BIONDI SANTI

Tenuta Greppo
Franco Biondi Santi

villa greppo 183
53024 montalcino
siena - italy

TEL. +39 0577 848087
FAX +39 0577 849396

BIONDISANTI@BIONDISANTI.IT

www.biondisanti.it
The new Tenuta Greppo - Biondi Santi web site in now on-line
03 Dec 2009
THE VINEYARDS OF THE GREPPO ESTATE
VEGETATIVE CYCLE AND MANUAL WORK
FROM THE VINEYARD TO THE CELLAR
The vegetative cycle in the Greppo vineyards varies depending on altitude and exposure, but Brunello usually germinates in the first 10 days of April and blooms at the end of May or the beginning of June.
The grape veraison takes place after the middle of August and they usually ripen in mid September.

Vine terraces of Scarnacuoia,
dry stone walls built in the
mid 19th century
The oldest vineyards have a plantation arrangement of 3x1/1.50 metres, with 2,222/3,333 plants per hectare. In the medium age Greppo vineyards, the plantation arrangement is 2.60x1.30 metres, with 2 vines for every position and 5,917 vines per hectare; the plantation arrangement of the youngest vineyards is 2.60 m. x 85, with 4,524 vines per hectare.
The average load is between 25,000 and 35,000 buds per hectare. The cultivation system is the horizontal low, spurred cordon with 3-4-5 spurs with 1 gem each.
The posts currently used in the vineyards are made of chestnut wood, carbonised in the part embedded in the ground. They sustain a galvanised metal wire around which the horizontal cordon is entwined, and three rows of double wires above the cordon, up to a useful height of the foliage wall of about 1.40 metres.

Vigna Tre querce
Meticulous care is devoted to the cultivation of Brunello vines, carried out by highly specialised labour, as follows:

1. two green harvests are performed to aerate the area around the bunches of grapes;

2. the shoots are “upturned” twice on the trellis and topped at the end of July to favour the ideal development of the grape cane in relation to the leaf/bunch ratio;

3. the grapes are thinned at the end of July, when the bunch closes, to favour better ripening;

4. limited leaf removal takes place before harvesting to favour aeration and exposure of the bunches to the sun;

5. the grapes harvested are subjected to careful selection, destining only the very best to the production of Brunello.

No herbicides are used in the vineyard: weeds are controlled by repeatedly turning the topsoil, which also restricts the loss of freshness, breaking up the capillarity of the soil.
Mainly traditional products containing copper and sulphur are used to fight cryptogams.
The yields per hectare are very low: 3-5 tons of grapes per hectare, while the limit imposed by the production regulations is 8 tons.

Current production levels rarely exceed 80,000 bottles, including about 10,000 bottles of Reserve (only in exceptional harvests).
The grape harvest is carried out entirely by hand and usually begins in mid September. The grapes are carried in baskets to the end of the row of vines, where a group of grape pickers selects the grapes bunch by bunch, destining only the very best ones to the production of the future Brunello, grown in vineyards which are at least ten years old for the “Vintage” wine and at least twenty-five years old for the “Reserve” wine. The grapes must be perfectly healthy and ripe. The second choice of grapes is used for table wine, sold in bulk.
Only estate-grown grapes are vinified, and no wines produced by other estates are ever bought. The grapes pass through a stalking and crushing machine and are then transferred to the fermentation tanks.

Selection of the grapes in the vineyard

Temperature-controlled fermentation takes place on skins, with the control obtained by cooling the must during the pumping over and maintaining the temperature below 30/31 degrees centigrade.
The grapes destined to reserve wine are fermented in large Slavonian oak vats, while those destined to “Vintage” wines are fermented in concrete tanks vitrified with polymerised epoxy resins, and those destined to “Rosso di Montalcino” and Rosato di Toscana” are fermented in stainless steel tanks equipped with a cooling band.
No selected yeasts are used for vinification, preferring the use of natural yeasts only.
The wine is drawn off after 15-18 days.
The first racking in the tanks takes place after about a month, maintaining the temperature of the environment at about 18/20 degrees centigrade. By the following April, the wine is racked from the tanks into Slavonian oak barrels of variable capacity and age, with a preference for medium-large containers.
During the barrel-ageing period (36 months for Brunello and 12 for Rosso di Montalcino), the wine is racked twice a year.

First and second choice

Bottling takes place in the June of the 4th year and the wine is released for sale at least six months after bottling.
Every bottle of Brunello del Greppo (particularly the Reserves destined for long ageing) is stored horizontal in a heat-conditioned environment at a temperature of 13°C, with over 85% relative humidity, in the dark and in silence.
Bottle-ageing is of the utmost importance; as the years go by, the aroma and flavour undergo very significant transformations, improving all the time.
GREPPO: PEDOLOGY AND CLIMATIC CHARACTERISTICS
The Greppo Estate, which has always been indicated in the land registry maps of Montalcino, stretches across the hillside (altitude 385/507 metres above sea level), to the southeast of Montalcino and enjoys an ideal microclimate and soil for the production of aromatic red wines which are perfect for long ageing.

The Estate was created thanks to the organic and rational management of Ferruccio Biondi Santi, who was responsible for grafting the estate’s new vines with the Sangiovese Grosso clone that he selected.
All the very fertile land is rejected, the preference being for marl, rich in heavy stone, exposed South, Southeast, East, Northeast and North.
A glance at the Simplified Lithological Map of the Municipality of Montalcino reveals that the land occupied by the Greppo Estate is particularly well suited to the cultivation of Sangiovese, lean and very rich in heavy stone, the best areas being those with marl-rich soils. A microclimate with a tendency to be dry when the grapes ripen fully enhances the aromas and the structure of Brunello.
The climate is characterised by a marked difference between diurnal and nocturnal temperatures, accentuated in September and October (during the harvesting period). This considerable difference in temperature at dawn enables the grape varieties to express all the characteristic aromas of Brunello di Montalcino del Greppo, whether they are exposed to South, Southeast, East, Northeast or North. As regards disease, downy mildew is an adversity of moderate intensity. Powdery mildew is definitely the disease that causes most damage, but it is kept effectively under control in summer with repeated sulphur powder-based treatments suitable for contact with water. Green harvests allow the constant aeration of the bunch, limiting damage related to climatic events which favour the formation of grey rot. The Greppo area is not affected by the European grapevine moth and attacks by grape mites and grape leafhoppers are rare. Grape mites were weakened about 20 years ago, introducing vine shoots covered with the phytoseiid eggs (mite predators) into the vineyards during the winter pruning activity.


Vine of 1936

The old (and most valuable) vines on the other hand, are attacked by a dreadful cryptogam: “esca grapevine disease” against which there is no defence at present. In September 1970, Franco Biondi Santi began a clone selection of his old Greppo vines, cooperating with Professors Casini and Bandinelli of the Tree Cultivation Institute of the Faculty of Agrarian Science at Florence University. Various clones of Sangiovese were selected during five grape harvests, but that which became official was BBS/11 (Brunello Biondi Santi, vine no. 11), the clone from which the gems were taken for grafting onto the new wild vine cuttings.