The Poggio Antico Journal opens a new chapter. Conversations is a space for dialogue between producers, born from the belief that the value of wine also lies in the ability to share ideas and experience. Each episode revolves around a theme; each theme brings together two voices.
There’s a word that comes up often in the wine world, almost like a seal of approval: consistency. But what does it really mean? Staying true to a style? Respecting a territory? Holding your course when the market pushes in another direction?
For the first Conversation in the Poggio Antico Journal, we invited Stefano Chiarlo – winemaker, co-owner of Michele Chiarlo and president of the Nizza DOCG Producers’ Association – to reflect on the subject with Pippo. Two territories, two histories, one underlying question.
Let’s start at the beginning. What does consistency mean to you?
Pippo D’Alessandro It’s an incredibly broad concept, and today it increasingly clashes with the world we live in, especially commercially. You see a tendency, at times, to reshape wine in order to match what are presumed to be market demands: lighter wines, lower alcohol, wines that move away from what a territory would naturally express.
To me, consistency means first and foremost continuing to do what the territory allows us to do. We always try to make the most of what we have – and what we have is defined by our soils, our vineyards, and our technical know-how.
The first person I ever worked for taught me something I’ve never forgotten: we make wine above all because we enjoy drinking it, and if we enjoy it, perhaps others will too. I’m not going to make something that goes against my own ideas simply because the market asks for it – especially because in two or three years the market may want something completely different. And changing direction in our line of work is never simple.
So yes, consistency begins in the vineyard, with everything that entails, and naturally carries through into the wine itself. To borrow an old advertising slogan: “as nature intended.” We have grapes that give us a very precise result – there’s no need to adapt them to a trend. Wine must remain an expression of its territory in every sense: people, soils, climate, exposure, difficult vintages and easier ones alike.
Stefano, you work across very different appellations. How do you see it?
Stefano Chiarlo I completely agree with Pippo. A great appellation has to reflect its territory and, above all, avoid chasing trends. We’ve seen it happen in Piedmont with Barolo – interpreted in an overly modern way, only to later retrace its steps.
Every year you have to interpret nature, and climate change has made vintages more different from one another than ever before. But you do that with a very clear idea of your model – both for the appellation and for your own identity as a producer. You don’t make radical changes in the vineyard or the cellar overnight. That kind of approach belongs to wines from less clearly defined territories, not to great appellations with an established international audience.
Nizza is a different case, because there the model is still being shaped. It’s a younger appellation, and the work lies in arriving at an increasingly precise and shared identity among producers – a framework within which different styles and vintages can still coexist. With climate change, Barbera accumulates sugar very easily and can easily reach 15–16% alcohol. Managing that isn’t about shortcuts, but long-term solutions: clonal research, the right rootstocks. The model exists, even if it’s not fully defined yet, but the direction is clear – toward building consistency.
How important is the history of an appellation in defining its consistency over time?
Pippo Brunello di Montalcino is actually a relatively young appellation, not comparable to others like Barolo in terms of age or history. And yet today it’s recognised as one of the great names in Italian wine.
What we now call consistency or tradition is really just what was considered normal fifty years ago, when people began planting vineyards with ambitions that went beyond simply making enough wine for the family. What was normal then evolved over time for many reasons, environmental ones included.
I met one of the first agronomists who worked with Poggio Antico in the 1970s. He told me all his colleagues thought he was slightly crazy for coming here because the vineyards were too high and the grapes would never ripen. We’re talking about the mid-to-late ’70s. Today, even at 500 metres above sea level, we have to be careful not to produce wines with 16% alcohol.
So if we define consistency as repeating the past, then no. But if we see it as a form of coexistence between producer, vineyard and territory – almost as a single organism – then yes. The idea behind making wine remains the same, supported today by everything science, research and decades of observation have allowed us to understand. We can’t look to history as an absolute model: it’s no longer possible to make wine the way it was made forty years ago. Vineyards have had to adapt to climate change. What remains constant is the intention to work in a certain way, in pursuit of quality.
Stefano I completely agree. Typicity is simply innovation that has succeeded. Which means that, looking back, not only could we no longer make the wines of thirty years ago because the climate has changed – we wouldn’t want to make them anymore. They wouldn’t reflect either our taste or the taste of an informed wine lover today.
In the case of Barolo, up until the ’88, ’89 and ’90 vintages, a great wine was often the result of chance: barrels weren’t renewed, there was no crop thinning, no real research. If the weather wasn’t perfect, you had to wait ten years. Then, in certain climatically favourable vintages, the wines could be extraordinary because they lasted so long – but it was largely accidental.
From the 1990s onwards, quality became the result of thoughtful choices – not to make wines that were as “natural” as possible, but wines that were more enjoyable from the beginning without losing their soul. I’m always wary of extreme trends in natural or biodynamic wine. Science has to be our ally in reaching the real goal, which is wine quality and the integrity of the territory. Wine is shaped not only by place, but by human beings. And the more knowledge we have, the closer we get to the result we’re aiming for. As Pippo said, that goal isn’t necessarily pleasing every consumer. First of all, the wine has to please the producer. When you try to satisfy everyone, you risk losing character – and that applies to wine just as much as to anything else.
Sustainability and long-term vision seem deeply connected in your work – not just as agronomic choices, but as part of what consistency means over time. Is this something you’ve built gradually, or a response to changing times?
Pippo It developed gradually. There was once this idea that whatever you put into the environment would simply be absorbed by the soil. Then we realised that wasn’t really the case. Vineyard treatments in the ’70s and ’80s were like bombs compared to what’s used today. Agriculture today, even conventional agriculture – without even bringing organic or biodynamic farming into the discussion – is far more attentive to the environment.
That’s a fundamental point we still don’t communicate well enough, because today all anyone talks about is copper, as though that were the greatest problem. But if we talk about authenticity, the wines we make today are far more genuine than those made thirty years ago – even if people tend to imagine the opposite.
Stefano We all feel a responsibility to leave future generations a cleaner, more liveable territory. For someone coming from a big city, places like Montalcino or the Langhe already feel like a breath of fresh air. Imagine what it means for those of us who live and work here.
The goal isn’t to go backwards, but forwards, with science and research guiding us. In the meantime, we simply try to take the right step each time.
If you could take one thing from the other territory’s way of working, what would it be?
Pippo Definitely experience, because their history is longer than ours. Early in my career, as an outside observer, I witnessed the movement that emerged in the ’90s under the name LangaIn. What struck me was the sense of a territory moving together, collectively. I think there’s even more need for that today: territories need to stay united and work as a team if they want to move forward together.
Maybe it’s just the classic idea that the grass is greener elsewhere, but from this perspective the Langhe still seem a little ahead.
Stefano I experience both realities: a territory like Barolo, and a younger one like Nizza. The strength of Barolo lies in its shared ambition – a clear direction in terms of both quality and positioning. Looking from the outside, the great Tuscan appellations were also driven forward by major producers who pulled the whole territory with them, not only in terms of quality but in international markets as well.