Cerbaia

"At a certain point, I had to decide whether I wanted to go to America or run the family business", explains Elena Pellegrini in conversation. The small Cerbaia winery is located north of the hill town of Montalcino and has been in her family's possession since the 1920s, when they acquired it in a dilapidated state and later restored it from the ground up.

Before Elena had to choose between America and Montalcino, her father struggled with a similar problem: Fabio Pellegrini had a career as a politician in Brussels before giving up his lucrative job to become a winemaker in Italy. In the 1970s, he planted a 4.5-hectare Sangiovese vineyard in Tuscany, which has always been cultivated organically and is now the heart of the Cerbaia winery.

The north-west facing vines grow here at 350 metres above sea level. Surrounded by the picturesque Mediterranean scrub, the warm and dry microclimate, tempered by gentle breezes, ensures excellent grape quality. It is said that this unique climate in Montalcino allows the Sangiovese to ripen more fully and evenly than in any other place in Tuscany.

Elena swapped her career in the financial sector for the Sangiovese vineyards in 2014. From then on, she mainly used minimally invasive working methods, which meant that she was able to impress well-known critics such as Ian d'Agata and James Suckling with her wines after just her second harvest. To this day, Elena follows all the steps herself and also takes care of the distribution of the very manageable annual production.

With its forward-looking mentality that combines tradition and modernity, it produces impressively complex red wines that skilfully reflect the fascination of the famous Tuscan wine region. Both the Rosso di Montalcino and the marvellously fine Brunello are aged for several months in large Slavonian oak barrels, which is an important trademark of the classic producers in Montalcino.

So the small family business does indeed have great ambitions. And the story of Cerbaia continues, because in a few years' time it will be the turn of the fourth generation to develop the passion of the winemaking family. What we can certainly say today: Elena and Fabio Pellegrini have taken exactly the right professional path! SUPERIORE.DE