Grand Vin Wine Merchants UK | Blog

  We all know the story of Super Tuscan wines, how in the 1970's the likes of Antinori broke the rules and introduced French grape varieties to Italy. Hold on. Re-wind. Quite far, in fact, back to the 1500's when Henry II of France married Catherine de Medici. The French gifted the Medici family some Cabernet vines, which they planted in their vineyards in Carmignano. Carmignano is a tiny 110 hectare appellation in Tuscany, protected from the cold of the north by the Apennines, and from the vagaries of coastal weather by the Montalbano hills, with soils rich in clay and schist. It already had a great reputation for growing local varieties like Sangiovese - by the 1700's it had already been given a protected classification - and it has been blending these with Cabernet varieties for hundreds of years. Roll forward to the 1970's, and Maur