Wine La Spinetta, “Il Nero di Casanova”, Toscana Sangiovese IGT, 2017

Dry red wine “Il Nero di Casanova” is made from Sangiovese grapes harvested from the vineyard Terricciola, having a southern exposure. The vineyard is located on the calcareous soil of Tuscany at an altitude of 250 meters above sea level. Vinification “Il Nero Di Casanova” involves alcohol and malolactic fermentation in oak barrels, as well as an excerpt in French oak barrels for 9 months. Before bottling the wine spends two months in steel tanks and then bottled without purification and filtration.
The year 2010 was a very busy throughout the season. But careful vineyard management, strict selection of Sangiovese grapes at harvest time and patience led to a very high quality wine. Style of wine “Il Nero di Casanova” in 2010 – a surprisingly deep and rich, very clean and elegant, with a complex bouquet of fragrant, fantastic finish. Wine is able to reveal their best qualities at least another 10 years.

On the wine label “Il Nero di Casanova” is drawn rhino. This is a reproduction of a famous painting and engraving by the German artist Albrecht Drer. Although the true story of a rhinoceros company La Spinetta not, but it certainly has a history of this painting, for which she so loved the producer Giorgio Rivetti. This figure tells about the events of the distant 1515. Rhino was presented to the Governor of the Indian king of Portugal, and, apparently, for fun – staged a fight between an elephant and a strange animals, which had never before seen in Europe. We can assume that the elephant ran and won the rhino. Description rhino soon reached Germany, and the artist Durer, presumably with sketches, without even seeing this animal, prepared drawing and woodcut. He portrayed so convincingly rhino and bizarre that for the next 300 years, European illustrators borrowed elements of his work, despite the fact that they already had the opportunity to see real live rhinos.

Rivetti family history begins with the 1890s, when the father – Giovanni Rivetti – Piedmont left and moved to Argentina. Like many Italians of that time, he cherished the hope to get rich and return home rich and powerful man, and make wine at home. However, he failed to realize his dream, but he did it for his son Giuseppe, nicknamed Pin. When Ping married Lydia, they acquired vineyards and began to engage in winemaking. In 1977, the family of the newlyweds settled in Spinetta (at the top of the hill) in Castagnole Lanze. It is in the heart of Moscato, which is traditionally made quite easy and simple dessert wine. But the couple Rivetti felt that Moscato has great potential and you can produce great wines – to prove they have created Moscato Bricco Quaglia and Biancospino. And that was only the beginning of future victories in the field of wine-making company La Spinetta (the phrase “La Spinetta” means “top of the hill”).

Soon came the first red wine company – Barbera “Ca di Pian”, that was the beginning of the creation of the great red wines, which began to follow one after the other. 1989 saw the creation of red blend, created in honor of his father Rivetti, and in 1995 they started to make their first Barbaresco “Gallina”. 1996 and 1997 saw the release of Barbarescos “Starderi”, Barbera d’Alba “Gallina” and Barbaresco Valeirano. And in 1998 debuted wine Barbera d’Asti Superiore.

In 2000, the company acquired vineyards in Grinzane Cavour and built a modern cellar. In 2001, ownership of La Spinetta expanded and moved beyond Piedmont, in connection with the acquisition of 65 hectares of vineyards in Tuscany, between Pisa and Volterra. These territories were purchased in order to produce wines made from 100% Sangiovese. In 2003, opened a second winery, and in 2007, when the company celebrated its thirtieth anniversary, opened the third winery!

Chief winemaker Giorgio Rivetti is, it helps Andrea Rivetti, Stefano Mazzetta and Mirko Bessie. 2008 was marked by the opening of the tasting room at Castagnole Lanze, construction of new office buildings and the emergence of climate control in the warehouse. And in 2009, helping in the vineyard workers were unusual – two horses that are needed for plowing on special Cru vineyards. Number of employees – 65 people, and 55 of them work directly in the vineyards.

In 2010, they released their first Tuscan white wine: Toscana Vermentino 2009, and in the same year took further steps to implement the biodynamic system work in the vineyards. The total area of vineyards of the estate today is 165 hectares (100 hectares in Piedmont and 65 hectares in Tuscany). The average annual production of about 650,000 bottles per year (450,000 in Piedmont and Tuscany 200.000). The wines are exported to the United States (45%), Central Europe (30%), Eastern Europe (2%), Asia (10%), Scandinavia (5%) and Russia (8%).