Alberto Antonini - Less is More

Italian Alberto Antonini is out to change the way the world makes wines. Actually, he’s not that arrogant, nor would he dream of making such an outrageous statement. What he might say is that it is better to express the land and the grapes in your wine instead of the barrels and the winemaking, something he tries to do wherever the job takes him. Antonini grew up in Tuscany and runs the family estate, Poggiotondo, in Cerreto Guidi (near Florence in Tuscany). He started his career as an assistant winemaker at the Frescobaldi Winery before becoming the technical director at the Col D’Orcia Winery in Montalcino. From Montalcino he became the head winemaker at the Antinori winery before starting his own consulting business in 1997. Today he is widely considered among the top five wine consultants anywhere in the world, and he works in a lot of places. Antonini was in Vancouver recently to launch his latest wine venture Bodega Garzón. The Uruguayan, Leeds-certified winery was swamped during the Vancouver International Wine Festival last month, stunning locals with its two principal wines: a red made from tannat and a white made from albariño. Antonini poured more than a dozen Garzón labels last week, taking the time to point out why they are truly different than most wines. Antonini talks a lot about terroir and he uses words like purity and energy to describe his wines and the importance of “understanding first the place where you are growing the grapes and making the wines, and then, to sell wines that are delivering the essence of the place where the grapes are grown.” It may explain why none of them are listed in government wine stores where it appears tried and true commercial wines, with plenty of oak and sugar, remain the key listing requirements. He hates over-extraction and all the unnecessary additives that end up in modern wine. He likens it to adding three layers of barbecue sauce to a perfect piece of beef or 10 different pizza toppings versus the simplicity of a Margherita pizza. Less is more is his philosophy because “if you want to get more you have to do less, because Mother Nature has provided us with all we need for making something great. You only have to use your experience, your knowledge and all your mistakes to be able to do much less, which means that doing less means to know a lot more.” ~ Anthony Gismondi, excerpted from his article first published in The Vancouver Sun, March 10, 2017 Find the rest of the Vancouver Sun article here: http://vancouversun.com/life/food/anthony-gismondi-with-fine-wine-to-get-more-do-less-with-a-boost-from-mother-nature Find Gismond's article about Antonini chose to focus on tannat for this project: http://www.gismondionwine.com/blog/places-garzn-uruguay/ Find Gismondi's Bodega Garzón tasting notes here: http://www.gismondionwine.com/blog/places-garzn-uruguay/ Visit Gismondi on Wine: Home page: http://www.gismondionwine.com/ Latest articles: http://www.gismondionwine.com/blog/ Our wine tasting notes: http://www.gismondionwine.com/tasting-notes/ Find wines you like: http://www.gismondionwine.com/wine-search/ Follow us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/GismondiOnWine Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gismondionwine/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gismondionwine/