This award for the Criseo Bolgheri DOC Bianco 2017 is a great pleasure for us, especially because it is the first Bolgheri white wine to receive this coveted prize.
We are particularly excited because we cannot hide the fact that it has not been easy to propose and support a wine such as Criseo in recent years, a white from a single vineyard, a field-blend of 5 varieties, aged on the yeast, in a territory that today is considered the home of great red wines, and (for critics) suitable for pleasant white wines without too many pretensions.
Criseo has instead demonstrated the whole greatness of Bolgheri and of the idea conceived twenty years ago by a craft winegrower, Michele Scienza. An idea that was not born from nothing, but from the awareness of having a great terroir behind it, or genius loci (as we love to say, in Latin style), able to give solidity to his ideas and passions.
Michele thoroughly evaluated the climate and soil characteristics of this vineyard (Campo Bianco 0,7 Ha) in the Bolgheri hills, as well as an ancient history of local viticulture widely dedicated to white wines, although now almost forgotten and (in many ways) underestimated. To all this he added his more northern origin and personal training, that made him able to measure himself in the cellar with all that respect and that sensitivity of management of the grapes, indispensable for obtaining a great white wine, perfect balance of complexity and finesse, capable of lasting over time.
The only regret is that the 2017 vintage, so difficult on the one hand but that has also given us so much in quality from the other, has been marked by the lowest production as ever in quantity.