Once Upon a Time – Soldera Retrospective: 1977-2017

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | JUNE 27, 2024

It remains one of the greatest tastings I have ever been a part of, either as an attendee or a host. Forty-six wines, all of them in superb shape. Even wines from smaller or less well-known vintages were sublime. Not a single bottle was corked or oxidized. The memories from this retrospective of Gianfranco Soldera’s wines will last forever.

Over the years, I have had the good fortune to taste many Soldera wines. I have visited the estate numerous times and hosted several retrospective tastings in New York and London. We wanted to do something special for the Vinous tenth anniversary, something that would likely never be repeated. A vertical of Soldera all the way back to the inaugural 1977 was an obvious choice.

The side conference room at The Grill serves as a staging area for glassware. Every wine is served in its own glass so that guests can revisit wines throughout the evening.

We had too many wines for a single lunch or dinner, so we opted for a 2-day format: dinner to start with lunch the following day. I divided the wines into thematic rather than chronological flights, as I always do, because that provides an opportunity to taste wines with similar attributes together regardless of where vintages fall chronologically. All the bottles were stored standing prior to the tasting. Wherever possible, we brought second and third backup bottles The wines were opened several hours in advance. I checked all the bottles to ensure they were sound. None of the wines were decanted. We skipped Champagne as an aperitif, as I wanted to focus on Soldera with no distractions, especially given the large number of bottles. Instead, we served some of the more open-knit vintages to start both meals. That was the first clue we were in for a treat, as even those wines were exceptional.

Video: In this video from 2012 Gianfranco Soldera discusses the Case Basse and Intistieti vineyards, including his first forays into albarello (head-trained) farming, and shares details on his approach to winemaking.

A Little Historical Background

Gianfranco Soldera grew up in Milan, where he spent the first part of his professional career as an insurance broker. As a young man, Soldera tasted the great wines of Piedmont and later became close with many growers and their families. After trying unsuccessfully for years to find land in Piedmont, Soldera chanced upon a magical piece of ground in Montalcino. At the time, prevailing wisdom dictated that the best sites were south-facing, as these were the warmest, a requisite during a time when the main challenge was achieving full ripeness. However, Soldera had a different philosophy. He chased luminosity above all else. Case Basse, a west-facing site in the hills of southern Montalcino, was ideally suited to capturing the entirety of the day’s sunlight.

Soldera and his wife, Graziella, were visionaries. She planted a stunning garden as part of a vibrant ecosystem that also comprised forest land and rich animal life, all with the desire to foster sustainability and low-intervention farming. These concepts are all the rage now, but were virtually unheard of in the early 1970s when this approach also carried far greater risk than it does today, now that generally warmer, drier seasons have made sustainable farming a far more economically viable choice than it was fifty years ago. That same spirit of innovation is one of the constant themes here, as we will explore in greater depth later.