‘Striving for quality : that’s the point. There was a time when great care was taken in the search for beauty and excellence. Then the masses came to prefer the façade to what lies behind it.’ — Gianfranco Soldera
soldera Case Basse
Case Basse is an estate covering over 23 hectares, at an altitude of 320 metres, in the southwestern area of montalcino, the area par excellence for growing the sangiovese variety.
The history of the Soldera Case Basse winery began in the early 1970s. Gianfranco and Graziella Soldera nurtured a project to produce a high-quality natural wine and knew they could only achieve this if they found a terroir with certain essential features.
When they discovered Case Basse, they knew they had found what they were looking for: an enchanting estate, which lay uncultivated and abandoned at the time. Instinctively realising the potential of the place and bowled over by the beauty of the landscape, Gianfranco and Graziella decided to set up their winery here and planted the first vines between 1972 and 1973, carefully choosing the plots most suitable for growing Sangiovese.
It is thanks to the passion, dedication and care they devoted to this land that an extremely high-quality natural wine appreciated all over the world has been produced at Case Basse since the mid-1970s.
After Gianfranco Soldera passed away in February 2019, the family continued the business in full respect of the principles and founding values of Case Basse.
The excellence of the product according to nature, enhancing the ecosystem and garden, investments in studies and innovation and support for young researchers all make up the winery’s DNA.
Graziella Soldera, Monica and Paolo, Mauro and Valeria are strengthening this character today and will enhance it in future with renewed passion, each of them enriching it with their own personality.
Gianfranco Soldera
Gianfranco Soldera was born in 1937 in the northern town of Treviso. He grew up in Italy’s banking capital of Milan and eventually became an insurance broker. In 1970, he moved to Tuscany and purchased the 23-hectare Case Basse wine estate located in the southwest quadrant of the Montalcino appellation. He planted Sangiovese vines in 1972 and 1973 and immediately set out to make a non-interventionist’s style of Brunello, thus becoming one of the pioneers for what would become the natural wine movement. His first bottled wine was produced in the 1975 vintage, and the first vintage of Case Basse Brunello di Montalcino was 1977 (released in 1982). Soldera continued to make Brunello di Montalcino until 2006. After that date, he declassified his latest vintages to IGT Toscana status.
Known for his strong will and intransigent views on the fundamentals of winemaking, Gianfranco Soldera would soon win a loyal following among the great wine collectors and cult wine enthusiasts of the world. His brazen style and sharp tongue rarely went down well with his critics, but ultimately Soldera will be remembered for his invaluable contributions to the appellation. The success and raging popularity of Brunello di Montalcino today is due in large measure to the efforts of this stubborn genius.
Soldera’s rules
Soldera has been famous over the years for his “rules.” It’s long been said that he will welcome your visit to his Case Basse estate only if you share his “production and sales philosophy of enlightened agriculture.” He will sell wine to you, but only if you are approved because you “share the principles that have inspired his entrepreneurial policy.” Skeptics are unwelcome.
While some see this as arrogant, the fundamental truth is that his self-confidence breeds great wines. He knows exactly what he wants to achieve in both the vineyard and the cellar, and his techniques are an interesting blend of modern and ancient.
Soldera’s Ways
His methods for restricting his yields are state-of-the art: short pruning in the winter; a green pruning in the summer; and grape thinning and limited leaf stripping in the fall to maximize ultimate ripening.
But in the cellar, he sounds more like Giovanni Conterno or Bruno Giacosa. While the modern-era Montalcino has seen a rush to French barrique and less time in wood, Soldera continues to age his Brunello for five years in large Slavonian oak tanks and vats, much as Biondi Santi might have done in their glory years. In fact, when you ask him who the other great Italian winemakers are, they are virtually all names from the past, including the fathers of Conterno and Gaja.
Soldera’s wines combine great concentration, richness and aromatic complexity with classic structure. For us, along with Diego Molinari’s tiny Cerbaiona estate, they truly are the elite wines of Brunello.
All Soldera wines are subtle variations on the same theme. His most famous wines are his Brunellos and Brunello Riservas. But in some years, he will select part of his production to spend a year less in barrel. These he calls “Intistieti.” And in 2005, he decided to bottle one early-maturing barrel as Pegasos.
Due to the small production of all of these wines, combined with their devoted following, Soldera Brunello’s are among the most sought-after, and difficult-to-find, wines of Italy.
The ingredients for producing a superior quality natural wine:
Nature and passion
The production philosophy that drove Gianfranco and Graziella Soldera’s project meant they could not forgo the search for a terroir with extraordinary characteristics, like the one they found at Case Basse: a hilly terrain, soil of volcanic origin, good drainage, rich in minerals but not very fertile; a dry climate with lots of sun; a pure and varied ecosystem.
From a production point of view, Soldera’s philosophy involved a completely natural approach to winegrowing.
At Case Basse the vines are tended to by hand without the use of weedkillers or any other chemical products. Also the harvest is done entirely by hand and the berries are selected one by one.
The winemaking process is completely natural and the wines age for long periods in large Slavonian oak barrels. This production method results in a very low annual production of extraordinary quality.
Case Basse’s natural context, combined with Gianfranco and Graziella Soldera’s great passion for vinegrowing and winemaking, enabled them to produce a unique wine, created for sociable moments, get-togethers and for the pleasure of drinking.
I produce on average 15,000 bottles a year, but I drastically reduce this number if the vintage is not up to scratch due to bad weather.
27 out of 30 vintages have been excellent: this is a record. The best one was the historic 1979 vintage.
In any case, wine is always subjective :
the same bottle may be worth 500 euros for one person and not even 1 euro for another.
Natural winemaking
Soldera only uses grapes from the winery’s vineyards: 100% Sangiovese variety, skilfully selected by hand, right down to each berry, to get only the best out of the territory.
Fermentation is completely natural: it takes place in large vertical Slavonian oak vats, thanks to native microorganisms which develop spontaneously in situ, and without using artificial yeasts.
Fermentation occurs entirely spontaneously in an ideal environment. The complex processes of nature are monitored by comparing experience that comes with decades of observation with daily analyses of the fermenting must carried out by research institutes.
Gianfranco Soldera and Giulio Gambelli
In January 1976 a collaboration and friendship began with the Master taster Giulio Gambelli, who Soldera used as a sounding board for his ideas.
Gianfranco’s nose was an implacable judge of the quality of Case Basse wines which, during the frequent tastings from barrels with Gambelli, always found the identity of sensations, with the common aim of obtaining the best.
Soldera said of him: “An exceptional person who taught me so much, even about how great Sangiovese is; Giulio has always been an extremely severe judge and this led to continual improvements in my wine.
The method we used was continual comparison while tasting from the barrels, with constant in-depth analysis of olfactory and taste perceptions.
This is definitely the only way to find out the reality of wines and their true value. The credit for the very high level of quality reached by Soldera wines is certainly due to Gambelli.”
The contribution of science to natural winemaking
Of the winery’s scientific partners, the longest standing relationship is with Professor Massimo Vincenzini’s team, which deals with physical-chemical and microbiological analyses on grapes about to ripen and right up to the bottled wine. And particularly microbiological analysis on fermenting musts to support the more important analysis: the subjective one, from tasting.
The must temperature is measured every 10 minutes, thanks to sensors that can remotely transmit data. The analysis of this data enables us to follow the winemaking processes step by step and to establish how and when to carry out manual pumping over.
Science and technology play a fundamental role in the production of a great quality wine, but without altering the natural winemaking processes.
The Soldera cellar: ‘The Wine Grotto’
The cellar at Case Basse is located 14 m underground and was built exclusively with natural materials and avoiding the use of concrete.
The Soldera cellar is a place made for wine: “a belly destined to house and protect something precious” to use the founder’s own words.
Here the temperature is kept constant, about 13°, with 85% humidity which doesn’t stagnate thanks to natural air circulation: these are ideal conditions for ageing a great wine.
The cellar was created by the architect Stefano Lambardi, based on Gianfranco Soldera’s design, and is built on three levels: a service area where the grapes are destemmed at harvest time and where the bottles are labelled and stored before sale. Then there is the winemaking area, containing large vertical oak vats, and lastly the heart of the cellar, where the wine matures and ages for long periods in large Slavonian oak barrels.
AGEING
While ageing, the wine is regularly tasted and analysed for chemical, physical and microbiological parameters. It is only thanks to this continual monitoring of the natural wine-ageing processes that we can establish the right time for racking, which is the only operation done at this stage.
BOTTLING
At Case Basse bottling is done directly in the cellar so that the wine can go from the barrel to the bottling machine while maintaining an ideal environment in terms of humidity and temperature.
Also the empty bottles remain in the same place before bottling. For the same reason, the bottled wine rests for a few months in the cellar before being labelled, packed and shipped.
Wine is a “living substance” and can be strongly affected by its surroundings and any movement it is subjected to.
At the end of this long and rigorous process, Soldera wine is only sold if it reaches the level of quality that meets the winery’s expectations.
WHAT MAKES A GREAT WINE ACCORDING TO GIANFRANCO SOLDERA :
THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND THE PRODUCTION
OF SOLDERA CASE BASSE
A great wine stands out for its harmony, elegance, complexity and naturalness.
It means balance and proportion, finesse, manifold sensations of aroma and flavour. It means using healthy, ripe grapes, transformed following a natural process, without the addition of chemical products, colourings, preservatives or other substances not present in grapes (oak tannins etc).
A great wine gives us satisfaction, a sense of wellbeing and makes us want to drink it again: it creates and develops sociability and friendship. It is unique, rare, typical and long-lived. We can recognise in the wine the microterritory and the vineyard it came from.
The wine from the Intistieti cru, for example, is different to one from the Case Base vineyard, despite their proximity.
A great wine is irreplaceable, because it has unique characteristics, like any work of art. I didn’t sell a single bottle of the 1989 vintage, because I didn’t think it was up to my usual quality standard.
A great wine is rare, at the top of a pyramid of about 20 billion bottles produced worldwide each year. No more than 50-60,000 can make it to the top.
A great wine is long-lived: it must improve, at least in the first twenty years, and offer up different sensations over time. It is the only natural consumable product that can outlive man.
As a rule, Harmony, Elegance, Complexity, Naturalness, Typicity, Uniqueness, Rarity and Longevity are values that significantly increase the cost of a wine. After all, any product with these characteristics has extremely high costs.
Beauty and goodness require time, experience and considerable investments.
I produce on average 15,000 bottles a year. But I drastically reduce the number if the vintage is not up to scratch due to bad weather.
27 out of 30 vintages have been excellent: this is a record. The best one was the historic 1979 vintage.
In any case, wine is always subjective: the same bottle may be worth 500 euros for one person and not even 1 euro for another.
– GIANFRANCO SOLDERA
