Pietro Beconcini Agricola

About Winery and Wines

My own avocation began to take shape very slowly in the early 1990s, with local zonation research, and with the first vintage of a monovarietal Sangiovese in 1995. Successively, I took over the reins of the business from my father. Since 1997 I have I have had as my colleague my companion Eva Bellagamba, who made the heroic decision to share this project of mine and sacrifice her own future as an architect. I think that I can say that the patience and caution that I showed in undertaking the studies of the local environment were the real key to all of the work that I have done since. The most important results, in chronological order, are: - an in-depth understanding of the vineyards here, which had previously been farmed rather primitively; - the selection of two local sangiovese clones, which I am still using today for wine production; - the decision to increase plantings of the malvasia nera grape (which has always been sangiovese’s faithful “travelling companion”); - and finally the discovery of the unexpected presence at San Miniato of the fabulous grape variety that we now know is tempranillo.

"Sangiovese was my first project, and it took some four years of work. In the end, I selected the two clones of Sangiovese that I am still working with today, since they responded best to my desire to advance from producing straightforward wines to having in my hands a Sangiovese capable of producing long-lived, complex wines. I am not certain at this moment that I have obtained all that this grape is capable of giving in these terroirs, and I will probably never achieve that certainty, since one in this profession never finishes learning, but it is certain at least that Sangiovese, here in San Miniato as well, has exhibited another of its many faces, yielding wines of extreme originality. There are two fundamental rules in my work, consistency with past decisions, and humility in the process of a continuing desire to learn. These values often contradict each other: the increase in knowledge impels me to make changes that faithfulness to the direction already taken would prevent. I strongly believe that finding the correct balance between these two principles and paying close attention to our environment and to the vines we grow, will allow us to enjoy the finest possible growth for our winery."