Elisabetta Fagiuoli on Her 52 Vintages (and Counting)

What the Icon of San Gimignano Has Learned from the Mountain of Little Bird Nests

The farm that hosts retreats for the Fondazione Sergio Il Patriarca Onlus at Montenidoli. ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle
12 min read

Elisabetta Fagiuoli was on a roll. For more than an hour, the 87-year-old had hosted me and my friend over glasses of wine and plates of rice and roasted venison. We were in a rustic, dimly lit, fire-warmed dining room located above the winery — one of those rooms in Tuscany where a step through the threshold feels like a time warp.

Fagiuoli had a lot to say, but she would occasionally pause to show deference to the baby swallows nesting in the room’s eaves by the window. Their frantic chirping would interrupt us every time their mother returned with food.

Elisabetta Fagiuoli of Montenidoli. ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle
Elisabetta Fagiuoli has presided over Montenidoli for more than 50 years. ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle

“There’s the neighbors,” I commented at one point as their eager cacophony rose up again.

“They are not neighbors,” Fagiuoli corrected. “They are of the house.”

The birds know that Fagiuoli is an ally. For more than 50 years, the dynamo of San Gimignano has protected “The Mountain of Small Nests” — better known as Montenidoli — from hunters, habitat destruction and the ravages of industrial monoculture. Alongside her companion Sergio Muratori, who passed away in 2012, she tended to the property and started a foundation to bring disadvantaged people of all ages to Montenidoli’s forest preserve where they can reconnect with nature through art. Proceeds of the winery’s sales go to support the foundation. It has become Elisabetta Fagiuoli’s mission in life.

Of Montenidoli’s 200 hectares, most is left to pristine, untouched forest. Only 10 hectares are given to olive trees, while 27 hectares are cultivated as vineyards for Sangiovese, Malvasia, Trebbiano, and the local specialty, Vernaccia di San Gimignano. The estate’s wines are bright, forthcoming and approachable, yet capable of remarkable depth and complexity with age.

Now, four courses into the afternoon feast, Fagiuoli only seemed to be gaining speed. “If you want to build the future, you need solid roots!” she exclaimed while digressing from aged Sangiovese to her favorite topic, living a good life. “And purity,” she said, leaning forward and almost whispering, “is the best teacher you can get.”

The view from atop Torre Grossa in San Gimignano, Tuscany (Italy). ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle
The view from atop Torre Grossa in San Gimignano, taken in 2008. Needless to say, the landscape has changed little. ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle

The Gustatory Delights of San Gimignano

This tale begins with a cup of gelato.

Let’s back up, because this tale begins with a cup of gelato.

In 2008, after a lunch of pear-stuffed ravioli and a climb up Torre Grossa, my wife and I did what any tourist in San Gimignano would do: we ordered gelato and ate it in the rain.

But this was no ordinary gelato. Mine had a scoop of something called Vernaccia di San Gimignano: a wine grape that is so closely associated with this little medieval city in Tuscany, that it bears its name. In fact, you will hardly find the grape anywhere else in the world.

We had yet-to-become obsessed with wine, but as young foodies who had saved for months to make this Italian adventure happen, eating a weird, wine-grape gelato was just as memorable for us as viewing the remarkable frescos of San Gimignano’s Duomo Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta.

 

And in many ways, it was a yet another step on a career path I didn’t realize I was on. I would fall for wine on that trip to Tuscany, not because of the alcohol or its aura of refinement, rather because of the people behind it, and their closeness to the rhythms of nature.

So as I returned to San Gimignano in the spring of 2022 to meet Elisabetta Fagiuoli, the memories of that oddball gelato returned to me. It was floral and sweet like a summer’s honeydew. Ever since, when I taste the dry white wines of Vernaccia di San Gimignano — which are wide-ranging but often floral as well — I think of the joys of that moment in the rain.

But I was also about to meet one of the most original, philosophical characters in the world of wine. Fagiuoli is not only one with nature, she is a force of nature. Once you’ve met her, you cannot taste Montenidoli’s wines the same way again.

Joining me was my friend Adam, an old college buddy whose passion for wine has fueled a part of my journey as well. As we drove beneath the famous towers of San Gimignano (called the “Medieval Manhattan” for good reason), Montenidoli emerged to the west. Mostly covered in trees, the mountain — and its namesake estate which drapes its lower portions — had been, up until the mid-20th century, the preferred terrain for hunters. Their standard practice, according to Fagiuoli, was to capture the chicks from the many birds nests in the forest. Their helpless chirping would draw the larger prey, the parents, into a trap.

When Fagiuoli arrived in 1965, she was a young mother from a well-established Veronese family who wanted to raise her children surrounded by nature. She immediately closed Montenidoli to hunting, a move that didn’t go over well. Yet Fagiuoli was undeterred, and continues to be defiant about the decision. When I asked her about the potential fallout with her new neighbors, and whether she saw it as a risky move at the time, she waved a hand dismissively.

“Me? Are you crazy?” she exclaimed. “I wouldn’t hurt an ant.”

San Gimignano as seen from the Vernaccia vineyards of Montenidoli. ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle
San Gimignano as seen from the Vernaccia vineyards that Elisabetta Fagiuoli recovered from Montenidoli. ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle

Of Oyster Shells and Red Clay

“That’s the concept of Montenidoli: taking care of culture through nature.”
Alessio Cecchini
Winemaker, Montenidoli

Before that epic lunch, Adam and I were greeted by winemaker Alessio Cecchini (“spelled just like the famous butcher,” he said of his last name during our introductions). Young, tall and very well-spoken, he has learned a great deal under Fagiuoli’s tutelage, and he clearly admires her. “As Elisabetta says, ‘the way to paradise is quite long,'” he said. “So I am very happy that you made it all the way here.”

After a brief winery tour, we hopped into a 4×4 and set out into the woods on a rugged and rutted dirt track. The forest quickly enclosed our vehicle.

“Everything has been organic since 1965 when Elisabetta moved here,” said Cecchini. He then pointed out the white limestone soil in the road cut, which is particularly hospitable to Vernaccia. Like Chablis’ famous Kimmeridgean marl, it affords the perfect amount of drainage for vine roots, and it seems to impart a steely texture to the wine as well.

We reached a clearing and the first set of Vernaccia vines. There below us was the magnificent, medieval city of San Gimignano, and in the distance, the snowcapped mountains above Rufina. It didn’t take long to find a few fossilized oyster shells in the soil — their presence telling the story of when Tuscany was under the sea. We also found thin blades of wild asparagus stabbing out from the forest floor, and ate them raw. It was a remarkably placid place, not a soul around.

Further up the road, the mountain leveled out. Here, the ground was stained red by clay from the Triassic period. This is where the Sangiovese grows, watched over by “The Giants” — surrealistically shaped boulders that Fagiuoli and her team unearthed when they recovered the ancient vineyard. Lined up in a row, they appear like a 200 million-year-old sculpture garden.

Geology aside, Montenidoli’s vast reserve of biodiversity may be its most important virtue from a wine perspective. The forest acts as a cool-air reservoir during the hottest days of summer, and it releases that air at night, creating an atmospheric balance for the grapes.

“It is like a natural cooling system,” Cecchini told me. “The grapes get cold oxygen, and the vines can rest a little bit [at night] … Tuscany’s climate is for reds, so this is a nice [trait] for our whites.”

On the far side of the Sangiovese vineyard from us were two farmhouses, where the Fondazione Sergio Il Patriarca Onlus operates their retreats. Cecchini explained to us that the nonprofit works to bring children and “wise elders” to the mountain for meetings where they can learn and inspire each other.

“That’s the concept of Montenidoli: taking care of culture through nature,” he tells me. “Elisabetta wants to keep going with this foundation” after she has passed away, he continued. As a result, it is the Foundation that will inherit the winery.

From Valpolicella to San Gimignano

“I was a very wild person.”
Elisabetta Fagiuoli

“The first time I followed a vinification I was five years old, in Valpolicella,” Fagiuoli told us over a glass of her “Fiore” Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Back then, kids pitched in on tasks such as winemaking. No big deal. But after crushing the grapes, she couldn’t resist a taste. And then another. And another. “I followed the whole vinification,” she recalled, her eyes lighting up. “I had two long braids, and my mother was shaking her head as I was totally drunk.”

She went on to describe how she could always be found in the stables, covered in dirt but smiling all the time, joyous to be among the farm animals. “My first love affair was with a cow,” she added. “I was a very wild person.”

Those early interactions made nature a vital part of her existence, something Montenidoli offered in abundance when she purchased the property in 1965. Like all renovation stories in Tuscany, this one involved unreliable electricity and unearthing buried treasures — which, in her case, turned out to be old Sangiovese and Vernaccia vines hidden in the grasses and bushes.

While Fagiuoli grew up with Valpolicella (her parents also had a fondness for Burgundy thanks to a Burgundian uncle) her entrance into the field of winemaking was out of necessity. Raising nine children, she needed to earn a living, and grapevines and olives were what her new land offered.

Fagiuoli kept it simple and took her cues from the traditional winemaking techniques of sharecroppers in Tuscany’s not-so-distant past. “That’s why I made such a wonderful wine. From abandoned grapes in 1971,” she said of her first vintage. “No sulfur, nothing.”

It is an ethos that has remained with her ever since.

I asked her what she has learned from Montenidoli recently.

“My ignorance, first of all,” she said. “Every day is different. Everything changes completely every morning. The earth is alive,” then she pointed at me for emphasis. “You tell your readers: every second, something different and new comes.”

“So if everything is changing,” I wondered, “what role does tradition play in your life?”

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up. Had I touched a nerve or were we getting somewhere? By now, I wasn’t quite sure of anything. “What is tradition? Tradition is what people knew and understood and then gave to other people. We are all fundamentally afraid, because we have to die. We don’t know why we are in this world. We don’t know anything.”

She then raised a glass and joyously toasted: “Viva! Viva!”

2019 Montenidoli "Tradizionale" Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle
2019 Montenidoli “Tradizionale” Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle

The Double-Sided Coin of Tradition

At what point does this fawning over the past get in the way?

If Elisabetta Fagiuoli is the heart of soul of Montenidoli, and Alessio Cecchini is the hands that craft the wines, then Alberto Testoni is the legs of the operation, keeping it moving in a forward trajectory. A native of Brescia in Lombardy, today he oversees the business operations of the winery and the foundation.

As Fagiuoli excused herself to check on the next course, Testoni noted that “tradition” is often a crutch for civilizations.

“When we speak about traditions, we always do that in a good way. I don’t agree with that. We also have bad traditions. The thing is to keep alive the good traditions, like our tradition with the earth — to understand that you are part of something bigger and that you must be connected [to it].”

He pointed out that in Tuscany, it was traditional to make wine where the animals were kept. Is that what we mean by a “traditional wine?” Of course not.

The Vernaccia di San Gimignano called “Tradizionale” is a prime example of this. It cherry-picks the traditional technique of macerating a white wine on the skins to infuse the wine with, among other things, natural preservatives like tannin. A “good” tradition. But there were plenty of tendencies from Tuscany’s winemaking past that are now left on the side of the road.

Today’s wine industry loves to underscore traditional techniques, especially with Italian wines. (Hell, our website even has an icon to earmark wines that embrace a traditional technique or two). But at what point does this fawning over the past get in the way? Does it lead to more dogmatic thinking for a product that is 100 percent nuance?

Pear blossoms at Montenidoli. ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle

The Truth of Tuscany

“Fashion goes, but culture stays.”
Elisabetta Fagiuoli

Fagiuoli returned with a bottle of 2001 “Sono Montenidoli” Toscana Rosso, a 100% Sangiovese wine from the pure red clay of the upper mountain. While Cecchini poured it, I asked Fagiuoli whether this moment in history was a good one for Italian wine, especially since indigenous grape varieties are so clearly in fashion.

“I think so, yes,” she said, but then she checked herself. “But I am not a marketing woman. I really don’t know what’s going on.”

She proposed a toast to the victims of September 11, referring to our Sangiovese and its vintage as a “9/11 wine.” Why do we have so much violence she asked? And it felt like, for a moment, everyone’s mind shifted to the war in Ukraine, only one month into the conflict. She insisted on a moment of silence for “all the people that died and all the people that are still dying.” For the next two minutes, it seemed like even the baby swallows by the window obliged, and when it ended, Fagiuoli returned to the subject of Italy’s indigenous grapes.

“You know, Italy was called Oenotria — ‘the land of wine.’ So whatever you plant here, it grows. But its not going to grow Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec. We have Sangiovese,” she said this last word with relish, like a purring cat. “Remember! The truth of Burgundy is Pinot Noir. The truth of Piemonte is Nebbiolo. The truth of Tuscany is Sangiovese. This is my opinion. Of course, fashion goes, but culture stays. It is much more simple than we can think.”

We had one last order to attend to: a video she agreed to do, on the wonders of aging Sangiovese. Needless to say, she was on a roll all afternoon long, a force of nature on her own, bubbling with ideas and spouting philosophies. Yet there was always a shred of doubt in her words. Perhaps that is where wisdom resides: in the acknowledgement and acceptance of what you don’t know. That must be a liberating place to be.

As we said our goodbyes by a blooming pear tree, she had one more thought about the mountain that has sustained her for more than 50 years: “The mystery of this place is still unknown. I have to understand where I am and what I do.”


Opening a Bottle Asks …

Elisabetta Fagiuoli is one of several Italian winemakers featured in our single-question video series, Opening a Bottle Asks. Here, she speaks about Sangiovese in general and how it evolves with time.

View the entire series on YouTube via the link below and click subscribe for new videos as they become available.

Opening a Bottle Asks


Red Corkscrew Illustration ©Opening a Bottle

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