This journey starts from far away, in space and time, bringing together the sacred and the profane, the love for one's own traditions and especially for good wine, the kind from one's home. The events narrated are enriched by the direct account of the protagonists and for the events back in time, by the hypotheses considered most plausible. This story goes back to the Middle Ages, along the main crossroads of the great ways of faith, those that allowed pilgrims to reach Rome.
Let's talk about the Via Francigena
Of its pilgrims, the flourishing trade that took place around it and the birth, on its edge, of small villages and large communities.
In the early '90s, in San Miniato, along the Via Francigena, Pietro Beconcini, the third generation of winemakers in the family, is beginning to teach his son Leonardo, barely in his twenties, about the knowledge of wine and the vineyard. We are in a moment of transition both at the company level and nationally for the entire wine world, which needs to be revitalized. The Beconcini family chooses to take a production break between '92 and '95, to restart on more solid scientific and agronomic bases. The assistance comes from the University of Florence, which is completing a massive zoning of the regional wine-producing areas, in which the Beconcini family participates with their own Sangiovese plants, adding a second type of plants, from which they produce a wine with a strong personality, with great coloring pigmentation, that also offers a similarly intense experience to the taste.
The common opinion is that it is malvasia from Chianti, a grape also present in other areas of Tuscany. However, the DNA study provides a surprising answer:
That plant is not Chianti malvasia but rather tempranillo.
The astonishment, in the academic field and even more so for the Beconcini, is very strong: what is a typical grape variety from Rioja, perhaps the most representative black grape of all Spain, doing in San Miniato?
Leonardo Beconcini tells us the most accredited reconstruction, namely that it was pilgrims arriving from Santiago de Compostela, traveling the Via Francigena that passes through San Miniato, who brought with them seeds of Tempranillo and planted them, giving rise to the first seedlings. Studies from the University of Florence have recognized the same DNA of Tempranillo in 9 out of 19 identified areas, including San Miniato, Castelfiorentino, Gambassi, and as far as the province of Siena, thus redefining the path of the Francigena.
As in all stories, there is a character who, at a certain point in the narrative, brings about a turning point and, in this case, explains why the tempranillo has taken root particularly in San Miniato. The credit is likely due to Giovan Battista Landeschi, who lived in the eighteenth century and, from 1753, for almost three decades, was the parish priest of the Church of Sant’Angelo a Montorzo, located just above the Beconcini lands. Landeschi, known as one of the leading examples of a clergyman engaged in disseminating agricultural precepts, was also the author of essays on agriculture. It is probable that he was the one to spread the cultivation of a certain number of plants, allowing the grapevine to take root better compared to other areas and other grape varieties of which traces have been lost.
As the ideal continuator of Landeschi's work, Leonardo Beconcini has brought the tempranillo back to life, identifying it immediately as the representative grape of his own business when, in the second half of the 1990s, he took over the family company. Leveraging academic support, Leonardo spent another decade on studies and experiments in the vineyard, along with (even more complex) bureaucratic work to achieve the most sought-after result: in 2009, he succeeded in registering the tempranillo among the grape varieties allowed and recommended by the Tuscany Region, receiving authorization to produce a 100% tempranillo with an IGT label, a designation that is still used only by Beconcini Wines.
A very important aspect that characterizes the Beconcini tempranillo is the fact that:
The vine along the Francigena has spread by seed.
Mode that does not return the overall genetic heritage, leaving room for greater "Tuscany-ization."
The soil of Beconcini is among the most basic in the region, with a pH that reaches 9, a characteristic that gives great minerality and savoriness to the wine, an aspect strongly related to its marine origins. This is demonstrated by the name Vigna alle Nicchie, IGT Tempranillo 100%, the most representative wine of the estate, which grows in half a hectare, much of which has a century of history and is own-rooted (the niches are the shells). Leonardo has managed to combine savoriness with the acidity of the soils, thanks to more extensive vineyard management: for example, the harvesting phase is extended until the second half of September, using the thinning technique. The result is a wine that maintains its fleshy essence but is enriched with a freshness that provides elegance and longevity.
The history of San Miniato Tempranillo once again shows us how wine is a living matter, in its organoleptic characteristics, but also cultural and historical, in a flow of studies and knowledge that continues to nourish the pleasure of discovery. The same pleasure that a pilgrim could experience in the Middle Ages, as today, while sipping a good glass of wine at the end of a long day of walking.
