-Hello dear friends and Italian wine enthusiasts. Today we take you to a marvelous winery, Tenuta Masselina. Here is Elena Piva with me. Hello, Elena!
-Hello
-Where are we right now, Elena? Because I see a stunning panorama behind us.
-We are in Castel Bolognese, in the region of Romagna and the province of Ravenna, approximately 50 kilometers from Bologna, which is our capital city, and about 50 kilometers from the Adriatic coast, the Adriatic Sea.
Located on the hills of Castel Bolognese, you’ll find Tenuta Masselina, an organic estate where we produce wine with great respect for this landscape and these hills, while maintaining a sense of responsibility towards environmental sustainability.
We utilize renewable energy sources, such as a geothermal system that extracts energy from 100 meters underground, creating a virtuous and eco-friendly approach. Our aim is to minimize the impact of our work on this beautiful landscape, as you can see.
-Has this theme of sustainability always been part of Masselina’s DNA from the beginning?
-Yes, since 2008, when the Terre Cevico group we are part of acquired a part of these vineyards, the idea was to respect their beauty and therefore to restore and not build from scratch what it was already there, like the old barn, like the farmer’s house which today houses the museum, to go and tell tourists about our Romagna character with projects related to wine and our interesting gastronomy.
-Masselina has a total of 22 hectares, 16 hectares of vineyards and 6 hectares of forest.
The forest is a very important presence because it produces a microclimate and somehow lowers the temperatures in the surrounding vineyards, as well as bringing biodiversity both in terms of micro-fauna and macro-fauna, which certainly makes this place and the wines that come from it special. products. We are producers of native Romagna vines, therefore Sangiovese, Albana, Pignoletto and also two international vines such as Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon Blanc have found here a happy, pleasant expression, which made us think of continuing the vinification and producing 147 and 158 which are the two references from international vines
– So, what types of wine are these exquisite amphorae suitable for?
-Yes, we produce wine in amphorae and we have chosen, after a long selection, to work with Albana, which is an autochthonous grape from Romagna, very suitable for these long macerations that last up to 90 days inside the amphorae. The wine production process, with the exception of destemming, takes place inside these containers which were produced in Faenza, a historic city for the production of ceramics known throughout the world.
Ceramics in the world are called Faience for this reason, because ceramics were already being produced in Faenza, which is about eight kilometers away, since the year 1000. This wine bears on the label a reference to the women of the Faenza Renaissance. The kind women of Faenza were women from rich Faenza families who went to personalize their wedding trousseau with their image painted by a painter chosen for the occasion.
-Welcome to our cellar. Here we refine our red wines and in particular the Sangiovese and also a small production of Albana passito, which stays in this room for a few months. We are under the garden of Tenuta Masselina. Here we wanted to create a space for our wines, a fully air-conditioned space thanks to the use of photovoltaic energy where they stay for a few months, in particular our Sangiovese Riserva requires an aging of about 18-20 months inside these large barrels .
– As mentioned before, these barrels are not all the same, they have different personalities and identities. This is also an option for the Marcelina winery.
-Here we find ourselves in a sub-area of the Sangiovese denomination called Serra, a sub-area which is also mentioned on the label of our Sangiovese. And precisely because we particularly want to tell the identity of Sangiovese which is aged in large barrels but must not lose its identity for any reason and therefore we choose different woods with different toastings and also of different sizes thinking of the barrel, precisely because then we are we choose to maintain the territorial style of the wine and we do not rely, for example, on the toasting of a particular tonnellerie or on the wood of a barrel producer which would change the identity of our wine.
-This room also tells the story of territoriality thanks to the stone and wood that we see as the protagonists of this splendid barrel cellar
-Yes, for us wine means territory, tradition, history, it means the Italian story of the great workers who in the past but also currently work around wine and therefore it is a way to tell not only our work, but using materials like this stone , this stone, which is a selenite, a gypsum that comes from the quarry under Monte Titano, which is the mountain of the Republic of San Marino and likewise the vault that was created by these carpenters, carpenters of great value, great craftsmen who have made this vault stave by stave, thus creating and respecting the convexity project of the dome and the shape of the ellipse.
– Here, behind you are the casks of the reserve, and in front of us, what kind of bottle?
-It is a bottle of Sangiovese Riserva from Tenuta Masselina. This is the 2019 vintage. Our Sangiovese ages here for 18-20 months, it depends on the nature of the summer, of the vintage and therefore we wait to see how the harvest goes and then we establish what is, so to speak, the added value they can give these big barrels.
-All that remains is to open it, Elena. As we open this bottle I would ask you what characteristic can we find in a bottle of your Sangiovese Riserva?
-So here we are in an area of red clays and it is a terroir that has been described in the Sangiovese denomination which regulates the production of Sangiovese, therefore the DOC Romagna Sangiovese. This sub-area or MGA is called Serra and describes precisely these red clays that give Sangiovese a slightly alcoholic red fruit note and a very elegant tannic structure, not too strong and a moderate alcohol content.
So we produce Sangiovese both in the Riserva version and in the Sangiovese Superiore version and we also produce a sparkling rosé from Sangiovese grapes that follows the Charmat method. And this wine, in particular, is a wine that rests precisely in the tonneau we have behind us to refine the tannic structure and thus become more elegant.
-All that remains is to make a toast, Elena. Thanks for this wonderful tour.
-Thanks.
