Words Catherine McMaster
Photography Dario Tettamanzi

There are over 500 grape varieties grown in Italy and roughly one million winemakers. It’s a significant number for a relatively small country but is testament to the fact that wine really is intrinsic to Italian culture and cuisine.

The wine and wineries in Italy are ancient and subsequently seeping in history and emotion. Vineyards have been passed down through generations and there is evident familiar pride in the vines. Additionally, each vineyard is characterised by its own unique flavour and essence, dependent on region: the rich and full grape of the Piedmont area differs strongly from the sweet and aromatic wine of the hot Sicilian south. And then there is Tuscany, the most famed wine region in Italy. Home to the country’s classic scenic vineyards, verdant rolling hills and its greatest wine export, Chianti, it is also Italy’s most ancient wine-producing region.

The Antinori Family come from a long and prestigious lineage of winemakers and have been committed to the craft of winemaking for six centuries. It started in 1385 in Tuscany, naturally, when Giovanni di Piero Antinori became a member of the ‘Arte Fiorentina dei Vinattieri’, the Florentine Winemaker’s Guild. Now, 26 generations later, the family continue in their pledge and quest to produce exceptional wine in the Tuscan region.

To own a vineyard is an emotive endeavour, to suggest otherwise would be an oversite. It takes a minimum of five years to achieve the first harvest after planting. To then make it commercially viable takes considerably longer. Consider, the physical time and investment which not only goes into crafting a vineyard, but also sustaining it.

For more than 600 years the Antinoris have sold wine. Their business and vineyards have thrived and grown over the decades as the international appetite for Italian reds (specifically within the Tuscan region) increased. Under the burnt embers of the Tuscan skies, the Antinori estate, Tignanello, which is in the heart of Chianti Classico, languidly extends over an area of 788 acres. It is one of the most famous and renowned of the Antinori estates, of which there are numerous. Grapes include the indigenous Sangiovese and untraditional varieties of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, flavours which have been called in the international press as, ‘among the most influential wines in the history of Italian viniculture’.

Piero Antinori stood at the helm of his family’s estate and during his tenure (he stepped back in 2017) he evolved the family business, shifting the focus from mainly buying fruit to cultivating his own land, which now includes an impressive 5,000 acres up and down the Italian peninsula. Now, the Antinori legacy and its safeguarding is left to the 26th generation: his three daughters, Albiera, Allegra and Alessia.

Family, history and legacy are of intrinsic value to the Antinori estate and to the wine it creates. It can be argued that wine even more than food conjures up memories and brings people together. Shared experiences, lost loves, renewed acquaintances and boisterous family gatherings are often bolstered and accompanied by wine. Wine is sensory, poignant and nostalgic; a mere sip can conjure up a cocktail of emotions and memories. It is fitting then that a family which prides itself on legacy, history and storytelling is the bastion of Tuscan wine culture. A glass of Chianti from an Antinori estate is so much more than a mere tantalising drop – it embodies a full flavour of emotion and history.

The Tiganello vineyard is classic Chianti, it’s set on a high, steep hillside facing southwest and boarded by olive trees. The days are warm and the nights cool; a perfect combination for producing flavoursome and fulsome grapes. This is the heart of the Antinori estate – its pulse and lifeforce. As the sun dips over the verdant Tuscan hills, it is hard not to be utterly intoxicated by the romantic parochial and bucolic Italian setting and the velvet wine it produces. It’s the lyricism of the Italian language and the languid Tuscan lifestyle which you can taste in each drop of Antinori’s Tignaello. History, legacy, purity and excellence are all qualities that are intrinsic to the Antinori family name – and to their wines as well.