Many of the Italian masterpieces of the Renaissance within the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had been carved out of marble. Because the Eighties, Italian viticulture has had its Renaissance within the type of wine, however not a lot was typically considered combining the 2. ‘Man wants to understand his goals,’ stated Yannick Alléno, presenting Fuori Marmo 2019, a singular marble-aged Cabernet Sauvignon from the Costa Toscana IGT at his three-star Michelin restaurant, Pavillon Ledoyen, in Paris final week.
The concept was born in 2019 throughout a dinner with two of his associates in Italy: Paolo Carli of Henraux marble quarries and winemaker Olivier Paul-Morandini of Fuori Mondo. Paul-Morandini owns a small property in Campiglia Marittima, not by likelihood one of many birthplaces of the Renaissance in Maremma Toscana.
He produces wines concentrated in freshness and class: low yields, early harvest, quick macerations for the reds; largely no oak apart from a scrumptious, Burgundian-style Sangiovese vinified as a white wine.
When commenting on the vertical model of the wines, Alléno requested: ‘Why haven’t you ever tried to age the wine in marble?’ Paolo Carli of Henreaux didn’t object to the concept, admitting that technically it appeared attainable. Paul-Morandini, the person who created the 112 emergency quantity for European residents, signed himself up for the problem.
See Aldo Fiordelli’s tasting observe beneath
What originated as a joke ended up resonating with the three of them; the never-before-attempted notion of ageing a wine in white marble from Carrara. The concept became a challenge which then became a seek for a 34.8-ton block of marble. Carli labored intentionally for 5 months to provide two ovoid amphorae of 17.5hl, weighing over two tons apiece, and at a price of €100,000 every.
Paul-Morandini then spent six months making an attempt to know the interactions between the 2 supplies earlier than immersing the wine in an preliminary take a look at. He handled the marble with tartaric acid to minimise the porosity of the matter and thus the oxidation of the wine.
Earlier than Fuori Marmo, different tasks of wine in marble had been tried. In Valpolicella, biodynamic-certified property Musella ages a 100% Garganega in pink marble vessels of various shapes and volumes. In Tuscany there’s a vineyard constructed into the marble, the place Podere Scurtarola additionally ages a white wine which isn’t formally out there available on the market. Throughout the border in Austria, Domäne Wachau has produced Steinwerk since 2018, comprised of Grüner Veltliner grapes fermented and matured in a big chunk of Wachau marble and a granite stone vessel.
Two and a half years later, the Fuori Marmo challenge makes its official debut as a Cabernet Sauvignon IGT Costa Toscana 2019 grown on clay-limestone soil from the Fuori Mondo property, going through the Tuscan archipelago at 200 metres above sea stage. Light extraction, a brief six-day maceration from yields of 25 hl/ha and lengthy ageing in white marble produce a wonderfully balanced wine with velvety tannins and a flowing depth of complexity.
‘I say this with nice humility, we’ve achieved an attractive outcome. It’s now time to unveil it,’ declared Alléno. In line with Paul-Morandini, Gérard Margeon – who buys wine for the Alain Ducasse group – in contrast it to the reds of Tinos in Greece, an island well-known for its marble.
There’s a whole lot of class and an excessive freshness in comparison with the common wines of Maremma; it appears to be nearer to a northerly Cabernet Sauvignon versus a Tuscan one. Having stated this, it’s admittedly tough to pick a ‘marble minerality’ within the wine. But it stays a singular instance of the craftsmanship and sweetness of those marble eggs and the emotion of tasting a wine aged in white marble from the Apuan Alps.
The wine will value €1,085 per bottle and manufacturing is restricted to simply 1,000 customary bottles, 120 magnums and 80 double magnums. The wine is offered at Maremma restaurant in London.
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