Liquid Birdsong

Italian wine maestro FERDINANDO FRESCOBALDI tells gerrie lim about his family company’s purchase of Ornellaia and his plans to place Super Tuscans at the very top of the wine list

THE MARQUIS FERDINANDO Frescobaldi, all of 71 years young, sits before me with a glass of his very own wine – the exquisitely sublime 2007 vintage of Ornellaia, just paired over lunch with a braised beef-tongue risotto at Hong Kong’s Otto e Mezzo Bombana. I’d just told him that back in 2008 his brother Vittorio Frescobaldi gave an interview to Prestige Hong Kong wherein he saluted Italy in this manner: “I think it is a splendid country, but our politicians are hopeless.”

Ferdinando laughs and, just as I begin to solicit his thoughts on la dolce bunga bunga (à la Silvio Berlusconi), he interjects. “Let me tell you a joke,” he whispers conspiratorially. “When God made the world, he made this very beautiful country called Italy, which was so beautiful that all the other countries complained – they said it was not fair that such a beautiful country should exist. And God told them that yes, he had indeed made this most beautiful country. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I also made the Italians!’ ”

He cracks up at his own punch line. He is the first Italian I’ve met, I believe, who can invoke the name of his deity while taking a pop at his own people. And, well, why the heck not? After all, he only happens to be president of both Tenuta dell’Ornellaia and its parent, the holding company Compagnia De’ Frescobaldi, which makes him a very major dude in the world of wine. And he has the years behind him, solidly reflected in his demeanour.

“I have been here before; the last time I was in Hong Kong was in September 2010,” he tells me, every word slowly and precisely drawn. “I just came in from Shanghai.” Ah, I say, so he’s been showing his wines to the impressionable mainland Chinese, and have they been responsive?

“They are starting to be very open. They like to know more, and they enjoy the history and the culture of the Italian tradition. They are interested in anything that is top quality. We are talking about a small percentage, of the high class, the rich class of Chinese, that is the type of customer we want. They are very interested in knowing about premium wines, but equally about Europe, because wine is a part of culture in Europe.”

Choice words, “type of customer,” given how expensive Ornellaia tends to be, and considering its heritage. Hailing from an illustrious lineage of Florentine bankers, the Frescobaldis first made wine in Tuscany in 1308. The actual wine-producing entity, Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi, is now jointly run by Ferdinando, Vittorio and their other brother Leonardo. In April 2005, they took full control of Ornellaia, an estate started by Lodivico Antinori, of the esteemed Antinori winemaking family who in 1982 had introduced to an awestruck world its Tignanello, the first famous Super Tuscan – a big, bold wine emphasising Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, grapes associated with Bordeaux (rather than Tuscany, which is known for its softer Chianti style based on Sangiovese).

Ornellaia is located in southwest Tuscany, in Bolgheri on the Northern Maremma coast, its immediate neighbour being the equally exalted Tenuta San Guido, started by Lodovico’s cousin Mario Incisa and better known as the home of another acclaimed Super Tuscan, Sassicaia. The previous owners of Ornellaia had been the American entity Robert Mondavi Winery and then the wine conglomerate Constellation Brands following its acquisition of Mondavi; the acrimonious sequence of ownerships was documented in the 2004 Jonathan Nossiter film Mondovino. So why, I ask him outright, did they buy Ornellaia?

“Because it was a good opportunity,” he replies, raising his eyebrows as if the answer should be obvious. “Before Ornellaia, I was running the company doing our other wines – Nipozzano, Castelgiocondo and the rest – and the actual first vintage of Ornellaia was 1985, but we didn’t own the company until 2000, when we did a 50-percent partnership with Mondavi. That was the year we were bottling our first vintage, the 1997.” They still do a full-Merlot called Masetto, the first vintage of which was in 1986, and also two other wines – since 1997, a “second wine” (one usually priced lower and made from younger vines) called Le Serre Nuovo, and, since 1991, a Sangiovese/Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot blend called Le Volte. There are now four main Frescobaldi estates Nipozzano/Castiglione near Florence, Castelgiocondo near Siena, Ornellaia in Bolgheri and the newest one, L’Ammiraglia in Grosseto, south of Tuscany.

Slightly miffed that he hasn’t really answered my question, I suggest to him that they probably needed Ornellaia to get into the branding game – to challenge the French, going against the grain in Asia where the Bordelais have always reigned supreme. “Well, I don’t see it as ‘against’ that,” he replies, trying not to sound defensive. “I think there is a place also for us. Surely, there is. They are looking for high-quality wine in the Chinese market now, and this is what they can find in a region like Tuscany. Maybe they don’t know it yet, but Tuscany is unique in terms of history and culture. We are definitely not second to anybody. There is no reason why they can’t see this too in China.”

Does he not then feel as if he is in competition with, say, Sassicaia? “Not at all,” he says. “They are our neighbours. We are very close and very friendly. We don’t compete at all. We ourselves are unable to supply the demand for this kind of wine, at such a high level. Our production is so little – only 140,000 bottles of Ornellaia a year – so the point is that if we work together, we can try to make the world understand Super Tuscans by elevating people’s knowledge of Tuscan wine.”

Since extreme scarcity also breeds premium pricing, clearly to his advantage, I tell him I’ve noted how Ornellaia has gained more fame in recent years, most tellingly via the scores from the likes of Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate and its closest American competitor, Wine Spectator. The 1999 vintage scored 95 with Parker and 94 with Wine Spectator, the 2004 scored 95 and 97 respectively, the 2006 scored 97 and 95, the 2007 scored 93 and 97, and the 2008 scored 96 and 93. Only the 1998 received a lower score from Parker (he gave it a 91) and most of this, quite significantly, happened in the period following the Frescobaldi takeover of Ornellaia.

“Yes, you have seen this too!” he brightens. “We have increased the quality when we got 100 percent of the company. I am a bit shy to say this, but I have to admit that the Frescobaldi know-how, the Frescobaldi knowledge about winemaking, has arrived. We have 700 years of winegrowing behind us, so I think I can say that I have 700 years of experience, and what would we be without that? My generation – my brothers Vittoria and Leonardo – we have always worked together, we have been able to do this because it is a team effort. The winegrowers, the different winemaking areas, it takes many things to make this work.”

But he is in charge of Ornellaia now, so does he not take any credit for its success? “Me, personally?” he muses. “No, I have only been a coordinator. Let’s say I have been a good coordinator. I have been able to give the enthusiasm to the people who work in our team so that they are able to work together.” Those critics’ scores, he insists, are merely rewards for hard work done. “If a young lady were to come to you and say how fantastic you are, that you are the best man she has met, of course you appreciate it! So, if they give me a good score, I appreciate it. But, even as these kinds of things stimulate me, I will not change my vision. We cannot change our vision of cultivating the land, the vineyards, just for the score.”

Sensing his more engaged mood, I instigate a more serious inquiry. We are here on the occasion of an announcement – of his company’s collaboration with a Chinese artist, Zhang Huan, whose work will grace several bottles of the newly released 2009 vintage, specifically those in larger sizes: 100 Double-Magnums (three-litre bottles), 10 Imperials (six-litre bottles) and a single Salmanazar (a nine-litre bottle), all the labels emblazoned with a Zhang Huan portrait of the philosopher Confucius. The company has collaborated with visual artists before, in a scheme called Ornellaia Vendemmia D’Artista, but until now, never with one from China.

In fact, Zhang Huan was present at our luncheon and candidly told us, to much laughter, that he actually didn’t know much about wine and usually drinks baijiu. So I ask the Marquis if this latest ploy – using Zhang Huan’s works as part of a charm offensive for mainland China – isn’t yet another attempt to resurrect a family tradition, that of trading wine for artistic privilege and political standing. Legend has it the Frescobaldis supplied wine to the court of England’s King Henry VIII, and, according to Wikipedia, traded wine for paintings from the Renaissance master Michaelangelo.

“No, not Michaelangelo, it was Raphael!” he corrects me. “You should write to Wikipedia and tell them they are wrong!” He shrugs, seeming to dismiss this as a minor infraction. He has bigger things to worry about, after all, since he’s still running one of the oldest family ventures in existence – a veritable empire, though it’s a word he shuns. “No, to me, it’s something small – ‘empire’ is too much. Let’s just say I run ‘a good collection of fantastic wines.’ ”

His biggest thrill now, he informs me, is the imminent prospect of one of his sons inheriting the family mantle. “I have three sons and four grandchildren. And just one, the youngest of my sons, will join the company. He is now 22 years old and is still studying, but I hope that in five or six years, after he has some experience working for some other companies, he will join our company to continue the tradition.”

Then he tells me something I didn’t know. “The name Ornellaia comes from the sound of the birds singing in the morning, that’s what it means in Italian,” he says with a beatific smile, those septuagenarian eyes gleaming. It is also derived from the Fraxinus ornus, an ash tree found on the wine estate, which happens to be, rather appropriately, deciduous.

“I am the 29th generation of Frescobaldis,” he declares enthusiastically, “and now the 30th generation is going into the business.”