A family winery

Our second winery on our Montalcino tour was to Azienda Agricola Cava d’Onicea small, family run, winerywhere we had lunch and tasted their wine.

The owner’s family had been involved in wine making for years (his father was the cellar master at a winery), but he was the first to own a vineyard. They are a small operation, producing less than 20,000 bottles a year. This is not enough to support the owner’s family, so he augments his income by doing consulting work for other wineries. But, he is very proud of his wines, and gave us a very informative talk on each one.

After tasting his wines, we felt his pride was justified.

Our first wine was a Rosso di Montelcino. Like the more famous (and much more expensive) Brunello di Montelcino, this Rosso is made with only the Sangiovese grape (known locally as Brunello). Unlike certified Brunello di Montelcino, certified Rosso di Montelcino only needs to be aged one year, only six months of which must be in oak barrels. Usually, it is made with younger vines. The shorter aging, of course, means it can be produced much faster. For a smaller vineyard, it provides the quick cash flow needed to support the production of certified Brunello di Montelcino, which must be aged in oak for at least two years, and in bottle for at least four, before it can be released.

The Rosso we tried was excellent. Although very young, it was very drinkable and went very well with the meat and cheese with which they served it.

The star of any Montelcino tasting is always Brunello di Montelcino, and the one we were served at Cava d’Onice did not disappoint. Before its lengthy aging, Brunello is fermented on the skins much longer, and has far more tannins, than Rosso. We had a 2014, the most recent vintage released, and it was really too young to be at its best. But, it was wonderful, and after swirling a lot in the glass to open it up, we could see why our host was so proud of it. It went very well with pici pasta and meat sauce.

Rosé wine (“rosato” in Italian) has been growing enormously in popularity, especially in the US, so our host had decided to try making one. He served his first (and, so far, only) release with our desert of panna cotta. It was a sweet rosé and paired very well with the desert. We felt our host’s rosé was a great success. Apparently, at least one commercial buyer did as well; our host had sold every bottle he had to a Canadian distributor at a show recently, and the buyer wanted his entire production of this year’s vintage. Apparently, rosé is just starting to become popular in Canada.

After our lunch and tasting we got back in the van to visit our third winery of the day.