many other hectares planted to olives and other crops as well as woods. It is very important for us not to focus solely on the vines. We want to maintain our estate the way it has always been, a traditional Tuscan estate in harmony with the environment that surrounds it. In the photo above, you can see one of our oldest vineyards, planted in the 1970s: between every two rows of vines, there is a row of olive trees.

I'd also like to reflect for a moment on our woods. They are populated by numerous wild animals: boar, deer, hare, pheasants, etc., which are allowed to roam freely on our land. It is not rare to find these animals crossing the roads of the estate. We also have lakes on the estate that give us a healthy presence of aquatic birds.

In the lowest part of the estate, along the Orcia River, we are also working to recreate a natural reserve, a "wetlands". It's been there since the 1950s and includes lakes and many different types of plants that allow aquatic birds to stop there during migration, to build their nests, and to reproduce.

For us it is also important to give back as much as possible to the land. For this reason, we treat and use all of the by-products of olive oil and grappa production (the waste pomace) to fertilize our land. Vine shoots, the by-product of pruning, are also used: they are ground and then tilled to give the land another organic substance.

Lastly, it's also important to note that at Tenuta Il Poggione we practice "integrated farming". I will discuss its importance in an upcoming post.