86 Act III / Poggio al Tesoro, the Men and the Women 87 Act III / Poggio al Tesoro, the Men and the Women and only something potential, began a tradition of modernity, experimentation, fantasy, and visionary capacity. Ten years ago, the Allegrini as well launched themselves, without fear of twisting and hanging in space, free of orthodoxies, prejudices, and preconceptions, with Passion and Reason, into a project for a new and original interpretation of the territory of Bolgheri. A historical family of the Valpolicella, the Allegrini were inspired by these premises when they were seeking a new territory in which to operate. «The idea of seeking a new project outside of the Valpolicella – recounts Marilisa Allegrini – was born from a desire to find a zone which represented a challenge for us. The Valpolicella was an historic area, one with a solid and rooted traditions. We did not wish to move into another territory of established tradition both because we did not wish to interfere with or disturb an established local equilibrium and because we did not want to be conditioned in our ideas or sensations. Bolgheri, in this sense, represented a balanced compromise: it is, by now, a zone of well established excellence and accordingly correspondeds to our quality, but does not possess so long established a viticultural history as to deny us the possibility of working with complete freedom, allowing us to adapt our own experience to the characteristics in an original way in order to create something new and distinctive. In the Valpolicella we inherited winery, and along with it, a solid and well constructed family tradition. In Bolgheri, instead, everything had to be created from scratch: the land to plant had to be found, a name to be chosen, the grape varieties to be selected for the vineyards; there was even the necessity of discovering what type of wine to produce given that particular local environment, and what production philosophy to adopt. The creative part of the project was, for me, the most stimulating one. Bolgheri, on the other hand, fully matched our firm’s style in its desire to create high level wines which fully express their territory. The use of international varieties is no obstacle to this ambition as, in this particular corner of the Tuscan Maremma, these grapes take on a personality of their own, a unique one which cannot be replicated or reproduced elsewhere, a true “Bolgheri imprinting” characterized by a refined elegance. Was Walter Allegrini – together with his sister Marilisa – the true architect of and inspiration behind the Poggio al Tesoro project even if, unfortunately, he was not given sufficient time to see his dream fully realized. He was the first to perceive the grand potential which Bolgheri offered to his family’s ambitions, to sense the exceptional characteristics of the spot, ones which made its wines completely different from those produced even in surrounding areas. His daughter Silvia evokes his enthusiasm, his passion: «My father was an extremely genuine person, one who communicated more by empathy than with words. He had an incredible ability to transmit his deepest love, for the earth, a passion which he demonstrated not only in his work but also in all that he loved to do in life, things which were always connected to the soil, to the landscape, to nature. From the first visits, inspection tours to size up Bolgheri, it was immediately clear that he nourished an enthusiasm for this new venture which he had never shown for other projects. He wanted to immerge himself in that spot, to learn to know it as profoundly as possible, in every minimal detail; for him it was like the discovery of a new world, not merely in a viticultural sense but also in terms of the landscape, the environment, even the local culture. I recall that even after a very few visits, he already knew everyone in town and everything about the town. Above: Marilisa Allegrini Above: Silvia Allegrini
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