Fattoria di Bacchereto, Tuscany...
As I promised you in the article “Will the Yellow Road through Livorno pass? ..”, the owner of the wonderful Tuscan winery Fattoria di Bacchereto Mrs Maria Rossella Bencini will answer the questions. Fattoria di Bacchereto is located very close to Carmignano. And to Florence only 40 kilometers! ..
Fattoria di Bacchereto is situated on the wooded hills that cover Montalbano. The estate has been owned by the family since the 1920s.
The vineyard area is 8 hectares, olive trees are planted on 60 hectares, and the remaining 90 hectares are forests and chestnut groves. All in all, Fattoria di Bacchereto has about 160 hectares of land.
What distinguishes the production of Fattoria?
Careful care of the vineyard without the use of herbicides, chemical fertilizers or pesticides, traditional winemaking practice without the addition of yeast, when the future wine is aged in small oak barrels of 350 liters.
What grape varieties? .. Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, Black Canaiolo, Tuscan Trebbiano, Malvasia del Chianti
About 20,000 bottles are produced annually.
Fattoria di Bacchereto has its own apartments, so they can be easily found on TripAdvisor. I could not resist and just copied one of the reviews on this site:
"This is such a beautiful place that we chose it for our wedding. Wonderful reception. Mrs. Rossella is simply charming. They produce award-winning wines (and we understand why), they are absolutely biodynamic. All guests liked their wines, and the lucky ones who stayed overnight They even got a very good breakfast the next day. With very tasty Tuscan sausage, jams, etc. Excellent butter and honey too. The place is beautiful, with a breathtaking view of the valley of Bisenzio. And the rooms are in typical Tuscan style. "
The questions of "YR" are answered by the Rossella Bencini, owner of the Fattoria di Bacchereto.
1 - The history of creating your favorite white (yellow) wine.
The history of our white wine is very simple: all our white grapes are old varieties of typical Tuscan grapes “Trebbiano Toscano” and “Malvasia del Chianti” coming from an old vineyard 50 years old, so we decided to produce also white wine, as we did with the red, with ancient methods, avoiding chemicals at all..and we obtained a White Wine very structured and refined both at sight and taste
2 - Do you prefer (it's important for you) the color of the wine?
The color of wine is very important because It represents the first thing that we can see.. as it happens for people, also for wines the look is the first thing that affects us .
Our wine, as every good wine, has a beautiful and bright color.. and particularly the colour of my natural White wine is sparkling gold yellow.
3 - List, if possible, a set (gift box) of three-four own wines (red and white), which, in your opinion, can be worthy of representing your farm.
We produce only four kinds of wine, Red, White, Vin Santo and RedPassito. Each of them rapresent my farm but maybe,the most representative could be the red wine Carmignano Terre a Mano, red wine.. because it is the wine with which I started my hard work with biodinamic approach and we grew up together
4 - Your company produces several wines, olive oil and it seems honey.. ... Did you have a desire to concentrate on one thing?
I love what I do , that’s my agricultural work,so I’d like to do more things, not less… The country side life is a multitasking life, It could be impossible to do only one thing ,and not useful : specialization is typical of industry, and of current era, but the agricultural craft must not follow the laws of mechanical and chemical industry, because it deals with the nature.. that is living … so it must free itself from a mechanistic vision and rediscover a vision linked to the reality of natural phenomena, that are complex and have their own laws that’s impossibile to change.
5 - Your vineyards are located in fantastically beautiful places.
Can a tourist live in your hotel? Is it convenient for them to travel to the famous Tuscan cities?..
Everyday we guide some wine tours here and people enjoy it very much. They can walk around vineyards, hear how we produce different kinds of wines, and taste ours products. It’s a beautiful experience! Tuscany is a rich region and the people that visit it are very lucky!
Yes, tourists can stay in our Fattoria di Bacchereto: we have some simple, fully equipped , typical Tuscan apartments to rent for holidays- the place is very quiet, surrounded by vineyards and woods , and people can visit a lot of wonderful cities ,that are very close, like Florence,(25 km) Lucca, Pisa and Siena but sleeping in a natural oasis!
It’s very easy to travel to the famous touristic destinations : we are located on a hill, but only 6 km.far from the plain, where after 6 km.more we could reach the Autostrada to go everywhere: in one hour we could also go to the sea and the beaches of Viareggio and Forte dei Marmi!
6- You can offer the most beautiful view (favorite point) on vineyards or the surrounding landscape?
7 - Your choice for the "Yellow Road"?
8- What cultural event would you like to see at home: an exhibition, an opera, a ballet or something else? A fan of what kinds of art you are?
I love all kinds of art….Winemaking is an art.. I sometimes hosted several kinds of arts in my farm, the place lends itself especially to theater performances and concerts.
9 - You have a vineyard, there is wine, what would you like to add to this picture? Expand the vineyard, improve the wine, increase sales? If it's not a secret, what are your plans for the future?
The nature is dynamic and full of life, so I’d like to add to wind, clouds and sun also also animals as cows, sheeps, goats and chicken, to recreate a really true to nature, complex, agriculture
10 - Which white wine producer (from Italy or another country) would you recommend for the "Yellow Road"?
I recommend every producer of my group “Renaissance des Appellations” and particularly the Founder of the group, who is Nicolas Joly : he with his family produces a wonderful, shiny as a blade, White Wine in his exceptional vineyard la Coulée de Serrant, located in the Loire Valley of France.
Sergey Evtuhov, author of the project
