Mauro Lorenzon

When simplicity is not banality, it becomes the exception.

The 1970s saw the introduction into the market of the so-called modern wines, which would definitively take hold in the 1980s. I particularly remember the lectures at A.I.S. courses given by Prof. De Rosa, the forerunner of white wine-making; he explained how the wine of the future was to be interpreted, pointing the way for producers: a paper-white wine. As for the induction of the abnormal use of barrique vinification, both for whites and for reds, I attribute the political responsibility to Maestro Luigi Veronelli, who incited winemakers and cellars to use, try and experiment with the use of carat as he liked to call it, so as not to have reverential fears and subservience towards their French cousins who have always used this wine vase, recognised as the originator of so-called international taste, completely cancelling out the Italic tradition of the medium-large Slavonian oak barrel.

The new wines turn out to be little true and pure compared to the wines of the past, then simpler even if complex, certainly more digestible than the modern ones, aesthetically more elegant with intense flavours and fragrances of great sensory impact, an astonishing impact even if homologated. It is no coincidence that the undersigned, in order to describe a wine made the old-fashioned way, inspired, coined an aphorism that reads: ‘When simplicity is not banality, it becomes the exception’, a phrase for which, in response to some controversy, I take full paternity!

It was at the beginning of the 1980s that the new oenology appeared in the Italian wine world, understood as the rationalisation of the cellar by means of oenological instruments and machines capable of producing wine in a more hygienic manner than in previous years. Thus appeared the first automatic grape harvesters, pneumatic presses, temperature-controlled vinificators, as well as innovative oenological practices based on the use of selected yeasts and followed by the use in the winemaking phase and especially in the bottling phase of antioxidants and sulphur So2. I am reminded of a Vinitaly; it was the year 1984, when with Giacomo Bologna and Graziano Bastianon we tasted, quietly seated at the Bottega del Vino in Verona, a Soave from a future well-known producer. That glass had a perfume with clear references to sugared almonds and candy as well as acetone, the solvent used by women to clean their nails from nail polish, and Big-Babol, the American gum most in vogue at the time. The taste was persuasive, soft and velvety, clearly made from first-flower must without skin contact. That wine was not terrible in taste and aroma, as the description might suggest, but it had more of a perfumer’s bouquet than a cellarman’s, having frustrated the grape’s flavours, kept almost hidden.
Italy’s wine industry, therefore, has undergone a technological evolution, the end result of which has led to different products than in the past, wines that express a flattened taste with international ambitions, the exact opposite of what happens in France… We have mimicked badly! In fact, our French cousins have never neglected territorial peculiarities and, over the last 300 years, they have always respected the taste of Terroir, worrying more about the vineyard and the vocated areas than about the cellar… Fortunately, even in Italy there is a hard core, which I will call vine-dressers of pure wine-nothing that is not inherent.

1986, the year of the methanol scandal. The writer had already opened one of Italy’s first mescite-enoiteche four years earlier, where it was possible to uncork all the wines on the list even for just one glass. During and after the scandal, 90% of the vine-growers had less difficulty in mixing and selling quality wines, which for psychological reasons, being a little more expensive, were considered more genuine (of this we can never be certain at least until it is made compulsory by law to state the ingredients on the label). Wine has inexplicably remained one of the few foods to be exempt from the labelling requirement. I remain faithful to Maestro Veronelli’s motto: ‘it is better the worst farmer’s wine than the best industrial wine’.
A new awareness is prompting many producers to take up the challenge of organic and biodynamic viticulture, marking the beginning of a desire for change to bring healthy, ripe grapes into winemaking. The rules in the cellar, on the other hand, still remain shaky… In fact, there are still not many wineries that keep faith with an honest connection between soil-vine-grapes, transformed into wine with as little manipulation as possible; therefore the right ones will vinify musts without the addition of selected yeasts, with very little addition of sulphites and only if extremely necessary, and will exclude adulteration practices, even if admitted. The optimists are those who use traditional, neutral wine vessels to make wine, not ceding tastes and flavours; these are the wine producers I feel I must unconditionally defend. Only by pursuing this path can we have more genuine and distinctive wines, created with respect for man and his environment.
It can also be said that since the beginning of the 1990s, there has been a general rationalisation in the Italian vineyard, a viticulture that is more careful and attentive to the pedoclimatic situations. On the other hand, there have been great political clashes over how to maintain the vineyard, on one side the party of pesticides for vine diseases and weed-killing, and on the other the philosophers of organic and biodynamic viticulture, who are extremely opposed to defending the vine and the environment with non-natural means, supporters of archaic non-invasive defence practices, with homeopathic organic products and weeding, if necessary, with scythe and hoe. At most, copper green should be used against downy mildew, rightly diluted so as not to affect vinification later.

“Mauro Lorenzon