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