Yesterday, Wednesday 17 January, Ezio Rivella, one of Italy’s most famous consultant oenologists, passed away in Rome. He was 91 years old. Born in 1933 in Castagnole delle Lanze in the province of Asti in Piemonte, but spending practically all his working life in Tuscany, Rivella had a relentless desire to modernise Italian wine from what he saw as its antiquated history. This led him to California, where he was confronted with French varieties excelling on non-French soil in a climate not dissimilar to Tuscany, and the use of barriques, another French import. Both he embraced and defended with great fervour during his entire career.
Meeting John and Harry Mariani, importers who made their fortune importing Lambrusco in 1975 into the US, had profound consequences for the three men as well as for Tuscany as a whole. The Marianis hired Rivella to help purchase the land and oversee Banfi, their newly founded estate in Montalcino, from vineyard to winemaking and marketing. Up to 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) of vines were planted and a state-of-the-art winery with temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks built under the direction of Rivella, who previously had worked at the Cantina Sociale dei Castelli Romani in Lazio, where he solved the problem of microbiological spoilage in its wines by flash pasteurisation.
The Marianis initially wanted to copy the Lambrusco sales success by producing their own version of a white, medium-sweet Lambrusco, and initially set on the white Moscadello, planting whole swathes of the estate’s vineyards to this variety, only to see the plan fail. Once the production was converted to red wines aged in barriques, the Banfi wines became an overnight success in the US. Their success pulled Brunello di Montalcino into the international spotlight and encouraged many producers to jump on the bandwagon, leading to the controversial enlargement of the denomination.
Rivella will always be associated with both the US Brunello boom in the 1980s and the Brunello scandal in 2008, in which many estates, including Banfi, were discovered to have been adding varieties such as Merlot to this mandatorily 100% Sangiovese wine. In the scandal that ensued, Rivella took the controversial position of defending the additions, and suggested that a 100% Sangiovese Brunello would never be a wine of excellence. A proposal to amend the Brunello production rules to allow for French varieties ensued, but was defeated after a revolt led by Franco Biondi Santi, who staunchly defended the 100% Sangiovese regulation.
Rivella, who was equally admired as a visionary and vilified because of his profound modernist views, held many prestigious positions, including as the president of Assoenologi, an Italian association of oenologists, from 1975 to 1986; president of the Associazione Enotecnici Italiani, the Italian association of oenotechnicians; president of the Comitato Nazionale Vini DOP 1993–1998; and of the Consorzio of Brunello di Montalcino from 2010 until 2012. In 1985 he was made Cavaliere del Lavoro, one of the highest orders in Italy.
Image courtesy of the Consorzio Brunello di Montacino.
