Environmental Advocate of the Year Col D’Orcia Is Doing Something Unprecedented
Even with generations of winemakers in his family and deep roots in one of Italy’s most famous wine regions, the Count Francesco Marone Cinzano of Col d’Orcia winery only truly appreciated the value of his native territory once he left it.
A few decades ago, Cinzano left his estate in Montalcino and spent years in Chile to observe local grape farmers. His time there attuned him to biodynamic and organic practices that were beginning to reach more industrial producers. The distance from Italy allowed him to better appreciate the characteristics of the place he knew best. He started to see how the Brunello for which Montalcino was already famous could fit into a landscape celebrated for not just wine, but all of its bounty.
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When he returned home to his vineyards at Col d’Orcia, he was determined to infuse his winemaking with a sensitivity to the environment that allowed everyone and everything to flourish together. His efforts included bringing the entire estate into organic certification, becoming an Equalitas Sustainable Winery, and receiving the Snail Award from Slow Wine, all while producing a classic expression of Brunello di Montalcino according to Tuscan tradition.
Like the family who makes it, Lot.1 embraces the wisdom of nature— bending and weaving in order to always keep growing and giving back.
The wines of Col d’Orcia have become an inspiration to producers and consumers, demonstrating that biodiversity and limited intervention create a wine that is just as delicious as any other, but infinitely more valuable to the community.
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Today, Col d’Orcia is a truly forward-looking winery making unprecedented strides in sustainable agriculture. But that doesn’t mean the Marone Cinzano family has slowed down their ambitious work. Lot.1, a new wine helmed by Francesco’s son, Santiago Marone Cinzano, under the family’s Conti Marone Cinzano brand, is a distilled expression of the philosophy that has always driven their endeavors at Col d’Orcia.
A cru expression but an itinerant one, the grapes for Lot.1 come from the best vineyard on the estate as defined by the vintage, responding to the vicissitudes of weather and climate, striving for a wine that’s an honest reflection of the place and moment in time in which it was produced. Like the family who makes it, Lot.1 embraces the wisdom of nature— bending and weaving in order to always keep growing and giving back.
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