More movement in Italy – 2002

  • Riccardo Cotarella, who already seems to make half the wine in Italy (Montiano, Falesco, Vitiano, and those are just his own labels), has confirmed that he will be making wine for Castello di Volpaia, the family-owned Chianti Classico estate.
  • Franco Allegrini of Valpolicella fame (except he has removed himself from the Consorzio now) has made a sizeable purchase in the Maremma, 45 potential hectares of vineyards. The smaller part – eight or nine – is in Bolgheri, a good parcel above the Via Bolghersi and away from the damper, sandier soils. The larger part is in Bibbona, near where Piero and Lodovico Antinori's new project – Campo ai Sassi (qv) – is taking form. All the vineyards need to be planted, and the grapes will obviously be Bordeaux ones (Franco works with one of Italy's best agronomists, Stefano Chioccioli, a Tuscan, who also makes the wines at Tua Rita in the Val di Cornia).
  • Sella & Mosca, Sardinia's big wine company is rumoured to have been sold to Campari.
  • Meanwhile Avignonesi of Montepulciano seem to have bought another property of 30 hectares in the province of Siena.