Let's discover the Salcheto brand: here is our interview

Salcheto is a winery that has become a reference point in Tuscany for environmental sustainability and high-level wines. Founded thirty years ago as a small family business, thanks to the control of the energy efficiency of all production processes, it is now a laboratory of technology applied to environmental sustainability and widespread social development. Salcheto's business philosophy is based on high quality and innovation.

The winery is located in the south-eastern area of the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano denomination, in the province of Siena. It takes its name from a small stream that traces the boundary of the properties and which, in turn, takes its name from the willow trees, “salco” in ancient Tuscany, that populate the territory and which offer man the vines with which to tie the vines.

Thanks to Michele Manelli, at the helm of the company since 1997, who personally oversees the work in the vineyard and cellar, Salcheto has established itself as one of the most avant-garde wineries in the world, in particular with regard to environmental sustainability and biodiversity. The Salcheto winery has important world records related to the indexation of Carbon and Water Footprint.

Today, the company can count on a vineyard area that covers about fifty hectares, since 2009 completely conducted in a biological and biodynamic regime.

We like these realities, these producers of unique, certified and award-winning delicacies: they are real treasures embedded in our Peninsula between seas and mountains and in the most remote streets of villages and countryside. We don't stop to experience only their products, but we want to discover more closely the protagonists of this brand. That's why we sent some questions to those who manage communication with us.

Stay with us to know Salcheto: read the answers!

• Who are we talking to?
  I am Michele Manelli, founder and Winemaker of Salcheto.
  
• Is the company family run? For how many generations and from what year exactly?
  The project stems from my initiative more than twenty years ago and the property also includes some investors.
  
• What year was the company founded and who was the founder? What was the founder's education or what is the work and professional branch from which he came if different from the current one?
  Founded in 1984 first as a multi-cultural farm, I have developed it as a winemaking reality since 1997. My background is in Economic Policy and I have previous experience in the field of international taxation, but wine has been my whole life so far.
  
• What is the real reason or the triggering fact behind the birth of this company and when did it happen?
  I fell in love with Tuscany and in particular with Montepulciano as soon as I set foot there in 1994, thinking that I should have found a way to fulfill the dream of being a farmer that I had since I was a child. Imagining doing it in a place suspended in time and space like this and having as its objective a great wine really seemed like a dream and so it was. Then the desire to grow and, above all, to qualify the company with those values of environmental and social ethics that have become the essence of the business project, also matured.
  
• What is your relationship with the land of origin and its typicality? And why do you want to tell them with your products?
  A territory as rich in history as that of the Nobile di Montepulciano is an inestimable cultural heritage from which to draw inspiration and a great opportunity to build your own identity. The magic of wine is precisely to be the synthesis of all this, in the glass we will find the history and identity of the territory and of those who make it.
  
• What was the first product you created?
  The first wine was a vintage Nobile, immediately pure Sangiovese, then the Rosso arrived and since 1999 we have isolated the Salco vineyard to make a cru.
  
• What is the product that today, on the other hand, do you consider “top”?
  The most important wine is precisely the “cru” of the Salco vineyard, a pure Sangiovese Nobile di Montepulciano.
  
• And what is the product that in the entire history of the company has most carried with it the beating heart, philosophy and soul of the company itself?
  The Noble Vintage, the first choice of younger vineyards but above all capable of interpreting so well the idea of elegance, freshness and fragrance of Montepulciano wines.
  
• Let's talk about today: how big has the company grown since its inception? Can we get some numbers?
  We started with 3 hectares and 15,000 bottles, today there are almost 60 vineyards and about 400,000 bottles. A dimension that allows us to be the same artisans as before.
  
• Right now: more tradition or more innovation?
  Tradition guides us, but innovation is our driving force.
  
• What was the most important evolution of the company to get it to what it is today?
  In wines, the choice to process pure Sangiovese but to make it rounder and more attractive. But also having innovated in the cellar with our “neo-natural” wines without any additions. Equally important, however, are the goals in the field of sustainability, such as the first Carbon Footprint calculated in 2009 or the energy autonomous winery.
  
• Speaking instead of the future: what tomorrow will the company wait for? Are there any changes or some new evolutionary process planned?
  We are working to expand both the winery, with new technologies that will combine our innovations in the field of pressure vinification with the use of wood, and the farm.
  
• Are you planning to create new products?
  Yes, but it's still too early to talk about it, we are only on an experimental level...
  
• Having focused on Spaghetti
  S&M