Vernaccia di San Gimignano is the name of both a wine and the grape variety from which it is made. The vernaccia di San Gimignano grape is but one of many different vernaccia grapes found all over Italy, as the word vernaccia derives from the latin vernaculum, meaning “local,” and was in fact a name routinely given to any local grape variety. Still, vernaccia di San Gimignano is one of the best of the lot, and already many centuries ago it made one of Italy’s most famous wines. In fact, Vernaccia di San Gimignano was Italy’s first-ever DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata), back in 1966. It was then lifted to DOCG (-e Garantita) status in 1993.
For the longest time, and up until only recently, wine drinkers couldn’t be blamed for wondering what all the fuss was about. At its best, a well-made Vernaccia di San Gimignano [note that I use capital letters for wine names and small letters for grape varieties, except when the latter involve proper names] is a highly mineral wine, not unlike a dry riesling, with plenty of delicate white flower, yellow apple and almond aromas and flavors. It rarely carries more than 12.5% alcohol, so it’s a great everyday table wine that pairs marvelously well with simpler vegetable and fish dishes.
But for the longest time the wine wasn’t much to write home about. Poor winemaking techniques and badly tended vineyards compounded the problems raised by an essentially neutral grape that doesn’t yield flamboyant wines. Furthermore, San Gimignano, one of Italy’s prettiest medieval towns and an absolute must-see on any Italian vacation, sits in the middle of Chianti territory, and producers there are entitled to bottle a Chianti Colli Senesi. Back in the ’80s, when red wine was all the craze, producers paid more attention to these wines than to their once famous white wines, which by then had been reduced to rustic afterthoughts and weren’t fetching very high prices at all.
Vernaccia di San Gimignano’s rebirth began in the 1980s, though the seeds for this renaissance had already been sown by some passionate mavericks in the ’70s. The real turning point came in the ’90s, when a slew of talented young producers and new investors decided to take the quality plunge and revived what had been until then a waste of an historic appellation.
The producers’ association, or Consorzio, which is one of the best in all of Italy, has worked hard to improve the product, and has done much to impede the overly liberal additions of aromatic grape varieties to the final wine, as well as to sponsor university research on clonal selection. Technically, up to 10% of other varieties is allowed by law, but I’ve often wondered just how closely some producers have observed that 10% limit. Happily, one doesn’t find Vernaccias smelling like gewürztraminer or muscat, as they often did a few years back, and sharply limiting the use of these two varieties is the key to establishing the organoleptic characteristics of “real” vernaccia di San Gimignano in the minds of consumers.
My favorite producers of Vernaccia di San Gimignano. One can rarely go wrong with the wines of Giovanni Panizzi (Bachanal Wine Imports, Port Chester, NY; especially the entry-level Vernaccia; I find the Riserva to be a little too oaky at times), La Lastra (Vias Imports, New York, NY), Fontaleone (A Marc de Grazia Selection; importers include De Grazia Import, Winston-Salem, NC; Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY; and Estate Wines Ltd., San Rafael, CA), Cusona-Guicciardini Strozzi, and Mattia Barzaghi (Selected Estates of Europe, Mamaroneck, NY), the latter an up-and-coming star who apprenticed initially under Panizzi, whom most insiders consider to be San Gimignano’s best producer overall. For a taste of a highly traditional Vernaccia di San Gimignano, I recommend the Isabella bottling by San Quirico (Winebow, Inc., New York, NY), a late-released wine that is not unlike a lighter-styled amontillado sherry. Once, all Vernaccias di San Gimignano were made in this style—wines characterized by very intense almond and hazelnut aromas and flavors—but most versions today lean toward a fresher style, with bright citrus, apple, and pear aromas and flavors and a trademark refreshing, juicy minerality.
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