Poggio La Noce Wine • Introduction

The estate was founded by husband and wife team, Enzo Schiano and Claire Beliard, in 2000. Nestled in the hills of Fiesole, Tuscany, facing south/south-west, the property sits in some of the most beautiful countryside just outside Florence, amidst hills sprinkled with medieval bell towers and castle ruins. The property consists of one vineyard (5 acres) cultivated with mostly Sangiovese grapes and a small percentage of Teroldego, in a mix of older vines (15 years ) and younger ones (8 years ). The vineyard thanks to its small size and human dimension is cared for maniacally making it a real jewel. From the beginning, we set out to farm organically and have been certified organic since 2006. Claire: I’m Claire Beliard, and I’m the part owner of the Poggio La Noce Estate, where we are deliciously small, and make delicious wines. To my left is Mr. Schiano himself. Behind us, you can see all these beautifully manicured rows of Sangiovese, which is the most important Tuscan grape. Enzo: There’s a very important aspect of winemaking. You have to balance the expression of the terroir and the expression of the nature of the grape with the drinkability of the wine. Valentino: I think we’ve found a very good terroir for Sangiovese, because we can keep all this freshness and this elegance. Claire: We don’t work quick. We work really slow. We have a few segments where the magic of the soil is just right for the vines, and they don’t overproduce. There’s really good balance. Enzo: The vineyard gets the sun from 8 o’clock in the morning until 9 o’clock at night. You need sunshine to make wine. You know, it’s rule number one. Claire: We do everything together. So there’s no him versus I or whatever. We’re always talking about everything, all the time, together. For us it was important to have the vineyard really right at our doorstep, because we didn’t see how we could have the level of attention and follow through that we want to dedicate to the vineyard if it were far away. Every day we’re able to do whatever needs to be done that day. Enzo: Gigiò is our cat. We started to give the name to the wine in 2004, actually the same time when we got the cat. Claire: Roberto is -- in Italian they would say he’s the trattorista, and the cantiniere, the tractor guy and the cellar hand. It’s just essential to have somebody like Roberto. Enzo: Here, I’m doing a bit of a preselection of the clusters. It’s a luxury to be able to take each cluster and put it in the destemmer individually because it really, really allows you to have incredible quality grapes. This cluster, for example, the berries are beautiful. Valentino: Claire and Enzo, they are focused on quality so we work a lot in the vineyards to get only the good grapes. Enzo: We did have enough sunshine obviously to mature the grapes. But it’s been a very difficult year for diseases, so we have been constantly treating the vines with organic products because we’re fully organic. Claire: On the table we’re getting -- the destemmer basically leaves all the berries intact. And what we’re looking for, Asanka and I, little green ones, and little raisin ones. Let’s see if I can find -- yeah, all these kinds of things we toss out. We’d rather make less wine but have it be the best possible wine. Enzo: It’s called La Francesca, it’s a really, really, good quality pump that pumps wine at very low speed. And so it agitates the wine as little as possible. Claire: So these are the really nice vats that we have. Enzo: What happens is the wine, when it ferments, it heats up. And it starts to convert sugar into alcohol. By cooling down the wine, to keep it within 27 to 28 degrees, you allow for the fermentation to stretch out for possibly ten days. Claire: So now we’re getting ready for Gigiò to get little pump-over. Enzo: Gigiò out top wine is what the French call un vin de garde which is a wine to save and to age. Claire: Can I just add that when Enzo speaks French it is just the most sexy, cute thing to a French ear. Enzo: One of the things we do is to help the wine get more structure, more complexity. We age them in French oak barriques. The bigger the barrel the less influence of wood you have on it. After it gets bottled, it sits for one year in bottles. We want to make a wine that people love to drink and yet, at the same time, when someone opens a bottle and drinks it in the glass, and is having a discussion, he just stops and says, “Wow, this is really good wine.” Claire: Yeah, we aspire for that “Oh, wow!” moment.