Slow Food is publishing its Slow Wine wine guide in German for the first time. For this occasion Corzano e Paterno as well as 90 other Italian wine producers and their 180 wines featured in the guide will be present. The tasting takes place Thursday, February 28^th from  3pm to 5.30pm for trade visitors and 5.30pm to 9pm for the public in the MGV Museum, Ständlerstraße 20, 81549 Munich.

Free entry for trade visitors.

We will present at the following:

Prowein, the International Wine and Spirits Fair in Düsseldorf from the 24th to the 26th of March. You can find us and our wines in Hall 3, Stand F59, by Der Feinschmecker.

Terre di Toscana in the beautiful setting of Lido di Camaiore on the Tuscan coast, at the Una hotel on the 3rd and 4th of March. Two days of enological and gastronomic delights to which we will taking part with both our wines and our cheeses.

And of course we will be at Vinitaly in Verona from the 7th to the 10th of April, at our usual stand, Hall 8 Stand E5.

We look forward to meeting you and presenting our new products.

Slow Food will present the 2013 edition of its English-language wine guide, Slow Wine, in New York, Miami and San Francisco. The Slow Wine guide adopts a new approach to wine criticism and looks at a variety of factors to evaluate wineries in their entirety, taking into consideration the wine quality, typicity and adherence to terroir, value for money, environmental sensitivity and ecologically sustainable viticultural practices. Join us to discover new wines and meet the people behind 70+ selected Italian producers who represent the Slow Wine values. Learn more about Slow Wine and receive your own complimentary copy.

NEW YORK CITY:
January 28, 2013
Three Sixty°
12 pm press conference
1 – 5 pm Walk-around tasting open to trade and press
6:30 – 9 pm consumer tasting (to purchase tickets please click here)
to view the complete wine list please click here

MIAMI:
January 30, 2013
Miami Beach Resort
12 – 5 pm Walk-around tasting open to trade and press
5:30 – 8 pm consumer tasting
to view the complete wine list please click here

SAN FRANCISCO:
February 4, 2013
Terra Gallery
12 – 4 pm Walk-around tasting open to trade and press
5:30 – 8 pm consumer tasting
to view the complete wine list please click here

Unlike previous years 2012 cannot be defined by a singular event. There was no major overshadowing project that characterized it. One could best say then that it was a year of consolidation, of alignment, of catching one’s breath and of seeing the whole rather than its parts.  Previous years have been easier to summarize: the year that we made the new dairy or the year we made the underground wine cellar or the year that all offices as well as the dairy and the farm shop moved over to Corzano.  This year had a more subtle quality; no grand gestures, it was simply a year of working hard and striving for an ever better product in all of our spheres of activity.

It might also be said that the demands of work have become second nature to us by now, woven tightly into our quotidian existence in such a way that problems no longer seem insurmountable and challenges appear less exhausting.  Diligence and patience have formed a hard won callus.

But there is never an end to the tinkering that one can do with the status quo or with the products themselves, and these are the activities that keep us curious and involved in our work. Agriculture, of course, is a demanding bedfellow and, no matter how many years of experience they have behind them, Joshi and Ari can still be found late at night in the wine cellar checking that the wines are developing well, leaving nothing to chance; Toni is busy in the dairy at all hours experimenting with new cheeses and refining older ones; Till still rides his motorbike behind the sheep in all weather conditions as he has for the last thirty years and is now also breeding pigs.  Work continues to be arduous and demanding although it has become a more choreographed effort, with the various sectors overlapping and harmonizing.

Something must be said, too, for the men and women who work with us here on the farm.  Over time we have been able to form a group of collaborators who know our surroundings and the work that has to be done to keep high the quality of our products intimately: Mirella, who, with a light hand, makes sure that all the complicated mechanics of the agriturismo are well oiled and running smoothly;  Chiara, our veteran office administrator, keeps us all in order; in the stables Ram and Krishna from Rajasthan have the sheep and pigs in their care; together with Toni, Nicoletta and Claudia in the dairy provide a sunny, feminine touch to the heavy work of cheese making and also take care of customers in the farm shop. The squad that works the vineyards and harvests the olives is a well functioning unit: Janos, our factotum; Michela, who excels at jobs in all sectors; her husband Claudio, always smiling, who loves his vegetable garden and his geese; Alessandro, our resident poet; Domenico, resident sage; Daniele, wedded to his beloved tractor; Claudio the younger, keeping the wine cellar functioning;  Djura, our master metal artisan and mechanic; Serena, who keeps our gardens in order with dedication.  During the wine harvest and under the winter skies of the olive picking the air is repeatedly punctuated by the chatting and jesting of this group of people who works so well together and so well with us. We are fortunate and grateful for their collaboration.

Forty years have passed since 1972 when Wendel first bought the Fattoria di Corzano. We now have the third generation of the Gelpke and Goldschmidt families living on the farm—four generations if you consider Susan, Wendel and his sister Kaschi’s mother, who lived in Corzanello in the early years  (Kaschi was the mother of Joshi and Pascal.)

Before his death Wendel arranged that the farm would belong to the six members of his family who were born there or had worked on it.  Now that generation has produced nine new members of the family: Joshi and Toni have five children, Till has two, and Arianna and Sibilla (Punzi) both have one newborn boy each.

We welcome them into a crowded field; they are Wendel’s ninth and tenth grandchildren. He also has eight great nephews and nieces here counting Joshi and Pascal’s children.

To have worked these long years and seen our products arrive at a level of quality and renown that we only dreamt of forty years ago is satisfying. Even more satisfying is to see our children, who were born here and whose lives are formed by farm life, become young adults and have children of their own in this wonderful part of the world, so full of beauty and poetry and challenges. This, at least for me, is the greatest joy of all.

As Marvell wrote in his poem The Garden:

……

What wondrous life is this I lead! 
Ripe apples drop about my head ;

The luscious clusters of the vine 
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ;

The nectarine and curious peach 
Into my hands themselves do reach ; 
Stumbling on melons as I pass, 
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass .

……

Marvell, The Garden

(excerpt,  thank you Becky Swift)

Farm News

No one escapes the problems of climate change in today’s world, least of all those involved in agriculture. We were without a drop of rain for the whole of this last summer.  The rains of late winter and early springtime had been meager (100mm compared to a usual 600mm). When explaining the consequences on this for the soil Joshi described a sponge, the ones that come from the sea.  When they are wet they hold water in their entire body but as time passes the water sinks and rests at the bottom.  Our clay soil should perform this same function, but this year there was no water to saturate it and so it could not, as it normally does, keep the vines hydrated through the long, hot summer. It did rain, superficially, in April and May.  In fact, in those months the vegetation was gloriously lush and verdant and I cannot remember a more luxuriant show of flowers than his spring’s.

But the vines suffered great stress in July’s intense heat.  Under the summer’s relentless sun the plants in the higher, more exposed areas had their leaves burn, turn brown and fall leaving the fruit exposed.  There was a hot breeze that added to their misery and the grapes’ maturation was hindered.

Then around the 28^th of August the first rains came and with them hope returned for a successful harvest.  The question remained, however, of how much damage had been done and if the vines would recover sufficiently.  In some cases the water would only encourage rotting in the more exposed grapes, mainly for younger vines in higher areas.  The older vineyards in lower, more protected areas had escaped the heat and showed signs of life, and a gradual process of maturing returned.  Toward the end of September decisions had to be made.  Early signs of mold were beginning to appear and so things sprang into motion and the harvest began in earnest in early October.  To our pleasant surprise and relief, the ‘vendemmia’ went very well in the end although the quantity was down around 30% compared to recent years.

Thankfully, the grapes that we could pick were of very good quality.  When I asked Joshi and Ari what adjective they would use to describe the year’s wines they agreed that it would be ‘balanced’ (equilibrati).   They show signs of having good, strong tannins and great freshness.  The alcohol levels are good, not excessive, and the wines have a strong fruitiness.

Olio/olive oil

If I can say that Joshi has a consuming interest at the moment I must say it is for our oil—and so would he.  After losing so many olives to the summer’s fierce heat, when the rains did come the olives puffed up and begged to be harvested.  The harvest was not an abundant one, nonetheless slightly more so than last year.  Josh explained to me that there is a fallacy that harvesting the olives early contributes to the quality of the oil.  He suggest that it is just the sharp spiciness covering defects from early harvesting and that if one waits until the olives are fully mature then one obtains a much more balanced flavor.  With mature harvesting the spiciness is more in equilibrium with the fruity, bitter, aromatic quality of the oil. These are the qualities that make for a truly exceptional oil.

Salumi / Pork products

Tillo has been keeping pigs at the sheep stables for some years but now the time has come to include their meat in our list of quality products. We are very lucky to have a local butcher who is highly experienced, well equipped and trusted. Roberto Chiappi is the son and grandson of local butchers and his two sons have followed in his footsteps. He has taken our lambs in the past but this is the first time we have collaborated on work with our pigs.  The season has just started and we hope to have our prosciutto, salami, pancetta and capicollo ready for sale in the farm shop by April 2013.

Cheese

Our cheeses continue to be sold out and the only difficulty we have is that demand is so strong that they are not always able to ripenfully as clients demand to have them as soon as possible.  One can hardly call this a problem, a mixed blessing perhaps, and a rewarding one. Toni experiments regularly creating new cheeses, and some find their way to the farm shop with her nicely designed labels. They are all the end result of a cycle that begins with the sheep and their grazing fields, through the milking process at the stables and onto the dairy.  Then the whey returns to feed the pigs.  These cycles of nature and nurture are very fulfilling.

This now means that in terms of the Tuscany culinary tradition we have all the elements for a fine Tuscan table: wine, cheese, prosciutto (et al.) and olive oil.

Organic

One of the more interesting developments of this year is that we are in the process of being recognized formally as an organic farm. The conversion began this November, and over the next three years will cover the whole estate.

Agriturismo

Mirella has worked wonders with the agriturismo this year and we have seen a notable increase in the requests for the renting of the houses and apartments.  The new swimming pool on the Paterno side has been a great success and guests seem contented as so many come back to us year after year.  It has also been fun to watch the international wedding parties that have come from places such as Russia, Hong Kong, Australia, South Africa, Japan, to name a few, to celebrate here.

Pascal flies his large hot air balloons over the Tuscan hills, and his son Oliver has earned his pilot license too.  Oliver also has his metal workshop in a space in Paterno where he forges Damascus knives.

So, however problematic a year it has been climatically, we have faced challenges with as much fortitude as we could muster and in the end we can breath a sigh of pleasure and relief that all ended so very well.

For me personally it has been a wonderful year.  Two of my daughters, Sibilla (Punzi) and Arianna have both had baby boys.  Sibilla’s Max was born in May in Singapore and Arianna’s Constantin was born here at the end of July.  Constantin has already spent a great deal of time with Ari in the wine cellar and the office so he will have the farm in his mother’s milk.  Max, a vivacious and charming little thing, will spend every possible moment on the farm with his cousins Constantin and Till’s daughter Tosca and Nada, continuing the family traditions.

Wishing you a peaceful and contented holiday, with the warmest good wishes for the next year from

Susan Gelpke-Doran and

The Gelpke and Goldschmidt families:

Aljoscha and Toni

  And Elena, Timoteo, Rocco, Oscar and William,

Till, Tosca and Nada

Sibilla (Punzi), Aran and Max

Arianna, Stefan and Constantin

Aglaia

]]> http://corzanoepaterno.com/2012/12/19/end-of-year-news-2/feed/ 0 http://corzanoepaterno.com/2012/11/20/wine-guides-2013/ http://corzanoepaterno.com/2012/11/20/wine-guides-2013/#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2012 07:00:39 +0000 sibilla http://corzanoepaterno.com/?p=1884 We are very pleased to report that our wines have received some excellent awards in the 2013 wine guide editions.

Terre di Corzano 2009 received the daily wine mention in Slow Food’s Slow Wine Guide, while the farm as a whole received the snail .

In the Espresso our Passito 2000 received the excellence award.

In Vinibuoni our Tre Borri 2009 was given the crown.

A beautiful photographic reportage by our friend and wonderful photographer Enrico Caracciolo

These celebrated words that begin Charles Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities were written in 1859 but are as true of today as they were in their own time.  We, too, find ourselves at a complex period in history: politically, with the fall of old regimes and the rise of new forms of governance; financially, with the disenchantment in large institutions and the emerging power of entrepreneurship in solving local as well as international problems; spiritually, in the well worn phrases of our supposedly morally bankrupt culture that has lost its soul in the pursuit of material wealth.  The ‘season of Light and the season of Darkness’; as it was then, it is now.

But out of the shadows there will always gleam a spark of light. We of Corzano e Paterno are privileged to live this agrarian life.  We are more severely tested by the whims of nature than the fluctuations of the stock market however, like all producers, we are servants of the marketplace.  Appreciating the appetites, tastes and financial possibilities of our clients is essential to the success of the work we do.  But we also have the luxury of being able to pause, to consider, and in the end to please ourselves, to invent a new cheese if the inspiration takes hold or to try a different grape variety, or a different method of olive oil extraction if we thought it could interesting; however loyal we area to traditional methods, we can try new and different ones.  In other words, we can experiment.  This possibility of being able to combine tradition with improvisation is, I believe, at the heart of Corzano e Paterno.  It is what keeps us fresh, spontaneous and curious, despite more than forty years of the farm’s activity.  And a new generation is coming forward with the same dynamic spirit.

Corzano e Paterno:  We have, over the last year and a half, seen a substantial structural change on the farm.  The move in 2010 to consolidate the office/shop/dairy/wine cellar/tasting rooms on the Corzano hill has benefited both administration and sales.  It is now easier for clients to see the dairy and the wine cellar at work, to watch workers in the vineyards and the sheep grazing in the fields in the valley below from the Corzano hill.   The guests who come to stay on the farm now have a point of reference at the farm office when they arrive and where they can later participate in tastings and visits to the facilities.

On the other side of the farm at Paterno our own farm artisans have filled the space vacated by the move: Svetlana creates wonderful painted ceramics of all sorts, and adjacent to her studio is Stefan, Ari’s companion with his carpentry shop where he makes furniture from old wine barrels, and next to him is Pascal’s son Oliver who works his forge in his metal workshop, while Till’s partner Stephanie, as she completes her degree in phytotherapy, is developing an officinal botanical garden and facilities for phytotherapic preparation.

There is now a farm pool in an open field above Casa Fallocchio with a glorious view of the surrounding hills towards Corzano.

Despite the current economic difficulties our wines and oil continue their success in the US and various European countries.  The cheese production, unique as it is, has difficulty satisfying demand.  Likewise, the agriturismo, under the astute tutelage of Mirella, has had a very successful year indeed.  After the surge of interest in Tuscany some years ago, followed by the inevitable falling off of numbers after the ‘boom’, we have seen a return of guests looking to stay on a family owned working farm whose products have received praise and awards in the enogastronomic world and where the beauty of the landscape is legendary.

Vineyards and Cellar

2011 began with all the promise that a vintner could want.  With abundant rain during the winter, then early growth in the warm spring, the vines showed great potential under almost ideal conditions.

The grapes were free from disease, ripening perfectly with abundant sun. But as the summer progressed the hot temperatures that normally mark July and early August and are needed to ripen the grapes failed to materialize.  Under ideal circumstances toward the middle of August the weather would break, there would be storms and the temperature would diminish.  But the opposite happened:  towards the middle of August the heat suddenly bore down on the hills like a raging fire.  The temperature was consistently above 40 C and the grapes were scorched by the hot breeze.  On one side of the plant (the part away from the sun) the grapes were perfectly mature while on the other they were shriveled and burned.  The vines in the better positions ironically suffered more than the ones in the less ideally situated, further away from the relentless sun.  And to this was added the fact that it had not rained since June.  The stress of heat coupled with lack of water reduced the yield by 30%.  It was the young, strong vines that suffered most, the older vines having rooted themselves more deeply in the soil.

We had the longest harvest in our history, lasting from the 25^th August to the 6^th of October. It was a slow selection process, arduous and time consuming, and done only when conditions were advantageous.

The work in the cellar went ahead with the added help of three young women, students of wine making from Germany and France.  The harvest, the selection, the pressing and the monitoring all went ahead normally.  After the enormous work that went into caring for the vines, the processing of the grapes, the watchful progress of the fermentations, Joshi and Ari say the wine for this harvest will be a very fine and elegant one, full of subtle, fruity flavors.

Oil:  it is hard to better last year’s success with our olive oil.  It was named one of the very best olive oils in Italy by Gambero Rosso’s Oli d’Italia olive oil guide, among others. This year, again due to the lack of rain, the trees suffered terribly and some died.  The oil however is still extraordinary.  The olives are harvested and brought to the press twice a day by Joshi.  He has arranged that we once again use the new and sophisticated press that operates under vacuum to guarantee as little oxidation as possible. The oils keep their fruitiness and freshness long into the year.

Stables and Dairy

We are very happy that his year Ram and Krishna from India came to work with us in the stables, adding to the farm’s great mix of nationalities. Joshi and Till organized a major revamping of the stables with new feeding bands and fixtures.  The sheep continue to produce the wonderfully rich and flavorful milk that brings so much to the special taste of our cheese.

Toni is as busy as ever managing the dairy and the shop.  We are doing a brisk business in the shop with the direct sale of farm products as well as tastings.  Toni continues to invent new cheeses.  At the moment there is a soft cheese covered in the traditional Tuscan herbs in development that should be in our shop soon, adding to the twelve different types (depending on the season) that we already produce.

As to the family, here is a quick report on their activities:

Joshi continues to oversee work on the farm with the ingenuity and hard work that is characteristic of him.  Whether it is organizing solar panels for the roof of the stables or researching for the very best olive press he is diligent in finding the best solutions for our work.

Toni is equally active:  dairy, shop, children, garden, cooking, painting, supervision, making the meals for the harvest each day.   In an article by a local magazine the author called Toni the ‘beating heart of the farm’.

Their children are all busy:  Eli will leave shortly for India where she goes each year to design and produce clothing for sale in Europe; Tim is doing very well studying architecture in Berlin; Oscar is studying biology at Exeter University in England; William studies viticulture and enology in Turin; only Rocco remains at home, studying this year in Florence.

Punzi (Sibilla), who worked in the shop and dairy until this year, has moved with her companion Aran to Singapore where he is working and is expecting her first child in April.  We hope to have her back on the farm for an extended summer visit this coming year.

Ari is working tirelessly in the wine cellar, challenged and motivated by the desire to make the best wine possible.  Stefan, her companion, has his carpentry shop in one of the spaces vacated by the move to Corzano and is busy building furniture and fixtures for the buildings on the farm.

Susan has had the great pleasure and satisfaction of having visits from film directors, authors, screenwriters, actors, artists, directors and musicians to the calm and creative quiet the farm atmosphere offers.  She believes that one of Wendel’s great wishes was to complement the work on the farm with the arts.  This last summer we had the Kneehigh Theater together with the Little Angel Theater from London for research and development of a piece after a short story by Marchez for the 50th anniversary of the Little Angel.  They staged a charming improvised version of the piece in the chapel at Paterno before leaving for home.  It was the highlight of the summer in Paterno and we sincerely hope that they will be back.

On the adjacent property Poggio: Joshi’s brother Pascal is now flying even bigger hot air balloons with boxes for up to twelve; Kirsty is always involved in a range of creative projects; Anna is at university studying psychology in New Zealand; their son Oliver has set up his forge at Paterno and is making Damascan knives and forged art objects; Rudi will go on to study architecture next year, hopefully in Switzerland.

The farm also features in various documentaries, cooking shows and blogs, articles about gourmet cooking and in a feature film called Decadence by an Australian director, Pria Viswalingam dealing with the decline of western cultural values (we are not part of the decline, but part of what should last, I should add).

This has been a difficult year for us all; it has been a year full of uncertainty and instability.  Consequently in these times of disquiet we turn to our home and families. I think that I can say for myself and for the others in the family something that Kirsty, my niece, wrote to me today; “we are strongest and shine more brightly as one, for sure”.

In the name of the Gelpke and Goldschmidt families and

La Fattoria di Corzano e Paterno

We wish you peaceful holidays and hope to see you again in the New Year.

We are very pleased to announce that our new monovarietal oil Frantoio has received the maximum award – Tre Foglie (three leaves) – in the new Gambero Rosso olive oil guide, Oli d’Italia – I migliore extravergine 2011, which will be presented at Vinitaly in Verona on the 8th of April.

7th February 2010 – Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri prize giving at the BMW Museum, Am Olympiapark 2, 80809 Munich

11th March 2001 – Slow Wine at the Royal Agricultural Halls and Conference, 80 Vincent Square, London SW1P 2PE, open to the public 4-8 pm, in occasion of the presentation of the first autonomous wine guide Slow Food. 100 Italian wineries awarded with the snail will gather for the guide launch and tasting.

13th/14th March – Terre di Toscana at the UNA Hotel Versilia,Viale Sergio Bernardini già Viale Colombo, 335/337, Lido di Camaiore (LU). Two days of tasting on the Tuscan coast with the best Tuscan wineries.

27-29th March – Prowein International Trade Fair Wine and Spirits in Dusseldorf. A huge wine fair with over 3300 exhibitors from 51countries. We will be in hall 3, stand C49, as part of the Der Feinschmecker stand.

7-11th April – Vinitaly in Verona. You can find us at Italy’s most important wine fair at our usual position in hall 8, stand E5.