Page 12 - Code de Vino, #4/09, a/w 2009

10 Wine club Code de Vino #4 Code de Vino #4 A Talk with Marchese Piero Antinori 11
And I think that wine is a product that can add something to culture, such as sensibility,
or an understanding of high quality items. If a person can understand and appreciate works of art,
paintings, music and architecture, he also has the emotional and intellectual capacity to appreciate
a Great Wine. It is something that helps aristocratic elements come forward and shine bright in a man.
I believe that the ability to understand and appreciate wine may not be the key factor,
but it is nonetheless quite important.

— Is Antinori wine aristocratic?
— I think that quality wine is an aristocratic product by definition. You can't just make it anywhere,
because it demands special conditions and attention. Experience, technology, and a discerning
sense of the process also play an important role. That's why the mass production of wine
is impossible. In this sense, of course we can say that wine is an aristocrat amongst other beverages.

— So we know that you produce different wines. How do you manage to preserve
your unique style in each of them?
— Our main principle is that Antinori is a family, a name, not a single company, but rather a unity of
different households, vineyards and wineries. We call it "a string of pearls." In order to guarantee the
highest quality of our wine, really preserve the personality and the individuality of each of our products,
we have both vineyards with unique terroirs and conditions, and also wineries for fermentation, ageing
and bottling wine, where our wine specialist works.
Everything takes place on the local level; we don't have a centralized winery. Of course, we supervise
every winery, but we also work to grant them a certain level of freedom to nurture their individuality.

Doing this is what helps us achieve the highest quality. Quality becomes the responsibility of every
household, each member of which knows their vineyards thoroughly. So we're trying to be not just one
corporation, but a sum of many individual components, which is ultimately what determines the quality.