Jancis Robinson - Grattamacco – A high point

Grattamacco – a high point, by Jancis Robinson

The longevity and special character of wines made on Bolgheri's second-oldest estate is demonstrated.

Anyone who knows anything about Italian wine knows that in an international context Sassicaia was the first wine to emerge, gloriously, in the early 1970s from vineyards in the Maremma, the Tuscan coast, and that it was made in the image of red bordeaux. The second wine estate to be founded there, Grattamacco, is not quite so famous. Yet it was a pioneer in so many ways: a local pioneer of organic viticulture; of the indigenous grapes Sangiovese and Vermentino; of a wine made exclusively of fruit from bush vines, L’Albarello; and of a wine specifically designed to showcase the DOC Bolgheri Rosso, from 1994 when it was created.

The estate, higher than most in the region at between 100 and 200 m (328–656 ft) above the blue Tyrrhenian Sea on the other side of the Roman coastal road, the Via Aurelia, was sounded in 1977 by Piermario Meletti Cavallari, who came to the region from Lombardy.

His first official vintage was 1982. The first wine had been made in 1979. He experimented with various barrels and even tried an unoaked version, always with spontaneous fermentation rather than commercial yeasts.

Cavallari was particularly taken by the wild, relatively isolated nature of the estate (see above and the main picture accompanying this recent wine of the week) and wanted to express some of that wilderness character in his wines.

But the real distinguishing mark of Grattamacco has always been the inclusion of the Tuscan grape Sangiovese in its flagship red blend. Today it generally makes up about 15% but initially it was 50% with the same amount of Cabernet Sauvignon. When Cavallari arrived there were 3 ha of Sangiovese and Trebbiano. Inspired by Sassicaia presumably, he set about planting Cabernet Sauvignon. Over time he replaced some of the Sangiovese with Cabernet and in 1989 planted the first Merlot, which is now the oldest red-wine parcel on the estate. The overall average age of Grattamacco vines is 25.

Since 1995 they decreased the Sangiovese proportion because they added Merlot but they believe the Sangiovese gives Grattamacco its distinctive Mediterranean character. 

As for Grattamacco’s pioneering white wine, in 1986 Cavallari replaced the Trebbiano withmass-selection Vermentino, a variety with a close affinity with coastal locations. Vermentino had a history in Bolgheri but would traditionally be blended with Trebbiano for home consumption. Today, Grattamacco’s Vermentino vines are the oldest in Bolgheri. 

The estate was certified organic from 1997 but Cavallari was slow to put the certification on the label because he saw too many wines that he judged were poor quality, yet boasting of organic certification. Today the little green insignia appears on the back labels. 

In 2002 Cavallari the pioneer, now eager to try out Aleatico on the island of Elba off the Tuscan coast, at first leased and then eventually sold the estate to his friend Claudio Tipa, who three years earlier, with his sister Maria Iris Bertarelli, had acquired and restored Castello ColleMassari in the hills of Montecucco south-east of Bolgheri. (The Castello ColleMassari Riserva 2015 Montecucco was awine of the week in 2019.) The ColleMassari wine group was further enlarged in 2011 when they acquired Poggio di Soto in Montalcino and in 2016 they bought another Brunello property, Tenuta San Giorgio. The group is now run by the Swiss-based Bertarelli family. 

In 2003 Ernesto Bertarelli’s team Alinghi won the America’s Cup, thereby proving Switzerland a sailing nation. In July of that heatwave year the engaging, Abruzzo-raised oenologist Luca Marrone was hired by the Bertarellis and, in his own words, ‘after one month I was catapulted into Grattamacco in a messy vintage. It was a very challenging baptism of fire.’ 

Marrone, 47, must have proved himself because he now oversees winemaking at all of the group’s estates, each of which has its own resident assistant winemaker – Davide Torchio, since 2016, in the case of Grattamacco. Cavallari, now 81, still lives on the Grattamacco estate, incidentally, and Marrone wonders whether in retrospect he doesn’t slightly regret abandoning the estate for his Elba experiment. His son Giorgio has his own Bolgheri estate and winery where Poggio Lamentano, my recent wine of the week, is made. 

When tasting the wines described below in London with Luca Marrone, I said, ‘I’m so glad you have some Sangiovese.’ ‘Me too!’ agreed Marrone. Many producers in Bolgheri argue that it’s too humid for Sangiovese thanks to its proximity to the coast but Marrone pointed out that Grattamacco is high and about 8 km (5 miles) from the coast, so the local climate is very dry. And the elevation helps to cool things down so that Sangiovese doesn’t ripen too early, as it tends to lower down. ‘At Grattamacco Sangiovese can have dignity’, according to Marrone, who explained that they have planted Sangiovese in a new, even higher location where the wind can be positively cold. Though he admits that the thinner-skinned Sangiovese makes it more sensitive to disease than Cabernet, for example. 

They managed without irrigation until 2020 but the torrid experience of 2017, which was not unlike 2003, encouraged them to create a dam so that they can now irrigate on an emergency basis. 

Two new vineyards have been added to the original Grattamacco estate. The first was even higher, at 200 m (656 ft) elevation, in the Casa Vecchia area, as isolated as Grattamacco, but the 10 ha (25 acres) of vineyards they acquired had been planted 15 years earlier for quantity rather than quality and needed considerable work before its produce was included in Grattamacco for the first time in 2014. 

Then there is a lower planting, on the road from the town of Bolgheri to the coast, whose produce goes into the estate’s Bolgheri Rosso. They now have a total of 29 ha (72 acres) of vines and 18 ha of olives. 

Soils suit both red and white wines according to Marrone, with sandy quartz and white clays mixed with marly limestone flysch. Grapes are hand-picked and yields relatively low. For the flagship Grattamacco bottling, ‘Piermario copied Sassicaia basically’, Marrone told me. ‘We now ferment in large oak casks spontaneously, just like Sassicaia of the 1970s.’ After manual punchdowns the wine ages for at least 18 months in barriques. 

I’d tasted five vintages before I thought to ask about oak ageing because the oak doesn’t impose itself at all on Grattamacco – unlike many Bolgheri reds. They use only Taransaud barriques because Henri de Pracomtal of Taransaud was a big friend of Claudio Tipa. Marrone explained, ‘I wanted to do lots of experiments, and was allowed to, but Taransaud was always the best.’ They use a maximum of one-third new oak. ‘We don’t put the wine into barrique early, only in February, post settling. So we can order barriques after the vintage, so we can order the right type not just the right quantity.’ 

The oldest vintages of Grattamacco that Marrone showed me – 1991 and 1995 still in excellent shape – were determined by what remains in the cellar. They don’t have massive museum stocks because while selling the estate, Cavallari set about selling some of the wine he had been storing, too. Below is the current wine library. 

For Marrone, a certain saline character is Grattamacco’s signature and I would agree. The wines have much more lift and elegance than the Bolgheri norm. But, as everywhere, the climate is changing. They now often start picking in August as opposed to September in warmer vintages and it’s very rare that there are still grapes on the vine after 10 October, definitely earlier than in the past. Apparently they now often see rain in September, which helps Cabernet on its way to complete ripeness. 

I know on this site we are guilty of treating all of Tuscany as a single unit in our guide to vintages, but Marrone pointed out how different Bolgheri can be from Montalcino. 2010, for example, was ‘difficult’ in Bolgheri but very good for Montalcino, whereas in 2012 it was the other way round.

The 11 wines below are shown in the order they were tasted, oldest to youngest...

Read the full article at JancisRobinson.com

Review on 2016

" The season started off fairly dry, nor were temperatures ever very severe, conditions that encouraged budbreak and an early flowering. May and June delivered little rainfall, and temperatures were significantly above the average, particularly in the latter third of the month and the arrival of summer. To protect the clusters from the strong sunlight, leaf-pulling was not performed and canopy hedging was reduced to a minimum. July and August continued hot, with the exception of significant rainfall in late July, which allowed the grapes to reach ripeness in a sound, balanced state. A minimal amount of rain in late August encouraged the ripening process, particularly in the early-ripening varieties. Harvest started on 25 August and ended on 30 September. Rains in mid September brought relief to the Cabernet Sauvignon in the Casa Vecchia vineyard, extending its ripening period and thus improving both skins and seeds in the berries, as well as juice yield. The grapes picked in the last week of September exhibited better tannic texture and palate depth. The higher vineyards, at 200 metres, made a significant contribution, making it possible to obtain wines with quite firm structures and yet with significant approachability. ‘A year that proved itself rich and generous to those who had the courage and patience to wait for that full, sound ripeness that reveals itself here’, according to winemaker Luca Marrone. "

 Whelehans Wines - Collection of Grattamacco