Trip to Casale Falchini Winery in San Gimignano, Tuscany

This blog entry was initially featured on our site last fall when the "featured winery" section had its debut

Our quest to acquire Italy’s best Vernaccia started about a year ago when a friend / reliable taster-at-large of ours brought us back a bottle of Casale Falchini Ab Vinea Doni after trying it at a restaurant just outside the town of San Gimignano. After a couple of sniffs, swirls, and sips we decided that we needed to have it at the shop. We called the winery and left two messages, but never received a call back. When we did finally get Mr. Falchini on the phone, he told us that "he would think about it" and get back to us. What? However, we did not hear back from him. This wine was too good to not be on our shelves, so we decided that we would drive up to San Gimignano and drop in on Mr. Falchini, unexpectedly.

We set out on a scorching July morning to the low lying grape filled hills of Tuscany. The A1, often referred to by its fitting nickname the “Motorway of the Sun”, seemed like it was on the verge of melting as the temperature hit 35°C. We followed the signs to Siena and then on to San Gimignano, with its breathtaking countryside dotted with historic castles and churches. Upon arriving in the fraction of Casale, which was basically a dirt road, we asked an old lady walking her dog for directions. The dialect was hard to understand, but her hand signals weren’t and we found it perched on the top of a hill overlooking the scenic valley. We parked the car and headed down to the office where we were met by a young man.

Mr. Falchini's son, Christopher seemed a little amazed that we drove all the way up to see them and told us that he would go and go get his father. In the meantime, we looked around the office and were impressed by all of the awards hanging on the wall. How is it that we had never heard of these wines before? There were publications in English, French, German, Japanese, and Italian. After a few minutes of small talk and awkward waiting, Mr. Falchini came out, introduced himself, and immediately started explaining his reservations about selling his wine to “just anyone”. The conversation got a bit tense, with Mr. Falchini making it clear that we had wasted our time by coming up here. However, we were persistent. We told him that we would be honored to carry such a fine product and that it was the best Vernaccia we had tasted.

I think he started taking a liking to us when he realized that we were not going to leave without an order in place. He was also intrigued by the fact that we were foreigners, that we sold Italian wine in Italy, and that we drove 300 kilometers to try and convince him to sell us his wine. He offered us a sample, which we demanded to pay for. He told us that “we’ll work it out when I ship you your first order”. All of a sudden, the prospect of obtaining Mr. Falchini’s wines was looking good.

Just as we were about to see ourselves to the door, Mr. Falchini insisted on postponing his lunch break and giving us a tour of the winery. We knew how important his lunch breaks were. There had been times when we had called at 11:30am and he had already been out to lunch. We left the office and headed to the bottling room where 6 people were busy filling and corking on a state of art bottling machine, which, as he explained, could handle up to 2000 bottles an hour. He was proud of his machinery, and explained how his state of the art corking machine was so advanced that it sucked the air out of the bottle before it pushed the cork in, making sure that no dust or residue from the cork made its way into the wine.

From here we went to the maturing room where the wines are left to put to rest after having spent a period in oak casks or stainless steel. Here you can awe at the various vintages, or annate, as they say around here. Mr. Falchini once again switched into frustrated winemaker mode, as he explained how the Italian government was destroying the art of wine production by offering incentives to those who produce using “organic” methods. He insisted that it was useless and that they should be educating them on the traditional winemaking methods instead. The problem is that the laws governing organic products allow the use of some chemicals and not others, some of which are essential to successfully fending off diseases to which grapes are susceptible. This results in the overuse of these permitted substances that inhibit the production of quality wines. He insisted that traditional winemaking was the only way forward, and that technology must be used in a responsible way when only when the life of the vines is threatened. We could not agree more.

Out in the courtyard he showed how the grapes, within one hour of being picked, are transferred to the fermenting tanks. It must be done right away as to prevent the oxidizing process from taking place. It also guarantees a quality crush for the winemaking, he explained. The crushed grapes are pumped into waiting silos where temperature controlled fermentation takes place.

We go back into the complex and down into the fermentation room where “juice is turned to wine”. These rooms are basically immense temperature controlled environments. As he carried on explaining the various machines and their functions, we thought here is a person who hasn’t just dedicated his life to the production of wine, but someone who has religiously studied winemaking and understood the various techniques down to their smallest details.

Alongside the fermentation rooms are the cellars where the wines are put to mature in oak barrels. The great Super Tuscans share this vault with another peculiarity, Spumante, or, sparkling wine. You may ask, what is so peculiar about that? Well, Tuscany is not known for its sparkling wines, iIn fact, Falchini was the only one we had ever heard of. Hearing the words “Tuscan Spumante” is sort of like hearing “French Chianti” or “Italian Hot Dogs”. Here, Mr. Falchini takes a prime selection of Vernaccia and Chardonnay grapes and uses a “Champagne Method” to produce this award winning anomaly. In 2005 it won a gold medal in a blind tasting alongside several prominent French Champagnes.

Then we come to the vineyard’s prized possession, the Vinsantaio, the damp rooms dedicated to aging Falchini’s cherished Vin Santo, a Tuscan dessert wine. The winery has three Vinsantai one for each of the various steps in its production. We were fascinated when he told us about his barrels. Several of them were used to age the first vintage of Italy’s most famous wine, the Sassicaia, in 1968. Others, he told us almost as if it were a secret, were from Kentucky, where they were used to age Bourbon!

At the end of the tour came the part we love. The tasting! He brought out 2 glasses and the spittoon, which of course we didn’t end up needing. We tried his Vernaccias, both the Ab Vinea Doni and Titolato Castel Selva. They had a mineral nose and distinct taste, which is not typical of Vernaccia, an outcast in a region that highly favors red wines. Then, we moved on the Chianti Solli Senesi, which was light, but definitely not lacking in character. We finished off with the Campora, which was very silky, and seemed as if it would go very well with a juicy rare steak. Just as we were about to get going, Mr. Falchini asked "Did you try the Vin Santo?". We had not, and he insisted that there would have been no point in our trip had we left without trying it. Plus, the fact that it was aged in Bourbon Barrels certainly sparked our interest. It was indeed a fine dessert wine, with hunts of almonds, vanilla, and caramel.

Click here to see a complete list of Casale Falchini Wines available on The Roman Wine Company website