Producer John Benda

TUSCANY

A new face for one of the most important wine-making hills in Italy, Montalcino. He is John Benda, of an English mother who grew up in Rome and lived for many years in London, where his great passion for wine was born. The company, made up of 2 hectares of vineyards surrounded by 16 hectares of owned forest, is managed together with his Australian partner Zoe Johnson. The vineyards are located between 520 and 550 meters above sea level under the Lume Spento pass towards Tavarnelle. Surrounded by woods, the 2 vineyards grow on different rock formations. The first vineyard, planted in 2006, is characterized by soils based on pietraforte, dating back to the Upper Cretaceous geological period, with alternating gray marl: in these soils the presence of sand exceeds 60%, bringing great elegance to the wines. The second vineyard is older, planted in the 1990s on a rock formation dating back to the Paleocene period, where the soil features outcrops of quartz-feldspathic siltstone and marl (i.e. clayey shale), all supported by a high presence of limestone. In addition to his own production, every year John buys a small quantity of grapes suitable for Brunello from a farmer, who respects the land and the grapes, coming from vines dating back to the Seventies, grown on soils rich in Pliocene marine deposits. The fermentations are all spontaneous, with refinement in large oak barrels, without any oenological embellishment but using modern microbiological analyzes to monitor the maturation of the wine, in order to preserve its peculiarities. Production is currently around 11,000 bottles per year.