On May 19, 2012, a group of wine enthusiasts from various regions of Italy gathered at the Mormoraia winery and agritourism in Sant’Andrea, San Gimignano. This group included sommeliers, journalists, and bloggers who were just beginning to explore the internet—practically a geological era ago. They came together to delve into the potential of Vernaccia di San Gimignano. The aim was to compare it with other great Italian and international white wines. The idea came from Davide Bonucci, the mastermind behind Enoclub Siena, and the late Simone Morosi, a wine and winery discoverer of rare talent.
The two-day event was beautiful, filled with peace, love, and great wines. Tasting and re-tasting bottles from local wineries—Il Colombaio di Santa Chiara, La Castellaccia, Mattia Barzaghi, Mormoraia, Signano, and Cappella di Sant’Andrea—revealed that Vernaccia di San Gimignano possessed all the qualities needed to rank among the great Italian whites, especially when aged for a few years. Over the ensuing years, I have tried to keep my focus on Vernaccia, drinking it wherever I could: in restaurants, at Vinitaly, but I hadn’t been to the loci for a while. In the loci, one can truly understand and grasp the full potential and nuances of the producers’ genius.
Exactly twelve years after the Mormoraia days, the San Gimignano Consortium invited us to the second edition of ‘Regina Ribelle – Vernaccia di San Gimignano Wine Fest.’ This event confirmed my beliefs: Vernaccia di San Gimignano, as it evolves, has become one of Italy’s greatest white wines.
Guicciardini Strozzi
Proof of this is bottles such as the 2007 Riserva from Guicciardini Strozzi, the 2013 from Tenuta le Calcinaie, the 2015 Riserva i Mocali from Vagnoni, the 2016 Riserva Benedetta from Fattoria San Donato, the 2016 (DIAM cork) and 2017 (Stelvin cork) Riservas from San Benedetto, and the 2021 Riserva from Palagetto—amazing wines that some unhesitatingly describe as memorable.
Focus on the 2023 Vintage
Climatically, 2023 was a very challenging year. The frequency and intensity of spring rains immediately put the entire San Gimignano production at risk. Exacerbating an already partially compromised situation were the summer temperatures, which were significantly above average, accompanied by heatwaves lasting several days. These conditions further damaged some varieties and halted the ripening of red grapes.
Precipitation
Following a winter with above-average temperatures and consistent rainfall totaling about 370 mm between November 2022 and March 2023, the spring was cold and rainy. Until mid-June, precipitation was abundant and persistent, with seven consecutive days of rain in May and 293 mm accumulated between April 1 and June 30.
Pathological Conditions
These conditions made the vines more susceptible than usual to downy mildew. The continuous attacks caused significant problems for the vegetation and led to the drying out of clusters during the growth phase (the phenomenon of downy mildew), thus compromising the entire production in terms of quantity. In some vineyards, the situation was so severe that a complete crop loss was recorded, while many wineries saw their production drop to just 20-30%.
Temperatures
At the end of June, an African anticyclone caused temperatures to soar, stabilizing well above the summer average. July recorded peaks above 40°C, even for extended periods. In early August, a slight temperature drop brought some relief to the plants, but in the third week, a new African anticyclone raised and maintained temperatures around 42°C for three days straight. Concurrently, hot winds burned the leaves and the most exposed clusters, creating further damage and production declines. The entire summer season, up to the harvest, passed without rain or with sporadic, insignificant rainfall that brought no benefit to the vineyard.
Harvest
The harvest began in early September with the collection of aromatic white grape varieties, followed by Vernaccia di San Gimignano until the end of the month, and concluded in early to mid-October with the Sangiovese harvest. From a qualitative standpoint, 2023 aligns with the last two or three vintages, as they also experienced irregular weather patterns. This ongoing climate change is more evident when comparing the recent harvests to those of the early 2000s, which already showed an earlier harvest period compared to the 1980s. The most critical aspect of recent vintages is the lack of rain alongside increasingly intense and persistent heat peaks.
The 2023 Vintage in the Glass
Despite the difficult year, the Vernaccia di San Gimignano appeared healthy with nearly perfect acidity and pH parameters and very good yields. During the first day of the Regina Ribelle Wine Fest, it was possible to taste 44 samples of Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG from the 2023 vintage, 12 samples from 2022, 4 samples from 2021, and one sample from 2019. As for Vernaccia di San Gimignano Riserva, there were 11 samples from 2022, 10 from 2021, 4 from 2020, one from 2019, and one from 2018.
Overall, the 2023 vintage was attractive, particularly for its acidic drive, lovely sapidity, and overall elegance, despite a few samples that were still somewhat unbalanced. Over time, it will become increasingly intriguing. With the Riservas, there’s an immediate shift in quality: the taste is more complete, vertical, and deep. The qualitative level rises dramatically, confirming the axiom that Vernaccia di San Gimignano is a great white wine for aging. Considering that it’s unthinkable, for obvious reasons, to wait at least a year after the harvest before releasing it to the market, I urge producers to save part of their production not just for historical purposes but to sell it after a few years. Today, it is possible to drink bottles of Vernaccia di San Gimignano from 2016, 2015, and earlier with beautiful olfactory complexity, great elegance, and high gastronomic potential.
The History of Vernaccia di San Gimignano
No other Italian wine can boast the centuries-old history and fame of Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Historical and documentary evidence attests to the existence of vineyards in the “court of Gemignano” since 1032, and archaeological evidence traces the area’s viticulture back to the Etruscan era. The Vernaccia grape variety appears in records as early as the 1200s. This period saw the rapid and massive development of wine production and trade in San Gimignano, which for centuries served as the main local agricultural and economic activity.
From the 1300s through the Renaissance, Vernaccia di San Gimignano conquered Europe. You could rewrite the sentences to reduce the passive voice and improve SEO optimization:
Wealthy merchants and powerful figures of the time, such as Lorenzo de’ Medici, Ludovico il Moro, Pope Paul III Farnese, and Cosimo I, enjoyed it at their tables. It almost always served as the prestigious centerpiece of important events and wedding banquets. However, it was the literati, scholars, writers, and poets who celebrated it for more than three centuries. Piero de’ Crescenzi, Dante, Cecco Angiolieri, Folgore da San Gimignano, Boccaccio, Franco Sacchetti, Eustache Deschamps, Jean Froissart, John Gower, Geoffrey Chaucer, Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, Giorgio Vasari, and Francesco Redi in his dithyramb “Bacco in Toscana”—these names solidified the fame of the wine and the region where it is produced.
The decline and the resurgence
The 18th century was a period of decline. Wine consumption underwent a change in taste, no longer favoring white wines as during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, while the spread of new exotic beverages like tea, coffee, and chocolate throughout Europe created new habits and trends. This shift in consumption geography, influenced by the Anglo-Saxon world, solidified the British Empire’s dominance, setting the stage for an Anglo-French driven wine market. Nonetheless, Vernaccia di San Gimignano continued to be produced, albeit in smaller quantities.
In the 19th century, production continued to decline. The spread of the Vernaccia grape was mostly residual, found here and there mixed with other grapes for the production of “common wine.” The renaissance of Vernaccia di San Gimignano began in the 1930s, thanks to Dr. Carlo Fregola, Regent of the Ambulatory Agricultural Chair of Colle di Val d’Elsa. Convinced of the grape’s enological potential and the possibility of replanting the ancient variety, he undertook a row-by-row search, rediscovering it in 1931 in almost all areas of the San Gimignano municipality. Fregola urged local winegrowers to recover Vernaccia, considering it capable of producing a “truly excellent” wine.
However, it wasn’t until after World War II that the renewal and ampelographic recovery anticipated by the persistent agronomist took place. By the 1960s, Vernaccia was fully recovered. With the abandonment of mixed farming, growers replanted it in new specialized vineyards, ahead of other highly viticultural areas in Tuscany.
In 1966, Vernaccia di San Gimignano became the first Italian wine to receive the Denomination of Controlled Origin (DOC), and in 1972, the establishment of the Vernaccia Consortium, later the San Gimignano Denomination Consortium, gave new impetus to production. This production grew progressively in both quantity and quality, achieving DOCG status, the highest recognition of Italian legislation, in 1993.